The Diablo Horror (The River Book 7)

by Michael Richan

  “Which one is it?” Roy asked.

  “I’m guessing the wife,” Eliza said.

  “Should we pull it out, to be sure?” Roy asked.

  “You want to do it?” Steven asked Roy.

  “Not really,” Roy said.

  The talking caused the body to stop, then it slowly started to remove itself from the hole. One arm emerged, and they could see the hand was missing.

  “Definitely the wife,” Roy said. “I remember she raised her hands to stop his blows, defensively. One of his swings took off that hand.”

  “Let’s keep going then,” Steven said, and they turned their attention back down the tunnel.

  Another ten feet and they came to the end of the tunnel. There was no sign of the ax man’s body.

  “Damnit,” Roy said. “Maybe someone else got to him first.”

  “They must have carried his whole body out,” Eliza said. “I figured they would have just cut the wooden part out and left the body.”

  “Wait,” Roy said. “Look!”

  Roy had his flashlight pointed at the wall at the end of the tunnel. About three feet off the ground, a small white stick was poking out of the dirt.

  “What?” Steven asked.

  “I saw it move!” Roy said. “Watch!”

  They kept looking at the stick, but nothing happened.

  Roy walked forward and nudged the stick with his flashlight. A hand shot out of the dirt and knocked the flashlight from his hands – it went spinning on the floor.

  Steven and Eliza zeroed their flashlights in on the hand. It twisted back and forth, grasping at the air.

  “Goddamn!” Roy said, retrieving his flashlight.

  “He’s in there,” Steven said. “Let’s start digging him out.”

  They all used their hands to claw at dirt surrounding the hand, slowly exposing more of the corpse. Dirt kept falling from above, covering sections that they’d already uncovered. Once they had the arm and head exposed, they moved to his back and legs.

  “Wait,” Steven said. “He brought the ax with him, when he jumped into the pit, right?”

  “Yes,” Roy said. “He had it in his hands when he jumped in.”

  “And we haven’t seen it yet,” Steven said. “So he might have it with him, in the other hand.”

  “Good point,” Eliza said.

  “Let’s just expose his back for now,” Steven said. “I like the idea of all this dirt holding him in place while we cut the wood out of him. No sense in freeing him completely if we don’t have to.”

  They began digging over the man’s back. With his head free, the ax man was making noises, but he wasn’t able to speak words. Occasionally he would jerk his body, causing his free arm to go flying through the air, catching one of them. Steven stepped on the arm, pinning it to the ground so they could work at removing the dirt without him grabbing them.

  Once enough of the back was exposed, Steven wiped at the flesh with his fingers, trying to find the Agimat. The skin felt cold and wet underneath him, and he was afraid it might rip apart at the slightest urging.

  “It’s here!” Steven said, looking at Roy and smiling. “Look! You can see the bump, right here on his shoulder.”

  Roy looked where Steven was pointing with his fingers, and it did look like a rectangular bump in the man’s flesh.

  “I’ve got his arm pinned down,” Steven said. “Roy, do you have your pocket knife?”

  Roy reached into his pants pocket and removed an old army knife. He opened the blade, and began cutting around the bump in the flesh.

  “I would have expected blood,” Steven said, observing that very little came from the wound Roy was inflicting.

  “Blood moves around funny in your body after you die,” Eliza said. “More so if you’re reanimated.”

  The ax man began yelling as Roy continued the removal. They were low, guttural sounds, not words, but they clearly expressed displeasure at what was happening. As Steven listened to the man wail, he could hear in his mind that same mouth repeating the words that held Jason immobile while Steven raised the ax, the thoughts of the mad man bouncing around in his head. He wondered if those thoughts were still inside the mind of the twisted abomination he was holding down. His anger over Jason’s death returned. In front of them was the man he considered most responsible. He’d figured the ax man was long dead and gone, but here he was, trying to wiggle his arm free from under his foot. Steven pressed down harder.

  “Got it,” Roy said, sliding the small piece of thin wood from the body and holding it for the others to see. “I think you should keep this on you.” He handed it to Steven.

  Steven took the wood. It was very thin, and had dark markings on one side, similar to the necklace. He slipped it into his pants pocket. “Do you have anything like a hatchet in your backpack?” he asked Roy.

  Roy opened his pack and rummaged around. “No, but I have this.” He removed a hammer.

  “Give it to me,” Steven said. Roy handed the hammer to Steven, looking up at Eliza.

  “I understand if you don’t want to see this,” Steven said. “I’ll meet you back in the bag room.”

  Roy looked silently at Eliza, and he saw her turn to leave. He followed her. They walked down the tunnel together, hearing the corpse yell as Steven repeatedly brought the hammer down.

  Chapter Ten

  “Where do you want it?” Victor asked, holding up a scalpel. “From a pain perspective, I’d suggest either upper arm or on your back.”

  “Upper arm,” Steven said. He wasn’t going to place it in the same spot the ax man had.

  “Alright,” Victor said. “Take your shirt off and sit here. I’ve got something that will numb your arm while I cut the skin.”

  Steven stripped off his shirt and sat in the chair next to Victor. Eliza and Roy watched as Victor lit a candle attached to an odd holder. On one end of the holder was a lens, and once the flame was lit, Victor raised the holder and focused the lens on Steven’s arm. Everywhere the light touched turned dark grey. Once he’d made a large enough spot on Steven’s arm to accommodate the Agimat piece, he placed the candle holder down and poked at the grey area with his scalpel.

  “Feel anything?” Victor asked.

  “No,” Steven said.

  “Alright, here goes,” Victor said, repositioning the scalpel and slicing a horizontal line in Steven’s skin, followed by two vertical lines below it. Then he carefully peeled the patch of skin down, using the scalpel to separate the skin from the flesh below. When he was done, a flap of skin about an inch and a half wide hung from Steven’s arm.

  “OK, so far so good,” Victor said. “Now I need you to lie down on your side, with this wound facing up.”

  Steven moved over to a couch in Victor’s library and laid down on it as instructed. Victor placed the Agimat half against his exposed flesh and pulled the flap of skin back over it. Then he produced what looked like a long, curved needle. He inserted the tip of the needle into the edge of the patch, and he froze. After a couple of seconds, he removed the needle and moved it slightly, then froze again.

  He’s dropping into the River, Steven thought. That’s how he’s activating the needle.

  Once Victor had moved the needle over all three edges of the patch, he raised himself up and exhaled loudly.

  “Whew! Been a while since I did so much jumping,” Victor said. “Guess I still know how to do it, though; that seam job is as good as any I’ve ever done.”

  Steven sat up and looked at his arm. The flesh had sealed around the incisions. They were still red, but they looked healed.

  “That’s going to hurt when the numbness wears off,” Victor said, “which will be in about an hour. I’d start downing aspirin. You’ll be fine by tomorrow. Might itch; don’t scratch at it.”

  Steven showed his patch to Eliza and Roy, beaming as though he’d just gotten a new tattoo. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “That’s a very impressive embedded Agimat,” Eliza said, half ro
lling her eyes. “Makes you look tough. Tougher.”

  Roy grabbed Steven’s shirt and tossed it to him. Steven put it back on.

  “What now?” Steven asked Victor. “Wait to see if the necklace reverts to me?”

  “Let’s start with seeing if you can detect anything,” Victor said. “Close your eyes, jump in, and focus on the Agimat.”

  Steven sat back in the couch and dropped into the River. At first everything seemed normal. He saw the others joining him. He thought about his arm, imagining how the Agimat looked before Victor embedded it. Nothing happened. He tried thinking about the other half, the necklace.

  He suddenly felt as though he was racing down a tunnel backwards. He saw looks of concern pass over Eliza and Roy’s faces; Victor didn’t share their worry. He felt himself pulled away, pulled into the tunnel, their faces now at the far end, becoming specks. White tiles lining the walls of the tunnel raced past him at incredible speed. Then the white changed to yellow, and slowly to green. He felt himself turning in the tunnel, rotating to face the direction he was heading. He knew Eliza had moved toward him to touch him, but Victor had stopped her. He was moving far too quickly for her to ever reach him. Green turned to red and then blue, and he felt as though his body might start to come apart from the tug pulling him forward. The blue darkened and became black, and he soon lost any sense of movement, just a rushing darkness all around.

  Did I just die? he wondered. Was that the tunnel of light everyone talks about?

  Then, a tiny point of light in the distance caught his attention. It slowly enlarged, and Steven felt himself pulled toward it. As it grew, he could see it was a place – the inside of a room. The point enlarged until it became all that Steven could see. The room was large, and had walls made of stone, covered with beautiful tapestries. There were glass cases in front of him, and inside the cases were objects lying on glass shelves. He tried to move his point of view, but couldn’t. The view shifted to the right, another set of glass cases. Steven looked at the objects inside, and recognized one – an object he’d given to Aka Manah. Then the image shifted again, and he was moving out of the room with the cases, walking down a long hallway. Large windows were on the left, illuminating more tapestries that hung from several stories high on his right. A huge set of wooden doors at the end of the hallway were already open, leading to an entryway with a large, curving staircase and a huge chandelier.

  How do I get out of this? he wondered. He thought about the wooden Agimat embedded in his arm. He pictured the symbols that were on it, and within seconds he felt as though his ribs were pulled backward, the rest of his body trying to keep up. The blackness returned, then the blue and red. He turned, and saw Victor’s apartment approaching. A few more seconds and he was sitting on the couch. He opened his eyes.

  “Are you alright?” Roy asked. Steven looked up at Eliza and Roy. They both looked concerned.

  “I’m fine,” Steven said, holding his arms out in front of himself to check. “I’m OK.”

  “You faded,” Eliza said. “Your body began to disappear.”

  “Really?” Steven asked.

  “What happened?” Victor asked. “Did you feel anything? See anything?”

  “I was pulled down a tunnel,” Steven said. “When I got to the end of it, I could see images. Glass cases with objects. A large room with tapestries on the walls. I couldn’t control what I was seeing.”

  “I think,” Victor said, “you can connect to the Agimat.”

  “He’s wearing it,” Steven said. “We were walking from room to room.”

  “Yes, he’s not likely to take it off!” Victor said enthusiastically. “He’s worried it will revert to you, as well he should be!”

  “So you were seeing what he was seeing?” Eliza said. “Aka Manah?”

  “I assume it was him,” Steven said. “I never saw his body. Just movement, looking forward, like a point of view. Wherever he’s at, it’s palatial.”

  “Many demons accumulate great wealth over the years,” Victor said. “Any idea what country you were in?”

  “No,” Steven said. “We were inside the whole time. I got worried about how to return, so I didn’t watch things for long before I tried to come back.”

  “You mastered that very quickly,” Victor said.

  “I just thought about the Agimat, and it happened,” Steven said.

  “Probably because of your markings,” Victor said. “Makes you a natural. Most people spend years learning how to do it. Of course, the object itself has this property, the ability to relate to the other, even relocate to the other. You’re using the object’s properties to spy on the demon. As long as he keeps wearing it, you can see what he’s up to. I think this confirms your stalemate!”

  “You mean, he’ll leave Steven and Roy alone now?” Eliza asked.

  “I believe the last thing he wants is for you to have both halves of the Agimat,” Victor said. “My guess is you’ll never hear from him again. He’ll wear it from now on, hoping that will help keep it from reverting. He played with fire when he asked you to get it for him. Bad move on his part. He must have really wanted it.”

  “How can we use this to kill him?” Steven asked. “I don’t want to monitor him, I want him gone.”

  “He is gone,” Victor said. “He won’t risk you getting the other half. He’ll stay away, hoping the issue dies down and you forget about it.”

  “My son misspoke,” Roy said. “We don’t want him gone, we want him dead.”

  “Ah,” Victor said. “That’s a tough order.”

  “You said with my markings, it might be possible,” Steven said.

  “And so it is,” Victor said, “but I’m afraid we don’t know for sure. I don’t have one of Judith’s devices to know exactly what your markings do. And we don’t know what the Agimat is capable of once both halves are reunited. It’s obviously something very powerful for this demon to want it so badly he’d risk you figuring it out. I’m afraid we won’t know until it happens.”

  “Which may never happen,” Eliza said. “Stalemate.”

  “Exactly,” Victor said. “Which, I might point out, isn’t a bad result when dealing with a demon.”

  “That sounds a lot like something Judith would say,” Roy said.

  “The difference between Judith and me,” Victor said, “is that I will tell you it’s a possibility, whereas she will not. Doesn’t mean I have to lie about the odds.”

  “You said there might be an invocation?” Steven said. “Something that would cause the Agimat to return?”

  “I did,” Victor said, walking to his book with the red leather spine. “I’ve been looking into that. This writer was excellent at cataloging objects and especially their relationship to demons and other creatures. But unfortunately, his entry on the Agimat doesn’t say if an invocation will work or not. Doesn’t mean one won’t, it just isn’t mentioned. Invocations are a bit of a lost art. Most haven’t been used for centuries, and there’s damn little written about them anymore. I would love to collect more information on them, if it were available.”

  Victor closed the book and walked back to Steven. “My advice is for you to go home and sleep. You’re free of this thing. Let it all go. Rest up for a few days. You’ve had something terrible happen to you, I know. You could use the downtime to recuperate. With that Agimat in your arm, you’re safe.”

  Steven turned to Roy, and Roy looked like he was ready to leave. So did Eliza.

  “Alright,” Steven said. “I will. Thank you, Victor. I don’t know how to repay you for all your help.”

  “You can repay me by not telling anyone about me,” Victor said, leading them to the door. “I’d like to remain as retired as possible.”

  “Understood,” Steven said, following him. Victor let them out, and they descended the steps to the streets of Port Townsend. The town was dark and quiet. They walked to their car, parked on the street half a block away.

  “Back to Seattle?” Eliza asked.

&n
bsp; “The ferries will be over for the night,” Roy said. “We’ll have to drive around. You awake enough to drive, Steven?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m wide awake,” Steven answered, unlocking the car for them. “No problem.”

  Steven pulled his Accord onto Water Street and headed south. It was going to be a long drive home.

  “You feeling your arm yet?” Eliza asked. “I have some painkillers if you want some.”

  “Nothing yet,” Steven said. “But sure, I’ll take a couple.”

  She passed him a couple of pills, and he downed them with the remnants of a water bottle still sitting in his cup holder. Roy was asleep and leaning against the passenger side window within minutes.

  After twenty minutes, Steven realized he’d taken 101 South instead of Highway 3 by mistake. Instead of heading to Tacoma, they were now headed to Shelton. He was going to need Eliza to map him back to Highway 3.

  “Eliza?” he asked softly, trying not to wake Roy. “Eliza?”

  He looked in the rear view mirror. Eliza was out too. He was the only one awake.

  In two more hours, it’ll be almost three a.m., he thought. Fuck it, we’ll stay the night at Eximere, it’s closer. And I can see Jason’s grave again. They won’t mind.

  ◊

  When Steven awoke the next morning, he found Roy and Eliza in the kitchen, talking and drinking coffee. He poured himself a mug and joined them. They were talking about when Eliza would leave to return to California.

  “I’m really glad you made an executive decision to stay here last night,” she said to Steven. “I really can’t get enough of this place. I’ll stay here as long as you two want. When I talked to Joe last night, he said everything was fine back home, so I’m in no rush.”

  “You know, in all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never known what you do – for a job, I mean,” Steven said.

  “Well,” Eliza said, “in a previous life I was a nurse. By that I mean up until about ten years ago. Since then I’ve been a schoolteacher. I fill in when needed, so it’s flexible hours. Not a lot of money, but it pays the mortgage.”