Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Lenny paled. “Where?”

  “Near his house. Small towns don’t like strangers. He’ll be their prime suspect.” He grinned. “Again. They’ll ruin his life probably better than I could. Not a child, by the way. If it’s all for you, may as well do it your way.”

  Lenny grimaced and slammed out of the room. He walked – not in any particular direction, but part of him knew where he was going to end up. It pulled at him. By the time he reached the scene, the street was full of police and gawking neighbors. It would have been easy to let himself be seen, briefly, become the new suspect, and then disappear. Leland did not deserve to be destroyed once again for something he had not done. That was vengeance, not justice; Sebastian’s way, not Lenny’s. Neither, though, could Lenny bring himself to help, so instead he skulked around the back sides of the houses, staying out of sight and for the most part scrabbling along walls like a lizard to avoid leaving tracks. He found a convenient corner where he could cling half-hidden to the brick behind the open gate of a privacy fence, and he watched.

  The body had already been taken away, and the house stood open to the bitter air. Lenny found himself glad of the jacket Sebastian had given him, a tattered old thing that still somehow managed to keep his body temperature above freezing for an hour or so at a time.

  The police milled like ants, and the neighbors gradually trickled back into their houses, and Lenny waited until the ghost found him.

  She had been old, perhaps in her late seventies, though it still had not been close to her natural time. She had been frightened, was still frightened and shaking, even though nothing could hurt her anymore. He knew that her name was Donna.

  “You’re okay,” he told her. “It’s okay. It’s done, now. Are you ready?”

  “He wasn’t human,” she said, tremulous. “He… He was inside my head, somehow, and then he was inside my house… Oh, sweet Jesus, what if he comes back? How do I warn Henry?”

  “You can stay,” he said. “My g-grandmother stayed to wait for my grandfather. So they c-c-could go together. You can do that, if you want. I don’t know how you could warn him, though.”

  She clutched at his hands, pale eyes bright. “You. You could. It’s strange. I’m dead, aren’t I? But you can see me. You can tell him.”

  “I can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  The question brought Lenny up short. He had thought it obvious, really, that he simply could not. He could not tell a human that he spoke with the dead. He could not warn anyone about Sebastian, not without alerting the police, which would place everyone involved in danger. He could not tell a grieving man that his wife’s soul was too frightened to pass on.

  It was not his job to warn the living, not even at the behest of the dead.

  “I just c-can’t. Sebastian… He might or might not c-come back, but if I make him mad, he d-definitely will. Besides, why would your husband listen to me? For all he knows, I’m the one who k-killed you.”

  The old woman’s vaporous form drew back. “You know him? That monster? You’re with him?”

  Her shock was understandable. She knew him for what he was, though she might not be consciously aware of the fact – he had made sure of that when he had realized she was there – and now she knew that he at least knew of the man who had killed her, but she did not know enough of his situation to be able to reconcile the two.

  “Not because I want to be. I’ll d-do what I can for you…”

  But just by connecting himself with Sebastian, he had already betrayed her expectations. She faded away, returning to her own home. He did not try to draw her back.

  He’d had enough. The air was cold, and it was leaching through the fibers of his jacket, through his shirt and jeans and knit cap and into his skin. Already, he was beginning to feel brittle. He leaned around the corner and shot a glance down the street, checking to make sure he could leave without being seen.

  But when he leaned back, there was someone there.

  It was the same boy he’d seen outside the funeral parlor. Not a boy, Lenny corrected himself. More like a young adult. He couldn’t have been older than fourteen, but he seemed mature, somehow, despite the baby fat and the layers of winter padding that gave him the look of a startled marshmallow. He carried a violin case, and he looked nice. He also looked deeply horrified to see Lenny. Lenny could understand that. There was a strange man stuck to a wall near the scene of a murder. It would take a fool to be less than unsettled.

  Lenny tried desperately to think of something to say, but the kid beat him to the punch.

  “Never made it to the Springs, huh?”

  Lenny had no idea what he was talking about. He blinked blankly at the kid for the seconds it took him to recall whatever it was Sebastian had said. The exchange had really been meaningless, intended only to convey to Lenny that Sebastian was still on the prowl, but the kid remembered. That could be dangerous.

  He looked into the boy’s dark eyes and saw death. Sebastian had seen him, could recognize him if he saw him again, might easily kill him just to show that he could. He was coming from the direction of Leland’s house. Lenny recognized the ancient boat of a car, a green and likely indestructible Continental. The boy was connected to Leland, somehow, and he had drawn Sebastian’s attention. If there was to be another victim, this might be it.

  But before Lenny could say anything, the boy had some kind of fit. It seemed as though the strangeness of the situation had only just struck him. He half-turned, drawing a breath as though to cry for help, took a step back, and jumped at the sound of a siren down the street. The ice beneath his feet bested him, and he fell hard, the violin in its case making the most awful sound.

  Lenny ran. There was nothing more he could do in that place, too weak to help the dead and too cowardly to help the living. He spidered his way back along the walls of the houses with a speed he rarely dared to use, ignoring his precarious balance and the sick wobble in his inner ear. He fell once before he made it back to the main thoroughfare and raced for the motel.

  The door slammed behind him and locked, his ridiculous, impossible slapdash threshold sealing itself in his wake as he threw himself onto the bed. Almost immediately, Sebastian was knocking. He ignored it. After a few minutes, the knocking stopped, and the need to get up began to grow in his legs. His fingers itched to open the door. That dissipated quickly, though, as Sebastian changed his mind, and Lenny had an instant to be grateful before he felt tendrils of someone else’s thoughts feeling out the edges of his turmoil. That was something he could not ignore, though he tried. So far as Lenny was aware, the bond Sebastian had forced on him did not allow the master to know his thrall’s mind. Control it, yes, ride roughshod over his natural emotions and decisions, twist and manipulate it like origami paper, but not look inside and see the thrall as a person. Sebastian’s touch, then, was blind and grasping.

  That, too, withdrew after a moment, but not before Sebastian had felt out the shape of the problem. The touch was replaced by a nudge, and Lenny had time for a flash of understanding.

  “Please don’t” was on the tip of his tongue, but he lost the words as it crashed over him again, giddy ecstasy he could not fight. His limbs loosened and he melted into the ugly duvet, moment by moment losing the will to struggle against it. It spread into the furthest corners of his self, shoving aside doubt and guilt, and the absence of pain felt better than the pleasure. A low, cracked sound, halfway between gasp and moan, pushed out of his slack throat.

  He let it take him to sleep.

  * * *

  HE KNEW SHE was not dead, but he had thought She was gone at least, driven away. He thought he was safe. But he recognized the traveler in the road, the tattered cloak and storm of black hair, and the thing that connected them. He raised his hand to the marks at his throat.

  She sensed him there and whirled to face him, baring Her teeth in an animal snarl. He recoiled, heart hammering in his ears, but he already knew he could never outrun Her
, so he did not try. And Her cheeks were streaked with blood. It welled in Her unbalanced eyes like tears. The devil wept. He pitied Her.

  When She surged toward him, he welcomed Her with open arms. She seized him by the collar and recoiled when the cross he wore burned Her. He slid the symbol beneath his robe, and She watched him with mistrust.

  “Why waste your anger on me?” he asked. “I did you no harm, only showed them how to protect themselves. Go elsewhere if you want to cause terror.”

  She twisted Her hands into shining claws and laid them against his breast. Somewhere inside Her, something rumbled dangerously.

  “Can you even understand me?” He ran his thumb gently over the scar that bisected Her forehead. He had seen the wounds of war before. A blunt blade had given Her that. He could not say whether She had truly survived. “I know you were human, once. You lived. I’ve seen a soul in your eyes.” He wet his lips nervously. “You kill for pleasure. But when you came to me, you sought understanding, and I didn’t give it. Forgive me?”

  She gave no sign of comprehension. Instead, She curled a hand around the back of his neck and with one cruelly hooked talon carved into his face a mark to match Her own. She shoved him away and threw Her head back to split the air with an infernal scream.

  He staggered and wiped the blood from his eyes. It streamed down his face like tears. Her emotions coursed through him: frustration and agony, fury, the need for revenge. She was a monster. He had seen a woman’s remains inside Her, but he was no saint, no miracle worker. What hope could there be in ministering to a demon?

  But still…

  “The healthy need no physician,” he whispered, stretching a shaking hand toward Her. “Pax tecum.” Peace be with you.

  Her snarl became a smile, mocking. She seized his hand with an iron grip and drew him inexorably down, driving Her teeth into him once more. He stiffened at first, then went limp as Her poison claimed him. Part of him had hoped to feel that again, wrong as it was. He made a halfhearted attempt to push Her away, but his arms had no strength left. He fell when released and hit the ground hard. She followed him down and turned his head so he had no choice but to meet Her eyes. There was purpose there, a plan for him, and he knew he should be afraid, but could not quite manage. She pressed Her mouth to his and forced Her tongue past his lips, between his teeth. He felt Her jaw working, and something thick and rancid flowed between them, filling his mouth. She clamped his nose and mouth shut until he had no choice but to swallow the vile substance. It burned his throat and hit his stomach like lye. But She did not let go. Her grip tightened, bruising his face, until he writhed in desperate need for air. His vision swam, and darkness began to close in.

  He could feel Her there, though, growing stronger inside him, tugging on him, drawing him closer to the understanding that had eluded him before.

  So be it. If She wanted him to understand, he could not deny Her. He laid his hand atop her head in blessing and silently offered peace once more, because that is what a priest does. Pax tecum. I will try. I will understand.

  Because that is what a medium does.

  * * *

  LENNY WAS NOT sure whether he really woke at all the next day. Sometimes, he seemed to be awake, but thought was fuzzy and difficult, smothered by an artificial, dirty sort of afterglow that clung to him like old grease. Either way, he did not dream again, and that seemed like a good thing. He was not interested in trying to process what he had already seen, trying to figure out what was memory and what was illusion. Sebastian – that thing – could never have been a medium. If the priest could change so horribly, what might a weaker man become?

  Not until after sunset did he rouse fully, and when he did, he felt soiled. He always did, after, but this time was worse, because this time, he seriously considered creeping to the next room with his tail between his legs and asking, begging, groveling, for Sebastian to do it again. Another part of him – a remote and quiet part that he thought might have been a fragment of Kate, left behind when she was torn away from him – wondered whether killing a vampire technically counted as taking a life. You’ll do whatever he needs, it said, at once sad and devious. What if he needs to go now? He said himself that he was getting tired.

  “He used to be someone good,” he said under his breath. “Even if I could… k-k-kill… his body, I have to think about the g-ghost.”

  The ghost doesn’t need you to let yourself be used up like this. He doesn’t need you addicted to a demon.

  “What about what I need? I don’t want to b-be miserable all the t-time. At least with him, I g-get a break sometimes.”

  A break, yes, good word. Breaking you to pieces. If he weren’t there to make you miserable, you wouldn’t need a respite. Wouldn’t it be nice if your entire life was a break? No more misery? You could do it if he’s sleeping. Use the pen by the telephone. It doesn’t have to be so very sharp, not with your strength. Don’t let him unmake you.

  “If I killed him, what would I b-be? He’s breaking me… I d-don’t need to break me, too.”

  Lenny shuddered and flinched away from the impulse, but the nagging voice would not leave him alone, so he shrugged into his jacket, pulled on hat, scarf, and gloves, and dove into the night. A voice in his head was telling him to hurt people. It was too cliché to be real. At the same time, no part of him was really surprised. It had been years since he had considered himself entirely sane.

  His feet took him back to the crime scene. It looked different by night, in the orange glare of streetlamps. His presence there was a mystery to him, unless of course some part of him meant to prove his usefulness by confronting the ghost again. She was supposed to trust him, to know innately that he was trustworthy. Maybe if he could earn that back, he could begin to feel whole again.

  He approached the house with its dark windows; the husband must have been staying somewhere else, and Lenny could not blame him. He pictured himself in that situation, trying to come home to a place where Kate’s death resonated in the walls, where the smell of her hair mixed with the smell of her blood. He could never have gone home to a place like that.

  A thin crust of ice had formed over the dirty snow in the street, and it crunched beneath him. He did not dare leave a footprint on the trampled lawn or a fingerprint on the doorknob, so he stood in the tire tracks by the curb and opened himself in a silent invitation. I’m here, I want to help… There’s a way to warn your husband, but it’ll be hard for both of us.

  The ghost stirred on the edge of his awareness, and he saw a pale face at the upstairs window. She did not come out, but she was listening, so he went on.

  I can let you possess me. I can walk you through it. Maybe if he hears it in your voice, from someone who knows things only you could know, he’ll believe it.

  She still did not come out, but her face disappeared for a moment and reappeared downstairs. She watched him steadily, and he wondered whether she may not have understood. Comprehension had never been a problem before, not when he bypassed ears and voices to speak spirit-to-spirit. But he was different, now, and there were things that had come loose and were rattling around in his soul like so many misplaced nuts and bolts. He felt her skepticism.

  Then she turned, craning her neck, and stared down to the end of the street. Lenny turned reflexively, too, and found that he was discovered. The house on the cul-de-sac stood open, spilling yellow light across the snow and patches of winter-brown grass, and in the doorway, a slender shadow towered.

  Lenny blanched as the memory of a steel rod lanced phantom pain through his ribs. As he jerked, the air popped, and something tiny and sharp and leaden carved a line across his jaw. Without thinking, he ran, knowing full well that he could not possibly run fast enough. Still, the only other option was death, because there was no chance Leland would spare his life twice. The pavement beneath him was slick with ice, but he kept to the roads; remaining vertical was a challenge, but infinitely easier than scaling walls or sliding along roofs. He paid no attention to w
here he ran, only pushed himself until what pitiful speed he had was dried up, and he stood with quivering legs between the orange halo of a security light and a pair of dumpsters he was too tired to scale.

  He brought a gloved hand up to his face and wiped away blood, but the bullet’s path had already healed. A second wound, one closer to his heart, would likely be more permanent. He wasn’t entirely certain he cared. Then again, he wasn’t entirely certain that he didn’t, so it was best to err on the side of caution. He glanced around for an escape route, or at least a place to hide, before a second shot could come.

  The security light was fixed above a metal door, and something loud was going on inside. It was almost sure to be locked, but Lenny was certain he could wrench it open, maybe disappear into whatever commotion lay beyond. He was not as strong as the others, as Leland or Sebastian, but he was strong enough to shatter a lock, and no threshold protected that door. He dragged himself up the stairs and put one hand on the handle and the other on the doorframe, back tense.

  But the door crashed open and spilled a flood of music and a teenage girl into the night. The music was obnoxiously fierce, and the girl was bleeding mascara down the front of her oddly formal dress. It was a dance, then. He moved automatically to put her between himself and the street. He did not think Leland would start a fight with a human present, but just in case, a shield was handy. He thought Leland would not go through her to get to him, just as he had spared Lenny in Tampa for the sake of a young man in the back of a car. Then he thought of Kate and was suddenly not as sure.

  She didn’t even see him, though. It was dark, and her vision was blurred, and she seemed intensely focused on whatever had gone wrong inside. Her sobs turned to clouds of ice in the air, and he watched goosebumps rise along her bare arms and shoulders. She looked so fragile, as fragile as Lenny felt. For an instant, he forgot about what was coming after him.