by King, R. L.
“Of course.” She waved him toward the desk.
Stone sat down after first glancing at Lopez and, with a subtle head movement toward Suzanne, indicated that he should keep an eye on her. Lopez nodded. Moving with deliberate care, Stone undid the leather strap around the book, opened it to a random page, and began to read.
It was a beautiful book, its age-brittle pages hand illustrated, its text set in flowery, elaborate type. The illustrations ran the gamut from the fascinating to the grotesque (though Stone had to allow that the grotesque ones were equally fascinating). His breath picked up as he continued reading. This was the real deal.
“Uh—Al?” came Lopez’s soft voice.
He started. “Yes, what?”
“Find anything?” The cop sounded amused. “It’s been twenty minutes and you haven’t said a word.”
Stone looked up to discover both Lopez and Suzanne watching him intently. “Er—sorry,” he muttered. “Got a bit carried away.”
“You can read that?” Suzanne asked.
He nodded. “It’s intriguing. Do you remember which bit you used for your ceremony?”
“The pink bookmark there toward the back,” she said, pointing.
Stone carefully turned to the page she indicated. The first thing he noticed was the illustration, which showed a small group of robed figures surrounding what looked like some sort of burning object. Smoke rose from the object and formed into a ghostly, humanoid shape, which appeared to be gazing down at the assembled group with approval. He switched his focus to the text, taking his time to make sure he was reading it correctly. He was fluent in Latin, but some of the vocabulary in the book was oddly archaic, as if someone had been trying to obscure the text’s meaning. That was entirely possible: Stone had seen instances before where spells were written in a sort of skewed pseudo-version of an ancient language that only those who had created them or who worked with them could decipher.
“Anything?” Lopez asked.
“I picked that one because of the picture,” Suzanne said. “Whatever that ghostly thing is, it looks happy. I thought it might be good for health and happiness.”
Stone let his breath out. “Well,” he said, running a hand back through his hair until it spiked. “You’re right about that bit—it is happy. But not for the reason you think. It’s happy to finally be summoned into the world.” He pointed at the text. “This is an odd spell—I haven’t seen too many like it. It’s actually quite versatile, because it’s not specific.”
“What do you mean, ‘not specific’?” Suzanne asked.
“I mean, it’s not designed to summon a specific entity.” He ran his finger over the lines of the spell. “See—there’s no true name in here. Usually when you’re summoning something, or trying to get rid of it, you’ll want its true name. That gives you control over it.”
“I remember reading that somewhere in one of my books,” Suzanne said, nodding. “But—if it’s not meant to summon something specific, then what is it meant for?”
Stone considered his words. “It’s—sort of an all-purpose generic summoning spell,” he said at last. “It’s up to the people doing the summoning to imprint their will on it in order to get what they’re looking for.”
“Wait a minute,” Suzanne protested. “If that was true, then why would we have gotten this horrible thing that’s killing people? I told you—we were wishing for happiness. Health. Prosperity. Positive things. So why didn’t we get a positive spirit?”
Stone turned a little to face her. “Here’s the thing—I don’t think everyone in your group actually influenced the summoning. In fact, I’m convinced that it was only one person. And I’m sorry, Mrs. Washburn, but it wasn’t you.”
She stared, wide-eyed. “Why—why not? I mean, I was the group leader. I read the words of the spell from the book—well, as well as I could since I didn’t know if I was pronouncing them right. Why wouldn’t I be the one to influence it?”
For a long time Stone was silent as he tried to find a way to explain it to her without revealing the existence of magic. “Well,” he said, “The way this spell works, it’s sort of like you’re making a soup. If you’ve got a group who’s all contributing to the recipe, the person who puts in, say, flour isn’t going to change the taste as much as the one who drops in a lot of pepper.” He raised an eyebrow with a faint smile. “Sorry, I’m rubbish at cooking so forgive me if that’s a terrible metaphor, but you get the idea.”
“So you’re saying that there’s someone else in the group who—put in the pepper?” She still looked confused. “What would affect that? Not that I would want to be the one responsible for that awful thing, but—”
This was getting more difficult to explain without going places Stone didn’t want to go. Again, he took a long pause to think. “Please, Mrs. Washburn, don’t be offended by this. I know you’re very interested in this sort of thing and have spent quite a lot of time studying it, but—some people are more—innately connected to the spirit world than others.” He took a breath. “Also—I suspect that someone in your group might have a specific connection to the spirit that was summoned.”
Suzanne pondered that. “I’m not offended, Dr. Stone. In fact, after seeing those tapes, I’m not sure I really want anything to do with the supernatural anymore.” She nodded toward the book. “Will you—take that? Get it away from here? I don’t want to look at it anymore.”
Stone tried his best to hide the fact that for a brief moment he felt like a kid on Christmas morning who’d just been handed the coolest, most-impossible-to-get toy ever, and he mostly succeeded. “Of course.”
“So—what happens now? What are you going to do? Call the police?”
“The police already know about my theories. Aside from Sergeant Lopez here, they don’t think much of them.” He fixed what he hoped was a comforting gaze on Suzanne. “We might need your help, though. We might need the help of all of the Sisterhood.”
She frowned. “How—can we help?”
“I have to do a bit more research, but it’s possible that in order to send this spirit back where it came from, it will require another ceremony from the people who summoned it in the first place.”
“But...isn’t that dangerous?” she asked, paling. “Dr. Stone, if you’re right and this spirit is killing people—”
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” he said. “I’m just letting you know it might, and asking if I can count on you. It might only require the person who did the actual imprinting. I don’t know yet. But if we need all of you, will you help? Will you help get the others together?”
He waited, watching her expression change as the thoughts flitted through her mind. She was scared—hell, she was petrified. Stone had seen this sort of thing before: mundanes with a strong interest in the occult who, when confronted with the real thing, couldn’t cope with it. Sometimes inveterate skeptics like Lopez or Jason dealt with the odd and freaky better than the witches-and-horoscopes crowd, because they had fewer preconceived notions about the way it was supposed to work.
The one thing most of the hobbyists never even considered before they’d been tossed neck-deep into it was that the supernatural world was dangerous. They tended to look at it in benign terms: predicting the future, helping to find lost people, or being visited by the ghosts of long-dead loved ones. Most never expected to find a place full of more malevolent entities—or at least more that didn’t give the tiniest damn about the sensibilities of the insignificant bags of meat crawling around on an insignificant dustball in an insignificant corner of the metaphysical cosmos—than friendly ones. A place filled with things that would kill you for your first misstep, and wouldn’t even take enough notice to care. That was a major reason why even experienced practitioners like Stone didn’t initiate contact with those realms unless he absolutely had to. He knew there were things out there, lots of them, that could gobble up
He of Many Faces like a light snack. If you were smart, and if you wanted to see your next birthday, you left that kind of thing well the hell alone. Edna Soren might call him arrogant and conceited—and okay, there were times when he definitely qualified—but some things were best just avoided. If Suzanne hadn’t been petrified after what she’d seen on that security tape, Stone would have wondered about her sanity.
She looked at him like a weary little girl would look at a trusted adult, someone she believed would keep the boogeyman away and the closet free of monsters. “If I get involved in this, Dr. Stone, could I get hurt? Could I even—die?”
He put a gentle hand on her arm. “Mrs. Washburn,” he said softly, “You’re already involved. I can’t lie to you—you’ve been so brave already, I owe you the truth. This is dangerous. You could get hurt. Yes, it’s possible you could even die. You saw what happened today. But I can promise you this: you’ll be safer if you help us, and if you let us help you. Because regardless of whether you agree to help, I’m not going to stop. Sergeant Lopez and our other friends aren’t going to stop. We can’t. This thing is killing people, and it isn’t going to stop.”
Lopez took a step forward. “You know,” he said in the sort of calm tone used to comfort lost children, “I know this all seems pretty freaky to you. It did to me, too, when he first dropped it on me. But he knows what he’s doing.” He nodded at Stone, who’d taken a step back. “If anybody’s got a chance to get rid of this spirit, it’s this guy, and the other folks he’s working with. I’ve seen them in action, and I believe in them. Please—help us before anybody else is killed.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Okay,” she whispered, tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. “What do I need to do?”
“We need to find which one of your group is associated with the spirit,” Stone said. “Can you call the others, and ask them to talk with me? Don’t tell them anything specific—let me do that. Just tell them you’re working with me, and that they should answer my questions.”
She nodded again, sniffing. “Okay. I—I guess it makes sense to call Karen first, since she’s local.” Pausing, she looked at Stone. “You said before—that you could teach me something that would make it so that thing couldn’t get in my head and make me do things again.”
“I can,” he said.
“Will it take long? Because I’m really scared. I don’t want to go anywhere alone now.”
“Not long at all.” He moved closer to her and reached out, hovering his hand near her forehead. He gave her a questioning look, and when she nodded, wide-eyed, he gently touched her with the tips of his fingers. “All right,” he murmured. “I’m going to give you a phrase to repeat. Sort of a mantra. Just repeat it in your head when you’re alone, periodically.”
“That will work?” she asked, dubious.
“Trust him,” Lopez said. “He did it to me, and I’ve been working with him for days. No sign of anything trying to get in my head.”
Hardly any sign, Stone thought. But that was beside the point. It wasn’t as if they’d be taking Suzanne Washburn anywhere near the shrine.
“Well...okay...”
Stone closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, then stepped back. “Right, then,” he said. “Now, I’ll write the mantra down for you so you don’t forget it.” He took a pen and a piece of scratch paper from the desk, thought a moment, then jotted something down and handed it to her.
She studied it, then looked at him, head tilted. “‘Guard well the pips, and the fruit shall grow without let’?”
He shrugged. “Very mystical.”
She held his gaze for a moment longer, as if expecting him to burst out laughing. When he didn’t, she gave a confused nod, mouthed the words again, and picked up the phone. “I’ll call Karen.”
Stone and Lopez backed off into the corner of the room. Turned away from Suzanne so she couldn’t see him, Lopez gave Stone a look. “What the hell was that?” he whispered, trying to keep from chuckling. “Guard well the—what?”
Stone shrugged. “I saw it in a late-night horror movie about a charlatan mystic. It seemed apropos.”
Lopez started to reply, but Stone’s expression went suddenly from cynical amusement to sharp-eyed focus. “What?” he asked.
Stone was no longer paying him any attention. “What is it, Mrs. Washburn?” he asked, stepping toward her.
She had been murmuring into the phone when her expression had gone rigid. She hung up with a slow deliberate motion and stood very still in the middle of the room.
Then she looked up at Stone, her eyes once more haunted. “That—thing,” she said. “I think it has Karen.”
Chapter Forty
“What?” Stone demanded. He snatched up the phone and put it to his ear, but there was nothing now but the dial tone. “Why do you think so?”
“She—spoke to me in this...strange, growly voice,” Suzanne said numbly. “It hardly even sounded like her. All—slow and creepy.”
“What did she say?” Stone’s heartbeat picked up again, and he struggled to keep his voice even.
“She said—” Tears crawled down her cheeks. “—she said I should—” She paused, recalling the words. “She said I should ‘tell the mageling that the agony of the last time will be nothing compared to what I will visit upon him now,’ and that I shouldn’t help you, or she would kill me, too.” She was shaking hard now, the tears flowing freely. “What does it mean? What’s happened?”
Stone exchanged glances with Lopez. This wasn’t good. “I think it means we’d best go check on Karen,” he said, his tone grim.
“You know,” Lopez said, “we’re going to have to call Casner if we—”
Stone sighed. If we find anything. He didn’t like it—especially getting Casner involved this close to the conversation with Suzanne—but there was no way around it. “Let’s check first,” he said. “If we get there soon enough—” He turned to Suzanne. “Can you tell us where Karen lives?”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“Mrs. Washburn—”
“No,” she said, and there was a steel behind her tone that hadn’t been there before. “Karen’s my friend. If there’s something—wrong with her, or any way I can help, I want to go.” Her sudden bravado slipped just a bit as she addressed Stone. “You—you think that thing might make her hurt herself, don’t you?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Washburn,” he said softly. And to Lopez: “We should go.”
“There it is,” Suzanne said from the back seat of Lopez’s truck, pointing. “The two-story yellow house there on the left.”
Stone could already tell that something was wrong, even from out here. As soon as he switched to magical senses he could see the profound disturbance in the house’s no-doubt normally peaceful aura. He glanced at Lopez and shook his head once, looking grim.
Jason’s old Ford was parked outside; he and Edna got out as Lopez parked on the street. Stone had called them before they left Suzanne’s place and asked them to meet at Karen’s address, but not to go in until he, Lopez, and Suzanne arrived. Jason started to ask Stone something as he approached, but one look at the mage’s expression silenced him. Edna, too, looked bleak: she had clearly noticed the aura as well.
“What are we waiting for?” Suzanne demanded. “Let’s go.”
Stone shook his head. “Mrs. Washburn—I think it would be best if you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice pitched higher. “You think there’s something wrong?”
“Call Casner,” Stone said under his breath to Lopez.
“You sure?”
He nodded. “Do it.”
As Lopez headed off, Suzanne looked back and forth between them. “What are you saying? Aren’t you going into the house?” When Stone didn’t reply right away, her face set. “Well, if you’re not, I am!” Before he could stop her
, she took off at a quick stride.
Edna raised a hand, but Stone shook his head. “Let her go,” he said, his voice full of all the exhaustion that was coming back to haunt him from the past few days. “She’ll have to see for herself, I think.”
All of them watched as she hurried up the drive and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, she moved over and peered in through a large picture window mostly covered by thick drapes.
Then she screamed.
Moving almost as one, Stone, Jason, and Edna hurried to her. Suzanne had dropped to her knees on the broad wooden deck surrounding the house; her shoulders heaved as she sobbed into her hands. Stone nodded at his companions, then at her, then went to the window and peered into the house.
What he saw was a large living room with a ceiling that clearly rose up to the second story, even though he couldn’t see that far from his limited vantage point. He took in the comfortable, functional furniture, open stairway, fireplace, and series of family photos on the mantelpiece—but none of these held his attention.
What did hold it was a massive object near the stairway: it appeared to be some sort of welded sculpture made of various bits of mechanical detritus, and topped with a pointed spire that extended the sculpture’s height to nearly eight feet tall.
The body of a woman was impaled face-down on the spire, as if she had taken a flying leap from the top of the stairs and crashed down on it, making no effort to twist or otherwise avoid it. Blood streaked the sculpture and ran down from the body, giving its lower half the grotesque appearance of something cobbled together in a demon’s workshop. As Stone stared, the body twitched occasionally, but his magical senses told him that it no longer held any life.
“Al?” came Jason’s voice. “What do you see?”