Ancient Illusions

by Joanne Pence

  “Or, a lucky circumstance,” Michael said.

  “I somehow doubt that,” Jianjun said. “Maybe I should join you, make sure things are on the up and up. I wouldn’t mind seeing Japan again.”

  “You are such a cynic. It might just be a quick trip, but if I find anything worth looking into, I’ll let you know.”

  “My fingers are crossed already!”

  When the call ended, Jianjun stared at the phone. Michael didn’t sound like himself. He sounded too upbeat and optimistic, but not legitimately so, more like he was trying to hide a deep hurt or disappointment. Jianjun wondered if going all the way to Japan was Michael’s way of trying to flee from whatever was bothering him, and Jianjun suspected it had a lot to do with memories stirred up at Wintersgate.

  William Claude sat scowling, arms folded, in his laboratory. He had just returned home and learned that Michael left for Japan. What the hell was going on?

  William Claude had power, lots of it. He could control, deceive, and torment people continents away, but he couldn’t affect his own son in his own home. Damn Michael to hell! Claude grabbed the vials of his latest elixir and poured them down the drain, then tossed the vials into the trash. They were all rubbish. Worse than rubbish. He paced back and forth across the lab.

  When he first heard about the powerful philosopher’s stone from Shang Dynasty China, he thought it was just a legend. Leave it to Michael to find it. Michael had the ability to become one of the best alchemists of all time. But first, he needed to accept his abilities and his role in using them.

  It was ironic that the boy believed he had returned to Wintersgate of his own free will to learn more about Irina Petrescu and more about his mother’s death. How ridiculous. Did he also think the nightmares that drew him here happened just by chance?

  If so, he wasn’t half as smart as he thought he was.

  Michael had never learned all his father was capable of. But one day, before this situation with the philosopher’s stone was over, he would find out.

  And then he should stop wasting his talent!

  William Claude was sure Michael had hidden the pearl somewhere near Salmon, Idaho. To hide it had to be the reason Michael and his Chinese friend went to that area last year after they left China. Claude found it especially curious, however, that Michael hadn’t returned to the area given the problems that had resurfaced there. Didn’t he care any longer about Charlotte Reed and Jake Sullivan?

  William Claude had focused his attention on them, and then as a backup—an afterthought really—he decided to include that twit of a girl, the student Rachel Gooding. To his surprise, he found her rather delightful—young, intelligent, but needing to learn much more about the ways of the world. She was like a fresh new toy for him, her mind open and trusting. Maybe someday he would teach her about the world, the flesh, and the devil. He just might enjoy that. But at the moment he had other concerns.

  Despite Michael’s friends in Salmon feeling “troubled,” and with death and weirdness all around them, they still hadn’t convinced Michael to go back there to retrieve the pearl. What was wrong with the boy?

  This Lafcadio Hearn business was an annoying wrinkle in William Claude’s plans. He could understand Michael finding it interesting, even to the point of wanting to visit Japan someday. But why now? And why the sudden rush?

  It made little sense. It was almost as if someone, or something, was trying to divert Michael’s attention away from Wintersgate and Salmon.

  Claude froze in mid-pace. That couldn’t be, could it?

  He stroked his chin. Was there a competing force, perhaps, that wanted the pearl? His pearl.

  Or was something even more sinister taking place?

  The old man’s face was contorted with dark fury as he considered these possibilities, and an even deeper chill enveloped Wintersgate.

  Chapter 14

  Sheriff Jake Sullivan stared at the corpse of a man found two miles north of the Salmon River. Something had chewed his face to a pulp as well as his stomach. Jake’s own stomach nearly flipped over at the sight.

  But even worse, even more horrifying, the bite marks on the corpse appeared eerily human.

  Jake had hoped that the meeting he’d held with the few ranchers who lived in and around the River of No Return Wilderness would be enough to sooth their nerves. He had expected wolves, or mountain lions, or even a grizzly or two had caused the strange livestock deaths. But whatever was killing animals out here had just moved to humans, and the situation had become a lot more serious.

  A pair of hikers had found the body. They saw buzzards circling and thought the birds might be hovering over a spot where elk or deer had congregated. When they got there, they were horrified at what the buzzards had found.

  The hikers did all they could to mark the location and then went to a fire service lookout station where they contacted the sheriff’s office. Jake and Mallick searched the man’s pockets for identification, but found only some loose 6.5 Creekmore cartridges, a good size for elk hunting. Since it wasn’t hunting season, the assumption was that the fellow went out there to poach a deer or elk and probably planned to butcher it on the spot. Whoever killed the man most likely took his rifle, wallet, and knapsack. Didn’t sound like any animal to Jake.

  The flies had become frenzied at Jake’s approach, and he spent more time shooing them away than inspecting the body.

  “I’ll take pictures,” Deputy Mallick said. “Can he have died from some accident? And then something tried to eat him?”

  “Something?” Jake asked. He could tell by Mallick’s expression that he saw the bite marks the same way Jake did.

  “I’m not ready to say what,” Mallick whispered.

  “This was no accident,” Jake said. “No animal did this.”

  The deputy looked scared. “We’ve seen this sort of thing before, you know.”

  The same thought had gone through Jake’s head and he could only pray that everything that happened a couple of years ago wasn’t starting again. “Shit,” he muttered.

  It was close to midnight when Jake returned home. He had learned the poacher’s identity from friends concerned when the man didn’t return from the backwoods. Brad Washington, unmarried, age 55, worked for the post office as a mail carrier in Twin Falls. He had gone into the wilderness area “to commune with nature” according to friends and had done it many times in the past. But there was nothing about him to indicate why he would be singled out for such a bizarre attack.

  Forensic evaluation of the saliva found near the bite marks identified the attacker as human. DNA tests were being run but they would take time, and Jake knew whoever did this was most likely not a run-of-the-mill criminal.

  Jake had stopped at the office and wrote out his report, annotating the areas he had searched and found nothing.

  By the time he got home, he was hungry, tired, and irritated at the bizarreness happening all over his county. But then, everyone on the team was cranky and sore. Even Mallick had snapped at some volunteers.

  His house was a short distance north of town in the hills. He loved the A-frame cabin-style home with lots of windows facing the mountains. It had a large “great room,” a kitchen, plus two bedrooms, and a study.

  As soon as he walked in the door, however, he knew something was wrong.

  The house was dark, but Charlotte always left a light on for him when he worked late.

  Sure, they’d been having troubles and not getting along for reasons not altogether understood by him, but he didn’t think she was so angry she expected him to stumble around in the dark. “What the hell is wrong with her?” Jake muttered to himself as he hit the switch to turn on the living room lamps.

  The side table next to Charlotte’s favorite easy chair—an overstuffed one with a matching ottoman—was usually covered with books. Now, it was bare. He often had joked that he didn’t know how she remembered which book was where, she had so many stacks.

  Maybe she had put the books away
… finally.

  He went into the kitchen. Not only were no lights on, there was no plate of food in the refrigerator for him. She always made up a dinner platter when he couldn't get home to eat with her. His stomach growled with hunger. Had she only cooked enough for one? Was it his fault he wasn’t home on time? It wasn’t as if he wanted to be out in the middle of the county because of a gnawed-on, maggot-filled corpse.

  The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

  He stormed into the bedroom to confront her and froze. Her side of the bed was empty.

  “Charlotte?” He called her name as he switched on the bed lamp.

  Her side hadn’t been slept in.

  He walked to the closet. Most of her clothes were gone.

  He phoned, but her phone went straight to message.

  He phoned three more times. With the fourth, he demanded, “Answer the damned phone, Charlotte.”

  But she didn’t.

  In the living room, he saw an envelope with his name on it in Charlotte’s handwriting. She had left it on the coffee table. He guessed he’d overlooked it when he was so stunned to see her books gone.

  He sat and opened the letter.

  Jake,

  I’ve returned to Virginia.

  Charlotte

  That was it? After all their time together, she gave him no explanation? Not even a lousy “I’m sorry”?

  Before he ever met her, her home in the outskirts of Alexandria, Virginia, had been destroyed in a fire. It had been insured, of course, and he assumed she would take the insurance payoff. Instead she opted to rebuild. Her new house was small but nice, an up-to-date version of the colonial farmhouse style popular in that area. They had gone there twice for vacations. Jake thought the area was okay, and Charlotte always said she liked going back to remember why she enjoyed living in Salmon so much. She also thought the Virginia house would make a comfortable winter retreat from the heavy snows of Idaho.

  But now, Jake realized her not wanting to sell the land had been a clear sign of the beginning of the end.

  He grabbed a beer—at least she had left him one of those—and plopped down on the couch.

  They’d been happy together. Really happy, or so he thought.

  But a few weeks earlier, something turned sour, and he didn’t know why.

  Charlotte claimed it was him—that he had changed.

  He didn’t think so. Yes, he was feeling cranky. And maybe that made him hard to live with. But it wasn’t his fault.

  He’d been having trouble sleeping. Not falling asleep, but staying asleep. And who the hell would want to sleep when every night he dreamed about a parade of dead people and zombies? It was as if they were hunting him again—those creatures he’d had to fight and kill to rescue the few surviving university students. But now in his dreams, the creatures were victorious.

  Night after night he watched himself and Charlotte die.

  He couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t tell anyone.

  All he knew was that he hated sleep, but without it he could scarcely function.

  The biggest irony was that, because of his sleeplessness, he was drinking a lot of coffee. Since the coffee in the office was swill, he’d go to the coffee shop next door to the sheriff’s station. And now, Charlotte thought he had taken an interest in its new owner, Emily Parker.

  Of course he talked to the woman. And he enjoyed having a doughnut or bear claw in the morning. What on God’s green earth was wrong with that?

  It wasn’t like Charlotte to be jealous, and he’d given her no reason to be. But it seemed they couldn’t talk to each other anymore.

  And the main thing they couldn’t talk about was what was going on out in the wilderness. As soon as word of the unnatural mutilations hit, Charlotte told him to call Michael Rempart and get him out here to investigate. That was the last thing he wanted to do. It was nothing supernatural, he insisted, just some strange animal attack. Maybe a deranged grizzly. Who knew? Whatever it was, he told Charlotte he could handle it.

  Maybe that was why he never told her about his nightmares.

  But if he had, she would have nagged him even more to call “the great Michael Rempart.”

  He always suspected she was sweet on the guy. Two “academicians” and all.

  How the hell was he supposed to compete with that?

  In fact, he suspected she might have called him herself and he was too busy or something to run out here, because she suddenly stopped talking about him. Or, maybe he was waiting for her in Virginia?

  Damn! He downed half the bottle of beer. He guessed Charlotte wasn’t the only one suffering from jealousy. But he was right to be!

  The best answer he could come up with was that Charlotte had grown tired of living in a town so small it didn’t even have a Greyhound bus depot. He always suspected he couldn’t keep a woman who had lived in Europe and the Middle East—whose deceased husband had been a CIA officer—and who was beyond brilliant in her own right.

  She gave up her government job to stay with him in Salmon and to pursue her own studies. She claimed she was happy to do it—that being with him made her happy.

  He hadn’t imagined what a good liar she could be.

  He was such a doofus he had even asked her to marry him. She had no interest in that, either.

  Now, it all came together. Her accusations about him and Emily Parker were just excuses for her to get away. Well, the hell with her! If he never saw her again, it would be too soon!

  But as quickly as it struck, his anger vanished. He tried to summon it back, but the only real anger he felt was directed at himself for having been dumb enough to believe her when she said she loved him and would stay with him forever.

  Chapter 15

  Rachel walked along a lonely dirt road between towns in a mountainous district in Western Japan. Her clothing, a black full-length robe and small brown bib-like garment worn over the heart, signified her as belonging to the Zen sect of Buddhism. As night fell, she realized she had taken a wrong turn, and was lost. She continued along the same path and eventually saw a light at the top of a hill. There, she found a small hermitage built for solitary priests, called an “anjitsu.” Inside was an elderly priest, but the old man refused to give her a night’s lodging. Instead, he showed Rachel the path to a nearby town.

  When she arrived, she saw it wasn’t a modern town, but an ancient one without even electricity. At the town’s only inn, she found some forty people had gathered. Nonetheless, the innkeeper gave her a room. Around midnight, the sound of loud weeping woke her. She got up and gently pushed the sliding doors apart.

  The young innkeeper said to her, “We did not mean to disturb you, but yesterday my father died, and the people with me have come here to pay their respects and mourn his passing. When you arrived, you looked so tired, we did not wish you to feel awkward about staying with us, so we didn’t tell you about the death. Now, as is our custom, we are saying goodbye to my father. We will not remain in the house with him for fear of demons, and we will spend tonight at the home of a distant neighbor. But since you wear the robes of a Buddhist monastic, I’m sure you have no such superstitions, and will be comfortable remaining in the inn.”

  Rachel replied, “I have no fear of staying in this house. But since I am a Buddhist, I will say prayers for your father and remain beside his body until you return.”

  Everyone then left the house except Rachel, who sat with the body. She recited the Buddhist service for the dead and performed the funeral ceremonies. After that she began to meditate.

  In the deepest part of the night, a dark shape entered the room. She watched, terrified, as it formed into a ghoul with long, sharply pointed teeth and fingernails. She wanted to run but couldn't move as the ghoul lifted the corpse and ate. The creature started with the head and crunched its way through hair and bones and shroud, slurping up blood and all other bodily fluids as it ate. The ghoul then eyed Rachel.

  Tears sprang to her eyes as terror filled
her. She couldn't breathe knowing she was about to die a horrible death. The ghoul came closer. It howled, and the sound rippled through her body. But then, to her surprise and joy, it turned away and left the room.

  When the funeral party returned, a stricken Rachel, too scared to venture outdoors, told them what had happened.

  The innkeeper explained it was a flesh-eating demon. It tormented the town, and that was why they no longer dared sit with a corpse through the night.

  Rachel’s reaction went from fear to anger. “Why doesn’t that worthless old priest who lives in the anjitsu on the hill perform services for your dead and try to rid this area of the demon?”

  The innkeeper said there was no anjitsu on the hill, and no old priest anywhere nearby.

  Much confused, Rachel returned to the anjitsu and confronted the old priest. She asked why he didn’t help the people in the town who were being persecuted by a vile demon.

  The old priest answered, “Because I am that demon. And now, you are one as well.”

  The priest grabbed her, his fingers mutating into vicious claws, and immediately the hermitage, the priest, and Rachel vanished.

  In their place on the high grassy area stood two ancient and moss-covered tombs. One showed the priest’s name in Japanese characters; the other, in Roman letters, spelled out: Rachel Gooding.

  Ceinwen woke Rachel because she was thrashing and crying out in her sleep. Her face twisted with terror. She had thrown off the covers.

  Ceinwen rushed the few steps to Rachel’s bed and grabbed her shoulders giving her a gentle shake. “Wake up, Rachel. You’re having a nightmare.”

  Rachel opened startled eyes, seeming to not even recognize Ceinwen for a moment, but then threw her arms around her.

  Ceinwen could feel Rachael’s heart racing, pounding. The girl was drenched with sweat, shuddering. “Are you all right?”