Hounacier (Valducan Book 2)

by Seth Skorkowsky

  A wave of guilt extinguished the rage. He should hate himself. Should have slashed his wrists in the woods. That family would still be alive if he'd just done it. He should have lifted his throat for Atabei to strike.

  The guilty weight pressed harder, crushing down like a giant hand. Malcolm slouched forward, felling the collar's pull.

  Maybe he could hang himself with it. He closed his eyes, imagining his blue-faced corpse suspended, toes brushing his soured piss on the floor.

  Wait! He opened his eyes and sat up. Never once, not when his friends died, not when his own failures had cause death and pain, had he ever considered suicide. Master Turgen had once told him that no Valducan had ever done that. He'd said it was one of the traits weapons sought when choosing their owners. He wasn't wired that way. Why was he contemplating it constantly now?

  A slender finger of terror slithered up his spine. The demon. "You're fucking with me, aren't you?"

  The finger scratched in his brain, an impossible itch.

  "Is that you?"

  It scratched again.

  A sickening terror welled in his skull, coursing down his veins. It was influencing his thoughts.

  What actions had been his? He remembered the ease with which he'd found his way back to the ceremony site. Did he come here, or had it? How much danger had he put Tasha's family in?

  A sudden thump startled him.

  The door cracked open.

  "You need something?" Tasha asked.

  "No." Nervous sweat beaded his forehead.

  Her golden-brown eyes searched his face. "We heard you talking."

  Malcolm glanced to the baby monitor. "Just talking to myself."

  She nodded but didn't seem to buy it. "Okay." She opened the door the rest of the way.

  "Don't come in here," Malcolm blurted.

  Tasha's brow arched quizzically. "You still want that sandwich?"

  Malcolm noticed the obsidian mask clutched under her arm. Jim stood behind her, a paper plate and a pair of water bottles in his hands. "Oh. Yes, please."

  She scanned the room as if expecting to see something then came in, the mask against her breasts.

  Jim followed and set the plate down. A second plate rested upside down atop it as a makeshift lid. He picked up the broom. "Brought you some more water." He hooked the broom around the Tupperware dish and pulled it back.

  Hungrily, Malcolm watched the scarlet contents sloshing with the movement. His fists clenched, wanting to beat the son of bitch for taking it from him.

  Stop! He relaxed his fist. That's not you. "I appreciate that."

  Jim only grunted and pushed the plates toward him. The smell of pickles and wheat suddenly overpowered Tasha's perfume.

  Malcolm lifted the top plate. Lettuce skirted the edges of a thick ham and cheese sandwich. A pair of green pickle spears rested to one side, their juice soaking into the paper. Nothing about it appealed to him, but somewhere, as if a thousand miles away, he felt the hunger.

  The two bottles came next.

  "This collar," Malcolm said, lifting the sandwich. "It's unbroken silver, right?"

  Jim nodded. "Soldered it shut."

  "Good." Malcolm took a mouthful. The sudden flavors of real food—bread, spicy mustard, smoked ham, and moist tomato—flooded his senses. He tasted each with acute clarity, savoring the individual parts and how they blended in his mouth. He'd never tasted anything as incredible. Still, it couldn't fill the hungry pit desiring raw meat.

  The sudden image of Tasha screaming beneath him, his teeth diving for her throat. Blood and terror burst across his tongue as she futilely hit him, her closing death weakening her arms. Malcolm coughed, nearly choking on his second bite. She and Jim watched him, a moment's concern in their eyes.

  Malcolm forced a swallow. The fantasy of her terror and blood still lingered. "Thank you."

  "Call if you need anything," Jim said.

  Malcolm only stared at the floor as he listened to them leave. The door closed, and he dropped the sandwich back onto the plate.

  "Fuck you," he whispered to the demon.

  The little finger itched into a smile.

  #

  Malcolm sat cross-legged on the crumpled quilt, his gaze moving across the back wall, counting the red bricks. He wasn't counting them himself; his eyes merely moved row after row, pausing at each one for only a moment before moving on. A window had been there once, the square shape of it left behind like a dinosaur's fossilized footprint, an outline of what had been. He'd tried meditating, but the little itch still whispered its dark thoughts. It wasn't his to control, and the emptying of his mind only gave it more room to sling its rage and self-hate, fantasies of murder and tasting his loved ones' terror.

  Footsteps moved across the floor above. It had been his room. Malcolm wondered what Atabei had done with his phone. Was she now trying to unlock it, to see the message his camera frame was sending?

  Malcolm didn't need the video feed to know who was now going through his things. The steps were too light to be Jim's, too purposeful to be Mister Alpuente's shuffle. He thought he could even catch the citrus scent of her perfume over his own sour stink. Surely, his olfactory senses weren't that acute. He had to be imagining it. The little itch returned, reminding him of the vision.

  He tried to ignore it. Go to Hell.

  The familiar scrape came from the door. Malcolm turned, expecting Jim with refreshment or some further experiment of Allan's.

  The door inched open, and Mister Alpuente stepped inside, an open, over-under shotgun tucked in the crook of his arm.

  Malcolm straightened, eyes on the gun.

  The old man drew the shell from the upper barrel. The red and white stripe of the silver load Malcolm had given to Jim was unmistakable. Mister Alpuente pushed it back in and clicked the gun closed. Without taking his eyes off Malcolm, he reached back and closed the door behind him.

  The old man's pale lips curled downward. The oxygen hose to his nose emphasized the deep frown lines. Slowly, he reached down and clicked off the baby monitor.

  Malcolm sat still, meeting the old man's cold stare.

  After several quiet seconds, Mister Alpuente spoke. "Just heard that police found a family murdered. Husband, wife, two children: five and fifteen months."

  Malcolm looked away.

  "Think it was some kind of animal did that to them. Tore 'em to pieces."

  Malcolm closed his eyes, trying to push out the shame. There was no use denying it.

  "Ulises ever tell you how we met?"

  Malcolm shook his head. "Always thought it was through Jim."

  "No. Jim came along later. My…wife, Rachel…she died." Alpuente swallowed. "She was drivin' back from Atlanta. Antique auction. Police called, said they found her truck in Mississippi, antiques still in the back, but she was gone." The old man's slender fingers tightened on the shotgun. "Week later, they found her. Cut up. Police suspected some Manson copycat did it. Took her liver… Cut out her womb."

  "She was pregnant," Malcolm said. Ulises had told him about hunting an aswang back in the 70s. He'd never mentioned Tasha's grandmother.

  Alpuente nodded, anger burning in his gray eyes. "We'd just found out. Our daughter Jill had just started college. She came back home to be with me. I was lost. Couldn't get up in the morning. I couldn't do anything. Jill brought me to Maggie. Said she could help. Maggie introduced me to Ulises." He shook his head, a faint grin pulling at his lips. "He was all tattooed. Had this dumb-ass hair. Not the type of person I normally associated with, but he wanted to hear the story. So I told him."

  There was no question where this was leading. The old man's twisting hands on the gun, the quickening breath as he spoke. Psyching himself up for what he intended to do. The footsteps continued moving above. If Malcolm called out for Tasha, the old man would kill him before she even reached the stairs.

  Keep him talking. "What did he say?"

  "He told me about demons. Sounded like bullshit to me." Alpuente scow
led and shook his head. "He was so sure. But I didn't believe him. Then police found a second body."

  "Another woman?" Malcolm asked, risking his voice a little louder than normal.

  Alpuente nodded. "Twenty years old. My daughter's age. After that, I told Ulises I'd help him any way I could."

  Tasha's footsteps stopped. Maybe she heard them talking. Why do I care? He's doing me a favor. Malcolm had given his report. The Order knew what Atabei had done. This was the final piece. They both knew it.

  The old man's jaw twitched. Resolve was cementing.

  Not like this. This isn't his burden to carry. "What did you do?"

  "We drove out to Jackson County. Spent three weeks there narrowing it down. I started thinkin' I was going crazy, me and this voodoo priest and his magic machete. I didn't believe in a god back then, but I wanted to. Demon or not, I wanted to find the son of a bitch that took my wife from me."

  "Did you?" Malcolm asked.

  "Yeah. Tracked it down to an old fire tower. We saw it flyin' out after sunset, silhouetted against the sky. So we went up there and waited." His pink tongue ran across his upper lip. "It had these little poppets up in there, made of grass. Three of 'em. One was Rachel. Just before dawn, we heard it land on the railing outside. I've never been so scared. Ulises though, he did what he had to. He put his finger to his lips and waited beside the door."

  Tasha's footsteps hurried from the room above.

  Alpuente didn't seem to notice. "Before it even knew we were there, Ulises was on it, chopping that machete of his until it burned. He avenged my wife. I saw it." The old man raised the gun. "I saw the monster. I know what you are. I know what you did!"

  Malcolm met the old man's gaze over the top of the twin barrels. "You don't have to do this."

  "Yes I do!" The old man closed his eyes, the gun still trained on him. "I'm sorry, Mal."

  Running footsteps clapped up the hall. Malcolm braced for the blast.

  The storeroom door swung open.

  Alpuente whirled as Jim stepped inside

  "Dad!"

  "Close the door!" Alpuente yelled, bringing the gun back toward Malcolm.

  Jim dove toward him, grabbing the barrel and pushing it away. "Dad, stop it!"

  "No!" Alpuente yelled. "You don't know what he is. What he's done."

  Malcolm sat motionless as Jim wrestled the shotgun from the old man's hands.

  Tasha stepped in, eyes wide. She looked at Malcolm then at the old man clawing at Jim.

  "He has to die!"

  "Pawpaw, please!" Tasha wrapped her arms around the old man and pulled him away.

  "No!" Alpuente shouted.

  She hugged him tighter.

  "You don't understand." Alpuente's voice cracked, and tears began to form. "You don't know what he is."

  Jim looked at the shotgun in his hands. "Take him out of here."

  "Come on, Pawpaw," Tasha said as she led the sobbing man out.

  "He's a monster…a monster!"

  Malcolm looked at Jim, still staring at the gun. "Thank you."

  The priest looked up at him like he was a stranger. Anger boiled in his eyes. The muscles in his jaw flexed. "I'll bring you some food in a bit." He turned and left.

  Malcolm let out a long, slow breath as the door thudded closed. His heart pounded against his chest, urging him to move, get up, walk around and burn off the tension. But the chains held him. The old man had nearly done it. Malcolm couldn't help but wonder if the relief he felt was his or the demon's.

  #

  Hours dragged by. Malcolm counted the bricks again. Slept. Twice, Jim had brought food and taken away his piss pot, never saying a word. Without windows or a clock, time became lost. He heard no voices in the shop. No sounds at all but the occasional footsteps outside the door or distant, unintelligible conversations. Malcolm guessed they'd closed the shop, maybe fearing he might yell for help. Smart.

  Even the dark itching had abandoned him.

  Malcolm lay on his side, eyes unfocused across the scarred, wooden floor. He knew this was the last floor he'd ever see. His mind replayed the long journey that had led to this. He remembered that first meeting with Ulises, how a golden opportunity for his dissertation had changed his life so suddenly. It was almost a trap. Mama Ritha had sent him there knowing perfectly well where it would lead: Faith, Horrors, Love, finally Death.

  Everyone knew but him. All the followers at that first ceremony knew what Hounacier was. They knew he was Ulises protégé. Papa Ghede had told him, but Malcolm hadn't believed in loa. Then the monster and the complete terror he'd felt. His faith was born in terror. How else could he have expected it to end?

  He remembered how the loa had circled the dead demon, cradling it as it changed back to human. They'd wept and mourned the man who died so that it could be destroyed. He'd been given a hero's funeral. Malcolm remembered the woman at the ceremony, the way the possessed man had searched the audience for her when they'd brought him into the ring, the way she'd wailed at his death.

  The woman!

  Malcolm's eyes opened, but he watched the scene replaying across his mind. The slender woman in the crowd. Atabei Cross.

  A crazed chuckle rose from Malcolm's throat. He remembered her now. The day he'd found love and faith, she'd found loss and hate. There was a perverse symmetry in how it now ended.

  The door thumped and creaked open.

  Still chuckling, Malcolm rolled, expecting Jim with food. He stopped as he saw the black leather boots, their toes scuffed to a bluish gray. Malcolm's gaze moved up to see a lean man with a sandy mop of hair. He held a plastic water bottle in one hand, its label torn away. A red bead pressed against the back inner wall, toward the mask in Tasha's arms behind him. The man's other hand held an enormous black and gold revolver. Bronze wolf heads capped the ivory grip. A thick, Bowie-style blade extended below the barrel, its silver edge gleaming to a fine point. He trained the gun on Malcolm.

  Malcolm met the newcomer's tight-jawed face. "Hi, Matt."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The thin, sandy patches of Matt's week-old beard resembled a teenager's first attempt at facial hair. He swallowed, lips moving as if trying to find the words. Finally, "Hi, Mal," his voice devoid of emotion.

  "Congratulations for you and Luiza. That's…that's really good news."

  "Yeah, we're real excited." Matt's voice didn't contain that familiar Louisiana twang Malcolm had always heard before. Everyone described it differently. Luc said it was Eastern French, Allan as Estuary, and Master Sonu said it was definitely from Mumbai. The familiar accent was always calming but unsettling when he thought about it. But now… Now, it was gone. Was this his real voice? The idea that he could now hear Matt as he really was somehow creeped Malcolm out more than the chameleon accents ever did.

  Malcolm maneuvered his cuffed hands, pushing himself into a sitting position. Chains tinked and rattled with the movement. "You have a due date yet?"

  "January." Matt looked at the water bottle in his hand. The red bead tracked the mask's movement as Tasha stepped up beside him. He gave her a nod.

  Tasha met Malcolm's eyes. Apprehension shadowed the corners of her lips. Malcolm gave a resigned sigh, and Tasha flipped the mask toward him.

  The sudden blast knocked Malcolm onto his back. Pain rippled through his body. The metal collar tightened and loosened against his undulating neck. Rage and hatred and fear washed though him as an inhuman whine rumbled from his chest.

  Then it was gone.

  "Thank you, Miss Luison," Matt said. "Can you leave us alone for a bit?"

  Catching his breath, Malcolm pulled himself back up in time to catch Tasha's sad, apologetic look as she closed the door.

  Matt shook his head. "I've never liked those masks."

  Malcolm suppressed a snort. "Didn't expect you here so fast."

  "Caught a ship in Panama. Just got in."

  "I figured as much. You look like hell."

  Matt's brow arched. He eyed Malcolm's chains, c
huckled, then they both started laughing. It wasn't funny, but the release of tension just exerted itself. Dämoren's barrel didn't move despite the knight's laughter.

  Matt set the bottle on the floor. Keeping the revolver trained, he pulled one of the chairs from the wall and lowered into the seat. From a pocket, he withdrew a rectangular black recorder and set it on the floor beside the bottle. He stared at Malcolm long and hard before shaking his head. "You know…back when I first met Clay, it was like this. I was on the floor, he was in a chair holding Dämoren on me trying to decide what to do."

  Malcolm ran his tongue across the back of his teeth. The bastard was loving this. What are you waiting for? The image of his head knocking back, blood and brains splattering the bricks behind him. He shivered at the horror and excitement of it. "What's to decide?"

  Matt glanced down at the blood compass. "It's not in you right now. Killing you won't kill the demon. But you'll still be dead."

  "But I'll be free. I won't have fear of it taking me again. I won't have to wake up realizing what I've done and who I've killed. I won't have to…" Malcolm took a breath, the words caught in his throat. "I won't have to live knowing that I lost Hounacier."

  "And that's what it's really about, isn't it?" Matt asked. "Hounacier?"

  A hot spike of anger twisted in Malcolm's chest. "You wouldn't understand."

  "Wouldn't I?"

  Do it! Shoot me! Malcolm regarded the holy revolver. "No, you wouldn't."

  Matt's lips pursed as biting back a retort. "Does Hounacier still live?"

  "Yes." Malcolm twisted his cuffed hand around, revealing the faded scar where the warding eye had once been. "But she's turned her back on me."

  Matt's hard expression softened for only a moment. "How did it happen?"

  Malcolm snorted. "The eye and the scarab react to demons. With one inside me, they pushed the only direction they could. Straight out."

  "That's not what I mean," Matt said, straightening in his chair. "The possession. Tell me how this happened."

  Finally. Malcolm motioned to the half-full water bottle by his knee. "May I?"