Medium Dead

by Chris Dolley

  “What if Abbiati’s human, but he’s working for a demon?” said Brenda. “Can a demon shield a human’s mind, or do something to it to stop another demon from subverting them?”

  Brian shrugged – a lop-sided one shouldered shrug.

  “But you’re a demon. Shouldn’t you know these things?”

  “I think I must have missed that class.”

  “Can’t you call home and find out? Doesn’t Hell have a library?”

  “Only a horror section.”

  She had to smile but... “I’m being serious. Can’t you find out if there are other demons on Earth?”

  He grimaced – maybe from pain, or maybe from a desire not to answer the question. “Demons are inherently secretive. I’ve looked for others on this planet, but ... never found one.”

  “So you do know what to look for? If you met one, you’d know?”

  He closed his eyes. Another grimace. “Sometimes. Perhaps. I don’t know. I don’t even know about Abbiati and ... I’ve been inside his mind.”

  He opened his eyes and stared at Brenda. “Check his files ... look for medical procedures ... make a list.”

  “What kind of medical procedures? Is there something specific?”

  His eyelids drooped. His voice began to fade. “Make a list. Wear gloves. Anything incriminating goes to the police.”

  He passed out. Or feigned passing out. She considered rolling his eyelids back to check but, other than watching people do that on TV, she wasn’t sure what it was supposed to achieve. Would the words ‘out cold’ be written on his eyeballs?

  She went to the kitchen and checked on her pizza. It was almost ready, which was good enough. She was starving.

  She spent the first part of the evening wearing pink kitchen gloves – they were the only ones she had – sorting through Abbiati’s papers. She found share certificates, bonds, mortgages and deeds. Abbiati certainly owned a lot of property. Or held the deeds to them. She found over thirty bank accounts. Some in Abbiati’s name. Some in family members’ names. Some in names she didn’t recognize, and the rest belonged to a series of companies. Millions of dollars, euros, and Swiss francs, in accounts based all over the world.

  But no medical files. No hospital admissions and no doctor’s letters.

  She organized everything into piles and made a list of any names she came across – both people and companies.

  And she counted the money. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Eight hundred thousand if you counted the money spent on the car – which she supposed she had to. She let it all sit on her carpet for a while, all neatly stacked and shouting ‘spend me!’ to the ceiling. She’d never seen so much cash.

  With help from her inner Brenda she tore herself away from the shiny money mountain and assembled Abbiati’s computer. She plugged in her screen and keyboard, switched it on and ... she was in. No obscure operating system, no password protection – maybe he thought having his house patrolled by armed guards was protection enough? Either that or there was nothing incriminating to protect.

  She checked his email account, saving all the files to a memory stick. And had a cursory glance through the names and titles. None stood out – no obvious messages from demons, crime boss newsletters, or cryptic notes from people called Bugsy.

  And nothing medical either. No emails from doctors or hospitals. She checked his documents folder, downloading everything. No folders called medical, no obvious correspondence with doctors or hospitals.

  She remembered the search facility and went back and used it on his email folders – trying ‘doctor’ first, then ‘hospital’, then ‘operation’ and ‘procedure.’ Dozens of irrelevant hits that wasted fifteen minutes wading through emails to check the context. She tried the search facility on his document folders next and found the same.

  Brenda rubbed her eyes. File checking was boring when there was nothing to find. She bet Batman never did any filing. He’d have the Bat Computer programmed to do the searches for him. And he had a proper crime fighter’s car.

  Brenda daydreamed for a while, wondering if she could carry off the black leather look. CatBrenda? CatBrenda in her Winter Gold Jag. Maybe she should dress in gold to match? And dye her hair. GoldBrenda. She could have a theme song. Shirley Bassey would sing it. GoldBrenda! She’s the girl, the girl with the Midas touch.

  Even the inner Brenda sang along for a few bars, before gently reminding her host that she had a crime to solve. Several crimes, in fact. Had she forgotten about Sacrifice and the search for Daddy?

  She had. She typed in ‘Daddy’ and ‘Sacrifice’ and searched Abbiati’s files again. Another wait, another screenful of hits to search through, another series of dead-ends. There had to be something else she could do!

  There was. She could summon Sacrifice again and ask her what Daddy looked like. She already had a picture of Frank Cassini. If she could find a picture of Abbiati she could show them both to Sacrifice and solve that part of the mystery once and for all.

  She checked through Abbiati’s picture folders. He didn’t have many photographs, but he was in a few. She connected her printer and printed them off. Some of the pictures showed Abbiati at what looked like business events – posed pictures with men in expensive suits and women in evening gowns. What if Daddy was one of them? He might have hired Abbiati to abduct Sacrifice. She took a print of them all and checked back to see if she could attach names to the faces or a venue. But found nothing in the file names or the folders.

  She saved the pictures to her memory stick. Then wondered if she should expand the search. Might as well make the most of her time with Sacrifice and show her as many pictures as possible. Abbiati was a rich man. He attended business functions. Just the kind of person who’d show up on an internet search.

  Brenda disconnected her keyboard, screen and printer and reconnected them to her own desktop. She typed in ‘Bruno Abbiati’ and searched for other pictures, preferably from thirteen years ago.

  She found one from ten years ago. Prominent Stamford businessman Bruno Abbiati receiving an award – presumably not for artistic maiming. And she found a group picture, with names, from a function eight years ago. She printed them off.

  Now all she had to do was summon Sacrifice.

  She sat on the floor as she’d done the previous summoning. Though, then, it had been a general call for murder victims. She wasn’t sure if it would work for a specific spirit.

  But she had to try.

  She took a deep breath and cleared her mind.

  “Sacrifice,” she whispered, echoing the name in her mind. Sacrifice.

  Her eyes scanned ahead, looking for the merest hint of a shimmer.

  She called again – louder – elevating her whisper into a soft-spoken call, boosting her mental echo into a full-blown yell.

  Still nothing. She focussed her eyes on the bookcase, imagining it was more than just a repository for books. It was a portal to the astral plane, and Brenda had the power to fling that door open and shout a message through.

  Sacrifice!

  She concentrated harder, screwing her eyes tight shut and clenching her teeth.

  Sacrifice! I summon you here, now’

  “Yes,” said a voice.

  Brenda jumped, almost falling over backwards. The sound came from behind her. A girl’s voice. She swung round...

  And saw a different girl. Similar – slim, long unkempt dark hair, brown eyes – but older. Thirteen, fourteen. She was wearing what looked like a white shift, and barefoot.

  “Is your ... is your name Sacrifice?”

  “Yes.”

  She stood by the edge of Brenda’s sofa with what appeared to be a gentle wind blowing into her face. Her shift rippled slightly and clung against her body. Her long hair moved as if alive. And her eyes bore into Brenda’s. No tears, no outward sign of fear, or any emotion at all.

  How many dead girls called Sacrifice were there on the astral plane?

  “How old are you?”

 
The dead girl shrugged.

  “What’s your mother called?”

  “I have no mother.”

  The air suddenly felt distinctly chilly.

  “What’s your father called?”

  “Daddy.”

  Deja vu with a double dose of industrial strength goosebumps.

  “What school do you go to?”

  “I don’t need to go to school.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m Sacrifice.”

  The girl smiled. She looked so proud. I’m Sacrifice. Look at me. Was this something Daddy had taught her? Some story he’d made up to explain why she never went to school?

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Being injected.”

  “Injected with what?”

  The girl shrugged. “Some kind of poison.”

  Brenda swallowed hard. The girl spoke of being poisoned as though it was an everyday occurrence. Dear diary, woke up, went to school, got poisoned.

  “Who injected you?”

  Brenda was sure she knew the answer, but she had to ask.

  “Daddy.”

  Brenda reached out for her stack of pictures, her hands starting to shake.

  “What does Daddy look like? Can you describe him to me?”

  Another shrug. “He looks like Daddy.”

  She showed her the picture of Frank Cassini first, holding the picture out, firmly clamped with two hands. “Is this Daddy?”

  For a moment it looked as though the girl wasn’t interested. She continued to watch Brenda, her expression a mix between bored disinterest and amused aloofness.

  Then she lowered her eyes and looked at the picture.

  “It’s not him,” she said immediately.

  “Are you sure? Look closer.” The girl had barely glanced at the picture.

  This time the girl floated closer. As she did so, the astral wind blowing against her appeared to strengthen. Her hair tumbled away from her face, her shift outlined every inch of her slim adolescent body. And her face ... it shone as if illuminated by some spectral light as she leaned forward, her nose inches away from the picture.

  Brenda clutched the paper tighter, trying to make sure it didn’t shake.

  The girl stared at Frank Cassini. Was there a hint of recognition? If there was, it was fleeting.

  “No. I’ve never seen this man before.”

  Brenda swapped pictures, thrusting one of Bruno Abbiati towards Sacrifice before she could pull away.

  “Is this Daddy? He may be older in this picture. Or younger.” She suddenly realized she had no idea when this Sacrifice had been murdered.

  The girl studied the picture. “That’s not him either.”

  Brenda grabbed the next picture – a formal dinner with Abbiati and assorted colleagues. The girl didn’t recognize any of them either.

  “Are you sure?” Brenda asked. “Have you ever seen Daddy with another man. Or a woman.”

  “Daddy only needs me. I’m Sacrifice.”

  Back came that look of pride. Total confidence.

  “Do you know what year it is?”

  “2005. Or 2006. Time is unimportant. I’m Sacrifice.”

  Brenda showed her another Abbiati group picture and another. The girl recognized no one, and was becoming bored. She barely glanced at the last picture.

  “Where did Daddy keep you?” Brenda asked, scratching around for pertinent questions. Ghosts didn’t hang around for long and she knew she’d be kicking herself in a few minutes time for not asking the right questions.

  “In my room,” said Sacrifice, pulling back. Already she was beginning to fade. Even her voice had lost that crystal clear clarity.

  “Did your room have a window?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what city your room was in?”

  “The City of God.”

  She was already transparent. Her face, her shift, her hair rippling like a two-dimensional image projected on the surface of an undulating sea.

  “What state is the City of God in?”

  “A parlous one.”

  The girl disappeared.

  A parlous one? Not the kind of state Brenda was inquiring about. And not the kind of word a thirteen year-old American girl would routinely use.

  Brenda gathered her pictures from the floor and stacked them. Her hands had begun to shake again. Who was this Daddy? A brainwashing serial killer with a penchant for pre-pubescent dark haired girls and religion. She dredged up all her television psychology – culled from every mystery series she’d ever watched. Was he fixated on girls who reminded him of someone in his past? A sister, a daughter, some poor girl that in his sick twisted mind had done him wrong?

  And were there others? If he’d killed in 1998 and 2005, what had he been doing in between? Was he still active today? Was there another Sacrifice in that windowless room, waiting for Daddy to visit her?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brenda couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined some poor frightened girl locked in a windowless cell, waiting to be killed. Sacrificed. Was that the origin of the name? They were sacrifices? Girls abducted and held for days, months, years against their will, isolated and brainwashed by that sick bastard until they accepted their fate. They were sacrifices who wouldn’t scream or struggle. They’d roll back their sleeve and let Daddy inject them.

  Why? What pleasure could he possibly get from seeing them die? Luckily Brenda couldn’t answer that question. Some people were too sick to be understood. Drawing pleasure from other people’s pain, from breaking their spirit, from exercising total control over another person’s life, from watching them die...

  The list was as endless as it was sick.

  And there had to be other girls. Perverts like Daddy didn’t stop until someone stopped them. He had to be have been active for at least thirteen years. Thirteen years! It beggared belief. Why hadn’t anyone noticed? Was he covering his tracks? Hiding the bodies? Abducting girls from different cities? Maybe different states?

  They had to catch him. Had to. No playing for laughs. No amusing sidetracks. Track the bastard down, catch him and...

  Let Brian find a punishment that fit the crime like a spiked glove.

  Brenda awoke late the next morning – the result of a night tossing and turning. When she wasn’t worrying about Sacrifice she was worrying about Brian or burglars. What if Brian never recovered? What if a burglar broke in and stole all the money, or the car? At one point she had to climb out of bed and creep downstairs – to check on Brian, the car, and to bring the money upstairs and hide it under her bed.

  So it was a scratchy-eyed Brenda who descended the stairs later that morning. A scratchy-eyed Brenda who froze halfway down. Brian wasn’t where she’d left him. The armchair was empty. She went from half-asleep to wide-awake in an instant. Where...

  There he was. In the far corner of the room, slumped over her computer keyboard.

  She ran to him. “Brian! Are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t move. The three bullet holes were still visible – smaller and less colorful than the night before, but still very much there. She placed her hands on his shoulders and eased him upright, gently propping him against the back of the chair. His head lolled against his chest. And was that a snore?

  “Are you asleep?”

  It looked like he was. She could see his chest slowly rising and falling. And that was definitely a snore. She could hear it over the noise from the computer fan.

  Her attention moved from Brian to her computer. It was on. Brian must have got up in the middle of night to use it. And then fallen asleep at the keyboard.

  She leaned over Brian and refreshed the computer screen. A website appeared. A medical website discussing advances in cancer treatment. Cancer treatment?

  She looked at Brian, then back at the screen. He needed to drag his body across the room to read this?

  She rolled her Brian-laden office chair to one sid
e and fetched a wooden dining chair to sit on. What had he been looking at last night?

  She saved the current page to disk and pulled up the internet history file. He’d accessed about a dozen sites. Some of them she recognized. She’d accessed the same sites when she’d been searching for Bruno Abbiati. But others were hospitals, news sites, and medical journals.

  She clicked on the first site. An article about the treatment of neck cancer. Did Abbiati have cancer? She skimmed the article. No mention of Abbiati and no hint why Brian might have found it interesting.

  She saved the page and clicked to the next. Another cancer site. This time at a hospital listing their various treatments for head and neck cancer. She could see a pattern developing, but not the reason. Why the interest in neck cancer? None of the sites mentioned Abbiati. Could he have found the hospital’s telephone number amongst Abbiati’s papers from the drawer?

  She saved and moved on to the next page. Another article on neck cancer. But this one had a picture.

  A photograph of Brian.

  Brenda stared at the image. It was definitely Brian. It even had his name underneath. Brian Trafford, the first patient to benefit from the revolutionary new treatment for neck cancer. Gene Therapy.

  Brenda devoured the article. It was from 2004. A gene therapy trial on twelve patients in England. Six of the patients had been cured completely – Brian Trafford had been one of them.

  She looked at Brian. His face was charred and unrecognizable, but ... could he be this Brian Trafford? And if so ... what did it mean?

  She saved the page to disk and clicked on the next site. More gene therapy trials – this time in the US. No mention of Brian or Abbiati. She clicked on the next and the next. More cancer, more gene therapy trials.

  Her phone rang.

  Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the computer and answered it.

  It was Susan, her sister.

  “You are coming tonight, aren’t you?”

  Tonight? Brenda’s brain wobbled into a state of fogged paralysis.