by J L Bryan
Something crashed into me, sending me flying.
I slammed into the display of supposedly Egyptian bricks, then toppled to the floor.
The thing was atop me right away, reeking of pond scum and stagnant water, its sharp claws pinning down my arms.
Its face was in mine, breathing out sour air, looking like a scaly green mask over sharp yellow teeth, the pupils vertical reptilian slits.
Claws ran along my left arm, slashing me open.
Michael bellowed and swung at the monster on top of me.
The apparition did look solid, and certainly felt solid, its mass crushing down on me while cutting into me.
However...it wasn't really solid, just a mass of psychokinetic energy. So when Michael tried to punch the Snake Man, he passed right through it. His knuckles cracked on the brick wall just above my head, and Michael let out a yelp of pain like a dog that had been kicked.
He toppled onto me, which meant I got to enjoy, for the moment, a whole other's person's crushing weight bearing down at me. Michael didn't reek like Snake Man, but the combined pressure squeezed the air from my lungs. It also made my head feel like it would burst; my skull felt like a watermelon in a vise, just waiting for one last turn of the screw to rupture it.
My flashlight had been knocked loose and was now both out of my reach and pointed away from the ghost, so it wasn't much help. I struggled to reach for my iPod; if I could touch the play button, Snake Man would get a good solid blast of Angels and Saints at Ephesus by the Benedictine Sisters of Mary Queen of Apostles, a quite popular album among nun-music aficionados.
I couldn't quite reach my iPod, though. It felt like Michael and Snake Man were wrestling on top of me; Michael was grunting and thrashing.
“Amil,” I gasped. “Amil, stop.”
That didn't stop anything. Michael's blood spattered me; it was hot and wet, and tasted salty when it landed on my lips.
“Amil,” I whispered, with barely any oxygen left. I had no reason to expect the ghost to listen to me, even when I said his name. It was probably just an invented name, anyway, to lure the twins into trusting him without giving them any real power over him.
“Amil!”
For a moment I wondered how I'd managed to scream without any air left, and then I realized I'd heard it from somewhere off to my side.
“Amil!” the voice snapped again.
I had just enough freedom of movement to turn my head.
Polly stood by the cage door that led down to the caves. She was on the wrong side of it, I realized after a moment. Somehow she was inside the door, grabbing its bars and shaking it like a prisoner in a cell. The door was too heavy to rattle much, though. “Amil!” she shouted, for a third time, her voice echoing a little in the rocky environment beyond the door.
The third time, apparently, was the charm, at least when Polly was doing the screaming.
Much of the swampy weight lifted off me, and Michael rolled off. I could finally breathe again, but I felt much too wet, with too much of Michael's blood on my face, neck, and shirt.
“Michael,” I said, with the first oxygen that reached my lungs. I'd meant to say, Michael, are you okay? I ran out of air first, though, and had to take another breath.
“Amil, don't hurt her!” Polly snapped, as though the seven-foot reptile monster were an errant pet. “She's nice! She's my friend.”
I sat up and looked around, coughing. Michael lay nearby, his shirt shredded and red.
“Michael!” I reached for him.
“I'm okay,” he said.
“Your shirt—”
“My shirt will heal,” he said. “Let's get out of here.”
“We have to get Polly.” I pushed myself to my feet. The Snake Man had gone invisible for now, but I doubted he was far away. I could still smell him, for one thing, like green scum in my nostrils.
I grabbed the cage door, but it was locked up.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
“She took me,” Polly said.
“Who?” I asked, but I heard footsteps approaching. “Polly, quick. Where are the keys to this door?”
“She has them,” Polly answered, sounding miserable. She looked like she'd been crying. “Can you help me?”
“I'm trying,” I said. “Where is she now?”
“Where is who?” Melissa emerged around the tight bend of the cave passage. Michael, who'd recovered his flashlight, pointed it at her.
Melissa was smiling in a way that wasn't natural for her, baring her teeth as she approached. Polly trembled, looking back over her shoulder slightly, as if too afraid to look at Melissa.
“I told you to stay with me, Pollyanna,” Melissa said, and her deep, mocking voice was no more Melissa's than her wide, almost sneering smile. She stood behind Polly and put a hand on each of the girl's shoulders, which made the girl tremble harder.
“Clay,” I said, looking into Melissa's eyes. They weren't her usual green color, but a deep, stormy green-blue hue.
His eyes were blue.
“Eleanor,” he said back, and it was horrific to hear the clear tone of his voice, thinly wrapped in the sound of Melissa's.
“You have to let the girl go,” I said.
“Which one?” Melissa—Clay—smiled, tightening her grip on Polly's shoulders, her fingers like hooked talons. Polly let out a sob, though she was clearly trying to control herself, to keep her emotions inside during this confusing, scary situation. Sometimes being the quiet one pays off; you get a lifetime of practice clamming up when things get dicey.
“Both of them.”
“Oh, no.” Clay ran a hand down the side of his possessed body. Melissa's face was noticeably altered, as if a hundred tiny muscles had been slightly rearranged to reflect his presence. “This body is lovely, young, with many years of pleasures ahead. This face may not be as beautiful as my own was, in life, but...better than a charred piece of broken bone. You must agree with me on that.”
I shuddered; it was obscene to watch him wallowing in Melissa's flesh.
“Leave my sister alone,” Michael rasped, stepping up to the cage door. He grabbed the black iron bars. “Open this.”
“I would gladly welcome you inside with us,” Clay said, clamping down on Polly's shoulder again as the girl tried to wriggle away. Melissa's tall, strong body was serving Clay well. “But I seem to have misplaced the keys, somewhere far below. How sad. It could be interesting to have you all come down for a visit.”
“Let Polly go,” I said. “You don't have any use for her.”
“How little you know,” Clay replied. He rubbed a finger over Polly's cheek. “Look how fair she is. Her hair, like blood. Isn't she lovely? Can you imagine how beautifully she will burn? I've not burned anything so beautiful in so long.”
Polly took in a sharp breath as Melissa's fingers caressed her face. Polly's eyes were full of tears.
“And of course she tried to take this. She almost beat me to it, the quick little darling.” Clay held up his hand—Melissa's hand—and showed us the gold and emerald ring on her middle finger. “I saw the shape of things before you did. What a useful little bauble this is, helping me to summon our strange gator-skinned friend.”
The Snake Man formed in the shadows behind Melissa, filling the place with that pond-scum smell again. The reptilian monster's head was bowed, as if in subjugation.
Polly took a breath, and Clay instantly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Silence!” Clay smirked at me, his wicked smile an alien expression on Melissa's freckled face. “Do you see why I must burn her? So uncooperative.”
“What do you want, Clay?” I asked.
“The same as everyone,” Clay said. “To enjoy life. To drink it down, every drop, until I burst from excessive consumption.”
“I'm not sure that's what everyone wants,” I said. “Personally, I'm just happy with an occasional cookie with my coffee.”
“Such minor, mediocre aspirations,” Clay said. “Now that I have such a fine body for myself,
I will reach the heights of pleasure, the darkest lows of decadence—”
“Not in my sister's body, you won't!” Michael snapped. He jabbed his fingers through the cage door at Clay.
“Do you mean the body you are now fecklessly attempting to attack?” Clay asked. He looked Michael over. “What causes Eleanor's attraction to you? I suppose you're fine enough, physically...like your sister...” Clay slapped Melissa's hip in a sort of jokingly seductive way, which made Michael bare his teeth in anger. “But such an empty cabinet upstairs. I imagined Eleanor seeking a man with intellect, or at least capable of intellectual pretense sufficient to impress a female. I suppose flesh is merely flesh, however.” He looked at me with a smile. “You and I may be more alike than you choose to admit.”
“What do you want, Anton?” I asked. “You want to trade me for these two girls? Fine. Start by letting Polly go.”
“You think you know what I want, Eleanor?” Clay's voice was softened by Melissa's vocal chords and lips, but sinister nonetheless.
“Sure,” I said. “You want to burn me. I'm the girl who got away. So here I am, offering myself in place of your hostages. Kill me if you have to.” I held up my hands in surrender.
“Ellie, don't—” Michael said.
“I have to,” I said, my eyes locked on Melissa's green-blue ones. “This has always been my fate. I've spent my life running from it, fighting against it...but I've always known it would come. So if it's time, it's time.”
I want to say that was just a clever performance, my attempt to draw Clay into releasing Polly and Melissa and focusing on me instead. But the words felt true enough as I said them.
“Part of me died that night, with my parents,” I said. “You have little pieces of their souls, don't you, Anton? And a little piece of mine. And there's only one way I can be whole again. That's to let you burn me.”
“Ellie!” Michael snapped.
“But I don't want anyone else there, Anton,” I said, stepping close to the cage door, looking in at Anton behind Melissa's eyes. “They aren't part of it. They aren't my family. Don't minimize my death by cluttering it up with other people. I want to be alone with you when it happens, Anton.”
Anton stared back at me for a long moment, as if soaking in everything I'd just said.
Then a wide, gleaming smile split Melissa's face, showing me all her teeth.
And then he laughed, long and loud.
“That was a wonderful performance, my dear,” he said. “I will always treasure it. And when the time comes for me to kill you at last...I will think of all you've said. And I will savor it as you burn.”
“When the time comes?” I asked, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I've been waiting for you so long,” Anton said. “I thought we'd have some fun first. Make a game of it. Now come along, little treasure.” This last was directed at Polly. He backed away, grabbing the girl's hand and pulling her after him.
“No,” Polly whispered.
“Come!” Clay said.
“Amil—” she began, but he clapped a hand over her mouth again, silencing her.
“You stay here, Green Man,” Clay told the reptilian apparition, while dragging a kicking, struggling Polly away down the twisting cave toward the darkness below. “Don't let them follow us.”
“Come back here!” Michael shouted. “Melissa, listen to me! You can fight this! Stand up to him!”
I shouted for them to come back, but soon they were out of sight, Polly's muffled attempts to scream echoing toward us. It was horrifying; I felt my heart turn to ice the moment the girl was out of sight.
Can you imagine how beautifully she will burn? he'd said.
I'd doomed Polly. She was going to die because of me. Clay hadn't been haunting her house. He was baggage I had brought with me.
And Melissa was in mortal danger, too, though Clay didn't seem intent on killing her body just yet. But his mind could change at any moment.
The reptilian apparition remained where it was, a hulking transparent form in the shadows, guarding the cave entrance just in case we managed to get through the locked gate.
“Get back here, Clay!” I shouted. “I'm the one you want! I'm the one that got away! These other girls don't mean anything to you, and you know it!”
“What is he doing?” Michael asked me. “Where's he going? Melissa!”
“I don't understand,” I said. “He said he wants...to have fun?”
“I know what that means to him,” Michael said. “He wants to kill. He wants to burn people alive.”
“We'd better move,” I said. “Michael, go out to my van. I need you to grab the ghost cannon and a couple of other things.”
“Where will you be?”
“Upstairs,” I said. “I have to go tell Ryan his daughter's in danger. Let's hope there's a spare key to the caves.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I don't understand,” Ryan said, as he pulled on his clothes. I'd shaken him awake in his own bed, after using the secret stairs to the library. “I thought you were watching all night. How could she get down there without passing you?”
“It's been a busy night,” I said, since there was no time to delve into how I'd brought this on Polly by bringing my personal life into the case. Later, I would apologize, and he would be rightfully furious, and I'd go wallow in guilt and self-loathing, but for now I had to act fast and try to save lives. No point wallowing in self-loathing until I knew just how deep to make the pool. “Do you have an extra key to the cave door?”
“Maybe somewhere,” Ryan said. “Where are the ones you had? The master ring?”
“It's been taken down into the caves,” I said. “By the same entity who took your daughter.”
“The Snake Man?”
“I don't have time to explain. Let's go.”
Ryan woke up Penny and told her to keep watch on Ronan, but not to wake him up.
“Where's Polly?” Penny asked drowsily, looking at the empty bed.
“I'm going to get her now. You stay with Ronan in his room, and lock the door, and don't go anywhere until I come back,” Ryan said. “Do you understand?”
“No. I'm scared, Daddy,” Penny said.
“Just do what I say and I'll explain later.”
With his kids squared away for the moment, we raced back down to Leydan's old office on the second floor, where he began rummaging around in a desperate whirlwind, searching for the keys. I could feel the seconds dragging on and on as I helped. A minute went by.
“I'll try to pick the lock,” I finally said. “I'll call if I get it open. Or yell, if I can't get a signal.”
Downstairs, I worked at the barred door's lock. It was old, and not a very familiar type to me. Usually I'm just trying to pick open a forgotten shed with bodies buried beneath it, or an interior room that's been locked off due to the shameful generations-old family secrets concealed inside, that sort of thing.
This was more industrial, the kind of thing that, I supposed, might be used in mining. Or prisons. It certainly looked like a prison door.
I glanced frequently at the shadowy figure in the corner, expecting him to pounce and claw at me through the bars, but Snake Man seemed content to remain perfectly silent and still. I couldn't see his face—if I didn't know where in the shadows to look, I might not have seen him at all—but I could feel his gaze, cold and heavy on me.
“Are you sure that's safe?” Michael asked, setting down his second load of gear and looking at the quiet apparition.
“No, that's what the gear's for. Just grab a couple more speakers, would you?”
“You got it.” He glanced at the tall apparition again before leaving.
I finally managed to turn the rusty old lock. As soon as I felt it give, I pushed open the cage door and propped it open with an old cannonball that seemed to be there for that purpose.
Then I stood and backed away, putting a little extra space between me and Snake Man while I called up Ryan.
“—keys—” was all I heard when Ryan answered. Though he was right in the same house, my cell signal was poor, or his was.
“Forget the keys, the door's open,” I said.
“—looking—keys—”
“Come down now!” I shouted. “Can you hear me? We're ready! I opened the door! We can go into the caves now! Hello?”
Something large, scaly, and cold grabbed me by the shoulder.
He turned me to face him. The pond-scum reek was worse up close, as was his inhuman face. It was really more like a crocodile than a snake, I think, his jaws lined with sharp yellow teeth.
“I...you heard Polly,” I said, flailing for something to say. We'd brought in some gear to deal with Snake Man, but it hadn't been set up, plugged in, and arranged just yet. I doubted I'd have time in the next few seconds. “I'm a friend. I'm here to help. You trust Polly, right?”
I sure hoped he did. I didn't see how I was getting past this moment alive if he didn't. Unless Anton/Melissa popped up and called off the reptilian ghost, but I wasn't holding my breath waiting for my worst enemy to summon me.
His eyes bored into mine, reptilian eyes with vertical pupils like narrow black blades, a predator watching his prey. I didn't dare move.
Then his damp hand lashed out, his thick cold fingers grabbed my throat, and his sharp claws sank into my skin, like he wanted to crush my windpipe and lacerate my artery at the same time.
The pain in my throat was excruciating, and began to spread and burn.
It was almost as if his clawed fingertips were tipped with some kind of venom.
I opened my mouth, trying without air to beg him to stop.
My hands scrambled over the scaly, damp skin of his arms, then up to his massive chest. It was all I could do. I didn't know if I was begging him or struggling to fight back with my last oxygen-deprived bit of strength. It pretty much came to the same effect, anyway, which was none.
The world went dark around me.
And then—
I am somewhere near the sea—I can smell the salt in the night air, hear waves crashing against rocks far below. I love the sea. It is my true home, and I am trying to desperately to escape there.