Soultaker

by Bryan Smith

  He put himself between Kristen and the fugitives and began to close the door. “Sorry, but I can’t help you. Now get off this property before I call the cops.”

  The boys traded a single quick glance, then surged through the narrowing space between doorjamb and door. Jake cursed and pushed back against them. His feet slid on the hardwood floor. He was older and stronger than either of them, but it was two against one and a losing battle. He threw all the strength of his upper body into the effort, but his feet continued to slide backward. Then the girl who looked so much like him joined them and the battle was lost. Jake let go of the door and staggered backward as the three intruders came stumbling into the house. The girl threw the door shut and turned the lock.

  Jake struggled to catch his breath. He looked at Kristen. “Go…out the…back. Run to the nearest…neighbor. Call the cops.”

  But Kristen just stood there. Her eyes pleaded with him. Rescue me, they said. Please make this go away. He’d been angry before, but now he was shaking with barely checked fury. He burned with the need to beat the shit out of these little snots for putting her through this so soon after the trauma of losing her brother.

  The taller boy recognized the promise of violence in his eyes and held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa. Hold on. Just listen to me for one goddamn minute, okay? If you still want us to leave after I’ve had my say, we’ll get out of here and figure something else out.” The boy had been panting, too. He paused to catch his breath before continuing. “That fair enough?”

  Jake held his breath and counted to ten. He unclenched his fists. “No. I’d rather take those popguns and shove ’em up your fucking asses. But I just want you gone, so I’ll take you at your word. Have your say and get the fuck out.”

  The tall one tucked his gun in the waistband of his pants. He looked Jake in the eye and said, “This has to do with your brother, our friend Trey, and his demon girlfriend.”

  The other boy said, “He means that, by the way. Literally.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The tall one said, “Trey’s girlfriend is a demon. A for-real demon. She feeds on the souls of young people, and later this afternoon she’ll pig out on the students of Rockville High.”

  “The Harvest of Souls.” The girl stepped closer. The eyes that so resembled his own shone with a startling intensity. “I only learned about it last night. They’re telling the truth. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but last night some things happened. Incredible, horrible things. And now I know. Demons are real. I’m half demon myself, you see.”

  Jake blinked slowly before his eyes went wide.

  He felt as if he’d been slapped.

  He surprised himself with a laugh. “Is this a joke?”

  The girl and the boys exchanged glances. They fidgeted a little. Jake tried to find some meaning in the silent communications passing between them. Some instinct told him they were far too earnest to be lying. They knew their story would sound absurd to other ears, but they believed what they were saying. Maybe they were on drugs. No. Jake knew drugs, was very familiar with the effects of all major narcotics and hallucinogens. Dope wasn’t the culprit here. A simple solution occurred to him and it made him groan inwardly. These were just kids, after all. And perhaps very gullible or suggestible ones.

  “If this isn’t some kind of stupid prank or joke—”

  “It isn’t!” the girl snapped.

  Jake held up a hand to head off any further outbursts. “Chill a sec, okay? I take it you’re all aware of what I do for a living?”

  The girl blew out a breath. Her features conveyed disdain. “What? Are you supposed to be somebody important? I never fucking heard of you before today.”

  One of the boys said, “You write horror novels. I’ve read them. I liked the first one.”

  His friend said, “I have them, but haven’t read them.”

  Jake smiled. “Okay then.” He directed his next comments at the girl. She was the most volatile of the three and he figured he should establish a more intimate rapport with her. “And no, I’m not important. I’m nobody. You haven’t heard of me? Guess what? Hardly anyone has. My books are supermarket paperbacks. They’re on the racks for a few weeks and then gone forever. I’m not complaining, mind you. I like what I do. But in my chosen genre there are some stock cliches, things that have been done a million times. One of the most hackneyed is the plot involving a writer, often a horror writer, who returns to the small town of his youth only to wind up battling a real supernatural evil. So…think about it. What you’re telling me is I’m living the cliche.” Another of those unexpected laughs came. It was followed by another. He choked back yet another.

  He wouldn’t let the laughter take him again. For Kristen’s sake, it was time to wrap up this farce. He coughed and sat up straighter. “I’m sorry.” He strove for a more sober tone and almost made it. “Really I am.” He heaved another big breath and this time successfully killed off the last of the hysteria that had been bubbling inside him. He looked the scowling girl in the eye and said, “Trust me on this, okay? Whatever you think is going on…there’s a logical explanation for it. You’ve maybe let your imaginations run wild and—”

  The girl said, “It’s all true and I can prove it. Right now.”

  Jake stared at her with his mouth hanging open for a long moment, his mind still stuck on his interrupted sentence. Then he did another slow blink and shook his head. “Come again?”

  The girl’s scowl vanished. A small, almost imperceptible smile crimped the edges of her mouth. “I told you. I’m half demon. I can do things. I’ll show you. Then you’ll believe.”

  Jake stared at her a moment before saying, “Uh-huh. Okay.” He looked at Kristen, who was staring at the girl with a rapt expression, hanging on her every word. There was no evidence of the anger he’d expected to see there. He looked at the girl again and smiled. Okay. Whatever. As long as Kristen wasn’t freaking out, he could play this game, too. See it through to its logical—and quite likely anticlimactic—conclusion. “Fine. You’re a demon and you can prove it. What are we really talking about here? Magic tricks?”

  The girl’s inscrutable smile remained in place as she shook her head. “A kind of magic, yes. But real magic. There won’t be any trickery involved.”

  Jake grinned. “Cool. Awesome.” He rubbed his hands together and clapped them once. He shot a wink Kristen’s way. “Hit me with the smoke-and-mirrors routine, girl.”

  “The name’s Jordan.” A corner of her mouth twitched, a near smirk. “And I’m about to wipe that smug grin off your face. I told you. No trickery. No smoke and mirrors. Just real-deal magic.”

  Jake shrugged. “Okay, okay. Show us your stuff, Jordan. I’m expecting some serious razzle-dazzle here.”

  Jordan moved to the center of the room. The rest of them backed away from her, instinctively giving her space to do her thing. Space for what, Jake couldn’t imagine. Jordan closed her eyes and bowed her head. She held her hands in front of her, splayed fingers pointed at the floor. The pose made her look as if she were praying. She moved her lips and sounds emerged, but nothing intelligible. Jake scanned the faces of the others. The attention of all was focused solely on Jordan. They were absolutely spellbound. It was absurd. Nothing was happening. Why—

  And then he felt it.

  A sudden shift in the atmosphere. The fine hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. His heart began to speed up and he felt a strange kind of crackling in his fillings. A strange warmth suffused the air, displacing the air-conditioned chill in the space of maybe a second. He glanced at the others again, saw they were all feeling the same things. Kristen’s hands were clenched in tight fists at her sides. Her knuckles were a stark white. Her cheeks looked gaunt, the flesh stretched taut. It was then that Jake began to experience true terror. A terror of the unknown. He had written of this feeling in his books, but he knew now he’d gotten it all wrong. He had never fully conveyed how it could strip a man of his defenses and lay him bar
e. He was in the presence of something unnatural and dangerous. Something supernatural. Accepting the truth of this in his gut made him feel exquisitely vulnerable. Like he knew nothing and understood nothing. He hadn’t felt anything remotely like this since those childhood nights of crouching in a dark closet while his drunken parents screamed and threw things at each other. And even that had been a mere shadow of what he was feeling now.

  The hell of it was she hadn’t even done much yet.

  There’d been no genuine supernatural pyrotechnics of the sort he wrote about in his books. The kind of things he always pictured as rendered in cheesy CGI.

  As if sensing his thoughts, Jordan lifted her head and her eyes snapped open.

  They were red. Not just the pupil and the iris. Each eye…the whole fucking orb was red.

  And they were glowing, projecting a sinister light that lit up her whole face. Sinister because there was a strange darkness swirling in the midst of that fiery, unnatural light, a shifting, half-formed presence that suggested capering shadows and phantoms. It was like a glimpse of hell. She smiled and Jake sensed the same darkness in the expression. He was starting to think maybe the boys had gotten it all wrong. This girl was the real threat, not Trey’s punk girlfriend. He glanced at them and saw awestruck expressions he figured must mirror his own.

  Then Jordan lifted her hands and aimed her outstretched fingers at him.

  Jake gulped.

  Maybe the time had come to make a run for it.

  Before he could act a field of unnatural energy enveloped him. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t open his mouth. Every inch of his flesh tingled in a way that was almost pleasant. Waves of blue-white electricity rolled over his body. Then she lifted her hands higher and he began to float.

  Even as it was happening he thought, This is not possible.

  The top of his head touching the ceiling seemed to suggest otherwise, though. He looked down at the others staring up at him and felt for a flashing moment like a man in the midst of a particularly weird dream. It was tempting to believe that. The problem with it was he’d never felt so alive and real than he felt in this moment.

  And in the very next moment the unnatural energy suffusing the room’s atmosphere simply turned off, as if someone had thrown a switch.

  Jake gasped and dropped.

  Kristen screamed.

  His rear end hit the floor. Hard. A jagged spike of pain shot up his spine as he rolled over. Then Kristen was at his side, her fluttering hand on his back as she alternately cursed Jordan and begged him to tell her he was all right. In a moment he realized he was okay, except for the lingering pain caused by his awkward landing. Nothing was broken. He was intact. Well, his body was. His mind felt as if it might fly into a million pieces any second now. He got up muttering assurances to Kristen.

  He looked at Jordan. She looked normal again.

  Then he looked at each of the boys. Both looked stunned.

  Jake shook his head.

  He settled into the recliner again and was silent for a long moment.

  Then he said, “Well, fuck me.”

  Jordan bit down on a smile. “Told you.”

  “That you did. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Sorry I made fun of you.”

  She looked sheepish now. Almost shy. She looked at the floor. “It’s okay.”

  Jake grunted. “No. It’s a long fucking way from okay.” He slapped his knees and stood again. He put an arm around Kristen, felt the live-wire thrum of her body. “We’re taking this party to the kitchen. I need a drink like never before. And then I want to hear your story in detail. Every fucking bit of it. Including why you think I can do anything about your problem. Got it?”

  He waited a beat.

  Nods and half-mumbled words of assent followed.

  Jake led them into the kitchen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  After wasting perhaps fifteen minutes debating how he should dispose of the bodies stinking up his garage, Raymond Slater realized the only sensible course of action was to do nothing. There was no reason to spend hours digging more big holes in his backyard. No point in carting both bodies out to some remote backwoods spot for dumping. It would only make him feel grubby, like the kind of banal serial killers he’d seen on A&E true crime shows. Besides, he would almost certainly be dead himself by the end of the day. He wouldn’t be around to sweat police inquiries.

  He slammed shut the trunk of his Lexus, sealing off forever the sight of Cindy’s horribly mutilated body. He covered Penelope’s corpse with a tarp and shoved it under the Lexus.

  Good enough.

  Someone would discover the bodies in the coming days. And not just the bodies here in the garage. The authorities would find the mound of freshly turned earth in his backyard. They would dig up Patricia. He would be branded a psychotic murderer by the media. His daughter would spend the rest of her life hating him and cursing his name. But that would be fine. At least she would be alive. He no longer really believed hitmen would be dispatched to her university the instant he deviated from Lamia’s instructions for the day.

  Two reasons.

  For one thing, this was the day of the Harvest. The day when he was to call for a special assembly of all students at two P.M.

  Except that he had gone against her will.

  He wouldn’t be there to call that special assembly. Hours had passed. It was early afternoon now. He suspected Lamia would have a fallback plan in place. Someone else in the school’s administrative staff would summon the students to the auditorium at two.

  But he hadn’t done it, by God.

  That was something, at least.

  The other thing was the deal clincher. The thing that mattered to him more than anything else. Josefina. She was out of it now. She would be okay regardless of what happened in Rockville this afternoon. He knew this because he’d talked to her only moments earlier. Seated behind the wheel of Patricia’s Jaguar, he stared at the cell phone in his right hand and resisted the urge to hit redial. He badly wanted to hear his only child’s voice one more time, even though it would mean again interrupting the impromptu adventure she’d set out on this morning. Turned out she wasn’t even at the school, having blown off the day’s classes to head up to Niagara Falls with her boyfriend. They wouldn’t return until the next day. And by then it would all be over. She was safe. That knowledge alone was enough to make the decision for him. He flipped the cell phone shut and dropped it in the cup holder. Josefina Slater had talked to her father for the last time.

  Let her have one last good day, he thought. I owe her that much. One more carefree day of youth in the company of a cute boy. This will be my gift to you, Jo. My very last gift.

  If he called her again, his voice might crack.

  She would sense something was wrong.

  So, no. It wasn’t an option.

  As he drove to the school, Raymond gripped the Jag’s steering wheel and cried quietly for a few moments. It was over fast. He wouldn’t allow himself the fleeting comfort of an emotional surrender. Time was running out. The hour of truth was almost at hand. He wiped the tears from his eyes and stared through the windshield. Soon he was parked at the far edge of the staff parking lot at Rockville High School. The school day was still in full swing, so the lot was mostly full. The auditorium was over on the other side of the main building. The lot on that side was packed tight with student-owned vehicles. His immediate problem was figuring out how to get from here to there without having to walk all the way around the school in full view of anyone who might be looking through any of the many classroom windows. The sight of the school’s principal crossing the school grounds would not alarm the vast majority of potential witnesses. Most would not even be aware of his absence today. But there was a strong chance that at least a few of those prying eyes would belong to members of Lamia’s insidious cult. He couldn’t risk being intercepted before he had a chance to take his shot (literally) at putting an end to Lamia’s evil scheme.

 
; So he was stuck.

  He thumped the steering wheel. “Damn it all. What do I do? Christ, what do I do?”

  He sat there stewing in frustration a while longer, intensely aware of the seconds and minutes ticking by, time rushing forward in a relentless tide toward the appointed hour. The forceful knock on the window made him gasp and jump in his seat. Flashing memories of this morning’s disastrous encounter with Cindy Wells zipped through his head. His head snapped to the left and he saw the face of Carter Brown, a member of the school’s security staff, peering down at him. Brown’s expression was neutral, but Raymond nonetheless glimpsed a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.

  Raymond’s heart raced.

  He felt paralyzed, temporarily incapable of logical thought or action. It was very much the way he’d felt when Penelope had come bursting into his garage. The security guard’s eyes narrowed and his features fell into a jowly frown. Instinct guided Raymond’s hand to the power-window button. He pressed the switch and the window whirred down.

  Brown tugged at his broad black belt, raised his sagging gray uniform jeans. “Afternoon, Mr. Slater. Any kind of problem here? Saw you banging on that steering wheel and got a mite worried.”

  Raymond forced a smile. It was difficult and he was sure the expression was just a grotesque parody of mirth. “No problem. I, uh…just realized I left something I need at home. My, uh…”

  He trailed off because he realized Brown was looking past him now, at the long white box on the passenger seat.

  The box containing the Mossberg pump-action shotgun.

  The box clearly labeled MOSSBERG, adorned with a picture of a Mossberg pump-action shotgun.

  Hell.

  Brown’s eyes flicked from the box back to Raymond’s face. They locked gazes for a moment that seemed to last years. Then Brown reached for the radio clipped to his belt. Raymond’s stomach did a slow, agonizing roll as he realized there was only one way out of this. He reached into his coat, pulled out the Glock, and aimed it at Brown’s large belly.