The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  DeVilbiss followed Simon's eyes downward. He looked calmly at the wound area. But then he turned and saw the size of the red trail, and his eyes went wide with horror. He dropped the broom handle and grabbed hold of the steel cabinet, to keep himself from falling. Laboriously, he lowered himself to the floor. The side of the metal cabinet where his dark trousers had touched was beaded in scarlet. DeVilbiss grabbed his left pantleg with both hands and ripped it open at the crotch, exposing his wound. A spray of blood spurted from it with each beat of his heart. He pressed his hand hard to the spot, but it continued to seep through his fingers. He looked up at Simon and gave out a tiny, bitter laugh.

  "I had a bad feeling about you all along," he said. His jaw hung slack as he gasped for air, like a fish out of water.

  "I must have hit your femoral artery," Simon said quietly. "Nothing can stop the bleeding."

  "A tourniquet… high on my leg?"

  "The wound's mostly in your torso. It wouldn't help."

  DeVilbiss's amber eyes flashed up at Simon. His jaw regained its tension. "They took out the healing factor. But my body must have residual strength." He lifted his hand for a moment. The blood spurted as vigorously as before. "It will staunch soon. It must!" He looked suddenly again at Simon. "You have to save me."

  "What?"

  "We're on the same side, dammit!" He gestured at the trail of blood. "This proves it."

  "I… don't…"

  DeVilbiss inclined himself urgently toward Simon. "You saw what the reverend translated."

  "Yes."

  "Then you read about the demons who control me. The landlords of Hell?"

  "Yes, but-"

  "I'm their unwilling slave." His words tumbled out now. "I don't just drink blood to live. They supplied me with a powder that kept me young and invincible. As long as I obeyed them."

  Simon's brow unwrinkled. "The glass jars in the kitchen."

  "Exactly. They've discovered my treachery and abandoned me. The last delivery had no invulnerability." He touched the scar on the back of his jaw. "Your friend, the reverend, gave me this. Shot me with a silver-coated bullet. I thought the superstition must be right, but silver had nothing to do with it. My infernal lords took the invulnerability factor out. You must understand. This proves I'm no longer on their side." He groped into his pants pocket. "But I've got good powder… in my car." He held up the keys. "Get it for me!"

  Simon stood his ground. He couldn't push from his mind the images of Tommy Wheeler, Professor Gerstadt, and Willy Spencer.

  Reading Simon's face, DeVilbiss clawed himself up to a standing position. He took two steps toward the exit and fell. He crawled several yards through his blood, until he was forced to accept the futility of escaping the room. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

  "Where's Frederika?" Simon demanded.

  DeVilbiss laughed. "You should worry about yourself. Forget the scrolls and the girl. Run as fast and as far as you can, and hide until the scrolls are destroyed."

  "I can't let that happen. If you're really on my side, tell me what I need to do to survive."

  "After you've murdered me? Give me a better reason."

  Only DeVilbiss's lips moved. His body was stretched out as if on a bier, with one hand at his side, the other still pressed to the bleeding wound. His eyes fixed, unblinking, on Simon; his chest barely rose and fell. Looking at this man who appeared dead, who by all rights should have died centuries before, Simon had difficulty framing his reply.

  "Revenge, then."

  "What will I care about revenge in half an hour?"

  Simon dropped his arms impotently against his side. "That's all I can do for you."

  DeVilbiss's eyebrows rose slightly, and a strange look of calm came to him. "Perhaps not. You realize what the scrolls are worth to mankind."

  "Yes."

  "So, you've appointed yourself their guardian, little man. If that's the case, then you must remove them from here and have them translated. Very few people possess such skills. Every one of them will be watched." DeVilbiss sat up with effort and tore off his turtle-neck.

  "Tell me where Frederika is before you pass out! You don't have much time."

  "I… am the expert at bloodletting," Vincent growled. "I will inform you when my time has come. Now listen!" He ripped open the Velcro fasteners that held the bulletproof vest in place, at the same time muttering, "Useless thing. You'll need to travel and to leave no trace with credit cards. I have money in the trunk of my rented car." He took the key chain from around his neck. "And I… I kept diaries. They'll tell you about how I killed, and my powers, so you'll be prepared to face others like me. Also… what I learned about the Dark Forces." DeVilbiss's eyelids fluttered briefly. "My current diary is also in the car trunk. It's… in code… based on that day's headline of the most important newspaper in the… the country where I was at the time. You understand?"

  Simon nodded vigorously, wanting the man to impart as much as possible.

  "You're smart; you'll figure it out. You see, one key is same as yours. Reverend's… to the security system. The others are to safe deposit boxes. Amalgamated Eurobanque and Credit Banque de Suisse, both in Zurich. Code numbers are engraved on the keys. You can learn to forge my signature from… my passport. It's also in… car trunk."

  Simon was aware of the continuous growth of the blood pool around DeVilbiss. He watched anxiously as the man's eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled upward. "Stay with me!" he shouted.

  DeVilbiss jerked alert.

  "It will take time to get your diaries and read them," Simon said. "Tell me the demons' weaknesses!"

  "Can't be in light."

  "That's in the scrolls. What else?"

  DeVilbiss shook his head. "Don't know."

  "What? After centuries? Maybe I should just run."

  "No!" DeVilbiss thrust the keys outward.

  Simon made no effort to take them.

  "Fool. Don't you realize you have no choice? Your only salvation is to get the scrolls published and believed. As long… as you are one of the few who know what they contain, you have a… death sentence on your head. You must act." He pushed the keys the full length of his reach.

  Simon took them with a wary snatch.

  DeVilbiss lay back, into his blood. "Good."

  "Why should this mean so much to you?"

  A sly grin curled DeVilbiss's bluish lips. "Because part of me will still be immortal. If you succeed in passing this gospel on, it will be through my help. My memory… will live on… blessed… like St. Francis. Like Schweitzer. And He will forgive."

  The apparent non sequitur convinced Simon that DeVilbiss's brain was becoming oxygen-starved. "Where is Frederika?" he asked, urgently.

  "Do you know the last rites?"

  Simon humored the bizarre question. "No. I'm Protestant."

  "It's all right. Just witness this." Forcing his eyelids open but staring at nothing, he began mumbling Latin rapidly to himself.

  Simon refrained from asking how this servant of Satan not only believed in God but also knew a sacrament of the Catholic church from memory. It would all have to be pieced together, once he, Frederika, and the scrolls were safe. He dug into his pocket and handed his newly purchased cross to Vincent, who seemed grateful to receive it. Vincent clutched it to his chest. His lips barely moved; his face had become the color of paraffin.

  "Vincent." Simon knelt and fixed the dying man's eyes with his. "It's time. Tell me where Frederika is."

  DeVilbiss's head lolled back and forth slowly. "Too late to save her. She's been sentenced… like me and you. When I don't return with the scrolls, they'll kill her. If they let her go, she'd remember too much, even if someone… broke my hypnotic spell."

  "Where is she?"

  Vincent looked abruptly alarmed, and Simon thought he had felt his final pain. Instead, DeVilbiss said, "Your old girlfriend. I tied her up in her house. Left her back door open so she could be rescued."

  "Fine. I'll s
ee that she's safe. Where's Frederika?"

  "So cold," Vincent murmured, now trembling all over. "This is what they all felt." He lifted his hand from the large wound. The spurting had stopped; only the faintest welling of blood remained.

  "Frederika," Simon insisted.

  Vincent sighed. "The basement… of the house."

  "The house you rented?"

  Vincent nodded.

  "What words will release her from your hypnosis?"

  Vincent struggled to recall. " 'Your… your lost teddy bear.' But don't go inside without the police. She's doomed. You will be, too, if you go alone." His hand rolled off his stomach onto the floor. "My death… my own fault. Hope… turned me human again.

  Compassion is not weakness, as long as He cares. His mercy will save… even me." A spasm shook his chest. He looked directly at Simon. "I told you I knew when." His breath came out softly, once. His chest stopped moving.

  Simon put his hand to the white neck and felt for a pulse. DeVilbiss was as cold as the marble floor. Simon reached up and closed the fixed eyes. He wiped the blood on the turtleneck and looked around, thinking hard. Wincing at the ghoulish act, he checked DeVilbiss's pants pocket and found a wallet. Then, patting his own coat to be sure of the spotlight, and checking his pants for his knife, he moved toward the side door. He wrestled the liquid nitrogen tank through the ruined gate and set it in the corridor. Incredibly, though the center of the gate lay in little pieces all over the floor, the alarm buttons continued to glow as if the system still offered protection. Simon stepped through, closed the doors and locked them. Security, when they finally did come by on their rounds, would only make sure the knobs of the outer doors wouldn't turn; if left on the floor, DeVilbiss's corpse would not be discovered until the day after Christmas. Switching on the spotlight, Simon hurried down the back staircase and out the loading dock into the welcome Christmas Eve night. He started to run at full speed, headed for DeVilbiss's duplex, only three bocks away.

  Simon had an image of how DeVilbiss's demonic controllers would kill Frederika: another gas explosion, which would cremate her and also eliminate every trace of DeVilbiss's presence. Perhaps the house was already filled with gas. He saw no sign of the police and was unwilling to lose any time in summoning them. His feet churned on in his own version of supernormal speed. He reached the house whooping for air but still pushed himself down the alleyway, looking in vain for a basement window. He recalled none from his previous night's visit. For several seconds he agonized over the thought that both front and back doors might be boobytrapped. Rejecting normal entry, he vaulted over the back porch rail and kicked in a kitchen windowpane, routing out the remaining shards with his spotlight. He thumbed the light on (afraid that even the tripping of an electrical switch would blow the house apart) and played it around the room, making the space midday bright. While he caught his breath, he let the light skim slowly over the counter-top. Caught in its beam were the twin glass jars he had seen on his last visit, one empty but for a glimmering yellow powder residue, the other almost filled. A thin trail of the powder ran away from the jar across the Formica, glowing eerily in the light. He swung the beam to a grouping of table and two chairs in the center of the room. On the table sat a glass, a spoon, and what looked to Simon like a small, crumpled pile of woman's underwear. He sniffed the air, smelled no trace of gas, and climbed cautiously inside. His spotlight fell on the basement door. Around the doorknob hung a piece of string and, at the bottom of its loop, an old-fashioned key.

  Simon pulled the knife from his pocket, removed it from his key ring and opened it. He inched toward the basement door, swinging the spotlight back and forth in a searching pattern. As he came around the table, he saw DeVilbiss's doll, lying on the floor on its side with one arm under it and the other behind at an awkward angle, as if its owner had hurled it there in a rage. The spotlight caught one open and unblinking eye, which shone as wetly as a living eye. Simon flashed the beam along the hallway, then to the right, into the empty dining room. He continued toward the basement door. As he reached for the knob, he heard a small noise from nearby. His head jerked around. He played the light into every corner. Nothing moved. And then he looked down on the floor. The French clown now lay on its back, with its trailing arm out to its side. The arm that had been hidden was now partially exposed. The tiny hand held tight to something that looked like a piece of wire. Simon told himself that his footsteps must have shaken over the precariously balanced doll. He moved closer, shining the light on the mannequin. The thin object in its hand glowed with the reflection of a red crystalline powder coating.

  Simon leapt onto the closer chair and then to the tabletop. He swung the spotlight back down to the floor. The doll had disappeared.

  "Shit!" Simon cried. If a biography of magic, a translation of ancient scrolls, and a former member of the Undead had not just convinced him of the supernatural, he would have bent to examine the doll and gotten an ice pick in the throat. DeVilbiss had not wound it up for the British magicians, had not helped it do its amazing computations. The thing had a life of its own and was even quicker than its supposed master had been. Simon had not left it unlit for more than three seconds. Now it had disappeared without a sound, on tiny leather soles.

  Simon shone the light all around the kitchen and down the length of the hall. He had no idea what manner of poison was in the red powder on the ice pick, but he was sure the homunculus needed only to scratch him. Simon threw his beam fleetingly on the utensil rack that hung on the wall above the stove, to reassure his memory of the tools there. He bent swiftly and scooped from the tabletop the glass and the woman's underwear. He wrapped the material lightly around the glass and dropped the bundle over the edge of the table, far enough out so that he could see it land. As it fell he caught the fleetest flash of red-coated metal, appearing and then disappearing quickly back under the table.

  Simon hefted the knife in his hand. Even twenty years back, quite a few Ohio boys still mastered the art of knife throwing; in his neighborhood, Simon had been mumblety-peg king. Finding its center of gravity, he took the blade between his thumb and forefinger. He circled the edge of the table several times with the light beam, then fixed it on the chair on the side nearest the back door. His left foot struck out, sending the chair skittering against the stove. He circled the table again with the light and inched farther and farther toward the hallway, until he felt the table starting to tip. Screaming his most blood-curdling Indian war cry, he backed to the edge of the table, rode it down as it tilted and gave it a final shove as it struck the floor. He stumbled for an instant against the second chair, but found his balance and rushed to the table. The clown lay on its back, still clutching the slender ice pick, its shining eyes fixed on Simon, its painted smile wicked. Without hesitation, Simon flung his knife at the clown's chest. Incredibly, the doll lurched to the side before the knife reached it, but the flowing material of its costume was pinned by the blade, just above the elbow of the hand that held the pick. Simon threw aside the table. As he stumbled toward the utensil rack, the doll swung itself over, stretching with its opposite hand to wrap its delicate fingers around the poison-laden weapon. Simon ripped the steel meat fork from its hook, took it in both hands, dropped to his knees and drove the fork down with all his might, piercing the doll between its shoulder blades. He leaned his full weight onto the fork, willing its points into the floor's ancient linoleum.

  The doll uttered a shriek like an electric guitar at full volume. Simon fell backward and watched it, transfixed. For several moments its feet and hands beat the floor. Then it stopped dead. Absolutely silent. Much as DeVilbiss had after he had been speared. Again, Simon refused to believe his opponent could be stopped so easily. Whatever it was, it was certainly not merely a thing of porcelain, glass, wood, and cloth. And certainly not of flesh and blood. He snatched up the chair and swung it over his shoulder, not willing to wait for a twitch before he continued to destroy its clown's form. Before his arms swung down, a red
light burst from the wound. Smoke began curling up around the fork's tines. Simon dropped the chair, grabbed the still-lit spotlight and retreated toward the basement door. Working blindly with his fingers, his eyes riveted on the smoking, glowing doll, he fitted the key into the door, unlocked it and swung it open. A tongue of orange-red flame shot out of the doll's back, enveloping the fork in a conflagration that looked as if it must start from below floor level, perhaps from the depths of hell itself. As each second passed the tongue of fire widened, consuming more and more of the doll.

  Simon flipped on the basement light and hurtled down the stairs, stuffing the precious spotlight lens-side-up in his coat pocket.

  Frederika was not in the front area. He threw open the door to the back room and found her alive. She stood on tiptoes but bore most of her weight on her wrists, which were bound by a pair of sturdy-looking chromed handcuffs that had been slung over a water pipe. She looked sedated, but when she saw him, her forlorn face showed recognition.

  Simon examined the handcuff lock. He pulled DeVilbiss's keys out of his coat and searched desperately for one with a perfectly circular tip. Neither those from DeVilbiss's chain nor from his pocket conformed.

  "Frederika, you've got to help me," Simon said, taking her jaw in his hand and aligning her eyes with his. "Where are the keys-"

  "Can't help," she said. "Must stay here."

  Simon would rather have had Frederika hypnotically drugged until he got her out of the house, but he understood that she would not cooperate until released from DeVilbiss's spell.

  "Frederika, listen. I've found… your lost teddy bear."

  For a moment, she seemed not to have heard. Then her eyes relit with intelligence.

  "I've found your lost teddy bear," Simon repeated. "And now I've come to take you home."

  "Home, yes," Frederika said.

  A sudden racket of objects being thrown around echoed from upstairs. Frederika looked up. Simon forced her face to focus again on him.

  "Where's the key to these handcuffs?"

  "I… I don't know."