The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  The noises continued and grew louder.

  "Shit, shit!" Simon swore, dashing to the workbench.

  "Have got to get loose," Frederika said. She yanked down on the handcuffs.

  "That won't do any-"

  Simon stopped in mid-sentence. Despite being on tiptoe and having no leverage, Frederika was bending the water pipe and drawing its strong fasteners out of the dry wood. He watched in amazement as she pulled again, and several links of the handcuffs thinned and lengthened. She pulled once more, and the water pipe burst at the joint nearest her. Cold water gushed in a steady stream onto the floor. Mastering his amazement, Simon helped her guide the handcuffs off the open pipe. Once she had her arms in front of her, she crooked her elbows and finished the job of bursting the links that joined the cuffs. Her legs buckled. Simon caught her in mid-fall and scooped her into his arms.

  "Time to go," he said, kicking open the door and turning the corner to the basement stairs. Even before he looked up, he knew the battle had not ended. The kitchen was filled with a hellish red glow.

  And then the frame of the door at the top of the stairs was filled. The figure was the epitome of every race's and tribe's timeless incarnation of evil. It had the size and shape of a man, but there the resemblance ended. Its legs were spindly, backward-kneed and ended in cloven feet. The upper appendages were thin and tipped with curving claws. Behind the wedge-shaped torso rose what looked to be wings, and below it hung a lancet-tipped tail, which whipped back and forth. The head was supported by a long, thickly corded neck. Its face thrust forward into a snout, nostrils little more than gaping black holes and teeth triangular and three rows deep. Its eight eyes shone like backlit rubies. In its left hand it held a pitchforklike instrument. All of it, including the pitchfork, was surrounded by a translucent aura of unholy scarlet.

  Simon turned Frederika's face into his chest as he watched the thing descend slowly. It moved as if it was burdened by an unaccustomed gravity. With each movement, its breath escaped metallically.

  "What's that?" Frederika asked, as Simon retreated toward the backroom door.

  "Something's after us," he said huskily, amazed that his voice worked at all.

  "Some thing?"

  Simon set her down and slammed the door shut.

  "You know the demons the grimoires describe?"

  Frederika gasped and backed from the door. She looked suddenly more alert.

  The door had no lock. Simon rolled a barrel in front of it. "Help me barricade this until I can figure out what to do!"

  Simon moved a heavy dining room chair and pinned its back under the doorknob, turned and saw Frederika carrying its maple dining table as if it were a jewelry box. She rammed it forward into the pile, compacting everything in front.

  "Did I bring it here?" Frederika agonized, listening to the descending footsteps on the stairs.

  Simon shook his head. "It was all DeVilbiss's doing. He had you in a trance, and I…"

  Simon's sentence trailed off as he searched for a potent means of protecting them. He recalled something from the scrolls about creatures that were "at sea" on the earth-the very reason they had created vampires. He could hear the approaching demon's breathing, but the red glow did not yet show under the door. He whirled around and studied the workbench filled with tools.

  Frederika was oblivious to Simon's staring, busying herself with piling the last of the room's big items against the door.

  Simon strode to the workbench, through the expanding pool of water cascading from the burst pipe. He picked up an old hatchet and a pair of rubber gloves and took them to the house's master service panel. It was a relatively new box, with circuit breakers instead of fuses. Out of it ran the 110-volt line, encased in only plastic, and the 220 line, shielded in steel cable.

  From the opposite side of the door hissed a new sound, like a welder's torch being ignited. Frederika backed toward the workbench. Simon tugged the gloves on, took the hatchet in both hands and struck the 220-volt cable with all his might, just above the service panel.

  The hollow-core door exploded into a forest of slivers. Frederika gave a yelp, and Simon saw that a large splinter had pierced her upper arm.

  "I'm all right," she said, gesturing with her good arm for him to return to his business.

  Hunks of burning wood floating on the water and the fire that licked off sections of door still clinging to the hinges masked the blue light arcing from the cable's exposed wires. Simon grabbed the cable as high up as he could and tugged it toward the door.

  "I can help!" Frederika cried out.

  Before Simon could reply, a beam of red energy streaked through the ruined doorway, blowing much of the barricade backward and bathing it in fire. The old boxes and dry furniture took flame quickly. Simon doubted now that the creature would bother to advance into the burning deathtrap, but he tugged the cable in the direction of the doorway anyway. It resisted tenaciously, fastened securely to the concrete wall in several places by metal U clamps. Frederika dashed across the little room.

  "Don't!" Simon warned. "You might be elec-"

  Two things stopped Simon cold. The first was the sudden transformation of the room's color as the red beam drew closer. The second was Frederika's left hand curling around the cable sheathing with no apparent harm. Simon removed his hands from the cable to find a better purchase. The next thing he knew, he lay sprawled on the floor. He looked up and realized Frederika had shoved him away. Before he could exclaim, she ripped the cable from the wall with one fierce tug and swung around to face the door.

  The thing Vincent DeVilbiss had dubbed Nick filled the door frame in terrible satanic splendor. Simon lay near the workbench, in its direct line of vision. It pointed its pitchfork at his head.

  Frederika whipped the cable around and threw it toward the creature. The cable's mooring on the wall stopped it a good foot short of the demon's red aura, but it fell into the pool of water filling the floor around the doorway. The exposed wires popped and sizzled, making the water's surface dance with hot blue arcs. The demon's eight eyes bulged; so did the protective glow surrounding it. Then the aura collapsed with a sudden whumph, like an enormous vacuum-sealed jar being opened. Jittering from the pulse of the electricity, the creature nevertheless managed to straighten and to point its weapon at Simon. No beam came from it. A furious noise issued from the demon's throat, like a thundering express train. Although it stood as if at home amid the flame, smoke, and sparks, it dropped its weapon and clasped its claws to its throat. Its pink color was quickly draining to white. Its wings fanned out behind, until their tips touched the ceiling. Suddenly, they beat downward, and the demon disappeared.

  The creature's beam had blown much of the flaming barricade directly under the broken water pipe. As flames were extinguished a great mass of smoke rose, filling the space under the low ceiling.

  While Simon crawled toward the doorway, Frederika bent low and used a plank of wood to draw the wires from the water and onto dry concrete. She reached behind her, grabbed Simon's wrist, and led him in a duck-walk to the basement stairs.

  Coughing to rid their lungs of smoke, they entered the kitchen. Tendrils of smoke escaped from the air vents, around the floor moldings, and out of the floor cabinets. To Simon's profound relief, he saw the ashes of the doll lying on the linoleum where he had left it. As Simon raced out the rear entry alcove, Frederika darted back briefly to grab her purse from the countertop. Despite his lead, she passed him before he had reached the neighboring yard. She had to turn around and wait for him on the sidewalk of the next street.

  For a time, they both concentrated on catching their breaths and filling their lungs with clean air. Then Frederika said, "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "I'm sure I owe you my life. What are you doing here?"

  "It's a long story."

  "I believe you. I hope you know all of it. Was that thing from hell?"

  "I think so."

  "And Vincent brought it here?" />
  "Indirectly. He-"

  "Why?"

  Simon realized Frederika was shivering. "Is your coat back in the house?"

  Frederika's eyes blinked as the question shoved DeVilbiss and the demon from her thoughts and gained sudden primacy. "No. It's… in… my car. I left it there this afternoon."

  "You were hypnotized then," Simon said, stripping off his coat.

  "Yes. But I can remember. I can remember it all. My God."

  As Simon moved forward to drape the coat around Frederika's shoulders, he looked at her upper arm. The spike of wood was gone; so was the wound it had made.

  "Did DeVilbiss make you take any powder?"

  "Yes. What was it for?"

  "Look at your arm."

  Frederika gasped.

  Simon finished wrapping the coat around her. "It's for strength, speed, and invulnerability. And for eternal life. But the price is that it'll turn you into a vampire."

  If he had been in her place, Simon was sure he'd have fainted at the words. Frederika stood firmly, eyes darting in thought.

  A rowdy little band of carolers turned onto the block, singing "Joy to the World." Simon quickly stripped off the rubber gloves and shoved them into his coat pocket, then curled his arm familiarly around Frederika's waist and started toward them at a slow pace, through the snowflakes that had begun falling.

  "Ah, young love," the eldest man among the carolers gushed as they passed. "Merry Christmas!"

  Simon and Frederika returned the wish. When they were out of earshot and under the glow of a streetlight, Frederika turned around.

  "Where are you going?" Simon asked, grabbing her by the arm.

  "Back into the house."

  "Are you crazy? That thing might come back."

  Frederika looked calmly at Simon. "The powder's in there."

  "But it's no good. That jar was poisoned or something. No invulnerability in it. That's how I was able to kill DeVilbiss."

  At last Frederika seemed stunned by news. "He's dead."

  "Yes."

  Her expression hardened. "Good."

  Frederika's sangfroid combined with the winter night cold to thoroughly chill Simon. He rubbed his upper arms vigorously. "Do you know if your car's nearby?"

  "Yes. It's two blocks that way."

  Simon gestured for Frederika to take the lead. "Let's get to someplace warm. I'll start this long story from the beginning."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  December 25

  Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.

  -H. L. Mencken

  "One last time about the diaries. They're in Switzerland and tell about his whole life."

  Frederika had the point of her pen poised over a note-filled paper napkin. Six similar napkins had been laid neatly to her left. She looked alert, exactly the opposite of the way Simon felt. The clock on the diner wall read one minute past midnight.

  "I don't know if it's his whole life," Simon answered, wearily. "And they're in code."

  "But he gave you the key to the code."

  "He did. But I'm not sure I understood him completely."

  Even though the hour was late, at least Frederika was calm and no longer grilling him about his actions. When he had unfolded the first third of the tale, speaking of DeVilbiss's true nature, the messages of the scrolls, the murders, and how Frederika had gotten enmeshed in the vampire's quest, she had digested the information with appropriate awe and not interrupted too often with questions. During the second part-when Simon explained how he had chanced on her in the cemetery and purposely involved himself in her life-she remained outwardly calm, but he could feel the upset below her quiet surface. Once he had gotten that far, there was nothing to be done but to plunge on to his discoveries of her past, of her father's behavior and her mother's flight. His conversations with Neil Yoskin had prepared him to expect Frederika to flee as well, unwilling to hear anything bad about her father. To his amazement, she sat and listened, signaling that she heard him only by an occasional tear. The revelation that her mother lived and that Frederika would see her within hours produced the deepest shock of the night, but this, too, she weathered. And with little comment. Too relieved to have gotten through his entire confession, Simon did not press her for her feelings regarding Alice Niederjohn. At the same time he felt great disappointment at no explosion of emotion, no cathartic release that promised to improve her day-to-day mood and behavior. Frederika instead refocused on the scrolls and on the undeniably urgent matter of their survival.

  The hours flew by, from early evening to midnight, with dinner a partial punctuation and then two pots of coffee to fortify them and provide an excuse to keep the booth. Finally, at two minutes past midnight, Frederika set down her pen and stared at Simon.

  "You got into all this for a hot fudge sundae."

  "No," Simon answered. "For a life. It was past time for me to get off the dime."

  "But you couldn't have hoped for this. How many times have you cursed spotting me in that cemetery?"

  "Never. I've been waiting years to find something really important to do. By chance, accident, or fate, you gave me that opportunity. I may regret it in an hour… or a day… but I don't think so. DeVilbiss said, 'You must act.' Well, I will."

  "We will," Frederika corrected.

  The waitress, who had been hovering conspicuously since a quarter to twelve, approached the booth, check in hand.

  "Listen, we're closing."

  Simon glanced around the diner and, for the first time, noticed that he and Frederika were the only customers left.

  "I thought this was an all-night diner," Frederika said.

  "Not on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, honey. We got lives, too." The waitress struggled with her smile.

  "Sorry," Simon said.

  Frederika opened her purse and peeled a fifty-dollar bill from a thick roll of currency. "Here, keep the change."

  "And a Merry Christmas to you!" the waitress said, pocketing the bill and the check, grabbing the cups and coffee pot and rushing away.

  "How much money have you got there?" Simon asked.

  "A little over twenty-two hundred."

  "Don't be throwing it around. We're gonna need it." He rose from the booth and plucked Frederika's coat from the hook.

  "Let's talk more about that," she said. "Our plan's not good enough yet to beat the Devil."

  Simon sighed at her words. She grabbed her napkin notes and began putting them in order as they left the diner.

  "I'm sorry, but I can't think more right now," he said. "I slept very little last night, and today's… yesterday's exhausted me."

  "But we can't go home in the dark. Vincent warned you about others of his kind probably being around. I still need to think." They reached Frederika's car. "I can do it while I drive. The passenger seat tilts back. Do you think you can sleep with all that caffeine in you?"

  "I'll try."

  ***

  When Simon woke, the dashboard clock read 6:58. He might have slept longer, but for the cold. The car was parked with the engine turned off. The fog of his exhalation coated the windshield. Frederika studied him from the driver's seat. Her expression was placid; he thought he read the trace of a smile on her lips.

  "Finished thinking?" he asked.

  "For now. I got stuck on a question: Why would you go through so much trouble for me? I was a stranger. If somebody kept lying to me and trying to raise the dead, I'd have run the other way."

  Simon thought about telling the whole truth, but after her unexpected reactions to his news the previous night, he said, "I told you; my life needed change. Helping you was the most positive thing I could do at the moment."

  Frederika stared hard at him another moment, then turned the key in the ignition. "I've made some improvements in our plan. You drive; I'll tell you while we head back to Princeton."

  When they reached Park Place, dawn was fanning pinkly over t
he horizon. Simon drove past the duplex without slowing.

  "The water must have put out the fire," Frederika speculated. The duplex bore no signs of smoke or fire damage.

  "Then why isn't water pouring out around the foundation?" Simon asked. "And why didn't the neighbors hear or smell anything last night? Very strange."

  "Drive around the corner and let me out," Frederika said. Simon had agreed that her speed and strength would serve better in case of danger. She already had in her hand DeVilbiss's ring of keys. "Since the place is still standing, maybe I should risk going inside. That demon's pitchfork could still be there. What a fantastic bit-"

  "No!" Simon said emphatically. "Stick with the plan. We stay in the light."

  "You're right." "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" played on the radio as Frederika got out of the car and walked back around the corner of Moore Street onto Park. A layer of dark clouds was dispersing. Simon watched the dashboard clock flash off two minutes. He put the car in gear and drove around the corner to where Frederika stood, beside the beat-up Escort. The rented car's trunk lid was up. He noted that no one else stood on the street; he saw no faces peering from windows. Frederika slammed down the lid. Her free hand held a large, black gym bag. He stopped the car, and she climbed in.

  "Paydirt," Frederika said. "The diary, a couple thousand dollars, in several currencies, three passports-British, Swiss, and Italian-and a set of little tools." She held one up.

  "For lock picking."

  "And an extra bonus." Frederika produced a filled brown glass jar. "Good powder."

  Simon thought of dinner the previous night. "Do you always eat hamburgers rare?"

  "Not always," she said.

  Simon steered into a parking space on a side street near Firestone Library.

  "Now for the real fun," Frederika said. She stepped briskly from the car, striding with purpose toward the library. Simon locked the car and followed.

  At the loading dock they encountered one of the security guards, a man who recognized them both. Simon explained about the inert gases that needed tending, and the man nodded them through without hesitation. They sealed themselves behind the privacy of Rare Manuscripts' doors and walked down the narrow fenced-in corridor into the room proper. Both their attentions fixed on the floor near the special cases.