The Haunting Lessons: 1, 2, 3, 4, I Declare a Demon War (The Ghosts & Demons Series)

by Robert Chazz Chute

  “In the Choir Invisible,” Victor continued, “we strive for lasting heroics so our deaths will mean something. Our legacy is our immortality. We strive to live on that way, and not,” — Victor gestured to the sleeping ghost — “that way.”

  I thought of all those sad-faced specters lined up outside the cemetery fence at Holy Cross. “Sounds like a good goal.”

  “It is the highest goal. All else is vanity.”

  The dead man sitting at the table stirred but did not open his eyes. I jumped a little in fright. “I remind you,” he said, “I am here. And there, too, but I am listening.” His accent was British. “Victor? How can a man as fussy about his clothes as you are dare to complain of others’ vanity?”

  “Sorry, old friend. Tamara? This is Rory. He is an ally.”

  I hadn’t forgotten why I was there but it seemed everyone else had. “That’s all fine, but tonight I’m worried about — ”

  “Dr. Carl Brooks,” Rory said. “Born the bastard son of Todd Adams, nephew to Ada, who passed recently. Gone, but not forgotten.”

  “How did you know? Magic?”

  “Sam called me,” Victor said. It was his turn to hold up his cell phone and look smug.

  The Asian guy pulled a headphone away from one ear and said shyly, “I found the house in Queens. The one where you saw the bodies. Once we had an address, I got the street view of the house on Google maps so Rory could zero in on Carl’s evil emanations. I’m St. Charles, by the way. Before you ask, St. Charles is in Illinois.” He smiled. “But I am quite saintly.”

  I turned to Vlad. “Okay…translation?”

  “They are on it. Dr. Carl Brooks will not escape.”

  “Rory is our radar,” St. Charles said.

  “Radar that can’t sense evil without a map?”

  “There are too many evil emanations,” the dead man explained. “It is more difficult than you can fathom, paying attention to only one bad person. We are surrounded by bad people. However, I do try to keep an eye on everything to make sure things do not get out of hand, or too close. For instance, how did you sleep last night, Tamara Smythe of Iowa? You looked like you slept well.”

  “What are you? Rory the Pervert Ghost?”

  “He’s joking,” St. Charles said. “Rory’s a Casper. He’s a friendly ghost.”

  I looked to Vlad for confirmation. The big man nodded. “He is probably joking. With ghosts, it is harder to tell but my experience with Rory is that he is a gentleman.”

  “Well, that’s just awesome.”

  “I assure you,” Victor said, “you are precisely where you need to be and where you are needed. A great conflagration is coming and New York will be one of the first cities the enemy will attack.”

  “Okay,” I said. Of course, none of this was okay. Sam had talked about “the big picture” and told me I “didn’t know the half of it.” I still felt like I was lost in the dark. “So, what’s the plan to save the world from ghosts and serial killers?”

  Everyone froze and Rory opened his eyes to look at me. (He opened the foggy wisps that passed for his eyelids, actually. Rory had no eyes, just black pits. Still, they were pointed my way so I assumed he could see me.)

  “We aren’t in a war with ghosts, Tamara,” Vlad said. “Most move on and some don’t. Some are good and some are bad, just as they were when they were alive and human.”

  I was losing patience. “You keep talking about the Choir Invisible as your army. Who’s the enemy?”

  “They go by many names,” Victor said. “We call them the Darkness Visible.”

  I sighed. “Of course, you do.”

  Vlad bent to whisper in my ear. “Victor has a flair for the dramatic. Darkness Visible names the evil army trying to break through to our dimension from their hellscape dimension. They plan to take over the world and kill us all.”

  “Of course, they do.” I couldn’t help it. I did what Mama demanded I never do. I rolled my eyes.

  “Also, you should know, The Darkness Visible has nothing to do with the book about depression by William Styron,” Vlad hastened to add. “That would be ridiculous.”

  I looked from Vlad to St. Charles to Victor and finally to Rory. “If we aren’t busting ghosts, what are we doing?”

  “There are several races trying to cross dimensions,” St. Charles answered.

  “They are alien to us, even to my kind,” Rory said, “but we know they go by many names. Collectively, they call themselves the Ra. Their leader is Ba’al. When they have broken through the thin membrane between our world and theirs, Hell will return to Earth. It’s been here before, it will happen again.”

  “Ra was beaten back long ago when magic was mankind’s primary weapon. We can push them back and seal them off as we did before. We will find the right spells to cast, defend our world and divide the dimensions,” Victor vowed.

  “But the trouble is, a lot of that old knowledge has been lost,” St. Charles said. “I’m trying to find answers in my research, but it’s an uphill slog in slippery mud. I’m scanning the whole library online so we can find the solution again.” He gestured to the library shelves. “The answer is there somewhere.”

  I turned to Vlad, who I knew now, would speak plainly. He did not disappoint. “For lack of a better word, Miss Tamara, we are fighting demons.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Demons.”

  “Demons from a Hell dimension?”

  “That is correct.”

  “And the Choir Invisible’s job is to stop them from coming to New York, taking all our stuff and killing us?”

  “More specifically,” Victor said, “they want to eat us, but yes, that is our mission.”

  “Well…” I said, “sounds reasonable.”

  Rule 50: Don’t laugh. It could happen to you.

  24

  “Demons? Really?”

  “They may as well be,” Victor said. “Call them aliens if it makes you feel better, but most of them certainly look like depictions of demons from the ancient scrolls and holy books. I know this is a lot to absorb, but please, come with me. I’d like to show you something more and we have much to discuss.”

  “What about the man who almost killed me tonight?” I asked.

  Victor turned to the dead man. “Rory? An update, please?”

  “Dr. Brooks doesn’t want to go to jail, but he’s not running because he doesn’t want to lose his awful little house and his career. He’s digging under the house, furiously. I’m sure he plans to hide the evidence of his sins. He’ll be occupied for quite some time.”

  “We’ll see justice done, Tamara,” Victor said. “I promise.”

  As much as Vlad irritated me at first, I was nervous leaving the big guy’s side. His capacity for telling painful truths might alert me if Victor strayed into a lie. However, I followed Victor out of the library and left Vlad with St. Charles and Rory.

  Soon, Victor led me out of the library’s gloom to a high catwalk that led to a tall stone wall. Victor’s cane made a sharp metallic click every time he swung it. We walked along the top of the wall and, though it was dark, I guessed we were about four stories up. The wall was just wide enough for two people to stroll abreast. Shards of broken glass and crosses lined the brink.

  “This is our bailey,” Victor said. “It’s the outer wall of our little castle. One of New York’s first Roman Catholic churches once stood here and this rampart kept men out of the nunnery. That’s the legend. I think it’s true. It is our sanctuary from the war.”

  “No sentries on your castle wall?”

  Victor looked pleased. “That’s most unusual. People often see what’s in front of them but few think to ask what is missing.”

  “I watch a lot of Game of Thrones.”

  “What's that?”

  I thought of the armory and the Blade Room, stocked with so many swords.“It’s a show on HBO. It's kind of like your life, Victor. You’re just short one very short man and a lot of gratuitous nudity.”
r />   Victor used his cane to point to several security cameras as we passed them. The small cameras were tough to spot in the dark, hidden as they were in recessed pockets between stones.

  “These are our sentinels. You’ll find that, with security, we combine old and new magical practices, training and tactics. We have little to fear from demons here, at least for now. The coven reinforces the repelling spells each noon and midnight and whenever the moon is high and full. The enchantment shores up our defenses. Plus, this is holy ground. Keeps out most of the riffraff, except for Rory.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “He’s never fully here. He’s at your attacker’s house and here, too. Quantum physicists put an atom in two places at once in 1996. Rory’s been doing that feat for much longer. He’s one of the oldest ghosts I’ve met. He claims he came over on the Mayflower. Nonsense, probably, but even Vlad isn’t entirely sure when Rory’s joking or boasting.”

  I thought again of the dead man teasing me, asking how well I slept. I made a vow to myself to wear the long flannel pajamas to bed from now on.

  “I love our little castle,” Victor said. “I didn’t have much when I was a child so I became quite a hoarder. I always loved to stuff the wood box to overflowing and to stock up on groceries in case of a big storm.”

  “A storm’s coming, huh?”

  He nodded. “One of our seers predicts that one day there will be a great battle here and I will not survive it.”

  “That’s dumb,” I said, a little too fast to be respectful, but it had been a hard night and it didn’t look like it was going to get softer.

  “You don’t believe in seers?” he asked. “The one who predicted my death is banned from gambling in any casino anywhere in North America. She’s quite good.”

  “No, I mean that if you believe her, why aren’t you on a beach in the south of France? If she can really predict the future, couldn’t you avoid a lot of trouble and be somewhere else?”

  “If we run from Death, Death will find us on the road to Damascus. Death must be met.”

  “Why?”

  “From my reading, I’d say that’s one of the few constants across dimensions.”

  “So if the demons break through to our dimension — ”

  “Some already have, a few at a time.”

  “And why isn’t this on CNN?”

  “The PTB want to keep this quiet.”

  “The who?”

  “PTB. Powers That Be.”

  “Right. I knew that. Mama uses that phrase a lot, always around tax time.”

  “If we fail, the PTB are worried they won’t collect tax anymore. I don’t know what would cause more trouble,” Victor said. “News that we can be trapped between dimensions after death or that demons are breaking through and coming for our blood.”

  “Sam filled me in. The fear seems to be that if everyone knows the truth, consumers would be less likely to relax and whip out a credit card at Best Buy.”

  “Yes. Essentially. When it comes to capitalism versus demonic invasion — ”

  “Bet on demons,” I said.

  He chuckled. “No sense soft pedaling it. You understand what’s at stake.”

  “Riots in the streets.”

  “Things would look pretty grim unless you invested in evil demon futures.”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve done here, Victor? This whole place looks to me like a big investment in demon futures.”

  “I suppose it is. I like to think I’m an optimistic person, but the Keep suggests otherwise, doesn’t it?”

  “So why don’t you leave this to the PTB? You have a lot of nice toys and all, but, with respect, isn’t the power of the National Guard and Blackhawk helicopters going to be more to the point?”

  Victor laughed. “Those tools might come into play if there’s a big invasion, but I suspect that would be like bringing a Nerf bat to a knife fight. They do have a committee at the Pentagon in charge of the Development Group. They’re working on the problem, I assure you. However, most of the PTB are working on the interdimensionality science. It’s a tricky thing to discuss, even in closed meetings.”

  “Of course. Because it’s all too insane.”

  “That is the PTB’s weakness. Until they bring in a bunch of seers, witches, warlocks and monks, I don’t think the government forces will be packing the right sort of staff when Doomsday comes.”

  “What’s the Development Group?”

  “Most people know them as Seal Team Six. They call themselves the Development Group.”

  I paused. In the dim light, I looked into the old man’s eyes. I didn’t need Vlad with me to confirm my intuition. It was obvious now. “Mr. Fuentes, you’re a defense contractor.”

  His eyebrows shot high. Before he could lie, I warned him, “If I ask Vlad, he’ll tell me.”

  “It’s classified, but I will tell you the truth. Yes. A private interest such as ours gives the PTB plausible deniability if we lose operational security…or containment. How did you guess?”

  “Until a couple of days ago, I’ve never heard of you. I think it would take a billionaire to get this place going and run it. I’m sure you do very well, but a chain of funeral homes and an antiques shop couldn’t fund this.”

  “Sadly true.”

  “Tell me how you propose we stop the Darkness Visible.”

  Victor looked eager. “The membranes between dimensions are a physical barrier, but they are also a spiritual barrier. We’ve learned a lot from watching ghosts to discern how to deal with the Ra. It’s wrapped up in a lot of ancient magic that, frankly, I have a hard time picturing a bunch of young Marines wielding.”

  “Ghosts and demons exist on the same principles?”

  “Not always, but the demons need to cross energy bridges to get here. Demons share the same environment as our dead but not gone. We’ve been studying the commonalities, looking for a chink in the Ra’s armor. I’m convinced that, with the scrolls and books we’ve collected, we’ll sort out the enemy’s weaknesses.”

  “So sacred ground is something ghosts and demons don’t like?”

  “Most ghosts, except for Rory, of course, don’t feel comfortable on holy ground. The demons hate it, though we’ve seen them tolerate it. Holy ground to them is like…”

  “Playing death metal at full volume in a nursing home?”

  “Excellent example.”

  I was thinking of Brad. “If a ghost is stuck here, how do we help them move on?”

  “To kill a ghost, and by that I mean to make him or her move on to the next dimension, there are certainly things you can do. Those spirits who died in their sleep or through freezing, drowning or blood loss are sometimes nothing more than confused. They left this world but didn’t go all the way into the next. They died confused, so we simply tell them they are dead. When they understand they are lost and not where they are supposed to be, they vanish. It’s a beautiful way to help a lost spirit who doesn’t belong here anymore.”

  “Wow, so I should get a megaphone and tell all those ghosts loitering outside Holy Cross that they’re toast.”

  Victor shook his head. “If they are there, they already know they’re dead. Those tormented souls are aware of their circumstance and they desperately want to leave. We don’t understand why some of the dead stay. Ask Rory and he’ll tell you he has no idea why he’s still here. If a ghost is truly trapped here, we can only assume it’s because the order of the multiverse deems them unsuitable for the next level.”

  “How else do you get a ghost to move on?”

  “Bury a ghost in sacred ground, like a cemetery, and they’re off to places unknown, far from here in the next dimension.”

  “How do you bury a ghost? I’ve never seen one lie down.”

  “Toss a shovelful of consecrated earth at them. That will do the job. It won’t work if they are condemned to pine and moan outside a cemetery, though. Those spirits you saw outside of Holy Cross must be damned. Fortunately, the faces do change ov
er time, so some of them move on. We must assume they all move on eventually. We see no caveman ghosts wandering around. Some of the people I saw around Holy Cross Cemetery when I was a kid of twenty aren’t there anymore.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “You’ll mostly be concerned with battling demons,” Victor said. “Regular bullets don’t work on demons so well. You can annoy them and knock them down, but they often get back up and keep coming. We figured it out after losing some good people. To take down demons with guns, each round must be blessed individually. It’s a very time-consuming process.”

  “I saw lots of guns in the Keep’s armory.”

  “It’s not just demons who may choose to stand against us. I believe you found that out tonight with Dr. Brooks.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Ghosts used to be human, Tamara. As Vlad said, they can be as good or as bad as anyone. I think the boredom of their in-between existence drives many of them crazy. Bad ghosts used to be bad humans.”

  “You’re talking about shooting humans, though, aren’t you? When Armageddon comes.”

  “Didn’t you tell Sam to shoot a human just this evening?”

  “I did. I only did it because I didn’t think I had any choice.”

  “Everything we must face is against our will. Believe me, I’d prefer to deal with more mundane problems than the end of the world. I should be retired and publishing poetry, not readying for a war.”

  “I might have issues with killing humans. Tell me about the demons. That sounds like a video game I can get behind.”

  “The demons are so desperate to get out of Ra, they’re often like rabid dogs when they find their way to us. For them, you’ll need a sword. ”

  “Swords? Like Highlander? Do you have to cut their heads off to kill them?”

  “Any vital organ will do, though beheading is remarkably effective on all species we’ve encountered. However, only blessed steel works.”

  “Blessed. How do we know this?”

  “We have a copy of a scroll that is, at this moment, sitting in a vault under the Vatican. We tested the hypothesis. Blessed blades kill demons efficiently.”

  “Is the Choir Invisible a cult? Do I have to sell flowers at the airport for a while before I go up a level in the pyramid or something?”