Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  “You think he knows that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you think he’d be aware of his vulnerability? That he’d attempt to make sure he’s covered himself before those police are taken off the case?”

  Curran frowned. “I don’t know how he could.”

  “There haven’t been any deaths for a while now.”

  “Not since Simpson, no.”

  Lauren nodded. “Maybe there’s one left. Maybe there’s one last person he’s got to get to make the vat as complete as it can be. From there, he’d go ahead and try to start the resurrection ceremony.”

  “You think he’ll kill again soon?”

  “Yes,” said Lauren. “Before the deadline’s over.”

  Curran sighed. “Part of me feels like he’s been playing us for fools ever since he came to town.”

  Lauren’s voice was quiet. “Maybe even earlier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe this whole thing – everything, has been carefully planned out from the start.”

  “But according to the journals, he’s been wandering for eons gathering the evil that was fragmented.”

  “But maybe it’s only been in the last few years that things have accelerated. Maybe it’s only been since then that he’s used people.”

  Curran’s mind whirled. “You think he knew what he was doing when his kills came to my attention way back in the Bureau?”

  “Seems like he’s been aware of you for some time now.”

  “But for what reason? Why me? What good would it do to have me feel so compelled to track him? What purpose would it serve?”

  “Everything that’s happened since then, Steve.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Darius might even know things before we do.”

  Curran pushed her hand away. “I feel like a damned fool. Playing right into his hands. You know how much he’s cost me in terms of my life and my career?”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t!” Curran’s voice rose. “You don’t know what he’s done to me, what he’s cost me. All of this – “ His voice trailed off. “It’s all for nothing now.”

  “No,” said Lauren. “It’s not all for nothing. There’s still chance we can stop him.”

  “Right,” said Curran. “We’ll just keep planning what we’ve got planned. That’ll make him quiver with fear.”

  “You don’t have to be so sarcastic.”

  “Sarcastic? Lauren, I’m struggling to keep my head above water here. I’ve been tracking this freaker for years and now you tell me he’s probably been playing me for a damned fool ever since I started. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Curran rolled the car to a stop. “Forget it.” He unlocked the doors. Lauren started to get out. She turned and looked at him.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Curran sighed. “Yeah, well, truth hurts I guess.”

  “Steve-“

  “I’ll call you later.”

  She looked down. “Okay.”

  Curran waited for her to get out of the car and then peeled out. He didn’t even glance back in his rearview mirror. If he had, he might have seen Lauren looking at him with tears in her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lauren couldn’t sleep.

  Outside her window, the November winds roiled and battered the house with twigs, branches, and flecks of dust. She burrowed deeper under the covers and wished she could simply go to sleep and wake up when this was all over.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything to Steve. The fact was, she decided, Darius seemed to always be one step ahead of them. Steve needed to hear what I told him, if only to try and motivate him enough to take action before Darius leads us all again.

  Still…she frowned. She hadn’t really counted on making him angry. He probably hates me now, she thought.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  The real problem was something else.

  She shifted. Lauren already knew she was physically attracted to Curran. It was obvious, at least within the internal machinations of her body. She sensed how she changed when he was around.

  When Curran wasn’t around, Lauren felt calm. She felt at peace with the rest of her world. Everything seemed clear, well-defined. She could see her goal of becoming a nun. It seemed as easy as taking a breath.

  But when Curran was around, his presence seemed to carbonize her hormones. Lauren found herself blushing like some naïve schoolgirl if he looked at her too long.

  And that smile of his.

  She sighed.

  Her commitment to the Church in some ways felt like it was wavering. And she didn’t want that to happen. She had chosen her destiny and this was the course she wanted to stick with.

  She hoped.

  The problem was, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on convincing herself the Church was her destiny. Equally troubling, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on denying her fascination for Curran.

  Working for the Church would have its own rewards, of course. And they’d probably be far greater than anything she might find outside of the Church. But still, something deep within the recesses of her mind, nagged at her.

  Almost doubt.

  Almost.

  Lauren frowned. Was she really cut out for a life in the Church? Could she hack it? She sighed. Of course she could. Hadn’t she already invested so much time and energy into it? Hadn’t this become her path to salvation? Or at least closure on all the bad things that had happened to her in the past?

  It had to be somewhere, after all. Lauren couldn’t keep going through life scared of commitment, scared of men, scared of intimate contact. She just couldn’t. Her brother had scarred her badly doing what he did. That couldn’t be changed.

  But her outlook on life could. Her perspective on how she would live the rest of her existence, that could be changed.

  And entering the Church was the best way she knew how to get things back the way they needed to be.

  Falling in love might be another, she finally conceded.

  But there were no guarantees down that path.

  What if she fell in love with a man who eventually spurned her? What if he dumped her hard after she fell for him and she found herself right back where she was now?

  Lauren didn’t think she could stand that again.

  She turned over in bed, aware of how suddenly hot she felt. She kicked off a layer of comforters. A little bit of cool air refreshed her.

  Maybe that’s what she wanted most out of her life: a guarantee.

  No guarantees in life, she thought with a small grin. Wasn’t that the old saying? Except death and taxes.

  She wondered what Curran was doing.

  She wondered how he slept at night.

  Was he curled up in a fetal position or flat on his back.

  Lauren pictured him flat on his back, one arm behind his head under a pillow. He’d be naked except for a pair of jockey shorts. She could see in her mind’s eye the wavy ridges marking his abdominal muscles, the sweeping fullness of his pectoral muscles, the peaks along his arms.

  She sighed again.

  Curran.

  Did he love her?

  She shook her head. Probably not. After all, she’d given him little reason to develop his affection into anything beyond lust. She felt a twinge of heartache when she realized she might have been too cruel to him during their time together.

  But he desired her.

  She knew that.

  All it took was a single glance at the way his eyes traveled over her body. They way they locked with her own eyes. It almost seemed like he could dilate his pupils at will, opening and closing them as if drawing her into the black hole of his desire.

  Lauren could feel it.

  It was almost tangible.

  She wondered what it would be like to touch Curran.
What it would be like to trace her fingers, her hands…even her tongue, along the ridges and valleys of his muscle bellies. She imagined herself entwined with him. Legs over legs, arms over arms, heads bent in a passionate kiss.

  She moaned.

  And caught herself.

  She yanked her eyes open and looked around, as if afraid someone might hear her. Father Jim lived here alone for the most part, but occasionally, a visiting priest would come into town and spend the night.

  She thought of Darius.

  Could he find her here? Could her enter this holy dwelling?

  She reached out of her bed, fumbling for the drawer in the oak nightstand, and slid the drawer open.

  Her fingers felt for the cold steel barrel of the small caliber handgun inside. It slid into her hand like it had been molded to it. She gripped it tightly, feeling the knurled grips, the solid weight, and the lethality even in its compactness.

  She felt better.

  Even though she hated guns.

  She exhaled, sighing as the cool interior of the room suddenly made her a little cold. She lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night outside.

  More wind.

  It had felt more like a breezy New England March than a November these last few days. Every time she caught a snippet of weather, the newscasters reminded her that this was the windiest November on record.

  A sudden scratch at the window made her jump.

  She eased slowly out of bed and then ripped the curtains open, aiming the gun – ready to shoot.

  A twisted branch of wet maple scored a line across the glass.

  She let the curtain fall back and sighed.

  Too jumpy, Lauren.

  She hopped back into bed and drew the covers up again. The gun lay against her breast. Each time she breathed, her breast grew and she became acutely aware of the gun’s weight.

  She turned over and slid the gun back into the drawer, closing it slowly.

  No sense shooting herself in the middle of the night by accident. Not while there was still a lot of work to be done.

  After all, they still had to catch the Soul Eater.

  Lauren flopped back over on her back. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what Darius might be doing. In her mind’s eye she seemed to float away, she saw herself almost flying out of her body, out into the night.

  But the cold didn’t seem to affect her. She floated on gusts of wind, danced over rooftops and spires, and zoomed out over the city.

  Then she saw the house in Chestnut Hill.

  It seemed so vivid. The entire scene.

  She could see the police car. Just one now. She could see Kwon still wide-awake in his car drumming in time to some music on the radio.

  The steps to Darius’ house lay before her. She looked down and saw her bare feet begin moving up them.

  She got to the door.

  And frowned.

  Lauren tried walking through the door and found herself inside the house.

  Walking into darkness.

  Stairs ahead of her seemed to draw her up them, so she obeyed. Her feet padded noiselessly on the treads. No creaks betrayed her weight.

  In her mind, Lauren wondered if she was really there or simply dreaming the entire thing.

  She continued climbing the steps.

  At the top, she turned. She could go either left or right.

  But she felt drawn right.

  A door stood open a crack and she eased herself inside.

  There.

  Darius.

  In his bed.

  Moaning.

  She frowned. What was he doing?

  She moved closer. His mouth moved but his voice sounded different. She stooped closer, trying hard to hear what he was saying.

  She stood back.

  Darius wasn’t speaking English.

  The words coming out of his mouth didn’t seem as though he was speaking at all. An ancient flavor tinged the words that rolled off his tongue. They sounded like some sort of evil liturgy.

  Lauren grimaced as Darius flipped over in his bed.

  It reminded her of a possession she had once seen a documentary on. Or even the scene from the Exorcist.

  Inside, she struggled to stay where she was. Part of her, a big part of her, wanted to come back to the quiet solitude and relative peace of her bedroom. It was safe there.

  Safer than where she stood right now.

  But a bigger part of her remained curious about Darius.

  What was going on with him?

  What was he saying?

  The rhythmic speech continued. Low and almost monotonous.

  Lauren looked around Darius’ room. She could see some dumbbells in the darkness. She could see the sparse items lining the top of his bureau.

  In the background, Darius continued to speak.

  She turned her attention back at him.

  Almost with the kind of interest a researcher might have for a test subject, she appraised him. This man, this demon, could well bring about the ruin of the entire planet. He could be responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.

  He could unleash the greatest evil the world had ever known.

  Objectively, she marveled at his relative obscurity. After all, Darius wasn’t a giant specimen of a man. He was ordinary. Gray almost.

  Therein lay the danger.

  Being ordinary, no one would suspect him of anything. Lauren remembered something a self-defense instructor once told her. “When something comes from nothing, it’s always a big surprise.”

  She nodded in the darkness. Something from nothing.

  Subjectively, Lauren wanted to see Darius struck down. She wanted him to fail in his quest. Who knew what kind of punishment he might get for failing to free his master?

  I wish I could have brought my gun with me, she thought.

  And then again, she felt herself unsure of whether this was just a dream.

  Or if she was really in Darius’ bedroom.

  He kept speaking.

  The words were lower now. The same degree of monotony kept them from being audible beyond what sounded like grunting.

  Lauren frowned. What was he saying?

  She sat on the edge of his bed before she realized she’d done it. She glanced down but saw no evidence that her weight had caused any disturbance. In fact, she didn’t even seem to be registering on his mattress at all.

  Just another astral traveler, she thought.

  And then that notion felt weird to her as well.

  She leaned closer to Darius’ mouth. She could hear the words, almost feel the heat of his breath tickling the fine hairs along her neck and ear.

  Whatever language he was speaking, Lauren had never heard it before. Not that that was so unusual, she didn’t have much aptitude for languages.

  The words coming out of Darius’ mouth died down to a mere whisper. It sounded like a hiss in the night. Like some slimy snake had slithered out his hole.

  Only to retreat again.

  She shuddered as the hissing continued. It crept up her back, all along her spine and ran down her arms in goosebumps. There was evil in what Darius spoke.

  Pure evil.

  Lauren felt sure that she might even be hearing the voice of his master speaking to his servant as he slept.

  Were they instructions for the next victim?

  She tried once more to lean in close and hear what Darius was saying. If she could pick out a name, perhaps. Maybe then they could stop Darius from killing the man or woman chosen to die.

  As she leaned closer, the voice suddenly stopped.

  Lauren turned her head.

  Darius’ eyes were wide open.

  Looking at her.

  And then as he smiled there in the darkness, his mouth opened and more words came out.

  “Hello Lauren.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Lauren jerked upright.

/>   Back in her own bed.

  She heaved, trying to flush oxygen into her lungs. Sweat ran down her forehead. The sheets around her felt damp all the way down in between her legs.

  She ran a hand over her forehead and it came away soaking wet.

  Lauren dropped her head into her hands and breathed slowly for a few more minutes. My god, she thought, what happened to me?

  Had she really traveled out of her body? Had she seen Darius in his bed? Had he known she was there?

  “He spoke to me,” she said in the quiet of her bedroom.

  And the fear she’d felt at that moment when he did suddenly came crashing back into her chest, seizing her like some icy death grip. She shivered, gathering the sheets up around her. Even her sweat felt cold now.

  Outside the winds shooshed past her window. The branches scraped the glass. Even the shadows in her room seemed longer than they had…she glanced at her alarm clock.

  2:45

  My God, she thought, did it really take me so long to dream this?

  Was it even a dream?

  She reached over the bed and found the phone. Shakily, she pushed the buttons for Curran’s home number.

  It rang.

  And rang.

  “Please answer,” she said quietly.

  Another three rings - just as she was getting ready to hang up - someone picked up on the other end.

  “Yeah?”

  “Steve?”

  The voice became alert. “Lauren. Yeah. What’s up? What time is it?”

  “Almost three.”

  “God.” He paused. “You okay?”

  “I…I had a bad dream.”

  “A bad dream? What, like a nightmare?”

  “It felt real enough.”

  Curran cleared his throat. “I’ve had some of those lately myself.”

  “Steve. I think it might have been.”

  “Explain that to me. I’m a little groggy.”

  “I dreamed I was in Darius’ house. Walking around. I walked upstairs.” She hesitated. “I saw him, Steve.”

  “You saw him? Darius?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He was asleep. In his bed.”

  “Describe his bedroom to me.”

  “Not much to describe. It’s not very nicely decorated. A bed, some exercise weights, a dresser I think, that’s about it.”