Further, some black and faintly smoking chemical was leaking out from beneath the door.
George swore under his breath as he stomped the rest of the way toward the new barn. If whoever had replaced his shed had also spilled chemicals, there would be hell to pay, and he’d have the devil himself come to collect. Damage to his equipment and tools, not to mention the potential fire and safety hazards.
George threw open the door. Inside, the darkness lay draped over everything. He squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The chemical smell was stronger inside, emanating from the black pool whose center remained hidden in shadow. The opening of the door had sent a fresh wave of the stuff out over the threshold, but there was just enough floor to sidestep it, and George moved cautiously inside.
A silhouetted movement caught his eye, slithering along a shelf behind a dark mannequin shape across from him.
Not only had someone spilled chemicals, but he or she had let a goddam snake into the barn as well. What a fucking start to his morning. He’d have a mouthful of complaints for Ernie that evening.
He felt around in the dark for the Maglite he kept near the door and wasn’t all that surprised to find it had been moved. His fingers, rough from work, grazed cans with sticky curves and tools with their sharp sides facing out like claws. He nicked his middle finger and swore into the darkness.
A faint whirring from the black beyond replied. It wasn’t quite mechanical nor entirely organic but somewhere uncomfortably in between.
He resumed his tactile search for the flashlight. He brushed against something soft and a little sweaty and instinctively yanked his hand back, wiped it on his shirt, and moved down a shelf. Finally, he felt the familiar plastic handle, and his hand closed around it. At the same time, something closed around his wrist, something thin but strong with thorny protrusions. In the dark, George imagined some type of vine, and he wasn’t scared so much as disgusted. Again, he pulled, wresting both wrist and flashlight free of the vine’s grasp, and clicked on the light.
What he saw on the shelf did resemble a vine down to jagged leaves, but it, like the barn, was the wrong color, the wrong proportions. It made him think of veins and arteries turned inside out, sprouting serrated leaf-teeth, and George was sure that if he hadn’t pulled his hand back when he did, he might have lost it entirely.
Once he found the weed killer, that monstrosity would be the first thing in the new barn to go.
A noise behind him made him jump, and he whirled around, the Maglite arcing its beam across a series of things that wouldn’t quite register in his brain. The light landed on the mannequin shape he’d seen from before. However, the rays of light seemed to pour around the thing rather than shine on it. It remained velvety black, like a three-dimensional cutout of a female figure rather than a solid form. It wasn’t like any mannequin he’d ever seen, but it wasn’t as much a concern as the snake that might have thumped against it.
But then the mannequin opened its eyes. These were all-white orbs devoid of irises or pupils. The cataract paleness provided the only contrast in the face, and although there was something suggestively blind about them, George shivered when those eyes turned on him.
“What the fuck are you?”
A cold hand touched his, and although the figure stood too far away to have reached him, he was sure it was hers. George edged away from those eyes, wishing they’d look away, wishing they’d watch anything else than his retreat, and when the figure took a step forward, he broke into a run.
Just before the threshold, he stepped in the black stuff oozing out the barn door, and before he could look down, the stuff had reached up and coiled around his leg to the upper thigh. It tripped him, and he went down hard, splashing some of that black ichor up into his face. He felt it at the corner of his eye and just under his nose, a sour chemical smell that burned cold on his skin. Without thinking, his tongue darted out to clear it from his lips and he cringed at the bitter taste.
He tried to pull himself up but found he couldn’t. The burning cold around his thigh felt solid, like an iron band, and now the stuff had begun to wash over his hands.
George Evers was not a man given easily over to panic, but he let out a moan followed by a few curses born of fear. Panic was for the weak, panic was the extra few seconds or minutes that meant the difference between death and life. George tried to analyze the situation instead. He had to figure out what was happening and thereby how to make it stop. He tried to wrench his hands free of the thick inkiness, but they wouldn’t budge. The bands around his leg had begun to squeeze and he thought he heard the sound of denim tearing. He could hear movement behind him in the darkness. Not only was that mannequin thing likely coming up from behind him, but from the sound of it, she was bringing a lot of clinking, slithering, ground-slapping friends.
He knew he was in trouble, and that made it hard to hold on to the rationalizing part of his brain. The smell beneath him had to mean the chemicals in the blackness were burning his skin. He felt no real pain, but that suggested the nerve endings might already be damaged. Chemicals could do funny things to human tissue—sad, awful, funny things.
It didn’t cross his mind that the damage might be internal instead, caused by inhalants perhaps, until the sharp rumbling in his gut was echoed by odd ripples from underneath his skin. It wasn’t a sensation like his skin crawling, he decided. Rather, it felt like ropy, snaking things were swimming through the lower levels of his skin, slicing through connective tissue and slinking over muscle, flaying him from inside. In a moment, the skin suit he wore would be loose from his body, interchangeable with any other.
It didn’t stop at his skin, though; all over, the complex machinery of bones and organs, tissue and systems, was becoming unhinged and detached. The pain was still minimal, but the terrible certainty that he was being dismantled like a junk lawn mower was enough to push him over panic’s edge. He managed to mutter a few words like, “Stop! No! I’m losing myself,” before falling face-first into the black pool sending a curious, probing tide out onto the grass.
* * * *
When the Viper found Maisie, she was sitting on one of the decorative benches about a half acre away from the shed. A little dandelion-dotted hill stood between the two, and the Viper didn’t see her until he had crested it. The faint golden gold from that patch of scales stood out in the darkness. He could see her head was bowed, and as he sauntered within talking distance, he saw she was reading a book.
“How can you see the words?” he asked.
“The words are not for seeing,” she said without looking up. “Henry knows the story—he has since childhood. So I know it, too. Of course, I know what the symbols between the folds of the sentences mean, as well.”
The Viper didn’t reply. The mystical middle ground between what they all had been and what they endeavored to be was Maisie’s domain. He was comfortable just providing the muscle. He looked out over the hospital grounds, his gaze following the way the moonlight dipped and glanced off the rolling landscape. It appeared empty at the moment. Usually, wherever Maisie was, Edgar and Orrin were in tow, and beyond them, the teeming chaos of the Others. They were not precision instruments like his mist Wraiths; rather, they were the beasts and berserkers of Ayteilu, Henry’s childish and unchecked Id and emotions, and Edgar and Orrin could barely keep track of them, let alone control them.
“Where are the boys?”
“Waiting. Is it working?”
The Viper lit a smoke. A cloud passed in front of the moon, and for a moment, only the light of her scales and the burning ember of his cigarette were visible.
“It is,” he said, exhaling a plume into the darkness. “And better than expected.”
“So it’s possible, then. To make total substantiation, I mean.” Maisie closed the book.
The Viper couldn’t see the rest of her face and couldn’t tell from her voice if her words were an
affirmation or a need for confirmation. “Well, it works with the little ones; I can tell you that much. I see no reason why it shouldn’t work for us.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “You keep taking care of Henry, make him strong, and yeah, I’d say it’s more than possible.”
“Thank you.” She stood and the glow turned to him. She had a youngish face, too much like a child’s to be more than innocently endearing, but the look in her eyes was hard, knowing, and very, very old. “Time is limited. I’m glad to see things are on schedule.”
The Viper shrugged. He wanted her to be pleased, but there were a lot of factors yet to be accounted for. He was about to offer his thoughts on the subject when she broke in.
“A woman came today. Dishy. Scarred. Your type, no doubt.”
The Viper flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. “To see Henry?”
“No. To see Ben. But we can add her to the list of people Ben has told about us. The thing is, she isn’t like the other humans, though. She is different. Not a problem yet, but more likely to be one in the future than the staff here.”
“And Ben?”
“Taken care of. I didn’t tell the others. Henry doesn’t need to know.”
“So what next?”
“The old brick buildings that they use for file archives and storage nowadays, followed by the electrical station at the back gate and those small residential buildings for staff in the east acres. We should hit those last two at about the same time. Then we’ll come around to the northern acres last with the patient cemetery, and then the hospital will be surrounded, and we can move inward.”
The Viper considered all of that for a moment, then said, “We can’t enter their dead.”
“We don’t need to,” Maisie replied lightly. “We can use the headstones, any wood or bones, that sort of thing. Substance, Viper. We simply need substance.”
He nodded. “And Henry?”
Her half-shadowed smile was small and hard. “I’ll take care of him. I have always taken care of him.”
She turned and left him then without another word. She had, evidently, grown tired with his asking questions, and they all had work to do.
They were going to strangle this hospital and everyone in it, and bring it all to the ground.
Chapter 4
Kathy Ryan had filed her report on the Shining Light of Imnamoun, sparse as it was, both with the clients who had hired her and with the Network, the occult investigation group she was affiliated with, before she’d finished her second tumbler of vodka.
She’d been frustrated with how light it was—she wanted clients to get the most for the considerable money they paid her—but she wasn’t going to pad the report. She wrote it up and sent it through all the proper channels to the Institute of Holistic Research. Part of that name, she thought, was intentionally misleading, since so far as she could tell, they didn’t work with holistic medicine at all. They certainly did their research, though. The background check on the Institute turned up extensive monitoring of industries and technologies capable of intentionally or unintentionally opening doorways to other dimensions, an objective she could certainly get behind.
The Institute heads had followed her work in Zarephath, Pennsylvania, not too long ago and in Colby, Connecticut, before that, and wanted whatever she could gather on the Shining Light of Imnamoun and its beliefs. It was the Institute’s opinion that they might just rival the Hand of the Black Stars for Cult Most Likely to Destroy the World. What she’d wanted—which was also what her employers wanted—was the nuance of ritual and history of their pantheon that all the police and hospital reports on the cult and its reprogrammed members wouldn’t contain. She was still annoyed that Ben Hadley had given her so little on them. It was a matter of pride in her work, she supposed. It was personal, though, too. It was a roundabout way to learn what made Toby and people like him tick. To protect against a monster, one had to know the monster, for one thing, but it was more than that. She needed to know a little more about what kind of world (or worlds) had so irrevocably changed her brother, what gods he found so important that he’d embraced blood sacrifices and destruction over family to appease them. She wanted to learn what had killed off all there was to love in him. If that also fell in line with securing future investigative work with the Institute, well, that might be beneficial both financially and in terms of information exchange.
As far as Kathy could tell, the Institute’s goals were more or less in line with the Network’s. Both the Institute and the Network were interested in keeping tabs on CERN, MK Ossium, the Antarctic Initiative, and other projects globally. The Network sought to keep any one group with power or money from turning such projects into potentially world- or universe-destroying weapons. The Institute’s stance on the weapons aspect was a little too vague for Kathy’s comfort, but her contacts in the Network had given the okay.
She never trusted all of her clients implicitly, but she trusted the Network.
Its origins stretched back through history to 1529 at least, and though their membership was small, their files were extensive and complete, their work was important, and their reach far. Nowadays they called themselves the Network, though Kathy understood there had been other names throughout the centuries. She didn’t see it as taking up a mantle or even being part of a legacy, though. To Kathy, there was no other place to go and no other area of work she could excel at. She would never have consciously admitted that some of those ones and zeros on the other end of the internet were friends, but they recognized her worth. They valued the experience and insight that the baggage of her past gave her. To them, she wasn’t some old drunk’s scarred-up daughter or some serial killer’s sister. To them, she was an asset, and she liked that.
What she didn’t like was the nagging doubt that, like a small tide, had begun to wash farther into her thoughts, spilling over her annoyance with something more pressing. It was this Henry Banks. She’d included the information about him and his influence on Ben Hadley as a footnote in both reports, but she suspected the recipients of those reports might feel like she did. There was more to Henry’s imaginary friends than hallucination; Kathy couldn’t prove it, but she knew it in her gut. She knew it.
Reece Teagan, who had been watching what he called “real football” on TV, kept glancing at her. Even from the periphery of her vision, she saw his curiosity and mild concern as he sipped his beer.
“Trouble at work, love? You look knackered. The crazies do a number on you today?” Despite years in the States, his Irish accent was as strong as ever. She found it sexy; he often teased her that he could have looked like a blind cobbler’s thumb and still have won her over just by talking. To Kathy, he was the pretty one in the relationship, though she honestly believed him when he said she was beautiful and that he barely even noticed her scar.
Of course, there was more to their relationship than the physical. Kathy had to remind herself of that sometimes, when she found herself wondering what a guy like Reece ever saw in her. He had told her that he had been in love with her for a long time. He accepted her antisocial quirks, her vodka drinking, what was left of her horrible family life, and her staunch refusal to bear children. He knew about her work and accepted that, too, and also knew when not to ask questions about it. She knew she was not an easy woman to love, but he found ways, and she was grateful for that. At first, she had loved him for that. Over time, she had come to find so many more things about him to love—his gentle way of probing for answers without making her feel defensive or afraid, his way of looking at the world, how much fun he had playing with dogs and children. Reece was a good man and a damned good detective, and if there was ever a person to inspire her work, a reason to keep the world safe from the myriad monsters of untold dimensions, it was Reece Teagan.
She wheeled around on her rolling chair, pushing off from the desk toward him on the couch. “It’s just something this guy said. I guess
it’s not really related to the case or anything, but I can’t get it out of my head.”
“What did he say?”
“He mentioned a guy, Henry Banks. Said this guy had friends, imaginary friends that he didn’t believe were so imaginary. I’ve talked to a lot of crazies, and I think I know the difference between their delusions, no matter how strongly they believe in them, and when there’s something a little more. Something more in keeping with my line of work, you know?”
“And you think this bloke might have seen more than a hallucination?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then follow it up,” Reece said, and gulped the last of his beer. “Trust your gut.”
“You don’t think that’s nuts?”
He laughed, and the sound made her smile. “Of course not, love. Not given what you do, or what I’ve seen, which is only a small part of the bigger picture. Besides, if you’re wrong—if he’s just mad as a box of frogs, I mean—then no harm done. At least you can rest easy knowing you looked into it.”
She considered that a moment, then nodded. “You’re right.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss, then slid out of the chair and made her way to the bedroom. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Wait, what? Now? It’s almost half eight!” His protests were light, though. They both knew that once Kathy had an idea in her head, there was no stopping her.
Inside the Asylum Page 5