by H. P. Bayne
“Because I can control possessions?”
“Because you do more than take them in. Whenever you do, whenever you carry the soul of another being inside you, you take in a piece of that spirit. You start to become them. You think you control them, but it’s an illusion. Over time, they will poison you, corrupt you, turn you into them. Do you know about the Spirit Caller?”
Sully knew who they meant, but he hoped to draw more information from them. “Who?”
Rhona took up the explanation. “I’ve been researching our family history, trying to learn how far back this evil goes. I believe I’ve traced its origins to a man who lived and died in the sixteen hundreds. His name was Thadeus Dule. He called himself the Spirit Caller.”
“By all accounts, he was what people might call a warlock or a necromancer,” Lorinda said. “He could control the dead, could draw in their ghosts to strengthen himself, to give himself unnatural power. Back then, being an executioner was a role few wanted. Not Thadeus. He revelled in it. He worked as a hangman. It’s where we came by the name Dule, you know. Dule trees were hanging trees, and Thadeus became so well known for his job that it became his surname.
“Everywhere he went, people knew and feared him. Because people knew another truth about him: Whenever he took a man’s life, he also took his soul. And these were evil men he was executing; each time he pulled in another of their souls, his own darkened with it. After a time, it wasn’t enough to wait for executions to feed the darkness inside him. He needed more. He started to kill others, people he believed possessed souls which could make his stronger. It became his undoing. Eventually, he was captured and put to death at the end of a rope, just as he’d done to so many others.”
It was the part of the story Sully had never fully understood. “If he was so powerful, why did he let them kill him? Why not fight them?”
“Because he knew something about death most don’t,” Lorinda said. “He didn’t fear it. He welcomed it. He knew as powerful as he was in life, he could find more in death. He could find immortality. He was getting older by then, and one account Rhona found suggested he was dying of some sort of illness. No doubt his intention was to find and possess another, healthier body, use it to exact the revenge he swore at the time of his execution. He found it first, we believe, in his biological grandson. The boy grew up and slaughtered an entire family. Years later, that man’s son went on to beat his wife to death. And so it goes. Nearly each generation contained a story about a Dule male who went bad, who turned to murder, often blaming it on sleepwalking, drunkenness or outright possession. All said they weren’t in control of themselves when they killed. And I believe it’s very likely true they weren’t in control. Thadeus was. He’s moved on down through the line, and he’s wormed his way into a male descendent at virtually every generation. We see the results: the deaths, the tragedy, the pain he’s wreaked. He won’t stop, and he won’t be stopped. Not unless we do it.”
“We thought the men we hired could do the job, but you proved too strong for them,” Rhona said. “When we learned you were still alive, we knew we had to act. They told us what you did, how you killed that man, how you threw them around the room like rag dolls. We knew then that you’d discovered Thadeus’s power inside you, that you had travelled far down the road toward becoming fully evil.”
“You went bad, just like we said you would,” Lorinda said.
“No, I’ve learned how to look after myself.”
Lorinda leaned forward. “And the man you killed? The one you put through the window? What does that tell you?”
“He died because you put him up to something he couldn’t handle. I feel shitty about what happened to him, but it was as much, if not more, your fault. I’m going to say this once. Leave me and the people I care about alone. I’m not a bad person. I never was. But keep pushing, lady, and I will show you exactly how bad I can get.”
“That seals it.” Lorinda peered up at Rhona. “Just as I told you, there are some things we need to do ourselves.”
The words proved a signal for Rhona, who stepped toward the back of her mother’s wheelchair and removed a container strung with thin, coloured wires from a bag slung over the handles. Sully had never seen a bomb in real life, hadn’t even known anyone who knew how to make one. If this wasn’t a bomb, it sure as hell looked like one.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“We knew we might need to make sacrifices,” Lorinda said. “We’re all prepared to die to protect the world from your evil. The Dule line dies with everyone in this room. There’s no one else left. The evil soul of Thadeus Dule may never die, but with no one left to inhabit, he’ll drift for a time. Eventually, though, the devil will find him and take him down to hell where he belongs.”
Lorinda peered over at the box in Rhona’s hand, and she touched it with near-reverence. “Fire purifies the soul. In the end, we all need it. We, too, have been forced to kill.” She smiled at Sully. “Blood belongs with blood, Sullivan. In life and in death. Now we’ll be together forever.”
Sully hadn’t seen it, the button on one side of the box. Didn’t see it until Rhona pressed it.
The hangman—Thadeus—sprang. Sully let him, the time for talk over. There was nothing left to do but die.
Or, if he could manage it, escape.
Thadeus pulled Ned’s attention to the nearest window, pushed outward with every iota of energy the entity possessed. Unfortunately for Greta, she stood in the way, and her body took a huge wallop as Ned’s energy forged an explosive path through both window and wall. Greta was blown from the house moments before Ned propelled Sully’s body through the same opening.
A deafening boom and a wall of heat shook Thadeus as he flew forward, impacting against a cushion of snow. His ears rang, and he once again revelled in the fact that here, taking up residence within this body, he was no longer restricted by the deafness that had plagued him in his former life. With the audible blow from the explosion, it seemed as if he was hearing the world through cotton, but he was hearing it nonetheless, and that was still remarkable to him.
He turned, looking back at the house. Flame tore through it, the hottest flames bursting from the spot he’d just flown from, the device in the women’s hands having eradicated much of the structure.
It had eradicated them too. He couldn’t see them, but could sense them, spirits freed from their bodies. He could only imagine their chagrin at discovering him still standing, still very much alive, despite their best attempts. From his pocket, he grabbed Sullivan’s gloves and slipped them over his cold hands.
He didn’t have long to rejoice in their failure. Though muted, he heard male voices coming from behind him. He spun. The trio of hitmen were running his way, guns drawn and aimed at him.
It ended now.
Thadeus picked up one of the two larger men and flung him inside the house, basking in the agonized screams that resulted. Already one of the others was preparing to fire his gun, and Thadeus turned next to him, spinning him so his aim shifted just as the bullet discharged—shifted to his larger accomplice. The bullet meant for Sullivan hammered into the forehead of the larger hitman, opening up his skull at the back and painting the stark white snow with a spattering of blood, brains and bone fragments.
One man remained—the leader—and he looked very much like he wished he was anywhere else as Thadeus closed the remaining distance to him.
The smaller man tried, brought the gun up, more terror in his eyes than murder. Thadeus used the poltergeist to shove the man’s gun arm back, watched as the gun was propelled out of his hand, lost to the snow somewhere behind him.
The man turned to watch it go, but only for a second. It was all he had before Thadeus grasped the man by the throat. The strength of a small army running through him, Thadeus lifted his enemy, watching the eyes as they bulged down at him.
“Couldn’t leave well enough alone,” he said. He’d eventually stopped being able to hear himself speak in his old life, and
he found he was fascinated by the sound of his own voice emerging from this descendent of his. His own Cockney accent, his own words, but from the voice of another.
The hitman’s mouth moved as if to speak, but with no ability to utter a word, he came off more closely resembling a suffocating fish, floundering on land.
Thadeus tilted his head to peer at him. “How many more like you? How many more want to send me to hell?”
No response resulted, which wasn’t a surprise given the circumstances.
“Question is, what should I do with you? I’d be well within my rights to kill you, but I’d do nothing but prove those witches right.” Mind made up, he flung the man down, watched as he scrambled away a few feet before collapsing in the snow and gasping for air.
“I’m not what they think,” Thadeus said. “I didn’t start off this way. I was given a job to do, and I did it. Hanging turned out to be the only thing I was good at. And I didn’t steal a soul that didn’t deserve it. Was it really so bad, what I did? In the end, I took only the lives of evil men, and I took only souls otherwise destined for hell. I killed killers and I stole from the devil himself. In the end, they killed me for it. Did I deserve it? Did I deserve to die for performing a service no one else had the strength to?”
He took a few steps forward, until he stood over the hitman. As if sensing the presence, the man turned from his stomach before dragging himself backward. Thadeus followed. One foot sank through the snow, to his knee. He thought up a new use for Ned, commanding the ghost to lift him, to hold him so he floated an inch above the snow. He saw the terror in the hitman’s eyes as he drifted toward him, booted toes scraping the snow. The hitman scrambled in reverse, but the snow finally betrayed him, sending him down within it close to a foot, far enough to make extrication a challenge.
“Leave me alone!” the man wailed. “Please! Just leave me alone!”
“And you’ll leave me alone, will you?”
“Yes! I won’t come near you! Never again! Please!”
Thadeus cocked his head as he regarded the man. “I don’t know.”
“Please! God, please!”
Thadeus laughed, the sound of it enough to chill even him. He expected his words to the man would rid him of some of the horror in his expression. “Hard to resist a beggar.” He considered how best to get out of this place, realized the vehicles were the only option. “Give me the keys.”
“I don’t have them.” The hitman pointed with a trembling hand to the bloody body in the snow, the one he’d been made to shoot. “He was driving.”
Thadeus peered over his shoulder to locate the spot, then returned his attention briefly to the still-living hitman. “It’s your lucky day. I’d suggest you celebrate by finding yourself a new occupation.”
He turned, using Ned to take him safely back across the deep snow, back toward the body. There, he leaned over the man, rifling his pockets until he felt what seemed to be the keys in question. He was straightening up, keyring in hand, when a gunshot sounded. The force from a bullet passed within a foot of his face.
He wheeled, turning eyes and full attention on the hitman. The man had crawled a few feet, had located the gun somewhere in the snow. He’d taken aim, had fixed Thadeus in his sights.
Thadeus sent Ned at him. The man’s gun hand shook badly, his eyes growing large in his head as he realized too late his error. Ned forced the man’s hand back. Back until the gun, clutched in fingers locked in place, aimed itself steadily at his own head.
“Guess it’s not your lucky day, after all,” Thadeus said.
“No!” the man yelled.
It proved to be his last word. His finger, under Ned’s influence, squeezed the trigger. His head exploded out the side, and Ned allowed him to crumple to the snow. A moment later, the man’s ghost stood next to his body, wide-eyed stare shifting from his own corpse to Thadeus.
“See?” Thadeus said. “Death’s not so bad.” He scanned the farmyard. The spirits of the two other hitmen were visible to him now, too, standing nearby, also dead by Thadeus’s will.
He considered what was best to do. In the old days, he would have drawn them in, devoured their souls and stolen their energy. But each soul came with its own memories, its own character, pieces of the person it had once belonged to. It could be a struggle, quieting them, finding himself amid the spiritual turmoil.
He had all the power he needed in Ned. And it just felt better. One spirit, one massive but single energy and consciousness. Ned’s past, if he had one, was lost to time. He’d stopped being a human spirit some time ago, was nothing now but a drifting and aimless force looking for purpose. Sullivan—Thadeus—had given him that purpose. Ned was like an attack dog, loyal to no one but his master. He’d follow where Thadeus led, and he’d do his bidding.
As far as Thadeus was concerned, Ned had a date with Lowell Braddock.
11
Dez had stopped counting, but he had to have tried Sully’s phone at least two dozen times.
It was either dead or someone had turned it off or broken it. Whatever the reason, his calls weren’t going through.
He paced Lachlan’s living room, watched by Ara and Pax from the couch, the dog sitting next to Sully’s ex-girlfriend. Dez hadn’t bothered kicking Pax off of Lachlan’s sofa. He had bigger worries at this point than a shedding canine.
Ara had passed along the news once Dez and Lachlan had returned from the visit to Kindra: Sully had gone, at gunpoint, with the men who had attempted to kill him at Ravenwood.
No question what that meant. Hired hitmen didn’t take a target shopping or for tea. Even if they hadn’t dragged him off to put a bullet in his brain, the only plausible alternative was that they’d taken him to the Dules. Either way, the end game was Sully’s death. It had to be. The Dules wouldn’t allow any other outcome.
“I’m sorry,” Ara said. “I wish I could have done something.”
“Not your fault,” Dez said. He didn’t blame her, but he knew he hadn’t put a convincing amount of feeling into the statement. He just didn’t have the energy to devote to making her feel better, not when he needed someone to make him feel better.
“I don’t understand.”
Dez turned at the words from Ara. “What?”
“About Sully. I thought he was dead. He didn’t explain.”
Dez wasn’t in the mood to offer a full explanation, but Ara deserved—and needed—something, especially if he was going to ensure she kept it to herself. He provided what he could of a quick rundown, watched as her eyes widened at the added revelations.
“He could have trusted me,” she said when he’d finished. “Why didn’t he trust me?”
“It was never about trust,” Dez said. “It was his way of protecting us. All of us.”
“Who was there to protect him?”
Lachlan had gone off to another room to make some calls, and he returned now, face bearing no trace of hope. Dez’s heart sank another foot.
“Nothing?”
Lachlan shook his head. “Last place Sullivan’s cellphone pinged was off a tower in the city, and that was well over an hour ago. Nothing since. Looks like it’s gone dead or has been turned off.”
Dez took that in, gave it a second to settle. Then he clutched at his hair and swore loudly enough to be heard next door.
He glanced back up to see Lachlan closing the distance to him. “Listen, I think we need to keep in mind Sullivan isn’t helpless. Far from it. There are things he can do none of us can fully explain. If anyone can handle this situation, I’m convinced it’s him.”
Dez knew Lachlan had a point. Sully had, after all, managed to heal from Gerhardt’s bullet by somehow corralling the energies he’d pulled in. That was using just a few spirits from Lockwood. Sully said he had Ned hovering around him now. Given what Dez knew about the poltergeist’s power, Ned might make Sully just this side of invincible.
That was, of course, dependent on where Sully took a bullet. Dez suspected a head shot would ren
der any help Ned might otherwise provide meaningless. If these hitmen were worth their salt, they wouldn’t be satisfied with anything other than a head shot.
Dez resumed pacing but was interrupted in his useless course by Lachlan’s voice.
“It’s getting close to three,” he said. “You need to pick up your daughter from school, don’t you?”
Dez stilled. “Damn it. Lost track of time.”
He started for the door where he’d left his coat and boots but was halted by Lachlan’s voice once again. “Hang tight there, Braddock. I’ll come with you.”
Ara joined them at the door. “Is there something I can do? I want to help.”
Dez shook his head. “At this point, I’m not even sure what we can do. We’re playing this by ear, Ara, all of it. Any plans we’ve made have fallen apart. Anyway, you have a life—a good one. You need to go live it.”
“Just because I’m happy and with Emory, doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about Sully. If he’s in trouble—”
Dez cut her off. “He cares about you too, and he won’t thank us for involving you. If there’s something I think you can help with, I’ll call. But at this point, we’ve got nothing resembling a plan. I won’t drag you into this. Go home. I’ll let you know once we have some news. Okay?”
Ara wasn’t satisfied, that much was clear by the furrowed brow. But Dez didn’t want anyone else involved—particularly someone with no defence training. Too much was already at play, and Dez wanted to get Kayleigh to safety as soon as possible. She’d be fine at school, but he wanted to make sure he was there once the bell rang, ready to pick her up. She was his highest priority; everything else, Sully included, needed to take a back seat until he was convinced his little girl was safe.
Maybe Ara sensed that. Graceful as always, she didn’t argue the point, merely enveloping Dez in an embrace. “I hope he’s okay. I really hope he’s okay.”
Dez hugged her back. “Thanks, Ara. Me too.”
Dez waited outside Kayleigh’s school, Lachlan next to him and Pax taking up a sizeable portion of the back seat.