by James Swain
He heard footsteps too large to be Snoop. Liza heard them, too.
“Who’s that?” she whispered.
“Beats me. Can I help you?”
“Garrison, FBI,” a familiar voice called out. “I need to talk with you.”
They crawled out from beneath the stage to find Garrison by the stairwell. He was smiling, always a good sign. “We found the son of a bitch,” he announced.
Liza squealed with delight and hugged Peter. The news made everything Peter had gone through the past few days through seem bearable. Now the shadow people would stop harassing him and his friends, and he could get on with his life.
“Your information was all good. His name is Harold Munns, and he lives in the village of Pelham where he works as a janitor at the local community college,” Garrison went on. “I spoke to the Pelham police chief, and he knew exactly who I was talking about. The chief said Munns had a history of problems dating back to childhood. The things I told him weren’t a surprise.”
“Have the police arrested him?” Peter asked.
“They’re scouring the town for him. Sent a pair of cruisers to his house, and another cruiser to the train station to see if he was there.”
“So they’re all over it.”
“They most certainly are. Now here’s the funny part. I explained to the chief how we used a psychic to track Munns down. The chief didn’t sound terribly surprised. Seems he used a psychic to find a missing kid, and the case had a happy ending.”
“So he’s a believer.”
“A true-blue believer. He expects to catch Munns tonight and haul him in. He asked if you’d drive up to Pelham with me, and feed him any details about the case that you uncovered during your trips to the other side. He really wants your help.”
The exhaustion of the past few days had caught up to Peter, and he wanted nothing more than to go home with Liza, share a hot bath, and watch a scary zombie flick. Sensing his hesitation, Garrison put his hand on the young magician’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to come, but it would be a huge help if you did.”
“Right now?” Peter asked wearily.
“Afraid so. I’ll drive. You can sit in the passenger seat and sleep on the way up.”
Peter looked at Liza. “You cool with going home by yourself?”
“Not really. How about I come with you?” she said.
“You sure?”
“Positive. We’re a team, remember?”
His whole life he’d been facing the unknown by himself. He hadn’t minded, but it had gotten lonely at times. Having Liza by his side was going to make his life a lot nicer. To Garrison he said, “Give me five minutes to get out of these clothes.”
“I’ll be waiting outside in the car,” the FBI agent replied.
* * *
Peter went to change. Opening the door to his dressing room, a cry escaped his lips. The room was trashed, his props and clothing scattered across the floor.
He’d been burglarized. It happened all the time in New York. The question was, how had the burglar gotten in? Certainly not through any of the theater’s entrances. There were only two, the front and the back, and they were watched 24/7 by surveillance cameras.
That left the window in his dressing room. It would have been hard, considering the room was on the second floor and there was no fire escape, but burglars were a resourceful lot, and would go to any means to enter a building if there was something worth stealing.
He went to the window to check the latch. To his surprise, it hadn’t been touched. So how had the burglar gotten in? He pulled out his cell phone, planning to call Snoop and ask him to check the surveillance videos, when a movement stopped him cold. A curling wisp of black smoke was seeping out of a crack plaster in the wall. Before his eyes it took shape. He had seen the shadow people enough times to differentiate them by their sizes. It was the same shadow person who’d dropped her antique watch into his hands a few nights ago, Barbara Metcalf.
“What have I done to upset you now?” he asked.
No response.
“You know that I’m trying to help you, don’t you?”
Nothing.
“I’m going to Pelham to track down Munns. That’s what you want from me, isn’t it? To stop this crazy guy before he kills Rachael.”
Still nothing.
“I’m getting tired of you messing with me,” he blurted out.
She made an angry squeal. Across the room, five black wisps came out of their hiding place to join her. They swarmed around Peter like a hive of angry bees, threw him into the chair in front of his dressing table, and held him down.
“Cut it out!” he protested.
A pair of scissors on his dressing table were crawling toward him, its blades snapping like an alligator’s jaws. His left hand was pinned to the table; as he watched, the shadow person that was Barbara Metcalf began to snip off the tip of his left forefinger.
“Not my hand,” he howled.
The scissors were dull, and it took tremendous effort to break the skin and cut into the bone. Before his disbelieving eyes, the tip of his finger fell to the table. Bright red blood spurted from the wound, and he struggled not to pass out.
“Peter, let me in,” Liza shouted through the door.
“They’re back,” he gasped.
“What are they doing to you?”
“Bad stuff.”
“Tell me!”
“Cutting off my finger…”
Metcalf wasn’t done with him. Grabbing his hand, she brought his bleeding finger up to the three-way mirror on his dressing table, and used his blood to write a message. Peter thought he would be sick, and shut his eyes. The next thing he knew, Liza was standing beside him, shaking his arm with both his hands.
“Peter—don’t let them kidnap you!”
His eyes snapped open. The dressing room was back to normal, all the broken furniture and scattered things returned to their rightful places. It had all been a trick of the mind.
He stared at his severed finger. It had miraculously healed itself. No blood, no missing tip, he flexed it several times, found it in good working order.
Liza knelt beside him. “Oh, God, are you okay?”
“I think so.”
One thing hadn’t gone away. His dressing mirror was smeared with blood. He leaned forward to make out the single word left behind as a memento:
HURRY
Grabbing Liza by the arm, he ran from the dressing room.
PART V
PELHAM
56
Witches were not supposed to fall in love. Nor were they supposed to get married and become soccer moms. It was not how being a witch worked.
It wasn’t written down anywhere. Most of the rules which dictated a witch’s life were not written down anywhere at all. But they were passed down to each generation of young women who were born into the coven of spells and sorcery. And those rules were clear.
True love and witches simply did not mix.
Of course, they could have partners, and engage in sex, and be all things that women could and should be. There were no laws against that. But they were not allowed to lose themselves with a partner and forget who they were, which was what happened to most people who fell in love. They forgot who they were, and became someone else for a while. Witches were not supposed to do that. They had to remain true to themselves throughout their lives, and never forget who they were. It made relationships with the opposite sex tricky, to say the least.
Perhaps this was Holly’s problem. She had gotten crazy over Peter before the rules of the game had been properly explained to her. By the time Milly had gotten down to spelling out the rules, Cupid’s arrow had pierced her heart, and nothing would ever be the same.
Peter had been such a logical choice. Cute, clever, with one foot stuck in the dark side, what more could she want from a boy? They had grown up together, and always been fond of each other. Falling in love had been a natural progression, and Holly didn
’t think the world would fall off its axis because of it.
She poured the magic herbs into the water-filled vase sitting on the coffee table. The water grew cloudy, with lifelike forms swirling about.
Oh spirits from above, show me Peter, the boy I love.
The water grew clear, and there Peter was, slumped in a chair in his dressing room while lovely Liza shook his arm. Clearly, something was amiss, which seemed almost routine for poor Peter these days. He’d become a poster boy for the problems that came from being psychic.
Peter woke up. Soon he and Liza were in a car racing out of the city. At the wheel was a grim-faced man whom Holly recognized as an FBI agent of Peter’s acquaintance. The FBI agent was driving one-handed while talking on a cell phone and to Peter at the same time. It was like watching a silent movie, and Holly tried to make out what they were saying.
“Holly!” a familiar voice called out.
Holly looked up in alarm. The voice had come out of nowhere. “Aunt Milly, is that you?”
“Who do you think it is, the Girl Scouts of America?”
“You have no right scrying on me, if that’s what you’re doing.”
“Au contraire, I have every right to be scrying on you. You must leave Peter alone.”
“Why should I? I’m in love with him.”
“I fully understand that. But love doesn’t give you the right to invade his privacy. Peter must not be disturbed. Do you understand me?”
Holly glanced at the vase of water at the object of her desire. “Certainly.”
“You’re not listening to me. Peter is not like us. He’s different.”
“I know.”
“Much different.”
“I’ll agree to that.”
“Damn it, Holly.”
A framed photograph fell off the wall and crashed to the floor.
“Please stop destroying my things,” Holly said.
“Not until you do as I say.”
Holly had never won an argument with her aunt, and doubted she ever would. Clicking her fingers three times, she made the water grow cloudy and the images disappear. Rising from the floor, she found her aunt’s ghostly image in the oval mirror over her water bed.
Holly crossed her arms defiantly. Her aunt countered with a frown.
“What do you want, Aunt Milly?”
“Peter has enough on his plate these days. Stop pestering him.”
“Who said I was pestering him? And when did this become your business? I’m a grown woman living in my own apartment. I can do whatever I please, thank you very much.”
Her aunt started to argue, but stopped herself. The wisdom of old age was knowing when silence was more powerful than words. Her face softened. “You’re right. You are no longer a child, and I have no right to treat you that way. So consider this a warning, instead.”
“A warning about what?”
“Be careful with Peter.”
“How so?”
“Be discreet. Respect his privacy. Know when to look away.”
An icy finger ran the length of Holly’s spine. Was there a side to Peter that she didn’t know? If that was the case, then her aunt had every right to be checking up on her, and Holly suddenly felt bad about the way she was acting.
“I’m sorry I’m acting like such a turd,” she said.
“No need to apologize my dear. I wasn’t very tactful.”
“How will I know?”
“About Peter? You will see the change. It will not be pleasant to watch.”
“You mean he’ll grow ugly like he does when he gets angry?”
“This will be more severe. He will physically alter himself. It will not be pretty, to say the least.”
Holly brought her hand up to her mouth. “Have you seen him do this?”
“Yes, when Peter was a little boy. It occurred the night his parents died. The demon inside of him fully took over. It was like he turned himself inside out.”
“Did it affect your relationship with Peter?”
“It most certainly did. And it will change your relationship with him as well.”
Holly swallowed hard. “How can you be so certain?”
Her aunt smiled the way adults do when they’re talking to children. Her image in the mirror began to fade and turned a foggy whitish color. Just wait, her eyes seem to say.
“Do as I say for once,” Milly said, and then was gone.
* * *
Holly parted the blinds and gazed at the city’s canopy of blinking lights. Had she fallen in love with a monster? Or just someone who was frightfully different? Better to know what she was getting into right now, she supposed, than to get surprised down the road.
She had talked herself into it. She would scry on Peter and discover his terrible secret, her aunt’s warning be damned.
57
Like many New Yorkers, Peter’s sense of direction was useless once he stepped off the island of Manhattan, and he paid scant attention as Garrison followed the signs for the Cross Bronx Expressway and West 178th Street as he drove up the West Side Highway. Liza sat in the backseat, studying a traffic app on her iPhone. “This doesn’t clear up until the George Washington Bridge. We’re never going to get there.”
Garrison slapped a flashing red light on the dashboard and punched his horn. The lines of cars in front of them parted like the Red Sea, and the FBI agent began to weave between lanes with the skill of a NASCAR driver.
“That’s more like it,” Garrison said.
Peter rode shotgun and stared at the highway. His hands had grown sweaty and he felt nervous in anticipation of finally meeting Munns in the flesh. The greatest mass murderers in history were all associated with the Devil in some way, and there was no question in his mind that Munns would put up a terrible fight when the police tried to arrest him.
“You scared?” Garrison asked.
“A little,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Not really. I’ve dealt with serial killers before.”
The hairs on the back of Peter’s neck stood up. Hadn’t he warned Garrison about the dangers that Munns posed? Munns was capable of causing more harm than Garrison could possibly imagine. “If you’re not careful, he’ll kill every cop in Pelham, and you and me as well.”
“Come on. Doc Munns is an angry little man. Most serial killers are.”
“What do you know about him?” Peter asked.
Garrison stopped talking long enough to merge onto the I-95 Lower Level North/George Washington Bridge exit out of the city. The sound of the bridge’s metal grating beneath their wheels was oddly soothing. “The chief of the Pelham Police Department said Munns was a troubled soul. His parents were alcoholics who abused their son. They made him live in the basement and didn’t let him eat with them. They also made him work around the house and do a lot of manual labor. He went to school in dirty clothes without lunch money.”
“Sounds like they tortured him,” Liza said from the backseat.
“That came later,” Garrison said.
“His childhood got worse?”
“Yes, unfortunately. When Munns was a teenager, his father got laid off work, and started hitting the bottle. He and his wife used to sit around the house all day, collect welfare checks, and get blistered. They convinced Munns to quit high school, and get a full-time job so they could pay their bills and support themselves in the lifestyle to which they’d become accustomed. It was a crummy thing to do, but that’s what kind of people they were.
“At first, Munns wouldn’t do it. He had dreams of going to college and being a medical doctor. One day, he came to school with a black eye and a busted front tooth. Everyone knew who had given it to him.”
“His father,” Liza said.
“That’s right, his father. Munns dropped out of high school, and took a job driving a truck. The money wasn’t good, and the family barely scraped by. On weekends, the police were often called to the house to settle domestic arguments. Munns’s father was beating up his son pre
tty regularly, and should have gone to jail, only Munns wouldn’t play ball with the cops.”
“So he was loyal,” Peter said.
“That he was,” Garrison said. “But that all changed one day. Munns got a phone call from a lady with the Social Security office in Washington. A woman claiming to be Munns’s birth mother was looking for him. Did Munns want to talk with her?”
“Wait a second,” Liza said, leaning through the seats. “The people who were torturing and treating him like a slave weren’t really his parents?”
“No, they weren’t. His biological mother gave Munns up for adoption when he was two years old. The torturers were his adoptive parents.”
“That’s so sick. What did Munns do?”
“That’s the strange part. He did nothing to his parents, and in fact, continued to care for them when they became sick and eventually died. The people he took his anger out with were his neighbors and other people who lived in Pelham.”
“Why? They weren’t responsible.”
“That’s not how Munns saw it. The townspeople knew he was being abused, and they also knew that his parents weren’t really his parents, yet they turned their backs and didn’t step in. Munns held that against them. Still does.”
“How old is he?” Peter asked.
“Munns is forty-eight years old. Is that important?”
Munns had been carrying his anger around for a long time. It had corrupted his soul and erased any semblance of decency. His joining the Order of Astrum and taking his anger out on the world by killing innocent women was yet another chapter in his sick life. But were those women the people Munns was really after? Peter didn’t think so. It was the citizens of Pelham he wanted to pay back, every last one of them. By joining the Order, Munns had been given the means to accomplish his grisly task, and one day he eventually would. Had that day arrived?
“You need to drive faster,” Peter implored.
“I’m already doing seventy-five,” the FBI agent replied.
“Faster.”
Garrison floored the accelerator and the vehicle lurched ahead. Peter watched the exit signs as they flashed by, praying they were not too late.