No Place Like Hell

by K. S. Ferguson

  "H. H. Holmes? The man who ran a murder hotel during the Chicago World's Fair?" I edged against the door. "He's been dead for nearly seventy years."

  "His soul escaped Hell three months ago. I'm here to retrieve it—again."

  I'd humor him until I could get away. "Escaped Hell. Does that happen often?"

  Sleeth jerked back like I'd slapped him. "Never. He must have had help. Someone opened the way, perhaps with the magic book that explains the ritual to transfer the souls of the damned. Whoever it was, he wears their flesh."

  I nodded like I agreed with every word while I kept an eye out for a passing citizen who might help me escape. A magic book. What other delusions lurked in his insane mind?

  "So Holmes is moving souls around between bodies. That's what the murders are about?"

  "He kidnaps a recipient. At the same moment that he finishes the ritual on the damned soul, the recipient is sacrificed. The damned soul transfers to the still-warm body."

  The red in Sleeth's eyes dimmed. I wondered how he pulled it off. He must have contacts, and it was a trick of the light.

  "Emmett Merkel was meant to be a recipient. He died too soon, and the transfer failed. Haskell's soul was lost to the universe." Sleeth shifted the Mustang into gear and drove toward the exit. "If Holmes grabbed Newell, then he intends to use Newell in the ceremony tonight."

  "Won't these 'damned souls' of yours still go to Hell eventually anyway?"

  Sleeth shook his head. "Their blood binds them to the contract. Once they leave their body and take new flesh, the blood no longer binds them. Seve thinks Holmes needs the damned to destroy Heaven and Hell."

  Destroying Heaven and Hell sounded like a darn good idea to me. I was no fan of religion.

  "You killed Judge Richards," I said.

  My hand clutched the door handle, and I prepared to roll out before the car picked up speed on the street. Sleeth was too fast for me. He screeched out of the driveway.

  "Killing humans is strictly forbidden," Sleeth said, expression solemn. "Richards perished at the roller rink. I found his lingering soul in the alley. Once Matthew Shertleff 'died' to leave his body, his soul became mine. I removed it from Richards' flesh."

  Sleeth headed north.

  "Where are we going?" I asked, unclear on the distinction between 'removing a soul from the flesh' and murder.

  "Now that I've tasted their blood, I can track the remaining damned. We'll follow them to wherever Holmes intends to hold his ritual." He tossed me a cheery grin. "Then you can rush in and arrest him."

  Maybe I could talk him into stopping for help. "Calderon's list still has three names. We can't follow them all at the same time. We need help."

  "Two," the hippie replied, eyes focused on the road.

  I recited names from memory since Sleeth had the list in his back pocket. "Colleen Hobert the nurse, Frank Zachary the sanitation worker, and Lester Renquist the lawyer."

  Sleeth licked his lips in a way that turned my stomach. "Only two left. Renquist died Sunday night."

  Renquist. Died Sunday night while Dave and I chased Sleeth through the Park View neighborhood—Renquist's neighborhood.

  I'd believed Sleeth when he said he didn't kill Susan Brown. He had alibis for Brown and Haskell. But as the body count connected to Sleeth climbed, I wondered if I'd been right all along: the hippie was a stone-cold killer.

  "Why didn't you tell me all this sooner?"

  "It's forbidden."

  I gulped. "Does that mean that once we catch Holmes, you'll have to kill me?"

  His eyes got a thousand-yard stare. It was the same look he'd had when we chased the shooter away from my house. He leaned over the wheel and accelerated.

  "One of the damned is on the move."

  58

  We raced through the night heading northeast to the Solaris city limits. Sleeth ran every light. My white, shaking hands gripped the door handle. I was terrified of the madman in the driver's seat, and more terrified we'd smash into a telephone pole or another car and die.

  I'd heard stories about spaced-out druggies displaying super-human strength. Some people said dropping acid activated latent psychic powers, something Sleeth claimed to have. I'd never heard of anyone's eyes glowing red.

  The hippie eased back on the gas. "Look at the map. Is there a ley line junction ahead?"

  Maybe if I humored him, I'd live to see the dawn. We were leaving a residential neighborhood behind and moving into an area of undeveloped scrub punctuated by widely spaced farms. The desolate countryside wouldn't give me a lot of options to find help, and I wasn't sure I could outrun Sleeth.

  I dug the map out from under a burger wrapper and an empty drink cup at my feet. There must be a way I could use it to get us back to civilization. It was my only hope for escape.

  I flipped on the dome light. The paper was spotted with grease. We were already at the edge of the map, but if I traced some of the lines beyond Solaris, I could visualize other possible junctions. If I told him there were none nearby, would he turn around?

  Something nagged in the back of my mind. I'd been too worried about escaping Sleeth to let it surface. I stared hard at the map and rubbed the paper between my thumb and finger. Something we'd seen earlier… The connection snapped into focus.

  "That brochure that Decker had," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "It was from the Temple of Enlightenment."

  "We already know about that," Sleeth said. He pressed the gas pedal down again, and the Mustang leaped forward.

  "The brochure said they had a commune in the country. It's out this way."

  Had the Slasher taken Tad to the compound? Was he preparing Tad for sacrifice as we approached? A shiver wriggled through my gut.

  All the other murders had taken place around midnight. We were already on the far side of ten. How much longer before the Slasher started his slice and dice?

  I had to get to the commune. I had to free Tad, even if it meant going along with the lunatic at the wheel. No time to call for backup, assuming Sleeth would allow such a thing. Besides, without probable cause, the police were unlikely to charge onto the property.

  I dropped the map and stared out the windshield. In the darkness ahead, our lights reflected off the back of a white van. It sped up as we closed with it.

  Sleeth growled and pumped a fist in the air. "Colleen Hobert is mine."

  "You think she's in the van?"

  "She's in the van," he said with certainty. "So are Holmes' minions."

  "You know that because…?" I grabbed the edge of my seat while we careened around a corner.

  His eyes blazed hot and red, and a smile danced on his lips. "We're close enough for me to feel their souls even while wearing the flesh."

  I should stop asking him questions and expecting sensible answers. Somehow, I couldn't help myself. I clamped my mouth shut.

  The pavement ended, and the road turned to gravel. The van threw up a choking cloud of dust that obscured its tail lights. The landscape stretched into darkness on both sides of us.

  Bits of rock pinged against our windshield. I jumped with every hit. The road took a gentle bend to the right, and the Mustang shimmied around it. We must have been doing seventy, which was double the speed limit.

  What would we do when we caught the van? A stealth approach was off the table. Sleeth said Warner and Bronski were armed, and I wasn't carrying a weapon. I suspected the hippie would be worthless in a fight.

  A road sign warned of an approaching stop at a T-crossing. The van decelerated sharply, and Sleeth ran up its tail. Our front window was so coated in dust that I could barely see the van's white bulk before we kissed its bumper.

  The van swayed around a sharp right turn. In the blink of an eye, a curtain of pulsing red surrounded us. An electrical storm crashed overhead. Sleeth howled and slumped over the wheel.

  The Mustang shot through the stop sign and across the road, bumped over a shallow ditch, and plowed through a barb wire fence. I grabbed for the das
h. My head bumped the ceiling while we covered a hundred feet of deer grass clumps and rocks. We stopped just short of a copse of live oaks.

  Out the back window, a red glow still emanated from a circle of throbbing symbols laid out to encompass the entire intersection. Miniature lightning bolts flashed over the circle.

  Sleeth hadn't moved since we'd run off the road. His throat felt clammy under my fingertips. I couldn't find a pulse. The dash lights illuminated dark blotches roiling and shifting under his skin like trapped clouds of smoke.

  They'd killed him, just like they'd killed Dave. A cold lump formed in my stomach. I was alone now, just me against the Slasher and his cohorts. I swore I'd nail the bastard's hide.

  The van had stopped fifty yards up the road. Warner and Bronski were walking back to where the Mustang had torn through the fence. Warner carried a pistol.

  I killed the Mustang's headlights, grabbed the keys from the ignition, and swung my door open. Bronski pointed. Warner raised the gun.

  I slammed the door, dowsing the dome light and making myself less visible. Darkness swallowed me. I couldn't see the ground and fumbled to the front bumper.

  A smothering blanket of dust hung in the still air. Ahead, the treetops were defined by the stars they masked. In the distance, an owl hooted.

  The gun barked, dust kicked up a foot to my right, and I dashed for the trees. I stumbled over the rough terrain, zig-zagging until I reached the oaks.

  In the cover of the woods, fallen twigs snapped under my feet. My ankle twisted, and I went down. My breath came in ragged, terrified gulps.

  Running footsteps crunched on gravel. I caught glimpses of the two thugs silhouetted by the light from the van. They left the road and trotted to the car where they argued in voices too low for me to understand.

  I couldn't raise enough spit to swallow. Dust clawed at my throat and scratched my eyes. If I coughed, I'd give away my position. Bronski gestured toward my hiding place. I got up on hands and knees, prepared to flee deeper into cover.

  Warner shoved Bronski aside and opened Sleeth's door. He dragged the hippie from the seat, and together, they carried him to the back of the van.

  Bronski opened the door. A woman dressed in a stark white nursing uniform huddled inside. She had to be Colleen Hobert. They tossed the hippie onto the floor and slammed the doors.

  What did they want with Sleeth? Was he still alive? How had he known Hobert was in the van with the two men?

  The van peeled out in a spray of gravel.

  59

  I counted to fifty to be sure the thugs weren't sneaking back to ambush me. Then I stumbled through the dark to the Mustang.

  The little muscle car looked no worse for wear despite its off-road adventure. I started it, turned on the lights, and drove back to the road.

  What the hell were the flashing red symbols? Why did they have such a profound effect on Dave and Sleeth but not on me? If I was about to walk into the lion's den, I wanted to understand what I was up against, but I didn't stop to examine them. Tad might die before I reached him.

  Who was Holmes really? Probably someone with mental health issues who'd been sucked into Calderon's crazy cult. I could imagine the flat-eyed mobster applying drug-induced brainwashing.

  I turned the headlights off and navigated by the running lights. Despite the tension in my shoulders urging me to hurry, I advanced down the road at a careful pace.

  I almost missed the sign for the turn into the commune. A dirt driveway disappeared through a hedge of sycamores. I stayed on the road until I passed over a rise, and then I parked the Mustang.

  When I checked the map, it looked like two of the ley lines crossed somewhere inside the commune. I hadn't passed any other farms. The thought of walking into the commune alone gave me the willies.

  I needed a weapon. Nothing in Sleeth's car presented itself. No switchblade in the glove box. No Saturday night special stashed under the seat. He didn't even have a tire iron in the trunk.

  I quit stalling and followed the driveway onto the property. It cut between two large fields planted in neat rows. The scent of tomatoes and damp earth hung in the air. The place looked like every other California truck farm.

  The driveway seemed to stretch endlessly into the dark, but it couldn't have been more than a quarter mile. It opened into a space ringed by buildings. Lacking any cover, I crouched in the dirt to take stock.

  A series of huts that were originally intended for migrant workers stretched off to the left. To the right, a stately two story farm house nestled among giant live oaks, a weak porch light shining beside the door. The white van was parked in front of the house, along with two sedans and a jeep. No light shone through any of the house windows.

  Straight ahead, a monster packing shed loomed dark and quiet. The whole place had a deserted air. Where were the acolytes? Where were Holmes and his goons?

  No guards. They either didn't expect me to follow, or they weren't worried if I did. Goose bumps rose on my arms.

  A car engine growled on the road. Headlights winked through the sycamore hedge, and the vehicle slowed.

  I leaped into the field on my right, pushed through a row of tomato plants, and flattened to the ground. Twin beams lit the road. A station wagon rolled past and parked on the far side of the van.

  I rose to hands and knees. A car door slammed, and a man walked to the porch. Was this the final name from the list, Zachary Frank, the sanitation worker?

  Bronski opened the door before the new arrival knocked. The man slipped inside. Bronski stepped out, glanced around, and then went back in, closing the door. Moments later, a light came on in a small second floor window.

  I tiptoed closer to the vehicles. Tad's blue Impala was flanked by a black Olds Cutlass Supreme and a red Scout. I passed the cars and circled wide around the house, keeping to the deep shadows under the trees until I reached the back.

  A round patio table and four chairs stood on a patch of lawn outside the back door. Jasmine climbed a trellis against the wall, its flowers scenting the air. Light filtered through the curtains of a second-floor window and also a first-floor window at the far corner.

  I darted across the lawn and flattened myself against the back of the house. My breathing was shallow and fast and much too loud in the silent night. I wished I had my gun.

  All the house windows were opened to let in the cool evening air. I could peer through the screens to see who was inside, although in the dark, I wouldn't see much. But that wouldn't help with the second story.

  The jasmine trellis didn't look strong enough to support my weight. If I wanted to search both floors, I'd have to get inside. The very thought sent hot fear lancing through my chest. One step at a time, Demasi.

  I started with the first floor windows. The one closest to the back door was a yawning black hole, small and set higher than most of the others. The smell of fried onions and grease drifted through the sweet odor of jasmine. Kitchen window, no sound of anyone moving inside.

  The next window was also small, high-set, and frosted. Water drip-dripped inside. The downstairs bathroom?

  Two large windows remained: one was dark, the other was the lighted window at the corner of the house. I couldn't see or hear anything in the darkened room. I slid past to the lighted corner window.

  A window shade was drawn three-quarters down, leaving a couple inch gap at the bottom. A desk lamp did little to light the room, which seemed to be some kind of office or study. No one spoke, but fabric rustled.

  Someone wearing dress slacks and a formal cotton shirt passed by the window so close that I jumped back. I froze while I waited to see if I'd been discovered. The midriff crossed again going the opposite direction.

  "Sit down, Newell. Pacing won't help," a voice said.

  I knew that voice. It was Chief of Detectives Lenny Greene. Greene must have addressed Tad. The pacing figure was too tall and thin to be the mayor. I edged close to the screen and tried to see whether anyone else was in the room.
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  "I should have told Nicky everything."

  "If you'd told her, you'd be locked in an asylum now," Greene said.

  "She's smart, an excellent detective. She would have figured out the Slasher's identity if she'd just had my diary."

  "And she'd be dead like your secretary," Greene added. "Don't you see? We can't stop what's coming."

  "This is wrong," Tad said. "We're helping a murderer."

  "Don't you forget it. If we don't help, we'll be the next victims."

  Their conversation left me confused. Was Tad working undercover for Greene? Why hadn't the two men kicked out the flimsy window screen and escaped?

  Tad strode to the desk and yanked open the top drawer. He pawed through the contents.

  "What are you doing?" Greene asked.

  Tad pulled out a letter opener and tested the flexibility of the blade. "Someone has to stop this madness."

  He tucked the blade in the waistband of his slacks, under his shirt. He checked the remaining drawers before returning to his pacing.

  "Psst, Tad," I whispered, afraid I might be overheard by Bronski or the man who'd entered the house.

  Tad's surprised face appeared at the gap under the shade.

  "Nicky? What are you doing here?"

  "Everyone's looking for you." I ran my hands around the edges of the screen. "We have to get away and find help."

  Greene moved beside Tad. He looked different, although I couldn't say why. He still wore the black suit he had on at Dave's funeral. His mouth was opened in surprise, and one hand splayed on his chest.

  Tad raised the blind and unlatched the hooks that held the screen in place. I lowered the screen to the ground. Tad grabbed the edge of the window and raised a foot to the sill.

  Greene grabbed Tad's arm. "You can't go. You know what will happen."

  Tad's lips set in a hard, thin line. "For once in my life, I'm going to do the right thing. Stay if you want, but I won't be part of this anymore."

  Anymore? How was Tad involved with the Slasher? And what was Greene afraid of? None of it made any sense. The place still seemed as lifeless as a tomb, but that might not last. We needed to move.