Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  “Listen, man--”

  “No. You listen, Vinny. I wanted out an hour ago. I wanted to forget about all of it, but that’s changed now.” His eyes flashed, the pain replaced by something deeper, harder. “Now, I want to get the son of a bitch more than ever. He took away Bo. He killed a sweet little boy. We have to stop him. We have to.”

  No one said anything to that, but Vinny could see the acceptance on their faces and knew his expression mirrored theirs. There was no stopping now. With the death of Teddy, an innocent child, they had turned a corner and there was no going back anymore.

  Marcus moved past Kate. “Gina?” he asked. “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when Alex gets back,” her voice was weak, but her gaze was steady. Strong. “I’m going to be okay, Marcus. Really. We decided it would be best to wait until we were all together to share what happened. Alex should be back soon.”

  But Alex didn’t come back. They drank wine in near silence, aware of time ticking by and finally Vinny cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to start yet, mainly because I didn’t want to have to tell the same story five freaking times. But I guess we should start now. We can always bring Alex up to speed when he gets here.”

  Dark shadows carved Marcus’s face. “I’ll go first,” he said. He told them how he’d found the business card in Bo’s pocket, how he’d called the psychic. He finished by saying, “It must be how the whole thing started again.” He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair.

  Vinny leaned forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands clasped. “Well, buddy, I’d say you’re right.”

  Kate started to speak, but Vinny went on. “It makes sense. All these years, we thought we’d escaped from the son of a bitch. Hell, we even convinced ourselves it wasn’t real. None of it happened. That’s what I told myself, anyway. And on those nights when I couldn’t sleep and it came back, I told myself that even if it was real, we didn’t do anything to make it worse. We didn’t break the chain. We didn’t set him free. But that’s where we fucked up. What if we didn’t leave Lucien locked up? What if, by being with him to begin with, he somehow had the power to…tattoo himself on us? On Bo? Maybe by playing with that damn board, we handed him an opportunity to attach his spirit to us.”

  “If that’s true, then Suzanne saying anything about it would have triggered Bo to find out more. Just like last time,” Kate said.

  “Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power,” Gina murmured. Vinny heard her and when he locked eyes with her, she blushed.

  “What was that, Gina?” Marcus asked.

  “I was just thinking that as long as Bo didn’t know about Lucien, she was fine. Happy. But once Bo knew she was carrying him around like a shadow, she couldn’t put it out of her mind--”

  “—and that’s how Lucien got his power,” Marcus finished. “As long as she didn’t acknowledge him, he couldn’t connect with her, but the moment she accepted his presence, he could.”

  “Like an invitation,” Kate said. Her eyes widened. “I just remembered: when we were playing with Ouija, there was something about having to be willing. We had to will the spirits to come to us, or they couldn’t connect.”

  “So Bo willed it. And then what?”

  It was Kate who answered. “She would have tried to get rid of it, once and for all.”

  “But how?” Gina asked.

  Marcus sighed. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

  “What else happened, Marc?” Vinny asked. “How did you know about Teddy?”

  Marcus swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. He told them about seeing Teddy, about what Lucien had said through the boy. When he was finished, Vinny wasn’t surprised to see tears on his cheeks. He looked around the room; they were all crying.

  “Katie?” he asked. “What about the Historical Society?”

  Kate leaned back in her chair. One of her long, white hands brushed the hair from her neck. She twirled a strand between her fingers, wrapping the auburn lock around her hand as she spoke. She finished by saying, “I bought a book on Chelsea’s history. Maybe we can look through it and see if there’s anything there. It’s a long shot.”

  “So you didn’t find anything in those old ledgers?”

  Kate shook her head. “There are some old documents there, but most are stored off-site. There wasn’t time to look at what was on hand. Even if there had been time, I doubt what we’re looking for would be in there.”

  “You know what’s interesting about the Mrs. Maki story?” Marcus asked. Katie frowned, bewildered. Vinny thought he saw a shadow of a smile on Marcus’s face, but it was a grim look. Gritty. “Lucien didn’t kill her.”

  “Of course he did!” Gina said.

  Marcus held up a hand. “No,” he said slowly. “He didn’t. Mrs. Maki didn’t die by rat bites, she wasn’t ripped apart. She died by her own hand. Granted, Lucien caused her death, but he didn’t physically do it.”

  “Maybe he didn’t put the poison in her hand, but he still killed her.”

  Marcus leaned forward, eyes burning. “Yes, he killed her by frightening her, by tricking her into drinking something she never would have drunk. But he didn’t physically kill her. Maybe twenty years ago, he couldn’t. But now he doesn’t need something as convenient as an accident. He can do it himself!”

  Kate’s eyes were huge, there were shiny patches on her cheeks. “Lucien’s gotten stronger.”

  This time Marcus did grin, and it was as merciless as Vinny imagined. “Not only has he gotten stronger, he’s become physical.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He means Lucien doesn’t need a board to work through. He doesn’t need a medium. He’s able to come and go between this world and wherever he is at will,” Vinny hesitated. Gina was staring at him, and like Kate, her eyes were wide. “But that isn’t the worst part, Gina. He can do his own damage now.”

  “Exactly! Before, Lucien’s power was limited. He could only use it through Kate. But now, he can take form. He can change matter.”

  Gina took a deep breath. Vinny expected the tears in her eyes to spill over, but they didn’t. She looked terrified and his heart went out to her. If I could take this from you, Gina, I would, he thought, If I could do this alone, leave you out of it, I’d do it in a second. As if she felt him thinking about her, Gina looked at him and smiled, a small, sad smile that tugged at his heart.

  “My turn,” she said softly. When she told them about the cross etched in the stone, Katie gasped.

  “I’d forgotten about that,” she said.

  “I put my hands on the stone wall and when I did, I felt…” she hesitated.

  “What?” Vinny asked.

  “I saw something, like a vision or a dream.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw a child of about eleven in the barn. A girl. She was…hanging. It was night; I could see the sky through the cracks in the wood. A boy lit a candle and I saw he wasn’t alone. There were five other children with him.”

  Vinny, across from Kate, saw her reaction.

  “A barn?” she asked.

  Gina nodded and frowned in concentration. “The boy said something to the others, something like, We don’t have to do this, and then one of the girls said, ‘yes, we do. It is our fault and we must pay for our sins.’”

  “The fire,” Kate said. “When I was in the Historical Society, I came across a picture of a burned barn with a caption under it that read, ‘the children died in the blaze.’”

  “What does that--”Vinny started, but Marcus broke in. “It doesn’t make any sense to try to figure it out now. We don’t have enough of the pieces yet.”

  Marcus poured himself another drink. The shaking had eased. Vinny noticed the slight tremor in Marcus’s hand, but the full blown out-of-control shaking had stopped.

  “I think it’s safe to assume that the foundation in the Forest Field is the barn Gina saw and Kate read about,” Marcus said.

  The others nod
ded. Gina went on grimly, telling them about the rats, finishing with standing on Kate’s front stoop, beating at the door with her fists.

  “And I guess that’s my cue,” Vinny said. He took over the thread of the story, recounting the dark minutes in the lab. He cleared his throat. “Now I know this part is going to sound totally whacked, but I swear to God it’s true.” His heart beat faster in his chest. “Right when I was thinking I was about to check out, I heard this voice in my head.”

  Next to him, Gina gasped and Kate’s mouth dropped open. Marcus sat back in his chair, looking for all the world like the wind had been kicked from his chest.

  “What?” Vinny looked at each of them, incredulous. “Did you hear voices, too?”

  Three heads nodded.

  “How come you didn’t tell that part?” No one answered, but he saw that Gina at least looked ashamed. “Were you afraid to say you heard voices? What, was the voice too crazy to share? Did you think we’d laugh at you? Call you crazy?”

  Gina was the only one who answered. “I didn’t say anything about the voice because I thought it was my imagination.”

  Vinny shook his head. “From now on, everybody has to tell everything, no matter how stupid it sounds, or crazy. None of this is in our imaginations. None of it.”

  “That voice you heard,” Kate asked, “Was it a nun from St. Stand’s? The one we had in sixth grade?”

  “Sister Patrice,” Gina said in a voice just a hair above a whisper.

  “Is she still alive?” Kate asked, but no one knew and Kate said, “I heard her voice, as clear as I’m hearing all of you. She was reading from the bible and what she said wounded Lucien in some way. Or maybe wounded is the wrong word. He vanished, anyway, and when he left he was…enraged.”

  “It was like that for me, too,” Marcus said. “I think what she read was from the Book of Revelations.”

  “Book of Ezekiel,” Gina said, “I’m pretty sure that’s what she said in my head.”

  “That’s gotta be pretty important, don’t you think?” Vinny asked. “All of us hearing the same voice, the same woman, reading from the Bible.”

  “But what does it mean?” Gina asked.

  “Alex will know,” Vinny said. “Alex will understand what it means.”

  But another hour passed, and there was still no sign or word from Alex. Kate called the church. “No answer,” she said, the cell phone still in her hand. “What do you want to do?”

  Vinny was the one who answered. “If he won’t come to us, then we go to him. He’s probably sitting in front of the TV, eating a turkey pot pie.”

  “Maybe it isn’t that he won’t come to us. Maybe he can’t,” Kate said.

  Marcus got to his feet, still looking exhausted and drained. If anything, he looked worse. He slipped his arms into his coat, saying, “I’ll go get him.”

  “No,” Vinny cut in. “From now on, we all go together.” There pairs of eyes stared at him, but Vinny didn’t back down. “Divided we fall.”

  A ghost of a smile touched Gina’s lips and in that instant, Vinny was filled with a surge of fierce protectiveness. “I love you guys,” he said on impulse. “You’re the best friends a guy could have.”

  “I love you, too,” Kate said, and then they were all saying it. Listening to the chorus of love and yous struck Vinny as funny and he began to laugh, and then they were all laughing as they put on their coats. The laughter died almost as quickly as it had begun and as they reached the front door, Gina hesitated.

  “I know it’s probably foolish, but I’m scared to death.”

  “Honey,” Vinny said, “If you weren’t scared, you’d be foolish.”

  “We’re all afraid.” Marcus’s voice sounded distant, like he was off someplace far away. Maybe he was.

  “Yes,” Vinny said, “And the only way to stop being afraid is to stop Lucien.”

  He opened the door. One by one, they stepped into the night rain and howling wind.

  Chapter 36

  Kate

  Vinny carried out a wheelchair he’d found in a closet. They settled Gina into it gently, but the pain still caught her by surprise and Kate saw her try to bite back a yell. Outside, the wind was so strong they had to walk hunched over. The rain was a slash that stung Kate’s face. She pulled her collar up over her chin and mouth. It was pitch dark now, the streetlights offering meager illumination. Rainwater roared in the gutters. The sewer grates were mini-waterfalls.

  Marcus was in the lead. He was striding ahead of them. Kate thought about calling out to him, but almost as quickly as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. Marcus needed to be alone now. Gina was next to her, Vinny a step or two behind, pushing the wheelchair. A surge of affection washed over Kate. She knew why Vinny was walking behind them; he was watching their backs, bringing up the rear. Kate glanced at Gina, but Gina was looking down, watching their feet. She was lost in her own world and Kate didn’t want to disturb her with conversation. Besides, what was left to say?

  Kate stepped into a puddle and cold rainwater splashed up over her boots. They were at the corner now, less than a block to go before they reached St. Stand’s. Kate wondered what Alex was doing, why he had taken so long. He’s afraid, she thought, He’s more afraid than any of us. The thought made her nervous; if Alex was scared, they were in deep shit. It’s not fear, she told herself. It’s not. Alex didn’t come back to the house because he found something in the church. He found something important and is working on it now. Up ahead, Kate could see the church lights. The upper level was lit. Relief washed over her. Even from a distance. Kate could feel the safety of St. Stand’s. That was the thing about the old church. Safety. Kate walked down Congress Ave, shoulders leaning forward against the wind, closing her mind to Lucien and the horror they were facing, focusing instead on the comfort of her childhood church. They passed under a streetlight and Kate was surprised to see Gina smiling.

  “Care to share?” she asked softly.

  “I was thinking about St. Stand’s,” Gina said. “I met my husband there.”

  Kate returned the smile. “Perfect place to meet a husband.”

  “I guess. God, I haven’t thought of the day we met in ages. It’s nice to remember it now.”

  “When you talk about him, you look…happy.”

  “I was,” Gina said. “I loved him very much. I was just thinking, though, that the Lord moves in mysterious ways. When I met Richard, I’d been praying for a husband. Sounds silly, I know, but I did it. I wanted to be married, have children, a family of my own. Well, Lord answered the husband part. Too bad I didn’t pray for a long marriage. He died within a year.”

  “You were only together for a year?”

  Gina nodded. The rain came down on a slant. Kate burrowed deeper into her coat. “Almost a year to the day.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Brain tumor. It was hard. Watching him fade away.” Behind them, Vinny made a sound, but Kate didn’t turn her head and Vinny didn’t say anything more. “Before he died, I thought it would be a relief to have him go. He was in so much pain. I thought his death would be a blessing. A gift.” She looked up at Kate, her eyes brimming, looking for something beyond them. “I was so very wrong. There is no blessing in losing someone you adore. No gift in death, however merciful it might be. I had a hard time after Richard died. I had no idea how…consuming…grief is. My husband died, and as far as I was concerned, the world stopped. But it didn’t. While my world came to an end, everything else just…went on. Sitcoms still played on TV, children still laughed outside, Katz still made bagels, the subway kept right on running. Everything – and nothing – was the same.”

  Tears blurred her vision. Kate blinked and Gina was clear again. “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were hollow, but they were all she had.

  “What about you and Dana?”

  “We split up for the first time eighteen months after the wedding.”

  “I thought you’d been together for years
.”

  “We were,” Kate said, “but that was just a technicality. We stayed together for all the wrong reasons. When you get right down to it, we were both just lonely. We stayed together out of habit, nothing else. Whenever we split up, we’d find ourselves bored and then one would call the other and before we knew it, we’d be living together again. It took a long time to realize that being lonely was better than being in a marriage alone.” She looked at Gina. “Does that make any sense at all?”

  “Yes,” Gina said simply.

  Marcus had reached the church walkway and he turned, looking over his shoulder at them. Kate couldn’t read the expression on his face. He waited until they were closer, then walked up the brick path to the sanctuary.

  “I haven’t been to St. Stand’s in a long time,” Gina said as they turned into the iron gate. “I used to come every Sunday, but then my father got sick and I stopped attending Mass. Bo’s funeral was the first time I’ve been here in more than a year.”

  “Better than my record,” Kate said. “I haven’t been here in over fifteen.”

  “But you went to church in Vermont, right? You were always so good about that.”

  “No,” Kate said. “My mother was good about that. Not me. When we moved out of the city, my mother stopped forcing me to go. After Lucien, I didn’t want to go near a church. It scared me.”

  Marcus was waiting for them at the front doors. The wind was harsh, stinging. When they all reached the top of the steps, Marcus asked, “Are you ready?”

  “About as ready as we’ll ever be,” Vinny answered. Marcus pulled open the oak doors.

  Chapter 37

  Vinny

  When Marcus pushed the doors open, Vinny stepped in front of Gina. He thought about trying to get her to wait outside, with Kate maybe, but one look at Gina’s face told him she was going in, no matter what. He squatted down, putting one hand around her shoulders and the other under her thighs. “Now,” he said, lifting her gently, “You ride in style.”

  “Why not use the wheelchair?” Kate asked.