by Ron Ripley
Stefan was not overly concerned with their deaths, only the inconvenience those fatalities would cause. He would be forced to speak with the authorities, remain for an inquest, and undoubtedly destroy whatever cover he had.
But the teenage boy had changed everything, and for the best, surprisingly.
Stefan had witnessed professionals falter when armed with more than a pre-made meal from a gas station. The boy had not faltered, and the single act of throwing it, with remarkable accuracy, had provided Stefan the opportunity he needed.
Even as the entire gas station went dark.
At that moment, he realized how lucky he was. The armed man had a possessed item with him, and it had been awakened by the sudden attack.
The ghost’s attention would be focused on the boy, and not on Stefan, which would give him several more seconds.
Closing his eyes, Stefan remembered where the man had stood, where the hatchet had been, and how the pistol had been arching up when it had been fired. Another shot rang out, the bullet thrumming by him and he felt a smile creep upon his face.
Had his eyes been open, he would have been temporarily blinded.
But Stefan did not need to see.
Not in close quarters.
He smelled the man before he reached him, and the armed stranger let out a startled grunt when Stefan lashed out and struck him in the solar plexus. His second blow smashed the pistol out of the man’s hand, and his third movement countered the arm that attempted to bring the hatchet to bear.
On the stranger’s back, the possessed item let out a torrent of fury-filled words, and then the boy was there.
Stefan opened his eyes and found them perfectly adjusted to the dim light as it filtered in from the night sky through the glass windows of the station.
“No!” the stranger screamed, and in the dim light, Stefan saw the boy reach for the item, his hand grasping the blonde hair and jerking it out.
Even as he did so, the boy let out a pained scream, his face twisting into a mask of agony.
Impressively, the teenager didn’t let go. Instead, he held on tight, and Stefan saw the item a moment later.
It was a doll. An old porcelain doll, filthy from the road and writhing in the boy’s grasp. And Stefan knew exactly who it was, and who had sent it.
Anne Le Morte, sent into the world by Ivan Denisovich to look for him.
The motion of the doll’s caretaker caught Stefan’s attention, and he blocked another attack as the man swung the hatchet again.
“No,” Stefan said in a low voice, and he snatched the weapon out of the man’s hand as easily as he might have plucked a daisy from a field.
***
Tom could no longer feel his left hand, and the possessed doll clasped in his vise-like grip would soon be free.
And given the rage pulsating from the doll, Tom knew he wouldn’t survive.
None of them would.
Her small, cold hands clawed at him, and while he couldn’t feel it, he watched her fingers tear his flesh into long strips. Blood welled up slowly, oozing more than flowing, and he let out a snarl.
The doll screamed at him in a language he didn’t know, and he felt a horrific pressure on his throat. He tried to drop to his knees, but he found himself lifted instead. An unseen hand pulled him up, and a heartbeat later his feet left the ground. The doll continued her unearthly screaming and his eyes watered and stars burst in front of them as he tried to draw a breath. Slowly, Tom found himself being pushed backward through the air. Laughter replaced the doll’s screams as he reached out and managed to catch hold of the hanging sign that proclaimed coffee was only a dollar a cup.
He felt the chain bite into the palm of his hand, and with a last, desperate gasp of strength, he threw the doll away from him.
***
Stefan slammed his fist up into the stranger’s liver, smiling with satisfaction at the long, low groan that escaped from the man’s mouth. Raising the hatchet above him, Stefan prepared to kill the man with it when he noticed movement outside.
A truck he had seen several times during the day, and one he instinctively knew shouldn’t be there, pulled in by one of the pumps.
As he was processing the information, Stefan heard a gasp come from the boy, and a quick jerk of his head showed both the boy and Anne Le Morte falling.
Stefan’s decision was made in a split second, and he dropped the hatchet and sprinted for the emergency exit.
Chapter 36: A Quick Stop
Bontoc had pulled into the gas station on a whim, and was surprised to see Stefan Korzh’s truck there. He wasn’t sure as to whether or not the man would actually be in the curiously dark station, but it was worth a quick look.
When he opened the door, Bontoc found himself facing a filthy, foul man holding Anne Le Morte.
For one of the few times in his life, Bontoc was surprised by the situation that he had discovered.
That moment was short lived, ended as a thin young man hurtled out of shadow and slammed a shoulder into the man with the doll. The act, Bontoc realized instantly, was done to save him. And while the man who held Anne Le Morte would not have been a threat to Bontoc, he did appreciate the boy’s gesture.
Yet even as it occurred, the entire building shook as Anne let out an enraged shriek.
A girl behind the counter let out a short, terrified scream that ended abruptly. A swirling mass of dust and debris clouded his vision, and turned to wet, heavy plaster that clung to everything as Bontoc fell to his knees. The boy was sent sprawling into a display of chips, and the man with the doll somehow managed to get to his feet. The earth continued to shake, and parts of the ceiling fell. Alarms began to sound off by the pumps, and the pungent odor of gasoline reached his nose.
The safety valves on the pumps would let go, and the entire station would erupt into a fireball as the tanks beneath the concrete pads exploded.
Bontoc got to his feet and went forward, following Anne’s caretaker out through the emergency exit, where he grabbed the stranger by the arm.
He peered into the man’s mad eyes and hissed, “Listen to me, get her far from here. And do it now. Her work is not done, so neither is yours. Do you understand me?”
The man’s eyes widened, and he went to pull free, but Anne Le Morte murmured something in her patois that Bontoc didn’t catch. Her caretaker jerked his arm free of Bontoc’s grip and nodded his assent.
“Good. Get out,” Bontoc said, and he turned and went back into the store. He moved quickly through the debris, stepping through the scattered snacks and knocked over racks. His eyes darted about, searching for the boy who had helped him, and Bontoc saw the teenager at the counter.
The boy, who was so thin and so determined, was in the act of dragging the limp body of the cashier over the counter.
One handed.
Bontoc smiled, admiring the boy’s tenacity. He would have left the girl, but the boy – the boy was better than most.
“Go,” Bontoc said, taking her from the teenager, “I will carry her.”
The boy nodded, cradling his left hand against his chest as he picked his way out of the gas station.
“Do you smell the gas?”
“I do,” Bontoc answered. “Go across the street, to the abandoned McDonald’s. I can see Jersey barriers there that we can hide behind.”
The boy didn’t argue but only did as he was told.
Bontoc liked the child all the more for it.
They crossed the street and situated themselves behind the barrier. Bontoc gave the girl a cursory inspection and found that she had several abrasions on her head. She was concussed and would need medical attention.
As would the boy.
Bontoc put the girl down and turned his attention to the boy.
“How badly are you injured?” Bontoc asked.
Before the boy could answer, the gas station exploded.
The blast was terrific, knocking them both down, despite the protection of the barriers. Boards were torn
from the McDonald’s, and the golden arches were sent spiraling into the forest behind the building. Remnants of the gas station went tearing through the air, smashing into trees and the McDonald’s. Bontoc’s ears rang and his head pulsed, his stomach twisted and coiled and had he eaten anything earlier, he would have vomited on the boy.
The boy was thrown as well, rolling several feet before stopping himself and scrambling back to the safety of the barrier. Bontoc watched, amused, as the boy leaned over the girl and shielded her from the minute the debris began to rain down from the sky.
From a distance came the sounds of fire engines and emergency vehicles.
“Your hand,” Bontoc said. “How is it?”
The boy held the injured limb up, and Bontoc saw it was in poor condition. Long strips of flesh hung down, revealing the bone underneath. Black splotches dotted the boy’s pale flesh, and Bontoc knew that he was looking upon frostbite. He had seen it before, on others who had handled possessed items for too long.
The boy would lose most, if not all of his hand.
“You are in poor condition,” Bontoc said.
The boy gave him a death’s head grin, all hate, and fury.
“Yeah,” the boy agreed, “but that damned ghost took off.”
Bontoc laughed, a pleased sound that he had not uttered in years.
“Well said, boy. I am Bontoc,” he said, introducing himself.
“Tom,” the boy replied. “Tom Daniels. So, Bontoc, what are we going to tell the police about this?”
“Concussions are a wonderful injury, Tom,” Bontoc said, glancing back at the road and the red and silver lights dancing along the trees and racing towards them. “They can cause partial amnesia.”
“They can, can’t they,” Tom said, closing his eyes and stretching out on the broken pavement beside the unconscious girl. “I can’t even remember what we were talking about.”
Bontoc let out another laugh, and then he leaned back against the barrier and closed his eyes.
Chapter 37: Visitation and Understanding
The sound that awoke Victor wasn’t the ring of his cell phone, or even that of the hotel room’s landline.
Instead, it was a gentle rapping on the door. The image of a raven fluttered through his thoughts, and the idea of Poe’s dark harbinger snapped him awake.
Victor straightened up, letting the sheet and blankets fall to his waist, his heart thumping against his chest. The rapping contained a sinister element, one he could not place but which set his teeth on edge. His hand stole out to the bed-side table, and he found the iron rings given to him by Shane Ryan. Slipping them on, Victor opened his mouth to call out to the persistent visitor.
He didn’t have to.
Instead, a rasping voice said, “You’re awake.”
Victor recognized the speaker, and the malice in those two words she spoke to him.
“Hello Madame,” Victor said, pushing himself back against the upholstered headboard.
She chuckled, and the sound seemed to emanate from every corner and shadow of the room.
“You are as polite as your young ward, Mr. Daniels,” she said. “I had forgotten that.”
Victor frowned and asked, “You spoke with him?”
“I did,” Le Monde responded. “It was he who told me where to find you.”
“He didn’t say he spoke with you,” Victor growled, trying to pin down where the woman was.
“Of course, he didn’t,” she snapped. “I told him not to remember, and so he did not.”
Victor shook his head, then he asked, “Did you speak with Nicholas as well?”
“The ghost? Yes,” she said, “I spoke with him.”
“What did you say?”
Le Monde laughed. “I told him to return to his bones for a time. I take it he has not returned?”
“He has not,” Victor confirmed, “and the boy’s upset.”
“Ah,” she said, “I am sorry for that. I did not wish to cause the young man distress. But what is done is done, and you and I have business to which we must attend, young Mr. Daniels.”
“What’s that?” Victor asked, his eyes darting around the room.
“My friend,” she replied.
“Jeremy?” he asked, confused.
“No!” Le Monde snarled. “He is responsible for Jean Luc’s death. More than you are, but you are still culpable nonetheless. I want to know what happened. What made Jean Luc turn? What did you do to him? As each day passes I find it more difficult to believe those horrible lies that were spoken about my friend.”
Victor let out a short, bitter laugh. “You’re giving me too much credit. And Jeremy, too. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, we could have done to turn Jean Luc from anything. He almost killed the three of us in the house, and when we found him, he was in the middle of torturing Jeremy.”
“You lie,” she said, but her words lacked conviction, and Victor heard the absence of it.
“You know it’s true,” Victor pressed on. “You know how strong he was. You knew and didn’t tell us because you assumed Jean Luc would be fine with us. And maybe he was. Maybe he was always like that. I don’t know. What I do know, Madame Le Monde, is that he almost killed Jeremy, and he was close to finishing us all.”
“And how did you stop him?” she asked in a low, dangerous tone. “If he was so strong, how did you defeat him?”
“The ghost you sent away,” Victor said. “The boy you visited, Tom, he opened himself to Nicholas. It was only the dead man’s strength once he was in possession of Tom that allowed us to overcome Jean Luc.”
Le Monde was silent for several minutes, and Victor was almost certain she had left when she spoke again.
“How did he die?” she demanded.
“Badly,” Victor said, suspecting the woman would know a lie if he spoke it. “The only way we knew to kill one of his kind was to drown him in boiling water. We did that in the kitchen. I’m, damn, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she hissed. “Sorry? He was my friend! Two centuries, Victor Daniels. Two! Have you any idea what that means? Have you any comprehension of what you have done? What you and yours have wrought?”
“No,” Victor said, too stunned by the woman’s statement of her age to attempt to defend his actions.
“I am torn,” Le Monde whispered, “for I do not know what I should do. I cannot believe you, and yet I cannot hold you responsible until I know for certain what occurred. Perhaps I erred in sending this ghost away. Perhaps I shall have to question him when he returns to you.”
The room shimmered, and Victor realized he was alone.
Leanne Le Monde had returned to New Orleans, if indeed she had ever left there. And he knew, without a doubt, that she was far stronger than he had ever suspected. A shiver raced through him, and he wondered what she might do if she decided he was to blame for Jean Luc’s death.
Chapter 38: Picking Up the Pace
Amy stood in her bathroom and stared at the Arel building, gripping the towel bar beneath the window and wishing the structure beyond would burn. She imagined the beauty of the sight, dark smoke curling and rising into the sky, firefighters scrambling to save the lives of those living on borrowed time.
Sighing, she let go of the towel bar, flexed her hands several times to ease the cramps that had sprung into her palms, and left the room.
In the kitchen, she came to a stop, surprised at the image before her.
Hank, the slim killer, stood in front of her sink. He gave her a wink and a sly smile, saying, “Good morning, Miss. You’re looking devilishly fine. I must say, Mae West has nothing on you, kid.”
Despite her attempt at self-control, Amy felt herself blush, and she muttered, “What do you want, Hank?”
“To talk,” he said, chuckling.
Her hands trembled as she poured the last of the coffee into her cup.
“Then let’s talk,” she said, carrying the beverage into the main room and sitting down in her chair.
He posit
ioned himself across from her, the single light by the television flickering and waves of cold rolling out from him.
“I’m bored,” he said after a moment of silence. “I need to play more.”
She raised an eyebrow, took a drink and thought about the statement.
“How much more?” she asked after a minute.
His crooked grin appeared, and he said, “I’d like a new playmate every day.”
Amy considered his statement and asked, “Every day?”
Hank nodded.
Then the desire to have the Arel community in ruins; to see everything she despised laid to waste quickly returned, and she resisted the urge to give him free rein.
“No,” she said, keeping her voice firm. “Not one a day. But two a week is alright for now. We can turn up the fear a bit.”
A look of surprise flashed across the dead man’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a malignant grin.
“I have a request,” Amy said, and Hank looked at her warily. “Can you start fires?”
“Fire?” the dead man asked. He rubbed at his chin, then scratched the back of his head at the base of his neck. “I suppose. I never tried. Why, Miss?”
“Because when you’re done playing,” Amy said, her hands no longer trembling as they brought the cup back up to her lips, “I want you to burn the place to the ground.”
Hank nodded and said, “Sounds like something I can do.”
The dead man vanished, and Amy finished her coffee. She closed her eyes, and a shiver of delight raced through her as she pictured the dead and the dying in Arel.
Chapter 39: Continuing On
Early in his life, Bontoc had discovered that money could do far more than mere intimidation. He also understood there were times when sowing fear was far more profitable, but he was adept at recognizing the difference.