But I stopped caring about what the Church said a long time ago.
Tim lit the candle and sprinkled some of the golden flecks in it, then sat crossed-legged opposite Angela and positioned the Ouija board on the floor between them. He shuffled forward a little so that their knees were touching. Then he reached up and switched off the van’s rear interior light from a panel on the ceiling. They were now lit only by the flickering candle. Shadows shifted against the side panels of the van.
“You ready?” Tim asked.
“As ready as I’m gonna be.”
“Okay then, here we go.” Tim placed his index and middle fingers on the board’s planchette and motioned for her to do the same. Once she did, he closed his eyes and raised his chin to the roof. “Spirits of old, evil and wicked, I forbid you from doing harm. You are permitted to communicate through us and do no more. I command you to remain in your own plane. We are not portals. If you circle the planchette we will withdraw and you may be trapped between worlds.”
Angela giggled. “Circle the planchette.”
Tim scowled at her. “It signifies a spirit trying to force itself into our world. This won’t work if you’re against it. You need to be quiet and open your mind.”
“I’m sorry,” said Angela wiping the smile from her face. “Please continue.”
“We wish to speak to the one who claims to be the friend of Samuel Raymeady. We wish to speak with the one who has descended upon this dwelling. Come to us, explain yourself. Name yourself.”
Nothing happened. Tim sat with his eyes closed so tight that he looked like his lids might bleed. Angela watched him and tried not to laugh. The whole thing was ludicrous. She felt ashamed of herself for even allowing herself to take part in such a chara-
The planchette twitched.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through Angela’s nerve endings, seeming to bunch up in her elbows. Tim opened his eyes and smiled. She knew then that there had never been any doubt in his mind that it would work. Tim had faith in voodoo as much as she did in God.
The planchette moved an inch. It hovered between C and D, before finally flinching left and resting on the C.
Tim spoke out the following letters, one after another, as the sliding planchette settled on each one. “C…H…A…M…U…E…L…”
Then the planchette stopped. Angela thought hard about the spelled-out word. “Chamuel?” she said out loud. “Why does that word ring a bell?”
Tim shrugged, being sure to keep his fingertips on the planchette. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. Do you think you know what it means?”
“I don’t know. I…I can’t quite remember, but it’s there.”
Tim cleared his throat and spoke into the empty air. “Hello, Chamuel. Can you tell me why you’re here, what you want?”
This time Angela spoke out the letters as they came up. “D…E…A…T…H…”
Tim let out a breath in a short huff. “That’s jovial.”
“We want you to leave,” Angela commanded. “Leave Sammie alone.”
N…O… The planchette moved quicker. E-S-C-A-P-E…D-A-R-K-N-E-S-S…
Tim frowned. “Is that a threat, Chamuel?”
The planchette did not move.
“I said is that a threat? Are we in danger?”
Y-E-S…D-A-N-G-E-R…B-L-O-O-D…P-A-I-N…
“Are you going to hurt Sammie?” Angela asked.
The planchette did not move. Angela made eye contact with Tim who had gone a little pale. There was resolve in her colleague’s eyes however and she knew that he would continue on with the séance for at least a while longer.
The planchette moved again, quicker than before – frantic.
Y-O-U…W-I-L-L…D-I-E…
H-E-L-L…W-I-L-L…T-A-K-E…Y-O-U…
R-U-N…
W-E…A-R-E…O-U-T-S-I-D-E…
Something struck the back of the van, rocking it on its wheels.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What is that?” Angela shifted towards the front of the van, away from the rear doors. The thud had been so forceful that the steel had buckled inwards.
“Felt like we were hit by a bloody rhino.”
“Should we open the doors?”
“I…I don’t know.”
They waited in silence. The darkness was cut only by the light of the single lit candle; miraculously it had remained standing in its holder. No more impacts struck the van and whatever had done so the first time was a mystery.
“I’m going to open up the doors,” said Angela, inching towards the back of the van slowly.
“Be careful,” said Tim. “If you get eaten by something then I’m not cleaning up the mess. In fact, I’m out of here at the first sign of anything bitey.”
Angela placed a hand against the door’s release-trigger. She took a breath, held it. Then opened the door.
Shadows met her.
There was nothing outside. The house and its grounds were shrouded in darkness. Thin, infinite streams of moonstruck raindrops cut through the velvet backdrop of the night. A gust of wind blew in and filled the van with its cold touch.
“There’s nothing out here,” Angela said, sliding a leg across the van’s floor and down towards the pebbled driveway. She planted both her feet and pushed herself up out of the van. Her skin tightened and she shivered as the temperature outside fought against the warmth of her blood. The feeling of loneliness was suddenly all consuming – the world felt empty.
“Oh, thank heavens,” came a voice in the shadows. “I thought I’d been abandoned.”
Angela leapt back up into the van’s cargo bay, pulling her feet up of the ground as if she’d seen a mouse.
Sammie stood in front of her. He was wearing only underpants and seemed unaffected by the cold rain glistening against his pale skin. His flesh shone in the darkness like a spectre.
“S-Sammie, what are you doing out here?”
Sammie grinned, his teeth more crooked than ever under the colourless glow of the moonlight. “I was wondering where everybody was. I’ve been alone in my room for hours now. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to get quite stir crazy.”
Angela’s skin crawled; flesh buzzing like it was covered by a thousand ants. “Okay,” she said, scratching at her arms. “Let’s get you back inside, Sammie, before you freeze to death.”
Sammie grinned wider. “Oh, the cold doesn’t bother me, but your concern is heartening. Is Frank back yet?”
Tim slid out of the van behind Angela and asked his own question: “How did you know he was even gone?”
Sammie shrugged. “I heard him leave in the car. Sounded like he was in a hurry. I do hope he doesn’t have an accident. That man has become like a father to me lately. Perhaps he feels guilty about my father’s death.”
“Do you feel guilty about it?” Angela asked.
Sammie wore a look of confusion. “Me? Why would I feel guilty about it? Unless you’re trying to imply I was in some way responsible. I must say, that’s very unkind of you, Miss Murs.”
“I…I apologise. You’re right. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Tim locked up the van and he and Angela ushered Sammie back towards the house. They kept a distance of a few feet from the boy, who walked barefoot in front of them.
Angela whispered to Tim. “Where the hell is Graham? He was supposed to be keeping an eye on things.”
Tim shrugged, headed up the steps to the house. “With that guy, who knows? I get the impression he doesn’t take his responsibilities very seriously.” He opened the front door and the three of them stepped through into the house.
The foyer was bathed in darkness, the power still off and the weather still bad. The grand, marble-floored space seemed smaller somehow, almost claustrophobic. Angela wanted to be back outside in the open air but, with the rain, that would make her a mad woman. She needed to be inside the house. She needed to take control of the situation.
“Are you okay to take yourself back to bed, Sammie? We’ll
find out where everyone is and then get someone to stop by with some dinner.” Angela checked her watch. It was almost midnight. Dinner was a long time ago. “Well, perhaps it would be more of a supper.”
“I’ll go watch South Park,” said Sammie. “Feel free to join me.”
Sammie started to head towards the stairs, but Tim asked a question first. “Why do you like that program so much, Sammie?”
Sammie turned back around and smiled pleasantly as if the question was a delight to him. “I suppose I like the irony,” he explained. Then he left.
“Wonder what he meant by that?” Tim asked.
Angela shrugged. “Who knows? We need to find out where Graham got to. I’m not comfortable with Sammie wandering around un-chaperoned.”
“Think he’ll end up getting hurt?”
“No,” Angela said. “I’m more worried about him hurting someone else.”
“So where should we start looking? This place is huge.”
“Well, if I know Graham, there’s probably one place he’d be.”
Tim nodded. “Drinking in the lounge.”
They headed behind the stairs and could hear the piano immediately. Someone was playing Mozart’s arrangement for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (or “Ah! Vous Dirai-je, Maman” if her Music Theory lessons served her correctly).
“Who’s playing that?” Tim asked. “They’re even better than you.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Angela as she pushed open the door.
The music stopped.
It looked as though no one was in the lounge. It was hard to see for certain, but Angela would have sensed the presence of somebody else. In fact, her senses were so alert after the last few hours that she’d have sensed a spider on the ceiling.
“Hello?” Tim shouted.
“Save it,” Angela said. “There’s no one here.”
“Then who was Bach-ing it up on the piano?”
“Mozart.”
Tim frowned at her. “What?”
“It was Mozart, not Bach.”
“Oh. Well, whoever it was, they’re either invisible or fast as fucking lightning.”
Angela shook her head. “No. There was no one here. I’m sure of it.”
She crossed the room, slinking between the tables and chairs that filled the large room. Her destination was the piano and as she got near it the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
Angela spoke a single word: “Blood.”
Tim was still standing on the other side of the room. “What?”
“It’s blood. The piano keys are covered in it.”
Where there would usually have been several dozen fingers of ivory, there was now only a congealed mess of thick blood covering everything. The plasma filled the gaps between the keys and splashed the wooden frame of the piano. It looked like a pig had been butchered.
Tim came up beside her. “Oh, hell-diggity. What on Earth happened here?”
“I don’t know,” said Angela, “but I think now would be a good time to do a head count.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mike heard a commotion downstairs. Someone must really have been hollering for him to hear it all the way from Jessica’s penthouse.
What is it now?
Mike got up from his chair at Jessica’s bedside and headed out into the hallway. He looked left and right into darkness.
The sound of people screaming and shouting did not scare Mike; he’d been taught to expect it. He knew it would only be the first of many occasions before the evening was through, and that eventually, when the screaming was finally over, things would once and for all be set in motion.
He headed to the top of the staircase and descended to the floors below. On the second floor, he met Angela and Tim. They were hurtling through the hallways and shouting out at the top of their lungs.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Mike said, holding up a hand to stop them. “What are you bellowing about?”
Angela seemed relieved at the sight of him. “Mike! Thank God, you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Tim told him why: “There’s a heck-load of blood in the piano lounge. Someone must be injured.”
Mike frowned. “What? Are you sure?”
“I know blood when I see it,” Angela said in a voice which suggested intolerance for being doubted. “Have you seen Graham? He was supposed to be looking after things, but we found Sammie wandering around in the pouring rain.”
Mike was surprised to hear that. “Sammie left the house? That’s unlike him.”
“Well, never mind that now. We need to find out whose blood is downstairs. Do you know where Graham is? What about Jessica, too? Is she okay?”
“Jessica is fine,” Mike told her. “She’s still sleeping.”
“Then it must be Graham’s blood,” Tim said.
“You don’t know that,” Mike argued. “Nothing is certain right now.”
“Nothing is certain until we find Graham,” said Angela. “So let’s find him.”
“I’ll check the ground floor,” Tim said.
Angela nodded. “I’ll check the first floor.”
“Well, I’ve just come from the penthouse,” Mike explained. “So I’ll check the second and third floors.”
The three of them set off to their separate floors, agreeing to meet back later at the piano lounge. Mike was only going to search half-heartedly. He knew with total confidence that Graham would turn up somewhere, but in how many pieces would remain to be seen.
***
Angela had taken the first floor for a reason. Sammie’s room was located there and she wanted to keep a close eye on him. The only way she could be sure of him not wandering around the house again was if she remained nearby herself. If Sammie wanted to leave his room, he would have to get by her first.
The first floor also contained a modern-style living room, inconsistent with the antique furnishings of the rest of the house. There was a large LCD television mounted on one wall and a plush, green sofa sitting opposite it. Other than the furniture the room was empty, so Angela moved onto the next.
The door she opened led to a low-beamed ceiling with a full-sized snooker table filling almost all of the carpet. Decorated with horse brasses and a dado railing, the billiard room was like something from a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel. It was a fitting place for an atmospheric murder mystery but, right now, it too was empty.
The next half-dozen rooms Angela checked were just vacant bedrooms and a family bathroom. There was also a small office which seemed no more than a cubby hole with a computer. Every room she checked was empty.
The only room left was Sammie’s.
Earlier, Sammie had said he’d been abandoned, so Angela was confident she wouldn’t find Graham there, but she wasn’t positive. Nor was she positive that she would even find Sammie there. She and Tim had watched the boy climb the stairs from the foyer, but they had not physically seen him return to his room. She wanted to be sure.
She placed a hand on Sammie’s doorknob and wondered if she was imagining the subtle vibrations coming from it. The door creaked as she opened it and she was certain it hadn’t done so on previous occasions.
Sammie was in his bed, staring at the blank television screen, mesmerised. A stack of South Park DVDS peeked out from the open drawer of a candle-lit dresser, but without power they were useless.
“Sammie,” she said. “Sammie, will you talk with me for a moment?”
The boy ignored her.
“Sammie, have you seen Graham?”
No answer.
Angela had a sudden thought. “Sammie, is your friend’s name Chamuel?”
Sammie continued to ignore her, but this time there was a brief flicker of his eyes. It was a physical response to her question. Whether or not Sammie was ignoring her, he could definitely hear her.
But maybe he isn’t the one in control. Maybe he wants to answer me but can’t.
“Chamuel.” Angela said. “Are you he
re with us now? Can you speak to me?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” said Sammie, suddenly free from his trance. “I’m trying to watch my program and you’re interrupting me. Please leave.”
Angela didn’t let her surprise stop her and carried on. “I will, Sammie, but first I want to know who Chamuel is? What does he want?”
Sammie looked at Angela and shook his head. He looked angry – angrier than a ten-year old boy ever should. “He wants to kill me,” Sammie spat irritably. “Happy now?”
“No,” Angela said. “I’m not happy at all. Why does Chamuel want to kill you?”
“Because I wouldn’t be what he wanted me to be. He’s a nasty bully.”
Angela took a step towards Sammie’s bed and was almost close enough to touch him. “What did Chamuel want you to be, Sammie?”
Sammie cleared his throat and it sounded full of thick phlegm. Then he looked worried for a moment, just an innocent child again; not the detached, questioning adult he had been behaving as. “He…he…wants me to become something I’m not. He wants to change me. He never stops trying to get his own way, and I’m getting so tired of fighting him.”
Angela felt her heart beating. “I want to help you, Sammie. I want to make him go away.”
Sammie stared at her, his dark eyes swirling with emotions she couldn’t work out. “Please, help me,” the boy pleaded. “Please make him stop.”
Angela placed a hand on Sammie’s naked shoulder and knew she had just met the boy for the first time.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Sammie,” she said. “My name is Angela, and I’m going to help you. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”
I just hope that it isn’t.
The door swung open behind Angela and she turned around. Tim was standing there, panting and sweating. “It’s Graham,” he said. “We found him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Angela hurried after Tim, struggling to keep up with his rocket-like pace. He’d not told her what had happened, just said to follow him and follow him fast. They headed up one flight of stairs and were now on the second floor. Tim took a door on the right about midway down the corridor. It was already partially open and Mike was in there waiting for them.
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