Angela moved slowly, the sound of her feet hitting tiles after previously being on carpet seemed inordinately loud. If Sammie was hiding in the bathtub, he would have heard her coming. She thought about calling out, but told herself it would be a useless act as Sammie was unlikely to respond even if he was there.
She closed the final few steps, stood within arm’s reach of the shower curtain.
Here goes.
Angela placed her fingers against the plastic sheet and found the seam. Slowly, inch by inch, she pulled the curtain aside.
She let out a breath.
The bathtub was empty.
Somebody grabbed Angela from behind. She spun around, ready to scream.
“Any sign?” Frank asked her calmly.
“Bloody hell, Frank. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry,” he said earnestly. “Tim said he heard something down below. I didn’t hear anything myself, but I lost twenty-per cent of my hearing during my days in the forces.”
Angela nodded. “Okay, let’s go check it out then. You shouldn’t have left Tim alone. It’s not safe.”
“He insisted. Said he’d be fine.”
“I hope so.”
When they went back out into the hallway, Tim was gone.
Frank looked left and right. “Where did he go?”
“He’s afraid,” said Angela, understanding what had happened. “I imagine he’s trying to find a way out.”
Frank’s nostrils flared and he snorted like a bull. “Coward.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now. If Tim wants out of here then he’ll be no use to us anyway. We need to find Sammie. Do you think Tim was at least telling the truth about hearing a noise downstairs?”
Frank shrugged. “Probably not. In fact, I doubt it entirely. Perhaps we should work from the top down. Go to the penthouse first?”
Angela nodded. “Sounds like a plan. You still got that gun?”
“Huh? Yes, it’s tucked under my shirt. Why?”
“No reason. Just nice to know you have it.”
As they walked, Angela decided to fill the time with some questions. “So now that Jessica has…passed on, what will happen to the family’s shares in Black Remedy? Will they really all belong to Sammie?”
“Yes, but they’ll be overseen by his legal guardian until he’s eighteen.”
“Who’s his guardian?”
Frank shook his head. “I’m not sure. Vincent Black was the boy’s godfather, so perhaps him.”
Angela stopped walking. “Isn’t he the other owner of the company?”
“Forty-nine per cent, yes. The Black family provided most of the funding that the Raymeady family required to build the company.”
“Mike was obviously working against the Raymeady’s. Do you think he was working for the Black family? Are they trying to take control of the company?”
“I’d imagine so,” Frank said, sounding surprisingly resigned to the fact. “With Sammie so young, the Blacks will likely raise him as their own.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? Jessica, Joseph, they could be dead because of some greedy American businessman.”
“Of course it bothers me, but what would you have me do? My job was to protect this family, and I’ve failed. Time for me to move on.”
“Move on?” Angela couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You can’t just move on. You’re right, you failed this family. You owe them. You owe Sammie.”
Frank sighed. “It’s already too late. Sammie is obviously under some sort of spell. If the Black family is behind it then they have already achieved everything they wanted.”
“It’s not over yet, Frank. You’re going to do everything you can to protect that boy once this is over. You promise me that, Frank. Do you hear me?”
Frank sighed. “Yes. Yes, I hear you.”
“Then come on. Let’s go make this right.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Tim hated himself (even more than he usually did). It didn’t matter how hard he tried, he could never bring himself to jeopardise his own safety for anyone else. He was a natural coward, and it made him sick, but that was just who he was.
It was Angela’s sick God that made me this way.
The house made Tim so anxious that his spine was in a constant state of rigour. He tiptoed stiffly across the thick marble floor in the foyer and felt as if his joints were about to seize up at any minute.
Trying to get the front door open would be a fool’s errand, but Tim didn’t know what else to do. He was getting out of this house one way or the other. With Sammie on the loose, like a rabid little beastie, Tim didn’t plan on waiting around to be butchered.
What the hell was I thinking setting the kid free?
The thick, wooden front doors loomed over Tim as he approached them. It almost felt as if they were in on the whole conspiracy to keep him trapped. Perhaps they were possessed, too, like Sammie (if he were to let himself believe that was why the boy was so ill). He still felt like the victim of some elaborate hoax, but that didn’t change the fact that he was also totally freaked out by now, and becoming more and more open to the possibility of it being something else. Something far worse. Tim had read many articles about a house being inhabited by spirits and poltergeists.
He couldn’t deny that such things existed; he had seen them. Perhaps there were entities inside this house. Several.
A goddamn cauldron of evil.
Tim placed a hand around the door knob and took a deep breath. Then he twisted his wrist and yanked.
Tim almost choked. The handle turned freely, the door was unlocked. His surprise was so much that his hand slipped back down to his side and he stood silently staring at the door. He didn’t waste too much time, though, and quickly placed his fingers back around the door handle, turning once again.
The door swung open.
Tim yanked it so hard that it almost smashed against his foot. He had to hop backwards out of the way just in time, and found himself staring out at the inviting expanse of the driveway. There was nothing to see but a velvet sheet of background, but Tim knew that freedom was waiting for him out there. He could smell it. The air outside was different: fresh and pure.
Tim stepped forwards.
“So I guess this is goodbye?”
Tim froze on the spot. There was no confusion in his mind as to who was currently standing right behind him. In front of Tim was the exhilarating freedom of the English countryside, but behind him was the cold evil of a ten-year-old boy.
“I have no issue with you,” Sammie said, seemingly content to speak to Tim’s back. “You are…insignificant.”
Something about the word irritated Tim. He turned around. “What is all this? What’s it all about?”
“What is anything about in this decaying crust of existence? It is about power; the power to remould the world.”
“And what exactly do you want to remould it into?”
Sammie opened his arms wide as if he were surveying the world. “An existence without fear or suffering; a world of order and consistency.”
Tim backed away towards the open door. “That sounds very much like a world without free will to me. Sounds like you plan on enslaving humanity or something.”
Sammie grinned, wide and feline. “Semantics. The only thing you need to realise is that God’s world is a failed experiment. It is time for new management.”
“You’re the fucking Devil,” Tim spat. “Angela will stop you.”
Sammie sighed. “I am not the Devil. The Devil is a weak being, perverted by too much time amongst the human filth. I am beyond God, beyond the Devil. I am the wolf amongst the lambs. Your cleric will kneel before me and her death will be sublime.”
Tim took another step backwards. “You say I am insignificant. So what do you want with Angela? Why did you summon her here?”
“I did not summon her here.”
“Then who did?” Tim demanded. “Who scribbled her name in your sketch pa
d?”
Sammie took in a deep, whistling breath and let it out again in a gust which stunk up the air like festering meat. “There are more forces at work in this house than you realise. There is another. He is the one who shares history with your priest, not me. Regardless, her presence defiles this place and I will take exquisite pleasure in ripping her soul apart.”
“You won’t-”
“ENOUGH!” Sammie’s voice was like a hive full of wasps. It buzzed inside Tim’s head and made his eyes water. “Leave this place. Leave before I change my mind and this house becomes your tomb. The door is open. I suggest that you take it. My clemency is not infinite.”
Tim turned around and faced the door. The darkness outside beckoned him. It offered safety and the chance of living out the rest of his life.
Tim cleared his throat, sighed, and stepped towards the door.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
After checking the penthouse floor and finding it empty, Angela and Frank were now checking out the third floor. It, too, seemed deserted. She wondered what Sammie was planning. Would he jump out at them any moment, or was he planning to flee the house? She still didn’t understand what was happening, but she was confident about one thing: the blood exorcism was the solution – if it wasn’t then Sammie (or whoever was in control of him) would not have fled. Sammie was afraid of her.
Just need to drive the dagger through his feet and all this could be over.
Angela shook her head at the thought of what she had already done, and what she still needed to do. Once she had been a servant of the Lord, and it was true that she had eventually lost her way, but she now felt closer to God now than ever. Her renewed faith would allow her to do the grizzly deeds ahead of her.
Frank returned from one of the bedrooms he’d been checking. Angela smiled at him as he approached. “Find anything?”
“No, empty like all the rest. The next room is yours. Did you want to check it out?”
Angela nodded. She headed up to the door on the left which led to the room in which she herself had been staying. Inside, things were just the way she’d left them. Her suitcase lay on the floor next to the bed, its contents spilling out. The bed was unmade – and inviting. Tiredness pulsed through her head and licked at the back of her eyelids. She looked at her watch and saw that it was now almost four in the afternoon.
Yet the moon was still out like it was midnight.
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
The C.S. Lewis quote had popped into Angela’s head, unbidden, as she turned a full circle of the room, scrutinising every nook and cranny. She even knelt down to inspect beneath the bed. All was clear; no little boys hiding, no evil lurking. The last thing that caught Angela’s eye was the painting above her bed of the two cherubs fighting. She didn’t know why the picture kept catching her eye, but she was convinced she was missing something.
Or maybe I just think it’s ugly.
Angela exited the room. When she re-entered the hallway, Frank was not where she had left him, and was further along the corridor, over by the grand staircase.
“Frank, are you okay?”
Frank remained silent, but he heard her. He raised one hand beside his head that made it clear he’d acknowledged her but wanted to remain silent.
Angela hurried forward, her stomach full of dread. It took more than a dozen steps to traverse the long corridor and catch up to Frank and, once she did, it became clear what had rooted the man to the spot.
Sammie was slowly climbing the stairs below. He took each step leisurely, ascending like a spirit en route to Heaven. There was a smile on his face so great that it contorted his other features completely and pushed them out of the way.
Angela moved beside Frank and whispered to him. “What is he doing? Do you think Tim is okay?”
“Tim made his own bed,” said Frank.
Angela watched the boy continue up the stairs. She couldn’t help but shout out to him. “Sammie? Sammie what are you doing?”
Sammie did not acknowledge her. He continued his slow, gliding ascent of the staircase. His smile seemed to grow wider, crooked teeth taking up more of his face.
“Sammie? Where is Tim?”
Sammie finally glanced up and acknowledged her. “Tim has abandoned you, Priest. His heart was meek.”
“So we were right,” said Frank. “Tim did run out on us. Coward.”
Angela raised a hand. “You cannot blame a man for being frightened. None of us have any power over bravery. Courage chooses us only when it is needed. Tim isn’t important.”
Sammie had reached the top of the stairs now and was only six feet away from Angela and Frank. He stood before them, calmly, as if their previous altercations, one where Angela had driven a dagger through his palms, had not happened. Angela saw now that the wounds had blackened and dried.
“I need to finish this, Frank,” Angela whispered.
Frank nodded. “Sammie, are you willing to come back to your room?”
Sammie laughed. “What do you think, fool?”
Frank sighed. “Hard way it is then.” He made a snatch for the boy but was nowhere quick enough. Sammie leapt up onto the balcony’s bannister, his bare feet gripping the wood like a vulture’s talons (his filthy toenails were just as long). Angela took over from Frank and made her own grab for the boy.
Sammie kicked her in the face from his elevated perch and sent her reeling backwards into the wall. Angela tasted blood at the back of her nose. Sammie glared down at her with sunken eyes. The boy seemed more beast-like than human – some twisted mix of species. The smell coming off of him was foul.
Frank made another grab for Sammie, but again the boy was too quick for him. He sprung off the banister and cleared Frank’s head by several feet, landing behind him in a crouch and hissing like a feral cat.
“He’s not even human,” said Frank, steadying himself against the railing. “More like an animal.”
Angela used the back of her hand to wipe away the blood that was filling up her nostrils. “The evil has twisted him, Frank, activated his primal instincts. We need to finish this now or Sammie will be lost forever.”
Her words seemed to spur Frank on and he bellowed in defiance as he made a lunging tackle towards Sammie. His arms connected with the boy’s legs and brought them both to the ground. Sammie squealed with childish laughter, unconcerned by his capture.
“I need you to hold his legs,” Angela said. “I must pierce his feet together. Then it will be done, it will be over.”
Frank managed to straddle Sammie and begun wrestling to get the boy’s ankles together. Sammie kicked his legs and giggled as if it were some kind of game.
“Give it up, Frank,” Sammie said. “You’re never going to be the hero. You couldn’t save my parents and you never saved Conway, Nichols, or Albright. They died on your watch, Sergeant! Right after you shot a pregnant woman in the stomach. So much death at your hands. You’ll never wash the stink off.”
Frank reacted as if he’d been kicked in the ribs. His grip on Sammie loosened. The boy shuffled free.
Angela spoke loudly, trying to be the only voice that Frank heard. “Frank, don’t listen to him. Whatever he is talking about doesn’t matter. We all have pasts. It is what we do right now that matters.”
“Tell that to those men’s families,” Sammie said. “Tell that to Conway’s son. Tell him how you sent his father into a village you said was friendly. Tell him how you left him to die in Sierra Leone. I thought the Parachute Regiment never left a man behind. Well, you left three behind to save your own ass.”
Frank staggered to his feet and backed away from Sammie. “They…they were pinned down, wounded. The whole village was armed – even the pregnant woman. If I stayed behind we would all have died. I needed to bring in support before the rebels dug in somewhere else, killed more soldiers. Someone needed to get back alive.�
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Angela shouted. “Frank! Frank, it doesn’t matter. He’s just trying to break you. You need to get a hold of him so we can finish this.”
Frank shook his head. “Things were finished for me a long time ago. Protecting this family was supposed to be my salvation, but instead it’s my last condemnation.” He spun around and grabbed Angela; shoved her against the balcony railing and winded her. “I’m sorry,” he said as he snatched the ceremonial dagger from her fingertips and rushed towards Sammie with it.
Sammie swatted Frank aside like a measly fly. The force was inhumane and sent the large ex-soldier clean off his feet and reeling backwards into Angela. The sudden impact of Frank’s body took Angela by surprise and her legs twisted beneath her. Arms pinwheeling, she tumbled into the balcony railing and, as her hip struck hard against the wood, the momentum carried her over. Suddenly she was upside down and falling.
Angela felt the floor disappear from beneath her feet and knew that she was falling to her death. A two story drop would be coming up to meet her.
Something grabbed her wrist.
She flipped in the air, legs dangling painfully from her overstretched joints. She hung by her left arm, the pain in her shoulder immense, and was rising slowly back towards the balcony railing. Somebody had saved her at the last second.
Thank God. I owe you one, Frank.
“You ought to be more careful,” said a voice that was not Frank’s.
Angela looked up and saw that it was Sammie who held her by the wrist. He lifted her smoothly, as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar. The look on his face was like that of a cat toying with a mouse. Angela knew Sammie’s intention was not to save her; it was only to prolong his own amusement. The look on his face was one of pure hatred and spite.
Once Sammie had raised her up enough that they were face to face and she could feel his fetid breath on her cheeks, he stopped and held her there. It was then that Angela saw Frank writhing on the floor behind Sammie, with the ceremonial dagger jutting up from his thigh muscle. He must have fallen on it when Sammie flung him across the balcony. There was no chance of him saving her now. She was helpless, doomed.
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