Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (29 page)

“You could have joined us,” it said. “You could have helped us rule. Your master helped us although he didn’t realize it. Surely your revenge against him would be completed more easily if you took our side!” Wait, did he think I was Legion? If that was true, why hadn’t he said so earlier? And how could he still think that after Legion answered the door at Noah Whateley’s house? It didn’t seem to matter now. He continued his rant. “It’s too late now; you have to pay for what you’ve done.” He raced towards me. The triclops scuttled in front of me. Okay, it was probably after the only meal it could get, but I warmed up to it a little. Earl drew his revolver.

“You might want to rethink that Mr. Finch,” he said. “Ever since you reached the top of the suspect list there’s been a bullet in this gun with your name on it. If you agree to quit trying to take over the world and return to your home dimension, I won’t shoot.” The Finch thing laughed.

“Bullets will never work on me,” it said. “In the shadow of this beast, neither will the creatures you’ve summoned. I may yet succeed.”

No sooner had he spoken than there was a deep groan like steel grinding against ice, and the tentacles shot down into the ground.

“You were saying?” Steve said. I put two and two together and started to back up.

The groaning stopped as soon as the tentacles disappeared; the earth began to shake. I hit the ground while Earl kept his gun aimed at Finch. The Finch thing screamed and turned towards the crack in the ground. At first I thought it was wobbling in haste, but soon I realized it was shaking due to the quake. The ground shook harder; Dr. Finch wobbled more, and at last it lost concrete form entirely and dissolved into a puddle. The antler beast and the tooth creature immediately went to the puddle and began tearing at it. The earth continued shaking for another minute or so.

“Was that it?” Earl asked once the shaking stopped.

“I think so,” I said. Steve ignored the shades and walked to the pit.

“Fantastic!” He said. “It looks like the quake took out the portal!”

“Really?” I stood up and went over to the pit. Somehow the lights were still on, and I could see to the floor of the cave. There was a roiling darkness flowing into the cave, but the portal was nowhere to be seen.

“We could have saved ourselves some trouble if we’d known what Cassandra’s machine could do earlier,” I commented.

“Yup.” Earl scratched his head. “Deliberately starting earthquakes has got to be against the law. Under the circumstances, I don’t know if I should arrest her or not.”

“You’re going to have to fill this in anyway,” I warned Steve. “That thing from the forest is in there.”

“A minor problem compared to everything else,” Steve said. I didn’t know about that. I was getting the same queasy feeling as I’d had in my dream. In my opinion, we’d solved one problem and created another. “Shall we round up your pets now?”

“Yeah.” I turned to find that we were surrounded. “Honestly, I was expecting that quake, and whatever caused it, to take care of them for me.” I was glad for the support, however hideous. Being jostled by shades kept me from being mesmerized by the black mist again.

“They must not be extra planar,” he said.

“They look plenty alien to me,” Earl said. “I can’t say I feel very good about knowing these things are native to this area.”

“Maybe they were from the forest,” I said. As I spoke, the triclops scuttled towards the hole in the earth and dropped into it.

“Hey!” I leaned over and looked down. It hit the floor, righted itself, then headed towards the darkness. As I watched, it melted into it.

“That’ll save some time.” The caterpillar thing followed suit, and one by one so did the other creatures.

“What do you think that means?” Earl asked.

“Beats me,” Steve said. “Maybe the spook that keeps you all out of that forest is some kind of ghost itself.”

“Or it’s made of the same stuff as them,” I said. We waited a bit, but none of the creatures reemerged.

“Maybe they came from the forest, and they’ll stay there, like the goldfish you tricked into that aquarium,” Steve said.

“I’m willing to take that chance,” I said. “Anything that means I don’t have to go down there.” I turned to go back to the parking lot, to find Sparks fluttering in the air. He zipped around me a few times and dove into my pocket.

“And the good news is, the spirits think these lands have been cleansed,” I said. I could still hear the screams of animals, but as long as Sparks was otherwise calm the noise didn’t bother me.

“Good for them,” Earl said.

At the car, we just told them that the machine had taken out the demon army as well. Cassandra was glowing with triumph. I couldn’t tell if it was because her machine had worked or because the Finch monster had been destroyed. She was full of plans to redesign it and do more field testing. Earl suggested she do it somewhere else. Agent Starr was disappointed; in the excitement the portal penguin had vanished. He couldn’t say if it had run away or if the machine had zapped it too. 

Mr. and Mrs. Whateley were very grateful to me for rescuing their daughter. They offered to let me stay at their hotel for free any time that I liked. Zebulon offered to buy me a gun, which I declined. I’d had enough shootouts to last me a century at least. I did go target shooting with him again. I stayed in town a few more days, in part to sort the rest of Obadiah’s possessions, but mostly to make sure those shades I’d raised didn’t return to the hotel. On the second day afterwards, Fiona invited Steve and me to her house for lunch.

“We’ve reached an agreement on the mall,” Steve announced as Fiona set out drinks and sandwiches.

“It’s on again?” I said. “Jesticorps can’t take a hint, can they?”

“Not when there’s money to be spent,” Steve said. “I’ve received official word that nothing short of Christ himself returning in all his glory will halt construction now that the chupacabras have been dealt with.”

“It’s more likely to be declared a Superfund site than a wildlife refuge now,” Fiona said. “And if Jesticorps is willing to pay for the cleanup I’m not going to keep protesting. Exposing and ending the evil alien threat is enough for me.”

“That was your angle from the beginning wasn’t it?” I said. “You knew something was there.”

“I suspected,” she said. “Mostly because it was a stupid place for a mall, no offense intended.”

“None taken,” Steve said. “We’re going to take precautions now that the shoppers won’t notice.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“For starters, a concrete plug over the hole. Then Cecilia has agreed to put some witchy protection on the ground. With a few alterations to the design to make the building resistant to alien invasion, we’ll be good to go. I’m thinking of making the seal grotesquely extravagant. If it’s over the top enough, we might become a tourist destination.”

“What about the darkness from the forest? Won’t it frighten away shoppers?” Steve shrugged.

“We’ll put it in the middle of a courtyard,” he said.

“No one’s seen it except you,” Fiona said, “and it’s never hurt anyone. If it bothers you stay away from the mall. That’s what it wants.”

“There’s one thing I still don’t get about Dr. Finch’s motivations,” I said.

“Yes?” Fiona prompted me.

“Why was he searching Cecilia’s shop and Steve’s and my things? The key was too big to hide where he was looking, and we never found a map of the tunnel or anything else useful.”

Fiona sighed.

“If I told you he was looking for Obadiah’s stash of chocolate coins would you believe me?” she asked.

“No,” I said. If Legion was right, I had that anyway.

“I have an ancestor who was not nice,” she said. “Several of them, actually. It’s possible that Obadiah ended up with some of his things either through tunneling -” she looked at me to gauge my reaction – “or because the late wizard Noah Whateley, my former neighbor, gave it to him.”

“Wait a minute,” Steve interrupted, “are you saying there might be more magical booby traps in that house?” She nodded.

“I apologize for not warning you earlier,” she said, not looking apologetic at all. “Until you told me about the logic book I thought they would be more eldritch in nature. Or at least look valuable. It seems Dr. Finch thought the same if he broke into the store but not the house.”

“Are there any other unwelcome surprises about that house you care to share?” Steve asked her. She shook her head.

“I never visited Obadiah at home,” she said. “No one did. If we had, we wouldn’t have let him bury himself in junk like that.”

“How much longer are you going to stay in town?” she asked me, changing the subject.

“Oh, a few more days,” I said. “I’m still not done sorting through Mr. Fry’s stuff.”

“You don’t have to finish all at once,” Steve said. “When I made the offer I didn’t realize I’d bought a hoard.”

“I wonder how his sister-in-law would feel if she knew how many valuables were left in the house.”

“I paid her enough that she shouldn’t have room to complain.”

“Should and would are two very different things,” Fiona reminded him.

“True,” Steve agreed.

I noticed that Fiona had glossed over an important detail; Dr. Finch couldn’t have broken into Obadiah’s magically protected home if he’d wanted to.

“How is Gregory feeling?” I asked. He had been banished to the kitchen after trying to eat the entire fruit salad she’d set out. “He missed his chance to go home.”

“He seems fine. To be honest, I’m not sure he understood much of what was going on.”

***

That evening I took Theresa to the diner again, this time for carry out. She viewed my extra burger and fries with suspicion.

“Do you have a date tonight?” she asked me.

“No,” I told her. “I’m eating with a friend.”

“Thanks for saving my life,” she told me.

“No problem.” I stuck my hand in my coat pocket to get my car keys and felt something hard and round instead. I pulled it out, and Theresa gasped in delight. “I suppose this is for you,” I told her, and handed over the chocolate coin. She took it with a smile.

I tried to repeat the trick again after I dropped her off at the hotel with no luck. Legion was pleased with the cheeseburger and unsurprised by the coin.

“Perhaps giving them away is the key,” he said. “Think about giving me a coin, and try again.”

Sure enough, a coin appeared in my pocket.

“It’s too bad I don’t have any nieces or nephews,” I said, giving him the coin. “Now I’ve got an endless supply of candy, and no way of using it without looking like a creep.” He seemed puzzled. I tried to explain, and we spent the rest of the night discussing the modern world, and the mall. He seemed keen to check it out. He also seemed keen to continue our acquaintance. He gave me his phone number and made me promise to call him at least once a week. I remembered Steve’s warning and promised anyway. It didn’t seem like a difficult promise to keep.

That night I dreamed of the bronze gate again. It was wide open. A column of black mist extended high into the red sky, each tendril of mist ending in a dark hand. I tried to run only to find myself surrounded by shades. They were solid now and try as I might I couldn’t push through them. The column of darkness crashed to the earth, washing over me. I felt colder than I ever had before. I opened my mouth to scream, and darkness rushed in.

As quickly as it arrived it disappeared, leaving a closed gate, a clear blue sky, and a field full of shades. This time when I shoved them out of my way they rushed to obey.

I woke up cold and confused. My amber pendant was clear again, and all the moths were in place. Full night’s sleep or not, I couldn’t take much more of this. I looked out the window. At least there weren’t any more lights in the marsh.

***

The next day Steve tracked me down at the bar.

“You’ll never guess who wanted to talk to me,” he said.

“Who? More cultists?”

“Nope,” he said. “The elusive Mrs. Fry. She was hysterical. It seems she heard some of the real story of what happened to her brother-in-law. She couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted to get his things back because she’d misjudged him all these years, or never wanted to see them again because she’d had such a traumatic experience.”

“
She
had a traumatic experience?”

“But of course. Remember how you said she and Abner Whateley were in cahoots?”

“I vaguely remember something along those lines,” I said. “Did you find out the details?” Steve grinned.

“She didn’t reveal the whole sordid mess, but she did feel the need to unburden herself about the terrible deal she made with that evil man who bombed the construction site.”

That was part of the cover story we were repeating. Not that I’d felt the need to lie. Agent Steiner and Agent Starr were adamant that they could not put the real sequence of events in their official report. To minimize our further involvement the late Finch monster had been labeled a terrorist who’d stolen the real Dr. Finch’s identity to blend in. Homeland security would now get involved, but that was a problem for any remaining cultists and whoever had given the creature a fake ID.

“So he tried to buy the property before Jesticorps did,” I said. “His scheme went off without a hitch, so why didn’t the sale go through?”

“That’s just it,” Steve said. “She wasn’t broken up about Obadiah’s death. She’s convinced
Abner’s
death was her fault. She was all set to sell to Dr. Finch when someone from Jesticorps showed up with ten times the money. There were other heirs to the estate, and it was a ton of money, way more than the land would ever be worth. She couldn’t resist all the extra zeroes. Realistically, once the offer went public, she couldn’t have sold to Dr. Finch without prompting investigations from the other heirs. She thinks that the cultists took their anger out on Abner.”

“He would have been in a tight spot,” I said. “If selling the land for cheap was part of the payment for killing Obadiah Dr. Finch must have felt cheated as well as disappointed.”

“You know what this really means don’t you?” Steve asked me.

“What?”

“There were two groups of cultists involved in this.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Do you think we got them all?”

“No way,” Steve said. “I’ll be watching my back for a long time after this. You’d better do the same.”

“I will,” I said. Not that I meant it. I was headed back to Anaheim. There were fanatics there to be sure, but there were interested in rollercoasters, parades, and a much more wholesome kind of magic.

On that note, I went down to the smoking room to watch the goldfish one last time. They’d been beautiful specimens in life. With the aquarium light on their transparent bodies glistened like moving gems. If I could repeat this stunt reliably I might have a profitable new line of work. The ASPCA didn’t care about fish, so my no maintenance fish tanks wouldn’t cause controversy. When I tried to leave Barry, my original fishy nemesis, swam through the glass to follow me.

“Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no. Get back in there.” To my shock, he obeyed. “Come here, Barry,” I called. He swam back to me. “Now go back to the tank.” I experimented with other fish. I didn’t need to know their names, just thinking about the one I wanted to order around was enough. Somehow, I’d become stronger while I was here.

I quit playing with the fish before anyone could come down the stairs and catch me at it. If this was because of my dreams, then Jeremiah might be able to explain it. I could never ask him though. This was exactly the sort of thing Sheriff Warren was concerned about when he’d been thinking about having me killed. I’d just accept my good fortune and get the hell out of town.

***

Finally, after saying my goodbyes and getting all my clothes back from the cleaners, Sheriff Warren told me I wasn’t needed for any more interviews and Steve was satisfied with my work. I packed up my things and prepared to go back to California and warmer weather. Cassandra caught me in the parking lot as I was putting the last suitcase in my trunk. She’d come to let me know all of her equipment was out of Steve’s house. She was looking much better. I hadn’t realized how much of her pallor had been from worry and stress. She looked ten years younger, and the shadows under her eyes were gone. If I hadn’t exorcised her myself, I never would have known she’d been possessed. She smiled at me as I followed her to the back garden.

“I see you got rid of the goldfish,” she said.

“Yeah, it was sad to see them go but I couldn’t steal Theresa’s pets.” She laughed.

“I’m sure,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry about trying to conscript you earlier. I really appreciated everything you did for me.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “Gregory might never speak to you again though.”

“Gregory?”

“The baby squid alien.”

“Ah. I’m sorry about that. I was looking for anything to distract me. Crypto-zoology is my real passion you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, it is. The only thing positive that’s come out of this is that I’ve been invited to speak at a crypto-zoology convention this spring.”

“About the giant squid or the chupacabras?” She grinned.

“About the fluffy bird monsters,” she said. “Most crypto-zoologists aren’t totally insane, you know.”

“You could have fooled me,” I said. “Wait; were you even there to see the portal penguins?”

“I saw one for about five minutes while I was trying to start my machine,” she reminded me. “I’m hoping someone will fill in the details for me.”

“I might be able to,” I heard myself say. “I was attacked by one.”

“Really?”

“It was terrifying.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ve got to get going if I want to be in California tonight,” I said. “You can call me if you want to talk about them more.”

“I’d like that,” she said. She ran her fingers through the leaves of a rosebush. The only flowers on it at this time of year were dead. “The convention will be in Lafayette. Louisiana is beautiful in the spring.”