Darkborn (30 page)

“We called on something, Will. We really did .
 
.
 
. and then the deal was struck.”

“Deal? What — ?” Will laughed.

Kiff held up a hand. His nostrils flared in and out, and Will felt his fear. The apartment was icy, and Will looked to the right, where he had seen a window. He saw the gloomy room, a comer of an unmade bed. A metal bar holding the window shut. Another crucifix. Newspaper articles, photos, taped to the wall, barely visible.

“A
sacrifice
. A fucking sacrifice, Will. We didn’t see it. We didn’t know. But without a sacrifice, there’d be no deal,” Kiff laughed. “I mean, we should have seen it. I started reading up, and Will — I know. I
know
what happened.”

Two minutes left, Will thought. That’s it.

“Which was?”

“Mike Narrio. He died. It was him. We called on something. And Narrio was the price.”

Will grinned. This was too much. It reminded him of a vacation he took with Becca, years before Sharon and Beth. They were out in Santa Fe playing — of all things — miniature golf. They were alone, on the Humpty Dumpty course, while another spectacular Southwest sun set. And then, when they got done somehow, they got to talking to the skinny man who ran the mini-golf.

The type of conversation bored tourists fall into.

And they found themselves talking about things .
 
.
 
. like UFOs, and spirits, and magic .
 
.
 
. and the guy said he had a job like this because it gave him time to explore things.

The man grinned, like a crazy cat that had a bag full of canaries.

Will and Becca left, laughing, searching for a Tex-Mex joint that wouldn’t eat their stomach lining for dessert.

At dinner, Becca checked her watch.

It was stopped.

At the exact moment that they had left the Humpty Dumpty.

It never worked again.

Will took a breath now.

He longed for the sparkling new White Plains courthouse, with its polished blond wood and brilliant fluorescent lights.

Sanity .
 
.
 
.

Will looked at the shrimp cocktail glass filled with the liquor. He reached out and took the glass. A small sip might help .
 
.
 
.

“The price for
what
?” Will asked.

Kiff shook his head. “I — I don’t know.” Kiff made one hand fly out. “We did this — ceremony. And Narrio had to die.”

Kiff looked up, his beadlike eyes boring into Will. “We set something loose that night.” Kiff shook his head. “I know it.” Kiff’s wooden tongue tasted the air. “It’s been after me every since I figured it out.”

The whiskey burned Will’s tongue, then his throat, trailing down into some unsuspecting comer of his gut.

Oh, boy .
 
.
 
. got a live one here .
 
.
 
.

“I don’t know, Jim. I think that you’re reading things into this. Too many books, too much supernatural mumbo jumbo.”

Kiff backed away, back to the shelf.

“You don’t see it?” Kiff said, sounding affronted. “You still don’t see it. It was a setup. It had been
planned
.”

“Planned? By whom?”

“Where did we get it from, Will? Where the fuck did we get the idea, the books, the sketch, the whole goddamned ceremony .
 
.
 
. where the hell did it come from?” Kiff was yelling, spiraling out of control.

Will remembered their breaking into Mr. Scott’s apartment. The books he had hidden in the closet.

They got away. Nothing bad happened.

For a second he thought he felt Kiff right there, following his thoughts .
 
.
 
.

“Right, from Scott,” Kiff whispered. “Scott. He set it up. Probably had the thing planned all along. Getting the next installment running. I — I don’t understand it all, but we were set up, that’s obvious.”

And — to Will — it was obvious that he had heard enough.

He stood up.

“Yeah. Well, I got to go, Jim. I’ll give you a call, stay in touch —”

Kiff grabbed his arm and squeezed it. “No, Will. You don’t understand. You see, I’m being watched. There are things watching me. I feel them. I know they’re out there. Now they’ll start watching you, Whalen, Tim Hanna —”

Will very much doubted anyone was watching Tim Hanna. Not without his permission, that is.

“They’ll come for us soon .
 
.
 
. it’s just not time yet. You see, they have to wait —”

Oh, boy .
 
.
 
. where’s the Twilight Zone music? Will thought. Welcome to Paranoia Land, boys and girls.

Will started walking to the door leading down to the bar. He faced the crucifix. The wounds on the Christ were bright red against pale skin. The Christ’s eyes looked up, searching for release from the hell of his pain.

“Will you listen?” Kiff said, yelling. “It’s going to be time for the rest of us. All of us. It will take us. And anyone we love. All of us. That was part of it. You see, it’s twenty-seven years later. Three times three times three.” Kiff spun around, gesturing at the books. “It’s there, in the books.”

Will stopped.

Something Kiff just said. Take us .
 
.
 
. anyone we love.

“You have kids. It wants them. Needs them.”

Will’s hand was on the doorknob.

When he remembered his dream.

His family. At Steeplechase. The screams. Little Beth rolling toward those sharp spikes. Becca on her knees screaming.

And Will helpless, forced to watch.

The pain. The horrible, immense, overwhelming pain of it all .
 
.
 
.

He looked at the crucifix, just a piece of wood. With painted eyes.

He turned back to Kiff.

‘‘I’ll listen,” he said to Kiff.

God help me for being so stupid, Will thought.

But I’ll listen .
 
.
 
.

* * *

26

Kiff had his Formica table covered with books, open to pages, some with crudely highlighted passages, circled inscriptions and illustrations. He moved from one book to another, the mad scholar. He’d point at something and then move on.

Slowly Will began to understand what Kiff was saying.

His thesis, if you will .
 
.
 
.

Which ran like this:

What we did that night worked.

We called for something. It came.

And yes, a sacrifice was needed. That was Narrio. He died for our idle playing with the spirit world.

But it didn’t end there.

What we called was set free.

And at some specified point it would have to take the rest of us. All of us. One by one. And anyone we loved.

Because, Kiff demonstrated by pointing at one book after another, it can’t stomach love. Or self-sacrifice. Or any positive human emotion.

Will tried asking Kiff how he came to know this.

Thinking: Whatever made Kiff believe this .
 
.
 
.

Kiff talked about hiding, down South, then out in the desert of Arizona, knowing that he was the only one who understood. That made him dangerous. He took precautions, he said. Crucifixes .
 
.
 
.

“I see them,” Will said, nodding and looking around

And other things. Holy water. Prayers.

One night, Kiff said, he saw footprints outside a shabby tourist cabin in the mountains that he was staying at.

“
Footprints
,” he said, grabbing Will. “In the snow, all around the cabin. But they couldn’t come in. Hoofprints. That’s a sign. That, and the smell, and —”

“Probably mule deer,” Will said. “You were in the woods, Jim. Probably just the deer.”

Kiff shook his head.

“No. It’s a sign. It was one of the demons .
 
.
 
. one of the servants of Astaroth. A sign. Like the smells. And the noise .
 
.
 
.”

Noise.

“What noise?” Will asked.

Kiff was looking through the books, flicking the pages.

“That damned clicking sound. It’s — it’s like —”

Will finished the sentence. “Teeth. Like teeth chattering.” He took a breath. Oh, God. Why did he have to say that? Why?

“Like thousands of teeth chattering away,” Will said quietly.

Kiff’s face changed. For the first time he looked almost normal.

“You heard it?” Kiff said.

Will thought. Heard it? Guess I did. Heard something that night. Thought it was my head, thought —

He nodded.

Oh, God, Will thought, I’m starting to buy into this. Why am I starting to swallow this?

Because of the dream?

Because of the sound?

Because —

He looked at Kiff. “Jim, what do you have there, in your” — he used the word advisedly —”bedroom? What are those clippings?”

Kiff nodded. He stood up and gestured for Will to follow him. For the amount that Kiff had drunk, he seemed steadier than when Will first came.

Kiff was swallowed by the blackness of his room.

“This is why I came back.
 
.
 
. came back to New York.
 
.
 
.” Kiff reached down and turned a pathetic gooseneck lamp on. The reflected glow made it possible for Will to look at the papers, see the photographs.

It was stories and pictures about the Madman. The New Age Ripper. There were photos from the cheap tabloids, gruesome pictures of girls’ bodies half covered by blankets. And a shot of a face, frozen into a rigid mask of terror, a tongue protruding from full lips, eye shadow gone all blurry.

“It’s his work,” Kiff said from behind Will, startling him.

Will shook his head.

A crazy man’s work, to be sure. But —

“It lives on pain, on terror, Will. It feeds off it, always needs more, and then gives it back.” Kiff reached out and touched one of the photographs. “I knew this was his work .
 
.
 
. The way they’re cut. The precision.” Kiff sounded almost admiring. “Like a surgeon.
 
.
 
.”

Enough, thought Will. Whatever flicker of interest, whatever concern Kiff had stirred, suddenly died in the morgue-like bedroom surrounded by the grim stories, the pictures, the headlines yearning to shock.

“Whose work?” Will said.

“The Adversary, the Eternally Damned One,” Kiff said, his face set. He waved his hand at the pictures. “Or it could be anyone of his demons: Eurynome, Oonwe, Yaphan, Orobas, even Astaroth.” He paused. “I know some of their names. Some .
 
.
 
. but they are legion.”

Will nodded. He felt dizzy, ready to faint if Kiff’s stinked-up sepulcher. “Yes, and I’m late. Gotta go, Jim. I have to —”

Kiff followed Will to the other room, to the table, the books.

“Okay. I know that. I knew you’d have to leave.” Kiff smiled nervously. “I knew that you wouldn’t believe any of this. You think I’m crazy —”

Will tried shaking his head.

“But you have to do something for me.”

Will was still shaking his head. “Hey, I’ll call you in a few days,” Will said. “Just to —”

“No. You have to do this
one
thing for me. I found a way out. A way out for all of us. A way to do it. But we’ll need help.” Will didn’t like the sound of that word, “we.” He wanted an end to this sick nonsense. He regretted coming here.

Will didn’t think about his dream now. He didn’t think about the clicking. Those experiences had to· be tossed out.

Inadmissible evidence. Hearsay.

Kiff picked up a heavy book. The worn leather covers were loose, detached from the body of the book. It looked at least eighty, ninety years old. He pushed it at Will.