Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

              Hammond whistled under his breath. “These are some serious meds. Dilaudid is really hard core. The dates range over more than a year and each was prescribed by a different doctor.”

             
“Did any of these come up in the toxicology screen of her autopsy?” I asked, remembering the internet searches we had found on her computer.              

             
“I don’t remember,” Logan straightened and walked back down the hall, retrieving evidence bags to put the syringes, vials and prescription bottles in.  They would need to be taken back to the county forensic labs for further analysis. “Honestly, I don’t think we did a very thorough toxicology screen, come to think of it. We were more focused on the perpetrator. We’ll definitely have these examined and checked against the blood and tissue samples we have from the autopsy.”

             
I watched as they sealed and labeled the clear plastic bags. What other things might have been missed?  I asked myself as I left them and headed back down the hall towards the front of the trailer. What other secrets were there that Barbara was keeping?

As Hammond took the bags out to his Chevy truck, I wandered back into the kitchen/living room.
Logan was right behind me. It was getting darker and darker by the moment.

“Just walk around and keep looking,”
Logan encouraged me as he tossed me a flashlight.  “Look for anything out of the ordinary, anything that may have changed from what you remembered.”

I switched on the flashlight and looke
d around the room.  Hammond had returned and was continuing his search of the bathroom.  Again, I noticed that there were a few changes here and there, but that was to be expected.  I tried to jog my memory to recall the details of that this room had once looked like.  It had been many years ago that I had been here as a young girl.  I looked around a small coffee table, lifted an old lamp, finding nothing, then glanced under the table.  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find.  All I could really see was old, dusty furniture crammed into a too small space.

“What did you find out from your visit with Lisbeth today?” 
Logan asked as I looked around a small rocking chair in the corner.  I was so engrossed in the recent revelations and discoveries that I had almost forgotten my hospital visit earlier. I continued searching under the wooden legs of the couch I was standing next to.  Nothing hiding under here. 

“Bethany, one of her younger personali
ties talked to me,” I explained as I slowly moved about the room.  A TV sat on a wooden stand.  There was nothing around or behind it out of the ordinary.  “She’s a young girl, about twelve or so.  She says she’s the Memory Keeper.  It might be something significant, I’m not sure.  She told me the memory about the night I think Barbara became possessed.”

“Really?”
  It was Hammond’s surprised voice from down the hallway. I had to smile to myself to see his sudden interest now.  I was glad he was on board now, that he had having more of an open mind about the investigation.

“Yes, according to her, it was a séance on Halloween night. 
A party at an old house in Salt Lake.  She said there was talk about the house being haunted.  Bethany said that Barbara challenged one of the spirits.  I’m not sure what that means.  I suspect she may have disturbed something better left alone.”  I had wandered into the office area by now, Lisbeth’s old bedroom.  I glanced around again at the small room, the desk, and the remnants of the computer as I spoke.  “Bethany was too scared to go into a lot of detail.  She’s usually very timid.  I have to be very careful with her.  It was actually Slayer that wanted her to speak to me.”

“Who’s Slayer?”  Hammond’s gravelly voice asked.

“Isn’t he the one you were afraid of from one of your other visits?”  Logan asked from the other room.

“Yes, but he seemed different this time.”  I shone the flashlight around the room, still seeing the same
bookshelf, trophies and books as before.  I looked through the books again, moved the trophies aside and searched behind them. “He seemed protective of Bethany.  And he was trying to get her to tell me something.  He wanted me to know about the séance incident.  He said I needed to keep looking, that there was more about Barbara I needed to know.”

I shone the light on one of the small framed pictures on the wall.  It was one of Lisbeth’s delicate fairies.  She had rainbow wings, a shimmering green dress, pointed pixy face and spiky red hair.  She had a mischievous look in her eyes that reminded me vaguely of Sophie.  I leaned closer for a better look, admiring the minute details. 
It was done in colored pen and ink and done quite well.  It could have been an illustration for a children’s book.

Having the trailer unoccupied for this long was starting to take its toll
, I noticed.  The spackled ceiling was yellowing and peeling in places. The carpeted floor was matted with dust and dirt. The wallpaper with the overlarge pink flowers was starting to peel back from the wall in the corner.

“I also had an interesting visit with Sophie,” I went on to explain as I tried to smooth back the corner of the wallpaper.  It curled back as fast as I tried to smooth it. 
“She’s still playing mind games with me.  I think I’m finding out more than she wants me to.”  As the wallpaper curled back I noticed a dark smudge on the wall beneath the wallpaper.  With hardly a conscious thought, I grabbed the corner of the wallpaper and slowly pulled back.

The flashlight fell from my suddenly lifeless fingers.  It rolled across the floor a few feet away, its beam still lighting the wall before me. 
Fire. Long, deadly fingers of flame. Bright yellow, searing orange and red. Deep sizzling blue.  So realistic I expected  my hand to burn if I touched it. I peeled back more of the wallpaper quickly, expecting it to be scorching beneath my touch. It was actually icy cold from the lowering temperatures in the room. The chill went down my spine as I watched the path of the fire beneath the paper. 

Blood-red, serpentine eyes stared back at me.  They drew me in as much as they repelled me.
  They were so fierce, so evil.  As though they came from the bowels of hell.    

“
Logan,” I choked out in a shaky voice, “I think I’ve found something.”

Chapter Forty

Before I knew it, several other officers had been called in as well as members of the on-call C.S.I. team.  Every shred of wallpaper in the trailer was being carefully removed and the walls examined underneath.  It was claustrophobic, ordered chaos. 

I opted to stay in the office area and watch as
a forensic officer used a special chemical agent to carefully peel back the wallpaper without ripping it or destroying what lay underneath.  Bright lights had been brought in, the kind you might find in a photography studio, bringing the wall into bold, sharp relief. Plastic tarps covered every surface as well as the floor.  Another forensic officer had a Cannon camera around his neck, capturing each stage of the portrait as it was being revealed.

A
large, frightening mural began to take shape, stretching across the entire length of the wall.

Another officer
was removing all the smaller furniture from the room to make more room for the experts to do their work. The desk and chair were being taken out, to where I had no idea. They had also removed the remnants of the computer and had covered the bookshelf.

I stared at the fragile wall
as it began transforming into a terrifying nightmare.  The black and silvery dragon took up most of the wall. Those chilling red eyes still gripped me, haunting me.  The wings were again open wide, showing its full power and strength.  The long, scaled neck arched high, razor-sharp talons grasping. The searing flames shot from its nostrils and mouth, so real you could almost feel the heat radiating from the portrait. 

I stood frozen as
inch by inch the wallpaper was removed from the left side of the wall. As the forensic tech peeled back the layers, you could see where the flames were being directed. There was a small figure bracing her back against the searing inferno. A small woman, fighting to survive the onslaught. You couldn’t see much more than a shadow of her figure, just the hunched outline of her bowed body.  At first she seemed to be just a blurred figure, but as the technician pulled back another strip of wallpaper, I noticed something else and stepped forward for a closer look. The woman stood braced against the flames, and gathered in her arms was a small child with flowing orange hair. 

I had to get out of the tiny, cramped room before I lost my mind t
oo.  I maneuvered around the members of the forensics team and attempted to make my way into the living room.  It was the same there.  Dull, striped wallpaper being peeled back searching for more.  More of what was in that small room. More frightening demons? More signs of insanity or evil? Every square inch of the wallpaper was being stripped away in the living room.

Furniture was haphazardly shoved aside or completed removed from the room to be carried outside to the small lawn
.  It was probably starting to look like a yard sale out there.  I had to see how much further through the small trailer it went. 

The kit
chen had very little wall space.  It was mostly thin cabinets and appliances.  Further down the hall I watched as the wooden paneling was being removed foot by foot.  There was no way to get down to the other end of the trailer, the hall was so crowded now with people and debris.  I could see down to Barbara’s bedroom though and could tell that her room was going through the same process as the rest of the trailer.

Somehow I made my way outside and sat down on the narrow wooden steps leading to the back door next to Barbara’s room.  The air was chilly as the sun was setting early, but I didn’t mind the crisp evening air after the strain of discovery going on inside of the trailer.  I closed my eyes and wished I could erase the
startling images. Brief glimpses of words flashed through my mind. Tiny script and carefully printed words along the floorboards and door frames. Over and over again. 

Atrus Dracona. Atrus Dracona. Atrus Dracona

How long had it taken Barbara to paint, write and scribble all the things on those walls?  When had she done it?  Was it as old as the night of the séance?  As recent as right before her death?  What a horrifying insight into her world, her madness.  Psychologists would have a field day with what was inside that trailer.  Dr. Ross would consider it a gold mine.

I looked up at the trailer next door to see a frightened-looking Mrs. Robins staring out her window at all the traffic going on in and out of this trailer.  To her it must have looked as though they had found another dead body or something. 
Metal kitchen chairs, lamps, books and other odds and ends now cluttered the small yard.  Other smaller objects were already getting swallowed up by the too-long grass.

I tried to give her a
tired but reassuring wave, to let her know that it was going to be okay, but she just ducked back behind her curtains and disappeared.

I don’t know how long I sat there, numbly staring into the dusky light, shivering into my thin jacket, before I felt a presence next to me.

“Are you ok?” Logan asked as he sat down next to me on the steps.

What to reply?  How could I process all this?  I think I was still in a state of shock.

“Have they found anything else?”  My voice came out a hoarse whisper.

“They’re still processing the trailer,” he replied. His elbows were propped
on his bent knees and he was looking out into the growing dark just like I was. He was silent for a moment before he spoke. “They haven’t found wall murals anywhere else but in that room in the front of the trailer. They’re stripping the other walls in that room right now. No pictures, just words.”

I finally looked into his dark blue eyes, too bone-weary to ask what words were found on the walls. He put a comforting arm around my shoulders and answered my unspoken questions.

“The words ‘Atrus Dracona’ are repeated over and over. The letters for the words are in every size and shape. It’s a repetitive act found commonly to someone in a manic state, or perhaps schizophrenic. There’s only a few other words.” I could hear him take a deep breath beside me, as if gauging how much to tell me.

“What else, Logan?” I had to know. “What else is written?”

His voice was quiet when he spoke.

“Help me. Protect me. Save me.”