Sacrifice (21 page)

“Where did you get that?” Cindy demanded, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes.

“I did a little spee-lunking,” Ted grinned, giving her his best aww-shucks look. He pushed the book to the side of the desk. “I wanted to see where you’d gone, you know, when Joe saved you.”

“You little shit,” she breathed, and stalked through the door. She grabbed the ancient book from her little brother’s desk and shook her head as she flipped through the molded, dusty pages.
The Journal Of Broderick Terrel,
read the cover.

“Don’t you get it? I almost died down there. It’s dangerous!”

“But Joe saved you,” Ted nodded. “And he exorcised the demon Malachai. There’s nothing there now.”

“He didn’t exorcise the demon,” Cindy said. “He took it inside himself. And that took him away from me. I don’t know if there’s anything in those caves now or not. But you shouldn’t have gone down there. You should know better.”

“Sorry,” he said, hanging his head. “It was really cool though. That one cave with all the blue crystals—that was something else.”

Cindy remembered when Malachai had possessed her, and stripped her naked. He’d made her lie on the pedestal in the center of the glittering chamber of blue crystal, and had intended on having either a hippie cave explorer—or Joe—impregnate her, so that the demon could have a new child pledged for sacrifice. If she had had Malachai’s child, the demon would have forged a new covenant, and thus gained license to stay on this plane unfettered for years to come. But instead, Joe had put himself in between; the invisible bullet that was Malachai had become pledged to him…

Cindy thought of her little brother walking around that haunted cavern, where she had been raped and almost killed, and shivered. What would he think if he knew the whole truth of what had happened beneath the lighthouse on Terrel’s cliff?

“Stay out of there,” she insisted.

Ted shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But can I read the book? It’s just an old journal. And it’s kinda cool, the way this guy called all these spirits and stuff. Like he was a warlock.”

Cindy considered. With Malachai gone from Terrel along with Joe, it probably wouldn’t hurt if Ted read what was, basically, a 100-year-old diary.

“Okay,” she agreed. “But promise me you won’t go back down there without me?”

“Deal.”

“And take care of the book? It’s probably valuable. It’s really old.”

“I will,” he insisted.

She dropped the book back on his desk and turned to leave the room. She hesitated at the door.

“Do you miss Joe?” Ted asked.

She felt the tears start as she nodded. Then she hurried from the room before he could see her cry.

After Cindy left, Ted turned to the computer on his desk, and brought up his e-mail. He started drafting a letter:

To: [email protected]

Fr: TedlsTooCool

Hi Ariana,

When are you going to get here? I know my sister will be excited to meet you. I can’t really tell her about you, but I think I’ve found a way that I can get her to take me out to the cliff when you come, so that we can all talk and won’t be bothered by anyone. We could talk all about what she did with the demon that possessed her a few weeks ago. She won’t really tell me everything about it. But I bet you guys will get along. She really could use someone who understands about demons and stuff I think.

I went to the cliff the other day and found this old journal down in the caves where she was possessed, like I wrote about to you before. It’s really old—some of the pages fall apart when you turn them. But this guy wrote all about these demons and he mentions the Curburide and stuff, just like you wrote me.

I’d do anything to help you help them come through, if they’ll give me the power you said they have. I want to be able to fly. Like Superman or something. And you said they were really into sex. Would they help me find a girlfriend?

Can’t wait to meet you,

Ted

“Yeah, it fuckin’ hurts,” Ariana growled as Jeremy ran his hand down her side. “How’d you like me to kick your ribs in so you could know what it feels like?”

Jeremy took his hand from her side and ran it through his thinning hair. “Look,” he said. “You were trying to kill me. What did you expect?”

“I expected you to fuckin’ lie down already. Just die.”

“Better to have me around though, isn’t it?”

She grimaced. “Sure,” she said, not sounding sure at all. She eased herself onto the chair near the window in the motel room and pressed the curtains aside to stare out into the half-empty parking lot. They’d driven a couple hundred miles after leaving the hospital, and pulled off after dark to the first exit they found that boasted lodging. “Now I’ve got a chauffeur,” she said. “Never mind that I didn’t need one to get from San Francisco to Phoenix to Austin to New Orleans to Tallahassee.”

“Maybe it’s time you had some help.”

“Well.” She closed her eyes and shifted positions. “Thanks to you, yeah, now I need some.”

Jeremy knelt at her feet and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said. “I’m not sorry I hurt my wife. Does that make any sense?”

Ariana’s eyes flickered open, and she forced a weakened smile.

“Yeah,” she said. She undid the button on her jeans. “Your bitch didn’t take care of you, and for better or worse, you’re my lapdog now.”

She grimaced, and forced her jeans down her thighs until they fell at her ankles. Then she slipped a finger beneath her pink thong, and slipped the tiny cotton brief down as well.

“So lap,” she demanded.

Jeremy nosed between her thighs and shivered at the earthy scent of her. Could he have really fallen from father and husband to this? And when was the last time he had felt so needed? He didn’t fight it. Pressing his head down, he began to trace the moist flesh of her desire with his tongue.

“Lap, yes,” she moaned. “That makes it all better.”

Sometimes there’s a silence between two people that’s best not broken. After the events of the past 48 hours, Joe took comfort in the fact that Alex was saying nothing.

They had left San Francisco as soon as possible after rescuing Alex from the clutches of the Curburide. She hadn’t said much about what she had seen, but she had agreed when he suggested that they skip their trip to Alcatraz and head towards the next stop of the Sunday Slasher.

They had stopped at a couple of roadside diners for food and a break, but Joe had driven all afternoon and all night. Dawn had broken a couple hours before, and Alex had woken, but said little. And he himself had nothing to say. He knew she was scared. He suspected that she wanted to turn back. But what could he do? What could either of them do? She had made a gesture of giving up in San Francisco and had been lynched by spirits. He didn’t know what Malachai would try if he simply stopped the car and refused to go on. He didn’t want to know. And so the highway passed in a brown blur behind them and Alex stared out the passenger window at the desert wastelands.

They’d be in Phoenix soon, and he’d be asking her to talk to ghosts again. To play detective. Or reporter. Wasn’t that his role?

Joe shook his head and reached forward to turn up the radio. Sound to blot out the silence.

When they finally reached the city limits of Phoenix, Alex reached into her backpack and pulled out the battered copy of the
Salt Lake City Tribune.
“Jack Sketz,” she said. “Killed at a Ramada Inn.”

“Any ghosts around that you can ask to tell us how to get there?”

“Guys really will try anything to keep from stopping to ask directions, won’t you?”

“Depends,” he said. “Who’s giving the directions?” She whacked him on the head with the paper. “The devil.”

“Then let’s keep driving,” he suggested.

It only took one gas station stop to track down the Ramada. There were a handful in the area, but Joe simply had to mention that they were supposed to be staying in the one where that murder took place a couple weeks ago, and the station attendant was pointing to a map in seconds. A little blood always makes the memory stay keen.

The sun was blazing overhead as they walked from the car towards the double doors of the Ramada Inn lobby.

“Far cry from San Francisco, eh?” Joe said, wiping the instant beads of sweat from his forehead.

“Feels good,” she said. “Maybe it will burn away the bad ghosts.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

They were still blinking to adjust their eyes from the brightness outside to the dim coziness of the lobby when the first one came.

Alex grabbed Joe’s forearm and whispered, “Wait.”

He nudged her out of the line of traffic towards the lobby sitting area, where a couple businessmen waited with suitcases and cell phones in hand, and a woman in ASU shorts laid back against a sofa armrest and read a paperback novel.

“Can we sit?” Joe asked, and when Alex nodded, he ushered her to a sofa that faced away from the reception desk and the others waiting in the lobby. She sat slowly, as if in a daze, and stared at the space between their feet and the outer wall of the hotel.

“What is it?” Joe asked finally.

“He says we need to keep moving,” Alex whispered.

“Who says?”

“He says they’re getting close to the final sacrifice.”

“Who is it?” Joe insisted. He could see nothing but empty air in front of them.

Alex didn’t answer immediately. Joe could see the blood draining from her face.

“He says his name is Jack,” she breathed. “Jack Sketz.”

The man was blond, and tan. He was also semi transparent. He stood a little taller than Joe, and had one of those lopsided grins that made you just want to believe whatever he said, without question. The kind that made a great salesman.

I know why you’re here,
he said to Alex. He reached out a large, manly hand to pat her shoulder, but as she involuntarily braced for his touch, his fingers—one with a large golden college fraternity ring—slipped right through her skin. Her skin prickled with icy chills.

You are tracking her now, and that’s good,
he said.
You need to understand where she’s been, what she’s done. But you need to hurry. The door is only a crack here, but with every sacrifice, the opening grows deeper, wider. When she completes the chain, all of the links she’s forged will join. The evil ones she prays to will come through here, and in all of the other places she’s killed. In the end, it won’t matter where they come through from…they’ll overrun the entire world.

“Is there…” Alex spoke out loud, and then remembered to still her tongue.
Is there an old woman now in the room you were killed in?

I’ve seen a crowd of devils in there,
he said.
I try to stay as far away from that place as I can, but something keeps pulling me back.

Can you show us?
she asked.

The man nodded.
Yes. But you shouldn’t go too close.
He eyed Joe up and down. Joe meanwhile, was crinkling his eyebrows and looking right through the space the ghost stood in.
Tell him that he should hold you when we get up there.

“Come on, Joe,” she said, and stood. “We’re going upstairs.

“Where?” he asked.

She flipped her hair and nodded to the right. “Follow that ghost.”

“How did she do it?” Joe asked Alex in the elevator. “How did she kill him? And what did she do with the body after? The newspapers keep hinting that there’s something particular about how she’s murdering.”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she said.

“Because I can’t see or hear him. Apparently I failed witch school.”

A heavy frown crossed Jack Sketz’s ethereal face.
I don’t like to think about it,
he said.
But it’s all I can think about anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispered. “If it hurts too much…”

No. You should understand.

The elevator doors slid open and they stepped into a small waiting area with two chairs and a mirror.

The ghost stepped out and immediately took the hallway to the right. Alex and Joe followed.

She’s evil,
he continued.
Pure evil. She showed up at the bar, all decked out in black latex…totally a hot little kitten looking for some action. She latched onto me, and I couldn’t believe it. I’m never that lucky, I mean, she was one prime piece of…
He looked over his shoulder and realized who he was telling the story to again.
Um…sorry. Anyway, so she brings me back here and tells me to strip. She’s got this circle of small bones and rocks on the floor and she says sex is kind of a ritual with her, and she wants to do it in the middle of those. I think, well, that’s a little weird, but to get close to the skin beneath that catsuit is going to be worth it. So I drop trou, and sit down naked in the circle. She’s in the bathroom, I figure changing, but when she comes out, she’s still in the catsuit. She makes me lie down, and then turns her back to me and at the time, I wondered why she was mumbling some kind of nonsense. I realize now, she was praying to them. Then she straddled me, and when she bent down to kiss me, she slit my throat with a razor blade.

“God,” Alex said aloud.

That’s the nice part,
he continued.
After I was dead, she took off that catsuit finally, and was totally naked with my dead body. I could see her; it was weird. Like I was floating there and spying on myself with this beautiful woman and…um…she touched my dead…um wood, and…

“She fucked you?” Alex said, without qualm.

Joe looked at her sharply. “Careful,” he warned. But there was nobody in the hallway.

The ghost nodded.
Best time of my life probably, and I missed it. Well. I didn’t miss it exactly, but I couldn’t feel it. And when she was done, she took out her razor again. Damn, it gives me the willies just to think about it.

He stopped in front of a door and turned to Alex.

She took that razor, cut off my penis, and stuffed it in my mouth.

Alex made a face and shivered.
I’m sorry you had to see that.

That’s not the half of it. Then she slit open my chest and belly, and spent the next hour pulling out all of my insides. It was horrible. Her arms and body were covered in my blood, but she didn’t seem to mind. She just kept reaching in and coming back out with another wet piece of my liver or my heart or what ever. She took each piece, kissed it, and set it in a circle around my body, but inside the circle of rocks and bones.

He pointed to the door.
And she did it in there.

“This is the place,” Alex said.

“How do we get in?”

“Haven’t gotten that far yet.”

There’s nobody inside right now.

“That doesn’t really help us though,” she pointed out. “If someone was in there, I could get them to open the door for us, make up some excuse.”

You still don’t get it, do you?
Malachai whispered in her ear.

Alex smiled at his voice. “There you are,” she whispered, looking up towards the ceiling. “Been wondering why you were so quiet.”

Switzerland is rarely heard from, do you understand?

“Yeah, well, I’d say you’re as neutral as a vegetarian at a ribfest.”

Joe looked askance. He could only hear half of the conversation. “What’s up…more company?”

“Malachai has decided to join us.”

“Great…then we’re doomed. What does he want?”

The demon ignored its “master” and spoke directly to Alex.
You’re a witch,
Malachai said.
You need to discover yourself before you can hope to confront the murderess. Or the Curburide. There is power in you, but if you do not learn to use it…

“So I’m supposed to think my way through the door?” she whispered.

Use your head,
Malachai snapped.
When you were starving in your basement, and you couldn’t reach the bread, what did you do?

But I don’t know any ghosts here, except Jack,
she said silently. Then she looked at Jack.
Can you turn the lock?

The ghost shrugged and reached an ephemeral hand to twist and jiggle the doorknob.
Guess not.

You don’t need to know anyone,
Malachai continued. She could hear the patience in his voice slipping.
It’s not about asking, it’s not about knowing ghosts, and it’s not about friends. It’s about power and will. You have within you the power to call upon the spiritual realm to bend the physical to your will. Use that power. Insist that the lock be tripped.

Alex stared at the lock and wished for it to open. Then she put her hand on the knob and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.

This isn’t working,
she complained.

You’re not using the power,
the demon said.
Will is different than wish.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Joe warned. “There’s a maid coming.”

Alex closed her eyes and reached deeper inside herself, searching for a familiar place. It wasn’t an emotion, it wasn’t a muscle…but it was something palpable that she knew. There was a feeling she had whenever she called out to ghosts. More than a feeling…a power. When she used it, she could feel adrenaline in her body, like an electric charge. Maybe if she could make herself feel that feeling about the lock…

Alex put her hands on the knob, focused on the lock and searched for the power. “Like calling a ghost,” she murmured, and in her mind, she pictured the bolt she knew was on the inside of the door turning. She felt invisible arms reaching out, dowsing for energy, and when she found it, her brain felt aglow in warmth…

“Can I help you?” The maid had reached them, and was no doubt wondering why the two were standing there in front of a door, without going in.

Hey,
Jack complained.

Something audibly clicked and Alex opened her eyes to see a wisp of Jack slipping like smoke from the slot of the door lock above her hand. She turned the knob on the door. This time it opened.

“No, we’re good,” Joe answered the maid, and pushed the door open for Alex and him to step inside. When the door closed, he grinned. “Cutting it a little close there,” he said. “How’d you do that?”

“I think I made Jack do it,” she said.

The ghost was staring at his right hand, which seemed to fade and then pulse with light.
That tingled,
it said.

The only way you can win this war is to use their power against them,
Malachai warned.
Do you understand?

I think so,
she said, before turning to Jack.
Did that hurt?

The ghost shook its head.
Not hurt. But I can’t say that I liked it.

We’ve been waiting for you,
another voice announced. The room suddenly filled with an icy wind and Alex grabbed Joe’s arm.

In the far corner of the room, a spectral shape floated just above the floor. Alex couldn’t tell its sex; the face was a writhing mass of blinking eyeballs and clacking teeth. It seemed to have three or more mouths…the more she stared, the more they slipped in and out of each other, like a collage of overlapping transparencies that were always in motion. But while the face never seemed to gel into something understandable, the arms were clearly human, and were now moving forward, faster across the room towards them.

We should leave,
Jack suggested.

“What is it?” Joe asked. “I can’t see anything.”

And then he yelped. “But I can feel something.” His arm was suddenly gripped in a cold vise, and he stepped forward, away from Alex.

“Alex, what’s going on?”

“It’s a Curburide, I think,” Alex said. The spirit emanated from a dark crack in the corner of the room, and had stretched itself in a tangle of shimmering, shifting clouds of darkness across the room to fasten its hands on Joe’s left arm. Alex pulled on the right, holding him back. But the demon turned a myriad of jostling eyes at her and laughed with all of its intermingled mouths.

He’s mine now,
it said.
And you’re next.

I don’t think so,
she said, and pulled harder. But it was no use. Joe’s feet were creeping forward across the carpet.