Soulstice (13 page)

Aaron had to stop at home first to gather some supplies, and it was just after four when he pulled his ten-speed into the
alley between the vacant convenience store and the recently relocated juvenile center. He could see rain clouds in the distance,
but the sky overhead was still clear; hopefully any storm would hold off until he’d accomplished his mission. Around the corner,
in the center’s glass-littered parking lot, Mitch was leaning against the door of his black Crown Vic and dragging on a smoke.

Aaron thought of all the times the Kassners had tormented him—destroyed his hats, knocked books from his hands, tripped him
in the halls. He always got the feeling they’d kill him for a few seconds of amusement if they thought they could get away
with it. In the years Aaron had known the Kassners, he had never willingly approached either of them. Until now.

“Damn it, Reggie,” he muttered under his breath, but he felt he had little choice but to do this on his own: the Kassners
only met with their parole officer once a week, and waiting another seven days was out of the question.

Aaron strode across the lot with weak knees and a dry mouth. He put his right hand inside his front pocket and felt the small
metal cylinder inside.

If Mitch noticed him coming, he didn’t show it.

“Hey,” Aaron said, barely audible.

Mitch’s large head turned and he squinted, the cigarette hanging from his bottom lip.

“I—I have a question for you,” Aaron squeaked.

Mitch glared coolly at Aaron, then flicked his cigarette ash at him. Aaron’s legs wanted to listen and bolt, but he held firm.

“Didn’t you hear?” he asked. “Smoking is bad for you.”

Aaron’s hand darted out, grabbed the cigarette from Mitch’s lips, and threw it to the ground. Mitch was so surprised it took
him a second to respond, but Aaron had already taken off toward the alley. He ran as fast as he could, as if his very life
depended on it, which it probably did. Behind him he could hear the hard thumping of Mitch’s steel-toed boots, gaining on
him with every step. Aaron ran faster and hurtled into the alley.

He had half a second to pull the pepper spray from his pocket and turn as Mitch rounded the corner after him, red with fury.
Aaron aimed and looked away, spraying Mitch full in the face as the larger boy crashed into him. They both went tumbling to
the ground, Mitch crying out as he tore at his eyes. He tried to stand, and Aaron used the last of his leg strength to kick
him in the groin. Mitch curled in a heap on the asphalt. Aaron collapsed against a Dumpster a few feet away, exhausted and
trembling.

He glanced about nervously, but the alley was, as he had hoped, deserted. No one had seen what had happened.

His hands trembled as he took duct tape from his backpack and taped Mitch’s hands behind him, then placed another strip over
the boy’s mouth. As soon as Mitch realized what was happening, his red and watering eyes flared with malice, but Aaron lifted
the spray up in front of Mitch’s face as a warning. Instead of fear, Aaron felt strangely powerful.

“I don’t want to hurt you any more than this. But I swear to God I will torture the living hell out of you right here, right
now if you struggle. I’ve got instruments packed in this bag that will make even a tough guy like you piss your pants if I
use them. Do you understand me? Nod if you understand.”

Mitch’s eyes narrowed into wicked slits. For a moment he stayed so still that Aaron thought he’d turned to stone like some
freakish gargoyle. Then slowly, deliberately, he nodded.

“Good. Now I am going to talk and you’re going to listen. And when I am done talking, I’m going to take this tape off and
let you answer. And then I will let you go.”

Aaron jerked on one of his shoulder straps to let Mitch hear the sounds of cold metal clanging together inside the pack.

“But if I think for a second that you’re coming after me, I will cut you open and toss you in the Dumpster for the rats. Nod
if you understand.”

Again, a long pause. And another nod.

“Good. Now what I am going to say would sound crazy to most people. But I’m betting it won’t sound crazy to you. I think you’ve
lived through it. I think you know all about it. I think you know all about what’s happened to your brother.”

Mitch’s bleary eyes opened a little wider. Aaron saw a flicker of alarm, but he continued.

“Keech isn’t human, is he? His body was possessed by some kind of demon. That thing inside talking to your probation officer
looks like Keech and acts like Keech, but it isn’t him. And you know it, don’t you?”

Mitch’s whole body tensed, and he looked away. He made no noise, but Aaron sensed an internal struggle inside that meathead.

“Mitch. I want to help,” he said.

Mitch finally gazed up at him, and Aaron saw the last thing he expected. In those haunted eyes was sadness. Guilt.

And terror.

Aaron slowly reached for the tape covering Mitch’s mouth.

“When I take this off, you are going to tell me what you know. But if you make any sudden moves, I will hurt you. Bad.”

Aaron pulled the corner of the tape, the moist and sticky adhesive stretching the stubbly skin beneath. It must have hurt,
but Mitch’s expression registered no physical pain.

He opened his mouth, and the words tumbled out, as if they had been locked up behind those lips for years.

“Eight years ago. Three days before Christmas,” Mitch said. “He disappeared. Something came for him at night. I heard him
crying and screaming. I thought it was just another nightmare—he always had those. But this was different. The bedroom froze.
I could hear ice cracking on the ceiling. I never saw anything, but I could feel it.”

Mitch glanced down and wet his lips. Aaron realized with some wonder that he’d never actually heard Mitch speak before—Keech
always did the talking for the both of them. But where Keech always sounded harsh and cruel, Mitch’s voice was soft, quiet,
and strangely, almost sensitive. Aaron grasped for the first time what horrors the older twin must have lived with for so
long, and where before there had been only anger, now he felt pity for the guy who had so often tormented him.

“They’re called Vours, Mitch. They prey on the weak and the frightened. Mostly children—”

“I know what they are, Cole. That thing that took my brother made sure I knew.” Mitch’s eyes, irritated and red from the spray,
darted around. “Every day I wish I didn’t.”

“It’s messed with your mind. Shown you your fears, and scared the shit out of you.”

Mitch nodded.

“How do you know these things?” Mitch asked.

“They’ve done it to me, too.”

Mitch’s agitated eyes started to glisten.

“Every night. Every single night.” With his hands taped behind him, Mitch tried to wipe tears away with his shoulder. Aaron
took a breath, then undid the tape. He grimaced as he saw that he had wrapped it so tightly, it had cut into Mitch’s skin,
leaving slim red welts. Mitch rubbed his wrists.

“That thing that lives in your brother’s body. What does it want?”

“To hurt. To destroy. That’s what it wants. That’s all it ever wants.”

“Has it ever tried to kill you?”

Mitch shook his head. “What fun would that be for it? Plus I’m its protector from the hunters.”

Aaron leaned forward.

“Hunters? What hunters?”

Mitch shrugged. “One came after us a few years ago.”

“And where is he now?”

“She.” Mitch looked away. “Dead.”

“Keech killed her?” Aaron remembered hearing the whispers when the twins first moved to Cutter’s Wedge that they had killed
someone, but he had always chalked it up to the high school’s overactive rumor mill.

“No. Keech didn’t.”

Finally Aaron understood. The monster had used a human to do its dirty work. Mitch had been its instrument.

“I’m sorry. I’m so… sorry.”

Mitch sniffed.

“The things I’ve already done, I know when I die I’ll go to hell, but there’s no way it could be worse than this life.”

He grabbed the side of the Dumpster and pulled himself up. He looked cowed now, not like the bully everyone feared.

“You shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in this, Cole. You are as good as dead. We both are.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s better that
way.”

“I know how to stop them, Mitch.”

“You want me to kill him. That it?” Mucus rolled from Mitch’s nostrils and over his top lip. “Some nights when it sleeps,
I think about it. I picture myself strangling it in bed. Stabbing it to death. Lighting it on fire and watching it burn and
listening to it howl. I’ve seen it do that to animals. Some days I would rather fry in the chair than live with that thing.
But I can’t do it. I can’t kill my brother.”

Aaron scrambled to his feet.

“We don’t have to kill him. There’s a way to save him.”

Mitch’s puffy, red eyes locked with Aaron’s.

“If you are lying, Cole, you better just kill me now. Screw with me about this and I will rip you apart. I don’t care what
you’ve got in that pack, it won’t be enough to save your ass.”

“I’m telling you the truth. But the only way we can save him is if I have your help. There’s no way I could overpower him
alone. And if we’re going to find the real Keech, we’ll need to make the Vour vulnerable.”

“Cold.”

“Yeah, exactly. Does it still affect him?”

“It does weird things to its skin. It was a lot worse when we were younger, but it still hates it. Makes it weak.”

“Good. That’s important for this to work.”

“So you want me to lure it somewhere cold and trap it for you? Maybe I could do it. Then what?”

“If I tried to explain it to you now, you wouldn’t understand. Hell, I don’t even understand it. All you need to know is that
I have a friend who can bring your brother back.”

“The Halloway chick.”

“Reggie. Her name is Reggie. The girl you tried to kill.”

Mitch closed his eyes.

“I didn’t want any part of that,” he said. “But it gets to the point when you’ll do anything to make the nightmares stop.”

“I know.”

“Keech is extra careful these days because of her. Won’t tell me why, but he’s definitely bugged about her.”

Mitch took two steps forward and towered over Aaron, looking down at him menacingly.

“Give me your cell.”

“What?”

“Your number. I’ll get him someplace cold. And when I do, I’ll call you.”

“When?”

“When I can. Be ready. You and your girl.”

“Where—”

“Just give me the number and shut up.” Mitch wiped his eyes and squinted into the morning sun. “I’ve got ten minutes before
I meet with my probe. And if Keech sees you here, you’re done. So get the hell out and wait for my call.”

Aaron nodded, scratched his number down on a piece of notebook paper and handed it to Mitch. Then he grabbed his bike from
the other side of the Dumpster.

“And Cole?” Mitch spoke without turning around. “This doesn’t make us friends. You touch me again, I’ll kill you.”

Aaron pedaled off toward Something Wicked just as the first sprinkles of rain began to dot the asphalt.

The harmless spoons and forks in his backpack jingled with every bump in the cracked pavement.

  
11
  

Quinn leaned back against the wall of the storm drain.

“Vours have existed for, well, forever, as far as any of us knows. I’ve lived in many different bodies before this one. Let
me see… I’ve been an ancient Sumerian, a Renaissance architect, a fifties beatnik. The Dark Ages were the worst. I
never
want to repeat that experience. But the point is, no one, neither human nor Vour, really knows where we came from, how we
come into existence, or how we’re able to take over bodies on Sorry Night. We know we can, but we don’t know why or how the
process works. You’ve asked the question before, Halloway—what do the Vours want? Well, above all things, for centuries and
centuries, we’ve wanted the answers to those questions. If we knew those things, there’d be no stopping us.”

Quinn paused as the roar of the motorcycles passed by once again, then faded into the distance.