Damoren (17 page)

“I don’t know, Matt. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“
No. You want me to help these crazy-ass experiments, you need to help shoot them. That’s the deal. You come tomorrow or I don’t help you.”

Finally,
“All right.”

They stayed in the library for the next several hours scouring reports of demon glyphs and rites for any clues.
Matt couldn’t understand the majority of the old writing, so he focused on pictures and scribbles. That afternoon they made their way down for lunch. Allan had plans with Jean and Ben to work out then spar. He’d asked if Matt wanted to join, but Matt said his run with Luiza had been enough for him that day. Allan didn’t press him, so after lunch he escorted Matt back to his room.

“
I’ll be back. Fetch you for dinner,” Allan said.

“
All right.”

Allan looked around the hall, his eyes pausing on the camera in the far corner.
“I have something for you.” He reached into his red gym duffel and pulled out a thick hardback. The glossy dust jacket had a little tear along the top. A white schooner sailed on the cover over choppy seas. Giant ghostly eyes stared out from the dark sky above the title, ‘Final Comet.’

Matt took the book.
The stiff cover bowed slightly around something inside it.

Allan set his hand over it.
“I like my name more than ‘strutter’”

“
Okay,” Matt said, unsure what was happening. “Thanks.”

“
Well then,” Allan said cheerfully, shouldering bag. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

Matt stepped into his room and closed the door behind him.
He opened the book to find a yellow 256 gigabyte jump drive nestled between the pages. Setting the book aside he loaded the drive into his laptop.

A password prompt appeared, framed in red.

Matt stared at the blinking cursor, then typed,
‘Valducan.’

Incorrect.

He tried, ‘Ibenus.’

Incorrect.

Matt’s sucked his lip, then looked at the novel still resting on the table beside the door. ‘TongueTerror.’

The red box vanished, replaced by a long column of manila file icons.
The entire Valducan Archive.
Thanks Allan.

He clicked,
‘Field Reports: Dämoren’ and scrolled down until he found what he wanted. The journals of Sir Clay Mercer. Something he should have started his first night in the house, but somehow intimidated him. He clicked it open and began to read.

_______________

To:

From:

Subject:
Field Report

_______________

I
’m sorry it’s been so long since my last report. A lot has happened.

After the wendigo pack escaped in Ridgway, I followed their last direction north.
They’d been posing as an Indian family driving a green VW bus and I hoped they hadn’t ditched it. I spent 2 days searching through little communities until I made it to Warren PA.

I
’d stopped for gas just outside of town when I noticed a group of college kids. They had a little sunfish sailboat lashed down on top of this blue Honda. This cute brunette with nice tits kept glancing at me. I figured I might have been staring like some creepy old man, so I didn’t think much of it.

2
hours later a call came through the scanner about a bloody scene at a motel. Cops were all over it by the time I got there, but I managed to get myself close enough to find out that an Indian family had stayed there. Never checked out. When the maid came through to clean the room she found it covered in blood. There were claw marks all over the bed and inside. Cops thought the tenants might have snuck a bear in and it got loose, attacked one of them, and the family fled to the reservation before they could get in trouble.

Little after that a new call came in that a burnt-out VW was found outside of town.
Cops left to go check it out. I stuck around until they’d gone, then approached the manager. I slipped him $200 to let me look at the security tapes and not tell anyone about it. Cops had the tapes for the lobby and parking lot, but left the pool camera footage. On it I saw one of the Indian boys talking to some teenagers. Looked like he was selling them grass. One of the girls looked familiar. I asked the manager and he told me they’d left that morning. They had a sailboat on top of their Honda.

I figured the wendigos lured the kids somewhere, pretending to sell them dope, transferred bodies, ate their old ones, then ditched their van.
All I could do was hope they assumed they’d lost me. I headed east to Kinzua Lake. I worked my way around it, checking all the docks, marinas, and anywhere else they might go. On the third night I found their car parked by a little cabin just across the New York border. I went in, but the place was empty. There were a few other houses in the area, mostly weekend rental places, so I checked those.

A mile up the road,
I heard a girl screaming in one of the houses. I checked a window and saw a wendigo eating a woman. There was a boy in there, looked to be in shock, but not bitten. I did a quick dust of powder around the exits so they couldn’t get away again. I kicked open the door and plugged one about to eat the boy. I chased another upstairs and shot it and another one. The boy started screaming downstairs and I went down to find the fourth wendigo attacking him. There was a butcher knife sticking out of its back from when the boy had stabbed it. I shot the wendigo, killing it, but Dämoren’s slug passed through and hit the boy.

This is when it gets weird.

I checked that the house was clear, then started first aid on him. The wound was bad, but I couldn’t let him die. It was my fault the wendigos had gotten away, and I fuckin shot the kid. He started screaming and lashing about. I thought he was done for, but then his wounds healed. Closed right before my eyes.

The wendigo that had bit him was burning, so I knew it couldn
’t have possessed him. There were only 4 demons and I had killed all of them. Also, Dämoren’s slug was still inside him. I’ve shot enough demons to know that he’d need to dig it out before it could heal. After a short chat (Dämoren trained on him) I learned he could speak French, having never been taught it or even realizing that he could. I threw powder on him, which contains burnt cornmeal, but it didn’t do anything. Finally, I asked Dämoren by removing one round from her cylinder, spinning it, and pulling the trigger. Dämoren said he should live. I know that it wasn’t chance. I checked her, and the cylinder she landed on had a bullet. Dämoren chose not to fire.

I don
’t know what this boy is, but Dämoren wants him alive. His name is Spenser Mallory. He’s 12 years old. I’m not sure what we need to do here. I’ve never heard of anything like this. There’s a guy down in Florida that can give him a new name, so we’re headed there now.

What do I do?

-Clay

_______________

To:

CC: ;
;

From:

Subject: Re: Field Report

_______________

Sir Clay,

I just finished your report and found it terribly disturbing. If this boy is possessed then he must be dealt with. We understand your guilt for letting the wendigos escape and kill more, but allowing this boy
to live is madness.

Your life is in danger. I order you to take care of the situation immediately.

Sincerely,

Alex

Chapter Nine

Matt awoke in darkness. He rolled and looked at the little green clock beside the bed.

1:42.

With a groan, he adjusted his pillow, crushing it from different sides, punishing it for his sudden and complete consciousness, and tried to go back to sleep.

His bladder ached.

He tried to ignore it.

The pressure grew. Matt shifted and rolled onto his back, hoping that his new position might somehow allow him reprieve until morning. For a short while it worked, but then the pressure came back. Small at first, but growing, until finally he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

He looked back at the clock.

1:49.

“To hell with this,” he mumbled. Matt rolled out of bed. The bathroom was down the hall, and if Schmidt or anyone tried to make any issue with him leaving his room, Matt planned to just pull it out and piss on the floor. If they were going to treat him like a criminal he might as well do something to deserve it. He fumbled for the sweatpants folded beside the bed, waiting for his morning run with Luiza in five hours, and pulled them on.

He listened at the door.
Nothing. He opened it. The hall was empty.

Matt stepped out, noticing the little red light on the camera in the upper corner flip on once it detected his movement.
That’s right, asshole,
he thought to whomever, if anyone, was actually watching the camera.
The demon has left his room. What are you going to do about it?
Matt figured if someone
was
watching the feed, and if they did care, he’d find out soon enough what they planned to do about it.

He turned and started down the dim hall, lit by the moonlight through the windows, and by the glow spilling out from one of the bedroom doors;
Kazuo’s,
he thought. Matt had made it probably thirty steps before realizing that his sleepy brain had gotten him turned around and what would have been the closest bathroom had been the other way, but he was committed now. From his current location it would be shorter to just continue on to the one ahead.

He turned down a darkened hallway and had made it only a few steps before freezing in surprise.
A dark figure stood in the passage before him, silhouetted by the moonlight.

The dark shape just stood there, staring at one of the doors.

Matt let out a breath, his startled heart still pounding. Slowly he crept forward. In the darkness he could make out a slender form, broad shoulders and scruffy hair. “Mikhail?”

The boy gave no response.

Matt was close enough to touch him now. He put his hand on Mikhail’s shoulder. His skin was slick with sweat.

Mikhail jumped and whirled around.
Something thudded softly to floor. The boy looked at Matt, then to the door. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he stammered in some language Matt couldn’t identify, and then he ran, his bare feet padding softly on the hall carpet.

Matt stood there for several seconds, unsure
of what just happened. He looked at the door. Anya’s room. A little book lay open at his feet and he picked it up. While it was too dark to see it clearly, Matt recognized the cardboard covers and round cloth spine as a notebook. Matt looked around again. He was alone, save for the little red light beneath the security camera’s cold eye. He shrugged, and continued on.

Once he reached the bathroom he emptied his bladder, then looked at the thin book Mikhail had dropped.
Tiny black and white splotches filled the cover, like some artist’s rendering of static on an old-style television.

Matt opened it.
Crisp Cyrillic words filled the narrowly lined pages, their meanings lost on him. He flipped ahead. Occasional doodles began in the margins, starting about a quarter of the way in. They looked to be swords and knives. Matt continued deeper through the book. The doodles became more frequent, cleaner, spilling out from the margins and occupying more and more of the pages. Matt realized that the images were not of random, arbitrary swords, but of one specific sword, with a curved blade and jeweled handle.

He recognized the weapon.

Eventually the writing and notes ceased all together, replaced by page after page of the same curved sword. Some were highly detailed with shading and soft lines, others were crisp in stark black and white. Some showed fine close-ups, the pommel, the twisting grip, the grooved blade, a tassel. Still others depicted the sword complete.

Matt found himself staring at full-page drawing done in five different colors of pen and pencil.
A jeweled scimitar, a tassel hanging from the tip of its scabbard. While Allan and the others all rolled their eyes, believing the young man’s distraction was with the busty Romanian, Matt knew the truth. Mikhail was in love. Not with the woman, but with her sword. Baroovda had bonded with him.

Shaking his head and remembering the awkward fear of loving a weapon already bonded to another, Matt closed the book.
The boy’s drawings were like the ones Matt had doodled in the corners of his study books when Clay was teaching him. If the old man had ever found them it would have been more embarrassing than if he’d caught Matt jerking off.

Allan had considered Matt
’s early love for a weapon already bonded as unique, a word Matt had grown accustomed to. But Mikhail’s drawing proved otherwise.

After checking the hall was clear, he ventured back out into the dark house.
His bare feet silent on the thick rugs, he made his way to Mikhail’s room. No light peeked from around the door frame. Matt bent and slid the notebook under the door, then crept back to his own room and into bed. The boy’s love was an intimate secret, and it would be safe with him. He only hoped Mikhail, in return, wouldn’t tell of Matt’s late-night wanderings.

#

“It’s not fair to compare yourself to us,” Matt said, holding the weave-textured straps of his shooting bag.

“
It’s embarrassing,” Allan grumbled, his lips barely moving. He carried a plastic bucket clinking with their spent brass.

Luiza opened the green metal door along the back of the lane.
“He’s right. Matt and I have been shooting for years. You’ll get the hang of it. Just stop anticipating the recoil.”

Allan harrumphed.
“I can’t help it. It kicks.”

“
You get used to it.”

“
I think I want a different gun.”

“
Ask and you shall receive.” Beige foam panels lined the walls of the ten-foot hallway, nearly covering the door set in the far side. A brass lock and handle protruded out through chunky square cutouts in the foam. Luiza unlocked them.

She flicked the fluorescents
, and they stepped into a long room, nearly running the width of the gun range. It smelled like a machine shop, that unique combination of metal, grease, and an unidentifiable burned odor.

Matt set his bag down on a thick, scarred table and admired the setup.
Two tables met at one corner, creating a neat work cubby. A sturdy vice rested on one side beside an assortment of other clamps. A gray drill press sat on the other end. Various wrenches, mallets, calipers, saws, files, screwdrivers, and many more tools Matt couldn’t identify, all hung from a high peg board backsplash along both walls.

On the other side of the room, past a four-foot
double-paned window of bulletproof glass looking out onto the range, was a meticulously organized reloading bench. Two high cabinets, stuffed with wide, shallow drawers, each labeled in ascending calibers stood as tall as him. Yellow plastic trays lined a trio of shelves against the back wall. Before them, atop a dark and weathered counter, stood a pair of sturdy presses and a bright red tumbler.

“
Nice,” he said, genuinely impressed. A stainless steel sink rested in a little counter beside him, next to a little black microwave. A battered refrigerator stood nearby, its face speckled with dozens of touristy magnets: an Eifel Tower, a palm tree that said ‘Costa Rica’, a small Venetian mask.

“
Welcome to the bunker,” Luiza said. “Used to be Nick’s little fortress in here.”

“
Nick?”

“
Arms master,” Allan said. “He died in Poland some weeks ago.”

Matt nodded, remembering the story of the wounded hunter killed in Krakow after the demon that had bit him escaped.
A mercy kill.

“
He used to hole up in here,” Allan continued. He nodded to the three hulking gun safes along the back wall. “It took Jean a couple days before he could open those after Nick was gone. Didn’t trust the combination with anyone.”

“
No one knew how to get in? Sounds odd.”

Allan shrugged, slightly.
“He’d given the combinations to Turgen, Schmidt, couple others. But then changed ‘em without telling them. He was, ah...” Allan chuckled. “A little paranoid.” He pointed to a desk with a pair of black monitors. Each wide screen was divided into four sections, each showing a different video. Hallways, rooms, hilled vine rows.

“
Is that the security feed?” Matt asked stepping closer. He watched Colin lifting weights in the gym while Susumu and Riku sparred.

“
One of them. He had a backup installed here. In case something happened he wanted to know. As I said, paranoid.”

Luiza nodded.
“I miss him.”

“
We all do,” Allan agreed.

They set their gear out on one of the worktables and Luiza opened one of the safes.
Various black handguns hung from little cloth holsters along the inside of the door. She removed a Sig identical to hers and three magazines.

“
Here,” she said, handing it to Allan.

Allan looked at it like he wasn
’t entirely sure what it was. “What else is there?”

She made a little face.
“Different kinds, calibers. Trust me, you’ll like it. Good for beginners, but professional.”

“
Can I look at some of the others?”

Luiza swept her hand out, offering toward the open safe.
“Feel free. You’ll need to test out anything you like. Make sure you can handle it.”

Allan made his way to the safe and scoured th
rough it while Matt took the bucket off the table and poured about a quarter of the dirty shells into the tumbler. It took a few seconds before he located the switch and he turned it on. It trembled with a steady hum.

“
What’s this one?” Allan said, holding up a blocky pistol.

“
Glock,” Matt answered.

Allan flipped it over.
“How big is the clip for it?”

“
Magazine,” Matt corrected.

“
They always call it a clip on the telly.”

“
So? TV and movies also say that UV hurts vampires like sunlight, too.”

Allan frowned.
“All right. How much does the
magazine
hold?”

“
Seventeen, I think. Never really got into them. Clay used to say anything but a 1911 was a waste of metal.”

“
Oh.” He looked back inside. “We have any of those in here?”

“
Doubtful,” Luiza said. “Forty-five isn’t a common round in Europe.”

Matt glanced over
at the shelves beside him. Calibers started at 7.65 and worked up. 9mm seemed to dominate the shelves with three drawers for both Luger and Kurtz sizes. .45 had only one. He pulled it open. Eight black trays rested inside, each filled with unloaded bullets, some silver, others copper. A few looked like brass. They were hollow points with six little prongs open above the conical cavity in the tips. He picked one up and noticed that instead of solid silver like the ones he and Clay had always molded, these were silver jacketed with lead cores.

“
These are like professional made,” he said holding it up to Luiza.

She nodded.
“Nick was a genius. They work just as well as solid but weigh more. Penetrates better.”

Matt tapped his fingertip on the little prongs.
“What are these?”

She smiled wryly, her dark eyes twinkling.
“What do you think?”

Matt shrugged.

She pulled open the top drawer and removed a clear plastic box. Tapered brown beads rattled inside. Luiza opened the box and removed a bead, then plucked the bullet from Matt’s hand. She slipped the bead into the hollow tip and held it out. “Ta-da.”

Matt peered closer.
A round-tipped cap of tiger’s eye rested perfectly in the bullet’s nose. “Oh. Oh wow.”

“
Like I said, genius.”

“
So you can put any stone you want in the tips?”

“
Or metal. You can make a gold tip, or silver, bronze, anything. Nick locked the valuable ones away, but,” she winked. “I know the combinations.”