House Haunted (39 page)

Her voice became urgent. “You must get the fourth out, now. . .”

Brennan turned to see Falconi struggling with the body of Ray Garver. He had carefully dragged it halfway to the front hallway.

“Falconi!” Brennan shouted, “You've got to get him out!” The red color in the walls deepened, and suddenly the veins of power began to flow again.

Brennan turned back to see the thing once more in control of Bridget. It stared at him coldly. The bottomless voice spoke. “I won't let her go.”

It reached down, took the deionizer by its handle and hurtled it the length of the house. The instrument smashed against the railing in front of the east door; raining debris down on Falconi.

A spark shot from one of the smashed batteries, touching the dry, dusty fabric of a damask chair, which began to bum. “Mother,” Brennan begged, “you have to force it out!” He rewound the music box.

The thing in his mother's spirit glared at him with pure hatred. “I'll tear the bones from your body.” Her eyes filled with a blood red color. Her voice was like the rasp of a file. “I'll burn you alive,” she said. “I—”

Suddenly, her face changed to that of an innocent, lost young girl.

“Mother,” Brennan shouted, “make it leave!”

“Yes ...”

“Force it out!”

“Yes ...”

She made a gagging noise in her throat. The lines of red force vanished. Her eyes rolled up into her head. Her body ceased floating, touched the floor. She flopped down backward, bucking in an epileptic-like fit.

“Ahhhhhh, ahhhhh,” she said, trying to push herself up. Bridget's body went limp. Something huge, deep, and black rose slowly out of it, hovering like a cloud.

“Jesus, I think this guy's dying!” Falconi shouted from below.

Brennan looked. Falconi had dragged the broken man to the front hallway. He stopped, as Garver went into a series of convulsions, vomiting up blood.

The damask chair was smoking, tiny flames licking its arm up to its back.

Brennan screamed down to Falconi, “Get him out, now!”

“Ahhhhhh, ahhhhh . . .”

A shrieking, whistling sound came from within the roiling mass, which moved up above his mother's figure to the ceiling. It formed and reformed into a huge, dark dragon's head with a long, red whip-like tongue and blank, empty white eyes. Veins of crimson fire ran and pulsed around its outline. “Ahhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhh .”

“Move!” Brennan screamed down to Falconi.

Below the dark cloud, Bridget's body began to disappear. As she became insubstantial, she opened her eyes, looked at Brennan, and smiled peacefully.

“Son, I'm going, I'm finally going . . .”

Holding her hand out to him, Bridget vanished. ''No!''

Gary Gaimes ran out of the door to the attic, straight at Brennan. “She was mine!” He raised the claw hammer, striking Brennan a solid blow on the side of the head.

Brennan dropped, lifeless, to the floor. Gaimes turned to the stairs and staggered down them, waving the hammer above his head. “I'm invincible!” he shouted. “INVINCIBLE!”

Falconi stood and fired the .44 into Gaimes, who reached the bottom of the stairs and kept coming.

“INVINCIBLE!”

Falconi fired again, hitting Gaimes square in the chest. Gaimes grunted, went down on one knee next to the burning chair, rose again, still holding the hammer. A flame jumped to his shirt, began to burn up the arm. He grinned at Falconi and staggered forward, raising the hammer above his head.

“I'm invin—”

Falconi fired four quick shots, and Gaimes collapsed before him, the hammer falling from his twitching hand.

Flames spread from Gaimes's shirt to the floor, from the burning chair to the nearby tables and rug.

Near the ceiling at the top of the stairs, the black cloud grew. The rumbling, deep sounds within it intensified.

Ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh.

“Shit,” Falconi said. He felt for the pulse in Ray Garver's neck. It was barely evident. He began to drag Garver carefully toward the front door. “Fuck it,” he said, lifting him roughly under the arms and hauling him down the hallway.

When he looked up at the second floor, the cloud was gone.

“Damn!”

He dragged his burden another yard, felt back, and found the front doorknob with his hand. He began to turn it.

“Falconi. Wait.”

Falconi looked back into the house. Ted Brennan's form was calmly descending the stairs through growing flames, leaving its dead flesh behind. The side of Brennan's head where the hammer wound had been was whole.

Falconi said, “Shit,” again. He fumbled for the knob, felt it turn in his hand.

“Wait,” Ted Brennan repeated. He approached, held his hand out.

Falconi heard the click of the opening lock

“Stop.”

Brennan stood beside him, put his cold hand over Falconi's on the doorknob.

Falconi turned, looked into Brennan's dead face. Something that was not Brennan stormed in his eyes.

“I believe you have something of mine,” he said, his mouth releasing putrefaction.

He bent down and touched the crippled man at Falconi's feet. Ray Garver screamed, his eyes opening, blood pushing from his mouth and nostrils.

Falconi tried to pull the man from Brennan's grasp.

Brennan stood. His face was inches from Falconi's own. His grotesque smile quivered. Falconi saw something in Brennan's eyes, a black, roiling thing with the tongue of a snake. And then he was on the roof on East Thirty-third Street in New York City again, looking down at that poor, desperate, quiet woman, and she was pulling herself from her housecoat, pulling herself from his grasp, letting go, letting go...

Let go
, the thing told him.
Let go, or the world will be destroyed, and you'll be wrong again.

Falconi let go of Ray Garver.

“Falconi!”

He looked into Brennan's open eyes. The roiling thing was gone, pulling back into the recesses of the pupils. It was the real Ted Brennan facing him.

“Take him!” Brennan shouted, removing his hands from Ray Garver's dying body.

Falconi pulled the door open, lifted Ray Garver under the arms, and fell backward, out of the house.

As they hit the outside air, Ray took a long, moaning whisper of breath and let it out in expiration. “I'm sorry . . .”

Falconi felt for his pulse. There was none.

“Jesus,” Falconi muttered, “that was close.”

Ahhhhh. . .

Brennan stood in the doorway. In the back of his throat, trapped behind his eyes, something roared in rage.

ahhhh. . .

The roar faded to silence.

Brennan faded gently, seemed to float on air.

“Listen. . .” Brennan whispered. He looked at a place above Falconi's head. “Destroy the house, and this thing cannot come back. I'll release it at the other end of the tunnel. . .

He was barely an outline in the air. “A light at the end . . . I'm through! A place. . .” His face suddenly lit with a beatific smile. “The woman in your picture . . . You're forgiven. . . Everyone is forgiven. . .”

Brennan was almost gone. He steadied his gaze on Falconi. “Tell Beauvaque . . .” His smile was angelic. “Tell him Jeffrey is happy. . .

Brennan filtered to nothingness.

There was a hissing roar. The house burst into flame. The red, glowing windows blew outward. Fire licked up the walls, engulfed the roof, roared over the attic.

Guinty was at Falconi's side, aiding him. “We're calling the fire department, Lieutenant.”

“Let it burn.” Falconi looked up at the house. There was a strange smile on his face. Idly, he reached into his pocket, took out a book of matches, handed it to Guinty. “If the rain puts the fire out, start it up again.”

“But, sir, the Russians, someone from their embassy is here, the television cameras are here—”

Falconi shook off Guinty, began to walk away. “Fuck television. Fuck the Russians. Fuck everybody. I have a message to deliver.”

The house turned to flames behind him, reached fiery hands to heaven.

Falconi walked on, blithely ignoring the shouting voices, the rain, the cameras, and looked for a telephone.