Night of Demons - 02 (12 page)

Treated like a criminal! By an outsider, no less! In front of her own friends! In her own town! In front of Ross!

Cassie had been bristling like a porcupine all morning, ever since she’d got back from Maynard Street. She was in such a foul mood, in fact, that Cleveland—her big tabby cat—had been avoiding her completely, scampering away whenever she got close. And the state of her place didn’t cheer her up any. She didn’t usually even notice it, but had now become self-conscious. It was clean enough. But not exactly tidy, to understate the case. She had a tendency to leave things wherever was easiest. The furniture was all cheap looking, and the whole apartment had needed redecorating a long time back. She knew that. Except normally, it was of scant interest to her.

Not today. She felt vulnerable and on edge today, and everything seemed wrong. The only things that—even remotely—calmed her down were the framed photographs of her three children, which filled every spare corner of her living room.

Kevin. Angel. Little Cassie. God, she missed them so much. Captured on film, and frozen in the moment, their smiles were bright and unafraid. Their faces glowed with happiness. They’d no idea, back then, what fate had in store for them. No one did, when she thought about it. Fate just hit you from behind, when you weren’t even looking.

Her apartment made up one half of the wide, single-story building that she occupied. Out front was the diner that she had run for the past eight years. It was still the way it had been, but abandoned, with its front door padlocked. Had been that way ever since her kids had disappeared.

“You be careful with that thing.”

She could still recall, with perfectly clarity, the day the bum that she’d been living with—not the children’s father—had brought home a talisman with a black stone at the center of it. He’d stolen it, more likely than not. And there he’d sat, slumped on the couch, fiddling with it while the kids played around him.

“Don’t let the little ones touch it,” she’d admonished him.

Then she’d had to go out front again. The diner was busy that late in the morning. Two weeks before Christmas, and there were customers waiting. The place felt really warm on a day like this, the windows steamed up, and she’d been joking with her regulars about how they’d become that way.

“All the heavy breathing I do every time I see you, handsome.”

Except a bare few minutes later, in the middle of pouring someone coffee, a prickling instinct had overtaken her. She’d rushed back in. Tom Larson and her three kids had vanished into the ether. Magic had taken them away from her.

The emptiness of the place hung around her, the quietness so profound that, when she stopped still, she could almost hear it like a subcutaneous murmur. Like the rushing of some invisible tide. There were days she felt as if she were drowning in a vast ocean of silence. There were even days she wished it would all stop, for good.

What was she, without her family? She had been in that position once before, back when she was seventeen and her parents both died in a road accident. She’d run wild for a few years, falling in with a bad crowd, a motorcycle gang. And had done a lot of crazy things back then. Helped rob stores and burgle houses. Had got in a load of fights. But she had done all that to fit in with the rest and stop herself from feeling lost and helpless. Once she’d started her own business, and her kids had come along…?

These days, she still had a sense of purpose. And real friends, which those guys in the gang had never been. There was a town to save. And there was always Ross to count on. They were more than merely friends—there was a real connection between them. Not amorous, but a definite spark. Except, the way he’d looked at this new woman…

The phone next to the couch started ringing. She was so confused, Cassie just stared at it for a few seconds. Then she pulled herself together, leant across and snatched up the receiver.

“Cassie!”

The voice was extremely strained and high-pitched, but she recognized it all the same. It was Ginny Graves, one of her small coterie of girlfriends. Their kids had gone to the same school, and they’d been close for several years. Ginny lived on the edge of East Meadow, where it gave way to the rather more respectable neighborhood of Pilgrim’s Plot. Normally, she was soft-spoken. But now, she was yelling like she had the devil on her tail.

Cassie stiffened, coming around quickly.

“Gin? What’s going on?”

“It’s Karl!” Ginny shrieked down the line at her.

That was her mild-mannered and rather boring spouse.

“I don’t know what happened, but he’s gone berserk! He came at us with a kitchen knife!”

“Us” meant Gin and her two daughters. Cass froze with shock, her grip around the phone tightening.

“Where are you now?”

“We’re locked in the bathroom! I’m on my cell! Karl went crazy for a while, trying to hack his way in! But he’s gone away! I think he’s gone for something bigger than the knife! And there’s something really weird with his eyes!”

Which meant what, exactly?

The woman let out several sobs. And then she choked those down and gasped.

“I can hear him again! He’s coming back!”

Cassie’s heart was thumping, and her instincts were pulling her toward the door. But she’d been in violent places loads of times before. She knew the first thing that she had do was to inject some common sense into the situation.

“Ginny, listen to me carefully. Hang up right now, and then call the police. Promise me you’ll do that?”

She heard a loud thud in the background. And it did sound like an ax on wood. Gin let out a broken gurgle. Both her daughters started wailing, and the sound of that near broke Cassie’s heart.

“Please, Cassie! Please get over here!”

“I’m on my way! But call the cops!”

And she’d make sure she called them too.

The blocks went by, no more than streaks. She skidded up outside the Graves house. Cass leapt off her Harley without bothering to kick the stanchion into place. The bike crashed down behind her as she began to run across the front yard. But to hell with that. Her boots kicked up large flecks of mud. There were poppies of all colors in neat rows around her.

The front door was shut. There wasn’t time to check around the back. She’d normally never even think of using guns with any kids around. But they were upstairs, weren’t they? Gin had said so. This was a two-story house, with only one bathroom. She had been here many times.

Without even slowing down, she yanked both of her Glocks from their holsters and fired two rounds into the lock.

Reaching the porch, she drove the sole of her boot, hard, into the door. It burst open easily. She got a brief impression of pastel-painted walls, vases full of dried flowers. Several of them overturned. But there was no sign of any blood, thank God.

Then she heard the thudding from above. A heavy blade cutting into wood again. And after that she was pounding up.

She drew to an uneasy halt, once she’d reached the upstairs landing. Karl Graves—in his usual blue plaid shirt and faded jeans—was standing with his back to her at the far end of the hallway. The man was hard at work. He had already carved a ragged hole the size of a pumpkin in the bathroom door, and was swinging back the ax again.

Cass immediately slipped the pistol in her left hand back into its holster. She felt rather shaky, by this juncture. This was not the kind of situation that she usually had to deal with.

Whatever was wrong with him, this was still Ginny’s husband. So this wasn’t a matter she could settle with a fatal shot.

“Karl?”

He stopped what he was doing, and then turned around. Cassie twitched when she saw what had happened to his eyes. There was no color left in them. They were pale gray from lid to lid, iris and pupil no longer visible. But the man apparently hadn’t gone blind. So this was something supernatural.

He looked perfectly normal otherwise, his usual short and rather tubby self. The same dumpy features and untidy brown moustache. Except the muscles in his face were very slack, the way that people looked when they were sleeping. Like he was no longer in control of them.

In which case, this was not his fault. She held out her free hand with the palm spread wide, indicating it was best that he stayed where he was.

“Why don’t you just stop this, huh? You’re frightening your kids.”

Their shrieks could still be heard from behind the ruined woodwork. And a second later, Ginny yelled out, “Cassie?”

But Cass ignored that, concentrating on the man in front of her.

He seemed to be doing the same. Studying her evenly. Trying to size her up. He didn’t look like he even remembered who she was, which also indicated there was someone else in there. His shoulders were heaving from his earlier exertions.

Finally, the slackness left his mouth. He smiled, and then he spoke to her.

“Oh my, you look like really special fun.”

And it was Karl’s voice, sure. But not quite the same. The lazy drawl was mostly gone. There was sharper enunciation. Who was this really? Cassie felt her neck prickling when she wondered that. But she knew it was important, now, to stand her ground.

One of the lightbulbs up here had been smashed. The hall was darker than it should have been. Karl took a step in her direction.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” she yelled.

His smile grew broader.

“You can always try.”

And then he threw caution to the wind and lurched at her, coming down the hallway as fast as his legs could carry him. Cassie tried to think straight. She could see no other choice. She didn’t want to kill the man. But wounding him was another matter.

So she tilted the Glock at an angle, and pumped a round into Karl’s shoulder. She tried to avoid the bone and simply leave him with a flesh wound. It would hurt like hell, but with luck it would stop him.

She saw the shirt rip. Saw the flesh beneath it tear. A bullet hole and a spatter of blood appeared on the wall behind him.

But he did not slow down.

“Can’t hurt a shadow!” he roared as he closed in on her.

What?

She was still holding the gun out, struggling to think what to do, when he swung the flat edge of the ax blade at it. Pain blazed through her hand. The Glock flew from her grasp. She stumbled back and hit a banister. Her knuckles were stinging like hell. But why wasn’t he feeling any pain, from the slug she had put into him?

She’d never seen Karl move so quickly. He was all over her before she could recover, slamming into her. She almost went over the railing but tensed her legs, stopping that in time. They swung around, and her back hit another wall. Gripping the handle with both hands, the man shoved the ax against her throat and pushed hard, trying to throttle her.

Cassie’s reaction was pretty well instinctive. She brought her knee up into his groin.

Although—exactly like the bullet wound—Karl did not react in the slightest.

“Oh, fun-fun-fun,” the man was muttering between clenched jaws.

Who was this? Someone crazy, and strong too. She put both palms against his chest and tried to shove him off. Could scarcely budge him. The contours of his body shifted slightly, but his feet would not go back. His pressure on the haft grew even more intense. It was cutting off her windpipe, and she felt her head begin to pound.

Then a few words spoken long ago came rushing back to her.

“That’s it, Cassie. Use my own strength against me.”

That had been her father, Gus. In his off hours, he’d taught her how to defend herself. How to shoot, and a few judo tricks he knew.

So she let Karl continue bearing down on her. And then swung her own weight completely to the left.

And it worked. He abruptly went crashing past her, banging his forehead on the wall. Although it didn’t seem to hurt him any more than had the other stuff.

Cassie snatched at the ax and caught hold of it below the metal blade. Karl’s face swung at her again.

“Let go, you stupid woman!”

But that was the last thing she was about to do. She tried to wrench the thing out of his grasp. Fresh beads of perspiration sprang up on her brow, and she felt her face go red with the effort. She could not budge the ax in her direction, not even a little bit. And the strangest thing was, for his part, Karl barely seemed to be making any effort.

She kicked at him again, his shins this time. The only thing that happened was…his misty gaze seemed to laugh at her.

“Oh, but you play nasty, don’t you, little girl?”

His gray eyes appeared to gleam.

“You really want this thing? Well, have it!”

He suddenly let the ax go, with Cassie still pulling at it as hard as she could. And that got the drop on her, taking her completely by surprise. Its metal head shot at her, catching her a glancing blow on the right temple. She let go of the thing, brilliant lights flashing in her head.

She tried to right herself. But the blow had been much harder than she’d thought. Her vision swirled, and she began to lose her footing.

Karl was moving in on her again.

That was when she heard a siren pulling up outside, and tires screeching. The cops had finally arrived.

Footsteps were hurrying this way. But would they be in time?

I had to hand it to him—when it came to policing this town, Saul was the last word in experienced preplanning. He knew the Landing back to front. Understood the kinds of curves this place could throw you. And so—following on from the strange turns the business with Anderson had taken—he had ordered his people to get in touch with him immediately if there was another instance of domestic violence. Which was what they’d done. They’d called him right away.

His vehicle, mine, and a patrol car pulled up almost simultaneously outside the house on Clore Crescent. I could see immediately the front door had been busted open. But I wasn’t sure what sense that made, until I spotted Cass’s overturned Harley.

I’d been thinking about her only recently. But what in God’s name was she doing here?

We ran for the porch. I managed to outstrip them, and reached it first, my weapon drawn. The moment that I stepped in, I could hear that there was shouting coming from above.

“Leave her be, Karl! She’s our friend!” rang out a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize.

And then I heard one that I did.

“Get back inside, Ginny! Please!”

She sounded like she was under a lot of pressure. And we’ve always looked out for each other. So I started heading up, taking the stairs three at a time.

“I’m not letting you exchange your life for mine! He’s my husband!”

“No!” Cassie was yelling. “He’s possessed! It’s not him!”

I finally came to a halt, tilting my gun backward slightly, unsure what to do with it. This was a bewildering scene. I felt my insides tighten.

At the far end of the corridor, a brown-haired woman was standing in an open doorway. There was a full-length mirror on the wall back there, and so it had to be a bathroom. I thought I’d seen her several times before, back when Cassie’s Diner had been open. The blood had drained from her face, and her narrow frame was shaking. But she looked defiant all the same. The screams of children were emerging from inside the bathroom, and that made my gut tense up even worse.

Cass was hunkered on the floor midway to me, with her back pressed against a wall. One of her Glocks was lying on the light brown carpet. Why wasn’t it in her hand?

There was a bruise emerging on her temple. Otherwise, she looked okay. Except…not for too much longer.

A short man in a plaid shirt was standing over her, an ax drawn back across his shoulder. I immediately took aim.

Cass noticed me and held an arm out.

“No! It’s not his fault!”

The others had come up the stairs behind me. Not only Saul. There was Hugh Williams again. A rookie called Colin Trent. And even Lauren, who must have ridden here in Hobart’s car. She’d sobered up extremely quickly. They all aimed their weapons too.

The man turned his face to us. Took in the fact that there were five guns pointing at him, and then snorted.

Blood was oozing thickly from his shoulder, from a bullet wound. So he had no right to look that smug. His eyes were the same shade as a misty morning in the fall, a gray so bottomless it seemed to go on forever. Saul had already described this, but it was the first time that I’d seen it. And it was slightly difficult to hold my aim steady under such a penetrating gaze.

“Go ahead boys, fire away,” he laughed. “Do your worst. You’ll only hurt poor Karl.”

Then he looked directly to my left.

“Did I say ‘boys’? Excuse me—that was not exactly PC, was it? Why, hello again, Lieutenant Brennan.”

I glanced quickly around at Lauren. Her face looked like it had been fashioned out of clay. Her upper lip had gone wet, her blue eyes squinting slightly. She was reliving the nightmare from the mortuary, I knew. And it had to be torture for her, going through the same thing twice in a few hours.

But she didn’t back off. She stayed right where she was, trying to do her job the best way she knew how.

My attention went back to Hanlon, or at least the body he had occupied.

“The Old Ones have truly smiled on me,” the figure with the ax was telling us. “I’ve finally got what I wanted.”

“And what’s that, Cornelius?” I asked.

“Invulnerability, until the End of Days, and then beyond them. You see, the Shadow Man can’t be hurt anymore. But he can still hurt you!”

The muscles in his arms bunched. The ax head flashed when he did that.

And then he brought it swinging down on Cass.

I suppose I fired without thinking very much. Except that I was shooting at wood rather than the man

The ax handle blew apart. The head went flying off, embedding itself in the wall about a yard above Cassie’s head.

She was back on her feet in a flash. She shoved the guy away from her, as hard as she could, then raised her knee and drove a boot heel into his solar plexus. At which point, he should have doubled up. But he didn’t even seem to feel it. His grip tightened on the broken handle, and he slammed it into her chin. Cass went flying back again.

And then he did something that astonished and appalled me. The man simply turned his back on us, as if we were not even there. And began advancing on the woman in the doorway.

She shrank back inside. But in her panic, she’d forgotten to close the door.

I pocketed my gun, and started running. Threw myself on the man’s back. It should have been easy to bring him down—he was stocky, but much shorter than me. But the experience turned out to be like riding one of those rodeo machines. He bucked savagely, swinging me around like I weighed nothing.

Saul came in behind me, adding his considerable bulk to the fray. He got his arms around the fellow’s neck and then bore down with every ounce of his might, trying to wrestle the guy to the floor. The other three had got hold of his legs, trying to yank them out from under him.

He still wouldn’t go down, at first. Like we were running on steam, and he was nuclear powered.

Cassie jumped onto his back behind me. The man struggled a few more seconds, teetering under our weight, then finally collapsed. We grabbed every limb and joint we could, and pinned him down.

He leered at us with contempt. His eyes were genuinely startling this close up.

“Okay, you’ve got me,” he snarled. “But who—Cornelius Hanlon, or Karl Graves? And what if I decide to stay in here?”

I could see it from his face in the weak light. He knew what our dilemma was, and was reveling in it.

“What would you do then, huh? Lock poor Karl away for life?”

I was acutely aware that the guy’s family was listening to this. But I’m afraid that seemed to be the plan, at least for the time being. Saul already had his cuffs out. And with the uniformed guys’ help, was getting the man turned facedown with his arms twisted behind his back. It was an effort, but the lieutenant managed to snap the first bracelet on.

Hanlon burst out laughing.

“Oh good heavens! You’re arresting the wrong man—can’t you see that?”

Tears of mirth began spilling down his cheeks. That infuriated me—I could hear one of his daughters crying. What ground at me worst was the knowledge that the man was absolutely right. But I couldn’t see any other way to go with this.

Which was when Lauren reached in past me. She still had her Walther out. To my surprise, she jammed it into the man’s face. His eyes went very narrow when she did that.

My God, was she going to…? I started to reach for her, but then had second thoughts. She looked levelheaded, in control. So I decided it was best to trust her for the moment.

“I know you, Cornelius,” she snapped.

To emphasize her point, she shoved the muzzle of the gun firmly against his right cheek, so that the flesh puckered around it.

“You like to play your little games, don’t you? But you can’t do that in jail. You’re seriously going to languish behind bars, simply to spite us? What sense does that make? Let this guy go.”

“What if I killed him first?” he grunted. “I could make him swallow his own tongue.”

Lauren’s tone grew even frostier. “Doesn’t work. I know first aid.”

That made him blink with confusion. I think I saw, in that instant, how detached from reality Hanlon was.

“You’re in a no-win situation here,” Lauren insisted. “Better to make yourself scarce, don’t you think?”

I knew how determined she was to catch the man. But this wasn’t the time for it, and she had the common sense to see that.

He became very still, his body going slack. And you could almost hear his crazed mind ticking over.

Then, without another word, his mouth stretched open wide. And pale gray vapor came rushing out of it. The color started bleeding from Karl’s eyes at the same time, his normal brown shade coming back.

The cloud billowed up against the ceiling, making us duck. Then it went churning down the stairwell to the front door of the house, disappearing through it.

Other shapes were moving toward us, next instant. The woman of the house and her young daughters, who were practically hysterical with fright. They threw themselves on their knees beside Karl, their hands going to his face. I backed away, and everyone else took my lead on that.

He was in a good deal of pain now, the wound in his shoulder finally making itself known. He squirmed and moaned. I didn’t enjoy watching that.

“What’s happening?” he yelled.

Then he jerked alarmedly at his tethered wrists, noticing the cuffs for the first time. So he obviously remembered nothing.

Saul undid them and then we backed off another couple of yards, giving these folks some privacy. I think it was Hugh Williams who called an ambulance.

I was deflating with relief, like everyone around me. Cass was rubbing at her chin, but seemed otherwise fine. Looking across at Lauren, I could see that she was shaking and perspiring. But she’d done good, and I told her that.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked.

Well, this whole thing had been down to magic, hadn’t it? And when it came to that particular subject, there were plenty of experts that we could consult.

It was time to go back to Sycamore Hill.