The Darkening Dream (24 page)

Alex opened the car door and struggled with the key. Sarah was too winded to speak but pointed back at the house. A smoldering figure shambled up the road in their direction, huge hands clutching a single sword.

“Hurry!” Sam yelled.

Alex finished with the levers inside and limped around to the front, grabbed the crank, twisted hard. The car convulsed, and the starter whipped backwards and struck his thumb.

“
Xekoliara
!” Alex’s thumb blazed in agony, but the engine turned over and coughed to life. Fiery pain rippled up his arm.

“Sam, you’ll have to drive. I think I broke my thumb on the starter, and it takes two hands.”

Sam climbed into the driver’s seat. The blackamoor was only twenty feet away. Sam handed his empty pistol to Alex, released the brake, and pulled down on the throttle. The engine roared. The auto didn’t move.

“It’s in neutral,” Alex yelled, clutching his hand. “The left pedal, all the way down!”

Sam stomped and gripped the wheel. The auto lurched.

“More spark, more spark!”

“You don’t have to yell, I’m right here.”

The Model T began to pick up speed. They pulled out onto the road — and heard a sickening thump on their roof.

“He’s on top of us!” Sarah cried from the backseat.

The automobile cruised down the empty street. A big black arm, covered with suppurating burns and crawling with spiders, reached in the window and grabbed at Anne’s hair. She screamed and hunched down.

Now the scimitar plunged through the roof into the front seat. Sam winced as it scraped along his shoulder blade.

“Slam the rightmost pedal as hard as you can!” Alex yelled.

Sam did, and Alex yanked the handbrake at the same time.

The hand of Zeus smacked them from behind as the Model T tried its best to stop. Alex braced himself with his feet, but Sam was thrown into the steering wheel and the girls were all but hurled into the front.

The Moor flew off the roof and crashed onto the cobblestones a few feet in front of them. Alex released the brake and pulled down hard on the throttle. The car surged forward and smashed into the big man just as he tried to get to his feet.

The blackamoor burst like a sail torn in high winds, releasing a cloud of pulverized insects. Red blood and yellow-green ichor splashed across the windshield, obscuring everything, and Sam was forced to stop the car in the middle of the road.

Alex glanced out the back. All that remained of the giant was a five-foot puddle of writhing bugs crowned by a swarm of flies and gnats.

Twenty-Four:

Heaven and Hell

Salem, Massachusetts, Sunday morning, November 9, 1913

P
ARRIS TOOK FIVE BLACK CANDLES
from the box on the mantle, arranged them in a half circle around the fireplace, then sprinkled a line of dried garlic, lavender, and honey along the arc. He inhaled, held his breath, and hurled a handful of powdered sulfur into the fire. Orange flame mushroomed, accompanied by a cloud of black smoke. He squinted through tearing eyes at the now ignited candles and intoned:

Power of the warlocks rise, course unseen through the skies.

Come to us who call you near, come to us who call you here.

Down roads of fire and flame, come forth to bring pain.

Blood to blood I summon thee, blood to blood return to me.

He waited until the dancing flame began to shift, a shimmering curtain in front of a fiery tunnel. A small figure formed in the distance, flickered, slid closer. With one delicate hand, she parted the veil separating the realms, her skin the bluish purple of a corpse washed ashore, her black nails chipped as if she’d been hauling rocks.

“Betty.” He bowed.

“Toy.” She tiptoed over the line of candles and herbs to step into the room. “It’s been too long since you let me out to play.”

His manhood responded to the sound of her raspy voice and the thought of her tail tickling his skin.

Her lips didn’t move when she spoke — the air in front of them merely shimmered, and sound followed. Her hair was jet black, her eyes red smoldering flames, and two small nubs of horn poked from her forehead. She was beautiful in her own way, willowy and well-proportioned. One merely had to overlook the complexion. And the attire. Her faded gray corset and tattered knickers were the only garments Parris had ever seen her wear.

“Did you miss me?” she said.

“I need your help,” he said. “An ingredient for a hex. Mud from the banks of the river Lethe.”

“Blessed waterway of oblivion,” she said. “The reasons you love me are without measure.”

Her frown hurt more than her whip. She ran her eggplant-colored tongue across her teeth then lifted her hand to brush his face. He shivered with pleasure, but she’d need more incentive.

“Remember my little pet?” he said. “The pretty one? We need to take something from her. Fast. The vampire is impatient.”

“We?” She leaned close so their noses almost touched. Her skin smelled of sulfur.

“I’ll use a binding of command,” he said. “I know how you love that.”

“If you’re man enough.” She slammed her hand into his crotch. “We can travel to the river right now. The gateway’s still open.” She glanced back at the curtain of flame.

“I have only thirty minutes until church,” he squeaked.

“Time runs differently in the byways of the netherworld. We’ll be back as soon as we leave.”

She tugged him halfway into the fireplace. He grabbed the hand on his groin to retain at least some control. The flames licked at the fabric of his suit without singing it.

“The realms are myriad and vast,” she whispered. “All suffering, all prayers made manifest. But no harm will come to you on my watch, so long as the price is paid.” She pulled his hand between her own legs, into the dark place.

There was always a price.

Twenty-Five:

Aftermath

Salem, Massachusetts, Sunday afternoon, November 9, 1913

P
AIN RADIATED FROM
S
ARAH’S
nose deep into her head. She couldn’t blink away the silvery fireflies dancing at the edge of her vision.

On the seat next to her, Anne sobbed and clutched at her. The auto was motionless, diagonal in the center of the road, the windshield splattered with revolting yellow and green never-mind-what. Sam looked shell-shocked, the back of his shirt torn and bloody. Alex turned to the back seat.

“You ladies okay?” he said.

“Is it gone?” Sarah’s nose felt as big as her head. The last thing she remembered clearly was the Moor’s scimitar stabbing through the roof.

“Dead,” Sam said. “It exploded like a bag of bugs when the car hit it. In fact, it
was
a bag of bugs.”

Anne looked up. “Oh, God. Sarah, your nose is all bloody.”

“I must have smacked it on the seat when we stopped. How bad is it?”

Anne dabbed at it with a handkerchief.

“There’s a lot of blood, but it seems to have stopped. Does it hurt?” She straightened Sarah’s hat.

“The silverfish in my eyes seem to have moved on, and the pain’s not so bad.” Sarah could almost think in a straight line now.

Anne laughed — a semi-hysterical laugh but a laugh nonetheless.

“What’s so funny?” Sam asked.

“It’s just… those guys. You said ‘bag of bugs,’ and they’re blackamoors and full of bugs, so they’re
bugamoors
!”

Sarah found herself chuckling, which made her nose hurt, but it
was
funny.

“Bugamoor,” Sam said. He started snickering.

Soon the three of them were laughing so hard Sarah found it hard to breathe. Whenever it died down, one of them would say “Bugamoor!” and they’d be off again.

Alex looked puzzled as he watched them. Sarah had the urge to pull him over the seat into the back.

“It’s not
that
funny,” he said.

“Bugamoor!” Anne said.

It would be nice to breathe again. Sarah tried to concentrate on something distinctly un-funny, like principles of accounting. When the last giggle finally died out, she was left with a pleasant cathartic feeling. And a sore nose.

Alex stuck his head out the window and peered down the street.

“Another car’s coming. Sam, do you think you can drive?”

Sam pulled off his torn jacket and handed it to his sister.

“This is ruined, use it to wipe off Sarah’s blood.”

Anne scrubbed Sarah’s face, bringing on a painful reminder of the silverfish attacks.

Sam took the coat back to clear a swath of bug guts from the windshield. He then balled up the nasty thing and threw it to the side of the road.

“We should go to our house,” he said, climbing back into the driver’s seat. “We can clean up there.”

The car was still running. Sam popped the brake and rolled off as if he’d been doing it for ages. Sarah thought about Alex’s struggles with the machine and sighed.

“How’s your thumb?” Sarah and Alex were cleaning the car in front of the Williams house. The base of his finger was swollen and turning purple.

“I don’t think it’s actually broken,” he said. “What do you call it in English when you wrench it but don’t break the bone?”

“A sprain.” She chose a bug-free spot, relaxed against the auto, and took his hand. “Tell me how bad this feels.” She moved the digit back and forth, ever so gently. He winced.

“It hurts, but less than before.” She couldn’t help it. She enjoyed making him squirm. He retrieved his hand. “Sam, is there ice?”

Sam was inspecting the grill. “I’ll get some from the ice shed. I was going for water anyway.” He left with Anne.

She was barely out of sight when Alex grabbed Sarah’s hand and pulled her to him for a kiss. His lips were salty.

“What if someone saw us?” She pushed him away. But only a few inches.

“I wanted to kiss you,” he said.

Little bits of grit were in her mouth, and she tried to work them out with her tongue. Let it not be bugamoor grit. She wanted to smell him again. Silly. She glanced around. Anne was behind the house now. She leaned into him, stood on her toes to kiss him briefly, then put her face into the crook of his neck. He smelled of sweat, fear, and God knows what else.

She liked it.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said.

She had to assume he meant the kiss, not their foray into the basement. She shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. Eventually, she pulled away again. They held hands, but the auto stood between them and the house.

Sam returned first, carrying a bucket in one hand and a wrapped bundle in the other.

“I’m sorry, Alex, there’s no way we can fix this perfectly,” he said. “Your grandfather is going to notice the damage.”

Alex took the bundle and held the ice against his thumb.

“He won’t, but Dmitri will,” he said. “It’s not a problem. I’ll just tell them that when I drove off the road and hit a tree, branches tore the roof.”

“They won’t take a piece out of your backside?” Sam asked.

“Grandfather doesn’t care,” Alex said. “Although if I’d broken one of his precious antiques? Well, those are art.”