The Darkening Dream (25 page)

Sam shook his head. “So rich, the automobile is a toy.”

Sarah washed the blood off her face and changed into a borrowed blouse. Her nose was still sore and puffy, but it didn’t look serious. Maybe she should tell her parents Alex’s crash-into-the-tree story, though she didn’t want them to think he was dangerous.

The four of them reconvened in one of the downstairs living rooms, the one furthest from the boarders. Anne helped Sam clean the cut on his back. Sarah tried not to look. She hadn’t seen Sam without his shirt in a long time, not to mention it was just plain awkward with Alex sitting right there.

Alex reached into his pack and took out a grubby jar.

“I brought some ointment. It’ll help that cut heal.”

After two weeks, the warm touch of his hands on her foot was still fresh in her mind.

Anne opened the container, grimaced at the smell, and slathered the stuff on Sam’s back. He cringed.

“I know no one else is going to say this,” Anne said. “I believe the whole kit and caboodle now, but we almost died. I don’t know about the moral questions, and certainly vampires are bad, but what the
hell
— Jesus forgive me — are we doing?”

Sarah still remembered the bloody tree on the wall, the blaring of the horn, Isabella’s grim delivery. In a logical world her friend might be right, but nothing about this was logical.

“If we don’t do it,” she said, “who will?”

Alex leaned forward. “I agree with Anne.”

Sarah felt like her chair had been yanked out from under her.

“I know I was the one who started this,” he said, “but we’re in way over our heads. Those two bugamoors,” he raised his good hand to quell the snickers, “were just
henchmen
.”

“We can’t quit now,” Sarah said. “We’re all in it together.”
Only you can stop us,
echoed in her head.

“Those henchmen are nothing compared to the vampire himself.” Alex hesitated, and all of them looked at him.

“What do you mean, Alex?” Sarah said.

“I… that
thing
is vastly older and more powerful than we thought. He’s almost nine hundred years old. Even if we fight him in the middle of the day, we’ll be offering him a four-course meal.”

“Just a damn minute,” Sam said. “You sound awfully sure about this. How—”

“My grandfather knows the vampire.”

“Knows?” Anne’s voice was as sharp as Sarah had ever heard it. “What do you mean he
knows
him?”

Sarah felt like she’d been spinning out of control to the right, and someone hit her so hard she careened to the left.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” she whispered.

Alex looked miserable — as well he ought.

“I wanted to.”

“With the best intentions, the worst work is done,” Sam said.

“You still haven’t explained how your grandfather
knows
him,” Anne said.

“It’s not like he’s met the vampire, but he has his sources. When I told him about the Moors he said they belonged to this undead Caliph he knows
about
. He insisted I stay as far away as possible.”

“Good advice,” Anne said. “You should have passed it on.”

Sam glared at Alex. “We can’t afford to fight or
hold back
from each other.”

“Truth is, I don’t want to stop,” Alex said. “I know we almost died today, but there are two fewer monsters in the world because of us. We’re not half bad at this.”

Sarah considered throwing some of her own secrets into the maelstrom. Like dreaming of being pushed down a grave or having a baby ripped from her womb by a giant bat.

“We need more research and better planning,” she said instead, “but this creature is a killer, and we just can’t leave him to go on killing and killing, century after century. Someone has to end it.”

“Count me out,” Anne said. “I love you, Sarah, but I don’t want to end up a forgotten little skeleton in some shore house basement.”

“Good afternoon, kids.” Mrs. Williams poked her head in. Sam and Sarah were still standing. “Everything okay in here?”

You could all but impale the tension in the room with a stake.

Alex stood and offered a half bow. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Williams. Everything’s great. I hope you had a nice day at church.”

“What a gentleman,” she said. The phrase “gentleman liar” popped into Sarah’s head.

Anne said, “Mom, where’s Emily? She didn’t come back with you?”

Mrs. Williams shook her head. “After services she stayed to help at the church.”

Sarah met Anne’s eyes and saw them widen with the same fear that filled her own heart.

“With Pastor Parris?” Anne asked.

“Who else?” Mrs. Williams said. “She should be home soon. I’m going to make lunch for her. Would any of you like some?”

Sam offered his mother a thumbs up.

“Yes, ma’am,” Alex said.

“This is really bad,” Anne said as soon as she left. “What if Emily is alone with him?”

“If anything happens to her,” Sam said, “the man’s going to meet his maker a lot sooner than he thought.”

Alex sat back in his chair, then went right back to perching on the edge.

“Hopefully, Emily’s fine—”

“What do you care?” Anne said.

“Let the man speak.” Sam took his sister’s hand. “Emily might be in trouble.”

“You suppose the pastor’s really in league with—”

“Mr. Nasir?” Alex said. Sarah realized there were others in the house — best be careful throwing around words like “vampire.”

Mr. Nasir. It was weird to have a name for him, to think of vampires reading their mail at the kitchen table. Nine hundred years old.

Meet the one that you hunt
. Had the giant bat licked brains and blood from Thomas Becket’s broken head or drooled over bloody necks during the Reign of Terror?

“Emily’s been spending a lot of time with the pastor recently,” Anne said. “But he isn’t a vampire. Maybe he was inviting this Mr. Nasir to join the congregation. It could all be a misunderstanding.”

Sarah sighed. Freud called that denial.

Twenty-Six:

Breaking and Entering

Salem, Massachusetts, Sunday afternoon, November 9, 1913

P
ARRIS WAITED IN THE BUSHES.
He’d circled the house with the compass, and all signs indicated the archangel’s horn was inside. He held an opal wrapped in bay leaves in his hand — Albert Magnus, a thirteenth-century alchemist, had recommended this for invisibility.

Apparently Magnus was right, because when the bearded man in the brown suit and his wife emerged, they strolled away from the house without noticing him.

Parris tucked the opal away and put his hand on his jacket pocket, over the doll he and Betty had made this afternoon. He took a deep breath and drew a draught of energy, wrapping the soul about him like a winter cloak. It worked like the charm it was. Sure it was a little stinky — baked excrement, after all — but borrowing someone else’s soul was the only way to circumvent the bearded mage’s ward.

The front door was locked, but a small piece of moonwort from the kit in his satchel dealt with that.

He slipped inside, leaving the lights off. The house smelled of cooking fat. Better than Mr. Nasir’s place, for sure. On the first floor he found a small office crammed with books and papers. A photo showed the bearded man, his wife, and a pretty girl with curly hair.

He scanned the books. They were in a vast range of languages and nearly all on religious or esoteric topics. Obviously the bearded man was well learned — his wards alone testified to that. Parris could feel them pulsing all around him, caressing his borrowed soul.

At least a third of the books were in Hebrew — Parris didn’t speak the language, but he had a solid knowledge of the Hermetic Kabbala, so he knew the letters. A Jew, then. Something tickled his brain. He looked more closely at the photo. The man did look familiar, but…

There were framed diplomas on the walls, some in Hebrew, some in German. Herr Doktor Josef Engelmann. Damnation! They’d met — twice. It wouldn’t do to be caught and recognized. He’d best hurry.

He was about to leave when he spied the letter opener. It was brass and engraved with a German missive. He only read medieval German, but it was clear enough: “To my loving husband, Josef, December eleventh, 1898.”

He shoved it in his bag. A sentimental object like that could come in handy if he needed to work against the man. Nothing personal, of course, but he needed the Horn to get that grimoire.

He removed a vial of water and an aspersing wand made of bound lavender from his satchel. The vial contained rainwater he’d collected on Ascension Day without ever allowing it to touch the ground. Pouring a few drops on the end of the lavender, he flicked the water around the room to erase any trace of his presence.

Back in the hall he lit a candle and peered through the flames.

The ghostly lines he’d noticed outside with the vampire were visible here as well. But from his new perspective inside the building, he was better able to see them for what they were. Metaphysical in nature, they echoed the structural form of another building. Enormous ghostly support columns, topped with pomegranate capitals rose upward to join a vast and awesome rectangular vault, supports shaped like giant angels reached their wings out to hold the phantasmal ceiling.

He observed a convergence of these lines beneath his feet, and the finger of the compass tilted down, so he looked for a cellar door, which he soon found.

The floor below was composed of loose dirt. The compass led him across the dank space to the far wall, where a thick cluster of roots broke from the packed dirt, gnarled fingers grasping after the damp.

This place felt thin. He sniffed, catching a scent like a sudden summer rain. His own hearth smelled similar — plus the sulfur, but none of that here. He squinted through the candle flame, whispering a few words in Latin.

The fabric of the universe had been pierced here. A gateway had been opened to some other world. He didn’t think Mr. Engelmann had crossed into hell, but there were other realms out there.

Parris moved the compass back and forth along the wall. It swiveled, indicating a phantom spot in the center of the cluster of roots. He placed his hand there and held it steady. He could almost feel the threadbare reality

The Horn wasn’t here. This Hebrew magician had hidden it on some unknown celestial plane—

Click! Upstairs, he heard a lock tumble, a door open, and two voices talking. One male. One female.