The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) (7 page)

He was sooo boned...

“Ow! Damn it!” Max threw down the hammer after he once again hit his finger with it. He did the universal hand-shaking dance. All he wanted to do was put up a piece of chair railing in the music room, for crying out loud. This was his fourth nail in that board. The other three nails had died early deaths and were variously kinked and pounded over into the flesh of the board. Those deaths had not gone unavenged: his red, swollen, thumbs and fingers bore testimony to that.

Max was alternatively shaking his hands and examining all the bruises on them when the flat screen television, recently mounted on the wall, caught his attention. A pretty, enthusiastic, and buxom blond, dressed in a strangely sexy power-suit, looked into the camera with wide, excited eyes next to a picture of Max. He listened to what she was saying—

“Yes, it has been over two years since the scandal that rocked the music world exploded into public awareness. You may recall the shock and dismay that greeted the news that the universally loved and acclaimed Maximilian Faust, 'The Man Who Understood,' had not been the author of so many of the songs he performed and claimed to have written. The scandal was capped with the claim that Faust's super mega-hit, “Sarah's Song,” had been stolen from a poor songwriter who committed suicide when he realized what had happened to his music. The subsequent trials had the world sitting on the edge of its seat to discover just how deep Max's involvement had been.”

To underscore the drama of that difficult time, the blond heaved her breasts with excitement and continued—

“It's now been a year since the last of the lawsuits, civil and criminal, were settled. Since then, he has disappeared entirely from the public eye. He has not granted any interviews, and in fact, he has dropped entirely off the map. No one even knows where he is living. Well, Entertainment Daily is asking the question, Where is Maximilian Faust? What is he doing today and will he triumphantly return to the music world after his devastating fall from grace? Entertainment Daily is offering a reward...”

Max turned the television off in disgust. He turned to address the contents of the large toolbox sitting in front of the television with its lid thrown back. “Asshole vultures. Why can't they just leave me alone?” He threw the remote down on the couch and stalked to the back of the room.

He was so angry he barely gave a thought to the golden harp as he passed it. The second time he had come back to the house, he had found it perfectly whole again, sitting in a pile of gold glitter. This time though, there was no gold paint on it, just the reddish brown stain that had been hidden underneath the gold. Every time he saw it, he contemplated destroying it again, but so far hadn't worked up the nerve. He hadn't even touched it. He automatically gave the hell harp a wide berth and headed for the secret door, which lead to the kitchen.

The space where the piano had stood was not empty. Sending it off to be restored was one of the first things Max had done at the house. It wouldn’t be finished for several months and would cost him tens of thousands of dollars, but it was a bargain no matter the cost.

He left Old Bone behind, cradled in its bra on top of a comfy nest of blankets, facing the blank television. The lidless, cataract-filled eyes followed Max for as long as they could. When Max disappeared from sight, the eyes looked around the room, and seemingly resigned, they finally just rested on the blank television.

Max came back into the room a short time later with a gin and tonic in his hand. He noticed the blank TV screen. “Oh, sorry, Old Bone, I didn't mean to leave you here in the dark.” He turned the TV back on and quickly switched channels. “The Vampire Diaries should be coming on soon. I know it's your favorite.” He studied the head now watching the television. Max fancied that the fresh air, intellectual stimulation, and frequent water misting he gave it had Old Bone looking somewhat healthier. It seemed... less brittle somehow, perhaps more filled out?

Max tossed himself down on the luxurious leather of the expensive couch that now sat in front of the TV and next to the card table that sported the toolbox containing the skull. Ignoring the television, he gave a disgusted look at the mangled chair rail he had been working on and then looked around the room. In the last couple of weeks, it had gone from a complete disaster zone to a total disaster zone. He had hired a company, at quite a large cost, to come out, clean up the entire house, and remove the areas of moldering carpeting or curling parquet, except for the living room. He made that room off limits because he didn't want anyone to see the hole in the floor filled with the murky water and the coffin. The news of it would spread like wildfire, and he just didn't need that sort of publicity.

He'd also gotten electricians out to restore power to the mansion, install or repair some lights, and overall reduce the odds that the place would burn down if he plugged in a toaster. It had taken a couple of days to get the workers here because it seemed that no one could find the place until Max met them in town and led them to the house. Once here, they did their job, but they refused to make any assurances that the ancient wiring in the walls wouldn't burst into flame. Living dangerously, he had placed floor lamps in all the downstairs rooms. They lit up the place—sort of. The lamps did cast considerable light, but they also highlighted the shabbiness of the place and seemed to create dozens of dark shadows. Sometimes, he felt that something was watching him from those shadows.

Meanwhile, Max was collecting a large assortment of tools. He'd had to travel quite a distance to find them all.

During those two weeks, with all their problems, he had felt himself bonding even more closely with the house. It was odd. A lot of strange and disturbing things happened in this house. He often heard footsteps or faint voices when no one was around. Tools went missing or were scattered around when the workers returned in the morning. Ladders got pushed over, and there were a lot of unexplainable accidents. This house was undoubtedly haunted, but it didn't disturb Max as much as he would have expected. The thought of throwing it in Lucian's face, who insisted that there were no such things as ghosts, was quite uplifting. Even so, it was spooky enough that he seldom stayed in the house after dark, but it didn't deter him wanting to fix the place up and make it his home. The house needed him, and he needed it.

He'd had to pry his considerable expenses out of his money manager, Tony's, fingers. He thought sourly about how difficult it was to get anything at all out of Tony. Tony wouldn't even tell Max his net worth. That would have to change soon.

In any event, Tony had finally wired the money to Max. As Max looked around, that money didn't show. The crust of dirt was gone from the floor, but the sub-flooring was still stained and warped. The house still smelled nasty. And the walls beneath the flood line were still covered with peeling wallpaper, dirt, and mold stains that nothing would get out. On top of that, he had noticed that some of the walls looked like they were termite-ridden. At least he hadn't seen any rats.

The thought of the amount of work that needed to be done exhausted him. He put his head back tiredly and let his eyes wander over the intricate patterns of the ceiling tiles. He'd been told that they were made of tin. The amount of work that had gone into this house's construction was staggering. His eyes came to rest on one loose tile over the card table. It was free on three sides and hung by a single corner. That seemed a bit dangerous to him, and he noted with excitement, it also seemed like something he could actually deal with.

He stood up on the couch and then stepped up on its arm and from there to the card table. He gingerly tested the table to see if it would hold his weight. It was a bit wobbly but seemed likely to hold. He stood on the table carefully, his legs straddling the toolbox with the skull. The skull cranked its eyes up, vainly trying to see Max standing over it. The skull, with its desiccated flesh, wasn't particularly expressive, but now, to someone with a good imagination, it might have looked slightly worried.

The ceilings in the house were all ten feet, but on the table, Max was able to reach the dangling tile. He grabbed it and gave it a tentative tug. It didn't budge. He pulled a bit harder. It still didn't move. He gave it a harder yank, then harder still. The tile came free in Max's hand. He hadn't quite prepared himself for it and overbalanced. He put his foot back to catch himself, and the table collapsed underneath him. Max flailed but had no chance. He went down hard, taking the tile and the toolbox with him. He wasn't around to see what happened next.

When Max awoke, he hurt. He had sharp pains in his head, his hip, and his right arm. He groaned and struggled to get his eyes open. When he finally succeeded, he let out a scream and tried to throw himself back away from the hideous face that was staring at him from ground level. He swatted at the face in terror and scrambled back as the head bounced away. When tried to put weight on his left hand, excruciating pain ripped up through his arm, and he fell back to the floor. He curled into a semi-fetal position and cradled his arm.

Distance from the head and the pain had a damping effect on his panic. He was still in the music room, the walls were flickering from the light of the television as it babbled on, and he had a host of new pains. Even those pains took a momentary back seat to his shock at the sight of the head, which was still spinning slowly on the ground a couple of feet in front of him. It was Old Bone, but it had changed. It had more flesh on it. Instead of a mummy skull, it looked more like an anatomy picture where all the skin had been stripped away showing the red muscles and white tendons. There were even some patches of skin. The skull wobbled to a stop, facing Max. Max struggled into a sitting position while Old Bone looked at him out of lidless eyes that were now not just desiccated white orbs, but had a brown iris and a grayish black pupil.

Max's attention was drawn away from the skull when he unconsciously put his hand up to his head and touched the cut there. He yelped at the unexpected pain and drew his hand away. It was covered in blood. He looked down at where he had woken up. Head wounds were known to bleed profusely, and his had not tried to buck the trend. There was a puddle of blood there. It had pooled away from him toward where the head had landed. Where the head had been, there was a circular spot clear of blood. The clear area was actually considerably bigger than the head. It was decidedly odd and a bit chilling as he contemplated what might have been taking place while he was out.

To test his theory, he searched around for the bra. When he found it, he went over to Old Bone, and gingerly picked it up using the bra cups as hand protection. He tried to ignore how the eyes kept trying to follow him. He took it over and set it down in one of the areas where the red liquid was rapidly being absorbed by the wooden flooring. He stepped back to watch.

The blood under and around the head started reversing direction. It oozed back out of the wood and started forming small beads. Soon the beads grew and started rolling to the contact point of the neck and floor. Once there, they were absorbed into the neck. It wasn't a quick process, but he stared at it with gruesome fascination. In a nightmarish time lapsed and reversed vignette, he watched as each little bead of blood absorbed seemed to fill out the head a little more. It was a bit like the special effect used when the liquid Terminator pulled himself back together. Max's gaze was interrupted when a sluggish stream of blood from his head wound flowed across his left eye.

He cursed and grabbed a towel that had been Old Bone's nest. He gingerly brought the towel to his head. As he pressed it there, he found his gaze resting on Old Bone itself. He walked over to stand next to the head and then he tilted his own head over Old Bone and squeezed his saturated hair onto it. A few crimson drops landed on the skull and were absorbed right into it. He didn't know if he was fascinated or disgusted. It was sort of like his father's piranha. It split the world into two groups. When people found out that his father fed it live goldfish, there were two reactions: “Oh cool!... Let me see!” and “Oh gross!... Let me see!”

Whether it intrigued or grossed out, it certainly grabbed your attention. Max wanted to continue his experiment, but common sense and pain caught up with him. He was bleeding, broken, and he needed to get himself to a doctor. He patted his head gingerly with the towel and tried to wipe off the majority of the blood from his hair, neck, and face. When he was done, he dropped the soaked towel and painfully wrapped another over his head like a turban. He'd never thought about it, but clearly, one-handed Sheiks had it tough. He did the best he could, which was not terribly good, and then grabbed his bra-pads, picked up Old Bone, and put him on the couch facing the television.

“Sorry about that Old Bone. I don't mean to keep tossing you around like a soccer ball. I have to get to the hospital and get this taken care of. You're looking better though.” As an afterthought, he placed the blood-soaked towel next to the living anatomy demonstration watching him from the couch. Who cared if it ruined the couch? He could get another. He said, “Here, maybe you can suck on this while I'm gone. Hang tight, I'll be back tomorrow.”

He left the music room, entered the dark main hall, and limped to the front door. It seemed like more and more places on his body were hurting. His hand had started throbbing fiercely, and he had bruised or torn something in his hip. Just as he was reaching for the door, he heard footsteps on the stairway behind him. With a rush of adrenalin, he quickly hit the light switch so he could see. As soon as he flipped the switch it crackled and popped, then a line of fire sprouted from the wall at the base of the stairway behind him where one of the floor lamps had been placed.

Max panicked, hit the light switch again, and plunged the hall in darkness once more except for the weak but growing light coming from the wall fire. He frantically tried to remember where he kept the fire extinguishers the electricians had forced on to him. He kept glancing anxiously back at the flames which would have provided some illumination if looking at them hadn't kept ruining his night vision.