The Haunted Air (43 page)

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Authors: F. Paul Wilson

BOOK: The Haunted Air
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Lyle was kicking and writhing now, looking like a man in his death throes. This was scary as hell. Jack stepped forward, ready to help Charlie break contact, when Lyle suddenly quieted. His rasping breaths stopped for an agonizing moment, then restarted with a cough and a gasp. Finally he released Charlie's hand and slumped the rest of the way to the floor.
Jack bent over him. “Lyle! Lyle, can you hear me?”
Lyle rolled over and opened his eyes. They looked dull, bloodshot. He looked around and blinked as if he'd just stepped out of a cave. His gaze came to rest on his brother standing over him, frozen in shock.
Charlie's voice was very small. “Lyle? You okay?”
“Dumb question,” Lyle croaked as he propped himself up on one elbow. “Do I look okay?”
His tongue worked in and out of his mouth as he sat up.
“What's wrong?” Jack said.
“My mouth. Tastes like dirt.”
“It bad, ain't it,” Charlie said in that same small voice.
Lyle bent his knees and rested his forehead against them. “It started out bad, I can tell you that. It's mostly a blur, but I know for a moment there I felt as if I was suffocating, really and truly choking to death, but then the feeling passed. After that it all became pretty vague and jumbled for a while, but then I came to that same hungry darkness I saw with the others.” He looked up at his brother. “But we come through it, the both of us. I mean, it seems like we do because we're still together when it's all over.”
“Praise God!” Charlie said, his voice stronger now. “That can only mean you get yourself saved before the Rapture.” He lifted his arms and looked up. “God, you are so great and good to have mercy on my brother and I.”
Lyle glanced at his brother, sighed, then held out a hand for Jack to help him up.
Jack hesitated. “You sure you want to do that?” Jack was sure he didn't want anyone looking into
his
future. And they could stay out of his past and present too while they were at it.
“You've got a point there.” Lyle pushed himself to his feet. He staggered a step when he was fully upright. “Man.” He shook his head. “Maybe we'd better call it a day.”
“Probably a good idea,” Jack said. “We haven't found one loose stone in the whole damn wall. That means tomorrow we start on the floor. Probably should have started there in the first place.”
Lyle nodded. “Yeah. If Dmitri was involved with Tara Portman, and maybe more missing kids, I can think of only one reason for a dirt floor all those years.”
Jack walked over to the gap in the floor and examined the edge of the concrete.
“Shouldn't be too bad a job. Looks like it's only two
inches thick. You could rent a jackhammer and make short work of it.”
Lyle shook his head. “Rather not if I can avoid it. Too much noise. I'm not looking to attract attention.”
Jack glanced at him. “Not yet, anyway.”
A flat smile. “Right. Not yet. You mind if we try by hand first?”
“Sure. If you think you'll be up for it tomorrow, so will I.”
“I'll be up for it. But only till mid-afternoon. I'm speaking to a women's club in Forest Hills tomorrow.” He held up a pinky and pursed his lips. “Pre-dinner speaker to the ladies, don't you know.”
“Hoping to expand your clientele?”
He sighed. “Yeah. That was the case when I arranged the gig.” He glanced at his brother. “Now, maybe I'm just wasting my time.” He perked up as he faced Jack, but it seemed to take effort. “Anyway, I'll cancel tomorrow's sittings and we'll start off bright and early. If nothing else, it'll be a good workout.”
A good workout … right. What would also be good, but far from pleasant, would be finding Tara Portman's remains and putting her to rest. Maybe then Gia would put the little girl behind her. And maybe then Jack could find out what all this meant and why he was involved.
Maybe.
Jack loped down Ditmars toward the subway, passing rows of ethnic stores propping up gray-stone triple-decker apartments. Rush hour was in full swing with the sidewalks cramped and the streets stop and go. He turned onto Thirty-first
Street and was headed toward the looming elevated N line when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and hit the SEND button.
“Hey, hon. What's up?”
But it wasn't Gia on the other end.
“Am I speaking to
Jack
?
”
said a faintly accented male voice that cracked his name like a whip.
Jack stopped walking. “Who's this? Who're you calling?”
“I'm calling the one who tried to kill me Monday night. Would that be you,
Jack
?”
Bellitto! How had he got this number? That bothered him, but the scalding fury of realizing he was speaking to Tara Portman's killer engulfed his concern. He looked around, then backed into the doorway of a gyro-souvlaki shop.
“Eli!” Jack said. He felt his lips tightening, pulling back from his teeth. “If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be making this call from your grave. I didn't recognize your voice. Maybe that's because last time I heard it you were whining like a frightened child. You know what a frightened child sounds like, don't you?”
“Just as you do, I'm sure.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come now, Jack, or whatever your real name is. Don't take me for a fool. I know more about you than you think I do.”
Unease blunted Jack's fury. Was Bellitto bluffing? He knew Jack's name—no, wait. Jack had had Eli's clerk write
Jack
next to Tara's key-chain entry in the sale book. That was how he'd got the name. But somehow Eli had found Jack's Tracfone number. What else did he know?
“Such as?”
“I know you're a practitioner.”
“Really?” Where was this going? “Of what?”
An instant's hesitation, as if Bellitto was unsure of how much he should say, then, “The Ceremony, of course.”
The word meant nothing to Jack, but Bellitto's tone had
loaded it with so much portent he knew he had to play along.
He feigned a gasp of shock. “How … how did you know?”
Bellitto laughed softly. “Because I've been a practitioner so much longer than you, so much longer than anyone. And your designs are pathetically transparent.”
“Are they now?”
“Yes. You want to take over my Circle.”
Jack had no idea what he was talking about but wanted to keep him going, maybe find out what made him tick and use some of that as a point of attack. Because Eli Bellitto was going down. Hard. Only a matter now of when and where.
“I have my own circle, so why would I want yours?”
“Because mine is so much more powerful. I've been performing the Ceremony for hundreds of years and—”
“Wait. Did you say ‘hundreds'?”
“Yes. Hundreds. I am two hundred and thirty-two years old.”
Jack shook his head. This guy was Froot Loop city.
“I had no idea.”
“Now you see what you're up against. My Circle extends into all areas of power and influence. And you want it for yourself, don't you.”
“My circle runs pretty deep and wide itself, and—”
The voice hardened. “Yours is nothing! Nothing! You caught me by surprise Monday night, but that won't happen again. I have my Circle casting its net for you. You're clever, but you're no match for me. We have your Tracfone number and soon we'll have your name, and once we have that, you're finished!”
Jack had a pretty good idea of how they'd got his phone number. He'd made only one call since his tête-à-tête with Bellitto, and that had been to 911 to report the kid. EMS would have recorded the number on caller ID. Figuring out from there that it was a Tracfone was no big deal, but to get the number in the first place did indicate a certain
amount of suck with officialdom, maybe even the NYPD itself.
Maybe Bellitto wasn't blowing smoke. Maybe he was as well connected as he said.
And maybe he was trying to keep Jack talking instead of the other way around. If his “circle” had a couple of tracking cars riding around, tracing this call, could they triangulate on Jack's position and move in?
Lucky for him he was far from home.
Jack stepped away from the building and rejoined the pedestrian flow toward the elevated tracks. He'd keep the call going for a while longer, then step on a train and zoom away.
“What's the matter?” Bellitto said. “Cat got your tongue?”
Jack forced a laugh. “How typically unoriginal. You haven't a clue as to who I am or what I'm up to. And you never will. Your time is finished, Eli. Time for a new generation to take over. Step aside or die.”
“Never! The Ceremony is mine! I don't know how you found out about it, but no Johnny-Come-Lately is going to usurp my power!”
Johnny-Come-Lately? Usurp? This guy was too much.
But this Ceremony he was ranting about … Jack had a sick feeling it might involve killing children. If he was right, maybe he could turn it on its head to give Bellitto a swift kick in his already cut-up balls.
“The old original recipe Ceremony might be yours, Eli, but I've done my own variation on it. The Ceremony, Version two-point-oh, is all mine.”
“What?” An uncertain note here. “What are you talking about?”
“I've
reversed
the Ceremony, Eli.”
“I don't understand.”
“I can bring them back.”
“What? Nonsense! That's impossible!”
“Is it? That was me in the store on Sunday trying to buy the Roger Rabbit key ring.”
“You? But … but why would you want it?”
“Not me. I didn't want it. Tara wanted it.”
“Who?”
“Tara Portman.” Jack swore he heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. “You remember her, don't you. The pretty little nine-year-old blonde you snatched by the Kensington riding stables back in eighty-eight.” Jack fought to keep the growing rage out of his voice. Had to sound cool, play it like someone as sick as the guy on the other end of the line. “She's back, and she wanted her key ring. So I went and got it for her. Tara's back, Eli. And is she ever pissed.”
With that Jack broke the connection and gave the OFF button a vicious jab, damn near punching it out the back side of the phone as he cut the power.
Chew on
that
for the rest of the night, scumbag.
“Slow down.” Eli said, peering through the passenger window into the growing darkness. “It's just a little ways ahead. Number seven-thirty-five.”
Adrian had the wheel of Eli's Mercedes, a black 1990 sedan. Despite its age its mileage was low. Eli used it infrequently and only for short trips. He preferred this old classic for its room and comfort and lines. The new models held no appeal for him.
Eli's wounds were feeling much better tonight, but not well enough to drive. Moving his leg back and forth to work the brake and gas pedals would flare his pain, so he'd given Adrian the keys. Adrian was still having some trouble with his knee, but fortunately it was his left that had been injured, so he could still drive.
Just as well that Eli had a physical excuse for not driving, for he wasn't up to it emotionally either. Not tonight. Too rattled, too distracted … why, in his present mood, he might very well drive into oncoming traffic without realizing until it was too late.
But he couldn't let Adrian and Strauss see his unease, his uncertainty. He had never been in a situation like this, and found this inexplicable turn of events almost overwhelming. Everything had been going so well for so long, and now …
Initially he'd been delighted to make contact with his attacker, the mysterious “Jack.” He'd called with the intention of shaking him up, of letting him know that he hadn't got away clean with his vicious, underhanded act, that he was being hunted and would be found.
Instead, it had been Eli who had been left shaken.
The man knew that he'd abducted Tara Portman, knew that the key ring had been hers. How? He didn't believe for a second that the Ceremony could be reversed, and yet … how did the man know about Tara?
The questions had plagued Eli until he'd given into a yearning to return to the house where the Portman child had died. Just for a look …
“I still think this is a lousy, stupid idea,” said Strauss from where he slouched in the rear seat. “Lousy because this whole deal could be a trick to get us to come back to this place, which we're doing. And stupid because Tara Portman ain't back and she ain't never coming back. Did we or did we not cut up her heart and eat it? No way that kid is back and looking for her key ring.”
Eli winced at Strauss's casual mention of these Ceremony details. They were never to be spoken.
“First of all,” Eli said, “we are not going back to Dmitri's house, we are simply driving by. Just another car passing on the street. As for the other matter, I fully agree that Tara Portman cannot be back, but we must find out how this man knows about her.”
“Easy,” Strauss said, the edge still on his voice. He
leaned forward and jutted his head over the back of the front seat. His breath reeked of garlic. “Somebody talked.”
“No one talked,” Eli said. “I've spoken to our other members, all ten of them, since this afternoon. No one has been kidnapped and tortured into a confession. Everyone is fine and looking forward to the next Ceremony. And think about it: If someone did talk, why talk about Tara Portman? Why not last year's lamb, or the year before? Tara Portman was ages ago.”
“Perhaps,” Adrian said. He'd been strangely silent all day. “But she was the first lamb we sacrificed in Dmitri's house.”
“You're right,” Eli said. “And oddly enough, I found myself thinking about Tara Portman just the other night.”
That was why he'd been so shocked when the stranger had mentioned her name. It had to be a coincidence, but what a strange one.
“Really?” Adrian said. “Out of so many lambs, why her?”
“I've been asking myself that same question since my talk with our attacker this afternoon.”
“Maybe it was because this mystery man tried to buy the key ring.”
“No, that wasn't it. At the time I'd forgotten who that key ring belonged to. To tell the truth, I doubt I could match many of the little souvenirs in that cabinet to their original owners. And besides, I'd thought of Tara Portman days before.”
“When?” Strauss said.
“Friday night.”
He remembered he'd been reading in bed, deep into Proust's
Remembrance of Things Past,
and feeling drowsy, when suddenly she leaped into his mind. The briefest flash of her face, calm in the repose of deep anesthesia, and then her thin pale etherized body, still and supine on the table, awaiting the caress of Eli's knife. As quickly as the memories had come, they fled. Eli had written them off as random
reminiscences, triggered perhaps by Proust's prose.
“There's the house now,” Adrian said.
They lapsed into silence as they glided past Menelaus Manor. The lights were on. Who was home?
With a pang of melancholy Eli experienced a Proustian moment, caught up in a swirl of memories of Dmitri Menelaus, the brilliant, driven, tortured man he had brought into the Circle back in the eighties.
Dmitri had started off as just another customer in Eli's shop, but soon proved himself a man with a connoisseur's eye for the rare and arcane. He began to suggest sources where Eli might order rarer and stranger objects. As he and Eli got to know each other socially, Dmitri told of how he'd traveled the world investigating what he termed “places of power.” He'd been to the usual locales—the Mayan temples of Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Macchu Picchu in the Andes, the tree-strangled temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia—but had found them dead and cold. Whatever power they'd once held had been leached away by time and tourists. Along the way he'd heard tales of other places, secret places, and had also searched them out, all to no avail.
But then came whispers that fired his imagination, tales of an old stone keep in an obscure alpine pass in Romania, an ancient fortress that once had housed unspeakable evil. No one could give him the exact location of the pass, but by collecting and comparing notes based on the whispers, Dmitri narrowed his search to an area where these tales appeared to converge. He followed old trails through steep gorges, fully expecting this search to end as had so many others over the years, in despair and disappointment.
But this time was different. He found the fortress in a ravine near the ruins of a peasant village. As soon as he stepped through a gap in its crumbling foundation and let its walls enfold him, he knew his search had ended.
Immediately he'd arranged for a quantity of its loosened stones to be shipped back to the States and installed in his
basement. He said the stones had absorbed the power of the old keep and now he had some of it for himself. His own home was now a place of power.
Eventually Eli learned the reason for Dmitri's obsession with these matters: He was terrified that he would die of pancreatic cancer like his father. He'd watched the man rot from the inside out and had sworn that would never happen to him.
Eli knew a better way to protect him, far better and more reliable than importing stones from Old World forts. Slowly, slyly, he felt out Dmitri about how far he'd be willing to go to protect himself from his father's fate. When he'd ascertained that there was nothing Dmitri would not do, no lengths to which he would not go, he introduced Dmitri to the Circle. He became Eli's twelfth disciple.
Dmitri quickly evolved into Eli's right-hand man, for Eli sensed that his motives were pure. For too many members of the Circle, Eli suspected that the abducted children and what was done to them were almost as important as the Ceremony and the immortality they'd eventually gain from it. They might be men in high places, but he sensed their motives were low. Year after year he'd seen the lascivious light in their eyes as the deeply anesthetized lamb was stripped naked upon the ceremonial table. It had disturbed Eli so deeply that he'd begun leaving the lambs fully clothed, baring only the minimum amount of flesh necessary to slit open the chest and remove the still beating heart. None of the Circle looked away during the bloody procedure. Some went so far as to suggest that the lamb be strapped down and conscious during the Ceremony.
How dare they? The Ceremony was to be performed without pain to the lamb. That would debase the ritual. The point was not pain but to gain life everlasting. The annual death of a child was an unfortunate but necessary price that had to be paid.
How lamentable that he had to ally himself with such
creatures, but in these increasingly Big Brotherish times, he needed their power and influence to safeguard the Ceremony and guarantee its annual performance.
But Dmitri was different. His focus was on the end, not the means. He soon became an indispensable member, especially once the Ceremony was moved to the basement of his home. It was perfect. The stones did indeed resonate with a strange power, and the dirt floor was a perfect resting place for the lambs. Disposing of a body, even once a year, had always been a perilous chore.
Eli would be performing the Ceremony at Menelaus Manor to this day were Dmitri still alive. But his doctors discovered that he had his father's cancer—too early to be helped by medical science, and too early to be saved by the Ceremony, for Dmitri had participated in nowhere near the twenty-nine he needed for immortality and invulnerability.
Unable to face the same agonizing death as his father, he'd seated himself on the dirt floor of his cellar and put a bullet through his head. What a loss … a terrible, terrible loss. Dmitri had been like a son to Eli. He still mourned his passing.
“I wonder who's living there now?” Adrian said as he drove on.
“I checked that out already,” Strauss said. “Couple of brothers named Kenton. Bought it a year ago.”
Eli felt a surge of excitement. Could they have tracked down his nemesis? “Do you think one of them could be our ‘Jack'?”
“Doubt it. I ain't got much in the way of contacts here in the one-fourteen, but I did learn that not only are these two guys brothers, but they're also
brothers
—if you know what I mean.”
Excitement dipped toward disappointment. “They're black?”
“'S'what I'm told. You said your attacker was white. No chance you could be wrong?”
“I wouldn't know,” Adrian said. “I can't remember. The last thing I remem—”
“He was white,” Eli said, jumping in before Adrian could launch into his litany. “So that leaves them out.”
“Who knows?” Strauss said. “A guy who can raise Tara Portman from the dead can maybe turn himself white too.”
Eli was about to tell Strauss that this wasn't a joking matter when Adrian spoke.
“I don't care who they are as long as they don't dig up the cellar.”
The remark brought silence to the car. That had been the great fear after Dmitri's death: the new owners would excavate the cellar. Eli had wanted a member of the Circle to buy the place so they could go on using it, but no one wanted his name connected with a house that held the remains of eight murdered children.
“The possibility of that is so small,” Eli said, “I've ceased to worry about it. Step back and consider it objectively. How many homeowners, no matter how extensively they renovate a home, tear up their cellar floor?”
“Virtually none,” Adrian said.
Strauss said, “Just lucky for us the people who bought it poured a cement floor over the dirt down there.”
“It didn't bring them much luck, though,” Eli. said.
Strauss barked a laugh. “Yeah! Two slit throats and still nobody has a clue. If you don't close a murder in forty-eight hours, chances are you'll never close it. It's been years for that one. Guess by now you could call it a perfect crime.”
Eli had been shocked when he'd read about the dead couple, and worried that the crime scene investigation might venture too deeply into the cellar.
And then there'd been the mutilation of the little boy adopted by the next owners. Eli had begun to wonder if a combination of the Ceremony and those strange stones lining the basement could somehow have laid a curse on the place.
“The other thing I'm worried about,” said Adrian, “is that key ring.”
“So am I, Eli.” Strauss tapped Eli on the shoulder. “It connects you to the girl, and you can be connected to me. That's not good. Not good at all.”
Adrian stopped at a red light. He continued to stare straight ahead as he spoke. “I've had nightmares about something like this happening because of that trophy cabinet of yours, sitting out there in your store for all to see. I always thought it was risky and … and arrogant as well.”
Eli stared at him. Had he just heard correctly? Had Adrian, so deferential despite his size and strength, actually dared to call him arrogant? He must be furious, and very frightened.
Arrogant? Eli couldn't dredge up any anger. Adrian was right. Displaying the trophy cabinet had been arrogant and even foolhardy, but not half as arrogant and foolhardy as what Eli had done on Saturday.

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