The Tutor (25 page)

stepped back and gave another animalistic growl.

Faith. You must have it even if you do
not
believe.
Madame’s conundrum wafted through my mind.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I murmured.

I didn’t know any formal prayers, but I could back Tom with a show of support.

“Holy Spirit, be with us. Come upon us like a…like a dove and bring your…heavenly

light.”

I bent and hauled the altar cross up in my arms, nearly wrenching my back from

its weight. I cradled the stone to my chest like a child and tried to believe it stood for something.

It did, I realized. To generations of people convinced some prophet died to save

their souls in an act of ultimate selflessness. Whether it actually happened or not didn’t matter. And the vicious battles over doctrine waged over hundreds of years didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the kernel of truth—sacrifice of one man for the greater good.

I could do that. I
would
do that for Richard and Clive and Whit, if it meant they escaped this place unharmed.

“Take me,” I blurted. “Let Clive go. I’ll become your vessel without resistance.

Wouldn’t an adult man be better for achieving your goals? With Clive, you’d have to wait years before you could begin your, um, collection again. His body is small and incapable of controlling your quarry.”

I hardly planned my words. I only hoped I might lure the thing to abandon Clive.

Tom and Richard could get the boys out of the house. What might happen to me

afterward didn’t bear thinking about. I’d never been brave or heroic, but I was ready to give it a go that day.

Miraculously, the thing appeared to be considering my proposition. “Put the cross

down.”

I leaned to set the cross on its base on the floor, then made the mistake of glancing at Richard. He had hold of Whit’s wrist and was about to tug him inside the room. Clive followed my look. With a howl of rage, he flung up his hand once more.

Whit plummeted from the window as if he’d been shoved. Richard clung to him,

using all his strength to fight gravity and haul Whit back over the sill.

At the same instant, Tom rushed toward Clive. He produced a container of salt

from his jacket pocket, which he poured in a misshapen white circle around the boy. The creature howled and tossed Tom through the air with a flick of its power. Tom’s back smashed against the wall, and he fell to the floor in a heap—but not before the circle was complete.

The Clive-thing tried to move forward but seemed to be contained as if by an iron

fence. It continued to scream in impotent rage, shouting curses and threats in English and in a foreign tongue that sounded as ancient as the world.

Richard had Whitney in his arms, cradled against his chest. The boy clung to his

father and wept, the creature’s power over him broken. The very air seemed clearer; the stench of a charnel house dissipated. But Clive was still trapped with an evil spirit inside him. I could think of only one way to separate them.

“My offer stands. Release the boy and use me instead. If you promise to do that,

I’ll step inside the circle.”

Red-faced and wild-eyed, Clive stopped ranting and focused on me, the thing

inside him recovering its temper and assessing me coldly. “Very well.”

Tom, who’d staggered to his feet, grabbed my arm. “Don’t trust it.”

“How else can we set Clive free?” I searched for some clever way I might outwit

the enemy without sacrificing myself, but nothing came to me.

Then I smelled the scent of lavender.

“It will claim you both,” Tom warned.

“Graham, don’t do it!” Richard shouted as he put down Whitney and headed

toward me.

I stepped over the thin stream of white, such a fragile barrier to hold a demon

prisoner, I could hardly believe it worked. Immediately, I felt the thick negative energy surround me again. Evil, plain and simple. Madame Alijeva was right. Such things existed whether one wanted to believe in them or not.

But so did goodness. I braced myself to demonstrate my own brand of faith,

forced myself to relax, and waited for energy to flow in.

What transpired next is hard to put into limited human words. When concepts like

time, space, and reality are fluid and slippery, it’s difficult to assign a linear order to things. The Evil—I could only think of it as that now—poured into me, my body, my spirit, and I knew all it had done, all it was capable of doing. I saw the acts it had performed when it lived in that long-ago Allinson, not only in this tower room but other places as well. I
felt
the thrill of the hunt, the capture, the torture, the possession, the kill.

He (I) spotted a woman, alone and defenseless, herding her cattle home for the

evening. We stalked her and presented ourselves, knowing she’d not dare show rudeness to the young master of the estate. She seemed flattered by our attention, went with us willingly like one of her dumb cows, and then was surprised when we tied her up.

The look in her eyes,
stupid, ignorant, animal eyes
, as she saw the knife and understood she was about to suffer was exquisite. We wanted to treasure that moment forever, put it in a box, and take it out to savor again and again. After that, she existed only at our whim. We owned her and demonstrated it in many ways with the blade.

Carved her, stabbed her, probed her in the secret places she could no longer keep hidden.

All of her exposed to our omniscience. We prolonged this as long as possible, and at the final moment when the light would flicker out in her eyes, ours was the last face she saw —and we knew we possessed her completely.

The creature’s satisfaction equaled that of climax and sickened the part that was

still me, Joe Green, Graham Cowrie, human man. I screamed for help before Evil

engulfed me completely and forever. And help arrived as I’d betted it would. I might not have thrown all my chips in the pot otherwise.

When I’d sensed Lavinia near me before I’d stepped into the circle, I’d begged

her assistance in defeating the horrible entity threatening her child. Now I gave myself over to her, and her energy joined with mine.

Just as I’d felt in a flash the full experience of what it meant to be Evil—not only one murder but every kill and the entire history of the black entity—now I experienced what being Lavinia meant.

I felt her as a young girl with dreams of love and family, her hopes as she’d gone to her wedding bed, her disappointment in Richard, her deep love for the children she bore. All of her life and the bleak misery of her death exploded in one powerful burst of understanding. But in the morass of her feelings, Love—the sort with a capital L—was strongest. Hers and mine together could prove formidable.

My body became a battleground, but I wasn’t helpless. The negative energy

continued to invade me, bleakness and despair attempting to control me, but a pure light filled me to counteract it.

At the same time this inner struggle waged, I was dimly aware of Clive collapsing

like an abandoned doll, Richard carrying him away, Tom taking Whitney out of the

room. Richard returned after sending the others away and came to my aid, shouting my name and physically trying to reach me. I saw all these things take place, but they meant little compared to the more esoteric action taking place within me.

Love and Evil were at war, my spirit the stake in their battle. But Mr. Evil, after however many millennia it had existed, still seemed to misunderstand a simple fact. Souls weren’t helpless booty to be fought over. I wasn’t the sacrificial cow-maiden for it to possess. I, me, useful Joe Green, threw up a barrier and shoved back. I would not be owned or used, tortured or enslaved. I summoned the Love inside me like a secret weapon and wielded a blade of great power against Evil.

Poets and holy men have said love conquers all. It is stronger and greater than

anything. When one believes in its power and pours his entire essence into that belief, all things are possible. Together, Lavinia’s spirit and mine, overflowing with love for Clive, combined and beat back the darkness. We drove it, howling, out of my head. And then it just…winked out, evaporated like the final shadows of night disappearing under the full glow of a new day.

I collapsed on the floor, completely emptied, shaken, and as exhausted as if I’d

run to London and back. My brain was my own again. I could think and feel with no

other presence but mine inhabiting my head, not even Lavinia’s. No inner voices, no darkness or light, no more of other people’s memories crowding mine. Only me, and I was glad to have myself to myself once more. In fact, I quite loved Me just then.

“Graham! Graham, are you all right?” Richard shouted right in my face, and I

realized he’d been trying to get me to hear him for some time.

“I would be if you’d quit yelling at me,” I answered groggily.

I was crushed in his arms, squashed so hard against him I couldn’t draw breath.

He hugged me tightly and actually swept me off my feet to carry me from the room. I threw my arms around his neck and prayed he wouldn’t try to carry me down those steep, curving stairs like some rescued maiden. We’d never make it without falling.

But he set me on my feet on the landing.

Tom had gone ahead with the children. We stood clinging to each other for a

moment before Richard took my face between his hands and kissed me tenderly.

“You saved my sons,” he murmured. “And you saved me, in so many ways. I

didn’t realize how lost I was until you brought me back into the world. Back to

happiness. I love you and never want to be without you, Graham Cowrie, Joe Green, or whatever you want to call yourself.”

As he kissed me again, the door to the tower room swung softly closed, and from

the far side, I swore I heard the quiet echo of a woman’s laughter.

We never knew if the evil that lurked in Allinson Hall was permanently banished,

but it seemed, at the very least, to be in hibernation. To ensure the tower room remained undisturbed, Richard barred the door with boards nailed across it. Perhaps more importantly, he, Tom, and I carried the angel statue from Lavinia’s garden and stationed it in front of that boarded entrance. I polished the marble till it shone in the gloom.

The statue might have only been a symbol, but we
believed
it was a ward to keep any residual evil sealed up. And if I’d learned nothing else through the ordeal, it was that belief was a powerful thing.

We kept Whitney and Clive close to one or the other of us for the few days we

remained in the house. Richard dismissed the remaining servants with bonus pay and good references and declared he’d stay at the Hall for only a few days at a time when he needed to come and check up on the estate. He sent Tom on ahead to the London house, promising him a home forever.

“You’re part of our family, not just a servant.” Richard clapped Tom on the

shoulder after giving him instructions and a train ticket. “We couldn’t manage without you. And I hope that you’ll keep creating your beautiful artwork so that I might have it framed and hung throughout the house.”

Tom’s smile transformed his homely face to one as beautiful as the marble angel.

He nodded vigorously and went to pack for his trip.

The next day, Richard and I watched the boys take a last run along the paths of

the secluded garden. “I’d happily burn the house to the ground before we go,” he

admitted to me.

“I don’t think stone would burn,” I pointed out, “but yes, I’d like to tear it down to the foundations myself. I wonder if that creature would continue to haunt the ruins.

Would we have to salt the earth to purify it?”

I also wondered about Lavinia. Did her spirit still linger even though she’d set her family to rights? I hadn’t heard or felt her since that moment on the staircase. Her quiet laughter had seemed like a period on a sentence, and I felt fairly confident she’d moved on to someplace much nicer than a dismal tower.

Clive came barreling up the path and threw his arms around his father’s waist.

Flushed and breathless, he grinned up at him. “Your turn to be it.”

“We weren’t even playing,” Richard protested. “Go catch your brother.”

“Can’t. He’s too fast.”

Richard ruffled his hair. “Very well. I’ll count to ten to give you a head start, but don’t run too far from me.”

Clive hared off, a normal, healthy, happy nine-year-old boy. Happier now the

boys knew they wouldn’t be going to boarding school for a while yet. Richard couldn’t bear to ship them off, and I’d convinced him an extra year or even two with private tutoring at home wouldn’t ruin them.

I’d said to him, “I understand how it is with the gentry. You solidify your place in society with the connections you make as early as your primary school days. But let them be carefree children for a bit longer. I wish I’d had that opportunity, don’t you?”

Richard capitulated easily and scheduled a trip to the seaside before our return to London.

Now Richard finished his counting and ran after Clive and Whit, who scattered to

opposite ends of the garden. They darted like sparrows evading a hawk. Their sharp maneuvers kept them just out of reach, since barging across the garden beds was forbidden in the game.

Richard chased them for a while, then began to run toward me. I yelped and

stopped standing and gawping like a fool. I raced pell-mell up one path and down another with Richard always on my heels.

I rounded a corner and ran full tilt into Whitney coming the other way. We

crashed together and fell to the ground in a tangle of legs. Richard showed no mercy but tagged us both.

“We can’t both be it,” I huffed and drew a breath into my aching lungs. I had a

stitch in my side, and a bruise would be forming on my elbow where I’d slammed it into the stone, but I couldn’t have been happier.