Crowley's Window (Novella) (11 page)

She landed on a rocky ledge, fires burning all around her, the only lights in an otherwise dark land. Above her, Abby could still see the room back in the abandoned church on earth, foggily seeing into the living world through the hundreds of dead eyeballs lining the glass jars in the room. From this vantage point, the eye holes looked eerily like small bright stars in a murky alien sky.
Someone has been watching me from here.
Just the thought of it creeped her out and she returned her full attention to her current surroundings.

Abby was sweating profusely. The heat here was incredible, painful to breathe as well as endure on her exposed spirit skin. For a moment she was confused, thinking she was alone in this awful furnace but then she looked over the rim of the ledge and saw into the pit below. If Abby had ever doubted Crowley’s story before, those suspicions were gone now. Surely this was the pit of Hell. One of them, anyway. Abby saw thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children crawling around in their own blood and filth, tearing into each other and wailing in agony and despair. On the edges of the crater, great winged creatures with leathery skin and horned heads watched over them, laughing at their pain and suffering and occasionally flying down into the turmoil to beat the unfortunate inmates senseless with large wooden clubs.

It was a horrible scene to watch, a terrible wicked world devoid of any notion of hope or joy, but what scared Abby most was when she looked straight down the small cliff and saw that one of the wretched prisoners was climbing the sheer face of the steaming rock. Instinctively, she knew it was Aleister Crowley, dragging his torn and ravaged soul toward her, making his long sought after desperate attempt at escaping his eternal fate. Abby was sure one of the winged sentinels would spot him but they didn’t seem to care that one of their minions was trying to escape. Perhaps Crowley had more power or favor here than she knew? Either way, he was coming for her quickly, clamoring up the jagged rock face like a hungry spider racing toward a helpless fly trapped in their web.

Within seconds, Crowley slithered over the ledge and stood before Abby, a huge grin on his bloody face.

“Finally,” Aleister said, his voice raw and high pitched. “I’ve waited decades for this day…endured things you couldn’t possibly believe but it was all worth it. I’ve learned such incredible things here. Such powerful magic. The world has no idea what’s about to hit them when I make it back.”

“Stay away from me, I’m warning you.” Abby tried to sound tough but failed miserably.

Crowley laughed at her.

“Don’t be like that, love. I don’t want to hurt you…I just want to devour your soul. It won’t hurt a bit. Well…it might, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.” He started walking toward her. “Come here, woman…give old Aleister a big hug!”

Abby screamed and backed away from the beast stalking toward her. There was nowhere for her to run though, so she curled her hands into fists and prepared to defend herself as best she could. Crowley raced toward her and…

…and Abby felt a pair of strong hands shaking her awake back in the abandoned church. She was back in her body again, but still in fight mode so she tried lashing out at whoever was holding her down only to find she was still strapped to the table.

“Easy, Abby. It’s me, David. Hold still and I’ll untie you, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”

“David?” Abby said, confused, but slowly regaining her senses. “How did you manage to find me?”

“Your mother. She told me everything.” David started undoing the straps on Abby’s arms. “She’s really messed up but I think she’ll be okay. I told her you and I would help her.”

“What about Crowley and his followers? Did you kill them all?”

“There was only three people here, but yes, I had to kill them. Two men and one woman. I had no other choice. It was them or us.”

“Was Reverend Crowley one of them? Big guy with white hair wearing a long black robe?”

“I don’t know. They were just dressed like normal people. Don’t think I seen any black robes though.”

“Damn,” Abby said, sitting up to rub her sore wrists. “He might still be…look out! Behind you!”

Marcus Crowley was charging, a living shadow moving fast, dagger in hand, and before David could turn to defend himself, the evil reverend plunged the knife deep into his exposed back, dropping David to the floor where he screamed and then lay in a heap at the madman’s feet.

“David!” Abby screamed.

Crowley kicked the policeman hard, eliciting a cry of pain, but David was down and out, in no shape to defend himself or Abby. Crowley laughed and turned his attention to the girl. “You fool. Thought you could escape me that easily? Don’t count on it. You’re going back to Hell, woman, even if I have to cut out your boyfriend’s eyes and take you there myself!” He bent down and prepared to slice out David’s eyes in front of her. The thought of that happening was more than Abby could bear.

“Leave him alone you bastard!” She shouted, feeling an incredible power growing within her, something primal that had always been inside her but sitting dormant and unused until now, when she needed it most. Crowley ignored her, lifting David’s head and prepared his already bloodied blade to cut.

Abby’s mind searched the room, seeking anything she could use as a weapon and finding only the multiple rows of glass jars. Without thinking she sent out a wave of telekinetic energy, lifting the jars free of their shelves and hurled one of them at the reverend’s head. The jar flew true as an arrow, smashing hard off Crowley’s skull and staggering him sideways away from David. He looked over at Abby, not understanding how she’d struck him, but raising his hand to his injured head to determine the damage. His hand came away bloodied, the shock on his face turning to rage.

“You little bitch!” he screamed, raising his knife high and heading for Abby now. It’s time I taught you a little respect…” he started to say, but that was as far as Abby let him get. She let loose a torrent of glass jars, row after row of them, glass, honey, and the eyes of murdered children splattering against Crowley’s face and body, ripping him to shreds with the strength of a thousand razors, not even affording him the opportunity to back down or even time to scream. He fell dead to the floor, a useless sack of sticky wet meat; unrecognizable from the man he was thirty seconds earlier.

A feeling of victory and sweet revenge came over Abby, and she savored her triumph for a moment, but her senses were telling her there was still great danger close by. It wasn’t until she felt a tugging on her inner spirit that she looked up with her mind’s eye and sensed the portal into Hell’s prison still open above her. Clawing his way through the void between worlds was Aleister Crowley, still clinging to the fingerprint trail left from Abby’s astral projection. He was following her back to the land of the living, and seeing how close he was, he’d be in this room within a minute. What would happen then? Would he still be able to take over Abby’s soul and unleash Hell on Earth as he’d planned? Abby had no way of knowing but certainly didn’t want to find out.

My eyes!
she thought. It was m
y eyes that led me to him in Hell and now he’s following his way back to them. They’re his anchor here…his doorway.

Without hesitation, Abby reached up and gouged her eyes back out of her sockets, pulling the sticky orbs free from her face but not harming her ability to see the mental images around her at all. She cupped an eye in each of her hands, seeing a 360 degree view of the room, with David and the dead reverend near her feet surrounded by glass, blood, and hundreds of crushed and leaking eyeballs. Above her, Aleister Crowley crawled closer, his bloodshot eyes gazing down on her filled with hatred and the timeless despair of the damned.

“Back to Hell, asshole,” Abby said, smiling up at the vile creature who’d once been a man, slowly closing her hands into tight fists. Blinding pain sliced into her head, ripping connections loose and severing her ties with the void above. Abby squeezed tighter, screamed one last time, and then everything went dark.

* * *

Abby woke to the smell of fresh flowers and for a moment thought she was still in the clutches of Reverend Crowley. The flowers were roses though, not lavender, and accompanied with the clean pine-scented smell of disinfectant in the air, she presumed she must be lying in a hospital bed somewhere. She reached out with her psychic abilities to make sure, but was surprised to find no mental images filtering back to her. She reached out her left hand, spreading her fingers wide but again there was nothing.

My god! I’ve lost my abilities. They’re gone!

Abby wasn’t sure whether to panic or rejoice. She felt neither emotion, actually. Instead she just felt tired and empty inside, and more than a little disoriented being completely in the dark for the first time in years.

“Abby?” A male voice spoke from off to her left. She turned her head in that direction, but wasn’t one hundred percent sure who it was.

“David?” Abby guessed. “Is that you?”

“Sure is. Sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I wanted to be. I just slipped out for a quick coffee and here you are, wide awake.”

“What about you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I was a bit banged up, but Crowley’s dagger didn’t hit anything vital. Other than still being sore, I’m okay now. It’s you we’ve been worried about. You’ve been asleep for nearly five days.”

“You’re kidding?”

“The doc said you were in a coma but I knew you’d come back to me. Your mother and I have been here waiting for you every day.”

“My mother? She’s here?”

“Down in the cafeteria. I’m sure she’ll be up soon. To be honest, there’s a decent chance she still might end up getting arrested, but the investigation is so bizarre no one really knows what to do. Until they decide, she’s being allowed supervised visits here with me. Watching over you has really helped turn her around. You’ll have to make up your own mind, but I think she was as much a pawn in this mess as you were. She feels horrible about everything and needs you to forgive her more than anything in the whole world. She gets that it might take some time, though.”

Abby wasn’t sure what to say. She needed time to figure out what her feelings were regarding her mother. She knew her father had been an accomplice to multiple murders and had been willing to sacrifice his only daughter to the manic he worshipped. Her mother, she wasn’t ready to believe was entirely innocent but that was a problem for another day. She had more important matters to talk with David about.

“I have to tell you something important,” Abby said. “I’m blind.”

David laughed softly. “Ahh…I already knew that. You’ve been blind for six years, kiddo.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’ve lost my sixth sense…my psychic powers are gone and I can’t see anything the way I used to. No visions. No mental flashes. No nothing. I’m completely in the dark now.”

“Well, you’ve been through a lot. You never know, it might come back to you in time, once you’ve had a chance to rest.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll be your eyes, beautiful. I’ll take care of you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Then go get the doctor and send my mom in to talk. I wanna know when I can get out of here and go home.”

“To the carnival?”

“No. Home to your place. Our place.”

“Well that part might be a little tricky. I don’t have a place right now, remember? My wife threw me out.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“I know we will. I’ll live in my police cruiser as long as you’re with me.”

Abby smiled. “You sure know how to charm a gal, fella. Can we at least hang up some curtains for privacy?”

David squeezed Abby’s hand, and kissed her.

PART 3

ABBY AND DAVID’S HOUSE

Billington, Pennsylvania

Six Months Later

All in all, things were going terrific for Abby and David. They were wildly in love and the pieces of their shattered lives were slowly coming together. David and his estranged wife had legally filed separation papers and as soon as the law permitted they’d be getting an amicable divorce. After that, plans for a quiet no-frills wedding would begin in earnest. Abby and her mother had begun to patch up their relationship. The courts had ultimately decided to be lenient and sentenced Ingrid to mandatory psychiatric counseling and five years probation for her passive role in the crimes. Although there would be no jail sentence, time was still needed to heal all the damage that had been done between mother and daughter. Abby had forgiven her for what she’d been a part of, but it was going to be hard learning to ever trust her again.

That had been why they’d decided to move to Billington. It was still in the state of Pennsylvania so David had been able to transfer to the police department here easily enough, but it was still neutral ground for both of them. Billington offered a fresh start away from anyone who might know them, or be even remotely familiar with anything that had happened last summer. All Abby and David wanted was to be left alone.

Unfortunately, there was someone keeping their eye on the young couple, staying in the shadows and making sure he was never noticed. Of course, being so small it was relatively easy for him to hide.

“Damn you, Abby,” Mister Chollo whispered, watching his old friend follow her new man into their two bedroom bungalow through the plastic binoculars held in his tiny hands. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done. It may not be today, but soon I’ll take care of you the same way I did that bastard back at the carnival.”

It had been the diminutive Chollo who’d killed Ray Jensen in the woods six months ago, when the drunken teen had came sniffing around Abby’s trailer looking for trouble. He’d been protecting her, just as he’d been doing for years, doing exactly what his master, Reverend Crowley had asked him to do. He’d been part of the Reverend’s devoted flock since Chollo had been an orphaned boy and he’d been honored when Crowley had asked him to join the traveling show to keep a close eye on his prize young woman. For a while, they’d even been friends.