Every House Is Haunted (15 page)

She shut off her computer and went back down the hall. She stood outside the elevator, tapping her foot and looking back the way she had come. She could go to the library and test her theory herself, but something told her that might not be a good idea.

In fact, it might be a bad idea.

Black Book was a dark book.
Dark
as in threatening.
Dark
as in sinister. And she didn’t want to be alone in a room with anything that transmitted such malefic signals.

If Horowitz wanted to wait until morning, that was fine by her.

She would go home and sleep the sleep of the just.

Or try to.

It was still dark out when she woke up to the sound of someone banging on her front door. She slipped into a robe and went downstairs.

The banging resumed, accompanied by a voice:
“Wendy! Wendy, wake up! It’s Vanners!”

Wendy opened the door and let him in. A pair of security officers in black combat fatigues followed closely behind him. They wore ski-masks and goggles that she assumed were of the night-vision variety. They were carrying assault rifles, which, for the moment anyway, were pointed down at the Turkish rug that covered the foyer.

“What is this?” Wendy demanded.

“It’s Horowitz,” Vanners said in a strident voice that didn’t sound like his own. “He’s dead.”

Wendy had never been in Horowitz’s study before—she didn’t even know where he lived (on Maple Lane, it turned out, two doors down from Vanners). But even if she had, she didn’t think she would have recognized the place now.

It looked as if a tornado had ripped through the mahogany-panelled room. The heavy oak desk had been reduced to splinters, the lamps lay shattered on the floor, and all of the books had been pulled off the shelves and thrown every which way.

Horowitz, or rather what was left of him, was sitting in his executive swivel chair. If the room looked like a tornado had hit it, then the professor looked like someone who had swallowed a hand grenade. His arms and legs, clad in striped flannel pajamas, were held together by a bloody, pulpy mess that was no longer recognizable as a human body. His head, miraculously still attached to his neck, lolled to the side, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of his own horribly mangled body. Not that he could have seen much, anyway. Whatever had caused his body to rupture in such a gruesome manner had done the same to his eyes. They lay across his cheeks like white jelly.

“What the hell happened to him?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t have the slightest clue,” Vanners replied. His voice seemed unable to decide whether it wanted to be scared or angry.

A couple of security officers were taking surface swabs and photographs. Another was crawling on the study floor, picking up the fallen books and stacking them in neat piles.

Vanners looked over at Wendy. “When was the last time you saw Horowitz?”

Wendy stammered. “I . . . I e-mailed him just before I left the glove factory. I didn’t actually see him, but he sent me a reply.”

“What did you e-mail him about?”

Before Wendy could answer, the security officer on the floor flipped over a hunk of wood and uncovered a familiar, dark-covered book.

“Found it!”

“Oh, thank Christ,” Vanners let out a deep breath. “That was too close. Too damn close.”

The security officer handed him the book. Vanners clutched it to his chest. Watching him, Wendy was once again reminded of the first time she had held the book. She remembered that feeling of power—dark power.

“Vanners,” she said, “you might not want to hold it so close.”

“So explain this to me again.”

Wendy folded her arms and looked over her shoulder at the drawings she had made on the white board. Thumper and Tara had remained silent throughout her presentation, but Vanners and Summerhill, the chief of security, had asked questions throughout.

Vanners’ queries chiefly consisted of clarifying certain details and points throughout her narrative. Summerhill’s, on the other hand, bordered on accusations of murder—or at least accessory to murder.

“Which part do you need explained, Mr. Summerhill?” Wendy asked crisply.

The security chief sat up in his chair (he had been slouching further and further into his seat as Wendy attempted to explain her theory of what may have happened to Professor Horowitz). “The hocus-pocus bit,” he said. “The part where the professor’s little black book goes boom.”

Wendy gave Vanners a look that said
How much longer am I supposed to humour this fool?

Vanners nodded sympathetically and motioned for her to be patient for just a little bit longer.

“First of all, it wasn’t anyone’s little black book that did this.” Wendy pointed to a glossy black-and-white photograph on the wall that showed the scene in Horowitz’s study. “
That
is Black Book, and
that
is a deadly artefact.”

“What is this ‘deadly artefact’ bullshit?” Summerhill quipped. He looked at the others for support, but didn’t find any. “I mean, it’s a
book
, for Christ’s sake. Books don’t kill people.”

“I don’t think this one meant to. Not exactly.”

“We’re going around in circles, Ms. Harris, and I’m sorry, but this isn’t making any sense to me.”

“This is a bomb,” Wendy said, and picked up the plastic evidence bag that contained Black Book. “And this is the trigger.” She picked up another evidence bag, this one containing a sheet of paper from Black Book. It had been found on the floor of the study near the professor’s body. “I believe the professor used his key-card to remove Black Book from this facility and took it home with the intent of using the information I supplied him to carry out an experiment that ultimately cost him his life.”

Summerville pointed a finger at her. “So that means you might have had some complicity in Professor Horowitz’s death.”

“I told him what I thought it was,” Wendy said in a low voice. “I told him what we had been missing. What was needed to activate the book. But I had no idea what it would do . . . the kind of power it had.”

“But how did it happen?” Vanners snapped. “It’s all so . . . backwards. It feels like we just invented nuclear power and now we’re trying to figure out how to split the atom.”

Thumper visibly trembled and Tara let out a deep sigh. They were both looking at Wendy. For what? Comfort? Reassurance? She didn’t think either one was on the menu today.

“I think Professor Horowitz tapped into some kind of energy source contained within Black Book, and I think he did so by physical contact.”

“But we’ve all handled the book before,” Thumper said. “I’ve flipped through the damn thing dozens of times.”

Wendy said, “I don’t think simply touching the symbols is enough. I think Horowitz took an entire page from the book and applied it to his bare chest.”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Then Vanners said: “What difference would it make where the contact was made?”

“I’m not sure the precise location matters, but I think the contact has to be total.” She picked up the baggie containing the single page and pantomimed pressing it against her chest. “All along we thought it was some sort of language barrier. Or code. But that’s not it at all. It’s a . . . formula. An equation. And I think this energy, this force, is only activated when the entire formula has been imprinted. It’s not enough to get some of it on your finger or your hand. I believe that the purpose of Black Book was to use human flesh as a conduit for whatever energies it contained.”

“And what energies would those be?” Summerhill asked.

“I don’t know,” Wendy replied. “But I think we should make it a priority to find out.”

In the wake of Professor Horowitz’s death, things began to move very fast on Project Wellspring.

In a week, the number of personnel at the glove factory doubled. Vanners gave Wendy the probationary title of Supervisor of Research & Development and put her to work on determining a way to safely test the power of Black Book without anyone else getting killed.

The symbols in the book were difficult to crack, but it turned out she was right. Black Book was, in actuality, a collection of ancient formulae. Thumper started calling it The Great Cook Book from Hell, since one of the key symbols in these formulae was indeed human beings (as Horowitz had posthumously confirmed). It was a disturbing discovery made that much worse by the book’s clear description of exactly what kind of human beings it preferred.

Namely, young ones.

“Oh
God!
Are you saying it’s made of people?”

“It’s not
made
of people,” Wendy said. “But people make it work. They’re like . . . the main ingredient.”

It was Saturday, and Wendy and Thumper were walking down Main Street toward Maple Lane.

“But still, if people go in, and something comes out . . .” Thumper shook his head to dispel the horrific images in his mind.

“That’s the theory.”

“So when Horowitz slapped that piece of paper on his chest, what? Some tentacled nasty materialized in the room and gave him an appendectomy?”

“I think Horowitz was a victim of . . . electrical feedback.”

“How’s that?”

“The page he took from the book was part of a set. You know those pages where the symbols run from the left page to the right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think the equation only works if you use both pages on two separate people. Horowitz used only the one and the damn thing, well, malfunctioned.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

They walked for a bit. Then Wendy asked: “Did Vanners tell you about the test subjects?”

“Yeah, he said they were volunteers. I figure, they must not know what happened to old Skeletor, or else they would have kept their mouths shut.”

“Not if they thought they were getting something out of it.”

“Like what?”

Wendy stopped and turned to face him. “They’re death row inmates, Thumper. Vanners made some sort of deal with the state. The cons know the whole situation. He had them sign non-disclosure forms and everything.”

“
What?
”

Wendy nodded. “Vanners said they have nothing to lose, which is why most of them agreed. But . . .” She shook her head doubtfully. “Testing on humans. It’s not right.”

“Hell,” Thumper said, “nothing’s been right around here for weeks. And it doesn’t show much sign of getting any better.”

On a hot day in August, four months after Wendy first came to the glove factory and Coyote Hills, Project Wellspring received its first two human volunteers.

Johnny Spartan and Elroy McIntyre were on loan from the Nevada correctional system. Dressed in orange prison overalls and leg irons, they trotted into the testing area flanked by a pair of security officers.

The guards took them over to where Thumper and Tara were waiting for them, each with a page of Black Book in one latex-gloved hand, and a device that looked like a miniature paint-roller in the other.

Wendy watched from the observation booth that overlooked the room. Her arms were stiffly crossed, and she was feeling extremely tense. Vanners stood beside her, and she thought she could feel the same nervous vibes coming off him. His eyes were slightly puffy, too, as if he had slept poorly last night.

He thumbed the intercom. “Let’s get this thing rolling.”

In the testing area, Thumper gave him a thumbs-up, though the look on his face was dark and grave.

Wendy watched as both of the convicts unsnapped the clasps on their overalls and exposed their bare chests. One of them said something to Tara, and she flushed and turned away. The guard standing behind the con gave him a quick jab with the butt of his rifle. The con smiled and stood up straighter.

The guards nodded to Thumper and Tara and they stepped forward to do their part. They each placed their page flat against the chest of their respective volunteer. Then they ran the miniature paint-rollers over the pages a few times for good measure.

Wendy watched it all with utter amazement.
It’s sticking to their skin. It’s nothing but six-thousand-year-old parchment and charcoal, but it’s sticking to their skin.

Tara and Thumper stepped back and exchanged a look.
What happens now?

Wendy turned to Vanners, but he was staring at the readout of one of the hundred or so pieces of monitoring equipment packed into the small room. He must have seen something he didn’t like, because he came back to the window in a rush, pushing a lab technician out of the way. He stabbed the intercom button.

“Tara, Thumper,” he said briskly, “please vacate the room.”

Tara and Thumper exchanged another look, and started toward the door set in the tempered steel wall. Thumper cast one look back over his shoulder at the two cons. They had come in swaggering and smiling. They looked different now, although he couldn’t say exactly how.

A moment later, Tara and Thumper joined Wendy and Vanners in the observation booth. Vanners’ attention was once again glued to the readout of one particular instrument.

“Something’s happening in there,” he said.

Wendy couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement she heard in his voice—probably a little of both.

She turned back to the window and saw that something was happening to the cons, all right. One of them seemed to be okay, but the other had dropped to one knee, as if he were proposing marriage to his buddy.

Whatever he was doing, the guards didn’t like it. They had moved a discreet distance away and raised their rifles held to high port.

“He thought he was getting a rub-on tattoo,” Tara said in a low, childlike voice. The others turned and looked at her. “That’s what he said to me in there.”

Wendy looked back into the testing area just as the other con doubled over. He was trying to peel the page of Black Book off his chest, but it wouldn’t come off.

The security guards backed further away, toward the door. Vanners was on his way to the intercom to tell them to hold their position when the event that would be referred to as “realization” in top-secret government reports suddenly took place.