Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (145 page)

“You overheard our argument, didn’t you? Is that what you do, sneak around and spy on people?”

“No, just bored.”

“Well, go be bored somewhere else.”

“You mom’s gone.”

“That’s what I figured. But it’s not any business of yours.”

“Hey, look, 218 is open,” said someone in the hall.

Bruce moved with startling speed and slammed the door. The room was now almost fully dark, lit only by light from the lampposts below.

She couldn’t discern the boy’s outline, so she shouted in the direction of the door. “What did you do that for, twerp?”

He giggled as if playing a game. Someone pounded on the door from outside.

Kendra moved across the carpet, bumping her shin on the coffee table. She bit back a curse and continued to the door, feeling her way in front of her. Voices from outside the door expressed annoyance:

“It’s locked. We’re supposed to hunt here.”

“This is the worst-organized paracon I’ve ever attended.”

“At least the ghosts are having fun.”

Kendra felt along the door until she found the knob, then turned it, bracing herself for embarrassment. Instead, the handle froze.

The room grew darker and Bruce was making a strange noise behind her, halfway between a yowl of pain anda low chuckle. She clawed at the door, desperate for light and air, longing for escape. She knocked on the wood, which was pointless, since the people on the other side were knocking as well.

Fingers brushed across her hair. The little twerp was pestering her, playing games. “Stop it, Bruce. Or I’ll….”

What? Tell on him? Give him a spanking?

The voices on the other side of the door were receding, as if the hunters had given up. “Wait!” Kendra shouted. “I’m locked in.”

The fingers were gone and now there was a squeak, as if Bruce had climbed up on the bed. Then the bedsprings creaked in rhythm, and she could barely make out his form jumping up and down as he cried in a sing-song chant:

“Lock the door and throw away the key,

Stay and play with Mommy and me,

Lock the door and throw away the key,

Stay and play with Mommy and me.”

“Is your mommy here?” Kendra shouted.

He giggled and scrambled off the bed. “No, but yours is.”

Then he crawled under the bed, his muffled laughter almost spookier than his sudden appearance. The little guy had probably gone bonkers, stuck here at the hotel all the time. Nothing to do but find hidden doors and hallways, sneak around and play tricks on the guests, and get people in trouble. She’d probably feel sorry for him as soon as she got done kicking his little butt.

She was kneeling and peering under the bed when the room exploded in light, the door swinging open. Cody stood there in his SSI jumpsuit, a flashlight in his hand.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Nothing,” she said, trying to act cool, though her cheeks were hot and flushed. “This little twerp—”

She looked under the bed. Nothing there but a rumpled tissue and a thin coat of undisturbed dust.

“I saw Digger leave the room on the video monitor,” Cody said. “When you didn’t come out, I got worried.”

Kendra rose and sat on the bed. “Digger’s not the only one seeing things that aren’t there.”

“You can’t trust anything here,” Cody said. “The MAC Attack is going apeshit. The readings are all over the place. Something’s active for sure.”

“Not you, too,” she said, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Here she was in a darkened bedroom with the stud-muffin Future of Horror, who was apparently paying attention to her whereabouts, but all she wanted was a warm bath and a stack of Red Sonja comics. She was so sick of ghost hunters and their pathetic attempts to reach the Other Side.

“You better get out of here,” Cody said as Digger’s voice erupted in a burst of fuzz from his walkie talkie.

“Nah, I like this room,” she said, lying back on the bed.

“I don’t mean the room,” he said. “I mean the
inn
.”

“And let the Digger win? You got to be kidding.”

“Damn it, Kendra, don’t be so hard-headed. You don’t mess around with demons.”

She was almost pleased at his anger. Passion was passion, after all, and even though she didn’t quite know what to do with it, arousing it inspired a certain kind of creativity and power. No wonder ghost hunters created their own drama, and invisible drama was the best kind of all. “You better get that,” she said, as Digger repeated his request for all SSI personnel to report to the control room.

“I’m not leaving without you,” he said.

“What’s with people and promises?” she said. “They must have put something funny in the complimentary coffee.”

Cody crossed the room and she closed her eyes, sensing him looming over her. She wondered if he would try anything, but he’d left the door open and he was still wearing that ridiculous jumpsuit. And she wasn’t sure what she would do if he bent close, what with the peeping twerp and the mysterious self-locking door and the fact that she was going to carry her virginity to college. She held her breath and Digger summoned his staff once more.

She sensed Cody’s hesitation, and then the child’s whisper came.

“Stay.”

Kendra opened her eyes. “Did you hear that?”

Cody shook his head. “Come on. The hunt group is coming.”

Chapter 25

The Roach was sure the portal lay below, in the basement.

Intellectually, there was no reason to assume demons would emerge from the ground. Hell was not a lake of fire beneath the surface of the Earth. God had sent the fallen angels to do His dirty work, and so they were as likely to drift down on snowflakes, sluice along on a river current, or ride the wind like the spores of a diseased fungus. No, demons didn’t come from a place—they were everywhere, at all times, in their own dimension and moving parallel to the human world.

In some locations, the fabric between the two dimensions grew thinner, particularly in sites of geographic tension, and The Roach had formed a theory that the nearby Eastern Continental Divide had played havoc here. The blue quartz he’d observed was pocked with crystals, and while the New Age devotees held crystals to be a healing power, The Roach believed energy itself was neither good nor bad. The results of that energy, however, meant the difference between salvation and damnation.

When Wayne Wilson had summoned everyone back to the control room, The Roach had directed his group to rendezvous with the rest of the hunters. He worked best alone, though he wasn’t above using innocents to lure demons into the open. If a spiritually vulnerable person opened themselves to invasion and possession, no demon could resist. The trick was to destroy the demon before it took over the host.

The Roach navigated the first floor, running into several frustrated hunters who decided the bar offered more entertainment than the hunts did. One guest had asked him what was going on, and The Roach shrugged and said, “The hunts got off track. It happens.”

A surveillance camera was rigged in the top corner of the hallway, and The Roach gave it a little half-salute. He turned down the dim and dirty hallway that led to the basement. Two women stood by the door, wielding EMF meters, cameras slung around their necks.

“Are you the hunt leader?” said the one with bottle-blonde hair.

“The basement hunt is tomorrow night,” The Roach replied.

“Sheezus, Nancy,” said the other woman, who was a decade younger, ebony-skinned, and shaped like a pear. “We’ve wasted an hour.”

“It wasn’t wasted,” Nancy said. “We got some good readings. But I’d sure like to get in that basement. I know there’s something behind this door.”

“How’s your spiritual condition?” The Roach asked.

“I’m born again but getting over it,” Nancy said.

The pear-shaped woman said, “Well, I usually don’t talk about it, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m a demonologist. Eloise Lanier. Maybe you’ve read my blog?”

The Roach bit back his smile. Another armchair warrior in the battle between Good and Evil. He doubted if she’d endured the six-month purification process or undertaken the enlightened conversation with God that separated the Dark Arts dilettante from True Warrior of Light. Eloise had probably seen too many “Touched by an Angel” re-runs and now felt the calling to go forth and save the troubled and wicked.

“If you’re a demonologist, we’re in good hands,” he said.

“It was the sin of pride that made them demons,” Eloise said. “And the last thing I want to do is brag about my abilities.”

“Pride is Lucifer’s main weapon,” The Roach said. “But I doubt if he’s hiding in the basement of the White Horse when he could be out somewhere doing some real damage.”

“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out, I suppose,” Nancy said, a little relieved.

“Well, I happen to have a key,” he said. While he’d been prepared to work alone and at least make contact with the demons, if not engage in full spiritual combat, he figured God had delivered these two women for a reason. And who was he to doubt the wisdom of God’s ways?

The Roach fished the key out of his pocket while Eloise beamed and Nancy fretted. Wayne and the rest of SSI would notice his absence, but they were aware of his calling. You could argue religion, you could argue paranormal evidence, you could argue science, but you couldn’t argue faith.

And The Roach’s faith was strong. Here was proof of God’s blessing. God had provided bait.

“Are you ready to meet him?” he said, with appropriate gravity.

“Him?” Eloise said to Nancy. “See, I told you it wasn’t Margaret Percival.”

God, keep me strong in thy service.

The basement door opened to the expected musty, earthen smell, but The Roach detected an underlying whiff of coal ash. Lucifer had no problem gathering around the campfire and swapping war stories. But The Roach sensed that Belial was the shaper here, the one treating the inn as his personal dollhouse. Belial, as the demon of lies and deceit, had a special power to corrupt, as humans were all too willing to believe what they wanted to believe.

“Shall we, ladies?” he said, bowing and ushering them forward with his arm.

“It’s dark,” Nancy said.

“Better that way,” Eloise said, though she no longer seemed so eager to enter the basement.

“Don’t worry,” The Roach said, fingering his crucifix so they couldn’t miss the gesture. “I’ll take care of you.”

He tried the light switch just inside the basement door, though he knew it was dead. He switched on the miner’s-style mag light strapped to his toboggan and descended the stairs. “Follow me.”

The two women must have been avid watchers of the popular paranormal shows, for both had flashlights recommended by the “experts.” Eloise came first, her yellowish flashlight beam mixing with the mag-light’s blue beam to cast the basement floor in a sickly green glow. Nancy had enough presence of mind to switch on her audio recorder and whisper, “Entering the basement. 11:56 p.m. Three people present.”

Four minutes until midnight. In many occult systems, midnight marked the thinnest point between the physical and spiritual realms. In locations of high energy or turbulence, invisible doors opened and realms overlapped. The lost and the weak from both sides wandered where they shouldn’t, and some never made it back to their side of the border.

The trio reached the concrete pad at the foot of the stairs, the crumbling gray platform giving way to a sea of dirt. The Roach surveyed the battlefield and decided it was as suitable as any. Higher ground was easier to defend, but frontal assaults were best made on level terrain.

“What was that?” Eloise said, her flashlight cutting frantic swathes along the support timbers and slick stone walls.

“Something moved over there,” Nancy said, drawing nearer to The Roach.

He pulled the tiny flask of holy water from his belt. His Latin was rusty. The Catholic Church got all the credit for holding back the tide of demons, but in truth it just had the best publicity department. With their coy denial of exorcisms and their pretense at secrecy, the church leaders held a monopoly on awe. They were no more immune to pride than any of God’s servants.

The beauty of a dead language was that the average person had no idea what you were saying. Demons spoke in tongues and cared more about intention than literal interpretation. But words conveyed magic and gave force to beliefs and desires. Spoken aloud, they were the difference between mere thought and true will.

“Repeat after me,” The Roach whispered.

The two women would assume he was casting a protective spell, though cloaked in the church instead of witchcraft. From the shadows, Belial pulsed with pleasure at the trickery. But he would not make a full appearance until the hosts were ripe and willing, and in its greed and lust the demon would become vulnerable. The best time to slay a pig was when its nose was buried in the trough.

“
Beati possidentes, et di minores abyssum invocat
.”

The women echoed a jumbled, half-hearted imitation.

The invocation was swallowed by the dead, heavy air of the basement. The Roach waded a few more feet into the murk, luring his sacrifices closer to the portal. As he swiveled his head, the mag-light bounced along the walls, illuminating chinks and crevices in the stone. A low suspiration wended through the maze of beams and pipes, a noise that could have been mistaken for flowing water or the hum of the ventilation system.

“What did he say?” Nancy whispered, but Eloise shushed her.

Belial was dangerous because he had a chip on his shoulder. Whereas most of the demons in the pantheon were happy to commit evil for its own sake, Belial had once been celebrated as the main fallen angel, and early texts even called him the father of Lucifer and the one who inspired the revolt against God. Yet somewhere between the butchering of the Old Testament and the giddy pop presentation of the EZ Read Bible, Belial had slipped down the ladder and Lucifer now lorded over the lesser gods.

While Lucifer was content lapping up the cream God so generously dished out, growing fat and contented, Belial was working overtime. The Roach had crossed paths with it before, but that was years ago and The Roach had made many mistakes, most of them born of overconfidence. Belial had no doubt grown stronger, for the world was ripe with the fruit of sin, but The Roach was wiser, too. He’d learned to play the game on their terms and turn their own arrogance against them.