Demon Hunter Page 15

  “What does that mean?”

  Ames removed the pike once more and handed it to her. “Strike it on the ground.”

  Denny took the pike. It was warm to the touch. Striking it on the ground, she waited.

  Nothing.

  “Try again.”

  She did, with the same result.

  Ames took it back, struck it on the ground, and the flame shot out of the top. “Its true power is only within my grasp.”

  “A legacy weapon.”

  “Exactly. You need to find those that belong to your family. Once you have them, I can help you learn how to wield them.”

  Denny stared at the weapons on the wall. “So, if I decide to do this, you’ll be my Obi Wan Kenobi and teach me everything I need to stay alive?”

  Ames laughed. “Or something. There is a lot you need to learn and you’ll never learn it all. Every demon is different. Every demon has different weakness and a certain power. Some are spiritual who possess, others are living, breathing humans. The spiritual demons are hundreds of years old. The older they are, the harder they are to kill. The younger ones are those that are living. They’re easier to kill.” Ames put the pike back in the rack. “I am willing to train you, but I have a few rules that must be agreed upon.”

  Denny waited.

  “You may never speak to anyone about your visits here. When you come, you are to wear the proper attire of a Tae Kwon Do student. You never bring anyone else, never share information with anyone about me or us. If you ever walk out of a session because you can’t stand the heat, then we are through. I do not cotton to whiners, quitters, or weak-willed individuals. My time is far too valuable to waste. Do you have any questions?”

  “What if I don’t want this responsibility?”

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. It has already started.”

  “Started? What’s started?

  Ames Walker strode past her and into the small anteroom. “Everything, my dear. Everything.”

  ****

  On the way back to school, Denny’s cell rang. She pulled off the road and answered it.

  “Golden, it’s Ophelia. I need you to come right quick.”

  “Is it Victor? What’s happened?”

  “My boy is fine. Got some news I know you gonna wanna hear. Come on by first chance you git.”

  “Is now too soon?”

  “Now. Come on by. I’ll fittus up some special tea.”

  Denny knew whatever news Ophelia had for her was not good news. Ophelia only brewed her special tea to keep people calm.

  Twenty minutes later, Denny sat in the parlor holding a cup of chamomile and peppermint tea. She knew now which side of the coin this news landed.

  “What do you mean someone came to you while you were talking to Sarah? Who?”

  Ophelia leaned forward. “The only bein’ capable of comin’ through to me in the spirit world.”

  “You mean a ghost?”

  Ophelia’s eyebrow rose. “You know what I mean, girl, and she done git all up in my face when I wasn’t even talkin’ to her.”

  Denny’s heart skipped. “That sounds like Rush. Was it Rush?”

  Ophelia crossed her arms.

  “I...uh...seem to have lost my ghost.”

  Ophelia leaned forward. “Ain’t all you gonna lose, girl, if’n you don’t start spillin’ the truth. You can’t keep this in your chest. Gonna come out one way or t’other.”

  Denny sighed. It was evident she wasn’t going to be able to pull any punches with Ophelia, and she shouldn’t have even tried. “We’re lovers.” She waited for Ophelia to cast aspersions that never came.

  “What ya do in your bedroom is your biness, Golden, but from what I could tell by alla her babblin’ is that somethin’ or someone gots her.”

  Denny leaned forward, sloshing her tea into the saucer. “Got her? What do you mean someone got her? She’s a ghost. She can’t be got.”

  Ophelia waved this away. “Jus’ what I’m sayin’. Somethin’...vile and evil was with her. I felt it. She could not get away from it.” Ophelia shuddered. “Evil is the onliest word I know for what I felt. It’s gotta mighty hold on her, awright. She can’t git through—can’t get out. It’s got her in a tight fist.”

  Denny’s heart started racing and she could feel the perspiration dotting her forehead. Rush was...alive? Here? Not gone? There were no words to describe her relief. “So she came to you. She’s still…earthbound?”

  “That she is. She come to me to tell you she can’t do nuthin’ without help, Golden. That girl done need your help to break free what gots her.”

  “Break free. Free of what?” Denny felt something stir in her, but it wasn’t the ice cold hand of fear. Quite the contrary. Denny experienced the heat from the flame of anger and it was roiling within her like boiling water in a pot.

  “Of what evil gots her.”

  “What do I need to do to help her?”

  Ophelia looked into her tea cup as if searching for the answer. “This I cain’t tell you. I did git the sense that whatever it is that gots her, is scairt of you, but I think you oughtta be very afraid of it.”

  “Why?”

  Ophelia shook her head. “It ain’t just on the spiritual plane, Golden. Whatever it is has crossed over into the physical plane and is usin’ yer Rush to get to you. They’s holdin’ her hostage.”

  The anger got hotter and Denny could now feel it burning in her chest. “Hostage? Crossed over? How is that possible?”

  Ophelia slowly shook her head. “They’s a lot to learn ‘bout the spirit world if you gonna play in its sandbox, Golden. A whole heckuva lot. You ain’t got much time. Rush is in danger.”

  “Give me the Cliff Notes version.”

  Ophelia pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “These spirits don’t just run amok in the spiritual world. This one done come over ‘cause someone invited it.”

  Denny set her tea down. “Invited it. Someone living invited the evil spirit to enter our world and it entered it only to go after Rush?”

  Ophelia slowly nodded. “Oh yeah. Someone invited that evil into our world, and unless it’s stopped, ain’t no tellin’ what harm it might do…to Rush…to you…to people you love.”

  “And you think I’m the one who needs to stop it?”

  Ophelia shuddered. “No, girl, you ain’t the one. You is the onliest one and whatever it is you got, they want.”

  ****

  Denny’s Journal

  I left Ophelia’s with sweaty palms and my heart in my throat. It was clear to me that someone was going to drag me into this demon hunting world whether I wanted it or not. At this moment, the pendulum had swung over to the yes column because whoever had Rush was going to pay for it. My lover might have been a ghost, but she also experienced the same emotions as the living, and I knew without a doubt that Rush was afraid.

  And that pissed me off. Again, I felt this weird, muscle-tightening energy fill me, as if there was this captured rage being contained inside me.

  When I got home, I flew up the stairs to the lair. As I stood in the doorway, I thought about Ames Walker’s lair. Did this room have a false wall? What secrets did it hold? If I stood there long enough would I hear them? Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of time.

  I didn’t have time to pull every book out, but I did have time to peruse the titles.

  “The journal.”

  I looked up.

  Had I said that? I didn’t think so. Maybe I did.

  I opened mom’s journal and started flipping through it. Maybe there was a note or direction or something that might show me where Fouet and Epee lived during their quiet moments. Something...anything... I stopped when I saw a list of names penned at the bottom of the front cover. Uml, Nedar, Dresden, Erler, Reinhold, Tsirk, Henson, Einstein, Blalak, Ibsen, Bronte, Larson, Eckhart.

  Some of the names I recognized as famous authors, so I phoned Lauren at the library. “It’s me.”

  “Hi, you. Long time n
o see.”

  “I have a list of names I want you to look at and tell me if anything comes to mind.” I took a photo of the names with my phone and instant messaged them to her. “I need a rush job on this, Lauren. It’s an emergency of sorts.”

  “Okay, I got them. Let me take a look and see what I can do. What’s this about? You sound harried.”

  “Good word. I am. I seem to have misplaced my girlfriend.”

  “Your girlfriend? Rush is missing? Is that even possible?”

  “For lack of a better word, yeah. There’s a lot more to it than that, but for now, let’s focus on the list.”

  “Well, that sounds ominous.”

  “It is, but I don’t have time to go into the details. I need to know what the people on that list have in common. Was it what they wrote? Were they award winners? Why would my mom have a list like that in her journal?”

  “All over it. I’ll e-mail or text when I get a bead on something.”

  “Thanks a bunch.” I felt bad for not telling her everything, but that wasn’t something I could do over the phone. “And please hurry.”

  Nothing else jumped out at me from the journal. I began opening all of the desk drawers, looking for false bottoms or keys or something, anything that would help me figure out what the hell I was doing. So far, the desk yielded nothing, and I was beginning to think like a crazy person.

  I took a deep breath and sat back with mom’s journal. I randomly picked a page to read.

  I’ve been watching the children carefully. I can’t believe that Golden and the ghost seem to have made some sort of truce. The ghost never bothers her...or us. She just watches. It almost feels as if Golden has her own sitter the way the ghost stares at her from her perch at the top of the stairs

  Robert wants to do some sort of seance to get her out of the house, but I refused. She’s not causing any harm. As a matter of fact, I get the feeling she likes my family and I don’t feel at all right about booting her from her home.

  I quickly read through the next few entries until I found another concerning Rush.

  The ghost’s name is Rushalyn Holbrook, the daughter of the contractor who renovated the house. I don’t know how she died, but I reckon she was twenty-five or six at the time. Anyway, when she finally spoke to me, it was to tell me that Golden was sicker than she had let on. When I took her temperature, it was one hundred and four. We rushed Golden to the doctor, who diagnosed her with encephalitis.

  After that, Robert was not allowed to speak ill of Rushalyn. She watches Golden like a mama bear watches her cubs. When I asked her why she didn’t talk to my daughter, she simply said, “It’s not time.”

  I’m not at all sure why Rushalyn still lingers, but I really am glad she does. It feels like I can stop worrying about Denny, which is good since Quick has become a handful.

  He’s a whole other story.

  I skimmed the next dozen or so pages before my cell phone rang.

  “That was fast.”

  “I’m super smart,” Lauren said. “It’s not the names.”

  “Damn. I was hoping it was some sort of—”

  “It is. Listen to me. Look at your list.”

  I did. Nothing jumped out at me. “Okay. What are you seeing that I’m not?”

  “Other than the fact that I’m super smart? I ran them through a number of programs, but it wasn’t until I put them in a vertical list that I saw what it spells out. Once I did that, my Jumbles skills came in handy. Circle the first letter of each name.”

  As I did, I realized it spelled “under the Bible.”

  “Damn, Lauren. Good catch.”

  “Years of Mom’s Jumbles will do that to you. I don’t know what you’re doing, Denny, but be careful.”

  “Always.” I scoured the shelves for a Bible. I found a Satanic Bible and a Word Bible, but no Christian Bible. So I looked again.

  Under the Bible meant something.

  I spent the next hour looking all over for a Bible.

  I was finally too tired and hungry to keep looking. I left the lair and, and on my way out of the closet, I saw it.

  A King James Bible set on my mom’s nightstand. How had I never noticed that? My mother was not religious woman…then again, I realized that I would have to repaint the picture I once had of my mother, for surely, I had been misinformed.

  Walking over to the nightstand, I stared down at the book. It drew me to it, but I stood, unmoving, unsure I was ready. Unsure of everything. I knew the moment I read what was in there, that my life would be changed forever.

  I was not wrong.

  ****

  Denny stared at the Bible. Had it always been there? She couldn’t remember. When they were kids, they seldom entered their parents’ bedroom. Her mother had made it clear that was where adult playtime happened.

  She wondered about that now.

  Was there really any playtime or was it Gwen’s way of shielding her children from a life filled with evil, darkness, and violence?

  Denny’s heart raced as she reached for the Bible. When she finally touched it, nothing happened. She sighed. She had no idea what she’d been expecting—lightning and thunder—but instead, nothing happened.

  Ever so slowly, she lifted the book and looked under it.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing.

  Denny opened the Bible.

  It was just a Bible.

  She shook it, she thumbed through it. She felt the binding.

  Nothing.

  Denny set the bible down and quickly re-entered the lair where she stood at the desk looking around the room. She called Lauren again.

  “You rang?”

  “I need another kind of Bible. I’m looking at over three thousand books here.”

  “Okay. Let’s try something different. First off, how are they organized?”

  Denny walked along, tracing her fingers across the spines. “Looks like alphabetized by author’s last.”

  “Perfect. Okay. One sec. There was a name that jumped out at me when I was initially looking.”

  As Denny waited, she examined the cracked, aging spines of the books. Where had her mother gotten so many old books?

  “Here. Okay. Go to the T section. Look up Tsirk, T-s-i-r-k, Suse J.”

  Denny fingered the books until she found the one with that name on it. “Here it is. The Demonic Bible. The print is so tiny, even if I had seen it I would have missed it.”

  “I’m guessing that’s it. The name spelled backwards is Jesus Krist with a K,” Lauren said.

  “Damn, Lore, you’re really good.”

  “No. I’m really smart. Smart enough to know this isn’t just about Rush. What in hell is going on? You can’t tell me you are standing in front of a bookshelf that has a Demonic Bible and not tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “I told you. I’m trying to find Rush.”

  The line was silent as Lauren waited her out.

  Lauren’s patience won out and Denny told her everything. It wasn’t how she had envisioned telling her, but she couldn’t ask for Lauren’s help and then not tell her why.

  When Denny finished, Lauren was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was hushed. “This is serious stuff, Denny. Please be careful. Messing around with a ghost is one thing, but demons? That’s crazy making.”

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “I didn’t say that. I think going after anything evil is a little nuts, but if it’s in your genes, if it’s what your family legacy is all about…then I guess that’s what you have to do. Just know that I’m here if you need anything. Anything, Den. Day or night.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot.”

  “Are you…scared?”

  “Shitless. It feels like I’m going to war armed with a rubber knife and a water pistol.”

  “Well, in this instance, you really can’t know too much, so call if you need anything else.”

  “Actually, there is. Can you track down some information
on a kid by the name of Mike Cockerton?”

  “Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like this kid. Called me a man-hating dyke.”

  “What? Oh, hell no. I’ll dig into it right away. Did you tell Victor?”

  “No. Why would I—”

  “Because that man can crush walnuts in one hand, and he would think nothing about teaching your Mike Cockerton how to comport himself.”

  “Nah. I’ve got this. Could be he’s just an asshole teenager.”

  “Or?”

  Denny closed her eyes and remembered the quick glint of red she’d seen in his eyes. “Or he could be something else.”

  “Oh great. Could you be any creepier? Don’t answer that. I’ll look him up as long as you promise not to go around him until I have a chance to check him out. Don’t do anything rash.”

  “Deal.” Denny swallowed a lump in her throat as she looked at the Demonic Bible. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You do that. And Den? You’re not alone. I know you’re used to Rush being there, but you do have other friends…people who love you. Remember that.”

  “Will do. Thanks.” Denny ended the call and gently lifted the Demonic Bible as if it had teeth.

  Nothing.

  Flipping through it, she found nothing. Nothing underlined or highlighted.

  Nothing.

  “Damn it.” She decided the best way to get Lauren’s help with all the books was to video one section at a time so she pulled her phone out and videotaped one section of two or three hundred books. When she finished and headed for the door, something on the desk caught her eye.

  The green marble slab had popped up about three inches.

  Kneeling down so that she was eye level with the marble, she glanced at the Demonic Bible before slowly pushing the marble into place. She had somehow pressed a switch that unlocked this part of the desk.

  Denny picked up the Demonic Bible again, and this time, when she looked closely at the space under it, she saw a tiny monofilament trip wire embedded in the wood. She put the book back in its place and walked over to the desk. The green marble slab had risen again.