Slayer: A Horror Novel (Carver Book 3), page 17
“I guess so…”
The two officers Arch had sent away were clamoring outside the door, their argumentative voices going on about finding the breaker box and calling the electric company.
“I better help them,” Arch said. “It’s just a blackout. Happens in the heat from time to time. Power grid ain’t too good in Channel Falls.”
Arch handed me the flashlight and then made for the door. “I’ll be right back. Y’all stay here if you want.”
“I’m not ready,” Annette was saying, scrambling to get her book in the backpack with the other books. “I didn’t have time to prepare. We didn’t even know what it was until a few minutes ago, and I’m not even one hundred percent—”
I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Annette, we’ll be okay. We’ve trained for this. We’ve read the books. Well, you’ve read the books. We know the combat, you know the spells—we did it all.”
“Most importantly,” Harry said, “we got each other’s backs.”
“If we mess up…” Annette whispered.
“What’s one of the first things Doc told us?” I asked.
“Don’t have sex with anything supernatural?” Harry said.
Annette and I both glowered at him. “No,” I said. “Not that.”
“Well, he did say that on day one,” Harry mumbled.
“I focused back on Annette. “No. Not the sex thing. Doc said, ‘It doesn’t matter how much you prepare because the supernatural will come along and slug you in the jaw, and then what? Say goodbye to your plans.’ Remember?”
Annette nodded slowly.
“The opportunity alone…” I went on. “We won’t always have this good of a chance to do what needs to be done. Now’s the time. This thing is here. I can sense it.”
“C’mon, Carver,” Harry said. “I don’t sense shit.”
“I do. And I hate to pull the experience card on you, but who’s the guy who’s killed a werewolf, witches, and stopped a dark god from the underworld?”
Harry said, “Okay, fine.”
“But I’m just an Index, John,” Annette said. “I shouldn’t even be here. I should be in the library. I should be studying.”
“Everyone goes out on an assignment, Annette,” I said. “And this is yours. You finish it, you get your tattoo, and you probably never have to go on one again. So let’s finish this damn thing. All right?”
“All right.”
I took my hand off her shoulder, and it could have been a trick of the shadows, but I thought she was smiling. Despite the relative darkness of the room, there was a touch of light in her eyes.
We stared at each other for a moment. It didn’t seem like too long of a moment to me, but it must have been because Harry cleared his throat and said, “Jesus. Y’all want me to leave or something? Go get you some condoms? Some post-coital snacks?”
I snorted, feeling that usual burning embarrassment in my cheeks. Annette looked away and made like she was going to brush her hair behind her ears, but her head was as shaved like ours.
Now, I’m no Casanova. The possibility that there was something there, a spark, a connection, had me clamming up and sweating. I backed away a few steps. I cleared my throat, straightened. “All right. Yeah. Let’s figure out how we’re gonna beat this thing. What are the best options, Annette?”
She pondered that a moment, scratching her temple. “It’s hard to say without knowing exactly what it is.”
“But it’s a bad spirit,” Harry said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“For once,” I said, “he’s right.”
“A sage bomb won’t work,” Annette said. She dug out a different book called Supernatural Solutions by Jim Helix, P.H.D. She flipped through the pages. I didn’t bother looking. That book was one I owned myself, one all of the recruits had, and it was somehow denser than MONSTERS: A STUDY. Glancing at one of the paragraphs gave me an instant headache. “Can’t perform a Rite without an ordained minister,” she continued.
Rite ministers were hard to get at any time. The truth was, most of your regular, run-of-the-mill preachers all over the world could perform one, but most of these people weren’t prepared for that kind of horror. More often than not, the harsh reality of the spirit they were dealing with didn’t always align with their personal religious beliefs, thus drastically lowering the Rite’s success rate.
The Order had a handful in the organization, but not nearly as many as they once had, and the ones still around were old and fragile, which meant easy pickings for the malicious spirits they intended to battle. It was really rare that the Order called for a Rite. From what I heard during training, it was more of a last-ditch effort.
Annette, still turning pages, said, “I could try a siphon of sorts, but my spells are shaky, and what makes this all the more tricky is that a voltshade will probably use whatever item I picked to siphon its power.” She was shaking her head. The thin pages were crinkling. “I could try a banishment, but again, I’m not there yet. My spells aren’t powerful enough.”
“You’d probably banish all of us,” Harry said.
Annette flashed him a fake smile. “Thanks for your vote of confidence, Harry.”
“Sorry.”
“There’s gotta be something else,” I said, telling myself to think—think, think, damn it!
Annette pulled her head out of the book. “Either of you dweebs know a good psychic?”
“If I did,” Harry said, “you think I’d be here in this dark police station about to be terrorized by a pissed-off electrical ghost? Helllllll no. But hey, guess what? Here I am.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.
“I sure as shit ain’t.”
Annette said, “I can’t—I don’t know. I don’t know how to beat it.”
“There’s gotta be something here,” I said. “I know our options are limited, but there’s gotta be something…”
“A talisman?” Harry said.
“No, that’ll just repel it,” Annette said. She closed this book and riffled through another. I did not recognize this one, but it was about as thick as the rest of them, not quite dictionary-thick but close.
“I think we have to figure out why this spirit is after Blackwood,” I said.
“Who cares?” Harry said. “He’s a piece of shit. You ask me, we should just let it get him.”
“He has a point,” Annette said.
Harry cocked a thumb, a wry grin on his face. “Wow, I never thought I’d hear praise from Einstein over here.”
“Bite me,” Annette said.
“Looks like that’s gonna be John’s job soon enough.” He winked.
“Ugh, c’mon, dude,” I said, feeling the heat in my cheeks like twin circles of fire.
Annette said, “Fuck y—” and then thought better of her choice of words.
“All I’m saying is that we don’t exactly need to keep Blackwood alive,” Harry said. “Okay? Like if he dies, no great loss, you know?”
“While I don’t disagree with you completely,” I said, “I don’t think the Order will take kindly to more casualties on this assignment. Two people have died since we’ve been here. Add that to the four who had already died before the Order was brought in, and things aren’t looking good. We don’t want any more blood on our hands, whether the blood belongs to a shitty person or not.”
I couldn’t believe myself. Couldn’t believe how mature and reasonable I was sounding. That was good, right? That meant I was developing, maybe even taking a leadership role?
I thought so. I also thought my late brother Owen would’ve been proud of me. He’d always be proud of me, but even more so now. The shell I had seemed to be stuck in most of my life was slowly cracking and shedding away because I was prying at the cracks with shaking fingers. Guess it only took killing a werewolf and a witch or two to get me there.
“I agree,” Annette said.
“Of course you do,” Harry said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, bumping the projection screen and spooking himself in the process.
Annette raised a finger. “But he is on to something.”
“I am?” Harry said.
“You are.” She looked at me to see if I was on the same page. It was hard to be on the same page as her, though, especially when I barely ever opened books.
I shrugged. “How so?”
“Like I said: we use Blackwood as bait,” she said. “We clear everyone out of here and leave him alone with devices we pick. The spirit wants him. It’ll possess whatever it can to finish the job.”
“Meaning kill him?” I said.
“Meaning kill him,” she answered.
“Nah. Arch will never go for that,” Harry said. “He wants to see Blackwood behind bars for the rest of his life. He wants to protect him.”
“At least until he’s in the general population,” I said.
Harry chuckled. “Yeah, then it’s open season on that dude’s ass. Literally.”
“Ugh,” Annette said. “Disgusting.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “We don’t have much else going for us. This is as good an opportunity as we’re gonna get.”
“How sweet,” Harry said. “You guys are in sync now.”
I nodded, that all-too-familiar embarrassment coming back.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Might wanna go find a mirror and check your makeup, Carver. Think you put a little too much blush on, my friend.”
“Yeah, yeah, screw—” I began. “Wait a second.” I stumbled away from the table. An unbearable weight had suddenly lifted off my shoulders. I felt so light that I could’ve floated away then and there.
“What?” Harry said, confusion mixing with the shadows on his face.
“Mirror,” I said. “Mirror.”
Annette repeated it as a question. “Mirror?”
“There’s another option,” I said. “I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten it.”
“Mirror?” Annette was saying again. And then she snapped her fingers and shot up out of her seat so quickly that it fell over with a clatter. “John Carver,” she said. “You’re a genius. I could kiss you.”
“I...I—uh—”
“As a matter of fact, I'm going to.” She grabbed my face in both hands and kissed me on the forehead.
I could’ve melted.
“A mirror?” Harry asked. “What the hell’s a mirror got to do with anything?”
Annette pushed past us to the door. Harry and I followed her and watched her slip into the women’s restroom. We stopped there. Probably wasn’t a good idea for us to go in there.
Harry was still looking at me for an answer. I smirked. “Hey man, if you read the books and paid attention in class, you would know.”
“Fuck you, John. You didn’t read nothing either.”
“Not exactly true.”
“What is it? What’s got her all excited and hopeful?”
“A Soul Box,” I said.
“A Soul Box?” Harry repeated. He was trying to think if it sounded familiar to him. It should’ve. We were both in class the day we learned about it.
Just then, the lights came on, and Sheriff Arch caught us in the hallway. “See? Told y’all it was just a regular blackout,” he grumbled, walking away toward the interrogation room to check on Blackwood.
“Whew,” Harry said.
Annette peeked her head out from around the bathroom door. “Got it!” she hissed.
“Lights are back on,” Harry said, as if that meant anything.
“I can see that.” She slid into the hallway with a largish rectangular mirror clutched to her chest.
We went back into the place known as the War Room, which was turning out to be our makeshift office. The officers were getting the paperwork ready for Blackwood’s transfer. The last I’d seen of the criminal on the monitor was not great. He was jumpy as all hell. The slightest sound would set him off screaming. Again, I found myself feeling bad for the guy.
Arch rapped on the door and came in as Annette was raising a paperweight to crack the mirror. She dropped her arms and hid her hand and the weight behind her back.
Sheriff Arch said, “Y’all find anything else that might be useful?” He wore a slight smirk on his face. It was the smirk of victory. He had gotten his guy, the guy he’d had his eye on since the first murder, since way before that.
“Working on it,” I said.
“All right, well, you let me know if y’all need anything else.”
We thanked him collectively, and he shut the door, leaving us in private again.
Harry leaned on the table and moved the book covering the small bathroom mirror. “Okay,” he said. “Seriously. What the hell is this supposed to be?”
“We told you. It’s a Soul Box,” Annette said, a bit annoyed.
“Yes, but what the hell is a Soul Box?”
“John, can you? I need to focus here.” Annette raised the paperweight, poising it over the center where she had etched an + into the glass with a pen. She brought it down, and it split more or less along the target, about as close to perfect as it could get under these circumstances.
“I can try,” I said. Then I turned to Harry. “Well, a Soul Box is also known as a Mirror of Souls. Does that ring a bell?”
Harry stared at me with a blank face.
“Yeah, thought not. So, anyway, a Soul Box is a device constructed with mirrors on all of its interior sides. The trick is to trap the spirit in the box and use its energy against itself.”
“It’ll try to possess itself?”
“Something like that,” I said. “Basically, it’s like tricking a bee into stinging itself. Because when that happens—”
“The motherfucker gets stung, and its stinger falls out, killing it.”
“In theory,” I said.
“Usually,” Annette said, “a Soul Box is a lot more…professional than what I’m trying to do.”
Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You, uh, sure we can’t just shoot it?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Annette said. “Dump that trash can for me.” She pointed at the trash can in the corner of the room. It was a squat, rectangular box with a lid on it that would rise when you pressed the foot pedal at its base.
“Is that what you’re gonna use?” I asked.
“You got a better idea?”
“I do,” Harry said. “We go out and buy one? I mean, the spirit isn’t here. We got time.”
The lights flickered suddenly, and Harry reached for a gun that wasn’t there on his hip. Sheriff Arch hadn’t granted his request to have a weapon. Couldn’t blame the guy. Not like it would be much help anyway.
“Damn, I really gotta stop jinxing it,” Harry said.
“Relax, man,” I said.
“It’ll be here,” Annette said. “If it’s not already, it will be soon. It just killed. It’s powerful now, and it wants Blackwood for some reason. Now get me that trash can.”
I went over to it and pulled the clear bag out. Nothing in it but crumpled papers and empty Styrofoam coffee cups. I tied it up, left it there in the corner, and took the can over to Annette. She had six more or less equal-sized squares of reflective glass and began to tape them to the inside walls of the can.
“This is crazy,” Harry said. “How are you ever going to get the spirit inside it? Can’t really put Blackwood in there, can you?”
“That is, admittedly, the hard part,” Annette said.
“A spell could help,” I said, glancing at her.
She looked back and frowned. “It could, but…”
“You have to believe in yourself,” I said.
“Oh great, y’all having another moment? Should I leave the room?” Harry said. We flipped him off, and he chuckled, shaking his head.
“Voltshade are typically spurred on and motivated by revenge. So if it wants revenge on Blackwood, it’ll destroy itself in the process of destroying him,” Annette said. “Then I won’t even have to try a spell. I hope.”
“Good,” Harry said. “Two birds, one stone. Kill Blackwood and get rid of the spirit.” He clapped his hands together like he was dusting them free of dirt. “I like it.”
“Then Arch wouldn’t get his guy,” I said. “And he’d probably arrest us because of it.”
“The Order would bail us out,” Harry said. “Probably.”
“Yeah. Probably,” I agreed.
“And we wouldn’t get our tattoos,” Annette said.
“True.” Harry studied his forearm. “I was thinking about getting it right here.” He tapped the left one. “What about you guys?”
“Not sure,” Annette said.
“Well, I already know where John’s getting his.” Harry spun around and tapped his lower back. “An Order of the Octopus tramp stamp.”
“Hilarious,” I said. “But your mom’s name is already there.”
That wiped the smirk off Harry’s face. “Self-burn?”
“Will you two cut it out?” Annette said. “I’m trying to focus here.” She was finishing up taping on the last of the mirrors, this piece to the underside of the lid, when we heard a commotion going on outside the War Room. It sounded like it was coming from the front lobby.
“—no, you can’t go back there!” Officer Switch shouted. “Mr. Brooks!”
The three of us looked at each other as the lights flickered. In that moment of darkness, complete blackness had fallen over the entirety of not only the station but the whole block. Through the window was a solid rectangle of nothing, almost as if the station had been removed from the world as we knew it and dropped into a void.
I made my way out of the War Room and saw an old man in an apron standing behind the front counter. The skinny, redheaded cop was trying to block him from going past. They kept side-stepping each other like they were performing a funky little dance. If I couldn’t see the old man’s sour expression of hatred on his face, I might’ve thought the two of them were having a grand old time.
Unfortunately, I did see Mr. Brooks’ face. I recognized him as the owner of the diner we had gone to earlier that day. There was something more than anger written across his features.
I saw it in the eyes first. They were just…blank. Lifeless. Being from around these parts, I wouldn’t have written that off as strange. Not really. Because I had spent a lot of time in small-town America, I knew the ins and outs of the banality of it all. I knew that it had a way of defeating you. And if someone like Mr. Brooks, who had to have been pushing eighty years old, had been here his entire life, it would no doubt have already broken him down and made his eyes like that.
