Scratch, page 14
Shelley held her breath as she skulked down the stairs. Her courage went up the moment she was off the creaky steps and on the carpeted floor. She tiptoed across the room and stood by the archway that led into the dining room. She knew she didn’t dare look around the corner or she would be seen. Breathing shallowly, she leaned back against the wall and listened.
“Join hands,” Raz said. “The first part of the rite is prayer, followed by the words of binding.
“Heavenly Father,” Raz intoned. “Bless us this night, and all nights to come as we, your humble servants strive to do your will. Thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed upon us. Thank you for trusting us with the care of one of your angels, and for rewarding our stewardship with her healing hands. Thank you for the burden of Scratch, for teaching us that evil can be chained. Tonight we, the chosen circle of Canaan, the keepers of the pact, renew our pledge to you and your divine wisdom. Give us the strength and courage to do your work here on Earth. In his holy name, Amen.”
“Amen,” the others chorused. The habit was so ingrained that Shelley found herself saying it under her breath as well.
What came next was something Shelley had never heard before. Raz continued to speak, and she could tell he was reading. His voice was low and came from the back of his throat, forming sounds and syllables. Shelley guessed they were words, though they were unlike anything she had ever heard. They droned on for what seemed like minutes, though Shelley could see a clock and only seconds passed. The air seemed to grow thick around her.
Raz ended, sort of. His voice went on in an ululating murmur, providing a background sound as April took up the chant. Her voice sounded like something broken, like glass on concrete or a cracking femur, as it struggled to form the strange words. Shelley’s arm hairs stood at attention on her goose-pimpled arms as she listened to her sister’s voice. The air around her constricted and she found it hard to breathe.
April wound down and joined Raz in the undercurrent, creating a harmony of discord. As soon as she did, Nellie’s voice rang out, stumbling across the words in the same palsied stutter with which her fingers drew sound out of the piano. Shelley could tell that Nellie wasn’t reading, like the others. She knew the words by heart. Shelley felt as though she couldn’t move, like the very air was chaining her to the spot. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t find her voice.
Jack rounded out the cacophony quartet with a strong tenor. The words took on a more harmonious cadence, though the atmosphere of the room was still oppressive. Shelley was sweating, and a tight knot of nausea formed in her belly. If this continued much longer she was sure she would die.
* * * * *
In the basement of the church Gabrielle rolled over in her sleep and moaned. Fine beads of sweat dotted her brow and upper lip. The blue aura around her dimmed as the chains around her wrists grew tight and cold. A ring of blue fire pulsed briefly around the church.
In the mountain Scratch screamed.
* * * * *
The chant came to an abrupt end. Shelley’s ears popped as the air pressure returned to normal.
“And then,” she heard Raz say as he slammed the cover of the book shut, “I say the true names of Gabrielle and Scratch, binding them to each other, and to us.”
“May God have mercy on our souls,” Jack said.
“We only do his work,” Raz said.
Shelley heard the chairs around the dining room table slide across the floor. She moved quickly and silently to the stairs and dashed back to her room and shut the door. Korn still blared. She jumped onto her bed and pulled a pillow up over her head.
Her mind was swimming in a sea of questions. What had she just witnessed? That looked like something out of a bad B-movie, something evil or even Satanic. But Raz was the minister here, and all he ever talked about, it seemed, was sin and salvation. But that ritual wasn’t in any Bible Shelley had ever seen. What was that book? What were they saying? What did Raz mean by the true names of Gabrielle and Scratch.
Who, or more importantly what, was Scratch?
She didn’t know, but she was sure no one else in Canaan knew either, save for the four people downstairs.
And now her.
Shelley relaxed and removed the pillow from her head. They had been so careless. She had discovered this secret so easily. She wondered how hard it would be to discover more.
A powerful weapon had been placed in her hands. Now, all she had to do was learn how to use it.
CHAPTER FIVE
scratch scratch
The pain in his wrists and legs was almost unbearable, overcoming the sated ecstasy of the previous night. He tried to move, but found his body bound more tightly to the wall. The chains seemed shorter, like they were in the early days of his captivity, before the years of straining against them. This had happened before, of course, every time his captors began to feel afraid of losing Gabrielle. Something would threaten them, and the rite would be reenacted, tightening the chains once more. He didn’t even know if they knew this, only that they were nervous and fearful.
Fear was something he could use. It made him stronger, and it made the people of Canaan make mistakes, and a big enough mistake could mean freedom from his pain. Even though the chains were tighter, Scratch began to hope again.
He slipped out of his pain-wracked body and crawled through the caverns. He stopped in the Boneyard and stretched out on the loose mounds of freshly turned soil. He bathed in the remnants of terror and guilt that permeated the small chamber, luxuriating in their soothing balm, growing stronger as the pain of others pushed his own away. He could sense his body, trapped in the earth below, and knew that it housed agony… that he would have to return to it and bear the pain once more. The pact chained his soul to his flesh as surely as his flesh was chained to the stone heart of the mountain. But for now, he was free to roam.
Filled with the bounty of murder, Scratch left the Boneyard. Something had frightened the people of Canaan, and he wanted to know what it was. If they were afraid of losing their angel, and of what he would do to them if they did, then maybe he could find out what they were afraid of, and push events along.
He knew it might have simply been the murders. There would be an investigation, but they had survived those before. There was always an outpouring of regret and fear after something like this happened, and Scratch would drink it like an after dinner brandy. But even as he swallowed it, their guilt began to fade.
Down from the mountain he crawled, through the trees and gullies, over the green water of the quarry and the paneled moving truck that now rested in its depths. Past Jack’s still, where anger and sorrow still lingered, down the narrow road, past the empty Porter house…
scratch scratch
The Porter house was no longer empty. It glowed with the soft illumination of a nightlight and three souls. There were new people in the valley tonight, and Scratch was sure they had something to do with the fear he felt from the village.
And even if they didn’t, they were a new source of treats.
He slunk up over the steep yard and the porch steps, snaking under the front door, and into the house. He had not been here since Dora had died, and not often during her last years. She was a joyful woman, who carried few stains in her soul. Whatever guilt she had ever felt had dimmed over the span of her life, and she danced into old age with a calm acceptance of the decisions she had made. Only sorrow and loss accompanied her, and even these were old wounds that she bore gracefully.
But there had been a time when Scratch had feasted here.
He glanced around the house, and saw the boxes and belongings of strangers. He went up the steps to the large second floor, and peeked into each of the rooms. One had already been decorated with the accoutrements of childhood. Toys were scattered across the floor, and tiny clothes hung neatly in the closet. A painting above the bed arrested Scratch’s attention. He slid over the colorful quilt, saturated with the smell of baby shampoo and bubblegum, and stood in front of the canvas.
It was a man in a trench coat, standing with arms outstretched in a beatific pose. White wings extended from the figure’s shoulders and a halo of light wrapped him in a warm blue glow. Scratch’s eyes widened in surprise, and a sense of sorrow and loss, his own this time, climbed up his soul. He stood there for a very long time, trying to capture the fleeting images of his life before the pact that flitted just out of the reach of his memory. Captivity had been his reality for a century now, but it felt like an eternity or more. He knew that he and Gabrielle had a life before their capture, but he could not recall what it had been like to be free. She didn’t remember even that much. The longing, and the anger at their plight, was his alone.
He backed away from the painting and the yearnings it inspired. His gut clenched in anger. He would be free this time, and so would his sister. They had been captive for far too long, so long he couldn’t even remember what they had been before. They would escape this Hell, whatever it took, whomever he had to hurt.
The faint glow of a nightlight seeped under a door farther down the hall. Scratch slid under it into the master bedroom, a room he knew well. A small light was plugged into an outlet near the large cherry-wood sleigh bed. Three people, two adults and a child breathed in the slow rhythm of sleep from under the quilt. Scratch climbed up onto the mattress and joined them.
scratch scratch
Holly’s leg twitched where Scratch’s rough tongue caressed it. He slid up her body, touching all of her secret places while she slept. Her face, so much like Dora’s that Scratch knew who she was immediately, twisted in a grimace as he peeked into her soul.
She was happy for the most part, content with her talents, in love with her husband, and adoring her child in ways that transcended mere love. But there was a core of darkness (there always was) that Scratch found lurking beneath her happiness. She had been hurt by a man, raped and betrayed. The scar was not new, but something recent had reopened the wound and it was seeping raw fear. The man had returned, and threatened her again. He wanted his child back, the child sleeping in this bed.
Scratch laughed at the irony. The best murder in the valley had been because of this child’s grandmother. Caroline’s birth had destroyed bonds of friendship and heralded decades of guilt and regret.
There was more fear in Holly, more than she could admit to herself. She had seen a side of Adam recently, dark and sarcastic, with the hint of violence just under his harsh words. It was a side that reminded her too strongly of Billy. She also feared that he would abandon her, like her father had, like Billy had when he discovered she was pregnant. She hated her fear.
Scratch lapped it up as Holly sighed in her sleep.
scratch scratch
He savored a brief taste of freedom in her dreams, and paused in his meal. She was flying, high above the earth, and Scratch rode with her for a moment. He knew it was a dream she had often. It was a dream he had once, but he had pushed it down, far into the back of his mind. The memory was too painful now that the sky was denied him. He closed his eyes, feeling the dream wind buffet his face. He opened them as they soared through a valley in the clouds. Fine vapor parted around them as they descended. Below them was a thick forest, made dark by the cover of a storm-laden sky. He felt panic in Holly now. She was searching for something, something lost in the woods. It was Michaela, lost in the forest; something wild and deadly stalked her. It was her daughter, but it was Holly’s innocence as well, for in dreams everything was more than it appeared. Holly wanted to fly in the sunlight, but something always brought her back to the ground. She was chained to the real world by responsibilities and ties that would always clip her wings.
The clouds above them turned an angry black, and lightning threaded through the dark. Ice-cold pellets of rain stitched their backs in a wet tattoo. Holly swooped toward the woods in desperation. A storm was breaking, and Michaela was gone, and with a strangled gulp of air, so was the dream. Holly moaned and rolled over and Scratch pulled away with one last mouthful of dread.
He looked at Michaela, curled in Adam’s protective arm. A stuffed bear was clutched in her left hand. Her right thumb hung wetly by the side of her mouth. Scratch nearly passed over her. The fears of children, while intense in the moment, were usually ephemeral things, easily soothed away. Only adults had had time to plant them deep in their psyche and make a lifestyle of their fears. But as he crawled over her sleeping body, Scratch sensed something recent in her dreams, something terrifying, and he paused to drink in the sweet scent of her fright.
scratch scratch
She was crying in his mind, screaming to be saved as a wolf dragged her through the deep, dark woods. She was alone with the wolf, and Mommy and Adam were nowhere to be seen. The wolf had shreds of her bear in his bloodstained teeth. Puffs of stuffing, mingled with flesh, dangled from his drool-flecked muzzle. His breath smelled like death. She whimpered from the bed, and curled more tightly to Adam. His arm tightened reflexively around her in his sleep. Scratch ran a finger across her furrowed brow, then licked the sweet residue of the child’s terror from its tip.
scratch scratch
He slid over onto Adam, sat upright on his chest, and stared into his hairy face, recognizing it from the painting he had just seen. Adam stirred briefly, brushed his free hand across his body in an attempt to sweep Scratch away, then settled back into slumber. Scratch felt Adam’s hand pass through him, cool and soothing, much like Gabrielle’s. He was surprised for a moment. This one was sensitive to his presence. It was rare in humans, but not unheard of.
Scratch placed his hands on Adam’s face and began to search for wounds. He didn’t have to look far to find the dark mass that Adam kept locked away in the recesses of his soul. Scratch bathed in Adam’s anger, his sense of failure and shame. Scratch relived the moment when Adam lashed out at his boss, his hands, hands that were meant to heal, becoming a conduit for his pent-up rage. Adam was afraid of his temper, afraid it would happen again, and Scratch sucked at that fear, bringing it closer to the surface. As Scratch ingested its essence, the fear and rage came into focus and assumed a shape. It was one he had already seen in Holly. At this moment, everything Adam felt was focused on Billy Haught, and as Scratch concentrated on the image he felt Adam’s emotion grow cold. He was afraid of Billy, of what he might do, of what he was capable of. He was afraid he might hurt Holly again, and take Michaela. He was afraid of the hatred he felt for this man, and of what it might cause him to do.
Adam could murder Billy. He knew that as truth. To protect his family, he could summon his rage and kill. It would be done for love, but the thought that love could motivate murder sent waves of fresh fear surging through him. Scratch smiled and drank. He knew love could kill. He had seen it before.
Scratch started to leave, sated and healed of the agony the rite had caused him earlier. Adam’s hand swept through him again, and Scratch felt its energy. Adam mumbled in his dream, and Scratch hesitated. He placed his hands on Adam’s face once more, curious what nightmares this man may have. He hitched a ride like he did with Holly, and Scratch found that they were
climbing. Adam didn’t know how long it had been since he had left the cavern, but it felt like he had been climbing for his entire life. The bark of the giant tree was rough, with thousands of handholds. He was tired, and sweat ran down his naked body, carving patterns in the shape of spirals and runes in the dried mud that still coated him. The bear claw on its cord bounced against his chest. Adam saw blood welling in the cuts among his chest hair where the tooth had scratched him as he climbed.
He paused to breathe, and braced himself against the tree. Carefully, he turned, making sure of his footing, and rested his back against the trunk and stared out over all of creation.
He looked up and saw the branches of the tree were still impossibly far above him, spreading out over the earth, over the universe. Birds flew through the limbs of the tree, gliding on the currents of life that pulsated around the trunk. He thought he saw other things in the clouds, beings made of light, with wings that he could only glimpse but never quite focus on.
Below him he saw the world, crawling with life. Great bonfires of humanity lit the darkness of the forest that covered the planet. He saw sparks lift from the ground, carrying hopes and prayers to the heavens. He heard the songs held within the embers as they floated past. He watched the sparks ascend, and as they neared the top of the tree they began to change. The fire unfolded and spread wings, becoming something other than a prayer, giving form to hope, giving birth to the beings of light that Adam glimpsed, the beings that were everything humanity strove to be. These beings then flew earthward again, spiraling around the trunk in their descent, appearing to the people below and inspiring more prayers, seeding their essence in the minds of men and women and starting the cycle over again.
But some of the winged beings didn’t make it. Dark things rose from the ground, things with sharp teeth and black hungers. They struck out and fed on the light before it could return to the people in the forests. The light was extinguished, the wings spat out, leaving behind only unanswered prayers and despair.
Adam closed his eyes and leaned into the tree to rest. He could feel a thrumming in the wood against his back, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. The vibration, which he knew was the heartbeat of the world, became his. The tree became his spine, and he felt the force of life traveling through his body. The beings of light flew through his hair, rode the currents of electricity in his brain, filled him with wonder and magic. He flexed his toes and felt them move deep within the earth, bringing nutrients from its rich soil. He was the tree now, and the tree was all of life, and he knew that it was humanity’s gift to soar among the heavens while still rooted to the ground.
Adam felt something watching him, something cold and dark. He opened his eyes and saw something coiled around the tree, and around his chest. Red eyes locked on his and for a moment Adam saw nothing but pain, the pain of the world crammed into a tiny container. Adam reached out, no longer afraid of falling, and saw the spirals on his arm were glowing with a cool, blue light. He pressed them against the thing coiled around his chest, and for a moment felt the pain begin to surge through his arms like a river, through his body and into the tree.
