He reached into his pocket and pulled out his slim, battered copy of The Long Lost Friend. Written on the cover in tiny, faded gold lettering was the following:
Of their virtue and efficacy in healing diseases and defeating spirits, the greater part of which was never published until they appeared in print for the first time in the U.S. in the Year of Our Lord 1820.
Just holding the volume in his hand made him feel better. This was his primary weapon—an unabridged edition, unlike the public-domain versions one could find online. Those were watered down and edited. This was the real thing.
Smiling, Levi returned the book to his pocket and then focused his attention on the box. He sorted through the books and trinkets. It was an odd assortment. The first item was an e-book reader loaded with the unabridged versions of Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Francis Barrett’s The Magus and Parkes’s Fourth Book of Agrippa, as well as the collected works of John Dee and Aleister Crowley and a scattering of scanned pages from the dreaded Necronomicon and other esoteric tomes. Also in the box were a knife, wooden matches, a cigarette lighter with a cross emblazoned on its side, a small copper bowl, plastic freezer bags filled with various dried plants and roots, a peanut-butter jar filled with desiccated locust shells, a black leather bag filled with different stones and gems, a vial of dirt, a second vial filled with water, a third filled with oil, a small compass, a mummified hand wrapped in cloth, pendants and other assorted jewelry, a lock of hair tied together with red string, fingernail clippings held together with a strip of masking tape, flint arrowheads, baby-food jars filled with various powders and debris, his Rods of Transvection and Divining and many other items. There was also a black cloth vest with many deep pockets.
He put on the vest. The garment was snug around his middle, but it would suffice. He selected the compass, a small bundle of dried sage, another of dried rose petals, a canister of paprika, a second filled with salt, the vials of oil and water, the cigarette lighter and the knife, and stuffed them into his vest and pants pockets. His pants bulged around his thighs when he was finished, and he had to tighten his belt in order to keep his pants from falling down around his ankles. Satisfied, Levi quickly shut and sealed the box. The padlock snapped into place with a sound of finality.
The buggy’s axle groaned again as he hopped back down. Levi stood in the street and glanced up at the moon. It was bright and full and cold. The breeze brushed his face and ruffled his hair. Bowing his head, Levi murmured a prayer.
“The cross of Christ be with me. The cross of Christ overcomes all water and every fire. The cross of Christ overcomes all weapons. The cross of Christ is a perfect sign and blessing to my soul. Now I pray that the holy corpse of Christ bless me against all evil things, words and works.”
He hoped that the prayer and the items in his pockets would be enough to face whatever evil had been visited upon the town. Ideally, he would have fasted for several days before undertaking this task, but these were far from the ideal circumstances. The screams grew louder and more numerous. Armed against whatever might be causing them, Levi waded into the night, ready to do battle.
FIVE
Trish Chambers danced around in her darkened living room, singing ELO’s “Shine a Little Love” in a breathless falsetto. Her treadmill had died when the power went out, and her iPod had stopped working, too, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from getting into shape. She was dressed in a faded gray T-shirt and a pair of black loose-fitting sweatpants. The sweats hadn’t always been so baggy, and it was their distinct lack of snugness that kept her going, no matter how exhausted from her exercise routine or disillusioned with her diet she became. Two months of working out every night—of running on the treadmill or dancing along with Richard Simmons and sweating to the oldies—had delivered results. All she had to do was keep going, and she did. Electrical outage be damned. She was divorced, thirty-two and desperate to find someone again.
Not that Brinkley Springs offered her many choices when it came to finding someone to date. Trish worked at the bank in Lewisburg, and the choices there weren’t much better. All of the male employees were either married or gay. A friend of hers had suggested she try one of the online dating websites, but Trish hadn’t quite worked up the nerve yet. She decided to wait until she was happy with her body.
After all, she’d spent the last twelve years of her life trying to make someone else happy—her ex-husband, Darryl. Now it was time to focus on herself. If she was happy with who she was, then it would be easier to find someone else who’d be happy with her. A man like she’d always dreamed of. Someone who would take her breath away.
She switched from ELO to Garth Brooks’s “Friends In Low Places,” singing out the vocals with an exaggerated drawl, and did a series of jumping jacks. The knickknacks on the shelves trembled and the ceiling fan swayed back and forth, but Trish didn’t care. She pressed herself for another three minutes and didn’t stop until she heard the gunshot.
Gunfire was a normal sound in Brinkley Springs. Lots of people hunted in the mountains around town, or engaged in a little backyard target shooting from time to time. On the Fourth of July, many residents often celebrated by firing their guns into the air. Normally, the sound of gunshots was nothing to be concerned about. Trish was just about to start exercising again when she realized that the gunfire was accompanied by multiple screams.
“What in the world?”
Breathing hard from the past half hour’s exertion,she padded to the front door and looked out the window. The streets were dark, and she couldn’t see anything. More shots echoed down the streets, followed by more cries of alarm. Trish was just about to open the door and peek outside when she heard glass breaking in her bedroom. Her hand fluttered to her chest and her breath caught in her throat.
More glass tinkled, as if falling to the floor. Then she felt a slight breeze drift through the house. Someone had broken in.
She reached for the phone, picked it up and dialed 911. Then she brought the receiver to her ear. There was only silence. No emergency operator. No ringing. Not even a dial tone. Whimpering softly, she placed the phone back in its cradle and tiptoed toward the kitchen. Her cell phone was lying on the counter. If she could reach it in time…
Laughter drifted from her bedroom, cold and malicious and definitely male. Her heart rate, already rapid from her exercise routine, increased.
Trish kept a pistol in the house, a Ruger .22 semiauto. She’d bought it at the gun store on Chestnut Avenue after she and Darryl split up because she’d been nervous being alone in the house at night. She kept it loaded. (“No sense having an unloaded gun in the house,” her daddy had always said.) The weapon was in the top drawer of her bedroom nightstand— right next to the window the intruder had gained entry through, judging by the sound.