“Do you believe that?” Naomi asked.
“I’d like to tell you no, I don’t believe it. But then all I have to do is look at my TV and see what’s happening in your town and…” Once again he trailed off, at a loss for words.
“So if Gordon were to read the spell at a certain time at night and use the correct ingredients, he could make this thing work?”
“If his belief was genuine, yes. Only…and here’s what I don’t understand…the spell I’m looking at says that in order for this particular ritual to work, there must be a human body for the magician to conjure the demon up to inhabit. The demon uses the body as a vessel and it spreads itself by contaminating other living things, usually by killing them. Only then can the demon replicate itself to newly created vessels.”
Naomi drew in a breath. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“When you wrote that you didn’t realize, did you?”
“When I wrote this I was combining fact with fiction! I was putting in elements of different belief and magical systems for verisimilitude and making stuff up for dramatic effect! When I wrote this I was writing a novel, Ms. Gaines! Fiction! Make-believe! I realize most people today cannot tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction, that many people believe The Da Vinci Code is real, but I don’t write for them. If they’re too stupid to differentiate — ”
“But the spell you wrote about was one your characters used to conjure the dead back to life?”
“Yes,” William Sawyer admitted. “The antagonist uses it to ressurect his enemy. He turns him into a slave, of sorts. But yes, the guy is dead in the book and he’s called back to life.”
“And you’re saying in similar real spells that in order for it to work, the demon must inhabit a dead human body.”
“Yes — “ William’s voice trailed off as he understood what Naomi was getting at. “Oh no, you don’t think — ”
“There was a dead body in the woods when Gordon conducted his ritual,” Naomi stated.
“But that’s impossible! The odds of that happening are a million to one! If I’d known any of this would have been even remotely possible I never would have — “
“Is there a way to stop it?”
“Stop it?”
“A way to get the corpse, or the zombie, or whatever, to be dead again?”
There was the fluttering of pages as William rifled through his research material on the other end. “I suppose there has to be, but damned if I’ll be able to find it in time.”
“Would somebody who is involved with magic be aware of something like this?”
“Do you know anybody local that practices Wicca?”
“No.”
“Any occult supply stores near you?”
“A few.” She knew of a couple in Lancaster.
“I’d try with them. They’re probably glued to the TV wondering how they can assist in trying to stop what’s going on. I’m sure some of the more sensitive ones are already working on rituals in their attempt to reverse the destructive nature of whatever it was Gordon did.”
For a self-proclaimed Agnostic, William Sawyer sure put a lot of faith in alternative belief systems. “I’ll make a few calls,” Naomi said.
“Please keep me posted.”
“I will.” She got William’s home phone number and hung up.
Jeff was in the kitchen demanding to know what was happening. “Hold on,” she told him, as she dialed the number to Brendan Hall.
It took awhile, but she was finally put through to Officer Clapton, who sounded exhausted. “Tell Tim that his father and I will be by in an hour or so,” she said. “I’ve got a few calls to make and — ”
“Ms. Gaines, I think you should stay home. Have you seen what’s going on outside?”
“I know what’s going on, Officer Clapton, I’m not stupid!”
“Stay inside!” Officer Clapton was firm on this despite the tinge of exhaustion Naomi detected in his voice. “It’s dangerous out there. Tim is safe here, trust me.”
“I just learned something that I think you need to hear,” Naomi said.
Officer Clapton paused for a moment. Naomi could hear activity in the background; intermingling voices, ringing phones, a scurry of footsteps. When Officer Clapton came back on the line he sounded like he was trying to keep his voice down. “We’re tearing our hair out trying to keep this under control and all we keep hearing is that whatever is happening…is spreading. What have you got for me, Ms. Gaines?”
And then with Jeff riveted to the news, Naomi retreated to the kitchen and began telling Officer Clapton about her phone conversation with William Sawyer.
Time slowed to a crawl when you were confined to a jail cell.
It felt like Tim had been imprisoned for days at Brendan Hall. The more time dragged on, the more his nervousness grew. Every time he asked a guard what time it was he was surprised to learn not much time had passed. He was positive hours had dragged by, not minutes.
Officer Clapton had been absent for the past hour. Tim had spent much of his time pacing his cell, his mind racing. He had to get out of here. Mom and Dad would have called by now. They would have been here. They would not have left him at Brendan Hall to worry like this. It wasn’t in their nature.
Not having a TV to keep track of what was going on was killing him.
Listening to the muffled, frantic voices in the offices outside his cell was even worse.
Tim paced the room. There had to be a way out of here!
And then, suddenly, a possible solution presented itself.
Gordon Smith had made it up to Chelsea’s bedroom and was making quick work with his knife, stabbing and slicing and cutting, and was so into teaching that bitch a lesson that he failed to notice the sound of footsteps tramping up the stairs.
“What the hell?”
Gordon started suddenly, momentarily startled. He turned around quickly.
Chelsea stood at the threshold to her room. She looked stunned and shocked.
Gordon gripped the knife in his fist, still bent over her now slashed-to-ribbons bed and pillow.
Chelsea took a step backward into the hall. “Dad!”
Panic surged through Gordon. Instead of compelling him to flee, he remained rooted to the spot as Chelsea took off back down the stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs for her father.
OhshitohfucknowwhatthehelldoIdo?
Get the hell out of here!
As suddenly as the paralysis hit, it was gone. Gordon leaped for the hallway and headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Gordon hit the living room and bolted for the front door just as Chelsea and her father entered the living room from the den. “Stop right there!” Chelsea’s dad bellowed.
Gordon turned around quickly, the hand holding the knife raised. He got a quick glimpse of Chelsea’s dad raising his arm, saw the black handgun he was holding, and then he heard a deafening BOOM!
The bullet punched through his chest and knocked him against the front door. Shit, that hurt, he thought, as he felt himself falling to the floor as the darkness overtook him.
Chelsea could not bear to be in the living room with Gordon’s body lying in the foyer of the house.
She remained at her father’s side as he stood in the kitchen, trying to call 911 on the phone.
“Dammnit!” Her father pressed the disconnect button, got another open line, and tried again. “911 is jammed.”
“Everybody in the world is probably calling,” Chelsea said. She felt weird, like she was viewing everything from an out-of-body point of view. As if it wasn’t bad enough that dead people were climbing out of their graves, that people were turning up missing in their homes, that they were being killed by the newly risen dead and, in turn, were rising from the dead themselves, it was even harder to believe her dad had just killed Gordon Smith.