Hopelessness and abandonment imbued every word. Dennison’s Rooming House had been the antechamber to hell and the bad mojo pervaded every nook and corner, every board.
Teag stayed as my wingman while Sorren checked out the upper floors. I knew he’d call for me if he thought he needed my gift. “I wish we knew what we were looking for,” Teag said.
I took another step, drawn by something. When I looked down, I saw a button. Teag spotted it, too.
“Be careful,” he warned, worried after the visions I had the night before from Jimmy Redshoe’s button.
I bent down and looked more closely at the button, which looked like it was from a man’s casual shirt.
I can read the history of all sorts of objects, but for some reason, buttons take me deeper. Maybe it’s because buttons are worn close to the body, often against the skin. They give me a clear picture of the wearer, and often, what was going on around the person right before the button was lost. Before I could second guess myself, I picked up the button.
The room had changed around me. I was seeing what the button’s owner had seen, just before the button was lost.
Light struggled through the grimy windows and tattered draperies. Faded, scratched wallpaper clung to the dented plaster. The room smelled of sweat and burned toast.
I felt the button owner’s terror of something outside that scared him far more than the junkies and roughnecks that gathered at Dennison’s. He was still breathing hard, barely outrunning a killer, worried that it was waiting for him the next time he went out.
I glimpsed what he had seen. He had been stealing from parked cars, breaking into houses, anything to get by. Along the line, he ran into something worse than a junkyard dog or a vindictive cop. Kevin, the button’s owner, was scared to go back out on the streets. I saw what he saw: Moran, bending over a box of some kind. A dead body in a back alley, stripped of its skin. And a glimpse of a monster in the darkness that had caught his scent and would never give up until it caught him… The scene shifted, and Kevin was back at the rooming house. A skinny man with eyes that were too wide and too deep set snarled at him and crossed the room to grab his arm. “What’d you find? Give it to me!” The skinny man yanked him backwards. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.
“Let me go! You don’t understand, it’s coming.” He protested, but Danny, the skinny guy, had a temper and wasn’t letting go.
“You owe me, now hand it over.” Danny demanded.
Several other men were in the living room, but no one looked up. They might have been too stoned to know a fight was happening, or maybe they didn’t give a shit. One man was either dead or sleeping.
Hard to tell which in a place like this.
“Let go!” Kevin yelled. Danny swung, but it put him off balance and he missed, letting Kevin pull free, ripping his shirt and popping buttons as he headed for the stairs.
“Cassidy.” I heard Sorren’s voice in my head before I heard it with my ears. Whatever power he was using brought me back from the darkness, back to myself like a steel safety cable.
I clung to his voice. The tawdry rooming house and Kevin’s terror faded and with every breath, I was Cassidy once more. When I opened my eyes, I saw Sorren bent over me, cradling my head and shoulders in his lap. Teag pried the button out of my fist and put it in the pocket of his jeans.
“Damn buttons,” I muttered. I had a headache, but the shaky feeling that often came with a vision would last even longer. I took a deep breath. “Find anything upstairs?”
“Yes and no,” Sorren replied. “From the amount of dried blood and staining, I’d say it’s possible one or more of the killings took place here. I would not recommend you go nearer and was just about to suggest we leave, before I found you on the floor.”
“It’s almost as if the entire house is powered up. I’ll be glad to tell you about it, but I really want to get out of here.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Sorren said. “I’m afraid your gift caught something’s attention”
Before my vision, I would have said that the rooming house felt despairing. But something had changed. The energy was stronger now, malevolent, the sadistic glee of the predator.
The front door slammed closed. Overhead, I heard the heavy tread of footsteps in the empty second floor. Music came from somewhere in the house, the scratchy sound of a cheap radio. There were voices, too. Mumbling voices muttering threats and curses. Shouting voices, echoes of old fights, screams of terror. It sounded like someone was scuffling over our heads. Sorren had just confirmed no one was up there.
No one alive.
Even the smell of the place had changed, losing the must odor of a long-empty shell, filling with the sharp, foul odor of unwashed bodies, vomit, blood, and wounds gone sour. I was really wishing we had included Lucinda in our little foray. I struggled to hold the flashlight in my left hand, the walking stick under my arm, and still touch my agate amulet, wondering if its magic could protect us here. The house began to shake, caught in its own personal earthquake.
“Watch out!” Teag shouted, ramming into me and pushing me out of the way as the rickety chandelier in the parlor tore loose from its fittings and crashed to the floor, showering us with broken glass.
The shadows were moving. Shadow men rose from the floor as if they had sprawled there, awaiting the unwary. Gray ghosts materialized, shades of the unfortunate souls who had lost their way and their lives in the rooming house. Some I recognized from the vision, most I didn’t, but the general sense of foreboding grew darker. We weren’t welcome here.
The footsteps over our heads were moving toward the steps. They had changed, and now I could hear the scratch of talons and a heavy, dragging sound on the bare wooden boards. I did not want to see the creature making those noises.
Sorren and Teag and I were standing back to back. Sorren lunged for the door. To my astonishment, it would not open, though we had unlocked it. Cursing under his breath, Sorren tore it from its hinges and flung it aside.
It was night outside, but there had been a sky filled with bright stars when we entered. Now, the stars were gone, and so were the street lights and the outlines of anything beyond the doorway. Teag’s car should have been right outside, but we might as well have been in the darkest part of outer space. I heard a strange chattering, and a clicking like the claws of a giant lobster out on the warped and battered wood of the porch. Something hissed just beyond the door.
Sorren drew his sword, and it glowed a faint, icy blue. “Get ready,” he said, trying to watch the shadows and the doorway at the same time. I had the awful feeling that whatever was coming down the steps behind us wasn’t as scary as what was in front of us.
Teag had jammed his heavy cop-style flashlight through his belt so it shone up, casting everyone’s face in strange light. He held the lantern aloft in his left hand, the Bic lighter ready in his right.
I had a death grip on the walking stick, although I was still damned if I knew what it was supposed to do. For a moment, the darkness seemed to hold its breath, and then all hell broke loose.
Something big, with too many legs and big claws came down the stairs, fast. The shadow men rushed forwards, elongated arms reaching for us. The gray ghosts surged around us, and this time, I caught a glimpse of Kevin’s face and Jimmy Redshoes, and five young men who looked like I should recognize them, but in the moment, their identities escaped me.