“Hello, Andrew.”
Vince turned toward the source of the voice. It came from an old man who was sitting in a red velvet chair with a large ornate back; more like a throne than an actual chair. The man looked to be well over eighty. He was dressed in a black suit, black slacks, a white shirt, a black tie knotted snuggly at his wrinkled neck. Two large gold rings sat on the ring fingers of both hands. His thinning white hair was combed back over his liver-spotted scalp. Despite his age, there was nothing about his demeanor or the sound of his voice to suggest he was frail. If anything he looked strong, powerful.
Vince recognized the old man immediately. “Samuel Garrison,” he said.
“Welcome home, Andrew,” the old man said. His features beamed a radiance that could only be described as pride.
Vince looked around at the sea of faces again. He recognized another face in the crowd, this one standing with the middle-aged couple. She was about his age, with blonde hair, wearing a black dress. She reminded Vince of a suburban housewife and the minute he saw her he was transported instantly back to his childhood, when he was eight years old, playing with his childhood friends as his parents visited with the parents of his friends. “Nellie,” he whispered.
Another woman stepped forward and when Vince cast his eyes on her his heart leaped in his chest. He stepped back in shock, unable to believe what he was seeing. “Tracy!”
Tracy Harris stood in front of the throng of people that had gathered in the immaculate den to greet him. She’d changed into a revealing outfit designed for evening wear; a one-piece black dress with a short skirt, plunging neckline, black stockings, high heels. Her auburn hair fell on her shoulders, and as she stepped toward Vince he saw the remarkable resemblance between Tracy and Diana Roberts, the girl he’d dated over ten years ago. “Tracy,” Vince said, taking a step back.
“It’s okay, Andrew,” Tracy said, her voice soothing, calm. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”
Vince was taking rapid steps back and he stopped when he heard the door behind him close. He glanced back quickly; the double doors to the den had been shut and now he heard the click of a lock. He whirled around to Tracy, who’d stopped her advancement. She was looking at him with a mixture of wonder, awe, and love. Vince’s hands were shaking; he was too scared to do anything except stand there, numb with fright. “What’s going on here?” he said, his voice taking on a squealing pitch.
“It’s okay, Andrew,” Tracy said, her voice soothing, musical. “These are your friends. Your family. We’ve waited so long for this.”
Vince looked around, his eyes darting around the room. Despite the fact that the room they were in was so huge, he was beginning to feel claustrophobic. He felt a tightness in his chest, a burning in his throat that could only be fear. As he tried to take everything in, the people that were gathered in the den rose to their feet. Vince jumped back, deathly afraid. “What’s going on?” he shouted, panicked.
The old man stepped forward, his stride steady with a sense of purpose. “There’s no reason to be fearful, Andrew. Relax. You’re home now.”
“Home?” Vince cried, feeling the tightness constrict his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t guessed already?” The man that Vince had known as Uncle Sammy regarded him with an amused glint in his eye and Vince whirled around, searching for a way out. As his wandering gaze searched for an exit, they rested upon the paintings he’d glimpsed upon entering the den.
He stopped, transfixed by them. A sharp gasp commanded his speech, the shock rooted his feet to the floor. “I see you’ve noticed my Bosch,” Samuel Garrison said, taking a step toward Vince. “It’s an original. Dates back to 1505. I paid half a million dollars for it back in ’64. Remarkable, isn’t it?”
Remarkable wasn’t the word Vince would have used. Ghastly would have been more appropriate. The painting Vince was looking at depicted a Madonna and child, the infant suckling at her breasts. In the background, demons cavorted, performing vile rituals and tortures amid the flames of hell. The Madonna was done in a style typical of that period, but the infant… oh, the infant…
Vince couldn’t help himself. He took a step forward to inspect the painting closer.
The infant had been captured as it paused from suckling its mother’s breast. Its face was turned ever so slightly toward the painter, giving the viewer a half-view of its features. The baby was normal in every way except for the faint nubs of horns underneath the skin of its head, just waiting to sprout.
But it wasn’t the horns that made Vince Walters want to scream. It was its face.
It had Vince Walters face.
“The piece is titled appropriately enough,” Samuel Garrison said. Vince could feel the old man take a step behind him, admiring the painting. “It’s called ‘The Coming of the Red Opener.’ ”
Vince glanced quickly at the second painting. It wasn’t the same artist—he was no art aficionado, but he could tell the styles were different—but the subject matter was similar. In this painting, something was coming out of the demon-child… something with tentacles, its suckers ringed with sharp teeth… and just beyond, deep in the center of the demon-child, something else. Something that looked like it had wings.
As he whirled around to inspect the rest of the room he noticed other subtle differences in the sculptures and woodwork that graced it, his panic rising because Brian’s house had never borne such decorations. Chandeliers laced with grinning, leering demonic creatures. Balustrades woven with Pan-like creatures cavorting lustfully. Across the room hung another painting, this one enormous, and even though he was too far away to get a good look at it, its dark colors suggested a similar ominous tone. Another wall was lined with dark cherry wood bookshelves crammed with volumes large and small. Then he noticed the floor and this time he almost jumped back.
Funny how you never noticed things like floors in houses. Especially when one’s mind was on other things, like trying to get to the bottom of two weeks of murder, torture and other dark crimes related to his upbringing. In the past, a very large throw rug had always occupied the center of the den. This time, the rug was gone, revealing pure marble. It was a creamy off-white color and had felt slick beneath his shoes. And it was festooned with two large, graphically rendered designs that took up a large portion of the den floor space. The first design was baphomet symbol; the five pointed inverted pentagram with the devil’s goat in the star. But the second… oh the second…
His mind flashed back to that day at his mother’s home when he’d seen that strange symbol scrawled on the wall. Similar to a pentagram but different, with weird circular shapes that twisted and turned within it. This one was markedly different. The words etched into the marble—M’gwli acht K’tluth K’ryon Hanbi e ’ghorallth liber daemonorum—rocked his brainpan, but the difference was the thing that had been etched into the design, seemingly a part of it. It was leering, winged, somewhat demonic in nature but also very alien looking, as if it had come from an entirely different world.
Vince looked up at the sea of faces, his panic rising beyond hysteria now. “What in the name of God is going on here?”