Poe Read online

  Suddenly I get a prickly feeling, like someone’s watching. I quickly look up and down the street—no one’s there. Maybe it’s the quiet that feels wrong; it’s like a neutron bomb has hit—all the people are gone but the buildings still stand.

  I grab the cat carrier (Herman is a victim of too much kibble largesse—the damn thing must weigh about sixty pounds) and follow Ernest into the house. I’m immediately struck by the sheer quantity of books. Shelves line the hallway and the small living room. There are even shelves built into the wall by the stairway, all stuffed with hard and softcover books, each looking well read, with cracked and sun-faded spines.

  “It’s a good thing we don’t get earthquakes,” I say. “You’d be buried alive.”

  Ernest chuckles and crouches down to let Herman out from his cage. “Some people have children. I have books. Much more interesting and they never ask me for money.”

  We watch for a moment as Herman waddles over to a spot on the carpet and starts to lick at his long gray fur.

  “No,” continues Ernest, “the biggest danger here is fire, of course. This place would go up in about five, ten minutes tops.” He says this with no regret, as if that were an interesting possibility he might entertain just to see if he is right or not.

  “So you said you had something for me. The translations?”

  “Yes… well,” says Ernest, and instantly his smile fades. He gestures me into his living room awkwardly and says, “Here, sit.” The only place I can see is an ottoman covered with books, which I gently place on the floor: Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains; Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; Thus Spake Zarathustra.

  “A little light reading?” I call out. I can hear him puttering about in the hallway. There’s an antique rolltop desk across from the ottoman where I’m sitting, but before I can snoop, Ernest shuffles back into the room with a paper Stop & Shop bag in hand.

  “There was a day when writers actually read,” he grumbles. “They could quote Keats and Socrates. Now anyone with a keyboard and a fifth-grade education can call themselves a writer.”

  I feel this slight is pointed at me in particular, but I don’t take the bait. Instead I politely wait as he settles in a dusty green armchair next to the desk. He gently pulls out the leather-bound book, then the velvet-wrapped pages, and hands them to me.

  “You should burn these,” he states matter-of-factly.

  I’m shocked. Ernest, obvious bibliophile who actually sniffs books like an addict, is advocating I go Fahrenheit 451 on them?

  “Why?”

  “Why indeed,” says Ernest mildly, as if he’s trying to remember himself. He lifts the knees of his pant legs and then leans back in his chair, crossing a leg. “I don’t know how it happened, but I’m an old man, Dimitri. I was born in 1921—just after the First World War; the Great War they called it, as if any war could be great. But when I was about your age, I couldn’t wait to sign up for the second one, the war that would end all wars. I’d heard the horror stories, but to be honest, that wasn’t why I went. You see, I had naïve ideas about heroism, valor, and honor. And I didn’t want to miss my chance to prove myself.”

  I can’t help but note a tone of bitter irony at the word “chance.”

  “And I got it, all right. Boy, did I get it.” He pushes up his left sleeve, and what I see stuns me. A straight line of numbers tattooed in faded blue ink, the exact color of the blue veins I can see through his translucent skin.

  “My plane was shot down over Poland. Not many survived the camp. And what I saw… Well, what I saw will be the stuff of my nightmares until the day I die. You can’t possibly comprehend what a place like that turns you into. What I did to survive. It took decades for me to forgive myself.”

  For a moment he seems to drift away, and a shadow falls across his face. A hushed quiet hangs between us until he smiles grimly. “‘Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ That’s Nietzsche again, by the way. Knew his stuff, that man.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a philosopher.”

  “I’m not anymore. I like to take things as they are these days. Wake up, eat my oatmeal, feed the cat. Simple things. Living under the shadow of pure and unadulterated evil has that effect. But reading these books of yours, well, I got excited again by ideas, by new possibilities… until I started to get the distinct impression that these books were somehow reading me. And it felt like I was living under that shadow again.”

  “I’m not sure I understand—”

  “You don’t need to. And you don’t want to. Just leave it alone. Move on. Be a young man with a pure conscience. Have a happy life.”

  I mentally replay the scene from the night before, sitting by the fire eating lukewarm beans with Elizabeth, Amelia, and Lisa. How even there I felt like I was on the outside looking in. I pensively play with the ring on my finger. “Maybe happy lives are for other people. Other families.”

  “‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Tolstoy.”

  I meet Ernest’s eye. “You want to know where I got this ring? My father. Of course, he didn’t bother explaining what it meant.”

  “Maybe your father didn’t want you to know. Maybe he thought you were better off not knowing.”

  I’m momentarily stunned into silence. I can feel all my memories suddenly reshuffling themselves, trying to reshape themselves from this new perspective—his distance, his silence, the almost militant absence from my life. How delightful it would be to think that it was somehow all for my benefit, that he was trying to protect me from some great danger. A part of me would like to believe it but can’t.

  “Too bad he never mentioned that,” I say with a bitterness that surprises even me.

  Ernest sighs deeply.

  “Are you saying you didn’t translate them?”

  “I translated what I could in the time I had. I’m a scholar,” says Ernest grimly. “You give a scholar an unpublished esoteric book by a famous historical figure, and they’re going to translate it. Over in the desk you’ll find a journal.”

  I stand slowly and walk over to the desk, rolling up the top. Sitting on a leather ink blotter is a gray linen-covered journal. Ernest reaches down, and I’m amazed that he’s able to lift Herman to his lap; I’d have thought the weight would dislocate a few discs in his lower back. He doesn’t look at me while I flip through the pages.

  I read the first line. Ernest’s handwriting is neat and precise. “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever. (Genesis 3:22)”

  The room seems to shift slightly then, and for a surreal moment I wonder if I’m just dreaming, that I could be asleep but don’t know it.

  “This isn’t possible,” I mutter. I turn the page and find a neat table of contents that gives me pause:

  An Extremely Powerful Conjuration for Summoning Fiends

  The Conjuration of the Fire

  Concerning Pentacles, and the Manner of Constructing Them

  Blood Sacrifice and the Death Curse

  “Apparently the death curse works best with the blood of a newborn baby burned in its placenta,” says Ernest coolly, stroking Herman.

  “Are you serious?”

  “There’s some interesting mention of spleens as well. The epicurean human organ of choice for demons. Apparently makes them more resistant to exorcism. By the way, your Book of Fiends is missing quite a few pages. The ones dealing with exorcism, judging from the table of contents.”

  For a moment I’m speechless. Possibly a first in the life of Dimitri Petrov.

  “But it’s not—it can’t be real.”

  “Whether it’s real or someone believes it’s real, what does it matter? Look at this.” He holds out his tattooed arm for my inspection.r />
  My heart clenches. The first row of a grid I’ve become all too familiar with.

  6 32 3 34 35 1

  “Interesting, wouldn’t you say? Ever seen them before?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Are you feeling all right? Your face just went a little pale there.”

  I swallow and try to center myself. “Define all right.”

  “Yes, well,” continues Ernest, “according to my translation, these numbers are the first row of what the books call a magic square. Each magic square represents a demon or angelic spirit. So let’s see how your math education pans out—add up these numbers and what do you get?”

  Focus. I do the math quickly. “It’s one hundred and eleven.” A strange low humming begins to vibrate through the room, rising up from the floorboards. Although Ernest doesn’t sense it, Herman apparently does. The cat leaps to the floor and frantically scoots behind a bookshelf.

  “I haven’t seen him move that fast in a decade,” says Ernest. “One hundred and eleven is the summation for that row. But look at the whole table. I flagged it for you.”

  Quickly, with a trembling hand, I turn to the page he’s marked with a Post-it.

  Impossible. I add up the rows once, twice, three times to be sure. What I’m thinking could not be possible. “Six hundred and sixty-six.”

  “Puts the whole ‘evil empire’ in a new perspective, doesn’t it? Not many know that Hitler was intrigued by occult notions. I had the distinct misfortune to be a part of an experimental control group. Now I wonder if they were scientific experiments, or… the other kind.”

  “But how—”

  “Who knows, maybe it’s all just a strange, random coincidence; life is full of those. Or maybe not. Either way, I’m taking it as a sign to leave it alone. I strongly suggest you do the same.”

  My heart begins to beat erratically. “So let’s say, completely theoretically, someone used this book and conjured a demon. Why would anyone want to do that?”

  “Theoretically, you could make it do things—your bidding, so to speak. If you had the strength and ability to control it.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “Then I imagine it would control you.”

  A dark chill shudders down my spine, and I hope to God that somehow the real Daniel is not aware of what his possessed body is doing. I can’t imagine recovering from that kind of horror.

  “How do you do… the whole exorcism part?”

  “Like I said, those pages were missing. Ask a priest,” says Ernest irritably while slowly getting to his feet. “I think I’ve done enough here. And I still have packing to do, young man, so, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Ernest, you have to tell me—”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “I should have been on the road an hour ago.”

  Reluctantly I stand up, slipping the journal into the paper grocery bag. “So the second book…”

  “The second book is all about how to fight the monsters.” He pats me genially on the shoulder while unmistakably also walking me to the door. “Good luck with that. Now I am going to search for my cat and try to coax him back into the carrier. It’s not an easy task. He hates that thing; makes him think he’s going to the veterinarian.”

  He opens the door pointedly. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” I step over the threshold. Thick, darkening clouds now cover the sky, like the mother of all storms is about to hit. And before he can shut the door in my face, I add, “Thanks, Ernest. I really mean that, honestly.”

  Ernest slumps slightly and seems to age a decade before my eyes. He glances nervously over his shoulder, as if he too feels someone might be watching, then leans in and says quietly in a rush, “Theoretically, if all this is real, then you’d need to conjure a seraph, or angelic being…”

  My mind immediately flits to the dream—Nachiel, the good spirit’s name was Nachiel.

  “Because if this… demon exists, it will use anything and anyone to try to control you. Both books make that clear.” Then he grips my arm tightly. “When the abyss looks at you, it wants to draw you in. Become like it. Understand?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  He lets go of me. “Just don’t lose sight of who you are. Like I did.”

  And with that he swiftly shuts the door.

  I stand for a moment on the cement front porch, clutching the paper grocery bag in my right hand. I have stepped past surreal into something the word “supernatural” doesn’t seem broad enough to cover.

  Of course, if anyone probably knows how to exorcise a supernatural being, it’d be a supernatural being.

  Good thing I know exactly where to find one.

  It takes a few minutes of jiggling with the key and muttered swearing before the bolt unlocks. But when the door swings open to my crappy apartment, I’m momentarily stunned. It looks like it was hit by the proverbial tornado.

  The couch is on its side, torn to pieces, piss-yellow stuffing scattered across the floor. Every drawer from the kitchen cabinet is open or tossed aside. The one lamp that still worked is broken, more glass on the floor, and the egg-shaped chair—Christ, the egg-shaped chair looks like someone has taken an ax to it: the amber plastic is shattered into spidery cracks, like a broken windshield. I drop the grocery bag on the floor and walk through it all in a daze, cataloging the damage. Who the hell could have done this?

  Right. My non-rent-paying supernatural roomie.

  “Goddamn it!” I roughly shove the couch over, back into place. “I told you to leave my fucking stuff alone!” Poltergeist bitch from hell.

  I stride over to the fridge to see what she’s got to say for herself, but the magnets are scattered wildly and randomly on the floor—no message.

  Then I notice that the refrigerator door itself is open, barely.

  Ketchup leaks onto the floor.

  But it’s not ketchup; a part of me knows that. Ketchup isn’t so runny. Ketchup isn’t such a dark red color. Ketchup doesn’t drip in small, perfectly rounded drops.

  I take a breath. Pull the handle.

  Nate’s head is perched on the top plastic shelf. It stares at me blindly with opaque, runny eyes. His mouth is open. On his purple swollen tongue is an antique postcard, a sepia print of a mansion I’m all too familiar with.

  Greetings from Aspinwall.

  A small black fly has landed on it. Suddenly the fly jumps away, buzzing up Nate’s left nostril.

  Daniel was here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: NIGHT VISION

  Why oh why isn’t Lisa answering her cell phone? My heart is racing as I peel through the streets, blowing through red lights and stop signs. And the postcard in Nate’s mouth—oh, God, the postcard—with a note written on the back in a familiar script which turns my stomach.

  catch me if you can

  And I can’t shake the feeling that the boundary between dreams, reality, and nightmares is blurring. It wasn’t a dream, this race—or it was, but now it’s real, it’s crept into my waking life, and I’m obviously losing. I’m too slow, too stupid—fuck, why didn’t my father tell me about all this shit? Good people are dying, and I’m like some dumb kid in the classroom; Daniel’s always five steps ahead of me.

  My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. I yank out my phone. I see the number, and a wave of sickening relief washes over me. Finally Lisa.

  “For Christ’s sake, Lisa, where the hell have you been?”

  “Dimitri?” asks a quivering voice. “Is that you?”

  Not Lisa. Elizabeth.

  “Yes,” I say, “yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

  “Is she with you? Please tell me she’s with you.”

  Fear stops my heart. “What do you mean? She’s not there?”

  “Oh God oh God oh God,” says Elizabeth in a rush.

  “You’re sure?” I ask quickly. “You’re sure she’s not there? She’s not upstairs—”

  “I’ve looked. I’ve looked everywhere. I thought maybe she went for a wal
k—but there are bootprints, Dimitri. A man’s.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm for her while I almost rip my hair out with my left hand. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Call the police, okay? Right now, and have them call me. I’ll leave my cell on—”

  “Dimitri, I can’t lose her—”

  “You won’t. We won’t. Just do what I say, okay? I’m going to look for her.”

  “Oh God,” she says in a small voice. But she gathers herself. “I’ll call them. I’ll call them right now. But find her, Dimitri. Find her.”

  Click.

  I slam the dashboard five times with my fist, almost break my hand, but it feels good, the pain. It feels good.

  I miss the Aspinwall entrance the first time I drive by. I have to stop and backtrack before I find it again. Encroaching shadows obscure the front gate, like it doesn’t want to be found; like the wild underbrush has finally taken over and reclaimed it. I pull over to the side of the road and open the car door. All is quiet and still. There’s a thick metal padlock on the rusting gate, so I do the most convenient thing, which is to grab the gun and shoot the motherfucker. This feels good too.

  I jump back into the Mustang and screech down the Aspinwall driveway, running over fallen tree limbs and bits of overgrown weeds. I swear, once I find Lisa I’m going to burn the place down myself, and whatever’s left after that I’m going to knock down with a bulldozer. I want to kill this house, murder it if such a thing is possible. I’m driving so fast that the car slides when I hit the brakes, and I come close to hitting one of the columns at the entry.

  “Lisa!” I shout as I open the car door.

  Nothing. Silence. Not a bird, not a sound, not even a tree limb overhead moves. Everything is as still as death itself. Then my eyes fall on a strange spot of color by the door—a red Maglite.

  Just like the one I saw Lisa with.

  My heart clenches. “Lisa!”

  No response. I grip the gun in my right hand and cautiously approach the door, half expecting Daniel to open it for me. But he doesn’t. In fact the door seems to be locked, so I pick up the flashlight, hold it over the gun (another little trick I picked up from watching cop shows), and then kick it in. This also feels good.