A Guardian of Innocents (22 page)

“I think it would be best to kill him now,” the apparition stated simply, as if pondering what to have for lunch later. It was then I noticed the necklace around his neck, a talisman of some sort. A bronze four-pointed star with a black gem in the center.

George clambered to his hands and knees, attempting another escape, but the same invisible force that had elevated me up the stairs now fell upon George and threw him against the wall. He was pinned there with his arms and legs stuck out like an impaled insect in a laboratory. The impact knocked down a nearby hanging mirror, which fell to the floor with a loud crack.

Never had I seen such ostentatious displays of the supernatural. I was dumbfounded.

“So what are you waiting for?” the man in black asked, only the merest touch of impatience in his voice.

My senses were all confused. I was suddenly unsure if this guy was one hundred percent guilty. Something in the back of my thoughts was trying to still the rage, trying to cork the volcano.

“Did you know what you were going to see tonight? In that theater!” I snapped at him, “I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“That’s not important, Jeshua,” the stranger answered for him, “He
would
have seen it, enjoyed it, and come back next year for an even
more
outlandish show.”

I ignored him. My eyes remained locked with George’s. He was too terrified to even attempt speaking. He was thinking this felt just like a ride at the state fair, one of those rides that spins around and glues you to its circular wall as the floor drops out. The only thing holding you to the wall is a law of physics known as centrifugal force.

“I...” he gasped, something was choking him. In his thoughts, I heard all the guys at his office making some vague jokes about last year’s party, but none of them seemed to have the guts to come out and say what specifically went on at this so-called annual spectacle. The only thing George had been able to figure out for sure was that it was something sexual. This was his first year as a senior partner at the Law Offices of Milton & Associates, and he had yet to celebrate his first Halloween after-party.

Out of breath, I whispered, “He didn’t know kids were gonna be involved.”

The apparition sighed, “Guess it’s up to me now.”

With that, George’s head whipped around, turning more than three quarters of the way around his neck, which snapped with a muffled crunch. The spirit released him, and he fell to the floor dead.

“Time’s about up, I’m afraid,” the specter said, “The police are already en route. It’s unfortunate you didn’t have the benefit of a soundproof studio this time. That maid you saw heard all the gunplay... Oh, well. The key is inside Mr. Da Vinci’s jacket pocket. Inside, on the left.”

I should have been more upset with George’s death, but my thoughts were more preoccupied with his comment about the cops already being dispatched.

“What about the other girl? Tessa? Where was she taken?”

“There’s no time for her,” he responded, an annoyed coldness to his voice, “She’s already been loaded into that van you saw approaching before you came in. Those men are very well armed. You wouldn’t stand a chance against them anyways. Go now. Save the ones you can, and get
out
of here.”

I found myself trusting this ghost-guy less and less. I stretched out my senses and found I could not only feel Tessa and the two men on the other side of the house, I could see them as well. The image was blurred in places, but I could fuckin’
see
them! This being had somehow enhanced my telepathic gift ten-fold.

Disregarding everything the apparition had just told me, I raced down the stairs to the front door, undid all the locks and made it outside just in time to see the gray van coming around the side of the house, engine roaring as it struggled to shift from first to second gear.

I knew I couldn’t shoot up the van without risking that girl’s life, so I aimed for the tires. But as I squeezed the trigger, the UZI seemed to decide against that. It pointed itself down towards the lawn and my trigger finger refused to unclench until every last bullet was emptied from the clip. Bits of dirt and grass were springing into the air like popcorn.

The van never even slowed. It careened down the curving driveway, building speed, as if oblivious to the sound of automatic gunfire. Disgusted, I threw the gun at one of the white columns that supported the roof of the porch. I knew exactly who was responsible for that little trick, but I’d have to deal with him the next time I saw him, which might be years from now or later tonight.
Why in the fuck did he do that!

I did the only thing I could. I directed all of my focus upon that van and took a peek inside. The girl was lying on her side on the cold, metal floor of the cargo van, wrists bound behind her back with gray duct tape, a piece of which covered her mouth.

The girl’s head popped up. She appeared to be looking around, although at what I couldn’t imagine since she was blindfolded with a filthy rag covered in motor oil stains. I didn’t realize that she felt my presence until she began to telepathically shout at me.

I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! I CAN FEEL YOU! PLEASE HELP ME! MY NAME’S TESSA COLLINS! FIND MY FATHER! HIS NAME’S RICHARD! HE WORKS FOR THE Effbh—

Suddenly, an intolerable din rattled around inside my head. I fell to my knees the pain was so exquisite, but through it I still heard one last bit of info as the van crashed through the front gate onto the street.

FIND MY BROTHER, AARON! TELL HIM LOUIS HAS ME!

I heard other sounds after the cacophony inside my head died down, but none of them were intelligible. She was getting too far away.

Way off in the quiet of the night, I heard police sirens. I sprinted back through the front door and backtracked my way to the theater. All the various Halloween decorations seemed laughable and asinine just then, as if Frankenstein or a werewolf could ever be as scary as the thought of being condemned to Death Row and sentenced to a lethal injection.

As I was running through the long tunnel again, I heard music. Rock music. It had to be. I could feel the bass vibrating through the stone floor. By the time I made it to the door, I recognized the band as Korn, now one of my personal favorites. I’d checked them out after Eli had told me about them that night at the Hunter’s Den.

I opened the door to the theater that George had torn open only a few minutes prior, and the bass from the fully cranked speakers pulsed through my body. I recognized the song now. It was an uplifting little ditty called, “Dead Bodies Everywhere.” 

It seemed the man in black and I shared the same musical preferences; or perhaps he’d tapped into my mind and had chosen to play this particular song as an ode to the carnage I’d wrought upon this place.

A quick scan confirmed everyone in the miniature auditorium had indeed passed on. As I climbed onto the stage, I retrieved my black pullover cap from among the empty bullet casings my feet had slipped on and tucked my hair inside it again, stretching the hat firmly down over my ears so it reconnected with my black face paint.

I located Mr. Da Vinci. The key was easy enough to find, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the gaping, ravaged hole in his throat. His hazy eyes, still halfway open, stared at me as if to say,
What the fuck you lookin’ at?

I ran up the stairs into the den and was breathing pretty hard by the time I made it back to the sliding two-way mirror of the library. It seemed the supernatural energy I’d been granted had decided to take leave once its proprietor had vanished. My adrenaline supply was thinning out as well, I think. I noticed for the first time how acutely thirsty I was. That and the invisible pins of nicotine withdrawal were puncturing my temples, just in front of my ear canals.

I tried to push the sliding glass back the same way it had gone before, but it was useless. It had somehow locked behind me. I didn’t really feel like taking the extra time to mess with it, so I snatched a wooden antique chair from behind its matching desk and hurled it through the glass. The broken shards crunched underneath my work boots as I hurried into the spiraling gothic stairwell.

As I descended, I incrementally absorbed both the fear and the hope emanating from the three who were trapped in the cell beneath me. They hoped it was me they heard coming down, but feared it was one of the heartless thugs they had come to know.

I was glad to find the wall was still raised. The kids were overjoyed when they saw me hit the bottom of the stairs with the black iron key in my hand.         

I inserted the key in the cage door and turned it, maybe a little too hard, but I felt such satisfaction when I heard the pop inside the lock.

“Where’s Tessa?” the youngest girl asked, “Is she okay?”

I thought about lying, but I felt these kids deserved better than that. I motioned for them to follow me. I explained as we hurried out the way I had entered.

“Some of those men got away and they had Tessa, but she’s still alive. She’s okay. It’s gonna be real important that you tell the police everything you remember so they can find her... Have any of you heard of a man named Louis?”

The oldest girl shook her head no, answering for the group, “They don’t call each other by their real names around us. They use their stupid code names... At least they won’t
kill
Tessa.”

That last comment struck me as odd. I was about to ask what she meant, when she pointed out something ahead of us, “What’s that?”

At the end of the corridor was Troll’s dead body. I felt like such an insufferable asshole leading them down this way.

“Okay,” I said, turning around and motioning for them to stop. I stepped to one side, obscuring their view of the large corpse down the hall. 

“I want the three of you to hold hands and walk single-file with your eyes closed. There’s some stuff in there you guys don’t want to see. Can you do that for me?”

The kids regarded each other for a moment with uneasy expressions. But then they linked hands and complied with my request. I lead them to the door and into the wine cellar, giving a generously wide berth to the bloodpool congealing around the carcass of their former captor.

The boy was the only one who dared to open his eyes, but it was only a brief peek that he chanced. Just a half-second. All he knew was he saw a lot more blood than he cared to, and shut his eyes quickly, scrunching up his face like a toddler tired of being spoon fed.

We made it through the darkness of the cellar. I was pushing up the doors to the outside when I saw the red and blue flashing lights out of the corner of my eye. I wondered why they weren’t using their sirens. The squad cars were hanging out by the scrapped pieces of the downed wrought iron gate.

I scanned them. They weren’t looking this way. Not yet at least. I climbed out of the cellar, sliding one leg out, then the next. I kept low to the ground and had each child do the same. My stomach was burning with apprehension as I watched the police cars just sit there for several long seconds. Were they blocking off what they knew was the only means of escape from this property? It was hard to get a good feel for them at this distance, but I doubted that. How in the hell did I plan on getting
out of here?

I was beyond panic. I was having a panic
attack
. My mind was wallowing in the shit. My brain felt as though it were bouncing around inside my skull
AND GOD ALMIGHTY I NEED A CIGARETTE!!!

My mind was trying to conjure up these insane, impossible methods of escape as the children and I were lying chest down on the soft grass of the lawn. One of the cops opened his car door and got out. His movements were careful and deliberate. He was half-afraid that whoever had fired those shots might be lurking out there somewhere, even though he knew the laws of probability stated the shooter had already fled the scene by now.

He picked up one of the gate halves and dragged it along the street, away from the driveway. The metal scraped loudly along the pavement in the quiet of the night. I realized he was clearing the way so they could safely pull their cruisers into the driveway.

I looked over at the kids and whispered, “I need you to do me a favor.”

I heard one of the squad cars creeping up the drive. I lead them to the back of the house and found a sliding glass patio door near the covered swimming pool. Just for the hell of it, I attempted to open it in the traditional manner. But of course, it was locked.

I was bracing myself to perform a roundhouse kick to take the door down when I heard something click from within the door’s black metal handle. I remembered the locks of the front door when George had tried to open it. It seemed the apparition’s influence was still at work in this house.

I slid the glass door open for the children, then crouched down a little to get eye-level with them. “Okay, I need you guys to run straight ahead to the front door. There’ll be some police officers there—“ I looked the oldest girl dead in the eye, “I need you to tell them a man was playing with firecrackers upstairs and you think he may be hurt. Can you do that for me?”

I know my eyes must have looked desperate and imploring. The girl nodded her head.

“But whatever you do, don’t go upstairs!” I added.

“Where are you going?” the boy asked. He was getting scared and really didn’t want to go inside that house, especially without a trustworthy adult nearby, “I thought you were a policeman too. Why aren’t you staying with us?”

I winced. I didn’t know what to say and had almost no time in which to say it. One of the cops had pulled up to the front of the house and I could hear a car door opening.

“Alright,” I whispered, “I’m not a cop. But I
am
one of the good guys. Ya’ll already know that. Those cops wouldn’t like me being here, so I hafta go.”

And like a coward, I turned and bolted back around to the side of the house, sparing only one look over my shoulder to see the oldest girl ushering the other two children inside.