The Diablo Horror (The River Book 7) (12 page)

“This earth above her looks like it could collapse any
second,” Roy said.

“They don’t have any claustrophobia,” Eliza said, looking at
the girl as she turned her attention back to digging. “If the earth caves in on
top of them, they just eat their way back out. They need a path back to the
bag, to deposit what they find, but other than that, they just keep digging,
like worms.”

“But where did all the dirt go?” Steven asked. “They hollowed
out all this space, the dirt had to go somewhere.”

“They digest it,” Eliza said, “use it for energy to keep
going. Waste is some kind of gas.”

“You got that mirror, Dad?” Steven asked. Roy fumbled in his
backpack for a moment, then produced the mirror. While Eliza kept the girl
illuminated with her flashlight, Roy positioned the mirror in Steven’s hands so
that he could see her inside the crack, then dropped into the River. He emerged
within moments.

“I’ll be damned,” Roy said. “Same fucking pattern as Oregon!
I was wrong, it
is
Jurgen.”

“He could have had a number of these kind of operations going
when you killed him,” Eliza said. “Maybe they’re just running on automatic?”

“Someone comes around and collects the bag,” Steven said.

“That might be all they’ve accumulated since Jurgen died,” Eliza
said. “Who knows how often they collect the bag, might be once a year. These
dirteaters go slow.”

“Jurgen had some kind of organization under him,” Roy said.
“He might have animated these corpses years ago when he found them, but the
work of overseeing it was probably in someone else’s hands. Those other people
might be keeping his work going, keeping the money flowing.”

“Or, he’s still alive, directing things like before,” Steven
said. “We didn’t see him die.”

“I can’t believe he survived,” Roy said. “Not in the state we
left him in.”

“Jurgen must have taken the Agimat necklace from the ax man
when he first discovered them down here,” Eliza said. “I’ll bet he sold it to
someone, and that’s how it wound up at Eximere.”

“The question is,” Steven said, “did he know what he had? Was
he smart enough to remove the second half? Or is it still embedded in the ax
man?”

“Let’s find him,” Roy said, standing up. “He’s got to be in
here, somewhere.”

“Hopefully not buried under a collapse,” Eliza said.

They walked back to the room with the bag. They divvied up
tunnels, and each went exploring, looking for the ax man. They agreed to meet
in the bag room every five minutes.

Steven walked down the first of three tunnels assigned to
him, scanning his flashlight along the walls as he walked, looking for
movement. He found the first one at the end of the tunnel, facing the wall,
scratching at the dirt. It turned to look at Steven as he approached; it
appeared to be one of the boys. His face was ashen white, and Steven saw that
his legs were blood red and purple. His eyes looked filmed over, and he wasn’t
even sure if the boy could see him as much as hear and sense him. Steven backed
off, and the boy turned to continue digging.

Steven checked his watch; they’d hit a five minute mark. Time
to check in with the others.

He was back in the bag room within a minute.

“I’ve got one of the boys,” Steven said.

“I found another of the girls,” Roy said.

“Nothing for me, so we’ve found three of them,” Eliza said.
“One more girl, one more boy, and the ax man and his wife. Roy, you said you
saw him decapitate the baby?”

“Yes, I did,” Roy replied.

“Then the baby wouldn’t have been reanimated,” Eliza said.
“That means four left to find.”

“Alright, another five minutes, and we meet up again,” Steven
said, and they all turned to find a new tunnel to explore.

They returned after five minutes.

“The girl and the boy were down this one,” Roy said, pointing
with his finger.

“Nothing for me,” Eliza said.

“Me either,” Steven said. “So that leaves the husband and the
wife. And this is the last tunnel.”

“We’ll all go,” Roy said, as he marched toward the tunnel’s
entrance. Steven and Eliza followed.

After twenty feet and a sharp bend in the tunnel, they came
upon the lower half of a body sticking out of a hole freshly carved near the
ground. The upper half of the body was inside the hole, which wasn’t any larger
than the size of the torso. It moved slightly, the result of digging on the
hidden end.

“Which one is it?” Roy asked.

“I’m guessing the wife,” Eliza said.

“Should we pull it out, to be sure?” Roy asked.

“You want to do it?” Steven asked Roy.

“Not really,” Roy said.

The talking caused the body to stop, then it slowly started
to remove itself from the hole. One arm emerged, and they could see the hand
was missing.

“Definitely the wife,” Roy said. “I remember she raised her
hands to stop his blows, defensively. One of his swings took off that hand.”

“Let’s keep going then,” Steven said, and they turned their
attention back down the tunnel.

Another ten feet and they came to the end of the tunnel.
There was no sign of the ax man’s body.

“Damnit,” Roy said. “Maybe someone else got to him first.”

“They must have carried his whole body out,” Eliza said. “I
figured they would have just cut the wooden part out and left the body.”

“Wait,” Roy said. “Look!”

Roy had his flashlight pointed at the wall at the end of the
tunnel. About three feet off the ground, a small white stick was poking out of
the dirt.

“What?” Steven asked.

“I saw it move!” Roy said. “Watch!”

They kept looking at the stick, but nothing happened.

Roy walked forward and nudged the stick with his flashlight.
A hand shot out of the dirt and knocked the flashlight from his hands – it went
spinning on the floor.

Steven and Eliza zeroed their flashlights in on the hand. It
twisted back and forth, grasping at the air.

“Goddamn!” Roy said, retrieving his flashlight.

“He’s in there,” Steven said. “Let’s start digging him out.”

They all used their hands to claw at dirt surrounding the
hand, slowly exposing more of the corpse. Dirt kept falling from above,
covering sections that they’d already uncovered. Once they had the arm and head
exposed, they moved to his back and legs.

“Wait,” Steven said. “He brought the ax with him, when he
jumped into the pit, right?”

“Yes,” Roy said. “He had it in his hands when he jumped in.”

“And we haven’t seen it yet,” Steven said. “So he might have
it with him, in the other hand.”

“Good point,” Eliza said.

“Let’s just expose his back for now,” Steven said. “I like
the idea of all this dirt holding him in place while we cut the wood out of him.
No sense in freeing him completely if we don’t have to.”

They began digging over the man’s back. With his head free,
the ax man was making noises, but he wasn’t able to speak words. Occasionally
he would jerk his body, causing his free arm to go flying through the air,
catching one of them. Steven stepped on the arm, pinning it to the ground so
they could work at removing the dirt without him grabbing them.

Once enough of the back was exposed, Steven wiped at the
flesh with his fingers, trying to find the Agimat. The skin felt cold and wet
underneath him, and he was afraid it might rip apart at the slightest urging.

“It’s here!” Steven said, looking at Roy and smiling. “Look!
You can see the bump, right here on his shoulder.”

Roy looked where Steven was pointing with his fingers, and it
did look like a rectangular bump in the man’s flesh.

“I’ve got his arm pinned down,” Steven said. “Roy, do you
have your pocket knife?”

Roy reached into his pants pocket and removed an old army
knife. He opened the blade, and began cutting around the bump in the flesh.

“I would have expected blood,” Steven said, observing that
very little came from the wound Roy was inflicting.

“Blood moves around funny in your body after you die,” Eliza
said. “More so if you’re reanimated.”

The ax man began yelling as Roy continued the removal. They
were low, guttural sounds, not words, but they clearly expressed displeasure at
what was happening. As Steven listened to the man wail, he could hear in his
mind that same mouth repeating the words that held Jason immobile while Steven
raised the ax, the thoughts of the mad man bouncing around in his head. He
wondered if those thoughts were still inside the mind of the twisted abomination
he was holding down. His anger over Jason’s death returned. In front of them
was the man he considered most responsible. He’d figured the ax man was long
dead and gone, but here he was, trying to wiggle his arm free from under his
foot. Steven pressed down harder.

“Got it,” Roy said, sliding the small piece of thin wood from
the body and holding it for the others to see. “I think you should keep this on
you.” He handed it to Steven.

Steven took the wood. It was very thin, and had dark markings
on one side, similar to the necklace. He slipped it into his pants pocket. “Do
you have anything like a hatchet in your backpack?” he asked Roy.

Roy opened his pack and rummaged around. “No, but I have
this.” He removed a hammer.

“Give it to me,” Steven said. Roy handed the hammer to
Steven, looking up at Eliza.

“I understand if you don’t want to see this,” Steven said.
“I’ll meet you back in the bag room.”

Roy looked silently at Eliza, and he saw her turn to leave.
He followed her. They walked down the tunnel together, hearing the corpse yell
as Steven repeatedly brought the hammer down.

“Where do you want it?” Victor asked, holding up a scalpel.
“From a pain perspective, I’d suggest either upper arm or on your back.”

“Upper arm,” Steven said. He wasn’t going to place it in the
same spot the ax man had.

“Alright,” Victor said. “Take your shirt off and sit here. I’ve
got something that will numb your arm while I cut the skin.”

Steven stripped off his shirt and sat in the chair next to
Victor. Eliza and Roy watched as Victor lit a candle attached to an odd holder.
On one end of the holder was a lens, and once the flame was lit, Victor raised
the holder and focused the lens on Steven’s arm. Everywhere the light touched
turned dark grey. Once he’d made a large enough spot on Steven’s arm to
accommodate the Agimat piece, he placed the candle holder down and poked at the
grey area with his scalpel.

“Feel anything?” Victor asked.

“No,” Steven said.

“Alright, here goes,” Victor said, repositioning the scalpel
and slicing a horizontal line in Steven’s skin, followed by two vertical lines
below it. Then he carefully peeled the patch of skin down, using the scalpel to
separate the skin from the flesh below. When he was done, a flap of skin about
an inch and a half wide hung from Steven’s arm.

“OK, so far so good,” Victor said. “Now I need you to lie
down on your side, with this wound facing up.”

Steven moved over to a couch in Victor’s library and laid
down on it as instructed. Victor placed the Agimat half against his exposed
flesh and pulled the flap of skin back over it. Then he produced what looked
like a long, curved needle. He inserted the tip of the needle into the edge of
the patch, and he froze. After a couple of seconds, he removed the needle and
moved it slightly, then froze again.

He’s dropping into the River,
Steven thought.
That’s how he’s
activating the needle.

Once Victor had moved the needle over all three edges of the patch,
he raised himself up and exhaled loudly.

“Whew! Been a while since I did so much jumping,” Victor
said. “Guess I still know how to do it, though; that seam job is as good as any
I’ve ever done.”

Steven sat up and looked at his arm. The flesh had sealed
around the incisions. They were still red, but they looked healed.

“That’s going to hurt when the numbness wears off,” Victor
said, “which will be in about an hour. I’d start downing aspirin. You’ll be
fine by tomorrow. Might itch; don’t scratch at it.”

  Steven showed his patch to Eliza and Roy, beaming as though
he’d just gotten a new tattoo. “What do you think?” he asked.

“That’s a very impressive embedded Agimat,” Eliza said, half
rolling her eyes. “Makes you look tough. Tougher.”

Roy grabbed Steven’s shirt and tossed it to him. Steven put
it back on.

“What now?” Steven asked Victor. “Wait to see if the necklace
reverts to me?”

“Let’s start with seeing if you can detect anything,” Victor
said. “Close your eyes, jump in, and focus on the Agimat.”

Steven sat back in the couch and dropped into the River. At
first everything seemed normal. He saw the others joining him. He thought about
his arm, imagining how the Agimat looked before Victor embedded it. Nothing
happened. He tried thinking about the other half, the necklace.

He suddenly felt as though he was racing down a tunnel
backwards. He saw looks of concern pass over Eliza and Roy’s faces; Victor
didn’t share their worry. He felt himself pulled away, pulled into the tunnel,
their faces now at the far end, becoming specks. White tiles lining the walls
of the tunnel raced past him at incredible speed. Then the white changed to
yellow, and slowly to green. He felt himself turning in the tunnel, rotating to
face the direction he was heading. He knew Eliza had moved toward him to touch
him, but Victor had stopped her. He was moving far too quickly for her to ever
reach him. Green turned to red and then blue, and he felt as though his body
might start to come apart from the tug pulling him forward. The blue darkened
and became black, and he soon lost any sense of movement, just a rushing darkness
all around.

Did I just die?
he wondered.
Was that the tunnel of light everyone talks
about?

Then, a tiny point of light in the distance caught his
attention. It slowly enlarged, and Steven felt himself pulled toward it. As it grew,
he could see it was a place – the inside of a room. The point enlarged until it
became all that Steven could see. The room was large, and had walls made of stone,
covered with beautiful tapestries. There were glass cases in front of him, and
inside the cases were objects lying on glass shelves. He tried to move his
point of view, but couldn’t. The view shifted to the right, another set of
glass cases. Steven looked at the objects inside, and recognized one – an
object he’d given to Aka Manah. Then the image shifted again, and he was moving
out of the room with the cases, walking down a long hallway. Large windows were
on the left, illuminating more tapestries that hung from several stories high
on his right. A huge set of wooden doors at the end of the hallway were already
open, leading to an entryway with a large, curving staircase and a huge
chandelier.

How do I get out of this?
he wondered. He thought about the wooden Agimat
embedded in his arm. He pictured the symbols that were on it, and within
seconds he felt as though his ribs were pulled backward, the rest of his body
trying to keep up. The blackness returned, then the blue and red. He turned,
and saw Victor’s apartment approaching. A few more seconds and he was sitting
on the couch. He opened his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Roy asked. Steven looked up at Eliza and
Roy. They both looked concerned.

“I’m fine,” Steven said, holding his arms out in front of
himself to check. “I’m OK.”

“You faded,” Eliza said. “Your body began to disappear.”

“Really?” Steven asked.

“What happened?” Victor asked. “Did you feel anything? See
anything?”

“I was pulled down a tunnel,” Steven said. “When I got to the
end of it, I could see images. Glass cases with objects. A large room with
tapestries on the walls. I couldn’t control what I was seeing.”

“I think,” Victor said, “you can connect to the Agimat.”

“He’s wearing it,” Steven said. “We were walking from room to
room.”

“Yes, he’s not likely to take it off!” Victor said
enthusiastically. “He’s worried it will revert to you, as well he should be!”

“So you were seeing what he was seeing?” Eliza said. “Aka
Manah?”

“I assume it was him,” Steven said. “I never saw his body.
Just movement, looking forward, like a point of view. Wherever he’s at, it’s
palatial.”

“Many demons accumulate great wealth over the years,” Victor
said. “Any idea what country you were in?”

“No,” Steven said. “We were inside the whole time. I got
worried about how to return, so I didn’t watch things for long before I tried
to come back.”

“You mastered that very quickly,” Victor said.

“I just thought about the Agimat, and it happened,” Steven
said.

“Probably because of your markings,” Victor said. “Makes you
a natural. Most people spend years learning how to do it. Of course, the object
itself has this property, the ability to relate to the other, even relocate to
the other. You’re using the object’s properties to spy on the demon. As long as
he keeps wearing it, you can see what he’s up to. I think this confirms your
stalemate!”

“You mean, he’ll leave Steven and Roy alone now?” Eliza
asked.

“I believe the last thing he wants is for you to have both
halves of the Agimat,” Victor said. “My guess is you’ll never hear from him
again. He’ll wear it from now on, hoping that will help keep it from reverting.
He played with fire when he asked you to get it for him. Bad move on his part.
He must have really wanted it.”

“How can we use this to kill him?” Steven asked. “I don’t want
to monitor him, I want him gone.”

“He
is
gone,” Victor said. “He won’t risk you getting the
other half. He’ll stay away, hoping the issue dies down and you forget about
it.”

“My son misspoke,” Roy said. “We don’t want him gone, we want
him dead.”

“Ah,” Victor said. “That’s a tough order.”

 “You said with my markings, it might be possible,” Steven
said.

“And so it is,” Victor said, “but I’m afraid we don’t know
for sure. I don’t have one of Judith’s devices to know exactly what your
markings do. And we don’t know what the Agimat is capable of once both halves
are reunited. It’s obviously something very powerful for this demon to want it
so badly he’d risk you figuring it out. I’m afraid we won’t know until it
happens.”

“Which may never happen,” Eliza said. “Stalemate.”

“Exactly,” Victor said. “Which, I might point out, isn’t a
bad result when dealing with a demon.”

“That sounds a lot like something Judith would say,” Roy
said.

“The difference between Judith and me,” Victor said, “is that
I will tell you it’s a possibility, whereas she will not. Doesn’t mean I have
to lie about the odds.”

“You said there might be an invocation?” Steven said.
“Something that would cause the Agimat to return?”

“I did,” Victor said, walking to his book with the red
leather spine. “I’ve been looking into that. This writer was excellent at
cataloging objects and especially their relationship to demons and other
creatures. But unfortunately, his entry on the Agimat doesn’t say if an
invocation will work or not. Doesn’t mean one won’t, it just isn’t mentioned.
Invocations are a bit of a lost art. Most haven’t been used for centuries, and
there’s damn little written about them anymore. I would love to collect more
information on them, if it were available.”

Victor closed the book and walked back to Steven. “My advice
is for you to go home and sleep. You’re free of this thing. Let it all go. Rest
up for a few days. You’ve had something terrible happen to you, I know. You
could use the downtime to recuperate. With that Agimat in your arm, you’re
safe.”

Steven turned to Roy, and Roy looked like he was ready to
leave. So did Eliza.

“Alright,” Steven said. “I will. Thank you, Victor. I don’t
know how to repay you for all your help.”

“You can repay me by not telling anyone about me,” Victor said,
leading them to the door. “I’d like to remain as retired as possible.”

“Understood,” Steven said, following him. Victor let them
out, and they descended the steps to the streets of Port Townsend. The town was
dark and quiet. They walked to their car, parked on the street half a block
away.

“Back to Seattle?” Eliza asked.

“The ferries will be over for the night,” Roy said. “We’ll
have to drive around. You awake enough to drive, Steven?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m wide awake,” Steven answered, unlocking the
car for them. “No problem.”

Steven pulled his Accord onto Water Street and headed south.
It was going to be a long drive home.

“You feeling your arm yet?” Eliza asked. “I have some
painkillers if you want some.”

“Nothing yet,” Steven said. “But sure, I’ll take a couple.”

She passed him a couple of pills, and he downed them with the
remnants of a water bottle still sitting in his cup holder. Roy was asleep and
leaning against the passenger side window within minutes.

After twenty minutes, Steven realized he’d taken 101 South
instead of Highway 3 by mistake. Instead of heading to Tacoma, they were now
headed to Shelton. He was going to need Eliza to map him back to Highway 3.

“Eliza?” he asked softly, trying not to wake Roy. “Eliza?”

He looked in the rear view mirror. Eliza was out too. He was
the only one awake.

In two more hours, it’ll be almost three a.m.,
he thought.
Fuck it, we’ll stay
the night at Eximere, it’s closer. And I can see Jason’s grave again. They
won’t mind.

◊

When Steven awoke the next morning, he found Roy and Eliza in
the kitchen, talking and drinking coffee. He poured himself a mug and joined
them. They were talking about when Eliza would leave to return to California.

“I’m really glad you made an executive decision to stay here
last night,” she said to Steven. “I really can’t get enough of this place. I’ll
stay here as long as you two want. When I talked to Joe last night, he said
everything was fine back home, so I’m in no rush.”

“You know, in all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never known
what you do – for a job, I mean,” Steven said.

“Well,” Eliza said, “in a previous life I was a nurse. By
that I mean up until about ten years ago. Since then I’ve been a schoolteacher.
I fill in when needed, so it’s flexible hours. Not a lot of money, but it pays
the mortgage.”