The Seal of Solomon (22 page)

But I figured I might be able to worm some clues out of this old lady. I didn't believe she didn't know where Mike was. Maybe if I was nice and ate some of her pie she would let down her guard some and tell me where he was hiding.

I took a big bite of pie as she stood over me, smiling sweetly, and I have to admit there was a little pain in my heart because everything seemed so normal. You don't realize how much normal, boring things like eating pie late at night in a warm kitchen matter until those things are taken from you.

Something crunched in my mouth. Thinking I must have bitten into a piece of stem, I reached in and pulled out a long gray stick. It didn't look like wood, though. It was jagged on one end and dangling from the other by a glistening piece of tissue was a partially chewed eyeball.

I dropped the small bone onto the table and shoved myself away, knocking the chair over, my stomach heaving as I spat and gagged and tears burned in my eyes. My tongue was covered with fuzz and I frantically scraped it with my fingernail, bringing out tufts of orange and white fur.

“What's the matter, Alfred?” she asked. “Don't you like cats?”

There wasn't time to indulge myself in nausea. I ripped the mini-3XD from my pocket and took aim at her round, doll-shaped head.

“Where is he?” I demanded in a loud, high-pitched voice. “Where's Op Nine?”

“Why, he went upstairs, dear.”

I started to back out of the room, keeping the gun pointed at her. “You're not Mike Arnold's mom,” I said.

She didn't say anything. Her blue eyes danced and behind those eyes I recognized something. Something I had seen in the Sahara. Something that
knew
me.

“There are many rooms upstairs, Alfred,” she whispered. “One door but many rooms. A person should be careful which room he enters.”

She made no move to stop me. I turned and ran through the formal dining room, whipping around the corner toward the stairs where the yard gnome still kept guard. I kicked it as hard as I could and started up the stairs. Then something grabbed my pants leg. I felt long claws or nails sinking into my ankle, and I didn't have to look to know it was the gnome or something posing as a gnome, and I thought that was particularly fiendish and nasty, posing as something that was supposed to protect people from evil spirits.

Op Nine had told me back in the desert that if you looked into their eyes they would know what you feared and loved.

I was about to find out exactly what he meant.

38

I took the stairs two at a time, hardly feeling the gnome's claws digging into my flesh. I stopped about halfway up and, holding my breath, aimed at the little grayish green cap near my leg. I fired the 3XD, certain I was going to lame myself. But my shot was true—the muzzle was only a few inches from its head—and the thing blew apart into flecks of black and orange and gold.

I started back up. At the top of the landing the very thing I expected to find was there: another yard gnome.

I didn't hesitate. I pointed the barrel of the demon blaster right at its enigmatic little smile and wasted it.

Behind me I could hear little scratching noises and tiny voices whispering, though I couldn't make out the words. More gnomes. I didn't want to use up the entire clip on gnomes, so I made a beeline toward the end of the upstairs hallway.

She had been telling the truth about one thing, at least. There was only one door up here, at the end of the hall, which I knew wasn't the normal setup in house plans, and I remembered Op Nine saying in the briefing at headquarters how some demons can alter reality.

The old Alfred Kropp would have hesitated at that door. Maybe even under these very weird circumstances I would have knocked, but the old me had been scooped out hollow by a demon and the new me wasn't about to let the same thing happen to Op Nine.

“Saint Michael,” I whispered softly. “Protect me.”

Then I kicked the door right off its hinges.

I whipped the 3XD in an arc, like I'd seen on a hundred cop shows and movies, my left hand gripping my right wrist.

I was standing in a hospital room. The room was empty, the bed neatly made, and the only sound was the TV on its wall mount opposite the bed.
The Price Is Right
was on. I had been in this room before, and my first thought was,
It's a lie. Don't
panic. It's another lie.
I didn't know what the deal was with this room, but I didn't have time to puzzle over it. I had to find Op Nine. I turned, and when I turned she called out to me.

“Alfred.”

I froze. I knew that voice. It had been a long time since I had heard it, but since it was the first voice I had ever heard, I recognized it immediately.

It was a trick. I knew it was a trick and I knew Op Nine was still somewhere in the house and his only hope of survival lay in Alfred Kropp keeping his focus, but something made me turn back. I guess it was hope that made me turn back. I was about to find out they could use that against you too.

The bed wasn't empty anymore.

“Ah, come on,” I said to the person in the bed. “This isn't fair.”

“Sit down, Alfred,” Mom said. “We need to talk.”

“I'm not going to sit down,” I said. “I need to find Op Nine.”

“There is no such person. Now stop being silly and sit down.”

“If there's no such person,” I said, “then how'd I get this?” I showed her the 3XD. My hand was shaking.

“Alfred, you know how.”

I lowered the weapon. I knew the smart thing to do at that point. And the longer I let her talk, the harder the smart thing to do would be, but how does anyone in his right mind blow away his own mother?

I swallowed hard. “You're going to tell me I'm dreaming.”

“You are dreaming.”

“It's all been just a horrible dream.”

“Well, of course it has. You fell asleep, Alfred, sitting right in that chair.”

“And I'm really twelve years old and you're still alive.”

“Of course, my darling.”

Tears shone in her eyes and I looked away. I always looked away when she cried. I couldn't take it.

“That's mean,” I whispered. “That's really mean. That's stepping over the line.”

I sank into the chair beside her bed and leaned over, my elbows on my knees, the 3XD now hanging loosely in my hand.

“Alfred, I'm all you have.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“All you have in the world. Of course you would dream of being a hero, a brave knight riding to my rescue. But you know such things don't really exist, don't you, baby? Holy swords and demonic yard gnomes, Alfred? You know it can't be real.”

I nodded.

“Alfred, your father wasn't a business tycoon or the last son of Lancelot. He was a big-headed, long-haul truck driver named Herman.”

“My dad . . . my dad was a trucker?”

“Watermelons. Doesn't that make more sense than what you've been dreaming?”

I nodded. “You bet it does.”

“And isn't that what you want most of all, Alfred? For everything to make sense?”

I lifted my head and looked at her. The same skeletal face, the same deep-set, black-ringed eyes, the same yellowish skin and thin gray lips pulled back from her teeth. Just like four years ago (if it really was four years ago), it was Mom and it wasn't Mom.

“So what do I do now?” I asked.

“Wake up, honey. That's all. Just . . . wake up.”

She smiled at me, and it was
her
smile, my mom's smile.

“It isn't right,” I mumbled. “It's not
fair
. You're all that I had—why did you leave me alone? I'm so sick of being alone—I don't want to be alone anymore!”

“Alfred, I know, I know,” she cried. “But you have to be strong for me, baby. I need you now. All we have is each other, and I need you to be strong for me now.”

I nodded. “Okay. Okay, Mom. I can . . . I can be strong . . .”

“Then you have to wake up, Alfred.”

“How—how do I do that? How do I wake up?”

“Look.”

She pointed toward the door. I had kicked it off its hinges—I distinctly remembered kicking it off its hinges—but now it was whole again and closed, and sprawled on the floor with his back against it was Op Nine, his chin against his chest so I couldn't see his face.

“These are the dreams we dream,” Mom whispered.

“The worst that come before waking.”

“I don't understand,” I said. But I did understand. I stood up and walked over to him. I saw his chest rise and fall. He was alive.

“You must choose now, Alfred,” she said behind me. Her voice was sad and soft and sounded very far away. “Between the waking and the dream. I know you don't want to wake up. Waking up means you have to face the fact I might die— but I need you now. Please don't abandon me, Alfred, my baby. Please wake up and take care of me.”

I raised the 3XD that didn't exist and pointed it at the top of the head of the OIPEP operative, the Superseding Protocol Agent, who also didn't exist. It wasn't murder. How could it be? He didn't exist. None of it did. I was just a twelve-year-old kid who couldn't face the fact that his mother was dying. Enough fooling around. I needed to wake up.

“Well,” she said sharply. “What are you waiting for, Alfred?” “That which must be done,” I whispered. I took a deep breath, pivoted around, and swung the barrel of the demon-blaster toward the face of my mother.

“If this is just a dream—if this isn't real—then this won't hurt at all.”

I squeezed the trigger.

39

There was no blood, just a blinding flash of white and orange, flecked with black, and a huge distorted face shot out of the fireball, zooming across the room toward me, its mouth a yawning blackness, an abyss that swallowed me and a roaring voice boomed inside my head,
THOU CANNOT ESCAPE
US, FOR WE ARE INSIDE THEE ALREADY!

I heaved Op Nine to his feet, pulling his arm around my shoulders. He moaned against my chest. I pulled him into the hallway, my body turned at an angle so I could point the 3XD into the hospital room—only it wasn't a hospital room anymore but a maelstrom of interlaced spinning wheels of fire. I wasn't sure what
that
was about.

I headed toward the stairs, then stopped. A wave of twisting, squirming black creatures about the size of my fist was barreling toward us.

A wave of scorpions, millions of them, their three-inch tails hissing and whipping, smashed against our ankles and rose to our knees. Their barbs stabbed through my pants again and again as I pushed Op Nine through the undulating river of their swarming bodies. The pain was excruciating, but I told myself they weren't real; that if my mind held we'd make it out okay.

Then the river parted and the scorpions disappeared into the cracks and crevices of the walls. We were halfway to the stairs when the walls began to sag as if they were melting, and faces began to emerge in the undulating plaster. I saw my mother and Bernard Samson, Uncle Farrell, and Lord Bennacio. I saw the faces of all the people who died because of me and they didn't say anything, but their eyes were sad and filled with the loss of betrayal. I lowered my eyes and kept moving.

I came to the head of the stairs, but the stairs were gone. We were teetering on the edge of a black chasm and I could actually see rivulets of light pouring down into it, like water over falls, and something very hot was bearing down on us from behind. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck curl and singe, and tasted acrid smoke on my tongue. I shook Op Nine as hard as I could and shouted in his ear, “This would really be a good time for you to wake up!” But he didn't.

“Not real,” I muttered. “Not real.”

I couldn't go back, but this was the worst thing yet, so I couldn't go forward either. We teetered on the edge while the heat grew more intense behind us. Something told me if I turned around to face it, we were lost. I closed my eyes, took a huge breath, and whispered, “Let go. Let go.
Let go
.”

I wrapped both arms around Op Nine and jumped into the chasm.

We tumbled into the utter darkness until we smacked at the bottom of the stairs.

Looming in the open doorway was a ten-foot-tall being of shimmering golden light, a demon without the masks of my mom or Mike's mom. It had assumed its true form, and its face was more beautiful than anything nature gave us ordinary people, only the eyes were black pits, black as the chasm I just fell through, as if something had torn or burned them away.

“We're leaving,” I gasped at it. “Let us pass.”

It didn't move. I felt something squeezing the inside of my head, like when Paimon raised its fist and popped the agent named Bert like a human grape.

Then its voice:
Bring us the Seal.