The Suicide Forest (The River Book 5) (10 page)

“Good,” Roy said. “You may find it helps his grades in
college, by the way.”

“Really?”

“Helped mine.”

“How? Cheating?”

“I’d call it ‘enhancing.’”

“This isn’t helping my decision any,” Steven said.

“I turned out all right,” Roy said.

“What, you cheated your way through college? What did you get
your degree in?”

“Forestry. One of the nice things about the gift is it really
frees you up as far as a profession is concerned. You can be better than most
people in any field.”

“So your degree is bogus?”

“No, it’s real. I earned it. Plus I put in another twenty
five years with the Forest Service, which is how I learned how fucked up the
government can be.”

“Supplies you with a nice pension check every month,” Steven
said. “I don’t see you complaining about that.” Steven knew this was the wrong
thing to say, but sometimes he couldn’t resist Roy’s bait.

“I earned that pension,” Roy said, becoming irritated.

“And I earned my diploma,” Steven said.

“All’s I’m saying is that knowing how to use the gift
properly will help Jason while he’s in school, not hurt him. It woulda helped
you, but there was no getting through to you when you were in college.”

“No getting through?” Steven said. “I don’t recall seeing you
at all when I was in college.”

“That’s because you hauled off halfway around the country,”
Roy said. “And when we did see you, you thought you knew everything already.
You were a hard set skeptic at that point, not open to anything unless it came
from a professor or your text books. I was never going to convince you of
anything. It took Lukas Johansen to open your mind. You should be grateful
Jason’s not like you.”

Steven considered this. Roy was right, there was no way he
would have listened to any mumbo-jumbo during those years. His mother’s
Christianity had kept him shielded from Roy all the years he was going up, and
higher learning had kept the shield going for decades after.

“I suppose you’re right,” Steven said. “I don’t think I would
have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Jason doesn’t seem to
need that.”

“That’s because you raised him to have an open mind,” Roy
said. “And it’s happening to him naturally, as it would have with you, had you
been open to it. You worry too much. Meet with Jason and explain it to him.”

Steven thought about it. Roy had softened him up. Perhaps his
plan to wait a year with Jason was more for his benefit than it was for
Jason’s. Maybe Roy was right, maybe it would help Jason in school rather than
distract him. Jason was different than he had been at that age. He shouldn’t
assume he was a carbon copy of himself. Perhaps he could talk to Jason, and see
if he’d promise to complete college if he told him. That could work.

“Alright,” Steven said, “I’ll consider it. After we finish
with June.”

“I’m sure by now my doorstep and your shadow are great
friends,” Judith said as they entered the second floor sitting room. Judith was
arranged on the day bed in exactly the same position as they’d seen her on
every previous visit. Steven was beginning to think she slept on it overnight.

“I must apologize for meeting here and for not standing up to
greet you,” Judith said. “A touch of my arthritis has come on, and this weather
makes it much worse. I’m afraid I wouldn’t even be able to see you if it
weren’t for my wonderful medications.”

“No need to apologize,” Steven said. “We’ve brought the
mirror.”

Judith sat upright, her arthritic-ridden hunch suddenly gone.

“You haven’t broken it in any way, have you?” she asked.

“No, it’s fine,” Steven said. Roy handed her the mirror.

“Would you do me a favor?” she asked Steve, ignoring the
mirror. “Get me that cloth you see on the shelf over there? Third shelf from
the bottom.”

Steven walked over the shelves she indicated and hunted for
the cloth. It was a red felt square, neatly folded. He brought it to her. She
unfolded the cloth, and then turned back to Roy.

“The mirror, please,” she said, extending her hand with the
cloth. “I can’t take the risk of touching it myself. Most demons know me, and
several have a score they’d like to settle. This helps keep me anonymous.”

Roy passed her the mirror, and she looked into it. Steven
could tell she had slipped into the River, and might be entering a trance. She
turned her face back and forth, as though she sought different angles of view.
Her brow furrowed; she looked perplexed. Finally she withdrew from the trance
and lowered the mirror.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“What?” Steven asked.

“There are only two demons in here,” she said. “The lantern
showed three. The third is still with the child. And worse, it no longer has to
battle with these two for control. The demon has the child all to himself now.”

“I thought you said the mirror would trap them all,” Steven
said.

“And so it would have, provided my directions were followed
exactly.”

“They were,” Roy said. “We trained the boy exactly as you
instructed.”

“Then Aka Manah somehow tricked the boy,” Judith said. “He
makes the wrong seem right. The boy probably thought he did the correct thing.
The two demons trapped in this mirror were the stupid ones. Aka Manah is not
stupid. He’s been alive for thousands of years, has stolen many souls. Why is
he so interested in this boy?”

“What do we do now?” Steven asked. “Is the boy in danger?”

“He’s in great danger, more now than before,” Judith said.
“The other demons may know the reason. I’m going to try and communicate with
them. Bring me an item from the shelf, please.”

Steven walked to the shelf once again. “It looks like a top,
made of tin. Like a child’s toy.”

Steven grabbed the top and ran it back to Judith. She placed
it on the mirror, and once again entered a trance.

Steven jumped into the River. The top had changed shape – it
now looked like a glass tube, flattened on one end, the end Judith had placed
on the mirror. The tube rose out of the mirror, becoming thinner and thinner,
until it ended in a circle about a foot from the mirror. Judith was staring
into the circle. Steven watched as a bubble formed around her, an indication
she was entering a trance. Wisps of black smoke emerged from the glass circle,
and Judith leaned forward to inhale them. This repeated five or six times, then
Steven saw Judith ending the trance and coming out of the River. She removed
the top from the mirror and asked Steven to replace it on the shelf.

“Well?” Roy asked impatiently.

“The child would be valuable for just his markings, and the
fact that he’s gifted,” Judith said. “But it’s worse than that. He’s the
offspring of a demon. Combine it all, and it makes him infinitely more
valuable.”

“Evie is a demon?” Steven asked, shocked.

“I took you for smarter,” Judith said. “Not his mother, his
father. His mother mated with a demon. The boy is the result. The father is a
rival of Aka Manah. He not only wants the boy’s power, which is significant, he
wants the boy as an insult to his rival.”

“Evie must have known,” Steven said.

“There’s no question of that,” Judith said. “She was likely
saving him for the demon she mated with. That’s usually the arrangement.”

“Why?” Steven asked. “What did she have to gain?”

“It’s usually something like money or power,” Judith said.
“Something she needed at the time she mated, probably something trivial in
retrospect. Demons make it easy – they trick you into believing you want
something. Then they offer a ‘take now, pay later’ deal that stupid people find
hard to resist. Especially if the person making the deal is already on the dark
side, which this woman most assuredly was.”

“What can we do?” Steven asked.

“Very little, I’m afraid,” Judith said. “Aka Manah is
powerful. I don’t have anything that can take him down. With the other demons
out of the way, he’s free to pursue the child.”

Steven reached into his jacket pocket, finding his cell
phone. “I’m calling June,” he said, holding the phone to his ear. It rang for a
minute, then went to voice mail.

“She’s not answering,” Steven said.

“Try again,” Roy said.

Steven redialed and waited. “No, still no answer,” he said,
lowering the phone from his ear and replacing it in his jacket pocket.

“I’ll tend to this mirror,” Judith said. “It needs to be
stored in a special way to keep the demons inside. I have a hundred of them in
my basement. You two should go check on the boy.”

They exchanged hurried goodbyes and Steven and Roy left her
house, running for the car.

“I hope we’re not too late,” Roy said as they got in.

“What are we going to do if we’re not?” Steven said. “We have
no plan. We don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Just drive,” Roy said, “as fast as you dare.”

◊

When they arrived at June’s house, Steven noticed the white
Impala in the driveway.

“Evie’s here,” Steven said.

“I’m going to take that as a bad sign,” Roy said.

“What do we do?” Steven asked. “Just walk in? What do we say
to June?”

“Let me handle it,” Roy said, opening his car door. Steven
sighed and followed him.

At the front door, Roy was about to knock, but Steven stopped
his hand. “Listen,” Steven said, holding his ear closer to the door.

“It sounds like a freight train,” Roy said.

“We may be too late,” Steven said.

“Only one way to find out,” Roy said, and knocked.

Nothing happened. The sound behind the door continued. Roy
knocked louder.

The door flew open. It was Evie, covered in blood. Evie took
two steps back.

Steven could see into the room behind Evie. The walls were
red – painted in blood. It was though an explosion had occurred. On the ground,
behind Evie, he could see the legs of a body sticking out behind a chair.

“You two!” Evie said, raising her voice above the din.

“Where’s June?” Roy said. “Robbie?”

“It’s already begun,” Evie said, “you can’t stop it.”

“Who’s on the floor behind you?” Roy yelled.

The corpse behind Evie animated like a drooping puppet, and
rose into the air behind her.

“There, is that better?” Evie said.

It was June. She had been sliced repeatedly, so many times
that pieces of her were disconnected and her skin was covered in blood.

“June!” Steven screamed, and rushed the doorway. Roy grabbed
him, and held him outside of the door.

“Don’t go in there,” Roy said, holding him back.

“Need a better view?” Evie said, and June’s corpse slammed
back against the living room wall, knocking down blood-stained picture frames.
June hung from the wall near the ceiling.

“What have you done to her?” Steven yelled at Evie.

“Oh, it wasn’t me,” Evie said. “It was Robbie.” She smiled.

“Where is he?” Roy asked.

“In his room,” Evie said. “As you can see, he’s been a bad
boy. He’s being punished.”

“We’re calling the cops,” Roy said.

“Go ahead,” Evie said. “They can’t stop it either!” June’s
corpse fell from the wall and the door in front of them slammed shut.

Roy turned to Steven, frantic. “Use your phone! Call 911!”

“I thought you said we never involve the cops!” Steven said.

“June’s dead in there,” Roy said, “and god knows what’s
happening to Robbie. The cops will find out anyway, and I’m sure we’ve been
seen by neighbors. Tell them we were here to visit, and discovered her. We have
no blood on us, we won’t be suspected if we play it this way.”

Steven removed his phone and called. While he was talking,
loud bangings and screams punctuated the roaring coming from the house.

“They’re on their way,” Steven said.

“Remember,” Roy said, “we have no blood on us. That type of
murder, there’s going to be blood everywhere, including on the murderer. And,
we’ve called it in. They’ll take us in for questioning, probably separately, so
we need to have the same story. We found a book at the Goodwill in Burien, a
journal. We traced it down to June’s husband and returned it. We became friends
with the family. We came over today to visit. We knocked, got no answer, but we
heard strange noises, so we opened the door and saw the blood. Then we closed
the door and called the cops. Don’t mention anything supernatural. We’ll be OK,
but stick to that story.”

Roy walked to the sidewalk to wait for the police, and Steven
followed him. They heard the sound of gravel kicking up against metal, and saw
Evie’s Impala pulling out of the driveway in the back of the house. She was
still covered in blood. Steven could see a red handprint on the door where
she’d touched the car while entering it. She sped off.

“She’ll be the suspect,” Roy said. “They’ll go after her.”

“I can’t believe June is dead,” Steven said. “We’ve failed.”

“I’m afraid we have,” Roy said.

“We can still save Robbie,” Steven said.

“We can’t go in there,” Roy said. “We can’t afford to get
June’s blood on us. The cops need to see us as innocent, outside the house.
Even if we went inside, what would we do when we reached Robbie’s room?”

They could hear sirens in the distance. Soon a blue Seattle
police cruiser appeared at the house, lights flashing. Steven and Roy walked
toward the officer as he got out of his car.

“We called it in,” Roy said.

“What’s going on?” the officer asked.

Roy explained that they had come by to visit June and her
grandson, but when they received no answer at the door, they tried opening it,
and saw June’s body inside. Then they called 911.

“There’s also something very noisy going on in the house,”
Roy said.

“Noisy?” the officer asked, going back to his car and
radioing for backup.

“Yes, noisy,” Roy said. “It sounds like a hurricane in there.
Maybe something is wrong with the furnace.”

“Did you see any guns?” the officer asked.

“No,” Roy said, “but there’s blood everywhere. I think she
was stabbed. And her daughter drove off just a minute before you arrived.”

The officer asked for a description of the daughter and her
vehicle, and went back to his radio.

“Anyone else in the house? That you know of?” the officer
asked.

“Her grandson, Robbie, is probably in there. He’s 10,” Roy
said.

“Did you see him?” the officer asked.

“No,” Roy said. “We didn’t go in. We only saw June’s body
from outside the front door.”

“I’m waiting for backup to arrive before we go in,” he said.
“I’m going to check out the exterior of the house while we wait. You two stay
here by my car.”

They watched as the officer walked toward the house and
circled it. As he was coming back, a second police car arrived. The two
officers conferred for a moment, then drew their guns and approached the front
door. They opened it and walked inside.

The sound of the freight train was audible even from the
sidewalk. After a few moments, Steven and Roy heard yelling. Then two shots.

“What happened?” Steven asked.

“I think I may have just fucked up,” Roy said, lowering his
head.

“What?” Steven said.

Another police cruiser pulled up, and an officer got out.

“Officer!” Roy called. The cop walked over to him.

“Two of your fellow officers just went in there,” Roy said.
“We just heard two shots. I implore you not to go in there.”