Black Forest, Denver Cereal Volume 5 (5 page)

“
Jacob,” Delphie
pointed.

Like a silent movie, the apparition of four
women flickered in front of them. Their spirits were too entwined
in the entity to appear in full form. One woman held a screaming
baby in her arms. Shocked at the sight, Delphie took a step
back.

“
How…?” Delphie
asked.

“
I’ll try…” Using his
mind, Jacob attempted to remove the thread from one of the
children. When his mind touched the black thread, he felt a jolt of
dark power. He flew backward, hit the opposite wall, and landed in
a heap.

“
Jacob!” Delphie ran to
his side.

“
I’m all right,” Jacob
groaned and came up to his knees. “Try the salt water.”

Delphie took a spray bottle out of her bag.
She sprayed the salt water in the direction of the thread. The
apparition screamed as if she was burning. A woman spirit came
forward to comfort the child.

“
Earth?” Jacob
asked.

Delphie took out a container of dirt from
the Holy site of El Santuario de Chimayo. Reaching forward, she
dusted the black thread with the holy dirt.

Nothing. The evil black belts squeezed
tighter and the children began to cry.

“
Earth, water, salt, and
mineral. The forces of nature,” Delphie began listing the elements.
“I brought these flowers but I don’t think they’ll
help.”

She held up a few dozen white Shasta
daisies.

“
Fire. Maybe electricity,”
Jacob said. “Give me the fanny pack. I’ll take on the entity. You
free the spirits.”

“
No,” Delphie and Celia
said at the same time.

“
It’s the only thing that
will work,” Jacob said. “If I get its full attention, it should let
go. They won’t realize they’re free at first. You must help
them.”

“
I can’t make a tear to
the other side,” Delphie said.

“
You won’t have to,” Jacob
took the fanny pack from her. He strapped it around his middle.
“We’ll clean up together. You’re the spirit shepherd. Bring them
into the central room. Make sure to ask them if there are other
spirits in this house.”

Delphie nodded.

“
Don’t forget to protect
yourself,” Jacob said.

“
I grew up around evil
like this,” Delphie said. “I was like these spirits before Celia
and Delbert, your grandfather, saved me.”

“
I know,” Jacob
said.

“
You’ll be very careful?”
Delphie asked. Her worry was etched lines on her face.

Jacob clutched Delphie to him. Stepping
back, they shared a look. He nodded and ran toward the darkness.
Delphie looked at the spirits surrounding her.

“
Come with me,” Delphie
said.

As if she was a first grade teacher herding
her class, Delphie encouraged the spirits down the hall and into
the large great room at the center of the home.

~~~~~~~~

Monday early morning — 12:07 A.M.

Aden heard a child cry. Seth shifted
uncomfortably next to him. The policewoman Gretel stared at her
partner, Jeff, whose head was shaking from side to side.

“
What do you hear?” Aden
asked. “I hear a child crying. It sounds like Noelle. She’s calling
for me to save her.”

“
I see my best friend from
high school,” Jeff said. “Can you see him? He’s right
here.”

“
Your best friend shot
himself.” Gretel made an index finger gun and put it in her mouth.
“You know that.”

Gretel punched his shoulder. Jeff’s entire
body jerked. He turned to look at her.

“
Thanks,” Jeff
said.

“
Detective O’Malley?”
Gretel asked. “What’s going on?”

“
I see my partner,” Seth
said. “I know he’s not real but… It’s such a relief to see him.
Just to look into his face.”

“
I felt like that,” Jeff
said. “Your partner’s dead?”

“
Lung cancer,” Seth said.
“Eight years ago.”

“
Oh my God,” Gretel
said.

Gretel spun in place. She was about to take
off when Aden grabbed her around the middle and lifted her off the
ground. Her legs kicked as she fought against Aden. She let out a
string of curses and struggled to get her weapon. Her partner took
her handgun from her belt.

“
It’s not there,” Aden
said. “It’s not real.”

Gretel’s entire body seemed to take an
enormous breath of air. She slumped in his arms.

“
I’m going to set you
down,” Aden said.

The moment her feet hit the ground, she
tried to take off. Her partner, Jeff, pulled out his taser gun and
tased her. She screamed and fell to the ground just inside the salt
circle. Seth knelt down next to her.

“
What is it?” Seth asked.
“What did you see?”

“
My twin,” she whispered.
“Angie’s being tortured by the rapist who killed her. I have to
save her.”

Jeff sat down next to her.

“
The rapist is in Colorado
State Pen,” Jeff said. “We’ve been there.”

“
It’s using your love for
Angie against you,” Seth said. “Think Gretel, think. What would
Angie do? What would she say?”

“
What would Angie say?”
Jeff repeated.

Gretel nodded her head. Aden held his hand
out and pulled her to her feet.

“
Angie was stronger than I
was,” Gretel said. “Tougher. She always used to tell me not to be
afraid. That’s what she’d said when everything was happening.
That’s what she’d say today. Thanks.”

“
Sir?” Jeff turned to
Seth. “You seem unaffected.”

“
I’ve done a lot more
drugs than you have,” Seth said. “I know this feeling.”

“
Me too,” Aden
said.

“
This feeling, sir?”
Gretel asked.

“
Reality separating from
what I’m experiencing,” Aden said.

“
Here we go again,” Jeff
said.

He reached his hand out to hold Gretel’s
hand. Gretel took Seth’s hand. Seth took Aden’s hand and Aden took
Jeff’s hand. Standing in a circle, they prepared for the creature
to attack.

~~~~~~~~

Monday early morning — 1:07 A.M.

The entity fell upon him the moment he
stepped away from Delphie. Unwilling to do battle so close to
Delphie, Jacob ran down the hallway. The entity jumped ahead to
entrap him in darkness. Jacob slowed, surged to the left then took
off down the hallway to his right. He ran along the back of the
mansion.

Like a dark jelly fish, the entity pulsed
around him. At one moment, it was overhead. The next moment, he
could see it in front of him. Once or twice, he passed it in the
hallway.

With each passing moment, the entity grew in
size and power. Jacob ran past the back entrance to the great room.
Spinning in place, he ran toward the entity. The entity was
unprepared for his change of direction. He ran right through it. At
the corner of the house, he pushed open a door to the kitchen. The
ancient kitchen was filthy but tile lined and contained. He could
fight the entity here.

At the doorway, the entity grabbed him by
the shoulders. The darkness lifted him into the air and hurled him
toward the tile floor. With his hand out, Jacob used his skill to
slow his momentum. Back on the ground, he made it into the
kitchen.

The entity followed.

At the corner of the room next to the gas
stove, Jacob turned to assess the creature. The entity vibrated and
floated up and down. Thousands of tiny string like strands came off
its body and into the world. Even as the entity drew into itself,
evil power pushed out through those tendrils. If the spirits were
ever to be free, Jacob had to cut these tendrils.

Jacob removed a small propane torch from his
fanny pack. Turning on the gas, he lit the torch and moved toward
the entity. He aimed the flame toward the thin tendrils of dark
power.

The creature absorbed the hot blue flame and
seemed to grow in size.

Jacob flicked off the gas and retreated to a
tight tile lined corner next to the stove.

His mind whirled. The entity absorbed all
energetic intervention. Salt didn’t affect it. Sage smoke blew
right through it. Blessed earth had no impact. He opened four vials
of holy water and set them on the stove. He tossed the water in the
entity’s direction. Like the smoke and salt, the water went right
through the vaporous creature.

The creature laughed at his efforts. He was
not the first human being this entity had conquered. This was not
the first time someone had attempted to destroy this darkness. A
low choking sound vibrated through the walls.

Standing with his back to the wall, he
watched the creature condense into a nightmarish form. Almost
serpent, not quite human, the black smoke entity settled in front
of him. Pulsing tendrils of power and control came off its torso.
Jacob took ear plugs from the fanny pack and stuck them in his
ears.

“
Try it now,” Celia
said.

As if he was hitting a racket ball, Jacob
hit a vial of holy water with the palm of his hand. The open vial
spun across the room flinging water. The holy water dropped on top
of it before the creature could disperse. Through the ear plugs, he
heard the entity let out a high pitched screech.

“
Salt!” Celia
coached.

Jacob threw a handful of sea salt on the
entity. For a fraction of a second, the pulsing tendrils
retreated.

The creature flashed solid with power. Out
of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw the spirits of three elderly
men appear into the kitchen. The tramps’ spirits showed the marks
where a black tendril had been before Delphie had freed them.
Enraged, the spirits moved toward the entity. Other spirits
appeared.

Trapped between the enraged spirits and
Jacob, the entity attempted to return to its vapor form. Jacob
doused it with handfuls of salt and the rest of the holy water. The
creature screeched. It rushed toward the spirits but in its
weakened state, it was pushed back into the room. Stepping away
from the wall, Jacob moved toward the center of the room.

“
NO!” Celia
screamed.

In a flash, the entity consumed Jacob.

~~~~~~~~

Monday early morning — 1:17 A.M

.

Aden ran as fast as his legs would carry
him. They’d barreled down from Brighton at over one hundred miles
an hour with Jeff’s police cruisers lights wailing. Even with the
luxury of a police escort, he might be out of time.

Sandy had spiked a fever and was…

He wouldn’t allow his mind to complete the
thought. He just had to get there. He ran though the Emergency Room
and into the ICU. He passed a stunned looking Tanesha. Heather wept
silently in a chair in front of her bed. Jill hovered close.

Sandy’s mouth was open for the tube that
went into her lungs. Her lungs rose and fell with the pressure of
the machine. Her long hair was still in the cockeyed braid that
Noelle had given her. Her eyes were closed.

She looked so peaceful and so very dead.

He grabbed her hand and almost immediately
let go. Her hand was cold. Outside of the machine that kept her
heart beating, his Sandy was dead.

“
Oh Sandy,” Aden
whispered. He fell to his knees by her bed. His face pressed
against the blue sheets of her hospital bed. His hands went around
her body.

“
I’m very sorry sir,” a
doctor with a thick Indian accent said. “We did everything we could
do.”

“
How could this happen?”
Seth asked.

“
Her fever increased,
sir,” the doctor said. “Her kidneys shut down. After that, it was
only a matter of time. Her brain, well, baked from the heat. She
held on as long as she possibly could. I believe she was waiting
for you. But…”

The doctor shook his head and stuffed his
hands in his white medical jacket.

“
We waited to remove her
from life support,” the doctor said. “We figured you might want to
take the time to attend to this matter.”

“
What did you say?” Seth
asked.

“
We don’t expect her child
to survive,” the doctor said.

“
Rachel?” Aden looked up
from the bed. “But…”

“
Too much infection for
such a tiny baby to survive,” the doctor said. “She hasn’t
succumbed yet but we expect her to do so within the
hour.”

“
No,” Aden sobbed. “How
can that be possible? She was doing really well.”

“
Take your time, sir,” the
doctor with the Indian accent said. “When you’re ready, we’ll turn
off the machine.”

“
Seth?” Aden looked up at
Sandy’s only real family.

“
Oh God,” Seth’s eyes
seeped with tears. “I… I don’t know how… Oh God, Sandy.”

“
Sandy what? What’s
happening?” Gretel asked. “What’s going on?”

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Jeff pushed Gretel away from Aden and Seth. “Have a little
compassion!”

“
I have compassion. What I
don’t have is any idea what’s going on,” Gretel said.

“
Sir?” the doctor
asked.

Aden looked at Seth. Seth nodded. Aden
nodded. The nurse began turning off the machines. The heart rate
monitor screamed. Overwhelmed with grief, Aden clutched at Sandy’s
lifeless body and wept.

“
Aden,” Seth
said.

Seth put his hand on Aden’s back. A nurse
came in with the still, lifeless form of Rachel Ann. Seth helped
Aden to stand.