Sorrow's Point (14 page)

“Is that what you call it?” Tor asked.

“Jimmy, you never change.” Tabby said.

I smiled. “That’s not true, I left the church for you, didn’t I?”

She was quiet then. I had rendered her speechless, not out of spite, but simply because I told the truth. If Tabby hadn’t come along, I would probably still be a priest. But I had stopped thinking about the past a long time ago.

The thing I knew about thinking about the past was that it did nothing but slow you down. I did my own share of dwelling, I’ll not deny it, but I came out of it stronger once I realized that the dwelling was taking my strength and leaving me with strength for nothing else.

###

Finally, a little after five, Will showed up. He clumped into the house through the back door with bags and boxes. He was completely out of breath.

“What took so long?” Tor asked.

I jumped up from the table and helped Will with some of the packages. After we got the bags and boxes into some sort of cohesive arrangement on the floor, Will threw himself into a kitchen chair.

“Costco didn’t have the camera system. I ended up going to four different stores in order to get everything we need, and made a side trip to an AV repair place and got instructions on how to set up the whole mess.”

“Is it going to be hard?” I asked.

Will shook his head. “It’s not supposed to be, but you know how those things always work out.”

“Well, there are four of us, maybe it really won’t be so bad,” I said.

“I hope not.”

Tor sighed. “Do I even want to know how much all this cost?”

“Probably not,” Will said, an odd look in his eye.

Tor got up, served him a bowl of cabbage soup and sat back down at the table. She said nothing after that.

Apparently, their distress was coming from more than one direction. I didn’t want to pry, but it was hard hearing all of this. I was too close. Now, I knew about their marital problems, and there was a hint of financial problems. I hoped that the longer I stayed, they would realize that they were letting me know things I shouldn’t know, but somehow that seemed unlikely. Sometimes, I wondered if they forgot Tabby and I were even there.

Will ate in silence, but Tor and Will’s body language spoke for them. Although they sat next to each other, they made sure not to touch. It was strange to watch, and I didn’t want to, but something unwritten compelled me to watch anyway.

###

“Jimmy?” Will asked when Tor started doing the dishes.

“Yeah?”

“Want to help me get this set up?”

I got up from the table. Tabby followed. I figured she finally got tired of trying to help Tor, and being refused.

We dragged the boxes and bags upstairs. Lucy was eerily quiet. There wasn’t a peep of the noises.

Once we got to her door, Will knocked and opened it. “Lucy, honey? We are going to hook up this stuff, and then we’ll let you rest.”

We all stepped into the room. Lucy watched us, her eyes following us around the room. She seemed fascinated.

“Why not say what you mean, father?” Lucy said. “You are putting cameras in here to watch me, to see what I’ll do.”

Will paused. I could tell he was torn between knowing his daughter was only six-years-old and this thing making her speak years older than she was.

“Yes, Lucy,” he said. “We need to watch you.”

“Why, want some kiddy fuckers to see me, daddy?”

Will’s shoulders slumped. “No, Lucy. Why don’t you rest now?”

Lucy laughed, but it was a quiet laugh.

It was bad. Really bad. I just heard more than enough to give me the idea that she really was possessed. Six-year-olds just don’t talk like that.

It took over two hours to get the system running. To be honest, it could have been worse, but it was easily accomplished.

Finally, it was time to place the camera in the bracket and attach the cables. I volunteered to climb the ladder and do it. Will was exhausted from the traveling he’d done all day, and Tabby, well, I didn’t want her to deal with the pain of it.

“Tabby,” I said. “Just hold the camera, and I’ll let you know when I’m ready for it.”

Tabby held the camera for me. “It’s under control, Jimmy.”

I climbed the ladder. When I was ready, I motioned for Tabby, and she gave me the camera. I got it installed, all cables attached.

“Okay, turn it on. Let’s see if it works,” I said.

Then, I felt something push me. I clutched the ladder. Tabby screamed. The ladder was tipping back and forth across the floor. I felt like I was caught on an insane teeter totter whose focus was to throw me off.

“Lucy, stop!” Will stood frozen in the middle of the floor, his body straining against the invisible forces that held him where he was.

The ladder stopped moving.

“But, Daddy,” it said. “I was having fun.”

I got down off the ladder and looked at Lucy. She was smiling at me. It was one of the scariest smiles I had ever seen. Her bloody red eyes were narrowed, and her lips were pulled up too far on either side of her mouth, almost like a dog’s mouth without a snout. At first, it looked like the pupils of her eyes had turned elliptical, like a snake's, but when I blinked, her eyes were human again. Bloody, but human. Her mouth, however, did not change.

“Father Holiday and I are good friends, aren’t we?” she asked.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” I countered.

Then she laughed, and we left the room.

“Did you get that on tape?” Tabby asked.

Will grinned. “It might have scared the shit out of Jimmy, but yeah, I think I did.”

He took the DVD out of the machine mounted to the wall and replaced it with a new one. “Let’s go see.”

We went downstairs. Tabby and I headed for the living room while Will went to the kitchen to check on Tor. Tabby and I sat on the sofa. I was still unsettled by Lucy’s attack. Tabby, however, seemed unaffected. Of course, the attack had not happened to her.

Knocking me off a ladder wouldn’t have killed me, not from that height, so I was left wondering if Lucy wanted to scare me or if the demon only needed minor bloodshed to increase its power. Who would have known that me leaving the priesthood and becoming a graphic artist would lead me to becoming a demonologist. Who knew, if this worked out a certain way, maybe I could have my own TV show like
Ghost Hunters
. Nah, I’d never be able to live with myself for selling out Lucy.

Will came into the room.

“Where’s Tor?” Tabby asked.

Will coughed. “Tor says she’s scared enough. She doesn’t want to see it.”

I breathed out slowly through my nose. Was Tor really that scared, or was this more of her dramatic bullshit? I didn’t know.

Will put the DVD into the machine. While the disc loaded, I looked over at Tabby. She seemed thoughtful.

The footage picked up as the ladder was teetering back and forth. I suppose that for the beginning of the attack, the machine must have been booting up.

I looked at Will. He was standing in the doorway. “I think this is going to work.”

Will smiled, but it was a sad smile. “It better for what I paid for it. So, what now?”

“Now that we have the video, starting tomorrow, Tabby and I are going to spend time with Lucy. If I can get the proof we need tomorrow, I’ll contact the church then.”

“That’s it?” Will asked.

I sighed. “That’s all we can do. I can’t contact the church until I have documented proof of all of the requirements that need to be met. How long that will take, I don’t know.”

“And there’s nothing you can do to speed it up?” he asked.

“Nothing that I know of.”

###

Will and Tor retired early, leaving Tabby and I to fend for ourselves. We could have cared less. Tor wanted to avoid talking about anything to do with Lucy, and Will didn’t want to talk about anything but. After a while, I ignored them both. So, them going to bed actually was a good thing. It allowed Tabby and I to get our heads together for tomorrow.

We were hunkered down in the library. I had my notes out. Tabby’s dirty clothes were neatly folded and balanced on the back of the couch.

“So,” she asked, “how are we going to do this?”

I tapped my pen against my notebook. “Well, I guess we’ll just go talk to her. If she doesn’t give us anything while we are being calm, I’ll try to provoke her.”

Tabby narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you sure that’s smart?”

I shrugged. “It’s probably stupid as Hell, but we need to do something.”

“What type of proof do you want exactly?” she asked.

I thought for a bit and flipped through my notes. “Well, we need an exhibition of strength impossible for a six-year-old. You know about the language thing.”

“Explain to me again why our witnessing Lucy speaking all those languages isn’t proof enough.”

I took a deep breath. I had to handle this carefully. “Basically, it doesn’t help us that we aren’t exactly the type of people that the church would believe. Plus, there have been a lot of people who pretend to be possessed for their own sick reasons. So, we need proof that can’t be doctored.”

Tabby raised an eyebrow. “Videotape can be doctored.”

I smiled. “Not if it’s automatically recorded onto a DVD. We will have an untampered with time stamp. That’s the hardest thing to fake, and with modern systems, the time stamp isn’t just posted on the screen, it’s embedded into the code of the recording. I don’t know exactly how it works, but that’s the advantage of modern security systems. So, we get her on tape with this system, and we’ve got proof.”

Tabby nodded. “What else do we need on tape?”

“We need her to tell us where something is hidden.”

“How are we going to do that?” she asked.

“I’m going to give you my cell phone. Hide it from me in a good place. Then, when we speak with Lucy tomorrow, she can tell me where it is.”

“Don’t forget to turn your phone off,” Tabby said.

“Why?” I asked.

She laughed. “It would be kind of stupid for me to go to the trouble of hiding it, and it rings telling you where it is.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I can be stupid sometimes.”

She grinned. “Hey, you said it, not I.”

“You know, Tabby. I really missed you.”

She stared at me for a moment. “I missed you too.”

###

There was a feeling I got in the middle of my sleep. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but something felt awry, and not quite of this world.

My eyes snapped open. I looked at the clock. Once again, here I was awake at three-o-clock a.m. I looked over at Tabby. She was still asleep, but her body was restless. Standing behind Tabby’s sofa was a black hooded figure. It was immense
—
at least seven feet tall. I could not see its face, but red eyes peered out from underneath the hood. Its hands were skeletal, no flesh on them at all.

My body froze, not only out of fear, but the room was very cold. I didn’t know if it had come through the ley line or if it had broken Tabby’s wards on the room upstairs. Perhaps it was the physical manifestation of the thing that had been possessing Lucy. I did know one thing for certain: I didn’t want this thing hurting Tabby.

“The lord is my shepherd,” I began.

The thing snarled. I couldn’t see its face because of the hood, but something told me I didn’t want to. It swung its hand at me. It didn’t connect, but an invisible force did. I was thrown off the couch into a chair across the room. The chair broke underneath me. My whole body hurt, but I didn’t have time for the pain. Hell, I didn’t have time to breathe. I hobbled back off the broken chair, knelt on my knees and closed my eyes. I prayed to God to keep Tabby safe, prayed to send this thing back to where it came from.

I opened my eyes. It hadn’t moved, and I got pissed. I turned my head up towards it. “Listen, you overgrown bag of bones. I didn’t invite you here, and I sure as Hell know that Will and Victoria didn’t invite you here, so get the fuck out of this house! Your invitation is revoked!”

I panted. The thing disappeared with a loud bang. I hobbled over to Tabby and shook her awake. She punched me in the eye.

“Fuck.” That’s just what I needed, a facial bruise to match my other bruises. “What the Hell was that for?”

“You lived with me for four years, Jimmy Holiday. You know better than to touch me to wake me.” She sat up and rubbed her hand.

This was turning out to be a great night. Not only was I beaten up by a hooded fuck wit, but I’d been punched in the eye by my ex-girlfriend. What was next, a house falling on me?

“In case you are interested, a shadow person thing tried to eat your soul,” I said, huffing.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

She looked around the room and noticed the broken chair where I’d been thrown. “Jesus Christ.”

“Nope,” I shook my head. “Not Jesus. Jimmy Fucking Holiday.”

She stared at me like I’d just grown about fourteen heads.

“You got anything to say?” I asked.

She laughed. “You know you’ve just given yourself at least ten years in Purgatory.”

“Who told you about Purgatory?” I asked.

She lay back down on the sofa and closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened one eye. “Purgatorians.”

I got on my own couch and hunkered down. “Funny.”

###

The next morning, I left Tabby sleeping and went off in search of a bathroom I could use. I found it just down from Will and Tor’s master suite. I got my shower and tried to relax. I didn’t feel like asking anymore. I was doing my own thing now. If they wanted me to be a witness to their messed up lives, I, at least, was going to be comfortable.

Last night was a bitch. Everything that was happening had one thing in common
—
Lucy. Our moods were affected, the weird things: the note and the hooded beast thing; it was all connected. And how did I know the hooded thing was a soul sucker? I’ve never seen one. Hell, I only heard about them from that dream. I felt like I was caught between two worlds.

I limped around while I took my shower. My bruises were bruised and I ached. At least nothing was broken, but I still felt like shit. After my shower, I went downstairs, stowed my stuff in the library and went into the kitchen. I sat at the table and waited for the others to stir. I sure as Hell wasn’t going to go see Lucy alone, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted Tabby to go or not. Not after what happened last night. I rubbed my jaw where Tabby had punched me. It hurt.

Finally, Tabby wandered in and plunked herself down next to me at the table. “Done sulking yet?”

I glared at her. “No, I’ll have you know, I’m not done sulking yet.” I crossed my arms.

She rolled her eyes at me. “My God, you are such a big baby. Wanna grow up a little so we can get things done here?”

I picked up my shirt, revealing the bruises that had appeared overnight. My ribs were bruised, not broken, thank God.

She stared at my body. “Damn.”

“Yeah, and your soul swallower threw me when I prayed at him.”

“What made it stop?” she asked.

I smiled. “I cussed at it.”

Her features twisted, as if she couldn’t decide if she was amused or confused. “What?”

I nodded. “Yup, I cussed at it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You don’t make any sense, Jimmy. No sense at all.”

“I know,” I said. “But if I made sense, I wouldn’t be as interesting.”

She shook her head. “True, very true.”

###

Tor and Will came into the kitchen not long after. Tor went immediately to the counter and began pulling pans from beneath it. Will walked over to the table and slumped down in a chair. He was silent.

“What’s wrong?” Tabby asked.

Will wiped at his face with his hands. “It was a long night last night. Lucy was… active.”

I nodded. “About last night… there is a broken chair in the library.”

“What?” Tor whipped around, an egg in her good hand.

“A ghost threw me across the room,” I said.

Will stared at me. “Seriously?”

“It was standing over Tabby when I woke up. When I began to pray, it threw me across the room.”

“What did you do?” Tor asked.

I ran my hands through my hair. “I fought it. Eventually, it disappeared.”

“So, what do we do now?” Will asked.

“We get the proof we need for Lucy’s exorcism like before,” I said. “That’s my priority.” I thought about it for a moment. “Maybe Tabby and I will start sleeping in shifts.”