Four Ghosts Read online

  “Wha . .” he winces. The flat, rough sound feels like a tarnished coin plopping heavily from his mouth. Such utterances are rare, evidence of a complete loss of control. To strangers his oblation is misinterpreted as self-mutilation. He knows that to their ears his voice is crude and piteous, more animal than human; the pathetic grunt of a malformed creature. Varju has always believed—ever since he has been cognizant of such things—that his voice was not one meant to be tamed and twisted into words. Spoken language is a leash, the whole tongue a tether. With his tongue halved horizontally, he can still eat and drink with little to no difficulty. His grip on the phone tightens. “Where,” he taps “is she?”

  “3842 Sawmill Lane. In Brookbridge.”

  “Why?”

  Asher sighs. “I . . . I asked her to help me. With a case. I . . . I don’t know what’s happening. I’m sorry.”

  The man’s voice cracks on the last syllable and he clears his throat as if Varju doesn’t know what that sound means. He has never liked Asher Corsino and his greedy eyes. He has never liked the way the detective appears suddenly as if he’s stepped from a shadow to hover around his wife. He has never liked his pretentious hipster-heathenism.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  The detective says something else but Varju can’t hear him. He looks at his phone again and writes one more message: “If she is hurt, I will peck out your eyes.”

  Before the cop can respond, Varju ends the call. He tightens his grip on Mally’s leash and quickly taps a group message to his brothers, Serghei and Alexandru:

  “Samira is in danger. 3842 Sawmill Lane in Brookbridge. Bring something sharp.”

  Chapter Six

  Mally, Varju, Serghei, and Alexandru stand in the Kirkland’s backyard peering through the sliding glass doors of the patio into the darkened house for some sign of movement.

  Varju glances at his reddened palms. His brother’s looks worse. Sergei’s palms are candy-cane stripes of crimson cuts and white bandaging. Every entrance was hell-hot, every doorknob scalding. Even the window frames were molten. Serghei, who had never met something he couldn’t break, took a tire iron from the van and smashed it against the glass doors.

  The tire iron shattered into shards and sliced his hands open.

  “Maybe we should get some explosives?” Alexandru suggests.

  Varju shakes his head.

  “I’m kidding,” Alexandru replies, “mostly.”

  Palms blistered and aching, Varju signs at them. “I know how we can get inside. But it will appear . . . unpleasant.”

  A quick glance between the two blood brothers and Varju’s heart fills with fire. All three of them were adopted by Karel Kirilych, and he never made any distinction between his beloved boys. But Serghei and Alexandru, the twins, shared blood, shared human blood.

  Since his sojourn to the Carpathian forest, Varju knows that what’s in his veins is a little . . . extra.

  He has never told them what he discovered on that very cold day of blood and ice and shrieking. But then again, he never had to. It was obvious. The twins are both stocky, broad shouldered, with curly dark hair and darker eyes, flat noses and full mouths. Varju is tall, slender, green eyed and thin mouthed. He wears his straight, honey-colored hair long, and moves with a grace that is beautiful but otherworldly.

  They never asked and he never told, but it became clear that Varju is more than just human.

  Serghei nods and reaches into Varju’s dirty canvas bag, pulls out a squat mason jar of dark red liquid.

  He sighs. “You really want to do this?”

  Varju gestures: “Is there another way?”

  “Be careful, Var.” Alexandru whispers.

  He nods. Squatting onto his haunches, Varju massages Mally’s face, runs his fingers through her very soft, very fine fur. He locks eyes with her.

  I will be okay, my girl. I am going to change. But I am still your man. Okay?

  Mally chuffs, ears perked and tongue lolling.

  Varju grins, ruffles the top of her big head and unzips his jacket. He pulls off his shirt, kicks out of his boots and socks.

  On his back is a massive tattoo of the Sigillium Dei Aemeth, the Sign of the Truth of God. The sigil is a large circle, inside it a smaller circle, inside that a pentagram, and three interlocking heptagons. In the very center is a five-pointed star. Each shape is marked with some kind of elaborate script that Alexandru has no capacity to understand. His eyes throb with vertiginous anxiety. There is something wro—

  “Holy shit,” he mutters in awe. The lines are confusing enough still but, each shape is rotating clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, excluding the star at the center which is burning with a sharp white light.

  Serghei unscrews the lid of the mason jar, and turns his face away in disgust. Gently, he hands the container of foul liquid to him.

  Varju takes a deep breath, places the lip of the jar against his mouth, and pours the concoction down his throat.

  He grunts, chokes, sputters, but every drop must be consumed in order to call his Emissary. With every swallow his throat is scraped raw by the point of a beak, talons, bones.

  The pain corkscrews through him and the jar flies from his hands and shatters upon the concrete. Reeling backward, he falls to the frosted ground and writhes, screaming, convulsing.

  “Var--” Alexandru steps toward him but Serghei stops him.

  “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Varju rolls over onto his belly, his body wracked with coughing.

  He heaves, body stretched and pulled and bent.

  “Oh my God.” Serghei steps away from the sadistic spectacle.

  Varju’s mouth opens wide in an impossible corruption of human musculature. It’s like the way snakes can disengage their jaws to swallow prey twice, sometimes three times their size. The corners of Varju’s lips are so tightly stretched that Serghei can imagine them tearing, ripping upward until his lower jaw hangs open with no cheek to keep his face together.

  Suddenly, Varju throws his torso forward, hair flying wildly in the cold, and something large and black and wet flops from his mouth and onto the ground.

  “What the fu--” Alexandru gasps.

  Coughing, their brother stands and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The thing on the ground unfurls itself, flaps its great wings and shakes its rounded head. It blinks at the two men with tiny eyes of polished jet. Varju’s insides ache, his mouth especially. With his fingertips, he massages his cheeks. It is the way a man must give birth. Few men know they can. Just as few women know they too can impregnate. In the woods, Varju offered his tongue to all the Mysteries of Being and in return, a crow swooped down to the snow and swallowed his tongue.

  So Varju consumed the bird.

  The crow soars into the sky, to stretch itself, unaccustomed to flight after long years nestled in the man’s intestines. The bird lands on Varju’s shoulder. Small ruby beads of blood dot the sharp tips of the Emissary’s talons.

  Varju nods toward the house and crow squawks, then barrels toward the glass.

  Serghei and Alexandru wince in unison.

  Varju’s Emissary slips through the glass as if it were water. The panes explode in a rain of shrapnel.

  The bird squawks again from inside.

  Varju leads the way into the house. Serghei follows him and Alexandru behind. Across their strange brother’s torso, runes and words in pitch black letters skate across his skin.

  Stepping into the house, Serghei swivels around to his brother and whispers, “See, I told you man, that’s why nobody fucks with Varju.”

  ~*~

  A crash erupts from beneath them. Asher and McBride share a panicked glance. There’s been no sound since the empath went inside that room. Every attempt to breach it just results in more welts. There are burn marks all over Asher’s arms, his boots are almost entirely melted away, and there are even scorched holes in the knees and hips of his jeans from his attempts to break down the door wi
thout using his hands. McBride clambers from his seated position as Asher clomps down the staircase. Fumbling into his shoes, McBride leaves his jacket on the ground and bounds down the stairs. At the bottom he sees Asher standing rigid, with his Glock pointed at a tall man’s chest. Varju, the empath’s husband. If that wasn’t ludicrous enough, he has a black bird perched on his shoulder. Behind Varju are two stocky, dark haired men –twins— dressed in coveralls and greasy boots. They carry canvas satchels and their hands are wrapped in bandages.

  “Asher, what are you doing?”

  Asher’s eyes are locked on the empath’s husband. A vein throbs through the center of the young detective’s right temple.

  McBride has never seen Corsino so furious. He’s never even imagined such a thing being possible.

  “What if he’s here to hurt her?” Corsino growls through clenched teeth.

  McBride: Something is wrong with Asher.

  “Didn’t you call us here?” Alex asks, the edge in his is voice unmistakable.

  “Look,” McBride raises his hands and stands between Asher’s line of sight and Varju. “None of us knows what the fuck’s going on in this house, but we all agree we need to get Samira out of that room. Now. Whatever is happening in this house, it’s screwing with our heads. ”

  Asher grimaces, squeezes the trigger guard and holsters his weapon on his hip.

  McBride releases a breath. “Don’t do that, man. Let’s go--”

  He isn’t sure when or how it happens, but one second he’s looking at Asher and in the next, the tall man with hair like yellow fire, is on him.

  “Ash!” McBride rushes over and the black bird streaks from the man’s shoulder and caws right into his face. He yells, ducks, the bird pivots in the air and lands back on the tall man’s shoulder as soon as he stands.

  Asher is still on the floor.

  “What did you--?”

  The crow speaks: “I subdued him. He’s unwell. His consciousness has been corrupted.”

  McBride looks from the bird to the man and back. “Did that . . . what?”

  “There isn’t time to explain,” the bird says, its tiny black beak clacking softly with each syllable. “Just know I am Varju’s Emissary. Where is Samira?”

  “Uh . . . she’s uh, upstairs, in the master bedroom.”

  McBride blinks. There’s a gust of displaced air.

  The man and his Emissary are gone.

  The older detective turns to the twins. The other one, Serghei, his badge reads, shrugs. “We didn’t know he could do that either. You must be--”

  A yelp crashes through the quiet.

  “Ah Christ, what now?” Alex sighs.

  “You brought a dog?” McBride heads toward the basement.

  “It’s Varju and Samira’s dog. They take it everywhere.” Serghei replies, following behind him closely.

  The floor creaks with their heavy steps and although nothing about this house is normal, their presence is somehow comforting. Asher is too high strung, too on edge. McBride chastises himself, wishing for clear thinking, so he could’ve subdued the impulsive cop himself. In the kitchen, McBride opens the basement door. What little light sneaks into the gloom is absorbed and by the thick white coat of the Malamute standing stock still at the bottom of the stairs. Her ice blue eyes never waver from whatever it is that has her attention. Around her snarling mouth are dark red and black smudges.

  “It’s alright girl, it’s okay,” McBride says, holding his hands out in front of him as he slowly eases himself down the last few steps.

  “Her name is Mally,” one of the twins whisper.

  “Hey Mally, hi girl. You’re a good girl.”

  A groan from the left. The dog is holding up her front right paw. It dangles at an unnatural angle, broken. The fur there too is marred by the rusty, dirty stains and as he draws closer, realizes the smudges on her foreleg are fingerprints.

  A few feet ahead of the motley group is something out of a horror movie. It was once a man, but is now some skinless, burned mockery of human physiology. The eyes are gone, sockets blackened and crisped. Its head is tilted to the left as if listening for something. And although its lips are gone, the muscles bunched around its jaws and the sharp gleam of its teeth tells McBride that the thing is smiling.

  “What the fuck is that?” One of the twins asks.

  “That,” McBride says, unsure of how he knows but knowing it is the truth, “used to be the man who lived here. That used to be Jayson Kirkman.”

  Mally snarls as the monstrosity takes slow, deliberate steps toward them. McBride reaches for his piece but grabs a handful of air.

  “Shit!”

  Behind him the twins rifle in their canvas bags. Alex pulls out a long lead pipe and Serghei stretches a length of garrote wire between his meaty, sliced up hands.

  “Step aside, Detective.” Alex and Serghei simultaneously move in front of him.

  McBride reaches down and pulls the dog back with him. The thing that used to be Jayson Kirkman growls.

  “Watch Mally!” Serghei calls.

  “Yeah!”

  Unthinking, McBride reaches beneath the dog and with one arm tucked in front of her back legs and the other tucked against her forelegs; he heaves her up from the ground. She whimpers, struggles. She’s heavy, the sort of dog meant to carry and pull weighty items over treacherous terrain. But, with the damaged paw, there’s no way she’ll make it up the stairs. Adrenaline sluicing through him, he runs up the stairs as soon as he hears a thick thud and the beast screams.

  Mally barks, her lips curl back from her incredibly white teeth.

  “No, no. This isn’t for us sweetie. Gotta get you out of here.”

  ~*~

  “By his stripes, you are healed!” Samira’s mother says giddily, and scrapes the point of the scissors across the girl’s bare belly. Shirt bunched beneath her chin, dozens of superficial cuts score the tight globe of her stomach. Samira winces, struggles, but her mother’s weight is deceptive. She can barely breathe; after all, the woman is the concentrated incarnation of nothing. A black hole. The heaviest phenomena in the known universe.

  “Are you trying to get away? Tsk, tsk. That will cost you an eye, my love.”

  The cool tip of the blade pinches the corner of Samira’s left eye.

  “Now don’t move, honey or I’ll miss.”

  Samira clenches her eyes shut as the sharp point digs into the tender skin. She yelps, presses her lips together to keep from screaming. The blood springs instantly, the pain hot and penetrating.

  “Open your eyes, Samira.” Her mother grabs her chin, holds her head still. “I’ve something to show you.”

  “Just fucking end this!”

  Before Jacaranda can respond, a caw slices through the air. Samira opens her eyes, keeps the left one squinted closed as blood streams into the juncture of her eyelids and spreads across her vision. The bird shrieks again, the sound somewhere above them.

  With one eye she looks toward the ceiling.

  A black bird soars through the room, swivels, and dives toward Jacaranda. Surrounding the bird is a soft patina of silvery light outlining its form like a halo. With every arc of its great wings, the light scintillates and sends bursts of color through the air.

  “Varju!” Never has a name sounded so triumphant.

  Her mother looks up and the bird crashes into her face with a loud slap. Jacaranda drops the scissors and grapples with the black blur. Samira sits up, stomach stinging, eye swollen, and runs to the door.

  Behind her, the crow caws a shrill and enraged shriek that chills her to the core. Moments pass and the sound of their scuffle is silenced.

  “An Emissary? How dramatic.”

  The words are strangled between Jacaranda’s lips; there are extra sounds, somehow spongy and malformed. Samira turns, sees the dying bird pinned to the ground, long tailor shears embedded in its chest. Its mouth opens, closes, and is still. She leans her back against the door, blinks away hot tears that burn in
the gash beside her eye.

  “You think the interventions of that wingless fuck mean something?”

  Jacaranda’s raw jaw muscles glisten with every syllable. A pink piece of her lower lip falls to the carpet. It looks like a wet, detached pencil eraser. Shreds of skin hang limp and wriggling from bits of exposed bone. On either side of her gouged and weeping face, her hair drips blood. Everything Samira is recoils and, in a moment, Jacaranda’s eyeless visage is inches from her face.

  “Look at me.”

  Skin crawling, Samira can’t force herself to face her mother. Instead, she keeps herself still and stiff against the door, face turned away.

  Red hands on the black lapels of her leather jacket pull her forward then slam her back. Her head cracks against the cherry wood door.

  “Look at me!”

  Head throbbing, Samira turns to Jacaranda.

  “Remember what you did to me?” her mother asks. “Remember?”

  There’s a strange . . . pressure growing behind her. The wood bends. She can feel its contour against her curves. Jacaranda glances past Samira to the door.

  Two pale arms shoot from the door on either side of Samira’s head. She ducks, scuttles away. A pain filled scream fills the room. Varju stands before the door, wrath radiating from his Enochian form in an aura of silver fire. In one hand, he holds Jacaranda up from the floor by the neck; the other hand is buried wrist-deep into the meat of her chest.

  “Varju,” Samira breathes.

  Please, please let this be over . . .

  A sucking sound, a final, piercing cry; Samira winces and turns away and shudders as she hears a gelatinous plop.

  Standing up, she forces herself to look.

  Jacaranda lies in a crumpled heap on the floor, a fist-sized hole in her chest, her black-blotted heart discarded beside her body.

  ~*~

  Her blood is warm. Oily. He turns away from the lifeless void to his wife. Rage boils through him as his eyes devour her wounds. Shaking, he is afraid that he will not be able to control the vengeance about to pour out of him.

  He signs: “Samira, leave me.”