The Journal of Edwin Hale (Silver Thorn Book 1) Read online

  As Annie and her son disappeared behind a curve in the path to their mansion home, Howard turned his gaze to the worn medical bag.

  “You idiot! You almost blew the whole damn thing! You should have killed them both.” The thing in his head shouted as it started chewing at the inside of his skull. A bolt of lightning seared his spine and threw him to the floor, convulsing in pain. It felt as if he was being roasted from the inside.

  Is this how it ends for me? Grant asked himself as the sound of steam hissed in his ears. A second later, he realized the sound was not inside him. It was coming from behind the closed bedroom door. Anger was there in that room, and it was making sure its servant was acutely aware of the displeasure it felt.

  Such was his life for the past ten years. A brief moment of joy was so often followed by hours of agony. The visit of a beautiful woman and her son had caused him to let down his guard. Now, he had to pay the price.

  “Dat der jail bait for shua ole man! An’ wich yo recud, dey gonna put yo ass cuttin’ an shuckin’ cane at Angola!”

  Howard Grant cast a mean glare in the direction of the gigantic black man behind the bar. “What the hell is she doing here then?”

  “Owna’s dottuh. Che do any damn ting che want.”

  The Creole band played jazz as the subject of Howard’s attention bounced and clapped in time. She was a stunning young girl in her early teens, with a cascade of black hair swirling in a dance of its own around her head. She was barely dressed in cutoff denim shorts and a “boss man” T-shirt, bordering on what most of 1942 society considered indecent. In vivid contrast to everyone else out in that insufferably steamy night, not a single drop of sweat was visible on her deathly pallid skin.

  As his eyes adjusted to the near darkness of the bar, Grant looked over its other denizens. They seemed oblivious to the dancer, or anything else except the beer and boiled crayfish on the tables before them.

  The swamps and bayous of Louisiana were home to many foul, dangerous creatures and some of the deadliest resembled humans. Keloid scars disfigured faces along with missing limbs and fingers told the stories that words could not on the damaged men.

  Lack of steady, legitimate employment put many people in this area to earn a living doing what few others would do. Gator hunting and “makin’ shine” supplemented income derived from working the boats and oil fields. There were few boundaries that a man wouldn’t cross out here. The thought came to Howard that the “owna” must have been the meanest son-of-a-bitch this side of Hell if his daughter was safe amongst these outcasts.

  The scritch of a chair on unpolished wood drew his attention back to another patron he had not noticed who had been sitting in the shadows. Apparently, Howard was not the only newcomer here. The young man in petroleum tar-spotted coveralls drunkenly weaved as he approached the “dottuh.” Perhaps he had not been given the same warning as Grant had been told. The bartender was busy delivering another pile of steaming crustaceans to a table at the opposite end of the room. Grant had learned the hard way in prison to not interfere in another man’s walk to catastrophe. Yet, the compassionate side that had led him to become a physician too often overruled caution. So, he turned his attention back to the young couple who had moved from in front of the band and were headed out a side door.

  Suddenly, it was as if time had frozen. The music was playing, but the four men in the band were motionless. Looking around the room, all movement of any kind had stopped. Even an empty mudbug shell was suspended in mid-air between the plate on the table and its floor destination. A deep, droning hum slowly replaced the music as the lights dimmed. That is when he saw…the eyes. Scattered about the periphery of the shabby hole he found himself in were glowing pairs of eyes, like those of animals caught in headlights on a night-cloaked road. Panic set in and Grant tried to move his legs to run but, at first, his limbs were disobedient.

  Slowly, however, his body responded to his brain’s commands and he strode like a marionette under an invisible puppeteer’s manipulations. Just as his hand pushed open the screen door, he felt a downdraft of air from the ceiling fan that had started whishing again. Then a scream was cut short and muffled, to be replaced by a quick bark-growl, followed by a heavy thud as if someone had fallen on the worn cypress wood deck that wrapped around three sides of the building. The music started playing again and the normal sounds of a semi-legal drinking establishment surrounded him as the screen door slammed shut.

  A strange sound like a dog lapping water from a bowl pulled his head to the right and he saw the girl rise up from behind a bench. A thick stream of crimson fluid drizzled from her chin and stained the front of her shirt. In the flickering yellow light of the single bulb between them, Howard saw the man lying at her feet. A long trail of blood ran the length of a board as the last spasm of a death-throe lifted the body. A gruff, male voice shouted from the opposite end of deck to his left.

  “Damn it! Get outta the way, shithead!”

  Grant turned just in time to prevent a wooden crossbow bolt from impaling him square in the back. Instead, it painfully gouged a hole through the back of his arm and glanced off of a rib. Just slightly deviated from its deadly course, the projectile ended up with the tip wedged in between wall joints beside the girl. The adrenaline energized reaction honed in the pits of state prison kicked in, and, without thinking, Howard was on the assailant. The man must have been equally well trained, as he stepped aside and sent an elbow to hit Grant in the temple. A razor-sharp combat knife sliced the skin dangerously close to Grant’s jugular. His arm automatically went up to fend off another slash from the attacker and snagged a chain from around the man’s neck. A large crucifix was silhouetted against the white wall painted side of the bar before it dropped into the dirty, brown waters of the bayou behind him.

  “Oh, shit!” the man exclaimed as he reached up to the vacated space around his neck. Like screaming harpies from ancient Greek mythology, a trio of winged nightmares landed on the man and sank their fangs into his veins. Thin fingers interlaced with Howard’s and a little girl’s voice slithered into his mind.

  “Doctor Howard Grant, you have passed the audition.”

  8

  October 2, 1953

  I don’t know how much longer I will be able to live here or write in this journal. I hit father when he and mother were having another fight. He was drunk and accused Mother of having a pine tar nigger lover. Penny was crying so hard I thought she was going to die. I went and got between them. Mother got scared after I hit Father and told me to run. I went to Howard’s house. I don’t remember how I got there. Howard was nice to me. I wish HE was my dad! I also met Merrilee. Her middle and last name is Victoria Anderson and she lives in New Orleens. She is VERY PRETTY. She is also very strong for a girl because she helped me climb the big tree up to my room. I checked on Penny and she was still crying so I stayed with her until she went to sleep and I came back to write here. The sun is coming up so Bobby will be coming for us soon. I don’t know if I will ever write in this again and I am scared. Goodbye.

  “Mother got scared after I hit Father and told me to run. I don’t remember how I got here. I need your help, Mister Howard!”

  “I really want to help you out, Edwin but, well…I just can’t do much,” Howard apologized, shaking his head with anger and helplessness. “You see, I’m on parole and the last thing I want to do is go back to prison. That is why I have to be extra careful.”

  Eyes wide with surprise, Edwin started to ask his friend about why he was imprisoned, when he heard what sounded to him like a flag fluttering in a heavy breeze. He watched the man lower his head to his chest. Then, Grant’s suddenly fearful eyes slid towards the bedroom. Edwin’s head followed the gaze and took notice of a kind of grumbling purr coming from the darkened space. A sinister shape separated itself from the shadows and glided through the open door. As the figure edged into the faint light of the main room, it became more defined. There stood a teenage girl whom, Edwin guessed, was about the s
ame age as he. Long, charcoal-black, wavy hair framed her face, ending six to eight inches below her shoulders. The wide and dark wings that were her eyebrows accentuated the paleness of her complexion as the flames in the fireplace danced in her hazel eyes. A petite, round nose sat above an elegant, bow-shaped mouth that lifted slightly at the corners. It was a face that suggested a kind of mask, hiding some underlying mystery. All of this was barely balanced atop a long and narrow neck. The exposed parts of the rest of her body looked unhealthily sallow and thin. A loose, white blouse was tied in a Granny knot under her obviously braless breasts, which only served to accentuate them. A scandalously bare midriff above faded dungarees rolled up at the ankles revealed white socks and a pair of Saddle shoes. It is totally out of place and unladylike to be dressed like that, even in your own home Edwin thought to himself before realizing his own mouth was gaping open.

  “You . . . Merrilee?” Eddie stuttered.

  The teenage girl smiled.

  “That’s me. You must be Edwin Hale?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The smile changed quickly into a frown.

  “I am not your mother, Edwin! A simple ‘yes’ would have been sufficient.” Without taking her eyes off of Edwin, she addressed Grant. “I thought we had an appointment tonight, Howard? You know I don’t like surprises.”

  “Wait a minute!” Hale loudly interjected. “It ain't his fault I’m here! I had no place else to turn, and Mister Howard was kind enough to help.”

  The girl’s face became a threatening scowl as words came like an icy gust of wind from her lips.

  “Oh, really?”

  Unwilling to back down in his defense of his friend, Edwin leaned slightly forward and spoke in a sound as low as his voice box could utter.

  “I don’t know how they do things where you’re from, but around here, we don’t repay friendship with disrespect! You are a pretty girl, Miss Merrilee, but you’re not being as pretty to me or your uncle as I think you could be. You had a beautiful smile when you came in here, can we see it again, please?”

  Quickly, Howard jumped up and placed himself between the two youngsters before facing Edwin.

  “It is okay, Eddie. My niece is not herself until she has had something to eat. Her condition being what it is and all.” Turning to Merrilee, whose eyes had narrowed into something resembling those of a cat ready to pounce on its prey, Grant spoke in a conciliatory tone. “Sweetheart, I left you a little something on the nightstand in the bedroom. It should still be warm.”

  Edwin stepped to the side to see what the girl would do and, to his shock, she was already gone.

  “For a girl with a serious illness, she sure moves fast!”

  Merrilee sat on the garden bench as Edwin finished retelling the incident that had brought him to this point. In the back of Grant’s Jeep, on the way to his home from the sexton’s house, he had sat in silence, like a condemned young man on his way to execution. Merrilee allowed her heart to sink just a little when she heard the awful background story. It had filled her with an unfamiliar combination of loathing for Edgel Hale and pity for his son. She wanted to reach out and touch the boy and flood his mind with pleasant thoughts. It had been too long, however, since she had permitted herself to commune in such a way with anyone. The wall she had built brick by lonely brick between herself and the rest of the world was too thick and high for that.

  A whimpering from Penelope’s upstairs bedroom drew Eddie and Merrilee’s attention.

  “I’ve got to go see about Penny,” the boy said glumly before turning his head in his companion’s direction. “If I survive the night, would it be okay if I saw you again?”

  “I can’t promise you anything, except that it would be…nice.”

  As he stood up to walk away, Eddie felt a tingling sensation in his forearm where Merrilee had reached out and lightly touched it.

  Merrilee’s claws dug deeply into the windowsill until it broke off into her hand. Looking out the bedroom window of the sexton’s house, her eyes were able to see the faint yellow glow coming through the window of Edwin Hale’s bedroom. She had pierced her finger and placed a smear of her blood onto the soaked with tears handkerchief with EAH embroidered on it. As the dark and ominous Hale Mansion stood in the background, Merrilee had watched with spiritual agony and helplessness as Edwin Hale suffered his punishment. Ambushed, beaten to within a whisper of his life, and thrown, bloody and unconscious, onto the attic floor.

  The heavy thumping of Howard’s boots on the old floorboards announces his presence behind her.

  “The truck is loaded and ready to go whenever you are.”

  “It isn’t right, Howard.”

  “I assume you are speaking of the situation with Edwin. If so, I agree with you that it’s not right at all. Are you thinking of doing something about the situation?”

  “You know I am. But there’s little to no chance that the council would allow it.”

  “Master Vrana could act as arbiter and go before the Ancients to plead your case.”

  Merrilee dropped the shattered pieces of wood to the floor and turned to face her minion.

  “It is too early to involve others. As much as it pains me, I will let things go as they are for now.” As her eyes meet Grant’s, her voice lowered several octaves. “Your charge for now is to keep a close eye on this situation and immediately let me know of any serious changes to Edwin’s condition.”

  “As you command, mistress.”

  9

  November 1, 1953

  I now live in the attic. The big tree outside lets me climb down to what was my bedroom and get this journal and my cigar box I keep pictures and letters in. One corner is over the closet in Penny’s room. I was able to pry up the boards there so we can talk to each other. Penny is scared because father told her that Mother left us and went back to her family that lives in France. Me and Penny do not think she would do that because she loves us too much. Penny heard Father tell Bobby that he told the school that we had left to go to France with mother. No one will be looking for us.

  The heavy, intricately carved doors of the tower room were ice cold to the touch. The rope with its metal tag wrapped around the handles had been placed there sixty years ago by the police to mark a crime scene. The age-rotted fibers fell to pieces with Nikki’s slightest touch. This sent the attached chunk of lead with the number 11 stamped on it to the floor with a thud. Harley and her mother had come here because of the workers complaining of “a terrible smell, like something had crawled in there and died!” Nikki remembered the police reports that Harley and Cody had brought from Odette Taylor: Anezka Hale’s mummified corpse had been found sitting in a chair in that room.

  No sooner had the pair opened the doors, than they were forced to suddenly retreat and slam them shut again.

  “There’s no way that smell should still be present after 60 years!” exclaimed Nikki. “Maybe some animal did get in there, couldn’t get out, and then died.”

  “It’s not either of those things, Mom! It’s the evil itself that is still here. It has taken on a semi-physical form as an entity called an ‘Elemental’ and that smell is a manifestation of that presence.”

  “Is it dangerous or just nauseating?”

  “I don’t feel that it is immediately dangerous. We just shouldn’t let anyone enter here until we find a way of resolving the issues that allow it to stay here.”

  Nikki raised an eyebrow, amazed at her daughter’s insights and abilities. Sometimes, it scared the mortal shit out of her.

  ***

  The sweat ran from Edgel Hale’s face and fell in heavy drops onto the Persian rug under his feet. His eyes were wide and bloodshot with anger.

  “Damn it Annie!” he shouted. “Every bit of this is your own damn fault! Why didn’t you stay out of my business?”

  Anezka screamed her response to the accusations spilling from her husband’s foaming mouth, but he couldn’t hear it. All she could do was stand and watch as her eyes cloude
d over. The skin on the back of her head, calves, and arms swelled and turned blue-black. The deoxygenated blood was pooling at these lowest points of her body as it lay deprived of life on the tower floorboards.

  ***

  “Okay, Gaielos, this is one time I can’t have you fade out on me! Agreed?” Harley challenged the Shadow Lord.

  “I will only stay as long as the resilience of the portal allows it.”

  “Cut through the big words and bullshit! What’s the deal with all of this?”

  “There is a perfectly good, albeit lengthy, explanation.”

  “Get to it then!”

  “I cannot make it too easy on you! You cannot become too dependent on our generosity. I just need to know one thing before we begin.”

  “What?”

  “You must be completely committed in every way to this journey. You cannot bail out at any point, because this train slows down or stops for no one! The hormonally driven emotional turmoil of being a human teenager can have no effect on how this proceeds.”

  “My ticket has been bought and paid for by my father and grandparents, so I am on board if for no other reason but them.”

  Harley couldn’t see Gaielos smile, but the change in the energy that flowed between them made her feel his approval.

  Nikki stood in the open doorway of the kitchen and watched as Cody stopped on his way out the mansion’s front door and addressed Harley.

  “Whatcha doin’ sittin’ on the floor in the middle of the foyer like that?”

  Harley looked up at her friend and smiled, but didn’t say a word.

  “Well, I’ll be going over to Mee Mee’s after school to check on her. It’ll probably be close to dark before I get back here.”