Keep it together.
He leaned back into the seat, pressing his spine outward until he heard the muffled pops that told him he’d cracked it nicely. He sighed and leaned forward, arching it in the other direction the way that hot yoga teacher had instructed him.
He grinned. They’d certainly created some new and exciting postures after that class.
He took another gulp of water and felt his bladder size increase.
Ugh.
Soon was coming sooner than later he thought.
Curran wasn’t quite sure what to make of the scene before him.
A huge red pentagram had been painted on the floor. He stooped and examined the red. Was it paint? It looked too red to be blood. If it had been, the dried blood would have been darker — probably almost brown.
He stood, almost refusing to enter the pentagram itself.
And standing in the center of it was the most unusual sight of all.
Some kind of huge vat.
Another sense of deja vu rolled over him. Somehow this all seemed vaguely familiar. From the dream the other night? Had he seen it beforehand?
The weird markings covering it suggested a jar of great age. Curran chewed his lower lip. So much for Darius not being involved in Satanism. He sighed. Still, whether any of this had any real effect still had yet to be seen.
Not that Curran really wanted to see if it was effective.
I wonder what’s inside that vat, he thought. He looked down at the pentagram again and tried to remember anything he’d ever read about real magic.
There hadn’t been much.
Hell with it, he decided. I’ve come this far. Can’t turn back now because of what’s drawn on the floor of some guy’s cellar.
He stepped into the pentagram.
If Kwon had been trying his damnedest to keep control over his bladder, he just about lost it entirely when the door to Darius’ shop opened and the man himself came out and locked the front door.
Kwon sat up.
“Oh crap.”
He watched Darius walk around the store, down the small alleyway that ran adjacent to it. Kwon cracked the window. Over the din of street noise, he heard the engine turn over.
“Crap.”
He picked up the cell phone and punched in Curran’s number.
Darius’ silver Saab appeared at the top of the alleyway. He looked down both sides of the street, the pulled out into the street. A second later, he gunned the engine and shot down the street.
In Kwon’s ear, a female operator informed him that the cellular customer he was trying to reach was unavailable or out of range.
Kwon slammed the phone down, cranked his engine and shot out into the traffic behind Darius.
Nothing happened.
Curran breathed out, suddenly aware that he’d been holding his breath.
He almost grinned. What did you expect? A bolt of lightning?
The vat was close. Inviting, almost. Curran bent down and ran his hands over the outside of it. It felt warm to the touch and the texture seemed like some of the old earthenware pots he’d once examined at a museum. Raised writing covered the outside of the vat. Flecks of black and red paint came away on his hand.
I wonder what language that is, he thought. Certainly it was none he recognized.
He turned his attention to the top of the vat.
And frowned.
A very modern-looking lid seemed to seal the vat off like a vacuum seal used to keep food or other perishable products from spoiling when exposed to the air.
Curran chewed his lip again. This time he found a small flap of skin and bit down, tasting a sudden draw of blood.
What was the lid keeping from spoiling?
Kwon pounded his hands on the steering wheel. Traffic was insane. Cars and trucks jostled each other in the bumper-to-bumper traffic jams.
But ahead of him, Darius’ Saab seemed to have no trouble negotiating the slipstream.
That’s not fair, thought Kwon. After all, the guy’s a demon.
He watched in horror as Darius pulled ahead and made a yellow light a second before it changed to red and trapped Kwon behind a minivan.
Kwon grabbed the cell phone and hit redial.
“Come on!”
Curran unclasped one side of the lid.
It came off with a sharp hissing sound.
Escaping air?
He frowned.
Sniffed.
Wha —?
He unclasped the other side.
A softer hiss of escaping air.
And then, Curran took the lid in both hands, surprised at how heavy it actually felt.
He lifted the lid off the vat.
Kwon could see him up ahead. He’d just made the entrance to route 9 down by Brookline Village. At this point, he’d reach Chestnut Hill in maybe ten minutes.
Not a lot of time.
I’ve got to do something, he thought.
Images of him slamming into Darius’ car filled his head. But what good would that do? Slow him down?
Maybe.
But if he recognized Kwon.
If he suspected anything.
He might kill me.
In his ear, the same female operator came on again.
Where the hell was Curran?
The smell slammed into him like a tidal wave.
Curran stumbled back.
He clamped down on his jaw reflexively to keep from puking his guts out.
Oh my God, he thought. What in heaven’s name is that?
He fell back against the wall.
It stunk like nothing he’d ever had the misfortune of smelling before. As if all the vomit and crap and piss and rotting corpses in the world had commingled together inside this earthen jar, aging and fermenting into one horrid putrid mass of the most foul-smelling goop on the planet.
Curran felt his gorge rising in the back of his throat.
I’ve got to get out of here, he thought.
