He ran a palm over his forehead and cheeks, the picture of a man grappling with the Great Unknown. When he was done having his little cop temper tantrum, he finally looked at me. He didn’t look good. He looked...defeated. There was nothing about this case that he was trained to cope with. Hell, there was nothing about this case that anyone was trained to cope with. Except, maybe, an exorcist.
“I did some research on Billy Turner’s house,” he finally said, sitting back. He looked like a man who needed a drink.
“Oh?”
“I went down through the records of the last six owners since the place was first built. Took me all day today.”
“Sounds like a good use of a homicide detective’s time.”
“Not really. There’s going to be hell to pay later, trust me. But, until then, I uncovered some information.”
“Lay it on me.”
I expected the detective to take out a notepad, but I was wrong. He had, apparently, logged all the information away in his noggin. “Seven owners...seven violent deaths. Four of them suicides. Two of them in the house.”
“And the other two?”
“In prison.”
“Prison for what?”
“Murder. In fact, Billy Turner and his daughter, Liz Turner, are the only living owners, past or present, of the house on Mockingbird Lane.”
“And they won’t be for long,” I said.
“Unless we do something about it?” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, Detective.”
“What about removing the demon?”
“Did a Beverly Hills homicide detective just ask me about removing a demon?”
“I did, and cut the shit. I’m doing my best to wrap my brain around this. What if we removed the demon? Would that save the two of them?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But...”
“But their damn auras, right?”
I nearly asked again if a Beverly Hills homicide detective just said the word “aura,” but I let it go. Instead, I said, “Yeah. Their auras are black. Totally black.”
“And black means death?”
“Right.”
“And this is irreversible?”
“Mostly.” I decided not to mention Samantha Moon saving her own son from the brink of death.
“Any idea where this demon came from?”
“Hard to say,” I said. “But my best guess is that it’s been living in that house, or on that land, for some time.”
“Possessing and killing anyone who lives there.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’m not afraid of it,” said Smithy suddenly.
“You should be,” I said.
“I’m not,” he said again.
I gave him a half smile and said, “Good, because neither am I.”
Chapter Seventeen
When the good detective was gone, after he’d made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, I did the only non-stupid thing I could think of: I called Billy Turner.
“Hi, Allison.” He sounded far cheerier than the last time I had spoken with him.
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” I said, and as I spoke, I logged into him. It took a moment, but soon, I saw him clearly enough. He was in his house, walking slowly through the main downstairs hallway. There were no portraits on the wall. They were blank and dark. In fact, the whole house was dark.
There was just enough ambient light from his cell phone, and streetlights, for me to see him moving through his home. Mostly, though, he was in shadow.
“Are you okay, Billy?” I asked.
“I couldn’t be better, Allison. Why do you ask?”
I decided to lay all my cards on the table. After all, even with minimal light, I could see that the shadow around Billy had darkened considerably since the last time I had seen him.
“You’re walking around in the dark, Billy.”
“You can see me?”
“Yes, I can.”
“But how? Are you here with me?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Where am I, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You’re nearing the end of your hallway. In fact, you just turned and are walking back through the hallway.”
“Very good, Allison. You are an astonishingly talented psychic.”
“Billy, you need to leave this house.”
“Why, Allie? Do you mind if I call you Allie?”
I ignored him. I was very, very dismayed to hear his voice changing, picking up a guttural cadence I was already familiar with, a sound and quality that I had heard coming from his daughter.
“Please, Billy. You need to leave. The house...”
“The house is what, Allie?”
Was I speaking with Billy or the demon? I couldn’t tell. Billy was still there, though. I heard it in his voice. The demon had said Billy was still resistant. Then again, could I trust a demon?
“Billy, listen to me. You need to leave the house. It’s not safe there.”
As he walked, Billy reached out and ran a hand along one of the walls. “I love it here, Allie. It’s my posh dream home, you know. I always wanted to live and work near Hollywood. Now, I’m making movies and living the dream. Life is brill.”
“Brill?” I asked.
“Brilliant. Excellent.”
Billy’s own voice was intermixed with that of the demon. It varied from an English accent...to something deeper and angrier.
“It has no power over you, Billy. You can still fight it.”
“Fight what, Allie?”
“You know what, Billy.”
“I want to hear you say it, witch.”
“The demon, Billy. The thing living in your house, haunting your house, possessing your house. And you and Liz.”
He laughed loudly, pausing in the hallway. As he did so, I watched shadows crawling along his walls. Clawed shadows. Horned shadows. They swarmed along the walls.
“Please, Billy. You must leave.”
Suddenly, Billy dropped to his knees. The phone dropped before him, too, clattering over the floor. I heard him weeping.
“I fought it for so long, Allie. I tried to resis. But watching my daughter collapse, watching her descend into darkness, madness...it was too much. I don’t care anymore, Allie. Without her, I have nothing. And now she’s gone to jail. She’s going to go to prison...”
“Billy!”
But he wasn’t listening. I watched him roll onto his side, and curl into the fetal position, right there in the hallway, and as he did so, the shadows came down from the walls and moved over the floor...and swarmed over him.