CHAPTER VIII

THE DEVIL'S NIGHT

BY BARRY REESE

Max sat in the damp grass, staring up at the moon. It was well past eleven at night, but he couldn't sleep. It was too hot and he was restless. The dreams had come again, two since dinner. In the first, he'd been running down a dusty corridor, something nipping at his heels. In the second, he'd seen Evelyn, her pale arms bare in a thin gown of some kind. An ornate headdress adorned her head and she was bound to a large bloodstained altar. A snake had coiled itself around her left foot.

The nature of the dreams disturbed him greatly. Not just because it seemed that Evelyn was in danger, but because none of his visions had been quite so... vague... before. Normally, he saw the face of those he needed to kill, perhaps augmented by scenes of their crimes. But he didn't recognize the cobwebbed lair that he had found himself in during his dreams tonight, nor did he see signs of Trench or anyone else. Was it supposed to be the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz? If so, that meant that Trench was closer to his goal than Max would have ever dreamed.

"Mr. Davies?" a tremulous voice asked.

Max looked up to see Nettie, his chief maid, standing not far away, clutching at her robe. She was an elderly black woman with fiery, intelligent eyes and skin so thin that you could see it stretched taut over her bones. In the short time that he'd known her, Max had come to recognize several endearing qualities about her. Most notable amongst them was her deep and abiding faith in God, which had allowed her to endure a lifetime of racism and blocked opportunities. "Yes, Nettie? What is it?"

"Gonna catch your death of cold out here," she warned.

Max couldn't resist smiling. He had been burning up in the house, but the locals considered this weather to be abnormally cool for a summertime night. "I'll come inside in a little while. Did you need something?"

"There's a call from you. From New York City." These last words were spoken with great solemnity, as if Nettie had just told him something that simply could not be believed.

"Thank you." Max rose and dusted off his bottom. Nettie followed him as they headed back to the house, her eyes turned this way and that. "Something wrong?" Max asked her, noticing her nervousness.

"It's a devil's night."

"I don't follow you...."

"That's what my mamma called it when the moon was all pink like it is tonight. A blood moon."

Max didn't say anything to that, though the old woman's words chilled him on some primeval level. He'd heard similar things in his own youth and had found them true often enough.

Stepping into his study, Max picked up the phone. To his delight, the voice on the other end was Leopold Grace, the current head of the Nova Alliance and one of Max's dearest friends. "Leopold! You got my message, I take it?"

"Yes... and I take it that your retirement didn't last very long?"

Max grinned. Leopold knew about his activities as the Rook and had shared his own nocturnal activities with Max in turn. Leopold possessed a book which allowed him to travel between worlds, a gift from his father, Eobard. "Let's say I'm keeping busy. Do you have anything for me?"

"There are a number of other copies of the Axiomta floating about, but the earliest I've been able to put my hands on is only from the late 19th century. It is allegedly a good copy, though, with many details not found in other translations."

"How soon could you get it to me?"

"Through normal means? A few days. Via some of our more... esoteric methods... how does tomorrow sound?"

"Fantastic. When you're in Atlanta in the fall, I'll take you to the Fox Theatre. You'd enjoy it."

"I thought it was bankrupt," Leopold answered.

"That was back in '32. The city took it over for a few years but it was sold to some gentleman named Lucas and Jenkins last year. They're using it as a movie house these days... a very opulent one."

"I'll take you up on that," Leopold answered with a laugh.

Max was about to ask Leopold how some of their mutual friends were getting on when the line went abruptly silent. He checked the connection several times, a frown settling on to his face. Without even looking, he knew that there was someone outside the window, perched low at the side of the house. Those sorts of feelings had saved Max's life again and again over the years and he'd long ago lost any inhibitions he'd had about following his hunches.

Setting the receiver back in its cradle, Max knelt down and reached under his left pants leg, retrieving his pistol. He hated that whomever was out there had chosen his home as the battleground... Nettie and the other servants were innocents in the affairs of the Rook. My two worlds keeping meshed together, he mused. If I don't find some way to make peace with this, someone I love is going to die eventually.

The Rook crept towards the window, allowing his mind to shift gears from Max Davies to his nocturnal alter ego. The shift was not a dramatic one, for there were far fewer differences between personalities than Max sometimes liked to think. Ultimately, Max affected the attitude that the Rook was another part of him to assuage his own guilt over his actions.

A rustling sound made him pause. Whomever was crouching on the other side of the wall was rising, perhaps to peer inside the window. Max readied his pistol.

A face came into view, one that was so awful that it sent goose bumps racing up and down the Rook's arms. It was another of the undead, though one that was obviously possessed of a dark and sinister intelligence. This one looked about the room, his tattered lips parting in a sneer. The thing's skin was pockmarked with sores that oozed a yellowish pus and Max was taken with the sudden notion that this man was recently deceased. He still smelled of voided bodily fluids and moved with a motion not that dissimilar from a living creature.

The Rook leveled his gun, taking careful aim. Just before he fired, the thing glanced down and took sight of him. With astonishing speed, it threw itself backwards, even as the Rook pulled the trigger. The shot just missed him, echoing loudly in the still house.

Max was on his feet, springing through the open window. He would have enough difficulty explaining all this without Nettie or one of the others coming upon the shambling corpse outside. The Rook landed on his feet, stunned by the speed of his attacker. The corpse was on him quickly, wrapping its hands about his throat. Max grunted as the thing began exerting tremendous pressure against him, choking the life straight out of him.

At this range, however, there was no chance of the Rook missing with his pistol. He placed the barrel against the undead's temple and pulled the trigger. White chips of bone, intermingled with blood and gray matter, splattered against the side of the house. For a moment, the Rook feared that even this would not be enough to stop his foe, for the pressure did not lessen on his throat. But finally, the thing's fingers grew lax and the body collapsed to the ground before shifting into mist. Within seconds, all traces of the monster were gone.

"Master Davies! Are you okay?"

Max glanced over at Josh, the farmhand who did most of the heavy chores around the property. The handsome black man was dressed only in a pair of thin breeches and looked like he'd been awakened from a sound slumber. Inside the house, Nettie's screams of alarm could be heard. "I'm fine, Josh... I just startled a prowler, that's all."

"Where is he now?"

"Took off... but not before I unloaded a couple of shots at him. I'll call the police in the morning."

"Want me to stay up and watch the place in case he comes back?"

Max smiled, but it was an odd one... unlike any other that Josh had seen from his employer. It was the smile of a killer and it chilled Josh to the core. "No thank you. Go back to sleep. I'll handle this."

Lucifer's Cage stories & The Rook © Barry Reese. HTML © Tim Hartin.

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