Читать книгу Haunting at Remington House - Laura V. Keegan - Страница 3

We will begin when we end.

That is the rule of eternity.

The end. The beginning.

The finalization of life, the birth of the haunt.

“Do it! Now!” Gabe mustered all his waning strength to shriek his final words to his sister. “Pull the trigger, Helen!” Closing his eyes, he bellowed. “Now!”

Helen hesitated. Her hand trembled. She sat to her brother’s left in a solid low-backed chair turned sideways so she could brace her arm and steady her aim. She drew a long, slow breath, then cradled the thin, bony wrist of her shooting hand with her left. She couldn’t miss—it would be unthinkable. Another deep breath. She was ready. Helen pulled the trigger.

Gabriel Lindeman’s body pitched violently backwards. His head bounced off the pillow carefully wedged behind him. Helen threw her arms up and yelled triumphantly, “I did it!” She watched her brother collapse sideways onto the hard, cold attic floor. His body slammed the wooden planks, bounced once, then settled in a pool of his own blood. Gabriel died instantly.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Helen began the ceremony. She lit the nine black candles, watching to make sure they remained burning in the drafty room. Around Helen and Gabe’s perimeter was a circle of highly polished onyx stones.

Helen sat tall and straight, her thin legs crossed, head bowed, eyes closed. She chanted: “Lucifer! Obsecro. Dona vitam aeternam ad hoc impia et diabolica peccator cuius nomen est Gabriel Lindeman.” (“Lucifer! I beseech you. Grant eternal life to this most unholy and diabolical sinner whose name is Gabriel Lindeman.”)

The hairs on Helen’s arms stood on end, her skin prickled as a bone-chilling coldness enveloped her. She opened her eyes. Beside her a black, translucent vapor hovered. Helen repeated the sacred incantation nine times. Her voice, soft at first, became louder and louder until it reached an earsplitting crescendo that echoed off the bare walls of the attic, as if her voice were many voices, all screaming the mantra for rebirth.

Helen focused her rheumy-blue eyes on the flickering candle flames. A swift stirring of cold air assaulted her, dislodging the ivory stick that held her hair in an austere bun. Her white hair blew across her eyes, into her mouth—she was unaware. A high-pitched howling emanated from the mist beside her. Warily she reached her hand into the black fog. Indeed! It had substance—oily and cold. Slowly it began to take form: first the eyes, icy blue like her own; the nose sharp and beaklike; lips thin and pulled tightly over teeth yellowed from age and sickness; and then the outline of the jaw, the chin, the forehead.

Helen continued chanting, not looking at her brother again until he whispered in a soft hiss, “Helen, you’ve done it. I live!”

Helen smiled, got quickly to her feet. There was no time to waste. She dragged Gabriel’s corpse from the inner circle to the bed against the west wall, easily lifting his diseased and withered body onto the bed. She placed the blood-soaked pillow beneath his head, then covered the body with a blue chenille bedspread.

For the next three days Helen sat in the circle of stones with her brother’s reborn spirit. Together they chanted endless verses from The Book of the Occult. Hour by hour, day by day, Gabriel grew stronger.

On the fourth day, Helen and her brother were ready. Helen took her place with her back to the wall, a pillow behind her to cushion and soften the final blow. Beside her, Gabriel steadied her hand—he was not yet strong enough to hold the gun and pull the trigger with any guarantee of accuracy. She would do the deed herself. A murder-suicide—as planned. A look of profound shock registered on Helen’s face as the bullet penetrated her skull. Like her brother, she died instantly.

Immediately, Gabriel began the ritual. He chanted from the sacred book. Flames from the black candles cast undulating shadows on the walls of the attic bedroom. Helen’s mist was black and almost formless at first. Within an hour, she too was reborn. For three days, brother and sister remained in the circle of stones until her transformation was complete, her strength renewed. Helen and Gabriel’s souls were intact.

In death, as in life, the Lindemans were the essence of evil. They would remain and walk the halls of Remington House. After all, this was their home.