THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 71
BRAGGING GROUND
CHARLES BONNER
(anxiously)
Did it try to hurt you?
I nodded.
BOAT
But at the moment it wanted to crush me I glowed, and it retreated.
CHIEF INSPECTOR FROST
(thoughtfully)
Bragging Ground.
BOAT
What?
CHARLES BONNER
Oh, Bragging Ground, Paul’s term for what you described. I can’t touch you, you can’t touch me. There was an occasion when he confronted a demon. It happened to me once too, before my final retirement. I couldn’t cast it out, and although I was scared my faith was strong enough to give me protection against its attack. Oh Lord, I could almost taste it! It has something against you, something really small and basic, and yet I can’t put a damn finger on it… oh, sweet Jesus!
Suddenly he reached out and gripped my arm, his face filled with terror.
CHARLES BONNER
(terrified)
Where is it?
BOAT
Where is what?
CHARLES BONNER
(fiercely)
The Legion! Shirley is dead! The Legion left her body but it needed a host immediately. You didn’t see it leaving her body, did you?
I pulled my hand free and stared at him with total helplessness.
CHARLES BONNER
(fiercely)
Think , son, goddamn it! Use your damn gift!
BOAT
(scared, shouting)
I don’t have any gift, damn you! I’m useless against it.
CHARLES BONNER
But your presence can prevent the Legion from killing Paul. Look at the cops! Are any of them occu-pied?
Slowly my brain began to work, and his horror reached out to me.
Like a mannequin slowly coming to life I pushed past him and swung Frost round.
CHIEF INSPECTOR FROST
“Hey, fuc-k it man, what’s it?
His tone was soft, almost gentle. He was still wrapped up in his moment of horror. The other two cops stared at me nervously. I looked at Bonner.
BOAT
(whispering)
Abbiw!
CHARLES BONNER
Abbiw!
We said it together.
Bonner sagged against the wall, shaking his head, his face filled with fear. I looked at the open gate at the end of the alleyway. It had been closed when I confronted the Legion.
Also read – The Second Sight – Episode 11
CHARLES BONNER
The Legion occu-pied Abbiw’ body! It is going after Paul. Move, son, save him!
I left them, running hard, running as I had never ran before.
When I got to the main entrance of the Kitty-Pussi
the other policemen confirmed it: Kweku Abbiw had come by, told them to wait because Chief Inspector Frost would need them.
He had taken one of the police sedans and ridden away.
With my heart beating like crazy I jumped into my Chrysler. I reversed and turned it round in one smooth motion, and then I stepped on the accelerator.
I pumped the car for all the speed it could give.
I would never know how I ever drove into the heart of Portville without killing myself. The needle crept up the speedometer until it was nudging towards the red zone, and still I pressed down on the accelerator.
It was still dawn, and vehicular traffic was at a minimum, but when I hit the interstate highway the traffic cops suddenly appeared on my tail.
They might have been parked off the road, maybe even dozing, or chatting idly as they munched on their stale sandwiches and drank their cold coffees.
They might have been gossiping about the ti*ts of the new lady on the block, or maybe just exchanging false tales about the girls they had conquered.
Whatever it was, my over-speeding car provided them with more adrenaline rushes, and so they came after me. Their sirens wailed and their lights flashed, but I paid no heed to them.
I knew I was driving myself into obvious trouble with the law, but that was the least of my problems.
Aside from the gross inadequacies I felt as an Unblind, I knew I could never live down the guilt of Anderson’s death. He and his wife had trusted in me, and my ability to deal with their nightmare.
Nicole knew I was in Portville to help her father in one way or the other, and my de-eper love for her couldn’t stand the agony of knowing that I had failed her, and caused her grief.
Bonner, as usual, was right. I could not harm the Legion, but the truth was that the host of demons could not hurt me either.
With me beside Anderson I could at least prevent any harm from befalling the pastor until Bonner worked out whatever diabolical trait was rendering me powerless over the demons.
I emerged from a tunnel, took a sharp curve and found the road blocked by two police sedans parked nose to nose.
My headlights picked up about four cops lined behind the bodies of the sedans, guns leveled across the hoods.
BOAT
(muttering)
sh*t!
I trod har-der on the accelerator.
My windscreen shattered suddenly and I knew they were shooting at me.
I turned the wheel away from the center of the road and aimed for the tail of one of the cars. The Chrysler smashed into the car, spewing it across the road.
There was the nasty sound of shearing metal, and the car bucked for a moment, the engine whining in agony, and suddenly it sputtered, the engine almost going out.
I changed down, trod har-der on the accelerator. The huge car leapt, screeching in protest, and then it was free and tearing down the road. I heard metallic clunks on the body and knew it had taken more bullets, but I was away.
And they kept coming.
More police cars were chasing me!
By the time I reached the quiet neighborhood of the Mission House the red lights in my rear-view mirror could have belonged to the whole police fleet in Portville.
I could see that about four powerful police motorbikes were also gaining on me hard.
I crested the knoll at top speed and sped toward the picturesque Mission House. The breath-taking sight of the lake failed to impress me this time; I ba-rely noticed it as I sent the bucking car shooting off the stone bridge.
My heart sank with sudden misery when I saw the black and white police car slewed across the gra-ss, parked awkwardly as if its owner had been in a terrible hurry.
Its headlights and inside lights were still on, and as I came to a stop and jumped out of the car I realized that its engine was still running.
There was a nasty gash along its side as if it had hit something and been dragged along it. Maybe – just maybe – Abbiw hadn’t had that much of a lead on me.
Maybe he had just got here, and there was still a chance to help Paul Anderson.
The main door was standing open, the interior dark. I ran forward and entered.
He must have been waiting just inside the door, crouched low, eyes already adjusted to the darkness.
I didn’t see it coming until something crashed against my shins. I fell down with a groa-n of pain, wondering dazedly if he had broken my legs.
I tried to control my fall and pinpoint where he was, but he was ahead of his game, and whatever he had hit me with came crashing ha-rd against the side of my head.
The breath was knocked out of me, and I started losing my vision.
Hands gripped my shoulders, and I was lifted slightly off the floor, and then he threw me bodily out of the house.
My body sailed throu-ghthe doorway, and my shoulders crashed into the stairs, sending shards of pain throu-ghmy spine, and I fell face first into the we-t gra-ss.
I tried to struggle to my feet, but my body refused to obey me. I fought the unconsciousness, digging my chin de-eper into my che-st as I breathed hard.
There was a we-tness along one side of my face, and my shins felt as if they were being roasted in metal fire.
THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 72
PASTOR DOWN!
BOAT
(weakly)
Paul, Paul! Should help Paul Anderson!
I was aware of the bright lights hurting my eyes, and I was aware of the bodies mingling around me, and of the terrible sound of the sirens that threatened to break my head open.
COP 1
You bas***d!
A furious voice said above me, and I felt myself being pushed down into the gra-ss again, my hands being fumbled behind me, the sound of metals clinking.
Handcuffs!
No, I could not allow that!
With a mighty effort I twisted suddenly to my right, and I found my right hand free and saw the face of a cop bending over me.
My fist flew into his nose, and he shot off me with a nasal gr-unt. More cops were running toward me. I shot out my legs and connected into the groin of another who doubled over with a gr-unt of agony.
I twisted away from another as he brou-ght a big short club swinging toward my head. I got to my feet and slammed the stiff edge of my right hand into his throat.
He dropped the weapon and clutched his throat, making terrible gagging sounds as he sank to his knees.
But they were simply too many, and very soon they surrounded me with drawn guns.
COP 2
Move, fu-cker, and I shall blow your bloody kneecaps away, arsehole!
And I saw from his face that he meant every word of what he was saying.
I held out my hands, palms upward, a gesture of surrender, and looked helplessly at them.
BOAT
There’s a man in there – a beast – yes, a beast. You people better let me go, otherwise he would hurt the pastor badly!
COP 3
Shut the fuc-k up!
He was a burly round-faced cop, coming toward me and reaching for my hand.
He twisted it cruelly behind my back as one of his companions stepped forward and slammed a fist into my stomach.
My weakened body buckled, and as I sank to my knees it happened.
It was a spine-chilling cry of pure terror, and it froze everybody for a second.
My horrified eyes fixed automatically on Anderson’s window, and then I froze with a silent scream of despair.
The room was filled with a terrible red glow, and a man’s figure was silhouetted for a moment against the gla-ss.
Suddenly a thick horrible figure bore down on the man, huge mouth open, serrated teeth coming down on the man’s jugular, sharp talons tearing at his flesh.
The Legion had manifested!
Paul Anderson, with a Herculean effort, to-re himself free and lurched blindly throu-ghthe open window, his scream a continuous cacophony of chilling terror.
I could hear other screams from the house.
All around me the cops were shouting with confusion which turned to stunned panic when the huge, hairy, horned, three-legged beast cleared the window, coming after the falling body of Anderson.
The pastor’s body hit the ground with a sickening thud, and he rolled a few feet and remained still.
The demon landed smoothly on its three legs, and reached out for the limp figure of the pastor. Its terrible eyes glowed red and its jaws were open wide as it bellowed.
The sound was a ground-shaking explosion that rendered me momentarily deaf for a moment and shattered the windscreens of the police cars.
Blindly I realized that it was a wail of triumph; its left hand was cradling Anderson’s head almost gently, as if it was reveling in the moment, and then its right hand raised and formed into a fist.
It was going to crush the pastor’s head to pulp!
BOAT
(screaming)
fuc-k you! Let him go! You have no bloody power to kill him! He is a man of God! Leave him alone, you swine!
I screamed and, blindly and haltingly, I raced forward.
And I began to glow as I raced toward him, and the intensity grew as I got nearer.
Its red eyes were fixed on me, and suddenly I saw that they had lost some of the utter contempt they had held in our earlier encounter.
It bellowed again, and again I heard the frustration un-derlying the bellow – not so triumphant now – and it raised its fist higher.
LEGION
(in an ancient roar)
THOU HAST NO POWER ON ME, YE INCOMPLETE STINKING ROTTING an-al EMISSION!!!
BOAT
(furious, shrilly)
Leave him alone, swine!
I shouted, my voice shriller and more furious.
My fear was gone, and I was goaded only by sheer revulsion and an urge to hurt these ugly supernatural beings that held so much evil.
My for-ce-field tou-ched it, and it growled with sudden alarm. It let Anderson go and took frantic steps backward.
I still continued to run toward it, my reason gone, my mind gone, screaming incomprehensible words.
It backed up, its red eyes suddenly alarmed, and then with another growl it raced toward me, a great arm flying frantically at me. The fist hit me in the che-st and lifted me bodily off my feet.
I slammed down into the prone figure of Anderson, and then all hell broke loose.
The cops, about fifteen of them, let fly with their guns.
A hail of bullets hit the Legion, and I heard its screams of fury, and as it was driven backward it began to lose its great form, diminishing rapidly as the demons left the host … until finally the fat body of Kweku Abbiw fell limply to the ground, riddled with so many bullets that he was ba-rely recognizable as a man.
I turned toward Anderson, and noticed the awkward position of his legs and the blood on his face, oozing freely from his nostrils and mouth.
Tears choked me suddenly as I desperately tried to find a pulse.
BOAT
(wailing in anguish)
Oh, God, God, God! Get a doctor here!
The burly policeman who had tried to cuff me a few minutes ago was standing near, gun still drawn and half pointed in my direction.
On his face was fear, and he reacted in the only way he knew how: he took it out on me by stepping forward rapidly and reversing the gun deftly so that he had it by the barrel now, and brou-ght the hooked bu-tt crashing into my skull.
Darkness engulfed me.
Sweet, sweet darkness!
Do you remember I told you much earlier, way before the whole mess began, that I was something of a leg man, and about that little kink I had about watching women from the back, especially from the wai-st down – yeah, yeah, the gentle swell of derriere to the smooth calves and all?
Well when I opened my eyes and ascertained that I was sp-otting a splitting headache and that I was in some kind of a little comfortable bed, the next thing I saw was just that – a pair of very gorgeous too-perfect legs below the gentlest swell of femme derriere.
She was standing in front of the windows, back to me, and she was drawing the blinds.
For a terrible moment I thought it was Elaine all over again.
Those legs were an exact replica of the ones that lovely little devil had sp-otted, and my heart missed quite a beat.
My eyes roved up that excellently-tailored black skirt and up the clean white blouse and stopped at the long black hair gathered off the ne-ck and tied into a pony, the long entrails trailing down her back.
I began to breathe a little easier, but I knew that if that black hair had been a bit shorter and less dense, I would have been looking at the back of Elaine, the woman the Legion prepared me to marry, the woman who had made love to me in the dark, and started all the nightmares in my life!
STERILE HOUSE
Carefully I turned my head.
The room was huge and comfortable but somewhat ba-re. Apart from the bed I could see a maroon rug spread on the floor, from wall to wall, and a sort of long table a few feet from the bed, surrounded by black high-backed chairs that looked extremely uncomfortable to me.
There was a high bookcase, three PCs sharing a square table, a water dispenser and a couple of huge, de-eper cushioned chairs against one wall.
It seemed to me that the little bed I was lying on was the stranger in the room, brou-ght specifically for me.
One of the uncomfortable-looking high-backed chairs was standing beside the bed, and on the seat was a new Robert Ludlum novel – The Matarese Circle – open and overturned on the chair to mark the page the reader had reached.
And then it hit me.
Anderson!
The misery, despair and guilt were rotten catalysts that je-rked me up as I tasted the bitter murk of failure in my mouth.
I had let him down, and I had let his family down. Nicole and her mother – and even old Bonner – had trusted me so much, and in the end I had failed so woefully.
I remembered how his body had hit so ha-rd on the gra-ss –
shathuud – and how it had rolled a few feet and became absolutely still.
I sat up straight, and a blinding pain to-re throu-ghmy head, forcing me to utter a little cry.
The woman turned from the window sharply, her hand dropping instinctively to the holster at her wai-st, and then she breathed and relaxed.
She moved toward me with fluid grace. Her face was attra-ctive enough with full shiny li-ps and high-cheekbones, a graceful nose and a pair of bright beautiful eyes.
A beauty, but there was a kind of coldness in her shoulders, a sort of calculating precision that somehow made me uncomfortable.
WOMAN
(pleasantly)
Do lie down, Mr. Boat. You suffered from a slight concussion, and it would be best if you took things slow for a while.
Cool fingers tou-ched my shoulders and she eased me gently but firmly back onto the bed. I realized for the first time that I was in a white hospital gown, and I was sure I was quite na-ked un-derneath.
A little smile tou-ched her luscious li-ps.
WOMAN
Don’t worry, Mr. Boat, I wasn’t the one that undressed you. Professional medical staff took care of you. Your own clothes were washed and pressed, and an a-ssociate of mine would bring them back presently.
BOAT
An a-ssociate, professional medical staff, and all the other trimmings. Well I would like to know where I am, who you and your a-ssociate are, and what I’m doing here.
WOMAN
All in good time, Mr. Boat –
BOAT
Yaw.
WOMAN
Pardon me?
She said, quirking one beautiful eyebrow.
BOAT
Call me Yaw. The Mr. Boat stuff has never sounded right to my ears.
Again that little smile.
WOMAN
Alright then, Yaw.
She said, and again I looked up sharply at her.
For a moment, just a crazy little moment, she had sounded so much like Elaine that fear had coursed throu-ghmy heart again, but then she smiled, and I realized how silly I was being.
She leaned across me to straighten the pillow, and for a moment she was that close, and smelled that good.
Some faint perfume – strong enough to tantalize but soft enough to prevent choking – washed deliciously over me. Her face was that close … soft, beautiful, glowing and cold.
Also read – The Second Sight – Episode 40
She glanced at me as she straightened, and that soft smile split her li-ps again.
She pressed a knob beside the bed and a moment later the door opened and a plump housemaid in a blue uniform came throu-gh.
My nurse spoke rapidly to her in Spanish, and the maid nodded and left the room.
She picked up the Robert Ludlum novel and sat down, crossing her legs easily and for a moment my eyes were drawn to the space just below the hem of her skirt where her creamy thi-ghs tou-ched.
sh*t, I didn’t need this at this time!
A voice was screaming in my brain.
Not now, not when I needed every ounce of purity I could get. This was not the time to pursue vices I thought I had left behind and would never revisit.
My fight with the Legion was bad enough, and I didn’t need to dirty myself now. She was extremely attra-ctive, and she did have an influence over me.
She was affecting me in a way that was totally primitive. It wasn’t the kind of clean, total and so overwhelming thing I felt about Nicole.
There was nothing gentle in the way this strange woman affected me. She was awakening primeval hungers, stirring up a lust I hadn’t felt for a long time, and it was driving me mad.
She carefully folded a corner of the page she was reading diagonally inward and closed the book.
She dropped it on the bedside table, leaned back – a picture of real elegance and beauty – and regarded me with those lovely eyes.
JOSEPHINE
Josephine Mintah. My friends call me Jo.
BOAT
Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jo. Although I seem to be still waiting for answers I thought you would’ve provided by now.
JOSEPHINE
All in good time, Yaw. What I can tell you is that you’re in a sterile house belonging to –
BOAT
A what?
JOSEPHINE
Sterile house, a safe place with secret cameras and guards and all the other trimmings that you read about. Government-owned, of course, but used by the BNI for varied purposes. First you’ll eat, and then someone will come and speak to you.
As if on cue the door opened once more, and the chubby housemaid entered pushing a small table on wheels.
Jo Mintah waited until she had left the room before uncovering the lids of the pans on the table. The sweet scent of vegetable soup wafted into my nostrils, and my stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten for a long time.
She helped me to sit straight, and then she ladled some of the hot soup into a little bowl and then sat beside me.
She gently fed me the soup which had little pieces of chopped meat in it. It was absolutely delicious, and I drank two bowls.
I finished it all off with a cold gla-ss of the best water I had ever tasted. She handed me a little cap with two white circular tablets and a large brownish square one.
JOSEPHINE
Doctor says you should swallow this when you wake up. Bureau doctor, one of the best we have. Nothing was broken when that cop hit you with the gun bu-tt, but it rattled your brains a little. These would help sort out the headaches, I was told.
I tilted the cap and let the tablets fall into my mouth and I swallowed them down with a little water.
JOSEPHINE
(smiling)
Good boy.
She leaned forward to press the little knob at the side of the bed again, giving me a rather nice view of a golden clea-vage and the rounded tops of her lovely bre-ast s.
To be continued…