Insidious(79)

“It’s a prophetic aura. Tells you that the person in question is either going to get hurt…or die. Why?”

“There’s one around you right now,” I admitted, finally dropping back to the floor.

“What color?”

“Black.”

Reese reemerged from the shadows. “Come again?”

Even with the darkness resting behind him, I could still see the swirling black mist clinging around his form. I didn’t need to be told what that meant.

Reese’s cursing didn’t inspire any confidence as he darted back into the darkness. His flashlight finally stopped moving, now transfixed on an unlit EXIT sign…behind an old, busted rooftop HVAC unit blocking the entranceway. I raced over and we both yanked and pulled and wrenched our weight into it. The damn thing didn’t budge an inch.

The door at the top of the stairs continuously pounded, and shrill screeching followed. Seeing as how that thing tore through locker doors like they were made of paper, I doubted we would have more than thirty seconds before that ghoul clawed its way in here.

I needed to think. Fast.

An array of equipment lay before us, and I started hitting every button and pulling every lever available. Engines roared and gears clanked and sensor alarms started beeping.

“What are you doing?”

“That thing can’t see,” I said, now dumping disinfectant and floor cleaner across the open space of concrete. “So we confuse it. It can’t kill us if it can’t find us.”

The whole room was now filled with a barrage of mechanical roars and the pungent odor of chemical.

“All it has to go on now is touch, so we hide. The moment it moves towards the back of the room, we make a run for it.”

Sure enough, a loud rupture ignited from the top of the stairs. The metal lever once locking the door clanged down the steps, its handle shredded right off. The door burst open, and as if it was floating, the creature swept down the stairs in one fluent motion.

Reese pulled me back, and I ducked behind an empty hot water tank as he crouched in back of some kind of large chiller. The creature whirled around, rasping at the air. The ends of his tattered cloak sat inches from the pooling disinfectant as it suddenly stopped. The creature lowered itself, snuffling in the potent tang through whatever remained of its nose.

Scrunching its face in what looked like disgust, the monster recoiled, batting a talon-clawed hand through the air as if to fan away the smell. It straightened back upright and slowly moved about the floor, still consciously avoiding the spilled chemicals. Cocking its head from side to side, it seemed confused by the whaling machinery. Only, it didn’t come deeper into the room.

Its sharp shoulders slackened. “Sponsae of Sitri.”

I stole a look over at Reese who just shook his head in puzzlement. His eyes grew as they traveled down the length of me.

Sure enough, a blue light was illuminating from beneath the left sleeve of my sweatshirt. I rolled up the fabric to see one of the runes glowing brighter and brighter. It was circular with an ornate U shape holding up three iron crosses. I still didn’t have a clue what any of them meant, but I had a feeling the towering creep in front of me did, because he was staring straight at me.

Panicking, I slithered out from behind the tank, moving further back into the room. A bat of noxious air hit me in the face not a second before the creature suddenly manifested right in front of me.

I clumsily stumbled back, falling into a machine. My palms pressed against the plate cover behind me, and I yelped as the hot metal scorched the skin. The creature cocked its head, raising its clawed hand out to me. It even turned its palm upright so that its clawed fingers angled away toward the floor. Was it…reaching out to me?

The creature suddenly lurched back, hissing as it batted its talon around. Something was clamped under its throat. The skeletal figure whirled around in a frenzy.

Reese.

He was clinging to the creature’s back, gripping a lead pipe from both ends as he dug it against the monster’s windpipe. The beast threw its weight back, hurtling both Reese and itself into the far brick wall. Reese gasped, clearly having the wind knocked out of him. The pipe fell away as his body sank to the floor. The creature turned to him, its claws primed and raised.

I raced for the stairs. “HEY!”

Before it even had a chance to look at me, I hurtled the broken lever at the foot of the landing square right into the back of its head. The creature hissed something under its breath, striking a hand against the wall right above Reese’s head. Blackburn sank down lower until he was practically lying on the floor, still struggling to refill his lungs.

“You want to kill me?” I barked, wielding a long rod of rebar. “Then have at it!”