Otherworld amulets bestow a thief and a young girl with occult powers, leading them to a parallel Earth devastated by nuclear war and a vampire apocalypse.
Uncle Roy finally found the key to the chest and gave it to Roland before leaving on a weekend fishing trip with a few of his army buddies. "If your daddy stashed any of Yamashita's gold in there, you remember to split that with me, huh?"
Roland found no gold bullion inside the large chest, which was more of a large ammo locker. A gallon-sized Ziploc bag of Scotch brand cassette tapes was lying on top of a weapons cache. Roland pulled out the baggie and immediately recognized his dad's handwriting on the recordings, clearly printed letters in black felt. Each tape was marked in numerical parts with titles like "Stalked," "Hunted," and "Interviews," with TOD and dates that spanned over ten years, a decade of a life that was well before he'd meet Roland's mother, Clara.
The weapons cache was an equally peculiar find: Winchester Model 1912 (12 gauge), not really that strange; four silver flasks complete of water marked "holy shit"; a Barnett Commando Crossbow, a Colt Series 70, wooden stakes, a cross, rotted garlic, garlic powder, and the most surprising accoutrements of all were an M9A1-7 flamethrower and something that looked like a Medieval battle ax. Roland's thoughts were, "What the fuck is this all about?" "And was Dad a vampire hunter?" He had to laugh at the latter idea.
Since Uncle Roy wasn't around to make dinner, Roland, lacking any cooking genes, had only two options: PB&J or ordering in food. He chose to order, as he would likely live off TV dinners and PB&J for most of the weekend. He searched for a tape player while waiting for his food to arrive. By the time he found Uncle Roy's old ghetto blaster in the attic, his delivery of steamed vegetable dumplings and General Tso's Tofu had arrived. He ate at the kitchen counter as he popped in the first cassette marked "Mystery Woman. 5/26/79" Though much younger sounding, he recognized his father's voice on the tape.
"I talked to Wilson today, an old CIA contact. He didn't have much for me. He had no new information on her, who she was... or may have been. He checked the ice box, but there was no info on her. However, he did find a photograph of a hotel nightclub in Saigon; the photo is of a New Year's party for reporters from '68. It's hard to make out, but it sure does look like her in the picture. If so, she could have been a reporter... now she's something entirely different. Wilson is looking into it to see if she was part of any news organizations. In the meantime, I'm sure she's tracking me because of the stone, but she hasn't made any big moves on me yet. I call the pendant an amulet now because I now understand the strange shit it can do. I did a little research on my own. I talked to a Professor at Columbia, Professor Davies. He said the stone in the amulet's center is called an Alatyr Stone, and legend says there were originally five of them, each given to what were supposedly five clandestine guilds that date back to the Middle Ages. I've never been a superstitious man, but after some of the shit I've seen in the last ten years, that opinion is quickly eroding away. This woman and her kind don't like the stones very much, supposedly because they can show their movements and, if used correctly, can even trap them. And that's exactly what I plan to do. Trap her in the hold I built in the basement."
Roland stopped the tape. "Hold?" He returned to the basement and looked around; nothing "hold-like" stood out. There was his dad's old workbench, two large tool cabinets, a sink, an ice box, and welding equipment. Then he spotted the vent grate propped against the wall. He grabbed a flashlight and shined it into the vent shaft. Towards the back, he saw a thin black wire that the ammo box had blocked. The wire was dangling loosely in the vent. It was just about at arm's length, his dad's arm. He pulled it, and the tool cabinet creaked open. Roland pushed back the cabinet, revealing a set of steps that descended into darkness.
Roland shined the flashlight along the walls and steps. Did his dad make this? Was this always here? A subbasement? Uncle Roy never mentioned it, and neither did his father. The walls and the steps were constructed from fieldstones. The staircase was tight, and Roland felt immediately claustrophobic as he continued downward; it felt like he was entering a castle dungeon. After about fifty feet down, Roland's descent abruptly ended at a galvannealed steel vault door.
The door had a digital security pad, a keyhole, and a door viewer. Roland slid back the hinge and shined the flashlight through the viewer. There was a room on the other side of the vault door, about 40 square feet, with refractory walls and floor. Roland caught a whiff of the room through the viewer; it smelled like a dirty gas grill. Six-foot shackles embedded with steel pins dangled from the ceiling. Black scorch marks marred the entire room, and there was a distinct pile of ash on the floor in the room's center. "What the fuck?" Roland looked at the door, and the hair on the back of his neck shot up. To the right was a steel grate, the perfect size to slide in a food tray or blast a flamethrower into the room. Roland slid shut the door viewer and walked back up the steps to the basement; Efraim was standing at the top of the steps. "We should talk."
Late October
Ana had heard of Halloween and even dressed up once for her English class, but the extent to which it was celebrated in America was practically alien to her. When Uncle Yuri offered to take her to the Village to pick out a costume for trick-or-treating, she was more than game. His Czech girlfriend, Tatána, owned a bar in the East Village and would meet them at her condo after the costume store. Uncle Yuri told Ana and Zura about the Village Halloween parade and that he'd promised Tatána to help her at her bar that night. "We could do a little trick and treats. See the parade, and you could do a sleepover at her place. Sound cool?"
As Ana and her Uncle drove into the city, the sun had already begun to set with bright autumnal colors, turning the cityscape into a flush reddish-orange, just like a crisp fall leaf. Her Uncle cut through Central Park to get over to Fifth Avenue. The park's trees had begun to change, reminding her how much she missed Vladivostok, her school, Dodo, and before she knew what the Uninvited were...
Halloween Adventure Shop was located on 4th Street. It wasn't just another cash-grab pop-up store but a year-round East Village fixture heavily dedicated to the harvest holiday with pagan roots. The store was a wonderland emporium of Halloween kitsch and costumes, but Ana had only one costume in mind—Ariel from The Little Mermaid.
Once they got to the store, Yuri looked at the box costume and frowned, "The dress is nice enough, but I think you can do better on the wig, Ana. Why don't you look for a wig to add to your costume, khorosho?"
Ana went down the wig aisle while Yuri looked at the plethora of horror masks hanging from the wall, specifically focused on a Jason hockey mask. "Can I try on that one? See if it fits my big head."
Ana spotted the perfect wig to complete her costume at the end of the aisle; it was on a young girl mannequin dressed like a pank-roker or punk rocker. As she moved down the aisle, Ana noticed her skin was a different pallid color than the other costume display models, and her eyes were almost a radiant blood red. "Cool. Very creepy."
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When she went to grab the wig, the girl suddenly lurched at Ana and tried to grab her wrist. Ana screamed and bolted back down the aisle right into her Uncle, who had just turned the corner. "What's wrong, Ana? This place really spooked you out, yeah?"
"Can we go? The wig in the box is fine."
"Okay, but you're sure you don't want to look around more?"
"No, I'm good."
When Ana looked back down the aisle, the girl who'd pretended to be a mannequin was gone.
