Until at last, she saw wall.
How many books did she have time to read, thought Lauren. There must be at least two thousand here.
Her hands touched cool plaster. The back of the closet. She shone the flashlight at the side walls and pressed into them trying to find some sort of cubbyhole or secret panel.
Nothing.
She leaned back on her haunches and sighed. Where would it be?
She shivered, feeling the cold of the house. She hoped Steve and Dr. Kwon had their eyes on that Darius fellow. The last thing she wanted to think about was him showing up here right now.
Put it out of your mind!
A creak from somewhere else in the house startled her. She jumped and the flashlight dropped, hitting the floor of the closet with a bang. The light vanished.
Darkness swallowed the closet again.
Lauren sat very still. Her ears strained against the heavy silence, probing, trying to find another sound.
Was someone there with her?
Steve?
She frowned. No. He’d be busy with Kwon.
Lauren drew the small gun he’d given her earlier. Ever so quietly, she pulled back on the top of the gun, chambering a round. Each tiny click and clack made her hold her breath.
Off came the safety.
She aimed the gun at the closet opening.
Listening.
Maybe it was him.
Maybe he’d eluded Steve and Kwon.
Gotten away.
And had only one thing on his mind.
Lauren.
Her thighs burned from squatting. The gun, small though it was, began to feel heavy in her hands. She wanted to put it down. She wanted to slump against the cool wall and rest for a moment.
But fear wouldn’t let her.
The closet grew colder.
Lauren began praying. In her head she began reciting every prayer she’d ever known. Over and over again.
The silence hung heavy.
Suffocating.
She wanted to draw a deep breath. She wanted to stand. To move. Adrenaline had flooded her system and she felt jumpy.
Stay still!
A thought occurred to her then. The sound the flashlight had made when it struck the wooden floor.
Bang.
Not a dull thud.
Not the sound she would have expected.
Bang.
Almost as if -
Her eyebrows jumped. Maybe?
There seemed to be no noise coming from the house. Maybe the old home was settling. Noises in old homes were common, even if for no real reason.
She smiled. No one was there.
She lowered the gun.
Slid the safety back on.
And set it down to her left.
Lauren turned back around to face the rear of the closet. Her fingers found the flashlight. She tried the switch.
Yellow light bit back into the dark. She sighed. Good, the bulb hadn’t broken at all. The switch must have simply gotten hit when it fell.
Lauren shone the light on the floor.
There!
She saw a cut in the floorboards. It made a square almost a foot and a half long by a foot wide. She took out her penknife and opened the blade.
It fit into the tiny opening and Lauren pried it back.
The floorboard came up.
And she saw them.
A series of black leather journals shrouded in plastic wrap to protect them. She removed the package; there must have been ten of them in total.
There were no marks on the cover. Lauren carefully slid them out of the plastic and then unfolded her legs, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the closet.
For some reason, she felt better about reading them in there than out in the open.
Did she feel safer there with the clothes tickling her head? Almost like being a little kid and hiding in the clothes racks at the department store again, she decided.
She took up the flashlight and opened the first journal. The light showed old yellowed paper, crinkling at the edges. On the pages, deep black ink flowed in cursive writing.
On the first page, she read:
A study of the minions of evil by Graham Westerly.
August 1939
Lauren flipped through the pages. His writing was tough to read until she’d accustomed her eyes to its massive loops and swirls. She could tell he’d been artistic as well judging from how he wrote.
But the first journal failed to produce anything interesting with regards to the Soul Eater. There was no mention of him at all. And it wasn’t until Lauren had pored through nine of the journals that she finally found it.
There on the final pages of the tenth journal that had been started in 1947, she found what she’d been seeking.
Few of the Devil’s children are as fearful as the Soul Eater.
For years, I could not fathom its purpose. I was only able to
trace its nefarious deeds back through the annals of history.
It seemed its existence was rumored only in whispered legends,
and yet, I somehow knew it was much more. Little did I realize
the truly awesome power with which its Dark Lord bequeathed it.
In truth, the Soul Eater is a more a demon than man — and yet it
may assume the guise of a man as easily as we draw a breath.
Indeed, it is by this form that the Soul Eater accomplishes his
task. For as a man he can walk among the peoples of earth
with no fear of discovery.
He is the Devil's emissary — the primary instrument for his
resurrection.
Lauren looked up from the journal and felt cold fear wash over her. My God, she thought, how will we be able to stop this? She took a breath and kept reading.
The Soul Eater is responsible for collecting evil, for it is through
the evil of others that he, the Devil, lives and lives best.
The words echoed inside her head. Sister Donovan’s last words. Here they were, in Graham Westerly’s own hand.
The Soul Eater steals the souls of those who are most evil
within our society. For years I felt confounded by this theory.
It was only after much research that I learned that the Devil’s
power was scattered on Earth by God as a way of keeping the
Dark Lord from ever coming onto this plane. Unable to
manifest himself here, the Devil languished long in the
netherworld, constantly trying but finding no suitable portal of
evil through which he could enter our world.
So he created the Soul Eater. He sent this demon to our plane
with the purpose of harvesting the souls of the most evil. The Soul Eater gathers these souls. And if he is able to gather enough of them,
he will be able to open a portal to Hell and enable Satan to enter a physical body here on Earth.
I know not how the resurrection would occur. Nor do I know
how many evil souls must be gathered for the resurrection to
occur. I know the Soul Eater has wandered our plane for
millennia. Always at work. Always gathering. Perhaps he
keeps these evil souls within him, but I think not. I think he