Haunted Air

Lyle said, "I'm almost afraid to hear this."

"Jack, you an instrument of God."

"Yeah?" He'd been called a lot of things since he'd started his fix-it business, but never that.

"True that! The guy hired you to hound this killer? A messenger from God, yo. He point you at the killer so you be there when that little kid need you."

"Really. What about all those other kids this guy's done? The ones like Tara Portman and who knows how many others?"

"Dawg, don't you see? God sent you here to even the score."

"You think so," Jack said.

Lyle laughed. "Hey, that's one ass-backwards god you've got there, bro. Where was he when Tara needed him? I mean, he's not paying attention. If he was, there'd be no score to even. Too little, too late, if you ask me."

Charlie glowered at his brother. "Didn't ask you."

"And what happened to this demon you were talking about?" Lyle said. "First you tell us we've got a demon sent by Satan, and now we've got Jack sent by god. Which is it?"

Jack wanted to tell Lyle to ease up on his brother, but it wasn't his place. What was it with Lyle anyway? He seemed wound as tight as that clock Jack had bought yesterday.

"That's it." Charlie threw down his pry bar. "I'm outta here."

"No way. We have a deal. Two days."

"Yo, I ain't standin' here listenin' to you trash the Lord. Blasphemy wasn't no part of the deal."

Jack watched them, wondering what the hell they were talking about.

Lyle held up his hands. "All right, I'm sorry. My bad. I was out of line. It's been a tough day. Truce, okay?"

"Truce sounds good," Jack said. "Let's keep at this. We've only got a little ways to go before it's all down."

"A'ight," Charlie said. "We keep at it."

"If we're going to do that, can we change the music?" The endless progression of cuts from Miles and Bird and now Coltrane was getting on his nerves.

Lyle frowned. "Don't tell me you don't like 'Trane."

"I guess I'm not cool enough for jazz. Or maybe not smart enough."

"How 'bout Gospel?" Charlie said with a sly grin. "I got a whole collection upstairs."

Jack leaned on the wall. "You know... if it's got words and melody, I'm willing."

"Why not a break from music?" Lyle said. "Just the sound of men hard at work."

Jack attacked another stud. "I can handle that."

After a minute or so Jack sensed eyes on the back of his neck and turned to find Lyle doing his stare-squint thing again. This was the third or fourth time he'd caught him.

"Do you find me attractive, Lyle?"

Lyle blinked. "Not at all. You're not my type."

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

Lyle glanced at Charlie, then back to Jack. "If you must know, I'm trying to bring you into focus."

Jack's turn to blink. "You want to run that by me again?"

"When I look at you you're... fuzzy."

"Maybe you ought to invest in some glasses."

"It's not like that. I look at Charlie here and I see him bright and clear. I look at you and your features and most of the rest of you are clear and sharp, but around the edges... I don't have a better word for it than fuzzy."

Jack had to smile. "Is this a character assessment?"

"It's not fu

"When did it start? I didn't notice you staring at me when we were meeting with the Greek."

"It wasn't happening then. Maybe it's this house. I know it's done some weird shit to me."

"Yo, like what?" Charlie stepped forward, staring at his brother, the animosity of a moment ago giving way to brotherly concern. "This got to do with you canceling all those sittings?"

Lyle nodded, his haunted look growing. "Something's happened to me. I think it was that blood bath yesterday. It... did something to me."

"Like what?" Jack said.

"I can see things, know things I have no way and no right to know."

He told them about the morning's sitters, about seeing one woman's runaway husband, about another's lost pet-dead pet, roadkill on Twenty-seventh Street. He couldn't contact another's dead wife; yeah, she was dead but she was gone. No messages from beyond her grave.

"It's as if someone or something's playing games with me. Some of the powers I've been faking all these years... I really seem to have them now. At least while I'm in this house."

"And I look fuzzy to you." Jack didn't know what to make of that, but he didn't see how it could be good.

Lyle nodded. "Not when we were down at Kristadoulou's, but here, in the house... yes. There's more. With the sitters this morning... I think I could have handled what I was seeing and feeling from them if that had been all. But I was seeing into their futures as well. At least it felt like I was, but..." He shook his head. "I don't know. What I was seeing didn't seem right or... possible."

"You got that right, bro," Charlie said. "Only God can peep the future."

Again that haunted look in Lyle's eyes. "I hope you're right, because if what I saw has any validity, there's not much future left."

"What's that mean?" Jack said.

Lyle shrugged. "Wish I knew. The three sitters today... when I touched them I saw what their lives would be for the next year and a half or so, and they were each different up to a certain point, but after that it was all the same: darkness. And when I say darkness here I don't mean just the absence of light, I mean a cold, hard, living blackness that just seems to gobble them up."

Jack's gut gave a twist as he remembered someone he loved talking about something very similar, telling him with her final words about a coming darkness that would soon "roll over everything," how only a handful of people would stand in its way, and that he'd be one of them.

Could Lyle's darkness be the same?

"When did you see this happening?"

"Not long," Lyle said. "I got the impression with all three of them that it happens in less than two years."

"Three random people," Jack said, "all buying it around the same time, in the same way. Maybe the explanation could be this new second sight of yours has a limit, or..."

"Or one hell of a cataclysm is heading our way."

"Praise God!" Charlie said, his eyes glowing again. "It's the Rapture! You seen the Rapture! It's like when God takes the faithful to heaven, leaving the rest behind in the darkness! Those sitters you touched, Lyle, they ain't been saved-if they were they wouldn't be foolin' 'round with no spirit medium. You touched lost souls, Lyle."

"If that's what you want to believe-"

"The End Times! Reverend Sparks been talkin' 'bout all the signs pointin' to the end comin' soon! Praise God, he's right!" He held out his hand. "Here. Touch me, bro."

Lyle didn't actually move, but he seemed to shrink back. "Hey, Charlie, I don't think so. And anyway, I thought you didn't believe in this stuff."

"Who can figure how God works?" Charlie stepped closer. "The Book say the dead'll rise come the End Times. Maybe this is where it starts. Come on, Lyle. Try me."

Jack watched Lyle hesitate, then reach toward his brother's outstretched hand. A shock of alarm shot through him, urging him to warn Lyle off, tell him not to do it. But he bit it back. Lyle and Charlie were brothers. Where was the harm? What could happen?

Lyle's fingers gripped Charlie's in a firm handshake. The two stood staring into each other's eyes.

"Well?" Charlie said.

Lyle's mouth worked, then he let out an anguished cry. His eyes rolled back as he sagged to his knees and started coughing. He clutched at his throat with his free hand as if he were choking.

"Let go!" Jack shouted to Charlie.

"Can't!" Charlie's eyes were wild as he pulled at Lyle's fingers, trying to loosen them. "He crushin' my hand!"

Lyle was kicking and writhing now, looking like a man in his death throes. This was scary as hell. Jack stepped forward, ready to help Charlie break contact, when Lyle suddenly quieted. His rasping breaths stopped for an agonizing moment, then restarted with a cough and a gasp. Finally he released Charlie's hand and slumped the rest of the way to the floor.