Chapter Thirty

Ensnared

VINCENT FOUND SAM on the couch in the living room, watching the evening news. She turned off the TV when he came in and asked, “How’s it going?”

“We gotta go,” he said, and upon her questioning look, he added, “I got that call. From the detectives. They want me to come in for a chat.” He shifted his eyes to where Henry was standing beside him in the hope she’d play along.

The confusion on her face changed to one of understanding. She got to her feet. “Oh, good. We should get going, then.”

Vincent walked to his room to collect his things before he realized he hadn’t brought anything with him. The only evidence that he and Sam had been there at all was the unmade bed. When he came out into the living room, Sam was hugging Henry goodbye.

“You watch out for him,” he told her.

Sam laughed. “You know I will.”

The sight seemed like it was from an alternate life. One where he dated a girl like Sam, and they visited Henry on weekends during which she pretended she’d never heard any of the stories Henry retold her about his late wife. Weekends where Henry showered her with Vincent’s embarrassing childhood photos, and she took pictures of them on her phone to later taunt Vincent when they got back to Pitt.

A part of him envied that other life. If he could love a girl like Sam, then he would’ve never been the target of the likes of the stocky man and the tall man. He and Sam would’ve walked out of Schenley Park like the other couple who’d witnessed the attack. He wouldn’t be running from the detectives or trying to defeat a murderous creature who looked like James. His life would be far less complicated and probably closer to what his mother had envisioned for him before she passed away.

The only problem was that he could never love a girl like Sam. He wasn’t straight. He couldn’t choose who he loved, and even if he could, he couldn’t imagine a life where he didn’t have three years with James. Three years of waking up in his arms and knowing that no matter what happened, he’d been lucky enough to find someone who loved him. Even if he’d known when he met him that James was going to die, he wouldn’t trade the time he had with him, however unfairly brief, for anything. Freedom from this nightmarish life wasn’t worth the loss of those memories.

Sam walked over to him. “Ready?”

Vincent didn’t have time to think about a different life now. He still needed to survive this one. “Yep. Thanks, Henry, for everything. I’ll be back soon.”

Henry lingered for a moment, looking at him. Whatever he wanted to say seemed on the tip of his tongue. Vincent almost asked him what it was, but he feared the answer would be an admission that his father had seen right through his lie. Henry forced a meager smile, appearing to swallow the words, and walked them to the door. “Let me know what they tell you.”

“I will.” Vincent didn’t look back at him. He was too afraid the lie was written all over his face. The idea of talking to the detectives now made his skin crawl, but it was better Henry thought that than knew the truth about what was actually going on.

Once they were back in the car, Sam started up the engine. “So, what did he say?”

“Not much. He said he’d found a way to stop it, but he wants me to come in so he can explain everything in person.” Vincent waved goodbye to Henry, who was waving back from the porch.

“What?” She glanced over at Vincent, her forehead wrinkled with concern.

“Just drive. I’ll explain as we go.” He hoped Henry couldn’t see her face.

She waved goodbye to Henry and drove off. “Why would he want you to come in to chat? I thought he hated you.”

“Prick probably just wants to make me work for it. He sounded so formal on the phone—like I was a stranger or something.” Dr. Cowart seemed determined to ensure Vincent was constantly aware that any kindness on his part was an abnormality.

“What do you mean, formal?” She pulled onto Main Street and turned in to Dunkin’ Donuts. “Also, I don’t know if you’re hungry, but I need a sandwich or something or I’m going to pass out.”

Vincent couldn’t remember the last time he ate. “Sure. And I don’t know. The way he spoke just seemed off. He said the answer had to do with the ‘circular narratives’ of these stories in this weird way—like it was a riddle.”

“That sounds sketchy.” Sam pulled up to the drive-thru intercom and relayed her order before asking for Vincent’s. He got a sandwich and an iced coffee.

Had he misinterpreted his call with Dr. Cowart? He couldn’t think of what else could be going on with his professor, but the moment the buttery smell of the croissant wafted from the paper bag Sam handed him, he couldn’t think of anything else except the bottomless pit of hunger that was his stomach. He devoured the sandwich in a matter of seconds, washing it down with several gulps of iced coffee. Wiping his greasy fingers on his lap, he revisited Dr. Cowart’s call. Sam was right; the call was strange, and he couldn’t just dismiss it as unusual. That’s how he was blindsided by the creature.

What could be the worst possible reason for a strained formal call from a professor who hated him yet asked to meet with him in person outside office hours? Lately, the worst possible outcome seemed to be the most accurate way to predict what was going to happen next, and that’s where he found his answer.

“Do you think this is a setup or something?” The detectives had been tailing him and interviewing people about him and James. What if they’d gotten everything they needed to lock him up, but he was suddenly nowhere to be found? Could they be working with the professor to arrest him? That would explain why Dr. Cowart sounded so strange on the phone. Maybe he wasn’t reading from a textbook, but a script drafted by Ralbovsky and Tillman to lure Vincent to his office so that they could ambush him when he walked through the office door.

Sam thoughtfully chewed on a mouthful of her sandwich. “Maybe. I just don’t get why he’d make you come in to meet him in person when he could just tell you over the phone, especially if he hates your guts.”

“Shit.” The sandwich felt like a weight in his stomach. An even worse possibility hit him. “What if it’s the creature?”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said without hesitation.

“Why?”

She set her sandwich on the flattened bag covering her lap. “I was watching the news while you were gone. They talked about the murders.”

She paused there, her gaze glued to the road.

Had they talked about the little girl watching her dad die at the hands of two intruders? He blocked out the memory of the little girl’s screams. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. They think it might be gang related. There was a breaking news segment of a shootout in the Hill District this afternoon. Probably right after we ran into him—it. Witnesses reported hearing gunshots and then seeing an old Ford take off down the street with two men in it. This golem thing seems a little too busy to be worrying about your professor, but who knows.”

The creature had done it, then. He’d killed the tall man. All their attackers were gone. Vincent thought he’d feel relieved, but he was in as much danger now, if not more, than when all three of their attackers were out there. He just hoped no more innocent people had gotten in the creature’s way before it’d found the tall man. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

“Not from what they reported, but it was a developing story, and I turned it off when you and Henry got back.”

Vincent searched for the news story on Sam’s phone. According to the two videos he found, no one else had been hurt at the hands of the creature he’d created. The fact that a lack of fatalities came as a relief to him only underscored just how low his standards had plummeted. At least the creature was too busy with the tall man to create a trap. “I don’t think I mentioned Dr. Cowart to that thing anyway, so I think you’re right. It must have followed your car to Posvar Hall. Has to be the detectives.”

“Do you still want to go?”

Do we have a choice? He needed that information. Without it, he might as well be locked up because that would be the only way he’d be safe from that creature. But then, who would stop that thing from hurting other people? “I mean, it’s a risk, but we need that information.”

“You sure?”

“I am.” Even if there was a ninety-nine percent chance this was a trap, then the one percent chance it might bring this monster down was worth the risk. They still had another half an hour before they reached Pittsburgh. Plenty of time to think of some way to ensure that, if this was a trap, he didn’t get ensnared in it.

 

SAM SLIPPED INTO an empty parking spot a street away from Posvar Hall. Vincent shook his legs, chomping on a stick of gum that had lost its flavor long before they’d reached Pittsburgh. The plan was simple and low risk, but he didn’t like the idea of waiting around while Sam went in there alone. Unfortunately, as Sam pointed out, this was the safest way to ensure Vincent wasn’t walking into a trap.

Sam put her gun in the glove box beside her Pepto-Bismol-pink stun gun and tossed him her keys. “Dr. Cowart? Third floor?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t like this at all. “You sure about this?”

Sam groaned. “I’m not donating a kidney to a stranger. Just relax. You’re making me nervous. What can they actually do to me?”

Vincent knew that they could do very little to her, but something about this seemed wrong. Sam grew smaller in the side mirror until she turned onto the next street. Even if the detectives saw through her lie that she’d accidentally gone into the wrong professor’s office, they couldn’t exactly arrest her. The worst they could do was follow her back to her car, and she’d text Vincent if that happened so that by the time she got back, he’d be long gone. That was even if the detectives were there in the first place.

He needed to relax. All his worrying had actually fogged up the passenger’s side window. He turned the key in the ignition and rolled down the window. Even though the air was warm, there was a nice breeze.

He tilted the side mirror, so he had a perfect view of the corner Sam had disappeared around, and he took his phone out of his pocket so that he could answer it quickly if she called or texted him. He was probably overreacting, but they were so close to figuring out how to defeat this creature he couldn’t help but worry. If Ralbovsky and Tillman locked him up, then all this work would have been for nothing, and this monster would continue to hurt other people while he rotted in jail.

We’re too close to stop now.

Minutes passed. She was probably going up the elevator, or maybe she’d already gotten to his office. He could almost hear her knocking on his door, and Dr. Cowart’s dry response along the lines of “Intrude,” because he thought it was Vincent. She’d apologize for the mistake, saying she must have gotten off on the wrong floor or something before taking a look around and leaving. Any minute now, she’d come back around that corner and tell him the coast was clear.

But she didn’t come around the corner. Ten minutes went by, and the knots in Vincent’s stomach twisted so tightly he was sure they’d break. Sam hadn’t called or texted him, which left only one possibility: the cops were waiting for him. Sam probably tried to leave, but they stopped her, and were grilling her on what an incredible coincidence it was that she happened to appear in a trap they’d set for Vincent.

Fuck.

They were ruining everything. The least they could do was get out of his way so that Vincent could do their job undeterred. There was no doubt in his mind that if he tried to get in contact with Dr. Cowart, then they’d have him locked up before he could apply any of the knowledge he had obtained. Without Dr. Cowart, they were screwed. That was, of course, if Vincent managed to evade the detectives. He had a feeling dancing around James while chanting would do little more than get him killed.

Vincent climbed over the center console and sat in the driver’s seat in case Sam came running around the corner, waving for him to get the car started before the detectives caught up with her. He checked his phone for the umpteenth time. Still nothing. He wanted to call her, but if she was in a place where she felt comfortable calling him, then she already would have done it. He opted for a text message, which ended up being harder than it appeared with only half of his screen working. Just from memory of the other half of the keyboard, he managed to text her, OK? after a few failed attempts.

She didn’t respond. And as the time since she left mounted to almost twenty minutes, emphasized by the falling darkness of night chasing away the last rays of the afternoon sun, he started to trust that bad feeling he had.

Even with the detectives asking her questions, she should already be back unless they had somehow detained her. Sam would probably tell him to drive away if she could use her phone so that he could meet up with her after she managed to shake the detectives, but he couldn’t just desert her. What if they didn’t let her go? Any trouble she might be in was because of him. He had to go in there and face them.

His mind was set, but his resolution did little to calm his nerves. As he climbed out of the car, stomach acid climbed up his throat. He managed to force the bile back down, and he started down the street, clinging to his phone so that his trembling hand wouldn’t drop it. He wasn’t running away anymore, but actively walking into a trap was far from a solution. Still, he kept walking toward Posvar Hall, praying the phone would start vibrating or he’d run into Sam on his way.

As much as he wanted to prolong reaching Dr. Cowart’s office, his body was too sore to walk across the building to the escalators. The elevator came down from the third floor, and it dinged when it opened. He looked around. The lobby was empty. Everyone must’ve called it a day after the fire alarm went off.

The doors started to close, and he reached out his hand to stop them. When they opened, he stepped inside and pressed the button for the third floor. The elevator dinged when it passed the second floor and again before the doors opened on the third. When he’d first gone to talk to Dr. Cowart before the attack, he’d compared the dings to the beating drums of a funeral march. They sounded even more like them now.

He got out and walked down the hallway to Dr. Cowart’s office. The same hallway he had fled down to escape James. He couldn’t believe that had only happened this morning.

Dr. Cowart’s office door was closed, and yellow light leaked out from under the door, but he couldn’t see any silhouettes inside. Maybe because the room wasn’t backlit from the wall of windows. He lifted his shaky fist and knocked on the door.

There was murmuring; then Dr. Cowart asked, “Who is it?”

He was walking right into the trap, and he had no other choice but to play along. Whatever moisture was left in his mouth evaporated. He rubbed his tongue against the dry roof of his mouth. “Vincent. Vincent Vicar.”

“Come—”

Dr. Cowart was cut off by Sam, who screamed, “Run!”

Something crashed in the office, and before Vincent could even process her words, the door flung open, and James—or the creature in James’s form—stood in the doorway. Its face was streaked red with blood that stained its disheveled hair. One of its hands was wrapped around Dr. Cowart’s throat, holding him in the air so that his leather shoes barely touched the thin carpet. Behind them, Sam lay on the floor in front of the desk, clutching her face as she writhed with pain.

Dr. Cowart’s eyes were wide with fear as he clawed at the creature’s hand to no avail. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea that it was rea—”

The creature’s grip on his neck tightened, and Dr. Cowart was silenced. The veins in his head swelled. The creature smiled—James’s lopsided smile—and stepped aside. “Won’t you join us?”

Ralbovsky and Tillman were nowhere in sight. The creature had lured him here, and he had walked right into his trap. A creature with James’s face and smile and who called him babe. “You’re not James.”

The monster pulled the tall man’s silver revolver from its back pocket and pointed it at Sam. “Get in here now, or I’ll kill her.”

The casual tone in its voice chilled Vincent to the bone. It wasn’t bluffing.

“Get out of here!” Sam cried, crawling back toward the windows.

Every bone in his body pleaded with him to run, but Vincent wouldn’t let anyone else die for him. It was time he faced his creation. He stepped into the office, and the monster kicked the door shut behind him.