Sins of the Father

Author's Note: This story was submitted as a second-round entry into NYC Midnight's 2024 Short Story Challenge.

Sebastian Costello was a detective before he could talk to ghosts, but that was a long time ago. Now, he was a private eye, sitting in his car outside a mansion he could never afford, smoking one last cigarette before he went in.

Sebastian turned up the radio and exhaled smoke out the driver's window.

"Hard to believe it's been ten years," the radio host said.

"A stark reminder that there are limits to what humans should know," the radio show's guest replied.

"I heard they took a photo. Did you see it?" the host asked.

"I did. It was beautiful."

"Was it worth it? Proving the existence of the afterlife just to have it all taken away?"

"Why don’t you ask the seven hundred million souls trapped on Earth that question?”

“Fair enough. Do you think we’ll ever regain access to the afterlife?” the host asked.

“That’s a question for God, or whatever deity you believe in, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Some sins can’t be forgiven.”

Sebastian turned off the car and stepped out into the cool night air. He put out his cigarette and walked up the driveway. The old mansion was nestled between towering trees against a gray sky.

A gust of icy air blew past him, but he knew it wasn't wind.

A young cop stood outside the door. Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the entryway.

"Evening Jerry. Thanks again for arranging this."

"It's the least I could do. You know, after what happened."

"It's not your fault that a demon took my daughter, Jerry, but I appreciate it all the same."

Jerry stood in awkward silence for a moment before broadly gesturing to the house behind him.

"So, can you believe it? We're standing outside the house of Franklin Dixon!" he said.

"Never heard of him."

Jerry's eyes went wide. "You've never heard of Franklin Dixon? The Dreamweaver? He's one of the greatest boxers that ever lived!"

"The hell kind of name is Dreamweaver?"

Jerry laughed as he started punching the air with a few jabs and an uppercut.

"They used to say that he looked possessed every time he stepped into the ring. No one could lay a hand on him. He'd duck, weave, and then put you to sleep!"

Sebastian nodded. "Ah, I get it now. Clever. How much time do I have?"

"About an hour before they come back to finish cleaning up the place."

Sebastian walked towards the door. Jerry jumped in front of him like an excited puppy.

"Are you gonna do your thing?" he asked.

"Yeah, Jerry, I'm gonna do my thing."

"What's it like talking to dead people?"

"Imagine having a conversation on shitty cell reception. It’s like that."

"Is it true what they said? That his son is missing?" Jerry asked.

"That's why I'm here. The grandmother hired me to find him so he can get his inheritance."

Jerry raised an eyebrow. "She doesn't want it instead? If he's gone, it will go to her, right? Oh, wait. Is she a suspect?"

"Yes, it would go to her in that scenario, and no, she's not a suspect. She's ninety-three and living in Italy.”

“Oh, what about Dixon’s personal chef? I think her name was Samantha?”

I nodded. “Samantha Rodriguez. Her ex-husband said she never showed up to pick up her kids for the weekend, and he hasn’t gotten a hold of her.”

“You think she’s dead too?” Jerry asked.

“I’ll know once I get inside. May I?”

Jerry slid out of the way and adjusted his hat.

"Yeah, of course. Sorry, I get excited about these things."

That makes one of us.

Sebastian stepped through the doorway and felt another rush of cold air on the back of his neck. His brush with death five years ago left him stuck halfway between the world of the living and the dead.

He was an actual medium, unlike the con artists who pretended to converse with those who had passed on.

In a world where souls couldn't pass on when they died, he had plenty of people to talk to, whether he liked it or not. It was its own kind of hell.

Sebastian pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He had written down the names of the spirits in the house. Franklin Dixon was the owner and a boxer. He added the details Jerry had given him in their conversation outside.

Next on the list was Alexander Kaufman, a full-time nurse. Both had been found dead just over two weeks ago. In both cases, the cause of death was cardiac arrest, but neither had any pre-existing conditions. They were found with their eyes and mouths wide open like they had been scared to death.

Sebastian looked up from the notepad as he walked into the foyer. His footsteps echoed across the marble floors as he approached a glass trophy case along the back wall of the stairs.

"Alexander Kaufman, can you hear me?" Sebastian asked.

Sebastian closed his eyes. He heard fragments. Whispers.

Let me take your coat.

How about some light reading?

Sebastian opened his eyes. He could smell a faint hint of cologne in the air coming from the stairs. He instinctively removed his trenchcoat and hung it on a coat rack beside the stairs. He heard the voice again.

You’ll find him upstairs.

Dinner in the study again?

Sebastian climbed the stairs, following the scent until he reached a long hall on the second floor.

"Where's the study, Alex?" Sebastian asked.

The slow creak of worn hinges broke the silence. Sebastian watched one of the nearby doors open to the left. He entered an ornate study with bookshelves lining the walls and a polished wood desk in the center of the room.

Sebastian walked over to the desk. It was perfect. Not a speck of dust.

"It's too clean. What happened here, Alex?"

Sebastian could feel what Alex felt in those final moments. A wave of anxiety struck like lightning. His heart was racing; his hands were shaking. He was panicking. He shut his eyes and focused. Words started coming to him.

Where did he go?

I can't lose him again.

Check his book.

As quickly as it had come, the anxiety faded. Sebastian was starting to understand.

"He went missing; you couldn't find him. What book were you looking for?" Sebastian asked.

Sebastian's eyes opened as he heard several books hit the floor. He walked over to a bookshelf on the right, picked them up, and laid them on the desk. The first was a biography on Franklin Dixon's boxing career, the second was a novel Sebastian had never heard of, and the third made his blood run cold.

It was an encyclopedia of demonology. Sebastian opened the cover and saw notes haphazardly scrawled across the pages. The notes became more frantic and illegible as he flipped through the book. It looked like the diary of a madman.

The door to the study slammed shut. Sebastian dropped the book on the desk as a phantom wind tore through the room. He watched as the pages furiously turned themselves until four numbers appeared, carved into the paper with a black pen.

"Franklin? Is this you?" Sebastian asked.

The wind stopped. Everything went silent.

“Samantha? Are you here with me?”

DON’T LET IT TAKE HER!

Alex’s voice screamed inside Sebastian's head. He clutched his ears as a pounding sound ricocheted across the room, like someone was punching something. A bookshelf on the far wall fell, spreading books across the floor.

Behind it was a polished metal door. A keypad sat on the wall beside it. Sebastian waded through the sea of books. He typed in the code from the book, and the door slid open.

The smell of ash and sulfur filled his nostrils when he entered the door. Sebastian knew the smell all too well. It took him back to that day. The day he looked into the eyes of true evil. The day he lost his daughter and nearly his own life.

Her voice echoed like a song on repeat inside his head:

Daddy, I’m scared!

I don’t want to go with him!

Help me, Daddy!

Don’t let him take me!

As he stepped through the doorway, it slid shut behind. Fluorescent bulbs flickered to life above him. The floors and walls were covered in strange symbols and runes, all painted in what looked like blood.

Sebastian pulled a pistol from the holster on his hip and checked the clip. He walked carefully through the room, spotting a piece of paper on the floor. The writing on it was illegible, smeared by water and blood, but he heard a gruff male voice fill in the gaps in his mind:

Jack, I'm so sorry.

Turns out I didn’t read the fine print on the contract.

If you're reading this, then you need to run.

Get as far away as you can.

I'm so sorry.

Tears welled up behind Sebastian's eyes. They weren't his. They came from an incredible, familiar kind of guilt. The kind that a father feels when they know they’ve failed their child.

A muffled scream came from nearby. Sebastian dropped the paper and walked to the door at the back of the room. With his pistol ready, he threw the door open and stepped inside. The sulfur smell was even worse, mixed with rot, decay, and waste.

It was dark. Sebastian could see the flickering light of candles ahead. He walked down the hallway, passing another door on his left until he spotted the silhouette of someone slouched against the back wall.

Sebastian holstered his pistol and pulled out a flashlight. When the beam of light illuminated the figure's face, it was a woman with shoulder-length black hair. She was unconscious and chained to the wall with shackles around her wrists.

Sebastian stumbled backward as his mind reeled. He felt like someone had sucker-punched him right in the stomach. His daughter’s voice broke through the high-pitched ringing in his ears.

Daddy, please save me!

I’m so scared!

Sebastian felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around. Another man stood behind him, his hands above his head.

“Don’t shoot! My name’s Jack Dixon!”

“The boxer’s son? Where have you been?” Sebastian asked.

Jack walked past Sebastian, bending down to relight several candles on the ground. Sebastian watched as the flickering lights illuminated strange symbols drawn on the ground in a circle around the woman. He raised his pistol and flashlight, pointing both at Jack.

“Stop! Not another move until I find out what’s going on here.”

Jack stood up and faced Sebastian. “We don’t have time for this detective. If I don’t reinforce the seal, it will escape.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’ve been missing for over a week. Where have you been?”

Jack gestured to the gruesome scene beside them. “I’ve been here, trying to stop my father’s guilty little secret from escaping.”

Sebastian looked back over the woman on the ground. After all her shrieks, she fell unconscious. She looked almost peaceful.

“Let me guess: your dad made a deal with a demon?” Sebastian asked.

Jack nodded. “Yes, except when it came time for him to swap places with the demon in hell, he tried to trap it inside an innocent woman’s body instead.”

“Samantha Rodriguez?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“She’s been reported missing too.”

Jack knelt down and inspected the symbols and candles arranged around the woman.

“He called me before he died. He went on and on about how sorry he was, but he wasn’t making any sense.”

Jack stood up and shook his head. “I’m no expert in angelic seals, but when I got here, I managed to finish what he started. I know it’s not a permanent solution; demons can only swap places with a willing soul. This—” he gestured to the scene before him, “This is just a band-aid.”

Sebastian looked at the woman slouched against the wall. The solution was obvious. He didn’t even hesitate.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Jack’s eyes went wide. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’ll swap places with the thing.”

“But why? You know what that means, don’t you?”

Sebastian nodded. “Fire, Brimstone, an eternity of suffering, I’ve heard the pitch.”

“So then why?”

Sebastian looked down at Samantha. For a brief moment, he saw his daughter lying on that floor.

“I’ve got my reasons.”

Jack let out a deep sigh. “Okay, let’s get started then.”

Sebastian took a step back. Jack picked up a water bottle filled with what Sebastian assumed was holy water and a tattered book off the ground. He gestured to the runes painted around Samantha.

“It can’t leave the circle as long as it remains unbroken. It may be using her like a puppet, but demons are still deadly even before they complete the swap.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, kid. Just wake it up, and I’ll handle the rest.”

Jack opened the bottle and poured a splash of holy water onto Samantha’s head. He looked down at the book and took a deep breath.

“Uno nomine veroque te invoco,” he paused, “Astaroth.”

The holy water on Samantha’s head began to sizzle and pop like oil hitting a hot skillet. She shrieked and pulled the chains taut around her wrists as her back arched away from the wall.

She surveyed both Sebastian and Jack with yellowed eyes and gritted teeth.

“Speak mortals, I am in no mood for further games.”

“We want to make a deal,” Sebastian said.

Samantha’s gaze darted over to the detective. She grinned.

“Long time no see, detective.”

Sebastian could feel Jack’s eyes burrowing into him.

“You know this demon?” Jack asked.

Sebastian held up a hand to silence him.

“Just let me handle this, kid.”

The demon cackled. “Let me guess, you’re here to bargain for your daughter’s soul?”

Sebastian nodded. “The way I see it, you got scammed by the boxer. You had a way out, and now you’re stuck in some woman’s body behind a prison of angelic runes. Here’s the deal: I’ll let you take my place if you let Jack, Samantha, and my Kailee go.”

The demon rattled its chains as it shrieked with laughter.

“You call that a deal? I’m not letting three go for the price of one. You overestimate the value of your meat sack, detective.”

Sebastian leaped forward and curled his hand around the demon’s throat.

“No, get out of the circle!” Jack shouted.

Sebastian looked deep into those sulfur-colored eyes.

“Listen fucker, you may think you’re slick, but I know you’re desperate. You took an innocent girl’s soul for fun, a clear violation of the Infernal Treaty, and now the lords of hell are coming for you. You need a way out, and I’m your only ticket. So why don’t we cut the bullshit and make this deal?”

The smile faded from the demon’s face.

“You’ve done your homework, it seems. Fine. I accept.”

Sebastian stood up and pressed his hands over his chest. He could feel his heart thundering just beneath skin and bone.

“By these terms, our pact is complete. My soul is ready to depart, and my body is yours, Astaroth.”

Samantha’s body went limp, and Jack immediately went to work freeing her. Sebastian felt the ground beneath his feet start to heat up. Glowing red cracks snaked through the floor beneath him as Jack carried Samantha out of the room.

Sebastian closed his eyes as he felt claws dig into the flesh of his legs. They pulled him downward into unimaginable heat. The demon’s triumphant laughter echoed as it soared past him to claim its prize in the world above.

At that moment, when time became nothing more than a distant memory, Sebastian felt the slightest sense of comfort as a familiar voice whispered all around him.

I knew you would come back for me.

I love you, daddy.

Despite his circumstances, Sebastian smiled for the first time in years.

“I love you too, baby.”

The world had one more demon, but hell had one less angel. That was good enough for him.

A World Where Spirits Cannot Depart...

Read other stories set in this universe, where ghosts are a part of everyday life:

• Crossing Over (For readers 18+)
• Island Otherside