If she was to be believed, the helmet would allow him to keep track of the Reaper at all times as if the ghost were a real person. Suddenly Casca’s investment in Nexus was beginning to make sense, and Talon wondered how much this had set back the billionaire. Some rich guys bought diamond rings for the Eastern European supermodels they were wooing; Casca clearly had other priorities.
Talon donned the necro-helmet and activated the system. The conference room was bathed in a red tint. He tilted his head at Casca and said, “Should I take a selfie?”
“Cut it out,” Caca said jokingly.
Talon turned toward Adira. “So what else have you got?”
He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the parapsychologist. Why would a young, attractive woman devote her life to the study of the supernatural? Had some past trauma pushed her toward this world? Was she too a victim of the occult? He promised himself to inquire further about the enigmatic doctor when he and Casca were alone again.
His focus shifted back to Adira’s presentation. She was pointing at a mannequin decked out in a futuristic body suit. It reminded him of a green wetsuit covered with a second layer of protection consisting of armored plates along the chest, calves, thighs, arms, and back.
“Necro-armor. All part of the Spirit Breaker system,” Adira explained.
“Spirit Breaker? Who came up with that one?” Talon asked.
“I believe that was the brainchild of the gentleman to your left.”
Talon flashed the billionaire an appreciative look. “Nice one, Casca.”
“The Spirit Breaker generates a magnetic field that wards off spectral energy sources,” Adira said.
Talon remembered how the Reaper had reached into his chest. Such a suit would’ve come in handy during his last confrontation.
“Cool idea, but does it work?”
“We’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Adira said. “This will be the suit’s first test run. But I assure you the science behind is quite sound.”
“I guess I’ll have your word for it.” Talon shot Casca a curious glance. “So how much did these toys set you back?”
Casca pouted and said, “You don’t want to know.”
Adira nodded at a pair of gloves that had been laid out on the conference table. “The gloves are made of the same material. If you make contact with a spectral energy field, an electro-magnetic charge powers up the gloves. Allows you to attack a ghost as if it were solid.”
Adira turned toward a futuristic looking rifle. “And finally, this is our Ecto-pulse rifle.”
“Personally I was hoping we could just call it the ghost gun, but I was overruled,” Casca commented.
Ignoring the comment, Adira continued. “The pulse rifle emits a concentrated magnetic distortion field. It disrupts the coherence of ghosts.”
“What happens if I cross the streams?” The joke earned Talon a long look from everyone. “Whoa, tough crowd,” he said.
“The rifle won’t destroy a ghost but will slow it down,” Adira said.
“So how do I kill the Reaper?”
“You can’t. At least we don’t have any technology that can permanently disintegrate a spectral presence.”
Talon eyed Casca. “Do you have anything else useful in your magical arsenal? The Reaper sure didn’t like your amulet.”
“Most entities aren’t powered by the darkness directly, and the amulets and talismans tend to be useless against them. The Reaper’s violent reaction to the pentacle suggests that his continued presence on this plane is the direct result of his black magic dealings.”
“Meaning what?”
“I studied some of the tattoos on his body. They are…interesting.”
Casca punched up a few photos on his smart phone and showed them to Talon and Adira. The image revealed a circle filled with triangles and exotic symbols that vaguely recalled the sigils the apocalypse soldier had left behind in Father Cabrera’s church in Arizona.
“What am I looking at?”
“The symbol is used in forms of necromancy. You know what that is?”
“The magical ability to summon the dead,” Talon said without hesitation. Casca paused, an eyebrow raised, and Talon grinned. “I’m a fast learner.” It was beginning to all make sense. The Reaper had used dark magic to remain in this world even after Detective Benson’s bullets had struck him down. His powers remained weak, though, until the Lightwalker showed up and psychically weaponized the ghost.
Talon turned to Adira. “So the Spirit Breaker will slow down the Reaper but won’t destroy him.”
“Hopefully it will buy you enough time to get to the Lightwalker. He is the psychic power source. Once he’s dealt with, the Reaper will be less of a problem.
“Is there a way to send this monster to hell for good?” Talon asked.
There was a beat of hesitation before Adira spoke again. “If the Reaper’s spirit took possession of a living person and if that person were killed, both souls would phase over into the afterlife.”
“Good to know.” Talon paused for a beat before he said, “There’s something else. What do you think the Reaper is after? What’s the endgame here?”
“The dead don’t have an endgame,” Adira explained. “All that’s left for them is to repeat the patterns that prevented them from moving on in the first place. They’re trapped in an eternal loop. The Reaper’s life was defined by murder and death, and this still holds true today.”
Talon stepped up to the ecto-rifle and powered up the experimental ghost-hunting weapon. He regarded Casca with a deeper understanding. “You and Dr. Mason hope to turn the Spirit Breaker program into another unit of this war we’re fighting, aren’t you?”
“That’s the vision we share,” Casca said. “Some souls cannot accept their passing and become lost. They just need help. The kind of help Dr. Austen and her team can provide. Others are evil like the Reaper. Unwilling to face the afterlife, determined to remain on this world, their sole comfort the misery and pain of the living.”
“You’ll need soldiers to hunt these specters.”
“If we can find some recruits. Know anyone who might be crazy enough to sign up?”
“Only one person. And you’re looking at him.”
A red light ignited inside the ecto-rifle’s main chamber, and his hands trembled with its surging power. Talon’s lips stretched into a dark grin. The occult assassin was ready for his rematch.
Chapter Fourteen
Casca had provided the Nexus team with a top-of-the line mobile command center housed within a black bus. Adira, Chan, and the billionaire were hunched behind a series of monitors and computers in the main command area. The system would allow them to interface with the necro-helmet and follow the action inside the haunted mall beat by beat in real time.
Talon emerged from the bus’s restroom, now fully suited up in the necro-armor. The material perfectly conformed to his body almost as if it had been custom-made to his measurements. He’d initially worried the suit might be too bulky and constrain his mobility, but the opposite was true. The armor clung to him like a second skin, and he felt empowered and ready to go to war.
Casca was the first to look up from one of the monitors. “How does it feel?”
“Where’s the cape and cowl?”
There was a twinkle in Casca’s eyes, but otherwise he maintained his poker face. “We should be reaching the mall in fifteen minutes.”
Talon nodded and turned toward the small arsenal mounted on the far wall of the comm center not covered by terminals. He snatched his machine pistol and ran it through some quick checks, an old ritual that helped him calm his nerves and prepare for combat.
Adira eyed him curiously. “You’ll be taking conventional weapon along?”
“Your toys sound great, but they won’t do much good against the Lightwalker and his killer cult.”
Adira didn’t flinch. Talon wished he knew what was going through her mind. Judging from the expression in her face, she was beginnin
g to realize that he didn’t plan on taking any prisoners in the upcoming conflict. Could she be trusted once the bullets started flying and people were dying? Casca seemed to think so. Personally, he wasn’t so sure. Not everyone out there approved of his brand of vigilante justice.
He faced Adira and asked, “So how does one end up tracking spooks for a living?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me how you ended up with a pentagram carved on your chest.”
Touche.
Talon shrugged. “I run into some freaky fellows in my line of work. Most times they’re just trying to kill me. Sometimes they get creative.”
Adira was clearly still mulling this over when Casca interjected himself into the conversation. “What Talon is saying is that there are certain men out there intent on causing death and destruction, men who dabble in the occult and black magic.”
“And you hunt these men?”
“I stop them,” Talon said.
“I see. Sounds dangerous.”
Talon shot a playful grin at his benefactor. “The job comes with a pretty good medical plan. Isn’t that right, Casca?”
The billionaire rolled his eyes.
“Okay, your turn. How did you get into all of this?”
Adira’s lip stretched into a thin line before she said, “You ever see the Carterville House Horror?”
Talon searched his memory and shrugged. His day job nowadays was hunting nightmares but ironically enough he’d never been a big fan of thrillers. “I’m more of a comedy guy.”
“That makes two of us.” She paused for a beat before she said, ”The movie follows a pretty basic formula: Family moves into haunted house and weird stuff happens. Eventually the evil spirit possesses the husband and he murders the wife, two of the kids, and ultimately eats a bullet.”
“That’s probably why I skipped it. I like my movies to have a happy ending.”
“Then you’ll be glad to hear that one person made it out alive. The teenage daughter survived the haunting.”
Talon searched Adira’s face, taken aback by the hollow tone in her voice.
“The movie was based on a true story,” Adira said, her voice drained of all emotion.
For a moment, Talon just stared at the parapsychologist, the enormity of what she was telling him sinking in.
“I’m sorry. How..?”
“They said my dad lost it. His schizophrenia made him see visions, hear voices. But I was there. I saw the thing that took hold of him.”
Adira turned back to the monitors, her hands trembling. The conversation was over.
He eyed Casca, who confirmed the tale with a nod of his head. All three of them were victims of paranormal evil. Survivors. That was why Casca thought she could be trusted. In her own way she was working toward protecting innocent lives from the supernatural.
Adira’s expression softened. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have unloaded like that…”
“No worries,” Talon said. “I understand where you’re coming from. To fight monsters, you have to know they’re out there.”
Adira searched his face and nodded slowly, a newfound understanding between them.
The mobile command center came to a halt. They’d arrived at their destination.
He shouldered the machine pistol and wrapped a belt with ammo around his waist. “Time to see how your toys hold up in the field.”
“I think I should go with you,” Casca said.
“I appreciate that, but trust me—it’s a real bad idea. You’re not trained to fight killers.”
“You could use some back-up.”
“I know you practice martial arts and probably hit a shooting range once or twice a month. But this is the real deal. This is war.”
There was a beat between them, and Casca finally relented. Talon snatched the ecto-pulse rife and slipped the necro-helmet over his head. The scent of synthetic foam filled his nostrils. The weight and feel of the helmet added the surreal sensation that he was indeed entering a warzone.
He headed for the exit of the black command bus. Outside, a heavy mantle of late-afternoon mist enshrouded the Regional National Mall. The monolithic structure extended like a malignant growth from the fog. Facing the haunted mall vividly brought back the horror of the other night.
You’re crazy to do this all over again.
He suppressed his natural flight response. Doubt and fear were part of being human. Every time he’d parachuted into a warzone or closed in on a heavily fortified enemy position, nagging doubts had manifested themselves. The trick was to train your mind to not pay attention to them.
I must be a sucker for punishment, he thought as he sprinted toward the mall, mist weaving around him. The helmet amplified his breathing. Decked out in the imposing necro-armor, he looked like a futuristic soldier heading into battle on an alien world.
One way he overcame combat anxiety was to focus on the mission and not the danger. He risked his life for a reason. He was making a difference. Each time he faced a new cult, he was, on some level, avenging Michelle all over again. But even more importantly, he wanted to prevent other victims from meeting a similar fate. He’d joined the military because he knew this was a big, bad world that needed people willing to put themselves in harm’s way to make it a better place.
The massive department store jumped into view. Ready for the next step, he removed a grappling gun from his belt, targeted the roof, and pulled the trigger. There was an explosive hiss from the CO2 cartridge, and the anchor shot toward the roof’s ledge. The rope paid out, and the steel claw latched around a cooling pipe with an audible clang. He tested the rope, making sure it was securely anchored, and proceed to scale the wall with quick, powerful strides. The suit slowed him down a bit, but he was used to carrying armor.
A minute later he stood atop the roof and shifted his focus to the large skylight before him. Jagged holes perforated the glass and offered a shadowy view of the mall’s main plaza.
He peered through the cracked wounds in the skylight and scanned the ground below. There were no signs of the cultists, and the helmet wasn’t detecting any spectral activity.
Lets just hope this thing works, he thought.
He secured the rope and activated the ecto-pulse weapon. The hum of energy bashed the night. Gloved hands closed around the rope, and he carefully lowered himself through the maw of broken glass that jutted out like the teeth of some beast, his armor protecting him from the sharp edges. Rappelling to the main plaza, a crimson darkness enveloped him.
The helmet’s ecto-spectral viewing system amplified the post-apocalyptic feel of his surroundings, and he struggled to shake the feeling that he was descending into the depths of Hades itself.
Within seconds, his combat boots touched down on the ground. Machine pistol out and ecto-rifle powered up, he was prepared to rapidly switch between the two weapons if the situation called for it.
The red darkness waited.
“All clear. Not picking up any signs of the—”
He broke off, having noticed something strange. The floor was covered with lumpy shapes. Almost as if someone had dumped military sandbags across the mall’s main plaza.
“What is it?” Casca voice crackled over the comm in his helmet.
Talon approached the first shape and went stock-still. He suddenly knew what he was looking at and his stomach lurched. What he’d initially mistaken for sandbags were the bodies of the cult members, features obscured by their hoodies even in death. A feeling of dread slashed through him. He was standing at the center of a mass graveyard.
He kneeled before the first dead cultist. A wide-eyed stare greeted him from beneath the hood as Talon turned him over, the dead man’s neck coated red. He had opened his own throat with the crimson-caked sickle that lay on the floor next to his body. Looking more carefully at the corpse’s arms, he noticed familiar tattoos. The same strange circle with triangles Casca had shown him earlier.
The mark of the necromancer.
The broken forms
of the Lightwalker’s followers lined the plaza as far as he could see. The colossal loss of life, the inherent madness in the act—it all revolted him. But San Francisco had taught him that mass suicide could power occult ritual. So what purpose could this terrible sacrifice serve?
A shrill beeping broke him out of his thoughts, and he realized the EMF reader in his right glove was picking up some crazy readings.
“Talon, what the hell is going on?” Casca’s words were drowned out by sharp bursts of static that quickly built into a bone-chilling, keening shriek.
Something was out there in the dark.
Something that regarded him as an intruder.
“Talon!”
He didn’t respond, every fiber of his being focused on the shifting mass of shadows before him. His breath clouded before him as blurry shapes separated from the encroaching darkness and appeared in the visualization system of his helmet. There was swirl of rapid, staticky motion as, one after another, spectral silhouettes grew visible. They vibrated toward him, closing in from every direction, too many to count or keep track of.
He performed a 360-degree scan of the plaza—ghosts everywhere he looked. Pallid monsters, eyes like pits, now pouncing toward him at predatory speed, moving in staccato bursts. The incoming specters fazed in and out, a rapidly approaching swarm. The air charged, crackling with spectral static.
The Reaper wasn’t their only problem any longer. The bastard now commanded an army of the dead!
Chapter Fifteen
The screens inside the Comm Center exploded with spectral activity. Ghosts were homing in on Talon’s position from every direction.
“If you guys have any helpful advice, now would be the time to share it.”
Talon’s voice filled the mobile command center, a trace of fear in his tone. The Delta Operator had stared death in the face on more than one occasion, but engaging a swarm of spirits clearly wasn’t something they’d covered at Fort Bragg.
Adira clutched the edge of the console. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Back at the Santa Ana crash site, one apparition had been enough to send shivers of terror up her spine. Talon now faced about twenty of them, all weaponized by the Lightwalker’s psychic power. The necro-armor and weaponry were designed to give Talon a fighting chance against the Reaper. With the help of Dr. Mason’s Spirit Breaker technology, he might be able to hold his own against one entity. No way in hell would he stand a chance against this army of wraiths. The entities were just too fast, too powerful for one man to successfully ward them off and not succumb to their overwhelming numbers.
Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) Page 40
