Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6)

by William Massa

  “He needs our help,” Casca said. He turned toward her. “Tell your driver to bring us closer to the mall. I’m going in.”

  “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  “What about Talon? If we don’t help him, he’s done for.”

  Adira nodded and palmed her mic. “Steve, pull up to the main entrance of that JC Penney.”

  The next words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “I’m coming with you.”

  Casca eyed her with surprise as the mobile command center burst into motion and shot toward the shopping center. Adira knew it was suicide, but if the billionaire was willing to risk his life, she couldn’t stay behind. There were no spare suits though fortunately they had a few extra rifles and helmets.

  We’ll see them coming—and might be able to hit a few— but we’re going to be completely exposed, she thought, her heart pounding. The spirits they failed to stop would just pass through them and kill them instantly upon contact. What they were about to do was completely insane. Was this billionaire just an egomaniac with a death wish? And why was she following along with his madness?

  Chan jumped up from the comm center’s flashing screens, a disturbed expression etched into his face.

  What was it now?

  “We have another problem. The Ampton police scanners are going nuts. Sounds like the whole precinct is about to descend on this mall. All units are being rerouted.”

  Almost as if to lend weight to Chan’s words, sirens filled the night. The first cops were closing in.

  “What’s going on?”

  Casca’s eyes glittered with dark realization. “This is what it’s all been about,” he said. “The copycat murders, going after Benson, gathering a new following. The Reaper is repeating the past.”

  Casca was echoing her earlier words. The Reaper was about to relive the confrontation that had cost him his life. But this time around, he’d have a horde of spooks at his disposal—and the outcome of the battle would be quite different.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The ecto-pulse rifle hummed with power as Talon lined up one of the ghosts in its cross-hairs and squeezed the trigger.

  Here we go!

  No laser beam or projectile shot out of the weapon’s muzzle. Instead, an invisible magnetic wave warped and distorted the spirit’s shape before obliterating it into whirling tendrils of energy.

  There was no time to marvel at the rifle’s power. More specters were zeroing in on his position, and Talon unleashed a firestorm of ecto-sonic destruction. He kept moving as he fired, desperate to break out of the tightening band of ghosts. For each spirit he destroyed, two new ones took its place. How to escape an enemy that wasn’t bound by space? An enemy that couldn’t be killed – because it was dead already. Even though the magnetic waves tore the spirits apart, they’d be able to reconstitute themselves seconds later.

  Talon was no stranger to overwhelming odds. There had been many a close call back in Afghanistan when it appeared the Taliban would overrun his team. Superior firepower and training counted for a lot, but being outnumbered by an endless stream of enemies would break the strongest fighting force in time. But at least the terrorists had been flesh and blood. Facing the dead was fraught with existential terror that easily invited despair.

  The air rippled, and a phantom materialized to his right. The entity tore into Talon, but unlike the attack by the Reaper the other night, it wasn’t able to pass through his body. His necro-armor lit up with sizzling energy as the apparition made contact. The ghost reared back, its howl reverberating over the helmet’s speakers. The shrieking voices of the dead cultists cried out in unison, a dirge of the damned. Talon wished he could just kill the audio and shut out the unnerving sounds. Seeing these lost souls was bad enough; having to listen to their unearthly cries was unbearable.

  He retreated, blasting away, more machine than man as he carved a path through the ghostly horde. Two spirits burst from the floor and attacked. The armor repelled them, but the impact sent him flying. He banged into the ground, his helmet cracking against the stone surface.

  Reality frizzed out for a second as the para-spectral visualization system went offline. For one blissful moment, his view-screen turned dark—the ghosts vanishing from view, the keening cries dying down. The spirits were still present but invisible to his senses, a welcome illusion of being alone in the now eerily quiet plaza.

  The respite from the ghostly onslaught didn’t last as the system came back online and a phalanx of fast approaching specters invaded his reality. They may have succeeded in hurtling him to the ground, but the necro-armor was holding its own. He remembered all too well how the Reaper had dragged Benson’s frame across the ceiling. These ghosts could pass through matter—enter his body, stop his heart, or toss him around like a ragdoll. This suit was saving his ass. Imagine an entire strike force outfitted in Spirit Breaker technology. A group like that would demolish any supernatural threat they encountered. Then again, maybe that was Casca’s plan all along when he’d invested in the Spirit Breaker technology.

  As much as he marveled at the new battle tech, Talon was an old-fashioned soldier at heart. He went to check his trusty machine pistol and realized that it must have been lost in the fray. No time to dwell on it as another specter surged into his body armor and violently reared back in a flash of sizzling energy.

  Talon cut a hasty retreat into the food court’s maze of bolted down tables and chairs. The spirit shimmered after him, passing through solid objects as if they weren’t there, unaffected by the material world.

  Within seconds the entity was upon him, bony hands reaching.

  Talon’s gloved fist snapped out in a punch. Instead of slipping through the immaterial assailant, it made contact with the ghost. A shock wave of white-hot energy erupted on impact.

  Talon stumbled backward. Sensed movement above him. He looked up and saw a specter suspended in mid-air. A pallid, cadaverous monster, its features blurred. The vague impression of features: a mouth like a raw wound, eyes like black marbles.

  He brought up the ecto-rifle.

  Fired.

  A burst from the weapon seemed to decapitate the entity in mid-descent, the ghostly body crumpling.

  One thing was for certain—the specters were noticeably slower than the Reaper. If the ghosts drew power from the Lightwalker, perhaps powering so many of these entities was taking its toll on him. If the psychic’s energy was now dispersed among too many ghosts, it offered a glimmer of hope. Maybe, if he could hold them back long enough, this army of the dead might exhaust the cult leader.

  Of course, that gave rise to another important question: Where the hell was the psychic?

  The sound of creaking metal suddenly cut through the food court, and a series of violent tremors rattled the bolted-down furniture. Steel screamed and an invisible force ripped a table from its anchoring, the spirits combining their energy to manipulate physical reality.

  With an ear-splitting screech, the table shot toward Talon. His necro-armor could deflect spirits, but was useless against material objects. The bastards had already adjusted their tactics.

  The table rammed into Talon and sent him flying. A nearby gated-up storefront filled his field of vision, followed by the inevitable teeth-chattering impact. Metal creaked as he crumpled to the ground, and he exhaled sharply. The armor had cushioned the fall somewhat, but he sensed this was merely the beginning of his opponents’ new strategy. Who knows what else these ghosts might throw at him?

  Firing non-stop, he scrambled back to his feet. As he looked up, Talon saw the Reaper looming right in front of him. The unholy master of the spectral horde had arrived.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Casca shoved the door open and burst into the foggy night. The driver had as instructed pulled the mobile command center right up to the JC Penney’s main entrance. The billionaire had activated both his necro-helmet and ecto-rifle, and his body was burning up with adrenaline.

  Strange to feel
so alive when he was about to face the dead.

  Adira appeared on his side, the vibration of her own weapon cutting the silence of the night. He’d read up on the parapsychologist soon after his meeting with Dr. Mason and had found her backstory fascinating. Here was a woman who had survived a haunting that destroyed her entire family. But instead of letting her experiences crush her spirit, she’d risen above past trauma and remade herself. From the easy way she handled the rifle, Casca guessed she hadn’t spent the last few years exclusively with her head buried in books.

  He barreled toward the entrance, Adira trailing him. Rifles leading the way, they barged into the mall and navigated the deserted department store. They made sure to stay close to each other and cover each other’s backs. Every successive step brought them closer to the moment when they’d confront the Lightwalker’s army of spirits.

  As they advanced, Casca’s mind kept turning to that day in the library when the cult leader took his sister’s life. He’d caught a glimpse of a dark shape among the aisles of books. A shifting silhouette of pure blackness, almost as if someone had carved a hole into the very fabric of reality. That defining incident had been his first and only tangible experience of the supernatural.

  He was about to receive a refresher course.

  His courage surprised him, but Talon needed help. The Delta Operator was formidable, but this was a fight he could not win alone.

  Three minutes later, the main plaza jumped into view and Casca spotted the first entity. His heart raced and his whole reality narrowed to that one detail: the shrieking spirit whirling toward them at breakneck speed. Rifle leveled, he pulled the trigger, and the magnetic wave obliterated the inhuman attacker.

  The thrill of his first spectral kill gave way to fear as more airborne entities zeroed in on him. He kept firing away at the incoming enemy while he combed the plaza for Talon. Where was the Operator?

  “Watch out!” Adira’s voice boomed over his helmet’s speakers.

  Casca spun around and saw one of the ghosts coming right at him. Fortunately, Adira vaporized the entity before it could embed itself into his flesh.

  He let out a sigh of relief and continued to blast the ghosts. Two dispersed, providing a clear view of Talon up ahead. He was pressed against a gated storefront, a dark silhouette closing in on him. Was it the Reaper?

  Casca pointed at Talon, and Adira’s voice crackled again over his mic. ”I see him too!”

  They both rushed toward Talon, blasting away. The semi-translucent figure descending on the man shattered under their sustained efforts. Casca knew it was merely a brief victory. Within seconds, the mass murderer’s ghost would begin the process of regenerating itself. They’d been lucky thus far, but it was impossible to sustain this effort.

  The three of them started to draw closer, ecto-rifles firing non-stop. They faced an enemy that would never grow tired, never grow weaker in numbers, never would give up.

  We will not make it out of here, Casca realized.

  Unless…

  His eyes combed the food court and landed on a can of spray-paint that one of the cultists must’ve dropped right next to where his body had fallen. It gave him an idea. He yelled into his mic, “I have a plan. Let’s form a circle, keep your backs to each other.”

  He sensed the Delta Operator’s hesitation, but the soldier knew from experience that even a bad plan was far better than no plan at all.

  “Talon, I need your pendant.”

  The Operator quickly tossed him the amulet but never stopped blasting away at the enemy. The billionaire draped it over his neck and said, “Cover me and stay close!”

  He jumped forward, scooped up the can of spray-paint and drew a red circle around them.

  “What are you doing, Casca? This is a hell of a time for a goddamn art project.”

  “Glad to hear your sense of humor is still intact. You guys have to trust me on this. Make sure to stay within the circle.”

  Casca had studied the occult for more than a decade. He had internalized its mysteries but only personally dabbled with ritualistic magic on a handful of occasions. Praying that he wasn’t signing their death sentences, he whispered the words required to activate the protective circle’s power. The incantation flew from his lips as he quickly drew four ancient Sumerian symbols inside the circle. Once done, the next step was to etch out a pentagram, a perfect replica of the pendant he now wore. Pentagrams had been a symbol of good until Satanists had perverted the symbol by inverting it in the name of the darkness.

  One of the first things Casca had learned was that not all magic was evil. There were rituals that tapped into the darkness but others channeled the light. Up until right now, most of his occult knowledge had been of an intellectual nature. It was time to test his expertise in the field. How he wished he could’ve done so without a lethal swarm of phantoms swirling around him—but sometimes necessity was the kick needed to turn theory into practice.

  He’d almost finished reciting the spell when one of the ghosts circumvented the magnetic blasts from Talon and Adira’s ecto-rifles and surged right at him. Did the specter sense what he was up to?

  Adira stepped in front of the ghost, buying him precious seconds. As the spirit flung her out of the circle, he mouthed the last words of the incantation.

  The protective circle lit up.

  Three more ghosts charged, but they violently recoiled upon hitting the circle’s perimeter. It was almost as if an invisible force field was warding them off, the magical power of the circle activated. Even though he couldn’t make out Talon’s features, he knew the man was staring at him from behind the helmet. How would he adapt to the idea that his general was dabbling with the very forces they’d sworn to battle?

  Their momentary victory was bittersweet. He couldn’t pull his gaze from Adira’s motionless form sprawled next to the dead cultists on the ground.

  There was no time for grief as more specters made a go at them. The ghosts repeatedly dashed against the magical ring, and each time the power of the circle repelled them. They were unable to penetrate the barrier.

  At least for now.

  Casca wasn’t sure for how long the circle would maintain its magic under such a sustained pounding. His gut told him it wouldn’t be for much longer.

  “There are too many,” he said to Talon. “They’re going to break through any...”

  The barrage suddenly stopped.

  The specters froze.

  For a moment, Casca wondered what was going on. The keening shrieks on his necro-helmet were now replaced with another sound: the deafening prop wash of an incoming helicopter and the wail of sirens. The police had arrived. And the officers were about to walk into a supernatural ambush. They weren’t prepared for what they’d find in the mall. How many cops were about to lose their lives?

  The ghosts were pulling away from the circle, gearing up for their next assault. Their terrible mass suicide had turned the cult into an unbeatable weapon—a weapon about to be targeted against the hapless officers entering the mall.

  Footsteps echoed in the dark.

  The Lightwalker approached the circle. He was wise enough to keep his distance, just beyond the reach of Talon’s grasp. The bastard knew exactly how close he could get to them. Ghosts swirled around his form, the air shimmering with inhuman energy.

  The Lightwalker turned toward him, their eyes meeting.

  Casca immediately realized that powering this many spirits was taking a heavy toll on the psychic. Cataracts had formed around bloodshot eyes, and his skin was wrinkled and loose, aged beyond his years.

  The Reaper is consuming his life force, Casca thought. Draining him like a battery.

  How much longer before he’d burn out for good?

  His heart sank when he realized the Lightwalker’s weakened state wouldn’t prevent what was about to happen next. The psychic had found Talon’s machine pistol and was now pointing the weapon right at them.

  “Maybe your little circle can keep gho
sts out,” he said, ”but I wonder how it will fare against bullets.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Adira’s eyes snapped open. Reddish darkness enveloped her. After a panicked moment, she remembered that the visualization system of her helmet was active and she was staring up at the mall’s skylight, occasional entities zipping through her field of vision. They’d lost interest in her now that their master had arrived.

  Adira should have been dead. A normal person would’ve succumbed to the spectral invasion of her body. But she’d never been quite normal. According to the Nexus Foundation’s battery of PSI tests, she qualified as a level-2 psychic. In comparison, someone like the Lightwalker had to score over 10 on the tests. But her abilities, slight as they might be, had probably saved her life as a teenager. Even though her psychic perception was weak and she still required the necro-helmet to see the dead, she’d been able to catch brief glimpses of the entity that had taken hold of her father. She’d seen enough to know that her father hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger that day, that ghosts were real.

  Later, once she’d learned more about anomalous phenomenon, she wondered whether she’d been indirectly responsible for the haunting. Had her psychic energy activated the spirit the same way the Lightwalker now powered the Reaper? The discovery had been accompanied by a crushing sense of guilt. It had sent her on a psychological tailspin that would include a vicious cycle of alcohol and drugs. But she’d overcome the past and sworn to find redemption at the Nexus Foundation.