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

by William Massa

  She knew the answer. Nathan would be disgusted with her cowardice.

  This world faced certain doom unless Morgaine carried out her plan. But Charlie could help them win the fight.

  She’d made a promise to the Children of the Green. She couldn’t break that promise now.

  A newfound resolve gripped Charlie as she stepped out of the bathroom. Her nightmare and the magical message from Morgaine had chased away all doubts, sharpened her focus. She knew what needed to be done.

  The cop was still seated in the armchair, his attention focused on his phone. While he was distracted, Charlie made her move.

  She snatched a vase of flowers from a nearby wooden stand. By the time the detective looked up from his phone, the vase was already rushing toward his head.

  There was a sharp crack as the ceramic shattered on his skull. The man collapsed in the chair, face slack, and his cell hit the carpet.

  Charlie scooped up the man’s phone and started dialing. Morgaine answered on the first ring.

  “Charlie,” she simply said.

  “You were right. I was lost. But I found my way back. Thanks to you.”

  She could hear the satisfied smile in the other woman’s voice as Morgaine said, “I know you’d come around.”

  For a split second, Charlie wondered if Morgaine’s new powers had triggered the terrible nightmare, but it didn’t matter. The doomsday dream was the PG-13 version of the real apocalypse that awaited humanity. Everyone had a role to play when it came to saving the environment.

  She was about to embrace her own.

  A small pool of red was already forming around the unconscious cop’s head when she gave Morgaine her new address. Members of the cult would come and get Charlie, and she would fulfill her duty.

  Her destiny.

  Chapter Eleven

  Detective Rob Mason didn’t know what to make of Simon Casca’s latest assignment.

  The tech billionaire wanted him to keep an eye on some girl connected to this recent string of murder-suicides.

  For a moment, he hesitated when Casca first pitched him this side job. Putting in a call to the man about some occult-tinged case was one thing. Coming face to face with a potential suspect who could identify him down the line involved more risk than he was comfortable with.

  Casca must have sensed his reluctance, as he offered him an embarrassing amount of cash for his help. Ten grand to spend the night looking after some scared girl wasn’t a deal any cop juggling both a mortgage and child support could refuse.

  So he said yes.

  And as Mason watched the young woman dozing away on the couch, this was turning out to be the easiest payday of his career.

  The young woman was pretty but haunted. She was moaning and tossing on the couch, in the throes of some nightmare. Casca’s mercenary had refused to share too many details about the woman in Mason’s care. She was a cult member who wanted out, that’s all he knew.

  The cop in Mason wondered why Casca didn’t tip-off the police so they could raid the cult compound, but the ten Gs in his bank account told him to keep this opinion to himself. Casca had his reasons, and the man working for him meant business. The less he knew about what was going on here, the better.

  Casca’s heart was in the right place, that much was for certain. He was trying to stop this cult. And Talon, who Mason pegged as ex-military, mostly likely special ops, could handle himself. So best to keep his doubts to himself and his eyes on the lady for a few hours, and collect his payday.

  When the young woman stirred around four AM and shuffled toward the bathroom, Mason realized he’d almost nodded off himself. He turned on his phone and hoped the news might help him stay awake. Only a few hours to go. Talon had promised to be back in the early morning to relieve him of his guard duties.

  Mason was still scrolling down the morning news stories on his phone when he made out the sound of footsteps. He looked up, but it was too late. There was a flash of violent movement as the woman drove a vase down his head. Darkness followed.

  Mason had no idea how long he’d been out for when he finally woke up.

  Bright lights and sharp sounds greeted his return to consciousness. A thrumming sound assaulted his eardrums, and vibrations shook his body. He found himself in the passenger seat of a moving truck, hands cuffed to the handlebar above the door. What the fuck?

  His gaze ticked to the driver. The young man gripped the vehicle’s steering wheel with both hands, the thick beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, suggesting that he was under a lot of stress.

  A second later, Mason realized why.

  They were barreling at breakneck speed toward a tanker truck. Mason instinctively grasped that this man was aiming his vehicle straight at the other vehicle, determined to create an accident. Mason’s horror deepened when he spotted a second truck to his right, matching the speed of the vehicle he was trapped in. The driver sported a similar terrified yet determined expression, his foot glued to the gas pedal as he hurtled toward their fate.

  A glance to Mason’s left revealed a third vehicle on a similar collision course with the massive steel beast carrying 10,000 gallons of gasoline. The face of a crying woman pressed against the passenger window of the other truck.

  She had not volunteered for this joy ride into Hell. Mason’s thoughts turned to the ritual murder-suicides the girl he was supposed to watch had been mixed up with. Was that what this was?

  She’s about to be sacrificed, Mason realized with horror. And so are you, buddy.

  This last insight made his blood turn to ice.

  Panic metastasizing, Mason pulled against the steel handcuffs, the metal cutting painfully into his skin.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  He had to get out of here!

  Now wide awake and alert, Mason turned his gaze toward the driver. The man punching the gas didn’t acknowledge him, his full attention locked on the belching tanker in front of him.

  Something else caught his eye, a flash of red. With horror, Mason spotted the explosives resting on the dashboard, a timer racing down. These fanatics weren’t taking any chances. Three trucks ramming into an oil tanker might or might not trigger an explosion, but the explosives assured a fiery outcome of cataclysmic proportions.

  “Don’t do this,” he croaked.

  The cult member’s response was slam his foot against the gas pedal.

  Seconds before impact.

  Mason’s last thought before the world erupted into flame was that he should have never answered Casca’s call.

  Chapter Twelve

  As Simon Casca watched the news in his home office, his heart sank. Every channel was broadcasting the same shocking footage of the tanker truck explosion. The news anchors addressed the audience in grave voices and urged viewer caution, warning of the disturbing nature of the footage they were about to see.

  Casca cracked his knuckles as three smaller trucks hurtled toward the oil tanker truck. Tons of fast-moving steel had become weaponized. The driver of the tanker truck appeared unaware of smaller vehicles homing in on him.

  And then the trucks were upon the tanker. They ignited into fireballs that almost instantly engulfed the much larger target vehicle. The world turned red as smaller explosions from inside the trucks ignited the oil in the tanker’s iron belly. As the frame went supernova, the news cut to footage of the same chilling incident taken from a greater distance. This new angle offered a much clearer view of the devastating explosion that followed.

  Casca gripped the armrests of his office chair and wished he’d poured himself a stiff drink before reviewing the footage. His mouth felt dry. As the flames engulfed the gutted wrecks of metal lining the freeway, Casca knew that the Children of the Green had performed their third murder-suicide.

  Drownings for water.

  Skydiving “accidents” for air.

  And now this terrible attack for fire.

  They were running out of time to stop the cult. To make matters worse, Talon had gon
e silent. All attempts to reach Detective Mason or Talon had failed. Sometimes Casca hated being the man who directed this war against the supernatural from behind a desk, cut off from the frontlines of the action. What the hell was happening out there?

  Casca switched to a different series of news reports. Only a few hours had passed since the fiery tragedy, but the fire sacrifice was already manifesting itself all across Los Angeles and Ventura County. Reports were coming in of a freak lightning storm that had started several raging wildfires.

  His growing anxiety getting the better of him, he redialed the soldier’s cell and was redirected straight into Talon’s voicemail. His fingers whitened around the casing of the phone.

  As his 38-inch curved computer monitor filled with aerial views of the various fires blazing through California, Casca hung up the phone. Without Talon, no one could stop the Children of the Green from completing their fourth and final sacrifice.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Talon woke up on a small cot which had been set up in a sparsely decorated office space. He wasn’t restrained, but he had no doubt that he was a prisoner.

  Crimson light lanced the room through a single window, and the acrid stench of sulfur mixed with smoke filled the air. Each breath carried with it a hint of ash. Somewhere nearby, a massive fire was burning; that much was certain.

  The Element of Fire.

  The thought jerked Talon fully awake, casting aside the last traces of grogginess.

  He rose slowly to his feet, his body a map of pain. Simple movements felt like he was fighting his way through syrup. He would not soon forget his fight with Morgaine. Casca had described her as an expert martial artist, and that wasn’t an understatement. She was a force to be reckoned with, even without the Jedi tricks.

  She’d handed his ass to him.

  Every muscle and bone in his body protested as he stumbled toward the red glowing window. He gritted his teeth, determined to keep going.

  A cursory glance at the stack of invoices on the nearby desk suggested that Morgaine performed the administrative tasks of running the winery in this space. She had built a real business while growing the membership of her cult.

  As Talon drew closer to the window, he realized he had to be on the top floor of one of the winery’s main buildings. Three stories—or roughly thirty feet—separated him from the courtyard below. He barely looked at the graves below, his gaze riveted to the inferno unfolding in the near distance. Walls of flame had transformed the surrounding mountains and vineyards into a hellish landscape.

  Morgaine’s winery was in the direct path of the growing wildfire.

  A ring of hungry, searing fire engulfed the property, black smoke rising into the red skies. Talon fought back a cough as the scorched air hit his lungs full force.

  The cult had carried out their latest sacrifice while he’d been dead to the world.

  Just one left. One more chance to stop them.

  Talon’s gaze shifted from the fast-approaching flames to the three graves in the winery’s central courtyard. The Children of the Green were completing their terrible ritual.

  Several cultists were busy filling in the newly dug graves, while two new arrivals were being led toward the third, still open pit.

  Dread knotted Talon’s stomach when he realized one of the figures was Charlie. How had the Children of the Green found her?

  A scared-looking man stumbled after her like a zombie. The cultists had worked him over, his hair caked with blood. He was the innocent victim they were going to bury with the cult member. One soul devoted to the cause, one hapless stranger who’d been chosen by Morgaine to die for the sins of the polluters.

  Talon wondered what crime the man had committed in the eyes of the cult leader. Was he an oil executive? Just some schmuck who posted too much about fracking on social media?

  The bloodied man clearly grasped the fate in store for him and was pulling on his cuffs, forcing Charlie to stop her march toward the open grave. A cultist stepped up and violently punched the man in the stomach. He crumpled, and now that his muscles were jelly, Morgaine’s goons tossed both Charlie and the downed stranger into the waiting abyss.

  As soon as they vanished from view, the cultists began filling the grave with dirt.

  Burying them alive.

  Talon had no desire to find out what would happen next. He judged it was merely a matter of minutes, if not seconds, before the first of the sacrifices began to suffocate. How long could someone last with the soil pressing on top of them and squeezing the very breath out of their lungs? Inside a coffin, you might have some time before your oxygen would run out, but the Children of the Green were opting for a far more primitive burial ritual.

  I guess caskets are environmentally unfriendly, Talon thought, amazed he could still find some black humor in the gruesome situation. Perhaps he’d been working for Casca for too long.

  His eyes swept the fresh graves and landed on Morgaine. She stood on an incline at the far edge of the courtyard. The higher vantage point allowed her to survey the burial ground while also offering her an unobstructed view of the incoming tsunami of fire. She had traded her jeans and T-shirt for a blue robe. The skies painted her hard features scarlet, transforming her into an unearthly druid princess. She projected a primal quality—an elemental force to be reckoned with.

  Morgaine took in the flashing firmament, ready to welcome the full power of the fifth element. Talon knew he had to get out of this room and do everything in his power to stop this last sacrifice.

  His gaze turned to the door. It had to be locked. There was no chance Morgaine would neglect such basic security. Still, he had to make sure.

  As he advanced toward the door, he tried not to dwell on what was happening outside. Tried not to imagine his own mouth filling up with earth as he tried to scream, to claw his way to freedom.

  He tested the doorknob. Locked. His gaze flicked back to the window. That wasn’t an option. It was a thirty-foot drop to the ground below, and doubtful that his battered body would cooperate if he tried to climb down the walls. The door was his only way out of here. Was there anything in this room he could use to pick the lock or ram the exit?

  His gaze was still roaming the office space when the sound of incoming footsteps gave him pause. Someone was rapidly approaching.

  Talon stepped back from the door as the lock was unlatched. A powerfully built man lurched through the doorway. His granite features and bulging physique indicated that the fella wasn’t the type you’d want to run into in a dark alley—or piss off in the light of day for that matter.

  He carried a pistol, which he kept leveled at his prisoner. His icy eyes regarded Talon.

  “Come. Morgaine wants you to have a front row seats for what happens next. Now get moving!”

  The former Delta Force operator shot the armed cultist a withering look.

  The cultist nodded at the three other armed men standing behind him. Even if Talon could somehow disarm the fanatic, the others would cut him down in a hail of lead.

  Patience, he urged himself. You’ll get your chance soon enough.

  Talon raised his hands as instructed, and the armed man entered the room. While his buddies kept their pistols leveled, the cultist circled Talon until he was behind him. He dug the barrel of his gun in Talon’s back, a clear indicator he wanted the prisoner to get his ass in gear.

  Talon would play along. For now.

  As they made their way across a landing and down a winding staircase, Talon’s mind turned back to the cultist’s words. Morgaine wants you to have a front row seats for what happens next. What did that exactly mean?

  By the time they’d reached the lower level of the structure, Talon had successfully silenced his whirling thoughts. One of the reasons he excelled in the field was his ability to compartmentalize. Right now, it didn’t matter what Morgaine wanted to happen. His objective was to break free from these goons and interrupt the ritual before it could happen.

  The downstair
s functioned as the wine storage facility and tasting area, and wooden racks filled with a wide assortment of vintages lined the chamber on both sides. Red light bled through the windows and bathed the collection in a hellish glow.

  Talon wondered if Morgaine planned to abandon her compound before the fire engulfed the winery. Or perhaps she believed herself impervious to the raging inferno at this point. That might even become true if she carried out the final sacrifice and unleashed the full power of the fifth element.

  Talon had seen enough weird shit since teaming up with Casca to know that black magic could give birth to dark miracles. Still, he doubted that Morgaine’s followers would fare so well once the flames encircled the property and escape became impossible. To a power-hungry woman like Morgaine, these followers were just collateral damage, a means to an end.

  Talon’s gaze remained alert, his breathing controlled, as they made their way through the wine storage. He was biding his time, waiting for his opportunity to make a move.

  As Talon watched for an opening, he saw the lead goon stumble. A split second later, Talon felt it too. A powerful jolt rippled through the structure, followed by violent shaking that seemed to go on forever. As the earthquake battered the building without mercy, Talon knew a new victim had succumbed to Morgaine’s terrible plan.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The intense vibrations made the wine bottles dance and crack against each other in their wooden racks. Within seconds, bottles were flying from their shelves and exploding in geysers of red.

  The cultists were caught off guard and were struggling to stay on their feet. One of them tried to bolt and immediately fell down in a puddle of spilled wine and broken glass.

  The trembling intensified as waves of force relentlessly pummeled the structure. It was getting worse with each passing second, the seismic onslaught showing no signs of abating.

  For a moment, the cultists’ focus wasn’t on Talon, and their pistols were no longer pointing at him. And that meant the time had come to make his move.