by N. P. Martin
The orcs all grunted in agreement as we began to walk up the path that led up the hill, and as we did, Amelia told the orcs to spread out a bit, with two of them flanking left and two more flanking right, leaving just one to take the center with Amelia, Simoa and myself.
"Be careful here," I told them. "I didn’t see Peterson’s body lying down there, which means he’s probably up there with more security."
"Peterson?" Simoa said.
"O’Hare’s bodyguard," I said.
Simoa nodded like she didn’t care. "He’ll die with the rest."
We’ll see, I thought, just as we spotted two figures up ahead coming toward us. Neither of the figures—presumably more security—made it very far before they were gunned down by the orcs, who had suppressors on their weapons. Though given how still the night was, the shots could still be heard. Whatever security was left up there would be alerted by now.
"Move!" Amelia said as she started to run up the path, quickly followed by the rest of us, all except the orc beside us, who took a bullet to the head from out of nowhere, his massive body crashing to the ground and sliding back down the hill slightly.
"Jesus!" I exclaimed, instinctively ducking down as I continued to run up the slope alongside Amelia.
At that point, the orcs to the left and right of the slope all began to return fire. As we got closer to the ruined, stone building, which appeared to be lit from the inside by glowing orange light, much shouting from panicked voices could be heard. In the semi-darkness at the top of the hill, I could see robed figures running out of the old building like rats from a sewer. Most of them were shot down as soon as they stepped outside, the high-powered weapons used by the orcs being more than a match for the handguns carried by what remained of the cult’s security team. By the time I made it up the slope along with Amelia and Simoa, there were bodies lying around everywhere. The four orcs flanking us had now converged on the building, and any cult members who hadn’t died immediately from the bullets in them were mercilessly finished off by the orcs, who either shot the survivors in the head or simply stamped on them, crushing skulls with their huge bulk.
As I examined the bodies on the ground, counting over a dozen so far, I saw no sign of O’Hare yet. No doubt there were others hiding inside the building, for all the good that would do them. But as I went to walk inside, I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked to my right I saw two figures running toward the forest. As it was so dark, it was hard to make out who the figures were, but something told me it was O’Hare and Peterson making a run for it. At the first sign of trouble, Peterson would’ve gotten his Principle out of there. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had an emergency vehicle parked somewhere near, just in case he had to make a quick getaway.
Without thinking about it, I bolted over the grass and started heading for the two figures still running toward the trees, and as I did, I got my magic ready as I prepared to blast them if need be. Behind me, I heard Amelia shout my name, but I ran on, knowing that if the men made it into the forest that they would likely escape.
I was a hundred years away from them when one of the men broke off while the other ran into the forest. The one who broke off—Peterson, I now realized—was sprinting right toward me. A break in the clouds allowed a sliver of moonlight to come through, and that’s when I saw Peterson was pointing a gun at me. A split second before he fired, though, I heard a shot from behind me and Peterson fell to the ground. When I looked around, I saw Simoa standing about twenty yards away, still holding her gun out in front of her.
"Go!" she shouted. "Get the other one."
Nodding once at her, I bolted across the grass toward the forest, not even sure if Peterson was dead or alive. If he was alive, he wouldn’t be for much longer, not if Simoa had anything to do with it.
Breathing hard as I entered the dark forest, I called O’Hare’s name. "It’s over, O’Hare!" I shouted as I looked around for him. "There’s no use in hiding."
And there really wasn’t. After I casted a Reveal Spell, I was able to pinpoint O’Hare crouching behind a clump of bushes about twenty yards away. As I got near him, he jumped up and tried to run off through the trees, and I ran after him as he did so, stopping only to say the words, "Ventum exquiris!"
A second later, a hurricane-strength gust of wind took O’Hare right of his feet and slammed him against a thick pine tree. He lay groaning on the forest floor as I reached him. Just to make sure he stayed down, and because I wanted to, I kicked him hard in the ribs, causing him to cry out in pain. "That’s for trying to drown me," I said, before kicking him again. "And that’s for being a sick, twisted cunt."
"Please…" he said in between choking. "Don’t kill me…"
"I’m not going to kill you," I said.
He looked up at me with fearful eyes, all of his former smugness gone. "What are you going to do then?"
"I’m taking you home to Kilkenny."
He seemed confused now as he continued to stare up at me. "Why?"
"There’s someone there that wants to speak to you."
He shook his head, knowing he wasn’t going to get away with it after all. "Who?"
"You’ll find out when we get there," I said. "Now get up and start walking…"
Chapter 20
Although he was scared for his life, Jared O’Hare still insisted on making threats as I marched him across the grass toward the old the building on the hill, his robes catching on his feet as he walked.
"You have no idea what you’ve done," he said, unable to keep the fear from his voice. "The Dark One will retaliate, mark my words, and when it does, you’ll wish you were dead."
"The Dark One?" I said as I pushed him on. "You mean the spirit in the Tasar house?"
"Yes, Apep speaks through it. Apep will save me from whatever you have planned."
I shook my head. "I don’t think so, asshole. You’re fucking deluded. After I’m done with you, I’m going to that house to take care of the Dark One as you call it."
O’Hare laughed to himself. "Good luck with that."
"Yeah? Well, good luck surviving the night." We had reached the building now, and the orcs were dragging the bodies into a pile near the front. "Take a look, Jared. Your followers are all dead."
"No…" he said, aghast at the bloody sight before him. "Apep will kill you all for this! He’ll—"
Before he could say anymore, I suddenly slapped my hand onto his forehead and said a quick spell that would effectively poison him, but not so much that it would kill him. The magic would put him out for a while, and make him hallucinate the way the drugs he gave me did. "Nighty-night, Jared," I said, catching him as he went to fall to the ground, his body suddenly as weak as a kitten’s as the magic took hold.
"You got your man then." Simoa came walking over to me, her gun now put away.
"I did," I said. "Thanks, by the way, for earlier."
She barely smiled as she nodded. "Don’t mention it. I’m sure you would’ve done the same for me, right?"
I nodded. "Right. Can you do me another favor and get one of the orcs to carry this asshole to Amelia’s car please?"
"Where are you taking him?"
"Kilkenny."
When she realized I wasn’t going to give up any more details, she merely nodded. "I’ll get it done."
"Thanks," I said as I walked away from her, going to stand by Amelia as she stood looking at the pile of bodies by the front of the building.
"Are you okay?" she asked me. "You got O’Hare I see."
"I did. There’s a lot of cleaning up here to be done."
She nodded. "I know. There are more people on the way."
"Who?"
"Cleaners, of course."
"Of course. One of the benefits of being the head of a crime organization, I guess. You can order clean-up crews."
"Just because I run a crime business amongst other things, doesn’t mean I still can’t do good, you know."
I looked at the pile of
dead meat in front of us. "You think we did good here?"
"Don’t you?"
I shrugged. "Doesn’t feel like it."
"You’re just shocked by the violence," she said. "Once the dust settles, you’ll see we did a good thing here. We prevented any more innocent kids being taken by these monsters."
"We still have one more monster to take care of, don’t forget."
She nodded. "My parents, or what’s become of them."
"O’Hare called the spirit the Dark One."
"The Dark One? Very original."
"That’s what I thought."
"I guess we should go to Kilkenny and take care of the Dark One then," she said. "Give me a minute to sort things out here."
"I’ll meet you at the car."
I left her to go and talk with Simoa, who would be staying behind to oversee the clean up. As I walked down the hill, I breathed the night air deep into my lungs to try and get the smell of death out of my nostrils, though I knew it would take more than a bit of fresh air to rid me of the death stink, which felt like it went deep under my skin, staining my soul while it was at it.
Even when you do good, you still end up feeling bad.
A couple of hours later, we arrived in Kilkenny. On the journey down, I called Jonah to let him know we’d be arriving soon and he gave me directions to a farm that was situated just outside the city. As soon as he did, I knew he planned on killing O’Hare, who was currently in the trunk of the Dodge, drugged up on magic.
The farm was isolated and took us a while to find. It also appeared abandoned. As we drove into the courtyard, I saw Jonah standing next to his car in T-shirt and jeans, his arms folded across his barrel chest. Jesus, I thought. Does this guy never feel the cold?
"Who owns this place?" I asked him when I got out of the car.
"I do," he said. "I grew up here. It stopped being a farm when me da died."
I nodded as Amelia got out of the car. "Jonah, this is Amelia."
"Hello," he said, slightly warily as he took her in.
"Hey," Amelia said as she went to the trunk and opened it. "We brought your package."
Jonah joined us by the trunk and we all stared down at O’Hare lying inside, his head rolling back and forth as if he was having a fever dream. "What’s wrong with him?" Jonah asked.
"I just gave him a little something to keep him subdued," I said. "It will wear off soon."
Jonah nodded. "How did you manage this? What about Peterson?"
"He’s dead," I said.
"They’re all dead now," Amelia said.
Jonah looked at her like he found her intimidating. "All of them?"
"All of them," I said, not mentioning the Dark One.
"All but this one," Amelia said. "I hope you’re going to make him suffer for what he did to your brother and god knows how many other kids."
Jonah stared down at O’Hare in the trunk. "He’ll get what’s coming to him."
"Glad to hear it," Amelia said, and then lifted O’Hare out of the trunk like he weighed no more than a child. "Where do you want him?"
Jonah’s eyes widened as he gaped at Amelia standing there with a grown man in her arms, before looking at me as if seeking an explanation. "She goes to the gym a lot," I said slightly awkwardly.
Jonah shook his head. "Follow me."
I walked behind Amelia as she carried O’Hare inside a dilapidated barn and dumped him down on the stinking floor. As she did, he flung his eyes open as if awakening from a nightmare, except his nightmare was just about to begin. "Where am I?" he demanded as he went to sit up, but Jonah put his boot on his chest and forced him back down, causing Amelia to smile in approval.
"You’re at the end of the road, Jared," I said. "That’s where you are."
Hs face suddenly registered his terror as he realized what was going on. "You don’t have to do this," he protested. "I can pay you…I can make all three of you rich if you just let me go…please…"
"We don’t need your money, asshole," Amelia said. "I’ve got enough of my own."
"You killed my little brother," Jonah said, surprisingly composed considering he finally had his brother’s killer, though his composure chilled me more than his anger probably would’ve.
"We’ll leave you to it," I said to him.
Jonah nodded at me as he kept his large boot on O’Hare. "I appreciate what you did here."
I nodded back at him. "You saved my life after this cretin tried to kill me. I owed you."
As we walked away, O’Hare started screaming, but his screams were cut short a few seconds later, and I dare not turn around to see why.
I looked at Amelia to see her smiling to herself. "Have fun you guys," she shouted over her shoulder.
Chapter 21
Once we drove away from the farm, we went straight to Amelia’s childhood home.
Now the home of the Dark One.
As Amelia drove through the gates and brought the car to a stop in front of the house, my stomach turned over at the thought of having to go inside again and face that malevolent thing in there once more.
"This is it," Amelia said as she griped the steering wheel with both hands, even though the engine was off.
I stared at her a moment, noticing how unsettled she seemed compared to how she was at the farm. "Are you afraid?" I asked her.
She turned her head to look at me. "Aren’t you?"
Staring out through the window at the house, I nodded. "I’d be foolish if I wasn’t afraid."
"Maybe we should wait till day break before going in."
I laughed slightly, more out of nervousness than anything else. "The house is dark inside even during the day. I don’t think it would matter."
Amelia took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she stared at the house. "I haven’t been in there since I was a kid," she said, her voice quiet and subdued. "Given everything you’ve told me about what went on, I don’t know how I managed to stay there for so long."
"You were just a kid. You seriously don’t remember anything bad happening?"
She frowned deeply as she shook her head. "I don’t know…maybe. I don’t really want to talk about it."
"How did you feel about your parents? Did you love them. Did they—"
She cut me off with a look. "I said I don’t want to talk about it."
"Fine," I said raising my hands slightly.
"There’s a gas can in the trunk," she said. "After we get this Dark One, I’m burning this place to the ground."
"I don’t blame you."
She stared at the house a moment longer before seeming to wipe a tear from her eye. "All right. Let’s get this over with."
Neither of us really wanted to get out of the car, but we knew we didn’t have a choice. If the Dark One wasn’t dealt with, it would use its dark influence to conscript another cult leader, and then the whole cult would rise from the ashes, and more children would die.
There was no way we were going to let that happen.
So before I got out of the car, I opened the glove box and took out the small vase that would serve as a ghost trap, along with the scroll that had the spell written on it in Latin.
"You think that thing will work?" Amelia asked as we stood outside on the weed-strewn gravel drive, not seeming to have as much confidence in the artifact as she did earlier.
"I bloody hope so," I said. "Or we’re a bit screwed, aren’t we?"
"Maybe burning the house will be enough. What do you think?"
I shook my head. "Maybe, but I’m not taking the chance that the Dark One relocates somewhere else. We don’t know if it’s actually tied to the house in some way, or whether it just likes hanging around here, perhaps because its power is especially strong in this place. If we go ahead and burn the house, we might never find the Dark One again, at least not before it brings more death and chaos to please its master, Apep."
"You make a convincing argument…unfortunately."
"Screw it," I said, trying to make the s
ituation seem less grave than it was. "What can it really do to us at the end of the day? It’s a bloody ghost."
Amelia looked at me and saw I wasn’t as brave as I was letting on. "We’ll soon find out."
I was about to say something else when I noticed a figure standing by the front of the house. A man it seemed like, dressed in clothes that looked to have been in style decades ago, and I realized after a second that I was looking at another ghost. I was about to point the ghost out to Amelia when another suddenly appeared out of thin air by the front door, the translucent form of a young girl no older than about twelve. After that, ghostly figures began to materialize all around the driveway, men, women and children of all ages, most seeming to be from decades past.
"Em, Amelia…"
"I see them," she said in a quiet voice. "What do they all want?"
I shook my head. "No idea."
"There’s so many."
There must’ve been dozens of ghostly figures all standing around the driveway and overgrown gardens, every one of them staring right at us. "I didn’t see this many last time I was here."
Amelia exhaled sharply as if she had just realized something.
"What is it?" I asked her.
"I’ve just been hit with the thought that my parents…murdered all these people."
I nodded grimly. "I’d say you’re right."
"I feel sick, Corvin…"
"Are you—"
I didn’t get much further before a ghost suddenly came flying at us, screaming as it went, the ghost of a woman with wild eyes and a mouth that was open much wider than was possible. As the ghost came barreling at us, it flew straight through us both, taking our breath away as it did so.
"What the hell was that about?" Amelia said as she stood stiffly, temporarily froze to the spot in shock.
I shook my head as I waited on another ghost to come, but none did. Instead, all the ghosts who were standing around suddenly faded away into nothing as quickly as they had come, their ghostly light now replaced by the dark of night. "I think maybe that was a warning."
"To do what?" Amelia asked.
