by N. P. Martin
Then someone approached him from behind. A voice said, “Are you Mr. White?”
And God help me, I recognized the voice, and my face twisted up with despair.
“That’s right,” Savage said. “Take a seat.”
The person came around and sat down, her face now in full view of the camera. I clamped my hand to my mouth as tears sprung in my eyes.
No, no, no…
“Let’s get this over with quick,” Hannah said in the video. “I have to get back to work soon. Here’s the address.” She pushed a piece of paper across the table at Savage. “It’s a woman and a little girl. Will that be a problem for you?”
“I don’t normally do kids, lady,” Savage said.
“Fine. I’ll double your fee. How’s that?”
Savage paused before sliding a piece of paper of his own across the table to Hannah. “There’s my account details. Once the money’s in, I’ll do the job.”
“Good. The money will be in by tonight.”
“Then our business here is done,” Savage said, getting up without saying another word and heading out of the cafe, at which point the video ended.
I sat at the table with my head in my hands for a long time after. Then I played the video again and froze it on Hannah’s face, just to be sure. Her clothes were a little different from normal—she wore a dark hoodie and blue jeans—but it was definitely her. There was no mistaking that face.
Clenching my fists, I said, “Why, Hannah?” as if she was here to answer me.
“Hey man,” Savage called from the living room. “You get what you need or what?”
Removing the flash drive from the computer, I put it into my pocket. Then I lifted the silver blade and carried it into the living room with me, my face a blank mask at this point as I struggled to control my roiling emotions underneath.
Gripping the blade tight in my right hand, I stood in front of Savage and stared at him.
“Think about what I said, man,” he said as he began to squirm in his chair. “Don’t do this. You’ll be killing yourself.”
“You’re a parasite,” I said in a flat voice. “You butchered the only two people in the world who meant anything to me.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I felt my emotions rise to the surface—the anger, the betrayal. The hatred for the man in front of me.
“Please, man, don’t—”
Raising the weapon, I swung it as hard as I could at his neck, the silver blade cutting right through, decapitating him. His head fell to the floor with a heavy thump and rolled over against the wall, coming to a standstill with his eyes still open in shock.
After staring at his headless corpse for a moment, I sat down in the chair opposite, allowing the bloodstained blade to hang loosely in my grip. With my other hand, I reached into my pocket and retrieved a crumpled pack of smokes, shaking one out into my mouth before using a zippo to light it up.
As I smoked, I stared blankly at the floor, still trying to fathom what I’d seen in the video.
Who I’d seen.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t get it to make any sense.
Why? I kept thinking. Why would she do it to me?
To them?
With no answers forthcoming, I tossed away my cigarette butt and went outside, going around the back until I found a generator and then a jerrycan full of gas. I carried the can into the cabin and started splashing the gas around the place, pouring the rest over Savage’s headless corpse.
When I was done, I dropped the can and went outside. By the front door, I lit another cigarette, drawing on it to make sure it was lit before tossing the lit cigarette inside the cabin. The burning embers of the cigarette immediately ignited the volatile fluid splashed everywhere, and within seconds the whole cabin was ablaze.
With smoke and intense heat filling the woods around me, I walked away from the blazing cabin and started for home.
For there was someone else I had to see now.
24
I felt Hannah’s betrayal more keenly than I’d felt anything in my life before, except for the devastation I felt when my angels were taken from me.
By Hannah, it now seemed.
But why?
That was the question I kept asking myself over and over as I drove back to the city. And it didn’t matter how many times I asked myself the question, for no satisfactory answers were forthcoming. No matter which way I looked at it, I saw no reason why Hannah would do such an evil thing as have my wife and daughter killed.
I wondered for a while why she never just did the killing herself. Then I realized she hired someone so she could keep her distance and ensure she wasn’t implicated.
Maybe it wasn’t her, I thought as I entered the city. Maybe it was Xaglath.
Either way, she was going to pay for what she did.
Taking out my phone as a cold rage started to settle in me, I texted Hannah:
WHERE ARE YOU?
A moment later, she texted back:
MY APARTMENT
Tossing the phone on the front seat, I pressed down harder on the gas pedal.
When I got to Hannah’s apartment, I didn’t even knock. I was so full of anger that I kicked the door in and stomped inside to find her in the living room, and God help me, she was wearing the same clothes that she had worn to the meeting with Savage.
“Ethan, what the hell—”
Before she could even finish, I leaned down and grabbed her by the lapels, lifting her up in my rage and slamming her against the wall.
“Why?” I screamed at her. “Why’d you do it?”
Hannah’s face was a mask of shock and confusion as she stared back at me.
“Do what?” she said. “Ethan what—”
Roaring, I spun around and threw her across the room, and she crashed against the far wall. Before she could even recover, I picked her up again, holding her up in front of me. “Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screamed back.
“Liar!”
I threw her across the room again.
This time, when she landed, she jumped immediately to her feet, her eyes now glowing amber. “What is wrong with you?” she asked as her Visage loomed threateningly behind her.
Taking out my gun, I pointed it at her.
“You killed them,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “You fucking killed them.”
“Killed who?”
“MY FUCKING FAMILY! YOU HAD MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER KILLED!” I rushed forward with the gun and pressed it against her forehead. “WHY? TELL ME WHY!”
She stared into my eyes before shaking her head. “Ethan, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I—”
“Stop it! Stop lying!” I reached into my pocket and showed her the flash drive. “You’re on video arranging the whole fucking thing.”
A deep frown crossed her face as she shook her head. “There’s been some mistake. Ethan, you know I would never—” She stopped then as something seemed to occur to her. “It’s me on the video?”
“Yes, it’s fucking you,” I snarled. “There’s no mistaking you. You’re even wearing the same clothes as you are now.”
Her face dropped, and she started to edge away from me as I continued to point the gun at her. “I—I—”
“What?” I said. “You don’t remember?”
“No, unless…unless it was—”
“Xaglath?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
Stepping toward her with the gun, she backed up near the window, her face now bathed in red neon light from the sign outside.
“I thought I could trust you,” I said in a near whisper. “I thought I—”
I didn’t finish as I shook my head and tightened my grip on the gun.
“Ethan,” Hannah pleaded. “Don’t, please—”
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” I said, my eyes full of tears as my face twisted up with uncontained emotion. “I have to.”
; “Ethan, no!”
I shot her once in the chest, and she staggered back toward the window.
Then I shot her again, squeezing the trigger four more times in rapid succession until she crashed through the glass and fell out the window.
With the smell of gunpowder in the room, I stood staring at the broken window as the wind billowed the curtains.
With tears running down my face and my body wracked with pain, I lowered the gun and walked to the window, leaning out to look down at the street below, expecting to see Hannah’s body lying there on the wet sidewalk.
But there was no sign of her.
She was gone, leaving only a puddle of blood behind her on the ground below.
Letting the gun slip from my hand, I sank to my knees as the wind and rain blew into my face.
Then I opened my mouth and roared into the night so loud that even God probably heard me.
“This isn’t over, Hannah!” I bellowed out the broken window. “You hear me? This isn’t over!”
“Oh, I think it is,” said another voice from behind me.
Grabbing my gun, I spun around and pointed it at the person now standing in the room. It was a dark-suited Japanese man in his late fifties. Flanking him on either side were two other men in suits, both much younger as they stood pointing their pistols at me. In my confusion, it took me a moment to realize who the men were.
They were Yakuza.
“Mr. Drake,” the older man said. “My name is Kazuo Yagami. I’d like to speak to you about my daughter, Hannah.”
Hardly able to compute what was happening, I shook my head and said, “What about her?”
Yagami smiled coldly. “I want what she has, Mr. Drake. And you will help me get it.”
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TEASER: BLOOD MAGIC (WIZARD’S CREED # 1)
When the magic hit, I was knocked to the floor like I’d taken a hard-right hook to the jaw. The spell was so powerful, it blew through my every defense. For all my wards and the good they did me, I might as well have been a Sleepwalker with no protection at all.
The faint smell of decayed flesh mixed with sulfur hung thick in the air, a sure sign that dark magic had just been used, which in my experience, was never good. Coming across dark magic is a bit like turning up at a children’s party to find Beelzebub in attendance, a shit-eating grin on his face as he tied balloon animals for the terrified kids. It’s highly disturbing.
I sat dazed on the floor, blinking around me for a moment. My mind was fuzzy and partially frozen, as though I’d awakened from a nightmare. I was inside an abandoned office space, the expansive rectangular room lined with grimy, broken windows that let cold air in to draw me out of my daze. Darkness coated the room, the only real light coming from the moon outside as it beamed its pale, silvery light through the smashed skylights.
I struggled back to my feet and blindly reached for the pistol inside my dark green trench coat, frowning when I realized the gun wasn’t there. Then I remembered it had gone flying out of my hand when the spell had hit. Looking around, I soon located the pistol lying on the floor several feet away, and I lurched over and grabbed it, slightly more secure now that the gun’s reassuring weight was back in my hand.
There were disturbing holes in my memory. I recalled confronting someone after tracking them here. But who? I couldn’t get a clear image. The person was no more than a shadow figure in my mind. I had no clue as to why I was following this person unknown in the first place. Obviously, they had done something to get on my radar. The question was what, though?
The answer came a few seconds later when my eyes fell upon the dark shape in the middle of the room, and a deep sense of dread filled me; a dread that was both familiar and sickening at the same time, for I knew what I was about to find. Swallowing, I stared hard through the gloom at the human shape lying lifelessly on the debris-covered floor. Over the sharp scent of rats piss and pigeon shit, the heavy, festering stench of blood hit my nostrils without mercy.
When I crossed to the center of the room, my initial fears were confirmed when I saw that it was a dead body lying on the floor. A young woman with her throat slit. Glyphs were carved into the naked flesh of her spread-eagled body, with ropes leading from her wrists and ankles to rusty metal spikes hammered into the floor. I marveled at the force required to drive the nails into the concrete, knowing full well that a hammer had nothing to do with it.
Along the circumference of a magic circle painted around the victim was what looked like blood-drawn glyphs. The sheer detail of them unnerved me as I observed in them a certain quality that could only have come from a well-practiced hand.
I breathed out as I reluctantly took in the callous butchery on display. The dead woman looked to be in her early thirties, though it was difficult to tell because both her eyes were missing; cut out with the knife used to slice her throat, no doubt. I shook my head as I looked around in a vain effort to locate the dead woman’s eyeballs.
The woman looked underweight for her size. She was around the same height as me at six feet, but there was very little meat on her bones, as if she was a stranger to regular meals. I also noted the needle marks on her feet, and the bruises around her thighs. This, coupled with how she had been dressed—in a leather mini skirt and short top, both items discarded on the floor nearby—made me almost certain the woman had been a prostitute. A convenient, easy victim for whoever had killed her.
If the symbols carved into her pale flesh were anything to go by, it would seem the woman had been ritually sacrificed. At a guess, I would have said she was an offering to one of the Dimension Lords, which the glyphs seemed to point to. The glyphs themselves weren’t only complex, but also carved with surgical precision. The clarity of the symbols against the woman’s pale flesh made it possible for me to make out certain ones that I recognized as being signifiers to alternate dimensions, though which dimension exactly, I couldn’t be sure, at least not until I had studied the glyphs further. Glyphs such as the ones I was looking at were always uniquely different in some way. No two people drew glyphs the same, with each person etching their own personality into every one, which can often make it hard to work out their precise meanings. One thing I could be certain of was that the glyphs carved into the woman’s body resonated only evil intent; an intent so strong, I felt it in my gut, gnawing at me like a parasite seeking access to my insides, as if drawn to my magic power. Not a pleasant feeling, but I was used to it, having been exposed to enough dark magic in my time.
After taking in the scene, I soon came to the conclusion that the woman wasn’t the killer’s first victim; not by a long stretch, given the precision and clear competency of the work on display.
“Son of a bitch,” I said, annoyed. I couldn’t recall any details about the case I had so obviously been wo
rking on. It was no coincidence that I had ended up where I was, a place that happened to reek of dark magic, and which housed a murder that had occult written all over it. I’d been on the hunt, and I had gotten close to the killer, which was the likeliest reason for the dark magic booby trap I happened to carelessly spring like some bloody rookie.
Whoever the killer was, they wielded powerful magic. A spell that managed to wipe all my memories of the person in question wouldn’t have been an easy one to create. And given the depth of power to their magic, it also felt to me like they had channeled it from some other source, most likely from whatever Dimension Lord they were sacrificing people to.
Whatever the case, the killer’s spell had worked. Getting back the memories they had stolen from me wouldn’t be easy, and that’s if I could get them back at all, which I feared might just be the case.
After shaking my head at how messed up the situation was, I froze upon hearing a commanding voice booming in the room like thunder.
“Don’t move, motherfucker!”
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TEASER: NEPHILIM RISING SERIES
Nephilim Rising is the first urban fantasy series that I wrote. There are a total of six books in the series, which tells of Leia and her struggles against demons and her troubled past. These struggles take her all the way to Hell, in which two of the books are set. If you’ve ever wondered what Hell might be like, these books will give you some idea. It’s a fun but brutal adventure series packed with action, humor and a little bit of romance. Below you can read a sample chapter from the first book, Hunter’s Legacy.
