by Declan Finn
Alex slid over to a corner of the room and took a book of matches out of his pocket. He opened the matchbook and slid his cigarette into the book. He wrapped the cover over the cigarette and put it back in place. This locked the cigarette in place. He pushed the lit cigarette down the book, perilously close to the matches. “We may have a minute,” Alex said. “Assuming they don’t come shooting.”
I winced. The lit cigarette and the matchbook was an old arsonist trick. The cigarette did not burn hot enough to ignite the gas. But the cigarette was hot enough to ignite the matches, and that flame would ignite the gas. The lit cigarette would burn down to the matches, and boom.
“When did you start thinking like this?” I asked.
Alex shrugged as he moved for the back door. “When you left for Europe. I don’t have superpowers. I gotta think ahead.”
Pearson waited for us at the door. When Baracus saw we caught up again, he strode out into the back lawn.
In my display, I saw the lawn ripple to life, as it did at Dunwich U.
“Baracus!” I called out, trying to catch his attention. I worried about alerting the guards in the house, but I didn’t want to see Baracus eaten by whatever eldritch horrors awaited in the ground.
Baracus leaped off the grass and onto the pathway. Like at the campus, that seemed like a safe place to stand.
Except the vines that crawled along the lawn came to life and shot for Baracus, wrapping around his wrists and ankles like snakes shooting forth to strike.
Pearson raced for Baracus as he reached into his jacket. But more vines shot out, wrapping around the priest, and pinning his arms to his sides.
Alex spun around and flicked a metal saint card at a vine that lashed out for him. Like with the grapefruit trick with the playing cards, the metal card cut through the vine. It went still in mid-strike, then fell to the ground, just another plant.
Alex reached inside his jacket pocket and came out with a packet of red dust. He ripped off a strip of adhesive, exposing a metal strip of magnesium to the air. More importantly, it had been treated with something that ignited with oxygen. Alex threw it away, and it already ignited. The packet landed in the rippling lawn and burst open, spilling ignited thermite over the grass. The lawn rippled away from the damage, and several of the vines off of the house thrashed in pain, like a speared octopus.
I leaped for Pearson and grabbed the vine that held him. More vines shot out for me and wrapped around my upper body. I bent down and the vines around my upper body snapped like twigs. I grabbed the vine holding Pearson with both hands and pulled it apart, releasing him.
Alex raced for Baracus. The bokor fought against the vines. It was a standstill. He pulled against them, and they did not give. They pulled back, and he didn’t move. But it took all of his strength to hold that tie. Having faced Baracus in hand-to-hand combat, he was strong enough that I was happy to be wearing my armor.
“Machete on my belt!” he told Alex.
Alex didn’t even hesitate. He pulled the bokor’s coat aside and grabbed the machete. He whirled on the vines and cut Baracus’ hand free. Baracus reached over to free his other hand as Alex slashed at the vines around his feet.
I shoved Pearson towards Alex and Baracus, figuring that the two of them could defend Pearson if he needed to.
I was hit from behind so hard I flew off the path. I landed on the lawn and rolled to my feet.
I had been struck by a topiary. One of the shaped bushes—this one a rhino—had rammed into me.
It stamped its feet and lowered its head, ready to run me over again.
It’s a distraction. Get off the grass.
I didn’t trust the ground I stood on, so I threw my upper body forwards in a roll. I almost made it to the path when I crashed into another bush. This one a crab. It took damage by stopping me, but it leaped on me, snapping for my body, not piercing my armor.
The ground rippled around me and reached up, grabbing my shoulders and pinning me down. I began to sink, head first, into the dirt.
The lawn is trying to eat me.
The rhino roared and turned towards me, ready to trample me further into the dirt. Other topiary trudged in from around the lawn, circling the house. The house itself knew we were a threat and sent vines and bushes to defend itself against me.
What about the guards? I briefly thought as I fought against the topiary crab.
The back door to the house burst open. One of the Serpent men stood there, gun out. He drew down on me, and the weapon hummed. I realized that it was, once again, some sort of eldritch weapon … the kind that punched through my armor during the attack the night before.
Hail Mary, full of Grace—
Inside the kitchen, the cigarette touched the matches in the matchbook. It set off a chain reaction in the sulfur and the potassium chlorate, setting alive a flame.
The natural gas, which was heavier than air, had come down to meet the flames.
The explosion started from the corner next to the door. The serpent was blasted out of the back door and into the air. It shot past Pearson and Baracus, slamming into the back wall. The flames blasted out, ripping out the door frame and the bricks around it. Flames blew out the windows of the kitchen.
The fire ripped through the rest of the first floor. The explosion from the buildup blasted out walls and consumed guards. Bushes too close to the house caught ablaze and screamed in pain. Flaming debris rained down all across the lawn, and the lawn writhed in pain like a living thing.
Most importantly, the lawn was so distracted that it let me go.
I sat up and threw the topiary crab away, into the back door. It went into the flames and didn’t come out.
The rhino, however, was still mobile…and its back was on fire. Unlike the others, it was so focused on me as its target, it ignored the flames.
The flaming rhino charged me.
I was in no mood for anything fancy, so I reared back and struck the flaming rhino in the face. My armored fist punched into the topiary face. I grabbed internal branches and pulled. The head came off, and I threw it away. The bush wandered, blind.
I ran through the back gate as the house exploded again. This time, the explosion ripped through the entire building, blew out all of the walls, and collapsed the roof. The gas main had ruptured, and it spilled flaming debris all over the property.
We ran for the cliffs and didn’t look back.
The four of us slid down the rope (yes, I slid down too. I wasn’t going to levitate down when gravity did my job for me). When I stopped short of the deck, I armored down and dropped. “We’re good to go. Baracus, get the boat started.”
Baracus laughed. “I hear and obey, oh master!” He bounded off.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you start with me,” I called after him. I looked at my watch. “I need to hit the post office.” I looked to Pearson. “What the Hell is a Tiamat?”
Alex looked at me for a moment, startled, then laughed once. “I thought you knew everything religious.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m Catholic, not professionally pagan.”
Pearson shrugged and grabbed a hold of the deck above the wheel as the engine started. He leaned forward and called over the engine noise. “Ancient Babylonian ‘goddess’ of sea salt, mother of a lot of their pantheon, and embodiment of primordial chaos. Supposedly also gave birth to dragons who had poison in their veins instead of blood.”
Alex groaned and smacked his head. He muttered. “Just great. It’s a breeder. Just what they need to cover all the lands of Earth in darkness.”
Pearson nodded. “It’s probably the point of raising it.”
Alex growled to himself and clenched his fist. “So, all this, everything we just did, tells us nothing.”
From the bridge, Baracus looked over his shoulder and called back to us. “On the contrary! It tells us everything.” He glanced at the water every phrase or two to keep track of where we were going. “Demons are pure being. They can only manifest a physic
al form by co-opting other matter. It’s why possession is more common. Tiamat? She’s associated with sea salt. It’s probably back from the days when giants walked the Earth, she came forth from the water. As most of the matter on Earth is water, this group of demons will manifest by the ocean. On or overlooking a beach, perhaps.”
Alex looked at him with surprise, as though it was strange he would be useful at all.
“Is that how you would do it?” he called forward.
Baracus stared out at the water for a long time and didn’t answer. When he looked back at Alex, he narrowed his eyes and sneered with the air of a man whose professional pride had been hurt. “No. I would use a mountain as the matter, miles away from where we are now, so you could never find us.” He looked front again, at the water. “But these people are amateurs and shallow.”
Alex frowned. “If you hate these people so much, why do you work for them?”
Baracus scoffed without looking back at us. “I follow the money. And I owe service to others as part of deals with my Friends on the Other Side. But do you think I would have a use if so many were patient and knowledgeable about such things? People want arcane, forbidden knowledge, but they want to put in none of the effort. They wish to plug a quarter into a vending machine, punch a button, and have them spit out riches and power. I am the vending machine.”
Alex snorted. “Kids today, am I right? No work ethic.”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. We have shoreline, but in case no one noticed, we’ve got miles of coastline to search. We’re in Massachusetts. The entire Eastern border of the state is the Atlantic.”
At that moment, my phone buzzed against my chest. I was tempted not to answer it, because I didn’t want to answer too close to the edge of the boat—and the safest place was next to Baracus. I sighed. It was probably important. I trudged forward, keeping my face from the spray. I pulled out the phone.
It was Mariel.
“Hi, honey!” I exclaimed.
“We made it to the beach,” she informed me calmly.
Is there screaming in the background? Must be a party. I smiled. “That’s great! Minniva got away okay?”
“Yes, but … there’s a bonfire on the beach you might want to check out.”
I blinked. She was calling about a bonfire? “What makes you think so?”
“First, I don’t think that bonfires are legal here. I also don’t think they’re supposed to be fifty feet high and climbing.”
20 A Shadow over Essex
We made a stop on the way to the beach. A quick stop. It had been tempting to swing by the beach directly, but we needed the supplies. Not to mention that if we arrived in the middle of the arrival of Tiamat from the ocean, there would have been no advantage to arriving by boat. Even Alex said, “No thanks. I’ve seen the original Japanese Godzilla. Boats fare even worse in that than they do in Jaws.”
Our car was a few beaches away from where Mariel was parked. We got to the car and made a trip to Costco.
The day that started sunny had become overcast, gray and dark, ready to thunder and lightning. Heck, it became darker than during our expedition into Matchett’s house. In a few more minutes, it would look pitch black.
As we drove for the beach, Alex asked, “How are we going to find where the problem is?”
I turned a corner and nearly ran into a woman in a bikini screaming as though a swarm of angry bees chased her. She didn’t even stop long enough to ask for help; she just kept running away and screaming.
She wasn’t the only one. A small mob ran right after her. However, they weren’t going after her in particular. Once they hit the main intersection, they flocked in three different directions. Wherever they wanted to be, it was far, far away from the beach.
Pearson looked at Alex. “I think we found the problem,” he said dryly.
We cruised through the mob. It was slow going, but faster than walking. The mob scattered around us, barely acknowledging our existence. Our car was just another obstacle.
Alex leaned forward between me and Baracus (a man that tall was not sitting in the back of the car). He wanted a better view of the screaming mob. “Did the demon show up yet?”
“No,” Pearson answered from the back seat. “The ritual has begun in earnest. It may be close to being finished. Maybe thirty minutes until the end.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate on the end.
Baracus shrugged. “Yes. It happens. Physically manifesting a demon can drive anyone mad.”
I frowned, thinking back to a conversation I once had with Auxiliary Bishop Xavier O’Brien. “XO referred to them as a Cthulhu for that reason. Just seeing it can drive you insane.”
Pearson snorted from the back seat. “That’s putting it mildly. But this is just the ritual.”
Alex leaned back to face Pearson. “How can you tell?”
Baracus snorted from the front seat. “Because Tiamat is not already here.”
Alex leaned over to see out the side window. A set of cliffs ran behind the beach at the other end from the entrance. “It could be behind the cliffs.”
Pearson sighed. “The cliffs couldn’t hide it. It would be too big.”
Alex groaned. “Oh come on. That’s just not fair. How are we supposed to beat something like that?”
I didn’t answer him and neither did Pearson. I focused on the mob in front of us. I also focused on the package that was on its way.
Pearson had reached out to track the package sent from Rome. It was already three o’clock, and it was supposed to be arriving around now. But if we had a chance to stop the ceremony and prevent Tiamat from rising, the package could be labeled “return to sender.”
If we didn’t stop it, I had a backup plan.
We pulled into the parking lot, which was now practically empty. There were several possible reasons—like everyone had gone insane and fled. However, it was possible my family in the middle of the parking lot made everyone nervous. They all wore bathing suits. Lena wore something in pink. Jeremy had purple swim trunks (colored after his favorite Ninja Turtle). The good Doctor Holland wore a simple black bikini that was tasteful as far as bikinis went, though Alex looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. Mariel had a tasteful one-piece red bathing suit that made me want to take it off of her … okay, that’s not true, everything she wore made me want to take it off of her.
However, every last one of the women and children held an AR-15.
Mariel held hers one-handed. Grace, in a tiny bright-blue one-piece, was in her other arm. Lena had a hot pink Hello Kitty AR-15 that she clung to like it was a teddy bear. Jeremy had a GI Joe wrap on his. Mariel and Sinead went with basic black.
They were all backlit by the bonfire Mariel had mentioned on the phone. The bonfire was about a mile away, but massive enough to highlight my family. It was dramatic and would have been a Kodak moment for the kids if it weren’t for the time issue.
We pulled up a car length away and got out. I had explained to Mariel over the phone that Baracus was on our side, for the time being. Everyone but Lena and Grace still looked like they considered test-firing a few rounds in Baracus’ face.
Baracus grinned and bowed. “A pleasure to see you all again.” He looked to Lena. “You’re new. What’s your name, little girl?”
Lena stared at him a moment, as though peering into his soul—which she could do, and I wouldn’t have advised. She said something in a language that was not Polish – perhaps French? Baracus straightened sharply and looked away from Lena. He took one long sidestep behind me, as though using me for a shield. I should have told him it wouldn’t have worked.
I looked around at the rest of the beach behind them. There was blood on sand and surf. Bodies were strewn on the beach. A collection of survivors huddled away from the water, at the edge of the sand. They looked scared and beaten.
“What happened here?” I asked.
Mariel stared at Baracus for another long moment befor
e she looked to me and sighed. Her body sagged after holding in the stress for so long. “The fire went up hours ago, down the beach. No one cared. I don’t even think anyone reported it. It was a curiosity. I don’t even think I cared at first. Then it grew until it looked like, well, that. Then the chanting started. About half the beach went insane. They drove off most of the sane ones, except for what you see behind you. We shot a few of the crazies, and they had enough sense to leave us alone. Half the crazies went after the sane, and the other half headed towards the bonfire.”
I frowned, then looked to the priest and the bokor. “Why only half?”
Baracus shrugged. “I presume half of them went to church.” He shrugged. “It’s why secularization was so heavy on Matchett’s to-do list these last decades. If America were half as faithful as it were 70 years ago… even twenty years ago, when people when to church again after 9-11… this might be easily prevented just by the strength of local faith.” He smiled a little, smirking at a memory of long ago. “Trust me, I had to work much harder back then. But I was also paid more.”
I blinked, trying to imagine what his life—okay, unlife—was like back in the 1950s, but I turned back to my wife and kids. “Time to leave, honey.”
Mariel looked at me a moment. She shared a glance with Sinead and said, “You owe me ten.” She looked back at me. “Are you insane? The crazies are probably stalking the ways out of here. We have guns and can support you. We’ll be behind you.” She glanced over her shoulder at the bonfire and looked back. “Far behind you. If you fail, we’re all going to die anyway. Might as well go together.” She looked at Baracus. “Can’t you make yourself useful? Make an army of zombies from the dead back there?”
The bokor shook his head. “I could. But it would take time we do not have. Nor do I know if it would be effective against the forces allied against us.”
Mariel rolled her eyes. “We’re asking you to make zombies, and you say no. Some villain!”
I looked past my family at the bonfire. While I could not count how many people there were around the flames, they swarmed the beach. There could have been a riot.
