With an almost imperceptible nod, he slowly extended a leg toward the rails and scuffed his boot in the dirt to create a divot he could use to maintain his balance. Keeping one hand firmly wrapped around the trunk of the pine, he used his other to steady Katie. “Go ahead,” he urged. “Step away from the tree and use my foot to brace yourself. Think of it as a stepping stone.”
Following his instructions, she eased herself into position, allowing her body weight to shift backwards slightly. Once Katie felt secure enough to move, she stretched her leg toward the tracks. As she wedged her foot against Brian’s boot, she began to panic, feeling his foot skid a couple of inches in the loose dirt. Forcing herself to hurry, worried that he would lose his footing, she swung her weight rapidly from his steadying hand to his boot and jumped the final few feet to the rail. As she reached out for its gleaming, metal surface, Katie realized there was a problem. The hand which grasped at the track was her broken one! She didn’t hear Brian howl in agony as she pushed off from his extended leg; her own screams of pain drowned them out as she clutched desperately to the hot metal rail to keep herself from tumbling downhill. Tiny dots swirled before her eyes and her vision threatened to darken. Leaning forward, Katie dug her feet into the dirt just above one of the wooden support beams between the tracks, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
When she opened them, the world continued to swim for a few seconds, almost as if Katie had just returned home from a night on the town, on the precipice of being fall down drunk and hoping to find her bed before passing out. Once her vision became steadier, she glanced toward Brian and saw a grimace of concern on his face. “I’m all right,” she assured him. “Let me get myself braced, then I’ll help you cross over.”
Frowning, he wondered how she could possibly help him in her condition. The last thing he wanted to do was put more strain on her broken hand, knowing the added pressure would be, at the very least, excruciating. Possibly even enough so to break her grip, which would cause both of them to tumble to the bottom of the incline and likely kill them. His worries began to subside when he figured out her plan. There was a slight gap between the underside of the rail and the ground beneath it, which she managed to squeeze her arm through, using it like a hook to hold herself in place. With her right foot wedged on top of the support beam between the tracks, Katie extended her left leg toward him. Scuffing the ground with her toes, she created a rut for her foot to keep herself steady. Then she reached out, splaying her fingers and indicating she was ready. “Come on,” she urged.
Letting out the slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Brian stretched out his arm. Katie immediately latched on to his hand with a grip that felt like a vise, which surprised him for a moment. He hadn’t expected her to be so capable; her slender frame obviously much stronger than it appeared. Feeling secure, he let go of the tree. Keeping his left foot in the groove he had made to support himself, he stepped toward her with his right, extending it outward and using hers as a stepping stone. Within moments he was safely across and clinging to her like a leech. Once he regained his balance, Brian moved to the right of Katie, occupying the other half of the support beam.
***
Watching expectantly from the shadows of a large boulder, Verin saw the duo come back into view as he gazed down the slope of hill bisected by the tracks. Damn! It would have made life so much simpler if they had fallen. I could have gone back to work without worrying about the interruption of intruders, but now I’ll have to take matters into my own hands. Letting his breath out in a hiss, he floated down from his observation point and gathered the minions close.
Even though he wasn’t their master, and they knew his orders did not hold any weight, the cluster of impish creatures turned their attention to Verin. Perhaps, if they followed his instructions, the Black Knight would show them favor in the future. Maybe even elevate their status among his legions.
Once Verin had their undivided attention, he took a quick peek over the boulder to check the intruders’ progress. They were approaching much faster than he had anticipated. Turning to face the mass of expectant minions, he let out a low growl as he spoke. “I need all of you to do what you can to knock the interlopers down the hill. Hiding in the shadows is no longer an option. I don’t care if you have to run down there and engage them, I want results this time!”
Though his form held no definitive shape, one thing became perfectly clear as the tiny creatures turned to do his bidding. The mist-like substance that made up his essence swirled into a twisted grin as Verin spun around, disappearing through the portal which led inside to Cemetery Hill.
***
After safely making it back to the railroad tracks, Brian and Katie resumed their climb. It wasn’t long, a half an hour perhaps, before she began to notice a change in his breathing as she followed close on his heels. Reaching upward, she tugged on the hem of his pants to get his attention. He stopped immediately and turned to regard her. I’m right! Seeing the overcast glaze of his eyes as he gazed down at her caused Katie to realize they were not alone. “How bad is it? Can you tell?”
“Not for sure,” he replied, shaking his head. “It feels sort of like the sense I was getting in the town below yesterday, right before we were attacked, but not nearly as strong.”
“Well, we did greatly diminish their numbers before they fled,” she reminded him.
“True.”
“Do you think it could be the leftovers from yesterday’s battle that you’re feeling now?”
“I would say it’s a distinct possibility,” he confirmed, barely getting the words from his lips before a deluge of small, falling rocks cascaded down upon them and Katie caught sight of something moving above them.
She had no more than lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the debris raining down on them when the day suddenly became brighter. Squinting, Katie chanced a look toward Brian and discovered the reason behind the new brilliance. There was an outcropping of rock above them, hardly discernible because the shaman had ushered forth another of his gigantic, holy fires.
The sound of unearthly screams erupted from above, and as Katie watched on in horror, several dancing flames separated themselves from the conflagration. She was tempted to cover her ears to shut out the high-pitched wails of the tiny demons, but then noticed a few of them hopping erratically downhill toward them. “Brian, watch out!” she yelled to no avail. The shaman seemed to either not hear her or was unable to move out of the way. Six tiny balls of fire skittered dangerously close, but just as they were about to collide with Brian they exploded, plastering his face and clothing with a flaming green goo. Quickly scrambling to his side, Katie furiously patted out the fires with her hand before they had a chance to consume his clothes and sear his flesh.
Chapter 11
After gathering the scattered remnants of Jack’s mutilated corpse, Edward turned and strode toward the door. Immediately, he was forced to stop in his tracks as his mother’s frail form stood in the opening, blocking his exit. “Mother? What are you doing in here? I thought I asked you to stay in the stable.” A scowl, partly out of frustration, but with a hint of anger, creased his weathered face. His penetrating glare did nothing to prompt an answer out of her. She continued to stand in his way, unmoving, as if she were rooted in place, offering him no explanation for her presence. Exhaling sharply, he stalked toward her. “I didn’t want you to see this,” he grumbled. “Will you please go back to the stable and stay there like I asked?”
Remaining fixed in place like a statue, a barely noticeable glow flickered in her soft, brown eyes giving them a goldish hue for a second or two. An imperceptible grin split her wrinkled cheeks as the scent of death, combined with the coppery smell of blood soaking into the floorboards, wafted into her nostrils. “I’m not going anywhere,” she replied flatly as Edward stopped in front of her.
He felt his cheeks flush with anger as her hot breath washed over his skin, and nearly turned to find an alternate exit from the inn
, but suddenly something didn’t feel right to him. Thoughts swirled through his mind as Edward quickly tried to work out the problem. Then, it hit him. Her breath! It felt like a warm, summer breeze, but not in a good way. It carried the stench of death and decay in its wake, like wind blowing through a graveyard. An awful memory surfaced, one that he had hoped was behind him. A vision of the time he had spent on future Earth, fighting for survival in a world that was populated with flesh eating zombies. That’s what her breath smelled like! The stench of rotted flesh! Instinctively, bile rose in the back of his throat.
Seeing the pale, sickly pallor of Edward’s face caused a wicked grin to emerge on her countenance, making Victoria look like the scheming devil that was intertwined with her soul. Her eyes flashed brightly, emitting a demonic radiance that reflected off of her son’s pasty flesh. Stepping forward while Edward was confused and disoriented, George raised her arms. Her brittle, aged digits encircled her son’s throat and began to squeeze.
Caught by surprise, he dropped Jack’s remains to the floor and his piercing gray eyes bulged in shocked disbelief. He lifted his hands and grabbed her arms in an attempt to break her grip, which was considerably stronger than he would have ever expected. Especially from an old, arthritic woman! At first Edward’s attempts seemed futile; he could feel her fingernails biting into his flesh. Warm liquid trickled down his neck, which he somehow knew wasn’t the sweat of exertion, but blood. His vision began to fade in and out, much like it had when he was battling the horde of tiny demons yesterday, and he was on the verge of blacking out. Unable to break the vise-like hold his mother had on him, Edward realized he didn’t have much longer. Though, he did wonder why she was acting like this. “Why?” he wheezed, trying to catch a breath, his eyeballs beginning to bulge in their sockets.
The inflection that responded was not his mother’s. “Because you’re in my way,” a hollow male voice intoned, Victoria’s lips parting to reveal a malicious smile. “Well, that and I rather enjoy watching you suffer. Seeing your life vanish as if it were a wisp of smoke will be priceless.”
His struggles grew more intense when it occurred to him that his mother wasn’t in control of her body. That explains why her breath smelled so foul! There is an evil spirit inside of her, pulling her strings like a puppeteer! The stench of decay coming from her mouth should have been my first clue, he silently berated himself, wishing now that he hadn’t sent Brian and Katie away. The shaman could likely have expelled the malignant spirit. Redoubling his efforts, Edward lashed out and punched with every ounce of strength he could muster. When his fist collided with her wrinkled face he felt like crying. There was no time for that now, though. The force of the impact had accomplished its goal. Victoria released her grip on his throat, raising her hands to her face as she staggered backwards.
It only took George a moment to regroup, while Edward appeared to be appalled by his own actions. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, which was difficult to do in someone so old, he piloted her body toward him. Forgetting that there was a cluster of scattered limbs sprawled across the floorboards between them, she lost her balance and tumbled forward. As she landed with a sickening splat, Edward jumped backwards and slipped on the blood soaked boards beneath his feet. His arms pinwheeled for a split second, but this only caused him to overbalance and fall forward instead of crashing to the floor on his rear end. The sound of Victoria falling on top of Jack had made him sick to his stomach, but when his body landed on top of hers he heard the crunch of bone beneath him, which was far worse.
After a few failed attempts, his fingers slipping and sliding on the blood-slicked floor, Edward managed to skitter off of the heap. Sitting a couple of feet away and breathing in ragged gasps, he eyed the mound of flesh for movement. Victoria didn’t move right away, but before Edward could decide his next course of action she appeared to be coming out of her daze. Trying to boost herself to a sitting position, she pushed against the bloody floorboards with one withered hand. Her attempts were no more successful than Edward’s had been as her arm buckled and shot out from beneath her, causing her to tilt forward too fast and lose her precarious balance. The sound of her jaw smacking into the boards, her fragile jawbones breaking on impact, resonated from the walls of the empty inn. The echo of which made Edward cringe.
Tenderly rubbing her jaw, Victoria raised her head and locked her soft brown eyes on Edward in agonized disbelief. A bloodied strand of her gray hair swung before her like a frayed windshield wiper, leaving tiny crimson smears on her wrinkled cheeks. Inwardly though, George was grinning from ear to ear, knowing that it wouldn’t take much to push the wizard far enough to finish the job.
For the briefest of moments, Edward admired the resilience of his mother. This thought was pushed aside when reality grabbed hold of him again; Victoria reached out for him as if asking ‘Why did you do this to me?’ then slapped her hand in the growing puddle of blood between them, hooking her fingertips into the floorboards and clawing her way closer.
Scrambling for a viable solution to his dilemma, ideas swirled through Edward’s mind with the ferocity of a tornado. The mere contemplation of most of them turned his stomach. I can’t! She’s my mother! While outwardly these thoughts had merit, Edward knew Victoria was no longer in control of her own body. It’s that spirit … or demon inside of her that is making her act this way, he considered angrily, desperately wishing Brian was here to back him up. If I don’t figure something out, and quick, I won’t have to worry about doing the unthinkable to her. She will do it to me!
Another hand slapped the floor. A few more inches and she would be able to latch on to him. He scooted back a couple of feet to stay out of her reach, giving himself extra time to think. Then it hit him! Feeling like an idiot for not considering it sooner, he backed away even more and closed his eyes, concentrating. A bluish glow, faint at first but rapidly growing in intensity, enveloped his scarred hands.
Even from this distance, George felt the drop in ambient air temperature which had begun in synchronization with the blue light emanating from the wizard’s hands. This is it, he thought, preparing to depart the body of his host. He would have to time it perfectly in order to get to safety so he could have a front row seat to the slaughter.
Just as Edward was about to unleash his spell, a flicker of movement near the doorway distracted his attention. At first he had thought it was his imagination playing tricks on him—it had done that quite frequently in the last twenty four hours—but within seconds he knew it wasn’t a hallucination this time. The ghostly form of Amber materialized in the shadows to the left of the opening. Panic, or perhaps terror, permeated her features.
“Don’t do it, Edward! It’s a trick!” Amber’s horrified voice screeched and her transparent form began to pulsate rapidly.
“I have to,” he told her with a pained expression. “It will give Brian the time to return and take care of this matter properly.”
Victoria continued to claw her way across the slippery boards toward her son, her eyes flitting from her son to the intruder as if she were watching a tennis match. Just a couple more seconds. Edward was turning his attention back to her as she made one final, desperate lunge. Her bony fingers clamped on to the toe of his boot. Glancing up at the wizard in triumph, her eyes bulged in horror. The bluish light emanating from Edward’s hands seemed to crackle with energy and George knew in a matter of moments his opportunity to flee would be gone. Quickly, he forced his presence from her body, creating a gust of wind that Edward was unlikely to notice, probably thinking it was caused by his magic. He stood in the doorway for a minute as he looked back with pleasure. His ghostly form, unlike Amber’s, was masked from sight by the late day sunlight filtering through the opening. A wicked smile played across his lips as he glanced down at the old woman, who was now nothing more than a block of ice.
Chapter 12
The sunlight was rapidly fading from the day and the holy fire Brian had torched the demons with was nearly burned out
. Amid the tortured screams of the creatures, the two of them had held their position, allowing the flames to do their work. If it had been up to Katie, however, they would have rushed toward the outcropping of rock above them as soon as the shaman’s eyes had cleared. It didn’t seem fair that Brian had shouldered the burden of eradicating the tiny demons. She wanted to have a hand in it as well, feeling it would have given her a sense of vengeance and retribution for what the creatures had done to Edward.
Once the two of them had deemed it safe, they began to climb again. It didn’t take nearly as long as either of them had thought to reach the ledge. They stood at the edge of the precipice for a few minutes to catch their breath, idly tamping out the lingering flames with their boots.
“Yuck!” Katie dry heaved as her foot squished down on a combination of melted flesh, bone, and sticky, green blood. She threw a hand up over her mouth. The stench of cooked flesh had been bad before, but after stepping in the aftermath of the massacre the odor was even more overpowering. Moving a few feet away, she scuffed the sole of her boot on the rocky ground to remove most of the goo and gore.
“Check it out,” Brian remarked, the comment distracting her from the wretched task of cleaning her boot.
With a grim expression, she turned to look. He was pointing at the railroad tracks they had been following until now. Katie studied them briefly, noticing the sharp curve of the rails as they crested the hill to where she stood, then followed their path for a short distance. When she saw the termination point a couple of hundred feet away, she gasped loudly. “Please, tell me I’m not seeing things,” she breathed excitedly. “Did we really find the end? Please tell me that dark spot over there is not a tunnel going through the mountain.”
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