“Where’s Jack,” she inquired softly, using the fingers of her broken hand to gently force Edward to look at her. She had thought that pulling his gaze from the fragment of Victoria’s shattered face would have lessened his grief and allowed him to regain his focus, but instead he appeared to sink into a deeper depression. The pained look on his face was almost too much to bear.
His breath hitched and tears cascaded from his cheeks like a waterfall. “Jack … is … dead,” he barely managed to choke out before his sobs took over again.
Katie and Brian both inhaled sharply at the same time, the revelation catching them completely off guard.
“Wh-what? H-how?” she stammered, her eyes growing moist, her breath seemingly stuck in her throat, as if she’d just been sucker punched.
“I … I don’t know.” Edward’s voice cracked as he hung his head. It shamed him that he had allowed a spirit to get the better of him, but he knew that the others deserved to hear the truth. Attempting to gather himself, he wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and let out a hitching breath through his pursed lips. “I think the ghost that Amber tried to warn us about …” He paused, a grimace of pain crossing his features. “I think it got inside of me, took over my body somehow.”
Brian glanced around the room nervously, trying to sense if the evil spirit was still present, or possibly even residing inside of Edward and attempting to trick them. After a moment’s consideration, he dismissed the idea. If either of those thoughts were accurate, I would be having trouble breathing. Obviously, the spirit did what it came for and left. Though he didn’t find evidence of the spirit in the dim interior of the inn, Brian saw a pile of scattered limbs not far from where Edward was and couldn’t help but wonder if they were Jack’s remains.
Katie’s jaw dropped open, as if she was dumbfounded and unable to comprehend what Edward had told her. At the very least, she found it difficult to believe that someone with his powers could be susceptible to spiritual persuasion, let alone actually being possessed by one.
Seeing the look in her eyes, Edward knew she didn’t believe what he was telling her. Grudgingly, he set the shard of his mother’s countenance aside. Shrugging her arm from his shoulder, he scooted away from her slightly and pointed to the area a few feet behind where he’d been sitting.
Throwing a hand over her open mouth to stifle the shocked gasp bubbling up from her throat, Katie looked at the small pile of body parts in disbelief. She shut her eyes for a moment, desperately hoping what she’d seen was either a mirage or a dream. Tears began to leak from her tightly closed eyelids. Somehow, she knew the carnage would still be there when she opened them, so she turned her head away.
Though the grief of losing his mother and a good friend, in the same day, weighed heavily on his mind, Edward inched closer to Katie and did what he could to console her. As he did, Edward noticed that there was only one person standing in the open doorway. There had been two a minute ago, he could swear to it! He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, he pointed toward the vacated spot beside Brian.
Following the line of his finger, the shaman spun around, thinking Edward was trying to warn him of danger. At first he didn’t notice anything out of place, but as he turned back to face the wizard he caught a glimpse of Julie. Apparently the sight of the carnage inside had been too much for her fragile mind. She was curled up in a near fetal position with her back resting against the outer wall of the inn. “Perhaps you should come outside,” Brian suggested, turning back to face Edward.
With a questioning rise of one eyebrow, Edward rose to his feet with a little help from Katie. Carefully stepping around the scattered slivers of ice and sticky splotches of blood, he joined the shaman in the doorway with Katie following on his heels. “Are you sensing something? Has the spirit returned?” He met the gaze of Brian’s light blue eyes, which shimmered in the moonlight like silver coins.
“No. I think the sights and smells inside were too much for her,” he replied, nodding his head toward the woman, curled into a tight ball against the exterior wall of the inn.
“Who is she, and where did you find her?”
Poking her head past Edward, Katie glanced to see what they were discussing. “That’s my friend, Julie. Remember, she is the person you were going to help me find.”
At the mention of her name, Julie looked up. Immediately, Edward saw the similarities between the frail, anorexic woman before him and the machine which appeared to be her that they had traveled with in the past. Turning toward Katie, he bent down and whispered in her ear, “Are you positive that it’s her this time? Not another machine sent to trick us?”
“Absolutely,” she nodded, “we found her near the top of the hill, inside of some sort of torture chamber. It took a bit of effort, but we freed her and brought her with us.” Thoughts of the others, still held captive in the crucifix filled room, crossed her mind. She wished there was a way to free them all, but Katie knew it would be too time consuming. Who knew when something, or someone, would come through the darkened vortex that had been in the corner. For that matter, it could have already happened. “Shit!”
Edward had started to look back toward the emaciated girl, but Katie’s curse snapped his attention back to her. “What?”
She hesitated briefly, biting her lower lip, not wanting to admit her screw-up. “I accidentally left our supply bag up there.”
“That’s not a big deal. We can acquire more items along the way. Our journey is far from over,” Edward stated, managing a thin smile that he hoped would reassure her.
Instead of returning his smile, she hung her head. “It’s not the supplies that I’m worried about,” Katie mumbled. “There was a portal in the room, and we left in a hurry because we thought someone was getting ready to come through. If we were right, then I’m sure the bag will be discovered. They will almost certainly know that we were there, and that we took something from them.”
Sighing, Edward rubbed his face with a far off look in his eyes as he contemplated her revelation. As he was about to reply, Amber suddenly appeared around the corner of the building, interrupting his train of thought. She was pulsating in the same manner as was normally indicative of her being afraid.
“You have to get out of here while you can,” she warned. “The evil spirit which has been following you has left and gone up the hill.”
“And, this isn’t a good thing?” Edward looked more confused than ever. If the ghost is gone, it should give us a little time to regroup.
“Nothing he does is good. I’ve got a very bad feeling about this. For all I know, he could be going to get reinforcements,” Amber insisted, her glowing form blinking even more rapidly.
Great! If Amber is right, things could be going from bad to worse really fast! She hadn’t thought that her mistake would escalate their problems so quickly, but the one thing she did know was that she didn’t want to hang around to find out. Katie glanced from one face to the next, trying to ascertain if the others were feeling the same oppressive dread she felt, tightening like a noose around their necks. From what she could tell, everyone except Edward seemed unsettled by Amber’s theory. For whatever reason, the wizard looked more angry and determined. His pale, gray eyes gleamed with what appeared to be an unquenchable hatred, as if the mere thought of their situation had caused an irrevocable snap in his mind. Katie had never seen such a look in his eyes, and seeing it now scared the living shit out of her.
Gently, Brian tapped Katie on the shoulder. “I hate to admit it, but I think Amber is right,” he told her as she came out of the haze of her thoughts and turned to face him. He waited for a minute for her to respond, but when she didn’t, he motioned with his head for Katie to go into the inn with him. “Help me gather some blankets, and anything else you think we can use.”
When Brian mentioned going inside to replenish some of their supplies, Edward recalled with sorrow something which still required his attention before they departed. Stepping over to where Jul
ie cowered against the building, he tilted her chin up. “Will you be all right out here by yourself for a minute or two?” Without a word, she nodded her head. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised, then turned and disappeared through the door.
Once he was gone, Julie caught movement in the corner of her eye and shifted her head to the left for a better view. Her jaw dropped to her chest as she saw the flickering ghost a few feet away. At first, she couldn’t control the terrified trembling of her body, but as she remained focused something jarred loose in Julie’s memory. Something familiar. She couldn’t place it yet, but there was … Holy crap! Was it possible? Could this be the wretched ghost from what seemed like a lifetime ago? The one that she and Katie had contacted on the Ouija board?
Struggling to her feet, Julie stumbled toward the apparition. As she got closer, the bright and dim pulses of Amber’s glow grew less frequent, almost as if the ghost was recalling the same distant memory.
“Do I know you? Something about you seems familiar to me,” Amber intoned.
Having never heard the spirit’s voice before, Julie's brow crinkled in confusion. Unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, this was the almost certainly the same ghost who had led her and Katie to a house to show them the man who killed her. The psychopath that turned out to be their school bus driver, and the same man who had abducted Julie and brought her to this awful world. “How … how did you get here?” Even though her voice was raspy and cracked, Amber seemed to understand her perfectly.
“I came here with Katie,” she replied. “I was hoping she could help me find my killer and rid the world of his evil, but it seems he is just as vile in death. I’ve also been trying to help Katie find you. I’m glad at least one of us has gotten what we came here for,” Amber added, a slight note of sarcasm in her hollow voice.
Distracted by the sound of the door opening behind her, Julie turned and saw Edward exiting the inn with a large bundle in his arms. Silently, he slipped past the two of them and disappeared around the corner of the building. Before she could inquire about what he was doing, Brian and Katie emerged. Both of their arms were loaded with items they had pilfered from inside, the shaman now sporting a blanket knotted around his neck like a superhero’s cape, as they quietly made their way to the mechanical beasts waiting nearby to distribute their bounty on the backs of the creatures. When they finished, the two of them approached Amber and Julie.
“Has Edward come back out yet? We didn’t see him inside.”
Answering Katie’s question, Amber pointed toward the area between the structures.
“Can you check on him please, Brian?” Katie pleaded, feeling like Julie would be more comfortable if she stayed by her side.
With a nod, the shaman vanished into the darkness between the buildings. Less than a minute later he reappeared. “He’s laying Jack to rest and asked to be alone until he’s finished,” Brian told them in a hushed tone.
Chapter 16
When the screams broke out, sounding as if they came from within the inn, it took phenomenal restraint for him to stay where he was. George didn’t want to risk being seen because he was being impulsive. There would be plenty of other opportunities to witness the torment of the small group, which would be easier during daylight hours when his glowing form wasn’t visible. If he could manage to whittle their numbers down to one or two, masking his presence wouldn’t matter as much.
As he considered his next move, a roar unlike anything George had ever heard drowned out the agonized wails of the nearby humans. It seemed to emanate from the mountain before him, but it was impossible to tell for sure without investigating. The angry outburst carried the punch of an enormous pride of mountain lions, all roaring at the same moment, but as the intensity of the sound began to diminish, George got the impression that the noise was not made by animals. At least, not any he had ever seen up close.
After waiting for a couple of minutes to see if the sound would repeat itself, which it did not, his curiosity began to surface. Deciding that he needed a distraction to keep him busy until daylight, George drifted away from the building and floated uphill.
***
Dragging the younger version of George into the woods across the street from his home, the Black Knight pulled him through the black void of the portal. As the two of them stepped into Cemetery Hill, the vortex swirled for a second before collapsing in on itself.
The sensation of being ripped apart, and put back together again, reminded George of the pod-like mechanisms that ultimately created a being known as the Brundlefly in one of his favorite movies. Blinking his eyes rapidly, he tried to focus on the sight before him in the deep red gloom of the chamber he now stood in. As his vision adjusted to the dimness, the spectacle in front of him took his breath away. “What the …” Row upon row of tall, wooden crucifixes greeted his confused mind, the sight reminiscent of something straight out of a Dracula movie; a scene which depicted hundreds or thousands of people, skewered atop long, wooden spikes by Vlad the Impaler. Although, the smattering of people upon the crosses were not impaled by any means. Instead, they were held in place by chains and metal bands, which brought the memory of the torture chamber he had constructed in his own basement to the forefront of his mind.
Breaking George from his confused thoughts, the Black Knight suddenly let out an ear shattering roar. Clapping his hands over his ears in an attempt to muffle the sound, he squinted toward the entity who now stood beside an empty crucifix. When the deafening roar subsided, George cautiously approached the cloaked figure.
Carefully choosing his words, he addressed the demon in a tone he hoped would not antagonize him. “I must admit, this place was a lot to take in at first,” George remarked, trying to sound as casual as he could. “I hope you don’t think that I’m ignorant for asking, but I can’t help wondering what has angered you?”
Spinning around with inhuman speed, the Black Knight bent down slightly, his hideous face so close to George’s that he could see the saliva dripping from the demon’s fangs and taste the creature’s foul breath as it washed over him. “This is what bothers me,” the Black Knight hissed, dangling the strap of a bag from one, skeletal finger. “Someone has dared to enter my chamber and take something from me. When I find out who, I am going to string them up in here for the rest of their miserable, pathetic lives. There will be no end to the suffering I will unleash upon them,” he growled.
Raising his hands in a submissive gesture, George backed up and put a couple of paces between them. “Sorry I asked. Just remember, I’m on your side.”
“It better stay that way, too, George,” the Black Knight stated, his voice dripping with malice.
***
Unsure of what he would find, though he suspected it would be a large assemblage of the tiny, impish demons, George followed the railroad tracks. Thankful that he hadn’t been forced to climb the mountain as a human, he quickly ascended the hill. As he came to the final bend in the tracks, he saw a darkened shape, like the mouth of a cave, nearby.
Initially, when he floated through the opening, George was impressed with the setup of the expansive chamber that had been hidden from sight until he had entered. Mesmerized by the blood red illumination of the interior, he drew closer. Admiring the intricate layout—cross-like pillars spaced evenly throughout what he had originally thought to be a cave—of a torture chamber worthy of his wildest dreams, memories of his former life flashed through his mind. When he saw that many of these constructs were bearing nude, human bodies, he drifted carelessly about, inspecting the prisoners. He didn’t realize that he wasn’t alone until he heard a seething voice utter his name. Whipping around toward the sound, the first thing George saw was a tall, cloaked figure with its back turned. The voice should have been immediately familiar, especially considering how many times it had spoken directly to him in the past, but instead it only instilled a sense of déjà vu in his mind.
Suddenly, another face appeared. It had been hidden from vi
ew, until now, by the towering frame of the Black Knight, but as his shocked mind attempted to comprehend what he was seeing, his eyes insisted that he was gazing into a mirror. The man, partially shielded from view, was a spitting image of himself. Albeit, a younger version. George watched as the man caught a glimpse of his ghostly form, the younger version’s eyes widening in surprise.
The younger man rose a shaky finger and pointed in his direction. Barely managing to slip behind the upright of the nearest crucifix before the Black Knight turned his attention toward him, George waited for the inevitable. Even though nothing happened at first, he kept himself hidden.
“What?” the Black Knight growled impatiently as his glowing, yellow eyes followed the man’s unsteady finger. “Why are you shaking like a coward? I hope you aren’t going to be as useless as my last protégé. I have better things to do than be your fucking nursemaid.”
“There … I saw something over there,” he stated, his trembling legs already beginning to carry him toward the nearly transparent form he’d seen just moments before. Hesitantly, he stopped in front of the empty cross that he was certain a ghostly form was on the other side of. He could feel the penetrating leer of the Black Knight, searing through his flesh like a branding iron. After a few seconds, he assumed the cloaked figure had turned the burning embers of his eyes elsewhere because the sensation was suddenly gone. Gathering his resolve, he dared a peek behind the pillar. A shocked gasp escaped his lips as he felt something invade his body.
After surveying the rest of the large room and finding no other prisoners missing, the Black Knight turned his attention back to George. “I have to leave this place for a while so I can take care of some business. I need you to stand guard here until I return. Do you think you can handle that?”
Though the spirit had successfully invaded young George’s body, it receded from the man’s mind and faded into the background, fearing that if he remained in firm possession of the fleshy shell that the Black Knight would almost certainly sense it. “I … I think so,” he replied nervously.
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