The cries of Zorn’s murder victims rose again, the urgency in their keening voices signaling that time was running out for Alice.
Picking up his pace, Weylock followed the sound.
The dead called him down the serpentine flagstone path leading to a nearby grove, and who was Weylock to question their directions?
He stepped through a natural archway of hedges and followed the stone path.
Soon after that, the whispers of the dead gave way to the hushed murmurs of the living.
Weylock advanced through a swaying ring of trees, his eyes fixed on the scene in the center of the grove. Robed figures encircled a stone altar on which Zorn’s flock had placed Alice Welsh.
No ropes or chains held her down. Zorn’s magic was far more effective than manmade restraints.
Another wave of bitter anger surged through Weylock’s chest, and his hands balled into fists. No matter how often he faced human evil, it never lost its power to enrage him.
Boiling emotions tightly held in check, the Hexecutioner circled the ring of acolytes, the demon’s magic masking his arrival in their midst. Ian Zorn lorded over the altar, the knife in his clawlike hand glittering in the sickly light of the moon. The robes of his followers fluttered and flapped while the circle of tall trees bent under the onslaught of the rising winds.
As Zorn mouthed a string of guttural words, the restless dead nearby stirred in response to the ancient chant, having heard those same cursed words moments before the sorcerer’s knife tore the life from their bodies.
Weylock’s gut lurched as his heightened psychic senses picked up Alice Welsh’s distress. Her heart beat a mile a minute, and her panicky eyes were wide. In that moment, she looked so much like Avery that it was like a physical blow.
The demon’s mocking laugher rang through his soul, and this time Weylock violently silenced the creature. The demon cried out in agony, which brought a smirk to Weylock’s haunted features.
Give and take, push and pull. One day they’d destroy each other—but not today.
As her gaze flicked in his direction, Weylock decided to show her a small mercy and reveal himself. Channeling his rage into a more positive emotion, Weylock sent a telepathic message to Alice.
Everything will be okay.
Weylock directed his words at both Alice and all the poor souls who’d perished in this accursed grove.
The time had come to avenge the sorcerer’s victims.
Chapter Ten
Weylock mounted a dark command and unleashed the full wrath of the demon.
Pulsing waves of black magic coursed through Zorn’s tall, gaunt body, the knife in his hand hot to the touch, ablaze with infernal power that traveled all the way up his arm and into his black heart.
The ritual was approaching its natural climax. Alice’s suffering had reached an orgasmic crescendo. It was time to claim the soul which now was rightfully his.
The ground thrummed under the sorcerer’s bare feet, the bodies of his followers taut with anticipation all around him.
Zorn shouted out the final part of his incantation at the top of his lungs, the vile words echoing in the grove. His features distorted into a devilish snarl as he brought down the knife, only to realize that his intended victim was not there.
Alice Welsh had vanished into thin air. Only his quick reflexes had stopped him from driving the knife into the altar.
How?
Stunned amazement gripped the Silicon Valley tycoon. Zorn cursed as the occult force drained away and evaporated into the night, forever lost. Without a sacrifice to channel the magic, the spell lost its ability to influence the material plane.
What was the meaning of this? What had gone wrong? Had one of his idiot cronies, these hangers-on desperate to lap up the dregs of his power, fucked up? If so, he’d kill them. Hell, he’d kill all of them. They were nothing.
“I think I want my money back.”
Shocked by the unfamiliar voice, Zorn whirled toward the speaker.
A stranger stared back at him. The grizzled man sporting the tattered leather trench coat flashed him a sardonic grin.
“Who the fuck are you?” Zorn said.
“I’m the guy who’s about to steal the show.”
And with these words, Zorn’s followers’ hoods fell away, revealing faces previously hidden in darkness.
The sorcerer recoiled. His real followers had vanished, replaced by strangers.
“Not strangers,” the man in the black coat explained. “Take a good look, Zorn.”
A horrible sense of recognition washed over Zorn. The stranger had spoken the truth. He did indeed know these people.
“You might’ve forgotten the faces of your victims, Zorn, but they haven’t forgotten the face of their murderer.”
The stranger’s words lashed Zorn’s soul. There was the 19-year old virgin visiting her folks from Texas; the app-developer who idolized his accomplishments; the female real estate agent hoping to meet potential buyers; the tanned beauty dreaming of becoming someone’s trophy wife.
And the list went on.
The former sacrifices who’d perished on the altar before him, and whose remains continued to decompose in the soil on which he now stood.
And as he shied away from their accusatory stares, the faces rotted away before his eyes, bone-breaking through withering skin, the circle transforming into a procession of the tormented dead.
Skeletal arms, wrapped in skin that clung to the bones like moldy rags, now reached out for the sorcerer.
“No, you can’t do this to me!”
“I wonder how many of your victims uttered the same words before you finished them.”
The army of zombies clawed at Zorn and yanked on his robe and hair and raked at his flesh. Within seconds, the mob overpowered him and pinned him to the altar.
Zorn’s eyes squirmed with unbridled terror as he caught a flash of steel in the cruel moonlight. The empty eye sockets of one of his past sacrifices peered down on him, the sacrificial knife held high in the skeletal hand. The sorcerer saw his reflection in the steel for one split second. He looked weak. Helpless.
And then the knife descended, and he cried out as cold steel pierced hot flesh. A spurt of hot blood followed as the revenant withdrew the knife with a wet, sucking sound. Rage drained from its ravaged features like the blood draining from Zorn’s body.
The spirit passed the sacrificial blade to the next resurrected victim. Every one of the dead would have a chance to return the pain and suffering they’d been forced to endure under Zorn’s cruel knife. One by one, they each took their revenge.
The taste of copper filled Zorn’s mouth as wave after wave of agony electrified his nerves. Again, and again, the knife cut into the sorcerer’s flesh. In and out, inflicting maximum pain while causing minimal damage. The thrusts diligently avoiding his heart and organs, each stab designed to extend his suffering as he he’d done with all these victims.
Adding insult to injury, a delirious, dying Zorn realized his beloved mansion had gone up in flames, columns of blazing fire engulfing the night sky. In the distance, sirens wailed, but the firefighters would arrive far too late to salvage Zorn’s palace. The house would go down with its master.
Lurking in the grove’s shadows, the Hexecutioner watched in stony silence as Zorn succumbed to his injuries. Alice Welsh lay unconscious in his arms, unharmed but overwhelmed by her ordeal.
Chapter Eleven
The last revenant withdrew the knife from Zorn’s bloodied form and cast it aside.
One by one, the newly risen dead turned toward the Hexecutioner. They nodded their heads in silent respect, and the grateful faces of the dead morphed back into the disoriented features of the living cultists.
In the near distance, the victims’ glowing spectral forms rose from their makeshift graves and dispersed into the wind in streaks of vibrant blue light—a swarm of metaphysical fireflies ascending into the night. The dead were finally free to move on to the next world.<
br />
Zorn’s followers stared at the bloody mess sprawled on top of the altar. It was barely recognizable as their leader.
The wailing sirens grew louder. The law—and, hot on their heels, the press—were about to have a field day with this lurid case. This was a story the world wouldn’t soon forget.
Flames streaked the night and painted the terrified features of the well-heeled cultists in crimson, almost as if the roaring fire was intent on revealing their true demonic nature to the world. The incriminating knife covered in the prints of all these fine upstanding citizens would be sufficient to put them away for years to come.
The sorcerer was dead, the spell broken.
Justice had been served. The dead had gotten their vengeance. And the woman beside him had survived the night.
As the first phalanx of armed cops swarmed the property and descended on the grove, Weylock slowly made his way back to the exit, Alice still slumped against his chest.
He passed the burning mansion, the fire trucks, and police cruisers whose sirens bled into the balmy night. None of the police officers or fire men saw him, his cloaking spell keeping him and Alice hidden from human senses.
Ten minutes later, Weylock walked through the now open wrought-iron gates and headed for the parked Mustang on the side of the winding mountain road. He gently set his burden in the passenger seat before getting into the car himself. His otherworldly senses reached out and brushed her mind. The memories of this hellish night would linger and haunt her for a long time, but she was strong and would be alright.
Weylock fired up the Mustang and drove toward Alice’s apartment building. She remained unconscious throughout the entire ride.
Once Weylock pulled up to Alice’s place, he parked the Mustang in front of her unit and studied her sleeping form for a beat. Despite the horrors of the night, she looked at peace. He remembered what it was like to lie next to a sleeping beauty like her. Like many FBI agents, he’d struggled with insomnia. He’d tried everything, from pills to drinking himself into a stupor. But there was no greater sense of calm than what he’d found while watching his wife sleep.
Weylock’s eyes welled up with tears. He caught his reflection in the rear-view mirror and saw the demon reclined in the back seat of the Mustang, the grotesque, reptilian features sporting a diabolical grin. His pain was the creature’s pleasure, his sorrow the monster’s joy. He refused to give the beast such satisfaction and, as he so often did, buried his emotions.
Weylock regarded Alice one last time, imprinting her tranquil features into his memory, a future reminder that the world consisted of more than monsters and nightmares. He drew a circle in the air with his right hand, and she vanished from his vehicle. She would wake in her bed the next morning, safe and sound.
He’d left her the memories of this night, but the edges would be softened. A trauma that had happened long ago instead of the night before.
Weylock wanted to believe that Alice would put this experience behind her and move on. She was young and resilient. She would be okay, maybe better than okay. He hoped her business would take off, that she would find love and companionship. He envied her chance at a normal life, knowing that such a destiny would never be in the cards for him.
Jaxon Weylock had been lucky enough to experience a normal life, but he had taken it for granted. His future didn’t include a wife, kids, or a picket fence. Jaxon Weylock’s future belonged to the Hexecutioner.
And to be honest, he was okay with that. How many people got to live their lives with such a clarity of purpose? How many had the satisfaction of knowing that their actions made a real difference in this world—and the one beyond? There were worse fates than his.
If his destiny was to be champion for both the living and the dead, so be it.
Satisfied by this thought, Weylock drove off—a lone knight determined to keep the night safe from the things that hid in its darkness.
The End.
Jaxon Weylock returns in
The Hexecutioner 3: Shadows and Blood
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The Hexecutioner 2: Sacrifice of the Sorcerer
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William Massa’s Night Hunters
Also by WILLIAM MASSA
THE NIGHT SLAYER SERIES
Midnight War
Monster Quest
Shadow Plague
Dark Masters
THE SHADOW DETECTIVE SERIES
Cursed City
Soul Catcher
Blood Rain
Demon Dawn
Skull Master
Ghoul Night
Witch Wars
Crimson Circle
Hell Breaker
Dragon Curse
Vampire Quest
THE OCCULT ASSASSIN SERIES
Damnation Code
Apocalypse Soldier
Ice Shadows
Spirit Breaker
Soul Jacker
Doomsday Disciples
THE PARANORMALIST
Servants of the Endless Night
Soul Taker
Curse of the Abyss
The Unearthly
THE GARGOYLE KNIGHT SERIES
Gargoyle Knight
Gargoyle Quest
STAND ALONES
Fear the Light
Match: A Supernatural Thriller
SCIENCE FICTION TITLES
Silicon Man
Silicon Dawn
Crossing the Darkness
Sacrifice of the Sorcerer Page 5
