Watchers of the Fallen (Second Death Book 1)

by Brian Rella

  The Harbinger.

  Frank became queasy. He hated visiting the Harbinger, not because of who she was or what she told him, although sometimes what she told him was just as bad. He hated going to see her because of where she was – the Realm of the Second Death.

  But he was at a dead end and needed answers. He could hope the Order would pick something and eventually point him in the right direction, but that could take time. Time was something he didn’t have, especially if his feelings of dread and impending danger were correct.

  No. I can’t wait and let this get any bigger. I have to try.

  Frank sat on the floor, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes. He rested his palms on his knees, and straightened his back. He slowed his breathing, as he had been taught. After a few breaths, he relaxed and focused his energy.

  Lights danced behind his closed eyes and he fell into a trance-like state.

  His mind went blank and he was surrounded by darkness. Then a hazy, wavy pattern of yellow light ebbed and flowed in a pulsing rhythm around him, forming a tunnel. The tunnel grew narrow and tight as he gazed into it. It flattened into a disk in front of him, falling in on itself over and over. A small violet circle, spread from the middle of the yellow disk, and a vortex opened. He focused on the vortex, his body falling into its rhythm. When they were completely in sync, he said, “Sev’nal ves’spe-an mesh al’faz!”. He heard an electrical crunch and felt a pull on his stomach. His skin tingled, as if his whole body had pins and needles, and he was sucked into the vortex.

  Frank opened his eyes and the room morphed around him.

  The ceiling faded to a darkening sky with no stars, save a setting orange-red sun that glowed big and bright on the developing horizon, its edge dipping below the black landscape in the distance.

  The walls cracked and began to crumble. Deafening thunder clapped, and then the four walls fell down through the ground, revealing black, ash-covered, barren land. The air smelled acrid and a burnt crispness filled his nose. Heat prickled at his skin and the ground beneath him became jagged black rock, like lava stone. Small crackling fires dotted the landscape and flickered all around him.

  Wind swirled and howled in great gusts, beating against him, choking him with soot and fiery dust. The fires burned as far as he could see and ambers and soot danced through the air like snowflakes. Tree trunks and limbs jutted like knives and spears out of the dead, blackened ground, stabbing at the red-violet sky. Lavender veins ran through the scorched trees, their branches stretched out like twisted, broken limbs, swaying in the pounding wind. Everything was on fire, it seemed, the flames lapping at the darkening sky.

  A white worm with human arms and one large green eye wiggled toward him and stopped several feet before him. It raised its front up on its arms, revealing a maw ringed with razor-sharp teeth. It screeched, echoing in Frank’s ears, and darted back the way it came.

  Bird-like beasts flew in the air. Their feathers looked metallic, defying the physics of the world Frank knew.

  This was the Realm of the Second Death, the bizarre world of darkness where the evil that had once ruled the Earth had been contained and imprisoned millennia ago.

  “Harbinger!” he called, the wind scattering his voice.

  In the distance, mountains of rock crumbled to the ground and Frank sensed that this realm was beginning to die. The imps he had encountered at the bookstore were right. The sun was setting here, and the prison walls that held the darkness were starting to collapse.

  He called her repeatedly, and finally, from behind a barren tree trunk, a small girl appeared.

  She wore a robe that looked as though it used to be white, but was now filthy, tattered and frayed. Her feet were bare. Her long black hair flowed behind her in the gusting wind. Her exposed skin was scraped and scratched, as if she had been fighting.

  “The sun is setting in this realm, Watcher,” she said in a tiny voice. “They come for yours. Tell the others: He is rising again. He is coming. Find the girl who is no longer a girl, and who would be his princess.”

  Riddles. “Speak plainly, Harbinger. Tell me who is coming.”

  “The sun is setting. Find the girl who is no longer a girl but is now a woman. He needs her to bring him into your world. Find her, Watcher. Find the girl – ”

  Her sentence turned into a high-pitched scream. From above, a lizard-like beast swooped silently out of the sky and pulled the girl from the ground and into the air. Frank had no time to react. The creature’s eyes gleamed as it lifted the Harbinger with its talon toes into the air. Her screams faded as the thing rose higher into the darkening sky.

  It began tearing at the girl’s body with its snout, ripping pieces away as it climbed higher. An arm fell through the sky as she wailed. Frank turned away, unable to watch the horror.

  He heard a muted thud somewhere in the distance as her shredded body hit the ground. I can never get used to this.

  She always died like this when the Watchers visited her, yet she somehow always came back. It was a horrible existence and another reason Frank hated coming to see her. He had no idea if her perpetual living and dying hurt her or if it was a rule of the chaos that ruled the realm.

  Tremors shook through his body as he stood and stared at the setting sun. Darkness was rising.

  He heard a beating heart in the distance, its thumping cadence growing louder with every second. He listened for a moment and dread seized him. He knew that thunderous beat somehow.

  Time to go.

  He quickly sat, not wanting to find out what it was and shouted into the wind, “Ses’nan ves’spe-an mesh al’vool!” He fell through the ground and tumbled through darkness until he landed hard on his ass back in the morgue, the pale-green walls surrounding him again.

  By the time he had left the building, the false dawn had begun. He looked at his watch and saw it was after four in the morning. Exhausted from his journey, his energy drained, he staggered back to the car. He needed rest and something to eat to restore himself. He also needed to report in.

  14

  FRANK

  October 20, 2015

  Beauchamp, Louisiana

  The car rumbled to a start and Frank chirped the tires as he changed to second gear, speeding back into town. He called Brennan to report on what he had found.

  “Frank,” a weary-sounding Brennan said through the receiver.

  “It’s Olga. She’s dead,” he said flatly.

  “And the book?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I spoke to the Harbinger. It’s bad, Brennan. Something big is coming. The Realm of the Second Death is crumbling and something is trying to break into our world again.”

  “Did the Harbinger tell you who took the book?”

  “Not exactly. She said something about a girl who was not a girl, but a woman. Always fucking riddles with her. Something else. They said my name, Brennan. They know who I am. How?”

  “What do you mean? Who said your name?”

  “I was attacked at the bookstore. Imps. I'm being targeted again. Brennan…my mother. I need to know she’s being protected.”

  “I’ll make sure. But you need to find the book and whoever is using it.”

  “I want my mother brought in.”

  “I swear to you, Frank, it’s my next call.”

  “Speak to you in a few hours. I’m getting out of here today.”

  “God be with you.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Frank ended the call as he pulled in front of the Beauchamp Inn. His stomach growled and he knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep. A light down the street from the Inn caught his eye. It was a diner.

  He pulled the car in front of the Inn. He would check out after a meal and a couple hours of sleep if he could manage it.

  He headed down the street to get something to eat. The scent of bacon grease and coffee hung in the air as he pushed through the door and into the diner.

  Insid
e, the twangs and long, drawn-out notes of soft country music greeted him. A long counter stretched all the way to the back of the diner. It was lined with plastic cake plates filled with beignets and Danish. Behind the counter, an older woman in her sixties turned the pages of the morning paper, a cup of coffee steaming next to her, and a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray by her right hand.

  Her glasses barely caught the tip of her sharp nose and looked like they would fall off at the slightest movement. She wore a classic diner uniform: blue shirt with a white collar, blue skirt, and a white apron with big pockets stuffed with pens and paper. She might have been at that counter for the last forty years standing like that for all Frank could tell.

  “Anywhere you like, darlin’,” she said without looking up from her paper.

  Frank walked over to the counter and sat down in the middle of the row of chairs. He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at the shiny metal food counter and pick-up window that gave a view into the back of the restaurant. A black man, head down, hairnet covering his thick bushy hair, was working something furious back there. The breakfast smells coming out of the kitchen made Frank’s mouth water and his stomach yearned for something heavy and warm to fill it.

  He glanced toward the waitress and she looked up.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Yes please,” he said.

  “You know whatcher havin’?” she said without moving from her paper and cigarette.

  Frank shook out a Marlboro and flipped it between his lips. “Whatdya recommend?”

  “Corned beef hash is good. How about that with some chicken fried steak and eggs?”

  Frank had never tried chicken fried steak before. “Done,” he said.

  The waitress pulled her pad out, wrote his order down in a few strokes, and tacked it onto a metal wheel on the kitchen window. “Order up,” she said and spun the wheel so that the order was facing the cook. The cook glanced up at the paper and went out of Frank’s view to make his meal.

  A white saucer and cup appeared before him and the smell of fresh black coffee instantly perked him up as the waitress tipped the hot pot over his cup. He inhaled deeply, savoring the smell.

  “You just get in?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Long night?”

  Frank pulled on his cigarette, the burning tobacco crackling inches from his lips. He sipped his coffee, and shrugged in response. What is it with these people down here? Why do they need to know everyone’s business?

  “You holler if you need anything,” she said, refilling his hardly empty cup and settling back into her paper.

  Frank looked at his watch. It was almost five in the morning. He needed to get a few hours of sleep before he started the drive back to New York. He wasn’t looking forward it. It was times like these he wished he weren’t so afraid of flying. But being trapped in a narrow aluminum tube at thirty-five thousand feet in the air going five hundred miles an hour scared him more than any demon he had ever fought. Maybe it was a control thing. He was not in control when he flew, someone else was, and that bothered Frank. At least when he drove or fought, he was in control.

  The waitress clicked on the TV above the counter and a news report began playing. It was about the murder at the bookstore. Frank stared absently at the TV while the reporter droned on about the statistics of the last time someone was killed in Beauchamp.

  Then she said something that caught Frank’s attention.

  “In other news tonight, the shock and tragedy of a family attacked in the same New Orleans suburb of Beauchamp.”

  Footage of a run-down ranch house played while the reporter continued.

  “Police say Karen Hailey and her fiancé, Steve Trevers, were spared their lives tonight only by a miracle. Their two children are missing while the couple recover in the hospital.”

  Neighbors were interviewed. They hadn’t heard anything, but apparently the family had been attacked. The mother, Karen, had been horribly deformed in the attack. The man, Steve, had almost every bone broken in his body and was now a cripple. Both were in intensive care in the hospital…and their girls were missing.

  “Could you make that order to go please?” Frank shouted to the waitress.

  “Ronny, make that to go please!” she shouted through the order window.

  Frank slapped a twenty on the counter when the food came and left in a hurry.

  “Thanks,” the waitress called after him.

  Frank didn’t respond. He wasn’t going home just yet. He had to go see this couple in the hospital and find out about their missing girls.

  15

  FRANK

  November 2, 1983

  Hudson Highlands, New York

  Frank couldn’t sleep. He wanted his bed and his puppy stuffed animal. He missed his house. David was snoring next to him, but Frank was scared and wide awake. He was glad Mommy and Daddy slept in here with him, but they weren’t sleeping right now, they were talking. This place is weird. Mommy and daddy don’t like it here. Does David like it here?

  “So you think we should go?” Frank’s father whispered.

  “Yes,” his mother said. She sounded sad. “Jason, we need to go to the police. This is crazy.”

  “What would we tell them? There are aliens from another dimension that destroyed our house and are after our son? Oh and by the way, there are these other guys living inside a mountain who know magic? Honey, they’ll think we’re the crazy ones.”

  Frank could hear his mother sniff. His father whispered something to her, but he couldn’t hear what he said.

  As Frank lay in his bed, images of the attack flashed before his eyes. He tossed and turned, trying, wishing for sleep. He replayed pieces of the conversation his parents had had with Shizu, Rowan, and Maza in his mind. He didn’t understand most of what they had spoken about, but he did understand that there was some kind of bad magician that came to his house and his name was Glak'xhohr. He made the giant bugs and tried to hurt him and his family.

  Every time Frank thought about it he cringed and his tummy hurt like he was going to throw up.

  Eventually, he drifted off to sleep and dreamed.

  His dream was dark and filled with strange noises. He couldn’t see so much as he could hear and feel.

  A loud thudding, like a heartbeat weaved in and out of his dream. It pounded rhythmically. Bu-bum…bu-bum…bu-bum.

  The sound filled him. First his ears, and then, with every rhythmic beat, his body began to reverberate. It went right through him, to his core, and shook his very bones.

  The sound caged him in fright. He couldn’t see what was making the sound, but he could feel its presence. It was evil and very close to him. With every thud of the heartbeat, he shrank smaller and smaller into himself, his little body tightening into a ball, trying to hide away from the noise and the presence that stalked him.

  The darkness faded to gray light, like dawn. His vision was fuzzy and unclear, but he could see blurry shapes.

  A large sun was low in the sky and looked like a red ball of fire. He found himself surrounded by black, shiny rocks and flames flickered all around him. The rock was on fire, the trees were on fire, the ground he stood on was smoking, and he felt the heat coming up from the ground and burning his little feet.

  In front of him, something enormous came into focus. It vibrated with the rhythmic thudding heartbeat that passed through him. The ground shook with it and Frank realized the pounding heartbeat was coming from the thing in front of him.

  He squinted, trying to focus, but what he was seeing didn’t make sense.

  His eyes widened when his vision finally cleared and he realized what he was seeing.

  A giant, glowing, purple slug, with three eyes on stalks and spindly spikes sticking out of its back oozed toward him slowly, leaving a trail of sea-foam-green slime behind it.

  It crept slowly, ominously toward Frank. He was paralyzed and unable to move or scream as it wriggled toward him. He willed
his body to move back and away, but he was frozen, his body like a statue, until the creature was in front of him.

  It rose up, revealing a deep orifice that dripped green slime that sizzled and smoked when it fell to the black sand.

  Frank’s breath caught. He couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating.

  The creature faced him, and opened its maw wider. A ring of razor-sharp teeth appeared. It hissed and lunged.

  Frank woke up screaming, clutching his chest.

  “Moooommmmy! Moooommy! Daddy! Daaaaaadddy!” he screamed, the image of the creature still terrorizing him in his mind.

  He clutched his chest and scratching at his shirt, trying to get the giant slug off of him.

  Jason was at his side and trying to get a hold of him to calm him down as he scraped at his chest violently, some part of him recognizing his chest was bleeding as he clawed at the slug thing that wasn’t there.

  David woke up and started crying. Robin sat on the bed, tears streaming down her face.

  Frank felt woozy, and then the room went black.

  16

  FRANK

  October 20, 2015

  Beauchamp, Louisiana

  The sun shone brightly and the air was already heavy with humidity when Frank arrived at the hospital. He went through the automatic double doors and into the reception area of the main hospital entrance.

  Nurses and doctors were coming on duty for the day shift. Most had cups of coffee and were making small talk with one another. Frank walked to the reception station to find the room of the man and woman from the TV news report.

  The nurses’ station was momentarily empty. Frank leaned over the counter and scanned the room chart looking for Steve Trevers and Karen Hailey.

  “Excuse me. Can I help you?”

  Frank turned and a young nurse with short brown hair and a tattoo on her arm peeking out from under her scrubs stared at him, an accusatory look on her face.