by J. Thorn
Peter held his hand up to silence Doug. “Didn’t ask for any explanation yet, now, did I?”
Doug cursed himself for having come into the house with nothing but a utility knife in his front pocket. Sage had told him that conventional weapons wouldn’t really matter tonight, and he had listened to her. He should have brought the Beretta M9 in his ankle holster for insurance. Doug hoped poor judgment wouldn’t cost him his life.
“He kidnapped me and was going to kill me. I managed to defend myself, but I couldn’t get my hands untied,” Kelly said.
Officer Jones cocked his head sideways, and Doug thought that the information was coming at Peter too fast. His face twisted in lines of anger as if the sensory overload was stressing him out. “Everybody needs to stop moving. Right. Fucking. Now.”
Sage and Kelly stood next to each other near the tripod while Doug was between Peter and the body on the floor. He hadn’t realized the women were slowly moving around the perimeter of the room and toward the door until he saw the beam of the flashlight on them.
“No problem, Peter. It’s all good,” Doug said with both hands raised and palms out. “Tell us what you need us to do.”
“It ain’t what I need, partner. I gotta protect and serve. It’s what I signed on to do.”
Doug waited, sensing that Peter needed to speak.
“I need to take you in, all legal and whatnot.”
“For what, Peter?” Doug asked, continually using the officer’s first name in hopes of deescalating the situation.
“That dead man on the floor didn’t kill himself, now, did he? You gonna try and tell me one of these baby dolls here did this? Miss Reporter can barely stand, and the little Goth princess ain’t but eighty pounds soakin’ wet.”
“I ain’t Goth, you asshole.”
Doug sighed and looked at Sage, his eyes pleading with her. He then glanced at Kelly and the realization struck. She was Kelly Swift, the television personality. He could barely recognize her. “Listen, Peter. Miss Swift needs medical attention. She’s been trapped in this house for a week.”
While he hadn’t spoken to her long enough to know exactly how long she had been held captive, a week felt like it carried the appropriate level of concern for a routine physical at the hospital.
“I’m gonna call that in as soon as I have you in custody,” Peter said.
“Fine. Arrest me and then call this in. Where’s your backup, Peter? Pine Valley PD wouldn’t send you out on this call alone, would they?”
“That ain’t my dispatch no more. I got me a new sarge, and you’re gonna answer to him.”
Sage sighed, and Peter was close enough to Doug for him to see the sheer insanity in his eyes. “Don’t, Doug,” Sage said. “If he cuffs you, we’re all dead. Don’t do it.”
“You’re gonna shut the fuck up so I can get shit under control.” Peter pulled his piece and snapped the flashlight overtop with his other hand in the classic defensive stance.
“Calm down, man. Here. Cuff me,” Doug said.
Kelly began to cry while Doug thrust his wrists at Peter, hands together and palms up.
“Doug, don’t,” Sage said again.
“Shut up!” Peter screamed.
What happened next came so fast that Doug could do nothing. A blur moved past him and slammed into Peter’s arm, knocking the gun and the flashlight from it. Officer Jones had not expected the attack to come from Kelly Swift, and it caught him off guard. At the same time, Sage lunged for the gun spinning on the hard, wood floor while Doug remained standing. Kelly scratched at Peter’s eyes, and the man screamed as her nails tore thin lines of flesh from his face. He grabbed her by the back of the head and slammed her into the wall, where she crumpled to the floor inches from where she had been imprisoned for days. Sage took two steps, but Jones was only one step from the gun. They wrestled on the floor for it for a second or two before the reality of the situation smacked Doug in the face. He brought his right leg back and drove the toe of his work boot into Jones’ ribs, letting Sage get her hands on the weapon. Peter curled up and spat while Sage flipped off the safety and raised the barrel, pointing it at Peter’s head. An explosion rocked the house, and plaster rained down from the ceiling, covering them all in a ghostly white haze. Before Doug could determine what had happened, he heard footsteps, followed by the greasy click of a shell sliding into a chamber.
“That’s about enough for one night. I may not be chief no more, but I’m top dog here. Everybody sit the fuck down against the wall so I can get my shit together.”
Doug choked on the gun’s smoke and the old plaster now in his lungs. He looked up through burning eyes to see Frank standing in the doorway with a double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun in his arms.
***
“You’re not going to screw up your retirement, are you, Frank? Pretty sure a felony disqualifies you from the pension,” Doug said.
“Git up and cuff the girls to each other,” Frank said, ignoring Doug.
Peter stood and grabbed his hat as he tried to find his dignity. He snatched the cuffs from Doug’s hands and cuffed Kelly’s left wrist to Sage’s right.
“Now get behind them all with your piece and follow me out. If you get any more bullshit, shoot the little girl in the head. If you so much as give Miss Swift a hangnail, I’ll kill ya myself.”
“Where’re we going, Frank?”
“You know where we’re going, Doug. We got to meet the gaki. Got a transaction to finalize.”
“What transaction is that?” Doug asked, hoping to stall for as long as possible.
“You for her,” he replied, pointing the double barrel at Kelly. “Gaki wants you alive for some reason. He thinks you got some cosmic power that he can use when the Portal opens.” Frank spoke the words like a true cynic.
“If you do that, if you let him bust that Portal open, it’s all over. We’re all done. You know that, right, Frank?”
“Some of us are already done, son. That’s the part yer missin’. Some of us been done for a while now.” Frank turned to face Peter. “Let’s go.”
Sage looked at Doug before Frank nudged his shoulder with the shotgun and led the group out of the house. Frank pushed the barrel into Doug’s back to keep him moving. Peter pushed the women, too, using his free hand to dab at the blood streaking down his face. The five figures marched into the weeds and through the cemetery gate to where the crypt waited. The evil would be hidden no more.
***
The demon let a thin smile crease its face as it felt the last of the resistance give way like wet sand. Gaki looked around the crypt, hoping the Williams clan would return to witness the most glorious use of their old, dusty bones. Surely the spirits would want to be near the Portal when it opened, allowing them a second chance at desires that had gone unfulfilled in their first lifetime. But, even in the feeling of satisfaction, Gaki recognized the power of the Hunter and her new apprentice. She certainly had more training, but he was the key to the New Empire. With the man under his yoke, Gaki would be able to turn thousands of humans into demons. Although he had not intended for Frank to enjoy his spoils for very long, the demon would give him a taste of the woman in exchange for delivering Doug alive. But in the end, Frank was old and weak, and his mind had been poisoned beyond repair. Frank was no Jasper, and Jasper could not compare to Doug. Through it all, the demon was pleased with how the energies were aligning.
***
“The crypt. That’s where we’re headed,” said Sage.
“Shut her up,” said Frank to Peter.
Officer Jones spun Sage and used his hands to squeeze her jaw, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of her neck. “One more outburst, and I will put a bullet in your head.”
“Do me first, fucker. C’mon. You so scared of that Gollum-looking piece of shit that you’re going to do what he says?” Doug snapped.
“Ignore him,” Frank said with a chuckle. “He’s trying to provoke you, and you’re apelike enough to fall for it. Stick to th
e plan. Protect and serve.”
The last three words seemed to grab Peter and refocus him on the task at hand.
“How do you know he’s going to hold up his end of the deal, Frank? Seriously. Whatever he promised you, how do you know you’ll get it?” Doug said.
“I felt that son of a bitch as soon as we got to the house, Doug,” replied Frank as he pushed Doug past the grave markers and toward the Williams’ crypt. “I could feel him, and damn, he was powerful. I knew from that moment on that something wasn’t right.”
“I could tell on the ride back to the station,” Doug said.
“Yeah, then he got inside my head. Got inside my computer. Got inside my phone. There was nothing I could do, Doug. Nothing.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, c’mon. That’s a terrible line they done put in every cheesy movie. That’s the best plea you can come up with? What does that even mean? I absolutely have to do this.”
As they approached the entrance to the crypt, Doug realized that Frank was right.
***
The moon peeked above the trees and filtered light through the leaves and to the graveyard below. Bare branches scraped together like the fingers of old crones. Kelly shivered, at the same time feeling a surge of adrenaline. Even if she died tonight, she had survived the ordeal. She had beaten Robert and left him for dead, not the other way around. She glanced at Sage, but the woman did not look back. Kelly saw the fight in her eyes and knew battle was approaching. She was looking at Frank’s back as he nudged Doug farther into the cemetery and closer to the crypt when she saw them.
At first, Kelly thought that a low fog was rolling through, pulsing from machines like those at Halloween haunted houses run by slasher-film freaks and college freshman. But as the shapes moved through the trees, she realized that Floyd’s coven was coming home. The spirits floated as they approached the crypt. Kelly felt her chest tighten, and she must have squeezed Sage’s hand, because the diminutive women sighed and turned to face her.
“What?” she said.
“Look,” replied Kelly.
Sage saw nothing, but Kelly’s face froze. Most of the spirits wore long, hooded cloaks and had their heads down. The first couple to come through the darkness brought a foreign, blue glow. As more and more came, the light seemed to be filtered and reflected off of them from the moon. Kelly recognized the first shape to come out of the woods. This was the spirit who had been talking to her inside the house.
“I have not signed his book,” Kelly said, surprised by the words as they left her mouth for the second time in as many days.
It is time to do so now. It is the only way.
The ghostly form now stood directly in front of Kelly, its arms outstretched and ignoring Sage. She could see the woman’s feet, her toes scraped and bruised as they had been inside the house, the skin gray and mottled beneath the fabric. The woman smelled of rotten flesh and moist, loamy soil.
The succubus serves the dark master. The Portal is about to open wide. Now is the time to determine your allegiance. The gaki awaits.
“I won’t,” replied Kelly. She looked at Peter and Sage. Neither seemed to notice the apparitions or the fact that she was having a conversation with one.
This is going to happen. The souls are returning, and they will serve him. The minions will scatter across the land and place him on the dark throne.
“I can’t. I can’t be an accomplice to the pain and suffering you will inflict on the innocent.”
It will be them or it will be you.
“So be it,” replied Kelly. “I won’t join him.”
The coven had hoped to bring you to the most exalted position. They had aspirations for your eternal soul.
Kelly shook her head and decided to close her eyes and hope that the spirit went away. She was afraid that any more ethereal conversations could start to sway her from her position. Kelly felt weak and weary and did not want to be responsible for decisions made under duress.
“I refuse. I will not sign his book. I will not wear the mark.”
When she opened her eyes, the apparitions were gone, and Doug stood at the entrance to the crypt with Frank’s shotgun in his back.
***
“Wait here. Keep your weapon on them. If they try anything, shoot the Goth in the head.”
Jones nodded and waved his gun at the women. Sage rolled her eyes and sat on the stone edifice surrounding the crypt, and she pulled Kelly’s handcuffed arm to her, forcing her to sit as well.
“You’re selling your soul, Frank. If you take me in there, you’ll rot in hell,” said Doug.
“Open the door,” Frank replied.
Doug walked up the cracked stone steps, reached out, and turned the rusted latch, which let the hinges relax. He pulled the heavy bronze door toward him with his bound hands. The hinges squealed, and Doug looked around the graveyard, expecting the hideous noise to wake the dead.
He stepped through the arched doorway with Frank’s shotgun in the middle of his back. A single candle sat in a sconce on the back wall. The vaulted ceiling forced Doug to duck. It had obviously been built in a time when the average man was considerably shorter. Moisture clung to the tight walls. A double row of coffins sat on each side, the crypt holding the remains of those inside them. An altar sat below the candle on the back wall. The creature was standing behind it, waiting.
“Can you feel the vibrations in the stone? It has retained the energy, and the Portal is on the verge of opening.”
Doug felt the shotgun muzzle drop from his back although Frank had not left. “Why do you need me to open the Portal?”
Gaki waved a long, thin finger at Doug. As the man’s eyes adjusted to the crypt, he could see a dark liquid dripping from the demon’s finger. A gelatinous glob of matter sat on the altar, and Doug could almost taste the horrible reek coming from it.
Gaki reached down and scooped with his hand, forcing the substance into his tight, round mouth. “I don’t,” it replied, chewing and grinding while the substance flowed back out of his mouth and dripped back to the pile on the altar. “It will open regardless of you or your actions.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Beliefs are like the wind, thin and changing all the time. Believe what you want.”
“I held up my end,” said Frank, interrupting the conversation.
“Leave us,” said Gaki. “But you may not take the woman until I give you the sign.”
“Bullshit.”
“That is the way it shall be.”
Doug waited for Frank to respond, trying hard not to look at Gaki shoving congealed blood and shit into his mouth.
“Fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, I kill the little bitch and take my prize,” Frank said. Gaki nodded, and Frank walked out of the crypt and pushed the door shut behind him.
“So now we are left with the core power, that which Ravna bequeathed to you, not yet acquired by the woman.”
“Sage?”
“Many Hunters have come for me. Some have the power to defeat me, and others are simply a nuisance. The woman outside is a nuisance. I disposed of her master, and I will dispose of her as well.”
Doug stood with his hands still cuffed, listening. “Ravna was his student, and I am Ravna’s student.”
“True. But there is a different energy in Ravna. A different energy in you.”
“What happens when the Portal opens?”
“I think you know,” Gaki said. Doug waited as the demon hissed. “Water, air. All natural elements seek to fill a void. That is the same on all planes across all time. It happens in the skies and in the oceans. What you call the blood curse is the same. Once the curse is introduced to a plane, it seeks to fill the voids. Like water, that can happen when rain falls from the sky, and over time, the ground will be saturated. However, if the aim is to saturate the ground, then a tidal flood would be much more effective, would it not?”
“I’m not really into playing word games wh
ile you shove shit into your mouth.”
Gaki waved at Doug, and laughter escaped from his face. “So the flood is coming. It will hit the shores very soon, in a manner of speaking. Like a tidal wave here on this plane, it is unstoppable. Your choice will be what to do after the force cleanses the land and the others follow the energy through the Portal. That is your choice.”
“Which clearly serves you in some way.”
“Yes,” the demon said. “Of course. It will be a matter of moments before the rest of my kind arrives and can cleanse the plane of humanity’s filth. Your species has done incredible damage and at a rate unsurpassed by any other organism.”
“You’re so righteous, aren’t you? You’re coming to ‘clean’ the planet.”
A rumble shook the crypt, and the coffins rattled against the stone walls.
“It is coming very soon.”
Doug shook his head, not disputing Gaki on that matter. “So I join you and help clean up?”
“You hold a power unbeknown to yourself that I will unveil to you over time. You will sit at my right hand and help to manage the minions as they climb through the Portal.”
The crypt shook again, and this time the candle tumbled from the sconce and fell to the ground. Doug heard shouts from outside, but they sounded muffled and distant even though they came from only several feet away.
“Rav had the right idea, but he had the wrong coordinates,” said Doug. Gaki froze. His eyes tightened. “He gave his life for that information, but he probably saved us all with it,” Doug continued.
Another round of shouting, and then gunshots rang out. Doug looked over his shoulder and back at Gaki. Ravna had told him it would be the most difficult thing he would ever have to do, and now he understood why.
“The women, your friends, they are dying.”
“You’re not distracting me. You know I know. I can see it in your face.”
Gaki snorted and stepped toward Doug, his arms outstretched and touching the coffins. “They are shooting the little one and will most likely share the flesh of the other.”
“I thought it was the house, at first,” Doug said, undeterred by Gaki’s threat. “I had wired the explosives halfway around the foundation before I realized it was here. The Portal wasn’t in the house, it was in this crypt. That’s probably what kept it hidden for so long. The apparitions were drawn to the house like a moth to flame, no doubt, but this was the source of the heat, the source of it all.”
