Midnight Riders

by Pete Clark

  The next few moments were a bit odd. Morgan never spoke of it. Sure, flying on a dragon was a pretty magnificent experience, but people were likely to categorize him as crazy if he told them about it. So, he just locked it in his happy memory box and moved on. They bid a fond farewell to Oliver and once again promised to visit him. He reminded them that he swore to destroy humanity if they did not uphold their promise. But he did it in a friendly way.

  They took the long walk back to Mahrak’s house. The trek was cold but uneventful. At long last, as the sun was beginning to set once more (they had apparently spent the day in the cave), they saw the cabin. They approached it with a mixture of triumph and general anger.

  “That bastard had better have known that dragon was friendly or else he just tried to kill us,” Boone said.

  “Well, it was a gauntlet thing. I think it’s supposed to be dangerous,” Marion said.

  “Dangerous, yes; impossible, no.” Boone reached the cabin door and entered without knocking.

  They walked in to see Mahrak playing cards with a huge centaur.

  “What the hell?” Marion yelled. “What are you doing with this centaur?”

  “Man-horse,” corrected Mahrak.

  “I don’t think we’re doing that yet,” said Marion.

  “I don’t care what you’re doing with him.” Morgan advanced in a rage. “We got past your second gauntlet, even though it was pretty much impossible, so there better not be much more to this. I am losing my patience.”

  Mahrak stood. The centaur remained standing but near the table. This was perhaps the largest centaur of all time. He had to be eight feet tall and his human arms were rippling with muscles. He looked as if he could easily crush each of their heads with a mere flex of his hand.

  “Only one part of the gauntlet remains. You must choose a champion.” He looked around at the three men. “But choose wisely, for this last challenge is one of fortitude, technique, and strength. Don’t rush to judgment, but rather consider all-”

  “I’ll be the champion. We choose me,” said Morgan, stepping forward. His face was pulsing red with fury. “So what is this last challenge?”

  Mahrak lifted back his shoulders and straightened as if about to give a speech. “You must defeat the centaur at arm wrestling.”

  “Shit,” Boone said. There was no chance in hell Morgan could beat this monster at arm wrestling.

  Morgan, on the other hand, seemed unperturbed. “Fine,” he said, striding toward the table where the centaur stood. Morgan looked at the creature; it stared back at him. In a blur, Morgan unslung his rifle and fired a bullet into the centaur’s forehead. Its brains exploded out the back of its head and splashed, Pollock style, along the back wall. The monster’s legs bent forward at the knees and slumped forward. The centaur’s upper body landed on the table, both of his arms splayed out beside his now empty head.

  Morgan sat at the table, picked up the dead creature’s right arm in his hand, and held it up so both of their elbows were on the table and they were facing one another. He then turned to glare at Mahrak with a maniacal fury. “Well?”

  “Uhm. Go,” Mahrak said unsteadily. Morgan then slammed the limp centaur’s hand to the table in what would have to be considered a very quick arm wrestling match. He then stood up, threw both his arms up in mock victory, and advanced on Mahrak.

  “Now, listen you little gauntlet-inventing bastard. You’re going to tell us what we want to know about the Croatan, Roanoke, and the rippers. And you better pray that we’re each satisfied with what you have to say, or else I am going to chop off your head, hollow out your skull, and walk around wearing your face as a hat.”

  Mahrak simply nodded and pointed for them each to take a seat. “Anyone want tea?”

  “No fucking tea!” Morgan shouted.

  ****

  Prescott fired and the glass shattered in an echoing cacophony of falling shards.

  “If that didn’t get him out of his trance, nothing is going to,” suggested Dawes.

  They went through the door out onto the porch, where they had a great view of Carpenters’ Hall. There was a small melee occurring on the roof between a pair of wraiths and Lynch, Revere, and Adams. It seemed as if they had it in hand. The bigger problem was the fact that at least one of the barricades had fallen, as several wraiths were spilling into Carpenters’ Hall. They had to get this settled. The dark man stood with his back to them just a few feet away; he still did not seem to notice them.

  “Should we just stab him?” Arnold asked.

  “No. That was why we came over here in the first place. We need to try and get some information out of him.”

  “He seems like the silent type.” Dawes looked at Arnold and Prescott and was disappointed to find that they did not like his joke. He snickered anyway and repeated. “Silent type. You know because he just sits there all the time and never, you know, talks?” Prescott looked back at him again and Dawes decided to be silent as well.

  They split up to surround the dark man. Dawes moved in from the left, Arnold from the right, and Prescott directly behind him.

  “Who are you?” Prescott asked.

  No response. Not even a whisper of movement came from the dark man. Up close, he was still difficult to see in the dim moonlight. He had a thick hood covering his face. A pointed chin and nose could barely be seen from the side. They were the only facial features that escaped the shadow of his hood. He had a strong build and he was rather tall; nearly as tall as Washington, thought Prescott. He tried again.

  “What are you doing here?” Pause. No response. “If you don’t respond, we will look upon this as an act of violence and we will respond with violence.” Another pause and still nothing. “Very well. This is your last chance.” He eyed Arnold and Dawes. Each man was ready with his weapons. “Who are you and what are you doing out here?” Prescott holstered one of his pistols and drew his sword. “So be it.” He raised his blade.

  “I thought we needed to get information out of him,” said Dawes.

  “He doesn’t seem to have any to give. And those wraiths are breaking through. We can’t guess if he is involved; we just have to assume it.” He spoke into the back of the dark man’s neck. “You had a chance, my friend.”

  Prescott lifted his sword, looked deep into the back of the neck where he would strike, and brought the blade down hard and fast. The silver steel whispered as it skimmed the air. Prescott swung hard, too hard; he apparently overbalanced. It took him a minute to realize that he had missed. Where there was once a target, now there was nothing. Prescott turned and a swirling blur kicked him in the chest with more force than Prescott had ever felt before. He had enough time to wonder if any of his ribs were broken before he slammed into the low wall of the porch. He climbed to his feet with his bones grinding in pain. The dark man was busy dodging Dawes’ gunshot with speed that could barely be tracked. In another second, he had hammered Dawes with a left hook and simultaneously slid under Arnold’s sword strike, kicking his legs out from under him. Arnold’s chin hit the pavement with a nasty crunch.

  Prescott whipped out both pistols and began to fire, twirling the barrels as a swarm of silver spun toward the dark man. Somehow, he eluded them all in a swirl of black mist. Prescott swore he should have hit him. But the solid target had turned to air. To add to the confusion, the misty form solidified and took a swing at Prescott. The strike was inconceivably fast, yet Prescott dodged it. Barely had he pivoted around the first hit when the other hand landed in his stomach. He wheezed and blood spattered from his mouth. He glanced up and got a good look at the man under the hood. He had crimson eyes and pale skin. The bone structure of his face was sharp, so sharp it seemed carved. The man was unmistakably French.

  “What the hell?” Prescott managed to gasp as the dark man drove an elbow into his nose. Prescott could actually hear the bone break as he was once again knocked to the ground. He started to fumble for the knife in his boot. He knew he wasn’t going to have enough time. Ju
st then, Arnold came up behind the creature and speared it through the lower back with his broken sword. It spun and nailed Arnold with a back fist that sent him all the way to the edge of the porch; he then stumbled over it. He managed to hang on, despite being hardly conscious.

  The dark man pulled the sword from his back. It dripped blood. Prescott got a good look at the wound since the creature now had his back turned to him. The wounded area, though still bloody, was healing. Prescott drew his knife and staggered back to his feet once more. He brought the knife down two handed onto the neck of the dark man, but he slipped out of the way again. Prescott had fought nearly everything supernatural on this earth and he had never seen anything that could move this fast. The creature grabbed Prescott by the neck and pinned him to the wall.

  The creature stared at him and smiled. That was when Dawes tried to be a hero. He dove onto the creature’s back. With hardly a flicker, the dark man grabbed him with one hand and flung him aside. Prescott heard him land with a dog-like yelp.

  “Now,” hissed the dark man. “I finally get you off my trail.”

  Prescott’s head was positively sizzling with pain. But the words struck his head clear. Finally off my trail, he thought. “de Lavoir?”

  “Who else?” de Lavoir’s hand suddenly seemed to grow sharper. His fingers stretched into talons that were easily sharp enough to carve flesh. With a smile, he pulled his arm back for the killing strike.

  A triple report of gunfire went off. One bullet struck de Lavoir in the upper back. From the other roof, Adams, Revere, and Lynch had taken care of their wraiths and were trying to come to the rescue. de Lavoir turned on them with a rage and dropped Prescott. Prescott gathered up what energy he had left, picked his knife up off the ground, and leapt forward. This time de Lavoir was preoccupied with avoiding another volley of gunfire. Luckily, the bullets avoided Prescott as well. His two handed attack was successful. He rammed the knife deep into the neck of de Lavoir. He drove it in sideways so that it would pulverize as much flesh and bone as possible. de Lavoir roared and staggered back. He turned to look at Prescott with the hatred of a million years. Then he evaporated into a cloud of black mist and was borne away on the night wind.

  Prescott heard his knife clatter to the cold ground. A second later, he joined it.

  ****

  Mahrak was clearly disappointed that he had no tea. But he started to tell the story anyway. The wind outside the small cabin began to howl and snow fluttered about. With the unseen moonlight, as the cabin had no windows, drawing dusty lines of illumination among the trees, the scene was successfully set.

  Mahrak began his tale.

  “Close to two hundred years ago, British settlers came to this part of the world.”

  “We already know this part,” interrupted Morgan.

  “Just let him tell the story,” Boone said.

  “Ahem.” Mahrak dramatically cleared his throat. “Once the settlers were here they started to get to know the local tribes. The tribe that they came most in contact with was my tribe, the Croatan. Although legend says there was much debate between the leaders over the subject, we eventually decided to help the settlers. We assisted them with how to hunt and farm and taught them many other useful tricks for survival. Even then, they had troubles. In fact, they started to have little scout parties that would raid our food supplies. They thought we didn’t know or didn’t care. Generally, we did not mind sharing, but in the winter, when food was scarce, we did not appreciate them taking food from out of our children’s mouths to give to theirs. This lead to a great deal of animosity between us. We decided to help them less and they decided to steal more. One day, when a member of their group was caught stealing crops, our warriors killed him. This made the settlers quite nervous and they had their leader take their ship back for either more supplies or men or a way home. We knew not which, but it didn’t matter, as the ship did not return for years.

  ‘After several more months, the settlers started getting even more desperate. They started to steal regularly and, on occasion, they would fire their weapons at us. Our relationship had deteriorated to a state akin to war. Our leaders had another meeting. We could not continue to allow these thieves to steal and drive us to starvation. We also did not want to go to war with them. Although we were confident we would win the war, the costs to us in lives would be great. There would also be the chance of retribution when, and if, others of them returned. We needed a way to get rid of them, and yet make it appear as if they never existed.

  ‘The Croatan possessed the means to do this, but it was a dangerous and costly path. It was called the Croatoan.”

  “Not a super original name there, fella,” Morgan mocked him, but he was shushed by the other two.

  Mahrak continued his tale. “We needed to get the blood of one of them in order to work the spell. We were lucky, as one of our warriors was able to get a hold of their youngest and pull blood from her, returning her without the settlers becoming aware of what we were up to. This youngest child was called Virginia Dare; her blood was a focal point of the Croatoan.

  ‘The workings of the spell are too complex to go into, but I will write it down recipe style for you at some point. What you do need to know is that the spell had never been used before and never since. It was a spell that centered on the darkest of dark magic. It released all of the evil and magical beasts of eternity and set them loose into this world. However, the beasts’ appearances would be linked to anger and war. In this way, we could control the settlers by having their own anger fight against them. The more war, the more monsters; in times of peace, they would be gone. Such was our logic. Sure, we could not control the creatures, but once the settlers were gone, so would be the beasts. We did not consider the fact that thousands of angry white men would come here and shoot at each other all the time and cause such an influx of monsters that it would threaten to destroy all of humanity on this continent.”

  “Hey, don’t dump this all on us. You guys really didn’t think that conjuring up armies of monsters would have any ill effects?” Boone asked.

  “Hey, I wasn’t there,” Mahrak countered.

  “You were telling it as if you were,” Boone shouted.

  “That’s because it sounds better in the first person.”

  Boone had to admit he had him there.

  Mahrak went on with the story. “The spell was cast, the creatures were released, and, in time, the colonists disappeared without a trace. They were, of course, picked off silently and invisibly by a number of different monsters, but when the ship finally returned, there was no one to be seen. No message, as they had no time to give one, and no signs of a struggle, as the beasts of the time could be quick indeed. The only thing that they found was the spell trigger, which we carved into their posts. Croatoan.”

  “That was a swell history lesson,” Boone said. “But as my friend here mentioned, unless you want him to wear various parts of your anatomy as rain gear, then you need to tell us how to make all the creatures go bye bye.”

  “Go bye bye?” Mahrak asked.

  “Yes,” Marion said. “How do we reverse the spell?” He shifted nervously as he looked at Mahrak’s confused face. “There is a way to reverse the spell, isn’t there?”

  Mahrak cleared his throat. Man, this guy was one for drama. He and Franklin should hang out. “Yes,” he said, and there was a sigh of relief in the room. “But we need the blood of one of the original colonists’ descendants.”

  “Wait.” Marion was putting things in order now. “But aren’t they all dead?”

  “Why yes,” Mahrak said. “I believe they are.”

  ****

  As soon as de Lavoir disappeared, or escaped, or died, or floated off, or whatever the hell he did, the wraiths’ organization collapsed. They began wandering off looking for easier prey as was predicted. Prescott felt a bit bad that a number of helpless townspeople were probably going to be killed, but he was so asskickified that he just did not have it in him to do anyt
hing. He, Dawes, and Arnold, whom they had rescued from the ledge, staggered back to meet the others. Adams’ group was among them at the main door of Carpenters’ Hall. Washington was also there. He met the six of them in the main hall.

  “I am not certain what you did, but it clearly was not easy and, just as clearly, it was effective.”

  “There was a vampire who was controlling them,” Prescott said.

  “A vampire,” said George Washington. “I didn’t think they were real.”

  “No shit,” yelled a suddenly foul-mouthed Revere. “You told me there were no vampires. All this time, I’ve been terrified of vampires and you’re always like, ‘no, Paul, relax; there are totally no vampires.’ Then I let my guard down and what happens? Huh? Huh? That’s right - a vampire.”

  “And a French one too,” Dawes added for no apparent reason.

  “I didn’t think they were real, either. I’d never seen one before. But this guy was really powerful. He beat the hell out of us and I think he may have escaped,” Prescott said.

  “You think he escaped,” Washington asked.

  “I stabbed him in the neck and he turned into a cloud of mist. I’m not sure if that is vampire for die or escape.”

  “Good point.”

  “Anyway,” Adams interjected. “Now that the threat is over, we can conclude our meeting. And you, Mr. Washington, I believe it is time for you to start building your army. We are about to go to war.”

  “You’ll need more than just soldiers to go to war,” Arnold said.

  “Yes, we will need leaders. Military men of courage and genius.” Washington was slipping back into his “I’m on a stage motivating people” mode.

  “Yes, that,” said Arnold. “But also weapons and gunpowder and cannons. Nobody wins a war without cannons.”

  “These are all discussions to be had in the coming months. This nation is on the cusp of its birth.” Washington was getting all warmed up again. Prescott was ready to head home and take a nap. “We, the leaders of the land,” Washington scanned the crowd and pointed randomly, “it is up to us to seize the mantle of leadership, to drive the forces of tyranny before us and from this great land of ours. This land of opportunity, this land of freedom, this land of America.”