by Nash, Bobby
Although he was no stranger to the Office of Angel Guides, Joshua still found it odd how nondescript the place truly looked to the outside world. Before he met Alexandra Holzer, he must have walked past this place dozens, if not hundreds, of times and never once gave it so much as a first glance, much less a second one. Now, he couldn’t set eyes on the place without wondering why everyone else on the street did not stare as they passed.
It wasn’t the building itself that stood out. Like every other building in the area, it was of older design, broken down in places and then refurbished with each new owner. The outside of the building was red brick, but over the years the colors had dulled and faded to form a sort of patchwork look that Joshua felt suited the place.
There were only four floors. A deli took over most of the ground floor while the OAGI filled the second. As far as he knew, the other floors were either vacant or were also in use by Samuel and his people.
With buildings of that vintage, there were no elevators so getting to the office on the second floor meant a trek up the stairs, which he didn’t mind, especially after spending the day cooped up in the law library with his nose in one book after another. He took the stairs in a trot and made good time.
The stairwell opened into a hallway that led to the door leading into Samuel’s office. There were other doors and they all fed into the same suite of offices, but he knew they would all be locked from the inside. There was only one way into the OAGI, straight through the front door.
The sound of a bell jingling over the door greeted Joshua when he arrived at the Office of Angel Guides.
“Anybody here?” he called as he stepped inside.
The place looked empty, which wasn’t as odd to him as he had once found it. If not for the fact that he had met one or two others here on prior visits, Joshua sometimes wondered if Samuel was the only one who worked there on a regular basis. The unkempt liaison between the Holzers and his superiors was the only consistency at the OAGI. No matter what time he and Alexandra showed up, Samuel was always there.
Not for the first time, he suspected that the man lived there.
“Ah, Mister Demerest,” a smiling Samuel said as he stepped out from the rear office. “Welcome.”
“Thanks.” He forced a smile. “And, please, call me Joshua. Mr. Demerest sounds so formal. Every time I hear it I want to turn around and see if my father is standing behind me.
“Of course, Joshua,” the disheveled Samuel said with a hint of jovial chuckle in his voice. “I was the same way with my father when he was alive. He was a stern man, my father, but surprisingly light on his feet. He could sneak into a room without anyone knowing he was there.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear he’s no longer with us.” Joshua made a mental note that Samuel seemed to have inherited that same quality of being light on his feet from his father.
“Thank you,” Samuel said, motioning Joshua to take a seat in his wall-less office. “It was a long time ago, although in our line of work, you never know when he might pop by for a visit, right?”
“Is that something that’s likely to happen?” Joshua asked, freezing in a half-standing, half-sitting position. He looked back and forth from one side of the room to the other.
The look on Joshua’s face must have been an odd one because Samuel laughed.
“What?”
“Forgive me,” Samuel said. “I don’t mean to laugh, but the look on your face was priceless. I would have figured after spending so much time with your betrothed, you would have gotten used to the unusual.”
“Well, I’ve seen more than my fair share of some strange things,” Joshua said, as he got comfortable in the chair, crossing his legs. “I try to keep an open mind, but there’s a part of me that can’t help but look for a logical solution. No offense, but angels, demons, ghosts, and the rest of it is a lot to take on face value.”
“No offense taken,” Samuel said. “This life we lead is not for everyone. You might be skeptical, but I see that as an asset. A healthy dose of skepticism is not a bad thing.”
“Sometimes I wish Alex was a bit more like that. Sometimes she leaps in without looking.”
“She wasn’t always that way, you know?”
“Oh?”
Samuel leaned forward, elbows on the desk as if about to impart a great secret. “When she was younger, maybe nine or ten, she questioned everything. That girl took nothing as written. She wasn’t satisfied with anything unless she could prove it herself.”
“She’s tenacious, I’ll give you that,” Joshua said proudly. He looked left then right. “Speaking of which, where is she?”
“I figured she would have been with you.”
Joshua sat up straight, suddenly concerned. “You mean she’s not here?”
“No. I haven’t seen her today.”
Joshua was on his feet and heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to look for her.”
“She could be anywhere, Joshua,” Samuel said as he fell into step behind him. “Where will you start?”
“I don’t know. I––”
Joshua opened the door and there stood Alexandra, her hand only half an inch from the door handle.
“Oh! You startled me!”
“Oh, thank God!” Joshua said. “Where have you been? I was worried.”
“I ran into some trouble,” she said.
“I was just about to go looking for you.” He noticed her expression. “Wait! What’s the matter? What trouble?”
“We’ve got problems,” Alexandra added as she stepped inside.
“What kind of problem?” Samuel asked.
Once she cleared the door, Alexandra motioned toward the hallway.
Jacob Black stepped into view.
He smiled when he saw them.
“Hello, Samuel. It’s been awhile.”
Samuel Essau was not a man prone to outrage.
In all the time she had known him, Alexandra had only seen him approach angry once, maybe twice. However, the look on his face when Jacob Black walked through the front door of his office scared her. She had never seen her friend skate the edge of rage.
“What are you doing here?” Samuel said, his voice deep and husky.
“Good to see you too,” Jacob said around a predatory smile. “Nice place you’ve got here.” He took a step forward.
Samuel moved to block the door. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Now, is that any way to greet a guest?” Jacob said. “I thought you white hats were supposed be all sweetness and light, the poster children for civility. Or do I have that wrong?”
Samuel ignored the jab. He had no desire to engage Jacob in a challenge of wit. “A guest? You, sir, are no guest here.”
“Samuel, wait,” Alexandra said, positioning herself between them. “This is important. Please, let me explain.”
But Samuel wasn’t listening. “State your business, Black, then be gone.”
“Why all the hostility, Samuel? This isn’t a social call, after all. This is business, plain and simple.”
“There’s no business you have that concerns me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Jacob said. “After all, I brought you a couple of gifts.”
“Gifts?” Samuel asked with more than a hint of skepticism. “What gifts?”
“Well, the more pleasant of the two is the lovely Miss Holzer here.” He motioned toward her. “It was my honor to escort her here from my office.”
“Your office…” Joshua was by her side in a shot. “What happened?”
“Ah, Mr. Demerest,” Jacob said. “I had all but forgotten you were here.”
Joshua shot him a look.
In response, Jacob smirked. “Oh, by the way, congratulations on your engagement. Alexandra has told me nothing but good things about you. Perhaps I just haven’t been around at the right time to see those amazing qualities she seems to think you possess.”
“
That’s enough, Jacob!” Alexandra chimed in. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m also not the one being a bad host.”
Alexandra blew out an exasperated breath. It’s like dealing with children, she thought. Aloud, she said, “There is no need to make a tense situation any worse. Everyone just needs to calm down. Okay?”
“What happened?” Joshua asked again.
“Someone followed me from my apartment. Jacob helped me deal with it.”
“You went to this guy for help?” Joshua’s cheeks flushed an angry hue.
“Yes,” she said. “Jacob’s office was nearby and I knew he would help me. He’s a friend.”
“And I did I might add,” Jacob said, staring daggers at Joshua. “Help her, that is. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Who was following you?”
“I was just getting to that part,” she told Joshua. “But, instead of telling you, it might be easier to show you.”
“What do you mean?” Samuel spoke up.
“There’s someone outside you need to meet,” Alexandra told him.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Joshua asked once the van door slid open.
“This is the guy who followed me from my apartment earlier,” Alexandra said. “He has been… reluctant to share his name with us.”
Samuel cast a sideways glance at Jacob. “I can’t imagine why.”
The Slaugh was bound and gagged in the back of a black windowless van that was parked in the alley next to the loading dock. Also inside the van were two of Jacob’s men. They were big and imposing, but neither one said a word.
Samuel took one look at the bound creature and shook his head. “How is this possible?” he asked.
“How is what possible?” Joshua pointed at the tied up youth in the van. He couldn’t see what Samuel and Jacob could. “He’s just a punk kid.”
“That is no kid, Joshua,” Samuel said.
“Look at him!”
“They are, Josh,” Alexandra said. “They can see things in a way you and I can’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this may have once been a ‘young punk’ as you called him, Mr. Demerest,” Jacob said. “Now, he’s little more than a receptacle for the creature living inside of him.”
“What kind of creature?” Joshua asked.
“It’s called a Slaugh,” Samuel said.
“I’m not familiar with those,” Joshua said.
“Neither am I,” Alexandra added.
“I’d be surprised if you were,” Samuel said. “They’ve been all but extinct for a long time. In fact, there hadn’t been a Slaugh sighting in a couple hundred years until a little over twenty years ago when your father ran across one trapped within a castle in… oh, where was it?”
“Portsmouth,” Jacob said. “New Hampshire,” he added when they all turned to look at him. Jacob shrugged. “My office keeps excellent records.”
“The Slaugh were… are… soul hunters, eaters of sin,” Samuel said.
“I beg your pardon?” Joshua interjected.
If Samuel even heard him, he chose to ignore the young lawyer’s comment. “If you believe old Irish folklore tales, the Sluagh are dead sinners that have come back as malicious spirits. They called themselves The Wild Hunt. According to legend, they come out of the west, flying in tight groupings not unlike those of a flock of birds. When they find a dying sinner, they try to enter a house and take away that person’s soul. The old stories claim that the Slaugh eat the dying man’s sin.”
“What if they aren’t sinners?” Joshua asked.
“Everyone sins,” Jacob said evenly.
“Try to get in?”
“Yes, Alexandra. Try. Most Irish families would keep the west-facing windows of the home shut at all times to keep the Sluagh out.”
“If all it took was closing a window to keep these guys out, how dangerous can they be?” Joshua asked.
“Dangerous enough,” Samuel said. “There were also certain local barriers that could block their entrance to a home. When added to the construction materials, the Slaugh were barred entry.”
“At least at first,” Jacob added.
Samuel shot him a disapproving look. “Yes. Eventually, the Slaugh learned how to overcome these obstacles.”
“Aren’t you going to tell them how?” Jacob asked. When he realized that Samuel was trying to soften the details, he chimed in. “At first they simply set the homes on fire, which was rather ingenious on the face of it. Once the barrier was gone, they could swoop in and collect their bounty.”
“You sound like you admire them,” Alexandra said.
“No,” Jacob replied. “I do admire their resourcefulness, though. They never gave up.”
“Charming,” Joshua said.
Samuel steered the conversation back on track. “It wasn’t until some hundred years later when a coven divined a method of holding a Slaugh at bay, eventually trapping it, at least according to folklore.”
“How much stock can we put in an old fairy tale?” Joshua said.
“You’d be surprised,” Samuel said.
“And do we have access to that same method?” Alexandra asked.
“No.”
“What a surprise,” Joshua said, throwing up his hands in frustration.
“The minerals used to construct the prison that held The Wild Hunt are extremely rare in the old country. In the United States, it is all but non-existent.”
“Then how are we holding this guy?” she asked. “He’s tied up with a couple of silk ties we took off of some lawyers at Jacob’s office. What’s keeping him from breaking free?”
“Fear,” Jacob said plainly.
“Fear of what?” Joshua asked.
“Me.”
Jacob’s features remained neutral and hard to read, but she took him at his word. Jacob was intimidating on normal days, but she knew that he could be a scary guy when he needed to be. She had seen only a hint of it before. She hoped to never see him really cut loose.
“If this guy was possessed by the spirit of this Slaugh creature, can it be removed?” Alexandra asked instead of worrying about Jacob’s scary demeanor. “Is there any way to save the host?”
“Maybe,” Samuel said. “Possession, as you well know, is a tricky beast. We have to move carefully lest we do more harm than good.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” she told him.
“Being inside the host body opens them to human frailties. They can be hit or stabbed, for example. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about the Slaugh itself while it’s inside the body. It will have to be removed from the host before we could send it across.”
“How do we separate them?”
“I have a team ready to go back at my office,” Jacob said. “They are very good at dealing with stubborn spirits.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Samuel deadpanned.
“So, what’s our next play?” Alexandra asked. “Is this guy alone or has the entire Wild Hunt returned? And why were they following me?”
“Those are very good questions,” Samuel said. “I wish we had some good answers.”
“I know somebody who might be able to help,” Joshua said, pointing toward the man hog-tied in the back of the van. “Why don’t we ask that guy?”
Jacob smirked. “I’m starting to like this guy,” he told Alexandra.
“Told you,” she said.
Jacob reached into the van and pulled the bound man toward him by the scruff of his shirt. He pulled the gag free from his mouth. “What about it, pal? You ready to talk?”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you!” he spat. “Or your friends!”
“You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” Alexandra said. With a hand lightly brushing against Jacob’s arm, she told him to let him go.
The Slaugh unceremoniously slumped back to the seated position, but somehow kept from falling over.
Alexandra stepped closer, her voice soft and playful, as
if talking to a wayward five-year-old who refused to take his nap. If Jacob was the bad cop, she was the good one. “Look, whatever you’re up to or think you’re up to, or whatever you had planned, it’s over. You’re done. Caught.” She chucked a thumb over her shoulder toward where her friends stood. “These guys are not going to let you just walk out of here. You have to know that, right?”
The Slaugh nodded.
“Good. What’s your name?”
He shook his head. He had no intention of answering the question.
“Okay, maybe something a little easier. Why were you following me?”
The boy’s face tightened. He wasn’t talking.
“Okay, how about what you want?”
He laughed.
Undaunted, Alexandra pushed onward. “Let’s try a different approach. My name is Alexandra Holzer. You can call me Alex if you like. And you are…?”
He stopped laughing and gave her a long, hard look. “Holzer?”
“Yes. That’s my name,” she said, suddenly nervous. “Do you know me?”
“I’ve heard the name. The leader of the hunt has said it before.”
“Who is he?” Alexandra asked.
“He’s the one who freed us from the blackness of purgatory where those witches left us!” His voice started to rise with each word. “We were supposed to only stay there a short time while the coven was dealt with, but the leader was trapped.”
“In the castle?”
“Yes. Then, he was freed, but a man stopped him. A man named Holzer.” He smiled and Alexandra felt a chill crawl up her spine. “Now, we are free to hunt again. Once we’ve eliminated the threat posed to us by the one called Holzer, The Wild Hunt shall ride again.”
“Is that why you were following me? Did your hunt leader send you after me?”
He started to laugh, which only made her anger grow.
“Are they going after my father?”
The laughter increased.
Alexandra grabbed the boy by the shirt and yanked him forward, all traces of civility washed away by his cackling. “Answer me, dammit!”
“Oh, child,” the Slaugh said around guffaws. “They aren’t going after your father. They already have. He’s probably already dead.”
