Even though she’d known it was him, it was still
hard to see him there, lying lifeless. She’d killed him. She had to, but it didn’t make it any easier.
Amelia knelt beside him, taking his head in her hands, leaning her face next to his. “Oh Ben, I’m so sorry.”
She cried for at least two minutes before the dazed officers inside realized it was truly over. The officers stood there, silent, watching as she hugged him to her. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
They understood. It was almost impossible to believe this was the same man that had just killed several officers. All the officers had come to like Ben. The trial that would have been set for three days later would never be. His sentence was already served.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A PLACE OF DEATH
The cries for help were deafening. Faraday would realize that they were not crying out for themselves, but for the newborn that would be slaughtered if he didn’t get to the Coven in time.
Dave Faraday did not entirely comprehend why there were four people locked in a cage inside a house- two women, one man, and a little boy, and outside that cage was the blonde girl they’d been looking for, the pregnant girl Chelsea Greene. And they didn’t seem to have time for questions.
“Where’s the key?” Faraday asked.
“In the drawer, over there,” Emily pointed. He let them out.
“What happened here?”
“I think they’re witches,” Meredith said, hurriedly. “They’re going to sacrifice her baby! You have to get to them now!”
“Where?!” Faraday said.
“The cemetery, somewhere behind this house,” Emily said. He called for officers and an ambulance to pick up the dead girl, and secure the crime scene, as he moved toward the door, realizing that the others were following behind him.
“Whoa, where are you going? This is dangerous. You need to stay here!” the detective told them.
“No, we can’t,” Emily said. “My brother is out there too.”
“I don’t have time to argue,” Faraday said. “I can’t stop you, but I’m not responsible for any of you.”
“Understood,” Emily said.
Faraday stormed out.
“What about Wesley? He can’t be a part of this,” Meredith said.
“You’re right,” Emily said. It was a tough decision, but she had to make it quickly. It was like she was choosing between her brother and her nephew. “I’ll take him back to the hotel.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Emily said. While she loved her brother with all her heart, she’d loved his son for the last three years. She couldn’t bear to think of putting him in harm’s way and risk the life of two innocent children. “Be careful. Bring my brother back safe.”
“I’ll do my best.” It was the only promise she could make, and Emily knew that.
Frederick looked at her. “I’ll look for your brother.”
Emily kissed him. “Thank you so much. I love you.”
Meredith let them have their moment, and said, “Come on, we have to go.”
k
At one minute until midnight Anastasios Drakos raised the dagger above the child.
In Greek he said, “Oh Hecate, Goddess of the Crossroads, ruler of the underworld, and guardian of the dead, hear our plea. Upon the sacrifice of this child, who we bequeath in your honor, grant us everlasting life. Moon Goddess, ruler of the earth, sea, and skies, grant us your infinite wisdom, and powers beyond the mortal coil, so that we may better serve you. May this life we give to you breathe new life into the Coven. This we pray in your name Goddess Hecate, Black Goddess, Queen of the Witches.”
He drove the dagger down. A shot rang through the air, and sharp pain stabbed through his hands, as the dagger
flew away from him.
Faraday was aiming at his head, but from the distance he stood he couldn’t get a clear shot. The bullet travelled through both of Drakos hands, through the hilt of the dagger, shattering the jewel and leaving two ragged holes through the palms of his hands like stigmata.
Drakos screamed, shaking his hands, staggering back.
“Get away from the child!” Faraday shouted. The Coven turned to see where the voice emanated from.
“YOU! The intruder! I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
Sophia Papadaki used her telekinetic abilities to yank the gun out of Faraday’s hands. It fell to the dirt several yards away. Jason ran to Drakos to heal him.
“Finish the sacrifice!” Drakos told him, “Before our time is up.”
Berenice Simonides utilized her ability to manipulate energy and gathered electricity from the clouds above, summoning lightning to strike at Faraday. He was hit with several jolts that threw him off his feet and knocked him down.
Jason searched for the missing dagger, scrambling to get to it in time.
The midnight hour was already gone.
“Forget the dagger!” Drakos yelled. “Use your powers to kill it!”
Frederick and Meredith came upon this scene. There was no sign of Thomas. But they saw the man approaching the child. And no one had seen them yet. They were focused on the child. Frederick ran at Jason as he approached the baby, knocking him over. Sophia and Berenice watched this new development with interest as the two of them tumbled through the grass coming to rest at a headstone, where Jason began to pound the other’s head against it. The boy was younger, stronger and faster than
him. Frederick was no match.
Jason Korba smothered Frederick’s face in his hand, and whispered the word, “Decay.”
Frederick’s face began to blacken and rot, caving in on itself, collapsing skin and bone as if melting. He didn’t even have a chance to scream.
They would say later that Thomas Killian was trying to find his way home. Even under control of the beast they said some semblance of his human self still guided him. That might have accounted for why he ended up where he did, even when he’d wanted to get away from there before the change.
Meredith watched, stunned with horror, seeing what happened to Frederick. As Jason stood up some enormous beast pounced on him. Jason squealed as the thing tore him apart, tearing out his throat, rending him limb from limb, leaving him no time to think of a spell; only of his own imminent death.
Another shot was fired into the air. The werewolf Thomas Killian fell, the silver bullet striking the side of his head. The predator and his kill went down together.
Meredith and the Coven turned to see Amelia Rivers, legs spread in a shooting stance, both hands on her .357 Magnum, smoke curling from the barrel. Behind her stood six of the officers who had watched Benjamin Caldwell’s transformation. They had their guns drawn.
k
“Enough of this,” Drakos said. He raised his bloody hands skyward, and said, “Rise!” in Latin.
The dirt in front of all the headstones began to shift.
“What’s going on?” Meredith said, joining the
officers.
They shook their heads.
“Stop what you’re doing right now!” one officer said.
Drakos laughed. “Oh, it’s much too late for that.”
Hands burst from the ground, the dead rising from their graves.
Amelia looked toward the ground, saw Faraday’s body. “Oh no!”
She hurried toward him, crouching beside him, shaking him desperately. “Detective! Detective!”
Slowly, groggily Faraday opened his eyes. “Whaa...?” His skin and clothes were black with ash.
“You’re alive!” Amelia said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he answered, and then saw the dead pushing themselves out of their graves ten feet from him. “Whoa, whoa! What the...?” he scurried backward on his elbows. Amelia helped him up.
“C’mon,” she said.
“I need to find my gun,” Faraday said.
“There!” she pointed. A dead man was pushing himself up out of
his grave near where Faraday’s gun lay. Amelia shot him between the eyes with one of the three bullets left to her. He reverse dove into his grave.
“Hurry, I’ve only got two shots left.”
Faraday ran to retrieve his weapon. The officers began firing at the dead men shambling toward them.
Meredith looked at what had been a werewolf a moment before, and saw it was indeed her husband-to-be Thomas. She ran toward him, unheeding of the chaos around her, and she was grabbed by two rotting corpses, a man and a woman. The man bit her forearm, tearing out a huge chunk, while the woman ripped out Meredith’s jugular with her teeth.
The officers were firing at them but they kept coming. It was a small graveyard, but there had to be at
least three dozen of them.
“Shoot them in the head!” Amelia shouted. She understood what they were, and that they were being directed. She knew instinctively that killing the spark of electrical impulse in their brains that had been revived was the only way to stop them.
Two of the officers caught on too late and were overpowered, ripped apart by teeth, guns still firing through the dead bodies.
Dave Faraday and the other officers began firing at the heads of Drakos’ army. One by one they began to fall. Faraday knew they couldn’t hold them off for long. There were just too many of them. Amelia waited until they got close before she spent her last two bullets. Two easy kills. Faraday waited until he got a clear shot at Anastasios Drakos, and fired. The high priest head reeled back as the bullet entered his skull. He swayed for a moment before falling into the dirt near the tomb where the child still lay crying.
Upon the death of their puppet master, the bodies of the risen corpses dropped abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, all animation and semblance of life drained out of them.
Sophia didn’t waste any time disarming the remaining officers, using mind over matter to pull their guns from their hands. Faraday predicted this move and held fast to his weapon even as he was dragged through dirt and grass. He held the weapon for dear life, his heels digging into the ground as the weight of her influence pulled the weapon toward her, and Faraday along with it. When Sophia realized that instead of continuing to try and steal the gun away from him, she should have instead repelled him back, Faraday was already pulling the trigger.
Two bullets punched through her lungs. She was flung into a tree, leaving trails of blood against the bark from her exit wounds as she slumped to the grass.
k
The last of the witches, the high priestess Berenice Simonides gestured toward Faraday upon seeing him shoot Sophia, dismantling his gun using its own mechanical energy. It fell to pieces in his hand. She raised her arms and the officers, Amelia, and Faraday began to float off the ground as if gravity no longer affected them. In a rage she propelled all but the detective away from her, turning the wind into a force.
She guided the detective toward her onto a stone slab. He was nearly paralyzed by whatever force she was exerting on him. He lay on his back now as she leaned over him.
“You’ve killed three of the coven! And you’ve ruined the sacrifice!”
“With pleasure,” Faraday managed to say. She grabbed him by the throat, increasing the pressure per pound she could exert through sheer will.
Detective Faraday could barely breathe, yet she let him go. He still could barely move. Making minimal gestures was a strain.
“Now I will make you suffer the way you deserve.”
The others lay on the ground, held there by whatever force she was exerting on Faraday. Neither the officers nor Amelia could rise to help him.
Berenice laid her hands on his chest, and suddenly his nerves were on fire. His face twisted with the pain. Even his vocal cords were constricted so he could hardly cry out.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Using your own movements, your own electrical energy, your own biological functions against you detective, yes?”
“Y-y-yes,” Faraday muttered.
“I can prolong this or kill you quickly. All you have to do is beg.”
A vein stood out in his forehead, as he strained.
She increased the tension on his nerves and muscles, causing him to scream.
“Ah yes, sweet pain. It’s the only thing that tells us we are alive,” Berenice said. “Say it, beg me to stop. Pray to me if you wish.”
Dave Faraday mumbled something, nearly losing consciousness.
“What was that detective?”
“I... said...” he muttered, his face contorting with exertion, “FUCK YOU BITCH!!”
He jammed his Taser M26 into her neck, releasing 50,000 volts through her body in its touch stun mode. It took every inch of strength left in his muscles to grab it out of its holster and utilize it. She rolled to the ground.
Faraday’s body was still hurting but he felt an immediate relief once the control she exerted over it was gone, and he no longer felt any hint of paralysis. The witch was on the ground, twitching. He used the taser again, this time deploying the electrodes from where he stood above her. Her body went into spasms, and then lay mostly immobile. She was making strange noises, guttural, displaced sounds, moans.
It would take her at least thirty minutes to recover. He couldn’t give her that chance. He searched the grass and retrieved one officer’s weapon, shooting her three times in the face. If any one in law enforcement thought that was excessive, he would tell them to go fuck themselves too.
The other officers were up and about. A female
officer picked up the crying baby, the reason they were all
here, and sang it to sleep.
Amelia put her hand on Faraday’s shoulder and said, “Are you all right?”
“Me?” he smiled, teetering, “Yeah, I’m just peachy.” He then proceeded to collapse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE HOLLOW
The sun rose and set on the town of Mercy Falls just like any other day. The events of that summer in 1999 would not be quickly forgotten by many.
For Svetlana Kurylenko, a witch who was also a vampire, it meant she would eventually give in to her nature, the worst of man and beast, and leave the town of Mercy Falls behind, leaving death and destruction in her wake. The grandparents of Liam Rathby, the child she saved as her last act of kindness would be granted custody of the child who they would care for as any doting parent.
For Stephanie James and her friend Gwendolyn, it meant travel and forgetting.
Emily Killian and her nephew Wesley went back to their home in Ireland to live their life without fear, although the creature behind the reason Tom had left had never been found in that sprawling countryside they instinctively avoided.
Dominic Finch was promptly arrested the next day after the breakout and he was released when the court found him guilty of temporary insanity. He was charged with a fine for possession of an illegal weapon, and given six months probation, which he would complete without
incident. He would apply and be accepted to a major university in the months that followed.
Amelia Rivers would turn her former roommate’s bedroom into a sewing room where she would design new clothes, and her days would not be counted so much by losses as they were counted by days lived. And she would live, and love again.
Fulton Blake would keep ridding the world of the
undead, and the quartet of Mary Crowley, Carl Napier, Julia Stevens and Pete Whiteman would keep battling evil forces on their own, driven by a sense of justice and redemption, and a small child known as Ryan.
For Michael and Cassie Williams there was a hole in their life that could not be filled or replaced, but they would come to have another child, a boy, and his smile would at least bring them some solace that not all in the world was pain, and that occasionally it offered moments of grace that could not be measured, that would make the pain recede for a time.
Steven Jenkins knew this grace. It was in the bright blue eyes of his daughter, a girl he named Chelsea II, a reminder that she could
not exist if not for her mother’s incredible sacrifice.
For too many remembering was a horror that had to be survived, even when the anguish appeared unbearable, even when the hollow that their missing loved ones left behind was deeper than they could ever imagine; because forgetting them would be far worse. It was an admission that death was the end of them, that their lives meant nothing. To live on in the hearts of the living was the greatest gift and testament to their life that they could give.
***
What she could only imagine was Faraday’s wife and three daughters passed her in the hallway, exiting the detective’s room. Amelia entered, and Faraday smiled from his propped up position on the bed in Mercy General Hospital.
“Hey,” Faraday waved weakly.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” Amelia asked.
“Like I got hit with a ton of bricks, and then run over.”
“That good? I’m impressed.”
Faraday grinned.
“Was that your family?”
“Yes,” the detective brightened.
“Beautiful girls.”
“Thank you. Well, my nerves are all shot to hell. I
actually feel less pain than I would be normally because they’re so fucked up, which is a good thing. I have some internal damage, bleeding, but not critical. The doctors say I should be screaming bloody murder, but I’m not, even without the morphine.”
“That’s good, I guess,” Amelia said uncertainly, raising one corner of her mouth in a half smile.
Faraday’s smile suddenly widened like a little boy’s at Christmas, and he said, “Want to see something really cool?!”
She laughed. This had to be good, because she’d never seen him this animated before. “Okay, sure.”
The Depths of the Hollow (Mercy Falls Mythos Book 2) Page 25
