Black Beast: A Clan of MacAulay Novel

by R. S. Guthrie

  “Enlighten me,” I said. I was getting a little nervous for Cole—and for whatever Calypso seemed to think was coming—but the man with the understanding of the timeline wanted to talk. I figured, if nothing else, it gave my comrades time to dig in. I had left my mic open for them all to hear what transpired in the room.

  “When a soul enters Hell, do you know what is whispered in the ear, as the shackles of the damned are welded closed?”

  I shook my head.

  “The story of the bird and the mountain. Have you ever heard this tale?”

  “No,” I said. I hadn’t.

  “Think of a bird,” Calypso whispered. “A small bird with a tiny, almost insignificant beak. Now imagine that this beak is capable of sanding down stone. Picture before the bird the largest mountain range in the known world—hundreds, even thousands, of miles of granite—twenty thousand feet high, for as far as the eye can see in two directions.

  “See it in your mind. Now envision this little bird beginning to rub its beak against the very top of the towering mountain peaks. A little pile of dust, perhaps, each day. Blown away by the smallest of breezes. Then another day. Another.

  “Now try to fathom, if you can, how long it would take this little bird, with his tiny beak, to rub the entire mountain range, every last piece of rock, flat to the ground.”

  He looked at me with dark, merciless eyes.

  “That is one second of eternity.”

  “That’s a long time,” I said.

  “You still cannot comprehend.”

  “But about my boy,” I said.

  “You, who live in the present, have no respect for the ages,” he said.

  “I want you to let me have my son,” I said. “That, sir, is what I care about. The rest of this is just fuck-all, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “It won’t be in a few short moments, of this I promise you, Detective. You will see the ages come to life. But yes, certainly, your boy needs attention. Please ask the woman to come in here—Agent Byrne, correct?”

  “I’m not asking anyone to…”

  “I will allow her to leave with the boy and if I’m still alive at the end of the evening, she will receive a call with the name of the poison given to your son. If not—well, she can drive him straight to the morgue then, can’t she?”

  “How do I know we can trust you?” I said.

  “Trust is a word of conjecture. It implies choice; a relationship. Here, Detective Macaulay, you have neither.”

  “You’re the only one here,” I said. “I could kill you and take Cole to the nearest hospital.”

  “Do you have any idea how long it takes an emergency room physician to determine the manner of poisoning without any corroborating details, Detective?”

  I stared blankly. What could I say?

  “And we’re not alone. Not by a very long stretch of imagination,” said Calypso.

  Amanda Byrne, who had been listening to everything, entered the cabin with weapon drawn, aimed at Calypso’s center mass.

  “You can put your weapon down,” said Calypso.

  “The hell you say,” Amanda told him, completely fixated on her target.

  “He’s going to let you take Cole out of here,” I said.

  “I heard,” she said. “Let Father West take him. I’m staying.”

  Calypso shook his head and a small, wicked grin half-curled his lips.

  “The priest stays.”

  Amanda looked at me, the gun still fixed on Calypso.

  “Take him, please,” I said. Someone had to get him out of this place. Of that much I was certain.

  Byrne holstered her pistol.

  “I can’t carry him that far. I need to get a vehicle up here,” she said.

  “Use the road,” Calypso said. “But be quick about it. And do not stray into the forest.”

  I nodded to her. She spun around and ran out the door.

  “Why are you doing this?” I said. “Why are you letting my son leave?”

  “We have our reasons.”

  “We?”

  “Do you play chess?” Calypso said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Neither did I; but when I tried it, I found the strategic nature of it—the way the smallest of moves could affect the outcome of the match…one minor piece, moved to one position, could solidify a reality twenty-two moves down the line.”

  “So Cole is a chess piece to you,” I said.

  “All are pieces,” Calypso said.

  “So what’s next,” I asked.

  “I’m not always a patient man,” he said. “But I know to whom I answer, and I play the role I must. As with all things, however, every now and again, my work rewards me.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I said.

  “It’s time that I leave,” said Calypso, and he stood, leaning on his heavy walking stick.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” I said. “There’s a matter still on the table.”

  “I will save your son, Detective. Not because you wish it, nor even because I promised to—but because that’s part of the plan.”

  “So do it,” I said, growing more and more impatient with the fat man’s pontifications.

  “Unfortunately, you and your friends surviving the night is not part of any guarantee.” He walked toward the door. “I assume your microphone is still active, Detective. If not, I advise you—for your child’s sake—tell your friends that they should allow me to pass.”

  Calypso went outside. And in a few minutes, Amanda returned with the vehicle. Only she was permitted to take Cole from the cabin. She loaded him up and sped away.

  The fat man started walking away, too. Down the road, into the blackness.

  "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked."

  ~Psalms 58:10

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE DEMONS descended on us from all sides. I can honestly say that until that moment—until I witnessed dozens of them, misshapen, eyes burning red, slowly encircling our small contingency—I had still not really given in fully to the idea that such things were real.

  Not even after Greer.

  It’s strange how the mind works—how, faced with evidence right before our eyes, we can still deny the truth. Particularly when that truth goes against everything we’ve ever believed in.

  Gunny and the rest of the team had come into the cabin after seeing the first of the creatures walk out of the tree line. It was an indescribable moment of sheer panic—a horrific sight that had me realizing we’d grossly underestimated the situation. Block launched several grenades, blowing dozens of them to hell, but it became apparent even such a formidable weapon was, in reality, only staving off the inevitable.

  As I peered out of one window, I counted at least fifteen of them on my side of the cabin. There were tall ones with crooked spines and massive jawlines to match their jagged, splintery teeth; there were smaller, rotund ones, with gnarled limbs and tufts of gray-black fur sprouting from corded bodies—all of them with hinged, corded legs and arms that ended in vicious claws.

  They were, each of them, hideous—creatures that may have once been human but were now machinery of pure hatred and evil. Those terrible crimson eyes bore not an ounce of compassion, nor even any inkling of what such a concept might mean. They came toward us with mechanical and maniacal purpose. It was clear they meant not only to kill us, but to annihilate us altogether, as if we’d never existed.

  Amanda had since radioed that she was en route to the nearest hospital, with Cole, and awaiting the call from Calypso that would save my son’s life. I was still unsure as to the reasoning behind letting my boy—and Agent Byrne, for that matter—escape. I was not convinced that Calypso would follow through on his promise to save Cole anyway, but I simply had no other options.

  “We’ve got to conserve ammunition,” Gunny said. “It’s clear we won’t have any chance to make it back out to resupply.”

  “Short,
controlled bursts,” said Shay. “We’ve each got one side of the cabin. There are a total of two doors to the outside, one door to the cellar, and eight windows I’ve counted in all.”

  I removed the Crucifix of Ardincaple from my backpack and unwound the cloth that protected it. The talisman of my ancestors looked pretty impotent in the face of the horror that encircled us. It wasn’t as if I had ever trained in hand-to-hand combat with such a weapon anyway.

  Father West put his hand on my arm.

  “Perhaps I should carry the crucifix,” he said. “It may prove that your skills with a modern arsenal are more advantageous against such odds.”

  How could I even know the true worth of the ancient weapon? With all the deception—Greer, Father Rule, Calypso himself—what good might an archaic piece of metal be against a legion of black beasts?

  I handed the weapon to my cousin.

  “Keep it ready,” I said. “These are strange times.”

  It was the best I could come up with.

  Father West nodded.

  You had to give the demons credit. They actually formulated a fairly organized assault. They came in pairs or in threes—always four groups at a time: from the east, west, south, and north.

  The first pair crashed through the front door just as another three broke down the back entrance. Several more came through the windows in either bedroom and another in the bathroom. They kept us spread—using our low numbers against us.

  Just as we would have done.

  With the breach underway, the night was filled with the short bursts of automatic weapons fire and the smell of cordite and singed flesh. As bullet after bullet tore through the hide of the animals, they did go down.

  But more followed.

  And more after that.

  The bodies were piling up, but the demonic brethren just threw aside those who came before them, or crawled over the piles on all fours, and kept on coming. There was fervency in their method that terrified me. I’d known a hundred gung-ho soldiers in my life—hell, Gunny McBride was the most Hoo-Rah of any I’d seen—and the demons’ resolve was like nothing I could ever have imagined.

  Knoblauch was the first to go down. Two monstrous demons reached the tough Marine and began to rip through his vest and clothes, eventually tearing his flesh from his body. He was trying to turn the small machine gun back on the beasts but with no luck. The last thing I saw was him removing the M9 pistol from its holster and begin firing into the monsters attacking him.

  Mike was attacked next by three other creatures. As they reached his person they made ribbons of his clothing and of his flesh.

  I was protecting Father West, who was firing the best he could but doing little damage.

  Finally Gunny was overcome.

  I realized we were only minutes from the end. There was nothing we could do against the multitude.

  I turned to look at Father West and he was holding the Crucifix of Ardincaple before him, extending it for me to accept.

  I once believed that there was an unmistakable power in the taking of a human life—a sickening yet alluring opiate that was difficult to describe. As I stared at the weapon of my ancestors, that feeling returned—not one of power, so much, but rather an overwhelming understanding of my duty to protect those who were incapable of shielding themselves from the evil that lay siege upon them.

  And within me swelled a realization that I was born to make a difference—predestined for the role in the eternal fight between the forces of good and evil. As this rebirth of my mission in the world swirled inside me, the Crucifix of Ardincaple began to change.

  Its surface, first dulled from age and tainted with years of neglect, began to glimmer. The decay and rust fell away and I could now see the honed edges of the weapon—indeed it was more than a crucifix or even a dagger.

  It was the sword of my ancestors.

  And as I curled my right fist around the hilt, I could feel the power of God and of Good in its steel. That power—several thousand years of the great strength and wondrous good of the Heavens surged forth into my veins.

  My muscles tensed and contracted; I tell you now I felt twenty years younger.

  I stood, and light exploded from the talisman. For a long beat, all movement and fighting in the cabin ceased. The terrible, evil beasts shrank away from the legacy of the weapon in my hands—they cowered before its representation of the side of good and righteousness.

  In that moment of deference, my friends were able to retreat from certain death and gather with me at the center of the room.

  The awe of my newfound power faded quickly as the eyes of our attackers turning red again with bloodlust. No longer did the demons maintain their methodical attacks—the whole of them descended into the cabin.

  Walls shattered, the floorboards shook and exploded as black beasts blasted forth from a cellar overrun. Gunny, Block, Shay—they all started firing again, killing what few they could.

  I rose and began cutting into the hoard, and a terrible, exquisite thing happened:

  The Crucifix of Ardincaple—my family’s talisman—sliced through the hellacious creatures as the warm knife goes through butter. I swung the weapon again and again and again, working my way through the frenzy of demons.

  As each beast was cut down by the sword, the thing imploded into dust and ash and nothingness.

  It was then I realized our small, weakened contingent was going to win.

  When the fight was over, my friends looked at me with disbelieving eyes. It was unnerving to attempt an understanding of all that had just occurred. There were dead creatures everywhere—the first of the onslaught that had been cut down by our gunfire. Killed conventionally, as it were.

  “What happened?” Shay finally said. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I have no idea. No explanation.”

  I didn’t.

  Nothing I had read in the journal—nothing of which my relative, Father Macaulay, ever spoke—would explain what happened here. I held the Crucifix of Ardincaple still, but it had again lost its luster.

  It appeared as it always had: as an antique.

  “Meyer?” I said, looking up at him, a pleading in my eyes for reason. “What happened?”

  Father West shook his head.

  “I can’t say either. I’ve read what you read. And I was educated by the great deceiver, as was Father Macaulay. Perhaps that is what Lucifer hid from your grandfather all those years. The true nature of the sword. Perhaps that alone was his mission.”

  “But what happened to me tonight?” I said. The weapon wasn’t the only transformation that occurred. I changed. My trepidation, these past months of anguish, my fears—all of it had melted away.

  I knew there was no definitive answer.

  “All I know is what we all witnessed,” Father West said. “There is quite obviously a warrior’s blood flowing in your veins, cousin.”

  “Amen,” said Gunny.

  “You saved us,” Shay said. “I don’t know what just happened—can’t begin to understand—but I know this much: we all would have died here tonight if not for what you did.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But we’re far from done. God knows what Calypso is planning.”

  I suddenly remembered Cole and began searching for my phone.

  “We need to burn this place to the ground—and all these things with it,” said Gunny McBride.

  “Agreed,” said Block. “And then we need to get the fuck out of here.”

  I called Amanda.

  No answer.

  A kidnapping charge was enough reason for Shackleford to put out an arrest warrant on Calypso. Also a federal APB, since Amanda was (as far as I knew) still an FBI agent.

  The city was sealed: perimeter road-blocks on all major Interstates and highways. All the airports.

  Homeland Security was also given a picture of Calypso, Byrne, and Cole and would be watching international flights and the borders.

  There was
still a lot of explaining for me to do—I hadn’t made my appointment with IAD regarding Greer’s death and even with the cabin burned to the ground, there was a mess in the forest near Grand Lake:

  Weapons casings, carcasses, and all my friends—none of whom were police officers. Our wounds, too. They were extensive and completely unexplainable, save for the truth.

  And the truth was not an option.

  “What the hell happened up there, Mac?” Lieutenant Shackleford said.

  “Sir, we went there to rescue my son.”

  “One cop—a detective too closely involved in the situation—a federal agent, and what? Delta Force?”

  “You know as well as I do that there’s no explanation I can give you here that’s going to enter the vicinity of reasonable.”

  Shackleford thought about this for a moment.

  “You’re still going to have your sit-down with IAD,” he said. “They’ve been informed that all questions are to pertain to the Greer Foster investigation. It’s not like you don’t have enough to answer for with that.”

  “Not until we find my son,” I said.

  “Understood,” Shackleford said. “But the sooner we can put this shit behind us, the better we’re all going to be.”

  “Better?”

  “Mac, I know how you’ve got to be feeling…”

  Shelly Trent interrupted our conversation:

  “He’s on the phone, Mac. He wants to talk to you.”

  “Run a trace,” Shackleford said as I rushed to take the call.

  “You impress me, Detective. I’ve underestimated your resolve.”

  “Your word’s not worth much, is it Calypso?”

  “You’ll be glad to know that I lied about poisoning your boy,” he said.

  “Tell me he’s all right, you son-of-a-bitch. Tell me.”

  “Cole is doing well,” Calypso said. “As is your woman.”

  I cringed as the listeners in the room turned to look at me.

  “What happens next,” I asked.

  “You needn’t bother with the trace,” Calypso said. “I’m on top of the Ritz Carlton.”