Prophecy of Blood: A Supernatural Psychic Thriller (WRAITH HUNTER CHRONICLES Book 2)

by John R. Monteith

  PROPHECY OF BLOOD:

  A SUPERNATURAL PSYCHIC THRILLER

  WRAITH HUNTER CHRONICLES: BOOK 2

  By John R. Monteith

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  About Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Major Edric Tuncay watched the massacre.

  Having perfected the techniques in prior cleansings in Upper Mesopotamia, his Ottoman Turk soldiers worked through the assassinations with mechanical efficiency.

  From the hotel in which they’d corralled them, Edric’s soldiers ushered Assyrians into a courtyard in small groups. As the terrified and hungry captives lumbered towards the pit of bodies, their executioners selected women to extract for abuse in harems and other lewd crimes.

  The remaining hostages stood in line and then fell atop the bodies of their brethren as rifles cracked. Blood flowed in streams above the pit, forming pools of crimson around the feet of soldiers who brought forth the next ten to fifteen souls.

  Edric watched the subsequent victims walk forward with his men selecting sex slaves from its ranks, but an Assyrian woman screamed her objection. A guard backhanded her, but after recoiling from the strike, she doubled the volume of her shrieks, and her flailing arms eluded the soldier’s grasp.

  The major marched to the conflict. “What’s wrong?”

  The soldier pointed at the defiant woman. “She says she’d rather die than serve us, sir.”

  Eyeing her, Edric found her desirable, and her feistiness made him want to tame her. “She’s not the first to beg for such mercy. I shall not grant it.”

  Fire in her brown eyes, the woman surprised Edric with her calm and strong tone. “Are you in charge?”

  Unable to resist her questioning, he answered. “Yes.”

  Unsure if he’d overindulged in hashish or if his evening’s intake of wine deluded him, he sensed a foreign presence in his mind. He wanted to flush it from him, but it clawed its way to a stronghold.

  Its identity became obvious as he heard the unspeaking woman’s voice. “Release my people.”

  Obeying her became his second nature. Disobeying her took effort. She held him in his gaze, and he writhed in pain.

  The soldier glanced at him. “Sir?”

  He tried to speak, but his throat tightened.

  “Sir?”

  Edric withdrew his pistol, jammed it into the captive standing beside the woman, and pulled the trigger. The old man collapsed, and the emotional shock created a moment of cerebral separation from his telepathic invader.

  Her eyes welled with tears, but she found the resolve to retain her connection to his mind. “Then you will kill me.”

  “Yes, I will kill you.” He elevated his pistol.

  But her telepathic commands continued. “No, probe my groin.”

  He returned his weapon to its hilt, shoved his fingers under her dress, and ran it between her legs. The supple flesh of her inner thighs excited him, but when a slicing pain hit his index finger, he understood her intent.

  He withdrew his arm and examined the cut. The knife strapped against her upper leg was sharp, and he sent his hand back under her dress to retrieve it.

  He grasped her hidden knife by its handle, slid it from under her dress, and gazed at it. Made of solid cast bronze, it shimmered with a coppery glow, and it imbued him with an urgent rush of power. An ancient will resided within the metal, and by holding it, he’d become the divine dagger’s chosen champion.

  The knife’s power resonated within his bones, but possessing it brought servitude to the enchanted weapon and to the spirit residing within it. And servitude brought resentment and anger, increasing the internal conflict within the already disturbed man.

  He lowered it and stepped forward. “Do you think you can bribe me with this old relic?”

  Her lips remained motionless while her voice penetrated his inner ear. “No. You will kill me. I will not be defiled.”

  The dagger became a sentient being in his hand and agreed that he would kill her–and two more of her people.

  He addressed his soldier. “Bring me two more women.”

  “Old or young, sir?”

  “Young. And attractive.”

  While the guard grabbed two women and dragged them to his commanding officer, Edric glanced at the late evening’s moon. The fullness of it phase seemed part of the cause behind his new dagger’s uniqueness.

  He aimed the bronze point at the younger of the two women his guard had grabbed. “Hold her arms.”

  The soldier restrained her, and Edric rammed the knife into her beating heart. Letting his newfound servitude and anger drive the thrust, he pushed with vigor.

  To his amazement, the dagger glowed sanguine while blood spread over the woman’s dress. With supernatural insight, he interpreted the reddish glimmer as a confirmation of proper tribute to the knife’s deity.

  The guard released the victim and let her collapse, and then he grabbed the next. Edric killed her the same way, and the blood-covered weapon’s illumination increased.

  He then taunted the woman who had invaded his mind. “Do you choose their fate over servitude?”

  She withdrew from his mind and answered with her bodily voice. “I do. My salvation is nigh.”

  He scoffed. “So be it.”

  With both hands, he rammed the blade into her flesh. Covered with the blood of three tributes, the weapon’s red glow became a beacon, and he glared at its radiance. With a newfound unearthly reckoning, he knew the crimson fluid fed the dagger, which in turn promised him power.

  The third corpse collapsed at his feet, and he issued an order to his guard. “Bring flame and oil and set them ablaze. Make haste.”

  Within minutes, fire consumed the trio of tributes.

  “If another selected woman begs for death, set her ablaze without the mercy of killing her first. Burn her alive as an example.”

  As the soldier agreed and saluted, Edric suffered a new, haunting consideration.

  Why had she offered him the weapon of her own murder, and what devilry resided inside it?

  Four weeks later, during the next full moon, he formed an execution squad outside the largest hotel of another village.

  He waited for women to beg for death instead of subjection to sexual servitude, and he gathered the first three that obliged. As with the prior village, he stabbed their hearts and burned their bodies.

  Then, during the sub
sequent full moon, he repeated the serial murders on three more tributes.

  Having killed nine in three months, he sensed a change in the dagger’s demeanor as his troops entered the village of Urmia under the subsequent full moon.

  Though he’d been the weapon’s slave during the first three ritualistic crimes, the knife felt like a treasure as he marched into the northwest Persian city, and he knew a gift awaited.

  Having fled for spiritual refuge, the Assyrians simplified their capture by convening within the city’s church. With the windows boarded and most doors barred, Edric stormed through the front portal.

  Inside the building, his men corralled the frightened people.

  He walked towards the altar where priests and deacons led the condemned through prayer. Examining women in the pews, he saw flickering lights from his soldiers’ torches backlighting somber scenes in the stained-glass windows.

  When he reached the altar, the holy men spread their arms and pleaded. With an order to one of his captains, Edric begat the massacre. “Remove the holy men first and shoot them. Then take the rest outside row by row. Move the women selected for harems and leisure to the courtyard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The dagger demanded his attention, and he withdrew it. Under its power, he aimed its point at a maiden in the congregation. While he ogled her, energy flooded his body, and a red aura rose around her. The sanguine light blossomed, and the woman’s life force became his complete world.

  When the red illumination receded, he updated his intent. “Except her.”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I have her bound in waiting for you?”

  The enchanted weapon conveyed its desire to Edric, who looked at a wooden crucifix mounted against the front wall. “No. Bind her wrists and ankles to that cross. Immediately.”

  Minutes later, he stood alone before the restrained woman, ignoring her pleas. Although the language he spoke was foreign, something reminiscent to him as an ancient form of Arabic, the dagger whispered words into his mind for him to speak aloud.

  He recited an incantation to the knife’s living spirit, which he recognized as his Master spirit as he clutched the dagger. He squeezed the handle and held his breath while the blade’s sanguine luminescence appeared before him for the first time without a victim’s blood upon it.

  With instant comprehension, he understood the prior full-moon murders offerings to the dagger’s deity. The payback for his servitude, for harvesting a trinity of trinity of souls, was this… ritual. Convinced of a pending prize, he ran his free fingers down the bound woman’s flesh, counted bony contours from her collarbone, and turned the blade sideways under her fourth rib.

  He slid the metal into her heart.

  Like flame, pulsating crimson light shot from the blade, and Edric bathed in its oscillating glow. A dizzying rush of euphoria overcame him as he ingested her life.

  Ingesting her life–taking her years from her. That was the reward. Incredible. Addicting. Revitalizing. “Thank you, Master.”

  The dagger’s light receded, and he sheathed the weapon.

  He checked the church and noticed his men satiating their perverse needs to control and kill. Nobody had grasped the significance of his new ritual, which began his new life of solitude.

  Marching away from the crime, he gave his captain a final order before walking alone into the night. “Burn the church, starting with the dead maiden on the cross.”

  Fifty years later, Edric remained physically unchanged. As the dagger’s god had fulfilled his promise of unnatural longevity, he’d adapted to seeing his thirty-three-year-old face in the mirror for half a century.

  Unsure of his mortality, he’d placed increasing value in his life. Its extended span made him cherish it, inflating his selfishness and his paranoia. To protect himself, he’d crossed the Bosporus into Europe to study modern weaponry and various martial arts. His muscles had committed movements to memory over decades of work and had built him a repertoire of firearms and hand-to-hand skills.

  While in Europe, he’d also learned the major languages and had made respectable incomes translating documents–a safe job for someone guarding his life. Western banks had provided the compound interest that yielded him a fortune, allowing him to quit working in pursuit of leisure.

  The dagger had rested inside a safe he’d moved from home to home while he’d spent countless hours sampling the best opium, hashish, and alcohols. The knife’s master–his Master– had brought him spellbound women as play toys. He’d also become nomadic, relocating twice per decade to avoid attention as an ageless man. Though alone, he enjoyed satiating his lusts–killing more so than sex–and his ego.

  As the semicentennial anniversary of his enduring youth had approached, he’d sensed a change. Playtime was entering a temporary pause, and months of work awaited.

  His Master had urged him south to offer another trinity of trinities as tributes. He’d headed to Jordan to resist Israel in the War of Attrition. Though his Arabic was weak, the dagger’s spirit had given him supernatural help while he’d fought with the Palestinians. After stabbing nine Israeli women during raids over three full moons, he’d earned his sacrifice.

  Under July’s full moon in 1968, he and fire squad of three other rebels stormed a house in a kibbutz of Beit She’an Valley.

  Determined, he moved with the small team room to room, sending rifled rounds into the parents and two adolescent boys before reaching the daughter’s room.

  Hiding under the bed, she gave off the red glow he remembered from a maiden in church in Urmia fifty years earlier.

  He realized her aura was invisible to the others. “Lift the bed.”

  The team leader scowled. “You’re not in charge. You’re not even from Palestine.”

  Edric smirked. “But I sympathize with your people and hate Israel. I’ve trained with you, and I’ve killed for your cause.”

  “Very well. Tell me your plan. We must strike more houses before the Israeli military arrives.”

  His Master offered the unspoken promise of his sacrifice, giving him confidence. “If you help me kill her my way, I promise you a death like none you’ve ever seen.”

  The leader returned the smirk. “How do you want it?”

  “Bind her to the underside bed boards like a crucifix. I will handle it from there.”

  The young woman howled her protests while the raiders bound her. Edric removed the dagger from its sheathe in his jacket, he and held his breath while the blade glowed red. Silenced, his audience gasped at the otherworldly luminescence.

  Before Edric could strike, the ghost of Urmia appeared. The one who’d given him the dagger blocked his path to his next sacrifice.

  An unseen wind flapped a milky gown over the misty apparition’s frame. Once stabbed and burned, she appeared unblemished and clothed in dignity in the afterlife. Her eyes were black orbs, and her voice carried deep, haunting tones. “Why are you here?”

  His companions gave no sign of seeing her.

  “Silence!” He moved through her ethereal mist, making her disappear. He ran his free fingers down the Israeli woman’s flesh, turned the blade sideways, and slid the metal between her ribs.

  Like flame, pulsating crimson light shot from the blade, and he ingested her life. Renewed strength blossomed within him. “Thank you, Master.”

  The dagger’s light receded, and he sheathed the weapon.

  While the stunned onlookers gazed in disbelief, he opened the window and crawled into the night. His boots hit the dirt, and then he trotted in the safest direction he could conceive.

  Wearing the same milky white gown of as the Urmia ghost, the new ghost of Beit She’an appeared in his path, blocking him. Her black, dead eyes stared into him.

  Her words were in Hebrew, but he understood them. “Why did you kill me?”

  “Silence!”

  Terrified, he lowered his head and ran through her, cutting her cool mistiness and resisting the curious urge to look back.

 
Then fire erupted in his right leg and he recognized the whiz of a bullet. Clutching his leg, he hobbled forward and looked over his shoulder at his assailants.

  From a hedge, two rifles shimmered in the moonlight. Thinking himself doomed, he cringed as the automatic weapons shifted towards his fallen position on the earth. Two human-shaped auras of azure and blue pulsated behind trees, marking the gunmen as Edric’s supernatural enemies.

  While questioning who they were, why they attacked him, and how his eyes could view their light blue ethereal energy fields, firearms cracked from a neighboring yard. He snapped his jaw to see a platoon of Israeli soldiers gunning down the enchanted duo who hunted him.

  Breaking into a limping sprint, he left the armed men to fend for themselves, and with every shooter in his vicinity focused on each other, he escaped into the darkness.

  Assuming the dagger’s deity had spared him, he silently offered his god homage as he wondered why an Assyrian woman had gifted him an enchanter dagger and showed up as a ghost fifty years later, moments before an unknown pair of men tried to hunt him down.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dianne knelt in the first pew of the small Irish church. Beside her, the handsome hunter also placed his weight on his knees, and for a moment, she fantasized about joining him in that same posture at their wedding.

  She’d taken a liking to the young hunter, Liam, as he and his father had rescued her from a killer three weeks earlier.

  Handsome and well-built, he’d risked his life for her like a chivalrous knight, taking two bullets in his arm and countless rounds into his body armor. The cast on his upper arm provided a reminder of his commitment. Despite the violence, the romance was taking root in her head and heart like a fairytale on autopilot.

  Next to her new heartthrob was his age-defying father, Connor, who moved with the strength and agility of a man much younger than his mid-seventies.

  At the altar, a single priest moved through a ceremony reminiscent of the Catholic Mass she’d long ago attended in her Eastern Rites Chaldean Church. But the ritual seemed abridged, and the recitation happened beyond her understanding, in Latin.