The arcane words were redolent of a demonic chorus. The timbre. The tone. The accursedly obscene subtext. Ruby, feeling a shiver of horror, squeaked and twirled in the air, shoving her fingers in her nonexistent ears, desperate to keep the obscenities out of her delicate mind.
Brutus stared at Morris, then at the video screens, then at Morris again as the chanting grew in vehemence, all kinds of voices, a sinister and squawking refrain.
“Wait, Brutus,” Morris held a hand up. He was more afraid of what might happen to his friend than anything else. “Maybe they’re just trying to scare us.”
“I want to scare them,” Brutus said in his gravelly, pumice-scratched voice.
“This is crazy,” Rev snapped his fingers and his clothes changed to a black tactical jumpsuit. “We have to do something about these jokers. Come on, Brutus.”
Before he could dissipate and divert his ghostly essence, Abby yanked him back.
“Rev, no! Morris is right. We need to know what we’re up against.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Rev asked. Morris already had his nose in the computer, scrolling, reading, scanning. He fed the voices and video into the search algorithm. The hunt for answers was on. “Morris?”
“The database isn’t telling me anything,” Morris groaned.
“What good is that damn database!”
“Look!” Abby had her sights on the monitors. What she saw, and what everyone else saw, was nothing less than bone chilling. Thin, hinged projections, black and long and slender, emanated from the shadows. Projections that elongated and curled into legs. The moment the spiderlike appendages twisted through the metal mesh of the boundary fence, a severe reaction took place, but not from Ruby.
“Oh my god! They’re here!” Alexandra Petrovic watched with wide, terrified eyes. “They found me!”
Brutus used his considerable energy field to keep Alexandra from leaving Gasworks in a panic while the others kept their eyes on the outside activity, which was becoming more troublesome by the second. The dark projections undulated violently. In one terrifyingly impressive growth spurt, it shot up and took on the shape of a man. All clothing—a finely tailored suit—was completely and utterly black. The most distinguishing characteristic of all was a hat, but not one of any modern times.
“Who is that?” Abby asked no one in particular, though Morris took it as a demand on his expertise.
“It’s…Hatman,” he said. “That’s impossible. He’s supposed to be extinct.”
“Well he’s not extinct, Morris. He’s right here!” Rev spoke the obvious.
“It’s him!” Alexandra shouted. Outside, Hatman stood tall with an accursedly sinister mist curling about him as if he commanded the very elements. They all huddled over the screen and watched Hatman vanish into the mist. “He’s coming to get me! He’s coming and there’s no way you can stop him!”
Rev looked at Abby, who returned the silent gesture. Morris stared at them both. Even Ruby was stunned into silence, hovering humbly nearby. The only one who wasn’t worried was Brutus.
“Let him come,” the gigantic, smoldering ghost boasted. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
As if the cosmos sent an abrupt answer to Brutus’ challenge, the walls shook with preternatural tremors. It was purely an unnatural phenomenon, and it caused the very plaster in the walls to melt. Out of the melted plaster came a bizarrely disgusting red ooze. Filthy and ugly and nauseating. Like blood, horribly shining with the ruddy color of gory murder, the terrible substance dripped from the seams in the walls, countless streams of it.
Abby snatched her statmag emitters, one in each hand like an Old West gunslinger. But it was too late.
“REV!” By involuntary action she dropped her emitters when she suddenly felt hands on her neck. She was immobilized somehow, otherwise she would have fought back against what was certainly a man, standing behind her, whispering her name so lightly it seemed like he was in her head. “REV! HELP!”
The man seized Abby and swept her out the door, down the hall, to the giant mosaic stained glass window at the end of the corridor. She would have gone straight through the window to her own demise but for the fact that a highly charged supernatural force stood in their way. Suddenly and silently the powerful being made his presence known with a brilliant flash of blinding light. It was Rev, exuding his energy field like a wall of ethereal electricity, snatching Abby before the glass shattered and Hatman disappeared into the night.
Abby slammed into Rev with a mighty thud that took away her breath. For a moment their lips nearly met as he stood there, stoic and steady. His ethereal chill gave her a wild buzz as she kissed him.
“I thought you said no more hanky panky,” he smiled once their lips parted.
She gazed up at him. “Rules are meant to be broken, you know?”
“Hey,” he chuckled. “Who you talkin’ to?”
Their moment of levity was shattered by a sudden and lamenting howl. Brutus wailed desperately, and that had Rev and Abby’s attention. At that moment they both realized the raucous sounds of rushing wind and snapping claws had ceased. Hatman and his obsequious followers had gone. Disappeared. Every last one of them. In their place was an eerie stillness. Except for Brutus, who sounded off like an angry foghorn.
“Alexandra!” Brutus gestured wildly with his broad and smoky arms to where he had been keeping their guest. She was gone.
Chapter 8
“How could we lose Alexandra?” Abby was suddenly incredulous. In one frustrated instant, she set aside the tender moment between her and Rev.
“Brutus, what did you do?” Rev assigned fault quickly.
“Me?” Brutus was beside himself.
“Don’t try to pawn this off on Brutus,” Abby decided where the real blame was to be pinned. “You were low on energy, that’s why this happened. Don’t try to deny it. And you were low on energy because of…you know.”
“Sex, Abby. Say it. Sex.”
“Right. Sex, which is all you think about, all you care about, all you ever want!”
“No it’s not,” Rev clutched her upper arms. She wiped away his advance with a quick sidestep. That had him seeing red.
“Fine!” he fired at her. “Why am I on trial here, anyway?”
“Because when you have sex you lose too much statmag energy, Rev. When you lose statmag energy you get sloppy. And when you get sloppy, the team suffers.”
“Bullshit!”
“Don’t, Rev. I can see it now. Just like I saw it earlier, and I didn’t do a thing about it.”
“I do not get weak when I have sex!” his eyes raged with preternatural fire. “Tell them right now that’s a lie!”
“They know what I mean, and they know it’s the truth. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s all my fault. I should have never let you touch me.”
“Thanks a lot,” Rev threw up his hands. “That really makes a man feel good!”
“That’s not what I mean…”
As Rev and Abby wasted time tossing verbal hand grenades, Brutus had a feeling, or sensation, or tiny trace of a voice that called to him from a deep and distant abyss inside his consciousness. In the beginning it was a whisper, which grew into a stubborn murmur, then, louder than anything else, even louder than Abby and Rev’s bickering, came an unmistakable signal telling him something was amiss.
“Ruby!” he roared aloud. Rev and Abby stopped insulting each other.
“What about Ruby?” Abby fumed.
Without another word, Brutus collapsed into a thick rolling cloud of charcoal gray sooty smoke, setting out on his own self-appointed search.
“What’s going on!” Abby demanded. “Where’s Ruby?”
Morris was dumbfounded. “I’ve combed over the surveillance system and there’s no sign of her.”
Rev materialized abruptly from the particulate matter in the air. “No trace of her.”
“Where did you go?” Abby was surprised. She hadn’t notice Rev had left.
> “Searching for Ruby. Little thing’s good at covering her tracks.”
“Covering her tracks? Why would she purposefully try to hide her trail from us?”
Morris breathed on his glasses and wiped them clear “She thinks she’s shielding us. She doesn’t want us to follow her because she knows it’s dangerous.”
“Guys,” Rev added somberly. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but there’s the possibility that she didn’t go on her own free will.”
Abby, stricken with that terrible thought, did the only thing that came to mind.
“Ruby! Ruby, where are you!”
The night rang out with voices, both of the living and of the dead. That corner of the Portland’s freshwater port was isolated, a postmodern industrial wasteland, and at that hour only the graveyard shift workers at the creosote manufacturer nearby heard a thing. Those who did either wrote off the ghostly chorus as mere imagination, or ignored the strange and unnerving sounds altogether.
The voices went on. And on. Especially Brutus, who stayed outside long after the others had gone back into Gasworks. Brutus, valiant and loyal, paced the security gates on two feet like a real man, a dark and lonely sentinel in the night, whipping up in the wind once in a while like a dust devil, howling for Ruby over and over and over.
Rev found it difficult watching their faithful friend. So did Morris and Abby, both of whom kept busy by straightening up the mess left by Hatman’s invasion. The only one who would say anything about it was Rev, and he seemed outnumbered.
“Can anyone else see what I’m seeing here?” he kept saying. “Can anyone else understand that each second we wait is another second she might be in danger?”
“It’s most likely a trap,” Morris explained what didn’t need to be explained. Rev knew that. He didn’t care.
“So what? What are we going to do, just sit around here and twiddle our thumbs?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Ruby, that’s to let her do her thing,” Abby said. “It’s hard sometimes, but you have to give her a long leash.”
“And meanwhile she could be getting deeper and deeper into trouble. Real trouble.” Rev crossed his arms. “I’m sorry but this long leash stuff stinks. We should make this a formal mission to go and get her.”
“It’s too risky,” Abby decreed. “Besides, we don’t know how your weak SME will affect the mission.”
“There you go again with that,” Rev kept his anger in check although his words conveyed pure annoyance. “Sex is not a problem for me, Abby. Maybe it is for you. Maybe you’re afraid of letting yourself actually enjoy sex. Maybe you—”
“Shut up!” Abby lost it. “Just shut the hell up right now! If it wasn’t for you, this whole mess would’ve never happened!”
“Abby, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” she reached for the first thing she could find, a broken curtain rod. With a deft and skillful flick, she hurled it like a javelin. Rev had to dematerialize quickly or else it would have impaled his physical flesh, and that would have hurt. The rod sailed through him and stuck in the wall like a throwing dart.
“Hey!” he stared at the end of the rod as it bobbed menacingly. “Stop that!”
Abby said nothing more, aside from issuing a lewd hand gesture.
“Very mature,” Rev said. She did it again, only this time with both hands. “And ladylike.”
She slammed the door, disappearing into her office.
“When will you learn?” Morris looked over his glasses. “Never tell a woman to calm down.”
“Never tell a woman to do anything,” Rev added.
“You said that,” Morris went back to his work. “I didn’t.”
*****
Rev had a good mind to march right through Abby’s office door. Stomping down the hall by means of solid legs and feet, he was halfway there when a portent of doom from the distance halted him. The booming sound grew louder until it rattled Gasworks at its foundation. It didn’t take more than the rushing, billowing vortex of smoke and ash for Morris and Rev to recognize Brutus. That was no surprise. The surprise came at who Brutus had with him, cradled like the tiny thing she was.
“Ruby!” Rev shouted, and at that Abby’s office door exploded open.
“Where have you been!” Abby came rushing wildly. “Let me look at you!”
Instantly Abby recognized, with her innate supernatural sight, that Ruby wasn’t right. Her normally pearlescent reddish sheen had been dulled to a sickly pinkish, washed-out appearance. Trembling. Lethargic. Not at all the Ruby Abby was used to.
Morris didn’t speak, but used his expression to convey under no uncertain terms that he was painfully aware of Ruby’s energy levels and any more time spent without her in a recovery chamber would be catastrophic.
“I get it, Morris,” Abby knew exactly what that look meant. “She just needs a second, that’s all.”
Brutus gave Morris a look as well, telling him to back off, so Morris backed off.
“Ruby, sweetie,” Abby used the calmest tone imaginable, which was a wonder given the tense atmosphere and the fear they all were harboring over their little friend. Everyone loved Ruby, and it tore at all of them to think she was wounded. Regrettably, they didn’t know if she had been wounded, was just upset, or both. And they needed to know, despite Abby’s reticence to debrief Ruby. She had no choice. “Ruby, do you want to tell us where you’ve been?”
The second Abby asked the question, Ruby rolled quickly and buried her face in Brutus’s billowing, smoky folds. She uttered strange little noises, stranger than any the team was used to hearing from her. Ruby was always bubbly and gregarious, even in the tensest of moments. Now she was languid and listless. Passive and pensive. And it had nothing to do with her energy levels.
“Ruby’s anxiety is quite understandable, given the nefarious character we have encountered.”
“You mean Hatman?”
“I’m talking about one of the most vicious and powerful sorcerers in the Ghost Guard database.”
“How powerful can he be?” Abby asked. “He’s just a man, right?”
“He used to be,” Morris said. “Until he went down the path of evil. Now he’s something else, something other than human, some kind of supernatural hybrid. No one really knows where he came from. No one really knows how old he is. The only certainty is that this thing has many different powers. He is charismatic. He has been nurturing a following among mankind for many years. Some of the world’s wealthiest and most intellectual people belong to his so-called religion. These are the people that have Emile Petrovich’s soul, and whatever they’re doing with it can only mean terrible things to the spirit world.”
“Ruby, I know you’re scared,” Abby said, and Ruby shuddered harder than ever. Brutus held her tighter, this time centering his nonverbal ire on Abby. But Abby was dauntless. “Ruby, please. Tell us what happened to you so we can help you.”
Knowing Abby was right, knowing what it meant to the team, Ruby did tell them where she had been, on one non-negotiable condition: she never wanted to go back to that hellish place.
Chapter 9
The night emanated blackness. Palpable blackness. It crept in the rocky outcroppings of the arid and bleak landscape, the waning gibbous moon high above rendering everything in a faded gray tone. Desperate and forlorn were the stars, forced to bear witness to a most vile and inexplicable scene in the desert below.
The crackling firelight flickered merrily, strange and mean shadows of sinister shapes dancing across the bows of the great pines sparsely scattered throughout the foothills at the base of the mountain. Foothills of ancient and scared rites dating back to far before any Caucasian had laid eyes upon North America. It was an accursedly sacrosanct place, reserved only for the most hallowed of ceremonies.
Tonight was one of those ceremonies.
The high desert plains resounded with a low and ghoulish monotone. Bland and deliberate and almost hypnotizing rhythmic lament
ations. Over and over and over. These were the first signs of something ominous. Next were the torches, flames lashing at the night, black columns of smoke curling up like ribbons of hate.
The stars heard a baleful sound on this night, this night and many other nights like it. But this night was special. This night the denizens of the desert were welcoming home an old member of the family.
The painted hills bore witness to the subsequent events. An obscenely long line of marching men, mindless followers of a darkly twisted religion, each dressed in flowing garments the same color as midnight with a curved and grotesque symbol of demonic power encrusted across their backs. In single file these strange votaries marched, in unison, carrying wooden staffs from some underworld nightmare.
Slowly, deliberately, almost as if sleepwalking, the men made their way to a large clearing in the trees. The ground was rough and dusty under their leather loafers, silk robes getting frayed and dirty at the hems. A strange and unnatural juxtaposition. A lonely coyote bayed pitifully in the distance, a solemn reminder from nature that she owned the night.
Or did she?
As the marchers entered the clearing, the torches cast light on a large stack of lumber. Logs from the nearby hills felled, bucked, and stacked neatly. A pyre. But not a funeral pyre. One of retribution, of recompense, of perverse and noxious worship.
Before the fire was lit, the throng entered the clearing, a single file line in perfect synchrony. Sharp steps, creating a snake of humans, a living serpent that, when viewed from up top, looked like a dragon made of fiery flames.
Out of the line strode a commanding figure, standing tall with authority. The leader of this eccentric and secretive group, his flat and round brimmed hat was only the beginning of his strangeness. With a snap of his fingers, Hatman commanded another person from the ranks, a man carrying something other than a torch. The staff in his hands stood taller than he, with knotted roots at the crown. A woody tangle creating a veiny and hollow center. Along the length of the staff were strangely painted feathers, long sharp teeth, and yellowish bones festooned with beads and shells.
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