I turned to the Caprice and the RV. There were six of us. Felicity, Michael, Leon, the Blackwell sisters, and me. All six of us had come here to stop evil and save the world. Wasn’t that knightly behavior? “Oh, shit,” I said. “Luke doesn’t need the state police. We’re the other six knights.”
A low rumbling rolled across the lake like thunder and out on Whitefish Island, a column of thick, black smoke rose into the air. The final part of the ritual had begun.
19
I pulled open the Caprice’s trunk and took out my sword and pistol crossbow. A quiver of bolts went onto my belt, along with a knife.
Felicity came around to the trunk. “Alec, what’s your plan?”
“Kill anything that moves,” I said.
“Good plan,” Leon said from behind me. He and Michael had shotguns slung over their shoulders and a backpack full of shells. “Where do you want us?”
Creatures began to emerge from the lake. They were similar to frogs but at least six-feet long. Their eyes fixed on us with malevolent stares and the creatures crawled toward us on their clawed feet.
“Over there,” I told Leon. “Deal with those frog monsters.”
He and Michael ran toward the edge of the lake and began firing. The frog monsters emitted high-pitched squeals when they were hit and, when they died, their bodies deflated and became puddles of green, slimy flesh.
“I need to get to the island,” I told Felicity.
“I’m coming with you.” She reached into the trunk and took out a second sword.
“Felicity, you haven’t been trained to use that.”
“There’s no time to argue, Alec. Let’s go.”
She was right about there being no time to argue. I needed to get to the island and close the portal there before more creatures came through it.
The sheriff and his deputies had turned their attention to the frog monsters, firing at them while still using the patrol cars as cover. I was going to have to deal with the Fairweather family if I wanted to get a boat. The shack they were in belonged to one of the boat hire businesses. I couldn’t get to the boats without getting past the Fairweathers.
“Stay behind me,” I told Felicity. I loaded the pistol crossbow as we made our way over to the shack.
One of the bearded brothers appeared from behind the shack, a revolver in his hands. I grabbed Felicity and threw myself to the ground, taking her with me. A shot rang out and I heard the bullet scream through the air over our bodies. I got the pistol crossbow into position and fired. The bolt hit the Fairweather brother in the chest. He fell backward and landed heavily on the ground, dust pluming up around his body.
The other brother appeared, brandishing a rifle. The sight of his brother made him hesitate slightly and that was all the time I needed to load another bolt into the crossbow as I scrambled to my feet. I shot him before he’d even aimed at us. My bolt punctured his shoulder and he dropped the rifle so he could clutch at the wound, crying out.
His cries brought the old lady out from the shack. She had a shotgun and it was already in firing position, braced against her shoulder and aimed right at me. I didn’t have time to reload the pistol crossbow. I handed it to Felicity and drew my sword, knowing I didn’t have time to get to the old woman before she shot me but still willing to give it a try.
The old woman cackled as she was about to pull the trigger.
A crossbow bolt suddenly appeared, sticking out of her chest. The old woman looked down at the bolt lodged in her body, her face a mask of surprise. She dropped to the ground and the shotgun went clattering into the grass.
I looked around. A red Mustang was parked on the road that led to the parking lot and standing on its roof was Sherry, crossbow in hand. She gave me a thumbs-up and dropped gracefully from the car roof to the ground before running over to us.
“What took you so long?” I asked her.
She put on a mock offended look. “I thought my timing was perfect.”
I looked at the old lady’s body. “I guess it was. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. What’s the plan?”
“We need to get to the island. Luke is there. Now that he’s cast the spell and expended all that energy, he should be weakened. The monsters have to kill all twelve of us for the ritual to succeed and the portal to stay open, so we need to stay alive.”
“I hear that,” Sherry said.
We moved toward the dock. When we reached Woody’s Boat Hire, I kicked the door open and grabbed the keys for the Princess of the Lake. Felicity and I got on board while Sherry untied the boat. By the time she’d done that and jumped on board herself, I had the engine started. The smell of gasoline rose into the air as I gunned the engine and piloted us away from the dock and out onto the lake.
Thick, dark smoke was still belching from the center of Whitefish Island. I looked over at the parking lot where the police and Leon and Michael were keeping the frog monsters at bay with their guns. The green-skinned creatures swarmed from the water and it wouldn’t be long before ammo supplies became depleted and the people in the parking lot would have to find other ways to kill the monsters.
The boat suddenly shuddered and the engine cut out.
“What the hell was that?” Sherry asked. “Did we hit rocks or something?”
“No, it wasn’t rocks,” I said, readying my sword.
The water all around us erupted and I saw flashes of green as frog monsters leaped into the boat. One of them lashed out at me with its claws. I stepped back and swung the sword, severing the monster’s arm. It squealed and shot its snake-like pink tongue at me. I deflected it with the flat of my blade and then moved forward, burying my sword in the monster’s chest. It deflated into a puddle of green slime.
I looked up in time to see Felicity gracefully swinging her sword at a frog monster’s head. The creature struggled for a second before becoming a pool of green goo at her feet.
Sherry was hacking and slashing at two monsters at the rear of the boat. No sooner had she killed them than three more leaped on board. “Alec, get us out of here!” she shouted.
Felicity joined the fray, stabbing her sword through a frog monster’s chest so hard that the point of the glowing blade went all the way through the creature’s body and came out of its back.
I tried the engine again. It started and I slammed the throttle forward. The boat accelerated over the water, kicking up spray from the hull. A frog monster managed to clamber on board before we reached full speed. I swung my sword at its head and decapitated it.
As we got closer to the island, the smell of sulfur hung in the air. It came from the noxious black smoke that continued to belch from the trees into the sky.
“I guess that’s the portal,” I said.
Felicity came to the control console and peered at the smoke. Her glasses had slid down her nose lightly and her forehead was beaded with perspiration. Her hair had come loose from the pins that kept it piled up on her head and now it tumbled over her shoulders. A thick strand clung to Felicity’s cheek, curling toward her mouth, and another snaked around her neck, kept in place by the moisture in her skin.
“That’s the portal,” she said. “Luke will be somewhere in there, keeping it open with his magic until the sacrifice is complete.”
I looked back toward the parking lot. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. If Luke’s original plan had gone ahead and we hadn’t been ready to act, he probably would have killed twelve cops and completed the ritual. But now half of his intended victims are people who have had experience fighting supernatural creatures.”
“He hasn’t used his most dangerous weapon yet,” Felicity reminded me.
That was true. Gibl seemed to be holding back, letting its minions do all the work. If completing this ritual meant that it could roam our realm, I would have expected it to be more involved in the fighting.
I pulled back on the throttle and guided the Princess to the little rickety dock. Sherry stepped out onto the wooden slats
and tied the boat securely. I heard another boat and turned to see the Blackwell sisters sailing toward us in a boat identical to ours. They stood together at the control console and waved at us as if they were out on the lake for a pleasurable morning excursion.
We waited while they landed at the dock and stepped onto the island to join us.
“We thought we’d be more useful here than back there,” Victoria said. “Guns are quite distasteful.”
“What can you do about this?” I indicated the column of smoke.
They conferred for a moment and then Devon said, “We can probably close it, given enough time.”
“We’ll get to work on the proper spell,” Victoria said.
I wasn’t going to wait around while they did that so I strode forward into the portal, followed by Felicity and Sherry. The blue glow from our swords illuminated the black smoke. I had no idea which direction I was traveling in or even if I was going around in circles. I concentrated on moving in a straight line, hoping that I’d lead us out of the sulfurous darkness. The smoke stung my eyes and clung to my skin and made breathing difficult.
Finally, after long minutes of wandering in the smoke, we broke free of it and found ourselves in the clearing with the tree-stump altar. I breathed in a deep lungful of air and rubbed my skin where the smoke was clinging to me.
There was no sign of Luke. “Where the hell is he?” I said, frustrated. “And where is Gibl?”
“We’ll have to go back,” Sherry said. “We’re wasting time here.”
I nodded in agreement and set off into the smoke again. When we came out of the other side, the Blackwell sisters were still talking to each other. “I don’t see any spell casting taking place,” I told them.
“We’re working on it,” Victoria said.
I looked over the water toward the parking lot and a chill settled between my shoulder blades. Gibl was in the lot, towering above everything, even the tallest trees. It looked like an enormous frog except that it had many eyes and mouths all over its body. The eyes were frog eyes and they seemed to stare in every direction. The mouths were lined with sharp, needle-like teeth and each had a long tongue that flickered back and forth like a snake seeking prey.
Gibl raised one huge arm and brought it down on top of a police cruiser, smashing the vehicle as if it were a toy. One of the deputies had been hiding behind the car. He ran for the road that led to the highway, only to be caught by a long tongue that shot out from one of the mouths on Gibl’s stomach and dragged him into the waiting maw, screaming.
In the trees where Cantrell and I had seen the vision of Deirdre Summer’s death, Luke stood watching as the monster went on the rampage.
“He must have had a summoning circle set up over there,” Felicity said. “He guessed that we’d come to the island to look for him and he used that to split the group up.”
I jerked my thumb in the direction of the Blackwell sisters. “What happens if those two actually manage to close the portal and Gibl is on this side of it?”
“It will be dragged back through. Only when the Hundred and Sixty-Nine Souls ritual is complete can the portal remain open and Gibl remain on this side of it. Until then, the portal is like any other. If it closes, it drags everything that shouldn’t be on this side back to the other side.”
“Get that thing closed as soon as possible,” I told the Blackwell sisters before getting back on board the Princess with Felicity and Sherry. We set off back the way we had come, swords ready in case the frog monsters tried to board us again.
We got back to the dock without incident. In the parking lot, the battle raged on. Cantrell and his remaining deputies were shooting at frog monsters and moving between cars while Gibl smashed the vehicles and sent his many tongues shooting out at his prey. Leon and Michael were kneeling on the trail by the lake’s edge, firing their shotguns at Gibl. Some of the many frog eyes were leaking a translucent slime and I assumed they had been shot at and hit.
I glanced over at the island. The smoke was still rising. What the hell were those witches doing?
To reach Luke, I needed to get past Gibl. That wasn’t going to be easy. I moved forward, ready to slash at anything that came shooting in my direction, whether it was one of Gibl’s tongues or its huge, clawed hand.
The monster saw us and turned its head in our direction. I wished I’d had more time to practice my magic. The only trick in my arsenal was throwing a blast of energy that depleted my strength entirely. If I tried that now, I would be helpless for the rest of this fight. And I had no guarantee that the blast would even hurt Gibl.
It raised its massive hand and brought it down toward us. I stepped back and instinctively raised my free hand as if to ward off the blow. A blue shield of magical energy appeared above me, formed from a spiderweb of glowing magical circles and symbols. Gibl’s hand crashed down on it and the shield held. The monster raised its hand quickly as if stung.
Okay, that was new. I just hoped the shield didn’t drain as much energy as a magical blast because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of gas left in the tank when I came face to face with Luke.
“What the hell was that?” Sherry asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“I think I can guess. The witches that did bad things to you when you were younger?”
“Yeah.” I moved forward, desperate to get past Gibl and face Luke in case I was going to collapse sometime soon.
One of the deputies stepped forward from behind a car and unloaded a magazine into Gibl’s body. Either he had seen Gibl’s reaction to touching my magical shield and decided to take the opportunity to get some shots in, or he was just playing hero.
Gibl turned on him and brought its hand down, crushing the deputy and the car in a wreck of metal, glass, flesh, and bone.
I ran for the woods, Felicity and Sherry close behind. We reached the trees and kept moving, slowing our pace to avoid tripping over fallen branches or roots hidden beneath the undergrowth. I veered left to hit the trail and when my feet touched the hard-packed earth there, I increased my pace again. Luke was not going to get away, I would make sure of that.
When I saw him, he was standing at the edge of the lake, by the rocks where Deirdre Summers had entered the water and begun the three-year ritual that was ending, one way or the other, today.
Luke grinned when he saw us. “Harbinger, you’ve fallen for every misdirection and trap I’ve put in your path. First you went to the island, splitting up your group, and now you’re standing exactly where I want you: right in front of me, ready to be slain. Twelve souls will be sacrificed to Gibl this day and the portal between our world and that of the dark gods will remain open, heralding a new age of darkness and destruction. Your death will be part of the foundation of that new age.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass.”
His face grew furious. A blue glow began to crackle in the air around his hands. He raised them and flung them forward. A bright blue ball of energy shot toward me.
I raised the magical shield. The ball crashed into it and then dissipated.
Luke looked shocked. “No, this can’t be. You have to die, Harbinger!”
“Like I said, I’ll pass.” I summoned up my own magical blast, feeling it rise up through my body and down along my arms. I released it in Luke’s direction. Green lines of energy formed complex magical shapes in the air around my hands, shapes that I now thought were connected to the inscriptions on my bones, before massing together into a single ball of energy that shot forward.
Luke raised a shield of his own, a plain glowing blue wall. My energy ball hit it and sparked into thousands of glowing green shards.
I had to strike now before I became weak. I ran forward, preparing to swing my sword at his neck. He backed away, his feet going into the water, and raised another magical shield. The enchanted blade sliced through the shield in a shower of blue sparks. Luke stumbled backward into the lake, out of the sword’s reach.
Thunder rumbled
over the lake, just as it had when the portal had been opened. I looked at Whitefish Island. The smoke was disappearing. The witches had finally taken action and closed the portal.
“No,” Luke groaned. “No, it can’t be.”
“Looks like your three-year ritual is ended,” I told him. “That’ll teach you to mess with knights.”
His eyes went to Gibl. The monster looked over at the closing portal, then at Luke. It advanced on him, obviously pissed that its ticket to our realm was now void. It had worked with Luke for all that time and now Luke had let it down.
A long pink tongue shot out from one of the multitude of mouths and wound around Luke’s arm. Another grabbed his leg. I stepped back, out of the way, as another tongue snaked around Luke’s neck.
His eyes bulged. “No, help me. Harbinger, help me.”
Gibl began to be sucked toward the island and the closing portal, dragging Luke with it. As they were pulled across the surface of the lake by the strong magical force, along with the frog monsters that were still alive, Luke began to scream. He was pulled into the smoke along with the monsters and then the smoke began to recede quickly, disappearing completely within seconds.
I turned from the lake and said to Felicity and Sherry, “Let’s go home.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Cantrell’s voice came from the trail. He was standing there with his handgun in his hands, the muzzle pointed at Sherry. He was sweaty and dirty and there was blood on his uniform. The grim expression on his face told me he couldn’t be reasoned with.
Amy appeared on the trail behind him. “Dad, what are you doing?” Her uniform was also bloody and disheveled. There was a sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before today. She had lost friends and colleagues in the parking lot.
“I’m doing what I’ve dreamed of doing ever since your mother was killed,” Cantrell said. “I’m taking my revenge.”
The Harbinger PI Box Set Page 46
