by Ira Robinson
The surrounding life, too, paused, as it seemed the star itself tumbled among the small creatures in this little part of the world, their fight unable to continue in the gloriousness of the shaft.
The demons, and Carver, himself, could only stare at it with mouths agape as the fog disappeared, the whole of the earth for all he knew, swept in the holy light.
Then it began to fade, the edges of it sparkling as the intensity dimmed, descending back toward the box at Carver's feet. He hadn't even realized he dropped it with the onset of the light.
One by one, the demons vanished as it faded, either running as fast as they could or vaporizing out of existence, puffs of smoke remaining as they teleported.
Finally, as the last fragments of light evaporated, Carver was left alone in a field of grass, the house behind him in shambles, barely together from the onslaught of the siege.
He stared numbly at the package, which began to scatter, bits and pieces of it melting away into the ground and disappearing from sight, the power of the artifact used up in one magnificent burst.
A Ra-Box, the trader had called it, a relic left over from an ancient age when the small Gods held sway over the earth. The worshipers had put a little bit of that old God in the box, safekeeping it for all time to come.
Now gone, disintegrating into dust. It had done what it was meant to do, though. It's light of forgiveness was more than any demon could stand to be around, and they fled from it in horror.
Carver blinked, his eyes watering as his vision cleared. There was no sign of the demons, but that might not last long.
He limped to the house, climbing the stairs with an ache so deep he was not sure he would heal from it. The pain in his back and the gashes on his body might, but the weight of him finding nothing out about Lisa an anvil on his soul.
He bent to pick up the blade from where it landed, sheathing it into place on his side. The rest of his pack was scattered all over the floor, as was the rendered flesh of the coven he had come here to find.
Dead. All dead.
Jessup, too, lay near one of the far walls. Carver crossed to him, careful to avoid the spots that were broken and looked like they would fall away into the basement below the house.
He was knocked out, his breathing ragged and barely discernible. Carver pressed his ear to the chest of the dog, his form back to normal size again, avoiding the new gashes he had taken in his fight with the monstrous beast.
Yes. A heartbeat. Still alive, but would he be able to recover?
Carver pulled Jessup into his lap and leaned against the wall, the water from his eyes streaming not from the brilliance of the Ra Light, but the aching in his heart.
His family was in ruins, and he had no clue what he could do to try to put it back together again.
Chapter 19
The daylight air was cool but clear, the last bits of fog burning away with the coming of full light, allowing the sun to be more than the amorphous blob it had been all morning.
The modest church shone, the peeling paint holding tight to the grandeur it, perhaps, once had as being a place of worship, dedicated to God. Its disrepair was more apparent now that it danced within the beams of yellow from above, the old stained glass reflecting gossamer blues and ruby reds into his eyes as he stared at them from the cab of his truck.
Three small birds perched atop the proud steeple jutting skyward, the tiny cross on the top stretching out its arms in supplication to the few clouds moving at a snail's pace. The birds fluttered their wings, disturbed, perhaps, by the bugs flitting past them, on their way to business unknown to all but their hive minds.
Carver glanced to the passenger seat, cringing a bit at the sight of Jessup's shallow breathing, a soft moan accompanying each breath. The drive was hard on him, each bump and caress of the road beneath the tires of the truck punctuated by a grunt or yelp. At least he was still exhaling. There was that.
Carver's own wounds were nearly healed, but the exertion over the day and the lack of sleep left him bereft of energy and he was glad to finally put the pickup in park. He wasn't sure he could make it much farther.
For a while, he had aimed the truck toward home. While Lisa was heavy on his mind and he knew he didn't have any time to waste, he was well-aware of his exhaustion and would not do her any good if he were to pass out in the middle of the search for her.
He had no clues to continue on, no indication of where she was, and though he raged inside at the prospect something was happening to her beyond his control or ability to save her from, he could not go on without some kind of rest.
Home had to be out of the question. There was too much possibility the forces of darkness would be waiting for him there. Risky to try to use it as the succor he desperately needed.
This place probably was no better, but as Carver turned the truck in the direction of the small town and smaller church embraced within its shadow, he thought it might be an opportunity.
There was no sign of movement around the building, and had been only fleeting glimpses of children playing in their yards and a couple of adults watching over there on the streets leading to it. A few stopped what they were doing to watch him as he passed, but no one followed, and there were none of the familiar pulls the presence of beasts would give him.
Not the best option, but better than trying to sleep in the truck, and both he and Jessup needed to eat and get as recovered as they possibly could.
There was still considerable to do, and so few possibilities of their safety.
At least the demons would not be capable of detecting him. Not directly. One advantage of being the Hallow was that he was blocked from being sensed by the entities he could destroy, though the same would not hold true for Jessup. If they were to focus on him, they would probably be able to find him, especially given his unique origins, but maybe they would not think about it.
The door to the church stood open, the interior hidden from him, shrouded in shadows as the light from outside cascaded inward. He wasn't sure, but it looked undisturbed from when he was there last.
When he found Malachi.
Carver shook his head, dread pacing his heart as he thought about what he encountered inside, the way Malachi had been laid out in such a horrible tableau, but maybe someone else had come and found his body.
He turned the pickup off, the engine dying as he grabbed the handle of the door and pried it free. Jessup raised his head, but the weakness was apparent as he swayed, trembling only slightly. For an animal as powerful as he was, it made Carver nervous. The gashes on his body had stopped bleeding and there didn't, from Carver's cursory examination, seem to be any bones broken, but he had lost a lot of fluid in his fight.
Carver left the truck, pulling the pack around his waist and the blade on the other side into place as he hiked up his pants, then reached in and pulled Jessup toward the door, sliding him across the front seat of the cab unceremoniously.
Jessup growled and snapped at his hand, but Carver yanked anyway, bringing him closer to the wide gate.
"I'm sorry, Jessup," he hissed as the body came close. "We've got to get inside."
Jessup huffed, a moan uttering from his throat. It was clear, though, with no rattle. That was a good sign.
He helped the dog out of the truck and together they crossed the street to the open door of the sanctuary.
Carver winced as he moved within the shaded area of the apse, the smell already overpowering and only getting worse as he stood waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkened interior.
It was a black odor, exuding rot and acid, the coppery dried blood mixing with the flood of fluids that had come from Malachi, whose body he could now see still remained near the altar at the head of the church, a stomach churning picture of a being in front of a chorus of ghosts in the pews laughing at his demise. His insides were spread like his arms were wide, supplicating and asking forgiveness, or the wings of an angel ready to take flight.
His stomach rumbled with nausea
and Jessup, too, took only shallow breaths as they turned away from the scene before them and walked through the apse toward the wood door that led to the other part of the church.
Carver popped it open with a nudge, its sill barely holding tight, and stepped inside, waiting only enough for Jessup to follow before closing it again, blocking off the majority of the smell from the church.
This was a small manor built for the preacher, a connection to the rest of the building Malachi used as his own. A long hallway with a few doors led to bedrooms and a bathroom that was only large enough to be serviceable.
It was a simple place, good for a modest family that would be hired to both give the sermons and maintain the grounds, provided for by the appropriate graces of the tithes of the parishioners.
Malachi had it for other purposes, though, using it as a sanctuary against the demonic, both the entities that taunted him and his own, personal ones in the spirit of the poor man who had been born into a world not ready for his abilities and ways of thinking.
This was not Carver's first time inside, but the last venture he made within these corridors was a day he was desperate for help, the troubled existence he, too, had come to live, weighing heavily on him, a stone on his back that threatened to drown him, or a monkey beating his skin wide open. Malachi helped him stay away from that temping demon, and when Carver left he thought he, once again, had that heroin monster licked.
Now a heavier weight was on him. His daughter was gone and he had no idea of where to even start trying to pick up the pieces of her trail, exhausting the options he had managed to think of, and he wished desperately his friend could be there with a familiar cup of coffee and supporting words as they worked out the problem.
"Come on, Jessup," he whispered, loathe to break the silence veiling the corridors and rooms, the presence of Malachi palpable with each breath he took.
The house was better kept than the church, itself, the paint not far away from freshly redone, cream pastel and stained wainscoting lining it all a strange combination for a man Carver always thought of as hard, his gruff beard long and flowing, the uneven and disheveled hair atop his head never in place. His mind had been well-tuned and organized, though, so the reflection of that inside of the home he called his own, seeking it out special for the way it was, made a sort of sense.
The carpeting, too, was relatively new. Malachi told him when he was putting it in, two years before, excited to get rid of the battered shag that had, perhaps, been there since the day the building was erected. Now it was a simple Berber, the ruby gleam of it matching the stained glass in the church.
The pair moved into the living room, passing the few doors leading away. Jessup climbed heavily on the couch, his body weak but making it without Carver's help. Not that he would have accepted it, anyway. Whether from the pain or the indignity, Jessup didn't want to be touched, and Carver could not blame him.
The empty spot beside him looked inviting, a deep pillow with thin pin striping, but he didn't sit.
He took a few minutes to look through the place, the pull of demonic presence numb, but he had to make sure there was no danger before he could allow himself to rest.
Not that it would matter if there was something there. As tired as he was, drawn out completely without a break and too much fight ripped from him, he would not be able to put up a defense if there were creatures about.
Finally acceding there might be safety, he returned to the couch and sat in it, harder than he intended. Jessup was already asleep, a soft snore waffling through his black nose. The human coming down beside him didn't disturb his sleep at all.
The bit of light sneaking around the darkened curtains gave him enough view of his arms to see the wounds on them would probably be gone within a few hours, and those on Jessup were on their own way to healing.
Carver crossed one leg over the other, his hands dropping into his lap as the image of Lisa's face filtered into his mind, her smile doing nothing to counter the dread in the pit of his stomach or the twitching in his foot he could not get to stop. He had, once again, failed to protect her, just as he had done so many times before, and the guilt chased him as he drifted, unsure how to cope with it all.
Maybe, if he could identify what Malachi was trying to reach him about, to discern what the cryptic message he left with Lisa was about, there would be some clue to where he could go. Maybe it would lead him to his daughter and they could both walk away from all of this. Biel be damned.
He loathed that he had to pause, to take time to try to recover some of his strength before moving on to find her again, but even sitting for a few minutes, his eyes were already drooping as the exhaustion in his bones threatened to overtake him without impedance.
But, as they finally closed, and he brought his hand over to rest across the neck of the sleeping dog next to him, subtly twirling a few bits of his soft fur in his fingers, for the first time in a long number of months, he sent a prayer to the God of heaven, begging Him to watch over his little lost girl.
The song of the birds on the roof outside filtering through the windows was the only response he got as he drifted to sleep.
Chapter 20
Carver reached out, trying to grasp hold of Lisa with her name on his lips as the dream shattered.
Jessup grumped beside him in his sleep but kept his head down, a slight snuffle accompanying the low growl as Carver put his hand back down again, eyes wide and glistening in the dimming light of the room.
The dream plagued him as he tried to lift Jessup away from him, finally managing to scoot him enough to be able to stand from the couch. There was still daylight from the windows, but it was much diminished from what it had been and when he opened it to take a peek, drawing the curtain aside to glance through, dusk was well on its way. Extended shadows formed off of the truck parked across the street and the trees swirled softly in the breeze as evening approached. It would not be long before the clouds bruising the sky shifted from their current gray to the reds and violets of sunset.
It was brighter, though, than the darkness surrounding the dream and, although he tried to shake it all away, the sight of Lisa's face, terrified and screaming, would not let him go.
The whole thing had a similar feel to the vision he encountered in The Flow. The demonic beings stormed the countryside, ravaging everything, massing toward a singular clear circle of ground, in the middle of which his lone daughter stood.
Every tooth and flashing eye in red and white bore down on her, their hunger for her blood and flesh drooling from their jaws. He could do nothing, not even a participant of the dream. He was there as an observer only as the creatures crashed her with screams so deep and vile the world around them shuddered in response.
She screamed for him as they poured, her form disappearing before the flood of the horde, buried within their hate and evil.
He winced and gritted his teeth as he turned from the window, wishing the dream would fall as easily as the curtain.
He wasn't sure how much time passed since he fell asleep, but it had to have been a few hours. He felt little better from it, the nightmare draining him more than his body could heal, perhaps, but it would have to suffice for now. There was no way he would be able to go back to sleep.
He left the resting Jessup on the couch, going to the small kitchen attached to the apartment. The French doors swung and he tipped the switch on the wall to bring the light in the ceiling to life, its white glare stunning him for a second after the dimmed living room.
The refrigerator was well stocked, but he didn't waste time trying to cook anything, grabbing a slice of leftover pizza in a box that had been there for longer than it should. Good enough, though; his stomach grumbled. It had been a while since the last thing he ate.
He pulled another piece from the box before setting it back in place and returned to the living room.
There were a lot of compartments branching away from the centerpiece of the house, and he wasn't sure which one to explore
first, or really what he was looking for.
But Malachi had called him for a reason, telling him he found something important. Maybe he left evidence behind as to what that might be.
Old magazines and books were everywhere, the coffee table in front of the couch being used more as a makeshift library than anything else, but, as Carver filtered through the things there, chewing all the while, he saw nothing overtly intriguing. Not that would make his friend as nervous sounding as Lisa made him out to be.
Nothing, too, that would be cause for someone, or thing, to want him dead.
This was the first Carver was in the house alone. Every time he had been there before, Malachi was there, as well, leading him. Malachi owned the church for a long while; there could be hiding places Carver would never find. His own house had dozens he squirreled scraps of information and items into. Could Malachi not be expected to do the same?
