The Defiance

by Laura Gallier

  I’d only met my dad for the first time a few months ago, but I already knew this was so like him. Texting me in the middle of the night from Uganda, offering advice to help me turn the tables on the spiritual war raging in Masonville. His advice was usually easier said than done, but at least he cared enough to give it.

  Turning my back on the feeling of being watched, I slipped out a side door and got on my Ducati. Other than the rumble of my motorcycle’s engine, there was no sound or traffic this time of night. I kept checking my rearview mirrors. I swear, a black Suburban had been tracking me lately. But right now, it was just me and the town of Masonville, alone together. Her, a captive to painful secrets and tormentors, and me, dead set on freeing her and exposing decades of corruption.

  The string of local abductions had come to a sudden, suspicious stop after the night I’d become an eyewitness to the selling of human beings—the horrific exploitation of teenagers and children. The elaborate ceremony had ended in chaos, scattering the buyers, members of Masonville’s secret occult society, but there was now an increase in kidnappings in surrounding counties—they hadn’t stopped poaching children, only switched up their hunting grounds. And since they’d all seen my face that fateful night, I knew I’d better watch my back.

  I turned onto the main stretch of highway that led to the outskirts of town and gassed it. My former tutoring student Riley came to mind. I wondered if she’d been taken down this very road against her will on a night as dark as this one, only to be auctioned off states away, purchased through some encrypted wire transfer by a shell of a human being who’d already sold his own soul to the kingdom of darkness. She was only seventeen.

  What kind of person buys another person?

  There were multiple situations I couldn’t think about for long without getting nauseated, and Riley was one of them. I still saw her face around town now and then, on tattered Missing Person flyers. Like the other victims, she deserved justice, even if all that was left of her was her discarded body. I winced at the thought.

  The stoplight next to Masonville High changed to red, and I succumbed to the pointless delay, eyeing the school and surrounding moonlit acreage. As usual, there were Creepers scurrying up the building like roaches and clinging to the suicide memorial fence, still covered in pictures and stuffed animals and faded fake flowers that dated back to my senior year. But the Creepers had a new area to roam now—the freshly-bulldozed field behind the high school. Soon, foundations would be poured for a new middle school and elementary. About the worst place in America to construct buildings to house more students.

  My mother’s parents had donated more than enough land to the school district to allow for additional campuses, a highly deliberate move on my grandparents’ part, for sure. They knew an extreme infestation of unseen forces of destruction covered the land, lying in wait to devour souls—the younger, the better. Sick as it was, my grandparents had gone out of their way to ensure that evil’s appetite for human suffering would remain fed, even after they were dead.

  I still owned the 1,253 acres they’d willed to me that bordered the school district’s property, but of course I had no say-so whatsoever about what the city chose to build on their side of the boundary line. Now that the oil and gas industry was more profitable than ever in Masonville and the teen suicides seemed to be a thing of the past, people were breathing easier and talking expansion. On top of that, an increase in local law enforcement was credited with stopping the abductions, conveniently blamed on organized crime, and just like that, the bond passed practically overnight to build two more state-of-the-art, shark-infested schools (spiritually speaking, of course).

  I was sure I wasn’t the only one in Masonville who had concerns over putting new campuses right next to one that had suffered a mass shooting, coupled with the highest suicide rate in the country, just two school years ago. But by now, I understood: the secret society ran this town, not the everyday people. It was the same underground occult group my grandparents had raised my mom in before she ran away at sixteen years old.

  I pulled off the road just past the Welcome to Masonville sign. It seemed like a lifetime ago since I’d first seen that sign, when my mom and I moved here from Boston. Not long after that, my eyes were opened to the invisible realm. In those early days, I’d have given anything to get my ignorant, blind life back, but now, my supernatural awareness was as vital to me as my physical senses. More so at times.

  The first cornfield outside town stood some fifteen feet back from the road, not shriveled and dead like it had been in my dream but growing ripe for harvest. I concealed my bike among the stalks, then walked one identical row after another. The air was clear and crisp in the sparse moonlight, not an ominous, gritty gray.

  I wished I’d have thought to grab my big flashlight. The constant aura on the ground around me was glorious, but not far-reaching enough to show me much. I put my cell in flashlight mode and swept it around. I was used to seeing huge shadow-like streaks darting in the night, but that was on my forested land, defiled by centuries of violence, overrun with Creepers. Out here, beyond the city limits, all was still, as vacant as the streets on my drive over.

  I so desperately wanted the same atmosphere for my property and the schools built on its soil.

  Someday.

  There was no path to follow, and I contemplated whether to change directions or keep forging straight ahead. I took a random right, second-guessing my decision now to come here at all—to take a dream so seriously that I was out of bed at five in the morning, searching a vast cornfield for a spirit being’s revolting face in the dirt.

  Am I really doing this?

  I ignored logic for the moment and traveled deeper into the maze of crops, stopping at times and using my foot to slide fallen leaves back, exposing the bare ground. Nothing but soil, every time. Had I expected to simply stumble on Molek?

  Time marched on, and as the first hues of sunlight colored the sky, I spun on my heel, content to give up and get back to the church and get some sleep while I still could. But then, to my left, I spotted an old weathered structure among the rows of corn. A little dilapidated house with white wood slats barely hanging on around shattered windows.

  TWO

  IT WAS SURREAL, staring at the exact thing I’d just seen in my dream. Dilapidated wooden slats. Old busted windows. Two beams where the roof used to hang. I approached the house and shone my phone light through a broken window. There was no running water, like in my dream, but I was still intrigued.

  It would be a short walk around to the front of the square-shaped house, and I was anxious to get there and inspect the ground a few steps from the door—the spot where Molek had been laid to rest in my dream, pounded into the earth by mighty Watchmen. Who else could do that kind of damage to him?

  I was mid-stride when a threatening howl echoed through the field—not the cry of some four-legged animal scavenging for rodents, but the groan of an unearthly creature. A Creeper on the prowl. I pressed my back against the side of the house and waited. There it was again—several at once. A pack of them.

  A gentle breeze swept over me in the sunrise, a stark contrast to the threatening wails drawing closer. I pressed harder against the rotting wood, careful not to exhale too loudly.

  When all became quiet, I made my move, inching forward and spying from behind the corner of the house.

  I’d never seen anything like this. Not even close.

  There were six squatty creatures, about three feet tall and muddy brown. They formed a tight cluster with their backs to me, their heads lowered. One of them extended a pair of bony, bald wings—shaped like a crooked umbrella—into the unmistakable silhouette of a bat. That’s when I connected them with the horde I’d seen in my distressing dream, but these were way bigger.

  My pulse kicked into high gear. I know what they’re staring at.

  I had to see for myself.

  Instinct said to remain hidden from hate-filled demonic forces like these, b
ut courage demanded I take action. I gazed down at the divine aura around my Adidas—the light that had never stopped shining since the moment my shackle had busted off my neck, liberating my soul. And I reminded myself that light triumphs over darkness.

  Always.

  Well . . .

  Unless we welcome evil into our lives and become its naive friend. A lesson I’d learned the hardheaded way, but at least I knew better now.

  I squared my shoulders and strode toward the giant bats—a hybrid species of Creeper with a specialized spirit-world function, no doubt. The wind wafted their overpowering stench my way, as rotten as it had been in my nightmare.

  Any second, they’d see me, but I was determined not to care. I belonged to a superior kingdom.

  Still, it startled me when, all at once, they twisted their thick necks and looked back at me. They didn’t have cute bat faces with puppy-like features but flat, gnarly snouts and beady red eyes.

  I froze.

  But not for long. I willed myself to take one step at a time, praying, defying fear.

  When I came close enough that my light nearly grazed the bats, they took flight. Their wingspan was about as wide as my outstretched arms. They swarmed in speedy circles above my head, but they didn’t swoop down on me. Instead, all six of them hurled insults at me, their voices a chilling, raspy whisper. They called me names like coward and weakling and orphan and threatened to spy on me and attack at night while I slept, smothering me to death.

  I knew I was awake, but the experience was so freakishly disturbing, it felt like I was dreaming all over again.

  Stay focused, Owen. I’d come here for a reason. A crucial one.

  Sure enough, standing out like a patch of snow on dark desert sand, Molek’s face was a foot away from where I stood. Just like I’d dreamed, his right eyelid hung lower than his left. Was there anything on earth or beyond so petrifying as his hollow pupils?

  The pit of hell came to mind.

  I stepped closer, determined to make sure there was no sign of life. If he didn’t react to my aura contacting his skin, he was dead for sure.

  It was surreal to see the Lord of the Dead’s face illuminated in heavenly light. It exposed tiny fissures in his milky-white skin—a web of cracks, like he was made of porcelain and had suffered repeat blows. He didn’t gasp when my light hit him, but then again, Creepers don’t breathe. But he didn’t twist or flinch or cry out in anguish either.

  That settled it for me. “He’s dead.”

  I would have liked to have seen exactly when and how he’d met his fatal ending, but all that really mattered was that he was finished—that it was possible for a seemingly immortal being to die.

  This was worth celebrating.

  I gave him a last look, ready to walk away; the badgering bats were growing unbearable. But something caught my eye—my spiritual vision. A substance coated the inside of Molek’s gaping mouth, blanketing his tongue. Death dust mixed with tiny black specks. The mystery substance that had stung my skin in the dream.

  Despite the chaos and cruelty swarming overhead, I lowered onto my hands and knees, squinting into Molek’s mouth.

  What was that stuff?

  I bent my elbows, putting my face as close to the Creeper corpse as I could bear. He’d always reeked of burnt flesh and sulfur, but there was only a faint trace of it now. I never thought I’d see the day my breath would graze Molek’s unresponsive cheeks.

  But then I stopped breathing, because . . .

  He looked straight at me.

  And blinked.

  THREE

  I LEAPT BACK IN ONE KNEE-JERK MOVE. Molek groaned—not the predatorial kind, but a suffering wail. The Lord of the Dead was alive but hurting. Not quite dead but dying.

  Or so it appeared.

  What if this was an act? An elaborate plot to deceive me all over again?

  The bats still traveled in every frenzied direction, spitting their curses. I stepped back but kept my gaze fixed on my archenemy. The nightmare that had led me here now seemed more like a demon-induced trap than a divine revelation.

  I knew what to do—what name to call on for protection—but something heavy clamped down on my right shoulder. I spun around, ready to fight with the only weapon that had ever proven to work in spiritual combat—faith-filled words. But thankfully, there was no need to defend myself.

  The familiar old man gazed at my face. No smile today, but calming assurance poured from his golden-brown eyes, peering from beneath the brim of his straw cowboy hat.

  “Hush.” That’s all he said, just barely above a whisper, yet it sent the bats flapping away.

  “Please.” I grabbed his plaid shirt sleeve, layered under the same overalls he always wore. “Stay awhile.”

  He had a way of disappearing as quickly and unpredictably as he showed up, gracing me with a few vital answers to mysteries no ordinary person could possibly solve, then leaving me hanging, desperate to know more.

  I would have liked an explanation of where he’d been the past few months and how he’d found me out here, in the middle of nowhere, but I had an even more important question. I pointed to Molek’s dirt-framed face. “Is he really dying or just faking?”

  The old man narrowed his eyes at the assassin. “Principalities can’t be killed the way you understand death, but they can be banished to outer darkness, as good as dead.”

  “Where’s that? Tell me how.”

  He kept his gaze fixed on Molek. “When wicked reigning powers lose a major territory to the Kingdom of Light—a town as coveted by evil as this one—they’re banished to the furthest, darkest, most tormenting chambers of hell. You’ve already been told how to send Molek there.”

  Arthur’s prophetic letter. The call to gather the people of Masonville onto my land for an unheard-of time of spiritual devotion, purging the land of the sins of the past. The way I understood it, in the spirit world, my acreage remained stained with innocent blood, and the only way to wipe it clean was to express remorse to God on behalf of the unrepentant guilty people, long dead now.

  Even though I’d never had the chance to tell the old man about Arthur’s instructions, he somehow had a way of knowing pretty much everything, so I wasn’t completely surprised he’d just referenced the prophecy. “So, it’s not too late?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Trust me, if it was too late, you’d know it. You’d see that the tables had turned.”

  “But even if I find a way to get people onto my property, how will I make them believe me enough to cooperate and pray?”

  I’d known from the moment I’d been handed Arthur’s call to action that it was unrealistic. A town of mostly shackled people doesn’t care about the spiritual history of a piece of land, much less want to gather on it to do something as seemingly absurd as ask God’s forgiveness for atrocities committed a long time ago. And after months of reaching out repeatedly to all seventeen student pastors around here—a ton of churches for a community our size—only six had finally agreed to meet with Ray Anne and me on the front steps of Masonville High this Sunday.

  We hoped they’d want to join forces with us and persuade more people to join the mission to purge the school and my land of evil, but judging by how difficult it had been just to schedule an initial gathering, Ray and I had our doubts.

  What’s more, Masonville was home to occult worshipers who were working against us around the clock, evoking and empowering the very evil we were trying to expel. Deranged as it was, I’d seen it with my own eyes: they wanted Molek to reclaim his position of lethal authority over our town.

  The old man folded his arms and tilted his head to the side. “You believe the mission is to pressure a crowd of people to meet up on your land so you can try to convince them to go through the motions of some prayer exercise they think is useless?”

  He’d basically nailed it. “Well . . . yeah.”

  “That wouldn’t fix a thing. It’s a process, young man—guiding people to the truth so that they ac
tually understand and want to join the cause.” He glared at Molek again. “Your faith and action up to this point have kept him off your land, separating him from his army and the students. That’s no small thing, but it’ll only last so long. He’s relentless. Until he’s banished for good, he’ll keep trying to find a way to rise up and reestablish his throne. If that happens, you’re looking at generations of suffering and warfare.”

  “Yeah, I realize that.” It was weird how this extremely nice man had a way of frustrating me. I always felt like a jerk afterwards for having been impatient with him. I forced a polite tone. “I want Molek gone, cast into outer darkness, like you said. But I don’t get how to convince people to do their part.”

  He patted my shoulder, completely patient with me, as always. “Again, it’s a process, Owen.” It was strange, but I didn’t recall ever having heard him say my name before. “Molek has to be starved out of town as one captive soul after another comes to the Light and learns to defy him—his lies and temptations. Only then will gathering on your land make a difference. While you work to that end, pay attention to what circumstances come your way. Who’s put in your path and why.”

  I took another satisfying glance at Molek’s restrained body, buried alive. “He can’t tempt or lie to anyone in that condition.”

  The old man lowered to one knee, hovering over the regional Creeper King as if studying his otherworldly features. Molek’s eyeballs rolled back behind his eyelids and shook within their sunken sockets, like he was having a seizure. “Even in his absence,” the old man explained, “his demonic subjects carry out his mission, shooting his deceptions like flaming arrows at people’s minds. Provoking crippling thoughts and painful, disheartening emotions.”