by Kate Danley
The group he had arrived with, along with the compliant security guard, formed an orderly line. One by one, they began to climb up to the ship. As they did, the boy opened a hatch in the deck. “In there,” he said. The boarding passengers did as they were told.
“Look,” said Wilson. Carrie and Lowell saw what he was looking at. More groups of people were approaching the docks. Some looked like they’d just rolled out of bed. Others were dressed, including a dozen people in trendy party wear. Each group was led by someone with glowing yellow eyes.
Wilson pulled out his phone to call Tanis.
# # #
The University
Matt led the way back to the SUV, parked near the campus entrance. They stayed out of sight as much as possible, avoiding the roaming students.
Tanis watched two pairs of them cross the quad. “Jesus, they’re everywhere.”
“There must be a Descendant on campus, giving the orders,” said Heather.
Matt asked, “How do we take away the power to rule?”
She considered this. “I don’t think we can. The pact with Moloch was sealed in blood. One of the lords had to willingly sacrifice his own life.”
“What, so his buddies could collect?” asked Tanis.
“And his Descendants,” Heather reminded her.
“Still…,” she said. It seemed like an awfully high price to pay.
Her phone vibrated and she checked the screen. There was an incoming picture from Wilson. When she saw it, she stopped short. Tanis held out the phone to show Matt and Heather an image of the dromon, with one person climbing a ladder to the deck and at least fifty more waiting their turn to follow.
They ducked into the nearest building. The gym was old and run-down, with peeling paint. Physical fitness was obviously not a priority for the university. It didn’t seem too popular with the students, either. The place was empty. The three of them sat in the bleachers by the basketball court, where they could keep an eye on the door.
Tanis called Wilson, and he filled them in on what had been happening around the dromon. “I think that burst of light was like a homing signal, calling all these people here,” he concluded.
Matt asked, “Any idea where the ship is taking them?”
Carrie spoke up. “No. I went in closer to eavesdrop, but this crowd isn’t very chatty.”
“Be careful,” said Tanis. “They could turn violent.” She realized that the other freaks didn’t know that Jake was dead. She knew she should tell them. They would want to know. But Tanis wasn’t very good with difficult conversations. So she did what she usually did, and chickened out.
“Don’t worry, my sister, we’re staying out of sight,” Wilson assured her.
Heather didn’t look happy. “I know where they’re going. Back to the temple of Moloch.”
“You said the island was destroyed by an earthquake,” Matt recalled.
“It was. But since the dromon was raised, the fault has become active again. According to satellite imagery I saw at the university, a chunk of the seafloor has risen. Considering everything that’s happened, I’m betting it carries the remains of Tyrenos, and the temple, with it.”
“Why would the Descendants go there? Don’t they already have what they want?” asked Tanis.
“Yes, but Moloch doesn’t. They still have to hold up their end of the deal,” Heather said. “In exchange for the power to rule, they’re going to bring him to life.”
EPISODE 6
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“What does that mean, bring him to life?” asked Matt.
“They’re going to invite Moloch into this world, in physical form,” Heather said.
Wilson’s worried voice came through the phone. “Then what happens?”
She shook her head, disturbed by the prospect. “We don’t want to find out. Moloch worshippers sacrificed hundreds of people, even thousands, in enormous fires. Parents burned their own children to gain wealth and power. A world ruled by Moloch would be very much like hell.”
They were all quiet, taking this in.
“That’s why they’re bringing along their brainwashed slaves, isn’t it?” Tanis said. “To sacrifice them.”
Heather nodded. “Whether the Descendants can actually raise Moloch or not, a lot of people are going to die in the attempt.”
“We can’t let them get to that island,” said Tanis.
Matt spoke into the phone. “Wilson, try to find some way to keep the dromon from leaving. We should be there soon.”
“You got it,” Wilson told him, and ended the call.
They continued across campus, past the dining hall, where some non-brainwashed students were getting breakfast. They were blissfully ignorant of the horrible things happening all around them, thought Tanis, just like she had been before she gained the ability to see evil. Sometimes, more often than she would admit to Matt, she wished she was still blind.
They reached the street where the SUV was parked. Behind it was a wide stretch of open lawn, bordered by flowering dogwoods. A statue of Jacob Allen Fort, the school’s illustrious founder, stood in the middle of the grass. There were no search parties in sight.
Tanis didn’t like it. “We can’t be that lucky.”
“We’re not,” said Matt, and nodded towards the statue.
Tanis looked more closely and saw the top of someone’s head just behind the concrete base of the statue. There was at least one student hiding back there, probably two. Matt led the way behind the line of trees as they circled around to the other side of the statue. Two young men huddled by the concrete base, watching the SUV. The skinny, dark-haired guy held a brick. His shorter, stockier friend undoubtedly carried a weapon of his own, but they couldn’t see it.
It turned out he had a gun. As Matt and Tanis sprinted across the forty feet or so of open grass between the tree line and the statue, he saw them, raised his pistol, and began to shoot. He fired wildly at the three rapidly approaching targets. Tanis felt a bullet graze her hip but just kept moving. It was too late to do anything else.
Matt drove his ax through the student’s neck, hitting the concrete base of the statue just behind him. Tanis plowed into the dark-haired kid, driving the breath out of him. Before he could recover, she smashed her hammer into his forehead. The back of his skull smacked concrete and he sank to the ground.
The student search parties really were everywhere. Even as the echo of gunshots faded, a guy brandishing a hockey stick and a tall young woman with a pair of knitting needles hurried across the lawn towards them.
Heather dashed forward to retrieve the fallen pistol. She’d spent exactly one hour on a gun range four years ago. Now she wished she’d let the instructor talk her into the five-lesson package. She took aim at the guy with the hockey stick and fired. She missed. Her second shot caught him in the chest. The young man stood perfectly still for a moment. Blood began to bubble out of the wound. He dropped the hockey stick and collapsed.
Matt swung his ax at the tall woman’s neck. She had the sense to duck below the blade instead of trying to block it, and stabbed the knitting needles into his side. Matt drove the bottom of the ax handle into her jaw, knocking her back.
Two more people approached from the quad, a student with a scraggly goatee and an older guy, maybe a professor. Tanis wondered if everyone on campus was getting “recruited” to serve. The prof carried a six-foot-long stick, which she recognized as a bo staff from many a Hong Kong action flick. When she aimed a hammer blow at his head, he blocked it easily, then used the staff to sweep her feet. Tanis managed to jump out of the way, only to get smacked upside the head with the other end. This guy clearly had some training.
Matt finished off the young woman with an ax to the neck, just as the kid with the goatee charged at him with a large chef’s knife. Heather tried to shoot the attacker, but the gun clicked empty. She’d have to use the spiked bat instead. She started towards Matt and didn’t even see the student built like a linebacker coming up be
hind her.
Tanis was having trouble with the professor. She really missed having two working arms. Every strike she made with the hammer, he deflected with the damn stick. He moved fast, hitting her with swift, precise blows. She maneuvered towards the trees, where the branches might offer some protection, but he managed to keep himself in her way.
She held the hammer over her head, telegraphing her next move. As she brought it down towards his skull, the professor raised the bo staff in both hands to block. She kicked him in the balls, and the man crumpled. Tanis landed two quick blows to the back of his head and he was done. She paused to take a breath. Then she saw Heather lying on the grass, pinned down by a huge guy who had his hands around her neck. Her struggles were already weakening. There was no time to fuck around.
Tanis got there in a few long strides. She plunged the claw end of the hammer into the top of the student’s head and pulled him off Heather. He tried to sit up, so she hit him again. And again, driving the steel claw into his skull so hard that it was difficult to pry out. Tanis loomed over him, ready to strike again if he even twitched. He didn’t. His blue eyes were open, staring blankly at the sky. He was dead.
Heather lay on her side, coughing and gasping but alive. Matt had dispatched the last two student assassins, but more were closing in. He hurried over to Heather and helped her to her feet. “Come on,” he told Tanis.
She knew they had to get to the car quickly but found it surprisingly difficult to move. Matt yanked her towards the SUV. Tanis climbed into the passenger seat, Heather into the back, and Matt drove them off the university campus.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I-90 West
Tanis sat quietly, staring at the chunk of scalp and a couple of dark hairs stuck in the claw end of the hammer.
Heather leaned forward. “Thank you,” she said, her voice rough from her near asphyxiation, then near strangling. Red finger marks bloomed on her neck.
Tanis nodded mutely, telling herself again that she’d done the right thing. She had to kill that guy to save Heather’s life. The truth was, he probably wasn’t the first person she’d killed. She’d beaten enough people unconscious with a hammer that at least one of them must have died from a brain hemorrhage or something. She had put her own brother into a coma. For all she knew, he was dead by now, too.
Of all the potential career paths she had imagined for herself, serial killer had never been one of them. Before her own death, the most violent thing Tanis had ever done was punching her last boyfriend in the stomach, which he completely deserved. Now she cracked skulls with her trusty claw hammer on a regular basis. And she was disturbingly good at it. Maybe fighting skill was a side benefit of resurrection, like the rapid healing. Or maybe she’d had the killer instinct all along, buried deep down inside, and now it had the chance to express itself.
“You okay?” asked Matt, glancing over at her.
“Yeah.” She had to be. There were surely more battles ahead, and she would keep racking up the body count, all in the service of a greater good. She’d have to find a way to live with it. Because she sure as hell wasn’t backing down now.
They reached the Bremerton docks to see a steady line of people climbing on board the dromon under the supervision of half a dozen Descendants with glowing eyes. A big group of passengers waited their turn to follow. Matt, Tanis, and Heather avoided the Descendants as they made their way through the crowd. The blank-faced passengers didn’t even seem to notice.
They joined the freaks in their third-floor observation post. Heather briefly explained the pact with Moloch and the power inherited by the Descendants.
“We saw it,” said Wilson. “One of them yellow-eyes touched a security guard’s arm and got total control over the guy. Sent him on board with the others.”
“More than a hundred and fifty people so far,” added Carrie. “Maybe another seventy-five waiting on the dock. And more keep coming.”
“We’ve been running through ideas about how to secure the ship to the dock, or anchor her down, or capsize her, none of which are gonna work. Especially when we can’t get anywhere near her,” Wilson told them, frustrated.
Lowell concluded, “She’s putting out to sea, whether we like it or not.”
Matt nodded. “Then I’ll have to go with her. Get to the island and stop the ritual there.”
“How?” asked Heather.
“Don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But what’s the alternative?”
Carrie waved a hand at the crowd below. “Do you have some way that we haven’t thought of to get past all those people?”
“I’m not going to get past them. I’m going to join them,” said Matt.
Tanis stared at him. “You mean, pretend to be brainwashed and just waltz on board?”
“That’s insane,” argued Carrie. “You don’t think those Descendants will spot you?”
“They won’t be looking for gatecrashers among the human sacrifices,” Matt pointed out.
Tanis looked down at the line of people marching onto the dromon. Most of them had obviously just gotten out of bed, but some were fully dressed. A few people even carried purses or bags, presumably whatever they’d been holding when they’d been pressed into service by a Descendant. Matt wouldn’t stand out from the crowd. At least, not in an obvious way.
Carrie persisted, “Maybe you’ll look different to the Descendants, or give off the wrong aura or something. We don’t know how this thing works.”
“What if one of them grabs you and brainwashes you for real?” asked Wilson.
Matt was unshakeable. “I’ll ask again, what’s the alternative? Do nothing? Let them all die?” He didn’t mention the additional consequence of an evil god coming to life. He didn’t have to.
No one spoke. Carrie gave Matt a fierce hug, her body bursting with light. He grabbed his duffel and started down the stairs to the dock. There seemed to be some understanding that he would be going alone. Tanis didn’t see it that way. She took her knapsack and followed.
Matt saw her and stopped. Before he could say anything, Tanis asked, “We’re not going to have the ‘I’m coming,’ ‘No, you’re not,’ ‘Yes, I am’ conversation again, are we? Because you know how that one turns out.”
She thought he smiled at that, just a little. Then he continued on his way, Tanis right beside him. They paused at the door leading out to the dock to make themselves look brainwashed. She let all expression drain from her face, imagining a department store mannequin as inspiration. Matt appeared just as blank.
“Here we go,” he said. They slipped into the crowd.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The passengers, the poor, brainwashed sacrifices-to-be, ignored Matt and Tanis, having no instructions to do otherwise. Tanis knew that could change—fast. Keeping her face blank wasn’t too difficult. The hard part was not looking around, especially to see if anyone was looking back at her.
They funneled into a line to board the ship. She stood behind Matt, keeping her eyes fixed on the duffel bag slung across his back, reassured by the thought of the ax tucked away inside. They inched forward. Soon they would have to walk right past a Descendant. His name was J.J., a petty criminal who’d soon become a god among men. Tanis fought to keep herself from glancing at the guy as they got closer, suddenly not so sure that he wouldn’t sense that she and Matt were different. She felt her heart racing and willed herself to relax. Like that was going to happen.
Matt walked steadily past the yellow-eyed man. No reaction. Tanis felt her lips curving into a smile of relief and quickly forced them back to mannequin position. She stepped in front of J.J. the Descendant—don’t look, don’t look—and then she was past him, walking across the makeshift bridge and onto the ship.
Two more Descendants waited on deck, guiding their obedient servants to an open hatch in the deck. Tanis followed Matt through the hatch and down the ladder into the dark, musty lower decks. She was back in the belly of the dromon. This suddenly seemed like the worst idea of
her life. The ship was…wrong. The structure was permeated with the evil that had been done here. She could feel it, even more strongly now than when she’d been fighting the undead sailors, like a cold, heavy mist.
She thought of Brett, as she often did when she needed a boost of courage. But this time, she was inspired by a pure shot of rage. Moloch and his power-hungry followers had destroyed her family. Now they were going to pay for it.
They followed the line of people through narrow passageways into the cargo hold. It was a cavernous space, dimly illuminated by glowing glyphs in the walls. A young woman Descendant—her name was Wendy, from Panama City—waved them forward. Her chest was wet where her nipples were leaking milk. She was a mother with a newborn before the light took her. Now she was helping to birth something else.
The room was already crowded with people sitting on the wooden floor. New arrivals picked their way through the group, finding open patches of space for themselves. Matt and Tanis settled in a dark corner, away from their chaperone. People continued to stream in. Tanis estimated at least 250 potential human sacrifices. They had to stop this. Somehow.
The ship began to move. There was no engine noise, no sound of oars hitting water as the huge vessel pulled away from the dock. As it had been on its voyage from the Black Sea, the dromon was being propelled by some unseen, unknown force.
The hold was eerily quiet. Nobody even coughed or sneezed. Tanis saw a man sitting next to a little boy with an identical mop of unruly dark curls. She remembered what Heather had told them about parents sacrificing their children to Moloch. This father wouldn’t be doing it to gain wealth and power. He probably wouldn’t even know he was doing it.
As she looked around at the other passengers/prisoners, she realized what she wasn’t seeing: weapons. The Descendants hadn’t told them to bring any because they weren’t expecting a fight. Tanis felt slightly encouraged.
