Get the hell out here! Move your ass! His inner voice shouted at him, but his body remained frozen in place, unable to obey the commands of his brain. How many times had he shouted at the figures on the screen, mocking the slasher flick victims for their inaction? Now that he was trapped in a horror film, he couldn’t move.
The killer loomed before him. A mountain of a man, inked muscle rippling in the eerie light of the movie screen. Now that he was up close, Pete realized the tats were alive, crawling across the man’s flesh.
The killer raised his gore-streaked machete.
And that’s when Pete spotted a second figure that had appeared behind the masked psycho killer. Where had this man come from? He definitely wasn’t a movie patron. For one thing, he was carrying a large, deadly looking sword. Haunted eyes in a bearded face stared back at him, the man’s long, lean physique wrapped in a brown trench coat.
Pete squeezed his eyes shut as the machete and sword both sped toward him.
4
Demon Slayer blocked the onrushing machete three inches before it would have hacked through the paralyzed moviegoer’s neck. The monster who had stepped out of the screen spun toward me with a guttural growl. In the dark theater, I couldn’t make out the eyes behind the grisly mask, but I liked to think they regarded me with stunned surprise. This creature wasn’t used to facing resistance.
Tapping into the inhuman strength of my demon hand, I brought up the sword, parried the machete, and catapulted the killer away from the cowering filmgoer.
“Get the hell out of here!” I shouted, my voice shattering the poor movie nerd’s paralysis. As the Spielberg Jr. exploded into motion, I turned my full attention to the killer before me. The monster’s bestial strength pushed back against me, the blood-caked machete vying for dominance over my sword.
Unfortunately for him, this wasn’t your average blade. The sword hummed with white magic, the etchings on its surface igniting with the power of the light. They didn’t call this bad boy Demon Slayer for nothing.
My lips twisted with fury and effort as I drove the sword at my enemy, pushing the machete out of the tattooed mountain’s hand. As the killer’s blade clattered on the floor, I lunged at my opponent, ready to strike him down.
The bastard darted backward with surprising speed, his agility belying his size. Then again, he wasn’t a mere man. What was he? Don’t ask me. Ghost, monster, demon—none of those terms fit this celluloid horror come to life. Luco had etched his spirit into the frames of the only existing print of his film and had become a unique nightmare. Until recently, this 35mm print had been safely locked away inside our vault.
The cursed film print wasn’t the first of our relics to pop up in the Cursed City. I had spent the last three weeks tracking down one magical object after another as the former contents of the vault surfaced in brutal ways, leaving a growing trail of bodies in their wake. And we had barely scratched the surface. Hundreds of terrible objects remained unaccounted for, and I had no doubt the cultists who’d robbed us were merely biding their time to unleash their horrors upon the city.
The Crimson Circle was just getting started.
I glanced at the corpses, some of them still sitting in their seats as if enjoying the film, rage simmering inside of me. I had arrived too late to prevent the loss of more innocent life. The Crimson Circle always seemed one step ahead of me, forcing me to play defense in their mad game of terror and destruction.
I had caught a lucky break a half an hour earlier. While checking the movie listings for a Friday night flick for Archer and me to enjoy—even monster hunters need to unwind—I’d come across this midnight screening. I usually hate horror movies, but as soon as I saw the title, I knew this was one show I better not miss.
The masked killer leaned over the row of seats and reached for the ax sticking from the corpse of a red-headed woman. The poor thing lay slumped back in her chair, terror-glazed eyes pointing at the ceiling. I prayed the end had come quickly, and she hadn’t suffered unnecessarily. If I had only reached the movie theater five minutes earlier, maybe I could have stopped this infernal creature before anyone got hurt.
With a wet slurp, the killer wrenched the ax out of the dead horror fan and pivoted toward me. Once again displaying superhuman speed and precision, he sprang.
I ducked, the blade soaring overhead. Blood speckled my beard.
I backed away from the massive ax, unwilling to test Demon Slayer against the monster’s heavy weapon just yet. The ax cut the air, slashing left and right, a relentless series of strikes that drove me down the aisle of the theater toward the giant movie screen.
Operating on pure instinct, I whipped out Hellseeker. Psycho Boy barreled toward me, intent on bulldozing me over before I could pull the trigger. I fired once before his three hundred pounds of sheer momentum slammed into me. Pain shot through every part of my body as I went flying. My cry echoed as I hit the floor. Snarling, I brought up my gun and emptied a full magazine into the horror icon before he could land the final blow with his machete.
The creature spun around under the onslaught of my bullets and collapsed like a felled tree. The killer’s weight crashed into the trash-strewn floor with the force of an exploding grenade, rattling the walls of the theater.
I sucked in a deep gulp of air, every bone creaking with agony as I forced myself back to my shaky feet. I warily peered down at the fallen behemoth and took a hesitant step toward my enemy. If I’d learned one thing from horror movies and my own nightmarish career as a monster hunter, it was this: never assume the bad guy was dead. The bastard might be down but not defeated. A killing blow from Demon Slayer would finish the creature off.
“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you. And since I am you, in a sense, I’d advise taking a step back.”
The warning tone of Cyon’s voice gave me pause. I hesitated, my blade raised.
“Behind you!”
Cyon’s warning came a moment too late.
I whirled just in time to see a second killer, wearing an even uglier mask than the first one, explode from the woods on the screen and into the reality of the theater. Before I could strike him down, the psycho’s massive paws grabbed me by my collar and hurled me with inhuman strength at the movie screen.
Shit! Another hallmark of a slasher pic—there was always a twist. In this case, the twist was a second killer.
I sailed through the air. Now, I’ve dealt with some strange things. I’ve battled witches with no faces, surfed on a flying coffin, and pulled a heist on the Devil himself. But what happened next? It was weird even by my standards.
Instead of smacking into the movie screen, I passed straight through it and landed on a foliage-covered forest floor.
No matter how many horrors I experienced, Hell always had a new trick in store for me.
I spun around. Trees ringed me. The theater had vanished. I was trapped in a celluloid reality, and I had no idea how to get back.
“Cyon, where are we? How is this possible?”
My grip tightened on Demon Slayer and Hellseeker, my eyes darting. A sibilant sound sent a shiver up my back. It emanated from the mist-enshrouded trees before me. The stylized horror landscape was something out of a nightmare. Blood Camp might have been a low-budget affair, but the producer had picked the right location to shoot this sucker.
Another sound rang out, and two huge figures peeled from the trees. The masked killer and his accomplice.
I took a step back, my roving gaze locking on the misty cabin about forty feet away. A man opened the cabin’s door and waved me over.
I hesitated. Could it be a trick, or was he trying to save me?
“Hurry!” the man shouted.
Trick or not, I didn’t want to just stand around while the killers hunted me. I sprinted toward the cabin. My legs cut through the underbrush at breakneck speed, and condensation coated my face. I tasted the fog. Nothing suggested that this environment wasn’t as real as the world outside the movie screen. What sor
t of black magic was I up against? And how the hell was I going to get back home?
With these questions cycling through my mind, I reached the cabin. Not a second too soon. The two killing machines had almost caught up with me, moving with the freakish grace and speed of linebackers. I stormed inside and hurled the wooden door shut behind me with all my strength. Without thinking, driven by sheer survival instinct, I snapped the latch.
A beat later, my crazed pursuers slammed into the door. Tremors rippled through the cramped cabin. The place reminded me of the Blackmore Witch’s lair. I had battled that wicked spell-slinger a few months back. But this time I wasn’t alone.
My eyes found the couple. They eyed me with a mixture of terror and hope. I could guess that I was the first living soul they’d seen in ages.
“You must help us,” the woman said.
“Luco’s been hunting and slaughtering us for years now. Can you get us out of here?” the man added.
The woman leaned forward as though she wanted to grasp the hem of my trench coat. “Please, you’re our only chance!”
These weren’t just characters in a b-movie, I realized. Somehow, Luco had trapped these unlucky souls inside his film. I swallowed hard, unwilling to tell them that I didn’t understand how I had entered this movie nightmare or how to end it. And that’s when I heard a rasping sound outside. The heavy banging had stopped.
My guard up, I approached one of the cabin’s dirty windows. I wiped the grime away and peered through the glass. What I saw beyond made me gasp. I was not looking at the forest landscape as expected. Instead, I faced the empty movie theater—the cabin’s window was a grimy doorway back into my reality.
A shadow moved in the darkened theater. When it stepped into the light, a familiar figure grew visible.
I saw the fear in Archer’s beautiful features. Not for herself, but for me. Despite the dire circumstances, hope flared in my chest.
As the pounding on the door redoubled, the couple traded resigned glances. I didn’t need to have seen the movie to know how this would play out. The killers were about to invade the cabin. Unless I did something to change the script, these people were going to die—again.
Outside the window, Archer unlatched the Witch Whip from her belt and lashed out at the cabin’s window. The whip made contact, and the window shattered. Glass showered the cabin just as the latch gave way under the heavy pounding. The door flew open, and the first masked killer stormed inside, his machete trailing scarlet.
To my great surprise, the hapless couple hurled themselves at the monster.
“Go! Destroy the print. It’s the only way to—”
Before the man could finish his sentence, the machete took his head off. The brutality of the act galvanized me into action. As the woman did her best to buy me a few more precious seconds, I dove for the window. Every instinct told me to stay and at least try to save her, but I knew my escape from this place was their best bet at salvation.
Besides, both of them had been dead for almost forty years. She wasn’t a real, flesh-and-blood person in need of rescue, but a tortured spirit trapped in an endless loop. It was up to me to set their souls free from this nightmare.
I cursed under my breath as I struggled through the cabin’s broken window frame. Archer had created a tear in the world of the movie with the help of her magical whip, but my gut told me this momentary gateway between the theater and the cabin wouldn’t last for long. I had to hurry.
The woman’s final scream of terror rocked the cabin, and heavy footsteps closed in from behind. Shards bit into my leg as I wiggled through a maw of jagged glass. I gritted my teeth and stifled a cry; a piece of glass digging into my flesh paled in comparison to the agony that the killer’s machete promised.
A second later, my surroundings warped as I slipped through the cabin’s window. One moment I was scrambling through the broken window, and the next I tumbled forward and landed on the sticky concrete floor of the theater.
I was back in the real world!
I hazarded a glance over my shoulder and saw the killer framed in the cabin’s shattered window. As I backed away, he pushed his body through the window, heedless of the glass. There was a moment of resistance as the membrane-like movie screen stretched around his muscular form like an amniotic sac. Then the screen gave way, and his head and upper body broke through the screen into our world.
Thankfully, this time I wouldn’t have to battle the killer on my own. Archer’s blessed whip cracked as it lashed out, drawing a streak of red over the psycho’s bulging pecs. Luco cried out in pain and recoiled, giving me enough time to slip a fresh magazine into my magical pistol. The bullets were ordinary ammo, but by feeding them into the blessed pistol, the magic transformed them into projectiles capable of inflicting damage against the servants of darkness.
Pretty cool, huh? There were a few perks to this monster-hunting gig.
Before, my bullets had hurt Luco but failed to stop him. I didn’t plan on wasting more ammunition. Instead, I turned toward the projector. I felt like I was staring into a miniature sun. I allowed the demon inside of me to guide my aim, ignoring both the hot breath of the killer behind me and Archer’s panicked expression, and squeezed the trigger.
Lead whistled through the air, and the projector’s lens shattered as the bullet found its target, guided by Cyon’s superhuman hand-eye coordination.
The light went out. The killer and his bloody machete vanished from the world, leaving Archer and me behind in a dark theater full of corpses.
This hadn’t been a victory. At best, it was a draw. Once again, the Crimson Circle had been two steps ahead of me. The movie patrons had paid the price this time. It was too late to help them, but I made a silent promise to the poor souls trapped inside that accursed movie: I’ll set you free.
The only question was how.
5
The vault’s steel door hissed open. The chamber seemed to have doubled in size since the Crimson Circle had raided it. Without the clutter of occult relics, the room appeared enormous. The dark, seductive whispers that normally greeted me when I set foot inside had given way to a dead silence.
Seeing the chamber like this filled me with an aching sadness. How my partner had fretted over the possibility that one single cursed object might find a way out into the world. Never in his wildest imagination could he have dreamt that the Crimson Circle would clear the entire vault in a single night.
It was pretty depressing when you thought about it. What was the point of all our efforts, all of our sacrifices? We were mere mortals up against powerful arcane forces, magic as old as time itself. How foolish was it of us to believe we could hope to defeat Hell’s legions?
Talk about a pipe dream.
Case in point, the cursed print of the Blood Camp movie. I had promised the trapped spirits I would destroy the film. After removing the seven film reels, each one eleven minutes long, from their metal canisters, I had placed them in the loft’s fireplace and doused them in lighter fluid. As I struck a match, I expected the cursed print to vanish from this world in a mass of melted celluloid. But the film remained untouched by the fire, which had rapidly died out. Destroying this soul trap wouldn’t be so easy—that probably explained why my father and Skulick hadn’t opted to torch it when they first acquired the cursed film.
As I placed the film on a shelf occupied by two other relics—an intricately adorned golden urn and a silver nail, the only other items I had retrieved since the breach—my heart sank. I couldn’t save the poor souls trapped in Blood Camp. All I could do was make sure the evil contained in those celluloid strips wouldn’t harm anyone else again.
“Don’t think about the dead. Consider the living you’re sparing from a similar fate. You can’t save everyone, Raven.”
On a logical level, I knew Cyon was right, but I felt like a complete fraud and a failure. Was I doomed to be the guy who tries to pick up the pieces after the fact? Three items secured—and a few hundred to go. I turned
away from the empty shelves and exited the vault, the heavy steel door rumbling shut behind me.
I sighed, and my body sagged. This wasn’t about the stolen relics. My somber mood ran deeper than that. The loss of my partner was eating away at me. Even during the weeks we had been estranged while the White Crescent hunted me, I had always known he was out there, a tireless force of good battling the darkness. As long as he monitored the globe for supernatural threats, I believed everything would be okay. Now his light and fire were gone, and the world seemed like a far emptier place.
My footsteps echoed as I descended the flight of stairs. By habit, my attention turned to Skulick’s command post. The computer monitors and TV screens were dark now, a painful reminder of my partner’s absence.
“It doesn’t feel the same without him,” a woman’s voice said behind me.
Pull yourself together, I thought. Don’t lose it in front of Archer! I didn’t have the heart to answer out loud, so I merely nodded, not looking at her.
The enemy was out there, gathering strength, gearing up for who knew what kind of horrific evil. I had to maintain my focus, keep up my guard, be at my best. There was no room for weakness in the war that lay ahead. The Crimson Circle was planning something big; I could feel it in my bones. With Skulick gone, only Archer and I stood in their way.
I turned toward the former detective. I hadn’t seen her since losing Skulick two weeks earlier. I had needed to be alone, to lick my wounds and deal with my loss. I had thought that taking her to the movies would be a nice, normal thing to do together, a respite from the non-stop danger and madness that was my life. That hadn’t exactly worked out the way I planned. But at least she’d agreed to come back with me to the loft. I didn’t want to be alone now.
“You did a bang-up job fixing up this place,” Archer said matter-of-factly.
I shrugged. “Thanks.”
Shadow Detective Supernatural Dark Urban Fantasy Series: Books 7-9 (Shadow Detective Boxset Book 3) Page 15
