by Peter Nealen
Unfortunately, there were really only two options. We could venture out into the house and draw the hag into a fight, and hopefully kill it, or we could hold here, while it toyed with us, and hope we could kill it before it picked us off. I found I was increasingly uneasy about the possibility of one of the kids waking up, too. Who knows how screwed up they'd be in the head after whatever spell the hag had put over them?
With a grimace, I accepted that there wasn't much choice. I wasn't leaving Eryn alone, and she was right; while they might turn out to be a handful that we couldn't afford if they woke up, we couldn't allow for the possibility that the hag, hurt by the steel jacket of my bullet, wouldn't come and eat another one while we were gone, to replenish its strength. So, we stayed put and waited.
It occurred to me, as we sat there in that strangely altered room with three comatose teenagers and the bones of their friend, that we might actually be able to wait this out. Hags don't usually move around during daylight, unless they're in a particularly friendly spot, usually someplace already shadowy and haunted. If we could last until daylight, we could get the kids out, then tear down the house until we found the creature's nest and burn it out. When I checked my watch, though, that hope was pretty well dashed. It was only one in the morning; there was no way that thing was going to keep its distance for another five hours.
Now, hags may be flesh-eating monsters, but that doesn't mean they are dumb or simple-minded. I wasn't expecting that thing to come at us the same way twice, and I was right.
It started quietly. It was barely audible, but slowly, we started to be able to hear a soft, eerie, keening sort of singing. It was somewhere between a lullaby and the soundtrack from a horror movie. Eryn's head came up as she heard it, a curious expression on her face.
“Don't listen,” I told her. “Try to block it out.”
She looked over at me. “It's a spell, isn't it? One of those things that gets in your head?” she asked.
I nodded, still watching the door and the bigger cracks in the walls. “For some people, it just makes them sleepy. I've heard of other cases where they gave in to despair and just sat down and waited for the hag to come suck the meat off their bones. It's powerful stuff.” I looked at the unconscious kids. “It's probably going to be even longer before they wake up, now.” Which was bad for them, but probably would help us in the short run. We wouldn't have to worry about hysterical or possibly psychotic victims behind us while the hag tried to eat us from the other direction.
The song got slightly louder, more intrusive. It was taking more concentration to block it out. Either the hag was pushing harder, or it was getting closer. Either case was probably going to be bad news. My eyes were starting to itch, and a prickling sensation was starting to build up in my ears.
“All right, knock it off,” I yelled, my voice reverberating strangely in the barren rooms. “Come get some if you're so anxious. Otherwise go back into the hole you crawled out of.”
I was hoping to hack it off. People can get sloppy when they get mad, but for some reason, the irrationality of rage gets magnified to ridiculous levels with creatures of the Otherworld. They are extremely prideful beings, and there's little that can push an Otherworldly predator over the edge like getting mocked by its prey.
The hag wasn't biting, though, not yet. The song just got louder, though it sounded kind of...staticky. Eryn looked over at me. “The sound's changed.”
“Yeah. It's just going to get more dangerous,” I said. “Keep trying to ignore it. If it gets to either of us, we've probably had it.”
Eryn then started countering the insidious assault in a way I probably would never have thought of. She started to sing the Salve Regina. I never would have thought of it mainly because I can't sing. Even when I try, it comes out as a tuneless croak. I decided not to risk disrupting the effect of the hymn by adding my grunting to her clear tones, so I just mouthed along with the words and kept my eye and my muzzle on the door.
It had the desired effect. The eerie lullaby cut off with a screech, and then the hag was coming through another crack in the plaster and crawling along the ceiling, shrieking its hate, trying to drown out the words Eryn was singing.
The twin reports of rifle and shotgun did drown out the hymn, as well as the hag's malicious screaming. Flames popped where steel shot and steel-jacketed 300-grain bullets smacked into it. It dropped off the ceiling with an agonized howl of hate and pain, and hit the floor like a sack of bricks. We kept shooting it as fast as we could pump or lever rounds into our respective weapons' chambers, until both tubes were empty.
Fire licked from the thing's wounds, and the hag's corpse rapidly began to smoke and crumble. By the time both of our guns were empty and we were frantically shoving rounds through loading ports, it had been reduced to a pile of ash and crumbling bones, sagging under the weight of old, mouldering rags. One eye remained in its dessicated face, glaring hate at us until I walked over and stomped on the disintegrating skull. It turned to dust under my boot.
Eryn jacked a round into her shotgun's chamber as she looked down at the pathetic remains. “That wasn't so bad,” she said. “I thought you said these things were tough.”
I gave her an irritated look, just in time to see the little smile on her face. She was teasing me. Again. “If it had gotten close enough, it would have been. And it took an awful lot of buckshot and bullets before it went down,” I pointed out.
“I know,” she said soothingly. “If it had surprised us, we would have really been in trouble.” She didn't mention that if she hadn't gotten under its skin with the hymn, it probably would have been a lot tougher fight, either. I was about to say something about that when one of the kids stirred. She turned her back on the hag's remains and went to check on them.
None of them were actually conscious, but they were starting to come out of it. At least, that was what I took away from the fearful, incoherent mumblings that some of them were making. They weren't comatose anymore, anyhow.
Something caught my eye as one of them stirred, and a piece of paper fell on the floor. I bent to pick it up, leaning my rifle against the wall and shining my flashlight on it. Then I grimaced and reached for my lighter. Written on the paper in a circle was a name, one I won't repeat. The hag had showed up because these idiots had invoked it.
Eryn looked up as I flicked my lighter and set the corner of the paper on fire. “The same little 'challenge' that's been going around social media for the last month?” she asked.
I nodded, holding the paper until the flames almost reached my thumb and forefinger before dropping it and crushing out the fire with my boot. “Just harmless playing around, right?” I shook my head in disgust. “We'll have to track down whoever started it. Bad medicine.”
“We will,” Eryn said. “But right now we have to make sure these kids are all right. Hunting down malicious occultists and administering divine retribution can come later.”
She was right. I could already see the flickering blue and red lights outside, flashing on the walls. The cops had showed up, thanks to the gunfire. There were times where I would have gone out the back at that point, but with the kids probably needing medical care, and a missing person involved—it would take time to determine that the bleached bones on the floor belonged to one of the kids who had gone in there that night—we needed to cooperate. After all, we had just rescued the kids, and the only remains of what we'd been shooting at was a pile of dust and ashes on the floor. They'd come up with some kind of explanation, and we'd go on our way. I hoped.
Chapter 2
Gravel crunched under my truck's tires as we rolled up Ray's long driveway in the dying light of the next day. Eryn was half asleep in the passenger seat, her head lolling against the window. It had been a long day.
There had been a lot of questions from the Forth Police Department. A lot. And no surprise, really. They had a missing kid, a pile of bleached human bones, a weirder pile of ash and greasy rags, three very traumatized teenage
rs, reports of a lot of gunfire, and two people from out of town, with guns, who weren't terribly forthcoming as to what they were doing there with the kids or what they'd been shooting at. Any cop worth his or her salt would be inclined to throw everybody in jail until they had answers.
Fortunately, we were saved a lot of time and heartburn by a curious side-effect of the hag's spell. While the kids had appeared comatose, they had in fact been completely aware of their surroundings the entire time. Hags are cruel creatures.
The end result was three kids with a wild but extremely consistent story insisting to the cops that we weren't the bad guys, but were in fact heroes who had saved them from the monster that had eaten their friend. In the end, the investigating detective had signed off on a report that said the kids had been grabbed by a serial killer, we'd heard something and investigated, and driven the killer off with rifle and shotgun fire. I bit back my indignation at the idea that I wouldn't have hit and killed a normal human serial killer with a rifle at bad-breath distance and let it go. My professional pride in my marksmanship could take a back seat. We'd done what we'd gone there to do, and didn't have to spend any time in the clink afterward.
Most people don't want to know that the Otherworld exists. They'll come up with all sorts of rationalizations to avoid confronting the reality that there really are dark, malicious things lurking just out of sight that would freeze your breath and suck the marrow from your bones. The detective, whom I am sure would be the soul of bravery and steely-eyed professionalism facing a regular human criminal, simply couldn't—and in fact didn't want to—wrap her mind around the idea of a hag summoned from its lair by a mystical name, able to sing people into a paralyzed fugue in order to eat them, vulnerable to cold iron and prayer.
Ray's ranch house loomed out of the growing shadows. It was a solid, single-story log building, with golden firelight starting to glimmer through the windows. Ray preferred fire and candlelight to electric lights, a choice that I found I rather liked. Magnus, Ray's enormous dog, was sitting up on the porch as I pulled the truck up and parked it, waiting and watching.
Eryn woke up and looked around as I killed the engine. “Wow,” she said sleepily, “we're here already?” She stretched and opened the door, walking over to the porch. Magnus padded over, his tail wagging, for his petting, which Eryn dutifully gave him. I scratched him behind the ears as I stepped up on the porch, as always feeling a little strange about it. I'd seen enough of Magnus over the years to suspect that there was something odd about him. He was something more than just some massive mix of mastiff and mountain dog, I was sure. I just didn't know what, and Ray wasn't the most talkative at the best of times.
Ray was standing in the doorway, as mountainously huge as always, his beard almost long enough to tuck into his belt, had he worn one instead of his omnipresent overalls. He was showing a little more gray in it than he had been when I'd first met him, back when Dan Weatherby had brought his wet-behind-the-ears new protégé by to get some guidance. I'd covered some mileage since then, but Ray had stayed where he was, as immovable as the granite cliffs that loomed behind the ranch.
“Gettin' late,” Ray commented, squinting at the sky, which was shading from blue to black. “Still got dinner warm, though.”
Eryn and I were semi-permanent residents of one of Ray's many guest rooms. Ever since he'd retired as an active Witch Hunter, Ray's ranch had been a way-station for members of the Order of the Silver Cross. Since Eryn and I had gotten married, Ray had insisted that we move in, arguing that we couldn't just live in the back of my truck indefinitely. The beginnings of a cabin were taking shape across the meadow, where Ray and I were building a more permanent home for the two of us. I owned the acre; Ray would have just given it to us, but I'd insisted on paying for it. He had flat-out refused to take more than a hundred bucks, so I had an acre of land, bordering on the timber, for a hundred dollars. Since nobody in the Order is exactly rich—in fact, we tend to be pretty poor—we were building the cabin the old-fashioned way, largely with axes and local timber. It wouldn't be fancy, but it would be home.
Ray had also taken a hand in getting Eryn trained up. The Order is small enough, and poor enough, that we don't have a dedicated training course, never mind training facilities. So he and I taught her everything we could, from lore, to spiritual matters, to tactics, to shooting. Not that she'd needed much in the way of shooting instruction; she'd been a good shot when I'd first met her. She'd also had a fairly solid spiritual foundation, though the work required more than most lay people ever get.
While we were looking forward to getting our own cabin finished, there was a certain homeyness to Ray's place; there always had been. The solid, hewn-log walls, stone floor, big fireplace, and sturdy, hand-made furniture tended to make me never want to leave. The fact that Ray had enough books crammed on the shelves that lined a good deal of the living room to take five years to read through didn't help the inertia I started to experience every time I sat down there. It was a quiet, warm, peaceful place. Mostly. I hadn't forgotten that there were some oddities around the ranch, the Fae girl prowling the woods a half mile away not the least of them.
Eryn followed me inside after giving Ray a hug, and set her pack down next to mine. We never traveled especially heavy; neither of us actually had all that much stuff in the first place. The kitchen and living room were filled with the smell of fresh bread, potatoes, and grilled venison. Ray tended to cook in the fireplace more than on the stove; and it looked like that night was no exception; our plates were sitting on the hearth, close enough to the fire to keep them warm.
Ray joined us at the table, though he just sipped on a bottle of beer while we ate. Both of us discovered we were starving, and tucked in heartily. Ray just sat back and watched, silently. That was a bit of a warning sign.
Usually, Ray would ask about the job, or just make small talk, catching up on news he'd heard or that we might have picked up. But that night, he wasn't saying a thing. I eyed him as I ate. He had something to discuss, but Ray was always extremely conscientious about not broaching business at the dinner table. Whatever it was, it must have really been bothering him, because he wasn't even talking about the weather.
I knew that even if I asked, he still wouldn't say anything while we were eating, so I finished quickly—not exactly a difficult task, as hungry as I was—and then sat back, folded my arms, and looked across the table at him. “All right, Ray, spill it,” I said. “You look like you've been worrying at a sore tooth.”
He pursed his lips behind his beard, then fished in the pocket of his overalls and came out with an envelope. He passed it to me without a word. Frowning, I took it and turned it over in my hands.
It was addressed to me. There was no return address. Instead, the envelope just bore the name “Blake Turner.”
I'd first gotten to know Blake Turner as Gunnery Sergeant Turner. He'd been my platoon sergeant many years ago in Iraq, when half our platoon had been wiped out by an ifrit in a horrifying night of blood and fire near the Syrian border. It had been our introduction to the Otherworld, though neither of us had known it at the time.
Like me, after getting out of the Marine Corps, Blake had joined the Order. His introduction had been a bit more amicable than mine; he'd found the Order, whereas the Order had found me, in the wake of a series of gruesome murders of paranormal investigators that I'd been friends with.
Blake's name on the envelope also explained some of Ray's reticence. “When did this come?” I asked, as I tore the envelope open. There was a single page inside.
“Yesterday,” he replied. He wasn't any more forthcoming than that.
I unfolded the letter as Eryn scooted her chair around to get a look at it. It was short and to the point. More interestingly, it was hand-written, in a hasty scrawl that looked like he'd been in a hell of a hurry when he'd written it.
Jed,
I need your help, brother. Come to Coldwell as fast as you can. Things are going bad. If I'm not here
, find Chrystal Meek. She should know how to find me. I don't know how long I'll be able to wait for you. Come quick!
Blake
I flipped the page over to see if there was anything more, but it was blank. “Really, Blake?” I muttered. “That's it?”
“What's he gotten himself into this time?” Ray rumbled from the other side of the table.
“I don't know,” I admitted, still staring at the letter. “This is singularly uninformative.”
Ray just grunted and took another sip of his beer, as if he was completely unsurprised. “Isn't that the way things 'ought' to be done?” he asked sarcastically. “Jump to now, ask questions later?”
I shook my head. “This isn't like Blake. He should have included more information.”
“When I met him, he seemed all too confident that his Marine experience was going to directly translate into this line of work,” Ray said sourly. “Didn't want to hear otherwise. He probably figures that since you served together, you'll drop everything and jump when he says, and he can fill you in when you get there.”
I handed the letter across to him. “It's not that simple,” I said. “I know Blake's handwriting. That looks...panicky.” That had me shook up more than anything else. Blake was never panicky.
Ray took the letter and studied it. His features clouded further. “Coldwell?” He looked up at us, something close to worry in his eyes. “That ain't good.”
Eryn looked back and forth between us. “I've never heard of it,” she said.
“I haven't either,” I admitted. “What's the story?”
He sat back in his chair. As solidly built as it was, it still creaked under his weight. “Nobody really knows for sure,” he said. “There hasn't been anything that anyone of the Order has been able to put their finger on. If there have been rituals or anything like what happened in Silverton, say, or Bergenworth, they haven't ever been recorded. There's just something off about the place. I was there a number of years back, and while I was just passing through, that town made my hackles go up.”
