Mark of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 1)

by Conner Kressley

  It was probably for the best though. His wife, his daughter, they didn’t know the truth about me. For all they knew, I was Andy’s slightly age inappropriate friend.

  If they saw me now; let’s just say, it wouldn’t be ‘slightly’ anymore.

  The place was a mess as I settled into the living room, tossing a duffle bag on the one spot on the floor that wasn’t covered in empty Mountain Dew cans and discarded Doritos bags.

  “Good to see you’re keeping my house in good shape,” I said, checking out the rest of the living room.

  I had bought this house something like forty-five years ago. There was a lull in the housing market, like there tends to be once every handful of decades or so.

  I gave it to Andy’s dad a couple of years after that, and it passed on to Andy after the old man died. The deed was still in my name (whatever name I was using at the time anyway), but I’d never take it from him.

  “Yeah, it’s harder than it looks with the wife out of town,” he answered, shuffling uncomfortably. “You wanna watch some TV or something? I hear the new season of House of Cards isn’t half bad.”

  “How long, Andy?” I asked, leaning against a nearby wall.

  “I think its thirteen episodes of something. We can probably finish it tonight, if we really lean into it.”

  “How long has she been gone?” I asked.

  “Julia?” He blinked. “A couple of weeks or so. I told you. Her mother’s been sick.”

  “You really want to play that with me?” I asked, leveling a more concerned look at him. “You don’t have to tell me, and I won’t pry if you don’t want me to. But, I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Uncle C,” Andy said, shaking his head and setting his jaw.

  “Fair enough,” I said, studying the look on his face. “I’m gonna go see if you’ve got something I can throw in the microwave. I’m as hungry as an ox.” I turned toward the kitchen.

  “Seven months,” he said from over my shoulder. I stopped short of the kitchen and turned back to him.

  “She said she didn’t feel a connection anymore,” he continued, sitting on the coach. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

  I moved toward him, pushing away old newspapers and sitting beside him on the sofa.

  “Hell if I know,” I said. “If I live twice as many more years as I’ve lived already, I still don’t think I’d be able to understand women.”

  Andy looked over at me. “How many years would that be exa-”

  “A crap ton of years, Andy,” I said, laughing out loud. “The thing is, no matter how long you live, things never get easier. People are really complicated — way too complicated to ever understand in the time we’re given. Well, in the time you’re given anyway. I don’t want to tell you what to do, and we both know I’m the last person in the world qualified to give anybody advice on women.”

  “You are not lying, Uncle C,” he answered, chuckling.

  “Shut up, you hapless loser. I’m trying to help you,” I said, elbowing him in the side. I looked over at him, “I remember your wedding.”

  “I don’t see how. You hid in the back until the reception, and then you got sloppy drunk.”

  “I didn’t say I remembered it well.”

  “You hooked up with three of the bridesmaids,” he said.

  “Only two of them,” I answered. “I only made out in the utility closet with the third one. The point is, I remember how happy the both of you were. Now, true enough, I haven’t been around much lately. But, if there’s any way that you guys can get back to even a piece of what I saw that day, then you should fight fo-”

  I felt a twitch in the air that cut into my words. The atmosphere was changing, charged with energy that wasn’t supposed to be there. It wasn’t coming from me. Marked or not, I didn’t have that capability. Neither did Andy. That could only mean that someone else was in the house. Someone very powerful.

  “Get out,” I said, standing quickly and looking around.

  “What?” Andy asked, standing to meet me. “It’s my house. What are you tal-”

  “There’s somebody in here, Andy. Get out now!”

  Andy reached for the pistol at his hip and I felt even more energy crackle through the air.

  “That’s not going to help,” I said. “You said my painting was locked the basement, right?”

  Andy nodded.

  “Go out to the car and drive a couple of miles away. Wait ten minutes and circle back.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he answered.

  “What do you think is going to happen? Somebody’s going to get really frustrated trying to kill me.”

  “I told you, there are things worse than death,” he said, and cocked his pistol.

  “Yes, like what your father would think of me if I let something happen to you. He asked me with his last breath to make sure your stupid ass didn’t get yourself killed. I’m not going to break that promise just because you grew up and stuck a badge on your chest. Now, do what I told you to do!”

  Andy glared at me with his brows furrowed. But he was a good kid, always had been. So he nodded at me and turned toward the door.

  “Get hurt again and I’m putting you in a home,” he said from over his shoulder.

  “Sounds good,” I answered.

  Andy opened the door, gave me one more look, and turned to leave.

  Blue energy, like visible wind, swirled at the exit, pushing Andy back hard. He was flung into the air and crashed against the sofa, knocking it over and sending week old newspaper scattering in the air.

  “Damnit! I was afraid of that,” I muttered, moving over to Andy and helping him to his feet.

  “You thought there was a possibility of that and still let me do it?” he asked. He stumbled a little as I got him upright, but that was to be expected. That much magic slamming into you was bound to leave you more than a little dizzy. I was just glad it didn’t singe his eyebrows off. Would have been like Amsterdam all over again.

  “What was that?” he asked, finally finding his footing.

  “A barrier,” I said. “Somebody’s trying to keep us in here. We probably hit some magical tripwire the instant we came in here.”

  “Somebody’s trying to lock us in here?” Andy asked. “What for?”

  “Because we’re not alone,” I answered, looking around and trying to pinpoint the source of the atmospheric disturbance I was still feeling. “We’re locked in here with something.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Andy answered. He had lost his pistol when he went winding into the air. So, he started looking for it.

  “A gun’s not going to help,” I said.

  “A gun’s all I got,” he answered. “And, while I’m not sure what we’re locked in here with, I’m sure a couple of bullet holes won’t do it any favors.” Finding it, he scooped it up.

  He was right. I had no idea what we were in here with, and what was more, I had no idea who was responsible for the magical padlock.

  I wouldn’t know one without the other, and there was only one way for me to get to the bottom of it.

  “Stand back, okay?” I said, motioning for Andy to move against the wall.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, but moved back anyway.

  See, good kid.

  “I’m figuring out who the hell trapped us in here. Once I do that, I can guess what we’re in here with, and — this is the important part — how to stop it.”

  I walked toward the door, toward the swirling energy keeping us in here.

  “You’re just going to walk up into it?” Andy asked. “You’ve got stitches.”

  “Don’t be a pansy. I just need to get a flavor for it,” I said, settling in front of the door. “And, maybe don’t advertise my soft spots so loud okay. Might as well hand my enemies a list of weaknesses.”

  I inched forward. I could feel cold coming off of it, and not chilly cold. This was hardcore snowstorm cold. It was fro
stbite cold.

  I took a deep breath and reached toward it. My body shivered as my hand dipped into the magic.

  There was more to it than the cold though. There was history. There was family. There was the cumulative work of generations all wrapped up in here. There was faith in this.

  And then it took me.

  My body went ridged as the magic filled it. Was this what Andy had just been though?

  No wonder he was being a pansy.

  I tried to breath, but the air was too cold, and as it knocked me back as well, it lit a fire of ice in my heart.

  I slammed against the wall, inches from where Andy was standing and slid to the floor.

  “Not fun, is it?” he asked, his gun at the ready.

  I took slow, shallow breaths until I evened back out. Opening my eyes, I reached down toward my gut. Thankfully, my stitches had held up somehow.

  “Mountain magic,” I said, getting to my feet quicker than Andy. I had been through this sort of thing before. So, the dizziness was both something I was expecting and something I could combat.

  “What?” he asked, walking toward me.

  “Appalachian mystics, I’ve dealt with them before. They don’t like me.”

  “You don’t say,” Andy answered, rolling his eyes. “What does that mean? How do we get out of here?”

  “Appalachian mystics usually live by a code, blood for blood. They must have heard that I had been in a hospital and figured now was the best time to strike. Get their revenge while I was weakened.”

  “Revenge?” Andy asked. “Why would people in the Appalachian Mountains want revenge on you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I answered.

  “Shorten it,” he said.

  “I took a liking to the wife of one of the clan leaders,” I shrugged. “And she took a liking to me too.”

  “Damnit, Uncle C!”

  “When the guy found out what I was doing with his woman, he challenged me to a duel. I was surrounded, so I had to do it.”

  “So why not let him win?” Andy asked. “It’s not like he could have killed you.”

  “Because he wasn’t trying to kill me,” I answered, thinking back to that cold mountain town. “The loser got his dick cut off.”

  “Oh…” Andy answered.

  “Yeah, so obviously, I had to fight back. I didn’t kill him though. I swore I would never do that again. But, when it became clear that he had lost, he offed himself. Something about failing his clan and breaking his code.”

  “Okay. What does that have to do with right now?” Andy asked.

  A loud boom sounded from upstairs, followed by another.

  “What in God’s name is that?” he asked, pointing the pistol toward the staircase.

  “The thing is, it turns out that — when you’re responsible for the death of a clan leader — you incur the wrath of the mountain mystics champion.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter if you meant it or not. I’ve been outrunning that thing for decades now. It just never gives up.”

  “Thing?” Andy asked as another boom, a closer one, sounded from upstairs. “What’s their champion?”

  “Well…” I started.

  “Uncle C!” Andy yelled. “What is it? What’s their champion?”

  “You ever heard of Bigfoot?”

  7

  The boom sounded again, and this time it shook the entire house. Lamps ratted on countertops, pictures fell of the walls — their frames shattering into shards of glass, empty Mountain Dew bottles sprang up from the floor as if dancing at the sound.

  And Andy, he tried his best to say cool.

  He had been through some stuff in his day. Not the sort of stuff that his father and I had gone through. We had worked really hard to keep that from him. Still, knowing me came with an inescapable amount of danger. That was why I hadn’t seen him in ten years. He had a family now, and I didn’t want him, or them, to become collateral damage.

  So much for that plan.

  “Tell me you’re joking,” he said, looking around at the rattling stuff and putting two hands on his pistol. “There’s no such thing as Bigfoot.”

  “I’m joking,” I answered. “There’s no such thing as Bigfoot.”

  Another loud boom sounded from upstairs. This one nearly knocked us off our feet.

  “Really?” he asked, looking at me hopefully.

  “No, not really,” I said, glancing around the room, looking for something — anything — that might help us. “Why would I make that up? There definitely is a Bigfoot, and he will definitely be here in about ten-seconds.”

  “Jesus,” Andy muttered. He took one hand off the pistol and reached for his phone.

  “That’s not going to wo-”

  Sparks flew from the device, knocking it out of his hand.

  “Damnit, that was on a pay as you go plan,” he said, looking over at me.

  “The barrier stops all incoming and outgoing forms of communications, all the way down to screams for help,” I answered, though my voice probably wasn’t as panicked as Andy would have deemed appropriate. I couldn’t help it. This was going to happen, and flailing around like a chicken with its head cut off wasn’t going to help anything.

  I needed a plan, and given how close the booms were to the mouth of the staircase, I was out of time.

  “The neighbors won’t even hear,” Andy said, realizing what that meant. “No one is coming.”

  “We don’t need anyone,” I said, planting myself at the bottom of the staircase and looking up.

  “Easy for you to say, Uncle C. Some of us aren’t immortal, you know,” he muttered.

  “Most of you, yeah,” I answered. “That’s gotta be inconvenient in times like this. Now give me your gun and get down to the basement.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Andy said.

  The boom sounded again, and this time I could hear raged breaths alongside it.

  Damn. It was here.

  “I’m not asking you to,” I answered. “You said my painting was down in the basement. Give me your gun and bring it to me along with a brush.”

  “A brush?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask questions, Andy. Not unless you want that thing to turn your ass inside out.”

  Another loud boom sounded at the top of the stairs, and the monster came into view.

  The image that Bigfoot has taken in popular culture over the last century is pretty much accurate. Of course, as with all stories, it changed a little in the telling.

  The actual Bigfoot is less humanoid than faux documentaries and ‘first hand accounts’ would lead you to believe.

  To start, he doesn’t stand on two feet, at least not unaided. Like many apes, Bigfoot uses balled fists to help get around, slapping them against the ground as he moves back and forth.

  Looking at him now, slobber running down from an open mouth that revealed large hooked teeth, the source of the booms became clear.

  His fur was thick and dark, and his eyes trained onto me instantly. The mountain magic directed him always. That was what people at large didn’t understand, the ones who believed in him anyway. They assumed Bigfoot was just an animal; a big ass animal, but an animal nonetheless. They figured his movements and motivations were the same as an animal. Hunt, mate, hunt, mate — and the like.

  But the truth was, Bigfoot was a slave to the whims of those who controlled him. As their champion, he was basically the Appalachian witches’ big furry bitch.

  He did what they asked, what they commanded. And, for the last handful of decades at least, what they commanded was to rip me in half like a rag doll.

  “Uncle C…” Andy said, staring up at the monster above us.

  I grabbed the gun from his hand.

  “I said get your ass to the basement and get me that painting,” I answered without taking my eyes off the beast. “Now!”

  The second the words left my mouth, not only did Andy dart for the basement door, but Bigfoot sprang into action.

  He
leapt toward me, bouncing up off his legs and flying forward with bulky arms in the air and teeth bared.

  I dove to the side, barely making it out of the way before his fists plowed into the floor, knocking up hardwood and sending debris flying everywhere.

  I caught sight of Andy at the door to the basement. He hesitated just a beat, meeting my gaze, but then nodded and rushed toward the basement.

  I spun, jumping to my feet just as Bigfoot turned to me.

  He grunted at me, recognizing the task he had at hand, the same task he had been trying to accomplish for decades now.

  “Good to see you again, Magilla,” I said, lifting the gun and emptying an entire clip at the big ape.

  Just as I had told Andy, it barely slowed him down, as Bigfoot growled and tore through the house toward me.

  It sucked being right.

  He threw a large arm to the right, knocking the couch into the air. His huge feet trampled over the coffee table and recliner.

  Barrier or not, this place wasn’t going to stand.

  And that gave me an idea.

  I ran toward the staircase, noticing the beams that ran across it on the ceiling.

  The monster was right on me as I ascended. He grabbed at my foot, and though I was able to pull it away, it still caused me to stumble forward, falling face first onto the staircase.

  I spun around, firing shots up toward the beast as it hulked over me.

  My bullets missed left of his head.

  Though, that was the point.

  Spotting the loosest of the beams overhead, I shot into it three times, knocking it loose.

  It fell fast and heavy, striking Bigfoot across the back.

  He stumbled forward, and I was afraid he was going to crush me as he fell.

  I managed to squeeze out between his legs though.

  It only stopped him for a second though, as he grabbed at the huge beam and flung it off of himself, right toward me.

  I jumped out of the way, though not nearly quickly enough. The end of the beam clipped my foot, knocking me sideways and sending a shot of pain all the way up my right leg.

  “Damnit!” I yelled, grabbing at my foot.

  The monster was on me again, slamming balled fists into what was left of the hardwood and grunting as he neared me.