The Darkest Gateway

by Jeri Westerson

  “Ruth!”

  She made a conciliatory gesture and settled down. “I didn’t know if I could trust any of you. Especially Miss Strange. There she was, creeping around my house looking into my personal files, stealing my necklace.” She touched it over her sweater. “Telling all and sundry that we were related. But until she told me about her grandfather, Robert Strange, I hadn’t remembered he existed. That must have been one powerful forget-me spell.”

  “You know about that?” asked Seraphina.

  Ruth spared her a glance. “There have been some very odd things going on. Before I knew who she was, I didn’t know if she was the cause of it.”

  “Well,” said Doc, “technically, she was. With the Booke of the Hidden.”

  Ruth’s eyes roved over the shelves and up to the rafters. “It was in this house, wasn’t it? I always suspected it but was afraid to investigate. After all, I always assumed I would be the Chosen Host. But a lot of things have fallen into place in the last few weeks.”

  “You mean you’ve known all this time?”

  “Yes. I discussed it at length with Robert Strange.” She shook her head. “That man. He made me waste a lot of time. If I had only known who she was from the start…well. Where is she? It’s time we talk.”

  Jeff kept his eyes on Doc. No one spoke a word. Doc gestured for Ruth to follow him as he shuffled toward the kitchen. The coven and the Ordo gathered around Kylie’s kitchen table, where Doc eased himself into a chair. “I think I’ve aged ten years in the last few days alone. Sit down, Ruth. You need to hear this, since you’re the last living relative of the Howlands…and the Stranges.”

  Ruth swept her scabbard out of the way and lowered to a chair, her back as straight as a rod. “What do you mean the last living relative?”

  “Kylie was a very accepting and unique young lady. The short of it is, she fell in love with Erasmus, the demon of the book.”

  “She what?”

  “I know this is mighty unusual…”

  “That’s saying something.”

  “But she felt it was her responsibility to halt the book for good. She didn’t want anyone else saddled with these perils. And she discovered that the only creature capable of destroying the book was…Satan himself. So she was planning on journeying to the Netherworld and asking him to release the demon and destroy the book.”

  Ruth shook her head in disbelief. “But that’s impossible. The only way to do that was to bargain with your… Oh no.”

  “We were all trying to figure out a way around that. Well, Erasmus—that is, the demon—did figure out a way. You see, he was just as in love with her as she was with him. He found a spell to make him human, so that he could bargain in her place.”

  “With a new soul.” She placed her hand over her mouth. “And what happened?”

  Doc raised his eyes to Jeff. “Well…we just don’t know. The book is still active and…we just don’t know.”

  “So it’s possible that I will become Chosen Host…if I’m not already.”

  “No,” said Jolene sternly. “I believe in Kylie. She’ll figure out a way. Shabiri, the other demon, took her to the Netherworld.”

  “There’s another demon?”

  “The Ordo,” said Doc, gesturing to Charise and an abashed Bob. “They had their own agenda, but…they’re on our side now, seeing that Baphomet destroyed half of Hansen Mills because of them. They, uh, were the ones who summoned him in the first place.”

  Ruth sank her forehead to her hand. “So wait a minute,” she said, raising her eyes to Bob and Charise. “You were a black coven?”

  “One of their own was killed by Baphomet, so no,” said Doc, “not anymore.”

  “Isn’t Sheriff Bradbury’s brother your leader…”

  “Yeah?” said Bob. “So what? We changed sides. Is that so hard to understand? And who are you, lady? Someone with a lot of money helped us summon Shabiri and Baphomet. Maybe it was you.”

  “What are you talking about? The last thing I’d want is a god on the loose and for someone to summon demons.”

  “And yet here you are with some sob story about how you were supposed to be the Chosen whatsit. I think you’re full of it,” accused Bob.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Ruth. “I don’t understand. I never summoned anything. And I killed the lindworm. It was going back to the book. Doesn’t that make me the new Chosen Host?”

  “We don’t know that it was going back to the book,” said Nick, still holding the ginger jar.

  “But we do!” said Jolene, growing excited. “Don’t you see? The book is still active. That means she’s got to be alive! And Mrs. Russell, you can’t be Chosen Host unless you open the book too.”

  “You all seem to know a great deal about it,” said Ruth.

  “She may not be a Wiccan,” said Nick, “but Kylie’s part of our coven just the same. We’ve been helping.”

  “She’s made it a month? Alive?” Ruth shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she’s survived this long.”

  “It’s the coven,” said Doc proudly. “She might just be the first one who has ever had help.”

  “And she’s bound and determined to be the last one,” said Seraphina, a tear glistening on her lashes.

  Ruth heaved a deep sigh. “I see. An entire drama was being played out and I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “It’s your own fault, Ruth,” said Doc. “If I’d only known, I would have invited you into the coven. And what in tarnation did you need to hide it for? Jeezum rice, Ruth. You and Gene have known me all your life!”

  “I saw how the rest of the town treated you when you quit the church. I…have a place to uphold here.”

  Jeff stepped forward. “You could have helped. You could have told Kylie what she needed to know. Instead, you worried about your status in this little shit town? Who gives a fuck about that?”

  “I do, Mr. Chase. I have to live here. My family has lived here since the founding of Moody Bog. You might say I am Moody Bog.”

  “Nobody cares about that shit!”

  “Language, Jeff,” Doc admonished. “Maybe where you come from it isn’t as important, but folks put great stock in claims of heritage around here. It’s a status symbol, yes, but it’s also a point of pride. Folks from away don’t quite understand it.”

  “You’re damned right I don’t. I mean.” Jeff pushed his hair off his forehead. “Just what did she think was happening here?”

  “Oh, I suspected,” said Ruth. “But it made no sense to me. Because I always thought it was going to be me. I didn’t remember about Kylie’s family, if you recall. I’ve been training a long time. I had no intention of being caught off guard.”

  Everyone fell silent. Jeff made an exasperated noise and retreated into the shadowed corner again. No one spoke for quite some time until Ruth finally said, “What are we going to do about Baphomet?”

  “You didn’t seem surprised to see him,” said Nick. “We saw you at the town hall meeting. Maybe you did send money and instructions to the Ordo.”

  “Oh, I was surprised. I just didn’t know whom to blame.”

  Nick shifted the ginger jar to his other arm, until Jolene carefully extracted it from him and put it quietly in the buffet cupboard. “I don’t think we can trust her,” said Nick.

  Ruth sat for a moment before she raised her left arm and pushed back her sleeve. She bore an identical tattoo to the one Kylie had just gotten.

  “That only proves you want protection,” Nick snarled.

  “The fact that I know about it and the demon of the book should mean something.”

  “The fact that you know only means you could have killed Dan Parker in that ritual.”

  “So it comes back to that. Kylie accused me of the same thing. It wasn’t me.”

  “Prove it.”

  Ruth laid her hand on her sword hilt. Jeff wondered if it was an unconscious gesture…or a threatening one. His neck hairs rose. “What about the Ordo?” she said.
“They’re the ones summoning demons and gods.”

  “We didn’t have nothing to do with Dan Parker!” cried Bob.

  “It wasn’t them,” said Nick sternly. “I’ll ask again. Prove it wasn’t you.”

  Doc raised his hands wearily. “Now settle down there, Nick. We—”

  A siren wailed outside, seeming to pull up in front of the shop. Everyone scrambled from their seats and into the main shop to see Ed and Deputy George get out of their Interceptor. Doug came trotting up, too, flamethrower still strapped to his back.

  “Somebody said they saw a dragon over here,” said Doug, shrugging the pack from his back.

  Ed glanced at him and then at the coven. “That’s what I heard and we came— Ruth Russell?” His eyes traveled over her. “With a sword?”

  “We’ve got to catch you up, Sheriff Bradbury,” she said.

  “Wait a minute.” Doug stomped over to her. His gauze eye patch was making him look particularly piratey. “This is the old lady we’ve been looking for? She’s the one summoning assassins and shit?”

  “Look who’s talking,” said Nick.

  Doug looked pretty intimidating, towering over Ruth, though she looked a little less little old lady-ish in her trooper outfit. Doug reached out to…well, Jeff didn’t know what he’d planned. But Ruth moved quick, and before even Ed could shout, she had twisted his arm and had him kneeling on the floor, arm shoved up high against his back.

  “It’s not nice to point,” she said.

  “Let him go,” said Ed, hand resting noticeably on his gun.

  She did and stepped back, even helping him up.

  He rolled his shoulder and rubbed his wrist. “That’s a good grip you got there, granny.”

  Her familiar sneer was back. “Don’t call me granny.”

  He put his hands up in surrender. “Whatever you say, lady.”

  “Ruth,” said Ed. “We’ve been looking for you.”

  “Getting a pyre ready, no doubt. Why don’t you sit down, sheriff, and I’ll fill you in?”

  “I’ll fill him in,” said Doc.

  Ed seemed fit to burst. “Somebody say something!”

  Doc put a hand to Ed’s chest. “It’s all right, Ed. Ruth here was just explaining to us how she’d been preparing all her life to be the Chosen Host. Because of the forget-me spell, she didn’t remember Kylie’s grandpa until very recently.”

  “You mean the ghost?”

  Ruth pushed past Doc. “You saw Robert’s ghost?”

  “I didn’t. The others told me about it.”

  She turned to each coven member. “Why aren’t we talking to Robert’s ghost?”

  “We did!” said Jolene. “But he couldn’t stay on this plane long.”

  Her glance this time to the coven was one of admiration. “Now I am sorry I didn’t come forward sooner.”

  Ed still had his hand on his gun. “Are you all telling me that Ruth had nothing to do with Dan Parker’s murder?”

  “Heaven’s no,” said Doc. “I told you I would have had a hard time believing she’d done such a thing.”

  Jeff glanced at the others. Clearly, the rest of them weren’t so certain about Ruth. Including Jeff.

  “She’s undoubtedly on our side,” Doc went on. “She subdued that lindworm.”

  “Lindworm. You mean dragon?”

  “Much the same thing.”

  Ed’s hand fell away from the gun, and Jeff was surprised how tensed he had been. He relaxed but stayed alert. Nick kept exchanging glances with him, doing that alpha/beta thing, but Jeff was a bit clueless as to how it all worked. In truth, he didn’t like to think about it.

  “Our immediate problem seems to be the rift,” said Doc.

  “What about Baphomet?” asked Ruth.

  “What about Kylie?” said Ed.

  “What about her?” asked Doc kindly.

  “Well…” He swept his Smokey Bear hat off his head and gripped the rim till it bent. “It’s been two days with no word. Aren’t we going to go after her?”

  Doc stepped toward him and looked up to the taller man. “I know we’d all like to run in with guns blazing, Ed, but right now, this is Kylie’s story, and she’s already decided the ending.”

  “But we can’t just let her—”

  “You know very well that at this point, it’s all been said. Either Kylie or Erasmus will walk away. Or…neither of them will.”

  He stood a moment before he slapped his hat to his thigh and turned away. “I hate this!”

  Scowling, Jeff thought he’d spoken for all of them.

  Her eyes still shining with tears, Seraphina said, “We have to concentrate on the rift.”

  “But Baphomet,” said Ruth. “He’s a danger we can’t predict. We need a way to contain him or send him back.”

  “What about the ginger jar thing?” asked Nick.

  Jolene shook her head. “He’s a god, not a demon, remember?”

  “Besides,” said Doc, “It’s got to be the rift. If Baphomet finds it, there’s no telling what hell he’ll bring us.”

  “I don’t know what this rift is,” said Ruth, “but by the sound of it, I agree that’s your priority.”

  “It was caused by the book,” said Doc. “At least we think so. It’s keeping a gate open where creatures can get in—”

  “From all the worlds,” she said softly.

  Jeff had been listening but not clearly understanding. “But won’t it close when the book is closed?”

  Jolene clutched her tablet tight to her chest. “Not necessarily. The book works in mysterious ways. It may not even need the rift. It might be independent from it now. No one has ever destroyed the book before. We just don’t know.”

  “That’s not the only danger,” said Ed, his face blank as he presumably stowed away his emotions. “There’s more talk in town of destroying the covens. They don’t trust you guys, especially since you’ve been recruiting more people. They think it’s all a conspiracy to—I don’t know. Turn everyone in Moody Bog into Satanists.”

  “We aren’t Satanists,” said Jolene.

  “You and I know that, but they don’t. I don’t know what they’re planning but I know it’s something bad. They’re trying to enlist Reverend Howard to their side but he’s still holding out. And they’ve started to suspect something about not being able to leave town or call outside.”

  “Nick,” said Doc, “maybe you’d best call in your patrols. Tell them to hole up here.”

  “Okay.” He took out his phone and began punching in numbers.

  “There’s more room at my house,” said Ruth.

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  Doc smiled kindly. “That’s generous, Ruth. For now, we’ve got to protect this house as well as the people in it. And it is more isolated than your place in case Baphomet comes to call.”

  “If you change your mind…” She made as if to leave when Doc stopped her. “Ruth, it might be best if you stayed here, too. Maybe there are some secrets here you can help us with.”

  She glared up at the rafters. “I went over this place with a fine-tooth comb before I decided to sell it. I checked every stick of furniture, every inch of the walls, and the plumbing.”

  “And you still managed to miss it. So maybe there are things we have yet to learn.”

  “Has anyone found anything in the basement?”

  “Basement?” said Jeff. “I don’t think even Kylie ever talked about a basement. Maybe she never knew there was one.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake!” She shoved the settee aside and kicked the rug away, then dug her finger into what looked like a knot on the plank floor and lifted. What had appeared to be a seamless floor was obviously a trapdoor.

  “No one knew this was here?” She shook her head and held out her hand. “Flashlight?”

  Five flashlight apps suddenly shone down on her and the dark rectangle below. She smiled and climbed down the steps. Everyone followed her.

  The place looked covered in ce
nturies-old cobwebs and dust. Thick wooden posts held up the beams and floor joists. There were the remnants of shelves and broken jars seem to litter the place. Old root cellar storage, Jeff supposed.

  “This was the only thing I ever found,” said Ruth, pointing to strange letters carved into the posts, “but I could never translate them.”

  “That’s Enochian,” said Jolene with awe in her voice.

  Ruth looked at her surprised. “You can read Enochian?”

  “A little. Mr. Dark was teaching me.”

  “The demon was teaching you?”

  “Yeah. He’s a pretty cool demon…as demon’s go, I guess.”

  Ruth seemed to absorb this. “Then…what does it say?”

  Jolene scampered from post to post, while the rest of the coven shone their lights on the scrawled letters. “I can’t be sure,” she said, going back to the first post and squinting at it through her glasses, which kept sliding down her nose. “But it seems to be saying, ‘Beware the book. Beware the gods. The gates shall close.’”

  “What does that mean?” asked Doug.

  An explosion drowned out any response. Jeff led the charge back upstairs and stopped when he saw another tossed Molotov cocktail heading toward the shopfront.

  “What the hell are they doing?” he shouted.

  Some of the townsfolk had gathered out front. The kind that were happy to have pitchforks and torches. It seemed that the magical wards and charms were holding, but for how long?

  “Dude,” Jeff said to anyone. “We gotta do something.”

  Doc had a worried look on his face. “Our coven has to get to the caves. If we don’t close that rift, it doesn’t matter what this lot does.”

  “We can hold them off,” said Doug. “Listen bro, you two with the badges. You’ve got to go outside and cool them down.”

  George touched his side arm. “And if we can’t?”

  Doug looked at the rest of the Ordo. “Then I think the rest of us know how to rock and roll.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Erasmus sized up the harpies. “Focalor, can you conjure me a weapon?”

  Suddenly, a heavy club of wood formed in his hand, sharp spikes sprouting from all sides of the head.