The Darkest Gateway

by Jeri Westerson

  Ruth unsheathed her sword and it glowed.

  “Cool,” I said. “A magical object?”

  “It’s called the ‘Answerer.’ A legendary Irish sword. It might slay a god.”

  “Isn’t it amazing what you can get on the internet these days?”

  She gave me a searing look.

  Just for old time’s sake—and maybe to shove it in Baphy’s face—I grabbed the book and tucked it under my arm.

  I turned to the teens, who had decidedly confused looks on their faces. “You guys, just…hang here. Stay safe.” I looked to Ed, George, and Ruth and gave the go ahead.

  We four…no, make that six with Erasmus and Shabiri…no, now eight because Jeff and Nick had wolfed—walked outside to meet our doom. Wouldn’t it be a stupid trick of fate if I had survived the Netherworld only to die here in Moody Bog? I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want it to happen to any of us.

  The sky was bright from the fires in the distance where Hansen Mills used to be. I hoped there would be a chance to rebuild it. I know Ed and George should have been over there, but they sensed, as did we all, that this was more important. We had to subdue Baphomet somehow or there would never be any peace in Moody Bog or anywhere else. I guessed this was the final showdown. Gee, I kind of hoped it would have been with Satan…and there again, a sentence I never thought I’d say.

  Something cleared the trees. Something gigantic. It blocked the moonlight for a moment before he landed, goat feet and all, on good-old, now scarred Lyndon Road.

  I shivered. I had forgotten to put on a coat. I’d left mine in the Netherworld. But with the book under my arm and the crossbow tucked at my side, I stepped forward.

  “Kylie Strange,” he said in that imperious voice. “I—”

  “Honestly, blah, blah, blah! Did you go to the villain school of villainy talk? What’s with all the speeches? I know you want the book, I know you want to be worshipped, I know you want your fellow gods and goddess to take over my world. Anything else?”

  He scowled. “Yes. I want your head.”

  “You want an awful lot. But hey. Here’s something for you.” I tossed the book toward him and it landed on the asphalt beneath him.

  Bless his little goat eyes. They lit up. Reaching down for it, he grasped it in his clawed hands and lifted it up in triumph. He used a claw to open the book and frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “No more power. It got all used up. I’m the last Chosen Host there will ever be.”

  He tossed the book back at me. I stepped out of the way just in time as it landed.

  “You lie! Nothing can destroy the book!”

  “Satan can. I took it to him and he destroyed it for me.”

  “Lord Satan?” He took a step back. “He destroyed it? How can this be?”

  “Because I asked him pretty please.”

  “What did you give him in return?”

  “A year’s supply of beef jerky. No! What do you think, goat head? A soul.”

  “But…you live.”

  “Not my soul. His soul.” I pointed to Erasmus.

  “He is a demon. He has no soul.”

  “Well he doesn’t now. He was human for a little bit. And then we bargained with his soul.”

  “But…he’s a demon! You lie!”

  “No. He was human and I waited till he was just about out of soul and then I gave him his amulet back.”

  Ed gasped. He was staring at me with rounded eyes.

  Baphomet was still puzzled and appeared uncomfortable as he took another step back. “You…tricked Lord Satan?”

  “Yeah, and lived.” I raised the crossbow. “So…what do you think I can do to you?”

  His weird goat eyes scanned my posse: two demons, two werewolves, two cops, one sword wielding witch, and one former Chosen Host. Maybe the odds were against him this time.

  But as he measured us, his eyes narrowed. “There is no magic in you. You cannot defeat me.”

  “But we are gonna try.” I fired. My aim wasn’t that bad, even without the Chosen Host skills. It hit him dead center. He cried out with that goat/cow sound, but no light emanated from him. It slowly began to occur to me that there was nowhere for him to go. The rift was closed and so was the book. Unless he operated like a demon—and I was pretty sure he didn’t because he had to be summoned—he was trapped here. That wasn’t good for us.

  I cast a glance at Ruth. She was ready with that gleaming sword. It was weird seeing her in anything but her self-important skirt/jacket combos, but even in her combat fatigues, she still wore that damned necklace like a badge of honor or something. She must have thought of me like I thought of her; reckless, stuck-up, dangerous—

  Hold on a second.

  “Ruth, what’s the inscription in that locket again?”

  “What? At a time like this?”

  “What did I tell you it said?”

  She puffed a breath, keeping half an eye on Baphomet. “‘Within the hurasu gates, the enemies of man shall fast remain.’”

  I motioned with my crossbow—that had armed again—toward Baphomet. “He looks like an enemy of man to me.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Doc said that ‘hurasu’ is Babylonian for ‘gold’. The locket is gold. The locket is the hurasu gate!”

  She was still staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. And yeah, that was a possibility these days. I knelt, grabbed the book, and thrust it toward her necklace. When they connected, the little secret slot opened. The book still worked.

  And then the sky lit up with fire all around us. At first, I thought it was the forest, ablaze thanks to Baphy. But the fire came from around Baphomet himself.

  He was more than puzzled now. He was terrified. He swiveled his big goat head all around, looking at the strange magical fire shooting up around him. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”

  The fire encircled him and then converged, encasing him in flames. But it didn’t seem to be consuming him, or hurting him. But it definitely trapped him.

  Ruth’s locket was rising up on its chain as if it were in zero gravity. Rising up toward Baphomet.

  The flames were like a cage and he began to struggle. “No! NO!” The flames started to shrink and took Baphomet with them. He shrank and shrank until he and the fire were the size of a single candle flame. And then, all of a sudden, that flame shot toward the locket, entered it, and slammed the little slider shut.

  The necklace fell to Ruth’s chest while we all looked around astonished.

  “Did that just happen?” asked Nick, morphing back in to a guy. A naked guy.

  Slowly, everyone converged on Ruth, even the extra Wiccans, warily coming out the door. She quickly whipped the necklace off her neck and held it out, staring at it. “It doesn’t feel any heavier,” she said quietly.

  Doc was suddenly beside her, and so was the rest of the coven. “By Godfrey,” he whispered. “May I?” He reached for the locket and Ruth was happy to give it to him. He examined it from all angles. “I think he is well and truly in there. For good. Unless this touches the Booke of the Hidden again.”

  I tossed the book against my door as Doc turned the necklace, catching glints of moonlight on it. “It’s a prison now.”

  “Can it be returned to the Netherworld?” I asked.

  Erasmus shook his head. “No. Because of the presence of the god, it cannot be taken through.”

  “Then…what do we do with it?” asked Jolene.

  I shrugged. “I’d drop it in the middle of the ocean.”

  Erasmus took the necklace from Doc. “Is that the consensus?” He looked to each face.

  “I’m planning on burning the book,” I said. “So anything that will keep him imprisoned is fine with me.”

  Erasmus studied it, brows gnarled over his eyes. “I was imprisoned by the book.”

  “But your intent wasn’t evil,” I said before anyone could say anything. But they all still looked at me doubtfully. “It wasn’t!
Yeah, he eats souls but that wasn’t his fault.” I turned back to Erasmus. “You only knew this life. Baphomet had his chance and he didn’t take it.”

  He glanced at me. It seemed as if my opinion was the only one that mattered. But I wanted to make certain that it was the right choice, so I turned to Doc. “Well? Should it go to the bottom of the ocean?”

  Doc nodded gravely. “This isn’t a decision we make lightly. This is an intelligent being, but he won’t live with us. His only desire is to control. For the sake of my species, I say yes.”

  Erasmus smiled grimly. “I shall return momentarily.” He vanished, and seconds later he was back, soaking wet. He whipped his hair back, sending a shower of sea water all over Jeff who had also morphed back into a naked man. “I had to make certain it wouldn’t float or be found by adventurers,” said Erasmus. “I placed it in the bottom in a great underwater canyon.”

  “Do you mean…the Mariana Trench?” I asked.

  He shrugged. Steam puffed off of him and his leather duster. “Has it a name, now?”

  “In the Pacific Ocean?”

  “Do you think there are limitations to my transport?”

  That was another heady thing to think about.

  “Well, that’s that!” said Doc.

  A car pulled up and we all stepped back. Jeff and Nick excused themselves, running between the teen Wiccans, and ducked inside the shop, no doubt searching for their clothes. When the headlights switched off, Reverend Howard climbed out.

  “What a relief! You all look like you’re all right.”

  “It was touch and go there,” I admitted, looking to my comrades, “but we’re fine.”

  “And Mrs. Russell. What an…unusual outfit you’ve got on.”

  “Do you like it? I’m thinking of wearing it more often.”

  He took measure of her—and the sword in its scabbard—before facing the rest of us. “I saw this strange light over here and I worried some of our more reckless citizens were causing a ruckus.”

  Ed holstered his gun and adjusted his belt. George followed suit. “We took care of those troublemakers earlier,” he said in his best officious voice.

  “No one got hurt, I hope. It’s been a crazy few days here, I don’t mind saying. I’ve got a lot of questions.” He walked around us, nodding to each coven member, to the teens. And then he spotted the book in the doorway. He bent down to pick it up. “Booke of the Hidden? What’s this?”

  “It’s the seat of all our troubles,” I said.

  He opened the cover, and I was relieved not to feel any sense of ownership or jealousy. It was dead to me, just like it was supposed to be.

  “It’s blank,” he said, thoughtfully. “How does it work?”

  I scoffed. “What do you mean?”

  “How do you make it work?”

  “It doesn’t, thank goodness.”

  “But, uh, how can my Lord Baphomet use it, then, if it doesn’t work anymore?”

  Chapter Thirty

  I don’t think anyone moved. We just stood there with dumb expressions on our faces.

  Reverend Howard turned toward Shabiri. “Let me guess. I bet you’re the demon our Ordo friends summoned.”

  “And who the hell are you?” she said, hand at her hip.

  “Me? Oh, I’m the quiet and trusted pastor of the local church. Just diligently giving my sermons every Sunday to the slack-jawed hicks in this dirty, little town. For eight years I’ve been preaching to them to love thy neighbor, and do you know what I discovered after eight years? Not a thing I do makes one bit of difference. Not one single thing.”

  Doc, as flabbergasted as the rest of us, was amazingly able to speak. “But…Howard. Your kindness and gentle words never failed to—”

  “Oh shut up, Fred,” said the pastor. “You’re the biggest hypocrite in this village.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “All that down-home advice and nodding your head sagely…and what did you do? You left the church. You left it for all this banal oil and herb pagan ‘faith’…” He gave the last word air quotes. “But you know what? I delved deeper. I found out what you couldn’t. I discovered ancient writings about the gods, about Baphomet and how to summon demons. I became a pretty darned good mage myself. Better than pretty darned good.”

  Doug looked him up and down with disgust. “You sent us that money.”

  “I saw how you and your biker gang toyed with the occult, saw you stumbling around. As a matter of fact, your logo gave me the idea to summon Baphomet. I figured I’d get you rubes to summon him in case things went south…like they had.”

  “Where did you get $10,000?”

  “Why do you think the church roof still leaks? It’s called embezzlement, idiot.”

  “Howard…” said Doc incredulously.

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up, Fred?” The Reverend waved his hand, and Doc took several steps back, putting a hand to his throat, his mouth. He couldn’t seem to open it, couldn’t speak.

  “What did you do to him?” I demanded.

  He turned sharply to me and from the look on his face, I took a step back. “And you! You were supposed to be dead. I summoned Andras to kill you. What happened to him?”

  Ed took out his gun. “You killed Dan Parker.”

  “Of course, I did! And put that sigil in the church hall closet,” he said to me. “What a sorry sonofabitch Dan was. Believe me, wasting money on his salary was more of a crime than I ever committed. What a pathetic use of humanity. Well, he finally proved himself useful in the end. He never saw it coming. It was a good summoning. Messy, though.”

  “I can’t believe this,” said Seraphina.

  He turned to her with a sneer. “Believe it. I am so sick of this stupid village and Hansen Mills. Hansen Mills! What did they ever do besides produce drunks and juvenile delinquents? I ministered to every one of their damn families, and all of my suggestions and counseling fell on dumb, meth-addled ears.”

  This was insane. “But…why summon Baphomet?” I asked. “He was killing everyone.”

  “Precisely! And when I offer him the one thing he craves, he’ll shower me with all that I desire. Except…” He still had the book in his hands and looked at it. “You killed it. He really wanted this.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And you know what? Old Baphy is also out of commission. He’s gone. Dead and gone.”

  He stared at the book and then up at me. “You’re lying.”

  “Nope. He’s gone. He’s never coming back. Everything you did was an utter waste.”

  “Enough of this,” said Ed. He grabbed his handcuffs from his belt. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Dan Parker and conspiracy to murder Kylie Strange.”

  Howard didn’t even turn toward him when he waved his hand. Ed froze, couldn’t move at all.

  “Hey!” said Shabiri. “I was getting to like him. What did you do?”

  “Something I should have done to everyone in this town from day one. Did I forget to mention I was a mage?”

  Doc still couldn’t utter a sound and Ed was frozen.

  But Howard went on, venting. “So no book of power and no Baphomet, eh? That puts a damper on my plans. But no matter. I can summon another god. Maybe a bigger, better one.”

  Erasmus stepped forward. “You cannot be allowed to summon more gods and demons.”

  Howard chuckled. “Right. And why should I listen to you, Mr. Dark, as if that’s a real name.” He waved his hand at Erasmus and he froze.

  I gave a cry and lunged toward him.

  But he hadn’t frozen. He was just very still, until he moved even closer to Howard. “I’m hungry,” he growled.

  Howard scoffed. “So go get a burger. And why didn’t you freeze?” He waved his hand again, but Erasmus didn’t oblige. He directed his glance at me.

  “Kylie…I’m hungry.”

  Erasmus was hungry. And I knew what he meant. “Erasmus,” I said breathlessly, “I…I don’t think—”

  Jeff suddenly mor
phed into a werewolf again and leaped forward, teeth bared…only for Howard to wave his hand freezing him. Jeff fell to the ground with a hard crunch.

  The teens cringed in a group by the door. Jolene hunkered with them.

  “Boy, you people are getting more tiresome by the second. It took me a while to research what it was Kylie had there. How the hell did you kill the book?”

  I was getting scared. At least Erasmus wasn’t affected, but how long could he hold out? “I don’t care to share that intel with you.”

  “Really? I can freeze your friends one by one.” He swept his glance over the teens and they shrunk back. The girl Jessica Marie began to cry. He turned from them and set his glare on Seraphina. “Like this.” He waved his hand and Seraphina froze. “And then leave them outside until the snow drifts up around their necks and watch them die. We could do that…or you can tell me what I want to know.”

  I looked at the frightened faces of my friends, saw George getting ready to do something heroic and maybe get killed. Saw Nick getting ready to do the same thing. I was horrified that this man, someone that everyone in this village trusted, was a hidden evil mastermind who had murdered and would continue to do so if not stopped.

  I glanced at Erasmus. There wasn’t any choice. “If you’re hungry…” I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth. “Then…eat.”

  He smiled and kept on smiling wider and wider until his smile was wider than his ears, and his teeth, like a shark’s, suddenly layered one over the other. He turned to Reverend Howard.

  “I’m hungry,” he growled with a different voice I had never heard before, and this time, Howard was finally taken aback by the demon’s repulsive appearance. Howard frantically waved his hand, yet nothing happened. He backed away but Erasmus kept coming.

  “What’s he doing? What is he talking about? How come he’s not freezing?”

  I said nothing. I was horrified that I had given him permission. It would be on my head…as so many other deaths in this village were.