I'm writing today from Cairns, Australia, the
last location on my outback destinations, then I will be on to Tokyo!
Still hard at work writing, writing, writing, but--for better or
worse--this scenic paradise has not taken the darkness out of my
writing. It's still dark shit, so if you're into that, read on, my
friend! This is the first big action scene, so if you're just tuning in,
you've come at the right time--the detectives take on The Boogieman,
and figure out what he really is.
(in traditional Law and Order style... DUN DUN)
134 Franklin
Street, Burgundy
1:04 AM
After a week more research and stakeouts, Ollie knew they
already had all the information they were going to find. The alleged kidnapper
fit some categories—he could disappear like a ghost, he was active at night
like a vampire—but not others—he didn’t cause a foul odor or a presence of
terror like a phantom would have, he commanded more dark magic than a vamp
should have. Saphim revised his initial hypothesis in an official report:
“Subject exhibits behavior similar to a wraith, an elder vampire and a dark
magician. Species analysis inconclusive. Confront the subject only with the utmost
caution. Recommend organization of raid to catch the subject off-guard.
Recommend use of white magicians trained in offensive and defensive magic, detection,
control, magic suppression and healing.”
Ollie
was both glad and surprised to see the cold man take the case so seriously. He
half-expected the Senior Agent to chalk it up to a haunting, give him a new
magician half-trained in séances and a “good luck.” But the plan Saphim
outlined included himself and four other well-trained white magicians. Captain
Reeves signed off on the operation and added six Monster Force officers. They
planned the raid for one o’ clock AM, when surveillance had shown the monster
and the children would be in the house, after the powerful dark magic hour of
midnight, and before the second one at three AM.
Standing
under the cover of the slumped elm in front of 134 Franklin Street, Ollie
watched the dark windows of the house. He glanced up at the second story window
where he’d seen the orange light peeking through so many nights. This night,
everything was dark.
El
kept watch next to him, her dark eyes running over the front yard to the door
of the house. Between them, Saphim knelt on one knee, drawing a spell in white
dust on the grass. If the monster could vanish into darkness, it had to be
assumed it could disappear from the house, possibly taking the children with
him. That was unacceptable. The sorcerers, Saphim at the front of the house and
three other agents on each side, devised a white magic perimeter to trap the
subject inside. The Monster Force cops accompanying them, El and Ollie
included, made a physical barrier, to stop the creature from running out.
Throwing
another quick glance at the upstairs window, half-expecting a dark shape to
look down at him, Ollie looked back at Saphim as he carefully—slowly—drew a
cross inside the circle. Sure is taking
his damn time.
“What
is that?” Ollie hissed.
Saphim
didn’t look up. “Salt.”
Ollie
glanced at El, reflecting his raised eyebrow. “Salt?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He
kept drawing the tidy circle, unperturbed. “Ghosts, wraiths, undead, they can’t
cross salt.”
Ollie
expected something like holy water, silver or fire, the things that hurt vamps.
“Why?” he said again.
“You
really want to know the history of salt as a spiritual cleansing device?”
Ollie
frowned. “No. Just hurry it up.”
The
short, thin man’s pace didn’t change. He made an array of white symbols on the
ground, murmured something Ollie couldn’t make out, and scattered red petals
over the design.
“Rose
petals?” Some salty flowers are going to
keep this thing contained?
“Rose
petals once laid over a grave.” Saphim looked up askance. “I could explain
every spell we’ll use against the subject, but I don’t think this is a very
good time.”
Ollie
closed his mouth with a snap. He saw El try and fail to bite back a smirk.
Looking
back up at the window, Ollie ran his thumb reassuringly over his gun. Crafted
by the Burgundy chapter of the Holy Office, the intricate spells etched into
the metal made it possible to incapacitate—and kill—any vampire, undead, giant
and a slew of other monsters just as well as any person. The Holy Office also
made each gun with a unique signature, so it was irrefutable which gun did the
shooting—or the killing. Like all Monster Force officers, Ollie didn’t shoot
for no reason, though he had used the gun before. And he’d use it again if he
had to.
Saphim stood up and put a finger
to his earpiece. “Main entrance secure. Agents, perimeter check.”
“East secure, sir,” Ollie heard
through his earpiece.
“West secure.”
A pause. “South secure. Surveillance
confirms the children and the subject are inside.”
Saphim nodded to Ollie and El. “Perimeter
secure, detectives. Proceed with caution.”
Ollie signaled to the cop
outfitted in a helmet and flack jacket, protective spells on the front glinting
in the moonlight. The cop moved swiftly to the front door, Ollie, El and Saphim
following. Though Saphim didn’t carry a weapon, wasn’t licensed to use one, he
didn’t need it. Certified in offensive and defense spells, the Senior Agent had
all the weapons he needed tattooed on his hands.
The first cop kept a gloved fist
aloft, as if he carried a bomb. On the palm of the yellow glove was a single
black symbol, a powerful spell and the only one Ollie knew the meaning of:
BREAK.
Standing across from the cop by
the front door, Ollie pounded a fist on the wood. “Burgundy police, open the
door. We have a warrant to search the premises.” He waited a moment, listening
for shuffling sounds of hurried running, but heard nothing. “Burgundy PD, open
the door or we will break it down.” He waited again for a response, but got
nothing. This time, he did hear footsteps.
Stepping back, Ollie nodded to
the officer. He flung his open, yellow-gloved hand against the wood and the
door burst open, the lock splintering. A dark room yawned beyond.
Flashlights cutting the gloom, Ollie followed
the first cop inside. The white beams ran over a small, empty foyer, a
staircase to the right, a large painting on one wall, and an archway in front of
them revealing the living room beyond. A figure ran past the archway. With long
hair flying behind, Ollie assumed it was a woman, or maybe a girl.
“This is Burgundy PD, we are
here to help,” Ollie announced. “We are not here to harm you. Come into the
light slowly.
“Dis!” she cried.
It must be the teenage girl. The monster’s victim? Or a complicit conspirator?
Ollie wished he could have found out more from the stake-outs. It was too late
now.
Her footsteps rushed towards the
back, where the back door to the yard would be. Whether victim, a possessed
co-conspirator or the creature’s willing partner, she wouldn’t get far, not
with the cops and agents waiting outside the backdoor. Ollie signaled to El and the other officer to
pursue the girl through the next room.
Looking towards the stairs,
Ollie nodded to Saphim. He nodded back.
Moving sideways with his back
against the wall, Ollie eyed the upper hallway. His flashlight moved across the
wall to the far door. Behind that door was the room where the orange light
shined through every night. As he stalked down the hall, Saphim behind him,
Ollie thought of small, frightened Ruby, trapped in the monster’s claws.
“Ruby? This is the police, we’re
here to help.” He leaned close to the door. Behind, bed springs creaked. Ollie
twisted the knob. It opened, unlocked.
Stepping into the room, holding
his gun and flashlight up, the beam crossed over an unmade bed, a chair, an
open closet door, and two entwined figures. He lurched the beam back,
spotlighting them. At first, Ollie thought it was a shadow, some trick of the
light that made the strange shape he saw. But it wasn’t. The stark light
illuminated a black and red figure, stooped, holding a clawed hand in front of
its face. It wore clothes like a human, but draped over too-long, too-thin
limbs it looked like a perverse skeleton. Behind its long, spider limbs and
stretched out torso, a child cowered. Ruby.
“Give me the child, monster.”
Ollie trained his gun and flashlight on the beast.
Pushing the girl back with one
clawed hand, it stepped slowly away. Ollie glimpsed red ridges, like exposed,
bloodied bone, sticking out of its hands, arms and legs.
“We have one child secure,
female, teen,” Ollie heard in his earpiece. Then, a different voice, “Second,
male, teen, secure.”
Just
Ruby left. I hope. “The house is surrounded by white magic and cops,” Ollie
said. “There’s nowhere to go. Give it up.”
A low growl rose from the
creature’s chest.
“D, I’m scared,” Ruby uttered
behind it.
“It’ll be all right.” At first,
Ollie wasn’t sure who’d spoken. The voice was low and soft, but so human. For
an uncertain moment, everything was still. He realized it was the monster’s
voice.
Downstairs, something shattered.
“Let go of me!” A girl screamed
below. “D, help me! Help me!”
The monster straightened, its
shielding hand dropping from its face. The creature’s glaring countenance, a
red skull with oil-black eyes and hollow cheeks, almost knocked Ollie back a
step.
“Violet!” The monster shouted.
“Help me!” she pleaded again
from downstairs.
The soulless eyes narrowed and
the dark red lips curled back over thin, splinter teeth. The monster glowered
at him and snarled, a face full of hate.
When it pulled Ruby up with one
arm, Ollie thought at first the beast meant to use her as a shield. An instant
later, the monster—and Ruby—vanished. Tendrils of black smoke writhed in the
air, evidence of black magic.
Ollie turned on Saphim. “You
said it couldn’t leave!”
“It’s can’t.” Saphim spun
towards the door. “It’s downstairs, it wants the other girl.”
Ollie dodged past Saphim, down
the hall to the stairs. On the staircase, he heard the older girl cry out again
from the back of the house.
“Subject on the ground floor,”
El said into the earpiece. “Using dark magic.”
Something slammed against a
wall. The house shuddered.
“El!” Ollie hurried down the
stairs, back into the foyer. His flashlight lit on El, standing just inside the
archway in a solid stance, holding her gun up towards the darkness in the next
room.
“Stand down or I will shoot,” she declared.
Lowering his gun, Ollie moved
towards her. She fired a shot and he stopped, watching her back. In an instant,
he saw the monster appear behind her, a looming shape of snarled black limbs.
“El, look out!”
She half-turned just as its distended
fingers slapped against her head. It pushed her back, headfirst, into the
archway and she let out a cry that scratched at Ollie’s spine. She crumpled to
the floor and the creature turned. Finger on the trigger, Ollie raised his gun,
but the monster vanished before he could fire.
“Damn it!” He searched the room
quickly, but the monster was gone. Ollie crouched down next to El. “El, you all
right?” Propping her up, she winced and hissed.
“Not now, detective!” Saphim
snapped, moving into the room behind him. He put a finger to his earpiece. “Healers,
officer down on the ground floor.” His flashlight ran past another officer,
face-down on the carpet. “Two officers down, ground floor. Assailant—”
“Dis!” a boy’s voice called from
the back yard. “Help! We’re in the back!”
“Assailant is in the backyard,”
Saphim continued. “Using black magic teleportation to attack officers. Agents,
contain if possible, use force if necessary.”
Gritting his teeth, Ollie stood
up, leaving El moaning on the floor. The
Healers will help her. His grip tightened on his gun. This son of bitch is going down.
A small kitchen extended from
the living room. At the end of the corridor of appliances and counters was the
back door. Shouting rang out from behind.
“Ollie.” Saphim held him back as
he moved towards the door. “Switch your flashlight to UV.”
Ollie glanced, but didn’t argue.
He twisted the head of the flashlight and the long, white, electric beam turned
to a wider, gentler spread of ultraviolet light.
“Assailant attacking!” Ollie
heard behind the door and through his earpiece. A shot snapped the air and a
girl screamed.
Goddamn it, they’re shooting at the kids! “Officers, check your
fire!” he said into the communicator.
“Backya—ugh!” The voice cut off
with a sharp crack and a thump on the ground outside.
Hand on the doorknob, Ollie
listened. Nothing moved on the other side of the door.
“Theo, Violet, take Ruby,” That
somehow-human voice said. “Run.”
The older girl tried to protest,
“D, what about—”
Ollie flung open the door.
“Nobody move!”
In the dark backyard, two cops
and an agent sprawled in the grass. Ollie’s UV light fell on a teenage boy and
girl, little Ruby between them, and then the monster, a tall, thin, twisted
shape like a dead tree. It spun around to face him, it’s furious face
illuminated only an instant before it recoiled, hissing.
Saphim jumped on the creature’s
weakness. “Adiuro vos! Adiuro vos cum
sanctum!” He threw out a hand. “Adiuro
vos!”
The monster stumbled back a
step, then dropped to its knees, hands behind its back. Ollie trained the
sun-powered flashlight on it. It screamed. It should’ve been a snarling,
bestial cry, but it wasn’t. It was a human’s scream in agony.
“Stop it!” The older girl
stepped in front of the creature and reached down on the ground.
“Don’t!” Ollie tried to stop
her, but too late. She snatched up a fallen officer’s gun.
Standing up, she leveled the
weapon at him. “Stop it or I’ll kill you, I swear to God!”
Ollie turned the flashlight
towards the sky. The undirected light painted the teen’s face in gray, making
shadowed gullies of her narrowed eyes, her hard, straight mouth. Behind her,
the monster moaned, rolling on the ground.
Ollie kept his gun pointed at
the monster, but looked at the girl. “All right now, listen to me,” he said
evenly, calmly. “You don’t want to do that.”
“I will, I swear to God I will.
You hurt him and I’ll shoot you.” She was just a kid, not even sixteen, but
Ollie saw the look on her face and believed her.
“Look, I know you think this
thing is looking out for you, but it isn’t.”
“You don’t know anything about
it.”
“He’s brainwashed you. Taken you
from your family, your home. But it’s over now, okay? We can take you back.
To—”
Her stern face turned into a
teeth-baring snarl. She raised the gun. Ollie held his breath.
“Violet,” a quiet voice
entreated behind her.
“Listen, he can’t hurt you
anymore, all right?” Ollie said slowly. “It’s over.”
“He is the only person that has ever loved me!” Tears filled her eyes,
choking her voice. “I won’t let you hurt him!”
Ollie felt control of the
situation slipping away. Whether the creature had brainwashed her or she was
complicit in his crimes, she was willing to die for him and probably kill for
him too. All he had to do was say the word. The gun felt suddenly heavy in
Ollie’s grasp, only a slight turn away from killing a teenager.
“Violet,” the creature repeated.
“Don’t listen to him,” Ollie
argued, growing desperate. “I know you think—”
“Shut up!” she shouted.
“Violet, put the gun down.”
Outside the light, the shadowy shape of the monster struggled to its knees.
She glanced at the creature. The weapon shook in her hands. “What?”
“Put the gun down, Violet,” it
said. “This isn’t you.”
She hesitated and looked back at
Ollie. “Look, just leave us alone, all right? We’re not hurting anybody, we
just want to be left alone.”
Ollie shook his head. “I can’t
do that. I know you don’t think so, but you’re in danger. It’s my job to
protect you.”
“You never protected me! Any of us! We—”
“Violet.” Hands locked behind
its back, the monster leaned its head against her. “Put the gun down. Please.
Do it for me.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“But they’ll hurt you.” Her stern voice was suddenly small.
“I’m not hurt. I’m all right.
I’m fine. Put it down, Violet, please.” It waited and then it pleaded, “Please.”
The teenager looked from the
monster behind her to Ollie, to Saphim and back to Ollie. “I’ll put it down.
But only if you swear not to hurt
him. And stop doing whatever you were doing.”
“Ok, you got it.” Ollie slowly
holstered his weapon and twisted the flashlight back to electric. “That was UV
light, sunlight, that’s why it did that. Now it’s just a regular flashlight,
can’t hurt anybody. Okay?”
She didn’t lower the weapon. She
looked at Saphim. “Undo the spell.”
“No.” He didn’t hesitate.
She turned the gun on him. “Undo
it!”
Ollie intervened. “Look, it’s
just a safety precaution, so nobody gets hurt. I know everyone is really, um,
excited right now. We just want to de-escalate, okay? The handcuffs won’t hurt
him. We won’t hurt him. Nobody’s gonna get hurt.” Nobody’s gonna get shot. I hope.
“It’s all right, Violet,” the
creature said, a voice so tragically human. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”
New tears ran down her face as
she crouched and set the gun down. Before Ollie could move, she dashed away. At
first, he thought she’d flee. But she didn’t. She threw her arms around the
monster and sobbed. “I’m sorry, D. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
It laid its head on her
shoulder. “You did great. You were very brave. I love you, Violet. Everything
will be all right.”
Before Ollie turned the
flashlight on it and saw it’s squinting demon face, an odd thought startled
him. That’s what I’d tell my kids.
The monster grimaced in the
light, its black and red face twisting. “I give up. You got me. Just leave the
kids out of it. They were just doing what I told them.”
“That’s not true!” the girl protested.
Saphim took her by the arm, pulling her away from the creature.
The monster looked Ollie in the
eyes. Blistered burns bubbled on half its face. “You’re right. I brainwashed
them, her most of all. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Dis, don’t say that!” She tried
to push Saphim away, who looked a second away from putting her in a binding
spell as well. “Why are you saying that?”
Ollie frowned and hauled the
handcuffed monster to its feet. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of
it.” As it stood up, standing more than a foot taller than him, Ollie saw more
burns on its neck and arms.
“It was all me,” it said. “I
admit it. Let her go.”
“You have the right to remain
silent,” Ollie began. As he recited the monster’s Miranda rights, a poisonous question
pricked his mind. If he controlled the
kids, why didn’t he tell her to shoot me?
Ollie had gotten used to
shutting sub-human criminals into the back of the police car. He’d stuffed in vampires,
dark wizards and witches, goblins, even a giant or two, though with
considerably more difficulty. He’d worked ghost cases, but they ended in a
séance or an exorcism, not with a ghost in the back of a car. He’d never filled
a police car with a creature like that. But there it was. A phantom, a wraith,
an evil apparition handcuffed in the back of the cruiser.
“How’s El?” Walking up behind
him, Saphim interrupted his reverie.
“The Healers have her. They said
she’ll be fine.”
“What did it do to her?”
Ollie glanced at him. “It
smashed her head into a wall, you saw it. Looks like it did that to all the
officers. What else would it have done?”
Saphim didn’t answer.
“Your agents did a lot of good,
by the way.” Ollie crossed his arms.
“About as well as your cops,” he
said dryly.
“Your people have magic.”
“Yours have guns.”
Ollie took a breath, ready to
storm into an argument, but stopped. Through the police car windshield, through
the grate, he looked into the captured monster’s face. It stared back at him, black
eyes not blinking.
“It’s not a phantom, is it?”
Ollie said.
“No.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“I think so.”
Ollie waited. He finally tore
his gaze from the monster and attempted a laugh. “Well, don’t keep me in
suspense, Agent.”
“It’s an incubus.”
His weak smile evaporated.
Saphim met his eyes. “You know
what that is.”
“Yeah. I do. Worked a case as a
rookie.” The uncertainty crawling under his skin turned to rotten disgust.
“They’re evil ghosts. They hunt women. Rape women. In their sleep.”
“I think this one hunts—”
Saphim’s white eyes shifted to the sobbing eight-year-old and two grim-faced
teens in the back of police cars “—something else.”
Ollie swallowed. Not a child-eater. He glared at the
monster, still looking at him, but couldn’t hold its evil gaze. A child-raper.
