The shade looked down at Chiguak’s body and acknowledged the passing of a titan. Whatever had happened in the Shadow was largely a mystery, but one thing was clear; the shade’s master had underestimated this new enemy. All of his minions had been sent back and none of them had much information for him that he didn’t already know. The only true revelation was that the Harbinger had brought two more into his doomed revolution. This complicated things, to be sure, but it was far from an insurmountable challenge.
They would need to bring this to the Great Ones, something the shade’s master had wanted to avoid, but things had spiraled past that now. It would take time to convene a council of the mouthpieces, but they would make it happen. Until then, the shade needed more information about their new adversary. It would create some lesser-shades, further copies of the shade itself, still imbued with the will and wants of their master, and send them through to the Shadow. There they would gather all the information needed to defeat this new foe.
The next time these fools came face to face with the master’s creations would be the last. The shade was going to make sure of it. This next blow would be a fatal one.
Margaret was a little hungover the morning after their celebration, but only a little. Putting on a suit she generally saved for moments when she needed to make an impression, she walked out to the garages where the non-humans were waiting. “I’m going to be bringing a guest through here,” she said to the five of them. “Look menacing.” Tickled by how amused they all seemed, she walked outside, shutting the garage doors behind her with the push of a button.
She waited only five minutes before a car came into view and she had no trouble identifying who it was. “Agent Saunders,” she said as the woman parked in front of her and stepped out of the car. She was Margaret’s age, with similar colored hair, and was wearing almost the exact opposite of what Margaret had chosen for this meeting; a simple t-shirt, jeans and, of all things, a pair of worn Converse sneakers.
“Ms. Wynters,” Saunders said, smiling wide. “A pleasure to meet you in person. Been a big fan for a long time.”
“I appreciate that,” Margaret said, shaking the woman’s hand as she came to stand in front of her.
“We talking out here?” Saunders said, looking around at the endless view of golden fields.
“We can speak in my office,” Margaret said, turning to the garage control panel. Pressing the open button, she waited patiently while the door rolled upwards. “Just through here please,” she said, leading the other woman inside.
In the garages, the non-humans did not disappoint. The Raven, Ghat-soh and Iktomi glared at them as they passed while Coyote and Wei loomed over them, menacing enough via their sheer size. Glancing over at her companion, Margaret was shocked to see that Saunders was perfectly comfortable. As they passed the motley crew of glarers, she looked up to Ghat-soh and said, “Ma’am.”
Ghat-soh did not respond.
They made their way inside after this and headed to the office. They didn’t see a soul, the night before’s drinking had seen to that, and soon they were inside and Margaret was comfortably behind her desk, Agent Saunders sitting placidly across from her. “Nice place,” Saunders said, looking around. “This building is mainly used for that defense contract you picked up, yeah?”
“Mostly,” Margaret nodded. The elephant in the room was massive, but Margaret wasn’t going to address it until this other woman did. She was no fool.
“I assume this is where Mr. Benjamin has been living?” she asked. “Since leaving North Carolina that is.”
“He has,” Margaret nodded. “We have a number of in-house employees here.”
“And what exactly does he do for you?” Saunders asked. “No offense to him, but this seems pretty far outside his skill set.”
“Why don’t we just have the conversation you came here to have?” Margaret said tersely.
“I would if I knew how,” Saunders said, meeting her eyes. “You know what I saw out there when I found your people?”
“I’ve heard a description,” Margaret nodded.
“Then you know why I didn’t freak out when we saw your muscle in the garage,” she said. “I’m a true believer Ms. Wynters, I told your man Noah that as well, I just want to know what it is I’m believing in.”
“Why?” Margaret asked, leaning towards her across the desk. “You know what happened in Minnesota, Doumont and North Carolina. You know there are bodies tied to these things, things we can’t ever prove were really here, at least not easily. Why would you want to know more, especially in your position? Wouldn’t your job force you to report this?”
“I mean I should report it, if that’s what you mean,” Saunders laughed, “but nothing is going to force me to do anything. I know this isn’t something you have to worry about, but I’m facing mandatory retirement in a couple of weeks and I’m far from done being able to do my job. When I picked up on Noah’s involvement in a handful of unsolved cases, I poked around more or less because I had time and I liked the kid. After a while though, I started worrying about what he’d gotten involved in. Figured he was in over his head and it looks like I was right. At this point, I just want to know what the hell is happening. Seems more than a little ominous.”
“And if I refuse?” Margaret asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Then I wasted a lot of my time,” Saunders shrugged.
Margaret did not respond to this, but searched the other woman's face, looking for any sign that she was being played. From what she could tell, this woman was being genuine and despite her quirkiness, seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. “You want the truth of it?” Margaret said finally.
“More than anything I’ve wanted in quite some time,” Saunders said, leaning forward now herself.
“I have an old friend who wound up in some sort of secret Catholic Order. Apparently they’ve known about these things for a while and figured out that there was a way to tell they were coming and where they’d end up. Unable to handle it themselves, they brought in two of my other friends. Only after their venture had cost one of them his life, was I brought in,” Margaret said.
“This friend was Jack Andrews?” she asked.
“Yes,” Margaret said. Hearing his name was still painful.
“Go on,” Saunders said.
“Well after I was brought in, I kind of kicked everything into overdrive resources-wise. I used the defense contract as a bit of a front, though we are doing good work there, and have been sending people out to different crossover sites around the country. Doumont was one of these. While I can’t say we’re doing everything the most efficient way possible, we have managed to send these things back where they came from each time,” Margaret said.
“What made you feel like this was your responsibility?” Saunders asked.
“Would you honestly trust the government with this kind of knowledge?” Margaret replied.
“Probably not,” Saunders conceded. “You understand the type of legal jeopardy this has put you and your people in?”
“I do,” Margaret nodded. “How could I not?”
“And yet you aim to keep at it?” Saunders prodded.
“Until we are forced to stop or finish the job,” Margaret said.
“Well then in that case I have an offer for you,” Saunders said. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but this whole flying around by the seat of your pants thing you all have been doing might have worked so far, but it’s only a matter of time before it bites you in the ass. Hard. From what I can see, you need someone who can keep you from doing some of the little stupid things that allowed me to end up here in your office. I think I could be that person. If you’re willing to take me on of course.”
“You want a job?” Margaret asked. This woman was turning out to be just as odd as Noah had claimed.
“I have no interest in retiring quite yet,” she said. “This seems like a good lateral move for me. I assume it pays well if you’re involved?”
“You won’t starve,” Margaret said edgily.
“I’d only have one condition,” Saunders said.
“And what would that be?” Margaret asked, still mulling over the other woman’s proposal.
“I’d need to speak with Hayden Fritz,” she said. “We worked together a long time ago and I’d like to pick his brain a little. See what he thinks of how things have been going.”
“How did you know Hayden was here?” Margaret asked.
“Peeked at your payroll,” Saunders said. “So are we in business or am I heading home empty handed and worried about monsters popping up in my neighborhood?”
“You ok answering to me?” Margaret asked. Another alpha was the last thing they needed.
“As long as you’re ok with me critiquing every little thing you’ve done so far to keep you out of jail,” Saunders laughed.
“Then we have a deal,” Margaret said. “I’ll go get Hayden.”
-------------------------
Naomi Saunders took her spot behind Margaret’s desk and waited for the young Mr. Fritz to arrive. There was a chance he’d make a fuss, they didn’t actually know one another, but she was willing to bank on the fact that he’d come up here quietly. She had some questions for this infamous colleague of hers before she would be comfortable working alongside him. He had quite a reputation in their shared circle and very little of it was good.
A sharp knock on the door announced his arrival and Naomi pushed the button Margaret had shown her to let him in. He looked far different than she’d expected, slimmer and younger than the man she had pictured when she’d heard what he’d gotten up to during his time as a part of the country’s elite law enforcement agency. “Morning,” he said as he made his way to the chair she had been occupying moments before.
“Good morning to you Mr. Fritz,” she said.
As he took a seat he said, “You know, for an old friend, you don’t look very familiar.”
“That white lie was for your benefit,” she said and there was no warmth in her voice. This was more or less an interrogation and she wanted him to view it as such. “I’m from the Bureau and possibly about to jump ship to come work with Ms. Wynters.”
“So this is about me and my past then,” Hayden said, sounding unconcerned.
“It is,” she said. “You know what’s been said about you?”
“Of course,” Hayden said. “Which bits are bothering you the most?” His nonchalance was making him seem like either an innocent man prepared with a familiar defense of his actions or a complete sociopath unbothered by his past wrongs.
“Let’s start with the accusations you faced while working sex crimes,” she said.
“What do you want to know?” Hayden asked.
“Did you kill those men?” she asked.
“Sure did,” Hayden said, meeting her gaze without shame.
Naomi was a little put off by how easily he was talking about this, but had worked too long at this job to not keep digging. “Did they have you both dead to rights?”
“Oh yeah,” Hayden said. “I was ready to go to jail for that shit, or at least lose my job, but the higher ups seemed to understand.”
“Understand what?” Naomi asked.
“That guys like Logan Klein and Sammy Tulson weren’t your average pimps or traffickers,” Hayden said, anger creeping into his voice, though it was clear it was not directed at her. “These are the type of guys that kill a woman just to keep the others in line. The type of men who procure children for other men. To take those two in would have ended in painful trials for everyone but them. They were animals. Forcing their victims to face them in court would have just been another way for them to get off. So we handled it.”
“You shot them?” she asked.
“I did,” Hayden said, again with that effortless calm.
“No regrets?” she asked.
“Sometimes I think prison would have been worse for them,” Hayden shrugged. “Other times I think they just would have brought their sadistic shit with them and that I made the right call.”
“What about Terry Becker?” she asked, hoping to catch him off guard with a quick change of subject. “Isn’t his brother Allen working here as well?”
“Terry made it clear he was going to kill me,” Hayden said. “He was making too much money screwing over dealers and suppliers to tolerate my noncompliance. I just beat him to the punch. That one cost me my job, but I’d rather be alive than an agent if I’m being honest with myself.”
“Does his brother know?” she asked, more curious than anything else.
“Allen?” Hayden said. “Yeah. We’ve discussed it. He knew who Terry was. Water under the bridge.”
Finding that hard to believe, she asked, “Do the others know?”
“About all this, no,” Hayden said. “Though I think Eli, Noah's kid brother, might have done some digging. He’s been looking at me like I caught the plague or something lately.”
“I hear Jack Andrews was the one who brought you into this,” she said. “He always spoke highly of you from what I remember.”
“He knew why I did the job,” Hayden shrugged. “He never judged me for any of that shit. He didn’t like it, but I think he understood.”
Naomi tried to wrap her head around all this while the two of them sat staring at each other over Margaret’s desk. She had never worked sex crimes herself, but knew it was a rough gig where things like what Hayden had just described happened from time to time. How could they not? On top of that, she knew Jack Andrews well enough to know his seal of approval carried weight. If he had trusted Hayden to be a part of this, who was she to question that? “If I join up,” she asked, already knowing she was going to, one hundred percent, “what do I need to look out for? What are their weaknesses as you see them?”
Hayden leaned back in his chair a bit before saying, “On the whole, the biggest problem is that they’ve put their trust in the wrong people. Margaret may have more resources than the rest of us put together, but she doesn’t really know how to run something like this. She keeps defaulting to Allen Becker or Atticus Daniels. Neither of them is useless of course, but Atticus is completely out of his depth most of the time and Allen is used to following orders, not coming up with battle plans. Most of our worst mistakes can be traced back to those three.”
“And how would you rectify this?” she asked.
“I would try to get Margaret to see that Allen is a very nice, very loyal, grunt. Then I’d give her someplace else to look for advice other than Atticus or her people. If you put Margaret on the right path, she’ll handle the rest. Getting her there seems to be the main issue,” he said. “I’d also try to get them all to change their mindset towards our targets and allies downstairs.”
“What do you mean?” Naomi asked.
“They see these things, these sentient beings, as animals or sub-humans,” Hayden said, sounding genuinely annoyed. “I get they aren’t like us in a lot of ways, but mentally, up here,” he said, tapping his head, “I’m starting to think it’s all the same.”
“When has this difference in mindset affected your goals negatively?” Saunders asked. Whatever his faults, Hayden seemed to have a sharp mind and she was appreciating his openness.
“A few days back,” Hayden said, “when we were up in Alaska, Allen and I found ourselves face to face with one of these things. He was an evil little shit, but he was willing to talk and I was willing to listen. There is a political element to the place where these things are coming from and I’m worried we don’t understand it well enough yet. Anyway, this little guy is feeding me information when Allen decides to get hung up on these kids he killed. Don’t get me wrong, that kind of shit makes my blood boil too, but it was obvious that he was just baiting Allen to get a rise out of him.”
“And Allen took the bait?” she asked.
“Iced the bastard without hesitation,” Hayden said.
“Which cut short your little information exchange,” she said, understanding the other man’s ire all of a sudden.
“Like I said,” Hayden replied, “Allen’s a good man, but he can be dumb as shit.”
“Did you say anything to him?” she asked.
“No point,” Hayden said. “I was involved in a similar situation which ended in the same fashion. Only difference was, my target came at me. I doubt he’d see it that way though.”
“If I come on board,” Naomi asked, willing to let the Allen bashing end without further prodding, “will the others have a problem with it?”
“What’s Margaret going to have you doing?” Hayden asked.
“Running the investigative side of things,” she said.
“Well people will be thrilled then,” Hayden said. “Anyone is better than me as far as most of these folks are concerned.”
“Well maybe we can change their minds about that,” Naomi said.
“Maybe,” Hayden said. “We done?”
“We can be,” she nodded.
“Good,” Hayden said. “I’m the only one who hasn’t taken a vow of celibacy that didn’t drink last night. I’d like to go be bitter about that before everyone else wakes up to complain about their hangovers.”
“Understandable,” Naomi said as she stood up and made her way around the desk to join him. Shaking his hand, she said, “Thank you for being so open with me. I look forward to working together.”
“If you need anything else, just ask,” Hayden said. “It will be good to have someone in the know to report to now.” Naomi watched the complicated young man leave and as the door shut behind him, she wondered just what she was getting into.
----------------------
The Raven was waiting on the roof when Ghat-soh finally came up to meet him.
“Why must we meet up on this damned roof,” she said once she had extricated herself from the vertical shaft that led up here.
“Privacy,” the Raven said as he looked down at the remnants of last night's fire below him.
“From whom?” she said in an exasperated voice.
“Any who might listen,” he said, turning to face her. “I am glad you have returned.”
“As am I,” she said. “I had begun my death song when they fell.”
“I heard it,” the Raven said, “and my heart wept for you. We have too much left to do to fall this early.”
“I hear we have made a new tribe,” she said, graciously not mocking him for his uncommon display of sentiment.
“We have,” he nodded, “I spoke for you at council. You may renege your membership if I have erred.”
“You may always speak for me at council, Tenoshin,” she said. “You have done well to bring so many of us together.”
“Five is far from many,” the Raven said.
“It is far more than I would have guessed would come,” she said. “To see Coyote and Iktomi among us is strange, but good I think.”
“Iktomi will not last,” the Raven said harshly.
“Well until she fails,” Ghat-soh said, “use her. She has far more in her mind than the rest of us and knows things that we do not.”
“I will heed your advice,” he said.
“Now tell me why we are up here?” she asked, hands on hips.
“I did not want to alarm the others were they to overhear,” the Raven said. “War is coming.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked. “Perhaps they have shown them the Shadow is no place to play their games?”
“Not yet,” the Raven said, shaking his head. “They will come again with greater force. We must be ready.”
“We will be,” Ghat-soh said.
“If our allies here fall, they cannot help us in the end,” the Raven said, “and without them we have no chance of victory at home. I worry that with so much hanging in the balance, that I will miss something and our cause will be lost forever.”
“That may come to pass Tenoshin,” she said, “but I have faith in you. The others do too. Where you lead, we will follow, even if it is into darkness. We are with you.”
“Do you truly mean to retake our home?” a far off, hollow sounding voice asked.
The Raven looked up to see the Princeling of the Moon-Eyed People floating down towards them. Whether he had been there the whole time or had only now come to be there, the Raven did not know. “I do,” the Raven said as the Prince came to float at his eye level.
“How?” the Prince asked.
“Can you not see it in my mind, imp?” the Raven said.
“I have not entered your mind since first we met,” the Prince said.
“I mean to use Allen Becker and his tools and weapons,” the Raven said, somewhat relieved to know the little glowing thing was not inside his head. “I believe they can locate the lair of the Usurper. I will do the rest.”
“Allen Becker has agreed to this?” the Prince asked in his monotone voice.
“He has,” the Raven nodded.
“Then this changes much,” the Prince said, the light within him flickering for reasons unknown to the Raven.
“You must keep this to yourself, sprite,” Ghat-soh said. “Margaret Wynters does not know of Allen’s commitment to our cause. We believe it is better this way.”
“I do not disagree,” the Prince said. “Can you make me a promise, Tenoshin of the Shotone?”
“What is the promise?” the Raven said, gritting his teeth in anger at the sound of his true name and lost tribe.
“That when the time comes to take back the First World, that you will allow me to join you,” the Prince said.
“I thought your kind had abandoned our home?” the Raven said.
“Things have changed,” the Prince said again, and the Raven knew it to be true.
“Then count yourself among us,” the Raven said. “When the time comes, we will take back what is ours.”
“Be well, Tenoshin,” the Prince said.
“Be well, Princeling,” the Raven said as the Prince faded from view, off to wherever it was he cared to be when he was not needed.
“Your conspiracy grows,” Ghat-soh said.
“And our victory comes into view,” the Raven agreed. “The end is nearing.”
“I am ready,” Ghat-soh said, placing a warm hand on his cold shoulder.
It had been four days since his sit down with Naomi Saunders in Lakeview and Noah was glad to be back at headquarters in Nebraska. Margaret had sworn him to secrecy, but did not seem upset with him. She did seem a little nervous, but Noah could understand that. Genial as she had been, Agent Saunders was still an unknown entity. Since Noah had made it back, the rest of the team had trickled in, Allen and company arriving the latest and looking dead on their feet. Noah had heard Margaret had some sort of celebration in mind, but had put it off for a few days so the Alaska team could rest.
Olivia, Kevin and Elliot were still nursing their injuries, but all of them were on the mend and in good spirits. Noah had paid them all a visit a few times since he’d been back, still somewhat shocked that he was even here at all. The memory of the church and that strange dirge that Ghat-soh had dragged out of him was still fresh in his mind, and the idea that he had survived the onrush of corpses by seconds still made his pulse quicken a little when he thought about it.
On the morning of his fourth day back, he decided to head to the gym. He needed to focus on something other than his current thoughts and figured that was the most productive way to spend his time. Before he could get there though, he found Olivia and Hayden alone in the common area, chatting on one of the couches. Making his way over to them, he dropped into one of the armchairs across from their couch.
“Looks like we all made it,” Noah said.
“Barely,” Hayden said. “I heard the tape. Glad I went where I went.”
“Lovely,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t blame you,” Noah said. “That’s as close to getting zombied as I’d like to get.”
“Getting zombied?” Olivia said.
“You’d get it if you were there,” Father Rigali’s voice said from behind Noah.
“How did things in Alaska turn out?” Noah asked.
“Not as well as they could have,” Hayden said and he sounded sour about it.
“You all got back in one piece,” Father Rigali said. “That seems good enough for now.”
“What can I say,” Hayden shrugged, “I’m an overachiever, Father.”
“You’ve always struck me as such,” Father Rigali said snidely.
“Hey Noah,” Eli’s voice said from his other side.
“Hey, what’s up?” Noah said, turning to face his brother. They hadn’t talked much since Noah had gotten back, but he’d heard from others that Eli hadn’t taken Noah’s situation in Minnesota well. Noah was trying not to be happy about that, he wouldn’t have wanted to be in Eli’s position, but he kind of was. Nice to know the big lug cared.
“Can I grab you for a second?” Eli asked awkwardly, looking at Hayden a few times in a way that the other man definitely noticed.
“Sure,” Noah said, getting up out of his chair and following Eli away from the others. “What was that about?” he asked as they made their way out of the common area and towards the garages.
“Not here,” Eli said as he moved into the gym.
“Yes here,” Noah said, stopping in the middle of the room. “What’s going on? What did you do?”
Eli looked annoyed by the accusation, but he said, “Something I shouldn’t have, but I can’t unsee what I’ve already seen, you know?”
“Eli…” Noah said.
“I just wanted to make sure I had some leverage if they tried to pin the Prince thing on me,” Eli said in a low voice, looking around as if he expected someone to be listening in. “I deleted it all before I even knew Margaret was going to be cool about everything, most of it was nothing anyway, but some of it...some of it was bad Noah. I think...I think Hayden has killed people. Like illegally. Murder.”
Noah looked at his brother and tried to decide how angry he was. Noah by no means thought his fate here was tied to Eli’s, but he had vouched for his brother and he took that seriously. “What did you do exactly?” Noah said in a measured tone.
“I just went digging for some...info, just to keep me safe in case...you know,” Eli said, but he wasn’t meeting Noah’s eyes anymore.
“What did you find out about Hayden?” Noah asked. He really hated this, but if it was a safety issue, he wasn’t going to let it slip by him. He liked Hayden, in a way, but the man had made him uneasy from day one. If that feeling was valid, it was best to know why.
“Just that when he was working in sex crimes he may have killed some people instead of, you know, like arresting them or whatever. Then I read that he killed Allen’s brother in self defense. Real shady shit south of the border. Looks like they let him go, or let him walk, after that. I know he seems like a normal guy, but Noah, this is bad,” Eli said imploringly, trying to show his seriousness despite his shame.
“Well if that part about Allen is true, then he must know,” Noah said slowly. “And if Allen doesn’t care, why should we? It may have been justified. Shit like that happens, Eli. As for the sex crimes stuff...I can’t say I don’t get that.”
“What?” Eli said, looking stunned.
“You do a little background check on me?” Noah said.
“Of course not!” Eli said indignantly.
“Well if you had you would have found more than you bargained for,” Noah said. “Back when I was working for Hank, just before he died as a matter of fact, my partner and I got a call. Domestic shit. We roll over, head inside and we find out that this drunk asshole has stabbed his poor wife to death in front of their kid, who was outside shrieking the entire time.”
“What happened?” Eli asked, looking disturbed.
“I beat the fucking shit out of him with my night stick,” Noah said, meeting his brother’s eyes. “Had to get pulled off of him by some other cops. I nearly blinded him. Got off because he was some nobody with a history of knocking his wife around, but that information is out there somewhere. Worst part is, I know I would have killed him if they hadn’t stopped me. I would have bashed his brains in with a fucking stick Eli. You know why? Because in that moment, I knew he deserved it. Whatever Hayden did, he’s out here helping us and not locked up doing time. I’m guessing there’s a reason. Let it die Eli. Keep an eye out, but keep this shit to yourself. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “I just didn’t want him here if he wasn’t safe.”
“I understand,” Noah sighed.
“What did Hank do?” Eli asked.
“What?” Noah asked, confused.
“After you mugged that guy?” Eli said.
“Tore me a new asshole,” Noah laughed.
“Bet he did,” Eli smiled.
“Any chance you’ll squeeze in some sets with me?” Noah asked as he patted Eli on the shoulder and moved towards the weight machines.
“Not in hell,” Eli said. “You know anything about this party or whatever tonight?”
“Nothing,” Noah said. “Should be fun though.”
“Should be,” Eli said and he left the room.
-----------------------
Allen woke up some time in the afternoon and headed straight for the gym. As he entered the small room full of equipment, he ran into Noah who was clearly just finishing a workout of his own. “Good to see you,” Allen said as the younger man noticed him. “Heard you had a close call.”
“About as close as they get I think,” Noah said, out of breath. “Got lucky.”
“Better lucky than dead,” Allen said.
“Have to agree with you there,” Noah said, rubbing a towel on his head to mop up the sweat. “You know anything about what Margaret’s got planned for tonight?”
“Some sort of victory party,” Allen laughed. “As long as there’s food, I’ll be happy.”
“Heard that,” Noah said. “I’ll catch you around. Need to shower before Margaret kicks me out for stinking up the place.”
Allen left Noah behind and entered the gym. He was still a little sore from their endeavors in the Great White North, but if he didn’t start getting back into a routine, he’d be stuck in his jet lag induced fugue state far longer than he wanted to be. He decided to stick to upper body stuff today and started his usual run through, planning to go easy and take his time.
As he moved through his routine, he kept coming back to the inside of Chiguak’s home and all that had transpired there. The second their enemy had taken the Raven out of the picture, Allen had panicked. Flashbacks to the house where the A’Sin had trapped half their team, rendering them helpless to fight back and completely at his mercy, had begun jumping unbeckoned to his mind. Hayden’s calm had only gotten him more worked up and watching his ally converse with that thing so easily had made it worse. Allen knew that he had taken the bait, that his action had been of no real consequence to the murderous shaman, and that knowledge filled him with shame. He knew it would pass, things like this always faded eventually, but for now it was fresh and weighing on him.
Finishing his workout without accomplishing his desired goal of clearing his mind, Allen took a shower, changed and decided it was about time to touch base with Jomo. He had spoken to both the new recruits briefly, but at this point all that mattered to him was what Jomo thought of them. He eventually found the man reading outside on one of the benches that ran along the backside of the building.
“What you reading?” Allen said as he took a seat on the bench.
“Some garbage Margaret had on one of the book shelves,” Jomo said, tossing the book onto the bench. “Need to order some of my own soon. The crime novels are readable, but just barely. What are you up to?”
“Wanted to talk to you about the new guys,” Allen said.
“You having reservations about Aldo?” Jomo asked.
“No, I barely spoke with him actually,” Allen said. “Is there a problem with him?”
“Not per se,” Jomo said. “He’s definitely not all in and I’m not sure how much of a team player he is. I think he’s far more likely to drop out when the next gate opens than cause any real trouble.”
“Any reservations about Ramon?” Allen asked.
“Hell no,” Jomo laughed. “He’s a tough bastard and he’s committed to the same degree Benoit is. If I could get five more of him, I’d be ready for anything.”
“He fell right in with the rest of us in Alaska,” Allen said. “Didn’t seem to phase him.”
“I think he’s seen his fair share of crazy shit,” Jomo said.
“I think we all have,” Allen replied.
“I do have one minor concern if that’s what you’re looking for,” Jomo said.
“Lay it on me,” Allen said.
“Benoit,” Jomo said, “we need to be careful how we use him. A few more days out there hiking around in Maine and we would have had to leave him somewhere.”
“Got it,” Allen said. “I was also meaning to ask you if there’s someone on your team that you’d like Olivia training to be your group’s emergency medic. After what happened in Alaska, I don’t think we should be in the field without at least one per team.”
“I think Aldo has some prior training,” Jomo said, “but if not I’ll send Ramon to her. Doubt there’s much he can’t pick up.”
“Good,” Allen said, getting up off the bench and ignoring the soreness in his legs. “I guess if that’s all, I’ll be seeing you later tonight.”
“Be prepared to eat,” Jomo said. “Margaret isn’t exactly the festive type, so when she does stuff like this she just goes completely overboard with the food.”
“I think we’ll be able to handle it,” Allen laughed.
Leaving Jomo to his book, Allen checked his watch and found that he only had a few hours left until whatever Margaret had pulled together was going to kick off. That left him enough time to go check on Elliot and Kevin. There was no sick room or anything like that, but to make things easier for Olivia they had begun sharing a dorm since they returned to base. Entering their room he found the two men alone; Kevin watching something on his phone while Elliot snored softly, dead asleep.
“Hey there boss man,” Kevin said quietly as Allen took a seat next to his friend’s bed. “How’s it hanging?”
“Like it should,” Allen said. “How’s the leg?”
“I shit you not,” Kevin said, “it was driving me crazy until the Prince did whatever the hell he did to us to get us back here. Now I barely notice it.”
“Did he heal it?” Allen asked, surprised.
“Fuck no,” Kevin laughed dryly, “it just realigned my understanding of pain. Hear me when I say this Allen, do not let him do that to you. Unbelievable. Surprised Fritz was able to handle it.”
“Hayden is a tough son of a bitch,” Allen said. “I’m not sure many people understand that yet.”
“Seems like kind of a punk to me,” Kevin said, “but whatever you say.”
“How’s Elliot doing?” Allen asked. He’d spoken to the man a few times since they’d been back, but not for long.
“Liv says he’s out of the woods,” Kevin shrugged. “Sleeps a lot but that’s a good thing I think.”
“You coming out to this celebration Margaret’s throwing together later?” Allen asked.
“If one of you wheels me out of here, then yeah,” Kevin said. “Need to get out of this room soon or I’m going to lose it.”
“They keeping all the ugly mutherfuckers in one place now?” Hector said as he and Micah stepped into the room.
“I don’t know Hector,” Micah said, “I think this might be strictly for the, uh, more senior members of our unit.”
“You all bring me anything or are you just here to gawk?” Kevin growled at them.
Micah tossed a pack of cigarettes on his bed and said, “I’ll even wheel your ass outside.”
“I always liked you kid,” Kevin said as he sat up, already unwrapping the cigarettes. Allen opened his mouth, but Kevin headed him off. “You tell me to quit right now and I’ll slap you silly.”
“You going with these two?” Allen asked Hector.
“I’ve had Kevin smoke on me enough for one lifetime,” Hector said. “I was gonna go take a nap before tonight. This time zone bullshit has my head fucked up.”
“You seen Margaret around?” Allen asked.
“In her office I think, but I’d stay down here for now,” Hector said.
“Why?” Allen asked as he helped Micah get Kevin from his bed to his wheelchair.
“She’s up there with the priest,” Hector said.
----------------------
Joe had asked Margaret for a sit down yesterday and she had agreed without hesitation, though that wasn’t necessarily a good sign. The bad blood between Margaret and himself was still alive and well as far as he knew and after all that had happened, he found that, finally, to be unacceptable.
It wasn’t just the fact that he had almost died in that church a few days ago, though that was a big part of it, it was what Kirchmann had said to him back in Rome. He had been living in his past and regressing back to the man he had been during that time when he had hurt Margaret and Atticus so deeply. All of them had. He supposed that was only natural, but in their current situation it was as dangerous as it was personally embarrassing. When he finally arrived in Margaret’s office, he found her and Atticus waiting for him.
“Good to see you both,” he said as he took a seat in the chair next to Atticus and across the desk from Margaret.
“Good to see you,” they both said curtly. It was clear they were worried that this was about to go how it usually went.
“I know that neither of you want to have this conversation, so I suggest you just listen for now. It’s no secret that what happened when we were all younger, much younger, has been coloring our decisions and our temperaments when it comes to our current joint venture. Mine most of all. All I wanted to say to you both is that I am sorry, not just for what happened back then, but for how I have acted since we all came back together. I fell back into the man I was then, not the man I am now. I look forward to showing you both who that is and learning who it is that you have become.” The words left him easily and he suddenly felt free of the weight he’d been carrying for so long.
Margaret and Atticus seemed stunned, though Atticus was getting over it far quicker. The look of shock on his face slowly gave way to a smile even as Margaret’s remained locked in the embodiment of disbelief. “That little trip back to your people did you some good then?” Atticus said.
“It did,” Joe said, smiling now himself. “Though the Prince did cause me some problems.”
“I can imagine,” Atticus said. “Not much room in the Catholic worldview for something like him.”
“You’d be surprised,” Joe said, thinking of Father Jiro and his line of questioning. That man had made him fit.
“Could you give us a minute, Atticus?” Margaret asked suddenly. She still looked out of it, but her face had softened. She looked more like the girl Joe remembered now than she had any time since their reconnection.
“Sure,” Atticus said knowingly. Getting out of his chair, he clapped Joe on the shoulder as he left them alone in the office.
The silence between them once they were alone was heavy, but Joe did not feel any sort of animosity being sent his way. She was simply looking at him like she’d only just realized he was the same Joe Rigali from back in Ohio. “What made you...change your mind?”
“The Monsignor,” Joe said, “though he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know deep down.”
“I…” Margaret started saying, but the words seemed caught in her throat. Taking a minute to compose herself, she began again, “I was always hurt by what you did, how could I not be, but what hurt worse was seeing you again and feeling like you didn’t care. Your refusal to act properly ashamed like Atticus cut me deep Joe. It was like going through it all over again.”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said, “I truly am. I always have been.”
“What you said about regressing into who we used to be,” she said, “I think you’re right.”
“It happens,” Joe shrugged.
“I suppose it does,” Margaret said back. “I look forward to seeing who you’ve become Joe.”
“Right back at you,” Joe said, and he meant it. It sounded like she did too.
---------------------------------
Margaret was full of mixed emotions as the night’s festivities kicked off, but she put on a good show for the others nonetheless. She had hired men to guard the entrance road into the facility and alerted the local authorities of her planned bonfire to avoid any precautionary visits. She had then ordered the best local catering she could find and set up a nice little party area out behind the building.
A long tent with tables and chairs beneath it served as the main area to sit and eat, but the center of everything was the massive bonfire she had allowed Wei to build. The fire towered above all of the humans, even Allen, but it seemed well tended and under control. Looking out at her team, the men and women she was responsible for seeing through this, she felt a sense of pride she couldn’t say she’d felt towards other people before, at least not this many and not in this fashion.
Clustered under the tent she could see Allen, Jomo and their men, Kevin and Elliot both in wheelchairs but looking like they were having a good time. Sitting a bit down from them she saw Kim, Olivia, Sophia, Noah and Eli all grouped together and laughing as they sipped at the beers Margaret had provided. Joe and Atticus were off on one of the benches, chatting away like it was forty years ago while Jabari and Lehman sat on the bench down from theirs, tapping their feet to the music and people watching contentedly.
The bonfire seemed to be the epicenter of the non-human revelry and Margaret found it fascinating to look in on their strange group dynamic. Ghat-soh, Wei and the Raven stood together on the far side of the fire. Wei and Ghat-soh laughed openly and often, and seemed intent on spreading their cheer to the Raven. For his part, the Raven seemed more than able to resist them and merely stood there, arms crossed, surveying the others with his intense stare. On the side of the bonfire closer to where Margaret stood looking on, was a far more interesting trio. Hayden and Coyote, already pals from what she could tell, were standing with Iktomi and things looked fairly awkward. Hayden seemed to be trying to engage them both, but Coyote was looking at Iktomi with what Margaret could only call thinly veiled disdain.
Even the Prince was here, though he floated high above them instead of mingling down below. She wasn’t sure quite where she stood with the glowing little man, but this was only one of the many things eating away at her right now.
Tomorrow would be her meeting with this Agent Saunders and, despite the celebratory mood around her right now, she knew that meeting could be the end of all of this. Possibly even the end to Margaret’s personal freedom, though she doubted it would go that badly based on what Noah had said. Whatever this woman wanted, Margaret would give it to her and hope it was enough to keep her from running her mouth or causing trouble. It was all she could do really.
“Speech!” a drunken Hector called out as the night settled in around them.
“Speech!” a few other voices shouted, including Wei’s and Ghat-soh’s.
Realizing it was her they were yelling at, Margaret took a swig of her drink and made her way to the front of the group. All eyes met hers as she cleared her throat and surveyed the people before her. “I guess I’ll take a minute to say just how proud I am of what we’ve all accomplished here so far. None of us could have anticipated any of this and without tooting my own horn too much, I think we’ve responded admirably. There’s still a lot ahead of us, I think we all know that, but for now let’s relish this feeling; they came to test us and we sent them packing.” Raising her drink in the air, she said “To future victories, new allies and a good night!”
“Here, here!” a host of voices shouted as bottles clinked and shoulders were clapped.
“And,” Atticus said, rising to his feet a little unsteadily, “to our fearless leader!”
Renewed whooping and applause broke out amongst those gathered, and Margaret felt her face go red. Trying to hide it behind her beer, she took another drink. Tonight was a good night. She only hoped they would be able to have more of them.
Noah wasn’t sure he’d experienced a more surreal moment in his life than right now. He was currently sitting in the little diner section of Lakeview’s sole gas station with Naomi Saunders. She had felt comfortable helping herself to the refrigerators and it had only taken her a few minutes to whip up some food. Noah ignored the sandwich sitting in front of him as he watched the older woman digging into hers. The priests and Ghat-soh were outside by Naomi’s request and Noah had not seen any point in arguing with her. His life as a free man was in her hands at the moment.
“I don’t know why,” Naomi said, pausing in her sandwich eating for a moment to finally speak to him, “but every time I find myself on the other side of something like this, I get positively ravenous.” Noah wasn’t quite sure what she meant and felt it was in his best interest to not say anything unless she made him. “Now I can’t tell you what that thing I shot was, but it seemed to knock out the rest of the freak show. Pretty clutch if I do say so myself.”
“Very,” Noah said, despite himself. What she must have done had been obvious the moment Noah had seen her outside the church, but this didn’t make the admission any less impressive.
“So how long until you just up and tell me what’s going on?” she said, sliding her empty plate away from her. The woman could eat. “I hate to admit it, but so far the extent of my knowledge here is that you know stuff I don’t, a lot by the looks of it, and I want to know too. So tell me. I’m already a believer, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to believe yet.”
Noah’s mouth was drier than it had ever been and he found himself wondering just what the stakes were here. This woman might seem motherly and relaxed now, but maybe that was all just a ploy to get his mouth running. “How did you find me?” he asked.
“You paid with plastic all the way up here like a dumbass,” she said with a faint smile on her face. “One of the many signs I’ve seen that make me think you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You can get that kind of info without a crime being committed?” Noah asked, genuinely disturbed.
“Sure can,” she said. “I also went and talked to your godmother, doing very well by the way, and your old partner Lew. They both seemed to know something was up, same as everyone in Doumont. So far my only lead on any of this was you. I knew you were full of shit the first time we spoke, I just didn’t know why. So lay it on me kid, you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“And if I won’t say anything?” Noah asked.
“That would be very disappointing,” she replied. “Not to mention ungrateful.”
“Shit. Ok, fine. So you know about my godfather, Hank?” Noah said, fighting back the fear that this was a huge mistake as the words left him.
“I do,” she nodded.
“Well the thing that attacked us was like one of the things you see outside,” Noah said, “not the same of course, but something else you couldn’t quite explain to someone that hasn’t seen it too. I managed to escape, but only just. Someone saved me and that thing got washed away in the river, not that having the body would have mattered anyway; these things dissolve, or fade or something, once they’ve been killed.”
“Well that sounds convenient,” she said.
“I’m not making it up,” Noah said defensively.
“I wasn’t doubting you,” she said, “I was dead serious. If those bodies out there are really just going to evaporate into the wind, that will make this easier for all of us.”
“From everything I know and have seen, they will,” Noah said. “Although I’m not sure how being human first is going to affect that.” He hadn’t thought of this until now and the idea that these bodies might just stay here was worrisome. If Agent Saunders had managed to place him here, someone else could too.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Saunders said impatiently. “What happened after you woke up in the hospital?”
“Well first I had to figure out if what I remembered was real, you know? I was convinced I’d seen this little guy right before everything went to shit and no matter how much I tried to tell myself that I had just lost it, I couldn’t. So I went looking for him. Followed a trail of insane murders that spooked everyone in the mountains for a while until I found him,” Noah said.
“You found the man responsible for all those murders?” Saunders said, sounding shocked.
“He wasn’t a man,” Noah said. “He was one of these things. He tried to kill me, but the same people that saved me before, saved me again. Turned out they were onto it too. That’s where the priests came in. Some sort of Ancient Order looking out for things like these. Anyway, I guess I joined up with them and we’ve been hunting these things down ever since.”
“What’s rabbit girl got to do with all this?” Saunders asked, taking this new information far better than Noah had expected.
“She and a few others come from the same place as all these, uh, bad things,” Noah said, knowing he sounded like an idiot. “They’ve been helping us.”
“Why?” she asked.
“They want to I guess,” Noah half-lied. He didn’t need to tell her everything right off the bat.
“How is Margaret Wynters involved?” Naomi asked. “I know you wound up on payroll right after your godfather’s death.”
Noah paused for a moment. If she already knew that, then the jig was up. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure how outing Margaret would go for him in the long run. “Why do you want to know all this?” he asked instead of answering. “Why not just arrest me if that’s why you're here?”
“Have I given you the impression that’s why I’m here?” Saunders said. “I’m here because you are the key to explaining some yet to be explained things. I want to know what’s happening. That’s all. I retire in a few weeks and just wanted to run down one more bit of information no one else had. Judging by what I rolled up on here, I seem to have done just that.”
“So what, you want in, is that it?” Noah asked.
“Let me hear what I’d be getting myself into first,” Saunders said, which was far from a no. Maybe this would turn out alright, Noah thought, suddenly intrigued by the possibility.
Starting to feel more like a recruiter than a suspect, Noah prayed he wasn’t making a mistake as he decided to go all in. “Margaret wasn’t involved at first. Father Rigali, the smaller guy outside, was a part of this Order I mentioned earlier and he roped in two of his old buddies. They were running things when I joined up, but after one of them was killed by the little guy I told you I was hunting down, they brought Margaret in.”
“She is an acquaintance of theirs?” Saunders asked.
“They all grew up together,” Noah said.
“Who was the man that died?” she asked.
“I’m not sure if I should say,” Noah said, cautious again. “We obviously couldn’t take his body to a coroner. We buried him ourselves.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Saunders assured him. “Like I said, I’m not here to nail you to the wall.”
“Jack Andrews,” Noah said.
“No shit,” Saunders said, looking disturbed for the first time in their meeting.
“You knew him?” Noah asked.
“Barely,” she said. “Knew he was out of touch with his old buddies though. Kind of wish I didn’t know that now.”
“I didn’t know him very well either,” Noah said. “So far no one has come looking though, not around us anyway.”
“Do you think Ms. Wynters would meet with me?” Saunders asked, still looking a little out of it.
“You’re the FBI,” Noah said with a half smile. “Can’t imagine she’d turn you down.”
“Call her,” Saunders said. As Noah pulled out his phone, she grabbed his untouched sandwich and asked, “You gonna eat that?”
----------------------------
Margaret was still a little on edge after Noah’s call, but despite how it all sounded, Noah seemed to have things under control. What had happened in those towns would inevitably make the national news and there was also the matter of this FBI agent. Even if Noah was right about her intentions, the very idea that they had been found out so early in all of this was troubling. Things needed to change around here, she just wished she was certain about what changes to make.
Knowing that this was going to soon be her top priority, she made herself table it for now and focus on the little glowing man in front of her. The Prince had come to just as Noah had called her and decided to wait patiently on her desk while she finished the call. She had asked him to wait for Atticus to get up here and he had acquiesced silently. They had been quietly staring at each other ever since.
“I’m here,” Atticus said as he walked through the door and past Kim into the office.
“Hello Atticus Daniels,” the Moon Eyed Prince said.
“Hello,” Atticus said, taking a seat on the other side of Margaret’s desk. “How are you?”
“Feeling refreshed,” the Prince said as he slowly rose off the desk, spinning so that he could look at the both of them at once. The way his body hung below him made it seem as though his head was what made him float like that. Margaret privately wished Atticus had just come sit on her side of the desk, but that wasn’t important now. “I assumed Margaret Wynters would want to speak with me before I left to retrieve the Raven and his compatriots.”
“Good assumption,” Margaret said.
“You are concerned,” the Prince responded.
“How could I not be?” Margaret said back, a little annoyed. “You just up and disappeared without a word while our people were in danger.”
“Your people,” the Prince said. The correction came without any sort of nastiness, but she did not like it all the same.
“So what happened exactly?” Atticus asked, eyeing Margaret worriedly. He seemed to think that if she was too forward with this little fellow, it might go badly for her. He might be right, but that didn’t change a thing as far as she saw it. If she wanted answers, she would get them.
“In what sense?” the Prince asked.
“When you linked up to Eli’s laptop,” Margaret clarified.
“Ah,” the Prince said in his hollow voice. “That was an experience that I did not anticipate. When Elijah Benjamin told me of this unseen information network that your kind uses, I became intrigued. I left my earthly body behind while I took in all that there was to offer.”
“When you say all…” Margaret said.
“I mean all,” the Prince nodded.
“All what?” Atticus asked, looking from one to the other.
“Are you claiming to have read every bit of information on the internet?” Margaret asked, ignoring Atticus for now. He was very far out of his depth here.
“I took it all in,” the Prince said. “I did not go over it all piece by piece, but I looked through enough to see just what this world, and those within it, are.”
“And this made you run for the hills,” Margaret said, feeling a pit growing in her stomach. The modern internet was not the introduction she would want any outsider to get in regards to humanity as a whole, mostly because she knew the negative picture it would paint.
“For a time,” the Prince said. “My kind are not like yours. We possess very little individuality and to work against our own would be suicide. We are part of a whole, as you are, and see things as such. Your kind...you are petty. You misunderstand your role in things and have caused so much pain and destruction...it was hard to acknowledge. I thought you and your people here were representative of your kind. I was wrong.”
“But you came back,” Atticus said.
“I did,” the Prince nodded.
“Why?” Margaret asked.
“I calmed myself,” the Prince said, “and was honest about the fact that nestled within all the bad, was good. Nothing that could right the wrongs of your kind, but evidence enough that humanity is not a monolith and that even if your kind was not as noble as I had hoped, your cause still was. To put your lives on the line for the ungrateful and uncaring masses is a selflessness I will never, can never, know. When I knew you were in need of me, truly in need, I returned.”
“And will you stay?” Margaret asked.
“I will, though I may need to leave from time to time,” the Prince said. “I worry that I need to grow much stronger than I am currently if we are to survive this in the end. I am not yet ready to say how I plan to do this, but know that a plan is being formed and that I will not abandon you without warning again.”
“You didn’t abandon us,” Margaret said diplomatically, “just took a short hiatus. Can I ask you something before you go?” Margaret asked.
“Anything, though I may not have the answers you hope for,” the Prince said.
“When you came back to help Allen, you must have known Noah was in trouble,” Margaret said carefully, avoiding an accusatory tone at all costs. “How did you know he would be ok? Or did you make a choice?”
“Noah Benjamin had help on the way,” the Prince said. “While I had no way of knowing if it would play out in his favor, I had hope.”
Not sure if she liked that answer or not, Margaret said, “This woman, the one who saved Noah and his team, do you know anything about her?”
“She is no enemy of ours,” the Prince said. “To glean more than that would require an invasion of the mind. I promised you I would refrain from that.”
“Fair enough,” Margaret said, suppressing the urge to ask the Prince to do it anyway. “Drop the Raven and his buddies in the garages if you can. Wei won’t fit anywhere else.”
“It will be done,” the Prince said, and he was gone.
“So was that a bullet dodged or…” Atticus said.
“I’d say so,” Margaret sighed.
“Who is this woman you two were talking about?” Atticus asked as he rose to leave.
“Naomi Saunders,” Margaret sighed. “An FBI agent that tracked Noah to Minnesota. She’s requested a meeting with me at the end of the week.” That dropped Atticus right back down into his seat and put a smile on Margaret’s face for the first time that day. “Better yet,” she said, deciding to use the moment for her full amusement, “she knew Jack.”
Eli was surprised by just how quickly he’d managed to get from Rome to Nebraska. He’d made it to the airport with less than twenty minutes to spare, but just like Margaret had said, all he’d had to do was flash his Wynters Tech ID and security had gotten him right to his gate without any lines or hassle. From there it had been Rome to London, London to DC and DC to Omaha, all with zero layovers, followed by a two hour cab ride to the dirt road leading to the base. Considering all he’d done the past few hours, it was amusing to think the worst part of his trip was going to be walking from the public road to the Wynters Tech facility.
Luckily he hadn’t brought much with him, but it was still a decent walk. By the time he reached his destination, he was sweating despite the chill in the air. Knowing they weren’t supposed to enter through the front doors, he went around to the garages and found them open. Making his way inside, he found the rest of the building deserted, though once he was in the common area it was clear people were here. Somewhere. Not worrying too much about it, he went back to his old room and dropped off his bag. Spraying himself with a little deodorant, it had been a long flight, he decided to head up to Margaret’s office.
He made it up the staircase leading to her quarters without seeing a soul, but when he reached the first of the two security doors, someone pushed it open to greet him. “Hurry inside,” Kim said with a worried look on her face.
“Is everything alright?” Eli asked awkwardly as he followed her through the hallway and then the door into Margaret’s office.
“No. I don’t think so,” she said as they entered.
Eli didn’t know what was going on, but he could tell it was important. Margaret, Atticus, Jomo and Olivia were all huddled around her computer screen looking worried while Sophia, Benoit and some other men he didn’t know sat across the room from them. Father Lehman was also present, just off to the side of everything, looking even more jittery than usual. Kim beckoned Eli over to the computer where he fell into the tight circle with the others.
“Is it Noah?” Eli asked.
“Yes,” Margaret said looking up at him. “He’s getting us a live feed set up now. It isn’t looking good.”
“What does that mean?” Eli said, shocked by how calm he sounded.
“We aren’t sure yet, but it seems like they’ve been surrounded by upwards of thirty targets,” she said.
“What are they?” Eli said.
“We believe they are the missing residents of the towns Noah and his team were investigating. Whatever came through up there is like some sort of virus. It seems like it spread to a large number of people who have now boxed your brother and the others in a church. They say it’s defensible, but not indefinitely,” she said.
“That sounds like a shit ton more than thirty people,” Eli said, his inner alarm now finally creeping into his voice. “Why aren’t we sending people up there to help? Everyone’s just standing around.”
“We’d never get there in time and we can’t just…” Margaret started, but Eli wasn’t having it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eli said. “Where’s the Prince? Get his ass moving! Get him…”
“He’s gone dark,” Kim said calmly, nodding to the husk in the far corner of the room. “We don’t know when he’s going to be back. If that happens, in time, of course we’ll send him. Right now that isn’t an option though.”
“What about the Raven and all of his buddies? Where the fuck are they?” Eli was panicking now. How could they all just be sitting here? How could they not have some sort of plan?
“Hello?” Noah’s voice said from the computer speakers.
“Noah,” Margaret said loudly, waving at everyone to quiet down. Eli held his tongue with effort. He knew this wasn’t what Noah needed to hear right now.
“Well it works,” Noah said, to the others there with him, Eli assumed. “Yeah it’s us.”
“Has anything changed?” she said.
“Oh yeah,” Noah said. “Much worse. Our barricade at the back of the building is giving way and I wouldn’t feel stupid saying there might be three hundred of these things trying to get in the church right now. I think we might be fucked here.” The room seemed to shrink as Eli heard his brother’s steady but fear tinged voice.
“Is there anything you can do to kill it?” Olivia said.
“Ghat-soh thinks if we can find and kill the original, the rest will follow, but she also claims it won’t come at us like this. Since we can’t get out, that seems like a no go.” Noah really was trying not to sound worried, but it wasn’t working. That fact alone made Eli feel like he was going to throw up.
Suddenly there was some sort of commotion in the background on Noah’s end followed by shouting and gunfire. “Noah!” Eli said in a hoarse voice as he pushed his way to the computer, but no one could answer back.
---------------------
Noah heard the back door give way and charged towards it with the others. They had a plan for this, but they still needed to see what they were up against before trying to beat them back long enough to secure the second door between the back office and the main church against this mob. Ghat-soh was the first to reach the back room, but Noah was close behind. What they found was not promising, but Noah stuck to the plan. It was all he could do.
Instead of opening the door, these things had simply broken it inwards, shifting the furniture back and creating an opening on one side, near the top right corner of the doorway. Noah had flashbacks to the boathouse he had been trapped in when he’d first seen one of these creatures from another world a few months back. There a giant cat-like beast had squeezed through a narrow window in a way it should not have been able to in order to get to him. A similar thing was happening now, though these things seemed less pliable and simply more willing to injure themselves to get into the church.
Two had gotten inside, but Ghat-soh was already dispatching them with ease so Noah focused on the door. A pair of purple skinned, humanoid looking things were coming in now and Noah dispatched each with a shot to the head. These bodies clogged up the entryway for a moment until the creatures behind them pulled them loose and two new creatures took their places. The priests joined them now and for a moment it seemed as though they might be able to hold them off, but Noah quickly saw that, as they felled these strange corpses, the weight of them was forcing the door lower and lower, widening the entrance into their only refuge.
“Fall back!” Ghat-soh yelled just as the idea came into Noah’s mind to do so.
The priests backed out first while Noah and Ghat-soh followed them, still dropping bodies into the bottleneck they had hoped to create. “You sure you know which key it is?” Noah yelled over the noise of gunfire and the moaning things as they attacked and died in turn.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Rigali yelled. “But this door won’t hold long!”
“Only needs to hold long enough to get a barricade up,” Noah yelled back. “Are we ready!?”
“Go,” Ghat-soh said as she let arrows fly with practiced speed and accuracy.
Noah fired a few more shots indiscriminately at the door as he backed out before the long eared woman. Once Ghat-soh had come out behind him, they slammed the door shut while Rigali locked it tight with shaking hands. Without needing to say another word, the four of them slid the altar in front of the door as well as the chairs that had surrounded it and two pews they had wrenched up out of the floor.
Stepping back from their meager barricade, the four of them raised their weapons and ignored the rest of the horde pounding on the double doors behind them and the others trying in vain to force their way through the window slits in the thick stone walls. It only took five minutes for the door that stood between them and the things in the back room to give. The center split under the intense pressure from behind it and Noah watched as the rest of it was torn away without effort. Only when the door was more or less gone, did the four of them open fire.
As their enemies fell before them, Noah saw that their plan had been a dud and that this was more than likely the end. As the bodies fell, they budged the barricade further and further away from the doorway and the reality that they did not have enough ammunition or people to survive this set in. Feeling his knees begin to shake and tears at the corners of his eyes, he took a deep breath and kept firing.
As he finished his first of three clips, he heard an unearthly sound from his left Stealing a glance in that direction, he found that it was coming from Ghat-soh. While he could normally understand all that she said, now he found that he could not. The words were no longer in the inexplicable English she normally used, but instead sounded unlike anything Noah had ever heard. It was almost lyrical, but harsh and changed the tenor of her voice entirely. Whatever she was singing was unquestionably mournful, but it did not make Noah feel like falling into despair. To the contrary; it made him want to die a man, on his feet and defiant to the end.
Raising his reloaded weapon, he found himself singing along, though he did not know how the words were coming to him. All he knew was that this was it, the final fight, and that he was ready.
-----------------
The spirit wiped drool from the corner of Chip’s mouth as it watched its hosts closing in on the church. They had failed to get the holy man who had blockaded himself inside, but that had been easy to overlook; there had been plenty to eat for all of them after Lakeview had been subdued. Now that they had fed though, the hunger had returned. Chip was feeling it as bad as any of the others, but the fear that all could be lost if the spirit exposed itself too early was still at the forefront of its primitive mind.
As it shared in Chip’s anguish and hunger, even as its hundreds of other hosts prepared to devour those they had trapped in the stone building, the spirit saw something from the corner of Chip’s eye. A car, alone and with only an old woman inside, just sitting there, watching the main body of hosts at work.
“Please,” Chip mumbled in his own voice. “So hungry. Please.”
The spirit hesitated. It felt the hunger too, almost as badly as the fear of discovery or destruction. The woman was old, which meant she was weak. And she was alone. And distracted. Chip just needed to get her out of the car…
‘Feed!’, it said and Chip took off, his glee shared with the spirit over their coming feast.
---------------------
Naomi thought she might be having some sort of stroke as she looked out at the town of Lakeview. This place was not deserted, far from it, but she had no idea who or what these people, if you could call them that, were. She could see what they were up to though and that was nearly as alarming as everything else. An old stone church was currently the object of their attention and she had to imagine that meant there were people in there.
Feeling her pistol in her right hand, she tried to figure out what she could do to help whoever it was that was in there. She supposed she could try to lead them away in the car, though there were more than enough of these things to both try to run her down and keep trying to get at the folks in the church. No, that wasn’t the answer any more than stepping out of the car and going all Rambo with her small caliber pistol was.
Trying to figure out how any of this was even possible, she sat in her car, staring at a problem she hardly believed could be hers to solve. Trying to clear her mind, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, something slammed forcefully into her driver’s side door.
Her eyes shot open as she looked at her window, now cracked so thoroughly that she couldn’t see a damn thing through it. Assuming this was only the first assault on her vehicle, Naomi moved fast. Clambering over the console between the front seats, she pressed her back against the passenger side door, placed her feet on the side of the driver’s seat and dashboard and raised her weapon, leveling it at the cracked window.
Her intuition, common sense really, had been right and within seconds of taking her defensive position, the thing came back at the window, pushing through this time, if not completely. Naomi froze for a second as she looked at the thing now stuck in the glass of her window from the neck up. The face was almost human, but its skin had a purplish hue and the eyes were glowing faintly, yet somehow lifeless. The mouth was full of sharp and broken teeth unlike any she had seen in the mouth of a human. Despite the damage the glass was doing to this horrifying thing, it still seemed to be trying to reach her.
The initial shock was great, but short lived. Flicking off her safety, she blew the thing’s brains out.
------------------------------
Noah had been firing his last shots as the things broke through the barricade, rushing towards them with greedy mouths and merciless eyes, when it happened. Even as he elected to fight these things with his bare hands, they fell, the nearest slamming into him and nearly taking him off his feet. As he staggered backwards, he saw that the church floor was now littered with bodies, none of them moving.
“What the fuck happened?” Noah said, shocked but already feeling relief washing over him unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
“The head has been removed,” Ghat-soh said, comprehensible again. She sounded shocked. In awe.
“By who?” Joe said in a shaky voice. His legs had failed him apparently and he was currently sitting on the floor.
“Let’s find out,” Noah said as Jabari helped his fellow priest off the ground.
The four of them doubted they could move the massive front doors with bodies laying in front of them, so they clambered over the corpses lying two deep in the back office. They had to move quite a few bodies to finally make it outside, but it was well worth it to escape the confines of their near-tomb. As they came around the side of the church, Noah saw a woman walking towards them. A woman he recognized.
“Oh shit,” Noah said as all relief fled his body.
“Oh shit indeed,” Agent Naomi Saunders said as she joined them.
“Should I kill her, Noah Benjamin,” Ghat-soh said, stepping into view, an arrow pointed directly into the older woman’s face.
“Fuck no!” Noah said, stepping in between the long eared archer and the FBI agent. “Terrible idea.”
“Who is this Noah?” Joe asked cautiously as he came out from behind the church.
“Jesus,” Noah said as they pulled up to the outskirts of Lakeview. Noah had been forced to stop the van at the border of town because so many bodies lay in the street.
“What on earth happened here?” Rigali said quietly as he pulled out his rosary and clutched it tightly in one hand.
“A massacre,” Ghat-soh said from the back of the van.
“We should go,” Noah said, trying to pull his eyes away from the bodies lining the street. Nearly every building in town showed signs of forced entry and from what they had seen already, Noah highly doubted there was a living soul anywhere in the area.
“Look at the church,” Jabari said, pointing to the small church they had visited a short time ago. Noah did and saw to his amazement that it seemed untouched. “We should go see if our brother managed to hide in there,” he added. “Only place in town that looks like it might have been spared.”
“I would not advise that,” Ghat-soh said.
“I agree with Mustafa,” Joe said, though he seemed far more frightened than the other man. “We can’t leave him or the host here if this place is lost.”
“Will you watch our backs if we check it out?” Noah asked Ghat-soh, swiveling around in the driver’s seat to do so.
“Of course I will, but it is…” she began, but Noah had heard enough.
“We will be quick,” Noah said. “Bring your guns,” Noah added to the priests as he stepped out of the van.
The first thing that hit him was the odor. In the other towns the stench of death had been faint, sickly sweet beneath everything else. Here though it was all that Noah could smell. Waiting for the others to join him, the four of them made their way down the street to the church. When they finally reached the heavy double doors, they found them locked.
“Let’s check the back,” Rigali said once they tried to force it, “there should be an administrative entrance back there.”
Rounding the church, they found a sight that was cause for immediate concern. The back door had been forced partially open and the only thing keeping it from being fully ajar seemed to be a pile of furniture pressed up against it from the inside. “Let’s get in there,” Jabari said, sounding alarmed. It wasn’t easy, but they managed to make enough room for Noah to squeeze through and soon enough he was in the church.
What he found inside was not promising. Lying on the floor was Father Wilson, though there were no bite marks or wounds of any kind that Noah could see on his person. Moving the furniture away from the door, he let the other three inside. Rigali and Jabari rushed to their fellow priest’s side, but Noah didn’t think there was much to do for the man.
“He’s gone,” Joe said. “I think he had a heart attack.”
“No,” Mustafa said, “look at the carpet.” Noah looked with the others and saw that the dark green carpet around the man was wet. Jabari, his hand wrapped in his robes, dragged one of the dead man’s arms out from under him and exposed the man’s wrist and forearm. The older man had cut a vertical line from the base of his wrist almost all the way up to the elbow.
“May God watch over his soul,” Joe said, eyes wide.
“His soul is lost,” Jabari said. Noah may not remember much from his days as a practicing Catholic, but he did know that suicide was the surest way to keep yourself out of heaven. For a priest to have taken this option to avoid whatever had happened here was deeply troubling.
“I don’t mean to be callous, but can you two please get what you need,” Noah said, hating himself for doing so. “We shouldn’t stay here.”
“Of course,” Joe said. Turning to Jabari he asked, “If I get what’s in here, will you clear out the tabernacle?”
“I will,” Jabari said. “It will only take a moment,” he added to Noah before disappearing into the church proper.
Following him more to get out of the room with the dead man than anything else, Noah found himself in the main worship area. The pews looked rather ominous now in the unlit church and Noah could see why they hadn’t been able to get in. The double doors had not just been locked, but the heavy bar that Noah assumed was mostly decorative had been put in place, adding a second layer of protection. How the little priest had managed it alone was a mystery, but Noah guessed that fear could kick up the adrenaline in anyone.
Moving past the altar, he inspected the building and realized it was probably the safest place in town to ride something like this out. The windows weren’t exactly windows, but narrow slits in the stone walls that let in just enough light to keep the inside of the church from being too dark. The fact that there were only two doors was a nice feature too, though it hadn’t really helped the place’s single occupant very much in the end.
“We’re ready,” Jabari called from the dais where the altar stood.
“Let’s split then,” Noah said, making his way back towards the administrative area.
Noah met Jabari near the altar and then walked back to where Rigali and Ghat-soh were waiting. Gesturing for the others to leave before him, Noah was the last out and consequently the last to know that they had made a serious error when they had left the van. Not bothering to close the door behind him, Noah walked directly into Jabari as he tried to leave the church behind.
“What’s the holdup?” Noah asked, but the answer became clear as soon as he looked past the massive priest’s back.
There were things moving towards them from every direction and Noah felt his legs go weak as he realized what they were. The residents of Northwood, Ashland and Lakeview, the ones that hadn’t been eaten anyway, had returned and they seemed intent on reaching their little group en masse. “To the van!” Noah said, but no one but Ghat-soh seemed able to move. “Go!” Noah yelled even as he saw more of the things emerging from the tree line a mere twenty feet from the van.
“Too late,” Ghat-soh hissed as she notched an arrow and dropped one of the nearer things with a shaft through the eye. “We need to retreat inside.”
“Goddammit,” Noah said as he grabbed Jabari roughly and tried to pull the man back inside with him. It only took a little tug to get him moving and Ghat-soh had no trouble dragging Rigali inside behind them. “Block the door,” Noah said and he was glad to see the priests didn’t need another push. There was plenty of furniture left to use, much of it too heavy for one man alone, and soon they had a decent pile keeping the door wedged shut.
“We should not stay in this cramped space,” Ghat-soh said.
“Then let’s get out into the main part of the church,” Noah replied. “I can’t imagine they can break through the doors in there.”
The four of them dashed into the large, high-ceilinged room full of pews just as the horde outside reached them. The light dimmed as the slits in the walls were blocked from the outside and the distinct sound of bodies shuffling and banging on the door could be heard from both the front and back of the building.
“God help us,” Joe said as he made a quick sign of the cross.
“Salvation is lost to us now,” Ghat-soh said and Noah heard pain in her voice. “There is no escaping this. We are lost.”
--------------------------------
Naomi found Ashland in worse shape than she had expected. Unlike Northwood, the violence here had spilled into the streets and the evidence was everywhere. Staying in her car, Naomi did a few laps around town, seeing no one, at least no one alive. After taking in all there was to see here in the streets of Ashland, Naomi decided that there was nothing to be gained from remaining. Lakeview was the last place she knew Mr. Benjamin had been and if she didn’t find him there, unfortunately, she was going to have to assume he was dead.
Not having to worry about the local cops giving her a hard time, she made her way slowly out of Ashland before seeing just how fast this car could go.
Noah woke up early and immediately strained his ears to make sure nothing was rustling around outside. He heard nothing, so he got up and looked out his window at town. He could still see a few bodies in the street, unmoved because Noah had thought it unwise, but little else of note. The priests were still dead asleep and snoring loudly, so Noah stepped outside to make his phone call to base.
“Everything alright out there Noah?” Margaret said the second she picked up the phone.
“Can’t say that exactly, but we made it through the night without incident,” Noah said.
“Still planning to press on to Lakeview?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Noah yawned. “Do our due diligence and all that.”
“What is the plan if there are still people there?” she asked.
“I hate to say it, but I doubt there will be,” Noah said.
“Humor me,” Margaret responded.
“If there are people there, I guess we stay,” Noah said. “I can’t imagine they’ll all just pick up and leave because I tell them to.”
“I don’t think that’s wise,” Margaret said. “I think that no matter what you find, you need to just move right on through Lakeview and out of the area. When the Prince is able, I’m going to send him and a few of the non-humans out there to deal with it. You and the others just get what information you can and get the hell out.”
“I think we can do that,” Noah said, eyes scanning the part of town he could see from here as he spoke.
“Good,” Margaret said, sounding relieved for some reason. Did she think he was going to fight her on this? “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Noah ended the call and put his phone back in one pocket as he drew the radio from the other. He had tried to check in with Ghat-soh last night, but hadn’t heard anything. He was a little worried, but knew she could take care of herself. Pressing down the button on the side, he said, “Ghat-soh?”
“Yes Noah?” her voice said from the other side.
Noah felt quite a bit of tension leave him as he said, “Good to hear your voice. Couldn’t reach you last night.”
“I did not want to risk discovery by making too much noise,” she said. “Are we preparing to leave?”
“Lakeview and then we’re gone,” Noah said. “Want to come meet us at the van?”
“Could I convince you to just press on?” Ghat-soh said.
“It will be quick,” Noah said.
The woman did not respond for a minute, but just when Noah was about to ask her if she’d heard him, she said, “As you wish.”
Slightly concerned with Ghat-soh’s trepidation, Noah put the radio away and figured he ought to wake up the priests.
-----------------------
Naomi rolled into Northwood around seven in the morning. She was dead tired from driving through the night and was tempted to try and find a place to rest before pressing on to Ashland or Lakeview, but that didn’t look like an option now that she was here. As she moved at a snail's pace down the mainstreet of Northwood, she could tell something had happened recently. Nearly every building she saw had at least one broken window or damaged door. Even a few of the unmarked doors stood open, despite there not being a soul in the street or in any of the businesses she passed. Feeling a tightness growing in her chest and stomach, she parked near the center of town and made sure to grab her pistol as she stepped out of the car.
She wondered what she must look like with her nearly white hair, t-shirt, jeans, Converses and pistol. Probably like she needed to be committed. And maybe she did. Only a complete fool would wander around a place like this. Unsure of where to go or what to do, she decided to go into one of the town’s larger home’s near where she had parked. The front door was locked despite the screen being torn from it and the only other way in was through a broken side window she would rather not climb through. Knocking loudly upwards of ten times, she decided to go around the back. There she found the back door unlocked and let herself inside. What she discovered upon entry made her want to run right back to the car.
Lying face down just short of the back door was an older man, clearly dead. While Naomi Saunders had seen many a dead body in her time, she had never seen one in this state. Large chunks of flesh had been torn from the man’s neck, face, shoulders, sides and legs. As she tried to inspect him without disturbing the corpse, she got the sickening feeling that these bites had come from a person. Disarming the safety on her weapon, she moved past the old man and inspected the rest of the house.
The remainder of the downstairs seemed untouched and undisturbed. Moving upstairs though, she found more signs of foul play. There were four bedrooms up here and three out of the four had had their windows, a good nine feet off the ground, broken in. Who or what had done this was a mystery to her, but in each of these rooms there were traces of blood on the sheets, and in one case, a bit of flesh as well. Still, none of this compared to what she found in the fourth room.
When she’d moved past the open door and found a crib, she should have just turned to leave, but something wouldn’t let her. Moving across the nursery, she’d been forced to stop as her eyes lingered on something just to the right of the crib on the floor. Fighting the urge to vomit as she took it in, she realized she was now looking down at the remains of someone’s infant child. The form was almost unrecognizable in its current state and, for some horrible reason, all she could think of was one of those discarded turkey legs you see at the fair; picked clean except for the bones and a few other undesirable bits. Backing out of the room slowly, she closed the door.
Moving quickly to get out of the house, she made her way down the stairs and out the front door, leaving it ajar as she stepped out into the crisp morning air. Closing her eyes and taking deep steadying breaths, she tried to decide where to go from here. Would she find Noah Benjamin in one of these houses? Was whatever had done this watching her now? This last thought forced her eyes open and she decided to get back to the relative safety of her car.
Once inside, Naomi put the keys in the ignition and got the car running. As she sat there in the middle of this dead town, she wondered what she should do next. Her initial impulse was to call this in, though she knew that was foolish. The last thing she needed was to explain herself to one of the higher ups weeks before retiring. Her next best choice was to get the hell out of here. Just turn around, pretend she’d never come here and retire happily and on time. Yet the option that seemed the most right to her was to press on and find out what had happened to these people.
Whatever Noah Benjamin might be, he was not capable of what she had seen nor did she think he was here compelling others to commit these atrocities. No, despite what she had just stumbled upon, her original hypothesis remained her best guess; Noah Benjamin somehow knew what was going on and was either trying to stop it or keeping an eye on it for someone else. Margaret Wynters maybe? Regardless, if he was here somewhere, she needed to find him.
Putting the car in drive, Naomi plugged Ashland into her GPS and got going. There was no point staying here and she was unable to turn back. Her only path was onward and all she hoped was that she didn’t end up like that poor bastard back in the house or the kid discarded in the corner. She meant to enjoy her retirement until at least her mid-eighties. Nothing less was acceptable to her.
------------------------
They had journeyed from sundown to sunrise and the Raven was only now convinced they had found an adequate place to make camp. Allen’s warning about flying vehicles had made him fairly paranoid and the Raven had made sure to put as many miles between himself and the place they had started this as he could. They now found themselves beneath a thick copse of tree cover and the Raven was fairly comfortable that they could not be detected from above.
Wei got going on a fire, a small one, like everything was normal, but the other two seemed edgy now that they were alone with the Raven. He understood their worries, they were cowards, both of them, but with Wei here they had nothing to fear from him. The only thing the Raven wished as the four of them took their places around the small blaze was that Ghat-soh was here with them. She felt as he did and would stand by him through all of this. If the others heard his words from her lips, they would be far more likely to do as he wished. Nothing to do about that now though. He would need to convince them in his own way.
“Alright Tenoshin,” Wei said, “out with it. Why have you called a council?”
“So that we may all be of one mind,” the Raven said. “We will not have another opportunity to speak like this. With Allen and his men gone and the Prince recovering for now, we must come to an understanding.”
“And what understanding is that?” Wei said.
This was why the Raven wished Ghat-soh was here. This was turning into a council between Wei and himself, not the four of them together. Had her voice been added to the mix, the others would speak more freely instead of trusting Wei to protect them. “That our goals, our plans, go beyond our time here in the Shadow,” the Raven said.
“So you are scheming?” Wei said. Without seeing his face beneath that helmet of his it was hard to tell, but the Raven did not think he was upset by this. Quite the opposite.
“If you must call it that,” the Raven said. “I came here to buy time. We all know it is hard to plan in our world. I had no course of action in mind when I came here, but it did not take long for one to present itself.”
“You mean to have your new friends help us,” Wei said, nodding. “I have had similar thoughts since arriving here.”
“It has become more than mere thought,” the Raven said. “Allen Becker has promised to help us when this is all through.”
“When what is through?” Iktomi asked. She seemed as fearful as before, but all six of her eyes were wide with interest nonetheless.
“The portals must be closed to the last before Allen Becker will bring his weapons and tools to our world,” the Raven said.
“That might take some time,” Wei said.
“Are you in a hurry?” the Raven shot back. “We have nothing but time and, after what we just did, I can’t imagine we aren’t in for more visitors from back home.”
“Oh they will come,” Coyote nodded. “The Interloper will not suffer this many defeats at our hands without retribution.” The animalistic man looked happy about this and for the second or third time since arriving in this desolate land, the Raven wondered if he may have misjudged the mongrel.
“I’m not so sure,” Iktomi said. “Things back home are changing. The Prey are rising up far more frequently than ever before. Any forces or allies redirected here risk leaving their lands unprotected.”
“Go on,” Wei said.
“My guess is that Coyote is half right,” she said tentatively. “They will not let this last betrayal stand, especially now that Wei and I have joined you openly. My guess is that they will send another force after this one, not to test your friends, but to kill them. If we can repel these as well, perhaps we can show them that the Shadow is not worth fighting over.” The Raven may not like the treacherous woman, but she was far older than the rest of them, save for possibly Ghat-soh, and she understood the inner-workings of their world far better than he did. The Raven had never concerned himself with such things, though that might have been an oversight now that they were in the thick of it.
“That may be so,” the Raven said, “but Allen Becker will not leave his world for ours unless he is certain it will be safe. From what I’ve seen, this means all portals, all but one, being closed. This is all besides the point though.”
“It is, is it?” Wei asked.
“It is,” the Raven said, not appreciating Wei’s mocking tone. “I called this council to offer the three of you an ultimatum. If you are to stay here, you must swear yourself to my cause, our cause. We here will form a new tribe and it will be unlike any other our world has known. Our goal will not be the continuation of our kind, that future was lost to us long ago, but instead to free our world from the yoke of the Invader.”
“And if we refuse?” Wei asked.
“Then we will step away from the safety of our council and settle it in the old way.” the Raven said, looking at each of the others in turn.
“You would challenge me to combat!?” Wei laughed.
“Only if you turn your back on what we both know to be right,” the Raven shot back. Wei might think himself invincible, or near enough, but the Raven had laid low many who felt this way and would have no fear trying to do so again.
“You are serious then,” Wei said, all mirth gone from his voice.
“When am I not?” the Raven responded.
“I will stand with you,” Coyote said, rising and making a fist with his right hand that he then placed over his chest. “These people have been good to me. I will not turn my back on their world if they have vowed to fight for ours.” The Raven wasn’t sure Coyote fully understood all of this, but he was glad to have the beast on his side. Hayden Fritz was bringing forth something in him the Raven had not suspected was there beneath all that fur.
“And I will have you, brother,” the Raven said, standing and making the same gesture back to Coyote, who bowed low.
“Well if he is to be a part of this,” Wei said, getting to his feet, “then I will not let it be said that I turned my back on you.” Making the same gesture as the other two, he bowed to them.
“Welcome brother,” the Raven and Coyote said.
All eyes then turned to Iktomi who seemed to be having some sort of internal battle. The Raven understood what she was going through. To join them meant almost certain death if she returned to their home before she was ready and without the others. Yet, the Raven’s offer did not give her much room to refuse. She was no warrior and would fall to him easily, something the Raven had known when he’d given her the choice to stay or go. He needed her mind, but cared little for her comfort or safety.
“Though it may end in suffering and death,” she said, rising and using all three of her right hands to mimic the others, “I will follow you into this chaos, whatever the end may be.”
“Welcome, sister,” they all said, and it was done.
“Has Ghat-soh joined us as well?” Wei said, now that the tense moment was through and they had all committed themselves to this new cause.
“She was the first,” the Raven said.
“I should have known,” Wei laughed. “She has always been in the background of your plans has she not?”
“She has been a friend to me longer than any other,” the Raven said. “Our destinies lay on the same path. If not for her, I would have perished or fallen into madness long ago.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wei said. “Does this new tribe of ours have a name?”
“No,” the Raven said. “Why name something that will only die? Our goal is revenge. We will have it and then we will fade.” The others said nothing to this. There was nothing to say.
There hadn’t been much time to savor their victory once Chiguak was dead. Allen had called it in to Margaret the second he’d stepped out of the dead shaman’s lair, and she had agreed that the last thing they could do was stay put. Heading North was out of the question, as was taking the non-humans with them. The Prince would need to come get them once he was ready, something that made Margaret and Allen equally nervous, but it was the only option considering Wei’s size.
The non-humans would stay behind and head north together. This should keep them out of sight and would give them something to do while the Prince gathered his strength. For Allen, Hector, Micah, Ramon and Hayden, there was a long trip to the southwest via snowmobile. Once they hit a little place called Chicken, they would head due south to the Northway airport, near the border with Canada. From there Margaret had arranged for them to fly home on a Wynters Tech plane. The journey to the airport would be a solid eight hours, possibly more, and then the flight would be another fourteen in the air. In other words, this was going to be brutal.
“You think you’ll be ok leading them north?” Allen asked the Raven as the two groups prepared to part ways.
“We will travel unseen,” the Raven said. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“Once you find a good place to camp,” Allen said, “try to forgo a fire if you can. There’s a chance the state police might get a chopper in the air based on what everyone in Fairview’s told them.”
“A what?” the Raven said.
“Flying vehicle,” Allen said. “If they spot you, they’ll send men with guns your way.”
“Understood. We will be under the same roof again soon, Allen Becker. Until then,” the Raven said, extending a hand.
“Until then,” Allen said, grasping the Raven’s forearm in the style he preferred, before turning back to the snowmobiles where the others were waiting. “Let’s get moving,” he said as he got on his own vehicle. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
--------------------------------
The Raven watched as Allen Becker and his men disappeared from view, speeding away on their strange sleds. Once they were gone, he turned to his companions and said, “We travel north. Move quickly. We must find a secluded place to hold council.”
“You are up to something Tenoshin,” Wei said.
“He’s always up to something,” Iktomi murmured from behind Wei.
“Enough,” the Raven said. “Iktomi, ride upon Wei if you cannot keep up. We only have so much time. Another moment of privacy is not guaranteed.”
--------------
Margaret was relieved that Alaska was over and that no one on the team seemed to have suffered lasting injuries. Kevin and Elliot weren’t in great shape of course, but Olivia, even with her own injuries, had been tending to them since the Prince had dropped them off what seemed like weeks ago now. Knowing that it was still too early to celebrate, she had called Atticus, Kim and Jomo into her office. Olivia had been invited as well, but had elected to stay with Elliot and Kevin. Margaret hadn’t gotten a good read on Ms. Ellis yet, but she was starting to think there was bad blood between them that she was only now becoming aware of.
Pushing these thoughts from her mind, she focused on the three others gathered around her desk. This was her admin team of sorts, sans Allen and maybe Joe, but considering neither of them was available anyway, she hardly felt guilty leaving them out, so to speak. “Thank you all for coming,” she said formally, “I know it feels like we’re on the other side of this, but that isn’t the case, and I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page there.”
“You’re talking about Noah I assume,” Atticus said.
“That and the fact that our otherworldly allies are now on their own in the wild north,” Margaret said.
“I thought you were ok with that?” Atticus said.
“I saw that it was our only option,” Margaret corrected him. “I am far from ok with it.”
“I think you might be in the wrong there,” Jomo said. “If everything goes fine, which I have a strong feeling it will, this is a major opportunity to build trust. It shows not just that we trust them to be out, but gives them the opportunity to prove that it was a good idea.”
“Or to disappear,” Kim said, taking Margaret’s side almost reflexively.
“It is possible,” Atticus said, “but I can’t see it. They know the Prince is with us. That should be a deterrent all on its own, and if it isn’t enough, the prospect of us coming after them will be. The Raven is a bit of a headcase, but he fears our weapons almost as much as I think he wants to get his hands on them.”
“Not to mention the bond Hayden seems to have created with Coyote and Iktomi,” Jomo added. “I can’t see those two running off with the Raven anymore than I can see the Raven leaving here without Ghat-soh.”
“Perhaps,” Margaret said.
“Maybe we should move on to Noah and his team, such that it is,” Jomo said. He was not happy about the capabilities of the group Margaret had allowed to head north to Minnesota, but it was a little late to do much about that now. “Noah’s in Ashland currently?”
“Yes,” Margaret said, “and via his reports, both it and Northwood are ghost towns save for a handful of bodies they claim have been eaten or partially fed on.”
“What about this third town?” Atticus asked, “Lakeview?”
“They will swing by in the morning to see what is going on there,” Margaret sighed, not liking the idea one bit. “Ghat-soh advised them against spending the night there. She seems to think the town is doomed.”
“Then they should fall back,” Jomo said.
“Noah refuses,” Margaret said.
“Why?” Kim asked.
“He thinks that there is merit in knowing what’s going on,” Margaret said, “which I tend to agree with. His plan is to swing through Lakeview, see what state town is in, and then head out of the search area to wait for backup.”
“We should have a team headed his way already then,” Jomo said.
“What good would that do?” Margaret asked.
“What do you mean?” Jomo replied.
“I mean, if these towns are gone, three of them, then what chance do a handful of us have?” Margaret asked. “My plan is to send the Prince and some of the non-humans once our people are out of there.” She, along with the rest of the personnel on base at the moment, had been able to watch the Alaska engagement, at least what had happened outside, via one of her Wynters Tech drones, and the experience had changed her view of things more than she had anticipated. “You saw what happened in Alaska. Without Wei and Coyote, our people would have been defenseless against...whatever those things were. I think we need to exercise a little more caution than we have been.”
“Any idea when the Prince should be back in action?” Atticus asked Margaret.
“No way to tell when he’s out like that,” she said, nodding towards the unlit husk in the far corner of her office. She’d only noticed him a few hours ago and had no idea when he’d actually arrived.
“So we’re just going to hope Noah and his team survive the night and then the morning after?” Jomo asked.
“Ghat-soh is with them,” Atticus said. “It isn’t like they are totally unprotected.”
“I don’t like this Margaret,” Jomo said, ignoring Atticus entirely.
“I respect that,” Margaret replied as gingerly as she could, “but it’s what we’re going to do.”
“Anything else then?” Jomo asked, already rising from his seat.
“I suppose not,” Margaret said. She hated making Jomo feel ignored like this, but it was what it was.
Jomo left without another word, Kim rushing out behind him, probably to calm him down. Atticus rose as well, but stayed behind a second and said, “Are you sure about this?”
Hayden followed Allen and the Raven into Chiguak’s abode with his pistol drawn and his heart thumping away at top speed. He had almost died more than once this last week and he was starting to think he was pushing his luck. Leaving the door to this strange place ajar, Hayden took in his surroundings. They were in a long hall with no adornments of any kind except for torches that lined the walls and provided the only source of light. Hayden knew that what he was looking at was far more spacious than the outside of the building suggested, but it was the silence and the cold that made him the most nervous.
“Down this hall we will find him,” the Raven said, as if there were any other options. “Be on the alert. I would be surprised if he had no defenses in this place.”
Allen said nothing, but readied his rifle as he led the way. Hayden wasn’t exactly sure why Allen had chosen him to come along, but despite his fear Hayden was glad he was getting to see this. As they kept moving down the hallway that seemed to never end, he thought back to Noah and Olivia’s description of the path to the Moon Eyed Kingdom. This seemed a lot like that and Hayden was very grateful that at least they weren’t underground. He’d let all six of those orca-dog-things, or whatever they’d been, eat him all at once, before he’d allow himself to be buried alive.
After a ten minute walk, they could finally see something besides darkness in the distance. What began as a soft glow developed into a decent sized fire and behind that sat someone in a large wooden chair, more of a throne really. Hayden assumed this was Chiguak, but said nothing as they moved out of the endless hallway and into a large, domed space. This place pretty much had to be magical, Hayden thought, considering that it seemed bigger in here than the entire longhouse had looked from the outside.
Seated in the large wooden throne behind the fire was a small man, huddled in furs and blankets despite the blaze before him. His face looked more human than most they had seen on his kind, but Hayden thought that might be because it was distorted by more wrinkles than he had ever seen on a person before. Nothing but this face was visible and even though Hayden knew he was the source of all of this horror, he couldn’t bring himself to be intimidated by the little man.
“Welcome to my temporary home,” the figure said in a weak voice as something stepped out from the darkness behind him. Human in shape, but with no other person-like features to speak of, it was covered in hundreds of hooked spikes from head to toe and looked like some sort of medieval torture device personified. Feeling his blood run cold, Hayden realized that this was the horror the Raven had warned them about.
“We are lost,” the Raven said in a tight voice.
“Silence,” Chiguak said, exposing a small hand and moving it across his chest in a short wave that he directed at the Raven. Hayden watched in horror as the Raven crumbled to the floor, unconscious or dead, and wondered if he was about to join Jack as another casualty to this second world’s sinister magic. “Relax,” Chiguak said, as he waved his hand again and the hook covered being disappeared as if it had never even been there, “I mean only to speak with you, if you are willing.”
“What did you just do to our friend?” Allen said, his rifle pointed right at the little man’s face.
“He is merely sleeping,” Chiguak said calmly. “I did not trust him to allow us this moment of peace and discussion. The Harbinger is a dangerous enemy. I did not take his presence here lightly.” So the Raven has a rep, Hayden thought as he took the little man in.
“What do we have to discuss?” Allen said. “You’ve made your intentions pretty clear from where I’m standing.”
“Then I doubt you’re standing in the right place,” Chiguak said smugly. “Please take a seat. Join me around my fire.”
“Not going to happen,” Allen said, but Hayden wasn’t willing to blindly go along in this case.
“Relax Allen,” Hayden said as he walked past the rifle wielding man. Moving to a spot across from the fire, he was mildly surprised as a chair rose up out of the dirt, a smaller version of Chiguak’s own.
“I wouldn’t sit in that,” Allen said.
“If he pulls any shit, shoot him in the face,” Hayden said as he took a seat. “It isn’t like his magic will work on us anyway.” He for one hadn’t forgotten the Prince’s gift, now dangling around his neck.
“It is true,” Chiguak said. “You are protected by a power older than my own and have the advantage. My energies are spent and my guardian has been returned to his home and I am not strong enough to bring him back. Like I said, I mean only to talk and think you will want to hear what I have to say.”
“I’m with you,” Hayden said, shooting Allen a pleading look. “Let’s hear it.”
-------------------------------
Wei surveyed the battlefield with pride. All of their enemies had fallen and not all of them had been dispatched by his hand. Coyote had killed three on his own, though one had already been injured by one of the humans. Iktomi had killed one as well, a surprise for Wei who knew she did not relish battle, and Wei had killed the rest as well as Amorok. He had expected more resistance than they had ended up facing, but he would not allow it to ruin his victory. There would be more chances to test himself in time, that much was clear.
“Allen and them get inside?” the man named Micah asked him when they had all come together in front of the longhouse.
“They did,” Coyote nodded. “I saw them.”
“Should we go in after them,” the man named Hector asked.
“I will. You all stay behind,” Wei said. He could see his allies were weary and scared, understandable considering their limitations. Walking to the longhouse doors he gave them a tug. They did not open to him. He did not try again. No amount of force would open these doors, he realized.
The Raven and his friends were on their own. For the first time in a long time, Wei felt worried.
-------------------------
“Where should I begin?” Chiguak asked Hayden, ignoring Allen and his gun.
“You’re the one who wants to talk,” Hayden said. “Start wherever you want.”
“Do you know who it is you have angered?” Chiguak said.
“You mean who sent you and the rest of the things we’ve been dealing with?” Hayden asked. “The Voice? The Interloper? I’ve heard it called a few names.”
“So you do know,” Chiguak said, looking impressed. “But do you understand?”
“Why don’t you help me,” Hayden said. Allen may not grasp what was happening, but Hayden did. It was beginning to look like they had a turncoat on their hands and Hayden knew just how much men in that position liked to talk.
“You understand that your friend on the floor over there and I are not the same?” Chiguak asked.
“Yes,” Hayden said. “He was given a gift, while you became what you were of your own accord.”
“Basically,” Chiguak nodded. “Of all the allies you have accrued, and they are a powerful group, I am far older and far more powerful. I remember when this Voice, this Interloper as you called it, first arrived. One day our minds were clear, our own, and the next we had been violated and that has not stopped to this day. Our world, our future, was taken from us and corrupted by this unseen force that gave men, such as your friend there, powers they did not earn or deserve.
“At first this change had very little effect on myself or those like me. These Hunters, as they call themselves, may have been powerful, but they were young and foolish, at least at first. Some of their kind came after me, for either revenge or to make a name for themselves, and I filled my hall with their corpses. I, more than most, proved that their power was limited and their ascendance far from pre-ordained,” Chiguak said. He seemed very proud of this and Hayden wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Then they multiplied,” he continued. “They spread and consolidated power unlike any others had up to that point in our world. The original Hunters, those that brought the Old World under their control, named themselves the Great Ones and made an alliance not only with each other, but with this Voice, the poisoner of our home.”
“And you didn’t like that,” Hayden said.
“It was a betrayal,” Chiguak nodded. “This thing should have been cast out, not catered to. Together they have kept our world from growing, from becoming more than it is. For thousands of years I watched as my world came more and more under the control of these traitors and their benefactor. I knew I could not do anything to resist it, but that changed when one of the Interloper’s shades came to me. Do you know of these creatures?”
“No,” Hayden said.
“They are pale shadows of their master,” Chiguak said. “Featureless creatures that walk among us when their creator needs to speak to our kind more directly than he does while we sleep. I had just decided to let myself fade from our lost world when one of these things, these shades, came to me and made me an offer I had not expected.
“The Shadow, your world, has always been a place of refuge, training and respite. Since nothing can be truly gained or lost here, it has stayed firmly out of the concerns of the Great Ones and the Interloper. It was deemed a place of no consequence and those who traveled here often were considered frivolous or cowards. So, imagine my surprise when a shade comes to me and says that the Harbinger and a troop of Prey from the Shadow have cast out the A’Sin, the Anaye and the Loa in quick succession.
“Of course I was intrigued and knew that this mouthpiece was trying to goad me into coming here to test you, to see if you truly are a threat to our world and the established imbalance of power there. He implored me to come to this place and promised me a true challenge, something it knew I had not faced in a long time. On that count, this thing did not disappoint, but from the start, I must admit, I had an ulterior motive,” Chiguak said.
“And what was that?” Allen growled from behind Hayden.
“To see if you were worthy of the respect this thing seems to have for you,” Chiguak said, “and if you were, to help you see the bigger picture in all of this. The endgame if you will.”
“Explain,” Hayden said.
“The portals that connect our worlds cannot be destroyed, only closed for a time,” Chiguak said. “Now that you have shown the shadow to be a threat, they will not rest until you have been beaten or proven yourselves too dangerous to goad. That will not come with my death, but it can come if you are willing to stay the course.”
“I have a question,” Allen said and Hayden tried not to look as worried as he felt. “Explain to me why you spilled so much blood if your plan was to just talk?”
“I did not say my plan was to just talk,” Chiguak said, sounding as if he was talking to a particularly stupid child. “I said my plan was to see if you were worthy of the reputation you have gained in our world. That meant drawing you out and giving you challenges to overcome. Is it the children that makes your blood run hot?”
“It is,” Allen said. His voice was not under its usual control. The man was seething.
“Do not be a fool,” Chiguak chuckled. “These are not the first young souls to fall for a greater cause. You do not have the ability to use the magic of this world, I understand that, but in mine young souls have the most to give. I have killed thousands in my time, in your world and my own, and I regret none of it. Power has a cost and I was strong enough to pay it,” Chiguak said, his voice rising as he spoke.
The gun shots made Hayden jump a little in his seat, but he was not surprised as he watched them tear through the little old man. Stupid mutherfucker, Hayden thought as he tried to control the anger building up inside him. Chiguak had telegraphed to them that he did not plan to live much longer once he returned home, and yet Allen had let the little bastard bait him like a goddamn fool.
“It is finished?” the Raven’s groggy voice said from behind Hayden even as the chair beneath him began to sink back into the earth.
Getting to his feet before the chair was completely gone, Hayden turned to see the Raven still lying on the ground. “Yeah, it’s over,” he said. For his part, Allen looked conflicted, as if his big dumb brain was finally catching up with what Hayden already knew.
“I…” Allen said as he let his rifle drop down from the ready position from which he had killed Chiguak.
“It’s ok,” Hayden said. “He was an evil little shit even if he was willing to talk.”
“You spoke with him?” the Raven said.
“For a bit,” Hayden said and he thought he could see realization cross the Raven’s face as the ebony skinned man looked to Allen in confusion, slowly replaced by disapproval.
“I will need to know all that was said,” the Raven said as Allen helped him to his feet.
“You will, but for now we need to split,” Hayden said. Allen said nothing, so Hayden led the way as they left the longhouse behind. He saw no point in letting Allen know that what he’d done was beyond foolish, but he knew this would come up again later. It had to. Allen’s time at the top had been too long anyway. All this did was confirm it.
For now though, Hayden needed to lock in his conversation with Chiguak. So much had been said and he couldn’t afford to forget a thing.
-------------------------
Ghat-soh had left Noah and the others behind as soon as the sun set and made her way as fast as she could to the village Noah had called Lakeview. The distance on foot was just over an hour away, but she was not concerned. Her companions were safe so long as this spirit and its captives had an entire town left to prey on. She did not yet know the true nature of this thing they were up against, but all spirits that infested a community like this worked the same. The spirit takes a body and then spreads from there, each new host acting as an extension of the original. If you could find this original host, and kill it, the rest would follow. The hard part was picking the right one since there were generally no outward signs marking a specific host as the first. This didn’t matter so much tonight, even if it was of great importance in the future; her goal this evening was only to observe.
Ghat-soh was not a cruel woman despite being raised in a cruel manner, but she was also not anyone’s savior. This town she was racing towards was damned, there was no way around that, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to glean from what was to happen this night. Whatever this thing was, she meant to learn about it in hopes that the knowledge she gained might help them survive this thing in the end. She admired Noah Benjamin's bravery, but she worried he had trapped them all here with his stubbornness and refusal to retreat.
About halfway to Lakeview, she finally saw her first signs of trouble. She’d almost missed it, but as she’d run through the trees she’d seen a small, faintly glowing creature darting through the canopy above, keeping pace with her in an unnatural way. Stopping dead in her tracks and letting the beast move ahead of her, she notched an arrow and let it fly in one fluid motion, skewering the thing. Impressed by her own shot, she watched it drop dead to the leafy ground a few feet in front of her.
Walking over to her kill, she did not like what she found. The thing was some sort of rodent, simple enough if scrawny and odd looking, but it was not just a rodent. The hair had gone white and stiff, a tell-tale sign of this kind of possession, and the skin had taken on a purple hue, the glow of which was only now just fading with this second death. None of this cleared anything up, but it did inform her that she needed to remain alert from here on out.
She traveled ten more miles before she saw another one of the things. Their faint glow did not make them the best at hiding in the dark and she spotted the two of them right away. One was a man, or had been, and the other was some sort of hound. She could still see bite marks and signs of being partially eaten on both of them as they swayed in the night. Two arrows dispatched them both and she was reasonably confident that her presence in the thing’s hunting grounds remained unknown. Slowing her pace to a stealthy crawl, she made her way towards the outskirts of the village.
What she found there was, in her opinion, their worst case scenario. It was not even fully dark yet and the small village of Lakeview was swarming with glowing, murderous hosts of all kinds. From her cover beneath the trees, she watched as the army of hosts broke into houses, slaughtering those inside and running down those who managed to make it out into the street. She watched as they all fell, one by one, most being devoured by mobs of hungry hosts, others doomed to join their attackers after they succumbed to their wounds. The only bit of resistance she saw were two men, armed with guns, trying to cut their way through the horde to the trees. She’d thought they had a chance at one point, but then the older one had tripped and the younger had refused to leave him.
That had been the end of that.
As she watched the town of Lakefield die, she wondered what chance they had to get out of here alive. This was some sort of highly aggressive consumption spirit, the kind that had wiped out entire tribes back before they had been locked away or destroyed. How one got here was beyond her, but that didn’t make their situation any less dire.
Hoping that Noah would agree to fall back after seeing this town’s fate in the morning, she faded into the woods and headed back the way she had come. As she raced through the trees, she asked her ancestors to guide these poor souls to the afterworld, and to spare her and her allies, foolish as they might be, the same fate.
Noah was glad he’d kept Ghat-soh close once they’d arrived in Ashland. If what they’d found in Northwood had been slightly eerie, this was downright alarming. From almost the second they’d entered town, signs of violence could be seen everywhere. Doors were hanging off hinges, there were more broken windows than not, and bodies lay in yards, the street and pretty much everywhere else. Deciding to park in the center of town, Noah and the others stepped out and looked at the destruction around them. For some reason Noah thought of the three old guys he’d met at the Woodtick and hoped that they had gone fishing or something and missed all of this.
“We should turn back,” Ghat-soh said.
“No,” Noah said again. “What we need to do is find out what happened here. You and me will go house to house while the Fathers watch the van.”
“We will find nothing but death here, Noah Benjamin,” she said sternly. “I know you want to understand this, but is it worth losing your life?”
“We’ll just poke around a bit and make a decision from there,” Noah said. “You coming or not?”
“I follow where you lead,” Ghat-soh sighed.
The two of them left the van behind and began a systematic sweep of the homes and businesses of Ashland. The one thing Noah noticed as they moved from place to place was that there were far more bodies here despite Ashland being far smaller than Woodland. There were also far more signs of violence. A number of the bodies in the street gave Noah the impression that they had been fleeing whatever had happened here. Nothing like that had been found in Northwood and this made Noah certain that this second event was an escalation.
By the time they had finished, it was nearly five and the sun was just beginning to set. Leading Ghat-soh back to the van, he found the priests waiting nervously, guns out and on the dash. Miming for Rigali to roll down his window, Noah said, “Looks bad. My guess is that whatever happened in Northwood happened without town taking much notice until it was over. This was different. This was an attack. I’m not sure if anyone got away, but I found bodies that look like they tried.”
“Do we move on to Lakeview then?” Rigali asked tentatively.
“No,” Ghat-soh said. “These things, spirits and the like, are very fragile when they first begin to spread. Most if not all use the cover of darkness to their advantage. The smartest thing we could do would be to stay here and wait out what may come tonight. If we go to this third village, we will perish along with them.”
“Then we should go warn them,” Noah said.
“How?” Joe asked.
“We can call ahead…” Noah began.
“And say what?” Jabari asked. “We aren’t going to convince an entire town of people to evacuate with a simple phone call.”
“Then we try to beat this thing to them,” Noah said, unsure of how plausible that was.
“No, Noah Benjamin, on this I will not concede,” she said. “If you try to go, I will stop you and Margaret may chastise me later.”
Noah let this sink in for a minute before saying, “Fine. We still need somewhere to bunk down for now. The motel isn’t in great shape, but there are a few unsullied rooms. We bed down there, together, and block up the doors. If anything comes back, we handle it.”
“Easier said than done,” Rigali said, but he was already getting out of the van.
“I will patrol the lands around this place,” Ghat-soh said. “You will have fair warning if enemies approach in the night.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Noah asked.
“Nothing here is safe,” she said, “but I will be safer in the open just as you will be safer behind walls.”
“Alright,” Noah said, not sure he had much say in this anyway. “Stay in touch.”
“Of course,” she said. “Now get out of the street. It will be dark soon.”
“Stay safe,” Noah called after her as she bounded away on those powerful legs of hers.
He got no response.
-----------------------
Allen brought his snowmobile to a halt as he looked out at the place where the impassable storm had once stood. He could see the creature that had attacked Kevin a few days back, waiting for them, head low, teeth bared. Just behind the massive beast, he could see a structure of some sort. That was his target and all he wanted to worry about at the moment.
Hector, Micah, Hayden and himself each had a snowmobile, but some of them had other passengers as well. Ramon, Iktomi and the Raven were seated behind Micah, Hector and Hayden respectively while Wei and Coyote stood ready to advance on foot. Allen couldn’t say he’d ever been part of an assault force like this, but he was confident. Everyone knew the plan and he had faith in all of them to see it through.
“You ready big man?” Allen called to Wei.
“I am,” Wei said, tossing his primitive club from hand to hand. “Make sure to give us space. He will try to pursue you once your aim becomes clear.”
“Roger that,” Allen said, securing his goggles and checking his radio. “Can everyone hear me?” he said.
He received various forms of yes from each of them and knew the time had come. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Allen gave the signal and the nine of them lurched forward towards their target. Allen’s snowmobile was the fastest and the least weighed down, but Wei and Coyote stayed level with him even as the others fell slightly behind. Gunning right for Amorok, Allen hoped Coyote would stick to the plan. As the three of them came upon the massive wolf-like beast, Allen peeled hard to the left and saw from the corner of his eye that Coyote had indeed peeled to the right.
He had no idea if the ploy had worked, but sped off towards his goal anyway. He knew Margaret had drones in the air; he would have time to look over all of this at some point. Right now he needed to focus on what was in front of him and trust that Wei would do his part.
-------------------
Wei watched as Amorok ignored Allen and Coyote and charged straight for him. Bellowing his age-old war cry, Wei beat his chest with a fist as he dug his feet into the snowy ground and waited for the beast to come. Amorok seemed unperturbed by his intimidation tactics and leapt for Wei’s throat with unbridled ferocity, but Wei was ready.
Lifting his club with both hands, he jammed the long wooden part of it into the beast's jaws and twisted hard to the right, slamming the creature into the ground with all his might. He heard the beast whimper in pain as it rolled away from him. Staying low to the ground, his foe snarled at him as its eyes darted to the others as they zipped past on their odd steeds. Realizing it meant to flee, Wei rushed forward to intercept it. Grabbing the thing by the scruff of the neck, he threw it back the way his allies had come, putting himself squarely between Amorok and the longhouse it had been summoned here to protect.
As Wei again beat his chest and called the thing to him, he thought he saw a grin cross the creature’s face. Disturbed by this, Wei stopped and readied his weapon as the thing began to morph, changing before his eyes into something else.
-----------------------------
Hayden had watched Wei slam the giant wolf into the ground as he sped by, trying to catch up with Coyote as the Raven clung to his jacket. Once they had circumvented their first obstacle, their party came back together, all four snowmobiles in a row, with Coyote falling in alongside them as well, and gunned for the longhouse. The Prince had told Allen that other enemies guarded this place and Hayden thought he could see them coming now.
Six hefty, low to the ground shapes were rushing towards them and were on a clear collision course with their party. Hayden knew that being outnumbered wasn’t going to go well for them, but kept moving towards the charging things anyway. With Coyote at his flank and the Raven literally at his back, he was as safe as he was going to be.
As they drew closer, the charging things came into view. While not as big as the wolfish monstrosity behind them, they were no less intimidating. With heads and skin something like an orca’s and bodies like giant wolverines or badgers, these things were clearly built for power and durability. The plan was to have Micah and Hector peel off to draw their attention away from Hayden and Allen, but with fifty yards left between them, Hayden realized this wasn’t going to happen.
As the gap between them closed, it became clear that the two things in Hayden’s path weren’t going anywhere and had locked onto him as their target. Trying to wait until the last moment to try and dodge them, Hayden lurched to the right as the two groups came together, but it was far from enough. One of the things dove at him, missing as he swung off course, but the second slammed right into the snowmobile and sent him and the Raven flying from the vehicle.
Trying to stay relaxed as his body rolled through the snow, Hayden finally came to a stop a good three hundred yards from the longhouse. Worse than that, the creatures that had not torn off after Hector and Micah, now three in number, all seemed to have identified him as easy prey. Drawing his pistol as the things moved towards him, Hayden leveled the weapon at the closest one and opened fire. The thing let out a screech of pain as it danced away, but the others charged as if they understood the danger facing them if they did not.
Focusing on the leader of the three hunter pack, Hayden fired again, emptying the rest of his clip into the hulking figure. The other two lunged at him and Hayden readied himself for the impact. Just as they left the ground though, another shape, covered in fur and howling in rage, slammed into one of them, knocking it into the second and sending all three of them into a heap on the ground.
Hayden, still stunned, looked over to find Coyote pinning one of the beasts to the ground with one powerful arm while he plunged his face into the other one’s stomach. Watching as his protector tore their enemies to shreds, Hayden heard someone behind him say, “Hayden! Snap out of it! Get on!”
Turning to see the source of this voice, he found Allen, still astride his snowmobile, the Raven already on the back. “Is there room?” Hayden said as he clung to Allen’s jacket, around the Raven, and tried to find somewhere to settle.
“It’s a short ride,” Allen said. “Just hang on.”
-------------------
Wei had watched as Amorok transformed into something much closer to Coyote than his prior form. Amorok now stood on two legs, his arms and body changed to accommodate this. This was still a beast though, albeit a more dangerous one, and Wei was not impressed.
He had heard the sounds of fighting behind him and knew that his allies could use his help, so he did not waste time reengaging his enemy. Charging forward, Wei baited the beast into attacking him. Lifting his club high to mimic a coming blow, he instead waited for Amorok to close the distance and lashed out with a forward kick that caught the now upright beast fully in the stomach, sending it tumbling backwards.
Rushing after his quarry, Wei took a heavy swing at the creature’s side, but Amorok slithered away from it despite the mighty blow it had just suffered. As Wei regained his balance, Amorok launched itself back at him. Wei again used the long shaft of his club to keep the snapping jaws away from him, but this time, and in this form, Amorok was not so easily dispatched. Digging the claws of its newly formed hands into his right shoulder and left side, it used its new feet to keep its balance, forcing Wei into an awkward dance as he tried to separate himself from the creature.
Ignoring the pain in his shoulder and side, Wei decided to outsmart this monstrous thing instead of outmuscling it, which would take more time than he had. Letting his arms go slack, he watched Amorok’s jaws rush towards him and met them, as he slammed the front of his helmet into his enemy’s muzzle with all his strength. This put Amorok squarely on its rear as Wei heard something behind him.
Turning to find what it was, he saw one of the metal steeds rushing towards him. Two of the humans were riding it, closely pursued by another one of Chiguak’s servants. Ignoring his stunned opponent, Wei beckoned them towards him and hefted his club in anticipation. As they sped past him, he took a swing at their pursuer, smashing the stone ball on the end of his club into its oval head and ending its time here in the Shadow.
No sooner had he dispatched this thing than he felt teeth sink into his already damaged shoulder and claws tearing into his back and sides. Roaring more in anger than in pain, Wei reached behind him and found the nape of Amorok’s neck. Gripping it hard with his free hand, he tossed the creature over his shoulder, slamming it once more into the hard ground on which they fought.
His enemy rolled out of reach, but was clearly stunned. Closing the distance between them, Wei took aim at his opponents head and swung his club with all his might. Amorok was too dazed to dodge it, but the beast did get an arm up to absorb the blow. The hit sent his enemy staggering to the left and Wei went for the kill. Choking up on his club, he threw an uppercut with the ball of the club in place of his fist.
He heard the jaw break, as well as the neck, followed by the last whimper of his defeated enemy. As Amorok crumbled to the icy ground, Wei knew he had emerged the victor. Understanding he still had work to do, Wei nonetheless knelt at the side of his opponent. Saying a brief prayer for the soul of this lost thing, he rose. Amorok was a denizen of another plane and was not evil in and of himself. He had merely been used by evil and that was far from his own fault.
Seeing that more of Chiguak’s other pawns were still in play, Wei hefted his club and made his way towards the longhouse.
---------------------
“Jesus,” Hayden said from behind Allen as they watched Wei leaving Amorok behind in a broken heap.
“He is not one to be trifled with,” the Raven said. “Now we must go. This is far from finished.
Allen knew the Raven was right, but it had been impossible to look away from the battle between Wei and Amorok. It hardly mattered that they were standing on Chiguak’s front door step. He knew his people weren’t out of danger yet, but with Wei freed up to help, Allen knew things now sat squarely on his, Hayden’s and the Raven’s shoulders. “Anything we need to look out for in there?” Allen asked as he reached for the handle of one of the longhouse’s large double doors.
“Everything,” the Raven said. “This is a place of death. No horror is unthinkable here.”
Noah had never felt something quite like what he was feeling now. All he knew was that the feeling was bad, brought on by something even worse. He was standing in the middle of Northwood, a town he had been in days ago, and there were no signs of life. Noah had never been in a ghost town before, but this was inarguably that.
There wasn’t a body anywhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean there weren’t signs that something had happened here. Even from his limited vantage point in the middle of the street, Noah could see a few broken windows and a handful of doors left wide open. The only thing more disquieting than these few signs of foul play was the dead quiet.
“Ghat-soh?” Noah said into the radio.
“Yes?” she said.
“Come into town. We don’t need to worry about you being seen and I’d rather you be with us at this point,” he said.
“I’ll be there shortly,” she said.
“Think you might want to wait in the van Father Rigali,” Noah said, drawing his pistol. It was starting to feel more comfortable in his hand, far more so than when he’d been a cop, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“I think that’s a good idea Joseph,” Jabari said.
“I’ll honk if I see anything,” Rigali said, looking only a little ashamed by the request.
“Do we start checking houses or move on?” Jabari said, drawing a pistol of his own.
“Wait until Ghat-soh gets here and then check some of the nearer houses to get an idea of what we’re looking at,” Noah said. It was weird to have the older man defer to him, but Noah was happier to lead than follow in this situation.
They only had to wait a few minutes before Ghat-soh came striding into view. “The whole town?” she asked as she joined them.
“Seems that way,” Noah said. “Me and Father Jabari will sweep a few houses if you don’t mind keeping an eye out here.”
“I will stand guard,” Ghat-soh said.
“You ready?” Noah asked Jabari.
“Lead the way,” the gun wielding priest said.
Noah chose a house close to their position that’s front door remained intact, but whose side window had clearly been broken in from the outside. The door was locked, but Noah lucked out and found a key under one of the house plants on the porch. Opening the door with his sleeve, Noah stepped inside and found nothing but glass on the floor below the broken window to hint at anything potentially violent. “Upstairs?” Noah asked.
“Room by room. Together,” Jabari said.
Once upstairs, they found enough to justify their worst fears. There were three bedrooms crammed into the upstairs of this small home and the two empty ones looked to be those of the parents and children. Neither was in disarray, but each showed minor signs of struggle. The third room was different though. This last room seemed to have been grandma’s room and she was still there, at least most of her was. Lying half on and half off the bed, the elderly woman was nearly unidentifiable, thanks to the many chunks of flesh that had been torn from her frail old body. In a few places Noah could see teeth marks and, in his opinion, they looked human.
“God have mercy on her soul,” Jabari said, making a quick sign of the cross with his free hand.
“Something ate her,” Noah said. “I hate to say it, but my guess is that it was the rest of the family. Why, I can’t say, but I think that if we checked a few more of these houses we might be able to have confidence in that assertion.”
“Where did they go after?” Jabari asked.
“The rest of the family?” Noah said. “Who knows? Let's keep poking around and see what we can find.”
Noah and Father Jabari cleared the rest of the house, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and moved on to the house next door and the one beyond that. The second house was entirely empty and the only sign of potential entry was a wide open back door, but with the third house they weren’t as lucky. Everyone was missing except for the family dog, which looked like it had been torn to pieces and devoured by more than one attacker. Leaving this mess behind, Noah stepped back out onto the street and called Ghat-soh over.
“Yes Noah?” she said.
“Do you mind checking these two houses,” Noah said, pointing out the first and third houses they had just entered. “There’s a woman upstairs in the first one and in the other is a dog on the first floor. See if you can glean anything from what you find.”
“They are dead?” she asked even as she strode towards her first destination.
“Very,” Noah said.
He and Jabari watched as she disappeared into the first house. She only lingered there a short time before moving on and spent very little time in the next house as well. When she had finally joined them back in the street, she did not look happy.
“This is the work of a spirit,” she said. “I am sure of it now. Which I cannot say, but I would advise we leave and wait for the others to arrive. This is beyond us.”
“I don’t think that’s an option,” Noah said, already thinking about the other towns they had left behind. “We need to keep moving and see if this thing has attacked either Ashland or Lakeview.”
“Noah,” Jabari said, “I understand your concerns, but maybe Ms. Ghat-soh is right. Maybe all we can accomplish by going back to these places is to die with them.”
“With all due respect Father,” Noah said, “Margaret left me in charge and our job is to know what is happening even if we can’t prevent it. If we run into trouble we can always turn back, but I want to know just how far this has gone. If you and Father Rigali want to fall back, me and Ghat-soh can handle it.”
“We’re with you Noah,” Jabari said. “Playing devil’s advocate is simply in my nature.”
“Any chance these people, the missing ones, are still alive?” Noah asked Ghat-soh.
“If they have eaten the flesh of their kin, an abomination even in your strange world I would think, they are lost. Only a powerful spirit could force such actions and, even then, only by possessing the being, the host, entirely.”
“So no?” Noah said.
“No, Noah Benjamin. As I said, they are lost,” she replied solemnly. This was the first time Noah had really spent time with Ghat-soh like this and he was finding her to be far more human in her sentiments than either the Raven or Coyote. She seemed to understand the weight they, the team that is, put on things and, even if she didn’t feel it too, respected it.
“Then we need to get moving to Ashland,” Noah said. “I know you don’t like it Ghat-soh, but I’d rather you be in the van with us.”
“If that is your wish,” Ghat-soh said.
“It is,” Noah said. “Let’s go. If we hustle we can be in Ashland in under an hour.”
-------------------------------
Eli had packed in minutes and was ready to get the hell out of here as soon as he could. The priests hadn’t seemed to take much interest in him, not a bad thing really, and Eli in turn had not enjoyed their company much either. He was no womanizing party animal, but that didn’t mean a group of older celibate men was anywhere near his speed.
As he left his room behind, he passed through the long corridor leading to the main area of Order Headquarters. He passed a number of the Order members as he did and none of them so much as glanced at him. Even when he was in the main area and headed towards the elevator out of here, no one said a word or asked where he was going. Whether it was aloofness or dislike, Eli couldn’t tell, but the effect was the same either way.
Stepping onto the elevator, Eli thought back to Margaret’s call. He hadn’t expected her to be as reasonable as she had been and that fact made him feel even guiltier about his previous plan to blackmail her and her people. As glad as he was to be headed back with her blessing, he worried about being weird around the people he now knew so much about. Margaret and Atticus he could probably handle, but Jomo and Hayden? He couldn’t unsee the blood on their hands.
As the elevator doors opened, Eli stepped out and found himself face to face with Monsignor Kirchmann. The man was clearly waiting for him and he bore a broad smile and held a small package in his hands. “I hear you are leaving us,” Kirchmann said as the elevator doors closed behind Eli.
“Margaret seems to have gotten over the whole Prince debacle,” Eli said.
“She seems to come to the right place eventually,” Kirchmann said. “She was probably just worried lives would be lost if he did not return. An understandable concern.”
“Yeah, I figured as much,” Eli said awkwardly.
“I got you something for helping us,” Kirchmann said, handing Eli the package.
“Oh, uh, thanks,” Eli said, taking it from him.
“A small token of our appreciation,” Kirchmann said. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you have a plane to catch. There’s a cab waiting for you outside.”
Thanking the older man again, Eli walked out of the man’s apartments and into the street. The cab was further away than he’d expected, but he found it just fine. Getting in the backseat, Eli figured it was smartest to open the gift before airport security could lose their shit over what it might be. Tearing the plain wrapping paper away, Eli found a small cardboard box. Opening it, he found an odd assortment of objects. A vial of holy water, a crucifix blessed by the Pope and, of all things, a pair of Beats headphones.
There was also a little note inside that read: So that you will be protected from all that hunt you and so that you may block out those that doubt you. Stay the course.
Taking the objects out of the box, Eli placed them in various parts of his carryon. He was not a religious person, not by a long shot, but he couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm fall over him as he stowed the holy water and cross. The Beats he took right out of the box, vowing to throw his Wal-mart bought pair of discount earbuds in the trash the second he got home.
Kirchmann might be an odd little dude, but damn did he know how to show good work was appreciated. Hopefully Margaret was taking notes.
--------------------------------------
It was a few hours after midday when the Prince finally managed to break the storm. He was truly exhausted by the effort, but had learned much in the undoing of this thing. As he floated slowly to the ground below, he watched as the storm dissipated and the hiding place within it was exposed.
Even as he descended, he could see what his allies were up against. The great beast, this Amorok, stood in between his friends’ camp and a modest longhouse a half mile or so behind it. The longhouse itself was guarded by a host of smaller, but no less vicious beasts that the Prince had never seen before. The team would have their work cut out for them, but the Prince had faith that they would triumph. They were more formidable than they understood and hopefully the next few hours would show them what they were capable of.
Feeling his small feet touch the snowy ground below, the Prince sent Allen a mental message that it was time, before using the rest of his energy to travel back to Margaret Wynters in the land known to her as Nebraska. As he traveled, he felt himself fading into the soft gray that became his world when he needed to recharge. He wished he had enough in him to help Noah Benjamin defeat the great evil that he faced, but the Prince took a small comfort in the fact that help of another kind was on its way.
He just hoped it was coming fast enough.
-----------------------------------------------
Naomi Saunders was driving like a woman possessed. She had called in to a little motel in Northwood multiple times since she got on the road, but each time the line just rang and rang. This alone hadn’t worried her exactly, but it had led her to call business after business in the area as she drove; none answered. On top of this, Mr. Benjamin’s trail had gone cold, though she had no reason to think he wasn’t still in northern Minnesota.
Wondering if maybe she could confirm this with someone, she decided to try calling around in Ashland. This wasn’t the safest way to drive, but she needed to keep moving if she meant to get there early enough to hunt Noah down. To her surprise, no one in Ashland answered her calls either. Getting frustrated, she opened Google Maps and started calling each business in town one by one. Nothing.
Feeling a deep sense that something was very, very wrong, Naomi called the local police department in Lakeview and this time someone did pick up. “Lakeview PD,” a man’s voice said.
“Hello,” she said, throwing caution to the wind, “My name is Naomi Saunders, FBI, I need to know if a young man named Noah Benjamin has been in your town recently.”
“Well,” the man’s voice said, “that’s actually pretty odd.”
“He’s been there?” Naomi pressed.
“I don’t know if it’s the guy you’re looking for, but there was a guy named Noah who rented an AirBnB here in town with a couple of priests. Said he was with the Knights of Columbus. He trouble? Anything we need to worry about?” the man asked.
“No, nothing like that,” Naomi said. “Any chance he’s still there?”
“Left this morning,” the cop said. “Said he and the priests were going to check on rural churches in Montana and the Dakotas I believe.”
“Thank you,” Naomi said. “Any idea what’s going on with the phones in Northwood and Ashland?”
“Haven’t heard a thing about it,” the man said, sounding unconcerned. “When the lines go down out here, it takes a minute to get them back up. I’m sure that’s all it is.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said.
“Anything else I can help you with?” the man asked.
“No, I think that will be it. Thank you for your help,” she said.
“What I’m here for,” the man laughed. “You have a good day now.”
“You too,” she said, ending the call.
Throwing her phone in the passenger seat, she let her foot press the pedal all the way to the floor as she flew down the highway, praying that things weren’t as bad as they seemed, but preparing herself for the worst.
Naomi had scrambled to get time off when she’d realized Noah Benjamin was on the move, but hadn’t been able to manage more than getting off a little early today. She still had a few hours before she could leave and it was tortuous. She wasn’t sure why, but she was getting the distinct feeling that the young Mr. Benjamin was in way over his head and that if she didn’t act soon, things might go very badly for him. So far, all she knew was that he had traveled to Minnesota and seemed to be lingering in a handful of northern townships for some reason.
He had left a few days ago and had only used his credit card for gas station fare and fast food so far, but that had been enough to wind up on her radar. The sheer ease with which he had placed himself back in her crosshairs reinforced her original hypothesis that Noah Benjamin was an amateur. While there were still many important questions yet to be answered, this was the start she had needed. All she had to do now was kill another hour or so, and she could be on her way.
If she didn’t stop, and she didn’t plan to, she’d reach Northwood early tomorrow morning. Then, if everything went well, she’d finally get some face-time with Mr. Benjamin.
--------------------------------------------
Having so much of the team back in house, at least compared to a day ago, made Margaret feel much more at ease, despite what was about to happen in Alaska. Allen had filled her in on their plan of action and she thought it sounded reasonable enough, not that she really knew how to gauge such a thing. She knew that by the end of the day there was a chance blood would be spilled for their cause, but right now she had something else to do. Something she should have already done.
Eli didn’t pick up her first call, or her second, but by the third he caved and she heard an already defensive, “Yeah?”
Margaret had never wanted children, for a million reasons, but in this moment she felt some sort of eerie inclination that this was what it was like to have to apologize to a petulant teen who, while normally solidly in the wrong, is now, in this instance, justifiably angry. “It’s Margaret,” she said awkwardly. “I wanted to call and, well, call and apologize.” The words came easily enough, but they grated against her pride uncomfortably the entire time. “I should not have put what happened with the Prince at your feet. I can’t say I wouldn’t have tried to stop him, but it is understandable that you wouldn’t feel comfortable with, or responsible for, doing so. I wanted to make sure you knew that we want you back, with us, as soon as possible. Things are heating up here and I think it’s best we’re all together.”
“How soon can I get on a plane?” Eli said, all sullenness gone from his voice.
“If you can book it to the airport, there’s one in an hour,” she said, having already looked it up after deciding to make this call. “If you flash the Wynters Tech ID when you get there, they’ll move you right on through.”
“I can do it,” Eli said. “How’s Noah?”
“Hasn’t found a thing,” she said. “Going to do another sweep through the original search area before we broaden it or hang back.”
“I’m going to pack and head out asap,” Eli said. “Text me if anything changes. With Noah I mean.”
“Not a problem,” Margaret said.
“Thanks for calling,” Eli added awkwardly.
“I was wrong,” Margaret said.
“Not entirely,” Eli said. “See you when I see you.”
Margaret hung up the phone, happy to be done. Wrong or not, Eli was not her favorite person to interact with. As much as she tried to tell herself he was young and malleable, that this wasn’t who he was always going to be, something about him set her off. The arrogance maybe? The want to destroy what others have created as a hobby or some sort of cathartic revenge? Who knew, but maybe the fact that she’d called despite this was the point.
“Kim?” she asked.
“Yes?” Kim said from her desk.
“How long until we have a live feed of the situation in Alaska?” she asked.
“Allen said no point until the storm is gone,” Kim said, “but I can be in the air and in position within ten minutes of that.”
“And when are we expecting the Prince to be done?” Margaret asked.
“He’s working on it now,” Kim said.
---------------------------------------
The Prince had only needed to rest for a few hours, just to be safe, before rising into the air and making his way towards the endless storm Allen Becker had described to him. His time away from these creatures had been some of the most conflicted of his life. The information he had found encoded in the servers and harddrives of this strange race of people had been sobering to say the least. If this wealth of data could be trusted, and he had no reason to believe it could not be, Margaret Wynters and her people were not the average representatives of their kind. What he had thought were a peaceful, thoughtful group, were far more akin to the stories of those they had left behind. None of the atrocities his Fathers had witnessed in the First World had not been equaled here, and his entire conception of who he stood with and what they intended to save had changed.
In the end though, he had returned.
He had spent much of his time away sifting through all he had gathered, all the damning evidence of this people’s unworthiness. At first, the worst of it had filled him, blotted out all else in a haze of disdain and disapproval. In time though, as he searched for evidence that this was not the whole of it, he came to see the truth and that had brought him back to Margaret Wynters.
Which had brought him here.
He knew that Allen and his comrades had claimed not to see this phantom blizzard until they were inside it, but this was not the case for the Prince. He saw this thing from a mile away and even at this distance, and from a great height, he could find it in himself to be impressed by what their enemy had created. Most magic involved manipulating what already existed and this was a prime example of that. Wind, snow and ice had been folded in on themselves and looped into a never ending maze with only a single entrance that also served as the only exit. The Prince could create such a thing himself with relative ease, but for one of the flesh-beings to do so was a feat by any measure. A manipulation of the light around this maelstrom kept it from being seen from the outside, a trick most with the ability could do very early in their training, but the thing that made him acknowledge their foe as a true master lay within. While he could not see it, he could sense that there was a space within the storm, but not a part of it, where he imagined their enemy lay in wait. To somehow move such a large parcel of land into the non-space between the storm and reality was beyond even the Prince’s current ability, though drawing it out of the storm would help him understand and replicate the process.
First he would unweave the wind, ice and snow, in a way, untying the maze aspect of this magic. This would not be difficult, but it would take time. Then he would need to separate the bonds between the non-space and the storm. Once they were severed, the non-space would cease to exist and their enemy would be exposed to Allen Becker’s team here on the material plane. This process of removal would take almost all of the Prince’s energy, only recently renewed, but that was alright. This type of exertion was making him stronger, a necessity in their coming struggles.
If they were to survive this, all of them together, he would need to travel much farther down the path to becoming his Father than he had thus far. He did not know how much time they had before this goal must be met, but opportunities like this would only help along the way.
Considering that this was their first morning in a while with a kitchen of their own, Noah and the two priests decided to make breakfast before heading out. The house had come with pretty much anything you could ask for, except for a stocked fridge and pantry, which made sense. The priests had agreed to cook if Noah ran out to get groceries and Noah saw this as a win-win from his perspective; he had no love of cooking and thought another chance to walk around town would be the best use of his remaining time in Lakefield.
Taking cash from Father Rigali, Noah was out the door just before ten and on his way to the only grocery store in the area. As he walked he saw no signs of anything concerning; just the usual milling about of people with errands to run and kids to shuttle around. A few people noticed him and waved as he walked, and he returned the gesture with a smile. He liked this part of small town living even if he knew it wasn’t genuine or extended to all visitors. Much better than masses of people surrounding you at all times who don’t give a shit one way or the other.
When he finally reached his destination, he grabbed a small jug of milk, a half carton of eggs, butter, cheese, bacon and a loaf of bread. The prices were all over the place and Noah ended up having to swipe his credit card to cover the difference. He didn’t mind of course, but it was a pricey breakfast compared to what he was used to in western North Carolina. As he squeezed out of the front door with his arms full of awkwardly packed paper bags, he found himself nose to nose with a cop.
“Hey there,” Noah said as he tried to let the door close behind him without moving closer to the man blocking his path.
“Morning” the man said. He was on the younger side, maybe five years older than Noah, with a clean shaven face that exposed his unfortunate lack of a jaw. “You and those two priests are staying up the road in that little Air BnB yeah?”
“We are,” Noah said, shifting his packages to a more comfortable position.
“How you liking it?” the man said.
“Very nice house,” Noah said. “Nice town too.”
“Well thank you, we sure think so,” the man said. “Don’t want to keep you too long, I see you’ve got some breakfast plans, but I gotta ask, what brings you and those two priests here? When we heard the house was going to be a short term rental, people expected a steady stream of nomads and party animals. Can’t say we anticipated this.”
Noah relaxed a little. He hadn’t had a clue what they could have done to catch the police’s attention, but he should have thought of this. Two priests showing up in a one church town was a bit out of the ordinary. “We’re just checking in on the rural parishes in this region,” Noah said, sticking to the story the priests had concocted on the way up here. “I’m not a priest myself, if that wasn’t obvious, but I am a part of Father Clement's congregation and serve as one of our Knights of Columbus. They asked me to drive them and they pay well, so I figured why not. Beats washing dishes.”
“Where you all headed next?” the cop asked. He didn’t seem like he was questioning Noah’s story, just a mixture of curious and naturally chatty.
“Well we just came up around the western side of the Great Lakes, so I think Montana and the Dakotas,” Noah said.
“Rough drive,” the cop said.
“I’ve done it before,” Noah said. “We should be fine. I do need to get going though, we have a schedule to keep.”
“Of course, of course,” the cop said apologetically. “Just wanted to ask while I could.”
“Well I’m glad I could dispel some of the mystery,” Noah said.
“Me too,” the cop said, “good to know that rental won’t be all trouble. Don’t think I caught your name?”
“Noah,” Noah said.
“Officer Bryant,” the man said. “You ever wind up in these parts again and need anything, just let me know.”
“I will,” Noah said. “Take it easy.”
“I’ll try,” Officer Bryant said.
Noah left the cop behind and thanked the gods of luck that he hadn’t fucked that up. Being a small town cop at one point himself, Noah understood how easily small talk with a stranger could set off red flags. Moving quicker than he would have otherwise, Noah got all of his meat and dairy back to the house without it getting too warm or busting through the flimsy paper bags.
“What took you so long?” Jabari asked as Noah entered the house.
“Ran into a cop. Nothing to worry about, he was just curious what you two were doing in a rental this far north,” Noah said as he put the bags on the small wooden kitchen table.
“You stuck to the story?” Rigali asked.
“To the t,” Noah said.
“Good, good,” Rigali said. “Well we should probably get cooking then.”
Noah went back into the living room as the two priests got to work. Falling into the loveseat across from the television, Noah pulled out his phone and shot Margaret a text: ‘All good. Heading back to Northwood in an hour or so. Will check back in tonight or if anything comes up.’
Putting the phone back in his pocket, Noah popped the TV on and let CNN distract him from all of the troubling thoughts rattling around in his head. It didn’t take the priests long to whip up some breakfast and soon the three of them were polishing off the entirety of Noah’s grocery run. Once they had finished, Father Rigali said, “I’ll clean if you two want to get us packed up.”
“I’ll do the packing and loading,” Jabari said, patting his stomach happily as he rose. “Noah can radio Ms. Ghat-soh and let her know we’re getting ready to move out.”
“Fine by me,” Noah said, handing his plate to Father Rigali before heading back to the room he had used the night before to get the radio. Pulling it out of the end table drawer, Noah held down the button on the side until Ghat-soh got back to him.
“Noah?” her voice said after a few seconds.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Noah said. “We’re going to be heading back to Northwood, the first town we stopped in at, to see if anything’s changed.”
“Do you expect to find it any different than you left it?”she asked.
“Personally, no,” Noah said. “Probably just going to serve as a place to regroup. There isn’t much else in this area, but there are a few places we could check to be safe. Just need to hope it doesn’t head to the National Park. That would be a nightmare.”
“Why?” Ghat-soh asked.
“Lots of wilderness,” Noah said. “Hughes might be able to track it out there, but not us. If we get any indication that that’s what happened, we’ll probably need to duck out until someone else can come back us up.”
“A good decision,” Ghat-soh said.
“I try,” Noah said. “You want to ride in the van?”
“Not in the least,” she said.
“Just figured I’d ask,” Noah said. “I’ll check in again once we reach Northwood.”
“I will be waiting,” Ghat-soh said.
-------------------------------------
Allen woke up feeling surprisingly well rested. He hadn’t expected the fire to keep them warm all night, but he had forgotten that his non-human allies did not need to sleep. They had apparently tended the fire while the humans slept and as Allen and the others woke, it became clear that they were being waited on. Getting up out of his sleeping bag, Allen roused the rest of his snoozing team and got some coffee and sausages going on the fire.
“Did you and your men get a good respite?” Wei said in a voice like far off thunder.
“I think so,” Allen said, stretching as he looked up at the massive man. Allen had always viewed these creatures as invaluable assets, but Wei was pushing that inclination to the extreme. Obviously Allen had yet to see the man in battle, but he couldn’t imagine it was going to be anything shy of devastating.
“Good,” Wei nodded. “Today will be a trial for us all.”
“You have any idea what’s coming?” Allen asked.
“This storm you have spoken of is a complex type of dark magic,” Wei said, “as are the other minions you have described. To think that a single entity summoned them all is very concerning.”
“Did taking out some of these things help at all?” Allen asked. “Would that sort of thing affect whoever summoned what we killed?”
“No,” the Raven said, joining them. “The cost of summoning a denizen of the void is a sunk one. Once the thing has been brought here, it is its own life force, unrelated to its summoner outside of its inclination to follow the summoner’s commands.”
“But,” Iktomi said, coming to stand so that Wei stood between her and the Raven, “hearing about all that he has brought forth and sent after you, I can’t imagine he is very powerful at the moment. Most likely, he has created some sort of hideout for himself and ensured it is heavily guarded.”
“This is true,” the Raven said, though it sounded as if he did not like being forced to say it. Allen was starting to realize that there was a strange dynamic between his non-human allies that he needed to understand once all of this was over.
“We going to sit down and get to planning,” Hayden yawned, “or are the four of you just going to handle it yourselves?”
“We should hold proper council,” Wei said, nodding to Hayden.
Allen watched as the non-humans took their spots around the fire, the humans awkwardly joining them. Allen ended up between Hayden and Hector, directly across the still burning fire from the Raven. Not thrilled with this setup, Allen tried not to let the smoke and the intense blaze bother him. Almost as if he had read Allen’s mind, the Raven reached into his satchel and tossed something into the fire. It wasn’t as impressive as some of the man’s other feats, but it did immediately bring the fire low without destroying it as a welcome source of heat. “We may begin,” the ebony skinned man said.
All eyes, human and not, swung to Allen now. Searching for the small glowing form of the Prince, Allen found him a few spots down from Hayden, near Iktomi, who seemed very uncomfortable with his presence. “I guess the first thing we need to know,” Allen said, “is how long it is going to take for that storm to go?”
“I am not yet strong enough for such an undertaking,” the Prince said. “I must rest and then it will take me a few hours, no more. I would not plan to move until just before sunset.”
Allen didn’t exactly like that answer, but knew arguing wasn’t going to change anything. “Alright, so once that’s handled I guess the next big obstacle is that wolf thing. I can’t imagine it’s part of the storm?”
“No,” the Raven said, shaking his head as if Allen were embarrassing him. “The storm is a means of cloaking our enemy’s location. The beast is just a secondary deterrent to those foolish enough to pass through it anyway.”
“Could this beast be Amorok?” Wei mused, speaking to his fellow non-humans.
“It was my first guess upon hearing its description,” the Raven said sullenly.
“Did this thing look like Jocko here, but more beastly?” Wei asked. Coyote did not look happy with this comparison or the use of his true name.
“More or less,” Allen said, trying to give Coyote an apologetic look.
“We face Chiguak,” Wei said and he too sounded sullen now.
“How can you be sure?” Coyote asked, speaking up for the first time. “Why would one such as he come to the shadow?”
“A test,” the Raven said. “This is all part of his test. What he did to convince the sorcerer of the White North to do this favor for him, I know not, but I am almost sure it is he we face.”
“Does this change anything?” Allen asked.
“Yes and no,” Wei said. “Chiguak has lived far longer than most of his kind and there is a good reason. He is a relentless foe and operates without mercy. If we move against him, we must do so with total conviction. He will show us no quarter.”
Allen took all of this in placidly enough. The name of their enemy meant nothing to him and the idea that they would be shown no mercy was pretty much a given as far as he was concerned. Add that to the fact that none of his allies who knew of their enemy seemed unwilling to face him, and Allen remained convinced that a final assault was the best course of action. “Let’s backtrack for a minute,” Allen said. “Regardless of who’s waiting on the other side of that storm, we still need a gameplan. The Prince will handle the storm; Wei, do you think you can handle this Amorok thing?”
“He is as good as dead,” Wei said, nodding to Allen. “My only regret is that I will not be able to take his pelt as a trophy.”
“Well we’ll see if we can make it up to you afterwards,” Allen said. “After that, what can we expect?”
“Outer guards,” Iktomi said.
“And inside,” the Raven said, “I would assume a bodyguard of some kind. Chiguak is likely in a weakened state and that would be the surest defense.”
“Here’s the plan then,” Allen said, making sure he had everyone’s attention. “The Prince will knock out the storm and we’ll be waiting. We only have four snowmobiles so some people will need to buddy up, but I say we leave this Amorok thing to Wei and gun for whatever Chiguak is trying to hide from us. If we run into resistance before we reach him, everyone but myself, Hayden and the Raven engage. We three will make a b-line for Chiguak and end this. Anybody see a problem there?”
“What if the three of us go down?” Hayden asked.
“Then Hector, Micah and Iktomi will take our place,” Allen said, “but that isn’t going to happen.” Hayden rolled his eyes at this response, but Allen ignored him. Hayden was just that kind of guy. “Until the Prince is ready to go, everyone needs to just try and rest, check that our equipment is good to go, make sure you know where you are supposed to be, and what you’re supposed to be doing when the time comes.”
Just as Allen finished speaking, a mighty howl burst forth from the direction of the storm. Allen, Hayden, Hector, Micah and Ramon all flinched at the suddenness of the sound, but the others reacted very differently. Iktomi seemed disturbed by the call, but Wei, Coyote and the Raven sprung to their feet and returned the yell in kind. Wei beat his chest with both fists and bellowed, the Raven, feathers on end, let out a shriek of pure rage and Coyote followed with a howl of his own, less powerful than the competing one, but menacing in its own way.
Watching his allies, Allen wondered who had the upper hand here, and, for the first time, thought it just might be them.
“You think this Chiguak guy knows what he’s in for?” Hayden asked, smiling as the competing battle cries faded and a heavy silence settled in around them.
“No, I do not,” Allen said back. “I think he’s looking at a rough time.”
The spirit barely waited until the sun had fully set before moving in on the place its many minds had once known as Ashland. This place was smaller than the last, but with so many hungry mouths, the spirit couldn’t turn down any opportunity to feed. Its many hosts had spent the time since last night’s feast hidden under leaves and in creek beds to avoid detection, but now, under the cover of darkness, they would emerge and the town of Ashland would fall.
---------------------
Carter Price had wasted away another long day at the Woodtick, but an upset stomach had sent him home feeling ill around nine in the evening. He’d spent the last hour chewing on tums and watching Sports Center as he waited for his gut to give him a break. Just as he decided to call it a night, he heard something outside that made him pause at the foot of the stairs. He’d thought it was a woman’s scream, but that couldn’t be right? Could it?
As he put a foot tentatively on the bottom step, another scream cut through the air, this one much clearer, but a man’s. Carter froze where he stood. He had never been a brave man, more of a jokester, a good time. He’d been in one fight in his whole life and lost it badly. As a third and fourth scream, much nearer now, cut through the air, he started to feel sweat building on his palms.
The screams were many now and Carter felt himself moving numbly towards the only weapon he owned. Opening the hall closet near his front door, Carter pulled out a pristine Louisville Slugger he had bought years ago and not taken out of the closet until now. Moving towards the front door, bat in hand, he tried to make out what was happening through the warped, decorative glass.
People were in the streets, that he was sure of, but nothing else was clear. He supposed he could get a look by pulling back the blinds of his windows, but he was rooted to the spot in fear. With his ears pricked and his eyes on the glass, Carter listened until he heard a scream that he knew was just outside his door. It was a young woman’s voice and he somehow managed to summon enough courage to open the front door, stepping out onto his porch with his baseball bat in hand, ready to defend her life and honor if he could.
What he saw made all of that newfound courage leave him in one fell swoop. The woman in question was on the ground, a mangy, white haired dog tearing at her stomach while another of a different breed, but with the same white fur, tore at her throat. She looked up at him in horror, her eyes pleading with him even though she was already a goner. As Carter felt his hands begin to shake, a third dog came into view. This one locked eyes with Carter and bared its teeth as it charged towards him, leaping over the woman and its fellow killers.
Carter was faster than he looked and he managed to get back inside before the dog reached him. Even as he went to lock the door, he felt the dog’s body slam into it, knocking him backwards a step, but not far enough to keep him from securing the door.
With the door locked and the dog outside, Carter raced upstairs as fast as his legs would carry him, knees shaking the whole way. Moving into his bedroom, he locked that door too. Walking onto the side of his bed away from the room’s only window, he crouched low and began to pray. As he said his third Hail Mary in a row, he heard something smash into the window feet from him.
Looking to the window in horror, he saw another hell-beast, albeit a smaller one. On the small bit of roof outside his window was a squirrel, though not any type he had ever seen. Its skin had taken on a purple hue under the stiff, white hair that had replaced the usual red, brown or gray. The little thing’s eyes bulged, wet and black as it slammed its tiny head into the glass, over and over again.
Knowing that the Devil had fallen on Ashland, Carter fled from his bedroom into the connected master bathroom. Throwing the doors open, he stopped dead. A man was crouching on the roof outside the bathroom window and he looked much like the squirrel had. Carter heard the baseball bat clatter to the floor as he grabbed his chest and slumped down to his knees. He heard the window shatter just as the door burst open downstairs.
Before the twisted spirit’s hosts could reach him, Carter had a massive heart attack and died on his bathroom floor.
He was up and walking around town an hour later, remembering nothing but a vague sorrow, and a maddening hunger, that felt like it had been there all along.
---------------------------
It had taken Allen, Micah and Hector a few minutes to gather all of their supplies and gear, but after that it had been a brisk hike into the fading light of dusk to the spot the Prince had deemed suitable for them. The Prince had led the way, keeping a good fifty feet ahead of them, but leaving a faint blue glow in his wake that could be followed when he happened to be out of sight. Hayden was pretty beat, but his legs felt strong and, if it was just a mental thing, he could handle it. The sky was more or less clear and after thirty minutes of hiking their destination came into view.
Out in the middle of this harsh tundra, a massive fire was burning. When Coyote had mentioned sitting around a fire, Hayden had not thought of something like this. This was like one of those teepee sized things you saw in old movies or at fucking Burning Man and must be visible for miles. As they approached, it became clear why the fire was burning so intensely. Wei, mountain of a being that he was, was tending it and, next to him, the size seemed far more appropriate.
“Ho!” Wei called as they approached.
“Hey!” Hayden called back. “Nice fire you’ve got going here.”
“Wei makes the best fires,” Iktomi smiled, her black eyes glistening in the light.
“Would have been nice to not have to move camp,” Wei said in a booming voice, “but if the sprite says it is safest, I imagine it is.”
“I apologize for not considering it earlier,” the Prince said, bowing to Wei. “My mind is cluttered as it has never been. I am finding it hard to focus.”
Hayden was shocked by this. The Prince seemed spacey enough to hold all sorts of clutter up in his little glowing head. To think that he was being inefficient because of something like that was disconcerting.
Dropping their packs in a pile near enough to the fire to keep them from freezing without catching ablaze, Hayden, Allen, Ramon, Hector and Micah all settled in around the massive heat source across from Wei, the Raven, Coyote and Iktomi. The fire was more than warm enough and it wasn’t long before Hector and Micah got some food going. Hayden knew the non-humans didn’t need to eat, but his stomach was empty and the grub was much appreciated.
“Figure we should introduce ourselves,” Allen said as he put away his third hot dog. “I’m Allen Becker and these are my friends Hector Morales and Micah Talbot.”
“It is good to finally meet,” Wei said from across the fire. “The Raven speaks highly of you.”
“He is the best of them,” the Raven said, nodding to Allen who looked uncomfortable.
“Arguable,” Hector said.
“It is not,” the Raven said, missing the humor in Hector’s voice.
“And I am Iktomi,” the six armed woman said.
“Good to meet you,” Allen said.
“We go to war tomorrow,” Wei said suddenly. “Are you prepared for what we are meant to face?”
“As much as I think we can be,” Allen said.
“We should not hold council until the morning Wei,” the Raven said.
“It is bad luck,” Iktomi nodded.
“Forgive me friends,” Wei said. “I grow anxious. It has been a long time since I had reason to charge into battle.”
“Dawn will be here soon enough,” the Raven said.
“Will you be staying with us tonight?” Hayden asked the Prince, who had chosen to sit next to Allen.
“The storm that Allen Becker and his men have found is not one that you can travel through alone,” he said. “Dark magic has brought such a tempest here, and I will need to undo it before you can find who you seek.”
“You can do that?” Hayden asked.
“Of course,” the Prince said. “What can be done, can be undone. It is the way of such things.”
“You think we can win tomorrow?” Hayden asked as he suppressed a yawn.
“If you could not, I would not have come,” the Prince said.
Noah was pretty impressed with their third accommodation this trip. The house was spacious with newly renovated appliances and brand new mattresses. Instead of eating more take out or fast food, Rigali and Jabari threw together a meal of homemade ziti and the three of them had eaten silently while they monitored the local news sites and classifieds for any hint of trouble.
As the sun began to set on another tortuously uneventful day, Noah scraped his plate clean before stepping outside to call Margaret. The phone only got to ring once before she answered and Noah thought she sounded worried as she said, “Noah? How are you all doing?”
“Doing fine,” Noah said. “Nothing out of the ordinary here in Lakefield either. Seems pretty peaceful actually.”
“That’s good I suppose,” Margaret said.
“Could definitely be worse,” Noah said. “We’ll do another sweep through Northwood and Ashland tomorrow, but I’m starting to think we might need to search elsewhere. I know these towns are closest, but maybe it got confused or just went the wrong way.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Margaret said.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Noah yawned. All this doing nothing got exhausting after a while.
“Please do,” Margaret said, and the call ended.
Not wanting to go back inside and sit with the older men, Noah walked around to the small concrete slab that served as a patio behind the house. Sitting in the big plastic arm chair, he looked out into the woods twenty feet from him. Maybe if he just sat here long enough, whatever they were looking for would just appear before him.
It had happened before.
--------------------------
Allen shook Earl’s hand as the sheriff said goodbye. Allen could see the caravan of cars and trucks off in the distance and he guessed they would make it to Fairbanks just before nightfall.
“You fellas sure you don’t want to come?” Earl said for the fifth or sixth time.
“Positive,” Allen said. “Two days tops. I promise you.”
“Can’t see why that is necessary, but I’m done asking. I tried,” Earl said.
“Be safe out there,” Allen said.
“Right back at you,” Earl said. Allen watched as the man walked back down the road to the caravan, only closing the door once the man had reached the cars.
“You sure you don’t want to just send Kev with them?” Micah asked.
“Shit, he wouldn’t go if you tried,” Hector laughed. Micah didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue the point either.
“Keep it down you two,” Allen said. “I need to call Margaret.”
“You still want us keeping watch?” Hector asked.
“No,” Allen said. “Block the windows and guard the doors. If this thing wants us, it’ll have to come in here.”
---------------------------
Margaret was at the end of her rope. She’d tried to think of the problem in a million different ways, but no matter how hard she tried, the solution to getting Allen his backup eluded her. It helped that the town had been evacuated, but it still didn’t solve their central problem. She was now worried that if they couldn’t figure this out, they were as good as fucked down the line. They’d be going farther than Alaska by the time this was all said and done.
She was just beginning to weigh the pros and cons of illegally flying a plane up to Fairview when she heard a soft knock on her door. Margaret’s eyes shot to the camera in her hallway, but nothing was there; no one was at the door. Kim was grabbing something to eat at the moment, so Margaret rose to answer it herself. Even as she reached it she heard the soft knock again.
Opening the door, she felt her legs almost go out from under her.
“Hello Margaret Wynters,” the Moon Eyed Prince said, looking up at her with his familiar, expressionless face.
“Hello,” she said faintly. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
“We will discuss that later,” he said. “Right now, Allen Becker is in need. I am here to help.”
Feeling the life returning to her legs and a fire growing in her chest, Margaret said, “We need to get Kevin and Elliot back to base and a team of reinforcements up there to replace them. Can you help with that?”
“I can,” the Prince said slowly, “but it will be very painful for your kind.”
“Will there be lasting trauma?” she asked.
“Not in a physical sense, no,” the Prince said.
“I’ll assemble our team,” Margaret said. “You do what you need to. Meet us in the garages.” The Prince was gone the second she finished her sentence. Trying in vain to contain her glee, Margaret rushed off to tell the others that they were back in business.
------------------
Allen was just finishing boarding up the large front windows when he heard a commotion behind him. Rushing back to the bedrooms, he discovered that what he had at first thought was shouting was actually a celebration. Moving into Kevin’s room, Allen could immediately see why; standing on Kevin’s bed was the Prince.
“Look who decided to join the party,” Hector said, smiling from ear to ear.
“It is good to see you well, Allen Becker,” the Prince said, bowing low. “I am sorry I am so late in coming.”
“It’s good to have you back,” Allen said, waving away the apology.
“Margaret has asked me to take the injured back to base and supply you with fresh men. Are you ready to receive them?” the Prince said.
“You can do that?” Kevin asked, looking hopeful.
“Yes, but it will be very painful. The pain will only last a moment, but for agony such as this, that is enough for most creatures,” the Prince said stoically.
The happy look faded from Kevin’s face. “Figures,” he grumbled.
“It will be worth it,” Allen said, patting Kevin on the shoulder lightly. “Better than being stuck in your bed when one of those things comes calling.”
“Elliot’s in bad shape,” Micah said. “Will the journey make it worse?”
“The pain is merely a sensation,” the Prince said. “No lasting harm will be done.”
“Shit, get on with it then,” Kevin said, bracing for whatever was coming.
“As you wish,” the Prince replied.
----------------
Hayden was waiting with the rest of his chosen team when, out of nowhere, screaming filled the garage. Hayden looked around only to find Kevin laying on the floor. He was sitting up, veins popping from his neck and breathing like a man who’d just gone twelve rounds and lost. Before Hayden could even take a step towards the man, Elliot appeared next to him, the Prince at his side. Elliot was not screaming, but he was white as a sheet and his eyes bulged alarmingly from his head as he took deep, ragged breaths.
Looking over to Ramon, the only other human member of his strike force, Hayden said, “No shame if you choose to sit this one out.”
“I am with you,” Ramon said, gritting his teeth and looking queasy.
“Good man,” Hayden said. “This is going to suck, isn’t it?” he added to Coyote on his other side.
“Not for us, Hayden,” he said, looking worried. “We are not fully here on this plane. We will not suffer as you will. In your place, I would not do this. You are a braver man than I.”
Wondering just why he had agreed to any of this, Hayden looked to the Prince and said, “Do it.”
Without warning Hayden felt himself rushing forward and less than a second later the pain began. If Hayden could have, he would have screamed his lungs out. He felt as if every layer of himself was being peeled off endlessly and in rapid succession. He wanted to die, to cease to exist, and then, suddenly, it was over.
Luckily he did not come-to screaming as Hughes had, but he did still feel the phantom pain as he realized he was lying in the snow. Looking around, he found Ramon sitting a few yards from him, eyes clamped shut, tremors running through his body as he rode out whatever he was feeling. Letting the man process this in his own way, Hayden forced himself up on shaky legs.
“Are you alright Hayden?” Iktomi’s voice said.
“I think so,” Hayden replied in a hoarse voice. He felt almost normal now and was beginning to have trouble remembering what the pain had even felt like. Scanning their surroundings, Hayden saw lights in the distance that had to be Fairview. Finding that the Prince was still among them, Hayden said, “Couldn’t have dropped us in town, huh?”
“With such a large party, I did not want to risk an injury. Wide open spaces are better for this sort of thing,” he said. “It is not a far walk.”
“Easy for the floating man to say,” Hayden scoffed. “You doing alright Ramon?”
“Getting there,” he said as the Raven helped him to his feet.
“We must reach Allen Becker,” the Raven said.
“Is he in that village over yonder?” Wei asked.
“Yes,” Hayden said. He couldn’t tell if he was hungry or wanted to vomit.
“Then go to him if you must, but I will make camp here,” he said. “I am tired of sleeping under roofs and surrounded by walls.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Hayden asked.
“Safety is wherever Wei lays his head,” Iktomi said. “I will stay as well. You can bring your friends here when the sun is high.”
“Yes, Hayden, this is best,” Coyote said. “You don’t live like our kind. A good fire and a clear sky is all we need.”
“What about you?” Hayden asked the Raven.
“I will escort you to Allen Becker and then come and go as I please,” he said. “I do not fear the creatures of the night.”
“Great,” Hayden said. “Well then, we best get going.”
“We will build our fire tall for you Hayden!” Coyote called as Hayden and his party headed to Fairview.
“He seems to like you,” Ramon said as they walked.
“We’ve been through some shit together,” Hayden said.
“You have brought out some good in him,” the Raven said at the front of the three man band. “I would not have thought that possible before.”
“Maybe you should be a little less judgy then,” Hayden said.
“Perhaps,” the Raven said and to Hayden’s surprise he didn’t sound entirely dismissive. “Which building is it?”
“Good question,” Hayden said as they made their way into the outermost part of town. Cupping his hands around his mouth he yelled, “Allen! Allen Becker! Allen!”
It only took a moment for a voice to call back from the west, “Over here!” The voice kept calling out as they worked their way towards it and soon they found themselves headed towards a one story home with Allen hanging out the front door, rifle in view and hanging across his chest. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said as they reached the three steps leading up to the house.
“Nice place,” Hayden said.
“Wish we’d come into it differently, but it’s working out alright,” Allen said. “The Prince zap you here?”
“Sure did,” Hayden said. “Not fun. Do not recommend it.”
“Better than coach?” Allen said, eyebrow raised.
“Fuck you,” Hayden said as he walked up the stairs. Allen moved aside as Hayden, Ramon and the Raven entered the house.
“Is this everyone?” Allen asked.
“Nope,” Hayden said. “Coyote, Iktomi and Wei are making camp just outside of town. The Prince is there too, I think, but who knows what he’s up to. I’m just glad to see him.”
“I hear that,” Allen said.
“Look who it is,” Hector said as he and Micah joined them in the front room.
“Good to see you both in one piece,” Hayden said. “This is Ramon, one of Jomo’s new recruits.”
“So you see one yet?” Hector said seriously. “One that isn’t with us I mean.
“I did,” Ramon nodded. “Not good.”
“Not good indeed,” Micah said. “Glad to have you with us.”
“So are we heading out to them?” Allen asked.
“In the morning,” the Raven said. “Wei will not make council under the night sky. We can make our plans when the sun has risen again.”
“If that’s how it has to be,” Allen said. “You staying here or heading back out?”
“It has been too long since I sat around the fire with good company,” the Raven said. “You will find me with the others in the morning. Sleep well and know we watch over you. You will need all your strength for tomorrow's task.”
They all watched as the Raven walked back out the front door. Once he had gone Allen said, “I guess we’re just letting them roam now.”
“Wait until you see the new guy,” Hayden said. “We aren’t letting him do anything. The game has changed.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Allen yawned. “Think the Raven’s right about tomorrow though; we need our rest.”
“Probably,” Hayden said. “You got any free rooms?”
“No, but we have two couches,” Allen said.
“Good enough,” Hayden replied.
Just as he went to drop his gear near the couch, the Prince appeared on it. “You cannot stay here,” the Prince said.
“Excuse me?” Hayden said. “Where was this on the walk over?”
“There is a chance outsiders will come looking for answers in this place by morning,” the Prince said. “I have sent the others to make camp in a location north of here. You all can follow me and I will take you there.”
“You want us to sleep out there?” Hector said. “It’s freezing.”
“Bring blankets,” Allen said. “How far?”
“Two miles,” the Prince said.
“Let’s get moving,” Allen said. “We’ve still got some daylight to work with and the sooner we’re out of here the better. ”
When Kim told Margaret that Jomo had returned, she was over the moon. Not only was he back, alive and well, but now they could finally look into getting Allen some help. She had given Jomo and his people an hour or so to clean up, get some food in them and get to the garages. She knew this wasn’t going to be the best introduction for his new recruits, but that couldn’t be avoided. They were up against it now and pretending otherwise would be both dangerous and foolish. If what they saw or heard turned them away, so be it.
She had demanded the full team be at this meeting and had reconfigured the space accordingly. A large circle of chairs, with an appropriately sized open space for Wei, sat in the center of the room and a projector cast a map of Alaska on the closed door. Margaret would have preferred to have this meeting in the comfort of her office, but with their newly enlarged numbers and the sheer size of Wei and Coyote, this had been far more reasonable.
Atticus and Kim had followed her here, and since Wei, Iktomi and Coyote had been staying out here of their own accord, they were already present as well. Next came Jomo and his two recruits, followed a few minutes later by Sophia and a truly exhausted looking Benoit. Next came Lehman and Hayden, Olivia between them since no crutches were present on base, an oversight Margaret had already put an order in to correct. Last came the Raven, more surly than usual after word that Iktomi would be allowed to not only stay among them, but sit in on this planning session.
With everyone finally present, Margaret got going. “Before we get into the thick of things, I’d like to introduce our newest members, or soon to be members, Ramon Ocampo and Aldo Haddad. We are about to go over some very sensitive information here, but before we start…” Margaret stopped as Aldo raised his hand. A bit flustered, Margaret said, “Yes?”
“Uh, not to be rude, but what are...they?” Aldo asked, looking at the section of their circle where the Raven, Wei, Iktomi and Coyote sat hip to hip.
“We are hunters of the great wilds,” Wei said in a booming voice that filled the now closed garages. “Your allies and friends. You have nothing to fear from us, Aldo Haddad.”
“Ah, well that explains it then,” Aldo said, eyebrows as high as they could go.
“They are from the same place as the creature we found in Maine,” Jomo clarified. “They have come here and agreed to help us beat back encroachments into our world.”
“Do not be scared of us,” Coyote said, grinning in a way that showed all of his teeth. “A friend of Hayden’s is a friend of ours.” Hayden, who was seated next to the bestial figure, waved at Aldo to clarify this statement.
“All of this will be made clear to you in time,” Margaret said impatiently, “but for now we need to discuss rescuing Allen and his people in Alaska. From what Allen has conveyed to me, Elliot and Kevin have been seriously injured and Micah doubts that he can keep them stable much longer without additional resources. We need to find a way to both extricate our wounded and bring in fresh reinforcements without notice.”
“I’m not sure that’s doable,” Olivia said. “I understand it’s what needs doing, but I can’t really think of how we could manage it. We need to use a plane, which takes Wei and Coyote out of the equation, and even then we’d need to land in Fairbanks and that is a no-go for even the Raven and Iktomi. That being the case, I can’t see what good sending more of us into the lion’s den is going to do.”
“Agreed,” Jomo said and Margaret was shocked to hear her head of security agreeing with a plan of non-action.
“Well you two can’t be comfortable leaving them stranded up there?” Margaret said.
“Of course not,” Jomo shrugged, “but just rushing off to die with them isn’t a good idea either.”
“Well we have to do something,” Atticus said.
“Obviously,” Hayden agreed. “I’m still willing to lead a team north if you can get us there.”
“Well now that Jomo is back I think…” Margaret began, but Jomo cut her off.
“I’m sorry Margaret, but at this juncture my place is here with you. I didn’t like you being here alone before and I like it far less now,” he said. “Plus, we need to be ready to bail Noah out as well. If Hayden is willing, let him lead the group north, if there’s even going to be one, which it doesn’t seem like there will be.”
“Ok, let’s table that for a second,” Hayden said. “If we did go, who would be coming along?”
“Well I’m out,” Olivia said.
“Me too,” Benoit grunted.
“Ok so no Jomo, Liv or Benoit,” Hayden said. “How bout the newbies?”
“I for one need to see that you people can accomplish something without getting anyone killed,” Aldo said in a tone Margaret did not care for at all.
“I will go,” Ramon said. “Though I can’t say I’ve ever been so far north before. I’ll need gear.”
“Not a problem,” Margaret said.
“Ok so me, Ramon, the Raven and Iktomi,” Hayden said with a raised eyebrow.
“I will join you,” Coyote said, looking hurt that Hayden had left him out.
“You’re welcome to if we can manage it,” Hayden said, patting his friend on the back.
“I will also come if it is possible,” Wei said, though Hayden knew that was out of the question.
“Well there we go,” Hayden said. “You make it happen and we’ll get it done.”
“I’ll see what I can pull together,” Margaret said.
“Well that’s settled then,” Atticus said. “Jomo and Sophia will be on standby in case Noah and Joseph need help.”
“How are they doing?” Olivia asked.
“So far they’ve found a whole bunch of nothing,” Atticus said.
“It will not stay this way,” the Raven said darkly.
“Probably not,” Margaret agreed, “but we can appreciate the calm while it lasts. If anyone needs me I’ll be in my office trying to figure this all out.”
“We’ll be waiting,” Hayden said.
Margaret resisted the urge to smack him as she left the others behind, Kim in tow.
---------------------
Allen washed the blood from his hands and changed into the new shirt the others had brought him. Elliot was stable, but he had lost a lot of blood and had slipped into unconsciousness on the couch while Micah had worked on him. They’d put Kevin in Killian’s bedroom down the hall and then Earl had set off to move the body of Allen’s would-be assassin. Moving into Abel’s room, Allen, Micah and Hector took stock of their situation.
“What do you have them moving the body for?” Hector asked as they shut the door to the bedroom.
“A good number of them saw that thing when it was attacking us,” Allen said, sitting heavily on the deceased man’s bed. “The rest should get a good look at it and make their own decisions about what’s going on. Watching it fade should help too.”
“Margaret sending backup?” Micah asked.
“Can’t imagine so,” Allen sighed. “Only way to do it would be to land a plane out here and that’s a no go. Coming by van is ridiculous and with the Prince gone we can’t count on him just flitting over here. Far as I see it, we’re on our own. Only choice now is to stay or run.”
“I hate to say it,” Micah said, “but I think we should bail. I can’t keep these two stable if either gets worse. We need to get them to a doctor asap. I say we lead everyone south and then come back when we’re in better shape.”
“Fuck that,” Hector said. “We run now and it will just follow us. Give it a few hours and those people who went south will prove me right. The Raven was on it; we’re being tested. I say we fucking hang tight and let it come to us. Didn’t go so well for it this time. I’m willing to bet we can make that happen again.”
“Hector’s right about heading south,” Allen said, “at least I agree with his guess. I think our best bet is to hope Margaret thinks of something and hold our ground until then. I know you’re worried Micah, but I trust you can keep Elliot and Kevin safe until someone comes.”
“I’m glad you think so highly of me,” Micah said, “but even if I had the training, I don’t have the supplies or equipment.”
“Make it work until you do,” Allen said. “All we can do for them for now.”
“Kyle?” a voice said through the door. Opening it cautiously, Allen found Earl. “Some people want to talk with you.”
“Everything alright?” Allen asked, not opening the door all the way.
“That thing is...going,” Earl said.
“Oh,” was all Allen said as he let the door swing open and stepped out into the hallway. “After you.”
Allen left his men behind as he followed Earl down to the municipal building where they were housing the children. Allen entered the building behind his guide and his gaze instantly fell on the eleven small bodies under tarps in the far corner of the room. Tearing his eyes away, Allen moved deeper into the building and found himself in what looked like an office in the back.
Lying on the table was the figure that had stabbed Elliot and killed Killian and his brother Abel. The clothes had been stripped off and the form in front of them was fully naked, though this wasn’t as scandalous as it seemed. The thing had no genitals to speak of and its body seemed more like deep blue ice than skin and flesh. The face that Allen had seen looking into its own was ruined now, the right side caving in on itself and melting into nothingness despite the left side remaining intact. Even as he stood there before it, Allen could see pieces of it falling away, never to hit the ground.
Seated around this thing was the same crowd from Mrs. Voight’s sitting room, sans Mrs. Voight and in her stead her oldest son. A few new faces were scattered among the vaguely familiar ones, but Allen could see they weren’t going to press him as they had before. The librarian, Wallace, was the first to speak and there was no malice or accusation in his voice.
“Did you know this was here? That it was coming?” he asked.
“No,” Allen said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” A half truth, but easy enough to say.
“Of course, of course,” Wallace said.
“Earl says this fella came right for you,” Harris said.
“Stabbed my friend,” Allen shrugged. “Can’t say if it was coming for me or not.”
“Earl seems sure,” Harris replied. “Damn sure.”
Earl said nothing to this, but did not correct the other man.
“So you think I’m involved with that thing somehow?” Allen scoffed as convincingly as he could.
“Can’t see how you could be,” Wallace said.
“Neither can I,” Harris said as if that disappointed him.
“Can you help us?” Wallace asked, looking ashamed to have done so.
“I think so,” Allen said. “As unnerving as this guy was, Earl finished him off with one shot. We just need to keep to the earlier plan; stay together, keep a watch at all…” Before Allen could finish there was yelling and the screech of tires from just outside the building.
“The hell is that?” Earl said, turning to go, but the sound of the front door opening behind them told everyone in the room that whatever had happened was coming to them. Moments later a group of men came rushing inside. All stopped in horror at the sight of the thing on the table and, for a short moment, the cramped room felt truly chaotic. “Hey!” Earl yelled suddenly and far louder than Allen would have expected. “You all can shut it and use some damned sense!”
“Sorry Earl,” one of the men who had barged in said. “But we found John and his people. Killed, all of them. Stabbed and fucking poisoned from what we could tell. Looked like they might have got whatever did it, but we didn’t see a body or anything like that. Just took some pictures and got our asses back here right quick. Seems like you all had some excitement of your own,” he added, looking at the assassin in the center of the room.
“You could say that,” Earl growled. “Thing killed Killian and Abel and stuck one of Kyle’s people.”
“Think it was the same thing that did John and them?” one of the other men asked fearfully.
“Might have been?” Earl said. “Who could know?”
“What makes you say they might have killed it?” Allen asked.
“Outline of a body in the snow with a bullet right where the head would be” the leader of the new group said. “Looked like whatever it was ran them off the road. Found Tony with a goddamn spear in his chest. Frank had one too, but in his fucking neck. It was a massacre Earl.”
“Jesus,” Earl groaned as Harris rose to help support him.
“You said you have pictures?” Allen asked.
The talker of the search party handed Allen his phone with the gallery open to his most recent photos. Flicking through them Allen didn’t like what he saw. Most of the men had been killed with what he had to assume was a spear thrust or throw. Only one of the men showed any other signs of trauma. He had been found lying next to the truck and Allen saw the classic signs of being poisoned on his bloated face. How any of this had happened was anyone’s guess, but he did share the men’s opinion that this thing was no longer out there. Allen thought that if it had been, none of these men would be here now.
“The fuck is happening?” Earl muttered as he shook Harris off and took the phone from Allen, swiping through the pictures himself.
Allen said nothing, but watched as the people around him began to panic. He understood the urge even if he was able to suppress it, but he knew that if this hysteria spread, things would only get more complicated. “Listen up everyone,” Allen said in a loud voice. All eyes turned to him and he cleared his throat before saying, “Two of my people are injured and I won’t risk moving them at the moment, but I think it would be wise for the rest of you to consider getting out of town. If that thing was still out there it would have attacked, so I think a retreat would be safe. If our friend lying on the table here is any indication, so long as you bring enough guns and stick together, you should be fine. Just keep your eyes peeled and don’t let your guard down.”
The others all looked at him with varying expressions. Some looked relieved that he had suggested a retreat while others, the minority to be sure, seemed offended by the idea. Slowly his audience began muttering to one another and Allen made no effort to recapture their attention. This was their call to make and whatever they chose to do would likely affect the decisions of everyone else in their town. Allen was an outsider in this and his only role was to make the suggestion and let the rest play out as it would.
After a few minutes, the room seemed to have come to a consensus and, instead of looking back to Allen, they turned to Earl for direction. The part time sheriff did not shirk from this and began directing traffic. “Find out how many cars we need to get everyone out of here and then start getting people organized. Leave anything that isn’t essential. We need to get going as fast as we can. Make sure everyone who has a decent stock of supplies leaves a key here with Kyle and his people. Least we can do. Now let’s get moving! We don’t have much daylight to work with!”
Allen watched as the others dispersed around him and was eventually left with just Earl and the body on the table. “I think you’re making the right call,” Allen said to the other man as he noticed the assassin’s left arm begin to wither away.
“Wish I could say the same to you,” Earl said. “Sure you won’t come with us? Ain’t nothing to protect if we aren’t here. Isn’t a soul in town that wants you dying over their house.”
“I’ll give it a day or two and then follow you,” Allen said. “Do you mind if I give you a bit of advice?”
“Sure slick,” Earl laughed, “shoot.”
“No matter what you and I know, all anyone can ever prove is that two men and eleven children died here in town and a handful of others in a car accident that same week. It’s a lot, and nothing you’ve seen will fly with the people that are going to come asking questions. Best thing you can do is make the police aware and then not say a damn thing besides that. You found the kids, you found the brothers and you found John and his people. They won’t like it, but it will be hard to pin it on any one person if you all just keep your mouths shut,” Allen said. “You tell them this, what really happened, and you’re headed for a long stay in a place you don’t belong.”
“I’ll mention it to some folks, let the words spread on our way out,” Earl said slowly. “Doesn’t seem right, but it does seem smart. Good to know the difference in times like this I guess. Can’t say no one’s gonna drop your names. I won’t of course, but John’s wife…”
“Not worried about it,” Allen said.
“Didn’t think you would be, uh, Kyle,” he said with emphasis that made Allen smile. Earl wasn’t as part time as he let people believe.
“I’ll be at Killian’s if you need me,” Allen said.
“I’ll pop by before we head out,” Earl nodded.
“Good,” Allen said.
“What do you all plan on doing once we’re gone?” Earl asked as he headed out the door.
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