Talon stumbled backward and almost fell into one of the open graves before he caught himself. His chest felt like someone had thrown a brick at it.
Morgaine kicked and punched with lethal precision, and Talon struggled to fend off the savage blows. Talon was an expert in hand-to-hand combat, but so was this woman. No wonder Morgaine had doubled for famous actresses in some of the most intense fight scenes ever caught on film. She was a born fighter, her technique flawless. And the barrage never stopped, making it impossible for Talon to launch a counteroffensive. Again and again, her blows found their target. Each strike got through his defenses, sending explosions of pain through his body.
Talon spun around the open graves as Morgaine continued to batter him, each kick and punch driving him toward the center of the eerie graveyard. There was a superhuman quality to the pneumatic beating Morgaine was dishing out. She was superbly trained, but there was something else happening here. The former stuntwoman floated through the air and glided over the ground as if carried by invisible currents. Her fighting prowess reminded Talon of wire-fu, where wires and pulleys augmented actors’ martial arts abilities. But this wasn’t a movie set. How was she able to move as if the rules of gravity didn’t apply to her?
The answer slashed through his mind as another one of Morgaine’s explosive punches connected with his face.
The Element of Spirit.
Morgaine was tapping into that elemental power somehow. That’s what Charlie had meant when she said Morgaine was changing.
It has already begun, Talon thought with growing horror.
And if two sacrifices made her this powerful, what would happen if she completed the ritual? Talon preferred not to find out.
Wham!
Morgaine’s foot whipped Talon’s head to the side, and he staggered back another few feet, spitting blood. The world grew cloudy around him, the rain of punches taking their inevitable toll.
Talon weakly brought up both of his arms, but his countermeasure was seconds too slow. Morgaine’s next punch snapped his head back and rattled his jaw.
She regarded him without emotion. There was no sense of triumph or gloating in those perfect features, only a grim determination.
“You’re a good fighter, but you’re no match for the forces of nature. Now I will look into your mind, and I will find the child of the Earth who tried to turn her back on us. Do you understand?”
Talon understood all too well as his fingers closed around the handle of the demon slayer blade. He waited for a beat that allowed Morgaine to draw even closer, and then whipped up the knife with lightning speed.
Steel slashed the cult leader’s arm, and for a moment, time stood still as a stunned Morgaine took in the deep line of scarlet.
Then rage distorted her features, turning them masklike. With a banshee howl, her roundhouse kick jerked Talon’s face backward.
The blow catapulted him through the air, and a split second later, he didn’t have solid ground under him any longer. The earth opened up and swallowed him whole.
Talon hit the bottom of the open grave. The moon transformed into a blur as he looked up at the night sky and tasted dirt and copper in his mouth.
Morgaine stood at the edge of the pit, a towering figure. To his hazy senses, the cult leader appeared to have grown taller, a true goddess on this Earth. Morgaine indeed was a force of nature to be reckoned with.
Talon tried to cling to the mission, to force his battered body upright. Above him, the goddess slipped out of focus, and the world grew dark.
Chapter Nine
“I ran his prints. His name is Mark Talon. Ex-special operations. It looks like he’s been out of the military for a year now. No phone number, no permanent address, not even a fucking email.”
The man relaying this information to Morgaine over her cell phone was Tim Turner, a police officer who’d joined the Children of the Green two years earlier. Most of the members of Morgaine’s new family had turned their backs on their old lives and didn’t work regular jobs any longer. Turner was one of the few exceptions. He’d wanted to resign from his position on the force many times, but Morgaine always convinced him to stay. She’d known that having an inside man in the LAPD might prove invaluable as they closed in on their goal.
Morgaine eyed the unconscious man splayed out on a wooden table inside the wine tasting room. Rows of solid oak barrels surrounded them, the pale moonlight seeping through the windows casting jagged shadows. The cloying smell of fermented grapes hung over the chamber like an invisible shroud.
“If you ask me, he’s a freelancer,” Turner concluded.
Morgaine nodded to herself. That had been her first guess, too. Charlie’s well-heeled family had never approved of the Children of the Green. Worried sick about their daughter’s cult activities, they must’ve hired a mercenary. Who knows how long this Mark Talon had been filling her head with the seeds of betrayal.
There was only one problem with that explanation. Why would a professional mercenary venture out to the compound at this point in the game? The soldier already had the girl, so what else was he after? Did Charlie’s family want revenge?
Morgaine clenched her jaw. Something about Talon didn’t quite add up, and it bothered her.
The man was an unexpected development, and his timing couldn’t have been worse. The power of the fifth element was surging inside her, and Morgaine refused to allow some hired gun to derail them when they were so close to completing the ritual.
“Any leads where this mercenary might have been staying?” Morgaine asked.
“I’m afraid not,” the cop said. “The bastard must’ve booked a room under an alias. Even his rental car was paid for by some dummy corporation. The guy is a pro. A real ghost.”
Morgaine’s irritated gaze ticked toward the gash on the unconscious man’s face. Ghosts don’t bleed, she thought.
Morgaine flashed back to her fight with Talon. She recalled the pain and loss in the soldier’s eyes, the fire and rage. Like so many retired soldiers, the merc carried scars, both physical and emotional. Had they met a few months earlier, Morgaine might have tried to recruit Talon the way she had so many other doubters over the years, Officer Tim Turner included.
The cop hadn’t always been a believer. Their paths had first crossed during a police investigation of one of her group’s more volatile members. She remembered how cold Turner had sounded when he interrogated her. By the time he’d finished asking all his tedious questions, Morgaine had unlocked the rage inside the LAPD officer’s heart. Not to mention igniting a fire further south with her seductive looks and wicked smiles. She went on to first conquer his body, then his mind. And now he belonged to her, loyal to the death, a willing sacrifice. Talon could have been another—and seducing him would have been a worthwhile pursuit in itself.
Sadly, this weary soldier wouldn’t get a chance to join the Children of the Green. Only hours separated them from the final gift, and time was of the essence. She had to find Charlie. Without the girl, all was lost.
Fortunately, Morgaine’s powers were growing with each new sacrifice.
There would be other ways to track the traitor. To make Charlie recognize the error of her ways and return to the fold.
The elemental force of the spirit roared within Morgaine. Power permeated every cell of her body and radiated from her pores. She’d been amazed when she knocked the mercenary’s gun out of his hand without moving a finger, the first time such telekinetic powers had manifested themselves. Morgaine instinctively sensed she could tap into those same mental powers and use them to locate Charlie.
The Element of the Spirit, which bound all the other elements together, was hers to command, and it felt almost eager to show her how to wield it. She would pluck the information right out of the mercenary’s mind. Talon would give up Charlie without even realizing he’d done it.
There would be no escape for the treasonous bitch. They’d find her, and she’d fulfill her holy duty as promised. They all had a
role to play here, and Charlie’s turn to sacrifice herself could not be postponed.
The Earth was depending on the Children of the Green to save it.
Humanity had exploited the planet for centuries, but the worst affronts had occurred since the Industrial Revolution. These assaults on Mother Nature had to end. While storms raged and forests burned, the politicians bickered, and the corporations continued to rape the land and pump their poisons into the atmosphere. Solutions seemed further away than ever, despite all the superficial virtue signaling. The survival of the planet called for drastic solutions.
Even if America made all the right moves, where did it leave the rest of the world? China might be a member of the Paris Accord, but spy satellites showed they talked a good game yet failed to back it up with action. The same held for India and Russia—these nations didn’t give two shits about the state of the planet. A clear message was needed, something that would make the world take notice.
Only a taste of the apocalypse would make them pay attention to the doomsday clock racing toward midnight. Mother Nature would unleash her terrible power, and humanity would be humbled.
The thought calmed Morgaine’s churning anxiety. The former stuntwoman hadn’t always been an activist. There was a time when all she cared about was the adrenaline rush of a new shoot and seeing her death-defying work immortalized on film. She’d lived for the thrill of tackling physical challenges and facing death. In her previous life, the elements of nature were forces to be conquered, not worshipped. She’d been set on fire, jumped out of planes, and spent hours diving to the ocean floors. She respected nature, but she hadn’t committed her life to it yet.
That all changed during the last Los Angeles wildfire. She’d been away on a shoot when she received the news that her husband and two children had perished in an out-of-control blaze raging through Ventura County. Nothing but ash remained of her home and family. There were no bodies to be buried.
On that fateful day, everything changed for Morgaine. She truly began to respect Mother Nature—and hate the people whose indifference and greed contributed to these manmade natural disasters. She started to read up on climate change and realized something had to be done about this growing cancer consuming the world and threatening all life on Earth.
Morgaine joined activist groups and took part in marches and boycotts, but she quickly realized that the world’s governments weren’t interested in actual change despite all the media attention. They didn’t care about the future of the planet. All gave they gave a shit about were their profit margins and stock portfolios. Energy independence was a cruel joke in a dying world.
As this truth dawned on her, Morgaine lost hope. But her rage grew. She turned her back on Hollywood, medicated herself with drugs and booze. Only in the ancient mystic texts of the old nature religions did she find some solace. If social media activism failed to produce the desired changes, then perhaps more drastic measures were required. The time was ripe for reinventing old rituals for a soulless age. She would be the one to tap into ancient secrets and forgotten ceremonies.
It would be up to the Children of the Green to save the world.
Change required sacrifice on all levels. Even back in those early days, Morgaine knew blood would need to be spilled.
Remembering her beginnings calmed her, and the power coursing through her veins filled her with a pleasant warmth. Morgaine rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and exposed her toned arms. The large circle on her neck—the symbol for the element of the spirit—wasn’t her only tattoo. The signs of the other four elements lined her arms. Air, water, fire, and earth were all part of her personality. As the fifth element’s power grew within her soul, so did her connection to the four other elemental forces, as well as the cult members who embodied their qualities.
Morgaine held up the strange knife the merc had brought to her compound. Its polished steel glittered in the pale moonlight. She took in the runes inscribed on the blade and the bone handle.
Not exactly standard issue. Strange indeed. Maybe there was more to this soldier. Perhaps he knew about magic, even knew what she was doing. But how could that be possible?
She pushed the disturbing thought aside and focused her energies on the task at hand.
Morgaine drew the blade across the palm of her outstretched hand, and blood oozed. She let the red liquid drip onto the earth tattoo on her arm. The crude ink represented her link to all the cult members marked by this symbol, including Charlie.
At first, nothing happened. Then, Morgaine felt the burgeoning power of the spirit element open up a channel to the woman who’d tried to turn her back on the cult. The earth tattoo on Morgaine’s arm exploded with a spectral energy, and the spirit tattoo on her neck quickly followed suit. She felt as though she was casting out invisible feelers that would find Charlie no matter where she hid.
There was no escape; they were bound to each other by their tattoos and the emerging power inside Morgaine. Their commitment to the Green would bridge time and space.
There.
Morgaine had found the little bitch. It was almost too easy.
The time had come for Charlie to return to her family.
Chapter Ten
Charlie was dreaming. In her mind’s eye, the world was coming apart. Giant tsunamis swept across sprawling cities, and blazing fires turned the air black with smoke while devastating earthquakes split the earth and swallowed every man, woman, and child. It was the vision of the future Morgaine had always talked about, a future which was fast approaching.
Charlie was one of the many terrified people on the ground during this end-of-the-world scenario, an antlike being hoping to escape forces beyond her comprehension. There was nothing she could do but accept her fate and perish. Charlie peered up at the giant wave crashing down. It had become a vengeful god in her mind.
Seconds before impact, she jerked awake with a startled cry. Dazed, she took in her surroundings. For a disoriented beat, she had no idea where she was, and then it all came back to her.
She was inside Talon’s safe house. Earlier, she’d tried to distract herself by watching some inane reality TV and must’ve dozed off on the couch. The TV was off now, and the moon shone brightly outside.
A man sat in a nearby armchair and watched her intensely. She studied the man who Talon had brought in to keep an eye on her. What was his name again? He’d introduced himself as Robert, no last name. He never said he was a cop, but she had enough run-ins with the law over the years to spot the type.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
Charlie nodded as she wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. Deep down, she sensed it had been more than a dream.
She received a vision of the future. A future she wanted to prevent at all cost and why she’d joined the Children of the Green in the first place.
She shook off the cobwebs and stumbled to the nearby bathroom. The cop continued to watch her intently. What was the man’s story? How was his connection to Mark Talon? One thing was for sure: He certainly wasn’t here on official police business.
Somebody was paying this man off the books to babysit her. Who were Talon and this detective working for, and why were they interested in Morgaine?
The answers eluded Charlie. She was missing an important piece of the puzzle, making it impossible for her to put it all together. She blinked, unable to process so many questions in her groggy state.
As she flipped on the light in the bathroom, she tried to avoid looking at her reflection. The last few days had aged her, and the toxic combination of stress and anxiety had left deep lines in her waxen complexion and heavy bags under her eyes.
She turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her face. Her gaze shifted back to the face in the mirror, and she barely stifled a gasp. Morgaine stared back at her. The cult leader regarded her with grave concern.
Terrified, Charlie recoiled from the mirror and spun around. She was alone in the bathroom, yet the image of Morgaine remained next to he
r reflection. Impossible!
“Why have you forsaken us?” the cult leader asked.
Charlie took a step back from the sink and hugged herself. Her entire body was shaking.
“We need you, Charlie. Your boyfriend will have died in vain if you desert us. He gave his life to save this world. He wouldn’t want you to back out now. Nathan would want you to keep going.”
Charlie swallowed hard, struggling to fight back her tears.
“I know you’re hurting. I know you’re scared. It takes courage to fight the system. But the elemental forces of nature are on our side.”
Almost as if to prove her words, the Earth tattoo on Charlie’s arm lit up. Her eyes widened in amazement. Morgaine had been telling the truth all this time.
She eyed Morgaine, uncertain about what she should do.
“Let us know where you are. Come to us. And help us win this fight.”
Morgaine’s voice grew weaker, and her features became blurry. The contact was breaking off.
“We’re counting on you, Charlie. I know you’ll do the right thing and make Nathan proud.”
A mist formed around Morgaine’s image. It was almost as if someone had drawn a hot bath and clouds of steam were erasing her from view. And then she was gone.
Charlie let out a long breath and supported her shaking body against the sink. Hot tears coursed down her face.
We’re counting on you, Charlie.
The guilt and doubt that had been building since Talon had placed her in this safe house was coming to a head. True, she wanted to live. Charlie was tired of the violence, but her nightmare had served as a powerful reminder of the stakes involved here.
She could turn her back on the Children of the Green, go on the run, but to what purpose? What sort of life could she possibly have in a dying world? There was no future unless somebody took drastic steps.
Nathan had given his life so others could have a chance down the road. What would he think of her now?
Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) Page 59