by C R Langille
Toby’s vision cleared for a moment. His wife was up and gripped Sebastian by the hand. She leaned against a doorjamb and pulled as hard as she could.
Toby took in a deep breath and reasserted his will, but he couldn’t break the demon’s shield inside his mind. He growled and probed all through himself and looked for a way into her fortress. He needed to do something or else they would all die.
There was only one other option.
Toby dug deep and pulled at the only thing left—his own soul. He grabbed on and dragged the energy to him with every ounce of his will. It flowed into his core, and he ignited with power. His vision turned red as it coursed through every inch of his body. His hearing disappeared under the rush of adrenaline. He held so much power. The sensation both invigorated and pained him. Euphoria overran his body, while at the same time every nerve ending fired and sent messages of excruciating pain back to his brain. Toby wanted to revel in it and pass out, but he wasn’t in control anymore. He could only ride the wave.
With his newfound strength, Toby located the source of the tendrils’ power. It was blackness in the white light, a blackness that sucked at his luminescence. Toby poured the golden light of his soul into the creature. He didn’t know how he knew, but all at once, he knew his son was free from its grasp. Toby redoubled his efforts.
A small voice in the back of his head screamed. It could have been his son or maybe Jezebel. He didn’t understand the words, but he didn’t care. He needed to destroy the tendrils before they destroyed everything. His family needed to be safe.
His hands went numb, but the rest of his body ached. Toby imagined his marrow bubbled and his blood boiled. Just as he thought his heart would explode, the black spot of the tendrils shrank in on itself until it was only a speck.
His soul grew weaker and weaker. It was almost empty, but he couldn’t stop now. The creature was almost destroyed. A little bit more. He needed to save… these other people.
Then, the darkness puffed out of existence, extinguished by his light. Toby severed the connection with the energy and dropped to the ground. His vision returned and adjusted to the gloom of the hallway. A few tendrils still moved about in a stupor but burned to ash within a few moments. It was dead.
Toby couldn’t feel his hands. They were blackened and burnt. Surprisingly, they didn’t hurt, nor did they look like traditional burns. Whatever happened to them, Toby got the sense it was permanent.
The child crouched next to him with a worried look painted on his little face. He shook Toby’s shoulder.
“Daddy? Are you okay?”
Daddy? Was he the boy’s father? Toby tried to remember, and the child did look familiar, but his memories were just a pile of mush.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Can you move?” the woman asked.
It was the same with her. He recognized her face but couldn’t remember why, or how, he knew her. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember. Toby knew he should know these people, but the memories weren’t there, as if the something stripped them from his very mind.
“I think so,” he said.
Toby got to his feet and took a step. A crack sounded and echoed through the hallway. Before he could move again, the floor gave way beneath him, and he fell. As Toby fell, he caught a glimpse of the young boy. The child’s face molded into a silent scream.
He hit the ground. All the air rushed from his lungs. It took him a moment to catch his breath, but when he did, Toby tried to get up. Something pinned his leg, and he couldn’t stand.
A moment later, the woman rushed to the child’s side and pulled him away from the edge. Relief flooded through Toby. They were still okay. He’d saved them, and the fact gave him comfort even through the confusion.
He moved some of the rubble off his leg and crawled to his feet. His body complained, but, for the most part, he was intact.
Toby wanted to yell out at the woman and boy, but more debris fell from the upper levels of the hotel and smothered him. Something struck him in the head. Everything went black.
***
Voices visited him in his dreams. A woman’s voice called for him. A child’s voice begged not to leave without his daddy.
“We can’t stay here, kiddo. More of those monsters will come.”
“But…”
“Come on, we have to go.”
Through it all, there was darkness and the overwhelming sense that he couldn’t move. Then another voice caressed his mind.
Come on, Love. You can’t stay here forever. Something will find you.
Toby knew the voice. Jezebel. The name came to him easily and rolled through his skull. He shifted, and whatever held him down shifted as well. The oppressive weight on his chest let up. He could breathe easier.
He struggled against his bonds and crawled out from under the debris. A pale green glow from an exit sign lit the dank hall. It wasn’t much, but he could see enough. It was amazing he survived the fall at all.
Toby couldn’t remember how he got there to begin with or what he was doing in the building.
“Where am I?”
An abandoned hotel it would seem.
Jezebel’s voice soothed him. Yet, something scratched the back of his mind. He remembered he searched for someone, but he couldn’t remember whom. The itch was constant, but no matter how hard he tried to remember, it wouldn’t subside.
Toby made his way to the roof. Once up, he basked in the moonlight and let the breeze cool him down. His body hurt all over. The trek to the roof took everything he had left.
Toby shuffled to the edge of the building. Below him in the parking lot, a woman and a child got into a van.
“Hey! Up here! Hey!” Toby said.
He waved his arms and tried to get their attention, but they didn’t hear him. Something stirred inside his mind. He knew he should be with the woman and child. Toby searched for something to throw and found brick in a pile of debris. He lobbed it off the roof and toward the van, but it was too far away. His heart lurched. He wanted to cry out, but he didn’t know what to say. Toby watched until the vehicle disappeared from view.
“Who are they?” Toby asked.
Just a woman and her son. You saved them, Love.
That was good. Deep down, he wanted them to be safe, but it hurt to watch them drive away. They were more than just a woman and her son.
“I have to get to them.”
Let them go. You’ve done what you can. They’ll be safe.
Perhaps, but he needed to know for sure. He needed to find them. His insides stirred and pulled the direction of the van. The pull was familiar, and Toby needed to find out what the connection meant. It was the key to everything.
Toby walked back to the stairwell. He stopped at the door. A ragged piece of duct tape trench coat stuck out from under the doorjamb.
He opened the door and expected to find more of the material. Yet, when he did, he found nothing but empty stairwell. The piece of coat was cut in a perfect line with the door. Toby shrugged and walked by. Toby was off to go hunting. He was off to find the woman and the boy.
About the Author
C.R. Langille spent many a Saturday afternoon watching monster movies with his mother. It wasn’t long before he started crafting nightmares to share with his readers. An avid hunter and amateur survivalist, C.R. Langille incorporates the Utah outdoors in many of his tales. He is an affiliate member of the Horror Writer’s Association and received his MFA: Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University.
Follow his exploits at www.crlangille.com
If you enjoyed this story, please drop me a review. Also, check out some of my other stories as well. Finally, subscribe to my newsletter and never miss out on new releases, book/movie reviews, and fun survival tips.
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&n
bsp; Continue the journey with
Alpha Protocol
Book Three
Dark Tyrant Series
Chapter One
“Violence isn’t the answer, it’s the question. Got violence?”
-Special Agent Doyle L. Johnson, ID: Hotel-Plumber-Lima, 3-15-3
Captain Thulisile Mahlangu sat cross-legged on the dirt floor. She’d been there many times before. Everything was the same: the crack of the fire from the nearby pit, the way the embers rose into the air dancing along the currents like tiny chaotic ballerinas, even how the smell of the smoke and cooking meat mixed into a succulent masterpiece—just like it always was in her dream.
In her dream, this particular dream, she wasn’t Captain Mahlangu. She wasn’t in charge of the Alpha Team serving the Bureau of Investigation, Observation and Defense of Extraordinary, Extraterrestrial, Demonic, and Paranormal Activity. In her dream, she was a little girl five years of age living in the Zulu Nation. In her dream, she was scared. She was always scared.
She stared at the fire, the warmth of the flames licking at her skin, pondering what could possibly make the noise coming from outside. It was a noise that sounded like a human screaming but was much, much worse.
The screams were primal, shrouded in hate and pain, coming from the depths of Hell. The kind of Hell the Bible thumpers always warned her and her family about; the kind with fire, brimstone, and red-skinned devils brandishing pitchforks ready to torment her soul for infinity. Especially her soul—she was her mother’s daughter.
The screams of her father burning alive were all of that and more.
“It will be okay, Thuli.”
It was her mother’s voice. In her dream, her mother tried to stay strong for her, but fear always cut through her tone. Her mother stood in the doorway of their small abode, clutching something at her chest. Thuli wanted to go over to her, cling to her body until the screaming stopped, but fear kept her planted on the floor—fear of what was out there just beyond the threshold.
Her father finally stopped screaming, and it was in that moment, in that silence, that Thuli wondered which was worse. He was gone.
“You got to be strong now, you hear me, Thuli? You be strong. Never let them see your fear. You bring the silence. Bring the fear,” her mother said.
She was about to say more when two men dressed in finely tailored suits came to the doorway. Their faces were wet with perspiration, and they both had wide-eyed looks. Crazy looks. They grabbed her mother and dragged her outside.
Moments later, her mother started to laugh. It was a deep laugh that reverberated through the walls and into Thuli’s core. It was a haunting laugh that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
The laugh turned into a scream, much like her father’s. That’s when the tall shadow appeared in the doorway.
She woke covered in sweat, shivering underneath her covers. The room was dark with the exception of a small strip of fluorescent light underneath the bathroom mirror. It provided enough illumination so that she could navigate; however, she didn’t need it. She could move through the room with practiced ease in complete darkness. Thuli could get dressed and field-strip her carbine without needing to see a thing.
There wouldn’t be any more sleep that night, so she got up and padded across the floor without making a noise. The motion tracker caught her movement as she entered the bathroom causing the overhead lights to flicker into life. She squinted through the brightness and turned on the faucet.
Thuli ran her hands under the cool water and then splashed her head, running her fingers through her short black hair. The brisk water was nice on her neck, and for a moment, she reveled in the sensation. If she could have found a mountain waterfall to stand under, she would have. Pure water, running free and wild, did amazing things to cleanse the spirit. Yet she wasn’t in the mountains, nor was she anywhere near a stream, so she had to make do with what she was given. The water ran down her chest and seemed to avoid a leather pouch hanging around her neck as if it were made of oil. It diverted into two separate streams running along either side of the pouch before coming back together on the other side.
The pouch began to shake. It was a slight tremor, but enough to get her attention. She grabbed it. There were symbols carved into the leather, ancient symbols in a language long dead and forgotten in the modern world. She didn’t know what they meant, but she knew what they did. They kept her in check—kept her normal.
Thuli took a deep breath, focusing on her breathing. The bag stopped trembling.
The tremors were coming more and more frequently. Perhaps it was due to the increased mission-load she and her team had taken on as of late. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever it was, she’d have to figure out a way to keep it in check. She couldn’t afford to lose control. Not again.
She splashed more water on her head. Thuli was drying off when a loud buzz sounded off back in the bedroom.
Thuli dropped the towel and padded to the bed. A small black device buzzed on the nightstand. It was her personal communicator issued by the Bureau. The device was a cross between a radio and a cell phone but worked on a different spectrum. Thuli asked the technicians how it worked once and ended up getting a migraine from their explanations. All she knew was that it worked flawlessly no matter where she was on the planet, regardless of location or weather. It never needed to be charged. They also told her to never, under any circumstances, put the device in a microwave.
The audio fed directly into an implant in her ear. Mr. Oberon’s smooth voice entered her head. Even after many years, hearing his voice inside her head was still strange. She had enough demons inside her head already.
“Captain Mahlangu, we’ve received reports of an Alpha Protocol.”
“Sir, it’s very early in the morning, and my humor doesn’t really kick in until after 0730.”
“This isn’t a joke. Get your team together and report to the Operations Room in one hour.”
The transmission went silent.
In her twenty years of service, she and her team had responded to many other protocols and missions, but never an Alpha. Thuli radioed her next in command, Sergeant Fergus Galbraith.
The transmission picked up after a couple of rings.
“Hello.”
It almost sounded like he said something that was a mix between hollow and holler. He had a heavy Scottish accent which had taken Thuli years to overcome. It still made her giggle a little. Now she could pick out every word he said with ease, at least until he got excited or angry. Then he switched to Gàidhlig, the Scottish version of Gaelic.
“Get everyone ready and to the Operations Room. Forty-five minutes. Tell them if any of those slack-asses are late, they’ve got tunnel duty for the next month.”
“Aye, Captain. But what’s the rush?”
He was still sleepy, but her tone must have put him on alert.
“Alpha Protocol.”
“Cac!”
Thuli ended the transmission before he could ask any questions. She didn’t have any answers.
Thuli was dressed and ready in ten minutes. She wore black tactical trousers with a matching blouse. They were worn and faded but comfortable, not to mention great in the field. She donned her tactical uniform because there was nothing casual about an Alpha Protocol. If an Alpha call was raised, then the shit had already hit the fan and fecal matter was spread to all four corners of the proverbial room. It would be her team’s job to go into said room and try and clean up. If she couldn’t clean up the mess, the job would fall to an Omega Team. Nobody wanted the Omega Team to get involved because their cleanup method generally involved scorched-earth philosophies.
Thuli was the first of her team to arrive and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She couldn’t expect people to fall in line if she didn’t show them where the line started. However, she wasn’t the firs
t person there.
Mr. Oberon and his assistant, a woman known only as Sister, sat at the end of a large conference table. Mr. Oberon was tall, had chiseled features, and sported a cleanly shaven face. He had short brown hair that was always immaculate and combed to one side in a fashion that bespoke an earlier time. His dark eyes lit when Thuli entered the room.
On the other hand, Sister always wore the same expression—pissed off. She was just as tall as Oberon, which meant she generally towered over most other women. She was athletic and liked to wear clothes that fit a little too well. In this case, she wore an off-white blouse that looked as if it were painted on. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a tight bun, and not a single strand of hair was out of place. Rumor had it she doubled as Oberon’s personal bodyguard. Thuli was pretty good at reading people, and she didn’t doubt that Sister could hold her own in a tussle. The way she moved was predatory.
“Captain, thank you for coming early. I was hoping that you would be here so that we could discuss the matter before your team arrived.”
Mr. Oberon’s voice was almost musical—not like he was singing his words, but the tone and cadence had a certain magic to them. It was hard not to get lost in his voice.
Thuli didn’t like him.
There was something false about him, something she couldn’t place, but it put her on edge. He was her boss though, and he was her connection to the Bureau’s management, so she always played nice.
Oberon smiled and put his fingers together like a steeple. He nodded to the nearby chair.
“Please, sit. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Thuli moved into the chair while Sister kept her watchful gaze pinned on every movement Thuli made. Sister was a viper ready to strike, indiscriminate of allegiance, race, gender, or age. A moment later, a woman wearing an outfit matching Sister’s walked into the room holding a tray of coffee. She was one of Mr. Oberon’s lackeys. They were all the same. Thuli nodded thanks as she placed the coffee on the table.