One hand keeping the zombie’s teeth at bay, my other hand reached for the athame in my holster. Inch by strenuous inch, I felt my way across my chest until I found the wooden handle of the Hexblade.
With a snarl born from both terror and fury, I whipped the magical knife from its leather sheath and drove it into Maitland’s throat with every ounce of strength left in my battered body.
The reaction was instantaneous. The monster’s grip around my bruised neck loosened, and its whole body jerked and spasmed as if struck by lightning. With a roar, the zombie’s back wrenched backward, and it let go of me.
Her body trembling all over, Maitland bolted to her feet, a deep red hole in her throat forming a second mouth. The stab wound in her neck started to expand, filled with searing energy.
The walking corpse took two shaky steps before a magical fire consumed her whole body.
One moment she stood there, heaving and contorting—the next she was gone, erased from reality by the power of my father’s knife.
Groggy, I scrambled back to my feet. As I rose, I saw Winters frozen features come to life.
“Behind you!” she screamed.
I felt the air shift behind me. Before I could spin toward whatever new nightmare was closing in on me, Winters fired. A bullet grazed my skin, hot metal kissing my ear. I heard a monstrous howl erupting from the back of the room.
I turned in the direction of the scream only to find Haskell’s naked, tattooed body flapping like a beached fish on the barn’s hardwood floor. His fierce eyes gleamed in the pale light, and for a moment, I could see Erik Krippner’s features superimposed over Haskell’s face. The dead serial killer stared back at me with a savage hunger.
More gunfire rang out as Winters emptied a few more bullets into the downed killer.
The hail of silver tore through the zombie’s skull in a cloud of bones and brain matter, and that put an end to the undead bastard. Haskell stopped moving, the malevolent light in his gaze growing dim at last.
I turned toward Winters. She was staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. She too had seen Krippner’s features projected over Haskell’s face. Weirdly, she’d gotten her chance to avenge her father’s murder. Erik Krippner had died for a second time tonight, and he’d never be coming back from the grave again.
Two down , I thought, two more to go . Fisher and the monster he'd midwifed were still somewhere in the barn. Looking at Winters, I decided not to tell her about the two cannibalized officers under the table. There would be time once we were out of danger. The detective was treading on thin ice as it was.
A horrifying scraping and scratching sound rang out—a sharp reminder we weren’t in the clear yet. Not by a long shot.
A black, pulsating mass propelled toward us on its two tentacle-arms, and I could have sworn that the creature had already grown in size and strength since its birth.
Winters’ features dissolved in a mask of terror as she blasted the incoming demon beast.
The monster emitted a series of piercing shrieks. Don’t ask me how it produced those sounds without a mouth. Some questions are best left unanswered in my line of work.
A bullet slammed it backward. A beat later, the snake-like arms picked the whole gelatinous body up from the ground, and it advanced once again as if nothing had happened. Even as a newborn, my ammo could barely slow this thing down. There was no way we could face a full-grown adult version of this nightmare. I had to find a way to take it down now.
Winters fired two more times. The first bullet missed the fast-moving, zig-zagging creature, but bullet number two pierced the sack-like body and catapulted the creature back into the shadows.
“Did I get it?” she asked breathlessly.
I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could ruin her hopes, the thing reappeared from the shadows
When it popped back out of the darkness, the beast had changed. With a mixture of horror and fascination, I realized that the thing we’d been tracking was little more than a sack of amniotic skin. Winters had done the thing a favor by perforating the creature’s fleshy membrane. The real beast had now revealed itself. A red-skinned, apelike homunculus had emerged from the sack. It had two long, undulating tentacles for arms. A chimpanzee-sized head sat on a sleek, well-muscled torso with two stumpy legs. Slitted green eyes glared at us from the darkness, while a small mouth lined with pointy teeth snapped at the air with a ferocious hunger.
And then it started barreling toward us.
Winters was fresh out of ammo, and the shadows hid the pistol I’d dropped earlier. I wasn’t certain that it would have made a difference. The thing racing toward us was small and half-formed. Even so, my ammo had failed to stop it. I considered for a moment fighting off the creature with my Hexblade, but between the demon’s six-inch, sickle-shaped claws, and those gleaming, razor-sharp teeth, it would most likely come at the cost of a few fingers.
Blood caked my head red where Winters’ bullet had strafed me, and drops were running down my face. Inspired by a sudden idea, I rubbed my hand all over the wound and smeared the blood into the steel of my knife. I never let the fast-moving demon ape out of my sight.
“What the hell are you doing?” Winters asked.
The athame dripped red as I dropped into my haunches in one smooth motion, the distance between me and the fast-approaching creature shrinking fast.
“Stay next to me!” I told Winters even though I didn’t have to. She was rooted to the spot.
I blocked out the impending danger, focused all my energy on the task I needed to carry out. With speed and precision—and the help of my Hexblade—I started drawing a circle around Winters and me.
The red ape howled.
I continued drawing.
The creature shrieked and gibbered.
I ignored it.
In a final mad dash, the apelike beast leaped at me, tentacles outstretched, teeth bared, ready to rend human flesh.
I completed the circle and—
The ring around Winters and me lit up with a dim crimson light.
Not a moment too soon, as the demon bulleted right toward us. It stopped short, almost like it had hit an invisible wall.
Stunned, it made another attempt to breach the circle and bounced off the barrier of protective magical energy with an enraged roar.
A third attempt sent it flying into a nearby wall. It hit with a loud bang and a renewed bellow of fury.
Silence followed.
The creature slumped to the floor where it crouched low in the shadows. Its slitted gaze locked with mine, radiating with the hatred of the pit. It slowly started circling us, almost as if it was probing the makeshift magical barrier for weaknesses. Did it have that level of intelligence? My gut told me not to underestimate the creature.
Next to me, Winters shivered with terror. I protectively raised my athame as if it were a cross and we were facing a vampire.
The Hexblade flickered and shimmered with red-blue light, its power reacting to the newborn demon a few feet away.
For a crazy moment, I considered flinging the knife at the creature like some knife thrower at the circus. Not to toot my own horn, but I was skilled with the Hexblade, having trained with it almost daily, and figured I might hit the demon. But if I missed, I’d lose my only weapon.
No, better to bide my time. Let the beast exert itself, spend its energies, and when it was close enough to the circle, its guard down, I would strike and finish the bastard off once and for all. As if on cue, the demon tried once more to breech my makeshift ward and got a nice little jolt of pain for its trouble.
Winters stared at me with disbelieving eyes. “Are you magic , Kane? What the hell did you do?”
“Ward,” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t cross the red line.”
My magical abilities are limited to protective wards and drawing defensive circles with the help of my ceremonial knife. A full-grown demon would have been able to penetrate the circle that surrounded us. The newborn might even b
reak through our defenses with a few more tries, but it would hurt the thing. Hurt it real bad.
If I was being honest, all I had done was to buy us some time. Ideally, the creature would wear itself out and make a mistake. If I could weaken the beast, I might stab it with my knife. Without knowing more about the demon we faced, I couldn’t say if it was powerful enough to resist the Hexblade. We’d know soon enough.
The creature scuttled into the shadows, momentarily disappearing from my sight. I was steeling myself for another attack, but it never came. Instead, footsteps echoed through the barn, and a figure decked out in a demon mask peeled from the shadows.
Fisher had joined the party.
Making matters worse, he was brandishing the Glock I’d dropped when Maitland jumped me.
Not good. Rune-engraved silver bullets killed supernaturals but would work just as well against humans. Probably even better.
Fisher towered in front of us, my gun leveled in our direction, his posture oozing with the dark confidence of a madman. He was unrecognizable from the pathetic, grief-stricken creature I’d interviewed earlier that day. The person we faced now was the unrepentant killer from Haskell’s memories.
Fisher was dressed in black and was dragging a medieval ax along the floor with his left hand. Now that he had the gun, the antique weapon might’ve lost some of its appeal. I wondered if the ax was another souvenir from an old episode of Haunt Chasers .
“They need to change the locks on their props trailer,” I muttered.
Winters shot me a disbelieving look. Fisher ignored me. Tough room.
One thing was for sure. My magical circle wouldn’t stop Fisher. He was human and could easily swing his medieval weapon at our soft necks without my athame getting close enough to reach him. The easier—but perhaps less fun option for the servant of Macabros—was to pull the trigger and murder me with my own pistol.
I considered diving out of the circle and dismissed the idea almost immediately. Such a rash maneuver would make us vulnerable to the demon again. Once we crossed the fading ring of blood around us, the magic would dissipate, and my knife would need hours before it was able to create a new protective barrier between our enemies and us. I’d learned that the hard way during a case in Phoenix a few years ago—and I had a scar on my calf as a souvenir. I didn’t think I’d walk away that easily tonight if I dropped the ward.
A smile lit up Fisher’s face as he closed in on us, the Glock in his hand sparkling in the moonlight.
“You did not stop the birth of the dark god, Kane. You were too late. My master has awakened, and I will be his—”
I cut him off before he could spout more of his brainwashed nonsense. “You think you’re in control of all this, Fisher, but you’re not.”
“Is that so?”
“You think bringing this demon into our world was your idea?”
The man’s eyes flickered with a trace of uncertainty and doubt.
“Can’t you tell he is using you? The mask has taken over your thinking, hasn’t it? Clouded your memories, replacing them with ideas that aren’t your own. You never would have murdered your friends.”
Fisher froze and for one brief instant, I almost thought I was reaching him. And then he broke out into a peal of laughter that thundered menacingly through the barn.
“Your attempts to manipulate me are pathetic, Kane. I expect more from the ‘Son of the Demon.’ Your nickname does you no credit.”
I glowered at him. “My father was a monster. I’m not.”
“Your father was a great man, Kane. Too bad you can’t see that. This world is dying. It lacks direction, order, discipline. My master will restore this world to its former glory.”
“I bet he will, Fisher. But tell me one thing. Now that you’ve done his bidding, what further use do you serve him? To Nazmaroth, you’re the same as everyone else in this world. You are meat. And I bet your newborn master is hungry.”
Almost as if the demon was following our conversation, it chimed in with a bestial growl. For a second, Fisher’s eyes widened. Somewhere underneath the mask’s hold on him, the nerdy ghost hunter was still holding onto a fragment of himself. If I could just get the real Rob Fisher to listen…
“Can’t you hear it? Your new master is starving. And he can’t get past my circle. The detective and I are off the menu. So how will he satisfy his cravings? How will he feed?”
The question hung in the air for a beat.
“Shut up, Kane! I’m not listening!”
I sighed. They never listened. I pressed the athame against my bleeding face until it was red again.
I thought about Haskell warm, infectious laughter while we shared beers. Thought about his empty dead stare back on the autopsy table.
The images flickering through my head made the next part a lot easier. Anger boiled and erupted. With a snarl of my own, I flicked the knife and sent a few fat drops of my blood at Fisher.
They hit the mask and dropped down onto his chin. The gun wavered in his hand as he stared at me in shock.
The scent of blood would be irresistible to the starving newborn demon. At least that’s what I was betting on.
The monster tilted its apelike head in Fisher’s direction, having picked up the scent.
Another growl emanated from the red ape scampering around the floor.
And then the creature pounced.
Chapter Nineteen
Some might have called what happened next a bloodbath. I called it poetic justice.
The beast landed on Fisher’s back and buried the reality TV host beneath its rapidly increasing, red-skinned bulk. The wooden mask was knocked from Fisher’s head and clattered across the floor. It came to a stop about ten feet in front of our protective circle. It felt like the mask was staring up at us from the floor, more alive than Fisher’s bloated features had ever been.
“Don’t look,” I whispered to Winters. “Just close your eyes. It’ll be over soon.”
She buried her head in my chest, and I held her tight. I unfortunately couldn’t allow myself the luxury of looking away.
Fisher’s shrieks reverberated through the barn, mixed with the sounds of rending flesh and breaking bones. Mercifully the full details of his demise played out in the shadows. Only the widening pool of blood on the hardwood floor offered hints to the savagery of his exit from this world.
The screaming stopped, and so did the monstrous roars. What followed was even worse in a way—bestial sucking sounds like those of a wild animal feeding on its fallen prey. In essence, that’s what it was. The creature might have some measure of intelligence, but demons were driven by their appetites. Winters' fingers clung to my arm, her nails digging into my flesh, beyond terror.
I took a deep breath, my mind racing as I considered our limited options. I’d made a fatal mistake when I entered the barn; I understood that now. I’d expected to have to deal with a crazed occultist and two newly made zombies. I hadn’t counted on facing an otherworldly demonic entity, especially one I still knew so little about. What pained me the most was dragging Detective Winters into this bloody mess. I cursed myself for not having come here on my own.
It wasn’t that I thought her incompetent. Far from it. She’d saved my life just a few moments ago. But who would save her life?
The knife weighed heavily in my hand. I believed in the athame’s power, but would it be enough to defeat this creature? The demon would be stronger now, having fed. Likely bigger, too. I felt like some ancient bushman about to face a starving lion armed only with a piece of flint. Fate might smile upon me and grant me a lucky blow. Not the kind of odds I liked to bet my life on. The demon was a savage monster from another world with teeth and tentacles, and magic coursing though is dark veins. One swipe from those claws or teeth, and I would be done for.
There had to another way. Had to be. Think, Kane! Are you the Paranormalist or not?
After the sounds of its feast died down, I noticed sporadic movement in the shadowy recesses
of the living room. The demon had changed again, just as I feared. The silhouette of what appeared to be a grown man peeled from the shadows.
Winters gasped. I clenched my jaw and braced every muscle in my body.
The figure looming before us in the dark was humanoid, well-muscled, but not human. The skin was scaly and ash-black yet translucent, the white skeleton visible under the weirdly transparent, almost gelatinous skin. The figure standing before us made me think of a photo-negative crossed with an X-ray and come to life. Humanlike but a far cry from being human. Its luminescent skeleton glowed brightly inside the dark flesh. This creature had no face, no features, only a skull that hung suspended in the black orb which was its head.
The creature regarded us in the circle, and I steeled myself for the inevitable attack, my knife ready to strike at the mildest provocation.
And then the figure bent over and picked up the demon mask, apparently entranced by the relic, almost like it had forgotten about us already .
Wordlessly, the demon stood in front of us for another moment, the horned mask in one hand. And then the creature broke one horn off the mask and brought it to its lips as if it were an ancient Viking drinking horn. Instead of ale, a fine black dust poured from the horn into the creature’s open mouth.
My eyes widened with morbid fascination while my stomach heaved with disgust.
The ashes of Macabros. And the demon was consuming them like they were a rare delicacy. I could do nothing as the beast did the same with the second horn.
Winters and I watched the surreal spectacle, not sure how to react. All we could do was wait to see what would happen next.
The demon discarded the second horn, and the translucent black skin started to change. The bones grew less visible; the texture of the skin grew more solid. Eyes emerged in the dark, featureless face, and other details followed. The photo-negative was transforming into a flesh-and-blood person.
We watched with bated breath as the inhuman thing before us became something like a man.
The Paranormalist- Servants of the Endless Night Page 12