Season of the Witch

by David L. Golemon

  “When did that Brainiac start being so mysterious and cryptic about everything?”

  Virginia smiled again and finished off the glass of wine that her and Alice had been sharing as they perused through a personal photo album of Alice’s life with former Event Group Director and Senator from Maine, Garrison Lee. For Virginia it was if she were viewing the personal history of Department 5656 through the images of the famous couple.

  “You know, regardless of the reasons, Niles is right. Garrison would have fired all of us for doing what we did. Maybe it’s time I turned in my security clearance for good.”

  “You mean really retire?” Virginia asked, shocked.

  “This Matchstick situation put a burden on my heart, and for the first time it took something out of me I don’t think I can get back.”

  Virginia placed a hand over Alice’s which was still sitting atop the closed photo album. “I think we need more wine. Maybe we can get drunk enough to kick the shit out of Jack’s guard detail and escape our imprisonment.”

  “To tell you the truth, Dear, I think something a little stronger is called for.”

  Virginia patted Alice’s hand once more and stood. “Have no fear, the intrepid assistant director is here. Where did Garrison keep his private stash of whiskey?”

  “In his study on the second from the bottom bookshelf. He always thought the hollowed-out copies of ‘War and Peace’ and ‘The History of the United States’ fooled me when it came to hiding his liquor. There’s a forty-year-old Scotch and a twenty-five-year-old Kentucky bourbon.”

  Virginia shook her head as she left the kitchen to get the added strength of the alcohol.

  Alice took a deep breath, grateful for the brief respite of comforting memory about Garrison Lee, a person she missed more than life itself. Wanting more such respite, she opened the photo album.

  Alice started perusing the photos she had mostly absconded with from Event Group files. Most were unofficial and of a more personal nature depicting her and Garrison on various missions through the years. Her own visage had changed throughout the time she had spent with the Group. From a young nineteen-year-old girl to her time with Garrison on their last mission together down in South America where he had passed away. She smiled as the years peeled away. She turned the page, and something caught her attention.

  “I don’t remember this picture,” she said aloud, as she lifted the acetate cover and pulled out what she knew was a faded and very old Polaroid print, and not one of the professionally done photos by one of the Event Group archivists.

  In the faded photo her and Garrison were in a pit with several staff members she remembered from days past and looked to be in the middle of a dig. It had to have been from very early in her career with the department. She looked closer at the time stamp on the very bottom edge of the Polaroid, 9/14/56. Alice shook her head as she was starting to doubt her memory in her old age. Then she snapped her fingers. She had pinpointed the obscure dig through the cobwebs of time. It was Boston. If she remembered clearly enough it was a dig at the site of old Boston Common. She could even see the marker where the first shots of the American Revolution had been fired during the infamous Boston Massacre. The city had allowed them in under the guise of the Daughters of the American Revolution sponsored search for artifacts during routine street repairs. She shook her head as she now remembered nothing of interest had been found. She placed the photo down and started thinking about how and why this picture had gotten into her personal album.

  Alice was reaching for the photo when she stopped. Her hand started to shake, then she was overcome by the most powerful sense of Déjà vu she had ever felt. Nervous, she turned feeling she was being watched. All she saw was a mist outside of the sliding glass window. The glass was fogging over as the outside temperature rose and the air conditioning system inside started to fog the large glass in the window, she turned her attention back to the album. Her fingers again touched the picture and that was when she saw it. She shakily placed her glasses on and examined the photo.

  It was her in the bottom of a shallow trench with a small trowel in her hand and behind her was Garrison wearing his ever-present brown and battered fedora. He had his hands on his hips as he always did when reprimanding someone for cutting corners. Alice, even though upset, had to smile at her lovers rough-as-a-corncob attitude even now. The hole in the street was surrounded by Event Group staff as she recalled some of the familiar faces. It was the silver haired woman standing somewhat aloof beside some of the others. The face and hair was as if she were looking at the exact double of the woman from Lake Mead who had taken Charlie and Matchstick—Elsbeth Barlow. Alice dropped the photo as she realized it couldn’t be the same woman because the photo was over sixty-five years old. The woman depicted couldn’t have been the same because her body and features had not changed at all. Alice stood up and backed away when she came to the conclusion that no matter what she thought was possible or impossible, the woman was the exact double of Elsbeth Barlow.

  “My God, Anya was right!”

  As Alice braced herself against the kitchen counter, she heard a ‘squeaking’ noise coming from her left. She turned her head and in the condensation from the colder air striking the warm glass, she watched as a symbol started to be etched into the watery surface. It was if a child was writing in the fogged glass. Her eyes widened as several more symbols started to magically appear. There were straight lines with ovals. Circles with arrows through them. Also, what looked like ancient middle eastern Sumerian writing which Alice had studied in her youth. Soon the entire window was covered in the strange symbolic writing. The letters and symbols started to run with condensation.

  “I chose the History of the United States and the bourbon,” Virginia said as she came back into the kitchen. She stopped when she saw Alice was standing near the counter with her hand over her mouth and the other over the left side of her chest as if to still a racing heart, and for the first time in the twenty-six years Virginia had known her, Alice looked absolutely terrified.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said as she placed the bottle of aged bourbon onto the table over the photo that had scared Alice. Her eyes went to the glass and that was when Virginia saw the writings through the running condensation.

  Virginia stopped cold when she saw the symbols and then hurried to see about Alice. Then she saw her reflection in the sliding glass door and the strange writing and that was when the Event Group assistant director screamed and turned so fast Alice jumped. In the reflection was a sight that froze her blood in her veins. The largest Grey she had ever seen, and Virginia had seen more than just a few after the war. She spun around and was shocked to see nothing but the kitchen wall and hallway leading to the study where she had just come from. There was nothing behind her.

  Virginia felt her heart return to somewhat of a normal beat pattern as her eyes searched everywhere for the vision that had suddenly vanished. She felt Alice’s hand on her shoulder.

  “You didn’t see anyone standing behind me?” she asked.

  “No Dear. You came back alone. Now the writing on the glass is gone. What did you see?”

  “I—”

  Alice was suddenly slammed to the kitchen counter where she rebounded and fell to the tiled floor. Virginia screamed again as she moved to help her. Then she grabbed at her throat. The pressure was tremendous as she was lifted free of the floor. Alice, stunned, fought to her hands and knees and through a painfully racing heart attempted to reach for Virginia’s foot as both of her shoes went sailing through the air during her struggles to free herself from a force that wasn’t there. Alice was then rocked by a brutish kick to her chest and thrown back again as Virginia fought for a lifesaving snatch of breath. Alice rolled and nearly crashed through the sliding glass window. When she shook her head to clear it, she saw Virginia in the reflection off the glass. This time it was Alice who screamed when she saw the assistant director wasn’t alone. A giant Grey standing over eight fee
t tall was strangling her friend as it shook her as if she were nothing more than a rag doll. The creature was hissing and smiling at the feeble attempts made by Virginia to free herself.

  “What the hell?” came a loud shout, as four Group security men came crashing through the kitchen door after hearing the screams from outside.

  Alice turned, still trying to stand after the brutal assault, but felt the sharp pang through her chest as she did so. When she finally managed to get up to her knees, she saw what the security men were seeing. Virginia was floating in midair with her hands at her own throat.

  The first security man, Alice didn’t remember his name but knew him to be a young Marine, reached for Virginia as the other three went for their nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistols. The Marine suddenly flew backward and crashed through the dry wall in a spray of bloody mist. Then Alice screamed again as two of the three security personnel were struck by an invisible wave of hatred and devastating force and thrown up and then through the ceiling. The fourth fought with what he couldn’t see as Virginia began to slowly lose her fight for air. Then as the security man grabbed out for the only thing he could see, Virginia’s own hands, a blow was struck that crushed his head and neck down into his shoulders and chest. Blood sprayed across the kitchen so hard Alice had to turn away which spared her the last moment of Virginia’s Pollock’s life as she was casually tossed onto the kitchen table as if she was nothing more than a sacrificed lamb. When Alice opened her eyes, she was seeing the reflection in the glass once more. The Grey slowly walked toward her. She turned and nothing was there. When she again glanced at the window, she saw the Grey smiling at her as it raised its right hand. Then she saw it scribble with a bloody clawed finger a four-pointed star on the wall above Virginia’s lifeless body. Then it drew a circle around the star and then with a hiss of pleasure it drew the number one within the pentangle. Alice closed her eyes and screamed.

  Then as Alice once more turned away in terror of what was coming for her, she felt another presence in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard the Grey hiss in anger and then she heard the words ‘leave her be!’ in a woman’s voice. A final hiss and an animalistic roar from the giant rattled the dishes and glasses inside the kitchen cabinets.

  When Alice opened her eyes, the creature was gone in the window’s reflection. The dripping condensation was there but the symbols were also missing. She turned and that was when she saw the footprints in blood on the tiled floor. Mixed in with the prints of the Grey was that of a much smaller person. The bloody prints were all over as if a tremendous fight had ensued in the seconds Alice had heard the womanly voice.

  Alice Hamilton felt the pain in her chest and wanted to reach for the countertop but failed as her body gave out. She reached with her outstretched hand into the bloody prints on the floor and she grasped the faded Polaroid photograph and crumpled it into her hand as the pain of the heart attack struck in earnest.

  The house that Alice Hamilton and Garrison Lee had shared out on North Flamingo Road in Las Vegas became deathly still and silent.

  * * *

  Logan International Airport,

  Boston, Massachusetts

  The female pilot and her crew waited at the bottom of the rolling stairs as suddenly the large Boeing jet started to rock as if it were in flight and fighting through harsh turbulence. A shock wave of power slammed into them and the four men and one woman sprawled onto the concrete inside the hangar as an invisible wave of air actually lifted the wings of the aircraft the wind stopped and he pane bounced several times on its landing gear and then settled. Then the overhead lights went out, came back on, and then several blew out with a loud banging noise. The pilot, Millicent Krensky, one of the first female fighter pilots to fly combat missions in an actual war, flew up the stairs as the Boeing 737 settled. She opened the door and ran inside. Elsbeth Barlow was laying in the aisle far from where the pilot had left her moments before. Running to her side she lifted the old woman’s head and placed it in her lap. Millicent feared the worse until she saw Elsbeth’s eyes flutter open.

  “Granny breathe damn it. Tell me you’re alright!”

  “Don’t have to shout child. I’m old as hell but not deaf. Help me to my feet.”

  As she slowly assisted Elsbeth up and placed her in one of the large seats, she took her pulse. It was rapid but safe for now. That was when she saw Elsbeth’s bloody tennis shoes. Bright reddish-green liquid poured from the pink soles.

  “What happened?”

  Elsbeth tossed her head back and closed her eyes.

  “The bastard is back and he’s loose. This time we won’t be able to stop him. He’s grown in power. The defeat of the Greys has intensified his strength somehow.”

  “Whose back Granny?” the younger woman asked.

  Elsbeth opened her eyes as a single tear wandered down the creases and crevasse of her aged face.

  “Asmodius. In our history he was known as—,”

  “The King of Demons,” Millicent answered for her. The name in necromancy circles was a famous one and a legend most scoffed at.

  “Yes,” Elsbeth said closing her eyes once more. “But he is so much more than that. Asmodius has whoever is handling him fooled. The king of liars and the killer of children has always been far more than just a demon, and my hope that the little green guy could help without drawing others into this mess was badly mistaken.”

  “What are you saying Granny?” Millicent asked.

  “Never you mind child. I have a task for you.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s time to call in allies to the cause. I think through my failure they may be more receptive to our cause after tonight. Go on now. You have another long flight ahead of you.”

  “Where am I going?” Millicent asked.

  “Nevada. We need help far sooner than I thought.”

  * * *

  For Elsbeth Barlow, her plans for dealing with the greatest threat to humankind had to be changed. That change involved a small Group of men and women that comprised the Event Group.

  Part II

  Asmodius Modai

  * * *

  “The prince of darkness rose up from his sleep.

  He unfurled his wings and stretched his dark limbs,

  before swooping down on the world beneath…” ~ Amit Rahman, The Prince of Darkness.

  Chapter Eight

  Mystery Deep, Exploratory Well # 3,

  sixty-eight miles off the coast of Louisiana

  The elevator stopped at the lowest level of the rig. Dmitri Sokol nodded at one of the two fully equipped guards and one of them ruthlessly tore the tape off of Vexilla Trotsky’s mouth. She dipped her head in pain, refusing to show that Sokol nor his thugs could hurt her. She had resigned herself to the death she knew was coming.

  Sokol stepped from the elevator and went directly to the new chambers assigned to Asmodius. The two guards followed with the woman between them.

  “You men, go back and join your unit. We should be having company very shortly.”

  The men did as they were told and left for the upper levels. Sokol looked down at Vexilla and smiled. “Let’s see how our friends first foray into the real world fared, shall we?”

  Vexilla didn’t answer, she only glared at her former boss. She knew Sokol now as the real king of lies for the way he had in recruiting the unsuspecting and using their own anger against them as he had done with the history of her family. She now had a hard time deciding who was more despicable, the monstrosity he had under his power, or the man standing before her. He tapped in his security code. The doors slid open.

  Sokol hesitated when he saw that the only lights came from the several differing candles that Asmodius had asked for. The windows to the sea were shuttered and the room sparse. He took Vexilla by the arm and entered. That was when he saw Asmodius for the first time as the creature stepped from the shadows. He was shocked to see the Grey was bleeding. Several long scratches flowed from its cheeks to the jawline. Asmod
ius wiped a white towel across the wounds and then tossed the towel away where it landed by Sokol’s feet.

  “What did you do to yourself?” Sokol asked as he angrily pushed Vexilla aside. Her eyes watched the Grey and knew immediately something he did most definitely didn’t go according to its plan. She hid her joy now knowing the bastard in some way could be hurt. She backed off when the Grey hissed and took a menacing step toward her. It was if it sensed she was hiding her pleasure at its discomfort.

  “Well?” Sokol insisted.

  The Grey turned away and then angrily swiped its long arm through the air and then the outside windows to the underwater world opened, giving them more light to see by. The it swiped its clawed hand through the air once more and a brief flash of light morphed into a picture of a nice-looking woman with black hair. Then the Grey angrily swiped it through the depiction, and it vanished, exploding into a million sparkles of light.

  “Good, who is she?” Sokol said.

  Asmodius shook its head. Either he didn’t understand Sokol’s question or it just didn’t care. Both the Grey and Sokol turned when they heard Vexilla, her hands still handcuffed behind her back, chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” Sokol asked.

  “I don’t know who she is, but I do know that she’s well known in Washington circles. She was a part of the team that dealt with the congressional hearings during the war.”

  Vexilla glanced at the Grey who turned away as if it weren’t interested in the least.

  “So. I couldn’t have asked for a better example be made. Asmodius did well. Now, with the committee no longer our concern, we can move on. We don’t have to pretend anymore about satisfying their fear of this Group under the desert. Not our concern. With Asmodius doing what was asked, we have successfully laid the suspicion of this woman’s murder on the committee’s doorstep.”