The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  “And in case you were hoping for some help, the sigils we’ve places around the yard will prevent your friends from coming to the rescue,” the business suit man said. “You sure you won’t reconsider?”

  Bethany looked up at Daniel, her eyes wide. Fear didn’t have to be rational, it just needed a seed of doubt. Bethany was afraid Daniel would hand her over, save himself from the army of abominations, but when Daniel looked back at her, she saw the confidence, defiance, and determination in his eyes. She smiled.

  Daniel looked back at the business suit man. “No one is touching my daughter.”

  Daniel snapped his shotgun up and blew away a nearby abomination. Charlie let one of his arrows fly, widening the hole Daniel started in the wall of abominations as Daniel grabbed her by the hand. All four ran for the opening in the offensive line and the abominations closed ranks and chased after them. From above them, running along the stacks of logs, the abominations swiped at them. Daniel and Charlie ducked as deformed limbs swung at them from both sides. Bethany looked up to see one of the dog monsters leap into the air. She could see the arc of the dog monster’s leap would guide it to Daniel. She reached to pull at Daniel’s sleeve, to warn him, but everything was moving in slow motion, and she could see the dog monster would sink its teeth into Daniel before she could get his attention.

  Then a large, leafy arm swung down and smacked the dog monster away. The misshapen form sailed away in the air as avatars of all shapes and sizes collided with the abominations. The business suit man said they couldn’t come into the saw mill, but they invaded the mill grounds with no effort. Bethany didn’t know what sigils were, but they weren’t working like the business suit man thought they would. The two armies lashed out at each other as Bethany ran with her new family.

  They ran toward the office, where the business suit people watched and that creepy altar stood. Bethany could see the two business suit people arguing, though she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then the business suit man pushed the woman away and pulled out a knife. He cut his hand and Bethany could see his lips moving as he chanted, though she still couldn’t hear him. Then the ground in front of them cracked and broke apart. The four of them skidded to a halt as a giant abomination crawled out of the ground. Daniel and Charlie both froze, their eyes wide, as the thing stood straight and looked down at them. Charlie shot arrows into the thing, but the arrow heads fizzled as they hit their mark, and the giant abomination brushed them away. Daniel fired his shotgun into it, to even less effect. The buckshot hit the monster, but it didn’t even flinch.

  The giant monster swung a claw at them, forcing the group to separate. Daniel dragged Bethany behind cover, but she fell onto the ground. A sharp pain ripped at her hand, and she pulled it back with a cry. On the ground was a piece of glass, now red with her blood. She didn’t want to look at her hand, didn’t want to see the gross red blood oozing from her own body.

  “What?” Daniel asked, his eyes wide. “What?”

  “My hand!” she cried, holding it up for Daniel. “I cut my hand!”

  “Let me see,” Daniel said.

  Bethany looked away as Daniel opened her palm, then she heard Daniel rummaging through his backpack. She thought he’d bring out a bandage or antiseptic spray – Mommy always had a small antiseptic spray in her purse – but when she looked she saw Daniel had pulled out his pistol and was removing the shells.

  “What are you doing?” Bethany asked.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “Can I have your blood?”

  “What?” she asked, pulling her hand back.

  “It has to be freely given, remember?” he said. “Can I have your blood?”

  She looked up at the giant monster, who was preoccupied with trying to kill Charlie and the wolf at the moment, then back at Daniel. With a shaky nod, she held her bleeding hand out to Daniel. She winced and looked away, not sure what Daniel was thinking but was sure it would hurt, but all she felt was the cold metal against her palm. She looked down to see Daniel rubbing the bullets in the blood.

  “You need my blood?” she asked.

  He winked at her as he put the blood-covered bullets back into the chamber of the pistol. “Maybe we don’t need all of it.”

  Daniel closed the chamber of the pistol, stood up, and fired at the large abomination. The bullet ripped into the monster, and it roared back in pain as Daniel fired two more shots into the thing. Black blood oozed from the bullet holes, which sizzled like acid. It lunged back as light and sparks shot out of the bullet wounds, but before Daniel could fire the fourth bullet, a dog monster pounced at him. He turned and fired, the fourth bullet going right into the thing’s head. The dog monster exploded, but the dead thing had given the giant abomination the chance it needed to counter-attack. It swung its long claw down at Daniel before he could turn back from the dog monster he shot. The claws gorged Daniel in his side as he was thrown in the air. Bethany heard him screaming, saw the trail of blood arcing through the air as Daniel fell to the ground and rolled.

  So far away, slumped on the ground, Daniel looked smaller than she was. He was moving, but he wasn’t getting up. Then the giant monster took long, slow stomps towards Daniel to finish the job.

  “No!” Bethany cried and ran at the giant monster.

  Hearing her voice, Daniel got to his knees and reached out to her with one blood covered hand. “Bethany, no!”

  But it was too late. The giant monster was looking down at her, and she couldn’t stop fast enough if she wanted too, and she didn’t. She screamed, “Leave my daddy alone!”

  She shoved her bleeding hand against the monster’s skin. It was cold, ice cold, but the heat from her body – no, her blood – ran into the monster. Cracks grew over the abomination like cracking the top of a frozen pond, and lights and sparks burst from them. For a moment, she thought she had made a mistake, for it looked like the giant monster might be enjoying what was happening to it, but then the monster exploded.

  Bethany was on the ground, her ears ringing. She sat up, but the world was spinning. Everything was muted but fading back into the normal volume. She had been standing right next to the giant monster, but now it was gone and there was a scorch mark where the thing had been.

  “Bethany!” Daniel shouted at her.

  He was crawling towards her, unable to stand, leaving a trail of blood like a slug. Bethany got to her feet. She wanted to run to her father, but the world was still rocking a bit, so she staggered as fast as she could. She hugged her father, and he hugged her with an arm so week she thought it would turn to ash. She had lost her mother, then they gave her a father, only to lose him too.

  Unless she did something.

  “I know what to do,” Bethany said. She no longer cried. She was no longer afraid. She may not be an adult, but she was no longer a little girl.

  “Bethany don’t!” Daniel said, but his arms didn’t have the strength to back up his words.

  Bethany stood up, out of reach of Daniel’s grasping hand. She looked down at him, dying, blood oozing onto the ground, and his only thought was to protect her. For the first time, Bethany looked down at this man, this stranger she met only a few days ago, and she loved him. He was her father.

  “It’s okay,” she said calmly and smiled. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  Bethany turned and marched towards the altar. She could hear Daniel calling after her, dragging his body in an effort he must know was futile, but what else could he do? From a distance, she could hear Charlie calling out to her, running to stop her, but the fight had pushed him too far away. She could see the wolf standing there, watching as if approving. Bethany reached the altar and, without hesitation, slammed her bleeding hand onto it.

  Light shot out from the altar, and the hole the giant monster had come through collapsed inward. Air spun in a vortex. Bethany’s eyes shot wide. She did it wrong. She opened up the gate to the vacuum of the Other’s universe and killed them all! The whistling wind sucked paper and leaves down
the hole to nowhere, but while Bethany felt the tug of the hole, she noticed it pulled stronger against the abominations. The black, scared creatures slid across the ground, digging trenches out of the earth with their claws as they fought the pull like a spider trying to keep from being washed down the drain. The smaller ones, like the dog-like monsters, were pulled into the air like plastic bags caught in an updraft before spinning down the vortex.

  Bethany looked at the business suit people above her, standing on the walkway along the elevated office of the lumber yard. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the woman was trying to drag her partner away. One of the dog monsters flew by them, its claws grasping for any handhold to use to pull itself out of the drag of the vortex. As it groped for the balcony rail, a wild claw sliced through the business suit man’s shoulder. It was a grazing blow, but little red beads of blood flew out and were caught by the swirling wind. The little drops of blood stretched as it swirled around the black hole in the ground and was swallowed by it. Bethany watched in concern, fearing the wound was serious, then she remembered who he was and turned away. She wasn’t so jaded, after everything that had happened, to wish death or injury on anyone, but that didn’t mean she was going to be concerned about him.

  The vortex didn’t stop. The monsters were all gone, the business suit people ran away, but the hole to nowhere continued. Bethany tried to pull her hand from the altar, but it was like her hand was welded to it. She looked and saw Daniel making his way to her, leaning against whatever he could find to keep himself on his feet, his blood siphoning out into the vortex. He looked almost blue. Charlie fought against the wind, making an orbit that was a safe distance away from the hole in the world, and put Daniel’s arm over his shoulder. Together they made it to Bethany. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. All three of them pulled at her hand, Bethany screaming in terror and frustration as she just couldn’t let go! Then, as if someone hit a switch and turned off a magnet, the alter let go of her. The three of them fell back, Daniel holding her tight. She hugged him back, though she felt Daniel’s wet shirt smearing blood against her, could smell the copper and salt as the wind died down. She looked up at, afraid Daniel was dying as he held her, but Daniel just cradled her as if she was the one dying.

  “It’s okay, baby, I got you,” he whispered in her ear. “I got you.”

  The wind died off. The hole healed itself, leaving no scar or any other evidence it was ever there. Charlie reached down and offered his hand to Daniel who, after Bethany nodded to let him know she was okay, took it and got to his feet. He moaned as he swallowed all the pain he could, but before anyone could do anything about the deep gouges in his side, they heard the stomping and shuffling of scores of avatars. Bethany looked up to see them standing in a semicircle, avatars of all shapes and sizes. They stood still and silent, then, in unison, they all bowed to them. Bethany was reminded of that Disney movie when all the animals bowed when the baboon lifted the baby lion into the air, though the baby lion wasn’t covered in its father’s blood at the time. Then the avatars stood back up, turned, and began to walk away. As they went, whatever magic forced the plants and rocks and earth to form these shapes waned. The pieces of avatars fell off, the magic glue evaporating a little more with every step. The bigger ones made it back into the woods, pieces of them promising to litter the ground for the next few miles, but the smaller ones didn’t make it out of the saw mill. The saw mill looked like the forest had reclaimed it. Then a single beam of sunlight broke through the fog, followed by another, and then another. The fog melted away, and the sun-filled blue sky grew above them.

  “It’s over?” Bethany asked.

  “Looks like,” Charlie looked at her and said. “Let’s get out of here, get your dad to a hospital.”

  It was a matter of some debate as to how to get Daniel out of the town and to help, but in the end, there were only two options – walk into town and find a working car, or have Charlie walk into town, find a working car, then drive back to get Daniel. Daniel insisted he wasn’t hurt as bad as he looked, but Bethany thought that was more to keep her from worrying than anything else. Still, he was insistent, and so, after dressing Daniel’s wounds as best they could, the three of them marched back to the town. Charlie and Bethany had to hold him up, and Daniel drunk most of the water they brought with them, but he never complained. Bethany was afraid that every next step was going to be his last, but Daniel smiled at her and with a weak voice said, ”You never told me what you wanted to do to your room.”

  “I like pink,” she said.

  Daniel thought about it and nodded. “We can do pink.”

  “How about purple?” Bethany asked.

  “Purple?” Daniel winced, and Bethany thought it was from the pain until he added, “Yuck.”

  “It looks good with pink,” Bethany said, insulted that Daniel would dare question her eye for color.

  “Does not,” Daniel said.

  “A light lavender actually would go well with pink,” Charlie said.

  “Who asked you?” Daniel said to Charlie, but he did so with a crooked half-smile.

  “Just saying,” Charlie said.

  Bethany smiled at them. The wolf was gone, had vanished when the vortex sucked up all the abominations. She wondered if the vortex sucked the wolf down into the Other’s world, but she didn’t think so. The vortex was hungry for abominations, not avatars, not people, and not, she thought, for whatever the wolf was. She didn’t know if the wolf was an animal spirit like Charlie thought, but she thought it was more than just an animal. Regardless, the world of magic and spirits had faded with the fog, and there was no place for the wolf now. She was sure it went back to where it belonged. She would miss the wolf, but she didn’t feel lonely. Maybe it was because she felt the wolf was still with them, the way they said her mother would always be with her, but maybe it was because, like the wolf, Bethany was now where she belonged, beside her father and their new friend.

  The old woman watched the trio walk down the street, clenching her fists. The girl lived. BEC still had the scroll. The gate was closed, but the pieces to open it again still exist.

  “You were wrong,” Professor Lightfoot said, and she heard the relief in his voice. He stood in front of him, watching his grandson with misplaced pride. The fool had no idea what his grandson helped to screw up. He nodded to the young girl and said “She was able to close the gate without sacrificing her life. It’s over.”

  It would have been if Daniel Burns did what she wanted him to do. She hid him from BEC, protected him from the attacks that were waged on Anna, but she also isolated him from his daughter to prevent any paternal bonds from forming. Given a choice between the world and his child, Daniel was supposed to choose the world over a girl he never met. All her plans, all her manipulations, and in the end, she miscalculated.

  “No, it’s not over,” the old woman said. “Today’s key becomes tomorrow’s forge. This will happen again as long as Bethany Sloan lives.”

  She had time. Bethany was nine, and she now knew her love and her blood were both weapons against the abominations, against the Others. BEC wouldn’t move against them while that remained true, but BEC was a corporation. Like herself, BEC didn’t age and could afford to be patient. Eventually, Bethany would pass the curse on, and then BEC would act.

  The old woman turned to leave but was frozen in the glare of the gray wolf. She locked eyes with the beast, peering into its soul, and she understood. While she plotted against BEC, other forces plotted against her, forces that served to defend Bethany from everyone, including her. She watched as the wolf turned away and walked off, fading away like the fog.

  No, it was not over. It was far from over.

  Epilogue

  Tanya Knox walked into her apartment. It looked warm and clean and inviting, a stark contrast to her torn business suit and the blood and dirt smeared on her face. They left Shellington Heights before Charlie or Daniel Burns could press their advantage, h
er partner bleeding from the shoulder the entire way. They, of course, had a vehicle waiting for them, having planned for every contingency including failure, and once the fog lifted they drove to their fallback position. A contingent of BEC personnel was waiting, but except for dressing her partner’s wounds, they were not very welcoming. She and her partner were whisked away to corporate headquarters by helicopter without so much as a shower or a change of clothes.

  Tanya sat in a chair and pulled off her shoes. Next apocalypse, she would need to dress more appropriately. She rubbed her feet. Tonight, she’d take an hour-long shower. Tomorrow, she’d go get a pedicure.

  She brushed the hair out of her eyes, her hair an even more untamed mess due to the damn helicopter blade wash. The helicopter had landed on the roof of BEC corporate headquarters, and they took her and her partner down to see the CEO. He sat in front of them, the sun backlighting him. She had gone so long without seeing the sun, it was blinding, which was no doubt the intent.

  “So, you failed to complete your task,” the CEO said. “Still, you got closer than anyone in this company has in over two hundred years.”

  Her partner stepped forward like a soldier stepping out of rank. “Sir, we can try again. I know if I had a second chance . . .”

  The CEO raised his hand, and her partner fell silent. “We will have another chance. Today’s key is tomorrow’s forge. Our clients have waited for eons. They’ll wait another decade or two. Dismissed.”

  The CEO turned his back on them. Other BEC people, ones with clean suits that weren’t ripped or smeared with blood, guided them to the office door and the elevators, and one uncomfortable elevator ride later, she was in a taxi and then home. Tanya began unbuttoning her jacket. She threw it on the ground, looking out of place on her spotless apartment floor. She unbuttoned her skirt, letting it drop to the floor, and she kicked it over to the jacket. She didn’t bother unrolling her nylons, they were ruined. She ripped them off and let them drop as well. She’d throw them away later. She leaned back in the chair and tried to take her mind off things, but her eyes kept drifting back to her shoes, laying on the floor beside her.