Nefarious Heroes: Malevolent Prisoners Book Two

by Eddie Jakes

  Maddix turned to walk out of the store and everyone followed him … all but Tanya, who kept staring at the older clerk.

  "There is something strange about that man."

  The clerk stopped smiling once Tanya started to judge him.

  "Forget it, Tanya. Let's just go."

  But she wouldn't budge.

  "No," scowled Tanya. "He is hiding something, and I can feel it."

  "Miss," the clerk began, "if you're here to cause trouble, I'm going to have to ask you all to leave."

  "Please allow me to apologize, monsieur. She is just a touch headstrong."

  Javier reached for Tanya's arm only to have his hand pushed away by her quick reflexes. Her eyes were slowly starting to change to a yellowish color—something Maddix didn't need right now, so he stepped in front of her and locked eyes with her.

  "Tanya, let's go. Now. We can't do this here."

  "Step aside, Overseer. He knows something."

  "Overseer?" asked the clerk. "Are you Maddix Benbrook?"

  All of them stopped and looked at the clerk for confirmation. Their ears hadn't played tricks on them.

  "Yes," answered Maddix with apprehension in his voice.

  "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. We've been waiting for you."

  Stepping out from the counter, the clerk approached them all and shook their hands. Tanya refused.

  "I didn't get your name," stated the clerk.

  "And you won't."

  Maddix felt embarrassed. "She's with us."

  "Of course. Follow me quickly. I guess I'm closing up shop early today."

  The clerk locked the doors and pulled all the shades to the shop, before turning the lights off. He then led them to the storage room which contained metal shelving storing hundreds of books both new and old.

  He led them through a secret door in the floor telling them to stay close and not to touch anything. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a pair of spectacles and entered into the passage. It was very dark, and only the silhouette of their host was visible. Maddix hoped that Tanya's vision would give them an advantage should anything go wrong. It was impossible to tell in the darkness how she gauged the situation.

  "Wait here. I need to go open the door."

  "What door? How can you even see anything?" Tara inquired.

  "My glasses are unique. They help me to see things in the dark."

  Maddix listened for the clerk's footsteps as he walked away, waiting for them to grow faint. Once he was sure he whispered for Tanya.

  "He isn't going to a door," stated Tanya.

  "What is he doing?" asked Tara.

  "Joining his friends that have us surrounded."

  In a flash, the entire room filled with blinding light. Once the squiggly lines faded and his eyes could focus, he could see that they had been entirely surrounded by figures in black robes carrying perfectly polished scimitars at the ready.

  The clerk joined them in the circle, sliding into his robe and pulling the hood over his head. Another one of the figures presented him with his sword which was just as polished and also contained beautiful etchings in the blade.

  "By now you are all probably wondering what is going to happen. Do not throw away your last remaining moments on things that do not concern you. Just know that soon you will no longer be burdened with the pressures associated with your wasted lives."

  She could not sit back and watch any longer—

  "Let me handle this!" shouted Tanya, while she rushed at the first swordsmen she saw.

  The fight was over quickly as he sidestepped her attack and swiped her arm with his scimitar. She screamed at the pain and gripped the wound which was actually bleeding profusely.

  Silver? Tanya could generally tell when she was near silver; it gave off a unique smell that only werewolves detected. This was different somehow. There was no noticeable smell, but she was powerless against it regardless.

  Tanya's anger at the situation tickled at her animalistic senses, but she withheld from changing. All the things Maddix had said to them made sense. They needed to know who these people were and what their game plan was. She considered their lives spared for now, but that wouldn't last forever.

  In the meantime, she would play the role of a meek, wounded woman and feign fear.

  "Who the hell are you people? I demand to know who it is before being executed," shouted Javier.

  His bravado excited her. She almost started to smile but quickly composed herself and resumed her agonizing whimpers.

  Their former host, the clerk, apparently their leader, stepped forward from the circle. "We are the Cimmerian Necromancers. We are the ones who arranged for your release from that blasphemous prison."

  "Our release? We were the ones in charge," said Tara.

  "Were you, indeed, young lady?"

  Tara was silent.

  "Everything that has happened to you has all been by design. Planned decades before any of you were even born."

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" Maddix questioned.

  Sheathing his sword, the leader placed his hands behind his back and began to pace around the four of them. He hummed as if in deep thought.

  "How much do you remember about yourselves?"

  Tara and Javier glanced at each other with sad expressions. Maddix would not remove his eyes from the leader and maintained his angered expression.

  "I see you remember quite enough if not all of it. Then you must also remember how ne'er-do-well you all are. An addict, a coward, and an inept murderer." The leader turned to Tanya. "You? I have no idea who you are, but since you have seen this much, you will share the same fate."

  "A murderer?" Tara inquired.

  "Oh, he didn't tell you." The leader smiled. "Oh yes, he stalked and murdered a young girl. Quite brutally I might add. But they didn't have enough evidence to convict you, did they, Mr. Benbrook? You will have to fill in the details, the records are quite vague for obvious reasons."

  "Is that true, Maddix?" Tara gaped at him.

  He looked at her. Tanya could see that he didn't know the right words to say. She was so used to being a natural born killer, that it was hard to empathize with someone who experienced real regret about it.

  "You are all disgusting people. That's why you were picked … because of your natural ability to fail at life."

  With that, he snapped his fingers. Three of the hooded figures moved into position and placed their swords at their necks.

  "Wait!" demanded Maddix. "Why would you want to let them out? They are monsters, they will take over the world and feed on it."

  "Nothing you need to concern yourself with. You may remove their heads now."

  The three cultists raised their swords for a fatal blow.

  Maddix locked eyes with Tanya. "I think it's time to put on your evening attire."

  It didn't take long for her to process his statement before she was allowing the boiling of her blood to transform her. The sensation of her animal features erupting from their shell was like being released from an eternal prison. Her humanity left her, and the wolf took over.

  The cultists stood in shock and horror as she began to tear each one of them to shreds. They barely put up a fight as she did, with some of them going so far as to drop their weapons and begin praying to her.

  Maddix and the others joined the fight and opened fire at everyone wearing a hood. The leader was the first to take a shot to the head and collapse with others moving in to slice them but being stopped short with bullets to the heart and neck.

  Soon everything was quiet, and it was just the three of them and Tanya. Blood dripped from her fangs and splattered across her fur.

  "What in the fuck just happened here?" asked Tara.

  "Victory," Tanya replied.

  Javier shook his head. "Are they all dead?"

  "Not quite," said Tanya, as she pushed two bodies aside and dragged a third over to the group. "This one is still breathing."

  "Let's find somewhere
we can question him that's a little less … dead."

  After some sniffing around, Tanya was able to find a door at the end of the strange room they were led to. The room that was supposed to be their death, but having a werewolf on their side gave them an even more deadly advantage against their assassins.

  It was evident to Maddix and everyone else that the cultists were expecting them. They had been behind their placement in Malevolent and the eventual escape of its prisoners. A plan that had brewing for decades the cult leader had said. The time shift would have made any kind of action they would have to come up with a long term one. It was still a good one, and everyone had escaped. Unfortunately, it would seem that Maddix played a substantial role in that plan. Unwittingly as his part was.

  This strange cult they had encountered seemed to be obsessed with allowing the prisoners to rule the world. Maddix hoped that their new friend might be able to provide the answers they needed. Javier wasn't in any mood to be nuanced in the approach as he slammed the wounded cultist into the nearest chair he could find, causing it to roll back and tip over.

  "Who the fuck are you people?"

  The shaken cultist could barely work his arms well enough to straighten himself in the chair. Tara stepped in and helped him up, giving Javier a stern glare. She did not like the brutish tactics, even for someone that had been trying to kill them prior.

  Tanya, however, was not in the mood for tact and stuffed her wolf snout in the injured cultist's face. "He asked you who you are."

  "It c-can't b-be," the cultist stuttered as he spoke. "You are one with the wolf. A slave to the f-full moon?"

  "Who are you calling a slave?" growled Tanya.

  "Down, Tanya," said Maddix.

  Tanya's vexed glare turned to Maddix. He grimaced once he realized his implication.

  "Listen, we don't have time to screw around. Now you better tell me who you are and where the Founding Fathers are.”

  The robed man glanced back and forth between Tanya and the rest of them. He was strangely drawn to her, despite the fact that she was ready to kill him at a moment’s notice.

  "Okay," said Maddix, "what's the deal? You keep looking at her. Why?"

  "She is a lycanthrope."

  "Obviously."

  The cultist leapt from his chair and groveled at Tanya's front paws. "Please! I beg you. Give me your sweet kiss so that I may run with you in the moonlight. It has been my life's dedication."

  Tanya looked to the rest of them in confusion, and slowly withdrew her paws from his grasp.

  "You …" Tanya hesitated, unsure, "… you want me to turn you?"

  "I want you to bless me!"

  The four of them gaped at each other in shock.

  Tanya pushed him back with a single paw, and her eyes went red. "Does this seem like a blessing to you?"

  "Yes! You are one with the night. A being of unlimited power, and I am a mortal feast for your enjoyment. I give myself to you with great joy!"

  "He's completely nuts," muttered Tara. "Why would you want to renounce your humanity to become something unnatural?"

  Tanya looked at Tara with surprise. Tara paused with regret.

  "It is the next step toward something greater. Humanity has brought nothing but war, corruption, and failure to the world."

  "I can't argue with that," said Tara.

  "Hold on." Maddix shook his head in confusion. "You mean to tell me that you honestly believe the world would be a better place overrun by monsters?"

  "To the unenlightened, they may be monsters. To us, they are gods."

  The look in the man's eyes was genuine enough. It was a hard pill to swallow, though. To think that there would be a group of humans willing to submit themselves to the supernatural like cattle lining up to be butchered.

  "I am confused about something," said Javier.

  "Just one thing?" asked Tara, sarcastically.

  "Where are the Founding Fathers?"

  "I refuse to be interrogated by you, coward!"

  Tanya’s giant paw swiped the cultist across the head, just enough to give him an attitude adjustment.

  "I'm sorry," whimpered the cultist. "Don't be angry with me, please."

  Maddix leaned over and whispered into Tanya's ear. If she had some kind of influence on these people, she could use it to their advantage. She nodded her head in agreement.

  "Tell them what they want to know, my child," said Tanya.

  Their new friend was very forthcoming about the entire plot involving the cult and the Founding Fathers. They had started as a small fellowship of occultists, which had slowly grown over the centuries. During the time of the first purge, their entire sect was forced into secrecy, with many of them forming successful businesses.

  Over the years their faith had become all but nonexistent until the discovery of North America and the new colonies began to take shape. The first sighting of vampires boarding ships caused a resurgence of the faith, followed by a massive relocation of the remaining cult members.

  The revolutionary war would be another crucial moment in the cult’s evolution. The high priests would begin to take native traditions in the spirit world and pervert it into a new form of necromancy. It's at this time they would start to refer to themselves as the Cimmerian Necromancers.

  A massive plan had been devised that would allow all creatures of the night to overtake the humans by delving into dark magics intended to raise the dead. This would put three armies on the battlefield and every one that fell would rise up and join in the fight to exterminate humanity from America.

  What the necromancers hadn't planned on was that the British would actually be defeated. The arrival of French forces was the final nail in the coffin. Up until that point, the war had been a good distraction from their secret operation.

  In an act of desperation, the vampires and werewolves attempted to seize the country from the exhausted American and French armies. Unbeknownst to either side was that many had infiltrated whole companies of military forces, and many battles were fought and lost in a sort of guerrilla incursion.

  It was apparent to the necromancer leadership that the actions that followed would not be fruitful. Many creatures of the night would be destroyed during what would become known as the second purge. It was General Washington himself that would put together an elite group of men who were charged with the complete eradication of all supernatural forces in the country.

  The history books referred to these people as the first agents of the Founding Fathers, and that they had overriding authority over the American military and its resources. The bloodshed during these months was as horrific as the Revolutionary War that preceded it. No one would ever come to know the heroes that gave their lives to push them back while the United States was adopting its first drafts of the Constitution.

  Then the wizard came …

  "Krazek?"

  "Yes," replied the cultist. "The wizard had plans for the American Indian tribes. Many were tortured and murdered to learn their secrets."

  "Doesn't surprise me one bit. That madman is a power hungry sociopath."

  "His actions had consequences. An ancient shaman came up from the smoke of death, and he possessed greater power than in all of recorded history."

  "I remember reading about him in the archives back in Malevolent," chimed Tara. "Rumor was that it was him who created the prison."

  "That's how it was told to me, as well."

  "What happened after that? Where did this shaman go?" asked Javier.

  Tanya drew everyone's attention with a deep growl. "He disappeared after defeating Krazek. The wizard went mad looking for him, and shortly after the gate opened and we were all swallowed up by it."

  "How do you know?" asked Tara.

  "I was there."

  The time was moving fast, and Maddix didn't want to waste what they had left. He picked up the decorative scimitar from the ground and looked it over. The markings were a combination of animal-like drawings and strange hieroglyphic
s.

  "What is this made of?" asked Maddix.

  "Steel folded many times and sharpened on precious stones."

  "How were you able to harm a werewolf with this?"

  "The runes are ancient power words. That blade can defeat any sort of supernatural creature."

  "Even vampires?"

  "Not directly, but it will dismember one with little resistance."

  "Tell me something," growled Tanya. "Why would a coven of necromancers, who worship those like me, create a weapon that could murder us?"

  "When you dedicate your life to worshipping death, you have to learn to control it. Especially your own."

  Tanya scoffed and walked away.

  "Can anyone use them?" asked Maddix.

  "They can."

  "Javier, grab a few of these from the other room. I think they will come in handy."

  Javier smiled devilishly and nodded before walking into the back room to collect the blades from the dead cultists.

  "There is something you haven't told us yet," said Tara. "Why us?"

  With the war lost, and all the monsters safely tucked away in a magical prison, it seemed as though there was no hope. The necromancers had no magic, no influence, and no way to open the prison. Every attempt to infiltrate the Founding Fathers outright would end in failure or death.

  The prison itself could not be opened by any physical force known to man. There was some talk after the first atomic tests of dropping a bomb on the gate, but that was scrapped due to the possibility of radiation fallout. The only thing they had left was the political system.

  Every member of the Necromancer Cult took positions or built businesses that would give them the best public support. Some would run for office in the communities they lived in and work their way up the political ladder. This continued until finally one of them made their way to the highest levels in government and was admitted to the Founding Father's organization.

  They continued to work their way up and finally reached upper administration. From there they had control over who would be sentenced to the prison, and who would be the next overseer. That's when the new plan was created.