by Jason DeGray
CHAPTER 31
“What the hell are you doing here, Frank?” Wolf asked. They were bound with rough rope and hanging from hay hooks in a horse stall inside the ranch’s barn.
Barber related his involvement and findings to Wolf. “I’m glad to see you still alive, Vic. I’m sorry about what happened at the office that day.”
“Forget it,” Wolf said. “It is what it is. Benny is an asshole. All this regret and remorse shit isn’t getting us out of here or Miriam back.”
“Miriam is here?”
Wolf nodded and told Barber what he’d found in Spangler’s study.
“They want your baby?” Barber couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Things had gone from twisted to fucked up in a hot minute.
“Shhh! Someone’s coming!”
The barn door opened and Wolf’s Challenger rolled into the barn. It parked in front of his stall, Creepy exiting followed by Porcelain and Sven.
“Cut him loose,” Sven ordered Creepy.
Wolf was cut free.
Porcelain said, “We were looking for you, Victor Wolf. There is much to discuss.”
“Talk then. What should I call you? Phantom of the Mesa?”
Barber sniggered but shut up when the masked and hooded man turned his awful gaze in his direction, his eyes burning with a weird fire.
“You may call me Porcelain.”
“Like a toilet. Got it. What do you want, Porcelain?”
“Why, I want you, Victor.”
“What for?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You survived the Lord of Murder’s onslaught. You should’ve been dead long before Jonas betrayed the Lord. You should’ve been dead the moment he touched your soul.”
Wolf remembered that moment. There is nothing in life more precious than the human soul. Nothing more sacred and profane than the indomitable human spirit that drives the lumbering sacks of flesh we call ‘bodies’. Heaven and Hell war over souls. Preachers claim to save them and the world forces people to sell them. All of this became clear to Wolf as the Lord of Murder reached out and touched his spiritual core. The demon peeled back layers of Wolf’s soul, laying bare the very stuff that made Wolf who he was—that which connected him to God. Not only his life flashed before his eyes, but lives he never knew he’d lived whirled by. And through it all, pain. Unbearable, unending pain.
It was a pain that went beyond the physical, pain with no end. It was suffering that demonkind has perfected from cultivating hate and loathing for countless millennia. It was a torment inflicted at the slightest contact with the humans they once swore to nurture and protect. Wolf had survived the torture with his mind, body, and spirit intact (or as intact as they could be) after his encounter. This intrigued the Lord of Murder.
To survive a demonic attack was one thing, but to survive the attack of a prince of Hell, one of the most powerful entities in Hell’s hierarchy, was nearly unheard of. It had only been done a handful of times throughout this current epoch of human history and then it had been accomplished by very powerful mystics, shamans, or holy men, never by a layman. Something about Wolf’s soul was unconquerable and the Lord of Murder craved it—craved it like an epicurean craves a gourmet meal. Such a resilient soul had many uses, the least being eternal torment.
“You should’ve been dead,” repeated Porcelain, jolting Wolf from his revelry. “But you survived. The Lord of Murder respects strength.”
“He has a funny way of showing it,” said Wolf, absently stroking his scars.
“You can’t begrudge a demon its nature. Why not let him have a chance to show you his love? There is so much he could give you.”
“I doubt that,” growled Wolf. “He’s given me enough already.”
“Even Thomas doubted. Let me show you.” He pulled a hand mirror from his robe and handed it to Wolf. “Go on. Look.”
Wolf gasped in surprise. His reflection was free of scars! His face was smooth and handsome again. He ran his hands over his face and they too were completely healed. “Impossible.”
“Not impossible if you embrace the Lord. Look again.”
The vision wavered and Wolf saw himself unflawed holding an infant in one arm and Miriam with the other. They smiled happily at their cooing child. The image shifted and Wolf saw himself standing in front of a large crowd of police officers being decorated.
“The promotion you dreamed of,” explained Porcelain. “Don’t you see? With the Lord, nothing is impossible. You can have your life back. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes,” Wolf said dazedly. “More than anything.” He stroked the image, tears running freely down his face.
“Then embrace the Lord. Accept his love and he will shower you with blessings.”
Surprisingly, Wolf struggled to say, “No.” Was there a possibility that accepting the Lord of Murder could return his old life to him? If there was a chance, even a slight one, it would be worth it. He wasn’t cut out for all this magic and mumbo-jumbo. He was a simple man, a rational man who prided himself on his firm grounding in reality. The thought of being free of scars and having Miriam back and his baby in his arms misted his eyes. He gazed into the mirror again. It showed him a scene like a reflection of a memory that was yet to be. He was in the backyard of a luxurious house, sharply dressed and smooth skinned, his wife fawning over him as he quietly sipped a scotch and watched his young child swim in the pool. He could smell the barbecue on the grill and hear the infectious laughs of his loved ones. If the prince of Hell could indeed offer this, how could anyone resist?
“Well?” asked Porcelain impatiently. “Will you accept His grace, Mr. Wolf?”
Wolf hesitated. “I…I…”
“Are you crazy, Vic?” Barber yelled. “They kidnapped your wife! Think of how many people have died because of this crazy shit!”
“Quiet!” ordered Porcelain, but Barber ignored him.
“You’re telling me you came this far, put up with all this shit just to switch sides at the end? That’s bullshit, Vic! Bullshit! That’s not the Victor Wolf I know! The Wolf I know would kick this evil shit back to Hell!”
“I said QUIET!” Porcelain lashed out with his hand and even though he was outside the horse stall, a good ten feet from where Barber hung, the detective felt a sharp blow to his head that stunned him into silence.
Victor didn’t react either way. He simply stared into the mirror, enthralled. Finally, he muttered, “No. No, this isn’t right!” His head snapped up and he threw the mirror at Porcelain. The man deftly dodged and the mirror smashed into pieces behind him.
“Kill them both!” the masked cultist ordered Creepy. “And then get to the mesa!” He stormed outside with Sven close behind him.
Creepy leered at Wolf and advanced.
Wolf dashed over to his car and fumbled around under the driver’s seat until he came up with the .25 he kept there as “bum insurance.” He turned on Creepy as the behemoth was leaning down to grab him. “I’m about to hurt you really bad,” Wolf smiled and fired.
CHAPTER 32
Wolf and Barber made their way up the mesa and crept upon a familiar scene: several cloaked and hooded people situated around a stone altar chanting. Only this time, the altar was surrounded with ten jars containing the brains and hearts of the murdered Purple Gates cultists. In the background, a sinister bonfire blazed, licking the feet of three living men, nailed to crosses placed in the middle of the fire. The last sacrifices for the ritual sobbed and begged for their lives, promising they knew nothing and would tell nothing, making assurances only the doomed can make in all seriousness. But nobody heard them or paid them any attention whatsoever. Their purpose was served and their lives given to something greater and far more important. The air was so charged with energy that it practically crackled.
“You feel that?” Wolf whispered.
Barber nodded and shivered. “Just like Purple Gates.”
“Yup. There’s magic in the air. Literally.”
“Déjà vu.”
/> “Yeah. Only this time, it’s not some nameless transient on that altar. It’s my wife. And I’m not waiting around for them to stab her.” He broke for the ritual area and was halted on the outskirts of the action by Hugo. The hulk grabbed him by the neck, lifting him off the ground and choking him at the same time. Wolf struggled futilely, his dangling legs kicking frantically. As the oxygen to his brain swiftly depleted, he wondered, almost casually, what it took to kill Caine’s unnatural henchmen.
Barber watched the one-sided scuffle frozen in place with fear. He was once more at the fight or flight crossroads. Last time, the choice had been easy—automatic, even. He broke and ran and didn’t realize what had happened until he snapped back into reality, babbling incoherently into his radio. He’d never told anyone, but he was so terrified he shit his pants. Humiliation was around every corner for Barber and he loathed it. Being in tense, life-threatening situations was something he was used to. He lived for them. But this…this was something different—something unnatural—that didn’t have roots in the real world.
In fact, it wasn’t supposed to even be possible. But it was. And that was where the disconnect happened in Barber’s brain. How do you rationally process the impossible when it is occurring before your eyes? Simple. You go nuttier than squirrel turds. You break from the reality that failed you and drift into oblivion. Granted this can (and usually, does) turn perfectly normal people into raving lunatics in straight jackets ranting about imaginary monsters and sinister conspiracies. Barber had teetered precariously on that edge and only avoided plunging into the icy waters of insanity because of the story concocted by Stapleton and passed down to Spangler. He’d latched on to that explanation with all of his being. He’d even managed to convince himself that he saw a bear, heard its vicious roar as it barreled through the underbrush and into the midst of the cultists. He could even smell its earthy musk stinging his nostrils. He dwelt on the lie until it became his reality. And in doing so, his sanity crept timidly from the dark recesses of his mind and he began to put the experience behind him.
Now, faced once more with maddening impossibility, he wished he’d listened to his wife and gone home. But this time, Frank Barber held true. He forced himself to look at what was going on and accept it, even if he couldn’t understand or fully believe it.
He pulled his gun with a trembling hand and strode up to where Hugo was slowly and quietly killing his best friend, so as not to disturb the ritual. He put the pistol to the back of Hugo’s head and fired. The shot pealed across the landscape, shattering the delicate atmosphere and toppling the concentrated ritual created by the cultists. As the volatile energies righted themselves, a shockwave blasted across the mesa sending people sprawling, uprooting trees, and generally acting like a mini-apocalypse that frightened ranchers and townsfolk whispered about when they gathered the next day at Vicky’s Café in Vaughn.
The apish Hugo dropped to the ground, releasing Wolf as he did. The Ruined Man took huge gulps of air while massaging the feeling back into his throat. Barber stood, eyes wide with fear, over the incapacitated Hugo.
“Barber,” Wolf rasped. No response. “Barber! Snap the fuck out of it!”
“Huh?” Barber looked at Wolf dazedly, forcing his gaze from the bedlam that was going on.
“Stay with me!” Wolf pointed at Hugo. “That shot won’t kill him.”
“What are you talking about? That’s a point-blank shot to the back of the head.”
“I know. Trust me. It’ll only slow him down for a while. You have to finish him off!” Wolf pulled his .25 and rushed into the frantic crowd of cultists to find his wife.
Cultists were desperately trying to get to their cars to flee, but thanks to the rampant energies most of those automobiles were tumbling down the mesa like tumbleweeds on a windy day. Dirt whipped their faces, sending many to the ground, choking on dust. Others were skewered with flying mesquite branches and pinned to the ground like something out of Vlad the Impaler’s fantasy. Wolf ignored it all, his sights set on the altar where Porcelain and Sven were desperately trying to regain control. He could see them yelling, but couldn’t hear a word of it above the din.
***
“What do we do, father?” wondered Sven.
“It’s too late, the trick is undone. Quickly, get the child and Power. We’ll find a way to try again later,” said Porcelain as he unhesitatingly plunged the knife into Miriam’s chest. At the same time, Sven deftly sliced her stomach open and removed the child. Wolf bellowed in anguish and sprinted for the scene, firing blindly at the men as they gathered up the book called Power and Wolf’s child before slipping away.
“Jonas! Stop him,” Sven ordered.
“I hear and obey,” Jonas smiled and stepped to Wolf.
“You fucking traitor!” Wolf bellowed at Jonas. “I knew I should’ve killed you!” He raised his gun and cocked the hammer.
Jonas opened his hands in a messianic gesture and the wind around them stopped as if they were plunged into a protective bubble. Debris bounced off the invisible barrier three feet above their heads. “Please listen to me. We were part of the same plan. The Lord’s plan. You weren’t betrayed, Wolf. You were led to your destiny.”
Wolf had heard enough of Jonas’ nutty shit. He liberally sprayed Jonas with bullets, furiously blasting him until the empty chamber clicked.
Though Wolf fired at his enemy’s head and chest, the bullets were drawn to Jonas, entering him at the hands and feet where the stigmata traditionally appear. Beatific expression on his face, he approached Wolf, bleeding profusely from his blasphemous wounds. “You see? I am doing the Lord’s work and he has granted me power, unbelievable power. I have become the way, the truth, and the light. No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” Jonas stepped forward, hands offered to Wolf. “Kneel and kiss my blessed wounds.”
“Blasphemy,” spat Wolf and etched three lines into the dirt while chanting, “Hagalaz”, three times.
A mighty wind erupted from the glyph and lifted Jonas off his feet, throwing him against the altar where he landed in a heap.
***
The Lord of Murder was adrift in the abyss. He had sensed the ritual and was waiting impatiently for his children to finish opening the door. In the distance, a pinprick of light appeared against the backdrop of the void. The demon rushed toward it and it grew into the doorway he’d been expecting. Floating there in the void, beckoning him, was the fierce and pure energy of the infant Wolf. He attached himself to it greedily, feeding off of it, absorbing it. He was waiting for the completion when he could take the child’s form, when the light suddenly blinked out, leaving him trapped once more. He howled in fury, ranting like a spoiled toddler, his wrath spilling over into the physical world. The doorway had been opened a crack and the Lord of Murder had gotten intimate with that doorway. He knew its form, its smell, its glyph. He’d find it again. And when he did, the world would suffer.
***
Jonas climbed to his feet and halted Wolf’s progress by unleashing a glyph that sent energy slamming into Wolf with all the force of a defensive line converging on a quarterback. Wasting no time, Jonas crouched and etched a glyph into the dirt. A twenty-five-foot area rumbled, and cracks appeared that swallowed fleeing cultists as animated skeletal remains climbed to the surface from the fissures. They immediately fell on the remaining cultists, tearing them apart limb by limb.
“What are you doing?” bellowed Wolf. “You’re killing your own people!”
“Not my people. They belong to the Lord. Just as you do. Welcome home, Wolf,” Jonas said as the unnatural abominations advanced.
***
Barber learned quickly what Wolf was talking about. The twins certainly didn’t die as they should. Hugo twitched at Barber’s feet and opened his eyes. Barber yelped and jumped back, emptying his clip and incapacitating Hugo once again. Cracking branches behind him sent him spinning around. Creepy lumbered from the underbrush scowling at Barber.
“What the fuck is wit
h you guys?” he screeched madly. “Die already!”
Creepy growled, an animal mewling sound, and rushed Barber. Though slow, the monstrous twin was as solid as a wall and Barber felt every bit of it as Creepy slammed into him. He flew a good ten feet and slammed into one of the only remaining cars on the mesa. The driver had almost escaped, only to be impaled by a mesquite branch that had somehow broken through the windshield. Barber heaved the body out of the driver’s seat and started the car. In the rearview mirror, Hugo climbed to his feet and Creepy was already half way to the car. Barber put the vehicle in reverse and floored it. Tires spun, kicking up dirt, and the car raced toward the oncoming twins. It was a square hit, one that should’ve flattened even the strongest man. But Creepy remained upright and the rear end of the car crumpled like an aluminum can. Creepy grabbed the car and spun it around and, smashing through the windshield, pulled Barber out. He held Barber in place as Hugo approached with a large branch he’d found, his demonic eyes blazing with hatred.