by Jason DeGray
In that moment, Barber realized the advantages of cowardice and silently cursed himself for manning up. As Hugo lumbered into striking distance, Barber silently sent love to his wife and braced himself for the killing blow.
CHAPTER 33
Wolf felt an itching at his neck as the skeletal horrors approached. His amulet! He pulled it from around his neck and took a deep breath as he thought of a rune. He twirled it forward and yelled, “TYR!” Golden arrows of energy sped from the artifact in all directions and blasted the approaching skeletal abnormalities into pieces. Wolf could scarcely believe his eyes, nor could Jonas.
“Where did you get that?” screeched the one-eyed traitor. “That was supposed to be mine!”
“Well, it’s mine now,” growled Wolf and twirled the chain again. “TYR!”
Jonas was hit square in the chest with the deadly sigil. His flesh bubbled and fizzed away, revealing his ribcage beneath. He watched in twisted fascination as his exposed heart pumped frantically for a few seconds and then it suddenly stopped. The doomed man’s eye rolled into the back of his head and he toppled forward.
Wolf didn’t give the smoking corpse a second glance as he bounded over it and rushed to the altar where Miriam lay bleeding.
“Oh baby,” he cried as he grasped her hand. “Oh my love, I am sorry.”
Miriam’s eyes fluttered open. “Victor?” she whispered weakly.
“It’s me, Miri. I’m here. Just hold on. We’re going to get you help.”
She smiled, flashing blood-smeared teeth. “That’s nice. I could really use it right now.” Her eyes slid shut and she continued to speak. “They took her, Victor. Our baby. You have to find her.”
“I will.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so very sorry. I didn’t listen. All this time…you…were right…” she fell into a coughing fit, blood splattering Wolf’s clothes.
“Please,” tears streamed down Wolf’s face, searing his scars. “Don’t die, Miri, don’t die. Stay. I need you. Our child needs you. I pulled my head out of my ass. I want to be the man you loved. I want to make you proud again.”
“I am proud of you. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I love you, Victor Wolf,” she replied. “I never quit and I never will.” She sighed the last words and softly shuddered before passing on.
CHAPTER 34
Ragnar managed to survive the chaos and follow Sven and Porcelain as they made their way down the mesa. He could hear the shrill screams of the infant they had stolen and he smoldered. He was angry at himself—angry for getting lazy in his work, angry for not recognizing the threat of his enemy’s son. He was sure that killing Torbjorn and Svetlana Paulson would satisfy his work. Besides, God wouldn’t possibly condone the unnecessary murder of a small child. The God he knew wouldn’t do that. But that didn’t matter. Other people’s gods would and this oversight had allowed for one of those instances to flourish. Unforgivable. Miriam Wolf was dead and now her child was very close to a worse fate. He pushed on, shrugging off the too-small cloak.
He heard Jonas’ death wail and grunted in satisfaction. Finally, the misguided bastard had gotten what was coming to him. He’d tried to warn his former student, tried to explain to him that his path led nowhere but to the gates of death and Hell. Jonas will be finding himself at those very gates about now, Ragnar mused. He would be learning his most important lesson about power: the greater the temporal rewards, the more severe the eternal retribution. It was a lesson the minions of Hell (those great and infamous peddlers of the forbidden arts) often neglected to mention until it was too late. It was a lesson the two men he was pursuing would learn all too quickly.
Sven and Porcelain descended the mesa carrying the stolen infant and the book called Power.
“I have to find the keys!” Sven said as they fled into the empty ranch house. The remaining mercenaries, left behind to keep watch on the grounds, had fled when the weirdness started. They had seen too much and lost too many men to the foolish meddling of wizards and demon worshippers. They never made it off the property, though. Faye and her half-lifers tore them to shreds, adding the mercs to her numbers. Then, the herd of sentient zombies trailed north after their mistress, eventually disappearing into the eldritch forests of the Jemez Mountains.
Ragnar crept up to the window. Sven was tearing frantically through drawers strewing utensils and cookware all over the floor. Eventually, he held up his prize in triumph. It was now or never. Ragnar kicked the door in and everything grew suddenly silent. Pieces of wood and glass flew silently through the air almost as if in slow motion. Stillness pervaded the room and the trick charged the air. Ragnar popped and crackled like a bowl of puffed rice cereal right after the addition of cold milk.
“Who are you?” Sven’s voice echoed in whispers throughout the placid air.
“It is told,” began Ragnar, eyes ablaze and far away, lost in shamanic trance. “That in the days before Ragnarok, the serpent will attempt to rise before its time, threatening to devour the world tree and plunge creation into nothingness.”
Porcelain gasped and Sven looked from one man to another frantically. “What are you talking about? What’s going on here?”
“I thought the serpent was your father. I thought the evil lay within him.”
“You knew my father?”
“Long ago. Before he fled to the new land. I knew him before he was corrupted. He was my friend. A brother of my order. Until I had to kill him.”
Sven shook his head. “Impossible. Both of my parents died in a camping accident—”
“On Sandia Peak.” Ragnar nodded. “I put an end to them while they were off in the woods doing the dark forbidden tricks they had traded their souls for. Did you know they offered you to the Lord of Murder first? Back then, on that trip. I heard it myself. I thought if I killed them, I could save you.”
“Liar! They loved me! You twisted motherfucker!” Sven wildly attacked with a kitchen knife he scooped up. He stabbed Ragnar twice before the shaman wrestled him to the ground. The two men struggled. Porcelain watched while holding the screaming newborn, slowly creeping to where the car keys lay atop the book called Power.
Ragnar gained the momentum and straddled Sven. “It is just as well you stabbed me. You need blood to get this trick.” He smeared blood on his right hand and held it palm up in Sven’s face. “The All-Father has something for you!” Energy circuited the ouroboros brand and then flared with light. “It is done.” Ragnar stepped away from him and Sven’s body began its own transformation.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Sven shrieked and then wailed in pain. Bones snapped as his legs lifted and torso leaned forward. He opened his mouth, jaws cracking and unhinging like a serpent’s, and swallowed his feet. Sven continued to swallow himself, not dying even after his legs had distended his stomach. His broken body lay in a bloody, misshapen heap and Sven, defying all logic, still breathed.
He screamed one last time as Ragnar ripped his spirit from his body and forcefully formed it into a crude mockery of the glyph on his palm. Sven’s soul hovered a few inches from his chest, spinning and contorting and devouring itself before the terrified man’s eyes. Only after the spirit blinked out of existence did Sven shudder and finally lay still.
“As above, so below,” muttered Ragnar. “Thy will is done.” He turned around and found Porcelain holding Power in one hand and the infant in another. “And who might you be, toilet-faced stranger?”
“I am the serpent’s venom,” said the masked deviant and, lashing out with his hand charged with his final trick, reached into Ragnar’s chest and squeezed his heart.
The pain was excruciating. Ragnar stumbled, fell, and tried to get up, but he was paralyzed with anguish. He couldn’t catch his breath and a cold sweat broke out on his brow.
“Do you know it was I?” rasped Porcelain. “I destroyed your order. The Holy Sons of Order fell to my hand before I even possessed Power. And now that I do, what are you going to do to stop
me? Nothing is denied a prophet of the Lord.”
Shadows crept into the corners of the warrior-shaman’s vision. He opened his mouth to respond, but his voice fled him.
Porcelain laughed a horrible hollow sound that reflected the void in his soul. “What’s wrong, mighty son of Thor? Are my tricks too much for your softened body and dulled mind? Face it. Your era is at an end. The time for hiding in the shadows is over. The trick is returning to the land—to its people—and the Lord of Murder will be there to guide them. To lead them into the dawn of a new age! An age of glory. Of power! Of will!”
With each emphatic statement, the vice around Ragnar’s heart tightened and his heart beat that much slower. It was a painful way to die and dishonorable to boot. Death awaited him just beyond the limits of his mortal sight and all he could muster was pitiful moaning on a dirty kitchen floor. Warrior-shaman indeed. He cried out a wordless prayer to the All-Father as his heart slowed almost to a stop.
“Before you die, I want you to know something. The Lord has demanded that your wife and her entire tribe be offered as sacrifice. The Lord has already sent their deaths to them.”
Ragnar’s last bellow didn’t expel his soul-breath. Instead, he used it to tap into the ancient ways of his warrior ancestors, mystics in their own right, shamans of slaughter. Ragnar drew from this well of collective memory and fought through death to get to his quarry. He went berserk. Porcelain didn’t even have time to scream before the enraged shaman literally twisted his masked head off his body and slung it furiously against the wall. The mask shattered revealing a mutilated face, whose sightless eyes darted around for a few seconds before stilling in death. Ragnar collected the shrieking child from the headless corpse and trudged out the door. He took exactly nine steps and death caught up with him. Ragnar sighed and collapsed clutching the child protectively as his last living action.
CHAPTER 35
Reverend Jamie Martinez didn’t consider himself ungodly or blasphemous. On the contrary, he thought of his expeditions into occultism the duty of any spiritual shepherd. After all, in order to defeat the minions of Hell, one had to understand their ways. Spiritual warfare and earthly warfare had much in common. He was a confident man full of pride and good intentions. He never expected to be tempted by demons. What’s more, he never expected to succumb to that temptation when tested.
In search of ancient magical books and relics for the Purple Gates, he wound up in Sweden where he met Torbjorn, a young man with a knack for getting the trick. Torbjorn was also a member of the Holy Sons of Thor, a group Martinez discovered, that held a very potent relic—the fabled book called Power. That’s when the Lord first spoke to him.
He came to Martinez in dreams as he was wont to do. He appeared to him as a kindly old woman that reminded the reverend of his abuela.
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” she said. “If there was a way to end all your worries? If there were a way to unlock the doors you and your amigos seek to open?”
“It would,” he agreed. “It would mean more than anything.”
“I think so, too,” she said and busied herself cooking breakfast in a kitchen that appeared around them. The smell of chorizo and eggs filled the air. The old woman served Jamie a steaming plate that tasted exactly as he remembered it. “You need to get Power. At all costs. Power is freedom.” This last phrase followed him into the waking world.
He told Torbjorn of his dream and the man was oddly pensive afterward.
“What do you think? Was it my abuela? Or was it something else?”
“It doesn’t matter who it was. What matters is that something is reaching out to you…to us. I have been having similar dreams.”
“Then what do we do? Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know. My order’s sole purpose is keeping Power from the spirits that seek to get its tricks. It is a potent relic, the absence of which would be immediately noticed.”
“So then we take care of the Order of the Holy Sons of Thor.”
“How?”
Martinez leaned back in his chair. “Carefully.”
Over the next two years, during trips to Sweden, Martinez and Torbjorn murdered the last remaining members of the ancient order. And, with their respective dream grannies’ help, made each to look like a suicide or fatal accident. All except one: Ragnar Thorsson. He was the rogue member of the order who sequestered himself away at some hidden sanctuary in the Scandinavian Mountains. Nobody had seen or heard from him in years or knew if he was even still alive. Martinez decided to assume he wasn’t and, after acquiring Power, left for home, bringing the only person he knew that could read from the cursed tome.
He returned to Albuquerque and the Purple Gates a hero. And as far as he knew, free from any harm, just like abuela had promised.
But Ragnar began having his dream shortly after the killings started. By the time he got back to civilization, it was too late. He was the last surviving Holy Son of Thor and the most potent relic in their charge had been stolen. It took him a few months to pick up on the trail and that trail led him somewhere he’d never imagined he’d be: New Mexico, USA.
Ragnar didn’t have anything against Americans. Not personally. They were pompous libertines for the most part, but most of them still believed in things like magic, angels, and God, which was more than he could say about the pit of secularism that his beloved Sweden had become. That sad fact was the reason he retreated from society and found solace in nature. New Mexico was more prone to superstition and old ways than most places. Everything about the Land of Enchantment hearkened back to a time where magic was part of everyday life and spirits walked among the living as equals. This oft-overlooked state was brimming with the trick. In fact, it existed largely because of it. He understood why his enemy would seek refuge there.
At first, Ragnar focused on his work. He had a mission to accomplish and sought out his former brother with a steady determination. He found the Paulsons quickly. They weren’t trying to hide since they assumed anyone who would look for them was dead. He watched them for weeks, learning their routine. For the most part, they were a normal family trying to integrate into their new community, seemingly innocuous except for their frequent trips to the Sandia Mountains. During these times, they left their young son with Martinez and would be gone for days. Ragnar decided this would be the best time to confront them. And so he followed Torbjorn and Svetlana on their fateful outing.
He crept upon their campsite as they were sitting before the campfire deep in meditation. The flames began dancing erratically and then changed color, deepening into a dark crimson. The Lord of Murder’s face appeared in the flames.
“Well done, my good and faithful servants,” the demon spoke.
“Thank you, Lord,” said Torbjorn. “We live to serve.”
“And serve me you have. You liberated my book from the hands of that filthy brotherhood and gave it to people who would truly appreciate its gettings. All this will be greatly rewarded.”
“Tell us what to do,” breathed Svetlana excitedly.
“I seek entrance to the world to walk unfettered among men. And for that, I need a proper vessel…a young vessel.”
“All we have is yours. Our son Sven will serve.”
Ragnar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They were going to give their own child over to the demon! He couldn’t believe the degree of Torbjorn’s corruption. What they were planning was forbidden among all schools of the trick still in existence. It was literal blasphemy.
“We hear and obey, mighty prince. We will prepare the ritual that you may mark him. Through your power he becomes Nephilim. He becomes worthy.”
“Yes,” purred the demon. “My time is coming.”
The fire flared up and then went out, plunging the scene into darkness. He couldn’t confront them like this. The demon’s influence was still thick in the air and any challenge would be met with demonically influenced force. He had to handle the Paulsons subtly. Ragnar crept away, back to wh
ere the Paulsons had parked their car. He cut the brake lines and waited until they left the next morning.
Torbjorn and Svetlana Paulson never made it back to Albuquerque. They careened over the edge of a tight curve when the brakes on their car gave out. Justice had been served and a child’s life had been saved. Without them to teach from Power, it was a useless antique in the hands of the droll Purple Gates group. The group spent the next twelve years trying unsuccessfully to get Power’s tricks.
Ragnar, thinking his work complete, retreated to the Jemez Mountains where he eventually met Tracy. They married and he expected to live out his days in peace, rebuilding his order. Jonas came to him shortly after that, led to Ragnar by a calling he didn’t understand and the shaman never fully explained.
Jonas was an apt pupil, though his heart was impure. Ragnar overlooked his student’s shortcomings, thinking he would outgrow them as he progressed in the trick. He didn’t. And by the time Ragnar sent him to retrieve Power, Jonas was already well on his way to perdition.
“It has to be you, Jonas,” Ragnar insisted.
“Why?”
“Because Power knows me. The spirits that seek to use it know me. I can’t get close. But you can. You have to get that book. They are getting desperate in their search for a teacher and desperation leads to disaster. Always.”
“I don’t know about this,” Jonas mumbled unconvinced.
“Yes, you do. Safeguarding these instruments of evil is our order’s true purpose. After I’m gone the mantle will fall to you. You must be prepared for the burden.”
“Alright, Master,” Jonas finally conceded, proud that Ragnar thought enough of him to entrust him with such an important mission.
“Good,” Ragnar said with a nod. “Don’t approach Martinez. He’s untrusting now. Find another way into the group.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.” Jonas went to Albuquerque, and after watching the group for a while, chose Faye. She was easy enough to seduce and before he knew it, he was in the innermost circle holding Power in his hands. When the Lord spoke to him, he couldn’t resist. He was in awe of the sheer supremacy of the tricks in Power. Never before had he experienced magic so raw and unadulterated. Ragnar certainly hadn’t shown him anything as potent. Power’s influence excited him, but also frightened him. There had to be some way to control it, to use it for his benefit. And so he delved into the cursed tome’s secrets with an eager group of disciples hanging on his every word.