Vengeance (A Samantha Tyler Thriller Book 1)

by Rachael Rawlings

  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream, and I realized after everything I achieved, everything I had suffered, I was going to be taken by a painted demon.

  Then I was swaying, enough so my fingers closed on the knife, the consecrated blade. I lunged forward blindly with it held in front of me, the metal easily penetrating the creature before me, and a shriek of madness and pain reverberated through my skull. I felt the heat, the stench of decomposing flesh, and I was standing in front of a painting, a magnificent composition of a man, and it took every fiber of control I still possessed not to vomit on the carpet.

  I didn’t walk away. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what it was or where it had come from, but I perceived there was something intrinsically evil about the painting. The blade was sharp, and it took only a few frenzied moments to slice the canvas to ribbons, scoring the wall behind it, demolishing it absolutely.

  I was panting when I finished, astounded at my passion, at the lack of control. I recognized now there was evil here. The problem was I wasn’t sure what I was going to face. I thought of my cell phone stuffed in my pocket. I could do it alone. I could face off with whatever was the root of the evil I just experienced. I could try to overcome, struggle to do it alone, work to be completely self-sufficient. But wasn’t that what I was warned about? Thinking I was equal to the demon I faced was as conceited as I could get and would likely be my downfall.

  Still breathing heavily, I tucked my knife back in the sheath, and I pulled the phone out and texted a message to Sister Eva. I didn’t elaborate, only stated I needed help and to be very careful. I needed to get to the door, to open it to let them in, and all this while being quiet. The beautiful man child disappeared, and I had my doubts as to whether I had actually seen him, and if I had was he human? This visit was turning out to be a mind bender.

  I drifted to the door, my hands shaking now from anger more than dread. I hesitated to listen for activity in the area beyond, and hearing nothing, I wrenched the ornate knob, feeling the crystal globe turn in my hand. I listened again and swung the heavy panel wide.

  I was at the landing of a set of stairs. One set headed straight up, ending in a corridor barely lit with flaming sconces. The opposite set ran at a right angle downwards, resolving in another landing that seemed to hover somewhere in space.

  I stood still and stared. I didn’t climb stairs to get to the room. The parlor was a short hallway from the open entry, both well lit. It couldn’t be. I rubbed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I glanced back into the parlor, but it was the same, a golden cream confection. Deadly, with the painting in shreds behind me.

  The front door; I needed to locate the door to open it. I peered at my cell phone. It was still lit up in my fist, a connection to the outside world. I half expected it to have changed into a viper in my hand. Things changed now, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain it to the nun. First, I needed to get to the door.

  I went down the stairs first. It seemed to me the front door must be somewhere at the foot of the stairs. I knew I wasn’t going crazy. Like the painting, this was a trap. I wondered if the invitation came from Mrs. Ashwood at all. Could this be a plan devised by Rowan? I wondered if I RSVP’d to my own capture? Or worse, my own death.

  I went down a single flight of stairs when I realized my assumption was wrong. Rather than seeing a chamber opening from the landing, I realized it led to a hallway. The passage looked like nothing I ever saw inside a house. The walls were stone, no mortar, stacked and cracking gray, unrelieved, until they reached a gently curving ceiling, this too constructed of stone. It was more like something I would see in a basement, the cellar of a castle perhaps. And certainly not around here.

  It felt wrong. It even smelled wrong, like something left too long in the damp. An essence of mold, of deterioration, of decay. I shook my head. I was going off impulse and intuition now, and I needed to obey my instincts. I turned and jogged back up the stairs, worried my other option might be erased if I continued on the wrong path. I was feeling increasingly like I was in someone else’s bad dream. I took the last three steps at a run, stopping on the landing where the parlor door was still open. I peered in, to get my equilibrium back. It looked the same as before, and I was grateful for it.

  I passed the room. I knew it was tempting to go back in, to sit at the little settee and wait for whoever or whatever was running the show, but I wasn’t going to go down their route so easily. I glanced at the screen of my cell phone. I wanted no one to hear me, know my movement, so I typed a hurried message and then headed up the next set of stairs.

  At the top, a hallway stretched impossibly long, left and right. I was feeling more like Alice in a satanic wonderland. But at least here there were lights, and far in the distance, I could see the pale rectangle of a window. If nothing else, I could break the glass and climb out. I was no longer interested in a showdown. I preferred to be properly armed if I would be facing off with whomever was running the show.

  I pulled my dagger from its sheath as I strolled down the hallway. I was keeping a sharp eye on the closed doors as I went. I doubted any of these doors led to something I wanted to face, but there was a small chance they might lead me to an exit.

  I passed four doors, closed, and saw a vague light showing from an open doorway on my right. Perhaps someone was home. I froze in my tracks. Either I continued, possibly running into another creature in this fun house, or I went back to the stairs. To where? I would not explore whatever dungeon they kept below me. No, I could see the light leaking through the window at the end of the hall, a few feet away. There was my objective. I was going for it.

  I stopped against the wall next to the open doorway. I remained motionless, listening to the house settle around me. I was aware of low voices from inside the room, human voices, a discussion. I inched closer to the doorway and stopped again.

  “My dear Samantha, do come in. Don’t you know it’s rude to linger in the hallway and listen in on conversations?”

  I felt my stomach knot. I knew the voice. Roberts.

  The room was a library, three walls covered with floor to ceiling bookcases filled with texts. They varied in size, shape, and age from old hardback tomes cracked with age to the newest paperbacks. A suit of armor complete with shield and sword stood in one corner. On the far wall, a desk was sitting, catty-corner to the door and blocking a window revealing the exterior view from the house. Except it wasn’t like anything I saw coming down the drive. It was a panorama in shades in reds and golds, none of the green of the surrounding forests. The land looked flat and pale, a landscape of fiery flowers mounded on what appeared to be a wasteland of tombstones. The blaze of the sun was a sickly yellow, painting sharp shadows cast from the stones.

  I dragged my eyes away from the fantastical view with difficulty and concentrated on my hostess. Sitting behind the desk was the figure of a woman, adorned in bright yellow like the buttercups of spring, her silver hair looped into a graceful knot atop her head. She wore pearl earrings, and a broach of hammered gold resting between her breasts, suspended by a heavy gold chain. Mrs. Ashwood looked much as she did when I ran into her at the party, her papery pale skin still lovely, her eyes luminous and fascinating.

  Standing behind her and gazing out the window was Roberts. He was dressed in casual khakis, a polo shirt with an emblem of a crown on his chest. His thinning hair glimmered goldish red in the odd lighting.

  “Mrs. Ashwood,” I said, proud at the controlled tone of my voice.

  “Samantha,” she greeted, rising to her feet. “Call me Rowan.”

  The world stood still for a moment as the facts tumbled into place. All those time I felt a presence. I knew I was in the presence of an Infernal Lord, both here and at the party. But I didn’t suspect it was her, not for a second. My ignorance, the oversight, was about to get me in a lot of trouble.

  I was spared a response by a whispering choking sound from behind me. I spun, keeping my side to Rowan and Roberts to avoid losing sight of them
, but glanced toward the odd vignette behind me. There were two wingback chairs flanking a small wooden table, the perfect place to sip wine or coffee as you read your favorite novel. A lamp with a beaded shade cast a kindlier glow than the garish window opposite. A small stack of books was piled next to the chair on the right-hand side, but the individual in the chair didn’t look like he would ever read again.

  Tom Carter’s death was the result of a high-speed impact of man against tree, and his body flung clear of the wreckage, courtesy of the lack of seatbelts. On his way through, he ripped through the windshield and shot down the hood, shaving off his nose and most of his face as he went.

  The crushing blow to the head caused instantaneous death. And then something else had taken place.

  Now his reanimated corpse rested in the chair, or rather slouched in it, blood and pus and gore sliding down cheeks collapsed into folds of mottled skin. The Infernal Lord, Rowan, simply created another Soulless, but the results were beyond horrific.

  Carter rolled his single remaining eye in my direction. I could not read his expression since so little of his flesh remained, but his body was trembling, and small sobs were escaping his throat.

  “What have you done?” I swung toward Rowan and Roberts, my fear overcome by the sense of wrongness, of violating the laws of nature.

  “Samantha, my dear,” Rowan bent forward at her desk. “Sit. I have only brought Tom here to show you the extent of my talents. I have a new and exceedingly potent weapon,” she shrugged a little careless gesture, “and I’m afraid I wanted to show off.”

  “He’s dead,” I answered, my eyes darting towards the thing in the chair, and then back towards the desk.

  “He was,” Rowan agreed. “But with the power of the Fallen One, he has been brought back to serve.”

  I glanced at the shape in the chair. “How?” The question was multi-layered. How did she do it? How did she reanimate him? And how would he serve her?

  “Ah, but I think you might know some of the answers to that.” She looked at me, her face now a little sly.

  “The artifacts,” I replied. That was, after all, what I was searching for the previous several weeks. The whole chase centered on finding Rowan, but the artifacts were the trail I followed.

  Rowan smiled, her hands clapping in delight. “Of course,” she announced. “I knew you would figure it out. I only needed to give you the time.” She tipped her head back to look at Roberts. “I told you she would understand.”

  Roberts was studying me, a wintry smile on his face. “You did, my dear,” he added, his eyes never leaving me.

  “What about Wheadon?” I had not thought of the disgusting man since I watched him leap from the balcony at his residence in Florida. Now I realized there was another question which wasn’t resolved. “Wheadon killed himself when I was talking with him. He saw something behind. He named you.”

  “And that was all it took,” she acknowledged, her voice silky soft. “He said my name, and I came. We are close, my disciples and me. I shall bring him back soon. Make him into another Soulless to guide my perspective,” she paused at the term, “colleagues in the correct way.”

  “You’re making more of these,” I responded, my voice feeling tight in my throat. “And you wanted to show off for me? Why?”

  “Samantha,” she chided me mildly. “Paul has told you what I want. I know your father was misguided. He should have never sent Eamon after you. He should have known you were too smart to try to bully into a position.” She was shaking her head like an instructor whose student wasn’t following the rules.

  “Paul said you want me to join you,” I replied, my eyes flickering from her composed face to the wreck who used to be Tom Carter, still wheezing in the chair.

  “You have something we could use,” she added, a ring of cheerfulness to her tone. “And that is quite beyond the skills you were born with. You have knowledge,” her voice had changed, grown husky and eager with a kind of hunger.

  I felt the ending coming. It was very much like standing at a crossroads. There was no way on earth I would join them. There was no way they would let me live if I made the statement. I already made the call to my backup, but I couldn’t even identify the front door. I was alone in this, and my life was weighed on the words.

  My mind was traveling fast. Stall them, make them wait.

  “What do you want of me?” I was proud my voice was steady.

  “Simply for you to join us. We would make perfect partners, you and I. You could tell me about your time at the Abbey of Sainte Aalis, tell me about the nuns there,” she paused, taking a breath, her eyes glittering with a strange power, “and I could show you the world.”

  “How do you know about the abbey?” I demanded, my throat tight.

  She beamed, and I saw the mask slip, a glint of the evil within peeking out. “I have a long association with the Church.” She tipped her head towards the suit of armor. “I was a member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church once. I was a devoted follower, one of the faithful. I didn’t believe in their God, not for a second, but I believed in their gold and their influence.” Her face seemed to tighten, to thin down to something closer to a skull. “When the Order of Sainte Aalis,” this she pronounced with the lilt of a native speaker, “became involved in the Crusades, I saw my opportunity. I joined them, traveling with them to battle the infidels.” She smirked, and I could envision it. The militant nuns in their modified habits traveling far to practice their finely-honed skills to defend the holy lands, territory rightfully belonging to the Church.

  “What carnage,” she hissed. “I left the nuns. They didn’t want to join in the fray as I craved to do. They wanted to save, to defend the Godly. I wanted to massacre, to bathe in the blood.” She cocked her head again as though hearing some far-off call to war. “In the end, I filled my pockets with blood money and left the nuns behind. But they gained treasures I had not. They gained knowledge. They gained power.” Her eyes seemed to focus back to me. “And they have shared it with you. The time for talking is over. I demand to know if you will join me.”

  My head was saturated with the horrible vision of what this woman had done, how she relished the kill, celebrated the slaughter. I could feel it in my skin, I could taste the coppery tint of blood on my tongue. With her words, my other senses were filled with her memories. The dark side of my capacity to read the Infernal Lords came with a heavy price. My heart was hammering with her excitement, my ears ringing with the sound of anguished cries.

  “No,” I shouted, my voice riding over the noises in my brain. “I would never join you. I would never even think about it. You are revolting to me. Every breath you take is tainted with your own evil and stupidity.”

  Her face grew colder, her eyes narrowed. I watched the flame of fury burning bright, but for a moment, I knew how a martyr might feel, dying for a cause. I would give my life to protect my knowledge, and if nothing else, protect the nuns who saved my life.

  She moved deliberately, remaining behind the desk. I faced a decision. I could draw the gun and attempt a shot. I would probably make it, but the bullet would do nothing but make her angrier. I could use my knife, and I was good with it. The blessed blade would hold her off longer than another weapon would, but it wouldn’t kill her. The only way to kill an Infernal Lord was to take their head or to burn them. I didn’t have my katana and burning down the building wasn’t an option.

  I saw Roberts shift behind her and I stood very still. Yes, she wasn’t alone. Even if I disabled her, the battle was far from over. Roberts was a force unto himself, and he wouldn’t go down easy.

  “You shall not touch her,” Rowan hissed, her eyes on me but her words for Roberts. “She is mine to kill.”

  I grabbed my knife from the sheath, and in one smooth motion, flung it toward the woman. I stared in dismay to see it stop, Roberts’s hand easily closing around the shaft as he plucked it out of the air, right in front of Rowan’s shocked face.

  Rowan made a soun
d, something between a growl and a word, and took a step to the side, coming around the desk. I prepared to move backward, my objective to arrive at the door before either of the demons could reach me. Then my gaze fell on the suit of armor and the sword. I darted to the corner, my back to my adversaries, when Rowan’s voice was cut off with a hiss.

  I jerked my head up to see Roberts standing behind Rowan, my dagger buried deep between her shoulder blades. Rowan reached behind her trying to take hold of the dagger, her fingers slapped away by Roberts. He shoved her towards me and with one motion, I yanked the sword from the armored fist and swung it towards the Infernal Lord.

  The blade glinted in the sickly yellow light from the window as it cut straight through muscle and bone, severing her head, the body landing at the feet of the suit of armor and her head bouncing across the floor to land by Roberts.

  He bent and lifted her high, his fingers tangled in the silver knot of hair on the top of her disembodied head. Her eyes were still brilliant, her mouth moving, empty air escaping. Then a spark of black started somewhere in her chest, and the darkness spread with swift ferocity, across her body, through her limbs, climbing up her throat and leaping the gap to her head, streaming over her cheeks and into her dead eyes, until her whole body erupted in a burst of brimstone and ash.

  The fragments of her head tumbled to Roberts’s feet, and he remained there, his hand where her throat had been. Holding something else as well. It was a chain with a heavy amulet, the one Rowan wore proudly when I entered the room. I realized it wasn’t a broach, as I thought, but something much more valuable. It was one of the artifacts they were collecting, the source of power for the creation of the Soulless. The center of the amulet featured what appeared to be an ancient Egyptian coin, one I remembered listed on the paperwork from the warehouse.