He nodded and began to pull the weapons from his bag, laying them out on the hard ground.
Louisa grabbed her Athame and scraped out a circle surrounding the hole Tommy had just dug, then she plunged her knife in and drew a pentagram into the frozen earth. Placing one of the five white candles at each of the five points she lit them, murmuring words Tommy couldn’t quite make out. She placed the five blue candles in between each of the white ones but left them unlit. Placing the burlap bag within reach she also placed the jar of seawater within the confines of the pentagram. Taking the salt, she poured it around the edge of the outer circle making sure it overlapped and encased them both in the smaller spell circle.
The still air was suddenly split by a deep wet growling.
‘What the hell was that?’ Tommy’s eyes widened as he picked up the shotgun.
‘Get ready they’re coming,’ Louisa breathing nervously she stood as close to centre as she could and spread her arms.
‘I call upon the old gods, upon Hecate and Herne to be with us, to watch over us, to guard, guide and protect us, during these rites.’
She crossed her arms over her chest.
‘Blessed be.’
The snarling was getting closer. Tommy raised his weapon, training it on the tree line. His gaze sharpened, his protective instincts in overdrive as his training kicked in. The light was dying, the sky was ablaze with pink and purple, and as the sun slid inexorably towards the horizon a curtain of blackness followed in its wake.
Several pairs of white eyes appeared between the trees, the accompanying sound like no dog or wolf he’d ever heard. It was deeper, louder and somehow wetter than it should be. He glanced down to the ground, mentally taking stock of how much ammo he had and how many of them were appearing in the woods.
‘You’d better hurry Louisa.’
Trying to calm her pounding heart Louisa focused on the circle. Extending her hand she started at the North East and began to turn clockwise. As she did an electric blue light seared the ground around them.
‘I conjure this circle as a place between worlds, as a time out of time, a place of containment and protection.’
She made sure the edges once again overlapped as she had with the salt.
‘Blessed be.’
Tommy’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief as the creatures stepped out of the cover of trees. They were huge, pretty much the size of small horses, their flesh hung bloodied and torn from their bleached white bones, with stray patches of matted fur. Their snarling mouths contained row upon row of tiny needle-pointed teeth.
‘What the fucking hell?’ Tommy gasped.
‘Still think it was a pack of wild dogs?’ Louisa bent to quickly start lighting the blue candles, praying to every God or Goddess that ever was, that this worked otherwise she knew they were both as good as dead.
She stood and raised her hands to the sky as Tommy began firing.
‘Here take this,’ Jake pulled the crescent moon shaped amulet from the neck of his coat and dropped it over her head.
‘What is it?’ Veronica frowned.
‘It’s a protective amulet, it was given to Olivia by the Goddess Diana herself. Olivia, Theo and I all have one.’
‘You should keep it,’ she began to remove it.
‘Don’t,’ he grasped her hand, ‘don’t take it off for any reason.’
She glanced into his eyes, seeing the worry for her.
‘Promise me?’
‘I promise,’ she finally agreed.
‘Nodding he turned back to the circle, trying to light the green coloured candles but frustratingly the light kept sputtering out.
‘God damn it not now,’ he hissed. ‘Where’s Olivia when you need her.’
‘Here.’
‘He turned and caught the lighter Veronica tossed at him.
‘What?’ she shrugged as she caught him staring at her. ‘I smoke the odd cigarette when I’m stressed.’
‘You shouldn’t,’ he shook his head as he started to light the candles, ‘it’s not good for you.’
‘God, now you sound like my brothers.’
‘Yeah?’ he asked in interest, ‘how many?’
‘Two, both older,’ she frowned, ‘in fact they’re the reason I learned to shoot.’
‘They took you shooting?’
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘my therapist thought it would be a good way for me to work out my repressed anger issues. Of course he was a member of the NRA so I think he may have been a bit biased. Still, turns out I was quite good at it and I enjoyed it.’
‘You know you’re nothing like I expected Roni,’ he looked up at her.
‘Is that a compliment?’ she smiled.
‘I guess so.’
She looked up and her breath suddenly caught in her throat.
‘Jake,’ she whispered urgently.
He looked out past the circle to the open space beyond. Creatures were moving slowly towards them, grey and slimy looking, and although they walked upright they moved with an uneven jerky gait, like something out of a really bad zombie movie. Their heads were bald apart from a few spare tufts of grey hair. Their arms, much longer than those of a human, hung down past their knees.
‘What the hell are they?’ Jake breathed.
‘I have no idea,’ Veronica raised her gun.
‘Remember aim for the faces.’
‘Er Jake, I don’t think they have faces.’
He looked back to find she was right. They had no eyes or nose, just a gaping maw with sparse rotting brown human looking teeth.
‘Aim for the legs then,’ he turned back to the circle and moved the jar of earth into the pentagram.
Veronica started shooting and for a moment he was transfixed by the sight of her. Gone was the cute klutzy girl he had become accustomed to and in her place stood a calm confident woman. Her stance widened for perfect balance, her gaze sharp and focused as she took out the legs of several of them, dropping them to the ground one by one. Christ, he swallowed, there wasn’t anything hotter than a woman with a gun.
Shaking his head to try and focus his mind he finished lighting the green candles and stood, throwing his arms up to the sky.
‘I do summon, stir and call thee element of earth. Uriel, guardian of the watchtower of the North I invoke thee, I entreat thee appear before us and lend of us your strength and power.’
Veronica had discarded the shotgun and now held two handguns which she fired simultaneously hitting the grey men dead centre of what should have been their foreheads. The force of the shot knocked them backwards to the ground, but they rolled over and climbed slowly back to their feet. She switched tactics and started taking them out at the kneecaps, but even as they hit the ground they continued to claw their way along the snow towards them.
‘Uriel, I invoke thee, grant us the power to banish these creatures of the nether, let us walk in your light.’
‘Jake,’ Veronica called out urgently, ‘I can’t stop them, nothing’s working.’
‘Uriel, I invoke thee, I entreat thee grant us the power to hold back the darkness.’
The creatures had reached the edge of the circle and were reaching towards Veronica. She stumbled and fell backwards, still shooting as she went down. Jake turned to grab her and they both hit the ground.
‘Uriel,’ Jake shouted to the sky, ‘I invoke thee.’
The outer edge of the circle suddenly erupted into bright green flames and burst outwards. The creatures, caught by the fire, recoiled screaming, their slimy grey flesh blackening and collapsing in on itself until they were no more than hollowed out charred husks, filling the air with an unpleasant smell of burnt flesh.
‘I hope that’s a yes,’ Jake crawled across the circle and dropped the burlap bag into the hole he’d dug and pressed the earth over the top to seal it in.
‘Bag of dirt and bones, a net I seek, bound with magic, sealed with blood,’ he pulled out his knife and cu
t his palm allowing his blood to mingle with the soil, ‘to hold until the morning sun,’ he kept pressing the dirt, ‘bag of dirt and bones, a net I seek, bound with magic, sealed with blood, to hold until the morning sun, bag of dirt and bones, a net I seek…’
He continued to murmur the words over until the ground began to glow with an eerie phosphorescent glow. The bright green light began to rise from the ground filling the circle with light. He fell backwards, tangling up with Veronica who had been watching him intently.
The light kept rising higher and higher, beginning to unfold. As it reached a full twenty feet they realised it had taken the shape of a being. Still it kept going, up and up, until it towered thirty feet above them. Then it unfurled its wingspan another forty feet in width, lighting up the sky with a vivid green glow, a gigantic angel composed entirely of light.
With a mighty cry that made the ground beneath them tremble it bent down and thrust its hand into the ground at its feet. The ground split, the cracks lighting up with green light. It continued to travel along the ground splitting again and again until it resembled a network of blood vessels. It reached the lake and began to spread across its surface, melting the snow as it went and covering the ice in a throbbing green net.
Danae stood panting hard, her silver whip dangling from her hand, her clothes splattered with blood and other gruesomeness. The area around the circle was littered with corpses and various monster body parts as she gazed up at the giant angel of yellow light towering above her and her brother. She watched calmly as it bent and speared its hand into the ground sending out vines of yellow light across the lake, which laced together with the green ones spreading over from the other side. As soon as the new net settled over the ice the angel crouched down using his huge wingspan to encircle them and create a dome of soft warm yellow light.
‘That’s two down,’ Danae breathed hard, as her heart rate began to settle, ‘it’s coming from the North. That’s Veronica and Jake. See I told you the girl would come through.’
‘So you say,’ he replied pulling out his two way. ‘For all you know she could be dead.’
‘Charming,’ she muttered dryly.
‘Just being realistic,’ he shrugged hitting the button. ‘Jake…Jake come in…are you both okay?’
He listened to the static for a few moments before the line crackled.
‘We’re both good,’ came the reply, ‘bit freaked out about the giant green angel though.’
Davis chuckled lightly.
‘Just whatever you do stay inside the circle until we say otherwise, you’ll be safe in there.’
‘Yeah, if we don’t freeze first.’
‘You won’t freeze; do you feel cold at all?’
‘No, now that you mention it.’
‘That’s because you’ve just released enough power to heat three Olympic sized swimming pools. Trust me, you’ll be fine in there.’
‘Okay, have you heard from the others?’
‘Not yet, sit tight for now. We’ll let you know when there’s been a change.’
‘Okay.’
Danae looked up as she saw another ray of light illuminate the night sky, this time pure blue. A head and shoulders, followed by a massive wingspan, appeared above the tree line and then suddenly disappeared. Moments later thin ribbons of blue light crawled across the ice like tentacles, weaving themselves seamlessly between the yellow and green ones.
‘Got another,’ Danae murmured.
‘That’s Louisa and Tommy,’ Davis replied looking up. ‘Just Charles and Mac to go; what the hell are they up to?’
Mac let loose another shot as the bodies began to pile up. He had no idea what the creatures were but they didn’t seem to be able to withstand the silver bullets. Another shrieked and flapped across the sky as Mac aimed and fired. It crashed violently to the ground in a mad tumble of wings and claws, sliding towards the edge of the circle spraying them with snow. Behind him he could hear Charles but he didn’t have time to pay attention to the words, as something crashed through the tree line on four legs and headed straight for them.
‘Charles!’ he shouted in alarm as the bullets punched through its body, not even slowing it down. ‘CHARLES!’
Mac fell back as it bunched its powerful muscles and leapt for the circle.
Suddenly the perimeter of the circle burst into deep red flames and the creature exploded. He could hear Charles kneeling close to the ground burying the strange cloth covered ball and muttering the same words over and over, but he barely paid attention. His mouth fell open and he tilted his head upwards to watch as a huge angel appeared and unfolded it’s wings high above them. It suddenly crouched down and punched its hand through the dirt, which cracked and lit up like red veins spreading across to the lake and stretching out across the ice. He was so engrossed watching the red threads weave their way through the multi-coloured net coating the surface he didn’t even register Charles standing behind him. There was a sudden sharp pain across the back of his head and then he was falling into blackness.
Charles tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and rolled Mac over, checking his pulse. Satisfied that it was strong and steady he took the two way and laid it on Mac’s chest, wrapping his fingers around it. He looked up and saw the angel’s wings descending towards him. He jumped to his feet and leapt head first out of the circle seconds before its wings enveloped the circle and bathed it in a protective red glow.
Charles hit the ground, growling in pain. His muscles locked up and his body felt as if it were on fire. It couldn’t have been helped, he didn’t have time to open a proper exit from the circle and it was always painful trying to cross a magic barrier that was designed not only to keep things out but to keep you in. Climbing slowly to his feet as the pain began to subside he took a deep shaky breath before looking at Mac’s unconscious form on the other side of the, now impenetrable, shield.
‘I’m sorry Mac,’ he whispered, ‘but Isabel is my responsibility.’
Satisfied that Mac would be safe he turned and disappeared into the night.
Olivia tracked through a deep snow drift, weaving through the trees with her flash light highlighting the path in front of her. Theo kept pace silently next to her. They’d parked the truck as close as they could but Louisa was right, the road was thick with almost two decades of fallen branches and trees and there was no way to get through. With no other alternative they made their way through the woods to the lake, where they could cross to the private beach at the foot of the cliff.
They broke through the trees and the lake came into view. Olivia’s eyes widened as she saw the brightly coloured tapestry woven across the surface of the lake. In the distance she could just about make out the muted colours glowing through the trees and she could only pray that her friends were safe.
‘I guess the spell worked,’ Theo spoke quietly in the stillness.
She glanced at him, not saying a word as she made her way down to the lake edge. Theo stepped down from the rocky outcropping onto the ice and slid slightly but remained upright. Turning towards Olivia he held out his hand to help her.
She stepped down, ignoring his offered hand as she continued to walk carefully across the ice. It wasn’t far to the private beach, she could see it from where they were.
‘Olivia?’ he called to her but she kept on walking.
‘Olivia?’ he caught up with her and stopped her. ‘Is this the way it’s going to be between us from now on, with you ignoring me? You’ve barely said anything to me since last night.’
‘Really?’ she retorted, ‘you want to do this right now?’
‘Olivia,’ he sighed, ‘look I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Mary.’
‘You think that’s what this is about?’ she glared angrily at him. ‘You think that’s why I’m mad at you?’
‘Then what?’ he asked as she started walking again.
‘Olivia,’ he caught her arm once again and stepped in front of he
r so she had no choice but to face him. ‘You’re not running away, not this time, talk to me.’
‘You want the truth?’ she snapped.
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t care that you were married before you met me, I don’t even care that you didn’t tell me about her. I even understand why you didn’t.’ She took a deep breath, ‘what I’m upset about is that you knew,’ her eyes narrowed, ‘you knew, she was in my house and you didn’t tell me.’
‘Olivia,’ he began as he shook his head.
‘Theo, she could have slit my throat in the middle of the night, or yours. She could have burned the house down around us, did that not occur to you?’
She could tell by the sudden stunned realisation on his face that the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
‘She was in my house Theo, the one place,’ her voice broke angrily, ‘the one place I’m supposed to feel safe and you took that from me. Now you tell me, how am I supposed to trust you now?’
‘God,’ he breathed as a heavy weight settled on his chest, ‘I’m so sorry Livy.’
The ice beneath their feet suddenly trembled alarmingly and the night air reverberated with an ominous cracking sound. They both turned to look out towards the centre of the lake.
‘What is that?’ Olivia frowned.
A shard of ice suddenly punched through the surface lifting the brightly coloured net, another breached the surface at an odd angle, followed by another. Even from this distance she could hear the whoosh of the water as it was forced up through the hole. The ice continued to snap and break, spearing up in great jagged spires.
‘We’re running out of time,’ Olivia gasped as Theo grabbed her hand and hauled her towards the beach.
They tried to run as fast as they could but slipped and slid across the ice, hanging onto each other trying to keep their balance. They could feel the ice heaving and vibrating beneath their feet but they didn’t dare turn back. They finally made it to the beach, trudging through the snow as quickly as they could, looking for the steps leading up.
The Ferryman (The Guardians Series 1 Book 2) Page 35