And if I found his answers lacking…well, maybe it was about time I broke my cardinal rule. I wasn’t going to let the old bastard get away with my parents’ murder.
15
Less than an hour remained before the demon, whose name I still didn’t know, would claim Celeste’s soul. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was already at the mansion, waiting to strike her bargain when the demon materialized at midnight.
Of course, that was assuming the demon was sticking to this time zone. For all I knew, it might be operating on Tokyo time. But I didn’t think so. Horne had made his bargain in the Cursed City. Celeste had found me here. Every sign pointed to this being the locus of whatever bad shit was about to go down.
Desmond Horne’s mansion was still about a quarter of a mile away, but I couldn’t drive closer to the property without the risk being spotted by the security team. A stranger wearing an increasingly rumpled trench coat doesn’t quite blend in with the woods, but I had a plan. Architectural Digest recently ran a piece on the estate, and I’d gleaned some helpful information from the article. What amounted to a small army patrolled the mansion and surrounding wild park around the clock. Odds were good that I might run into one of Horne’s armed men before I even got close to the wrought iron gate.
In fact, I was counting on it.
I popped open the Equus Bass’ trunk and opened the titanium case stashed in the back. A white mask sculpted to look like a horned monster stared back at me. It was made in the style of traditional Noh theater masks, and according to Skulick it had belonged to a fourteenth century Japanese mage. If you’re asking yourself why I was about to don an ancient Japanese mask while trudging through the forest, I can assure you I had a perfectly logical explanation for my odd behavior.
Noh masks were carved from cypress wood and had to be light since performances often lasted for hours. The mask did make my skin itch and limited my peripheral vision somewhat, but if my plan worked, it would all be worth it.
As I moved through the dense underbrush, I kept thinking of my last visit to the countryside. Staring at the bare trees ahead, my mind cycled back to the poor campers who’d succumbed to the Blackmore Witch’s horrific magic. Was Celeste destined to end up like the witch in the woods, nothing more than a twisted, evil creature corrupted by magic? I doubted she’d spare me on our next encounter. For the upcoming round, I wouldn’t allow misplaced sentiment to hold me back.
After about a half an hour, I sensed movement nearby and grew still. The crackle of a walkie-talkie told me a guard was zeroing in on my position. The foliage parted, and a man sporting a gun emerged from the bushes. Black fatigues encased his muscular physique, and pair of cunning eyes surveyed the area from a meaty, florid face.
I looked at the man through the magical Noh mask, really took in the details of his roughly chiseled visage, before I stepped up to him. The man pivoted, and his weapon found me. There was a moment of surprise that gave way to shock and a trace of horror. Running into your doppelganger could have that effect on the most hardened individual.
The mask’s magic had allowed me to copy the guard’s appearance. To the outside world, I would be: Bob Cohen, former Special Operator turned gun for hire, currently employed by Desmond Horne.
Before the real Bob Cohen could gun me down, the palm of my hand snapped out and karate chopped his throat. His eyes rolled up as the oxygen supply to his brain was cut off, and he dropped to the ground face first.
The history of my magical Noh mask had been lost to time. Some legends claimed some mad thespian had turned to magic in the hopes of achieving the ultimate performance. I’d acquired the item while hunting a group of vampire ninjas under the control of the undead samurai Makaze, and I hadn’t exactly taken the time to find an owner’s manual for the artifact. What I did know was this: far more than a mere magical disguise, the wearer of the mask could access the vital information of the person they were impersonating. Don’t ask me how it works; there’s a reason they call it magic. I now knew everything Bob Cohen did about the estate, from the entire layout of the Horne property to the various security routines and names of the other guards. Pretending to be someone else could get you only so far. Knowing your enemy’s secrets—now that was true power and the key to a successful infiltration.
I scooped up the downed man’s walkie-talkie and gun and continued toward the house. Ten minutes later, I arrived at the grim, imposing Horne mansion. The sprawling home was constructed in the Gothic style with solid, polished columns and resplendent well-crafted moldings. The majestic facade exuded a malignant, sinister quality. It felt like it belonged to a different time and place.
I pressed through the gate and exchanged a few quick words with the other guards I came across. The mask modulated my voice, making me sound like the man I was impersonating. Even the all-seeing eyes of an electronic surveillance system would be fooled by the mask’s magic. To the world I was Bob Cohen, member of the Horne security team.
A collection of luxury cars that looked like a car thief’s wet dream were parked in the cobblestone driveway. I passed a few other armed guards, and they waved at me, seemingly pleased to see good ol’ Bob. Despite the intimidating appearance of the man whose identity I’d momentarily borrowed, he appeared to be popular among his co-workers.
My walkie-talkie crackled as I walked up to the mansion’s main entrance. “Five-Nine to base. We have a problem!”
There was panic in the guard’s voice. Had one of the security guy’s stumbled upon the real Bob Cohen? I turned around and my pulse hitched. A thick fog was forming around the property, the tendrils of yellowish condensation everywhere. All too soon, the mist would engulf the estate and seep into the mansion.
The demon was approaching fast. I checked my watch. Thirty minutes until the fireworks began.
The fog wasn’t after me this time, which meant Celeste was already in the mansion. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I cursed inwardly. I’d been playing catch-up with her ever since our meeting back at the coffee shop. She was displaying a real knack for always being one step ahead of me.
With a renewed sense of urgency I strode into the Horne mansion. No one paid me any attention as I navigated the endless corridors. I was a familiar face doing my job of keeping the Horne home safe from anyone foolish enough to breach its defenses.
Oh, the irony.
The closer I got to my goal, the more my blood began to boil. I was eager to confront Desmond Horne and hadn’t pondered what would happen beyond that point. To be honest, the dark emotions seething within me scared me. What would I do once I stood before the man who had destroyed my life?
I would know soon enough.
I paused when I reached an open doorway leading into what appeared to be a library. My scar had flared up. I bit my tongue, choking back the pain. The scar might fail to react to the demon that left the mark, but it easily picked up on Celeste’s black magic. Letting my growing agony guide me, I entered the library. The space reminded me a little of the vault back at the loft. I kept moving deeper into the maze of shelves. After about a hundred feet, the pain in my chest intensified so much that I had to stop.
Up ahead, two guards stood by a table stacked with ancient volumes. A man sat leafing through one of the many tomes. It was Eric Horne. For once, I’d beat Celeste to the target. Eric must’ve hit the library as soon as he arrived at his father’s estate. Judging by the occult titles of the tomes around him, he was trying to make sense of her murder spree—and he knew the killer had something to do with the supernatural. Strangely enough, neither the guard nor the youngest Horne, acknowledged my approach.
A moment later, I understood why they were ignoring me. All three of them were dead. The guards sported cyclopean third eyes where bullets had punched through their foreheads. A crimson circle soaked Eric’s Horne shirt, and his white eyes stared lifelessly into space. Closer inspection of the wound would undoubtedly show a three-pronged scar from the Soul Dagger.
What gav
e the scene such a grotesque quality was that Celeste had used an animation spell on these three latest victims, conjuring the illusion of life to the casual observer. My scar was reacting to the black magic electrifying the air, but if a regular guard walked past the library and happened to hazard a glance inside, nothing would seem out of order. Eric Horne simply kept flipping pages, puppeteered by Celeste’s unholy spell.
A walkie-talkie hissed, and one of the guards responded in a monotone voice. The sophistication of the spell served as a sharp reminder of what I was up against here. Celeste must’ve delved into the mysteries of the dark arts for years to pull something like this off. That easily accounted for her disregard for life. She’d murdered her three half-brothers and was clearly willing to add anyone who got in her way to her growing hitlist. Magic was great in theory, but when practiced by humans, its corrupting influence soon infected the thoughts of the practitioner.
These men would still be alive if I had acted faster, been smarter about all of this. I fought back the guilt. This wasn’t the time for doubts and self-recriminations. I had failed to save the Horne brothers but maybe I could still spare their immortal souls an eternity in Hell.
I scanned the library and wondered where were Celeste and Desmond Horne were. By now, Celeste would know the demon was closing in on the Horne estate.
After a moment’s contemplation, I realized there was only one place they could be. Celeste intended to confront the demon in the same place where her soul had been bartered twenty-one years ago. They would be below, in the unholy temple Horne had built beneath his mansion. The only real question was how I could get down there.
Struck by sudden inspiration and guided by the steady throbbing in my chest, I regarded the bookshelves in front of me. With a little luck, my scar might lead me straight to Celeste. It was about time the thing did something useful on this case.
Allowing my pain to show me the way, I wandered like a blind man through the library. After about ten minutes, I stopped in front of a shelf where the dull ache in my chest was at its most pronounced.
This had to be it! The entrance to the temple. I touched the books with the ring of protection. With a flash of magical energy, the Seal of Solomon ignited and the bookshelf evaporated into thin air. The secret doorway to the temple stood revealed.
I pulled open the door and entered the dimly lit space beyond. Stone steps disappeared into the darkness. I unholstered Hellseeker and began to descend the winding flight of stairs.
The pain in my chest intensified with each step. I’d expected a single flight of stairs but the stone steps ran much deeper. As I walked in darkness, I lost all sense of time. At last, I arrived at a doorway framed by two flickering torches. This was it. I opened the wooden door, steeled for the worst.
As far as sites of human sacrifice and demon worship went, I’d seen worse. Torches ran along the walls, offering their scant light and heat. A winged demonic statue loomed at the far end of the temple and formed the centerpiece to this unholy place of worship. A rough-hewn stone altar fronted the idol of evil. Drawing closer, I recognized the man tied to the altar—it was Desmond Horne.
The final sacrifice, I thought.
He was wearing pajamas and an expensive silk nightrobe and looked like he was trying for a role in a Hugh Hefner biopic. Clearly his attacker must’ve caught him off guard in his home.
Guard up, I approached the altar. More details of the statue jumped into view. It was a good rendition of the beast I had first laid eyes upon when I was eight years old. I snapped a picture of the statue with my phone and tried to send it to Skulick but failed to get a signal in the subterranean temple.
Desmond Horne’s wild eyes spotted me, and he desperately strained against the thick ropes holding him down. A gag made it impossible for him to say anything. To Horne, I appeared to be one of his loyal guards who’d arrived in the nick of time.
I walked past him. My gaze probed the temple’s shadows, looking for Celeste. My efforts were quickly rewarded as she stepped from behind the demonic idol.
“You can take off that silly mask, Raven. Your disguise can’t fool me.”
There was a beat of hesitation before I complied. The expression in Desmond Horne’s eyes changed from hope to panic as I reverted to my usual self.
“It’s midnight,” Celeste said. “Looks liked you arrived right on time for the big show.”
16
I didn’t need to check my watch to know that midnight was upon us. The demon was near. Ever since I set foot in the temple, my whole being had been gripped by a sense of animal panic. Despite my years of hunting monsters, the demon’s approach was affecting me in a primal way. The hair on my arms stood up, and my stomach cramped with anxiety. For a moment I was just prey reacting to an approaching predator.
Weirdly enough, replaying my first encounter with the demon allowed me to ride out the waves of terror. Like so many times before, thinking about my dead parents and the beast that had taken their lives turned my fear into anger.
Your chance to face the demon has come. Dad, Mom—today your killer will pay for his crimes.
The torches flickered inside the temple, and the shadows grew more menacing.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” Celeste said. “He’s here. Any moment now, we’ll know if Morgal will accept my terms.”
Morgal. The name sent an electric a jolt through me.
For years, the demon had just been an abstract boogeyman. Now my parents’ killer had a name. It channeled my rage and anger, gave it a specific target. For the first time, closure was a possibility.
But first, I had to make it through the night alive.
Knowing the beast’s name was only the first step. Without Skulick’s knowledge of demonology, there was only one other person in the world who could tell me what I needed to know to defeat this monster. And this man was tied to the altar in front of me.
Muffled sounds of violence rang through the temple and brought my musings to an end. Bursts of machine gun fire echoed from above, followed by screams. I pictured the fog spreading into the mansion, down the long corridors, into the library and ultimately making its way down the secret stairway leading into the temple, all the while unleashing the hellhounds on Horne’s security forces. They didn’t stand a chance against the horror inside the hellish mist.
I focused on Celeste. “I don’t think your father sold your soul to Morgal in exchange for power and money. Your soul was payment for a hit on my parents.”
If Celeste was surprised by this latest revelation, she didn’t show it. Her gaze remained fixed on me.
“I want to know why Horne wanted my father out of the picture.”
“Maybe we can ask Morgal himself?”
At the renewed mention of the demon’s name, a wind rose and an arctic blast blew through the underground temple, extinguishing the torches for good. For a split second the temple was drenched in darkness. I felt a shape passing through that blackness. As it brushed past me, the beast’s hot breath raked my neck. Then the light returned—muted and unnatural, magical in nature, but at least I could see again.
Morgal stood in the nave of the chapel about fifteen feet from my position. Ghostly tendrils of mist swirled around him. He had taken human form now, dressed in a long trench coat like myself.
As the fog cleared, I saw to my horror that Morgal hadn’t dressed himself up in just any human form. He wore my father’s face.
“You’ve made quite a name for yourself in Hell, Raven. Daddy would be so proud.”
The skin bubbled and burned, turning to ash before being blown away by a supernatural gust of air. Now the face had become a blackened death skull, the eyes sockets raging with green-blue fire, the coat transformed in a long, tattered robe that shifted around his form as if alive.
The demon is messing with your mind, I told myself. Just stay calm, Raven. Don’t forget why you’re here.
After that mental pep talk, I tried to draw Hellseeker and found myself ro
oted in place, unable to move my legs or arms. I couldn’t even speak. Somehow Morgal’s magic had overcome my protective talismans with ease and paralyzed me.
Frustration boiled inside of me. My parents’ killer stood less than fifteen feet away from me, and I couldn’t even ask the demon why my folks had to die that night.
As the robed skeleton walked past me, tentacles squirmed under the robe and a pair of giant, batlike wings sprouted from his back. The demon’s appearance remained in a constant state of flux, switching back and forth between a black death skull and a reptilian, horned face. Smoke and mirrors, I realized. Playing on our fears and nightmares. Who knew what the demon truly looked like under its many disguises?
“First, I’m going to collect the prize promised to me,” Morgal said. “Then I’ll deal with you, Raven.”
I didn’t want to picture what “dealing with me” meant. I needed to find a way to break out of my paralyzed state before it was too late. Morgal closed in on Celeste while I continued to watch helplessly. If the demon accepted her deal, Celeste would murder her father and I’d never discover why my parents were forced to pay the ultimate price. Then again, as soon as Celeste was done bargaining for her soul, Morgal would do with me as he pleased. The demon would delight in the knowledge that I’d perish without ever receiving any answers to my questions.
I should have listened to Skulick when he’d told me to come back to the loft instead of following Celeste. I’d let my emotions cloud my actions. Driven by my own need for closure and vengeance, I’d put myself at mortal risk and would now have to pay the price for my foolishness.
Morgal tilted his ever-shifting visage toward me, and said, almost as if he’d read my mind, “How does it feel to be so close to the answers to all your questions, Raven…yet so far away?”
Shadow Detective Supernatural Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (Shadow Detective Boxset) Page 10