Jill chuckled. “Yeah…what the hell is it about this town anyway? What makes it so special?”
“No one knows for sure,” Polyxia said. “Not even the Guard…not really. But there is certainly something here. An ancient power that most beings—mortal and immortal alike—don’t fully understand. It’s a power that calls to other forms of power. I believe your father,” she said, nodding towards Jill, “sensed it when he decided to live here.”
“Is there any way we can use it to our advantage when facing the Guard?” Nikki asked.
“I don’t know,” Polyxia said. “But I’d think not. If there is power here that you can tap into, then the Guard will be able to access it as well.”
“Well, will it give them any advantage?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.”
The three women sat at the table, drinking their coffee, thinking about the day ahead. They all came to the same, crushing realization: A terrible battle was in their future, and there was nothing they could do but wait to face it.
2
Not content to sit idly by at the cabin while Saul rested, Nikki thought it might be a good idea to head to the library to do some research on Red Creek. If there was some sort of a power vein in Red Creek that was as old as time itself, as Polyxia had suggested, maybe there was some way for them to tap into it. Nikki hated to leave even a single avenue of opportunity unexplored.
Jill tagged along with her, just as anxious and restless as Nikki. As they drove through town towards the library, Nikki was again overcome with the reality of what had transpired in a few short days. So much death had occurred here in the last day or so – and a great deal of it had been dealt out by Nikki herself. Red Creek didn’t seem like a town anymore; it seemed like an elaborate graveyard.
Neither of them was surprised when they got to the library and found it locked. Every single business in Red Creek was shut down, or seemed to be, and the library was no exception. After a moment of consideration, Jill pulled a small concrete angel statue out of the tiny flower bed that ran along the front of the building and sent it sailing through the upper glass portion of the entrance. The sound of breaking glass seemed abstract in a very eerie way, echoing loudly in the quiet of the town.
Nikki reached in, careful not to cut herself on the shards of glass that still stuck to the doorframe, and unlocked the door. They stepped in and found that, unsurprisingly, they had the library to themselves. It was a modest little library; the children’s corner took up almost a full quarter of the place. Nikki and Jill walked through the stacks until they finally found a small section that was devoted to local history.
The two women pulled several titles down. They even found card catalogues that referred to old newspapers. An investigation led them to their storage place: A back room that looked as if it had not been touched in decades.
They sat in a pair of old beaten chairs in the back of the library – an area that had until very recently served as a study hall. Nikki had spent quite a few of her summer days as a teen here, reading about sex and drugs and whatever other taboo topics she could find. It was also here, though, that she’d discovered—really discovered, in ways that school had never allowed—Hemingway, Faulkner, and Melville. Nikki felt the ghost of her old self sitting there with her, a memory of the person she had once been and a reminder of how that part of her life was now gone forever.
There was nothing about magic in Red Creek’s history – at least nothing stated in explicit terms. But there were a few records that made Nikki and Jill wonder if maybe the power that Polyxia had mentioned was not more tangible that any of them had thought.
The town of Red Creek had been formed in 1799 and after its first year, had boasted a modest population of 85. By 1820, the population had reached over 500, mainly because of the railroads that were being built through the town. It was at this point in history that strange things seemed to pop up in Red Creek.
In 1822, a group of men broke out into a fight while putting down railroad track just west of the area now known as Filth Camp. Four men were killed, one of whom was caught tearing a man’s throat out with his teeth. Another member of the fight died when a railroad spike was nailed through his head.
The town’s history was sprinkled with such little bits of violence. There were also a number of “unexplained” cases. For instance, there was the story of a girl who went missing in 1875 at the age of ten, and then re-appeared three years later looking like she had aged at least ten years during her absence. Upon her rediscovery, family and acquaintances claimed that the girl was under the control of demons and was essentially run out of town. A month later, a Red Creek resident was charged with the girl’s murder after she entered town again. The man burned her to death on Main Street, attracting a crowd of at least one hundred spectators.
There was also a story about a location in town that Nikki had never heard of, although it had been the topic of folklore for most of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In an old burned out tobacco barn in the woods outside of an abandoned farm just on the outskirts of town, more than twenty women had been raped, beaten, and eventually burned to death. The women had all been accused of witchcraft, although a formal trial was never held. The one grainy picture of the barn that Nikki could find gave her the creeps; it looked like something from one of those horror movies filled with torture and blood rather than monsters.
There were other stories of demonic possession, missing persons, unsolved murders, disappearances, and so on. Jill stopped reading when she reached history that was more recent; skimming over a news article about the unsolved murder of her father felt like she was jabbing needles into her own heart.
“So are you thinking this was a waste of time?” Nikki asked, noticing Jill’s hesitancy to continue.
Jill shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. It’s pretty clear that this town has its dark secrets, but if there’s any ancient power behind it, I have no idea where to start looking. I think it’s one of those cases where it would actually be easier for an outsider to feel it and locate it.”
“Want to get out of here then?” Nikki said. “Saul should be awake by now.”
Before Jill could answer, another voice called out from the front of the library.
“Awake?” the voice asked in a mocking tone. “What was he doing asleep? Doesn’t he know this town is at its end?”
When Nikki and Jill turned to the front of the building, they were both shocked. For a moment, they couldn’t move—could barely even blink.
The Guard stood before them. Nikki noticed at once that Magdeline was not among them. Without Polyxia or Magdeline, they looked a lot less threatening, but Nikki knew that thinking any member of the Guard less than lethal was beyond stupid. Moorcheh, Aimon, Dominiscus and Benali were more than enough reason to worry…especially when she and Jill were outnumbered two-to-one.
“Surely the old witch told you we were coming,” Aimon said.
Jill and Nikki remained quiet. Neither of them wanted to put Polyxia into any more of a bind than she already was.
“Why are you here?” Jill asked, trying to misdirect them.
“To do what the Greely clan and Gestalt’s Rogues could not do,” Benali said. “We’ve come to rid the spirit world of the Benton clan.”
“Why?” Nikki asked, hating the pleading tone that betrayed her voice.
“Because the Benton clan is a disgrace,” Dominiscus said. His gigantic voice was what Nikki imagined a tree might sound like if it could talk. “Because your insipid father worked towards merging our two worlds.”
“If you continued to speak poorly of my father,” Jill said, “you’ll get the war that you’ve come here for.”
“Poor little girl,” Moorcheh said. “We’ll have our war anyway. And you, it seems, will be the first casualty.”
At this, Moorcheh lifted his hand and made a twisting motion. In response, the book case closest to Jill and Nikki came crashing down on
top of Jill. She screamed as she went to the ground, the heavy wood of the case and the hundreds of thousands of pages storming down upon her.
Nikki did her best to react, trying to run to the side in an attempt to get around the four Guard members, but they were too quick. Aimon, the demon, was dashing towards her with his talons out. He slashed at her hard, but she managed to sidestep the attack. His claws tore into her shoulder of her shirt, barely tearing through her skin.
Nikki countered with her own attack, catching Aimon by the back of the head and delivering a blow to his back. Her punch seemed to do absolutely nothing. Aimon wheeled around, grinned at her with shark-like yellow teeth, and slapped her hard across the face.
Nikki saw nothing but a white flash for a good two seconds. She was vaguely aware of her feet leaving the ground and then striking a reading desk. She cried out and tried to get to her feet, but Aimon was there again. Behind him, the other Guard members began to head towards Jill.
Nikki tried opening up the mental link that she had started to build with Saul—the same mental link that Jill had with him. But she could feel the Guard’s presence in her head, blocking her attempts to reach outward.
“Please...” she said, doing her best in inject human fear into her voice.
The look of joy on Aimon’s face told her that he bought it. The moment he smiled, she threw a hard right foot out at him that caught him directly in the stomach.
Polyxia had said that the Guard would be in mortal form. If that were the case, Aimon had the body of a well-trained athlete. Nikki felt as if she had just kicked a brick wall. Still, it did just enough to cause Aimon to stagger. Still dizzy from the slap, Nikki rolled off of the table and onto the floor. She staggered forward, dashing for the bookshelf that had fallen on Jill. Nikki knew that she had already lost the fight, but she had to at least try to help Jill.
Nikki had no more than placed a hand on the bookshelf before Benali was on her. In his flesh-focused body, he looked strange. It was almost like he was wearing a nylon suit that was completely black in color. His touch was cold and even colder still when he wrapped his arms around her and started to squeeze.
“I wonder,” Benali said, “how blinded by fury Saul would be after I kill you.”
As he clung to her, Dominiscus and Moorcheh lifted the bookcase off of Jill. They tossed it halfway across the library where it turned over a Friends of the Red Creek Library display and then broke in half. Books went flying like birds, falling dead to the floor.
Jill was getting to her feet, a look of rage on her face. She instantly delivered a punch to Moorcheh, who was standing closest to her. He blocked it easily and kicked her in the ribs. The kick was so fierce that it actually lifted her off the ground nearly a foot. Jill coughed as she collapsed onto her stomach and tried getting to her feet again. She tasted blood in her mouth; she tried to focus on the anger the taste brought, shutting out the instinctual fear.
Summoning all of the power she could find within her, Nikki rolled her head to the side and bobbed in backwards as hard as she could. The pain she felt as her head collided with Benali’s face was excruciating, but the crunching noise she heard made it worth it.
Benali roared and his grip eased for just a moment. Nikki freed herself by flexing her arms during his surprise and in a catlike motion that surprised even her, she spun completely around Aimon as he dove to catch her.
“Run!” Jill screamed.
Clear of the Guard members, Nikki did just that. She knew that Jill could take care of herself and also felt that the Guard likely wouldn’t kill Jill until they had Saul in their possession. She then briefly wondered why they hadn’t gone directly to the cabin in the first place.
Nikki tore her eyes away from Jill, her heart pleading with her to stay and help. It was that brief hesitation that cost her.
As she reached for the door, she felt an immense pressure at her back. She felt as if she had been folded in half as a devastating blow sent her flying forward, directly into the door. Her left side grated against the glass she and Jill and broken to enter; she felt shards digging into her flesh, like knives.
Nikki whirled around and saw Dominiscus smiling at her. Having no other option and knowing that it would hurt like hell, Nikki pursed her lips and pushed herself through the top portion of the door frame. The glass tore at her; she felt one piece dislodge and slip between her ribs. She let out a moan as she finally made it through. She was dimly aware of the glass tearing into her jeans as she fell out of the library and onto the sidewalk.
She scrambled to her feet, the pain in her side immense. She looked back and saw Dominiscus coming. Too tall to walk through the doorway, he had to duck. When he did, he kicked the doors open; the force of his kick was so hard that the left door came off its hinges and fell out onto the sidewalk.
Nikki gasped, not even wanting to imagine what the giant would do if he got his hands on her. As she tried to get to her feet, she saw the concrete angel that she and Jill had taken from the garden to smash the windows from the doors. Feigning defeat, she let out a moan and fell on it, hoping the giant hadn’t seen. The glass dug deeper into her with the motion. Nikki bit back a cry of pain and did her best to remain still.
As she lay on the sidewalk, Nikki thought she could easily give up. She felt blood gushing out of her side, the glass there stinging like countless bees. The thought of moving anymore was just too much.
But then she felt Dominiscus halt beside her, felt his hand reaching down for her.
Nikki rolled over onto her back, the concrete angel held in both hands. She lifted her arms and swung it hard. It connected with Dominiscus’s face and shattered into hundreds of grainy pieces. The giant staggered and fell to a knee. His eyes were wide with surprise.
That was the only opening Nikki needed. Yelling in pain, she got to her feet and ran.
She made it just a few steps before she heard Jill screaming in agony from inside the library. Nikki hesitated for a moment but then saw that Dominiscus was already getting to his feet. He was large but he didn’t move with much speed, so Nikki knew she could outrun him.
With tears in her eyes from the pain and the knowledge that she was leaving Jill, Nikki ran behind the library and into the woods. She felt blood soaking through her shirt and running down her legs. Something inside of her felt as if it had been pinched and she wondered if some of the glass had managed to perhaps puncture a lung. She didn’t let such thoughts slow her down.
She ran as fast as she could, towards Saul and home.
3
When Saul woke up, he was almost glad to see that it was still daylight. It came in gently through his curtains, spilling lazily onto the side of the bed that Nikki usually occupied. He wondered where she was for just a moment and then smelled coffee. He supposed she and Jill were enjoying a cup or two and discussing strategies for the fight that as to come.
Saul got dressed and walked out of the bedroom. When he entered the kitchen and saw Polyxia at the kitchen table, he froze.
Magdeline was there with her, her delicate porcelain hands around the old witch’s neck.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Magdeline said.
She then punched Polyxia in the face twice and threw her with tremendous power into the kitchen wall. She hit with such force that the microwave was jarred loose form the wall and the silverware drawer came unhinged.
“Sorry to do that,” Magdeline said, “but three’s a crowd.”
“What do you want?” Saul asked. “And where are Nikki and Jill?”
“Off doing silly girl things, I would think,” Magdeline said. “I have to say, your little clan was terribly unprepared for this.”
“What do you want?” Saul asked again. He tried sending his mental feelers out for Jill but couldn’t seem to make it happen. He assumed it was some trickery put in place by Magdeline and the Guard.
“To destroy you,” Magdeline said simply. She glanced to Polyxia, who was still crumpled on the kitchen floor, unmovi
ng. “But first, I want to cause pain to everyone you love.”
That said, she stepped forward and walked slowly to Saul. Saul stood motionless at the edge of the kitchen as she approached him. He knew right away what she was trying to do—her abilities of seduction were legendary. He had never understood how Magdeline’s powers worked, but as she came sauntering across the kitchen towards him, he felt them firsthand. It was something in her eyes that locked on to every single male impulse within his body. Human, vampire, beast…Saul didn’t think it mattered. If Magdeline wanted a male’s attention, she damn well got it.
“If you come near me,” Saul said, “I’ll break you neck.”
“Oh darling, I seriously doubt that. Tell me something, Saul Benton…how is it that you—a perfect male specimen if there ever was one—managed to get yourself mired down with a human girl? It has to be boring to fuck that same little mortal girl over and over again.”
“She’s more than mortal now.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” Magdeline said, as if she were bored. “But still….you know that you’re missing out on so much. Saul…you could have any woman you wanted. Why waste yourself on such a tiny and insignificant little girl?”
Saul watched her mouth speaking, her lips like velvet. Magdeline’s eyes were hypnotizing and he could smell her as she got closer. Somehow, before he knew it, she was standing directly in front of him.
“I’ll kill you,” Saul said.
“Really? I doubt that. Even if you wanted to, I’d easily best you. You and I…we will have our quarrel later. But for now…I want to show you what you’re missing by giving that little girl all of this.”
At this, she reached out and gently cupped his crotch. It wasn’t until that very moment that Saul realized that the thought of being with Magdeline had gotten him hard. He was aching, the shape of his manhood hard and perfectly outlined against his pants.
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