by Steve McHugh
"I've heard enough," Agent Reid said and shot Maxwell in the centre of his chest, throwing him off his feet and onto the soft grass.
Nobody admonished Agent Reid for the act. Hell if I'd been holding a gun, I'd have done the same, but even so, no one moved or spoke.
"You stupid fucking idiots," Maxwell said, getting back to his feet. His shirt was drenched in red and clinging to his chest, two large holes where his heart used to be. "You can't even kill my puppet. What chance do you have of killing me?"
"The head," Sky said.
Olivia was still shocked, and more than a little scared, and didn't argue as I removed her Glock from its holster.
"Going to tear all of your flesh from your bones," Maxwell said. His voice was raspy and no longer resembled anything remotely human.
I walked over to him and raised the gun. "Go fuck yourself," I said, and pulled the trigger, destroying Maxwell's brain and a large portion of Maxwell's skull. The corpse fell to the ground, where I put another two in what remained of his head. Just in case.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, as Olivia slumped to the ground, her gaze never leaving Maxwell's body.
"A puppet," Sky said, not sounding all that together herself. "Some liches can take control of the bodies of those they've killed." She raised Maxwell's sleeve to show a marking painted on his forearm in blood.
"This is all new to me," I said, and noticed Agent Reid checking on Olivia.
"New to me, too, Nate. I've heard of it happening twice. Ever." Sky removed a phone from her pocket. "I need to make a call-this has just gotten a lot worse."
I left Sky to her conversation and walked over to Olivia, who appeared to be slightly more with it. "You want to talk about it?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"How does the lich know you?" Sky asked as she joined us.
"Peter Jarvis would dress as a cop, pull women over and pretend that they'd done something, or that there was a problem with their car. Once he got them into his own car, he took them to a secluded house he owned where he would rape and kill them. He took a week with each one. He murdered sixteen women in a twenty-four month period, until he got caught by Vicki."
I remembered reading the file in Vicki's basement.
"His own girlfriend caught him?" Sky asked.
"After she left him, Vicki had heard rumours that he was involved in some bad stuff. She thought it was drugs or something, so followed him to his little nest and caught him as he was about to murder a young woman."
"So, why does he hate you?"
"Because she called and asked if I'd go with her. She was terrified of him. He fought back when we found him and pretty much got his ass kicked by me while Vicki freed the latest girl he'd taken."
"He changed his M. O," I said. "These new girls aren't raped, aren't held for a week. What happened?"
"He did," Sky said as she rejoined us. "Liches can't get it up. So, if he can't have his fun, then why keep them alive?"
"So who raped Vicki's girlfriend, Amber?" I asked.
"Neil confessed on the way to the prison," Reid said.
I was suddenly no longer bothered that he'd died. Horribly. "So, do you have a plan?" I asked Olivia
"Peter's apartment isn't too far from Winchester city centre. We could go look around, see if anything jumps out at us.
"It's been a few years, what if someone else lives there now?" I asked.
"About six weeks ago, Vicki got me to check the place out," Olivia said. "She wanted to make sure no one lived there. I think the anniversary had her spooked."
With good reason, I thought. "Did you find anything?" I asked.
"No one had lived there since Peter was arrested, but it was still paid for on a regular basis."
"Who's paying for it?"
"No idea, someone opened a bank account and deposits a few grand on the first of January every year. It's used to automatically pay the bills and that's it. I tried tracing the account owner, but that was a dead end. It's under an assumed name with no apparent ties to anyone Peter might have known. Whoever arranged it covered their tracks well."
"Well, let's go find out what the apartment's been used for."
Chapter 31
Agent Reid and Sky went to watch over Tommy and Kasey, while I went with Olivia to investigate Peter Jarvis's old building.
As it turned out, the building was an unassuming four-story block of flats. One might have expected it to be dark and creepy, or at the very least have the aura of a place where a serial killer once lived. Instead, it looked the same as every other building on the road-red bricked with a small, tidy garden out the front, and steps leading up to the front door.
We walked up to the blue front door, which was unlocked. Olivia pulled it open and we stepped into the hallway.
"Not too concerned about security, are they?" I said.
"This is an affluent neighbourhood, with little crime. And five years is a long time. Most of the people here wouldn't have been around during the time of Peter and his crimes, and no one who lived in this building back then still does."
"You really did check up on this asshole, didn't you?"
Olivia and I started up the stairs.
"Apparently not enough."
"You couldn't possibly think he was going to turn himself into a lich."
Olivia stopped walking before we'd reached the landing above. "No. You're right, I couldn't have. But I could have looked into him more after Vicki disappeared. I should have taken the possibility of his return into account. And I didn't."
"And neither would anyone else in your shoes. A lich is such a rare event that it would be near the bottom of possibilities for the attacks on those women. I've fought a lich before, and even I didn't consider that one could be behind those murders."
"I know, I just… I feel like I've been five steps behind since Vicki's disappearance. And now she's dead. Turned into a monster by that… cunt. And after all that he threatens my family."
"Your family are safe. They have agents and Sky with them. And Tommy isn't exactly a slouch when it comes to taking care of himself. And we both know how safe Kasey is with that much security around her. They're safer than we are."
Olivia forced a smile. "You really are not what I'd expected."
"I'm an enigma wrapped inside a riddle, all bundled in something quite wonderful."
"It’s nice to see you have a healthy opinion of yourself."
"It's a burden I live with every day."
Olivia's smile was genuine. "You and Tommy are both idiots."
"Says the woman who had his child," I said as we stopped outside Peter Jarvis's door.
"Moment of weakness," she said, and stared at the plain brown door intently. "I hope there's something important in there. Or at least useful."
"Only one way to find out."
Olivia stepped back from the door and created a sledgehammer of water in her hands, freezing it solid and then smashing it into the door just above the lock. It took two swings to destroy the lock and knock the door open. The ice instantly evaporated and she walked through the ruined door.
I followed, closing the door as best as I could behind me. It shut out most of the natural light from the window on the landing, and encased Olivia and me in darkness. Not the ideal start to invading a serial killer's home.
Olivia soon found the light switch and dull fluorescent light showed us a normal hallway, albeit a dark one, with pictures on the wall and some bookshelves along with several doors.
"You know, this is the second home I've been in that was owned by a psychotic murderer," I said. "And both of them have appeared completely…"
Olivia opened the first door inside the apartment.
"Holy shit," I said as I stared at the madness beyond.
The room itself was fairly normal-a rather hideous green carpet with a small camp bed in the centre, one small bedside table and a lamp. It was what was on the walls that frightened and horrified. There were pictures of O
livia. Someone, probably Neil, had been stalking her, but there were hundreds of photos covering the walls. They were interspersed with photos taken of the bodies of the dead women; creating the most disturbing wallpaper of all time.
"He slept in here," Olivia said, removing a photo of her from the wall and throwing it on the floor with disgust.
"These photos of the murdered women weren't taken by Neil. Peter must have done them himself. It would be more personal for him."
"I feel sick," Olivia whispered. "Neil was following me around all this time." She tore another picture from the wall and showed it to me. "This is one of Kasey and me. That fucking cunt took a photo of my daughter. If he wasn't already dead, I'd tear his fucking head off myself."
I took the pictures from Olivia's shaking hands and tossed them onto the floor.
"Burn it," she said. "Burn all of it."
"We need to look around more-we can't do that if I set fire to the building."
Olivia grabbed a large bunch of the photos, most of which appeared to be of her and Kasey, and tore them all off the wall, exposing the blue paint behind them.
As I was leaving the room, I noticed one picture that stood out from the rest. It was of Peter and four other men, all of whom were in police uniform. "The four ghouls he created in that basement, they were his friends. And they were cops."
"It was thought that some people in the police tried to conceal evidence during his trial, but nothing was ever proven." Olivia shuddered. "Let's keep searching."
I made sure to shut the door on our way out of the room; I didn't want Olivia getting all pyromaniac on me. There were four more doors along the hallway. The first two led to nothing but empty rooms, and by the time we'd reached the second to last door, I was beginning to think there was nothing here worth bothering with.
I opened the door and very quickly realised how wrong I'd been. Although it didn't contain anything quite as crazy as the first room, I did find three leather-bound books on a desk next to a large window with a chair in front of it. I picked up the first book and turned it over in my hands.
At first I thought it was just a journal, as there were no markings to set it apart as anything important. But when I opened it, I realised exactly what I was holding. "I don't know how this is possible," I said to myself.
"What's wrong?" Olivia asked, taking the book from my hands and flicking through it. "What is this?"
"It's a copy of a six-hundred-year-old book that details how to become a lich. A book that should be locked away on Avalon to stop anyone getting hold of it."
"What are the other two?" Olivia asked picking up the second book and handing it to me without opening it, as she flicked through the last one.
I read the information contained within the second leather book with haste. "It's his journal," I said. "It details every single murder he's ever committed. Including the ones since he became a lich, he says he wanted to make them all pay. He blames you a lot, Olivia. Mostly for taking away Vicki and getting him caught."
I flicked through a few more pages and came to a photo that had been glued into the back of the journal. It was a copy of the one I'd found in Vicki's house, the picture of her and her friends, the six other victims. I showed it to Olivia.
"He wrote something underneath," I said. "He wrote, and I quote, 'Those fucking bitches need to die. They helped Vicki get away from me. She was never meant to leave. She said she'd love me always. Fucking whores will all pay for what they did. Vicki is paying right now. I can hear her scream when I close my eyes. And when everything is done, when I'm content that all of the wrongs have been righted, I'm going after that LOA bitch.'"
I paused, then said, "And, you know what, Olivia? I think I'll stop there."
"Keep going."
"No. I'm not giving you more ammo to do something stupid. You're already angry and emotions are high, you don't need to hear any more of his insane ramblings."
“Point taken. You should take a look at this." Olivia passed me the book she'd been reading. "It's a history of insanity."
The last book was a chronology of not only Peter's behaviour, but that of several of his ancestors. A mixture of paper cuttings and copies of the crime reports from the police gave a stark and dangerous view into Peter's mind. His father was a drunk and regularly beat both him and his mother, finally getting arrested at the age of thirty-six. He was dead a few hours later, found hanging in his own cell. Peter would have been eight years old.
Peter's grandfather was similarly tainted with a seemingly endless rage. He was arrested and convicted of the murder and dismemberment of three prostitutes in Leeds during the 1950s. A fellow prisoner slit his throat six weeks after he started a life sentence. I began to wonder how anyone could be a member of this family and not be a psychotic madman.
It was endless misery and hatred in printed form-Peter's great-grandfather died after a drunken brawl outside a pub in London. Someone shot him to stop him from stabbing a man to death with the end of a table leg.
The very last page was just a photo, taken in the 1860's. Beneath it was written great, great-grandfather. The man's evil eyes bore into me. I'd seen those eyes before. When he'd almost killed me. Peter's great, great grandfather was the lich I'd met in Montana.
Chapter 32
Montana Territory, America. 1878
"Your plan appears to settle on the insane side of crazy," Sergeant Roberts said from the opposite side of the long table we were sitting at.
Next to him Chief Blacktail stared intently at the map that was laid out before us. "I have to agree with the sergeant, Nathan. Your plan has some fairly major holes in it."
"Such as?" I asked. It had been a long afternoon. Once Sky and I had finally left Waltham's old bedroom at the fort, everything had almost happened at once. Chief Blacktail had arrived with his warriors, eager to spend a night behind some walls. The lich had everyone on edge, and to Sergeant Roberts's credit, he'd agreed immediately. Chief Blacktail positioned the armed Crow Tribe members around the fort to help keep it safe during what I was almost certain would be a very long and tense night.
Once the preliminaries of getting the Army and the Crow tribesmen to work together were out of the way, Chief Blacktail, Sergeant Roberts, Sky and I sat down in the officer's quarters to try and ascertain how we were going to take the lich and his men on.
"What about the house that sits apart from the city of Kilnhurst? Your plan doesn't explain how anyone will be taking it," Sergeant Roberts commented.
"I will be dealing with that property and its inhabitants," Sky said.
"Alone, it would seem." Sergeant Roberts didn't sound happy about it. I got the feeling he thought that fighting was a man's job and sending a lone woman into an unknown hornets' nest was suicide.
"I am more than capable of taking care of myself," Sky said with a smile. "But I will not be alone, my men will accompany me."
"And these men," Chief Blacktail interjected. "Where are they?"
"They'll be here before sunrise. Trust me; your help would only get your men killed."
Sergeant Roberts and Chief Blacktail clearly wanted to argue more, but instead kept their mouths shut.
"Any other problems?" I asked.
"There are three entrances into the town-north, south and south-west." Sergeant Roberts pointed to each area on the map as he spoke. "Your plan is that my men and I take the north, Chief Blacktail takes his to the south, and you take the south-west. Alone."
"That's the plan," I said.
"And to do this you plan on using your… magic." The word stuck in his throat; he'd seen the aftermath of my battle and how quickly I'd healed from my wounds, but he was having difficulty believing what Chief Blacktail had accepted so readily.
"Magic isn't a dirty word," I pointed out.
"I know, but it's just… I was raised to believe in certain things, that there's logic to the world. My father was a scientist and my mother his assistant. The possibility of magic flies in the face of that. T
he idea of men walking around with the power of a… a god, it's a foreign concept."
"I'm not a god, far from it."
"You can create fire and air from your body, what would you call it? I understand that you're a sorcerer, I really do, but it's hard to accept."
"You need to trust that I can do this," I said. "And you all need to be aware of the dangers. Sky spent time describing what both the ghouls and the barren were, and how best to deal with them. I need you to relay that information to your men."
"All-out attack," Chief Blacktail summed up.
"But be careful, these things will kill you quickly. They're not an opponent to underestimate."
"I will talk to my men," Chief Blacktail said and stood up, before leaving the building. We've purposely decided to sit next to the entrance so we could watch both the tribesmen and soldiers getting ready. I watched through the window as he walked across the yard outside, stopping occasionally to talk to his warriors.
"Some of my men are unhappy at fighting alongside Indians. No matter how dire the circumstances."
"Ask them if they'd be happier dead."
Sergeant Roberts sighed. "Distrust is hard to overcome when it's ingrained."
I looked through the window as Chief Blacktail's son walked past a group of army soldiers, snarling at them as they turned to glance his way.
"On both sides," I added.
"I'll talk to him," Sky said. "Or break his skull, depending on how he reacts to me." She made her way across the yard and slapped the Chief's son on the back of the head.
"She was concerned about you," Sergeant Roberts said, as I returned my attention to the maps on the table. "She beat the hell out of Lieutenant Brooks, broke his nose and jaw. She blamed him and Captain Waltham for your condition. And as the Captain's remains are now buried, Corporal Brooks was the only one she could explain her… displeasure to. She's quite the woman."
"Yes, she is," I said with a smile. "How are Tala and Wapi?"
"I put them together in an upstairs bedroom. Chief Blacktail took a lot of convincing to leave them here until this is over. I wanted to make sure they were uninjured before they travelled back to their tribe. It's too dangerous out there with those monsters running around."