He didn’t reply, just smiled thinly and blew out a small puff of air through his nose. He looked sad, and his sadness made her chest ache. Without thinking, she yanked his hand toward her, pulling him to her side of the car, and kissed him. At first, he kept his lips closed. But she swept his lips with her tongue playfully then nibbled his lower lip. Finally he smiled then returned her kiss.
Their kiss continued for several seconds and was passionate. Luke had returned from whatever brooding doldrums he’d hidden in and she was sad when it ended. Now it was time to find out, once and for all, what had happened to Lily.
“My, my Arianna, you have a knack for improving my mood,” he said and smiled warmly. “Are you ready to do this?” He nodded toward Lily’s house.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said and felt anything but ready.
They climbed out of his pickup truck and out into the miasma. Somewhere beyond the clouds and fog, the sun waited, prepared to rid the area of the seemingly impenetrable murk that had besieged it. Luke took her hand in his and walked alongside her. She watched as the fog licked at his body like innumerable serpentine tongues, their silky, sinuous shapes passing over and under him menacingly. She willed the sun to burn through the clouds, to incinerate the spectral vapors, but as far as she knew, she did not possess the capability to raise the sun.
Arianna and Luke walked up the driveway and walkway and stopped on the large front porch. She rang the doorbell and waited for a response. After nearly a minute had passed, she rang again.
“Cool it with the doorbell,” Luke advised. “Give them a chance to get to the door.”
But she did not hear movement inside. The street was quiet, unnaturally so, and had someone been moving inside the house, she would have heard it thanks to her newly enhanced hearing. She stood perfectly still and focused on the area beyond the walls, listening for conversations, for water running, for movement, breathing, anything. But the house was completely still. She quickly stepped back from the door and scanned the porch, searching for a ceramic frog.
“What’s the matter?” Luke asked perplexed.
“I’m looking for something,” she said.
“Okay I get that, but what?”
“A frog, I’m looking for a frog,” she said as she moved to the far corner of the porch. “This frog as a matter of fact,” she said as she lifted a weathered gray frog that rested against the front of the house between two gnomes. Beneath it was a key.
“Are you kidding me?” Luke asked. “People actually leave a key to their house on the front porch?”
“Yeah, they do.”
“Seems really stupid to me.”
“Well, maybe to us, but does this look like my neighborhood or yours for that matter?”
“No,” he replied and she watched as his eyes examined the stately houses and the luxury cars that sat in front of them. “I guess not. But still, thieves target neighborhoods like this. They prey on trusting fools like them.”
Arianna bristled at his implication that Lily and her family were fools. Regardless of his thoughts on the subject, suggesting they were anything less than the kind and decent people they were seemed harsh.
“They’re not fools, okay. They’re decent people,” she snapped.
Luke raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
She didn’t say anything further. She knew he hadn’t meant for his comment to be offensive. Instead, she moved toward the door again and pushed the key into the lock.
“What’re you doing?” Luke panicked. “We can’t just barge into their house. They’re home! Their cars are here.”
Arianna spun around and trained her gaze on him. “If you’d like to wait in the car, be my guest. I’m not forcing you to come in. But my friend and her family could be hurt and I’m going in to find out.”
“If you’re worried, call the police,” he argued.
“Not yet,” she replied. “I’m going in.”
“I guess I’m coming too,” he huffed. “I can’t let you go by yourself.”
Arianna turned the handle of the front door and pushed it inward. “Lily? Mr. and Mrs. Andrews? Anybody home? Hello?” she called.
No one answered. She stepped inside with Luke behind her.
“Lily?” she called out louder. “Is anybody home?”
She began walking down the center hallway. The kitchen lay ahead while a formal dining room waited to the right. The house was completely quiet save for the ticking of a grandfather clock coming from the living room to the left and the faint whirring of the refrigerator.
“Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?” she shouted. “It’s me, Arianna Rose!”
No one replied.
“No one’s here, Arianna,” Luke said and tugged at her arm.
“Then why are the cars here?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but this place, how quiet it is, is freaking me out. Let’s get out of here.”
“No!” Arianna said sharply. “Something doesn’t feel right. I’m going upstairs.”
She started to move away from him toward the staircase. He reached out and gripped her upper arm. “Wait. You’re right. Something does feel off here. All the more reason to, I don’t know, put in an anonymous call to the police department or the fire department.”
“I’m not waiting around for anyone,” she replied. “If they’re hurt, we may not have time to wait.”
She turned to leave again but he spun her around. “And we’re going to do what exactly?” he asked, annoyance creeping into his tone.
“I, well, I don’t know,” she stammered.
“Exactly. And neither do I. So let’s just call the police. Do you have your phone?”
“No. I left my bag in your truck.”
Luke patted his pants pockets searching for his phone. “Mine’s in the truck, too,” he said. “Let’s go get them, or better yet, call from there.”
She paused a moment and looked around, feeling the strange rise and fall of energy, slow and steady like the chest of a sleeping beast. “Fine,” she finally gave in. Or so she’d led Luke to believe.
She waited and watched as he turned to leave before she stole up the steep staircase. Luke was halfway to the door before he turned and realized she had tricked him.
“Damn it Arianna!” he yelled and scrambled up after her.
He reached the top of the stairs just a few steps after him and must have taken them two at a time. He grabbed her arm again and turned her to face him. “That was not right,” he said, his eyes hardened. “We don’t know what is going on here and you pull shit like that?”
“Sorry,” she said and made no attempt at sounding sincere.
“Yeah, you really sound it,” he said sarcastically.
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. “Oh don’t be mad,” she attempted. “We’ll just do a quick check then get out of here. We will call the cops as soon as we get to the truck.”
Luke narrowed his eyes at her as if assessing whether or not she was telling the truth. When he felt satisfied she was telling the truth several seconds later, he released her from his gaze and smiled. “Okay, okay” he agreed.
“Okay,” she echoed him and walked to Lily’s room.
They stepped inside and Luke immediately commented on the décor.
“Whoa! This room is like, I don’t know, a dream or something,” he observed. And he was right. Arianna had always loved Lily’s room. The striking midnight blue walls with Sun and Moon ceramic wall hangings and floor-length gray drapes with matching gray bedding, though dramatic and unusual, were whimsical. Shimmering stars in silver and gold tones of metal hung from beaded strands from the ceiling just over Lily’s bed.
“I know,” Arianna nodded. “I always loved sleeping over here.”
“I can see why,” he said as his eyes scanned the room.
The room looked neat, far neater than Lily had ever kept it. Every knickknack was in place and looked freshly dusted and polished. The
bed was made so meticulously it looked as though a hotel chambermaid had done it. Lily had never liked to make her bed, had usually left it unmade, in fact. The sudden change set off warning bells inside Arianna. Ignoring the bed for the moment, she crossed the room and walked toward the window. For reasons she could not explain, she felt drawn to it. She pushed the curtain aside and peeked out. As she did so, an image jolted her. She felt suddenly terrified and began to tremble. The fog outside wavered briefly before it was replaced by bright light, blindingly bright light. Her breathing came in shallow pants and she felt the urge to run, to search for Mr. and Mrs. Andrews.
She bolted out of the room past Luke.
“Arianna!” he called, alarmed. But she did not stop. She went straight to Lily’s parent’s bedroom.
The room was empty, just as Lily’s had been and possessed the same sterile quality; it was neat, too neat, and smelled of cleaning product. She stopped at the foot of their bed and her heart pounded frantically. A vision flashed in her mind’s eye, a vision of Lily’s parent’s lying in a pool of blood where she stood. She stifled the scream that begged to escape her throat and walked on unsteady legs to the window. The backyard beyond it, though enveloped in fog, looked different. She could plainly see a patch of grass on the otherwise scrupulously maintained lawn had been burned, its shape a near-perfect circle.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“What is it?” Luke asked, concerned.
“There,” she pointed to the grass.
“What am I looking at?” he asked, confusion in is voice.
“The grass has been burned in an almost perfect circle.”
He moved his head closer to the pane of glass and strained his eyes against the mist beyond it. “Holy shit,” he murmured. “What the hell? Why would anybody do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. But an instinctive awareness drifted across her skin like a sigh of warm breath.
She took Luke’s hand in hers and pulled him out of the room toward the top of the staircase. She ran down the stairs and turned down the center hallway once she reached the bottom. She ran straight through the kitchen and opened the sliding glass door that led from it to the backyard. She stepped outside and walked until she stood upon the burnt grass.
Standing near the center of the scorched patch of grass, Arianna was hit with a surge of energy unlike any she’d ever felt. A dark, sinister force crashed against her. It felt like a million needles piercing her skin at once. She felt pain immediately, pain and heat. Burning heat started low and rolled up her body with a flash of intensity, singeing her cells. She felt her feet burning, felt flames licking at them, writhing and blistering up her ankles and calves. She cried out, heard the sound tear from her throat, but was powerless to stop it. She no longer felt in control of her body. She knew that Luke waited somewhere along the edge of the charred circle of grass, knew that he’d heard her scream, but he began to fade. The world around her began to fade. Blackness taunted the edges of her vision and the low clouds that occupied the early morning sky began to spin round and round, threatening to send her off balance. Her legs buckled beneath her. She dropped to the hard, unforgiving earth on her knees and for a moment, the world fell completely silent. She no longer heard anything but the surge of her own blood through her veins. An acrid stench began to fill her nostrils, smoke and sulfur mixed with something else, something like hair and oil burning. The smell tore the air from her lungs and made it difficult for her to breathe. She gasped for breath, yet every attempt she made was strangled by air so heavy, so blackened and foul she could not seem to fill her lungs. She struggled against the blackness that beckoned her, and felt rage fill her. Her entire body began to tremble. Sweat trailed down her form, hot and cold contending. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to force back the scorching heat that had reached her thighs. When she lifted her lashes, a face appeared before her eyes.
The face was monstrous. Charred and puckered, his skin was a patchwork of pitted skin in varying shades of brown, gray, pink and red. His mouth snarled and he glowered at her with sunken, slate-colored eyes devoid of eyelashes and eyebrows. He spoke to her, words that were muddled and indistinct. She strained to hear them, but could not concentrate, for something else was happening. His dark energy shot through her body, clawed its way through her muscles and bones. She did not know who he was or where he’d come from, but she knew what he wanted; he wanted her dead. His hatred of her was palpable, throbbing and pounding like a heartbeat. She blinked and fortified her resolve, pushed back against his encroachment. A tingling sensation of success raced through her. She clung to it like a lifeline and pushed harder until his putrid face vanished altogether.
“No!” she cried out, the guttural cry of a warrior.
She heard Luke’s voice, felt his touch jerk her back to reality. “Arianna!” he shouted.
“They killed her, Luke,” she heard herself say before sobs overtook her. “They burned her to death right here!”
“What?” he asked bewilderedly. “Who burned her to death? H-how could you possibly know that?”
Even in the gray light of the overcast morning, she could see the confusion etched on his face, the worry in his eyes.
“I saw it happen just now. I felt her pain. And I’m sure they’re coming for me next.”
Chapter 10
Howard Kane sat before his massive cherry wood desk in the office of the Soldiers of the Divine Trinity Church and heard a distinct ringing sound coming from one of its drawers. Surprised, he immediately reached for the drawer’s knob and pulled it toward him. The ringing was coming from a cellphone, and not just any cellphone, but a phone he had purchased and reserved exclusively for emergencies. What he and his congregants categorized as emergencies generally dealt with their dogged pursuit of evil in every form, and more specifically, witches. He watched for a split-second as the small black phone vibrated and moved itself less than an inch in one direction then stopped. He scooped it up and depressed the “send” button and answered.
“Hello?” Howard spoke into the receiver.
“Sir, it is John. I’m here at the Andrews house, and was told to alert you of any unusual activity,” the voice on the other end said.
Howard waited patiently for John to continue but was met with silence.
“Go on,” Howard urged. “You’re calling me on an emergency line, so clearly there is an emergency.”
“Yes sir. Sorry,” John began. “I can’t be sure, sir, but I think the Sola is here.”
The phone nearly slipped from Howard’s grip, shock weakening it. John Cartwright had been stationed at the Andrews house for the last two weeks, but just as a precaution. On the off chance that a vile cohort of Lily’s visited, he had wanted the area secured and with someone in place capable of handling such a being. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the Sola herself would arrive. Yet, according to John, she had.
Howard inhaled a trembling breath, anticipation squeezing his lungs. “What makes you think that the Sola is at the Andrews house?”
“Well, we were here, and the doorbell started ringing. It rang several times and we assumed it was family or friends stopping by.”
“Go on,” Howard encouraged.
“This person, a girl, she was able to enter the house. She opened the front door and walked in as easy as you please and began calling out to Lily and her parents. She announced herself as though she knew them. She said her name’s Arianna Rose.”
The name jarred Howard, a jolt of inexplicable recognition registering in his brain. His pulse rate sped, racing dangerously, excitedly.
“Then what happened,” Howard asked John careful to conceal his eagerness and keep his voice level.
“We had been hiding in a hall closet upstairs and came out when she and her friend went outside. She stood at the center of the patch of grass, where we burned the witch, Lily. She stood there for a long time then collapsed. While she was on her knees, she screamed out, the sound of a de
mon if you ask me. When her friend grabbed her, she told him she had seen her friend burn. She said she knew what had happened.”
“It’s her,” Howard hissed, awareness tingling through his veins like lifeblood. His leathered skin tightened near the spot where his scalp used to be and he felt the few fine hairs of his body that had remained raise and quiver. The Sola was in his crosshairs. He would finally have her and the world would be rid of her depraved presence. “Who is she with?” he asked.
“A boy, a teenage boy,” John replied.
“Did they arrive together?”
“Yes, she arrived in his truck with him.”
“Excellent. Please get me the license plate number of that truck, John. I want to find out as much as I can about her friend.”
“Kyle is getting that for you as we speak,” John said. There was a pause in their conversation and the sound of paper rustling crackled over the line. When John’s voice returned, he shared the information his partner had obtained. “Okay, the plates are from New York and the numbers are K4E695. Did you get all that?”
“Yes, yes. I got it,” Howard replied as he scribbled the numbers down on a sheet of paper.
“What would you like us to do, wait for you and the others to arrive?” John asked.
“No, they will be gone by then. Kill them, kill them now.”
Silence befell the other end of Howard’s conversation and was interrupted only by the sound of John’s ragged breathing.
“Are you there, John? Did you hear what I said?” Howard asked.
“Yes sir,” John replied and Howard heard the faintest tremble in his voice.
Howard ended their call knowing that John and his partner, Kyle would likely fail. The Sola would not be taken easily. But they would have to try. They were bound by oath to do so. It was what God wanted them to do. And their sacrifice would not be in vain should they fall to her malevolent powers. They had identified the Sola, unearthed her human name: Arianna Rose.
Arianna Rose. The words blew through him like an icy wind and left him breathless.
He clutched his arms across his body, bracing himself against the chill of her soulless existence. But his arms provided little comfort. They only comfort he would feel would be when she had been burned at the stake like her ancestors before her. He would formulate a plan. Should his soldiers fail as he felt certain they would, he, with the Lord’s guidance, would bring down the Sola.
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