Her teeth clenched again, and a pair of molars caught the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw the foretaste of blood. “I do fucking remember it.”
“Oh? Well, you obviously don’t remember it very well. If you did, you’d have no trouble reconciling Mark’s so-called lie with everything else he’s told you up until now.”
Spinneretta prodded her accidentally chewed cheek with her tongue. She found the pain far more compelling than the detective’s idle banter.
Annika sighed, and then perked up again with a syrupy giggle. “Hey, I have a fun idea: let’s compare notes, yeah? Like two besties at a sleepover talking about boys. How ’bout it? What did Marky tell you? Hmm?”
Every muscle in Spinneretta’s body clenched. She prodded her cheek almost hard enough to rip it. The bourbon’s caramel coloring taunted her.
“Did he tell you about the cult lord, too? What was his name? Oh, right, Golgotha! I bet he told you all about him! And how about all the sacrificial lambs killed in the name of Arbordale’s resident doomsday cult? I mean, surely you know about how many people Golgotha killed that night. What else? Did Mark mention the name Lily to you?” She was quiet a moment. It was a silence incongruent with her high-fructose tone. When next she spoke, that tone was grim. “Did Mark tell you about that stupid, nosy girl who cost him his entire family?”
Spinneretta tried to continue ignoring her prattle, but the tone of that statement froze her mind. Slowly, she turned her gaze to Annika. The woman’s earlier words seem to echo off her own self-doubt.
I’d know a lot better than you would.
Spinneretta’s mouth fell open, a gasp bursting forth. In a cold horror, she felt the pieces all click into place. “Oh my God . . . ”
Annika’s smile evaporated. She cocked her head to one side, and her piercing eyes warped into dark-matter almonds, grave and accusing. “Finally figured it out? Have you finally put it all together, Spinzie?”
Horrified and numb, Spinneretta could barely force herself to nod. “Y-you were . . . ?”
“That’s right,” Annika said. “I was that girl.”
Chapter 21
Twice in a Blue Moon
“Take Victor’s body to Golgotha,” the pale-eyed boy had said to the wall of robes. “Tell him that the parade of sacrifices ends tonight. No more innocents will die for the Gate. It’s over.”
Annika Hallström’s whole body shook as she stared up at the boy. Her mother’s arms gently rocked her shoulders, but she didn’t hear a word she was saying. The robes, all at once, began to move like a creeping fog, gliding over the blood-washed floorboards where chunks of flesh and ribbons of cloth lay like the plumage of a sniped bird. The largest of the cultists reached down and scooped the body of the dead man—Victor—into his arms. Asymmetric puddles expanded and dribbled through the cracks in the floorboards. And just like that, the procession was gone.
When only the messiah-boy remained, he gave her a long, solemn look that conveyed a sorrowful depth somehow more chilling than the metallic scent that poisoned the air. “Forgive me,” he said. “And heed my words. Leave this place. Never return. Or I may not be able to protect you next time.” He turned, the sudden motion stirring his cloak, and stormed out the front door in pursuit of the throngs of cultists.
Annika’s shaking grew more severe. Silence descended. But it was not silent at all, for the babbling that seemed to come from beneath the ringing in her ears twisted and morphed. It became clearer as the shaking in her shoulders grew more purposeful.
“Annika!” her mother gasped. “Är du okej?”
At her shoulder, her hand found her mother’s. Her tongue tingled, fighting every effort to move it. “What. The fuck. Was that?” She couldn’t stop trembling. Her fingers convulsed into fists in defiance of her attempt to control them. Her breath was short, strangled by the thought of the sacrifice she’d nearly been—and that Sammy had surely been. But were that the worst of it all, she’d have been blessed; but no, she had gone insane. Utterly mad, bonkers, jättegalen. What else could explain what she’d just seen the pale-eyed boy do? The knife that had been meant to take her life had been torn from the cult-leader’s grip by a blossom of green fire, and that same flame had seemingly extinguished the man’s life in an instant. So, what? The kid was some kind of wizard? A god? There was no explanation she could entertain that did not end with a white coat awaiting her.
Breath ragged and eyes wet, Annika’s mother stumbled to her feet and started for the hallway. “Pack your things, you two. We’re leaving. Now.”
Her stepfather stood back up himself. “Leaving? To where?”
“Like I give a damn! We’re not staying here another night!”
“R-right.” Robert was almost to the hall when he stopped. Annika felt his eyes on her. “Hey,” he said. His footsteps groaned against the floorboards as he approached her again. “Come on, get up. Are you—”
As soon as she felt his hand on her arm, she slapped it away with all the force she could muster. The brief contact reignited the furnace in her chest. “Don’t you dare touch me,” Annika seethed. “You damned coward.”
He flinched at her words. “Annie, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
Her arms and legs finally grew steady enough to get her back to her feet. In that moment, all the indignation she felt toward the man her mother had married blazed to the point of ignition. Lava shot through her veins. “This is your goddamn fault,” she erupted. “Get back to nature, huh? If it weren’t for you, we never would have ended up here. You fucking piece of shit.”
The man’s face went red, and the corners of his lips twitched as though he’d been slapped. “Annika, I am in no mood for your spiteful little attitude.” He advanced a step toward her. “I may not—”
“Take another step,” she growled, “and see what happens.”
He froze. The hint of anger that had shone in his bony cheeks dissipated.
A moment of supermassive tension. Annika allowed her posture to loosen. “Thought so,” she said as she turned away. “Can’t even stand up to your damn stepdaughter. Some man.” She knew it wasn’t the time for it. But so too did she know her birth father wouldn’t have cowered in fear when the robes had stormed into the living room. It was that single pitiful image that lingered in her mind as she made for her room. That damned coward. Spineless slime. Goddamn, that anger felt good. At least it felt better than the terror that shook her from head to toe. Felt better than thinking of how close she’d been to following Sammy to the grave.
After she packed, Annika sat on the floor of the living room, cross-legged. She felt ill. She wished she’d never broken into the library on the hill. If only she’d taken the rumors at face value instead of prying deeper into the mystery of the cult that allegedly lurked in the town. If only she’d taken Sammy’s disappearance as the omen it was instead of looking at it like a selfish challenge. Now that the veil had been pulled back and she’d glimpsed the shifting, shapeless things behind the curtain, she made a promise to herself never again to take life for granted.
As her mother and Robert continued packing in their half of the home, arguing violently as they so often did, Annika just sat there on the floor, staring out the front door and into the dark night. Her whole body was stiff, but she was unable to banish the shaking of her nerves.
And it was not long before that trembling was given horrifying validity.
From the trees flanking the road out front, there emerged a half-dozen shadows of that vile masonic order. As soon as her eyes deciphered the dark shapes, panic set in. The purpose with which they approached—there was no doubt about their intention. She leapt to her feet, choking on a wave of horrible déjà vu. “They’re back!” she yelled, halting her guardians’ arguing. The sound of shuffling from the kitchen began, and Annika threw herself through the door to her room. She couldn’t rely on her stepfather to protect them. So this time, she would take it into her own hands.
In a panicked haste, sh
e unzipped the duffel bag on her bed and pushed aside the folded piles of clothes until she came to the hard pine box at the bottom. She pulled it out, hands already twitching, and popped the lid off her inheritance: her father’s service pistol, a Ruger SP-101.
She drew out the revolver. Its polished silver exterior glinted in the lamplight. She had to fight back the memories of shooting with her father—this was not the range, and it was not a drill. She opened the small box of thirty-eight special ammunition next to her father’s badge and pulled out a handful of the bullets. Though her fingers fought her all the way, she managed at last to open the cylinder. She began sliding the bullets into position. There came the sound of breaking glass, and then a struggle beginning to broil—shouting voices and shuffling footwork from the living room. Her heart pounded in her throat. She snapped the last of the bullets into the cylinder, gave the cylinder a slow spin with her thumb to make sure nothing caught, and then snapped it shut. She drew the hammer back; the clicking sound was usually so satisfying, but now it was the sound of the grave.
Her mother let loose a bloodcurdling howl, and Annika was moving. She rushed back down the hall, and as soon as she came upon the door to the living room she saw the robes. They swarmed like a school of piranhas, gleaming knives at the ready. She caught sight of her mother’s figure in the kitchen, surrounded by a pair of ravenous robed specters. There was no time to catch her breath; she raised the revolver and drew a bead on the nearest target. Her finger creaked against the trigger. A deafening blast roared from the barrel. The sound of the conflict warped into a concussive ringing. She watched the woodworked countertop shatter in silence as her shot went wild.
The black shapes began to roll about the room, circling like buzzards. But as soon as they were in her sights they moved, closing in, seemingly finished with her mother and stepfather. She fought back the pain hammering in her ears, and she squeezed the trigger a second time at a nearing wall of black fabric. Another shot rang against her eardrums. The shape before her receded, cloak swirling in some amorphous spiral shape. She did not see the final result of her attack before another specter was upon her. A hard impact threw the gun from her grip. Then something struck the side of her head and the world went black.
“Wake up, you cunt!”
Annika’s eyes shot open, fear racing through her. Then came a sense of falling, turning. Her shoulder hit the floor, and she rolled five feet in a daze. Three figures, black blurs, towered above her. As soon as she started recovering from the fall, the robes shifted and sank. When the bleeding edges of light and dark sharpened, she found that they were kneeling.
“We have brought the girl, Lord Golgotha.”
Golgotha. The name sent a chill of fear through her bones. She snapped into a sitting position and cast her gaze around her, desperate to get her bearings. The floors were polished hardwood cut in a tiled pattern. The walls of the great, elongated room stretched high and met at a sharp angle. Old pews lined the hall, and at the end of it, where the robes bowed toward, there sat a man in a gnarled wooden chair.
The man looked to be in his sixties. Clumps of thinning hair sat unbrushed atop his head. Slate gray stubble covered his jawline. Heavy lids were half-closed over sunken, sad brown eyes. Lazy wisps of smoke rose from a polished pipe between his teeth. Instead of the flowing black robes of the others, he wore only an old pair of faded work jeans and a red plaid shirt buttoned up the wrong way. This was the man named Golgotha? This was their cult lord?
“I thank you, Barnaby,” the old man said. “As you were.”
Annika’s arms shook beneath her. She heard their footsteps retreating toward the door of the chapel. She tried to force herself to move, to stand, to run, but all she could do was tremble in fear. Fear, and brewing anger.
The old man in the chair considered her with a quiet interest, one hand on the stem of his pipe. A puff of smoke billowed from between his lips. “So. You are the girl Mark thought was worth killing over.”
Cold air tainted with the scent of tobacco stung her nostrils. Her teeth chattered.
“Do not be afraid,” Golgotha said. “We shan’t hurt you. I simply wish for a civil chat.”
“Afraid.” She found the strength to climb to her feet, despite the wobbling of the floor and tilting of the walls. “You won’t hurt me? How can you say that with a straight face after you sent your congregation to kill me in my own home?”
The old man closed his eyes. “Is there a contradiction in my words? It is clear that my first plan for you has brought unwanted consequences. In the interest of dealing with these consequences, I have revised my stance to your benefit. Is this unwelcome?”
Annika stood there, staring at the oddly dressed man. Soft-spoken words of monstrous inhumanity. “What the hell’s going on? What do you want with me?”
“What is your name, child?”
“Elizabeth.”
He nodded and hummed through a mouthful of smoke. “Well, Elizabeth. This evening, a great many people have perished. An eleventh plague. A divine death, a vengeful death, the ruthlessness of which should make your Abrahamic god shiver in delight. And at the center of this slaughter stand you, my dear. The shard of crystal you stole from the Hall. It is no ordinary stone. To us, it is valuable beyond measure.”
The accusation somehow stood starker against the background of this divine death he spoke of. “Crystal?”
“Do not insult us both by feigning ignorance, child. I speak of the Key to Manilius. The theft of the Key is the crime for which you were to die this evening. But that decision now seems hasty, reckless. Whatever your involvement with my son, I care not. I only wish for the Key. This night, I lost my firstborn, my only daughter, to the culling. Before this blue moon sets over Arbordale, we must appease the spirit. Or all we have worked for shall be lost.”
Annika glanced over her shoulder at the two robes standing aflank the large double doors of the chapel. A third was between a pair of pews, watching her with crossed arms. She swallowed hard. “I don’t know shit about any key or crystal,” she said, barely able to stop her voice from warbling. “And if I did, you can bet your life I wouldn’t give it to you.”
“How dare you!” shouted the third robe. “Lord Golgotha has graciously spared your life, and you would dare to show such impudence! Victor died over your—”
“Barnaby,” Golgotha said, his tone harsh but restrained. “That is enough.” As the cultist fell silent, the man rolled his jaw. The pipe switched sides. His gaze was steady, lids heavy. “Why, child? Why would you not cooperate with me?”
His tone dripped with pretense. In the depths of her fear, Annika found a spark of defiance inherited from her father. “Because you’re all scum,” she said. “I know what you are. What you all are. The rumors are true, aren’t they? About all the people you killed. Your sacrifices. About Sammy. Kinda wish I did steal your key, actually. Seems to have pissed you fuckers off enough.”
His lips tensed, a frail smile. “You have spirit, girl. But you cannot fool me. Tell me, why did you steal the Key? Did you do it out of spite? Did you steal it for ransom? If I told you that we would pay your demands, then would you cooperate?”
She spat upon the chapel floor. “Go fuck yourself.”
Golgotha took a long drag from his pipe. As he let it out, the tendrils of smoke seemed to morph and twist into demonic patterns. “Do not misunderstand, child. I am giving you more mercy than I have shown our own loyal for crimes more trivial than yours. But if you will not even show me the same respect I have . . . ” The old man looked up suddenly, and his face turned ashen white. His eyes went wide, and his lips parted in a pained grimace. “Did you feel that?”
The other men in the room all turned toward the double doors. One shuddered in alarm, and another began to shake his head. “It’s Mark,” the man named Barnaby hissed. “That was him, was it not?”
“Aye,” said another robe. “But why did . . . Who died? Was it Garreth, or . . . ”
A deeper
silence fell upon the room. All three of the robes gasped in horror.
“Both,” Golgotha said, his voice now crunching into a low growl.
Barnaby marched out from behind the pews. “You two, at the ready! He comes!”
Before Annika could pull away, Barnaby’s arm slammed into her. Reeling from the blow, she felt her body twist and bend back against him. She screamed and fought his grip, but a moment later her head was locked against his chest, a cold line of metal running across her exposed throat.
“Go ahead. Struggle. I’d love the excuse to slit your damn whore throat.”
Her blood went cold. Visions of the living room, of Victor standing above her, taunting her. Of her parents watching helplessly. Déjà vu. Thoughts of her childhood wove in and out of the periphery. She didn’t even realize she wasn’t breathing until her lungs gave a sputtering choke and restarted her circulation.
Time stretched on. Silence echoed through the chapel, pounding against her ears at an accelerating rate. The robes breathed out as one at some unseen signal three more times that she counted, each with a growing severity. One whimpered at one point, and one began to mutter something in what sounded to be Latin. Through it all, Golgotha remained silent.
There then came a crash that rattled throughout the whole hall. The robes by the door recoiled in fear, but Barnaby remained steadfast, the blade still angled right at Annika’s artery. The great double doors flew open with a bang. The glare of blazing flames wreathed a figure in the doorway. “Golgotha!” the pale-eyed boy yelled.
“Traitor!” Barnaby shouted, his chest pressing Annika’s throat dangerously far into the blade. “Seize him.”
The two robes flanking the door closed on the boy. But his clawed hands came alight with green fire far more brilliant than those burning outside. “The Gate is closed to you!” He threw his arms into wild swings, turning the orbs of fire into glorious cosmic arcs. “The Void awaits!” Blue flashes emanated from the robes, permeating flesh and cloth. Just as happened with the slain Victor, the boy’s hands passed through them as though they were immaterial. Without so much as a shout or groan, their bodies slumped to the floor.
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 26