I’d never thought that much about Hell until a demon decided to squat inside my soul. I bet the dimension he hailed from was filled with terror beyond the darkest, most frightening dreams of most mortals, mine included. The human imagination could not compete with the unholy visions of demons.
“There are horrors I could reveal to you, Raven, but I fear you wouldn’t be of much use afterwards,” Cyon said.
Thanks for being so concerned for my mental health, buddy, I thought.
Weapons drawn and ready, we entered the cemetery and approached the castle’s main gate. Dense clouds of smoke eddied around us. How many people had already been affected by the zombie fog at this point? With our communications devices down, there was no way to check the news. And perhaps that was for the best. We didn’t need constant news updates to be reminded of the urgency of our mission. I felt it all the way into my bones. The stakes had never been higher. Maybe Cyon had an ulterior motive, but I knew why I was stepping through that gargantuan doorway.
And it sure as hell wasn’t to get my hands on some goddamn magical book, you hear that, Cyon?
The demon kept his peace, almost as if he wanted me to think I was talking to myself and losing my mind. And perhaps on some level I was.
“Are you alright?” Archer asked.
“As much as I can be with a demon as my co-pilot.”
“And who is in charge right now?” Archer said.
“I am. As long as we both want the same thing.”
Archer nodded but maintained some distance from me as we entered the castle. Mist swirled around us like the spirits of the dead. I peered up at the large archway as we passed underneath, and my stomach clenched. Coffins and tombstones studded the walls, the ceiling. They had become the building blocks of this infernal structure.
Archer looked around with wide, dark eyes. “If Jennifer is stuck in one of these coffins, how do we find her? There’s hundreds of them.”
Good question. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My knowledge of the occult paled in comparison to Skulick’s encyclopedic understanding of the subject, but I did know one thing: Jennifer was the living heart of the spell. I had to trust my instincts to lead me to her.
“I will recognize her coffin when I see it,” I said.
My words seemed to reassure Archer somewhat. As we began to explore the building, another thought occurred to me. The evil magic would do everything in its power to protect its source. As we drew closer to Jennifer, we would no doubt run into resistance. What form this resistance would take was anyone’s guess, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be pretty. My grip tightened around Demon Slayer and Hellseeker.
“Stay sharp,” I said to Archer.
She nodded grimly, raising her crossbow.
The preternatural mist expanded around us, and even my demon vision couldn’t penetrate this dense cloud. We made our way slowly through the billowing mist, the tension mounting with each measured step. When the glowing veil of smoke finally lifted, I saw we had entered a long, high-ceiling, cathedral-like chamber.
And I was alone.
Archer was gone, almost as if the fog had swept her up and erased her from this world.
18
Cormac fixed his nervous gaze on the warehouse’s large skylight. The yellowish tint of the swirling mist filtered through the glass, bathing everyone inside the club in its eerie glow.
I should be out there looking for Jennifer, Cormac thought. He had never been one to shy away from a battle or a cause he believed in. But the enemy Raven and Archer were about to face was like nothing he’d ever encountered before. Facing a spectral apparition suddenly felt like a walk in the park compared to the horror that was unfolding.
Never thought I’d miss a routine haunting, he thought.
A popping sound rang out, and mercifully the moans of the zombies stopped. Raven and Archer must’ve snuck up on the army of the undead that ringed the club and dealt with them. More would take their place, Cormac was certain. It was merely a matter of time.
He shifted his attention to Father Cabrera and the remaining exorcists as they formed a protective ring around the scared clubgoers. Cabrera’s cross glowed in the club’s dim lighting, a beacon of hope in a place that otherwise reeked of despair. How long would they be able to hold out in here? Cormac prayed Raven would find a way to end this madness before more people more got hurt.
But how could the monster hunter save them if he was possessed by a demon? Cormac had sensed that something was different about the investigator from the start, a subtle change in his personality. Jennifer’s wellbeing and safety had been foremost on his mind, and he had mostly dismissed his feelings. Once he saw Raven kill the ghoul with his bare hands, however, he couldn’t continue to ignore his inner alarm bell. But by then, it had been too late.
Raven believed he was still in control. When Cormac had been possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, he’d lost huge swathes of time and found himself in unfamiliar places with no memory of how he’d gotten there. That didn’t seem to be the case for Raven. Could he truly be working with the demon to save them all from the ghoul’s curse? It seemed impossible—but so had ghosts at one time.
When Cormac had first developed his psychic powers, he’d taken his first giant leap into a world far stranger and more mysterious than anything he could have ever previously imagined. Raven had been there to guide him, to bring him back from the edge of the void. He felt as though he owed the monster hunter the benefit of the doubt…but he couldn’t shake the image of Raven’s face as he’d strangled the ghoul. He’d seemed more devil than man in that moment.
Voices drifted from the bar, and he walked up to the two big screen TVs mounted in front of racks of alcohol. He felt the overwhelming urge for a stiff drink, but he needed to maintain full control of his faculties, both natural and supernatural. Cellphones were out, but the TVs were still working. Shocking news footage offered up more examples of the death fog’s destructive capabilities. Multiple scenes of devastation and panic played out onscreen. The strange mist had spread many blocks past the cemetery, and the media was now on the scene.
Cormac’s anxiety surged as a horde of ravenous zombies descended on the cops and reporters. The screen went dark, the image abruptly replaced by aerial helicopter news footage. It showed the scene on the ground as the fog inexorably spread throughout the urban canyons. The footage played out without any sound, adding a surreal note to the horror.
Throwing caution to the wind, Cormac grabbed a bottle of Jack from the bar and poured himself a generous shot. No one tried to stop him.
He turned back to Father Cabrera, feeling more helpless than he ever had in his life. Cormac considered himself a man of action, and this protracted waiting game was driving him nuts. But he had used up all the Glock’s silver ammo, and he doubted Raven’s ring would be sufficient to ward off a troop of zombies or any other creatures of nightmare that might be waiting inside the cemetery. There was nothing further he could do.
A howl penetrated his thoughts, inhuman and filled with pain and rage and...hunger.
Had it come from outside? A shriek of terror cut through the warehouse, and Cormac froze. He located the cause of the screams—two of the Halloween revelers inside the club were in the middle of transforming into real zombies. One lashed out at an exorcist, who struck the newly made creature down with a silver dagger. There was a burst of gunfire, and a second undead club kid collapsed in a lifeless heap.
As far as Cormac could tell, the newly affected clubbers had not been outside earlier. And that could only mean one thing.
None of them were safe.
He traded a horrified look with Father Cabrera. The head exorcist mirrored his concern, the old man’s eyes wide in his ashen face. And that’s when Cormac noticed the thin carpet of fog that had stealthily spread through the club. The mist was entering the structure through the cracks around the doors and windows. The concentration was low and had taken far longer to work its terrible mag
ic, but the horrific results were the same in the end.
Soon, everyone within the warehouse’s walls would succumb to the fog’s terrible curse.
19
The death fog was everywhere. Archer gasped, a wave of panic threatening to overwhelm her. As the world vanished in a blanket of yellow, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, much less Raven.
“Hello?” There was no answer. Hands held high, she walked through the blinding cloud. “Raven, can you hear me?”
Her limbs trembled and she stifled the scream building behind her lips.
Keep it together.
She was alone and blind. Her mind conjured images of the terrors that might be creeping up on her in the mist, but she couldn’t let herself lose it now. Panic would only make matters worse. There was no doubt in her mind that something evil lurked in this fog. Invisible eyes were watching her, biding their time, waiting for that perfect moment to strike.
She paused as her body brushed up against a jagged object. She leaned closer, trying to wave the mist aside. The blanket of condensation parted, revealing a human skull. Her heart skipped a beat and the leather handle of the Witch Whip burned into the palm of her hand as her fingers reflexively tightened around it.
As the fog continued to disperse, more skulls grew visible and other details of her environment snapped into focus. She found herself in a cathedral-like chamber, the floor, high ceiling and enormous walls dotted with skulls and human bones, an ossuary from Hell. She had seen pictures of the catacombs of Paris, which held the bones of more than six million people. This felt even greater and grander, a palace of the dead.
The place literally took her breath away. There was no sign of Raven—she was the only living soul in this bone temple.
Take off your medallion and join us. Why cling to an existence fraught with pain and misery?
She flinched, the alien voice triggering another wave of terror. There was a weirdly seductive quality to the whispers, and her fingers moved unbidden to the chain of the Medal of the Saints around her neck.
That’s right. Take it off. Let go. Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?
“Wh-who are you?” she stammered.
Isn’t it obvious? Look around, little girl. What do you see?
Archer saw only bones. The dead surrounded her, their memories given voice. All she needed to do was open herself up to their ageless wisdom. God, it would be so easy to give in, to slip the Medal of the Saints off her neck and join the bones in this vast ossuary. Why prolong her suffering and delay the inevitable?
Archer bit her lip until she tasted blood and lashed out with the whip. It struck the wall of skulls with a crack that felt deafening in the otherwise silent chamber. The sound momentarily drowned out the whispers of the dead, allowing her to regain her bearings. Her tendons stood out against her skin as she clutched the protective talisman Skulick had wisely gifted her before sending her after Raven.
“No!” she shouted.
No, she would never allow herself to succumb to these voices. Never allow death to take her without a fight.
She struck the bones with the Witch Whip again and again, each crack of the whip silencing more and more of the chattering voices in her head until the silence was restored and her thoughts were her own again.
She inhaled sharply and swiped the sweat from her eyes. Gasping heavily, she braced herself against the wall of human rib cages. Touching the bones filled her with disgust, but she had no choice unless she wanted to crumple to the floor constructed of more skeletons.
“Raven,” she muttered, “where the hell are you?”
Thinking about Raven made her flashback to the meeting with Skulick. He’d said Raven had changed. Talk about an understatement. The Mike Raven she faced back at the cemetery was not the same man she had worked cases with. There was a recklessness and ruthless quality to this new Raven, a rougher, more uncompromising edge. But mixed with his darker side, there was also a new level of maturity and an air of sadness about him. He was different, alright, in more ways than one. But despite the presence of the demon, and crazy as it might sound, she still felt that he was fighting on their side. That there was still good in him.
A sudden sound interrupted her thoughts. She whirled, her eyes landing on the human silhouette advancing toward her. For a moment, she dared to hope. Could it be Raven?
The figure closing in on her at a rapid clip remained outlined in shadows. Human for sure, but that was all she could make out at this distance. And then the figure stepped into the light and her world tilted.
It wasn’t Raven. It was her worst nightmare made flesh, the ghost who had haunted her every night. His throat was torn and oozing red, his eyes dead and empty. In her nightmares, his features were always distorted with shock and horror. Now they were filled with a different emotion—raw, unbridled hatred.
The police officer she had killed while she was a vampire, the one from the video which had gone viral, loomed over her. This dead man, a good officer whom she’d slain in cold blood, was here to punish her for what she’d done.
The man lurched toward her. His eyes flashed with murderous intent.
She failed to bring up her weapons. Failed to move aside. She just stood there, frozen, waiting to meet the just punishment for her terrible crime.
He slammed into her, and she went down under the dead officer’s weight. She felt the bones beneath them give way with a loud crack, and then she was falling through thin air. At the mercy of this place’s strange physics, she tumbled through the pitch-black darkness for what felt like hours.
Her fall came to a painful halt when she landed in a pile of old clothes and bones. She rolled off the mountain of junk, the stench of rotting bodies triggering her gag reflex. Her face hit the stone floor, and she groggily managed to twist her head to the side. Reality swam in and out of focus, yet she clung to consciousness. She didn’t want to pass out in this strange place. Who knew what other nightmares might creep up on her if she was out for the count. There was no sign of the dead cop, at least. Perhaps it had been all in her mind, some illusion triggered by the magic of this place. Somehow this fortress had probed her innermost thoughts and fears and had used them against her.
She tightened her jaw and staggered to her feet. She was covered in a foul-smelling slime. Apparently, she had crashed through the floor only to drop down a shaft and land inside this small cave piled high with junk and rotting remains.
She took in the heap of muddy clothing, jewelry, and human remains. Unlike the bleached bones in the temple above, these reminded her of discarded chicken wings, mostly sucked clean but with a few bits of meat still clinging to the bones. The insight triggered more disgust. This had to be the ghoul’s lair.
She wiped off as much of the slime as she could, trying not to think about what it was, and checked her weapons before searching the small cave for an exit. Her probing eyes landed on a crack that ran across the entire length of the cave wall. She was still deciding on her next move when she picked up the sound of footsteps behind her.
Had the dead cop followed her into the cave?
She pivoted and gasped. The monstrous figure that had snuck up on her wasn’t the cop.
It was the ghoul.
20
I was alone.
My heart sank and fear gnawed at my resolve. What if Archer was in real trouble?
I took a steadying breath. Losing it at this juncture would help no one, least of all Archer. I had to keep it together, stay the course, complete the mission. If I defeated this fortress of darkness, odds were good I would save Archer too.
Rescue Jennifer, break the spell, find Archer.
I kept repeating the words to myself, letting them become a mantra. Rescue Jennifer, break the—
“Get the book, Raven. That’s what matters,” Cyon interrupted.
I gritted my teeth, and my nails cut deep into my palms. I shook with anger as I said, “That’s all you give a shit about, isn’t it?�
�
Cyon wisely stayed quiet
I exhaled slowly, allowing my anger to subside somewhat, and took a closer look at my surroundings. The entire chamber—walls, floor and ceiling—was studded with coffins. Some of them were made from lacquered wood, others from stainless steel. Some were dented and cracked, others shiny and immaculate. Solid hardwood coffins, cherry caskets, coffins with onyx ebony finishes, probably a coffin with a TV in it. The floor was paved with caskets as if they were flagstones, while even more lined the walls and stuck out like stalagmites and stalactites from the arched floor and vaulted ceiling. The fortress had repurposed the coffins buried in the graveyard, using them to create this surreal, crypt-like chamber.
Death surrounded me. How to locate Jennifer’s sarcophagus among the myriad of coffins in this place? It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, a particular grain of sand on the beach.
In other words, impossible.
Suddenly, I regretted not bringing Cormac along for this mission. His psychic powers might have come in handy here but he was better off staying behind in the club where it was safe.
Determined to find Archer, I started to explore the coffin-paved chamber. Even though I was a professional monster hunter, I couldn’t help but be affected by this place. The macabre atmosphere was stifling. It weighed heavily on my thoughts, slowed my movements. I might have faced more horrors than the average person over the years, but I was still mortal. Still human.
Mostly.
Who were the people that had been laid to rest in the coffins now decorating the vast chamber? What sort of lives had they lived? Did anyone living still remember their names? I felt small and insignificant, my quest meaningless. What did it matter if I succeeded in saving the city from the death fog? I was merely delaying the inevitable. Eventually the Grim Reaper would catch up with everyone, right? There was no escape. Death won out in the end, and everybody and everything was reduced to dust or ashes. Time wiped away all our accomplishments, small or grand. Oblivion was inevitable. Life was the aberration, not death, the blip in the endless dark void.
Ghoul Night (Shadow Detective Book 6) Page 10