The Harbinger PI Box Set

by Adam J. Wright

  Luke Fairweather appeared, trudging through the snow, his breath condensing in the air in front of his face. Instead of the usual black hoodie, he wore a padded winter jacket.

  He cleared snow from the top of the tree trunk altar and mumbled a few words that were too low to hear.

  “I can’t hear anything,” I said.

  Felicity shushed me by putting her finger to her lips. The blue image on the wall was reflected in her glasses but I could still see her eyes, locked on the screen so intently that I wondered if she was trying to read Luke’s lips.

  “I know this,” she whispered excitedly. “I’m sure I recognize it.”

  Luke stepped back from the altar and raised his arms, reciting words in the same weird language he had used at the lake three years ago.

  Felicity seemed to understand some of it, at least. She was nodding at the words, taking them in.

  Luke’s voice rose as he seemed to be approaching to the climax of the spell. He flung his arms toward the sky again and shouted a sentence that included the word “Gibl” before stepping back to the edge of the clearing. Black smoke began to rise from the ground, twisting itself around the altar and the surrounding trees. It rose upward in a thick column, obscuring everything. Then the image flickered and ended. The blue glow dimmed slowly until it faded into nothing.

  I got the lights and blinked against the sudden brightness when they came on.

  I looked at Felicity, who was sitting very still, staring at the blank wall where the image had been. “Did you understand any of that?”

  She nodded. Her voice was low and weak. “Some of it. Enough to know what ritual he’s performing.”

  Sherry put a hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “This is really bad,” Felicity said. “He’s performing the Sacrifice of the One Hundred and Sixty-Nine Souls. It’s a thirteen-part ritual that will open a portal to Gibl’s world that will remain open. The monster, and whatever else lives in its hellish realm, will be able to come here and feed on as many souls as they want.”

  I let out a weary sigh. “Okay, so how do we stop it?”

  15

  “First, we need to find out what stage of the ritual he’s at,” Felicity said. “I need to see the Grimoire of Dark Magic. The ritual is in there. If we can find out where Luke is in the ritual, we might be able to figure out where his next sacrifice to Gibl will take place.”

  “I’ll get the book,” Sherry said, heading upstairs.

  I sat on the edge of the coffee table and rubbed Felicity’s arm gently. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little shaken up.”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine. It’s just that the Sacrifice of the Hundred and Sixty-Nine Souls is dangerous magic. It has the potential to destroy the world. Even in the Grimoire, the ritual isn’t laid out like most spells; its formula is only revealed in a symbolic story. If Luke manages to pull this off, it’s going to be horrible. There will be so many deaths, so much…”

  “Hey, listen to me. He’s not going to pull it off, okay? We’re going to stop him.”

  She nodded but the worry remained in her eyes.

  Sherry returned with the Grimoire and put it on the table. The leather cover creaked as she opened it. The pages rustled as she flicked through them.

  “There’s a section titled Samuel’s Journey,” Felicity said. “The subtitle is How One Hundred and Sixty-Nine Souls Opened the Gate.”

  Sherry flicked past pages containing diagrams of summoning circles and blocks of text. “Got it,” she said.

  “The ritual is told as a story,” Felicity said. “The main character, Samuel, is a practitioner of the dark arts, a worshipper of ancient, evil gods. I think the story begins when he kills someone in his hometown.”

  Sherry read the first few paragraphs and nodded. “Yeah, it says that Samuel’s journey began when he murdered the local wise woman and offered up her soul to the dark gods. Then a demon appeared and told him that to bring the old gods to Earth, he must leave his hometown and sacrifice a total of one hundred and sixty-nine souls.”

  “That number is used because it’s thirteen times thirteen,” Felicity said. “It has a lot of power.”

  “That’s what Devon Blackwell said to me. Thirteen times thirteen,” I said. “Why the hell don’t they ever speak plainly? If she’d told me this ritual was involved, we could have got on it sooner.”

  “You know what witches are like,” Sherry said. “Besides, prophecy doesn’t work like that. Devon probably didn’t even know what thirteen times thirteen referred to when she said it.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, but it still sucks.”

  Sherry resumed reading. “It says here that the one hundred and sixty-eight remaining souls had to be sacrificed in a certain order. First, Samuel had to sacrifice thirteen virgins.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s original. Next, thirteen holy men. Then, thirteen sailors. After that, thirteen learned men.” She looked up from the text. “The list goes on. Do you want me to read all this?”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t relevant unless we know where on the list Luke is. And that’s even assuming he’s following it. That’s a lot of killing to carry out.”

  “He has a monster to help him,” Felicity reminded him. “The death of Deirdre Summers could mirror the first killing in the story, the sacrifice of the local wise woman. Deirdre was a librarian so I suppose that fits.”

  “Loosely,” I said.

  “The story comes from the Middle Ages,” she reminded me. “Luke is finding modern-day equivalents of the victims.”

  “The story says he left his hometown,” Sherry said. “So these murders could have taken place anywhere.”

  Felicity nodded. “Except they won’t look like murders. Deirdre’s death looked like a suicide. The others will probably be similar or look like accidents. Luke wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself. I’ll get my laptop and do a search.”

  “I’ll ask Leon to do that for us,” I said. “We need to read the rest of Samuel’s story and see if there are any more clues we can use.” I got my phone and called Leon.

  “Alec,” he said when he answered, “what’s the problem?”

  “Hey, Leon, I need you to do some searching on the internet for me. I’m looking for news reports in the past three years of thirteen people dying at the same time.”

  “Okay, sounds weird. What incident are you looking for specifically?”

  “I’m looking for a lot of them. Get me anything you can find.”

  “Okay, man. Do you know where these incidents took place?”

  I thought about Luke Fairweather’s zealous nature and the fact that this ritual was his life’s work. He would put as much effort into it as possible to make sure he wasn’t caught and stopped before he could complete the sacrifices. He would probably spread the killings over a large area to give himself the best possible chance of staying under the radar of authorities and groups like the Society. “Do a worldwide search,” I told Leon.

  “Will do. You going to tell me what’s going on this time?”

  “As soon as I know more, I’ll let you in on it,” I said.

  “Cool. I’ll call you back.” He ended the call.

  I put the phone on the table. “Leon will look into it.”

  Sherry looked at me incredulously. “Is this someone else you trust with your life?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t mention your name.”

  She nodded. “It’s just that I came here tonight to look at some books and then leave without being seen. Now, you’re getting the whole Scooby Gang involved.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We need that information.” I pointed at the book. “Skip past the list of sacrifices for now. What else does the story say?”

  She read farther down the page. “There are descriptions of the killings. Samuel went to a convent in Italy and sacrificed thirteen nuns. I guess those were his virgins. Then, he did the same with thirteen priests. Two months later he
went to the docks and sacrificed thirteen sailors. It describes the killings, saying that Samuel was aided by a monstrous servant of the dark gods.”

  “A servant?” Felicity asked. “So Gibl is just a servant to something even worse?”

  Sherry skipped ahead and read a few passages. “It says here that when the ritual is complete, the monstrous servant and its minions will come through the portal to prepare the way for the dark gods.”

  “So Gibl is just a taste of something worse to come,” Felicity said.

  “And I assume his minions aren’t those cute yellow guys from the movies,” I added. “We’re going to need help to deal with that many bad guys.”

  “Cantrell?” Felicity asked.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Leon and Michael, maybe the werewolves, Timothy and Josie, and definitely the Blackwell sisters. Those witches have been vaguebooking the entire time I’ve been in town. Now it’s time they stopped talking in riddles and got their hands dirty.”

  “Hell, why don’t we have a parade and invite the whole town?” Sherry asked sarcastically. She pointed at herself with both hands. “Hello, fugitive from the law here. You invite that many people over and someone is going to talk.”

  “Do you think the cops are going to be bothered about arresting you when there’s a monster trying to eat everyone’s souls?”

  She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “No, I guess not.”

  My phone buzzed on the table, the screen displaying Leon’s name. I put it on speaker and said, “Hey, Leon, what did you find?”

  “Well, it depends on which death of thirteen people you’re interested in,” he said. “Because there have been quite a few over the past three years.”

  “Read some out to me. Do you have them in chronological order?”

  “Of course. The oldest one I found is the death of thirteen nuns in a fire in a convent in Italy. That happened three years ago, in October. Then, two weeks after that, I have thirteen rabbis who died in a bus crash in France.”

  “Virgins and holy men,” I said. “Just like in the story.”

  “Story?” Leon asked.

  “I’ll tell you later. What else have you got?”

  “Thirteen sailors died in a boating accident off the coast of Spain in February two years ago.”

  “He’s definitely following the list from Samuel’s story,” I said. Sherry and Felicity both nodded. “What’s the latest incident you have, Leon?” I asked.

  “Well, that would be the thirteen people who died in that church near here.”

  “Yeah, how about the one before that?”

  “Thirteen members of various European royal families were lost at sea.”

  Sherry read down the list in the book. “That’s written here as thirteen kings and queens,” she said. “After that, Samuel returned to his hometown to carry out the final two sacrifices. The first was the sacrifice of thirteen followers.”

  “The church at Clara,” Felicity said.

  “The final sacrifice was of twelve knights.” She frowned. “Where’s he going to find twelve knights in Dearmont? And why only twelve?”

  “Because the wise woman who was sacrificed first counted as one soul, so after all those groups of thirteen, there’s only twelve left to make one hundred and sixty-nine.”

  “Okay, but knights?”

  The modern-day equivalent would be the police,” Felicity said.

  Sherry looked dubious. “You think so? You haven’t had them chasing your ass for the past seven months.”

  “It’s the police,” I said. “But Dearmont doesn’t have that large a force. There’s Cantrell and maybe, what, four deputies?”

  “Five,” Felicity said.

  “Maybe a different police force, then.”

  “No, it has to be Dearmont,” Felicity said. “The story says Samuel returned to his hometown to carry out the final sacrifices. Luke is following it to the letter and the closest police force to Clara is in Dearmont.”

  “Hey, man, you going to let me in on what’s happening?” Leon asked.

  “I’ll call you back,” I told him. “It’s a long story. Are you willing to help us fight some nasties if we need you?”

  “You know it.”

  “Michael too?”

  “Of course, he loves using that shotgun every chance he gets.”

  “Thanks, Leon. I’ll call you later.” I ended the call and said, “We need to figure out what group of people Luke will substitute for the twelve knights in the final sacrifice.”

  “Why don’t we just follow Luke and see where he goes?” Felicity suggested. “Then we’ll be there when he starts the sacrifice.”

  “He’ll go to ground before the big day. This is his life’s work so he’ll take every precaution to not get caught. Besides, we don’t know when he’s going to carry out the final sacrifice. We can’t tail him forever.”

  “I think we do know when,” Sherry said. “Listen to this. Samuel completed the ritual on the day of his birth so that the occasion also marked the birth of the new world he had created.”

  “Does it say what day Samuel was born?” I asked.

  She pored over the text. “December 25th.”

  “What?”

  “The story is symbolic,” Felicity said. “That date would have been chosen as a corruption of Christmas.”

  “Luke carried out the sacrifice of the followers on December 25th,” I said, thinking aloud. “That was probably a symbolic celebration of Samuel’s birthday. I guess if he’s following the story exactly, he’ll perform the final sacrifice on his own birthday.”

  “Hold on a second,” Sherry said. She dug into her box and brought out some handwritten papers. “I did a lot of research on the Fairweather family.” She scanned the pages. “So, the Luke Fairweather who was the pastor of the church in 1934 was born on July 19th, 1912.”

  I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “July 19th is tomorrow.”

  16

  I paced back and forth, agitated. Time was running out and we still didn’t know where Luke and his monster were going to strike. If I thought it would do any good, I’d drive to Clara and burn every house to the ground until I flushed Luke out of hiding but I knew that would be a waste of time—time we didn’t have. With the climax of his three-year ritual only a day away, he would be hidden somewhere else, somewhere I’d never find him.

  “Twelve knights,” I repeated over and over to myself. It had to lead somewhere. If the police angle wasn’t feasible because there were only five cops in Dearmont, then there had to be something else.

  “We’ll go to the island,” I said. “That’s where Gibl will appear in our realm, so we’ll be there waiting for it. We’ll send it back to where it came from before Luke can summon it somewhere else.”

  “That won’t work,” Felicity said. “You saw that smoke on the crystal image. The monster doesn’t become flesh and blood until it’s summoned to its final destination. The first summoning brings it into our realm in a ghost-like state. But if it is going to be summoned elsewhere, while it waits on the island, it can’t be touched, never mind killed. When Luke casts the second summoning spell at the location of the sacrifice, the creature appears there in a solid form. Then it fades away, as Sherry saw in the church.” She sighed. “Only this time it won’t fade away. It will be here forever.”

  “Only if Luke sacrifices twelve knights,” I said. “We can stop that from happening.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Sherry asked, “When we don’t have a clue where this sacrifice is going down? Twelve knights might mean twelve members of the Knights of Columbus for all we know.”

  She was right. We had no idea who the intended victims were and going over it again and again wasn’t going to get us anywhere. “The one thing we do know,” I said, “is that the sacrifice will take place tomorrow. We don’t know exactly where it’s going to happen but it will be somewhere in or around Dearmont. So how can we use that to our advantage?”
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  “I guess we could patrol the area and wait for something to happen,” Sherry said.

  That gave me an idea. “We don’t have to patrol the area to know when something happens,” I said. “Someone else can do it for us.” I called Leon again. “Leon,” I said when he answered, “do you still have that police scanner in your RV?”

  “Of course. I’ve got a whole bunch of them. Not that there’s anything worth listening to around here.”

  “Great. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Nothing that can’t be rearranged.”

  “Okay, you and Michael come over to my place in the morning. Bring a police scanner and your weapons.”

  “We’ll be there, man.”

  “Thanks, I’ll explain everything when you get here.” I ended the call.

  “What was that all about?” Felicity asked.

  “We know something is going down tomorrow but we don’t know where. So we monitor the police channel and wait until they get a call. As soon as we hear something that sounds like the ritual taking place, we get over there fast.”

  Sherry nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “It’s the only thing we can do,” I said. “I’ll get everyone to come over here in the morning. Then we wait until Luke makes his move.”

  “I’ll bring some food over,” Felicity offered. “We don’t know when Luke will perform the ritual. It might not be until nighttime.”

  “I think it’ll be earlier than that,” I said. “It’s his birthday and I’m sure he won’t want to wait to open his presents.”

  Sherry yawned. “It’s getting late. I should be going. What time do you want me here in the morning?”

  “Do you have a place to stay?” I asked her.

  She got up out of the easy chair and stretched. “I have a place to stay. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past seven months, sleeping in the woods?” She winked at me to tell me she was joking. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. See you in the morning, bright and early.”