Gage snatched the bacon from her fingers and ate it, rolling his eyes mockingly. “Well shit. Where's the fun in that?”
Joey chuckled. “No fun at all but I'm sure they'd make an exception for you, after all the action you've seen… and caused first hand.”
Gage was unamused as he scraped up the last bit of food off his plate. He glanced over to their plates and noticed they had barely begun eating. Slow pokes.
“Yeah,” affirmed Adrienne. “Maybe you could just conference call in.”
Joey laughed and actually slapped his knee. “Special exemption granted to the world record holder for the number of ass kickings delivered over the three years since his unofficial induction.”
“You two can fuck off,” Gage said with a fat finger pointed toward each of them. Yanking his phone from his pocket, he tapped the corner on the table. “Calling in would be just peachy, if only this piece of shit would stay charged. It’s deader than a double tapped zombie… again.”
“Ugh, no idea what's causing it?” Adrienne asked, shifting from humor to concern. She was still puzzled by the issue, but maybe it was just a simple hardware issue.
“Other than it being a POS?” he responded. “Nope. I changed out the battery with a spare. No effect. Rebooted. No effect. I'm thinking after I flog on some logs I’ll pop into town and get another one. That way, I can be sure keep tabs on you two bastards and also conference in when the suits call their manda -”
Suddenly, the sounds of Don’t Fear the Reaper blared from the mobile phone, cutting through through the conversation and suppressing all the sounds in the room.
Slowly, Gage turned the screen and watched as it continued to ring.
What the hell?
There was no telephone number displayed as the screen flashed briefly, followed by several rolling glitches. His thumb hovered over the jittery answer button, but the phone died right as he brought it down.
Everyone sat quietly.
“I thought you said your phone was dead?” asked Joey.
“It was,” said Gage to his reflection on the shiny screen.
“Well, something’s definitely up. Want me to take a look at it today?”
He pressed the power button a few times to no avail. “Yeah… sure thing J. Work your magic on it because it’s dead again. Would be nice to know what the hell is going -”
As if he were being mocked, the phone sprang to life again at full power. The screen jumped around but this time Gage was quick to answer it.
“Hello? Who is this?” he asked sternly, lifting the speaker to his ear.
Patiently he waited for a reply, but only the static spoke, accompanied by heavy riffs of bass.
“Hello!” he repeated again.
The interference continued as the undertones became more profound.
“Gage?” Adrienne asked while reaching out an arm. “What do you hear?”
He pulled his arm back, raising his index finger before placing it into his open ear, listening intensely.
The base continued to rumble over the static, yet patterns seemed to be forming. Were they words? He continued to listen, closing his eyes in an attempt to block out all other stimuli.
A few moments later distorted words arose out of the noise, interlaced with bursts of static.
“Gage… you must…”
The voice was sharp and deep; the words hurried yet commanding.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“Gage you must… go… Gage you must go!”
“Wait… where do I have to go?”
Joey looked over to Adrienne and mouthed, “EVP?”
“Seems like it,” she whispered. “But there’s no way a ghost could be here at the Lodge.”
“This is really weird,” Joey muttered as they returned their attention to Gage, who was still shut off from the world in concentration.
“Where do I need to go?” he repeated.
The crackle and fizz of static filled his ear until one word boomed out from its depths.
“HOME!”
His eyes sprang open as he let out a short gasp.
The words repeated over and over, getting louder with each successive mention.
He pulled the deafening phone away from his ear as Joey and Adrienne exchanged fast glances, her arm now clenched around Gage’s forearm. He was visibly disturbed.
The words sank back into the ocean of static before the phone went dead once more.
“You okay big man?” asked Joey, noticing the intensity of Adrienne’s concern.
“Yeah,” he said, breathing deeply. “I’m alright.” He set the phone on the tabletop and pushed it away, sniffling. “Fuck.”
“What?” asked Adrienne.
“It told me to go home.”
“Back to Denver?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Haven’t been there in over three years since… that day.”
Something didn’t feel right about any of this.
“Why on earth would you have to go there now, because that voice told you to?”
He didn’t know what to say.
“It could be a trap,” said Joey. “It almost screams one to me.”
Gage was still trying to figure all this out for himself. Why home? Why now? It made no sense.
Joey elaborated, “We have no idea what that was; for all we know the Noctis could have found a way to hack into your phone and are trying to lure you into a death zone. You do have a reputation of being a demon slayer after all. One of the best.”
“If not the best,” said Adrienne in agreement. “I mean, why would you get such a mysterious call to go home now? After all this time? It seems incredibly smoky to me, especially since the activity on the radios just flared up.”
“Smoky. Haha. I like that,” Joey said with a chuckle. “But seriously, look at it this way too. If this is an actual supernatural event and not a technological one, whatever did it had to be incredibly powerful in order to get past the defenses here. Hell, I’m not sure how that's even possible now that I've said it. Now I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be toying with anything that could do that. We have a lot of crazy stuff happening right now with these monster alliances and movements. It’s just dangerous out there man, especially without a plan.”
“So yes,” Adrienne said. “We agree it’s a trap.”
“You could be right, darlin’,” Gage said, but something gnawed at his gut, pulling him toward the road. “But, what if it’s something else?”
She closed her eyes, folded her arms on the tabletop, and collapsed her head between them. “Like what?!” she asked, shooting back up in amazement that Gage would still consider going.
“I dunno. All I know is something's telling me I need to go to Denver.”
Her hands flew through the air, slamming back on the table. “Exactly! ‘Something’! You’ve no idea what it is, Gage. So you’re just going to take off? Just like that and go home? With all this shit about to happen here.”
Oh boy, thought Joey. Lover’s quarrel in three… two…
“Geez, I ain’t going to be moving there Adrienne!” he shouted. “I’m just looking into this.”
“By yourself,” she countered. “You don’t even know where to start looking. Or how long this will take.”
“Oh for the love of all that’s holy. Home. The fucking voice said ‘go home’ so I’ll start there.”
She shook her head.
“What if this could help with the Noctis?”
“What if it is the Noctis!? I swear Gage, you can be so fucking reckless!”
“Excuse me?”
She crossed her arms and shot him a silent glance.
Well this is awkward, thought Joey as he stared into his empty glass, wishing he had more orange juice.
“Fine,” she said. “If you’re going, then I’m going to go with you. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
“Oh no, no,” he said. “First you said this was too dangerous and now
you want in? Can’t have both, sweetheart. Plus, I work best traveling alone.”
Damn those words cut deep. Even to Joey they stung a little bit. “Hey now!” he said.
Gage let out a loud groan and slammed a fist on the table, shaking the plates. One danced its way off the edge and onto the floor, shattering into several pieces.
“I guess the past year of working with us has held you back then?” asked Adrienne coldly, with a stare that could freeze her cup of coffee should she glance at it. “The mighty Gage Crosse being forced to drag a team around with him.”
Ady don’t drag me into this, thought Joey as he bent over to pick up the pieces of plate.
The chill of her words fell on Gage’s broad shoulders and he pinched them together. “That isn’t what I meant Ady…”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“This is different.”
“How so?”
“It’s -”
Ugh, enough of this! “Look you two,” Joey cut in. “Just shut up and go else we will be here all week! It's obvious you both like each other. Shit, it’s so drippingly obvious that it’s pooling on the floor and I'm gonna slip on it. You both should look at this as a means to get to know each other better. After all, that's what road trips are best for.”
A look of embarrassment fell across Adrienne’s face while Gage sat unfazed, his arms now crossed tightly over his chest.
“Plus,” Joey continued as he walked over to the trash can and placed the broken pieces of plate inside, “it'll give me a chance to get caught up here; listen in on this new demon chatter and talk to some old buddies of mine to see if there's anything we can do to either stem the redeye’s activities or to help the Order prepare for what’s to come.”
Gage lowered his head and ended up blowing a raspberry. “Fine,” he said snidely in Adrienne’s direction. “Guess we have some packing to do. So much for an event-free day.”
With that, the team ate the rest of their breakfast until the scraping of silverware on plates became the dominant sound in the room. Soon after, the kitchen emptied out in record time.
THE STREETS OF WHITTINGHAM had grown gloomy in the wee hours of the morning; the sun still sleeping, yet to burn away the ample fog that had rolled in off the green hills.
Through the mist, the sounds of quick footfalls rose as two figures raced down Eaves Green toward its intersection with Ashley Lane. A small farm was nearby, bleakly taunting with opportunities and places to hide, but a solid stone wall blocked their way. Rows of tall evergreen hedges grew right up against them, all working together to keep the riffraff out.
“Dammit,” spat one of the men as a cockerel crowed, the eastern horizon growing brighter. Time was wasting and he quickly glanced across his shoulder to check if anything was on their heels. Nothing living was there, but a gray shroud masked everything including their pursuers; there was a moment to figure something out, but it would not last long.
He snapped his head forward, searching high and low for any break in the irregular cobblestone, or perhaps a thinned out part of the hedge that could be pushed through. If so, they could then hole up somewhere on the property - in the barn, under equipment, anywhere but the open road - until it was safe to slip away. He knew that continuing to run, especially with the coming dawn, would guarantee their capture.
The man grew a bit frantic when he couldn’t find a way in. Stress was on his face though he was fairly fit, displaying no real signs of fatigue beyond the nervous panting building from his chest.
Dressed in a dirty but tailored black suit and dingy cream shirt, the lack of entry gave him little choice but to resume dashing along the road, all the while looking as his fancy shoes pattered lightly against the asphalt. Unfortunately, nothing but solid rock continued to greet his efforts.
No, he thought, adamant about not going back to 2 Eaves Green. The two story detached house right sat off the road and was so typically British on the outside, but it was the inside that terrified him so. The torture that he endured there was… memorable to say the least, forgetful the most. It was the closest thing to experiencing actual Hell on Earth, right there between the home’s beige stone walls.
As he ran, he gripped the strap of a fashionable canvas shoulder bag tightly as it bounced around his right shoulder with each lengthy stride. He had managed to steal it away when they fled.
If anyone were looking out their windows at that moment, they'd likely think it quite an odd ensemble for a man to be wearing out in rural England while jogging in the middle of the night. Yet when one is kidnapped, a change of clothes isn't normally an option that is offered.
The man’s wardrobe paled in peculiarity to the person he was traveling with and should those same people still be watching from the safety of their homes, peeking coyly through their window shades, they'd likely think themselves drunk or dreaming.
“Would ye stop fretting, Henry!” came a low and assertive growl from behind, the words spoken with a defined West Country accent, “yer making things difficult. That there’s a farm we’re passing, not a castle, so there's bound to be a drive nearby. Methinks there’s one just east, up on Ashley.”
The gravely voice didn’t come from a man, but a large bipedal wolf that rushed past toward the crossroads ahead. Around his neck was a chain collar with tremendous links, the swinging end molten and issuing sparks as he went by. When he arrived at the intersection, he dropped to the pavement onto all fours and sniffed at both the air and ground.
“Way ahead is clear,” the wolfman stated, raising a long arm eastward as he rose back up on his hind legs. There was a wound on his left one, causing him to stagger a little when weight was placed on it. “We need to head up that direction.”
“My apologies, Geirolf,” Henry responded with much needed relief as he strode up to him, patting his furry shoulder. However, as his canine partner turned to face him, there was no comfort to be found in the face staring back.
Henry gulped before asking a question, knowing full well what the answer would be. “Is it them?”
Geirolf’s face indicated that indeed, their time was up. He snarled as his arms flared out to the side; claws flicked out like switchblades brandished for an attack.
Quickly Henry turned about, just in time to see six monstrous shapes at the fringe of the mist. The shadowy forms looked for all intents human but stood twice as tall, with twisted animal-like shapes attached to their silhouetted bodies. Yet out of the curtain of fog ordinary men emerged, their irises ablaze with red set against scleras darker than the night.
“The demonic bastards,” Geirolf muttered between his gritted teeth. “They've already discovered our absence.”
That was too fast, Henry thought. How did they see through the charm so quickly?
The six men, different sizes yet all considerably huge, charged at them with great speed. There was no time to think, only act.
“Regna terrae, cantata Deo, psallite Cernunnos,” Henry began, extending an arm out to help him focus before continuing the passage, “Regna terrae, cantata Dea psallite Aradia. caeli Deus, Deus terrae…”
As he continued to speak the incantation, all six suddenly decelerated as if their energy were being drained away. However, the power of the words was weak, spread across them all when it was only meant for one. This was not going to hold them for long.
Geirolf knew that Henry would only be able to slow them for a little while and could not stop speaking the invocation. With no other options, he took a breath and thrust a hairy hand into Henry’s bag. The protective enchantments on the bag seared his supernatural form and the smell of burning hair filled his nostrils, but he rejected the urge to scream, pushing it deep down inside. A short time later, he found what he was looking for, pulling out three palm-sized stones between his singed claws, still smoldering. They were flat like coins, each marked with a pentacle on one side and lines of invocation on the other.
With haste, he brought them all to his snout and breathed over the
m. The symbols awakened, sparking between the etched lines as he targeted the three closest demons, now kneeling on the ground, and flung the stones their way.
They twirled and whistled through the air, landing at the knees of each possessed man. The sparkling trails shot off to form stars before encircling them, each in their own individual traps.
“Goodbye, ye filth,” the werewolf said calmly but with antipathy. “Exorcizamus.”
The glowing pentacles leapt to life on the command, closing upon their hostages like massive bear traps. The human receptacles were unharmed by the gnashing teeth, but the smoking darkness that poured out of their orifices broiled under the onslaught of lightning. The vapors sank to the road and then beneath it, sizzling as the earth drew them back down to Hell.
The remaining possessed men were still upright, but with fewer numbers the invocation had doubled in strength and their movement slowed as if they were running through molasses.
Henry knew that soon he would need to choose only one to complete the exorcism. He looked to Geirolf, who had reached down into his wounded leg and removed a set of iron braces. Inserting the bloody metal into his mouth and over his teeth, he licked off the blood and nodded to signal that he was ready.
Henry selected the burliest of the group on which to pour all his focus. The others, now freed from the effects of the spell, immediately sped up and leapt into the air.
“... Benedictus Dea, Matri gloria!” Henry stated, finally completing the ritual.
A force thrust the massive man to the street and he writhed as an antlered form was ejected. Dark and terrible, it ascended no less than twelve feet above them, lunging toward Henry on hoofed feet, trying to possess him by force. With its shadowy talons mere inches from his face, a breeze whooshed all around them, catching the smoke and gently dissolving it away.
Henry choked as his fears were allayed; he was less than two seconds away from emptying the entire contents of his bladder down the front of his suit pants.
However, there was little time to compose a complete thought as the others had engaged Geirolf in battle. Their attack met with his sharp claws and powerful teeth crushed bone, fists flew, and serrated silver slashed its way through fresh dog meat. The back and forth continued for several minutes until Geirolf, wounded heavily by the argent blades, took hold of one of the men and clamped down on his neck.
Homeward Bound (Journeyman Book 1) Page 7