by Graham Brown
Her mom didn’t respond, she just folded her arms across her chest, walked out, and slammed the door.
Kate shook her head and tried to let her feelings settle. She felt trapped. No matter how hard she worked, she was letting somebody down—Calvin, her mother, the Bureau.
Was it really possible to run so hard for so long, only to keep falling farther and farther behind?
The computer pinged once again as another message from Billy Ray broke her trance.
Bad news: Two more victims found. Looks like we’re going to Boston in the morning.
CHAPTER 11
Mountains of Northern Croatia
THE AGING 4x4 climbed a rutted dirt road that cut through the hilly mountain country. In places, the vehicle splashed through the mud left by melting slush, but as it climbed ever higher, the track became frozen permafrost, as hard as concrete, though nowhere near as smooth.
High above the road, a heavy sky threatened to dump more snow on the mountain pass, adding to the seven inches that had accumulated during the night. So far, nothing more than flurries had come, but as the day wore on, that was expected to change.
Inside the vehicle, sitting in the passenger seat, Simon Lathatch considered the weather. The snowfall the night before had been a blessing; another blizzard this evening would be a curse.
“The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away,” he said quietly.
Simon Lathatch was a man of average height, but broad shouldered and solid through and through. At sixty-one, he was also ten years older than anyone in his position had ever been, and he carried the scars and weathered features to show for it.
His face was the color of burlap and not much smoother. His right hand showed burn marks and was withered and only partially useful after a confrontation that had ripped half the muscle off his forearm and left him with extensive nerve damage. He could feel nothing with his fingers. But he had survived.
His driver turned toward him as the SUV lurched through another rough section.
“We’re almost there,” the young man assured him. “Another mile.”
The driver’s name was Aldo. There was such zeal in his young face. At that age, one could see only victories ahead and the glory of God.
“I would like to go with you,” Aldo added. “I believe I’m ready.”
Simon smiled benignly. He spoke with a Swiss tone in his voice that sounded like German, softened by the French. “No one is ready, my son. But if you are to follow the path, you must take your first step at some point.”
“I’m not afraid,” the driver said proudly.
Simon’s smile faded. He looked away. He knew what waited for them, what his men had captured. “You should be.”
A few minutes later, they came upon a flat section of the road. Up ahead, two men wearing black oil coats that resembled American dusters stood on the side of the road. They had with them four horses.
Aldo guided the SUV up beside them and stopped. Simon stepped out and shook hands with the horsemen. One of them handed him a heavy duster similar to the ones they wore.
They were now above seven thousand feet, and the air was crisp, the temperature well below freezing; the scenery was white snow cover and drifts pressed up against a forest of evergreens. The flurries were becoming steadier.
“Where is Henrick?” Simon asked.
“He stayed with the prisoner,” the lead horseman said. “He felt it would be dangerous to leave only the Venatores to watch him.”
“The hunters will be fine,” Simon replied, quite sure that Henrick, his second-in-command, had other reasons for not meeting him at the road.
Simon mounted up. The two horsemen and Aldo did the same.
“How far?”
“Three miles,” one of the horsemen said. “At an abandoned farmhouse.”
Simon nodded. “Lead on.”
The horsemen turned their steeds and moved off, disappearing into the forest, with Simon and Aldo following. Thirty minutes later, they came into a clearing, a sloping pasture of open ground that had once been tilled. The storm had turned it into a field of white. Hoofprints in the snow from the horsemen’s outbound journey were only smooth depressions now.
On the far side, the remnants of a stone farmhouse waited. It wasn’t much more than a burned-out derelict. It had only three stone walls, and a pile of rubble where the fourth had fallen down. A few heavy wooden beams crossed the remaining part of the structure. Wet and rotting in the snow, they were also charred and blackened from some long-ago fire.
The four men rode up to the farmhouse and dismounted.
Simon and Aldo entered the ruins. A fire crackled in one corner. It was mostly red embers, but it created enough heat to melt the snow around it and added a hint of warmth and color to this bitterly cold land.
Two men sat around it, eating some type of canned rations like soldiers. They stood as Simon entered.
Simon raised his hand. “Sit,” he told them. “Eat. You’ve earned the rest.”
A third man came in from the opposite side of the ruined farmhouse—Henrick Vanderwall.
Powerfully built and taller than the others in the room, Vanderwall had a Norwegian look about him, with a mane of straw-colored hair, pale-blue eyes, and a face blessed with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. He was only forty and showed little of the wear and tear that Simon Lathatch had built up over the years.
“God has brought you here safely,” the tall Norwegian said.
“God and Aldo,” Simon replied, smiling. “He should be a driver on the Formula One circuit instead of here with us.”
Aldo smiled at the compliment.
“You have a prisoner,” Simon confirmed.
Henrick nodded and pointed to the two men who sat eating.
“The hunters chased him throughout the night. Six hours without pause. God gave us providence by bringing the storm early. Even an abomination such as this one cannot hide its tracks in the freshly fallen snow.”
Simon had thought as much on the way up.
“Come,” Henrick said sharply. “I’ll take you to the demon.”
Henrick did not wait but turned away and stepped back out through a gap in the old stone wall.
Simon nodded to Aldo, and together, they followed Henrick and his purposeful strides.
“We caught it in the fields to the south,” Henrick said, his breath streaming ice vapors as he spoke.
“Strange that it ran from you without a fight,” Simon noted.
“It did fight,” Henrick assured him. “One of the men was killed, along with his horse.”
He pointed to two mounds in the snow. Simon’s heart grew heavy at the loss of another soldier.
“We snared it by the neck and brought it down.”
“Palladium ropes,” Simon guessed.
Henrick nodded. “As you know, it’s the only tool we have to sap their strength.”
For reasons not understood, the rare metal affected the demons, somehow diluting their great power. Chains made of Palladium were used to hold them. Whips and lassos with thin strands of palladium in the twine were proven weapons against them.
Henrick waved an open hand toward a thick tree at the edge of the forest. From this side, the bands of several large chains wrapped around it could be seen. Four chains—two making horizontal lines around the tree, two crisscrossed in an “X.”
As Simon got closer, he heard sounds of anguish. He noticed the heavy-gauge chains had begun to cut into the tree as the creature on the other side strained to tear itself free.
Two more of Henrick’s hunters guarded the tree. They stood twenty feet back from it, holding long pikes at the ready. Their horses stood tied a few yards behind them, their eyes covered by metal blinds. Still, they appeared nervous.
“You see how they keep their distance?” Simon mentioned to Aldo. “You see their vigilance?”
Aldo nodded.
“The horses sense the difference between the living and the dead,” he said. “All animals
do, far more easily than us. Proximity brings danger, even for the pure of heart. We must guard ourselves carefully from this point on.”
Aldo nodded, and despite the cold, he wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his brow.
They walked around the tree, making a wide turn that kept them ten feet from it. Chained to it was a shirtless man, thin and shivering. Several strange tattoos on his body looked like patterns of ancient writing. He hung forward, held up by the chains. His head drooped, and a mop of long black hair hid his face.
Aldo was surprised and underwhelmed. “Are we sure this isn’t just—”
Simon held up a hand, silencing Aldo.
Despite years of training in the order, despite being selected only from the brightest, the purest, and the most zealous believers, this was the moment that defined many who wanted to join the Venatores of the Ignis Purgata, the Hunters of the Purifying Fire.
Simon wished he could explain to Aldo what he was about witness, but he knew better than to try. Sometimes one must be shown the truth instead of told it. He stepped forward, steeling himself and confronting the demon.
“Your time on this earth is coming to an end,” he said. “Do you’ve anything you wish to confess?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, sounding Slavic but speaking English. “Why are you doing this? I’ve only stolen drugs and some money. I’ve done nothing else.”
“We don’t care about the things you’ve taken,” Simon said, edging closer. “We care for the lives and the souls you’ve damned to hell. Tell me, Nosferatu, how many mortals have you infected in your time?”
The man shook his head, never looking up. “What are you saying? I don’t know these words.”
“What clan are you with?” Simon asked, studying the tattoos. “Where is your lair?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the chained man said. “I’ve just—”
“You are an abomination,” Simon said, cutting him off harshly. “A demon from the void. You have no rights here, and you will soon be sent into darkness and fire long prepared for your kind.”
“For God sakes, you must be insane,” the man mumbled. “I haven’t done anything!”
“Maybe we are mistaken,” Aldo said.
It was Henrick who snapped at this. “Silence!”
“But it’s daylight,” Aldo said.
“The clouds are thick,” Simon explained. He kept his attention on the man in front of him. He did not dare let his concentration waver, not at this range.
“You’ve been chained to this tree through the bitter cold of night. No clothes, no food, no fire, and yet, you live. The tree you’re tied to turns black from your very presence. Explain this to me.”
The mop of hair shook; still, the head didn’t come up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m freezing.”
Simon spoke to Henrick without taking his eyes off the demon. “Have you used the prism, to confirm our belief?”
Henrick nodded. “This one is strong. He still controls his body. Even through the prism’s spyglass, we cannot yet be certain. But we know what he is. Any living man would have frozen to death in the night.”
Henrick’s assumptions bothered Simon for two reasons.
To begin with, he found them dangerous. While he believed what they were looking at was not a man, there were requirements before acting. The death of a human by mistake could not be taken back.
But perhaps more important, if the creature in front of them could hold its human form for so long, even in such bitter cold, even when viewed through the lens of the ancient prism, then Simon feared it was more powerful than they’d first suspected.
“You’ve slaughtered people in this land for a century,” he said.
The man shook his head.
Simon unbuttoned the top button on his coat. “You’ve fed off the dying and hidden yourself beneath the cloak of constant wars. But I tell you now, you’ve stayed too long, demon. The wars here are finished, and without them to hide your bloodlust, your predations have made the presence of your clan known.”
He unbuttoned the second and third button on his coat and then the forth, allowing it to fall open. He sensed the anger building in the demon. There were no more denials. Only silence and growing rage.
The stringy muscles of the demon began to flex, and he pulled taught against the chain. The limp hands clinched slowly into fists, and the chains shifted, cutting deeper into the tree as if it were made of something softer than solid pine.
But the hunters had chosen well. The tree was far too thick and too filled with life for the demon to destroy it. The cold had weakened it. The effort of maintaining its shell and appearance had drained it, and a being such as this could not break the chains of palladium.
“You will tell us the location of your clan,” Simon demanded.
No answer came back.
“I will find them whether you help us or not.”
Still, the creature remained silent, but it shifted and moved further. It seemed to be priming for something.
Behind him, Simon heard the horses shuffle. They snorted nervously. One reared up.
“Very well,” Simon said, realizing the creature would not speak. He reached into his coat. From it he pulled the head of a four-bladed spear. He attached it to a long steel shaft handed to him by Henrick.
Suddenly, the demon lunged at Simon. Bared teeth flashed, displaying two-inch-long fangs dripping with venom.
The chains snapped taught. Behind them, the horses reared and neighed as the demon released a call that sounded like a hiss and the growl of a wildcat, all at the same time.
Aldo jumped backward, slipping and landing on the ground. Even the guards with the sharpened pikes took a step away. Only Simon and Henrick stood unmoved.
The thing strained to reach Simon, its head snaking back and forth. “You will set me free,” it hissed, looking into Simon’s eyes.
Simon did not flinch. He stared back at it.
It quickly turned to the others, realizing which were the weaker of its enemies, avoiding Henrick and focusing on Aldo, who was lying in the snow, staring up in shock.
“Kill the rest and loosen the chains,” it whispered.
Simon did not move. He needed to see how Aldo would respond to the will of the demon. It was a necessary test if he were to become one of the Venatores.
Kill them and loosen the chains.
This time the words were inaudible, heard only in the minds of the men gathered around. Aldo began to stand, an act that told Simon he was hearing the words, letting them into his mind. The creature repeated its call, and as Aldo got to his feet, he began reaching into his coat for his own weapon.
Simon couldn’t take his eyes off the dangerous creature now. It was exerting all its will.
Aldo pulled out a sidearm, a weapon normally forbidden to the Cleansing Fire for many reasons, but in this dangerous country, that rule had been relaxed for a driver.
I will grant you power and glory.
The hunters were frozen, unable to move. Simon was locked in a battle of wills, fighting to control his own mind and to stay focused on his task.
Aldo took a step forward.
“Stop him, Henrick!”
The creature moved from side to side, the chains sliding around the tree like coiling snakes. Aldo began raising his weapon.
Kill them and set me free!
“Henrick!”
Simon heard a heavy thud as Henrick tackled Aldo and held him down.
The creature reacted, howling and focusing back on Simon now with all its malevolent will.
“Hypocrite,” the thing shouted. “Murderer! Others will come for you. There is one greater than all of you. He will destroy you and drink your blood!”
As the demon raged, Simon held up the spear. “This is the Staff of Constantine’s servant,” he said. “Consecrated in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Blessed by the Church and empowered by God. It has cast a thousand demons
more powerful than you into hell, and tonight it will end your bloodlust.”
The creature’s eyes fell to the spear. It pulled back, slamming itself against the tree as if it recognized the instrument of destruction.
“There is no salvation for your kind,” Simon explained. “Only flames and darkness await you.”
The creature pressed its back into the tree.
Simon was undeterred. He thrust the spear forward. It punctured the center of the demon’s chest, and the thing arched its back and howled in agony. A wave of light flashed through its body, and a shock wave went forth in all directions, crossing the landscape, stirring the fallen snow, and echoing back off distant outcroppings of rock and stone.
At the same moment, both the demon and the tree behind it burst into flames. The creature writhed as the fire engulfed it and the blue-white tongues of heat snaked their way around the trunk.
Eventually, the demon’s movements began to subside, and finally, it fell limp, hanging in the chains, nothing more than a burning corpse.
Simon withdrew the staff and stood back. The bark crackled and popped as the fire began to take hold. Flames licked upward along the trunk and into the tree limbs above. By morning, there would be nothing left but a pile of ash.
Convinced the abomination had been destroyed, Simon finally turned. He saw Henrick still holding Aldo to the ground. Blood ran deep into the snow.
“What have you done?”
Henrick withdrew a small dagger from Aldo’s back and climbed off him.
“Are you mad?” Simon shouted, dropping down beside the young man.
“I had no choice,” Henrick said. “His mind was taken.”
Simon rolled Aldo over. The young man stared upward blankly. The wound was in his side, perhaps through a lung. Not fatal. Not if they got him help. He waved the hunters over.
“Take him inside. See to him. We will need to leave immediately.”
“There could be other demons around,” Henrick said.
“There may well be,” Simon agreed. “But your actions have made it impossible for us to search.”
“You would let them escape?”