Abomination

by Sean Stone

  “Thank you,” Olivia said. She took Nick’s head in her hands and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. “I knew my Blackwood Boy was still in there.” She stepped around Nick and faced the Winters. “Why have you come here?” she asked a slither of ice in her voice.

  “We wanted to put everything behind us. Start a fresh,” Arthur said as he came to stand beside his daughter.

  “Start a fresh?” Nick repeated quietly, looking over his shoulder at them. His eyes were still full of loathing. Arthur looked away awkwardly.

  “Yes. We’ve got a fair bit of history, but I think it’s time to put it all aside. Move on. No more grudges.”

  “That sounds like a fair plan, Nick.” Olivia turned to her lover.

  “A fresh start?” he repeated again. “For the family who has been a thorn in my side from the moment I woke.”

  “Also, the family who woke you,” Arthur pointed out and was not at all soothed by the smile which slithered onto Nick’s face as he turned to face them.

  “And the family who put me to sleep in the first place.”

  “Nick,” Olivia said in a clipped tone.

  “Yes, yes, peace and love,” Nick said derisively. “Okay Winters. Arthur, you renegaded on our deal and I threw you from a balcony. As displeased as I am to see that Jamal’s life was given so you could have yours, I would say that we are even. Do you agree?”

  “I do,” Arthur said. The less said the better.

  “Clara.” Nick turned to her. She raised her chin, standing her ground as she always had with him, although, this time she was a lot more scared. “You are a pretty little bitch.”

  “That’s only half an insult,” she mumbled.

  “You have been a hindrance ever since—”

  “Ever since you murdered my dad?” she quipped.

  Nick’s eyes flared and then he smiled. “Yes. Ever since I murdered your dad. Unconvinced though I am that the scales are evenly balanced, I am willing to wipe the slate clean for you also. Do you agree?”

  It took Clara far longer to reply than it had her father. It had been simpler for him. Things were not quite as clean between her and Nick. He’d hurt her in more ways than simply ripping out her heart. He’d toyed with it via Jamal first. But, logic prevailed and a fight with Nick could not be won. Nobody matched his power. They had another fight to prepare for. “I agree,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Good,” Nick said. “Now get out of my house.”

  Before they could respond they heard the rumbling coming from outside. All four of them turned to the window in surprise and then as one they strode over to peer at the street outside. The rumbling grew in volume and the earth beneath trembled as several military vehicles trundled up the road. Vehicle after vehicle passed in a seemingly never ending procession. Clara could see that each vehicle was filled to capacity with soldiers and she was willing to bet that their weapons were not the standard military grade. Other doors opened up and down the street and people emerged to gawk and stare at the stream of vehicles parading up the road. Clara tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.

  “It looks like MI5 have initiated their back-up protocol,” she said weakly.

  Bradley looked out of his office window at the town that had been far too quiet considering that just one week ago a mega-warlock had opened up the door to the afterlife and resurrected his dead girlfriend. Said mega-warlock, Nickolas Blackwood and his girlfriend had not been seen since. Bradley had intelligence from Clara Winters that Blackwood’s disciples had left town — all but two. That was good news. The bad news was the massacre of the Special Investigations Team, the branch of MI5 tasked with keeping the peace between the supernatural races. MI5 would take drastic action. And yet he had heard nothing. Not even an email had come from MI5 or the Home Office. He would usually have been reprimanded within hours of such a catastrophic incident. Not that he could be held responsible this time, after all, they had taking responsibility from him. He’d been left to govern the town and ordered to leave the supernatural elements to SIT. And that was exactly what he had done.

  He turned from the window and returned to his desk thinking back to a simpler time. At the beginning of the year everything had been so peaceful. So perfect. The sorcerers had been cursed, there was no magic in town. The vampires behaved themselves as did the werewolves. Nickolas Blackwood was in a deep sleep and nobody even knew his location. Or his name. Bradley was not mayor back then. He was just a simple councillor. Jonathan Langford was mayor. Eloise Cultrum his deputy. Neither of them had been particularly pleasant, but they’d got the job done. They maintained peace in Cedarstone, a feat Bradley had never managed to achieve. Nickolas Blackwood waking up had been the worst thing to happen to Cedarstone. He had broken the curse and restored magic to the sorcerers. His actions had brought about the death of Jonathan Langford at the hands of vampires. Eloise hadn’t been seen since going into a graveyard with Nickolas Blackwood. She’d simply vanished into the wind.

  Bradley spun around in his chair as if he could spin himself into the past when things were simpler. He had nothing anymore. For months all he’d heard about was everyone else’s problems. The Coven had issue with some ghostly murderer. The Pack couldn’t find a suitable leader. The Clan was in the midst of a civil war. All problems he’d been expected to help with. Nobody ever asked him about his problems. This job had cost him everything. His wife had left and taken his two daughters to live in a safer place. Bradley had not been invited to join them. On top of that he had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer. There was nothing the doctors could do to save him. He wondered now if a little magic could fix him up? Would the sorcerers help him out? Unlike his predecessor, Bradley had always been fair to the supernatural population. He’d even tried to help them. Surely he deserved this one small favour.

  He was snapped out of his thoughts by the yelling in the hall outside. Heavy footsteps followed and a lot of them. Bradley sat up straighter in his chair, hand reaching for the phone, but before he could grab it his door was kicked open and several armed soldiers stormed into his office. They were black combat gear and protective gear hid their faces. They dispersed as they entered to either side of the door forming a line. Then in walked the last person. A short woman with long white hair pulled into a back-beehive. She was dressed in an expensive black suit with a large cross brooch pinned to her lapel.

  “Eloise…” he said, at a loss for words. He’d just been thinking about her disappearance and now here she stood with an army at her back.

  “Bradley,” she said in a clipped voice. “I had thought that Jonathan and I had taught you better. It seems that you picked up nothing working under us. This town has descended into chaos since our departure from office.”

  “Well the sorcerers are a bit harder to control when they actually have magic,” he said hotly, finding words now he had to defend himself.

  “That wasn’t a problem for Jonathan and I.”

  “No because you teamed up with a warlock.” Eloise winced at Bradley’s words. Controlling the supernaturals had always been about more than government for her, she loathed them with a passion.

  “Unwittingly,” she said dangerously quietly. “And from what my sources have informed me, you had something of an alliance with Clara Winters and her team of misfits.”

  “Where have you been?” Bradley asked. He made to stand but one of the soldiers began to raise his rifle and he instantly dropped back into his seat.

  “I returned to MI5,” she said simply. She walked calmly to his desk and sat down opposite him, folding her hands into her lap.

  “Returned to MI5?” he repeated. He’d been unaware that she’d had anything to do with them.

  “I was sent here when I was younger to infiltrate the town’s government and ensure that order was maintained as well as to gather intelligence on the various communities here. When Jonathan was…killed,” she had great difficulty saying it. “I returned to Thames House. It was clear to me that cont
rol had been lost. I requested that they initiate the final protocol, but they refused. They wanted to give peace one final try. They sent that blithering imbecile Sidney White to take control and from what I read in the reports he very nearly succeeded. Until Nickolas Blackwood made his grand return.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust at his name. “Now I have been sent to initiate the final protocol.”

  “The final protocol?” Bradley asked. He looked up at the soldiers and got a pretty good idea of what her mission was.

  “You are relieved of your command here, Bradley.” She held out her hand and the soldier closest to her handed her a clipboard. Eloise dropped it on the table before Bradley. “Martial law in Cedarstone has been invoked. I am here with the military at my disposal. We are going to annihilate every non-human being in this town and after I have demonstrated my success to the Home Office, I will be giving authorisation to eliminate the vile creatures from the rest of the country as well. Once again Great Britain will be a Christian Nation.”

  Bradley picked up the clipboard, his hands trembling in shock. His eyes skimmed the page but he couldn’t concentrate on the words. He knew he couldn’t stay here any longer. He had failed as mayor completely. The supernatural races would not take this lying down and Bradley had no doubt that they would rise up and unite against this new threat. It was going to get extremely messy and he had no intention of getting caught up in the crossfire. He’d tried to save Cedarstone and he’d failed. Now was the time to get to safety. He dropped the clipboard and stood up.

  “Well, I can see I have no place here. I’ll go home, pack up and leave,” he said, sweating heavily.

  Eloise smiled in confusion as she stood up too. “Leave?” she asked.

  “Yes. There’s no point staying in town now, is there? Not for me.”

  Eloise shook her head sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, Bradley, but it’s too late for that. The town exits are all heavily guarded now. Nobody in. Nobody out. This town has been quarantined and the quarantine will remain until I have purged Cedarstone of all the Devil’s creations.”

  Chapter 2

  “We should be out there stopping this,” Clara told her father furiously as she slammed the front door of their home. Going home made no sense to her at all. They needed to get as much of a head start as possible and drive the soldiers back out of town.

  Moving calmly, Arthur hung his coat on the hook and then turned to face Clara. “What could we do? There are two of us. Nick refused to get involved and we have no other allies right now. Two people cannot take on an army. Magic or not. We’ve come home so we can regroup and figure out exactly what we need to do. Rushing into things will only get us killed. Again.”

  Clara let out a heavy sigh. He was right, annoyingly. She had no desire to end up dead again, but she still didn’t like the feeling of going home whilst heavily armed soldiers filled the town. It felt like hiding.

  “Besides,” Arthur continued. “We don’t even know why they’re hear yet. They could be here to protect us from something.” Clara raised an eyebrow cynically. She’d forgotten how naive her father could be. He’d blindly followed Nick until he’d killed him and now he was actually toying with the idea that MI5 had sent soldiers to defend them. Clara knew different. As if to confirm Clara’s thoughts, Bianca stuck her head out of the living room door, her face wrought with worry.

  “Guys have you seen this?” she said.

  Clara and Arthur hurried into the living room, both dreading what they were about to see. Bianca was pointing at the television where a news caster was speaking. In the corner of the screen was footage of soldiers putting up road blocks and check points around Cedarstone.

  “…Nobody has been allowed to enter Cedarstone for the past several hours. The Home Secretary released a statement just thirty minutes ago,” said the newscaster. The screen cut to the Home Secretary, a thin skeletal woman with ear-length grey hair. Clara thought she looked like she had just crawled out of a grave.

  “It gives me great sadness to announce that the town of Cedarstone has fallen victim to a cowardly yet severe terrorist attack. Earlier this morning, unknown persons released a deadly virus in several locations across the town. Twenty-three people have been reported dead and hundreds more have been infected. Medical personnel are working relentlessly to find a cure for this unknown virus and security agencies are liaising with the police to discover who is responsible for this vile attack. Due to the contagious nature of this virus Cedarstone has been completely quarantined. At this moment in time nobody will be allowed to enter or exit the town with the exception of authorised military personnel. We will be setting up checkpoints as soon as possible where people may exit the town after a successful blood test has ensured that they are not infected. It saddens me further to tell you that intelligence suggests the terrorists responsible for this heinous act are still at large in Cedarstone. We must stop them from communicating with their comrades outside the town, therefore we will be suspending all modes of communication with the town, except for a secure line between my office and the commander of this operation. This is a terribly sad hour and our hearts are with the people of Cedarstone, but the United Kingdom is strong and stable and will not be beaten by this attack.”

  Nobody in the room spoke as the screen switched back to the newscaster. They were all in too much shock. She’d never expected the government to blatantly lie to the country. She’d always thought the security services worked so far in the shadows that even the cabinet ministers didn’t really know what was going on. That theory had just been shot to sunshine.

  The newscaster continued. “Prime Minister David Cameron was unavailable for comment on what can only be described as the biggest terrorist attack this country has seen since the London train bombings. Our thoughts are with the people of Cedarstone and their loved ones. In other news, there was a large disturbance in the city of Cairo in Egypt when the Obelisk cracked—” The screen suddenly turned black taking them all by surprise.

  “What happened?” asked Bianca in bewilderment, looking around as if the answer was lurking in the room somewhere.

  “They cut the phone lines. Cedarstone has officially been cut off from the rest of the country,” Arthur said sombrely.

  “We need to do something. Now,” said Clara, turning to face Arthur.

  “I agree. But we need help. I’ll get the Coven together. I’ll have to go to each of their houses since I can’t phone them. You get what’s left of SIT together. We’ll meet back here in two hours and figure out what to do.”

  “Let me help,” Bianca said.

  “Bianca, no. You’re out of your depth,” she said, not thinking to soften her words.

  “Shut up! I was given the same training as you,” she argued.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean you don’t have magic or anything. The best thing for you is to stay here. You don’t like getting involved in this stuff anyway.”

  “Clara, we need all the help we can get.” Arthur turned to Bianca. “If you drive round and get some of the coven for me we’ll do it in half the time.”

  “Dad, no!” said Clara hotly. She wasn’t going to let her best friend get pulled into this mess. “Bi, you need to lie low until they start evacuating. You’ll pass the blood test and get out.” Clara had already deduced that the blood tests would be to tell who was supernatural and who was human. The humans would be allowed out whilst the supernaturals would be rounded up and killed.

  “They’ll never let me out. They’ll know I’m friends with you and use me to get to you. Come on, Clara, use your detective skills,” Bianca said in jest. Clara didn’t laugh. Bianca was right and Clara should have thought of that. She couldn’t make silly mistakes like that when the stakes were as high as they were.

  “Help my dad,” she conceded. “I’ll go and get Kegan.” He was the only other surviving member of SIT.

  “We’ll meet back here in one hour,” said Clara, two hours was too long. Time was limited as it was.

&
nbsp; Kegan was ready and waiting when Clara showed up. He too had seen the news report and knew that Clara would be along shortly. He jumped into her car grinning. Few things seemed to bother him.

  “Here we go again then, eh?” he said. He had all the casualness of someone who hadn’t quite grasped the seriousness of the situation. Kegan was young, twenty-years-old. He was a well-muscled werewolf and although he didn’t care much for being a part of the Pack he still had a few common werewolf traits. Cockiness was one of them.

  “It’s a bit different this time,” Clara said seriously. “There are soldiers who want to kill us. And a lot of them.”

  “We took on the Thirteen and survived. Humans with guns are nothing,” he said as he ran his hand over his short-cropped hair.

  Clara smiled sourly. “Actually, Nick killed me, remember?” she said and Kegan’s grin slipped away.

  “You came back,” he offered, but it was clear that she’d made things awkward by bringing up her death.

  “We need to go and see if our honorary member is available to help out,” Clara said as she pulled away from Kegan’s house.

  “I hope you don’t mean Dean. He is so grumpy. I hate being around him,” Kegan whined. Clara said nothing, but the closer they got to Dean’s house the more obvious it became that that was exactly where they were going. Dean had helped them out before because his father, James, had been in danger. Clara hoped that that would motivate him again. James might not be in any direct danger, but by default everybody in town was in danger. And they could use the help they could get.