The Ancient Breed

by David Brookover

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “The condition of the skin. Look here.” He pointed at skull number two. “That’s not old, decaying flesh; that’s new. Look at the texture and tightness. And on the edges there, the skin is slightly pink where it should be in worse shape and color than the rest. It’s growing somehow, Neo.”

  “Shit the bed!”

  “Exactly.”

  The entire fourth skull was completely covered with pallid, mottled flesh. It looked older because of its repulsive features. They were in the final stages of re-development. Nick and Neo examined its flat, deformed ears, taut lips, shapeless nose stub, patches of dark stubble shadowing the pate, and filmy dark eyes staring blindly at them. Half of the third skull and a quarter of the second skull were sporadically swaddled with moss-green skin, but they remained featureless. Only the first skull remained buzzard-picked clean.

  Tom returned minutes later, pale and red-eyed. Together, the three inspected every cabinet in the room, but they found nothing of consequence. No lab experiment notes. No ownership identification. No employee list. Nick collapsed heavily into one of the swivel chairs and sighed. It had been a long day, and he hadn’t discovered a single scrap of information to further their investigation.

  Sheriff Larkins stepped into the room and immediately spied the four bell jars and their hideous contents. “Happy Halloween,” he said jadedly.

  “Yeah,” was all Nick could manage.

  Larkins held up a business card pinched between his thumb and index finger. “Found this in a pocket of what appeared to be an old dress.”

  Despite their exhaustion, Nick and Neo pounced on the lead and crowded Larkins.

  “Aspirations, Inc.” Neo read. “Don’t they make old farts look young again?”

  “Yeah, that’s what they advertise, although not in those words,” Larkins replied.

  Nick took the card, checked both sides, and then thoughtfully glanced at the skulls. His eyebrows lifted slightly in mild surprise. The fourth skull’s eyes were clear now; there was no sign of the filmy glaze that had shrouded them an hour ago. “Aspirations is a large, international corporation. I don’t see why they’d conduct their research and development activities in a dump like this.” He raised an eyebrow. “But then, stranger things have happened.” He thought of Hood’s voice in the basement earlier. The man had sounded well educated. Used to the finer things in life. Nick took another look around the room. It was obvious that whoever owned the asylum had substantial financial backing. “We’ll check into Aspirations, Sheriff. Thanks for the tip.”

  Suddenly, Nick’s jaw dropped. The others followed his gaze to the skulls.

  The eyes of the fourth skull rolled to white, then to blue again. Neo pulled his gun and targeted the ungodly freak, but Nick pushed the barrel down.

  “Let forensics do their job before we start destroying evidence,” Nick advised, although he was just as wary of the disembodied head’s unnatural movement.

  “But did you see that? That dead-ass head rolled its eyes!”

  Larkins shook his head solemnly. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

  Nick recalled the demon guardian and the cannibalistic Jay Walkingman creature in the basement, and then considered the Hood’s threat against the people of Duneden. Contrary to the sheriff’s statement, Nick was damned sure that they hadn’t seen everything yet.

  “Neo, get a hold of Crow on the sat phone and have him meet me at Old Mother Hubbard’s place tomorrow,” Nick ordered.

  Neo charily backed from the room with his eyes riveted on the fourth skull. Larkins pumped Nick’s hand, promised to stay in touch if he learned anything new on the case, and retreated as well. The Orion Sector forensics team passed the sheriff in the front hallway on their way to the gruesome laboratory.

  Nick turned away from the skulls and greeted the six men as they filed into the room.

  “Hey, Nick, where’re the corpses?” Harris, the short, squat leader with the perpetual frown, asked gruffly. “This isn’t one of your sick jokes, is it?”

  Nick pointed to the skulls. “They’re no joke, gentlemen. The one on the left just rolled its eyes a few minutes ago.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “That’s just the beginning, Harris. The bone pile in the basement will keep you busy for a month.”

  Harris nodded distantly as he strode over to the fourth skull for a closer look. “These eyes rolled?”

  Nick appeared at Harris’s side. “Right.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “These eyes are so matted and filmy that it would take a Herculean effort for them to move a centimeter.”

  Nick reluctantly examined the skull again. Its eyes were clouded over again. In an instant, Nick surmised what had happened. The Hood had no doubt utilized his magic to spy on them, and probably overheard most of their conversation, including their discussion of Aspirations, Inc. Nick knew he’d have to move fast on Aspirations or risk losing his one and only viable lead.

  “It rolled its eyes, and I have three reliable witnesses to corroborate my claim,” Nick replied, purposely omitting his theory concerning the Hood. “Just be careful, okay?”

  Harris shrugged indifferently and ordered two of his men to secure the skulls for relocation to the FBI’s Washington DC lab.

  “And, Harris, I want you to work with Seth Lewis and Professor Lisa Anders on this project,” Nick added, as he left the room to join Neo outside.

  Neo switched off his satellite phone and watched Nick emerge from the asylum.

  “What did Crow say?” Nick asked.

  A wide canyon of white teeth split Neo’s face. “Our buddy never sounded so happy about following an order.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He was just making the turn into Duneden when I called. Even though Crow’s not even there yet, he can’t wait to leave that Wicca place. Said he feels more exposed than a naked, bowlegged squaw.”

  Nick chuckled and slapped the big man’s shoulder. “C’mon, we’ve got work to do.”

  Neo sighed. “No rest for the wicked.”

  Nick’s grin vanished. “Our enemies don’t rest, so we don’t rest.”

  Neo snapped his fingers. “Meaning the people who stole the fountain of youth formula in Florida?”

  Nick headed toward the Navigator, and Neo quickly followed. “You might say that my aspirations involve locating those people, yes.”

  Neo’s resonant, booming laughter reverberated through the woods. “No pun intended?”

  Nick massaged his chafed wrists as he climbed behind the wheel and started the SUV. “Fully intended.”

  He made a three-point turn and drove at a high speed toward the interstate. “Check with John Lockwood and see if he’s pinpointed the owners of the asylum.”

  Neo dialed Orion Sector’s assistant computer guru, spoke quietly for several minutes, and disconnected the call.

  “Nothing but a series of dead ends,” Neo reported glumly. “The name of the place is The Oak Rest Asylum, and Lockwood said tracing the asylum’s ownership records was like navigating a maze full of dead ends.”

  Nick shook his head in frustration. “Hopefully Geronimo will be able to unravel the mess.”

  Neo recalled the abhorrent, bell jar skulls, as well as Nick’s chilling ordeal with the Walkingman mutant in the asylum’s basement. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Crow and Geronimo come through for us. I really want those sadistic bastards in the worst way.”

  Nick was aware that the Hood would now be expecting them to trace the asylum’s ownership. That certainly gave Walkingman’s murderer enough time to cover his tracks, but Nick sensed the man’s arrogance would abhor retreat. Instead, the Hood would most likely use the time between now and when Crow uncovered The Oak Rest Asylum’s true owner to set an ambush for the Orion Sector agents.

  And knowing the Hood’s sense of foul play, it would be a terrifying one.

  40

  T

  he gro
und mist swirled and danced in the Lincoln Town Car’s twin beams as they struggled to illuminate the blacktop road. Crow dropped the satellite phone after speaking briefly with Neo and watched it bounce along the seat, stopping out of easy reach. He frowned, and then squinted into the inky gloom beyond the worn, gothic sign welcoming tourists to Duneden. Crow shivered involuntarily. The place gave him the willies. His last visit had nearly cost him his life, and he was not keen about tempting fate for an encore.

  Anything was possible in Duneden, Ohio, where witches, mediums, and psychics made the supernatural natural.

  Blossom stirred restlessly in her sleep and groaned in the backseat. Clay lay curled beside her with his slumbering head resting comfortably on his fiancée’s lap. His once bronze tan had been reduced to dull cream, and his trademark humor had been drained from his expression, but he was alive and in love, and that’s all that mattered to Blossom now.

  Clay’s youthful, naïve window on the world had been shattered in one brief violent brush with death, and ever since he had awakened in the hospital after two extensive surgeries, Clay regarded everything and everyone with a somber, melancholy stare. Duneden wasn’t the most uplifting setting for recuperation from a lingering, near-death depression, but Gabriella Wolfe’s mystical mansion was certainly the safest, Crow grudgingly admitted.

  Main Street was pitch black. The residents of Duneden didn’t believe in streetlights or all-night neon signage. Maybe the local black cats preferred it that way for their nocturnal hunts. Crow checked the car clock; it read seven past midnight. The witching hour. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and they maintained their steely grip as the Town Car cruised through the menacing night.

  The town appeared deserted. The street was devoid of the usual rows of angle-parked tourist cars and bustling groups of older women gawking at the bizarre businesses lining Main Street. The Spiritualists’ IGA. A quaint Witch Crafts store. Evelyn’s Wicca Bookstore. The redbrick and white-trim 1800s buildings were now unremarkable hulks, indiscernible from the obsidian alleys that separated them.

  The Duneden Bed ‘n Breakfast loomed to his left, and Crow would have missed the motel completely if it weren’t for the lone, pale amber beacon rending the night from the front lobby window. Crow slowed, anticipating the stop sign that prevented motorists from speeding across the intersection and colliding with the heavily armored gate securing the bridge leading to the island in Lake Griffin—the island where a madman had overseen the horrible Mortal Eclipse experiments and created a monstrous assassin.

  At the stop sign, the brakes squeaked to a halt in the sea of humidity that blanketed southern Ohio. Crow turned left, the only possible direction, and headed toward Gabriella’s massive estate on the west edge of town.

  Blossom awoke with a start and leaned forward. “How far now?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

  “Two minutes.”

  “I’d better wake up my sleeping prince,” she said lightly between yawns.

  “Good idea.”

  By the time Clay was fully roused, Crow guided the Town Car onto the brick drive leading to Gabriella’s mansion. He stopped beside the dark, apparently unmanned gatehouse, just short of the stout gates blocking the entrance.

  Crow unfastened his seatbelt and was about to climb from the car to search for the intercom when the gates silently slid back. He swallowed hard and accelerated slowly forward. The headlights illuminated several fawn, inquisitive deer feeding along both sides of the pavement, but they didn’t bolt into the car’s path as he feared. They remained calmly erect, content to study the intruder as it rolled toward the mansion.

  A rising wind sang in the enormous, gnarled limbs of the dozens of ancient maples and oaks hovering ominously above the Town Car. Even in daylight, Crow recalled, their intertwined limbs kept the estate in perpetual darkness.

  When he parked in the circular drive fronting the mansion, a woman burst from the large doorway, ran across the large portico, and flew down the steps to greet Crow. She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a long-overdue kiss on his astonished lips. Blossom and Clay remained still and just gawked. After what seemed like an awkward eternity, Crow and the woman parted, each gasping for air like two out-of-shape prizefighters.

  Crow was glad for the darkness at that moment, because it effectively concealed his deep blush.

  “Blossom, Clay, I’d like you meet a dear friend of mine, Jane Sandlin,” he managed.

  They shook hands all around, and then as Jane helped Clay up the steps to the front entrance, Blossom lingered behind to assist her uncle with the light luggage.

  Blossom moved close. “I like your dear friend, Uncle Crow,” she teased.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he retorted irritably.

  “That was some lip lock she had on you.”

  Crow slammed the trunk shut and faced her. “We’re just friends, okay? We went through some rough times here, but that was a long time ago.”

  “That was just last year,” Blossom prodded, unwilling to let her uncle off the hook.

  “I’m not going to stand here and split hairs with you over this. Case closed.” He grabbed the two heaviest suitcases and stomped up the steps. Blossom giggled girlishly in his wake.

  Clay sat slumped in an ornately crafted birch chair in the foyer as Blossom and Crow entered. Jill was nowhere in sight. Crow paused and looked around. The memories of his last visit swept through his mind, creating vivid sensations of fear and joy. Fear for his life and joy at the few precious hours he had spent with Jill Sandlin. They weathered Hollis Danforth’s supernatural assault together and grew surprisingly intimate. He was never able to make any sense of the phenomenon; it had just happened. And now, after almost a year apart, she filled him with the same inexplicable excitement as before.

  Crow studied the intricately carved symbols on the pentagonal-foyer’s marble floor; a circle enclosed a pentagram and several foreboding symbols. If the spell was meant to keep enemies at bay, it certainly hadn’t worked last year.

  The largest, crystal chandelier Crow had ever seen hung regally from the thirty-foot domed ceiling, and every time he stared at the sparkling crystals for an extended period of time, they seemingly blended into a single, dazzling window that revealed a swirling, bloodred mist on the opposite side. It suddenly dawned on Crow that the pattern was similar to the colorful movement Nick described inside the stones that Alick Tobhor utilized to construct his fortress.

  Crow studied the vast area beyond the foyer. Although the mansion’s interior décor wasn’t exactly Crow’s cup of tea, the gothic environment didn’t goose his imagination this time around. Candles perched in elaborate, black sconces dimly lighted the daunting, tapestry-lined hallways divided into sections by dragon-mouth arches. The mauve walls were adorned with dozens of ancient marble columns, topped with menacing gargoyles. The expansive stone floor was decorated with more mysterious spell symbols.

  Crow shook his head in amazement. On his last visit, the mansion had been reduced to a scorched shell by a legion of fire demons, but it had magically regenerated itself to its original pristine condition in less than a year. No insurance adjusters required.

  Jill appeared suddenly beneath the arch that divided the foyer from the living area, and her pale blue eyes roamed Crow’s features with much more than a casual interest. Her quiet beauty displaced all his other thoughts. Jill was an attractive, thirty-two year old woman whose short, nutmeg hair framed the graceful contours of her face. His eyes slipped down to her perky breasts protruding from a thin, mint cami-top, and then plunged down to the long, shapely legs bared beneath a kelly-green denim skirt. There were pale surgical scars flanking her left kneecap, the result of a career-ending, tennis injury during her senior year at Northwestern University.

  “Should we get these two settled in their room?” Crow asked. Despite his trepidation, he was inexplicably eager to be alone with Jill.

  “Would you care to do the honors this time?�
�� Jill responded.

  Blossom and Clay looked questioningly at each other.

  Crow turned to the couple. “This house is special. Magical. I could stand here for a half hour and explain its unique powers, but you’ve got to experience it to believe it.” He paused. “Now get real close together, and whatever happens, don’t panic. Ready?”

  “If you say so,” Clay said uneasily.

  “Good.” Crow crossed the floor and took Jill’s hand. “House, we all need to go to Clay’s room. And don’t forget their luggage.”

  Before Blossom could blink her amazement, they found themselves inside a third floor bedroom alongside their luggage. Clay was seated comfortably on the edge of the four-poster bed, while the others were still standing.

  “How . . . ,” Clay began, but Crow held up a hand.

  “We could use some extra blankets and a pitcher of ice water, too,” Crow said to no one in particular.

  Within five seconds, a frosty pitcher of ice water and four glasses appeared on the nightstand, and two neatly folded wool blankets materialized at the foot of the bed.

  Crow smiled wryly. “Get the picture?”

  “You mean that anything we want, we ask the house for?” Blossom asked in an unsteady voice.

  “Within reason,” Jill interjected.

  “And it’ll take you anywhere you want to go inside,” Crow added.

  “Except for a few rooms that are off-limits to everyone but the Wolfe family,” Jill added.

  Clay squeezed Blossom’s hand. “I think this’ll do just fine,” he said, sporting his first, genuine smile since his surgeries.

  Suddenly, the doorbell rang downstairs. The ominous, low chimes reverberated through the entire structure.

  Jill frowned. “Now who could that be?”

  “I thought that no one could get past your security here,” Crow asked apprehensively.

  “I’ll be right back,” Jill announced and quickly vanished.

  Moments later, they heard a prolonged, spine-chilling scream; then all was deathly quiet.