The Hag
Page 42
“But we—”
“Toby’s right. More demons are on the way here, right now,” said Greg.
“Demons…” muttered Walton.
“How many? We can get set up and—”
“Pick a car and get in it,” said Toby. “Grab everything you want out of the Cadillac. We won’t see it again.”
“Where will you go?” asked Tom.
“Listen, Chief, you’ve put yourself and your family in danger,” said Mike.
“Harper won’t—”
“Not from him, though I suspect he’s the serial killer called Abaddon,” said Scott. He looked at Shannon and Benny. “Has anyone told him?”
Mike nodded. “Part of it.”
Tom shook his head. “Someone needs to tell me all of it.”
“We will, when there’s time. By opposing this Harper guy, you’re putting yourself on the radar of power…forces, Chief,” said Toby. “You may be in danger.” He sighed and shook his head. “Your family may be at risk.”
Tom Walton turned a confused gaze on Mike, then shifted it to Scott. “That sounds…”
“I know how it sounds, Chief,” said Scott. “But it’s the god’s honest truth. I know that all too well, though I wish I didn’t.”
Tom stared at him while he drew five breaths. Then, he nodded once. “I’ll be careful, though I think you all might be crazy.”
Greg Canton put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Chief, do you remember me?”
Tom stared at him, his gaze flicking from one part of his face to the next. “Greg? Greg Canton?”
“The very one. You trusted a Canton once, trust another one now.”
Tom gazed at him for a second, then bobbed his head again. “Right. I’ll take the woman from the van. She’s a victim and a witness against Harper. I’ll take her to the State Police barracks. Make out a report on Harper.”
Scott nodded. “Good. Tell them he’s Abaddon. Tell them Scott Lewis says so.”
Tom looked at each of them in turn, his eyes lingering on Toby, Benny, and Shannon. “You call me when you can. I have to know what this is about. I have to know what happened in Oneka Falls…what happened here. Call when you’re safe.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned, got in his car, and drove away.
They got the gear from the Cadillac and split the cargo between Mason’s van and Joe Canton’s ’66 Goat. Benny put the fancy rifle the silver demoness had brought into the van with a self-satisfied smile. Greg, Mike, and Scott piled into the GTO.
Toby stuck his head in the passenger window. “It’s time to get out of New York, at least for a few weeks. I have a place in Erie where we can rest and recuperate.”
“What are we going to do? Turn tail and run?” asked Scott.
“For now. Unless you have a better idea?”
Scott closed his eyes and groaned. “We can’t just leave these three demons to—”
“We need time, Scott. We need to rest, to recuperate. We need better equipment, better plans. Hell, we need more help.”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” said Greg. “But I’ll tell you in Erie.” He twisted the key, and the cherry red GTO fired up on the first try.
Toby grinned and ran to jump in the van.
Greg pulled the car out of the garage, the GTO’s tires crunching on the gravel in that way he liked. He took a long look at the lake house, then sped toward Lake Circle.
48
Chaz groaned and shook his head. For a moment, he had no memory of what had happened, but then it all came rushing back. He snapped his eyes open and rolled onto his side, then pushed himself to his feet.
At the base of an ash tree five hundred yards away, something that looked like liquid mercury reflected sunlight at him, and he staggered toward Nicole, ignoring his unreliable balance and his aching head. Behind him, Ricky Fast groaned, but Chaz ignored him, too.
The Cadillac sat where Chaz had disabled it, but the other car had left, and the bay doors of both garages stood open, the garages themselves empty. Brigitta will be so pleased, he thought, and his face twisted to match the sourness of the thought.
He stumbled to where Nicole lay. One of her shorter arms lay at a wretched angle, and ochre blood pooled beneath it. Her vermillion tongue extended through her lips, lying between her golden tusks as if she were tasting the air for scent. He sank to his knees next to Nicole and pulled her head into his lap, caressing her silvery skin, taking care not to jostle her arm. “Don’t worry,” he crooned. “I’ll take care of you.”
The air behind him popped, and a warm wind rushed past. “You’ve failed me, Chaz,” said Brigitta in a tone she might have used to order eggs for breakfast.
“I’m sorry,” Chaz grated.
“Not as sorry as you will be,” she said in the same tone. “Did they all escape?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Brigitta scoffed and walked toward him. “And Mason? Did you at least protect him?”
Chaz could only shrug. “They had a gas gun. They tricked Ricky and me into wrecking the car, and when I got out of the car—”
Brigitta laughed, and the sound of it chilled Chaz to the core.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, his throat dry.
“Anāku atta ašāpu. Ana ṣēr ikkānû qinnu akāšu. Anāku atta ašāpu ina irkalla!”
“No!” he cried. The sound of tearing flesh filled his ears and pain blossomed at his core. He tried to spring to his feet, tried to run, to fight, but his extremities had already died, and he flopped to the side instead.
The agony built and built until he thought he’d go insane if it lasted a moment more, but it continued on and on, ratcheting ever upward, and the release of insanity was denied him. His joints dislocated, his bones shattered, his organs liquified and began to dissolve, but worst of all, his blood burned in his veins and flames licked at his brain from the inside. He screamed and screamed, and through it all, he heard Brigitta laughing.
Then everything went black and silent, and Chaz had one moment to revel in the lack of pain, the absence of torment.
But only one.
“Welcome home, child,” boomed a voice, and the pain began again.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this continuing tale of Oneka Falls and are dying to see what happens next. Our Lady Chaos picks up where this novel leaves off and you can find it on your favorite store via the links below:
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
Written on the completion of Wrecker:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt say it again. Finishing a book is a heady experience, and finishing this book is even more so.
2019 began with a bang for me—but not a good bang. It started with soreness in my upper thigh and rapidly progressed until I
was dragging my left foot instead of picking it up to walk. I thought it was a bad case of bursitis, which goes along with rheumatoid arthritis like sunshine goes with summer. My doctor worried it was something worse. Guess who was right…
My sore leg turned out to be something called avascular necrosis of the femoral head, which, besides being a killer movie title, is a fancy phrase that means: “part of your femur just died.” Scary shit, right?
I was given strict instructions not to bear any weight on my left leg. I was told bearing even a fraction of my weight could lead to a total collapse of my hip. Even scarier shit, right?
Then, things got bad. I ended up in a wheelchair for about nine weeks, and they were the worst weeks of my life. I remember writing a sort-of cheery post about not giving up and keeping right on writing. Yeah. The muscle spasms started soon after that, and I’m not talking about your garden variety muscle cramps. I don’t even like to think about the pain. I ended up taking the max daily dose of a very strong narcotic, a potent muscle relaxer, and the most potent anti-spasm medicine available, and for a while, none of that worked.
Neither Melissa nor I remember February, and I don’t think either of us got more than two hours of contiguous sleep. I remember trying to get out of bed, into the chair, and out of our bedroom without waking her—all while fighting a scream. I scared the begeebus out of RealSig™ when I got to the living room (the scream won). That was in late January (I think) and the next thing I remember was going to a surgeon in March.
Yeah, enough of that happy horse manure. I wanted to let you know why completing this novel felt so much better than the others, and that’s why. It’s another victory over Petunia (my Personal Monster™). It’s another sharp pointy stick in Petunia’s eye.
But more than that, the balms that members of my Readers Group and Launch Team on Facebook dropped on us were incredible. I can’t thank you ladies and gents enough, and I don’t think you’ll ever know how your comments, messages, and emails helped to keep us sane.
Written on the completion of Black Swan:
I’m sitting here grinning. I just poked Petunia (the new, wimpy name for my Personal Monster™) in the eye again by finishing the rewrite of this story twelve seconds ago. Oh, as with the demons in Oneka Falls, my Personal Monster™ hasn’t given up—in fact, he’s been mounting quite an offense these days. But, like Benny, Toby, and Shannon, I have help, and I am meeting new helpers every day.
I love being an author. I love creating fun adventures for you to read (except editing, which I need to start in a few minutes), and I love hearing from you.
Life as an Indie Author can be extremely exciting, but it has its share of millstones and dips in the road. I love being able to get books to you on my own terms, at my own pace. If I’d elected to go the traditional route, I’d be publishing my second novel right about now, instead of my ninth (and the tenth soon!). I’m willing to put my shoulder to the wheel for that.
I read that a famous thriller author thanked thirty-one people, plus the standard “and everyone else I forgot,” who made his latest book possible. That’s a lot of people working to push out a book… My camp looks comparatively empty… Let’s see, there’s me and the ones I owe huge thanks to: Supergirl, Jackson W. Barnett, Paul Martin, Ryan Schwarz, and…
You.
You know what? That “you” there at the end makes that other guy’s list look tiny. Thirty-one? Pshaw! I’ve got thousands of people to thank.
So:
Thank you, dear reader!
Have you ever noticed that every generic term for people who read an author’s work pales compared to King’s “Constant Reader?”
There’s more to come in this tale. I know a lot of the story, but Mr. Story is still around breaking things. Let’s find out what happens together!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erik Henry Vick is an author who happens to be disabled by an autoimmune disease (also known as his Personal Monster™). He writes to hang on to the few remaining shreds of his sanity. His current favorite genres to write are dark fantasy and horror.
He lives in Western New York with his wife, Supergirl; their son; a Rottweiler named after a god of thunder; and two extremely psychotic cats. He fights his Personal Monster™ daily with humor, pain medicine, and funny T-shirts.
Erik has a B.A. in Psychology, an M.S.C.S., and a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence. He has worked as a criminal investigator for a state agency, a college professor, a C.T.O. for an international software company, and a video game developer.
He'd love to hear from you on social media:
Blog: https://erikhenryvick.com
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Amazon author pages:
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Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Erik Henry Vick
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Ratatoskr Publishing
2080 Nine Mile Point Road, Unit 106
Penfield, NY 14526
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
the hag/ Erik Henry Vick. -- 1st ED.