“Yes, we will. Care to volunteer?” said Calithea.
“Why’s Hardwick helping you?” the detective asked.
“He has no choice. His mind is easily influenced,” Adonia replied.
“You’re controlling him, just like you controlled everyone else,” Samantha exclaimed.
“Sisters, I grow tired of this. We have things to attend to,” Calithea said. “Who would like to feast on the detective?”
Kallista rubbed her hands together, and her eyes began to burn a bright fiery red. The bright eyes looked Samantha up and down like a ravenous animal.
“Adonia, you may have the man,” Calithea stated.
Adonia smiled at Jack. “I’ve waited quite long enough to taste your nectar, Jack Allyn. You should feel special. There are few who have made me wait.”
The three Seirenes stood before Jack and Samantha in all their naked glory. Their visage had transformed into a hideous nightmare of deadly saliva-covered fangs, and the eyes of all three were glowing, casting the cellar in bright hues of orange and red. Samantha stepped backward until her back touched the wall. She had nowhere left to go, nowhere left to run. During the Society Hill Serial Killer investigation, Samantha had felt fear. It had been a fear of failure, a fear of allowing a monster to continue to terrorize the city—her city. The beast had taunted her and had filled her nightmares. Yet she had overcome. It had taken a long time for the emotional scars to heal, but she did heal. But now she felt something far worse than fear. Her heart pounded with utter terror at the sight of the three creatures advancing toward her. She wanted to scream and cower back against the wall, but no matter how terrified Samantha was, she would never give them the satisfaction. She knew deep in her soul that there was only one chance to act, and one chance was all she was going to get.
Jack stood helpless as the creatures slowly stalked forward toward them as a lifetime of regrets surfaced in his mind. His heart raced as his subconscious took the opportunity to flaunt his mistakes before him, like some twisted form of This is Your Life. The blazing red eyes of the Seirenes only helped to punctuate each regret as being final. He had never imagined that he would die at the hands of such terrifying creatures, but then he realized that none of the other victims probably had either. He glanced toward Peter and thought he saw movement, but Jack knew that there would be no hope. Even if they had all been healthy, there would be no way to fight off these creatures. He knew they were all doomed to die.
When Samantha’s hand darted toward his belt, Jack had been taken completely by surprise. He felt her extract the revolver from his waistband and heard the first blast as Samantha placed a bullet in Kallista’s face, causing a small spattering of crimson fluid. The second bullet to burst from the gun smashed a small hole into Calithea’s knee, causing the Seirene’s leg to buckle.
“Grab Peter! Get out of here!” Samantha shouted as she fired a third shot at Adonia’s heart, sending the Seirene reeling backward.
Jack was across the room in an instant, grabbing Peter and trying to lift him off the cold stone floor. Wrapping his arm around Peter’s waist, Jack heaved the detective up, and half-dragged him toward the steps. As another shot rattled from the Samantha’s gun, Jack struggled to haul Peter’s dead weight up the swaying staircase. His shoulder and arm muscles burned, and he stumbled more than once, slamming his shins into the hard edge of the steps. Jack glanced down into the basement and caught sight of Samantha lunging across the chamber below toward the Glock she had lost earlier. The screams of the Seirenes echoed through the stone chamber, and pierced Jack’s ears with their loud shrieks.
Two more shots from her father’s revolver had emptied the gun, and Samantha’s hand scooped up the Glock. She couldn’t remember how many shots she had fired earlier, and hoped that the magazine wasn’t empty when she pulled the trigger. She was rewarded by another ear-shattering blast, which sent Calithea to the ground. As elated as Samantha was to watch the Seirene crash into the stone floor, she knew it would only be a few moments before the creature rose again. Glancing toward the stairs, she watched as Jack struggled to lug Peter upward. I’ve just got to buy them a little time, she thought as she pulled the trigger again, sending Adonia falling backward with a bullet to the face.
Jack had been struggling with Peter’s feet getting caught on the lip of each step, and had to halt his progress momentarily to roll the unconscious detective over on his back. Now, with his arms under Peter’s armpits and around his chest, Jack pulled toward the door at the top of the stairs. As he backed his way upward, Jack’s heel caught on the step, and he fell back, hitting his head on the door. The impact swung the door open, and Jack glanced over his shoulder into the dark kitchen. His arms were searing with pain as he heaved Peter’s body through the door, and onto the kitchen floor beyond. But as Jack began to lift himself up, a vise-like grip clamped around his ankle and began to drag him back down the stairs. He spun around to find Kallista’s glistening dagger-like teeth and flaming red eyes glaring up at him. Jack lashed out with his other foot, kicking the Seirene in the face over and over to no avail. Her iron grip only tightened on his ankle. She pulled hard on his leg, and he slid further down, hitting his head against the step. Another loud boom suddenly echoed through the chamber, and a crimson hole shattered through the Seirene’s wrist, forcing her to release her grip. Jack heard Samantha scream, “Go! Damn it! Go!” as he scrambled up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Falling through the door, Jack spun around quickly and slammed it shut, blocking out the majority of the Seirenes’ screams from below. Peter lay huddled on the floor, taking slow, shallow breaths. Jack heard another gunshot from below, climbed to his feet, and, wrapping his arms around Peter’s chest, lifted the detective and dragged him toward the front door of the house. As Jack struggled to carry Peter’s weight, he could feel his own strength being quickly drained. He gasped for air with each step forward, and sweat was pouring down into his eyes, causing them to sting. The screams and gunshots from the basement below faded as Jack drew closer to the entrance of the house. But each step forward seemed slower and sapped more and more of his energy. Jack and Peter passed through the front room, which was still shrouded in darkness. Jack flung open the front door, and a burst of sunlight ripped through the gloom.
As he stumbled down the three front steps, Jack hadn’t realized how long he had been below ground until the glaring sunlight blinded him. His foot landed on the soft ground, and Jack fell to his knee; his elbow stopped him from falling face down into the grass. Despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Jack’s bruised left thigh ached as he rolled over on the ground. Gritting his teeth in pain, he glanced toward the door of the house. Peter’s comatose body lay huddled in the doorway. Jack rose to his feet, grabbed one of Peter’s limp arms, and dragged him down the front steps into the grass.
He had barely dragged the unconscious detective’s body more than a few yards when the explosion erupted behind them, throwing Jack back down onto the ground with the force of the blast. Glass shattered around them as the explosion blew out the windows on the first floor of the house. Intense flames and heat were expelled from the doorway and threatened to burn Jack and Peter alive. Blown off its hinges, the old front door shattered into pieces and rocketed out into the yard.
When the initial shock of the blast subsided, Jack rolled over and gazed at the house behind him. The centuries old timbers had ignited, and the house was an inferno. Blazing orange flames and dark black smoke poured from every window, and smoldering debris covered the grassy lawn on all sides of the house. Finding the heat to be too intense, Jack scrambled to his feet, grabbed Peter’s arm once again, and lugged him away from the house toward the street. The intensity of the fire seemed to lessen as he slowly crept further from the house. A few feet from the sidewalk, Jack could go no further and dropped Peter’s arm, and then he fell to the ground in exhaustion. Lying on the cool grass, Jack glanced up at th
e burning house and watched as a section of the roof collapsed into the fiery structure. In the distance, he could hear the faint sound of sirens echoing through the streets of the city, signaling that help was on the way.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When the door to the Den of Heroes opened, Jack looked up from the comic book he was reading to see Peter Thornton limp through the doorway. The detective’s arm was hanging in a cast and sling, and his face still held the fresh scars left from recently removed stitches. When Jack had last seen Peter, the paramedics were loading the unconscious detective into an ambulance. The Philadelphia Fire Department had responded quickly, but not fast enough to save the structure. The old wood framed house had collapsed in on itself. The centuries old timbers had ignited fast and burned even faster, leaving little more than a pile of charred rubble when finally extinguished. The four weeks that had followed had come and gone like a whirlwind, and Jack was only now beginning to settle into his new life.
“You look like hell,” Jack said as the detective limped over to the glass display case.
“Thanks. Coming from you, I’ll assume that’s a compliment.”
Jack laughed. “You look better than you did the last time I saw you. At least now you can open your eyes.”
“Yeah. The doctor says it’ll be another few months before I have the full use of my hand again.”
“You out on disability?” asked Jack.
Nodding, Peter replied, “For now. But I’m planning to return to active duty as soon as I can.”
“I figured you were still in pretty bad shape when I didn’t see you at Samantha’s funeral.”
Peter’s head hung low for a moment, and then he said, “I really wanted to go, but I was still laid up in the hospital.”
“It was a good service. I’d say half the police force was there.”
An awkward silence fell between them as they both contemplated their own thoughts about Samantha Ballard and the events leading up to her death. Jack had only known her for a few weeks, but he still felt a twinge of pain at her memory. Theirs had been a friendship forged out of circumstance, but Jack still found himself grieving her loss. The events of that fateful day were still fresh in his memory. He could remember his trip to the hospital, with a police officer sitting beside him in the ambulance. Then there were the hours of interrogation, repeating his story over and over again to disbelieving officers and FBI agents. Jack had lost track of how many different detectives, officers, and special agents he had spoken with, and he never could tell who was playing the good cop and who was playing the bad cop. They all seemed pissed at him. When the police commissioner himself entered the room, Jack was tired, hungry, and sore. He didn’t want to be asked any more questions, and he had expressed his thoughts in as loud and rude a manner as he could possibly muster. The commissioner sat quietly and listened to every word. When his tirade had ended, Jack was surprised by the calm manner in which the commissioner apologized for his treatment and told him he was free to go. The next morning, the headlines in all the city newspapers declared that the city’s serial killer had died, along with a police detective, in a house explosion in Germantown. There was no mention of the Seirenes. A lawyer from city hall had shown up later that day with some papers for Jack to sign, silencing his version of the story in perpetuity.
Peter broke the silence. “Jack, I never got the chance to thank you for dragging me out of that house. You saved my life.”
“No,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Samantha saved our lives. We’d never have made it if not for her.”
Wistfully, Peter said, “I don’t think she really liked me. Or maybe it was just that I was a rookie. I got the impression she didn’t want me as a partner. I can’t blame her. But I did learn a hell of a lot from her. I don’t think she ever realized it.”
After another awkward silence, Peter said, “I hope my boss didn’t come down too hard on you.”
Jack smiled. “It was a little touch and go for a while. They weren’t sure if I was telling the truth or just a lunatic.”
“Consider yourself lucky we took those body cams in with us. If it wasn’t for those they would have locked you up and thrown away the key.”
“Did they find Samantha’s?” asked Jack.
Nodding, Peter replied, “Yes. They found it that day while they were searching the rubble for any remains. The footage pretty much spoke for itself. Between my cam and Samantha’s, the police commissioner got to see more of those creatures than he probably ever wanted to.”
“You’ve seen the footage?”
“Yeah. All of it,” replied Peter.
“What happened?”
Peter went silent for a second, composing himself before replying. “The shots she was firing at the Seirenes weren’t keeping them down for very long. They seemed to have incredible recovery time. They were back on their feet in seconds. Samantha did what she could, but they charged her all at once. She couldn’t stop them.” Peter paused, fighting to hold back his emotions. “They, uh . . . pounced on her, and then began to beat her . . . and tear her to shreds. She must have saved a round in her gun. The footage caught Samantha setting off the explosion. She put a bullet through one of the propane tanks.”
“Damn,” was all Jack could say.
“The last image from the camera was the Seirenes being engulfed in flames. It was pretty disturbing to watch.”
“Did they find her body, or did they bury an empty coffin?”
Shaking his head, Peter replied, “They didn’t find much, just a few bones. That was about it. The medical examiner wasn’t even sure whose they were. The heat from the fire incinerated just about everything.”
“I’m surprised the body cam survived.”
“Yeah. Those things are built to last. I’ve seen one take a bullet and still record.”
“I guess there’s no way to know if they survived,” said Jack.
Peter shook his head. “Don’t know how they could. They must have been incinerated like everything else.”
“I guess that doctor and the pregnant woman didn’t make it either.” Jack bowed his head. “So many dead. It’s just so hard to believe. If I hadn’t lived through it—”
“I know,” interjected Peter. “Over the past few days, we’ve turned up a few more bodies, scattered throughout the city. They were well hidden, but didn’t seem freshly killed. Probably some of their early victims.”
“There’s one thing I haven’t figured out. How did they know about in vitro fertilization? They’d been buried for centuries.”
“They probably got that from one of their early victims. Robert Crosse and his fiancé were patients of Dr. Hardwick, trying to have a baby.”
“Minds are open when they feed,” muttered Jack.
“What?”
“It was something Adonia said to me,” explained Jack. “Her victim’s mind was open to her when she fed.”
Another long moment of silence fell across the shop, until Peter spoke up. “Saw the banner over the door of the shop. Under new management?”
Jack tried to smile, only half succeeding. “Yeah. It was time for a change. Bryan’s parents accepted my offer. They didn’t know what to do with the shop after Bryan was killed, so I’m buying it from them. We’re still waiting for all the legal mumbo jumbo to be taken care of, but they let me open the place, and keep it running until the sale’s complete.”
“No more Pulsar or WPLX?”
“No more Pulsar. But, I’ll still be on the air at WPLX, at least for a little while longer,” Jack replied.
“I’ll still come in. Will I get a discount?” said Peter, smiling.
“Discount? Hell, you’re going to pay a premium. I’m the one who saved your life, remember?”
As the two men laughed, they continued to converse for a few more minutes, talking about mundane things like the weather and
the upcoming baseball season, until another awkward silence led Peter to say his farewell and head toward the door of the shop. When the detective’s hand was on the doorknob, Jack called out his name. Peter turned back to look at Jack.
“She thought you were a good detective. She really did. I just thought you should know,” Jack said.
Peter nodded. “Thanks.”
As Jack watched the door close behind the detective, he glanced down at the comic he had been reading. Wedged between the pages, acting as a bookmark, was a single round-trip airline ticket. Philly to Albany, New York. Then, a rental car to Schenectady. Jack Allyn was going home.
_______________
Somewhere along US Route 96, between the interchange of US Route 96 and US Route 183, near the small Kansas town of Nekoma, Sheriff’s Deputy William Albright pulled his police cruiser over to the side of the road. The tires of the Ford Crown Victoria crunched on the gravel along the shoulder. To his right and left were the telltale signs of autumn; the crops in the fields, which lined either side of the road, had browned with the change of seasons and rustled in the October breeze. The late model Honda Accord in front of him sat quietly on the side of the road. The deputy could see the driver’s head through the rear window. It was slouched toward the driver’s door. William Albright, a five year veteran of the Rush County Sheriff’s department, switched on the blue light bar atop his car and grabbed for his radio.
“Base, this is Albright,” he said.
The radio speaker crackled a reply with a soft-spoken feminine tone. “Hey, Billy. What’s up?”
He gritted his teeth, and sighed loudly. He hated to be called Billy, especially by the likes of Brenda Hoffman. She was only two years younger than him, but they had both graduated from the same high school. He had been the local high school football star, and she had been the love-struck teenager that went to every game just to see him play. Albright, however, had a long list of girlfriends that didn’t include Brenda. Now, years later, her focus was not so much on catching his eye, but riling him up every chance she got.
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