The Burning Time

by J. G. Faherty

  Ken collapsed to the floor, struggling to draw a breath past the blood pouring from his mouth and nose. A dusty steel-toed workbook came down on his elbow, and once more the sound of breaking bones filled the air. Someone grabbed his head and smashed it into the glass of the counter front. The same hands pulled him out again and threw him against the wall. He tried to crawl for the door, but two pairs of legs, looking as wide as tree trunks in their faded denim, blocked his way.

  “Hey, mister,” a voice said.

  He looked back and saw Millie standing beside him, her foot raised in the air. Before he could say anything, her three-inch heel came down on his back, all her considerable weight behind it.

  When the plastic spike penetrated his kidney, Ken found the air to scream.

  * * *

  Cyrus Christian leaned back in his chair and breathed deeply of the loathsome energies swirling through Hastings Mills. Like fertilizer on plants, they saturated peoples darkest thoughts and helped rage, jealousy, hatred, and fear blossom into murder, rape, and violence.

  Things are finally coming to fruition. The roots of Chaos had taken hold, and now they were sprouting angry vines of black and red.

  Time to take care of some unfinished business.

  It hadn’t been hard to locate the Anderson bitch and her cowering brother. Holed up in their house like mice behind a wall, hiding from the big, bad cat waiting on the other side. As he’d expected, Root had cast wards all around the house. As long as they didn’t leave, the Andersons were safe. And neither Christian nor anything he might call from the Otherworlds could enter.

  But there were ways around that problem.

  The reverend laughed. Sometimes the best solution was the easiest. He took out his grimoire and searched through the pages until he found the spell he needed.

  Simple, but oh so effective.

  * * *

  Danni Anderson was pouring a glass of ice tea when something struck the house with a loud bang, causing her hand to jerk and sending ice tea across the counter.

  “What was that?”

  “I dunno.” Mitch got up from the table and moved toward the front window.

  “Wait!” Danni hurried after him, drying her hands on her shirt. “Remember what John said.”

  Mitch rolled his eyes. “He said don’t open the doors or windows. As long as we stay inside, nothing can hurt us, right? So it can’t hurt to look out the window.”

  “That’s what John said.” Danni trailed behind. “But what if he’s wrong?”

  “He...Holy crap!”

  Danni pushed Mitch aside and peeked between the curtains. At least ten people stood in front of the house, making piles of stones on the ground. “What are they doing?”

  Her question was answered a moment later when one of the trespassers hefted a golf-ball sized rock and threw it at the house.

  Bang!

  “Assholes!” Danni went to the front door. “Who the hell do they think they are, coming here and —“

  “Danni, no!” Mitch slapped her hand just as she was reaching for the doorknob. She turned, an angry retort on her lips, and then one hand flew to her mouth as she realized what she’d almost done.

  “Shit. I got so pissed I forgot.”

  Mitch nodded. “I think that’s the idea.”

  Danni’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. We’ll deal with them another way. I’ll just call the police.” She grabbed the phone.

  “I wouldn’t bother,” Mitch said. “One of the guys out there is wearing a police uniform.”

  Danni put down the phone, a nervous expression on her face. “Dammit. The phone’s dead.”

  “They probably cut the lines. I hope they don’t —” He stopped as the ceiling fans went off. In the kitchen, the refrigerator clicked a few times as its motor shut down.

  “The power’s out.” Danni tried a light switch, turning it on and off several times before giving up.

  “That’s what I was afraid of. They’re gonna try and sweat us out.”

  Danni looked at her brother, saw her nervousness reflected in his frown. “Don’t worry, we’ll get through this. Let’s have some ice tea while there’s still ice.” She put her arm around his shoulder and guided him away from the window.

  Another stone banged against the house, and they both twitched.

  John, where the hell are you?

  * * *

  John Root stood at the bottom of his basement stairs and surveyed the destruction Christian had wrought. It was worse than he’d imagined. Entire shelves had been turned over. Broken bottles, jars, and flasks covered the floor, their contents congealing in multi-colored puddles on the cement. The air reeked from the combination of herbs, oils, and solutions.

  As he stared at his ruined storage room, a sick, angry knot formed in John’s stomach. Over two hundred years of herbals and potions. The ingredients for every spell known to the Root family, ruined. Many of the items would be almost impossible to find again: talismans from other countries, ancient artifacts, waters from a dozen different healing springs.

  Before he could begin gathering what he needed for his confrontation with Christian, he had to put the basement into some semblance of order, before everything was lost to contamination or rot.

  More time wasted, time he didn’t have.

  Time Danni and Mitch didn’t have.

  With a heavy sigh, John Root picked up his broom and started sweeping the broken glass into piles.

  Chapter 27

  The sudden cessation of noise startled Danni into complete wakefulness. For the past several hours, the crowd gathered outside her house had kept up a constant barrage of stones, which clattered and bounced off the roof, walls, and windows like the world’s worst hailstorm.

  When bombardment ended, she immediately ran to the nearest window to see what Christian’s mind-zombies had in store for them next.

  “What’s wrong?” Mitch asked, rubbing his eyes. He’d drifted off earlier, just as the sun began its evening descent. They’d both been lying on the kitchen floor in an attempt to stay cool as the temperature in the house crept into the nineties.

  “Something’s going on outside. The people are leaving.” It was true. They were walking away from the house and getting into their cars.

  Mitch went to the back door. “Maybe they realized they couldn’t scare us out?”

  “Maybe,” Danni said, but it didn’t ring true. Hell, Christian’s plan had almost worked, especially when stones started hitting the living room window. She and Mitch had both screamed, afraid that if the glass shattered, John’s spell would be rendered useless. It had taken several frightening minutes for them to realize the spell also prevented the glass from breaking.

  However, even knowing they were safe hadn’t kept the machine gun noise from getting on their nerves. As the crowd outside grew from ten to twenty and then more—surrounding the house on all sides—the primitive assault had grown louder and more ferocious, a never-ending volley that made talking almost impossible and frayed nerves to the breaking point.

  So Danni doubted Christian would give up so easily; he had to know the effect of the attack on them.

  Which means he has something worse in store.

  As the silence stretched on, Danni went from window to window, peering out into the dusk-shadowed yard for any signs of movement.

  Ten minutes after darkness claimed the property, the battery-operated motion lights over the front porch went on.

  “Something’s out there,” she whispered to Mitch.

  “Are the people back?”

  Danni shook her head. “No. There’s no cars. And I don’t see — SHIT!” She stumbled away from the window.

  A grotesque face was pressed against the glass, leering at them with misshapen eyes and jagged teeth. A second cat-sized creature joined it, twin to the first and somehow even more hideous because of the green slime that dripped from its open mouth. Long, black claws scraped against the window with the sound of fingernails on a blackboard,
sending painful shivers up Danni’s spine.

  Noises reached them from all parts of the house, wet thumps against windows, walls, and doors. Just when Danni thought it couldn’t get any worse, a new sound started, a chorus of wailing and moaning as the demonic creatures howled their displeasure at being unable to breach John’s wards.

  A loud crash from the roof startled a gasp from Danni and made Mitch jump. More thuds and bumps came from overhead, and Danni pictured demons falling from the sky like the proverbial rain of cats and dogs.

  “Back into the kitchen,” Danni said, turning her back on a hideous, beagle-sized monster that was masturbating its three penises at her and laughing.

  Mitch shook his head. “It’s just as bad in there.”

  “I don’t care. At least the windows are smaller. We can open the basement door; that’ll cool the room off a little, too.”

  “Okay, kitchen it is.” Mitch said, as he picked up the seat cushions from the couch.

  “What are you doing?”

  He glanced at her, his face pale in the dim light. “I’m gonna put them over the windows. At least we won’t have to look at those...things, and they won’t be able to see in, either.”

  “Good idea.” Danni gathered some pillows in her arms. “And we can sit on these. More comfortable than the floor.”

  “Now you’re thinking, sis.” Mitch gave her a smile, and she returned it.

  What an amazing kid. I don’t know where his smarts came from, but I’m glad he’s got them. She thought about everything they’d been through over the past few weeks, marveling at his resiliency. He’s tougher than he looks, too, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

  Once they had the pillows in place, Danni opened a drawer and took out some candles. “Let’s have a little light, whattya say?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Sure. And we should probably have something to eat, too.”

  Although she was too nervous to feel hungry, Danni nodded. “Okay. What do you want?”

  He gave her a sly grin. “With the power off, we should really eat the things that’ll go bad first.”

  “Like the cold cuts?”

  His smile grew wider. “Actually, I was thinking more like ice cream.”

  Danni laughed. “We wouldn’t want that to go to waste, would we?”

  “It is awful hot.”

  She shook her head. Did I say smart? How about too smart? “Get some spoons, little bro. Tonight we pig out.”

  She was reaching for the freezer door when the unexpected sound of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony burst into life, causing her to jump and Mitch to drop the spoons he’d been bringing to the table.

  Even as she recognized the sound of her cell phone, Danni’s heart still thumped fast and hard.

  “Who is it?” Mitch asked.

  Relief surged through Danni as she checked the caller ID on the screen.

  “It’s John.”

  * * *

  John Root hung up the phone and then stood for a long moment, staring at the old-fashioned rotary phone on his kitchen wall. He hadn’t expected Danni to react well to the news that he’d be delayed in getting back to them, but he’d been surprised by how upset she’d been.

  Why should that surprise you, John? She and her brother are trapped in a house with no power, surrounded by demons. And you’re surprised she’s on the edge of hysterics?

  All of that was true, but he sensed there was something more to her sobbing tears than just fear, that Danni’s distress was partly due to the fact that she cared for him, and not just as a friend. And while he didn’t want to admit it, he harbored the same feelings for her, which made him feel even worse, because he couldn’t allow anything to happen between them. Once he dealt with Cyrus Christian, he’d have to leave Hastings Mills. Probably forever. It wasn’t his lot to enter into a relationship with someone from the ordinary world.

  Danni’s world.

  Put it out of your mind. Focus on what you need to do.

  Yes, what he needed to do. Take a careful inventory of what was left in the basement. He’d cleaned the worst of the mess; now it was time to see if he had everything he needed to accomplish his task. Do what he came to do, then worry about the rest after.

  Especially since there might not be an after, not if he failed in his task.

  Can’t think like that. His mother always used to say, ”You have to think positive in order to do positive.”

  “Where’s your mother now, John Root?”

  John turned and looked around the kitchen, positive someone had spoken the words aloud. No, it’s just my subconscious again, playing Devil’s advocate in Christian’s voice.

  Unless...Had his old enemy managed to get inside his head again? It shouldn’t be possible. Not here, not in his own home. But he was tired; he hadn’t slept in over twenty four hours. Perhaps...

  No. The wards are still intact around the house. I’m protected, just like Danni and Mitch are protected.

  But for how long?

  “Get your body in gear, John,” he said to himself. This time it worked. He returned to the cellar and started going through the shelves, pen and paper in hand, organizing things in their proper order, gathering what he needed, and writing down what he didn’t have.

  It was going to be a long night.

  * * *

  Danni Anderson yawned and twisted her body back and forth, trying to work the kinks out. After a long, sleepless night spent on the kitchen floor, she felt sick and exhausted.

  She looked down at Mitch, who still lay on the floor, his face buried in a pillow.

  “You all right, little bro?”

  Mitch opened his eyes and gave her a wan smile. “I guess. When do you think John’s coming back?”

  “I don’t know, buckaroo,” Danni said, unconsciously reverting back to the nickname she’d had for him when he was a toddler. “I’m sure he’ll call us when he’s on the way. But at least we’ve got some good news.”

  “What?”

  “Those...things are gone. Not a sign of them anywhere. They must hate the sun—”

  BANG!

  They both screamed at the sudden noise from the front of the house. “Stay here,” Danni said, and ran to the living room.

  Two cars sat in the front yard. Three men and an old woman were gathering stones. More cars were already pulling up the driveway.

  “They’re back, aren’t they.”

  Danni nodded. “But remember. They can’t hurt us. All they can do is make noise.”

  Bang! BANG!

  Mitch twitched as each stone hit the house. Watching him, Danni knew there was no way either of them could make it through another day of the unending battering.

  “Change of plans,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him into the kitchen. “We’re moving downstairs.” He started to protest, but she kept talking over his objections. “We’re taking everything we need down there with us. Blankets, chairs, food, water, candles, flashlights, you name it. Get it all together. Don’t forget pillows. Bring books if you want them.”

  “What about when we have to go to the bathroom?”

  “Well, obviously we’ll come upstairs for that. But only then. We’re going to stay down there until John comes home.”

  As Mitch ran upstairs to get more blankets, Danni paused in the middle of filling a plastic jug with water, surprised at her own choice of words.

  When John comes home. Not when he comes back.

  When he comes home.

  Unwilling to analyze the emotions behind the words, afraid such an examination might bring bad luck, she focused on filling the jug.

  * * *

  John splashed water on his face in an attempt to clear his head. It had taken all night to work his way through his stock. Through fate or perhaps the hand of God, his list of missing items had ended up much smaller than he’d expected. Rosemary, which he’d already purchased at the local grocery store. It was the one other item, dirt from a family plot, which presented a problem
.

  Bright yellow sunlight streamed through the bathroom window. On any other day it would have filled him with a warm, comforting feeling. One of the reasons he loved the old house so much was because it got sunlight throughout the day, creating a happy, homey environment that made sad feelings almost impossible.

  But today all it meant was delay. Cemetery dirt was only effective if collected after the sun set, which meant a full day wasted while he waited.

  Another day trapped in the house for Danni and Mitch.

  How long could they take it? The heat, the supernatural attacks, being cut off from the world. How long before one of them cracked under the pressure and opened a window for a breath of fresh air?

  What if Christian sent a cop to their door, or a delivery person? Would they have the strength not to answer?

  With more than thirteen hours until sunset, John decided to put his time to good use. Gas up the car. Food and water for the ride, to cut down on stops. And then a few hours sleep.

  As he packed the car, he added one more thing: a special talisman he’d made during the night, just for the ride to New York. If it worked, it would shield him from any police.

  He intended to drive very fast.

  The sun was balancing on the edge of the horizon when John entered the cemetery. Three rows of headstones, six to a row, made up the whole plot. Four generations of Root men and women, as close in death as they’d been in life.

  John opened a plastic bag and sat down between the graves of his mother and father. Less than fifteen feet away lay his wife and son, but although more than seventy years had passed since their deaths, he still couldn’t bring himself to touch their graves.

  When will the pain go away? He’d accepted his mother’s passing; it still angered him, and sometimes brought tears to his eyes, but it didn’t conjure the emotional turmoil that thinking about Clara and Jack did. Was it because his mother had given her life trying to rid the world of evil, instead of simply being an innocent victim of it?

  “Such gloomy thoughts, John. This isn’t like you.”