A whizzing sound sliced the air inches above my scalp, and the head of one of the saints to my right exploded in a cloud of chipped stone and dust. Two more bullets chopped other nearby statues, and I felt a piece of marble graze my cheek.
I dove headfirst to the ground as hot lead ricocheted around me.
I rolled behind a plinth, the hilt of my father’s sacrificial blade cutting into my sweaty palm. Thick beads of sweat dripped down my face as my heart turned my ribcage into a punching bag.
My eyes bored into the darkness, determined to locate the shooter. I'd sought refuge in the courtyard hoping the sculptures would throw Maddox off in the dark. Unfortunately, they were working against me now. In the darkness it was hard to distinguish a potential pursuer from the creepy sculptures.
My gaze tilted to the other side of the covered colonnade that encircled the courtyard. I would need to cover a thirty-foot stretch of open grass to reach it. I was still debating if I should chance it when I sensed movement above me.
I tilted my head and my chin met Maddox’s incoming fist. The impact snapped my head back, but through some miracle I held onto the knife despite the pain exploding in my skull.
Then the soldier’s boot crunched down on my hand with pneumatic force and I gasped in agony. This time I let go of the athame.
Satisfied that the knife was his, Maddox grabbed my groggy self by the collar and yanked me back to my feet.
I tasted blood as Maddox’s brutal features snapped into focus. His gaze ticked toward the statue next to us, and I sensed that he was about to slam my head into the white marble.
Tapping into a last reserve of strength, fueled by mortal fear, I brought up my leg right between Maddox’s open legs. I was aiming for the family jewels but I missed my target, hitting his inner thigh instead.
There must’ve been enough desperate momentum in my kick to do some damage, because Maddox let go of me with a grunt, face twisting into a grimace of pain and anger.
He stumbled backwards, allowing me to scramble to my feet.
I drew in a wheezing breath while massaging my bruised neck, grateful for the much-needed hit of oxygen. Still regaining my equilibrium, my eyes searched the ground for my knife.
I couldn’t allow the athame to fall into Maddox’s hands.
As my eyes combed the garden, I noticed a flicker of movement.
One of the marble statues stirred in the dark, coming to unnatural life.
I was still trying to decide if my senses had played a trick on me when the statue closest to Maddox reached out for the soldier. A pale marble arm snatched his forearm. Instantly, a second statue came alive, and a third, the saints now imbued with unholy life as they launched themselves at the intruder in their domain.
A part of me wanted to turn on my heel and flee, but I knew it was a bad idea. I’d never make it out of the garden. There were statues everywhere. No, I had to keep my cool despite Maddox’s pitiful screams, find the athame, and fight these things—
I froze in mid-thought as I sensed movement behind me.
I spun around just as one of the hulking statues lunged toward me.
Chapter Sixteen
At first, Maddox had fought the temptation to take a swig from the flask. Ever since he quit the booze he’d made sure never to have that poison anywhere near him. Whenever a buddy invited him out for a drink, he declined. Even started taking a different route home to avoid his favorite bars.
Booze had taken almost everything from him. His wife, his kids, his house, and nearly his sanity. It had cost him every ounce of willpower to kick the habit, a demon of a very different sort that he had to exorcise just the same.
Alcohol had kept the memories at bay, had allowed him to live in the present and not flash back to those three long weeks in Iraq when the demon had turned him into its personal chew toy. His brutal war experiences blurred with the apocalyptic visions the entity had shared with him while he was under its spell. An endless nightmare that seemed to fade only after the fifth or sixth drink.
As the alcohol burned down his throat and the memories of his possession dimmed, another demon would assert itself. This new beast thrived on the dark impulses shaped by years of bitter warfare. Maddox might start out as a happy drunk, but his excellent mood never lasted past the first six-pack. That’s when the anger and rage took over, giving free rein to the murderous instincts honed by heavy combat.
But the flask was right there. Waiting for him. He’d been clean long enough that a single drink wouldn’t push him over the edge. He told himself it would be only one swig, just a taste to calm his jangled nerves. But once his lips closed around his flask and that strong whiskey sizzled down his throat, he couldn’t stop.
As always, a swig became multiple hits, the booze warming his knotted insides. By the time he’d drained the flask, his gut had stopped churning with anxiety and he felt that old sense of calm washing over him. He was a young turk back in Iraq, strong and in command, prepared to take on the world. The incident in the Iraqi cemetery that would shatter his universe, kill his brothers, and corrupt his soul was still far in the future.
With the alcohol roaring in his system, the old confidence was back. Clarity filled his mind, and his thoughts turned to Kane’s knife. The Malibu punk wasn’t worthy of the weapon. A man trained in hand-to-hand combat should wield such a powerful knife, not some millionaire moonlighting as a so-called occult expert. This was war, and war required that real soldiers do the fighting.
A soldier like himself.
A smart man would have handed him the knife. Kane preferred to do it the hard way, which was fine with Maddox. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Never had, never would.
So when he caught up with Kane in the garden and his fist met the punk’s glass chin, a dark thrill had pulsed up his arm.
You only have yourself to blame, he thought.
To his surprise, Kane held onto the knife. The bastard had more grit than he’d given him credit for. Still, it didn’t change the outcome of this confrontation. Only one man was going to walk out of this garden, and it sure as hell would not be Kane.
Maddox's boot stomped down on the hand holding the knife, and this time the occultist received the memo telling him who was boss here. Kane’s cry of pain was music to Maddox’s ears—the sweet sound of victory.
As Kane recoiled, Maddox made a go for the knife. The SEAL took a step toward the blade, and that’s when he detected movement to his right.
Maddox had been an altar boy, and he’d spent many hours in church since his possession. He recognized the sculpture now moving toward him as Saint Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles and famed for being flayed by his enemies. Maddox remembered the saint more for his grisly end than any miraculous deeds.
The marble creature lunged at him, stone fingers gripping his wrist. For a split second there was only the sensation of the cool marble against his sticky skin, and then the statue applied iron pressure, and Maddox’s arm exploded with pain.
Without uttering a sound, the stony monster yanked him forward even as a second statue burst from the darkness, snatching his other arm. Maddox caught a last glance at Kane’s knife, so close yet so far.
The statues dragged Maddox toward the waiting pond. Before the veteran grasped what was happening to him, the stone monsters had pulled him into the icy water. Pinpricks of agony raked his skin, the viselike grip on his arms tightening as he desperately tried to get away. Something snapped in his wrist, and he grunted through gritted teeth.
These creatures were going to drag him underwater so they could drown him. Didn’t they know he was a survivor? He was the only SEAL to walk out of that cemetery in Iraq. The demon had deemed him worthy to be its host, had decreed that he was the strongest man in his unit. He didn’t deserve to drown like some rat.
I’ll serve you, he thought. Anything you want. Just tell me what to do. Who to kill.
Maddox still clung to the false hope that the demon would spare him when the
pond’s freezing waters closed over his head.
Chapter Seventeen
Back in the meeting room, Father Ambrose blinked and tasted copper. He gently turned his head and a lightning bolt of pain raced down his spine. His bones and tendons protested. It was a miracle that he hadn’t lost consciousness after throwing himself at the Navy SEAL. Sergeant Maddox hadn’t tempered his punches, and Ambrose’s face was already swelling up. Maddox had cast him aside like some pesky insect, but at least his feeble efforts bought Kane some time.
For years, terrible guilt had robbed Ambrose of his vitality. He’d nearly killed the nun he’d abused on the altar of his church, and the memories of that day had haunted him ever since. How could he be capable of such savage behavior?
It wasn’t you, he’d tried to tell himself. The Devil made you do it.
This was true, but when no one around you believed your story, it might as well be a fantasy. There was no support from friends, no calls from loved ones. Surviving his possession had been the relatively simple part. The real challenge was being treated like a pariah by his community. Talk about a fall from grace. He’d gone from being the cool inner-city priest who played hoops with the local street hoods to a total outcast whom even the shadiest characters in the Washington Heights neighborhood of his parish avoided.
Being cast out by his neighbors and friends had hurt almost as much as losing his collar. But worst of all were the memories. The horror of what the demon had done to the nun on his altar. The beast had reduced Ambrose to a helpless bystander to the crime, forcing him to watch in silent disgust as the demon had his way with poor Sister Mary Evangeline.
Perhaps that explained why he faced the zombie monks and the Navy SEAL without consideration for his safety. He felt complicit in the demons’ crimes and needed to pay due penance for his sins.
His mind turned away from the nun who’d suffered unspeakable horrors at his hands to the sister who’d selflessly come to his aid.
Sister Nora.
Thinking about the brave nun who’d taken a bullet for him set off alarm bells in Father Ambrose’s mind. Was she still alive? How badly was she wounded?
He twisted his head, ignoring a renewed wave of pain.
He spotted Nora about ten feet away from him, her body partially hidden by some of the meeting room’s overturned chairs. A widening pool of red provided an ominous hint of her grave condition in the flickering candlelight.
Fighting through his pain, Ambrose crawled toward the woman, advancing inch by painful inch. He at last fought his way to the wounded nun’s side. Her angelic features were gray and pale, and her shoulder seeped red. The stench of cordite still clung to the air.
Determined to quell the blood flow, Ambrose pressed his hands against the wound. The blood pouring out of her was as warm as her skin was cold.
His eyes combed the room, desperate to find something he could turn into a makeshift bandage. He ended up taking off his shirt, another exercise in agony, and wrapping it around the nun’s bullet wound. Ambrose prayed it would stop the bleeding, that he wasn’t too late.
This woman didn’t deserve to die like this. No one did.
“Why fight for her pathetic life, padre?” A voice in his head asked. “You’re wasting precious time with a dying woman while you could save yourself.”
“Stop it,” Father Ambrose hissed under his breath.
He bit his lips and applied even more pressure to Sister Nora’s shoulder. Relief flooded his heart when he saw her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
But as he watched, the demon found another way to reach him. Bypassing his conscious thoughts and going straight to the base instincts of a man looking down at a beautiful woman. The contours of her breasts under the black dress stirred emotion in the defrocked priest. Dark desires he’d never fully admitted to himself now came to the surface.
The violence he’d inflicted against Sister Mary Evangeline had revolted him. Still, there was another part of the experience that had perversely excited him—the sight and feel of her bare breasts, the warmth of her skin, the animalistic bliss of taking her on the same altar where he proselytized to his flock every day. He would never admit this out loud, not even if one of his former brethren would allow him confession, but he knew it to be true. It fueled his terrible guilt. The dirty secret he kept deeply locked within himself was that the memory filled him with both disgust and arousal.
Temptations of the flesh had always cast a shadow over his priesthood. He’d never acted on these feelings, even though he’d received several offers over the years. But he resisted his baser impulses—until the day the demon hijacked his mind and body and turned secret desires into reality.
“I set you free, padre,” the terrible voice in his head whispered. “You should be thankful.
“You weren’t man enough to go after what you wanted. All I did is give you a little nudge. Someone had to show you the ropes and help you pop your cherry.”
“No,” Father Ambrose protested half-heartedly.
“Be honest. How often do you think back to that moment? How often do you replay every detail of that day when I turned you into a real man?”
“Enough…please.”
“Look at her. Don’t you want to cop a quick feel? Just for old time’s sake. She’s unconscious, helpless. You could take her. If you have her now, no one would ever know.”
Father Ambrose pressed his hands against his ears, a wan attempt to shut out the voice in his head. The demon continued his litany of dark temptation.
“What would you give to run your tongue across those lips? The nun’s yours for the taking. All you need to do is man up and seize the opportunity.”
Father Ambrose stopped applying pressure to the bandage. He removed his hand from the blood-soaked shirt and, to his horror, started running his fingers down Sister Nora’s chest. As he explored the contours of her breasts, hot tears of disgust ran down his cheek. But he failed to stop.
“That’s a boy, father. I’m proud of you.”
Ambrose ran his hand up to Sister Nora’s face, traced the shape of her soft cheek—
And that’s when a powerful force gripped his neck from behind.
No.
The last thing Father Ambrose heard in his life was the sound of his neck snapping.
Chapter Eighteen
The living statue lurched toward me with ferocious intent. Despite being carved from stone, the creature moved with panther-like grace and speed. The saint’s mask-like features remained devoid of emotion even as it tried to kill me. It made me think of the dead countenance of the Michael Myers mask from the Halloween movies.
I threw myself to the right, the sculpture’s feet slamming into the ground where my head had been seconds earlier. I rolled toward my athame and scooped up the blade in one fluid motion. Not a moment too soon, as the statue was upon me.
Adrenaline roaring through my veins, I spun toward the inhuman attacker and drove the knife into its chest. My father’s sacrificial knife sank into the marble as if it were flesh.
The reaction to the blade’s magic was instantaneous. The sculpture jerked and shuddered, cracks exploding over its ivory form before shattering. It rained marble.
I stared at the pile of stones for a wide-eyed beat, breath coming in sharp bursts.
I tilted my head, certain that more statues might join the battle. To my relief, the other sculptures remained rooted in place — at least for the time being.
Knife in hand, I scrambled back to my feet. Mud caked my pants and sweat ran down my face. What I wouldn’t give to be back in Malibu right now, lounging in the hot tub with Vesper instead of trapped in this nightmare. I never should have come here. But at least she was safe at home. My thoughts flashed to Nora’s still form lying in the conference room, imagining my love dead on the floor in her place.
With conscious effort, I shook off those dark imaginings. I moved toward the pool where the Navy SEAL had vanished. Maddox was an asshole, but no one
deserved to go out like that.
I advanced toward the body of water, not sure what to expect. As I watched, ripples disturbed the pond’s surface. Moments later, Maddox’s lifeless form floated up, bulging eyes framed by pale, dead skin. Drowning a Navy SEAL was yet another example of the demon’s twisted sense of humor.
Heartbeat pulsing in my ears, louder than the ocean surf outside my home at night, I gripped my athame a little tighter.
That’s when I noticed a second figure in the pool. At first, I thought I was looking at a dead monk.
I leaned closer and the terrible truth was revealed. What I’d mistaken as a monk’s robe was a nun’s habit.
My eyes widened. I was looking at the lifeless features of Nora Hill.
A wave of grief filled my heart and my stomach clenched. Nora’s dead eyes stared back at me with stony indifference to my feelings.
I shook my head. How was this possible? If Nora was dead… then who had Maddox shot back in the meeting room?
There was only one answer—and I didn’t like it one bit.
I turned toward the west-facing side of the garden, where the meeting room was located. Fierce determination catapulted me into motion.
This is where the nightmare had started. This is where it would end.
I heard a woman’s voice calling out to me. Even though I knew it was a trick, some part of me still wanted to rush inside and save Nora.
The demon had reclaimed the souls Andara had denied the creature, one by one, but it wasn’t done yet. The beast was still hungry for more. This devil wouldn’t stop until it sunk its claws into the son of Mason Kane. It was a lot stronger now, satiated, flush with acquired power, but it still feared the knife in my hand. I entertained no illusions about what lay ahead. I was in for the fight of my life. The demon would throw everything in its arsenal at me. Then again, I had a few tricks up my sleeve, too.
The Possessed (The Paranormalist Book 5) Page 9