Unholy

by Bill Bennett

  The cat leapt.

  Bess turned and fled. She tore through the darkness, bounding over rocks, her mind racing too. What was this creature? Who sent it? Was it the girl’s guardian? Some form of supernatural bodyguard?

  She careened around the tree, leapt over a bench, the wildcat at her heels. She could feel its breath, its body heat, pulsating behind her. Why hadn’t it pounced? Why hadn’t it pulled her to the ground? It was way faster than she was. More agile. More powerful.

  Because it was driving her. Driving her to –

  She skittered to a stop. She was at the edge. The edge of the cliff. There was just a thin railing between her and a drop of hundreds of feet to a parking lot way below. She turned to face the mountain lion. It seemed to have grown larger. It was enormous – the size of a truck. Its eyes gleamed. As though this had been the plan all along.

  Bess had her back to the railing. The cat was advancing on her. Again it roared. Again its massive teeth flashed in the moonlight. Its eyes pinned her like a moth to a cork-board. Bess quickly tried to duck away to the right but a paw flashed out and its claws slashed her across her snout. She felt a sudden jolt of pain. Fat blobs of blood dropped from her nose into the dust at her feet.

  Bess suddenly exploded. The shock of being physically attacked unleashed her fury. The size of her attacker no longer mattered. All that mattered was her pride, her dignity, her ego. She charged at the cat, leapt up to tear out its throat, but the golden beast swatted her back with its gigantic paw, hitting her so hard that she hit the railing, crashed through and hurtled out into a dark void.

  She clutched desperately at the cold air, glimpsed down and saw way below her pin-pricks of lamplight in the parking lot.

  She began to fall. There was no cliff face to reach out to, no overhanging branches that she could hope to clutch. There was nothing other than asphalt and parked cars hundreds of feet below.

  As she dropped, she looked back up at the wild cat that now stood at the broken railing, its goldfire eyes laughing in the moonlight, watching her fall, watching her fall, watching her fall …

  And then the cat was gone.

  And so was she.

  CHAPTER 7

  He came from under the ground and emerged into the night.

  Merged into the night.

  Because he was a part of the night and the cosmos, and all that was dark and cold and ageless.

  He was Satan’s Collector of Souls, the Horn of the Goat, otherwise known within the Golden Order of Baphomet as the Fallen Priest. He resided in an abandoned crumbling church, hidden from view by an unseen cone deep in the woods of Missouri. When he wasn’t there, he was in the Palace of Fires, sitting at the cloven feet of the Two Evil. This was where he felt most comfortable, at home, waiting for a calling from His Master and Mistress – the masculine, feminine duality of true evil.

  On assignment he would take a worldly form, that of a Catholic priest, because that’s what he once was, before he traded his soul to save himself from execution as a witch. He wasn’t a witch then, but he was now. One of the most dreaded and feared witches within the Golden Order. To perform his tasks he could rearrange his molecular structure and travel through time and space – he could even dematerialise his vehicle, but that took more effort.

  He had a social security card, bank accounts, he existed in the real world. But he also didn’t. If a cop ran a check on his driver’s licence, he would see that he was named Father Michael O’Leary. He would come up clean as a whistle. And yet later there would be no record of the check and the cop would have no recollection of ever having met the gentle pastor.

  His hidden bank accounts would show that he was one of the richest people on the planet – the result of hundreds of years of using spellcraft to win lotteries, play the world’s stock markets, trade in currencies, gamble on games and races of which he knew the outcome. Wealth held no interest for him, though. His only interest was in pleasing Satan, doing his bidding and using all his centuries-old knowledge to bag trophy-souls for the Glorious Beast of the Dark.

  He had been given immortality. That honour had been bestowed on him for his dutiful service over the centuries. In his capacity as a collector of souls, he had excelled in turning towards the dark those most recalcitrant of souls, the most tenacious and troublesome – but also the most prized and valuable. The CEOs of large corporations that impacted mass culture, wayward and confused heads of state and royalty, the media tycoons that swayed public thinking, senior government bureaucrats that informed lawmaking and policy, the celebrities and internet stars that influenced tens of millions.

  Some were easy. They turned effortlessly. Others were more difficult and required his incomparable skill and charm to beguile them into relinquishing their souls to the chilled darkness of the endless night.

  He breathed in cold clear air. The mine around him stood mute in its decrepitude, a once living thing that now was a deathly blight on the surrounding countryside. For nearly a century the Deep Sink Mine had been a prosperous concern, employing thousands, but over the years a series of strange calamities sent its procession of owners bankrupt. Odd things, such as miners turning crazy and embarking on killing sprees. Or the dozen or more times a shift worker would take his own life and that of his family, often brutally with an axe or sledgehammer. Or all the unexplained explosions underground that entombed hundreds, or the incurable diseases that confounded doctors, but would shut down the mine for months, sometimes years, at a time.

  Tavern talk began to spread throughout the district that the mine was cursed. Miners reported seeing a mysterious lamb just before a tragedy – a lamb with demonic red eyes that would often utter a terrifying scream and then disappear. The newspapers began to call it cursed, and finally about ten years ago the mine was shuttered for good. Its new owner, a sitting member of the House of Lords in London, immediately erected a high wire fence around the property, and employed a full-time security guard to keep out tourists and the curious, some of whom had travelled thousands of miles to gawk at the so-called haunted mine.

  Little did they know that the esteemed owner was a high-ranking member of Baphomet and the Deep Sink Mine sat atop a Dragon Knot – a nodal point of foul energy lines that was one of the few earthly portals to the Palace of Fires.

  The Fallen Priest looked up to the heavens. Above him a glittering canopy silently raged. He found the moon, a thin slice of ice. He smiled. Not long now till it was full black, the night of Unholy, when the celestial skies would explode in a star-storm of cosmic ecstasy. He’d been waiting more than a century for this night. So too His Master and Mistress, the Two Evil.

  He looked over to the Black Mountain – a huge dump of coal tailings that rose up like a gigantic obsidian snow cone with its tip sheered flat. Up there, close to the spectacle that would be celebrated for decades to come, that would be remembered through story and myth and song and ceremony, up there he would complete the hardest task the Two Evil had ever set for him – the extraction of the soul of Angela Maguire.

  He had spent the last several days deep underground in the fetid shafts of the Deep Sink Mine, abandoned for years, graveyard to so many, a place in which he felt at home. He’d tried all his tricks and specialist spellcraft to loosen her higher self’s lock on her soul. But that lock was immutable and her soul itself was impenetrable. Over lifetimes of prayer and meditation, her soul had gathered layers of protection like thick gleaming nacre around a pearl. The Fallen Priest had found it impossible to break through this energetic barrier.

  That’s why he needed the girl. The woman had used love as a defence to thwart his attacks on her soul. Now he would use that same love to bust it wide open and offer it up to the Two Evil. She would come for her mother, there was nothing surer. She would come. And when she did, he would be waiting for her.

  CHAPTER 8

  She saw movement, from afar.

  Something dropping, dropping fast.

  It wasn’t a rock, dislodged. It wasn’t tr
ash tipped from the village above.

  It was alive. Clutching at the air desperately as it fell, in some vain grotesque pantomime, as if there were a chance that just this once the physical laws of nature might relent.

  She was at two thousand feet. She saw a crowd, atop the pillar of stone. Villagers, like a mob, a lynching mob. They were armed with what looked to be farming tools. They were celebrating. Slapping each other on the back. Even from a distance she could hear that they were whooping and hollering.

  And out front was a lion, the biggest mountain lion she’d ever seen.

  With a few beats of her massive golden wings, she flew in closer. They would never see her. She was silent and, against the darkness of the night, almost invisible.

  The pillar was high. Wind from the surrounding plains swirled around it like a vortex. There was a foul energy pulsing from the rock. Something holy. Something sacred. It was ancient and ancestral. She found it quite sickening.

  Even so she swooped in closer. What had they thrown off the cliff? One of theirs? Or had it been an accident? But as she flew in closer she saw that it wasn’t a person, this falling thing.

  And then she felt something else. A quickening of her heart. An energy she knew. Something that was both separate from her and a part of her.

  She was closer now. And hurtling down too. The ground was rushing up fast. A parking lot, at the base of the rock. In a few moments this creature, whatever it was, would be dead.

  She could feel its energy more strongly now, this strange intimate connection.

  It was her sister, in her pit-bull form.

  With talons extended, Andi swooped down and dug deep into Bess’s body, clutching her so firmly she yelped in pain, then with one powerful thrust of her wings she arced up, away from the ground, holding onto her tight, her sister now screeching like a stuck pig.

  Shut up, you baby, Andi thought. I just saved your miserable life. When they were in their familiar forms, Andi and Bess could communicate telepathically.

  Yeah, Bess replied gruffly, without a hint of gratitude. What took you so long?

  CHAPTER 9

  Freddie always let Joe drive.

  Joe was six foot three, African American, 250 pounds, with hands the size of a pitcher’s mitt and feet the size of a Thanksgiving ham. Joe always wore a baggy tan suit, even to bed most probably – if he slept at all – and always shades. Dollar-shop shades. Even indoors, and at night, like now. He liked to drive at night. He drove fast, but he never got pulled up by the cops. They never seemed to see him, even when he flashed right past them. It was like he was invisible. Or maybe the patrolmen suddenly lost the will to chase him. Whatever the reason, it meant that Joe could cover distances in way less time than any other motorist on the road.

  It helped that he never stopped. Not even for restroom breaks. Freddie would always have to ask him to pull over into a truckstop when he needed to use the bathroom. Otherwise Joe would just keep on driving. Same with eating. Joe never ate. He never spoke, either. He was always polite and respectful, and quiet. And on those rare occasions when he did need to speak, he always seemed a touch embarrassed. But the thing about Joe, he was always watchful. He missed nothing. He gave the impression of being supremely relaxed, but underneath it all he was like a tightly wound spring, ready to unleash in a flash if the circumstances required.

  Joe was not only Freddie’s driver, but also his bodyguard. Being second in command at Cygnet, Freddie needed a bodyguard, especially on a road trip like this where there was a strong chance they might be attacked. Before leaving home, Freddie had put a travelling white-light cone over his silver Mercedes SUV, which would give him a certain level of protection, but he knew it wouldn’t stave off a full force energetic onslaught from the Golden Order. That’s where Joe came in mighty handy. If they were attacked, then Joe would fight to the death to protect his boss. Joe was a formidable fighter.

  Freddie hoped he wasn’t a target or a priority right at the moment though. He figured that all of Baphomet’s attention would be focused on getting ready for Unholy. They probably didn’t even know that in Angela’s absence, he was now running Cygnet. But soon they’d work it out, and when they did, they’d come after him. Big time.

  The engine throbbed.

  The tires hummed and sang.

  This time of night it could send one to sleep.

  But not Joe.

  Soon they would be at the Needle and Freddie would find out how bad it was with Lily. The call from Skyhawk had been sketchy. The reception came and went, before cutting out completely. But Freddie had heard enough to be deeply concerned.

  He tried to rationalise away the guilt that swept over him in waves – that sending his niece to Luna’s to be initiated had been the right thing to do, the only way that they could have any hope of finding Angela. Yet now Luna was dead, and Lily was fighting for her life. Could Skyhawk’s mother save her using homespun potions to fight off an elite witch’s poison? He would soon find out.

  He turned and caught a glimpse of his reflection in his passenger’s window. He quickly glanced away, out into the desert. He didn’t want to face himself. The guilt was too great. Should Lily die, it wouldn’t be because of the Golden Order. It would be because of him. Her uncle. If that happened, how could he look himself in the eye ever again? He gazed out into the night, beyond his reflection. The ghostly forms of tall cacti flashed past, their arm-like branches raised as if warning of danger coming.

  The engine throbbed.

  The tires hummed.

  And sang.

  Gummi lay sprawled across the backseat, tapping into his laptop, intermittently eating salt-and-caramel popcorn from a super-size bag. He’d become an essential part of Cygnet counter-intelligence, using his incomparable hacking skills to keep the organisation one step ahead of Baphomet. Even so, he hadn’t yet been able to discover where the Golden Order had taken Angela, nor where they’d be holding Unholy. Freddie glanced back, saw that Gummi was staring at the map of the United States, and the multitude of flashing red dots – Dragon Knots.

  He was trying to figure out which one it was.

  They all were.

  Which Dragon Knot had they taken Angela to?

  There were fifty or more of these foul nodal spots. Freddie and his team didn’t have the time or the resources to physically check out each one. And every day that passed, every night, was one day, one night, closer to Unholy.

  The tires hummed.

  And sang.

  And soon Gummi was snoring.

  A car was approaching. Its headlights pierced the SUV’s windshield and speared into Freddie’s fitful dreams, jolting him awake. There hadn’t been a car on this road for hours. Before he realised, the car had flashed past, some kind of exotic speedster careening down the road, leaving a void up ahead.

  It wasn’t the headlights that woke him, Freddie realised. It was an energy. A putrid energy. But now it was gone. Had it come from that car that just drove past? Freddie turned and stared out the back windshield. It was now just two red tail-lights receding fast, like the red eyes of a creature being sucked back into the night.

  He turned and looked ahead. Out of the dark loomed the towering shadow of the Needle, a monolithic rock that pulsated a power both ancient and sacred. Joe slowed as he approached, and turned into the parking lot at the base of the Needle. He pulled up and stopped beside a white four-wheel drive. Gummi woke, yelping, as if he’d just been kicked. Joe and Freddie turned and stared at him, and he looked away, sheepishly.

  Freddie hopped out – Joe too – quickly checking the new environment for any possible threats. Gummi got out of the SUV as well, brushing salt-and-caramel popcorn off his paunch. He looked up to the top of the Needle with a sense of dread.

  ‘I have to climb all the way up there?’ he asked, plaintively.

  ‘You do indeed, Gummi,’ said Freddie firmly. ‘We’re going to need you.’

  He stared at the vehicle they’d parked beside – a white Toy
ota four-wheel drive, covered in dust and dirt. He held his hand up, to hoover in its energies.

  ‘What’s up?’ Gummi asked, as Freddie concentrated, gathering in the vibrational data, picking over it.

  ‘There have been witches in that car and not of our kind.’ He looked across to Joe, then up to the village. ‘I hope we’re not too late.’

  He walked swiftly over to the start of the track that wound its way around the rock all the way to the top. They started to climb, Freddie in large strides, every sense now alert. His mind raced through the possibilities. The witches either had to be somewhere up in the village, or else they were coming down the mountain – in which case they’d meet on the track because it was the only way up or down.

  The vehicle’s engine wasn’t giving out a lot of heat, so Freddie estimated the four-wheel drive had been parked there for at least an hour, maybe more. Which meant the witches had probably already found where Skyhawk had taken Lily. There was no sound of fighting coming from up top, so perhaps Skyhawk and Lily were already dead.

  Freddie’s heart pounded with exertion as he wound his way up. He had to tread carefully because there were no guardrails on the path, it was dark and there was very little moonlight. Any wrong footing or slip could see him fall to his death down the rockface.

  Could the witches be lying in wait for them up top? And who could it be – the three biker women? Skyhawk had told him, although garbled by the poor phone connection, that he’d killed one of the Twins. Freddie had been stunned by that news, and his respect for the young man, already high, had risen even further because the Twins were among Baphomet’s most feared assassins.

  He slowed as he approached the top. He was breathing hard, but Joe, one step behind, was showing no signs of exertion. It was like he’d been out for a Sunday stroll. They stopped to let Gummi catch up. He was gasping and his legs were wobbling with fatigue, and as he climbed up the last few steps he acted as if he’d just conquered Everest. Freddie gestured him to be quiet. He waited until Gummi no longer sounded like a warehouse ventilation unit in need of urgent repair, then he slowly led them into the village, keeping to the shadows and with every sense alert.