The magic-saturated air seemed to grow even thicker as Cadell moved farther into the darkness and a musty, cave-like odor mingled with the smells of sulfur and rotting meat. A guttural murmuring became audible. Cadell recognized the low, droning murmur as a spell being cast in a dialect that was ancient when Neanderthals still walked the Earth. The raspy, grating voice could make even the most elegant, flowing verse seem vulgar. The diabolical chanting oozed down the tunnel, seeming to solidify as it went and make the air heavy and viscous. Words, when spoken with disciplined, supremely-focused intention, became a physical force. The words being chanted as part of the spell could be felt as a surrounding heaviness that made the skin tingle and crawl. The force of the chanter’s will was being channeled and made manifest in the spoken word. God spoke the universe into existence, Cadell thought.
After walking for five minutes, he came to the end of the tunnel. It terminated in an archway that seemed to lead into a chamber. Firelight came from the vaulted archway and silhouetted two of the same type of creatures as Cadell had killed at the tunnel entrance. Wary, Cadell peered into the shadows on either side of the archway. His Truesight saw through the veil that obstructed the physical senses and into the hidden world of mind and spirit. It allowed him to see two concealed figures outlined by the purplish color of their auras. The droning chant continued and Cadell could feel each syllable gain in power. The spell, whatever it was intended to do, was nearly complete. Cadell charged at the archway.
From the right, one of the demons burst from the shadows, thinking it had the advantage of surprise. Cadell’s sword slashed it from groin to shoulder without slowing his charge. From the shadows on the left, another of the demons tried to leap upon his back, only to be impaled through the throat on Cadell’s broadsword as he thrust backward over his shoulder. The blade flashed in the firelight from the archway and sliced through another demon’s right arm as it tried to protect its neck from Cadell’s cut. Barely slowed by the flesh and bone of the monster’s arm, the sword cut both sword and head from its body. Cadell intercepted a strike meant for the side of his neck with his left hand, then used that hand to drive a punch into the demon’s pointed chin, forcing it several steps backward. When it surged forward to attack again, Cadell batted the blow away, dropped into a low crouch and thrust his sword’s point forward, allowing the demon to impale itself with the force of its own momentum. The blade slipped neatly between the ribs and into the heart.
Now dripping with demon gore, he passed through the archway the demons had been guarding. He estimated the chamber to be about forty feet by forty feet in size with a ceiling about twenty feet high. The same checkerboard motif used for the tunnel floor was repeated in the chamber. Lit torches were arranged in sconces every ten feet along the walls. At the center of the room was a marble pillar that reached the ceiling and was inscribed in an ancient Aramaic script. Cadell was able to read the script but took no time to do so. The demonic chanting was still going on, and the words of the chant were gaining even more of the intangible but still almost physical substance. It was the sound of the chanting that led Cadell’s eyes to a spot of unnatural darkness in a corner of the chamber. Although the corner should have been illuminated by the torches, it wasn’t. About twelve feet high and ten feet wide, the darkness in that corner seemed to swallow the light. Cadell concentrated his Truesight on the darkness, focusing his will and intention on piercing the demonic glamour and seeing what was within that darkened corner. After some time, the outline of a great beast, eight feet in height at least, became outlined in a blood-red and purple aura. The figure was hunched over another, much smaller figure, outlined in a bright but flickering aura of blue and green that was holding something disk-shaped in front of itself as a shield, keeping the demon at bay. The demon seemed to be aware that Cadell could now see through the cocoon of blackness, and it turned toward him with a growl Cadell felt vibrate through his body.
The blackness dissipated and the beast became fully visible. Scale-covered and bulging with muscle, it had insect-like eyes that glowed faintly red. Piranha-like teeth dominated an elongated snout of a mouth. Six-fingered hands ended in claws that dripped a green, oily liquid. It turned its attention on Cadell and away from the somewhat elderly woman cringing in the corner. Its gaze swept up and down Cadell’s form, then focused on the blood-covered broadsword. “Another lackey of the archangels,” it hissed with a mouth that should not have been able to form sounds intelligible as any human language.
“Leave the elder be,” Cadell pointing at her with the tip if his sword. “Come to me, monster,” he added. “My blade thirsts.”
“First you,” the Demon said, stepping toward Cadell. “Then I feast on her.”
“You’ll have to earn that meal,” Cadell replied as a bright, blue-white light begin to shine from behind his eyes.
The demon stopped moving forward. “So an angel truly touches you,” it growled. “Your flesh will indeed be nourishing.”
“Come to me,” Cadell repeated, flourishing his blade a bit.
The demon lunged, trying to wrap its clawed fingers around his throat. Cadell sidestepped, twisted his body away from the demon’s grasp and drew his sword across its belly, but the cut barely penetrated the demon’s scaly hide. It swung one of its clawed hands and caught Cadell with a backhanded blow to the forehead, knocking him to the ground. Cadell rode the momentum of the blow into a backward roll that ended with him crouched on one knee.
He ducked beneath another swipe of the demon’s claws and stabbed his sword’s point deeply into the flesh under the demon’s right arm. It screamed in pain even as it landed a cloven-hoofed kick to Cadell’s stomach, driving him several steps backward.
Cadell’s blade intercepted a claw that would have eviscerated him; the edge cut through the thinner scales there and sank into the demon’s forearm until it bit into bone. Cadell spun the sword upward and to the left, cutting the demon across the center of its face, then drove the point into its throat. At that same instant, the demon’s uninjured hand seized Cadell’s left shoulder. Its claws sank inches into the flesh there. Cadell and his enemy were locked together, their faces inches apart. Cadell twisted his blade and it settled more deeply into the demon’s throat. It still maintained its grip on Cadell’s shoulder. Finally, Cadell pulled his shoulder back and twisted it out of the demon’s grip. His left hand now free, he placed it under his sword’s pommel and shoved upward with both hands. There was disgusting squishing sound followed by a sickening crunch as the tip of the sword pierced the top the demon’s skull. Using both hands, Cadell withdrew his sword from the dead demon’s head.
He approached the woman the demon had been menacing. She was still in the corner, leaning against the chamber’s wall. She looked up as he came near. Her face was ashen, but while she was obviously hurt and exhausted, she seemed remarkably unafraid, considering what she had just experienced. Cadell knelt beside her, let his sword fade back into himself, and touched her cheek. “It’s alright, ma’am,” he said. “I’m a United States Marine and I’ll get you out of here.”
Her fingers whipped the purplish goo from the nametag on Cadell’s uniform. “Selkirk,” she said. “Cadell Selkirk?” she asked. Her manner suggested that she already knew the answer. She lifted her right hand so that Cadell could see the palm. His Truesight let him see the sigil of the house of Corey, one of the seven blessed bloodlines, glowing with magical light. Cadell removed his glove and showed her his own right palm, knowing that she would be able to see the sigil on his palm.
“I’m Eve Corey,” she said. “I knew your father.” Cadell lifted her into his arms, wincing at the pain in his wounded shoulder. “He talked about you. What were you doing here, Elder?” Cadell asked.
“Getting this,” she said, pulling a gold-bound wooden scroll case from the folds of the dust-covered beige jacket she wore. “God be praised that you came and kept the Grigori from getting it.”
Cadell nodded. “The Lord sees to his own.�
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Eve looked at the scroll tube. “I suspect that he sent you to save this, not me.” Cadell looked more closely at the tube. Its cap was etched with a symbol that Cadell had been taught to recognize from childhood: the Seal of Solomon.
Chapter One
Boston, Massachusetts: Present Day
Winter was when the city felt most like home to Cadell. Stepping into a warm house after trudging through foot-deep snow and bone-chilling cold was one of his favorite sensations. He remembered sledding with his brothers when they were children until their father feared for their health and herded back into them the house. The house would be warm and filled with the aroma of hot, cinnamon-laced apple cider. Home was a warm, welcoming refuge from a world that was cold and dark. Cadell chuckled as memories of what came after the sledding and cider. After the admittedly clichéd’ scene of New Englander life, his father would take Cadell and his brothers for the evening’s two-hour lessons on swordsmanship and other fighting arts. He laughed to himself. His life was a mix of the paintings of Norman Rockwell and fantasy artist Frank Frazetta: one almost painfully idyllic, the other brutally surreal. In some respects the Selkirks were the all-American family, but they had the blood of the Blessed in their veins and their lives were anything but idyllic.
Snow had begun to re-cover the recently-shoveled cobblestone walkway leading up to the small inn. The old colonial-era building was maintained as closely as possible to its original appearance. Painted white with red trim, the soft glow of candles in the windows invited passers-by to come in and warm themselves. There were no flashing neon signs advertising a particular kind of beer and no scrolling electronic banners announcing the day’s specials.
A simple wooden sign with the words Homeward Inn burned into it hung over the door.
In the summer, especially around Independence Day, the rooms would all be occupied by tourists eager to experience the commercialized, distorted version of American history provided by a multitude of tour guides and souvenir vendors. In the winter, however, most of the Inn’s ten guestrooms were empty and the business was kept going by a base of regular customers who were loyal to the family that owned the Homeward. The Morgan family had owned the inn for more than one hundred years and many of its regular customers had been introduced to the Homeward by their grandparents. Fishermen and sailors had found comfort and fellowship at the Homeward since the great whaling fleets had had homes in Boston harbor. Cadell stepped in the door and took the woolen watch cap from his head as the bell hanging from the door announced his arrival. Several familiar, smiling faces greeted him as he undid his peacoat. He knew better than to remove the coat, though. Sally Morgan went to great lengths to preserve the rustic, colonial atmosphere of the Homeward, and the main barroom was heated only by the fire in a huge brick hearth on the room’s far wall and lit only by candlelight. Modern gas heating was used only in the very coldest of weather, meaning that the barroom was usually a bit chilly. The guestrooms and kitchen were heated by gas and lit electrically, but when at the bar, Sally wanted her customers to be able to maintain the illusion that they drinking in an eighteenth-century pub. To that end, there were no national brand beers or spirits served at the Homeward. If you drank at the Homeward, you drank something that was brewed or distilled locally in relatively small batches.
“If it isn’t the youngest Selkirk,” Sally Morgan said as she came around the bar with a tray laden with four huge mugs of the house brew. Her dark, gray-streaked hair was tied underneath a bandana and she wore a white blouse covered by a cloth apron. Her shoulders were broad and she was a bit plump, but her face beamed with good will almost all of the time. It was nearly impossible for a sane person not to like Sally Morgan. “Where has the Selkirk clan been?” she asked, delivering the beers to some already slightly-inebriated patrons.
“We’ve been around,” Cadell said. “It’s just that…” “I know, son,” Sally said, with a sympathetic smile.
“It’s probably hard for you all to be in here since your dad’s wake.”
Cadell smiled back. “I’ll bring my brothers in soon, I promise. Has anyone been in here asking for me?” Cadell asked.
“Upstairs,” Sally answered, “Room eight. There’s a woman registered as Eve Corey. She says she knows you. She has with her a girl about your age and a man in his sixties or seventies. The man looked pissed.”
“Thanks, Sally,” Cadell said, smiling. “Let us know if anyone comes in looking for us,” he added as he started up the stairs. He knocked on the door to room eight, more than little curious about the other two people Sally had mentioned. Eve had asked him to meet her at the Homeward but had not mentioned that she was bringing anyone else.
“Come in,” Eve’s voice said. Stepping into the small but comfortably furnished room, Cadell accepted and returned a hug from Eve. Since their meeting in Afghanistan, they had become close; Cadell had served as her protector on several of her expeditions in search of esoteric knowledge and artifacts. “You’re looking well,” she said. “The beard and hair suit you,” she added, touching his whisker-covered cheek. “I thought you’d never give up the ‘Marine look.’”
“The haircut was functional but ugly, and the beard would have looked silly with a high-and-tight,” Cadell replied with a smile.
Eve reached behind his head and gently tugged on his brown, ponytail-bound hair. “But you went all the way, letting the hair grow down to your shoulders.”
“I decided that it was time I looked like a Blessed
Warrior again,” Cadell said.
Eve stepped away from him, and Cadell’s eyes fell upon the young woman Sally had mentioned. She was about five-foot five and had straight dark-brown hair that fell to the middle of her back. Her face was oval with fine, almost delicate features. Her eyes were hazel-brown, bright and attentive. A royal blue turtleneck sweater and well fitted jeans showed her slim but nicely curved figure. What Cadell noticed most about her, though, had nothing to do with how she looked. She was very attractive, and although his Truesight detected an aura of magic and psychic energy about her, there was something that went beyond even what his Truesight could detect. Something in about her produced an instinctive feeling of sameness in him. He could not articulate the feeling logically, but he knew that the he and the young woman were alike in some profound, unique way.
“Cadell,” Eve said. “This is my niece, Evelyn.”
It took a moment for her words to penetrate
Cadell’s fixation on Evelyn. “Nice to meet you,” he said, finally extending his hand.
Evelyn seemed to emerge from a fixation similar to his as she shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” she repeated. Cadell noticed her hands were somewhat rough for a woman’s.
“Hello, Cadell.” A man said as he rose from a chair in a corner of the room. Randal Corey was in his late sixties but moved with the grace and ease of a much younger man.
His hair was gray but still thick on his head.
“Hello, Mister Corey,” Cadell replied, stepping toward Randal and offering a hand.
“I trust that you and your family are well,” Randal answered, his tone and facial expression betraying the fact that, at that particular moment, he cared not at all about how the Selkirks fared. His carefully-modulated tone and rigid posture told Cadell that the inquiries about his family were perfunctory, meant only to satisfy the minimum requirements of politeness. Cadell sensed a seething, barely-controlled anger under a cloak of enforced civility. The anger was not directed at Cadell, though. It was directed at Eve.
Cadell looked Randal squarely in the eye. “We’re all good, sir.”
“Aunt Eve,” Evelyn said. “Why are we all here? Why are you so mad, Uncle Randal?”
“Those are good questions, Eve,” Cadell said, stepping away from Randal but not taking his eyes off the man. Randal was radiating a rage that bore watching.
“Why don’t you ask the question that you want to ask, Cadell?” Eve said. “That would be a good way to
get this started.”
“Okay,” Cadell said, positioning himself so he could see Eve and still keep a wary eye on Randal. “I know, of course, that the Corey family is one of the Blessed bloodlines. I also know that the branch of the Corey clan that Mister Randal here is in charge of has all but completely stopped participating in the Calling. The only member of his immediate family that’s still really active was you, Eve. That’s why you always came to me to protect you when you played ‘Lara Croft.’ Every one of the Blessed knows that Caleb Corey, his wife and his six daughters were massacred twenty-six years ago; demons got through the wards around the family’s house somehow.” Cadell glanced over at Randal. His eyes were fixed on Eve. Evelyn seemed too confused to speak.
“That’s all true,” Eve said. “My brother Caleb, his wife and their six daughters were killed by demons twenty-six years ago.”
The emphasis Eve had placed on the word ‘six’ made Cadell hesitate momentarily before speaking. After that, comprehension caused him to pause and look at Evelyn in awe and disbelief. “She’s a Seventh?” he asked in a near-whisper.
Eve turned proud but pity-filled eyes on her niece.
“Yes,” Eve said, “she is.”
“Why is he looking at me like that?” Evelyn demanded. “What are you talking about? Blessed? Demons? My parents died in a fire!” She was confused and rapidly becoming angry.
Randal sighed and seemed to physically shrink where he stood. “No, Evelyn, your parents were killed.”
Evelyn began to cry angry, bitter tears and she was shaking visibly. “By demons?” she asked in a choked shout. “You’re all crazy!” Randal took a halting step toward her and she pulled away from him.
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