Some Legends Never Die (Monsters and Mayhem Book 2) Page 17

  Random images, crazy stuff he hadn’t thought about since Methuselah was a boy, popped into his mind. The scent of his grandmother’s apple pie, cooling on the windowsill. The pain of the blister on the back of his foot the day he’d missed the bus. His father had made him walk to school in shoes half a size too big because school shoes were purchased only once a year and it was autumn, so he’d not yet grown into them. Smacking Barbara on the backside as she passed, but miscalculating the force and causing tears to spring to her eyes.

  The voices of the other men melded with the soft hum of tires on pavement and just like that, the question floated down and landed right in the middle of his brain, hitting bottom so hard his whole body jerked. “What the heck does a group like The Children of Cain need with two wrinkled up old geezers like us?”

  Stanley drew back, a look of mild offense crossing his face.

  Michael showed off his dimples. “I should think it would be obvious.”

  The two hunters looked at each other and back to him.

  “No one in Heaven or Earth knows more about The Children of Cain than Umbra. She has warded every part of her operation against us. We can’t go anywhere near her base.”

  “You walked right into the factory. The place was crawling with Coleum creeps twenty-four hours ago.”

  “On the contrary, that factory hasn’t seen any life, other than local wildlife and a few squatters, in decades,” Michael replied.

  Richard shook his head. “We were there.”

  “You were in another dimension, a different time and space. I told you, she’s opened doors intended to stay closed.”

  Richard threw up his hands. “How do you expect us to fight someone who can do that?”

  Michael reached over to the ice-filled bucket on the mini-bar and extracted a bottle of sparkling water. “How did you, an untrained mortal, fight The Devil?”

  Richard’s cheeks burned. “I stole her cell phone,” he muttered.

  Stanley chuckled.

  Michael joined in.

  Richard failed to see the humor in his admission.

  “We’ll have your backs every minute between now and then, but once we reach the peninsula where the launch pad is, you’re going to be on your own,” Michael said. The water bottle opened with a crack and a hiss.

  “Unless we can find a way to break the warding,” Stanley said.

  Michael swallowed and tipped his head. “That would change things. If you can break the warding, we will be able to enter the compound and take care of whatever needs to be done.”

  The car bumped over a spiked strip that would blow out the tires of any vehicle attempting to travel in the other direction and rolled a few hundred yards down a dirt road with ruts as deep as rivers.

  Michael looked out the window. “We’re here.”

  As far as Richard could see, here meant the absolute middle of nowhere. An old silo, covered in devil’s ivy, now browning with the cool weather of autumn, teetered precariously in the middle of a field full of stubbly, post-harvest corn stalks.

  The goon on the passenger side hopped out and opened the door for them.

  Michael gestured toward the door. “After you, gentlemen.”

  They climbed out of the car and stood under a clear night sky that stretched above their heads like diamonds sewn into velvet. Here in the open, a frigid wind raced across the field, crashing over them with enough force to wrench a shiver from Richard. The goon shut the car door and the click blew away into the moonlit abyss.

  Richard stumbled along behind the others through the treacherous obstacle-laden terrain, praying he wouldn’t fall and break something again. His hip ached and protested but cooperated enough to keep him moving. Wouldn’t it be ironic if one fall like that got him into hunting and another one took him out? Except, Stanley had implied more than once that there was no quitting hunting, even when the hunter grew old and infirm. Accepting this mantel meant a one-way ticket to the endgame. “Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.” No exceptions. Hunters did not stop hunting, they died with a silver dagger dipped in lamb’s blood in their hand.

  He jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket before his fingers froze to the bone and watched the ordinary-looking red-headed man approach the ancient barn-wood door.

  Michael traced a complicated pattern with his fingertip and pressed his palm to the center of the completed pattern. The door shimmered and became a different thing entirely—a sleek gunmetal grey entranceway with a touchscreen mounted in the middle. On the screen glowed a handprint, presumably Michael’s, since it was in the exact spot he’d pressed. Beneath the handprint were the words, “Michael Kelly, verified.” Under that, three rows of some sort of hieroglyphic chicken scratching flashed bright red and the door swung open, admitting them to an enormous elevator.

  The inside air tickled his nose with a smell he could only describe as sterile. Somewhere overhead, invisible vents whooshed and whistled as the door slid shut, cutting them off from the outside. Thing Two pressed an unmarked button on a keypad full of unmarked buttons and they dropped so fast, Richard grabbed onto the flat railing that encircled the space.

  “You’re the first non-members who’ve been admitted to this space in over three hundred years,” Michael said.

  “What happened to the last guy?” Richard asked.

  Michael shook his head. “You really must stop assuming that every time a person says ‘someone’ they’re referring to a male.”

  Richard desperately wanted to argue, but it was all too easy to imagine Burke staring at him just then with one eyebrow arched. It had just about knocked his world sideways to learn The Devil was a woman. He and Stanley had both been operating under the assumption that Umbra was a man. “Well, then, what happened to the last person?”

  Michael looked at the red dot moving right to left over the door. “She was burned at the stake as a witch.”

  “Was she a witch?” Stanley asked.

  “At least,” Michael replied with a grin.

  The door slid open again and they exited into a brightly lit corridor as long as a football field, lined with countless identical doors on either side. They entered the very first door on the left and found a space that resembled a locker room. Each tall, slim, rectangular cubby held a vest; shoulder, hip, and ankle holsters complete with weapons; a dagger in a forearm sheath; and a flask.

  Richard picked up one of the flasks. “Bravery juice?”

  “Holy water,” Stanley said, fingering the handle of one of the daggers. “If you’re possessed and you’re strong enough to overcome for a moment, you can take a swig of that and you’ll regurgitate so hard the spirit will come out with the water.”

  “You can puke up a demon?”

  “Indeed,” Stanley said. “Is this Sumarian?” he asked, pointing at the dagger.

  “Iraqi,” Michael said.

  “Ah,” Stanley said, the word leaving his lips with the wistfulness of a lover’s sigh. “From Ur.”

  Michael nodded.

  “How in the world did you get such a thing?”

  Michael slipped his hands into his pockets. “You really don’t grasp the scope of what we are, do you? It’s like your mind comprehends, but your heart can’t quite accept it. We made them, my friend. The Children of Cain forged those knives in Ur when those who ruled the city still remembered the face of our father.”

  For the first time, Richard wondered if The Children of Cain were actual biological descendants of Cain, but that was a can of worms he was not prepared to open.

  “Suit up, gentlemen. When we’re done here, we’ll go to the target range and show you what these can do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Richard

  When Michael returned them to Maddie’s car in the abandoned parking lot, the clock on the dash informed them that yesterday had slipped into tomorrow. By the time they got back to Maddie’s place, she’d traveled well down the road to hysteria. That they arrived armed li
ke Navy SEALs did little to alleviate her concerns.

  “Why didn’t you text me?” she asked.

  Richard and Stanley exchanged blank stares.

  “We didn’t think about it,” Richard admitted.

  “Well, glad to know where I rank in your thoughts,” Maddie said. She pressed a tissue to her lips and sniffed back tears.

  Outside, a car passed by, scattering light and drawing long, moving shadows across the room. Stanley went to the window and tugged the heavy drapes over the sparkling glass panes. He switched on the floor lamps, turning the room bright as day.

  When Michael left them at the empty factory, he’d promised his “people” would stand guard. Nothing would get to them or Maddie without going through The Children of Cain.

  When Richard demanded to know why they couldn’t go straight to Burke, Michael reminded him of the spell she was under. “You need to bind the demon who’s binding her, or eliminate the one controlling her. Those are your only options. If you want your girl back, you need to dangle yourself like a worm on a hook and let them come to you.”

  “I don’t wanna be stuck with no hook,” Richard told him.

  “Then we go straight to the launch site and we burn her down with the rest of them. The Children of Cain have no problem with that plan, if that’s what you want.”

  Richard sat in the tense silence of his daughter’s living room, thinking how much he disliked the creepy ginger and everything to do with this alliance they’d formed, while the lacy black minute hand on the mantel clock ticked forward. One more minute of his life gone. One less minute remained in his future. One minute closer to lift off. In the corner of his eye, something moved. Adrenaline had him out of his seat and next to Maddie, flare gun in hand before he ever made a conscious decision to move.

  “Dad?”

  “Shh.”

  Stanley stepped away from the window, drawing his own weapon. “What do you see?”

  Richard stared straight ahead, straining to relax his vision. “Something,” he whispered. “To my right.”

  No one moved or spoke. Maddie’s tension rolled off her in waves that pressed against him as surely as a physical presence.

  “There!” Stanley shouted, firing a flare in the direction of the stairs. The burst of light was met with an unearthly shriek and a flutter of activity as black forms darted around the edges of the painfully bright room.

  Something banged against the door once, twice, and it broke open with a splintering crack of wood. Richard fired in that direction. The flare burst against the wall leaving an impotent black scar that smoldered on the edges.

  A man in black tactical gear, toting a gun big enough to take out an armored vehicle, stepped through the door, leaving a muddy bootprint on Maddie’s pristine floor. An ugly brown loafer smeared the waffle pattern and Albert stood before them with his hands in his pockets, his freakish teeth gleaming under the glare. “Hi, guys.”

  Richard pointed his gun at the little bug-eyed turd.

  The goon pointed his cannon at Richard.

  “Please,” Albert said. “Let’s not make this messier than it needs to be. Maddie keeps such a tidy house.”

  Maddie clutched the back of Richard’s sweater just as she had the time he’d taken her through the haunted house down at the American Legion Hall when she was eight years old. “Where’s my daughter?” she demanded.

  “Dutifully waiting for me.” He reached left and switched off the ceiling fixtures, leaving the floor lamps to send the room into a bizarre mixture of shadow and light. From the corners of his eyes, Richard saw pools of darkness growing form and darting about the edges of the room. “I would think you’d be thrilled, Maddie. Things are working out just the way you’d hoped. Burke found a man with prestige. She’s devoted and in love. We’re about to set up house and you can bet there will be children.” He cocked his head to one side a little. “Of course, visiting might be complicated, but no one gets everything they want. Life just doesn’t work that way.”

  Her grip on Richard’s sweater tightened. “I’ll kill you.” Even without his hearing aid, he would have been able to hear her teeth grinding as she spoke.

  In the shadows on every side, white eyes popped open.

  Albert’s smile faded. He shook his head in a practiced display of mock sadness. “Maddie, Maddie, Maddie. Such a cliché for there to be tension between a man and his mother-in-law. I just came to get a few things my special lady requested, and, of course, to kill these two meddlesome old goats. Let’s call it what it is—a favor, really. They should both have been dead a long time ago. But as for us, I’d hoped we could do better, you and I.” He entered the room, the goon at his side, and the shadow forms, now distinctly man-shaped, parted for him to pass. “You can’t kill me. You’re nothing. No one. Me? I’m a powerful man now. Thanks to your pretty baby girl, I have everything I ever wanted and more than I could have dreamed.” He held up his fingers and ticked off a list, “Money. Privilege. Prestige. Power.” He winked. “Sex.”

  “I’ll kill you!” she screamed.

  The demons around them burst into hissing laughter.

  “You and what army?” Albert asked.

  Cold black fingers, as unyielding as titanium, reached for Richard’s throat. His finger yanked on the trigger of the flare gun, resulting in a hollow click, but Stanley’s weapon managed a solid bang that sent a flare into the guard’s thigh. He shrieked and dropped to the floor just as something outside burst through the window. Shards of glass showered the room. Albert snatched the gun from the guard’s hands and sent a wild spray of bullets in every direction.

  In the burst of light from the flare, the demon released Richard. Richard spun, grabbed Maddie and took her to the floor, shielding her body with his as bullets slammed into the walls behind them. Peeking up, he saw new forms jump through the gaping windows, green cat-eyes glowing in the flashes of light.

  Gunfire was replaced with snarling growls that turned Richard’s guts to water. “Get to the bedroom,” he told Maddie, giving her a little push in that direction.

  She remained frozen in place, eyes fixed on Albert as half a dozen different creatures jogged into her home through open doors and broken windows. One of them, a woman in long silver robes with eyes that sparkled like diamonds, opened her hands to the ceiling and bathed the room in brilliant white light, so dazzling, he was forced to squint away from it. Jagged fragments of shadow rocketed away from the assault. Albert screamed like a little girl and made a break for the door.

  At last, Maddie scrambled away from him, but in the wrong direction. Darn fool child headed straight toward the melee, racing past Stanley without a glance as he drew the edge of his knife across the bodyguard’s throat, effectively removing that particular threat.

  Richard staggered to his feet and followed her through the remnants of her front door into the dark street. By the time he got to the driveway, Albert had already started one of the sleek black SUVs and was pulling away from the curb. Maddie scrambled into some sort of armored Humvee. Richard couldn’t imagine any more improbable vehicles for the two of them.

  The idiot man laid rubber on the asphalt before his tires gripped and shot him forward, but at that moment, the ugliest naked human Richard had ever seen launched himself from behind the shrubbery. He landed with a thump on the SUV’s hood and began pounding on the windshield and jumping up and down, undeterred, apparently, by the fact that his raw, red butt was on display for the entire neighborhood.

  Most likely because he was distracted by the wild nude creature on the hood of his car, Albert bumped over the curb and crashed into a mailbox shaped like a bright red cardinal. The bird tipped as if trying to fly through a hurricane. The naked guy flew off the hood and rolled across the lawn.

  Maddie crashed the Humvee into the driver’s door of the SUV, rocking the truck up on two wheels. After a split second of stillness in which an acrid cloud of black smoke drifted up from the tortured tires of the two vehicles, her reverse li
ghts blinked on.

  The idiot leaped out of the passenger’s side door and ran back toward the house.

  The naked creature regained its senses and raced after him, screaming, freakishly long arms waving above its head as it ran. Albert hesitated. Maddie’s headlights illuminated his terrified features as Albert throw out his hands then folded under the bumper of the Humvee like so much tissue paper.

  Brake lights lit one side of the front yard in a hellish red glow. On the other side, the white headlamps of the smashed SUV illuminated Albert’s broken form, sprawled in the grass. One ugly brown loafer had flown up in the air and landed on the sidewalk. With a pathetic whimper, the nerdy little leech reached his left arm toward Richard as though imploring him for help.

  The Humvee roared to life like some prehistoric beast that would have sent chills up the spine of the bravest caveman ever to huddle behind a fire. Hot acid rose in Richard’s throat as his daughter drove backward a hundred feet, thumped over Albert’s prone form, shifted gears, and bumped over him again when she returned to her former location.

  It wasn’t going to take a medical examiner to pronounce the mangled heap of flesh in the front yard dead on the scene.

  Richard realized that Stanley stood next to him. “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” Stanley murmured.

  Richard nodded. That about summed it up for him.

  The driver’s door swung open and Maddie emerged on legs trembling so fiercely her silky pants danced as if blown by the wind. Her eyes, wide and panicky, scanned the scene, pausing for an instant on each clump of neighbors who’d emerged from their homes at the ruckus. They stood in twos and threes, clutching the necks of bathrooms or covering their mouths with shaking hands. The tiny screens of half a dozen smart phones glowed in the night. Finally, she met her father’s gaze. “I just bumped into him. It was his own fault, really. He zipped behind me when I was backing up.”

  Stanley wiped a hand across his mouth, muffling something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle, and rushed forward just in time to catch Maddie as her legs gave up the good fight and buckled.