Final Scream (11 page)

Nick: Something’s rotten in Denmark, to quote Mr. Shakespeare. The reality show mystery goes deeper than the Oracle network. Beyond the NSA. Spread some of the blame to a few unidentified traitors in the Pentagon. I heard from reliable sources these traitors have a top secret venture in the works that is supposedly more hideous than your dad’s
Mortal Eclipse
operation. Those military assholes have already murdered many others to maintain its confidentiality. So what I’m saying is don’t quit your investigation, no matter what. Instead, you, Neo, and Crow watch your backs and be very secretive about your plans. The walls have ears, if you catch my drift. The only particular concerning the Pentagon’s project I could squeeze out of my Nervous Nelly sources was the acronym E.V.A.N. It’s Greek to me, but I hope it helps. Don’t count on any support from me this time. I’m being watched 24/7. Good luck.

Nick refolded the note, stuffed it back into his pocket, and kneaded his throbbing temples. It was clear Rance had been warned off the investigation, and his involvement in their investigation would only jeopardize their investigation.
What kind of project had the Pentagon dreamed up now that was more hideous and immoral than
Mortal Eclipse
? And who or what was E.V.A.N.?

Nick shelved the maddening questions, stripped, and stepped into the steaming shower spray. The in-house landline phone jangled annoyingly and interrupted his soothing shower. He twisted the valve handle to
off
and grabbed the bathroom’s wall phone.

“Yeah?” he barked sullenly. “I’m trying to take a shower here.”

It was Crow. “Sorry, Nick, but this is an emergency.”

Nick exhaled heavily. “All right, what the hell’s going on?”

“
Geronimo
just informed me there’s trouble at Gabriella’s estate,” Crow said breathlessly. “You’d better vamoose over there fast.”

All thoughts of his tranquil shower dissipated. “What does
Geronimo
mean by ‘trouble’?”

“An unidentified white van with no license plates was parked by the back door. The mansion security video shows a large demon with horns carry Gabriella out the kitchen door, put her inside the van, and drive off. But here’s the kicker. Before the van pulls away, an old man leans out of the open passenger side window, waves his arms, and the van’s suddenly invisible!”

“Shit!” Nick’s mind was spinning. “Where were our familiars?”

“Out by the lake.”

“That’s really odd. They both usually prefer staying in the house on a hot and humid summer day like this.”

“Hey, I’m only the reporter here, not your resident psychic,” Crow snapped.

He ignored Crow’s sarcasm. “I’ll teleport over there as soon as I dry off.”

Nick had to hurry if he stood any chance of locating the van and Gabriella’s kidnappers. He finished dressing in record time and teleported to the mansion’s foyer. He ran through the house shouting her name, in case she had fooled the kidnappers by surrendering a doppelganger.

But she didn’t respond.

He paused at the library entrance. The door was open, and Gabriella’s bills were scattered on the table next to a sweating glass of iced tea. He rushed in, sniffed the drink, and slammed it down, splashing a quarter of the liquid on the notices. She had been drugged. That’s how her kidnappers overcame her magical advantage.
But how did they slip her the tea without arousing her suspicion?
The person serving her had to be someone she completely trusted.

He utilized his
virtual search
supernatural power to cast his senses out to every corner of the place. When they returned to his body, one of them revealed Gabriella’s household employees were trussed and gagged inside one of the barred dungeons in the ancient basement. But there was no sign of the familiars. Nick instantly teleported there and freed the bug-eyed captives.

Honora and Hefe quickly recounted their story. They were caught with their pants down, so to speak. An old elderly man and a demon showed up at the back door, and the two household employees found themselves trussed and bound in the basement. They knew they were victims of
magic
, because the entire incident occurred in the blink of an eye.

Nick realized he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary, run-of-the-mill sorcerer, but one who was clever and powerful enough to kidnap Gabriella! That had never been attempted before in the history of the mansion.

There was a loud scratching at the kitchen door, and he ran upstairs and admitted Kabool and Alick. After he rapidly explained the situation to the two familiars, Alick transformed into his larger, fiercer alternate identity—the
Zyloux
! The relentless demon protector.

Nick moved back to give it space to expand. When it completed its transformation, Nick appraised its menacing eight-foot form.

The familiar’s leathery gray skull sloped down from a sharp crown with two brief spikes above enormous soulless eyes, blood-red pupils floating in seas of glowing green. The mouth and jaw formed a long muzzle with a single row of jagged fangs dripping thick saliva. Its ears were finely sculpted to points, and its nostrils were merely flared perforations atop the muzzle. But its sense of smell was unequaled. The flesh was smooth and pale gray and was tightly stretched over its ropy frame. Its bulging muscular arms terminated with webbed palms joined to three keen rubicund claws, curved slightly at the tips.

Nick watched intently as it sniffed the air for the kidnapper’s scents. He recalled barely escaping the Zyloux down in Florida during his investigation entitled
The Ancient Breed
. Now it was good to have the demon hunter as an ally.

Although the Zyloux was unable to speak, it communicated by gesturing and implanting images into Nick’s mind. The demon picked up the trail of the demon kidnapper, a medium strength monster summoned from a black arts dimension. Although it was much weaker than Nick’s demon ally, the horned demon posed a challenge because of its guerilla fighting prowess. It could pop in and out of existence to strike quickly before fading away again. The Zyloux warned Nick to be cautious.

“Can you follow its scent to Gabriella?” Nick asked.

The Zyloux grunted affirmatively and lifted Nick off the ground. The demon hugged him close with its brawny arms, while Kazool leaped on Nick’s back and gained firm claw holds in his shirt.

Before Honora and Hefe began their climb up the basement stairs to the kitchen, the unconventional trio vanished into thin air.

The demon’s ruby clawed hands tightly grasped the steering wheel as it guided the van west on State Route 52 to the little known airfield forty miles beyond Cincinnati, Ohio. The sorcerer removed his invisible spell from the van once they passed Duneden’s town limits. At that point, the demon pulled a ratty Cleveland Indians ball cap bill low over its face in an effort to hide its terrifying features from other car passengers. The only problem—the horns stuck through the top fabric. But if the cops noticed and pulled them over, the situation would get sticky fast.
Blood
sticky.

The wizened sorcerer calmly stroked his trimmed white beard. Everything about this mission went precisely according to plan.
And why not?
He was the best sorcerer on the planet, despite what the Wolfe family’s professed superiority. He laughed.
Who was riding free and unfettered, and who was strapped to a cot in the back, drugged to the hilt?
I guess he proved he was the better sorcerer. He, Addison Grimoult, bested the most powerful Wolfe … and did it with relative ease.

Addison folded his arms and transformed himself into a handsome black-haired thirty-something man. Even though he was actually centuries old, he despised the physical characteristics associated with advanced age: the wrinkles, sags, and paunch. He preferred his younger conjured appearance, because his older one was a definite impediment when he prowled the bars for an attractive free female ride for the night.

By the time dawn broke, his rides were dead. He couldn’t afford to leave any witnesses to his sadistic rapes behind.

They were a scant ten miles east of Cincinnati when Addison went into the rear of the van to check on Gabriella. It wouldn’t be long till they crossed Interstate 75 and reached the private airstrip where Ulrich Strasser’s private jet waited to fly them to Hawaii. The sorcerer tugged on Gabriella’s wrist and ankle restraints to make certain they were secure before lifting one of her eyelids. Her pupil dilation signified she was still unconscious. Pleased, he headed toward his seat when the van began vibrating like a Mexican Jumping Bean.

 He held on tightly to the exposed van frame. “What’s going on?” he shouted to his conjured servant.

“I don’t know. It ain’t the road causing it,” the demon growled.

Addison snapped his fingers. Of course! Someone or something was attempting to penetrate his protective spell and enter the vehicle.

But who?

His bloated ego reassured him there wasn’t another sorcerer on Earth who could abolish one of his spells. And if this was a rescue attempt, then it had to be Bellamy knocking at his door. Nick Bellamy. Addison chuckled. Bellamy might know a few parlor tricks, but his magic couldn’t measure up to Addison’s powerful spells.

The rattling grew more violent, and the rivets securing the side panels to the frame slackened, but even that detail failed to shake Addison’s self-confidence. He hastily returned to his seat and ignored the demon’s vexed expression. Everything would turn out fine in the end. If the intruder
was
Bellamy, he would ultimately understand the spell could not be broken and call it quits.

The demon swerved onto the congested southbound Interstate 75 on ramp, and neither it nor Addison noticed the jagged portal appear above Gabriella’s cot. A lengthy scaled skull popped through the breach in the magic spell and searched the area for resistance. There was none. The
Zyloux
stretched the portal until it accommodated its eight-foot body. Nick handed Kazool to his large ally before stepping into the rear of the van.

He rapidly administered a Wolfe magic cure-all antidote to Gabriella while the Zyloux rushed forward and buried its considerable fangs into the demon driver’s neck. Skin split and bones crunched beneath the tremendous pressure, followed by a total decapitation. Its horned head flew out the window as Addison snarled at the strange beast.
How did that damned freak break through his defensive spell?

With the demon driver’s heavy foot still depressing the accelerator, the van veered right and left into the guard rails like an out-of-control toboggan as it approached the pokey traffic jam on Interstate 75.

Nick wasn’t about to challenge the angry sorcerer to a pissing contest when the van was seconds away from careening into several cars. He ignored Addison’s ranting as he ripped away Gabriella’s bonds and hoisted his fiancée and Kazool through the portal. The
Zyloux’s
shoved Nick through after them and followed closely behind.

The portal closed just as the white van T-boned an SUV and flipped over it into the path of an oncoming semi-tractor trailer. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, but he didn’t have time to avoid the hitting van. Addison managed to escape with the demon’s headless body seconds before the collision caused the van to explode into a heaven-bound fireball.

When the firemen and state highway patrolmen showed up at the accident scene, they were mystified that there weren’t any bodies inside the van’s burned out shell. Perplexed, they questioned every witness they could find, but none of them professed seeing the van’s driver. The section of the highway patrolman’s accident report describing the accident logistics and listing any victims was left blank.

Addison and his dead demon teleported to the stairs ascending to Ulrich Strasser’s private jet. The warm breeze partially mollified the sorcerer’s anger over being bested by a primitive beast and Bellamy.
Was he losing his touch? Was the spell too weak?
Addison concluded he should have uttered a stouter incantation.

He cast the dead demon back to its vile home dimension before boarding the plane and ordering a Grey Goose Vodka martini. The busty stewardess with enough exposed cleavage to cradle a fifth of the vodka hustled to the back of the plane to mix his drink. The pilot appeared in the cockpit doorway and announced they would be taking off immediately.

While the stewardess mixed Addison’s martini, another woman with a scarf tied across her nose and mouth magically appeared, nodded at the stewardess who didn’t appear surprised by the intrusion, opened a vial, and tapped two drops of a purple liquid into the drink. The fluid instantly dissolved. Satisfied, the mysterious woman vanished. The stewardess placed the poisoned martini on a small serving tray and served it to Addison.

Addison smacked his lips as he sipped the martini. Perfect. The sorcerer settled back in his seat and watched the ground shrink beneath the plane as it ascended into a low ceiling of gray clouds. He continued to sip his martini and marveled at its exquisite taste.

Moments later, the stewardess held out a single sheet menu, but when he didn’t immediately take it, she checked to make sure he was awake. She screamed long and loud. She had no idea what those purple drops did … until now.

Panicked, Addison glimpsed his reflection in the window beside him. He reacted by flying into a rage and heaving his poisoned martini against the pilot’s locked door.

He growled menacingly at the horrified stewardess. It was obvious she spiked his drink with a black magic ingredient that reduced him, the great Addison Grimoult, to a
faun
— half-man, half-goat. His reflection exposed his goat ears, legs, horns and tail! Before making the conniving bitch pay for her treachery, Addison attempted to reverse the cursed spell, but he failed miserably. None of them broke the spell.

The infuriated goat man cast his most diabolical spell on the stewardess. But to his great surprise, she remained unaffected. No oozing leprotic sores. No inflamed nerves generating hair-pulling agony.

His goat’s head slumped forward at his latest setback. It appeared as if his magic had been neutralized as well.

Angry scarlet welts broke out on his skin and burst into pussy volcanos. His entire network of nerves suddenly emitted excruciating pain. His calloused hands contacted his red-hot forehead, and pointed horns sprouted beneath his touch. Addison angrily ripped one of the horns out of his forehead, rupturing his skull plate in the process. Brain matter oozed down his tormented features.

The pilot abandoned the cockpit, assessed his passenger’s status, and dragged the faun kicking and baaing to the emergency exit. The grim-faced pilot fastened a pair of cargo straps around his shoulders, pulled the emergency door’s locking lever, and shoved Addison’s grotesque body into the whistling clouds.

The cursed sorcerer tumbled downward at an escalating pace until he abruptly struck the ground goat head first. Addison was reduced to an unrecognizable puddle of blood and gore in the middle of a remote Indiana corn field.

He and his inflated ego were both history.