Society Rules (56 page)

“You idiot! Why did you do it, Shawn,
damn
you!
Why
?” She backed away from him, still shrieking. “You stupid, stupid idiot! You’ve ruined
everything
!’ All Cassandra could focus on, was the fact that her little fantasies that had sustained her for the past year would never be realized.

She was infuriated to have this taken away from her. These people had robbed her of her dream. The sight of a man and a woman approaching together, striding right up to the clearing drew her attention.

The woman stopped to embrace both children, and then moved to kneel at Shawn’s side. The man stationed himself beside the elderly man and the children.

As Cassandra watched, speechless, the woman pulled Shawn’s torn shirt away, and placed her hands on his face, and then his chest. Shawn’s screams stopped abruptly, like a tap shut off by the faucet and his body began to relax.

Jake stood close by the old man, his fists clenched tightly. He looked up at him questioningly, and the old man smiled sadly, and shook his head.

“No, son. We do not, as a rule, interfere with the fate and destiny set forth by nature, unless, of course, as directed by our Creator. It is one of Society’s most important rules.” Jake looked back at the man who had saved his sister, and by proxy, himself.

The gentleman spoke again, softly. “Shawn Baker has achieved
Tabula
Rasa
, meaning, a ‘blank slate’ or a state of innocence. His actions here have saved him. His future in the hereafter did not look promising before this day.”

Jake sighed, and nodded, his face filled with sorrow.

Indie spoke soothingly into Shawn’s ear, offering words of comfort and gratitude as he exhaled noisily. Although his respirations were increasing, his face and body were becoming more and more calm after Indie’s touch.

“I can’t see anything, you know.” He spoke in a conversational tone, his voice thick and bubbly with blood.

His eyes were open very wide, curiously blank.

“Is that . . .
normal
 . . . ?” Shawn’s hand shot spastically outward, and he grasped the air. “Ah . . . man. Yeah . . .
is
she okay? The little girl . . . Will’s kid?” The congestion was strangling him.

Indie touched his face. “You saved her,” she whispered.

“Oh!” Shawn shuddered. “Do you hear it?
Can
you?
Sounds like . . . they’re
singing
!”

His chest convulsed once and did not rise again.

He was still, and the clearing was heavy with an unnatural silence.

Nick had watched people die before, but this was especially hard for him somehow. Maybe because he’d had a little history with him earlier in the day. Knowing that there were children here to witness this made it worse.

He was dimly aware of the bizarre conversation taking place between the old man and the boy.

Did
they
know
each
other?
He had only been half listening, his eyes riveted on Shawn.

A movement at his side caught his attention.

Nick stared with utter amazement at the vision standing next to him, semi-concealed in the underbrush, and rubbed his eyes. He
must
have wished himself a vision, because a hallucination was surely what stood before him now.

No, it was still here.

The dog that had attacked the woman, and saved his life only moments ago, stood next to Nick in the thicket. But this was not the cause of Nick’s disbelief. It was what the dog was holding that had the officer stunned.

In his mouth, Max carefully held a heavy burden.

It was a gun. Not just any old gun, either. It was a Walther PPK 7.65mm, obviously conjured out of thin air by a guardian angel, Nick decided.

“
How
 . . . ?” Captain Brocatto shook his head.

Never in a billion years would he be able to convince someone of this story.

Max whined, softly. Urgently.

Watching the blond woman very carefully, Nick slowly bent to his side, reaching down toward the weapon that the animal held in his teeth.

The moment Shawn’s breathing ceased; within a single second, Cassandra came back to life.

“Get away from him,” she whispered coldly to Indie. Indie touched Shawn’s face once more in thanks, and rose to stand before agent Lockhart. All reason had left Cassandra now, and she narrowed her eyes, first at the woman standing in front of her, then all of them.

They were all going to pay for her loss; the object of her obsession. No one was walking out of here, except for Cassandra herself. She would come up with a story later, when she dragged the bodies of the alien beings . . . these
Society
Members
, in to the lab.

The other two could just rot here. They were already in a cemetery. Perfect. No one came here, and the animals would take care of the remains.

Jackson moved forward to stand next to Indie. “You don’t need to do this, you know.” He spoke to her smoothly, carefully. “You could end this the right way. Shawn died to save that child. You would take her life now, to spite his sacrifice?” Lockhart wavered.

The man’s voice was compelling. It seemed to pull her thoughts away from her anger. For a moment she drifted, soothed by his thoughts.

She snapped back, suspicious. That thing was using some kind of mind interference on her, she was sure.

Goddamn
aliens.

This one was dangerous. Incredibly handsome, she could not help but notice, but he couldn’t be kept around for one minute; not if he could get into her head like that.

Yes, he would be the first to go.

“Shut up. You’re dead.” Her tone was flat. She looked around once more at the small group this had inexplicably become. “You’re all
dead!”
She repeated, her voice rising to a scream.

She pointed her gun at Jackson, and the sound of the gunshot echoed around the valley.

Indie screamed.

Cassandra stood with her arm still outstretched holding her weapon, eyes wide. She lifted her hand and touched her chest, her white blouse becoming saturated with rapidly spreading crimson. She held her blood-covered hand in front of her face, and then looked past Indie and Jackson at the police officer, now crouched in position, aiming a familiar weapon in her direction, the silencer that had been on the end of it was cast aside, for better deadly accuracy.

She began to scream again and gripped her gun tightly. Another gunshot exploded through the clearing and Cassandra went down as the second bullet hit its mark.

The woods were filled with her shrieks of agony as she flopped on the wet ground.

Indie rushed forward and placed her hands on the woman, and Cassandra hissed as Indie’s hot hands connected with her cold one. “Don’t touch me!” she screeched.

Indie, although repelled by the iciness of the woman’s skin, held fast, and Cassandra’s thrashing halted.

“Why?” Cassandra demanded harshly. “Why would you move to ease my pain?”

“Because even unadulterated evil should be the recipient of a simple act of mercy.”

“You and your kind . . . you’re nothing but unnatural freaks! Freaks and cowards, living in hiding!” Lockhart snarled.

“Yes,” Indie spoke gently. “You’re right that I fear for you, and what’s waiting for you. It’s horrible, because I know nothing can save you now.”

“You sound just like your wimpy son!” spat Lockhart, unmoved.

“Don’t mistake compassion and love for weakness.” Indie replied steadily. “Don’t you realize the strength one needs to maintain self control, to not become simply a knee-jerk reaction of anger and revenge? No, our reactions take a measure of strength that you can never understand!”

Cassandra jerked her hand away from Indie, and gasped as the pain returned with a vengeance. She clawed desperately at the air, and began a horrible wailing as her body convulsed.

Her screams were suddenly joined by a screeching, howling sound that made Indie cover her ears in alarm.

The sound rose, deafening as Lockhart’s shrieks mingled with the new grating sound. It seemed to surround them in an eerie stereo-like hissing movement, and seemed loud enough to be heard throughout the entire state.

With a silent shout of fear, Jackson rocketed forward and lifted Indie, still kneeling by Cassandra, and carried her back away from the woman.

The hissing and wailing grew louder, and Nick pulled Cassidy more closely to him.

He looked at the old man, who had stepped toward him now, summoning Indie and Jackson to move back closer to the small group. The old man moved to stand the closest to the convulsing woman, and whispered . . .

“
Vade
retro
Satana
 . . .”

The officer had already concluded that this was not just some ordinary citizen off the streets, and instinctively moved closer to him as well. He also had a fleeting memory of the Latin inflicted upon him as a child in school.

The man had clearly spoken the words “get behind me, Satan.” He had never thought to hear those words spoken in quite such a literal sense.

Nick’s strict Catholic upbringing was surging to the forefront of his brain as he thought of devils, demons, possession and every other nightmare-inducing teachings from the schools of his youth.

This was worse. Much worse.

He watched in wonder as his hand made a decision without his involvement, lifting and performing the sign of the cross.

Twice.

“What is it?” screamed Cassandra, as blood began pouring from her mouth. “What’s happening?”

“They are the
Shadow
People
.” The old man spoke quietly, yet somehow his voice was perfectly clear, audible even above the chilling din. “Your ancestors have come to claim you, Cassandra Lockhart . . . mercy be upon you!”

As the man spoke, hideous dark figures began swirling through the cemetery, rushing through the trees toward them They moved with a serpentine undulation, never touching the ground.

The shapes were
more
than opaque black . . . it was as if light had no ability to shine even near them; holes in the fabric of this astral plane. They varied in lengths; some less than two feet long, while others approached eight feet in length.

Hideous humanoid shapes without features.

Like wisps of jet-black smoke, they wove in and out through the headstones, finally concentrating on the area where Cassandra lay shrieking. The small group watched, mesmerized as the Shadows took turns diving underneath Lockhart, nudging her body upwards slightly, and then dropping her.

Crying out in terror, she batted uselessly at the figures, unable to make contact with anything solid, although they were able to force the movement of her body.

As one particularly long figure came from underneath her, it floated toward the others, and circled in what looked like curiosity around the body of Shawn Baker.

“You dare!”

The old man spoke angrily, raising his right hand and the thick stick with it. The figure was instantly propelled backwards with terrific force, howling in rage as it went.

Jackson turned Indie toward him, and held her tightly to spare her the disturbing images. Normally these types of entities would receive the wrath of the Archangel blood, dispatched with Jackson’s skill . . . but he held his place now, allowing the demonic beasts to torment Lockhart as he shielded his
Equal
from the awful sight.

Nick was doing the same with Cassidy, and wishing desperately that he could look away. The old man held Jake with his left arm, allowing the boy to bury his face in his side.

The ground where Cassandra lay, tormented, began to change. Shimmering, it became dark and soft. It was taking on the appearance of a puddle of oil, or maybe tar.

Cassandra began to sink; pulled by the wispy Shadow People downwards in a show reminiscent of a boa constrictor leisurely swallowing a very large meal.

The earth seemed to yawn, and the woman’s head and shoulders began to sink into the soft, sticky-looking mass underneath her.

Her gurgling screeches became muffled as the top half of her body disappeared.

The Shadow figures moved more quickly now, as if in a feeding frenzy of sorts, wailing and shrieking, mingled with an awful sound similar to long fingernails raked across aluminum siding. Cassandra’s feet began to tilt at an odd angle as her body began to sink fully, only her shoes visible.