The Monster of Creasy's Hollow (Defenders of the Rift Book 1) (6 page)

Walking across the yard toward the adults, the first
thing the teens realized was that their parents didn’t look all
that angry. In fact, they looked kind of scared.

“
This seem wrong to anyone else?” Angie
asked softly.

“
I thought my dad would be foaming at the mouth,”
Alvin admitted just as quietly. “I don’t get it.”

“
We’ll know soon enough, I guess,”
Chip said. They arrived at the porch before anyone else could speak.

“
Let’s go out back, kids,” Chuck said
simply. “We all have a lot to talk about.”

*****

“
Wait a minute,” Angie said as Chuck
finished his explanation. “You mean to tell us that you,
all
of you
, have been doing this stuff? For
how
long?”

“
Yes, we have,” Kat replied to her daughter.
“And I’ll remind you to watch your tone young lady,”
she added.

“
My
tone
?” Angie almost goggled. “You
guys are. . .are. . .what? Witches or something? And you’re
worried about my
tone
?”

“
Angie,” Chip tried to calm her down.
“Remember this was my fault,” he said.

“
That’s bull,” Donna said at once, and
Donny backed his sister up with a firm nod. “We’re all to
blame. We wanted our dog back. Sue us.” She was just as upset
as Angie was, but was better at dealing with her anger. She figured
that came with having a twin brother.

“
Sue you, huh?” Belinda snorted. “If
you had any idea what you kids have done, you’d be worried
about a lot more than that.”

“
We know what we’ve done,” Alvin said
sadly. “We turned poor Waldo into some kind of monster.”
The boy looked as if he were going to cry over the dog.

“
Waldo?” Alfred started. “You mean
that mangy stray you kids were always messing with?” His tone
sounded angry, but still scared.

“
He didn’t have the mange!” Alvin shot
back. “He was a good dog, and the man who killed him could just
as easily have killed one of us! We were all on the sidewalk together
when the car hit him.”

“
What?” Valina stood up, white hot in an
instant. “Who was it?” she demanded.

“
We don’t know,” Chip admitted. “We’d
never seen him or the car before. Haven’t seen it since
either,” he added.

“
Let’s get back to the spell you used,”
Chuck said gently. “Is this the book, Chip?” he held up
the battered old book. Just a plain brown leather covered book with
yellow pages.

“
Yes sir,” Chip nodded.

“
Show me,” Chuck ordered, opening the book.
Chip turned the pages until he found the spell, and showed it to his
father.

“
That’s what I was afraid of,” Chuck
groaned, reading the heading. “What made you use this spell,
Chip?”

“
It says right here, reanimation,” Chip
pointed to the heading. “That’s what we were trying to
do. Bring Waldo back to life.”

“
That’s old, old script, son,” Chuck
sighed. “That doesn’t say ‘reanimation’. It
says ‘reclamation’. It’s a spell that allows
certain creatures to return to this world from. . .well, somewhere
else. Did you follow the ritual exactly?”

“
Well, we might have stumbled over the words a
little, here and there,” Chip admitted. “But we were
pretty close, I thought.”

“
This particular spell is written for a demon call
Monusuol,” Chuck told everyone. “You had Waldo’s
body in the circle I’m guessing?” he asked the kids. All
nodded.

“
Demons hate dogs,” Chuck rubbed his face
with one hand, holding the book with the other. “You basically
sacrificed a dead dog to summon a demon that hates dogs, kids. So
when he got here he was already mad. Where did you do this?”

“
Behind Mister Jamison's house,” Chip
replied. “Where no one would see us.”

“
Well, I think we can safely assume that you
failed to erect the barriers properly, since if Monusuol was still
trapped behind the salt barrier in Mister Jamison's backyard, someone
would have seen him by now.”

“
Salt?” Alvin looked up. “Is that what
the salt was for?”

“
Yes,” Chuck nodded.

“
I did the salt,” Alvin looked stricken.
“That was my job.”

“
Doesn’t mean you did it wrong,” Chuck
promised. “The wave might have dislodged it. Had you knew what
you were doing, you would have time to fix it. Since you didn’t,
I’m assuming that you all assumed that you had failed, and went
home.”

“
Pretty much,” Chip agreed, looking at the
ground.

“
This was very irresponsible of all of you,”
Belinda said. “You had no idea what you were doing, or what you
were getting into.”

“
We know that, now,” Donna agreed. “But
all we wanted was our dog back. We thought this would do it.”
The others nodded.

“
Well, this is Chuck’s responsibility,”
Valina said, rising. “You can deal with it, as far as I’m
concerned. Had you not let Chip get hold of that book, none of this
would have happened. As for you, young man,” she looked at
Alvin, “you can forget playing any more games for the
foreseeable future. Not to mention some other unpleasant
consequences.”

“
I agree,” Kat nodded, standing up too.
“Chuck, you let this happen. It’s up to you to fix it.
And I don’t want Angie playing with Chip anymore.”

“
Now wait a minute,” Stacey stood too, hands
clenched. “You’re going a bit too far blaming Chuck for
all this.”

“
I don’t see how,” Alfred entered the
fray. “It’s his book, and it’s your son,” he
told Stacey. “He led the rest into this, just like you led. . .
.”

“
Hey!”

The adults all turned to face their children. Angie was
standing to the fore, hands on her hips. Donna was standing right
beside her. The boys flanked them on each side.

“
This isn’t Chip’s fault anymore than
it’s ours,” Angie declared hotly. “We all had the
chance not to do it, and we did it anyway. We all agreed to do it
trying to get Waldo back. And if you think I’m not going to be
friends with Chip anymore, you’re mistaken.”

“
Ditto,” Donna nodded firmly, folding her
arms across her chest.

“
Same here,” Alvin managed to get out
without his voice breaking. He was afraid, but he was staying true to
his friends.

“
I’m with her,” Donny jabbed a thumb
at his sister. “Whatever she says.” Donna looked at him
in shock, only to see her brother wink back at her. She couldn’t
help but laugh, and that got all of the teens to laughing.

Soon even the adults joined in, and everyone started
sitting back down.

“
Well, since you all feel like you’re in
charge, what are you planning to do about this?” Valina asked,
once the laughter had settled.

“
We don’t know,” Chip replied for the
group. “But Angie, she says if what we caused this, then it’s
our responsibility to fix it. And we all agreed with her.” Kat
looked at her daughter.

“
Did you say that?” she asked. Angie nodded,
and Kat smiled proudly.

“
Donna said there had to be something in that book
that would fix this,” Chip went on. “And if there was,
then we had to do it. We didn’t want to, not then, because we
thought it would be like killing Waldo again. But now. . . .”
he trailed off.

“
We’ll do it,” Donna spoke for them
all. “We did this. Teach us how to undo it.” All of the
teens nodded in support.

“
It’s not that simple,” Chuck hated to
spoil the mood, but it was time for some serious truth to be told.
“There is a way to send him back, but Monusuol is smart. He’s
been banished before, and he’ll be expecting a trap of some
kind every time he sees a human. Or a dog,” he added. “Dogs
were once used to hound, no pun intended, creatures like him into
traps. We’ll have to come up with a way to get him out into the
open, and then work the spell before he can get away.”

“
But, if he’s a demon, then he could be
inside anybody by now!” Donny exclaimed. “We’ll
have to find him and exercise him.”

“
I think the word you want is
exorcise
,”
Chuck managed to say with a straight face. “Where did you come
up with that?”

“
From
Supernatural
,” the teen
replied. “Don’t
any
of you watch that show? Demons
live inside humans, and use their bodies to get around and do
things!”

“
Okay, we may need some broader explanations
here,” Chuck held up a hand. “Demon, in this case, is an
ancient term for ‘monster’ or ‘unknown beast’.
Not some kind of satanic thing. We don’t have to exorcise
anyone or anything. But we will have to be careful,” he added.
“This beast is strong, and dangerous. Eons ago, creatures like
Monusuol roamed the earth, preying on humans. These creatures
couldn’t be killed unless someone was able to decapitate them,
which was all but impossible. Druids, shaman, and other arcane
practitioners found ways to banish them into an alternate plane, to
protect the people around them.”

“
But, what can be done, can be undone,”
Chuck sighed. “And you kids, completely by accident, returned
one of these creatures, named Monusuol, to Earth.”

“
So you do have a spell to fix this?”
Belinda asked.

“
Yes,” Chuck nodded. “A fairly simple
one, but that doesn’t mean easy. Everyone gather around, and
let me explain.”

An hour later the group broke apart, everyone heading
home. While still angry, the parents were actually proud that their
children were willing to take responsibility for their mistakes. They
were also impressed by the way the teens had stood up for each other.

Valina, Kat, and Alfred had offered apologies to Chuck
and Stacey, but the group was strained by their harsh accusations,
there was no question. Chuck had already decided that once this
problem was dealt with, he was done with the group. Twice in two days
the others had turned on him. That was two times too many, as far as
he was concerned.

But before that, he had to teach five teenagers how to
harness the energy they were capable of summoning when they were
together. Their group was much stronger than their parent’s had
ever dreamed of being. They would need careful training and
management over the next few years, or things might go badly for
them.

And for anyone around them.

Saturday dawned clear and a little cool. It wasn’t
autumn, but fall was just around the bend, and the weather was
starting to show it. Leaves were already starting to turn a bit.

Chuck had spent a good portion of the night teaching his
son how to properly pronounce the words of the banishment spell. All
of them would have to participate, but Chip would have to lead them,
just as he had in the first ritual. Chuck didn’t like it, but
there was nothing he could do about it, either. Together the teens
had the power to send Monusuol back to his own version of purgatory.
The adults simply didn’t have that kind of power.

Some of the parents had argued that it should be them
that tried to work the spell, but Chuck calmly pointed out that there
would be only one opportunity to make this spell work. Is the adults
tried, and couldn’t succeed, then Monusuol would wreak havoc on
Creasy’s Hollow. They couldn’t chance it.

The teens were surprisingly calm all things considered.
All five showed a level of maturity that made their parents proud of
them. They were no less scared for their offspring, but they were
proud.

The plan, as Chuck had said, was simple, but not easy.
Monusuol had one weakness the group could exploit.

He loved goat meat.

All of the teens had cringed at the thought of
sacrificing a goat to make up for their own mistakes, but there
wasn’t much choice. Is Monusuol smelled a goat, he’d come
to investigate. It had been along time since the creature had had
access to goats, so Chuck was counting on him being careless.

Together everyone had picked a spot on the far side of
Creasy’s Lake from town. This time of year, even on a Saturday,
the area wouldn’t see much traffic. Most tourists, and even
most locals, preferred the higher elevations this time of year
because of the color change. Chuck had arranged for a goat that was
already slaughtered, since he didn’t want the children to be
subjected to that. His request that the blood be preserved had caused
a raised eyebrow, but he’d gotten it just the same.

Chuck and Alfred would go and hang the goat from a tree,
hopefully just high enough that Monusuol would have to work to get
it. The harder he had to work, the less attention he would pay to his
surroundings. At least, that was the theory.

Meanwhile the others would split up, taking each side of
the lake, and carefully allowing the goat blood to ‘leak’
from syringes onto leaves, rocks, anywhere that would preserve the
scent and let the wind carry it. The wind was their one variable. If
it wasn’t in their favor, then the whole plan might be shot.

Chuck and Alfred would prepare the ground around the
goat for the banishment. Since salt wasn’t needed, there would
be no scent to scare the monster away. The advantage of using such an
open area was that the various diagrams could be drawn larger than
normal, making them harder for the demon to spot, even if he wasn’t
distracted by the temptation of a tasty goat snack.