WARNING: The rating on this chapter is upped to R (or M – however you look at it). This is NOT for the kiddies, for the same reasons as before; explicit description, no sexual situations or character death. If dissections squick you out or you couldn't handle chapter 12, then I suggest you skim once more. The action is for random-freak, who's been begging me for more since about ch. 3. I hear, and obey. (evil grin).
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Few were the occasions when his senses betrayed him; yet this was such a one. After claiming a tiredness that he in fact felt all too keenly, Gabriel waited until the Pardoes were gone. Concealed behind a curtain, he had watched from the window as the remainder of the town drifted to the church in drips and drabs, before slipping from the house. He had trekked westward, some instinct telling him that the darkness plaguing his senses did not stretch as far in this direction.
So now, dependant on his night-sight more than anything else, Gabriel wandered along the razor edge of the shadow on his senses, half-hoping that he would find something, half-hoping he wouldn't.
When he stumbled into the first clearing, it was the sense of darkness, rather than the actual inky blackness, that had him jerking to a stop with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. The feel of it skittered uncomfortably over his skin, oppressing him and raising the hair on the back of his neck. The entire clearing reverberated a power at odds with the chiming of his soul, and he choked down the bile rising in his throat.
Composing himself, Gabriel squinted, able to make out a black shape in the center of the clearing. His certainty that he knew what this was, however, was dashed to pieces by the unveiling of the moon. A shaft of silvery light broke through the blackness, reflecting off the snow and illuminating the clearing.
Rare were the instances when Gabriel swore. Even rarer, however, were those in which he prayed.
"Merciful God." The words slipped from his lips, and he had no idea he'd said them until he heard the reverent plea, and wondered where it came from.
The snow in this clearing had been packed down hard from the tramping of many feet, dirtied by shoes and unwholesome intentions. Approaching the . . . thing in the center, Van Helsing found his steps inadvertently slowing, and he gave more care to where he was putting his feet. He found himself unwilling to go forward, and then saw something standing out strangely on the ground, carving a line of darkness against the snow.
Crouching down, he gently laid two fingers on the thin line that traced a circle around the . . . object in the center. Immediately, knowledge flooded his mind. It was a warding line, laid down in salt, grave-soil and semen(). A line with the power and ability to keep something out, or to keep it in; magician's work, almost certainly that of a warlock. But for all its potency, it did not have the power to keep him out. Few things on Earth did.
The hunter stood up and was assailed by dizziness. He staggered a step before regaining his balance, and glared at the warding line. Without warning, he stepped over the line, feeling as if he was forcing his way through water. The sensation ceased with an abrupt jolt once he fully passed into the circle.
Now, he got his first clear glimpse of the thing in the center.
It had been a man, once.
Like the deer, this body had also been skinned, but much more carefully. The exquisite detail of musculature was perfectly revealed, and the body itself had been meticulously washed of all traces of blood. There was none on the stick that impaled this man, in like manner to the deer. Tendons and sinews were stretched in sharp relief. His blindfold, the only cloth of any sort adorning the naked body, was still in place under a head of dirty-blonde hair.
Compared to this, it seemed obvious to the hunter that the deer in the forest had been erected hastily. There was no sign of blood, no massive hole hacked into the chest. The only indication of something amiss was in the horizontal line of stitches across the dead man's abdomen; they were small, and expertly sewn with black cotton thread.
Flicking out his knife, the hunter took a step closer.
The body was rigid, limned in ice and frozen through; it had to have been out in the forest for days, at the least. It was also much lower to the ground than the deer had been; the man's toes dangled a few scant inches from the snow.
Before bringing the knife closer, the hunter took a good long look at the scene. The mercy stroke was again missing, but the man's limbs were strangely relaxed, and the impalement itself seemed to have gone smoothly; a difficult feat when the victim was struggling for his life. It was a cruel, harsh way in which to die; Gabriel knew from experience that the unlucky could live for days before succumbing.
The hunter walked around the man carefully, but saw no bruising in the muscles, contusions, tears, or strains near the joints that might have occurred if the man was fighting. Then again, the low temperature would preclude much evidence of that struggle from showing on the body, he reflected ruefully. His best guess would be that the man had been already dead; if not, then serious drugs or a major head injury had come into play. The half-light from the moon was hard to see in, and despite the hunter's excellent night-sight, he could see no sign of a head injury.
Grotesquely, the man appeared to be painlessly suspended upon the pike. Arms and legs slumped easily, the loose posture disconcerting to behold. The hunter swallowed. Though he hated to admit himself unsettled by the evil rampant in the world, he had seen nothing to rival this cruelty in a hundred years or more.
Gabriel turned his attention to the blindfold, rubbing the material thoughtfully between his fingers. He examined the cloth carefully. It was homespun black cotton, made by hand from natural materials, and dyed using the nuts from a black walnut tree, more than likely. It had been expertly hemmed, the extravagant length tightly tied over the eyes. Though the face itself was devoid of skin, the hair had not been removed, and the ghastly contrast of tender flesh and matted blonde curls was enough to turn the hunter's stomach.
He finished circling, stopping in front of the man again. Where the body might once have been pink, it was now unnaturally pale and the lack of expression on the man's face only troubled the hunter further.
Quashing his disgust, he reached forward and split the stitches across the dead man's abdomen with a swipe of his blade.
The flesh was stiff, and he had to pry it apart with his hands before he could see inside. It finally gave with the sharp crackle of breaking ice and a dull tearing sound. The man's entrails showed traces of blood, ripped tissue accompanied by savage splinters that had peeled away from the rough wood and lodged in soft organs. Frozen bile and blood saturated the cavity, crystallized brown and red which had mixed into a sopping black that had spattered and pooled; but something out of place caught the hunter's eye. Gabriel reached deeply inside and his fingers hit wood. Scrabbling along the pole, he felt a knuckle catch on metal and frowned. Just below that, questing fingertips came into contact with something soft. He probed it carefully for a moment; squarish, smooth and flat, he felt wetness as the warmth from his fingers melted the ice coating the unknown object. He clutched and ripped, yanking his hand from the dead man's stomach, ignoring the few dislodged pieces of intestine that flew out into the air.
In his hand was a folded packet. It was vellum, he realized immediately; tanned skin stretched and cured to produce valuable parchment. It, too was frozen, and was not quite as pristine as the corpse was on the outside – a few bloody fingerprints had dried on the snow-white skin. A bottom edge was black, where it had been dipped accidentally in the medley of body fluids. Whatever this was, it had been deliberately placed inside after the impalement. It was also so caked in ice that Gabriel risked damaging it if he tried to open it. So he shoved it into a pocket, and returned to the gaping hole. The flesh around the unnatural maw in the victim's abdomen bulged unpleasantly. He must have shattered some of the ice and tissues holding sagging organs in place.
When he placed his hand back inside, he remembered the deer he had seen and an important memory pricked his consciousness. Reaching his hand deeper for what he vowed to be the final time, Gabriel felt carefully for many minutes before withdrawing his fingers, suspicions confirmed. The heart was also strangely missing from this man.
Everything about this death contrasted jarringly with the downright sloppy deer carcasses mounted around the Austin home. This kill was the epitome of clean and careful; someone – or several someones – had clearly taken the time to do this properly. And the care exhibited in the skinning and impaling spoke of the ease of practice.
But on discovering this one, the hunter knew what he would find along the borders of darkness gulping the life from Boxborough. More bodies, probably all identically butchered, forming a pentacle encompassing the town and nearby lands. But why?
Just to be certain, Gabriel followed the scent of darkness through the night, balancing on the edges of the mild evil floating through the air, tracking it. Each body he came to, all male, had been ruthlessly carved in like manner – the skin missing, a row of stitches sewn over the abdomen concealing a frozen parchment, and the space where a heart should be. A warding line of the same three components circled each. Prompted by some instinct he could not explain, a buried memory half-realized, Gabriel searched each body, removing the parchments and keeping them with him.
It was very late by the time he had found the fourth body, far to the east of the town. His mind was stuffed full of questions. What was the darkness he could sense on the air? How had it manifested seemingly overnight, when each of the bodies showed signs of having been exposed to the elements for at least a week? Who was behind these killings, and why? Why the gruesome nature of the death? And most immediately, what was written on the parchments now slowly unfreezing in his pocket?
He was so preoccupied, he almost missed the muffled sound of a foot gone awry in the snow, the gradual fading of nighttime sounds into silence. Almost, but not quite. But practically before he understood the sound, he was attacked.
They were clothed in black, skulking through the deepest shadows of the forest, hunting him. Three people – men from their build - crept at him from the front, left and right. Which meant . . .
Gabriel whirled to see the last coming at him from behind, half a head taller than the rest, with a brawn that black clothes could not conceal, and an all-too-distinctive build.
"Ancell," Gabriel growled, certain of the other's identity. He was rewarded when the tall figure paused, in surprise or confusion, he could not tell. How had they found him?
Gabriel acted in that moment, charging the biggest figure immediately, aiming to take Ancell out while he was still fresh. For all that he needed to get away, needed to escape this well-sprung trap, he didn't bring out his blades, confining himself to feet and fists. Self-defense or not, he could not kill them.
Ancell refused to sidestep, which would have left a path of escape open to the hunter. Meeting the charge head on, he blocked the first blow with a raised forearm, reaching out with one foot to hook the hunter's ankles and topple him to the snow. Gabriel's jump lifted him clear of that trap, but his backward leap brought him into range of the three smaller men creeping up from his blind sides.
It was the work of a moment to beat them back, to gain time with which to face Ancell again. They retreated only a little, nursing small wounds and preparing to attack again. Ancell closed in, and this time he initiated the attack.
Gabriel twisted, taking a glancing blow across the ribs to avoid a fist that would have knocked him cold, gasping at the power behind the hit. But he was not without strength of his own, and a harsh grunt came from the blacksmith as a hard kick had him doubled over in the snow.
The ground was slick, and when the men behind him saw Ancell go down, just for a moment, Gabriel used that to his advantage. Howling in fury, the three charged him at once, and he ran at them, dropping into a slide that took out two below the knees, sending them hard to the ground. There was an ominous thud, and one did not rise.
Gabriel rolled to his feet, reaching inside his coat for the dart gun, ready to end this. It was knocked from his hand as the one man who had kept his footing struck out at him with a stave, and went skittering across the clearing.
He blocked the first blow by the stave, and with the second managed to wrap his fingers round the smooth wood. A shove and a jerk wrested the staff from its former owner's hands. A quick, dirty blow upside the head dropped him to the ground, and he didn't move.
Something crashed into him from behind, and Gabriel found himself face-first in the snow, a heavy weight grinding him into the ground, the stave trapped uselessly beneath him. He heaved with his body, trying to throw the other off him, and succeeded only in rolling them over – the unknown man's grasp held firm.
Gabriel gasped for air; a heavy blow to his side had him curling up, involuntarily seeking to protect the vulnerability. A series of harsh kicks robbed him of breath and voice. Loosing patience quickly, Gabriel rammed his foot backward, managing to catch the shin of whomever was still pinning him in the snow. That was only a diversion, however. As a breathless curse wafted past his ear, a wriggle and a shove gave him the leverage he needed. The hunter powered up from the ground, twisting up and around to catch his assailant's face with the hard, sharp bone of his elbow. The splintering crunch and flood of warmth told him he had broken the man's nose.
With a rasping scream the man rolled off him, clutching his face. A stain was rapidly spreading through the black cloth kerchief pulled up to conceal his face. Gabriel jumped to his feet, surveying the damage – two men unconscious, one definitely debilitated. Where was . . . . sudden instinct propelled him in a rolling dive, none too soon. A sharp crack split he air, shards of wood flying from the tree where the bullet had lodged.
Ancell repositioned himself to fire – and Gabriel knew that unless he was willing to escalate, unless he was willing to kill this man in cold blood, there was nothing he could do against the unexpected appearance of a gun. Without wasting time for thought, he turned and bolted through the trees, scooping up his dart gun as he crossed the edge of the clearing. Weaving and dodging, he raced the bullets westward. The town – he would be relatively safe in public view, he hoped.
The sound of gunfire slowly faded; even so, Gabriel did not stop. He was running, leaping over fallen trees and ducking around branches and brambles. But then there was no ground under his feet, only a sickening drop. An explosion of pain heralded the encroaching darkness.
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"Well?" The one who spoke did so in full knowledge of the answer.
"He's alone, just as you ordered."
"And the others?" A question purred in satisfaction, still confident of the response.
"I've gathered the reports. They are appropriately . . . incapacitated. For now."
"Good."
"But -"
"What is it?" Sharp voice, angry, annoyed.
The second flinched back. "I just – will it work? He's independent and strong willed – I don't -"
"Cease your whining. He'll join us. If we don't manage to convince him, he'll do it to keep his friends safe," the other all but sneered. "Either way, he's ours."
"But he suspects -"
"They all do. Why do you think they were sent here?" Impatience, now. Better than aggravation, but not by much.
"That fool, Gray," the second spat, with anger born of fear and shame.
"Someone was not as careful as they should have been," the first voice agreed gently.
The second shivered, eyes fixed on the ground. "It won't happen again," came the ragged whisper.
"I trust not." A pause, laden with sweaty relief, before the leader spoke once more. "Gray did not know enough to cause true damage. He was a fool, though a perceptive one. These – these are the more powerful, and we can turn the situation to suit our needs." The voice grew harsh, commanding, greedy. "Listen carefully. I want them all. The scientist and the hunter especially, but they each have their uses. They will be ours."
The second bowed briefly in acknowledgement.
"Do you understand?" The powerful demand reminded the other of why they served him, why this man deserved their allegiance and unquestioning loyalty, even unto death.
"I do," breathed the servant.
"Good. Let the others know."
"I will."
"You must leave. The meeting will start soon."
"I hear, and obey."
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() Much as I would love to take credit for the "warding line laid down in salt, grave-soil and semen", it's actually my adaptation of warding lines as described by Simon R. Green in his "Something From the Nightside" series, and I was definitely thinking of it when I wrote that line. The third book, Nightingale's Lament, tells of warding lines laid down in salt, silver and semen. The general availability of silver in this time and place prompted me to tweak it a bit. I recommend this series also, as they're a macabre, fun little thrill ride; but not for anyone under thirteen, and my personal rating ups to PG-15 with the third book in the series.
Also, thanks to all my stalwart reviewers, especially misc ( ) who actually liked ch. 13, and wasn't shy about letting me know. I really appreciate that, as I was having waaay more fun with 14 while simultaneously trying to wrap up 13. (candy to misc ( )!)