Warlock Wolf / Bring The Night / Chapter 13 of 13

Black reared from whatever he’d seen inside the toad’s belly, and turned toward them, face drawn with horror, and fell with his back against the inside of the open door. It clanged, metal on metal, banging against the toad’s iron knee. Black slumped, sliding down to sit on the warehouse floor.

She was quick to get to his side, falling on her knees. “Are you okay?”

He nodded and coughed into his suit jacket. The stench was awful. Thick. More than air, it was a putrid humidity she could taste on her tongue. It was death. It was copper. It was fester and suppuration. She said, “There’s someone . . . in there.”

Black nodded. “There was,” he said into his arm, then coughed again. “I think . . . it was a kid,” he said when he cleared the fabric away. He let his head fall back against the frog.

“I smell copper,” she said.

Black nodded again. “Blood. So much blood.”

Maddie kept her distance, said, “What is it?”

“Sacrifice,” she said, “maybe,” trying to figure on what Black had seen, not wanting to press him on it since he seemed so affected. There was sadness in her voice, like she was trying to hold back tears—she hadn’t even seen anything.

“I smell blood, blood, and . . . cloves . . . ” Maddie’s voice was strained by a desperate sadness, too, something magical and powerful working through all of them.

Black nodded, retched, swallowed. “Weed, too, that’s one I know from work. Marijuana.”

She caressed his shoulder, nodding, sniffing, and turned to her sisters. “Snake venom.”

Pris said, “A ritual.”

She and her sisters all nodded now. Pris sat down on the floor and covered her face with her hands. “It’s awful.”

Maddie agreed, tears filling her eyes. “Just awful.”

Lizzy said, “It’s too powerful. Way too powerful. We gotta get out of here.”

She put her hand out for Black—wanted to slink her arms right around him and make all the hurt go away. He moved to place his hand in hers, then changed his mind. It was probably a good idea. They shouldn’t be touching. Not when the connection between them was so powerful. Not when eyes were on them . . . 

“Come on,” she urged, “let’s get out of here. We can’t be here like this.”

“You guys are supposed to be the experts.”

“We’ve seen all we need to see,” she said.

But now she was compelled. As Black rose, she put her hand on his back, felt a sudden throbbing below her hipbones, a toothache of desire. “Go on, let’s get outside,” she murmured, and as he shuffled away, she turned, leather jacket lapel lifted, and drew a deep breath from her underarm area. Hands on either side of the open doorway, she prepared herself . . . 

*

When she was ready, she poked her head into the belly of the toad. The space was black—blacker than it ever should be. With her head inside, she began to swoon; almost felt compelled to enter the belly and have a seat . . . but she knew that that would be a bad idea. There were two iron chairs inside, calling to her. A table between the two seats was decorated with an offering.

Heaped on the table were the remains of what had to be two different children. In the square frame of severed arms and legs bound at wrists and ankles by twine were silver platters arranged in tiers. On the platters were smaller bowls which must have contained the organs, now putrefied and turned to jelly. She averted her eyes, so terrified to examine the brutality of the centerpiece. But even faced aside she could still see a mind’s eye view of what she’d witnessed; saw the body parts intertwined with olive branches, cut oranges, rosemary stalks, dead flowers . . . Face turned down, she saw one of the hands held in the cup of its palm a circular patch of leather. Only it wasn’t leather, was it? The strands of long blonde hair between the fingers proved it was a scalp, and in the centre of the scalp, a lone plucked eyeball stared up.

A shriek worked up from her core but dissipated, the volume too large for her body, the terror racing through her insides like barbed wire caught in a thrasher on her daddy’s farm, tearing her voice to whispers . . . 

She dipped at the knees, belched, then pulled away her jacket lapel in time to hose vomit into the toad’s interior. It burned and scorched her throat, shot like liquid fire through her nostrils, and tears scrambled her vision. She wiped her mouth, squatted, burped again; stomach acid and bacon and OJ, the breakfast this morning at school. Squatting and sagging against the frame allowed her to look up. When she did, she saw twinkling constellations. Utter infinity on the ceiling of the toad’s spine. Black empty nighttime. A shooting star . . . 

She gasped, aimed her pointed finger out to trace its path across the night sky . . . 

Eyes burned in the black infinity; when she saw them flick open, the pupils find hers and lock, she fell back on her ass on the warehouse floor.

“Oh, no,” she gasped, and with the toe of her loafer, swung the toad’s hatch door inward, closing it, slamming it shut with her heel.

And then she was on her hands and knees, scrambling away on all fours until she could rise and trot to join Black and her friends.

*

The five of them stumbled down the hallway toward the open door, sloshing around like drunken sailors. Goody, Pris, and Maddie ahead of him, Lizzy coming up behind, everyone hunching over, they put their hands out to steady themselves, touching the walls so they wouldn’t topple. The three girls ahead broke into the wintry daylight, gasping for fresh air, vacuuming it in; Goody fell into the snow on her hands and knees and vomited. His pace quickened, eager to feel light on his skin and fresh air in his lungs, lurching toward the open door, Maddie quarter-turning his way, but him waiting for Lizzy, knowing he would never leave her behind. But when she caught up, her hand extended past him, closing the door and sealing them both inside the warehouse.

“What are you doing?” he asked, back going to the door, feeling woozy and sick, his knees watery. Lizzy looked up at him with those turquoise eyes, big and round like Bahamian pools…

“Don’t… Don’t tell the police,” she said thickly, her mouth having trouble forming words.

“Don’t tell them?”

She said, “Don’t trust them.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

She wriggled her brows, looking hurt, then softened with understanding, she said, “You know you can.”

He nodded. “I do.”

Behind him, right next to his ear, Maddie pounded on the metal and shouted, “Hey!”

Lizzy raised her voice: “Just a minute . . . ”

Maddie: “You okay?”

He said, “We’re fine, hold on.”

Maddie said, “Lizzy . . . ?”

She said, “One minute, Maddie . . . ”

He asked Lizzy: “For how long?”

“I don’t know . . . Call the school for me. Tell the Matriarch we need help out here.”

She looked at him pleadingly, biting on her lower lip. He asked: “You guys don’t have phones?”

She shook her head no. “We’re not allowed. But . . . ” She darted her eyes away warily.

“But what . . . ?”

“I have one. I can’t use it to call the school, but someone gave it to me.”

He growled and had no idea where it came from, picturing some college kid getting close to her, trying to trick her, trying to take what was his, a cute guy wanting to stick his dick in her, an asshole who needed a lesson. “Who? . . . ”

“Not a boy, not a boy.” she said reassuringly, her hands smoothing on his chest. “Not like that. I borrowed one to call you.” Her eyes came up to meet his, and her hand cupped his neck, caressing him.

Despite the abject horror of the moment, their mouths came together, and he took her hungrily but tenderly, sucking on her lips, feeling her . . . A bright glimmering gem in a charred wasteland moment.

When they broke away, she whispered, “Call the school for me, please.”

He said, “Can I trust Boston or not?”

“I’m not sure. But if you tell Boston, he’ll tell the F.B.I.”

“Yeah, he’ll have to. But so do I—I have to tell them . . . It’s my job.”

She nodded, squeezed his arms. “This is so messed up.”

He clutched her, held her close; a rock-hard erection had grown, and he pressed it into her now. At its feel, she let out a squeaky moan and he lowered his mouth to her neck and bit her gently.

She gasped an airy sound, whispered, “Now’s not the time.”

“No, it’s not,” he agreed.

From the other side of the door, sounding thin and distant, Maddie asked, “Guys . . . ?”

He held Lizzy away, looked in her eyes.  “You went in there, in the . . . the whatever . . . What did you see? . . . ”

Her features crumpled, and she buried her face in his chest, crying against him. He held her, stroked his hands on her leather jacket back.

“You saw it . . . ? Saw the . . . body parts?”

She nodded, her chin point dabbing into his muscle.

Now her head came back, and he saw worry twist her pretty face. “Someone—some thing—saw me.”

“The eyes . . . ?”

Her brows went up. “You saw it, too?”

“You’re safe,” he said, his voice a low and sincere grumble, and he kissed her again. While she gave him her slippery little tongue, he fished his phone out of his pocket again just as Maddie rapped on the metal.

“Let’s go,” he said, stepping away, opening the door for her.

She stumbled ahead into Maddie’s arms and Maddie scowled at him over Lizzy’s shoulder. Pris and Goody came to collect their sorority sister as well, all of them putting arms around each other for support and guiding Lizzy through the snowy path toward the Rolls Royce, that Kernohan guy still behind the wheel, not even getting out of the car to help.

Twenty-four hours he’d been in White Chapel and the whole shebang was one horrible, frightening mess. He’d had intercourse with a student at the local college; cheated on his girlfriend, the fucking E.A.D.’s daughter; he’d found out devil dolls were real, the occult was real; saw an eviscerated toymaker; and now this . . . And what was this? A ritual murder, a torture, done in an evil metal toad, in a room that opened into space?

When Amy’s father gave him this job he’d jumped on it solely because it would make him a Special Agent In Charge. He’d thought it would be boring, a bunch of nothing—how many occult murders had he ever heard of? None. Everything was changing and changing fast. He was changing, too. He couldn’t deny it now. The suit feeling tight, same with his shoes, and he felt fucking powerful. Strong and agile and mean, and possessive. Possessive of this redhead he’d only just met. Right now her tears were drying on his shirt, the dampened fabric clinging to his chest, and, yeah, that was hard muscle it stuck to. More than he’d had when he woke.

Thumb swiping his phone to life, he busted out his contacts and found what he was looking for, everything in him screaming out not to do what he was about to do. But he had a duty.

He tapped the contact and put the phone to his ear, watching across the snowy expanse at the girls gathering around the antique Rolls, crying and consoling each other.

Someone picked up, and now he heard a dry, papery voice, sweet and feminine with a drawl from the South. “Flowers of Eden . . . ”