Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 12

Timothy Laws left his room and entered the base’s main salon. One entire wall was covered with relics of missions past. Among these relics were bones, knives, a carved and inlaid fighting stick from the Philippines, fangs, talons, and a large gnarled hand. His eyes briefly scanned these, acknowledging the sacrifices his predecessors had made; then he went to Holmes, who lay sprawled on one of the several couches. He’d just turned forty but still had the body of a much younger man. Laws acknowledged that there weren’t too many younger men in the same shape.

“You back from a run?” Laws asked.

“Ten miles. Sucks getting old.” Holmes sat up. “What’s up?”

Laws held up a tablet. “I got Walker on the line. Want to talk to him?”

“Of course.” He took the tablet and rested it against his bottle of water. When he toggled the screen to on, he was greeted by the haggard, drawn face of Walker. He glanced at Laws, who nodded.

Laws had answered the call five minutes ago and they’d spent the time talking about the boy’s dead fiancée. Walker was definitely on the edge. What worried Laws was that he might do something irrevocably stupid.

“What’s up, kid?” Holmes asked, trying to be light.

“We’re in the shit here, Boss.”

“Isn’t Ian taking care of you?”

“Best that he can.” Walker looked down, then back at the screen. “As of two hours ago, Section 9 has two operators left and one analyst.”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed. “What happened two hours ago?”

Walker gave them a mission report, complete with the information he had about the witch. “The witch and I evacced with several boxes of the warlock’s stuff. Books, odds and ends, jewelry, and a bunch of bottles of ingredients.”

“Do you trust her?” Laws asked, leaning over the couch behind Holmes so he could fit into the camera’s view.

Walker glanced to the side. “I don’t know. Not really, I guess. I think she has her own agenda, but frankly, she’s all we have.” He laughed hollowly. “You know, you don’t really appreciate what you have until you’ve seen it bad. And this is pretty bad.”

“I remember doing an op with Section 9 where there were twenty operators, all read on to the mission and fluent in supernatural esoterica. You say there’s two left?”

“Three if you count me.”

Holmes shook his head. “My, but how the mighty have fallen. What is it we can do for you, son?”

“Bring the team over,” Walker said with complete seriousness.

“Billings won’t allow it. If you can find some overarching reason why we need to be there, something that involves the safety of American citizens, we can get involved. Otherwise there’s no way.” Holmes sat forward. “Trust me, Walker. There’s nothing I want more than to come over and get the bastards that killed Jen. All of us feel that way, but right now our hands are tied.”

Walker was silent for several moments. Finally, “Did Preeti get in contact with Musso?”

Laws answered, “Sure did. We have a line on Van Dyke up at Lake Arrowhead. We’re leaving at noon and plan on being on target by fourteen hundred hours.”

“Full battle rattle?”

Holmes shook his head. “It’s a tourist spot. We’re going to infil by helicopter five miles from the target. We have a Suburban standing by courtesy of Alice Munroe, NCIS. Remember her?”

Walker cracked a smile for the first time. “She forgive YaYa yet?”

“When hell freezes over. You should see them in the same room. Poor kid feels terrible about what that creature made him do. He tries so hard to apologize, but she’s making him pay for it.”

“Thirty hours tied in the trunk of a car, I’d be pissed too,” Laws chipped in.

“Which is why I made YaYa our official liaison to NCIS.” Holmes crossed his arms. “It gives the kid the opportunity to make it up.”

Walker continued smiling for a moment; then it fell like a brick, his face returning to the mournful frown that had become the new normal. “What about the Bohemian Grove? According to Preeti they’ve been doing some sort of ceremony there.”

“That place is politically sensitive. You wouldn’t believe the number of politicians on both sides who attend the events. Senator Withers isn’t one of them, but he has friends who have attended, who are members. Our official orders are to keep our hands off.”

“Some things never change,” Walker said. “Did Musso get anything on the Wild Hunt?”

Laws spoke up. “I’ve been doing research. I agree with everything Preeti sent. There’s a lot of open source material, much of it compelling, especially about the Cycle of the Holly King and the Oak King. Not only does this ritual go back almost two thousand years, but there’s a solid pagan-Wiccan belief system built around it. Probably the most interesting factoid I came across was a version of the Wild Hunt that has King Arthur as the leader.”

This got Walker’s attention. “King Arthur as in the King Arthur.”

“I was surprised as well, when I saw it,” Laws said. “Of course, it seems that popular historical figures have been attached to the Hunt through time, so this might not be anything more than wishful thinking on behalf of the people of Britain.”

“Even so,” Walker said slowly. “If it turns out that it is King Arthur, we’d have to go up against him.”

“First things first,” Holmes said. “Right now we need to find out about the Red Grove and discover who they are. We might not have to do anything about the Wild Hunt. Frankly, we don’t have any evidence that it even exists.”

“You should have seen the hole in the ground where the witch used to live. Then you’d have your evidence.”

“Did you see it? Did you see who did it?” Holmes shook his head. “We’re all acting on the word of people we don’t know.”

“We’ve acted on less before, Boss,” Laws said.

“But things weren’t as politically sensitive as they are now. This is England. This country has had a relationship with them for more than two hundred years. Good or bad, we’re like two brothers, a younger and an older. Sure we fight, but at the end of the day we’re family.”

“Just like SEAL Team 666 is a family,” Laws chimed in. “We’re on your side, Walker.”

Walker nodded. “I know.”

“If we have something compelling, I’ll find a way for us to come over… regardless. And Walker, remember…” Holmes pointed a finger at the tablet’s screen. “You find a good enough reason for us to come, then send it. I’ll fight for it until they either let me go or fire me. Find that reason, Walker.”

Walker shrugged. “I’m trying. God knows they need help here. Frankly, I just don’t know how they’re able to do anything. What I’m afraid of is that MI5 will shut them down based on the loss of Jerry in this last mission.”

“Then stick with the witch,” Laws said. “Watch your six, but she seems to be the best bet.”

“I agree.” Walker stared down for a moment, then looked up. “I better go. Tell the guys I said hi, will ya?”

Holmes gave Walker a bright smile. “Sure, son.” When they signed off, the smile fell hard. “It’s worse than I thought.”

Laws plopped down on the couch facing Holmes. “You slow-rolled him on the Wild Hunt.”

“I did. I don’t want him going off half-cocked. It’s tough trying to manage a mission I’m not a part of from five thousand miles away, but it’s the best I can do.”

“You know, if this Wild Hunt really exists, it could be the reason we need to get over there. On a curious note, I read where there were historical reports of hell hounds chasing down the unbaptized. It’s intriguing because this is a pagan tradition, so why does it care about baptizing into a faith?”

“Probably just an appropriation of legend. We’ve seen it before; just look at the American Bigfoot legends and how we’ve taken what the Native Americans believed and made it our own, changing it to suit our culture. After all, it was the Algonquin tales of the Windigo which spurred our modern idea of a big-footed forest monster.”

“You’re probably right, but it just as easily could be something else. ‘Baptize’ is very similar to ‘sanctify.’ I can get behind that a lot easier.”

“If the Wild Hunt’s mission is to sanctify, then what is it supposed to sanctify?” Holmes asked.

Laws spread his hands. “Dunno. Everything? The land?” He stood and retrieved his tablet. “Oh, one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I checked the logs for hell hounds.”

“Yes?”

“Battle New Orleans. January 8, 1815, actually. The British Ninety-Third Highlanders used hell hounds against Stonewall Jackson’s forces. They were described as ‘making chupacabra look like lambs.’”

“How’d we eventually destroy them?”

“Stonewall had a few witches of his own. One of them was none other than Madame Laboy. Remember her?”

“She’s still in our employ. The zombie exercise in the New Orleans cemetery. I remember it well.” Holmes made a grunt of acknowledgment. “Let’s hope we don’t have to go up against any hell hounds.”

“If we have to fight the Wild Hunt, then those are odds I wouldn’t touch.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” Holmes stood also. “Get the men ready. I’ve got something to do.”

“What is it?”

“Call Billings one more time. The more information she has, the better our chances. Don’t forget, she’s on our side. She was close to Jen and wants to get her killers too.”