Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 19

She came at them from a darkened room. Laws opened fire as he backed away, stitching her in the chest with eleven 5.56mm rounds that should have blown out her back and knocked her off her feet. But she kept coming. He brought the butt of his rifle up and slammed it into her chin. Her head swung back, but it did no damage.

WTF?

The doorway was off the landing to the left. He backed farther left down the hallway, separating himself from Yank and Hoover.

She followed Laws, exposing her back to Yank, who opened fire.

But to no effect.

Hoover growled but waited for a command.

Why wasn’t she going down? It didn’t make sense. She was a sixty-something June Cleaver hausfrau. She should have died five times by now with the amount of rounds they’d poured into her.

He adjusted aim and fired two more into the center of her forehead. Her skin pulsed with red light and with each pulse revealed an interlocked three crescent moon. Laws recognized the symbol from the mission logs. The glyph of the three goddesses—Maiden, Mother, and Crone. It was the holy trinity of ancient Pict mythology and had been adopted by neo-pagans. A precursor to Triple Six had gone after a group who worshiped them during the Dust Bowl of 1931. The log had recorded nature spirits but nothing like this creature. If he wasn’t mistaken, it had all the characteristics of a—

“Golem!”

He dropped the rifle and let it hang from its strap and began to draw his knife. But she was too quick. She fell on him, driving him to the ground, pinning his hand where it was on his left thigh. She was incredibly heavy. Their impact as they hit the floor slammed the air from him and he couldn’t move his chest to get a deep enough breath.

Her hands went to his throat. He fought her grip with his left hand, but it was as if he were a child. He didn’t have the strength to stop her.

Fuck! Was this how it was going to end?

The glyph began to pulse with regularity now.

His vision began to dim.

Then the pressure reduced.

His vision cleared enough for him to see her right arm moving back. Was she letting him go? But then he saw the arm was being held by Yank, who tossed it down the hall. The other SEAL, with his feet pressed against the baseboard, levered the golem off Laws, who gasped as he breathed, finally able to pull his knife free.

He got to his knees and saw Yank sawing at the woman’s other arm. It came bloodlessly free halfway down her triceps. Flesh-colored clay encompassed what looked like a branch, now severed. Yank tossed the arm after the first, glanced up, then paled.

“Oh hell no.” He stood and ran down the hall, where he began to kick something.

Laws turned his attention to the golem, whose fierce eyes detailed her desire to kill him. He was about to stand when her legs shot out and caught him in the stomach and chest. He slammed into the wall, all air once again gone. He felt broken as he struggled to stand.

Hoover shot in and put her jaws around an ankle, but the creature kicked the dog free with her other foot. Hoover squealed as she flew to the landing, coming to rest in a painful splay of legs.

Fucking golem, Laws decided then and there. He absolutely hated golems. Hated them even more than those ridiculous homunculi.

Glancing down the hall, he saw where Yank was fighting with the golem’s hands, which were still alive and grabbing at him.

Laws fell to the floor beside her and removed her head in five hard strokes of his knife.

It should have killed her, but her legs continued to move. He tossed the head over the rail and heard it strike the stairs several times before it landed on the first floor below. Then he began to saw at one leg, then the other, until they were separated.

He got to his feet, grabbed a leg, opened a bedroom door, then tossed it inside and closed it. He did the same to the other leg but tossed it into a different room.

Then he ran down the hall.

Yank had chopped off the fingers of one hand, but they had moved back to it and were reattaching themselves. He glanced up at Laws and shrugged. “Fucking arm won’t die.”

Laws brought his knife down and impaled the hand into the floor, like a specimen.

Yank did the same thing.

Then they both stood, staring at the impaled hands, gasping for air, sweat pouring from inside their masks. As one, they removed the masks and wiped their faces.

Yank shook his head. “What the fuck?”

Laws answered in gasps, “Golem. Your first time. Can’t be killed.”

“Remind me to scratch them off my bucket list.”

Growling caused Laws and Yank to turn around. Hoover had returned and was pulling the torso toward the stairs. But the torso was undulating, as if unwilling to leave without its other body parts.

“Dog has the right idea.” Laws ran up and cleared Hoover away. Then he kicked the torso down the stairs.

Yank came after.

When Laws got to the first floor, he saw her head lying against the front door. He grabbed it by its hair and carried it into the drawing room. He held the head up by the hair. “Found her.”

He saw that YaYa was unconscious on the floor. Holmes knelt next to Van Dyke. The SEAL team leader had his P229 9mm pressed against the man’s head.

“What took you so long?” Holmes asked without moving.

“Turns out she was a golem.”

“You have to cut her,” Van Dyke said. “You can’t kill her.”

“We found that out.”

Then Van Dyke said the unexpected. “Thank you. Thank you, very much. She was holding me prisoner.”