Reign of Evil

PROLOGUE

This was about the coldest holiday Jen had been subjected to in a long time. While she appreciated her old college friend Missy Brautigan taking her to visit Stonehenge, they could have done it when the weather was warmer, or at least during the day. Alas, Missy, who’d always been interested in other religions, hence her Religious Studies degree at Bard College, wanted Jen to witness the Winter Solstice ceremony and the killing of the Oak King by the Holly King.

“It’s all pageantry and showmanship, I know,” Missy had said during the drive up. “But it’s really something special, something you should see in person. I’ll make it up to you afterward by filling you with hot toddies and some Yule cookies.”

And that was why Jen was standing in the middle of Stonehenge with twelve other strangers while the chants of men in scarlet robes filled the night. The night was frigid cold. She wore one of Missy’s wool coats and a pair of gloves, but Jen’s face and nose felt as if they might fall off at any moment. Her breath came out in heavy clouds. She brought her gloved hands to her face to warm her skin and wished she were back in San Diego with the love of her life, Jack Walker.

Missy elbowed her. The cold had done absolutely nothing to quench her excitement. “I’ve never seen them put so much effort into it. You really have come on a special night.”

The group of lucky invitees stood in a clutch inside Stonehenge’s circle. They’d been asked not to touch anything, not that Jen wanted to touch anything as cold as those monolithic stones had to be. Yet, despite the misery of the cold, she couldn’t help but be impressed. Generator-powered lights lit up the exterior and interior of the monument like high noon, casting shadows here and there that were as deep as any darkness. She could almost imagine ancient Britons skulking within them, afraid to taste the modern lights. Scarlet-robed men stood in the center and at places around the circle. They were druids or priests of the wood… Missy had been speaking so fast and dumping so much information, Jen couldn’t exactly remember. All she knew was that the Oak King, who ruled over the warm months, from the Summer Solstice to the Winter Solstice, was about to be slain by the Holly King.

“Previous years, they’ve had mock battles. Once they even had a duel and you could tell they knew how to hold swords. It was almost realistic. They keep trying new things. I think that’s what I appreciate so much—their inventiveness and creativity and willingness to try anything.”

“What are they trying to do?” Jen had asked.

“I think they’re just trying to get the ceremony right.”

“But why? What does it matter?”

Then Missy had given Jen a shocked look. “For historical accuracy. It’s important that they get it right, Jen.”

Which was the point at which Jen had stopped asking questions and was just determined to get through it all.

Suddenly a man wearing a green cloak could be seen walking across the frost-tipped grass toward them. The cloak flowed behind him. Where he walked, the snow melted.

“That’s the Oak King, or Green Man, as some call him.”

He was taller than everyone else in their ensemble. He walked with stately strides, his gaze past them to the center of Stonehenge. Heat radiated from him and she felt herself begin to sweat beneath her heavy jacket as he passed. Then she noticed his skin, which was also green, like a British Isles Caliban. He strode past them and into the center of the circle. The lights speared him, accentuating his green color. Then he dropped his robe. He stood in the frigid air, wearing nothing at all. A twig of something covered his parts, but the rest of him was a muscular, god-like green.

Missy covered her mouth with a hand and whispered, “Now this is something very new.”

The snow around him continued to melt. Jen couldn’t help but appreciate the special effects. Part of her wanted to know how they did it, but another part of her was transfixed by the figure. Though he was about six and a half feet tall and all green, it was his chiseled features that drew her attention. Dating a U.S. Navy SEAL, she was familiar with good bodies, but this man’s contoured muscles were beyond anything she’d ever seen. It was like looking at a statue sculpted by a master.

As her eyes drifted past the twig and down his legs, she saw the ground around him change. Once snow, it was now brown grass. But even as she watched it the dead blades began to change and lift and turn green as if they were really coming alive.

The nature and tone of the scarlet-robed druids’ chanting changed. The words came faster and the tones became deeper. One of the druids separated himself from the others and strode toward the Green Man. The druid’s face was in shadow, but his hand was visible and holding an ancient stone knife. It didn’t seem to have an edge and the tip was rounded, but it was still recognizably a knife. He approached the Green Man and held it up.

The chanting stopped.

Everything was silent except for the whip of wind through the standing stones.

Someone laughed nervously.

The moment drew on long enough that Jen was about to say something when the druid pulled back the knife and then thrust it into the Green Man’s chest. The stone knife penetrated and stuck. The Green Man fell to his knees as the druid returned to the circle.

The chanting resumed once again, this time with a higher tone and an even faster beat. Whatever they were saying, it seemed in earnest. Jen felt energy in the air, something like electricity. One of the lights blew, causing everyone to jump. Jen and Missy screamed, then covered their mouths, exchanging embarrassed glances.

The ground around the Green Man was no longer green. It was no longer brown. The snow and frost began to creep beneath him until all evidence of the momentary spring was removed. Then he fell forward. Even as they watched, his skin turned from green to gray to black, mottling through the spectrums.

Jen found that her hand was still covering her mouth. What she was watching was extraordinary. She’d been to plays both indoors and out-, but this was something beyond what she’d ever seen before. She glanced at Missy and saw fear in her eyes.

“What is it?” Jen whispered.

“This has never happened.”

“You said they change it every time.”

“Yes, but not like this.” She gestured with her right hand. “This is so far above what I saw in the past. It’s gone from quaint to—”

She fell silent as everyone in the gathered ensemble gasped. The once Green Man made his way slowly back to his feet. When he stood, he had the same features and the same chiseled body, but where he’d been green he was now black. Wind swirled around him and began to peel the blackened skin away. Where it was removed, healthy pink human skin was underneath. Soon pieces of skin were swirling like ash until all the black had been removed.

He shook himself like a great beast might after a kill. Then he leveled his gaze on the gathered ensemble. He spoke in a language Jen couldn’t understand. She glanced at Missy for a possible translation but saw her friend’s fear had now been replaced by abject terror. She shook and trembled.

“Artur.”

“Who?”

The chanting had stopped again.

A druid came and gave the man a crown made of simple iron. He placed it on his head, and as he did, fire began to burn in his eyes.

“Arthur? Do you mean like King—”

A hand grasped Jen’s throat from behind just as the hands of the other druids grasped the throats of the rest of the gathered ensemble and Missy beside her. Jen felt a cold breeze pass across her throat, then warmth. She’d been watching Missy the entire time and saw the druid’s knife slash deep into her throat and the blood begin to well. It was a moment before Jen realized the same thing had just been done to her.

From somewhere far away she heard a dog howl.

The hand held her erect, but she wanted to fall. She grasped at it, but the druid behind her was stronger than she ever was. She brought her hand to her neck and wiped at it. Her hand came away sticky with blood. She stared at the redness, so much like the color of the druid’s robes.

She heard a baying from nearby, then the low call of a hunting horn.

The hand finally released her and she dropped to her knees. She fell to her side.

She watched as furious shadow beasts much like giant hounds cavorted around the feet of the Holly King.

Oh, Jack, where are you?

He’d know what to do.

She felt a tug at something deep inside her, then felt a transformation.

She turned to see her body on the snow, dead and staring eyes above a jugular-red smile. Then the essence of what had been her became something else, something furious and savage and mean, and she bayed like the rest of them, glorying in the return of the hunt.