Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 51

Walker shot up from his prone position and fired at the druids and the guy manning the flechette cannon. He saw one druid go down. The cannon began to swing Walker’s way again and he dove to the ground. Three slivers of pain caught him in the back of his right thigh. The ground drove the breath from him, but he didn’t have a moment. He’d seen Hoover getting her canine ass handed to her by the hell hound. Without help, they might lose her. Hoover was as much a part of the team as any of them. It just couldn’t happen.

He lurched to his feet again and began running. The flechette cannon was no longer firing. He didn’t know if it was because the cannoneer was down or out of ammo, but he couldn’t spare the moment it would take to turn and look. His entire focus was on the interlocked canines—one supernatural, one SEAL.

He stumbled once but soon closed the distance. The last ten meters he ripped free his rifle and tossed it aside. He pulled his gladius. It felt like a fire poker in his hand and he had no idea how to use it. Still, he had to do something. Hoover was howling as the hell hound savaged her leg. Walker raised the gladius, intent to strike, but something in the eyes of the creature before him stilled his hand. As it looked his way with a large blue eye, he could swear it paused and regarded him. Somehow within its brutish baboon face there was something remarkable. The way the eye looked at him, the shape of the orb, the slight sadness surrounding it, sent a shock wave through his memories. A great well of sadness exploded, filling him past bursting. The feeling of loss… of nearness… of need… shot through him like a lightning bolt.

He staggered backwards. Could it be?

He uttered a single word. “Jen?”

The eye blinked at him.

He inhaled emptiness.

He’d known all along that the hounds were fueled by the souls of those they killed, but it had always seemed like an academic idea, something so unfathomable that he just took it for granted. Never once did he imagine that he’d be put in a position to not only face her but also possibly kill her.

She stared at him. My god, how he loved her. A thought struck him. He remembered what the witch had said about the souls of the hounds possessing the fonts. Was there a chance? Could he at least get that part of Jen back that was her essence? She wouldn’t look the same, but then that wasn’t what made her… her. All he had to do was find someone to possess.

He shook his head. What was he thinking? He couldn’t do that to someone else!

Not even to have his girl back?

Not even to have the love of his life back in his arms?

He’d give the world to kiss her one more time, the feel of her soft lips, the warmth of her hands as she held him, knowing that he could close his eyes and she’d be there forever.

She blinked at him as if she was reading his mind. He could see recognition in her eyes.

The gladius felt heavy. He knew he needed to use it to save Hoover, but he couldn’t kill her. Not again.

Then she did something at once beautiful and terrible. She opened her great monstrous jaws and released Hoover’s leg. The hound’s human hand that had been holding Hoover let go as well. It reached out to him, slow, tentative.

He choked back a sob. This was not her. This was a hellish creature of the Tuatha. This was…

Fuck.

It was her.

He reached out to her.

Hoover had had a grip on the hound’s neck before, but it had been inadequate. Now the SEAL dog reared back and sunk her teeth into the hell hound’s jugular. Growling and snarling, favoring her wounded rear leg, Hoover whipped her head back and forth.

The expression in the hound’s eye changed from wonder to pain. It blinked rapidly. Its hand stalled in its arc to meet Walker’s.

Then it screamed.

Hoover ripped the jugular free. Victory shone in her eyes.

Walker let out a barely audible, “No!”

He glared at Hoover, ready now to use the gladius.

But then the hound evaporated, leaving nothing of it behind.

Hoover limped over and licked Walker’s outstretched hand.

Walker sunk to his knees. He dropped the gladius and threw his arms around Hoover. Great tides of anguish flowed through him, rocking his shoulders.

“Hoover did it right.

“Hoover did it right.”

If he said it enough it might make it all okay.

“Hoover did it right.”

Walker spent a lifetime in a single second, living and dying with the woman of his dreams. When it was over, he felt different. Was it a sense of closure? He couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that the pain had receded to a dull ache. Seeing her in the hound, knowing that she loved him and had longed to be with him in that gesture of its hand, ameliorated some of his pain. Even so, he knew it wasn’t the end of it. He’d need more time. But that was a luxury he didn’t have at the moment.

Walker stood, shakily at first. “Come on, girl.” He closed his eyes tightly for a second, then collected his weapons from where he’d dropped them.

Hoover licked his back leg and gave him a sorrowful look. “Don’t be a sissy. We’ll fix you up later. We got beegees who need killing.”

His words went unheard because Hoover was already limping at a half run toward the line of red-robed druids. It was strange that they hadn’t done anything yet. What were they waiting for?

Walker ran after Hoover. The other SEALs were fighting a pitched battle with the remainder of the hounds and the cannoneer was down. So it was him, Hoover, and the druids. Fuck their magic.

He raised his rifle and fired several three-round bursts at the druids nearest him. He saw the rounds pass through the material of their robes but have no effect on the wearers. Still, he fired again. He wondered what the hell he was going to encounter when he reached them. After all, who or what could withstand 5.56mm rounds traveling at 788 meters per second? Certainly not anything natural.

He screamed and pulled out his gladius with his left hand as he ran. Firing one-handed with his rifle, he swung the machete above his head in circles until he reached the first statue-like druid. He swept his blade through it and felt no resistance. The material fell to the ground along with the bundles of sticks inside that had filled out its dimensions.

But these things had appeared. They hadn’t been staged.

Which meant they’d been populated—were populated—by Tuatha, but to what end?

Then it hit him.

Stalling tactic.

There was nothing here.

He’d felt it in the beginning.

Cadbury Castle, or Camelot, had been part of a wild-goose chase. So where was King Arthur and the rest of the Wild Hunt? If Arthur was intent on becoming the ruler of England, the only way to do it successfully was to depose the present ruler. So, wherever Elizabeth was, Arthur could be found.

Walker ripped apart the remaining stick-figure druids in a brutish rage. Hacking and slashing, kicking and punching, he finished off these ragged druid scarecrows, ripping them to pieces. He paused, panting from the effort, sweat-slick face regarding his work. Then he turned to his team and watched them locked in a desperate battle with the remaining hounds.

His men needed his help. It was fucking time to end this mission. He started to move toward them but felt a malaise take him over.

Hoover whined beside him and gave him a worried look.

Walker’s hand came up and he found himself looking at it. Was this his hand? He became aware that he wasn’t alone. The hairs on the back of his neck engaged. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades. He spun around, but no one was there. Still, he felt a presence. He looked up, then to the ground, but nothing was there. What was it?

Hoover stood stock-still, her body rigid and locked. Not even her tail moved. Odd that she’d stand that way.

Then Walker felt the same thing. His body was locked as well. And something continued to watch him, as if its face were mere inches from… then he knew. No no no no no no no no no no! he wailed within his mind. He remembered the Malaysian grave demon that had possessed him all those years as a child. He’d been spectator to what it had made him do, unable to stop it, unable to close his eyes because even his eyes were no longer his own.

Why hadn’t Sassy saved him?

Why did he have to be the one to be possessed?

What did it want with him?

And then the images flashed through his mind.

All of his team dead.

Three-story piles of bodies all throughout the country. Anyone without Briton lineage, rotting food for a trillion flies.

There was a change coming and he was to be a part of it whether he liked it or not.