Welsh Road (The Depravity Chronicles) (16 page)

The hope in the
room seemed to deflate like a dying balloon.

“How did she do
this?” Anna asked. “You thought it was ancient, right?”

“She went
through a lot of trouble to forge this scroll and make it seem old,” Matthew
said. “The question is, why go to all the trouble?”

“Probably to
throw everyone off track,” Anna offered.

“Most likely,”
Anish agreed.

“What now?”
Trevor asked.

“Let’s think
about what we
do
know,” Anna said, addressing the room in her Sheriff
Voice. “Nina is offering some sort of sacrifice – the
Red Heifer
specifically,
though we don’t know why or to whom. We know where she is, though we don’t know
if she’s alone or if she has “friends.” We know she’s holding Nicholas against
his will, though we don’t know if the other people in the room are unconscious
or dead.”

“Jesus,” Trevor
moaned. “I thought you said we were going over what we do know. It seems to me
we just keep finding more questions.”

“So what are you
saying?” Simon asked. “That we shouldn’t go and rescue Nicholas?”

“I’m not saying
that at all,” Trevor replied. “I’m just saying that this sucks ass.”

“Language aside,
Trevor makes a good point,” Anna said. “It is unwise for us to just barge into
the farmhouse completely unprepared. We need a strategy.”

“I don’t see how
we have much choice,” Jena said. “Nicholas could die by that bitch’s hand. I’m
not going to sit here pondering her next move. We
know
her next move.
She’s going to offer Nicholas as a sacrifice at that horrid altar. I don’t care
what the rest of you do, but
I
am going to save my boyfriend.”

“We’re not going
to allow you to go alone,” Anish said flatly.

“How do you plan
on stopping me?” Jena asked, though she recognized that Anish could stop a
freaking bus if he put his mind to it.

“I do not plan
on stopping you, Jena. I plan on helping you. But we must heed Anna’s
cautionary advice. We need a plan.”

“One step ahead
of you,” Simon said as he slowly stood from his chair. “I’m calling it
Operation Mary Poppins.”

Jena laughed.

The group
listened intently as Simon laid out his plan. Jena hung on his every word,
astonished by the power of his raw intellect and contagious enthusiasm.

When he finished
his suggested course of action, Simon opened the floor for discussion. “Well,
what do you think?”

“I think Jena is
not the only individual whose abilities are blossoming,” Anish said proudly.

“You would make
a hell of a detective,” Anna applauded.

“A detective?”
Matthew sneered jokingly. “This boy could be Pope for Christ sake.” Everyone
laughed.

“No, none of
that,” Trevor declared as he stood and put an arm around his best friend. “This
here is Simon Blackwood. He’s my brother and my partner. Together, we are the
most kickass duo of paranormal investigators this planet’s ever seen.”

“Oh, Christ,”
Anna mumbled. Jena thought Anna looked terrified, but she also knew that
everyone in the room believed what Trevor had said.

If I get out of
this alive, I’m so going to join their team
, Jena thought to herself.

“I still feel
like we’re going into this a little blind,” Anna said. “Anish, a little support
here?”

“I agree, Anna,
but time is of the essence. If we are going to save Nicholas, we must act now.
We will not be without the necessary tools.”

“Then what are
we waiting for?” Jena asked. “Let’s go kill this bitch.” She was surprised by
the scathing tone in her voice. She kinda liked it.

“Gather round,”
Anish said. The unlikely group of six stood in a circle and received a blessing
from Anish.

“About those
tools,” Anna said once the blessing had concluded.

“Come with me,”
Anish said. Everyone followed, assuming that they would be going to the
basement or upstairs.  Instead, Anish walked into the pantry. Trevor and Simon
followed, but as the rest of the group filed in, the pantry became a
claustrophobic’s worst nightmare. Not even an infant could have fit into the
remaining space. Once everyone was in the pantry, Trevor got bored and reached
onto the top shelf to retrieve a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup.

“Um, I’m hoping
you don’t expect us to throw food at the Demon Master,” Trevor said, only half
joking.

“Things are not
always as they seem,” Anish said.

“You say that a
lot,” Simon noted.

“Then I guess
that means it’s an important concept to learn,” Anish rebutted. “Observe.”

After everything
they had been through together over the past year, Anna didn’t think that Anish
had many more tricks up his sleeve that would completely shock her. As usual,
she was wrong.

They watched as
Anish reached behind a few boxes of Lucky Charms – which made her chuckle – and
heard a loud
Click!
as he replaced the cereal. To her and everyone
else’s amazement, the wall began to rise into the ceiling as if it were a retractable
movie screen. What she saw behind the wall both astounded and infuriated her.

Once the wall
had fully receded, Anish and the boys walked into the 8x8 arsenal, quickly
followed by the rest of the group.

For a moment
there was only silence as each person attempted to process the insanity of
weaponry that lined the walls. It was Anna who broke the quiet, and with gusto.

“Holy
shit
,
Anish!” Anna cried. “You do realize that half of the stuff in this room is
totally illegal, right?”

“I realize that,”
Anish said flatly, as if he could care less.

“Whoa,” Trevor
whispered, surprised by his mother’s outburst.

“I apologize,”
Anna said softly. “Obviously this is a good thing, considering what we are up
against.”

“We’re not even entirely
sure what we’re up against,” Simon added. “So the more kickass weapons we have,
the better.”

“Dude, you say
‘kickass’ a lot,” Trevor said. “And Mom, I doubt you’ll have a problem with the
legal issues when one of these beautiful pieces here saves our lives.”

“While we stand
here arguing about the second amendment, Nicholas may already be dead,” Jena
said, irritated by and impatient with the conversation.

“Let’s load up,”
Anna said. As she scanned the walls, taking stock of the weapons, she worried
that not a single one of them would have any effect on their target.

1

Sam and
Commissioner Jackson traveled north on Welsh Road in relative silence. After
five minutes they hadn’t even driven two miles. Sam checked the speedometer.

“Not to be a backseat
driver,” Sam began, but was cut off.

“It would be
hard to be a backseat driver when you’re sitting in the front seat, Sam,”
Jackson said, grinning widely.

“Why are we only
driving ten miles per hour?”

“Following a
hunch,” Jackson answered. He pulled the car onto the shoulder and rolled to a
stop.

Sam looked out
his window and was surprised to see a small trail leading into the woods. He
swallowed a small lump of terror. Surely the commissioner wasn’t planning on
taking a stroll through these woods…

“A hunch?” Sam
repeated. He had once prided himself on the fact that he rarely, if ever, was
frightened. But after last year…

“I need to test
something,” Jackson said. He popped the trunk and got out of the car. When Sam
joined him, he didn’t like what he saw.

“This should do
it,” Jackson said as he retrieved a thick, long rope from the back of the
Charger.

“What do you
plan to do with that?” Sam asked. Just as he was about to refuse any ideas that
involved the rope and a group of trees, another car joined them.

“What’s he doing
here?” Sam asked, somewhat uncomfortable with the new arrival.

“I need some
muscle,” Jackson answered. “No offense, of course, but he is stronger than the
two of us put together.”

That’s what
scares me
,
Sam thought as he watched Bubba lumber out of his cruiser. Jackson threw the
wide band of rope to Bubba, who caught it easily with one hand. Against his
better judgment, Sam followed the two men into the woods.

The trio walked
in silence, which was occasionally broken by Bubba passing gas. Sam made sure
to not walk behind him. A few hundred yards down the trail, Jackson abruptly
stopped in front of a large tree.

“This will
work,” Jackson said to Bubba, pointing to an impressive branch above them.

Bubba began
wrapping the rope around Sam’s waist.

“What the hell do
you think you’re doing?” Sam demanded. He tried to push him away, but Bubba
wasn’t budging. It was like pushing the side of a house and expecting it to
move.

“Just go with
it,” Jackson said sternly.

Was that an
order?
Sam
wondered. He knew he was outmuscled and outgunned. Reaching for his weapon
would be an exercise in futility. Jackson would shoot him within two seconds.
Besides, Bubba was probably invincible. Sam figured that not even a bullet
could get past that enormous gut. It would ricochet off Bubba and kill Sam.

Bubba grunted as
he threw the other end of the rope over the branch. “Lay on the ground and try
not to move,” he said to Sam.

Again, Sam did
as he was told. Bubba strutted over to the far end of the rope. After picking
it up, he walked deeper into the woods. When there was no more rope to unravel,
Sam felt his body being lifted. It wasn’t long before he was hanging ten feet
off the ground.

“I’m not sure I
could pull that off,” Jackson observed from a distance. “That answers part of
my hunch. We’re dealing with a man here.”

Sam nearly
laughed out loud. Sure, there were probably plenty of women who could do this.
But if a human were responsible for this – and Sam wasn’t convinced it
was
a
human – then it was likely a man.  

“What’s the
other part of your hunch?” Sam asked, hoping this plan wasn’t the extent of
Jackson’s reported brilliance.

“I’m wondering
if it was a group of people,” Jackson said. “Occult murders usually include
more than one person.”

“True enough,”
Sam agreed. He had wondered the same thing. There was no doubt this case had a
supernatural twist to it, but whether the assailant was supernatural, that was
the question.

“What was that?”
Jackson asked out of the blue, walking deeper into the woods. “Did you hear
that?”

Sam listened.
All he could hear were birds chirping and noisy, winged insects. “I don’t hear
anything.”

Jackson turned
toward Sam, an intense expression on his face. “Can I trust you to have my
back?” he asked.

“Of course,” Sam
answered. The real question was, could Sam trust Jackson to have
his
back?
He looked at Bubba. No way in hell did he trust that bonehead.

“Let’s follow
this trail a little ways and see what stories she might have to share with us,”
Jackson said.

Sam was less
than happy about wandering aimlessly through the woods. It would be one thing
if Anish, Anna, Matthew, and the boys were with him, but following a zealous commissioner
and a clueless brute named Bubba was not exactly comforting. There is simply no
substitute for a shaman, a priest, a formidable sheriff, and brilliant teenaged
boys obsessed with everything supernatural.

As they made
their way through the trees, Bubba decided it was time to tell ghost stories.

“So you really
don’t know about Welsh Road?” he asked Sam.

“I’m not from
around these parts,” Sam explained.

“Your sheriff
don’t know shit, either,” Bubba sneered. “And she be from these parts.”

“Yeah, she be,”
Sam said. He couldn’t keep his sarcasm at bay any longer. Bubba was that most
unfortunate combination of dumb and douche. D squared. He didn’t even seem to
grasp the fact that Sam was mocking him.

Jackson,
however, found the insult amusing. “Most people don’t find your knowledge of
campfire ghost stories very impressive, Bubba. Or convincing.”

“Ghost stories?”
Bubba hissed. “You wish these was ghost stories. It’s all true.”

“And you’re not
scared?” Sam asked.

“Whadya mean?”
Bubba mumbled.

Sam pointed
behind them and then gestured all around as he spoke. “Seeing as Welsh Road is
right behind us, if not all around us, and you’re a true believer, shouldn’t
you be shaking in your boots?”

Bubba snorted. “I
got nothing to be ‘fraid of. See here, Welsh Road only takes teenagers.”

Sam shrugged.
Truth was, of course, that if anyone should be quaking in their shoes it should
be Sam. After all, he
had
fought demons in these very woods. But there
was something teenager-ish about urban legends. If Welsh Road was in fact
haunted, the legends were probably much worse than the reality. At least that
was what Sam hoped.

 “I think those
two dead bodies back there would disagree with your assessment, Bubba,” Jackson
said. “They weren’t teenagers.”

“Sure they
were,” Bubba said.

“But their
licenses clearly showed that they were in their thirties,” Sam said.

“Allow me to
explain,” Bubba said, grandly gesturing as if he were a professor at freaking
Harvard.

“Please do,”
Jackson said, rolling his eyes at Bubba’s attempt to sound intelligent.

“Did you take a
good look at their faces? Ain’t no way they’re that old. Those licenses didn’t
belong to them.”

Jackson thought
diligently about Bubba’s theory, thinking that perhaps it had some merit. Then
he shook his head. “Their faces are covered in blood. You’re telling me that
you can tell they’re young just by looking at them?”

My God,
Sam thought.
Could
Bubba have actually discovered something that no one else had?

Bubba laughed as
if he was surrounded by idiots. “It ain’t that hard. I’m telling ya’ll this has
Welsh Road written all over it. Somebody’s copying that Midnight Massacre. Them
ghosts would’ve done it, but ghosts can’t hang people from trees and write shit
on rocks.”

“I don’t see why
not,” Sam said. “If a ghost can take a teenager, certainly it can take a note.”

Jackson laughed.

“Laugh it up,
bitches,” Bubba said, a look of certainty on his face. “The Road will have the
last laugh.”

A shiver rushed
through Sam’s body. He didn’t necessarily buy what Bubba was trying to sell,
but something about his expression was unnerving.

Jackson pulled
out his phone. “Yeah. Listen. Try to match the faces of the two last vics to
their licenses. We have reason to believe they might be teenagers just like the
first two vics. Let me know what you find.” Jackson snapped his phone shut and continued
walking deeper into the woods.

Where the hell
are we going, anyway?
Sam wondered nervously.

After another
half hour passed, Sam noticed that the canopy of trees above them was blocking
out most of the sunlight. It was getting progressively darker as the forest
became denser. It was already late afternoon, which meant that darkness wasn’t
far behind. It was one thing to be out here knowing that the sun was still
shining somewhere above them. It was quite another to be wandering these woods
after the sun went down, taking the safety of light with it.

Bubba was the
first to point this out. “Maybe we should head back,” he said, his voice
betraying him. Any trace of his former confidence was now absent.

“I thought you
weren’t afraid,” Sam mocked. He couldn’t help himself, even though he actually
agreed with Bubba.

“Then you ain’t
listening, asshole. I said I wasn’t ‘fraid of Welsh Road. But I sure as hell
don’t wanna meet up with whoever’s doing this shit.”

“Check it out,”
Jackson called from a few feet ahead of them.

Sam looked to
where Jackson was pointing, and in the distance he could see a dim glow.

“What do you
suppose that is?” Jackson asked. Sam wasn’t sure if he was testing him or if he
actually had no idea what they were seeing.

“Looks like a
porch light,” Sam answered. As they walked closer, Sam could make out the shape
of a house. “Hell of a place for a house.”

“I didn’t know
anybody lived out here,” Bubba said.

“Very curious,”
Jackson said softly. “Perhaps we should talk with them. See if they saw or
heard anything strange last night.”

Jackson picked
up his pace and headed toward the light. Going toward the light is usually a
good piece of advice. This time, however, Sam didn’t think so.

“We should
probably wait until morning,” Sam suggested as he caught up with the
commissioner and walked beside him.

“Relax, King,”
Jackson said with a pat on the back. “We may be backwoods hicks to you city
folk from Chicago, but we could teach you a thing or two about hospitality.”

Sam had a
gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. A voice in the back of his head
told him to turn around and run like hell. Once again, he ignored his better
judgment.

And then it hit
him. How did Jackson know that he had lived in Chicago? The hair on the back of
his neck stood at attention. What else was the commissioner hiding? As they
approached the house, Sam noticed that there wasn’t a driveway. Maybe it had
grown over? The property was too far from the road to not have a driveway, or
at least a wide enough trail for ATVs. Unanswered questions continued to pile
up in Sam’s mind.

BOOM!

Bubba yelped
like a schoolgirl, his voice thundering through the trees. Sam was grateful for
this reaction; Bubba’s volume masked his own small cry.

What the hell
was that?
Sam
wondered. He figured the sonic boom was a makeshift alarm system or doorbell.
If the occupant of the house didn’t hear them approaching, he would certainly
be alerted to their presence now. Expecting an old man to greet them with a
shotgun and towering glass of lemonade, Sam was surprised to see a young woman
descend the porch stairs and begin walking toward them. Even from several feet
away, she was strikingly beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. The deep red in her
hair was illuminated by the ridiculously bright porch light above her. Sam was
surprised by his inability to stop admiring her form and the grace with which
she moved.

“Good evening,
Commissioner,” the woman said. Sam was instantly attracted to her hypnotic,
almost musical voice. Apparently so was Jackson.

“Good evening,
my Lady,” Jackson said, bowing his head deeply. Sam felt like they were
following a script written in the 19
^th
century.

“Let’s begin,”
the redhead said.

“Begin what?”
Sam asked. Again, the voice in his head told him to make a run for it. It was
too late for that now.

Jackson turned
toward Sam and smiled. He pulled his jacket back, revealing a shoulder strap
and holster that held his silver revolver. Removing the gun, Jackson walked
over to Bubba and, without hesitation, shot him in the head.

When the
self-proclaimed lawman collapsed to the ground, Jackson pointed the gun at Sam.