Chapter 8 Erik #4
“Yes,” Rowan replied. “We sent them in the opposite direction to take a roundabout route just in case something like this happened. They have magic and protections, but I’m hoping that they won’t need them. In that way, us drawing unwanted attention gives the truck a better chance to escape.”
“We’re right behind you,” Rowan continued. “Donnelly’s stirred up the ghosts to cause trouble, but we’re not likely to get past the goons without a fight.”
“We’re armed,” Erik replied. “Handguns, not machine guns.”
“I’ll disable their firearms,” Rowan said confidently. “And handle the magic of The Collector or Oligarch, if they’re here. Sorren will help take out the trash. We’ve got this.”
Something deep in the pit of Erik’s gut told him they had overlooked something, but he just nodded. “Roger that. Be careful.”
They spotted a firing squad of men in black fatigues, leveling machine guns at them.
“Hope Rowan is right about the guns, or this isn’t going to go well,” Erik muttered. Just in case, he turned to Ben. “I love you.”
“Love you too. And I’m betting on our side,” Ben reached over and squeezed Erik’s arm.
A tall man in a dark jacket stepped forward, confirming Erik’s worst fears.
“That’s him—The Collector. Remo Barone,” Erik said under his breath. “Damn. He came in person.”
“He’s a witch?” Ben’s voice betrayed his tension.
“Yeah. Pretty powerful, by all accounts,” Erik answered.
“Give us the dome!” Barone yelled.
Sorren’s vehicle was parked behind their SUV, with the lights on and the engine still running. A glance in the rearview mirror told Erik that Rowan and the others were no longer inside, although he hadn’t seen them leave.
“Don’t shoot,” Erik called back after rolling down the window. “We don’t have the dome. It’s still in the warehouse.” He and Ben stayed in their SUV, hoping Rowan’s magical protections held.
The night had grown unseasonably cold, and frost began to form on the windshield.
Donnelly’s ghosts, waiting to make an entrance, Erik thought as he sensed spirits massing around them.
The roar of several large SUVs behind the Newark mobsters halted the conversation.
Metal crunched, and men shouted and swore as the new SUVs rammed into the mobsters’ vehicles and guns fired.
Erik and Ben ducked but stayed in their warded vehicle, counting on their friends to handle the new attack. They peered over the dashboard, needing to know what was happening.
More men with guns were silhouetted in the headlights, along with a tall man in a long coat that Erik knew had to be Konstantin Gusev, The Oligarch.
“Put down your weapons,” Gusev ordered in a thick Russian accent. “We will take the dome.”
“Like hell,” Barone muttered, and a twitch of his fingers had the Newark mobsters pivoting to open fire on the Russians, except that nothing happened.
“Fire!” Gusev ordered, and while his soldiers took aim, the guns jammed.
That’s got to be Rowan’s magic, Erik thought, heart thudding since he had been sure they were about to be mowed down.
Everything happened at once. Mobsters from both factions rushed each other, only to be thrown back by magical protections.
They turned on Sorren’s SUV and Erik’s vehicle but didn’t get within five feet before an invisible force tossed them through the air.
A gray whirlwind of angry spirits rushed toward both sets of mobsters.
The ghosts wailed and screeched, showing themselves as spectral corpses with open maws and skeletal, grasping hands, making themselves heard to everyone.
The SUVs’ headlights blinked out, leaving them in darkness.
A foxfire-green glow radiated from the ghosts, like in a horror movie.
Terrified foot soldiers tried to fire at the apparitions, then dropped their useless guns and fled into the woods.
A tide of green and white spirits followed, and from deep within the marshy woodlands, Erik heard screams of terror, men begging for their lives in English and Russian, and moments later, it went suddenly silent.
“Holy shit,” Ben muttered.
Neither weapons nor fighting prowess helped the gangsters against angry ghosts.
Ben and Erik watched the revenants close in on the toughs who stayed on the road.
Some men fell down dead without a sound.
Others struggled and screamed against an unseen force that lifted them from the ground before flinging their broken bodies toward the trees.
Erik suspected that the ghosts who could make themselves visible spent their energy terrorizing their victims. Now and then, among the gray shapes, he spotted darker shadows of unnatural creatures snatching men and carrying them away.
Stories said this stretch of road and the wetlands around it were haunted, maybe even cursed.
Creatures that hungered for flesh and blood were said to dwell in the marshes.
If so, Erik wondered if they got their fill.
When the headlights came back on, Rowan held a fist out in front of her, magically immobilizing both The Collector and The Oligarch.
Their guns lay in a pile next to where Sorren stood.
The look of concentration on Donnelly’s face told Erik that the necromancer had awakened the marsh spirits and kept enough control to protect the group on the road.
“Release us immediately!” Barone sputtered in fury. Gusev shouted something in Russian, and Erik remembered enough to know it was a similar command. Rowan twitched her fingers, and they fell silent, still red-faced from screaming with the cords on their necks standing out with strain.
“Remo Barone and Konstantin Gusev, you are hereby called to account to be soul-judged for your crimes, which are many.” Donnelly turned to the two Mob bosses who struggled against their invisible bonds.
“I will read your souls, which cannot hide the truth,” Donnelly continued. “You will witness your soul’s testimony, and judgment will be passed. Behold.”
Donnelly gestured toward the two prisoners, and their previous defiance vanished, replaced with silent screams of utter terror.
Erik figured being confronted with your greatest sins would be sobering under any circumstances.
For Barone and Gusev, with countless murders and felonies to their account, any pretense of rationalization appeared to have been stripped away, leaving them to face the merciless judge of their own memories.
“You are found guilty of the crimes etched into your souls,” Donnelly intoned. “You will be punished by the ghosts of your victims. Judgment is passed.”
A red mist formed above Gusev and Barone, swirling like a whirlwind of blood. The temperature dropped again, sending fingers of frost across the windshields. Erik shivered, more from primal fear than from the cold. Faces appeared in the vortex, and then it dropped to enfold both crime bosses.
Rowan gestured, and the terrified death shrieks of the two mobsters rang in Erik’s ears. His stomach turned at the smell of blood and entrails that reached them even inside the SUV. Streams of blood escaped the whirlwind to soak the road.
When the red storm dissipated, all that remained were two piles of broken bones, tattered clothing scraps, and shredded bits of skin and muscle, hardly enough to have been two grown men.
Erik hadn’t seen Sorren move until the vampire emerged from the woods next to the road. “The swamp took the ones who ran,” he said. “There are no survivors.”
Rowan looked at Erik and Ben, who hadn’t moved from the SUV, still trying to process the horror of what they had just witnessed. “We need to go.”
Erik thought he felt a nudge of compulsion in her voice, enough to break through the mental fog.
“We’ll lead the way. Follow us,” Rowan said. “There was a turn about a mile back that should take us to an alternate route. Go straight home. We’ll head for Charleston.” Rowan watched them intently as if to ensure they were listening.
Erik glanced at the cars and guns, avoiding another look at what remained of Barone and Gusev.
“Leave them. There is nothing to implicate you. Let them be a warning,” Rowan answered his unvoiced question. “We need to go. The magic and blood have awakened more than ghosts. We shouldn’t linger.”
Erik didn’t want to know what entities were fearsome enough to make their protectors flee the scene.
He didn’t need to be convinced to leave, and from the shellshocked look on Ben’s face, Erik knew his partner agreed.
Rowan’s magic cleared away the roadblock and the other vehicles enough for them to pass.
Released from the magic, the Highlander shifted into gear without issue. Erik followed the SUV with Sorren and the others until they reached the ramp to the highway. Erik turned back toward Cape May, while the others turned south. He assumed the truck was already well on its way.
“Are you okay?” Erik ventured when they had ridden in silence for several minutes.
“Hell no. You?” Ben replied.
“Trying to figure out if we have enough whiskey at home to ever let me sleep again,” Erik admitted.
“Not sure there’s enough whiskey in the world for that,” Ben replied.
Erik reached over and took Ben’s hand. “We’re alive. Barone, Gusev, and their goons will never hurt anyone again. The dome and the window will be locked away where they can’t cause more harm. We’re safe.”
“I knew Rowan and the others were powerful,” Ben said. “But I didn’t realize—”
“Neither did I. For a couple of minutes there, when I wasn’t sure we were going to die, I felt like I’d been dropped into an action movie,” Erik admitted.
“Except not the fun kind of movie,” Ben replied. “The kind that gives you PTSD with a side order of night terrors.”
“Yeah.” Erik paused. “You know we need to call Hendricks.”
“I figured you were going to say that,” Ben replied. “And I wish I could argue, but I can’t.”
The clock said midnight, but Erik felt like it was much later.
“I want to report a multi-vehicle accident,” Erik said when the dispatcher answered. He gave the road and approximate location. “Cars blocking the road, but no one in sight.”
He hung up without giving his name, but he knew his number would show up in the system and that Hendricks would call in the morning.
They rode in silence for a while. Erik figured it was a combination of exhaustion and decompression after all the recent danger and tension. When no one appeared to be following them, he breathed a sigh of relief. “So…after all that, what’s on your mind?”
“Ask me in the morning. Right now, I can barely remember my name,” Ben admitted.