Last of the Albatwitches Read online

The ground beneath him turned red.

  * * *

  Alan Clinton and Roger Morgan were the first officers from the North Codorus Township Regional Police to respond to the call. The force only had eight officers, and two of them were part-timers. Budget cuts, brought on by a steadily weakening economy, had brought them to this, and it was rumored that the township supervisors might lay two more officers off before the end of the next quarter. As a result, Clinton and Morgan were coming off the tail end of a ten hour shift. Neither man cared. Overtime was always welcome. Both men had mountains of debt. Morgan had a wife and two kids at home. Clinton had two ex-wives and three kids between them.

  Clinton had always thought that these calls---any type of call involving a kid, in fact---were the worst. During his first year on the job, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, one of his very first calls had been a traffic accident out on Route 116, between Spring Grove and Hanover. When he'd arrived on the scene, he saw a car that had slid off the road and hit a tree. The driver, who they determined later had been going way too fast given the wintry conditions, had slid off the road, head-on into the tree. The tree was undamaged. The front of the car was crumpled. So was the driver, who hadn't been wearing her seat belt and had flown right through the windshield. These days, an airbag would have prevented such a catastrophe, but it was the Eighties and not all cars had them then. Most of the driver's skin had been scraped off her face, and her head had split open on a rock. Worse than the driver, however, had been her three-year old daughter, who was trapped in the car---and still alive---when Clinton arrived. The girl died in Clinton's arms while they were waiting for an ambulance to arrive. He'd gone home that night and curled up on the floor next to his own three-year old daughter's bed, and cried softly. Two marriages and three children of his own later, that night still haunted him. He thought about it anytime they got a call involving a kid.

  Situations like this were, in many ways, even worse than an injured or dead child. Missing children always conjured up immediate images of some sick fuck fresh out of NBC's To Catch A Predator, even if it turned out the kid had just run off to hide at a friend's house. While Morgan questioned the distraught mother, Clinton surveyed the house, noting everything with a calm, detached professionalism. The home was clean and well-kept. There were framed photos of the father, mother and missing boy on the mantle. Nothing seemed amiss at first glance. The wife showed no signs of physical abuse. Neither did the kid, at least in the pictures. Photographs could be deceiving, of course, but Clinton's gut instinct told him this wasn't a case of the boy running away or the parents having a hand in his disappearance.

  He called in the State Police and the volunteer fire department for back-up, and searched the backyard and house while Morgan finished with the mother. Like the interior of the home, Clinton found nothing amiss outside. And there was no sign of the kid. He even ducked down and shined his flashlight beam inside the doghouse, making sure Ryan hadn't crawled inside of there. It was empty, except for a half-gnawed rawhide bone. Mrs. Laughman had told them that Ryan had gone to look for the dog. This seemed to verify that the dog was indeed missing, as well. Its chain lay in the grass, one end affixed to the doghouse, and the other end only a metal clasp that would have hooked onto a dog collar.

  The volunteer fire department arrived just as Morgan finished up the initial questioning. Clinton and Morgan took command of the operation, and the search began in earnest. Clinton prayed to a God he no longer believed in that they'd find the kid alive.

  As the darkness deepened over the fields and woods, it began to rain, a steady, sodden downpour that quickly drenched those outside.

  "Great," Clinton groaned. "Just fucking great. Could it get any worse?"

  * * *

  Morgan reached the edge of the field, accompanied by a State Trooper named Ford and some volunteer firefighters that had split off from the rest of the search party. Clinton had remained back at the Laughman home, taking command of their efforts. Several officers were combing the neighborhood, interviewing people and looking for anything suspicious. The Fire Chief had remained behind, as well, ostensibly to help Clinton oversee things, although Morgan figured the guy was mainly just standing around bitching about billable hours and who was going to pay for the search. They all knew from experience that the bill would get tossed back and forth between the township and other involved parties, but ultimately, the taxpayers would shoulder the debt in the end. Unless, of course, this was a scam being committed by the Laughman family, like that family in Denver a few years ago who had faked their kid hiding in a runaway hot air balloon just to get some media attention in their pitch for a reality television series. If that was the case, then the Laughman family would pay for the manpower and everything else involved in the search, along with a hefty court fine.

  "This fucking weather," one of the volunteers grumbled. "Wish we would have dressed for this."

  "Worry less about the rain and more about finding this kid," Ford, the State Trooper, told him. "If he's lost out here, how do you think he's enjoying it? Probably even less than you."

  "Let's hold up for a second," Morgan said, pausing at the edge of the field. He peered into the darkness, but all he could see was a lone tree far out in the center of the field. Everything else was in shadow. The moon was completely concealed by clouds and the stars were nonexistent. The only sound was that of the falling rain. He reached for his radio and keyed the mic.

  "Clinton?"

  There was a pause, followed by a burst of static, and then Clinton's voice echoed in the wide open space.

  "Yeah? Got an update for me, Morgan?"

  "No, nothing yet."

  "Nothing on this end either, or from the other searchers."

  "How about the father? Have we heard from him?"

  "Negative. Mother says he had his cell phone with him, but he's not answering. It goes straight to voice mail. Maybe he's out of range."

  Or maybe, Morgan thought, he did something to his kid, and he's getting rid of the body right now, and his wife is covering for him.

  Morgan hated thinking that way. He'd interviewed Cathy Laughman himself, and she'd seemed genuine and sincere. She came off as a woman who was worried to death about her son's whereabouts. But even though he'd only been a cop for five years, Morgan had seen enough to know that everyone was potentially guilty until proven innocent.

  He was about to respond to Clinton again when lightning flashed overhead, lighting up the field in an eerie blue-white glare. Ford grabbed Morgan's shoulder and gasped.

  "Look there! The tree..."

  The lightning faded, returning the field to darkness again.

  "What was it?" Morgan asked.

  "I saw something hanging from the tree," the State Trooper replied. "I'm sure of it. Could have been a dummy, like something kids would hang up during Halloween. But..."

  Simultaneously, both officers shined their flashlights across the field. They let the beams trail over the tree. Sure enough, something was dangling from one of the upper limbs. It looked like a body.

  "What the hell?" One of the firemen took a tentative step forward. "Shine your lights lower on the tree. I think there's more than one."

  Morgan and Ford did as he'd asked. All of them gasped and grunted. There were three bodies hanging from the branches.

  "Come on," Morgan said, beckoning.

  He broke into a run. One by one, the other men followed him. The beams from their flashlights bobbed up and down in the dark. Mud sloshed beneath their feet and the rain beat down incessantly upon them. Morgan slowed as they approached the crime scene, for already, he knew that was indeed what it had become. Jack Laughman, his son Ryan, and the family dog were most certainly dead, judging by the condition of their bodies. All three had been impaled on the tree limbs. At first glance, given the amount of damage to their bodies, it looked like they'd been killed before being placed there.

  "Oh fuck me," one of the volunteers whispered.

  A second volunteer turned away, retching loudly and then vomiting all over his boots.

  "Clinton," Morgan said into the radio. "Better send everybody to our location."

  "Copy that. Did you find them?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Is it... bad?"

  "Yeah... yeah, it is. I... I've never seen... this bad."

  "We need to check their vitals," Ford said. "They could still be alive."

  Morgan privately doubted it, but he kept the thought to himself.

  "Be my guest," he said. "Although I don't know how the hell we're going to reach them. Whoever did this... they must have had a ladder or something. Right?"

  "Either that," Ford replied, "or they were fifteen feet tall."

  "Hey, guys?" Morgan turned to the volunteers. "Can you stay back a bit? This is a crime scene now. We need to proceed with an abundance of caution. Our primary concern is securing it."

  They nodded in understanding, shivering in the rain. Morgan and Ford glanced at each other and then stepped forward. Morgan felt something hard beneath his heel. He looked down and saw a small, white stone sticking out of the mud. When he shined his flashlight at the ground, he noticed two more rocks, identical to the one he'd stepped on. They were spaced about six feet apart in a sort of semi-circle, and it appeared as if all of them had been buried beneath the soil until recently. Shrugging, he turned his attention back to the grisly scene.

  "Look at this," Ford said, shining his flashlight around the base of the tree.

  "Footprints?"

  "No. The ground looks... weird. Like something was uprooted here. But all I see is the tree, and obviously, it's still standing. There's blood mixed in with the mud, too. The branches have kept the rain from washing it away. And it's far from the bodies. There's no way it just dribbled down from above."

  "So they were killed over there and then placed---"

  Morgan never finished, because at that moment, the tree moved and all he could do was scream.

  Two

  Levi Stoltzfus was awakened by a knock at his front door. He was grateful for the interruption. He'd been dreaming of Rebecca again. It was the same dream he always had---Rebecca when they'd been younger, dancing through a cornfield, laughing as she playfully teased him. As always, he'd given chase, excited by the prospect of being with her in such a secluded spot where they were sure not to be discovered by the elders. And, as always, she managed to stay two steps ahead of him. Her laughter echoed. Birds chirped overhead. The sun beat down on them, warm and inviting.

  And then the dream switched, because again, that was what always happened, both in real life and in the dream. He pushed his way through some upright cornstalks and there was Rebecca, laying on the ground, her eyes open but unseeing, her legs splayed, and her blond hair spilling out from beneath the askew mesh-knit bun on her head. Her dress was in shreds, and so was she. Her skin, formerly the color of cream, was now red, as was her tattered clothing and the ground around her. Then the corn rustled and he heard the demon laughing.

  Yawning, Levi glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand and saw that it was twenty minutes until midnight. He'd only been asleep a few hours. He sat up in bed, stretching his arms and legs as the knock came again, louder this time. Had he not been sleeping, he would have been aware of the caller's presence before they'd even reached the door. Indeed, most people would have never made it that far. A series of alert mechanisms in the form of mystical wards and circles of protection insured that. They formed an invisible barrier between the edge of the yard and his front door, each one stronger than the last. Only a few people were able to pass through them all unmolested, and without triggering an alarm. That meant the late-night visitor either had permission to pass---or that they were strong enough to break through. He doubted any nefarious intent, however, simply because his dog, Crowley, who was tethered in the backyard, would have barked at the first sense of trouble. Crowley's silence meant that he knew the caller, or that the caller meant no harm.

  And even if Crowley was wrong, the invisible guardian lurking just inside Levi's foyer would swiftly and permanently deal with any intruder. That had only happened once in all the years Levi had rented this house. A warlock from the Kwan, upset that Levi had appropriated his Book of Shadows, had once made it past the wards and glyphs in the yard and through the front door. The guardian was there waiting for him, a coiled length of darkness hidden amongst the shadows where the wall met the ceiling. Levi hadn't been home at the time, but it had been easy for him to imagine what had happened next. The warlock had probably felt the guardian's presence a split second before he saw it, and then the invisible being had ripped him to shreds. Levi had returned home with nothing to do but clean up the still-wet evidence.

  A third knock echoed through the house, and he decided that he'd better get up and answer the door before whoever was out there tried to come inside and the guardian did the same thing to them. He left the bedroom and walked down the hall, passing a painting a friend of his had given him, depicting the Colleges of the Magus---the Moon representing thaumaturgy, the Sun representing alchemy, the Hand for necromancy, the Eye for divination, the Serpent for sorcery, and the Dagger for Hemomancy. The picture always made him smile, because it reminded him of his friend, gone six years now after an incident with a vampire in the sewers beneath Pittsburgh.

  He passed through the next room---a combination den and library. All four walls had built in bookshelves spanning floor to ceiling. Two small armchairs, a love seat, coffee table and a small desk occupied the center of the room. A marble chess set sat atop the table. The pieces were crafted after various mythological deities. The shelves were loaded with old, unabridged esoteric and occult volumes---Frazer's The Golden Bough, the collected works of John Dee, Francis Barrett's The Magus, the Book of Soyga, the Cipher Manuscripts (including the Johannes Trithemius cipher), Guido von List's Das Geheimnis der Runen, Johann Scheible's Das Kloster, Cyril Scott's The Initiate, Parkes' Fourth Book of Agrippa, all of Aleister Crowley's occult work, Samael Aun Weor's The Perfect Matrimony, the Theatrum Chemicum, a translation of the Alexandria Codex of Sofia, and even a scattering of loose pages from the Necronomicon. The library filled Levi with a sad sense of nostalgia. Ever since he'd purchased an eBook reader, he hadn't spent much time in here. The device held digital copies of most of the volumes, and that was incredibly useful for when he was travelling, and for the simple economy of storage, but he missed coming in here during the evening on a cold winter night, and relaxing in one of the chairs, and perusing the books at his leisure. He missed the smell and texture, and the sounds the pages made. A digital device couldn't duplicate that. Nothing could.

  The books weren't the only thing Levi had missed. He'd missed this home, too. Granted, it was only a rental property, but he'd lived here for more than a decade now, and it was as much a part of him as Crowley, or his horse, Dee. When he'd first moved in, Levi had converted half of the two-car garage at the rear of the property into a stable for Dee. The other half had been converted into a woodshop. Levi spent most days making coat and spoon racks, furniture, plaques, lawn ornaments, and other knick-knacks. On Saturdays, he'd sell the items at the local antiques market. It was an honest, decent living, and paid for his rent, groceries, utilities, and food for Crowley and Dee. But Levi had another vocation, as well. Levi practiced a form of shamanism called Powwow, just as his father and his father before him had done. He cured people of their ailments using magic. His patients were mostly composed of the elderly (who remembered the old ways), the poor (who didn't have health insurance and couldn't afford to go to the hospital), and people who'd forsaken the mainstream medical establishment in search of a more holistic approach.

  But powwow went beyond medicine. It was a magical discipline, just like any other, and sometimes, Levi was charged with doing more than helping the sick. Occasionally, his endeavors led him to be involved in other, more serious, occult matters. There were times when the Lord tasked him to be a protector. That had been the case recently.

  Levi had left Pennsylvania four months ago, on his way to the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment headquarters in Virginia Beach to make a copy of their eighteenth century German edition of King Solomon's Clavicula Salomonis for his personal library. On the way there, he'd stopped for the night in the small town of Brinkley Springs, West Virginia and as a result, had become embroiled in a battle against five revenant servants of a powerful entity known as Meeble---one of a pantheon of similar entities known as the Thirteen. Levi had bested Meeble's servants by stranding the revenants on the planet Yuggoth, but he had picked up a supernatural infection as a result. The infection was a white, otherworldly fungus that would have eventually killed him, turning his physical form to liquid. Weeks of meditation, herbs and spells had finally cleansed all traces of the infection from his system. After that, he'd completed his delayed visit to the Edgar Cayce headquarters, and obtained a copy of the manuscript.

  Then, before he could return home, Levi had taken a forced side-trip to Roanoke Island. That was where the revenants that had menaced Brinkley Springs had originally come from, and to insure that they could never return to Earth, Levi spent a week locating their mortal remains (buried for centuries and separate from their spirit forms, still stranded on Yuggoth). He'd taken great care to destroy every trace of their physical remains. After that had come the long journey home---just Levi, Dee and their buggy. He'd been back in Marietta now for a little less than a week, and still felt unsettled.

  There was another knock at the door. Levi felt the guardian stir.

  "Easy," he whispered. "I sense no malice. Down, boy."

  The guardian relaxed. Another knock followed.

  "Coming," Levi called. "Just a moment."

  He whispered a simple, quick prayer as he reached for the doorknob. Then he turned it and opened the door. His closest neighbor, Sterling Myers, stood on the porch. Sterling often fed Crowley when Levi was traveling, and as a result, he was one of the few people who could pass through the wards of protection unmolested. Indeed, Sterling was completely unaware of the mechanisms.