Something moved at the rear of the great chamber. A tear appeared in the solid rock and light seeped through the crack. It was similar to the rifts that the demons had used in Natchy Bottom, a hidden passage carved through space to someplace else, unnaturally grafted onto the walls of this cave long ago. I could see and understand the portal clearly in my disembodied state. The rift gradually widened as a glistening shape pushed its way through and slapped wetly onto the floor. The temperature dropped from chilly to freezing in seconds. The helpless humans whimpered in fear.
Lord Machado had returned.
I had a brief glimpse into the portal as it disappeared back into the rock. Dark sky flickered in the distance. It was the Place of Power.
The vampire bowed his head and presented the helmet to the waiting master. The withering mass reached down and plucked the antique from his servant's hands. The tentacles gently lifted the steel pot and set it on the skull-shaped protuberance, a crown upon a blighted brow.
The thing that was Lord Machado towered above the tall vampire. Still vaguely man-shaped, twisted and hardened bones formed the supports for the black pulsating tissues. Several tentacles dangled from where the arms would have been, and legs had been replaced with a veritable platform of withering limbs. Every inch of black flesh moved like a bucket of worms.
The creature paused. Then slowly rotated toward us.
I tried to shrink back, an impossible feat in my current condition. The helmet cocked to the side as the burning eyes zoomed in on us. I heard the Old Man's thoughts.
Run.
I willed my spirit away from the Cursed One, back through the huge cavern. Jaeger screamed and leapt at us, his movement too fast to discern. It felt as if a wall of evil slammed into me, pinning me down, capturing me and holding me. I fought against it, but I was not strong enough. Lord Machado oozed across the stone, compressing his body between narrow paths, tentacles reaching forward, driving his will like a spear.
I could not flee. I could not escape. Master vampires detached themselves from the ceiling and dropped around me. The Cursed One was closing. As hard as I pushed, I could not break away from the will of the evil thing. I could feel him pulling me toward him, sinking hooks into me and reeling me in.
I was doomed.
Flee, Boy!
The spirit of Mordechai Byreika did not pull away. Instead he hurled himself against the onrushing vampires. An explosion of blue sparks lighted the cavern as his presence collided with Jaeger, smashing the vampire backwards across the cave in a brilliant display that blinded all of the undead. The vampire struck a stalactite with a resounding crack.
Take that, Nazi bastard! Payback is bitch!
The will of the Cursed One bore down upon Mordechai. The Old Man faced his adversary in a futile but noble gesture. For a brief instant the ghost became visible, holding his cane in his arthritic hands like a weapon, narrow shoulders hunched, eyes hard and jaws clenched. He swung at the onrushing blackness.
And was swept away.
Mordechai! No!
The will of the Cursed One was temporarily diverted. The snares that held me snapped. I remembered the Old Man's admonition. Every instinct told me to fight, but I fled. A sense of pain engulfed me, but it was not mine. It was Mordechai's. It filled the cavern, drowning out all other sensations.
I saw his death.
The Polish winter. 1944. The rubble of the shelled-out town. The burned and blackened church. The Old Man tied to the altar. The incorporeal presence of the Cursed One hovering nearby, hungrily waiting, but already knowing that his calculations had been in error. Jaeger, then merely a human in the black uniform of the SS, holding a gleaming blade high. Bitten by a vampire far earlier in his forgotten youth, the curse of the undead waited in his veins for his suicide and inevitable return.
Sounds of gunfire coming from the village. Multitudes of German soldiers cut down by the immortal Thrall.
The artifact, black energy swirling, sitting by the Old Man's head. He did not fight, for he knew this battle was over. The blade flashed down, cutting sluggishly through Mordechai's narrow chest. Blood splattering over the church, over the ancient Place of Power.
The heart held high, pumping blood down the Nazi's arm. The ritual failed. The time had not been right. The black energy of the artifact dying. The light in the Old Man's eyes dying at the same time.
The sacrifice bound to the artifact. Mordechai's spirit was chained and enslaved to the ancient box, decades passing, as he was trapped, helplessly bound to this world.
Until he found me.
He screamed as he experienced the pain of death all over again.
I knew I had to wake up. I fought my way forward, pushing away from the Cursed One, like a swimmer with lungs burning for air struggling toward the sky. There was a large tunnel out of the great cave. It was round corrugated metal. It was angled toward the surface.
Behind me the ghostly scream was cut short. The Cursed One returned his attention toward my fleeing spirit, searching, grasping. Energy slung past me like cracking whips. I knew that if I could reach the surface, if I could reach the air, I could return to my body and wake up.
It was close-the surface. I raced onward.
Then suddenly a silent conquistador stood in my path. Blocking my way.
No. Mordechai's sacrifice would not be in vain. I pushed forward.
The conquistador did not move.
It wore a silly cartoon grin. It had a big, stuffed, fake head.
What in the hell?
I broke through, the Cursed One raging below. My spirit soared into the night sky and tore across the horizon at impossible speeds. I was free.
"Owen!" Julie shouted in my ear. "Are you with us?"
"Ack," I coughed, choking off my shout of freedom. "I'm back," I gasped.
"Are you okay?" All of the Monster Hunters were clustered around me.
"Mordechai is dead."
"We know. He died in 1944," Julie explained soothingly as she ran her hand over my face. "You're going to be okay now."
I struggled to form words. "No… Just now. He's gone. He gave himself up to save me from Lord Machado." I lay still. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. It had to be at least a hundred and fifty beats a minute. I could feel sweat pouring out of my body, and every inch of me tingled in pins and needles discomfort. My hands were clenched into shaking fists. I forced them to open.
Several small wooden toys fell from my hands onto the floor.
Holy shit.
Harbinger was still squatting at my side. "What did you see?"
"Grant's alive. He's the sacrifice." Several of the Hunters began to murmur. It was one thing to have one of our own killed in action. It was another thing entirely to have one of our own in the hands of the bad guys.
"Where are they?" Harbinger pounded his fist into his palm. "Where?"
"A big cave."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Harbinger gestured at some of the others. "I want to know every cave in the South. Now! What else?"
"It was huge. Lots of rock formations. Kind of pretty. Real tall. Taller than this building. The interior had to be at least a hundred yards wide." It was hard to guess scale when you were not in your physical body for reference. "You had to take a big metal tunnel to get into it."
"Big caves!" Harbinger shouted. "What else?"
"Uh…" I thought back to the final thing that I had seen. "There was a conquistador. At first I thought it was something to do with Lord Machado, but it wasn't. It was stuffed. Like one of those big fake heads people wear at amusement parks."