Chapter 3 “Haunted Houses”
Darious stood in the shadows, watching as the small group went in separate directions. He hadn’t even bothered with invisibility because, tonight of all nights, he would blend in just fine. His eyes narrowed on the fact that Toya had thrown his arm over the woman’s shoulder. Why was it that they were so accepted within the human circle… when he had always been rejected? What made the guardians so damn special?
His brooding gaze caressed Kyoko’s face as she smiled and he knew she did not fear them, but instead, stood among them as if she belonged. What would he give for her to smile at him like that… like a man instead of a monster?
Something tightened in his chest, but Darious shrugged off his melancholy as his attention returned to the two cops that were entering the makeshift haunted house.
He could sense the demon activity inside but he was more interested in the source of the demonic activity. The master controlling the peons is what he needed to find. Destroy the master and you destroy their underlings. It was a simple concept that most found a bit too easy to overlook… until you actually faced a master in combat. Only then did it not seem so easy.
First and foremost, he needed to find the master demons and kill them. The Guardians could handle the rest of the vermin loose tonight… the easy targets. He slowly turned his head and gazed in the direction of the graveyard before vanishing from site.
Kamui slurped loudly on his blueberry slushy then chewed for a moment on the straw. He saw the disappearing act of the man that had been stalking Kyoko since she and Toya had arrived and it made him smirk. Turning to another one of the laptops open next to him, he scanned the frozen frame of Darious.
‘So, you have finally found us,’ Kamui thought to himself, making sure to keep that particular thought locked away from Amni and Yuuhi. He had often wondered if the dark angel was still stalking the lands.
He enlarged the photo and his smile died as he noticed the lonely look that haunted Darious’s eyes.
***** Kotaro and Yohji approached the woman standing at the entrance of the House of Screams and started to make their way in. They immediately noticed a sign outside that indicated no one under the age of eighteen was allowed, which meant ID’s were being checked.
“What’s the big deal with the age limit? They have naked zombies or something?” Yohji joked, secretly hoping he was right.
“I’m sorry gentlemen,” The woman said. “It’s a ten dollar entry fee to go in.”
Yohji choked. “Twenty dollars? That’s highway robbery.”
Kotaro showed her his badge and smiled. “You don’t want our money and it’s time for you to go take a break.”
The badge caught the woman’s eye and she followed it with her gaze, unable to look away as it glowed a soft blue.
“I don’t want your money,” She repeated in a dazed voice.
Kotaro glanced over at Yohji, his smile gone. “Let’s go.”
They walked inside, leaving the woman at the entrance shaking her head in confusion before she glanced down at her watch deciding it was time to go grab a bite to eat.
The front door closed behind them and the two men looked around. The front room was in a hexagon shape, with small round tables set into each corner. In the center was a larger round table with wilted flowers and fake rotten fruit in a bowl, all of which had been covered with sawdust and fake cobwebs.
Both men went on high alert as they noticed the sign that had the word ‘Enter’ scrawled in crooked letters next to a curtain-covered door and no tour guide. Creepy pipe organ music was playing over the speakers, giving the room what they assumed was supposed to be ambiance but it only came off as cheesy.
“Looks like a funeral parlor,” Yohji muttered. “They even have a coffin here.”
Yohji walked over to the coffin and, out of morbid curiosity lifted the lid. It was a decision he instantly regretted and wrinkled his nose at the smell.
“Kotaro… tell me this is fake and I’ll be your best friend forever,” Yohji begged softly as he cringed.
Kotaro had already started heading toward the curtain covering the next door. He backtracked to look inside the coffin and instantly turned away. The half-eaten human was laying on the now bloodied satin, twisted grotesquely so that the two halves of his body were facing in two different directions, three if you counted the way his head was angled.
This was an innocent human that had probably volunteered for a night of fun, pretending to rise from the coffin and give the Halloween thrill seekers a scare when they entered the room. But this man would never rise again… at least Kotaro hoped he wouldn’t.
Kotaro closed the lid to the coffin knowing there wasn’t anything they could do for the man.
“I guess that answers the question of why there isn’t a tour guide,” Yohji mused as he backed away from the coffin and glanced longingly toward the door they had entered through.
“This is what you signed up for Yohji,” Kotaro stated. “You knew that when Kyou offered the job to you. The only thing we can do is make sure no more are killed like this poor guy.”
He placed his hand on his earpiece knowing the others were listening, “We have a body count started.”
“And demon night begins,” Kamui said softly.
Kotaro lowered his head, hoping the afterlife was kinder to the mangled guy but something quickly caught his attention on the floor beside the coffin… bloody footprints.
“Hey Yohji,” Kotaro said softly and stepped away from the coffin, walking slowly across the floor. “Check it out,” he finished, pointing at the carpet.
Yohji stared at what appeared to be bloody footprints going across the carpet and disappearing behind the curtain door… they weren’t human. From that he could tell, they were oddly shaped with abnormally long toes and even longer toenails that left pinpoint bloody impressions behind.
Kotaro placed a finger to his lips, indicating quiet and Yohji nodded, removing his PPK from its holster. Taking up the rear, Yohji followed Kotaro into the next room beyond the curtain.
They made it several rooms into the maze of strobe-lights and motion-sensor screams and started to relax thinking the rest of the house was empty. Turning the corner into the next room they froze when they encountered a small group of house visitors jumping and squealing, some laughing at the scene in front of them.
Against the wall behind red velvet rope was a setup from one of the chainsaw movies… one of Kotaro’s favorites. The only problem was the guy driving the chainsaw into the body on the blood-covered table wasn’t human. However, the body on the table was very real… and still alive. The woman was tied down and screaming, begging for help, but the visitors thought it was part of the show.
Kotaro felt bile rise up in his throat and glared at the monster that had real human skin stretched across its face. No doubt from another poor human that had fallen victim to the ghoul this night.
“Why didn’t we hear the screaming out front?” Yohji whispered in horror.
Kotaro moved when the chainsaw started to lower toward the woman’s already bloody leg. Just as the flickering lights hit a dark moment, he jumped over the rope and slashed at the ceiling causing a pipe to burst overhead, making cold water rain down on the horror seekers.
“Make sure these people leave out the front door,” Kotaro hissed into the earpiece at Yohji while pulling out his Berretta. “I’ve got this covered.”
Yohji nodded and navigated the people out of the room and back through the parlor. He closed the door behind them and threw the deadbolt so no one could come back in. Yohji had a feeling a lot of people were going to be refunded their money but it was better to be disappointed than dead.
With a loud exhale, he turned back from the door and froze in horror when the body inside the coffin suddenly sat up. It moved stiffly… and liquid that Yohji didn’t even want to identify oozed out of it and down the side of the coffin to drip onto the floor. Shock kept his reaction time slow when it rose to its feet and lunged at the detective, burying its teeth in his shoulder.
Yohji was knocked over by the force of the body and panicked as pain exploded in his neck. He had dropped his PPK, so he used his fists to pummel on the thing before he was finally able to dislodge its teeth.
Grabbing his handgun from the floor, Yohji winced when he saw the wire to his earpiece was severed so he couldn’t call Kotaro for help… something he wouldn’t have been able to do anyway if his partner was in the middle of a fight of his own.
The creature came at him again and this time, Yohji did the only thing he could think of… he screamed and ran like hell.
The ghoul, seeing he was being interrupted, swung the chainsaw clumsily at Kotaro. Kotaro ducked to miss it, dropping his gun in light of a much more effective weapon. The only problem was getting past the chainsaw. When the ghoul regained its balance, it was at the expense of the woman’s life. The chainsaw cut into her midsection and stuck, sending blood everywhere.
Glancing back to make sure Yohji was out of eyesight; Kotaro raised his hand and cast a blue light straight into the ghoul. Becoming confused, the ghoul lifted the chainsaw, and then turned the blaring thing on himself. It laid into his shoulder, adding pressure as it ate its way diagonally down his chest and out the other side. As the demons head and one arm hit the floor, Kotaro tapped his earpiece.
“Yohji, I got it,” Kotaro said and waited for a moment before frowning. “Yohji?”
The silence was deafening until he heard a terrified scream that reminded him a lot of the cartoon character Johnny Bravo whom was known to scream louder than a bunch of girls having a screaming contest.
Kotaro abruptly witnessed Yohji running into the room, past him, and out the next door so fast that he caused a breeze. He then heard the sickening footfalls that only a possessed dead body could make. Moving to stand directly in its path, he silently waited on it to come to him.
The thing limped into the room and stopped, coming face to face with the handsome detective. Kotaro’s ice-blue eyes glimmered with sadistic glee as he rammed his palm into the face of the ghoul.
“Stay down!” Kotaro growled at the possessed body that now had a hole in its face big enough to put his fist through. Turning around, he took off through the door Yohji had just retreated through.
Yohji hadn’t even slowed down when he ran past Kotaro, believing with everything in him that the dead body was still chasing him and within reaching distance. The last thing he wanted to do was run a gantlet through the whole haunted house, so when he spotted a partially hidden door, he inwardly sang praises to whatever god was listening that he’d found an exit. But as he flung it open, his momentum was too fast and he couldn’t stop himself in time.
He had opened the door to a set of stairs leading down… stairs he actually overshot. Yohji screamed again when he started falling down them into the darkness.
Kotaro caught up to Yohji just when his partner flung open the door and took a flying leap… literally.
Using his powers, Kotaro moved faster than the wind itself, catching Yohji right before he impacted with the unforgiving concrete of the basement floor. He held the man back against him, noticing the cop was out cold having fainted from the scare… but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the huge bite the ghoul had taken out of Yohji’s shoulder.
“Bloody hell,” Kotaro exclaimed before tapping his earpiece. “Kamui, we have a situation. Yohji is down. I repeat Yohji is--”
He didn’t get a chance to finish as a bunch of ghouls began coming out of a rather large hole in the wall. Kotaro used his sharp eyesight to see past them into the underground tunnel that he was sure was the one Kamui had mentioned connecting the house to the cemetery.
“Kotaro?” Kamui answered, and then swore a blue streak that would have made a sailor proud. “Suki!”
“I’m on it!” Suki exclaimed and started speed-driving down the back roads toward the haunted house. “Do we have any idea what we are up against?”
“Ghouls,” Yuuhi’s eerie voice came over the intercom.
“Fire! You can kill them with fire,” Kamui quickly added.
Suki smiled as she swung around the corner and came to a screeching halt. Jerking the Hummer into park, she got out and opened the rear door. With a huge grin plastered on her face, she grabbed the flamethrower from the arsenal and strapped the fuel tank to her back.
Hefting the unusually heavy weapon, Suki sprinted around to the front of the haunted house.
She was wearing green military fatigues tucked into the top of combat boots. Two belts of bullets crisscrossed over her chest and a standard belt was around her waist with a sword and knife holster on her hip. Around her neck hung a pair of dog tags that had her name on them along with an identification number.
The look was completed by a blood red bandana tied around her forehead and her hair was down and free-flying everywhere. She looked like she’d just walked off a battlefield, which drew more than one man to stare at her.
The bullets, knife and flamethrower looked fake for Halloween but what no one knew was they were one hundred percent real.
“Damn Suki,” Kamui whispered. “Do you need to look any more sadistic?”
Suki grinned up at the camera mounted on top of the traffic light at the corner. “You like it?”
“Damn straight!” Kamui exclaimed. “But Shinbe would like it better.”
“Like what?” Shinbe’s voice rang over the transmitter but Suki ignored him as she walked up to the front door and gave it a hard kick, sending it flying back against the wall with a bang.
“Oh nothing,” Kamui said innocently. “Unless you like Suki looking all bad ass while holding a flamethrower and showing enough cleavage to put a centerfold to shame.”
Suki ignored that comment too as she made her way deeper into the haunted house. She’d get the PC wiz later. Walking through the curtain, she stepped over the dead ghoul lying on the floor and wrinkled her nose at the other one cut in half.
“I swear those two cops are messier than three year olds at dinner time,” she muttered. Her lips thinned when she saw the lady on the table. Passing the room up, she noticed an open door off to the side and a terrible ruckus coming from the darkness below. Hefting up the flamethrower, Suki started to descend the stairs.
“Here goes nothing,” she informed anyone listening.
Kotaro laid Yohji gently against the bottom step and turned to face the deadly crowd in front of him. Wanting to keep them away from his injured partner, he surged forward. It was like wading through thick mud and smelled worse.
Pain exploded along his right cheek when one of the ghouls bit him, making his teeth grind together. He hefted the one that had bitten him and slung him over the others, back toward the tunnel, knocking over more that had been trying to enter the basement.
Reaching behind him, Kotaro pulled a long-bladed knife from the hidden sheath tucked into the back of his pants. He swung his arm in a wide arc as he brought it up, piercing flesh and making black blood spray everywhere.
He cried out when another set of teeth bit into his left arm and plunged his blade into the top of the ghoul’s head. A feral growl erupted from his throat when he felt three more bite into his legs. Removing the blade, Kotaro swung again, this time decapitating the closest ghoul.
A sharp click and loud hiss made the monsters look up toward the top of the steps and he smirked at the ghouls around him.
“Bring the barbeque sauce?” he asked the lady that now had everyone’s attention.
***** Darious stood in the back yard of the haunted house with his eyes closed, not only witnessing the battle inside but hearing it as well. He had toyed with the idea of going through the house to reach the underground tunnels, but knowing that would slow him down he stayed with his original plan.
The Guardians could take care of themselves… just like they had abandoned him to do so long ago.
Withdrawing his power of sight from the basement, Darious buried the feelings of hatred and forced the worthless emotions aside. He inhaled deeply, smelling the scent of the master demons behind the mayhem… he had smelled them before. Hell Hags… humans called them witches but he knew what they were and that there were three of them within the city tonight. It wasn’t surprising as they usually traveled in packs of three.
He would have to kill them before the ghouls would drop back into hell were they belonged.
Finding the direction easily, Darious started walking almost indifferently through the back alleys of the city. Once he left the main hub, the sounds of the night quickly surrounded him. In the dark corners were demons… hiding, spitting and hissing his name as he passed. He ignored them knowing he had bigger fish to fry this All Hallows Eve.
As he neared the cemetery, Darious felt an all-too-familiar presence and snarled. It annoyed him that only the weakest masters had awakened first, while the real threat slept somewhere beneath the city.
What angered him the most was that he had never wanted to return here after reading the scrolls for the second time. After the monastery had been destroyed, monks had come to rebuild… only to let it fall to ruin once they realized the ground was evil. They’d abandoned this land knowing it was useless.
Now the forgetful humans had built a thriving metropolis over the heart of sleeping evil.
***** Kyou stood in the middle of the cemetery, scanning the area with sharp eyes. He’d been listening to the others talk on the com-link and while he’d gotten some amusement from it, he knew the problem wasn’t within the haunted house. The graveyard was the true center of demonic activity. It wasn’t in a ghoul’s nature to abandon their feasting ground without a master pulling their strings.
Closing his eyes, Kyou let his senses fan out around and under him… searching for the power he knew was there.
He could feel the dead growing restless within their graves and understood this cemetery had been troubled for a while now. The dead had been disturbed… something that all the guardians agreed was a very big taboo… it just wasn’t allowed.
His lips thinned knowing most of the graves under him where empty. Whether they had been devoured, or were now up and walking around was the question. His golden eyes opened and narrowed before turning his head toward the huge mausoleum to his right.
Stepping forward, Kyou opened the heavy door to the crypt, ignoring the creaking and groaning of the hinges. He took in the damage that had been done and understood why this particular crypt had been chosen. The family within had to have been centuries old and with no living relatives to continue its care, it was basically ignored, which worked in the demon’s favor.
All the caskets had been unsealed and lay open across the floor. Skeletal remains littered the floor, some of them still hanging from their vaults… ripped open to the elements. In the center lay two larger caskets, obviously the matriarchs of the family. The female’s side was virtually undisturbed but the male’s side had been desecrated.
A large hole went straight through the male’s coffin and what was left of the body inside it. No one had to tell him where the other end of that tunnel led. The demon had probably made the corpses dig it and connect it to the main tunnels.
A noise from further back in the crypt made him look up. Kyou stepped away from the disturbed vaults and followed a narrow path leading back and down a slope. He could immediately tell the moment he was completely underground, as the air became heavy and mold laden.
He heard something that sounded strangely like speech and stepped around a wall, discovering another row of caskets. Several had been pulled from their vaults and thrown open on the floor. A hell hag in her true form was bent over one of the partially decayed bodies, hissing an incantation into the corpse’s ear.
She was hideous with long white hair that writhed around her sunken cheeks and eyes much too big for the face. Her skin was dry and cracked, as though she’d been mummified alive. Long unkempt nails scraped the ground and the body of the corpse as though she were touching a lover.
Kyou growled when the corpse began to twitch, making the hell hag whip her head up to glare at him with those horrible eyes. A storm of power seemed to descend on him as invisible wind whipped around his clothes and hair. The air around him crackled and translucent golden wings emerged from his back, curling around him almost protectively as he surged forward.
He flew past the coffin, catching the witch around the neck in the crook of his elbow and slammed her through the wall on the other side. Stone and mortar fell as they broke through the other side. He sat straddled across her stomach with a hand around her shriveled throat.
“You would dare to send those filthy things into my city?!” Kyou roared in her face as she screeched and clawed at him.
The hell hag couldn’t get in a good hit in because Kyou’s translucent wings were still curled around him, preventing such an attack. She abruptly flickered with power and her form changed from that of a withered old hag into a vision of beauty. Her voice became soft and supple as her grisly hair straitened, turning white as the purest of snow.
“You do not have the power to stop me guardian,” she whispered as she laid her fingers on his cheek. “So much like him… yet so different,” she mused just as her claws dug into his face.
Kyou was stunned when a bright flash exploded right in front of him and he was thrown backwards through the hole they had created and into the opposite wall of the crypt. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he allowed his rage to consume him. This demon was powerful and he needed to finish her off before the underlings that she was controlling killed more of the innocent humans.
He pushed himself from the wall to attack just as bony hands broke through the brick behind him. They wrapped around his chest and pulled him through with such force, Kyou actually found himself breathless.
He was suddenly surrounded by ghouls… their meaty hands pulling him away from the witch, who just laughed as she watched her underlings do her bidding. Just before the ghouls pulled him out of sight, Kyou saw mist rising up out of the floor, surrounding her and swirling eerily. A man appeared within the fog right in front of her. His long black hair fluttered as he turned on the ghouls coming toward him and let lose a string of fire from his palm that set them ablaze.
Darious turned his head to stare straight into the eyes of the hell hag. Seeing the fear leap into her blood red eyes, he let a satisfied smirk pull at his lips. She hissed at him and tried to flee, only to stop dead in her tracks when a black hole appeared below her feet… ensnaring her within a demon trap.
“Not so fast bitch,” Darious’s voice was so dark it made the already cool temperature within the mausoleum plummet several degrees.
Very slowly, the witch turned around to glare at him with a hideous twist to her lips. “I remember you,” she hissed with false bravado as she morphed back into her true form. “You wore the chains… we took turns with the whips… such a pleasure it was to see the masters rip your wings from your back….”
Her words were cut short and she screeched when magma suddenly rose up from the void beneath her feet, forming chains… snapping into place around her ankles and wrists, burning the flesh where they touched.
His eyes turned crimson at the reminder. “It took more than just you and your sisters to keep me chained, but I’ll give you a gift… the same gift the demons gave me. These chains have a nickname… they are called Eternity. You won’t be alone in the dark for long.” He gave her a sinister smile, “Your sisters will be joining you soon.” With that, the bonds tightened and began dragging her down into the pit.
“You will not live!” the hell hag screamed while fighting the pull of the chains. “Our master will see you torn apart and decimated the same way you did to us upon your escape… you will never be rid of us.”
Darious stood back watching with cold eyes as the witch continued her descent. She spit a number of curses at him, which made Darious feel amusement. Even when he showed them their own defeat, these demons would never be silent.
The witch’s screams rose in volume when clawed hands reached up from the void and clutched at her form. She continued to fight until the very last moment even when the void reached up to her ears.
She abruptly tilted her head back and smirked at him, “If He can’t reclaim you then He will reclaim the bitch who set you free!”
“He?” Darious whispered as he watched until she sank into the void, her screams finally silenced. There had been no one in the pit except demons so who was the witch calling He?
As the void sealed over the demon, his thoughts darkened remembering the hell hags. They and many other demons had struck him as he’d cried out for someone to save him… but no one ever came. Demons and their lies… no one had set him free.
He still remembered the pain of his wings being removed… pulled… yanked from the flesh of his back. That pain had been nothing compared to the agony of the chains they had wrapped him in. Now they will know how it had felt… physically and mentally. They will scream for someone to free them, but none will answer.
Kyou had remained silent once he shook off the remaining ghouls. No more had come through the tunnels they’d created, which meant Kotaro and Suki had handled the ones on their end. With any luck, the ghouls would merely vanish into nothingness before the flames died out. It would be their job to return the dead to their proper resting places once the proverbial dust settled.
Now Kyou stood still, watching the man’s expressions change from rage to pain and then… sadness. Wraiths flew all around him, as if trying to attack, but they could not and would not touch him. Kyou took a step forward… recognizing the power he had felt earlier that day in his office.
The man raised his head but didn’t even glance in Kyou’s direction before he vanished without a trace. The air rippled and sizzled… sending out purifying energy, washing over everything before the cemetery fell into a peace he was sure it hadn’t felt in many years.
Kyou’s golden eyes glowed in the darkness as he listened to the voices of the other guardians through the com-link.
