Reign of Evil

“Clear,” Walker said into his mike, then moved beside YaYa. With the trunk to his left, he aimed toward the window. “Sectors of fire.” YaYa left the right corner of the house alone and concentrated on his 180 degrees.

“Come on, Trev. Move.” Walker glanced behind him. Wall with concrete blocks and lots of dead grass. He turned back to the window.

YaYa gave Walker a quick look. “What’s taking him?”

Walker was beginning to get a sinking feeling. “Trev. Radio check. Come in, Trev.” It had only been a moment. Not ten seconds.

Walker felt it before he saw it. “Something’s coming.”

YaYa was sobbing beside him as his whole body began to tremble.

Walker put a hand on him. “Control. Fight it.”

YaYa nodded, wiping unbidden tears from his face with the back of his hands.

When Walker looked again to the window he saw her, sewn lips, blue piercing eyes seeing through him, her long blond hair moved delicately by an unfelt breeze. He felt her power. His teeth began to chatter. He raised his pistol but couldn’t control his aim. He fired over and over and over, but the rounds never came close. He kept firing until the pistol clicked back at him.

A moment of panic took him, but he fought it.

He grabbed YaYa.

“Where is he?” YaYa asked through sobs.

Walker glanced once more at the window. She was gone. As was Trevor.

“They have him.”

CHAPTER 34

POINT BRAVO, WARWICK, ENGLAND. CHRISTMAS DAY, ZERO DARK THIRTY.

He expected Preeti to scream and shout, How could you? and You of all people?, but all he got was silence. He caught her glancing at him with red swollen eyes, but she wouldn’t say a word. This uncharacteristic response to the capture of her boyfriend worried Walker enough that he wished she were screaming at him.

It had taken them four hours to make it back. Once they’d cleared the wall behind the home, they’d headed for the car. But even before they reached it, they’d realized that Trevor had the keys, and neither Walker nor YaYa knew how to wire a car. So they’d been forced to continue running. Near Glastonbury Train Station they’d found a car with keys inside. Then, they’d taken extra care not to drag surveillance back to the chapel. Preeti’s brother had tried to do what he’d previously done to the CCTV servers, but cybersecurity had found and closed his back door.

Just as they thought the universe was against them, they had help from an unsuspected arena. Lord Robinson had provided a platoon of Royal Marines to Ian for assistance. The chief of Section 9, for all Walker knew the last member of Section 9, had finally managed to convince the senior MP that the only way they were going to stop the Wild Hunt was to dedicate more assets to the effort. The Marines weren’t pleased to be pulled away from their families at Christmas, but in the end they were Marines and acted the part. So it was a taxi that picked them up outside of a Sainsbury’s superstore in Gloucester. They’d switched to foot, then boarded a bus, then went back to foot once more. Scrubbing any last vestige of surveillance by transiting an all-night grocer, they got into the taxi in an area identified by Preeti’s brother as having no active CCTV cameras. The taxi driver introduced himself as Corporal Alex Cope and took them straight to Warwick.

Hoover was the first to greet them. Walker spared the dog a small pet, then strode straight to Preeti.

“We’ll get him back.”

Dark circles under her bloodshot eyes along with a red and running nose detailed a bucket of shed tears. “I know you will.” Her voice was flat.

“No, really. I’ll do everything I can.” Then his voice got husky. “I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, then turned back to her work. “I know.”

Then he’d briefed Ian, Holmes, and Lieutenant Rory Magerts, platoon leader of the Marines, who’d been read onto Section 9’s mission, but by the increasing level of incredulity present on his face it was not something he wholeheartedly believed. The witch, Laws, Genaro, and Yank listened in, but from a distance. Everyone occasionally glanced in Preeti’s direction, especially when Trevor’s name was mentioned.

After the second run-through, Holmes asked Sassy to join them.

“Can it hear us?” Holmes asked.

“It hears everything.”

“What were those women Walker described?”

“Vessels. Fonts. They are empty and have no soul.”

That explained their emotionless appearance. But Walker wanted to know where their souls had gone, so he asked.

Sassy frowned and shook her head, looking almost like the regular woman she’d been pretending to be all this time. Looking at her now, no one would know that she was a powerful witch who’d forced the mythological creature to possess her. “There’s a type of magic that uses people, uses their souls for power. It’s distasteful.”

“What are they used for? I thought I saw a hound leap into her, then disappear.”