“I want to go and check out some new movies at the mall down the street with Kenny and the boys,” Jo said as she got off the phone with her new English boyfriend and hopped off the bed where she had been laying down. Martha was sitting on a couch deeply engrossed in her Stephen King novel. “Wanna tag along?”
“You guys go ahead,” Martha waved dismissingly at her without looking up from the book. “I'm in the best part of this book and just can't drop it for a second.”
“One of these days I'm just gonna get rid of all these novels you keep reading,” Jo sighed knowing the boys would be disappointed. “You're quite a spoilsport you know?”
“Say hi to Kenny and the boys for me,” Martha replied. “Have a lovely outing.”
Jo stamped her foot hard on the floor and stomped out of the room, thinking of an excuse to give the boys who were waiting for the girls in the hotel lobby.
Martha continued reading her novel with the excitement created by the master storyteller growing by the minute with every page she turned.
Suddenly, the room grew cold despite the fact that she had turned off the air-conditioning system. It was an unnatural chill, worse than she had ever felt, which forced her to look up from the book she was reading, shivering terribly. The lights in the room suddenly dimmed and a blue glow emanated from the book sitting on the table before her.
The strange urge took control of her, but this time, instead of taking her to the book, she felt led to the envelope sitting beside the book on the table which had remained untouched since she returned from the old antique shop.
She opened the envelope and brought out a map along with a sheet of paper with words written in understandable English. She studied it for a while, then like someone controlled by some form of remote control; she got dressed in a pair of black jeans trousers and a plain white shirt. She picked up the book and the contents of the envelope and walked mechanically out of the room.
The sky had started turning dark, heralding the beginning of a dark starless night as she got to the front entrance of the hotel. She made her way to her car and got in, placing the book and the contents of the envelope on the seat beside her.
She started up the engine and pulled the car out from the parking lot into the road. She felt like she already knew where she was going as the details on the map seemed to have been embedded into her mind.
The four occupants of a Range Rover Sports SUV parked some yards from her car watched keenly as she got into her vehicle and drove off. They started their vehicle and were about to follow but suddenly from nowhere, an unseen force rammed into the side of the SUV lifting it off the ground and slamming it into a truck parked nearby. All four occupants were knocked unconscious by the impact and would remain there until the police would arrive and discover they were in possession of a very large arsenal of assault rifles and handguns.
Onoskelis stood in the shadows watching as the men were rounded up by the police and taken away. Killing them might draw unnecessary attention which she didn't need right now but with what had happened, the men would be out of the picture long enough for the girl to do what she had to do and that was all that mattered. Afterwards, she would crush anybody that stands in their path.
Like someone in a trance, Martha drove for several hours as she made her way out of London and headed towards a village at the coastal area of the country. A small voice kept whispering in her head as she drove as if giving her directions and encouragement for the task ahead.
It was now very dark when she arrived at the small sleepy village of Pont-Pierre. The whispering in her head was becoming more and more intense urging her onwards as she drove through the small narrow road towards the far end of the village which was gradually taking the shape of a forest.
She pulled up the car beside the road sliding the gear stick into park and switched off the engine. She grabbed the book and the contents of the envelope and got out of the car. She locking the doors and turned towards the direction of the old church.
The old church was now barely visible as it was almost swallowed by trees and large bushes which had almost obscured it from view. Martha made her way through the bushes and trees until she could see the church. The church itself was overrun by grass and trees now grew inside it. It looked like nobody had come around it for a very long time. Martha stared towards the direction of the cemetery at the east end of what used to be the old church compound and started making her way through the bushes towards the cemetery.
There didn't seem to be any sign of fear on her face nor did she really seem conscious of what she was doing. The urge that had taken control of her seemed to be the driving force guiding her through the bushes past the few visible and crumbling tombstones to a particular spot in the cemetery.
The ground was flat with not a single grass growing at that particular spot and there was no sign of a grave ever being there. The book glowed in her hand and she opened it to the page that talked about certain rituals to be performed.
She started drawing signs on the wet ground. She kept looking at the book for guidance as she drew the signs required for the ritual she was being guided to perform with a small stick she had picked from the ground.
She placed the book in the middle of a pentagram she had drawn and sat with her legs akimbo inside it. The words started coming from her mouth as her eyes fixed on the pages which turned by their own vocation as she read through each page.
A Vauxhall sedan had also arrived at the village that night and the lone driver, a popular American movie actress dressed in tight black jeans and black shirt drove the car through the small narrow streets towards the part of the village she had visited once in a while over the years usually in company of the other council members of the Blood Brotherhood. As she drew closer, her eyes picked up the small Fiat parked beside the road and a sense of dread overtook her. She wondered who could be at that cemetery that late at night and what the person might be up to as she parked her car some meters from the Fiat and got out quietly.
She pulled out her mobile phone but there was no service bar visible on the LCD screen. Cursing under her breath, she put the phone back into her pocket. She wished she had come with her satellite phone which would have enabled her to contact Cathy or the Nigerian on the new development.
She bent down and removed the small Smith and Wesson pistol she had in an ankle holster and started making her way quietly towards the direction of the cemetery, hoping that her soft-soled shoe would not make any noise to alert the intruder of her presence. She wished the Nigerian or the German had been the ones who had been sent here in her stead. They were the experts in these kinds of things. Even the bloody Arab who raised the topic and who refused to help her when she supported him could have been sent to check the grave. She cursed her mouth for voicing her support for the man's idea.
It was up to her now to find out what was going on. Despite her appearance and public behaviour, she had a hard and determined willpower, something developed during the years of living in a trailer park and waiting tables which her current public demure had camouflaged. Karl Finch understood the ruthlessness in her and had persuaded Devore to bring her into the brotherhood and for that she owed him, but her desire for self-preservation had made her join the bandwagon against her benefactor, and that same desire motivated her to find out what was happening at the cemetery, and stop it before it was too late.
If the Chinese was right, which she now suspected he was and Karl Finch somehow managed to escape from Hell, then she'll definitely not expect any mercy from him and that was one reason why she had to make sure it didn't happen.
A bright blue light had started to glow on the ground around where Martha had drawn the pentagram. A small wind had started to blow gradually, generating momentum as she chanted the words from the book which came so easily to her as it always did whenever the strange urge overtook her.
The ground started to shake violently as the wind intensified and a blue light started coming from the ground as sand started to fly into the air opening a hole in the ground.
Carol Pike arrived at the scene just as a headless skeleton started to emerge from a hole in the earth. She saw the teenager sitting on the ground chanting and the full realization of what was happening dawned on her.
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