War Demons: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (The Prodigal Son Book 1) Read online

  His hands closed on something. A barely remembered trinket he’d picked up in the last village. The old shaman with the book had given it to him. It had a sharp pointy end. He said a quiet prayer under his breath and stabbed it hard into the thing’s neck. The creature howled and dropped him. His weight shifted hard onto his bad leg just as it backhanded him across the face. Blackness and pain overcame him.

  Chapter Eight

  Michael awoke in his chair in a cold sweat. The sunlight streamed in through his windows, burning his tired eyes. He blinked a few times and checked the clock. One hour of sleep. Fantastic.

  He tried to force his mind off the cave but he couldn’t. He didn’t remember anything after passing out. When he’d woken up back in Kandahar, they told him he’d suffered a grade three concussion combined with traumatic blood loss and shock. A few fractured bones, lacerations, and some internal bleeding rounded out his injury list.

  At least he hadn’t joined O’Bryan in the morgue.

  They hadn’t believed his story, of course. Why would they? The only corpse they’d found in the cave had been O’Bryan’s. At least they’d found the phurba he’d stabbed the demon with. Surprisingly, they even gave it back.

  He tried to wrest his mind back to the present, away from the nightmares and the pain. He took a long pull from the bottle of vodka and then left it on the table. His hands shook as he raised the pistol to his mouth. He said a silent prayer as he closed his eyes. Father, forgive me my weakness. He prepared to pull the trigger.

  A loud banging on the front door interrupted him.

  “Just a minute!” he called out. He carried his guns into the bedroom and lay them on his bed. Shutting the bedroom door, he returned to the front of the house. The woman at the door wore a Clarke County Sheriff’s uniform. Michael nearly panicked. Had someone seen him with a gun downtown last night? His years as a juvenile delinquent came to his rescue.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked with a calmness he didn’t feel.

  “You know a girl by the name of Vickie Ward?” the officer asked. That caught him off guard.

  “Should I?”

  “An acquaintance of yours, a Miss...” she shuffled through her notepad, “Abigail Covington said that you were with a group at the Volstead last night.”

  Understanding dawned on Michael.

  “Right, that Vickie. Didn’t know her last name. Yeah, we have a class together.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Is she OK?”

  The deputy paused for a moment, considering.

  “She placed a call to 911 at twenty-three oh eight last night. Nobody’s heard anything from her since. You don’t know anything about her whereabouts, do you?”

  “No. I left The Volstead at about nine. Walked around downtown for a bit – maybe half an hour – and then came home and crashed. You just woke me up, to be honest.”

  “Uh huh. We’re just checking with everyone. You’ll let us know if you hear anything.” It wasn’t a question.

  Michael nodded agreement. He gave her his contact info, and they parted politely.

  He returned to his bedroom and studied the weapons. O’Bryan showed up and Vickie disappeared on the same night. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Thoughts of suicide could wait. That bullet might still have a date with his brain – but not today. If O’Bryan had anything to do with Vickie, he had to help her. The police sure as hell couldn’t.

  He had absolutely no idea how to do that.

  The phone rang a heartbeat later. He remembered he’d planned to meet Peter at the gym this morning. He rushed to answer it.

  “Sorry I’m running late, Peter.”

  Harsh laughter greeted him over the line. He clearly recognized the voice.

  “What did you do to her, O’Bryan?”

  His dead friend laughed louder. The line clicked and went silent.

  “Dammit!” Michael cursed, slamming the phone back into the cradle. A moment later it rang again. He snatched it up.

  “Listen, you sick creep!” he shouted into the phone.

  Peter’s ever calm voice cut him off.

  “If you don’t want to work out today just say so.”

  Michael stopped with his mouth open, for a moment speechless.

  “Sorry, man. Thought you were someone else.”

  “This have anything to do with Vickie?”

  “You heard about that, too?”

  “A deputy came by about an hour ago. Said they’d be asking all of us questions.” He paused for a moment. “We still on for that workout or what?”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” They said their pleasantries and hung up.

  Michael stowed his rifle in the gun safe. Then he cobbled together a quick breakfast, threw on his gym clothes, and rushed out the door.

  * * *

  Michael noticed the girl as soon as he stepped out of the locker room. Who wouldn’t? Long, tan, shapely legs protruded from tiny, tight shorts. Her pink sports bra showed off her rock-hard abs. She beamed a radiant smile at Peter, laughing at every second word as she twirled a strand of hair that had escaped her pony tail.

  Peter caught sight of Michael and politely excused himself from the conversation. They headed out the door for their daily run around campus. Since both men lived off campus, the fitness center served as a convenient meeting place. It also let them finish with the free weights.

  “So what was wrong with her?” Michael asked as they jogged away.

  “Hmm? Rebecca? I’m the fourth guy she’s hit on in four days,” Peter answered. “She went home with all three of the others.”

  Michael laughed. Genuine laughter felt good. The young man carried an easy air about him.

  They’d jointly agreed on five miles for the day. Peter picked the route. He started them with the hard parts, pushing up the hills of East Campus Drive. Michael kept his complaints to himself. The hills of Athens didn’t compare to the brutal Spin Ghar mountains he’d run through in Afghanistan. But his hip and knee pain haunted every step along the slopes of Milledge Avenue.

  Just as Michael prepared to admit his weakness, his friend slowed the pace. Not much, but it made all the difference. Somehow Peter knew he needed it. He always seemed to know.

  Michael always enjoyed running across campus, but he enjoyed the stretches down Milledge Avenue and Lumpkin Street most of all. He loved the old Greek revival and Victorian era mansions.

  As they passed the Sigma Chi house, however, Peter frowned. Michael followed his gaze and immediately saw the issue. Half a dozen students worked in the yard, far overdressed for the hard labor in the southern heat. That felt normal, though. One of the oldest fraternities on campus, Sigma Chi attracted the kind of rich, old money students who overdressed for everything.

  Boarding up the windows didn’t feel normal at all.

  “Doesn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

  “We are talking about frat boys, Peter.” Michael couldn’t keep the snark out of his voice, but he didn’t feel it.

  “Even for them that’s a bit odd.”

  Michael grunted an assent.

  “Maybe they’re just getting ready for a crazy Halloween party.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Peter didn’t sound convinced. They put it out of their minds as they passed the house and finished their run.

  Back at the fitness center, they took a few moments to catch their breath and then made their way to the weight room. After asking Michael a few questions about his hip and knee, Peter suggested a handful of exercises designed to strengthen them.

  “Where did you learn all this stuff, man?”

  Peter turned serious.

  “When I was fourteen, my sister Elizabeth and I were in a serious car accident,” he began. “I woke up three weeks later. I found myself with two crushed legs, a broken arm, a torn rotator cuff, three broken ribs, and a fractured skull.”

  “Whoah.”

  “I missed a year of school. Spent it all in physical therapy. And
along the way, I picked up a lot. That’s why I do all this,” Peter gestured at the gym around them. “If I don’t keep it up, everything hurts.”

  “Sounds like your guardian angel took the day off,” Michael joked.

  “No,” Peter told him. “I met her afterward.”

  Michael laughed. Peter didn’t join him.

  “Never mind,” his young friend shrugged it off. They finished their workout in awkward silence. Afterward, they hit the shower.

  Once more, Rebecca caught Michael’s eye as he exited the locker room. This time he sauntered over and struck up a conversation. He left with her phone number and plans for that evening.

  The date turned out to be a horrible mistake. He tried to pretend he cared about her sociology program. He really tried. He tried harder to care about her vapid personal life. He utterly failed.

  By some miracle she still came home with him. The sinful ways that had turned Peter off seemed virtuous to Michael in his desperate loneliness.

  His ghosts refused to leave him even one evening of peace. In the dim light of his bedroom, Rebecca’s face disappeared. Katie’s face replaced it, just as it had on every other date since that fateful September morning. He tried turning off the lights. It didn’t work. It never worked.

  He’d tossed Rebecca out the front door half naked. He tossed her purse, keys, and the rest of her clothes into the darkness after her. She cursed him as she drove away. He cursed himself after she left. She’d deserved better than that.

  Five years, he told himself. Five years later and you still can’t have a normal dating life.

  Half a bottle of Jack Daniels later, he once more found himself staring down the barrel of his forty-five. He took another swig off the bottle, trying to summon his courage. A stream of faces paraded through his mind’s eye: Rebecca, Katie, O’Bryan, Vickie, Abigail.

  A primal scream ripped out from deep inside his gut. He stood and threw the bottle, still half full, as hard as he could. It shattered against his kitchen wall, sending glass and whiskey everywhere.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he shouted at the empty house.

  “Help them.”

  The unexpected answer snapped him to attention. He retrained his pistol away from himself, adopting a proper if somewhat drunken shooting stance as he sought cover.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  Silence greeted him. He shook his head, doubting his sanity. But he’d heard it, clear as day. He fought through the haze of alcohol to bring back the memory of the voice. Soft. Quiet. Feminine. And clear as day.

  “Katie.” The instant he said it out loud he knew its truth in his gut. He returned to his chair and sobbed.

  By the time the light of dawn peeked into his kitchen, sobriety had returned. The pistol lay on the table, untouched. His tears and anger had hardened into fatigued resolve.

  “I will,” he answered.

  Chapter nine

  Michael found great comfort and peace at St Joseph Catholic Church, although he spent little time interacting with his fellow parishioners. They treated him well enough – especially the dry witted Irish priest. But Michael didn’t open to strangers well.

  Besides, he hadn’t joined the church for a social club. He needed prayer, guidance, and most of all repentance. He hadn’t thought much about faith before Katie died. Afterward, he thought about it all the time. He struggled to find faith in a world without her. After the cave, though, faith came all too easily.

  He made it to the early mass that Sunday, as he often did. Even so, he arrived well before time. It’s easy to get out of bed in the morning when your sleep is plagued with nightmares. He made his way to his usual spot and knelt. Pain shot through his hip and knee. Even so, he tried to pray.

  The rituals and order of mass itself always soothed him. He stayed after, continuing his prayers. A bare handful of parishioners, most older than his grandparents, kept him company. He wondered how they managed to stay so devout. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they struggled to find sanity here, just as he did.

  Eventually he gingerly unfolded himself and rose. He stopped to light a candle for Katie, as he always did. A second stop at the bulletin board proved pointless.

  He felt strange eyes on him as he turned to leave. It didn’t take long to find their source. Tall and wiry, old but not frail, his observer’s full head of unkempt white hair stood out in the dim light. His perfectly tailored suit screamed money. Michael recognized him instantly. Like him, the man had stayed in the sanctuary to pray after mass. He wore an American flag pin on his lapel.

  “My brother,” the old man told him, “wore that same face when he came home from the Pacific.”

  “Korea?” Michael guessed, trying to approximate the man’s age. He watched the white mop of hair shake gently.

  “Korea was my war. Bobby stormed the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. He brought his demons home with him, too. Where are your demons from? Afghanistan?”

  Michael nodded.

  “What unit?”

  “First tour was with the 10th Mountain Division. Second was with 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces. You?”

  “2nd Battalion, 7th Marines.” He paused for a moment. “I know that look, son. You think nobody’s seen what you’ve seen. Think your story is too crazy. Nobody’d ever believe you. You’re wrong. I guarantee you, whatever you’ve seen, my friends and I, we’ve seen worse.”

  Somehow Michael doubted it.

  “This has helped me through many a trial.” The old man pressed an ornate rosary into his hand. “Perhaps it will help you.

  “Hail Mary, full of Grace. The Lord is with thee.” Something in the way the Texan said the word made Michael think he spoke about him, not the holy mother. They recited the rest of the prayer together awkwardly.

  “It is through suffering that the soul is purified. Remember that, Michael.” He clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “You think you’re the only one who’s seen what you’ve seen. The only one who’s been there. But you’re not. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be around.”

  Michael sincerely doubted the man would to listen to what he had to say. His was not a typical soldier’s tale. Still, the gesture touched him.

  “Thank you, sir.” He strode out of the church.

  Halfway home he realized that he’d forgotten to ask the old man his name.

  His classes did not much improve over the next few weeks. Intro to Folklore remained awkward. Abby kept things civil. She must have said something to Faith as well, because the dirty glares stopped. Instead, the blue-haired girl simply ignored him.

  The course material bored him to tears, not just in that class but in all of them. Over and over again, he asked himself why he was here. The answers sounded feebler every time, even in his own head. His classmates frustrated him. The material wasn’t hard. Didn’t these kids do the reading? The lectures seemed superfluous. He skipped class more often as the semester wore on.

  Most of his professors didn’t even notice he’d been gone. Abby, on the other hand, gave him no end of grief. He explained that it wasn’t her; it was all of his classes. That just made it worse. Now she tried to rescue him from academic disaster. He wondered if she cared more about his grades or getting him on a date.

  She even got her father to call him up. When he explained the situation, James just laughed.

  “Just keep up with the tests and the homework,” Covington told him. “If you manage that, your grades will be fine.”

  At least somebody understood.

  His research didn’t fare any better. He spent days upon days running searches in periodicals with names like Journal of Folklore Research, Marvels and Tales, and Mythological Studies Journal. They all took him nowhere. Oh, he’d found quite a few articles on the groundings of folk stories, fairy tales, and fantastical creatures on real events and sightings. Some of them kept his rapt attention for hours. None carried the information he sought.

  He tried to catch up on some of the shows th
at his classmates enjoyed. Maybe he could actually follow their conversations. Maybe he wouldn’t find their chatter quite so inane. To his surprise, he quite enjoyed some of them.

  The shows kept him company, but occasionally they irritated him more than his classes. One evening he found himself watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon. Every episode, the characters magically found the right answers in their stash of super special secret library books. He threw his remote at the television after the third episode. He eventually collected his calm, but he still wished he had their books.

  In his reality, the answers didn’t magically appear on the bookshelf by the end of the second act. Most of the articles and books that he found had no information at all that was actually helpful to him. The ones that did help seemed to just quote each other and repeat the same points.

  That, of course, was when he could actually find the books and articles in question. Even with over four million volumes available to search through, more than half of what he wanted wasn’t available – in print or digitally. He had to request many via inter-library loans and then wait weeks for them to arrive. When they did, they too proved useless.

  More than one never arrived at all. The ones that seemed most promising only had one or two copies in existence. Of course someone had them checked out already. Perpetually. Michael even tried to buy one or two of them, but nobody had them in stock.

  He kept at it as best he could, but it took him nowhere. One avenue after another ended in a dead end. Eventually, he ran out of new threads to tug on. He’d unraveled the whole tapestry and learned nothing substantial.

  He still had the photograph. Otherwise he’d be siding with the Army, questioning his own sanity. But the book he wanted was real – there it was, in full color. He took out the eight by ten print regularly, sometimes staring at it for hours. He’d even had a large print made, twenty-four by thirty-six. He’d gone over every detail of it, but never found anything new.

  He even considered asking Abby for help, but never followed through. He wasn’t ready for that. She’d either look at him like a loony, snap at him for something stupid, or try to get him on a date again. He disliked all three options. He wished O’Bryan were here. He’d been the brainy one – the one who joined up to pay for college, not to avoid it.