House of Darkness Read online

  House of Darkness

  The Devil Rose up from Georgia

  Book One

  K.R. Alexander

  Copyright © 2019 by K.R. Alexander.

  All rights reserved.

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  WANTED

  Seeking hunters of the infernal.

  Must be experienced with undead and hauntings.

  Good communication skills and reflexes vital.

  Contact Ripley: (762) 555-6766

  — From Spellmen’s Monthly Newsletter

  Midway City

  Visit Midway City!

  Only an hour from Atlanta, Midway City has all that the discerning or adventurous traveler could desire in one perfect getaway! In close proximity to both Lake Lanier and Chattahoochee National Forest, Midway City rests in a picturesque setting not only of natural beauty but of great historic significance. Just beyond our town stretches the famed site of the Battle of Midway Ridge, boasting the grim distinction of having played host to one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.

  Within this charming town, often called Savannah of the North, you will find everything from fine dining to fascinating museums, woodland hiking and descriptive historical walks around stunning 19th-century architecture of the Old Town Center. Explore this iconic landmark, steeped in history, and get to know the real Georgia firsthand. A true time capsule and a place like no other!

  — From visitmidwaycity.com

  Beware the Gimmicks

  I’m a Civil War buff and my wife loves quaint old towns like Midway City. We finally made the drive for a weekend stay. Full of history and a stone’s throw from the Battle of Midway Ridge landmark. No more good about MC. Town in disrepair. Lacking industries besides farming and (vanishing) tourism. Attractions aside from the battleground are nothing but gimmicks. Haunted houses? “Legitimate” news reports of Sally May’s or Billy Bob’s bad scare, and how the drop in population is from people being driven out by evil spirits? “Restless dead” blamed for failed crops and a two-headed pig mentioned in this dusty old museum? Yep. They charge $10 admission and give $2 worth of history. The setting and Victorian buildings (the ones that aren’t crumbling) are charming but MC is so depressed even Southern Hospitality fails. The lady who helped us at the museum never made eye contact. Unless you’re a sucker for ghost stories just visit the Civil War battlefield and stop for lunch at the old-school burger joint and move on. Good bacon burger and soft-serve. Savannah of the north it is NOT.

  — Review by TravelinPete19 from tripadvisor.com for The Midway City Heritage Museum

  1

  “Wade?” I offered my hand.

  “That’s me.” The man scrambled to shift sunglasses and phone from right hand to left, wiped his right on his slacks, then shook with me. “Wade Marshall. You’re Ripley? Haven’t we met?”

  “Ripley Ahearne. No. Sit down.” I stepped back to the gazebo bench on library grounds, where I’d been waiting for ten minutes. My bra felt stuck to my ribs by a hot glue gun. Denim cutoffs might as well have been a ski suit.

  “Are you sure? I could swear…” Wade, skinny and a decade younger than I’d imagined from the phone, maybe even my age, frowned as he sat. He was so pale he must have been locked indoors all summer—or just moved here from Seattle.

  “No,” I repeated. “So you live in the area?”

  Cicadas buzzed in the vacant lot behind the library. So many vacant lots. No one likely to develop more in Midway City—a dying town in more ways than one. All recent human deaths had gone unremarked beyond those terms which any mundane could accept.

  Wade nodded. “I’m outside of Atlanta now. Not that far.”

  I didn’t miss the “now,” skipping asking where he’d come from. He didn’t sound like Georgia, and he looked like a swan, long and elegant, pale as sea foam. Still, didn’t matter.

  “What experience do you have with incorporeal beings?” Even the bottoms of my feet were coated in sweat, sticking to foam flip-flops.

  “I know!” His eyes had been squinted against sunlight beyond the gazebo. Now they opened wide as he slapped his palm to his knee. “Atlanta, remember? Dating?”

  “You’re confusing me with someone else.”

  “Come on, fire-engine red in your hair? I couldn’t forget that. It was the glasses that threw me off.” He pointed vaguely at my face like he wanted me to look at my own glasses. “You must have had in contacts that night. Remember, Friday, speed-dating at The Silk Door? I sat down and you were like, ‘Is that for me?’ Because I had a carnation. Which was actually—well, yeah… I said it was and gave it to you. We talked about gifts on a first date, versus when gifts are most appropriate. Right? I tried to find you once we could mingle but you were gone. Was everything okay? Did you meet someone? I thought of you all night. What are the odds? So you’re a witch? Wild. You do remember?”

  He sat forward while he talked, fixing me with icy blue eyes in a burning world, looking ready to reach out and touch me.

  Did I remember that night? After the musical chairs of meeting a string of guys, then receiving the call? The worst phone call of my life. Fleeing The Silk Door. The worst night of my life. These past ten days … worst days of my life. Did I remember?

  I cleared my throat. “Do you want this job or not?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Didn’t mean to go off-topic.” His grin was barely sheepish behind the fascination.

  As to remembering him personally? Those long lines, pale eyes, nervous laugh, yellow carnation. One of those guys so “pretty” you knew he’d be a knockout in drag—although this one was way too tall. Not my type. Tall and awkward as I was, I craved more substance in a guy. Wade was too much a match to be my counterpoint. Thank the spirits that high school was well behind me and substance didn’t seem too much to ask anymore. Only there was no more asking.

  Ten days ago I’d been dating, on the market. Loving it, even. Not after everything had changed in a night. Now the only way I was even getting through each day was force of purpose and gradual numbness that had taken over to keep me going.

  “What can you do?” I asked, resisting the urge to wipe sweat from my brow. “Have you cleared houses before?”

  “I can take you to lunch.” Gaze snapping to mine after having nearly reached my bare knees. “What else…? I can fix a car.” Holding up his pristine hands. “Might not look like it. I make a mean pan-fried catfish with jalapeño cornbread. I’m trying to teach myself to paint. On a tablet, anyway. I’d love to paint you in a red convertible, match the hair… But how about starting with lunch? Do you know a good place in town? We’ve got to get out of this smother.”

  Standing up, I relented to wiping my brow with the back of my hand before sweat could sting my eyes.

  “Thanks for your time.” I started away.

  “Whoa—wait!” Wade sprang to his feet. “I didn’t mean—”

  I turned to face him while we remained in shade of the gazebo. “Do you have any idea why you’re here? Because I thought I invited you to meet about a job.”

  “Here…? Sure. I mean, no, I’m totally serious about that. I’d love this job. I’ve been meeting more people in the community here than in my whole life in Cincinnati. A chance to do good, help with clearing places, putting spirits to rest, it’d be perfect. That’s what you’re doing, right?”

  Was he worth bothering about? I had a job to do. One that didn’t include adding Wade’s name to a list of most inappropriate interview answers ever.

  “Sorry.” Apparently confused as I simply looked at him, Wade rubbed the back of his neck. His short, scruffy hair was dirty blonde, the color of th
e dust path leading back to the parking lot. “Why don’t we step inside? AC?” With a returned smile. “Then … whatever you want to know. I’ll focus. I swear.”

  Never trust a man who offers unnecessary promises.

  “We can’t go inside.” I wiped my upper lip with my wrist before moisture started beading. The humidity made breathing feel like inhaling sweat.

  “Why’s that?” He smiled, all interest.

  “Because every building in Midway City is haunted. News gets around.”

  Wade started to speak, stopped, and that irritatingly pretty smile oozed away.

  “Not every,” I continued. “My parents’ house is clear. And a handful of others. And haunted doesn’t automatically mean malevolent.”

  “I’d be happy to meet your parents—” Catching himself even as he started, switching to a grave manner. “Sorry, well, outside is—”

  “They’re dead. It’s my house now. And I don’t do interviews at home.”

  “Oh, I’m—”

  “Anyway, this one is over. When I asked, ‘What can you do?’ I wasn’t interested in your pan-fried catfish. I wanted to know about your expertise with incorporeal beings and undead. Unless you think you can cleanse a house by painting it?”

  “That’s hardly all I’m good at. I assure you, my greatest skills lie in the arcane arts. I’m at your service; your right-hand mage. Good communication skills and reflexes, right?”

  At least he was another caster. If I could handle this mission alone it would already be done.

  But, no… Taking an idiot into an infested house was worse than useless: a liability.

  As I headed for my car, switching regular glasses for sunglasses, Wade babbled about being a perfect fit; wouldn’t I give him a chance to prove himself?

  Would I?

  The trouble was, I’d expected a flood of applicants from my ad. Spellman’s Monthly went out to thousands of casters. Instead, I’d received three. Three people who wanted to join me. I hadn’t met the other two yet.

  Letting my temper get the best of me just because one young man didn’t take the job seriously might not be a good way to build an army for the task at hand. Could I let him decide for me?

  I stopped, bent to shake gravel from my sticky flip-flop, taking a moment to make sure the apologizing mage was absorbed in staring at my ass, then whipped a rock the size of my thumb at his face as I stood.

  He had less than a second.

  Wade didn’t dodge, flinch, or even move. The stone exploded halfway between my fingers and his nose. Fragments popped apart with a sharp crack. They settled in still air, fanning over parched earth.

  At last, he was silent. Only cicadas buzzed.

  We looked into one another’s eyes. Somehow, his didn’t seem so sweetly pretty anymore.

  2

  Same place, now early evening. The library was closed. The grounds were supposed to be as well. Suppertime, not that I’d had an appetite lately. Still a couple hours of summer sunlight left.

  I ran the AC in the Volvo until the appointed time, then climbed from tolerable cool to the furnaces of hell. The day had peaked at 102ºF in the shade, while the humidity also remained choking.

  Ten minutes, fifteen. Still waiting by the gazebo.

  I almost tried to call, ask where they were. Forget it. If they couldn’t be bothered to show up on time, or call me, I was done. I’d find someone else. At least we could get started.

  I returned to my car. Cicadas at it again.

  Find someone when? Before or after Wade and I were driven insane by evil spirits, or slain by vampires and turned into their spawn? Two people were not enough to tackle the Midway City infestation. A skilled hunter could cleanse a moderately disturbed house with just one partner. Not here. There was nothing moderate about Midway City when it came to hidden evil. My parents had proved that. Then there was the “skilled” problem.

  I started the engine for air conditioning, glancing at the clock.

  How long would I give them? Half an hour was far too generous.

  I checked for messages, emails, anything. No additional answers to my ad. Days since it was published. Damn.

  I wiped my brow, turned up the fan, and waited.

  Twenty-six minutes late before I heard the engines.

  Two Harley-Davidsons—shattering immobility of an evening complete with rolled up sidewalks and dogs sleeping on porches—roared into the library parking lot, swerved into spaces by the building, and the engines fell silent. Two men, friends according to a phone conversation with a certain Gideon, sprang clear and started shouting at one another before they even had their helmets off.

  These removed, and my door open as I climbed out, the words became plain.

  “—way to drive!”

  “If we’d been heading home—”

  “Wouldn’t make a difference to haul along! Just because you’re missing the gumption—”

  “No difference? Where in Moon’s name do you aim to keep her carcass tonight?”

  “Keep her with me—what’d you think? Hankering after a night at the Four Seasons?”

  “There’s a fire ban—”

  “I’m heading back for her. Soon as we’re finished here. Pick her up, show her a good time. No need to roast a snake to feed a polecat. You steer clear of the little beaut’ if you don’t like her.”

  I waited at the car, watching as they gestured violently at one another, pointing back up the road. The low sun blazed across their sides and gleamed from fenders of their bikes, making it hard to look at them even through my prescription sunglasses. That wasn’t the only reason. While I’d thought Wade would be older, I’d thought these two would be more … magely.

  Their muscles rippled like lions’ below T-shirts and above black motorcycle pants. Both equally tanned, fit as wrestlers, and over six feet tall. Here were men of substance—in a physical sense at least. A bit too much substance, maybe?

  “Are you Ripley?” They’d noticed me while my mind wandered in more than disbelief. “Sorry to run late on you. Loping down from the Smokies. I’m Gideon.” The nearer guy, who’d said no to carcasses and fires, walked over, offering a hand that looked like it could squeeze a cantaloupe to death.

  I climbed from the driver’s seat and shut the door before taking his hand. This time, I didn’t bother removing sunglasses for politeness. I had to squint as it was.

  “That’s me,” I said, “but there’s been a mistake. I’m looking for casters to clear hauntings.”

  Gideon’s fingers engulfed mine but barely touched. Hot skin, hard and callused, then gone.

  “Yes, we—” Gideon started.

  “Your ad had us hopping like crickets on a hot griddle.” The one in favor of collecting the carcass dashed around the motorcycles to us, also holding out a hand. He was chewing something. “Undead in a place like this? Our turf, not theirs, the fuckers. They’re breaking the truce being out here.” He gripped my hand, crushing the knuckles without seeming to notice, then as quickly released to wave. “Look at this.” He punched Gideon’s shoulder so hard Gideon staggered. “Moon-cursed cornfields. You just tell us where to go and we’ll rout those blood-sucking stiffs.” Both spoke with drawls, but this one’s speech was much quicker than Gideon.

  “You’re vampire hunters?” I crossed my arms, looking from one to the other.

  “We’ll do anything we can to help,” Gideon said. “We know all about them.”

  “We brought a bushel of stakes,” the hand-crusher jumped in, then cocked his head. “Is your hair bleeding?” Smell of licorice on his breath.

  “What?”

  He reached for me, apparently ready to run his strong fingers through my shoulder-length, crimson-highlighted hair.

  “Hey!” I threw up a hand to interrupt, electricity crackling silently from my palm.

  He felt the spark and jumped back, eyes widening in alarm but not missing a beat with the conversation. “We’re ready to go now—anytime. I just have to trot up the ro
ad about thirty miles to bag supper. You eat venison?”

  “Shut up, Adam.” Gideon scowled at him. “Humans don’t like roadkill.”

  Adam laughed. He was still chewing. It must be gum. “What difference does it make how she died?”

  Gideon faced me. Was he sniffing? Toward my hair? “A pickup in front of us hit a doe about half an hour back on the highway. She almost smashed us next. We had to stop, but she was too big to throw on the bike and we were already late.”

  “Good eats on that doe,” Adam said. “Ticks, sure, but she was in damn fine shape for the season. If we’re staying tonight I’ll rustle—”

  “She wasn’t bled and dressed.” Gideon rolled his eyes. “Eat her yourself. You, on the other hand”—to me—“how about forks and knives? We’ll get to know each other, and you can explain your hunting strategy. We’re at your disposal whenever you’re ready to start.”

  “Just give me an hour and a half,” Adam hastened to add.

  “Take all the time you want,” Gideon said from the corner of his mouth while his smile fixed on me. He was the darker of the two, hair the color of coffee, brown eyes, clean shaven, strong features that were nonetheless smoothly defined.

  After a moment of cicada-laced hush, I said, “There’s been a misunderstanding. I’m looking for casters to help clear haunted buildings. You…”

  I wasn’t used to having to look up at anyone. Even beanpole Wade had only been a couple inches taller than me. Gideon and Adam were so big and close, intense and handsome—not “pretty”—they were as unexpected as a scream in the night.

  Adam had a red tinge to his dark brown hair. Same with his eyes—brown but variegated like a honeycomb. Two-day stubble and longer hair plastered back from the helmet also set Adam apart, clearly the less tidy of the pair.

  They shouldn’t have been standing close enough for such details as honeycomb eyes. Being so close, they should have at least sent warning signals to my subconscious or stirred my outer voice to tell them to back off. Neither happened.