Chapter 14
Howard Kane directed his large Chevy Suburban into the Shady Pines Trailer Park in Herald Falls, New York. Though it was daylight, thick fog smothered everything in its wake. Each trailer appeared haunted, crawling with ghostly curdled shapes that dove and lunged at every turn. He found it fitting that the Sola should live in such a sinister looking community.
He parked his car just outside a smaller unit near the end of the long lane, and saw that a rusted Toyota Camry occupied the space right in front of it. He turned the headlamps off, as well as the ignition, and spoke to the men with him.
“This is her lair, gentlemen,” he said.
“Are you sure she isn’t here?” the man beside him, Eli, asked.
Eli had sounded worried, frightened by the prospect of a possible run-in with the Sola. Fear among his followers did not inspire much confidence in Howard. Fear made them potential liabilities. He would be sure to keep a close eye on Eli in the coming days.
“Yes,” Howard replied and leveled his gaze at Eli. “John Pawley confirmed that she is at school. He called about ten minutes ago. You have nothing to worry about.”
Eli raised a brow at him, “I’m not worried,” he said, but his eyes told another story. “I just want things to go smoothly, that’s all.”
Howard could tell that the man had lied to him, that Eli was feigning calm he did not feel.
“Good, Eli,” Howard said plainly. “We fight with righteousness on our side; there is nothing to fear when God is on your side. Fear when fighting alongside the Lord would mean your faith has wavered. Has your faith wavered, Eli?”
“No, no of course not,” Eli replied quickly.
“Good. That’s good, because I need you in top form in the hours forthcoming.”
Howard did not say more on the topic. Rather, he climbed out of his SUV and strode to Arianna Rose’s front door. He turned the doorknob and, to his surprise, the door had not been locked. Given the seediness of the trailer park, most others would have found more security precautions necessary. But no other was the Sola, only Arianna Rose.
He opened the door slowly and peeked inside. The faint light of a side table lamp illuminated the area before them, a crowded area with a couch and coffee table. No one appeared to be in the living-room area. He turned to his men who’d followed and nodded before proceeding to enter the trailer.
Once inside, he was immediately greeted with the sour smell of liquor and nicotine. Both familiar scents from his youth, the stench reminded him of his childhood home he’d shared with his mother, before he’d killed her. He glanced around and saw that an empty bottle of Scotch sat atop the far edge of the coffee table, along with fast-food wrappers. His eyes quickly scanned the kitchen area and hallway. He did not see anyone and was about to address him men when the sound of panting and moaning filled the trailer.
Howard felt a small jolt pass through him and his knees buckled involuntarily. The moaning, the stink of alcohol, cigarettes and cheap cologne transported him back in time. For an instant, he was eight years old, his father dead and he alone with his mother. A different man had shared his mother’s bed each night of the week, and they had drunk and smoked a bevy of vile substances before retiring to her bedroom, and that had been when the panting would begin.
The overwhelming urge to march down the narrow hallway before him and kill the two fornicators snapped Howard back to the present. He balled his fists at his side so tightly his fingernails bit into his palms. He glanced at the faces of the men with him. Their heads had turned toward the sound. Fortunately, none of them had noticed his moment of weakness. His movement toward the moaning alerted them to follow him.
The first door on the right was closed, the sounds of sexual intercourse on the other side of it loud. Howard opened the door and boldly stepped inside, expecting some sort of reaction. But he did not get one. The moaning did not stop. The carnal display before him was grotesque. A pale man with dark body hair thrust his pelvis from behind a blonde woman like a barnyard animal, one hand gripping her breast while the other bounced and flopped as he did so. Both the man and the woman had been so consumed by passion that they hadn’t noticed that four men had entered the room.
He stood, stunned, momentarily as they brazenly continued with their depraved act. Another shock bolted through him as it had moments ago and weakened his knees once more. A vision of his mother being ravaged by a greasy-looking man with long hair flashed through his mind’s eye. The man had knelt behind his mother, thrusting, and clutching her breast, just as the one before him did now. His insides began to quiver and sweat beaded his forehead as anger mounted inside of him.
Silently, he unsheathed his blade from his waistband and crept up behind the man. He swung it in a wide arc and slashed at the side of the man’s throat. Blood spurted out immediately. He’d hit the man’s jugular vein. The man cried out and held his neck then flopped to his side, disengaged from the woman’s body. A bright-red pool expanded around him and the shrill scream of the woman tore through the room. The woman spun and faced them.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” she cried again and again, and the irony of her pleas did little to calm Howard.
“Shh! Shh!” he shushed her. “Stop screaming. Please, stop screaming.”
His voice had obviously calmed her as he’d hoped it would as her wailing ceased. She reached for the covering on her bed and attempted to cover herself, suddenly modest after a room full of men had seen her naked and submitting to immoral behavior.
“Please just take whatever you want. I’ll do anything you want, Just please don’t kill me,” she said in a trembling voice.
With her hair in a state of disarray, her blue makeup smudged around her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, and her face the epitome of terror, Howard almost felt bad for her. But pity was an emotion he reserved only for those deserving of his graces, for the just. And the woman before him was anything but just.
“You have only one thing I want,” Howard said calmly. “And you are going to help me get her.”
The woman looked at him confusedly before a nod to his men ordered them to descend on her. One held her arms while another grabbed her feet. Eli approached with a syringe.
“Please!” the woman begged. “Please don’t kill me!”
Neither Howard nor any of his men flinched at her entreats. Eli jabbed the needle into the woman’s buttock. She blurted out a few incoherent sentences; her voice slurred by the powerful sedative they’d administered then fell to the bed.
“Put her in the truck,” Howard ordered his men.
Three of the four men obeyed, but one paused. Eli hesitated and turned to Howard.
“This is the woman who bore the Sola? This is Arianna Rose’s mother?”
“Yes, Eli. I told you we were coming here for her,” Howard said, impatience creeping into his tone.
“How does she help us kill the Sola, though? The Sola is so powerful, so evil. What makes you think her mother will give us any leverage?”
Anger edged its way into Howard’s already changeable mood. Eli was questioning him. He wondered who exactly Eli thought he was. Eli had not heard the voice of God. Only Howard had.
“I have a plan, Eli,” Howard hissed. “God’s plan. Do you question God’s plan? It sounds to me like you are.”
“No, no, Brother Howard. I would never,” Eli fumbled but was interrupted by the sound of Howard’s booming voice.
“God does not speak through you, Eli. He speaks through me! How dare you question my plan, God’s plan? Were it not for your father, I’d strike you down here and now!”
Eli did not respond or bristle at Howard’s words. He knew better.
“Now, get here out of here so that we can move things along. Make no mistake about it, we will not fail. Evil will not rule this world. Arianna Rose will burn at the stake as God intends.”
Eli would not
meet Howard’s weighty gaze. Instead, he kept his head bowed, eyes lowered and assisted the other two men as they covered Arianna’s mother in a sheet from the bed. Once she’d been covered, they hauled her to the truck parked behind Howard’s.
Howard stayed behind after the others had left, breathing the air Arianna breathed, feeling her presence all around him. He knew he would triumph, that her remaining days were numbered. His assurance came in the form of a very special, very sacred article he had in his possession. Iron shackles used in the various witch trials during the 1600s had been passed down to him through his ancestors. Blessed by a Puritan priest, the manacles had been designed to restrain the most powerful witch; they’d been designed to restrain the Sola.
A thrill of excitement raced down Howard’s spine, the Sola’s death so close at hand. In the cuffs his kin had created, Arianna would be unable to move her hands and enact her powers; she would be powerless to conjure evil. He smiled at the thought of her being rendered powerless then took a final look around her sad little trailer. In less than a day, the world would be absolved of her vile existence. Arianna Rose would be denied her chance to destroy humanity.