Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 12



Three Months Later…

Special Agent Ravenwood tried to catch her breath. She was trembling with fear as she dropped to her knees cowering in a corner of a cold, dark, unfamiliar place, cavernous in size and empty save for the high walls of a confusing labyrinth through which she’d been running… running for her life.

Death was coming. She could feel it, smell it. It was getting closer. It knew where she was hiding.

Suddenly it appeared before her, huge in stature, towering fifteen, twenty feet into the darkness. Her body went limp. She slumped to the cold floor, gazing upward at the awesome figure. But it wasn’t the horrible beast she had expected. It was fearsome and frightening yet it had the appearance of an angel, not the loathsome demon she had imagined. But this dark angel cast no light. It was draped in shadowy folds, its huge wings ashen and aged yet she could see they possessed a terrible strength.

Ravenwood suddenly felt faint. She knew her time had come. Why now? Why like this?

The angelic beast raised its great wings, stirring the air into a rushing torrent of wind, twisting, howling, winding its way through the unholy labyrinth. Ravenwood’s long black hair whipped around wildly, stinging her face and momentarily blinding her. She struggled to stand but the force of the wind pushed her backward along the floor and slammed her against the wall.

Panicked and confused, shielding her watering eyes from the onslaught of the torrent, she glanced up. A strange symbol was forming upon the chest of the creature. As the symbol continued to take shape, the wind subsided and the creature itself dissipated like a vapor, until it was gone. Only the symbol remained, suspended high in the air.

She rose cautiously to her feet, her eyes fixed on the symbol. The strange shape glowed red, like neon, burning itself into her subconscious.

As she stood there, mesmerized by the sight, the symbol dropped from the heights and crashed to the floor. It shattered into a thousand glowing shards. The shards morphed into tiny red creatures like little serpents of molten lava. She screamed and jumped back and the hideous things slithered away, disappearing into the cracks in the walls.

Ravenwood awoke, terrified, and sat bolt upright in bed. Her heart was pounding. The sheets were soaked with sweat. Finally, convinced it was only a dream, she eased out a slow, cautious breath. The tension in her shoulders relaxed. She reached over to the nightstand, turned on the lamp and leaned back against the black satin pillow. She stared blankly at the wall across the room for several moments.

A dark angel? She shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. She had a knack for deciphering her own dreams but this one had her completely baffled. Eventually she gave up and drifted back into sleep.

A moment later her eyes snapped open. The symbol! She jumped out of bed, threw on her robe, stumbled across the room and grabbed her briefcase.

She took out the drawings of the symbols that had been found branded onto the chests of the dead preachers. The symbol she saw in her dream was etched into her memory. It didn’t match any of the symbols on the paper but it was similar enough that she knew there was a connection. Dark angels…fallen angels… Something, some piece of forgotten information, was inching its way forward through her own labyrinth of gray matter. Then it hit her. Oh, my god. Of course. The Necronomicon!