Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 71



Moorehouse Manor…

Ravenwood found the light switch beside the door and flipped it on. The only two working bulbs on a large chandelier in the foyer offered a muted light that cast an eerie glow throughout the spacious living room.

Kane called out. “Cowl! Come on out! It’s over!”

They held their weapons at the ready and waited for a response.

Kane called out again. No response.

They inched forward, scanning every direction. They moved from the living room to the adjoining dining room. The whole place seemed deserted.

They entered the library, took a quick look around and made their way back to the living room. Kane motioned for Ravenwood to take the hall. As she was moving down the long hall, opening doors, checking the rooms, Kane took the stairs.

Ravenwood joined him a few minutes later. “Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing here, either. Where the hell is that room where we found the urn and all that demonic crap? That’s where he’s got to be, right? That’s where he does his ritual shit and projects the Doppelganger, right? But where the hell is it?”

Ravenwood shook her head. “It has to be on the ground floor but I didn’t see anything like it when I checked the rooms off the hall.”

Then they looked at each other: The tunnel.

***

At the center of the Lucifer Seal, surrounded by the dancing light of all nine candles, Rye Cowl sat transfixed, sweating, his heart pounding. His sweet revenge was only moments away. The long journey was about to end. His ‘Someday’ had arrived.

Deep within the shadows of Cowl’s poor distorted soul, the essence of the Beast was waiting patiently for its own moment. The former Rodney Duckworth didn’t realize that the glory of his ‘Someday’ would be short-lived, a mere flicker of light to be swallowed immediately by the gaping mouth of eternal darkness. The musician had sold his soul to the Devil and the Beast was about to take total possession. Whatever Rodney Duckworth had been, whatever Rye Cowl had been, neither would ever be again.

***

In the black depths of the Underworld, the demons at the Gate were also waiting. In frenzied fits of madness, they snapped and tore at each other like caged animals, starving for food, restless and reveling in visions of carnage. Their release was imminent. They could smell it.