Welsh Road (The Depravity Chronicles) (36 page)

“You have no
idea,” Jena agreed. “But more about that later. Let’s roll.”

When they
descended the porch stairs, they stumbled across the bodies of Commissioner
Jackson and Bubba Hoover.

“What do we do
with them?” Trevor asked.

“We leave them,”
Anna said. “There’s blood everywhere in that house, including Nina’s body in
the basement. Let the cops figure it out. I’m done with this shit.”

“Amen,” Jena
agreed.

1

It had been
nearly 24 hours since the group had left the farmhouse. The walk back to
Anish’s house had been difficult, knowing that they were going to have to
create stories to explain the deaths. Last year it had been easier. They had
blamed it all on Alan Brickton. This time however, things were a bit more
complicated. They had agreed to leave Anish in his home overnight. It was the
hardest thing Anna had ever done, walking away from his body and leaving him
alone.

But it had been
the right decision. The next morning, Anna and Sam went to “visit” Anish. They
sat with him for a while before calling an ambulance and reporting that he had
died. They blamed it on the serial killer that had strung up his victims in the
trees.

As for Matthew,
there had been no blood, no sign of struggle. Using a cloaking spell, Jena had
helped them move Matthew’s body into his study, laying a book on his chest. When
Anna received the call the next morning that Father Matthew had been found
dead, she didn’t need to produce crocodile tears. She had loved him, and would
miss him terribly.

Isabelle had
been a bit trickier. Her husband, Frank, knew about her Craft. He also didn’t
like it. Anna had wanted to accompany Jena when she drove home alone to tell
her father. But Jena had insisted that he wouldn’t buy her story if someone was
with her. Anna didn’t like the plan, but Jena knew her father better than she
did. So she went along with it. Frank was being told that Isabelle had left her
family in pursuit of perfecting the art of her Craft. In truth, Jena was
convinced that her mother was
not
dead. She had cloaked Isabelle’s body
and wouldn’t tell anyone what she had done with it. Anna worried that the
stress had broken something in Jena’s spirit, but at the moment there wasn’t
much she could do about it. So she left it alone.

For now.

Simon and Trevor
had been holed up in their basement man cave since they arrived home. Anna was
thankful that Simon was staying with them for the time being. There was no way
she was going to send him home to his mother. Come to think of it, she didn’t
want him out of her sight.

* * * * * *

2

Jena sat in her mother’s
dressing room chair, next to the closet. She held the talisman in her hands,
wondering what kind of power she now possessed at her fingertips.

The moment she
had retrieved the talisman from the altar at the farmhouse, the surge of energy
practically consumed Jena, body and soul. Memories surged into her
consciousness, providing answers to each and every one of her blackouts. They
were vivid, as if she were reliving all of them in the span of a few seconds.
Especially potent was her memory of her spar with the Mantis Demon the previous
night. It felt good to no longer feel like she had a black hole in her mind
that could snatch seconds, minutes, and hours of her life with its
gravitational pull. She had finally united with that other part of herself.  

Jena was jerked
back to the present when her father came into the bedroom. “It’s not worth it,
Jena,” he said. “She left us.”

“You don’t
understand, Dad,” Jena said, trying to hide her resentment toward him for
condemning the Craft. She also understood that lying to her father about what
had happened to Isabelle was cruel. Yet, Jena believed that it would be worth
it in the long run. Her mother was
not
dead. She could feel it, deep in
her spirit, so she wasn’t about to tell her father that his wife had died. At
the same time, she couldn’t very well tell him about her plan to bring her back,
either.

“I understand
better than you think, baby,” he said, stroking Jena’s hair. She could tell he
seemed grateful that Jena didn’t know about her ancestry. What he didn’t know
couldn’t hurt him, emotionally or physically. Jena knew it was best to keep him
in the dark for the time being.

The chime of the
doorbell startled both Jena and her father. Together they descended the stairs.
Before she even opened the door, Jena could sense a tremendous wave of energy
streaming through every possible opening around the front door. Under it, above
it, through the keyhole. Her father opened the door, and there standing in front
of them, as good as new, was Nicholas.

“Nicholas!” Jena
exclaimed. “Thank God!” At first she was overjoyed, but it was quickly replaced
by fear and skepticism.

“Jena, I’m so
glad you’re home. I need your help.”

Jena grabbed
Nicholas by the arm and led him up into her bedroom. “Where have you been?”

“I was hoping
you could tell me.” Nicholas shivered, tears welling up in his eyes.

“What do you
remember?” Jena asked.

“The last thing
I remember is leaving the dance last night.”

“Oh, shit,” Jena
mumbled.

“What? What’s
wrong?” Nicholas was terrified. Jena took his hand in her own, smiling and
trying to ease his discomfort. She searched his thoughts, studied his body
language, and absorbed the energy of his spirit. Not a single trace of dark
energy. No sign of the seven shades that had possessed him the previous night.

“Nothing’s
wrong,” Jena lied. One way or another, she needed to determine if Nicholas was
still Nicholas. Yet without her mother, without Anish, Jena had no clue where
to begin. Could she trust Simon, or would he be biased against Nicholas because
of what he witnessed in the basement?

Nicholas was
frightened, confused, and alone. And she loved him; she had to protect and help
him. He seemed to be okay, so the status quo would have to do for now.

For now.

* * * * * *

3

“Dude, I don’t
even know where to start,” Simon sighed as he slumped into his favorite chair
in the man cave.

“That explains
why hardly anyone spoke on the way through the woods,” Trevor said. “I hated
leaving Anish there. That was rough.”

“It’s all been
rough,” Simon agreed.

“Dude, you’re a
Nephilim. Like, what the hell?”

“Right? I don’t
know, man.”

Trevor looked
irritated. “Give it up, dude.”

“What? What do
you mean?”

“There’s
something you’re not telling me.”

“I’m just stressed
is all,” Simon lied.

“I don’t believe
you,” Trevor said. He knew his brother well enough to know when he was full of
crap.

Simon didn’t
know what to do. How could he tell his best friend – his brother – that he had
promised his soul to his father? That wasn’t something you could just say out
loud.

“I can’t. Just
let it go,” Simon snapped. He felt bad for being difficult, but he simply
couldn’t talk about it. Not until he had a plan for winning back his immortal
soul.

“I’m not letting
it go,” Trevor said.

“Besides, you’re
some sort of Guardian,” Simon pointed out.

“Yeah, according
to Nina,” Trevor said, waving his hand dismissively.

“You know as
well as I do that there’s something to it,” Simon pushed. “So if you’re not
letting this Nephilim thing go, then I’m not letting the Guardian thing go. I
mean, what the hell’s a Guardian?”

“Fine, then,”
Trevor agreed, reluctantly. “I’ll let it go. For now.”

* * * * * *

4

“I’ve had to
bury too many friends,” Anna said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I hear you,”
Sam agreed.

Father Donoghue stood
over Matthew’s coffin, preparing for its internment into the ground. Nearly the
whole town had shown up, wanting to pay their respects to the priest of Crimson
Falls. Things would not be the same without him.

Anna stood with Trevor,
Simon, Sam, and Jena. They had been bonded together through tragedy and loss,
along with dark secrets that they had to carry to their own graves. Anna
wondered whether any of them would make it to old age, or if they would face
the same fate as so many of their friends.

Suddenly Anna jumped,
startled.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”
Trevor asked.

Anna quickly scanned
the cemetery for the dark shadow she thought she saw. “It’s nothing. I thought
I saw something.”

“I have a feeling we’ll
all be looking over our shoulders for a while,” Sam said.

“Tell me about it,”
Simon and Jena said in unison. They smiled, and Simon reached for her hand. She
allowed him to hold it, but only briefly. As much as she wanted to let Simon
comfort her, she just couldn’t deal with it.

After Matthew’s
service, Anna picked up Anish’s ashes from the funeral home.

“Where are we taking
him?” Jena asked.

“He wanted to be laid
to rest in Black Bear River,” Anna said. “So we’re headed there now.”

“You mean the Brickton
Estate?” Trevor asked, remembering the previous year’s battles under the
mansion and in the woods.

“That’s the one, and
that’s what he wanted,” Anna added when Simon and Trevor groaned. “Besides, Sam
is meeting us there. It’s his land, now.”

As they drove to lay
Anish to rest, Anna broke the silence with a question that had been plaguing
her mind since the previous day.

“So, about these
portals,” she began.

“What about them?”
Simon asked.

“We know that one
existed underground at the mansion,” Anna said. “The two men who closed that
portal are now dead.”

“Yeah, that sucks,”
Trevor said as he lowered his head, experiencing many emotions at once. He was mourning
the loss of two friends, one of whom had been his priest his whole life. The
other had become a sort of father figure. Trevor was also anxious to be
returning to the Brickton Estate, where a lot of people died. He was almost one
of them. Finally, he was reflecting on the portal that was supposed to be
closed.

Anna paused, allowing
Trevor a moment to grieve. Then she continued. “Assuming the portal is actually
closed, do you guys know where there might be another one?”

“Why do you ask?” Simon
replied.

Anna cleared her
throat. “Like I said before, I have a feeling that we haven’t seen the last of
Nina. I also have a feeling that if she comes back, it will be through one of
these portals. It would be helpful to know where the closest portals are so we
can close them for good.”

“The closest portal
that we know of is Welsh Road,” Trevor said. Simon nodded in agreement.

“Do you know where
exactly on Welsh Road that portal might be?”

“The Park & Ride,”
Simon said. “At least I think it is.”

“But you don’t know?”
Jena asked, anxiety building up inside her like Anna’s had been all day.

“Not 100%, but it’s a
pretty safe bet.”

“Why do you say that?”
Anna asked.

“Two reasons,” Simon
answered. “First, a portal can be created by certain violent or cataclysmic
events.”

“Like the Midnight
Massacre,” Trevor said.

“Exactly. So that alone
could create an energy that would allow spirits to travel to and fro.”

“To and from where?”
Jena asked.

“All sorts of planes,”
Simon answered. “But there’s more.”

“Of course there is,”
Anna groaned.

“That particular
section of Welsh Road is a Spiritual Nexus,” Trevor said.

“What the hell is a
Spiritual Nexus?” Jena asked. “Some kind of ghost shampoo?”

Simon was unprepared
for her dark humor, which provoked a severe belly laugh from both him and
Trevor. Anna chuckled, but wasn’t really in the laughing mood.

Trevor cleared his
throat. “A Spiritual Nexus is the center point and congruence of the five
elements. They are earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.”

Next, Simon
straightened his back and resituated himself in the seat to bring their point
home. “I mean, think about it. Welsh Road is already a naturally occurring
portal. But when you add that massacre, which had the potential to open a
portal on its own accord…well, that’s some serious shit.”

“Sounds like it,” Anna
said.

The conversation ended
somewhat abruptly, with everyone falling silent as they reflected on the
implications and consequences Welsh Right might hold for each of them.

Anna wondered whether
portals could be good or evil, which would then determine what kinds of
creatures could come and go as they pleased.

Trevor imagined that it
would be pretty damn hard to shut down a portal. Was it even possible to shut
down a natural portal? Was the portal under the Brickton mansion
really
closed?

Jena and Simon were
pondering similar ideas. Jena made a mental note to discover as much as she
could about this portal. It just might hold the answers she needs to resurrect
her mom. Simon was just realizing that Welsh Road might be the answer to his
problem of reclaiming his soul. Worst case scenario, he was going to have to
take a road trip to Hell to win it back. Given all the shit that had gone down
in the past year alone, he was growing accustomed to worst case scenarios.