Homeward Bound (Journeyman Book 1) (9 page)

SHORTLY AFTER, JOEY BOUNDED
downstairs, rounding the corner into the kitchen. The smell of bacon greeted him along with the pleasing warmth from the wood burning stove. His pleasant mood was short lived when he noticed a similar sight to the night before. This time there were no silhouettes.

Gage clearly stood behind Adrienne with his hand on her hip. He gently rubbed it before leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek. Nabbing a glass of water, he headed over to the breakfast table and sat down.

“Ah there’s my man!” Gage said, smiling large.

Joey nodded, giving a half-assed grin in return before walking over to the cabinets himself.

“Excuse me,” he said to Adrienne as he reached over for a large tumbler.

“Morning there J,” she said happily. Her mood was quite elevated as well.

“Morning,” he replied lightly, filling his glass to the brim with pulpy orange juice. He popped the container back in the fridge and kicked the door closed with his foot.

He took a seat across from Gage, visibly excited. Guzzling down most of the juice, he then thrust his elbows on the table, hands gesturing at a hundred miles per hour, narrowly missing the glass with each pass.

“Guys! Get this! The channels are lit up about the Noctis. Like all of them… even Gold!” he shouted energetically.

Adrienne nearly dropped her spatula. Setting it down, she turned to face Joey. “Really? That hasn't happened in a little while. Never too soon though, if you ask me.”

He nodded. “Yeah, last time it happened was the Incursion of 2010 and before that way back during World War II with the occult stuff the Nazis were dabbling in. Dark times, the both of them.”

Gage appeared at a loss. “The… Incursion? My bad. I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in dealing with these damn red eyes since getting introduced to this world I forgot to attend my supernatural history lessons.”

Joey’s face lit up like a beacon. “Well -” he began.

Adrienne jumped in before he got anymore out, picking up her utensils. “The Incursion was a huge deal for the Journeymen five years ago. You know that the Order is far from perfect these days, a lot of that due to major losses in numbers. A lot happened gradually but most occurred during the Incursion. It all started when there was some internal strife amongst the powers that be on the Council -”

“When isn't there?” Joey horned in.

“And one of them,” she continued, “feeling as though his voice was being suppressed, went rogue. He was a powerful archmage, a human named George Thurston. He had some pretty wild ideas on humankind and how we fit in the hierarchy of things.”

“Yeah,” said Joey, crossing his arms. “Right on top with the any supernatural at the bottom of his grimy boot. Didn't do much for the relations between them all. The wiz then had the bright idea he should steal away with the Grimoire of Shadows from the deepest recesses of the vaults. The shit stored in there you just don't mess with; they're locked away for a host of reasons, none of them good.”

Adrienne loaded their plates with hot bacon from the pan. “He used the book and coupled it with his own magic in an attempt to gain more power for himself, enough to try and punish the Journeymen for what they'd supposedly done to him and bring his vision of an enslaved supernatural world to fruition. However, his plans backfired when he found a complicated spell that could open a doorway to ultimate power and used it.”

“Which was his dumbass move number two,” Joey interjected. “Those dusty grimoire spells are incredibly powerful and even their names are meant to scare you away from casting them. It takes genius level talent to do that and an even greater mind to understand what it is those spells are actually doing. Most, if not all, of the incantations and recipes were sprinkled with unequal dashes of riddles and consequence. Of course that time was no different, Georgie taking what the spell was at face value. Again, his dumbass move numero dos. A little humility over hubris would have gone a long way.”

Adrienne continued, her voice dipping into sadness. “Yup. After the doorway was opened, it quickly became evident to Thurston that it was a massive mistake. We really don't know what it was, but it called itself Andhakara, a name or creature that nobody has found referenced in any of the lore books. It was dark, gruesome, and pitiless, some accounts saying it was so appalling that looking upon it could drive you insane. Now I don’t know if that’s just exaggerated writing from one of the chroniclers, but we all knew that it desperately wanted to be here, in our world. That's when shit hit the fan. Thurston was killed almost immediately trying to placate it and thankfully the Order knew he had the book, so mustered a quick response to the situation. Only a small part of the being managed to manifest itself here before it was stopped using everything the Journeymen had brought to bear upon it. Sadly though, not before there were a lot of casualties and an even longer list of lasting impacts. You’ll notice if you ever see the present day Council: humans are outnumbered on it these days.”

Joey shot a sideways look toward her while she heaped scrambled eggs onto their plates.
Thanks for your input,
he thought with a hue of rancor.
I'm the knowledge base, bitch.
He got up from the table and went to the fridge for some more juice.

“The icing on the cake?” he said as the liquid poured into his glass. “Andhakara was never actually destroyed. It was only banished back to where it came from, taking the book along with it. So, it's still out there, along with its brethren. We can thank Thurston for yet another opportunity for an apocalypse, as if we didn’t have enough options already waiting.” He looked over to Gage as he sat back down in his seat. “So you can see big guy, Gold channel being active again means the Order is concerned about the Noctis in a big away. Something is definitely happening with these demons up in the North, along with other movements in Eastern Europe and Australia. Not to mention the mobilizing of monsters in response even here in Houston. Whatever is happening, it’s global and it’s scary.”

Adrienne came by to set their plates down, returning to grab hers and another cup of coffee before joining them.

“I thought they were big trouble,” Gage said as he started eating. “But damn, this is bad news.”

Joey nodded. “What I was able to gather from what I heard upstairs is that they – the Noctis – are positioning themselves for something massive based on the scale and distribution of their activity. They haven't made any offensive moves yet, appearing to be on hold. Nobody seems sure what they are waiting for, but I would not be surprised if the Order called an Assembly within the next few weeks, my guess would be around Halloween, to address the situation.”

Gage crammed more food into his mouth, freezing at the mention of a meeting. “Say what?” he murmured. “I guess I missed that class too. We have mandatory meetings?”

Adrienne let loose a titter, as did Joey. He slapped the tabletop before taking another drink. “Dude, you have definitely been kicking ass off the grid since day one.”

“Um, yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “That's what we do as Journeymen out here in the field; aka the real world. I thought this was more of an ‘individually owned and operated’ type of thing anyway, doing things my own way, how I like it, to help people.”

“Yeah that's sort of how it works, most of the time,” Adrienne replied, lifting a bit of crispy bacon and teasing it between her teeth. “But it's like a franchise and we sort of have to keep within the lanes of the brand. Mandatory meetings are rare though and normally only happen when a big deal like this is going on.”

Gage snatched the bacon from her fingers and ate it, rolling his eyes mockingly. “Well shit. Where's the fun in that?”

Joey chuckled. “No fun at all but I'm sure they'd make an exception for you, after all the action you've seen… and caused first hand.”

Gage was unamused as he scraped up the last bit of food off his plate. He glanced over to their plates and noticed they had barely begun eating. Slow pokes.

“Yeah,” affirmed Adrienne. “Maybe you could just conference call in.”

Joey laughed and actually slapped his knee. “Special exemption granted to the world record holder for the number of ass kickings delivered over the three years since his unofficial induction.”

“You two can fuck off,” Gage said with a fat finger pointed toward each of them. Yanking his phone from his pocket, he tapped the corner on the table. “Calling in would be just peachy, if only this piece of shit would stay charged. It’s deader than a double tapped zombie… again.”

“Ugh, no idea what's causing it?” Adrienne asked, shifting from humor to concern. She was still puzzled by the issue, but maybe it was just a simple hardware issue.

“Other than it being a POS?” he responded. “Nope. I changed out the battery with a spare. No effect. Rebooted. No effect. I'm thinking after I flog on some logs I’ll pop into town and get another one. That way, I can be sure keep tabs on you two bastards and also conference in when the suits call their manda -”

Suddenly, the sounds of
Don’t Fear the Reaper
blared from the mobile phone
,
cutting through through the conversation and suppressing all the sounds in the room.

Slowly, Gage turned the screen and watched as it continued to ring.

What the hell?

There was no telephone number displayed as the screen flashed briefly, followed by several rolling glitches. His thumb hovered over the jittery answer button, but the phone died right as he brought it down.

Everyone sat quietly.

“I thought you said your phone was dead?” asked Joey.

“It was,” said Gage to his reflection on the shiny screen.

“Well, something’s definitely up. Want me to take a look at it today?”

He pressed the power button a few times to no avail. “Yeah… sure thing J. Work your magic on it because it’s dead again. Would be nice to know what the hell is going -”

As if he were being mocked, the phone sprang to life again at full power. The screen jumped around but this time Gage was quick to answer it.

“Hello? Who is this?” he asked sternly, lifting the speaker to his ear.

Patiently he waited for a reply, but only the static spoke, accompanied by heavy riffs of bass.

“Hello!” he repeated again.

The interference continued as the undertones became more profound.

“Gage?” Adrienne asked while reaching out an arm. “What do you hear?”

He pulled his arm back, raising his index finger before placing it into his open ear, listening intensely.

The base continued to rumble over the static, yet patterns seemed to be forming. Were they words? He continued to listen, closing his eyes in an attempt to block out all other stimuli.

A few moments later distorted words arose out of the noise, interlaced with bursts of static.

“Gage… you must…”

The voice was sharp and deep; the words hurried yet commanding.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

“Gage you must… go… Gage you must go!”

“Wait… where do I have to go?”

Joey looked over to Adrienne and mouthed, “EVP?”

“Seems like it,” she whispered. “But there’s no way a ghost could be here at the Lodge.”

“This is really weird,” Joey muttered as they returned their attention to Gage, who was still shut off from the world in concentration.

“Where do I need to go?” he repeated.

The crackle and fizz of static filled his ear until one word boomed out from its depths.

“HOME!”

His eyes sprang open as he let out a short gasp.

The words repeated over and over, getting louder with each successive mention.

He pulled the deafening phone away from his ear as Joey and Adrienne exchanged fast glances, her arm now clenched around Gage’s forearm. He was visibly disturbed.

The words sank back into the ocean of static before the phone went dead once more.

“You okay big man?” asked Joey, noticing the intensity of Adrienne’s concern.

“Yeah,” he said, breathing deeply. “I’m alright.” He set the phone on the tabletop and pushed it away, sniffling. “Fuck.”

“What?” asked Adrienne.

“It told me to go home.”

“Back to Denver?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Haven’t been there in over three years since… that day.”

Something didn’t feel right about any of this.

“Why on earth would you have to go there now, because that voice told you to?”

He didn’t know what to say.

“It could be a trap,” said Joey. “It almost screams one to me.”

Gage was still trying to figure all this out for himself. Why home? Why now? It made no sense.

Joey elaborated, “We have no idea what that was; for all we know the Noctis could have found a way to hack into your phone and are trying to lure you into a death zone. You do have a reputation of being a demon slayer after all. One of the best.”

“If not the best,” said Adrienne in agreement. “I mean, why would you get such a mysterious call to go home now? After all this time? It seems incredibly smoky to me, especially since the activity on the radios just flared up.”