Crimson Circle Read online

  “Don’t you die on me, you bastard! Where is Skulick? Where did you freaks take him?”

  I shook him, my mind edging toward madness. I was glad that Archer couldn’t see me like this. The wild rage surging through me was my own for a change, untouched by the wrath of the demon.

  No matter what I did, I received no answer. The cultist was gone.

  Jaw set, lips pressed into a grim line, I staggered out of my room and ran into Archer. Her expression darkened when she saw me.

  “They breached the vault,” she said in a low, emotionless voice. “They took everything.”

  I swallowed hard. How many battles had we fought to secure those cursed items? I couldn’t count the number of horrors we kept under lock and key upstairs. Horrors soon to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. The Crimson Circle had undone years of hard-won victories in mere hours.

  I gnashed my teeth, my mind burning with a mixture of rage and shock.

  The Crimson Circle had raided the vault. They had abducted Skulick.

  Cyon had said that my partner only had twenty-four hours left. What if we couldn’t find him in time?

  Almost as if responding to my thoughts, the orb containing my partner’s spirit ignited with brilliant light. Blinding beams burst from my trench coat. Archer jumped back, shielding her eyes with one hand and reaching for her whip with the other.

  I fumbled the crystal from my pocket. The thing was going supernova.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Cracks exploded across the surface of the orb. An instant later, it shattered in my demon hand, and a ball of white hot light shot through the devastated loft.

  For a second, the light hovered in mid-air and turned into the outline of my partner. Despite the near-blinding radiance, I could make out the shocked expression on Skulick’s terrified face.

  And then the light vanished. The loft went dark. And Skulick was gone for good.

  I whirled toward Archer, saw the tears glistening in her eyes. Rage detonated inside of me.

  There was only one explanation for why the orb had shattered prematurely. My partner had to be dead.

  They killed him.

  The thought drained all the strength from me, and I was forced to lean against the wall.

  Despite my overwhelming pain and grief, anger simmered beneath.

  If the Crimson Circle thought that murdering my partner was going to scare me off, they had another thing coming.

  If they wanted a war, they were about to get one.

  3

  Pete Goldman’s heart thumped with giddy excitement. He was one of the two dozen horror geeks who had gathered at the Amlight, an art house movie theater, to catch a special midnight screening of the cult classic Blood Camp. The 80’s slasher had not been seen on the big screen in nearly forty years. Tonight would be historic; he could practically feel the electricity in the air.

  Like most horror buffs, Pete had read about this little-watched gem but had never actually seen the movie. With the film rights stuck in a legal quagmire, no copies on DVD or even VHS existed. After what had happened at the premiere, the studio had tried to bury the film—and with good reason. The director, dressed up as the killer from his movie, had murdered the two lead actors during the film’s first screening before running a machete through his own chest.

  Blood Camp had been director Roy Luco’s first and last movie. Theaters had quickly pulled the film after the grisly murder-suicide, and it had pretty much vanished from the face of the earth. Those who claimed to have seen it considered the film a dark masterpiece that made Halloween and Friday the 13th feel like Saturday morning cartoons in comparison. Pete didn’t trust the glowing reviews, but he was a completist when it came to his beloved genre and was dying to see this lost but not forgotten classic.

  Pete had no idea how the theater had gotten their hands on a print of the picture, but he wasn’t going to question his good fortune. As soon as his favorite podcast announced that someone had tracked down a print and scheduled a screening, he’d jumped online and ordered his ticket.

  The red-headed, freckled woman sitting next to him shared his excitement. Kate had been his horror movie buddy since college. They had never been romantically involved but loved watching scary movies together. Catching an Italian horror flick or a David Lynch marathon was beyond most of the girls he dated, and he was okay with that. If he wanted to share his passion for obscure scary films, there was always Kate.

  Grinning like a kid, he chowed down on a handful of buttery popcorn and sucked down a big gulp of Diet Coke. As the movie theater darkened, he fought the temptation to squeeze Kate’s hand. Shouts and hollers rang through the screening room. These were his people. His tribe.

  Here we go, he thought, chewing his popcorn a little faster, his eyes fixed on the giant screen framed by a burgundy curtain.

  The lights in the bronze sconces lining the theater walls dimmed.

  The house went nuts when the title appeared, bold red letters against a black background: BLOOD CAMP.

  The ominous strings of the score kicked in, and Pete was hooked, eyes glued to the flickering images. He hoped the glowing reviews weren’t just hype. He hoped he was about to experience something special. God, he wanted to be blown away.

  Within five minutes, he stopped worrying about the merits of the film. All his thoughts receded into the background as the flick sucked him into its dark world. There was visceral, unnerving quality to it that defied easy analysis. He could practically taste the fog creeping through the primeval landscape, feel the skeletal branches of the trees brushing up against his face. The grainy, faded print gave the picture another layer of realism, almost as if he was watching a documentary.

  On-screen, the lead couple emerged from a dilapidated, moss-covered cabin, reacting to a strange sound in the dark woods.

  Oh boy, here it comes. Stay in the goddam cabin, you idiots!

  Pete clutched the armrests of his theater chair, adrenaline surging. He was loving every second of it—but he was so relieved that he hadn’t invited his girlfriend to this. She was a real wimp. This movie would have pushed her over the edge. Kate, on the other hand, mirrored his rapt fascination; her eyes fixed on the screen, jaw clenched tight. They both had stopped munching their popcorn, gripped by the movie’s almost unbearable tension.

  When the killer sprang from the mist, Pete nearly knocked his soda over. A massive beast of a man peeled from the thick undergrowth, features encased by a mask of vulcanized, olive-drab rubber. Beloved movie monsters saturated pop culture, and they had lost their ability to terrify desensitized, jaded moviegoers. The same couldn’t be said for the inhuman beast on-screen. Jason’s ice hockey mask might be iconic, but this killer oozed a more authentic, unfiltered evil.

  The killer wore black pants, his lean, ropy torso covered in an assortment of crude occult tattoos that would have made Charles Manson jealous. Luco, the director, had insisted on playing the psycho himself. Pete thought that should have set off alarm bells among the crew.

  As the killer cut through the swirling mist, Pete swallowed hard, sensing things were about to get real ugly for the hapless couple in the cabin. His stomach crept into his throat as he clawed the armrests of his seat.

  The fog thickened and devoured the cabin like a hungry beast as the terrified couple ran back inside. Pete knew the wooden walls and glass windows wouldn’t deter this monstrous killing machine, and he couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

  The masked killer had almost reached the cabin when he grew still. For a hushed beat, he lurked in the darkness, more shadow than flesh and blood.

  Without warning, somebody grabbed Pete’s hand, and he almost shrieked like a little girl. Kate was holding onto him as if her life depended on it. She gave him a sheepish smile.

  He shivered slightly, and it wasn’t because she held his hand. Somebody must have cranked up the AC. It felt like the temperature inside the dark movie theater had dropped by twenty degrees within seconds. He
sighed in frustration, and his breath clouded before him.

  Impossible.

  His chattering teeth said otherwise.

  Hushed gasps of surprise rang out, and Pete knew he wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Had some bozo decided to bring dry ice to the screening? Well, nobody was laughing, and the prank was distracting everyone from the film they had come to see.

  Pete’s attention turned back to the screen just as the killer angled his face at the audience. He was looking right at them—an amateur move on Luco’s part. A key rule of good filmmaking was never make your actors look straight at the camera. Even first-year film students knew not to break the fourth wall!

  The masked monster regarded the moviegoers as if everyone in the packed theater was a potential victim.

  The empty gaze behind the mask bore into Pete. And then the masked killer raised his ax and hurled it right at the audience. It was a cheesy effect, like 3D without the glasses…but then the ax kept going.

  Peter stared wide-eyed as the ax burst from the movie screen and shot over the heads of the stunned, terrified filmgoers.

  For a beat, time stood still, as the sound of the weapon whistled through the theater.

  And then hot blood sprayed his face, and Kate let go of his hand.

  Moving as if in a dream, he spun toward his friend. She met his horrified gaze with dying eyes, the killer’s ax now buried in her chest, blood bubbling from her trembling lips.

  Pete’s guts roiled with terror, and he realized he was screaming his lungs out. He gagged, salty popcorn mixing with bile.

  He looked back at the screen and saw the masked killer take a step toward the crowd of horror geeks, moving seamlessly from the film into the real world of the theater. Suddenly, Pete wasn’t the only one screaming. People exploded out of their seats, their panicked cries echoing. The killer closed in on a man in the first row and wrenched his neck with an audible snap of bones.

  Steel gleamed as the killer raised his iconic machete, the light from the projection booth bouncing off his blade, drawing a giant shadow. The frantic silhouettes of the fleeing moviegoers tattooed the screen. Screams blended with pounding footsteps as the crowd stamped their way out of the theater. A massive man squeezed past Pete as he navigated the row of seats. The man’s frenzied bulk knocked Pete over, and he fell face first to the sticky floor below.

  Terror twisted through his heaving guts as he scrambled back to his feet. He swiped the gooey mess of spilled popcorn, soda, and blood from his face.

  The massive psychopath pivoted toward him. Blood dripped down the long blade in the killer’s inked hand. His tattoos seemed alive in the light from the screen.

  God, this can’t be happening.

  A quick glimpse at the screen revealed that the movie was still rolling, the movie’s story continuing without a villain. The couple who had barricaded themselves inside the cabin now peered out through a dirty, cracked window, watching the mayhem unfolding in the theater with horror in their eyes.

  None of this made sense. Movies didn’t come alive.

  His rational mind raging against his senses, Pete backed away from the killer who was steadily advancing toward him. The monster’s intention was unmistakable. Pete would be next!

  Most of the crowd had fled the theater. Everyone who had been left behind was dead. Everyone but Pete.

  Get the hell out here! Move your ass! His inner voice shouted at him, but his body remained frozen in place, unable to obey the commands of his brain. How many times had he shouted at the figures on the screen, mocking the slasher flick victims for their inaction? Now that he was trapped in a horror film, he couldn’t move.

  The killer loomed before him. A mountain of a man, inked muscle rippling in the eerie light of the movie screen. Now that he was up close, Pete realized the tats were alive, crawling across the man’s flesh.

  The killer raised his gore-streaked machete.

  And that’s when Pete spotted a second figure that had appeared behind the masked psycho killer. Where had this man come from? He definitely wasn’t a movie patron. For one thing, he was carrying a large, deadly looking sword. Haunted eyes in a bearded face stared back at him, the man’s long, lean physique wrapped in a brown trench coat.

  Pete squeezed his eyes shut as the machete and sword both sped toward him.

  4

  Demon Slayer blocked the onrushing machete three inches before it would have hacked through the paralyzed moviegoer’s neck. The monster who had stepped out of the screen spun toward me with a guttural growl. In the dark theater, I couldn’t make out the eyes behind the grisly mask, but I liked to think they regarded me with stunned surprise. This creature wasn’t used to facing resistance.

  Tapping into the inhuman strength of my demon hand, I brought up the sword, parried the machete, and catapulted the killer away from the cowering filmgoer.

  “Get the hell out of here!” I shouted, my voice shattering the poor movie nerd’s paralysis. As the Spielberg Jr. exploded into motion, I turned my full attention to the killer before me. The monster’s bestial strength pushed back against me, the blood-caked machete vying for dominance over my sword.

  Unfortunately for him, this wasn’t your average blade. The sword hummed with white magic, the etchings on its surface igniting with the power of the light. They didn’t call this bad boy Demon Slayer for nothing.

  My lips twisted with fury and effort as I drove the sword at my enemy, pushing the machete out of the tattooed mountain’s hand. As the killer’s blade clattered on the floor, I lunged at my opponent, ready to strike him down.

  The bastard darted backward with surprising speed, his agility belying his size. Then again, he wasn’t a mere man. What was he? Don’t ask me. Ghost, monster, demon—none of those terms fit this celluloid horror come to life. Luco had etched his spirit into the frames of the only existing print of his film and had become a unique nightmare. Until recently, this 35mm print had been safely locked away inside our vault.

  The cursed film print wasn’t the first of our relics to pop up in the Cursed City. I had spent the last three weeks tracking down one magical object after another as the former contents of the vault surfaced in brutal ways, leaving a growing trail of bodies in their wake. And we had barely scratched the surface. Hundreds of terrible objects remained unaccounted for, and I had no doubt the cultists who’d robbed us were merely biding their time to unleash their horrors upon the city.

  The Crimson Circle was just getting started.

  I glanced at the corpses, some of them still sitting in their seats as if enjoying the film, rage simmering inside of me. I had arrived too late to prevent the loss of more innocent life. The Crimson Circle always seemed one step ahead of me, forcing me to play defense in their mad game of terror and destruction.

  I had caught a lucky break a half an hour earlier. While checking the movie listings for a Friday night flick for Archer and me to enjoy—even monster hunters need to unwind—I’d come across this midnight screening. I usually hate horror movies, but as soon as I saw the title, I knew this was one show I better not miss.

  The masked killer leaned over the row of seats and reached for the ax sticking from the corpse of a red-headed woman. The poor thing lay slumped back in her chair, terror-glazed eyes pointing at the ceiling. I prayed the end had come quickly, and she hadn’t suffered unnecessarily. If I had only reached the movie theater five minutes earlier, maybe I could have stopped this infernal creature before anyone got hurt.

  With a wet slurp, the killer wrenched the ax out of the dead horror fan and pivoted toward me. Once again displaying superhuman speed and precision, he sprang.

  I ducked, the blade soaring overhead. Blood speckled my beard.

  I backed away from the massive ax, unwilling to test Demon Slayer against the monster’s heavy weapon just yet. The ax cut the air, slashing left and right, a relentless series of strikes that drove me down the aisle of the theater toward the giant movie screen.

  Operating on pu
re instinct, I whipped out Hellseeker. Psycho Boy barreled toward me, intent on bulldozing me over before I could pull the trigger. I fired once before his three hundred pounds of sheer momentum slammed into me. Pain shot through every part of my body as I went flying. My cry echoed as I hit the floor. Snarling, I brought up my gun and emptied a full magazine into the horror icon before he could land the final blow with his machete.

  The creature spun around under the onslaught of my bullets and collapsed like a felled tree. The killer’s weight crashed into the trash-strewn floor with the force of an exploding grenade, rattling the walls of the theater.

  I sucked in a deep gulp of air, every bone creaking with agony as I forced myself back to my shaky feet. I warily peered down at the fallen behemoth and took a hesitant step toward my enemy. If I’d learned one thing from horror movies and my own nightmarish career as a monster hunter, it was this: never assume the bad guy was dead. The bastard might be down but not defeated. A killing blow from Demon Slayer would finish the creature off.

  “I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you. And since I am you, in a sense, I’d advise taking a step back.”

  The warning tone of Cyon’s voice gave me pause. I hesitated, my blade raised.

  “Behind you!”

  Cyon’s warning came a moment too late.

  I whirled just in time to see a second killer, wearing an even uglier mask than the first one, explode from the woods on the screen and into the reality of the theater. Before I could strike him down, the psycho’s massive paws grabbed me by my collar and hurled me with inhuman strength at the movie screen.

  Shit! Another hallmark of a slasher pic—there was always a twist. In this case, the twist was a second killer.

  I sailed through the air. Now, I’ve dealt with some strange things. I’ve battled witches with no faces, surfed on a flying coffin, and pulled a heist on the Devil himself. But what happened next? It was weird even by my standards.

  Instead of smacking into the movie screen, I passed straight through it and landed on a foliage-covered forest floor.