The Devil's Apprentice Read online

  Almost as if to confirm her worst fears, she heard footsteps closing in from behind her.

  Fear helped her shake off her terror, and she burst into motion the same instant the killer’s hungry blade tore the tent wall apart.

  Operating on pure instinct, she shot out of the tent as the entire structure collapsed on itself behind her.

  In a splash of moonlight, she caught her first actual glimpse of Erik’s killer. He was tall and muscular and dressed in black leather. A motorcycle helmet of the same color hid the murderous bastard’s features, giving him an inhuman quality in the dark. It made Chloe think of some slasher straight out of the movies. A real-life Jason or Michael Myers, but who showed a little less imagination with his mask.

  It didn’t make him any less terrifying.

  For a beat, they both regarded each other in the moonlit woods.

  A little voice inside her—one that sounded a lot like her dad—was telling Chloe to run run run! But she could only watch helplessly as the killer methodically sheathed the machete. His gloved hand reached for something strapped to his back.

  He produced an even more fearsome weapon than the first. A medieval ax glinted in the moon’s sickly light. The curved head was mounted on a long shaft that the killer gripped almost like a baseball bat.

  For a split second, Chloe glimpsed her reflection in the gleaming steel.

  And then the killer exploded into motion.

  Chloe bolted. She ran with all her strength and energy because she was running for her life. Adrenaline had taken over all conscious thoughts. Chloe was tough. She was a badass. And above all, she was a survivor.

  But no matter how hard she pushed herself, the ax-wielding madman kept gaining ground. She could hear his breathing, smell the blood on the machete sheathed along his thigh. Erik’s blood.

  Her lungs screamed for oxygen, her muscles begged for a break after the long hours of hiking, but Chloe knew that slowing down meant certain death.

  She had to keep going. Had to keep pushing her body…

  Trees rushed past her, and undergrowth whipped her face and arms. The familiar woods, the place she loved, had become a surreal blur.

  Chloe stumbled for just a moment before righting herself. She heard a violent rush of air in her ears, followed by a sickeningly painful blow against the back of her neck. The impact sent Chloe flying.

  And then the mad rollercoaster ride came to a crashing halt.

  One moment she was soaring through the balmy air, the next she was diving toward the forest floor. Her face slammed into the earth, and she rolled end over end before bumping into a thick tree stump and coming to a stop.

  Her eyes pointed toward the night sky above her. For a moment, she just lay there, tasting leaves and earth in her mouth as the glittering stars filled her field of vision.

  What just happened?

  She felt dazed and numb, her scrambled brains trying desperately to make sense of the last few seconds.

  She must’ve tripped over a branch, the speed propelling her into the air before gravity kicked in. Yeah, that’s what must have happened. God, Erik was going to make so much fun of her…

  And then Chloe remembered the killer and that Erik was gone and the mortal danger she was still in.

  She had to get back to her feet.

  Had to keep moving.

  She tried to will her body into motion.

  Get up, girl!

  Easier said than done. Chloe realized that she wasn’t just numb. She had lost all feeling in her legs and arms. In fact, except for her face, she couldn’t feel any part of her body. She recalled the sharp blow against her neck, and icy fear took hold of her. Had the attack damaged her spinal cord?

  Chloe licked her lips and spat out a mouthful of grass. She took a deep breath but forgot to exhale when she heard the incoming footsteps.

  Oh, no, he’s here, she thought. Get up, girl. Run!

  Yet Chloe couldn’t get up. Couldn’t even twist her neck to see what was coming.

  Chloe closed her eyes, saw Erik’s smiling face in her mind’s eye, and understood she was about to be reunited with him. There was no escape. Her best option was to face her fate with all the courage her dad had instilled in her.

  So, she opened her eyes. And waited.

  The stars continued to glitter above her, despite the approaching horror.

  The world is beautiful from a distance, kiddo; the ugliness only shows when you get close up.

  That’s what her father used to say when he had one too many. The man loved being a cop, but the years on the job had shown him enough terrors to mark him for the rest of his life. He tried to raise his daughter to be strong enough to face whatever the world threw at her. But nothing could have prepared her for this.

  The ax-wielding killer stepped in front of her, his powerful frame blocking out the stars.

  “Why?” she said in a strangled voice.

  The psychopath remained silent, gloved hands gripping the massive ax. Chloe realized with horror that the curved ax head was painted red. And she had a good idea whose blood was dripping from the brutal steel and pooling on the forest floor. How badly had she been hit?

  She received her answer a second later as the masked psycho leaned forward, and his gloved hand reached out for her face.

  “Get your fucking hand off me, you sick freak!” she shouted as the gloved hand gripped her by the hair.

  Once again, fear almost made her close her eyes. But another part of her refused to give the bastard the satisfaction. For a moment it felt like he was caressing her hair, and then his grip on her long mane tightened. A heartbeat later, he was not just pulling her hair but dragging her entire body up as if she was weightless. How was he so strong?

  The shredded tent loomed in the near distance, silhouetted against the moon, and that made her think of the dead man inside. Tears that had been held back by shock and terror now streamed down her face.

  “Look at the ground,” the killer commanded in a well-spoken, educated voice.

  “Fuck you!” she hissed.

  “If you won’t look, then I will make you.”

  The killer moved her head, and for a split second, she experienced severe vertigo as the world tilted.

  She let out a stunned gasp. There was a body sprawled across the ground. Tanned runner’s legs extended from a pair of green khaki shorts. A faded Nine Inch Nails T-shirt that had belonged to her dad covered the torso, and the left wrist sported a smartwatch with a neon pink band.

  Where the woman’s head should be, there was only a bloody stump of ragged flesh.

  For a crazed moment, Chloe wondered why the decapitated person was wearing her clothes.

  And then the full horror sank in.

  She was looking down at her own headless body. And that meant the killer was holding her severed head in his gloved hand.

  A mad scream of unbridled terror erupted from her lips. Sanity crumbling, her last rational thought was how she could yell at the top of her lungs if she no longer had any lungs.

  And as the killer’s evil laughter drowned out her shrill screams, the world slipped out of focus.

  Death had found her, Chloe realized with a sigh of relief.

  She would soon learn that nothing was further from the truth. The nightmare was just beginning.

  Chapter Three

  Weylock was in the middle of dinner with Father Ignatius and the other monks at the monastery of the Holy Knight when he saw the woman’s severed head for the first time. He was about to reach for another roll to go with his delicious beef stew when he saw the vision.

  He’d experienced countless horrors over the course of his life, both as an FBI Profiler and as the Hexecutioner, but seeing the severed head of a beautiful woman resting in the bread basket sent a sharp jolt up his spine. The monks enthusiastically continued munching away, almost as if the severed head was just another delicacy in their feast. Weylock’s stomach turned at the thought.

  The woman’s brigh
t blue eyes squirmed with terror. The moment she felt Weylock’s gaze on her, she opened her mouth and screamed. Her cry of agony and terror cut the Hexecutioner to the core of his being. He wanted to cover his ears and block out the sound, but he knew from experience that nothing could silence a cry of help from the realm of the dead.

  Father Ignatius picked up on his sudden discomfort and broke off mid-conversation. He grabbed Weylock’s trembling hand.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Whatever you’re experiencing, it isn’t real.”

  The monk’s comforting words failed to drown out the terrible cry that had invaded the monastery’s refectory. Weylock stared at the screaming head and then at his full goblet of wine. Cracks ran across the cup’s glass surface, a direct response to the preternatural wailing. And then it shattered in his hand, wine spraying the table.

  The other monks looked up from their meal, finally noticing that something was amiss.

  Initial surprise gave way to awe as they realized the Hexecutioner was experiencing one of his visions.

  The shrill screaming continued.

  Weylock took a deep breath, having recovered from his initial shock and fixed his brooding gaze on the woman’s head. He spoke loudly, making sure his voice carried over the banshee wail reverberating through the dining hall.

  “I hear you, spirit, and I will avenge you. I give you my word as the Hexecutioner.”

  The severed head must have approved of the sincerity of his words, as the screaming stopped. A moment later, the head dispersed into thin air.

  Weylock looked down at his half-eaten bowl of stew and then pushed it away. He wasn’t hungry anymore—and he had a job to do.

  Chapter Four

  The Hexecutioner strode down the winding stone corridors of the medieval monastery, a concerned Father Ignatius struggling to keep pace with him.

  “What did you see back there in the dining room?”

  “What I always see, Ignatius. Death.”

  Ignatius nodded, having expected such an answer. It was the fate of a Hexecutioner to be at the beck and call of spirits trapped between worlds. When the pain and suffering of the damned became too unbearable, their cries could break through the veil. Only the Hexecutioner could answer such a call for swift justice and provide peace to such restless spirits.

  The dead communicated through the pages of the Necrodex, the magical book of the dead. Typically, his visions only manifested when he opened the tome, but not this time. Today the spirit’s call had leaped off the pages and spilled into the real world.

  “For the dead to manifest outside the book’s boundaries is unusual,” Ignatius pointed out.

  Weylock nodded. The same thought was also going through his mind.

  “What could it mean?” the monk wondered.

  “I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”

  Weylock stopped. He’d reached his sleeping quarters. He opened the door to his small cell, which was the closest thing to a home he had nowadays, and another screaming head greeted him.

  This one belonged to a different beautiful woman; her terrified features framed by caramel blonde hair. It rested on the modest cot which served as Weylock’s bed. Less than ten minutes had passed since the first apparition, and already a second victim was demanding the Hexecutioner’s attention.

  He shot a quick look at Father Ignatius, who couldn’t see or hear the bodiless apparition.

  “Stay back,” Weylock warned.

  He entered the room and kneeled before the screaming woman. Mascara ran down from her eyes in black streaks, adding to the otherworldly quality of the vision. The Hexecutioner gently laid his hands on her and leaned forward to whisper into her ears the same promise he’d made to the first head.

  Once again, the vision evaporated into thin air as soon as he’d said the words.

  The promise of a Hexecutioner carried weight both in this world and in the next one.

  “You had another vision,” Ignatius said.

  Weylock nodded and described the details of this latest manifestation in as much detail as possible. As he spoke, a sudden suspicion gripped him. Back in the refectory, he’d ignored a small but telling aspect of the unnerving vision. But his FBI training stuck with him even though he hunted a very different kind of monster these days. Clues were still clues. And mysteries could still be solved, even if they were supernatural in origin, as long as he paid attention.

  A theory took shape in the back of his mind, one he planned to explore further.

  Weylock turned his attention to the leather attaché case resting on his cot. He entered the secret combination only known to him, and the latches flipped open with an audible snap.

  Jaw set in a determined line, Weylock removed the Necrodex from the case, flipped it open, and waited for the pages to turn on their own. They did so within seconds, and the two heads glimpsed earlier appeared in the pages of the book. One with bright blue eyes and the other with warm blonde hair, confirming his earlier suspicion.

  Father Ignatius eyed him curiously. “You’re onto something, aren’t you?”

  “It’s as I thought,” Weylock confirmed. “I know why the dead could manifest outside the pages of the book. These spirits crying out for help aren’t dead yet.”

  The monk frowned.

  “How could they not be, if their heads have been removed? I don’t understand.”

  “When dead speak to me through the Necrodex, they appear as pale, black-and-white images. Only the living manifest in color. And that raises an interesting question. What sort of foul magic can keep severed heads alive?”

  A knowing look flickered across Ignatius’ weathered features.

  The Hexecutioner took note and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Does this mean something to you?” Weylock asked.

  The Necrodex stirred in response to the question, the pages flipping by themselves. The phantom activity stopped, and both Weylock and Ignatius leaned over the open pages of the book. Their eyes landed on the illustration of a fearsome medieval executioner’s ax adorned with glyphs and sigils.

  The demon stirred inside Weylock at the sight of the ax. It seemed impressed with the ferocious weapon, and the only things it liked were steeped in evil magic.

  Ignatius took a shaky breath. “No,” he breathed. “Not again.”

  “What is it?” Weylock demanded.

  The monk’s eyes met his, filled with an emotion that even the FBI profiler had trouble reading. “I need to tell you the story of the Devil’s Apprentice.”

  Chapter Five

  The darkness lifted, and reality came crashing down on Chloe in a rush of jolting images. Her head was somehow rocking back and forth and bobbing up and down. Nausea gripped her. She felt painful pressure on her scalp, yet everything else was numb.

  She couldn’t remember what had happened.

  There was no time to review the events leading up to her blackout. She was way too busy processing the present. Her reality had become a mad blur of trees and grass and wild undergrowth. She realized that her head was way too close to the forest ground.

  Chloe tried to look up, but without the ability to twist or tilt her neck, her view of the world remained limited. She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry like sand, her tongue a swollen lump unable to form coherent words.

  And then she felt herself being hoisted high into the air, and she caught sight of a cabin about fifty feet up ahead.

  Under ordinary circumstances, she would have loved the cozy abode in the middle of the wilderness, but her current predicament was far from ordinary.

  “Look at your new home. Do you like it?” a male voice asked.

  The events preceding her blackout snapped into sharp focus as soon as she heard the familiar male voice. With horror, she relived Erik’s brutal death, recalled the murderer in the motorcycle helmet with the fearsome ax, remembered the sharp pain she’d felt against the back of her neck while she was running away from him.

  Most disturbing, her mind
’s eye replayed the moment when she’d peered down at her own decapitated body.

  “No,” she moaned.

  The speaker twisted her head in midair until she stared directly into the mirrored visor of his black motorcycle helmet. The reflection confirmed her worst fears. No, her memories weren’t playing tricks with her—the nightmare was very real. She was looking at her bodiless head as it dangled from the killer’s gloved hand, her neck a mass of shredded skin flecked with her dried blood.

  Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she confronted the fact that she had been decapitated… and yet still she lived. Madness threatened to drag her down. This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. Any minute now, she’d wake up in her bed with Max by her side. He would lick her face and hands until the nightmare went away.

  “I asked you a question, my dear. Do you like my cabin?”

  It was the calm tone of the ax-wielding killer’s question that pulled her back from the abyss.

  The question was so reasonable, the voice coming from the insectile motorcycle helmet so refined, his use of my dear so unexpected, that Chloe replied.

  “What’s… happening… to me?” Her voice was that of a woman drowning.

  “Don’t you know it isn’t polite to answer a question with another question?”

  “Help… someone… help me…”

  There was no strength in Chloe’s voice as she pleaded with the world to rescue her from this nightmare. She felt hot tears run down her quivering cheeks and drip down the bloody stump of her neck.

  Oh my God, this can’t be happening. How could her lips form words with her head not attached to her body? How could she still be alive, for God’s sake?

  “No one can hear you out here. No one is coming. You belong to me. You’re mine, Chloe. Do you understand?”

  “Please…

  “Don’t worry now. You’re about to embark on a fascinating adventure.”