Reign of Evil

A moment from when he was a child flashed into his mind. He’d been waiting for his father to come home, but it had gotten so late his mother had made him go to bed. She’d left the door cracked, so light came in from down the hall where she sat watching Johnny Carson. Little Timmy Laws could barely make out the words, but whenever Carson said something funny the audience would roar. He’d sat on the edge of his bed for an hour, eager to tell his father about the story they’d read in school that day—one about butterflies and dinosaurs and time travel and how the strangest things can affect the universe. Then the Carson show had ended and his mother had turned off the television and she’d put on a Burt Bacharach record. He must have fallen asleep, because he next heard yelling, his mother hurling epithets toward someone. The sound of a shriek was followed by footsteps thundering down the hall. Was it his father come home? Then a creature with the face of a mad ape sprang into his room and beat its chest and howled. Little Timmy Laws had screamed. Pee soaked his Spider-Man pajamas. He held trembling fists out, wishing so hard that his father had been there to protect him. Then suddenly the ape became his father as he removed a prop mask from one of the sets. His father came in close, smelling of whiskey and perfume. He whispered to his son that he was sorry, hugged him, then staggered out of the room. A week later his mother made his father move out, and Laws saw him less and less until it was only major holidays when he’d make an appearance, even though he just lived across town.

Laws wiped tears from his eyes. He sat down heavily. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted nothing more than to be nine again, before his father had an affair with the costumer, before his mother kicked his father out, before he realized that a scary plastic ape mask could change the life of a small child as efficiently as a butterfly crushed under the foot of a time traveler.

He glanced over and saw that Walker and YaYa were sitting like him, sobbing violently into their hands. On the other side Holmes stared into space, tears streaming down his face. Yank punched the dirt, crying, saying, “Can’t stop the burning, Momma, can’t stop the burning.”

The only one not in tears was Sassy, who stood transfixed, gripping her rod until it quivered, her eyes as far away and glassy as Holmes’s.

Then the feeling was gone, sadness replaced by a hollow, empty nothing. Laws sighed, realizing that he could never fill the hole that memory made in his soul. A single tear fell; then he wiped it.

“What happened?” Holmes asked roughly.

“Empathetic magic,” said Sassy. “They were all working together. I had a hard time stopping them.”

“Fucking asshole witches.” YaYa glanced around, clearly still in the clutches of whatever memory had captured him. “My father had me in a madrassa for two weeks before my mother found out. Ever been to a madrassa? It’s like being a Catholic monk, only I was ten. They took everything away from me, even my name. I was…” He wiped his face with the sleeve of his uniform. “Shit.”

Walker touched YaYa’s real arm. “It’s okay, brother. We all have memories we’d rather never remember.”

Holmes helped Yank to his feet. “Is that the last of it?”

“Takes a lot to put a spell like that together,” said Sassy. “I’d be surprised if they were able to repeat it. They might have something else up their sleeves though.”

Laws realized he’d been clutching the snooper cable tight enough to make his hand ache. He rolled it and shoved it into a cargo pocket. “At least it means we’re on the right track.” He’d hated Halloween masks for years after that episode. Ironic that he’d ended up in an occupation that put him into contact with real monsters. If he were a psychiatrist, he’d probably tell himself that each time he took down a monster he was taking down that version of his father in the mask who’d ruined his life. But then again, what did they know?

Holmes nodded toward the lip of grass. “Let’s do this.”

All five SEALs and their dog surged over the top. They never got above a squat before falling into a prone position. Even Hoover hugged the ground, ears alert, eyes searching.

Cold seeped from the earth into their uniforms and body armor. Laws checked through his sights and without them and didn’t see anything except for some low ground fog near the center of the plateau, where he knew the archeological excavation to be. Laws gauged the distance to be about 150 meters.

On command, the SEALs formed a wedge and moved in a tactical walk toward the center of the plateau, weapons seated in their shoulders, eyes gazing along the barrels. Hoover ranged in front of them. Sassy Moore followed behind, moving with her wand held up as if she were a disheveled shepherd, herding them across a high pasture.

They got fifty meters before a hound betrayed itself by baying.

The SEALs each dropped to a knee. Each one knew their quadrant of a 270-degree arc.