A deadly ritual, p.1
A Deadly Ritual, page 1
A Deadly Ritual
Y.G. Knight
Copyright 2022 by Y.G. Knight - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
THE END.
Sneak Peek - Chapter One
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Prologue
The church stood tall, one of the few buildings lining the outskirts of Adamsville. The moon cast a yellowish light over the building, showing the disrepair on the spire. Many of the residents of Adamsville believed the church to have been long abandoned, handed over to the bats and the mice. For the most part, they would be right, except for once a month, the church was used as a meeting place.
The inside of the church was in good standing considering the decades it had stood mostly unused. Even now, the pews went unused, the meeting taking place on the raised stage behind the altar. The lights there shone with a reddish tinge, the shadows dancing on the walls reminiscent of blood splatter in places.
At the head of the space was a large throne. Its body was gold colored, the seating red velvet. It stood out in the church as something lavish enough to be almost vulgar. Surrounding the throne in a circle were twelve other seats. While they matched the throne in color, they were far off it in terms of grandeur.
Of those twelve seats, eleven of them were taken, the one opposite the throne the only one that remained empty. The people in those seats all wore long red robes that covered them to the floor. The robes were hooded, and each hood was pulled up, casting shadows across the people’s faces, not that the shadows were needed, because the people’s faces were covered by a simple red mask that was fitted with voice altering equipment to allow each person to be present and speak up and still remain completely anonymous.
The meeting had been scheduled to begin at seven and it was now almost seven thirty. The people gathered in the seats were getting restless, an air of impatience about them as they fidgeted in their seats, each of them believing their time to be far too important to waste like this, but none of them brave enough to actually leave.
The door to what once would have been the vicar’s quarters opened and the shuffling and fidgeting stopped as everyone fell silent and got to their feet. The newcomer wore a cloak the same red color as everyone else’s, but their mask was gold as was the stitching on their robe. The figure moved to stand before the throne.
“Praise be to Homurah,” the figure said, their voice as genderless and featureless as their body.
“Praise be to Homurah,” the group repeated. And then, without any prompting. “Praise be to the Supreme Leader.”
The Supreme Leader nodded to the others and took their seat.
“You may be seated,” they said and the rest of the people gathered there sat back down. Wasting no time, the Supreme Leader began to address the group once more. “As you are well aware, this year marks the half century since our last Blood Offering. The new ritual must begin on the first night of the new moon. I trust you all are prepared?”
A murmuring went up around the group. It was the sound of agreement, but not of the strong agreement the Supreme Leader was used to getting from the group.
“Is there some sort of problem?” the Supreme Leader demanded. No one spoke and impatient, the Supreme Leader pointed to the person on their right. “You. Tell me what the problem is.”
“I … A few of us are wondering … Is it maybe possible to complete the Blood Offering with sacrifices from outside of the town rather than sacrificing our own children?” the member stuttered.
“I think you all know the answer to that. But let me remind you of something. A sacrifice by its very nature must involve giving up something that is important to you. Homurah allows us all to be wealthy, healthy, successful. He allows Adamsville to thrive and prosper. Is it really too much to ask of us to give something back? Are you suggesting that your child’s life is more important than Homurah’s needs, than Adamsville’s needs and all of our collective needs?” the Supreme Leader said.
“No,” the person selected to answer said hastily.
The Supreme Leader nodded.
“As I thought. Does anyone else have any problem with the way this has been done for the last thousand years?” The Supreme Leader looked around. The group all had their heads bowed, no one daring to speak or catch the Supreme Leader’s eye. “Good. You will receive instructions when it is your turn to act. Make sure you all do what needs to be done. The ritual will be completed when Homurah says it’s completed. Meeting adjourned.”
The Supreme Leader stood up and the others followed their lead. Heads bowed, they praised Homurah once more and when they looked up, their Supreme Leader was gone.
One
Mathilde Milican hummed along to the radio, her hands tapping out the beat of the song on the steering wheel. She had the top down on her convertible and the wind blew her fire engine red hair out behind her in a cloud.
She was on her way home to visit her parents and her brother and to see all of her old high school friends. She had been excited to leave Adamsville, to go to college in a big city and enjoy the hustle and bustle of every day life there, but she was equally excited to return home, something she hadn’t expected to feel. Adamsville was far from a dump, but it was small and everyone there knew everyone else’s business. That was something Mathilde had never missed. She enjoyed the anonymity the big city gave her. But deep down, she was a quiet town girl at heart and she was excited to be coming home for the first time.
Mathilde couldn’t keep the smile off her face when she passed a sign on the road that read “Welcome to Adamsville, population: 2600.” She passed the sign, still smiling, and followed the dip in the road. She reached the bottom and then began to climb until she reached the crest, ready to roll down into the next dip.
She had just started on the downhill section when movement in the trees at the edge of the road caught her eye and a figure stepped out. The figure was wearing a long red cloak of some description and as Mathilde peered at the figure, trying to work out who it was, she realized she was heading straight for it.
She swerved and missed the figure by a couple of inches. Her car slammed into a tree trunk and she slumped forwards, blood pouring from a gash in her forehead. She was only half conscious as she became aware of a loud, angry sounding car horn. Was someone really that pissed off at her, almost wiping her out?
Mathilde twisted in her seat, trying to see who was making that noise. It stopped as soon as she lifted her head and she then realized that it had been her head leaning against the horn that had caused the noise.
Mathilde’s vision began to close in on itself, a black circle starting at the edge of her vision and spreading in over it. What she wouldn’t give for a little nap right about now. She closed her eyes telling herself a nap would do her good. Sleep came over her in a wave of thick, dreamless black.
Mathilde didn’t know how long she had been out when the door beside her opened and made her jump. The figure in red from earlier was here again, and this time, it grabbed Mathilde’s armpits and dragged her away. She tried to scream, to cry out, even to ask the cloaked figure their name. But she was still so tired and it seemed like too big of an effort and in the end, she just relaxed and let herself drift off to sleep.
Two
Ryan Milican turned onto his driveway and immediately knew something was wrong. Eva, his wife, was waiting for him on the porch steps, something she never did. He parked the car and got out and Eva hurried towards him, her brown pony tail swinging behind her.
Ryan took in Eva’s small and delicate frame, noting that she looked even more fragile than usual because he could see the panic on her face.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded.
“Huh? I’ve been at work. Where do you think I’ve been? What’s going on?” he said, thrown by her question.
“I asked you to be sure to finish work on time today because I had to go to the bakery and pick up the welcome home cake for Mathilde,” Eva said. “But you couldn’t even do that one thing for me and now she’s not here.”
“Ok, calm down,” Ryan said. “Firstly, if she’s not here yet it hardly matters whether I was or not does it? And secondly, a welcome home cake? I honestly thought you were joking when you said that.”
“That’s my point Ryan. She’s not here yet but she should have been. What if something has happened to her?” Eva said, her voice getting higher in pitch. She ignored the barb about the cake.
“She’s not that late,” Ryan said. “She probably set off later than planned, or maybe she hit traffic or something.”
Eva shook her head.
“I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this,” Eva said.
Tears flooded her eyes and Ryan pulled her into a hug.
“Hey, come on now, there’s no need for that. She’ll be here any minute and you don’t want her to think you were crying because she’s late and make her feel guilty do you?” he said.
Eva sniffled against his chest, but she shook her head and then she pulled herself back from Ryan and rubbed her face.
“No, of course not. I just …” she trailed off but Ryan put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up so she was looking at him. He waited for her to finish her sentence. “I just can’t help but think of the time Carly was late coming home and she never arrived.”
Ryan stroked Eva’s face.
“What happened to your sister was horrible, there’s no doubting that. But that doesn’t mean the same thing has happened to Mathilde,” he said softly.
“I know,” Eva said, managing to smile through her tears. “It just brings it back you know.”
“I know,” Ryan said.
Although no one in his family had been murdered, he felt like he did know how Eva felt because simply imagining it was painful enough. He couldn’t imagine how Eva’s parents must have felt the day that Carly, Eva’s older sister, didn’t come home and then a couple of hours later when the then Sheriff delivered the news that Carly had been killed. A shiver went through him at the thought of it and he forced himself not to even let himself think about that possibility for Mathilde. She was barely even late yet, only half an hour later than she had said she would be. It could easily take her longer than that to have chosen what to wear for the drive home from college.
“Have you tried calling her cell phone?” Ryan asked.
Eva nodded, still looking miserable.
“Yes. It went to voicemail,” she said.
“Well there you go then,” Ryan said with a wide smile. “She’s driving so she couldn’t take your call. Come on, let’s go inside. We don’t want Mathilde turning up to us stood out here like a weird little welcome party.”
The couple went into the house, Eva looking over her shoulder as though she thought that the outside world might disappear once the front door closed on it.
“You go and sit down, I’ll go and grab us some coffee,” Ryan said, ushering Eva into the lounge.
He went through to the kitchen and grabbed two large mugs which he filled with coffee from the pot. Normally he would have brewed fresh coffee, but he just wanted to go and make sure Eva was ok and have something to do to keep his hands busy. He took the two mugs through to the lounge and handed Eva hers. He sat down beside her and they both sipped their coffee. Eva wrapped her hands around her cup, the gesture almost childlike and Ryan fought the urge to wrap her in his arms. He feared that if he did that, he would be admitting that something was wrong and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.
Ryan had almost finished his coffee when the front door opened. Eva’s face lit up and she half stood up from the couch and Ryan felt a flood of relief wash over him. The lounge door opened and Roland, their son, came in. Eva slumped back down onto the couch; the disappointment was clear to see on her face.
“Wow,” Roland said. “That’s some greeting mom.”
“I’m sorry,” Eva said. “Your sister is missing. I thought you were her.”
“Mathilde is missing?” Roland repeated, a frown of concern crinkling his forehead.
Even now Ryan couldn’t help but notice the similarity between his son’s expressions and his own. All of Roland’s life, people had told Ryan he was his double except for having Eva’s nose. Ryan couldn’t see the resemblance except for when Roland’s face expressed his feelings, then he was all Ryan.
“Not exactly,” Ryan said. “She’s just running a little bit late is all.”
“Are you sure?” Roland asked. He frowned again, seeming to pick up on Eva’s anxiety.
“I’m sure,” Ryan said with what he hoped was a tone of certainty.
Roland stood in the doorway for a moment longer and then he nodded. Whether he truly believed Ryan or whether he just wanted to, wasn’t clear to Ryan, but he was glad that Roland wasn’t falling apart.
“Ok,” Roland said. “I’m going to go and do my homework.”
“Make sure that means your actual homework not playing video games,” Eva shouted after him.
Three
Eva stood up.
“I can’t just sit here. I’m going to look for her,” she said.
Ryan stood up and took one of Eva’s hands in both of his and shook his head.
“No Eva,” he said. “You heard what Sheriff Long said when we reported Mathilde missing.”
“That she’s likely to have decided to see some friends and she’ll turn up tomorrow?” Eva said, sounding sceptical. “Do you really believe Mathilde is irresponsible enough to do that without so much as even a text message knowing that she’s due here?”
Ryan shook his head.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “But I do believe there is some explanation for this whole thing.”
“Well yes, there is. Our daughter is missing. There’s your explanation,” Eva said. “And apparently no one wants to look for her.”
“It’s after two o’clock in the morning Eva. It’s dark and it’s dangerous. No good can come from ignoring the Sheriff’s advice. The search will start first thing in the morning like he promised us it will and we will find her,” Ryan said, his voice more sure than he felt.
“But …” Eva started.
“No,” Ryan said. His voice was stern and Eva blinked at him slowly. “Sit back down.”
Eva sat beside Ryan. At first, she sat up straight, her back rigid. After a moment, she softened and leaned back against Ryan. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.
“Try and get some sleep,” Ryan said.
He closed his eyes knowing that sleep would evade him. He was sure Eva would have the same problem.
Four
Ryan must have had at least a little bit of sleep because he jumped awake the next morning when he felt Eva moving beside him. He opened his eyes and saw she had changed her clothes and her hair was still damp from the shower.
“Any news?” Ryan asked.
Eva shook her head. Ryan looked at his watch and saw it was almost eight o’clock. He stood up.
“I’m going along to the station to meet up with the Sheriff and help to organize the search party,” he said. “I need you to stay here and make things normal for Roland. Get him sorted for school and then stay here in case Mathilde comes straight here without any of us spotting her car.”
Eva started to protest, but she realized it was pointless. She couldn’t just leave Roland alone.
“Bring her home Ryan,” she said instead.
Ryan hugged her and nodded.
“I will,” he said, hoping it was a promise he could keep.
He hurried out to his car and drove to the Sheriff’s station. He walked in and Emily on the desk directed him to interview room one. He thanked her and went through the door and down the hallway. He found the interview room and went in to find Sheriff Alan Long, Deputy Cleigh Jackson and Deputy Bill Forrest sitting around a table. They looked up as he came in.
