Chapter 6 - The Covenant of Blackwood
Wood groaned and cracked with deafening violence. Above Leo, the ceiling joists buckled under an impossible weight. Plaster, splinters, and ancient dust rained down into the cellar, coating his hair and clothes in a gray haze. Through the widening gap between the beams, Leo caught glimpses of pale, swollen flesh and torn cloth. Julian wasn't merely breaking through; he was ripping the sturdy oak floor apart with his bare, decaying hands.
Clutching the ledger to his chest and shoving the photograph into his pocket, Leo backed away from the hearth. His eyes darted around the subterranean room, searching for an escape. The ground-level cellar grate on the far wall was the only other exit, but it was choked with decades of rust, thick ivy, and held shut by an exterior latch.
"Julian, stop!" a voice cried out from above.
Leo gasped. It was his mother. She was still alive.
Through the hole in the ceiling, Leo saw Eleanor. She was on her knees, her blouse torn, blood streaming down the side of her temple. In her right hand, she clutched a shattered shard of the bedroom mirror, its jagged edge dripping red. "Leave the boy out of it!" she screamed, her voice hoarse, raw with despair. "He knows nothing! He is innocent!"
The creature paused. Julian’s head turned slowly toward her. When he spoke, the sound was horrific—a wet, rattling groan produced by vocal cords ruined by years of mud and stagnant water.
You... traded... him... Julian rasped, pointing a crooked, black-nailed finger at Eleanor. You promised... him... to the trench... to save yourself.
"No!" Eleanor wept, lunging forward with the glass shard. "I did it to save him from you!"
She drove the glass into Julian's shoulder. There was no blood, only a thick, black ooze resembling crankcase oil that hissed as it touched the air. Julian didn't flinch. With terrifying, mechanical slowness, he reached out, caught Eleanor by the hair, and hurled her across the upper room. Leo heard the sickening crack of her body striking the brick fireplace, followed by a limp slide to the floor. She did not rise again.
The creature turned back to the opening in the floorboards. Its clouded, cataract-covered eyes fixed directly onto Leo.
Come... son...
Julian dropped through the ceiling.
He hit the dirt floor with a heavy, wet thud, landing in a crouch. The air turned bitterly cold, so freezing that Leo's eyelashes frosted over in seconds. The dead man slowly unfolded his limbs, rising to his full, towering height. His joints popped like snapping twigs. Up close, the stench was unbearable—decay, sulfur, and deep, sunless earth.
Leo was pinned against the fieldstone hearth. His fingers frantically dug into the open iron chest behind him, searching for anything to use as a weapon. His hand closed around one of the heavy glass vials filled with dark, shimmering fluid.
Julian took a heavy step forward. The brand on his neck—the three interlocking triangles—burned with a faint, malevolent red embers beneath the decaying skin. He reached out a broad, gray hand toward Leo's face.
"Don't touch me," Leo whispered, his voice trembling but defiant. "You aren't my father. My father is dead."
A flicker of agony crossed the dead man's ruined face, a grotesque parody of grief that twisted his gray lips. They killed me... for you... the creature hissed. Now... give me... the blood.
May you like
Julian lunged.
Driven by pure instinct, Leo smashed the glass vial against the edge of the stone hearth. The dark liquid sprayed outward, igniting the moment it contacted the air. A wall of brilliant, violet flame erupted between Leo and the corpse, throwing Julian backward with a terrible, agonized howl that shook the very foundations of the house.
