Retired Army Colonel Brenda Hollins Races To Save Her Bruised Daughter From Abuse and Supernatural Captivity, Only To Uncover A $5 Million Blood Covenant That Reverses Everything She Believed
Maya’s smile was a cruel twist, a final, definitive stroke of betrayal. She wasn’t going to break anything. She wasn’t going to confess. She was going to cling to her dark power.
My military training, honed over decades, kicked in. Analyze the threat. Identify the objective. Neutralize.
My eyes snapped to the small, intricately carved wooden box on the altar. The spirit vessel. It was the nexus, the anchor point for Gideon’s manipulations and Maya’s dark aspirations. Destroy that, and their connection to the Lowcountry entity, at least in this physical form, would be severed.
“You won’t have it all,” I said, my voice hardening, echoing with the authority I’d wielded in countless combat zones. “Not if there’s nothing left to claim.”
Maya’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of genuine alarm in them for the first time. She knew what the box was.
She started to move, a desperate scramble towards the altar.
“No, Mom! Don’t you dare!” she shrieked, her voice suddenly laced with genuine panic.
But I was faster. Years of training, of quick, decisive action, propelled me forward. I moved with a speed that surprised even myself, covering the distance to the altar in a few swift strides.
I reached the altar just as Maya launched herself at me, her hands outstretched to block me. I sidestepped, a practiced maneuver, throwing her off balance. She stumbled, falling to her knees on the dusty floor, letting out a frustrated gasp.
My gaze locked onto the wooden box. It pulsed faintly, a dark heartbeat in the silence.
I lifted my foot, the heavy military boot coming down with all the force I could muster.
*CRACK!*
The sound was sharp, sickeningly final. The ancient wood splintered, bits of carved timber flying outwards. The faint dark hum died, replaced by an immediate, profound silence.
The shadows that had clung to the chapel walls, and had seeped into the floorboards at the safehouse, recoiled. They writhed, twisting like smoke, then dissipated, fading into the ambient gloom of the decaying structure.
A guttural cry escaped Maya’s lips. She clutched her head, her body convulsing slightly, as if something had just been ripped from her.
Outside, in the distant dark, I heard a sudden, screeching tire sound. Then, the fading roar of an engine. Gideon. He must have felt the snap, the severing of his link to the vessel. He was fleeing to avoid exposure, his elaborate scheme collapsing around him.
And I knew, in that instant, Magistrate Pryor would be right behind him. The bribed judge wouldn’t risk being caught in the fallout.
But the dark presence wasn’t entirely gone. As the shadows from the chapel walls receded, a faint, wispy tendril, like a thread of smoke, curled towards Maya. It wasn’t the strong, pulsating energy of before, but a lingering, insidious residue.
It hovered around her for a moment, then, with an almost imperceptible movement, it seeped directly into the lining of her heavy winter coat, the same coat where the journal had been hidden.
Maya slowly lifted her head, her eyes no longer panicked, but empty. A blank, chilling slate. The entity, or at least a part of it, hadn’t been destroyed. It had merely found a new host, a new hiding place.
A different kind of battle had just begun.
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