The Hypnotist: The White Lotus

Part One Chapters 23 & 24

Previously on The Hypnotist:

Using his codex, Logan interrogates three demons in the hidden room of Juno's condo, discovering that a young girl was taken alive through the master bedroom, while Dr. Vlad reveals to Cardinal Montgomery that his plan involves replacing Bastion's chosen "pure human" with their own controlled subject. Later, Logan explains to Juno the reality of demons living among humans in different frequencies, revealing that the White Lotus is one of the most powerful demons who sent her to find him because he's "his favorite human."

Chapter 23

Dr. Vlad strolled back to his car where Clitis was holding the door open for him.

“Everything go well, sir?”

“Excellent, Clitis. Excellent, indeed.” He arrived at the door, eye to eye with Clitis. “Our requests have been approved,” he said with a wide grin when he looked back at the church and gestured to it. “Leave it to the Fraternal Order to always be influenced by the gain of power with the threat of losing it.” He ran his tongue inside his cheek and clucked his tongue before looking back at Clitis. “Their longing for power will be their downfall.”

“Indeed,” said Clitis. “I almost feel sorry for them.”

“Don’t,” Vlad said abruptly. “They reap what they sow.”

Clitis bowed with a shrug. “Of course, sir.”

Vlad paused a long while, thinking. He looked at Clitis. “Is our next step already in play?”

“It is. Bastion’s pawn is being dealt with.” He gestured to the archdiocese. “Once Bastion makes the discovery, he’ll be led to the church.”

Vlad grinned from ear to ear. He enjoyed hearing good news. “Who will naturally send him our way, but that doesn’t satisfy our one and only concern. It just brings Bastion into the fold of our plan.”

“Understood, sir.”

Vlad looked back at the church, rolling his tongue across his teeth. He then turned to Clitis. “We need to double our efforts. Time is not on our side,” he said. “We need to find Juno immediately.”

Clitis bowed again. “We have a search team on the ground now, sir. I’m certain she will be with us soon.”

Dr. Vlad nodded. “I hope so.” He laughed while eyeballing the church. “I don’t want to have to bluff a demon. That Bastion is an evil son of a bitch.”

“That he is,” Clitis agreed. “Where to now, sir?”

Vlad thew his hands up. “Well, home, of course. Might as well get settled in before Bastion comes knocking on the chamber door.”

“Excellent, sir,” said Clitis. “Excellent.”

Dr. Vlad climbed into the car and Clitis closed the door before walking around to the driver’s side and taking his seat, noting how giddy Dr. Vlad was.

Chapter 24

The house was on fire. The flames licking at the air from the busted windows. The wintry breeze off the ocean cast black smoke across the two acres plus property where Bastion and his pride watched the flames.

Holly looked up at Bastion. He did not look pleased, his nose curled, gritting his teeth. His stare wide and filled with rage. She turned back to the fire.

“We should discover a new brand of torture for whatever human did this to our people.” Holly gripped her hands into fists. “Take them to a hell they couldn’t possibly fathom.”

She turned to Bastion and the other members of the pride. She could tell they were just as angry as she was. The same stare with that same rage in their eyes. Bastion had no response. Instead, he walked into the burning inferno through the front door that hung broken off its hinges. The pride on his heels.

The first he saw was the dead demon on the floor in the living room. She had been burned with an ethereal light that cast her out of the human host she had been feeding on and sent her racing across the veil, mummifying the host body in the process. Bastion looked up at the fire slithering across the ceiling. Its anger fueled by the breeze coming through the shattered windows lined across the back wall that led to the ocean fifty yards from the house where the sun was descending beneath the horizon.

“What are we looking for?” asked Janice. “Everyone is dead.”

Bastion drew in a deep breath, inhaling the smoke-filled air. “One of our own has survived. I can smell him.” He pointed toward the master bedroom. “That way.”

The pride turned with him and followed Bastion to the bedroom. The fire was worse here, eating away at the bed and furniture and licking across the ceiling. Bastion’s eyes flitted from one side of the room to the other. He sniffed twice, then stepped around the bed where he found who he was looking for.

Galen, one of Bastion’s many brethren who had taken up arms and put their very souls on the line to aid Bastion’s endeavor, was on the floor beside the bed. His flesh was burnt and charred. Whatever clothes he had been wearing had disintegrated. Burnt into his torso was a giant cross, littered with blisters that fizzled puss across his bones. His left eye had been pulled from its socket. The gelatinous ball was sizzling across his cheek. The right eye had been battered into oblivion, closed and swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Black blood like ink dripped from the corner of his charred lips.

The disgust Bastion felt at that moment rifled through his bones.

“He’s dead, Bastion.” Seth looked up from the charred remains to Bastion. “We should go before the fire takes the roof.”

Bastion craned his head, assessing his lost comrade. “Not yet,” said Bastion. He dropped a knee onto Galen’s chest, just below his throat, kneading his knee into the bone. “Wake, Galen,” he seethed, gripping Galen’s face in his claws. “Wake noooooooowwww!” His sharp nails dug into the charred flesh, peeling away the skin when a gasp raged from Galen’s lungs. His mouth gaped open, spilling black blood across his chin. Bastion peeled the swollen eye open and stared into that eye. “Who?” he asked, but Galen’s eye rolled up to his skull. Bastion plunged his fingernails into Galen’s temples and his eyeball shot back into place. “I asked, who?”

Galen coughed blood across his lips, then gargled on that same blood. His mouth hung open, choking on it, drowning in blood.

“Bastion?” called Cora. “The roof is collapsing.”

He had no care for the roof or the fire. Bastion needed information, and he wasn’t leaving until he got what he wanted. “Galen?” he hollered, sinking those fingertips further into his flesh and started shaking his skull. “Answer meeeee.”

Galen opened his mouth, and a river of blood dropped off his lips. Bastion turned his head to the side, the black fluid racing across his wrist. The surrounding fire was thundering across the walls, roaring flames licked at every corner. Galen’s mouth gaped open.

“Who, Galen? Who did this?”

Galen’s voice came out garbled and hoarse. “The cloth,” he said. “They wore the crescent of the Fraternal Order.”

“And the boy? Did they take him, or is he among the dead?”

Galen fell limp in Bastion’s hands. The fire was everywhere. Bastion rammed Galen’s skull against the floor and his eye reopened. Bastion’s voice was furious when he asked, “The boy? Where is the boy?”

Galen shook his head. “Taken,” he breathed.

Bastion released his grip, and Galen’s head flopped to the floor. His skull hit the hardwood with a thud. Sounded like a cantaloupe that had been hit with a hammer.

“It is time to go,” said Seth, addressing the pride and snapping Bastion’s attention from Galen.

He stood up, staring at the ceiling and the flames slithering across it. He gestured to the pride to leave, who all bowed to their master before filing out of the room. Bastion was about to take leave himself when Galen’s hand wrapped around his ankle. Bastion looked down on Galen with his one eye open and staring directly at him.

“Shadow,” he sighed. “Don’t allow me to be trapped in this body.” His voice like a gargle filled with nails.

“You have failed me, Galen.” He shook his head. “You deserve the hell that waits for you.” He kicked Galen’s hand off him. “Rot in that hovel for a thousand years.”

Galen’s head flopped back, his chin raised high, his mouth opening and closing, choking on his last breath.

“I don’t allow failures to join my pride.”

Bastion walked out of the room, walking through the flames and smoke while listening to Galen’s screaming hollers rage from the bedroom. The pride waited for him in the limo.

Bastion said, “My patience has run thin, my pride. Looks like we have more priests to kill.”