Ancient Ties Across an Ocean

[WARNING: MATURE CONTENT]

Nightfall within the dark woods allowed predators to roam about with wild abandonment. There was no shortage of predators both living and dead, but the ones roaming about that night that were of most concern were the invisible ones.

Blake hovered at the top branches of the gnarled oak tree in the immediate vicinity of the Tiger Temple and observed as four men left the compound with backpacks and flashlights.

They were leaving to hunt Jazzie down. He would have to eliminate them so they would no longer be a danger to Jazzie

Four less watchdogs in this compound was a good thing. He'd dispatched twelve of them in the woods earlier with his ax, all the while hoping none of them came near the girl who was hiding inside the bushes.

He had led them away from her and had ambushed them all, gaining an easy 120 red power points.

He'd been so distressed that they were prowling and hunting her down that he'd cut them all down with no compassion. They were simply not allowed to hurt her any more than they had already done.

But they were humans and he had the advantage of invisibility. For predators of the non-human sort, he had no such advantage.

He had no illusions that he was invincible. Luis had told him about what had happened when a mob of darkness had gotten a hold of him. It was not pretty.

Blake waited until the four men had left the compound before sneaking into the front area.

He creeped from bush to bush, staying within the darkness so he could be less visible to those spectres who could see him. Although he still had most of the energy that the old nun had given him,

As he rounded the corner of one of the large warehouses, he could hear a faint murmur coming from one of the smaller dwellings.

At first it was so faint that he thought he was hearing the moaning of the wind through the trees, but then it got louder.

It was not the sounds that attracted his attention, however. It was the stink. Blake could smell the strong stench of death emanating from that place.

Without hesitation, he made his way to the top of the dwelling and stuck his head in through the roof.

Immediate, Blake felt like retching. The smell was so strong he could barely stand it even though he was a ghoul.

The faint murmur was coming from the old man he had knocked out when he went to free Jasmine. Blake grimaced. He should have killed the bastard.

"…ah. Keep grinding on me. Ohhhh Annabelle. Haaa. That's right. Don't stop…aaaahhhh."

The old man was naked and lying on his small single bed. Straddling on top of him was a young woman who was unclothed. She was, indeed, grinding herself onto him.

She was mostly transparent, which made the old man's hard erection fairly visible.

What was amazing was that as she moved her body, the shape of his penis changed, as if he was truly inside her body, or at the very least, there was a force which was gripping around his hard-on, titillating and arousing him.

Suddenly, the old man's faint murmurs turned into loud mewling. He grasped the woman's breasts and fondled them as he began reaching towards orgasm.

"HaaaAAaaaaa. Aaaaaahhhh. Oooooh. I'm coming. Haaaa. Aaaaa!" He wailed as his body flailed and shuddered, shooting large spurts of thick white semen everywhere.

It shot through her body, spilling onto his belly and dripped down onto the bed. The funk of the ghoul mixed with the smell of his sperm, causing Blake to grimace with disgust.

Blake pulled his head out of the room and moved towards the green roof of the temple.

It was seriously disturbing to see that a ghoul could have sexual intercourse with a living human. He had never heard of such an occurrence, but there it was.

Blake shook his head.

He could not think about things like that. He had a job to do. He needed to find John's whereabouts.

Slipping in towards the various other buildings, Blake could see nothing strange or suspicious until he reached the auto mechanic shop near the front of the enclosed yard.

There, at the center of the floor in a demolished mess was the dismantled remains of John's blue Chevy.

All the parts had been stripped and there was nothing left of it but the battered blue metal body that would most likely be cut apart and sold as junk metal.

The man himself was nowhere in sight, but there was no question in Blake's mind that he had been captured and was most likely no longer alive.

☯︎☯︎☯︎

On the other side of the world, Anh Hai rubbed his temples and tried to figure out what to do next as he tucked the mobile phone into his breast pocket.

The heat was oppressive, the dust cloying.

If it hadn't been for this critical trip to Southeast Asia, he would have remained in LA to oversee the developmental process of his newest ghoul, Ray Street.

He would have also been there to meet Jasmine Love.

His latest call to Bin Dat had not been what he expected. From the stuttering and round-about mumbling of the old man, Anh Hai had gathered enough to figure out that Jasmine had flown the coup.

He had not foreseen this event happening. With all the guards he had posted around her day and night, it should have been impossible for her to escape.

He settled back onto the vinyl pad of the chaise in the canopied three-wheeled bicycle-powered rickshaw and faced forward, looking at the street in front of him.

On his left was the aquamarine blue of the white sandy beachfront of Nha Trang, with all its graceful swaying palm trees and its tropical beach-front bars and restaurants.

There were thatched palm huts offering snacks and tropical alcoholic drinks interspersed with red curved rooftops and green pillars with carved dragons climbing up their lengths.

On his right, along the sides of the road, vendors placed wares of every imaginable items, from shoes and toys to fake plastic flowers in colorful ceramic pottery.

Behind him, the driver pedaled with steady resignation, meandering along the wide road filled with motorbikes and other three-wheeled rickshaws. The din of the horns honking everywhere was enough to give him a headache.

He shoved a pair of noise-cancelling earbuds in and listened to blessed nothing.

Three of his men were also pedaling along on regular bikes of their own immediately behind him. Two others were on motorbikes ahead of him, leading the way in a slow steady procession. They were heading to their hotel.

His lunch with the Honorable Tong Li that afternoon had not been as productive as he had hoped. He had met up with the old man on a shaded hanging temple situated high above the pounding surf of the beaches below.

Anh Hai had ordered a feast to be brought up to that temple by his men, complete with linens and crystal goblets, but old Tong Li had not been impressed.

The warlock had not eaten any of the honey glazed capon and steamed fish wrapped in bamboo leaves that the local chefs had labored over.

Instead, he sat there facing out towards the breaking waves sipping on dry rice wine and munching on pieces of fried tofu with a worried expression on his face.

"Vincent," he called Anh Hai by his real name. "You have labored so much for the completion of this operation. Because it is nearing its conclusion, all the opposing forces have started to show themselves. You must be prepared for them."

"Yes." Anh Hai responded as he sipped on the tiny cup of rice wine. "I have begun to feel their forces. There is a powerful nun on the other side of the ocean who has thwarted my attempt to control one of the seven souls. I'm afraid we may need to find another method."

"There is a powerful monk on this side of the ocean as well, Vincent." Tong Li said matter-of-factly.

"How can you tell, and where is he?"

"This monk has been evading us for decades. However, out of necessity, he must use his own powers to figure out where the strongest concentration of our powers are."

With one quick motion, Tong Li drained his wine cup.

"He revealed his position to us, just as we lost our anonymity to his probing fingers."

"Has he done anything up to this point?"

"No, but it has only been a few days since I have discovered his whereabouts. I have been waiting for you to arrive, and now that you are here, I will be leaving all of it in your capable hands."

Anh Hai nodded. Tong Li trusted him with this. It was a good sign.

"So where is this old monk?"

Tong Li cleared his throat.

"Right where I last saw him, seven centuries ago. Near the Hai Van pass in Myson, the Holy City of Champa."