woods

The Scarlet Thread Irregulars (Serial Story) — Chapter 4

by

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 4: My team is ambushed by cryptids and I lose my cousin

Wednesday the 11th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario

“What the hell is that?” Ursula asked. 

“I think ‘Hell’ is exactly what it is,” replied Grant. 

I could tell neither of them had heard the scream through mindspeak, which meant it was Sylvie. “The other group’s in trouble, we’ll look into this place later.” 

Turning to run, I hoped they would follow. 

Al, get over here. I don’t think I can fight this off for much longer. Sylvie’s voice sounded strained but also excited.

Give me a sign as to where you are, I said. The woods were huge, and other than south, I had no idea where they’d gone.

The mosquitoes seemed to get thicker. They buzzed and bit before suddenly disappearing. I attributed it to the dropping temperature. Between the sun setting and moving away from the house, it was getting colder fast. 

A bright pillar of light slashed the sky. Thanks. We’re on our way.

She didn’t reply and a few moments later the light went out. The forest got thicker and I fought my way through until we reached the edge of a cliff overlooking the shore. I almost fell but managed to stop.

“Where are they?” asked Grant between breaths. He needed more running practice.

“There!” Ursula said, pointing at a cave on the rocky beach.

The sunset turned vivid red and a cool wind swept up the river. Just as I was going to argue, a small bear-like creature came out of the cave and started howling. Its jaws opened to a ninety degree angle and froth dripped from its mouth.  

The sound of its howl sent a shiver of fear through me, and just as quickly as it had started, the howl was replaced by the most amazing sound. Like music, love, and warmth had been combined. I wanted nothing more than to go toward that sound. 

I heard Grant swear and felt him try to grab me, but I fought him. I ran straight for the cave, not caring that there was a six foot drop to the beach. I felt the freedom of running on air followed by a fall but not the landing.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the cave with the rest of the group, covered in blood, with a massive headache.

Grant stood over us wearing earbuds and brandishing his sword. “Are you okay?” he yelled.

I patted myself down and gave him the thumbs up. He took out the earbuds and gave a deep sigh.

There were three creatures around us. Each had been hacked by a sword, none were moving. 

Seeing the creatures closer up, I recognized the short soft grey-brown fur and the shape of its head. Mostly I recognized the large venom sacks under its neck. “Grant? How did you take out three adlats?” 

Adlats are some of the most dangerous cryptid creatures on earth. They lure people in with their song and then pump them full of venom that both paralyses and heals. They slowly eat a person’s quintessence, their soul, and drain their blood. The older the adlat, the longer they can feed on one person.  

“I put in my earbuds the moment I heard the howl and blasted The Kings of Rock. I tried to stop you from running off that cliff but you fell, and wow were you broken. Like, your legs were both bent the wrong way and I saw you wheezing really bad. Then one of those things bit you, and your legs popped back into place like an inflatable mattress but, like, gross.”

“Gross,” Ursula repeated in a flat voice. “Stick to drawing because your descriptions are terrible.”

Robin gave a little shriek from the other side of the cave and my heart sank until she said, “I’m fine, but I think we’ve found our killers. There are two more bodies back here that are desiccated like the man in the morgue.”

 “Can we sound off?” I asked and each person said their name and that they were unhurt, except for Sylvie. “Sylvie? If you’re dead, I’m going to bring you back and kill you.” I was hoping that if she were unconscious, my voice would wake her. I repeated the same thing in mindspeak in case she was out of earshot.

“Can he do that?” asked Grant with fear in his voice.

Once again deadpan, Ursula answered, “Probably not.”

I got up and gave him a stern look. I reached into my pocket for my phone and found it in pieces. I needed light and summoned my sword. It glowed softly and with a thought I turned up the light. The cave was illuminated, showing me my team, two desiccated corpses, dirt, the hacked remains of the adlats, and lots of blood.

“What happened?” I asked Robin.

“We were searching the woods when we heard a roar behind us, and then there was this beautiful music. That’s all I remember.”

“No idea what happened to Sylvie?” I asked.

Clifford said, “No,” and then suggested, “What about the tracking spell?”

I shook my head and said, “I didn’t make a packet for her.” We each had a bag with hair from the others. It allowed us to use a tracking spell if one of us goes missing. In general, Gatekeepers don’t have magic like a wizard but we can use some minor ritual based magic.

“She’s your cousin. You share blood. Assuming she’s physically closer than any other relative you should be able to find her,” he explained.  

It was worth a shot. I took my sword and pricked my index finger. Rubbing the blood on my sword, I said the words, “Let me protect my chosen family, let me have the strength to save them, and let me find the one who was lost.” The words weren’t necessary, only the intent, but they didn’t hurt.

The sword swung me around in a full turn and then pointed firmly toward where we had seen the building called “Luc’s House of the Rising Sun.” I was fairly certain that Luc was short for Lucifer and that whatever we were walking into was going to suck.

“Everyone clean yourselves off and let’s get out of here. We’re going to get my cousin and meet the Devil.” I wasn’t a religious man and I didn’t believe in the Devil, but enough people did that an Aetherborn version could be just as bad.

Read Chapter 5 (May 2025)

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

The Scarlet Thread Irregulars (Serial Story) — Chapter 3

by

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 3: My team finishes their pie and wanders the woods.

Wednesday the 11th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario

“Must have been a French Roast,” deadpanned Ursula, her deep voice never betraying the laughter I saw in her eyes.

Sylvie pulled the sword out of the puddle and asked, “Does this mean I’m King of England now?”

Clifford immediately quoted Monty Python, “‘Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.’”

“They based that on us and no, you’re not a king. You’re now a Gatekeeper, a balancing force of the world. We keep magic from going wild and when it does, we clean it up. We are the Knights of the Aether,” I said, trying to make her understand that this was serious.

Sylvie raised an eyebrow and asked, “Do I have to take a vow of celibacy?”

“No?” I replied, not understanding why she was asking.

“Oh. So that’s just a you thing, not a Gatekeeper thing. Great.” She smiled mischievously at me. She always liked to tease me. This was going to be a long mission.

Coming to my defence, Ursula said, “He has Annabel.”

Eyes wide, Sylvie said, “Al, dish. Who’s Annabel?”

“You received a sword during a quest, not after it. That means you need to see it through to gain your full knighthood.” I changed the subject.

She put her free hand on her hip and said, “This talk isn’t over. How come none of you have your swords?”

I held out my hand and willed my sword into it. “You can summon your sword and dismiss it with your will. It can take months of training and even then, some have issues with it.” As I let my sword disappear, I tried really hard not to glance at Clifford. He had the hardest time learning to call his sword. We’d been working on it.

Sylvie took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment and her sword vanished.

“Wow,” Clifford said, looking a little sad.

“I’m a cop in Westmeath. I’ve seen shit,” Sylvie said, sounding way too cool. 

I scoffed and added, “She was in the military, Elmsley special forces, before quitting and joining the police force. She’s been trained to resist magic in multiple ways. It makes sense that her training would come in handy.”

“Actually, my Ronnie’s been training me to use magic items for defence,” Sylvie said, grinning as she mentioned her fiancée.

Looking really uncomfortable, Granny Pie asked, “Can I clean this up or is it religiously important?”

“No ma’am, it’s not holy and l can clean it up for you,” I said and she looked relieved. 

I retrieved the mop and bucket from the shop’s storage closet and I started to mop up the coffee while Pie explained, “There’s been some strange things going on around here.” She leaned in and whispered, “Magical.” When no one looked surprised, she continued, “Normally, the Aether here is really thick, but it’s been thinning, and I can’t figure out why. Things have been bleeding through. Nothing sapient or dangerous, but with Halloween around the corner, I’m not sure that will last.”   

“I guess we need to go check out the beach and see if there’s anything there,” Sylvie suggested.

At this point I was feeling old jealousies. She was only a few years older than me and lived in different parts of Ontario but I’d always been envious of her. She was better than me at everything, and I mean everything. I fought down the feeling and agreed. 

We finished our coffees, paid, and thanked Pie for help. Shield’s Crossing was a small town, but it was long, squished between Highway 17 and Muskrat Lake. 

We took the Volkswagen van. It was harder to drive than a minivan but easier to repair, as long as you could find the parts. It also allowed for more passengers. I guess we’re just a group of hippy knights. Who am I kidding? We were nerds at best.

We parked in the rowing club’s lot and walked to where the body had been found. Faught Beach was less of a beach and more of an opening in the woods that connected to the lake. No one with any sense would swim there. 

We looked around and found nothing useful. 

“I’m sure he died on the other side,” Robin said.

I looked up at the sky and then at my watch, “Let’s get going. We only have three hours before sunset, and we’re not ready to do a forest search in the dark.”

Sylvie looked confused and suggested, “We can get gear in town.”

I shook my head, “I’m not taking four inexperienced and one untrained knight into the wilderness in the dark.” I’d seen enough weird stuff in the cities. The woods brought out humanity’s weirdest fears and I wasn’t about to be killed by a yeti or killer duck.

The entirety of the other side of Muskrat Lake was thick forest. There were some homes on the shore but they were sparse. The roads were terrible but we made it to a lookout area with two hours to spare.

“We should split up to cover more ground,” Sylvie suggested. 

“Never split the party,” Grant said quickly.

Rolling her eyes, Sylvie said, “That’s only in Dungeons and Dragons. In real life, time is more important. Take these.” She passed out black metal rings.

The ring felt warm and I could feel it was charged with magic. There was the symbol of a tree with a maple leaf on the trunk, the logo of Yggdrasil. “What are these?” I asked.

“Coms. They work like mindspeak but they’re completely secure.” When the others gave her a blank look, she added, “It’ll let us talk mind to mind.”

“Okay fine, we split into two groups,” I started. “Sylvie, take Clifford and Robin, and search south. I’ll take Grant and Ursula and go north. We meet back here in an hour and a half.”

“Yes sir,” said my knights and Sylvie gave me a half-hearted salute.

Searching the woods isn’t the most exciting thing to do. We saw several rabbits, a lot of squirrels, a coyote, and more crows than I’d expected. We also met every damned mosquito in the area. Damn the warm fall. It was normally close to freezing at this time of year, but it had been in the low teens the whole time we’d been here.

As we walked it got hotter until I was considering taking off my leather coat. “Something’s wrong,” I said at the same time I heard a scream in my head.

I was about to turn and run to help my friends when the trees parted and a large three-storey antebellum style mansion appeared. The heat was coming off of it, and there was a large sign in the front that read, “Luc’s House of the Rising Sun.”

Read Chapter 4

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories: