BURDEN OF AN ANCIENT OATH by Joshua Brown (early reader books TXT) 📕

people didn’t care about killing cops, which made me far more nervous about the outcome.

“That guy’s nuts, man. Why the hell did we even help him out?” a voice asked as the door swung open.

“Sometimes you do what you gotta do to make money, my man. You like that car you drive? That house you live in?”

Before another reply came, I took the corner, gun out, pressing against the lead man’s chest.

“Hands up where I can see them,” I shouted. The man looked me in the eye, nodding his head.

“That’s a bad idea,” he said, lifting his hands, and so did the one behind him.

I pushed into the house, forcing them all backward, deeper into the wide-open living room of the motel. Aaron followed close behind, gun pointed in towards the men all the same.

They all wore the same maroon robe as the man that entered the Dench home. Only, these four didn’t wear the hood over their heads.

And there they were, the Dench family—only the daughter was missing, and so was the Witchfinder General. Jane looked at me, and I could see the fear and panic in her eyes. Her head twisted towards a closed door on one end of the room. I knew that’s where her daughter was taken.

I felt my heart racing. If that twisted bastard touched a hair on that girl's head, I’d have torn him to pieces with my bare hands. But there was a more prominent threat.

Though the frontman held his hands up, and so did the second, two of them didn’t.

“You really thought you’d just walk in here and save the day?” he asked, chuckling.

“You know what you’re doing here?” I replied.

“I don’t really care,” the man said, turning to face the men behind him. “The way I see it, there’s two of you and for of us. You really think those odds are in your favor?”

“Make that three of us,” I heard Gwen say from behind, stepping into the apartment. In her hands, a pump-action shotgun. “You two, hands up—”

Before she could finish her sentence, a bald man behind lifted his hand. Without a second’s hesitation, Aaron fired a single bullet in his direction. The bald man collapsed to the ground, and in his fist, a snub nose revolver. The third man dropped his gun and lifted his hands with no need to tell him again.

“Can you two handle this?” I asked, knowing I had to get into the back room and stop the Witchfinder from completing whatever sick plan he had for that poor girl.

“We’ve got you covered,” Aaron said. His voice was shaky, and so was the hand holding his pistol.

“Now, either of you boys make any sudden movements, I’ll put a bullet in you all the same,” Gwen said, cocking the shotgun.

But my trust was well placed, and as I pushed by the small group of thugs, a small force of police officers moved into the building. They yelled orders, telling the thugs to get down, and started their arresting process.

I burst through the bedroom door, pistol drawn, and fixed it on the mass, sitting on the bed. There I saw him, the Witchfinder General, the man I’d been hunting for weeks now, with the Dench girl on his lap.

I never learned her name and now regretted making the decision. It wasn’t in my nature to get too attached to the family. Jane was my client, and I promised to help her. Learning more of her family, though they were a high priority, brought emotions to a case.

Whenever possible, I avoided working on emotions. I knew how dangerous they were to a case and their impact on getting a job done. But seeing her on the Witchfiner’s lap, tears spilling from her face as she attempted shouting through the duct tape covering her mouth, I wanted to console her. An innocent child, no matter what happened there that night, would never forget these heinous events.

It made me sick.

The Witchfinder held the Dench girl, with one hand on her forehead, the other holding a knife to her neck. I suspected the red liquid that filled a small glass tube to be Spencer’s blood.

“I never thought we’d get to this point, Detective Mercer,” a sigh rumbled behind the mask.

“That’s the problem with hired thugs,” I replied. “You can’t trust them when it comes right down to it.”

“I suppose…” he replied. “And I was so close too, ridding the world of this evil. The Williamson family put up far less fight than the Dench’s. I suppose Spencer never had much of a backbone to begin with. Jane is the true evil in the matter. And her daughter will never carry on the line of evil she inspires.”

“Don’t do this,” I said, hearing someone step into the doorway behind me. It was Jane, with Gwen following, trying to stop her from seeing whatever was going on in here.

Jane burst out in a tremendous scream. Gwen grabbed her, pulling her away from the scene.

“It’s my life’s work, Jack. That’s like me telling you to leave this house and let me finish,” the Witchfinder remained unmoving. I adjusted my aim towards his head, but the shot wasn’t clear enough. If I flinched, even a millisecond before firing, the girl would take a bullet.

I couldn’t risk it, not yet.

“It’s a funny thing, a family oath. My father, before me, took on the Crossley family, destroying the evil that lived within that home. I was trained my whole life to go out in the world and ensure that these monsters could not prevail,” he started on a tangent.

“This is an innocent child,” I cut him off. “She’s not good, or bad, or anything in between. She knows nothing about the world, and there’s not a bone in her body that’s harmful.”

The Witchfinder scoffed,