Sorcha's Secret World, Part one.

Chapter 4, Dead Ends.

The airport wasn't quite as dead as I had thought it would be, pardon the pun. It had been taken over by an organisation dressed in black futuristic-looking uniforms, wearing black visors. They looked like something from a science fiction movie. The guns they were holding looked high-tech and they were guarding black barriers that crackled with blue energy. I asked politely if I might pass through, but they refused my entrance. I tried asking questions about Beaumont and the island but they refused to answer them as well. I could see black helicopters behind them, some of them taking to the air.

I hoped they were here to help the survivors evacuate.

A quick call to Richard disabused me of that notion. The people in black were from a company called the "Orochi Group", a major multinational corporation that operates within the Secret World. They are major innovators in science and technology, most of the tech we use in the field (like my phone) was developed by them. They were here for research purposes only, and I was under strict orders to leave them to their work.

Over the next few days, I found myself chasing dead end after dead end. It wasn't so much that I was looking for a needle in a haystack, it was more like looking for a needle in a pile of needles. Everything on the island seemingly had links to the Illuminati and the occult.

I spent ages in the tunnels under the little church, and while there were whole libraries and storage areas with ancient artefacts underneath it, there was no sign of Beaumont, the sword or the 'lock' he was looking for.

There was a haunted theme park on the island, complete with haunted rides and gruesome history of a bogeyman luring visiting children to their deaths. I spent almost a whole day trying to figure out what had happened there, what was still happening there I should say because the place was practically oozing anima.

And while I managed to banish the Bogeyman for good, with top hat, cane, spindly legs and all, it was another dead end.

I came across a motel with a gate directly to hell in it, demons pouring out and milling around the parking lot. Even the zombies were running away from them. I managed to deal with them too, but it didn't bring me closer to my goal.

There were pools of Filth bubbling up in places as well, corrupting the environment, and the animals and people who came near it. Even the zombies were corrupted by the Filth.

Slowly I began to understand where all those walking dead were coming from. There were mass graves from witch hunts long in the past, the nearby bonfire still glowing with ghostly blue flames. There were the miners who were left to suffocate after the local mine collapsed, only the be dug up years later and buried in a mass grave, their bodies now shuffling around with their still pickaxe in hand. Early Illuminati cultists had performed ritual human sacrifices, their victims' bodies disposed of in the woods.

I found evidence of a serial killer, who had been preying on tourists a decade or two ago. A farmer, who had butchered and killed his farmhands, in that order.

It was as if every horror book written in the last century had been reenacted on this island in one way or another.

I also did begin to understand why Richard wanted me to stop working in the late afternoon because the job was exhausting. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Channelling anima is tiring in its own way, and while my Bee provided me with the energy to run and fight all day, I was glad to go home for the night. I worried a lot that Beaumont would find what he was looking for while I was gone, or while I was chasing yet another dead end, but he seemed to have exactly the same problem I had: there was so much happening on the island, so many possible places where these archives of his could be, that he hadn't found what he was looking for either.