“Why aren’t you…”
Confused, I look past her. Half a dozen statues dot the field in the direction she’d come from – a couple of ghasts, a human, what looks like some kind of ogre I hadn’t seen before. They’re the same fine white marble as the harpy statue. That’s when I get it.
“Ah,” I say. “Gorgon, huh?”
“How…” she begins again.
“No time. Look, you seem to be a very nice gorgon, so just take me at my word and get out of here. Nothing good is going to happen.” I turn and hurdle the stoned harpy, not looking back to see if the pretty young monster has listened to me.
It takes nearly a minute to get out of the thick of battle, though God knows it feels like forever. I keep low, dodging the monsters as they fight their bloody battles, spinning away from danger when I can and attacking it when I can’t. By the time I reach the edge of the lawn I’m exhausted and running on adrenaline, my right arm throbbing from hacking at a ghoul that had tried to eat me. I lean against a cypress, risking a look back.
It’s an apocalypse. I can only see a tumult of shapes through the foggy moonlight, a random body (or part thereof) tumbling away into the night, the occasional flash of light as a spell or weapon is deployed. The air is full of roars, shouts, threats and curses, the clang of metal on metal, the shriek of the wounded, the howl of the triumphant.
A brilliant flash, almost solar, makes me wince and turn my head. The dragon is circling Remy’s house, still airborne, bathing it with dragonfire. The house doesn’t burn, of course. It’s too well protected for that, but what gets my attention is that the dragon doesn’t try to land on the roof and shred it with its claws. If it could, it would have torn through the building as if it were paper. It can’t, which means that the house wards are still holding. Even the Aegis would have trouble managing defenses like that.
I’d hoped that the war on his lawn would distract Remy, make him focus his attention on the invaders and forestall his procedure a bit longer. It seems like that isn’t happening. I slink along the tree line until I’m even with the house, trying to keep tabs on the battle at the same time. Most of it is still some distance from the house, but it’s roiling closer with every moment. Remy’s stone samurai have left the front door and taken flanking positions on either side of the entrance ramp and their cudgels have started to work. The small pile of bodies at their feet is slowly turning into a big one as more invaders grow closer, only to have their skulls crushed under those ugly iron rods. I can’t go head to head with them. There is nothing magical about those weapons so I have no inherent protection against them, and my skull is as fragile as anybody’s. The front entrance is out.
I’m planning another route when what feels like a freight train plows into my shoulder blades. I go sprawling face first into the grass, neck screaming from whiplash, my sword flying in one direction and the .460 in another. I manage to roll painfully onto my back when a shape soars out of the trees, pinning me to the ground.
“Hello, Ian,” Erich Gault snarls. His shirt is torn at the collar and his hair is matted with blood, but the toothy smile is genuine. He wraps his hand around my throat and clamps down. When a regular human does that it can be lethal. Backed by superhuman strength there’s simply no resisting it. At my peak I’d never have been able to pull his hand off, and my peak is a long, long way behind me. He grabs the belt of vials around my waist and snaps it one-handed, slinging it off into the trees, then pulls my Glock from its holster and makes it follow the vials.
“You always thought I wanted to kill you, didn’t you?” he growls through wolfen teeth. I couldn’t have answered if I wanted to. My head is throbbing as he cuts off blood and breath. “Thing is, you never knew the half of it. You wouldn’t have lasted a week if I’d had my way. I’d have given you to my pack, let them see what an Envoy of the Aegis lackey tastes like.” He lets go of my throat and my head swims as my blood flow evens out.
“So what kept you?” I cough.
He nods towards the house. “Him,” he says. “He made it clear early that anyone who took you out would be turned into one of his freaks. But this time you’ll be just another body on the battlefield. There’ll be no way to tell who killed you. Besides,” he says as he takes hold of my neck once again, wrenching my chin up and exposing my throat, “I don’t think he’d care that much anymore.”
He strikes, fangs lunging down. I have only a second to close my eyes and wait for the teeth to slash into my throat, but when I feel a strange, jarring sensation and my neck stays whole I risk a look. My old friend Arthur’s left hand has caught Gault’s head by the nape only inches from my skin, holding him in place like a parent collaring an unruly child. With what seems to be a mild effort he lifts the two-hundred-pound werewolf bodily into the air, holding him aloft so his feet kick in midair a full foot off the ground. Then he rears back his right hand and brings the railroad tie in his right hand in a full sweeping arc into Gault’s forehead, shattering face and skull with a sickening crack. Then he heaves the now limp body back into the woods a full ten feet away as easily as I would throw an empty soda can.
Arthur switches the tie into his left hand and offers me his clean right, and I allow him to draw me to my feet even though the sudden change in altitude makes my world swim. “Thanks,” I wheeze.
“Never liked him anyway.”
“Yeah, well, be careful. That won’t kill him, and I’m sure he’ll remember you.”
He shrugs happily. “Just doing my job. He can blame Remy if he feels the need.”
“Yeah, there’s that. You’re doing great, Arthur. Just be careful, OK?”
“Why? Remy’ll fix me up if I lose a piece.” With that he turns and clomps back towards the fray, the railroad tie swinging like a baseball bat. With a wet thunk a small gremlin goes sailing off into the night, its angry, Dopplering squeal bringing the ghost of a smile to my face.
The pile of bodies at the front door is growing deeper, the golems now spattered with blood and gore but still swinging with the tireless nature of their kind, but that’s fine. By bringing his defenses to bear on the wide-open front lawn Remy has drawn the invaders there, too, but I’ve been to this house before and I know where his back door is. I gather my sword and gun and stagger back to the trees, using them as cover to wind my way to the back of the house.
As I round the property I see that I’m not alone when it comes to avoiding the battle. Smaller fights are everywhere: the smaller back yard, the trees, even in the air. One of the airborne knights has lost his horse and is dueling with a mummy, longsword ringing against khopesh. A poltergeist is flailing at one of the floating sorcerers, while a gargoyle with one wing torn off is going at it tooth and claw with one of the Bay’s fish-men. Some of them made it to the party after all.
Standing is becoming an effort, my body broken down more with each moment. I’d like to take the honorable route and deal with each menace one on one, but the soul I’m trying to save doesn’t have that kind of time. I walk out of the woods with speed, coming up behind the mummy and taking its head off at the shoulders with my sword. Like someone told me once, I haven’t yet found the monster that could take losing its head.
Before the head can hit the ground I level the .460 at the knight and put my third shell through the opening in his visor, feeling like the bomb-like concussion is almost taking my arm off. The helmet is a good one. It doesn’t turn into shrapnel when the shell explodes in there with a flash of searing light, though the visor flies off into the night. Without breaking stride I moved forward, past the toppling body. It hits the ground with a wet thud as I move on.
As soon as I walk through the miniature cyclone that is the poltergeist it disintegrates, the swirling debris within it scattering without its host’s influence. The sorcerer is overtaken by confusion, then a pair of daggers suddenly appears it his hands and he leaps at me. I run him through, dropping him to his knees, but my strength fails and I can’t hold the sword. It remains stuck in the sorc
erer’s torso and I let it fall with him, still moving forward.
The gargoyle and fish-man stop fighting, still locked comically with their claws at each other’s throats, watching me draw closer. “Run,” I growl, not even bothering to raise my gun. They look at me, spattered with dirt and blood and with what has to be a manic expression and then they separate and flee, hightailing it into the woods. Unobstructed, I quickly close the distance to the house. Just one last hurdle to clear and then I’m in the house. I’m just hoping that something out front has managed to deal with that damned dragon.
I holster the .460 as I climb the ramp that leads to the back door and grab the handle, knowing as I do so that I have now short-circuited the last of Remy’s protective wards and left the house physically vulnerable. The same moment that I touch the handle I feel the shoulder strap of my shotgun tighten against my chest and suddenly I’m torn backwards, flying off the porch and landing hard on the packed earth.
“Thanks for disarming the door, Ian,” a woman’s cool voice says.
I’m lying on the churned-up earth, gasping for air, well past agony at this point. What does a little bit more matter? Somehow I wrestle myself to my knees, knowing what I’m going to see. Sure enough, Moira is there with twelve of her coven behind her, standing nude in the yard in a perfect V with Moira at the peak.
“I have to stop him,” I tell her, my voice little more than a ragged whisper.
“Ian, honey, you couldn’t stop a bee from stinging,” the thirteen witches say together. “Just stay down. We’re going to get that razor. Besides, one of our own is in there, and we’re going to bring her home.”
There is a strong part of my heart that is just fine with letting Claire get reabsorbed into their little hive. Her betrayal is still fresh and raw in my mind, and I’m sure that it will be for a long time. Thing is, there was never any chance that I’d let them take her. I know that regardless of what she’s done to me personally I would fight and, if necessary, die to protect her from the things that are stronger than her.
It’s just what I do.
So, I draw myself up and stand in their path, pulling the shotgun sling over my head and chambering a round. Before I can raise the weapon all thirteen witches make a hard-slashing gesture and the gun is ripped out of my hands, hovering in the air in front of me for a moment before rusting into a powdery hail even as I watch.
Even as the gritty powder drifts to the earth I grab for the .460. My palm barely makes contact with the grip when they make a complicated series of hand movements and the dead knight’s longsword and the mummy’s khopesh come spinning up out of the darkness in two gleaming spirals. I half leap, half fall to the side and they embed themselves deep in the house’s siding with two meaty thunks.
A wavelike motion of their arms, starting from the back of the V and moving up to Moira at the head, and my goddamn shirt catches fire. It’s a slow burn, not an instant conflagration, and I guess my sweat has hampered the fire spell but not been enough to fully stop it. Screaming, I rip the shoulder harness and the shirt off, flinging it at them. They cocked their heads to the left and it simply disappears before it even comes close, leaving only muted sparks to float down on them. One of the sparks lands on the cheek of a witch in the left arm of the V, and when she brushes it away all of them follow suit.
That’s when I get it.
They’re raising their hands to bring another attack when I hop down off the porch and run lightly at Moira. They smile her smile as I close in on them, but when I’m ten feet away I pour on some speed and break sharply to the right, sprinting down the line of the V. They turn their heads to follow me but the reflexes of a group are always going to be slower than the reflexes of one person. The last woman in the line never even sees me coming until I punch her right in the goddamn throat.
As I’d hoped, the whole baker’s dozen instantly clutches their own throats, gagging. Moira might be the one pulling their strings but what one of them feels is being felt by all, and right now they are all feeling panic and pain. I walk up to the next woman up the line and hit her with a hard knee to the sensitive part of the outer thigh where the muscles diverge and they all kneel in agony, sputtering identical wordless cries. A tight left hook to the solar plexus of the next one robs them of their breath, a short jab to the nose of the next turns their cries into ragged, choking snorts.
I save the last for Moira. I walk up to the head of the formation and crouch in front of her. She glares at me with mute hatred but too much pain is coursing through her flock for her bring a spell to bear. I wish I had something pithy to say, but I come up dry. So I just put all my weight into a right cross to the point of her jaw that sends all thirteen of them into identically posed unconsciousness.
I recover the .460, the only weapon I have left. Two rounds in the cylinder. What I have in mind only needs one.
Twenty-Four
The closing door cuts off the cacophony of battle, leaving me in silence. After the pounding my ears have taken in the last few hectic minutes it’s a blessed relief and I just lean against the door, savoring the quiet. Then the moment passes, and I move into the house.
I have never actually been in Danaher’s home before. I don’t know what I expected. Something suitably diabolical, I guess. Black walls. Grisly decorations. Darkened windows, the smell of old blood, a sacrificial altar. What I get is a surprise.
The entire floor is a single, open room, divided into quadrants by the type of flooring. I’m in a kitchen with bright white ceramic tiles, low countertops suitable for a man in a wheelchair and a wide pine dining room table that looks hand crafted. Directly in front of me is the center support of the house: a concrete elevator shaft with wrought iron gates in front and back. I could see through it to the front of the house and, through the front windows, flashes of colored lights and wild silhouettes. Not a sound penetrates, for which I’m grateful. The rest of the house is almost ordinary. A large TV set mounted on a wall, lots of bookshelves.
Through the whole of the living area there isn’t a single seat. Not a dining room chair, not a rocking chair, not even a couch. No, I correct myself as I walk deeper into the house. There is a single, armless recliner by the TV, wide and deeply cushioned. A whole house with only one place to sit.
Suddenly, I feel a little bit sad for Remy.
There’s only one other door in the room, and a quick check shows that it’s only a bathroom. The elevator it is, then. I go over to it but of course it’s gone. Just as well. There are no cables, so it must be magically operated, which means it probably wouldn’t have worked for me anyway. I look in the shaft and see the roof of the car one story below. Of course, he would have his lab underground. The better to contain any disasters. I force the gate open, sit on the edge of the floor, then grab the ledge and lowered myself to the roof of the car. I was worried that there wouldn’t be an access hatch, since there doesn’t seem to be any conventional maintenance to be done on a lift like that, but luck is with me. I pry it open and drop down into the car.
The basement is as open as the ground floor, but that’s where the resemblance ends. The whole room, walls and floor and even ceiling, is one seamless expanse of white, gleaming stone. The walls are lined with bookshelves crammed with old, handbound books and treatises, interspersed with what looked like surgical tools and mystical fetishes. The only furnishing in the room is a pedestal made of the same stone, with etched inlays lined with gold in ancient protective hieroglyphs.
Two people are busily moving through the room. Danaher is at a chalkboard twenty feet from the table, giving curt orders from his chair, the Cleave grasped tightly in his right hand. No way he’s letting go of it this close to his success. He’s still wearing his normal business attire, black slacks and white shirt. No tie, but around his neck is a necklace of feathers. Each is about six inches long, and they shimmer with a riot of color. I’ve seen feathers like that, once. They came from a dead angel. Not like Azrael. A real angel.
Claire
moves around the table, rapidly following the orders, arranging an assortment of gems, flowers and idols about the table to Remy’s liking. But the thing that draws my eye is the body on the table.
She looks just the way she did the night she’d been murdered by the Wendigo, as if since that awful night she’s simply been taking a refreshing nap. A white sheet covers her from ankles to breasts, but I can see enough exposed skin to know that Remy has spent a lot of time and energy maintaining and repairing Susan’s body. Waiting for the time that he would have the power to bring her back.
“She looks beautiful,” I say.
Their heads snap around. Fear blanks Claire’s face, seeing me so close. I understand why. I must be a horrific sight. Burned, bloody, carrying one hell of a big gun, knowing that I could end her life in a moment’s time and be justified in doing it. Danaher is fearful, too, but for different reasons. All I could take from Claire was her life. I’m about going to do a lot worse to him.
“Ian,” Claire whispers.
“Shut up,” I spit. “I’ll deal with you later.” I limp painfully into the room. The adrenaline is all but gone, and I’m starting to feel injuries where I hadn’t before.
“You can’t do this,” Danaher says, hatred keeping his voice steady when fear wants it to break.
“I have to,” I reply. “Remy, you’re going to kill an innocent person.”
“You don’t know that,” he says. “For all you know, it’ll be a serial child molester.”
Swim Like Hell: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 24