“It’ll be fine. Come on.” She lugged the brown bag with the St. Joan helmet. Simon walked ahead of her, hoping he could speed up the search. Attending Will’s game didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.
Simon halted unexpectedly. He couldn’t walk any farther for some reason. “Uh, Cami. We have a problem,” he squealed.
“What’s going on?” she asked nonchalantly.
Simon couldn’t lift his feet. He was stuck. “My feet won’t move.”
“Just lift one up and then the other,” Cami tried to assure him. “You’ll be fine.”
His face flushed from the effort to move. He hopelessly gyrated, even flapped his arms like wings, but his feet were stuck in place. “It’s like something is holding them down. Come over here and help me.”
Cami shone the flashlight at his feet and saw nothing but Simon’s tennis shoes. While he moaned and cried for help, Cami slipped St. Joan’s helmet onto her head. When she cast the light back toward Simon’s feet, she saw the outlines of four imps, paws wrapped around the boy’s ankles, staring directly at her.
“What is it? I can see from your face that something is—What are you seeing, Cami?”
“Not good—what do I do?” Cami said to herself.
“For what? What ‘do you do’ for what? Tell me what’s going on.” Simon was swiftly approaching panic mode.
The tender French voice filled Cami’s ears. “They fear the helmet. Or rather, the one who gives it power. Move closer to the creatures and they will scatter.” She did exactly as she was told and took Simon by the hand. Cami saw faint outlines, like holograms of the pint-sized devils, scuttling away.
Simon could again lift his feet.
“How did you do that?”
“I’m not sure, but let’s get moving,” Cami said. Up ahead she saw what appeared to be more imps, lurking behind gravestones and in the trees. “Stay close to me, Simon.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, tightly holding her one hand with both of his own. “I’ll be right here—you know—to protect you.”
“Go to the front of the graveyard. At the open grave you will find answers for your friend. Hurry.” Cami picked up her pace, with Simon clinging to her for dear life.
* * *
With much of the town at the football game, the Brethren fanned out across Perilous Falls, doing what they could to weaken the power of Asmodeus. Philip had set up circular grills beneath most of the storm drains in the city. In pairs, the Brethren descended into underground tunnels to light the grills and fill them with fish hearts, livers, and incense. Lucille and Bartimaeus were assigned to light the incensors downtown.
“Once we fire up these last four burners, we should be good,” Bartimaeus said, dumping the fish organs from a plastic bucket into one of the pits.
“This is a rather curious way to weaken a demon,” Lucille said, a blowtorch in her gloved hand. She lit the brightly colored pebbles in the pit and stepped back. “Though I have to say Philip’s incense mixture does conceal the fishy smell rather well.”
“I know it’s weird but we had to do it. It’s how your daddy whipped the thing.”
“Is that what the diary said?”
“The diary said it was a group effort. But I saw what happened when your daddy faced Asmodeus.”
“You saw it?” Lucille lifted the front of the welder’s mask she wore. “You mean in a vision?” Bartimaeus was a Sensitive who could sometimes intuit or feel things before or after they occurred.
“When we came up in the crypt the other night, the Column of Fire was there just spinnin’ away, so I went up to it and asked to see how Jacob beat this demon.” He moved on to the next pit, bucket in hand. “Well, Jacob could see the creature, but hard as he tried, he couldn’t defeat it. Somethin’ was wrong. All of a sudden a whole band of Brethren moved in. They were kickin’ and prayin’ and slayin’—all pitching in to make up for Jacob’s shortcomings. They beat it together.”
“The prophecy did say only in weakness would Will find his strength—and he would have to vanquish the thing through self-giving.”
Bartimaeus had a faraway look in his eyes while he poured the fish organs into another pit. “When it was over, when they’d beaten the thing, there were victims. I saw ’em.”
“You mean some of the Brethren died in the fight.”
“More than some—”
The walkie-talkie on Lucille’s hip crackled to life.
“Lucille. Bart. Come in.” It was Brother Pedro’s strained voice. “I need you here right away. I’m on the roof at city hall,” he sporadically yelled. “We have a situation. Ahhhhh. Come now!” And the walkie-talkie went dead.
Simon had the sickening feeling that he and Cami were being watched as they weaved among the gravestones and cracked mausoleums. Tree branches like witches’ claws reached toward them. In the distance, they could see the off-kilter wrought-iron gate that fronted the cemetery.
“Let’s start over there.” Cami pointed to the far side of the graveyard, near the charred remains of the Karnak Center. “We’ll check all the graves along the front gate.”
“Fine. Just let’s be quick about it.” Simon still had Cami by the hand, making her his human shield, cowering behind her whenever he was spooked by a shadow or the rustling of trees.
Tyler Dirksen. Zeb Lynch. Felicity McFadden…None of these names, etched into the headstones, provided the kids with any “answers.”
“This is a waste of time,” Simon complained. “We should get out of here or come back with adults. A lot of adults. Adults driving cars with power locks who could drive us around the cemetery without having to—” Simon suddenly sounded as if he had just inhaled a pigeon and was choking on it. He pointed his flashlight to the open grave and headstone to their left and released Cami’s hand. “Do you see the…the…It’s the kid’s name!”
Cami read the name on the square gravestone next to the open hole. “I see it.” Seeing the name carved in the stone took her breath away. “We’ve got to tell Will. I can’t believe…Do you think it’s the same person?” Just as she leaned down to confirm the name, to make sure that she hadn’t lost her mind, a voice like brakes screeching made her jump.
“What are you young’uns doing here?”
Simon went white with fear.
“We…we’re…” Cami was too shocked by the tall, old man’s face to formulate a sentence. It looked like that of an emaciated horse, if the horse had been rolling in dirt or soot for days. His clothes were ratty and as filthy as his face.
“Can you two not understand English? Name’s Lemar James. I’m the night watchman here. Be interested to know who in creation you two are.”
Simon strained to think of something to say or do. He nervously glanced up Dura Lane, hoping that someone would come along and help them. That’s when Simon saw a third open grave, two places over from where they stood. When he shone the flashlight on the face of the tombstone, he and Cami mouthed in quiet terror what was written there: LEMAR JAMES 1934–2002.
* * *
On the freight elevator in the back of city hall, Bartimaeus Johnson’s hands were extended, his eyes tightly shut. “We’re walking into something baaaaaaad, Lucille.” He lightly shook his head. “Somethin’s up there. I don’t see anything, but I sure can feel it.”
“Is it a demon?” Lucille pushed back the silky arms of her jacket, readying herself for whatever awaited them upstairs.
“I don’t think it’s a demon. Feels more like some lesser form of evil—maybe some Fomorii.” The elevator dinged and the door slid open. “But I have been wrong before.”
The sound of Brother Pedro screaming greeted them as they stepped out onto the roof. Pressed up against the short wall surrounding the roof, Pedro writhed. He struggled against some unseen force, involuntarily rising up toward the top edge of the wall.
“Bart, as much as you can, I need you to tell me where these creatures are,” Lucille whispered, pounding across the roof.
“I’m on it,” Bart said, closing his eyes and leaning forward on his crutches.
“Free him,” Lucille called out, flinging holy water from a vial in her right hand. One of Pedro’s arms, along with his long hair, was being pulled upward. His two legs were twisting off in the other direction. After Lucille doused him with the water, Pedro fell to the floor. She could hear scratching sounds all over the roof—growing louder by the second.
“Whatever they are, they’re very powerful,” Pedro warned, rubbing the back of his head.
Lucille bent her knees, assuming a fighting stance. She touched her forefinger and thumbs together, pulling her hands close to her chest.
“They’re imps, minor demons. We’re surrounded, Lucille,” Bart said, without opening his eyes.
“Both of you: over here,” Lucille ordered.
Pedro cartwheeled to her side and Bart hobbled near as quickly as he could.
“Get behind me,” she whispered, “and move as I do.”
Without another breath, she extended her arms and from her fingers shot a red and white ray that lit up the rooftop. She turned in a tight circle, blasting every inch of the tarred roof around them. As the ray burned through their scaled bodies, the creatures were momentarily visible. In brief torched poses of pain, the imps bared claws, gritted teeth, and grimaced in horror before vanishing from sight. Lucille continued her assault, making three full circles.
“Back up. Toward the elevator,” she barked over her shoulder. Pedro and Bart inched backward, hoping Lucille had taken out most of the creatures. At the control panel, Pedro repeatedly punched the DOWN button. After nearly a minute, the door squealed opened. The trio backed in. For good measure, Lucille continued her light spray until the door began to close. The second it shut, thuds, like baseballs hitting the metal door, shook the car.
“You came just in time. They were going to dump me off the roof,” Pedro exploded, bracing himself in the corner of the elevator. “My legs were like lead. I had no control over my body.”
“The important thing is you’re okay now, dear. Did you disable the speakers?”
Pedro pulled a series of cut wires from his pocket. “I not only disabled them, I crossed so many lines it will take a week to get them working again.”
“Good.” Lucille exhaled, wiping the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Then we got everything done. That’ll buy us some time. Let’s get to Peniel and meet the others.”
* * *
The halftime show at the Perilous Falls Middle School game looked more like a concert. All eyes were on Cassian revving up the crowd with his peculiar remix of the same tune. Dan Wilder could not understand how the audience, even his wife, could dance nonstop to variations of one song. Marin wore a set of noise-canceling headphones over her ears. She couldn’t stand listening to Cassian’s tunes around the house. When she heard from her mother who would be playing at the game, Marin asked to borrow her dad’s noise cancelers. She grimaced at the people jamming around her.
“This is nasty music,” she lisped to her brother repeatedly.
Leo too was disturbed by the display. “Can we leave? I mean, Will’s team is going to win anyway,” he said, pointing to the scoreboard. At halftime, the score stood at 46 to 3, in Perilous Falls’s favor.
“We are not leaving until the game is over,” Deborah droned, shaking back and forth in front of her seat.
When the second half of the game started, the crowd remained raucous. Coming onto the field from the locker room, Will hesitated when he saw even more imps crawling around than before halftime. They mobbed the stands and gyrated in time with the music along the sidelines. Forty or fifty of them were scattered around the field.
Cassian and his uniformed Amazons had cleared out, but the beguiling music continued to quietly throb from the speakers at the top of the stands. Will considered racing up there and disabling the console. With his strength, it would be easy to demolish the speakers and maybe disperse the imps. But before he could move, his team took possession of the ball and the coach told him he’d be replacing Caleb on this drive as quarterback.
Caleb, who was already on his feet, threw his helmet to the ground and flopped back onto the bench. He glowered at Will as he took his place on the field.
The other guys on the team were so spooked by the speed and power of Will’s passes that they let two fly by without even trying to catch them. On the first throw, the entire ball sank into the turf, creating a hole near the end zone. The other hit a cooler on the sideline, busting it wide open, sending blue liquid spraying in all directions.
Will came up with his own play for the third down. At the snap, he threw the ball straight up into the air. Shoving aside the linebackers with ease, he cleared a path to receive his own pass. No one else even reached for the ball. The opposing team had been so brutalized by Will’s prowess that, though they initially ran toward him, one glance was enough to stop them in their tracks. Huge Sorec players raised their hands in surrender and offered no resistance at all.
Unopposed, Will charged toward yet another touchdown. His only obstacle: the scores of pint-sized devils now flooding the field before him. Like wild dogs, those at the front of the pack leapt onto his legs. Others scaled the backs and shoulders of their fellow imps to create a demonic wall, blocking Will.
As if practicing kung fu moves in midstride, Will kicked his legs off to the sides. Then he punched his arms out spasmodically, trying to knock the imps away.
The coach took his hat off and swatted his knee with delight. “Have you ever seen a kid do anything like that?” he asked his assistant coach. “I don’t know what all the shaking’s about, but man—is it working.” To the eyes of the coaches, and the rest of the crowd, Will jabbed and mule kicked his way across the field in a display that was, to put it mildly, bizarre.
Approaching the end zone, he tucked his head low, drew the ball to his chest, and barreled through the wall of demons. Will flailed and spun into the end zone to cheers from some in the stands.
The coach embraced the players near him with joyous laughter, until he realized that Will was still kicking and throwing roundhouse punches at the edge of the field.
“Now what’s he doing?” the coach asked no one in particular.
Dan Wilder stood and hustled the children out of their row. He took his wife by the shoulders, and despite her protests pushed her toward the exit. In horror, he continued to watch Will thrashing away in the end zone.
“Let’s head home. All of you, we’re going home,” Dan ordered his family. At the bottom of the stair, Dan started toward Will, who was no longer flailing at the air. “Are you okay, son?” he yelled.
“I am now,” Will said. The imps had apparently taken enough punishment and retreated to the stands.
“Come home. Come with us now,” Dan demanded.
Will glanced up at the console still pumping out Cassian’s sickening melodies. “I’ve got something to do first.” He ran to the top of the stands. Dan started to follow Will. But hearing the calls of Leo and Marin, who were trying to keep their mother from returning to the bleachers, he joined the rest of the family. Pushing them toward the parking lot, Dan watched with concern as Will reached the console at the top of the stands.
Crouching behind the console, he examined the locked cabinet doors that housed the circuitry and fed the speakers music—that horrible, monotonous music. Will punched through, then ripped open the aluminum doors in seconds. Inside were stacked hard drives, furiously blinking in time to the music. He smashed them with his fists. Plastic and metal bits flew from the cabinet. Wispy smoke leaked from the wreckage. The music slurred and finally stopped altogether.
To his left, in the very last row, s
at the old lady in the green shawl who had warned him about Baldwin. She wore headphones and stroked the head of the golden retriever standing at her feet. She gave Will a thumbs-up and smiled. Will nodded, but as he went to ask why she was so interested in him, she started down the stairs with so many others.
Mayhem reigned in the stands. Those who were previously swaying now complained angrily, demanding the music they had become addicted to. Family members and friends tried to restrain the afflicted. But they hysterically begged for the music to be restored. Some of them pushed their way toward Cassian’s console. Will could see the imps fleeing the stands and most of the crowd seemed to be following them. The referee made an announcement that given the unruly audience, both teams had decided to end the game early. He asked everyone to “calmly” leave the field.
Rather than descend the stairs, Will thought it best to escape detection and drop over the back side of the stands. He threw himself over the railing and climbed down the metal framing on the rear of the bleachers. When he reached the bottom, he dodged the oncoming crowd making their way to the parking lot.
A fog had rolled in. It covered those returning to their cars or heading out onto Main Street. But Will knew it wasn’t fog. He could smell the spicy hint of incense in the air. Those walking through the smoke seemed to be regaining their composure. Will’s mom had even stopped shoving her husband and children away. The arguments of the stadium had quieted and Will knew the Brethren must have engineered the “smoke screen.”
He was making his way to the locker room when Renny Bertolf ran up beside him. “I told you you were better than Caleb, better than Andrew—and all those guys.”
“I’m not,” Will said gravely, avoiding eye contact with the smaller boy. “I’m not, Renny.”
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