by T Hodden
“And that would be bad?” Ginger asked.
“The Knights Azrael believed that this world was under the rule of the Devil, and those who did good deeds would find themselves rewarded in Heaven when they died.” Ted said. “The embodiment of the demons they thought were forever abroad and fostering the evil of men was Amduscias, a demon Lord, who like any good Lord was raising an army. Peasants with bows and spears, men at arm, knights, war machines, all gifted with little of his power. His single goal was to take his power from whispers in the ears of Kings to just being the King.” He polished his glasses. “They thought the final days of mankind would be a literal war against evil. Millions of the residents of Hell spewing forth to battle mankind. And it all starts with those who perform dark rites giving him enough energy to rise.”
“And that was what the Thunder Cage was for?” Doreen asked.
“It was a tool for performing spells on his behalf.” I said. “If he could pop out of the next bolt of lightning is another question. But I intend to make sure he can not. I can't destroy the Altar, but I can lock it to a programme, one that will remove a little of the gloom and bad luck which hangs around here.”
“So what is haunting us?” Falstaff demanded bluntly.
“Amduscias.” I said evenly. “Or what ever Avatar of his your ancestors were chatting with.”
“But he is in one of the occult statues, or books, or something.” Albert said.
“No. He is somewhere under the house.” I said, trying to keep my voice even and calm. “But imagine each and every occult object has a little spark of magic. You just had a whole stockpile turn up, at once. And all those little sparks together make a bolt of electricity. Not much. Not enough to make Frankenstein's monster get off the slab. But just enough to get his eyelids to twitch. To get the sleeping giant to scratch his bum and roll over.”
“So why would somebody want that?” Falstaff thought. Then he realised. “Because if you apply the spark just right you can wake him up?”
“More like a dripping tap that slowly rouses him.” I explained. “But yes. Potentially that is possible and yes, it would be exactly what somebody seems to want. That is exactly the kind of trouble they would cause. But, there is something missing. Something blindingly obvious I am missing.”
“So is this worse than what happened to the village?” Albert seemed worried.
“Worse.” I said. “And connected. The Angel was stolen...”
“What?” Falstaff looked confused.
“He does that.” Ted said. “Just drifts and assumes we keep up.”
“When I was in the Other World I was told that the Angel was not released but stolen from the Grey Folk. Stolen. The same hand who has been doing all of this released the Angel and had all those people killed.” I whispered.
“For Sacrifice.” Doreen said. “A whole lot of lives with which to feed the demon.”
“So you all have to leave.” I said. “Because I have work to do and none of you are safe here.” I saw Doreen about to talk. “None of you.” I repeated. She closed her mouth. “We need to start spreading the collection out between museums, private collectors, all over the world. In the mean time I can stop this powder keg igniting. Use what ever is left in the power reserves of the Thunder Cage to fill the house with the joys of spring. Expend it harmlessly.”
*
I will never learn. I keep thinking that when I say I don't want any bears around that they will listen. The Whites reluctantly agreed to back off to a safe distance. Sussex and her Father agreed to keep an eye on them and most the bears while I worked. I had no chance of convincing Doreen to go, but she had faded out to a feeling of comfort somewhere just out of sight.
I set the game board to a simple spell for good luck and fertility. It was a Mayday Rite, one of the easiest. The board crackled and sparks popped. A handful of bears were suddenly at my ankles. Their hairs were standing on end. There was a lot of energy in the altar. Sparks danced from the metal to my finger.
“Doreen. Get out.” I shouted a fraction of a second too late as I realised what was happening. I looked up and saw the clouds forming over the house. A bolt of pink lightning flashed down, drawn by the magic. With out the conductors it hit the cage and flickered across the outer struts as St Elmos Fire. Doreen was at my side, dressed in her usual way, staring at the pink and orange sparks and the web of electricity that flowed across the cage.
“I couldn't go.” She said. “I was drawn back to you.” She reached out a hand to the sparks. They danced on her spectral fingers. “This is beautiful.”
“There is more power stored here than I realised.” I said. “It will take a long time to drain the battery. I will need to keep an eye on it.”
The electricity had an effect on Doreen. She floated a little above the floor, her clothes and hair billowing out like she was under water. She craned her head back and giggled. The bears too walked over to poke at the sparks. But they yanked their fingers back as it shocked and tickled them. They smiled at me.
“But there we are. Good vibrations. Literally.” I said. “But let's not tempt fate. It drew the lightning as it is unstable. So you guys go have a coffee and keep an eye on the house. I will look after the machine.”
“The thing that was in this house,” Doreen said, “could make itself known any time.”
“Which is why the bears stayed.” I said.
“And it is also why you must be careful.” She whispered.
I patted a pocket full of salt. It was like threatening a mountain with a water pistol, but she didn't know that. She smiled and went with the bears. Once or twice as I manned the machine I was aware of something, something lithe and dark, forever in the corner of my eye. I could not help but think of the description that the Whites had given of the ghost. Sleek. Dark. Feline.
I made one last adjustment to the board and stopped as my eyes fell on the mosaic tiles on the side of the altar. They were starting to glow and inscribed letters were being revealed. That was something I had not expected. They were familiar too. I had seen them somewhere. At the Azrael church.
“You used the magic to try and translate the code?” I rubbed my bruised head. “No wonder Doreen took to the idea of computers so easily. But not exactly in keeping with the army of demons thing. Or is it? Know Thy Enemy perhaps?” I stopped. “Oh great. I talk to myself and I start sounding pompous.” A shadow fell over me and I turned.
The thing that stood in the doorway was not quite a man in a loincloth and not quite a lion, but something between the two. It hissed and made a chest full of muscles ripple.
“Well how did you get so substantial so quick?” I asked and dodged aside as the Avatar let out an angry roar and swung a clawed foot up at me. I did not dodge far or fast enough. It kicked me to the floor and sent me crashing across the tiles with a chest full of pain. I span about and dodged as he jumped into the air and slammed down on the floor, shattering the tile where I had been laying. It pinned me down and slammed my head against the floor.
The face that was equally animal and human, but completely demonic hissed a wordless breath of rancid air in my face. I slammed my head into his nose and grabbed the bosun whistle from my pocket. He caught my hand and twisted the fingers until they popped and broke in a firework of pain. I screamed out as loud as I could. It was lost in a burst of thunder that mixed with an animal roar.
“You are no Knight.” The Avatar said. “You do not even inherit a title. You are nothing. Yet you are all they send to challenge me for the Great Secret?”
“Great Secret?” I could taste blood in my mouth. “I take it that is why you are choosing here for your big comeback?”
The lion thing stopped. He stood up and laughed.
“You do not know.” He shook his head. “You do not know what is done here. You did well, trying to expend the energy before it could be used for any other boon I wish. Thankfully I have already syphoned off more than enough for this body.” He crouched and looked at the
Altar. “Why, unless I change your programme now I might not have a chance to build a more permanent body worthy of the throne I will build upon this world.” He was obsessed with the small tiles. “But by far the most powerful weapon is this. This I have waited for. This I will know.”
“And what is that?” Doreen popped into existence. “And please, I am pretty sure the man you have been hurting is technically my boyfriend, so if you do not stop I will be forced to take harsh action.”
“I will eat your soul and devour your ectoplasm.” The Avatar responded.
“And I sir, will release the bears.” Doreen said.
“Smashy Smashy!” Mac said, holding something valuable and antique in the doorway.
“If this is the source of your power here, they will vastly reduce it.” Doreen said. “Into very little pieces.”
“Too little. Too late.” The Avatar gave me another kick. “But feel free.”
“The Ghost Photos.” I said. “So many. For so long. All holding the spark needed to keep the Altar ticking over, like a Babbage Machine to decode something. All these years.”
“Yes.” The Avatar said. “The Prophecy the Azrael Knights were granted. Their greatest secret. A prophecy they thought they could use to free the world from me.”
“But you needed a jolt of Arcane energy to bring you here. To be in this room for moment the result is ready.” I looked up at Doreen and she helped me sit up. “We can't stop his plan because it is already too late. The moment the Whites saw him the die was cast. He had crossed the divide. He is going to get his secret and kill us. Then he will kill the bears.” I looked into her eyes. “Sorry.”
“I may not kill you.” The Avatar smiled. “I may make you suffer endlessly.”
Mac was no longer alone in the doorway. A half dozen bears armed with rolling pins, hammers, lead pipes and other blunt objects stepped into the Thunder Cage.
“So, the bad guy,” Mac said, “really wants to see what is going to be on those tiles when the magic thingy works out the coded thingy and tells him the meaning of life?” He smiled at my nod and hefted the hammer. “Smashy smashy!” He yelled and charged. The other bears charged too. The lion thing turned and lashed out at them angrily, yet they bobbed and weaved and infuriated him with their dexterity as they started smashing the tiles on the altar. Bits of the code, whatever it was, were obliterated. The display was cracked and smashed.
“What can we do?” Doreen whispered.
“Use the Altar?” I asked. I shook my head. “Uh oh.”
The Avatar had managed to grab a bear and hurled him across the open space. The bear bounced off the cage and with flailing limbs landed on the game board of the Altar. In her scrabble to stand up she moved the pieces. There was a sudden whine followed by a rumble of thunder.
“Glass phials.” I said. “I need them.”
Doreen nodded. She popped away with a quick fade. I looked around at the Avatar. He had swept the bear from the board and reset the pieces.
“Foolish bears. The code is broken and gibberish.” He roared with a primordial rage. “I will destroy you. I will fell your souls and turn everything you love to ash.”
“Go on a bit doesn't he.” Mac said. “A half decent monster would just do it, not threaten us.”
“Because he is just a shade.” I stood and forced myself to smile. “And he doesn't realise the prophecy was a message, not a code.”
“You know.” The Avatar stopped fighting and wheeled around to face me. I gave Mac a look I really hoped he would understand. It was not easy to convert nice tangible magic to a bear chant, but the closest I could get my intention to their turn was to hum a few bars of what might have been mistaken for the Final Countdown.
Mac blinked and took a second to grasp it. He and his companions quietly slipped back out of the way of the demonic Avatar. The lion thing strode over to me.
“Tell me.” He hissed.
“Never.” I steeled myself. “I am afraid you will have to find out with the rest of us when the time is right.”
“Oh but you will.” He pinched my nerves and sent agony through my body. Of course I was going to tell him. I needed time for the bears to move the pieces on the board and for Doreen to find the phials in the kitchen. She could be there in a blink, but had to come by foot back through the house if she was carrying something.
“It isn't a code.” I said. “It is simple information, interpreted the only way the Knights understood it. Like the old prophets were offered glimpses of the origin of the universe but had no language or understanding of quantum physics or the building of a universe so they described it in the words they did have, the poetry of genesis. Days for aeons. Darkness filled with light for a big bang.”
“A code of four letters.” The Avatar said. “For?”
“A chemical formula.” I lied. “A molecule chain for an alchemical plastic.”
“The truth. Now.” The Avatar whispered. “Or the ghost dies first.”
Doreen burst into the cage and threw fuses to Mac who slipped them in place as the other bears released the counterweights that swung the lightning probes into the air and another set the board so that it hummed as it called forth the lightning.
“Truth is you lose!” I screamed over the flash of light and heat that ripped from the clouds and forked down into the cage. I reached out and fed the empty fuse with blood from my wounds, letting it drizzle down the glass case. Not much, but enough. I tore my hand away as the skin turned red and blistered.
“No!” The Avatar screamed.
“Yes.” Doreen said, low and full of anger. Her eyes wild. The bolt flashed through the fuses and reached out for the Avatar. It held him fixed in place for a few seconds, then with a popping sound he flared with orange light and was burned out of existence.
I grabbed Doreen and made her look away.
“It is not murder.” She said numbly. “Or even revenge. If I understand correctly we have only destroyed a phantasm he created to dream himself into this world?”
“Yes.” Mac said. “In some lost circle Amduscias is waking from a bad dream. But he will want this world. He is coming.”
“Then somewhere out there Jacob Mandrake still lives.” Doreen said. Her voice was muffled, like there was water in my ears. I put a hand to them. Blood stuck on my fingers. I looked at it puzzled but the others were yet to notice. “And I shall have my revenge.”
Doreen was not excited at the prospect of revenge. Her words were entirely unenthusiastic. She mumbled them as though she were ashamed. My head was killing me. There was a pain like a red hot poker being twisted into my forehead. I wanted to reach up and grasp it but could not remember how to move the muscles of my hand. Or of my body.
I dropped, a dead weight to the floor.
“How hard did he hit your head?” One of the Bears asked.
I could not answer. Darkness was closing in around me.
Graveland
I was sat in a room with no doors and a single window in the walls of pale stone. I was comfortable. I sat in a tall chair, next to a small table that was the proud home of a silver tea service and tray of cakes. I had not touched either. I was transfixed with the view through the window. A view of a hospital bed, surrounded by beeping and wheezing machines that were keeping alive a figure who looked a lot like me, but with far more bruising. Doreen was not visible, but some part of me could feel her filling the empty spaces of the room with a protective blaze of anger. From time to time my Father, or Mrs Sussex, and always Bears, would sit for a while and stand guard.
The man who looked like me had a nasty crack in his skull. Most probably caused by having had the Avatar of a demon try and punch a hole in a tiled floor with the rock solid ultra packed noggin. I could hear the beeps of the machines. I could see the people close to me. I could see their lips moving but I could not hear what they said to me.
The air was cool, in this room. It smelt of strawberries but it tasted of lemons. It was clean and it was fresh. I was al
one with my thoughts.
“Not exactly alone.” Sylas said. He seemed to have just formed from nothing in an identical chair to mine. I looked lazily across at him. He was reading a broadsheet newspaper. There was a large photograph of a stained glass window, but the headline, the banner, the text was all gibberish. The same four letters repeated endlessly in differing combinations. H,Y,V, and S. The code.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Perhaps your subconscious is offering you a foil to talk too.” He suggested. “Or perhaps I am upset that the weapon I had kept tucked away for a later date is now ruined. Melded with another amusing car.”
“The deadliest Reliant Kitten on the road.” I smiled. His eyes narrowed at me.
“Oh you are the real Sylas. My body down there can't wake up while I am in here.”
“Yes, but it also can not heal while its energies are wasted on your mote of a mind and maintaining that pet ghost. So my father has kindly kept your mind, your soul safe here, to allow your body to heal and the Ghost to walk the Earth a little longer. A medically induced coma he says.” Sylas smiled. “And he has offered me the chance to do something useful. He wants me to report on how much you know of the enemy that threatens both our worlds.”
“Amduscias. A demon.” I said.
“We know that. But his plans. What is this code he seeks?” Sylas leant forwards to show me the paper. “What is the meaning of this code?”
“I would rather not say.” I sat back. “Anybody understanding the answer may be dangerous.”
“Letting the forces of darkness work it out first will be more dangerous.” Sylas promised me. “And for you personally, angering my father more dangerous still.”
I weighed the options. Needs must.
“It is a genome.” I said. “The genetic code for something. A person. Four letters repeating over and over. A gene. In school we used G, A, T, and C. The Knights used different letters. But the code is clear.”