by Deck Davis
“You went back out?”
“We had to, but we were fucked. I was so dazed I could hardly walk. None of us wanted to go, but this didn’t come from a spotter; it was from the Grandmaster himself. We couldn’t say no. So, we went to the point of entry. It was an old church over on Haven street. It was empty. Looked quiet. But things went to shit. We got separated, and I heard Capgrove yelling. When I found him, he was bleeding out. The demon had ambushed him.”
“And you never got a name?”
Wren shook his head. He looked close to tears. “I should have been with him.”
“We both should,” said Molly.
“Does that answer your question?” said Wren.
It didn’t, but I knew when to stop pushing. Wren was ready to cry, and Molly, as cold and practical as she was, looked close, too. It was then that I knew whoever had betrayed the hunters, it might not have been Wren or Molly. They just seemed too genuine, too human. The three of them had been like siblings, I guessed. Capgrove the older brother, Molly the older sister, Wren the youngest. What did that make me? Still an outsider, I guessed.
Even if I wavered a little on the question of betrayal, even if years of boxing had dulled my senses, I knew enough to keep a wary eye. I couldn’t tell them what I’d heard yet. I had to be completely, beyond a doubt sure about their loyalties.
“Let’s get moving,” said Molly.
“Shouldn’t we tell the Grandmaster about the Mighty, or whatever you called it?”
“No time,” said Wren. “Like I said, every second is vital in a point of entry. If we miss it now, we’re not gonna hear anything about the demon until someone dies. Or worse.”
I nodded. “Okay, but listen. Molly said I can level up my fist in the bunker, but if we weren’t there, you could do something in the field.”
“I could,” said Wren, “but we-”
“We don’t have time. I get that. Don’t you think there’s a chance the demon is waiting for us? And if it’s as big as we think, isn’t it better that I have every possible tool to use against it?”
“It won’t be there,” said Wren.
“You can’t be sure.”
“You’re the newbie. We know what we’re doing. When I say we don’t have time, I mean it.”
“How long would it take?”
“A few minutes, at most,” said Molly.
“Well then?”
“No.”
There was something strange about his utter reluctance to let me improve my abilities. I understood that we were pushed for time, but still, didn’t he see the logic in what I was saying?
Thankfully, Molly did. She glared at Wren, until he huffed.
“Fine,” he said.
He unzipped his coat and reached into an inside pocket. He took three pebbles out of it, each one grey and with red patterns etched into them. He kneeled down and placed these on the ground, muttering in a strange language. When he finished, thin beams of light spread from each pebble, connecting them to each other.
“Step inside,” said Wren. “Hurry up.”
I stepped into the centre of the pebble light.
Demons banished: 1.
Demon fist levelled up to 2.
Increase existing ability, or choose new?
“Choose new,” I said.
“You don’t actually need to say it,” said Wren.
Available abilities:
Melt
Crush
Magnet
I had three abilities to choose from, but I had no idea what they did. It had taken me killing 18 rats and banishing a demon to earn enough power to level, so I guessed my chances to do this weren’t going to come thick and fast. I didn’t want to waste it.
What does melt do? I thought.
Abilities chosen on faith.
What? Tell me what it does.
Abilities chosen on faith.
“This thing isn’t helping me choose,” I said.
“For god’s sake, hurry up,” said Wren.
“A Banisher doesn’t get much choice in his abilities,” said Molly. “The demon flesh doesn’t allow it. There’s only so much we can do with the flesh; we can strip out the evil, but there an in-bred reluctance inside it. Whatever gives demons their powers, we can make it work for us by using the flesh. But it only helps reluctantly. It’ll do whatever it can to resist.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I told you, it can’t hurt you, Josh. But it will only help to a point. It isn’t choosing your abilities that makes a Banisher good at what he does. It’s using the right thing at the right time.”
Without information, it was hard to choose. I thought I should just upgrade Blast, since I already knew what it did.
Choice has already been made. You must select an ability.
Damn it. I had to pick a new ability. What did I go for? Which one sounded the strongest?
I’ll take Melt.
Ability granted.
“Done?” said Wren.
“I guess so.”
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
Back in the multi-story parking lot, Molly kicked the car’s left back tire, grunted, and then hobbled a couple of steps before facing us. She bit her lip, trying to suck back the pain.
“That wasn’t worth it,” she said.
“We have a spare,” said Wren.
“We have a spare. Just one. Some bastard has slashed all four.”
I looked at the car tires, how pathetic the wheels looked without air, the way the rubber flopped over the metal like loose skin. One popped tire was bad enough; four was a nightmare. Mix in the fact that the tires had obviously been slashed on purpose while we’d been looking for the demon, and I understood why Molly felt the need to get her anger out on something. I could have told her from experience that punching and kicking inanimate objects, especially ones made from metal, didn’t improve things.
Looking around the multi-story car park, there was no sign of who had done it. I guessed that tire slashers didn’t hang around to be caught, unless they took some perverse joy in finding a hiding place and then waiting, covered by darkness, grinning while watching their victims discover their work. This didn’t feel like a prankster getting his kicks. This felt deliberate. We were pushed for time, and someone had tried to make us waste it.
“We don’t have time to get four new tires,” Molly said. “We better take a cab.”
“I know a guy,” I said, thinking about the cabbie who wanted to take his kid to Disney.
“Let’s just flag one down on the street.”
“Who do you think did it?” asked Wren.
Molly shrugged. “Teenagers? Drunks? Tramps? Take your pick.”
I shook my head. “They managed to select the only car in the whole multistory that belongs to demon hunters who have somewhere they need to be. Doesn’t make sense.”
“We need to get a move on,” said Wren. “The point of entry-”
“The point of entry clues will fade. I know.”
A metallic beep cut through the silence of the car park. A faint set of drums joined it, and soon the ringtone version of Battery by Metallica was playing full force.
Molly took her phone out her pocket. “Hello?” she said, flustered. Within a second the expression left her face, replaced by shock with a hint of worry. Her tone of voice changed to match, and it became politer than I’d ever heard from her. All ‘yes, sir’ instead of ‘yeah’, with none of the slang that usually peppered her speech or the surly tone she used to deliver it.
She put the phone in her picket.
“Was that him?” asked Wren.
Molly looked taken aback. “He’s never called me before.”
“Who?” I said.
“The Grandmaster. I have to go back to the bunker. He’s sending something through that I need to look it.”
“Did he say what?” asked Wren.
“He doesn’t trust phones, you know that. It must have been serious
if he called me.”
“Wait,” I said. “You spoke to him. You know his voice. What did he sound like?”
She shook her head. “He uses one of those computer programs. He types the words, and they come out in a computer voice.”
“The bunker is in the opposite side of the city,” said Wren. “We’ll waste too much time going there and then to Stopwatch House.”
“I’ll go to the bunker, and then I’ll catch you up,” said Molly.
“I’m not going with him,” said Wren.
“Oh, for God’s sake. You need to trust him, Wren,” said Molly. “He’s one of us now. You think Capgrove and I didn’t have doubts about you the first time we saw you? When the GM sent me to go find you in the university library, and you’d be sitting in some dingy little alcove with a pile of books next to you, no friends, pasty-looking skin?”
“We could be heading into danger,” said Wren.
“Then all the better you have a Banisher with you, and not a Cleanser. And a boxer at that. Not a girl who used to sell holidays over the phone. Go to Stopwatch House. I’ll get to the bunker and then hurry back over there to meet you. I’ll have my phone on me, so just take it slowly. The slightest hint of trouble, call. Okay?”
Wren nodded. Then he looked at me. “We better go. You said you know a good cabbie?”
The cab took us out of the city centre and off the motorway, emerging into a district outside Manchester that I knew all too well. This was where the rich lived. The bankers, footballers, the CEOs of the companies who based their headquarters in skyscrapers in the city. If you were young and a little bit rich, you took an apartment in the city. If you were older and extremely rich and had a family, you bought a house in Mapelese.
In this kind of neighborhood, there was no such thing as a house with less than five bedrooms. The trams didn’t stop here, because strangers weren’t welcome. The residents enjoyed the security of extra patrols of police cars, which was ludicrous given that crime was a forgotten word here and that the uniformed officers would be better used in some of the city’s more run-down estates.
No, this place didn’t need police. It was too perfect. Every tree in the Mapelese district looked just that little bit healthier than those in the city. The hedges and flowers beds were landscaped to petal-perfect shapes. I imagined if someone saw litter on the streets, an alarm would blare out and a spot light would shine from the sky, embarrassing the litterbug into correcting their mistake.
“Just here, thanks,” I told the cabbie.
“Right y’ar.”
This man had a bald head with curly hair on the sides, and his skin was weathered, like it had hardened from years of exposure to cold and rain. He reminded me of an old sea captain.
“Where’s the other guy?” I asked.
“Other guy?”
“Fuzzy hair. Taking his kids to Disney.”
“Oh, Gaz? Nobody’s heard from him. He must be sick. I reckon he’s got the shits.”
“Delightful,” said Wren.
“Wren, pay the man,” I said.
When the cabbie sped off, leaving Wren and I on the pavement, the Loremaster looked around to get a sense of his surroundings, and then he turned to me.
“My GPS says Stopwatch is five minutes away,” he said. “We could have asked him to drop us off closer to the house.”
“No. I didn’t realize it was in Mapelese. The houses here are all walled in. They have electric gates, security systems, cameras. We couldn’t just pull up in front of the house in a cab.”
“Why not? Are cabs banned in rich neighborhoods? Would the pollution stain their lovely streets?”
“Chip on your shoulder, Wren?”
“I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just, my family weren’t all that well off. How do you know so much about Mapelese?” he said.
“Because my house is about fifteen minutes in that direction,” I said, pointing.
It was the house I’d bought when things were sweet, before the Babe, before my descent into a personal hell that I made worse with my drinking and shutting myself away. It had taken me a dozen knockout victories to buy somewhere in a place like this, and as soon as I’d picked up the keys from the agent and drove us into Mapelese, I knew that I’d made it. A guy who grew up on an estate with the fifth-highest crime rate of any area of the city, and here I was, owning a house with bedroom windows that looked out onto a street shared by premier league footballers, a few b-list actors, and a pop star whose drug habits would see him dead just four years later.
It hadn’t gone well, at first. This kind of place wasn’t for me. It was like I was an organ transplanted into a new body, and the indigenous organs and blood vessels and cells had rejected me. I wasn’t their kind of guy. It was fine to be a little rough around the edges here, but only if you had more money to compensate. My problem was I came from a dodgy background, and I was only kinda rich. Not rich enough to make the bankers and the actors and everyone else in Mapelese see me differently.
We should have sold up, Glora and me. If it weren’t for the goddamn airport extending their terminal, setting flight paths over Mapelese and lowering house prices, maybe we would have.
At least Glora wasn’t here tonight. I’d received a single, pithy text to my earlier suggestion she take Ruby to her mother’s house for the weekend.
Great idea. Thanks for the permission.
Such sarcasm. Wasn’t I doing everything I could to make up for it all? Think of Ruby, I told myself. As long as she was safe while I sorted this out, that was all that mattered.
“Which way is Stopwatch House?” I said.
Wren checked the GPS on his phone. It was a smart phone, and it was way more up to date than mine, secured in a plastic case with some kind of wizard or warlock printed on it.
“Five minutes east.”
“That’ll give us time to figure out a way passed the cameras and the gate while we walk,” I said.
“I doubt anyone will be home. If the demon took a vessel here, if he possessed whoever owned this house, he’ll be long gone. They never hang around their point of entry.”
“It isn’t just the cameras on Stopwatch House. It’s every house. We don’t want to be recorded prowling around here, do we? Especially not if we’re breaking into a house.”
Wren stopped walking. He looked around shiftily. We were away from the main road now, in a no man’s land of a street where the nearest houses were a few minutes behind and in front of us.
He unzipped his coat, stuck a hand in his bulging inside pocket, and when he brought it out, he’d clenched it into a fist.
He turned his fist over and opened his palm, revealing a scattering of stones of all shapes, from specs of gravel to pebbles picked from the beach. There was basalt, granite, limestone, slate, marble. Every type of stone there was, he had a lump or a chunk of it. He inspected each of them, flicking them gently with his index finger to turn them over, before stopping on a chunk of quartzite shaped like an acorn.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Give me a minute.”
He brought the quartzite acorn to his lips as though he was going to kiss it. Instead, he muttered a word that I didn’t understand, then he opened his lips and he bit it.
I was amazed at that point. Quartzite was a hard stone. You certainly couldn’t bite it in half, not unless you had jaws of steel.
Wren, holding two smaller pieces of quartzite pinched between his index fingers and thumbs on each hand, spoke a rhyme in yet another language I didn’t understand.
With this done, he gave a piece to me.
“Swallow it,” he said.
“Swallow a stone?”
He sighed. “So mistrustful, aren’t you?” He opened his mouth and tossed his own stone in.
“What’s it for?”
“A ward. It’ll stop the cameras picking us up.”
I popped the stone in my m
outh. It felt hard against my teeth.
“Don’t chew it. Swallow it.”
I gulped. “Done. How do you know how to do this stuff?”
“I had to learn things when I joined the hunters, same as you.”
“What about before then?”
“I was studying mythology and folklore for my degree. I suppose I had a grounding in some of the things that would become useful. There’s a lot of truth mixed in with the gibberish of mythology.”
“It must be a lot to remember,” I said.
“Maybe. But you’re not as stupid as you think, you know,” said Wren.
“Thanks, I guess.”
“I mean, you take in more than you let on.”
“We better go,” I said.
Stopwatch House was on its own, separated from the other houses in Mapelese. Its ten-foot stone walls reminded me of a prison. A luxury prison with palm trees waving in the breeze and with a perfectly landscaped garden in front of a millionaire’s house, but a prison nonetheless. Except, I guessed, the walls were to keep people out, rather than fence the inmate in. Security lamps jutted out from gaps in the stone, and I guessed they worked on motion detectors, set there as a deterrent to anyone prowling around. The quartzite wards we’d swallowed prevented them going off, leaving us free to walk an arc around the walls until we were at the back of the house.
“Think you can climb over?” I said.
Wren smiled. He stepped back a few paces and then leapt, grabbing hold of the top wall ledge. He strained to pull himself up but his muscles seemed to fail and he grunted. I grabbed his waist and gave him a push until he was up and over the wall. I followed him, and then I saw Stopwatch House properly.
It was a grand house, easily four stories high. Darkness stared down on us from dozens of arch-shaped windows. A gloom seeped out from the house, one that seemed to wrap around me and make me cold, and as I stood there, shivering, I wished that right now I was anywhere else but here. I wished I could go back in time to before my fight with the Babe. I’d refuse to take it, I’d reject the chance of a European belt, and I’d content myself not with more glory, but with what I already had. That way, I’d still be living in Mapelese with Glora and Ruby, and things wouldn’t have gone sour. Right now, we’d be sitting in front of the TV with a Disney movie playing, the log fire glowing and spitting as it chewed through wood.