by Butcher, Jim
“Perfect,” Michael said. “I can hold that for as long as you need.”
The wounded man struggled to help me, but mostly all he did was make it harder to move him. He was making continuous sounds of terror and pain. I was glad that we had the barrier of the counter between us and the encroaching hobs. I didn’t particularly care to find out what getting hit with a sharp stone ax felt like.
We reached the door behind the ticketing counter, which was closed. I jiggled the handle, but it was apparently locked. I didn’t have time for this crap. I lifted my right hand and focused on one of the energy rings I wore. There was one of them on each finger, a band made of three rings woven into a braid. The rings stored energy, saving back a little every time I moved my arm, and allowing me to unleash that stored energy all in one spot.
I brought my will to bear on the door as I lifted my hand in a closed fist, focusing the energy of the rings into as small an area as I could. I hadn’t designed them for this kind of work. They’d been made to shove things roughly away from me before they could rip my face off. But I didn’t have a lot of time to waste putting together something neater.
So I aimed as best I could, triggered the ring, and watched it rip the doorknob, the lock, and the plate they were all mounted in right out of the door, to send them tumbling into the room beyond. Unimpeded by any of those pesky metal security fittings, the door swung inward.
“Come on!” I said to Michael, seizing the wounded man again. “Mouse, lead the way.”
My dog padded through the doorway, crouched low and with his teeth bared. I practically walked on his tail as I came in behind him, and Michael was all but treading on the wounded man’s bloodied leg.
As the light from Amoracchius illuminated the room we entered, it revealed the harried customer-service rep we’d seen a few minutes before. She knelt on the floor, crucifix in hand, her head bowed as she frantically recited a prayer. As the light fell over her she blinked and looked up. The white fire of the holy sword painted the tear streaks on her face silver as her mouth dropped open in an expression of shock and stunned joy. She looked down at her crucifix, and back up at him again.
Michael took a quick glance around the room, smiled at the woman, and said, “Of course He’s there. Of course He listens.” He paused, then admitted, “Granted, He doesn’t always answer quite this quickly.”
There were other people in the room—the customers she’d been trying to find a hotel room for. When things had gone dark and scary she had somehow rounded them up and gotten them into the room. That took a lot more moxie than most people had. I also noted that she had been kneeling between the customers and the doorway. I liked her already.
“Carol,” I said, sharply enough to make her tug her gaze from Michael, who now stood in the doorway, holy Sword in hand. “Carol, I need you to give me a hand here.”
She blinked and then nodded jerkily and rose. She helped me drag the wounded man over to where the others were seated against the wall. “H-how did you know my name?” she stammered. “Are y-you two angels?”
I sighed and tapped a fingernail on the name tag she wore. “I’m sure as hell not,” I said. I jerked my head at Michael. “Though he’s about as close to one as you’re ever likely to see.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry,” Michael said. “I’m just a—” He broke off and ducked. Something solid whizzed past him and slammed a hole the size of my head into the drywall above us. Bits of dust rained down, and frightened people cried out.
Michael slammed the door shut, but without, you know, all those pesky metal security fittings, it swung open again. He slammed it closed and leaned one shoulder against it, panting. Something struck the door with a heavy thump. Then there was silence.
I ripped open the wounded man’s pant leg along the seam. The knife had hit him in the calf and he was a bloody mess, but it could have been worse. “Leave it in,” I told Carol, “and make sure he stays still. That’s close to some big veins, and I don’t want to open them trying to take it out. Stay close to him and keep him from trying to take it out. Okay?”
“I…Yes, all right,” Carol said. She blinked her eyes at me several times. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Me either,” I responded. I rose and went to stand beside Michael.
“Those things are quite a bit stronger than I am,” he said in a low rumble that the people behind us couldn’t hear. “If they rush this door I won’t be able to hold it shut.”
“I’m not sure they will,” I said.
“But you’re here.”
“I don’t think they’re after me,” I said. “If they were, they wouldn’t be going after everyone else, too.”
Michael frowned at me. “But you said they were faeries.”
“They are,” I said. “But I don’t think this was supposed to be a hit. There are too many of them for that. This is a full-blown assault.”
Michael grimaced. “Then there are people in danger. They need our help.”
“And they’re going to get it,” I said. “Listen, hobs can’t stand light. Any kind of light. It burns them and it can kill them. That’s why they called up this myrk before they came in.”
“Myrk?”
“It’s matter from the Nevernever. Think of it as a cellophane filter, only instead of being around a light, it is spread all through the air. That’s why we couldn’t see the light from my amulet, and why the muzzle flash of my gun was so muted. And that’s how we’re going to take them out.”
“We get rid of the myrk,” Michael said, nodding.
“Exactly,” I said. I raked my fingers back through my hair and started fumbling through my pockets to see what I had on me. Not much. I keep a small collection of handy wizarding gear in the voluminous pockets of my duster, but the pockets of my winter coat contained nothing but a stick of chalk, two ketchup packages from Burger King, and a furry, lint-coated Tic Tac. “Okay,” I said. “Let me think a minute.”
Something slammed into the other side of the door and shoved Michael’s work boots a good eighteen inches across the floor. A claw flashed through the opening at me. I got out of the way, but the sleeve of my coat didn’t. The hob’s claws ripped three neat slits in the fabric.
Michael lifted Amoracchius in one hand and drove its blazing length through the sturdy door. The hob screamed and pulled away. Michael slammed the door shut again and jerked the weapon clear. Dark blood sizzled on the holy blade. “I don’t mean to rush you,” he said calmly, “but I don’t think we have a minute.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“Dammit!” I swore. “This is my only winter coat!” I closed my eyes for a second and tried to focus my mind to the task. A myrk wasn’t like other forms of faerie glamour. Those could create appearance, and could simulate emotional states related to that appearance. The myrk was a conjuration, something physical, tangible, that actually did exist and would continue to do so as long as the hobs gave it enough juice, metaphorically speaking.
Wind might do it. A big enough wind could push the myrk away—but it would have to be an awful lot of wind. The little gale I’d called up to handle Torelli’s hitters would barely make a dent in it. I could probably do something more violent and widespread, but when it comes to moving matter around, you don’t get something for nothing. There was no way I’d be able to maintain that kind of blast long enough to get the job done.
I might be able to cut the myrk off from the hobs. If I could sever that connection it would prevent them from pouring constant energy into it, and poof, the myrk would resume its natural state as ectoplasm. Of course, cutting them off wouldn’t be a cakewalk. I would need some means of creating a channel to each and every hob in order to be sure I got the job done. I didn’t have anything I could use as a focus, and I had no idea how many of them were out there, anyway.
An empowered circle could cut the power to the spell from the other side of the equation, isolating the hobs from the flow of energy outside the circle. But the circle would n
eed to encompass the entire freaking building. I doubted the hobs would be considerate enough to let me run outside and sprint around an entire Chicago city block to fire up a circle. Besides, I didn’t have that much chalk. Running water can ground out a spell if there’s enough of it, but given that we were inside a building, that wasn’t in the cards. So how the hell was I supposed to cut off this stupid spell, given the pathetic resources I had? It isn’t like there are a whole lot of ways to rob a widespread working of its power.
My nose throbbed harder, and I leaned my head back, turning my face upward. Sometimes doing that seemed to reduce the pressure and ease the pain a little. I stared up at the office ceiling, which had been installed at a height of ten or eleven feet, rather than leaving the place open to the cavernous reaches of the old station, and beat my head against the proverbial wall. The ceiling was one of those drop-down setups, a metal framework supporting dreary yet cost-effective rectangles of acoustic material, interrupted every few yards by the ugly little cowboy spur of an automatic firefighting sprinkler.
My eyes widened.
“Ha!” I said, and threw my arms up in the air. “Ha-ha! Ah-hahahaha! I am wizard; hear me roar!”
Mouse gave me an oblique look and sidled a step farther away from me.
“And well you should!” I bellowed, pointing at the dog. “For I am a fearsome bringer of fire!” I held up my right hand and with a murmur called up the tiny sphere of flame. The spell stuttered and coughed before it coalesced, and even then the light was barely brighter than a candle.
“Harry?” Michael asked in that tone of voice people use when they talk to crazy people. “What are you doing?”
The drywall to one side of the door suddenly buckled as a hob’s claws began ripping through it. Michael bobbed to one side, temporarily leaving the door, held his thumb up to the wall, as if judging where the stud would be, and then ran Amoracchius at an angle through the drywall. The Sword came back hissing and spitting, while another hob howled with pain.
“Without the myrk, these things are in trouble,” I said. “Carol, be a dear and roll that chair over here.”
Carol, her eyes very wide, her face very pale, did so. She gave the chair a little push, so that it came the last six feet on its own.
Michael’s shoulder hit the door as another hob tried to push in. The creature wasn’t stupid. It didn’t keep trying to force the door when Amoracchius plunged through the wood as if it had been a rice-paper screen, and Michael’s Sword came back unstained. “Whatever you’re going to do, sooner would be better than later.”
“Two minutes,” I said. I rolled the chair to the right spot and stood up on it. I wobbled for a second, then stabilized myself and quickly unscrewed the sprinkler from its housing. Foul-smelling water rushed out in its wake, which I had expected and mostly avoided. Granted, I hadn’t expected it to smell quite so overwhelmingly stagnant, though I should have. Many sprinkler systems have closed holding tanks, and God only knew how many years that water had been in there, waiting to be used.
I hopped down out of the chair and moved out from under the falling water. I pulled one of the pieces of chalk out of my pocket, knelt, and began to draw a large circle all around me on the low-nap carpet. It didn’t have to be a perfect circle, as long as it was closed, but I’ve drawn a lot of them, and by now they’re usually pretty close.
“E-excuse me,” Carol said. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Our charming visitors are known as hobs,” I told her, drawing carefully, infusing the chalk with some of my will as I did so. “Light hurts them.”
A hob burst through the already broken drywall, this time getting its head and one shoulder through. It howled and raked at Michael, who was still leaning on the door. Michael’s hip got ripped by a claw, but then Amoracchius swept down and took the hob’s head from its shoulders in reply. Dark, blazing blood spattered the room, and some of it nearly hit my circle.
“Hey!” I complained. “I’m working here!”
“Sorry,” Michael said without a trace of sarcasm. A hob slammed into the door before he could return to it, and drove him several paces back. He recovered in time to duck under the swing of a heavy club, then swept Amoracchius across the creature’s belly and followed it up with a heavy, thrusting kick that shoved the wicked faerie out of the room and back into its fellows. Michael slammed the door shut again.
“B-but it’s dark,” Carol stammered, staring at Michael and me alternately.
“They’ve put something in the air called myrk. Think of it as a smoke screen. The myrk is keeping the lights from hurting the hobs,” I said. I finished the circle and felt it spring to life around me, an intangible curtain of power that walled away outside magic—including the myrk that had been caught inside the circle as it formed. It congealed into a thin coating of slimy ectoplasm over everything in the circle—which is to say, me. “Super,” I mumbled, and swiped it out of my eyes as best I could.
“S-so,” Carol said, “what are you doing, exactly?”
“I’m going to take their smoke screen away.” I held the sprinkler head in my right hand and closed my eyes, focusing on it, on its texture, its shape, its composition. I began pouring energy into the object, imagining it as a glowing aura of blue-white light with dozens of little tendrils sprouting from it. Once the energy was firmly wrapped around the sprinkler, I transferred it to my left hand and extended my right again.
“B-but we don’t have any lights.”
“Oh, we have lights,” I said. I held out my right hand and called forth my little ball of sunshine. In the myrk-free interior of the circle, it was as white-hot and as bright as usual, but I could see that outside of the circle it didn’t spread more than five or six feet through the myrk out there.
“Oh, my God,” Carol said.
“Actually, all the regular lights are on too—they’re just being blocked. The myrk isn’t shutting down the electricity. These computers are all on, for example—but the myrk is keeping you from seeing any of the indicator lights.”
“Harry!” Michael called.
“You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!” I called back in an annoyed tone. The rest of the spell was going to be a little tricky.
“H-how are you doing that?” Carol breathed.
“Magic,” I growled. “Hush.” I wore a leather glove over my left hand, as usual, which should offer my scarred skin a little protection. All the same, this wouldn’t be much fun. I murmured, “Ignus, infusiarus,” and thrust the end of the sprinkler into the flame floating over my right hand.
“How does this help us?” Carol demanded, her voice shaking and frightened.
“This place still has electricity,” I said. Maybe I was imagining the smell of burned leather as the heat from the flame poured into the metal sprinkler. “It still has computers. It still has phones.”
“Harry!” Michael said, swinging his head left and right, staring up at the ceiling. “They’re climbing. They’re going to come through the roof.”
I began to feel the heat, even in the nerve-damaged fingers of my left hand. It was going to have to be hot enough. I drew up more of my will, lifted the sprinkler and the flame, and visualized what I wanted, the tendrils of energy around it zipping out to every other sprinkler head in the whole building. “And it still has its sprinklers.”
I broke the circle with my foot, and energy lashed out from the sprinkler to every other object shaped like it in the surrounding area. Heat washed out of me in a wave, headed in dozens of different directions, and I poured all the energy I could into the little ball of sunshine, which suddenly had several dozen sprinkler heads to absorb its energy instead of only one.
It took maybe ten seconds before the fire detector let out a howl and the sprinkler system chattered to life. People let out surprised little shrieks, and a steady emergency klaxon wound to life somewhere out in the station. Sparks flew up from several phones, monitors, and computers.
“Okay,” I said. “So
the office doesn’t have computers. But the rest still applies.”
Michael looked up at me and showed me his teeth in a ferocious grin. “When?”
I watched my little ball of sunshine intensely as the water came down. For maybe half a minute nothing happened, except that we got drenched. It was actually kind of surprising how much water was coming down—surprising in a good way, I mean. I wanted lots of water.
Somewhere around the sixty-second mark I felt my spell begin to flicker, its power eroded away by the constant downpour.
“Wait for it,” I said. “Ready…”
At two minutes my spell buckled, the connection to the other sprinklers snapping, the fire in my hand snuffing out. “Michael!” I shouted. “Now!”
Michael grunted and flung open the door. Before he’d stepped through it there was a sudden flutter of faltering power in the air, and the holy blade blazed with light brighter than the heart of the sun itself.
He plunged through the door, and as the burning light of Amoracchius emerged into the station at large, dozens or hundreds of hob throats erupted into tortured cries. The sound of the wicked faeries’ screams was so loud that I actually felt the pressure it put on my ears, the way you can at a really loud concert.
But louder still was the voice of Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross, avenging angel incarnate, bearer of the blade that had once belonged to a squire called Wart. “Lava quod est sordium!” Michael bellowed, his voice stentorian, too enormous to come from a human throat. “In nomine Dei, sana quod est saucium!”
After the Sword had left the room, I could see that all the office lights had come back, as well as those outside. “Mouse!” I screamed. “Stay! Guard the wounded!” I hurried after Michael and glanced back behind me. Mouse trotted forward and planted himself in the doorway between the hobs and the people in the office, head high, legs braced wide to fill the space.
Outside the sprinklers were doing a credible impersonation of a really stinky monsoon. I slipped in a puddle of water and burning hob blood a few feet outside the door. The light from the Sword was so bright, so purely, even painfully white that I had to shield my eyes with one arm. I couldn’t look directly at Michael, or even anywhere near him, so I followed him by the pieces of hob he left in his wake.