The Wiccans stayed as they were, sitting and chanting. Why didn’t Doc do that freezing thing again?
Doug stepped into the room with Bob right beside him. He glanced over at the Wiccans. “Seriously? Willis, take care of them.”
Bob hesitated only a moment before shouldering him aside and striding forward. He reared back, aiming a kick right at Doc’s head.
“Doc!” I cried, lunging forward. But it was too late. His foot hit…and passed through.
“What the hell?” we said at the same time.
He passed his hand through Doc and then Nick and Seraphina. Their images didn’t waver but he never touched solid flesh either. It was like a film or a hologram only looking completely solid.
“Neat trick,” said Jolene from behind Bob. She swung the fireplace poker.
He hit the floor with a bellow of pain. The chanting circle blinked once and then disappeared. Darkness fell around us followed by the sound of struggling. I didn’t have time to marvel at their magic. The Wiccans were too busy getting medieval on the Ordo.
“Baphomet this!” I shouted, and with all my might, I swung the crossbow up and smacked Doug in the face.
He made a grunting noise and fell, and I ducked and managed to push past Charise, who Seraphina was dousing with hot water. I didn’t know if she conjured it or had a bucket, but I was motioning for my posse to head back downstairs.
At the bottom of the steps I stopped dead. That smell. Death. The succubus was here.
I fell into a crouch…and Nick and Jolene tumbled over me onto the floor.
“Stay down,” I hissed. “The succubus is somewhere in the room!”
Doc and Seraphina stopped behind them. “We have to leave!” said Doc, out of breath.
“She’s here,” I said.
He gasped. “Oh Lord.”
I moved forward. “All right. You guys head for the door.” We could all see the exit as a rectangle of twilight because stupid Doug had smashed my nice glass door and destroyed the lovely goop-protected wards at the same time. “Hurry up before they sort themselves out.”
“What about you?” said Nick.
“I’ll be fine,” I lied. “Just go!”
Cursing and rumbling down the stairs, the Ordo were coming up from the rear. “GO!” I told them.
The Wiccans took off arm in arm. Something swooped low over Doc and Seraphina and I heard her scream, but they made it out, followed by Nick and Jolene. I breathed easier, even though the Ordo were bearing down on me.
I scrambled into the room in the darkness, hoping the shadows would shield me. I held the crossbow tight to my hip. “Doug!” I yelled, and the tromping down the steps ceased. He argued with the others in the dark until they were still.
“You have to leave. I’m not kidding. There’s a succubus in here.”
“Oh, sure there is,” he said, voice a little nasal. I supposed I’d broken his nose…if there was any justice in the world. “Maybe it’s an incubus. I heard they don’t take well to little girls like you.”
“I already killed your incubus and we closed your little black arts portal.”
I kept moving so they couldn’t tell where I was.
“So you say,” said Doug uncertainly.
“I did. With my little crossbow. So get the hell out. I’m warning you.”
“To me!” he said. I supposed he meant his minions. Now they started to chant. I didn’t like the sound of it. It was a low growling noise rather than the harmonious sound of the Wiccans.
“Stop that!” I yelled. “This is a black magic-free zone!”
But, of course, they didn’t listen. Until one of them stopped abruptly. I heard choking noises, and then Charise screamed. There was a mad scramble for the door. But they couldn’t seem to get around the dark shape bending over one of them.
“Shoot it, Kylie!” came a shout in the doorway. I looked and there was the outline of a man in a duster coat.
I tried to lift the crossbow to my shoulder but I couldn’t.
The succubus turned from the man in her grasp, and the body slid to the floor. Red eyes fastened on me.
I saw the shape of her stalking forward, long fangs glistening in the fading twilight.
Erasmus pounded hard on the doorframe, impotent with rage. If the succubus could come in, why couldn’t he?
“Draw it outside,” said Erasmus. “Make it come out. To me.”
I edged toward his voice, never taking my eyes from her.
“Almost there,” I heard over my shoulder. “Come on, Kylie.”
My shoes encountered broken glass and shattered teapots. I passed over the threshold and then Erasmus grabbed my elbow and I fell backward with him onto the flagstone porch. The succubus swooped and missed, passing over me with the stench of dead things.
The Ordo moved, too. They were helping their victim—it looked like Bob Willis—toward the door. Though Fitch was also limping from the blow Jolene gave him.
The creature hadn’t left. She was homing in on the men, diving for poor Willis again. He held up his arms and screamed like a girl.
But it swerved away from him. That wasn’t her intended target, after all. It was me.
She rose up again, horns and teeth sharp as nails.
“You must do it, Kylie,” said Erasmus from the side. “I can’t help you in this.” His voice was thin and distant, as if he was fading away. I took a chance and looked toward him; he did look somewhat transparent. What was going on?
A female figure appeared out of the twilight, stalking toward him. She tossed back her long hair and gnashed her sharp teeth. “Erasmus Dark,” said Shabiri. No one wore a cat suit like she did.
Erasmus spun and fell into a crouch. “You! Damn you!”
“Too late,” she said with a laugh.
“Stay away, Shabiri. I’m warning you. Do not get mixed up in this!”
“But I so enjoy mixing in your affairs, Erasmus. Remember the last one?”
“Too well. That’s why I’m warning you.”
She sauntered forward, leading with her hips. “And somehow I am not afraid.”
Erasmus growled, an unnerving sound and Shabiri fell into a crouch, facing off with him. Suddenly, he rushed her, and it was as if they were covered with roiling smoke and sparks. They spun and the smoke billowed around them, shielding them from view except for an arm, a leg, a scowling face sometimes visible, sometimes lost in the smoke.
Doug stared at them in their fighting embrace, and smiled through the blood running down his bearded chin. “I call on Baphomet,” he said in a low voice. “I call upon my Lord Baphomet to deal with you!”
The earth rumbled and anyone who was standing was tossed to the ground. But it didn’t seem to affect the succubus. She was still coming toward me, talons at the ready. My shoulder suddenly ached and the backs of my knees felt weak, too.
I tried to raise the crossbow again, but couldn’t.
She was almost on me. I did the only thing I could think to do. “Come on chthonic crossbow!” With a scream of pain I brought it as high as I could and shot from the hip.
The quarrel left the crossbow in the truest straight line I had ever seen and plunged into her, disappearing completely. She stopped and threw back her head, releasing an unearthly scream. And just like the incubus, she began to fragment like burning film. Light shot out of her from all angles. But unlike the incubus, she would not disintegrate completely. She just hung there, screaming, light shooting out in glowing rays. And the sounds. Great howling noises came not just from her open mouth but from all around her, from the places opened up in her.
“Erasmus, what’s happening?”
He shoved off his demon nemesis long enough to yell over his shoulder, “You must write in the book!”
“The Booke!”
I turned to run into the shop but there it was, hovering right in front of me. The cover had unclasped and it was open to the first blank page, the quill lying across it.
I grabbed it and kne
lt in front of it, holding both sides of the cover. Ink. I needed ink.
Shabiri had disappeared from Erasmus’s grip and appeared suddenly beside me. “Give up, little mortal. You can’t hope to survive this!”
“Shut up, Shabiri!” I spat.
I tried to leave the Booke but my hands were glued to it. “I need ink,” I yelled to anyone who would listen. I caught Jolene’s eye, and she was ready to run back into the shop.
“No,” said Erasmus, rushing Shabiri again. He grabbed her arms.
“Let the human figure it out, Erasmus,” Shabiri growled. “What’s the fun in it if it’s too easy?”
He head-butted her and she fell back, dazed. “Not ink,” he said to me. “Blood. Your blood.”
“What? No one told me that!”
The creature was still suspended in a light storm, and everyone was rocking with the earth’s tremors. Shabiri had recovered and dashed toward Erasmus again, but he glared at her with glowing red eyes. She stopped and laughed, her own eyes glowing bright green. She began to fade from view, her laughter fading with her, like a Cheshire cat, and she was suddenly gone. For good, I hoped.
I clutched the quill and looked at my hands. Blood. I had to cut myself. “How do I…?” I looked pleadingly at Erasmus.
But he seemed to be disappearing in small increments. He was definitely transparent now. What was happening? But even as faint as he was, he stepped forward and took my left hand. He looked at me for permission and I nodded solemnly. He pointed his finger at the fleshy part of my palm and suddenly his fingernail grew into a claw. I tried to pull back in horror, but just like Doc had done during the Wiccan ritual, Erasmus held my wrist tight. His claw dipped and pierced. I hissed at the pain and as soon as he withdrew his hand, the blood spilled over my palm, forming a little pool of red in my hand. I dipped the quill in and then put it to paper.
I killed the succubus, I wrote. The words suddenly flowed freely, and I wrote and dipped and wrote. A disgusting creature that takes the lives of men by sucking out their essence, leaving the stench of death in its wake. It is an old creature and must be hunted down in the moonlight or within the dark caves it calls home…
I wrote about our hunts, both unsuccessful and this final confrontation. And the more I wrote, the more holes appeared in the screaming creature. The light shooting out of it became dimmer and dimmer. Soon the sounds grew faint and with a deep groan in the universe, she winked out with a flash and a boom that crashed over us in a shockwave. The Booke yanked from my hands and fell to the ground. The cover slammed shut and the lock closed with an audible click.
I sat back on my feet, arms wide. My left hand was dripping blood and my right with still clutching the quill as if my life depended on it.
I did it. It was over.
Except it wasn’t. Something tall and dark was rising from the ground, from the tiny puddle of my blood that had flowed to the center of the driveway.
But I killed it. It’s dead.
It wasn't the succubus. This had the head of a goat and the torso of a man.
Baphomet?
It didn’t stop rising until it pulled the last cloven-hoofed foot from the puddle and stepped forward. It turned its sideways-pupiled eyes at me and slowly bowed.
No, no, don’t thank me, I wanted to yell, but I was frankly terrified.
It ignored me and stalked toward Erasmus. That must have been why he had made himself scarce around the Ordo. They had powers. Powers that could stop him.
He was fading fast, still on his feet but just barely. He stood stoically as it approached. Why hadn’t he run? Was it for me he stayed, to protect me?
I looked down at the crossbow on the hard gravel beside me. It had armed itself. I dropped the quill and opened my hand, and felt the solid form of it slap into my palm. I raised it up from the hip and aimed.
“Hey, Baphomet!” It stopped and turned its great horned head at me. “Eat crossbow!” And I fired.
The Ordo members screamed.
The Wiccans screamed.
I screamed because everyone else was screaming.
Baphomet looked down at the arrow embedded in his human-looking chest. He kept looking at it until he raised a human arm. He closed his fingers around it and yanked it free. Black ooze came with it and slithered down his hairy chest. He didn’t look affected. But he did look pissed, and he changed direction toward me.
Shit.
I crawled backward. I glanced at the crossbow, but as if it was saying, “I got nothing,” it had not re-armed itself. Double shit.
The green light was small at first. It came from the hole in Baphomet’s chest. It was faint and then it brightened so much I raised my hand to shield against it. The hole widened and the green light got even brighter. It was the same light from the vortex, or so I thought.
Baphomet looked down at his chest again, and this time he raised his head and bellowed. The rest of him seemed to be sucked into the hole, and in a bright flash, he too, was gone.
A pause…before a deep boom under the earth erupted and we all fell over again.
Silence.
Two lights flashed over us and we all screamed again, before we realized they were headlights.
The car skidded over the gravel and before the gears were lurched into park, the door flung open and someone charged out.
“Freeze!” cried Sheriff Ed. “What the hell is going on here?” He stepped forward and I felt his shadow over me. “Kylie?” He must have seen the blood. I was holding my hand tight to my hip, trying to stop the bleeding. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Fine.”
Seraphina was at my side, followed by Doc. He shook out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to my palm.
Ed shined a flashlight at the Ordo, who looked as miserable as we did. Doug had a bloody and swollen nose. Charise was soaking wet and shivering. Fitch was using his good leg to stand on and Willis looked a little thinner and a little older from his run in with a succubus.
Ed lowered the flashlight slightly. “Doug,” he said in a deadly voice. I imagined the run-ins he’d probably had with this group before. That is, until Doug replied, “Bro. ’Sup? How’s the cop biz?”
“If you bothered to talk to Mom and Pop every now and then you’d know.”
“Wait a minute.” I pushed Doc and Seraphina aside. If Ed wore a beard they’d almost be twins. “You mean Doug is your brother?”
“Yeah. Much as I hate to admit it.” Ed aimed the flashlight at the shop front. “Jesus, what have you done?”
“It was just a little misunderstanding,” said Doug, his hands open.
“I’m taking all of you in.”
“Wait,” I said. I looked them over. They looked pretty pathetic. A little more messed up than we were. “I’m…I’m not pressing charges.”
Nick leapt forward. “What? Of course you are.”
“That’s his brother,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. We all knew that.”
“And no one bothered to tell me?”
“We thought you knew.”
Ed still had his flashlight and his gun trained on Doug and his buddies. “Are you pressing charges, Kylie? Looks like assault, malicious mischief, breaking and entering…”
“He’s your brother.”
“He’s been in jail before.”
“Ed. Just…let it go.”
His jaw worked. He was grinding his teeth. “You can’t just let it go.”
“If I can, anyone can.” I turned to Doug. “You’ll leave us alone now, right?”
“Of course,” he said smoothly. So that was why I felt the need to trust him. He sounded like his brother.
Ed hadn’t lowered his weapon. “You can’t believe him, Kylie.”
“I’m going to try. I do this for you, Doug, you stay away from me. And…mine.” I gestured toward the Wiccans and the crossbow.
Doug smiled. There was blood on his teeth. “I promise. Scout’s honor.”
“You were
never a scout,” growled Ed.
“Then demon’s honor.”
Ed hissed out a swear under his breath. “Up to you, Kylie.”
I wanted to give Doug a break. I really thought we could work out our differences. Make him see we were playing on the same team. Maybe with different tools, but the same team.
“Let him go,” I said gruffly.
“Okay. So you aren’t pressing charges,” he said. “But I’m taking them in anyway to talk about Karl Waters. And Bob Hitchins. And Joseph Mayes, the cyclist. Get on the ground.”
Doug, with hands still raised, took a step forward. “Bro—”
“I said get on the ground!”
Doug hesitated, glanced at his stooges, and slowly got down on his knees and then fully onto the ground.
“Doc,” Ed said tensely. “Get your phone and call 9-1-1 for backup.”
Ed never moved from his gun-aiming stance as the Ordo got to the ground, and then we all waited for Deputy George to arrive.
• • •
Once backup had come, Ed talked quietly and sometimes not so quietly to Doug for another half hour as he sat, handcuffed, in the back of the sheriff’s SUV. They gestured and argued. Doug acted like a spoiled kid brother, which was what I supposed he was.
In the meantime, Nick got the lights back on—the Ordo had only thrown the main circuit—and the others started cleaning up while Doc ministered to my hand. He wanted to give me stitches but I couldn’t stand the thought of them. He bandaged me tight instead and told me to be careful.
Later, after the sheriffs finally drove the Ordo away, Ed called Barry Johnson on his cell and asked him to open his hardware store. Barry was kind enough to bring some plywood, and he and Nick made a temporary fix to the front door and the back window.
I didn’t know how long the sheriffs would be able to hold the Ordo. They hadn’t killed those men. No person had.
The shattered glass from my door and window was swept and the ruined inventory tallied. All in all, I probably broke even.
Ed sat with me on the glider swing in the backyard and took my good hand in his. He didn’t even know about the shoulder. I hadn’t told him about a lot of things. “Maybe I should stay here with you tonight.”
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