by R. L. King
But he didn’t think he was wrong.
“Go on, Archie!” he yelled, his tone full of undisguised mocking now. “Here, let me give you a bit of encouragement!” He gathered power; lightning crackled around his hand and then arced upward toward the floating demon. As he did, he focused his mind on one single point.
The lightning hit something in front of Archie and fizzled away, just as it had done every other time Stone had struck at him with his own magical power.
Except that it didn’t.
That was what he’d been focused on—seeing through any illusions the demon might be projecting.
And what he saw, just barely, was that the bolt of energy not only hadn’t fizzled, but it had gone completely through Archie’s body without any sign of injury or contact. Even his clothes weren’t frayed.
Stone smiled.
“Oh, what a shame,” he said, looking disconsolate. “You’re so powerful, Archie. How can I ever hope to defeat you? What a fool I was to come back here.”
The demons in the circle muttered and growled and took another step forward, clearly encouraged by what they’d just seen.
Stone laughed, sweeping the sword again. “Do it, Archie. Hit me with your best shot. Show your team here that you’re still the big man on campus.”
“Kill him, damn you!” Archie screamed.
Stone didn’t miss the increasingly unhinged edge in his voice.
“Yes, kill me!” he shouted. “But there’s something you might want to know before you try.” He pointed up with the sword. “The Great and Powerful Oz is nothing but a big face on a viewscreen! Your emperor has no clothes! And in case you lot are too thick to comprehend basic metaphors—this isn’t Archie. This is nothing but an illusion. A damn good one, I’ll give him that—but this thing trying to make you commit suicide by attacking me is no more dangerous than a handful of steam.”
“Don’t listen to him!” Archie shrieked, desperation blatant in his voice now. “I am your master, and you will do as you are told! Kill him!”
“Kill me yourself, you pathetic sack of rubbish!” Stone called. He laid the sword at his feet and spread his hands wide again. “There. I don’t even have my weapon now. And the rest of you—watch and learn. Your boss is nothing. He’s broken. I broke him last night. If I’m wrong, you’ll have plenty of chance to have your fun. But if I’m right—wouldn’t you like to be rid of him once and for all?” He nodded toward Archie. “Let’s see what he does, shall we?”
Archie—whether it was the real one or simply a remarkably effective illusion—was nearly apoplectic with rage. His red eyes burned out of their dark sockets, his thin lips skinned back from his teeth in a feral snarl. “You…will…regret this!” he screamed. “You will all suffer for ten thousand years, every last one of you!”
And then he disappeared.
Stone bent and picked up the sword. His heart wasn’t pounding anymore.
He smiled.
Without a word to the demons, he turned and began to walk, slowly and deliberately, toward the black featureless building. He walked as if there weren’t several demons still lined up in front of him, and when he approached them, they moved in wordless unison away from him, falling back on either side, a door opening in the circle. There was no muttering now. They all watched him, their anticipation nearly palpable.
He reached the building, stopped about five feet away, and walked all the way around it before returning to his original position. It rose around twenty feet up, and from this distance he saw what he couldn’t have from farther away: its entire shiny black surface was covered in tiny sigils, similar to those on the church from his previous visit. No visible doors or windows appeared; not even a seam.
A bunker, then.
Stone’s smile didn’t waver.
The demons hung back, watching in silence.
He raised the sword and, starting where the black structure met the dusty ground, used the point to trace a line along the wall. He moved slowly and deliberately, but did not press hard on the blade. He didn’t need to. Wherever it scratched the shiny surface, the tiny sigils shrank away from it, crowding against their neighbors much as the demons had done when Stone had pointed the sword at them.
When he was finished, he stepped back to examine his work. An arched doorway, outlined in crackling white light, glowed against the unrelieved blackness of the wall.
Stone turned back to the demons and made a bow and a flourish with the sword, like a magician who’d just performed a particularly impressive trick. Every one of their gazes was locked on him. None had moved. None made a sound.
“Now,” he said, “let’s all get a peek at what your boss really looks like, shall we?”
He faced the doorway and extended the sword, this time toward the center of the area outlined in white light. It seemed absurd that he could budge such a large and solid section of stone—or whatever the building had been constructed of—with the rickety child’s weapon, but that was exactly what he did. He put the point of the blade against the newly defined door, and pressed.
The door fell away into the building, and disappeared before it hit the ground.
Inside was blackness.
“Anyone want to come with me?” Stone called without turning. He waited a moment. When none of the demons responded, he nodded once. “Thought so. That’s all right—I didn’t expect you would. Keep your pants on, then—this shouldn’t take long.”
He stepped inside the building.
Instantly, the door reformed behind him, dousing even the scant light that had shone in from outside. Darkness so profound that it nearly hurt Stone’s eyes wreathed the space. He summoned a light spell around his hand, revealing a room as featureless as the building had appeared from the outside. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same black material. No sigils in here, though.
Stone had wondered if the building would be another illusion, hiding a much larger structure inside—sort of like a demonic version of the TARDIS from Doctor Who. But no—if there was any more to the little building, the entry point was well concealed.
When he spotted the figure huddled in the corner, he knew this was all there was. “Hello, Archie.”
When he’d said he’d “broken” Archie, he’d meant it mostly metaphorically. But the crumpled, twisted form that lay in front of him appeared broken in every sense of the word. He moved his hand so the light fell on Archie, and the demon flinched away—at least as much as he could.
He wasn’t fearsome and red-eyed and skeletal anymore. He didn’t look like the self-assured bully from Stone’s old school. He didn’t even look like one of the misshapen demons outside. Instead he looked…diminished. Pale and flabby and infinitely weary. But even so, rage still burned in his tiny eyes. He glared up at Stone and did not speak.
“Well, look at you,” Stone murmured. “This is what I was afraid to come back and face.”
“You should be afraid,” Archie rasped. His words bubbled in his throat with nearly no volume behind them. “This isn’t over. It will never be over.”
“Oh, I think it will. The question is, should I kill you myself, or let your devoted subjects show you just how devoted they are when your intimidation days are over?” He swung the sword casually in his hand, noting how closely Archie’s eyes tracked it. “What do you say? Shall I call them in here? Perhaps they’ll bundle you up in a blanket and bring you some chicken soup. They’re a loyal bunch, right? You can go on and kill them whenever you like, and they’ll just go right on being loyal—even when you’re so weak you can’t even get up.”
When Archie didn’t answer, Stone raised an eyebrow. “No? You’re not so sure? Oh, right: demons. Survival of the fittest and all that.”
He looked the huddled demon up and down, letting his gaze travel over its form in an almost proprietary manner. “I’ve got to tell you, Archie:
you’re not looking too fit right now. Will you trust them not to rip you limb from limb? Shall we go out there and show them what they’ve been so afraid of all this time?”
Archie shifted position, sitting up a little so he was propped against the wall. His eyes still burned, and now he was smiling too. “No. I don’t think so,” he said. His voice sounded a little stronger now. “I see you haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Figured what out?”
The demon shook his head as if addressing a slow-witted child. “Oh, Stone. You’ve succumbed to your own arrogance. You think you have the upper hand. But what you’ve really done is walk into my trap with both eyes open.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Stone stiffened just a bit, but didn’t let any of his reaction reach his face. What did Archie mean?
“That’s a nice sword you’ve got there.” Archie continued, indicating it with a pale, flabby arm. “Did you raid some child’s toy box? Is that the best you could manage to come after me with? Oh, wait—shouldn’t it be glowing?”
Stone didn’t change position, but he did glance down at the sword in his hand. Only then did he realize that it no longer felt solid and sturdy; he could feel every bit of the ripped wrapping and duct tape on the handle once again. And Archie was right: the blade no longer glowed.
The demon sat up a little more. “I may be weakened—I’m sure you figured that out. Destroying my corporeal body did grievous damage to my spirit back here. Damage that will weaken me significantly until I’ve recovered. But I will recover. I am ageless and indestructible. The same thing happened when I was bested by that useless priest and his mage lackey. In a few of your days I’ll be back to full power, waiting for my loyal followers on your world to set my plan in motion again. And until then, you’ll remain here with me. I’m sure we have quite a lot to talk about.”
“No,” Stone said. “You can’t keep me here. Not this time.”
“You don’t think so?” Archie nodded toward the mage’s shirt. “Do you expect to use that thing you’re wearing to get you back? My trap has neutralized it as well. Nothing from outside this plane can reach into this room.”
Stone took a step back as he came to another realization: the crucifix around his neck wasn’t warm anymore. In fact, it felt cold against his chest. But that still didn’t matter—neither the sword nor the crucifix had been part of his way home. As long as the slender, glowing cord remained to connect him to Grace and his own world, then—
Archie chuckled, almost as if reading his thoughts. “You can check. Your lifeline is gone too. Snipped when the door came back up. Just as I planned.”
Stone gripped the sword more tightly, his heart pounding faster. He couldn’t help a quick glance over his shoulder.
The glowing cord was nowhere to be seen.
If the cord was gone, he had no idea how he’d get back to his own dimension. That was absolutely a problem.
But it wasn’t a problem for just now.
He smiled.
“Why are you smiling? Are you a fool? Did you hear what I just told you?”
“Oh, I heard you.” Stone began pacing back and forth in front of Archie. He kept the light spell going on one hand while swinging the cheap sword with the other. The blade rattled in the handle as he did.
“You’re not concerned about being trapped in here with me, and what I will do to you when my power returns?’
“No, not really.”
Archie glared at him. “You are a fool, then.”
“No. You’re the fool, Archie. Want me to tell you why?”
“Go ahead. Your delusion amuses me.”
“That’s just the thing, though.” Stone stopped pacing and faced the seated demon. “It is about delusion—but not mine. Yours. You may have me trapped in here with you. I’m not even sure. It could be another one of your illusions, but it doesn’t matter. Because I’ve got you all sorted out now.”
“Oh, do you think so?”
“I do.” He swung the sword again: back and forth, back and forth, in a hypnotic rhythm. “You’re nothing without people. Without worshippers. If you don’t have a collection of people around telling you how great you are, giving you their energy, you’re nothing. When you don’t have anyone, you lose your power. That’s the way you work. I’m not sure if you were made that way or if you’ve just convinced yourself it’s true, but that doesn’t matter either—you believe it, and that’s enough to be getting on with.”
Archie shook his head, looking disgusted. “Any time you’d like to start making sense, Stone, I’ll bother to listen to you.”
“You don’t have to listen to me. Whether you hear it or not has no bearing on whether it’s true. You’re a creature of belief, Archie. You’re tied up with it so inextricably that you can’t get away from it even if you wanted to. That’s your weakness. And that’s your real heart.” He raised the sword. “You’re stuck with your beliefs, and the beliefs that define you, even if they’re wrong. But I’m not.”
The sword’s blade flickered a faint glow.
Archie’s eyes widened. “How are you—?”
“There are all sorts of different kinds of faith,” Stone said. “Ms. Ruiz—remember her? You should, because she could probably mop up the floor with your sorry arse if she had more confidence in her abilities—she has faith in God. I don’t know whether there’s a God or not, but she does. To her, it’s not even a question. I realized just now that I was leaning on her faith—and that’s why my weapons failed when I came in here.”
He swung the sword again. The glow around it grew progressively brighter as he did so. “I can’t depend on someone else’s faith. I have to trust my own. And in my case, my faith is in magic, and my ability to make it work for me.” His smile widened. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”
Without warning he swung the sword, lunging forward to drive the point toward Archie.
The demon shrieked and shrank back, raising a feeble shield in front of him. The sword blade punched through it as if it weren’t even there, the tip burying itself in the center of the demon’s chest. As the glowing blade slipped neatly between Archie’s ribs, something else glowed there, pulsing and red, and then flared and died.
The demon tried to scream, but Stone yanked the blade back and swung it sideways, connecting with Archie’s neck as he fell. Once again, despite its dulled and pitted blade, the sword cut through the demon’s flesh with no resistance. His body collapsed in a heap, and a second later his head landed next to it on the black floor with a ripe thunk.
All around Stone, the structure faded, leaving him standing in the center of an open patch of arid ground. Archie’s headless body lay next to him.
He looked around. The demons, all of them, were clustered perhaps twenty feet away, watching the scene with mixed expressions of fear, horror, and malicious anticipation. Stone bent and gripped Archie’s head, raising it high above him. “Anybody else want to have a go?” he called in a strong, clear voice.
The demons muttered and backed off. A couple of them began a cautious cheer, and after a few seconds the rest picked up the cry. It was obvious to Stone that they weren’t cheering for him, but rather for the fact that Archie was finally dead. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they were at each other’s throats, fighting over who would be the next Grand High Poobah of this godforsaken dimension. Best to get the situation in hand and get the hell out (so to speak) before that happened.
“Nobody? Right, then.” He threw Archie’s head toward the demons with all the contempt he could muster. It landed near them and rolled a few feet away before coming to a stop, its dead eyes staring back at him in almost comical astonishment. “I’ve got no quarrel with any of you lot. Stay out of my way, and stay away from my dimension, and you’ll never see me again. But don’t get any ideas about repeating what Archie tried. Got it?”
/> He swept his gaze around, taking them all in. None of them challenged him. They all continued to mutter and mumble between themselves, and several shook their heads and held up their hands as if to say, No, we’re good, man. One tentatively kicked Archie’s head, and a few more joined in until it began to look like the start of the world’s most bizarre football match.
Beneath his shirt, Stone felt the crucifix begin to warm up again. He reached out with his senses, connecting with it, and looked behind him. He wasn’t surprised to see a faint ghost of the shining cord, stretching out into the distance. He bent and grasped it, and it felt sure and substantial in his hand.
As the dry, dusty plain faded from view, Stone raised the sword toward the demons. It wasn’t a salute—they didn’t deserve a salute—but rather an acknowledgment that he was leaving under his own power. He wondered how many of them would survive the bloodbath to come.
But he didn’t particularly care.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
“Are those police cars?” Grace asked, pointing.
Stone slowed the BMW, pulling into the parking lot of the Royal Crest Hotel. Up ahead, whirling blue and red lights dominated the area near the main entrance. “It certainly looks like it.”
It was eight o’clock, half an hour or so past sundown, and less than an hour since he’d awakened in his attic sanctum, stretched out in the middle of the circle, with the battered old katana still clutched in his hand.
Grace had leaped up from her pillow perch, where she’d been observing him. “You weren’t gone very long,” she’d said. “Did it not work?”
“It worked just fine,” he said, grinning as he sat up. “It was bloody brilliant, in fact. Archie won’t be troubling us—or anyone else—ever again.”