by David Mack
Anja ran toward the train tracks. Falling munitions leveled entire city blocks on either side of her and Kein. A bomb landed in the street ahead of her. Its shock wave launched her through a wall of fire and engulfed Kein in smoke and dust.
Adair called up tentacles of fog to snare Kein’s limbs. Kein cut himself free with a demon’s rapier, then shot petrifying beams from his eyes to chase Adair to cover behind the base of the statue in the center of the Zwinger grounds.
Tired of Cade’s berserker assault, Kein swatted the young karcist aside with the hand of GŌGOTHIEL. Cade flew through the crumbling brick façade of a building gutted by bombs.
On either side of Kein, civilians fled from burning apartment buildings, their hair and clothing aflame. A woman whose flesh was seared almost to charcoal collapsed in the street, the charred corpse of an infant fused to her breast. Mother and child dissolved into black grease. Terrified throngs trampled their neighbors, only to suffocate as the fire ate their oxygen.
Anja limped out of the maelstrom of fire, wand in one hand, athamé in the other. Blood ran from her nose and ears, and her tattered clothes smoldered on her slight frame. “Now you die,” she rasped at Kein. Behind her raged the hellscape of what once had been a city of art.
In the Zwinger, Adair threw disintegrating pulses and tempests of white light, only to see Kein swat them aside, punching more holes in the palace walls. No longer amused by the exercise, Kein took away his foes’ principal defenses with the might of KERAVNOS—the spirit known in Hell as “shield-breaker.”
Adair’s shield crumbled. Kein lashed his serpent-whip around the Scot’s throat. The girl was a petty distraction, one best dispatched quickly; Kein shredded her defensive barrier, then put her down with a pair of deadly thunderbolts. He seized the American in the paralyzing grip of LEVIATHAN and used the strength of GŌGOTHIEL to drag him toward the Zwinger.
On the edge of Friedrichstadt, Kein’s first avatar flinched as a barrage of demonic arrows plowed into his back, forcing him to his knees. Dazed, he twisted around—and saw Anja, bloodied and caked in soot, her hand outstretched toward him. Kein buried her in a cyclone of dust, shattered concrete, and fire.
Outside the gate of the Zwinger, Kein’s second avatar faltered as the first collapsed. His concentration on Cade lapsed for only a fraction of a second—but it was enough for the nikraim to squirm free and regroup as bombs leveled the city on either side of him and Kein.
Inside the palace’s killing grounds, Adair lashed out with a desperate invisible-hand attack, but Kein reflected it back at him. Adair mustered an ironskin charm in time to survive what would otherwise have been a fatal error.
Cade tried to take down Kein with a rudimentary strangling hex. Kein broke the demonic chokehold, then turned the pall of smoke over the city into a rack of pain for the arrogant young karcist. “Playtime is over, boy. Now we finish this.”
Kein’s two wandering bodies returned to the Zwinger, whose walls shattered before the holocaust unleashed by the bombers overhead. One explosion after another rocked the ground, to the point that Kein expected the bedrock to crack open below his feet. All around him, blasts leveled the Zwinger palace. Its walls fell to reveal the nightmare of the Altstadt—dozens of square miles reduced to skeletons of gutted brick an an inferno worthy of the Abyss.
Fire above, fire below: It was Hell on earth—all Kein had hoped and more.
His old rival lay on his right, stunned and bleeding. His new rival lay on his left, paralyzed and in shock. Adair and his adepts had played their parts to perfection.
A shame they will all be dead before I can thank them.
He drew his wand and athamé, then declared in a mighty voice, “Hear me, great minister LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE! By the holy names GABRIEL, RAPHAEL, ZACHARIEL, NURIEL, SAMAEL, TETRAGRAMMATON, and JEHOVAH, I command thee! Aperire portam inferni!”
A thirty-meter-wide circle yawned open in the center of the Zwinger grounds. The great statue and dozens of lampposts, trees, and shrubberies were consumed by a fast-growing, swirling vortex of fire and shadow, pulled down into the Pit.
For the first time since the dawn of man, the gateway to Hell was open.
* * *
Strength and focus were only memories now for Cade. Pain and delirium had become his whole world. Curled on the ground at Kein’s feet, he was racked with agonies inside and out, as if he were meat turning on a barbed spit. He sensed only six spirits he still held in yoke; nearly two-thirds of the demons he’d harnessed had escaped his control in just the past few minutes.
Mere feet away, a funnel of smoke and fire entranced him with its spinning as it drilled into the bowels of Hell. Lightning danced in its walls. From its depths roared a chorus of nightmares soon to rise and prey upon earth’s billions of unsuspecting souls.
All around the ruins of the Zwinger, the city of Dresden burned. Gutted brick façades broke apart. The spires and domes of great cathedrals vanished into the firestorm that engulfed the heart of the city—a hurricane of fire with the palace’s now-barren grounds as its eye.
Just out of Cade’s reach, Adair lay on his side, blood seeping from his jaw, his whole body shaking with the tremors of the mortally wounded.
Between them, lording over them, was Kein. He raised his arms to the burning sky and basked in the moment. Then he beamed at Cade and shouted over the firestorm, “Beautiful, is it not? Your leaders gave me all I needed to bring the modern world to its end. Ere the sun rises, I will lay their lands and armies waste—and tomorrow, mankind can start over, free of the horrors it made but cannot control.” He mocked Cade with an insincere, overly formal bow. “And I owe it all to you, Herr Martin. Because after I sacrifice you, the hellmouth will be locked open—and earth will be closed to the angels forever.”
The dapper fiend extended one hand toward Cade, closed his eyes, and concentrated. “Still clinging to a few yoked spirits, I see—including GADREEL: defense from projectiles and immunity to metal. Most impressive.” He reached inside his trench coat and drew out a dagger with a blade of yellow-tinted quartz. “Fortunately, I came prepared.”
Kein lifted Cade by the front of his shirt. “Nikraim or not, you were never going to beat me as a karcist.” He raised his blade and struck—
—only to have Cade block and seize his arm: “Then I’ll kill you as a Ranger.”
Cade snapped Kein’s elbow and forced broken bones through the skin.
The blade fell from Kein’s hand as he screamed in pain.
Cade dragged Kein to the ground and punched him in the face, throat, solar plexus, and groin. For a moment, he felt as if his victory was at hand.
Then Kein reabsorbed his two magickal avatars in a burst of light and a clap of thunder that hurled Cade to the edge of the hellmouth and left him stunned. Smoke surrounded them as the dark master straightened his savaged arm with a merciless jerk and a guttural howl.
Desperate, Cade reached for the quartz knife. Kein opened his mouth and spewed a flood of indigo light that flattened Cade to the ground and stripped him of the last of his yoked spirits.
Barely conscious, Cade watched Kein grab the quartz dagger. Drained and frozen, all he could do was watch the dark master stagger toward him and raise the blade—
Blood spattered Cade’s face like a devil’s baptism. He blinked, then saw Kein gag and cough blood—with the tip of an onyx dagger poking from a bloodstain on his chest.
Wind parted the curtains of smoke, revealing Anja behind Kein. She gave her stone blade a savage twist. Kein dropped his quartz dagger and sank to his knees, while his proud glare slackened into a mask of shock.
Cade scrambled away from the vortex’s edge as Anja pulled her blade free of Kein’s back. She seized Kein by his hair; then she stabbed him in his ribs and flanks, over and over, growling the whole time like a feral animal, her eyes wide with rage.
Kein was as limp as a marionette in Anja’s hands when she spun him to face her. “For my brother,” she rasped. Then she plunged her d
agger into his gut.
The dark magician slumped over the edge of the fiery vortex.
Adair’s hoarse cry came half a second too late: “Stop! Don’t—”
Numb with pain and horror, Cade watched his nemesis surrender to gravity’s embrace. Kein spread his arms, cracked a beatific smile, then said as he fell: “It is finished.”
He vanished into the Pit, unleashing a crash of thunder that buried Adair’s plaintive shout of “No!”
A geyser of fire and shadow shot up from the bottom of the vortex, cutting through the smoke that now crowned all of Dresden.
Anja and Cade rushed to Adair’s side and helped him sit up.
“Master,” Cade said, “are you all right?”
“Of course not!” He pointed at Anja. “The fuck were you thinking?”
She recoiled, offended. “I killed him. We won.”
The master shook his head, furious. “You finished his spell!” He nodded at the hellfire geyser searing the sky. “Hell’s rising, and there’s fuck all we can do to stop it!”
Panic clouded Cade’s thoughts. “There’s got to be a way to close it!”
“It’s too late. She locked it open when she sacrificed Kein. It would take—” He stopped in midsentence, horrified by whatever notion had occurred to him.
Anja shook Adair by his shoulders. “Take what?”
“Another sacrifice,” Adair said, crestfallen. “One of equal measure.”
“My mistake.” Anja stood. “I will pay the price.”
Adair caught her leg. “No—” He coughed up blood and gasped for breath. “Not how it works. Kein was a nadach. You sacrificed a man bonded to a demon. Closing the gate … requires an equal sacrifice. A man—” More blood-soaked coughs.
Cade finished Adair’s thought: “Bonded to an angel.”
Sorrow filled Adair’s eyes. “Aye.… It’s the only way.”
Bombs rocked the burning city. Charred ghosts staggered in its avenues turned funeral pyres. Beside Cade, the host of Hell began its ascent.
He summoned the last of his strength and stood to face the inferno. Soul-searing heat licked at his face, promising all the pains of damnation.
It was just one step, but it would be the measure of a life. His life. To cross that threshold was to let go of everything he knew, and all that he loved.
His guts twisted with grotesque pain. He looked down, expecting to see fire. All he found was a fathomless, unnatural blackness, an uncreated womb of night.
He thought of all who had died to protect him through the years—his parents on the night of the Athenia’s sinking; Stefan’s noble sacrifice; and all the soldiers who had been killed around him on D-day—and all those who would perish if his courage faltered now.
He smiled at Adair. “Leave a light on for me.”
Tears filled Adair’s eyes. “Aye, lad. That I will.”
Cade nodded at Anja. She nodded back.
Then he stepped forward and surrendered himself to the Abyss.
He knew not to expect a heavenly reward, or a miraculous act of Providence. All he expected to find at the end of his fall was darkness, followed by oblivion.
Darkness was exactly what he found.
59
AUGUST
Six months to the day. If the Iron Codex was to be trusted, this would be the best time—and maybe the only time—in the next decade to attempt such a bizarre experiment.
Anja stood on the beach and watched thunderheads choke the Caribbean sky. Waves heaved and shredded themselves into foam before they landed on the white-sand beach. It was nearing high tide, so each push of surf came closer than the last to the thatched-roof bamboo shack she and Adair had shared for the past six months, since their escape from Dresden.
The house wasn’t much to see. Just a few rooms and a narrow porch facing a beachside fire pit, all nestled into a clearing on the coast of British Honduras, a few hundred meters from the mouth of the Mullins River.
In the forest behind the house, palm trees swayed in the grip of worsening crosswinds. Thunder echoed over the hillsides deeper inland. To the east, lightning danced between the stormhead and the sea.
It was time. If it was going to happen, it would be now.
Trust the Codex, she told herself. Trust yourself.
Adair had helped her design the circles for this unprecedented work of the Art, but they both had known she would have to stand alone at the moment of truth. It was an immutable fact of the circle that it was meant for one person, three, or five—but he had been bedridden since Dresden, and time had only worsened his wounds. So he had gifted her the Iron Codex, given her access to his vast collection of lore, and guided her preparations as best he could.
Dressed in her alb and paper miter, she entered the operator’s circle.
Whether she left it alive depended on whether she and Adair had read the stars correctly, as well as whether her interrogations of VERAKOS had yielded precious truth or fatal lies.
She set her sword across the toes of her white leather shoes, then drew her wand from beneath her lion-skin girdle and removed its shroud of red silk. A spark conjured by the gift of HABORYM ignited the fresh charcoal in her brazier. She lifted her hands and proclaimed:
“Exodus! Exodus! Exodus!”
White sparks vomited from the brass vessel at her feet. The howls of the tempest deepened and distorted, until Anja was enveloped by a chorus of caterwauling. She raised her voice above the din:
“I invoke thee, CADE MARTIN, karcist of karcists! And I command Hell’s Infernal Descending Hierarchy to surrender you and send you forth, by the terms of my covenant with ASTAROTH, and with his master PUT SATANACHIA, and the Great Emperor LUCIFER, all by the power of the most holy names ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ZABAOTH, ELION, ERETHAOL, RAMAEL, TETRAGRAMMATON, and SHADDAI; and by the whole hierarchy of superior intelligences, who shall release thee to answer my summons—venité, venité, CADE MARTIN!”
The heavens opened and flayed the beach with rain. Hundreds of strokes of lightning landed in a matter of seconds, all striking the center of the outer magickal circle as bone-shaking cannonades of thunder shook the ground. An inhuman roar overpowered the clamor of the storm and filled Anja with terror; then she winced as a final bolt of lightning, one greater than she had ever seen, turned her world white before plunging it into pure darkness.
Then the only sound was the rain.
Anja blinked. Her eyes adjusted to the dim glow produced by smoldering patches of fire on the ground that refused to be extinguished by the summer squall.
In the other circle, his head bowed and kneeling in a pose of genuflection, was Cade. Rain sizzled and evaporated as it struck his naked body. He and the ground inside his circle’s innermost ring exuded gray vapor. A wand was clutched in his right hand.
He lifted his head to let the storm wash over his bearded face, releasing more steam. With effort and evident discomfort he stood. He squinted at her. “Anja?”
Every instinct she possessed told her it was him—but Adair had warned her she might call up a demon masquerading as Cade. Until she knew for certain it was him, the only safe course was to say nothing—to stand and wait.
Cade doubled over and vomited for a few seconds. Then he wiped his face clean with help from the storm … and staggered out of the circle.
Anja sprinted to him and caught him just before he fell on his face. Only a man could have walked out of the bounding circle of his own free will; a demon would have needed her permission. She checked him for wounds. “Are you hurt?”
His forehead was fever-warm. “How long was I gone?”
“Six months.”
“How’d you bring me back?”
“A long story. How did you survive in Hell?”
Behind his ragged beard, a teasing smile. “Long story.”
She looked down at his hand. “Whose wand is that?”
“Kein’s.” A wider grin now. “Call it a souvenir.”
They lay on the sand and let the
storm drench them. When the rain no longer boiled against his flesh, Anja helped him to his feet. “Let’s get you inside. Adair needs to see you.”
For once, Cade sounded hopeful. “Is the war over?”
Anja sighed as she led him inside the house. “Long story.”
* * *
It was as close to a working definition of optimism as Cade had ever seen: Anja and Adair had brought with them his clothing, Colt semiautomatic, and tools of the Art from the villa. All of his personal effects had been cleaned and put away into drawers, trunks, and wardrobes. He had expected to be handed used garments, as when he had first awoken in Scotland years earlier. Being able to put on his own clothes was a simple yet profound comfort after his Infernal ordeal.
I still can’t believe I’m here.
He closed his eyes and drank in the white noise of the tropical downpour slashing across the roof and pattering on the windows. The inside of the house smelled of mildew and flowers. Lit by kerosene lamps and candles, it had the ambience of a pastoral church after dark. The furnishings looked as if they had been wrought by local craftsmen from bamboo, twine, and reeds, and the floors were weathered and grayed by years of exposure to salt air.
He emerged from the bedroom dressed and restored to a semblance of his old self. Anja was there, waiting for him. She noted the shift in his appearance. “Better.”
“I still need a shave.”
“Later. The master awaits.” She guided him toward the house’s other bedroom.
“Guess I should thank you for—”
“I did not do it for you.” A stern look. “The master promised me the Iron Codex if I brought you back.” They reached Adair’s room. His door was ajar, but Anja paused outside and knocked on the jamb. “Master?”
“Enter.” Adair’s voice was hoarse, a thin shadow of its former authority. Anja nudged open the door and led Cade to the master’s bedside. Candles lined the windowsills and the tops of dressers; their flames animated the walls with shadows. Lying under a threadbare sheet, Adair looked pale even in the glow of firelight. The shadows served only to accentuate how gaunt his features had become. He turned his head as Cade neared, revealing rheumy eyes. “Welcome home, lad. I wasn’t sure you’d make it … but I’m glad you did.”