A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  “Nothing here,” I murmured.

  “Should we try the stairs?” Derrick asked.

  I frowned. “I don’t think we should be going up. If the Iblis is here, it’s going to be as close to the earth as possible. There must be an underground cellar. We’ll have to search under things for a trapdoor.” I turned to Miles. “Can you look for traces of materia residue on the floor? There might be some heat differentials if this thing has an underground entrance to its lair.”

  Miles nodded and put on the blue glasses. “If it’s there, I’ll find it.”

  We combed the living room again, kicking over furniture, shifting debris around, looking underneath the moth-eaten rug. Finally, Miles snapped his fingers and pointed to a spot in the far corner of the room.

  “Thermal materia,” he said. “It’s gathering here.”

  Patrick leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

  “Ah,” he said. “I can see the door now.”

  “I’m sure glad we brought you,” I said, giving him a wan smile. I didn’t want him to feel like a freak.

  He returned my smile shyly. “Thanks.”

  “Since you’re the only one who can see it . . .” I gestured to the spot on the floor. “Think you can open it?”

  Patrick nodded. He got down on one knee, his slim fingers probing the surface of the wood. I saw his hands grasp—something. It was invisible, but clearly solid. Then he tugged at it with a grunt, and I heard the creak of grinding wood. The air seemed to flicker, growing indistinct for a moment. Then I saw a trapdoor attached to an iron rung and, beneath it, a square of utter blackness.

  “Tricky,” Lucian murmured.

  I touched my earpiece. “Selena, we’ve found an entrance. We’re going in.”

  “Copy. Be careful, and stay on this channel. We’ll try to boost the frequency in case there’s interference underground.”

  I reached into my jacket and drew out a Cyalume stick, motioning for the others to do the same. Except for Patrick. I was sure that he could already see in the dark. I snapped the stick down the middle with my thumb and forefinger, and it began to give off a weak, neon green glow.

  “Everyone ready?”

  They all nodded.

  I shifted the Glock to my left hand, keeping my right braced against the grimy wall as I descended a narrow flight of stone steps. I could feel packed earth, spiderwebs, and other, nameless things against my fingertips, but I didn’t think too closely about what they might be. I concentrated on the faint green aura of the Cyalume stick, which just barely revealed patches of the earthen walls, flecked with stone and glistening roots. It felt like we were journeying into the black core of the world itself.

  I counted almost thirty steps before my boots touched soft, packed earth. The air was cool and smelled like decaying leaves. I could hear water dripping somewhere and, farther in the distance, something that sounded like a low rumbling. A generator maybe? It seemed like the most comforting possibility.

  We continued down a narrow, low-ceilinged passageway, holding out our green glow sticks like eerie fireworks. After about five minutes of walking, I felt Lucian come up behind me.

  “We’re almost past the property line now,” he murmured. “I wonder how far this corridor goes? We must be under the neighbor’s yard.”

  “No neighbors,” I said, suppressing the urge to shiver. “Not for a mile. We may as well be in another country.”

  The corridor widened a bit, and we found ourselves standing in something like an antechamber. Two tunnels branched off in opposite directions, forming a junction with the passage we’d just come down.

  “Great.” I tried to peer farther ahead, but the blackness was thick as tar.

  Miles put the blue glasses on. Then he frowned. “I’m barely sensing anything from either direction. Very faint traces of energy, but nothing conclusive.”

  “Patrick?” I turned to him. “Are you—ah—getting anything?” I didn’t want to say “smelling” for some reason. It just seemed too bestial.

  His eyes narrowed. He seemed to be testing the air.

  “They both smell bad,” he concluded. “But the tunnel to the right smells the worst.” He made a face. “Like rotting fruit.”

  “Rotting fruit it is, then.”

  I led the way down the tunnel that Patrick had chosen. I could detect faint whiffs of what he’d smelled so clearly, like a subtle, disgusting bouquet of dead flowers and decomposing fruit. Maybe the Iblis kept body parts down here. Maybe its corporeal form was a bloody mess of sewn-together hides, like Buffalo Bill.

  Patrick made a hissing noise. We all stopped short. I saw him straining forward, every one of his senses working. His eyes reflected back the Cyalume glow, flaring momentarily like gemstones.

  “There’s something here,” he whispered. “It’s getting closer.”

  “More vampires?” Derrick asked.

  “I’m not sure.” He frowned. “I’m still getting the hang of this. It’s difficult to sort out all the competing smells. But there’s definitely something—” He turned around sharply. “Wait. There’s two of them.”

  I swallowed. “Two?”

  “They’re coming from opposite directions.”

  “Cornering us,” Derrick said grimly. He held out his Glock, and light flickered against the carbonized blue steel of the barrel. I hoped Linus was right about that sensor. I didn’t want to be the only one who could shoot straight.

  “They’re about fifty feet away,” Patrick whispered.

  Lucian took up a defensive stance. I felt my stomach flip as he began to channel power, and strands of wine red light curled between his fingers. Necroid materia. Wolfie stood next to him, flicking his thumb and forefinger together, and tongues of flame leapt to life at the point of contact.

  Miles drew his Sig Sauer, which I’d forgotten about.

  “What ammo is that loaded with?” I whispered. I held the Cyalume close to my face so that he could read my lips.

  “Black Talon. Not combustible rounds, like yours. Linus said he didn’t have time to modify the barrel and firing pin.”

  “You’d better get behind me, then.” I gestured to the wall. “Aim for the head and the heart, and don’t stop shooting until you’ve used the entire clip. You might be able to slow them down if you hit the same spot enough times.”

  I heard him swallow. “Got it.”

  Patrick suddenly growled, like a dog whose territory was being encroached on.

  Two shapes burst into the light. They were blurs, but the slimmer one with long hair whipping around might have been a woman. Their eyes bounced the light back, just like a cat’s. I sighted along the length of the barrel. I didn’t want to waste too much ammo, since these rounds had been specifically designed for the Iblis.

  The vampire on the left went for Lucian. He was a walking target for them. Maybe they could smell the necroid energies on him, like a cloying perfume. The vampire slashed at his throat, but before his long nails could make contact, Patrick had already grabbed him from behind.

  This one was stronger. He shook off Patrick’s grip, then backhanded him sharply across the face. Patrick staggered, spitting out blood, and the second vampire moved in. They were hunting like a pack.

  I steeled my shoulder, aimed at her neck, and fired.

  The flash was dazzling, and I almost had to turn away. Fire blossomed like a deadly orchid in the vampire’s throat, and she shook her head, spraying blood in all directions. Her screams filled the corridor. The fire crawled up her hair, licking at her cheeks and eyes.

  Wolfie stepped forward. The first vampire leapt at him, but Patrick barreled forward, knocking the attacker’s legs out from under him. They both hit the ground, rolling and snarling, two rabid pit bulls. Wolfie reached out, and fire exploded from his upturned palms. The vampire shrieked and fell to her knees, clawing at her face as the incendiary bullet continued to burn her from the inside. Wolfie clenched his teeth and kept the flames on her. Within twenty seconds, she was curle
d in a smoldering heap, charred knees drawn to her chest in the “pugilist pose” that dead bodies assume once the muscles and tendons have melted. I gagged from the smell.

  The remaining vampire flipped atop Patrick’s chest, pummeling him. Patrick jabbed his fingers into the vamp’s throat, snarling and spitting. The vampire raked claws across his face, and Patrick thrashed beneath him.

  A bullet tore through the vampire’s eye socket, vaporizing the eyeball in a spray of blood and clear fluid. Another round exploded through his neck. He cocked his head, as if silently questioning something, as a third and then a fourth bullet cracked into the plate of his skull. Finally, his grip on Patrick weakened, and he began to sway. A fifth shot took his right hand clean off, and I put a hand over my face to shield myself from the bone fragments as they went flying.

  The vampire’s body gave a great shudder, and then he collapsed against Patrick, blood pooling around him. The shudder became a grand convulsion, and as I watched, his form liquefied and turned to greasy ash on the floor. One of the rounds must have severed his spinal cord. Patrick rolled away, looking like he might be sick, as the remains of the vampire’s body curled into black detritus, calcined bone, and foul-smelling liquid waste. Steam rose from the ground.

  I turned, thinking that Miles had fired the rounds. But it was Derrick who stood just to my left, feet spaced evenly apart, right shoulder cocked back as he held the smoking Glock level in front of him.

  “I guess that sensor works,” he said mildly.

  23

  After Selena had placed teams on the opposite side of the entrance, we continued on, farther into the gloom. The radio was starting to get patchy. I didn’t want to think what would happen if we lost contact entirely with the world above. I was already getting more claustrophobic by the second, and the Cyalume glow was barely enough to see a few feet in front of my face. The only ones who seemed relaxed were Patrick and Lucian. I guess they were used to the dark.

  Derrick was at my right. “I’ve got a feeling,” he said.

  “I don’t like your feelings. They never bode well.”

  “No, those are your feelings. Mine are usually okay.”

  I sighed. “What is it?”

  “Aren’t you getting the sense that this has been too easy so far? I mean, it was tricky enough to find this place, sure. But then there’s—what—a single vampire guarding the whole first floor? Then Patrick finds the entrance, easy as pie?” He frowned. “A creepy, hypersensitive, undead pie, sure, but still—you get my drift. Even the sentries in the corridor were easy to take out.”

  “Too easy, you think?”

  He shrugged. “I want to see the silver lining here, I really do. But I have to wonder what’s on the other end of this tunnel, and why it doesn’t need much heavier protection. Maybe because it’s not really scared of anything.”

  “It’s an Iblis. A pureblood demon that lives in some kind of bardo-world between the living and the dead. I don’t think it has to scrap with anything too often.”

  “You said it might not be fully corporeal.”

  “I’m only guessing. But my mom seemed to think that it was killing in order to enact a ritual that will make it flesh and bone.”

  “But if it’s already this strong, why would it even want to be corporeal? Wouldn’t that be a downgrade?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know how its mind works. But it’s obviously friendly with Sabine, if these vampires are willing to act as its bodyguards. And she’s at the top of the food chain. So this thing’s definitely got pull.”

  “Pull? Is that what we’re calling it when something disarticulates a vampire magnate with its bare hands? Because I can think of some other words.”

  “I’m not sure that was all the Iblis. Maybe the other vamps lent a hand. I mean, that bedroom was like a war zone. Even the lab wouldn’t be able to figure out where each wound came from.”

  “Wait.” Lucian came up next to me. “Do you feel that?”

  Curls of force licked across my bare shoulders, like warm breath. I let myself go unfocused for a moment, and the power hit me full in the chest. I closed my eyes, beginning to sweat. I could feel it bearing down on me, so fucking heavy, layers of silt, rock, and gem-studded earth. Shadows, striae, and networks of blackened bone, like some unholy perversion of a cathedral’s ceiling, pressing down on my neck. It was all I could do not to sink to one knee.

  “Tess?” Lucian’s hand was on my shoulder.

  I pushed the presence away, erecting a wall of earth materia in front of me. The air seemed to ripple. I counted to three, and then took a deep breath.

  “I’m fine. It just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “I’m afraid to put the glasses back on,” Miles admitted. “I’m not sure what I’ll see. But it won’t be good.”

  Patrick’s eyes had gone very wide. “It smells like . . .” He turned around in a slow circle, inhaling deeply. “I don’t even know. I can’t place it.” He stared at me. “There’s nothing in this world that smells like that.”

  “It’s not from this world,” I said slowly, strengthening the barricade of materia that coursed in front of me. “That’s why we’re sending it back.”

  “I think I should be in front,” Lucian said. “This power feels—familiar to me. I might stand a better chance against it.”

  I nodded. “Do you want my gun?”

  “The minute I need that, I’ll be dead.”

  I knew the feeling.

  I tapped my earpiece. “Selena? We’re almost there.”

  Her voice was barely audible. “Proceed.”

  We continued down the corridor with Lucian in front. I could see what looked like a pale glow emanating farther down, and the walls were getting wider, the ceiling higher, as we moved forward. Gradually, the earth beneath our feet became cement, and the glow up ahead grew brighter. It was coming from behind a door set into the end of the passageway. The door hung open, just slightly. I could hear a strange pounding on the other side of it.

  “I’m going in,” Lucian whispered.

  Slowly, he opened the door.

  The room beyond was surprisingly large, with high ceilings that had been carved directly from the rock above us. The walls and floor were made of concrete. They were bare, save for the odd ripple or scar where the liquid concrete had settled over an uneven spot or a protruding stone. A single lightbulb hung on a cord from the ceiling. It swayed slightly, although there was no breeze. The air was solid, almost syrupy, and had a tang to it that only came from being deep underground.

  Wooden shelves lined the far wall, but I couldn’t make out all the objects that lay on them. Most of them gleamed, like they were made of metal. A long wooden table stood a few feet away from the shelves. Its surface was pockmarked and heavily stained. I wasn’t sure if the stains were blood or not.

  A figure stood in front of the table, its back to us.

  It wore dark pants with steel rivets going down the side of them, and a black hooded sweatshirt. Remembering Wolfie’s description of Henry’s former dealer, I looked down at the boots that the figure was wearing.

  HEAVEN, said the right boot, in gleaming silver stencil. HELL, said the left boot, in bloodred garnets that caught the light of the naked bulb swinging overhead.

  The Iblis.

  We all stood in the entranceway, afraid to move. Power made the creature’s form shimmer indistinctly. I flashed back to fighting Marcus Tremblay. Even borrowing strength from Mia, he’d been difficult to beat. And this thing was in an entirely different league. Derrick was right. It didn’t employ much protection because it didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything finding it.

  I gripped the hilt of my athame. It was hot.

  “Tessa.” A voice sang my name out. “Tessa Isobel. Why did you keep me waiting so long, my flower?”

  The sound of its voice was like a nail in my heart.

  The Iblis turned to face us. All I could see beneath the hood were its eyes. They were the colo
r of a manic purple sunset, and they burned in the darkness, seething, throwing off sparks.

  “I knew your father, Tessa Isobel.” I could feel it smiling as it stepped forward. Its heavy boots made no sound against the floor. “He had a special name for you. His little bloody flower.”

  I aimed the Glock. “Don’t like flowers. I’m more of a candy girl.”

  “You don’t like guns either.” I could feel its oily presence, a hot smear of tar across my mind. I shuddered. “But we both have a fondness for knives. I like all sharp things, really. All things angular and hungry.”

  I kept the gun trained on him. It made me feel better, even if it was useless.

  Those ancient eyes flicked to Lucian. He frowned, and I realized that the Iblis was reading his thoughts.

  “Child of the dark.” There was laughter in its voice. “Sweet little perrito. Little Lucian Eskame Agrado. ‘Eskame’ means merciful, you know.” It took another step toward us. “Are you merciful, Lucian? Hmm?”

  Lucian stiffened.

  “I was there,” it continued softly, “when that beautiful nurse brought you to the precincts of the silent city. I shooed the spider demons away from you. I held you as a squalling infant, Lucian Agrado. And I put my mark on you.”

  I stared at the lily above his collarbone. So that was it. The necromancer had been marked by an Iblis. But why?

  “I remember you,” Lucian whispered.

  “Of course you do.”

  The Iblis lowered its hood.

  Its face was very white. One side was covered by a writhing web of purple veins. Lights seemed to flicker inside them. The other side was smooth, untouched. Its glittering eyes were sunk into sharp, hollow cheeks.

  And there was a hole in the top of its head.

  The hole was cruciform, extending in four perfect segments across the occipital and temporal plates of its skull. The cuts were perfect—like the delicate fontanelles of a baby’s skull that simply hadn’t jointed together yet. Or a jack-o’-lantern that had been carved with unerring precision.