by Harvey Click
The snakewalker hissed indignantly and shook the oak gate of its stall. Bill hissed back and pointed his stick at the demon.
“Skeertakit!” he cried. “Kritaskolant! Uzza constrains you, Azael commands you, Agrat Bat Mahlat compels you. My name is William Sorrows, and my decree is a mighty chain you cannot break. Now kneel before me, you wretched spawn of a puny garter snake.”
The snakewalker glowered at him but sank to its knees, though its multi-jointed legs didn’t really have them. Bill smiled grimly and resumed walking up and down the floor past the stalls.
“Behold, I walk amidst demons and remain unscathed,” he said. “All of you with knees get down on them and grovel, and if you have no knees get down on your bellies, and when all of you are down on your knees or bellies showing proper respect, then I’ll feed you. My food is good. It’s fresh and the blood is still warm.”
A few listeners and grimsnuffers knelt, but the others shrieked or hissed and shook the gates of their stalls. Bill hissed back and pointed his stick at them. He focused his power through it, aiming it at the more recalcitrant ones like a death ray, and a few of them sank to their knees, but not all.
A shiver of fear coursed through him. There were so many of them, and his willpower was being spread too thin. They could break through the oak gates with ease and kill him in the blink of an eye. The only thing stopping them was fear, and the only thing causing their fear was the fiction he was trying to instill in their brains, the flimsy fiction that his might was greater than theirs.
“Skeertakit!” he cried. “Kritaskolant! Uzza constrains you, Azael commands you, Agrat Bat Mahlat compels you. My name is William Sorrows, and my decree is a mighty chain that will rip you to bloody pieces if you defy it. Now kneel before me, you despicable outcasts of hell!”
He aimed his stick at them, forcing so much power through it that his head began to throb like a heart, and one by one they sank to their knees or to all fours like dogs.
The hell-kites had no limbs except their tails and wings, but they sank slowly to the floor and lay there trembling on their bellies. He wished they had chosen the hayloft floors instead, because their slimy pulsating bodies were so repulsive and their fishy smell was so strong it turned his stomach.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now that you’re showing respect to your king I’ll feed you.”
Two big steel tubs sat at the barn door. He reached into one of them and pulled out a brawny forearm with its hand still attached. He had ordered his people to strip and dismember the two mercenaries who’d been killed. One tub held the woman’s parts and the other tub held the man’s, cut into good-sized pieces for feeding with guts and organs neatly packed in plastic buckets.
He tossed the forearm into the first stall of listeners, but there were four of them and they tore at the flesh so greedily he decided to give them a bicep as well. He couldn’t afford to be too generous because he needed to save some good tidbits for later when they’d grow restless again.
“You see, I feed my servants well,” he said. “You won’t go hungry here. William Sorrows takes good care of his demons.”
Another forearm and bicep for the next stall of listeners, then half of a meaty thigh for the stall of babbleboons. In order to toss a heart and liver into the stall of jabber-suckers he had to edge past one of the loathsome hell-kites, and it flopped on the floor with such impatience that he threw it a nice bloody kidney to keep it quiet. Grimsnuffers were known to love intestines, so he emptied a large bucket of them into their stall, and they laid into them grunting like hogs eating slop.
“You see, your lord and master gives you good food,” he said. “I’m a generous king.”
Heads were the finest delicacy, so he saved them for the stickman and the snakewalker, who were more intelligent and refined than the others. They tore into them with gusto, sucking out the eyeballs first and then devouring the tongues and noses.
“Yes, Bill Sorrows feeds his servants well,” he said. “And if you do your jobs well tomorrow night, there will be plenty more good food to eat.”
***
After breakfast Amy and Shane sat on the floor of the back porch helping Joe repair his arrows. They wore guns and their swords lay on the floor beside them in case of another attack. Azura was in the house treating Nyx’s arm again, and Lucky was roaming the yard looking for arrows or knives they might have missed last night.
Amy felt too drained for talking, and apparently the others did too. Joe was frowning deeply and Shane wore a distant expression that even a wife couldn’t read. She wondered if he was imagining being someplace far away from here, maybe a beautiful island. She wondered if he was imagining that she and Emily were there with him, but maybe a husband’s imaginings didn’t usually include his wife. Maybe he was imagining lying under a coconut tree with Azura, and maybe she couldn’t blame him.
Azura was on her mind too. “Now we’re closer than you and your husband will ever be.” It sounded like childish flirtation, but there was more than a grain of truth in it. While their powers had been linked, Amy had felt Azura’s emotions as if they were her own—her sadness and loneliness, anger and resentment, and a potent but tender sort of longing. It was a more intimate connection than she’d ever experienced with Shane or anyone else except possibly Emily.
For two years she’d told herself she didn’t want to be a witch, but it wasn’t true. Once you felt that power coursing through you, you wanted to feel it again. And why should it be considered wicked to cultivate innate occult powers? If there was a God, why should he give special powers to certain people but deem it a sin to nurture them? How was it any worse than nurturing innate intelligence with education or athletic skills with practice? Wasn’t there some sort of parable that warned against keeping one’s light hidden under a basket?
She knew she couldn’t fully develop those powers on her own. In the past she had needed Neoma, and now she needed Azura. But Azura was a mystery, and probably a dangerous one.
Every ten minutes or so one of Bill’s mercenaries came out of the barn and another went in. Eventually one of them walked over to Amy and said, “You’re next.”
“Next for what?”
“Next to meet his pets.”
Amy ignored him and he walked away, but soon Bill stepped out of the barn and called to her. She got up, slipped her sword into its scabbard, and went to the barn door. He looked ten years older, his face even whiter than usual, its skin sagging with deep bags under his eyes. His three-piece suit was soiled and stank of sweat and demons.
“They need to recognize you,” he said, “so when the killing starts they’ll know they’re supposed to protect you instead of kill you.”
The lights in the barn were shut off, maybe to keep the demons calm. When she stepped into the semidarkness, the stench nearly choked her. She covered her nose with her hand, but Bill said, “No, they need to see you. I suspect humans look much alike to them, so they need a good close look at your face.”
Between the slats of the first stall four listeners stared out at her with tiny red rat-eyes. She had a vivid flashback to the first time she had seen one, staring out at her from a bedroom closet at her brother’s house near Blackwood, and the same panic that had overwhelmed her then wanted to overwhelm her again.
About four feet tall, they looked like short fat humans with big bald heads, slimy gray skin, and skinny arms with black-nailed claws instead of hands. Their wide mouths grinned like jack o’ lanterns, and as they stared out at Amy they licked their jagged teeth with pointed gray tongues dripping with slobber.
“Behold, we walk amidst demons and remain unscathed,” Bill called out loudly. “This is my friend Amy, a friend of your lord and master. You shall respect her and protect her always.”
There were four more listeners in the next stall, and in the third one half a dozen babbleboons were leering out at her with big black eyes that looked like empty sockets in their red skull faces. Panting heavily and drooling, they began
to hump one another with excitement.
When Amy stepped to the next stall, tentacles reached out through the slats trying to touch her.
“Careful,” Bill said. “These are my jabber-suckers. Each tentacle has a sharp stinger at the end. They inject you with a nasty venom that dissolves your organs so they can suck them out like grape juice.”
There were three of them in the stall, smacking their fat fish lips while their pulsating tentacles slithered like pythons through the slats of their stall. She had seen one of them before, or maybe one of their cousins, kneeling over Alejandra’s body in her living room, and the memory made her knees buckle.
Bill grasped her arm to keep her from falling. “Pull yourself together,” he whispered in her ear. “They can smell your fear and it makes them cocky.”
There was a rustling sound above her. She looked up and saw harpies peering down at her from the haylofts. They could swoop down on her in an instant, and she wanted to run, but Bill touched her foot with the tip of his stick, and it felt glued to the floor.
“Pull yourself together,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. “If you run they’ll never respect you. You have to show them you’re not afraid. Look them straight in the eyes and speak to them. Let them know the sound of your voice. If they don’t respect you they’ll kill you, if not today then tomorrow.”
“What do I say?”
“Say ‘I’m a friend of your master. Respect me and protect me always.’ Look in their eyes and say it now.”
She looked into the eyes of one of the jabber-suckers. They were horrible black smooth circles, like the glass eyes of a grotesque doll. “I’m a friend of your master,” she said. “Respect me and protect me always.”
Her voice sounded weak and unconvincing, and Bill said, “Say it with more authority. Now tell the others the same thing.”
She looked into the big empty-socket eyes of a babbleboon and repeated the words, but they sounded feeble because she was terrified and wanted to run. She repeated them while looking at the little rat-eyes of a grinning listener and repeated them again looking up at the evil red eyes of a harpy.
The harpy didn’t seem very impressed; it ruffled its bat-wings and licked its lips.
“What are those awful things floating up at the ceiling?” she asked.
“They’re called hell-kites. Very dangerous creatures. There’s a sharp stinger in their tails that contains venom, and of course their bites are venomous too.”
“How do they levitate like that?”
“I’m no expert on demon anatomy, but I suspect they’re able to produce helium or something similar. Probably their wings have bladders full of it. In any event, they can sail and slide through the air with great speed and facility. One of them could swoop down and kill us both in an instant.”
Amy looked up at them and said, “I’m a friend of your master. Respect me and protect me always.” But her voice sounded even weaker than before, and several more harpies insolently ruffled their wings.
She moved to a stall filled with grimsnuffers and was transported back to that dreadful time in the cave with a grimsnuffer in front of her and a rattlesnake behind her, except now the rattlesnake behind her was Bill. Her last remnant of courage crumbled, and she felt herself sweating and trembling as she gazed at the horrid faces covered with wriggling polyps.
Bill grasped her arm and led her to the next stall. “This is my snakewalker,” he said. “It’s a type of shaid, descended from serpents but quite intelligent, much smarter than the others back there. It has the speed and wisdom of a serpent and is extraordinarily dangerous.”
It stood about seven feet tall on two long legs, and its legs and arms and skinny torso undulated like a snake. It had pale green snake skin, a long neck hooded like a cobra’s, and a hideous human-snake face with a slit-like mouth and long cobra fangs that began to drip with venom as it stared at her with its little round black eyes.
She had encountered a snakewalker once before. One of them had chased her through the bramble and weeds behind her brother’s house. It was the most hideous demon she had ever seen at the time, and because of her fear of snakes it still held that honor. It stood in front of her undulating sinuously, and her legs began to feel as wobbly as the snakewalker’s.
“I’m a friend of your master,” she said. “Respect me and protect me always.”
She sounded like a frightened child, and the thing stuck out a long snake tongue and hissed at her.
Bill hissed back at it. “Skeertakit!” he cried. “Kritaskolant! Uzza constrains you, Azael commands you, Agrat Bat Mahlat compels you. My name is William Sorrows, and my decree binds you like shackles of iron. Now bow your head before my friend, you pathetic worm.”
The snakewalker stared inscrutably at them, its head waving slowing back and forth as if ready to strike. Bill reached through the gate with his walking stick and touched its forehead. The creature sprang back a foot or two and bowed its head.
“That’s better,” Bill said. “Next time you’ll obey more quickly, or there will be more than a little touch.”
He grasped Amy’s arms and led her back a short distance from the stalls. “You need to be more assertive,” he whispered in her ear.
“I just want to get the hell out of here,” she said.
“If you leave now you lose the game. There’s only one more you need to greet. But this time you need to be forceful and dominant. Are you ready?”
“I guess so.”
Bill led her to the last stall. “This is my prize,” he said. “It’s called a stickman. It’s a kind of mazzikin, an intermediate-level demon much smarter than the rest, even smarter than the snakewalker. Godson must have sent him as a sort of lieutenant for the others.”
This one reminded Amy of Xuthal, the crying man. He looked much more human than the others, like a very tall and skinny old man. Blue veins showed through his chalk-white skin like a spidery tattoo, and sparse strands of long white hair sprouted here and there on his emaciated body like the kind of stray hairs that appear in odd places on an old person.
And in fact the stickman looked more than old, he looked ancient. A few long hairs hung from his deeply wrinkled face, which was abnormally long and narrow, and more hairs hung from his big jutting ears, which were pointed at the top. Though his mouth was shut, two long fangs protruded from his upper jaw over his thin black lower lip.
“Is this how legends of vampires got started?” Bill asked. “Did creatures like this roam the mountains of Romania, haunting villagers in the night?”
Amy had been so fixated on that horrid skinny face and his blood-red eyes that it took her a moment to notice something very odd. There was a deep scar running all the way down the stickman’s torso, and another deep scar running horizontally across his abdomen. Round bone-colored buttons had been sewn onto his skin like jacket buttons beside the vertical scar, and beneath the buttons were slot-shaped scars like buttonholes.
Maybe the reason she’d looked down and seen them was the fact that the creature had grasped the top button with his bony hands and was beginning to unbutton his skin.
“My God, what’s he doing?” she said.
“He must like you,” Bill whispered. “He doesn’t do this for just anyone.”
The stickman unbuttoned his skin and pulled it open like a suit jacket. His ribcage was exposed and beneath it his lungs and his beating heart.
Bill grasped Amy’s shoulders from behind to keep her from falling.
“Mazzikins tend to be highly perverse creatures,” he whispered. “They love body modifications and other kinks. This one has cut himself open and carefully peeled his skin off the bone so he can expose himself. Think how many painful hours this must have taken him.”
The stickman smiled and stared at her without blinking, his pupils like tiny black holes in his bloody irises. He was panting, his naked lungs pumping rapidly like a bellows, and streams of yellow semen began spurting from his long erect penis.
“Ah!
” he said.
Amy tried to pull away, but Bill had a firm grasp on her shoulders and she felt too weak to struggle.
“Don’t turn away,” he whispered. “Tell the stickman he’s been a bad boy. Tell him he’s not shown you proper respect.”
The harpies above her were sensing her fear and weakness. She heard them ruffling their wings, and she looked up just as one of them was starting to swoop down.
Her disgust and outrage exploded into anger, and before she realized what she was doing she had her sword out of its scabbard and she felt her power surging through it. The reeking barn air rang with a shrill hum that was the noise of her blade vibrating, and the humming grew louder as she held the blade higher.
The harpy flew back to the hayloft and stood watching her.
“Did you want to come down here?” she yelled, her voice ringing with anger like her blade. “Then come down here, you fucking piece of shit! I order you to come down!”
The harpy stared down at her, trembling.
“Can’t you hear me, you stinking turd?” she shouted. “I command you to come down here!”
She felt the filthy air vibrating as her power coursed through her blade. The harpy flew slowly down to the floor and stood before her with its head bowed.
“Prostrate yourself!” she yelled. “Get down on your belly and press your ugly face into the dirt.”
The harpy knelt and then lay down flat on the floor, pressing its face into the filth.
“That’s better,” she said. “And now shall I cut off your head or let you live?”
The harpy whimpered, its wings fluttering with fear.
“I’ll let you live, but I’ll give you a nice little cut so you won’t forget your lesson.” She stepped forward and chopped through the spine at the back of the harpy’s neck. Its legs and wings trembled and then went completely still.
“Good,” she said. “Lay there paralyzed with your face in the dirt until your spine heals. It will give you time to think.”
There was a hush. None of the demons were chattering or squealing or ruffling their wings. Amy raised her sword and looked up into the darkness of the hayloft.