We began jogging, covering the remaining eighth of a mile between us and the bridge. Beside us bobbed an enormous dark mass of Hellshadow, as Gregor had left the Staff of Darkness running. The sooty stuff that issued from it now stretched across the countryside, winding its way along the river bank like a dense, charcoal fog. Mab kept a wary eye on it, fearing that some nasty thing might pop out, but the locals seemed afraid of it. Those few individuals who could be seen walking near the Styx moved quickly away from the drifting darkness.
Without warning, the muddy ground beneath us shook and parted, throwing many of us from our feet. A chasm opened in the earth, stretching for nearly a mile along the upstream riverbank. The noise was deafening, and the putrid odor of hot brimstone escaped from the crevasse. Nearly half a mile down the bank, an angel, if such a thing could still be called by so holy a name, rose from the pit.
The creature was monstrously huge, towering over us like a mountain. Its armor was black as pitch. Its seven pairs of sooty wings were patchy, molting. The great pinions had been clipped. One wing looked as if it had broken and healed at an awkward angle. The face, once beautiful beyond bearing, was now partially rotted. Only, the angel seemed unaware of this gaping wound and carried itself as if it were still as beautiful as in days of yore. The creature was both glorious and horrible, like a dark, twisted mockery of some precious thing. Around its neck, a large golden key hung on a thick iron chain.
“Abaddon! He’s come for me!” cried Ulysses, leaping behind Titus and curling up into a ball. I wondered briefly why he did not just run, but he did not even try. “Save me! Theo, shoot him!”
Theo raised his staff and then lowered it again, shaking his head. “He’s too far away. He must know what my range is.”
I gazed up at the monstrosity. This thing, this twisted angel, was Ulysses’s dark master, the cause of all our recent suffering and agony. It was he who had compelled my youngest brother to bring about the ruin of Gregor and Theo.
I had wished there were an enemy we could unite against. I had thought that Abaddon, who had caused our family so much harm, would be an ideal target. As I gazed up at the enormous fallen angel with its terrifying, damaged beauty, I wondered if, in the future—assuming I was lucky enough to be granted a future—I should be more careful what I wished for.
The Angel of the Bottomless Pit opened its mouth. What sounded forth was a grating noise like unto an avalanche. We had heard this before, near the bluff, the night we rescued Gregor. Nor did it seem in any way diminished, though the speaker was over a mile away.
“Imprudent Prosperos. Do you revel in your fleeting victory? It is of no significance. We of Hell need do nothing. There is a traitor amongst you who will do our work for us.”
Beside me, Theo met Gregor’s gaze. Gregor nodded grimly, his eyes gleaming with steely purpose. Taking Cornelius’s arm, he gestured to Theo, and the three of them stepped into the darkness still issuing from Gregor’s staff. As they disappeared into the ever-lengthening ribbon of gloom, Theo muttered under his breath: “Keep him talking!”
I reached out to call Theo back, but the Hellshadow had enveloped him. My heart ached in my chest. I feared suddenly that I would never see him again.
Mephisto took up Theo’s request with zeal.
“Oh yeah?” he bellowed back toward the gigantic angel. “Then, why did you try to attack us? Hmm? Hmm?” He brandished his staff. “That’s right, flee before our superior might.”
“Now, Mephisto,” purred Logistilla, who had not heard Theo, “let’s not taunt the devil. I think he’s letting us go.”
“Your sister speaks truly. I shall make no effort to hold you. My work is already done.”
“Done, in what way?” Mephisto called back. “Or, perhaps I should say, in what respect? By exactly what definition of the word ‘done’ is your work done?” He gestured cheerfully toward the rest of us with the hand to which his staff was again handcuffed. “I ask, only because most of us seem to be here, alive and kicking, which goes against this idea of”—he made quote marks in the air—“ ‘doneness.’ ”
Coming up beside me, Mab whispered softly, “Remind me, if we ever need somebody to stall for time, that the Harebrain is definitely our man.”
The horrible fallen angel spoke. Again his voice grated like an avalanche, but now the sound was so immediate that it felt if the stones were grinding against one another within the cells of my body. The sensation was painful. Around me, I heard moans of agony from my siblings.
“Lowly worm. Show obeisance to me!”
“Er . . . why should I do that again?” Mephisto cupped his ear and leaned toward the gigantic demon. “Because you’re so . . . What? Goofy? Dorky-looking? Tall? Being tall is important. Many people are worth worshipping because they are tall.”
The Angel of the Bottomless Pit turned toward my brother, and the weight of his infernal gaze fell upon him—literally. Mephisto stumbled and dropped to his knees, as if pressed down by a terrible heaviness. Logistilla ran to help him, but she, too, was borne down, until she collapsed face first against the ground, unable to rise.
Titus ran to her, throwing himself between her and the gigantic demon. He tottered and slowly dropped to his knees, but so long as Logistilla kept the bulk of his body between her and Abaddon, she was able to rise a little.
Ulysses, who had been hiding behind Titus, let out a loud bleating sound and dived behind Caliban. I now saw why he had not teleported away. Erasmus had a firm grip on the Staff of Transportation. Caliban, however, was striding forward to stand between Mephisto and Abaddon. So, Ulysses was left exposed again. He scrambled behind Erasmus and begged for his staff, weeping with fear.
I could not blame him. He was the one Abaddon had a hold over, the one who would suffer when the demon learned how Ulysses had deceived him.
Abaddon’s gaze now fell upon the rest of us. A tremendous weight oppressed me. I felt as if I were trying to keep a semi-trailer from tumbling sideways by supporting it with my shoulder. Beside me, I heard Mab grunt with exertion. His legs gave out just after mine did, and we both collapsed to the ground.
I tried to get up, but the ground seemed stuck to me. My chest would not rise to allow in air. I opened my mouth, gasping for air. The tremendous weight continued to press upon me, forcing me downward, compacting me. If my back grew any closer to my front, something was going to break.
From the corner of my eye, I could see my siblings struggling. Logistilla had curled up behind Titus and, like Ulysses, lay crying, but Titus, Caliban, and Mephisto struggled against the demon’s gaze, trying to rise, trying to resist the incapacitating gaze. One then another rose, only to fall down again, as the weight of the infernal gaze grew greater. I saw Titus reaching for his staff, which presumably could have stopped this attack, but it had rolled from his fingers, and he could not stretch his arm long enough to reach it. Caliban succumbed last; not even his legendary strength was enough to save him.
Great. He had been planning to let us go, and, at Theo’s request, Mephisto had antagonized him. Now, we were all going to die.
We were going to die, and it was my fault. If I had not gathered us together, if I had left well-enough alone, we would not be here, facedown in the filth of Hell, being crushed to death by the demon who had wrecked our family. We would have been spread out in our separate haunts, safe and secure.
Except for Father, of course, who would still be trapped in Hell, but our dying here on the banks of the Styx was hardly going to help him.
On the other hand, I thought as lights began to dance before my eyes—whether from the pressure or the lack of oxygen, I did not know—if the Demon of Envy was going to destroy the Family Prospero anyway, it was a comfort to be with my siblings when the end came, rather than alone dying somewhere of old age. The Angel of the Bottomless Pit spoke again, his words reverberating like rolling boulders within my body: “Gregor the Witchhunter is dead. Theophrastus the Demonslayer is old and decrepit and will soon follow. And the Dread Magician Pros
pero is the prisoner of Fair Queen Lilith, she who raised me to my high estate, so that I now rule as one of the Seven of Hell. It is only a matter of time before the rest of you Prosperos join the sad fate of your fellows and perish. . . .”
“All very well, Destroyer,” Theo’s voice called out from somewhere ahead of us, “except that you have made three mistakes!”
The demon turned his head, and his gaze lifted. Air rushed back into my lungs. Nearby, my siblings flopped around on the ground, gasping for air.
Some distance ahead, Theo stepped from the billowing darkness that had drifted upstream from Gregor’s staff and stood squarely before Abaddon, a tiny figure looking up at the splendid, horrible, gigantic angel. He looked resplendent, despite the tarnished spots on his otherwise shiny titanium. His breastplate of Urim glowed like a candle in the gloom.
How handsome he looked—as brave and fierce as I recalled him from old—as he faced the monster responsible for robbing over fifty years of his life.
“How so?” grated the dark twisted angel. His gaze fell on Theo now, but while my brother looked as if he were struggling against a fierce wind, he did not drop. Perhaps the darkness that issued from Gregor’s staff, which was still present where he stood, dampened the effect.
“One, Gregor is not dead!” Theo gestured grandly.
The darkness swirled again, and Gregor stepped forward. His long hair and the skirt and half cape of his crimson cardinal’s robes billowed about him. Gregor inclined his head gravely, bowing. The avalanchelike voice hissed.
“Two,” Theo reached up and pulled off his helmet, “I am not old!”
My heart leapt out of my chest and straight up into the heavens. The old man with the grizzled white beard, whom I had once mistaken for my father, was gone. In his place stood my brother Theophrastus. He was young and hale, as I remembered him, as Mephisto had immortalized him in the statue that Seir of the Shadows had destroyed in his first attack upon Prospero’s Mansion, back in early December. Glancing back at us, Theo winked, and Erasmus chuckled.
No wonder he had insisted that the brother with the Staff of Decay act as his squire.
O glory be! I had done it! Theo was saved! (Now, if he could only survive the next five minutes.)
Abaddon, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, the Demon of Envy, one of the Seven Rulers of Hell, yowled in outrage, shaking the landscape, causing trees to tumble and an enormous black wave to splash over the banks of the Styx. “Ulysses! You have drawn your last breath. Prepare to pay for your failure!” Turning to Theo again, his voice grated, “And my supposed third mistake?”
“You are in my range.”
Theo fired the Staff of Devastation.
A beam of sizzling white death blasted from his staff, burning the air through which it passed. Abaddon sneered disdainfully, his beautiful yet damaged face replete with disbelief—until the weapon caught him full in the chest. White-hot fire consumed his torso, igniting three pairs of his wings into huge, white, flaming brands.
Horror dawned upon his face. Then, with a terrible, deafening, earth-grinding howl, he exploded into a colossal pillar of incandescent fire. It illuminated the landscape, sending shadows scurrying in all directions and outshining the distant Wall of Flame.
Theo had not had time to brace himself. The force of the blast threw him backward and slammed him against the ground. Along his upper arm, his armor crumpled where it had been weakened by Focalor, twisting his arm at an unnatural angle.
Erasmus, our family doctor, winced. “Oh, that doesn’t look good.” Or at least, that was what I thought he said, for my ears were still ringing from the scream of Angel of the Pit.
The pillar burned out, leaving a small crater filled with smoldering ash and a glint of gold. Theo ran forward and, kneeling beside the smoking crater that, even as we watched, was filling with black water from the Styx, grabbed the glitter of gold and stuck it inside his breastplate. Then, he strode back to us, his face shining with courage and victory.
We all ran to Theo. His youthful features looked so strange and yet so utterly normal. His hair was dark again, except for the forelock above his goggles, where the blasts of his staff had bleached it to palest blond.
Gregor came up beside Theo and grabbed his forearm. “Brother, we are free! Free at last!”
“Indeed!” Theo laughed aloud. “Free and alive!” He threw his arms around Gregor, who returned the embrace joyfully.
We all began hugging one another. Gregor embraced Cornelius and then Ulysses, who trembled weak with relief and gratitude. Titus gave Logistilla a bear hug, which made her giggle. I hugged Theo, who picked me up and swung me around, laughing, and Mephisto embraced everyone.
“Is he dead?” Logistilla cried, clutching Theo’s good arm. “Is he finally gone? Are we finally free of Abaddon forever?”
Such hope shone upon her face that my heart went out to her. I had forgotten she, too, had been hoodwinked by Abaddon, sucked in by her envy of my Lady.
Theo shook his head. “He is immortal. However, my staff contains the spear of Longinus. It was designed to send its victim to the icy fields in the Ninth level of Hell. Even demons do not have an easy time escaping from there. Satan, in his misery, loves company.”
I gave out the smallest drop of the Water of Life to Erasmus and Caliban, in case the tridents that had stabbed them had been poisoned. I offered one to Theo for his broken arm, but he just smiled and shook his head.
“So close upon our drop at New Year’s, I’m sure this will heal quickly,” he said chivalrously. “Let’s save the Water, for we do not know what horrors are still to come. Now!” He raised his good arm triumphantly. “On to rescue Father and then home!”
“So, who exactly is this traitor in our midst?” Erasmus asked as we walked toward the bridge. He addressed us all, but his eyes rested upon me.
“Oh, no, Professor Prospero,” Mab warned, “don’t go there! Don’t let that devils lead you down their thorny path! You can’t trust ’em! You can’t believe them! They only say what they say to cause harm and spite.”
“What if it’s true?” Logistilla looked quite shaken. “Abaddon’s earlier prediction about our family being destroyed seems to be coming true.”
“Nonsense!” Theo laughed cheerfully, despite having his arm in a sling. “We’re as strong as we ever were!”
“But even if we rescue Father,” she insisted, “we will still all die as soon as Miranda’s Water of Life runs out.”
“Oh. Yes.” Theo frowned. “That.”
“Look,” Mab said. “Some of what the demon said might be true. It’s often the case, in fact. Demons love throwing in a sliver or two of truth in to muddy the waters. But, it’s not the kind of truth you can use. Trust me in this. You start banking on infernal predictions, and the next thing you know you’ve brought it about through just the suspicion the prediction caused. Or, you find out the ‘family traitor’ is a cousin three times removed, someone you never would have trusted anyway. Now, I’m not saying it isn’t wise to keep your eyes open, and maybe keep a sharp eye on the Perp, er, I mean Mr. Ulysses, who’s already proven himself capable of mischief, but I beg you—all of you—don’t let the demon get to you.”
“Don’t blame me! I didn’t want to do all these things! Abaddon made me!” Ulysses cried. “Damn fine shooting there, Theo!”
“He wouldn’t have been able to make you if you hadn’t been acting foolishly to begin with,” Theo chided him. Then, unexpectedly, he threw his good arm around his younger brother and gave him a hug. “But, I forgive you.”
Ulysses grinned, delighted. “Bloody good of you! Thanks!”
The bridge across the River Styx was a long arch made of gray stone with a low railing. It reminded me of a thousand footbridges I had crossed in my day, only it was much longer, spanning what looked to be nearly a quarter mile over the wide black waters of the River Styx.
Mephisto took the lead, launching into another chorus of his personal version of “Onward Christ
ian Soldiers.” Behind him came Logistilla and Ulysses, who linked arms with Cornelius and led him along the way. The rest of us followed, with Theo and Caliban making up the rear guard. Mephisto’s cheerful singing seemed an apt celebration of our recent victory. One by one, we joined in, until, by the second time through, the whole family was singing:
Crowns and thrones may perish,
kingdoms rise and wane,
but the Family Prospero
constant will remain.
Gates of Hell can never
Against Prosperos prevail;
we have Theophrastus,
and that cannot fail.
And we did have Theophrastus! Young Theophrastus; healthy, hearty, and strong Theophrastus.
We had done it. We were back together! Nothing could prevail against us now!
I laughed with joy, as if some great weight had been lifted from me. I wanted to celebrate, to do something more than just sing along. What we needed was music!
The wide river to either side stretched away from us, calm and serene. This seemed like a good place to find out what kind of infernal gust—if anything—my flute called here. Since its power depended on the bound Winds and their servants, most likely, it would do nothing at all. Nudging Mab to put in his earplugs, I lifted my instrument and began playing the melody to “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
We were halfway across the bridge, having just finished a third rendition, when we heard it. A terrible roaring that reminded me of the sound a hurricane makes when its hundred-foot waves are sweeping down upon one’s sailboat on the unprotected sea. Black and roiling, it came pouring down the river bed, along the course of the river, toward the bridge.
“The Hellwinds!” Mephisto screamed in terror.
“God in heaven, Miranda,” Erasmus cried. “You called them, didn’t you?”
I stared at my flute in horror. “Not on purpose!”
“Don’t argue!” Mephisto bellowed. “Run!”
Prospero in Hell Page 41