Cunning Devil

by Chris Underwood

  I could feel the entity taking notice of me, but apparently it decided I wasn’t a threat. As it turned its attention back to the witch, I ran to the wall where Early and Alcaraz were pinned.

  Though the witch’s power was now almost entirely bound up in her battle with the entity, Early and Alcaraz still stared at me silently, unmoving within their iron bar prisons. A muscle in Early’s cheek twitched, and his eyes flicked down toward his chest.

  I grabbed the fetish hanging around his neck and ripped it off. As soon as it was gone, the old man slumped and caught himself on shaking muscles. His fingers wrapped around the bars holding him tight. He strained, trying to force his way free. The bars wouldn’t budge.

  “What is that thing?” he demanded, staring at the entity.

  “Hell if I know. A gift from the Dealer.” I grabbed one of the bars and tugged, adding my strength to his. I couldn’t move it an inch. The iron was driven deep into the wall, and it was twisted around Early so closely there was no way for him to slip out.

  “Forget it,” he shouted over a roaring sound that suddenly filled the room. “You have to stop her from completing the curse.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind, old man!”

  Color flashed behind me. A storm raged inside the room, god fighting god. The walls groaned in agony. I gripped the bars holding Early as a gust of otherworldly wind whipped through the room, threatening to carry me away.

  “Listen to me, Ozzy.” Early’s voice was infuriatingly calm. “A cunning man protects his community. His entire community. You know what you need to do.”

  I stared at him. In his gray eyes, I could see the reflection of the battle going on behind me. But I stood frozen in place, another battle going on inside my head.

  “My boy,” Early said softly.

  With a snarl, I spun away from the man who’d made me who I was. Away from Alcaraz and Rodetk. I turned to face the storm.

  “Goblins,” I muttered. “I can’t believe I’m doing this for a bunch of stinking goblins.”

  I pulled my revolver from my pocket and charged into the fray.

  The entity swirled overhead like a silk cloak caught in a cyclone. And below, the witch lay on the floor muttering, her hands never stopping their movement. The talismans she wore about her neck floated up around her, suspended in the air. More glittered around her wrists.

  It hurt to look at them. They weren’t witch’s talismans; she’d swiped them from the hag’s collection. And they were turning the battle in her direction.

  Holly Mills’ shadow stretched out behind her. It grew bigger as I watched, creeping up the wall and along the ceiling. It twitched unnaturally, no longer mimicking the witch’s movements.

  Silently, the shadow began to bulge outward. The amorphous blackness took form, and a great black claw raked the swirling entity, sending it screeching back.

  I charged right through the middle of it all. The winds of magic battered my coat, testing the limits of my protective charms. If the witch and the entity had been directing their energies at me, rather than each other, I would’ve instantly been turned into cream cheese.

  I prayed I remained unnoticed.

  I staggered over to the corner of the room, nearly tripping over something. I squinted down as the entity’s smoky form whipped past me.

  The Blackheart lay at my feet, still pumping away. It had taken on a life of its own now, free of the witch’s power.

  Grimacing, I stooped and snatched up the thing. It was warm in my hand, pulsating and alive. I could feel it quivering as the battle raged around it.

  I swallowed my disgust. Without slowing, I headed for the small cage in the corner of the room.

  The entity’s tone had changed again. Its scream had become high-pitched once more. An almost fearful sound. I glanced overhead. The thing seemed more corporeal now. It twitched and thrashed, lashing out. But it was shrinking.

  The witch had risen from the floor. And when I say she’d risen, I mean it.

  She hovered a couple of feet off the ground, the stumps of her legs dangling beneath her. Her disembodied shadow hung overhead, bearing down on the entity.

  The spirit bottle lay in front of her. Her talismans twisted and bobbed with increasing speed. The entity was being sucked back toward the spirit bottle, like the reverse of wine spilling from a glass.

  There wasn’t much time. I slid to a halt in front of the cage in the corner. Inside, Lawrence hissed and wailed like the end times had come. Little bastard wasn’t far wrong.

  I grabbed at the cage door, tried to wrench it open. It was padlocked shut. With a glance back toward the witch and the entity, I thumbed back the hammer of my revolver, aimed it at the lock on the cage, and pulled the trigger.

  The crack of the gunshot cut through the screech of the fading entity. As I swung the cage door open and grabbed the panicking creature under my arm, I heard the witch scream.

  “No!”

  I spun back. Her face was pulled tight, like all the life had been drained from it. She was bleeding from a split lip and a half dozen other cuts and scrapes. Both hands were still moving, using every drop of her power to draw the entity back into the spirit bottle. But her eyes were fixed on me.

  “Turner!” she yelled. The room boomed with the sound.

  I cast one last glance back at Early. And then I turned and ran.

  The squeal of the entity was now so high-pitched it was passing out of my range of hearing. The thing stuck out slivers of itself, clinging to the floor as it was sucked back into the bottle.

  But it was too weak, and the witch was too strong. It bulged and twisted, desperately trying to resist.

  I ran for the door. The terrified little one clawed at me, trying to squirm out from under my arm, but I held him tight. The Blackheart beat wildly in my other hand. It seemed to be sucking the strength from me with every step.

  The closed sitting room door loomed ahead of me. I was so close. The floor was warped beneath my feet in places, where the magics of the witch and the entity had been deflected. I scrambled across the uneven terrain. Gasping, I reached for the door.

  Suddenly, there was silence behind me. The entity’s screech had ceased. I heard the soft click of the spirit bottle cap being snapped back into place, trapping the thing once more.

  There was a split second of peace. I was suddenly aware of how warm my coat was against my skin. Most of my protective charms had probably burnt to ash inside the lining.

  I felt a prickle on the back of my neck as the witch returned her attention to me.

  My left leg twisted beneath me. I heard the bones break before I felt them. A crack that ripped through my body and echoed in the silence.

  Then came the pain. And it came in force.

  I hit the floor face-first, my broken leg going out from under me. Blood filled my mouth.

  Lawrence squealed and wriggled free. The ugly creature darted forward, scratching at the door with his claws. He was too short to reach the handle, and too damn stupid to realize it was hopeless anyway.

  Groaning, I rolled over and took a look at my leg. Bad idea. The witch’s magic had twisted my lower leg at a sharp angle. The sight of it made me woozy.

  “Ozzy!” Early shouted.

  “Enough!” Holly Mills roared. She touched the fetish in her hand and Early’s jaw slammed shut, his eyes bulging.

  The witch dropped into her wheelchair with a thud. I got the feeling she wouldn’t be levitating again for quite a while. She was spent. Her hair had been gray; now it was white. The muscles seemed to have withered right off her bones, leaving her a skeleton of a woman.

  I started to shuffle toward the door. I was so close. If I could just open the door, Lawrence could get out. And if he escaped, Mills would be unable to complete the curse. The goblins would be safe.

  Trying to block out the agony burning up my broken leg, I pushed myself as far as I could and reached for the door handle.

  Invisible forces tightened around my throat.
I slumped back down, gasping for air.

  I clutched at my throat. My airway wasn’t entirely closed off. The witch probably didn’t have enough strength left to kill me while also keeping Early and Rodetk under control. But that wasn’t much comfort for my burning lungs.

  With watering eyes, I watched as Holly Mills nudged her wheelchair into motion. She sat slumped in her chair, wheezing as she breathed. But her one clouded eye bore all of her steely strength. She glared down at me as she rolled to a stop.

  Whining, Lawrence scratched at the door, gouging out thick claw marks in the wood. Little bastard looked so damn pathetic.

  I felt sorry for him. It kept me from pitying my own damn self.

  “Enough,” Holly Mills rasped. She touched her fetish, and the little creature froze, bug-eyed. Then the witch turned her cold eye on me. “I won’t let my husband’s sacrifice be for nothing. No more tricks, Mr. Turner. This ends now.”

  38

  While I lay gasping for breath, Holly Mills bent over and picked up the Blackheart I’d dropped. It throbbed in her hand.

  “No,” I choked. “You can’t.”

  My throat tightened, cutting off my air even further. She was so close I could see the blood vessels in her good eye. Close enough that I could’ve leaned forward and touched my nose to hers.

  But I could barely move. The pain in my leg was overwhelming, and she was using what remained of her power to hold me. She couldn’t control me completely, not like before, but every movement was like fighting through mud.

  I looked around for my revolver. I’d been holding it just a few seconds ago. But it had fallen outside my reach, sliding away into the corner. I had no more tricks up my sleeve. Nothing left to give.

  The witch reversed and moved to my other side, where Lawrence stood rigid. His eyes swiveled in his head, watching Mills approach.

  “It’s time,” she whispered.

  The little one turned clumsily in place, limbs moving with the witch’s magic. His eyes were wide in fear, but he toddled toward her anyway. As the witch touched her fetish, Lawrence climbed into her lap, like a child wanting story time with his grandmother.

  “The hag tried to deny me this creature once already.” Holly Mills’ voice was hoarse. “We’d persuaded her to use her familiar to abduct it from its cage beneath the mountain. But when it came time to hand the creature over to us, the familiar instead set the creature free. The hag laughed for an hour. From then on, we kept her in the trunk. She learnt her lesson.”

  The Blackheart twitched as if it could smell Lawrence’s blood. The witch touched a fingernail to the eye embedded in the heart, and the orb began to swim with faint light.

  “Taking the roggenwolf went much more smoothly,” she said, “but the raid used the last of the hag’s strength, and the familiar perished soon after. After that, we had to do things on our own. I kept the roggenwolf contained while my husband took its eyes. Brandon wanted to kill the beast when we were done, but I convinced him it could still be useful. We left it on the mountain, so the goblins would hear its howls. So they’d know their doom was coming.” A flicker of a smile passed across her exhausted face. “I’ve waited so long for this.”

  She laid the Blackheart in her lap and grasped Lawrence by the skull.

  I looked over at Early, at Rodetk. The goblin was staring at me, the iron bars tight around his neck and chest. He couldn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. He knew he was going to die, along with the rest of his kind.

  I’d done my best, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t compete with Mills’ power. I was just a simple cunning man.

  There was a small leather bag hanging from the arm of the witch’s wheelchair. Slowly, she reached in and pulled out a small knife. The blade shone silver as it caught a thin shaft of moonlight.

  It was the knife that had been molded from the silver of the baby’s rattle.

  The Blackheart began to beat excitedly in anticipation of the blood that would soon flow. Lawrence stared wide-eyed at the knife, muscles twitching beneath his skin. But he couldn’t break free of the witch’s power.

  The witch turned the creature in her arms, holding his head back to expose his neck. Murmuring in a language I didn’t recognize, she brought the silver blade toward the creature’s throat.

  As I stared, helpless and choking, I caught sight of something on Lawrence’s side. A long, thin scar, barely visible. Only the slightest change in the shine and texture of the creature’s skin gave it away.

  Through the pain and the exhaustion and the terror, I achieved a sudden moment of clarity.

  Thoughts crowded my head, coming in thick and fast. A hospital wristband, found among the trash gathered by the hobgoblin in the Mills’ house. Something Lilian said Alcaraz had told her, about a scar the little one bore that seemed almost like a surgical scar. The hag’s sadistic laughter. And a photograph…

  The photograph. I forced my hand away from my throat, down to my pocket. My muscles fought me at every step. But the witch wasn’t watching me. She had eyes only for the creature now. As she touched the knife to his throat, I clumsily reached into my pocket.

  I pulled out a photograph. The photo I’d found pinned to the ceiling of the Mills’ basement. The photo Brandon Mills had been staring at while his heart was cut out.

  A photo of Michael Mills, aged 6 weeks. The baby that’d been stolen from them. I ran my thumb along the picture of the boy.

  The overexposed picture had wiped out most of the detail of the baby’s pale skin. But there, along the boy’s side, was the scar, still red from the surgery he’d had a few weeks before.

  I looked up. The witch’s murmuring had reached a crescendo. The Blackheart was practically leaping out of her lap in excitement. A single drop of blood flowed down the blade of the knife as the point pricked the creature’s skin.

  I tried to choke out a cry. But only a wordless grunt came out of my closed-off throat.

  The witch finished her chant. The pressure in the room changed. She let out a relieved sigh.

  “It’s working,” she whispered to herself. “It’s working.”

  I tried again to speak. But her grip on my throat was too tight. My world was starting to black out around the edges.

  For the first time, Holly Mills smiled. The muscles of her arm tightened. She readied herself to slash the creature’s throat and drain its blood into the Blackheart.

  I flicked the photograph toward her with two fingers. It fluttered to the floor beside her wheelchair, face-up.

  For a moment, her concentration broke. She glanced away from the little one, eyes widening as she saw the photo. Her control over me faltered, just a fraction. My throat relaxed.

  “Your son,” I choked out. “You’re about to kill your son.”

  39

  Holly Mills stared at me in stunned silence. Her clouded eye traveled across the little one’s frozen face, its body.

  Then she recoiled, gasping. The silver knife clattered to the floor.

  I suddenly had full control over my body once more. And so did the little one. He thrashed in her arms, scratching the witch and squirming free.

  He bounded over to me, cowering beside me as I pushed myself up to a sitting position. The witch’s mouth hung open.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered. “They said he was dead.”

  I shook my head, looking down at the creature. The pain made it hard to think. Now that I had my breath, the full agony of my broken leg came rushing back. “Changed.”

  “Why?” she breathed.

  I thought back to Likho’s chamber, to the other little ones in their cages. Other changelings. Other children. Hell.

  “So his blood could be used for dark magic.” I eyed her. “Seems like everyone had the same idea.”

  The witch swallowed. She reached out her hand, but when the little one hissed and recoiled, she faltered. A broken look passed across her aged face.

  “The…the hag. She said…”

  “The hag thoug
ht this was a great joke,” I said. “She was laughing about it when we let her out of the trunk. You’d have got your revenge, all right. But you’d have killed your son in the process.”

  “My son.” She blinked, and tears began to fall, catching in the crevices of her face. “What…who did this to him?”

  “A goblin,” I said. “A sorcerer. You were right about that much.”

  She nodded slowly. She turned her head to the side, her gaze never leaving the little one. A miserable, delighted smile touched her lips, like she couldn’t decide whether to grieve or jump for joy.

  “This isn’t magic I know,” she whispered. “Can it be reversed?”

  I didn’t know. I looked down at the sad little creature, this thing that was once a boy.

  I glanced across the room. “Early?”

  The witch followed my gaze. Summoning what remained of her strength, she touched one of the hag’s talismans. With a groan, the iron bars shifted enough to allow Early to drop to the ground, panting. With a wary look at the witch, he crossed the room and knelt at my side. He looked at my broken leg.

  “How bad does it hurt?” he murmured.

  “It’s no picnic, I’ll tell you that.”

  He put a small pouch in my hand. I opened the drawstring and got a whiff of powdered herbs.

  “Rub a little into your gums,” he said. “It’ll take the edge off.”

  “Cunning man,” the witch said impatiently.

  He shot her a look from beneath his bushy eyebrows, like a stern school teacher reprimanding a back-talking child. Then he turned to the cowering creature, slowly holding out a hand to him. Lawrence—Michael—snapped his teeth, but he let Early touch him with the back of his hand.

  “You think it’s this Likho’s work?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “There are more of them still down there. If they’re all changelings, Early…”

  He grunted. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Can he be changed back?” Holly Mills said. “Tell me.”

  Early frowned, studying the creature. “The changes are profound,” he said slowly. “It will take time. I might need the hag’s help.” He stood, stroking his beard. “But yes. I think it can be reversed.”