Die and Stay Dead

by Nicholas Kaufmann

  I could hear Arkwright chanting, but I couldn’t make out what he was doing. My view was blocked by the army of lesser demons that surrounded him. Skeletal, bald, and big-eyed, they were identical to the ones at Bethesda Fountain. They encircled him, facing outward like sentinels, watching for intruders. Their swords were drawn, some of them already stained with the blood of the murdered security guards. I tried to count how many demons there were. I stopped when I reached two dozen and realized there were still at least that many left uncounted.

  Arkwright’s baby-faced thug, Francisco, stood inside the circle with him. Without his partner LaValle at his side, Francisco looked out of place, like a child playing dress-up. He didn’t look comfortable being this close to the demons. He looked tense, one hand positioned on the butt of his holstered pistol.

  From somewhere at the center of that circle of demons, the bright shaft of light poured into the sky.

  “There are too many of them,” Bethany whispered. “We’ll never get past them all.”

  “We may not have to,” Gabrielle said. “These demons are bound to Arkwright. Remember what the book said. If we kill him, they’ll return to their dimension. If Trent’s plan works—”

  She was interrupted by the sudden clank of metal against metal from somewhere nearby. I motioned for the others to stay down. I straightened, lifting my gun. A demon appeared, creeping along the edge of the deck toward us, its sword drawn. I leveled my gun at it, aiming for its eye.

  I didn’t have a chance to pull the trigger before a crowd of demons rushed us from the other side, swarming around the helicopter. Damn. I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book. I turned to the oncoming demons and squeezed off shot after shot. I hit two of them in their eyes, killing them, but that was all I managed before the others were upon us. I pushed through them, trying to fight my way toward Arkwright. Behind me, Bethany already had the fire sword out. Gabrielle and Isaac attacked the demons with spells.

  I shot my way through the horde, taking out demons on either side of me. When my gun ran out of bullets, I holstered it and used my fists, elbows, and knees instead. I grabbed the sword out of one demon’s grasp, stabbed it in the eye, and kept moving, kept pressing forward.

  I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped. Not by a long shot. The demons were on me like sharks on chum, ripping the sword out of my hands and forcing me to my knees. I felt the cold steel of a demon’s sword against the back of my neck.

  Do it, I thought angrily. Kill me and see how well that goes for you.

  Arkwright yelled, “Bring him to me! Bring all of them!”

  I was hoisted back onto my feet and dragged in front of Arkwright. There, the demons forced me to my knees again. Two of them held my arms out to my sides. A third put its sword against the back of my neck, a warning not to try anything. Bethany, Gabrielle, and Isaac were dragged over and thrown on their knees next to me. Swords were put to their necks as well.

  At last I was close enough to see what Arkwright was doing. The Codex Goetia hovered in the air at chest level before him, spinning with constant, unceasing momentum. Bursting out of the center of the Codex was the ice-blue shaft of light that shot up into the sky.

  Arkwright glared at me. “You’re too late. The ritual is complete.”

  “You’re using the Codex to bring Nahash-Dred here?” I demanded.

  He smiled. “I don’t need to. He’s already here. He came of his own free will, just like I knew he would.”

  I looked around for the cloaked man, but I didn’t see him anywhere. “So where is he?”

  “Waiting. Just like he’s been waiting all these years.”

  “He hasn’t just been waiting around, Arkwright. He’s been a lot busier than you think,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Arkwright said with a condescending smirk. “Tell me more.”

  “All this time, I was wondering who broke the Codex Goetia into fragments and hid them around the city,” I said. “But there was no good answer. Nahash-Dred had the Codex when he left the sanctum. No one could have taken it from him and lived, not from a demon that can wipe out whole civilizations. So that left only one person who could have done it all.”

  From where she knelt, Bethany looked up at me. “But that would mean—”

  “No!” Arkwright yelled, interrupting her. “Not from you! From him! I want to hear it from him!” He turned to me. “Say it. Say the words.”

  “Nahash-Dred hid the fragments himself,” I said.

  Arkwright smiled. “Very good. You’re starting to understand. But do you know why he did it? Why the demon broke it and hid the pieces?”

  I was reluctant to admit I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how Arkwright would react. He was insane, but up until now at least he’d been methodical. This close to achieving his goal, though, he was coming undone. The lid was coming off the pressure cooker. But lying to him in this state would be an even bigger gamble, especially with our lives on the line.

  “No,” I told him. “I couldn’t figure it out. Why would Nahash-Dred destroy his only way of getting home?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Arkwright said. “So he could stay. You see, there was something we didn’t know about Nahash-Dred when we summoned him. A secret no one knew. The Destroyer of Worlds was tired of killing. He took no joy in it anymore. All he wanted was to be left alone.”

  Damn. I’d been wrong about Nahash-Dred. I assumed he’d stayed in our dimension because New York City was a fertile hunting ground for him. Instead, he stayed because he didn’t want to go back to what was essentially a life of slavery, of being forced to kill again and again regardless of whether he wanted to. I had misjudged him. Hell, I could sympathize with him. I’d had a taste of that life myself. I didn’t want to go back, either. But did that mean Nahash-Dred wasn’t Calliope’s killer? If not the demon, then who?

  I understood one thing, though—why the fragment under Bethesda Fountain had been specially protected. Ten to one it was the piece with Nahash-Dred’s name on it. Names had a lot of power, especially for controlling a greater demon. He’d locked that fragment away with a key and an alarm because he didn’t want anyone to have that power over him anymore.

  “Can you even imagine such a thing?” Arkwright went on, growing angrier. “Can you for one moment wrap your mind around what a cosmic joke that is? After so much effort, so much trial and error on the most important night of the millennium, the Aeternis Tenebris finally summoned the Destroyer of Worlds … and he said no. He. Said. No.”

  “I take it that’s a word you don’t like hearing,” I said.

  He ignored me. “We tried to force Nahash-Dred to do it, of course, but our efforts at binding him failed. We paid a brutal, bloody price for that. When he was done with us, I was half dead and my brethren were in pieces on the floor. So much for Nahash-Dred not wanting to kill anymore, eh? But afterward, he hid the Codex and made sure no one could find it—or him.”

  “But he didn’t stay hidden,” I said, thinking of the cloaked man again. “He came to me. I’ve seen him twice now.”

  “Have you?” He laughed. For some reason, Arkwright was deeply amused by this. “Now that would be something!”

  I shook my head in frustration. We were getting nowhere. “You said Nahash-Dred was here. So where is he?”

  “I’m surprised you still haven’t figured it out,” he said. “But then, you’re not the man you used to be. I suppose none of us are anymore.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded. “Enough with the cryptic remarks. You said you recognized me, so why don’t you tell me who you think I am?”

  “You don’t remember. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is for me?” Arkwright grew angry again. “You were there! You’ve been there from the start! You were in the sanctum that night, and you don’t even remember!”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. “I couldn’t have been there. You’re the only survivor.”

  “I’m the only survivor of the Aeternis Tenebris, yes, but who
else was there that night?” Arkwright pressed. “Think, man! If you have the answer to that question, you have the answer to who you are. Who else was there?”

  I racked my brain trying to figure it out, but I came up blank. The idea that someone else had been there at the same time just didn’t make sense.

  “Bah! You’re useless. You still don’t get it.” He waved his hand dismissively. He looked up at where the beam of light speared the clouds. “It doesn’t matter. It will all be over soon enough.”

  “You sound pretty convinced of that,” I said. “So before we all die, how about you just tell me the answer?”

  He laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Fine, how about a different question, then,” I said. “Why open the doorway between dimensions if Nahash-Dred is already here, like you said?”

  Arkwright paused before he spoke, as if mentally debating how much to tell me. “I thought for a long time of punishing Nahash-Dred for what he did to me and my brethren. I thought of all kinds of ways to hurt him. Ways to really make him suffer. Then I realized this would be my revenge. To bind him. To force him to destroy the very world he has grown so pathetically fond of. But I discovered one small snag, a temporary setback. Nahash-Dred has left his true nature behind. Until he embraces it once more, I cannot bind him. That’s why I needed the Codex Goetia. Not just to bind one demon, but to summon another. His brother, Behemoth, Lord of Ruination. Behemoth has the power to tear this world apart, too. It’s different from his brother’s, of course, but it’s no less effective. After I bind Behemoth, he will begin his work. If Nahash-Dred wants to stop his brother, if he wants to prevent his adopted world from being destroyed, he will be forced out into the open. He will be forced to embrace his true nature again. And then he will be mine.”

  There it was, the missing piece of the puzzle. The reason none of this added up until now. It was a trap. This whole plot was a trap to get revenge on the demon who’d done him wrong. Arkwright would kill everyone on earth and leave our world a barren, broken husk if he had to, just to teach Nahash-Dred a lesson. The bastard was even crazier than I thought.

  “What if Nahash-Dred won’t fight?” I asked.

  “He will. There’s no love lost between brothers. Sibling rivalry exists even among demonkind. Once Nahash-Dred embraces his true nature, I will bind him. Then the two brothers will destroy this world together. It will be glorious to behold.”

  Damn. One world-destroying demon would be hard enough to stop, but two?

  I looked up at Arkwright. I was close enough to kill him. Close enough to wrap my hands around his neck, crush the life out of him, and end this right now. He deserved no less. But I knew I would never make it that far. Even if somehow I got away from the demons holding me, even if by some miracle I got away from the demon poised to chop my head off, the other demons would be all over me before I reached Arkwright. They would cut me to ribbons, and when I came back there was no guarantee it would be a demon’s life force I stole this time. It could just as easily be Isaac’s, Gabrielle’s, or Bethany’s. We were all crowded so close together, I couldn’t risk it.

  Far above us, where the shaft of light struck the clouds, they parted and the sky tore open. A brightly glowing crack formed in the night sky. A rift in the fabric of reality. A doorway between dimensions.

  “Behemoth is answering the call,” Arkwright said.

  “Damn it, Arkwright, stop this!” I yelled.

  “It can’t be stopped,” Arkwright said, gloating. “Once summoned by name, a demon has no choice but to appear.”

  A sudden commotion arose behind us. The lesser demons made loud, agitated noises. Before I could see what was happening, a demon soared over us and landed on the nose cone of a tiger-striped MiG-21 fighter jet. The demon slid limply down to the deck. Its eyes were gooey messes, as if they’d been torn out.

  I turned my head as far as I could, careful of the sword against the back of my neck. At first, all I could see was a swarm of the demons trying to wrestle someone to the floor. Instead, they were being tossed aside like rag dolls. Finally, a shape broke through the crowd for a moment before being swarmed again. It was Philip. His fingers were covered in demon eye goo. He swung the corpse of a dead demon in one hand like a club.

  Arkwright panicked. He grabbed the floating, spinning Codex Goetia out of the air. As soon as he did, the shaft of light cut off, though the rift in the sky remained. Carrying the Codex, Arkwright ran up the stairs along the side of the towering steel island. The demons released us and followed him, covering his retreat. Philip hurried over to us, tossing his makeshift club aside.

  Isaac grasped his hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see you, Philip. Welcome back. I was getting worried about you.”

  “It’s going to take a lot to get rid of me, old man,” Philip said.

  I rubbed the back of my neck where the demon had pressed its sword into my skin. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I actually missed you.”

  “I’ll try not to let it go to my head,” Philip said.

  “Guys, we can play catch-up later,” Gabrielle said. “We’re not out of the water yet. Look.” She pointed.

  Arkwright had reached vulture’s row, the protruding, railed viewing platform at the very top of the island, roughly a hundred feet above the flight deck. The lesser demons surrounded him in a defensive phalanx. In the shadow of the communication antenna array and an enormous radar dish, Arkwright held up the Codex Goetia with both hands. He pointed it in the direction of the rift and began chanting again.

  The rift bulged and warped as if something were trying to push through from the other side. There was a bright flash. A thick pillar of bloodred light erupted from the rift, blasting down to the aft end of the flight deck. It struck the space shuttle pavilion, instantly obliterating it in a violent explosion that knocked us to the deck. Smoldering debris and wreckage rained down, clanging off the flight deck around us and splashing into the Hudson.

  Within the pillar of light, something moved.

  Thirty-Seven

  I rose to my feet amid the flaming wreckage scattered across the deck. The pillar of red light stood in the destroyed pavilion’s place, stretching between the flight deck and the rift in the sky above. The light looked almost solid, a containment field for whatever was moving inside it. I took cover with the others, squatting down behind a sleek, gray Marine fighter jet.

  “So Clarence Bergeron and Erickson Arkwright are the same person, huh?” Philip asked. “I knew he was bad news the minute I saw him, but I never would have guessed the old cripple was the same one taking potshots at us in Chinatown.”

  “He wasn’t,” I told him. “That was Jordana. She was Arkwright’s stepdaughter, and a part of this all along. Arkwright infected her with magic. He brainwashed her into doing his dirty work. She’s dead.”

  “That chick you liked?” Philip said. “Damn, man, that’s harsh. Did you at least get to tap that?”

  I squinted at him. “I take back what I said about missing you.”

  I peeked around the fighter jet for a better look at the pillar of red light. Dark shapes moved and swirled inside it, slowly beginning to coalesce.

  “Shit, what is that?” I asked.

  “It’s Behemoth. He’s coming through,” Isaac said. “Philip, did you get Nightclaw?”

  “Yeah, sorry it took so long,” Philip said. “We ran into some trouble. But Aiyana came through, just like you said she would. She also told me to tell you she’s sorry. She said you would know what that meant.”

  Isaac nodded. “I do.” Whatever history he had with the Goblin Queen gave him a faraway look in his eye.

  Philip pulled a bundle of black velvet cloth from inside his coat and unwrapped it. Inside was a dagger, its hilt and blade as black as starless space.

  I regarded it skeptically. “A magic dagger? Are you kidding me?” Just once why couldn’t it be a magic bazooka, or a magic howitzer? Something that actually loo
ked like it could do some damage?

  Philip turned his mirrored shades my way. “You’re fighting demons on Halloween, there’s a doorway to another dimension in the sky, but the dagger is the part you’re having trouble buying into?”

  “Point taken,” I said.

  “It’s no ordinary dagger,” Isaac explained. “Nightclaw is also called the Voyavold Slayer. It was forged by the Guardians themselves during their war against the Voyavold. It’s the oldest and deadliest blade there is. A single cut from Nightclaw can kill anything. It doesn’t even have to be a mortal wound. Just one stab, one cut, anywhere on the body is lethal.”

  “If you want to kill a greater demon, you’re going to need a weapon like this,” Philip said. He wrapped it up again and put it back in his coat. “Unfortunately, it’s a close-range weapon. We’ll have to get up close and personal with whatever’s coming through that doorway.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Isaac said. “Behemoth hasn’t fully materialized yet. I might be able to close the doorway before he does. Trent, once I close it, that’s when I want you to put your plan into action. You’ll have to take Arkwright out quickly. Otherwise, he could use the Codex Goetia to summon more demons. We can’t let him. This has to end now.”

  “I’m ready when you are,” I said.

  Isaac stood, raising both his hands toward the rift in the sky. His whole body seemed to glow as he shouted an incantation. Bright beams shot out of his hands, soaring through the sky and into the rift. The rift began to dim. Isaac grimaced with effort, but it was working. The pillar of red light began to flicker. The shape coalescing inside it faded.

  Up in vulture’s row, Arkwright gesticulated wildly and yelled orders at his army of lesser demons. A small handful stayed behind as his personal guard. The rest raced down the stairs toward us.

  “Shit, here they come!” I shouted.

  Above us, the rift seemed to resist Isaac’s spell, bulging and pushing back. The pillar of light brightened again.