Die and Stay Dead

by Nicholas Kaufmann

  Was Calliope among them? I still had my doubts.

  Arkwright’s screams didn’t last long. Not as long as I would have liked, anyway. But even after they stopped, the sound of eating continued. The lesser demons all around me wavered like heat mirages and then vanished. Erickson Arkwright was dead. And this time, he would stay dead.

  I got to my feet again. When the Mad Affliction was finished with his meal, he folded his wings back and wiped a hand across his bloodstained mouth. I looked at the foul, bloody mess he crouched over, the bones and gristle that were all that remained of Arkwright. The son of a bitch had gotten what he deserved. I pulled the Codex Goetia out of what had once been his hand and put it in the inside pocket of my trench coat.

  The Mad Affliction licked the blood off his claws and looked over the railing at the flight deck below. Gabrielle and Bethany were still watching the water for signs of Behemoth. Philip was off to one side, tending to the unconscious Isaac.

  “I thank you for the meal, but after such a long fast I am barely sated,” the Mad Affliction said. “Perhaps you will allow me dessert? The vampire looks particularly tasty. His kind always tastes of spice and smoke.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal,” I said.

  The Mad Affliction nodded, disappointed but understanding. He turned back to me. “Where I come from, there are those who are loyal to Behemoth, and those who are loyal to his brother Nahash-Dred. I am loyal to Nahash-Dred. If Behemoth is dead, you have made my lord the crown prince, the next in line for Leviathan’s throne. I suppose gratitude is in order for that as well.”

  “Arkwright said Nahash-Dred was nearby,” I said. “Is that true?”

  The Mad Affliction paused a moment, then nodded.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Close,” the Mad Affliction said. “Closer than you think. I told you I would not recognize him if I saw him in another form. That is not entirely true. But my lord has hidden himself for a reason. Perhaps we should let that stand.”

  “Just tell me if he’s a threat,” I said. “If he’s not, if he just wants to be left alone, then I’ve got no beef with him. But if he’s a threat, I need to know.”

  The Mad Affliction thought a moment. “Is a tiger dangerous even if it does not wish to be a tiger anymore? It still has claws, it still has teeth. Its nature is tiger even if it wishes to be something else. And so it is with my lord. One day soon, I fear he will have to choose which to embrace: his true nature, or the life he has chosen in its place. No one can have both for long. Not even the Destroyer of Worlds.”

  I knew the feeling. Once again, unexpectedly, I found myself sympathizing with Nahash-Dred. His experiences and mine didn’t seem so far off. But then another feeling came over me. A terrible, sinking feeling.

  What happened when you touched the lock on the Mad Affliction’s cage?

  “Nahash-Dred isn’t the cloaked man,” I said.

  “No. That is not the form he has taken.”

  I swallowed through a tight and dry throat. “When Arkwright said my promise to send you home wasn’t why you were obeying me, what did he mean?”

  The Mad Affliction looked at me with an expression that seemed almost tender coming from a demon. He held out one clawed hand. “Goodbye, my friend. Until we meet again.”

  I took his hand. It was bigger than mine, the skin as rough as stone where it wasn’t slick with Arkwright’s blood.

  “Goodbye, Mad Affliction. But we won’t meet again.”

  “I think we will,” he said. “When you have made your choice.”

  The Mad Affliction flew up into the sky. I watched him go, flapping steadily toward the glowing rift in the sky, a silhouette against the bright light.

  I looked down at my hand. There on my palm, under streaks of dirt and demon eye goo and Arkwright’s blood, was a fading red burn mark in the shape of a pentagram. It didn’t hurt anymore, not like it had when I first got it. The pentagram had been etched into the padlock on the Mad Affliction’s cage. It was why the demon couldn’t break the lock himself. It burned him whenever he touched it. When I went to free him, it had burned me, too. In the end, I’d had to break the padlock with the butt of my gun.

  Who else had been there the night nearly fourteen years ago when Arkwright’s doomsday cult summoned Nahash-Dred? I knew the answer. There was only one person it could be.

  A wise man once said that when confronted with a mystery, the easiest and least complicated solution was usually the right one.

  I turned around and went back down the island toward the flight deck. Passing through the navigation bridge again, the interior of the ship felt vast and silent and empty. I felt the eyes of thousands of ghosts upon me, all of them dead before their time. Had they always been watching me? God knew they had reason to.

  Bethany met me at the bottom of the steps. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  She looked up and saw the Mad Affliction flying toward the rift. He grew smaller and smaller as he approached the light. And then he was gone, back on his own side of the doorway.

  “I take it the plan worked?” she asked.

  “Arkwright is dead,” I said.

  She turned back to me and studied my face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She put her hand on mine. I looked down at it, then back up at her.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “You said ‘I love,’” she said.

  “I … what?”

  She brushed the wet hair out of her face. “Before, when the black hole was open, you said ‘I love,’ but you never finished the sentence. What were you going to say?”

  I studied her face. Her sky blue eyes sparkled like diamonds. She already knew what the rest of that sentence was. I could see it in her eyes. She just wanted me to say it out loud.

  And I wanted to. Christ, how I wanted to. But how could I, now that I knew the truth? How could she ever trust me if she knew?

  We were interrupted by Gabrielle. “Trent, are you all right?”

  “It’s over,” I said. I opened my trench coat and showed them both the Codex Goetia in the interior pocket. “Short of breaking it into fragments and hiding them again, I think Isaac’s vault is the safest place for it. How’s he doing?”

  “I think he’ll be okay. Philip’s looking after him,” Gabrielle said.

  On the other side of the deck, Isaac was lying unconscious on the floor with his rolled-up duster under his head. Philip crouched over him.

  “I swear, those two should just get a room already,” Gabrielle muttered. “How did it go with Arkwright?”

  “He’s dead,” I told her, “and the Mad Affliction has gone home.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad it worked out. Involving another demon in the plan was pretty damn risky. The Mad Affliction could have turned on you up there.”

  Somehow, I doubted he would have.

  Bethany looked up at the sky again. “Uh, guys? If Arkwright and Behemoth are both dead, why is the doorway still open?”

  I looked up at the brightly glowing rift in the sky. Strange. I’d figured it would take time for the doorway to close all the way after Arkwright’s death, which was how I knew the Mad Affliction would have time to fly home. But the rift hadn’t gotten any smaller. Something was keeping it open.

  Two colossal hands appeared on the side of the deck. The railing crumpled under Behemoth’s immense weight as the demon pulled himself up. River water poured off his titanic form.

  I stared at Behemoth in horror. It was impossible. How had he survived being stabbed with Nightclaw? Then I saw his lower, centipedelike body now had only five armored segments instead of six. His hindmost segment, where Isaac had stabbed him, was gone. Behemoth had shed it before Nightclaw’s deadly magic had spread to the rest of him, like a lizard dropping its tail.

  Behemoth reared up, towering above us. He bellowed a roar that was both angry and triumphant. In that moment, two things became horribly clear. The first was that Arkwright hadn’
t completed his binding spell after all. If he had, Behemoth would have returned to his dimension the moment Arkwright died. The second was that the doorway between worlds was still open because Behemoth, Lord of Ruination, crown prince of all demonkind, wanted it open.

  Forty-Two

  Behemoth hit us with a gravity field before we could react, sending us flying in different directions. I landed on my back halfway down the flight deck. When I tried to get back up, I couldn’t. Even turning my head took immense effort. I managed it just enough to see the others pinned to the deck, too.

  Behemoth went for Gabrielle first. She was closest to him, slumped against the base of the island. She tried desperately to stand, pushing with her hands against the wall behind her and with her feet against the floor. It was no use. She couldn’t move. Behemoth approached her, his five pairs of centipede legs thumping on the flight deck.

  I tried to push myself up, but I was stuck like a subway rat in a glue trap. As much as I labored and strained, all I could do was watch in horror as Behemoth extended one hand toward Gabrielle, preparing to crush her in another gravity field.

  Thornton stepped between them, his wolf form translucent and glowing like a star.

  Gabrielle’s eyes widened in astonishment at the sight of him. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who could see him. Thornton looked up at Behemoth, his lip curling in a snarl. Behemoth reeled back. The demon looked almost afraid.

  His hold on us broke. I sprang to my feet and ran toward the others, ignoring the sharp pain in my ankle. I reached Bethany first. She was just getting to her feet, staring incredulously at Thornton. The wolf advanced on Behemoth. The demon inched backward, away from him. Gabrielle stayed where she was, staring at Thornton.

  “Do you see him, too?” Bethany whispered to me in awe.

  “I see him,” I said.

  I took her hand and started running again, this time toward Philip. The vampire crouched protectively over Isaac’s fallen form, staring at the ghost wolf in amazement.

  “It’s Thornton, isn’t it?” Philip said. “Somehow I knew we hadn’t seen the last of that hairy son of a bitch. But what’s he doing here? How is he here?”

  “He had to have help,” Bethany said. “Someone on the other side. Someone powerful enough to help him cross back.”

  She didn’t know who it was, but I had a few ideas. Ingrid Bannion, Willem Van Lente, even Morbius sprang to mind. Any one of them could have helped send Thornton back. But why? What was he doing here, besides saving our asses?

  Gabrielle finally moved. She crawled on her hands and knees toward Thornton. She reached for him. Her fingers grazed the aureole of Thornton’s glow—and then passed right through him. Dejected, she moaned, her shoulders slumping.

  Thornton turned to her. The moment he broke eye contact with Behemoth, the demon attacked. The tall, metal island above Gabrielle bent, warped, and started to fall. She leapt to her feet and ran as the antenna array and radar dishes crashed to the deck. I couldn’t see Thornton anywhere in the collapse. Apparently Behemoth couldn’t, either. No longer interested in us, the demon began poking through the wreckage, searching for the ghost wolf.

  Gabrielle reached us and stopped to catch her breath. “It’s Thornton! He’s here, he came…”

  She couldn’t finish. Every emotion she’d forced down into her gut, every emotion she hadn’t let herself feel since starting her quest for vengeance came bursting through the dam. Overwhelmed from the force of it, she broke down and sobbed. Bethany put her hand on Gabrielle’s arm. Gabrielle pulled Bethany to her and cried into her shoulder.

  Across the deck, Behemoth lifted the crumpled radar dish and tossed it aside with a loud crash.

  “Philip, take Isaac and get back,” I said. “It’s not safe here.”

  Philip scooped up Isaac’s unconscious body. “What about you?”

  I pulled the Codex Goetia out of my coat. “This thing is supposed to be the big demon-controlling artifact, right? I’m going to see if it lives up to its reputation. Now move.”

  Philip carried Isaac to the far end of the ship, overlooking Twelfth Avenue. I studied the etchings and designs on the face of the Codex. I wished I knew what the hell I was looking at. I couldn’t read the words written on it. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the concentric shapes on it, either. A circle, a heptagon, a seven-pointed star, a smaller heptagon, and a pentagram. What did it mean? What the hell did any of it mean?

  Behemoth continued poking through the wreckage. It wouldn’t be long before he turned his attention to us again.

  “Trent, hurry,” Bethany said.

  “How do you work this damn thing?” I demanded.

  “We don’t have time to figure it out,” Bethany said. “We have to try something else.”

  “What else is there?” I asked. “Even Nightclaw failed. The Codex is all we have left.”

  Unable to find Thornton in the debris, Behemoth turned back to us and roared angrily. Time was up. I would have to wing it. I held up the Codex, pointing it at Behemoth. I hoped it would know what to do on its own. It didn’t. Nothing happened. Like Erickson Arkwright, I didn’t know how to use the Codex. And like him, I was going to get everyone killed because of it.

  The Codex was pulled out of my grasp to fly through the air into Behemoth’s waiting palm. He closed his hand into a tight, crushing fist. When he opened it again, tiny, broken pieces of metal rained down to the deck. Damn. There was no way anyone could put those pieces back together again. The Codex Goetia was gone. Destroyed. There was no way to bind Behemoth now. No way to banish him back to his dimension.

  “Shit,” I said. “Run.”

  We ran to the far end of the ship, where Philip was waiting with Isaac’s prone form. “I take it the Codex didn’t work out?” Philip asked.

  “Didn’t stand a chance,” I said.

  “It’s just as well,” he said, picking up a lesser demon’s fallen sword off the deck. “That wouldn’t have been as much fun anyway. Keep an eye on Isaac. He’s out cold, but he’s stable.”

  “What are you going to do?” Bethany asked.

  “This,” Philip said. He blurred across the deck toward Behemoth. But even at that speed, Behemoth stopped him with a gesture. With another, Philip was blown clear off the ship and into the Hudson River.

  By now, it was clear Behemoth had had enough of us. He brought his hands together over his head. A new, tiny black hole began to form between them. Behemoth glared down at us. He knew there was nothing we could do to stop him now. Bethany and Gabrielle knew it, too. I could see it in their faces. They knew this time the black hole would grow bigger and bigger, unchecked until it tore the world to pieces. They knew this time they wouldn’t be able to stop it.

  The pentagram-shaped burn in my palm began to ache again. I looked at it, swollen and red on my skin. Then I remembered the pentagram at the center of the Codex Goetia, and an idea formed in my head.

  There was still one final chance to stop Behemoth. Something only I could do.

  There was more than one way to bind a demon.

  Normally this was something I would have asked Isaac to help me with, but the mage was unconscious. Gabrielle, however, was not. She wasn’t as adept at magic as Isaac was, but she was all I had. I told her what I had in mind.

  “We can’t banish him without the Codex, but we can snare him,” I explained. “All we need is a pentagram. A big one. It won’t kill him, but it’ll keep him trapped.”

  “How big does it need to be?” she asked.

  “As big as you can make it,” I said.

  “Give me the fire sword,” she said.

  I handed her the hilt. She lit it up and threw it with all her might, shouting a spell. The fire sword stayed lit and flew like a torpedo down the length of the flight deck. Then it swerved, circling around Behemoth. Its blade pointed down to the floor, tracing fire in its path. Like the crossbow bolts, this fire was magical. It didn’t require fuel to catch. The sword drew a burning circle aro
und the demon, then zipped quickly back and forth under him until it had formed a burning Five-Pointed Star within the circle. Then the fire sword extinguished and dropped to the floor.

  The entire aft section of the ship had become one giant pentagram of fire. The flames leapt into the air, growing taller, shooting upward to form a curtain around Behemoth. It had all happened too fast for the demon to stop it. Now he found himself trapped. He screamed in agony, but not from the flames. It was the pentagram itself that was burning him. The black hole forming above him collapsed in on itself like a closing iris.

  Gabrielle and Bethany let out a loud cheer of relief. But it wasn’t over. Not yet. Behemoth was trapped, but he wasn’t dead. He was still dangerous. As if to show us just how dangerous, the aircraft carrier began to rise up out of the water and into the air. The ship tilted suddenly to one side as the thick, woven anchoring lines fastening the Intrepid to the pier went taut. Some of them snapped, others pulled their mooring posts right out of the cement, and the ship leveled off, continuing to rise. Behemoth wanted us dead. He would do whatever it took, even if it meant levitating the whole damn ship so high we suffocated from lack of oxygen, or dropping us so that we were crushed on impact.

  “The only way this is going to end is if Behemoth dies,” I said.

  “How?” Bethany demanded. “We don’t have Nightclaw anymore.”

  “I know a way,” I said. “There’s something I can do. But only me.”

  “No,” Isaac interrupted. He was awake again. He wrapped his good arm around the railing and pulled himself up to his feet. Some color had returned to his face, but he still looked the worse for wear. His voice was scratchy and hoarse. “I’m not going to let you sacrifice your life so you can take Behemoth’s. You lost control when you tried that with Stryge, remember? His power was so immense it overwhelmed you. You wound up nearly killing the rest of us. What do you think is going to happen if you absorb the life force of a greater demon?”