by Tricia Owens
That made sense, considering how much Orlaton mistrusted Vale. "He's not a bad kid, despite all the weirdness," I tried. "I don't think he wants to hurt you."
Vale wasn't buying it. "He's as dangerous as any sorcerer because he's ambitious."
"I prefer the term go-getter."
"He's also a know-it-all."
"'Well read' sounds so much nicer."
Vale sighed, exasperated. "Moody, he's not your friend despite whatever you've been telling yourself. He may be young, but he's not harmless. If he runs this place then he's associated with some heavy hitters in the occult world. You and I both know what kinds of people they can be."
"Guilt by association?" I shot back. "That's hardly fair."
I could tell Vale was bemused by my defense of Orlaton and maybe I was a tad bewildered by it myself. The kid really was the type to electrify his doorbell just for the hell of it, and not just to give you a zap but to stop your heart.
I blamed my feelings on the locked trunk that Orlaton had shown me. As soon as someone revealed a weakness or vulnerability, I felt duty bound to defend them. As noble as that sounded, it was actually pretty dumb on my part. Vale was right: if the opportunity ever came to gain true notoriety and power, Orlaton might throw me beneath one of Vegas' party buses.
I opened my mouth to try to explain myself, when Orlaton's voice floated to us from somewhere within the stacks.
"Vale will need to be purified. There's a restroom near the front door. He'll need to bathe thoroughly and put on the robe that he finds in the cupboard."
I looked to Vale to see how he felt about this. To my surprise, he gave a nod. Desperate times called for desperate measures, including desperate showers.
"What should I do?" I called back.
"Make sure no one disturbs us. The shop is warded against the entrance of dark spirits, but it's a passive defense and it won't hold up against sustained attack. If we're interrupted before the exorcism is successful…well, I'm sure I don't need to go into detail about just how unfortunate that would be for us."
"No," I muttered, "you don't."
"I'd rather stand guard with you than get wet again," Vale said, looking annoyed as we headed for the front of the shop.
I had to shove that imagery to the far, far back of my head.
"Look at it this way," I said, "Orlaton's probably got fabulous taste, so when this is all over you can steal the robe."
We found the restroom. It was immaculate, which was to be expected of Orlaton. He probably scrubbed it clean with a toothbrush every day. The only concessions to it being the bathroom of an occultist were the incense burners on the sink, the unlit black and white pillar candles, and the small bowls of salt that were arrayed around the top shelf that surrounded the shower. In the cupboard was a perfectly folded white waffle weave cotton robe.
"See you when you're clean," I said from the doorway.
Vale had been holding the robe uncertainly, but at my words, he clenched the fabric. "You trust this kid?"
I held his gaze. "I trust him enough for this."
The truth was I had no other alternatives. It was too late to call in any of the other magickal beings I knew. But I doubted Vale wanted to hear that. He was putting everything on the line based on my word, so I looked him in the eye and tried to project a confidence I didn't completely feel.
"This will work."
The taut lines of his face eased. "Okay, Moody."
I sort of hated myself, then, but I told myself there was no point in stressing Vale out when there was nothing he or I could do to improve the situation.
After I shut the door I remained standing there and listened until I heard the water in the shower come on. Vale stepping under that spray was about more than washing off. It meant he had put his faith in me. I realized in that moment that I wanted us to survive this. I wanted the next time Vale took a shower for me to be in there with him, or at least waiting for him with a towel.
With a heavy sigh that wasn't anywhere near as heavy as the burden of responsibility that now rested on my shoulders, I returned to the rotunda. Orlaton was back and he'd been busy in the few minutes I'd been with Vale.
He was dressed in a blood red robe whose hems were covered with runes stitched in gold thread. It was extremely flashy and I was pretty sure he could have gotten away with a plain black one but this was Orlaton and you had to allow the guy his drama. If gaining his help required him becoming His Highness the Grand Archbishop of Demonology and Hufflepuff Studies, so be it.
He had pulled back a couple of the ornate rugs to reveal the wooden floorboards beneath. In his hand he held a small bag that looked like it contained sugar or salt, and in his other hand he held a long, thin sword.
It had a carved hilt that was straight out of World of Warcraft. I would have bet money that Orlaton had bought it at a fan convention. Curiously, I noted that he'd engraved, perhaps with a Dremel tool, the letters AGLA onto one side of the blade.
Orlaton caught me looking and smirked. "A certain demographic would claim I've diminished the value of this sword." He turned the blade over, revealing that he'd clumsily etched four symbols into the metal. "That demographic is made up of Cheetos-eating fools."
I nodded with no idea what he was talking about. "I'll take your word for it."
He looked put-out and an edge was in his voice when he barked, "Follow me and pour a salt trail exactly two inches outside of the line that I carve. Be extremely precise."
I took the salt and watched him begin cutting a line in the wood with the tip of the sword. He gouged the wood pretty deep, too; wax and wood polish weren't going to heal the damage afterward.
"Geez, Orlaton. Here I thought you had all these pretty rugs because you have good taste. Turns out you're just trying to cover up the mess you've made of your floors."
"When I perform a ritual, Miss Moody, I perform it correctly. Otherwise you're no better than a child playing with a Ouija board."
While I could do without the snark, I appreciated Orlaton's commitment to this. It gave me hope that this might turn out alright.
After we'd made the double circles, we stepped outside of them and Orlaton instructed me to light colored candles while he burned a variety of stinky herbs and waved them above our heads, creating a haze in the air. Just as I lit the last candle, Vale entered the room, freshly washed and carrying the spear I'd given him.
"You're sure you know what you're doing?" he asked as he stood in his bare feet, looking at the scene we'd set up.
The robe he wore reached only to mid-thigh because he was so tall. He looked like a client at a spa. I wished I knew massage therapy.
Orlaton sniffed and didn't reply to him. I gave Vale a just wait motion with my hands and the two of us watched Orlaton finish up with his final preparations around the area.
"Step inside the circle without breaking it," Orlaton told Vale without looking at him. "Leave the weapon outside."
After Vale handed me the spear and entered the circle, Orlaton fetched a much smaller leather bound book this time. He thumbed through it, mumbling to himself, before shaking his head.
"I need the other one."
He headed for the stacks again.
"I hope it doesn't hurt," I said to Vale while we waited.
"I'll grin and bear it. Anything's better than having this thing inside me, beating to get out." His gaze intensified. "But I appreciate your concern. You've been a good protector, Moody."
"I doubt anyone would be able to stand around and watch you have your soul eaten."
"In Vegas, you might be surprised." He paused for a moment. "The girls I've dated have been pretty self-involved."
I had to grin at that. "I can believe it."
"I'm glad you're different."
"What can I say? It's my hobby when I'm not running the shop: saving guys in distress."
"It's not a dress, it's a robe."
I groaned. "Truly, the worst."
We were being goofy, but I
understood why. If we couldn't remove this demon and Vale transformed into the statue, he would be a prisoner of stone for the rest of his life, a life that might be cut short if the demon ate his soul. Failing was an option too awful to imagine, so we tried to distract each other.
"This will work," Vale said.
He sounded sure of himself. It had to be an act, but if so it was a good one and I appreciated it. If we were both strong…well, maybe we stood a chance of succeeding.
I leaned, trying to peer past the stacks of books. "As long as Orlaton gets his ass in—"
The carved circle around Vale began to glow green. As I turned to him, something warm splashed over my right cheek. I ran my fingers across my face. They came away smeared with blood. "What—?"
"I didn't want to do it," said a voice.
I spun back around just as Orlaton staggered out from between the stacks. His face was bone white. He took another step toward me before he sprawled on his face on the floor. The red fabric of his robe began to liquefy and spread beneath him.
No, that wasn't fabric. Orlaton's blood pooled on the floor of the rotunda.
Diana, Christian's mother, emerged from the stacks to stand beside Orlaton's body. In her right hand glinted the sword he had used to carve the protection circle. Sitting on her left wrist was my missing panda pin. It was lit from within by some type of magick and glowed like a nightlight.
"Are you a klepto or just rude?" I snarled, motioning at the pin she'd stolen from me.
Her smile was a circus clown grimace. "Resourceful," she said, but in my head, I thought, Desperate.
Something was wrong with Diana. She stood awkwardly, tilted slightly to one side. When she stepped further into the room, she did so with herky jerky steps, like a marionette operated by someone who was terrible at it. It was the kind of unnatural movement you saw a lot in horror movies and the effect was in no way diminished by seeing it in real life. With that long sword dragging behind her she made me think of Pyramid Head. My leather jacket did nothing to suppress the goose bumps that leaped across my skin.
"I thought you didn't want to summon a demon," I said. "Christian said you were tricked into doing it."
I glanced back at Vale. He had fallen to one knee inside the circle and his head was down. His fingers, braced on the floor, were white with tension. Around him, the intensity of the light coming off the green glowing circle was increasing, as though it were building toward something pretty damn bad.
"It doesn't matter what I want," Diana said, again with the clown grimace. She wore a tea length green dress that complimented her eyes, but the hems were ragged in places and her left shin was scraped and blood dripped from her knee.
"Looks like someone roughed you up."
I pointed at her injuries, trying to buy time, though I don't know who I was buying it for. Something bad was happening to Vale. Orlaton appeared to be dead or dying. I was the only one who could do anything, but I had no idea what. I'd promised Christian that I wouldn't hurt his mother. So what options did that leave me?
"Is Vagasso forcing you to do this, Diana? Is he behind this?"
She blinked dumbly, like a cow. "He's here."
On cue, the walls shook. Dozens of books jolted from their shelves and clattered across the floor. I felt the twang of the magickal wards as they repelled something powerful. Picture King Kong bouncing off a chain link fence.
What had Orlaton said? That his wards would block dark spirits?
Now I had confirmation for why Vagasso was so powerful. He wasn't human. Not completely, but even having a teaspoonful of spirit blood in his veins meant he was stronger than I was.
"Vagasso can beat the wards all he wants, but he won't get in," I said, sounding more confident than I felt. I didn't know how long the wards would hold up, but I doubted it would be for long. "It's just you and me here, Diana. No one has to know if you turn around and run out. You could say I kicked your butt. I won't argue."
"But you can't beat me," she said. She raised her left arm, the one with my panda pin resting on it. "Thanks to this."
My panda pin wasn't strapped to her wrist with a band. It was embedded in her skin like a tick that had burrowed in. The skin around the edges of the pin was red and raw and I thought I saw tiny blue veins spreading outwards from the pin, as though poison were entering her bloodstream from the metal.
Or as if the pin, like an alien, had stuck tiny tendrils inside her in order to hang on.
"What does that do?" I asked warily.
"This."
Diana slapped herself across the face. I felt the sting of it on my face. She pinched the skin of her forearm and I hissed and rubbed at mine beneath the sleeve of my jacket.
Great. Diana, or likely Vagasso, had turned her into a human Voodoo doll that represented me.
"You can't hurt me and you can't stop me," she said. A single tear spilled from her eye. "Now be a good girl and put down the spear and behave."
Dammit. The tear told me that she was in there somewhere. Vagasso might be controlling her body, but like Vale she was trying to resist the possession. But how could I fight her when every injury I inflicted on her hurt me?
I made sure she watched me lay the spear on the floor. "Diana, you can fight this."
She pointed behind me, at Vale in the glowing circle. "Vagasso needs that demon. I have to take it, or he will never let me or my son go."
"I'm sorry but I can't let you take it. That demon needs to go back to Hell."
In my head I tried to calculate how much time had passed and how much I had left. Sunrise was fast approaching and I didn't know how long it would take to exorcise the demon from Vale…or even how to do it now that Orlaton was down and possibly dead. I did know that I needed to get on it now.
"Diana, you need to fight this compulsion," I said sternly.
Behind me, I felt the air beginning to vibrate, like someone had plugged in an enormous refrigerator that hummed and ticked. Something bad was happening to Vale in the circle, but I couldn't turn to look.
"Vagasso tried to get in here," I went on, "and he's learned that he can't. He knows better than to break down the wards. Every magickal being in Las Vegas is aware of Orlaton and this shop. If it's destroyed you'd better believe the Oddsmakers will want to know who did it. Vagasso can't fight them without major magickal muscle behind him. That means he's counting on you, Diana, to do his dirty work for him."
"Yes," she said. Her bobbed up and down. She wasn't listening to a word I was saying.
"Diana, that means if you don't give him the demon, Vagasso is out of luck! He can't take it himself."
"I have to take it," she repeated. "I have no choice."
She did something with her free hand and the nearest bookshelf vomited its contents at me. I threw both arms around my head as I spun to put my back to the shelf. Heavy books slammed into my back and shoulders. The hard corner of one book struck a nerve in the back of my hand and made my fingers go temporarily numb.
The bookshelf I had turned to face now began to shake. Great. I began to turn again, recognizing a repeat performance. I was too late. Books struck me in the chest and abdomen before I could shield myself. No wonder spies used to get beat up with phone books. I bit back a cry as the heavy books rebounded off my body. A sharp pain in my side left me gasping. Had I fractured a rib?
"Diana…" I choked out. "Stop!"
But she was driven to succeed. When another shelf began to tremble ominously, I hobbled in the opposite direction. Books flew after me like a swarm of angry hornets. One clipped me in the back of the thigh, dropping me to one knee. Another one bounced off my head. I actually saw stars for a moment, or at least flashing lights.
I was in big trouble.
More books hurtled toward me. With every two I blocked, at least one managed to hit me. I thought about curling into a ball and waiting it out, but Tomes was full of books. Diana could bury me alive and crush me beneath the weight of them.
Amidst the book st
orm I managed to crawl behind the bronze statue of a rearing monster that I recognized as a manticore. It had the head of a man, the body of a lion, and a pair of wings. The huge thing was tacky enough to be the centerpiece of Wayne Newton's front yard. It was currently my favorite piece of art as it shielded me from getting hit by any more books.
"Diana," I called to her, wincing as I wrapped an arm around my sore middle, "I can help free you from Vagasso's influence. I helped Christian. I can help you, too."
In answer, she made more hand movements and muttered beneath her breath. The manticore statue twisted around suddenly, one lion's paw striking me across the face. It didn't break my cheekbone but it was enough to send me sprawling across the floor, dazed. I'd have an impressive shiner if I lived long enough for it to bruise.
A scream rent the air. With effort I turned my head to look back across the room at the glowing protection circle. Vale was on both knees inside it. He arched his back and opened his mouth to scream again. Except it wasn't only his voice that tore from his throat but also that of a demon's.
Its inhuman howl sent a shudder of deep-seated revulsion through me. Imagine an Icelandic death metal singer being punched in the balls and you'd come close to the sound made by the demon inside Vale that strained to take over.
"Yes!" Diana cried out. "Come to me, Aglasis! Free yourself!"
Vale and the demon screamed again.
"Oh, god," I moaned when I heard it. This time it was the demon's voice that had prevailed.
Vale fell onto his back and began to convulse. His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. In another minute he was going to bite his tongue off or begin to foam at the mouth. I had to do something.
But what could I do? I was powerless against Diana. In this instant she was me. To knock her unconscious was to do the same to me, rendering me unable to help Vale.
I searched the room, even looking to Orlaton's body, hoping maybe he might still be alive even though there was so much blood…
His eyes were open and staring at me.
I sucked in my breath. Wait a second! That wasn't the stare of the dead. Orlaton was alive and he was trying to tell me something. The hand on his outstretched arm pointed weakly.