by Kevin Hearne
When we arrived at the entrance—two very large glass doors with brushed-metal handles—we saw nothing but an empty lobby faced in dark granite and two hallways near the back, one of which presumably led to the stairwell and the other to the elevators. Leif was going to drive his fist through the glass, a dramatic announcement of our arrival, no doubt, but I asked him to wait. With a little concentration and a little expenditure of magic, I was able to unlock the door by binding the bolt to the open position. I then tore out the pin of the grenade with my teeth, opened the door silently, and tossed the grenade to the back hallway on the right-hand side, where I assumed the elevators were, along with anyone (or anything) waiting in ambush. It rebounded off the back wall and, thanks to the angle, disappeared down the hall so that we would be safe from shrapnel when it went off.
It exploded satisfactorily, but we heard no screams of dismay. We entered and shuffled forward, swords raised defensively, and I asked Leif, “You smell anyone?”
The vampire shook his head and said, “Not on this floor. Only dust.”
That relaxed me somewhat, and I almost got squashed to Druid marmalade because of it. A huge column of basalt fell from above as I squared with the dust-clouded hallway, and only my peripheral vision and reflexes allowed me to roll out of the way in time. It crashed loudly onto the floor of the lobby, shattering the tile and sending aloft a small spray of ceramic shrapnel. But then the column of basalt didn’t lie still, the way stone should. It moved, back and up, until I saw that it was attached to something much larger looming in the cloud of hallway debris—namely, the torso of a very large basalt golem, with eyes like pilot lights set deep in a boulder it used for a head.
“Another behind you!” Leif shouted, and I rolled again as a second massive arm smashed the tile where I’d been lying into ceramic tortilla chips. This one had been waiting in the opposite hallway, guarding the entrance to the stairwell. I was back up against another glass wall with a single door in it. Beyond was a large, undeveloped office space, with a bare concrete foundation, no dividing walls, open ductwork in the ceiling, and plenty of room to dodge a couple of golems.
“We need space!” I said, and I scrambled to my feet and tried the glass door that led into the interior. It was unlocked—there was nothing to steal in there. Leif dashed through it right behind me, and the basalt golems promptly smashed through the entire wall in pursuit. I felt some shards tug at the flak jacket and one cut the back of my left arm, but I ignored them for the moment as we sprinted to put some space between us and the golems. The building gave us plenty of room to run; I guessed there was about twenty thousand square feet in there.
“These stone guardians may pose a problem,” Leif said wryly. They moved with all the grace and silence of a landslide, the chalky scrapes of their joints heralding the thunderous impacts of every step they took. “They don’t have any juicy veins for me to tear out, swords won’t cut them, and they won’t stop unless we leave.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Golems are nothing more than Kabbalistic enchantments—” I stopped, realizing I might literally have the magic touch where they were concerned. I could laboriously unbind the rock into its component elements, but that would take time I didn’t have and energy I didn’t want to waste; a simpler solution was available, thanks to Rabbi Yosef. “Hey, I want to try something,” I said. “Pick one and charge it—just climb up its face or something so it isn’t watching me. I’ll follow up.”
“How much time do you need?” Leif frowned. We were fast approaching the east end of the building, and soon we’d have to turn and face them anyway.
“I need only a second or two,” I explained as the golems rumbled behind us. “Don’t let it grab you or anything. If you can do the same with the other one afterward, even better.”
“Okay,” Leif said, “here I go.” He pivoted on his right foot and leapt at the nearest golem, spitting out one of those hoarse, hissing vampire cries that signal to victims they’re nothing more than a walking package of Go-Gurt. He stepped neatly on the golem’s knee and leapt up to its head, ramming an elbow into its nose and actually chipping off a few pebbles, before using its half-raised arm to launch himself over the head. Leif hung by a single hand off the golem’s pitted volcanic skull, until it tried to flail at him with its arms. This distracted the second golem too, which veered to take a swipe at Leif dangling off its brother’s back, and that was my chance. I darted forward and rested my palm upon the thigh of the first golem, and after a moment its struggles ceased, its eyes flamed out. The Kabbalistic enchantment had been snuffed by the wards bound up in my aura, and it fell heavily backward as Leif leapt away. The second golem was still focused on Leif, and it was a simple matter to dash behind it and repeat the process, a brief touch on the rocky hamstring sufficing to end its animation and send it tumbling on top of its brother.
“Hecate’s frosty tits, how did you do that?” Leif demanded. “I thought we were going to spend all our time dodging them.”
“A better question is, how did the hexen manage to create them?” I asked. “They’re not Kabbalists. In fact, they used to kill them during the war—oh. That’s how. They stole the spells off their victims.”
“Fill me in later,” Leif said. “The clock is ticking.”
“Right. Think you could toss one of the golems’ heads through the ceiling and make us a hole to get to the second floor? I don’t fancy walking back there,” I gestured to the west end of the building, “and climbing up a booby-trapped stairwell.”
“Neither do I. Let me see how much they weigh.” I could match Leif’s strength if I had access to the earth—we’d tested it once with an arm-wrestling match in a park—but right now he had to play the Herculean one, with my magic in short supply. He lifted the second golem’s head, which must have weighed a good half ton or more, and hefted it experimentally in one hand. It appeared to strain him as much as a juggler might handle a grapefruit.
“Throw it at an angle, perhaps, then follow up with one of your grenades?” he asked.
“An excellent plan,” I agreed, taking out one of the grenades, “but you’ll need to throw me through the hole afterward. Druids can’t jump.”
Without another word, Leif chucked the boulder up through the ceiling with a magnificent concussion and a cry of twisted steel, and it almost plowed through to the third floor as well. I was glad it didn’t: The idea of the hexen taking pot shots at us from above held little savor for me.
I tore out the pin and lobbed a grenade through the hole, in the direction of the elevator shafts and the stairwell to the west, where I figured the floor’s defenses would be concentrated. In such an open area, the grenade ought to do plenty of damage.
Unfortunately, its explosion killed only a single one of the creatures waiting for us. Leif tossed me through the hole, sword drawn, and I landed somewhat ungracefully to face the charge of seven bloodied and enraged demon rams coming from the stairwell entrance. Goat-headed, curly-horned, and cloven-hoofed, they had the torso and arms of the Spartans in 300, and no amount of Visine would ever get the red out of their eyes. They were armed with spears, but I noticed that they also had long knives hanging from their right sides. They were undisciplined; they should have charged me in a wedge. Cold Fire was out of the question, since none of us was touching the earth. They’d all have to be dispatched the old-fashioned way.
As I charged them, a quick count gave me eight—seven, plus one melting into goo by the stairwell—and it had been eight demons, by our earlier count, who had impregnated die Töchter des dritten Hauses.
“Come on, you horny bastards!” I cried as I slapped away the tip of the vanguard’s spear and then slashed through his throat, which his bulging eyes seemed to think was unfair; he thought he’d been charging an unarmed man. I danced away to the left to force them to turn and break their momentum. The next two chuffed balls of hellfire into their left hands and threw them at me as they tried to change direction.
I lunged right t
hrough them, heedless of the flames from which my amulet protected me, and beheaded them both with one stroke. The others now realized I was armed and slowed their approach, moving more cautiously and trying to surround me as I backpedaled away from their spear tips. Leif leapt up through the hole behind them and cut down two more. The remaining two divided their attention between us. One of them threw his spear at me as he charged. I ducked under it and then he was on me, his long knife drawn, and we each grabbed the other’s sword arm as he bowled me to the floor. We rolled around, each trying to gain advantage.
His breath was hot in my face—fiery, as a matter of fact—and those bulging muscles weren’t an illusion. I had to draw on some power from my bear charm to keep him at bay.
“You killed my father,” he snorted in a basso profundo rumble. “Prepare to die!”
“Inigo Montoya? Is that you?” For a moment I had no idea who he was talking about, then I realized he must have been referring to the large ram that escaped during the battle at Tony Cabin. “Oh, I know who you mean now,” I said as we grappled. “Hey, I didn’t kill him. That was Flidais, I swear. You can find her in Tír na nÓg, or I could send her a message if you like. No?”
Moralltach hacked through his spine before he could answer, and he fell lifeless on top of me.
“Oof. Thanks,” I said to Leif as the vampire kicked its corpse off me; the demon had already begun to soften and dissolve into sludge. Leif had sent the other ram back to hell as well.
“Well, get up,” my lawyer said impatiently. “Remember the clock.”
“It might not be ticking anymore,” I said. “I think these fellas were the demons necessary for the ritual. Look along the wall there.” I pointed to some dimly glowing runes around the stairwell. “And check out these markings on the floor. These rams were bound here, and judging by the amount of filth, they’ve been here for some time.”
“There could be more of them upstairs,” Leif pointed out.
“You’re right. Better safe than dead.”
“How many grenades do you have left?”
“Three.”
“Very well, we will follow the same procedure as before,” Leif said, sheathing Moralltach and walking over to where the golem’s head had fallen, sagging dangerously into the floor, “but do not hold anything back this time.”
He was about to pitch it from where he stood, near the center of the building, but I cautioned him that perhaps we should move back to the far eastern edge and proceed from there. “I’ll toss my grenades all toward the elevators and stairs, clearing out the middle of the floor, and when we go up, we make sure to clear out these back edges first so we can’t get taken from behind. If they’re smart, they will have stationed someone there at the corners.”
“I am chill with that,” the vampire said stiffly, tossing the half-ton boulder up and down like it was a tennis ball as he walked to the far edge of the building with me.
“You’re trying to be cool now, Leif? Seriously?”
“I am the shit, home slice, straight up,” he replied.
“No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is a great effort, but you still need to use more contractions. And your tone is so formal, it’s like you’re complimenting the pudding at a duke’s dinner party. No one’s ever going to believe you’re from the hood. But let’s work on it later. Right now there are some witches up there in dire need of just deserts.”
“Fucking H!” the vampire shouted, shaking his free left fist. He enunciated the g very clearly and projected his voice from his diaphragm, like a trained opera singer.
“It’s fuckin’ A, not H, but yeah, Leif, go ahead, let’s throw down.”
Leif paused and frowned. “Do you not mean we should throw up?”
“No. See, when you throw up you’re vomiting, but when you throw down you’re starting a fight, as in throwing down the gauntlet.”
“Ohhhh,” he said. “I thought you were speaking literally.”
“I do beg your pardon. Let’s literally throw up, but figuratively throw down.”
Leif threw up. He hurled the boulder through the ceiling with so much force that it plowed not only through the third floor but also through the roof. I don’t know where it landed. I lobbed my three grenades after it to the left, center, and right and waited for them to explode. Once they did—and this time we heard screams, along with more shattering glass—Leif chucked me through the hole and I faced the northeast corner.
A witch was standing there, as I predicted—and it was the brunette who’d killed Perry, whose nose I had broken at the widow’s house. There was no attempt to sling any spells my way; she had a handgun pointed at me and proceeded to fire without ceremony, her teeth bared in a feral snarl as she did her best to kill me. I dropped and curled my legs tight, arms up to protect my head, and let my flak jacket take the punishment, but the whip of a bullet on the left side of my head and a sharp sting told me she’d winged me good. Hot blood dribbled down my neck and sharp blows punished my back, and then a slug tore through the outside of my left thigh before she had to reload. I blocked the pain there and started to close up that wound with some of my stored power, enduring the throbbing in my back and the sting on the side of my head as I got to my feet. I put up a hand to check the wound and realized with horror that she’d shot off my left ear, and in my adrenaline rush I hadn’t realized how bad the wound was.
“The gods damn you, look what you’ve done!” I cried as she fumbled with her second clip and I charged, drawing Fragarach. “If I want to grow this back I’ll have to endure the most terrifying sex imaginable! Gaahhhhh!”
She was frantically trying to get her gun reloaded, but the crazed Irish lad coming at her with a blade covered in black demon’s blood had a deleterious effect on her fine motor skills. With as little ceremony as she’d afforded me, I ran Fragarach through her abdomen and out her back until the point scraped against the glass wall. The gun and ammunition dropped from her hands, and a soft, keening sigh escaped her lips. I twisted the blade, and a more satisfying scream gurgled forth. I’m not the type to say, “That’s for so-and-so!” as I deliver well-deserved punishment unto an enemy, but I was sorely tempted to say something in this case. Still, why bother? She knew what she’d done. She aged before my eyes as the life left her and her cosmetic façade sloughed away. I yanked Fragarach loose and beheaded her to make sure she wouldn’t rise again.
Off to my right, Leif had already ascended and was engaged with someone in the southeast corner. I hoped they were still ignorant of what he was and would try slapping him with that necrotic spell. Perhaps, before he cut them down, they’d have time to realize they couldn’t stop the heart of a man who was already dead.
Nothing had come after us yet from the direction of the grenade explosions, but as I turned to check, I saw there was an awful lot of dust and debris floating around right now, and there was no telling what awaited us on the other side of the cloud. Flashes of violet light drew my attention to the street below. Bogumila was busy doing magical battle with a heavily bearded man in Hasidic garb; she was the source of light, a torus of purples and lavenders whirling around her right hand, which was raised above her head and casting a bright cone of protection around her. The light illuminated the man’s face—it was the Rabbi Yosef Bialik, sure enough, and he had finally tracked down a witch. Problem was, he was fighting the wrong one. His absolute definitions of black and white were causing him to take down friends as well as foes.
Much as I might have wished it, I was in no position to help Bogumila, and I couldn’t get into position without clearing this floor first. I had to start my count: The brunette was one down, twenty to go. I reluctantly left the window to see if I could help Leif and clear our backs before we advanced. I’d taken only a few steps when I saw him slice a woman clean in half with Moralltach. As her torso slid greasily off her hips and the two halves crumpled to the floor, he whipped around at my approach and grinned when he saw me. “Nice ear,” he said. “Would you like
me to lick your wounds?”
“Shut up. How many did you get here?”
“Two,” he said, gesturing to another still form, now wrinkled and gray, lying behind him.
“Okay, three down. Let’s go. We need to count and make sure we get them all.”
I turned on my faerie specs and peered west into the dust cloud. There were figures moving on the far side near the stairwell, barely perceptible through the choking haze. A crosswind through the shattered walls of glass to the north and south was clearing some of it out, but full visibility was still a few minutes away.
“Shadowy figures,” the Morrigan had said. I’d do battle with shadowy figures. Well, one of the figures wasn’t human; it had a distinctly demonic aura. I realized that, where they were located, they probably would have had shelter from both the RPGs we launched and a very good chance of taking cover from the grenades I’d tossed if they heard them clatter on the floor. I crouched low, took a deep breath, and kept Fragarach in front of me as I stepped into the gunk, depending on Leif to follow.
There were broken, bloody bodies on the floor, withered arms and knobby knees twisted unnaturally; all their glamour was gone in death. I would count them later. There were ten figures ahead that I could see, grouped in a loose circle, some of them seated on the floor chanting something in low tones, and nearly all of them showing the telltale signs of hell. As soon as I processed that, it set me to sprinting: The seated ones were in the midst of a ritual and the others were guarding them, because they were close to completing it. I had no idea who their target was, but I didn’t want anyone on our side to die because I exercised undue caution.