Hard Spell

by Justin Gustainis

  I wanted to ask Vollman how one of his "people" was going to get in to what was supposed to be a secure parking area. The witchfinders probably had a pass from the mayor's office, but... what came out of my mouth instead was, "Fine. Get in."

  Lake Scranton is at the southern edge of the city, just off Route 307. Seen from the air, it resembles a bat with its wings spread wide. It's an artificial lake, created by diverting a tributary of the Lackawanna River, then building a dam to hold the water in. The distance around the perimeter is something like three and a half miles and the dam, with the pump house on top, is at the lower edge of the bat's left wing.

  You'd think the pump house would be dead center on the dam. But it actually sits about two hundred feet from the northern end, with another couple of thousand feet of dam beyond it until you reach the other shore. The stone and cement platform it's built on is perpendicular to the top of the dam, so the little building appears to be sitting on top of the water.

  If you were interested, for some reason, in launching an attack on the pump house, you could come in either on the short side, with two hundred feet of concrete dam to cross, or the long side, which is about ten times the distance. If you were a team of Navy SEALs, you'd probably come in by water, climb to the top of the dam with ropes and grappling hooks, and catch everybody in the pump house by complete surprise.

  I could have used me a team of Navy SEALs, right about then.

  One thing that I didn't need any commandos to teach me: you plan for the enemy's capabilities, not his intentions – because you can sometimes figure out the first, but never be sure about the second.

  As we followed the short stretch of Route 307 that would take us to the dam, I asked Vollman, "What kind of spells is he likely to have prepared? Any idea?"

  Despite what you see in the movies, wizards and witches can't just wave their hands and make magic happen. It looks that way sometimes, but in fact any hand waving or magic words are used to activate pre-prepared spells. And those take some time, effort, and skill to get ready.

  It's kind of like using a gun: you have to load it to make it dangerous. And although you have your choice of ammunition, the piece will hold only so many bullets, and you can only carry so much ammo with you.

  "Impossible to know," Vollman said from the back seat. "He is so sure of his own invincibility, that he may have prepared nothing at all, on the assumption that he will face no opposition tonight."

  "But we can't count on that,"

  "No," Vollman said, "of course not. I only mention it as a possibility."

  Enemy capabilities: unknown. Terrific.

  We were approaching the exit that would take us to the access roads for the dam. "Does it matter which side we go in on?" I asked Vollman. "The short end or the long end?"

  "The faster our final approach, the less chance of detection," he said. "I see no advantage to the long way."

  "Sit is, then."

  I turned off the lights as we followed the narrow access road that led to the dam. No point in begging to be noticed. Anyway the full moon, shining down through the scattered wispy clouds, gave all the light I needed.

  It was a beautiful night. I wondered how many of us would survive it.

  "Vollman," I said, "can you scry the place before we go in – find out the layout, so we know what to expect?"

  He didn't respond right away, and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him shake his head slowly. "I can do so," he said, "but as soon as I commence, Richard will sense the presence of magic close at hand. He will then be alerted to our whereabouts."

  Karl turned in his seat and looked back at Vollman. "If you don't scry, or use some other kind of magic, is he gonna know we're coming, anyway?"

  "Ordinarily, I would say 'yes.' Wizards are very sensitive to the presence of potential enemies. But tonight he is giving so much of his attention and energy to the ritual, he may be too preoccupied."

  "May," Karl said sourly.

  "May is the most accurate assessment possible under these circumstances," Vollman said. "I regret that I cannot offer you certainty, Detective. For all our sakes."

  There was silence as I braked the Plymouth to a slow halt about fifty feet from the chain link fence and gate that guarded this end of the dam.

  Then Vollman said, "But one thing that I can do is to counter any magic he uses against you, allowing both of you the freedom to disrupt the ritual and, if necessary, effect the rescue of Miss Markowski."

  "Well, that's a relief," Karl said, with no sarcasm at all.

  "It might be best," Vollman said, "if I were to remain out of sight for as long as possible. I can counter his spells from outside that little building as well as I could from within it."

  "So you can stop his magic," I said. "Can he stop yours?"

  "That depends on whose is the stronger."

  "And that's you, right?" Karl said.

  "As they say in those awful television programs I sometimes find myself watching, There is one way to find out."

  Karl and I had each taken from the SWAT armory a pump shotgun, a selection of ammunition, and several of the "Splash-bang" grenades we'd seen the team use at Jamieson Longworth's place. We hurriedly loaded the shotguns, making our best guess as to what we would need in there.

  "Double-ought buckshot for the door," I said. I once saw a guy use some to make a very large hole in a brick wall.

  Karl rummaged through the boxes of shotgun ammo. "Zap the lock? Like the SWAT guys did?"

  "The door's probably made of iron," I said. "We take the hinges. It's more certain."

  Karl looked at Vollman. "Can't you take the door down for us, with magic?"

  "I could," Vollman said. "But since you have the means on hand yourselves, it is perhaps best that I conserve my energies."

  That was Vollman's fancy way of saying "Save my strength." It didn't exactly inspire confidence.

  The shotguns held five shells apiece. "For the rest, load whatever you want," I said. "We don't know what we'll be dealing with in there. And don't assume you'll get the chance to reload, because you probably won't."

  I loaded two shells filled with blessed silver pellets, then one of garlic-soaked rock salt, then another double-ought buck, and one more silver for luck. I didn't pay attention towhat Karl picked.

  Once we reached the chain link fence at the dam's entrance, I saw that the gate was secured with a chain and a big Yale padlock. Maybe Sligo had come in the long way; or it could be he just floated over it.

  A shotgun blast would take care of the lock, but I didn't want to announce that we were here until I had to. I looked at Vollman and said, barely above a whisper, "Can you...?"

  The old vampire nodded, took hold of the lock, and said something under his breath. It sprang open, and I watched him remove and toss it aside. I was sure glad he was willing to expend the energy.

  The three of us began the short walk along the top of the dam to the pump house. Ahead, I could see light coming from behind the two windows, brightly illuminating the cracks of the tightly closed shutters.

  I kept waiting for all hell to break loose, although I had no idea what form it might take – alarms, devil bats, automatic weapons fire – who knew what kind of shit Sligo might have prepared?

  With every step I heard from my guts, which were caring on an ongoing monologue with my conscious mind. This is a bad idea, Stan. We could die here, Stan. Get us out of here, Stan – before it's too late.

  I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Call me brave, optimistic, or stupid. I was leaning toward the third explanation, myself.

  Nothing happened. I didn't know if Sligo was indifferent or careless, but for most of the short walk all we heard was the chuckling of water in the dam and a few night birds in the trees behind us.

  Then inside the pump house a woman started screaming, and suddenly I was running.

  Karl was only a couple of steps behind me when I reached the door. As I'd figured, it was steel. I tried the knob,
in case Sligo was really confident, but it seemed he'd at least locked the door.

  I backed up as far as I could, looked at Karl and pointed at the lower hinge. Then I said, "On three," and took careful aim at the upper one. Inside, the screaming continued.

  Part of my brain was wondering if I was going to get a face full of ricocheted buckshot as I said, "One, two–"

  The two shots melded into one big boom. The hinge I'd fired at was in pieces, and a quick glance showed me that Karl's was, too. The metal itself had buckled around the impact areas.

  I grabbed the edge of the door where it was protruding and yanked, hard as I could. That pulled it loose from the frame a little. Then Karl got a grip further down, and together we tore that thing free and slammed it to the concrete at our feet with a clang that I could feel more than hear, since I was temporarily deaf from the shotgun blasts.

  As soon as the door came down I became almost blind, as well as deaf. My God, it was bright in there, and my eyes were still adjusted to the semi-dark of outside. But if I stayed put, I was a dead man, so I dived at an angle where I hoped the doorway was, rolled, and came up on one knee – which hurt a lot more than it used to. I felt more than saw Karl do something similar in the other direction.

  If Sligo threw any magic at us in the next few seconds, we'd never know it until too late. But either Vollman was on top of his game, or Sligo wasn't, since nothing came our way as my eyes adjusted. Now I could see that the glaring light came from at least a dozen glowing globes hanging from the ceiling, supplemented by several portable spotlights whose glare bounced off the walls and ceiling every which way. Sligo must have installed all of this; I was pretty sure it wasn't part of the original pump house blueprinte'd at l>

  I didn't take time to gawk around, but your eyes can take in a lot of information really fast, especially if you're as keyed up as I was. As I scanned the room in search of something to kill, I was dimly aware that the usual spellcasting paraphernalia was all over the place: incense burners, gongs of different sizes, tall candles in metal holders, the whole nine yards. But the real show was up front.

  The building seemed at least twice as big as you'd think from looking at the outside, which I assumed was more of Sligo's magic. At the far end of the room, three long tables were set up, forming an open rectangle with the open end facing the back wall. They were covered with cloths of black and red with arcane symbols woven into them, and on top of those were all the tools and toys the modern occultist can't seem to do without: bowls, flagons, more candles, knives, and so forth. But you could tell the middle table was special. That was where he'd placed, in an ornate brass holder, a thick, oldlooking book with a cracked leather cover.

  Looked like I'd found the Opus Mago at last.

  Taking in all that took only a few seconds, and then my attention was riveted to what was dangling from the ceiling. Or rather, who.

  A length of chain was suspended over the middle of the open rectangle, tied around a rafter. From the chain hung, head down, the nude, bleeding form of a woman. Her legs were tied at ankles and knees with rope that sparkled in the light, as if shot through with some kind of metal filings. The same stuff had been used to bind her wrists, and a length of it ran from there to attach tightly to a ring affixed into the stone floor.

  The woman had fallen silent when Karl and I burst in, but it wasn't hard to figure why she'd been screaming. She looked to be bleeding from three points, in a line between her groin and breasts. The wounds were three symbols carved into her body, probably by the silver-bladed knife in the hand of the man who stood nearby. He was giving Karl and me the kind of look that most men reserve for Jehovah's Witnesses who show up during the Super Bowl.

  I assumed the man was the one I'd started calling the Evil Wizard Sligo. But the woman I knew for certain: it was Christine.

  I brought the shotgun up to aim, but Sligo took two fast steps sideways that put Christine's body between him and my gun barrel, using her as a shield. Well, nobody said that Evil Wizards have to be brave. Off to my left, I saw Karl moving forward slowly and at an angle, probably maneuvering for a clear shot. I shuffled to the right, with the same idea in mind.

  Then Sligo shouted a couple of words in a language I didn't recognize and brought enough of himself out from behind Christine to make a quick throwing motion in my direction, before ducking back.

  Motherfucker throws like a girl.

  But I guess form doesn't count for much in magic, because an orb of fire about the size of a beach ball appeared in midair, moving fast and coming right at me. I had just enough time to realize that I was about to die when the fireball dissolved into nothing, about twenty feet from me.

  It seemed that Vollman was on the job.

  I took another couple of slow steps, waiting for Sligo to expose enough of himself for a shot that wouldn't endanger Christine.

  Don't look at her. Focus. Focus on sending this bastard to Hell, then you can help her. Focus.

  Sligo stuck his head out from the other side of Christine's dangling form and repeated the throwing motion, with the identical result. The ball of fire flew at Karl, but dissipated before it reached him.

  Sligo wasn't done yet. He made a cryptic gesture at me while muttering something I couldn't hear, and then a dozen knives were in the air, as if they'd been thrown by twelve expert hands, all right at me.

  But then that wave of edged steel suddenly parted, and I heard the knives bounce and clatter harmlessly off the stone wall behind me.

  I was closer to the altar now.

  He sent Karl a swarm of what looked like hundreds of bees, buzzing like a madman's dream – I assumed they were the African killer variety. By the time they reached Karl, the vicious insects had been transformed into drops of water. The only harm he suffered, far as I could tell, was getting a little of it in his eyes.

  Then Sligo dispatched a blast of hurricane-force wind at both of us, which, just for an instant, was strong enough to drive me back a step, before it turned into a gentle breeze.

  Go, Vollman.

  I'd made a couple more steps forward when Sligo's arm snaked out from behind Christine. His hand held the silver-coated dagger, and he placed the point right over her heart.

  "Hold! Both of you!" he yelled. I stopped at once, and saw Karl do the same.

  After a few seconds, Sligo slid out from behind Christine, but the dagger point never lost contact with her flesh. I noticed she was still bleeding from the three wounds he'd inflicted on her earlier.

  Now I got my first good look at Sligo, aka Richard Vollman. He didn't look anything special, but I knew from experience that Evil Wizards are rarely nine feet tall, and they hardly ever have horns and a tail. Sligo looked to be about twenty, which I guess was his age when Dad lost control of his appetite and turned him. Apart from the hair, which was the same slicked-back widow's peak as his old man, I didn't see much family resemblance. He was slim, maybe six feet, dressed in tight jeans and a white dress shirt with the sleeves folded back a couple of times. Guess he hadn't figured that becoming the world's first super-vampire was a fancy dress occasion.

  Sligo was breathing like someone who's just sprinted a hundred yards. He pointed a finger at me, and I noticed his hand was shaking a little as he said, "You! How is it that a couple of miserable fucking blood bags like you two can suddenly work magic? If you had the Talent, either of you, I'd have smelled it on you earlier. How?"

  Then a voice I recognized spoke from behind me.

  "They do not perform magic. But I do."

  Sligo's eyes widened for an instant, before narrowing into slits.

  "I should have known." He nodded slowly. "I should have known you'd interfere, even find some pathetic warmbloods to do your bidding."

  Sligo gestured with his free hand toward the central altar, the book resting atop it like a big, poisonous toad. "But not this time, old man. You can't stop me! And when the transformation is complete, the first thing I'm going to do is come for you – at high noon. I
'll find you, cowering from the sun in your pathetic box of earth, and then I'll drag you outside and watch you burn!"

  "No, Richard," Vollman said. His voice sounded as full of sorrow as his son's was full of hate. "It must stop here. It must stop tonight."

  Vollman walked briskly forward, spreading his arms like wings. Sligo withdrew the knife from Christine's breast and began to walk toward his father.

  I realized he'd just given me a clean shot, and I wanted to end this fucker's life more than I wanted my next breath, and I brought the gun up to kill him, but Sligo, even while moving toward his father, made a complex gesture in the air – and this tme Vollman was too preoccupied to block the spell.