“I know. And he’s not coming back.” He looked up at Yashar. “Why do I always have to kill my friends?”
“Colby—”
“No. It’s all I’ve ever done. Too many friends over too short a time. Sometimes I think the only reason I’ve lived so long is that my curse isn’t that I end badly, like so many of your other kids, but rather that I’m cursed to end up alone with the knowledge that I’m the one who got everyone killed. If I survive tonight, it will only be because I killed another of my friends. And I’m running low.”
“That’s not your curse, Colby.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s my curse.” Yashar reached down and began fiddling with the countless baubles, trinkets, and other jewelry adorning his outfit. “I’ve never told you about these, mostly because you never asked.”
“Oh,” said Colby, never having given them much thought, but now, in an instant, understanding. “Those aren’t—”
“They are. Each and every one from a different child. One from each.”
Colby looked closer. They hung from chains and loops and short leather cords. Christmas ornaments. Rings. Bracelets. Toys. Each coated in bronze, silver, or gold. It had always struck Colby as being a bit garish, but he’d never really processed it. It was just one of those things, something he assumed was a product of someone from another age.
“Where’s mine?” asked Colby.
Yashar reached into his pocket. “I don’t wear it until they’re gone,” he said. “But I keep them with me, nonetheless.” He pulled out an ugly, plastic, digital watch with the face of a long-forgotten cartoon character, so far gone that Colby himself couldn’t name who it was. But he recognized it. It was the watch he’d worn as a child when Yashar first met him, that he’d used to count the minutes until Yashar would show up again to grant him his wish. The one his mother was always so keen to make sure he was wearing. “It’s never easy to have to wear these for the first time. These last six months I’ve known that it would be any day now. Now I know—the kid who wore this was gone a long time ago.”
“Yashar—”
“Don’t. I won’t wear it. Not yet. But after tonight, no matter how it plays out, you won’t be you, not the you I knew. And you know that.”
Colby nodded, rolling the pike gently back and forth in his hands. “We can’t stay us forever.”
“No. We most certainly can’t. Ewan’s gone and so is the boy he loved. And that little girl you knew. She’s gone too. She’s something else entirely now. There’s no going back. You can’t. Everyone tries at some point. But no one ever does.”
“You don’t think we can be saved?”
“Who? You or the girl?”
“Either of us.”
“You’ve both not only walked with demons, but you also scare them. Frankly, if we’re being totally honest here, I’m not certain there’s anything of those kids left to save.” Yashar braced himself, expecting Colby to blow at any moment. Instead, Colby looked down sadly, nodding once more.
“You’re probably right. But we can try.”
“You won’t save her,” said Austin, emerging from the shadows beyond the candles. “All you can do now is save yourself.”
Colby glared at her. “You gave me till sunset.”
“I was wrong,” she said.
“I’m not leaving.”
“I mean I was wrong about you leaving. She means to kill you, Colby. There’s no talking her down from it. But it’s not you who brought her here.”
“How’s that?”
“This is her mess. They’re just using you to clean it up.”
“That’s what I tried to—”
“I told you. I was wrong. But now we’re all in it. And I don’t know how we’re going to get out of it.”
Yashar waved her off. “This isn’t your mess to get involved in. You can leave at any time.”
“Too late for that now. I met her. And the hell she’s bringing with her.”
“And?” asked Colby. “What did she—”
“She’s got no other choice. She knows she’ll never be free now. She’s made her bed. And they’ve played you both. Rigged the game. It’s you or her. And she knows that for good and for all. For her to have a chance at tomorrow, you have to die tonight. And for you to have a chance—”
“Yeah. We were just discussing that.”
“So she means to kill you. Whether I like it or not, my streets are gonna run with blood.”
“Again.”
“Yeah. Again.”
Colby gripped the pike tightly, again the djang of it tickling his senses. So much fear, so much hate, so much death, all packed neatly into a few pounds of wood and metal. “You know, I’ve been to the land of the dead. Trod where spirits have trod. And I’ve killed more than my fair share. Honestly, I can’t tell you which scares me more. Or if they even scare me at all. I’m becoming numb to the idea of death. The only thing I want now is to avoid being a tool in someone else’s shed. If I die, that’s fine, as long as it’s on my terms. And if I have to kill, I don’t want it to be for any reasons other than my own. So tonight, no matter what happens, I’m doing it the way I want to do it for the reasons I need to do it.”
Yashar shook his head. “They’ve thought of everything. Somehow, tonight, no matter what you do, you’ll be someone’s pawn.”
“Yeah. But I’m not going to let them decide whose pawn I end up. I owe myself that much.” Colby stood up, looking toward the back of the house, met by the sound of blaring trumpets, crashing cymbals. “We have guests.”
He walked over to the sliding glass door, stood the pike on its end, slid the door open for the demon. Paimon floated into the room, eight clay bowls in his arms. He quickly set them on the table without a word, promptly turning and slinking back outside.
“You’ll understand,” said Paimon through the open door, “if I leave you to it.”
“You don’t want to wait around to see if they work?” asked Colby.
Paimon scowled at Colby. “They’ll work. And you won’t trap me with them. Use them carefully and well. I would not want to be you were my brothers to find one of their own trapped by these.”
“I wouldn’t want to be you either, seeing that you’re the one that made them. I have one boon left. Aren’t you curious about who I’m going to call up?”
“No. I’ll know soon enough. And if I’m right about you, I’ll pity him. For a time.”
“For a time?”
“He’ll get out eventually. And then you’re his. Good-bye, Colby. Don’t call on me again.”
Paimon faded away, his troupe vanishing along with him.
The bowls were wide as a plate and shallow, cast out of red clay, and inscribed on both sides, covering every square inch, in cuneiform. At their center was an image of a demon carved into the clay, each bowl of the set with a different great king of Hell, the inscriptions surrounding them telling the story of their fall from Heaven. Colby had seen a number of decorative forgeries in museums, but never the real thing. Once he handled them, he understood. The difference was the red clay. That was the secret.
He sounded out the cuneiform, soon piecing together the stories, further understanding why Paimon had been so hesitant to share their secrets. Not only were these dangerous weapons, but to know how to inscribe them was to sing the song of the king it represented. That meant invoking them, possibly trapping them, ultimately commanding them. It was knowledge Colby was immediately thankful he didn’t possess.
Colby sat Indian style on the floor, surrounding himself with the bowls, the pike lying in his lap. He ran his fingers along the shaft, grasped it one more time, and felt the shadow of his friend.
“Good-bye, Ewan,” he said, closing his eyes. Then he focused and unmade the pike in a single breath.
His whole body prickled, swelling with dreamstuff. He hadn’t felt this much run through him since he was a child. He’d forgotten how powerful this thing really had been, how
mighty it had grown in such a short time. Colby became woozy, overpowered by the sensation. Gossamer jumped off the couch, running in circles, as if chasing his own tail.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“Relax, Goss,” said Yashar. “Just focus with Colby. He needs you.”
Colby nodded, unable to speak, trying to tame the energy bubbling over inside him. Gossamer stopped, then slowly trotted over, across from Colby on the other side of the bowls. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
Colby locked eyes with Goss and the energy calmed. The two passed the energy back and forth in a loop, keeping it flowing, neither having too much energy for too long. Then, taking a deep breath, Colby focused again and unleashed it all into the eight bowls around him.
For a moment, the inscriptions on the bowls glowed as brightly as the sun, the figures in the center burning brightest of all. They pulsated, hummed, the energy baking the clay further, changing the very nature of it. The red became crimson, and as the light began to fade, the inscriptions cooled to a dark, charred black.
“Now,” said Colby, sighing. “One last boon before nightfall.”
CHAPTER 57
THE SNAKEHANDLER
Purson, alias Curson, a great king, he commeth forth like a man with a lion’s face, carrying a most cruel viper, and riding on a bear; and before him go always trumpets; he knoweth things hidden, and can tell all things present, past, and to come: he discloses hidden things, he bequeaths treasure, he can take a body either human or aerie; he answereth truly of all things earthly and secret, of the divinity and creation of the world, and bringeth forth the best familiars; and there obey him two and twenty legions of devils, partly of the order of virtues & partly of the order of thrones.
—Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
While no one had lived here for decades, the place seemed remarkably well kept. Buildings still stood—rusted and weather worn though they were—their paint still vibrant in places. Many of the streets remained intact and the grass looked simply unkempt rather than wild. There were trees growing atop some of the buildings and windows broken out all along the way, but there was nothing postapocalyptic about it—it was not at all like Colby thought it would be. This was Pripyat, Ukraine, better known for the facility that used to power it.
Chernobyl.
It was safe now, he was told, or safe enough to walk around for a few hours without protection. But he wouldn’t be here long enough to care. It was approaching sundown in Austin, which meant it was still a few hours from sunup here, and it was no town in which to be wandering around. Not at night. Especially not at night.
When the people fled and the town was left to the wilds, it became the perfect place for the things beyond the veil. Anything that wanted privacy or needed a hollow to hole up in could find it here. There was a city’s worth of dark places. And only one of those was off-limits, for it had been claimed by another, one more powerful than anything else that took to its Soviet-era concrete and crumbling statues.
His name was Purson, and he held court on a depressing slab of parking lot known as the Pripyat Amusement Park.
Scheduled to open a few days after the meltdown, the park itself was nothing more than a few carnival staples—bumper cars, a paratrooper swing, a meager boat swing, and its now infamous Ferris wheel—and only ever saw a few hours of use. Now to some it was a symbol of the life that was left behind, and to others a marker of the area to avoid.
Colby and Gossamer moved quickly through black streets, the near freezing Ukrainian autumn air harsher than anything they’d encountered through the day. There were angels on the buildings above, staring down at them as they passed, and fairies of all sort and kind following through the fields, using trees as cover. They recognized him, but as he seemed to move with purpose, none wanted to risk getting in his way. So they watched. And waited. And wondered why the most powerful boy in the world was heading straight into the darkest heart of their city.
“They’re watching us,” said Gossamer.
“Let them. Just stay off the grass.”
“Why the grass?”
“Something to do with the fallout. Living things absorbing radiation. I don’t understand it myself. But everyone says stay off the grass, so I stay off the grass.”
“But going to see a demon—”
“Shut it.”
As they approached the park, their silent entourage eroded, none willing to get too close, none wanting to see Purson, or worse, have him see them. The lot was cracked, buckling in places, and the rides, up close, were a total disaster. The boat swing was a rusty series of pipes that looked as if it might collapse in a strong wind, its boat smashed to pieces on the ground below it. The disintegrating bumper cars were scattered, covered from top to bottom in graffiti, grass sprouting out of most, a tree growing in the seat of another, all beneath the brittle skeleton of a dying pavilion. The paratrooper swing was nothing more than a rickety platform with a series of park benches welded to a merry-go-round. But the Ferris wheel had kept its bright yellow color, and still, despite its rust, looked as if a little elbow grease could get it running again.
Colby and Gossamer stood on the lot between the four attractions, in the spot that felt the coldest and most devoid of energy. Then Colby raised his palms once more, and spoke, for what he hoped was the last time, in a language he was regretting ever having learned.
“Purson, I summon thee. Appear and speak.”
There was a loud crack, the earth wobbling beneath them, the whole of the world feeling numb and out of sorts. And then he appeared.
Purson was a monstrously large man, rigid muscles like hewn granite, hands massive enough to palm a man’s skull and lift him one-handed. His face was that of a lion’s, all fangs and fur and snout, but his black hair was trimmed conservatively short, like a man’s. In his left hand he held a diamondback snake just beneath its head, its tail sounding the soft, threatening rattle of an impending strike. And beneath him, serving as a saddled mount, was a fully grown grizzly, one or two sizes larger than its material cousins, its fur brown and bristling.
“Goddamnit, Colby,” said the demon, looking around the park, eyeing the ground at his feet. “Where are they?”
“Where are what?”
“Don’t play with me, boy. The bowls. Where are they?”
“Back home. Yashar is watching them.”
Purson laughed, a deep, almost reassuring kind of guffaw, like a drunken uncle telling a bad joke. “You scared the shit out of me. To hear Paimon tell it—”
“Let Paimon believe what he wants to believe,” said Colby. “I made a deal and your lot has thus far kept up their end of it.”
The grizzly roared and the snake rattled and Purson smiled, large and friendly. “She comes ever closer, Colby. You have little time left to squander with me. What boon do you ask?”
“You have no tests? No requests?”
“We don’t have time for that. My brothers were fools to waste any of yours. Your time is our time now. So speak. Ask me and I’ll grant what I must.”
“I have a question.”
“One question?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s your boon?”
“Yes.”
“Ask it, then, and be done with me.”
“Each of you has a task, a role you play, whether it be to oversee the fallen, or to keep track of the hidden things, or to bear with you some knowledge so it might be kept alive.”
“We do.”
Colby steadied himself, his question quivering in his throat. “Who,” he asked, “is the master of the Hunt?”
“The Wild Hunt?”
“Yes.”
Purson cocked his head, now far more curious about Colby than he’d been. Suddenly this boy was of keen interest. He squinted, sizing him up in a way he hadn’t thought to. “You want to know who damned you,” he said, putting it all together. “Who seduced you into calling the hunt across. Who sought you out to corrupt you, to turn you
r angelic allies against you.”
“I do.”
“Why would you want to know that? No good can come of it.”
“I have my reasons.”
Purson leaned forward atop his bear, his knowing grin growing wider with each word. “You mean to have your revenge.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Purson laughed, bellowing louder than before, the sound echoing through the empty streets, his grizzly padding the ground nervously beneath him. He turned to the snake. “Did you hear that? He wants to know who damned him.”
The snake hissed, tail writhing, rattling furiously.
“It is the boon I ask.”
“No man is ever damned by the act of another, Colby Stevens, least of all a demon. He can only damn himself. We seduce, charm, offer alternatives to the indoctrination of the taming societal shepherds keeping you in line. But the choice is yours. Were it so easy to damn someone, Hell would be overflowing with more souls than it is stuffed with now. Your revenge, were it even possible, would be fruitless, and only serve to damn you further. I wish you had asked me this beforehand, before making this your boon. I’d have gladly told you with joy in my heart. The look on your face will be worth more to me than if I were able to deliver your soul to Hell myself. But a deal is a deal, and it is your boon.
“It’s true that each of us bears responsibility for some fragment of the duties to keep this place running. We tend fallen angels, keep men at war, sink vessels, bring heat waves that cause fathers to beat their children and mothers to shoot their lovers. But no mere demon oversees the Wild Hunt, and certainly not one of the Seventy-two. The one you seek, Colby, the only one who can loose spirits from Hell to roam free and call them back at a moment’s notice, is the high lord and king of Hell itself.”
Colby’s bravery dropped into his stomach, his skin becoming suddenly flushed and sweaty. His jaw fell loose from its moorings, swinging open, wide, dumbstruck.
“Lucifer, Colby. Lucifer commands the Wild Hunt. They are his personal tools here on earth, their purpose to hunt down those spirits he wants for himself. Or to act as his heralds, warning of his coming. Or to lure the just to their doom. The Devil, Colby. The Devil is the thing against whom you want your revenge. Good luck with that. Your soul is his. And whatever his plans for it, they go beyond our feeble understanding.”
Queen of the Dark Things Page 33