The fear was growing stronger in the judge’s gaze. And the blood was draining from his lips.
“It was created to do all of this. And ultimately, one more thing.”
I didn’t like the way he said that. He paused briefly, drawing his thoughts together before going on.
“The wand was created back in the ninth century by an alchemist and necromancer by the name of Emile Dantiere. The man was privately wealthy, but also eccentric and obsessed with darkness. And he chose to make his home in one of the filthiest slums in Lyon, a place so dank and dangerous even troops thought twice before going there. He hoped that way to keep what he was doing hidden from the outside world.”
Levin stared across at the barrier, his face seeming to draw in traces of its shifting darkness.
“For four decades he lived and worked there. And we’re talking about an era when the average lifespan was less than that. There’s little doubt he used his magic to prolong his years. He used it for a lot of other things as well.”
“What exactly was he doing?” I asked.
“What any sorcerer of his kind does. He was searching for ultimate power.”
It had been practically the turn of the ninth century—the judge explained—when Dantiere started to make the wand. And by that time, he had gone completely mad.
“I think that’s part of the solution to all this, and why it’s happened now. Whatever else Lucas might have been, he was not clinically insane. He must have used the wand thousands of times, without ever once understanding the kind of brutal force that he was holding in his grasp. He probably thought it was a conjuring device like any other. But he couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“You’re telling me,” I asked him, “that its real power can only be got at by a man like Dantiere himself?”
“A raving lunatic. Exactly.”
“Hanlon.”
“Yes.” The judge straightened up a little. “That’s what we’ve been seeing this entire time. It’s not that our visitor’s been growing stronger. More likely, the wand has been opening up to him, revealing itself in its true form.”
And to me, that sounded like the same thing as…
“It likes him?”
Levin nodded stiffly.
“You’re talking about it like it was alive.”
“It is, Devries.”
That staggered me. Despite which, I could see that the judge wasn’t finished yet.
“Okay,” I asked him. “What’s it really for?”
His gaze became extremely distant. And his face went slack.
“Emile Dantiere was killed before he ever got to use it, thank the Lord. One of his neighbors realized he was up to something truly evil, and so crept into his home and stabbed him while he slept. The wand got passed on from hand to hand—after that—without anyone ever recognizing its true potential.”
He stared around at us.
“By the time he created it, Dantiere had grown so violently insane that he had come to hate all living things. The ultimate purpose of the wand is to bring on the end, the Apocalypse.”
“The end of everything we know,” said Martha.
And it was now in the grip of a modern-day madman who really wanted that.
CHAPTER 57
Almost as soon as she had spoken, Paul McKendrick mouthed a curse, his thick silver eyebrows coming up. And our attention swung to the point where his gaze was fixed.
It wasn’t a matter of tight focus either. The whole barrier was changing shape.
The front section was no longer rectangular. Its outer edges had become distorted, shapeless. And the central part, where the gates had been, was growing taller, oozing upward as I watched. The whole thing seemed to have taken on a life of its own. I reminded myself there was a consciousness behind it.
“What’s it doing?” Martha blurted.
Except if she didn’t know by this stage, who else was supposed to?
The distorted mass became slightly translucent. And, for the first time since the walls had gone up, the outlines of Millwood House became vaguely apparent through them.
I squinted, trying to understand what I was looking at. It didn’t make any sense, at first. And then I finally got it. I’d been trying to pick out proper shapes. The truth was, there were none. I was looking at a tangled jumble, nothing more than that. We hadn’t heard the tiniest sound. But the whole mansion had been demolished. There was not an intact portion standing anywhere.
Not a wall still upright, even part of one. The place had been ripped apart completely and reduced to shattered rubble. The really strange thing was, it wasn’t strewn around the way you might expect.
This was not mindless destruction, like we’d seen throughout the rest of town. There’d been planning behind it once again. The wreckage was piled up in a solid block, some fifteen feet in height. And at the very top was a deep indentation. I struggled to figure out what I was really looking at.
The barrier was pulling itself into an upright shape, some kind of irregular column. It dwarfed by far the pile of shattered bricks behind it. And it kept on growing, so tall that my neck practically creaked. A dark gray pillar, maybe forty feet from top to bottom. It reached high enough to blot out several stars.
Then it started to resolve into a different shape. One that I recognized almost straightaway. I had seen this before, and not so long ago. Massively enlarged—but it was Hanlon, still transformed into his Death persona. I think I cursed as well, at that point, sick to my stomach of this maniac.
The bare skull was there again, its sockets peering down at us, the fixed grin still in place. The bony fingers and the black robes too, the whole thing vastly magnified. But there were a few differences.
Where there’d been lightless hollows in its eyes before, there were now flames. They burned a ruddy crimson color. You could practically feel the heat from them the whole way down here.
Where there’d been bared teeth, the canines had extended to long, sharply pointed fangs. There was a fluid dripping from them that I didn’t doubt was venom.
There weren’t merely bony fingertips this time. Long, curving nails protruded from them, cruel-looking, like talons. And—between the thumb and index finger of the right hand—I could see the Wand of Dantiere, as tiny as a toothpick in that giant grasp. It looked insignificant from this distance. But I’d been around magic long enough to not be fooled.
The moon was up behind him, like some muddled reflection of his face. At first, Hanlon merely stood there, casting his massive shadow across us. But I didn’t imagine that would last for very long. My gaze swung to Levin.
“Is there nothing you can do about this?”
Fear and sadness jostled for position on his features. I had never seen him look so helpless.
“Once begun, this can’t be stopped,” he said. “Only the person holding the wand can control events from this point onward. Dantiere intended it that way.”
“I can’t accept that!”
But his shoulders slumped.
“You might have to, I’m afraid.”
I thought of everything we’d been through. And it had been full of pain and loss, for sure, but we’d come out the right end of it. Found solutions to each problem. So I wasn’t about to accept that verdict. There had to be some way to prevent this.
Then I remembered who else was here, and my attention went across to Lauren.
“You’re not bound by Regan’s Curse,” I told her. “You can still get out of here.”
I had already started wondering—if the End of Days was coming, then would it be confined solely to the Landing, or would it spread out to the normal world? At least, if it was the former, she still had a fighting chance.
There was a strange thrumming noise above us. That was the creature moving its cloaked arms, the air around them being pushed aside. The wind from it brushed across our faces and made the shrubbery around us clash.
She could still get to safety. Or the hope of it, at least. But Lauren
shook her head. She kept on staring at the skull above us. Her own face had taken on a peculiar glow.
“No, Ross. I told you—I’m not leaving without him.”
Which was pretty crazy, given what was happening. Except…I understood craziness of that kind, and respected it. She was still as determined as she’d ever been, and even tougher-minded than she’d been a bare few days ago.
“If you stay, you might not be leaving here at all,” I pointed out.
A stern expression crossed her features. “There’s always that chance.”
Okay then. I kept on staring at her.
“Any ideas?”
“Me? ’Fraid not.”
Me neither. I peered back at the enormous figure.
Maybe it was the fixed grin, the kind that all skulls have. But it looked delighted with itself, like it had done something exceptionally clever. My flesh crawled. Who was this really? Some nut who got his jollies bringing suffering down on innocent folk. Whatever he had turned himself into, that was the image I held in my mind. I wasn’t going to back down from him, the way the adepts had. Like most bad guys, he relied on that.
He thought he had already won, and I could see that clearly. He looked down at us again, every motion languid. Then, with a decisive air, he settled onto the pile of rubble. That was its purpose, I could see. It was intended as some kind of throne.
He sat perfectly upright, his off-white, bony chin raised. I suppose the word for it would be “imperiously.” The flame in his eyes seemed to burn a little brighter. Then he raised the wand. Its tip winked in the moonlight.
“Jesus Christ!” I heard Vallencourt murmur.
The figure lifted its arm as high as it was able. And drew the wand across the night sky like a pencil. It couldn’t be actually touching the heavens—anyone knew that. But it still left the faintest mark. A thin line, traveling downward. A barely visible abrasion on the purple darkness, almost like a narrow scar.
I was trying to work out how that could even be possible, when it deepened and then split open. A strong, moaning wind began to push out through it, carrying all kinds of odors. Foul ones. Most of the guys around me ducked their heads.
Then something started shifting in the bottomless darkness beyond the gap. And when I looked closer…
No, not simply one thing.
A load of them. An amassed army.
CHAPTER 58
I glanced back around at the judge. His spectacles had turned glossy in the white glow of the moon, making it look as though the things that he was witnessing had blinded him. And his mouth had dropped to a wide oval, showing off his teeth and tongue. His normal dignity had vanished. He was too amazed to even begin showing signs of fear. Although I didn’t doubt that that would come.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
He didn’t even seem to hear me at first. And didn’t turn to me when he finally replied.
“I didn’t think that this could happen! It’s completely beyond anything we know!”
“What is?”
“He’s torn open a barrier! Between our dimension and another!”
He’d explained to me once that there were literally thousands of them. Multitudes of states of being, invisible walls holding them apart. Some were pleasant. And some rather less than that. There was no need to guess which kind this was. There was the smell, for starters. And the shapes behind the opening seemed to be writhing.
The stench was mostly rotting flesh. But there were other odors in there too. The pressure of the wind increased around us.
The rest of the night sky was normal. But the hole gaped across it like an open mouth.
Something pushed its way out from the bottom edge and dropped the twenty feet or so to the ground with no apparent injury. It lay there for a few seconds, curled up on its back. It was some kind of mottled brown hue, and I thought I could see folded arms and legs. But it was hard to be sure. The thing was balled up like a giant wood louse.
Then it started to unravel. Four narrow limbs suddenly appeared. There were what looked like hands on the ends of each, except that they were flat and splayed. They waved for a moment in the air. And then the thing flipped over, righting itself.
It hunched down on its hind legs, gazed at us and snarled, displaying rows of pointed teeth. It looked like one of the gargoyles on the rooftop of Raine Manor, except furrier and larger. Standing at full height, I guessed it had to be about four feet. And its limbs might be thin, but they still looked powerful.
Its face was a grotesque parody of a human one, the ears going to tufted spikes, the mouth much wider than it should have been. The eyes were a bilious pale yellow, and the brow above them was heavily ridged.
Two more of the things came tumbling out. Lay beside the first a moment, in the same position. Then sprung up themselves. They were its exact brothers, identical in every way. And they peered at us balefully. One of them sniffed the air and hissed.
“Some breed of demon from the lower orders,” I heard the judge say.
He had reached out with his powers, to understand them.
“They seem largely mindless, little more than animals. Though I’d imagine, pretty deadly.”
His voice had changed, losing its urgency. Becoming far more measured, purposeful. This was push-comes-to-shove time, and he knew it. Everyone here did. And he’d responded to that by finding a little of his calmer self, taking in the fact that panic was useless.
There was so much hurried movement beyond the opening, it was impossible to make out individual shapes. A churning swarm of darkened bodies was the only thing that I could see.
“How many of them are there?” I asked.
“At a rough guess? Millions.”
The first few had only been the vanguard. They were dropping to the ground in a continuous flow by this stage. First a small bunch at a time, then dozens. And the wind that accompanied them was getting even more intense, making it hard to stand up straight.
The creatures at the front got up from their crouched position and started to approach us. And the rest began to follow them.
They came on all four limbs, making no attempt to stand upright. Looked like they could move fast, but were closing in cautiously right now. This had to be as new to them as it was to us. Did they even know what a moon and stars were? Hills, trees, blades of grass?
Those yellow gazes swiveled around, taking in their surroundings in a slightly edgy manner. But then they fixed on us, trying to size us up. Trying to get the measure of the weapons in our hands especially. The creatures lurched and shuddered as they moved. The fur on their bodies was patched with dampness.
Ritchie Vallencourt yelled out, and the cops opened fire.
Chunks were blown out of the hunched shapes. Flecks of yellow goop began appearing on the ground. But it didn’t seem to hurt them as much as it should have, even when small sections of their heads came off. I could see what the problem was immediately. They didn’t seem to have vital spots the way that we did. This was like trying to kill insects with a needle. Which part of them did you hit to actually stop them moving?
Several of them started limping as a leg was blown away. But even those ones kept on trying to move in on us, hobbling on their shattered stumps. They were making high-pitched yowling noises, their jaws stretching open wide.
Levin squared his shoulders.
“If this is to be my final day,” he sighed, “then I might as well make it a memorable one.”
He stepped out smoothly from the shadows of the topiary. Extended his palms in the direction of the closing horde. Two beams of white light shot out from them, and a pair of the demons burst into flames and disintegrated.
Martha Howard-Brett stepped up beside him, doing the same thing. Which meant that they were taking four down at a time. But it didn’t discourage the rest in any way. And there were hundreds more tumbling from the opening, falling so rapidly that they were dropping onto the backs of the ones that had preceded them. A huge pile of the t
hings was forming, narrow feet and elbows thrashing everywhere you looked. And as soon as the creatures at the bottom struggled out, more came down to take their place.
I was firing furiously, and there was gunsmoke all around me. But you could shoot at these things for hours, and it wouldn’t be any real use. How long would it be, I wondered, before we started to run out of ammo? And the adepts would begin to weaken as their powers were drained away.
I stared back at Hanlon. He still had that grin in place. And wasn’t even looking at us any longer. He was peering at the gap he’d made, watching the creatures struggle through. His skeletal hands were on the move, like he was conducting a symphony. There was something almost dreamlike to the way that he did that.
My gaze went to the Wand of Dantiere, clutched between his massive fingers. If I could somehow get it away from him…?
Last time we’d been in a hole like this, Amashta—the ancient shaman woman—had helped. Her dry voice had started ringing in my head, and then her powers had flowed through me. But there was no sign of that happening right now. If she was watching, she was standing back.
“Defender,” she had called me. So was I expected to do this by myself?
I thought of maybe trying to shoot the wand, but there were two things working against that. In the first place, it was a good long way off and a moving target. In the second, I doubted that a mere bullet would work.
I stepped out into open ground myself. There had to be another way to get the thing from him. But how?
“Just grab it, while his attention is elsewhere,” suggested an aristocratically toned voice, behind me.
Raine?
But when I whirled around, he wasn’t there. Only the darkness of the house behind me met my startled gaze. No one else had reacted, so maybe only I could hear him.
“I’m still in the Manor, sport.”
His voice was behind me once again. And so I didn’t bother turning, this time.
“I don’t need to go outside to talk to people. Surely you must realize that?”
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