Deadtown d-3

by Nancy Holzner

  “But how—” I began, and then I realized. Baldwin’s power came from Difethwr. When I severed their bond, all his power crumbled, all his spells failed. He was helpless against Clarinda’s magic.

  She nodded, as though she’d read my thoughts. “Here,” she said, holding out a bundle of cloth. “You’re shivering.”

  I reached out a shaking arm and took the bundle. It unfurled from my hand—a black robe with mystical symbols painted on it. Baldwin’s magician’s costume. Nothing glowed or shimmered now, but the robe was wool and looked warm. I pulled it over my head. It was like wrapping a blanket around myself, and I felt better immediately. The shaking diminished, then stopped. And still the demon mark was quiet. Almost as if it had never been there at all.

  I flexed and straightened my fingers, fascinated, twisting my wrist this way and that.

  “I’ve been in touch with the coven,” Clarinda said. “The police are on their way.”

  Given Baldwin’s attack on the Halloween parade, I suspected it might be a while before the cops got here. I opened my senses to the demonic plane to see what was happening out there. Nothing but blessed silence. No shrieks, no screams, no maniacal laughter. Like the spell that bound Clarinda, the call to the Harpies had fallen apart when Baldwin lost power over his Hellion. For tonight, maybe for a few nights, Boston was a demon-free zone. That was good. I could use a vacation.

  Behind me, a growl started low and rough, and then swelled to a roar. Not on the demonic plane—this was a human sound. “What the hell is going on?” yelled Frank Lucado.

  Clarinda jumped. “I didn’t cut him loose yet,” she said, her eyes wide. She turned to the altar, then back toward me. “Is he really an evil man?” she whispered.

  “Evil? Frank? Not really. Annoying’s more like it.” Clarinda ventured a thin smile at that. I didn’t know much about sorcery, but I suspected Blood of an Annoying Man wouldn’t add much firepower to a spell. Even if it was sometimes tempting to shed a bit of it, I thought, as Lucado’s cursing grew louder.

  I climbed to my feet, feeling steady now. “Don’t worry,” I told Clarinda. “I’ll take care of Frank.”

  Lucado was thrashing around as much as he could, yelling and swearing, doing his best to break free. But he was tied down tightly, and so far all he’d managed to do was lose the cloth that had covered him.

  “Hang on, Frank,” I said. “You’re going to injure yourself.”

  Lucado went rigid. His head whipped around to face me, the scar as red as his rage. Then he sighed. “Jesus,” he said. “I should’ve known.”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m here to save you. Hold still and I’ll cut you loose.” I picked up Baldwin’s would-be sacrificial dagger.

  “Hurry up, for God’s sake. And throw that sheet back over me. I ain’t decent.”

  “Just what I’ve always said about you, Frank.” I moved to cut the ropes that held his wrists to the altar, then paused. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you fire me again?”

  “Whaddaya mean, fire you? You’re always yammering about how nobody can fire you. Anyhow, I’ll hire you back. I’ll give you two weeks’ pay. Just quit screwing around and get me off this goddamned table.”

  Two weeks’ pay. Nice. I wouldn’t hold him to it, but it was good to be appreciated. With a single slice, I cut through the ropes that immobilized his wrists. Another swipe, and his ankles were free. As Frank sat up, rubbing his wrists, I picked up the altar cloth from the floor and dropped it in his lap. He wrapped it around himself like a shawl and glared at me.

  “Why is it,” he asked, “that any place there’s trouble, there’s you?”

  “You’re just lucky I like you so much, Frank. Your buddy Baldwin was going to use your blood in a spell to destroy the city. Then he was going to give you to the Hellion to play with.”

  Frank’s eyes went wide. “That blue monster? That thing’s around here?” He turned his head frantically, clutching at the altar cloth.

  “Relax. It’s gone.”

  “Really? You ain’t gonna show up at my house tomorrow and tell me it’s out to get me?”

  “Baldwin’s the one who sent it after you. He thought he was some big powerful sorcerer. But I took his demon away from him and sent it back to Hell.” I was just hoping Difethwr would stay there.

  “Seth? A sorcerer? Are you kidding me? He hates that spooky shit.” Lucado’s brow furrowed, and he cocked his head. “Wait a minute. I remember. He gave me a Scotch that tasted funny. I felt wasted after two sips. And I remember—” He jumped from the altar and stormed over to where Baldwin sat on the floor. “You son of a bitch!” Lucado stepped back and kicked Baldwin hard in the ribs. Baldwin didn’t move. He didn’t even make a noise—Clarinda must have laid a silencing spell on him, too. But his eyes brimmed with fury and pain.

  Lucado pulled back his leg for another kick. I ran up behind him, got both arms around his chest, and lifted him off the ground. He struggled and cursed, but I was stronger. I backed him away from Baldwin and held him until he stopped struggling. When he went limp, I put him down.

  “Don’t beat him up, Frank. Let the cops handle it.”

  Lucado stood, breathing hard, staring at Baldwin. “All right,” he said, moving toward his former friend, “but I’m not going to stand around freezing in a goddamn sheet while that asshole wears a nice warm suit.”

  A couple of minutes later, Baldwin sat naked on the floor, a little blue with cold but bound too firmly by Clarinda’s spell even to shiver. Frank wore Baldwin’s gray suit. It was too tight, and the sleeves and pant legs were too short, but he looked better than I’d ever seen him. Alive looked good on old Frank.

  That’s when the cops burst in. Guys in uniforms fanned out across the room, guns drawn, and everyone put their hands up. Everyone but Baldwin, that is. When the cop nearest me—a kid with acne on his chin—saw Baldwin, his eyes went wide with recognition, and he swung the gun in my direction. I couldn’t blame him. Baldwin looked pathetic sitting there on the dirty floor, all paunchy and goose bumpy and pasty-fleshed, and I was the one wearing the funky wizard’s costume. It was Halloween of course, but this kid was probably already spooked out by the Harpy attack on the parade. Now, his eyes rolled, and the gun he pointed at me shook.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I’m not a threat. I can explain—”

  “Watch that one, Collins,” said a voice behind me. “That’s one damn slippery freak.”

  I didn’t have to turn around to know whose voice it was. A second later, Norden appeared in front of me, sneering, followed by his zombie partner, Sykes. It figured the Goon Squad would be in charge—we were in the New Combat Zone. But why did it have to be these two? Norden lived to give PAs like me a hard time. Well, tonight I wasn’t putting up with his crap. Guns or no guns, I dropped my hands and put myself right in his ugly, pitted face.

  “I’m not the bad guy here, Norden,” I said. “Seth Baldwin tried to destroy the city. He was practicing unlawful sorcery, using the black arts to cause harm, and probably half a dozen other violations.”

  Norden glanced over at Baldwin. A cop was trying to help him stand, but Clarinda’s binding spell meant that he kept flopping back into the same position on the floor.

  “Yeah,” Norden scoffed. “The guy looks real dangerous. Why should I believe you?”

  “Listen, blood bag, you’d have been Hellion food by now if I hadn’t—”

  “Victory! Thank the Goddess you’re all right.” Roxana Jade pushed past the Goons and stood in front of me, beaming. “Magnificent job! You were wonderful. Just wonderful!”

  Norden snorted, like “wonderful” was the last word he’d associate with me. But he stepped aside. In another second I saw why. Roxana was with Tony Bergonzi, head of the Goon Squad. Captain Bergonzi was a norm, but he was respected in Deadtown.

  Roxana looked gorgeous, as usual, but tonight she looked more like a practicing witch than when I’d last seen her. She wore a long, midnight blue gown, and a silver ci
rclet of stars glittered on her raven hair. I was suddenly aware of how filthy I must be. Well, fighting demons was dirty work. Almost as dirty as being one. I sniffed to check for any lingering eau de Harpy, then thought the hell with it. We were at a crime scene, not a charity ball.

  Roxana introduced me to Bergonzi, who impressed me by shaking my grimy hand. I could see why the monsters didn’t mind him having some authority on our turf. Bergonzi turned to Norden, who’d pulled out a magic meter, which was used to detect the quantity and kind of magic present in a place, and was trying to turn it on. The thing hummed half to life, then sputtered. Norden swore under his breath and banged the instrument against the palm of his hand.

  “Don’t worry about that now, Norden,” Bergonzi said. “You and Sykes go interview Mr. Lucado.” He jerked his head toward Lucado, and I got the feeling that Norden and his partner were being dismissed.

  Norden must have felt that way, too, because he scowled at me. On second thought, that was probably his natural expression. He thumped the magic meter again and muttered, “Damn piece of junk,” shot me another scowl, and then said,

  “C’mon, Sykes.” The partners went over to Lucado, who leaned against the altar where he’d been held captive.

  “I don’t think Frank will remember much,” I said. “He was passed out for most of the fun.”

  Bergonzi nodded, a far-off look in his eyes as though he was thinking about something else.

  I was ready to get the hell out of there and go home, so I said, “I guess you’ll want me to make a statement.”

  Bergonzi’s eyes focused on me again. “Yes,” he replied. “But we already know what happened here.”

  “You do?”

  “We got the whole thing,” Roxana said.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “We plugged the scrying mirror into the coven’s computer and captured the transmission in digital. I burned it to a DVD and gave it to Captain Bergonzi.”

  Wow. Ancient earth magic meets high tech. Who knew?

  “I’m the only one who’s seen it,” Bergonzi said. He cleared his throat, and a calculating look crossed his face. I wondered what was coming. “And that brings me to what I wanted to say. We’d prefer to keep it quiet that a Hellion was inside Boston. So I’ll take your statement myself. Next week at headquarters would be fine.”

  Keep it quiet? Was this bozo planning to protect Baldwin? Maybe I’d judged him too kindly. “I don’t care what you’d ‘prefer,’ Captain. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let Baldwin walk.”

  “No, no. I didn’t mean that. He’ll be charged with conjuring demons to cause public mayhem, for sending those Harpies against the parade. Believe me, Baldwin’s not walking away from this. He’s going to prison for a long, long time.” He gestured at Baldwin, who was being handcuffed as Clarinda prepared to remove her binding spell. “But there’s no need, is there, to publicize the fact an amateur, unregistered sorcerer was able to breach the shield? That the city was nearly destroyed by a legion of Hellions? We don’t want any other would-be sorcerers getting ideas.”

  I considered. I certainly didn’t want another run-in with a Hellion anytime soon. And maybe—just maybe—keeping this quiet would keep my face off TV for the next news cycle.

  “Okay,” I said. Bergonzi gave me a politician’s smile and clapped me on the shoulder, then walked past Norden, who was fiddling with the magic meter again, to talk to Clarinda.

  I watched him approach the witch, who cringed, looking as though she’d like nothing better than to disappear. If witches really could pull tricks like that, I’m sure she would have.

  I turned to Roxana. “What will the coven do to Clarinda?”

  Roxana pursed her lips. “She broke the first rule of witchcraft: harm none. There’s no more serious offense in the Craft.”

  “Go easy on her. There were extenuating circumstances—Baldwin used the Destroyer to kill her uncle, then threatened to do the same to her child.”

  “I know. We heard Baldwin through the scrying mirror.”

  “And what does ‘harm none’ mean in a dilemma like that? Resist Baldwin and let him kill your child in the most horrible way possible? Isn’t that doing harm?”

  She kept her lips pursed and didn’t answer.

  “Besides, your scrying mirror didn’t show what happened after the Hellion was gone. Sending that thing back to Hell knocked me flat. Baldwin could’ve got away. But Clarinda stopped him. She didn’t harm him”—I’d have killed the guy if I’d been her—“she immobilized him. And then called you.”

  “I see your point. We’ll take what you’ve said into consideration.” Then she smiled at me in a girlfriend-to-girlfriend way, clearly wanting to change the subject. “But let’s talk about what youdid, Victory. That was brilliant, the way you yanked the Destroyer away from Baldwin’s control. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”

  Neither had I. And I wasn’t ready to think about the consequences yet. “Let’s find your amulet,” I said. I could change the subject, too. “I must have dropped it when the shield opened. That was a pretty intense moment.”

  “I’ll say. Look how far down I chewed my nails.” She splayed a hand, the nails short and ragged, dried blood along the index finger’s nail bed. Good to know there was one thing about Roxana that wasn’t perfect.

  I led the way to where I’d been standing when Difethwr had been sucked through the vortex, and we kicked through the debris on the floor. “Here it is,” Roxana said. She picked it up, tied the leather loop ends together, and hung it around her neck. She crossed to my right side—and the amulet lit up. Not a pale pink this time, but a shining, bloodred crimson, bright as the lights on a fire truck.

  I stared at it. The damn stone was as bright as it had been in the presence of Difethwr. Had the Hellion come back? Or—good God—was it me making the amulet light up? I still felt nothing from the demon mark.

  Norden came sprinting over like an alarm had gone off, holding his magic meter out in front of him. “What is it? What’s happening over here?” He swept the magic meter back and forth.

  Roxana glanced at me as she strolled casually toward him, placing herself on my left side. The stone faded back to clear. “Residual energy,” she said. “Victory was showing me the spot where Baldwin stood when he launched the Harpy attack. There were thousands of those demons here. It takes a while for that kind of energy to fade.”

  Norden pointed his meter at me, and the damned thing clicked like a Geiger counter in a uranium mine. My heart was beating almost as fast. He motioned me away, and I realized he was pointing at the spot where I stood, not at me. I took a couple of steps back. He frowned as the clicking slowed down and pointed the meter at me again. It revved right up, and I stepped back again, this time involuntarily. He moved toward me, still frowning. Then the meter sputtered to a complete stop.

  He swore under his breath, shook it, and swore again, audibly this time. “I knew this was a piece of junk.”

  “For some kinds of energy,” Roxana said, “the old ways work better. Look—” She dangled the amulet in front of him. I made sure to stay well back and keep my left side toward the amulet. “See? The amulet is crystal clear. The demonic energy is gone now. Might as well put that thing away.”

  Norden squinted at the amulet. Then he shook the meter one more time, frowning, and stuck it in his pocket. “I’m done here anyway,” he said. “Captain,” he called to Bergonzi across the room, “I’m heading back to headquarters to write up my report. C’mon, Sykes.” The zombie shambled over to him, and the two of them left together.

  When Norden was gone, Roxana winked at me. “Jamming spell,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Captain Bergonzi would’ve reined him in, but there’s no point in creating an awkward situation with the Goon Squad.”

  Especially not with that particular Goon.

  Roxana put the amulet in her purse. “What does it mean,” she asked, tilting her head, “to have tha
t Hellion bound to you?”

  “I don’t know.” I’d thought that the demon’s mark had given Difethwr power over me, but apparently it went both ways. Hellion power corrupts, as Baldwin had proved, but could my own power affect the demon? I rubbed the demon mark and flexed the fingers of my right hand. Still nothing. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “But I’ll do my damnedest to make sure it stays in Hell where it belongs.”

  I WAS HOME BEFORE TEN. JULIET WAS OUT, BUT THAT WAS no surprise. Halloween was a major feast night for her. I took a long shower to wash away the grime and any last traces of Harpy. Then I threw Baldwin’s sorcerer’s robe in the trash and put on some normal clothes: tan leather jeans and a thick brown ribbed turtleneck. Feeling a little more like myself, I picked up the phone and called Gwen.

  “Vicky! Thank God. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. How’s Maria?”

  “She’ll be fine.” Gwen’s voice held a strained note, suggesting that “fine” might be a long-term goal.

  “Can I talk to her?”

  A long pause answered my question.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to me,” I said at last.

  “She’s just a little girl,” Gwen said. “She needs some time.”

  “Yes, sure. Of course. So how about I come out next weekend and treat the kids to a movie?”

  Another pause. “Let me call you, Vic. When I’m sure the time is right.”

  All of a sudden, my eyes were stinging. I wiped them on my sleeve. “I understand. Well, keep in touch, okay?”

  “You know I will. And I’m really glad you’re okay. We all are.”

  I wondered if that meant Maria. Two days ago, I’d been her hero. After what had happened today, how could she see me as anything but a monster—a real one? I said good-bye to my sister and started to hang up.

  “Wait!” she said.

  I waited. Gwen took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say thanks. For going up there and bringing my baby home.”

  “Oh, Gwen. How could I have done anything else?”

  As I hung up, I wiped my eyes again. The phone was still in my hand, and I needed to make a decision. I had to find out about Daniel. I’d asked Bergonzi if there was any news from New Hampshire. He either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell me, acting like he had no clue what I was talking about. I’d have to call Daniel’s apartment, talk to his wife. But I’d do it in the morning. By norm hours, it was too late to call now.