by Andrew Dudek
No, you won’t, I sent. You’re not gonna be hanging around to meet my hypothetical kids. Where is she?
“Stupid ape! I have existed for eons. Before your grandfather’s grandfather was more than a glob of ooze, I stood sentinel at the Gates.”
I know that. And that’s where you’re going. You have a job to do, Cerberus. A role to perform. You know you don’t belong here, right? I want to send you back where you belong. I want to return you to your post. I want to send you home.
“And if I don’t wish to go?”
You don’t have a choice.
The king of the hellhounds laughed in my head. “You would presume to tell me what choices I have? Foolish human. You mind is weak, David William Carver, I can see it in you.” I fought down a shiver. Of course it knew my name: it was inside my head. “You do not have the strength of will to control me. You will falter, in time. You will fall, and I will feast on your flesh.”
Yeah, maybe, I sent. You may be right. I don’t have the strength of will to keep you reined in for long, and I definitely don’t have the magical power to control you, but—
There was a flash in my mind, an image or a vision or a daydream: Amy’s face was bruised and cut, but she was alive. She called my name, nodded, then gritted her teeth.
Cerberus tossed its heads back and yowled at the night sky.
That was it—that was why I was the one who had the handle on Cerberus: Amy. I had a connection with her. I remembered May mentioning once that sex can have a powerful bonding effect, magically speaking. It’s one of the reasons (beyond the obvious) why cult leaders often force their followers to engage in orgies—so they can pool their metaphysical resources and create bigger, more complex spells. The connection that I had formed with Amy wasn’t particularly strong, but it was recent. Her hold over Cerberus, which was what had drawn her into the crosshairs of April, was now at least partially mine.
You understand now, I thought to the hellhound, and I understood now myself. You do belong to me. Now—
“—tell me where she is!” I screamed.
It was one of the coolest things I’d ever done. I mean, I know I was only borrowing some of Amy’s power, some of her hold on the hellhound, but I suddenly had an idea why they say that magic can be addictive, why vampires like to feed on practitioners. Power is intoxicating. The force of my voice sent out a mental shockwave. Cerberus whimpered and shrank back as far as Edgar’s magic circle allowed.
I could feel Edgar and Dallas staring at me. I ignored them, and kept my focus on the hellhound. One of its heads lifted bravely to growl, but it was a half-hearted effort, and it snapped its jaws together.
It said, in its voice which I still only heard in my head, “The cabin in the forest. The one where you were held.”
Dammit. The little shack in the Catskills. The one I’d just left. It was closer than it could have been, but I was still looking at a drive of upwards of three hours. Way too far to get to Amy in time. Unless…
“Cerberus,” I said, “you can move quickly, right? I mean, that’s how you were always able to get there when you smelled Amy’s blood, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And can you take me with you?”
The center head nodded. “You’d need to release me from this circle.”
“Fine.”
“Very well. I will take you where you wish to go.”
“Carver,” Dallas said, what the hell are you doing? You’re gonna let this thing loose?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” I said.
The wizard shook his head. “I don’t know, man… We finally have it trapped, and you want to just let it go?”
“Captain,” Edgar said, “I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m not sure you understand just how dangerous this thing is.”
“I understand just fine. But there’s no other choice.”
Edgar pursed his lips, but he didn’t argue further. Dallas looked like he wanted throw up. He didn’t, just put his hands on his head as if he were surrendering, and walked away from the circle. I took a deep breath and swallowed. One thing I’ve learned about being a captain of the Round Table: people tend to assume you know what you’re doing.
“Cerberus says that April is holed up in the cabin where she had me tied up,” I said. “Which makes sense. I should have thought of it. Paul knows how to get there. Have him show you.” Dallas nodded and I turned to Edgar. “Thanks for the help, Professor. As far as I’m concerned, you’re relieved for the night. Go home to Arturo. It was nice meeting you and hopefully I’ll see you again.”
“I’d like that, too, Captain. Under better circumstances.” We shook hands and his eyes sparkled in the starlight. “You know, Arturo throws a Halloween party every year.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said, then turned back to the wizard. “You’re still with me, right?”
Dallas was bent over, as if examining seashells. He straightened up when I spoke and he smiled, though it was a strained, wincing expression. “See you in the woods, Carver.”
I forced a grin and clapped him on the back. “Watch yourself,” I whispered.
Cerberus was rocking back and forth, one of his heads sniffing the ground like he was looking for a place to pee. “Alright, dog-breath,” I said. “You ready to go?”
“I am.”
I took a breath. And I rubbed the toe of my boot in the line of sand, breaking the circle. The hellhound bounded forward. It ran through me, and I concentrated on forcing the beast to bend to my will. A hundred miles away, I felt a shift in power and Amy’s magic flowed through me.
Something caught me around the waist, something that felt like tendrils of fire. They were invisible, but they were there, I was sure of it. I looked down, expecting to find my T-shirt on fire and my skin burning, but there was no sign of the damage. Somehow Cerberus had extended its dark power around me—and, yeah, now that I thought about it the magic of the Otherside reminded me of the charm after Lou had enhanced it. My arm-hair was standing with the electric energy of the magic and I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 30
It wasn’t teleportation. Not exactly. I was wrapped in a cocoon of darkness, darkness that was hot, but left no mark on my skin or clothes. Felt kinda like being in an oven. An oven that could apparently fly like a supersonic jet. I bounced around in my little chamber of fire, feeling vaguely like someone’s prospective inflight meal. The smell of sulfur was overpowering, and I suspected I’d never get it out of these clothes. I don’t know how long it took, but it was fast. Maybe ten minutes: if you could tolerate the smell it was the only way to travel. Demon Express.
During the short, fast, violently uncomfortable trip, I found myself replaying the conversation with Dallas outside of Bogart’s apartment: And I’m sure it makes no difference that you’re sleeping with this girl. Maybe he was right. Was I pushing myself harder because it was someone I cared about it in danger? Was that wrong? I’d do the same for Krissy or Rob or Earl or Madison. Or May. Hell, probably for Dallas or Harrison, too. These were the people I cared about. As horribly as I’d treated them for the last few months, they were my friends, and yeah, I’d do whatever it took to protect them.
My whole life up to this point had been one sad painting, where every brushstroke was the loss of someone I cared about. My dad died when I was a toddler. I didn’t remember him. When I was a teenager, a vampire had butchered my mother. The makeshift family of adolescent vampire hunters I’d found had been massacred. My friend and mentor, Bill Foster, had betrayed the Round Table, and I’d been forced to kill him. I wasn’t going to let that painting continue. Not if I could do anything about it.
An image appeared in my mind, slowly coming into view like a wipe-transition on a movie screen. It faded in until I recognized the inside of the cabin. All of the wooden furniture was covered with empty mason jars. Well, most of them were empty. A few were full of a thick, dark liquid. A gruesome hooked knife
was dangling over one of the jars, drops falling into the glass.
The image tilted, like a camera panning up, and I could see a pair of hands, shackled to the headboard, the same way I had been. This time, though, the rope was a chain—a chain I recognized: the Leash of Cerberus. And…wait a minute…I recognized those hands, too. They were pale and scraped up, and the fingernails were painted in an acrylic, summery pink.
Amy’s hands. And I was looking at them through her eyes. It was like the POV camera in a first-person shooter game, only I had no control over what was happening, and I understood. Amy was showing me—she wanted me to know what I was walking into.
April was standing at the foot of the bed. She picked up the hooked knife and took a step forward. “I was surprised at you Amy,” she said, in the tones of someone who’s continuing a long conversation. “I didn’t expect to find someone with your kind of power at that pathetic little school.”
My vocal cords vibrated with the effort of speaking, but my mouth didn’t move, and Amy’s voice came out. “That’s because you underestimate anyone who hasn’t spent their whole life training in magic. You’re a magic snob.”
April laughed. “You may be right about that. But that’s not what this is. I’m sorry, but I need your blood. I really don’t have a choice.”
Everything went dark for a moment, and I realized that Amy had closed her eyes. I could still hear what has happening, though, and she said, “Do me a favor, and stop. Just stop it. You need my blood, fine. But stop acting like you’re some noble martyr. You’re murdering me, and no matter how much you try to pretend otherwise, it’s all because you’re a sadistic, power-hungry bitch.”
There were footsteps on the wooden floor of the cabin. Amy cracked her eyes, so I could see April standing over me—her—us. That nasty looking blade was in her hand.
“As you wish,” she said.
And she slashed at Amy’s arm.
There was a white-hot shudder of pain rumbling through my arm, and I gasped. The connection was broken, and I was back in the fiery-dark sleeping bag that was Cerberus.
A moment later, a hole appeared in the barrier. It took me a moment to realize, because it was still dark outside, but even so it was brighter out there than it had been inside the hellhound’s protective bubble. Slowly, the cocoon broke away, leaving me free.
I was standing in a copse of pines, about twenty yards from the door of the cabin. I could hear screams coming from the building, but I was no longer experiencing the pain myself. I wasn’t feeling the pain, for which I was grateful. It would have made my next move a lot harder.
Here was what I knew: I was going to get Amy out of that cabin. I had one hell of an ally at my back (Pun wickedly intended). Cerberus was laying on the ground next to me, heads resting on its front paws. It was waiting for me to tell it what to do.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
Its mouths didn’t move. “The dark witch is very dangerous.”
“I know that.” I chewed on my lip. “Could you power through and knock her down long enough for me to get Amy out?”
One of the heads licked its lips. “Any confrontation between us would end with her death.”
Well, that wouldn’t work. Whoever else she was, whatever else she was, April was May’s sister. I couldn’t just kill her. It wasn’t the best plan I’d ever had, but I said, “Could you just hold her for a minute?”
“My power is beyond the comprehension of your ilk, mortal. I can do anything I wish.”
“Except for playing dead, apparently,” I murmured. A growl bubbled simultaneously in all three throats. “Okay, here’s what I need you to do: wait a few seconds, then follow me into the cabin. Just knock April down so I can get Amy out of there. Then I’ll come back and put her under arrest.”
Cerberus stood up and rolled its heads like a boxer.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with pine and humidity. Well, nothing for it. I took off into the clearing, running as fast as I could. A moment later, there was a puff of air as Cerberus vanished. I expected barking and screaming from inside the cabin, but none came. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t worry about it. I was less than ten feet from the cabin when someone stepped out from behind the building. I slowed, but not enough.
“Catch,” he said, and tossed something at me.
I caught it. The leather and iron charm. The one that Bogart had made and that Lou had improved. As soon as my hand closed around it, I realized my mistake. I felt a sudden burst of energy in my skin, and there was a hole in my consciousness—a hole where Cerberus had been. The charm had broken our connection.
“Aw, shit,” I said.
The man hit me in the mouth with the butt of his rifle.
My nose broke. Blood flowed out of my nostrils and I went down into a patch of dry dirt. I landed hard on my back and groaned as air rushed out of my lungs. I looked up to see my attacker standing above me. He was wearing camo gear and a huge, shit-eating grin. The mercenary.
Stupid, Carver! Absolutely, positively, unprecedentedly stupid.
The merc crouched next to me and grabbed my collar. I was too dazed from the head injury to struggle as he yanked me to my feet. I sneered at him through a muddy cloud that was forming in my head. I knew I should have said something.
He beat me to it. “Well, I gotta say, the Professor expected you to show up. Personally, I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough.” He flicked the tip of my nose. I fought tears. “Come on. She wants to talk to you.”
Chapter 31
He slammed the stock of the rifle into the small of my back, and I sprawled to the floor. I heard Amy call my name, but my focus was on April. The witch stared down at me, her gray eyes dark as coal.
I pushed myself into a supine position, and stopped when I heard the click-clack of the merc chambering a round.
“April,” I said. “We really gotta stop meeting like this.”
There was a sound like breaking glass, the creak of wood shifting, and Cerberus appeared in the doorway. All three of its heads were showing their teeth, and it took a menacing step in my direction.
“Enough of that,” April said. The hellhound snapped its jaws once, but it stopped advancing. “You seem confused, Dave.”
“A little,” I said. “Though it might just be the head injury.”
She laughed. “I have to admit, it was a bold move trying to summon the Sentinel out from under me. Smart. It might have worked, too—”
“If it weren’t for those meddling kids?”
April smirked and actually laughed a little more at the interruption. “—if you hadn’t left us with that.” She gestured to the mercenary, who held up the amulet, which he had taken after he’d beat my face in. “It uses demon magic, but it’s designed to kill demons, not control them. You can’t access the Sentinel’s power while in contact with that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Got it.”
The amulet’s original purpose had been to function as a signal disruptor, to break up the hellhound’s power, if only a little bit. Since the ritual I’d performed on that abandoned beach had been intended to grant me a taste of that power, the amulet apparently saw me as a threat, and it stripped me of control over Cerberus.
“Mr. Rainier, would you be so kind as to go and hide this charm from our friend here?” The mercenary nodded and, without a word, headed out of the cabin. “Sentinel, go with him. Captain Carver’s friends just might make a nuisance of themselves.”
The hellhound whirled around, disappearing in a shower of sparks and sulfurous smoke. A few moments later I heard a branch crack. The mercenary—whose name was Rainier, apparently—was heading out into the woods to hide the charm.
I was alone in the cabin with April and Amy.
April pointed her finger at me, and I couldn’t move. None of my muscles responded to requests. I couldn’t even roll my eyeballs in my head. This was way more effective than a length of cable punched through a headboard.
&nb
sp; “Ropes and chains and wire aren’t as strong as I’d like,” April said, as if she were reading my mind. “I learned this spell in…well, it was a sort of perverse S&M club in Prague. It’s not an easy feat, but you, Dave, are proving that you’re worth the effort.”
Lucky me, I tried to say, but the body parts necessary for speech were as bolted up as the rest of me.
“Amy here,” April said, “is very impressive. I have the feeling that she knows this same spell, and that she knows how to break it. So instead she’s stuck with the Leash as chain. It seems to be working so far. I’ve been working hard tonight, but you know what? Something interesting happened. I think it has something to do with your little gambit, your attempt to steal the Sentinel from me, but I’m really not sure. Somehow, Amy’s hold over the demon has increased, while mine has weakened. I still have the Leash, so my claim isn’t gone, but I’m a little concerned. Do you want to know what I’m concerned about, Dave?”
I tried to answer, but, again, I couldn’t move.
“I think,” April said, “that if I kill Amy outright, that’ll break the Sentinel’s hold completely. Either that, or it would just send it back to the Otherside, and I’d have to start all over again. There’s not a lot of literature on the Sentinel, as I’m sure you’ve discovered. We’re in uncharted territory. Exciting, isn’t it?”
Again, I tried for a witty, sarcastic remark, but still nothing. A shame, too. It would have been hilarious. Trust me.
“It all comes down to blood. So I’ve been trying to drain the power out of her.” April gestured at the jars of blood which lined the cabin’s furniture. “But that hasn’t worked, either. But…with you here…I might have another tack. See, I think I can get Amy to release her hold voluntarily. She’s held up admirably under physical torture—don’t get me wrong, I’d have broken her, eventually, but it would take some time. I wonder, though, how long she’ll last under the suffering of someone she cares for.”