“What the fuck is that?” Chloe said, almost mildly.
As if in reply, the dead body—who was no clearly no longer of the deceased persuasion—focused his icy gaze on her. His face crinkled into a slow smile, the skin almost seeming to creak after its long hibernation. “It is my final line of defense,” said the corpse, his voice likewise rusty from disuse.
By this time, Martin gathered his wits about him enough that his heart no longer threatened to burst free from his chest cavity. He forced himself to look at the still-seated man. “Are you…William Crandall?” The question was little more than a squeak.
The man shifted in his chair, as though testing the range of his limbs. He grunted a little as he moved. “Indeed, I am,” he said, his voice gaining strength and clarity with each word. “May I ask who I am in the company of?”
Each of them introduced themselves through mouths still slightly agape from astonishment. Crandall nodded at each name, as if their recitation pleased him. Formalities dispensed with, he then asked, “What year is it, please?”
Martin told him.
Crandall’s eyes widened a little, and his smile grew larger, displaying perfectly straight, white teeth. “My goodness, well into a new century,” he mused, shaking his head. “I wasn’t sure what sort of time frame to expect, but…” He trailed off, still smiling. He looked at each of them in turn. “I’ve been out of it a long time, haven’t I?”
They all agreed that he had.
“Well!” He slapped his palms on his thighs. “Since I am talking to you now, I assume that there is some trouble afoot, yes?”
As if on cue, Martin heard voices and shuffling from upstairs, very nearby. The disciples were starting to come through the hole. Meaning the scary woman and the bald guy were probably already through it. “What do they want?” he asked, whispering even though the intruders surely knew they were down here.
Instead of answering, Crandall got unsteadily to his feet, stretching his arms and legs like a cat awakening from a long nap. His smile never faltered. Martin was about to ask the question again, but then noticed that Crandall’s gaze had flickered upwards, over their heads. He was looking at something behind them. Martin turned.
The bald man from the church stood halfway down the stairs, the shrouded horror right behind him, her veils shifting with her movements, giving glimpses of the horrible countenance beneath. Ivan, the dwarf, and the beautiful girl leaned over the banister, looking down. Other disciples crowded around the top of the staircase; not nearly as many as Martin had seen outside the house before, meaning, he realized, that they were still all upstairs, sealing off all hope of escape. His stomach curdled.
The bald man stared, flinty-eyed. “So, you are the famous Crandall the Conjuror,” he said, his thick voice spiked with contempt.
“Well, I don’t know about the famous part,” the magician said good-naturedly, crossing his arms across his chest. “The rest of your statement is accurate. Might I ask to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir?”
The disciples behind him shifted nervously, but Father didn’t move, his bulk like a stone wall. “Our identity is not important,” he said. “What matters is that we know who you are, and we know what you have.” He came a step closer, dark eyes blazing.
“Well, my good man, I have lots of things, as you may have noticed.” Crandall swept his hand briefly around the room, encompassing all its treasures. His voice was mild and companionable, but his gaze was steely, unflinching. “Is there any particular object to which you refer?”
“Don’t play games with us,” Father hissed. Mother stood right beside him on the step, only her clawed hands visible as they pulled at her covering garments. Martin hoped this was a sign of nervousness, but somehow he doubted it. What the hell did she have to be nervous about, knowing what those talons could do? He looked back and forth from her to Crandall, wondering what on earth was going on and if any one of them was going to get out of this alive. When Father spoke again, it was a low rumble. “We happen to know a great deal about your work,” he said, placing his hand on Mother’s shoulder as if to stay her. “It took us a long time to find you, but we did have a little help in that regard. Your friend, James Morley, was most forthcoming, although it took a little persuasion to get him talking.” He smiled, and his teeth glowed in the dimness, shark-like.
Martin gasped. They killed Morley, he thought, and with that, any hope of getting out of this mess alive evaporated completely. They tortured that poor old man.
Crandall looked pained for a split second, but then his expression hardened. “Well, my nameless visitors, I regret to inform you that my work is my own, and is forever…unavailable to others. I’m sure you understand.”
Father stomped down to the bottom of the staircase, holding up a hand to indicate that the followers should stay where they were. Mother came down behind him, her shawls whispering. “I don’t think you’re in a position to deny the request,” Father said. The red stone on his ring flickered like a candle flame. “Our power is greater than yours, old man, as you can clearly see. Your protections have fallen away, and we have a small army at our command who can easily obtain by force what you will not hand over willingly.” He glanced up at the followers littering the stairs, who looked more like confused children than a formidable fighting force. “I had hoped we would be able to handle this in a mature and reasonable fashion.”
Crandall dropped any pretense of friendliness. “I can’t let you have what you want,” he said, quietly but firmly.
The tension in the room was stretched so taut that Martin almost expected the air around them to snap in half. He moved closer to Chloe and put his hand on her arm. She glanced at him and smiled briefly, but her eyes were frightened and questioning: What are we going to do?
Martin only looked back at her dolefully. I have no idea, babe.
They were in over their heads, that much was obvious. Martin had seen Mother in action back at the church, and now that she had managed to get her minions past whatever protection the house had once had, he assumed she was stronger than ever.
Crandall, even though his spells were breached, still apparently had something Mother and Father wanted. The old magician was also obviously not afraid of them, making Martin deduce that he was at least as powerful, if not more so, than they were, or at least he thought he was.
Whose side is Crandall really on? Will he help us if things get ugly? Martin wondered. The fact that they all had warning dreams seemed to imply a friendly intent, but what if the dreams were nothing but an unintentional psychic residue on Crandall’s part?
Either way, Martin thought, they wouldn’t be able to get out past the Bellwether army. So, it was all going to end down here, for better or for worse.
Father and Mother hadn’t moved at all since Crandall’s last pronouncement. They seemed to be weighing their options, but Martin could sense the rage twitching just beneath their calm veneers. After a moment, Father leaned close to his shrouded companion, seeming to listen to something she was saying, though Martin could hear nothing but a vague scritching sound, like a metal gate swinging in a high wind. Father straightened up. “Very well,” he said tightly. “We’ll just have to resort to other methods.” At this, the handful of followers at their heels, including Ivan, seemed to stand erect and tense their limbs, as if preparing themselves for violence. Martin felt his stomach twisting itself into a slick knot. Mother didn’t have many disciples with her now, but judging from the noise upstairs and the ring of people he’d seen outside earlier, there was more than enough manpower at her disposal to crush them all like bugs, even if Crandall did have some last-ditch parlor trick up his sleeve. He was just a human after all, wasn’t he? Even if he came back from the dead.
Crandall still stood his ground, his feet planted in front of the chair he’d been sitting in for an untold number of years. He lowered his
arms stiffly by his sides. “You have no idea what it is, or what it can do. Even if you could get it, it would destroy you.”
Father took three quick steps forward, and this time the brute squad fell in line, matching his strides. “You don’t know what she has done, old man,” he sneered, pointing at Mother, who stood very still at the bottom of the stairs, as if waiting for the right moment to strike. “For years, she has worked at isolating the life force, at transferring its energy from one person to another. She told me of her many failures, of the long years of practice and study. Look what she has accomplished!” Here he swept a hand back to encompass Ivan and Rose and Lily, and the half-dozen other acolytes arranged on the stairs, ready to spring. “They are perfectly docile and willing to obey without question any command we give them. Their life force gives her strength, and control over them. Greater strength than a sideshow magician like you could ever imagine.” He smiled again, nastily.
“Is that so?” Crandall said. His voice was calm, but Martin could feel the fury thrumming just beneath his skin. “Am I to assume you are also willing to obey this woman without question, just like her docile followers?”
Father pressed his lips together. “She is my master also,” he said simply.
“Ah.” Crandall took a long look at the woman beneath the veils, who still had not moved. “Might I ask, then,” he said, directing his inquiry to Mother, “what need you have of me? If your strength is far more than I can imagine, then I see no reason why you needed to torture and murder an innocent man in order to find me and obtain something which you, in your greater wisdom, must surely have discovered on your own.”
“Do not offend our master!” Father roared, blocking Mother’s shadowy form with his body. As though she needed protection, Martin thought bitterly. Father grew taller and wider in his indignation. “She would, of course, have discovered your secrets on her own, given time,” he said with just a trace of defensiveness. “Why expend the effort, when your knowledge is there for the taking?”
“Why, indeed?” Crandall’s spine was ramrod straight, his feet planted firmly a shoulder-width apart. The rumbling engine noise issuing from beneath them spiraled upward in frequency and volume, causing some of the followers, as well as Seth and Chloe, to clap their hands over their ears. Martin could feel the sound hammering inside his skull, making him feel like dizzy and nauseated. Jesus Christ, what is that?
Crandall slowly raised his arms, the joints of his elbows creaking with the effort. He looked as though he was preparing to do a particularly dramatic magic trick. He stared straight at Mother with his deep black eyes. “All the power you want is right here,” he said, his voice almost a purr beneath the deafening roar of the engine. “Come and take it from me.”
Before the veiled woman had taken a single step, Father, Ivan, Rose, and Lily had surged forward, lunging toward the magician with single-minded purpose. Martin pushed his friends back against the now-visible wall, feeling an alarming sense of déjà-vu. Under siege, just like at the church, he thought. Only this time there’s no door behind us to escape through.
“I told her to come and take it!” Crandall thundered, his arms still thrown out to his sides. The sound was very loud now, seeming to blot out all reason.
“We won’t play by your rules, old man!” Father shot back, bearing down with his bulky frame and sleek, shining head. More of the followers had begun to stream downstairs. Bodies jostled against bodies, some falling over and being stepped on by their brothers and sisters, eager for blood and glory.
Father was reaching for Crandall, who looked like no more than a tiny, delicate sparrow compared to the bulging, furious acolyte. Ivan was right on Father’s heels, his iceberg eyes empty of everything except pure, unthinking hatred. Martin raised his arms in front of his face in a futile attempt to ward off the attack. Someone—maybe Olivia—screamed, “No!”
There was another sound, a sort of inhuman keening wail piercing through the fog of noise and chaos like a silver scalpel. The followers froze, some of them caught in almost comical positions, half-running, half-lunging. The wail reached a crescendo and then died away, leaving only a faint echo curling like a satin ribbon through the resounding din of the underground engine.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then Martin began to hear a soft rustling sound.
Mother was coming through the frozen crowd, shuffling in her slow, deliberate, somehow inevitable way. Her shawls were still pulled taut around her face and body, and all that could be seen of her were her crabbed white hands and the strange glints where her eyes would be.
Martin glanced over at Crandall, who was still standing perfectly straight near his chair. He didn’t look afraid, but neither did he look entirely confident. He simply watched as the thing in the shape of a woman made her steady way toward him.
When she was less than three feet away, she stopped. The layered fabric covering her form rose and fell with her rapid breaths. She moved her head, just a little, appearing to look sidelong at Father, who was frozen in position just like everyone else in the room. She beckoned to him, seeming to free him from the spell that held him. He ducked his shoulders, a clearly nervous gesture, and stepped forward to stand beside his mistress.
Beneath the still-thrumming sound of the engine, there came another strange sound, like the scrape of dead leaves against concrete. Martin looked around, trying to place it, but then he realized it was issuing from beneath Mother’s veil. She was speaking. Martin shuddered.
Father opened his mouth to translate her words, but Crandall apparently needed no translation. “You don’t understand,” the magician said, keeping his gaze fixed on Mother’s hidden face. “I’m giving you one last chance. Release all these people. You do not want what I have to offer. Look at what a little knowledge has already done to you.”
The woman-thing made another horrible screeching wail, shorter in duration but just as clearly an expression of fury and frustration. With no further warning, she lurched forward, reaching out with her hands, grasping at Crandall’s stoic face. “Don’t!” Martin shouted, and without thinking, he grabbed for her, getting nothing but a handful of her rough wool shawls. Still, her motion propelled her forward, and Martin, with his good hand clutching the fabric that had pulled away from her long-concealed form, caught a glimpse of what lay beneath. The shawls dropped from his hand and puddled at his feet.
There was a collective gasp in the room as everyone realized what had happened. Mother herself seemed not to realize that she was now exposed, her hardened and translucent flesh on display for all her enemies as well as her loyal followers to gawk at. “Holy shit,” Chloe breathed, and Martin could just stare at what he had uncovered, unable to comprehend the horror.
For Mother hardly seemed human at all. Her body was vaguely woman-like, in the sense that it possessed two arms, two legs, and a suggestion of breasts. The overall impression was bestial, monstrous, a cruel afterthought of creation. Her pale skin was cracked and plated, like that of an albino crocodile, and what hair she had looked green with mold, hanging about her face in twisted wisps.
And her face… Martin couldn’t even begin to imagine what happened, what unspeakable coupling between beast and demon had produced a visage so hideous. All that he could really focus on were those eyes, twin white specks amid the abomination of her features. Within those round white embers there glowed the light of intelligence, of cunning—but also of madness.
Her clasping hands hung in the air before Crandall’s face for an enormous amount of time. Martin began to feel as though everything was moving in slow motion again. He could no longer think, no longer process—if she was going to get Crandall now, there was little Martin could do to stop it. Shock had made him a spectator in the drama unfolding around him.
The others seemed just as helpless to intervene. As they all watched in terrified silence, Mother’s fingers made contact with the
skin of Crandall’s face.
The reaction was instantaneous. The engine sound exploded, becoming as loud as a supernova, an impossible roar that Martin was sure had perforated his eardrums as though they were tissue paper. He wanted to close his eyes, wanted Crandall’s defeat to be over and done with, wanted his own death or conversion to come quickly, painlessly. Then, even through his eyelids, he could see a blinding flash of light, violet and searing, and his eyes flew open of their own accord.
The naked form that had once been Mother was blazing with a supernatural fire, purple sparks spraying off her in gaudy arcs. She was screaming, a terrible shriek that rattled the walls; Martin was sure he heard glass shattering all over the house. While the violet fire consumed her, Crandall watched, his dark eyes reflecting the spectacle, his expression one of deep regret.
It took only a moment. The purple flames sizzled out, vanishing into the air on tiny lavender tendrils. Martin looked down. All that was left of Mother was a scorched mark on the corner of the rug she’d been standing on, and the vague stench of ozone. Martin realized he hadn’t breathed for what seemed like several minutes, and he took in a huge lungful of air.
There was an impossibly long stretch of time in which no one spoke, and no one moved. Father and the other disciples stared fixedly down at the spot where their master had once stood, as though unable to believe the evidence before them. At last, like people awakening from a long sleep, they began to blink, the light of humanity in their eyes returning. They glanced at each other, uneasily, suddenly strangers to one another, confused as to where they were and what they had been doing. A quiet buzz of confused, but obviously normal, conversation began, and Martin thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world.
Speaking of sounds, he realized he no longer heard the distant thundering of the underground engine. The ensuing silence was somehow almost as loud as the noise had been. He glanced over at Crandall, whose shoulders had slumped a little, whose face seemed older and weary. “Are you all right?” Martin asked.
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