Donovan instantly understood: Faustus struck a bargain for his soul, under which he would have freed Lucifer from Mephistopheles’ trap.
Freed Lucifer by— His heart froze. No.
Mephistopheles studied the sorcerer, probing for untruths. He saw none, nor did he see any problem for himself. “Idiot. Do you know what you could have had, what you could have been?”
The weight on Faustus prevented him from responding.
“Faustus quests for knowledge, not power. That is his place in Reality.” Beatifically calm, the King of Hell wandered in front of Donovan. “You see, Mephistopheles, even if you do not seek your place in Reality, the universe is filled with those—” She stood on her toes to kiss him gently. “Who do.”
Donovan saw a subtle shift in her amaranthine irises; for a fraction of a second Joann looked back at him. In that moment, he knew there was no other way.
Lucifer’s greatest satisfaction comes from twisting man’s noblest efforts into something that serves the Infernal.
His mind spiraled down, chased by Father Carroll’s dictum.
Don’t make me. Jesus, don’t. Give me another way…
“Enough philosophy!” Darkness swelled in thunderheads around Mephistopheles. The charm, the verbal sparring was gone, replaced by the crackling of malevolent energy. “I don’t give a damn about what you think or don’t think! I’m taking the throne now!”
“No, you aren’t,” Donovan said.
‘Nothing of this world harms Us but We will it.’
Joann stood before him, her arms spread wide.
He raised the spire and plunged it into her heart.
TWENTY-NINE
EX MALO BONUM
With his waning strength, Father Carroll raised the spire, letting its weight carry it forward and down. The iron sliced through the Circle of Neith, shorting out the magical energy with a shower of purple and white sparks.
Hurry, now.
He dropped the spire and entered. As he crossed the threshold, his lungs wrung out a coughing jag. His feet scuffed near the circle of tarnished silver chain links and he stopped, heart pounding as he clapped his free hand over his mouth. He remained motionless until he was sure the fit had passed; if any part of the gateway was disturbed, he’d lose the chance to save the souls of the possessed. Slowly he backed away, not stopping until he felt a wall against his shoulder blades. A deep sigh of relief hissed through his teeth.
“Thank you, Lord.”
He stroked his beard fiercely and concentrated his remaining strength on examining the object of his quest. Red and black candles burned at various significant points within the design; he recognized the individual elements—wheat symbolizing Christ’s body and rebirth, almonds for His ascension to Heaven (all burnt here to describe the satanic nature of the spell), the broken Star of David denoting the removal of barriers, tarnished silver representing corruption, and the chain to connect Hell to Earth.
“God give me strength,” he muttered.
With his free hand he made the sign of the cross above the gateway. Even though it meant releasing pressure from his stomach wound, he raised both his hands to Heaven.
***
Two Emergency Services Heavy Rescue Trucks barreled up the Lawn, one from the East Drive, one from the West. They steered through the trees with extra caution, and as they cleared the brush it became obvious why: their telescoping rotational light towers rose from hatches on their backs.
Fullam shouted. “Josh! Conrad!
“Now!”
Every circuit on the towers burst to life, spreading daylight over the entire south half of the Lawn. The cultists froze, hands and arms bloodied by their killing frenzy, before scattering for the comfort of the darkness.
Hostages poured out from behind the shattered gate. Cops swarmed over the wreckage, re-forming units and rushing to help comrades. Braithwaite ran from his truck to the fire truck. “Come on!” he shouted grabbing spires. “Come get these! Use these!”
Conrad Clery climbed down from his truck’s cab, shaken from the ride and at the slaughterhouse he’d just entered. “Joann!” he called. “Where are you?”
He slipped on something greasy in the dirt and tripped to his knees. One hand shot out to brace his upper body and plunged into the eviscerated chest cavity of a woman whose riot helmet had been neatly split halfway through her skull. His eyes saucered and he jerked his hand back. A piece of loose flesh stuck to it. He shouted and whipped his hand around until it flew off into the dark. He knelt there for a moment, staring at the red stain left behind, then rolled over and vomited.
“Conrad!” he heard. “Are you all right?”
“Where is she, sergeant?” he shouted, climbing to his feet and wiping a smear of bile from his cheek. “Where are they keeping my daughter?”
“You can’t get there alone!”
“Then come help me—”
A terrifying wail from the north end of the Lawn made everybody stop dead. Conrad looked at Fullam, who had no answer. Before they could react, a wave of darkness surged from the same direction. Conrad stared, incredulous, as it swept over the two ESU trucks and swirled about them for a moment before dissipating. The lights were now out; every bit of power had been sucked from the generators.
The cultists, emboldened, began to slink back towards them.
Conrad gasped. He scrambled to the fire truck, confusion and fear obliterating everything but self-preservation. “What now, sergeant?!”
***
Donovan stared, shocked, while Joann’s body gently folded backwards, sliding the length of the spire on a lubrication of blood. Her weight pulled his arm down—
DEAD WEIGHT! his mind screamed.
Far, far away, he heard a roar.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Another riptide of darkness shot forth. It crashed and dissipated like waves when it touched his holy water-soaked clothes. Donovan didn’t even register it; every sense, every emotion he might have felt lay smothered beneath the horror of his action. He couldn’t move or think or speak or breathe while the question eclipsed his soul.
What have I done?
No answer could solve the problem. No structure could maintain his rationality or instinct to act. Blood and amaranthine energy formed a fluid shape around Joann as Lucifer divided his essence from her lifeless body. The color drained from her, deepening the luster of the shape and revealing the dark, spreading stain on her white dress. Her body collapsed, iron scraping bone as she fell to the dirt. A shudder racked Donovan’s soul. White noise filled his ears. He dropped to his knees, desperately trying to maintain a link to her.
“Jo, I—I…”
But he knew she was dead. His detached persona recognized that Lucifer wouldn’t have been able to leave her body if she wasn’t. Still, he stretched a hand to her face. Her skin still felt warm where he’d caressed her a million times before.
“I—”
Killed you!
“In Reality, Mephistopheles has his place. We have Ours.” Lucifer’s voice rang from the amaranthine figure like a death knell.
Mephistopheles leapt to his feet. “I beat you!”
“Winning and losing are points of view. Our faith in Reality never waned.”
“You can’t deny me! I beat you!”
“Where are the contracts, Mephistopheles? We knew there were none, and so there were no sacrifices. And thus, there would be no bargaining.”
“Then why did you come?” Donovan asked without looking up from Joann’s face. “Why didn’t you just ignore Valdes?”
Lucifer surveyed the death, the misery and fighting surrounding them. He looked at the stage backdrop, at the people who no longer twitched and shivered, at the blood that covered the stage.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Donovan raised his eyes and swore he saw the tiniest smile.
“But there is a last item—”
The amaranthine figure opened its arms, and it became less define
d as human and more like an enveloping cloak. “No!” Valdes screamed. He ran to the stage, clutching at the monk’s robe. “Help! Help me!”
“Not my problem,” Mephistopheles snarled, thrusting him away.
Valdes stumbled and fell through the liquid form. It shifted shape to envelope him, sticking to him like gelatin. Valdes screamed soundlessly. The fluid swirled and began to dissolve him, staining itself with his liquefied body.
“We shall await your return to Hell, Mephistopheles, with…anticipation.”
And he was gone. Without Lucifer’s essence to hold its shape, the blood splattered to the ground, leaving only a dark, shiny puddle.
Donovan remained dimly aware of events. They came to him in a peripheral, secondhand way, as though from a television set in another room. He couldn’t take his eyes off Joann’s body for fear it would disappear as quickly as her life had. Disgust welled in his throat. He wanted to vomit the deed from his life, to run away and never stop or have to live with what he’d done—what he’d had to do—when a stray, self-preserving thought trickled through his addled brain:
The blood of a martyr is powerful magic.
He raised the spire to his eyes and examined it. The black wrought iron glistened wetly with her blood. He despised himself instantly.
From the south end of the Lawn, two masses of brilliant light flashed on.
The Prince of Darkness bellowed in pain, shocking Donovan from his reverie. Rage overwhelmed his every instinct as a sound began in the back of his throat, a low Rottweiler growl that built as he gripped the spire tighter. His muscles tensed and he stood, scanning the ritual clearing with predator’s eyes. From the stage, twin shadow riptides shot south. The lights vanished, swallowed by the dark. Donovan padded forward slowly, not wanting to spook his target, before a burst of energy shot him in to attack. With a guttural snarl he flung the spire like a spear. The iron shaft smashed into the center of the monk’s brown robe, lancing into Mephistopheles’ chest and knocking him back onto his throne. Breath exploded from his lungs as the chair tipped backwards. Donovan leapt up the stairs, seized the end of the spire and wrenched it free. He howled, raised the spire and hammered it down. Fury rendered him incoherent. He shouted and taunted and raged, pounding the spire hard into splitting bone and flesh. Mephistopheles tried to roll out of the way, to change form or protect himself, but the holy water, Joann’s martyred blood and the iron itself formed a potent magical bludgeon. Again and again Donovan battered the devil, madness blanking his features but burning in his eyes. No thought or reason drove his actions; there was only the fury, a raging, flaming hatred that seared his throat and spilled scalding tears down his cheeks. He was screaming now, his arm a blur as he tore into the devil’s physical body. Mephistopheles wasn’t moving. Bone and flesh hung from his face while blood and brain soaked into the stage…
…Slowly Donovan regained his senses.
I think he’s dead now.
He looked at the shattered thing at his feet, feeling no regret for the savagery he’d unleashed. Instead, shock at what he’d done—had to do!—to Joann welled in his soul, pushing him to the edge of catatonia.
Movement in the corner of his eye made him jump. He whirled and saw Faustus, no longer pinned by Mephistopheles’ tendrils, cradling Joann’s body.
“Get away from her!” He heaved the spire. It spiked into the ground just in front of them, marking the spot like a tombstone.
Faustus didn’t move. He looked back steadily, sadness at Donovan’s loss palpable. Donovan started forward, fresh fury peeling another layer of sanity from his brain.
“I said get away from her!”
Surprise instantly transformed the sorcerer’s expression. “Beware!”
Before Donovan could react, a giant fist slammed into the side of his head.
***
“In nomine Jesus Christ, consummatum est. Amen.”
Father Carroll panted, sweat pouring off his forehead and dripping from his beard.
“Lord, please,” he implored. He’d recited the Purification Benediction six times and was astounded that the gateway remained unaffected. His intestines roiled like overcooked soup; he knew he couldn’t do this much longer. “Forgive my weakness, but please don’t forsake me!”
Pain racked his body, forcing him to his knees. He whimpered, biting his back teeth, but began again:
“‘By the power of Christ!
Listen and submit yourselves to God! Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you! Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh
unto you! Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your
hearts!’”
This time the gateway began to hum. Renewed, he dove into the Latin part of the prayer. Now the mirrors started to glow. Astral winds stirred the wheat stalks. Father Carroll’s voice rose as he neared the end.
“In nomine Jesus Christ, consummatum est! Amen!”
The glow from the mirrors shot forth, intersecting to form a latticework of light. Every candle melted simultaneously, spreading red and black wax over the tarnished silver chain. Their fire rose into the air and formed a ring that stretched the mirror light into a column. Father Carroll clenched his fists, urging it on. The light hit the ceiling and stopped; it couldn’t quite make it over the top. Father Carroll cried out. “Why, Lord, why?!” He slumped forward, defeated, and buried his face in his hands. “Why…?”
He saw the blood on his hands.
“Blood of a martyr…”
He dipped his fingers into his wound and raised them to make the sign of the cross.
“In the name of the Father, and the Son,” he swept his hand through the air, his gesture throwing red drops across the gateway, “and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
“Consummatum est,” he murmured, surrendering to the pain. His body fell across the gateway.
BOOM!
The roof exploded. Light sprayed from the gateway, through Father Carroll and into the pitch-black morass above Central Park, chasing the darkness like a spring rain washing the air clean. His last thought was of Donovan, and he smiled.
“Go to the light…”
***
“What now?” Fullam replied. He aimed the firehose to Conrad’s right and twisted the nozzle. A blast of water sprayed the cultist who was creeping closer, scythe blade rising. He spun away with a shriek, smoking and blistering where the water had touched him.
“Holy water!”
Conrad snapped his head over, then back at Fullam. “What in the name of God—sergeant, where is my daughter?!”
Above them, night became day. Everyone froze.
At first Fullam thought someone had fired off a flare. He stared into the sky and knew it wasn’t a flare. This was infinitely purer, the clearest, brightest sunbeam on a perfect summer day. It filled him with joy, with the sense that the tide of battle had irreversibly changed.
Donovan or Maurice? he wondered.
The light spread and blossomed, sending radiant streams down into the darkest corners of the park. Wherever the streams touched a cult member, Fullam witnessed an amazing metamorphosis: whatever had transformed them into a super-killer seemed to emerge as a shadowy, semi-solid form. It resembled a smudge of black smoke but with vague features that tried to scream. The light drew it, and hundreds of other “smudges,” into itself without darkening—oil and water in the sky. Like a vent clearing a polluted room it reversed itself, taking the foulness along as it disappeared back to its origin.
***
Donovan saw a white flash before his reflexes took over and had him scrambling to gain a second to recover. When the stars faded he saw Mephistopheles wasn’t dead at all—he’d recovered and returned to Coeus’s form. He was dressed as Coeus had been when Donovan had encountered him at the aquarium, in a patchwork black suit and dirty t-shirt but without the sunglasses—his cataract-covered eyes had been replaced by Mephistopheles’ white-speckled purple orbs.
“You can’t exorcise me with an ir
on bar, Donovan.” His pineapple fists clenched and unclenched. “And if I can’t touch you with darkness, I’ll do it in a more satisfying way.”
Joann’s body lay just in Donovan’s line of sight.
Satisfying?!
With a roar he charged the giant, plowing into him and taking them both to the ground. The holy water in his clothes sizzled as they rolled around in the grass and dirt. Mephistopheles grunted and flung an arm out, separating them enough to get to their feet. Donovan charged in and began working the giant’s body. The stole and bandage were like hand wraps to a boxer, sparking white where they struck. Mephistopheles staggered back. Donovan threw a right hook. Mephistopheles shot a hand up and caught it. His massive paw smoldered and blistered but he squeezed Donovan’s fist. Donovan screamed and rammed his forehead into the giant’s nose. Mephistopheles lurched upright, seized Donovan’s jacket with his free hand and dragged Donovan off the ground. He released Donovan’s fist and hooked an uppercut into Donovan’s torso. Something snapped. Donovan grunted and ineffectually battered the giant’s head. Mephistopheles sneered, raising Donovan and body slamming him to the ground.
Donovan hit the earth so hard he blacked out. Instinct instantly drove him back to consciousness and he returned to pain so severe he was sure the giant had broken his back. He groaned and opened his eyes to see Mephistopheles inches from his face.
“I sometimes forget how fragile mortals are.”
He lifted Donovan upright. Donovan weaved in place. The giant laughed and timed his backhand just right. Donovan spun clumsily, blood flying from his nose and mouth as he dropped to his knees. Mephistopheles picked him back up and slapped him like a handball. Donovan dropped again, feeling the whole side of his face begin to swell. He tasted dirt.
Faustus Resurrectus Page 33