Night's Black Agents (Paxton Locke Book 2)

by Daniel Humphreys

  “All right there, Ethan?” I said. “I can’t promise sunshine, but I think we can get you guys some fresh air.”

  The other twin ignored me, keeping his eyes on the floor. His brother looked back and forth between the two of us and frowned with an expression that should never have crossed the face of a child.

  “He hasn’t said much since that night. How do you know our names, mister?”

  Gunfire rattled from above. I resisted the urge to check the staircase and knelt in front of the boys. “I’m working with the police, Evan. My friend has been trying to find you, and he asked me to help him out.”

  “The bad man called you a wizard.”

  More gunfire. “That’s right.”

  His unlined forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Where’s your beard? Gandalf has a beard. Why do you have white hair if you don’t have a beard?”

  I laughed. “You know, Evan, I’ve never been much for beards. And Gandalf was super old, you know.” I stuck out a hand. “Call me Pax.”

  He nodded as he shook it, face serious. “Okay. Can we go, Pax?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” I turned back to the stairs. Most of the surviving cultists had trickled down to the level right above the bottom. As I completed my turn, Donnie stepped down onto my level and stared at me with rage in his eyes.

  “This will not stand!” He shook a finger at me. “Everyone you know and love will pay for your insolence!”

  I stepped forward to shield the twins and spread my arms wide. “You going to do something, or talk me to death?”

  He opened his mouth to do just that, I guess, but a new voice interrupted him.

  Enough.

  A shadow flickered overhead, and my knees shook a little at the implication of the otherworldly voice. I looked up in time to see a viscous, shadowy mass ripple along the top of the cavern, intermittently blocking out the overhead lighting. The floor shook a little underfoot as the mass of shadow surged downward, collecting into a dimly-lit blob on the other side of the bottom tier.

  “Behind the altar, boys,” I managed.

  The cultists exulted. “Tlaloc! Tlaloc!”

  The shadow thing coalesced into a rough animal form, its head a blend of hawk and wolf, while it crept forward on four legs that bent and pivoted with inhuman geometry. It was huge, and while it was hard to compare given that the Edimmu had never turned fully corporeal, I had a feeling that this entity was ten times the size.

  I know you, Paxton Locke. Wizard. Ghost speaker. Paladin.

  The last word came out as a sneer if such a thing was even possible for a voice that I heard more with my chest and head than I did my ears. This would have been a great time for a witty rejoinder. I came up dry and settled for, “Sup.”

  The light will not help you, foolish boy. We are too deep, and our enemy is reluctant to tweak his own precious laws of reality. Die knowing that you have failed and never truly had a chance at victory.

  With an inhuman cackle, it launched into the air, spiraling into a column of darkness and bringing on another round of cheers from the cultists.

  Backing into the altar, I glanced over and tried to give Ethan and Evan a reassuring wink. The former didn’t make eye contact and the latter didn’t look very convinced.

  I braced myself and clenched impotent fists. For one terrifying moment I reflected on the fact that I had nothing to stop the thing rushing around the sacrificial chamber. Unless the roof suddenly caved in, the heavens were not going to part and bathe the room in demon-burning light. The beast was right—we were on our own.

  We were all going to die.

  I knew it was probably for naught, but I took a deep breath to center myself. Spreading my arms wide for one last time, I forged a force blade around each fist. In the shadowed darkness, faint blue lines of foxfire traced the projected mental image of each dagger. On the ceiling, shadow gathered, and I sensed that Tlaloc was preparing to attack.

  I’ve faced death more than once, and for whatever reason, I don’t bend to fear at those moments. I’ve seen plenty of ghosts who died screaming. Me? If I was going out, I was going out with some style.

  The living shadow shot across the chamber. “Bring it!” I roared. “I cut my way through your door and your little lackeys! Come get some!” I pushed and bellowed in command. “You shall not pass!”

  An inarticulate shriek filled the room. A massive blow knocked the force blades aside and took me in the chest. The wind of its passage rushed past my ears, bearing with it the musty stench of feathers and the miasma of rotting flesh. My back slammed into the altar, I crumpled to the floor, and at once, the shadow was gone.

  I blinked at the ceiling a few times before I realized that I was still alive.

  A few of the lights on the ceiling flickered and went out. The ones that were still working dimmed, then brightened as a rain of dust and debris trailed down from the roof of the cavern.

  With a groan, I sat up and looked around. Tlaloc’s flight had knocked the cultists who’d clogged the stairs aside. Some struggled to their feet, but others clutched injuries and moaned piteously.

  I blinked in surprise. It ran. It ran away.

  The back of my hand came away bloody as I rubbed it across my mouth. “Note to self,” I wheezed. “Tolkien seems to spook shadow demons.”

  “No,” Donnie moaned. “What have you done?” He’d been knocked aside, as well, but he staggered to his feet and hobbled in my direction. One of his arms flopped in a way it wasn’t designed to, but he didn’t seem to notice. He spread the fingers of his good hand wide and started to mutter under his breath. A circle of absolute darkness swelled in his palm.

  I studied it for the barest of moments before I shrugged the strap of the Mossberg off my shoulder and triggered a round of buckshot into his legs. He hit the deck again with a scream, and whatever spell he’d been about to cast dissipated into nothing.

  The altar made a handy grip to pull myself to my feet. I slung the Mossberg back over my shoulder. “Come on, guys. Fresh air time.”

  The twins followed me toward the stairs, but I raised my hand to hold them as I drew closer to Donnie. I knelt down next to him and tried to put a note of sympathy in my voice.

  “I bet that hurts. Here’s the deal. You cut these people loose from whatever glamour you’ve got them under and maybe a couple of them can carry you topside. We’ll get an ambulance on the way and we’ll get you all patched up to go to court. How’s that sound, chief?”

  He sobbed wordlessly, then all at once, he rolled onto his side, striking at me with a long-bladed knife he’d plucked from somewhere in his robes. My hands were empty, but I reacted instinctively. The force blade snapped into life as I slapped at his knife blade. Mine beat his, severing the blade from the tang and—before I could pull my arm back to arrest the momentum—slashing him across the forearm.

  His next cry was even more piteous, and I winced as the wound on his arm flared to life. I got to my feet. “Sorry, Donnie.” The spreading mystical fire consumed his chest and head, bringing him to abrupt silence. “Bye, Donnie.”

  An echoing chorus of screams filled the cavern, and I winced and moved to shield the twins—but I shouldn’t have bothered. A good measure of the surviving cultists clutched their arms, and as I watched, black smoke trailed up from wherever they grabbed. I considered Angie’s wound and realized—when these people were brought into the cult, it involved some sort of mystical brand or mark. Without Donnie or Tlaloc around, they were free.

  Of course, now we had to figure out how to get the survivors back to the surface…

  Cassie

  Phoenix, Arizona—Saturday night

  Realizing she’d read the same page in the magazine three times and still had no idea what she was reading, Cassie threw it on the side table and tried not to sigh. On the bright side, the waiting was a group activity—the Sikoras sat in their respective recliners, and Father Rosado had taken a position on the opposite end of the sofa from Cassie.

&
nbsp; Jean Sikora glanced up from her pad of crossword puzzles and favored her with a smile. “I know how you feel, dear. I spent more than a few nights wondering if this old fart would be coming home to me.”

  Kent grunted and shook his head. “Say what you will about the mean streets of Wisconsin, we never had to deal with human sacrifice.”

  Despite her mood, Cassie grinned. She only had fuzzy memories of her mom, but she imagined that this would be what it would like to have both of her parents around. Her dad had done a good job raising her solo, even during the baffling histrionics and shenanigans of her early teenage years, but she’d often wondered what it would have been like to have a matched set. The families of her other friends had given her a bit of an inkling—Pax being the exception there, of course.

  It was ironic, she decided, that her own childhood had been so happy with only one parent, while Paxton had been cursed with a mother who’d been like Joan Crawford on a bad day even before she’d broken bad.

  Father Rosado straightened and peered out the sliding doors into the backyard. “Did anyone else see that?”

  Kent looked out the doors, then back at the Father. “See what?”

  “I thought I saw someone run through your backyard.” The priest frowned. “I suppose I could be seeing—”

  The closed front door and living room draperies muffled the shout from outside, but Cassie thought she recognized the cadence of the voice. Is that Pax’s mom? A chill went down her spine. Good grief, is she like Voldemort, but showing up when you think about her? It was an irrational thought—Paxton talked about his mom, plenty, once he opened up, but the coincidence jarred her nonetheless.

  Kent got up and moved to the front window. He pulled the shade open enough to peek through, then cursed. “Sorry, Father.” He turned and met Cassie’s eyes with his own. “We’ve got company. Take a look.”

  She joined him at the window studied the area outside. Four young women stood in a line across the front yard. A different RV sat in front of the house with the side door hanging open. Despite the size of the front yard, it gave the impression that they were trapped, isolated inside of a perimeter from the rest of the neighborhood. She had to wonder if the choice of location hadn’t been purposeful.

  Cassie inspected the women with a frown. She didn’t recognize three of the four, but the fourth kind of looked like Pax’s mom if she’d had a hell of a lot of plastic surgery. But even that didn’t make you look decades younger, it just gave you a stretched-face Barbie doll look. She shook her head, realizing her mistake. Magic could, though. They hadn’t seen any sort of youth spell in the grimoire, but then they hadn’t sought one out, had they? Something like that would have been more important to a woman like Helen, straddling the line between middle age and adulthood. I always figured you for vain, Mommy Dearest.

  “I’m waiting,” the woman called out again, and that sealed it for Cassie. It had been a long time since she’d heard the voice in person, but it was Pax’s mom. She glanced at Kent.

  “I guess she got some work done?”

  Kent stared at her for a moment then shook his head. “They’re not going to wait around for him to come back. Jean, do you have your Ruger?”

  “Do you really have to ask, dear?”

  Kent turned back to Cassie and raised an eyebrow. She pointed at the couch. She’d tucked her purse under the side table. Bad place for it if they rushed the door right now, Cass.

  “Get it, kiddo.”

  She pulled the Kimber out of her purse and, after a moment of thought, tucked her spare magazine in the back pocket of her slacks. They’d used shotguns back in Wisconsin to take down the familiars. Would a pistol be enough? Well, like Dad always said, .45 ACP, for when you want to send the very best.

  She rejoined Kent at the window. “You have anything bigger?”

  “In the gun safe,” he confirmed. He favored the sliding doors into the backyard with a wary stare. “We picked a bad house to reenact the Alamo in, Jeanie. You covering the back?”

  “I’ve got it,” Jean confirmed in a calm tone. Cassie couldn’t imagine how—her mouth had gone dry and she felt like her hands would start shaking if she let them.

  Kent reached over to the front door and snaked the security chain into place. “Father,” he said. “How comfortable are you with guns?”

  The priest favored the detective with a crooked smile. “I spent some time in the Army before I came to the church, Mr. Sikora. I’m accustomed.”

  “Back bedroom closet. The safe combination is twelve, thirty-nine, nineteen. The ARs would probably be best. The ammo cans are labeled. Bring the one full of magazines.”

  As the priest hurried to the back of the house, Cassie gave Kent a raised eyebrow. “All right, then.”

  He shook his head, “You kids told me enough damn horror stories the last few days. I want the best I can get.” He looked sheepish. “Hell, I should have had it out and ready. I figured pistols would be enough.”

  “Call 911?” She figured she knew the answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “Depending on how deep Donnie’s got his claws into the department, would they even show up?” He sighed. “One way or another, this is going to be over before they can make it. I hope none of the neighbors stick their heads out.” There was another muffled shout from outside, and Kent turned back to the door. “Guess I better answer before they get too salty.”

  He pulled the door open to the limit of the security chain, backstopping it with his heel. Kent brought his head close to the opening and shouted, “Nobody here by that name!”

  Laughter tinkled in through the gap. “You’re hilarious, Detective. You think I don’t recognize you from the trial? Tell my son I want my book back, nothing else.”

  Kent pulled back and gave Cassie a look. “That’s an interesting wrinkle.”

  “We can’t do it,” she insisted. “In the wrong hands, that book’s like a nuclear weapon. Who knows what she’ll do with it? Paxton got a glimpse, once, and it still gives him nightmares. And who knows if she’d even leave us be if we did give it to her.”

  Jean called out as Father Rosado returned, loaded down with two rifles and an olive-drab can. “There are some men in the backyard. And I’m with Cassie. No book.”

  Kent replaced his service pistol in his waistband holster and accepted one of the rifles from Father Rosado. “What’s your take, Father?”

  The priest responded with a raised eyebrow as he pulled back the charging handle on the second rifle to chamber a round.

  Kent closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m surrounded by maniacs.” He took a deep breath. “But okay.” He turned back to the gap. “Sorry, Helen, but this isn’t a library!”

  Valentine

  Phoenix, Arizona—Saturday night

  Being far enough away to avoid notice had consequences of its own. There’d been no activity in the guard shack since Locke and his crew had taken the rattletrap van into the campus. Had they taken the guards with them? Were they lying dead inside, blank eyes staring at the well-lit ceiling? The questions compounded, and Val’s itch to get closer to investigate continued to grow.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel until Morgan made a point of clearing her throat. With a sigh, he folded his hands in his lap and kept staring at the guard shack. No way he killed them. Right?

  The sudden buzz and ring of his phone made him jump, and he pulled it out and answered even as he noted Eliot’s number on the caller ID. “What’s up?”

  His partner didn’t beat around the bush. “They’re here, Val. Helen and her crew—looks like three witches and six familiars. They’ve got the Sikora house surrounded.”

  Val closed his eyes. “Damn it. Listen, we’ll head that way now. Hang tight—”

  “No time for that, buddy. They’ll be long gone by the time you get back. George and I are going out to slow them down.”

  Desperation shot through him. “Eliot, wait. We can scramble a response team from the Phoeni
x office.”

  “Even on their best day, it’d be half an hour.” Eliot fell silent for a moment, then said, “I’m going red, Val. If I can’t pull myself out of it, it’s been a pleasure.”

  “Eliot, wait.” He pulled the phone away from his ear. His partner had hung up. He hit the button to call back. “Shit. Come on, Eliot. Answer.” The line clicked over to voice mail, and he chucked the phone into the windshield with a snarl.

  Morgan had overheard enough of the conversation. “Drive, damn it!”

  “On it,” He twisted the key and gunned the engine. All pretense of stealth abandoned, tires squealed as he whipped the car around and headed back. “Call Anjewierden. We need a response team out there right now.” He took his eyes off the road and gave Morgan a somber look. “If they don’t make it there in time to help, at least they’ll be in position for the cleanup.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Eliot

  Phoenix, Arizona—Saturday night

  The scree lining the bottom of the arroyo bit painfully at his feet, but Eliot didn’t notice. He’d stripped down to slacks and undershirt, and the brush of the wind on his exposed skin lit a delicious fire in his body that made him want to sing and dance for joy.

  The curse was not without its benefits. Increased metabolism, slowed aging. Rapid healing and physical strength and speed far in excess of what one might expect from a sloppy-haired, wiry string-bean of a man.

  Keeping it under control was exhausting at times, and he’d long become accustomed to the idea that if he lost it, his partner was there in large part to neutralize the problem. Somewhere along the course of years, Valentine had become his oldest and dearest friend. Dying didn’t bother Eliot so much. Forcing his friend to do the deed was a far different story.

  So being outnumbered ten-to-one until Georgie took the field was a good thing. It meant that he didn’t have to hold back. There were no innocent parties here. Necromantic witchcraft was right up there with membership in al Qaeda or ISIS. Kill or capture, no questions asked, and here’s your medal, Agent. Decades of precedent backed him up, all the way back to the battle where the Allies had crushed the Sisterhood of Salem at Heidelberg during the Second World War.