Deadtown (41 page)

Our mark is upon thee,
it had said.

It’s inside me,
I’d told Aunt Mab.
I can’t get it out.

The Hellion touched me. It touched my defenseless arm, and the mark exploded with new pain. The demon essence, in contact with its source, burned through my arm in an enormous surge of power, like a never-ending lightning strike. I screamed and screamed.

Difethwr bellowed, its own voice rising into a howl of pain. It tried to pull back its hand, but it couldn’t. It was locked onto my flesh, onto the demon mark, as though welded there.

Baldwin appeared, furious. “Difethwr, what in hell are you—?”

Words poured forth from me in a torrent. I didn’t know where they came from; I barely recognized my own voice:

“This Hellion is mine! I have the greater claim; our marks are upon each other. I repudiate your mastery, human, and bind Difethwr to me.” A sound like a thunderclap shook the building, as furnace-fierce heat blasted through the room. Difethwr reeled backward, its hand free, and for a moment everything froze.

There was no sound, not even a whisper of wind through the broken windows.

The first thing to penetrate the silence was Difethwr’s laugh, a low rumble that rose in pitch and strength until it sounded like a roomful of damned souls howling. Baldwin’s mouth dropped open. Fear glittered in his eyes. Difethwr moved toward him, each footstep shaking the ground. Blue and yellow flames shot from its eyes, its mouth. Its entire body blazed with fire.

“No! Stop! I command you!” screamed Baldwin. He commanded nothing now. The Hellion advanced. Baldwin turned and tried to run, but he tripped on his long black robe and fell hard, facedown. The flames of the Destroyer singed the hem of the garment. Baldwin whimpered in terror.

“Stop, Hellion!” I called.
“Arhosa!”

Difethwr jerked, then stood still, as though some hand had yanked an invisible leash. It turned, slowly, and glared at me with bottomless hatred. It gnashed its teeth and made slashing motions with its claws. Its eye-flames shot toward me, but extinguished before they came near.

I climbed down from the altar and stood as tall as I could. I pointed at the demon; it cringed and wailed and howled. The Hellion’s flames flared out in all directions. Except mine.

“Difethwr,” I said, the words ringing clearly, “I banish thee back to the Hell whence thou came.”

The Hellion shuddered. It contorted its body, bending its spine and twisting its limbs, and moaned in pain. “We cannot go,” it whimpered. “The shield holds us in.”

I picked up the amulet from the floor and held it to my mouth like a microphone. “Now!” I shouted. “Open the shield!”

Nothing happened. Ten seconds, Roxana had said, but I couldn’t count. There was no time in this moment—how can you pick ten seconds out of eternity? Difethwr moaned and writhed, and its moaning and writhing were eternal, the fate of the damned.

Then a whirling light appeared, and time began again. Faint at first, the light quickly intensified, spinning faster and faster into a funnel shape directly above the Hellion’s head. Faster and brighter it whirled, until Difethwr began to grow misty and whirl with it, sucked into the vortex, inch by inch. The demon bellowed and roared, but the sounds grew faint, like an animal’s cry half-heard across a foggy marsh. The vortex of light sucked Difethwr into the air. In another moment, the Hellion was through the vortex and gone, except for the fading echo of an angry, tormented howl.

29

THE MOMENT THE SHIELD SNAPPED SHUT, I COLLAPSED LIKE a marionette whose strings had been cut, landing in a heap on the cold floor. The light of the vortex still dazzled me; I couldn’t see past the colored spots that swarmed across my vision. Every inch of my body shook. My teeth chattered. Nausea suffused my stomach. But in the cold, trembling, aching lump of flesh my body had become, one feeling predominated.

And that feeling was nothing. I felt nothing whatsoever in my demon-marked arm.

The nothingness wrapped around me like a cocoon. Far off, I could hear scuffling and muted shouting. I tried to rouse myself and go after Baldwin—I couldn’t let that son of a bitch get away—but I was shaking too hard to stand. I raised my right hand, amazed that it obeyed me, and flexed my fingers. They were shaky, but they worked. No twinges. No tingling or burning below the skin. My arm was my own.

“Are you all right?” A woman’s voice pushed through the cocoon. A face materialized in front of me and came into focus, the eyes squinting with concern. Clarinda, the missing witch.

“Where’s Baldwin?” I asked, trying to jump to my feet but losing balance and falling back again.

“It’s all right,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting up again. “He’s not going anywhere. I immobilized him with a binding spell.”

“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 circlet 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.