Midnight's Angels - 03 (30 page)

I have to admit, driving back through the center of town in broad, clear daylight came as something of a shock. I’d only seen it from the ground before. Not at a remove, through tempered glass.

But we were entering the next day of what amounted to a siege. Trash was beginning to pile up everywhere you looked. And people had been away from their homes, their living rooms and beds for an untenable while. A lot of them had not even been able to manage a fresh change of clothing. And the strain was beginning to show.

Gazes were hollow as we went by. Hair was rumpled, shoulders sagged. I could see some people trying to snatch what little sleep they could stretched out on the few benches there were, or curled up on blankets on the ground. Regular folk, reduced to living like hobos.

But what bothered me most was the mood of the children. When this had started, they had mostly treated it as some kind of game, excited by their new surroundings and eager to explore them. By now, they were considerably more subdued. And in some cases, withdrawn and grizzly. Children live for continuity. And they, more than anybody, wanted to get back to their old lives.

We were in such a hurry that we drove right through, making the great throng of bodies part. Faces swung around and followed us as we went by. Had we found something useful? Was there any end in sight?

Some of the hands below those faces … they were fiddling with magic charms. Most folk in the Landing use a little witchcraft sometimes. I could only pray they didn’t attempt something big and crazy, out of desperation. I was here to tell them that such magic ought to be avoided.

By the time that we’d reached the Town Hall, it had grown obvious we were experiencing some kind of Indian summer. Rich golden sunlight was washing across the flagstones, and the air felt as warm as it had been a couple of months back. The rest of Massachusetts had to be enjoying this. But more than three-quarters of our town was still plunged into artificial night, and we were missing out.

And then I saw another thing that rankled with me, although I ought not to have been particularly surprised. Emaline might talk about us being allies. But the rest of Tyburn wasn’t in the picture when it came to that. The people who had not come with us had set up camp, several hundred of them, on the west side of the square. The closest they could get to their own neighborhood, I figured. Some of them were in front of my own office building, in fact.

They were squatting on the ground and had formed dozens of small circles. Some of them were swaying. And a song was floating out toward us, in a language I had never heard before.

No one ventured near them, but they got some very curious looks. They didn’t even seem to notice. Were insular as turtles with their heads pulled in their shells. And it occurred to me -- when I saw that -- that calling them a community was to miss the basic truth of it.

They weren’t merely that. They were a tribe.

The High Witch gazed across at them in almost a maternal fashion, beaming warmly.

“The Song of the Dawnspreader,” she told us. “How appropriate.”

Gaspar Vernon wrinkled up his nose and grunted.

Willets and Martha were already heading down to greet us.

“You got it?” the doctor asked.

His jaw slackened with relief when Gaspar showed him the stone.

“We’d better get inside.”

“How’s Quinn doing?” I asked him as we went back up the steps.

“Cassie’s still with him. He is stable, and recovering. But weak and, I’d say, unable to help us any further.”

Considering how he’d saved our hides -- not once but several times -- that was not exactly good news. But he’d done enough already, and I hoped that he got through this.

We gathered in the mayoral suite.

“It really does look like an ordinary stone,” Willets remarked, when Gaspar handed the device to him. “But I suppose the question now is … what exactly do we
do
with it?”

* * *

“We need to smash it,” Martha argued.

“Erin Luce tried that, and couldn’t,” Gaspar Vernon pointed out.

“But there was only one of her. There’s three of us,” said Willets. “Four, if you include Ms. Pendramere. And with it gone, the angels would no longer have a reason to be here.”

He put the thing down on the desk. And for a moment, I found myself wondering if we’d made a big mistake in risking life and limb for this. It genuinely did look like a simple chunk of mineral. Magical devices usually have a certain feel and presence to them. But this thing merely sat there, like it was waiting for a kid to snatch it up and pitch it at a squirrel.

Could our futures possibly depend on anything so mundane looking?

The adepts surrounded it. Willets glanced across at Emaline and politely asked her if she would like to take part.

She shook her head briskly.

“That device, like all things in the Universe, exists by the will of the Goddess,” she explained to him. “I will not destroy her works unless I absolutely have to.”

I had already spent enough time in her company to know that that was Tyburn logic to a tee. But a sense of urgency had gripped the others, and events were moving past her.

The three of them extended their right palms. An incandescent bolt of energy shot out from each of them.

And it certainly affected the desk. Most of its surface was scorched black instantaneously. Aldernay would have a fit, if he ever came back.

But I could see the Clavis clearly. And at first, it didn’t react -- not one tiny bit.

Then it gave a small hint of its supernatural nature. It rose several inches in the air and began revolving slowly, the bolts of energy still washing harmlessly around it.

The adepts stopped, looking bewildered. And their arms dropped back. Willets’s face was an even deeper mass of lines than usual. He paused long enough to fill his lungs. Then he reached out, very gingerly, for the chunk of rock.

Dabbed his fingertips against it, very warily at first, then harder.

“It’s not even warm,” he grumbled. “After that?”

Satisfied it wouldn’t hurt, he plucked the thing from the air and stared at it gravely.

“So it
cannot
be destroyed. In which case, how do we make it reveal its secrets to us?”

There’d been nothing about that in Erin Luce’s journal.

He began turning it over in his fingers, looking for some kind of line or crevice, some indication of how it could be opened up. The workings of this thing were internal, we already knew. But how exactly did we get to them?

Failing to find anything, he passed it on to Martha. Who worked at it more delicately, brushing her fingertips along its edges. But she fared no better than the doctor had. There didn’t seem to be the tiniest indentation. Gaspar tried and got the same result.

We looked back around at Emaline, who was leaning against one of the double doors, watching us.

“Any thoughts?” I asked.

She extended her own right palm, and Gaspar handed the thing over to her.

The High Witch stood upright, holding the Clavis carefully between the index fingers of both hands. She closed her yellow eyes. Beneath the maroon dress, her chest began to rise and fall. She started rocking gently, and loosened her grip on the device so that she was barely holding the thing.

I thought I understood. She wasn’t trying to work it -- she was working
with
it. Finally, a happy grin tugged at her lips. And when her eyes came open, they were gleaming.

“At first glance,” she told us, “it looks smooth. But when you really
feel
the thing, you realize that’s an illusion. It is very slightly porous. Designed to absorb fluid, in other words.”

She handed it lightly back.

“People can’t command it. People must connect with it. Not through force, or even spells. My guess would be, a person’s vital essence.”

Which was double Dutch to me, and she could see it on my face.

“I think it wants a drink,” she said. “Specifically, of blood. A little of that might loosen its tongue, so to speak.”

“Did you say what I just thought you did?” I asked her, not liking the sound of that one little bit.

She nodded.

“Human blood?”

I was worried that she was going to nod again.

And that small form of paranoia turned out to be justified.

The adepts were gazing at her coldly, pretty stunned. Blood magic might be a common thing where she came from. I wasn’t sure, but that was probably the case, because she’d made her announcement in the same plain tone as someone ordering a milkshake.

In the rest of the Landing, however, such practices weren’t considered natural. Or even, to be honest about it, particularly savory.

Willets got over it first, taking a small step closer to her.

“It sounds extreme, but our new friend here might have a point.” He stared around at his colleagues, trying to look positive. “Any volunteers?”

“It should be a woman,” Emaline said sharply. “If this thing was created by a man, then using male blood might release its more dangerous aspects. Female blood ought to restrain it somewhat, turning the device to more beneficial use.”

Which got more stares and awkward blinks from the town’s leaders. They were mostly born to magic, but they didn’t use it every single day. Finding themselves in the presence of somebody who did, who lived and breathed the stuff … it was a learning curve for them. There were a lot of things they had been unaware of.

“But not me, before you ask,” the High Witch continued. “I know myself well enough to understand that power of that kind could easily seduce me. It needs to be someone with a gentler, more balanced nature.”

And, without another word, she handed the Clavis to a startled looking Martha Howard-Brett.

Whose mouth dropped open wide. But not the slightest sound came out.

* * *

I was glad to see that she recovered quickly. She might be willowy and slight, but mentally she’s strong. Her hands had started shaking, but she put a stop to that. Pursed her lips, and then stared at the Clavis.

“How much blood?” she asked.

“Do you cook?” Emaline came back at her.

Which sounded like the most bizarre kind of non sequitur, but Martha blurted, “Certainly.”

“Like salt, then. Start with a little. And if that’s not enough, add a little more.”

There was a letter opener on the top edge of the charred desk. Willets picked it up, inspected its metal tip, then handed it to Martha.

She pressed it against the pad of her left thumb. Applied enough pressure that a tiny spot of red appeared. Then smeared that against the stone before moving her hand away so that we could see what was going on.

A red stain stood out on the plain gray surface. Then it vanished, sinking in.

We stood there, waiting. Nothing happened.

“More,” Emaline murmured.

If she tried driving the letter opener deeper in, then she would genuinely hurt herself. So Martha looked across at me. I got out my pocketknife, opened it, and presented it to her handle first. She touched the blade unsteadily to the same spot she had pierced before. Then composed herself, and drew the blade across.

A sickened look sprang up on her features, but the woman didn’t even grunt. She’d made an incision some half an inch long. Blood had started flowing freely. Once more, she applied it to the Clavis. And like the first amount, it was sucked in almost immediately.

The stone turned jet black. And started growing in her hand.

* * *

She let go of it. But it did not fall. It hovered in the air in front of her. And kept expanding.

The rest of us were going away from it a couple of paces, out of sheer alarm. Even Emaline looked shocked. I expected Martha to do the same, get out of there. But she didn’t. She stood stiffly in front of the growing, dark mass, apparently fixated by it.

The thing had become perfectly round and was flattening out as it expanded, forming a massive disc. It still looked like stone, but of a kind that had become somehow elastic. And it was so dark that it seemed to absorb the light around it.

When it had stretched to about six feet across, it stopped growing. And I could see precisely what it was. A portal, big enough for any man to step through.

I was going forward to drag Martha out of there, when something brought me to a halt.

A sudden crunching noise. A sound like a pile of slate being rendered down to chippings. A jagged crack appeared along the center of the disc, running the whole way from top to bottom.

Cold gray light was shining through. And the crack started getting wider. I’d been told the Clavis opened doors through any barrier. In which case, what kind of dimension was it opening onto now?

It suddenly occurred to me. We’d not thought to specify that when we had applied the blood. We’d managed to get the thing working, for sure. But we’d left it to its own devices, and had no way of telling which direction it had gone.

The crack had widened by about six inches. Martha was still standing there, the gray light washing over her body. I could see nothing beyond the opening, only that strange glow. And that made me real uneasy. Had it opened up onto the Void?

I lunged the rest of the way, grabbing Martha by her shoulders. The splintering noises were still washing across us, so I had to shout.

“Move away!” I yelled into her ear.

“I can’t!”

Nor could she, it seemed, even glance at me across her shoulder. Her mind seemed to be okay, but her body was completely frozen.

“Something’s holding me!”

I could feel no energy, no invisible force. So perhaps it was only affecting her. This process had been started by her blood. I looked around desperately at the Tyburn witch, and there was open shock in her expression.

“How do we shut this again?” I called out to her.

But she shook her head unhappily. “My guess? It only closes when its work is done.”

That was just super. The gap was more than a foot wide by this juncture. And it wasn’t that the ragged edges of the disc were swinging back. They were simply easing sideways into nothingness, the gray light filling up the space they’d occupied.

If Martha couldn’t move under her own steam then I’d have to lift her. My muscles tensed, but I was a split-second too late.

She yelped as she was suddenly tugged in the other direction, forward. I could still not feel the power that had hold of her, could get no sense of it, and almost lost my grip.

But then I wrapped my arms around her, holding on as tight as I could. Dug my heels into the floor and tried to pull her away from the Clavis, but with no tiniest success.

Emaline jumped in at that point. Just about the first time I’d seen her do anything normal with her hands. But even with our combined efforts, Martha remained rooted to the spot.

Then she was drawn forward a few more inches, dragging us both with her. The High Witch gritted her teeth and almost snarled. The gap in the disc was nearly three feet wide. I strained with my entire might, sweat dripping from my chin, my shoulders almost popping from their sockets. But I couldn’t budge the adept so much as a millimeter. I’d have started cursing, but I didn’t have the breath to spare.

Other shapes pressed in around me. The rest had hurried in to help. But even with four people trying, it made no difference.

“A spell …?” I managed to grunt at Willets.

His red-flecked pupils blazed at me angrily, his entire face contorted with effort.

“Of what kind? We’ve not encountered this before.”

Then there was no time left for words. Because Martha was being dragged away from us even quicker, wailing like a child.

The last of the black stone vanished, directly ahead. All that remained was a six-foot disc of cold gray light. I could feel my eyeballs burn when I stared into it. There still seemed to be nothing out there.

The pressure on Martha was becoming so relentless that I wasn’t sure that we could hang on too much longer. I made a final effort, hauling back with every ounce of strength. And so did the others.

But my palms had become slick. I felt the fabric of her white silk blouse shifting beneath them. Her feet abruptly left the floor, and rose toward the light as though a strong current of air had lifted them.

She screamed out desperately, “Ross!” And tried to turn around so she could grab hold of me.

That was the wrong thing to do. It loosened my hold even further. But she did it out of panic.

Her shoulders slid out of my grasp. I snatched hold of her wrists instead.

Every tendon in my upper body felt like it was being stretched to breaking point. But I was struggling and hissing, determined not to let her go.

Her face was in front of mine. That simply made the whole thing worse. It was white and helpless, petrified. It pained me to the core to see that.

Somebody do something!
I was thinking.
Find a way to make this stop!

And then the muscles in my hands started feeling numb. I knew how this was going to end. I felt her palms pass over mine, and tried to hang on to the tight hooks of her fingertips.

But that only lasted briefly. They were yanked out of my grasp.

Martha gave one more terrified howl. And then was sucked into the gray light, where she vanished.

The disc instantly disappeared from sight as well, leaving us blinking and off-balance. I wobbled around for a while, the energy sucked out of me. And when I finally steadied myself, I doubled over, puffing like a steam-pump, perspiration soaking me.

Then I looked back at the empty spot where Martha had been spirited away.

The question now … where had she gone? But then I took in something else.

There was no longer any sign of the Clavis. Not as a disc, nor as a small stone either.

I pointed that out to the others. And we hunted for it as thoroughly as we could. But it was definitely no longer in the room.

It had gone the same time Martha had, vanishing through a door of its own making.