Night of Demons - 02 (19 page)

I spotted her again, and a lot of other people that I knew, during the very final battle of that night. We’d all got concentrated in one district—Pilgrim’s Plot again—since there were four separate demons roaming it. We beat each one, thank God.

The fighting started to die away around me as the first couple of shafts of sunlight leapt up at the far horizon. By which time, I was so weary I could barely think. Christ only knew what was keeping me up on my feet. But I remained in that position long enough to look around. And I did that bleakly, with a feeling of despair.

The full light of dawn revealed a very sorry state. Several plumes of smoke were rising—you could smell it everywhere. A few houses had caught when they’d been ripped apart; those had burned to cinders, since our fire department had been occupied elsewhere. Everywhere I looked, I could see damage. Roofs were crushed, walls had collapsed. A good number of cars were overturned, and some were leaking gasoline. Still, as Nick McLeish had pointed out, it was replaceable.

In fact, I could still see Nick McLeish, a long way from his own neighborhood. He was sitting on the curb about ten feet away from me, still in his undershirt, a hunting rifle across his knees. He had his head in his hands, his eyes closed. And he looked desperately chewed up and wasted. So did everyone around me.

A short way further up, a pair of college girls—dressed in faded jeans and brightly patterned T-shirts—had their arms wrapped around each other and were crying on each other’s shoulders. There’d been three in their group when I’d first noticed them. Damn. My heart went out to them, not least because I’d been to the place that they were visiting this morning. They had lost a friend.

Cassie had climbed back on her Harley, but only so she could sit down. She was slumped over the handlebars, and didn’t look like she was going to move from that position any time soon. Other people were wandering around, their mouths hanging open and their eyes completely glassy.

I was aching too, from the constant exertion, and my eyelids kept on rasping every time I blinked. But I wandered across to Saul, who was talking on his cell phone yet again. He’d been doing that continuously since the fighting had stopped.

“How’ve we done?” I asked him.

And he peered at me unhappily.

“Twenty-two dead, so far. Four of my people, and eighteen civilians. Not the worst night we’ve ever had in the Landing.”

And I knew exactly what he meant. Saruak and his creature, the Dralleg, had killed dozens more.

“But not the best one either. With how many more to come, I wonder?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it? I stared around again. The adepts had gone by this hour. The dead had been carried away, and the injured taken to hospital.

But something else was happening. I started noticing that as well. The people who’d been driven out of their homes were returning to them. Some of them started picking dismally through the wreckage. Others just sat down heavily in their litter-strewn front yards, their legs going out from under them. It was mostly shock, I knew. Give them time and they’d get over it.

But I hadn’t counted on the other townsfolk, those who hadn’t lost their homes. They began emerging from their own front doors and moving among their stricken neighbors. Blankets were being thrown over the shoulders of those who were still shaking. Others got offers of help, or simply reassuring hugs.

Then people started to emerge with thermos flasks and mugs. They began handing out coffee to those who’d spent the whole night fighting. A few hip flasks were being passed around as well. Cotton wool and bandages appeared, and minor wounds were dealt with on the spot.

That’s the thing about the Landing. It can be a pretty scary place to live in, sure. But what makes it bearable is its everyday inhabitants. I’ve seen them go through the worst the supernatural can throw at them, and still come bouncing back.

Watching the hushed activity around me, I felt pretty proud to live among them. Not that I had a lot of choice.

My own cell phone went off in my pocket, and I wondered what needed my attention now.

I listened carefully as Judge Levin explained the new developments to me. The adepts were regathering at the McGinley place, to discuss what they ought to do. And they wanted me in, since I’d been useful in the past. But I decided to drop Lauren off at my house first. No one had forced her to stay here, or asked her to join in with the fighting. So it was the very least that I could do.

The only thing that seemed to be keeping her awake in the slightest was the memory of what had happened. Her skin was like bleached parchment in the morning light. Her eyes were marbled and glistening uneasily. She kept on rubbing her lips together, like she was struggling to remember how to speak.

“You live with this the whole time?” she asked me at last, gawking at me from the passenger seat.

I rounded a corner, going past a small truck that was headed back the other way.

“Of course not. How could that be true? Most of the time, the Landing is like Sticksville anywhere you’d care to mention. People mow their lawns and wash their cars and get on with their ordinary lives.”

She looked unconvinced. The sky was turning blue again. The air was warming up. But that was lost on her. She still appeared to be reliving the past few hours, and I couldn’t blame her. So was I.

“But sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” I conceded, “things come busting out at us. And then we have to deal with them, because running away isn’t an option.”

In the outside world, I knew, there was a whole big load of refugees. But the concept didn’t apply here. It’s not a term we ever use.

She lowered her head, trying to take that in. And then she stared at me again.

“Incredible though it might seem…” Her voice had turned to a dull whisper. “I’ve been doing some thinking. In the lulls between avoiding getting killed, you understand. And I’ve figured something out. Your wife didn’t leave you, did she? She couldn’t leave town. Is she…?”

I shifted in my seat. Although she hadn’t meant to, her words burned like acid. We were on Colver Street by this time, and entering Northridge. I stared out through the speckled windshield, trying to ignore the heaviness that had begun to pull inside my chest.

“How long ago was it?” Lauren asked.

More than two years, but I didn’t say that.

Instead I answered, “She’s not dead.”

Lauren looked genuinely surprised. “What, then?”

“I’m not really sure.”

Which didn’t help her.

“It was magic too?”

For all her numbness and tired disbelief, she seemed to catch on pretty quickly.

“Her and my kids. Two of them. Yes,” I said.

“And…?”

I still couldn’t look at her. I just kept staring at the outside world like it was a series of disjointed pictures.

“I’m waiting for them to come back.”

And I have to admit, I felt pretty awkward saying that. But it was the truth. I’d seen no proof that they had died. They had simply disappeared. And there were other planes of existence out there, other dimensions—I already knew that from the adepts’ talk. Was it possible that they were trapped in one of them? I hoped so, because the alternative…

Lauren’s face filled up with sympathy. She reached out to touch my arm. But then, looking at how rigid I’d gone, she decided not to.

The silent houses drifted by. None of them were damaged, here. Looking at them, you’d scarcely believe anything bad had happened. Except there was no one out on the sidewalk this morning. Even the little kids had stayed indoors.

The motor of the Cadillac continued its low thrum. And the unspoken question hung between us. If they don’t come back?

Lauren cleared her throat uneasily, then ducked her head again, glancing away from me.

The thing about the McGinley sisters—Cynthia and Dido—was they put up a refined, genteel appearance, but were in truth nothing like that.

But the illusion was an impressive one. Who better to create such than a pair of sibling witches?

They occupied a massive Gothic residence at the far end of Billings Avenue from the judge’s house. And it might have looked grandiose and threatening, the way that kind of architecture sometimes does. Except they’d done it up like something from a happy fairy tale.

There were bright floral drapes at the windows, red, yellow, and blue. Nesting boxes had been nailed below the eaves—there was the constant stir of finches for part of the year. There were rows of huge sunflowers in the borders around the house. And the lawns were strewn with decorative statuary, all in animal shapes. The March hare romped. A tortoise ambled.

You’re always welcome, read the mat on the porch. That was a lie, and everyone knew it. Over to my right, a little plastic windmill whirred. You practically expected to see gingerbread in the walls if you stared hard enough.

The door itself was open, so I wiped my feet and then went in. And the truth of the sisters’ nature was revealed.

There were lights in the ceiling, attractive ones with frosted glass shades the shape of buttercups. And they were switched on. But they seemed to cast barely any glow. It was like moving through an early twilight.

The brass engravings on the walls were tarnished with age, darkened. On them—when I squinted—there were devils depicted. Creatures with the heads of bulls and stallions. Numerous satyrs, doing things to nymphs. There was something deeply unsettling about them, an unconcerned malevolence.

The carpet was dark too, and had that kind of overly intricate pattern that makes you unsure of your footing. What made it worse was that the wallpaper was the same. There were display cabinets on view, with all kinds of junk behind the glass. Ancient bones, with mold in their crevasses. Shrunken body parts, some of them not human. One shelf just had teeth on it, in various shapes and sizes.

A dented skull stared at me from another, with its jaws partially agape.

A second door swung open in front of me. So I went through that, into what appeared to be a hidden corridor. There was no decoration here. It was far more narrow, and completely bare, the ceiling so low my hair almost brushed against it. But I kept on going.

I finally emerged into a small, entirely circular room. And, given the general shape of the house, that didn’t make any sense. There were no windows. And the curving wall was painted with a vast, surreal mural. Jaws gaped and eyes stared. It extended, as though spilling down, across the stone-tiled floor. And that made me feel even more unsettled. Like I was entering the mouth of madness.

The major adepts were waiting for me.

The first thing that I sensed, when I stepped in, was a pair of gazes battening on me, emerald green and predatory. The sisters themselves. You’d have taken them for twins, but they’d been born a year apart. They were almost identical, hatchet-faced, in their midforties, with their dark hair piled up on their prematurely aged heads. They were both in black flowing gowns. The only way of telling them apart was that Dido, the slightly older one, had suffered a mild stroke a while back, which made her left eyelid droop.

Levin was here, of course. Standing next to him was a huge, barrel-chested bald guy with a long off-white moustache. Gaspar Vernon was very rich, but always insisted on dressing like a simple workingman. He came from humble woodsman stock originally, and never let anyone forget it.

Kurt van Friesling was the opposite, and wearing a tuxedo even at this early hour. In his youth, he had run wild with Raine. But he’d gotten more mature since then. His very pale blue eyes were pinned on me as well.

Martha Howard-Brett looked like she wanted to smile at the sight of me. Only the seriousness of the occasion stopped her. Unlike some who were gathered here, we’d always got on very well. She wasn’t nearly the most expert of this crowd, but she made up for it with her warmth and her intelligence. An absolutely stunning woman, tall and shapely with long auburn hair.

Her gaze—a lustrous hazel—was sparkling in spite of what we’d been through. I’d once referred to her as the Good Witch of the North. And I’m glad to say it made her laugh.

Cobb Walters was in his waistcoat and bow tie, as usual. Most adepts seemed to be particular about the way they dressed. He stood only slightly taller than Levin and was scrawny, with slumped shoulders and a pronounced stoop. His black hair was thinning. His nose was so oversized that, combined with his sad expression, he looked like a basset hound. Which only really goes to show that you shouldn’t judge someone by appearances. His sorcery was very strong.

Mayor Aldernay was there as well. He had no magic, despite his lineage. But I supposed they’d felt obliged to include him. He’d known Lucas Tollburn very well, and remained our town’s titular leader. He was flush-faced, and had an embattled, angry look. But that was usual for him. I’d not noticed him among the fighting.

There was one thing missing. I couldn’t feel the normal animosity from the sisters or Vernon. The three of them nodded at me mildly. Maybe they were starting to accept me a little better.

Gaspar Vernon let out a slow breath. The fringe of his moustache was gently tinged with red. I knew that, in private, he was a connoisseur of most fine things. So maybe he’d been sampling some claret before all of this had started.

“You must be tired, Devries,” he rumbled in that big, gruff voice of his.

“That’s true of everyone,” I pointed out.

“It’s been quite a night,” Levin conceded wryly. “And a pretty damned confusing one. I’d ask you to bring us up to speed but…”

He glanced over to his right.

“Cobb can do it for us quicker.”

I glanced at the little man. Cobb Walters didn’t say a word. He simply raised his right palm. Stretched his fingers apart as wide as he could. There was no time to get out of the way. I felt a sudden tug inside my head, as if the balance of my inner world had shifted. And then the eyes of each adept became a good deal wider. There was something shining in them.

I wasn’t exactly pleased about that. I hated magic being used on me, and knew what Cobb had done. He had plucked my recent memories directly from my head, and then passed them on to all the rest.

Vernon gave a low hiss.

“I knew Lucas fifty years. He never mentioned anything like that.”

“Hardly surprising,” Kurt van Friesling pointed out. “If you owned such a thing, would you?”

“I always thought he was a far too clever S.O.B.,” Dido McGinley put in. “Now I know it.”

And then it was Levin’s turn.

“But why would Millicent do such a thing? Do you suppose she’s fallen under the influence of this madman, Hanlon?”

Gaspar Vernon grumbled at him. “You don’t know that girl the way I do.”

The judge’s eyes became pained-looking behind those rimless spectacles of his.

“She’s still one of us—still part of this community. Why would she want to tear it up? We should at least find out what her motives are.”

I was going to point out she’d turned her home into some kind of fortress. But then I remembered they already knew that. They’d taken it from my own memories. And glances passed between them.

“Sam’s right,” Martha Howard-Brett said. “If we can somehow make her see sense…”

And after that, no one said another word. It seemed to be agreed on, simultaneously and without further discussion. The adepts sometimes work like that.

They moved up close and linked hands. And Martha stretched her free one out in my direction, smiling gently.

“Come along, Ross. We need you too.”

Which made me pretty uneasy. But we were in a desperate situation here, and so I stepped across in spite of my misgivings.

As soon as her palm closed around my own, the room started to melt away around me.

The murals slid together, merged.

And then the house was gone completely.