Stones Unturned (38 page)

The changeling moaned, and Baalphegor smiled, a warm trickle of saliva dribbling from his widening grin to spatter down onto his spawn's face. Danny sputtered and coughed, arms waving in the air as he regained some semblance of consciousness.

"So good to see you alive," Baalphegor said, attempting to disguise the excitement in his voice. "Now let's get down to business."

Eve opened her eyes, gazing up at the nighttime sky through thick billowing clouds of smoke. She attempted to move, feeling broken bones grinding painfully together as they attempted to heal.

The pain was pretty bad, but she'd get over it. She always did.

She remembered the flash of arcane energy, the explosion decimating Julia's home and tossing her like a rag doll through the air. It usually took quite a bit, but Eve guessed that she must have lost consciousness. Pushing herself into an upright position she heard the chatter of humanity outside, drawn to the disaster like moths to flame.

Not good. Just more lives to be lost in collateral damage.

Willing herself to heal faster, Eve rolled over and struggled to her feet, not
even
wanting to think about the condition of the outfit she had just bought at Copley. Briefly she considered talking to Conan Doyle about a clothing allowance. The number of outfits that were ruined while working for him was a crime, and she didn't see why she should have to foot the bill.

"What the fuck?" she grumbled, almost losing her footing as wreckage shifted under her. She threw herself forward and landed on the roof of a UPS truck that had been parked outside of the Ferrick house.

Eve stood and surveyed the destruction caused by the demon's spell. The Ferrick house was toast. There was nothing much left of the Colonial but burned piles of wood, brick, and rubble. The smoke and fire seemed to be keeping the spectators at a distance, but that wasn't going to last much longer. She could already hear the wail of fire engines and police cars.

Glancing to her left, Eve saw something that caught her eye in a nearby tree. Walking to the edge of the truck's roof, she found Ceridwen nestled within the oak tree, its branches having reshaped themselves as if to comfort her. She didn't appear to be injured too badly, but there was the slight tang of Fey blood spiking the air.

"Hey, Ceri," Eve called. "You all right?"

The sorceress's eyes opened. Her staff had fallen to the ground far below. Now it shot up into the air, straight to her grasp. The moment her fingers closed around it, the moisture in the air collected around the top of the staff and formed a frozen sphere of ice. Flames flickered inside the sphere.

"Daniel," she said, eyes darting about.

"Yeah," Eve said, jumping down to the ground. "I was just thinking the same thing."

Ceridwen joined her, lowered to the ground by the limbs of the oak.

"Can't see shit with all this smoke," Eve said, prompting Ceridwen to raise her staff, summoning a wind to clear the obstruction.

"Oh, shit," Eve said, her gaze falling upon the large pile of rubble across from them.

Baalphegor stood atop the wreckage, a beaten and bloody Danny Ferrick on his knees before the demon. The boy was clutching a jagged piece of glass, the edge of the makeshift blade about to cut into the thick tendril of flesh the connected the swollen sack to his body.

A clatter of bricks behind her startled Eve, and she whirled around ready for a fight, but pulled back when she saw that it was Squire and Shuck, emerging from shadows cast by a burning sofa. The animal appeared injured, but alive, dragging a dead, eel-like creature behind it. The beast plopped down among the rubble with a sigh, and started to eat its prize. Shuck was done with fighting, she guessed, and that was all right with her.

"What'd I miss?" the hobgoblin asked, brushing soot from the arms of his leather jacket, attempting to ignore the fact that he'd recently riddled her with bullets blessed by the Pope.

That was an issue for another time.

Squire's eyes bulged as he saw what was about to happen.

"This is not good."

Danny saw his friends emerge from the rubble of his house, desperate to reach him, to prevent him from doing what he was about to do. He wanted to apologize to them, to tell them that he'd tried to fight it, but it was just too strong. The monster inside him wanted to be free, and it had showed him every horrible thing that he'd done over the last few days — every bloody detail in order to prove to him that his humanity was already dead, that the Danny Ferrick he remembered had died a long time ago, and he just had never realized it.

The cool breeze summoned by Ceridwen's magic caressed his face, carrying her lovely voice within it as she begged him to stop. Squire was screaming, as was Eve, bounding across the wreckage of his home — of his life, really.

Eve. Deep down he thought she would be the one to understand. She had hinted at a time in her life long ago when the monster had dominated, and he had to wonder, had it ever really gone away? Or was it still inside her, locked away.

Is there a chance for me?
Danny wondered. If he did what he was about to do, cutting away his humanity, embracing the monster, would there be an opportunity to regain what he'd lost?

If completely a monster, would he care?

Baalphegor roared, casting a spell that acted as a concussive blast, hurtling Danny's friends back to where they had started. His demon sire looked back to him, large golden eyes beckoning him to take that next step — to begin the journey toward his special destiny.

The touch of the glass was excruciating, a single spurt of blood shooting out as his makeshift knife bit into the thick flesh. It wouldn't be long now, he thought, starting to saw, hands sticky with the blood of his humanity.

Soon he wouldn't care; soon he would feel nothing.

The air grew deathly still, the world seeming to slow and then completely stop. Danny couldn't move, and no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to complete his task.

His father tossed back his head and roared his rage at the night sky. Seemingly unaffected by whatever had occurred, the demon spun around, arcane energies leaking from its fingertips, ready to confront whatever had denied him his prize.

Frozen, Danny watched two figures — a man and a woman — passing through the stationary plumes of smoke on their way toward him.

"Doyle!" Baalphegor shrieked, his screams echoing strangely about the stilled air.

Yes, it was Conan Doyle.

And my mother
.

Conan Doyle was so furious that the spell required to bend time to his will — something that normally would have winded him at the very least — actually fueled the fires of his rage.

This never should have been allowed to get this far,
he thought as he walked down the debris-strewn Newton Street. He remembered when he had first encountered Baalphegor during the war in the Faerie realm, where the fates of all realities were hanging in the balance. That is where their association should have ended. He ought to have killed the demon, then. None of this would have happened.

But such recriminations were useless. The past was past. Tonight concerned the future.

Julia stumbled by his side, almost falling to her knees. It was as if she were in a trance, mesmerized by the sight of her home, now only a smoldering pile of rubble, and her monstrous son perched with his demon sire atop the ruins.

Even from this distance, Conan Doyle could see what the boy was about to do — giving up his humanity, handing it over to the hungry predator — and he had put a stop to it, momentarily. The spell around Danny would not last for long.

And there was something else lingering in the smoky nighttime air.

A hint of Hell.

The demon screamed his name, the shrill cry cutting through the thickening stillness of the frozen moment.

It had been toward the end of the Twilight Wars, sick and exhausted from the years of battle, that he had encountered Baalphegor at the edge of a clearing where the walls of reality had grown incredibly thin. The beast had been but a shadow of itself, its dark, leathery skin covered in bleeding sores as it squatted on the brink of death, attempting to manipulate magicks too complicated for its current condition. It was attempting to open a portal, to escape the death that would surely claim it in the realm of Faerie.

So lost in its misery, the collector demon hadn't even heard Conan Doyle and his patrol as they approached.

The armored guard, many of them having fashioned garb from creatures such as this, had prepared to slay the demon. But Conan Doyle had stayed their hands. The wretched creature had not been one of their enemies. Baalphegor was merely a scavenger, a parasite, hoping to benefit from the conflict. His presence alone was enough to condemn him, but Conan Doyle had been so tired of all the killing — of all the death — that he had allowed the pathetic beast to flee, even lending him a bit of his own magic to momentarily peel back the veil of reality to one of the lesser realms.

The guilt weighed upon him now, added to all of the other mistakes he had made in his long life.

"Stay your hand, mage," Baalphegor screeched from his perch atop the rubble. "All I wish is to leave this realm and the realms that surround it. You know as well as I that soon, no matter how hard you fight, they will be no more."

Guilt gnawed at him. Unaccustomed to admitting his faults, or even that he had any, Conan Doyle's anger surged.

"How dare you," he growled, conjuring a spell from deep within him to strike the filthy beast down.

A sphere of copper-gold magic pulsed and churned in his hand, surging with such power that he could not have held it back had he wished to. Conan Doyle hurled it at the demon, and the explosion of raw magic blasted Baalphegor from his perch.

His body seething with all of the magic he could summon, Conan Doyle looked to Julia, who still stood beside him.

"Go to him," he said, pointing toward the changeling that she still believed to be her son. "See if there is anything left of the child you remember."

He turned away, striding toward the place where he'd seen the demon fall. Squire, Eve, and Ceridwen joined him, and he was reminded of a time long ago when he'd stood with a patrol at the edge of a forest dark and deep and had encountered an evil too pathetic to kill.

Conan Doyle waved them away, needing to do this on his own.

The spell that he had woven on time was unraveling, things flowing again as they should. The wails of police cars and fire engines were very close, adding to the urgency of the situation.

Careful with his footing, the mage climbed over the wreckage of the once quaint home to where he'd seen the demon tumble. Conan Doyle was at the ready, body tensed, defensive magic at his lips, as he steeled himself to deal with a threat that should have been vanquished long ago.

He found Baalphegor cowering in the shadow of what looked to be the only section of wall left standing. The demon's body smoldered, the magic he had thrown at it having charred and torn its leathery flesh.

The demon shivered as if cold, hugging itself as it cowered.

And Conan Doyle was again reminded of a time, long ago.

"I just want to get away," Baalphegor whispered. "Just as before. You're a merciful creature. Let me live . . . allow me to leave this plane, and I will share with you what I know about the boy."

Conan Doyle was taken aback. The magic of his latest spell ran the length of his arm to leak from his finger tips. It ached for release, the power of the hex surging painfully. His whole body shook, but he held the magic at bay.

"What about the boy?"

The effect of his first attack upon the pitiful demon seemed to be spreading. The tears in its flesh oozed, and threads of oily smoke rose from those wounds as Baalphegor continued to shiver and shake.

"Do we have a deal?"

Slowly, Conan Doyle nodded.

"The Hellions that approached me . . ."

"Hellions?" the mage asked, right arm shuddering with a spell uncast, a dark hex that began to form a churning cloud around his fist.

Baalphegor recoiled from the searing light, nodding. "They approached me, knowing all about the boy, whispering of some dark destiny for him. They told me of the Demogorgon, of its coming, and what it will mean to your species."

Conan Doyle considered this, both curious and confused. He knew well of the Demogorgon's coming, but this was the first he'd heard of Hellions acting against their cause behind the scenes, before the Devourer even arrived, and the first whisper he'd heard of some strange destiny for Daniel Ferrick. The dimensions truly were spinning out of control, entropy taking hold even before the Demogorgon arrived.

The words of the poet Yeats now seemed prophetic.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer

Things fall apart: the center cannot hold

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Conan Doyle looked down upon the demon. Already the shivering wretch had begun the process of conjuring a dimensional portal, the air around its wavering hands beginning to shimmer. Baalphegor turned its horrid face to him, its piss-yellow eyes searching for the same compassion that it had found from the mage so long ago.

And Conan Doyle unleashed his mercy, the hex that had built up in him bursting from him, searing his marrow as it arced from the tips of his fingers, reducing the creature to so much ash.

Julia stood amid the wreckage of her home beside the monster that was her son. She could feel something changing in the air, Conan Doyle's magic leaving perhaps, the flow of time returning to normal. Danny held the piece of glass tightly in his grip, the edge of the jagged blade biting into the thick strip of flesh, which she now knew connected the boy to his humanity.

Confusion whirled in her mind. She was not sure how she was supposed to feel at the moment. Staring at her son, she felt new pangs of fear, different from the terror she had felt before. The memory that had been stolen from her was the very foundation of her love for Danny. Had the thieving Hellion destroyed that love?