The Darkening Dream (35 page)

Sarah increased the volume of her chant with each rising tide. As the latest wave rose, Alex had a distinct impression of rising with it to stand in a tiny bedroom. The vampire sat on the bed, a taller man in a ragged clerical suit before him. This man — he assumed it was Pastor Parris — had patchy white hair and his skin was red and blistered. He gesticulated wildly, holding a doll-like bundle of rags in one hand.

Alex’s vision wavered, the energy crashed, and his consciousness returned to the room and the ritual.

For a moment Emily was calmer, although the welts on her leg now pulsed, ugly and unnatural, and the black tendrils of smoke had grown a foot long. She was panting and her eyes were rolled back into her head.

The next time the energy mounted, Emily arched up off the floor. She was grounded at one end by her head and shoulders, her feet braced on the barrier created by their spell. The rest of her was suspended. She pressed her hands into her crotch with frenetic energy. Alex’s erection now stood at full mast, bracing his pants like a tent pole. All attempts to banish it proved futile.

The red welts now reached up through the collar of Emily’s nightgown. The vessels in her neck throbbed.

Alex felt a burn at his breast where the silver amulet rested against his skin. He had the sensation of floating outside his body. Sarah’s hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. Sam’s jaw was locked, as if seeing this finished was his only road to salvation. Anne just looked scared to death.

Grandfather alone seemed caught in the normal flow of time. He waited, watching the scene before him, expectant. Alex had seen that expression before.

With a snap, he returned to himself and attempted to yank his hands free. Anne released, but he couldn’t shake himself from Sarah’s grasp so he used his right hand to sweep aside the line of red powder, severing the circle.

The door flew open and the air was sucked from the room. The candles snuffed out, and Emily collapsed in a whimpering heap. The black tendrils vanished, and the red welts began to fade.

“What did you do?” Sarah’s face was a furious mask of red.

“I had to stop it,” Alex said. “It was killing her. If we kept on, she’d have died.”

“But it was working!” Sarah said. “You ruined everything.”

“The curse would have broken,” Alex said, “and maybe turned on the pastor, but Emily wouldn’t have survived. Isn’t that right, Grandfather?”

The old man looked at Sarah, who started to speak but he held up his hand.

“A hex of this sort is stretched tight between two points. Break the anchor at one, and it will snap back to the other with great force.”

“Enough force to kill her,” Alex said.

“You were a part of the circle,” he said. “If you feel so strongly, perhaps it was so.”

“That wasn’t natural,” Sam said. “There has to be another way.”

Sarah gave Alex an anguished, angry look. It hurt like hell.

“You ruined it!” She grabbed his hand and tugged him out of the room, around the corner, and down the hall. Her face was still crimson. “Not only did you destroy the spell, but I saw — no, felt — you looking at her.”

He’d never seen her mad like this.

“It was the oil,” he said. “I couldn’t help it.”

“I can’t take this anymore.” She put her hand on his chest, pushing the wolf’s head medallion into his skin. “And what about this?”

“What about it?”

“I told you not to wear jewelry. You ruined it!”

She’d never used this tone of voice with him, but that hardly mattered. Slow to rouse, his own anger grew.

“You should thank me for saving Emily’s life.”

“It’s done.” She walked away, stopped only to grab her coat and stockings.

He wanted to go after her.

Anne poked her head out of the room. “Is it safe to help Emily?”

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “Hopefully she’s no worse off than before.”

He heard the door to the house slam. Running to the front hall he opened it and caught a glimpse of Sarah’s white form reaching the gate. He started to go after her.

“Wait!” he yelled.

She paused for only a second. “Leave me alone. I can’t see you right now.”

This froze him on the steps. Black clouds gathered over his head as he watched her go. It was dark out. Jesus, please let the vampire not be out tonight.

“If this ritual thing won’t work, what will?” Sam was asking as Alex crept back inside.

“Perhaps you need to secure the other end of the anchor,” Grandfather said. “With both ends they can be destroyed simultaneously, and their negative energies will cancel. Do you know what or where it is?”

“It must be that thing the pastor was holding in the room I saw,” Anne said. “Mr. Engelmann really did a job on him, he looks terrible!”

So Alex wasn’t the only one to see the pastor.

Grandfather chuckled. “Nevertheless, he remains a warlock of unknown skills and intent, and he’s in league with a nine hundred-year-old vampire. Caution would seem prudent.”

“Damn caution! He’s killing my sister!” Sam swept Emily up and carried her from the room.

Anne turned to Alex. “What was that business between you and Sarah?”

“She’s just mad I broke her spell.”

Anne put her hand on his arm. “It was the right thing to do, but an apology never hurt anyone.”

Thirty-Nine:

Grave Robbers

Salem, Massachusetts, Sunday night, November 16, 1913

T
HE
P
AINTED
M
AN MIGHT
have his bowmen crossed with his nobles, but he was rarely mistaken, so after waking on November sixteenth, al-Nasir fast-stepped downstairs to the pastor’s room.

His knock went unanswered and the door was locked. The vampire sniffed — the warlock was inside. Perhaps he slept.

Al-Nasir tried to relax his mind and concentrate on diffuse qualities. It was like groping around blindfolded in a junk-filled chest for a particular item, one he’d never felt before. For a moment he thought he might have it, then it slipped from his grasp. For several years now, he’d been trying to transform into a vaporous mist. He knew of only two vampires who had mastered the skill, and they were both over a thousand years old. Still, it was never too early to hope. He’d always been precocious.

Sighing, he pushed the door with a finger and snapped the lock. There were so few things to look forward to.

The warlock was in his cot, and his snores grated on the vampire’s sensitive ears. The Hebrew
magi
had blasted half the hair from the man’s head and turned what remained white as bone. The vampire brushed his long yellow fingernails against Mr. Parris’ blistered cheek.

The pastor jerked upright and gathered his legs up to his chest.

“Get away from me!”

Al-Nasir fast-stepped to the far side of the room. No need to antagonize the man. Besides, he loved showing mortals his unnatural speed. Fast-stepping was something one could begin to learn not long after death, but it took centuries to acquire his level of mastery.

“No harm intended. I already ate. My partner said you’d have need of me tonight.”

The pastor’s brow furrowed. “I suppose he was right. I finally know how to break those magical protections.”

He opened a steamer trunk and rummaged until he found an object wrapped in black silk.

“A brass knife?” al-Nasir said.

“After a week of research I’ve figured it out,” the warlock said. “That esoteric ward is based on a model of the Temple of Solomon, built in Jerusalem to house the tablets Moses received on Mt. Sinai. This weapon will help us destroy it.”

“Care to shed some light on how?”

Mr. Parris waved his arms like a man swarmed by bees. “That ward isn’t just a spell,” he said, “it’s a mystical building coexistent with the physical building, an occult or celestial temple.”

“So?”

“I stole the blade from the ward’s creator. It even has the Mr. Engelmann’s name on it. This makes it a perfect fulcrum for my art. Well, one of my arts, anyway, as technically I practice two.”

Spittle flew from Mr. Parris’ mouth and the vampire fast-stepped to avoid it. The man had initially seemed dry, but once you found the oasis, the water pooled deep.

The pastor pulled a brown doll out of his pocket. It smelled like shit.

“Witchcraft makes use of the great principle of sympathy, or ‘like equals like.’ Say I was to make a likeness of some poor sap in clay and bind it to him with his hair and blood. It’s the likeness of
form
and the likeness of
nature
, derived from the hair and blood, that bind the doll to the man. Once bound, sympathy prevails. Burn the doll, burn the man.”

Actually, this made sense to al-Nasir. His dead flesh worked no spells, but over the centuries he’d seen his share of the dark arts.

“So we make a little model of this building and destroy it?”

“Precisely! The home will then cease to exist, in an esoteric sense. Not only will the ward be broken, you won’t even need an invitation to enter what’s left.”

Fouad and Tarik had their orders for tomorrow, but it was good to have options. Al-Nasir only had five nights left. That dark-haired girl at the house had reeked of Gabriel, clearly the same trollop whose blood he’d tasted near the old lair. Even if she herself didn’t know how to open the way to the Horn, she would provide irresistible leverage against the infidel
magi
.

“If the form is the building,” al-Nasir said, “what’s the nature? Spiritual temples hardly have hair and blood.”

The pastor beamed. “But they do! Mr. Engelmann made this guardian temple, and he has a body!”

“But how do we get it? You’re too much of a coward to face him again.”

The warlock grimaced. “Not like you’d let me out of the house in any case. Yesterday, I stooped to rolling bones with Fouad!”

“He take all your money?” Fouad was quite the shark.

“Anyway,” the warlock said, “I had the ugly hulk fetch me some papers from City Hall. Mr. Engelmann had a son who died years ago. I found a record of his grave.”

“So?”

“Blood and flesh. A son is as good as the father. Get me that corpse, a clean ritual space, and I’ll build the model.”

Al-Nasir’s eyes narrowed.

“No hidden costs or consequences?” Practitioners were notorious for whitewashing over the details.

“Of course it won’t be free,” Mr. Parris said, “but I have standing credit.” He glanced at the hearth where only a few embers smoldered.

Al-Nasir slid over to the fireplace and inhaled. He smelled charred ash, woman-stink, and brimstone. A fitting blend.

“You combine witchcraft and demonology?”

“There are many ways to skin a cat.”

The pastor was smirking. Inside his mouth, al-Nasir felt his fangs begin to extend at the prospect of success. “You must be ready in three turns of the sun.”

The pastor grimaced, then doubled over. Surely the deadline wasn’t that problematical!

But he rolled around on the floor, sweat beaded his blistered skin, and he clutched the stinky little doll to his stomach.

“Are you all right?” al-Nasir asked.

The pastor moaned.

The vampire waited until his patience emptied — perhaps two minutes — then turned to get one of the Moors.

“Wait,” the groveling mess on the floor whispered.

“Yes?”

“I’m under attack…” The pastor tried to shake the doll in his hand. “Someone’s using it against me.”

Al-Nasir nudged him with a boot toe. “Is that dangerous to us?”

The warlock didn’t answer, only contracted in pain. But soon his color returned and he sat up.

“What happened?” al-Nasir asked.

“It just went away. I think they botched the spell on their end. My bond to the girl-vessel is secure.”

“Then my slaves will get the body tonight,” the vampire said.