The Devil Dances (27 page)

Swarms of insects were surrounding her—smaller ones that were joining with other smaller ones to create much larger ones. The density and darkness of the swarms varied, and I realized that, consciously or not, Vivian was summoning her familiars. Bees, wasps, hornets, flies, yellow jackets, ticks, mosquitoes, even huge, rolling waves of fire ants and copious numbers of beetles and centipedes were swarming over her feet in a shining black carpet. Together they were creating a dense, dark storm that nature had never intended exist—anything and everything the region had to offer up. They hovered around Vivian, patiently waiting for their marching orders. The collective noise they made was enough to make the ground vibrate under me and my back molars ache.

John recognized the immediate danger as well. He stopped shaving off pieces of my flesh to turn around and face the daemon-witch and her army of familiars.

Vivian’s eyes flashed open and her head lolled forward. Her eyes were bright white, with neither irises nor pupils, like a woman gone blind. She opened her mouth but no sound came out, just a yawn of power as she breathed out her magick. She lowered her arms and swept them forward.

Then the black swarm of death was upon us both.

John screamed.

It was a teeth-grinding noise, like someone was ripping the meat from his bones, like he was being turned inside out. I didn’t know, of course. I couldn’t see him—he was just a moving, panicked figured tarred a glossy black with the insects crawling all over him, two wild white eyes rolling in his head. His arms flailed, beat at the suit of insects he wore, but when that brought no relief, he dropped to the ground and rolled, making a shockingly loud crunching noise as he crushed millions of his insect attackers. Millions more flew to replace their fallen comrades, and very soon I saw John’s efforts growing feeble. He lashed out, kicked, cursed, tried to spell his way loose, but I could tell he was losing the battle. He was also losing mass, seeming to shrink as the insects collectively stripped him of every edible morsel on his body.

At last, he stopped moving and lay in the grass, making a low, groaning noise that continued until his vocal chords had been completely consumed by the legions of flies crawling over them. When the billions of insects began to flit away, I saw that only shiny white bones remained, picked clean of every soft part. The skeleton twisted one final time, not quite dead yet, and the empty white jaws clacked open on a scream that John no longer had the power to emit.

I breathed in and out, in and out, vibrating with a terror I hadn’t felt in years. It took me a moment to realize I was hoping he would die. I was hoping his suffering would end, which was pretty funny, considering what he had been doing to me.

The wasps and bees descended on me next, filing my ears with their savage roar, crawling over my eyes. The ants and centipedes cascaded over my legs and up my body. Every inch of my body felt alive with tiny scuttling legs and tiny feelers. I closed my eyes and didn’t breathe. I didn’t do anything but hold absolutely still while my entire body felt like it was receiving warm pulses of energy. When the insects finally crawled or flew away, I realized the weight of them had collapsed the cross stuck in the earth. I could move again, and, even better than that, I saw the black, bleeding gouge in my thigh was replaced by a thick white scar. Vivian had generously fed her magick into me, to heal and revive me. Within seconds, I felt twice as strong, strong enough to snap the hemp binding my wrists. I felt almost ready to climb to my feet.

Vivian jogged toward me. Her eyes were a piercing sapphire once more, more like our father’s eyes, and the moment she reached me, she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around my neck. “Nick… Nick… did I do well? Did I do really well?”

“Yes, Vivian,” I said, gathering her tight in my arms, my eyes set on the skeleton lying so bloodlessly in the burned grass, “You did really, really well.”

I leaned against a sycamore tree and lit a cigarette, the glowing ember the only light in the dark of the night forest. A full harvest moon was riding high over the treetops, but its light barely penetrated the canopy. I realized, somewhat despondently, that this was my very last cigarette. Vivian and I shared it before starting back toward the colony.

Yes, I know it would have been more prudent to have gone in the opposite direction, away from danger, but I also knew that Mulberry Grove eventually gave out to a fifty-thousand acre national park about five miles west of here. If we went that way, we were likely to stumble blindly through the woods for days before we were rescued, and neither of us were survivalists. We needed the Jeep to get back to civilization—or, barring that—just a road where we might hitch a ride back to Blackwater.

“What if they’re waiting for us?” Vivian asked, walking beside me and clutching my arm.

I’d stumbled a few times in the dark, once over some fallen trees, but so far, I’d stayed upright. Vivian’s healing magick had done good work on all my injuries, and her hand on my arm continued to feed me the strength I needed, as well as the comfort we both craved. I knew if we stayed on this route, we’d reach the colony soon. Already, I could seen some dim lights a mile or so ahead, through the trees.

I’d found a half-eaten 3 Musketeers bar in my jeans pocket, imagine that, a little melty but still edible. I divided it in half and gave the bigger half to Vivian. “No, they’re gone. No chanting.”

“Are you sure?” she said, chewing slowly and meditatively on the chocolate.

“If they were, we’d be writhing around the leaf litter right now.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I watched her eyes as they darted frantically around the forest. An owl hooted from up in the boughs of a pine tree, and something unseen flitted over the dry leaves at our feet. City folks at heart, every sound made us flinch. The moonlight was growing stronger by the hour, and I could see there were lines in the corners of Vivian’s eyes that I had never noticed before, and a streak of silvery grey in her hair that I
knew
hadn’t existed before tonight, but I chose not to say anything about it. She looked older to me, harder, and now she sported a witch’s streak. The price of magick, I thought.

Something Abraham should have understood.

“Are you all right?” I whispered as we ambled along, the two of us too afraid to speak any louder than that, as if we might conjure something.

She sniffed, but I couldn’t tell if she was crying or her nose was running from the ragweed. “Yeah. I’m good, Nick.”

I thought about what she had done back there in the grove, the horror of it. “Not going to fall apart on me or anything?”

She swallowed but nodded her head. “I told you. I’m good. I’m strong.” She looked down at the wrapper in her hands. It crinkled slightly because her hands were shaking so much. “Do you ever wonder what’s in these? I mean, what
is
nougat? What’s it made of?”

I almost laughed at that, but suddenly I heard a branch break just ahead of us. I clutched her arm to halt her and the two of us stopped dead in our tracks.

“Maybe it’s a deer,” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think it’s… that thing? What’s his name? Cernunnos?”

“Stay here. Don’t move.” I stepped in front of her. The forest was beginning to thin out now that we were getting closer to the colony, the trees sparser, with more ferns and sticky bushes all over. Ahead, I saw a break in the tree line, and some lanterns further on, lighting up the town square.

“Nick!” Vivian hissed. “Be careful!”

I moved a few steps closer to where I thought the branch had broken. I tried to slow my breathing, to hear over it… suddenly, something jumped out at me. I grabbed at it, ready to gouge out a pair of eyes, if need be, and realized it was a dark, hatted figure, a Swartzcopf man. I caught him around the shoulders and threw him down in the leaves, but he cried out and I recognized Isaac’s voice immediately. “What are you doing here?” I rasped.

He looked up at me from the ground, his expression drawn and shadowed. “I’d heard what was going on… what the men were doing…” Vivian came up beside me and he looked at her briefly before returning his attention to me. “I wanted to make certain they didn’t do it, that they didn’t go hurting you.”

“They didn’t do anything,” I told him. He’d come a little late to the party, but I was grateful that he’d had balls enough to come looking at all. I reached down to help him up.

He exhaled with relief and replaced his fallen hat. Then he looked up at me, his glasses flashing in the dark. “I need to ask a favor of you, Nicholas. I have no right to ask it, but… will you take me with you back to Blackwater? I’ve decided it’s time I left the colony.”

tupid me, I thought it would be easy, you know?

Make it to the edge of the grove, cross the pasture that separated the forest from the Knapp farmhouse, grab the Jeep parked on the gravel drive outside the house. I even had the freakin’ keys in my pocket, for Chrissakes. Easy right?

I should have known better.

The three of us were almost halfway across the pasture when I caught a shimmering light out of the corner of my eye. My hand immediately started pawing at my left side, where my gun would have been, had I not lost it in Abraham’s house. Then, remembering I was unarmed, I turned toward the glimmer. My eyes caught the faintest outline of a shimmering, winged humanoid, my brain started making all the appropriate connections, and my gut told me to look away. Immediately. My gut was never wrong. About a second afterward, when my brain caught up to my gut, I realized why my gut had told me that in the first place, which was fortunate because the angel had finished materializing fully and I heard the snap as it unfurled its great, lethal wings.