Unearthed (48 page)

“I’m never coming back here,” Arch said, and he twisted the knob again, opening the door. “Never darkening your door again.” He stepped out onto the porch, felt the cool of Spellman’s house recede behind him. “I want nothing to do with you, devil.”

“I’m not him,” Spellman said coldly.

“I doubt there’s just one,” Arch said. “But I don’t want a deal with any of them.” He waved the blue vial. “This is on Hendricks if he wants to use it. I’m going to tell him not to.”

“Then you’re an even bigger idiot than I already took you for,” Spellman said.

“I’m perfectly content to have you think ill of me in that way,” Arch said, turning his back on the demon he was sure was nestled somewhere deep inside Spellman, watching him. “After all, I doubt you’d have much esteem for me if I’d just gone along with everything you wanted.”

“I don’t think much of you either way,” Spellman said, standing at the door while Arch continued toward his car. Alison was waiting, watching, hand behind her back like she was ready to draw on the demon.

Arch shook his head, waving her off. “Then why are you harassing me all the way to my car?” He made it to the driver’s side, felt a little rush of relief. “Feels a little like you got burned in some way. Like your expectations got a little dashed.”

Spellman’s lips stretched in a thin line, no joy or sadness truly visible on them. He was neutral, and carefully so, it seemed to Arch. “Did you ever enjoy losing a football game, Mr. Stan?”

Arch didn’t even have to think about it. “No. Can’t say I did.”

Spellman just stared at him. “What you lose because of your decisions today will stick in your craw and haunt you so much more than some silly game ever did. It’ll gall you as you watch the world burn, as you realize that really, you’re not that much different from your father.” And he slammed the door behind him with a finality that told Arch it was unlikely he’d ever be able to open that particular door again to find that house inside.

“What the hell happened in there?” Alison asked, sliding into the passenger seat as Arch started the car. Her movements were slow, just a little off her usual stride.

“Hell is right,” Arch said. He took a breath, let it out slow, and put the car in reverse. “Or as near to it as I ever hope to brush.” He focused his eyes on the deep dirt tracks of the driveway as he steered the car out of there, and tried as hard as he could to keep his word to Spellman by forgetting everything he’d heard in there. He didn’t have much luck.

Kitty stood in the dry dirt, watching Feegan Bardsley and Rousseau as they dug, the Rog’tausch aiding them as well as it could with only one leg. It was a sad vision, seeing the thing trying to maintain balance. It was madly scrabbling in the dirt, scooping and tossing here and there, and occasionally toppling over completely, where it had to be helped up by Bardsley and Rousseau, who both seemed quite tired of dealing with it.

Kitty, for her part, maintained a considerable distance from them. Their hole had gotten deep, and while she could still see the Rog’tausch from the waist up, Bardsley and Rousseau were visible from the shoulders only when they came up to throw up a shovelful of dirt. The Rog’tausch’s maddening voice carried, that deep, heavy thing, melodramatic in its way. Kitty wished for a lawn chair and cup of her tea, but this was not to be. Things were moving fast now, in any case, and while her legs wearied of standing, she didn’t really wish to sit, either.

What she wished was that it was over, really. That the damned annoying Rog’tausch—that hadn’t been in the Codex, the fact it was an aggravating thing—would shut its mouth and just do its job. That it would get to the business it was supposed to attend to, that the order could get upended, and she could take her rightful place.

Everything took too long, was too costly, was too loud—she could hear the Rog’tausch still jabbering away at the top of its lungs. The new bass voice was not much of an improvement in that regard. It boasted of past glories, of the way things were, and it was enough to drive her batshit cray-cray. This wasn’t about how things were, after all.

It was about how they were going to be, once the world as they all knew it came to an abrupt and flaming end.

Kitty thought about sitting, just plopping down into the dust. The ass of her pants was already near-ruined by that slug demon’s lair anyway, what would a little dirt do? Her dry cleaning bill was already going to suck.

She started to sit but paused, bent at the knees, as she caught a shout from Bardsley. There was a commotion in the hole as the Rog’tausch let out a gleeful cry that sounded like someone turning over a diesel engine. She fought her first instinct, to run forward, instead moving slowly, gracefully forward.

Like a queen should.

She made it to the edge of the hole as they finished unearthing it, the four sides of the long, narrow box dug out enough to reveal the hinges. Bardsley was trying to excavate further, and she stopped him. “No point,” she said. “Just open it.”

Bardsley looked up at her, awestruck. She’d been thinking about this moment since … oh, forever. She’d been around when the Rog’tausch had been struck apart, after all, albeit on the other side of the world at the time, separated by an entire ocean. It had captured her imagination, though, the idea of what it could bring about. She’d made trips here back then, to no effect. She knew what the Rog’tausch had been talking about, before, when it had talked about the way things were.

And she hated the way things were. The way things were had held her back, kept her down, left her scrabbling in the dirt here for what was rightfully hers, dammit.

She opened her mouth and breathed the words, words to make the leg obedient, to slave it to her the way she had the rest of the Rog’tausch. The beast itself stopped and listened, hearing the sound of control, of the collar locking around its neck, and Kitty waited until it had settled back and looked at her. “Go on,” she said, giving it permission, “open it.”

The Rog’tausch reached down, narrowly avoiding a final spill, and pulled open the lid of the wooden box. People paid money for the distressed look on their furniture. Kitty didn’t understand that, but then, she’d been around old things. She preferred to have them at least look new if she was going to pay extortionate amounts for them.

The leg was in there, pale and grey as the rest of the creature. It lifted the trunk-like appendage and held it near to the side of its pelvis, expectantly. The warm sun shone down, falling low in the sky, the day nearly at its end.

Yes, the day was nearly over.

The day of humans, in any case.

And the day of the others, too, those—

Kitty stopped herself before she unspooled a rant of unceasing power. It was one that was familiar to her heart, a subject she so loved to harp upon, to pluck the discordant strings of, again and again. She let it go for now, though, because this—

—this was the moment—

—the moment when—

The Rog’tausch held the leg close to itself, and the flesh grabbed hold over the distance of inches. The leg was pulled close to the body once more, knitted together as naturally and seamlessly as if there had never been a rift between them. The hard, leather grey surface of the Rog’tausch’s skin grew knotted like wood. Nobs of bone stretched out of its knuckles and knees, its elbows and toes. The soft flesh crown of eight points on its head lifted up into a spiked circle of antlers ten inches long. The whole beast grew taller by two feet, its toenails became spiked protrusions, and its feet became like hooves with a rocky surface. Its shoulders spread broader, its muscles became bigger, as if it had had an instantaneous injection of steroids.

Its inky-black eyes fixated on a point in the distance behind her, and Kitty watched it sniff the air. It stepped out of the deep hole like it was a mere puddle, towering over her by more than twice her height.

“Huh,” Rousseau said from within the hole, “I don’t remember it being quite that big a minute ago.”

“Shhh,” she said to him. “Rog’tausch …”

The Rog’tausch looked down at her, turning those black puddled eyes onto her from atop its titanic body. “What?” it asked, not particularly polite about it.

“I am your master,” she said. “I want you to find—”

“I know what you seek,” the Rog’tausch said to her, now looking over her again. “I seek it myself.”

Kitty felt herself bristle a little at that. “Well, do you know where it is?”

The Rog’tausch narrowed its dark eyes. “Yonder.”

She smiled. “Let’s go, then.” And it started forward, almost running her over, trunk-like legs nearly shaking the earth as it walked. It left behind footprints in the sand as it went, stomping along like Godzilla toward Tokyo.

“Madam?” Rousseau asked. She tore her gaze away from her crowning triumph to look at her servant, who was helping Bardsley out of the hole.

“Yes?” she asked, turning to look back at the Rog’tausch. It was now a good thirty feet away and continuing off, not too terribly fast, fortunately.

“It’s headed toward the town,” Rousseau said, without a hint of inflection. “Just FYI. No big deal or anything, figured you’d want to know.”

Kitty felt herself cackle. She couldn’t help it, even knowing how ridiculously villainous it probably would have made her sound. “Those poor bastards,” she said, not feeling even one ounce of remorse for what she’d just turned loose. It wasn’t like these people would be even close to the last to die. No, on the contrary … they were just the first. “We should get to the car,” she said. “I don’t want to miss a second of this.” And she happily headed on her way, feeling like she was heading toward the ultimate release.

Which, really … she was.

Arch pulled the car to a halt in the driveway, felt the subtle bump as he put it in park and the transmission dropped slightly, shaking the whole car. It was a final note to their journey, the obvious end, the punctuation mark on a near-silent several miles. He’d explained to Alison what had happened inside, had told her truthfully about every bit of it. He’d expected her to say something, anything, really. She’d nodded, been supportive, but hadn’t really said anything.

That was dangerous.

Arch left his hand on the gearshift knob, taking a breath, bracing himself. The little blue vial was in the cup holder, glimmering in the dark. It was nearing sunset, now. He didn’t know how long he’d been in Spellman’s house, but he knew the time didn’t quite pass for him like it had outside, at least not according to Alison.

“You sure about this?” she asked, and he felt her hand on his wrist, brushing his arm hairs with her touch.

“It’s his choice,” Arch replied, taking his hand off the gearshift and leaning back in his seat. “Not mine.”

“That ain’t fair, Arch,” Alison said. “You’re handing a desperately hurting man what he thinks is a salve. Of course he’s gonna use it.”

Arch let that marinate for a second before he replied. “Free will is what makes us who we are. I’m not his momma and I can’t choose for him whether or not he uses it. I made my choices with my eyes open, and he’s a big enough boy to do the same.”

“But you’re his friend,” Alison said, the fading sun glinting off her blond locks, “and you know this isn’t going to be good for him.” She nudged the blue vial lightly, like it contained something toxic. “I’ve met this Spellman, and … he’s not good for any of us. He’s playing a deeper game. Duncan says there are consequences to pay for these tonics that we don’t even really know about.”

“Here’s what I do know,” Arch said, “we’re heading toward a fight, according to Starling—”

“And you believe her?”

“I do,” Arch said. “When it comes to telling us about trouble, I take issue with her timing, but not her forecasting. She’s always been right.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?” Alison asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

Arch blinked. “I wouldn’t be much of a Christian if I believed in the Almighty but didn’t believe he’d deign to throw us some grace in the form of a miracle every now and again.”

“You can’t assume she’s straight from God,” Alison said.

“I don’t assume anything,” Arch said, “but she’s saved my butt enough that I’m willing to grant some … faith in the matter.”

Alison shook her head. “This just feels wrong. I think we should pull the stopper on that thing,” she pointed the vial, “and dump it on the lawn.”

Arch just looked right at her. “Well, leaving aside the possibility of it creating a beanstalk into the clouds right here on the lawn, if you were lying flat on your back when a big fight was coming up, would you be happy if I dumped it out without even asking you first?”

Her face twitched, and not pleasantly. “You mean to spare me from the temptation of this Spellman’s influence? I might be all right with it.”

Arch shrugged. “What if I did it because I just didn’t want you in the fight? Because I wanted you to be safe?”

He could almost see her winding up mentally to punch him right in the shoulder. “I’d have to kick your ass if I ever found out about it. You can’t just cut me out without—”

“Right,” Arch said and swiped the vial out of the cup holder, “now you see where we’re at.” And he opened the car door and got out.

She followed, and he slowed to allow her to catch him, offering his arm just before they got to the steps. The air was sticky, his back had clung to his shirt and the seat. “You really think it’s a good idea?” she asked, voice a little more muted now.

“I think whether it’s good or bad,” Arch said, “it’s not my decision to make.” He opened the door and let Alison precede him into the house. The place smelled a little like blood, with a hint of something burned vaguely in the air. Maybe more than vague, Arch reflected, and cast his eyes toward the kitchen. He saw the little single-burner camp stove going, and the reporter was cooking something in a skillet.

“Welcome back,” Duncan said, coming toward him from the stairs. The OOC had just been standing there like a shadow, immobile. He moved slow, taking his time. “Any luck?”

“Of some kind,” Arch said and held up the vial. It really did seem to glow, and it was a lot more obvious in the dim light of the house. “Not sure which sort you’d call it, though.”