by A. C. Cobble
An angry bellow sounded like that of an animal. The floor shook with impact as something beat against it. Raymond scrambled to his feet, watching in shock as the table grew like an awful tree stump, expanding and spreading, buckling the floor and nearly reaching the ceiling of the study.
“You have no power over me, life-breather,” slavered a deep, booming voice.
Raymond wished he hadn’t seen the thing, hadn’t watched it transform from inanimate wood into… something horrible.
Standing in the middle of the room, its horned-head just a hand below the ceiling rafters, was a muscle-bound monstrosity. Its arms were nearly as long as its body. Massive knuckles rested on what remained of the flooring. Its legs were short and covered in coarse, black hair. Its skin was bright crimson except where more bristling hairs traveled from its neck to its rear. Tusks, as thick as his forearm, protruded from a mouth that trailed long, slimy streamers of drool.
The creature stepped toward Yates.
“I command you!” yelled the sorcerer.
A gurgling roar, which Raymond thought must be the monster’s laughter, rattled the room. “You command nothing, life-breather.”
The thing took another step toward the bishop, and the man yanked furiously at his cassock, tearing it where the dagger had punctured his flesh. Displaying strength Raymond wouldn’t have believed the rotund man had, the bishop tore open his robes, exposing his blood-smeared chest and thick bands of black tattoos.
“I am a servant of Set,” said Yates, his firm tone starting to waver. “I am a loyal servant.”
The creature shook its head, strings of slobber snaking around the room. “You are not loyal, life-breather, but…” The monster turned to Raymond. “Are you the one? The one of prophecy? I feel it near. I feel… It is hard to sense what is real in this place.” The creature turned back to the bishop. “Is that the one?”
Quaking, Bishop Gabriel Yates mumbled, “Yes.”
The monster turned toward Raymond.
He crouched, one hand dropping to his boot and pulling the hidden dagger from there. He was ready to spring, to lunge around the side of the monster and try his luck throwing another blade at the bishop. If he could kill the man, the binding the sorcerer had formed would be broken, and both Yates and the summoning would head straight to hell. If he missed again…
The creature stretched, its heavily muscled, bright crimson arms spreading wide. Its mouth hung open, yellowed teeth filling its gaping maw. The giant creature blocked his view of the bishop.
Then, it charged.
Raymond flung his knife at the careening mass of muscle and flesh. He couldn’t miss, but the small blade could do nothing to stop a creature like that, either. The steel embedded in its belly, and the summoning grasped him, thick fingers pressing his flesh, crushing his bones for a split second of pure agony. Its teeth closed on him, and Raymond felt cold, bitter, all-encompassing cold.
The Priestess XX
The creature fell on Raymond au Clair, hiding the man with its red-skinned, bristly black-haired back, but she didn’t need to see to know what the sickening sounds of snapping bones and tearing flesh implied. She offered a silent thanks to the spirits that the man’s horrified scream was swiftly cut short, and his life mercifully ended. He was an arrogant ass, but he hadn’t deserved that. Not for long, anyway.
Turning away from the sickening scene, she tightened her grip on Thotham’s old spear and lunged out of the shadows, streaking at the bishop’s back.
The old priest never saw her coming.
The tip of her spear smacked into his back and neatly penetrated his flesh. The steel sank deep until the crossbar touched the priest’s cassock. She yanked it out and stepped back.
Warbling a pathetic cry, Bishop Yates collapsed to the floor, motionless.
For a long moment, she stood there, looking down at the body of the man she’d killed. A sorcerer, one who had been attempting to bind the powerful dark trinity. Killing him seemed rather easy in the end.
She looked up. The sounds of frenzied eating were slowing, but the monster the bishop had summoned remained. Its binding was cut. The binding should have been severed with the bishop’s death. There was no anchor for it in the living world. The creature should have been banished back to the underworld. It didn’t make any sense. Why had it not been banished?
The gnashing and slurping stopped, and the giant monster turned to study her.
“You should not be here,” she said, hating that her voice was breaking, hating that her palms were slick with nervous sweat.
“The man called me, but his ritual was imperfect,” said the creature, wiping a hand across its bloody, drool-soaked mouth in an all-too-human gesture. “He opened the bridge, and I came across it, but I was not compelled. He did not force control on me with his foolish utterances. I am here freely.”
The summoning’s head fell back and it laughed, a grating rumbling cackle. The sound pounded through her like rocks fighting to burst from her torso.
Her breath stopped and she stood, stunned. A spirit of the underworld in the living world, manifested physically and unbound. It was the worst nightmare. Thotham had told her as much, and it hadn’t taken much convincing. A creature like this, with no master, no bindings to manage it, nothing to stop it from doing whatever the frozen hell it wanted to do. It was an error on the part of the sorcerer, a bloody promise of destruction for the living. According to Thotham, a creature unbound was worse than one with a sorcerer commanding it. This was a denizen of the underworld. It knew nothing but death.
“You killed him,” rumbled the creature, stopping its laugh and glaring at her. “I wanted to do that.”
She blinked at the monster.
“Now, I will kill you,” it said. Then, it lumbered toward her.
The thing was slow, but the room was small. There was no way she could avoid the clutch of its wide, powerful arms, so instead of trying to dodge it or fight back, she ran.
Bolting to the windows at the back of the room, she jumped, kicking a boot at the clasp in the center, bursting open the iron-and-glass barrier. Moving quickly, she hopped into the window frame, one hand holding Thotham’s spear, the other raised to steady herself. She glanced down. She was four floors above the stone patio. Four stories above certain broken bones and likely death. Four stories above the fountain, cold water tinkling, only unfrozen because of its cycle of constant motion.
She jumped.
She landed with a splash, her sprawled legs barely slowing her as they knifed through the waist-deep, winter-cold water. Her boots slammed against the bottom of the pool, followed by her bottom. Her teeth clacked shut at the impact. It jarred her body, and for a brief moment, she was immersed underwater, shocked at the jolt of pain and the bitter chill of the near-frozen liquid. She was stunned, but somewhere deep inside, she knew she had to move or she would die.
Bursting out of the water, flopping onto the edge of the fountain, she rolled over and dropped to the stones below. Her body numb from the cold water, she didn’t feel the fall. She reached up and grabbed the rim of the fountain, pulling herself to her feet, forcing her ice-cold body to move. Miraculously, neither of her legs were broken.
A thunderous boom split the night air.
She stumbled back from the fountain, sparring a glance to the east, where an angry glow lit the night. Thunder rolled over Westundon, originating from Prince Philip’s palace. Their timing was almost perfect. If all had gone well, Duke set off his munitions and was drifting to safety on the Cloud Serpent. If it hadn’t, Ainsley had fired a barrage of rockets into the prince’s study, hoping to incinerate the director before he could flee. Either way, no rescue was coming from that quarter.
Above, in the bishop’s mansion, a crunching clatter and a rain of stone and mortar exploded from the back of the building. Whatever the frozen hell Yates had summoned merely punched its way through the masonry, opening up the back of the building where it stood, staring balefully down at her.
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She stepped away and stumbled over Thotham’s spear. Kneeling, she snatched it and kept backing away. The weapon burned hot in her freezing hands, coursing warmth through her ice-cold flesh.
The giant beast leapt from the shattered back of Yates’ study and landed on the stones of the courtyard, slamming down hard with an impact that blasted the stones around it like they were water in the fountain.
The ground shifted under Sam’s feet from the concussive impact, and she stumbled, but kept falling back. She’d need space for… for whatever the frozen hell she was going to do.
“What are you?” she gasped.
“Hungry,” cackled the monster.
Its giant maw opened as it laughed its hideous, dragging laugh. Huge broken teeth, a bright pink tongue, and glistening saliva shimmered in the moonlight.
Thotham’s spear smoldered in her hands, the heat doing nothing to injure her but to encourage her. She knew what must be done. The time for tricks and games was over. The time for fighting was now. This was what he’d trained her for. This was her purpose. He died so she could fulfill this mission.
She danced forward, the tip of the spear held in front of her. She let it bounce in her hands and then thrust half a yard and whipped it to the side, trying to draw the creature’s eye to the razor-sharp steel.
It didn’t work. The thing had eyes only for her. Burning, ravenous eyes.
Grimacing, she advanced closer. The monster took a step closer as well. Stone crunched underfoot, and it raised its hands, clutching fingers on each paw spread as wide as she was. If those caught her…
Like lightning, she darted forward, thrusting the spear in a blur of speed and agility. She jumped back, dexterous feet landing softly on the stonework. The monster looked down at its bleeding hand where her spear had pricked it. It frowned. She frowned as well and looked at the fire-hot spear in her hands. Even with Thotham’s spirit imbued in the weapon, it wasn’t enough. Evidently, this spirit wasn’t going to be easy to banish.
Without word, the monstrosity lumbered after her, its short legs not carrying it far or fast, but in the wall-enclosed courtyard, anywhere near its giant arms could be fatal. Trying to climb out over the smooth stone would take too long. The monster lurched between her and the locked doors of the mansion. There was no way out.
She sped across the golden pattern Yates had arrogantly left exposed in his open courtyard, but she didn’t know any rituals that made use of such a pattern, and even if she did, there was no time to prepare. There was no time for anything except desperate flight.
The monster reached for her, and she struck it again, using her superior speed and the extended reach of the spear to nick it and then escape. Again and again, she opened the thing’s flesh, but it just kept coming, chasing her around the courtyard.
Its mouth hung open, but it no longer spoke. It was enjoying the chase, she thought and worried. The little scratches she kept inflicting did nothing to harm the monster. It barely even noticed them, though blood splatter was beginning to cover the stones of the courtyard.
To get close enough to put her spear somewhere deadly would mean she’d be well within the creature’s grasp. Bleeding it to death from small wounds could work in theory, but it showed no adverse effects from the damage she’d done so far, and she was beginning to flag. Could a physically manifested spirit even bleed to death? She didn’t know. Technically, the thing was already dead.
Her heart was hammering in her chest and her breathing was coming in ragged gasps. There had to be some way.
Above, Bishop Yates’ mansion was silent and dark. The tall stone walls of the estates around them showed no life. There was no help on the way.
Her speed was keeping her alive, but she couldn’t trust it to win the day. Any miscalculation and she’d be dead. The way the thing had burst through the stone wall was like nothing she’d ever heard of. Not even the wolfmalkin had possessed strength like…
The wolfmalkin. They were both powerful and pitiful creatures, actual wolves captured, branded, and bound to spirits which twisted their bodies into something half-wolf, half-man. Half alive, half dead. This thing that was chasing her, it was all dead, a creature from the underworld, a denizen of that frozen place. What did it mean that it was here, physically manifested? What opportunity did that give her?
The thing lurched at her, brushing a solid granite bench aside like it wasn’t even there. She sprinted away, escaping its outstretched fingers, but the creature paused, looking down at the heavy bench it had carelessly knocked over. Its mouth open in what she realized was a grin, the creature reached for another bench and broke off the long, single slab of the seat with an easy turn of its wrist.
“Frozen hell,” grumbled Sam.
She launched into a reckless roll, narrowly avoiding the flung piece of granite furniture the monster had tossed her way. Tumbling across the ground, she heard another ear-shattering crack and knew another bench was going to come flying at her.
A denizen of the underworld. What did it mean? What could she do with that?
Rock shattered, peppering her with debris as she scrambled back to her feet.
She couldn’t simply banish the thing. The bridge it crossed had closed with the death of Yates, and her odds of actually killing it were growing slimmer by the second. It was of the underworld, though. It could be forced to return there if there was a bridge.
A bridge. How could she form a—
She cursed as a fist-sized hunk of rock thudded into her shoulder. Pain radiated down her side, but she was fairly certain nothing had been broken, yet. She rolled her shoulder, wincing at the stabbing agony, knowing she’d lost much of her mobility on the left side. Limping away as the thing snatched up another bench, she knew she was running out of time.
A bridge. She had to fashion a bridge. The spear, smeared with the creature’s blood, burned hot in her hands. It screamed for her attention. She dodged again as a two-yard-long block of granite went sailing over her head, thrown as easily as she would toss a dagger.
The monster roared and snatched up another bench and the iron centerpiece of the fountain, water splashing as the metal was wrenched free. It faced her, one missile held in each hand. The debris was as big as she was, and either object would smash her like a rotten cantaloupe if they landed on her.
Sam shifted her hands on the haft of the spear, feeling the pulse of heat. It radiated through her hands and up her arms, but it did not harm her. It was Thotham. He was with her. She knew what she had to do.
She raised the spear and then brought it down on a raised knee. The wood, ancient and hard enough to stop a razor-sharp blade, snapped like a winter-dead twig. The heat bled from it. Tendrils of drifting white mist spilled out of the broken ends.
The monster flung the iron flute of the fountain at her. She dodged, trying to avoid it, but she couldn’t dodge the bench seat that came whistling through the air behind it. With a sickening thump, the corner of the granite clipped the side of her head. Milk-white fog rose from the snapped ends of the spear as it fell from her senseless fingers. Everything went black.
The Cartographer XXII
Oliver stood before the menacing front of the building. He wondered if it had been built to look like a smaller, sinister version of the Church, or if Yates had enhanced those elements after he purchased it. Either way, the place loomed with a grim aspect, and Oliver was shocked he’d never noticed it before.
“You want me to get the airship?” asked Ainsley. “I still have those rockets. I can make a hole where this house stands.”
“Sam could be in there,” reminded Oliver.
“She might be, but if she is, why isn’t she coming out?” questioned the airship captain. “I’m sorry, m’lord, but she wasn’t at the meet—”
“She could be hurt and unable to get out,” he insisted.
“And there could be traps,” retorted Ainsley.
“Even if we knew Sam was not inside, I would not authorize bombing a buildin
g in the center of Westundon,” snapped Oliver. “Go back to the airship if you want, but I’m going in.”
He climbed Bishop Yates’ wide, stone steps and went through the gate to the front door, ignoring Ainsley’s cursing and muttering as she followed behind.
The airship captain might complain about the risk, but she hadn’t brought her twin cutlasses and pistols for a peaceful stroll in the park. She’d come for action, she just wanted to complain about it first. Fair enough. It wasn’t her fight.
The doors were shut, but when he tried them, they opened easily. He shoved both of the thick slabs of oak wide. In the low lantern light that illuminated the foyer, he saw two corpses wearing priest’s robes. Halberds lay beside them and sheathed short swords hung on their belts. Wide streaks of blood showed where they’d been dragged inside.
“At least we know she made it through the door,” offered Ainsley.
Oliver grunted and entered the soaring entranceway, his gaze darting around, looking for traps. Not that he had any clue what a magical snare might look like, but sure as hell was cold, he wasn’t going to walk into a sorcerer’s nest without looking for traps like some sort of idiot.
They quickly searched the entry level and found nothing amiss, but they could both smell dust hanging in the air, like from broken mortar. It wasn’t until they ascended the wide, red-carpeted stairwell and found the bishop’s study on the fourth floor that he saw why. The place looked like a tropical island after a violent spring storm — broken wood, shattered furniture, strewn books. The rug was torn in two where the floor seemed to have exploded higher, and other places had been crushed down. There was broken crystal and glass and blood, pools of blood.
“Spirits forsake it, what happened in here?” asked Oliver.
“Here’s a body,” remarked Ainsley grimly, kicking aside a small avalanche of debris near the doorway to reveal a pair of boots, a pair of legs, and nothing else above the knees. “Oh, never mind,” the captain managed to utter before, bug-eyed, she lurched back into the hallway and got violently ill, splashing a foul shower of vomit across one of Bishop Yates’ tapestries.
