Necessary Evil

by Donald Hanley

  Five hops later, I stood in the shadow of a distribution center for one of the local plumbing supply companies, looking across at the Atlas Shipping building. Most of the businesses around me had a few cars and trucks parked in their lots but Atlas Shipping looked completely deserted. Some aspiring artist with a can of spray paint had taken the opportunity to make the image of Atlas on the side of the building anatomically correct, further evidence that the place was officially unoccupied.

  I couldn’t see Prescott’s SUV anywhere but I doubted they’d just drive right up to Lilixandriel’s hideout. They had to be casing the joint, just like I was. And Lilith has to be watching for us, I thought uneasily. She has to at least suspect we’re going to try something. I looked around for imps but the area was cat- and monkey-thing-free.

  I needed a place where the others could join me without attracting any undue attention and I finally settled on one of the nearby loading docks, crouching down between the low concrete walls on either side. I pulled out my phone and called Susie.

  “Well?” she asked impatiently.

  “Ready,” I reported.

  She hung up in my ear and a moment later a pentagram drawn in white fire appeared under my feet. I scrambled out of the way as a spherical hole appeared above the center of the star and rapidly expanded, showing me Melissa’s back yard and part of her pool.

  Something flitted across the image and then Daraxandriel stepped out. She surveyed the area and then moved to my side, resting her sword on her shoulder. She didn’t have a scabbard for it but she assured me that anyone who happened to spot her wouldn’t think it was unusual for a horned demon to be walking around with a deadly weapon. The blade was stained despite her best efforts to wipe it clean but it was still wickedly sharp and I leaned away from it cautiously.

  “Well met, Peter Simon Collins,” she greeted me. Her tail was whipping back and forth but before I could ask her why, Melissa came through the portal.

  “Wow,” she breathed, shaking herself. “That was weird.” She eyed the portal uneasily as she came to stand on my other side, gripping her wand tightly in her fist.

  Olivia popped as she stepped out of the portal and her dress fluttered to the ground. She grabbed it quickly and wrestled it back over her head, throwing me an embarrassed look as she settled it back into place and brushed off the dirt. She turned solid again and retrieved her sandals, hopping on one foot and then the other to put them back on. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “And that’s still creepy,” Melissa murmured to me out of the corner of her mouth. I nudged her with my elbow as Olivia joined us.

  Susie’s arrival was a little different. She didn’t step through the portal opening, it abruptly collapsed and vanished, leaving her standing in the center of the pentagram. Her rings glowed with the same white fire but the effect faded away as the pattern vanished.

  “Cool,” she said with a satisfied nod. “This beats taking the bus to school.” She looked up at the building behind us. “So is this it?”

  “It’s around the corner,” I said, pointing. She started walking that way and I pulled her back quickly. “We can’t just waltz over there in plain sight,” I told her sternly. “We need a plan.”

  “I thought that was the plan,” she grumbled but she stayed put.

  “We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with and we need to watch out for the others. If we’re inside when they turn on their confinement ward, we’ll be trapped inside with Lilith, an angry demon lord, and a bunch of hellhounds.”

  “I guess,” she allowed reluctantly.

  “I’m so glad you agree. Okay, Olivia, go see what’s going on. We’ll wait here.”

  “Me?” Olivia protested. “Why do I always have to do the spying?”

  “Because you’re invisible and you can walk through walls,” I pointed out with an exasperated sigh.

  “And you’re already dead,” Susie added, “so it doesn’t matter if they catch you.”

  “Stop helping, you’re no good at it,” I told her. “You’re the best person for the job, Olivia. Just go over there, see what Lilith and Ori-whatever are up to, and come right back.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled, “but you owe me. Hold my dress.” She lifted the shoulder strap up and I pinched it between my fingers. She ghosted out and stepped aside, leaving the dress dangling from my hand. “Don’t let it get dirty,” she ordered as she walked out of the loading dock and disappeared around the corner.

  Melissa eyed me suspiciously as I draped Olivia’s shift over my arm. “Are you sure she’s not naked?”

  “She’s completely covered up,” I assured her. “She – Olivia! What are you doing back here?”

  Olivia looked down at us from the edge of the dock. “Which building is it?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Atlas Shipping, just over there.”

  “The one with the naked man on the side?”

  “Um, yes. That’s Atlas.”

  “Somebody drew boy parts on him,” she complained.

  “I know. Just ignore it.”

  “That’s pretty hard to ignore,” she muttered as she turned away. “It’s huge.”

  “Sorry about that,” I told the others. “Olivia just wanted to make sure she got the right building.”

  “Is there any way to let the rest of us see her too?” Melissa asked. “Talking to empty space is just creepy.”

  “Maybe,” Susie said thoughtfully, inspecting her rings. “Now that I have these, I might be able to adapt one of the spirit sight spells I know.”

  “Those are my rings,” Melissa reminded her heatedly. “I get them back when we’re done. All of them.”

  “Sure.”

  “Peter! Make sure she gives my rings back to me!”

  Daraxandriel stood apart from the argument, shifting her balance uneasily as she gazed around us. Her tail was still waving back and forth under the hem of her dress, albeit at a slower pace. “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

  “There is a great evil here, Peter Simon Collins,” she said solemnly. “I am unsettled.”

  “Well, Lilith and that demon lord are just over there,” I said, hooking my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m not surprised you’re picking them up.”

  “Nay, that is not what I sense.” She turned around in a complete circle. “It is nearby.”

  “Nearby?” The hairs on the back of my neck decided to stand up and take a look around as well. “Where?”

  “I cannot discern the source. It is ... diffuse.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Now that she mentions it,” Melissa said uneasily, “I feel something too.”

  Susie held up her right hand. One of the diamonds flickered like a lightbulb about to burn out. “Peter, what are these buildings made out of?” she asked with a frown.

  “I don’t know. Steel and concrete, I guess. Why?”

  “Steel has iron in it, right?”

  “It’s mostly iron,” I agreed. “So what?”

  “Cold iron shorts out magic. There’s a demon hiding in one of these buildings.”

  “Which one?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell.”

  “Peter!” Olivia sprinted around the corner and nearly tumbled into the loading dock before she caught herself. “That place is empty! There’s just a couple of black cats in there watching the doors!”

  “Imps? Shit!”

  “Peter!”

  “What going on?” Melissa asked in alarm.

  “Lilith tricked us. I should have realized she’s too smart to give away her location in a recorded message like that. She’s not in the Atlas building, it’s another trap.” I chewed my lip as my mind raced. “Olivia, did you see Prescott and the others over there?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “They’re drawing circles on the ground with their wands.”

  “We have to warn them.” I only had Mrs. Kendricks’ number so I called her, but it rolled over to voice mail after a couple of rings. “Damn it,”
I muttered. I sent her a text instead: Don’t go in there. it’s a trap. Lilith is in one of these other buildings. My phone rang a few seconds later.

  “Peter,” Mrs. Kendricks demanded angrily, “what in the world are you doing? Are you here?”

  “Olivia looked inside the warehouse,” I told her urgently. “There’s just a couple of imps standing guard. Susie thinks there’s a demon in one of these other buildings but we aren’t sure which one.” There was a long silence. “Hello?”

  “She’s right,” Mrs. Kendricks breathed. “Stay where you are and keep out of sight. We’ll deal with this.” She hung up before I could argue with her.

  I ran out of the loading dock and peered around the corner at the Atlas Shipping warehouse. Stacy was standing there, looking around with her hand pressed to her ear, probably talking to her mother. Suddenly, she bolted away from the building and disappeared somewhere off to the right.

  “They’re moving,” I reported. “We have to find out where Lilith is hiding before she spots any of us. Oh, here.” I tossed Olivia’s dress to her and pointed around the back side of the building. “We’ll go around this way and meet up with them.”

  We ran down the side of the warehouse with Olivia struggling to pull on her dress on the move. She finally gave up and left it draped over the side of one of the loading docks, glaring at me like it was my fault, but we had bigger problems facing us. I paused at the corner and carefully peered around the edge, trying to determine where Lilixandriel and Orixnador might be hiding, but all of the other buildings in the area looked perfectly normal.

  “Can you tell where they are?” I asked Daraxandriel.

  She shook her head. “Nay, but they are close.”

  “That way,” Susie said. The diamond on her middle finger waxed and waned as she waved her hand back and forth. I tried to sight along her arm.

  “That stone place?” Brighton Stone and Tile had a small office and showroom attached to a huge warehouse in the back. “Are you sure? There are people inside.” There were four cars out front and two delivery trucks parked in the side alley.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Unless they’re somewhere on the other side.” She started heading towards it but I pulled her back.

  “They might have imps watching,” I warned her. “We can’t just go walking up there.”

  “We could pretend we’re buying rocks,” she suggested.

  “We’re not trying to fool the employees, we’re trying to avoid the demons. And the FBI,” I added as an afterthought.

  “Well, I can’t make a portal without something over there to aim for,” she pointed out.

  “We’re not even sure that’s where they are. Here, I’ll Conceal you and you can run over to that furniture place over there and triangulate.” I targeted her with my reticule and tapped Conceal. Susie vanished from sight and Melissa and Olivia gasped in unison.

  “Peter!” Susie’s frustrated voice came out of nowhere. “I can’t see my rings!”

  “My rings!” Melissa protested.

  “Oh, crap,” I said, chagrined, “I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”

  “Conceal me, Peter Simon Collins,” Daraxandriel suggested. “I shall discern their whereabouts.”

  “It’s a five-minute cooldown,” I apologized.

  “Fine, I’ll go,” Olivia sighed resignedly.

  “Can you sense evil?” I asked her.

  “Well, no,” she admitted, “but I can look inside.”

  “I can,” Melissa reminded me. “I’ll go.”

  “Do you have any invisibility spells?” I asked doubtfully.

  “No, I have something better.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This.” She suddenly dissipated into a black haze that faded away almost immediately and we all stepped back in alarm. Well, I wasn’t sure what Susie did but the rest of us were certainly surprised.

  “Melissa?” I asked tentatively. There was no answer. “Does anyone know what just happened?”

  “It did mind me of Shadow Step within Lorecraft,” Daraxandriel frowned.

  “Man, I wish I had those stupid powers,” Susie grumbled out of nowhere.

  Olivia inched away from her disembodied voice. “That is the creepiest thing,” she said uneasily.

  “Can anyone see her?” I asked. She wasn’t anywhere outside and there was too much glare on the showroom windows to see inside.

  “I’ll go look for her,” Susie offered.

  “Fine, just be careful. No, wait!”

  “What?” She was a few feet further away now.

  “Portal us over to wherever Melissa is instead. That way we’re not stuck over here waiting for her.”

  “It’ll be easier if I portal you from there. I hardly know Melissa.”

  “You’re in the same coven! You helped her practice for her initiation.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t live with her.”

  “Fine, just be careful.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  I watched intently but I couldn’t detect any sign that Susie was heading for the warehouse. For all I knew, she was standing right behind me ready to scare the living daylights out of me. Fortunately for my piece of mind, the front door of the showroom finally opened and closed all on its own.

  “If that is Lilixandriel’s lair,” Daraxandriel whispered at my side, “where are Sir Prescott and Dame Kendricks and the others? Have they been led astray?”

  “Maybe that isn’t the place after all,” I mused. “We’ll give Melissa and Susie a minute and then –”

  Before I could finish that thought, a pentagram of white fire surrounded us and suddenly we were standing in a small office surrounded by filing cabinets and sample boards. The pentagram faded out as Melissa appeared in the doorway beside me.

  “Peter –” she whispered. Her hand covered her mouth and she looked like she was about to be sick. “There’s blood everywhere.”

  “What?” I pushed my way past her into the showroom and stopped dead in my tracks. The place looked like the aftermath of a riot, with papers and tile samples scattered everywhere. Long dark smudges streaked the floor and the cloying scent of drying blood filled the air. “What happened? Where is everybody?”

  “Two guesses where the hellhounds are.” I jumped as Susie’s voice came out of nowhere. “Look at the tracks.” One of the pools of blood outlined a paw print bigger than my spread hands and similar marks headed to a pair of tall swinging doors leading into the warehouse beyond.

  “Oh my God, they’re here,” I breathed. Daraxandriel nodded grimly, her sword out and ready to strike.

  “Maybe we should wait for Agent Prescott to get here,” Olivia suggested meekly. She looked ill as well.

  “They’re going to need our help,” I insisted, although I was starting to have doubts about how much help we’d actually be. Daraxandriel and I barely escaped Orixnador with a running head start and now we were about to confront him in his stronghold. “Olivia, go see what’s on the other side of that door.”

  “Oh my God,” she said shakily, but she moved forward, carefully tiptoeing around the blood. She took a few deep breaths and then ghosted through the doors while I listened anxiously for any sign that we’d been noticed.

  She returned less than a minute later, standing just inside the showroom with her eyes closed as she regained her composure. “Well?” I prompted.

  “There’s a really big demon in there,” she reported, “with horns and a whip and some sort of armor.” She waved her hand over her chest vaguely. “And I saw five hellhounds.”

  “Five. Shit,” I muttered. That was bad.

  “Five what, Peter?” Melissa asked.

  “Sorry.” I repeated what Olivia told me. Daraxandriel shoulders sagged just a fraction, as if she doubted her ability to fend off that many. “Was Lilith there?”

  “I didn’t see her,” Olivia shook her head, “but Peter, there are people in there.”

  “People? Who?”

&
nbsp; “Just regular people, all bunched up in the middle. They look hurt and scared.” Olivia looked pretty scared herself.

  “Those must be the people that work here,” I said, surveying the bloody floor. “Why are they still alive, though?”

  “What people?” Susie asked out of nowhere. I described what Olivia had seen. “They’re hostages.”

  “Hostages?”

  “Their lives are surety against us,” Daraxandriel explained, “ere we gain the upper hand.”

  “We have to get them out of there before we do anything else,” I said. “We won’t be able to do it once the fighting starts.”

  “How?” Melissa asked. “I can only transport myself.”

  “I can Teleportal a group if they’re all together. Olivia, how many people are there?”

  “I didn’t count them. Six, maybe?”

  “Go make sure. I don’t want to leave anyone behind accidentally.” Olivia nodded and stepped through the door again. “We’re going to have to hit the hellhounds as soon as they’re safe. I can get one with Lightning Strike.”

  “I can account for one other,” Daraxandriel affirmed.

  “I think I might be able to Lifesteal one of them,” Melissa suggested hesitantly.

  “That leaves two, plus Ori. Does he have any weaknesses?” I asked Daraxandriel.

  “Naught that I have heard,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I can deal with one of them too,” Susie insisted. She sounded insulted that I hadn’t included her in the mayhem.

  “How?” Other than her light darts and her chain lightning trick, I couldn’t recall her casting any destructive spells.

  “You’ll see,” she sniffed.

  “If you can’t one-shot it, don’t even try,” I told her sternly. Olivia reappeared then and hurried to my side. “How many?” I asked her.

  “Seven, five men and two women. A couple of them are in really bad shape,” she added worriedly.

  “Let’s just get them out of there first. Where are the hellhounds?”

  “Two of them are walking around. The others are with the demon, watching the people.”

  “Okay.” I chewed my lip as I thought. “Is there something we can hide behind in there or someplace we can stand without being seen?”