Hexe halted his pacing to scowl at his mother. “I thought you said you told him the truth about Esau and the Sons of Adam?”
Lady Syra shifted about uncomfortably, looking embarrassed. “No, I said was going to tell him. When the time was right.”
“Tell me the truth about what?” Horn demanded, giving Syra a stern look.
Syra lowered her eyes, unable to meet his gaze. “Well . . . uhm . . .”
“That Esau grew the Sons of Adam in his alchemy workshop,” I explained, “and, on top of that, he was secretly going around murdering people so they wouldn’t figure it out. He was also the one who sent that demon to kill me, so he could start a race riot and become mayor and purge all the humans from Golgotham and try to start a new Unholy War. Oh, and he murdered Skal, not the other way around, and was going to do the same thing to me and Hexe, except I stole the junk jewelry he was using to control a demon, and ordered it to return to the Infernal Court—and take Esau with him.”
“And why am I just now hearing this story?” Horn asked as he massaged his forehead.
“Because I was afraid of what might happen if it was discovered a member of the Royal Family had manipulated both Golgothamites and humans to generate racial unrest,” Lady Syra admitted grudgingly. “Ever since Lord Bexe and General Vlad, the Royal Family has a tradition of taking personal responsibility for the rogues within its ranks. I deemed it best that Hexe and I kept Esau’s involvement in creating and operating the Sons of Adam between ourselves—and Tate, of course.”
“Heavens and hells, Syra! I realize you’re the justicar, and accustomed to making rulings and judgment calls without having to defer to anyone else—but do you always have to be so chuffing secretive about it?”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” she replied. “It’s a family tradition—and not one of our finer ones.”
“It turns out the old cack-hander has been behind everything from the start. As if trying to drive me mad and murder Tate wasn’t enough, he’s gone after our son as well!” Hexe fumed. “I’m going to make him wish he’d stayed in hell!”
“Now you’re talking, boss!” Scratch growled from his perch on the mantelpiece.
Suddenly there came a tapping, as if someone was gently rapping, on the parlor window. I lifted back the curtain and was surprised to spy a raven on the windowsill, staring intently at me with a ruby-red eye, a piece of folded parchment held in its jet-black beak. Scratch arched his back, spreading his leathery wings to make himself even bigger and more imposing.
“That’s Esau’s familiar, Edgar!” he hissed. “I’d know that filthy feather duster anywhere!”
As Captain Horn opened the window, the raven flapped into the room, landing in the center of the floor. Scratch leapt from the mantelpiece, placing himself between the familiar and Hexe. The raven opened its beak and dropped the note it was carrying on the floor. Then, with an abrasive caw, it once more took wing, flapping its way out of the open window.
Hexe snatched up the parchment and unfolded it, reading it aloud for the benefit of the rest of us.
Greetings, Nephew:
Congratulations on you and your nump whore bringing forth an abomination whose very existence is an affront to our hallowed bloodline. It would please me beyond measure to rid the world of the ill-born freak you have spawned. However, seeing as we are family, I am prepared to be merciful. If you wish to ever see your brat again, you and your traitorous mother must formally abdicate as Heir Apparent and Witch Queen, respectively. If you do not agree to these terms, I will hand the infant over to the trolls living under the Brooklyn Bridge, to be raised—or feasted upon—as they deem fit. Write your answer, yea or nay, on the back of this parchment and set it afire, then await instructions.
Your loving uncle,
Esau
“He’s out of his mind!” Horn snorted.
“No, he’s far from insane,” Lady Syra sighed. “My brother knows me all too well.”
“You’re not going to agree to this madness, are you?” Horn asked.
“If it means saving my grandson—I will do whatever he wants,” she replied grimly. “My brother is more than capable of handing over a helpless infant to trolls.” She turned to look at Hexe. “What about you? Are you willing to surrender the throne in order to reclaim your son?”
“I’d do it in a heartbeat, if I thought that was all Esau was after,” Hexe replied. “But what good does our abdicating do him, if he’s still trapped in the Infernal Region? If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my uncle—nothing he does is as simple as it first seems. I’m certain he’s got something up his sleeve—but what?”
“I think I know someone who might have some insider information,” I suggested. “But it’s not going to be easy to get it out of him.”
* * *
“Are you sure you want to use that thing?” Hexe asked, eyeing the amulet. It was triangular in shape and fashioned from some unidentifiable metal and affixed to a golden chain. Both the front and back of the amulet were inscribed with symbols and words from a hodgepodge of languages, including Sanskrit, Greek, Kymeran, and Babel, the language of the Infernals.
“I’ll summon a hundred Demon Knights if it means getting our son back,” I replied—and I meant it. I have never wanted anything more in my life than to have my baby safe in my arms again. The ache of having him stolen from me was greater than any physical pain I had ever endured, and so unbearable it was all I could do to keep from screaming like a crazy woman.
“What is the demon’s name, by the way?” Syra asked. “You can’t summon an Infernal without first knowing its name—that’s how you gain control over it.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We never really got to know each other, beyond him breaking my arm.”
“Here it is, on the back of the amulet,” Hexe said, pointing to an inscription that looked like it had been written by a chicken with a calligrapher’s pen strapped to one foot. “He’s called Mephitis.”
“Well, it’s going to take two hands to prepare the wards for such an evocation,” Lady Syra said as she rolled back her sleeves. “Better leave this to me.”
Ten minutes later, the rug in Hexe’s office was rolled back and Lady Syra was putting the finishing touches on the pentagram she’d drawn on the bare floor with a piece of chalk the size of her fist.
“What do I do?” I asked as I slipped the amulet about my neck. “Do I just stand here and yell his name like I’m calling a dog?”
“As long as you wear that medallion, all you have to do is formally summon him—the amulet binds him to your will, just as it bound him to Esau,” Hexe explained. “The pentagram is to make sure he doesn’t escape or try to harm anyone.”
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I told myself that the amulet and the pentagram would protect me, and that I had to be brave. I was doing this for my baby. As I thought about my child needing me, a resolute calmness came upon me, driving the fear and self-doubt from me. “Mephitis! Knight of the Infernal Court!” I shouted into the empty air. “I call you forth! Hear me, demon, and obey!”
Almost instantly the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, as if the light was being sucked inside them. Accompanying the rise of shadows was a sudden chill, and within seconds it was so cold I could see my breath hanging in the air. The flames of the candles anchoring the points of the pentagram began to gutter in unison, nearly snuffing themselves out, only to turn themselves into towers of roaring fire. The smell of brimstone abruptly filled the room, followed by the sound of a hog squealing in rage, as if being dragged by its trotters to the slaughter.
As the candle flames died back down, there stood revealed in the center of the pentagram a figure that put the hair on my head and arms on end, and not because the office was as cold as a meat locker. The demon Mephitis was humanoid in general shape, with the torso of a man and the legs and hooves of a goat. His face resembled that of a boar, complete with snout and tusks, save that there were three ey
es instead of two, the third located in the middle of his forehead. Large batlike wings grew out of the demon’s back, and ram’s horns curled back from his temples. The very sight of the Infernal was enough to make my arm, long since healed, start to ache again.
The last time the Demon Knight had manifested in this world, he arrived bearing the wounds he won from battling Hexe’s Right Hand magic, not to mention the business end of my acetylene torch. But now he appeared recovered from his injuries—no doubt the result of the restorative wonders of the sulfur baths of the Infernal Court.
“Mephitis hears your call, milady, and doth appear,” the demon snarled, flexing his wings in an anxious manner.
“Do you remember me, Infernal?” I asked.
“Yes, milady,” the Demon Knight replied, with a bow of his hideous head. “You blinded me in one eye. But I harbor no ill will, for it has since grown back. For what purpose have you called Mephitis forth?”
“I require information that only you can give. What has Esau been doing since you took him to your world?”
Mephitis made a snorting noise, like that of a pig at a trough. “It did not take the sorcerer long to become influential in the Infernal Court. He has gained the favor of high-ranked courtiers—not mere knights, such as I, but princes and marquises—by promising them a fresh hell to make their own.”
“How can he make good on such a promise?” Hexe asked.
Mephitis snarled and shook his head, flashing his tusks in defiance. “I answer only to milady.”
“Answer the question, demon,” I said sternly.
“The sorcerer Esau is erecting a permanent portal in this dimension—one large enough to accommodate a legion of Infernals. Please, milady, I beg of you,” the Infernal Knight pleaded, “do not make me speak more of this. I shall be sorely punished should they learn I spoke of it to you.”
The thought of a punishment so extreme it would frighten a demon was nothing I wanted to dwell on. “Very well, Mephitis. Get the hell out of here.”
“Thank you, milady!” the demon said with a bow, and then disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke. Within seconds of his departure, the room’s temperature and lighting returned to normal.
“So that’s his plan,” Hexe said sourly. “I knew there had to be a hidden agenda somewhere.”
“I was well aware Esau walked the Left Hand path,” Lady Syra said in stunned disbelief. “But I still held out hope that there was some trace of the brother I used to know left within him. Now I realize the Esau I loved is long dead.”
“It would seem that Esau has finally found his natural element—hell suits his temperament far more than Golgotham,” Horn said grimly.
“I would have thought kidnapping your grandson and threatening to sell him to trolls might have been proof of that already,” I remarked.
“You don’t understand, Tate,” Horn replied. “Portals are incredibly unstable. They can only stay open for a few minutes at a time. There is only one way to permanently open a portal between worlds large enough to accommodate troop movements: a blood sacrifice. But not just any blood. Only that of the Royal Family will do.”
Just then, there was a knock on the office door, and Clarence poked his head into the room. “Excuse me, Miss Timmy . . .”
“Yes, Clarence—what is it?”
“I hate to interrupt, but there are some people here to see you and Master Hexe. Quite a few, in fact.”
As Hexe and I returned to the front of the house, we were surprised to find the entire GoBOO council, at least all of those who could fit through the front door, standing in the parlor, along with several of our friends, including Bartho, Lukas, and Lafo.
Seamus O’Fae stepped forward, holding his Kelly green homburg in his hands as he spoke. “The news of the kidnappin’ is all over Golgotham, Serenity. We have come here to offer our help.”
“Centuries ago, our ancestors swore fealty to the Throne of Arum,” Giles Gruff said solemnly. “That oath still binds us, by blood and honor, to aid the Royal Family in its time of need.”
Lorelei Jones nodded her seaweed-green head in agreement. “When the humans’ atomic tests drove us from our native waters in the South Pacific, your grandfather, Lord Eben, welcomed my people into Golgotham without a second’s hesitation, giving us a new home and new hope. The merfolk owe his bloodline much.”
“And I’m sure my son appreciates the council’s show of support,” Captain Horn said firmly. “But the PTU is already on the case. I’ve got my best officers out there looking for the woman responsible for the kidnapping. . . .”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Cap’n,” the leprechaun countered. “But ye only have so many men. The way we see it, the more eyes ye got lookin’, the more likely she’ll be seen.”
“Seamus is right,” Hexe agreed. “We need as many boots on the ground as possible.”
Skua, the querent for the GoBOO, stepped toward me. Although I knew her to be unsympathetic toward humans, I saw none of her previous disdain in her deep green eyes. In her hands she held a multifaceted scrying crystal the size of an ostrich egg. “I know all too well what it is like to have a son disappear,” she said sadly. “Picture the face of the woman who took your child and exhale onto the crystal.”
As I closed my eyes, the face of Erys flashed across my mind and I quickly exhaled. When I reopened my eyes, the scrying crystal was filled with a swirling, multicolored mist. Within moments the image of Erys appeared, replicated within each individual facet, like the eye of a fly.
Skua placed the crystal on the coffee table and made a couple of passes with her hands, causing the crystal to disassemble into dozens of smaller shards, each holding the image of Erys at its heart.
“Take these with you,” the querent said as she handed the crystals to the others. “This way you will be able to identify who you’re looking for.”
“Be careful—this woman is very dangerous,” Captain Horn warned. “She is also wanted for questioning in the murder of Dr. Moot. If you see her, don’t approach her or attempt to apprehend her! Instead, simply contact either me or Hexe or Tate, and let us know where you saw her and if she’s travelling with anyone.”
After Hexe and his father succeeded in eliciting a grudging agreement that no one would do anything stupid if they spotted Madam Erys, the assembled volunteers filed out of the house, each carrying the image of the kidnapper in their pockets. After the last one was safely out the door, Hexe turned to look at his father.
“I noticed you didn’t tell them that Erys is, in fact, Esau.”
“I decided your mother is right,” Horn replied. “Revealing Esau’s involvement in this isn’t going to help. It’ll only make matters worse.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner—you deserved to know,” Hexe apologized.
“Damn straight I did,” his father grunted. “But, what’s done is done. To tell you the truth, I already suspected Esau was somehow connected to the SOA. It just seemed like an awfully big coincidence that the Sons of Adam disappeared the exact same time he did. I know your mother loved him—after all, he was her brother—but as far as I was concerned he was always a manipulative conniver, not to mention an elitist snob.”
“It seems you don’t have a great deal of fondness for my uncle,” Hexe observed wryly.
“I loathe the man,” Horn replied flatly. “And I’ve done so ever since he slapped my mother for not serving him a meal fast enough to suit him, when he was fifteen years old. Syra may have known a different Esau, but I never have.”
Hexe frowned. “Your mother worked as a cook for the Royal Family—?”
Before Horn could reply, Hexe’s cell phone ringtone began to play, alerting him that he’d received a text message.
“Who’s it from?” I asked anxiously.
“It’s from Bartho. He says, ‘I think I found her!’ There’s a JPEG attached. . . .”
Syra, Horn, and I crowded around as Hexe opened the file. Although the screen wasn’t very big,
I could make out what looked to be Erys, dressed in the traditional multicolored skirt and patchwork vest of a Kymeran witch-for-hire, standing in front of the Stronghold, the secured pier belonging to the Maladanti, and pointing at its locked gates. It took me a moment or two to realize that parts of her were transparent.
“Is that Erys?” I asked, frowning in confusion.
“No. It’s Nina,” Lady Syra replied. “And it looks like she’s trying to tell us something.”
Chapter 32
“Are you ready to do this?” Hexe asked his mother. Lady Syra nodded, her mouth set into a determined line. “Here goes, then.” Taking up a pen, he flipped over the ransom note and wrote “We agree to your terms” on its back, and signed it. He then moved aside, allowing his mother to add her signature.
Lady Syra picked up a stick of sealing wax and snapped the fingers of her left hand, summoning a tongue of flame, which danced atop her index finger. Once the sealing wax was melted, she plunged her signet ring into the warm red puddle, leaving the mark of the Royal House of Arum: a pair of intertwined dragons.
Hexe took the parchment and placed it on the parlor grate. The tongue of flame flickering at the tip of Lady Syra’s finger leapt into the fireplace, and within seconds the note was ablaze. The smoke from the parchment briefly took on the silhouette of a man, and then fled up the chimney with an unnatural speed and purpose.
“Well, that’s that,” Hexe sighed. “What’s next?”
We didn’t have long to wait, as there came a familiar tapping on the parlor window frame, signaling the return of Esau’s familiar, Edgar. This time the raven flew in and perched on the mantelpiece. Beanie charged forward, stiff-legged, barking furiously at the feathered intruder, until Edgar cawed loudly and flapped his soot-black wings in consternation, sending Beanie scampering behind Scratch, who spread his own, leathery wings in challenge.
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