Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Bellamy surmised that the werewolf was about to throw a spell at Antoine. Sprinting through a hail of arrows and gunfire, he vaulted across the Shroud. From his perspective, everyone but the shaman vanished. As he raised his gun, the ugly little man wheeled and scrambled back into the house, his body swelling and sprouting fur as he ran. The agent snapped off a shot, but missed.

  Bellamy opened the cab of the rental truck. As he'd hoped, the keys were in the ignition. He grabbed them, threw them into the darkness, then allowed Death to snatch him back into the Underworld.

  One of the ghosts who'd carried the statues had disappeared, fled or lost to the Void. Tossing his head, Antoine tore the other rebel's arm off. The Queen's warriors were melting through the walls of the mansion.

  "Astarte," Bellamy said.

  Antoine spat out the shredded limb. "Already inside. She went this way." He charged up the front steps, onto the verandah, and through the one of the double doors. Bellamy followed.

  Inside was a spacious, high-ceilinged foyer which Bellamy had seen before. Wraiths were fighting everywhere. Blades rang, guns banged, and the wounded screamed. A number of Les Invisibles had opted to make a stand on the stairs, evidently defending the upper floors of the house. A ghastly howling sounded through the ceiling.

  To Bellamy's dismay, the disguised Astarte was in the forefront of the African soldiers trying to fight their way up the steps. A Creole near the top shot a Crossbow at her, and the Queen's shield leaped upward to block the quarrel. To the FBI agent, it looked as if the protective device had yanked Astarte's arm up rather than the Other way around. She laughed, her other arm cocked and straightened with one fluid motion, and the assegai flew upwards. The spear pierced the crossbowman through the chest, and his body burst into black flame. The weapon lurched out of his flesh and whizzed back into. Astarte's hand. She caught it effortlessly, without even looking.

  But even magick weapons couldn't provide perfect protection against every danger. As the rebels on the steps shifted about or perished in waves of shadow, a space opened up in front of her, and she sprang up onto the risers. Instantly the enemy pressed in all around her, stabbing and slashing. The shield couldn't possibly swing itself around quickly enough to deflect every attack.

  Bellamy lunged forward, firing into the mo'ce. praying he wouldn't hit Astarte, Antoine lunged into the thick of the fight and started snapping off people's legs. Titus backed out of a doorway, his Tommy gun shaking and rattling, then pivoted toward the stairs and whispered a Word. Given the circumstances, it should have been completely inaudible, but Bellamy heard it plainly, even from ten feet: away. Slivers of pale light resembling icicles appeared around Astarte's opponents, and, darting and spinning, began to harass the Creoles like a swarm of angry hornets.

  The rebels faltered. Bellamy caught Astarte by the arm and hauled her backward. Striking, he trusted, of its own volition, the assegai jabbed at him, and he barely jerked his head aside in time to keep from losing an eye. His gray hide gashed and punctured in several places, Antoine also scuttled out of the fray.

  Bellamy looked Astarte over. To his relief, she was only scratched. "Titus told you to hang back," he said.

  "Don't take that tone with the Queen," she said, smirking. And then, more softly: "Come on, give me a break. Even if I didn't want to help, I have to; fight since that's what Marie would do."

  "Yo.u don't have to be reckless," he snapped. "T his isn't a game." More eerie howling reverberated from overhead, and he grimaced in frustration. He wanted to stay with her, protect her, but if he did, their side might lose the battle. He turned to Titus. "I told you about that Nihil kind of thing upstairs. I think it's the door to the place where the demons live, and the werewolf shamans are opening it now. Somebody has to get up there and stop them."

  "There's another set of stairs," the old man said. Perhaps warned by some sixth sense, he pivoted and shot a rebel who'd been drawing a bead on him. "Unfortunately, I perceive rebels defending it as well." His mouth twisted. "I can get up there, but it sounds as if there are at least two wolfmen. I don't know if I can cope with them by myself."

  "Then I'll have to go, too," Bellamy said. "Cover me, then join me when I make it to the top." He projected himself across the Shroud.

  The battle vanished. To all appearances, he stood in a dark, abandoned house. The sudden silence rang in his ears until shattered by another howl from above.

  Trying not to think about the horde of invisible, intangible enemies standing in his path, Bellamy started up the stairs. Something hit him hard in the chest. Gasping, reeling, he clutched the banister for support. The railing dropped out from under his hand as if someone had smashed the support posts with an ax. Bellamy started to topple into space, but somehow, arms flailing, managed to wrench himself back to safety.

  He braced for another blow, but nothing happened. Perhaps Titus or one of his other allies had disposed of the ghost who'd been using Spook powers against him. He scrambled on.

  Halfway up the steps, a sudden weariness turned his legs to rubber. Dropping to his knees, his thoughts turning vague and dull, he almost lost his grasp on the world of the living before snapping fully awake again. Six risers farther up, a voice groaned, and an excruciating terror made him cringe, but the unseen Chanteur fell silent an instant later.

  Bellamy bounded onto the landing. Someone had crudely demolished the interior walls and ceilings of the first three bedrooms on the right to provide the werewolf sorcerers with a spacious workplace. Two of them—thank God it was only two— both in wolfman form, swayed and capered at the center of a complex design of crystals, bones, and symbols drawn in stinking gore and feces on the floor. One monster had four yellow eyes set asymmetrically in his skull, and vermin like tiny, pale green scorpions crawling through his russet fur. His companion's multiple rows of fangs were so long and crooked than he couldn't close his jaws without lacerating himself. His muzzle was a patchwork of scabs, perforations, and scars. Bellamy couldn't tell which of them, if either, was the Black Spiral Dancer he'd fired at outside. Toward the rear of the open area shimmered the sheet of light the FBI agent had seen on his previous visit, but now it seemed more active, with waves of brightness rippling rapidly across it.

  Bellamy hastily dragged his shoe across the floor, knocking crossed femurs apart and smearing a bloody mandala. Effacing a part of the ritual pattern. The last time he'd tried this trick, it had spoiled the werewolf s magick, triggering a backlash which nearly fried the creature. This time, however, nothing happened. Scowling in disappointment, Bellamy lifted his Browning and fired.

  The darksteel bullets caught the four-eyed Dancer in the spine. Roaring, he spun around and charged, and the other monster followed suit. Bellamy kept firing, his shots now punching holes in the lead wolfman's chest.

  Huge hands with long yellow claws shot out to seize the wraith, and then, at last, his bullets had some noticeable effect. The wolfman stumbled and fell headlong. Bellamy sprang backward so the giant creature wouldn't land on top of him, then opened up on the beast with the malformed teeth.

  He hit him twice, once in the sternum and once in the stomach, and then, hurtling forward like a high-speed train, the towering honor came into striking range. His talons streaked at Bellamy's shooting arm. The human snatched it back in time to keep it from being shorn off, but the blow caught the pistol and slapped it out of his grasp.

  Bellamy backpedaled, ducked a strike at his head, and whipped out his gleaming black shortsword. The monster lunged, claws upraised and ribbons of viscous brown saliva streaming from his gaping jaws. Holding himself in place till the last possible instant, the ghost twisted aside and drove his blade at the Black Spiral Dancer's midsection.

  The sword plunged deep into the werewolf s flesh, but at the same instant the monster's elbow struck Bellamy a glancing blow to the jaw. Given the Dancer's prodigious strength, even that accidental brush was sufficient to send him reeling. The back of his head slammed into the wall, stunning him, a
nd he crashed to the floor in a heap.

  Blood spurting from the gash in his flank, the werewolf with the misshapen fangs rounded on his attacker. Meanwhile the other beast-man reared up from a crimson pool, roared, and lurched to his feet. Still dazed, Bellamy tried to stand up as well, but his legs wouldn't obey him. His heels scraped uselessly at the floor. He raised the shortsword. His arm shook.

  The werewolf with the oversized teeth emitted a hideous, rhythmic growl which might have been laughter. He flexed his legs to pounce, then shrieked and clutched at his temples. Knots on his head began to palpitate, splitting his skin. The squirming bone made a crunching, grinding sound.

  The other monster peered madly about, then, orienting on a patch of floor in front of a cracked, grimy window, snarled a rapid incantation, to no apparent effect. His companion's skull exploded, showering blood, bone chips, and scraps of flesh and brain.

  The four-eyed werewolf clawed deep gashes in his own chest and repeated his magick words. Titus appeared, his form vague and translucent, shadowy strands like coils of barbed wire writhing about him, tearing his skin and entangling his limbs. He lost his balance, fell, and mouthed an incantation of his own. The strands faded for a moment, but then darkened again. The werewolf raked his fingers through his fur, collecting a handful of green parasites, and hurled them at the African wizard. The tiny scorpions vanished in midair, reappeared on Titus's body, and started to sting him.

  Meanwhile, the dimensional portal dilated.

  Bellamy tried again to rise. This time, he made it. Sword extended, he ran at the surviving wolfman.

  Caught by surprise, the monster wheeled an instant too slowly. The bloody darksteel blade punched into his side, scraped over a rib, and almost certainly punctured a lung. The beast-man reeled backward and fell, nearly wrenching the weapon from Bellamy's grasp. Aware of the Black Spiral Dancers' regenerative powers, the wraith crouched over the thrashing giant and kept stabbing.

  Titus's shadowy bonds melted away. He waved his hand in a mystic pass and the scorpions dropped off his skin, stunned or dead. Beginning to fade from view once more, he staggered to his feet and glared at the widening portal, his muscles bunching.

  Gory punctures riddling his torso and neck, the werewolf finally stopped writhing. Maybe he wasn't dead even now, but he certainly didn't look as if he'd regain consciousness any time soon. Bellamy permitted Death to pull him back across the Shroud.

  Now he could see monstrous forms and faces swimming inside the gate, perceive the insectile rustling and the sulfurous stench wafting from its depths. A huge black serpent with white, faceted eyes began to slither out. Then Titus shouted a word of power and the portal blinked out of existence, cutting the snake in two. The front section squirmed and flopped around the floor.

  Looking for the next opponent, the next danger, Bellamy pivoted toward the stairs. To his amazement, Antoine stood fighting on the landing. The Creoles had nearly ripped the gator to pieces, but he was still savagely biting and lashing out with his tail.

  Bellamy rushed forward to help him, but at the same instant, a roar resounded up the stairs. With Astarte in the lead, the Africans charged up the steps, smashing through the opponents still blocking their path.

  Bellamy crouched beside Antoine. "How are you?"

  "How do I look?" the reptile croaked irritably. "It's bad, but I think Titus can fix me up."

  The human pivoted. "Get over here, Titus!" He turned back to the gator. "No offense, but are you crazy? You weren't supposed to follow me up the stairs."

  "I thought maybe I could make it. Being built low to the ground helps when you're trying to move through a bunch of enemies packed in tight together. Even if people notice you, they may not be able to get into position to take a poke at you. And you needed somebody to watch your back. Jeez louise, warmblood, did you think that all the Creoles who could reach across the Shroud would just forget about you once you made it up the steps?"

  Bellamy shook his head. "I guess I didn't think. Thank you."

  Titus squatted beside them. "I'll help Antoine," the old man wheezed, his wrinkled, chocolate-colored skin mottled with pale cuts and punctures. "You mind our business. This affair isn't over yet."

  Bellamy patted Antoine's scaly neck, then rose and hurried to Astarte. She looked all right, though something had shorn two of her ostrich plumes away. The FBI agent tried not to imagine how the blow might just as easily have split her skull. Grinning, her amber eyes alight with excitement, the bogus queen was conferring with two of her lieutenants.

  "What's our situation, Your Highness?" Bellamy asked.

  "Great!" Astarte crowed. The caped warriors eyed her quizzically. "This was the main battle right here, and we won it. Our other guys wiped out the rebels on the back stairs. Now we just regroup, mop up, and go kick the ass of Geffard himself."

  "I'm glad you're having such a good time," Bellamy said sourly. He looked around, located his Browning, and exchanged the spent clip for a fresh one. "The room with the dolls is down this way. I'm going to check on it."

  "I'll go with you. I want to see it."

  Bellamy's mouth tightened. He would have preferred that she stay in a secured area, surrounded by guards, not go scouting down a dark corridor with him. But it looked as if the battle really was over. Any rebels still at large had probably run away. "All right, Your Highness." He turned to the soldiers. "You guys come along, too,"

  Bellamy taking point, the foursome headed down the shadowy hallway. Tiny Nihils hissed and glittered in the walls. The FBI agent strained his senses, looking for potential threats, reminding himself that a wraith ambusher could pop out of a solid wall as easily as through a doorway.

  As before, the room housing the voudoun fetishes gave the FBI agent the creeps. About half the dolls and puppets were already gone, yet he could still discern a pattern in the arrangement of the remaining figures radiating outward from the life- size wax image in the center, as if the Creoles and werewolves had been taking care to move the magical artifacts in a particular order. Black light still rippled through the talismans, or leaped sizzling from one to another, and the altar against the wall, with its skulls, bones, and crossed shovel and pick-ax, still gave off a sickening aura of wrorigness.

  Judging by their scowls, the two soldiers found the:;display as disquieting as Bellamy did. To some extent, Astarte seemed to share the feeling, yet she was fascinated as well. "This is awesome," she breathed, reaching for a crude rag doll representing the Queen with her body split open from throat to crotch.

  Bellamy grabbed her and yanked her back. Granted, the evil magick contained in the images was aimed at the real Marie. But Astarte was wearing the Queen's shape, and had been told that simply touching one of the talismans had plunged the wraith monarch into a coma. Didn't the Quick girl have any sense at all?

  "Sorry, Highness," he said, trying to keep his annoyance out of his voice. "But it would be better to leave this stuff alone until Titus can defuse it."

  Astarte sighed. "I guess," she said, and then Bellamy heard a tiny noise, perhaps the rustle of clothing as someone shifted position, whispering through the wall.

  He strode through the surface into the next room, where the remains of Chester's Pentium still lay broken on the floor. The scrawny, gray-haired ghost himself jerked backward, simultaneously lifting his snub-nosed revolver. An instant later, Astarte and her guards glided into the room, weapons at the ready. Outnumbered four to one, the Creole lowered his weapon and placed it on a table.

  "Well, Chester, hello again," Bellamy said. "Were you hoping you could hide out here until my friends and I cleared out?" He wondered why the ghost in the wire- rimmed glasses hadn't concealed himself inside an inanimate object. Maybe he could only possess electronic gadgets like working computers.

  "Are you going to kill me?" Chester asked, his voice quavering slightly.

  "No," Bellamy said, "not if you cooperate."

  Chester sighed. "Well, why shouldn't I? I suppose I should be ha
ppy to switch to the side of someone competent. I always knew that Dunn and his pack were idiots, but I thought that at least the loa and his Baka friends knew what they were about. But if they had, their curses would have worked, and Her Majesty wouldn't have been able to lead her troops against us."

  Astarte chuckled. "Life's a bitch."

  Bellamy shot her a glance, trying to remind her to stay in character. "Now that we aren't quite so pressed for time," he said to Chester, "I want to know all of It. First off, where's Geffard?"

  "Probably aboard the Twisted Mirror," Chester said. "That's where the wolves were going to take the dolls."

  "Makes sense," the FBI agent said. "If he carried them out into the middle of the river, we'd have a tough time getting to them. Now, we know your boss's objective. He wants to be King of New Orleans. But what are the Spectres and the Black Spiral Dancers trying to accomplish? What's the point of the Atheist murders and all the other crimes against the living? Are your friends deliberately trying to stir up Maelstroms?"

  Chester grimaced. "You're pretty clever, particularly for a Lemure. That's a part of it, in a sense."

  "What's the whole answer?" Bellamy demanded. "Why—"

  Chester pivoted and lunged through the exterior wall.

  Caught by surprise, Bellamy faltered for a precious instant, then gave chase. Once outside the room, he found himself on the roof of the verandah. The Creole was dashing along it toward the corner of the house.

  "Stop!" Bellamy shouted. He squeezed off a warning shot. Chester leaped into space.

  With Astarte and the two warriors pounding along at his heels, the FBI agent ran to the corner and looked down. His leg twisted at an unnatural angle, the rebel lay on the roof of the rental truck feet below. Bellamy's alarm gave way to a pang of pity. Chester was a computer nerd, not a man of action. He should have known he'd only get hurt if he tried to make a break for it.

  Chester's skinny body melted into the body of the truck. The engine roared to life, the loading ramp retracted, and, the rear doors swinging and banging, a couple of dolls tumbling out, the vehicle lurched into motion.