by Harvey Click
They were in a rocky shallow below her, maybe twenty feet outside of the property line, and there was a harpy swooping through the air above their heads. They were both slashing at it with their swords as it dove towards them, but it would dart back up before their swords could reach it.
Amy ran down the slope and started slashing with her own sword, but it was no use. The harpy was quick, darting up and down this way and that. It was dark gray and shaped like a naked female dwarf with huge bat wings, its face half-human with red bat eyes and a wide grinning mouth filled with pointy teeth.
Suddenly it let out a shriek and plummeted to the ground at Amy’s feet, where it twitched for a few seconds and then let out a death gurgle and stopped moving. Three knives protruded from its torso.
“Buncha pussies,” Nyx said as she moseyed down the slope. “Can’t even kill a puny-ass harpy. Lot of fucking good you’re going to be against Sandoval.”
She kicked the harpy a couple times and then knelt to retrieve her knives. Suddenly something came charging out of a shrub behind her, a large baboon-like thing with a red skull face. It leaped through the air and was two or three feet away from landing on Nyx’s back when Amy severed its head with her sword.
She heard some sort of weird chattering behind her and turned to see two more of the things leaping out of a tree toward Leo, but his sword sliced them into multiple pieces so swiftly that its blade was a silver blur flashing in the dark.
And then quite spontaneously, with no one having given an order, Amy, Nyx, Leo and Siliang formed a small circle, each one facing outward with sword extended, watching in all four directions for more demons and ready to kill anything that hell might throw at them. Though by now Amy had killed two demons by herself, this was the first moment she understood what it was like to work in unison with other soldiers, all of them acting together as four deadly pieces of a single combat unit. The fact that she and Nyx hated each other didn’t matter now; all that mattered was destroying whatever enemy might be out there.
By now Brook and Jake had arrived and were standing at the top of the crest blowing their whistles, and a minute later Neoma and Ivan appeared with several others. If any other demons were hidden nearby, apparently they had decided it was safer to remain hidden.
“What news?” Neoma asked.
Leo bowed slightly and said, “One harpy and three babbleboons, Milady. Siliang and I spotted the harpy flying around down here, so we ran down to kill it, but it stayed out of the reach of our swords. Then Nyx showed up and killed it with her knives. A moment later my excellent student Mary killed a babbleboon with her sword, and then two more leaped out of that tree and I filleted them like fat juicy salmons.”
“Nyx, Mary, and Leo, we’re all very grateful to you,” Neoma said.
“Oh goody, does that mean I get a gold star on my grade card?” Nyx said.
“Ivan, you and Lucky get the tub and some shovels and a bag of lime,” Neoma said.
“You’re going to put all that slop in one tub?” Red asked.
“Is there anything else to put it in?” she asked.
“There’s that big round thing in the back of the barn.”
“Will that big round thing fit in the cage along with the tub?” Neoma asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Manda, what’s going to happen if we mix all these putrefied remains together and let them come back to life?” Neoma asked.
“That’s a new one on me,” Manda said. “I never heard of anyone trying it, not in occult books or folktales or fairy tales or even in comic books.”
“Red, you and Jake go get the cage set up,” Neoma said.
“You think all four of those things are going to fit in that one cage?” Red asked.
“Maybe not,” Neoma said. “That’s why I’ve been telling you to build a second one. Did you ever get around to doing that?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“Then I guess that’ll be a good job for you tomorrow, assuming those things don’t bust out of the cage tonight and kill all of us.”
Red walked away, cursing under his breath, and Ivan and Lucky soon returned with shovels and the tub.
“To dismiss the demons I really should have a coven of twelve,” Neoma said, “but I don’t want to leave this sector unguarded.”
“If that phone tower is working, you can call Colby and Kate,” Manda said.
“They can’t possibly get here before those things come back to life,” Neoma said. “Leo and Siliang, I want you to stay here and guard the area.”
Leo bowed and said, “I’m most delighted, Milady. My sword grows bored and ill-tempered when she has no work to do.”
“A warrior is happy only in battle,” Siliang said.
“Well then, be happy and keep your eyes open,” Neoma said.
When all of the remains had been shoveled into the tub, it was full almost to the brim with gelatinous goo reeking of rotten eggs, and it took four men with bandannas wrapped around their faces to carry it.
The cage was already set up when they got to the clearing, some of its bars bent by last night’s herky-jerky. The four men slid the tub inside it carefully so the rancid goop wouldn’t splash out, and then they locked the barred gate.
“Hope that damn thing holds,” Red said.
“Looks pretty rickety to me,” Lucky said. “What you need is some thicker steel bars.”
“The bars have to fit inside the lead pipes,” Red said.
“Then get some bigger lead pipes,” Lucky said. “I could weld the bars together tighter than an inside straight if I had a good welder.”
Neoma went into the house and returned wearing her ceremonial gown and carrying her sword, and they all sat at the tables wondering what was going to emerge from the tub. It had been miserably humid all day, and now thunder began to rumble in the west, sounding not very far away.
“A sorcerer’s power is greatly increased by the power of her coven,” Neoma said. “Since there are only ten of you tonight, you’re all going to have to put forth a greater effort.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Brook asked.
“It means focus and concentration. Focus on the words I’ll be chanting, even though you won’t be able to understand them. Focus on the sound of the words and put all other things out of your mind except the intense desire to send these monsters back to hell. If you do it properly you’ll feel the power of the spell coursing through you like a sort of electricity.”
“That last part should be easy,” Jake said. “Wanting to send them things back to hell, I mean.”
“It should be, but it’s not,” Neoma said. “I’ve tried to teach all of you how to focus your attention, and all of you know how hard it can be. What if mosquitoes are biting your face or a skunk comes sneaking around or you suddenly need to pee? What if those things are bending the bars of the cage and cursing at you? Remember, babbleboons can talk, even if what they say doesn’t make any sense. What if that storm breaks over our heads at just the wrong time? Will you still be able to focus completely on the words I’m chanting?”
The slop in the tub seemed to have solidified and now was swelling up over the rim like bread rising in a pan. Manda stepped up to the cage to look and quickly returned with a handkerchief clutched to her nose.
“My God, you don’t even want to see what’s in there,” she said.
But of course almost everyone did, and they filed up to the cage one by one and came back with stricken looks on their faces.
“They’re all four turning into one thing,” Lucky said. “One big ugly thing with four heads.”
“It’s more like Siamese twins,” Red said, “and each twin has two heads.”
“One twin has wings and one don’t,” Jake said.
“It’s going to be one goddamn big son of a bitch,” Bloody Joe said. “I don’t think that cage will hold it.”
A strong wind began to blow. A bright flash of lightening was followed a second or two l
ater by a loud crack of thunder, and suddenly it was pouring.
“Okay, let’s get in position,” Neoma said.
She stood about twenty feet in front of the cage, and the others formed a circle around her facing outwards and holding hands. Somehow it again happened that Mary was closer than she wanted to be to the cage, very nearly facing it, and from the corner of her eye she could easily see the monster swelling up out of the tub. Suddenly the sides of the brass tub split open like an eggshell, and the thing scrabbled to its feet.
Eight feet, though six of them were apelike and two were scrawny and clawed like bat feet. Two hairy bodies nearly as large as gorillas were joined at the midsection by a bare lumpy mass of cancerous-looking flesh. One twin had two babbleboon heads, their grotesque red-skull faces snarling, and the other had one babbleboon head and one harpy head, its shrewish female face screeching with hatred and its red eyes glaring. The two monstrous bat wings were too big for the cage, and Amy heard their bones snapping as the thing thrashed against the bars, all four heads roaring with pain and hatred and the bars already beginning to bend.
Amy shut her eyes and tried to focus her full attention on the sound of Neoma’s chant, but the storm was drowning out her voice. The wind and rain were furious now, and the thunderclaps sounded like bombs, but the four heads of the demon were shrieking even more loudly than the storm. Amy heard English words in the screeching cacophony, though they made no sense, just random lunatic babble mixed with obscenities.
A deafening crack caused her eyes to snap open, and she saw a large limb fall out of a tree and land hard on the ground just a couple feet from the cage, which was rocking violently back and forth. The bars were badly bent now, and three of the four heads were sticking out between them, screaming curses and spitting streams of venom in the direction of the coven, where it would sizzle like acid in the grass before the rain drenched it.
The rocking cage tipped over onto its side, and the demon squealed like four hogs as one of its wings was crushed. Pain seemed to give it more strength, and it snapped one of the bars loose at one end and forced a hairy shoulder into the opening to make it larger.
Where was the thick black fog that was supposed to dispatch the thing to hell? Amy saw no sign of it, not even a hint of mist. Was the wind blowing it away, was the rain washing it into the ground? Behind her, Neoma’s voice sounded frail and feeble, not up to the task.
The demon was trying to force one of its torsos through the opening and was close to succeeding. Amy shut her eyes again and tried to focus on the chanting. At first the shrieking of the storm and the demon overwhelmed it, but she drew herself to Neoma’s voice with her mind more than her ears, with that place in the center of her mind that remained quiet and calm even in this tumult, and then the strange words and melody of the song were clear and lovely like a stream of pure water cascading down a cliff in some remote and secret place.
She joined her own voice with the melody, not the voice of her larynx but the voice of her mind, and suddenly she felt intimately connected to Neoma, closer than a sister, closer than a lover, and she felt a sort of electricity surging through her, an exhilarating power that connected her not only to Neoma but to an invisible world much larger than either of them.
She opened her eyes when she heard Lucky say, “I thought I was going to cash in my chips for a minute there. That thing was damn near out of its cage.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with the missus?” Nyx asked.
Amy turned and saw Neoma lying supine on the wet ground, her sword still clutched in her hand. Ivan and Red knelt beside her, one grasping her wrist and the other touching her jugular vein.
She no longer looked like the mighty Queen Bitch; now she looked small and fragile. The rain had made her thin white gown completely transparent, and Amy didn’t feel it was right for all these men to be staring at her nearly naked body. Neoma’s beauty wasn’t meant for the eyes of men.
“Her heart’s beating good and strong,” Red said. “Okay, let’s get her inside.”
He grasped her ankles and Ivan got ahold of her beneath the shoulders.
“Gently,” Ivan said. It was the first time Amy had heard him speak. They lifted, and Brook held the back door open for them as they carried her into the house.
“Well then, I guess we’ve got some work to do here,” Lucky said. “If you’re supposed to be on patrol you’d better get back to it. Maybe some of you can help me carry what’s left of this cage to the barn. We need to try and fix it up in case any more demons decide to come nosing around tonight.”
Amy followed Nyx back to sector four. The rain had let up a little but was still coming down hard enough that their flashlights barely penetrated the darkness. The dirt path was slippery with mud and in places limbs had fallen across it.
They’d been walking for only a few minutes when Nyx said, “I know you’re thinking you saved my life, but you didn’t. I heard that thing coming and was just about to throw a knife at it when you damn near chopped off my head with your sword. This don’t change nothing. I still hate you and I still plan to kill you in your sleep.”
But Amy was too worried about Neoma to listen. She wanted to be in the house with her. She wanted to be the one to undress her, towel her dry, cover her with warm blankets, and nurse her back to health.
Chapter 14
The lamp was turned off in the bedroom when Amy got back from her rainy patrol, but she could tell that Neoma was sleeping by the sound of her breathing. She undressed quietly and slipped under the covers of her mattress on the floor, and when she awoke Neoma was already up. Amy found her downstairs typing on her laptop at the dining room table.
“Are you feeling all right, Milady?” Amy asked.
It was the first time she had used that word, and it caused Neoma to look up from the screen and smile faintly.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It was just exhaustion. Sandoval offers human sacrifices to a demon named Zahbeezul the Skin-Eater, and in turn Zahbeezul gives him tremendous power. So Sandoval can summon demons all day long and control them and dismiss them whenever he wishes. But since I don’t serve any demons I don’t have that sort of power, and trying to dismiss that four-headed monster with just a coven of ten to help me was way above my pay scale.”
She smiled again, more fully this time, and added, “That is, until you joined in. I mean really joined in. Mary, when your powers are joined with mine I think we can do just about anything, maybe even win this battle. Ivan, bring her some breakfast.”
“I felt stronger too,” Amy said. “Later when I was patrolling in the rain I didn’t feel afraid of anything, except I was worried about you.”
“Do you know Latin?” Neoma asked.
“No.”
Neoma started typing again, and Amy wondered what Latin had to do with anything. She had just finished eating breakfast and was drinking her coffee when she heard a car pull up to the side of the house and park.
“That’ll be Shane,” Neoma said. “He always takes Mondays off and comes here to report.”
Ivan let him in by the front door, and he strolled up to the table and smiled at Amy. He was wearing a nice pair of tan chinos, a crisp, clean short-sleeve shirt, and a generous amount of cologne that smelled too expensive for Blackwood.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You getting along okay?” he asked.
“I guess so.”
“Good.”
Neoma tapped her fingernails impatiently on the table and said, “What news?”
“Nothing much,” he said. “Someone else saw a demon at least twenty-five miles away from the Phillips house. Oh, and last night Dilkens arrested a drunk named Mack Riley.”
“Well, type it up,” Neoma said. She got up and grabbed a page that her printer had just spit out. “Mary and I have work to do upstairs.”
“Mary?”
“That’s her name now.”
Shane grinned a bit foolishly and said, “Nice to me
et you, Mary,” but Neoma was already heading up the stairs, so Amy gave Shane an oh-well expression and followed.
Neoma’s small study always felt hot and stuffy even with the window open, and Amy didn’t want to be up here right now. She hadn’t been allowed to say more than a couple words to Shane, and she hadn’t even been allowed a second cup of coffee. A few minutes ago she had been grateful because Neoma wasn’t still sick, but now she was annoyed because Neoma was still a tyrant.
“Why doesn’t he live here like the rest of us?” Amy asked.
Neoma shot her a suspicious look and said, “Shane? Why do you ask? Have you heard some gossip?”
“No.”
“He’s always been more useful in Blackwood. He’s our eyes and ears in town.”
“It must be pretty dangerous for him, living there in the hornets’ nest.”
Neoma shrugged and said, “It has its risks. Now he wants to get out of there, but he has it better than Colby and Kate. They live in a little house trailer just east of Sandoval’s house, not even a quarter mile away. It’s their job to sneak around and spy on his house and the factory. As you might guess, the area is infested with demons. All Shane has to do is stand around in his bar and listen to gossip. Now if we can cut the chit-chat, let’s get to work.”
She placed a heavy bronze bookend on the floor in a corner and then placed some small objects around it, a little blue bottle, a colorful feather, a wad of paper, and a ballpoint pen.
“Sit down,” she said. “Today your task is to lift the bookend without disturbing any of the things around it. The bookend is heavy and the other things are light, so it’ll be a challenge. Specifically I want you to lift the bookend, bring it to you, and place it here on the table without of course touching it.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“You can, because now I know the way to teach you. There’s a chant and a spell for everything, a chant to aid telekinesis, another chant to aid spirit-travel. I’ve been using those to help you, but today you’re going to chant along with me. I’ve learned that when you join your voice with mine our powers are joined.”
