by J. R. Mabry
Richard paused momentarily at the doors to the Great Hall. With both hands he gripped the large pewter door handles and plunged them down as he pushed.
Nothing happened. The doors wouldn’t budge. Richard called over his shoulder, “I think someone has bolted the doors from the inside.”
“What if the five of us rammed it?” Dylan asked.
“Worth a try,” Richard agreed.
They backed up about ten paces from the door. Standing shoulder to shoulder, Richard counted down. “On three. One, two, three!” As one, they rushed the enormous oaken doors and threw all their weight upon them.
“I heard something crack,” Terry said.
“That was mah shoulder,” Dylan moaned.
“Again!” Richard called.
Once again, they lined up and rushed at the door. Once again, they threw their shoulders against it in unison. This time, the cracking was even more audible, and the doors swayed inward before they caught and held.
“Again!” Dylan shouted.
Once again, they regrouped, and once again they battered the door. This time their shoulders met the wood, and with a great, reverberating snap the threshold opened before them.
They weren’t expecting to meet such little resistance and almost lost their balance inside the door. Within a few seconds, however, they found their feet and took in the scene.
Lit by pewter candle stands as tall as a man’s shoulder, the hall was festooned with a score of flickering flames. Red LEDs betrayed the presence of at least three video cameras, set at the periphery of the room on tripods. Richard noted that a giant circle had been inscribed on the hardwood floor in chalk—a circle of summoning, ornamented by Latin phrases and sigils of arcane origin.
Within the ring, a circle of safety had been inscribed but a larger one than usual, for this one protected not just the magickian—Larch stared at them in dumb horror as they entered—but their patron as well. Dane’s eyes were shining with what must have been tears of joy before his ritual had been so rudely interrupted. Now his watery eyes were fierce as he stared at the friars, and a blood vessel protruded from his forehead so pronounced that Richard could plainly see it even across the room.
But that was not all, he noted. Outside the circle of safety was the circle in which the demon was circumscribed. As Richard expected, a credence table had been set, with the small paper triangle containing the sigil of the demon to be called—in this case, it was plain to see, Articiphus. This circle, too, was larger than that of a normal operation, for contained within this circle was another creature, looking very small, vulnerable, and frightened.
“Jamie!” Dylan shouted, just now recognizing the rag doll form on the floor. “Hold on, Honey, we’re coming to get you!”
Richard could see that they had crashed the party at the crucial moment of the ritual. The air before the child was shimmering, and the fiery aspect of the demon was resolving into a ghostly dragon, the mount of Articiphus. And astride him, just now shimmering into focus, the great duke of Hell himself, his scarred visage severe, his crown catching the glow of the score of candles that dotted the room.
The dragon coiled and shot out its tail, planting its massive but weirdly weightless feet far too near Jamie’s cowering form.
“What the fuck do we do now?” Terry called. “We’re outside the circle of protection. There’s nothing stopping that demon from eating us right where we stand!”
Richard looked at him with calm benignity. “They’d better not. We made a deal.”
“A deal with demons? Forgive me if Ah’m lackin’ in confidence.”
“Point. But here goes.” And with that, Richard strode into the room, directly for Dane.
He walked with resolution, but he did not hurry. He saw the coiling body of the infernal Duke’s mount, but he ignored it. He saw Larch’s mouth moving, miming “no, no, no” and waving him away, but it meant nothing to him. His eyes were fixed upon Dane, and bearing a visage that was both terrible in justice and soft with compassion, he steadily closed the distance between himself and the scion.
Dane’s face was screwed into a mask of frustration and fury. The demon had arrived, was ready to do the magickian’s bidding, but Larch was distracted. The rich man screamed at Larch, but Richard did not register the words. He did register the fact that, as he crossed the boundary of the great circle, Dane pulled a revolver out of his jacket pocket. He screamed something at Richard and waved at him menacingly with the gun. Richard did not falter but, placing one foot after the other, continued his advent.
As if in slow motion, Dane screamed something else at him, his long black locks flailing in the candle light, flecks of gold sweat spinning into the gloom as his head whipped from side to side. His mouth moved slowly, a curse, it seemed, as he raised the pistol and took aim, directly at Richard’s head.
Richard’s face revealed not anger or fear but only pity. Nor did he hesitate. Richard saw the muzzle of the pistol blaze momentarily, and felt the rush of wind and the pinch of his flesh as the bullet grazed his temple.
Richard paused momentarily and put a hand up to the side of his head. Looking at it, he noted without panic the blood that covered his fingers, appearing wetly black in the dim light. He looked up at Dane again, shook his head, and took another step.
72
Larch had hit the floor the moment he heard the first gunshot. Careful to stay within the protective circle, he curled up in the fetal position and closed his eyes.
Dylan, throwing every ounce of caution to the wind, dashed to the child’s side and hugged her to him. She buried her face in his habit and held on for dear life. Dylan clamped his left arm around her protectively, and in his right brandished a crucifix in the direction of the infernal worm and its rider.
Terry made directly for the object of summoning—the paper triangle on which the sigil of the demon had been inscribed. Along the way, he grabbed one of the candles off its holder and strode quickly to the credence table where the triangle was placed before a smoldering incense burner. The winding, scaled body of the dragon blocked his way, but Terry set his jaw and continued walking. As he expected, he passed through the apparition with naught but psychological resistance.
Arriving at the credence table, Terry bent and held the flame of the candle to the tiny paper triangle. It flared, and a curl of flame leaped and danced above it. In moments, the paper was consumed. Satisfied, Terry straightened and turned around, expecting to see the noble duke Articiphus wink out of sight.
He was disappointed. Instead, he watched in horror as the great, cowled demon dismounted. His dragon slithered off into mist as Articiphus gathered himself to his full height. Even afoot, the demon towered above Terry, an effect heightened by the stack of crowns that adorned his head.
Terry felt paralyzed as the infernal prince surveyed the scene. The two halves of the prince’s face—beautiful and scarred—turned toward the confrontation between Richard and Dane for a moment then lit for a moment on the cowering shadow that was Charybdis in a heap near the door. Terry then watched as the crowned and faceless head turned to Dylan and the little girl.
Terry sprang to place himself between the duke and his friend, raising a crucifix and reciting from the Liturgy of Exorcism.
Apparently unconcerned, however, the dark prince waved his left hand away from his body. The space to Terry’s immediate right seemed to disappear, either obliterated or sucked into another dimension. To cope with the vacuum, Terry felt the ground he stood on lurch to the right to fill the void, leaving him standing three feet from where he had been only moments before.
No sooner did he realize what had happened to him than the demon was already passing the spot where he had been, bending toward the screaming girl and Dylan, who was desperately waving his crucifix toward the Duke.
About two feet from the reach of Dylan’s outstretched arm, the demon halted. Terry could feel the temperature in the room continue to drop and noted without reflecting on it that his breat
h was now issuing in visible puffs.
“I will not harm her,” the demon spoke, no steam issuing from the visible, beautiful half of his face. “There will be no more slavery this night.”
“You’re supposed to be gone!” Terry shouted at him. “I destroyed your sigil!”
The demon straightened and turned toward Terry. “You destroyed the instrument of my compulsion, yes, Priest. But I am here now of my own free will.”
Dylan continued to cradle the child. His arm was beginning to tire, and eventually he let the crucifix drop, balancing it on his knee, still pointed toward the demon.
The demon turned away and began to walk toward the center of the room. As it did so, Dylan fished in his kit bag for a pocket knife and began to saw at the little girl’s bonds.
Dane raised his pistol for another shot. Richard did not flinch, did not hesitate, but slowly and deliberately closed the distance between himself and the rich man. He did not fear death. Indeed, even though the full force of the vision was even now receding, he did not fear anything. He watched with dispassion as Dane’s finger contracted.
The gun did not fire, however. From his peripheral vision, Richard saw a dark shape spinning into the circle from behind Dane. He smiled broadly when he recognized it as Kat. She had grabbed one of the tall candle stands and was spinning with it, gathering speed, and with a practiced agility he did not know she possessed, he watched her connect the candle stand with the back of Dane’s head. It made an audible crack. Dane’s head lurched forward, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He pitched forward and caught himself on his hands and knees.
“That’s for my brother,” Kat said.
Richard was about to object that her brother did what he did without Dane, but it was pointless—she was already in motion. She whirled the candle stand around her head and brought it down again upon Dane’s spine with an impact that Richard felt. “And that’s for the dogs!” she spat, her black hair flying at all angles. She spun around again, twirling the candle stand above her head and planting it with force once more on his spine. “And that’s for Mikael!” She held the candle stand to his back and twisted it.
Dane was still conscious but obviously in a world of pain. He writhed on the floor, uttering mangled cries of mixed pain and rage.
Richard saw the mighty Duke Articiphus approaching and moved back. Kat, eyes wide, did the same. The demon bent over the scion and touched his bunched and straining brow with a skeletal finger.
“So, tell me, Priest,” his infernal majesty addressed Richard, “who here is under your protection?”
Richard froze. He looked around the room then at Kat, candle stand poised like a baseball bat ready to swing; at Dane, writhing and cringing at the demon’s feet; at Larch, uncurled now but paralyzed in fear; at Dylan cutting at the rope binding the feet of little Jamie; at Terry, madly flipping through a liturgy book; and the cowering Charybdis. Richard knew that anyone he did not claim would be fair game for whatever the demon desired. He fixed the demon with a steady eye. “They all are.”
The demon turned the scarred half of his face toward Richard, and when he spoke, his voice was without any trace of warmth. “That is a lie, Priest. Be careful. I have some acquaintance with lies, and dominion over those who tell them.”
Richard swallowed and felt a trickle of sweat run down his back despite the cold. He knew there was love in the world for even this prince of darkness, but he also knew that the demon wielded terrible power. Richard spoke evenly. “You are right, of course, your majesty. I have an implied covenant with the magickians. But this one,” he pointed to Dane. “This one is not under my protection.”
The demon looked at Larch and Charybdis, not liking the reduction of his menu but somehow knowing that Richard had spoken the truth.
73
The dark prince bowed low and stretched a bony hand toward Dane’s face. Kat’s mouth gaped open as she watched the demon. As soon as the demon’s fingers touched the man’s face, his skin turned from flushed red to an ashen blue. “Shhhh, it’s okay,” the demon said with almost sincere tenderness. “No one will ever, ever hurt you again. I promise. I am your savior, and I have come to deliver you. Everything is going to be all right. Your suffering is finally at an end.” A ghostly ball of dark blue light shone in the prince’s hand as he raised it to his mouth. In a moment, the blue light was gone, enveloped, even devoured by the crowned demon.
Nourished by the rich man’s soul, Articiphus drew up to his full height and faced Richard. “You are still in possession of the ring?”
“I am,” Richard answered, holding out his hand. The demon flinched and took a step backward. “I also know how to use it, and what it does. And why you find it so…distasteful.”
The demon swayed over him, which Richard took to be a kind of nodding. When the dark prince spoke again, Richard felt the chill of his breath. “You have released me from my servitude to these cretins,” the demon waved in Larch’s direction. “I am in your debt. At sunset tomorrow, I will seek you out and pay that debt. You have some items to be delivered—have them ready.”
Richard bowed, both out of respect and as an affirmative response. The demon turned and strode with slow, deliberate steps toward his dragon mount.
At the sight of the demon prince coming straight toward her, Jamie began screaming again. Dylan shushed her and tried to hug her to him to comfort her, but this time she was not bound. Watching the demon advance, she wrestled herself from Dylan’s grasp and ran for the open double doors, trailing an ear-splitting shriek after her.
“I’ll find her,” Richard said, heading for the doors, “Terry, this place needs a banishing ritual, pronto. Dylan, first aid—I know Kat’s got a couple of scrapes.”
“Aye-aye,” said Dylan, hauling himself to his feet with a groan.
Richard picked up speed in the dining room, shaking his head at the wreckage. At the threshold of the hallway, he stopped and listened, trying to determine which direction the girl had gone in. A fresh scream sounded to his right, and he lurched into motion. This was the direction of the elder Dane’s room, he knew, and he had little doubt that the nightmarishly gaunt old man would frighten the little girl, even just lying in his hospital bed.
When he was halfway down the hall, the scream abruptly stopped as if someone had pulled the plug on a stereo. Richard added a burst of speed to his sprint.
As he rounded the corner into Dane’s room, however, he stopped cold. “Ah shit,” he said out loud. The old man wasn’t in his bed but lay in a tangle of bones, like a pile of discarded clothes in the middle of the room. Beside the pile was Jamie, who smiled a positively vicious smile and looked at him with red, glowing eyes. When she spoke, the voice that emerged was dusty, ancient, and malevolent.
“Greetings, Priest. Did you lose something? Or, perhaps, someone?”
“Holy shit, Duunel, she’s just a little girl!” Richard pleaded, “You can’t possess her!”
“Oh, but I can. In fact, I am!” the demon said, walking in a circle, a bit hesitantly, trying out the new body. He closed the little girl’s hands into fists and uncurled them again, a look of relish lighting up her once-angelic face. Richard could only imagine the satisfaction that came from the articulation of joints not stiff with arthritis and age.
“It’s not fair to her,” Richard tried again, “she hasn’t had a chance to live her life—you can’t take it away from her.”
“What do I care for her life, Priest? I am a demon! What do I care for fairness? I am a demon! I fight for what is right for me and mine, and if there are losses along the way, then so be it! Do not think I will weep for her. But perhaps I will weep with her…” and he flashed her little lashes, crocodile tears welling up in her eyes.
Richard knew he was being mocked, but he did not allow himself the luxury of rage. The effects of the vision were still lingering in him. He understood Duunel’s points even if he didn’t agree with him. His first impulse was to raise the ring and lash out at the demon with
the very thing it feared most, but even as he considered it he knew he could not do it. He had seen what the ring did, and he knew that for someone—or something—like Duunel, there was no difference between the ring and a weapon of mass destruction. The vision was violence for the unprepared.
He hesitated again. He could bluff. He would not use the ring, but Duunel could not know that. He strode forward and raised his hand, the ring shining with ruby luminescence. Duunel took a step back, and a wave of terror fled over the little girl’s face, but then the evil smile reasserted itself. “No…” the girl’s eyes flashed, like a reflection of the ring. “If you were really going to use that to compel me, you would have already done it. Besides, a vision like that”—he shook the blonde curly head in mock-pity—“well, it could snap a little girl’s mind, couldn’t it?”
Richard’s own face betrayed him. Duunel was right, of course. It had almost snapped his. He grasped at the only remaining straw he could think of. “Perhaps we can make a deal,” Richard said. “Come out of this little girl, and you can inhabit me.”
Richard could hardly believe the words issuing from his own mouth, but he knew they were the right ones once he heard them. He knew from the vision that all things would be well, that there was, ultimately, nothing to fear, however much pain and suffering there might be in the meantime.
“Why would I want to do that?” asked the demon, the little girl’s face registering something like pity.
“Because she’s a little girl. She has no freedom, no privacy, her movement is restricted, and because once her family starts to notice her odd behavior, your new body is going to be subjected to electroshock therapy, psychiatric drugs, and possibly restraints. It’ll be old man Dane all over again, only this time without the groovy morphine or demon-pal nurses. Is that what you really want?” Richard saw the little girl waver, could almost see the demon in her brain thinking. He pressed on. “You come into me, and I’ll make room for you. We’ll be…roommates. You won’t take me over, and I won’t shut you out. It’ll be temporary, until we can agree on another host that will be more suitable for you.” Richard had absolutely no idea what sort of host he would feel okay about Duunel inhabiting but he didn’t have time to consider that just now.
