by Baen Books
Becca pulled away. Field released the boy's hand also and said, "We're as ready as we can be. Let's go into the shed."
Field led the way. Aubrey was expressionless; Becca seemed angry, but that was understandable.
"Stand in front of the painting," Field said to the boy. "The Key's there on the table. Pick it up in your left hand. When you're ready, move it slowly from left to right across the painting and read the spell. Keep reading the spell until I tell you to stop."
Becca stood in the doorway, but after a moment she came in and slipped to the back. She didn't touch Aubrey this time either. The distance between them at this moment was wider than the few physical inches.
Aubrey picked up the Key, pausing for a moment at the weight. Field remembered how much work it had been to saw and forge the thick steel, then to drill it to pin the cut-off crossbar to the remainder of the spike, now the shaft.
He wished he hadn't made the Key, but then he would have to make it now; otherwise the boy would go to Becca's brother, which would be worse. If this attempt failed--if the Key of Pluto didn't open whatever was hidden in the painting--then Field wasn't worried about anything a couple of drug dealers were capable of doing.
"O spiritus Neyilon et Achalas," Aubrey said, moving the Key slowly in his hand. "Accipite sacrificium ut nihil contra me et contra clavem istum valeat."
Nothing happened. The boy looked at Field.
"Keep speaking the spell!" Field said. He didn't want this to work, but it had to be carried out properly before he could be sure that it didn't work. "And don't let the Key move right to left, just hold it fixed when you've finished the motion."
"O spiritus Neyilon et Achalas, accipite sacrificium ut nihil contra me et contra clavem istum valeat," the boy repeated, speaking so quickly that he slurred the words together this time. The painted Virgin seemed to be fading. "O spiritus Neyilon et Achalas, accipite--"
The shed's walls and metal roof seemed to expand to the volume of a cathedral. The painting was no longer there. The open doorway and the world beyond had vanished, but everything was suffused with blurred light.
A creature crawled up through the blank rectangle which had been a painting. Its gray skin was covered with shaggy black hair. Its head--his head; the creature's genitalia were prominent--was vaguely doglike with large, round ears, flaring nostrils, and two bony lumps on the forehead which might have been horns.
The teeth in the long jaws were spikes the length and thickness of a man's thumbs. The demon's open mouth stank like a St. Louis slaughterhouse on a hot August day.
Field didn't know where he was standing now: the shed and its contents had vanished. Around the demon and the three humans was a pebble-strewn plain. Though the demon's squat body stood on short legs, it was taller than either of the men.
A pink penis extended six inches from its sheath, standing out vividly against the demon's black fur. The creature reached for Becca, roaring in triumph. She threw her hands up and the creature recoiled with a startled yelp.
"Hey!" Aubrey shouted, thrusting his left hand toward the demon's throat. Though the Key didn't have any magical value in the present situation, it was still a length of railroad spike.
The demon's arms were much longer than the boy's. It lifted him by both shoulders and shook him. The Key of Pluto flew from his hand, though heaven knew where it went. It should have clanged off the roof, but there was only a gray sky in this place.
Field had the revolver out of his right jacket pocket. He reached past Aubrey's flailing legs and fired. The muzzle was so close to the demon's chest that the red flash ignited a patch of fur.
The demon bellowed and flung Aubrey aside. It reached for Field, who now didn't have to worry about hitting the boy. He fired three times more, as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. He held his arm out straight as he'd been taught, but he couldn't pretend he was really trying to keep the sights aligned.
At this range, it didn't matter. All three bullets hit the demon within a handspan of its breastbone. For an instant Field thought he saw the flames of Hell blazing through the four holes which the silver-jacketed bullets had punched in the shaggy hide. The demon dwindled away like mist in bright sunlight, leaving behind only the stench of sulphur.
Field leaned against the shelving on the wall opposite the workbench. His whole body was trembling. He thrust the revolver back into his jacket pocket, finding the opening with difficulty.
There were still two live rounds in the cylinder. He didn't want to chance firing again by accident if he continued to hold the weapon in his hand.
Those were the last two silver-jacketed rounds Field had prepared. He needed to finish the set of reloads he'd been working on when his visitors arrived; but not today, and perhaps not tomorrow. He was as tired as if he'd been tied to the bumper of a truck and had been running to keep up.
The workshed looked just as it had when they'd entered it a few minutes earlier; there was no sign of the demon. The Bosch painting was as it had been also. Wherever the demon had come from, it wasn't through the physical layer of paint.
Aubrey lay face-up on the floor, his eyes closed. The Key of Pluto was near his outstretched right hand. Field knelt carefully beside the boy and touched his throat. Though Aubrey was unconscious, his carotid pulse was strong and regular.
Both shoulders of his vest and open-necked shirt were ripped. Field fingered the edge of a torn patch. The leather seemed to have been seared or rotted; his touch made more crumble away. Aubrey's shoulders were red and swollen, but the demon's hands--two fingers and a thumb, all armed with claws--hadn't broken the skin.
Becca lowered her hands. Her sneeze seemed to surprise her as much as it did Field. Aubrey moaned without opening his eyes.
"What was that?" Becca said in a husky whisper. She looked at the painting, but there was nothing in it now to frighten her.
"That was the demon Hieronymus Bosch painted a Virgin over to keep where it was," Field said, rising to his feet even more cautiously than he had knelt. "The demon I released, because I'm a damned fool and I humored a boy who didn't know any better."
He lifted the painting from its pad of towel, sliding it out through the looped chain. The dog-tags were underneath, but the chain's catch had been opened and the silver medal was missing.
He set the painting down again. "Let me see your hands," he said. His voice was on the edge of control. "Open them now."
"I won't!" Becca said, her voice rising. "It's mine and he gave it to me. It's our wedding ring!"
Field stepped toward her. Becca lunged toward the door, but she stepped on Aubrey's out-flung arm and stumbled.
Field grabbed her left wrist before she got upright. He squeezed and twisted; for a moment, he wasn't an old man.
With a scream, Becca opened her hand; the St Christopher medal dropped to the floor. Field scooped it up. He dropped it into his pants pocket, where it clinked against his keys.
Becca got to her feet. She stared at Field, but she said nothing until he picked up the painting again.
"What are you doing?" she said as Field walked out of the shed.
"What should have been done five hundred years ago," Field said. "Maybe Hieronymus Bosch had a reason to keep it around, but I don't and the world doesn't."
"You can't!" Becca said, her voice shrill again. "It's worth thousands!"
"It's not worth that boy's soul," Field said, his eyes on the girl. He could imagine her picking up the hammer he'd been using on dimes and hitting him if he turned his back. "And that's what he almost paid."
He set the painting on the charcoal, wriggling it down into the heart of the fire. Only when he was sure the panel had caught did he jerk his hands away from the heat.
The paint suddenly blazed up. Beneath it Field saw for an instant the lowering demon he had sent away; then that too was gone.
He hadn't destroyed the demon, but he had closed forever the portal by which it had been reaching the waking world. The panel on which Bosch
had painted the Virgin continued to crackle, but only wood was burning now.
Becca had followed him out of the shed. "What are you going to do now?" she asked in a small voice.
"Take the boy up the street to Doc Wagner," Field said. He was feeling more like himself again. "He's always home on Sunday afternoons; that's when his daughter and the grandkids visit. I don't guess there's any need for a hospital, but I'll let the doc decide that."
He started back to the shed. Aubrey rose to one elbow, then clutched his arms to his chest with a gasp of pain and collapsed again.
"Professor?" Becca said, her eyes on the gravel driveway. "What are you going to tell Aubrey?"
Field stopped and looked at her. She seemed suddenly vulnerable.
"I'm going to tell him the truth," he said quietly. "I always tell the truth. I don't have to worry about keeping my stories straight that way, and it stops people who know me from asking me questions they don't really want the answers to."
Becca snuffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She was crying. Field thought it was the first thing he'd seen her do that wasn't theatrical.
She'll keep behaving like that all her life, Field thought. Because she's self-centered and not very bright.
But Becca wasn't actually evil; and she looked a great deal like a girl named Slowly Kimber, whom Field had known a lifetime ago. He fished in his pocket and brought out his key ring; from it he removed the Buick's ignition key. There was a spare in the house, but he didn't want to go inside just now.
"Here," he said. "Do you know where the bus station is?"
He tossed the key to Becca. She looked surprised but caught it between her hands.
"On Franklin Street?" she said. "I guess."
Field dropped his key ring back on top of the St. Christopher medal and drew his old black wallet from his hip pocket. "I want you to leave the car in the street there," he said. "Put the key under the floormat. You catch the first bus out of here, wherever it happens to be going."
"I don't have any money!" Becca said.
Field took a pair of fifty dollar bills from his wallet and held them out between the index and middle finger of his left hand. He wasn't a wealthy man, but he could afford this.
"These should tide you over," he said. "And just so you know: if the Buick isn't where it's supposed to be when Doc Wagner and I come to pick it up this evening, the Highway Patrol will be looking for you and a stolen car. Understood?"
Becca hesitated for a moment. Aubrey mumbled something, though Field couldn't catch the words. The girl snatched the money from Field's hand and got into the Buick. It started with a roar and spattered gravel as she reversed out the drive.
Field watched Becca go. She hadn't said anything. He hadn't expected thanks, but there'd beem a better than fair chance that she'd be shouting curses as she drove off. Silence was fine.
This might cost him a car, but Field didn't worry about that. Right after seeing a demon closer than ever before in an eventful life, he couldn't get too worked up about material things.
Aubrey sat up. He looked groggy, but he had his normal color back in place of his clammy whiteness just after the demon threw him down.
"What happened?" he said.
"You fought a demon," Field said, helping the boy to his feet. "The demon lost. If you'll give me your car keys, I'll take you over to a friend of mine's. I don't think you're ready to drive just yet."
Aubrey reached into the side-pocket of his jeans. He winced, but his shoulders seemed to be all right except for bruising. As he handed over the keys, he looked around. "Where's Becca?" he said.
"We'll discuss that over a drink," Field said, starting up the drive beside the younger man. "After my friend takes a look at your shoulder."
Field looked back as he got into the Ford. The shed doors were open, but that was all right. It would air out the sulphur fumes, and perhaps it would clear memories of something worse.
© 2013 by David Drake
David Drake is the creator of the RCN and Hammer’s Slammers science fiction series, as well as a new collection of dark fantasy, horror, and alternate history tales, Night and Demons.
Murder on the Hochflieger Ost
By Frank Chadwick
Munich Bavaria, aboard the (landed) Hochflieger Ost
December 10, 1887, late afternoon
Gabrielle Courbiere finished pinning up her hair and looked in the stateroom mirror to be certain she was presentable. She was. Men told her she was more than simply presentable, that she was in fact strikingly beautiful. If asked to describe her own appearance, she would have said it was ordinary in every respect—not unusually tall or short, figure neither exceptionally heavy nor thin, facial features very regular. It occurred to her, and not for the first time, that it was odd how men found the average of feminine characteristics so exceptional. She accepted this judgment on its face; she had no means of judging its validity as she did not find women sexually arousing herself.
Gabrielle had difficulty understanding any emotion which she did not herself experience, and so the feelings of others remained generally elusive, and their behaviors often surprising and seemingly irrational. Despite the potentially fatal consequences of such a disability in a spy, the men who headed the intelligence apparatus of the Democratic and Social Republic of France had given Gabrielle this covert assignment of a most critical nature. They had done so because she, who until then had worked only in the research department, asked for it and provided an extensive list of arguments as to why she was the correct choice, a list which would have been tiresomely long coming from any other aspirant but which her male superiors had listened to with the appearance of rapt attention, although in truth few of them would afterwards have been able to tell you even a fraction of what she had said.
Her assignment, while requiring both discretion and brazenness in turn, did not seem difficult to her. She was to contact an anarchist agent and exchange one leather document tube for another. They would make the exchange on the Hochflieger Ost, the enormous and luxurious commercial zeppelin which linked Berlin to Istanbul by way of Munich, Vienna, and Budapest. Gabrielle had boarded the zeppelin in Berlin early that morning and the other agent was to board here, in Munich. Once aloft over Austria and the Balkans, legal jurisdiction would be problematic and they could make the transfer with greater safety, at least from the authorities. The presence of hostile agents was always a danger to be guarded against, of course.
Gabrielle opened her purse and made sure the small LeFaucheux revolver was where she had positioned it. She pursed her lips. She would far rather have brought a shotgun for protection, but it would surely have been confiscated upon boarding. As this unsatisfactory toylike revolver was all she had managed to conceal, it would have to do.
Gabrielle did not know what the anarchist looked like. She only knew he would be travelling on a British passport and he had been told to contact the attractive blonde French lady travelling alone. Gabrielle hoped the agent’s notion of an attractive female corresponded to that of her superiors. She thought that aspect of the plan troublesomely vague.
Among the qualifications she had listed for the assignment was her fluency in both German and English, although she had omitted the fact that her English was learned from books and so she had little grasp of conversational idioms. Gabrielle had already decided that, to the extent feasible, she would conceal her knowledge of foreign languages in the hopes of provoking a loose comment or admission. Mentally reaffirming this part of her plan, she finished dressing quickly and left her cabin for the main salon, where she believed she stood the best chance of contacting the agent among the throng of boarding passengers.
*****
“Do you have any firearms or incendiaries?”
“Certainly not! Do you take me for the anarchist?” Etienne Villon—who was in fact exactly that—declaimed these words with what he imagined to be the outraged arrogance of an Englishman. He waved the folded document in his hand at the
corpulent Bavarian customs clerk. “I have the passport Britanique!”
The official took the forged passport from him but eyed him with suspicion.
“Forgive me …” He paused to read the name on the document, “Herr Le Marchant, but you do not sound English, nor does your name sound English.”
“English? I am a subject of the British crown, but certainly not English. I am Dgèrnésiais, from the island of Guernsey.”
The official frowned and read the passport more carefully. “Gernezey? I have never heard of this.”
“Dgèrnésiais,” Etienne repeated impatiently, his pretended anger beginning to give way to the real thing. “From Guernsey.”
“Ach, ja. It says here you are from the island of Guernsey.”
“Yes, Guernsey, you great . . .” He choked off the expletive and took a breath to calm himself. It would do no good to enrage this representative of the German state apparatus. Frowning, the customs official spread the forged passport on his counter and selected a large and forbidding-looking rubber stamp from the rack in front of him.
“We have the long and glorious tradition of service to the Anglaise,” Etienne added hastily. “My grandfather was a general, Jean Le Marchant.”
The official stamped the passport and handed it back. “You may board now,” he said.
“He commanded Wellington’s cavalry at Salamanca. We thrashed those despicable Frenchies that day!”
“Ja, ja. Move along, bitte,” the official said, his attention already on the overweight lady and her bored daughter standing next in line.
Etienne, who was short and not particularly strong, puffed with exertion carrying his valise and the vitally important document tube up the folding metal stairway to the zeppelin’s boarding hatch. Perspiration suddenly ran down his face, and not simply from the physical labor. That was close! he thought. Ever since he had taken this assignment, his life had hung by the most slender of threads. The slightest misstep or mistake would surely lead to exposure, arrest, torture, and death. But what did it matter? The cause, only the cause mattered. What was his life compared to the cause of freedom? Nothing! His life was nothing and he would gladly give it for freedom. For freedom and justice.
