“If I must,” said Corvus.
I met his gaze without blinking. “Sure you can do that?”
He didn’t say anything, the Shadowmorph sword motionless in his right hand.
He could stop me. In a fight, there was no way I could take him. I didn’t have any spells that could harm him. Cloaking would be useless, since he already knew I was here. I didn’t have any way of deflecting his lightning spells, and the thought of fighting him physically was ludicrous. The man had picked me up and sprinted over the Warded Way without breaking a sweat. Short of shooting him in the back of the head with a gun, there was absolutely no way I could overcome him.
But he didn’t necessarily know that.
I met his gaze, forcing myself not to show any fear. My only way out of this was to bluff, and I did not dare show any weakness.
The silence stretched on and on.
“Well,” I said at last, “what’s it going to be?”
Corvus drew himself up and started to speak.
I never did find out what he intended to say.
Three loud clangs echoed through the black temple, ringing in my ears. I looked around in surprise, half-wondering if Corvus had somehow drawn a gun and shot at me. Yet the Shadow Hunter looked just as startled as I did.
Then my brain caught up with me, and I realized where I had heard that sound before.
It was the sound of a very expensive series of locks and bolts releasing.
The vault door was opening.
Corvus whirled, turning his back to me, and my training took over. I took three quick steps back, concealing myself between the massive circuit breaker boxes and the back of the alcove. The altar would block the view of the alcove, and anyone who entered the temple would see Corvus first.
Footsteps clicked against the marble floor. Three men, I thought, all of them wearing dress shoes. Had we triggered some sort of silent alarm in the temple? Though if McCade himself had summoned up those wraithwolves, he might have been linked to them with a spell. Perhaps he could even have seen through their eyes.
McCade’s voice rang out, smooth and calm with his Midwestern accent.
“Well, well, well,” said McCade. “A Shadow Hunter. I was wondering when you would show up. But, really, you are a most welcome guest. My lord requires sacrifices in exchange for his gifts. And you and your Shadowmorph will make a most welcome gift.”
Chapter 10: High Priest
I tensed, uncertain of what to do, my mind sorting potential plans. Though perhaps it was too late for a plan. McCade knew that we were here, and there was only one way out of the temple. I suppose I could open another rift way, but it would return to the edge of that chasm in the Shadowlands, and there was every chance the floating tentacle-thing was still lurking nearby. I would trade getting shot in the head for getting eaten by some horror from the Shadowlands.
“Paul McCade,” said Corvus with contempt. “Come to grovel before the bloodstained altar of the horrors you worship as a false god?”
McCade laughed. “The legendary Shadow Hunters rather fail to live up to the legend. Isn’t that a shame? All those stories about your prowess and cunning, how you can slip through the shadows and scale walls like an insect. All those stories, and you follow the laws like all the other ignorant rabble that bow before their portraits of the High Queen.”
“The Dark Ones are older than the High Queen, McCade,” said Corvus. “And far more dangerous. The High Queen might be a tyrant…”
“Don’t be so elfophobic, Shadow Hunter,” said McCade with amusement. “Or else you’ll wind up on a Punishment Day video squealing like a pig.”
“She might be a tyrant,” said Corvus as if McCade had not spoken, “but concerning the Dark Ones her law is correct. The Dark Ones are dangerous…”
“Certainly they are dangerous, but the Dark Ones greatly reward those who serve them well,” said McCade. “You have seen my mansion? I received all my wealth and power from our lord. My father founded this cult. He was working as a farmhand in South Dakota when he found a cult of the Dark Ones that had been active in the Black Hills since the days of the Aztecs. He joined the cult and brought them here to Milwaukee, along with the copy of the Void Codex which you are now manhandling. The secrets of the Dark Ones let the company rise to power and wealth. When my father died, I inherited the company…and I became the high priest of the cult.”
“A fascinating story,” said Corvus, “though I wonder why you are telling it to me.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” said McCade. He sounded as cheerful as if he was discussing a baseball game over beer. “You’re not leaving here alive, Shadow Hunter. Neither you nor your little friend. Where is she, by the way? My pets told me that two of you entered here, a man and a woman. Where is she?”
“I came alone,” said Corvus.
I blinked in surprise. I had expected Corvus to tell my location to McCade. Still, he might think me a wretched, mercenary thief, but that still made me better than a cultist of the Dark Ones. A weird little flicker of emotion went through me. Was it shame? Corvus was right about me. I was a wretched, mercenary thief. Not that I had any choice in the matter. Not that I had ever had any choice in the matter. If I had possessed the power…
The way things were going, I might not have the power to leave this room.
“How very chivalrous,” said McCade. “Was she yours? Your little…pet? We’ll have some fun with her, and then offer her to our lord. It will reward us with great power for her blood.”
Had he been able to see me, I would have offered him a rude gesture.
“That presumes you can kill me,” said Corvus.
“You’re faster and stronger than we are,” said McCade, “and that Shadowmorph blade of yours can cut through anything. You can also heal from nearly anything…but I imagine ten bullets through your chest and six through your head would prove a challenge for even the healing prowess of a Shadowmorph.”
“Then,” said Corvus, “why haven’t you shot me already?”
“I wish to make you an offer,” said McCade.
I inched forward a bit, peering around the edge of the circuit breaker boxes and into the temple proper. I spotted Corvus standing behind the altar. He had dropped the book and held his dark blade raised before him, his stance tense and ready. McCade waited below the dais, a .45 semi-automatic pistol in his hands. A lot of rich guys who had never served as men-at-arms don’t know how to hold guns properly, but McCade held his weapon with a proper stance, both hands on the grip, his legs spread to handle the recoil. Two of his security men stood on either side of him, both holding identical weapons. All three of them kept their weapons trained at Corvus. As fast as he was, he couldn’t dodge three competent shooters at once.
They hadn’t noticed me yet, but after they killed Corvus, they would search the alcove.
I had to think of something clever. Like, right now. Could I open a rift way in time? No, the light would draw notice. And I might have been a mercenary thief, but I disliked the thought of leaving Corvus to die. He had saved my life from the wraithwolves, and he hadn’t sold me out to McCade.
Maybe he expected me to do something clever.
But what?
“You should join us, Shadow Hunter,” said McCade.
“And just why should I do that?” said Corvus.
“The Dark Ones are going to triumph,” said McCade. “You know it, I know it, and even the High Queen herself knows it in the depths of her black heart. She has fought against the Dark Ones for centuries, but in the end they will prevail. The advent of the Dark Ones is at hand, and when they enter our world great rewards shall be given to their loyal followers…”
“Don’t quote the Void Codex at me,” said Corvus.
McCade laughed. “Would you prefer it in the original German?”
“I would prefer,” said Corvus, “that you not weary my ears with lies in any language. There is only one God, and you have turned away from him to worship monsters.”
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“The superstitions of ignorant rabble, believed by fools for millennia,” said McCade. “The Dark Ones are real, and they grant gifts of real power. Oh, well. If you will not join us, then you will make a worthy sacrifice to our lord…”
He said…something. A word, a name, a title, I’m not sure what. I heard the syllables, heard the sounds come out of his mouth, but when my mind tried to process them into a coherent word…
Pain exploded through my head, and I had to grab at the side of the metal circuit breaker box to keep my balance. I heard Corvus grunt and stagger back, and glimpsed the black lines of the Shadowmorph crawling over his face. McCade had spoken the name of whatever Dark One he worshipped, and even the mere sound of it had been like getting hit in the face.
“Our lord’s name brings torment to those who are not among his chosen,” said McCade. “Kill him.”
The two security men circled around the altar from the left and the right, while McCade covered the center. Corvus ducked behind the altar, but that would only give him a few seconds at best. McCade and his two goons had Corvus boxed in. No matter what direction Corvus tried to attack, at least two guns would cover him. I didn’t know whether a single bullet through the heart or brain would be enough to kill a Shadow Hunter, but I was sure that it would slow him enough so they could pump him full of lead at their leisure, and that would kill him.
Then they would kill me. At least, if I was lucky, they would kill me. There were all sorts of unpleasant things they could do to me first.
Unless…
My eyes moved to the circuit breaker boxes. One of them had a steel lever topped with a black rubber knob. Above the lever was a yellow sticker marked with WARNING in black letters, followed by several paragraphs of legalese. Morvilind’s various tutors, alas, had not taught me the intricacies of modern electrical systems. However, I was willing to bet that the big WARNING lever would cut off power to the circuit breakers.
And if those circuit breakers connected to the lights, that would plunge the temple into darkness.
I stepped out of concealment, my duffel bag bouncing against my back, seized the lever in both hands, and pulled. At first it did not move, but it felt it start to give a little.
“Boss!” shouted one of the security men. “I see her! She’s…”
“Cover the Hunter, you idiot!” snarled McCade.
The security man swung his gun around to point at me, and I yanked on the lever with all the strength I could muster, planting my shoes against the wall and shoving. The lever jerked down with a clunking noise, and I landed hard on my back, right atop my duffel bag. That hurt, though I was more concerned for the tablet.
The security man took aim, settling into a shooting stance, his legs spread, both hands coiled around the grip of his pistol. I rolled to the side, hoping to get to the meager cover of the shelves before he shot me to death.
Then the circuit breaker boxes let out an angry buzz, and the lights went out.
An instant later I heard the crack of a gunshot, followed by the high-pitched whine of a ricochet bouncing off the black wall. I scrabbled backwards in the darkness, ducking behind the shelf. I had never been shot, and I didn’t really want to find out what it felt like. Both the security men started shouting, and I heard several more shots go off, the sharp cracks echoing off the stone walls.
“Stop shooting!” roared McCade. “You’ll hit each other. Or me! Or you’ll blunder into the summoning circle!” He snarled a phrase in the Elven language, and pale green light flared in the darkness. A trio of globes of sickly green light appeared over the altar, throwing dim radiance and harsh shadows everywhere.
As I had suspected, McCade could use some magic. That was bad.
On the other hand, he was an idiot, which was good. That light had marked out his position to Corvus. I suspected the Shadow Hunter could see far more clearly in the gloom than a normal man could.
Yet both McCade and his goons were handling themselves well. They began to move towards the altar, covering each other. If Corvus came at them, they could line up some clear shots and gun him down. Corvus needed a distraction if he was going to get McCade. I didn’t have any weapons, or any real way of hurting them.
I did have some illusions, though.
I lifted my hand and worked the Masking spell, hiding the telltale light with my body. I didn’t have enough time or concentration to do a detailed Mask, but in the dim light that didn’t matter. I Masked myself as a facsimile of one of the security guards – the same black suit, muscular build, and close-cropped hair.
I made sure to alter my voice as well.
Then I took a deep breath, pushed away from the wall, and sprinted into the temple proper.
“There!” I shouted in my disguised voice. “He’s there! Boss, he’s there, by the door! Get him! He’s running!”
The trick worked. In the dim light, McCade and his men mistook me for one of the guards. They whirled to face the vault door and started shooting, the muzzle flashes brilliant in the gloom. I kept running, slipped my duffel bag off my shoulders, took one more running stride, and spun as fast as I could as the Mask dissolved around me.
The bag hit the nearest security guard in the left temple. His head jerked back with an uncomfortable crunching sound, and he staggered towards the altar. I dropped the duffel bag, seized the barrel of his gun with my left hand, and drove the fingers of my right hand into his wrist. Normally, something like this wouldn’t have worked, and I would have gotten shot in the head for my trouble. But I had managed to hit him hard, and the impact had stunned him. I wrenched the gun from his hand, got my fingers around the grip, and started shooting.
There were three rounds in the magazine, and I used them all. The first two hit him in the chest, and the third went into his forehead. The guard went sprawling in a limp heap to the ground, his blood gleaming in a dark pool beneath his head as it reflected McCade’s ghostly light. McCade and the remaining guard whirled to face me. I threw the empty pistol in McCade’s general direction and dove next to the altar just as they started shooting. Bullets whined off the altar, and I ducked next to the massive block of black marble. The surviving guard’s gun clicked empty, and he cursed and reached into his jacket for another clip. I peered around the edge of the altar, wondering if I could do something to stun or disable the guard before he reloaded, wondering how many shots McCade had left in his weapon. He had fired five times? Six times? A gun like that usually held eight or nine rounds, so either way if he got a clear shot at me I was in trouble…
Corvus exploded out of the darkness, moving faster than I had yet seen him move.
The guard whirled towards him, fumbling with his gun, but Corvus was faster. The Shadowmorph blade plunged into the guard’s chest and out his back without the slightest hint of resistance. The guard went limp, and the shadowy blade seemed to pulse in Corvus’s hand, swelling and flickering with a peculiar dark glow as it drank away the guard’s life. Corvus pulled the weapon free with a flick of his wrist and turned towards McCade.
McCade leveled his gun and shot Corvus twice. The Shadow Hunter stumbled as the bullets entered his chest and stomach. I didn’t seen any exit wounds, which meant the rounds had lodged somewhere in his spine or his ribs, or they had deflected off a bone and bounced around his chest cavity. Either way he was badly injured. If the bullet had hit his heart, he was going to fall over dead.
Instead he shook his head and grimaced, and through the tattered ruins of his shirt and jacket I saw the spiraling black lines writhe over the muscles of his chest and belly, saw his flesh ripple and contort. I heard one metallic clink, and then another as the bullets fell out of him and bounced off the floor, as the life force he had stolen from the dead security guard healed the wounds that should have killed him.
McCade backed away, his eyes wide with fright.
“Paul McCade,” said Corvus, striding forward as he raised his sword of dark force. “For possession of the Void Codex, for trafficking with the
Dark Ones, for offering them sacrifices, I bear a decree commanding your execution. Have you anything to say?”
I moved towards the guard Corvus had killed, keeping my eyes on McCade. He fumbled his jacket for another clip, but there was no way he could reload and fire before Corvus reached him. Something mad and desperate flashed over his features as I went to one knee next to the guard and claimed his emptied gun.
McCade’s lips peeled back from his face in a snarl, his features livid with fury. It was strange to see such rage upon his solemn face. Men like him did not raise their voices in anger. Men like him gave orders in soft, polite tones, and other men went to carry out violence in their name.
“I have this to say, Shadow Hunter, trained dog of the High Queen,” said McCade. “You should have made me a better offer.”
He whirled and ran. That was foolish. Corvus could run him down with ease. McCade would only run to…
The realization hit me.
“Corvus!” I shouted. “He’s…”
McCade ran into the summoning circle. Harsh green light blazed up from the circle, the Elven hieroglyphs shining with ghostly green fire. Corvus cursed and sprinted towards the circle, but McCade threw out his arms and shouted his lord’s name once more. Again I heard the string of syllables, the sequence of sounds that created a word, but again my mind refused to resolve it, and pain exploded through my head. Corvus stumbled as well, the black tattoo of the Shadowmorph crawling over his face.
“Behold!” screamed McCade, his voice a strange mixture of ecstasy and agony and joy and terrified horror. “Behold the glory of my lord! Behold the might of a Dark One!”
With those words, McCade…changed.
He grew, swelling to nearly twice the size, his expensive suit ripping apart as his flesh swelled. Even as he did, his form twisted and distorted, bulging muscle rippling over his limbs. His skin glistened with slime as it changed into a combination of leathery scales and an insect-like exoskeleton. Twitching spider’s legs erupted from his sides, and a mane of barbed tentacles burst from his back and his head.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 14
