The Infernal Heart

by R. L. King

  “No,” Stone agreed. “Of course I couldn’t. You’ve taken my magic. You’ve put me in a cage and shackled my arms. Hell, you’ve even taken my clothes. How bloody cowardly is that, then? I must really frighten you if you’ve got to have me in this state before you can even get near me. What are you afraid of, Archie? What do you think I’ll do to you if you give me a chance?”

  He looked up and past Archie, deliberately ignoring him, directing his words at the other assembled demons. “Why do you lot follow him, anyway? He’s already killed one of you right under your noses. And for what? That one did exactly as he was told to do—he lured me here so Archie could truss me up and pretend to be a big deal. If doing your job gets you killed because your boss has lost the plot, how do you know he won’t suddenly kill one of you, just because he’s decided he doesn’t like your face today?”

  The tone of the rumbling, murmuring demon voices changed subtly. A current of uncertainty ran through it now, and several of the demons sneaked nervous glances at Archie.

  “Shut your mouth, Stone,” Archie said, his own voice taking on a dangerous edge. The red pinpricks grew brighter. “I might just forget myself and kill you anyway. I can always find another mage to use for my grimoire.”

  “But you don’t want another mage, do you?” Stone tilted his head, grinning. “You want me, and you want me precisely because you can’t have me. Because you can’t force me or trick me into giving you what you want. That just eats at you, doesn’t it, Archie?”

  “I’m not going to warn you again.” Archie’s fists clenched, and his eyes glowed even brighter. He swept his gaze around the room. “And the rest of you—don’t even think of betraying me. I can kill you all where you stand, and you know it.”

  “They do know it,” Stone agreed. “That’s why they’re afraid of you and I’m not. Because I want you to kill me, and that’s exactly what you don’t want to do. If you kill me, you lose, Archie. Have you worked that out yet? If you kill me, you’re telling the rest of your little mates here that there’s someone out there who won’t fall for your act. I wonder…” He looked around at the other demons. “You’re right—you probably can kill them where they stand. But can you kill them all at once? Can you kill them all before some of them get wise and band together to take you down?”

  He rattled the chains. “Show me I’m wrong, you coward. Let me out of this cage and face me. Give me back my magic. You know you can beat me, right? Don’t you?”

  The demons muttered and shifted from foot to foot, backing up a little.

  Stone widened his eyes in an exaggerated expression of surprise. “You don’t. You’re afraid of me. Look at him!” he called to the demons. “Look at him! He won’t let me out because he’s afraid of what a mere human might do to him.”

  The bottom of the cage began to heat up. The insides of the manacles sprouted spikes, digging into Stone’s wrists. Blood ran down his arms. He gritted his teeth around a wider, fierce grin. “That’s it. That’s it. Shut me up. Make me suffer! That’s all you can do, isn’t it? But it hasn’t worked before—why do you think it will work now?”

  He gripped the chains and tried to pull himself up off the blistering floor. “Do it, Archie! Let me out of here! Face me! Or is the Great and Powerful Oz nothing more than a sad little man hiding behind the curtain, hoping no one will notice how pitiful and impotent he is?”

  Archie roared and raised his hands. The bars and the chains burst into flames. Stone screamed as pain worse than anything he’d felt before ripped through him—but the scream was of triumph, too. As Archie once again lost control of his illusion and reality slipped sideways, Stone gathered power to him—power Archie didn’t even know he had.

  Power that came from another plane of existence that he was banking Archie had never even heard of. Maybe the demon could stop his normal magic—but could he stop Harrison’s too?

  White-hot power shot from his hands, obliterating the chains, the bars, the entire front of the cage, blowing Archie into the pulpit. Both crashed backward in a heap. The demons shrieked in shock and dived out of the way.

  Stone ran. He knew he didn’t have more than a couple of seconds—he couldn’t use his other magic even when free of the cage, because Harrison’s magic had burned it temporarily out. He couldn’t risk using more of Harrison’s if he didn’t want to make that temporary burnout permanent. He had to take a last, wild chance.

  He leaped forward, bowling over demons with a desperate strength he wouldn’t have thought he had, and dived toward his shredded pile of clothes. The glow of Grace’s crucifix still shone bright and strong, a pulsing, welcoming beacon beckoning him forward.

  Archie recovered fast. “No!” he roared, his thundering voice echoing up into the rafters. He flung a sheet of solid flame at Stone, obliterating several of the demons between him and his quarry.

  Stone threw himself down next to the pile. The flames’ heat seared his unprotected back, and once again the sickly odor of crackling, burning flesh rose on a wave of agonizing pain. He screamed again, but his arm didn’t waver—he plunged it into the pile and his hand closed around the crucifix as he collapsed to the filthy floor. The thing felt warm and pleasant in his hand, a tiny oasis in the middle of the horror all around him.

  The chapel rumbled ominously and began to shake. The stained-glass windows exploded, killing several more demons. Overhead, a stout roof beam broke, sending what was left of Stone’s cage crashing to the floor. The remaining demons yelped and stampeded toward the doors.

  Stone rolled the rest of the way over, heedless of the white-hot pain shooting through his ravaged back, and glared up at Archie. “You…lose, Archie,” he rasped.

  “No,” Archie growled. He was fully back to his skeletal form now, the ruined clerical robes hanging on him like the shredded curtains of a slaughterhouse. “You lose.” He pointed his hands, and some kind of energy that looked like black fire shot from them toward Stone.

  Instinctively, instantly, Stone knew if that black energy hit him it would be the end. Archie wasn’t playing any longer, or caring about preserving his physical body. His eyes showed nothing but hatred.

  Stone braced himself for the black flames’ impact.

  At least he’d robbed Archie of what he wanted.

  All things considered, he’d take that as a win.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  “Dr. Stone! Please, you have to wake up!”

  Awareness returned with the insistent voice, and the sensation of someone gently slapping his face. He rolled his head back and forth and mumbled something incoherent, and then his eyes flew open.

  Grace Ruiz knelt next to him, her dark eyes huge, her face full of a concern bordering on terror. When she saw he was awake, she let her breath out in a rush and bowed her head. “Oh, gracias a Dios! Gracias, madre Maria!”

  Stone blinked. “What—?”

  Nothing was making sense. How was Grace here?

  Where was he?

  Why wasn’t he dead?

  Oh, bloody hell, Grace is here and I’m starkers!

  He jerked up a little, enough so he could look down at himself, and relief filled him. He wasn’t naked—he wore the same jeans and T-shirt he’d worn when he’d begun the ritual. The crucifix she’d given him still hung around his neck on its heavy chain, warm against his chest. Further, as far as he could tell, his body showed no signs of any of the injuries Archie had inflicted on him. The burns were gone, at any rate—he lay on his back without pain, something he couldn’t do if his skin were cooked.

  He sat up the rest of the way, as she scooted back a little and continued to eye him as if expecting him to disappear any second.

  He was in his attic sanctum, sitting in the middle of the circle next to the table. The chalice had been overturned, the mirror shattered into hundreds of pieces that still hung in the frame, and the lines of the circle blurred and
obscured, but everything else looked as he had left it. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven a.m.” She swallowed. “Dr. Stone, what did you do?”

  He ignored the question. Seven a.m. meant that the ritual had been going for as long as nine hours, depending on how much of that he’d been unconscious. “How did you get in here? Why did you get in here?”

  “You gave me your spare key,” she reminded him. “I prayed for you for a long time, then tried to sleep for a while but I couldn’t. I kept having these bad dreams—maybe they were visions, I don’t know. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that you were in trouble, but I couldn’t reach you. So I called a cab and came up here to check.”

  “But—” Stone’s brain still wasn’t firing on all cylinders; his mind felt muddy and he was having trouble holding a thought. “How did you get here?” He indicated the space around them. “Nobody’s supposed to be able to get up here. I didn’t adjust the wards to let you in.”

  She shook her head, shrugging. “I don’t know. I just walked up. Your cat was waiting in front of the door.” She pointed across the room, where Raider sat perched on top of Stone’s desk, looking pleased with himself. “I found you lying on the floor, passed out in the middle of that horrible circle. I thought something had gone wrong. I thought you were dead.”

  The memories were coming back now. He pulled the crucifix from beneath his shirt and stared at it in wonder. It wasn’t glowing or shining now; it looked as normal and inert as any other piece of jewelry. “I have to thank you for this,” he said. “I think it—and you—might have saved my life.”

  She got up and went to the desk, still looking uncomfortable. She stroked Raider, not looking at Stone as she spoke. “When I got here, I prayed again, and this time I could sense you. I was sure you were in trouble, but I couldn’t wake you up so I prayed harder. I prayed I could reach you. What did you do?” she asked again.

  “You did reach me,” he said, getting up too. He moved slowly, his limbs stiff from lying too long on the hard floor. “And it’s a damn—it’s a good thing you did.”

  “Did you contact a demon? Did you make some kind of deal with it?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “I had to find Archie, so I had to find a way to go to where he was so I could try to defeat him on his home ground.”

  She stared. “You did that? You actually went to Hell?”

  “No. I told you—it’s not really a demon. It just dresses up like one because demons frighten people. It wasn’t Hell—but it might as well have been. Things didn’t go as I planned.”

  “Why not?”

  His answer was reluctant. “The…spirit I summoned betrayed me. Archie knew I was coming all along. It pretended to let me summon it, but I didn’t have its name right, so I never had any power over it.”

  Grace bowed her head and mumbled some words Stone couldn’t hear, then crossed herself. “That was very foolish of you,” she said. Her gaze came up. “So—you didn’t defeat him, then?”

  “No. I barely got out of there alive, without giving Archie what he wanted from me.”

  “What did he want?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Dr. Stone?”

  He looked away. “He wanted my skin and blood to provide the cover for the grimoire he’s creating. From my physical body, which he couldn’t get to, so he had to try to…convince me to let him have it.”

  “He tortured you, didn’t he?” she whispered, eyes wide.

  Stone shrugged. “It’s over now. I’m fine.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but neither did she push it.

  “He also wanted the pages I found at Goodwin’s place. They’re more spells he’d written up, using the skin and blood from victims he killed last time he was here. Ah, that reminds me—” He strode over to the double-warded safe, thankful that after he’d burned out his powers for several days using Harrison’s magic, he’d tweaked his wards to respond to him whether he used magic or not. He opened the safe, pulled out the pages, and slammed it shut again before Grace could see what else was inside.

  “Are those…skin?” Grace asked in horror.

  He nodded, dragging a large brazier into the center of the room. “Hand me that lighter on the desk, will you?”

  “You’re going to burn them?”

  “Yes. Part of me wants to study them more, but I can’t take the chance on Archie getting his hands on them.”

  She looked troubled as she passed him the requested lighter, looking from the sheaf in his hand to his face. “Those,” she said, pointing. “Each of them is from a different person? Their skin and blood?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Ms. Ruiz.” He placed the papers in the brazier and flicked the lighter to life. “If you’d prefer to wait downstairs—”

  “No. It’s just that…Will you let me pray over them before you destroy them? Those people he murdered…they didn’t deserve to die like that. I wonder if anyone even said a prayer for them, back then.”

  “Er—sure. Go ahead.” He heard a small noise and glanced over toward his desk. Raider was batting his jeweler’s loupe around the desktop. “I’ll see this one out while you do it—he’s not supposed to be up here.” He scooped the indignant cat up and carried him downstairs.

  He returned to find Grace staring down into the brazier, where curls of smoke wafted up toward the ceiling. “Did you burn them yourself?” he asked, surprised.

  “No. They—they just did that when I prayed over them,” she said, looking as surprised as he was. “They burst into flame, and went up in a couple of seconds.”

  Stone came up next to her and looked inside. All that was left of the pages were a heap of ash and a few tattered corners of the pages. “Well, that’s done, then. At least Archie won’t be able to get them.”

  Grace stepped back. “What will you do now? You’re not going back there, are you?”

  He shuddered. “No. That’s…not something I plan to do.”

  “What, then?”

  “I have to do something,” he said. “I’ve put myself well and truly in Archie’s crosshairs now, which means I can’t just let him get on with what he’s doing. Especially now that I know what he’s up to.”

  “You mean besides killing people?”

  “That’s just a side effect. He’s looking for worshippers. The more people he can convince to follow him, the more powerful he’ll become. And he can be very persuasive. I have to stop him before he gets going on that, even if just temporarily until I can work out something better.”

  “Temporarily?”

  “The way Father Eustace and Mr. Goodwin did it—by destroying his physical body and putting his heart under wraps.” He turned to face her, gently gripping her shoulders. “I may need your help with that bit, Ms. Ruiz. Robert Goodwin was a powerful mage, but he couldn’t do it alone—he needed Father Eustace’s faith to go along with his magic. Can I count on you?”

  “What would I have to do? No more demon summoning?”

  “No more demon summoning. But I think I’ll have a much better chance of beating him if I’ve got you backing me up. It could be dangerous, though. I hate to even ask you, but—”

  “I’ll help,” she said firmly. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous. We’re doing God’s will, I know we are. He protects His warriors. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. Damn, he wished he could convince her to study magic properly, even with someone like Reverend Blodgett. Her bravery and conviction could help her become a formidable practitioner someday.

  That was a conversation for later, though. For now, they had things to do. “Right now,” he said, “if you wouldn’t mind waiting downstairs while I make myself presentable, I think I want to go get a cup of coffee.” He sobered. “I need to check on something. Then we’ll look at our next steps.”

  Chapter Fif
ty-Nine

  Surprisingly, Stone found a parking space right in front of University Brew, but when he shut off the ignition he didn’t immediately get out of the car. Instead, he sat for a moment gripping the steering wheel, head bowed, and tried not to think about what he might find out when he went inside.

  “Are you okay?” Grace asked.

  “I’ll let you know,” he said, and opened the door.

  When he’d turned on the local news while getting dressed after a quick shower, there hadn’t been anything about another murder. Perhaps that meant they were keeping a lid on it until they had more details. Or perhaps they hadn’t found her yet.

  His hand shook as he opened the coffee shop’s door. This early on a Saturday morning the place wasn’t standing room only like it was on weekdays, but even so almost every one of the tiny tables was occupied by older people, morning runners, and others from Palo Alto’s large early-bird community. Because he considered himself barely functional before ten a.m., Stone normally never encountered any of these people.

  Joining the short line waiting to order, he scanned the area behind the counter. The barista helping the current customer was familiar: a stout, goateed black man named Clarence. He didn’t see any other workers in the immediate area.

  “Hey there,” Clarence said when he reached the front of the line with Grace. “Don’t usually see you this time of day. Havin’ your usual?” He looked far too jovial to have just lost a co-worker to a brutal murder.

  I was right. They haven’t found her yet—or they haven’t told anyone here. “That’s…fine. And whatever the lady’s having as well. I—”

  “Sir?”

  Stone had stopped as another figure emerged from the back room carrying a sleeve of to-go cups. He gripped the counter, the relief that washed over him so profound that his knees sagged.

  Grace took his arm. “Dr. Stone, what’s wrong?” She was regarding him with wide-eyed concern, as were the next few customers in line. “Do you need to sit down?”