“Croft,” Hoffman’s voice sounded from my radio. “How’s it going in there?”
“We’ve neutralized the first attack, but I feel a second one coming.”
“Go to the Yankees museum,” he said.
“Why? What’s there?”
“That cross check you wanted us to run? Got a hit. A guy who’s been working at the museum for the last five years was picking up weekends at the site last fall. Name’s Jimmy Land. Late 40s, short, balding.”
“I love you, man,” I said. “Where’s the museum?”
“Lower level of Gate 6, near the right foul pole. And I’ll forget you said that first part.”
“Fair enough.”
I repeated the directions to myself. I wasn’t far from the museum, but the traffic in the Great Hall had come to a grinding halt as the crowds arriving from different directions created a logjam. The din of the panicked crowd filled the seven-floor concourse. I was turning to run back into the stands to find another route to the museum when my potion began to take effect.
I’d been feeling electric for the last minute, and now golden light pulsed from my body. I rose into the air as the light grew from my legs. The same light swelled around my torso, extended from my arms, pulsed around my fists, and formed a protective dome over my head. By the time the golden light was in place, I was encased in a massive, magical battle suit.
Strength and confidence coursed through me. I sheathed my sword and slid the cane through my belt. I was the weapon now. With a triumphant shout, I leapt into the air and flew over the packed crowd.
“Stay calm,” I called. “The creatures have been contained. We’ll have you out shortly.”
I felt like a superhero, but the panicked fans who looked up had seen enough flying things for one night. They tried to shove away from me, some thrashing violently. Children screamed.
Okay, bad idea.
Before I could get anyone killed, I rose higher. I sailed past the giant banners of current and past Yankee greats and dove into a stairwell. When I came out at the lower level, I spotted the entrance to the museum and flew inside. A number of fans had taken refuge behind the displays, and I made sure to land before addressing them. Thanks to the suit, I was still two feet above the floor.
“I need everyone to clear out,” I said. “You’re not safe in here.”
When no one moved, I swung my armored fist into a display case. The glass shattered spectacularly. One of Babe Ruth’s bats clattered to the floor. Even to a lifelong Mets fan, the destruction felt like sacrilege, but it got the desired result. When the people had left, I looked around.
“Where are you?” I muttered at the hidden infernal bag.
The museum was an open affair designed to accommodate large numbers of people. There were no obvious hiding places in or around the displays. In the back, I spotted an open door with a sign reading Authorized Personnel Only.
I stepped into what turned out to be a dark stairwell. With the battle suit, I had no fear of descending. At the bottom, I arrived at another open door. I found a large, climate-controlled storage room inside. The packed room was filled with sulfurous smoke, but vents along the ceiling were drawing it out. The glow from my suit highlighted rows of labeled storage containers.
I moved down them until I was at the back, where a pair of especially large containers had been blown open. Inside, I found two large infernal bags—the sources of the imps. Spells had likely concealed them when the police performed their earlier search. Using my enhanced hands, I tore the bags apart, the suit’s energy dispersing the dark magic that held the creatures together.
Smoke, black powder, and evil billowed around me. I heard a collective shriek go up in the field and then fall silent just as suddenly.
The imps were destroyed.
Exhaling, I looked over the remnants of the bags. Damien must have had his vessel bring the ingredients in a little at a time, never enough to draw attention. Over the course of months, it would have added up until Damien had exactly what he needed. Then, using the same vessel, he had activated them.
I tried to call Hoffman to see if the doors had opened, but the radio was blowing static, no doubt because of the magical battle suit. I could still feel the vibrating, though, deep in my inner ears. It was the same sensation I’d felt when Damien had animated and taken possession of his smoke golems. Only now it was more potent. There was another infernal bag somewhere.
Footsteps entered the room. I spun as a flashlight beam shot through the dark and hit me in the face.
“Who are you?” a tight voice demanded. “What are you doing down here?”
I squinted past the light, one arm raised, to find a short, balding man with a round face peering back at me.
“Jimmy Land?” I asked.
“How do you know my name?”
He was the man the cross-check had turned up. He must have been drawn to Damien’s other cursed item, the one Pierce had foreseen in his painting. If I could find and exorcize it, I could break its hold over him.
Then he could tell me where the infernal bag was.
“S-stay there,” Jimmy stammered as I strode toward him, gold energy humming around me. I expected to find a weapon in his other hand, but he wasn’t armed. When he turned to run, I stretched my enhanced arm forward and grabbed him by the back of his blue work shirt. He shouted and tried to hit my hand with the flashlight, but it thudded harmlessly against the suit.
“You found something in Lower Manhattan,” I said, dragging him back. “Something that talked to you. I want it.”
“I-I don’t have it anymore!”
“What was it?”
“A ring.”
I thought about how Pierce had glimpsed my necklace and ring in his own painting. It looked like we were dealing with a mirror event in more ways than one. I took Jimmy’s hand and aimed the flashlight toward the ruined infernal bags. “Did you make those?”
“Yes, b-but only because Damien told me to. I didn’t know what they’d do!”
I squinted at him. He wasn’t talking like a possessed man. Without my wizard’s senses, though, I couldn’t tell for sure. I looked at his fingers. No rings. Why would Damien have released him?
The man struggled in my grip.
“Hey, hold still!” I rearranged my hands so I was clamping his shoulders. With the suit, it was effortless. The gold light shone from the sweat beading over his bald head. “Where’s the other bag?”
“I don’t know.”
But I could still feel the dark energy vibrating in my ears, becoming almost painful. I shook him. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know! I swear!”
I thought of the Ark. “Who else did Damien induct?”
“J-just one other person.”
“Do they work at the stadium?”
“No, I didn’t know her. I’d never seen her before. Damien told me where to go. What to do. Some kind of ceremony. That was six months ago. I never went back.”
“Everson?” Mae called from upstairs. “Are you in here?”
“Stay there, Mae!”
The man had cocked his head at the sound of her voice. Now his eyes widened. “Mae?”
“You know her?”
“Black woman with a walker?”
I nodded slowly, my blood turning cold.
“Th-that’s her!” he whispered. “That’s the woman!”
“Everson?” she called again.
31
I stood there, Jimmy in my grip, my eyes canting up toward the sound of Mae’s voice. My mind scrambled to make sense of what Jimmy had just told me. He’d inducted Mae? She was a part of this?
There’s no way.
I thought back over our two meetings, how Mae had convinced me to bring her tonight. Her control over the nether creatures had seemed a natural gift, but was there a darker explanation? Was Damien using her as a vessel too? One way or another, I needed to get to the bottom of this.
“C’mon,” I said, tugging Jimmy
toward the door.
He struggled, but with the power of the magical suit, I hardly noticed. I pulled him up the stairs until we were emerging into the museum. I found Mae shuffling on her walker, Buster in the carrier. She had been peering around the displays, but now she turned toward us.
“There you are,” she said, letting out her breath. “The creatures in the ball field exploded. Made a godawful mess, but they’re gone.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Seeing if you needed my help.”
I pulled Jimmy to the front of me. “Do you know this man?”
She squinted at him from behind her glasses, then shook her head. “Can’t say that I do.”
“He didn’t come to your apartment a few months ago?”
“Everson, I can count on one hand the number of visitors I’ve had in the last year, and, no, he wasn’t one of them.”
“It’s her,” Jimmy insisted in a whisper.
She cocked her head at him crossly. “I’m who?”
“The ring!” He pointed. “That’s Damien’s ring!”
Mae looked from the man to her left hand in confusion.
“Stay there,” I told Jimmy and walked up to Mae. If she had been inducted, if she was presently possessed, Damien could have altered her memory, compelled her to do things without her understanding why she was doing them—without her even thinking to question them. Which meant her present show of confusion could have been as genuine as it appeared. But I still didn’t understand the play. What advantage did Mae’s presence give the demon?
“Where did you get this?” I asked, pointing to the tarnished gold band. It looked common, but so too had the necklace.
“Where do you think? It’s my wedding band.”
“Are you sure?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not senile, Everson.”
Above us, I could hear the cries of the tens of thousands of trapped fans.
“I need you to take it off and give it to me,” I said.
“This ring hasn’t been off my finger in more than twenty years.”
When I reached for it, Mae drew her hand back. The vibrating I’d been feeling deep in my ears broke open, and threads of sulfurous smoke whirled around us. Wait, I thought. Is Mae the final bag? Is Damien’s power stored inside her? Did I just deliver the bomb to the stadium?
It made sick demonic sense.
Mae shouted when I seized her wrist and pried her finger away from her palm.
“I know you don’t understand what I’m doing,” I said. “But the ring’s not what you think it is.”
I twisted off the gold band, then using my body to block Mae, pulled the vial of copper filings from my pocket and sprinkled out a hasty circle. I dropped the ring inside and began reciting the exorcism from memory. I jockeyed to keep Mae from coming around me to reclaim the band. She grunted and butted her walker against me. Buster chattered excitedly inside the carrier.
I spoke the exorcism as quickly as I could, while the smoke whipped around in thicker and thicker bands.
“Everson!” Mae yelled.
I ignored her until I realized she was no longer trying to get to the ring.
“Everson! The man! The man!”
I’d lost track of Jimmy, but when I looked up, I found him standing in front of the wall that featured hundreds of autographed Yankees baseballs. His eyes had turned a fierce red—and he was grinning. My eyes dropped to the silver ring glinting from his left ring finger. Dark flames licked through the smoke. I could feel its heat biting through my suit.
Jimmy was the final bag. The infernal energy was coming from him.
I aimed an open hand and fired. A shaft of gold energy shot from my palm and exploded into Jimmy. As he staggered back, I lowered my head and charged. The shoulder of my battle suit caught Jimmy in the center of his chest. The collision of magic produced an electric jolt. Sparks burst around us. We crashed into the Ball Wall, shattering the protective glass. Baseballs, some of them priceless, tumbled over us and rolled off in every direction. By the time we hit the floor, my hands were around his throat.
Jimmy is just a vessel, I reminded myself. Damien is casting through him.
And the demon’s focus object was the ring. I needed to get it off his finger. Needed to exorcize it. With no one to control through his cursed objects, Damien would lose his power here.
But when I grabbed Jimmy’s hand, he punched me with his other fist. The blow that caught me in the chin felt like a cannonball. I was blown off him and sent through two displays. Glass, jersey-clad dummies, and pieces of seat from the original Yankee Stadium exploded around me.
I came to a rest against the far wall and blinked my vision straight.
He shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not with the potion protecting me.
By the time I rose, Jimmy was already on his feet. He strode toward me, dark laughter shaking his body. I pawed for my cane, but I’d lost it. When Jimmy spoke, I heard Damien’s voice.
“You surprised me, Everson. You’re more tenacious than I gave you credit for. It almost cost me. My ruse was a clumsy one, I admit. Telling you the old woman was under my control. Claiming she had the ring. But it fooled you long enough for me to adapt to your potion.”
I looked down at the energy humming around my body. I remembered the minutes I’d spent handling Jimmy, exposing Damien to the potion’s power.
No, I thought.
“That’s right,” Damien said. “I’m immune to it now, like your other spells and invocations. That was part of the point of the piddling infernal bags. To either lead you down a wayward path that would end in your death—the route your partner took, the poor thing…”
For a moment I thought he was talking about Vega, and my heart stopped before resuming with such force that I felt it in the pit of my gut. But then I realized he meant Pierce.
“You’re lying,” I said.
“Or,” Damien continued with a grin, “to deprive you of your power. And here we are.” He opened his hands as the fiery smoke cycloned around him, flames gashing my battle suit like a sandblaster. “You’ve nothing left that can hurt me. And I have fifty thousand souls waiting to be claimed.” His grin broadened until it looked like it was going to split his face. “Do you know what I’ll be able to do with them? The kind of power I’ll be able to command?”
He was right. I had already used my enchanted items against him as well as the potion. A handful of spell items still bulged in my pockets, but without ley energy to push through them, they were useless.
“Who the fuck are you?” I growled as he arrived in front of me.
“Well, you know what they say, Everson: a picture is worth a thousand words. You’ll soon see for yourself. And then we can discuss your options. Namely whether you want to join the others souls as slaves in the Below, or if you would prefer to serve me here on Earth.”
“How about none of the above?”
Before he could respond, I put my personal training to use, jabbing him twice with my left hand. The shots snapped his head back. I followed with a right hook that should have taken his head off. But when Damien’s face rotated back to face me, he was smiling.
I only realized he’d struck me when I found myself rolling over the wreckage of the museum. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. By the time I stopped, my magical suit was sputtering. I tried to stand, but I staggered and fell to one knee, my head a mass of cobwebs.
Damien laughed and spread his arms like a fallen angel. The storm around him grew more fierce, and I could hear fresh screams in the concourse.
“If I can’t stop you, the Order will,” I promised.
“The Order?” Damien laughed. “Do you mean those doddering magic-users? Do you know how easy it was for me to evade them? No, Everson. The only challenge will be deciding how to use them once I’ve brought them to their knees.”
He leaned his head back, eyes fluttering. Wisps of light joined the spiraling smoke, but coming
from the other direction. Shit, the claiming had begun. Each time a soul rushed into him, Damien shuddered in ecstasy. The storm emanating from him grew larger, more violent.
I peered around for Mae, but I couldn’t see her.
Grimacing, I crawled toward Damien. I had to get the ring from him, had to exorcize it. Though I wasn’t the object of his attack, it took every bit of my trembling strength to advance against the force and heat. Caught up in the claiming, Damien wasn’t looking at me. I hoped to use that to my advantage.
When I was beneath him, I reached for his hand. His foot landed hard on my throat, cutting off my air.
“Oh, good,” he said. “I would have hated for you to miss this.”
I struggled, but it was futile. He had me pinned. I managed to turn my head enough to draw air. More likely, Damien had let me turn my head enough to draw air. Because with each soul he absorbed, his strength and presence swelled. Soon, his demonic form would erupt through Jimmy’s body, and I’d know who I was dealing with. That was what he wanted me to witness. And by then it would be too late for me to do anything. More souls rushed into him with increasing speed.
“Vigore!” I tried, straining a hand toward his ring.
Nothing moved through me. I wished now that I hadn’t sacrificed my luck quotient.
No, I thought resolutely. Getting you to doubt yourself is a demon’s stock-in-trade. The Order’s not as weak as Damien is making you believe. Arianna sent you Gretchen for a reason.
I thought back to our training, how Gretchen had applied the black luck. I then considered the three loops I’d had to jump through in order to remove it. Those acts weren’t arbitrary, I decided.
I thought of the last loop in particular, the one that had involved the mirror event Pierce had picked up in the painting: the pendant and the ring. Fresh understanding broke through me.
As though sensing the conclusion I had reached, Damien’s red eyes met mine. He scowled and mashed harder on my neck until my air was cut off again. As souls continued to pour inside him, I grasped his ankle and tried to speak, but I couldn’t form the Word.
Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5) Page 22
