by Joey Ruff
Without another word, I moved through the kitchen to the dining room. London followed on my heels. Everything was still quiet by the time we made it to the stairs that led up to the study, and London raced ahead to the top to make sure everything was clear as I hobbled up, one at a time, though at a bit faster pace than the crutches would allow.
Chess appeared on the railing. “Where are the four new intruders?” I asked.
“Moving this way from the West Wing. They have descended from the Ballroom to the guest quarters’ corridor.”
“They’re already on the second floor,” I called up to London. “West Wing, same as before.”
“I’m fucking on it, brother,” he said, disappearing from view.
I looked at Chess. “Activate the defenses.”
Chess didn’t say anything, just blinked out of sight, leaving me alone to navigate the stairs. By the time I’d reached the second floor hallway, I heard the echoing roar of close-quarters gunfire. Flashes lit up the hallway ahead.
I struggled forward, passing the door to the study, and continuing on towards the West Wing. At the other stairway, London came racing toward me from the opposite hallway. There was a wild, panicked look in his eyes. He waved me back, swore, and leapt the half-flight of stairs to the landing, hitting with a crash just as a thirty-foot column of white-hot flame soared from the mouth of the hallway adjacent as if from the mouth of a dragon.
Because the flame was spread wider than tall, the wall on my right caught with dancing tongues, instantly scorching the portraits hanging there, but London below and the ceiling above remained intact. The burst was quick, but the heat was intense. I was a good eight feet from its furthest reach, but I was knocked flat, the edges of my eyebrows crisped.
Dusares’ flame, I thought.
As soon as the flame died back, London was scampering on hands and knees up the half flight of stairs toward me, mumbling something all the while. As he hit the top step, he turned, firing the Judge blindly toward the opposite hall. “Shitty fuck balls,” he said, reaching me. “Those motherfuckers aren’t playing around.” He was sweating and looked pale.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Takes a bit more than flaming ninjas to take me out, brother.”
He stood quicker than I was able and helped me up. “What’s the play?”
“Back to the study,” I said. “I just need a minute to think.” London just nodded, and as we turned to go, a second column of flame, this one hotter and longer, shot toward us.
We moved quickly back along the path we’d just come, and London beat me through the study door. I paused for a moment at the threshold, took a quick look back to where we’d come, seeing only fire. The walls and bits of the ceiling had caught already, and the fire was spreading.
I entered the study, shutting the door behind me. “Maybe if we give them Levi, they’ll just walk out the front door. We can end this peacefully.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” London asked with a grin.
“Well, I’d prefer they not burn the house down. Not with us in it, at least.” I was still standing by the door, and it was growing gradually hotter. I moved to the desk, picking up the Codex. “According to the book, they have a weapon called…”
“I saw it,” London said. “It’s a flamethrower, like what I got, but…different, right. This shit is like liquid napalm. It’s too hot, burns too fucking quick.”
I looked quickly around, stared at the room’s only door for a second before realizing the heat that I’d just felt coming from beyond it. The hallway would be likely impassable by now. I spun around to the only other option: the window. “We need to get out of here. Take only what you need.”
“Only me and Judge, brother,” he said as he walked to the window sill and looked out. “That’s quite the drop.”
I took the Codex and the little journal Chess had given me and dropped them into a drawer in the desk, hoping they’d be safe inside. Then I moved to the window.
The window overlooked the rear of the estate, and I looked out into the night. It was too dark to see Arthur’s apple tree. No, that wasn’t accurate any longer. It wasn’t apples. It was the fruit of Dusares.
“Think there are more of these motherfucks out there?” London said.
“Hard to say. But there’s plenty on the other side of that door.”
As we stared out the window, a loud thud came from the other side of the door. London and I turned together. “Guess we need to find something to block it,” I said.
Without a word, London started pushing one of the heavy arm chairs against the door.
I opened the window as wide as it would go, and stuck my head, out, glancing down. Five feet below was the top of a large, lush bush, rich with foliage. It would break the fall.
I looked back at London. He was stacking the second chair on top of the first. “I hope these chairs are fireproof,” he said. “It’s getting really fucking hot over here.”
Once he finished, he approached the window. I stepped to the side and motioned to the opening. London laughed, “Might as well.”
“There’s a bush,” I said, in case he hadn’t seen it. “It should break the fall.”
“I thought you were just crazy as fuck, brother,” he said with a wicked grin. “Me first, or you?”
Before I could answer, a loud knocking came from the other side of the door. “You have our brother!” a voice called from the hallway. The voice was somewhat augmented, distorted, muffled. “We have come to claim him. You will surrender and return him to us, or you will die horribly and be fed to pigs.”
“Do these guys know how to give insults, or what?” London said with a chuckle.
“Open the door now and surrender!” the voice called.
“Stick a dick in your eye!” London called back.
Before he could say anything else, I slid the Babel Stone from my pocket and snapped a piece about the size of an ice cube from its edge, sliding that back in my pocket, just in case. I put the big piece down on the desktop, dark side up.
The chairs that held the door began to quiver where they sat, inching away from the door slowly. Two loud knocks struck the door, sounding almost like gunfire, and then the chairs and the door exploded into the middle of the room as a column of flame burst from the hallway.
I managed to throw myself into London, knocking us both to the ground and clear of the flames just in time. When I looked up, I saw the smoke hanging high near the ceiling and filling the length of the room. The books on the shelf nearest the door were eagerly feeding the flames that licked their way along the old, dusty, leather-bound spines.
Three men entered the room, each of them dressed in the same black, close-fitting clothing as Levi. Each wearing gloves and a mask. They had lean, lithe figures with fully pronounced physiques suggesting raw, physical power. Just like Levi. Just like me.
Two of the men came into the room eagerly, brandishing long daggers, and looking around through the smoke to see where we had gone. The third barked an order to the other two, but his speech came out garbled and coarse. One of the others answered back, his words sounding more French than I’m guessing he’d intended. The third just held his hands up, not sure what to make of the other two. When the third spoke, he was just as confused and betrayed by his own tongue.
I didn’t give them long to wonder what was happening. Capitalizing on the confusion of the Babel stone, I pulled the sword blade free of the cane shaft and shifted the bulk of my weight to my good leg, springing toward them. The first was caught unaware, my blade biting through his left shoulder, and when I hit him with the full force of my weight, the momentum carried us back onto the ground.
Behind and above me, I could sense one of the others raising his dagger to strike. I pulled my blade free of the first and spun to meet the second’s dagger, holding my blade out horizontally in a defensive move, but the blow never came. Instead, I heard the bark of the Judge, and the second Edomite’s leg gave out, twis
ting and turning him, sending him colliding into the book shelf on the wall.
As I struggled to get up, I saw the third Edomite step forward. He was dressed slightly different than the others. Along with his mask, this one also had a hood that hung low over his brow. On his arm, was a bronze circlet, a metal band that wrapped around his arm and formed an ornamental tree over his left bicep. This, I figured, must be the aluf, the leader that Levi had mentioned and been so scared of.
Omri.
It took only a second to realize why the voice we’d heard had been distorted. Over his mouth, the aluf wore a type of ventilator. Three vents ran vertically, and a tube ran along his jaw line and disappeared beneath the hood.
As I stood there, he saw me. Our eyes locked, and he hesitated. Clearly, he hadn’t expected someone of my appearance to oppose him. His eyes moved quickly from me to the portraits on the wall. He saw the one of Arthur, and quickly put the pieces together. It must’ve been my close proximity to him and the stone in my pocket, because when he spoke, I understood him. “Dickless impostor,” he breathed. “You will suffer the wrath of Dusares.”
I raised the blade in one hand, the wooden cane in the other, and prepared for him to rush. He didn’t.
He raised his right arm and extended it to me. His eyes narrowed, his fingers curled, and the palm of his hand began to smoke. When he snapped his fingers, there was a bright spark, and tongues of fire leapt hungrily for me.
London threw an arm around my neck and shoulder, hoisting me back just in time to miss the fire, and carried me to the window. “I’m out of ammo,” he said. “We gotta make it to my fucking truck, brother.”
“I can take him,” I said.
“No,” London said.
Then he shoved me out into the night.
29
Swyftt
I pushed through the front door and moved so quickly my feet didn’t even touch the stairs. I was across the yard in a few seconds, in the car, engine started, and pulling away from the curb.
Huxley didn’t say anything for a minute. I was clear out of the neighborhood before he said, “I can’t imagine how necessary that was.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“Did he at least tell you what you needed to know?”
I didn’t say anything, just drove, straight through the town, heading in a southerly direction. Once I was clear of the main drag, that’s when I heard the sirens. I expected them to come after me, but they soon began to fade, going in the other direction, toward St. Clair’s house. There was little, if anything, to connect me to the house. I was wearing gloves and the car was borrowed.
“So,” Huxley said quietly. “The preacher did it? Summoned the Ballad?”
It took me awhile to answer. My pulse was racing, and I could almost feel the steam pouring from my ears. “Yes,” I said eventually. “Tremaine gave it to him. The song and the flute. He’s the one responsible. I knew he wasn’t human the first fucking second I saw him.”
“But the preacher was the one that played the music?”
“Yes!” I said, nearly in a roar.
“A spell like the Ballad,” he said slowly, “maintains its hold on the target until called off.”
“Not just when the music is playing?”
“No. It is a perpetual hold. Since the preacher began the spell, he would also have to call it off.”
“Well, now he’s fucking dead, isn’t he. Who calls it off now?”
“His death,” Huxley said.
“Why are you just now telling me this shite now?”
“Because I just thought of it while being left in the car. I should mention, also, that this is just a theory, after all. I have never conducted a spell such as the Ballad Nocturne before.”
I let the conversation fade and focused on driving, pulling into Ezra’s a few minutes later. I threw the car into park and got out, moving directly for the rental car. I opened the driver’s door and popped the trunk. Opening my suitcase, I took the lights for my FN’s and mounted one under each barrel. I pulled Grace out and strapped her to my leg. Then I began the tedious, but necessary, task of loading every magazine I’d brought with me.
As I was doing this, DeNobb opened the front door of the house and came around the car, stopping when he saw me. “Jeez, Swyftt. Shit. What happened? Are you okay?”
I looked up at him, trying to imagine what he was seeing. When I realized, I said, “Fine. The blood isn’t mine.”
“What…?”
“St. Clair is dead,” Huxley said, hobbling around from the other car on his little doll legs.
“The preacher?” DeNobb asked. “What happened?”
“I heard two gun shots,” Hux said, motioning to me.
I looked up at DeNobb, who was staring vacantly at me in disbelief. “You going to gear up?” I asked him. He didn’t say anything.
Taking DeNobb’s bag from the trunk, I tossed it to him. He caught it dumbly. “For real?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “What do you want from me? You act like he was some innocent saint. He was as fucking guilty as anyone.” I slammed the trunk. “Grab your shit. We gotta find Nadia.”
“It’s dark,” DeNobb said. “How are we supposed to find anything out there?”
I didn’t say anything, only walked over by the side of the house and stared around into the backyard. The moon was the only light, and even that didn’t show much. I pulled one of my FN’s and turned on the beam, shining it around, just to check how bright it would be. It would work. I turned the light off, holstered the weapon.
When I turned around, DeNobb’s bag was open on the ground, and he was kneeling over it. He had one of the Glocks in his hand, rummaging for a magazine. Something caught my eye. “Is that the Tikbalang’s braid? You brought it?”
He looked up at me as though he’d been caught with his pants down. Sheepishly, he said, “You said to keep it close, right?”
I sighed. “Doesn’t mean taking it on bloody vacation, does it.”
DeNobb stood, holding the braid in one hand and the Glock in the other. “Look, Swyftt, I get it. Nadia’s gone. It’s hard. Doesn’t mean you have to just be an ass to everyone. What am I saying? You’re always an ass. So I’m just going to let that go, okay.”
I shook my head and turned around, biting my tongue. I didn’t need his shite. Not realizing I had been walking, I found myself at the edge of the house again. Behind me, I could hear DeNobb saying, “What the hell is his problem?”
Huxley said, “Just let him go.”
I walked the edge of the tree line, probing the depths with my beam. I took slow, deliberate steps, watching the darkness carefully. When I was behind the shed, I swept along a few trees, following the path I’d walked when I discovered the amulet in the tree. This time, however, I didn’t look in the yard, but kept the light focused on the bayou. Just at the edge of the light, I saw something. A figure. Long hair. Maybe a white shirt. The beam kept moving before my brain registered what I’d just seen. When I swept back, there was nothing there.
“Nadia?” I called.
There was no response, but I stood there for a minute, holding the beam steady in the place where I thought I’d seen her.
“Nadia?” I called again.
Still no sound. Feeling pretty confident I’d imagined it, I swept the beam on, scanning further along. I hadn’t taken three steps when I heard, “Jono?”
I stopped and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Nadia?!” The beam searched back through the trees, but I didn’t wait to find her before running in after her.
I kept calling her name, stopping every ten yards or so to listen for her, scanning the trees. After a hundred yards or so, my boots began to sink a little into the mud. Still, I pressed forward. Eventually, when I turned around, I couldn’t see any light at all behind me. Not the cars, not the house. The trees above were so thick, I couldn’t even see the moon.
I stopped for a second to catch my breath. As I did, I
heard, “Jono. Are you there? I got turned around. It’s so dark.”
It seemed to come from my right, and I called out after her. “I’m coming, Nads. Just stay right where you are. I’ll find you.”
After judging where I thought the voice was coming from, I dashed after her, dodging a few trees as I ran. Maybe two minutes later, I stopped again. This new area wasn’t quite a clearing, but the trees were certainly thinner here. The same wet, sucking mud covered the ground, flecked with tall green sprouting patches, and in the center of it all was Lara.
She was kneeling at the base of a tree, and all around her were old industrial barrels. They were toppled and split open, rusting and flaking. Whatever they had once contained had long been emptied.
“I should’ve known,” I said. “Where’s Nadia?”
“With the apes, I would assume.” She stood, turning to me with a smile. “Hello, John.”
“It was you? Nadia wasn’t even here?”
“I needed you to come to this place. To see this. You wouldn’t come for me.”
“What was so important to lie to me?”
She stepped aside and pointed to the nearest barrel. I stepped forward, catching the faded label in my light. It was barely legible, but the logo was hard to deny. Collinger Industries.
“What was in the barrels?”
“Waste,” she said. “The kind that environmentalist picket against.”
“Why was this so important?”
“Because you need to know,” she said. “That the Ballad was not the first attempt. Before he thought to control the guardians, he attempted to poison them.”
“The Tree Man?”
“His name is Silen.”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m just trying to help,” she said.
I laughed and turned to go, but she said, “John. Wait.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you remember what we said when we found out I was pregnant?”
“You aren’t my fucking wife.”
Her quiet laugh had an almost fairy-like quality to it that seemed to echoed my sentiment. “Do you remember?” she asked again.
