The Ballad Nocturne (The Midnight Defenders Book 3)

by Joey Ruff

  At first, I didn’t see what was in the center of the room, though I can’t say how, as the purple trail marched straight up to it and then stopped. It was a bird. No, that doesn’t begin to describe it. While it was significantly smaller than the last time I had seen it, there was no denying what it was. The creature was stretched out and immobile, lying on its belly, its black wings mottled with white, were outspread, thirty feet, maybe from tip to tip. The red pinion feathers, once so bold and red, were dull and almost gray, like a shirt that had been washed too many times. From what I could tell, the breast that had been bright green, red and yellow, colorful like a rainforest parrot, was muted and somber, sepia-toned like an old photo. Its head was close to the size of a basketball, and the vulture-like beak was turned to the side. The large plume of feathers that had crested its head were missing, just one of the balding patches that pock-mocked its frame. The enormous bouquet of tail feathers that once signaled the majesty of the creature was stripped and lame. Gone was the beauty and grace, the pride that evoked royalty.

  This was the thunderbird. The last of its kind. The reason I hadn’t seen it sooner was because it was completely vacant in my glasses. There was no heat emitting from it at all. It was cold and black. Which meant one thing. It was dead.

  My heart sank. Whatever hope I’d been clinging to simply melted away. Part of me, I thought, had been half-expecting Crestmohr to swoop in and save the day, as he had in the cavern below the Space Needle. As he had again outside the mall where he’d battled Aegir. All this time, I had thought Crestmohr had gone away to recover and nurse his wounds. Instead, like a cat, he had simply sensed his end and crawled out into the garage to die.

  Kol was knelt in front of the thunderbird. Aegir’s locket gleamed from around his neck, and the black dagger was tucked into his belt. He didn’t look at me, just stared only at the thunderbird. The creature he referred to as Perun.

  I took a few, silent steps, and heard Aegir’s voice in a tone that, had I not known better, would have sounded almost sad. “How the mighty have fallen,” he said.

  I didn’t move. I was frozen, either out of fear or curiosity, I couldn’t be certain. I only watched as Aegir, dressed in Kol, plucked the cylindrical object he’d taken from Boaz’s pouch. He removed a cap from one end, revealing a long needle. That was when I realized the object was a syringe. He rubbed a finger along the ridge of the thunderbird’s beak and then up between the creature’s eyes, finding a spot just parallel to the brow line, and tapped it gently three times. He brought the syringe close, and then stuck the needle directly into the skull.

  Rather than, as I had expected, injecting something into the bird, Kol drew the plunger of the syringe out, extracting something. The little glass vial at the center of the cylinder filled with an amber colored liquid that shone like a glow stick. Once it was full, Kol slowly withdrew the needle and held the cylinder up to his eyes. Through the glow of the liquid, I saw the reverence that hovered over his face.

  He set the syringe down to the side and then turned to the bird. He drew the obsidian blade from his belt and held it out.

  “After all the mighty battles,” he said, as though he and the bird were the only things left in existence. “The songs and the stories that these sad and stupid lumps of dirt have written about us. I always knew that I would drive this dagger into your heart. I had hoped that I would look you in the eye as I did so. To watch the life drain from you. To catch a glimmer of your radiant grace as it drained onto the earth like fossil fuel.” He shook his head. “Still, this is the order of things.”

  In my head, I heard a verse that Swyftt would quote from time to time, “This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”

  I realized the implication a moment too late. I’m not sure why I did it, convinced as I was that he had already died, but I saw Aegir raise the dagger above his head, and I ran as fast as I could toward him.

  Unsheathing my sword, I held the blade high above my head. Somehow, Kol knew I was there, and spun. He threw his free hand out toward me, fingers spread, and zapped me with green lightning. My book shook as I flew back through the air, collided with the cave wall, and rolled onto the ground. Something cold and hard jabbed me in the small of my back.

  Head spinning, I pushed myself up in time to see Kol readjusting his position, settling back in, and bringing the dagger back center, almost ceremoniously.

  Then he raised the blade to strike.

  I reached around to the small of my back and pulled out London’s .45. I didn’t hesitate to spin the gun around and start pulling the trigger, emptying the gun in less than ten seconds. In the cave, the noise was deafening. The muzzle flare was near blinding in my glasses, forcing me to pull them off, and every shot I took, every round in the magazine, sparked off the rock wall behind Kol, and not a single one hit its mark.

  The slide on the gun locked as the magazine emptied, and I immediately fished for another from my pocket. While I wasn’t a very good shot, I at least knew the basics of how to work a gun, so it was nothing for me to eject the empty cartridge, and chamber the next round.

  Kol hadn’t even reacted to the gunfire, just continued to slowly lower the blade toward the thunderbird. His lips seemed to be moving in a low chant.

  This time, I took a breath and remembered what London said. I locked my wrists, aimed down the center, and I closed my right eye, aiming with my left. I put the first round in the back of Kol’s head. He lurched forward slightly, but maintained his composure, continued to mouth words I couldn’t hear.

  The next round struck the obsidian dagger. Not only was there a spark, but the dagger flew from Kol’s hand, hit the wall, and clattered away in the darkness.

  Aegir howled louder than the pistol’s report, and he spun to face me.

  The next bullet went right between the eyes. Fluid seeped out, but Kol was undeterred. His eyes flashed green, and so did the amulet. It was all I needed.

  The next bullet struck center mass, directly in the heart. The last bullet hit the amulet, shattering it into dozen pieces. The green light faded immediately, and Kol’s body fell lifeless to the ground.

  40

  Swyftt

  The inside of the church was cool and dark. A few candles burned on the altar, which was straight ahead as we entered. It wasn’t a lot of light, but it was enough to reveal the seven-foot clay statue in the back corner trying so hard to remain invisible.

  As the door clicked shut behind us, I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being chambered off to my right. Nadia was to my left, so I knew she was okay as long as I was still standing. I didn’t move.

  “Lock the door behind you,” the man said. He was trying to sound menacing. It didn’t work.

  “Put that fucking thing away, idiot,” I said. “It’s just us. I saw the fucking golem as soon as we entered.”

  DeNobb relaxed the hammer and said, “Sorry. Didn’t see it was you.”

  Nadia stepped around me and said, “Jamie!”

  I wasn’t looking at him, but I could imagine just by the tenor and excited squeak of his voice how his face lit up. “Oh my god…Nadia.”

  Then they were all hugging and kissing, and I walked away so I didn’t punch him in the face. I walked down the main aisle and approached the altar. As I neared, I became aware of the shadowy form huddled behind the pulpit. I knew it was Ezra. I was also pretty sure that I wouldn’t recognize the old lady.

  I hopped the steps to the platform and walked to the golem. “You need a better hiding spot if you expect to surprise anyone.”

  “I wasn’t sure who we were hiding from,” he answered.

  “Why are they all out there? They’d been gathered. Why not attack? Why not invade?”

  “Protocol,” Hux said. “The Alfar are Seelie Faye. They revere the house of the Lord and would not vandalize or invade its sanctity.”

  “So we’re safe in here? They won’t come in?”

  “Not un
less they are invited.”

  “Well, then we have a minute. You guys sit tight.” I turned around, seeing Nadia and DeNobb cuddling on a pew in the back. They were talking closely in quiet tones.

  “Where are you going?” Huxley asked.

  “I gotta find something.” I motioned to Ezra as I passed. “Is she okay?”

  She looked at me, and our eyes met. I couldn’t believe this was the same person that greeted us less than twenty-four hours ago. She had looked like a model. Now, her hair was thinning and stark white. Her face was so wrinkled that if she looked like any famous person, it was a clay raisin.

  “Her magic has stressed her body,” Hux said. “Once the spell wore off, she began aging prematurely.”

  “You look terrible,” I told her.

  She just closed her eyes.

  I walked up the aisle a short ways and cut over through a pew to the office door. It was empty. A single lamp burned dimly, offering a very peaceful, warm atmosphere. I crossed the floor to the desk and sat in the chair. One by one, I began opening the desk drawers, rummaging through papers and notebooks. In the bottom drawer on the right, I found a six-shooter revolver, but it wasn’t loaded, and there didn’t appear to be any bullets. The drawer above that held only a notebook filled with Bible verses and sermon notes. There was a directory with names and addresses, presumably church members.

  The top drawer was locked. I shot it. The noise was an echoing roar, and screams went up from the other room, mostly female. Probably DeNobb.

  I opened the drawer and found a wooden box. The exterior had been carved with strange swirls and symbols that, as I stared at it for a minute, began to resemble a grape vine. I took the box out, set it on the desk.

  “Everything okay?” Nadia asked. She’d appeared in the doorway.

  I didn’t look up. “It’s fine. I’m not the one who screamed.”

  “You…shot a gun.”

  I waved my hand. “Everything’s fine. Go on.”

  “What is that…?” She stepped into the room and walked around the desk to stand over my shoulder. I watched her for a second, realized she wasn’t going anywhere, and then opened the box.

  The inside was lined in a red velvety material and cushioned to form-fit around a single, white pipe. It was about the width and length of a flute. I was confused at first because it looked to be made of PVC. I wondered if someone had changed out the original to play a trick. This wasn’t the pipe I was expecting.

  I was still staring at it, pondering over it, when Nadia reached down and picked it up. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Be careful with that,” I snapped. “Do you know what it does?”

  She smiled. “Take it easy, Jono. It’s harmless if you can’t play it.” She lifted it up, studying it, turning it over in the dim light. “Is it ivory?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. It certainly made more sense. “Of course, it is.” I took it from her, putting it back in the box. “This can come home with us.”

  “What are we going to do with it?”

  “Make sure it doesn’t fall into idiot hands again.”

  As we walked back into the sanctuary, I caught a flash of movement at the front of the church. I shook my head, wondering what DeNobb was doing now. At least he was standing sentry. “We need to formulate a plan,” I told Nadia. “We could just give them Ezra.”

  “How can you say that?!”

  “Because then they’ll all go home, the apes will go back to the swamp, and life can go back to normal.”

  “That’s low, even for you.”

  “Don’t act like she didn’t do it, love.”

  “Does that mean she deserves to die?”

  I didn’t say anything, and she made a noise and stormed ahead of me. As I neared the platform, I saw her talking to DeNobb, looking back at me.

  I stopped, a bit confused. If DeNobb had been at the front of the church, he couldn’t have been at the rear. I spun around to see the man in the suit standing at the front door. Tree man. I had no idea how he’d snuck in, but that mattered little at this point. He already hand one hand on the doorknob.

  “Fuck!” I yelled.

  I ran up the aisle.

  The door flew open. The Tree man looked out and said, “My friends, won’t you please come inside?”

  The first of the Alfar were already entering as he backed away, and by the time I’d made it to the front of the church, Tremaine had dropped back into the shadows again.

  Just to my left, I saw a door. I didn’t have any idea where it would go, but it was the only place the Tree man could have gone. He was the one responsible. He needed to answer for this shit.

  I pulled Grace, dropping the first two elves with well-timed shots to the head, but they kept coming. I looked to the platform, saw Huxley as a golem lumbering forward. Then I turned and walked through the door.

  It was a small room, about the size of a broom closet. One wall was laden with shelves that held anointing oils and offering bags. The other wall had a ladder mounted to it. I looked up, not sure where it would lead, but started to climb anyway.

  It was dark, and I pulled my FN and turned on the light. At the top, the ladder ended at a trap door, and I pushed it open.

  I found myself in an attic space that spanned the length of the church. While it was really dark, a few, scant beams of light filtered through from a vent in the back and a few cracks along the ceiling. It was also very hot up here, with little to no circulation or insulation. There was no floor to speak of, just a few beams that laid over top of the rafters.

  As I walked, I swept my beam around, scanning the area for the Tree man, but he wasn’t to be seen. In the corner were the over-large plastic pieces of an outdoor nativity. On the other side were a few discarded, wooden signs whose faded paint read things like “Bake Sale” and “Missionary Car Wash.” They were heavily strung with cobwebs and coated in dust.

  At the other end of the room, I found another ladder, swept the beam up to reveal another trap door. I stopped for a second, not realizing the church was actually this big. Then I started to climb. I paused at the trapdoor, shut the light off, and holstered the gun.

  When I pushed through the trapdoor, I found myself in a bell tower on top of the roof. The bell hung in the center of the space, and there were no walls, just a pillar on each corner to hold the roof up. As I climbed, I saw feet standing on the other side of the bell. I stood, closed the trap door, and the Tree man’s terrible voice said, “I wondered if you would follow me.”

  “What’s your game?”

  He stepped around the bell, staring intensely at me. “This is not a game. This is just one step in a grand design. A single stroke in a work of art. A pluck of the string in a great symphony.”

  “You’re a fucking nutter.”

  His smile was cold.

  From the little interaction I’d had with the Tree man previously, it was pretty clear the bloke wasn’t human. The fact that he continued to insist he was, well, it was a bit insulting. “Why don’t we cut the charade, mate. You’ve seen my face. Why don’t you show me your pretty little mug. It’ll be easier to pick out your obit in the paper tomorrow.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “I suppose there is little harm in that. The die has already been cast.”

  There are many ways that the dark fucks I hunt change their appearance. The more common among the physical cats was shapeshifting. That involved a lot of shifting skin and bumpy rearranging as though their skin was made of clay. The other, which was more common with the spirit folk (though neither was exclusive to either sort) was a type of magic called a veil. It was illusion based. I didn’t know the specifics, since I’d never actually done one, but the way the Tree man glimmered and light appeared to melt and bend around him, I figured his trick was more of the latter.

  My blood turned to ice.

  Standing where the business suit-clad Tree man had been was a being slightly shorter and a whole lot hornier. By that, of cours
e, I was referring to the ram horns that grew from the top of his head, from amid the long, shaggy white hair, and curled around in a twist. The tips were filed to a point and stained with what could only be blood.

  Fine, white hair covered every inch of his skin. His eyes were dark and sunken in his face, his pupils were a pale, sickly pink. A deep, purple scar ran just around the outside of his left eye. His nose bridged out like an animal’s, rather than in like a normal human’s, and the tip of his nose was flat and slotted. His ears grew to a point beyond the brush of his hair.

  His chest was clad in leather armor, a breastplate with no sleeves, which revealed the shriveled, hair-less burn scar on his right bicep. On his wrists, he wore leather, studded cuffs, and his three, clubbed fingers were equipped with wide, jagged nails. He didn’t wear pants. Instead, his legs were covered in a thick blanket of coarse hair. Rather than feet, the wanker had hooves.

  He was a fucking Satyr, but it wasn’t his appearance what chilled me. It was the fact that I recognized him.

  “Silen.”

  His thin lips stretched into a smile over sharp, ugly teeth.

  Silen was the lap dog of a nasty Fallen called Dionysus. I only knew of him by reputation, which wasn’t good. The fact that he was here, now, meant that I didn’t have enough fucking ammunition with me.

  “You are sent by Aegir? What does he care if Dionysus succeeds or fails in this?”

  I stood there for half a second, confused, before I realized he sensed Aegir’s mark. My first thought was to correct him, set the record straight. I didn’t want rumors going around that I was working for… But no, I could use this to my advantage. Silen was a killer. The only hope I had was taking him by surprise. “Aegir sent me along to make sure it all goes down smoothly.”

  “I must admit,” he said. His voice was cold and hard. “When you first appeared here in this town, I anticipated that you would attempt to thwart me. That is why I put the police onto you. I needed you detained for everything to play out.”