I pointed at another of the fire giants who spun a spiked ball and chain around his head before whipping it down upon the glowing, multicolored shield Amy Chen raised to defend herself. There was a blinding flash as the ball impacted the shield. Amy fell to her knees and the shield began to burn, orange flame devouring the colorful light until it dimmed and then extinguished.
“Kill,” I said. If I’d known the demon’s name, I might have been able to issue more elaborate orders. On the other hand, that might have just gotten me in trouble.
The Fomoiri hero turned and brought his ax down on the knobby skull of Amy’s adversary. The blade cleaved through the giant’s head and bit deeply into its torso. Fire and darkness billowed out of the terrible wound, and the demon collapsed into a pool of smoking tar that began to disintegrate and blow away on the driving wind.
“Kill,” I said, pointing to another demon. The Fomoiri spun the ax in his hands and buried the blade in the back of a giant that had grabbed Terrence in one massive, gnarled fist and was lifting him toward its fiery maw. The demon collapsed and disintegrated, and Terrence tumbled free, rolling to his feet and immediately spinning attack spells that tore into a giant that was hammering at Adan’s defenses with a huge, two-handed hammer.
“How long can you keep this up?” Oberon asked. “Perhaps I can go for coffee.”
As if summoned by his words, a trio of crawlers scuttled over the edge of the building and leaped at us. They slammed into our protective circle and began clawing and tearing at it, struggling to squirm through the magic that held them at bay.
“Nice job,” I said, gritting my teeth against the burn of the juice racing through me. “Maybe you can keep these guys off me so I don’t get defriended by the fucking Balrog, here.”
Oberon grinned and leaped forward, out of the circle, his silver sword spinning and thrusting at the attacking crawler demons. His sword didn’t have much more of an immediate effect on them than my bullets had. Their inky, black flesh quivered and oozed around the blade, but golden light danced in the furrows and puckered holes the blade left in its wake. The faceless demons screamed and scrambled away, only to regroup and scuttle toward the fairy king from three directions. Oberon blurred and his sword was a glowing, silver tracer in the air. Black tar spattered the rooftop as the crawlers fell beneath the blade.
Oberon’s laughter carried on the wind. “They’ll have to send better than these pathetic creatures if they wish to bring low the Lord of the Shining Host,” he shouted. I winced.
The thing that crawled onto the roof was like a giant centipede, which wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was formed from the bodies of human children, one torso extending from the shoulders of the one before in a long, repulsive, fleshy chain. The chubby little arms served as the demon’s legs, and they scrabbled furiously against the asphalt as the creature undulated across the rooftop. The demon’s cherubic head was topped with golden curls, but the face was torn open and something insectile protruded from the torn, bloody mask.
“Discretion is the better part of keeping your fucking mouth shut, King.”
The front section of the demon rose up, baby arms waving, and the bug head made a wet chittering sound. The entire length of the creature’s body convulsed and black fluid sprayed from the insectoid mouth. The fluid vaporized when it struck my protective circle, giving off an oily black smoke, but Oberon was covered in it from head to toe.
The king screamed and fell to his knees. His sword clattered to the rooftop as he clawed at the black fluid that sizzled on the exposed skin of his face. It ate away at the flesh and I could see bone glistening underneath.
“Oh, fuck me,” I said. “Hold the charm on the giant as long as you can, Mr. Clean.” I hefted the walking stick in my hand and stepped out of the circle. I dropped a spell on the king to kill the hostile magic, and then I turned to the demon. I extended the juju stick and poured juice into it.
“Vi Victa Vis!” I shouted, and the demon swayed and nearly toppled onto its side as the force magic impacted the aesthetic travesty it called its head. It screamed, its voice that of a child in the throes of a tantrum, and it spat black fluid at me. I triggered my magical shield, and there was a flash of sapphire light as the acidic spittle vaporized against it.
This proved to be my one and only sucker punch, because the next few spells I threw its way rolled off it like rainwater from the Lincoln’s hood after a good waxing. Flesh tore as insectile jaws extended farther from the human mask and snapped at me.
“Okay,” I said, “we’ll do an old-school beat-down.” I triggered my jump spell and leaped over the demon, twisting in the air and smashing the walking stick’s silver pommel down on the golden curls. The juice I channeled through it flashed with the impact, and it tore through the thin veil of skin and bone to burn the demon flesh beneath.
I landed in a crouch on the other side of the monster.
It reeled from the blow and then steadied itself. Its head whipped around and I heard that wet, chittering sound again. I hit my jump spell and leaped away as the black, acidic fluid sprayed across the rooftop.
“All movements go too far,” I said, but I didn’t cast the telekinesis spell at the demon. I tore the large air-conditioning unit loose from the roof and hurled it at the creature. It tried to evade the improvised projectile, but its midsection was smashed and pinned against the asphalt by the heavy machinery. I poured juice into the telekine sis spell, pressing down on the air conditioner with all the strength I could muster. I heard tiny bones snapping and the dry, brittle sound of chitin giving way.
I raced to the back of the building to where a second story extended above the lower roofline. I spun my jump spell and leaped up, and immediately spotted another air-conditioning unit identical to the first. “All movements go too far!” I shouted, and wrenched the machinery from its moorings. I lifted it high and sent it tumbling through the air until it was poised over the demon, and then I hammered it down on the thing’s head. There was a tremendous crash and black fluid squirted from beneath the crumpled metal.
The demon’s loathsome body wriggled and twitched, and I was all out of air conditioners. I jumped down to the lower roof and ran to the edge of the building. I spun the telekinesis spell again and picked up a VW Beetle parallel parked in front of the post. I lifted it into the air, flipped it around so the car roof was facing down, and then slammed it onto the demon’s writhing body. Then I lifted the car and did it again and again, until the VW was little more than a crumpled ball of metal and the demon had been reduced to black paste on the rooftop.
I ran over to Oberon and knelt beside him. Acid burns marred his beautiful, porcelain skin and one eye was a puckered ruin of angry, red flesh. “Oh, Jesus,” I whispered.
“King, I can’t heal this. I can give you some juice to numb the pain.”
“Help me up,” he rasped. “I am not dead, and thus I am not beaten.” He extended his hand and I took it, pulling him to his feet. He touched his face gingerly. “How does it look?”
“How does it feel?”
“Like someone dunked my head in Hell’s toilet, and flushed.”
“Looks about like it feels, then. Don’t worry, you’re still prettier than any man needs to be.” It was a lie-even the fairy king couldn’t make acid burns look good.
“Let’s finish this, Domino,” Oberon said.
I nodded. We turned and walked together to the edge of the building and looked out across the field. The better part of the battle was already finished. Mr. Clean had held the charm on my giant friend long enough for him to be attacked and slain by lesser demons, but he’d taken a lot of them with him. The bodies of fallen sidhe were scattered across our end of the battlefield, but the survivors had pressed forward with Adan, Terrence, Ismail Akeem and Amy Chen, and they’d joined forces with the piskies to slaughter the remaining demons.
Oberon and I jumped down and crossed the street, and then walked together side by side toward the fading battle. �
��It’s hard to imagine,” I said as I surveyed the carnage.
“Let me guess,” said Oberon. “This was just, what-perhaps fifty of the Fomoire? You’re trying to imagine what the next battle will look like, and the one after that.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “And I’m trying to imagine how we’ll stop them.”
“We will find new allies to fight beside us, Domino, and new weapons to wield against our enemies. In the end, we will fight and we will win, or we shall perish from this earth and all the worlds beyond. It has always been thus. Do not try to fight a battle before your enemy has taken the field.”
We joined our friends and fought with them until long after the sun had fallen into the sea. When it was over, twenty-five sidhe were dead and more piskies than I could count. All of my people were wounded, but miraculously, all of them were alive. Ismail Akeem had lost his left arm in the battle, but he’d replaced it with the ghostly apparition of a healthy arm. He said the new arm would be good for wrestling with spirits before he ate them.
Adan’s right leg had been shattered when a giant fell on him. Honey had used her healing glamour on him and he was able to walk. He insisted on staying with me, so I loaned him Papa Danwe’s walking stick.
“What’s next, Domino?” said Oberon.
“Round up your sidhe and sweep the area,” I said. “Make sure there are no more demons skulking about, and if there are, take care of them. Amy, Akeem-go with Oberon and lend whatever assistance you can.”
“What of the rest of you?” the king asked.
I looked over to where Jack hovered beside Honey. He nodded once. “We’re going for Francis Mobley,” I said. Adan, Terrence, the piskies and I left the park and walked south to Compton Boulevard. There was one more demon to face before we could rest. fifteen
We found Mobley in the Salvation Army building’s soup kitchen. It was pretty sorry as inner sanctums went, and overall just a less than dramatic spot to make your last stand. We’d run into some of the Jamaican’s gangsters in front of the building and a few more guarding the doors of the soup kitchen. None of them had put up much of a fight.
Francis Mobley’s dreads flowed from beneath a red, green, gold and black Rasta hat down his back and past his hips. A full, bushy beard concealed most of his face, and he wore a white silk suit with no shirt. He stood in the center of a pentacle that had been drawn on the tile floor with chalk, and black candles burned at the five points of the star. His body was rigid and shaking, as if he were in the grips of a seizure, and his eyes were rolled back in his head. His lips moved as he silently mouthed the words of an incantation.
As we approached, his eyes began to burn. White froth formed on his lips and soaked into his beard. One eye popped and was followed closely by the other, and flames licked out of the sockets. Mobley’s body relaxed. One hand reached up and wiped the white foam from his lips.
Valafar grinned at us. “I wasn’t sure he would do it,” he said. “I’ve been whispering in his ear, always whispering, warning him that he would not survive this meeting unless he opened himself to me. Oh, the others, sure, he agreed to let them use this wretched body long enough to crawl forth into this world, but me? I think some part of him always knew if I ever got inside and sank my teeth into his soul, I wouldn’t leave until there was nothing left of it to sustain me.”
“We knew you’d come,” I said. “No way you’d give up your gate without a fight.”
“Is that what this is, then? A fight? You would test your selves in battle against a Lord of Hell?” He turned up his hands and flames erupted from the palms.
“I heard you were more of a low-ranking general,” I said.
“But no, since you asked, we don’t think it’s going to be much of a fight.”
“No doubt you’re right about that,” the demon said, looking around, “unless you’ve brought your little army with you. In that case, we might have a bit of sport.”
“The truth is, we’re a lot alike,” I said. “Your people and mine, I mean.”
Valafar laughed. “You are no more than a pathetic parody of my race. You were given all the tools, sure, but that little seed of weakness was planted deep in your souls. Empathy, I think you call it, or conscience. Humanity,” he said, spitting the word like a curse. The forked tongue darted out and licked his lips. “Whatever you call it, I can tell you this much-it tastes delightful.”
“Yeah, just like us,” I continued. “Someone I know referred to us as a small measure of spirit imprisoned in flesh.
That was made really clear when the Xolos were taken and human souls were unable to escape their corpses. People like us, we need help dying. We can’t escape the prison on our own.”
“Fascinating,” Valafar said. “Would you care to die now?”
“You know the most horrible thing about the zombies? You’d think it would have been the cannibalism, but it wasn’t. The worst thing was they were just people. A lot of them didn’t even know they were dead.”
“Yes, well, humans are imbeciles.”
“It’s not that easy to tell, though, is it? The flesh is still animated and the soul endures. It’s an easy mistake to make.”
“For a human, I suppose.”
“Or the Firstborn,” I said. “We really are so much alike. That’s why I was so sure you’d crawl up inside Francis Mobley without ever realizing he was already dead.”
The fire in the demon’s eyes dimmed and the flames dancing on his upturned hands winked out. He looked down at Mobley’s body. “What…” he stammered. “How?”
Jack raised his hand and smiled.
I laughed. “The big fight at Wilson Park? That was just to get your attention and draw your demons away from Mobley. Just long enough for one of the King’s Knives to slip in here and do his work. It was quick and painless- Mobley didn’t even notice. I figured you’d be trapped, just like a human soul. I noticed you bailed pretty quick when I shot that preacher you possessed.”
“Clever, but so what?” Valafar spat. “Even trapped within this rotting meat, I will destroy you.”
“You probably could,” I said, “but we’re not going to have a fight.” I brought my fingers to my lips and whistled, and my Xolo padded into the room. He sat on his haunches beside me and looked up, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. In the mortal world, he had a family and a good home. He wore a collar and a dog tag. His name was Noe.
Valafar laughed. “That pathetic cur is no threat to me.”
I reached down and scratched Noe’s ears, and then I looked up at the demon. “He’s not here for you, Valafar,” I said. “He’s here for Mobley.” The Xolo barked once and leaped to his feet, and then he faded from view as he crossed over to the Between.
“No,” the demon said. His eyes flared and he backed away toward the far side of the circle. “It’s not…you can’t…”
“You said yourself, you’re just a parasite. I’m guessing you won’t last very long in there without a human soul to chew on.”
The demon threw back his head and howled, and then the burning orbs flickered out. Mobley’s human eyes stared sightlessly at us for a moment before he toppled over and fell facedown on the tile.
Honey flew to Jack and tackle-hugged him in midair. She tangled her fingers in his hair and kissed him long and hard. “My hero,” she whispered when she finally came up for air.
“Save it for the honeymoon,” I said. “We haven’t even had the wedding yet.”
On Honey’s insistence and with Stag’s grudging authorization, we held the ceremony at the Ashram. I argued we could find a good spot in L.A., and failing that we could always go to Vegas, but Honey wouldn’t hear of it. She said the Ashram was a sacred place; I wasn’t sure if that was because Hecate was there, whatever she was, or because Honey had a thing for New Age eastern mysticism. I guessed it was probably Hecate.
The location proved to be a logistical nightmare. The convergence of two major ley lines meant there was more than enough juice
for the Seelie Court, but there were enough dry spots in San Bernardino County they couldn’t just take the freeway. We had to build gates for them in the compound, and they had to make the trip through the Between.
Just about everyone I knew was at the wedding. The outfit represented, with Terrence, Chavez, Adan, Ismail Akeem and Amy Chen all attending. Shanar Rashan even returned from sabbatical in time to make the event, though I wasn’t sure how he’d heard about it. Oberon, Titania and representatives of the sidhe nobility attended. The king’s face was healed but he was wearing an eye patch. If anything, it made him look more charming and roguish than ever. Lowell and Granato were there. They were too busy worrying about what a fairy wedding celebration might do to government property to really have a good time. My mother attended, radiant in her simple yellow dress and white hat. Other than me, she was Honey’s closest friend in the mortal world and she wouldn’t have missed the wedding even if the zombie apocalypse had still been in full swing. Detective Meadows even showed up for the affair. She’d seen enough of the dark side of the underworld, and she deserved to see the wondrous and beautiful side for a change.
The wedding was strange in some ways and familiar in others. We all gathered in a large circle with the bride and groom at the center. Titania presided over the ceremony; she spoke in the language of the sidhe, so I didn’t know what words were said. I understood it, just the same. When it was over, Titania bound the piskies’ clasped hands together with a white and gold ribbon, and Jack and Honey kissed for the first time as husband and wife. Honey was so happy and Jack looked so proud, it made my heart swell, and I had to flow a little juice to keep the tears out of my eyes. That’s me-a hard case to the bitter end.
After the ceremony, there was food and drink and dancing. I danced with Adan for what seemed like hours, and we clung to each other without speaking. Later, I took a glass of champagne and walked alone through the grounds. I found Honey sitting on the branch of a tree with her back pressed against the trunk. She was crying.
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