“Never!” Theo growled defiantly, momentarily winning control of his vocal cords. Then, his body jerked again, and his face went blank.
“And when you die of the wretched mortal illness, who will guard your staff then?”
When Theo did not respond, the inhuman voice, speaking from his tortured windpipe rasped out: “What of the rest of you? Will you allow the Demonslayer to speak for you? Or will you chose the wiser path?”
“We stand united,” Erasmus replied airily.
“Pity,” replied the terrible voice. “Prepare yourselves, Spawn of the Dread Prospero, to join your father in Hell!”
It was about to begin. Closing my eyes, I prayed to my Lady for instructions. Her response was immediate: Act now!
I blew softly, so that the sound of it was barely audible to my ear. Even at this low volume, the flute’s lilting voice lifted my spirits, stirring hope and confidence. I noted this with trepidation, hoping it were not some false, unholy emotion, the work of the demon imprisoned inside the instrument.
The crack of the gunfire shook the chandelier. My heart in my throat, I peered over the banister, still playing. Below, I saw the faint shimmering where the cushion of air was still taking shape and the brown fur of Logistilla’s bear. The big brute had leapt in front of Theo! The bullet intended for my brother’s brain buried itself in the fatty flesh of the bear’s left flank.
The creature roared with pain but did not falter. It charged forward, its huge claws extended toward Baelor’s distorted face. Unruffled, the demon gestured. Osae transformed into a bear again and lumbered forward to tackle it.
The two beasts fought, ripping at one another’s flesh and gripping each other in bone-crushing hugs. Logistilla’s was larger and seemed to be the better fighter; however, Osae the Bear had a distinct advantage, as he was not suffering from a gun wound.
From here, at the railing, I could see my siblings again. While the bears fought, pearly green light from the top of Logistilla’s staff illuminated Baelor’s face. His features began to melt and change. Logistilla gave a triumphant laugh. Her laughter died abruptly, however, when her staff went dark, and his features stabilized, returning to their former cast.
“How dare you!” Logistilla cried, shaking her staff. “I did not issue that command!”
Around Baelor, the shards of scattered ice sculpture melted into puddles and evaporated in puffs of steam. The duck pâté became tiny piles of dust on a tarnished silver tray. Black rot ate away at the ballroom floor, and the air reddened as the very light began to age. On the table, Baelor’s turban and robes rotted to rags. The flesh of his face began to wither.
“That’s the way, Erasmus!” Logistilla cheered. “Get him!”
As Erasmus advanced, dodging the brawling bears, the gray blur of the Staff of Decay humming in his Urim gauntlet, the demon’s face grew more emaciated. His deformed eyes withered in their sockets, becoming first prunelike, then raisinlike. What had been his flesh cracked and began raining down upon the table. Beneath, where his face had been, glittered a golden death mask, such as the pharaohs wore as they slept within their tombs. The rotten rags of his garments ripped and swirled, until they hugged his body like a mummy’s wrappings, and a horrible, nauseating imitation of laughter that made my hair stand on end issued from Theo’s throat.
“The Lords of Hell trapped in your staffs—Great Marquis Oriax and Great Duke Vepar—hear my voice in their minds and recall their true loyalties. Your staves will not avail you against me.”
The hum of the Staff of Decay fell silent. Erasmus cursed and leapt backward to avoid being crushed by the wrestling bears. Ever fastidious, Erasmus stopped to wave his staff once more to restore the blackened ballroom floor to its pristine polished state, before retreating behind the shimmer of my now fully formed wall of air. The staff hummed again as he did this; apparently the demon within did not object to ballroom restoration.
An enormous crash shook the hall, taking both Baelor and Erasmus by surprise. The fighting bears had collided with the great grandfather clock and sent it spinning to its doom. Splinters, glass, and tiny gold springs scattered across the floor. Stepping on the debris, Osae the Bear cut the pad of his foot and fell.
“So much for marking the New Year,” murmured Erasmus. “Ah, well. ‘Timor mortis conturbat me.’”
Osae the Bear remained where he had fallen, blinking his great bear eyes in confusion, until Baelor fixed his horrible eye on Cornelius’s staff.
Theo’s voice rasped: “Of all the staves Prospero wrought, the great Marquis Paimon, who dwells within the STAFF OF PERSUASION, is most accessible to me, for he and I hail from the same Infernal House.”
Again, Theo’s vocal chords issued a rasping mockery of laughter not proper for a human voice. Baelor now addressed the demon in Cornelius’s staff directly.
“Paimon, my old adversary, how pleasing to see you trapped. How paradoxical that you, who were once so great, now must depend upon me, who was once your lowly servitor. I bask in the irony. Even when you are restored to your high estate, the knowledge will always goad you, like an eternal thorn in your side, that you were once reduced to this.”
Freed from Cornelius’s spell, Osae the Bear now leapt up and rushed the other bear, his bulk altering to that of a rhinoceros as he charged. Logistilla’s bear was thrown some distance, sliding across the floor into the champagne fountain, which tumbled forward, showering his thick fur with bubbly and glass. He twitched, but did not rise. Logistilla’s hands flew to her mouth, and she screamed.
Baelor spoke again.
“Even before Prospero opened the gate for us, Paimon heeded Hell. Through him, we have influenced those around you for centuries, imprudent Cornelius, feeding upon their greed, their malice, their fear. At our Great One’s command, Paimon woke and worked the entirety of his will upon your brother Theophrastus, when that one stared into the staff’s heart and made his rash vow. Oh, the beauty of that! How satisfying to watch Theophrastus the Demonslayer—whom none of us could touch—destroy himself. A pity for him that he has learned of this, his folly, too late.”
And he fired at Theo’s head.
The bullet shot through the air, struck my airy shield, and ricocheted sideways, hitting one of the great arched windows.
I had saved him. I had saved Theo!
My glee was short-lived, as the meaning of Baelor’s late words began to sink in. The demons woke up Cornelius’s staff? They used it to enchant Theo? They made him keep his vow to give up magic—to give up the Water of Life—against his will?
Theo’s desire to give up magic, so as to get into Heaven, was an attack from Hell? How ironic. Ironic and horrible.
This terrible revelation had one tiny silver lining. Finally, there was an enemy; someone responsible for the harm done to my brother. Someone we, as a family, could gather to smite!
We just needed to discover the identity of Baelor’s “Great One.”
As everyone else looked toward the broken window, crashed in a shower of tinkling glass, Baelor’s blank golden mask faced the air wall and then turned up toward the flute and me. As his gaze fell upon me, I was struck with a wave of pure hatred. I leapt back around the corner, still playing.
From below, Theo’s inhumanly harsh voice called, “Great King Vinae, turn your wrath against your captors.”
King Vinae. That was the name Seir had used to address the demon within my flute. Alarmed, I realized that, to quote Job, the thing which I had greatly feared had come upon me. The flute, upon which I had lavished so much of my life’s love and affection, was about to betray me. Could it command the Aerie Ones to rend us? Or would its betrayal be more direct? A picture sprang to mind of jagged spikes jutting from the instrument and piercing my mouth and hands.
Terrified, I nearly threw it from me, but the calm steady presence of my Lady stayed my hand. Heart hammering, I commended my soul to Eurynome and continued to play, though whether it did any good, whether the airy shield still held, I could n
ot see.
Below, a startled hiss escaped Theo’s tortured throat. “What is this? Ophion? Serpent of the Winds, how came you here?”
Ophion? The King of Air? The Great Serpent of the Wind who had danced with Eurynome in the Void to bring order out of Chaos? Was he here? I searched the ballroom, moving my head carefully as I played, but saw no great wind, or any sign of a newcomer.
To whom was Baelor speaking?
A picture came to my mind of an empty pedestal. Ophion had not been in the Elemental Chamber with the other kings. I had assumed that Father had squirreled him away somewhere, but what if I were wrong?
Seir! I had assumed he appeared in the chamber after we did, taking advantage of the hole we made in the wards. But if he had come in the little ivory door, there was no saying how long he might have been there. Could Seir have spirited away Ophion before Caurus and I arrived? If so, how could we possibly face the King of the Air and survive without the full cooperation of my flute?
From below, the harsh, inhuman voice continued: “Serpent of the Winds! Why do you defy me? Surely you cannot desire to help your captors! How came you to be trapped here, and where is Great Vinae? No matter. Exert yourself, King of the Air! Seize control of the STAFF OF WINDS!”
Slowly, my eyes dropped to the four feet of polished pine I held between my fingers. It could not be, and yet . . .
As is the way with Handmaidens, I knew suddenly: the Serpent of the Winds was here, imprisoned within my flute. For over five hundred years, my Lady’s consort had been my constant companion, bound in this piece of pine. No wonder I was not yet a Sibyl! Why had she never asked me to set him free?
A sharp burst of joy dispelled my confusion. My beloved flute! It was not—it never had been—a demon!
Silence brought me back to myself. In my amazement, I had ceased playing. Horrified, I resumed immediately, but the damage had been done. As I ran to the rail, flute at my lips, I saw an opening in the shimmering wall of air. Baelor saw it, too. He raised his gun, taking aim.
Everything happened in a blink of an eye, though, to me, time appeared to move very slowly. As Baelor raised his arm, a figure leapt silently into the air at the far side of the table. This lithe acrobat flew across the table, somersaulting in midair as he approached the demon. A rippling greatcoat flowed about his body, and one hand held tight to a black cavalier’s hat with a great blue plume.
Gliding smoothly past the chandelier, he landed on the long table with catlike grace. From under his greatcoat, he drew a saber. In one fluid motion, he lunged and sliced the demon’s gun hand from its wrist, just as the demon was pulling the trigger.
The gun fired high. As the hand flew away from Baelor’s body, trailing a stream of black ichor, the swordsman continued forward. The tip of his sword slid through the tiny eye slit in the golden mask and pierced the spot where the great Baleful Eye had been, before Erasmus rotted his human face. The demon let out a piercing scream.
“Aroint thee, Fiend, and return to the fiery pit from whence thou came!” cried the swordsman in an Elizabethan English accent, and he drove the point of his weapon through the demon’s skull.
“By Setabos and Titania!” Mab cried softly, loosening one earplug. “Who in tarnation is that?”
The swordsman stood up, and I saw his face. My heart leapt. From below, I heard Logistilla’s giggle of surprised delight.
“The Greatest Swordsman in all Christendom!” I laughed, leaning over the balcony rail and waving my flute back and forth triumphantly. “My brother Mephistopheles.”
“That’s the Harebrain?” Mab gasped. He peered down at the studied calm of the swordsman’s face. “Guess you’re right. The features are the same, but the expression’s different. He looks . . . focused.”
“That’s the real Mephisto . . . the sane one.”
Mab pushed his earplug back into his ear, muttering: “Must be the hat!”
The instant Baelor’s hand was parted from his body, Erasmus’s men grabbed their weapons. As my brother Mephisto leapt lightly from the table, tossing aside his feathered hat, they fired at the mummified demon. The report of the guns was like a symphony played in thunder. The floor where Mab and I stood trembled. I grabbed the lintel of the door, afraid that the balcony might collapse.
Baelor’s body fell backward, twisting and flopping. Osae the Rhinoceros had been charging Logistilla’s bear, who was slowly climbing back to his feet. Upon seeing Baelor’s fate, the rhino turned and fled. He charged the wide windows, crashing through the glass and thundering onto the snowy lawn, where he transformed into some flying beast and escaped into the night.
Below, Mephisto was sitting on the long dining table, gazing about in a confused haze. Theo grabbed him and shouted something in his ear. I could not hear his words over the thunder of the guns, but I could see Mephisto mouthing the words “Bully Boy” as he gestured with his staff. Moments later, I began to imagine what it would look like if a large dark-haired man stood near my brothers. Then, I was not just imagining him, he was there: an enormous fellow with wide shoulders like a blacksmith, dressed in an inexpensive suit jacket, a clean white shirt, and a pair of new blue jeans. He looked about in undisguised surprise.
Mephisto shouted something into the ear of his “Bully Boy,” and the huge man ran up the staircase, taking the stairs three at a time. He soon reappeared with the old battered trunk I had used for a seat back in Theo’s living room. Hurrying down, he dropped the trunk at Theo’s feet. With some difficulty, Theo bent down and opened it with a key he wore on a ribbon around his neck.
Inside the cedar-lined trunk lay all Theo’s discarded treasures: his Toledo steel sword, his breastplate of shining Urim, his enchanted goggles, and, lying upon a pillow of crimson velvet, the Staff of Devastation. No wonder my brother had cringed when I chose that trunk as my seat back at his farm in Vermont. I remembered how he had started toward his house more than once when trying to decide how to dispose of the body of Osae the Bear. He must have been debating whether or not to fetch his staff.
The Staff of Devastation was a gleaming length of white metal in two parts. Kneeling before the trunk, Theo screwed the parts together, and then twisted the wide ring that circled the top of the upper portion. The metallic length began to hum with a noise like a dynamo. Resting it upon his shoulder, as one might a rifle, he pointed the nozzle at the jerking body of the mind-reading demon.
“Wait!” screamed Erasmus. “For God’s sake! Not in the house!”
At Erasmus’s orders, several of his men ran forward and dragged Baelor’s body out through the window Osae had broken. Theo followed, striding grimly behind him, his staff humming upon his shoulder. He put on his enchanted goggles, which looked like something out of a 1940s comic book, and tapped the right corner, adjusting them. Each time he touched the control, the lenses changed color. I recognized some of the settings: gold for spirit sight; blue for eagle vision; silver for night vision. Others, I did not know.
Erasmus’s men put the body down in the snow, some fifty feet from the house, and scattered like antelopes before a lion. Stepping out through the pieces of broken window, Theo set his feet, took aim, and fired.
The resulting explosion lit the night with the brilliance of a small sun. For a time, it was too bright to even glance that way. Its light illuminated the fields to the river. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of the steeples of Boston. Then, the explosion died away, leaving a crater of burnt earth and fused glass, bare of grass or snow.
“There,” Theo said with grim satisfaction. His voice sounded hoarse and scratchy, but at least it was his own again. He twisted the top ring, and his staff fell quiet. “He won’t be bothering us again any time soon.”
“Wow!” whispered Mab, blinking his eyes from the brightness. “That was . . . wow!”
Mab and I came down the stairs and joined Erasmus, Cornelius, Logistilla, Mephisto, and Mephisto’s Bully Boy, where they gathered by the broken window. We stood silently, surrounded by Orbis Suleiman
i agents, staring at the smooth crater where the demon had just been. A few of the agents began cautiously moving forward, guns drawn, to examine the crater and to confirm that no sign of the demon remained. Meanwhile, Logistilla began to fuss over Theo, who pushed her away, declaring in a hoarse croak that he was fine and did not need coddling.
Watching them, I recalled a youthful Theo exhibiting the same bothered expression as a younger Logistilla fussed over his war wounds after each campaign. I smiled, relieved that serving as the demon’s voice piece seemed to have done my brother no lasting harm.
Heavy footsteps drew my attention, and I saw, to my great delight, Logistilla’s brave bear. The great beast came lumbering up behind us, limping and wet.
“Ah, Titus!” murmured Cornelius, as the pondering footsteps came to a rest beside him. “You’ve come to join us at last! I had been worried about you, old friend.”
Erasmus and I both laughed at his expense, our one moment of camaraderie in this tense, hectic day.
“Your legendary hearing has betrayed you, Brother,” Erasmus stated good-naturedly. “You have mistaken a beast for a brother.”
Cornelius reached out a hand and felt the blood-matted fur of the bear. He frowned. His soft voice gained a dangerous edge.
“Logistilla?” he asked. “What have you done?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Logistilla asked with a shrill little laugh.
“Turn him back,” said Cornelius.
“Cornelius,” I began, “that isn’t Titus. That is Logistilla’s bear . . . one of her clients.”
“Turn him back,” ordered Cornelius again, ignoring me.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Logistilla insisted.
Cornelius raised his staff. The amber stone gleamed. His voice grew sterner. “Turn him back!” he commanded.
Logistilla’s eyes became unfocused, and she obediently tapped her staff upon the floor.
Prospero in Hell Page 22
