by Kit Hallows
“Here,” Astrid conjured an orb of orange light and tossed it into the air. It hung there like a tiny sun, filling the room with light. I continued to leaf through the papers as she gathered file boxes from a storeroom and Samuel wandered out into the corridor.
None of the files in the boxes yielded anything of value. Most of the contents consisted of expense reports, inventory records, receipts and petty cash ledgers that drifted down through the decades. They ran the gambit from handwritten to typewritten, mimeographed to dot matrix. Now and then I spotted a long, looping blue signature. It was clearly signed by the same hand, but its curves were too faded to be legible. I glanced across the room to the shredder and the plastic bags beside it stuffed with twists of paper. Anything damning, useful or of value had most likely long since been removed, or destroyed. But all we needed was a clue, even if it was a crumb.
I checked a door in the corner of the office, it opened onto a makeshift break-room. A few mugs were scattered along the counter, their humorous slogans buried under layers of filth, and dingy notes with passive aggressive cleaning requests still clung to the wall from strips of ancient yellowed tape. I was turning to leave when I froze.
A small mirror hung beside the door and as I glanced at it, I almost cried out. A man stared back. A man that wasn’t me.
Stroud.
He wore the same wine-colored frock coat and his black hair fell to his shoulders. But his face seemed older than I remembered, his eyes aged, cruel and furious, his stare nothing short of pure, unbridled hatred.
I stood transfixed as his eyes bored into mine. My dark other stirred and rose through me, almost forcing me out of consciousness.
Stroud frowned and his expression turned from hatred to reappraisal.
The door swung open, blocking the mirror for a moment as Astrid walked in. “Are you alright, Morgan?”
Get out bitch
The words almost left my lips as my dark other seethed. He tried to force my gaze back to the mirror, but I grabbed a mug from the side and threw it at the glass, smashing Rowan Stroud into silver shards and splinters.
Astrid leaped back. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I…” I had to use everything at my disposal to suppress my other. “I don’t know what…I’m sorry.” I gazed at the shattered fragments of mirror on the floor, surreptitiously checking them for a sign of Stroud, but he was gone.
As Astrid continued to watch me her cold haughtiness returned, and she only glanced away when Samuel called out. “I think he’s found something,” she said and nodded for me to follow.
Slivers of the mirror crumbled under the soles of my shoes as we left the kitchen. What the hell had just happened? That connection between Stroud and my other… like they’d recognized the evil in each other? A chill shot through me, as I tried to set my concerns aside and return my focus to the task at hand.
Samuel was waiting anxiously out in the corridor. He led us to a spacious private office and rushed over toward a row of dark wooden bookcases lined the masonry wall behind an expensive-looking desk with a shredded leather chair.
“Watch!” Samuel said with a big grin. He tapped a brick beside the bookcase and a small panel slid open. “It was hidden well.” He pulled a metal box from the compartment and handed it to me. “But not well enough for me to miss it.”
With a snap of her fingers Astrid summoned the light she'd conjured as we’d searched the other office and it bobbed into the room. I opened the box and set it on the desk. Inside were bundles of letters tied with a crimson ribbon, and a handful of rose petals that crumbled as my fingers brushed them aside to remove the parcels. At the bottom was an old, washed out color snapshot, I took it out and held it up to the light.
A portly man in silver glasses and a pin-striped suit stared out at me, but my eyes were instantly drawn to the woman beside him. Somehow the image of her had remained in vivid color and I could tell the picture had been printed long before digital photography tricks were even so much as a pipe dream.
She wore a simple black dress and a double strand of pearls that held an iridescent glow. Her hair was a dappled shade of honey and fell luxuriantly to her shoulders while her eyes were a mixed shade of red and brown. They smoldered, captivating me and locking me into their gaze. I tried to look away, but it was impossible.
“A succubus,” Astrid said. Her thumb descended, blotting the woman’s face out as she plucked the photograph from my hand. I could see the man more clearly with the succubus obscured, his graying hair, doughy features and restless, piggy eyes. He smiled but there was no warmth or soul in the gesture. He just stood there, his face half turned toward the woman beside him. As if he couldn’t tear himself away from her. As if he’d been thoroughly bewitched.
I pulled the ribbon from the letters and began to glance through them. The slanted writing was almost uniform in its perfection, and even though the ink used to pen it had faded slightly with age, I could still read every word.
They were the love letters she’d written to him, Joseph Charrot. The name didn’t mean anything to me, and neither did the one signed at the end of each letter; Kitty Frostrup. Her script flowed like sweet wine, each line a testament of her love for Charrot. As if he were some kind of God or Emperor instead of a man of dough and pin stripes.
“What do they say?” Astrid asked.
“They’re love letters. The man, Charrot, was blinkered and Kitty Frostrup was the succubus. It seems he owned this place, inherited it from his father. From what I can tell he’d built it to help people, the sick and weary. Charrot followed in his father’s footsteps, for a while at least. My guess is Frostrup was sent to sway him, and re-purpose the asylum to house the portal.”
“Well, I’m no expert,” Samuel said, “but all this stuff looks pretty old.”
“It is. I’m guessing by the photographs it’s from the eighties,” I said, “and by the age of Charrot in that picture there’s a good chance he’s already taking a dirt nap, so we’re probably out of luck there.”
“Quite,” Samuel agreed, “Unless you have a way of waking the dead?”
I shook my head. “Not a chance” My last foray into the world of the dead, had been more than enough, not to mention the black crystals it had taken to get me there. “but the succubus, she might still be around.”
“Indeed,” Astrid said, “they don’t age like blinkereds.”
I slipped the letters into my pocket. “Can you hang on to the picture for me?” I asked Astrid.
“Sure. Why?”
“Because we’re going to need it, and you seem to be immune to its charms. I know a succubus that might be able to help us identify her. She’s one of the good ones. Or at least as good as you can get, with their kind. Maybe she’ll-”
I paused and Astrid spun toward the door as the sharp sound of knocking stones echoed in the murky corridor outside.
11
“What is it?” Astrid asked.
“No idea,” I said, as the knocking intensified. I stepped out and swept my flashlight toward the opening at the end of the corridor. Plaster and masonry littered the floor where part of the ceiling had fallen in and the doors leading to the yawning black darkness beyond had long been wrenched off their hinges.
Tap. Tap, tap.
Clack.
Tap. Tap.
Clack, clack, clack.
It grew faster, then slower, and then stopped. We made our way toward it, Astrid’s orb of light bobbing along behind us, casting long, ominous shadows. She sent it into the room ahead, and it fizzled over me, throwing orange light over the floor as it led the way.
Judging by the tattered sofas and amateurish paintings on the walls, the room had once served as some kind of recreational space. I swept my flashlight toward the tapping as it resumed, illuminating the source.
A demon. Wiry with a mop of greasy mustard-yellow hair and golden scaly flesh, his eyes fizzled with bright silver light when they met mine and he smiled widely as he continued to knock two round
pebbles together. Then he glanced at the heap of stones and fallen plaster beside him.
I pulled my gun and Samuel notched an arrow, while Astrid stood her ground, dagger in hand.
“Stop,” I called.
“Stop what?” the demon asked, his voice high and wheedling. He licked his lips with a forked tongue and knocked the pebbles together once more.
I closed in, my gun trained on him. “Stop with the pebbles.”
“These?” he asked, holding them up. “Okay.” He dropped them and slowly, almost theatrically, reached into the pocket of his faded corduroy jacket and pulled out a glowing spark. “You want me to drop this too?” He tossed it aside before I could answer and the little spark bounced across the floor and vanished into the piles of rubble.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
“Life.” His smile danced upon his lips. “Death.”
“Were you watching us upstairs?” I wanted to shoot the piece of shit there and then, but we needed answers.
“Indeed,” he said, “As I was when you last entered the old master’s chamber. You're the one who destroyed the portal, are you not?”
“You were there?” I asked.
“Oh yes! I saw everything, the hexling, the fights that still haunt you, the black fire and the blood you spilled.” He paused to cackle and shake a finger at me. “You became quite the demon when you slaughtered all and sundry that day.” His gaze fell to the floor as the spark he’d dropped cracked, buzzed and pulsed with life. A tiny whirlwind of dust rose from the pile and slowly, it built momentum, getting faster and faster. The surrounding stones and debris were drawn up around it and formed a stony grey mass.
“What have you done?” I trained the gun back on the demon.
“I made a new friend for you.” He tugged his greasy forelock, stepped into the gloom and vanished from sight. Astrid sent the orb of light after him and it illuminated the shadowy walls and an open trapdoor in the ceiling. A pair of silver eyes blinked down at us, and then they were gone.
I glanced to the strange whirling debris, it had grown in mass, pulling in stones one by one and piling each upon the other.
“What is that?” Samuel joined me as I began to kick the stones away but as soon as they came to a stop on the grey linoleum floor they shuttered and swept back toward the pile. Dust swept up in torrents as the stones clacked together, almost blinding us. I threw my hands over my eyes as a gale surged and forced me back, then it slowed enough for me to peer between my fingers.
A huge, grey stone creature towered over us. Its bright red eyes stared down from dim hollows and its jagged mouth was lined with sawtooth shards of stone. A dusty cloud swirled at the center of its chest and within it sat the spark that had given the monster its life.
“What in the hell are we supposed to do now?” Samuel shouted as the creature lumbered forward, its head brushing the ceiling.
Before I could answer, it swung a fist and sent me flying back into the wall. Picture frames flapped and fell around me as I slid down and lay there, the air knocked from my lungs.
Samuel let an arrow fly. It struck one of the creature’s eyes and it howled. With long stone fingers, it reached up and plucked the arrow out, reducing the orb from fiery red to milky blue.
I staggered to my feet as the creature roared and a surge of dust rippled back through the room in a wave. It lunged at Samuel. He darted away but the edge of its fist caught him, and he flew across the room, crashing through a card table.
Astrid was little more than a shadow, moving with such speed I could barely follow her. She leaped upon the creature’s back, reached over and plunged a dagger into the hollow where its heart was. It lurched forward, flipped her off its back and onto the ground and gave a loud, rumbling bellow before stomping toward her.
I leaped in front of Astrid and swung my sword at its throat. Sparks flew and the sword of intention blazed, but didn’t leave a scratch. Then the creature lashed out with a fist.
My coat saved me from the worst of the blow, but the momentum threw me to the ground. The creature lumbered toward me and raised a foot to bring down upon my head. I rolled across the floor as the huge stone mass crashed beside me, smashing a hole through the floor.
Samuel loosed another arrow, striking its remaining eye. There was no pain in the creature’s howl; just pure, unadulterated fury.
I scrambled to my feet as it pummeled its fists against its chest like an ape, and produced a rolling boom like muted thunder.
Samuel shot again, his arrow quickening towards the spark in its heart. The creature snatched the arrow from the air before it could strike and threw it down. How? It had no eyes… my gaze drifted to the hole on the side of its head.
It could hear. That was its strength, not its sight.
I snatched stones from the debris and ran toward the hulking mass. It swung its fist, but I dived down, skidding across the floor on my knees.
It grabbed me and I let it haul me up toward the shards in its mouth. Then I clapped the stones to the side of its head, thrusting them as far as they’d go.
The creature dropped me and reached up to its ears as I rolled across the floor. “Your blade’s beside you” Samuel called from across the room.
I leaped to my feet, seized the sword of intention from the floor and thrust it into the creatures chest, pinning the spark with the tip of my blade. “End!”
A final cry broke from its stony throat and as it lunged forward the sword roared with flames, enveloping its life-giving spark. It fell to its knees and wavered there for a moment before tumbling apart in an avalanche of stones and dust.
12
“Well, that was something new and fun,” Samuel said, as he glared at the rocks and dust.
“Yeah, I can’t say I’ve ever run into one of those before,” I sighed. “Anyone got the slightest idea what in the hell it was?”
“Hostile,” Astrid said, with a rare smile. “And now dead.”
Samuel glanced to the trapdoor in the ceiling. “You want to find its maker?”
I shook my head. “No point. It probably knows this place like the back of its maggot-infested hands. I doubt we’d find it now.” As I thought of the demon, I thought of Stroud. I had little doubt he’d posted it here.
“What’s wrong?” Astrid asked.
“Uh. Stroud. He was here.”
“Where?”
“The mirror in that little room. I only saw him for a moment…”
“The mirror you smashed?” Astrid demanded.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I should have said something at the time.”
“Yes, so why didn’t you?” Astrid’s eyes blazed at me. “We’re supposed to be working together. That’s what you said.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I was unnerved by it, but I’m telling you about it now. It was weird. My other seemed to recognize him and Stroud seemed to recognize him too. How can that be possible?”
“You’ve seen him before. Right here, in this building,” Samuel said.
“I did, but my other wasn’t present for the confrontation, not until the end. He only rose to the surface after I tapped into this place’s energy. That’s when he summoned the black fire that destroyed the portal as Stroud fled. They didn’t have time to focus on each other, not really, but when their eyes met in the mirror just now…”
“What?” Astrid began watching me closely.
It took me a moment to realize I’d been lost in my thoughts. “They truly seemed to see each other.”
“Ask him what he knows about Stroud,” Samuel suggested.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “He comes and goes, wakes and sleeps, or does whatever the hell he does when he’s not present. I can’t access his thoughts and he can’t access mine. It’s like we’re two people stuck in the same room, but in this case it’s body and mind. We only really seem to come together when we’re in mortal danger.” I looked from Samuel to Astrid. “The first time I met Stroud he said I was familia
r to him. What did he mean?”
“Well, we're certain that you’re originally from Penrythe, even if you can’t remember it. Maybe you encountered him there?” Samuel suggested.
“Maybe.” I glanced at the stone creature’s remains. “We should get out of here before the demon returns, who knows what else it’s got up its sleeve. Let’s go talk to Glory. We could do with some sunshine in our lives.”
We left the room. “I’m sorry,” I said as Astrid passed me.
“I know,” she smiled, but it was half hearted and short lived. We left the asylum and recast the binds I’d removed from its doors. “Wait up, one last thing” Samuel said, as he added a magical booby trap for the demon lurking within the building, in case it tried to undo the spell. “There you go little guy.”
As soon as we got near the car I called Glory.
Heavy bass boomed in the background and she answered with a shout. “Morgan?”
“Yeah. How’s tricks?”
“Good. But I’m guessing this isn’t a social call, it’s almost five am.”
“I’m sad to say it, but you’re right. I’m on the trail of a succubus by the name of Kitty, ever heard of her?”
Glory paused and if it wasn’t for the rattling thud of the music, I might have thought she’d gone. “Meet me,” she said. “I’m close to our bridge. I’ll meet you there at dawn.”
I hung up and grabbed a couple of crystals so I could place a quick spell over our stolen car, in case it had been reported missing. Now, any blinkereds that spotted it would see just about any color and model combination other than the one it actually was.
“So we’re off to meet a succubus,” Samuel rubbed his hands together as he climbed into the passenger seat, and Astrid sat in the back. “I’ve never seen one in the flesh.”
“Glory’s cool,” I said, “we’ve helped each other out over the years, quite a few times actually.” I peered into the mirror and met Astrid’s gaze. “She and Tom were good friends.”
“Then I’m sure she’s perfectly pleasant, despite their reputations.” Astrid glanced at Samuel. “Just watch yourself, you know how easily swayed you are.”
