"Hey, big boy!" a familiar voice called.
Squire crawled out from the darkness beneath the BMW fifteen feet away. The goblin looked tired.
"Where the hell have you been, munchkin?" Eve snapped at him.
Squire shot her the middle finger. "Busy. Now, listen. I just shadow-walked back to the Ferricks'. Conan Doyle wants us all to meet up with him in front of the State House, as soon as we can get there."
"Glad to hear it," Clay called, turning round and round, ready to tear into the zombies that surrounded him. "How did you plan to get us there?"
The goblin put his hands on his hips, the ugly, twisted little beast looking almost comical. "The limo's right around the corner, smartass," he said, pointing just up the street. "I've got to get back to Conan Doyle."
And then Squire dove back into the darkest of shadows beneath the BMW, barely avoiding the grasp of a dead girl who could not have been more than eighteen when she breathed her last.
Clay glanced around at the zombies that were closing in on him, clutching the skull of Eogain in one hand.
"Wonderful."
Mr. Doyle buttoned his jacket, smoothed his mustache with fingers crackling with magic, and gazed down his ample nose at Danny Ferrick.
"I think not, Daniel."
Anger flared in the demon-boy's features. His chapped, leathery skin flushed with color and tiny embers burned in eyes turned to charcoal. Then he shook his head and despite his devilish features, Conan Doyle could see the boy in that face again.
"Listen, Mr. Doyle, I know what you're worried about. I know what you think. My mother…" Danny glanced over at Julia, at the woman he had always thought of as his mother, and there was sadness and apology in his gaze. "My mother doesn't want to accept it, but I know what I am. You're not wrong about that.
"But you're wrong about me.
"Maybe my blood is a demon's blood. Maybe I'm not human. But this is my world. This is my house. I'm still Dan Ferrick. I still… I still love my mother, and my friends." He glanced at Julia again, but then he turned his tumultuous eyes upon Conan Doyle.
"I can feel the darkness in me. It's in my head sometimes. And it's in my heart. I laugh at things I shouldn't. Sometimes I want to.. hurt people. But I know it, Mr. Doyle. And I keep it reined in. The darkness. That's got to count for something. I'm not going to let it control me. And if I'm going to be able to fight it, you have to give me the chance to do it for real, not just on the inside. You don't have a clue what it's like to be me. To live now. Yeah, you're alive, but you grew up so long ago you might as well be from Mars for all you know. You know all this stuff about magic and other worlds. Whatever. You don't know much about this one. So you can't know me, or what I've got going on in here." He pounded a fist against his chest.
"I'm not gonna let the darkness win. Not inside, or out. So I need to be part of this. To remind me, all the time, what I'm fighting against."
Mr. Doyle took a long breath and let it out slowly. He pulled his pocket watch out by its chain, glanced at the time, and then slipped it back in. They had to go. There was no more time for discussion.
Julia must have seen it in his face, for she began to shake her head, her breath coming faster, in sharp hitches. "No. Not my boy," she said. Then she turned to her son. "You're wrong, Danny. Maybe part of you is what he says. But there isn't… I won't believe there's some kind of evil in you."
"That's just your mouth talking, Mom," Danny said softly. "You know what's true. I know you do."
The two of them were gazing at one another, Julia's heart breaking, when there was a soft whisper of noise, like the ocean in the distance. It ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but Conan Doyle glanced around, recognizing the sound.
Squire emerged from the shadows beneath the coffee table into the flickering candlelight.
"Brought them the limo, and the message," he reported.
"Thank you, Squire," Conan Doyle said. Then he nodded toward Julia. "Now, if you'll keep Mrs. Ferrick company, young Daniel and I have an appointment to keep."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eve drove wildly down Beacon Street; wielding the limousine like a weapon of war, running down the bothersome dead, crushing them beneath its wheels. She couldn't have even begun to describe the satisfaction she felt.
"Tell me again why we let you drive?" Clay asked from the backseat, as the corpulent body of a naked man suddenly covered the windshield, pale rolls of decaying flesh pressed against the glass, obscuring what little they could see of the road ahead.
"Think of it as a reward for the good job you did in finding the Eye," Eve said, swerving the car in an attempt to dislodge their passenger. The zombie held on, its nubby, yellow teeth scraping the glass as it attempted to bite its prey.
"Fat son of a bitch," she growled. "How am I supposed to see what I'm hitting?"
Graves did not precisely sit, but rather lingered in the passenger seat beside her. Now the ghost leaned forward and reached through the windshield, his ectoplasmic arm easily passing through the glass and then through the chest of the obese man on the hood of the car. The animated corpse went rigid as Graves tore out its imprisoned soul, the spiritual essence writhing and wailing in his grasp. Graves let the soul swim free, but the corpse remained on the windshield.
"Great," Eve barked. "First I had a living dead guy blocking my view and now it's just a dead guy. That's such an improvement." Steering the car with one hand, she fumbled for her seatbelt. "This calls for drastic measures," she said, as she snapped her restraints into place. She shot Clay a glance in the rearview mirror. "Buckle up."
"What are you going to do?" He knitted his brows, clutched the mummified head of Eogain protectively beneath his arm, and struggled to strap himself in.
Eve pressed down on the accelerator, rocketing down Beacon through the blood-red mist. She watched the speedometer climb past eighty, feeling the car shimmy and shake, listening to the bumps and thumps, as it obliterated the obstacles in its path.
"Eve?" Clay asked again.
"That oughta do it," she hissed, squeezing the steering wheel in both hands.
She could feel Graves' cold, spectral stare upon her. "Perhaps you should slow down before — "
Eve stomped on the brake. The abrupt stop at that speed threw her forward. In the back, Clay grunted as he, too, was caught by his seatbelt. Graves was entirely unaffected. He studied her with cold detachment as the brakes screamed and the car fishtailed, spinning them completely around. But Eve had accomplished what she'd set out to do. The fat corpse flew off the hood of the limo, a missile of decaying flesh that collided with other shambling dead walkers, clearing a path through them.
"Extreme, but effective," Graves said, unruffled, floating just above the passenger seat.
Eve grinned as she banged a U-turn in the center of Beacon Street, crushing more of the dead beneath the wheels. "That's me in a nutshell."
The dead staggered through the blood-red fog. Some of them sensed the presence of the living and began to move toward the State House. On the steps of that grand structure, Conan Doyle tugged out his pocket watch and checked the time, wanting nothing more than to begin their attack, to get back into his home and discover whether or not Ceridwen still lived. He cursed under his breath and clicked the watch cover shut, then glanced out across Boston Common, ignoring the dead.
Danny Ferrick stood beside him on the stone steps. "Holy shit. Zombies," the boy said. "Real zombies. I mean, you did notice the zombies, right?"
The boy's voice cracked fearfully, but he held his ground as the walking dead began to ascend the steps toward them.
"Yes. I noticed them," Conan Doyle replied. He allowed himself a small smile. Danny was a brave boy. The rotting carcasses of these decrepit creatures had been returned to life against their will. Conan Doyle thought that perhaps when his own time came, at last, when the herbs and magicks of Faerie would no longer keep him alive, it might be best to be cremated.
The scent of the dead, the
stink of grave rot, assailed his nostrils as they moved closer. Close enough that Conan Doyle could see the maggots that squirmed in their decaying flesh.
"Stand close to me, boy," he told Danny, and he extended his arms, pointing his open palms toward the advancing cadavers.
The spell flowed from his lips in guttural Arabic. Symbols etched in purple fire swirled up from his hands, increasing in number and size, flowing in a crackling wave toward the dead things upon the stairs.
One moment they were ascending and the next, as the fiery sigils touched them, they were no more, their decaying flesh and bone turned to trails of oily black smoke that became lost in the churning, scarlet mist.
"Damn, Mr. Doyle. That is wicked cool. Do you think I could ever learn to do something like that?" Daniel asked with admiration.
"Could you learn?" Conan Doyle repeated, "Yes. Will I ever teach you? I seriously doubt it."
"Why not?" the demon boy asked. "Afraid I'm going to use my super powers for evil or something?"
Conan Doyle simply stared at the boy. He could feel the arcane energies still coursing through his body, leaking from his eyes. And within Daniel Ferrick, he could sense an altogether different brand of Arcanum. "There is nothing at all amusing about that, young man. Do not make me doubt my decision to include you in this endeavor. We'll discuss your place in the greater scheme of things another time."
The boy avoided eye contact, choosing to look everywhere but at him. Conan Doyle watched at Danny's gaze grew wide and he pointed down the steps at the sidewalk below.
"There're more of them," the boy said.
Conan Doyle saw that he was right. More of the dead were appearing out of the mist, approaching the steps.
"Lots more," Danny added, his voice a rasp.
The corpses ambled out of the concealing fog, up onto the sidewalk and through the open gate that encircled the statehouse steps. One of the dead, little more than dirt-covered bones, tilted back its eyeless head and opened its mouth in a silent scream. Rich black earth, rife with squirming life, spilled from its gaping maw, and Conan Doyle prepared to summon another incantation to defend against this latest incursion.
He never released the spell. Just as he was about to raise his hands again, there came the shriek of rubber on pavement and the roar of an engine, and his limousine erupted from the bloodstained night, riding up over the curb onto the sidewalk, colliding with the zombie horde, splintering bones and scattering bits of their decaying corpses.
"Sweet," Danny said as the limo came to screeching halt in front of the gate.
The driver's door swung open and Eve emerged. Clay exited the back seat and Dr. Graves floated out through the roof.
Conan Doyle clasped his hands together behind his back. "I was beginning to worry."
"We would have been here sooner," Eve said, slamming her door. "But traffic's a bitch."
"Where's Ceridwen?" Clay asked, shifting the mummified skull of Eogain from one arm to the other as he came around the car.
Conan Doyle studied the faces of those who had gathered beneath the banner of his cause, his Menagerie. Denizens of the weird, but warriors, each and every one, sharing the common goal of staving back the encroaching darkness. It was a precarious battle, one that might as easily tip the scales toward shadowy oblivion as to the embrace of light. But it was a war that he had sworn to continue, one that he believed was worth fighting, even if it meant the deaths of those loyal to his mission.
No sacrifice was too large, for it served a greater good.
"Ceridwen, I'm afraid to say, has been captured."
The words hurt him, each of them barbed, sticking painfully in his throat as he struggled to speak. The others appeared taken aback, knowing only too well the level of power the Fey sorceress was capable of wielding as well as his emotional involvement.
"Here's an idea," Eve said, sweeping her raven black hair away from her exotic features. "How about we go get Ceridwen and kick Morrigan's Faerie ass? That sound like a plan?"
Conan Doyle looked out over the heads of his comrades. The dead were still out there, but now they seemed loathe to come closer — some primitive survival mechanism had been stirred to life in them, though he did not know if it stemmed from his own magick, or from the arrival of his Menagerie.
"If only it were that simple," Conan Doyle replied. "We now know why Morrigan has sought the power of Sweetblood. She wishes to free the Nimble Man."
He waited a moment, allowing them to digest the severity of the situation.
"Which, from your tone, I guess should have me shaking in my boots. And maybe I will when you tell me why," Eve said, obviously unfamiliar with the legends.
It always amazed him how a creature as ancient as Eve could sometimes be so oblivious.
Clay stepped closer to the rest of the group, red mist swirling around his malleable features. "A fallen angel," he said, his expression grim. "But not like Lucifer and the others. He escaped the Almighty's wrath but was trapped between Heaven and Hell. In my wanderings, I've encountered entire religions based upon him, with the ultimate goal of freeing him, but no one has ever had the level of power needed to accomplish this…"
"Until now," Eve finished, the situation becoming clearer.
Conan Doyle nodded. "With her own witchery and Sanguedolce's power, Morrigan has enough magick now to tear a hole in reality. If she knows what she is doing, she could free the Nimble Man."
Dr. Graves was a strange sight in that fog. His own ethereal form was a mist of its own, churning in upon itself, but a breeze blew the red fog so that it caressed him. He was a cloud standing still in a tempestuous sky as the rest of the storm moved on.
The ghost was troubled, and his form solidified a bit as he moved toward Conan Doyle. "You said that Morrigan needed the Eye of Eogain to focus Sweetblood's magick if she was going to try to leech it, to use it. And as you can see, we did not return empty handed. How can she release The Nimble Man now? Haven't we already won?"
"A fair assumption, Dr. Graves," Conan Doyle agreed, "but another wrinkle has been added to the cloth." The mage rubbed at his eyes, the continued exposure to the unnatural fog causing them to itch and burn. "Without the Eye, Morrigan will most certainly decide to forge ahead with a physical locus to channel Sweetblood's magickal energies. An ordinary human would wither almost instantly with such power coursing through them. We have kept the Eye from Morrigan. And because we have, I believe she will have no choice but to attempt to use Ceridwen herself to channel that power."
"Could that be done?" Graves asked.
Conan Doyle sighed, the consequences of this act of desperation on Morrigan's part too horrible for him to bear.
No sacrifice is too large, for it serves a greater good. The words reverberated through his thoughts.
"It will most likely kill Ceridwen, as well as release Sweetblood from his self-imposed imprisonment," Conan Doyle said. "But the answer is yes. With Ceridwen as the… well, as the circuit breaker if you will, Morrigan will be able to free the Nimble Man."
Ceridwen was back in Faerie, and her mind was at peace.
The warm winds caressed her face as she walked hand and hand with Arthur through the royal gardens. She noticed her mother sitting on a stone bench in the distance, and Ceridwen could not help but smile. Everything was as it should be, not a detail out of place.
Upon seeing them, her mother stood, waving in greeting. But Ceridwen's smile faltered when she saw that her mother's clothes were tattered and stained with blood. It was then that she remembered that her mother had been taken from her long, long ago. A shiver of grief went through her and she turned to Conan Doyle for comfort, for some explanation of the dread she now felt.
But it was no longer Arthur who held her hand, and the grip on her fingers had turned cold and constricting.
Morrigan smiled and pulled her close, teeth as sharp as a boggart's. "Fight all you like," she snarled, "but it will not alter the outcome."
Her fantasy shredded, C
eridwen returned to reality. Pain suffused every inch of her flesh and her eyes burned with unshed tears. And now she remembered what had happened, the confrontation in Conan Doyle's ballroom with her aunt, the savage Morrigan. She had sent Danny away on a traveling wind and turned to face Morrigan and her lackeys alone. The battle with had been swift and brutal, and she had been defeated.
Now she lay draped upon Sweetblood's chrysalis. A surge of the ancient mage's power rushed through her, and she cried out in excruciating pain. They had bound her atop that strange encasement, the sorcerous energies leaking from the cracks in its surface filtering through her body to be collected by the eagerly waiting Morrigan. Her cloak was in tatters, burned through, almost nothing left of it, and her tunic and trousers were smoldering.
"Do you see how wonderfully it comes together?" her aunt asked, manipulating the distilled power of the arch mage and sending it back into the sarcophagus, causing the size of cracks in its surface to increase. With each splinter of that amber glass, more of Sanguedolce's magickal potency tore through Ceridwen, more power at Morrigan's disposal.
"Fortune smiles upon me this day. It is unlikely that you will live long enough to witness my triumph, but let me assure you, it will be glorious."
The magick coursed through her, the pain continuing to grow. The mage's power was overwhelming. Ceridwen had heard tales of Sanguedolce's prowess, but never imagined a mortal might be able to wield such might.
Morrigan droned on and on about her plans, but Ceridwen was no longer listening. To escape the pain, she fled to the past, remembering what it was that defined her, what had shaped her. There was pain in the past as well, but it was that pain that had forged her, as though in a blacksmith's forge.
From her earliest days, sadness had been her companion. She could barely remember a day when it had not walked by her side. Her mother had been slain in the early days of the Twilight Wars, the victim of a Troll raid upon their forest home. She had been but a mere child, forced to watch her mother's fate from a hiding place within the draping bows of an ancient willow tree. In that moment, she had sworn never to be helpless again.
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