by Andy Hyland
Zack called it, sending out another impulse as a signal. The mages threw everything into their wards, making them expand and explode outwards, sending the rats flying away. With the temporary reprieve, the mages scattered, some sticking to their units, others operating alone or in groups of two or three. It came down to personal preference and whatever they felt gave them the best chance of survival. Hexes flew and witchfire lit up the night, reflected in the blood-soaked knives that flashed relentlessly in the fight.
It was a battle that the humans were only ever going to lose. Equal numbers would have been difficult enough, but there were vastly more rats than mages. It was a staged retreat, Zack leading his people further and further away from the building, the rats following, snapping, killing. Mage after mage fell. One by one the mages saw their partner or friend fall, decided enough was enough, and slid out.
And that was okay. The job was done. All we ever wanted was a distraction. Hell of a thing to give your life for, but they did it willingly. May the white light shine upon them.
Back on Earth, group two, my group, moved into the depot once Zack’s group winked out of sight. Most of us took up position in the main holding area. I sent the more accurate hex-throwers up the stairs, where they’d get the best view. “Now,” I said simply, and our slide began.
The depot, Fades-side, was in chaos. The children were tied up, some standing, some lying down, sometimes in groups piled three or four high. Without the time for the bug eggs to fully develop, the demons couldn’t move the slaves as effectively. They were running around, human guises gone now, screaming and yelling at each other, kicking the kids, trying to get everything ready for the run. I counted ten or fifteen of them. Big and well-trained. And, if they were Balam’s key guys, they would be vicious as hell.
The entire operation was made worthwhile by the looks on their faces as fifty mages slid into view, knives and weapons out, hands flexing. The first two demons went down without a fight. Maximus’ spike slid up beneath the chin of a maggot-infested abomination whose tongues flopped out lifeless as his brain was pierced. For a moment realization dawned in his eyes before they glazed over in death. Another demon’s head exploded from an expertly cast hex from one of my snipers on the floor above.
After that it was a skirmish. Death at close quarters. Unlike Zack’s people on the outside, we had the upper hand in here. The demons were battle-hardened and tough, but they were outnumbered, outgunned and surprised. For every mage they fought, another was creeping up behind and knifing them in the back. Simeon’s katana moved like the wind, barely slowed down as it carved through flesh and bone. With the horde distracted, there was no backup to respond to their shouts. Quick, grim work. At any other time, it would have been enjoyable, but there was too much to do and our minds were already focusing on the next step.
I grabbed one of the kids, checked they were still breathing, and slid back to Earth with them. Or tried to. Something grabbed us halfway, snapped us back. I looked at the kid’s wrists, already knowing what I’d find. Yep, she’d been bound with a silver cord. I’d never seen the stuff before, and now it was appearing everywhere. Must be something new that Molech was using. I barked instructions to the other mages and we set about trying to cut it off.
“It’s not working,” someone shouted from across the room. I’d already discovered that myself.
“Someone slide, now. Get Julie here.”
Seconds later, Julie was at work, moving between the children, loosening the cord, the only one of us its charms had no power over. As it dropped to the ground, the sliding started in earnest. Earth-side, Arabella’s group stood by to receive them and start to move them out, getting them away from the depot, the supply chain, and therefore out of the way of anyone else in Balam’s crew that was hanging around. We’d figure out exactly what to do with them later.
“That’s enough,” someone shouted from across the room. “You can stop right there. Nice try, but not happening.”
I looked up to see Valen standing near the far wall. The redheaded guy from Central Park was there as well, along with four others I didn’t recognize. All bought and paid for by Balam. They’d grabbed a kid each and now held them as a shield, a knife to their throats.
“You can leave, or wait till the boss gets here,” Valen said, smiling. “But you’re not coming at us. Because if you do, as soon as I see one of you take a step, this kid dies. And before you get here, I’ll have grabbed another one, and if you keep coming, they’ll die as well.”
“It’s a numbers game,” I said calmly. “You kill a few, we save the rest. Works for me.”
His smile only widened. “Oh, it’s not a numbers game, my friend. It’s never a numbers game for people like you.” He almost spat these last words. “You need a clear head to play a numbers game. I’m certain there’s not a clear head on your shoulders. Am I right? Prove me wrong. Impress me. Take that step.”
The bastard was right. “We are losing time,” Maximus said through gritted teeth, and he was right as well. If Balam got here it wouldn’t matter how many mages we had to outnumber him. “Make the call,” Maximus insisted, but I couldn’t.
“What’s the holdup?” said Julie, suddenly sliding into view on my right, back from delivering a kid Earth-side. She looked around, taking it in. “Ah, I see.” Her mouth moved as she looked at Balam’s thugs, looking at each of them in turn. I was confused. There was nothing she could do magically. But she wasn’t casting. She was counting.
With a blink she slid out. Three seconds later she appeared right behind the redheaded guy and jammed her knife into his skull, knocking his hand away from the kid’s throat at the same time. By the time he hit the floor she’d already slid again. Two seconds later she was behind the next thug. Same technique, then gone again. I looked on, open-mouthed. Only Julie, with that feather around her neck, could slide with the degree of accuracy necessary to pull it off, shifting between Earth and the Fades, untouchable. And it was wonderful. After four of them went down, Valen and the other remaining guy saw their future and dropped the kids, running out into a back room.
“Leave them,” I shouted. “Get these kids moving, now.”
We worked hard and quickly, removing the bonds, sliding the child out, then reappearing for the next one. In the space of a few minutes we had all but three left to go. The majority of the mages were now Earth-side helping with the operation there. Here in the Fades depot it was me, Julie, and Maximus. Zack slid in as Julie loosened the final silver cords, looking bloodied and battered. He nodded to me as we worked.
But Valen’s delay had worked. With a stench of sulphur and a thunderclap, Balam materialized, the air darkening around him as it twisted with his appearing. No human guise this time. No fitted suit and sculpted hair. This was a hell-lord in all his foul glory. Skinless flesh rippled with blood-coated muscle. Taloned feet scraped the floor as he moved, leaving deep furrows. His human head spoke. To the left of it a bull’s head snorted and spat, while on the right a ram’s head with huge curving horns glared with red eyes. “Oh Sem’ki, you came,” he leered.
“You won’t get them back,” I told him. “We got them away.”
He shrugged, circling us. “No matter. How long do you think it took me to get so many to begin with? A few days, nothing more. I may even go back and get the same children all over again. Their families’ hearts will break, don’t you think? No, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He snapped his fingers. “For every family they come from, I’ll take one child and kill another, leaving it in its bed with a snapped neck. How about that? And as we journey hellwards, as you yourself shepherd my flock, I will leave you enough of your mind to know that it was all because of you.”
“Malachi, let’s go,” shouted Zack.
But I couldn’t. I was rooted to the spot. Couldn’t move my legs. Could barely think. Balam smiled again, and a long tongue flicked out towards me. “My song was too strong, boy. You were his once, and you always will be. It’s time to come hom
e.” He looked around at Maximus, Julie and Zack. “But, because I am bountiful and generous, one of these may go. The rest, you will bring yourself to the master, and watch as he greets them. Am I not good to you?”
“Malachi?” Julie said, desperation in her voice.
“I can’t slide,” said Maximus. Balam looked across at him and made a sad face.
“Choose,” said Balam to me. “Choose, or I will skin them now as you watch, starting with her.”
My throat was dry. This was every nightmare I ever had coming true, all over again. And there was nothing, nothing I could do.
Suddenly the air shifted behind me. “My Lord,” said a man’s voice. I looked round, Balam’s grip on my mind suddenly weakened. There, standing wild-eyed in a bath-robe, was David. “You called,” he said, his voice rasping, his arms wide. “You called and I came.”
Balam’s six eyes widened in surprise. “You? You were here? Then my song…ah, the master will be gratified. Two of his errant, lost children returned to him.”
“David. David, my boy, you have to go. You have to leave,” Maximus begged, but David didn’t, couldn’t, hear. His mind had been broken long ago, and now the song of Balam had snapped his reason all over again. He was unreachable by anything we could say.
“My Lord,” he said again, walking towards Balam now, arms outstretched.
Balam looked at me. “Was he under your care as well? Were you keeping him from me? Oh, this is victory beyond imagination. And you – you have failed in every possible way.”
Balam opened his own arms and received the small figure of David into his embrace, looking out over his head at each of us in turn. Then his expression shifted. From smug to uncomfortable, then pained. Smoke started rising, the blood on his flesh steaming. He tried to push David away, but the man clung on, sobbing now, wailing. “Get away,” Balam screamed at him, but David was pressing into Balam’s flesh now, melting into him. David’s skin started to crack, intense light breaking through. Balam yelled in agony.
“David,” said Maximus and stepped towards them, but I pulled him back, suddenly able to move.
“We need to go. Now,” I shouted. Julie and Zack grabbed the kids and slid without hesitation, but Maximus wouldn’t move. At the last second, as the light burst forth entirely, incinerating David and Balam and reaching out across the room to us, I dragged him through the veil and we collapsed on the floor Earth-side, singed and breathless.
“What was that? What the hell happened?” Zack asked as a room full of mages looked as us, confused.
“Damned if I know,” I said, lying on the floor, feeling released and utterly, utterly free. “Damned if I know.”
Chapter twenty-eight
I closed my eyes, enjoying the silence, the emptiness of my mind. It didn’t last long, of course. Mac burst through the door, wondered for a moment what I was doing, and shrugged it off. “Malachi, you might want to get out here. She’s one of yours, and she’s going mental.”
Zack pulled me to my feet and we headed out, across the road to the park, where rows of kids were having the flesh near their elbows cut open, the bug eggs removed and stamped into the grass. A ring of people gathered in the middle of the field. Some were cheering, but most were simply watching, up on tiptoes or grabbing the shoulders of whoever was in front, trying to get a better view. I pushed myself through. A few complained, but shut up when they saw who it was.
Valen was on his knees, hands tied behind his back. Arabella was standing over him, arms swinging, left then right, raining down vicious blows on his face. A new cut was opening up with every other punch.
Zack muscled in beside me. “Weren’t we trying to stop her doing this?”
I shrugged. “It was more about teaching her that there’s a time and a place. Still, you’ve got a point. Arabella – enough.”
She looked up, eyes glazed, lost elsewhere, but shook it off and stepped back. “He had it coming,” she muttered. “Not just for me. Because of what he did.”
“You’re right,” I said, nodding. “And if you want to do this, then you carry right on. But you don’t have to. You really don’t.”
She paused, looking down at her bloodied fists, then at Valen, then me. “You know, I think I’d like to stop for a while. Till I’ve thought it through, anyway.”
“No problem. Leave him to me.”
She nodded, took a last look, then spat in his face before walking off. The crowd moved aside to let her go, then started to wander off themselves. It came down to me and Zack, standing above Valen.
Valen looked up and smiled. At least two teeth were missing and blood was pouring down his chin. “She’s got some fight. I like that. Still, I reckon I’m safer with you than her.” He laughed. “What’s up? You not going to go after your bitch?”
“She’s not a bitch,” I told him, moving closer, “but she is mine.”
He laughed again. I reached down and slid us both through the veil. We appeared in the park Fades-side. Empty of mages and demons, but there was still rustling in the treetops. One by one, four rats dropped to the ground and edged forward. I pulled a silver cord out of my pocket and looped it around Valen’s neck. “Turns out it only activates when it’s tied round skin,” I told him, for educational purposes. “But hey, I’m sure you knew that.” Then I stepped back. The rats ignored me, going for the easier target first. I watched as he screamed, right up to the point where he didn’t scream anymore. Then I nodded to myself, and left.
Around the park Earth-side, people were heading off, back to their lives. Zack was on the phone to Larry Dialgo. Others had called their safe contacts in the police, and in a few minutes the wail of sirens would arrive to find a park empty of all but the missing children, safe but dazed, and with strange knife wounds on their arms. Some children hadn’t made it. Didn’t even get as far as the depot. I could only hope that the Hatfield and Jenkins kids were here among the survivors. I’d ask Dialgo, sometime. On a day when I was strong enough to hear the answer if it wasn’t good.
Maximus was talking to the rest of his family, filling them in on David’s fate, no doubt. There was a somber mood about the group. Heads were downcast. A few nodded, and they started to turn and dematerialize in that flashy way of theirs. Maximus turned round, saw me, and walked over.
“Not a great result,” I said. “Not for you. I’m sorry.”
“On the contrary, this night went spectacularly well. You are to be congratulated.”
“You lost David.”
“We lost David a long time ago. At least this time we can be at peace. Thank you. Was it revenge or love in the end? I wonder. So hard to tell.”
I thought about it. “I don’t think it was either. It was madness. A soul ripped apart. We owe him a lot.”
“We certainly do. Mind you, without Balam’s pride, none of it would have come about.”
“Have you been talking to Mercy?”
“Mercy? No not yet.” He put his top hat on his head, pulling it down into place. “We’ve kept our distance since the Union fell. Simeon was a good chap. I shall look forward to meeting his successor. I hope we shall speak again soon.”
“So do I. See you, Max.”
“Time to go,” said Zack. “The cops will be here any second. They’re friendlies, but still. Best be off.”
I looked at him. A jagged cut ran down from his forehead to this side of his mouth, right across the eye, which fortunately hadn’t been damaged. “You need to get that looked at.”
“Yeah, guess I do. Still, I know a good doc. And chicks love scars. I’ll call you later.”
I watched him leave across the grass, and figured it was time to get going myself, now that everyone else had departed. Julie walked up behind me and took my hand. “What do you think?” she asked. “Happy ending?”
“No chance. You don’t get happy endings. It never stays the end for long enough. But I’ll take happy. Happy for a while, since it’s on offer.”
“Coffee?”
&nb
sp; I shook my head. “I’ve had enough coffee to last me a month. Beer would be good. I’d like a beer.”
“Beer it is. And then, since I’ve waited patiently, you can tell me what your name is.”
“My name is Malachi. What you really want to know is why my name is Malachi. And in return you can tell me what the hell you and Tabbris were doing working together.”
“Deal. Come on, let’s go. Let’s be happy.”
Chapter twenty-nine
I stood in Becky’s old apartment. Arabella wandered round, nudging aside some of the clutter with her boot, picking up stuff from shelves and inspecting it.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
“It’s nice,” she said.
“But?”
“But I can’t pay you market rent for a place like this, and I don’t want any pity. I screwed up, I’ll deal with it. Anyway, me and Becky – well, you know what me and Becky were like. I rubbed her up the wrong way.”
“She liked you,” I told her. “But it took time for Becky to get the hang of people. She never knew you long enough. Hell, it took two years before she even smiled at me. Up until then, I swear she was overcharging me for stuff.”
“Good to know. Hopefully we’d have clicked eventually. Still, the money’s a problem. I’m going to try some new lines of work, see what suits me. Stop being angry for a bit. I didn’t used to be so angry.”
“We both know why you were angry for so long. But you’re right, a change would do you good. Anything in mind?”
“Not yet. Zack said I could hang around with him. Minimum wage, naturally, but I’d get to meet some new people. See what they do. Get some ideas.”
