This time Sean did not answer. Instead, he turned the use of his unnatural hands to work. He snapped the chains that bound Argus to the dais floor with little effort. Then he moved to Vince and Maggie.
Vince did not hold his tongue. “Sean, what the hell are you … ?”
Sean did not let him finish.
“Forget it Vince. Do what I say and this will all be over for you soon.”
He broke the chains around Maggie’s wrists; delicately, though. She was ashen pale, and sweating. The wound inflicted by Anubis had gone untreated for almost eight hours. She had nearly bled out.
Once she was free, Vince pushed past his old friend to kneel beside her. He lifted her head and tried to wake her. She hardly responded. A groggy nod was her only reply.
“Goddamn you, Sean, what the hell did you do?” he shouted, bracing to make a run at the trickster. Argus placed a stringy white arm in his path before he could move, however. He offered the angry man a succinct admonition.
“I wouldn’t,” the very old changeling counseled.
Across the dais, Scylla and Charybdis whirled their sabers with the poise of practiced masters. As swordsmen, they had no equal, for the two former guardians wielded the blades with the acumen of centuries.
But their foe was a measure beyond the need for such skills, and the Morrigan parried their every thrust. The Keeper turned back blow after careful blow, her own hands mutated into scythes every bit as deadly as the Maenad steel of her adversaries.
Several of the torches and ritual braziers had already toppled from the fight. The embers had set fire to the cloaks of the dead Maenads. Their corpses now burned atop the platform, almost-human bonfires to light the battle of three very inhuman combatants.
The flames spread as the trio continued their artful, murderous fencing. Down from the dais, the tapestries and cloaks of the crowded floor caught fire. Black smoke flooded the narcotic-tinged air.
“Look, Scylla and Charybdis battle the Keeper, but they will not hold against her for long, you know that. Only one of the Morrigan’s own kind can truly put an end to her,” Argus urged. “Fulfill the prophecy, Sean. It is time for Lucifer to be reborn.”
Sean did not look up to the fight on the dais. His eyes were dead set on Argus. His face betrayed nothing but contempt.
“It was you in Venice, wasn’t it?” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Argus answered, taken aback. He had not expected such a question, especially not given their predicament.
“You shouldn’t have known about that, about the girl I lost there that night. I killed all of the men sent to capture me, and I didn’t tell anyone of the details until I got to New York. But you knew. Were you there, watching me butcher your servants, too cowardly to step into the light yourself?”
Argus attempted a denial. Sean silenced him before he could finish.
“Enough lies. When I first came to you in the cathedral, you spoke of it. I had assumed the Morrigan to be responsible, but that was what you wanted me to believe. You wanted me to blame her, to hate her as much as you do. You needed me to. After all, you couldn’t very well expect me to join your crusade knowing that your people nearly killed the only other woman I’ve ever loved.”
Argus waved his arms, nervously, but with an air of urgency. “This isn’t the time for recriminations, Lucifer. We can deal with these issues later, but now you must act. You must strike at the Morrigan.”
Sean remained unmoved.
“Why? For your benefit? So you can rule the loyal flock through me?”
Argus feigned an indignant glare.
“I never said I wanted that.”
“But that’s what you were after. We both know that.”
“I only wanted what was best for us all, you included.” Finally, the trickster looked over at the ongoing fight. The Morrigan was winning. Scylla and Charybdis would not last much longer. He raised his own hands, fists clenched.
“Save it. There’s no need.”
“So now you’ll have your vengeance, I expect,” Argus said, resigned to his fate.
“What’s done is done. By whatever way we have come here, this is where it will end,” Sean answered.
He turned to Vince, still knelt over Maggie, who was barely conscious on the ground. The fire on the floor had spread to the tapestries and nets slung all about the rafters. The hungry crackle of flame joined the cries of the revelers. It was almost too loud to think.
“Vince, you have to go,” he said.
The ex-cop didn’t even look up.
“Not without her,” he said.
Sean lowered himself to eye level with his old friend. He placed a hand on Vince’s shoulder. Despite the noise, and all that had gone on between them, his voice was somehow calm—and eerily reassuring.
“Her ribs are cracked. Her lung has probably been punctured. She’s lost too much blood. There’s no way she can stand up, let alone walk. If we move her in this condition, she’ll die. You have to leave her.”
“Not a chance. Not again. If she dies here, I’ll die with her.” He meant what he said. There was a tear on his cheek. He had no intention of leaving his wife.
But Sean did not waver.
“Vince, look at me. She’s not gonna die. You two are both gonna make it, but you have to let me do what needs to be done here. Trust me one last time buddy. I promise. Do as I say and we’ll all …” His voice faded in the noise.
“What?” Vince demanded.
Sean stared back at him for a long while, almost too long considering the situation. Finally he smiled in a way that Vince hadn’t seen from Sean since their childhood.
“And we’ll all get what we want.”
Somehow, that answer seemed like enough. Vince stood up, grabbed Sean by the arm and stared him down. He didn’t say a word. The expression on his face told Sean he would agree.
Then the trickster turned to Argus.
“See that he gets away safely, and you’ll leave here free of the Morrigan forever.”
“You’re going to do it then?” Argus asked.
Sean shook his head. “No. You don’t need me. You’ll have what you came for, Argus. After all these years. Lead those who wish to follow, and leave everyone else free to find their own way.”
“What will you do?” Argus asked.
“It would appear that my road will end here. Right where it began, of all places.”
FORTY-SIX
CHARYBDIS WAS HOLDING TWO SWORDS. ONE SHORT. One long. She twirled them like deadly batons, her eyes locked on the Keeper. Scylla fell, knocked across the dais by a strike from the Morrigan’s hand. She struggled to get back to her feet.
The Keeper was outlasting them. Blood streamed from the shoulder wounds where Charybdis had been hung. The stress of combat had opened the slash across Scylla’s gut. It surged red from under the bandages.
The Morrigan showed no sign of harm. No sign of slowing. Her ephemeral form shifted like the clouds of smoke churning through the roof beams. Even the two most skilled of her flock could not strike her.
Scylla charged, her blade held like a lance. The Morrigan’s hand met the blow in the shape of a scythe. At the moment of impact her flesh melted into a hand, grasping the saber and heaving its owner into the air.
Charybdis leapt toward her as her back turned. But the Keeper spun around. She swatted down the white-lady, her other arm having taken on the form of grizzly’s paw.
Scylla, undaunted, rose up and made her charge a second time. The Morrigan neither turned, nor moved to avoid it. But when Scylla made contact, her steel met only an empty cloak. The body of the queen had liquefied, leaving only the shroud behind.
Though she tried to regain her bearings, the Morrigan was faster. Her shape reconstituted itself from under her very feet. The force of it lifted her and tossed her aside like a doll.
Though it seemed futile, Charybdis rushed again. The thrust of her broadsword cut the heated air. Her blade met only the clang of anot
her deft parry. Wheeling without pause, she shifted her weight and swung the heavy weapon anew. Again it was stopped in mid stroke, and again there came a counterblow that threw her back.
Graceful, despite her still-healing gash, Scylla slipped behind the dark goddess. She planted her legs for a body blow.
But the Morrigan could not be struck easily. Her body shifted like a wind-blown sapling just as Scylla launched herself. The bronze-skinned warrior-woman tumbled to the edge of the platform, falling into the frenzied crowd beneath.
Her shape re-formed a moment later, but Charybdis jumped off from the dais before she could reach her. On the floor of the warehouse, she found Scylla under attack by three Maenads. One’s cloak was burning as she wore it. Charybdis came to her lover’s aid, slashing the three servants dead. Then both looked up and saw the approach of their former ruler.
The Changeling Queen stalked her foes. She floated down from the dais as a malevolent raven, coming to rest with the softness of a feather. All in her way parted to allow her to land. The twin guardians were huddled together, their backs pressed against the wall of the platform.
The fire raged. Cinders and embers sweltered across the warehouse floor. The Morrigan ignored it all. She approached the two with her hands open.
Crazed revelers scampered everywhere. Among the smoke and flames their fury was fueled more by fear and confusion than by the bacchanalian frenzy that had set them into motion. Even in their stupor, each gave the Morrigan a wide berth.
That was why she never saw the figure that crept up in her shadow. Someone whispered a hint, but it was too faint. By the time the Morrigan realized that someone near her had said Lucifer, she tried to turn. She only sensed Sean’s presence when the trickster’s hands made contact with her throat.
By then it was too late.
“You’ve come for me, finally. I knew you would,” the Keeper said.
Her hands reached up to seize Sean’s wrists.
“I don’t give a shit about you,” Sean answered. “But there’s no other way.”
“You can’t defeat me. You’re not strong enough. I will absorb you.”
Sean smiled.
“I know,” he said.
His hands had lost their human appearance. His pliable flesh was beginning to merge with the Morrigan’s. The Keeper answered with a grin. She mutated her own hands. Her fingers melted into Sean’s arms.
Two were becoming one.
The Morrigan’s laugh blended with Sean’s. Sean’s wail fused with the screams of the Morrigan. As the warehouse burned around them, and the astonished revelers looked on, Lucifer and the Morrigan came together. They joined into a single, terrible creature.
The union was not peaceful.
As their flesh congealed, two changelings merged into one, a fury raged under boiling skin. The grotesqueries of a dozen different creatures, some real and some only imagined, sprang out of the joining. Limbs and tails and other things twisted and whirled. Cries and howls in myriad voices rang out.
The beast battled itself.
Within, all that had been Sean Mulcahy, his thoughts, his memories, and his desires, flooded the mind of what had been the Morrigan. In return, all of the Keeper’s five centuries flowed out of her.
Back and forth. Hatred and fear. Longing and lust. Loneliness and anger. It churned from one consciousness to the other, and then back again. A constant, maddening loop as both beings absorbed each other.
Those few who had braved the heat and the fire fell still, even as the walls fell around them.
Then, something altogether different happened.
While the hybrid monster writhed, arms and legs flailing in every tortured direction, one segment slowed. It was near the core, close to the heart of the gurgling, bubbling thing. The shimmering flesh drew still. A familiar human face fought to emerge from within.
Charybdis recognized him immediately. It was a vestige of Sean, reaching out from the middle of the beast. Drawn apart for a moment, clearly pained beyond measure, the face of the ageless wanderer fixed his gaze at the two warrior-lovers.
He could only manage a few words.
“Raise your swords! For your freedom! For our people! Kill me!”
Scylla winced. Charybdis fought back a tear. But they both understood. They did not waste a moment hefting their swords. In a single motion, as though possessed of one mind, the two lunged hard upon the beast. With terrible force they buried their blades to the hilt in the mutant’s deformed chest.
The thing that had been the Morrigan and Lucifer staggered. A half-dozen mouths howled through pointed teeth. It threw back both Scylla and Charybdis, but it did not pursue them. Cries in two voices peeled from its many throats while something like blood streamed out of its middle.
Then it collapsed. Its movements slowed. Its shape devolved into a strange, shapeless mass.
And it died.
A surreal quiet fell over those who had remained to watch the death struggle, despite the crackle of flames, the choking carbon-black fumes and the heat.
“Perhaps he was not Lucifer,” Scylla said, after a long moment regarding the combined mess that had been both their friend and their enemy.
“Perhaps not. And perhaps the prophecy was never more than words,” Charybdis answered, the shock beginning to overcome the changelings as the fires burned around them. “Very old words to which we paid too much attention. But Sean was real. Of that there can be no question.”
“Now he’s gone too,” Scylla said.
“Yes. We have finally done what we swore to do. We are finally free.”
A ventilation tube, the metal heated to an orange glow, broke free from the ceiling a moment later. It came crashing down in the center of the floor, scattering ash and debris. Scylla took hold of Charybdis and yanked her out of the way.
Then the two vanished into the black smoke, seeking a way out into the world beyond.
FORTY-SEVEN
ALL THAT REMAINED WITHIN THE WAREHOUSE WAS THE fire and the chaos. Those few who had braved the flames long enough to see the death of the Keeper now sought escape. In every direction they scattered, unable to see in front for more than a foot or two.
Many found death before freedom.
Abandoned by the faithful, the slobbering, blood-soaked husk of the Morrigan and Lucifer remained where it had fallen. The strange flesh bubbled and singed as the flames crept near. Smoke swept over it like a death shroud.
But within, some hint of life remained.
A shadow of a person, a mockery of human form, melted away from the broiling trickster corpse. It was Sean, or what remained of him. He crawled through the dense blanket of super-heated smoke, hardly able to see or to breathe. He moved like a serpent, his legs not fully formed behind him. He clawed himself forward, upward, and over to where he knew she was waiting.
Half the roof collapsed, too far away to see, but he could hear it. Pipes and girders and concrete crashing down upon itself, sucked into a torrent of flame. The cries of his people echoed, those dying few who had not made it out, and would now meet their terrible end.
Finally, he managed to pull himself up the dais. Maggie was there. Like him, she rested very near death.
Sean took hold of her. He cradled her in his arms and brought her close to him. She was barely breathing. Her skin was pale and wet with perspiration. She hardly had the strength to shiver. Somehow, she managed to speak, though the words were soft, and hoarse.
“Are we going to die, Sean?”
Strangely, he smiled. “No, in fact you’re going to be fine.”
“And you?” she replied.
“There is no me, remember?”
She coughed. Blood spilled out on to her chin.
“Still joking, even as we …” She wasn’t able to bring the last breath to her lips. He answered anyway.
“In a way, I’ll always be with you. Now don’t speak, this might hurt a little. But in a few minutes, you won’t feel a thing. I promise.”
&nb
sp; With a touch as delicate as a child’s, he settled his hands on her bare skin. “You know I always loved you,” Sean said, placing his hand on her cheek as if to kiss her.
But he didn’t.
He gently moved his other hand across her bare chest, just over her heart. The beats came slowly, with a stunted, irregular rhythm. Her breathing was labored, strained by the noxious smoke and the wound in her side. Sean closed his eyes. He let the touch of his bare hands rest softly against her.
He inhaled, just a little at a time, while she did. When he exhaled, he felt what she felt. He knew her pain as though it were his own. His heartbeat slowed as well. Within moments the rhythm of it matched Maggie’s in perfect sync.
She opened her eyes again. And she smiled too.
Sean laughed, despite the pain. At last, he had found what he came back for; the only thing he had ever really wanted.
FORTY-EIGHT
WHAT REMAINED OF THE ROOF OF THE LARGEST WAREhouse on the Pier 33 lot caved in just as the first truck from Engine Company Number 17 arrived. The flames were reaching up high above the waterfront by then, unleashed from within the center of the inferno. The black sky over the Hudson glowed a violent color, despite the hour.
Across the vacant lot, Vince huddled on an overturned dinghy. Argus had vanished from sight moments after they’d escaped. Now the strange figure was nowhere to be found. Vince was shivering as he watched the flames tear apart the old storehouse. He was shaking not just from the cold, but from anger too. Tears clouded his sight, rolling down his soot-stained face.
Sirens blared, from behind, from the side, from nearly every direction. A ladder truck raced on to the scene. Firefighters scrambled from the back, hauling hoses and axes. There were still people, if you could describe them that way, streaming out from the smoke. Some were scampering for cover. Some were leaping into the river.
But he didn’t care about any of it. Sean had lied to him one last time. Things weren’t going to be alright. Maggie was still inside. Without her, things would never be right again.
The Lucifer Messiah Page 27
