by Sam Witt
Joe felt the familiar dread as he neared the Haunter’s presence. The thing had been much bigger the last time they met, a gargantuan monstrosity that had nearly buried Joe and all of its worshipers in a fit of mortal rage. Now it was smaller, more compact, but also seemed more powerful, more intense. It’s three-lobed eye flared with a chaotic light that threatened to hypnotize Joe with its weird coruscations. It was like staring into the furnace at the heart of the universe, a primal force that dwarfed everything Joe knew or thought. For a split second, he forgot the knife in his hand, he forgot his hatred, and all he could do was stare into the entropic abyss.
Then the Haunter’s clawed wings bit into the Night Marshal’s back, and the stabbing pain shocked Joe into action.
He rammed the knife up into the Haunter’s belly and poured his rage into the attack.
Don’t you fucking back out on me now, Joe thought.
He felt the Long Man’s laughter ringing in his head.
Raw power flowed from the Long Man into Joe and through him into his knife. The blade blazed with silver light that burnt the Haunter from the inside out.
The Haunter slashed at Joe with its claws and tried to reach his face with its jaws. But even as it attacked it faded into the shadows that surrounded it.
There was the faint hiss of a snuffed candle, and even the shadows were gone. Joe felt the Haunter’s absence in his mind like the bloody socket of lost tooth. It was done. The Haunter was dead.
Itsike shrieked. “What have you done?”
Joe spun on his heel and brandished his knife before him. Arcane patterns glittered on its surface, etched into its steel by the power he’d funneled into it and the deed it had just accomplished. He didn’t know if he had enough left in him to take on the spider goddess, but he’d go down swinging.
But the spider goddess wasn’t coming for Joe. She streaked across the room and slammed into the Long Man. The force of her charge carried both of them into the wall, and the dark wood paneling cracked under the impact like an antique mirror hit by a sledgehammer.
Joe could feel the Long Man’s desperation in his mind. The old monster had fed Joe the energy needed to kill the Haunter and now hoped that Joe would help him dispatch Itsike.
The Night Marshal thought of the dead bodies Itsike’s spider-beast had left behind. He thought of the hollowed corpses stuffed with her steles. It was time for her to get a taste of her own medicine. Joe funneled the strength he had left into his knife and charged at Itsike’s back.
She whipped her hand behind her when he was just steps away and snarled, “You’re next.”
Her words threw Joe back. As he sailed across the room, he had time to wonder just how badly he’d underestimated the spider goddess.
35
Stevie felt a change in the air and knew something was coming for her family. Something she didn’t have the strength to fight. “We have to get upstairs.”
She met Al’s eyes, and he nodded. He’d give the rest of them time to escape. He’d bar the way until he could hold the threat back no longer. Stevie turned away from her son with tears in her eyes. She’d rather die fighting by his side, but she had a duty to the others that outweighed her need to protect her son.
She reached out for Elsa, and her little girl took her hand. Stevie didn’t wait to see if the others would follow because she didn’t know how long they had left before this new threat arrived. Right now, it was a foul stench on the wind, a dull red glow on the horizon of her mind. But it was approaching fast, and she knew it would reach them in no time at all. She had to get into the master bedroom. She’d layered her wards throughout the house, providing rings of protection that centered around that bedroom. Their best chance of survival lay in that room. She half carried, half dragged, Elsa up the staircase.
Liz Woodhawk was right behind them, her eyes wide with fear. Her sister and nephew were on the stairs as well, and Zeke wasn’t far behind. Stevie ripped open the bedroom door and shooed them all inside. “Hurry,” she started, but her voice caught in her throat when she heard heavy pounding coming from the door to Elsa’s bedroom.
Trevor grabbed Stevie by the shoulders, panic making him forget his place. “What the hell is that?”
Stevie thought of Frank locked up in that room. Had something come to save him? Had he summoned some demon to free him? “I don’t know. Nothing good.”
Zeke limped up the steps and took the boy by the arm. “Best get inside, boy. Whatever that is, we don’t want to be here when it gets out.”
The pounding gave way to a splintering crunch, and Stevie knew she was out of time. She could feel the last of her power draining away through the break in the Conclave’s circle. She might have enough strength to ignite the wards, but she’d have no strength left to fight. If whatever the hell was down there got past Al and pounded its way through the master bedroom’s doorway, they’d be as helpless as lambs.
But she had no other choice.
She was closing the master bedroom’s door when she heard the sheriff’s voice calling out from Elsa’s bedroom. “What the fuck is going on out there?”
Stevie didn’t have time to save everyone. She couldn’t free Laralaine and get inside with her family and friends before Elsa’s bedroom door gave way. But if she left the sheriff in Al’s room, whatever was coming would kill Laralaine as surely as if Stevie had put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
She couldn’t do that. She had to save whatever lives she could. She turned to the master bedroom door and pulled it closed. She rested both palms on its center and pushed the last of her power into its wards. A golden glow erupted around Stevie, and she felt as if someone had just punched her in the gut. That was it. She had nothing left. She was tapped out.
She stumbled down to Al’s bedroom door and yanked it open. Stevie pointed one shaking finger at the handcuffs holding Laralaine on the bed and unleashed a trickle of her remaining power at them. A golden aura settled around the locks, and they popped open, freeing the sheriff. “Get out if you want to live.”
Laralaine stood up and shook her head. Stevie felt a surprising warmth from the woman. “I’m not going anywhere until your fucking husband gets back. He’s got a lot to answer for.”
Another thunderous blow shook the house. Stevie looked downstairs and saw chunks of the basement door bounce across the floor. A high-pitched shriek flew out of the basement and pierced her ears. She had to do something, but she didn’t know what. She was next to powerless.
But that didn’t mean she was going to stand by while whatever was in the basement tried to slaughter her friends and family. She tilted her head toward the bottom of the stairs. “If you’re going to stick around, I’d suggest pointing your gun down that way. Not that that’s going to do much good.”
Laralaine gripped her pistol in both hands and shouldered past Stevie. She took up a shooter’s stance at the top of the stairway. “Who the hell do you have locked up down there?”
Stevie shrugged. “Used to be Frank Blackbriar. I couldn’t tell you what the hell is down there now.”
There was a crash, and a broad section of Elsa’s bedroom door bounced across the floor and into view. A victorious howl swept through the house and brought with it a sudden, frigid cold.
A lupine howl answered the roar. Laralaine flinched. “What was that?”
Stevie braced herself against the railing at the top of the stairwell. “That was my son.”
The last of the door crashed to the floor, and she heard Al roar again. His challenge was answered by an ear-piercing shriek.
Then Al’s bestial form slammed into the stairs, blood leaking from his mouth. His eyes fluttered and he tried to get back up, but he was too hurt. Al collapsed, and his eyes closed.
The remains of Frank Blackbriar flopped into view. The creature Frank had become drooled blood and stomped over Al’s battered body. A single three-pupilled eye rolled in its socket above a spade-like nose made up of twitching fringes and pulsating whorls
of pale, pink flesh. It opened a mouth filled with needle-sharp fangs as it made its way toward the stairs on twisted arms and stunted legs joined together by thick flaps of veiny flesh. Its furious glare locked on Stevie. “You you you—”
The sheriff squeezed off three rounds, and every one of them found its mark in the monster’s face. The shots rocked its head back and drew an enraged shriek from its deformed mouth. “Shut the fuck up,” Laralaine snarled.
She fired again, and the bullet tore through Frank’s cheek. Shards of blood-stained enamel erupted from the wound in its cheek and rattled across the floor.
The shot didn’t seem to slow Frank. It enraged him.
He threw himself up the stairs in a single tremendous bound. The flaps between his arms and legs flared as they caught the wind and billowed behind him. He slammed into the railing and sent it and Stevie sliding down the hall. He scrambled up and raced after Stevie, shrieking as he went.
The sheriff spun on one heel and fired into the thing’s back. The attack blasted through the creature’s body and erupted from his chest in a geyser of blood that splattered the wall at the end of the hallway.
Frank staggered and rose up onto his toes with his back arched. A tortured mewling spilled from his lips along with a burbling stream of blood.
Stevie saw her chance to end the fight. She scrambled back onto her feet and thrust both hands in front of her, fingers curled into twisted claws. She didn’t have much strength left, but she still had a few tricks up her sleeve.
A pair of witch bullets dangled from the thin silver chains she wore around each wrist. They contained their own power, invested in them by Stevie when she was at full strength. All she had to do was trigger them.
She thrust her will into the one on her left arm and barked an ancient curse. The wax projectile flared sudden arcane power and streaked into the wound on Frank’s chest.
The supernatural assault blasted a gory tunnel through Frank’s torso, and for one moment, Stevie and Laralaine stared at one another through the grisly injury.
Al howled, a sound that chilled Stevie to the bone. There was nothing of her son left in that sound. It was a cry of rage and pain. It was the primal challenge of a wounded hunter.
Frank took advantage of the distraction and lunged at Laralaine, who had turned to face the stairwell and Al’s howl.
Stevie barked a command and felt the blistering heat of the witch bullet exploding away from her wrist. It streaked through the air and into Frank’s neck.
Startled by the sound of Stevie’s incantation, Laralaine swiveled back toward the charging monster and squeezed her pistol’s trigger.
The witch bullet tore through Frank’s throat and dropped him a split second after the sheriff pulled the trigger.
Al thundered up the stairs in time to see the Laralaine’s bullet plow into his mother’s chest.
Stevie looked down at the red blossom forming across the front of her worn wife beater. She reached for her power, but there was nothing left. She saw her son towering over the sheriff and lifted one hand. She tried to tell him to stop; she tried to say that it wasn’t Laralaine’s fault.
But instead of words, her throat filled with blood that spilled out over her lips and onto the carpet between her knees.
Al seized Laralaine by her left shoulder and her right hip. He raised her high overhead before slamming her down across his knee. Laralaine screamed as her body burst in half.
Al threw the ragged chunks of the sheriff aside and rushed to his mother’s side. He crouched over her and lifted her body gently into his enormous arms.
He rested his forehead against his mother’s lifeless chest and clenched fanged jaws against the mournful wail that clawed at his throat.
36
Joe tried to get his feet back under him, but his head was swimming and he couldn’t get his eyes to focus. His back felt like he’d been walloped by a telephone pole swung by Paul Bunyan, and he reckoned it might be a while before he was back to fighting strength.
Not that he figured he had that long before the spider goddess or the Long Man wrapped up their tussle and decided to snap his neck for all the troubles he’d caused them.
Itsike seemed to explode as she battered the Long Man, her true form emerging from the husk she’d worn. Eight chitinous limbs unfolded as clouds of tiny spiders devoured scraps of shed flesh. The spiked tips of her legs speared at the Long Man in a frenzied blur.
Joe crawled to the fireplace and pulled himself upright. He was shocked to see wounds opening in the Long Man’s chest and even more shocked to see panic blooming on the old monster’s face. He watched as his former boss took a savage beating. Despite his hate for the Long Man, Joe felt pity for him. And for himself. It looked like his odds of surviving this fiasco were even lower than he’d thought. The spider goddess was a horror show of speed and ferocity.
Joe knew his only chance lay in a surprise attack. He focused his attention on his connection to the spider goddess. It hummed in the dark recesses of his mind like a high-voltage wire.
He stole power from the spider goddess, slowly at first, sapping her strength by inches. It burnt, and his mouth filled with the taste of sour milk. But Joe kept draining Itsike, slow and steady. He didn’t want to attract her attention; he just wanted to weaken her enough for the Long Man to get back into the fight.
The Long Man dodged a strike from one spider leg and blocked another with a sweeping forehand attack of his own. Unprepared for the sudden change in the battle’s momentum, the spider goddess jumped back to regroup.
The Long Man had tricks of his own. He raised one hand overhead, and a shimmering wall of heat sprang up before him. It burnt a charred black circle around Itsike and filled the room with heat so intense Joe could feel it tightening his skin against his bones.
The spider shielded her faceted eyes with four of her legs and screeched with surprise. The fine hairs on her body popped like match heads as the heat burnt them away.
Joe squinted against the heat and had to stifle a whistle of surprise as the Long Man stepped into the blistering wall and emerged changed.
The old bastard was still tall and thin, but his body was no longer a thing of flesh and bone. He was composed of dirty gray smoke and a multitude of blinking, reptilian eyes. Scabbed wings rose from his back, their majesty stolen by their dingy gray feathers and vast swathes of scarred, pink skin. He held a blazing sword of greasy flame in both hands, and a crown of rusted iron dug into his brow.
The Long Man and the spider goddess circled one another. Joe continued pulling strength from the goddess, but he didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up. It was like drinking the ocean through a straw, and no matter how much power he stole from her, it seemed there was always more. He’d tilted the odds in the Long Man’s favor, for the moment, but Itsike’s power seethed in his skull like a cauldron of eels. Joe didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to contain it.
The Long Man whispered in Joe’s thoughts, his voice laced with threads of pain. If you want me to survive this fight, you had better get your dog in the ring.
Joe held his ground and watched the fight. He had to time this just right, or the survivor of this dustup would be too strong for him.
The Long Man’s flaming sword swept through the air, and one of the spider’s legs sprang away from her body. The twitching limb hit the floor and gushed green ooze from its smoking end. The bilious slime crackled against the floor, and the wood began to fall in upon itself.
In response to her injury, the spider goddess lunged at the Long Man with two of her left legs extended toward his head and torso. When the Long Man pivoted to block those attacks, she thrust her mandibles forward and ripped them through his amorphous body. As the smoke and eyes tore free from the Long Man, they transmogrified into bloody gobbets of pale, maggoty meat that splattered on the floor.
The Long Man flowed away from Itsike like oil poured over water. The flames of the sword guttered for just a moment before
flaring back to life. “You never should have returned,” the Long Man said. “This place is no longer yours.”
Joe circled around the room, which seemed suddenly too large and too small. The distance to any resemblance of safety felt like he’d have to cross miles, but he felt he was never more than a few feet from his enemies. They were a black hole of ancient power, and he was just a stupid ape caught on the edge of their event horizon.
The spider goddess spoke, and her voice was echoed by the thousands of spiders that flowed down her back and trailed behind her like a living cape. “You know that’s not true. Me and mine created this world. Building your pathetic throne here does not make you the lord of my land.”
Joe’s head buzzed with the power he’d stolen. He could feel the words of his enemies in his skull even more than he could hear them. It was as if they were trying to tell him something, each competing for his attention in different ways. He pushed at them, but there was nowhere to shove the thoughts that didn’t belong there. They were too big, too powerful to ignore.
The Long Man whirled with blinding speed, his burning sword moving so quickly it became a solid arc of brilliant flame. It screamed toward the spider goddess’s face, and for a moment Joe thought the old fucker had done it.
But the goddess reared back at the last possible moment, and the sword only managed to nick her cheek. With a shriek, she slammed her raised front legs down toward the Long Man.
Off balance from his desperate attack, he had no hope of defending himself. Joe watched in horror as Itsike’s spiked legs punched through the Long Man’s body of smoke and eyes. She pinned him to the floor, and his fiery blade flickered and died.
Itsike lifted her head and unleashed a raucous cry of victory. “After all this time, all these long eons gone, you will finally pay for your treachery, Betrayer. Your heart will be mine.”
The words echoed in Joe’s head for what seemed an eternity. His thoughts clicked into place like the tumbler of a lock with the key being turned. This was his chance. He still had time to put the last leg of his plan into action.
