by Kit Hallows
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“His mind’s been fighting the witch’s glamor all afternoon. It was about ready to shut down, and all it needed was a little nudge,” Samuel said. “I’d proclaim myself a genius but these blinkereds are hopelessly easy to manipulate. Especially when someone else has already addled their minds.” Samuel nodded for us to follow him. “The party’s over here.”
It felt strange to be letting someone else take lead. I barely knew Samuel, but his guile was impressive and I trusted his quicksilver wits. Even when they strayed toward mischief. We hurried across the lawn, making our way through the thick tendrils of fog.
The Temple woodland was mostly deciduous; ash, cedar and birch. Their leaves crunched below our feet as we made our dash for cover. By day the woodlands were a place that school kids came to to learn about nature, but after dark they were a hangout for young lovers, addicts, and the Nightkind that preyed on them.
I checked my watch. It was only seven, which meant we had a fair wait until the midnight ceremony.
“Shhh,” Astrid whispered. I followed her gaze to the clearing ahead. A witch sat on a bench, smoking a cigar, its pungent aroma snaking through the air toward us. Beside her stood a hunched figure. At first glance I thought it was a grizzled old man, then I spotted the chain around its ankle and the glow of its eyes. It was a demon, and savage by the looks of it. Its mind must have been addled if it had allowed the witch to chain it and force it to do her bidding.
Samuel notched an arrow. “Should I take her out first?” he asked, “and then the demon? Or the demon, then the witch?”
“I don’t think we should tangle with either of them unless we have to,” I said. “We don’t want to set any alarms off.”
“Sure.” Samuel lowered his bow and put the arrow back in his quiver.
We changed direction and searched for a safe place to lie low for a while. We found a small quiet hollow. I absorbed a few crystals to conjure a protective perimeter and keep us out of sight for as long as possible. Astrid and Samuel added their own touches, whispering arcane words that sounded alien yet unsettlingly familiar.
I rolled an old log to the center and lay against it while Samuel built a small fire, and doused the light with a charm so that it was almost indiscernible. “Drink?” he asked, as he fished a small leather flask from his pocket.
“No, I need a clear head,” I said.
“I’m game,” Astrid took a swig and winced. “Eww. What is it?”
“Wine,” Samuel said. “I’d totally forgotten I had it. I think I lifted it from a merchant in Penrythe harbor. Last year.” He took a sip and spat it into the fire, causing the flames to roar. “A clear head it is then. Not that wine’s ever done anything but enhance my godlike talents.”
We sat and spoke and laughed at Samuel’s ridiculous jokes, and for a moment or two I forgot where we were, and what was lying ahead. Then my watch beeped, it was eleven o’clock.
I stood and shook the leaves off my cloak, and Astrid removed a tiny twig that had somehow ended up in my hair. Samuel kicked dirt over the fire and a cloud of ethereal blue smoke wafted into the air. We made our way out of the protective circle, dismantling the enchantments as we went. It must have muted the noise outside its perimeter because music was blaring through the woods now and the festivities were clearly in full swing. It was some kind of nondescript electronica; a background for narcotic highs.
Lights flashed amid the bare branches and I caught a glimpse of a huge display. Colors flashed across it, fractal patterns; flowers, abstract shapes, common esoteric symbols. The riot of sound and light was coming from a large clearing filled with hundreds of cloaked figures standing near a stage. Despite the hoods, I could tell they were blinkered by the way they danced and swayed in a heaving throng.
We were almost at the edge of the clearing when someone laughed, the sound piercing and close. I looked back, and then up. A witch sat on a branch above us, dangling her legs as she glared and shook a finger. She was a short, elfin-looking woman with wild spiky hair and a button nose. She might have been cute if it wasn’t for the malice in her eyes as she raised her fingers to her lips and whistled.
Then she dropped a long, silver spectral chain.
The ground rumbled and a fat lumbering demon broke from the darkness, snapping a tree trunk as he charged at us. It was like facing an oncoming van, with teeth. His head was shaved and his horns had been cruelly split in two, no doubt fueling his rage even further.
I tried to back away but suddenly I couldn’t move. I glanced back to the witch to find her pointing a single, crooked finger my way.
Samuel notched an arrow and let it fly. It struck the demon in the eye, slowing his advance. I hitched my robe up and struggled for my sword as the demon growled and hurtled toward me like a demented freight train.
46
Astrid pulled a dagger from her boot and threw it. The blade shot wide of the demon and vanished into the air. I fought against the invisible force that was somehow freezing my sword hand in place, but it was useless.
The demon was almost upon me when it faltered. A high pitched scream pierced the night and the witch fell from her branch. She landed hard, Astrid’s dagger embedded in her palm. Her spell was broken. I raised the sword of intention against the demon’s descending fist.
“Block!”
The sword took most of the blow, its flames spitting and crackling as it ignited the demon’s frayed, ragged sleeve. He held his hand up and growled, the sound low and full of primal rage. And then an arrow struck the middle of his fleshy throat. His brow lowered as he raised his burning hand to pull it out. I seized the moment and thrust my sword through his chest. “End.”
He gurgled and fell, crashing down in a cloud of dust.
“Die!” The witch screamed as she lifted her bloody hand and threw tendrils of lightning-like magic from her fingers. Astrid snatched the jagged silvery light from the air, and hurled it into the dirt.
The witch threw her head back, let out a savage cry, and flew at Astrid. Scales burst across her hands, arms, throat and face. An arrow struck her wrist and glanced off the scales. I ran to help Astrid as the witch clawed at her face. Astrid jerked her head away, side stepped, and plunged a dagger into the witch’s heart. There was no emotion as she felled the witch. No fear or fury, just a cold detached resolve as the witch slumped dead to the ground.
I used my sword to cut a slit in my cloak. I needed the opening so I could reach my weapons faster. The fact that I hadn’t thought of that before made me feel a little foolish.
“We’ll train you,” Astrid said.
“Train me?” I asked. Resentment bristled through me for a moment, until I forced my wounded pride to back off.
She smiled without mockery. “You need to use magic, Morgan. It’s there, inside you. You’ll need training to master it. Or at least a half of you will. The half I like best.”
“You won’t need crystals or props by the time we’re done with you,” Samuel said. “But until then we should stick together. We’ll help you, you help us.”
I nodded. Magic had never been my strong point. I knew enough to where I usually had an edge over blinkereds and most Nightkind, just as the Organization had intended. They’d taught me enough to do their bidding, but not my own.
We strode to the edge of the clearing. Floodlights lit the grassy arena and the mass of hooded figures standing before the stage. I caught sight of a few of their faces as they lifted their hands to the sky. They were gone. Really gone. Eyes wide and jaws clenched.
Bright green and orange fractals flickered across the giant screen, but now the occult symbols were changing from the everyday to the more archaic. I had no idea what some of them meant, but I knew it was nothing good.
My heart raced as a new symbol appeared, its meaning unmistakable.
A door. A huge, black door. And with every jump-cut flash, it began to open.
The music changed, the electronic noodles an
d squiggles fading, the bass line dropping. All of it slowly disappearing until the music was nothing more than a single booming drum beat.
The door on the screen grew larger and larger until it filled the frame.
Witches began to weave through the crowd. They looked like old-fashioned cigarette girls as they wandered among the throng carrying trays suspended from long neck straps. Trays laden with what looked like thick lines of black spice. A cheer rose from the crowd and they began to reach their hands up into the sky with renewed abandon.
I scanned for Wyght. There was no sign of her, but then again she could have been any one of the cloaked figures roaming before me. Then my eyes strayed to the hooded DJ behind the row of decks. “I need to get a closer look.” I nodded to the stage.
Samuel and Astrid followed my gaze. “We’ll cover you,” Astrid said.
I made my way around the edge of the clearing. The thump of the drum was so loud I could feel it in my chest and a cold, mocking voice emerged between each beat. The DJ. She stooped before a mic, hands held before her. “See it!” Her voice, low, commanding. “Imagine it! Open it!” The door on the screen shimmered with each utterance and the crowd began to chant along with her.
“See it. Imagine it. Open it!”
The outline of a giant door appeared on the empty patch of grass to the side of the stage.
“See it. Imagine it. Open it!” The crowd stomped their feet in time to the drumbeat, their voices almost one. The witches moved among them with their trays, lifting their fingers to the blinkereds’ mouths and depositing pinches of black spice between their lips. Others caressed the shoulders and faces of blinkered men and women in the crowd, causing them to shudder with ritualistic ecstasy.
“See it. Imagine it. Open it!” The voices grew louder, frenzied with longing.
I slipped into the trees and made my way to the back of the stage. I was almost there when the temperature suddenly dropped. I spun round as a growl rang out behind me, and a sinewy creature burst from the earth. Its thin, sallow face was as tight as a drum and dominated by a single pulsing green eye above its wide mouth filled with needlelike teeth.
I began to back away as the creature stumbled towards me, dragging a broken silver chain through the dirt behind its clawed feet.
47
The creature leaped, its cracked claws raking my chest. I howled with pain as my flesh stung where it managed to break the skin. Without my coat I would have been eviscerated.
I shoved the creature back and stumbled away but it screamed, sprang to its feet and charged. The saliva that dripped from its teeth reeked of bile, and as we locked eyes, it licked its lips.
“Block!” The sword of intention parried the swipe before its claws could lash my face. The blade bit into its arm and struck hard unyielding bone. I backed against a tree and frantically dug for a crystal as the beast reached inside its mouth.
My bag was caught in the folds of the cloak. I swore and glanced back as the creature shoved its entire fist into its mouth. Strands of spittle clung to its chin and its eyes grew bright and wild. It snarled as it pulled its hand out, its palm heaped with smoldering iridescent pearls. Before I could stop it, it flung them at me.
I dived to the ground as the toxin rained down. Wisps of smoke wafted from the tree bark and rose from the earth where the pearls struck. I repositioned the sword and sprang to my feet as it rushed me, its arms crossed over its face as I lashed out. Lumps of flesh fell from its limbs and the creature yowled and spat like a wounded cat as I swung the sword and forced it back.
It gurgled like a demented toad and reached into its mouth once more.
“No!” a woman called. I couldn’t see her, but the instruction was enough to give the creature pause. I seized the moment and advanced. Slashing. Thrusting. The creature raised its bleeding arm to block my attack, but I tossed the sword into my other hand and brought it up, tearing its throat open from its neck to its chin.
Its eyes watered and dimmed as it fell to its knees, clutching the wound, pearls spilling from the gash, singeing the grass at its clawed feet.
“End.” I swung the sword and lopped its head off.
I glanced around as I bolted toward the stage, trying to figure out who had distracted the beast. But there was no one nearby. I ran as the drum beat pulsed with my steps. As I neared the scaffolding the hooded figure of a witch flickered in the strobe lights. Wisps of blue smoke curled from her closed hand as she raised it to hurl the hex at me.
Thunk.
An arrow protruded from her chest and her arm fell. The spell slipped through her fingers and the two arrows that followed dropped her where she stood. I turned to find Samuel poised among the trees; he nodded and strode back into the shadows.
I 'd nearly made it to the stage when something whizzed past my ear and the board by my head splintered. I glanced back to see a cop aiming his second shot.
Astrid sprang from the shadows behind him, smacked the butt of her dagger into the side of his head, and vanished before he’d hit the ground.
I crept up the wooden ramp at the rear of the stage and peered through a gap in the heavy black curtains.
The DJ stood in the booth at the top of the planked walkway. Colored spotlights twisted and blinked hypnotically above her hands as she continued to chant. “See it. Imagine it. Open it!” She didn’t notice as I crouched behind the control board and searched for the lighting panel. I found it and slid all the levers up until the stage lights blazed.
I grabbed the DJ’s hood and pulled it back. It wasn’t Wyght, but a startled young woman with a half shaved head and a spiral tattooed on the side of her skull. She growled and reached into her cloak sleeve. Silver light glowed as she pulled out a ball of spitting metallic flames and drew her arm back to fling it at me. I sprang forward, grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand away. The fireball slipped behind her back and fell into the folds of the pocket-like hood.
A horrendous scream burst from her lips and she clamped her hands over her head as the fire set her hair ablaze. I pulled out my gun as she lurched toward me but she fell to the floor dead.
I glanced out into the crowd. The audience was almost impossible to make out beyond the light that flooded the stage, but I could still hear them chanting, unfazed, between each boom of the hypnotic drum. “See it. Imagine it. Open it!”
The giant black door that towered over the clearing was almost fully formed. Within moments it would be real.
A portal between this world and one filled with an evil and danger that I couldn’t even begin to fathom.
48
I scanned the icons on the control boards in front of me. I had to disrupt the chant, to stop the manifestation. The first button I found was linked to the drum loop. I turned it off.
An eerie silence fell across the clearing between each element of the chant. “See it. Imagine it. Open it!” Hundreds of voices droned on as one, the rhythm somehow even more powerful now that the music had ended. I thought about using the mic to command them to stop, but their voices had taken on the hysteria and unquestioning certainty of new believers. I needed a bold discordant distraction.
The rectangular shadow falling from the door loomed darker than ever. It was almost here.
I glanced through the sound samples. Anything…there…I hit play.
Danse Macabre - Theremin Version
An unearthly whine blared from the speakers and the strange sci-fi waltz began to flow over the crowd, but their chant continued.
I added sample after sample. Casio tone. Bossa Nova. Clapping hands. Static and feedback. I threw them all into the mix. The chant began to falter under the relentless cacophony and I dimmed the lights until I could see the faces of the crowd. They looked around in puzzlement, as if awaiting instruction.
“Forget it” I spoke into the mic. “Shut it” “Turn your back to it” I flicked through the samples adding more and more sounds until I created an almost deafening soup of electronic discordance.
M
ore and more blinkereds pulled down their hoods, their eyes filled with uncertainty and displacement. I glanced back to the door. It had dissipated to little more than a ghostly blur, a mere suggestion of a shape. Finally, the chorus of chants stopped and I switched the music off.
Then a blood-curdling scream rang out from the crowd.
I glanced down at a blinkered woman trying to pull herself away from a group of hooded figures. They reached into the air and glowing silver blades appeared in their hands as they turned to the woman and began to chant. “See it. Imagine it. Open it!” Their low, commanding voices jarred the silence as they drifted through the throng, repeating the order.
Most of the blinkereds seemed to have been shaken from the spice-induced trance, and their faced were filled with a growing unease.
“See it. Imagine it. Open it!” The witches chanted, swarming through the crowd. A few blinkereds repeated the words and gazed back to the ghostly door, but their conviction had been shaken. Amid that realization an agonized scream shot across the clearing.
A blinkered man clutched his slashed throat as his blood spattered the people around him. The witch behind him glared up at me, her blade dripping red. “See it. Imagine it. Open it!” She shouted.
I tore off my cloak, sprang over the bank of controls and unsheathed the sword of intention as I leaped into the crowd.
Samuel and Astrid appeared by my side, weapons drawn. We bore down on the witches as they began to lash out at the blinkereds. Screams of terror and panic filled the air while bodies fell all around us. The witches ripped through the throng like a black plague, their swords gleaming with silvery fire and blood, as they cut and hacked, their arms rising and falling, rising and falling.
We were grossly outnumbered.
