Black City Demon

by Richard A. Knaak

  Behind him, the shadow I knew to be Lon flittered off . . . almost nervously, I thought. Still keeping an eye on Kravayik, I reached back for Claryce.

  “Lower the sword, Nick. He came to help us.”

  “Help us or help himself?”

  Kravayik bowed his head. “Help you, yes, but to my shame, to help assuage my great guilt as well, may the Lord forgive me.”

  “You made some pact with that thing of hers . . . the Feir’hr Sein, didn’t you?”

  “Only out of necessity, Master Nicholas. He cared for the pact as little as you or I, but your hold over it made certain that it had to agree.”

  “My what?”

  Kravayik gave me a quizzical look. “You have a hold over it. I am not certain how, but it was clear. It is now caught between its loyalties to both you and Her Lady.”

  “You’re making no sense.” My head cleared enough that I finally paid more attention to our surroundings as well. We were in front of a church, but nothing so grand as Holy Name. Still, it had a cleanliness that showed that those who served here had a strong faith.

  It was also very familiar. We were no longer in the heart of the city. Instead, we were back in North Town, near where I made my “home.”

  And right in front of Saint Michael’s.

  Its pointed tower loomed over the rest of the structure. For a brief time that tower’d made Saint Michael’s the tallest building in Chicago. The Redemptorist order that oversaw the church had administered it since its building just a couple of years before the Great Fire.

  I immediately looked around for Father Jonathan, the priest in charge and a light sleeper. He surely couldn’t have missed the noise we’d made. Why he hadn’t come out to investigate bothered me.

  Kravayik crossed his heart, or at least the general location where it would’ve been if he’d been human. “May the Lord forgive me again . . . if that is possible. You seek the good father. I went inside just before I convinced the Feir’hr Sein of the choice it had to make between masters. The priest will sleep until we are done here.”

  I arched my brow. “What’d you do?”

  “A simple suggestion of deeper sleep. I swear only that! My guilt is great as it is!”

  “It should be a lot greater. You meet Claryce and fail to mention to either of us what happened thirty years ago?”

  “Nick.” Claryce pushed my sword arm down. “Nick, he’s explained. He did what he could, but I . . . Claudette . . . was very determined. I can appreciate that trait.”

  “Did he explain how you got involved in the first place?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.” She kept pressing my arm down until the blade pointed at the ground. I wondered why I let her, but I did. “Nick, I was searching for a friend . . . I mean Claudette was searching . . . during the exposition. She . . . her friend disappeared. The trail led to . . . you know where.”

  The cold weather was also finally registering with me. I wasn’t so concerned about my health, but I knew Claryce couldn’t be doing that well in the thin coat she was wearing. “All right. I’ve got a ton of questions, but let’s finish this up inside. Fetch?”

  We looked around, but he was gone.

  “He was with us when we came back . . . from there,” Claryce murmured, answering my unspoken concern. “Was that really Feirie?”

  “No . . . maybe . . . I don’t know anymore. I’d have said no for certain . . . but what about it, Kravayik? That shouldn’t have been the true Feirie, but things change a lot during the Frost Moon’s wake, don’t they?”

  He exhaled. “More than I would ever wish.”

  The wind picked up. I led us off the middle of Cleveland Avenue to the doors of Saint Michael’s. I had a key, given to me by Father Jonathan’s predecessor, but suspected the door would be unlocked.

  It was.

  “You do this, too, Kravayik?” Only after he nodded did I open the way. I still remembered Diocles mentioning someone visiting the church in my absence. I was beginning to suspect it’d been one of the goons who apparently were working for Bond.

  Thinking of Diocles, I looked past the pews, past the intricate stained glass windows and meticulous carvings of the saint and others. Yeah, Saint Michael’s wasn’t Holy Name—in fact, Diocles often called it rustic, though as a dead emperor he’d naturally been used to a lot more sumptuousness—but I thought its patron saint couldn’t complain.

  I, on the other hand, did have some complaints of my own for that particular saint, but he’d made certain not to cross my actual path since Oberon. Instead, I turned my thoughts to Diocles again.

  “Might as well make your appearance,” I muttered under my breath to the thus-far absent ghost. He was generally prompt, popping up seconds after I entered.

  Not this time, though. Even after we’d moved halfway into the church the emperor’d still not made his grand entrance.

  But someone else did. Someone we weren’t expecting.

  Father Jonathan. Father Jonathan, who should’ve been sleeping.

  “Nick! Of course! Who else would it be?” The young priest adjusted his oversized, round glasses. “And Miss Simone!” He rubbed his thinning blond hair in concern. “Oh, dear! Are they still after you?”

  Father Jonathan’d been introduced to Claryce after I’d brought her to the sanctuary of Saint Michael’s during our struggle with Oberon. Oberon’s Wyld servants hadn’t been able to cross the threshold of the holy place. His human goons hadn’t known of her presence here, either.

  “Yes,” I answered quickly. “Turns out there’re a couple on the loose, but don’t concern yourself. We just needed a moment to catch our breath. Then, we’ll move on.”

  “Oh, that will never do! At least join me while I brew some tea for the pair of you!”

  The pair of you? I looked around. Only then did I see that, like Fetch, Kravayik’d slipped away.

  “Damn him,” I murmured.

  Claryce gave me a rebuking look, but fortunately Father Jonathan couldn’t hear my blasphemy. In part to cover up any chance he might belatedly realize what I’d mouthed, I answered, “That’d be appreciated, thank you.”

  “Not at all.” The priest paused. “Miss Simone, could I beg your assistance? I’m really sorry!”

  “Not at all. I’d be glad to.” She went from me to Father Jonathan.

  He started to depart the room with her, then paused. “Ah! Forgot! Do you remember where the kitchen is, Miss Simone? I need to retrieve something from the altar.”

  “I remember.” Claryce had hidden in the church while keeping out of sight of Oberon’s servants, using quarters kept for a female housekeeper who came on a regular basis to deal with those matters Father Jonathan could not.

  As she vanished through the doorway, Father Jonathan quickly signaled for me to join him. Frowning, I did just as he requested.

  “May the Lord forgive me for the lie,” he commented under his breath, sounding a lot like Kravayik. “I wasn’t sure if I should mention this with Miss Simone around. This really concerns you . . . I think.”

  He had my attention. “What’s wrong, Father?”

  “I’ve had . . . There’s been a visitor. It shames me to even speak of it . . . but I know you might listen.”

  “‘A visitor’?” Again I recalled Diocles’s vague mention of someone stopping by Saint Michael’s. “Do you know who it was?”

  The priest had always been a pale man, but now he was nearly as pale as the Schreck twins. “No . . . I can only describe him.”

  “So tell me.” I knew it couldn’t be the twins, but maybe Bond had tracked me to here.

  Father Jonathan had a good eye for detail. He told me far more than I needed to identify his visitor. In fact, I knew who it was long before the father uttered the impossible words.

  “I think . . . Nick, it could only be a ghost. . . .”

  Yeah. He’d seen Diocles . . . and that was impossible.

  CHAPTER 14

  I had a lot of questions of my own tha
t I couldn’t ask with Father Jonathan around, not the least of which had to do with why Diocles was now visible to someone other than me. I had the suspicion that Diocles’s situation could be blamed on the forces stirred up by the Frost Moon’s wake, but couldn’t be certain.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t something the priest allowed me to pursue immediately. We sat in the small living room that was part of the priest’s personal quarters. The three chairs and round table had been left behind by his predecessor, Father Peter, who’d served at Saint Michael’s since before the Great Fire. In fact, everything in the room was exactly as the older priest had kept it. The framed pictures of the son of God and the warrior saint for whom the church was named hung just where they had so many years ago when Peter and I’d had the conversation where he’d realized just who I was.

  Father Peter’d even known of Diocles, although he hadn’t been able to see or hear him. When he’d left, I’d decided that his successor would be better off ignorant. Now, that was looking harder and harder to do.

  Of course, as important as Father Jonathan’s situation was, to me it paled beside everything involving Bond’s sinister maze and what’d happened after that. It wasn’t until the priest had to excuse himself for a moment that I even had a chance to broach some of the subjects with Claryce.

  “What happened in Holy Name?” I quietly asked as soon as he stepped out of earshot.

  She leaned forward. “After that thing took you, Kravayik leapt after it. I couldn’t believe that he could move that fast. He was out of the cathedral and after it before I knew what happened!”

  “He didn’t take you with?”

  “No. I went to the car, where Fetch still was. He’d seen the Wyld swooping in on the entrance and tried to warn us.”

  She’d used Fetch’s senses to keep on the trail. Like the hound he somewhat resembled, Fetch had a fine nose, and he’d made the best of it. When on occasion they’d lost the shadow’s trail, he’d used his familiarity with Kravayik to follow the latter’s scent.

  Unfortunately, they’d eventually still lost both. Hours had passed. On a hunch, though, Claryce’d turned the Wills around and headed for West Sixty-Third. She’d almost gotten there when Fetch caught scent of Kravayik again.

  And there, just three blocks from where we’d first met Bond, she’d found not Kravayik, but me. Me in the midst of my fight with the two goons.

  I was grateful she hadn’t arrived before I’d regained most of the control over my body. Although she’d seen me transform into the dragon over Lake Michigan, I didn’t like reminding her any more than I had to about what my tie to the dragon actually meant.

  Claryce’d been just about to drive the tommy gunner down when Kravayik’d shown up. She’d also seen the Feir’hr Sein arrive a moment later and noticed how it and Kravayik had appeared to have some sort of acknowledgement of one another.

  “And then Kravayik let that thing of hers envelop you,” Claryce added warily.

  “Did he now?” I didn’t like the way Kravayik’s loyalties seemed to be shifting like the tide.

  “Yes. I confronted him about it, and when he said what had happened to you—how you’d been cast into some pocket variation of Feirie like what happened in your house during our fight with Oberon—I insisted on following you. Fetch, too. He grabbed the sword after you lost it.”

  It was nice to know I could at least rely on Fetch . . . this time. I still pictured him on the shore of Lake Michigan, debating between saving me and accepting Oberon’s offer. Okay, he’d saved me, but I still couldn’t forget the hesitation. I’d been betrayed too many times by those I’d thought were friends.

  For a saint, I’d never been much for forgiving betrayal.

  I knew what’d happened after, but another, more urgent matter needed to be addressed. “Did you see anything around me? Anything odd about the buildings?”

  “No. You were in front of a warehouse. I guess that’s where they keep their distillery,” Claryce replied, referring to the bootleggers who’d tried to gun me down.

  “No idea which direction I could’ve come from?”

  “None. Why?”

  I gave her a very brief rundown of what’d happened. As she gaped in horror, I added, “I was hoping you or Kravayik might’ve seen where Bond kept his little chamber of horrors. I suspect somewhere close to the original Murder Castle since he seemed very interested in that area, but exactly where, I need to know.”

  “From what you described, someone should have noticed all that damage. You’d think there would’ve been sirens immediately.”

  “Yeah. You’d think. We’ll have to check the news—”

  At that point Father Jonathan returned. We spent the next several minutes talking about the dangers Chicago faced being engulfed in the war between the two biggest gangs in the city and how things only looked to be getting worse. I hoped that might lead him to mentioning any news story fitting what I’d been going through, but instead it turned his thoughts to politics.

  “I say my prayers for Mayor Dever, of course,” the priest went on earnestly, “but I fear that he will be facing a major challenge next election.”

  He didn’t have to explain the first part. Dever’s predecessor, William “Big Bill” Thompson, was looking for a fight come next election. Thompson had a lot of money backing him, not to mention rumored support from most of the underworld. When he’d been mayor, corruption and gangland killings had reached new highs . . . or lows, depending on how one measured things. Dever was a fairly good man as Chicago politics went, but he’d been lucky. For reasons not entirely clear, Thompson’d stepped aside and not run, letting the local postmaster, a man named Arthur Lueder, run in his stead. Lueder’d been walloped by Dever.

  Now, though, everything hinted that Thompson was through playing games. I’d seen him when he’d shown up for a special event held by Oberon in his guise as Delke. I couldn’t believe that Thompson knew just who and what one of his biggest backers had been . . . but then again, this was Chicago politics. Oberon would fit right in.

  “Hopefully, Mayor Dever will be reelected,” Claryce said after a sip. “I’ve met Mr. Thompson.”

  Father Jonathan waited for her to continue, but when instead she took another sip, he chuckled at the unspoken intimation. “I know I am supposed to be neutral before others where politics is concerned . . . but I very much appreciate your opinion, Miss Simone.”

  “It’s Claryce, please.”

  “I would prefer ‘Miss Simone.’ Not meaning to slight you. It’s just my manner.”

  “It took me three years of pounding to get him to call me something other than ‘Mr. Medea,’” I interjected. My cup had been empty for a couple of minutes, but I hadn’t wanted to put it down too quickly even though I’d intended to move on some time ago. Now, though, I’d waited long enough. “I appreciate the tea, Father, but I’m going to have to beg a big favor of you.”

  He carefully set down his own cup. “What is it?”

  “Keep company with Claryce for an hour or two. I need to check something out nearby.”

  There was a slight flickering of his eyes. He thought he knew what I had in mind, and it was part of my reason for temporarily leaving, but he didn’t know the full truth.

  “Are you certain you don’t need me?” Claryce asked with a hint of ice in her own gaze. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Father Jonathan, but I was willing to bet she didn’t want me wandering off after what we’d already been through.

  “I won’t be far.”

  “In this weather, I pray not,” the priest murmured. He smiled at Claryce. “I will try not to bore you, Miss Simone. Is there some subject of which you have some great interest? Perhaps we can find something we have in common.”

  She couldn’t help smiling in return, which relieved me. I slipped out of the priest’s quarters and into the main part of the church in order to take care of Father Jonathan’s problem first.

  And there he finally was. Diocles, looking so solid
I thought that if I reached out and touched him, I’d have cloth and flesh stop my fingers.

  Of course, I tried.

  The fingers still went through.

  “Yes, I am a ghost, a specter,” the emperor remarked with a hint of amusement. “You have noticed a change, too, have you not, Georgius?”

  I’d not only noticed a change in how he looked, but also the fact that he was whispering. Since the time he’d begun haunting me, Diocles’s general tone of voice’d been loud and only loud. “He can hear you?”

  “Hear and see.” The ghost glanced past me, almost as if he expected even his whisper to bring the priest running.

  “All the time?”

  “Nay. Only after dark. Even then, if I keep to the shadows, he does not appear to notice me . . . unlike that Kravayik character.”

  “Kravayik can see you, too?”

  “Yes. Suddenly my world has widened . . . and I am none too happy about it, Georgius. I do not want inquisitive tourists traipsing after me.”

  The image forced a rare smile on my face, which only served to infuriate Diocles more. “You know roughly when this started happening?”

  “Just after that damned devil of beast tried to use your body to steal that magical card from the cathedral.”

  It fit with the Frost Moon’s presence. “It may not last, but then again, it may. You’d best be careful.”

  “Sound if useless advice.” He stroked his beard. “I am pleased to see you are all right.”

  He referred to what’d happened in Holy Name. I belatedly thought about how I should’ve asked him how he’d done. Last I’d seen Diocles, he’d shattered like a mirror. Guess I’d just taken it for granted that he’d be fine. After all, dead was dead . . . or undead. “What happened to you back there?”

  The ghost shuddered. “Gods! It was like being in a thousand places at once! Fortunately, I was able to reform a few minutes later. Regrettably, all of you were gone after that. I kept hoping that you’d end up somewhere blessed so that I could see you were all right.”