Deadtown

by Nancy Holzner

Page 10

  The detectives glanced at each other. Hagopian, her face drained of color, looked bewildered and scared. “What’s a Hellion?”

  “It’s a demon, but nothing like the kind I was telling you about. ” I wished I had another cup of water. “Those are personal demons. If you want to get technical, they’re of the genus Inimicus. Hellions are a different class altogether, genus Eversio. They exist to destroy. Usually, they don’t bother with individuals—they’re a lot more interested in wreaking havoc in society. Whenever something really nasty happens, you can bet Hellions are there. ”

  “Like what?”

  “Earthquakes, wars, genocide. Anything that causes massive suffering and destruction. ”

  “Like the plague. ” This came from Hagopian.

  “Yes. Events like that attract Hellions by the legion. ”

  Kane cut in. “Right after the plague, when we realized Hellions were massing, the witches of Boston put up a shield to keep them out. ”

  “So how did a Hellion get to Funderburk?”

  “The shield protects Boston itself. It forms a circle that reaches as far as Somerville, Cambridge, Brookline, Dor chester, and the harbor,” Kane said, drawing a circle in the air. “The larger the area, the weaker the shield. Besides, the plague was localized in town. ”

  “In a legion, Hellions are a terrifying destructive force. Individually, though, they’re usually not tormenters,” I said. “Instead, they find somebody with a crack in their moral armor, somebody who can be tempted by evil. They incite. They whisper, insinuate, nudge. ”

  Costello looked confused. “So you’re saying that a demon, a Hellion, talked somebody into killing Funderburk? But—the way he died . . . ”

  “No. I wasn’t quite finished. Even though they’re inciters, Hellions are also violent themselves. Brutally so. Sometimes a sorcerer will try to bind a Hellion into service. ”

  “Bind it?”

  “It’s a dangerous thing to do. A powerful sorcerer can force a Hellion to do his bidding. But the Hellion doesn’t like it one bit. A bound Hellion is surly, rebellious, and difficult to control. It’ll kill its master if it gets the chance. But if you can keep it under your thumb, a Hellion in bondage is a powerful weapon. ”

  “Let me get this straight. Somebody, some sorcerer, called up a Hellion and used it to kill Funderburk. ”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. ”

  “I think I do. ” Kane patted my back and moved to the front of the room. “It’s the election. ”

  We all turned to him. Detective Hagopian spoke. “The victim wasn’t involved in politics. He sold used cars. ”

  “That’s the point,” Kane looked angry. “Just a normal citizen. An ordinary, law-abiding citizen killed by the monsters. ”

  “Not monsters,” I said, surprised to hear Kane use that word, “a Hellion. ”

  He shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

  “PAs have independent existence. Demons are conjured entities—”

  “You know that. I know that. Even the good detectives here know that now. But the average voter has no clue. To them, anything that isn’t human is a monster. They’re not going to waste time on fine distinctions. When this hits the news . . . ” Kane turned to Detective Costello. “Who called the police?”

  Hagopian answered. “His neighbors, reporting loud noises from his house. They described the sound as”—she flipped back a few pages in her notebook—“ ‘repeated banging, like hammering. ’ Officers arrived at oh-seven-twenty. The front door was open, so they went in. They found the victim in his bedroom. There was no sign of a struggle. The body was tangled in the sheets, nothing more. ”

  “I locked it,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “The front door. I always double-check that all doors are locked when I leave. ” I could see myself watching Tina skip to the Jag, then testing the lock. I held the picture in my mind. Partly to be sure I was right, but mostly to hold back the memory of the last time I’d seen a Hellion victim.

  “Did the neighbors talk to the press?” Kane asked.

  “How would I know that?” Hagopian asked. “No reporters have called for a statement. That I know of, anyway. ”

  “What about the victim’s family? Are they likely to run screaming to the press?”

  Hagopian shrugged. “They think he had a heart attack. The autopsy won’t contradict that for several days, anyway. ”

  Kane paced in the small space near the door. “Somebody will leak it. It’s just a question of timing—how close to election day. All they have to do is whip up a little panic, and Baldwin wins. ”

  “Aren’t you overlooking something?” Kane stopped pacing and looked at me. “That Hellion didn’t attack at random. It went after my client, right after I exterminated those Drudes. What if it’s here for me?” My voice betrayed more panic than I wanted to show.

  “Vicky, I don’t think—”

  “Hang on a minute, Mr. Kane. ” Costello squinted at me with intense interest, his blue eyes glinting. “Why do you think a Hellion would be after you?”

  The roaring started in my ears again, but I swallowed hard and pushed it down. “Why, Detective Costello . . . ?” God, it hurt even to think it. I didn’t know if I could force the words out. Another hard swallow. “Ten years ago, a Hellion murdered my father. Because of me. ”

  6

  MY FATHER NAMED ME. ONE YEAR BEFORE I WAS BORN—TO the day—he was visited in a dream by Saint Michael, sworn enemy of demons, and Saint David, patron saint of Wales. Saint Michael brandished his flaming sword and declared, “A girl child shall be born unto you, and her name shall be Victory. ” Saint David nodded and made a gesture of blessing, then the two ascended—into heaven, I guess, or wherever saints go after they’ve delivered a prophecy. Dad thought they were growing taller, until he realized they were rising into the air. He could see the toenails of their sandaled feet at eye level for a moment, and then they were gone.

  Funny, Dad said, he’d never thought about archangels, or even saints, having toenails. But that was my favorite part of the story when I was a girl. Clean, pinkish toenails peeking out of golden sandals.

  Mom wanted to call me Rhiannon. But she was loopy on painkillers when my father filled out the birth certificate, so Victory I became.

  My childhood was normal enough, I suppose, for a demi-human whose birth had been foretold by a prophecy. We lived on the top floor of a Somerville triple-decker. Dad juggled three or four part-time teaching jobs at local colleges, and Mom stayed home with us two girls. When money got tight, she’d sell magazine subscriptions by phone from the kitchen. My parents were both Cerddorion—a race more common in their native Wales than in their adopted home of Boston—and I grew up trying to master the trick of being proud of my heritage while keeping it an absolute secret from the norms around me.

  I got by in school, played softball in Foss Park, and alternately fought with and confided in my older sister, Gwen. And then puberty hit—as if that weren’t tough enough—bringing with it the sudden, hard-to-control “gift” of shapeshifting. As I tried to learn how notto become a rampaging gorilla when I was angry or dissolve into a hyena when laughing, I also began my long education in demon slaying.

  No more softball. During the summer I was shipped off to my aunt’s manor house in North Wales to fulfill my destiny as a demon slayer. It was like school, only harder. I struggled to memorize entire books of information—the taxonomy of demons, their habits and habitats, the history of my family’s conflict with them—and Aunt Mab drilled me endlessly, peering disapprovingly over her glasses, her lips scrunched up like she’d tasted something awful. Outside, the green hills of Snowdonia, the woods and brooks and neighboring farms, called to me to explore. On the days when I got everything right, I could go run around outside. When I made a mistake, I had to stay in and study. I spent a lot of time indoors.

  But I loved Mab. Da
d said she could fight with a flaming sword. Although I found that hard to picture, with her frizzy steel-wool hair and her high-necked, long-skirted, old-fashioned dresses, I didn’t doubt it for a minute. There was something formidable about my aunt, something that said don’t mess with me. I could believe she was the scourge of demonkind. Fashion sense aside, I wanted to be just like her. On the days when I pleased her, her brisk “well done, child,” accompanied by a fleeting smile, was a real reward for my hard work.

  And year by year, drill by drill, I was learning. When I was fifteen, Aunt Mab declared that the book-learning portion of my education was finished. “I believe you’ve been through every book in my library,” she declared, as we sat by the fire on a cool June evening.

  “I think you’re right,” I said. “All but that one. ”

  “Which?”

  “The one Dad says is bound in human skin. ” I laughed, too old now for Dad’s scary stories, expecting her to laugh with me.

  But she didn’t laugh. Her face shut, quickly and completely, like someone yanking down a window shade. “That is not something to speak of,” she said. “Never mention it again. ”

  I gulped. “Okay. ” Involuntarily, I glanced at the shelf that held the book. There it was, its spine a pale ivory shade, unlike the calf-bound books around it.

  Mab grasped my arm. Her hand was gnarled and spotted with age, but her grip was iron-strong and her eyes burned like coals. “Do not touch it, do not speak of it. Do not even think of it. Never, Victory. Do you understand?”

  Mute, I nodded. And for that summer and the years that followed, I tried my best to comply with her warning. It wasn’t hard. Mab was teaching me weaponry: fencing, archery, marksmanship, knife fighting. Now that was more like it. I loved the jeweled, bronze-bladed dagger she gave me for my sixteenth birthday. Who cared about books, even that book, when I was learning the best ways to fillet a demon?