Deadtown

by Nancy Holzner

Page 56

  “My servant Clarinda is not permitted to speak,” Baldwin said. “She renounced her vow and bent her will to mine after she’d seen a small demonstration of what a Hellion can do. Her uncle, it was. I believe he was a client of yours. ”

  I stared at him. “Are you talking about George Funderburk?”

  “Funderburk. Yes, that was the name. She’d created a charm to protect him, but obviously it did no good. When I explained that her child would be next if she refused to serve me, she gladly agreed. You see, I could create a spell to neutralize a single charm, but the shield was too powerful. I needed assistance. Clarinda’s has proved adequate. ”

  “So you sent the Destroyer after Frank, too. It wasn’t coming after me. ”

  “Not then, no. But it was delighted to find you there. As was I. I hoped I could deepen my knowledge of demonology through you, but you had nothing to teach me. I was already far advanced beyond your primitive skills. ” He made a dis missive gesture and turned away.

  I had to keep him talking. Even if the witches couldn’t help me, at least people would know what had happened here.

  “What changed you, Baldwin? You wanted to be governor of Massachusetts—and now you’re bent on destroying Boston. ”

  “You’re right. At first I did want to be governor. I made ridding the state of monsters my issue. That weakling Sugden, with his zombie daughter, would never get tough on paranormals. So to win I had to increase people’s fear of the monsters. I summoned Difethwr, bound the Hellion to my will. My plan was to send an army of Harpies to disrupt the Halloween parade. With that kind of terror three days before the election, how could I lose?”

  Exactly what has happening out there right now. “But that wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

  “Governor. ” His lip curled with disdain. “Who cares about being governor? That’s not power. Real power, as my servant Difethwr helped me to see, has nothing to do with humans and their puny institutions. Real power is irresistible. Real power crushes whatever opposes it, whatever it wishes to destroy. Binding Difethwr has given me a taste of that kind of power. It’s intoxicating, like nothing you could imagine. And tonight, as I bring an entire legion of Hellions under my command, my power will be limitless. ”

  He scooped me up as though I were a child and dumped me onto the makeshift altar. The amulet fell from my hand. Baldwin saw it and laughed. He held me flat on the altar. I struggled and kicked, but I hadn’t recovered my full strength. I did land one good kick in Baldwin’s stomach. He gasped and doubled over. I slammed him in the forehead with another kick.

  He staggered back, but my bare foot hadn’t done any real damage. Where were my stiletto-heeled boots when I needed them? I jumped off the table and ran for the door.

  “Difethwr, you fool, stop her,” Baldwin wheezed. I’d winded him, but the Hellion still heard the command. It appeared in front of me, its teeth bared, its eyes simmering with flame. Slime dripped from its warty blue skin. It reached for me, and I backed up, my right arm throbbing with fiery pain. Difethwr advanced, laughing, its eye-flames inches from my skin. It forced me back, until I bumped into the altar table behind me.

  “Bind her,” Baldwin said. “She’s wasted too much time already. ”

  Difethwr reached for me. Flames sparked from its fingertips, sheets of fire shimmered along its skin. I felt the heat approach, smelled sulfur and charred flesh. “No!” I screamed. I couldn’t let it touch me. I couldn’t. Still it came closer, reaching. I leaned back over the table until I was half lying on it again. I was trapped. Difethwr reached out to touch my right arm, which lay unmoving, obedient, awaiting the Hellion’s will.

  Our mark is upon thee, it had said.

  It’s inside me, I’d told Aunt Mab. I can’t get it out.

  The Hellion touched me. It touched my defenseless arm, and the mark exploded with new pain. The demon essence, in contact with its source, burned through my arm in an enormous surge of power, like a never-ending lightning strike. I screamed and screamed.

  Difethwr bellowed, its own voice rising into a howl of pain. It tried to pull back its hand, but it couldn’t. It was locked onto my flesh, onto the demon mark, as though welded there.

  Baldwin appeared, furious. “Difethwr, what in hell are you—?”

  Words poured forth from me in a torrent. I didn’t know where they came from; I barely recognized my own voice:

  “This Hellion is mine! I have the greater claim; our marks are upon each other. I repudiate your mastery, human, and bind Difethwr to me. ” A sound like a thunderclap shook the building, as furnace-fierce heat blasted through the room. Difethwr reeled backward, its hand free, and for a moment everything froze.

  There was no sound, not even a whisper of wind through the broken windows.

  The first thing to penetrate the silence was Difethwr’s laugh, a low rumble that rose in pitch and strength until it sounded like a roomful of damned souls howling. Baldwin’s mouth dropped open. Fear glittered in his eyes. Difethwr moved toward him, each footstep shaking the ground. Blue and yellow flames shot from its eyes, its mouth. Its entire body blazed with fire.

  “No! Stop! I command you!” screamed Baldwin. He commanded nothing now. The Hellion advanced. Baldwin turned and tried to run, but he tripped on his long black robe and fell hard, facedown. The flames of the Destroyer singed the hem of the garment. Baldwin whimpered in terror.

  “Stop, Hellion!” I called. “Arhosa!”

  Difethwr jerked, then stood still, as though some hand had yanked an invisible leash. It turned, slowly, and glared at me with bottomless hatred. It gnashed its teeth and made slashing motions with its claws. Its eye-flames shot toward me, but extinguished before they came near.

  I climbed down from the altar and stood as tall as I could. I pointed at the demon; it cringed and wailed and howled. The Hellion’s flames flared out in all directions. Except mine.

  “Difethwr,” I said, the words ringing clearly, “I banish thee back to the Hell whence thou came. ”

  The Hellion shuddered. It contorted its body, bending its spine and twisting its limbs, and moaned in pain. “We cannot go,” it whimpered. “The shield holds us in. ”

  I picked up the amulet from the floor and held it to my mouth like a microphone. “Now!” I shouted. “Open the shield!”

  Nothing happened. Ten seconds, Roxana had said, but I couldn’t count. There was no time in this moment—how can you pick ten seconds out of eternity? Difethwr moaned and writhed, and its moaning and writhing were eternal, the fate of the damned.

  Then a whirling light appeared, and time began again. Faint at first, the light quickly intensified, spinning faster and faster into a funnel shape directly above the Hellion’s head. Faster and brighter it whirled, until Difethwr began to grow misty and whirl with it, sucked into the vortex, inch by inch. The demon bellowed and roared, but the sounds grew faint, like an animal’s cry half-heard across a foggy marsh. The vortex of light sucked Difethwr into the air. In another moment, the Hellion was through the vortex and gone, except for the fading echo of an angry, tormented howl.

  29

  THE MOMENT THE SHIELD SNAPPED SHUT, I COLLAPSED LIKE a marionette whose strings had been cut, landing in a heap on the cold floor. The light of the vortex still dazzled me; I couldn’t see past the colored spots that swarmed across my vision. Every inch of my body shook. My teeth chattered. Nausea suffused my stomach. But in the cold, trembling, aching lump of flesh my body had become, one feeling predominated.

  And that feeling was nothing. I felt nothing whatsoever in my demon-marked arm.

  The nothingness wrapped around me like a cocoon. Far off, I could hear scuffling and muted shouting. I tried to rouse myself and go after Baldwin—I couldn’t let that son of a bitch get away—but I was shaking too hard to stand. I raised my right hand, amazed that it obeyed me, and flexed my fingers. They were shaky, but they worked. No twinges. No tingling or burning below the skin.
My arm was my own.

  “Are you all right?” A woman’s voice pushed through the cocoon. A face materialized in front of me and came into focus, the eyes squinting with concern. Clarinda, the missing witch.

  “Where’s Baldwin?” I asked, trying to jump to my feet but losing balance and falling back again.

  “It’s all right,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting up again. “He’s not going anywhere. I immobilized him with a binding spell. ”

  “But how—” I began, and then I realized. Baldwin’s power came from Difethwr. When I severed their bond, all his power crumbled, all his spells failed. He was helpless against Clarinda’s magic.

  She nodded, as though she’d read my thoughts. “Here,” she said, holding out a bundle of cloth. “You’re shivering. ”

  I reached out a shaking arm and took the bundle. It unfurled from my hand—a black robe with mystical symbols painted on it. Baldwin’s magician’s costume. Nothing glowed or shimmered now, but the robe was wool and looked warm. I pulled it over my head. It was like wrapping a blanket around myself, and I felt better immediately. The shaking diminished, then stopped. And still the demon mark was quiet. Almost as if it had never been there at all.

  I flexed and straightened my fingers, fascinated, twisting my wrist this way and that.

  “I’ve been in touch with the coven,” Clarinda said. “The police are on their way. ”

  Given Baldwin’s attack on the Halloween parade, I suspected it might be a while before the cops got here. I opened my senses to the demonic plane to see what was happening out there. Nothing but blessed silence. No shrieks, no screams, no maniacal laughter. Like the spell that bound Clarinda, the call to the Harpies had fallen apart when Baldwin lost power over his Hellion. For tonight, maybe for a few nights, Boston was a demon-free zone. That was good. I could use a vacation.

  Behind me, a growl started low and rough, and then swelled to a roar. Not on the demonic plane—this was a human sound. “What the hell is going on?” yelled Frank Lucado.