by Irene Ferris
“The monks were not very happy with the damage done and questioned us about the animal. We, of course, told him that it was our pony and our fault that it got there so that they wouldn’t come back to you. We were promptly hauled us back to the Abbey where we were beaten, denied supper and forced to pray for forgiveness prostrate on the chapel floor.” He pantomimed, putting his arms out in a cross and head down.
“I spent so much time face down on that floor praying for forgiveness and grace that I feared my nose would go flat.”
“But the richest part was that stupid pony—the creature that caused all our woes—was taken back to the Abbey and given warm mash and good grain and a clean stall while we shivered on the cold stone floor. I swear it laughed at us all the way back to your stables the next day.”
He leaned back on the seat with a small smile. “What was that animal’s name? I swear, I should remember it because that vile creature surely was a physical incarnation of evil.” He rubbed his chin, scratching his goatee thoughtfully.
“I don’t know.” Jenn shook her head and repeated softly, “I don’t remember any of that.”
Mathieu dropped his hand and paused. “No. Of course you wouldn’t.” He smiled again. “But you loved that pony more than anything else in the world. Know that now.”
Jenn smiled weakly and brushed her hair back nervously. “Okay. Thank you, I think.”
Mathieu nodded, a small smile still on his lips. While she watched, he grew suddenly very still and the smile slid from his lips to be replaced with a look of tense dread as he peered forward through the windshield.
“What’s wrong?” She bent and looked forward as well. She could see nothing but the hills and a sign giving the distance to a city—probably Grenoble.
“Can’t you feel it?” He drew his knees to his chest again, wrapping his arms tightly around his legs.
“Feel what?” She peered ahead again, exchanging worried looks with Marcus over the sudden change in mood.
“The city. The people. The anger and fear and pain. Can’t you feel it? Gadreel and his kind haunt such places.”
Marcus spoke from the front. “Gadreel is gone. You made sure of that. He can’t hurt you now.”
Mathieu looked at him, brown eyes wide. “I am aware of that. Painfully aware of that. But did you think Gadreel was the only one? Did you think that there were no other foul creatures in this world?”
“We know now there are others…” Marcus started before Mathieu cut him off.
“They are without number, Marcus. They roam freely between our world and There and use humanity to fill their needs—all their needs. Death is nothing to them. Time is nothing. We are nothing. All they care about is power and how to secure as much of it as possible. I can assure you that this world is crawling with them.” He whispered quietly, almost to himself, “It’s almost hypnotic, all that power.”
Jenn smiled at him. “Well, I feel better knowing that you’re with us then. You can protect us. You know what to do.”
After a long silence Mathieu answered, “Yes, I do know what to do. Run and hide. Don’t let anyone or anything find you. Ever.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mathieu was roused from dreams of home and of Yvette’s golden hair.
“Come on now, time to get up. I’m hungry.” Gadreel smiled before him and yanked on the chain around Mathieu’s neck to force him to his feet. “I’ve spent entirely too much time and energy on you and it’s time you earned your keep.”
With a wave of its hand, Gadreel summoned forth the black horse with flaming hooves. With another wave, the mule Damonn had been riding. A third, the lurid blood-red armor it’d been wearing when it’d first appeared to Mathieu.
The Demon Lord preened for a moment and then looked at Mathieu. “Oh. I can’t have you go about like that. I want to keep you pretty.” It made a gesture and agony danced down Mathieu’s nerves. Gasping for breath, Mathieu looked at his arms. The bites, bruises, burns and welts that covered his body were healing before his eyes. He held his hand up and watched as a particularly deep gash closed, turned into a pink line and then disappeared.
“Hello.” Gadreel waved a hand in front of Mathieu’s face, drawing his attention back to the present. “Draw the Orbis. It’s time to return to your world.”
“Draw the what?” Mathieu shook his head in confusion.
The Demon Lord’s smile slid from its face to be replaced with a cruel scowl. “Draw the Orbis so we can leave this dead world. You know how to do it. Just do it.”
With no conscious thought, Mathieu turned to the blank, grey earth and knelt. Dragging his finger, he made first a circle around Gadreel and the mounts, and then a second circle around that. Characters filled the space between the circles one after another.
Finally he stepped inside the circle and looked down at what he’d wrought. “What is this?” He shook his head at it.
Gadreel laughed. “It’s one of the two reasons you’re still alive. I can’t remember all this minutia myself, so you have to remember it for me.”
Mathieu cocked his head. “But I don’t know what it is.”
“And you never will. You just hold the knowledge for me. You can’t use it for yourself. That would be disastrous.” Gadreel smiled, its form beautiful and angelic again. Mathieu cringed despite his best efforts. That smile had been a precursor to entirely too much pain.
At another gesture from Gadreel, the circle glowed around them. A quick shifting feeling that left Mathieu’s stomach behind and the world was suddenly not grey anymore, but green and red and brown. He could smell life, and it was the sweetest thing he’d ever smelt before. It smelled of home.
“Get on the mule and come with me.” Gadreel’s voice broke through his reverie. Mathieu’s body moved independently of his will and clambered onto the back of the preternaturally still animal. Together they rode for a short distance and came to a bluff that overlooked a walled town.
On the bluff waited three other beings. Mathieu could tell that they were as Gadreel was, creatures that were not human. Their shapes blurred around the edges as he studied them but he could see that they chose to be beautiful beyond words.
With them were humans. The humans were naked, just like Mathieu, except for the rusted iron chains around their necks. Two chained men and a woman stood behind the Demons, staring blankly into space.
Mathieu dismounted from the mule and watched it dissolve into nothing before his eyes as Gadreel joined the other Demons.
One of the Demons looked back at Mathieu. “New one,” it said quietly.
“Yes. Damonn had reached his end. I’m still breaking this one in.” Gadreel shrugged with one shoulder.
“Pretty,” another one spoke. “And still lively. You always did like yours lively, though.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Gadreel spoke with not a small amount of pride. “After all, I have to have something to entertain myself with when I’m not busy raising Hell with you.”
There were a few guffaws from the other Demons. Mathieu chose to ignore them as he turned his attention to the humans on the bluff.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” He spoke to the first one, a man of middling years with red hair and green eyes.
There was no response. The eyes were cold and flat as the painted saints in a chapel.
He tried the other two in the same way, but there was no response. There was a moment of realization that their eyes were as dead as Damonn’s had been.
He turned back to the bluff but the Demons were gone. He ran to the edge and looked down at the town. An army was gathered around the walls, siege engines drawn close. The townfolk were fighting bravely, tipping scaling ladders from the walls. But even his inexperienced eyes could see there was no hope. The invading army was too big and too well armed.
His eyes could pick out banners that he knew, Templars and Hospitallers and various Dukes and Counts of great importance. His mouth went dry at the realization that this was
his army, the army of God set on freeing Jerusalem. But this was not Jerusalem and these people were not infidels. He could clearly see a church in the center of the town.
Movement caught his eye in the body of the army, and he realized he was watching two of the new Demons travel amongst the ranks. As they rode past, the men grew more agitated, anger pouring out of them and spreading behind them in an expanding wake.
His attention was drawn to the front lines of the siege. Gadreel stood on the front of a siege tower, its red armor glinting in the sun. It yelled and urged the men there to greater effort and greater hatred.
Mathieu looked down and saw the last of the Demons at the city gate, hands flat against the wood. It gave a massive shove and the gates swung open. The waiting army swarmed in and around the Demon like a swarm of enraged bees.
The crusaders rushed into the town and mayhem erupted before his eyes. “No.” He whispered the word and then turned to the other humans on the bluff. They still stared blankly ahead. “No.” He said it louder this time and then took off running down the hill towards the wall. “NO,” he cried a third time as he ran through the open gates and into the town.
The streets ran with blood. “No. This is not right.” He ran towards the sound of screaming in the distance and came upon a Templar cornering a woman in an alley. She was shielding her child, an infant, with her body.
“They are innocents,” Mathieu screamed as he shoved the knight as hard as he could. “This is not honorable! This is not chivalrous!”
The Templar hesitated for a moment, seeming to search the air where Mathieu stood. With a shrug, he continued stalking the woman.
“NO!” Mathieu ran forward again but a vicious grip on his hair pulled him back and threw him to the ground.
Gadreel stood over him, a dark scowl on its face. “Let him do his work.”
Screams came from the end of the alley and the knight stalked past, fresh blood streaming down his sword.
“This is not right.” Mathieu tried to stand but Gadreel placed a foot on his chest and pressed him down.
“Do you not feel it?” Gadreel looked at him, eyes half lidded in pleasure. “The pain, the fear, the death? It is a wondrous thing, isn’t it? Fragrant and sweet like a fine wine.”
Gadreel made a pushing gesture and fire filled Mathieu’s veins. The feeling grew and intensified until he felt as though he were incapable of breathing and his skin felt stretched tight and full till bursting.
Mathieu rolled over to get to his knees and saw the two mangled corpses against the wall. The baby had been cloven in half.
“This feeling—this power is from their deaths, isn’t it?” Mathieu gasped out the question and at Gadreel’s answering smile began to vomit uncontrollably onto the ground.
He had not eaten in any recent memory and there was only bile to bring up, but he brought it up just the same.
After a moment of this, the hand wrapped itself in his hair again and the world shifted.
He was back on the bluff, Gadreel standing over him, hand in his hair, bending him backwards till he almost touched the ground with the back of his head.
“Listen and listen well,” said the Demon with a grim smile, its blue eyes cold as the deepest winter. “I could rip out your soul in order make you hold more power and maybe I should. So you’d best hide yourself well and you’d best hide deep. If you do something like this again, I will come after your soul and I will find it and you will think everything that you have already suffered at my hands as pleasant in comparison.”
Gadreel released Mathieu’s hair and let him drop to the ground. “Now stay here and accept what I give you. This is your place. Learn it.” The Demon turned and vanished.
Mathieu lay in the dirt and gasped for breath, and then crawled to his knees. He looked up at the three other humans, still standing in the same place as when he left. Screams and cries from the town below reached his ears, rending his heart anew.
“How can you bear this? Can’t you stop them?” He reached forward and beat the earth in front of him and then looked at them again.
There was no reaction, no movement from them. They were dead inside if not out. Something caught his eye and he looked closer. Each of them had an aura, a bloated red aura that grew bigger and stronger as he watched.
He then looked down at his hands. He had the same aura and it grew with each scream from down below. His nerves tingled and his brain ached and the redness grew with each moment. “No.” He sobbed helplessly and then drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself, making himself as small as possible. “No.” He kept repeating the word but it had no effect. The foul power still came.
Chapter Sixteen
It was late afternoon when they arrived at the stone chapterhouse. It was old, Mathieu noticed, even if it wasn’t as quite as old as he was. Still, it had sufficient pedigree to be impressive.
Perched in the mountains, truly suspended between earth and sky, it was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. It had all the outward trappings of a monastery. Stained glass windows glistened in the afternoon sun, and a small group of pilgrims filed up a winding track to a group of statues on a nearby hill. Behind what looked to be a large chapel, he could make out the roofline of larger buildings—lodgings?
Eddie pulled into the circular drive and then through a gate between two buildings into a cobbled courtyard. The vehicle stopped in front of large, ornately carved wooden doors. Symbols danced over and around each other on the doors, spells of protection and concealment and compulsion all intertwined together. Mathieu didn’t need to expend any power to see them shimmer.
The small hairs stood up on the back of his neck and on his arms as he watched their welcoming committee step forward to help Jenn out of the vehicle and greet the others warmly.
An older man with silver hair and an expensive suit pulled the lever to move the middle seat forward. Mathieu drew himself straighter and ignored the hand the man offered as he climbed out of the vehicle.
The power that had been sunk in and around the building made Mathieu’s feet tingle when they hit the pavement. With this much power, they glow like a fountain of fireworks. Nothing should be able to spot me over this.
The older man still stood close, closer than was comfortable. And he was staring. Definitely staring.
With a slight motion, Mathieu turned to look suspiciously as he leaned away at the same time.
“Oh, I’m staring. I’m sorry.” The man caught himself and then bowed elegantly. “I’m Hugh Devalle. I wanted to personally welcome you and thank you for coming to help my daughter.”
Mathieu raised an eyebrow and studied the man closely. If Amanda was of his line, then this man might be too. The man was definitely aristocratic in look and bearing, but that meant nothing. Mathieu himself could hardly be considered a true noble in the loosest meaning of the word, after all.
Hugh was tall and well proportioned. His hair was uniformly silver and his skin was tanned with health. His eyes were clear and blue, his teeth straight.
“You are most welcome.” It was a response completely of old, old habit, automatically spoken in the attempt to find something, anything to say. “I would assume then that you are a member of this…” Mathieu waved a hand towards the building that glowed with power out of the corner of his eye.
Hugh smiled and bowed his head again. “Oh, yes. My family was one of the founding families of the Foundation over five hundred years ago.”
“Really?” Mathieu turned back towards the building. “As an elder, I would assume that you would be able to swear to my safety once I pass through those doors.” He gestured at the spells carved into the wood. “I will not enter here unless you swear to me that I will be able to leave unmolested.” Of course, the thought of being surrounded by so many people made the shelter of the house irresistible. The darkness already writhed under his skin, eager to escape and wreak havoc.
The right side of Hugh’s mouth quirked into a strange half-smile. �
�I would swear to move the world if you get her back. You will be unmolested, unbothered, unbound. You will be whatever you wish to be as long she comes home intact with that thing dead. I swear it on my honor and on my soul.”
“You will forgive me if I hold a small amount of suspicion.” Mathieu rolled up to the balls of his feet, tension carving lines that did not exist into his face. He drew his arms in, making himself as small as possible.
“Of course.” Hugh smiled and shrugged. “To be blunt, you are something very exciting. With your power and knowledge, we could advance our goals an unimaginable amount. Getting something like you working for us would be invaluable.” He gestured towards the doors and indicated that Mathieu should go first. “That said, I’m completely selfish. I’m willing to forgo the greater good if it means I get my daughter back.”
Pausing before the doors, Mathieu looked back over his shoulder. There was a slight breeze coming off the mountains and it brought the faint sound of singing with it. The temptation to turn and leave was great, almost too great to resist.
Jenn and Marcus stood in the front hallway, past the doors that shimmered in the night. They both watched him with cautious eyes, almost as if they knew what he was feeling.
With a deep breath, he stepped across the threshold and into the Foundation’s grasp.
“We’ve set aside a room for you on the second floor in the old house. It’s as clean as we could make it. The residuals have been around for centuries, you understand.” Hugh walked next to Mathieu as they climbed the stairs together. The Foundation’s house had been added to and built on over the years in a sprawl, but the original structure still resided at the middle of the complex.
“I understand.” It was actually soothing inside the house. Their wards, while not as strong or stealthy as the ones on his mountain, insulated the house from outside influences. There were undercurrents of old magic from long ago, the edges worn with time but still effective. Of course, the real spellcraft would be in the basements, spells carved on the bones of the earth. But it resonated up here as well, the wood saturated with power from centuries of spillover.
