Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel

by Gareth Jefferson Jones K. W. Jeter

  “I grow weaker,” the Devil murmured darkly. His legions were so close to him, so much a part of his substance, that the death of each was like a knife-blow to his heart. To watch so many being slaughtered was to suffer a million fatal cuts. But even more infuriating was that he still didn’t know how this dead army had been summoned from their graves, and set against him and his followers. To have done so was to have wielded an awesome power—but who in the city possessed the strength to cast such a spell?

  The answer came from behind him. A voice shouted: “You wanted an army—”

  He whirled about and saw Death’s apprentice standing at the base of the mounded corpses.

  “So I brought you one.” One sleeve of Nathaniel’s leather jacket was charred to tatters, revealing the equally blackened skin of his arm.

  “How—” The Devil stared at him in shock. “I left you to rot in Hell.”

  Nathaniel said nothing in response, simply smiled.

  He could see the difference in the young man. Even with the injured arm, Nathaniel looked stronger than he had before, as if the powers he held had enlarged his muscles and bones, rendering him taller and more threatening. And not just that: he was no longer a mere boy, Death’s youthful apprentice. Something had matured him, turned him into a man. The eyes that gazed upon the Devil showed no fear or hesitation. Fear clenched cold inside the Devil’s gut, as if—for the first time—he was looking upon his own certain destruction.

  Before he could speak, the cold grasp of the dead seized upon his legs, nearly toppling and dragging him from the top of the grisly mound on which he stood. Distracted by Nathaniel’s sudden appearance, the Devil hadn’t seen a half dozen of the dead coming up on the other side. A single sweep of his arm sent a churning fireball into their empty-eyed faces, scattering them in all directions.

  But he knew he couldn’t get rid of the dead army until he had first taken care of Nathaniel. As long as Death’s apprentice was alive, his own survival was in question. Nathaniel had been the one who had raised the dead; they would keep coming, wave after wave of them, as long as his magic called them to battle.

  The Devil closed his eyes and crossed his arms upon his chest. He summoned his own power, every fiery atom that his body held coalescing one by one with the others. Greater and greater, the scalding flames reached down into his groin and up into his throat. If he held that force a moment longer inside, it would consume him. Instead, the Devil flung his arms wide, unleashing a ball of radiant plasma, expanding wider than his own form, and flying straight at the insolent human standing before him.

  The great fireball halted halfway between the Devil and the target at which he had aimed it. It hung there, the churning radiance that played across its curved surface wavering red-tinged shadows across the stacks of dismembered bodies.

  Past the glowing sphere, he could see that Nathaniel had raised his good arm, holding his palm outward, halting the plasma in its course.

  “How…” The Devil glared at him in mingled rage and wonder. “How can you do that…? There is no power on earth that can defeat me.”

  “Think again…,” said Nathaniel. “Because the coldness of death brings an end to everything in time…” He gave a slow nod. “Including you.”

  As the Devil watched, the fireball began to turn to ice. Its surface silvered over with hoarfrost, the radiance gradually dying inside. Its trail of fire, extending back to the Devil, froze as well. His eyes widened as he looked down and saw the ice forming around his hands, trapping them in a thick crystalline casing. But it didn’t stop; the ice grew, setting around his wrists and forearms.

  The Devil’s response edged into panic. He frantically smashed one growing mass of ice against the other, trying to crack them into shattered crystals. A few whitened shards were chipped away, melting into steam as they arced through the fiery air. But the clear, unbroken ice grew larger, even as his attempts to free himself grew more desperate.

  Within a few moments, his elbows would be frozen inside the encroaching ice. If he didn’t do something soon, find a way to break the spell that Nathaniel had hurled at him, his entire body would be encased motionless inside it. He struggled to break his arms free of the encroaching mass of ice—in vain. It had already grown too heavy, shackling him to the spot. Chest laboring for breath, he threw back his head.

  “To my side!” The Devil’s voice cried out across the battlefield. He desperately looked about, seeking his followers. “Now!”

  * * *

  A ghastly peace had begun to settle upon the garden square.

  The dead and dismembered outnumbered the living. The army of corpses, torn bone from bone by the demons’ weapons, lay motionless. The spell that had exhumed them, set them stumbling toward the fight, now seeped away in the rain pooling beneath the fragments of their bodies. Rivulets of blood, once hissing like steam, now clotted upon the shattered skulls and riven breastplates of the Devil’s legions.

  “Two of these bastards left—” Blake looked over at Hank, standing a few yards away. “And you wouldn’t know it, they’re the worst.”

  Hank rested the blade of his axe on the ground, as though he could draw strength from the earth through it, to replace even a little of what had been drained from his muscles. “I haven’t enjoyed any of ’em.” Behind him, the stack of scaly, armored bodies reached to the height of his head. He rested a hand on the helmet still strapped to his chest, taking a peek inside to make sure that Ren-Lei was still safe. “Let’s finish this.”

  A resolution more easily made than accomplished. The demon that had come vaulting across the mounds of bodies to confront Blake dug the points of its claws into the mouths and eye sockets of the fallen. It had a face only partly human, the lower half formed into the curved, jagged-toothed mandibles of a giant carnivorous insect. Rearing upright, spreading wide its glistening, heavily muscled arms, the demon snarled with fury. The segmented armor of a scorpion tail arched over its back, the hooked stinger wide as a cart wheel and glittering with poison.

  Facing Hank at the same time was the largest of all the demons that had burst from the confines of the earth’s depths. It towered above him, rearing erect on legs formed of massive, writhing snakes; the blood of its victims tangled the coarse mane of its lion’s head, shielded by a magnesium helmet heavier than any that its slaughtered comrades had borne. The creature tilted its head back, emitting a deafening roar, needing no words for its promise of death and retribution.

  Blake and Hank drew closer, setting themselves back-to-back as the two demons approached. The giant scorpion lunged forward at Blake, the point of its stinger swooping at his chest. He parried it with the double-bladed spear in his hands, tilting to one side so that the venomed point passed within inches of his face. Its force was still enough that it penetrated Hank’s shoulder instead, the curved hook emerging just above his shoulder blade. The black ichor of the stinger’s toxin shot into the air and landed in a hissing spatter across the ground.

  Blake saw what had happened, and heard the gasp of sudden pain from Hank. The scorpion’s claws snapped futilely at Blake as he leapt onto its back. He swung the spear at the unarmored joint between the scorpion’s body and its segmented tail. Black ichor spurted from the wound as he severed the tail free. The fierce glare in the humanlike face dulled, then went unfocused and blank as the head lolled forward, the claws flopping to the ground, dead.

  Hank had managed to jerk the stinger from his shoulder. Using it as a handle, he swung the severed scorpion tail in a flat arc, bringing its wide end hard into the lion-headed demon’s face, staggering it backward. That gave Blake the chance to race across the fallen scorpion’s head and bring the spear slashing through the hissing serpents that held the giant lion-headed demon upright. The snakes’ scalding blood sprayed in all directions as their amputated lengths writhed upon the ground. Roaring in outraged agony, the demon collapsed upon its knees. Hank set a boot sole on the demon’s mane and hacked at its neck with his axe, finally chopping
the helmeted head free and sending it rolling into the closest mound of bodies. It came to rest upside down, a fountain of red bubbling up from its opened throat.

  “There.” Hank sat down heavily. He laid the axe, its blades still wrapped in flame, on the ground beside him. A rare smile formed on his face. “Was that so hard?”

  * * *

  The Devil seethed as he saw what had happened to the last of his followers. Bound by the ice encasing his arms, he had cast his gaze across the battlefield and spotted his other dreaded enemies, the wraith and the giant hit man. The fight between them and the last two demons had resulted in two more smoking figures on the piles of the dead, and the abandonment of his hopes of rescue from the spell which trapped him.

  But there was still a chance. Even though slaughtered, the demons still belonged to him, were still part of him.

  He summoned up the last reserves of power within himself, calling out—silently this time—across the battlefield. Still wearing its heavy magnesium helmet, the lion’s head stirred and rolled an inch away from the corpse mound. It rose into the air, suspended by the Devil’s will, then flew above the battlefield, trailing smoke from its slashed throat.

  In front of the Devil, Nathaniel turned and saw the demon’s head tumbling through the dark sky, above the intertwined corpses. As it approached, faster and faster, it arced toward the ground, striking the flow of ice that extended back to the Devil’s fingers. The ice shattered from the blow, sending bright shards in every direction—and freeing the Devil.

  The hit man and the soldier saw this, and weapons upraised in their hands, they raced toward the spot.

  “You won’t escape,” Nathaniel told his opponent. “You have no more power—that was the last of it.”

  Death’s apprentice had truly perceived the Devil’s weakened state. He stumbled down from the mound of bodies and looked desperately around for any way out. Hank and Blake were impeded by the tangled bodies littering the battlefield, but they would still be upon him in minutes. In the distance, he spotted the ruins of the abandoned town house; he turned and ran toward it, each stroke of his cloven hoof digging into the blood-sodden ground.

  He managed to reach the edge of the garden square. But the dead saw him coming. Between the garden and the abandoned town house were a score of corpses, damaged from their battle with the demons, but still animated by the spell that had summoned them from their graves. An arm of bone and tattered, pallid skin reached up and grabbed him, tugging at his knee. He stayed upright, but more skeletal hands were clutching at him, dragging him down. The ones from a little distance away got to their feet and stumbled toward him, reaching out to bring their yellowed bones around his neck.

  There were too many of them, and he was too weak. The Devil stumbled and fell, and the dead were on top of him. They knew who he was, even without being able to read the symbols branded upon his bared body. The dead bore him down into their midst, a clawing wave, their hard, fleshless fists pummeling him. With every blow, they exacted payment for their suffering, and the world’s.

  23.

  The elevator doors slid open, and Ling ran out into the huge lobby outside the Devil’s office.

  With the overhead lights switched off, she could see that the room was empty now. Careful … Anna was here somewhere; she could feel her presence. Waiting for me. Some spell, no doubt, kept her invisible. Ling knew she would have to be careful to keep from falling into the other woman’s trap.

  She looked around as she stepped cautiously forward. A dim, fiery glow seeped through the room. By its partial light, she could see a frieze of statues lining the walls above her head. The gruesomely carved forms depicted the torments of the damned, sinners writhing in flames, skin flayed into strips, innards torn from their bodies on the prongs of demons’ pitchforks.

  More red light washed up into Ling’s face from below. She looked down and saw that the floor beneath her feet was transparent, crafted of thick, tempered glass. But what was revealed to her was not a carved representation of the Devil’s infernal domain, but the actual fires of Hell, churning and roiling far below. She could feel the flames’ heat turning the office lobby into a crematory oven.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  The softly spoken words caught Ling by surprise. Before she could react, the witch darted past her. She turned and smiled in pure malice at Ling, then unleashed a spiraling violet bolt from her upraised palms. The magic pulse stunned Ling, dropping her to her knees.

  Expecting another blow, she quickly rolled onto her back, a sweep of her arm sending the rope dart toward her assailant. But the weight at the end of the cord shot harmlessly into empty space; the witch had already disappeared again.

  Drawing the weight back into her hand, Ling stood upright, warily scanning the office for any sign of the woman. The lurid, shifting light filled the room with disorienting shadows. Their edges sharpened when another streak of violet, stronger than the first, hit her between the shoulder blades, knocking her sprawling across the floor. Without turning around, she sprang to her feet and sent the dart flying behind herself. The weight chipped the plaster of one of the room’s walls, but hit nothing else.

  The next blow, even more intense, pushed the air from her lungs as it threw her back. The next pulse would have been fatal, if Ling hadn’t dodged it by rolling onto her side. The violet radiance seared close by as she sent the rope dart straight toward the source of the bolt. She heard the thud of the weight striking flesh; Anna flickered into visibility as she staggered backward, blood trickling from her brow.

  Another throw of the rope dart looped the cord around the witch’s neck; Ling yanked her forward, an upraised knee sinking deep into the woman’s gut. A quick forearm across the side of Anna’s jaw sent her sprawling at Ling’s feet. She knelt hard on the witch’s back, gathering up the long black hair in one fist and using it to shove the bleeding face against the floor.

  Anna screamed in agony as the fires raging beneath seared her face, their heat drawn to the evil inside her. Pain gave her enough desperate strength to throw Ling off. One eye swollen shut by the blistered skin, Anna exchanged a quick flurry of punches with her. Ling dodged and parried the blows, then leaned back to bring a roundhouse kick against the witch’s chest, driving her back against the wall.

  The sculpted figures of tormented sinners dug into her, as though she had fallen into a nest of thorns. Every direction she writhed and turned, there were more of the stiff, immovable fingers clutching at her limbs. From her own pinioned hands, she fired another round of violet pulses. One caught Ling in the shoulder as she dragged Anna out into the room. Ling quickly bound her wrists with the rope dart’s cord and threw her to the floor.

  “Now tell me—” She brought her face close to the witch’s. “Where’s my baby?”

  Anna hissed and spat at Ling. “You should be proud that she was taken! It’s an honor to serve our master, as well as his Lieutenant. I gave my own baby to him of my own free will. And do you really think your mewling brat is fit for anything better than that?”

  Ling brought the loose end of the cord around Anna’s neck and pulled it tight. She watched the witch struggle for breath, then leaned close to her ear. “Where is my baby?”

  “She’s … down in the garden…” The cord was loosened just enough for a few words to be gasped out. “With … with the giant…”

  Hank—that must be who she means. The realization sent Ling’s heartbeat racing.

  She left the witch on the floor and ran into the Devil’s office. The cold wind of the storm and the dying sounds of the battle in the garden square came through the shattered window that filled one entire wall. She stood at its edge, icy rain pelting her face, peering down until she was at last able to spot the figure of the giant hit man who had sworn to save her child.

  In the distance below, near the peach tree in the garden’s center, Hank jumped down from a pile of smoking corpses, remains of the Devil’s legions. A helmet was strapped to his broad ches
t; from the way he carefully held it in place with one hand, she knew that must be where he was guarding Ren-Lei.

  She turned from the window, and had only a momentary glimpse of the witch’s glee-filled smile, before one of the lobby’s heavy table lamps smashed straight into her face. Blood streaming into her eyes, Ling felt Anna’s hands grab her by the throat and throw her sprawling on top of the black lava-stone desk.

  “I don’t need magic,” snarled the witch, “to finish you off.” She pressed the largest of the lamp’s shards like a dagger against Ling’s throat. “But my master requires a sacrifice. Your blood on his altar will give the Devil the power he needs.” She pressed the shard’s edge down tighter. “Then we’ll see who wins this battle…”

  24.

  The army of the dead dragged their prisoner back into the garden.

  Blake was the first to spot them coming. He looked up from the torn stitches across the front of his overcoat, now blacker with the blood and grime of battle, red drops from his own torn flesh spattering upon his boots. Through the rain lashing down and the choking billows of smoke, he could discern the shambling silhouettes, collections of bones and decaying flesh in human form, held together and animated by Nathaniel’s spell. Two of them grasped the arms of another figure, larger and once stronger, pulling him along between them, across the mud and gore of the battlefield.

  He glanced over at Hank beside him, and pointed to the approaching figures. “They got him.”

  The hit man had loosed the strap holding the demon’s helmet to his chest, so he could reach in and tenderly stroke the baby’s soft, fine hair. Ren-Lei cooed and laughed at the touch of the massive hand, nearly as large as herself. He brought his gaze up from the baby and looked where Blake had directed him. “Looks like they worked him over pretty good.”