“Why bother to start, then stop again?” I went on.
His chin dropped slightly, and lines appeared on his brow. I could only pray that he was trying to think of an answer.
The death’s head passed over the final line of trees and Hampton shrank away into the shadows of the hallway.
“I…” Woody muttered.
We were running out of time for little chats like this. But…
“Yes?”
“Though it might be a good idea.”
“Helping us? It still is one.”
“Really?”
“Look around you at what’s happening.”
His head came back up and he closed his eyes. But I knew that he was staring with his inner one. A tic appeared on one side of his face. What he was looking at was not making him noticeably comfortable.
“If those demons win…? he asked.
“Uh-huh?”
“There’ll be no one left, now will there? Nobody in my whole town.”
“That’s pretty much the size of it,” I told him.
We only had a few more seconds. I could hear the noises of the battle faintly, drifting up the hillside. Woody was inspecting the wand again.
“And even if I manage to survive…”
Which was not impossible.
“I’ll be…alone, won’t I?”
He was that anyway most of the time. An almost total recluse. But I knew he reached out with his senses to the world beyond his mansion. Kept his eye on everything that happened down below this place, even if he mostly saw it as a fantasy, a half-formed dream. And so I held my tongue at that point. There are times when silence can be far more eloquent than words.
A much deeper shadow fell across us. When I swung my gaze around, the sky had been blocked out. The only brightness up there was the flame in Hanlon’s sockets. He was looming right above us, one hand reaching down.
“Break the wand. None of it’ll happen if you do that,” I whispered to Raine urgently.
He applied some cautious pressure, and then went at it with all his strength. The wand bent slightly, which was more than I’d been able to make happen. But there was no sign that it was going to crack.
“Use magic, sir!” called Hampton from inside the doorway.
So he’d not gone very far.
“Ah. Quite.”
And Woody grinned. But then he peered at me inquiringly.
“Devries, do you suppose there’s such a thing as a Spell of Breaking?”
“You’re a great magician,” I hissed at him. “Make one up.”
CHAPTER 61
Two of the uniformed cops who’d been standing near Lauren were already dead. They’d let the hunched creatures get too close. And she’d had some extremely ugly demonstrations of how these things operated. They could put on far greater bursts of speed than they’d originally shown. They’d get within a few yards, and then suddenly come rushing forward, swiftly as a closing trap. Several of them at a time would leap onto a victim, their thin limbs taking purchase. Then they’d start clamping down with their mouths as well, devouring their prey alive.
Not that that last word really applied for very long. Dozens of others would come surging in, drawn there—so she imagined—by the sight and smell of blood. Both cops had disappeared beneath a writhing mass of mottled brown and grabbing hands within a bare few seconds.
It was an awful thing to watch, worse than anything she had ever known. The screams, and glimpses of torn flesh. Lauren kept on fighting, but felt shaken to the core. And the hole in the air was still filled with the things. An unbroken stream of them kept on dropping down. What she’d been seeing…was this the fate in store for this whole town? For her?
There was little time, thankfully, for reflections of that sort. The line was falling back a few more yards, Vallencourt shouting out the order. They had almost reached the front walls of the dark houses behind them.
The pavement of Plymouth Drive was so solidly swamped with the advancing demons that you could no longer see it. And the ones at the front kept spilling across the curb ahead of her. A vast, lurching body of them. If it wasn’t for their size, they would almost have resembled soldier ants.
She and the guys around her kept on shooting, and they killed three more. But another three hundred must have arrived by the time that they’d accomplished that. There seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of them. Lauren changed her clip, and kept on firing.
Levin and Martha were still blasting at the things. But it was like trying to stop a blizzard by snatching at individual snowflakes. Not nearly enough to do the whole job.
There were hundreds of yellow eyes fixed on her. Lauren tried to edge away and keep her distance from them. But her heel caught on a clod of turf. She practically went crashing downward, terror surging through her. If the demons saw her fall, they would be on her in an instant.
A big, meaty hand caught hold of her elbow, righting her.
She swiveled around, and found herself staring into an aged but robust face, its bald head offset by a drooping white moustache. This new guy—she had not seen him before—blinked at her solemnly, then raised his other hand, palm flat. A bolt of green-tinged light shot out. A demon that had gotten too close caught fire and crumbled.
Looking across, she saw that other figures had appeared. A younger man, blond and fairly handsome. A distinctly weedy-looking fellow in a bow tie and waistcoat. And a pair of fiercely glaring women who looked like they might be twins.
“At last!” she heard Levin shout.
So were these the other adepts she had heard about?
“We discussed it,” the man who’d saved her grumbled. He was talking to the judge, not her. “And decided we at least had to try and stop this.”
“Pleased to hear it,” Levin came back dryly.
“Waste of time, if you ask me. But I’d rather die on my feet than sitting down.”
All of them began using their powers. Blinding streams of light shot out. Most of the advancing front line went down, and the demons coming up behind it paused. But then they started to move again, like nothing had really happened.
“We need to find higher ground!” Levin yelled.
Which sounded like a plan. They were on a hill, after all. But when she glanced from side to side, she could see that they were being flanked. These beasts might be brutishly dumb, but even they seemed to know what a pincer movement was. Thousands of the things had swept out past the edges of the battle, scampering around to cut them off. And a few had got onto the rooftops, attacking the marksmen up there.
Lauren felt a crushing sensation in her chest, like a rock pressing on it. There was nowhere left for them to go.
The new front line was only about five yards off. There was another hurried surge from it and another cop went down. She drew a bead on the creature nearest her, aiming at its narrow legs. Blew one away. It didn’t kill it, but the thing started going around in mindless circles.
Two more replaced it immediately. She did the same to the one on the left, then heard a clack that told her she was out of ammunition. And she’d used up the last of her clips.
More weapons were falling silent, the air becoming quieter as their echoes died away. She heard somebody curse, and a cop behind her muttered what sounded like a brief prayer. The hisses and snarls of the beasts seemed to become more insistent, pounding at her ears.
The adepts were still trying their level best. But the first two—Levin and Martha—were both looking pretty wasted, and firing less frequently. Would the same happen to the rest before much longer?
Something in her wanted to hunch down, just wrap her arms around her head, and wait there for the end to come. Why’d she even stayed here in the first place? What on earth had she been thinking of?
But she rebelled fiercely against that idea. No, she was damned if she was going out that way. Lauren held herself stiffly, refusing to back down.
The night’s darkness seemed to fold across her, trying to dis
tract her. Everything was happening so fast.
Three more of the demons, in a tightly packed bunch, came running at her. She gripped her Walther like a club again, setting her feet apart and holding her ground.
They were almost on her. Their flat hands were reaching for her legs. She tensed herself and swung the gun back, hoping that this would be over very quickly.
There was an unexpected but immense crackling noise off in the distance. She glanced up at the hilltop, just in time to see a brilliant white flash bring the mansion up there into sharp relief. Its bizarre-looking silhouette was burned into her retinas, that weird spire and the mass of trees around it.
The demons stopped, so close that they were almost touching her. The brilliant light flared up, then faded. Nothing seemed to move.
And then, the moment the hilltop went dark again, the wind that had been screaming around them this whole while…it changed direction. It reversed. Began sucking back into the hole it had emerged from.
At first, it looked like that might be the only thing that was going to happen. But then, the beasts in front of her were lifted off their splayed feet. They went hurtling away from her, and disappeared back through the opening. She wasn’t affected, and neither were any of the others. But in a few more seconds, the massed ranks in front of them were disintegrating. Hundreds of the demons, and then thousands of the things, were being sucked away.
It looked like they were actually being siphoned back. And the more of them that disappeared, the smaller the hole was getting. The sky was returning to normal. And the road in front of her was becoming visible again.
Gratitude surged through her, and she almost doubled up.
It had to be Ross, she figured. Somehow, he had done it.
The hole shrank swiftly to a dimple on the air, the stars hanging around it like a great cluster of fireflies. It wavered there a short while longer, and then disappeared completely with the gentlest sucking noise. Lauren felt her body try to crumple in upon itself.
But this was not over completely, and she forced herself to stay fixed in the moment. The thousands of creatures might have gone. But there was still one apparition left in view.
The great, robed skeleton of Death had returned. Its massively extended body was shrinking back in the direction of the rubble throne. It didn’t sit down on it this time. And was getting smaller as she watched.
It finally contracted to the size of a man. And then the skull and bones, the black swathes of cloth around them, melted from sight. Giving way to draw-stringed sweatpants and an old, stained polo shirt. A familiarly pudgy face was staring around with bewilderment.
She took in the unshaven jowls, and the deep shadows underneath the eyes. Hanlon. Lauren felt her shoulders stiffen. He’d been reduced to a human being again, the magic taken from him. And this was what had brought her to Raine’s Landing in the first place. When she let out her next breath, it carried two whispered syllables with it.
“At last.”
He seemed to be in shock himself. Was stumbling around beneath the piled-up wreckage, unaware that there were eyes following him. Well, that was something she’d be glad to change.
Sweat was running down her face, and her clothes were sticking to her body. Her limbs ached with exhaustion and were trembling. But Lauren paid no attention to that.
She tossed aside her empty Walther. Lying on the lawn in front of her was the revolver of a cop who’d fallen. She felt sorry for the man, but picked it up all the same. This was no time for finer feelings.
It turned out to be heavier than she was used to. But that barely even registered. She checked the chamber. There were two rounds left inside.
“Cornelius Hanlon!” she yelled out.
She’d waited practically a year to do that, and it felt good coming out. It had the desired effect too, lifting him out of his stupor. He stopped tottering around and looked up at her. Then she saw his head cock to one side. And so she took a few steps in his direction, making sure that he could see her clearly.
“Face-to-face finally, and on equal terms!” she called.
Then she held up the gun so he could see that too.
“Or maybe not!”
Even from this distance, she could see the terrible emotions fighting for position on his face. Utter devastation. Failure. All his crazy schemes destroyed. His imaginings reduced to dust.
Then that slid away, revealing the bile underneath. Fury screwed his features up. He wasn’t going to take this lying down.
His shoulders swung away from her. He was reaching for the pile of rubble. And he fished out something from it that flashed when he turned back around. It was a long shard of glass from one of the house’s broken windows. He was grasping the base of it like a knife.
His mouth came open. And he started letting out terrible screams. His bulky frame began to move. He was running at her with considerably more speed than you’d give him credit. But not nearly fast enough.
The few uniformed cops around her hadn’t even noticed what was going on. They were still recovering from the onslaught. Lauren gripped the gun in both hands, aiming it at Hanlon’s chest.
She shouted out a warning, giving him one final chance. He didn’t even seem to hear her. Just kept on coming at her at the same pace, howling like an angry child. The glass was cutting into his grasp. She could see his palm was bleeding. But he wasn’t taking that in either. He had really lost it, hadn’t he?
The fact was, he’d never had it in the first place. Lauren reminded herself of that, then squinted down the sight.
“Back to the shadows for you, Cornelius,” she murmured.
Then she squeezed the trigger, twice.
CHAPTER 62
There was a lot of clearing up to do once…
But no. I’m getting ahead of myself here. I should tell it in the order that it happened.
I thanked Woody, once he’d got me back up to my feet. As soon as the wand had been broken, he had gone to his more normal self. If you could call it that…it was stretching the word “normal” well past its limits. But his eyes were yellow-gold again, the redness in them gone. His face was somewhat blank, apart from that. It was as if he was still having trouble remembering what had happened. God almighty, how could anyone forget?
I thanked him all the same. Rather grudgingly, I must admit. He’d taken his sweet time about saving us, taking it right up to the thin line between life and death. A few more people could probably have been saved, if he had acted sooner. And I still wasn’t even sure he’d done it for any sensible reason.
But I didn’t see that last part really mattered. Any way you cut it, he had spared us from a pretty dreadful fate.
“Splendid job, sir! Immaculately executed!” put in Hampton, who had reemerged, looking a touch embarrassed.
All Woody did was glance around nervously, as if he’d only just discovered he was outside in the open. Then, without a word, he turned away and walked back into his place. Hampton frowned, then went shuffling after him.
The door slammed shut. I rubbed my brow and sighed.
By the time I’d headed back down Plymouth Drive and found the others, it was perfectly apparent what had happened. The hordes of demons were gone. Some more ambulance crews had arrived. And Hanlon’s corpse was lying there, sprawled out on the gradient. It had two bullet holes in it—I could guess who’d put them there—but otherwise looked pretty insignificant, the way most corpses do.
Millwood House was still a total wreck, and there seemed to be no chance of that changing any time soon. Maybe we’d just leave it there, as a memorial to madness. Lauren Brennan—her face the color of oatmeal—was sitting on a low wall next to Vallencourt. I went across to her.
“You okay?” I asked her gently.
“Define okay in a place like this?” Her head shook with confusion. “I just…it was…nothing here’s okay. Don’t you get that?”
I shrugged, and exchanged the briefest smile with Ritchie.
“Yes,
I do. But you learn to live with it.”
“How?”
“When you’re born here and grow up with it, it’s just the way things are. Like…”
I found myself struggling to find the right analogy.
“…driving on the left in England.”
Lauren dropped her head exhaustedly and mumbled, “Never been there.”
“Me neither,” I told her.
Vallencourt let out a weary laugh.
When she tried to get back to her feet, it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t quick. I could see that she was nearly dropping. I’d thought I was tired, but she couldn’t even hold her head up straight. So I supposed it wasn’t merely physical exhaustion. She was finally caving in from the pressure she’d been under for the last few days. Her mind must have taken far more strain than even her body.
So I moved in closer and put an arm under her shoulders. She did not object. In fact, she slumped against me. Which felt nice. How long had it been since I had felt another body’s warmth against my own?
“Time to get some rest,” I said.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, and only came halfway back open.
“That’s it?” she slurred. “That’s all we do?”
And I could see what she meant. After everything that had befallen us, the horrors of the past couple of days…?
“Sometimes, that’s the only thing there’s left to do,” I explained to her. “We made it through—that’s the main thing.”
Although admittedly, only just.
“The other guys’ll take care of the rest,” I added.
And I glanced across at Vallencourt. He nodded back, still smiling. Lord, the new top cop was certainly the resilient type.
Lauren was fast asleep by the time I pulled up outside my garage. I carried her in and set her down on Pete’s bed. Removed her shoes, but nothing else. If she came out of this with just a crumpled suit to show for it, well, that was something to be thankful for.
I threw a sheet across her and stared down at her for about a minute. Then remembered I was really tired as well, and went off to my own bed.
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