Hellhound (A Deadtown Novel)

by Nancy Holzner

“I heard that.”

  Sorry. I’d have to work at shielding any thoughts I didn’t want the demon to overhear. Like the thought that I wasn’t sorry one bit.

  I glanced at Axel, but he didn’t seem to notice the peanuts magically disappearing. In fact, he was conspicuously not looking in my direction.

  Butterfly straightened, smacking its lips. “Better.” The demon belched loudly. “But physical food gives me heartburn.” A nauseating stench of peanuts, bile, and sulfur wafted through the air. Axel didn’t notice, not even a twitch of his nose, but I was tempted to put a cocktail napkin over my face. I settled for propping my elbows on the bar and resting my chin in my hands, steepling my fingers over my nose.

  You’d better have something useful for me.

  “How ’bout this: Pryce and the Destroyer have been fighting each other for dominance.”

  You told me that weeks ago. When Pryce had resurrected Difethwr in his quest to regain his shadow demon, the Hellion had been furious to find itself bound to someone it considered a lesser being. I’d been hoping they’d stay locked in that struggle—fighting each other kept them both out of the human world.

  “‘Have been,’ I said. Things change. They’ve come to some sort of agreement. I mean, I’m not privy to their terms—personal demon like me, either one of ’em would just as soon step on me as look at me—but they’ve stopped fighting.”

  The Destroyer has agreed to be Pryce’s shadow demon? That surprised me. The leader of the Hellions bowed to no one. I couldn’t imagine it was content with being Pryce’s sidekick.

  “Difethwr isn’t a shadow demon. It’s more like a partnership. They’re bound to each other, thanks to whatever happened inside that cauldron thing.” Pryce had resurrected the Destroyer by trapping hundreds of demons in a magical cauldron. As those demons merged into a Hellion, Pryce bound that Hellion to him by jumping into the cauldron himself. “They’ve accepted they’re stuck with each other—for now, anyway. Neither is subordinate to the other. But they hate each other. You ask me, I think each one’s waiting for the chance to gain the upper hand.”

  Well, there was a little bit of comfort. Although they’d been allies in the past, being bound together changed everything. One or the other would make a power grab, and they’d start fighting again. It’s hard to wage war against humanity when you’re locked in a battle for supremacy over your other half.

  “Yeah, except for one thing,” Butterfly said, and I realized my private thoughts were leaking into its hearing. I concentrated on shielding them better. “I mean, far be it from me to be the kind of demon who dashes people’s hopes”—Butterfly paused to snicker, since dashing hopes is one of the things Eidolons do best—“but Pryce and Difethwr are united in their ultimate goal.”

  Which is?

  “To rule the three realms, of course. To make the Darklands and the Ordinary part of Uffern.”

  Part of Hell, in other words.

  I bet you’d love that. The human world would become your playground.

  “Well, that’s a bet you’d lose, sweetheart. Pryce isn’t what you’d call fond of personal demons. He calls us ‘puny’ and ‘weak.’ He wants to build a mighty demon army, and he scoffs at using personal demons as foot soldiers. Fine with me—I don’t want to be a foot soldier. I mean, can you imagine this body in uniform?”

  I tried. I failed. I was glad.

  “Yeah, exactly. So before Pryce attacks the Ordinary, first he plans to conquer the Darklands. He wants to use that cauldron of transformation, the one that brought back Difethwr, to create an army of Hellions. He’ll round up all personal demons, march us into the Darklands, and force us into the cauldron to be transformed. I don’t want to be transformed.” The maggot looked at me, and I couldn’t help thinking that any transformation would be an improvement. “I don’t figure you’ve got much chance of stopping him, but who knows? You might get lucky.”

  Thanks for the vote of confidence.

  “Hey, I can read all your doubts and fears. I’m just echoing what worries you, deep down.” Butterfly paused to scarf some more peanuts. “Anyway, for some reason, Pryce sees you as an obstacle to his plan. He’s all obsessed with some old prophecy or something. He believes he has to get rid of some lady before he proceeds.”

  Some lady? That sounded nuts. Unless . . . Wait, do you mean the Lady of the Cerddorion?

  Butterfly belched again. “I dunno. All he says is ‘the lady.’ Anyway, that’s why he’s working with that wizard.”

  “Myrddin?” Oops. Hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but if Axel noticed, he didn’t let on. That’s Pryce’s father. When the old man died, his life force became part of Pryce.

  “Yeah, Myrddin. In Uffern, the wizard can detach from Pryce, float around on his own as a spirit. But when Pryce crosses the border into the Ordinary, the old man has to reintegrate. You know, cram his spirit back into Pryce’s body.”

  So Pryce has been entering the human realm. Do you know what he’s doing here? This was what I wanted to know—whether Pryce was somehow binding the Morfran to the possessed zombies.

  “You think I tag along, like a little lost puppy looking for a home? I told you, I do not want to get on that demi-demon’s radar. All I know is it’s got something to do with zombies.”

  Bingo. Drawing on Myrddin’s vast knowledge, Pryce was making the Morfran possess zombies, turning them into killing machines. It occurred to me that the Morfran-possessed zombies we’d seen so far were guinea pigs. Myrddin and Pryce hadn’t found the right spell to make the Morfran fully inhabit the zombies. Instead, the Morfran turned on its host, feeding on the zombie’s body and destroying it.

  So where is he, do you know? When he comes into the human plane, I mean.

  “Spying on you, sometimes. Thanks to that demon mark on your arm, the Destroyer always knows where you are. And the Hellion’s not shy about sharing that information with Pryce. I’d watch my back if I were you. Could be you’re the lady Pryce wants to get rid of.”

  No. Not me. I was not the Lady of the Cerddorion.

  “Yeah, I tend to agree,” Butterfly sneered. “As someone who knows you, mind, heart, and soul, I’ve gotta say lady ain’t the word that comes to mind.”

  Damn. My private thoughts were slipping out from behind the shield again.

  “But Pryce doesn’t always tail you,” Butterfly went on. “There’s another place he goes. He goes there a lot.”

  Where?

  “Beats me. Like I said, I keep my distance. I got no ambition to be the first demon he tosses in that cauldron.”

  The only thing worse than being saddled with a personal demon was being saddled with a cowardly personal demon.

  “Now you’re back to insulting me. After I come at your beck and call and do you a favor.” Butterfly eyed the half-empty bowl of peanuts on the bar, then gave me a sidelong glance. “Bet that makes you feel guilty, huh?”

  Not in the slightest. I made a mental note: Practice shielding my thoughts.

  “Hah, good luck with that.” Butterfly sniffed in my direction, searching for any palatable emotions. Then it sighed and buried its face in the peanut bowl. Soft, wet, smacking sounds filled the room. Gross. As the Eidolon fed, its body faded. It looked up at me, semitransparent, peanut crumbs coating its chin. “I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, try to calm down a little, okay? All that anger isn’t good for you. Not to mention me.” Smacking its lips, Butterfly faded to a dirty smudge on the air. Then the demon was gone.

  So Pryce, Myrddin, and Difethwr were working together. That was the bad news. But they hadn’t yet perfected their method for turning zombies into mindless, bloodthirsty, unstoppable killing machines, since the Morfran destroyed any zombie it drove to kill. That was . . . well, not exactly good news, but I’d take it. If Butterfly could give me an address, I might be able to surprise Pryce and stop him before he made any more progress.

  A throat cleared. Axel stood in front of me. “You’re out of peanuts,” he said,
nodding at the bowl. “Want more?”

  I thought of Butterfly, facedown in the bowl, slobbering all over the peanuts. Traces of demon spit still glistened inside.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ve gone off peanuts for a while.” Probably for the rest of my life.

  13

  THE SUN WAS COMING UP AS I WALKED THROUGH NEAR-DESERTED streets toward home. Hampson’s curfew must be working. I saw plenty of Goons, dressed in riot gear and patrolling in pairs, but not another soul. The Goons watched me go by, but they didn’t bother me. The curfew applied only to zombies, so they had no reason to stop me.

  The lobby of my building was also deserted. For the first time I could remember, Clyde wasn’t at the doorman’s desk for his day shift. And for all the times I’d squirmed under his former minister’s gaze, I realized now he still saw himself as a shepherd of sorts, watching over his flock. Clyde looked out for his tenants; he took care of us as best he could. Without him at his post, crossing the marble floor of the lobby felt like trekking across miles of empty, frozen tundra.

  Upstairs, I didn’t hear the TV blasting as I unlocked the door. As I stepped inside, the lights were on, but the television was off. “Juliet?” I called, taking off my jacket. “You home?”

  “In the kitchen,” she called.

  “All right, Vic?” came Dad’s voice from the same room.

  I hung up my jacket and put away the Magnum and its holster, then went into the kitchen to join them.

  Dad perched on a chair, The Book of Utter Darkness open on the table in front of him. Across the room, the microwave dinged. Juliet took out a plate of cheeseburger sliders and carried it carefully over to Dad. She shut the book and pushed it aside, then set the plate down in its place.

  Dad snatched up a slider and gulped it down.

  “Rough session with the book?” I asked.

  “Not rough so much.” He swallowed another cheeseburger. “But trying to read that damn thing leaves me ravenous. Afterward, the falcon part of me cannot get enough to eat.”

  “Did you see anything new?” After the last vision the book had given me, I was almost afraid to ask.

  “A little. The smoke was thinner, and I could see more of what was happening on the ground. Lots of fighting.” Had he seen me killing humans? A jolt of anxiety hit as his rainbow eyes regarded me, but there was no way to read Dad’s feelings in the bird’s face. “Now, remember, this is my interpretation of what the falcon perceived. But I’m pretty sure I saw demons slaughtering humans. And fighting alongside the demons—”

  “Don’t say it, Dad.” The rush of panic made me talk fast. “I’ve seen it, too. But it doesn’t have to happen that way. Remember, Mab says the book tries to trick us. And in your case, everything gets filtered through the falcon’s perceptions.”

  “So you don’t think the zombies will turn against humans and join the demons?”

  “Wait. You saw zombies attacking humans?”

  “They make awfully impressive soldiers. They’re strong and practically indestructible. Nothing stops them. They keep coming and coming, focused only on killing, like in a horror movie.” He swallowed the last slider. His head swiveled to find Juliet. “Got any more of those?”

  “They’re already in the microwave.” She grinned at me. “Who knew I was such a good hostess? Maybe I should give a party.”

  Dad’s head swiveled back to me. “So what did you think I saw?”

  “Doesn’t matter. But I think I should tell Mab about this right away.”

  “Oh, there was a voice mail from her.” The microwave dinged, and Juliet paused to remove another plate of sliders. “Well, not from her but from someone calling on her behalf.”

  “Jenkins?”

  “Could be. I saved it so you could listen.”

  “Thanks.” I picked up the kitchen phone and put in the code to retrieve messages. In a moment, I heard the voice of Jenkins, Mab’s major domo, giving me information about her flight number and when she was due to arrive in Boston. I grabbed a pen and some paper, then played the message again and wrote everything down.

  “Mab’s coming to Boston,” I told Dad as I hung up the phone.

  “Excellent!” he said. “I’d love to see the old girl. When?”

  “Tomorrow evening. Her flight gets into Logan at six thirty.” A thought occurred to me. “If you want a family reunion, you really should tell Mom about . . . you know.” I opened my arms as though they were wings and flapped them a couple of times.

  “You’re right. And I’m gearing up to do just that. Won’t be long now.” He looked at the kitchen clock. “Is that really the time? I’ve got to fly to Needham. I do enjoy watching Gwen get the kids off to school in the mornings. Thanks, Juliet, for the chow. See ya, Vic.” The falcon launched himself into the air and disappeared through the kitchen wall. Even though I knew the white falcon had the ability to pass through barriers that held others back, it was always disconcerting to see that.

  The microwave dinged.

  “I don’t suppose you want these.” Juliet held out a steaming plate of sliders.

  “Nope.”

  She picked up a mini cheeseburger and nibbled at the edge. “Ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Your father prefers these to rats?” She tilted her wrist, and the sliders slid into the trash. She set down the empty plate and rubbed her hands together. “Anything else you want microwaved? Anything at all. I’m getting quite accomplished at the technique.”

  “I’m good, thanks. Microwaved food before bed gives me indigestion.”

  She peered into the trash can. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Maybe I’ll have to rethink that party.”

  “If you want to host a party, hire out Creature Comforts. Axel could use the business. I expected to see you there tonight, in fact, but the place was practically empty. Where were you?”

  “I was there early on. But the norms are keeping their distance from Deadtown these days. I had to go farther afield to hunt.”

  “But . . . the Code Red.”

  “Please. Any vampire thwarted by the humans’ silly little checkpoints can’t be older than a century or so. We play along when it suits us. The rest of the time . . .” Her eyes glazed, then she smiled. “The rest of the time we are ‘like the fox, / Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up, / Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.’”

  “Shakespeare?” Juliet was obsessed with Shakespeare. After more than four centuries, she still carried a grudge about the way he’d distorted her life story in Romeo and Juliet. For starters, she complained, the title should have been Juliet. But she’d memorized every one of his plays, and dropped Shakespearean quotes into casual conversation like other people drop brand names.

  “Who else? Bonus points if you tell me which play.”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Henry the Fourth, part one, of course. I know you’ve seen it. I dragged you to a performance at Boston University last year. But I think you’d fallen asleep by this act.”

  “What sleep? You elbowed me in the ribs so many times it took a week for the bruises to fade.”

  “I had to. Do you have any idea how loudly you snore?” She yawned and did a cat-stretch. “Speaking of sleeping, I think I’ll go and resume the shroud.”

  “‘A thousand times good night!’” I said, pleased with myself for remembering a line from Juliet’s own play.

  “Um, sure. Whatever,” she said, and left the kitchen.

  I went into the living room and called Kane. I expected to leave a message, but he picked up. There was warmth in his voice as he said my name, but also a guarded tone. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, nothing.” Nothing besides the usual, which was everything. But no need to rehash all that now. “I was going to leave a voice mail. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

  “You didn’t. I’m getting ready for work.”

  “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  “Some. I’ll catch a nap on my office couch this af
ternoon if I need it. So what was the voice mail about?”

  “Mab’s coming to Boston. I’m meeting her plane at six thirty.”

  “Tonight?”

  I had to stop and think before I replied. Kane was getting ready for his day, but I hadn’t been to bed yet. “Tonight” for him was “tomorrow” for me. “Yes. In about twelve hours.”

  “I’ll drive you there.”

  “Kane, you don’t have to do that. You said you’re tired. And you’ve got your rally tonight.”

  “That’s all under control. I want to, Vicky. I like your aunt. And I want to see you. We only have three days left . . .” His voice trailed off, and my mind finished his sentence. Before the full moon.

  “All right.” I wanted to see him, too. I wanted to spend a couple of hours together free of tension and anxiety, without the lengthening shadow of impending terror stretching over us. We arranged to meet at his office at five. We’d grab a quick bite (dinner for him, breakfast for me), and then take his BMW out to the airport in time to meet Mab.

  “It’s a date,” he said. As we hung up, I kept thinking how nice, how normal that sounded. And how very far beyond my grasp.

  TERMINAL E, LOGAN AIRPORT’S INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS terminal, was crowded. People packed the area elbow to elbow, watching intently each time the doors opened to reveal newly deplaned passengers, most arrivals looking tired and disoriented as they wheeled out trolleys piled with luggage. Bored kids chased each other, running up and down the lobby or twining through the crowd.

  Mab’s plane was late. We’d been waiting over an hour, sipping coffee from paper cups and watching the board for updates. Kane made half a dozen phone calls, checking the progress of his assistants in setting up for tonight’s unity rally. He even managed to nap for ten minutes, his head resting on my shoulder, as we sat in hard plastic chairs. Carefully, so as not to wake him, I curved my arm around his shoulders as I watched the evening light fade through the big plate glass windows.

  Kane snorted awake and sat up straight. “Is she here yet?”

  “The board says her plane landed a couple of minutes ago. It’ll take some time to deplane everyone and get through customs.”