“It’s amazing,” Tyler said. “How is it nobody knows it’s here?”
“People know it’s here,” Seven said, “but why do all that walking when Stonehenge is just an hour’s drive from here, and they have a parking lot?”
“Do they have a parking lot?” Tyler asked.
“Well, I assume so,” Seven said. “I’ve never actually been to Stonehenge.”
Oliver looked up. “You’d think people would notice how weird the sky is here.”
Tyler frowned and looked up. “What do you mean?” he asked. “It looks normal to me.”
“Me, too,” said Seven.
“Oh.” Oliver looked again, but to him this place still had a very surreal appearance. “I think it must be the nexus messing with me. It all just looks a little weird.”
Tyler shrugged. “Well, keep your head together. It looks like we beat them here, anyway. There’s nobody around.”
Oliver had come to the same conclusion. “That’s just as well,” he said. “We can split up and try to spot them coming. If we can ambush them, we should be able to hit them hard and rescue Artemis before they know what’s going on.”
“We are assuming that this is where they’re coming, of course,” Seven said. “There would have been two other places Armitage could have taken her. This is the one he’s familiar with, which made it our best guess.”
“Just a guess, then,” Oliver said. “It’s a pretty good guess, though.” He looked around. “At least there are no giant skeletons here. Let’s split up and try to keep all the approaches up here in view.”
“Sounds good,” Tyler said. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “You know, maybe this is a bad time, but…” He hesitated.
“What?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t suppose either of you brought lunch?”
Chapter 18
The afternoon passed with no activity and Oliver began to regret both that they’d made good time to the nexus and that they hadn’t brought anything to eat. He wasn’t especially hungry, but Tyler’s disappointed sighs quickly grew tiresome.
The sun set and darkness moved in quickly. Out here there was no light pollution to mask the night sky and Oliver was surprised by the number of stars he could see overhead. He’d been in San Francisco for too long, he thought. There was something to be said for country living. Then again, there was also something to be said about being able to pick up Chinese food at 2:00 a.m. You weren’t going to find that in the English countryside.
The three of them had spent the afternoon patrolling a small perimeter around the standing stones, but none of them had spotted anything that looked like Armitage approaching. Seven wasn’t able to give them a more specific time to expect him other than “when the moon is fullest.” Whether that meant 8:00 p.m. or in the early hours of the morning Oliver didn’t know. He wondered if he should have brought along a copy of the Farmer’s Almanac. If it was still published, anyway. He hadn’t actually seen a Farmer’s Almanac since he’d been a child.
The moon was definitely full tonight, though. Oliver found that it gave off enough light to see reasonably well. A few torches set around the area wouldn’t have gone amiss, but they hadn’t brought any torches, and they certainly couldn’t have lit them anyway. It would have been a dead giveaway that they were there. With as much light as there was, though, it was going to make hiding difficult. There wasn’t much in the way of shadows to conceal themselves in.
“Does the sky still look weird to you?” Tyler asked. Oliver had been looking at what he believed was the north side of the hill, although he wouldn’t have sworn to it.
Oliver glanced upward. “Not really now,” he said. “Maybe because it’s dark. I don’t know what my brain was trying to process before.” He looked around. “Where’s Seven?”
“He swung out a little farther this time,” Tyler said. “He won’t be far off.” He adjusted his shotgun. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Oliver said. At that moment he saw something move in the trees below them. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it had been too large to be an animal. “You see that?”
“Yeah.” Tyler raised his shotgun a bit. “Should we hide?”
Oliver considered that but before he could say anything he heard the sound of rushing water in the distance. “This is it,” he said. “I hear magic. They’re coming.”
Tyler knelt down and raised the shotgun. “Forget hiding, then.”
Oliver took a deep breath and reached for his Beretta, but before he had it out of the holster Seven stepped out of the trees below them and raised a hand. Oliver exhaled. “Oh. It’s just him.”
Tyler also sighed. “Thank god. You know, I’m not sure we’re ready for this.”
Seven began waving his arms in the air. His mouth was open and Oliver could tell he was saying something, but he was too far away to hear the man. He raised a hand and waved. “Yeah, we see you,” he said quietly.
“Maybe he got lost and he’s happy to see us,” Tyler said.
Seven pointed at them, then raised his hand and pointed again. “It’s us,” Tyler said. “What’s he on about?”
In the moment between the time Oliver realized what Seven was pointing at and the time he turned around, he wondered if he’d live long enough for this to be a funny story later. Ten feet behind them he saw a narrow rectangular shape the size of a doorway, but it was filled with blue light. Oliver had seen this kind of thing before; it was a portal from another place. As he watched, Armitage stepped through it from seemingly out of nowhere. He held a rope in his hands, which he tugged on. Artemis stepped through the portal next, her hands tied in front of her and bound to the rope Armitage held. Jack the Ripper came through behind them, and then the portal vanished.
Armitage had emerged in the exact center of the circle formed by the standing stones. Oliver wasn’t sure whether he should feel stupid or not. He’d known Armitage was powerful, but he’d never guess the man could travel that way. Of course he hadn’t needed an airplane. He’d just waved his hand and opened a door.
“Crap,” said Tyler.
Armitage stopped in his tracks and took a moment to regard the two of them. “Mr. Jones,” he said. “Mr. Jacobsen. I must say I’m a bit surprised to see you here.”
Oliver resolved to keep his cool in spite of the fact that they’d just been caught with their pants down. “You shouldn’t be,” he said. “We don’t leave our people behind.”
“How noble,” Armitage said. He turned to Artemis. “You’ve really trained these two well.”
“And me,” Seven said. He was panting from just having run uphill all the way to them. Seven apparently didn’t get much exercise. “We’re all trained well.”
Artemis looked at the three of them and the expression Oliver saw on her face horrified him more than anything he’d seen in recent memory. There was no fear in her eyes, but nor was there hope. She looked like someone who’d just been told her side had lost a very long, difficult war. It was the look of utter defeat. She held his gaze for a moment, and then looked away.
“Don’t be angry she doesn’t say hello,” Armitage said. “We’ve had a few days to catch up. I don’t think she enjoyed it very much.”
Oliver felt white hot rage in his chest. “You son of a bitch,” he said. His hand found the Beretta again. “If you’ve hurt her…”
“Oh, that is dramatic of you,” Armitage said. “But all we’ve done is talk about old times. In spite of my friend here,” he nodded at Jack the Ripper. “He had other ideas, but that’s just not my way.”
The Ripper stared directly at Oliver, but appeared to be looking through him rather than at him. Oliver noticed a red sigil had been traced on the man’s forehead. His eyes were empty. “What did you do to him?”
Armitage shrugged. “He’d served his purpose.” He nodded at the Ripper. “He’s just a puppet now. I got sick of listening to him whine about not getting to kill anyone.”
“What does
that mean?” Tyler asked Oliver.
“He’s either more or less dangerous,” Oliver said. “I don’t know which.”
“Oh, it’s definitely more,” Armitage said. “Last chance to leave, gentlemen. I’d rather not fight you, but I have things to do and you’re in the way.” He reached into his jacket and removed the blue gem he’d taken from Artemis earlier.
“Go to Hell,” Oliver said.
“Not today,” Armitage said. He looked at the Ripper. “Kill them all.”
The Ripper reached into a jacket pocket and removed a knife. He started toward Oliver while Armitage touched his gem to Artemis’s head and began to chant.
Oliver’s pointed his Beretta at the Ripper. He fired two shots, hitting him squarely in the chest. The man staggered and dropped to one knee.
“That was surprisingly easy,” Seven said. But he barely had the sentence out when the Ripper climbed to his feet and started forward again.
“What on Earth?” Tyler asked.
“Shoot him!” Oliver said. Tyler raised the shotgun and fired. The Ripper took the impact full in the chest but this time didn’t appear to have noticed. Whatever Armitage had done to him, it wasn’t just keeping him from talking. The man appeared nearly indestructible now.
“Keep him busy,” Seven said. “I’ll get Armitage.” He started moving in a circle, trying to keep space between himself and the Ripper while opening up a path to where Armitage was casting his spell.
Tyler fired the shotgun again as Oliver squeezed off more shots from his pistol, but the Ripper was nearly upon them now. A moment later Oliver was forced to jump back to avoid a swing of the Ripper’s knife. He nearly fell over in the process but managed to keep his feet.
Tyler dropped the shotgun and grabbed the Ripper from behind, trying to keep his arms immobile. “Hit him!”
Oliver saw Seven charge Armitage, but the magician raised a hand and sent the other man flying away from the standing stones. Seven landed in a heap and didn’t move, seemingly having been knocked unconscious.
He couldn’t shoot the Ripper again without hitting Tyler, Oliver realized, and that was too big a risk to take. Instead he held the pistol like a club and whipped it at the Ripper’s head. The Ripper just grinned at him and strained against Tyler. “He’s stronger than me!” Tyler yelled. “I can’t hold him.”
“Transform!” Oliver shouted. “I’ll keep him busy until you’re done.”
Tyler released the Ripper’s arms and took a step back, shutting his eyes to concentrate as the killer advanced on Oliver. Oliver was forced to keep stepping back to avoid the Ripper’s knife.
Oliver tried to keep an eye on Armitage and keep away from the Ripper at the same time. While the killer was unnaturally strong and resistant to physical damage, he certainly wasn’t quick. Armitage, meanwhile, had one hand on Artemis’s shoulder and the other on his gem, which he kept held against her head. He seemed to be staring off into space as he chanted, his mind clearly not on what was going on around him. Oliver raised his gun and fired two shots at him. The first went wide, but the second bullet impacted the side of the magician’s head and stopped abruptly, just as had happened in the parking garage before. Armitage flinched slightly. At least he’d noticed that, Oliver thought. How many bullets was it going to take to wear down that shield of his?
Artemis appeared completely oblivious to what was going on. She stared straight ahead, not reacting to anything that was happening. What could Armitage have said to her, Oliver wondered. He’d never seen Artemis look so beaten down before.
Somewhere in the back of Oliver’s mind it registered that he should have been able to hear Tyler’s bones snapping as he shifted into his werewolf form. He took a look as he avoided another swing of the Ripper’s knife, only to see that Tyler was on his hands and knees on the grass. He looked as if he were in pain, but his bones hadn’t begun to snap into the usual unnatural positions they’d normally have taken during the transformation, Instead, his body was shimmering.
Oliver put another bullet into the Ripper and tried to circle back toward Tyler. Tyler’s body was shifting now, but something was wrong. He wasn’t growing in the regular way. Instead his body again looked as if it were being poured into a new mold. One moment the man was on the ground, and the next a huge wolf stood there in his place.
Tyler the wolf turned his head to look at Oliver, eyes wide. Oliver stared back at him. Then Tyler seemed to collect himself and lunged at the Ripper, sinking his teeth into the man’s arm.
That hadn’t worked out the way Oliver had expected, but he finally had the Ripper off his back. He ejected the empty magazine from his Beretta and loaded a new one, advancing on Armitage as he did so. When the gun was ready he opened fire.
His bullets fell harmlessly on the ground upon hitting Armitage’s body, but as the magazine grew closer to empty Oliver noticed the man was definitely reacting to the impacts now. He finally stopped chanting as the slide on Oliver’s gun locked back on an empty magazine. “Fine,” Armitage said, removing the gem from Artemis’s head. “I detest starting over, but I see I’ll have to deal with you myself.”
Oliver reached for another magazine but Armitage made a flicking gesture at him and the Beretta flew out of his hand and out of sight.
“Shit,” Oliver said.
Armitage shoved Artemis to the side and pushed his sleeves up. “I still can’t risk killing you, Mr. Jones, but I am going to have to put that rebellious soul of yours back in its cage.”
“Good luck keeping it there,” Oliver said. He heard the sound of rushing water, but he wasn’t sure if it was coming from Armitage or himself. His hands felt like they were on fire. When he looked down, he saw that they were. Blue flames danced around his fingertips.
Armitage nodded. “When I’m done with you you’re going to fall asleep, Mr. Jones. Your body will be your prison, and I think you’ll find I can keep you there for a very long time.” He raised his hands and began tracing a pattern in the air.
Oliver didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with a new plan. He didn’t know what the rules of the game were. But fire sounded like a good idea. He raised his arm and pointed at Armitage. “Burn.”
A jet of long blue flame shot from Oliver’s hand, which startled him as much as it seemed to surprise Armitage. The magician turned a palm toward him and the flames stopped in their path, and then died away. “Impressive, for someone who doesn’t even know who he is,” Armitage said. “Let’s see how you react to this.” He said two words in a language Oliver didn’t recognize.
Oliver felt his body suddenly constricted, as if a giant fist had gripped him tightly. His arms were pressed flat to his sides and breathing had suddenly become difficult. He struggled to summon his power again, but it didn’t seem to want to come. The invisible fist seemed to be restricting that, as well as his physical movement. Oliver dropped to his knees.
Armitage stepped forward and said three more words. He watched for a moment as Oliver struggled. “I’d finish you, Mr. Jones, but I need to be fresh for what I’m doing.” He looked at Artemis and sneered. “Again.” With that, he started walking back toward her.
Oliver thrashed against his invisible bonds, but he found he couldn’t get so much as an inch of movement out of his arms. He looked toward Seven, who was climbing unsteadily to his feet. Behind him he heard yelping. He turned to see that the Ripper had gotten the better of Tyler, with one arm wrapped around the wolf’s neck. Oliver could see the Ripper’s other hand still on the hilt of his knife, with the blade buried in Tyler’s side.
When he looked back Armitage had repositioned Artemis in front of him and placed the gem against her head again. He began his chant anew.
Oliver turned his head left and right, desperate to see something that could turn the tide for him, but he was out of allies, and even if he managed to spot something that could have made a difference in all of this, he wouldn’t have been able to make a move toward it. A thought came to him then. He did have o
ne more ally, didn’t he? Wasn’t there one person left who might come to his rescue?
“Eris,” he said. “Help me.” He looked around. “Help me. Please.” He shut his eyes. “Please.”
Tyler took another impact from the Ripper’s knife. Seven had fallen down again. Oliver felt desperation like he’d never known before. If Eris was coming, she’d have done it by now. His plea had gone unanswered.
Then he heard something in the distance, something that seemed to be coming from high overhead. He looked up but didn’t see anything. What had that noise been? It had sounded familiar somehow, but it wasn’t anything he could place.
The noise came again, closer this time, and Oliver realized what it was just as he spotted the creature that had made it. High overhead, silhouetted in the light of the moon, was a dragon. Thrax was in a full dive, barreling right toward them at top speed, his mouth open in a fearsome roar that threatened to tear apart rocks just from the sound of it.
Thrax hit the ground and Sally Rain rolled off of his back, her silver pistols in her hand. She opened up on Armitage with both barrels and Thrax whirled on the Ripper. Oliver heard Tyler wail as the dragon advanced on them. The Ripper turned toward the dragon, a puzzled expression on his bloody face. He didn’t even have time to raise his knife before the dragon pounced, scooping the killer up in his jaws before throwing his head back, chomping down once with the force of a high-speed car crash, and swallowing what remained of his impromptu meal.
“Ah,” Thrax said.
Oliver turned back to Sally, who had found two new magazines inside her leather jacket and had started a fresh barrage on Armitage. The magician finally stopped chanting and stepped back, the bullets beginning to hit him now. They didn’t seem to bother him any more than a swarm of insects might, but at least he was finally bothered. Oliver felt the grip around him relax, and then it was gone and he could breathe properly again. He got to his feet.
Interesting People (Interesting Times #3) Page 16
