The Nimble Man (A Novel of the Menagerie)

by Christopher Golden, Thomas E. Sniegoski

  "There may be another way to stop them," Clay finished.

  Even as his lips formed the last of these words, they were not lips anymore. He opened his beak and cawed loudly, and he spread his falcon wings wide and thrust himself up into the air.

  Dr. Graves kept pace. The ghost flew beside him. Clay stretched out his wings and glided in through the front doors of the museum. The huge foyer echoed with the shuffling footsteps of the dead. There were shattered corpses on the floor, unmoving, and it was easy to follow the path that Eve had taken. She had blazed the trail for them.

  Up through the main hall Clay flew, the ghost of Dr. Graves keeping pace with him. They turned and passed through arched passages and soon they were moving through the collection of the Art of Ancient Africa. An exhibition of Egyptian burial jars, sarcophagi, bracelets and necklaces, and many other objects was ahead. Though the museum held some of the most beautiful and most celebrated paintings in the world, it was these wings that had always fascinated Clay. Paintings were only that. Art, yes, and some of it breathtaking. But the objects that people held in their hands and lived with thousands of years ago . . . those were memories.

  The European collection was ahead. Signs announced an exhibit called Life in the Middle Ages. The skull would be there, kept behind glass so that spectators could view the oddity that was the Eye of Eogain, the silver false orb with ancient words scrawled in the metal.

  An artifact. Nothing more than that, or so the curators thought.

  Clay reveled in the form of the falcon, in the interplay of air and wings, in the feeling of flight. He zipped lower across a vast hall, through another arch, and then dipped his right wing to turn again.

  Around that corner, none of the dead were still walking.

  Eve marched toward him across a floor strewn with fallen cadavers and the still-twitching parts of the resurrected. She had cleared herself a path, but now she was retracing her steps.

  "This doesn't bode well," Dr. Graves whispered, his words reaching Clay as though the ghost had whispered in his ear.

  Clay beat his wings, stretched out his talons, and even as he alighted upon the tiled floor he transformed once more. Any reticence he had to do so in front of his comrades was gone, sacrificed to the needs of the moment. Bones creaked and shifted and his flesh undulated and pulsed as it expanded. It happened with such speed that Eve took a step back and brandished her sword toward him.

  "Watch where you point that thing," Clay said.

  Eve rolled her eyes and lowered the blade. Her gaze lingered on Clay a moment, even as Dr. Graves' ectoplasmic form coalesced alongside them.

  "What happened, Eve?" Graves asked. "You couldn't find it?"

  She snarled, baring her fangs at the specter. "I found where it's supposed to be, Casper. They got there first. These fuckers are brainless. Morrigan's got to be controlling one of them directly enough to make it her puppet. One of the dead took Eogain's skull, and the Eye along with it."

  "Damn it!" Clay snapped. "We've got to get it back! We've got to find the one that took it!"

  At this, Dr. Graves raised an eyebrow. Eve stared at him in disbelief.

  "Look around, Clay," the vampire said, gesturing toward either end of the hall, where the dead had begun to gather again, staggering toward them. There were dozens, just in this hall alone. There must have been hundreds in the museum and in the streets around it. "How are you going to figure out which one took the Eye?"

  "Split up," Clay said, already moving away from them. "You find the one that moves with purpose, the one that's moving away faster and more directly than the others, you'll find the Eye."

  "Where are you going?" Dr. Graves demanded.

  Clay gave them one final, grim look. "There might be another way."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Morrigan ascended the staircase, her voice as she called to her acolytes like the shrill cry of a carrion bird drifting over the fields of war. Hidden in the darkness of that side room, it took every ounce of restraint Ceridwen could muster not to explode into the corridor to attack. Her mind was filled with images of what Morrigan and her followers had done to the Fey as they attempted to topple the ruling house, and her blood was afire with rage and hatred. The ice sphere atop her elemental staff glowed more brightly, responding to her fury.

  Daniel Ferrick squatted before her, peering into the hall through the narrow gap they had left between door and frame. He glanced up at Ceridwen, his demonic features illuminated in the icy blue light of her staff. The voices of their enemies drew closer and it was clear that Danny was worried that the glow from her staff might give them away. Before she could respond to his concerns, the boy acted, reaching a clawed hand toward the pulsing orb.

  Ceridwen watched with wonder as the substance of shadow within the room responded to some unspoken command from the boy. Strips of writhing umbra flowed from the gloom, wrapping themselves around the body of the orb, diminishing the light, like storm clouds blotting out the sun.

  And suddenly she understood why Conan Doyle had shown such interest in the young man. There is enormous potential here, she thought, watching as the boy, satisfied that his action had guaranteed their safety, turned back to the crack in the door. Potential for good, but it not properly nurtured, could be used for great evil instead. If they survived this current threat, they would need to be vigilant, for while Daniel Ferrick and his place in the greater scheme of things was currently undetermined, it would be up to them to prevent him straying into the embrace of shadows. But that was a worry for another time.

  Morrigan passed by their hiding place with nary a glance. She was clothed only in a cloak of scarlet, her lieutenants — Fenris and Dagris — nipping at her heels. Ceridwen recalled the council meeting where the fate of the twins was to be decided, and how it had been her merciful vote that had prevented the insane brothers from being put to death for their murderous actions against the citizens of Faerie. Seeing them here, serving the likes of Morrigan, was enough to ossify what remained of her once compassionate heart.

  At the end of the hallway, Morrigan and her lieutenants stood before the door so familiar to Ceridwen. Painfully, she remembered the numerous times she had used the passage from Faerie to earth and back again. She found the memory of that final pass through it, her lover sealing it up behind her for what was supposed to be forever, particularly unpleasant.

  "I have to be certain," she heard Morrigan say, motioning for one of the twins to open the door. "I have to be sure that Conan Doyle has not somehow found a way to reestablish a passage between Faerie and the Blight."

  Obediently, Fenris pulled open the door, filling the upstairs with the screaming wails of the yawing abyss.

  Ceridwen could feel Daniel's eyes upon her, as if he were looking for someone to validate what he was seeing. She had to remind herself that despite the boy's appearance and blossoming talents, he still perceived the world as a human would, and sights such as this were still far from the norm. She reached down and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.

  The shrieking void pulled hungrily at Morrigan and her lackeys. Fenris and Dagris used the open door as a kind of shield, hiding behind it to avoid being sucked inside. Morrigan, however, stood defiantly before the doorway, staring into the maelstrom. Seemingly satisfied that her hex was still intact, she gestured for her lieutenants to seal it up again.

  The mournful cries of the maelstrom ended abruptly, the hallway plunged into silence as the twins succeeded in closing the door.

  "Do you see, Mistress?" Fenris asked, breathing heavily from his exertion. "Your fears are unfounded."

  Dagris nodded. "Your magnificent agenda proceeds as planned."

  Morrigan drifted away from the door and her lieutenants, pulling the cloak of scarlet around her. "And so it does," she agreed, looking about as if searching for something to satisfy her suspicions. "But I did sense something, and when things as important as this are in motion, one cannot afford to be complacent."

  Ceridwen d
rew Daniel further back into the darkness.

  Fenris and Dagris left their place, moving to eagerly stand beside their mistress.

  "He'll be here soon, won't he?" Dagris asked, an idiot's grin forming on his pale, angular features.

  Morrigan smiled dreamily, reaching out to stroke his cheek. "Yes, he will."

  Daniel turned to Ceridwen, confusion in his eyes. He was looking to her for some kind of explanation, but she had no more idea what they were talking about than he did.

  Then, as if in answer to her silent question, Fenris spoke again.

  "The Nimble Man," the madman whispered in reverence. "The Nimble Man is coming." And he then began to giggle, clapping a pale hand over his mouth.

  Ceridwen felt a searing pain in her lungs and realized that she had stopped breathing. She and Conan Doyle had known the situation to be dire, but this . . .

  Danny flinched away from her, tugging his shoulder from her grasp. Ceridwen realized that in her shock she had tightened her grip enough to hurt him. She cast an apologetic glance toward him in the darkness, but all the while her real focus was on the conversation that continued in the corridor.

  Morrigan spoke about the Nimble Man with a passion that barely fell short of arousal. "Trapped between Heaven and Hell," the witch said. "But now I have the power to set him free. And when he is delivered into this world, he will build a kingdom of his own, and make war upon all of those who betrayed him, angel and demon alike."

  The twins bowed their heads and then dropped to their knees before her. "And you will be his bride," Fenris whispered, his grin hideous.

  "No," Morrigan snarled, a cruel smile snaking across her face as she shook her head. "Not his bride," she corrected her lieutenants with a waggle of a clawed index finger. "I shall be his queen."

  Razor sharp fragments of the puzzle floated about inside Ceridwen's troubled thoughts, beginning to come together. She shuddered. The Fey sorceress left Daniel by the door, and moved deeper into the shadows of the room to stand before a window, its shade drawn against the darkness. There was more to learn, but first they had to escape this room undetected.

  Daniel watched her curiously, but did not dare break the silence to ask what she was doing.

  Ceridwen brought the head of her staff near her lips, whispering to the darkness that still enshrouded the orb. The shadow Danny had summoned dissipated. The sphere pulsed with restrained power and then a single tongue of flame emerged from its icy surface to dance in the air before her. Ceridwen asked of it a favor. The fire obliged her, sensing the severity of the situation, flowing between window and sill, out into the crimson mist.

  She closed her eyes, concentrating on the world beyond the house, guiding the fiery elemental spirit upon its mission. And through the bond she shared with it, the sorceress found the distraction that was needed.

  The car was parked haphazardly on the side of the street, its driver lost to the evils of the bloody fog. Ceridwen directed the flame, urging it to crawl up inside the vehicle's belly, to seek out the fuel that powered its internal mechanisms. Finding what it sought, the fire bit into the fuel tank, puncturing the metal.

  The explosion was a clap of thunder, the flash and flames cutting through the scarlet fog to briefly illuminate the unnatural darkness.

  Ceridwen silently thanked the fire elemental for its assistance, and returned to Daniel at the door.

  Morrigan and the twins were already on the move, bounding down the hallway toward the staircase.

  "It came from outside," Fenris snarled, drawing a curved dagger from a scabbard at his side.

  Dagris's fingers crackled with a spell of defense as he looked about nervously.

  Morrigan remained eerily calm, pulling the red cloak tighter about her as they rushed to investigate this disturbance.

  "Quickly now," Ceridwen whispered in Danny's ear, pulling open the door and stepping stealthily out into the hall. "We'll need a cloak of shadow," she told him, peering over the banister. "Otherwise we might be discovered before we can reach him."

  "Reach who?" Danny asked, even as he did as she asked, drawing the darkness around them. "Shouldn't we be thinking about getting the hell out of here?"

  Ceridwen ignored the question. She ushered him into the hall, the shadows coalescing around them. It was dark in the townhouse and they merged with the gray gloom as they went quickly along the hall and then down the stairs into the foyer. There was pandemonium in the house, Corca Duibhne responding in panic to the explosion outside. Ceridwen and the boy waited at the bottom of the steps, a shroud of darkness concealing them from their enemies. The front door was open and the red mist swirled eagerly over the threshold as the Night People swarmed out to investigate.

  Unnoticed, Ceridwen led Danny down the corridor toward what had been a ballroom in long ago days. She could feel the pulse of the magick of Sweetblood in the air. It beckoned to her.

  The doors to the ballroom were open, but once they were inside, Ceridwen closed them quietly.

  "We won't be needing this anymore," she said, using her elemental staff to burn away their cover of shadow.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Danny asked.

  But she was no longer listening. Her focus had been captured entirely by the crystalline sarcophagus lying in the center of the room. That, and the fact that they were not as alone as she had thought.

  "Oh, shit," Danny whispered.

  A trio of Corca Duibhne sentries dropped from the ceiling and two large boggart beasts emerged from behind the sarcophagus, Sweetblood's magickal chrysalis, and charged toward them.

  "Morrigan cannot be allowed to tap into Sweetblood's power. No matter what the cost," Ceridwen said.

  There was no time for prolonged conflict, and again she called upon the elementals, summoning the spirit of the air for assistance. The atmosphere grew very still and then a primordial roar filled the room. The Night People and their fearsome pets were tossed away by screaming gusts of wind like so much chaff, their bodies striking the walls with a chorus of snapping bones.

  "Remind me never to make you mad," Danny said, staring awestruck at the broken and twitching bodies of their enemies scattered about the room.

  Ceridwen rushed to the chrysalis and knelt beside it. Already there was a breach in it, a tiny crack, yet enough that Sweetblood's magick was seeping out, emanating from that bizarre shell. Yet there was other magick here as well. Ceridwen waved her fingers, dragging ripples in the air, and she could feel what had been done. A spell had been cast — by Morrigan, she presumed — a hex that utilized the blood of an innocent. Morrigan had tried to break the chrysalis open. Ceridwen felt her stomach roil with disgust. The atrocities Morrigan would perform in the name of her dark faith knew no boundaries.

  I shall have to move him, Ceridwen thought, glancing around. If she had the time, she might be able to remove Sweetblood from the townhouse, to bring him to Conan Doyle. If she could manage it, they would have the advantage over Morrigan. First, though, she would have to try to seal the breach in the chrysalis. She did not have the power to permanently restore the encasement created by Sweetblood's magick, but she could perform a temporary repair.

  Ceridwen raised her staff. The orb glowed with the ferocity of a white-hot star and the sorceress began the process of undoing what her aunt had begun.

  "Can I help?" Danny asked, standing nervously by her side.

  Ceridwen felt the magick build, flowing from the center of her being up through her arms to be channeled through her staff.

  "Just watch the door," she whispered. Then she bent closer to the strange chrysalis, peering at the figure frozen within. "But if you can hear me, mage, I could use your assistance."

  Sparks of magick leaped from the ice sphere atop her staff, fingers of power that caressed the blood-stained chrysalis, seeking out imperfections — cracks upon its surface. The scent of the spilled blood permeated the room as it the chrysalis was cleansed.

  "Aid me in repairing that which contains your p
ower, which prevents your might from being used for ill. Time is short and —"

  A crackling sound filled the air. Ceridwen glanced up just in time to see Danny tumble through the air and crash on the floor, clothes smoldering. She spun to see Morrigan framed in the doorway, elegant features made ugly by a hideous sneer. One of the doors had been torn nearly from its hinges.

  "Time?" her aunt asked. "You have run out, I'm afraid."

  Arcs of power erupted from her fingers and struck the surface of the chrysalis, creating a backlash of magick that whipped at Ceridwen. She cried out in pain as her connection to Sweetblood's magick was violently severed.

  "Ceridwen?" Danny called as he began to rise.

  Morrigan paid no attention to the demon boy, and that was best. Ceridwen did not want Danny hurt more than he already had been. The taste of her own blood filled her mouth, mixing with the bitterness and rage that she felt as she stared at Morrigan, and at the twin Fey warriors who now stepped with her into the ballroom.

  "You won't believe this, but I'm actually quite happy to see you," Morrigan told her.

  Ceridwen shot a glance at Danny. "Prepare yourself," she said, though she doubted that he understood the full meaning of her words.

  The boy crouched down, a fierce gleam in his eyes. "Ready when you are." His voice was a rumbling growl, in tune with his bestial nature.

  Morrigan and the twins moved further into the room, proceeding with caution. "I knew that something wasn't right. I could feel it in my bones, so to speak, but I just couldn't put my finger on it." She smiled, and Ceridwen wasn't sure if she had ever seen Morrigan's teeth look quite so sharp. "I thought that I might actually be going mad."

  "Too late for that," Ceridwen spat.

  With her free hand she wove a spell and a wall of fire blazed up from the floor, with Ceridwen, Danny and the chrysalis on one side, and Morrigan and her lackeys on the other.