by Andrew Dudek
The temperature in the room spiked and there was a rumble of thunder from outside. The light in the chalk faded, then went out, and Lou leaned back in his chair. “There. It’s done.”
He picked the charm up and carried it to me in both hands, like a churchgoer offering communion. I took it as respectfully. The leather was warm, but not hot enough to burn. My skin tingled and crackled as I touched it. The hair on my arms stood up. It reminded me of the first time I’d held my sword—so much undeniable power—but it was just as obviously different. This thing, which had been made in the workshop of a college professor who moonlighted as a hedge wizard, now felt wrong. It felt like a remnant of the comet that killed the dinosaurs. It felt like it didn’t belong here.
I looked at Lou. His eyes were empty, distant. The Claimed Ones were extremely powerful. This was an evil power. I couldn’t imagine living with it everyday and not using it. The Claimed Ones were better people than me.
“Be careful,” their leader said. “And good luck, Carver.”
“Thanks.” I raised the charm in a salute, then slid it into my pocket. “For everything.”
Arjun was distant as he drove me back towards Queens. The skinny Claimed One had always been quiet, but it was different this time. Chillier. Like when your girlfriend (or boyfriend, if that’s more your speed) is mad at you and you have no idea why. I had a theory. Arjun seemed like a true believer, someone who didn’t appreciate the necessity of a good, old-fashioned superhero team up.
“I guess I owe you an apology,” I said.
He glanced at me, but didn’t respond.
“I didn’t trust you at first—any of you, but we’re on the same side, aren’t we?”
Arjun hesitated before answering. “Yes, I suppose we are.”
“How long you been fighting this fight?” I asked.
“Long time.”
“Ever run into anything like Cerberus before?”
“Not quite.”
I waited, but it seemed clear that Arjun wasn’t planning on offering an elaboration. I ran a hand through my hair, brushing a finger against the newly powered charm.
“You don’t say much, do you?”
Arjun sighed. “I was born in Bangalore. My parents moved to Liverpool when I was a child. It was there that I was Claimed. The Dark One forced me to kill my parents, my siblings, and an entire classroom full of my fellow students. I was thirteen.” He looked at me. “I killed everyone I was ever close to. I’m not interested in new friends.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and we fell back into silence.
I wondered if I had been as unpleasant to be around as Arjun was for the last months. I decided against it—I had been angry, sure, but not completely standoffish. Or maybe I had been, but I was making an effort now. Not that Arjun didn’t deserve a bit of bitterness, if the story he’d told me was true.
The creaking scream of bending metal whipped me out of my thoughts. The engine whined in impotent power.
“Gah!” Arjun jerked the wheel, but the car didn’t respond. A few horns sounded from outside.
“What’s happening?” I shouted.
“Something has us,” Arjun said, maddeningly calm.
The car was tossed in the air. I’ve been in a few car accidents in my time, but this was a totally new experience. It went straight into the air like a popup, and I was pushed hard against my seatbelt. Arjun hadn’t been buckled in, and he was tossed around. I lost track of him when he rolled into the backseat.
We weren’t falling. What goes up must come down. But we weren’t. Which meant whatever had us was holding us above the ground. I cursed the tinted windows and rolled in my seat so I could get a good boot at the window. It took a couple of kicks, but I managed to break the glass. The sound of traffic whizzing by got louder, but there was no more honking.
I did hear growls and snarls and barks.
The sounds of dogs.
The sounds of three dogs.
Well, crap.
I poked my head out and looked around. The car was floating in midair above a highway that I didn’t recognize. Traffic moved slowly below us, their occupants all staring up at the flying car. And the three-headed dog that was standing on the shoulder, snarling and slavering.
And then there was the electric pulse in the air that I associated with magic, and the car was flung through the air to crash on the side of the road. The sedan hit the ground with a crash of bending metal and breaking glass.
Arjun staggered out of the backseat.
A pickup pulled over to the shoulder behind our little scene. I pulled myself out of the car, my head fuzzy from the crash, but I knew that wasn't good. I waved at the truck and shouted, “Get out of here!”
Arjun moved suddenly, charging towards the hellhound like a bolt of lightning. He closed in on the beast, calling on all of the power of the Dark Ones, and wrapped his hands around one of the necks. He was fast, there was no question, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid all three heads. One of them grabbed him by the ankles and picked him up, dangling him like a worm on a hook.
The third head slavered as it snapped and barked. Those ferocious jaws were dripping sulfurous drool as they advanced on Arjun. They closed around his head. The two dog’s heads pulled in opposite directions.
Arjun, the Claimed One, was ripped into two bloody pieces. Lengths of ropy entrails littered the shoulder of the road. I had time to gape at the brutality of it…
And then Cerberus was on me. I threw a hand over my face, and the hellhound let out a yelp like a kicked puppy. The charm on my chest glowed warm.
“That’s right,” I said. “You can’t touch me. So slink off again. Go back to your doghouse.”
Cerberus tossed all three heads back and howled. A moment later I felt cold steel poke into the back of my neck. I chanced a look over my shoulder. The stranger smiled. A pistol was in his hand, pressed against me. He must have been the driver of the pickup truck, because there was no one in it. The man smiled, his teeth yellowed from decades of tobacco and coffee.
“Maybe he can’t touch you,” he said. His voice was loud and his accent was from somewhere in the Southern United States. “But I can.”
And he slammed the pistol into the back of my head.
Chapter 25
It was dark when I woke. My wrists were bound with a piece of cord. I was alone in what looked like a cabin, the windows covered with black sheets. All of the furniture—a small square table, two chairs, and the bed that I was tied to—were made of some kind of identical dark wood, and it was all crammed into about ten square feet of real estate. I could have reached out and touched the doorknob from my spot on the bed. You know, if I could have moved my hands. My arms ached, but it was a dull, familiar pain. I knew what it was like to be bound for a long time.
I’d been here a while.
A board creaked outside. I screamed, loud enough that the muscles in my throat felt strained, and kicked at the wooden frame of the bed. The board creaked again and a shadow appeared at the bottom of the door.
It opened and heavy boots clunked across the wooden floorboards. The man from the highway nodded, grinning his yellow-toothed grin. He dropped a cigarette on the cabin floor and ground it out with his heel. The man was about my height and weight. He had short dark hair and a goatee. His eyes were dark and intelligent and he wore brown hiking boots. The business casual clothing he’d been wearing on the road were gone, replaced by a set of camo fatigues. He wore a holstered pistol on one hip. And he had a big ol’ hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Well,” the man said, and spat a yellow wad out onto the porch, “morning.”
“Who are you?”
He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt, keyed it up, and spoke into it. “Yeah, he’s awake.” Without waiting for a response, he returned the radio to his belt.
“What’s the matter,” I said, nodding at the rifle, “taking a break from killing Bambi’s mom to pick up some merc work. Heh. Merc work. I made a
poem.”
He put his hand on the butt of the pistol. “You see this?” He spoke deliberately, slowly, a man in no particular hurry. “This means I’m in charge here. You don’t need to ask no questions.”
“Absolutely. Got it. Hey, are we gonna play Russian Roulette later? Get it? ‘Cause you look like a character from The Deer Hunter.”
He flicked the strap off the holster. His fist closed around the handle of the gun. “You sure you want to be playing with me, boy?”
I shrugged—which is harder to do than you might think when your hands are tied to a headboard. “I guess I’m just not as scared of you as you want me to be.”
“And why’s that?”
I looked him in the eye and let a coldness drop across my face. It wasn’t hard. There’s always a cold wind blowing behind my eyes. Most of the time I struggle to keep it from showing. All I had to do was drop the pretense. “You saw the thing out there. The one that killed the Indian guy. It’s hard to be scared of a few ounces of lead when you run into things like that.”
He nodded. “A bullet’ll kill just as dead as a three-headed dog.” He leaned in close enough that I could smell the faint afterimage of some cheap whiskey on his breath. “‘Member that.” He spat on the floor again, spun around, and left the cabin.
Charming guy.
A moment later, the boards on the porch creaked again, followed by the steady rhythm of groaning wood. Sounded like he was in a rocking chair.
Muffled voices drifted through the poorly weatherproofed door. I couldn’t make out what they were whispering, but I figured I knew who the second voice belonged to.
April.
The door opened and confirmed my suspicions. The black robe was gone, and she wore a pair of dark jeans and a black tank-top. She strode into the cabin, the Leash of Cerberus wrapped around her arm. For a moment, she looked at me, and I couldn’t place the emotion in those gray eyes. Amusement? Satisfaction? Triumph. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
“Hello, Dave,” she said.
“Where am I?”
Her smiled widened. “Come on. I’m not gonna tell you that.”
I shook my head. “Look, sweetheart, I’m not here to spar with you. This is your party. You tell me what song we’re dancing to.”
April Strain was silent for a moment, which gave me a chance to study her face. God, but she looked like May. There were wrinkles in her forehead and around her eyes, so she looked older. Her hair was much darker, of course, and there was a pinched quality to her lips that gave her a harsh, angry face. Unlike May’s cheeks, which were usually full and red, April’s were sunken and pasty. There was a coldness in those gray eyes, too, one that was familiar.
It could have been a reflection of my own darkness.
“I found that charm you were wearing. Very impressive.” She nodded, pulled a chair out from beneath the table and sat. “That was Claimed power, right?”
I didn’t answer.
April laughed. “By the Art, Dave, there’s no sense in denying it. I studied with the Claimed Ones for a time several years ago. That was actually where I got the idea of summoning the Sentinel.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’ve met a couple of those guys. They don’t seem like they’d have been onboard with a plan like that.”
“Ha! No, I never told them about the idea, but…” Her voice trailed off and she looked at one of the black-sheeted windows. “I suppose May’s told you a bit about the magical training our mother gave us when we were little girls. There were spelling bees—very different than the ones you’re imagining, I bet—and charm-drills and warding spell crash-tests. But in all that time, my mother never mentioned that there were other types of magic. She never told us about the Otherside. So when I met the Claimed Ones and I learned that the only way for a human to access it was to control a demon I was fascinated. Do you have any idea how much power I control now, with the Leash of Cerberus under my control?”
“Ballpark figure?” I said. “A lot.”
She laughed again and I was struck by the idea that if I closed my eyes I’d be able to convince myself that she even sounded like May.
For a long moment she was quiet, but then she said, “I don’t want anyone else to die.”
“That’s good. Neither do I. We're in agreement, so maybe let me go.” I gave my bound hands a shake to punctuate the request.
“I don’t want anyone to die. I didn’t want any of them to die, but there was no choice. Even with the Leash, I didn’t have the kind of power needed to summon the Sentinel from the Otherside. I knew the moment that I met Amy that she had the power in her blood I needed. I have the Leash, which gives me an edge, but it’s not enough. As long as Amy lives, she remains a threat to my control over the Sentinel. I’m sorry, Dave, I really am. But there’s nothing I can do.”
“Of course not.”
April leaned her head back. Her dark hair tumbled past her shoulders in waves. There were deep bags beneath her eyes and I noticed for the first time how tired she looked.
“You don’t know me, Dave. You knew my sister, but you don’t know me. I’m not a monster. I don’t relish these activities, but they’re a necessary evil.”
Despite myself, there was enough of May in April’s despairing face that something inside of me softened. “Why?” I said. “What makes them necessary?”
She straightened up and looked at me again. She rubbed her chin and said, “Have you ever thought about what’s beyond the Otherside? I’ve spent the last decade studying that question. That was part of LeFleur’s plan for my sister, by the way. I don’t know if she ever mentioned it to you: he wanted to use the power from those children to open a doorway to whatever’s beyond there. Monsters, beyond our imagining are out there, Dave, and from what I’ve seen, they know we’re here. Sooner or later, they’ll break through, and the Round Table won’t be enough to stop them. That’s why I need the Sentinel. It won’t be enough, not on its own, but it’s a start.”
I stared for a moment. Her eyes were set back from her cheeks, glittering like diamonds. She really believed what she was saying. But that meant…
“You’re insane,” I said.
“No,” she said, “I’m not.”
“You’re telling me you want to, what, create a demon army to use as a shield against some kinds of eldritch monsters from the dark ends of the universe?”
She pursed her lips, paused, and nodded. “Basically.”
“You’re insane. Let’s say you’re right—you’re not, but for the sake of discussion, let’s say there’s something unknowable out there coming for our universe. My job is to deal with this world. You murdered three innocent girls, April. I can’t let that stand.”
“So noble. So brave.” She smiled, and for the first time she didn’t look like May. There was a cruelty in that smile, a powerful malignancy. I’d seen my share of dark magicians in my time, and all of them had that cancerous darkness in their eyes. Even if she believed she was telling the truth, it looked to me like Aprilena Strain had looked too long into the void. She was gone. “I can see what my sister saw in you.”
“May never would have stood for something like this.” It was a desperate gambit, one last attempt to convince April that she was wrong.
“Mayena never understood sacrifice. I’m sorry about this. In another life we’d have been family. But I need complete control of the Sentinel. I need to remove the girl. Where is she?”
I tried to laugh. “You think I’m gonna tell you that?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. I just needed you to think about where you’ve hidden her for a moment.”
Something that felt like tiny, grabbing tendrils slipped into my mind. I gasped and wriggled, but there was no escape. My head jerked this way and that, trying to shake it off, but it was no good. April was reading my mind. I could feel her consciousness, digging through the surface of my memories.
“Ah,” she said after a minute of mental probing. “Dallas's
store. I know the place. Thanks for the help, Dave. I promise I'll do my best to make sure she doesn't suffer long. Take some comfort in that.”
I screamed as she left the cabin, straining against the wires with all of my might. The wood groaned under the stress, but it didn’t break. I shouted until my throat felt like it was tearing. Finally, I drooped against the mattress and closed my eyes. It didn’t matter how much I screamed. I was beaten,
It wasn’t the first time I’d lost a fight. It wasn’t the first time I’d let down people who’d depended on me. I’d spent years fighting monsters, and there are going to be losing rounds. That doesn’t make the sting less painful. Amy was going to die. Earl would be in charge in my absence, and there was no way he’d let April stroll in there and take Amy. He’d fight. So would Rob and Krissy and Dallas, probably. They’d lose. My friends would die.
I thrashed with my feet, kicking against the mattress. Nothing. My boots came down and I felt something hard in one.
No way.
I crossed my right leg over my left and brought it as far as I could towards my body. The hidden compartment inside the boot was still there, still unopened. I could feel my switchblade.
Yes.
The muscles in my arms screamed as I pulled them down as far as the cables would allow. Veins popped like cables in my forearms. I lifted my leg so that it was more or less over my head. Everything hurt, all of it, but I was able to maneuver my fingers into the side of the boot and take out the switchblade.
I popped the blade open and cut the cord. It fell away easily.
I leapt off the bed, planning to move as silently as possible. I landed on a big, wet wad of chewing tobacco. My left foot slid out from under me and I hit the floor with a loud crash.
An instant later the redneck mercenary was at the door, his hand on his pistol. I was up and moving before he had a chance to register what was happening in the cabin. His eyes widened as I closed on him.
I stabbed him in the side with the switchblade. He went down hard. I kneed him in the stomach, but he grabbed my ankles and flipped me over his shoulder. I went tumbling out of the cabin. He came after me, clutching his bleeding side with one hand and holding a long hunting knife in the other.
