That's definitely an offer you don't get every day.
"Join me and the Libro Nihil is yours, and with it power over the life and death of every being on this planet."
"At the low, low price of my soul right? I'm no saint, but what kind of fucking monster do you think I am?" This time I managed to get it out without shaking. The energy I'd been collecting was feeding off my anger; I was boiling over with it.
I pulled the trigger.
The gun made a sound like a jet obliterating the sound barrier and a gout of flame exploded out the barrel, consuming Henry. I was blown back, thrown down the hall, and slammed into a bookshelf. It hurt, pretty bad, my body screamed. Dusty, heavy old books rained down and pelted me.
I'd say the enchantment was a success.
Hack, Swift, and the others came running down the hallway. I was trying to get myself off the ground, they all looked like they were talking but I couldn't hear a damn thing over the ringing in my ears. Hack came skidding to a stop and turned to face the door, his mouth hanging open. Devlin stopped right behind him, just as a lance of solid, ink black darkness came streaming down the hall. It took him full in the chest and tore him off his feet, not stopping until it slammed into the ceiling and pinned him there. I could see him screaming even though I couldn't hear it, flailing and writhing at the thing that had pierced him. Smoking spots began to rise on his body, something burning him from the inside.
Rosa and Jesus bolted back down the hall. Swift went flying across my vision and slammed into Hack, still standing dumbstruck, and tackled him out of the way of three more of the black spears. My hearing was starting to come back, enough that I could start making out the sounds of chaos. I had just made it to my feet and turned to look down the hall to the door, where Henry was still standing.
He walked right in completely ignoring the wards on the house, which made sense, what with him being the maker of most of them. His clothes weren't even singed, not a thread out of place. He had one hand raised, and around it hung an aura of darkness.
He was no longer smiling.
"You're a fool, a weak, stupid little worm. You could have been a god."
"That's not nice," I mumbled, head swimming.
Henry was going to kill me, and everyone else if we stayed bottlenecked in the hallway. It was a shooting gallery. The pall of darkness around his hand was gathering and growing, throbbing as he prepared another strike. Hack pushed his way passed me, stepping between Henry and me.
"Go on Tommy, get out the back. Me and Henry got some talking to do," Hack growled, he patted me on the shoulder and turned to face Henry, who let out another of his nerve-wracking chuckles.
"My dear friend Hack, I see you've changed. It doesn't matter. I'll slaughter the last of the God-Spear line and then -"
Hack never gave him a chance to finish. The last thing I saw was Hack shooting down the hall like a bolt of lightning. Literally, like a bolt of lightning. His whole body flared up with blue and white light and he slammed into Henry, blowing him out the door. I caught a look at Devlin, fallen to the ground with his eyes wide and empty, his body smoking, before Swift dragged me down the hall and made his way to the kitchen. Rosa and Jesus were there, hiding under the dining table.
"Thought you said your place was safe brujo, what the fuck happened there?" Rosa snapped as she came out.
"That was crazy!" Jesus shouted, looking at everything with wide, jittery eyes.
"No time, got to run." Swift went to the kitchen door that led out to the back of the house.
I followed numbly, and ended up getting pushed along by Rosa and Jesus. There were noises coming from the front, from the battle between Hack and Henry. Sounds like thunder and howling wind.
"Where's Senor Desmond?" Rosa asked.
"Gone."
I was surprised at how much that upset me. Devlin, monarch and warden of Hanford's Others, snuffed out like nothing. For more years than I'd been around, it was Devlin who kept the more ambitious Others in line, kept them in their place. Not to mention he was my primary source of income, hiring me on for research and information. And now, now it looked like I'd be trying to stop the end of the world for free. There would be no more checks coming in.
That also made me sad.
Rosa let out a string of Spanish laced with an excess of vitriol. I finally noticed that I was still clutching onto the pistol with a death-grip, and eased it into my bag. I was about to say something to Swift about facilitating our escape when he came tearing around the back of the house in Rosa's car, kicking up a cloud of dust when he skid to a stop. We wasted no time packing in and he tore off across the barren field around my home, making for the street. The sounds of Hack and Henry's fight had been a horrible soundtrack in the background, but as the low-rider fishtailed onto the road, the noises stopped. I stuck my head out the window and looked back at my home, both of them were gone but the whole front of the house was blackened as if it had been scorched by fire. I slipped over to look at the Other Side, and the whole area was blanketed by a haze of energy that simmered and boiled.
"Where to?" Swift asked. "Thomas, where are we going?"
I honestly had no idea. Devlin was gone, Hack probably also dead. My great-grandfather apparently had everything he needed to enact the ritual that would allow him access to world breaking power.
I was, at that point, certain of one thing.
We were well and truly fucked.
Chapter Sixteen
After my house had disappeared into the distance and we were nestled in the city proper, surrounded by the mad rush of after work traffic, I was entrenched with a sense of dread.
All the normal folk of Hanford, so blissfully ignorant it was infuriating. I'd actually spent a lot of time daydreaming about living a normal life. I think I would find a menial, tedious life appealing. You never have to worry about looming apocalypses, or evil bogeymen trying to kill you in exciting and excruciating ways. I mean, how cool is that? Even knowledge of the Other Side was enough to damn you for life, or kill you outright. Rosa was becoming a dangerous reminder of that.
Inside the car, it was brutally silent. Everyone was actively trying not to say anything. I started to, a couple times, but just kept my mouth shut. Rosa sat in the back with her arms folded over her chest, looking out the window at the darkening sky. For once she didn't look furious, or pissed off, or like she was about to hit something. She looked tired. Jesus was next to her with a glazed over look in his eye, probably trying to run everything he'd seen through his head and make sense of it. Swift remained stoic as ever as he silently chauffeured us; from the passenger seat I could see his eyes darting about behind his glasses, scanning everything.
I knew what was going to happen next.
I had managed to piece almost everything together. The parts I wasn't too sure on were easy enough to guess. Henry had at some point come under the thrall of the Sleeper, and used his death to disappear and build his power. When the time was right, he'd flushed out all the competition and used me like a fucking idiot to get him exactly what he wanted: the Libro Nihil. He had taken Sarah, a convenient victim and sacrifice to help power the ritual he'd use to help pull the Sleeper over into the world. Maybe the smart move would have been to take him up on his offer.
God of a wasted ruin is still better than dead.
It was probably the multiple head wounds talking, but why had Henry made the offer in the first place? I was the next best thing to worthless in a fight, not powerful in the least. Magic that guys like Henry or Hack could spit out like nothing left me floored with a migraine. Familial propriety? That would be ridiculous, I'd never met Henry in my life, and he didn't strike me as a particularly sentimental kind of guy. Unless, of course and it should be obvious, it was much more than just family. Unless I had been so busy trying to not get killed that I'd completely overlooked one tiny, but possibly very significant fact.
"He thinks I can stop him."
"Oh yeah, he seemed real scared of you,"
Rosa piped up from the back seat.
"Hush. It makes sense," I snapped, I had to run with the thought before I had time to second guess it. "Why else would he have even tried to get me to join him? He could've just come in guns blazing."
"He did the whole guns blazing thing, though," Swift added helpfully.
"Only after I'd thrown his offer back in his face."
"You mean after you shot him in the face," Jesus said quietly.
"You guys are a bunch of fucking comedians. I'm being serious here." I swear I get no respect.
"Okay, I'll bite," Swift said as he eased up to a stoplight. "If he thinks you can stop him, why not just kill you? Why bother trying to recruit you?"
"The same reason Flesh-Thing needed to find a mage. The same reason Devlin needed to find a mage. Because he can't do the ritual," I said, quite satisfied with myself.
"But he's like the super bad-ass version of you, brujo," Rosa said. "Grande brujo."
"I don't think he's a mage anymore. I think he's become something like Hack is -" I stopped myself, remembering. "Was, like Hack was."
"You think he's become an Other?" Swift asked.
I nodded, letting the thoughts meander about in my brain and come together. It made the most sense. It was the only thing that made sense. Like Hack, who had merged his energy with the greater flow of Creation, Henry had gone and joined with the Sleeper. Quite possibly literally and now he was as much an avatar or extension of the Sleeper, which meant he was no longer really a mage and couldn't manipulate the magic locked in the Libro Nihil.
Got all that that? Okay.
Since I turned him down, that meant he'd have to get another mage to do it for him, and we weren't really heavy on the ground in Hanford to begin with. So where was he going to get another mage?
"Hey, Swift, did you notice anything out of the ordinary about Sarah?"
"Devlin's nurse? She was exceptionally pretty."
Rosa snorted from the back seat. I ignored her and continued.
"She was. But why did Devlin need a nurse to begin with? He wasn't exactly infirm."
"I'm going to hazard a guess and say...because she's fun to look at?"
"Yes!" I punched at the dashboard in triumph, caught up in my own train of thought. "I mean no. No, that's not it. Because he needed a mage, too. Damn it, I can't know for sure without looking at her from the Other Side, but I'd bet my teeth she's a latent mage."
If Henry wanted sacrifices, he could have his pick. I'm sure if I felt like breaking into the local police database I'd see a number of missing females that'd cropped up recently. But why would he attack Devlin, after he'd already gotten the book, if there wasn't something else he needed? Because he needed a back-up plan if I shot him down. That's why Sarah was at Devlin's to begin with, the crafty old bastard had been grooming her to awaken to her dormant potential. If I was wrong, I guess it didn't actually matter. The poor girl was in the hands of a pretty horrific asshole, and was in need of rescue.
It kind of sucked for her that it was up to me to do the rescuing.
"So what's your brilliant plan this time, brujo?" Rosa asked, accompanied by a round of chuckles from Jesus.
"We're going to start with getting Swift's car back, then you two are going to get the hell out of Dodge till this is all over," I said, Swift nodded and took the nearest turn to lead us back to his car.
"What if that creep comes back?" Jesus asked, pushing his head forward between the seats. The fear in his eyes made him look awfully young.
By all rights, Henry shouldn't have any interest in Rosa and her son once they were away from me, in theory at least. Except maybe as hostages to use against me in the unfortunately inevitable chance I showed up to stop him. That kind of pessimism didn't help anything.
"You guys will be fine."
I caught a look from Rosa in the rearview mirror; she didn't look like she believed me but must have taken pity on me and decided not to voice it, probably for Jesus's sake.
I spent the rest of the ride double checking the gear in my bag. The pistol still had some rounds in it, and I flicked over to the Other spectrum for a second to make sure the enchantment on it was still lingering. It wasn't as bright as it was before, but the barrel still crackled with energy. Good enough. All my other things looked to still be intact and in order. When we got to where Swift had parked his car, he got out and went running over to it like a long lost lover. I swear I saw him caress the steering wheel when he slid in. Jesus and Rosa moved into the front seats of her car, Rosa getting behind the wheel. I was halfway to Swift's, when I turned around and called out to her.
"Listen, I'm kind of sorry about all the weird shit that's happened today."
"I take it back brujo. You're not evil, just crazy. And stupid," Rosa said, revving the engine of the low-rider and peeling away before I could respond.
I stood for a moment and watched her speed away into the distance. She was probably right on both counts; I'd have to be crazy and stupid to think I could take on Henry and stop him. But at the moment, there didn't seem to be many other options. Swift honked impatiently, I flipped him off as I turned and walked to his car.
"You really think they'll be safe?" Swift said after I'd gotten into the car.
"I think safety is awfully relative. We should get moving."
Swift gunned the engine and let the tires squeal, slinging the car out into the street and aiming for the freeway entrance. It was all a very dramatic and flashy thing to do, bordering on obnoxiously flagrant. But I let him have his fun.
It was kind of cool.
"You know what the funny part is?" I said after we'd gone past the city proper and crept up on farmland and dairies.
"That you're massively out-gunned and stand little to no chance of surviving?"
"That's not funny at all." I looked across the car at him. "Level with me, you're really some kind of angel...thing?"
I was trying to see what road it was he was pulling onto but missed it when he started into a full-blown, honest to goodness laugh session. Complete with slapping the steering wheel. It was different, fully out of character. He eventually had to pull off to the side of the road and park the car, until the laughter began to subside into a series of fading chuckles. I had backed myself into the door, trying to hide or make myself smaller. When it was over, Swift turned his head slowly to face me, a strange smile on his face. He moved a hand from the wheel and took his glasses off, when he did his face lost its mirth and his eyes were two blank white holes.
"It's all so much more than that, Thomas," Swift said, his voice even and calm. "And I'll be happy to tell you everything, should you survive."
"That was fucked up man."
The barest hint of a smile pulled up the corners of Swift's mouth as he cranked the car back into drive and slid out onto the road, slipping his shades back on. We were out in the country, a few miles outside the city limits. As far as the eye could see was farmland and dairies, the sun beginning to make its way down and setting off all the weird colors that only the questionable valley sky could turn. The raging pessimist in me thought now was the time to take it all in, get one last long look. Swift was right; this was going to be my last sunset. Probably wasn't a point in even going to try and stop Henry.
It's not like shooting him in the face worked out so well.
"I'm going to assume you have no idea what to do now," Swift said.
"You would be correct, sir. Want to just go grab a bite and wait for the end of the world?"
"Thomas if you let some asshole with a god-complex and a book destroy the world, I will kick your ass."
My friends are the best, always ready with kind words of support.
He was totally right, though. Of course. And it made me feel like a selfish jerk, giving up right when it got ugliest and laying down to die. All because of a damn book. The memory of it, Flesh-Thing's memory of it, was still seared into my brain. It was such a tiny, insignificant looking thing, hard to believe it was at the
center of all this trouble. The memory of it...
"Son of a bitch, pull over the car!" I scrabbled to get into my bag, tossing things out of it.
"What'd you just call me?"
"Pull over the damn car!" I shot Swift my best 'I have lost my shit entirely' look and dumped my bag out onto my lap.
Swift looked like he wanted to say something, but complied and ended up pulling into a little service station off the side of the freeway. I had already started in with the cackling, pawing at the door until it popped open and I went spilling out of the car in a wave of papers and books and chalk and various assorted oddities.
"Nothing to see here folks, just a psychotic break. Carry on." Swift got out of the car and waved benignly at the scattering of folks in the parking lot. "Thomas what the hell are you doing?"
"Books man, beautiful, stupid books," I sprung on him, shoving my copy of The Golden Bough in his face. "I have books too."
"Okay, it's all right. Just…you're going to have to break it down for me. Sanely. People are starting to look nervous."
People never understand the true nature of genius, damn it.
I took a few steps back and a few deep breaths, shoving my brain into order. This plan would require equal parts heavy duty futzing about with reality, and an absurd amount of dumb luck. But it was all I had.
"Fuck with my head, Henry, I'll fuck with your head."
Chapter Seventeen
Swift was busy inside the gas station, trying to convince the manager that I wasn't a threat to myself or others and to not call the authorities.
I was busy out in the middle of the parking lot, scrawling out a hideously complex circle ringed around with runic script and shot through by non-Euclidean gibberish. I was going to have to trap a dangerously large amount of energy, and focus it into a carefully crafted hoax. Something good enough to pull a fast one on my great-grandfather, and a lot of it relied on memories from an ancient, half-insane mutant shaman that had been burned into my brain.
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