By way of answering, he reached into the large duffle bag he had brought with him into the meeting and lifted out one of the cordless pneumatic nail guns we’d bought at Home Depot the night before. He pointed it at Gallagher’s desk and pulled the trigger. The short hiss of the escaping gas was lost in the loud thunk that followed as the projectile sank deep in its target.
I wish I could have seen the expression on Gallagher’s face as he stared at the three-inch carpenter’s nail that was now three quarters embedded in the side of his desk.
“Sweet Gaia. That’s brilliant.”
I thought so, too. The nail guns were the cordless variety designed to handle the framing tasks at any modern construction site. They weighed less than seven pounds, could be managed with one hand if necessary, and held roughly four thousand nails at a time. We’d bought fifteen of them, all that the store had in stock, as well as enough boxes of nails to keep us in business for several weeks. The iron content in the nails would be dangerous to the Sorrows and the portability of the nail guns themselves would make it easy for everyone to carry them wherever they were needed.
Along with the nail guns, we’d sorted through the two cases of melee weapons we’d taken from the Marshal’s armory and picked out ten or twelve that we thought would be useable, from KA-BAR combat knives to small hand axes. If the Sorrows got in close, at least we would have something in hand to defend ourselves with.
Or so we hoped.
As it turned out, Dmitri was right. It took us almost an hour to match the reports against the locations Denise had identified, but by the time we were finished we had eliminated seventeen locations from our list, bringing the new total to thirty. While it was still a lot, it was at least beginning to reach manageable levels.
With that it was time to bring in the rest of the troops.
Gallagher gathered them together in the backyard and went through what we had learned since our earlier defeat. He walked them through the use of the nail guns they’d been issued and urged them to take one of the handheld melee weapons he and I had retrieved from the armory.
When he was finished, Denise took over, identifying the potential locations and giving instructions on what to do should they encounter anything. Jars full of the eye salve Gallagher had created were distributed to each team leader, and they were given a few minutes to apply it and get used to the effect it had on their vision. They’d all seen Dmitri transform in the midst of battle the other night, but it was still kind of funny to watch them recoil when they turned and looked in his direction. I’d forgotten how unnerving a good-sized polar bear was to behold up close, regardless of the fact that he was on your side.
Numbers were important at this point, so rather than sending us out in pairs, Gallagher reshuffled things a bit and arranged us into two separate teams. The four of us, plus two of the wardens, would return to the high school and face the nest there. The other team would head to the first location on Denise’s list to begin hunting for another nest.
For the second time that week, we went on the offensive.
34
CLEARWATER
Hunt had been a liability on the last mission; he knew it and so it didn’t take much for Simon to convince him to play a different role. He would still accompany them, but this time he’d remain with the vehicles and be ready to help provide whatever assistance they needed when they came back out again.
Which left five of them to handle the pack of Sorrows. Denise just hoped it would be enough.
The last attack had shown that the Sorrows were highly resistant to magick, but that didn’t mean that magick was no longer useful as a weapon in the attack. Quite the contrary, in fact. It just meant that she and Simon were going to have to be more indirect in their use of it, attacking the space and surfaces around the Sorrows, rather than the Sorrows themselves.
They arrived in the same fashion and even parked in the same location. The warden who’d been watching the site for the last twenty-four hours emerged from cover and confirmed that the Sorrows were still inside.
In eerie mimicry of the previous visit, Spencer led the way. Nothing seemed to have changed: there were no sentries and the Sorrows were in the same location as they had been before.
Simon nodded in her direction, indicating it was time for her to do her thing. Denise took a moment to gather her concentration and then called up her Art, using her affinity with all things natural to reach out and alter the gravity of the area at the bottom of the swimming pool, making everything in it weigh considerably more than it had the moment before.
As if summoned by the touch of her magick, the Sorrows awoke as one and then multiple pairs of eyes stared up at them out of the darkness.
“Now!” Simon shouted.
The team opened fire. The nail guns made a short sharp noise—thunk, thunk, thunk thunk thunk—and in the confined and tiled space it echoed five times louder than it normally would have. Trapped by the increased gravity and wounded by the iron content in the nails, the Sorrows shrieked with rage and fear.
In seconds, the room was complete chaos. Shouts and screams from both sides filled the air, and the cacophony was punctuated again and again by the sharp sound of the guns as they spat their deadly little missiles at the creatures. The nails didn’t stop the Sorrows, but they sure as hell hurt, if the screams the creatures were making was any indication.
Maintaining her gravity well required both power and concentration, and it wasn’t long before Denise felt it begin to slip away from her. A Sorrow near the edge of the effect broke free and rushed her, racing up the side of the pool and leaping into midair in front of her. She was knocked to the ground by a backhand sweep from the creature’s arm, only to watch as the creature was torn apart before her eyes by the rampaging polar bear.
Around her she could see several of Spencer’s people were tossing aside their makeshift firearms, the hoppers of the nail guns now empty of ammunition, and pulling their weapons from their belts to wade in and engage the Sorrows in hand-to-hand combat.
The battle was just as short and bloody as the first time they’d entered these grounds, but the outcome was entirely different. As the old scroll had suggested, the Sorrows were deathly allergic to the iron in their blades and what wouldn’t have proved to be a mortal wound against a human being was deadly to the creatures they faced. In the end, they triumphed. All of them had a minor injury or two, but none was life-threatening. Simon ordered Spencer and his men to round up the bodies of the Sorrows and burn them, using the cans of gasoline brought along for just that purpose.
* * *
Over the next two days they located and destroyed three more nests. The first two were handled without incident, but they lost another man while taking down the third because by then the Sorrows had begun anticipating their movements and had been ready and waiting for them when they arrived. For creatures that were supposedly of limited intelligence, it was an unsettling display of adaptability and initiative.
Denise and Jeremiah were discussing the latest developments with Simon when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the number, excused himself from the conversation, and answered the call.
When he hung up a few minutes later, his face was flushed red with excitement.
“Come on,” he said, as he snatched his coat off the back of his chair. “We’ve got to get over to the Garden District.”
“Why?” Denise asked, even as she jumped to her feet and reached for her own jacket.
“Dmitri’s waiting for us at the Sidhe enclave over on St. Mark’s.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He says they’ve caught a live one.”
It took her a minute to realize he was talking about a Sorrow.
The Sidhe had captured a Sorrow!
The SUVs were all in use so they took her car and Simon played navigator as she drove through the empty streets. Hunt spent most of it staring out the window at the darkened city. Just a few days ago the streets had been full of rev
elers, but now their numbers had dwindled. It was almost as if they’d caught wind of what was going on, some survival instinct in the back of their minds telling them that now was not a good time to be out and about on the streets of New Orleans. She couldn’t say she blamed them.
They pulled up in front of another gleaming estate, this one of white marble, and parked in the circular drive. Seconds later they were clustered together on the front steps as Simon rang the bell.
35
HUNT
The Sidhe met us at the door with their glamour firmly in place, doing their best to pass as ordinary humans. Their magick was no match for my ghostsight, however; it stripped the illusion away and let me see them as they truly were. To my surprise, they didn’t look all that different from you and me, provided you could ignore their snow white hair, violet eyes, and skin the color of a Minnesotan in midwinter. The pointed ears were a bit of a giveaway as well.
Gallagher had called them Sidhe, but it would have been easier if he’d just said elves. For that was exactly what they looked like to me, Elrond with an attitude.
No sooner had we stepped inside the door than Gallagher and Denise began a heated discussion with our hosts in a language I didn’t understand, leaving me to fend for myself for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the house we were in, an old plantation home built in the late 1700s, was lit so well that all I could see was an ocean of white. Even my ghostsight wasn’t very helpful; I could see the Sidhe, sure, but nothing beyond that.
Which, when I thought about it for a moment, didn’t make any sense.
Where were all the ghosts?
An old place like this should’ve had at least one or two resident spirits hanging around in the background. Usually they would be popping out of the woodwork right about now, as if my very presence had summoned them to take a look, like they’d done that first day outside the clinic.
But there wasn’t a ghost in sight.
Come to think of it, I’d seen very few on the ride over as well. That realization was vaguely disquieting; when we’d arrived in New Orleans a few days ago, they had been practically everywhere. You couldn’t turn your head without seeing a ghost hanging on a street corner or watching from behind the window glass. Suddenly they’d all disappeared?
Gallagher’s negotiation was still going strong and I was bored standing around in the light, so I decided a little experimentation was in order.
I took out my harmonica and played a short tune, looking to borrow someone else’s eyes for a while in order to see what was happening around me.
For the first time since I’d been actively summoning ghosts, nothing happened.
Frowning, I brought the harmonica back to my lips and tried again, this time playing with a bit more force, letting my sense of the city around me affect the tune. What came out was a bit harsher, a bit more demanding, than the previous attempt had been. I played for almost five minutes. Long enough that I could feel the others’ attention on me, wondering what the hell I was doing, I’m sure. At that point, unable to summon even a single spirit, I gave up.
Maybe the Sidhe had done something to keep them out of the house—wards at the door, that kind of thing. Or maybe there was something else going on here that I hadn’t considered.
I heard footsteps approaching and turned toward them.
“Put that thing away,” Gallagher told me as he got closer. “You’re making our hosts uncomfortable.”
I obliged, sliding my harmonica in my pocket while at the same time making a mental note to try again once I was outside the boundaries of the Sidhe’s property.
“From what I’ve been told, the Sidhe awoke in the middle of the night to find the Sorrow trying to reap the soul from one of their comrades,” Gallagher explained. “They eventually managed to overpower it and decided that a living Sorrow might help us solve this thing faster than a dead one. They’ve got it locked up in a shed out back. Dmitri and one of the Sidhe are standing guard.”
I knew how tough the Sorrows were, knew what it took to kill them, so hearing that our hosts had actually captured one alive gave me new respect for their abilities.
It also made me wonder why they weren’t in charge of tracking these things down and containing them. I put the question to my companion.
“The Sidhe are an … ancient race,” he said. “They live among us but don’t normally get involved in what they consider ‘human’ issues.”
“Human issues? But they’ve been attacked too!”
He sighed. “Yes, and in their view they dealt with the threat just as they will do again if necessary. The only reason they called us at all was because of a debt they owe the Council and, as Marshal of the city, I’m the Council’s most accessible representative.”
Sounded pretty damned selfish, if you asked me.
Gallagher went on. “When we get out there, I’d like you to use that unique perspective of yours and let me know if you see anything unusual. Denise and I will be doing the same.”
I was standing in a fairy enclave, taking orders from a mage and getting ready to look at a soul-sucking beast through the eyes of a ghost. And he wanted me to point out the unusual?
Denise slid her arm through mine. “Ready?” she asked.
I kept the irony of my thoughts to myself. “Lead on, woman, lead on.”
She did so, using a low voice to narrate what she was seeing as we moved through the house so that I wouldn’t be left out of the loop. The Sidhe took us through the sitting room, into the kitchen, out the rear door and across the lawn to a shed as big as a three-car garage.
Once outside, the whiteout faded as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could see again. Dmitri was waiting for us by the shed door. When he saw us coming, he took a key from his pocket and turned to the door behind him, unlocking the thick chain that held it secure. Another of the fairy folk stood at his side, a modern compound bow in hand. As Dmitri unlocked the door, the Sidhe fitted an iron-tipped arrow into his bow and drew it back into the ready position.
Seems they weren’t taking any chances.
Denise pulled a jar of that foul-smelling salve out of her pocket and smeared some around her eyes before passing it to Gallagher, who did the same.
Dmitri opened the shed door and ushered us inside the space.
The smell of engine oil and gasoline was still hanging in the air, but whatever had once filled the space had been moved elsewhere. In its place was a massive wooden table that looked like it would take several men to move.
A good thing, too, for the captured Sorrow was secured right to the top of it.
Beside me, Denise let out a gasp, and I decided that this would be a good time to have a look for myself. I activated my ghostsight.
The Sorrow swam into view in front of me.
Thick iron chains crossed the creature’s chest at several intervals, pinning its arms to its sides, and several more secured its legs at thigh, knee, and ankle. A wide leather strap held its head against the tabletop in an upright position, a thick steel buckle dead center in the middle of the Sorrow’s forehead.
For a moment it lay there unmoving, almost as if it couldn’t sense that we were there, but then its eyes flew open and it snapped its jaws at us repeatedly.
I made sure to keep my distance; after seeing how quickly they could rend one’s soul to tattered slivers, I wasn’t going to take any chances. But my companions didn’t share my reservations, and after watching them work for a few minutes I got over my hesitation, trusting that whoever strapped it down knew what they were doing.
This Sorrow didn’t look much different than the last one I had examined. The same wrinkled gray flesh. The same buzz saw–like mouth. The same strange odor, like a wet dog crossed with an angry skunk.
But there was nothing else.
Nothing new.
My shoulders slumped in resignation.
Gallagher must have seen my reaction, for he said, “We’re not done yet, Hunt.”
He stepped up to the foo
t of the table, just a few inches beyond the creature’s reach, and took a moment to prepare himself. Or at least that’s what I think he was doing, as he stood there with his head hanging down and his arms extended out to either side, palms up and open. I’d seen Denise in a similar posture a couple of times, usually when she was about to try a minor working, and figured that Gallagher was getting ready to do the same.
Aware that the Sorrow probably wasn’t going to like what he was about to do all that much, I made sure I was well out of reach.
Gallagher brought his hands up in front of him and cupped them together as if he were making a snowball. Closing his eyes, he began chanting softly, repeating something in Latin several times until a light began to blossom between his hands. As he spread his hands apart, the ball grew, until it was several feet in diameter. When it was big enough, he turned his hands outward, palms toward the head of the table, and gave a little push.
The sphere of light drifted forward, washing over the Sorrow’s feet and sliding slowly toward the other end of the table.
As it passed over the Sorrow’s form, it revealed what we couldn’t see with our own eyes. Thankfully, since it was arcane in origin, I was also able to see it with just my ghostsight.
Where the flesh of the other Sorrows I’d seen had all been unmarked, the skin of this one was covered in crisscrossing bands of black energy, as if it had been wrapped in strand after strand of arcane razor wire. Each strand cut deeply into its skin, and in several places it actually disappeared down into it like a burrowing worm before reemerging from some other spot on its body several inches away. The bands pulsed with a life of their own, constricting and releasing in an odd, complicated rhythm that must have been agony to the creature as they cut again and again into its flesh.
“Holy shit!” Dmitri said and I had to agree with him.
Holy shit, indeed.
There was no way the Sorrow had done that to itself.
Which left only one explanation.
King of the Dead (Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) Page 17
