Hartman shook his head without breaking his probing stare at Toby. “Yes, that is what we call our world.”
“And the ones who enslave you?” asked Toby.
“What about them?” Hartman’s gaze bored into Toby’s, filled with rage and recrimination.
“What is the name of their race?”
“I’d have to hum it.” Hartman shifted his gaze to Scott, and then to Scott’s service weapon. “I don’t want to get shot again.”
“Fair enough. What is the name of your kind? Or do you have to hum that, too?” Toby paced a few steps to the left and turned and stared at Hartman.
“Does it matter? I don’t understand why you want this information. It changes nothing—none of my answers change anything. We’re here, and there’s not a damn thing any of you can do about it.”
“Is that so? I bet Herlequin thought the same thing…but, now he’s dead, and we can’t ask him.” Toby flopped his hands back and forth. “Guess we’ll never know.”
“Why do you persist with this lie?” asked Hartman in a surly tone. “Why do you persist with this…this farce of an interrogation? You can’t feed on my emotion, my pain, so I fail to see the point.”
“Luckily for you, we don’t give a shit whether you see the point or not. Unluckily for you, we are in control, and—”
“For the moment,” sneered Hartman.
“—we want information from you. We don’t care if you understand why we want it. We don’t care if you want to give it to us. We will have the information we want!”
Hartman shrank away as Scott screamed the last sentence in his face, brandishing his pistol. “Then ask sensible questions. Pragmatic questions.”
“Fine,” said Toby, the bastion of calm. “Why are there so many of your kind living in Oneka Falls?”
“Why wouldn’t we choose a town—any town—and live there together?”
Toby shrugged, and a small smile played on his lips. “I’ve learned a lot about your kind, Hartman. I’ve been watching, you see. I’ve been hunting you demons. Stopping your kind from feeding where I could.”
“And what is it you think you know about us? Why wouldn’t we live in a small town together?”
“For the same reason you live way out here in the middle of nowhere—no neighbors, no nothing. Your kind doesn’t get along well with each other. You are apex predators, not herd animals.”
“Oh, aren’t you sweet,” Hartman crooned while sneering. “Who said we don’t get along? Who said we can’t live with each other in proximity?”
Toby treated him to a nasty chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure weak demons such as yourself can live close to one another if they are forced to, and especially if the neighboring demons are older and stronger than ones such as yourself.”
“Weak demons? Such as…myself?” Hartman growled the words and rattled his chains for good measure. “If you’d care to release me from the stupid chains, we could test how weak I am.”
Toby laughed outright, lacing as much contempt and attitude into it as he could. “Been there, done that, Hartman, and here you sit, chained and imprisoned. A single human did that.”
Hartman’s eyes flicked from Scott to Mike to Toby. “The way you count is strange. I count three humans.” His eyes turned toward Scott. “One with a penchant for popping off irrelevant chunks of lead in my direction.”
Toby shook his head, plastering a sneer on his face. “Maybe—and I mean maybe—we can count the two rounds Scott fired into you, but all Mike did was sit out on the road and watch for visitors.” Toby shook his head again and stepped right up to the gate of Hartman’s cage. He tilted his head back and glared into the demon’s eyes. “But you and I both know one thing, Hartman.”
“Oh? And what is that? What is it we both know?”
A ferocious grin ripped across Toby’s face. “We both know that I kicked your demon ass, Hartman.”
Laughter burst from Scott. “That he did. I saw the whole thing, and from where I was, all you did was suck up M99.”
Hartman’s eyelids closed until the merest fraction of his eyes were visible. He flicked his gaze between Toby and Scott as if it were a whip. “Ambush. Backup in the trees.” He spat on the ground at Toby’s feet. “Hardly an honorable fight.”
“Honorable?” Toby sputtered, laughter leaking out around the edges. “Is anything you demons do honorable?”
Hartman drew himself up, struck a regal pose. “Everything we do is honorable, unlike you humans.”
Mike snorted as if choking, then released deep, booming laughter. “I’ve lived my whole life in Oneka Falls—among your kind, demon—and I’ve never seen a more dishonorable bunch. You bicker with one another over the pettiest of things. You kill, you maim… Your kind has sucked the life out of a good town.”
“In your opinion,” said Hartman.
“My opinion—”
Toby chopped his hand through the air. “This is getting us nowhere. Are you going to answer our questions or not, Hartman?”
“And if I don’t?” The demon’s head swiveled toward Toby, and he locked gazes with him.
“In that case, we’ll test your theory.”
Hartman turned his head halfway to the side. “My theory?”
“Sure. Your theory that we can’t kill one of you.”
A jagged smile broke across Hartman’s face. “Oh, scary.”
Toby shrugged and arched his eyebrow at the demon. “Mike, you want to run upstairs and grab my tranquilizer gun?” He winked at Hartman and treated him to a smile. “Don’t worry, demon. You’ll sleep right through your death.”
For the first time, Hartman looked a little shaken. “Do you…” He shook his head from side to side as if trying to deny the truth of the thought in his mind.
“Do we what?” asked Scott.
“For the sake of argument, suppose you are successful at whatever it is you think will kill me. Do you understand what would happen to me?”
“We are familiar with the concept of death,” said Mike.
Hartman shook his head, almost appearing sad as he did so. “Not our deaths.”
“Educate us!” snapped Toby.
Hartman sought Toby’s gaze with his own. He stood silently for the space of five breaths, peering into Toby’s face, searching his eyes. “If you could make us…die and…”
“I can make you die, Hartman. What’s more, I can make you stay dead.”
As if he’d been waiting to hear the words, Hartman snapped his head up and down in a single, jerky nod. “Okay. You know that secret. What you don’t seem to grasp is that we don’t die. If you make us ‘stay dead,’ all you are really doing is destroying our physical form in this world.”
“We know that too,” said Scott.
Again, Hartman nodded as though he were a puppet on a string. “Where do you suppose the rest of us goes?”
“Back to Rice Krispies Land?” asked Mike.
As if moving in a thick, viscous fluid, Hartman turned his head toward Mike at a speed that would make glaciers jealous. He blinked twice and nodded. “Back home,” he murmured.
“And that would be bad for us, how?” asked Scott in a demanding tone.
Hartman shrugged and leaned against the wall behind him as if his strength had drained out of him.
“So we send you back to the place where you are the prey animal, you are the slave. I can’t see much of a downside.”
Hartman shook his head, giving every appearance he was the weariest creature on Earth. “Each time…” he shook his head again, and, with the coughing sound of field artillery, he cleared his throat. “Each time you force one of us back in that way, it weakens the barrier that separates your world from mine. Each time you ‘kill’ one of us, you make it easier for the others…for the older ones to come through.” He shuddered with what appeared to be genuine fear. “Trust me when I say that that is the last thing you want. As things stand, only the weakest of my kind can sneak past the—” He startled as if h
e realized he was saying too much.
Scott glanced at Toby and raised his eyebrows.
“No, go on, Hartman.” Toby glanced at Scott and motioned at the pistol in his hand. “He insists.”
“As things stand, only the weakest of my kind can sneak through.”
“Didn’t your sneaking—your passage here—do the same thing? Weaken the barrier, I mean,” said Toby in a small voice. “There must be tens of thousands of your kind here.”
“Hardly,” scoffed Hartman. “If there were that many of us, we wouldn’t need to hide from you.” He leaned his head back against the wall, scrunching his wings. “No, our numbers are relatively small. Many, many more of us remain trapped at home.” He drew a deep breath and released it all at once. “And we didn’t force our way through the barrier…we took the Passage.”
“The Passage?” asked Mike. “Is that some kind of cruise ship?”
Hartman sighed again and let his eyelids droop closed. “No. The Passage is a pathway between my world and yours. Our legends say one of the first to live on my world forged it. She came here because she could hear your kind calling her.”
“What, like a wizard summoning a demon?” Mike blurted, then laughed. “This would make a cool video game.”
Hartman’s shoulders hitched up and dropped. He made a shooing gesture toward Mike, all without opening his eyes.
“And her name?” asked Toby. “The first to come here?”
“I have no idea what your people call her.”
“Is she still here? How powerful is she?”
A crooked grin spread across Hartman’s face, and he opened his eyes to peer at Toby. “The answer to that question, human, would not bring you pleasure. We consider her one of the most powerful of the older ones. Compared to the demons you’ve encountered, she is a goddess.”
An icy touch of fear ran down Toby’s spine. He turned toward Scott, gave him a short nod, and glanced at Mike.
“Wait a second,” said Scott. “I thought you said only the weakest could cross this Passage thing.”
Hartman’s lips quivered, and a fat tear with the consistency and color of olive oil escaped from his left eye. He nodded, and as he did so, his cheeks twitched.
Scott stepped away from the cage and raised his service weapon. “Don’t try anything!”
Hartman shook his head, but his shoulders had joined in the twitching and shaking.
“What I’m having a problem with,” said Toby, “is that once you’ve escaped your torment, you became the tormentors.”
Hartman dropped his head and shook it from side to side. His respiration grew strange—a rhythmic in and out interrupted with the occasional hitching gulp. He didn’t speak, he didn’t move—other than the twitching.
“Help us understand this. Why do to us what your tormentors did to you?”
A hissing, shrieking clangor erupted from Hartman. His twitching shoulders heaved up and down, other tears joined the first, and they plopped on the floor of the cage. He lifted his head, his expression rigid—a pained rictus.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” asked Mike.
“A reaction to the M99?” asked Scott.
Toby didn’t answer. Instead, he watched Hartman with a spooky intensity. He waved Scott farther away from the cage. “You’re not fooling us. Whatever you think this act will achieve, it will fail.”
Hartman’s blustery cacophony fell into a rhythm with the hitching of his respiration, and the harsh lines of his expression softened. He tilted his head back and brayed at the ceiling.
“He’s laughing,” said Toby in a mirthless, dead-sounding voice.
“Laughing? What about?”
“You…should…see…your…faces!” Hartman forced the words out between gales of spine-tingling laughter. His entire body shook with the force of his mirth.
“What’s… Toby, I don’t get it.” Mike walked until he stood in front of the cage, though ten or twelve feet from its gate. “You! Demon! What the hell are you laughing at?”
“It’s all lies,” said Toby.
“All of it?” asked Mike in a small voice.
Hartman roared, his laughter filling the basement much as the sound of Scott’s gunfire had. Oily tears continued to stream down his face and dripped on the chains and floor.
Toby let his eyes fall shut and drew a deep breath. He held it for a moment and let it slip out of him like a lover out a woman’s window in the middle of the night. “Scott…”
“Can we trust any other?” asked Mike.
When Toby opened his eyes, Scott’s gaze was locked on Hartman. “Scott.”
Scott nodded and lifted his pistol. He aimed carefully, and his finger began to take up the trigger’s slack. Behind him, Mike sighed and put his fingers in his ears.
Hartman’s laughter wound down into a series of chuckles and guffaws, and his eyes widened at the sight of Scott’s pistol pointed at him. His chains clanked as he tried to raise his arms.
“We warned you,” said Scott.
Toby tapped Mike on the shoulder and pointed toward the stairs. “Would you grab my tranquilizer gun?”
With a curt nod, Mike turned on his heel and ran up the steps.
“Wait!” Hartman’s eyes widened, and he shook his head from side to side. “Wait, I’ll tell you!”
Scott glanced at Toby, who nodded, and he pulled the trigger as fast as he could. Hartman jerked back and forth in his cell, purplish-black blood bathing the back wall. His screams and the discharges of Scott’s Glock filled the dungeon.
2
At two in the afternoon, Chaz Welsh left the Oneka Falls Town Hall with a spring in his step and a smile on his scaly lips. It was going to be an incredible afternoon—his first as leader of his people. He slid behind the wheel of his BMW, and not for the first time, admired the shade of blue that adorned its skin. He cranked the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, resisting the urge to squeal his tires as he did so.
Chaz drove toward the edge of town and turned in at the Thousand Acre Wood trailhead sign. The parking lot was full of cars of all shapes and sizes, some rotting on their tires, some brand-new. There was a gaggle of demons standing at the head of the trail, conversing amongst themselves.
Chaz got out of his car and couldn't help but puff out his chest as he walked toward the knot of waiting demons. He scanned the eyes as he approached, looking for signs of both subservience and rebellion.
“Hello, Chaz,” called a demon.
Chaz shook his head and tapped his chest with two fat fingers. “No. It's ‘Lord Chaz’ now. Best that everyone gets accustomed to that right now.”
The demon who had spoken to him nodded. “Yes, Lord Chaz.”
Chaz smiled at him—his expression was a little condescending, but he was allowed that pleasure. “Let's be on our way to the meeting place.”
He turned toward the trail, grimacing at the odor of smoke that still filled the woods—the scent of Herlequin's demise. He set off with a bold pace, not waiting for the others, not checking if they could keep up. It was their responsibility to meet Chaz’s speed, not the other way around. He led them deep into the woods, off the trail and to the place where Herlequin had held all of his meetings.
With a single frown at the charred place at its center, Chaz strode to the glade and stood, hoping he struck a regal figure, and hoping no one guessed at his unease at being in the center of that circle.
“Welcome,” Chaz said in a booming voice. “We meet here today to establish my reign, my succession from Herlequin. I take this as my right, given I'm the strongest amongst us, and given that no one has challenged me or my rule.” He scanned the assembled demons, once more looking for signs of rebellion and signs of subservience. “Are there any among you that wish to challenge?” The forest was silent, filled only by the rustle of animals and the rustle of demons turning to look at one another. “Very well. I assume that from this point on my rule will be unquestioned.” His gaze darted to the edges of the glad
e, looking for signs of Herlequin’s daughters.
Again, the glade remained silent, filled with an expectation, as if those present were waiting to see if Brigitta would appear and punish Chaz for his insolence.
Chaz smiled, and it was a nasty smile. “Very well. Here is my first set of orders.” He turned a full circle, making eye contact with every demon present—in other words, every demon who lived in Oneka Falls.
3
“He should sleep for at least another hour,” said Toby. “We may as well go upstairs and relax.”
“And the new one? How long will she sleep?” asked Mike right on cue.
“It's hard to tell with the stronger demons. She took much more M99 than this pathetic example of the breed. I’d guess an hour or less,” said Toby.
Making a show of stomping up the stairs, Toby and Mike ascended into the kitchen and slammed the door to the basement.
Slumped in her cell, several yards away from Hartman’s, Shannon let out a sigh. She’d projected an image akin to one of the undead class of demons from the moment Toby and Mike had picked her up to carry her down the stairs. She chose an image similar to Brigitta’s—undead flesh, blackened and loose, yet regal and aloof at the same time. “Are you awake?” she asked.
“Shhh!” said Hartman. “It may be a trick.”
Shannon did her best to laugh in an imperious manner, as she might expect Brigitta to. “Do you question my judgment, youngster?”
“No. I do not question you, but these humans are tricky. They are not the same as the others.”
Shannon stood, taking it slow and focusing on keeping the image she projected in sequence with her movements. “They are upstairs.” Her tone was dismissive, almost derisive. “They think we will sleep for another hour yet. We must use this time to strategize. You must tell me everything you've told them, so I can tell the same lies.”
Silence filled the basement for the space of several breaths, then Hartman straightened and turned toward her. “I don't recognize you.”
“And why would you? You are far beneath my station.”
Hartman nodded. “I told them partial truths—just enough to lead them astray. I told them we fled another race of beings when we came here. That the other race—I called them the older ones—had enslaved us and was feeding on our emotions.”
The Hag Page 14
