Deadly Violet - 04 (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“What in heaven’s name is that?”

Judge Levin gawped out through the windscreen, as Saul pulled his car onto Blake Crescent in East Crealley. It looked like a new batch of snow was falling, a great flurry of tiny dots. Except the dots were mauve. And since there was no wind, the way that they were moving simply wasn’t natural.

Some people came running past, winter coats pulled on hastily over their nightclothes. Saul and Levin both got out. A fizzing noise they’d not been able to hear before reached their ears, when they did that. Presumably, its source was those clustered points of brightness.

The things were not only whizzing around. They were passing through everything that got in their way, going in one side and coming out the other. The judge felt his face go numb when he took that in. Absolutely nothing, however solid, appeared to be stopping them.

They went through walls, through roofs. Through parked cars, trees and lampposts, vanishing briefly and then reappearing without even slowing down.

And at first it looked like they were doing no damage. Simply gliding through, and leaving what they’d passed intact. But then there was a rattle. And a chimneypot on a nearby rooftop fell apart.

A creaking noise tore Levin’s gaze away from that. A lamppost was bending slowly over to one side, like a stick of candy melting in the sun. It got about halfway across, and then collapsed. The judge tried to fathom what was being done.

Alone, these tiny creatures
– or whatever they were – could probably not do much harm. But there was an enormous swarm of the things on this street. There had to be thousands. And, constantly skimming into objects in their path, they were eroding the structure of everything they touched.

Would they do the same to human flesh? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

Saul was peering at the swarm, its constantly changing shape, and working his jaw in a confused way.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. What
are
they?”

“Does it matter?”

Which was a good point.

“Got any suggestions as to what to do?” Then the lieutenant remembered himself and added, “Sir?”

But that last part wasn’t necessary, not under these circumstances. Levin ignored it, his expression puckering up.

“I don’t think you’re going to take too many of those things out with bullets. Maybe if I had a go?”

His mouth began moving, although silently. And he raised his right hand with the palm thrust out. A searing shaft of pure white light came surging from it. Widened into a broad cone as Hobart watched, and swept across hundreds of the purple dots.

The effect was instantaneous, but not what they’d been hoping for. Every single one of the things that the energy blast touched halted in mid-air. Paused for a brief while, their noise diminishing. And then, they came hurtling straight at the judge, before he could react.

They passed directly through his outstretched palm, coming out the other side of it like a squadron of tiny aircraft before turning around and peeling away.

The judge let out an anguished howl and collapsed to the frozen pavement. He curled up, clutching at his fingers, obviously badly hurt.

Saul had rarely seen an adept felled before, and went down on his knees beside the man.

“Are you okay?”

“Heaven alive!” the judge hissed through his bared teeth. “That was like a bunch of red-hot needles!”

But he got a grip on himself, fighting off the pain. Sucked in a breath and then sat upright. His eyes were watering and his face was strained. But he was still fully aware of his surroundings.

“How’d that happen?” Saul asked loudly.

The energy bolt ought to have hurt the creatures, not the other way around.

“It has to be Morgana’s Amethyst,” Levin told him. “It must have turned my own spell against me.”

Saul took that in unhappily, then returned his attention to the things that they were attempting to deal with. The general mass of violet dots was closer than it had been, hissing and fizzing like a massive bunch of firecrackers that was almost ready to go off.

“Best that we get out of here,” he said. “I can’t see that there’s much else we can do.”

That didn’t exactly please him either, but there wasn’t any other option. So he pulled the smaller man up to his feet, then turned back to his car.

To see that a whole big section of the swarm had snuck around behind them. And had been at work. The tires of his Pontiac were deflating.

“Not good,” Hobart groaned under his breath.

The noise abruptly grew a great deal louder. Saul looked up, to see that the rest of the swarm was closing in above their heads. They were surrounded in a few more moments, not the tiniest way out that he could see. No openings in that mass of little shapes at all.

The violet dots began to move in closer. Saul could feel the judge go stiff.

“We have to stay calm,” Levin muttered, trying to sound brave.

But his eyes were starting from his head. And Saul could feel his own doing the same.

“Can’t you just spirit us out of here?” he asked.

“I’ve already tried that. It’s not working.”

Saul put a hand to his gun instinctively, but knew that that would do no good. Helplessness had already begun sweeping through his big, ungainly frame.

If he
was
going to die, then he’d prefer that it was not like this. A bullet through the heart, a swift blow to the head, okay. But being chivvied apart by things that looked like purple bugs?

He steeled himself and tried to think straight. Which was getting harder by the second. Maybe if he rushed at them and simply barged his way on through …?

The noises around him stopped while he was still considering that. Saul blinked, scarcely able to believe his eyes.

Either he was imagining this, dying in a state of wishful thinking, or …

The entire swarm had disappeared, between one heartbeat and the next.

He felt his mouth drop open. Then the judge let out a stifled grunt.

“What happened?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“The laws that shape reality have been around a good long time,” Lehman Willets opined. “Thirteen point seven billion years, to be precise. I doubt that they’d collapse in a few hours. Maybe that’s what gave us this respite.”

We’d all re-gathered in my living room, most of us looking even wearier than when we’d started. The good doctor had inspected Levin’s injured hand and made such repairs as he could manage. But the judge was still in a fair degree of pain, which I was sorry to see, because I respected and liked him.

I had given Cass and Lauren a big pile of towels to mop themselves down with, and they were both still doing that. My drapes were open onto a brightening east horizon, the sky turning the color of platinum in that direction since the sun was coming back up.

“Our universe re-asserted itself?” I ventured

“That’s one way to put it, yes,” Willets replied. “But, given the circumstances, we should see it only as a temporary break. There’ll be more incidents. I should imagine larger ones, more frequent and persistent. And each time that happens, our reality will be weakened further.”

“Until?” Cassie asked.

“Until there’s nothing left.”

Everyone stared at him bleakly, wondering what could be done. Levin wasn’t the only one who was rubbing his hands. But whatever the solution was, it wasn’t going to be the kind of magic we were used to. That stuff couldn’t help us.

“Any suggestions?” the doc asked.

And it was Lauren who chipped in first.

“A town of this size? How about you just evacuate it?”

When we stared at her, she became uneasy but pressed on.

“I mean, I know about the curse and all. But Cassie lived for two months out in the forest, and she’s perfectly okay. You could move everyone out there, couldn’t you? At least get them away from this?”

I wasn’t certain about that idea, and by the look of things, neither was anybody else. Sure, we could cross the town line. But Regan Farrow’s age-old curse meant that anyone who had been born here could keep heading off for days or even weeks, and never see a person from the outside world or reach another human habitation. That was how it worked.

Willets explained that to her.

“One person, fine,” he concluded. “But you’re talking about thousands, walking aimlessly through endless forest. Most of them would freeze to death, or perish from starvation.”

So that was a non-starter. If we
were
facing our Nemesis, then we were doing it at home.

But the doctor took it on himself to smile at our visitor encouragingly and add, “Your input is welcome, though. It’s an idea that deserved to be examined.”

And I thought I understood why he had done that. Lauren was looking even more awkward, now that her idea had been shot down in flames. She was an outsider, didn’t really know her way around, and had been reminded of that firmly.

But that wasn’t the real issue, so far as I could see. The
real
question was, why was she still here at all?

“Maybe you should go,” I told her.

Which made her look even sadder.

“I don’t mean you’re not wanted here,” I put in quickly. “I mean, you’re probably risking your life for no good reason.”

She looked shocked by what I’d just said, but we had to face the truth. We’d stared extinction in the eye several times back in the past. But this was starting to look like it was turning out to be the genuine article.

“If our adepts can’t help, if Raine can’t get a result, then this town might be finished,” I went on. “Why go down with it when you don’t have to? That isn’t what any of us wants.”

But she didn’t look like she was willing to accept that judgment.

“I stopped about a dozen of those grinder things,” she came back at me. “And I saved a kid.”

Cassie confirmed that.

“And I don’t feel that I can walk away from this with any kind of real clear conscience. Sorry, Ross, but I’m staying.”

Everybody in the room was studying her again, Levin with his eyebrows raised and Martha with a mild, appreciative smile. Lauren wasn’t trapped by any curse. The only thing keeping her here was her own sense of right and wrong. And apparently, it was a stringent one.

I wouldn’t want to be a murderer in Boston, not with her around.

Cassie stepped up to her.

“You sure this makes any sense?”

“You’re qualified to lecture people on what’s sensible?” was the answer that came back.

So the matter was settled.

“Any more ideas?” Willets inquired. “Can anybody think of something we can try?”

I exchanged glances with Saul Hobart. And we both knew what the real truth of the situation was.

“Wait and hope,” he mouthed.

I nodded.

Then I started wondering how Raine was making out.

“Hello? Purple fellows?”

Woodard Raine turned around on the spot, everything around him still the same monotonous degrees of color.

“Oon? Remember me? We got on very well when we first met, as I recall. And I do apologize again for that unpleasant incident. But I assure you, it was not done deliberately.”

There was no response. No creatures appeared. Even the spiders and the things with teeth were gone. And the purple corridors of this place, they were such a maze that he was starting to get more than a little lost. His thoughts churned gently.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” he yelled. “I’ve apologized until I’m blue in the face. Bad things happen. You have to take them on the chin and get on with your lives. You can’t sit sulking in these walls forever.”

But perhaps they could. They were extremely strange beings and, when he turned it over honestly, he saw that he knew hardly anything about them.

Cajoling them wasn’t working. So maybe making some kind of generous offer would do the trick.

“We’ll get you a new Oon,” he suggested. “I’ll conjure one up
– I’m sure that I can do it. As good as the old one, I promise you.”

Apart from the echo of his own voice, there was only silence.

“Oh, come on, sports, be
reasonable
about this!”

Which was when he thought he heard a voice. And not one in his mind either. No, this one appeared to be calling out. A human voice, but very distant.

He couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. It rose in pitch for a few seconds, but then stopped abruptly and did not resume.

Raine faltered to a halt and peered around, his confusion growing. Was there somebody else in here with him?

It was wholly unexpected, and he felt his mind go blank.