Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel (26 page)

Blake saw what had happened, and heard the gasp of sudden pain from Hank. The scorpion’s claws snapped futilely at Blake as he leapt onto its back. He swung the spear at the unarmored joint between the scorpion’s body and its segmented tail. Black ichor spurted from the wound as he severed the tail free. The fierce glare in the humanlike face dulled, then went unfocused and blank as the head lolled forward, the claws flopping to the ground, dead.

Hank had managed to jerk the stinger from his shoulder. Using it as a handle, he swung the severed scorpion tail in a flat arc, bringing its wide end hard into the lion-headed demon’s face, staggering it backward. That gave Blake the chance to race across the fallen scorpion’s head and bring the spear slashing through the hissing serpents that held the giant lion-headed demon upright. The snakes’ scalding blood sprayed in all directions as their amputated lengths writhed upon the ground. Roaring in outraged agony, the demon collapsed upon its knees. Hank set a boot sole on the demon’s mane and hacked at its neck with his axe, finally chopping the helmeted head free and sending it rolling into the closest mound of bodies. It came to rest upside down, a fountain of red bubbling up from its opened throat.

“There.” Hank sat down heavily. He laid the axe, its blades still wrapped in flame, on the ground beside him. A rare smile formed on his face. “Was that so hard?”

*   *   *

The Devil seethed as he saw what had happened to the last of his followers. Bound by the ice encasing his arms, he had cast his gaze across the battlefield and spotted his other dreaded enemies, the wraith and the giant hit man. The fight between them and the last two demons had resulted in two more smoking figures on the piles of the dead, and the abandonment of his hopes of rescue from the spell which trapped him.

But there was still a chance. Even though slaughtered, the demons still belonged to him, were still part of him.

He summoned up the last reserves of power within himself, calling out—silently this time—across the battlefield. Still wearing its heavy magnesium helmet, the lion’s head stirred and rolled an inch away from the corpse mound. It rose into the air, suspended by the Devil’s will, then flew above the battlefield, trailing smoke from its slashed throat.

In front of the Devil, Nathaniel turned and saw the demon’s head tumbling through the dark sky, above the intertwined corpses. As it approached, faster and faster, it arced toward the ground, striking the flow of ice that extended back to the Devil’s fingers. The ice shattered from the blow, sending bright shards in every direction—and freeing the Devil.

The hit man and the soldier saw this, and weapons upraised in their hands, they raced toward the spot.

“You won’t escape,” Nathaniel told his opponent. “You have no more power—that was the last of it.”

Death’s apprentice had truly perceived the Devil’s weakened state. He stumbled down from the mound of bodies and looked desperately around for any way out. Hank and Blake were impeded by the tangled bodies littering the battlefield, but they would still be upon him in minutes. In the distance, he spotted the ruins of the abandoned town house; he turned and ran toward it, each stroke of his cloven hoof digging into the blood-sodden ground.

He managed to reach the edge of the garden square. But the dead saw him coming. Between the garden and the abandoned town house were a score of corpses, damaged from their battle with the demons, but still animated by the spell that had summoned them from their graves. An arm of bone and tattered, pallid skin reached up and grabbed him, tugging at his knee. He stayed upright, but more skeletal hands were clutching at him, dragging him down. The ones from a little distance away got to their feet and stumbled toward him, reaching out to bring their yellowed bones around his neck.

There were too many of them, and he was too weak. The Devil stumbled and fell, and the dead were on top of him. They knew who he was, even without being able to read the symbols branded upon his bared body. The dead bore him down into their midst, a clawing wave, their hard, fleshless fists pummeling him. With every blow, they exacted payment for their suffering, and the world’s.

23.

The elevator doors slid open, and Ling ran out into the huge lobby outside the Devil’s office.

With the overhead lights switched off, she could see that the room was empty now.
Careful
 … Anna was here somewhere; she could feel her presence.
Waiting for me.
Some spell, no doubt, kept her invisible. Ling knew she would have to be careful to keep from falling into the other woman’s trap.

She looked around as she stepped cautiously forward. A dim, fiery glow seeped through the room. By its partial light, she could see a frieze of statues lining the walls above her head. The gruesomely carved forms depicted the torments of the damned, sinners writhing in flames, skin flayed into strips, innards torn from their bodies on the prongs of demons’ pitchforks.

More red light washed up into Ling’s face from below. She looked down and saw that the floor beneath her feet was transparent, crafted of thick, tempered glass. But what was revealed to her was not a carved representation of the Devil’s infernal domain, but the actual fires of Hell, churning and roiling far below. She could feel the flames’ heat turning the office lobby into a crematory oven.

“I knew you’d come.”

The softly spoken words caught Ling by surprise. Before she could react, the witch darted past her. She turned and smiled in pure malice at Ling, then unleashed a spiraling violet bolt from her upraised palms. The magic pulse stunned Ling, dropping her to her knees.

Expecting another blow, she quickly rolled onto her back, a sweep of her arm sending the rope dart toward her assailant. But the weight at the end of the cord shot harmlessly into empty space; the witch had already disappeared again.

Drawing the weight back into her hand, Ling stood upright, warily scanning the office for any sign of the woman. The lurid, shifting light filled the room with disorienting shadows. Their edges sharpened when another streak of violet, stronger than the first, hit her between the shoulder blades, knocking her sprawling across the floor. Without turning around, she sprang to her feet and sent the dart flying behind herself. The weight chipped the plaster of one of the room’s walls, but hit nothing else.

The next blow, even more intense, pushed the air from her lungs as it threw her back. The next pulse would have been fatal, if Ling hadn’t dodged it by rolling onto her side. The violet radiance seared close by as she sent the rope dart straight toward the source of the bolt. She heard the thud of the weight striking flesh; Anna flickered into visibility as she staggered backward, blood trickling from her brow.

Another throw of the rope dart looped the cord around the witch’s neck; Ling yanked her forward, an upraised knee sinking deep into the woman’s gut. A quick forearm across the side of Anna’s jaw sent her sprawling at Ling’s feet. She knelt hard on the witch’s back, gathering up the long black hair in one fist and using it to shove the bleeding face against the floor.

Anna screamed in agony as the fires raging beneath seared her face, their heat drawn to the evil inside her. Pain gave her enough desperate strength to throw Ling off. One eye swollen shut by the blistered skin, Anna exchanged a quick flurry of punches with her. Ling dodged and parried the blows, then leaned back to bring a roundhouse kick against the witch’s chest, driving her back against the wall.

The sculpted figures of tormented sinners dug into her, as though she had fallen into a nest of thorns. Every direction she writhed and turned, there were more of the stiff, immovable fingers clutching at her limbs. From her own pinioned hands, she fired another round of violet pulses. One caught Ling in the shoulder as she dragged Anna out into the room. Ling quickly bound her wrists with the rope dart’s cord and threw her to the floor.

“Now tell me—” She brought her face close to the witch’s. “Where’s my baby?”

Anna hissed and spat at Ling. “You should be
proud
that she was taken! It’s an honor to serve our master, as well as his Lieutenant. I gave my own baby to him of my own free will. And do you really think your mewling brat is fit for anything better than that?”

Ling brought the loose end of the cord around Anna’s neck and pulled it tight. She watched the witch struggle for breath, then leaned close to her ear. “Where is my baby?”

“She’s … down in the garden…” The cord was loosened just enough for a few words to be gasped out. “With … with the giant…”

Hank—that must be who she means
. The realization sent Ling’s heartbeat racing.

She left the witch on the floor and ran into the Devil’s office. The cold wind of the storm and the dying sounds of the battle in the garden square came through the shattered window that filled one entire wall. She stood at its edge, icy rain pelting her face, peering down until she was at last able to spot the figure of the giant hit man who had sworn to save her child.

In the distance below, near the peach tree in the garden’s center, Hank jumped down from a pile of smoking corpses, remains of the Devil’s legions. A helmet was strapped to his broad chest; from the way he carefully held it in place with one hand, she knew that must be where he was guarding Ren-Lei.

She turned from the window, and had only a momentary glimpse of the witch’s glee-filled smile, before one of the lobby’s heavy table lamps smashed straight into her face. Blood streaming into her eyes, Ling felt Anna’s hands grab her by the throat and throw her sprawling on top of the black lava-stone desk.

“I don’t need magic,” snarled the witch, “to finish you off.” She pressed the largest of the lamp’s shards like a dagger against Ling’s throat. “But my master requires a sacrifice. Your blood on his altar will give the Devil the power he needs.” She pressed the shard’s edge down tighter. “Then we’ll see who wins this battle…”

24.

The army of the dead dragged their prisoner back into the garden.

Blake was the first to spot them coming. He looked up from the torn stitches across the front of his overcoat, now blacker with the blood and grime of battle, red drops from his own torn flesh spattering upon his boots. Through the rain lashing down and the choking billows of smoke, he could discern the shambling silhouettes, collections of bones and decaying flesh in human form, held together and animated by Nathaniel’s spell. Two of them grasped the arms of another figure, larger and once stronger, pulling him along between them, across the mud and gore of the battlefield.

He glanced over at Hank beside him, and pointed to the approaching figures. “They got him.”

The hit man had loosed the strap holding the demon’s helmet to his chest, so he could reach in and tenderly stroke the baby’s soft, fine hair. Ren-Lei cooed and laughed at the touch of the massive hand, nearly as large as herself. He brought his gaze up from the baby and looked where Blake had directed him. “Looks like they worked him over pretty good.”

A few yards away, Nathaniel stood with head lowered, his burnt and blistered arm dangling at his side. His eyes were half closed, his breath deep and slow as he worked to conserve what little strength he had left. The force that drove the dead’s footsteps still emanated from him; when the spell came to an end, they would return to the cold earth from which they had been resurrected.

He looked up, catching sight of the figure that had just been thrown to the base of the garden’s peach tree. Slowly, he walked over to where the others stood, surrounding their defeated foe. Something bumped against his forehead as he passed beneath the branches of the peach tree. He glanced up and saw how low they hung, the green-leaved stems laden with ripe fruit, the soft golden skin glistening under trickles of rain. He reached up and touched one with his finger, just enough to set it swaying before his eyes.
The prophecy,
he realized.
It said this would happen. When the time was right
 …

Another few steps and Nathaniel stood looking down into the Devil’s eyes. “You’re beaten. You know you are…” He spoke quietly. “But there’s still a way for you to save yourself, if you agree to do what we say.”

Contempt bittered the Devil’s words. “I’m not interested in your mercy.”

“Maybe not. But you should be interested in staying alive.” Nathaniel’s burnt arm hung loosely at his side. His comrades, the soldier and the giant hit man, stood close behind. “You’re free to go—as long as you swear to leave us in peace from now on. And by ‘us,’ I mean everyone. No more of your schemes and temptations. Just leave mankind alone, and crawl back into the flames.”

One corner of the Devil’s mouth curled. “Is that all?”

“No,” said Nathaniel. “There’s one more thing.” He turned and nodded toward Blake. “Free my friend of the shroud you’ve put him in, and give him back the missing half of his soul. Do that now, and you can live. If not…”

“You really are a fool, boy…” The Devil dragged himself to his feet, the cloven hoof digging into the blood-drenched ground. “Because you don’t understand me, even now.” His naked back pressed against the trunk of the peach tree. “Mankind is of no interest to me, and never has been. I haven’t acted as I have all these millennia in order to cause you humans pain, but to damage the one who created you. Because for every tear that mankind sheds, God sheds one, too. And His constant pain on your behalf has been my only pleasure.”

From the corner of his eye, Nathaniel saw the hit man’s fist tighten on the handle of the flaming axe he still carried.

Blake did the same with Saint Michael’s spear.

“Victory or defeat, it makes no difference to me,” continued the Devil. “All that has ever mattered to me is that I have a chance to make your Creator suffer. So even in this state, I spit on your offer.… And curse each of you in turn!” He pointed to Ren-Lei, whose small face could be seen peeking out from the battered helmet. “I curse that puking baby you’ve saved to a life filled with loneliness and sorrow. And as for you—” He glared up at Hank. “The oaf who holds her … My curse to you is that you find that fear you’re searching for, and become so crippled by it that it robs you of your strength.” He turned his scathing gaze toward Nathaniel. “To you, the boy who brought about my defeat, I curse you with the task of picking up the pieces of the chaos you’ve caused today. And last of all…” The Devil turned finally to Blake. “To you who needs the most from me, I give the least. I curse you to remain the way you are forever. Let your lifeless, deathless misery be my parting gift to the world. And may it darken the life of everyone you encounter. Until they end up hating your stinking, rotting hide as much as I do.”