At the Behest of the Dead (35 page)

I closed my eyes and focused on the glyph that Salazar had passed on to me then reached out and ripped at the curtain that covered the cusp. It was like reaching into a bowl of water that was randomly taking in blasts of electric current. I was fine at first
, and then when the veil came into focus I was hit by the first wave. I concentrated as I stood transfixed, my body assaulted by the wave of energy that made my hair once again stand on end.

I clenched my teeth in pain and adjusted my focus. When I had a portal established
, I finally remembered to breathe.

“See?
” I gasped. “Piece of cake.”

Collin stared at the curtain that shimmered before us and didn’t answer. He had
a pair of daggers in hand and was caressing one of them while whispering. Imbued weapons? That was good. I wondered if we would get close enough to use them.

Collin tugged his robe open and secured the blades in a sheath that stretched across his chest.

“Here’s to our health,” I said and popped the top on one of the vials I’d brought from my private stash.

The black flecks swirled in circles as air hit the mixture. I tried to ignore the gritty taste and just tossed the entire thing back like a shot of shitty whiskey. Time had done nothing to make the dreadful mixture taste better.

Like a combination of bleach, Kool-Aid, and sweaty socks, the potion made me want to do two things.

One, g
o back and start my day over, this time with a truncheon upside the head.

Two, p
uke until the only thing left in my stomach was ash.

My gag reflex shuddered so violently that I must have looked like I had the grand daddy of hiccups building
, but I managed not to make a fool of myself in front of my friends.

A dead silence came over me like I’d suddenly had my ears filled with cotton. It didn’t last long and was replaced by a roar that made me want to walk
into the cusp, build a house, talk non-stop for a few hours, and then do it all over again.

In other words, it was some good shit.

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, so I put my hand there and found it wasn’t nearly as strong as I thought. Glenda still looked concerned but she didn’t say a word. Not even “idiot warlock.”

“Well howdy do!” I exclaimed.

“Time to go?” Doc asked.

He pulled out his revolver and inspected the load. Then he snapped the chamber closed and stuffed it in a holster somewhere inside his robe.

“Not quite.” I attempted the part of my plan that I hadn’t really thought out. I grabbed at the portal and twisted it. My mind focused on the sacrificial stone I’d been tied to earlier, the one anchor in the ward that had my blood.

The view shifted and I was falling. Collin called
out and Glenda forked her fingers and chanted.

Then we really were falling into the cusp.

As my view of the room faded, I caught sight of Frank worming his way into the room thanks to a partially completed window, but before he could join us we hit the ground. Hard.

Chapter
Nineteen

Crossing the cusp was that easy. In our world one moment, in the hells the next.

I slammed to my feet and we
nt over in a heap. A thought later, my shield powered to life, sticking barbs into my chest. The brunt of my forward momentum was soaked up, but there was still enough to flip me on the ground

Something was not right!

Glenda managed to roll out of the fall and Collin grumbled as he floated to the hard ground on a wave of sorcery. Well well, look at Mr. Bookish with a few spells up his sleeve.

Doc was saved from cracked knees by rolling to the side. He was old as dirt but also pretty spry. He stood and dusted off his dark robe.

“You gotta work on that landing, boy.”

The air had the same burned nature to it
, like brimstone mixed with smoking wood. Hard basalt met my feet, and when I looked up I saw nothing but blood. The horizon was red as far as I could see. No clouds, just the hue of crimson.

“What the hells?” I muttered as I looked around.

Not good. There was no domed ceiling, no lake of fire. No sacrificial stone, no tiny demons, no smoke, and worst of all no Salazar!

We were
on a stretch of sandy ground that crunched like crushed bone under my shoes. The sky wasn’t there. It was just an infinite stretch of nothingness. Not grey, not black, it just wasn’t there. The land had no features, no mountains, and nothing in the way of trees.

“Is this the place?” D
oc asked.

“No.” I started to gesture toward what I thought might be the direction of the cusp
, but even that wasn’t right because I couldn’t sense it.

I looked up again and considered taking flight
, but I’d been stubborn and insisted we leave our forks.

I had to dive to the right or I would have been struck by a chunk of molten lava. It hit the curtain, sizzled
, and then slid to the ground, leaving a sooty residue on the cusp.

Glenda and Collin stared up and then joined hands and also dove out of the way of another flaming ball. Doc tugged his gun out and pointed it all around
, but there was no target.

Collin was the quickest and whipped out a scroll. He raised it high and uttered words that
seemed to roll off my head. Arcanists, I’d never understood their art but now I was glad for it.

An opaque dome appeared over u
s and stopped first one then three more molten chunks of fire. They rained down, struck like a giant hammer hitting the earth, and sent us cowering.

As this fire fell,
I realized that we were in fact surrounded by massive pillars that stretched into the skies, but they were so colorless that with little light they were all but invisible.

“What now?” Glenda yelled.

“I don’t know. This isn’t the right place.”

“Then get us the hells to the right place!”

Great idea. I concentrated on the stone, thought of the glyph, and then of the chamber. We flashed again but this time appeared near the cusp itself. I staggered to the ground and then jumped to my feet followed by Glenda, Collin, and Doc. I didn’t know where we were now either, but the shimmering curtain of the cusp was a few hundred feet away. Again fire rained down.

“There!” I yelled
, spotting what looked like a domed building a few hundred yards away.

Glenda looked back for him and tried to stop Collin
, but he dragged her along by the hand because Doc motioned them on. He had a couple of chunks of white material in hand. His lips moved over them then he tossed them on either side.

I staggered to my feet as another blast ripped across the sky.

The surface of the cusp offered little in the way of cover. No rocks or conveniently placed bunkers to hide behind.

Thanks to Doc’s spell, a
figure flowed out of the ground ahead, and then another right behind it. Dressed in rotted clothing, and showing open wounds and lacerated limbs that didn’t bleed, the two creatures swung in the direction of the chunks of lava and moved toward them.

The entrance to the demesne shouldn’t
have been that far away, but things on the other side were different.

“This way,” I yelled and hoped like hell the others followed.

There was nothing of the mountain I had left behind. In its place stood a new structure. Like a giant hand had reached into the cusp and ripped up chunks of stone, a castle front was forming. A tower had already been carved into the mountainside with a second one taking shape next to it. As the invisible hand moved, flaming boulders the size of Volkswagens fell. 

Shades of darkness swirled around us. A rotted wisp of fog hung low to the ground and ate at the desiccated landscape. Where the sand had been now lay a layer of dark glass. It was then I realized what was happening.

A slab of rock fell from the sky and blasted the area we had been in a few seconds ago. The concussive blast bowled us over, but I rolled to my back in an attempt to see if another rock was about to crush us.

Doc’s
liches ranged ahead, but one fell to a slab of burning rock before it could raise a desiccated hand. The other chanted as it stalked toward the dome, but his words were lost in the roar. A pile of burning hate exploded before it could impact with one of us, showering the area with enough fiery objects to make me feel like we were in a World War II movie. I was just about ready to start digging a foxhole, even if I had to use my possessed dog to do so.

Peaches ra
n ahead on four legs. I was surprised because the only thing I’d seen the demon accomplish was lying around, eating, or creeping out my friends. The fact that the possessed pooch could haul anything, including ass, was news to me.

A couple more minutes of dodging death and we reached the side of the mountain nee castle. Glenda nearly ran into
me and Collin into her. Our three stooges moment was brought short by the second lich blasting a few boulders from the air, then getting burned to a crisp when he tried to stop a ball of fire with his face.

“I hope those didn’t cost too much, Doc,” I yelled
, but the old man was still meandering across the open space. His lips moved, though I couldn’t make out what he was mumbling.

I broke away and went back for Doc. He might
have been as crazy as a loon, but he was still one of my oldest friends and a mentor.

“We need to haul ass,” I
said as I came even with him.

“I am hauling ass, son.” He puffed. His cheeks were ruddy and his breath came hard.

“Don’t make me put you on my back.”

Doc scoffed
, but he did pick up the pace.

“D
amn shame about those lichs. I thought we were under attack,” he said and looked up as another ball of flame rushed overhead. This one was so large and moving so quickly it actually gave off a whooshing noise.

“We are under attack
, from a really big mountain that is trying to turn into a castle … or volcano!” I shouted over the noise. It was so loud it rattled my teeth.

“As we get closer
, it gets less dangerous.” He grinned.

Son of a bitch.
He was loving this.

We reached the mountainside without getting smashed
to a pulp. Doc had been right. The closer we got the less likely we were to be set on fire, and that went a long way towards improving my mood.

“In the history of bad ideas this has to be the worst ever,”
Glenda said between deep breaths.

“I didn’t sa
y I knew what I was doing,” I replied.

My heart pounded in my ears thanks to
my potion. I had enough energy to give to the group but no way to share it. That was cool, though. I could just hang onto it and let it power me through the rest of the week.

Great. I
was the coke-head version of a warlock.

“What now?”
a head popped out of a tunnel a few hundred feet away and croaked. Peaches had either found the way in or she had set a trap and we were about to walk right into it. We didn’t have much choice, except walking the perimeter.

“There!” I pointed and broke into a trot.

The mountain was as black as obsidian but not as shiny. The top rumbled and shook as we skirted the side. Rocks ranged in size from a fist to holy shit that’s a Greyhound bus! These cascaded down the mountain, forcing us to dash around to avoid them.

I had my hand on my jingling bandolier as we reached the cave entrance
, only to find Peaches standing off to the side. Her black eyes regarded me with nothing like malice.

“As I spoke, no b
etrayal. Are you not pleased?” the Pomeranian asked.

“Couldn’t be happier!” I rubbed her head.

“The path extends a ways, but it’s not far to a chamber. I smell your blood on the walls and ground.”

“Does it look familiar?” Glenda asked
me.

“Not really
, but I don’t remember how I arrived.”

“It’s not raining down fireballs in there. Let’s find out
,” Collin said and strode inside. He lifted his hand and a ball of blue light crept upward to precede him.

We followed with Doc bringing up the rear. He sang a song under his breath as
we moved along the passageway. Something about bawdy women and a sorceress named Bella Rue. I didn’t know the tune but I was glad for it just the same. I was also glad for the heat that suffused my body, thanks to the potion that was still threatening to make my head explode like something out of a David Cronenberg movie.

“Yeah, this is it,
” I said as we left the confines of the cave.

It was larger than I remembered
, and rose over us higher than any football stadium I had ever seen.