At the Behest of the Dead (37 page)

“I think I can capture Balkir. That’s how I snagged Peaches.”

“Go ahead and take
all the glory. Kids these days,” he muttered.

He scooted to the side and broke out a fresh vial of blood.

This had worked a week ago. Could I do it again but on a larger scale?

I leaked power into the figure until it glowed.
Then I lifted it from the obsidian floor and made it rise into the air. More power flowed as I expanded it. The pentagram was littered with cruel barbs, and I thought Doc had been in the process of bringing forth some kind of undead giant to fight for us. I reversed the barbs and then the main glyph. I had to do all of this while walking toward the pool of lava and hopefully not fall in.

Glenda must have gotten the idea because she broke out a wand and started whipping bolts of frost at the possessed demon.

A rock the size of a baseball hit the ground, bounced, and smacked Collin’s head. He went down like a sack of potatoes and suddenly Glenda’s witches fire died as she dropped to his side.

The heat built as I got closer
, but there was nothing to do for it now. The spell was consuming all of my attention. What happened next might have been prevented, but to this day I don’t know how.

I wanted to rush to Glenda’s side and make sure Collin was all right
, however that would mean losing my concentration on the pentagram.

The shape grew and grew until it was the size of a crop circle. I lashed out with it and snagged
Balkir around the head. Next I forced it to grow larger until it could slide down his body like the world’s biggest lasso. I unleashed the barbs and they bit into flesh.

He roared again and fought me
, but Salazar had shown me that I had almost unlimited power on this side of the cusp. Except for his size, I was probably an equal match for this bastard, unless he crushed me with a giant fist.

The effect was immediate. The monstrous demon roared in fury as I fed more and more power into the shape and reversed the barbs yet again. Flesh ripped and blood flowed
, only to sizzle and evaporate as it hit the pool. Red on red then black. There was enough demonic ichor to fund fifty years of research.

“Out you come,
Balkir, you son of a bitch!” I yelled and ripped at his soul.

He fought me
, but I finally had the upper hand. The demon moved through the pool as he came at me.

Glenda and Collin’s form were in the path
, so she stood and wove a shimmering shield as a wave of molten rock came their way. Like a kid in a pool, the giant demon swept up lava, intent on immolating me where I stood. Thank you, Glenda, I thought as I ripped at him again. This time I actually gave a tug with both hands, drawing them toward me so I felt like I was using more than just my mind.

I had him! I pulled and pulled and felt him giving way. The demon fell back, thrashing as he fought his hold. In a few seconds I would have him free and in my grasp. His soul would be mine and
, if Doc had his way, Balkir would soon be possessing a Barbie doll instead of a sky scraper sized demon.

I could actually see his form
now. It coalesced in a shape that was human but without features. His hands grasped at the demon as he was pulled forth. Then fingers became apparent as they scrambled to get back inside their host.

Balkir
said something that made my head hurt. Words hurled with such force I thought I felt them burrow under my skin. His soul was being ripped out of a demon, but he was not done fighting. I almost lost my concentration but held on to the link, though it had become tenuous at best.

“No!” Doc said from his hiding spot. “It’s forbidden!”

A fresh batch of tiny demons ripped free of his flesh, skittered to the ground, and ran straight at Glenda. She was down beside Collin again and didn’t see them. I reached for a fresh dose of power to fry them to ash, but they were right on her. No, they were on Collin.

One leapt and I slashed at it. I narrowed the blast
, but aimed too high for fear of frying Glenda’s head and missed. The little figure slammed into Collin and ripped into his chest. Glenda screamed and reached for the creature but couldn’t get a grip. I dashed toward them.

Collin jerked and then screamed as the demon went to work. I ran toward them and swept my hand out to brush more of the things back. Standing a few feet from them made my task easier. My anger and fear about Glenda drove me to unleash enough power to not only burn them to a crisp but to also leave a massive furrow in the obsidian.

Another demon came toward us, though it was barely the size of a large spider. I leapt over Collin’s prone and bleeding corpse and used one of the oldest weapons in the world to stop the arachnid. My boot.

Collin howled and then went still. I turned, wiping demon goo off my sole, to see his eyes open just as wide as his mouth. He convulsed and Glenda reached for his head. She tried to stabilize him as he thrashed but it was too late. I knew it but she didn’t.

I wanted to stay, though Balkir demanded my attention. The tenuous hold I had on the pentagram felt like a lasso that I had to fight, so I tightened my grip. The demon howled, louder than Collin had, and that gave me some relief.

Balkir’s
soul was mine again. I tugged even harder until I could once more see his form. He scrambled with mist-like fingers to grasp at his host, but it was no use.

Victory was ours
, though it had come at a cost. I looked to Collin, who should have been lying in a pile of blood. Instead he was on his feet and mobile. What had Glenda done? Had she somehow yanked the demon out?

That’s when Collin stabbed Glenda.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye. He reached into his robe, took one of his black daggers, and stabbed her in the chest. She stared down at the hilt then at Collin. He backed away a step, eyes on the wound. His face was a mess as something tried to bubble out of his forehead. A glyph raised itself, rotated, and then sank back into his skull. Collin shook and screamed and a fresh geyser of blood erupted from his chest as the demon burrowed around in there. He looked at Glenda’s horrified face and tears filled his eyes. He backed away from her, hands outstretched, but it was too late. His strike had been true.

Glenda reached up for the hilt and a bubble of blood came out of her mouth. Any hold I had on the cusp was severed, as I screamed “NO!”

But it was too late. She looked at me, eyes pleading as she fell to her knees, then curled up in a ball around the blade.

Collin howled and clenched his hands under his chin. His eyes were still wide as he looked at what he had done. He bit his lower lip until it bled. The keening noise he let loose was the most mournful sound I had ever heard.

Demonoids rushed from the pool and came at us. I wanted to go to Glenda and take her body but they were too close.

Collin advanced, hand reaching into his robe to extract another dagger. H
e uttered words that seared the air, and before I could do anything remotely heroic he lashed out at me.

“No!” Doc howled. “He must not, he must not!”

I managed to snatch the cusp and channel it into my shield before I was picked up and tossed across the room. His spell was probably meant to encase, like a spider web, to hold me still while he cut my throat or killed me the way he had Glenda.

I hit the far wall and even with the shield
’s protection my breath was knocked out of my chest. I gasped as I hit the floor, banging knees and hands against hard stone. A cry of pain escaped me before I was picked up again and slammed into the same place. This time I managed to get a little more power into the shield, but I was acting on instinct instead of some clever plan.

Collin advanced on me.

The elixir had just about run its course and the weariness I had pushed away came down like a curtain. It obscured my view of the world as well as my link to the cusp. Collin was only a few feet away so I used what little power I had left to weave a fresh shield. The metal against my chest grew cold as I poured all I had into it, relying on the glyphs etched there to save me.

They wouldn’t last forever.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Phineas. I didn’t think you’d be an actual threat to me,” Collin said, but it wasn’t his own voice. It was deeper, malevolent, and chilling.

“Fuck you and fuck your master!” I reached for the cusp
, but it was a long ways off.

“Don’t worry, Phineas. W
e need you alive but only for a short time. Just long enough to reveal the cache. Then we will take the key and your use will be over,” Balkir spoke.

Ashley had the key and that was very bad. Unless I could somehow piss
Balkir off enough to kill me here, he would learn the secret. I’d like to think I was strong enough to withstand whatever torture he had in mind, but memories of our last encounter left no doubt in my mind that he would learn any secret he desired.

Balkir
must not get the key. I looked around for Doc. If nothing else I could beg him to finish me with that giant gun.

The demon knelt on the edge of the pool as
Balkir revealed himself. His form slipped from the monstrous beast before coalescing into a more or less man shaped figure. I had wanted to witness this moment since we arrived in this realm, but not while I was as useless as a baby with a binky for a weapon.

“Remove his shield. I can feel it pulsing from here.
So crude.” Balkir’s voice was almost a hiss, and sounded as if it came from another part of the room.

Collin smacked my arm away and lifted me to my feet by the front of my robe. I grabbed his wrist with one hand and the fold of my robe with the other. He showed me the dagger, a razor sharp black edged blade
that made me take a deep swallow.

“Open,” h
e commanded.

I did as asked and palmed a flask.

“Don’t even think about it.” He eyed my hand as I tried to get the little glass container ready.

I smiled back and said “Sure, Collin. Whatever you say,” and dropped it.

The tiny bottle clattered to the stones, lid already loose from my deft fingers. Water spilled out and became steam as it evaporated.

Collin laughed in
Balkir’s voice then drew back and hit me with his fist. The pommel of the dagger caught my chin and, for a moment, I thought it was broken. I fell to the ground and saw stars. A few agonizing seconds later my vision cleared enough to make out the tiny friend I had brought with me.

He
struggled to his feet and regarded me. He was barely half an inch tall and his bulbous eyes blinked with nictitating membranes like a fast camera shutter. His face was like that of a tiny fish. He had huge luminous eyes and a deep-set nose. Scales covered his limbs and a strange fish tail. When he’d been in the water, he had looked just like a sleeping prawn mixed with a guppy. Now he was almost manlike. One eye winked at me before he turned away.

Doc popped around the corner of his
hidey hole and fired his revolver. The big gun spoke like a fire cracker. He didn’t bother aiming for Balkir, but aimed for the demon. He fired five more times and then scrambled back around the column.

The effect blew holes in the giant demon. Jesus, what the hell was in that hand cannon? I hoped he was reloading
, but it seemed like it was too little too late. The giant demon had stopped his advance to stare down at the holes in its chest. Then an unholy howl came forth and the demon fell back in pain and confusion.

Doc came out of the shadows with his gun raised. He pointed it at Coll
in and fired, but the former arcanist was not longer there. He flowed into a shadow near a pillar then reappeared, knocking the gun form Doc’s hand.

From my prone position on the floor
, I uttered an oath as the gun sailed toward me. If it misfired and blew my head off, I was going to haunt Doc until the end of days. If I was able to grab it, I’d hug him until the end of my days.

The tiny elemental limped away as I crawled toward the gun. Was it just a few days ago that I’d lamented the use of such weapons?

Doc knocked Collin to the ground with an underhand blow that I felt from ten feet away. He gestured and Collin was attacked by ghastly hands that rose to the old man’s command. They wove themselves free of the hard obsidian, fingers spread, and slithered like desiccated snakes as they strove to pull him into the ground.

The enormous demon struggled from the pool of lava and moved with ponderous steps that rained fire. Now that he was revealed
, the demon really was the size of a skyscraper. His black skin bore deep scars that glowed red, as if magma pumped through its veins. The ground moved and my nose was once again assaulted by brimstone so strongly I wanted to stuff a clump of wasabi up each nostril.

It took two ponderous steps toward its master,
Balkir, who waited. His ethereal form pulled at some invisible rope as I concentrated on the link to the glyph Doc had formed and I had borrowed. It became visible. The thinnest of tendrils, but it was there.

I reached again for the cusp but Collin, perhaps sensing I was recovering, sprung to his feet and slashed at Doc with a k
nife.