Billy: Messenger of Powers (72 page)

Cameron was back on his feet almost as fast as he had fallen, but he was bleeding from a cut on his face. He snarled, and cast another spell at Vester, and this one got through, knocking the fireman down with a yell. Mrs. Black looked over from her malicious toying with Ivy at that moment, and apparently saw that her boy had been injured, because she screamed, “You will not touch him—or anyone else—again!”

She gestured, and Billy saw a Death’s Head Moth—that creature of nightmare and pain, flit over and land on Vester before the fireman could get away. Vester shrieked, the sound high-pitched and surprising coming from the strong young man.

“Not quickly, my pet,” said Mrs. Black. “Not quickly, for we wish him to feel it. To feel it coming and feel it being beyond his power to stop.”

Sure enough, Billy saw the transformation from living flesh to dead lacework of bone happening slowly this time. The moth had landed on Vester’s right arm, and the spell of death moved agonizingly up the fireman’s fingers, then to his hand, and then his arm. Billy’s friend shouted and writhed with the pain, but there was nothing that could be done to stop the spell.

But worst of all this was what Billy saw next.

Wolfen was standing over Mrs. Russet. Billy almost cried out, because he was so shocked to see his teacher’s appearance. She was bruised and disheveled, her clothing in tatters. She raised her crystal scepter, and sharp arrowheads of dark rock hurtled out at Wolfen. But the Dark Master only laughed and batted them away contemptuously. He, too, had a Death’s Head Moth nearby him. “What shall it be, Lumilla?” he asked with a nasty chuckle. “Oblivion? Or an eternity as a servant of the Dark?”

Mrs. Russet’s only answer was another sweep of her scepter, another swarming storm of arrows. Again, Wolfen laughed. He looked at Eva Black, who now had her hand around Cameron’s shoulders, the two of them laughing as well as they watched Vester’s arm slowly turn to bone.

“My queen,” Wolfen shouted, and Eva turned to regard him with those horrible dark eyes of hers. The scarab broach on her shoulder was moving, Billy could see, its feelers twitching around like it was sampling the death in the air, and loving it.

“Yes?” she said, clearly anxious to get back to her sport with Vester and Ivy.

“Shall we turn her, or destroy her?” asked Wolfen.

Eva opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, Billy found himself stepping forward, and heard himself say, “You shall do neither.”

All movement from the three Darksiders stopped. They turned toward Billy.

“Billy, don’t,” said Mrs. Russet, but Mrs. Black threw a spell at her and the Brown Councilor started gasping, her breath stolen by Eva’s spell.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the irritating and powerless Mr. Jones,” said Mrs. Black. She looked at Wolfen, who smiled a predatory smile at her. “I must admit,” she said, and the Death’s Head Moth that had been crawling on Vester’s arm now took off and swooped toward Billy, “it will be a pleasure to hear you scream as I have heard your friends.”

“Wait,” said Cameron suddenly. “Don’t hurt him.”

Mrs. Black looked at her son in surprise, and Billy himself felt more than a little shocked. The shock dissipated, however, when Cameron said, “
I
want to hurt him.”

Mrs. Black smiled. “My boy,” she said proudly, and then looked at Wolfen. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” She nodded at Cameron. “Have fun,” she said with an evil wink.

Cameron didn’t have to be told twice. He rushed at Billy instantly, hurling spells with deadly rapidity as he ran. Billy ducked and dodged, feeling the spells whip by him with trails of cool fear. One of them glanced off his head, dazing him for a moment, but then he was off and running, zigzagging as he went, trying to avoid Cameron’s raging onslaught.

Billy heard Cameron yelling, and looked back to see that the bigger boy was quickly gaining on him. Cameron smiled at him—the smile of victory already achieved—and again threw something at Billy. This time, Billy thought he could see a skull flying toward him, its eye sockets burning with a purple light. The fearful object hit him square in the back, and he could feel the indigo fire that had burned in the skull’s eyes spread to his shirt. He cried out in pain, feeling his back blister and his muscles clench in agony, but kept going.

At last, Billy was at the Diamond Dais. He couldn’t think what else to do, the pain in his back pushing out most of his thoughts. Cameron was still laughing behind him, the bigger boy clearly sensing Billy’s imminent defeat, knowing that the end was near.

Billy clambered up onto the podium, then stood and turned to face Cameron. The bully was only a few feet away now. Wolfen and Mrs. Black were close behind him, walking arm in arm and watching the bully’s performance with ghastly glee. Billy glanced over their shoulders. He saw Ivy crying, the Dread sure to permanently take her to oblivion at any moment. He saw Vester, the bones of the Death’s Head’s spell still creeping up his right arm with the inevitability of Death itself. He saw Mrs. Russet, still unable to breathe, the life slowly ebbing from her as he watched.

Then he looked back at Cameron as the boy leapt lightly up to the Diamond Dais. “Mom?” called the young Black Power.

“Yes, dear?” answered Mrs. Black, her tone of voice light and happy, like they were discussing the best decorations for a birthday cake.

“I’d like to try the Dread,” said Cameron.

“Well, do you think you’re ready?” asked his mother.

Cameron grinned, and nodded. He smiled at Billy, who backed up until he found his back pressed against the shard at the center of the Diamond Dais. Nowhere else to go.

“Oh,” answered Cameron, “I’m ready all right.”

“Well, do it right,” said Wolfen. “No half-jobs. We want him to suffer, and we want him to die.”

“No, not die,” said Eva Black. The two Death’s Head Moths that still flitted above her and Wolfen started moving towards Billy. “We want him to suffer, and then we want him to become an eternal servant of Death in the midst of it. So that he walks the earth forever, and suffers for eternity.”

“You got it, Mom,” said Cameron. He frowned in concentration, and held his hands out like he was holding an invisible basketball. Between them there was a spark, and a dark cloud of violet and black appeared, roiling between his fingers. Billy thought he could see writhing bodies in the tiny cloud, souls forever doomed by the imprisoning grip of fear.

Billy had been touched by the Dread before, when Wolfen had cast it upon him. But he hadn’t seen this pool of darkness then, and realized that Wolfen had been only playing with him.
This
, on the other hand, was the real thing. This was the thing that had destroyed Mrs. Russet, that had rendered her into a doomed shell of what she had been.

Cameron smiled again at Billy. The Black Power pushed his hands forward suddenly, and the dark mist he had been holding coalesced and speared forward, shooting toward Billy like a ghostly arrow.

Billy did the only thing he could think to do. And actually, he didn’t even really think to do it, he just did it.

He ducked.

Cameron’s spell of Dread arced out, and hit directly where Billy had been. But Billy had dropped to the ground, banging his knees on the unforgiving surface of the Diamond Dais, and the spell lanced over him. It hit the shard that speared up through the middle of the podium, and with a deafening concussion, the shard cracked, a piece of it shearing off and then falling to the ground at Billy’s feet.

As for the Dread, the instant after the spell hit the diamond shard at Billy’s back, he saw the dark projectile bounce back…and hit Cameron squarely in the nose.

For the second time, Billy had to smile as blood starting dripping from the bully’s beak. But this time, instead of crying about the fact that he was bleeding, Cameron’s eyes widened into terrified circles of fear. “Please, no, don’t!” he shouted, his mind already lost in the grip of his terror. “Don’t bring the clown to my birthday! I’m scared of clowns! Nooo!” And the boy fell over, writhing and unconscious.

Mrs. Black was clearly stunned. But only for a moment.

“Kill him!” she shrieked. And the Death’s Head Moths now flew at Billy, closing the distance between them and him with frightening speed.

Billy knew that, unless he could do something, this was going to be it for him. Avoiding Cameron’s blast had been sheer luck. But Mrs. Black and Wolfen…the Black Councilor and the Dark Master would not leave him any room for luck. There would be no bouncing of
their
spells off any crystal shard.

Billy turned, looking for somewhere to run and hide, knowing even as he did so that he hadn’t the time to do either. He was doomed, he knew it.

Then he frowned.

Everything around him seemed to slow down, and then disappear. Mrs. Black, Wolfen, the deadly moths, his friends dying in the background. It all faded out, and all he saw was the crystal shard that had cracked the Diamond Dais.

Through fires of fate and storms that save

Through winter’s gate and water’s grave

Shall come the One, once lost, now found

Seen by the Son whose love abounds.

A sword, a spear, and armor strong

A shield to wear, and dagger long

To fell the Dark and bring the Light

To call the spark that ends the night.

And through it all, one twist of fate:

A child whose call will seem too late

But though the Dark seems once to win

The child will spark the light again.

Billy leaned over and grabbed the shard. The top of it, where it had been broken by Cameron’s spell, was rounded and smooth. It fit in his hand perfectly. Billy pulled at the shard, and with a cracking noise that seemed to shake the whole earth, Billy pulled the shard free of the Diamond Dais. He lifted it up, and as he did, the world returned to him.

He suddenly saw the two Death’s Head Moths winging towards him, the deadly intent in their minds clear. They swooped down, and without thinking Billy swung the crystal shard in his hands. He moved with an expertise that he could not possibly possess, the swings sharp, quick, and true.

There was a crackle of spent energy, and the two moths fell to the Diamond Dais, each one split neatly in half.

Billy looked at Mrs. Black and Wolfen. They were both staring at him in shock. Then Mrs. Black’s face again bunched up into the living embodiment of hate and rage. She raised both fists, and Billy saw that each held the Dread. Wolfen, too, the Dark Master only a second behind her, raised his fists, and two more dark orbs of Dread appeared in his hands.

Billy knew that there was no way he could block all four of the attacks, not if they came at once. And Mrs. Black apparently knew it too, or at least could see it in Billy’s eyes, because she laughed. The laugh was tinged with insanity now, and Billy felt almost positive that what had happened to her son had perhaps been the thing that inalterably snapped an already disturbed mind.

“You are mine, Billy Jones,” she screamed in triumph, and both she and Wolfen clenched to cast their spells. “Any last words?” she said.