Deadly Curiosities (45 page)

At every cross-corridor, Lucinda put a barrier of salt and iron nails, trying to seal off those hallways so nothing could come behind us. It was a nice idea, but I wasn’t counting on it working. A glance down those corridors told me they were littered with garbage and abandoned possessions. Apparently, Moran and the demon had made themselves at home. Lucinda lagged behind us, chanting softly to herself, calling on the Loas for protection and help.

The air stank of bile and sulfur, rot and shit. Now that we were halfway down the corridor, we could see that the demon had rearranged the place to suit himself, battering down the thin metal panels that separated the individual units to make the back third of the corridor one large den.

The blackened skins of the murdered men hung on the walls like trophies. Symbols of power were daubed in blood above and below the skins. The bones and decaying carcasses of small animals littered the floor: stray dogs, feral cats, unlucky rats, and rabbits that ventured too close to a demon starved for blood. In the center of the area, on a low wooden table, dozens of candles burned in a tawdry shrine.

“Come to finish me off?” A deep, mocking voice echoed through the storage building.

Corban Moran stepped out of the shadows. Without his hat, I could see his shriveled features clearly, quite a difference from the man I’d seen in the photo with Jeremiah Abernathy. Sorren had left him for dead. Moran may not have died, but the cost of that encounter was clear.

“You are supposed to be dead.” Sorren’s voice was low and dangerous. I was watching two predators face off against each other, and I hoped Sorren was the biggest bad-ass on the block.

“You certainly tried.” Moran’s tone was thick with contempt and hatred. “I knew Abernathy’s demon was still unbound, and I knew no one had ever brought back the most powerful artifact from the
Cristobal
. I needed that piece to recover my power.”

“And you killed the salvage team that almost beat you to it,” Sorren said.

Moran shrugged. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.” He smirked. “I tried to buy them off, tried to scare them off. They wouldn’t leave it alone. Now they’re dead and I have the artifact.”

He held up a crystal sphere the size of a bowling ball. Inside was a blood-soaked mummified goat’s head. “The Baphomet Orb,” he said, holding it like a trophy.

I shivered. I’d found a reference to that artifact in one of Uncle Evan’s old journals. A Baphomet Orb was difficult and dangerous to make, and thankfully rare. It gave the owner power over a demon called by name. The orb held the head of a goat severed under a full moon, soaked in the blood of a murdered man, into which a candle made with fat rendered from a hanged man was placed and burned, then the whole thing was bound in strips of human skin and encased in glass, sealing in its power.

“It won’t bind the demon forever,” Sorren warned. “You’re a fool if you think you can control that thing for long.”

“I don’t need forever,” Moran replied. “I just need longer than I had left.”

“And what’s in it for the demon, besides what’s left of your soul?” Sorren asked. It was like the rest of us weren’t there, the continuation of an old pissing match. I didn’t need magic to feel how much the two hated each other.

“I promised him the city for his taking,” Moran said with a grand sweep of his arm. “That should keep him well fed and return my full magic – and then some.” “You followed Cassidy,” Sorren accused.

“I figured she’d lead me to you,” Moran replied with a sneer. “You’ve always been soft about your pets. I wanted to kill her like I killed the others and leave her for you to find – a reminder of the old days.”

Our group subtly shifted positions. Moran was only part of the threat. Mirov was scanning for the demon, and Chuck was close to him. Lucinda had moved up near Sorren to handle Moran and his magic.

That left Teag and me for the minions and shadow men, and any vengeful ghosts or other nasties that might be waiting for us.

Even so, we weren’t really ready for it when all hell broke loose.

I can’t describe a demon’s shriek, because words don’t suffice. But if you put a live horse through a wood chipper, and lit a lion on fire, and put the two awful death cries together, you might be close.

The demon had a skull like an ibex, with long, black horns that curved backwards. Red eyes gazed balefully. It stood on his powerful hind legs, with a muscular body covered in coarse, matted dark hair like a musk-ox and feet like a vulture, its dark claws fouled with old blood. It was clearly and grotesquely male, and naked except for lanyards of withered, severed fingers and the skulls of animals, some still with rotting bits of fur.

It rose from the shadows behind Moran like a nightmare god, bellowing its awful shriek, and it went straight for Sorren.

Sorren sidestepped with vampire speed, and Mirov was right behind him, sword in one hand, Sig in the other. Two rounds burst from the Sig, catching the demon full in the chest. To my utter surprise, the shots drove the demon back a step, as a silvery powder blossoming from the wound in the monster’s matted hair.

The beast screamed in fury and went after Mirov. Chuck pulled something that looked like a sawed-off shotgun from beneath his jacket, flipped a switch, and thrust it at the monster, hitting him with the green fire of a supernatural stun gun. The demon staggered, and in that instant’s pause, Mirov came in slashing and stabbing, scoring deep gashes that bloodied the demon’s filthy hair. It swept a clawed hand at Mirov, knocking him out of the way, and went after Chuck, who was swearing under his breath as he jabbed his stun pole at the demon again, green fire crackling.

I didn’t get to see what happened next, because four
akvenon
minions skittered from the darkness, snapping their teeth. They came at Teag and me with high-pitched shrieks that echoed deafeningly from the metal and brick. Teag gripped his sparring staff and fell into a defensive stance. He didn’t wait for the minion to come any closer. He gave a war cry and ran at it, his staff moving almost too fast to see, landing blow after blow while remaining out of the minion’s reach. He pivoted on one foot, sending the second
akvenon
slamming against the wall with a Capoeira kick.

I leveled Alard’s walking stick at the two
akvenon
coming at me, and drew a deep breath, clenching my fist over the focus ring as I slid my hand along the smooth wood. Fire blasted from the tip, temporarily blinding me with my night vision goggles. The
akvenon
screamed as the flames engulfed them, blackening their scaly hides, and they fell back, but I knew one shot was not enough to stop them for good.

The orb had disappeared from Moran’s hand, replaced by a wicked-looking sword in his right and an old-school wand in his left. I looked again, and realized his athame was the preserved severed front paw of a black cat. This guy was seriously mental.

Lucinda struck first with a streak of white light from her shaman’s staff. Moran blocked it with his wand-arm. He spoke a word of power and angled the cat’s leg athame at her, sending back a blast of power that sent a wind through the corridor, raising a storm of dust that stung our eyes and made it hard to breathe.

Lucinda brought her staff down to the ground with a thump, and Moran’s power reversed itself, roaring back at him and snuffing out the candles on the alter. Sorren charged in, using his strength and immortal speed to get inside Moran’s guard as he battled Lucinda.

Lucinda chanted louder. I heard banging and scratching from the depths of the old building, and overhead, it sounded as if the building were being whipped by gusts of wind that whistled through the roof.

Fear shivered down my back, and I drew a deep breath. I let one hand touch the amber whorl in my pocket. I felt Bo’s presence more strongly than I had since his passing, and his ghost took shape, standing guard beside me.

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is
, Grandma Sarah used to say, and for good measure I caught a faint whiff of cinnamon sugar. I took courage from the vision, knowing she was watching out for me, sensing her magic in the spoon-athame inside my sleeve.

I saw two glowing red eyes appear out of nowhere, right before a shadow figure lurched toward me, arms outstretched.

Several things happened all at once. I heard the snarl of an angry dog and the snap of teeth as Bo’s ghost launched itself at the attacker with all the fury of a rabid Rottweiler. I lashed out with my right hand, palm out, as if to push the shadow man away, and felt my grandmother’s magic fill me, moving down my arm and through my skin in a burst of golden light that left my palm and struck the shadow figure in the chest. The attacker was no match for Bo and my grandmother, and the apparition winked out.

One down, more to go. Defeating one shadow man did not make the others give up. They came at me like a wave, and darkness enfolded me, smothering and confining. I was so cold that I was shivering, and the shrieks and cries of the long-dead echoed in my ears. Shadow hands tore at my clothing and grabbed at my hair. I could hear Teag fighting through the shadows to make his way toward me.

Bo snarled and lunged, and the white light flared once more from my right hand, but this time, the shadows had regrouped and while some fell back, others dared to inch closer.

Teag’s hand came down on my shoulder, and I felt him anchor me, dampening the fear and cold, sending me energy. I tightened my grip on the spindle whorl in my hand, feeling the cool, ancient amber against my skin. Cold white fire streamed from my outstretched hand, and in my mind I pictured Secona, seer to the Vikings, in all her power. The shadow men shrank back, dissolving into mist as the white fire punched through them. This time, they vanished, but I figured they weren’t gone for good.

Mirov and Chuck had their hands full with the demon.

Mirov’s dark jacket and shirt had been torn away from his shoulder, and a bloody gash ran from shoulder to collar bone. Chuck also had taken a swipe from the demon’s claws, which had cut into his scalp, matting his hair and collar with fresh blood.

The demon was trying to keep both Mirov and Chuck in its sight, and they were making that difficult.

Chuck had abandoned his stun gun stick. He had his Glock in one hand and a strange glowing ball in the other.

Mirov’s Sig boomed again at close range, a shot that would have torn a hole through a mortal’s chest.

The bullet struck the demon in the head, tearing into its thick hide, sending a spray of black, stinking ichor that splattered Mirov and Chuck. The demon staggered.

Chuck lobbed the orb in his hand. It shattered as it hit the demon’s back and exploded, opening the skin of the demon’s back, sending the demon reeling toward Mirov, who held his sword leveled for the killing blow.

The demon careened into Mirov, whose blade sank hilt-deep into the monster’s chest. For good measure, he fired another shot from the Sig, point blank. Chuck hit the demon from behind with a silvery, studded orb thrown with his full strength. The studded orb burst into a screeching flare of energy, and the demon shrieked in response, flailing in anger and pain. I bet they were part of Mirov’s arsenal, something he’d shared with Chuck, because I didn’t think silver nitride bound with magic was in the Black Ops pack of dirty tricks.

Mirov was still too close, without time to get clear of the demon’s powerful talons. The claws raked him across the face and chest, but he emptied the rest of his clip into the demon, blowing away much of its face.

Chuck shot the creature in the back, putting a bullet through the spot where a heart should have been.

When he’d emptied his gun, Chuck shoved it into his belt and threw another of the studded silver bombs, something I bet was like the EMF jammer he had used on the minions.

Moran was looking worse for the wear, but so was Sorren. I wondered if using his magic before he was back to full strength cost Moran, because with every volley of magical power, his disfigurement grew worse. He was much more withered than the first time I had seen him, but his eyes blazed with hatred and his mouth was set in a grim take-no-prisoners expression. I knew that he and Sorren intended to battle this to the death.

Moran still stood in the middle of the demon’s nest. Behind him, I glimpsed the Baphomet Orb on a table, and figured it was what he was protecting. The demon had no problem ranging afield from its lair, nor did the minions, unfortunately.

Sorren was cut and bleeding in a dozen places, but he came back again and again and Moran’s damaged immortality was no match for Sorren’s vampire speed. Moran blocked the attack with a force curtain of black mist. Lucinda sent a blast of white light from her staff, straining against the mist until the curtain vanished, giving Sorren another opening to swing his blade and slash Moran across the ribs.

Teag came up behind Lucinda and placed one hand on her shoulder while he worked to loosen another knot in the circle loom he wore at his waist. I could practically see the energy flow from Teag into Lucinda, see her gain strength like water to a wilted plant. She murmured thanks, and Teag swung back to me, just in time to face a new threat.

More of the
akvenon
minions were heading our way. Bo’s ghost lunged at them, and with each new wave of attackers, that worked once or twice. I sent a blast of fire from Alard’s walking stick, but these minions scuttled fast enough that the worst of the blast missed them.

“A little help over here!” I yelled to Teag.

Teag held his staff in the crook of his arm, reached in his pocket and withdrew a tangled mat of colored threads. He stretched it between his fingers, and thrust his hand out toward the closest minion.

The
akvenon
tumbled over as if caught in an invisible net, its clawed feet scrabbling to get free. The mat of threads in Teag’s hand crumbled into dust.

The walking stick’s magic was taking a toll on me, so I shoved it through my belt and grabbed Secona’s whorl in my left hand as my right hand closed around the ring. I focused on the ring and drew power from the jet bracelet, willing the images of power imprinted on the whorl to spring to life. Long-ago magic from long-forgotten battles sprang to my hand, flooding outward in a cascade of brilliant white light that bowled the
akvenon
over and flung them back to slam against one of the thin metal walls.