Death's Hand (25 page)

Elise drew her sword from underneath her hair in a single smooth motion. Her chain of charms was entwined between her fingers and the hilt.

The engraved symbols on the blade flashed as she swung. The blade sliced into the boy’s wrist. He fell to the earth missing a hand.

“Oh, man!” Betty exclaimed, leaning back to kick at his still-twitching fingers. “Gross!”

Elise swept to her feet, bracing her legs against one of the seats. “There!” she called, pointing to a cluster of possessed ones near the center of the graveyard. “At your nine o’clock!”

Then her hand faltered, fell, as she realized what she was seeing.

“What?” Betty asked. She got to her feet, barely keeping her balance, and followed Elise’s gaze. Her jaw dropped open. “Holy…”

There were so many possessed ones the ground seemed to seethe. Elise had grossly miscalculated how many servants Ann could have had—she’d clearly had several years to work up a collection. One dozen, three dozen. Maybe more.

The vessel of
vedae som matis
hung heavy in her pocket, growing so hot that it nearly burned her leg through her jeans. It snapped her out of her shocked reverie. “Be careful, Anthony,” she said, climbing into the front seat. “Ann and James might be in there somewhere. Take out the edges first.”

His response was to slide into line with the crowd and shift the old Jeep into a higher gear. He was grinning. Elise could only hope he would still be so thrilled when he was cleaning the blood off his car later.

Elise’s voice continued to roar from the speakers. “
Ipse venena bibas!
Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux!
” The verse echoed amongst the tombstones and rattled the branches on the trees. They passed the ragged woman in the half-torn sundress, and as soon as the voice hit her ears, her spine went rigid. She fell to the ground, shaking, and Elise watched her pass with a critical eye.

“They’re not getting exorcised,” she said. “Damn.”

“What?” Betty asked, leaning up on Anthony’s seat.

She gestured to the servants. “The exorcism phrase isn’t enough. It’s hurting them, maybe even paralyzing a few, but on its own it can’t actually free them.”

“Hang on!” Anthony cried.

The Jeep shuddered as though it had struck a cement wall. Elise was flung forward onto the roll cage, and a body hit the windshield.

The glass cracked, splintered. Betty screamed.

The body that struck their windshield slid off, but more rose out of the darkness, falling under the wheels and being flung to the sides. They were helpless to run. All they could do was get chewed by the wheels of the Jeep as Anthony fought to keep control and Elise searched for James.

The speakers crackled. “
Crux sacra—lux, non draco sit mihi—retro, Satana—
”

One of the possessed ones leaped at the car, clawing for Elise’s jacket and the burning weight in her pocket. She threw herself out of its grasp, straddling the seat to keep her balance.

Her blade flashed. Blood sprayed.

The speakers made a static noise once more, and then died. “
Ipse venena…
”

Silence.

“The cable under the dashboard must have come loose!” Betty said.

A servant slammed into the hood of the Jeep, and it shuddered. This time, the man didn’t slide away. He found grip near the windshield wipers, hauled himself higher, and pulled back his arm.

His fist punched through the glass.

Anthony cried out, falling to the side in his seat to avoid the groping hand. The car swerved, but Elise kept her balance. She brought her sword down, slicing into the possessed one’s already-bleeding arm.

“We need the speakers!”

Betty crawled between the two front seats underneath Elise’s legs. “I can reconnect it. I just need a second to find the break!”

The servant groped blindly and found the steering wheel. He wrenched it to the side as Anthony slammed on the brakes.

Betty squealed again. The three fell into one another, a jumble of legs and arms and confused bodies.

The Jeep lurched to a halt, and a man climbed over the side. His fist struck Elise in the face. Her injured cheekbone exploded in pain. Her vision blurred and darkened. She swung blindly and felt her sword connect.

Something warm splattered on her. It wasn’t the rain.

Her vision cleared, and she saw her sword had sunk into the side of his neck. She pulled free and kicked, sending him over the side.

“Holy crap!” Betty exclaimed, untangling herself from Anthony.

“Fix the speakers,” Elise said. She reached over the windshield and swung at the possessed one reaching through the cracks. Her sword connected with his back, but didn’t cut. She took a deep breath, and began to shout. “
Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas!
”

The crucifix engraved in her sword blazed to life. The possessed one shrieked, jerking its arm out of the windshield and falling off the hood of the car.

More servants took his place, swarming the Jeep. Elise would kick one off, only for another to take its place climbing over the side. There were dozens. No matter how fast she swung, she couldn’t keep up with them.

Anthony slammed the car into gear, but the wheels spun out in the mud.

“Betty…” Elise urged.

“I think I found it!” Betty announced from under the dashboard.

The Jeep’s wheels found traction, and the car leapt forward, mowing down a pair of servants who had been coming up on their makeshift cow-catcher.

The speakers crackled, buzzed, and Elise’s voice roared out of them once more.

“—
dux. Vade retro, Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana
!”

Screams rose from the graveyard, as inhuman as the sounds that came from a slaughterhouse. “Success!” Betty cried, pumping her fist.

“Take this,” Elise said, shoving the stone vessel into Betty’s hands as she emerged from under the dashboard. “Ann can’t perform the sacrifice without it, so it’s safest with you. I trust you. Don’t go far. I might need help transporting James.”

Her friend nodded, cheeks flushed. “They won’t get it without a fight!” Betty declared.

“Wait,” Anthony said, power-sliding around the stone angel to a stop, “where are you going?”

“Ann’s not here, so James isn’t here,” Elise said. “Ann lives across the street. I’m sure they’re in there.”

“You can’t go alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Elise prepared to leap down into the cemetery, but Anthony caught her hand. “Wait,” he said, and he pulled her to him and kissed her. He was forceful, desperate, as though afraid it would be his last chance.

And then she jumped over the door before he could catch her again, disappearing into the night. She caught a glance of his face before she went—an expression of admiration, adoration, and fear.

Now that she no longer had the vessel, the servants ignored Elise. They followed the Jeep, and Anthony gave them a good chase—he weaved in and out of the path, and the bigger spots in between the graves, driving over several of the shorter headstones as he made a line for the exit. The possessed ones couldn’t keep up.

The storm overhead broke with slaps of thunder and lighting. Elise flipped her braid over her shoulder so she could sheathe the sword, and she ran toward Ann’s house… and James.

The night grew darker.

One by one, the street lamps flickered and went out. A line of shadow crept up the street. The few people still struggling to stay awake began turning off their lights and going to their bedrooms, oblivious to the world around them. The heavy rain clouds that had briefly parted to reveal the moon’s crescent covered it once more, and the shadow’s hand gripped the Earth.

A single oil lamp illuminated Ann’s room as the neighborhood’s electricity turned off. Her outline was thrown against the wall in stark relief, a huge monster of a woman with massive shoulders and tiny legs.

The shadows beside her twisted and writhed. Ann’s fiends covered every square foot of her house, silent and hungry. She passed the trap door, carrying the oil lamp to the altar, and peered down the ladder. The demons covered the floor below, and the floor beneath that as well. Elise wouldn’t be able to get in without getting ripped apart.

Ann set the lamp beside James’s leg and faced her altar, standing with her back to the open window.

The fiends touched her legs and stroked her arms and rested their heads on her feet. Some touched James, too, but he didn’t stir. The high priest was unconscious.

She spread her arms wide. “Listen up, guys,” Ann said. “Every beginning is the end of another. Tonight we leave behind the world we have come to know together for the past several years. Tonight we march to the ruins and transform everything. Tonight, you become the children of the new world.”

Their lips quivered. They drooled.

“The city will be ours, and soon, this whole world will too. Why return to Hell under the law of another when we can have this Eden? You all deserve freedom. You deserve flesh. You deserve Earth.”

Something clattered downstairs.

Ann cut off, frowning. She perked her ears, listening to the reports the fiends whispered into her mind when something happened. But there were no comforting voices from her demons—only a complete mental silence.

Elise.

“Take care of her, please,” she said.

The fiends piled down the ladder, leaving the attic empty except for a handful of fiends and the two humans.

Ann rested her hand on his forehead. His pulse throbbed in his temples, rising and falling like the heart of the ocean. He was beautiful with symbols of transference and death painted upon his body. He was so lucky.

She took a step away from the table and began walking a slow circle, speaking quietly as she went. Ann drew runes in her mind and called upon spirits at the north, the west, the south, and the east—spirits few humans called in fear of their power. Her dominant hand pointed to the floor, and she felt rather than saw the energy burn an invisible path on the wood.

Ann clapped, and the circle of power erupted around them. James’s eyes almost fluttering open.

“Did they get her?” Ann asked one of the fiends.

But before she could make out any reply, a dark shape darted out of the corner. She spun to see curtains flapping in the open window.

Nobody was there.

A fiend shrieked.

Elise stabbed again, driving her blade through the skull of the demon to silence it.

The weapon shocked Ann into silence. It wasn’t just steel and leather—it coursed with magic, enchantments, prayers. It glowed in Ann’s vision, both beautiful and terrible. She recognized it. Death’s Hand had its twin.

Elise jerked her blade free, and a spray of blood spattered to the floor. The kopis decapitated the fiend’s body with one smooth blow of her sword, and she kicked the head across the floor to Ann’s feet.

Fresh blood flowed down the sharp edge of the sword. Elise’s skin was flushed, her eyes blazing.
Vedae som matis
may have been the Goddess of Death, but Elise was the goddess of fury—and even with the power of a mighty demon at her back, Ann felt afraid.

And when Elise spoke, her voice burned. “Give me back my witch.”

XIX

“Elise,” Ann said. “Put the sword down.”

Elise’s eyes flicked between Ann and the nightmare of an altar with James as the centerpiece. His nakedness was a shock, but not nearly as horrifying as the black demon runes looping over his skin like the brands burned into the flesh of the fiends.

“Not until you let him go.”

The necromancer scooped up the head at her feet. “Let him go?” she asked, cradling it in her arms as blood dribbled out the neck. “You killed my fiend.”

“That will be nothing compared to what will happen if you don’t give me James.”

“I offered you a trade,” Ann said.

“We both know you weren’t serious.” Elise took a deep breath. “We don’t have to fight, Ann. This is between me and
vedae som matis
.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

Ann straightened suddenly. Her head tilted, as though listening to some distant voice Elise couldn’t hear. And then she began to smile.

“We have company.”

The trap door banged open. Fiends jumped inside, dragging two larger shapes with them. For an instant, Elise half-hoped they were injured, struggling servants—but servants didn’t fight and swear like these two.

The fiends threw Betty and Anthony to the floor. One of them ripped the pocket off her jacket, and the stone vessel thudded to the floor. Betty struggled, trying to take it back, but the fiends held her arms.

“Hey, get your hands off me! I’ll punch you! Don’t make me do it!”

Ann cradled the staff against her shoulder like a baby. “This night just got so much better.”

Elise moved. Blood splattered on the walls.

The fiends holding Anthony fell. She sliced again, and the fiends holding Betty also fell. Intestines spilled onto the floor in a wash of red and yellow fluids, stinking of brimstone.