Hard Spell (37 page)

  I tried to raise my head, and my vision blurred again. A word floated out of the part of my brain that was still functioning:
concussion
.

  Every street cop gets knocked around some while on the job, and I'd been concussed before, according to a couple of ER doctors. But this concussion, if that's what it was, compared to the earlier ones the way a car crash is like falling off your tricycle.

  I tried to keep my head from flopping back down, and succeeded, more or less. When I could see again, I found that I was looking at Karl. He was lying on his side, maybe fifty feet to my left, one arm outstretched, fingers hooked into a claw. The middle of his body was blocked from my vision by the pillar that he'd slammed into. Karl didn't move at all, and I was too far away to tell if he was breathing.

  I turned my head, which not only caused another loss of focus but brought on a wave of vertigo that was more like a tsunami. I'd have puked, if there'd been any food in my stomach. When had I last eaten – breakfast? Was that today, or yesterday?

  After a while I thought I could see again, but maybe I was just hallucinating. At the far side of the room, in front of that three-sided altar, two figures were struggling. They should have been Vollman and Sligo – I mean, who else could they be?

  But what I was seeing, or imagining, didn't look like the two vampire/wizards – not as I remembered them. My brain must have been scrambled but good, because it seemed like I was looking a couple of Roman-style gladiators, shuffling around on the blood-soaked dirt of some arena, hacking at each other with big, heavy swords and defending with manhole-size shields. Roman fucking gladiators –
but their faces were those of Vollman and Sligo.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to take in any more evidence that I'd gone totally fucking insane. But then I opened them again, and found that I was still seeing things that weren't there – that
couldn't
be there.

  How else to explain that dusty Western street, with Sligo and Vollman dressed in outfits that belonged in some particularly gritty Spaghetti Western? They stood maybe thirty feet apart, eyes narrowed, tense hands hovering over the handles of their holstered guns, while the wind blew a single, forlorn tumbleweed between them.

  I went away again for a while, and when I returned, it looked like the Western theme was still clinging to my subconscious. That would explain why I could see Sligo, in breechcloth and war paint, razor-edged tomahawk in one hand, locked in combat with a saber-wielding U.S. Cavalry trooper who looked an awful lot like his old man.

  I closed my eyes once more, and started to wonder if maybe I'd died from hitting the wall, and Hell was a series of bad TV reruns. When I looked again, at least the channel had changed, because a U.S. Marine resembling Sligo was desperately trying to drive the bayonet on his M-1 through the body of Vollman, who was dressed as a soldier of the Rising Sun, a samurai sword held high in both hands.

  This series of fantasy visions seemed to go on forever, lending further support to my I'm-deadand-in-Hell theory. I remember Vollman and Sligo, in gray and blue, respectively, going at each other on a Civil War battlefield, then it was on to a bloody no man's land of World War I, followed by a vicious gang fight in some urban jungle, and I'm pretty sure we all ended up at the Alamo, with Mexican soldier Vollman contending viciously with Sligo, who was wearing a coonskin cap and swinging a Kentucky rifle like a club. Then, mercifully, I passed out again.

  I was brought back to reality, if that's what it was, by the scream. I forced my eyes open and saw Sligo, dressed as he'd been when we first broke in, standing over the still form of Vollman. There wasn't a mark on either one of them that I could see.

  The scream was coming from Sligo. Fists clenched, head thrown back, face gleaming with sweat, he stood over the body of the father he'd hated for so long. It went on for what seemed like long time, the scream did; it combined elation with rage and, if I'm not mistaken, a pretty fair dose of grief, too. All in one great bellow.

  Then he was done. Panting, he wiped his face with his sleeve, then looked at his watch. At once, he turned back to the altar.

  I tried to concentrate on what he was doing. At the moment, I didn't give a shit if he became a super-vampire or the world tiddlywinks champ, as long as he didn't do anything more to hurt Christine. But I kept remembering that the other four vampires who'd been material for this ritual all had to die. First he'd carved his magical symbols on them, as specified by the
Opus Mago
, then he'd killed them. I assume the book said to do that, too.

  Sligo stood behind the altar and went through the ritual. He read aloud from the
Opus Mago
sometimes, he rang bells, mixed powders and liquid in bowls, burned incense, and generally looked like he was having a great old time. Big fucking deal.

  Then he picked up the silver-bladed knife.

  That finally galvanized me into action. Or as much action as I was capable of, which turned out to be not much. I looked for the shotgun, but couldn't see where I'd dropped it, even in the glaringly bright light Sligo had brought to the pump house. I remembered the Beretta on my belt and fumbled for it, only to find the holster empty. Must have been knocked loose when I'd smashed into the wall. The pistol had to be on the floor close by, but every time I moved my head in search of it, the vertigo returned and my vision started acting funky again.

  Sligo was holding the dagger reverently in both hands now, reading an incantation from the book in that incomprehensible language. Even in my fucked-up mental state, I figured it was only a matter of time before he'd stop chanting and start cutting – the cutting was going to be on my little girl.

  I fumbled my hands into my jacket pockets, an operation that seemed to take an hour. I was searching for my phone, with the vague notion of calling 911. I couldn't find the damn thing, and part me knew it didn't matter, really. There was nobody I could call who would possibly get here in–

  The fingers of my right hand brushed metal. Not the phone – something smaller, and much thinner. Round and curved on one side, jagged on the other. It felt like... part of a coin.

  
Kulick's amulet.

  The one I was supposed to hold while saying his full name five times, once I'd found Sligo.

  The one that he promised would bring him to me.

  Well, I'd located Sligo, at last. Guess it was time to make the call.

  I wrapped my fingers around that slim little halfcircle, and tried to remember. Four names. Okay, Kulick, I knew. First name was... George. That's two. The true name, his wizard name... it had sounded like something out of a science fiction novel. Trasis? No, Thraxis. George Thraxis Kulick. But there was another one, another name.

  At the altar, Sligo had stopped chanting. Squinting, I could see that he had turned away from the book, and was facing Christine.

  Herman? No, nothing so normal. Something a little weird, kind of like Herman, but...

  Harmon.

  George Harmon Thraxis Kulick

  
Say it out loud, dummy!

  "George Harmon Thraxis Kulick."

  
Again.

  "George Harmon Thraxis Kulick."

  
Three more. Hurry!

  Sligo walked toward Christine, the dagger in his hands.

  "Georgeharmonthraxiskulickgeorgeharmonthraxiskulickgeorgeharmonthraxiskulick!"

  I couldn't see the altar anymore, because something was blocking my vision. A leg, a woman's leg in a skirt. It moved now, the woman stepping forward, away from me. I raised my head higher, fought the vertigo, made my fucking eyes focus.

  It was Rachel. Or rather, it wasn't.

  George Kulick had joined the party at last.

  Rachel's head turned back, looked at me, and after a moment, nodded. Kulick's voice said, "A bargain made is a bargain kept. That's the law."

  At the altar, Christine screamed.

  Rachel Proctor collapsed bonelessly to the floor, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. The spirit of George Kulick had left her body, at long last, to go... where?

  I made my eyes focus on Sligo, and almost wished I hadn't. He'd jabbed the silver blade into Christine's lower belly, bringing forth another scream, and now he was adjusting his grip, with the clear intention of pulling the knife upward toward Christine's breastbone, opening her up from groin to chest.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn't watch, couldn't bear it. The only hope I had left was that she would die quickly, become truly dead, and go someplace where there was no more pain, and no more fear.

  And for this I'd "saved" her from leukemia.

  
Christine, I couldn't protect you, and I'm sorry, baby,
so sorry. But as long as I have breath in my body, I will
dedicate myself to taking vengeance on this motherfucker,
I swear it.

  I guess I was crying, I don't know, but my head came up at the sound of another scream. Because this one was in a man's voice.

  Sligo had withdrawn the knife from Christine's belly without cutting any further. He had dropped it on the altar, and was clutching both hands to the sides of his head, as he screeched "No! Get out! Leave me now – I command you!"

  In my concussed state, it took me a few seconds to figure things out, but then I knew who Sligo was talking to: George Kulick.

  And now I knew where Kulick had gone when he left Rachel – inside Sligo. He was taking possession of Sligo's body exactly as he had Rachel's – except that Kulick didn't hate Rachel when he'd assumed control of her. She'd been merely a tool. A tool for vengeance.

  I don't know why Kulick was able to invade without any resistance, unless Sligo had used up all his psychic energy in destroying his father, and had none left to protect himself. But Kulick was in there now, and Sligo was clearly losing the battle for control over his own body. He dropped to his knees with the strain of trying to expel Kulick from inside him, then fell over on his face. But after, I don't know, a minute or two, Sligo's screaming and writhing stopped. He stood, slowly. I thought I could see something different in his face, but I was too far away and too fucked-up to say for sure.

  I know for certain what happened next, though. Sligo's hand slowly reached out to the altar for the silver-bladed dagger. I had a moment's panic, thinking that he had somehow defeated Kulick, after all, and was planning to take the knife to Christine again.

  I needn't have worried. He never even looked toward Christine.

  That's not to say that the dagger didn't see a lot of use in the following few minutes – all of it upon the person of Richard Vollman, also known as Sligo.

  I don't think I want to tell you all the things Kulick made Sligo do with that blade. In my job, I see a lot of blood and sadism, but this would have made Satan himself throw up.

  Karl told me once about an article he'd read describing
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol
in Paris. I gather that back in the day those sickos used to put on performances that were the ancestors of our modern-day splatter films. What was going on at the front of the pump house was like that – except none of the blood was fake. And there was a lot of blood.

  After a while, I couldn't look any more. You'd think I would be full of vengeful satisfaction over what was happening to that motherfucker, who'd tried to kill me, my partner, and my little girl. At first, yeah, that's pretty much how I felt. But the things Sligo was being made to do to himself with that knife – before I looked away, I actually started to feel some pity for him. Not a lot, but some.

  I assumed this was all going to end by Sligo plunging the silver dagger into his own black heart, achieving true death, and by then glad to get it. But I'd underestimated George Kulick's appetite for revenge.

  Kulick didn't make Sligo kill himself. Instead, when the last full measure of vengeance, short of death, had finally been extracted, he forced Sligo to fling the dagger out of reach – probably so that he
couldn't
use it for self-destruction.

  Then Kulick just – left.

  I happened to be looking at the precise moment when George Kulick's spirit left Sligo's body. I saw a brief ripple in the air just over where Sligo lay on the blood-soaked floor, and I thought that might be Kulick's departure. Then Sligo started screaming, and I was certain.

  I call it "screaming," but what Sligo was doing sounded more like loud croaking, and it just went on and on. It's hard to scream when you don't have a tongue, or lips or... well, you get the idea.

  I don't know where Kulick went, except that he never returned. He'd saidsomething, back at the parking garage, about being intrigued by the afterlife. I guess he went off to see for himself.

  Fuck both of them. I needed to reach Christine, who was still tied and hanging upside down from the ceiling, bleeding from the stomach puncture as well as the three symbols carved into her flesh. I had to get her loose, and find help for her. Hell, everybody left alive in that room needed help, including me. I tried to look for my cell phone, but every turn of my head brought the vertigo back. Fuck the phone, then.

  Karl still lay in the position he'd landed in. It didn't look like he was still among the living , but I needed to know for sure. I tried to stand, and fell forward on my face. Tried again, with the same result. I'd decided to crawl, all the way to Karl and then to Christine, when I saw Rachel Proctor stir.

  I hadn't even been sure she was alive.

Rachel moved her legs a little, then a little more. Then she gave the kind of groan you might hear from somebody waking up after a three-day bender. I managed to croak, "Rachel." Even that much made my head throb.

  She started at my voice, then slowly rolled over until she was facing me, from maybe ten feet away.

  Her eyes were open. They were Rachel's gray eyes, and they were open and they looked sane. I felt my heart lift a little, for the first time since I'd burst into this accursed place.