In the House of the Wicked (35 page)

Stearns had frozen as he knelt before his damnable machine, and that was when Remy began to feel it.

This was more than a mere temperature shift or a change in air pressure. The air had become incredibly heavy as the darkness became even thicker, darker even than darkness should be….

And Remy found himself thinking of a world composed entirely of shadow, a world he had visited not too long ago, a world that still held a dear friend.

A world he had every intention of returning to once he was able.

The darkness had become all-encompassing, every existing speck of light swallowed up by the hungry dark. It was even getting difficult to breathe. An attempt to summon even the slightest hint of angelic fire, to throw some light within the studio, met with total failure as the air grew heavier.

The silence had become almost deafening. And then the room seemed to explode, the very structure of the place tearing itself apart as Remy was thrown into the air by the disintegrating environment.

The atmosphere of the room felt suddenly different, and as he again attempted to get back on his feet he found that the floor of the studio had become dramatically uneven, with what appeared to be metal girders rising through the floor. It was almost as if the building had been twisted by the hands of some unspeakable force.

Through the thick clouds of swirling dust, Remy saw the hint of light, an unearthly glow that drew him toward it. The unknown source illuminated the twisted remains of the studio, showing a place that no longer resembled the room it had been mere minutes ago. Remy wasn’t quite sure what he was bearing witness to, but it was as if another space—another room entirely—had somehow been crammed into the studio.

The little girl’s bed had been mercilessly tossed across the room by the traumatic upheaval, and Remy found the golem child curled in a ball on the floor. He knelt down beside her, pulling her into his arms. She was crying, as a small child would, and he could not help but comfort her.

“I don’t understand,” she kept repeating over and over, and Remy shared her confusion.

Kneeling on the floor, he saw now that the glow was coming from beneath a set of double doors that hung strangely askew at the top of a set of broken stone steps. Stearns stood at the bottom of those steps and started to climb.

It was when the doors came suddenly open, flying from their hinges in an explosion of light and sound, that Remy realized what he was looking at. He knew these doors and the broken stone steps that led up to them.

A striking figure stood just inside the doorway, his body glowing in its efforts to contain the power that was now housed within it, a power that Remy had known intimately, for it had belonged to him for many millennia.

Konrad Deacon stood in the entryway to his home, glaring at Algernon Stearns, who lay upon his armored back like a turtle unable to right himself.

“Hello, Algernon,” Deacon said, wings of fire unfurling. “It’s been a long, long time.”

They had temporarily stopped in the stairway, Angus needing a quick breather, before continuing on up to the television studio, when the building started to shake.

“Okay,” Francis said as the lighting flickered.

The temperature dramatically plummeted, and Francis was nearly overwhelmed with an odd sensation reminiscent of dropping down in an elevator.

“Did you feel that?” Francis asked.

“Yes,” Angus said, in between heavy breaths as the hallway went entirely to darkness. “And it isn’t anything normal.”

A dancing orange flame suddenly appeared, hovering above Angus’ outstretched palm, shedding some light in the stairway.

The building was rocking, a powerful vibration moving through the stairs and the metal handrail beneath their grips.

“Earthquake?” Francis suggested.

“Worse,” Angus answered, as cracks began to appear in the wall. “Much worse.”

And then they heard it from somewhere in the stairwell below them: a horrible roar unrecognizable to anything that existed in this world.

“I’m guessing that’s part of the problem you’re talking about?”

“A part,” Angus said. “We might want to get out of this stairwell as quickly as possible,” the sorcerer suggested as they listened to the new sounds of something large and growling dragging its considerable weight up the concrete stairs.

The light from the hovering flame showed them that they were near an entrance to one of the upper floors, and Francis darted toward it, pulling open the door.

What they found on that particular floor was not at all what they had expected.

“What the fuck is this?” Francis asked, totally taken aback. It looked as though they were in the hallway of some great old mansion run through a fun-house mirror. Everything was skewed to a bizarre angle.

“It’s what I suspected,” Angus said, moving the flame around to pierce the darkness so that they could better see their environment.

“Which is?”

“We’re no longer in Stearns’ building,” the sorcerer said.

“What the fuck are you talking about, we’re no longer in the building?”

“Right now we’re no longer inside the building,” the sorcerer repeated. “Outside that door, yes, we’re in the building…. Down the staircase a floor, where we heard the unnatural sounds…probably not.”

“You’ve fucking lost me,” Francis said.

“Don’t ask me how,” Angus started to explain. “But I believe that Konrad Deacon has returned, and in doing so has somehow transferred his estate back to this realm, occupying the same space as Stearns’ office building.”

“So the two are sort of smooshed together,” Francis asked, eyes darting around the corridor. He slowly removed the Pitiless pistol from within his jacket.

“If you want to be scientific,” Angus responded.

The shadows in the hall appeared to be moving, shifting, flowing along the walls and floor. There were sounds coming from the ever-expanding pools of blackness.

“Anything to say about that?” Francis asked, watching the flowing darkness.

“Nothing other than it appears as though some of the shadow world where Deacon has been living seems to have leaked through along with his house.”

“That can’t be good,” Francis said, watching something large and covered with black spines erupt from the shadow pool, leaping from one body of darkness to disappear into another.

“It’s not good at all,” Angus agreed, his fingers beginning to crackle with defensive magick. “Especially if it’s still leaking.”

“Leaking is never good.”

“No.”

Francis felt what little hair he had left on the back of his neck suddenly stand straight on end. He didn’t have time to utter a warning or to tell Angus to get away; the former Guardian angel just reacted, spinning around and firing at the large, serpentine shape that had silently risen from a body of shadow that had formed behind them.

The pistol roared angrily, a seemingly endless supply of bullets entering the thick, trunklike body of the snakelike thing that appeared to be molded from tar. Seemingly unfazed by the gunshots, the creature lunged, its cavernous maw open to consume at least one, or maybe even both, if it were lucky. Francis dove from its path, continuing to fire into the serpent’s shiny black face.

Angus clothed himself in a shield of crackling blue energy. The monster’s snout struck the obstruction violently and made its already sunny disposition all the more pleasant. Frustrated, the serpent reared back, opening its mouth wider, its jaws unhinging as if getting ready to swallow an egg.

The gunshots weren’t helping matters, and Francis slipped the pistol back inside his jacket and went through his duffel bag of weapons in the hopes of finding something that could damage the beast of shadow.

The serpent clamped down upon Angus’ bubble, its curved obsidian fangs actually penetrating the energy sphere. It pulled back savagely, dragging the bubble, and Angus with it, toward the body of liquid darkness from where it had originated.

Francis found an ornate short sword and lunged at the beast. It was probably only supposed to be used for special rituals, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he swung the sword with all his might. The razor’s edge bit deeply into the oily black flesh of the monster, but it failed to slow its progress. With horror, Francis watched as the serpent disappeared back into the bubbling liquid pitch, dragging the energy sphere, with the screaming Angus inside, down beneath the shadow.

At the edge, Francis looked down into the still surface, not a ripple showing what had just transpired. He considered diving into the pool in search of the sorcerer, but decided against it. He didn’t like the sorcerer that much, and, besides, he suspected that Angus had already met a nasty fate.

He stepped away from the edge, not wanting any surprises. There were strange noises coming from other patches of expanding shadow all around him, and he figured it would probably be in his best interest to get the fuck out of there and try to find another section of the office building that didn’t have a leaking problem.

Turning his back, he returned to the duffel, tossing the short sword back inside, and was just about to take hold of the handles when he again sensed something happening behind him.

Francis barely had time to turn as the great serpent surged up from the lake of darkness, a shriek of ferocity escaping from its cavernous mouth. Leaving the duffel, Francis leapt toward the corridor in front of him, evading puddles of darkness that littered the floor as he ran. He chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and was shocked to see the upper trunk of the shadow beast pitch forward, landing heavily on the floor outside the pool to lie perfectly still.

Hesitating, he watched the thing. The serpent appeared dead, and Francis had to wonder if eating Angus had somehow poisoned it. He stepped closer to the dead monster to retrieve his bag of weapons when he saw movement ahead—not from the shadow beast, but from the now bubbling pool.

What the fuck now?
the Guardian angel wondered, dashing ahead to quickly snatch up his bag and get as far away as he could before some other nightmare emerged.

And something did rise from the tarlike body of liquid, coughing and sputtering as it reached to grab hold of the edge of the floor. It was Angus, but there was something bubbling up from below behind him.

“Angus!” Francis cried out, pulling his pistol as the other shape and another behind that one swam up behind the sorcerer, helping to push him from the pool.

“Put that fucking thing away,” said a voice that was vaguely familiar to him.

Francis came forward and bent down to grab hold of Angus’ arm and pull him from the sucking blackness, careful to not fall in himself.

“Nice to see you again,” Francis said. “Didn’t think you’d made it.”

The sorcerer coughed, spitting filth from his mouth. “Wouldn’t have…if…if it wasn’t for them.”

Two more figures had crawled out of the black lake, a smaller, stockier form helping the thinner, more petite.

It didn’t take Francis long to recognize the goblin that had brought Remy back from the shadow realm and the teenage girl that Remy had been so desperate to save.

“Are you responsible for that?” Francis asked, as the goblin walked over to the dead serpent, brushing off the clinging remnants of liquid shadow from his clothes. The goblin squatted down and with a grunt rolled the massive body of the snake over. There was a nasty-looking knife blade protruding from its lower body.

“Yep,” the goblin said, removing the blade and letting the body flop back heavily to the floor. He wiped the thing’s black blood on the leg of his pants.

“Impressive,” Francis said.

“Thanks.”

The goblin went to stand beside the girl, who was peeling away the darkness that clung to her, flicking it onto the floor. There was a look in her eyes, something that probably hadn’t been there before all this, when she was just Remy’s neighbor, looking after his dog.

“You all right?” Francis asked her.

She just stared at him with those intense eyes. Eyes that had seen so much in such a short period of time.

“Ashley, right?” Francis said, positive that this time she was the real thing and not some artificial life-form created from magick and clay.

She nodded quickly. “Do I know you?”

“No, but you know my friend…Remy.”

“Remy,” she said.

“Yeah. I’m going to take you to him, all right?” Francis said.

Ashley nodded again. “Remy will take me home,” she said, a hint of hope in her voice.

“That’s the plan,” Francis said, his mind already on to the next obstacle.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

The two sorcerers stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but it was Stearns who blinked first.

Remy watched as the exoskeletoned Stearns uttered some guttural spell, casting a wave of destructive power toward his opponent. Reacting instinctively, Remy threw his body over that of the little girl, shielding her from the devastating repercussions that were sure to follow.

From the corner of his eye, Remy watched as Deacon cast his own spell, a shield of protection that deflected the magickal outburst from Stearns toward the ceiling with catastrophic results.