Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (23 page)

Archer nodded distractedly. He grabbed another quick look.

The man with the cane was hiding beneath a stone bench. Archer couldn’t see the woman. The next instant a flick of the snake’s tail sent an aluminum-framed walker flying into one of the stained glass windows. The terrified oldsters huddled still further down behind their makeshift shelter.

“What on earth…” Barry’s voice was lost in the wake of another crash.

“I’m not sure we can wait,” Archer told him.

Barry’s eyes went rounder still. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go in there. We’ve already had one fatality this morning.”

Archer could not have agreed more. Unfortunately… “That…thing isn’t going to be satisfied with one little senior citizen snack after a couple of centuries of hibernation.”

“No.” Barry looked aghast. “Whatever you’re thinking. No. We
have
to wait. That thing will snap you up in one bite.”

Archer’s stomach did an unhappy somersault at that mental image. He didn’t like snakes. He didn’t even like lizards. Caterpillars were his limit.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“We could—we could—” Barry stopped. “How the hell could this
happen
?” He stole a quick look around the doorframe. Whatever he saw caused him to put his hands over his eyes. “Oh my God. It
can’t
be happening.”

The shriek of tearing metal from inside the hall put the lie to that prayer.

Archer’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t seem to get enough spit to gulp. He ran through the mental catalog of everything he knew about snakes. It was a very small catalog. Cobras were, at most, a footnote.

“Have you ever heard of an exorcised item reanimating?”

“No. Never. Not like this. Not spontaneously.”

“And yet that fucking monster is alive.” Archer risked another look around the doorframe. The situation was not improving on its own. “All right. Here’s our plan. I’ll distract it long enough that you should be able to help the people in there get out.”

“That’s not a plan! It’s suicide.”

Archer spared him a quick laugh. “Hopefully not. Think of the paperwork. Anyway, it’s the best I can come up with.”

Barry shook his head frantically. “
No.
Wait for the ba—the Irregulars. They’ll be here any minute.” They both looked down the eerily empty hallway to the large doors where Mr. Baker and Miss Roya hovered, trying to see through the etched glass. The alarm bells continued to jangle in surround sound.  

 A display table scraped and groaned its way across the floor and crashed into the wall. Terrified cries followed.

Barry swallowed. He looked as sick as Archer felt. “You realize that whatever that thing is, it’s strong enough to throw off centuries of exorcism. You’re…”

“Half-blooded. The thought had occurred.” Archer grimaced. “Right. Get into position at the side door while I try something.”

“
What
, for God’s sake?”

“Something will come to me.
Hurry
, Barry.”

Barry whispered, “Be careful, dear boy.” He scuttled down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Archer waited, and a few seconds later, he spotted Barry timidly waving from the side entrance.

Archer took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

The cobra’s head—large as a dining room table—swung his way. The forked tongue tested the air.

Archer stayed perfectly still, summoning the glamour to conceal him from the snake.

It would certainly have worked with an ordinary snake. The naga continued to weave back and forth, hissing gutturally and tickling the distance with its tongue.

Archer concentrated on melding with his surroundings. It would be easier if he was actually leaning against the wall. As it was, he was trying to blend into several scattered objects. The broken cases, the nearby pillar. He tentatively reached for the snake’s mind.

Black.

Venomous.

Void.

He recoiled instinctively. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t…alive. What was it?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Barry helping the frail-looking woman Archer had spotted earlier to her feet. As Barry half dragged her to the doorway the snake’s head swiveled toward them.

Archer looked around for a possible weapon. The display case with ancient Greek artifacts was turned over on its side, shattered glass from the lid and sides scattered across the marble floor. Amidst the silver arrow points, funeral masks, and shards of black and red pottery, Archer spotted one of Hermes’s battered silver sandals. Beaning the naga between the eyes with the sandal was probably not going to achieve much beyond further antagonizing an already irate magical creature.

His gaze lit on another item a few feet further on. Seven wooden pipes bound together with ragged threads and worn leather. Pan’s syrinx. Also known in legend as Pan’s flute.

Archer scrambled for the flute. The frayed leather gave way beneath his fingertips and two of the pipes fell to the floor, rolling away. Archer rose with the remaining pipes between his hands and blew cautiously. Nothing happened.

The cobra began to rock above him.

Archer blew harder, and a choked, dusty spurt of sound issued from the largest of the bleached, brittle pipes. Archer played a shaky little trill.

The snake leaned closer and closer, its tongue undulating mere inches from him. The yellow fangs glistened with venom.

Archer’s lips tickled as he blew softly across the sharp edge of the inner pipes. A sweet ghostly melody slipped out of the syrinx. Archer closed his eyes and tried to remember some of the plaintive tunes he’d learned as a boy. True, the syrinx was a little more complicated than the wooden flutes he’d played, but the basic theory of lip tension and breath control was the same.

He kept his eyes firmly shut and refused to think of his perilous position and the melody turned into the haunting sound of the sea mews and the curlew. As Archer played he could even smell the bitter aromatic scent of the marsh, see the sodden tracts where he had wandered, see again high tide combing silver fingers through the vast surface of sargassum weed floating across the pewter sea, rents and patches of water threading and dappling the reddish brown thatch. He saw the hill of white gravel rising from the heart of the marshes, crowned with ancient thorn trees, accessible only by the old Roman causeway…

Had Barry managed to get the last of the tourists away? Archer was afraid to open his eyes. Even if Barry had succeeded, Archer could think of no way to end his serenade without winding up as lunch for the naga. He was running short of breath, his fingers starting to shake, causing the notes to waver.

The past blurred into the present. Archer swayed, forgetting for an instant where he was. He recovered, stiffening his spine, locking his knees, planting his feet. Already his tune had lasted four minutes.

Despairingly, he wondered how much longer…

He felt a sudden crackling rush of arcane energy that signaled immortal power unfolding around him. It swept up and around him, tendrils slipping through his curls, the space between his elbows and flank, his legs…It surrounded him and then whirled up in front of him, spiraling up like a fountain.

A hand—a hard, human hand—hooked around Archer’s right biceps, and he was hauled back, heels sliding on the slick floor as though on ice. He managed to keep to his feet, opening his eyes wide.

Rake kept one hand clamped around Archer’s arm. The other stretched before him and white light poured forth as he faced the naga. White light. Dimly Archer took note of the phenomenon of white light from a demon before his attention was restored to the immediate threat.

The snake towered over them, weaving back and forth with increasing speed as though attempting to free itself from an invisible net. Its lashing tail struck one of the supporting pillars, sending a crack like a fork of lightning down its mottled surface.

Archer spied motion on the far side of the room. Sergeant Orly stood behind the naga, wrists crossed in front of her like a cartoon superhero. She was chanting a vanishing spell. Archer could just make out the words above the furious wet growls of the cobra.

He felt power surge through Rake in a torrent of energy that would rightly terrify any sensible creature—not that Archer could currently claim to possess much sense. Uncontrolled, that psychic force could probably knock down the entire building and leave it so much singed rubble, and yet Rake had directed his power with such skill that it had wound safely, gently around Archer like satin ribbons.

 Archer’s knees trembled. He had nothing to offer in this battle. He had done his share and now there was nothing to do but stay still and not distract Rake.

It wasn’t easy. Archer had to fight the natural inclination to move from the center of that force. He could feel Rake’s fingers digging into the muscles of his arm, and he found a strange comfort in this reminder of Rake’s…not humanity, because Rake was not human…But in his own way he was mortal too.

He could lose this battle. He could be destroyed. They might both die here in the marble halls of MoSSA. It would make a nice subject for a frieze.

He felt a surge of hysterical laughter. But that was better than thinking about death. It wasn’t even his own death that worried Archer, but thinking of Rake’s ephemerality filled him with a sorrow he was unprepared for. He rejected the thought at once, lest Rake read it and weaken.

Archer risked another look at Rake. Amazingly, he still retained his human form, but it rippled as though Archer were viewing him through deep water. Rake’s eyes were black red and his hands were beginning to resemble talons, the nails curving long and ebony.

From across the room Sergeant Orly suddenly cried out and staggered back.

Rake stepped forward, still holding Archer in that excruciating grip. The light emanating from him yellowed and then turned red.

The naga gave a sound that no creature, mortal or immortal, ever gave and lived. There was a horrendous wet ripping sound and chunks of flesh and scales exploded across the room.

Archer flinched, but the bloody shrapnel flew safely past him and Rake, encapsulated as they were behind the barrier of Rake’s power.

The air cleared.

Stilled.

It was over.

He felt the outpouring of Rake’s power slowing, slowing, ebbing…

For a second or two they stood swaying, still linked, in the wreckage of the room. Somewhere out in the hallway, a woman was sobbing. Voices murmured in comfort. Sirens screamed in the distance. Archer heard only Rake’s harsh, heavy breaths.

Abruptly, Rake released him. Archer staggered back, half falling onto a broken display case now tilted on its side. The leather thong holding the syrinx pipes together unraveled and the canes clattered to the marble.

Black-clad Irregular forces poured into the room, weapons raking floor and ceiling, searching for any living remnant of the naga.

“Are you all right?”

Rake’s voice was harsh, not quite human. Archer opened his eyes. He watched Rake struggle for control: eyes still black, and the glimmer of fangs behind his tight lips.

He nodded.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Rake snarled.

“What the hell did it look like I was doing?”

 “Feeding a snake.”

Archer’s anger spiked and then dipped. He laughed. The sound reverberated lightly through the room and a few of the Irregulars automatically laughed behind their dark helmets.

Rake’s expression darkened. His form wavered—then suddenly steadied into human guise as Sergeant Orly reached them.

She and Rake spoke briefly before she turned to Archer. “That was a brave thing,” she told him. “Foolhardy. But brave.” With an expression of distaste, she brushed bits of blasted snake from her uniform. “And unexpectedly civic minded. I don’t know many civilians who would have done what you tried to do. Certainly not among the faeries.”

Archer glared at her, though that was perfectly true. “Had you lot done your jobs properly, I wouldn’t have had to risk the public image of the faerie by displaying any courage whatsoever.”

“That wasn’t meant as an insult.” Her pale eyes narrowed. “And just what are you insinuating?”

“Insinuating? I thought that was plainspoken.”

Rake understood him easily enough. “Bullshit. What you’re suggesting isn’t possible.”

“Says the demon commander employed by the Irregulars.”

Orly sucked in a breath. Rake was still, stiller than the herons of Romney Marsh watching the murky waters for shining fish.

“Hold your tongue,” Orly hissed.

“Not common knowledge, I take it?” Archer asked. He was a little ashamed of himself for letting temper get the better of his discretion, but he refused to let that show.

Rake moved his head in quick negation and Orly cut off whatever else she intended to say.

Barry bustled up. “It’s only fair to inform you, Commander Rake, that I intend to file a complaint at the highest level. Sending a partially exorcised demonic artifact to this institution is an act of criminal negligence. The fact that we had only one fatality today is a miracle.”