Midnight's Angels - 03 (8 page)

I chanced another glance at her. Cassie’s head had dropped, and she studied her knees for a while.

“Whoa,” she murmured finally. “For the strong and silent type, you’re certainly talkative this morning.”

Then she peered at me again and asked, “Okay, what’s happening?”

I went away from her some half an hour later with the promise that she’d think about it echoing between my ears.

Einstein was of the opinion that time is relative, dependent on our own perception. What he failed to mention was that perceived time can really suck. The fact was, we had until nightfall -- if Willets was right -- until the angel things came back again. And the daylight hours were getting chewed up like a pet dog eating its family’s breakfast bacon.

One of the most difficult questions was how to persuade the general public to keep their lights on throughout the night without spreading panic too early. During the lunchtime news on RLKB, Marlon Fisk, the town’s roving reporter, made some guff up about ‘power surges’ and urged everybody to cooperate. Which only jammed up the switchboard with people complaining.

“Are you guys offering to pay our utility bills?”

Folks in a provincial town like ours like to watch their pennies.

“Tell them the truth, goddamit,” Ritchie Vallencourt kept urging.

And he had a point, since the truth would -- without doubt -- make itself apparent soon enough.

That sparked a whole new conversation. We’d re-gathered in Judge Levin’s study, which had turned into our base of operations by this hour. The way that it was fitted out -- the shelves of books and the expensive prints, the collections of scrimshaw in the cabinets -- gave the place the air of an exclusive clubroom. Which, when you looked around at its current occupants, was appropriate.

Gaspar Vernon had shown up, in a far more subdued mood than usual. The McGinley sisters were here too, and Kurt van Friesling and Cobb Walters. Martha Howard-Brett had arrived. And I was pleased to see that, not only because I liked her. Her help had proved invaluable, the last time we’d been facing danger. She was talking to Willets who -- unusually for a man so reclusive -- had opted to stick around.

His manner had become casual and rather friendly. He had a thumb tucked under his chin as he spoke, and seemed to have forgotten that he was usually a solitary crank. Maybe it was simply the effect that Martha had on people. But it looked to me like he was easing himself back into the fabric of the normal world.

The judge was behind his desk. Fully dressed by this time, he’d taken off his jacket, rolled his shirtsleeves up, and was puffing on one of those big cigars he liked. A layer of blue haze cut across the air in the room. And if anybody minded that, they kept it to themselves. This was his home. We were his guests here.

He leant forward, managing to draw Willets’s attention away from Martha’s lovely face.

“I still can’t figure,” he asked, “why you’re the only person here who can sense these things and understand what they’re doing.”

The happy expression vanished from the doctor’s features, and he went back to looking strained and pensive. We watched as he tried to sort his thoughts out.

“I’ve been a long while living in the dark,” he answered. “And’ve had very little to do with my time but let my mind and senses wander. Maybe that has strengthened them, like doing mental push-ups. I’ve learned an awful lot about the dark side of the Universe, these past few years. It holds few surprises for me. So perhaps I’ve simply gotten attuned.”

He didn’t sound the least bit pleased about that, and I couldn’t blame him. There were some things in this life that you ought not get used to. Martha reached out, touched his sleeve, and he did not flinch away from her.

“But what’s brought these things here? To the Landing especially?”

The doctor slowly closed his eyes, and I could see he was still probing.

“They’ve been on the move ever since the Dweller was driven away. Have been visiting different galaxies and different worlds, and extinguishing light and life everywhere they find it. Trying to recreate the Void, in fact. We haven’t seen them at their strongest yet. I get this feeling that … the longer they stay in a place, the more they take control of it. They might even develop new powers to help them achieve their goals.”

Willets paused, his dark brow creasing.

“As to why Raine’s Landing specifically, out of all the places in this world? Haven’t any of you noticed yet? When I first arrived in this town, there were supernatural attacks for sure. But not so dramatic, and not nearly so frequently. Yet in the past six months, we’ve had Saruak, then the Shadow Man, then this. And do you think it’s mere coincidence?”

His eyelids drifted apart, the pupils gleaming. Then he peered around at us, trying to see if we had got his drift.

“This town’s becoming like a kind of magnet for the evil things out in the darkness. Don’t you see? There’s some kind of convergence going on. And it’s speeding up and getting worse.”

Which made me think about the ancient shaman woman who had visited me -- Amashta -- and her talk of matters prophesied. But I kept my attention on the here and now, still gazing at the doctor.

“To be frank,” he added, “I’m not sure I want to be here when it comes to a conclusion.”

* * *

The whole group of us were outside a few hours later. We had spent most of the afternoon trying to come up with a workable plan. The daylight was failing, bleeding off to leave us with the hollow gray of twilight. We walked to a point on Sycamore Hill from which we could see most of the town.

The streetlights were coming on a little earlier than usual, courtesy of our power company. Push-comes-to-shove time was on its way, and Ritchie Vallencourt in particular knew it. He was talking almost constantly on his cell phone.

“The gods damn it!” Gaspar Vernon snapped. The fringe of his moustache was stained with wine, just like the last time that I’d met him, and I wondered if he had a problem. “I can see plenty of houses with their lights switched
off
!”

I glanced at my watch.

“A lot of people won’t be back from work yet,” I told him.

And what might be waiting for them when they arrived back home? Vallencourt had probably been right. Maybe we should have outlined the whole situation from the get go.

I gazed west with a heavy heart. Beyond the mass of dense autumnal forest that surrounds the town, only the top edge of the sun was still in view. It had turned red as a cherry. Then it vanished completely.

The clouds off in that direction turned a heavy shade of crimson. And the shadows around us deepened.

The Landing was glittering more brightly than it usually did. Sparkling like a big static firework display in the cooling evening air. In spite of Gaspar Vernon’s retort, a lot of folk had done as they’d been asked. And there were moving lights as well, headlamps drifting along the major avenues. This was how big cities had to look, when viewed from a distance. I could only guess at that, but hoped I’d got it accurately.

Hell, my mind was wandering again. Shying away from what was happening. Which was understandable, but I dug my fingernails into my palms.

Ritchie’s cell emitted its sharp ring-tone once again. I was standing close to him, could hear the voice emerging from it. And I recognized Harrison Whitby, who had returned to his post on Cartland after a short break.

“We’ve finally got movement, sir!”

But he couldn’t have been talking about the movement we were seeing. Because, right over on the eastern edge of town -- where the meteors had originally landed -- two glowing specks of flickering light suddenly appeared. They rose slightly above the rooftops, re-entering our town from the forest. Then they started moving inward, at a good hard speed.

They weren’t heading for Cartland Street, opting instead to head across the southern suburbs. And there was no way of making out, from this distance, exactly what was going on down there. So precisely what kind of movement was Harrison referring to?

I got a terrible tight feeling in my gut, one I was familiar with. The kind that comes when you take in the fact that the ordure has already hit the fan. Everything seemed to be happening at once.

Ritchie started shouting on his cell phone, but to no effect. It seemed to have gone dead. The sorcerers around me had tensed up and were looking imperious. Almost like they’d swelled a little in the dimness, their faces becoming very prominent. Their eyes had taken on a slightly lambent glow. They were getting ready to do battle. I’d already seen what that could lead to.

“Where the hell’s the third one?” I heard Lehman Willets mutter.

Which was a good point. Only two of our new visitors had shown themselves. I supposed they were the same ones who had tried to get at him in the abandoned building.

The third, the one that had presumably been roaming around town, hadn’t appeared. I wondered where it was. What was going on right at this moment seemed pretty disorganized. Was that the case, or did these ‘angels’ have a plan?

We were going to have to split up. That much was obvious. I turned around to point that out. But events had gotten ahead of me.

Levin and his closest colleagues were no longer on the hill’s crest. They’d turned themselves into rolling, churning balls of darkened smoke, and were hurtling off in the direction of the two approaching spots of brightness. Which left myself, Ritchie, Martha Howard-Brett, and Lehman Willets. Vallencourt looked anxious to get going. Let’s face it, something might have happened to his men.

I thought of heading for my car. But there were quicker ways to travel.

“Ross?”

Martha held out a slender hand. I’d been in this kind of situation before, knew what was involved, and took it. Then she beckoned Vallencourt to do the same. She nodded to the doctor.

“Ready?”

We were transformed to swiftly moving blurs. I knew that, but it didn’t feel like that from the inside. More like everything around us had become completely insubstantial. Like the real world hadn’t stopped exactly, but had taken on the same form as a rather shapeless dream.

It wasn’t anything that you’d call pleasant.

And you still don’t understand why I hate magic?

* * *

When everything came back, we were on Cartland Street. The only thing odd was it looked a good deal darker than it should have been. Darker than the rest of town. Not a single one of the streetlamps was on. And there was not the flicker of so much as the dimmest bulb from any of the surrounding windows. Which immediately set my nerves jangling. This wasn’t right. The place looked like the neighborhood from hell, everything around us rendered down to murky silhouettes.

Two things became apparent as our eyes adjusted. The front door of the house that Ritchie’s people had been guarding was hanging wide open. And, although there were still patrol cars in evidence, the uniformed men who’d arrived in them were no longer in sight. My gaze swept through the dimness.

Willets tapped me on the shoulder, bringing my attention around. He was pointing to a pole by the curb, one which carried power lines. There was some kind of junction box up there. The thing had been broken open, and was smoldering gently. So this street hadn’t become dark by chance. It had been intentional.

I slid a hand into my coat pocket, closing it over my revolver.

Something rustled in a nearby tree.

We looked at it as the leaves began to shift. There seemed to be something large and heavy on the move up there. The longest branches almost reached above our heads, so we took a quick step back.

A face emerged from the dense mass of fading, curling greenery. It didn’t have its uniform cap on any longer, but was instantly recognizable. The gray moustache. The hollow cheeks.

“Harrison?” Ritchie yelled out.

I knew this old-timer too. And what the hell was the guy doing the whole way up there?

He started moving closer to us. Seemed to be managing it easily, despite the fact that he was clinging to a single narrow branch. You’d need the balance of a tightrope walker to do something like that. Harrison was too old. I tried to figure out what I was really looking at.

Then his mouth started coming open, revealing a pit of utter blackness. I began to see the kind of trouble we were in.

He was tensing. And then leapt at us in the next moment. I started pulling my gun out. Would have been too late.

Lehman Willets raised a hand, his palm held flat. A flash of brilliant red shot out. It wrapped itself around the figure, chewing into its outline while it was still sailing through the air.

Its form started breaking up, fissures of red appearing through it. And the whole thing vanished just before it reached us.

Ritchie’s mouth came open in protest. But it turned out there wasn’t even time for that. Because another huddled shape came peeling down the tree trunk the next instant, hurtling across the ground. It was Lee Drake. I had my gun out, but felt so nerveless that I couldn’t even aim.

Martha Howard-Brett raised both her palms and did the same as Willets had. With the exception that the flash was shining gold this time. I felt my breath stop in my throat. The two cops hadn’t merely been spirited away. If I’d gotten this right, they had been atomized.

Willets stared across at Vallencourt, who was aghast.

“I’m very sorry,” he murmured. “I know they were your people, but they just weren’t human anymore.”

There were more stirrings of movement coming to our ears by this time. And they were emerging from the open doorway of the house.

Shapes began to appear at its edges. Some of them were as large as the cops. But there were smaller figures, apparently children, in among them. Not hanging back either. Not timid or subservient in any way. They were moving into view as boldly as the adults. And there was something rather feral about the way they moved.

I felt my insides drop. This was an entire family. And  I had no idea how to react.

Martha’s lovely face became as blank and stiff as plastic. As for Willets, the creases on his forehead deepened, and his pupils glowed a duller red. I knew exactly what was going through
his
mind. Back when he’d gone crazy, it hadn’t been children this young who had died. But young people all the same. Snuffing out
any
life before it had been fully lived … I wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to do that.

“Might be best if we get out of here,” Ritchie suggested.

So his frame of mind was pretty much the same.

“How about the other people on this street?” I pointed out.

We had no idea what had happened to them. Nothing else was on the move, in any of the other homes. The doors were shut, the windows bottomlessly black.

My gaze returned with a sickly jolt. One of the kids had come fully outside and was scuttling up the front wall of that first house like a spider. And another one was hanging upside down from the lintel. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, at first. But then I saw the truth.

These people were not part of our world any longer. They were under the spell of this Dweller. And it belonged to a dimension where there was no space or gravity. So maybe that explained it.

Their emotionless eyes were all fixed on us. It was like being stared at by mannequins who’d learned to walk around. No life in there, and no humanity. They gleamed coldly, but reflected nothing.

And then their lips began coming apart, the exact same way the cops’ had.

I had no doubt they were going to rush us. It was either slaughter a whole family or fall back.

But I wasn’t looking at this thing the way an adept might.

“A Spell of Sealing!” Willets shouted.

And he was not shouting at me. Martha nodded, and they quickly faced each other. Held their arms out at full stretch, both of them mouthing the same string of words.

They flung their hands in the direction of the house. A huge bubble came into being around it. A curved, glistening translucence on the air. The family beyond it looked distorted, weirdly magnified.

One of the children on the wall leapt down and came bounding at us. But when it hit the bubble’s edge, it bounced back with a low, percussive thud. It tried again, to the same effect -- it didn’t seem to be hurting itself, so the barrier was not rock solid. Then it hunkered down on the far side, glaring at us with open frustration.

“That should hold them for a while,” Willets informed us. “Although I doubt the same spell will be of any use on those damned angels.”

“We’d better go,” Martha added, reaching out for me and Ritchie. And neither of us needed asking twice. Seeing kids transformed that way … it was a pretty awful spectacle. One I knew would haunt me in my nightmares. We both took hold of the woman’s slender fingers.

In the same manner that she had brought us down here, Martha spirited us away.

Except that, once the world slowed down again and took on substance, we were not back where we’d started. Or even anywhere near.

I’d expected us to wind up on the same ridge we had started from. And so, by their startled expressions, had the adepts. Martha’s spells were usually fine-tuned and very accurate. But her magic appeared to have gone completely askew.

Or else, somebody had interfered with it.

I started figuring
that
out when the rest of the adepts began popping into view. The McGinley sisters first, closely followed by Judge Levin, Kurt van Friesling, Gaspar Vernon, Walter Cobb. And they peered around alarmedly too, just as surprised as I was. Nobody had planned this, or had even been expecting it.

I recognized where we’d wound up, since I had been here many times before. We
were
on Sycamore Hill, but at the very top. We were standing on a driveway, so heavily overgrown that you could barely make out the original gravel anymore. Tangled, leafless trees surrounded us, forming a canopy over our heads.

When we looked along the drive, we found ourselves staring at the outline of Raine Manor.

A pair of darkly golden eyes was watching us from an otherwise blackened window in the topmost story of the house.

You shouldn’t have been able to see them from this distance.  But when it came to Woodard Raine, words like ‘shouldn’t’ didn’t even enter into the equation.