Night of Demons - 02 (27 page)

The memory kept on slamming at her. Yet another one from her unhappy past. And why, at a time like this, did she keep thinking about a very different evening from so many years ago?

They’d disabled the alarm first. It had taken them a good while, after that, to prize open the metal door. But finally they’d got it hanging loosely from its hinges. Viper, Slam, and Vixen clustered around the opening, behind her. And her boyfriend these last two years, Rooster, shone his flashlight inside…

Cassie had not headed west, like any of the others who had changed. After all, she’d not been beaten. Not been turned to vapor. She was still in silhouette, her wings folded behind her. Perhaps out of instinct, she had flown back to her own neighborhood, although she had not gone home.

At the top of East Meadow, almost at the border with the commercial district, lay the sprawling expanse of Greenlea Cemetery. Half the town was buried here. There were headstones going back the whole way to the seventeen hundreds. And they looked it too, badly weathered, mossy, patched with lichen. The names on a lot of them could barely be read.

The ground was not flat anywhere around these parts. It continually rose and dipped, and was covered in a mass of tangled shadow. There was moisture in the hollows, nettles in the damp places as well.

Cass stumbled among the markers like an angry drunk. Waves of pain and fury kept on rushing through her, although she wasn’t even certain what was causing them anymore. Confusion was creating violent eddies in her mind. She was not sure what she was doing, where she’d been or how she’d gotten here.

But however much her memory had broken up, she couldn’t shake that solitary, insistent one. Her last night with the motorcycle gang. It kept on flooding back.

“Sweet!” Rooster whispered, grinning at her.

They were at the rear of a small clinic not far from their usual bar. Their bikes were parked in a nearby alley, hidden out of sight. Bringing them here would have made too much noise. But they were smirking now, delighted with themselves. Because the flashlight’s beam was sweeping across rows of shelving with jars lined up on it. Some of them were translucent—you could make out the shape of pills and capsules stacked inside.

“Here’s the really good stuff,” Rooster murmured. “Booze and weed? That’s for kids. This is where the real fun starts. Like stepping off a cliff, not knowing where the bottom is.”

And she wasn’t sure about this. In fact, she felt pretty nervous. Cassie had a fairly good idea what drugs this strong could do to people. And they were addictive, weren’t they? But ever since she’d joined the gang, she’d fallen in with their plans unfailingly, whatever her personal misgivings.

So she did that this time. She smiled wider and said, “I can’t wait.”

Despite the pleasure on their faces, they were hanging back uncertainly. There was still one question hanging on the air between them. Which of them was going to go in first? Cassie understood that—if she did it—she’d gain even more respect from them.

Something inside her badly needed that. So she drew herself up straight, then went in through the doorway.

Her life would change completely from this point, she knew. Except she had no real way of telling how…

Her surroundings came back. She’d been stumbling blindly, her boots catching on the longer strands of grass. Why this particular recollection? Why tonight? It made her even angrier.

A life-sized marble angel loomed up directly in front of her, its face partly smoothed out by a century of New England weather. Its expression had become mild and bland because of that. But its pale stone eyes seemed to gaze at her accusingly.

Cass let out a howl of rage, and swung at it with her right arm. There was still no fist on the end of it, however. And the barrel of her Mossberg connected instead. The head of the statue shattered like a gourd. She watched the pieces fall. And then she was pressing on again, the scene from the past still grinding at her.

Once she’d reached the shelves, she stopped. She had hold of the flashlight, by this time. She squinted at the labels ranked in front of her then, without turning, whispered to the others.

“Hey, guys? All this stuff has really weird, long names.”

But nobody answered her. So maybe they’d not been expecting that.

She wet her lips. “Which ones do we want exactly? Guys?”

She turned around…

She did the same in the cemetery, present and past becoming fused. Then she kept on lurching past the headstones. They were every shape and size, great rows of them, punctuated by the occasional small tree. The lopsided symmetry of it confused her.

It was like she couldn’t stop. As if the only thing that she could do was keep on moving, while the thoughts in her head went rushing back. The graves went by in a haze, a multitude of carved inscriptions passing across her gaze. These had all been people, once. But now they were here, reduced to memories themselves, if even that. She was alone, and became horribly aware of that.

Why was that one evening so important? She didn’t understand it in the least bit. Her head pounded furiously, and her eyes felt weird and sore. She wanted to rub them, and clutch at her temples. But her hands were still missing. There were only the steel weapons. So, in spite of the new power she had, she felt pretty helpless.

Tremors ran up through her body, almost as if she was going to explode.

When she looked back at the doorway, there was nobody in sight. None of the gang was watching her any longer, not even Rooster. And she couldn’t hear a sound outside.

She realized there was something wrong, her voice remaining at a harsh, low whisper.

“Guys?”

There was still no response.

She dropped to a slight crouch. Her hand went to her back pocket, and came out clutching a knife handle. The blade dropped out when she jerked it, six inches long with a serrated edge. The rubberized grip felt damp in her palm. Cass edged slowly forward.

The primal senses that she’d honed over the last couple of years were reaching out, trying to get a feel for what was happening. But she still couldn’t tell what was waiting for her in the alley. Maybe this was just a prank, the others doing this to spook her.

She reached the doorway, paused for breath. Then, when she still heard nothing, she went slowly out. The knife preceded her.

A hand appeared and closed around her wrist, yanking her violently the rest of the way into the open. She got a brief impression of a dark blue uniform, the metallic flash of a badge.

Dammit! She tried to wrest her arm free, but the man was stronger than she. He pressed his thumb down hard on her wrist. Pain flared through it and her hand opened involuntarily. The blade dropped away.

Cassie tried to fight back all the same. Tried to lash at him with her free fist, and kick him at the same time. But suddenly, he was applying a different kind of pressure, twisting her around. And before she knew it, she was in a rigid armlock.

“Let me go!”

His only response was to start pushing her back to the opening of the alley. She let out a stream of curses.

“Heard it all before, kid,” said the soft voice behind her. “Call me names till Sunday next, and it won’t change a thing.”

His car was waiting by the curb. The rear seats were caged off. And right here was the thing she’d always genuinely feared. She was going to be locked away, and that thought petrified her.

Cassie squirmed and struggled, but could not break the patrolman’s grip.

When he took her up to the passenger side, though, she stopped and went slack with amazement. He wasn’t putting her in the back after all.

The cop pulled the door open, started guiding her inside.

She finally looked around at him. He was tall and muscular with big wide shoulders. His light brown hair was cropped very short. He had to be in his midforties, deep lines on his solid face. And he was wearing dark glasses, even at this hour of the night. Like he preferred to keep his eyes hidden at all times, giving away little to the outside world.

“Get in and sit still, young lady,” he told her. “We need to have a serious talk.”

She’d gone another distance through the cemetery without even knowing it. When her surroundings came back this time, she was in among the small copse of lime trees at the very center of the grounds. They rustled as she passed between them, their branches casting striped shadows across her. She was panting heavily, and felt off balance. Tried to grab hold of a nearby trunk. But was reminded, again, that she no longer had fingers.

She felt like she’d run a marathon, when the only thing she’d really done was walk across some open ground. It wasn’t effort making her this way. It was the turmoil going on inside her.

The edge of one wing snagged on a low branch. It yanked her to the side, practically making her stumble. She righted herself and pulled at it furiously. There was a rip as it came free, but no pain she could feel.

She couldn’t seem to block out the confusion churning through her mind. Felt like she was drowning in a storm of violent emotion. She’d never known anything quite like this since the first few days after her kids had disappeared.

Then something flashed, without any warning, on the edge of her surroundings. When she looked in that direction, she could see that it was a bright point of light, a good long way away. It had just passed by the cemetery walls. And kept on flashing as it moved toward her. It was bright blue. So Cassie thought at first that it might be some kind of beacon on a vehicle.

But no—it was moving unimpeded through the tightly clustered headstones. And so that couldn’t be right.

She straightened up as it approached her, wondering what this was about.

As the light got closer, she could see that it was floating, about six feet off the ground. And was rotating too.

And when she finally realized what it was, Cass cringed back with terror.

A small shape was approaching her.

The Little Girl.

Lying immobile in his bed, all hooked up to tubes and wires, Saul Hobart reminded me of Gulliver tied up by the Lilliputians. And it wasn’t just his size. This was a man of massive spirit, although he kept it hidden most of the time. Which only made the sight of him this way harder to bear.

A monitor was beeping by his side, lights flickering on it. They had moved him into a private room, dimmer lit than the corridor we’d been in. Everyone else had filtered away by this hour. Willets, I knew, was still in the ER. I had persuaded him to stick around a while and help. Most of the injured—unfortunately—were too scared of the man to let him near them. But a few had accepted his assistance, out of desperation more than anything else. He seemed to understand their feelings, and had tended to them gently and solicitously, his normal abruptness gone. And I felt good about that. He needed to be back among the human race.

The only people with Saul now were me and Lauren, and his direct family.

Amelia was on a chair beside him, with their youngest daughter still in her lap. She was rubbing gently at his knuckles, and gazing at his face like he was simply sleeping. The two older girls were standing by the side of the bed and taking turns to nudge him.

“What’s Daddy doing there?” the four-year-old asked. “It’s too early.”

They couldn’t really figure what was happening, in other words. And maybe that was for the best.

Me and Lauren stuck around a few minutes longer, but were forced to make our own excuses in the end. We both felt guilty about that. But there were still plenty of battles raging, and an enemy to be faced down. And we weren’t going to do that hanging around here all night.

“Any idea what we do now?” she asked me wearily, as we went out.

We were heading down a corridor in the direction of the car park at the rear, the clamor of the emergency room finally behind us. There was an odor like formaldehyde on the air, and a ringing sound as our footsteps echoed. That’s the thing about hospitals. Parts of them are far too busy. Other parts are far too quiet.

“I’ve been giving it some thought,” I told her.

Which was not entirely true. My thoughts had been focused elsewhere for the past couple of hours. But a plan can form without your even knowing it. The human mind can churn notions around pretty well under its own steam.

“And…?”

I was recalling earlier this evening. That dragon on Exeter Close, and how it had been overcome.

We emerged into the open, and there was no fighting visible from here. The clouds had melted away again almost entirely. The stars were very bright, above. The shadows of the forest out beyond the edge of town were visible. Which must have brought back nasty recent memories for Lauren, but she didn’t show it.

The air was very fresh and clean, and smelled of the approaching fall. We’d taken precautions against house fires this evening, at least.

“I think another trip to Sycamore Hill is called for.”

“Okay.”

But she said it without enthusiasm, and I could understand what that was about.

“Some of the people up there are a lot better than you’d imagine,” I told her. “Get your car and follow me.”

Martha Howard-Brett’s house was one of the first you reached beyond the first wide stretch of open ground, if you ascended the hill by way of Plymouth Avenue. It was nothing like her family’s grand, palatial mansion up near Gaspar Vernon’s place. She’d moved out of there when she’d been nineteen. And was already, by that age, a far subtler and more clever adept than they’d ever be.

There’d been conflict between them, I was pretty sure. The rest of her clan were a pretty snobbish, disingenuous bunch. The women were attractive, and she’d certainly inherited that. But Martha was remarkable for more than simply her looks. She was a spirited individual in her own relaxed and gentle way. And she got on with plain anyone, from the most aristocratic to the lowest.

Some of that was obvious from the place where she lived. It was remarkable, on Sycamore Hill, for being one of the few wood-built homes remaining. Almost all the rest of the houses up here had been rebuilt in brick or stone. But her place looked like a larger version of my own, except that it was on two stories and with dormer windows in the roof, a low fence around the whole structure.

Maybe she was still away helping the townsfolk. There were no lights visible, at least not out front. But then, as I walked down the garden path, a glow sprang up behind the frosted glass pane in the door and it swung open. Martha’s shapely figure was framed there in silhouette.

My step faltered and I stared at her, feeling a twinge of apprehension. Had she changed as well? But then her face tilted a few degrees, and light washed across it. She looked normal, and was smiling. And it wasn’t just her mouth. It was her eyes as well.

“I sensed that you were on the way,” she told me. “That’s why I came back here. And you have a plan? Lord knows, Ross, we need one.”

Not that she could read minds, the way the more powerful denizens of this town could. But she’s massively intuitive, and usually picks up on stuff like that. She’d probably got it off my bearing and expression.

She greeted Lauren warmly, and then ushered us both through into her living room. You’d have expected a preponderance of fancy decor, damask, silk, and lace, but there was none of that. The place was prettily but simply furnished, floral scatter-cushions on the chairs and couch. Delicate porcelain figurines on the mantelpiece. A small fire was burning in the grate beneath them. It had to have been lit because she liked the way it looked, since there was no need for it at this time of year.

In fact the flames, as I got closer, seemed to cast not the slightest particle of heat. I’d come across magic like that before, and it didn’t surprise me too much. The lights in here had been turned down. But, as I’ve already pointed out, sorcery and shadows cling together. The only thing that you can ever do is hope that your eyes properly adjust, so you can see what’s really going on around you.

The paintings on the walls were by local artists, exactly like my place. And there was a large bowl on a plain round table in the corner, with a pair of tiny bug-eyed goldfish swimming around in it. Maybe they imagined they were trapped there by a curse as well.

The smell of recent cooking was still wafting from the kitchen. She’d been doing something with cinnamon and ginger. I could see a row of copper pans in there, and a long rack of spices.

Her hospitality was impeccable, as usual. She didn’t take too long over it, realizing how serious the situation was. But she got us both sat down comfortably and offered us a drink. And then, when we declined it, took a tall chair facing us, crossing her legs neatly, folding her hands in her lap.

Sitting down, she had the bearing of someone riding a show horse. It was all part of the way she looked.

She listened intently as I outlined my idea. And when I produced the Thieftaker from my pocket, her nose screwed up a little and her mild gaze narrowed.

“I haven’t seen one of those in quite a while,” she said.

“But you can use one, right?”

She gave a brisk, stiff nod.

She didn’t feel entirely comfortable—and I understood that—using a device that was not her own. Such things often carry the peculiar vibrations of their owners with them, and can throw you all kinds of unexpected curves. So she knew what the risks were. But she would do it for the town’s sake.

It wouldn’t work on Millicent, she went on to explain. Ms. Tollburn was the wand’s rightful owner, and nothing could change that fact. But Hanlon was still vulnerable. The two had merged into a single entity…so drawing him to us would, doubtless, bring them both.

Then I went on to ask her about the way she had changed shape this evening.

“Can you do the same to someone else?”

An alarmed gleam sparked up in her eyes, but she stayed motionless.

“You mean yourself?”

I stared back at her and nodded.

“But I thought you hated magic, Ross?”

And was not even supposed to use it—Amashta had told me that. But magic could be used on me, by a third party. I could be a conduit for it. That had happened before.

So I carefully explained to Martha what I wanted her to do.