The Necromancer (11 page)

The venom burned and left cauterized pits in the fl esh it struck. The men groaned as they wiped the scathing fl uid from their skins.

The Vortung redirected its attention to Eames, still squirming lamely in its grip. It inhaled deeply. Eames felt the oxygen being sucked from the air and from his lungs. He fainted.

It hissed. Blue smoke gushed harshly from its mouth and the nostrils of its snout, baking Eames’s clothes to his skin.

The pain shocked Eames back to awareness. He didn’t scream, although he tried. His throat was too dry and choked.

He had closed his eyes when he saw the smoke again, but it scalded his lids until they burned away like brittle leaves and boiled his eyeballs in their sockets. His skin blackened. He gagged and struggled and twitched.

The Vortung sliced open Eames’s chest with one of its talons and began snapping his ribs apart. Corwin fi red a shot which blew a crater in the demon’s back. It howled again and dropped the corpse it held. Eames hit the ground hard with a thud. His entrails rolled out of his belly, foaming with blood and bile, splintered bones protruding jaggedly from his chest.

The Vortung turned and faced Corwin squarely.

Corwin backed up, frantically attempting to reload. Another shot was fi red, this one by Carter. He had been frozen by fright but now found the courage to act. The shot hit the creature in the head, blowing off one of its tentacles. It screamed, then stormed over to Carter and plunged its fi st into his gut.

Carter grunted and grimaced. The Vortung uncoiled his intestines and dashed them to the ground as they sputtered and belched. Carter’s mouth dropped open as his face ran white. He began to lose consciousness, but before that mercy could be bestowed upon him the Vortung opened its mouth 96

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wide and engulfed Carter’s head whole. Its teeth clamped down, biting into his spine. It shook its head from side to side.

The spine snapped at the top of the neck with a loud “POP”

and the Vortung pulled the head away from the body, allowing the mangled frame to fall to the ground like a large sack of potatoes. Blood spouted up from the veins and arteries of the neck, then subsided.

The Vortung crunched down on the skull, bunching up folds of scalp under its teeth before spitting the head out, smoldering, broken, and deprived of most of its fl esh.

Corwin fi red again; hitting it in the back of the head beside where Carter’s shot had landed. Another tentacle fell off, bleeding blackly. The Vortung turned on him again. It was sluggish now, its wounds beginning to affect its equilibrium.

It let out a tremendous cry, then charged at Corwin. Corwin dropped his gun and torch, and ran.

Parris crawled over toward Carter’s body and picked up the dead man’s pistol.

Corwin fl ed into the woods, the Vortung fast on his heels.

Parris loaded the pistol, then rose to his feet and ran after them.

The woods were strangely quiet. Parris couldn’t hear Corwin or the demon that chased him. Although it was well past seven o’clock in the evening, the sounds of wildlife that would normally be heard were mysteriously absent.

Parris sweated. He could hear his heart thumping against the inside of his chest like a condemned prisoner behind the bars of his ribs, clamoring for release. He was afraid its release would come. For a moment, he pictured his heart bursting through his chest, still palpitating as it plopped on the ground.

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He shuddered.

The image was the product of a mind poisoned by the trauma of witnessing similar grotesqueries. It was the product of what that thing had done to those men.

Everything was calm now, and he prayed that it would remain so. But there was a nervous tension building up in the pit of his stomach, not unlike that which he sometimes felt just prior to a thunderstorm. He looked up at the sky. It was as clear as it was fi fteen minutes ago when he fi rst rode up to meet Hathorne and the others in front of Blayne’s house. They had had all the rain they were going to get earlier that day. The rest of the night would probably be clear.

It had been a good fi ve minutes now since Corwin disappeared into the woods with the Vortung chasing him.

Had he been killed? What if he had been? What if that demon caught up to him, slew him like it did the others, and proceeded toward rest of the village? Of course it was hurt, but it was still incredibly strong despite its injuries and had still managed to kill a man since receiving them. If it reached the village... He couldn’t allow that to happen. His family would be in jeopardy. It had been hard enough for him to see what was still happening to Elizabeth and Abigail, whose fi ts were less frequent and intense now, but still present. But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let that thing storm into the village and take their lives and the lives of the other villagers.

He didn’t know if he’d be able to kill the Vortung, but he had to try.

He started to run, looking everywhere for Corwin and the Vortung, thinking that if it could be injured; it could be killed.

He thought of Tituba. Was this the path she had fl ed down back in December when she witnessed Mary Hobbs’s murder at the hands of Blayne? It didn’t matter. He had to fi nd 98

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the Vortung. He had to kill it and send it back to the murky depths from which it originated.

A stitch jabbed him sharply in the side. His lungs burned. The sound of the beating of his heart pounded in his head. It had been a long time since he had had a run like this.

Out of breath, he stopped and stooped over, resting the hand with the pistol on his knee while his free hand held his side where the stitch stabbed him.

Sweat poured from his brow now. A few droplets

found their ways to his eyes, stinging them. He removed the hand from his knee and wiped one eye, then the other, with his back of his index fi nger, still holding the pistol.

He looked up as he continued to catch his breath.

It was there, standing no more than twenty feet before him. Parris stopped breathing. It remained silent and didn’t move. Parris stared at it stupidly, not sure what he should do. It was almost surreal. There was no arguing against the irrationality of this thing’s existence. But it was real. It had killed four men.

A sick, watery heat rolled up the back of Parris’s neck into his head.

“Shoot it! Shoot it!”

The Vortung turned left toward Corwin and roared.

Parris raised the pistol and leveled it at the creature’s head.

“Fire!” Corwin shouted. “Fire!”

Parris pulled the trigger.

The shot ripped through its face, turning it black with its blood, and it fell twitching to the ground.

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It stirred. Corwin ran over to the Vortung with his sword and hacked its skull several times with lust and fury until he had cleaved it open and the wormy innards of its brains bled onto the moist black soil.

Corwin stood there a moment holding his dirtied

sword, then moved away from the body and sat down on the trunk of a fallen maple tree. He sat there a couple minutes breathing heavily with his elbows resting on his knees, staring at the mutilated thing. After a while he looked up at Parris, who hadn’t moved.

“This is but the beginning,” Corwin huffed. “Is it not, Sam?”

“That it is,” Parris replied sadly. “Yes. That it is.”

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Roger Harrington’s Journal—

9 April—It has been more than one fortnight since I have seen Susanna. Reverend Parris and Judge Corwin paid me a visit the eve Blayne spirited her away from Salem Prison and told me of Blayne’s traffick with the Devil and his desire to see Susanna freed. This information is cause of a great distress unto me, more so now that Martha is ill. A gathering of men on horseback have been searching the wood for Blayne and Susanna, but as of yet have failed to discover their whereabouts. It was my wish to join in the search, but my immediate concern is for Martha, O Lord, please do not take her from me. It is with sincere endeavor and unwavering faith in the Lord that I continue to beseech Him through prayer and hardship to see my family through these most grievous events, that they may come to pass with mercy and love from He who is all powerful and all merciful, our beloved God Almighty. I pray, dear God, look after my sweet Phoebe’s spirit and guide her in Your way, and have mercy on us of the living, Your faithful servants, that we may continue to pay You homage and worship.

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Ambrose rode north toward Portsmouth, Jessica riding on one horse, Susanna riding pillion on his. His dog, Anster—a gray husky—ambled beside them. They had been riding all day since late that morning when Ambrose and Susanna fi rst left the prison, and now they were fi nally at the house Ambrose often retired to whenever he felt the need to be alone.

Susanna had been in no position to question him

about her release from prison—she was just grateful to be free—but when he denied her request to stop home and see her parents, she grew suspicious.

“No,” he had said. “There is time enough for you to visit your mother and father. I would like for you to come with me. There is something wondrous I wish for you to see.”

Susanna consented silently, with some reluctance. She felt indebted to him for freeing her and thought it would be thankless for her to object.

They stopped before the large bramble-fl anked house.

Ambrose would often come up here to meditate or perform some ancient ritual the profane should not see. This place was much more isolated than the cottage he owned in Salem Village. It had to be. There were conjurations to be made, demons to be summoned, dead to be resurrected. These operations required solitude and communion with nature.

They couldn’t be held indoors, although there were rituals that could—and some that must—be concealed from even the open air. But it was only in the bosom of nature that the majority of his powers could seek full reign and reach complete fruition.

Susanna knew nothing of these things, and she

knew nothing of her reasons for being here. What was it that Reverend Blayne so much wanted her to see? Did he have 102

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some ulterior motive for bringing her here? She didn’t think so.

After all, he was a minister, and therefore beyond reproach.

Ambrose stepped down from the horse and looked

the building over. Everything still seemed intact.

“We shall stay here for a time,” he said, helping Susanna down. Her face was fl ushed as if she were overheated or embarrassed about something. It wasn’t a very warm night, and she hadn’t exerted herself, so Ambrose determined that it was the latter. But what did she have to be embarrassed about?

“Are you well, Susanna?” Jessica asked with a wicked smirk.

“I am,” Susanna replied. She sensed that Jessica knew what had happened and was toying with her.

“Good,” Jessica said. “It would be most distressing if you were to take ill.” This, Susanna concluded, was said partly for Ambrose’s benefi t, but mostly meant as another jab of sarcasm. Jessica hadn’t behaved warmly toward her since they fi rst met, and it was obvious the reason was because she felt threatened.

Susanna did fi nd herself attracted to Ambrose, but she knew he was married to Jessica, or at least she thought she knew. That subject was never broached, but the notion of the reverend maintaining a concubine was unthinkable. Jessica should have no reason to feel threatened. Susanna wasn’t going to become involved with a married man no matter how desirable he was or how much she now ached to be with him.

But where her mind and morality succeeded in

maintaining her confi dence, her body had betrayed it. She was wet down there, in that forbidden place reserved only for the man she would someday wed. She had never held a man in her arms before other than her father; never felt a man’s body close to hers. The long ride through the woods 103

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with her legs astride the trunk of the beast she rode and her breasts pressed against Ambrose’s back had made her feel a way she wasn’t accustomed to. The rhythmic bouncing up and down in the saddle as the horse’s hooves pounded into the moistened earth had furthered her excitement. She knew what was happening but had no power to stop it, didn’t know if she wanted it stopped, and was afraid to tell the reverend for fear of angering him, or worse...alienating him.

She had noticed Jessica glancing at them from time to time during the journey and hoped she hadn’t witnessed those many times when the sensations aroused in her were so overwhelming she had to bite her own lip and cringe to keep from crying out in breathless whimpers of pleasure. What would Jessica do if she had? Say nothing and curse her silently?

Tell Ambrose? Worse?

Finally, she allowed herself to relax somewhat. The fl ush in her cheeks faded. There was nothing she could do if Jessica knew about her naughty little secret, and she dismissed her fears of what Ambrose’s reaction might be if Jessica told him. She would simply have to deal with that situation if and when it arose.

Ambrose secured the horses, and they entered the house with what few belongings they brought with them.

It was musty inside, but that was to be expected. It wasn’t used very often, and when it was, it was usually just for a few days. After that, Ambrose would be rejuvenated in body, mind, and spirit, and he would ride back to Salem Village to continue his work.

“How long shall we stay here?” Susanna asked as

Jessica lit one of the lamps.

There was a prolonged silence. Susanna, then Jessica, looked over at Ambrose. His gaze was fi xed pensively at a far 104

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corner of the room, as if absorbed in the contemplation of some mammoth problem.

“Reverend?” Susanna pressed weakly.

He blinked and turned toward her.