In the House of the Wicked (4 page)

The magick was killing him.

But it was also keeping him alive.

Algernon Stearns clutched the knife in his hand all the tighter as black spots blossomed before his eyes.

The irony of the situation was not lost to him as he stumbled forward, grabbing hold of one of the child’s spindly legs in an attempt to keep from falling. The boy tried to scream, but the gag in his mouth stopped the sound. His body, hanging upside down from a thick metal hook in the stone ceiling of the basement chamber, began to swing like a pendulum.

Algernon’s old flesh tingled and he sweated profusely beneath his scarlet robes, despite the chill temperatures in the secret room beneath the Spanish castle. He opened his mouth and took in large gulps of air, trying to keep from losing consciousness.

The preparations for the spell had taken more out of him this time than they usually did—another sign that his time was growing short. How many times had he performed this very ritual? A parade of young faces coursed past his mind’s eye, reminding him of those he had sacrificed to extend his life over the past twenty years or so.

And he needed to perform the ritual more frequently.

The dizziness finally passed, and Stearns reached out to steady the struggling child.

“That’ll be enough of that,” he said in the boy’s own tongue, but it did nothing to calm the youth, for he knew that his life would soon be forfeit.

But better the child’s life be extinguished than Stearns’ own. There was much he still desired from the living world, and he meant to have it all.

Stearns gazed down at the circle drawn on the floor beneath the youth’s head, wanting to be certain that the sigils were intact. They had been meticulously drawn in chalk molded from the bones of a Catholic nun impregnated by a demon conjured from the region of the seventh veil. To have even a single line out of place meant certain death for the conjurer.

And this conjuring was all about keeping himself very much alive.

He slid the knife through the belt of his robes and turned toward the altar, where he’d arranged the items he would need. Grabbing the copper bowl, he carefully bent down and placed it in the center of the mystic circle, directly beneath the child’s head. Then he retrieved the ancient tome from its place on the altar, opening to the page that held the spell to prolong his life. He hoped he had enough strength left to see it through.

The old man began to read ancient words of power transcribed when humanity was still very young. The words flowed from his mouth, and the power they carried chipped away at his life force. His eyesight began to blur, and tufts of hair, once a golden yellow, fell from his dry scalp to obscure the arcane words on the page from which he struggled to read.

Every time he performed this spell, Stearns had to wonder if this would be the time he expired before he could finish.

The air was suddenly charged with arcane energies as the last words of the spell slipped from lips numbed by age and weakness. The boy hanging from the ceiling began to spin slowly above the circle, moved by the powers that had answered the sorcerer’s summons.

Stearns let the book fall from his grasp, not having the strength to return it to its place upon the altar. He lurched toward the spinning youth, plucking the sacrificial knife from beneath his belt.

The child spun round and round, and Stearns waited for his opportunity. He had to strike at precisely the right moment, severing the jugular exactly as it presented itself.

To miss would be disastrous.

Through eyes failing by the moment, Stearns watched as the boy’s throat came round once more, the vein that carried the source of life—
his continued life
—pulsing beneath the thin covering of tanned flesh.

And he struck, almost missing the mark, but still managing to puncture the skin and nick the vein. It meant that the child would die more slowly, but Stearns didn’t care, as long as he got what he needed.

Blood poured from the child’s throat into the copper bowl beneath his head. Weakness drove Stearns to his knees upon the cold stone floor as he waited for the bowl to fill, his hands ready to snatch it up.

“Come on,” he growled, surprised by the sound of his own voice, his vocal cords ancient and dry, the image of a mummified corpse struggling to speak filling his fevered thoughts.

He pitched forward, unable to stop himself from falling, but at least still having the dexterity to avoid disturbing the chalk circle. He lay on his side, eyes transfixed by the thread of scarlet raining down from the dying child’s throat.

Maybe it’s enough,
he thought, willing his hands to reach into the circle, but then reminding himself that all the blood must be within the bowl to have any lasting effect on him. Slowly, he withdrew his withered hands.

And still the blood continued to drain.

The vision of red had turned to black, and Stearns did not even realize that he had lost consciousness. He struggled in the pitch darkness, feeling the pull of death upon him and hearing the unfamiliar sound of wings flapping in the chamber around him.

Was this the angel of death arriving at last to claim the prize that had evaded him for so very long?

And then there came the taste of revitalizing blood on his lips.

The warm fluid flowed into his mouth, and Stearns immediately felt its rejuvenating effects—the horrible burning pain as his body began to repair itself.

Stearns gulped the blood; the faster the magically enhanced life stuff entered his system, the quicker he could reclaim the vitality almost permanently leeched from him.

Returning from the brink of death, the old sorcerer finally opened his eyes.

“What madness is this?” he asked at the sight of a small, gargoylelike creature drawing back the nearly empty bowl of blood from his lips.

The creature did not appear to be of flesh but of some kind of stone, and it stared at Stearns with eyes that were no more than pinpricks of light in the craggy makeup of its face.

“What are you?” Stearns asked, more fascinated now than anything else. This strange thing had saved him. But why?

The stone creature lurched toward him, bowl in its three-fingered hands, offering its contents once more. Stearns took it and drained the remainder of the blood in one mighty gulp.

His skin tingled as the cells repaired themselves; the burning on his scalp told him that his blond hair was again starting to grow.

The gargoyle watched intently as Stearns carefully placed the empty bowl on the ground beside him.

“Did someone send you?” he asked the creature, wiping the blood from his lips with the sleeve of his scarlet robe.

He stood easily, the movement sending the beast into the air, fluttering impossibly on wings of stone before landing atop the sorcerer’s altar.

“You must have come here for a reason,” Stearns continued. “Tell me why you have saved my life. Show me why you are here.”

The gargoyle stared silently at him for a moment, then sat down on the altar, wrapping its spindly arms around its knees and opening its mouth.

Stearns watched in awe as the creature’s mouth opened wider and wider still, and then a voice emanated from the darkness within.

A voice shockingly familiar.

“Greetings, Algernon. So happy to be of assistance.”

“Deacon?” Algernon questioned, drawing closer to the creature. “Is that you?”

“It is, my friend,” the voice of Konrad Deacon replied. “It has been too long.”

Deacon spoke the truth. It had indeed been a very long time since Stearns had last seen him, or any other member of their sorcerers’ guild, for that matter. The members of the cabal had become more concerned with pursuits of an individual nature, amassing power and building their own personal empires.

“To what do I owe your timely visit?” Stearns asked.

“I come bearing a gift.” Deacon’s excited voice drifted out from the mouth of the gargoyle. “The gift of life.”

“Life? What do you mean?”

“Exactly that. Life, my brother. More life than you could possibly imagine.”

Stearns was intrigued, for life was something that the sorcerer could always use more of.

In fact, he was quite greedy in his desire of it.

One could say he was insatiable.

The air warped and rippled just above the road outside the New Hampshire Correctional Facility. There was a brief flash of white and the sound of wings beating the air as a rend in the fabric of time and space appeared to disgorge Remy Chandler.

The Seraphim stumbled as he came forth, folding away his appendages of flight as he caught his balance and began to walk.

Remy knew that he’d done the right thing in leaving the young murderer alone with his fear, but a part of him still wasn’t satisfied, and if he’d stayed any longer, Denning would have been dead.

That was what he’d always been wary of, why he’d pushed the angelic essence of the Seraphim deeper and deeper inside himself, locking it away. It had always been wild, always reacting on instinct only.

It was what Remy feared.

What if he continued to think more like an angel? What if the more rational, human side of his dual nature hadn’t won this time?

The urge was still there, like an itch at the center of his spine, taunting him to scratch.

A vibrating sensation from the pocket of his jacket suddenly, thankfully, distracted him from his troubling thoughts, and Remy pulled out his phone and saw that Linda was calling.

He guessed that he would call her his girlfriend, but something still didn’t feel quite right about that. It was odd talking with another woman after having been with Madeline for so long; even odder to know that he was beginning to develop feelings for Linda. He still felt guilty at times that he was somehow cheating on his dead wife. His issue, of course, and something else that he would have to deal with.

“Hey,” he answered.

“Hey yourself,” Linda replied. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing much,” Remy lied, as he continued to walk down the center of the deserted road. The rain had temporarily ceased, but the air was still saturated, causing a writhing mist to snake up from the ground as the evening temperature gradually cooled. “Just wrapping up some stuff for work. What’s going on with you?”

“I got out of class early,” she said. “I’m planning a date with some lounging clothes, a bottle of Merlot, and the
Real Housewives of New Jersey
.”

“Sure one bottle will be enough for all of you?” Remy joked. “I hear those housewives can really put it away.”

She laughed, and he was reminded again of how much he liked the sound—and her.

“I miss you,” she said.

Remy stopped walking, experiencing that moment of electricity that proved he wasn’t the only one starting to have those kinds of feelings.

“I miss you, too.”

“So, what are you doing now?” Linda asked again.

He was about to suggest that he join her and the housewives when he remembered that he still had something left to do.

“I was planning on stopping by Steven Mulvehill’s,” he said.

“Has he returned any of your calls?” she asked, concern in her voice.

Linda was aware that a rift had formed between the two friends, but she hadn’t been made privy to the specifics. The homicide detective had become involved in one of Remy’s recent cases and had received a full dose of the kind of world that Remy often walked in.

A kind of world that Steven would have preferred never to have seen.

“No, he hasn’t,” Remy admitted. “But I’m thinking of dropping by his place, anyway, to try to straighten this business out face-to-face.”

“Good luck with that,” she wished him.

“Thanks. I think he just needed some time to himself. Things should be fine once we’ve had a chance to talk. No worries.”

“Do you want to stop by after?” she asked.

“I’d love to, but Marlowe’s been alone for most of the day, and—”

“Bring him with you,” she interrupted.

Remy felt himself smiling at the suggestion. It had been a few days since the dog had seen Linda, and Remy knew he’d jump at the chance to go for a ride in the car, especially if it meant seeing his new friend. It would definitely make up for having been left alone for most of the day.

“Let me see how late it is once Steven and I get finished.”

“No pressure,” Linda said. “Just thought it would be nice to see you.”

“And Marlowe?”

“And Marlowe.” She laughed. “I’ve been missing him, too.”

“I’ll give you a call when I leave Steven’s, okay?”

“I’ll be here.”

“Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

Remy put his phone back in his pocket and looked around, surprised to see how far he’d wandered while chatting. The prison was off in the distance now, practically hidden by the thickening fog.

Far enough away that he was able to resist the temptation to go back.

CHAPTER TWO

The Catskill Mountains
The Deacon Estate
February 1945

Deacon’s hands trembled as he tried to knot the silk bow tie about his throat.

He admitted to himself that he was indeed nervous about the night to come, but the tremor through his once-surgeon-steady hands and the painful ache deep in his joints were what made this evening crucial.

“Damn it,” he hissed, ripping the failed attempt from about his white-collared throat.

He gazed at the angry image of himself in the mirror on the armoire door, seeing a man much older than his forty years. The skin around his eyes had begun to dry and wrinkle; lines and age spots showed on his once-smooth brow. Hair that had been jet-black, like a raven’s feathers, was now streaked with gray, and his hairline was starting to recede.

The magick had done this to him; every time he called on the dark arts, it took a little bit more of his life.

It was a fair price to pay for immortality, but was there enough currency remaining to achieve such lofty goals? Deacon was not sure, which was why he had called for the gathering this fateful evening.

He placed the black silk around his neck again, willing his fingers to do as he instructed, but the stiffness…