J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (11 page)

“Gee, Conklin,” she said in his ear. “You sure have a one track mind. But nice girls don’t do that on the first date. You’ll just have to settle for lots of smooching and heavy petting.”

McGowan’s house was one of those early twentieth-century wooden structures built on a steep hill in such a way that the entrance let you onto the second floor, with the first floor down the hill and at the back, a total of five floors in all. McGowan’s workshop occupied the entire first floor and it had a workbench, shelves and chairs, though all were located along the walls, leaving the center of the room open and clear. McGowan had tiled the floor in marble, and installed a large circle of beaten silver permanently embedded in the marble. Outside the silver circle he’d also fashioned a silver pentagram, also embedded, its interior lines touching the circle. He’d beaten that silver and installed it with his own hands. Otherwise it wouldn’t work for him, not as a circle of power to contain dangerous magics.

Colleen and the two leprechauns, Jim’Jiminie and Boo’Diddle, followed him down the stairs and into the workroom. She was one of the few people in the world he’d allow in here, and he’d made an exception for the leprechauns since they’d offered to help, relinquishing their traditional neutrality. “Walter, what’re you planning?” she asked as he rummaged through a storage cabinet.

He brushed her concerns aside impatiently. “I’m going to try a summons, try to get Katherine back.”

She grabbed his arm, forced him to turn and face her. “This’ll be a major summoning, and it’s well past dawn.”

He shook her off angrily. “I don’t care. We’re talking about Katherine here, trapped in the Netherworld. Every moment she’s trapped there could mean a fate worse than death.”

Colleen spoke carefully, “And it won’t do her any good if you perform a major summons without the proper preparations and release a demon onto the Mortal Plane, or get yourself sucked into the Netherworld.”

“She’s right, Old Wizard,” Jim’Jiminie said.

Boo’Diddle added, “You know she is.”

McGowan sat down at the workbench, his shoulders slumped and he buried his face in his hands.

Colleen paced back and forth across the workroom. “We should fast for twenty-four hours, perform the proper cleansing rituals in the evening and begin the summoning at midnight.”

McGowan lifted his face from his hands. “But that’d mean we couldn’t really start fasting until midnight tonight, and not begin the summoning until midnight tomorrow night.”

Colleen continued to pace back and forth as she waved his objections aside impatiently. “I agree. That’s too long. In any case, starting the ritual at midnight is more important than a full twenty-four hours of fasting. It’s still early morning and we’ve barely had anything to eat, so I’m comfortable if we fast through the rest of the day. We’ll start the cleansing rituals immediately after sunset, and the summoning at midnight tonight.”

She stopped and turned to the old man. “Katherine’s a smart girl, and a good witch. She’ll seek hallowed ground. That should protect her at least that long. Do it this way and I’m with you all the way. Do it now without the proper timing and preparations and you’re on your own.”

He nodded, and when he spoke his voice was just a whisper. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Your Majesty,” Anogh said. The Summer Knight of the Winter Court stood before the Winter King, King Ag, arrayed in the hereditary armor of the Summer Court, layer after layer of lapis lazuli, silver and mother-of-pearl covering him from head to foot. And as always, for the last several hundred years, he felt it was blasphemy to even wear the Summer Armor anywhere in the Winter Court, unless, of course, he was coming to war against them. “Last night there was an incident on the Mortal Plane. An incident of some  . . . significance.”

Ag lay upon a couch covered in white silken sheets. Dressed in a white linen buskin over a white, silk, ruffled shirt, his long, coal-black locks drifted on a slight breeze that was anything but natural. At the Summer Knight’s words the Winter King didn’t move for several seconds, then he slowly raised his eyes to the Summer Knight. “Yes, Anogh, there was. Some sort of nether interaction any fool could sense. Even a fool such as you.”

Even with his face hidden behind the mask of the great, horned helm of the Summer Armor, Anogh, the Summer Knight, knew the Winter King would know of any expression that crossed his face. And if Anogh did anything to produce even the faintest hint of doubt, the Winter King might question him. For the past six hundred years of his binding to the Winter Court Anogh had carried no secrets worth dying for, but now that the Morrigan had lifted some of the enchantment that had clouded his thoughts, that had changed. Anogh couldn’t lie, so if Ag asked the right questions in just the right way, Anogh’s only course would be to refuse. And that would give Ag the justification to take his life. It had been millennia since an immortal Sidhe of royal blood had lost his life, but there were ways.

So, displaying no emotion, he lowered himself to one knee and bowed deeply before King Ag. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. Of course you would sense it long before we who bow before you. I did not mean to imply—”

“Enough,” the Winter King snarled, examining his fingernails as if considering a manicure. “You are forgiven. But of course I must think of some penance for you. And while I’m doing so, please assemble the Privy Council, and call the Winter Court to order. The incident was of sufficient significance to deserve further investigation.” Ag flicked his wrist in an impatient gesture of dismissal.

“Your Majesty,” Anogh said, backing carefully out of the royal presence while maintaining a deep bow.

Simuth, the Winter Night, waited outside the Winter King’s chambers dressed in the finest of Faerie silks, with a slender, silver rapier at his side. Simuth leaned against the wall of the long corridor, picking casually at his fingernails with a small dagger, blocking the Summer Knight’s path. “And so, my dear Anogh,” he said. “What matter brings you into the presence of our dear King?”

“You must ask that question of His Majesty,” Anogh said, bending his knee in the deep formal bow of the Winter Court. “I’m not at liberty to reveal the King’s counsel.”

Simuth rolled his eyes and gave Anogh a condescending tilt of his head. “Come now, my dear Anogh. We are brothers, are we not: if not by blood, then by circumstance and fortune? Or should I say misfortune? Surely, you wouldn’t begrudge me the details of some trifling incident on the Mortal Plane?”

“Again, Your Highness, I’m not at liberty. But, apparently, you’re already aware of the  . . . incident.”

Simuth stepped aside, giving Anogh room to pass. “Very well, brother knight.”

Anogh’s lips curled up in an unpleasant smile. “I’m not your brother, either by blood or association.”

Simuth returned Anogh’s smile with a malevolent grin. The Summer Knight stepped forward cautiously, turned just as he passed the Winter Knight to nod his head politely and back step a few paces. More than being polite, it was an excuse to avoid turning his back on a viper with a blade in his hand. One must always be careful around Simuth, and not until well out of Simuth’s reach did he turn and continue on.

Bound by law, custom and magic, Anogh could not betray the Winter Court to the Summer Court. But his first loyalty lay with the Summer Court, and he hoped dearly the Summer Queen too had sensed the
incident of some  . . . significance
on the Mortal Plane.

High Chancellor Cadilus knelt before Magreth, Summer Queen and mistress of the Seelie Court, his head bowed. “Rise,” she said coldly.

Cadilus stood, grimaced as he looked into her eyes and saw the flames dancing there. She sent her voice brushing though his spirit like a hot, dry wind, “Have you learned what it was?”

“Not completely, my queen,” Cadilus said. “But it did involve the Old Wizard, and some of his more powerful colleagues—the Druid for one, the horrible Russian for another. It also involved a young wizard of whom we had not, heretofore, been aware. And it involved the Old Wizard’s daughter, and a demon, probably Tertius caste, that left its scent on the Mortal Plane.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “A demon, on the Mortal Plane! That will rouse all the mortal wizards and witches.”

Cadilus inclined his head slightly to one side. “Our mages have been able to determine it’s no longer on the Mortal Plane. Furthermore, neither is the Old Wizard’s daughter.”

She looked at him pointedly. “That is bad news indeed. Not that I care one whit for the young girl. I’ve never met her, don’t know her in the slightest. But the old man is extremely powerful, dangerous when aroused, and he’ll stop at nothing to protect his offspring.”

She paused and considered her words carefully. “It would behoove us, dear Cadilus, to offer the old man our assistance, should he so desire.”

“An excellent idea, Your Majesty. He won’t accept, of course. But such a diplomatic overture would not be wasted. I’ll see to it myself.”

She smiled, though, again, there was no warmth in the Summer Queen’s face, only the flames that lit her eyes and reflected her disdain. “Do so, dear Cadilus.”

That was clear dismissal, but Cadilus hesitated. He wouldn’t have done so were it not important.

“Is there something else?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. The young wizard’s abode, it stank ever so faintly of the Unseelie Court.”

“But that’s to be expected,” she said, clearly impatient and irritated that he’d bring such trivial matters before her. “They would investigate such an incident with no less fervor than we.”

Cadilus shook his head. “It was not that kind of scent, Your Majesty. It had the permanence of Unseelie habitation.”

“Are you telling me the young wizard was living with an Unseelie witch?”

Again Cadilus shook his head. “He was living alone, to the best of our knowledge. And the scent was old, long gone, perhaps from before he took up residence there. But it does bear further investigation.”

“I trust you’ll see to that as well?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Cadilus bowed deeply and withdrew.

Chapter 7: Temptation

Paul awoke slowly, sat up and had trouble shaking off the effects of sleep. They’d been exhausted after the confrontation with the big-daddy hoodoo demon, had staggered up the steps of the church supporting each other and stumbled through the church’s entrance, though all that remained of any doors were a few split pieces of blackened lumber that hung from twisted hinges. The church’s roof had long ago collapsed, leaving a rubble-strewn interior with a large pile of twisted beams and broken roof tiles in the middle of the floor. They’d managed to find a couple of pews that were still intact, and brushed debris off them. Katherine pulled off her coat and rolled it up into a pillow, then lay down on a pew facing Paul. Paul didn’t have a coat so he had no pillow, but when he lay down he fell into the near-death sleep that comes after too much adrenaline and fear. But before sleep took him Katherine said, “If you wake before me, don’t leave the confines of the church. We’re safe here, at least as safe as we can be in hell.”

Paul rubbed at his eyes groggily, learned that was not a wise move since it just ground the reddish-brown grit in deeper. He noticed Katherine no longer occupied the pew where she’d slept. His bladder was uncomfortably full, and he assumed she’d probably awakened in the same condition and hunted down a place to relieve herself. He struggled to his feet, felt like an old man, and while every little movement reminded him of a cut or bruise or wound of some kind, he ignored the aches and walked carefully to the back of the church. He stepped through a hole in the wall there, relieved himself against the outside back wall of the church, tucked his tattered and cut-jeans back in place turned around to survey the back of their sanctuary.

The back yard of the church contained a small cemetery, and near the very back he saw Katherine standing at its edge with her back to him, probably taking stock of the surrounding buildings. He recalled she’d said cemeteries were also hallowed ground, so he walked down the back steps and threaded his way between old gravestones toward her. He was a dozen paces behind her when he called her name.

She jumped, turned toward him with wide, frightened eyes, saw it was him and put a hand on her chest. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh,” she gasped breathlessly. “It’s you.”

He felt like an idiot, stalking up behind her without warning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s ok,” she said breathlessly. “I think we’re both going to be jumpy as long as we’re in this predicament.”

She raised a hand to her torn blouse, modestly tried to rearrange the material to cover her breasts. Without the coat the tear exposed even more skin and she failed miserably. But in the process she’d accidentally drawn his attention to her half-exposed chest, unwillingly displaying far more cleavage than would be polite or fashionable in any venue. He tried not to stare, but for some reason he couldn’t look away. And as he watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, he realized he was strongly attracted to her. Only a few paces separated them and he had a sudden fantasy of crossing that distance, of tearing her blouse open completely, cupping her breasts in his hands and licking the reddish-brown grit from her nipples. And he could see in her eyes she shared the attraction, that she wanted him to come to her and take her in his arms. They were alone, with no one to disturb them, and no one to stop them from enjoying each other’s bodies.

He took one step, his eyes focused on her heaving chest, watched longingly as it rose and fell. Her breathing came now in deep, longing sighs, and with each breath her breasts grew, swelled and spilled more flesh out of her torn blouse. He took another step, feeling a need rise up in him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. And now she reached up again to her torn blouse, but this time she opened it further, exposing her heaving breasts completely and inviting him to fulfill his desire, to yield to the need that blossomed within him, a demanding obsession he could no longer deny.

“Paul,” she shouted from far behind him. “Don’t. It’s the demon.”

Behind him! She was behind him. But she was standing in front of him. Her breasts had spilled out of her blouse, had grown to massive heavy globes with dark brown areolas. And it was that more than anything that made him hesitate, for the heavy, swollen breasts in front of him did not belong to Katherine. And in another place and time he could easily be attracted to Katherine, the real Katherine, not this rounded, voluptuous, porn-star queen of a Katherine standing in front of him.

He took a step back. The porn-star’s pupils glowed red and she glared at him with goat-slitted eyes. He heard the real Katherine’s footsteps as she approached behind him. She put a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly, “That’s the demon.”

He backed up another step and drew even with Katherine, turned his head to look at her carefully and glanced momentarily at the skin exposed by her blouse. Until the demon had drawn his attention to it, he hadn’t realized he was attracted to her, that he found the extra skin exposed by her torn blouse sexually exciting, like a small boy catching a boob-shot when an attractive woman across the room bends over without realizing how much skin is exposed by her billowing blouse.

She blushed, so he took his eyes off her chest and raised them to meet hers, though he noticed her right hand lifted almost involuntarily to her torn blouse in a wasted effort to smooth the tear back in place. The hand gave up the effort and she lowered it to her side in a gesture that seemed almost defiant.

“I know it’s the demon,” he said, thinking she had nice eyes, brown eyes set in an oval face with a strong jaw. “But I thought you said it couldn’t go in a graveyard.”

She kept her eyes locked to his, clearly appraising him as he was appraising her. She tilted her head slightly to one side, a kind of apologetic shrug. “Sometimes they bury a suicide, or some other outcast, at the edge of a graveyard without religious ceremony and without sanctifying the ground. Another step or two and it would’ve had you.”

“And can it read my thoughts?” he asked, thinking that was the only way it would have known to use her as bait.

She looked at the demon. No longer the porn-star queen, it now looked more like her. She looked at Paul, at the demon, then back at Paul, and he could see in her eyes she suddenly understood why her image had been such effective bait. She blushed again.

“How trite!” the demon said. It was odd to hear such a deep rumbling voice coming from a small woman. “Why don’t the two of you just rip your clothes off right here and fuck your brains out? I might enjoy the show.”

Paul turned his back on the demon and said, “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

Katherine took his arm and walked beside him back to the church. Inside they sat down on the pews they’d slept on. Katherine tore off a small piece of cloth from her coat, dabbed a little spit on it and tried to clean the cut on her cheek. Paul yanked off his tattered shirt—he was wearing an equally sliced up T-shirt beneath it—handed it to her and said, “Here, use this. It’s not too sweaty. And hell’s a warm place anyway, definitely T-shirt weather.”

While Katherine dabbed at her face he asked, “How did we get here? How do we get back?”

She looked at him and frowned. “Are you sure it wasn’t you who dragged us here?”

He threw up his hands in frustration. “How could I? I don’t know any of this sorcery mumbo-jumbo.”

She mirrored his frustration. “Well it can’t have been the Tertius caste that came here with us. I told you, demons can’t effect a crossing like that one way or another. It has to be done by a mortal or a Sidhe with power, and always after a rather drawn out ceremony that involves a lot of ritual. And it wasn’t me. Even if I tried, I’m not that strong a sorceress.”

“So that leaves me?”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t add up either. You clearly don’t know how, and probably aren’t that strong.”

She seemed satisfied that, with the aid of Paul’s shirt and some carefully applied saliva, she’d cleaned her face reasonably well. She rolled the shirt up and put it on the pew next to her. Paul didn’t have the heart to tell her that her makeup was smeared all over her face. A bright red smudge of lipstick radiated out from the right corner of her mouth. Mascara from her left eye had run down her cheek, and her right eye now appeared almost devoid of makeup. The contrast between her two eyes gave her an odd, clownish, evil-eye sort of look.

Paul needed to know more about demons, if for no other reason than that his ignorance might get them killed, though here in hell there apparently was a fate worse than death. “When I was out in front of the church here, facing that big, bad hoodoo with the snake legs, you said don’t look in its eyes, and don’t make any deals. What’s with that?”

She frowned and looked at him oddly. “Snake legs! What snake legs?”

“The demon,” Paul said. “The one with the chicken head and snake legs. The one in front of the church yesterday.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he thought he saw distrust there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You saw the demon, right?”

She spoke carefully. “Yes  . . . I did.”

“And it had a chicken head and snake legs?”

She shook her head. “No, it looked like my father.”

Paul tried to describe the monster he’d faced and she listened carefully, then said, “Apparently it was showing us each a different glamour. I don’t know a lot about demons, but I suppose that’s possible.”

“And why not look in its eyes? Why no deals?”

She considered his question for a moment as if she wasn’t sure where to begin, then said, “Primus and Secundus caste demons are patient and calculating. They’d rather gain control over you than merely devour your soul, and there’re many ways to do that. If your eyes meet theirs directly, and you haven’t prepared the proper spells to protect yourself, they can enthrall you, and then you’ll happily do anything they want. In the early stages, if you break eye contact you break the enthrallment. But if they have you captive in some way so they can repeatedly enthrall you over a long period of time, then eventually they can maintain the control, even without eye contact. That’s what they usually prefer to do with a mortal wizard or witch. They then have a powerful slave that can bring them other souls to devour, a thrall. And if their thrall is adept at sorcery, and they’re resident on the Mortal Plane, they can use it to bring minor demons over from the Netherworld as servants and slaves. I still don’t understand why the Secundus out front broke eye-contact with you.”

She waited for him to enlighten her in some way, but Paul didn’t recall being enthralled. He remembered everything up to the moment he’d looked into the demon’s eyes, and after its control had shattered he had a hazy memory of lying on top of Katherine on the steps of the church. But it was not until she’d made her witty remark about first dates that he’d truly returned to conscious thought. And then, embarrassed, he’d scrambled off her clumsily. He even remembered a little bit about the moment of the shattering, but the time during which he’d been enthralled was all a blank. He told her that now, and finished by saying, “But I have a fleeting memory it had something to do with a name.”

She closed her eyes, grimaced and shook her head. “Oh, I hope you didn’t give it your name.”

“No,” he said. “No, not my name. Its name. Something to do with the demon’s name.”

Her head shot up and her eyes opened expectantly. “Did you get its name?”

He closed his eyes and tried to recall the moment. “No. No, I didn’t  . . . Well  . . . maybe something that starts with an A  . . . Ah  . . . something  . . . I just don’t remember.”

She waved a hand impatiently. “I don’t see how you could’ve gotten its name, not without a lot of negotiation, and certainly not while you’re enthralled. And not without something to offer it in return, something a lot more valuable than your name.”

“So names are important?”

“Oh, very much so! If it possesses even a portion of your name, it has some control over you, and the more of your name it has, the more control it has.”

He suddenly thought they might’ve betrayed each other, and he tried to recall every word they’d spoken here in hell. “But certainly it heard me call you Katherine, and you call me Paul.”

“No, no, no,” she said. “It doesn’t do it any good to just know your name. It gains no power over you unless you agree to give it all or part of your name. It has to be part of some sort of bargain.”

“Why would I do that?”

“As I said, they’re patient and calculating. If it has something you want bad enough, then you might negotiate some sort of agreement to get that something, and it’ll always seek to bind you in some way, probably with a portion of your name. And they’re tricky; their agreements are fraught with loopholes and pitfalls that play in their favor. By the way, that may be the only way we can get out of this mess. If my father can’t reach us, we may have to cut a deal with that Secundus out there to get back to the Mortal Plane.”

“So I have to learn demon contract law?” he asked sarcastically. “Do they give courses at Berkeley? Probably only graduate level, right?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “Learn it, Conklin, or get caught in a fate worse than death.”

Paul leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He tried to avoid rubbing at the grit in his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m believing this crap.” He opened his eyes and scanned the inside of the roofless church. The reddish brown dirt caked everything, including him and Katherine, a reddish brown world with a dirty brown sky, illuminated by dim, unclean light. “I sometimes think I’m really lying in a coma in some hospital somewhere dreaming a really bad dream. Or maybe I’m in a straightjacket in some nuthouse hallucinating my brains out.”