Queen of the Dark Things (41 page)

“It's not like that.”

“Oh. What's it like then?”

“He had to.”

“He always has to,” said the Queen, bitterly. “That's what he told me, you know.
I'm sorry, but I have to.
But he's really done it? He's bargained with them?”

“He has.”

“Then he really means to kill me, doesn't he?”

Austin nodded grimly. “After what you did, why wouldn't he?”

The Queen eyed Austin suspiciously. “Something's happened.”

“Of course
something's happened
.”

“Someone died? A friend of Colby's?”

“Don't play dumb. Neither of us has time for that.”

The Queen grew troubled, her face falling. She slid slowly off the back of her bunyip, slumping sadly onto the ground. The bunyip, in turn, dropped, making itself comfortable, curling up against her back. Tears swelled in her eyes. She looked up at Austin. “This isn't about me, is it?” she asked, no longer the Queen, but a little girl whose heart was irreparably broken.

“I don't—”

“My destiny. It wasn't about me becoming Queen, making the night safe for other children. This was never about me. Colby cut my cord. Colby left me in the desert. Colby sold his soul for the power to kill me. Colby isn't a part of my destiny; I'm just a small part of his. This whole thing was about him. About seducing him. Everyone knows that he's cursed, but I never . . . I never thought—”

“Oh my God,” said Austin. “He's—” The earth quit rumbling and all was once again silent.

“He's theirs now. He has to kill me. If he doesn't—”

“They don't want you. They just want the ring. They want their brothers free.”

The Queen looked up at Dantalion. “Is that true?”

“I don't know, my Queen,” he said. “I cannot see his future any clearer than I can see yours. The ring, it clouds it. But if Colby is as crafty as they say, I would imagine that was the deal he struck.”

“Tell me the truth; if I freed you now and gave back the ring—”

“We would kill you where you stand—”

“And then bicker over who got to torment your soul,” finished Astaroth.

All five nodded, for they could not lie, not to the wearer of the ring.

“And what of Colby's bargain?” she asked.

“He would have received powers he had not paid for,” said Dantalion. “And his soul might then belong to others to squabble over.”

“So for one of us to walk away?”

“The other must die.”

“And if I ran?”

“He would be bound by his bargain to find you.”

The Queen looked back up at Austin. “Mandu lied. All he ever did was lie. He told me I had a great destiny, that things would be different. Maybe I just misunderstood him. Things are different. Now I have a choice between killing the one person who can free me from my curse or dying by his hand so he can be further damned. What kind of destiny is that?”

“I don't know,” said Austin. “There has to be another way.”

Dantalion shook his head. “There is no other way. We've seen to that.”

The Queen stood up, reached into her dilly bag, and pulled out a handful of salt. Dantalion cowered behind both hands.

“Lower your hands,” she said.

He did and she approached him.

“Now, swallow this.”

His eyes grew large with fear. He trembled, but he did not move, save to lean his head back and open his mouth. The Queen poured the salt down his gullet and he screamed, gurgling on his own boiling insides. Dantalion fell to the ground, writhing, convulsing.

The Queen smeared the tears from her cheek with her purple sleeve. She hardened, her gaze becoming icy, determined. “Go do what you need to do,” she said to Austin. “I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have to. We can fight this out here if you like, but if you lose, I win. I will march on your city to meet Colby. And if you win . . .”

Austin nodded knowingly. “Colby owes five souls he can't pay back.”

The Queen whistled loudly and called out into the night. “Dark things! Go find shelter for the day! Find the darkest hollow you can find and dig in! At sunset we meet again to bring an end to all this!” Then she turned back to Austin. “If it's my destiny to die tonight, I will. And I won't cry about it. Not anymore. Tonight we find out whose destiny this is really all about. Tonight I will kill Colby Stevens or he will kill me.”

Austin nodded, then vanished.

C
HAPTER
54

T
HE
B
EARDED
H
UNTER

Barbatos. A great count or earl, and also a duke, he appeareth in Signo sagittarii sylvestris, with four kings, which bring companies and great troops. He understandeth the singing of birds, the barking of dogs, the lowings of bullocks, and the voice of all living creatures. He detecteth treasures hidden by magicians and enchanters, and is of the order of virtues, which in part bear rule: he knoweth all things past, and to come, and reconciles friends and powers; and governeth thirty legions of devils by his authority.

—Pseudomonarchia Daemonum

N
ot the fucking woods again,” said Colby, trudging through the fresh mud of a cold autumn rain, Gossamer trotting closely at his side. They were deep in the backwoods, somewhere in the Virginias as best Colby could tell. The air was so thick it clung to his skin, and even though it was early in the day, the heavy rain clouds and nigh impenetrable canopy gave off the distinct feeling of twilight.

These were a witches' woods once, lingering trails of incantations, pockets of dreamstuff swirling around three-hundred-year-old trees. It was the sort of place fairies should be running about, claiming as their own.

But even fairies knew better than to run afoul of one of the Seventy-two. Especially Barbatos. The Hunter. It seemed as if even the wild things—the birds, the squirrels, all the things of the forest—knew what lived here and stayed far, far away.

Colby knew what he was looking for but didn't look with his eyes. He sniffed, felt out for the warping of space, the corruption in the roots of trees. And he found it. A shack. Lingering silently off a trail, placed just so as to not be seen from any angle one might happen upon.

It was a hunter's shack, small, like a shed, made of rotten wood and century-old timber. It leaned slightly to one side, the door seemingly giving it more support than its posts. From its porch hung wind chimes made of the skulls of woodland animals, a light breeze clattering them together with the dull, hollow clink of bone on bone. A wind rose up, whispering through the gaps in the boards of the place, threatening at any moment to knock it over into a pile of scrap. But it held, for it was no force of physics that had kept it standing all these years.

Colby took a deep breath and stepped forward onto the porch, the boards squeaking beneath his feet. Then he turned the knob of the door and stepped in. Gossamer lingered behind, only for an instant, hesitating at the first whiff of the brutal, terrible smells wafting out. He looked over his shoulder, gazing out, back into the woods, thinking that they were really no better than whatever was waiting for them inside.

He was wrong.

It was dark and it was large and it was by no means the same building within that it was without. Outside measured maybe ten feet on each side, but inside was a cluster of rooms, each bigger than the shack appeared, and each connected by a doorway with no door. It smelled damp and foul, like festering piss and neglected corpses. The walls were lined with ramshackle wooden shelves, stacked precariously from floor to ceiling with jars of every shape and size—brown, viscous fluid suspending hearts and livers, fairy wings and unicorn horns, eyeballs and snouts. In the spots between the jars—where there were spots—experiments of taxidermy stared out, frightened, molded less to look like vicious or dangerous trophies and more like terrified creatures glimpsed at the moment of their demise.

And from the ceiling hung skulls. Hundreds of skulls. Perhaps thousands. Bird. Wildcat. Dog. Human. It seemed as if Barbatos kept a little piece of everything he'd ever killed. Colby wondered if there was a room here where he also displayed their souls; Gossamer didn't care to know the answer to that question.

In the center of the second room they found the butcher block, a solid piece carved from the heart of a single ancient tree, its wood stained a dark, clotted red from a thousand dismemberments. And stuck in the wood were two dozen knives, their steel hardened with magicks Colby struggled even to identify.

He held out his arms, palms up, fingers splayed precisely, and once more spoke in a demonic tongue. “Barbatos, I summon thee! Appear and speak!”

Barbatos appeared, screaming. His beard was white at the roots, then yellowed and browned the farther it got from his face, festooned with twigs, brush, and bugs, his hair unruly, wild, colored the same as his beard. But his eyes were black, empty, and never caught the light; they were hunter's eyes, remorseless. And they were furious.

“No!” he hollered the moment he arrived, as if he'd been stuck with a knife. He flailed about, naked, covered in mud, his body rigid and muscular, as if he spent every waking moment running, climbing. “Why would you do this to me?”

“Calm down,” said Colby.

“No! She's here! She's here with that fucking ring! Get me out of here! Release me. I do not wish to be here.”

Colby spoke coolly, calmly, not letting the choler of the demon thrashing in his living room get to him. “This place is yours. We're safe.”

“No! She has things! Hundreds of things! At her beck and call every moment! They're following you, looking for you, looking for us. And they won't have me! Release me!”

“We had a deal.”

He cowered, almost perching, ready to strike, casting his eyes wildly at the corners of the room. “You took too long. She's here, I know it, and I will not be her slave.”

“If she wanted you as her slave, Barbatos, you would be her slave. I want this done as quickly as you do.”

Barbatos calmed, his rage seething beneath the surface. “Then speak it, tell me what you want, and I'll grant it. But do it quickly.”

“There's something I need you to find. Something hidden. Something very dangerous.”

“It's yours. If it is out there to be found, I will find it. Whisper it into my ear, and I'll find it.”

Colby looked nervously at the demon, before trading glances with Gossamer, terrified of getting too close to a creature as choleric and unpredictable as Barbatos. “Can't I just ask you from here?”

“Do you want the Queen to know about it?”

“No.”

“Then it must remain a secret between us. What is said into my ear is mine alone. Say it. Say it quickly and let me go find what it is you seek.”

Colby inched forward, his bravery waning for a moment. Then he stepped quickly up to the wild-haired hunter, parting the tangles around its ear, whispering almost silently into it. Barbatos recoiled, expression steadying for a moment. He looked deeply into Colby's eyes, puzzling over him.

“You are a clever boy, aren't you?” he said. “They've underestimated you. We all have. It's yours. It will take me some time to uncover it, but you'll have it before sunset. I swear it.”

“Thank you.”

Barbatos scratched his head through the scraggly mess. “You could have asked for something else, you know. There are far more powerful things in this world. I know where or how to find them all.”

“But none of them is as powerful as this. Not now. Not tonight.”

“I know. Maybe it's not the Queen I should be scared of, after all.”

And with a cautious wink, Barbatos spirited away into the ether, leaving behind nothing but the heavy musk of reeking sweat and soil.

C
HAPTER
55

T
HE
M
ASTER
OF
THE
P
ARADE

Paimon is more obedient in Lucifer than other kings are. Lucifer is here to be understood he that was drowned in the depth of his knowledge: he would needs be like God, and for his arrogance was thrown out into destruction, of whom it is said; every precious stone is thy covering. Paimon is constrained by divine virtue to stand before the exorcist; where he putteth on the likeness of a man: he sitteth on a beast called a dromedarie, which is a swift runner, and weareth a glorious crown, and hath an effeminate countenance. There goeth before him a host of men with trumpets and well-sounding cymbals, and all musical instruments. At the first he appeareth with a great cry and roaring, as in Circulo Salomonis, and in the art is declared. And if this Paimon speak sometime that the conjurer understand him not, let him not therefore be dismayed. But when he hath delivered him the first obligation to observe his desire, he must bid him also answer him distinctly and plainly to the questions he shall ask you, of all philosophy, wisdom, and science, and of all other secret things. And if you will know the disposition of the world, and what the earth is, or what holdeth it up in the water, or any other thing, or what is Abyssus, or where the wind is, or from whence it commeth, he will teach you aboundantly. Consecrations also as well of sacrifices as otherwise may be reckoned. He giveth dignities and confirmations; he bindeth them that resist him in his own chains, and subjecteth them to the conjurer; he prepareth good familiars, and hath the understanding of all arts. Note, that at the calling up of him, the exorcist must look toward the northwest, because there is his house. When he is called up, let the exorcist receive him constantly without fear, let him ask what questions or demands he list, and no doubt he shall obtain the same of him. And the exorcist must beware he forget not the creator, for those things, which have been rehearsed before of Paimon, some say he is of the order of dominations; others say, of the order of cherubim. There follow him two hundred legions, partly of the order of angels, and partly of potestates. Note that if Paimon be cited alone by an offering or sacrifice, two kings follow him; to wit, Beball & Abalam, & other potentates: in his host are twenty-five legions, because the spirits subject to them are not always with them, except they be compelled to appear by divine virtue.