Sentinel (36 page)

Just when Nicholas thought he was going to vomit, the sparks hopping around the inside of the bowl blazed higher and there came a mighty explosion. Searing heat caressed Nicholas’s cheeks and a wall of fire shot up from the bowl. Yet instead of burning itself out, the column twisted and turned, a mixture of fire and light, threads of yellow forking through its murky depths.

Snelling threw his arms wide as if to embrace the funnel of blistering light, tossing back his head to let loose a screaming whoop of delight.

It was the last thing he would ever do.

As the dazzling light flickered and pulsed, an explosion of flame scorched through the air and blasted right through him, consuming the man whole. In an instant he was gone, reduced to a pile of smouldering ash. Only one thing survived the furious discharge – the gauntlet crashed to the floor, scattering the cinders that only moments before been Snelling.

The room fell silent. Nicholas sat frozen in the chair, mesmerised by the sputtering luminescence that was spiralling in the centre of the room. It had stabilised, and now the column of light was almost tranquil.

Nicholas sat watching, transfixed and horrified, flushed by the fierce luminescence. He blinked and shook his head. Perhaps he was imagining things, but it seemed a shape was forming in the rolling crimson curtains. Before his eyes, a vague shadow took form and slowly became more solid with every second that passed.

Then somebody stepped out of the fire and onto the tabletop.

It was like a nightmare born flesh. The woman. He recognised her. It was the woman from the bus. His insides squirmed uneasily, both aroused by and terrified of her. Where had she come from? What was she doing? As she stepped elegantly down from the table, the enchanting creature reached up and helped a smaller figure onto the floor. A boy, ashen and ill-looking, dressed in a black suit.

The boy looked at him and Nicholas cried out. Those piercing white eyes scorched into him and horrific images flashed in his mind.

Hellfire and erupting volcanoes, children lying dead and frozen in the countryside, animals with their insides spilling from their buckled bodies.

The beast’s named burned into him.
Diltraa.
It had done all of that. Killed children. Drained them for its own needs. Destroyed them so it might live.

Nicholas howled.

“You have done well, Malika.”

An arcane voice sliced through the depraved visions like a wet blade, and Nicholas was free of them. The little boy was still looking at him, and those icy eyes stabbed right into his gut.

“So, this is the child.”

Nicholas cowered as the boy approached him, curiosity warping his sallow features. No, it wasn’t just curiosity contorting the boy’s face. Somehow he looked wrong, as if the bones of his skull were being pushed from the inside out, stretched beyond their means by something awful under the surface. Nicholas felt immediately repulsed, like he was looking at something that shouldn’t exist, something that defied the laws of nature.

As the boy got closer, Nicholas saw that his skin was flaking away in pieces, exposing raw, dried-out flesh beneath. And always the empty white eyes were on him, turning his muscles to stone.

“Nicholassss,”
the little boy rasped. He reached out a shrivelled grey hand and pushed Nicholas’s chin up with his index finger. Nicholas felt caged by the boy’s soft, probing glare.
“Handsome child, by man’s measure. Seems Snelling’s been having some fun with you.”

“Snelling’s dead,” surged a caramel voice.

Behind Diltraa, the red-haired woman it had called Malika scraped at the ash-strewn floor with a delicate shoe. “Burnt to a crisp,” she noted. Stooping, Malika fished the gauntlet out of the charred residue and slipped it into the folds of her dress.

“Such is the price,”
Diltraa wheezed in a non-committal tone.
“He was not built to work such potent forces. Unlike this one.”

Dry lips peeled into a smile.

“You don’t even know what you’re capable of, do you human child?”

Nicholas stared blankly back, the scarlet blaze of the portal making him nauseous. Or maybe it was the way that the boy was looking at him that made him feel sick. There was a covetous leer on those rind-like lips, and though Diltraa’s face was falling apart in pieces, Nicholas read confidence and triumph there.

“We’ll speak again,”
Diltraa promised.
“For now, there are other things to attend to. I’ll leave you in good company.”

The eyes released him and Nicholas took a welcome breath. It had felt like he was being strangled. He watched the boy go to the door, shoot a brief, jagged look in Malika’s direction, then disappear into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Malika stepped forward. The candlelight caressed her slender form and she sashayed slowly toward Nicholas, biting her bottom lip.

“Look at me, child,” she purred.

In the chair, Nicholas attempted to avoid her gaze. Heat seemed to come off her and he felt like he was burning up. He recalled only faintly what had happened on the bus that day – that feeling of rapture that had bubbled over him in a warm, welcoming rush. It had been like a soothing, smothering embrace. He didn’t trust himself.

Malika crouched before him, touched his knee. Behind her, the portal flickered and died.

“Nicholas,” she soothed. “I have something very important to tell you. But I need you to look at me.”

Nicholas struggled against her, but the woman’s will was strong, that voice so tender and inviting. Nicholas shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut.

“Get away from me,” he warned.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” Malika assured him. “I’m not going to hurt you; that’s the last thing I want to do. Look at me so that I know you believe me. You know you want to.” Nicholas fought against it, but Malika’s caressing words were too seductive. Unable to take it anymore, the boy relented.

He opened his eyes and his breath caught in his throat.

“Mum,” he croaked.

Before him, Anita Hallow smiled kindly and stroked his cheek.

“Nicholas,” she said softly, her pretty face framed by dark brown curls. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Confusion flickered across Nicholas’s face. Something wasn’t right. What had he just been doing? A minute ago he’d been afraid, he was sure of it, but now he couldn’t remember why. Hadn’t there been somebody else here? He stared into his mother’s open, familiar face, her green eyes crinkled in the corners just as he remembered them, and he surrendered to the promise of her comfort.

“Mum!” he cried again, wrenching at the restraints. “What are you doing here? It’s not safe.”

Anita nodded, sadness in her eyes. “I know,” she said sombrely. “You must forgive me, Nicholas. I’ve put you in terrible danger. Your father and I both have. We wanted the best for you and we thought we were protecting you by sending you here.”

“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked.

Anita clutched at the boy’s bound hands, entwining her fingers with his.

“We had to go off in secret,” she explained, desperate for him to understand. “We couldn’t tell anybody, not even you. But our work is over now and we can go home. All three of us. Would you like that?”

Nicholas’s eyes shone with tears and he nodded.

“We can be a family again, you, me and your father,” Anita promised. “Just like before. We can be happy again.”

“Yes,” Nicholas murmured.

Anita blinked back the tears and threw her arms around her son. Nicholas pressed his face into her shoulder, smelling her – that familiar scent of heather, her favourite perfume. Everything was going to be okay. His parents were back and all this craziness was finally going to end. He didn’t have to stay here with Jessica, stranded in the middle of nowhere, lonely and miserable. His mother had come back for him. She hadn’t forgotten about him. She still loved him. Tears rolled down the boy’s face.

“Mum,” he whispered. “I thought you were dead.”

“I know,” Anita said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, I truly am. I hope I can make it up to you.”

Nicholas nodded.

“There’s something we have to do first, before we can go home,” Anita said urgently. She began swiftly untying the restraints that bound Nicholas’s arms and legs to the chair.

“What? What do we have to do?”

“It’s Jessica,” Anita told him darkly, finished with the restraints. “We have to stop Jessica.”

“Stop her from doing what?” Nicholas asked. He rubbed at his wrists.

“She’s a very bad woman,” his mother replied, her expression deadly serious. “She’s done terrible things.”

“What?” Nicholas said, unable to believe it. “What kind of things?”

Anita bit her lip. “She’s… she’s killed children,” she said. “Poor, innocent babes. She snatched their lives away before they’d even had a chance to live. She must be stopped.”

Nicholas frowned, still unsure.

“She’s strange,” he said, “but has she really killed children?”

Anita stroked Nicholas’s cheek once more.

“That’s what I love about you,” she smiled, running her hand affectionately through his hair. “You’ve always seen the good in people. I know this is difficult but you have to believe me. That woman has committed the most terrible of deeds.”

Anita paused before determining grimly: “Nicholas, we’re going to have to kill her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

Devastation

D
ILTRAA STALKED THE HALLS OF
H
ALLOW
House with a look of rapture splitting his slowly-cracking features. Everything was going according to plan. Five hundred years he’d waited for this. The creature’s bone-white eyes flashed at the memory, peering up at the sightless statues that guarded the grand hallway. He passed unnoticed beneath their noses and his small, inconspicuous form continued through the house.

Moving silently through the lobby, Diltraa swept stealthily down another hall, this one bronzed by subdued lamplight that made everything glow softly. With his head held high, the demon child appraised the surroundings, a supercilious air about him.

These were the sacred spaces within the Sentinel keep, then. These antiquated halls, filled with long-forgotten treasures, all sealed behind glass. A look of disgust crossed the child’s face, but that quickly vanished when he came to what he had been seeking.

“There you are,” Diltraa trilled. Head tilted to one side, he peered up at an immense glass box that rested on a mahogany base. Within the cabinet, the skeleton of a mighty beast was posed as if in battle, its huge, knuckled front claws – easily the size of a man’s head – swiping through the air. Its emaciated jaw stretched wide in a noiseless roar.

The demon child reached out an ashen hand and tapped the glass lightly. The glass shivered and then shattered into pieces, shards tinkling across the marble floor.

With infinite care, Diltraa reached up and touched the front leg of the hulking skeletal frame. Immediately, the child’s body began to convulse. He retched and shuddered, and pieces of skin and dried flesh fell away in great chunks.

Diltraa discarded the dead child’s body and it crumpled to the floor.

Out of the wreckage a slimy, stunted abomination crawled. Spindly and shrunken, it resembled a four-legged spider as it hopped up into the cabinet. Scaling the great skeleton, ribbons of wet flesh flew from the parasite’s back and latched onto the ancient bones. Slowly, the demon lord called Diltraa reclaimed its true form, many years after the torturous event that had robbed it of these very bones.

The creature emitted a shrill cackle that echoed portentously down the wide corridor, and the house itself shuddered.

*

Jessica was sitting on a stone bench in Norlath’s garden when Nicholas found her. She seemed lost in thought, listening to the plants as they rustled their soft whispers.

Only when he was almost upon her did Jessica snap from her reveries and turn to acknowledge him.

“Nicholas,” she said warmly, then frowned. She looked him over, then peered past him at his mother, who lingered behind him. “Nicholas, who is this?”

He answered stonily. “She’s come back,” he said. “She’s told me everything.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Jessica asked, her gaze flitting between the woman and the boy.

Nicholas didn't know why she was acting so confused, surely she knew that one day somebody would come to stop her. To make her pay for what she'd done. The mesh of lies clung to him and he couldn't even feel them.

“What has she told you?” Jessica prompted nervously.

“Everything,” Nicholas replied coldly. “There’s no use pretending anymore. I know what you’ve done.”

His voice didn’t sound like his own, as if somebody was moving his mouth for him.

Jessica took a step toward him, but Nicholas shrank back.