Walking in the Midst of Fire (18 page)

Montagin once again assumed his human form. “That one, I’m afraid, is a bit touched in the head,” he explained. “But a favorite of the general.”

“I cannot even begin to understand how you bear to have them among you,” Sengael said. “They are such filthy, untrustworthy beasts.”

“And yet the Lord God Almighty loves them so,” Montagin added.

The three angels turned their gazes to him, and Montagin resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to step back.

“Until He doesn’t,” Dardariel said, his voice as cold as the vacuum of space.

“Perhaps,” Montagin begrudgingly agreed.

“Take us to the general,” Dardariel repeated. “He told us to meet him here, on this day, at this time. A commander of Heaven’s armies would not be so vulgar as to not be here.”

“And I’m telling you that—”

“I know not what games you’re playing, Montagin,” Sengael snarled.

Dardariel sniffed the air. “He is here,” the angel soldier stated. “And you will not keep me from him.”

He brusquely shoved Montagin aside, the two other soldiers following close behind, glaring menacingly as they moved past him down the corridor.

“And don’t think the general will not be told of this,” Gromeyl threatened.

Montagin didn’t know what to do. He seriously considered an attack on the three, but realizing the folly in that, entertained the idea of coming clean.

Letting them know exactly what was going on—what had happened.

“Please, my brothers,” Montagin stated, following the angel soldiers. “The general’s essence covers this dwelling; there isn’t an inch that doesn’t hold his powerful scent.”

He’d managed to come around them just as they reached the study, blocking the doors with his body.

“Why would I wish to keep you from your meeting?” Montagin asked, desperately hoping that they could not read his panic.

Dardariel reached out, laying a hand menacingly upon Montagin’s shoulder.

“Get out of the way,” he ordered, and Montagin began to feel the heat of Heaven’s divine fire start to flow from the soldier’s hand.

The doors to the study opened abruptly and Montagin released a pathetic scream as he turned to look into the face of General Aszrus.

“General,” Montagin stated in disbelief.

“What is the meaning of this?” the general demanded, stepping out farther into the hall, closing the doors behind him.

“General Aszrus,” Dardariel said, stepping back along with his two companions, all three bowing their heads. “You’re attendant was attempting to keep us from . . .”

“My attendant was doing exactly as he was told,” the angel general said, looking to his aide.

Montagin shrugged off the shock. “I tried, General,” he said. “But they did not wish to listen.”

Aszrus fixed them all in a withering stare.

“Then perhaps they’ll listen to me,” he stated. “Leave my home. I have no time for conference today.”

“But General,” Dardariel began. “The war council is meeting in two days and . . .”

“Have you lost the gift of tongues, soldier?” Aszrus asked. “Am I speaking some language that you are incapable of understanding?”

“No, sir,” the angel soldier answered quickly, averting his eyes.

“Then leave,” Aszrus commanded. “Do not return until you are summoned again.”

The three angels raised their eyes to their superior. Montagin waited for some sort of challenge, but it did not come.

“As you wish, my general,” Dardariel responded, obviously chagrined.

Dardariel’s gaze then fell upon Montagin, and the angel did all he could to suppress a smile of petulant satisfaction, and supreme relief.

Without another word, the three soldiers opened their wings, and with a rush of air, were gone from the mansion.

It was a moment before Montagin could react.

“What madness is this?” he shrieked as he turned to face the general.

The general’s appearance began to melt away, revealing the form of the smiling Vatican sorcerer.

“Besides being top in my class for offensive and defensive spells,” Malatesta offered, “I also excelled in the art of glamour.”

Castle Hallow
1349

Simeon could not find his master.

He’d searched high and low, but the whereabouts of Ignatius Hallow were unknown even to his demonic servants.

The old necromancer had mentioned that Simeon’s lessons would start earlier than usual, and would be more challenging than ever before.

Simeon’s thoughts raced through the years he had spent in service to the necromancer called Hallow. None of them had ever been easy, and many of the things he had learned had resulted in his own death. But that was not such a high price to pay when cursed with eternal life.

Hallow had called him the perfect student, hoping if he’d had time to sire a son, he would have been as obedient—and enduring—as Simeon.

But today Simeon was to be challenged.

He had searched everywhere for his master—every place but one, which was forbidden to him.

Hallow called it his sanctum, a place only for him. Simeon always believed that was where the most powerful of the necromancer’s knowledge was kept, and he wondered if this day would be the day that the special room was revealed to him.

The sanctum was located in a hidden chamber, deep beneath what was believed to be the final room in the castle. It was part dungeon, part torture chamber, and part wine cellar. The only reason Simeon even knew of its existence was that he’d followed his ancient master one night, and unseen, watched as the old man opened the secret door and descended even further into the bowels of the earth.

Simeon moved aside some old wooden barrels and began to search for a way to make the entrance appear. Eyes squinted and hand glowing with a supernatural light he ignited with a simple spell of illumination, he looked, but could not find any trace of a door.

He was about to call forth a spell of unraveling, when the door suddenly appeared. It began as a spot of shadow, growing steadily until a dark passage was revealed.

Smiling with the belief that this was the day he yearned for, Simeon entered the cool darkness, carefully making his way down steps that appeared constructed from bricks of solid shadow. His breathing quickened, and his heart beat at a frantic, excited pace. Simeon could only imagine the magick that was stored here, and how it could eventually help him toward his purpose.

The descending passage seemed to go on forever, but then he saw the hint of a flickering light below him. Careful not to stumble—he might have been immortal, but he still would rather not go through the rather unpleasant experience of breaking his bones—Simeon continued down the steps.

Unsure if he had reached the bottom, he reached out with a foot to test the darkness, probing for something solid with the tip of his boot. The darkness beneath it was firm, and did not yield, and he knew that he had arrived.

The dancing light was not too far ahead, and he plunged into the sea of pitch black, moving toward it like an insect to flame. It was not long before he realized that he had been traveling a long, stone corridor that emptied out into an enormous, domed chamber.

“There you are, Simeon,” said an ancient voice from within the underground room. “I suspected you would find me.”

Simeon stepped into the vast, circular room, and found his suspicions confirmed. The room was indeed a vast storeroom of ancient texts, scrolls, and rare arcana.

But what he then witnessed almost brought a scream to his lips.

Ignatius Hallow had taken his books and scrolls and had placed them all in an enormous pile upon the stone floor. Squatting, huge and loathsome, not far away was a monstrous entity of some twisted kind. It resembled a gigantic toad filtered through the mind of a madman, the bulbous black eyes protruding up from its lumpy head riveted to the necromancer before it.

Hallow, wielding a shovel, was taking large scoops of the ancient works and tossing them into the cavernous, gaping maw of the demon toad, which was filled with unnatural flame.

“Stop!” Simeon cried, running across the room toward his master. “You can’t do this!”

“I can, and I will,” Hallow said, grunting as he shoveled a particularly large shovelful of texts and scrolls into the waiting mouth of the beast. The fire hissed and billowed as the writings were consumed, the great demon toad chewing and swallowing noisily before opening its mouth once more.

Hallow was digging for more when Simeon grabbed hold of the shovel.

“You can’t,” he bellowed, taking Hallow by surprise.

The demon toad let out a horrific sound of warning, steam escaping from its nostrils with a hiss.

“I know what this must look like to you, boy, but I do what needs to be done,” the necromancer told him. He pulled the shovel away from Simeon with a display of great strength. “There isn’t much time. . . . They’re almost here.”

Hallow bent and dug into the dwindling stack.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Simeon said, watching as scrolls and forbidden, flesh-bound volumes made their way into the inferno inside the great, reptilian beast’s mouth. “This knowledge is irreplaceable, why would you see it destroyed?”

“This knowledge is power,” the necromancer spoke. He paused to wipe away the sweat pouring out from beneath his copper skull-cap. “And I cannot afford for him to have any more than he already has.”

“Who?” Simeon demanded, unable to take his eyes from the potential knowledge and power being eaten by the flames within the monster’s mouth.

“I always knew this day would come,” Hallow said, resuming his task. “That he would someday gather a force, and have enough power to come at me . . . to take what I have collected.”

“Who?” Simeon asked again, his voice a plaintive cry. He stepped into the path before more could be tossed within the demon toad’s furnace of a mouth.

Hallow stopped midtoss, the books upon the shovel falling to the stone floor.

“The leader of the Church,” Ignatius Hallow said. “Pope Tyranus . . .”

Hallow paused, his glassy eyes reflecting the fire from inside the demon toad’s mouth.

“My brother.”

It was as if Simeon has been physically struck. “Your . . . brother?”

“The one born in light,” the necromancer explained. “Who seeks my birthright of darkness.”

Hallow leaned on the shovel, showing a weariness that Simeon had never seen in him before.

“That is why this all must be destroyed,” he explained. “He can never have it.”

“We will fight him,” Simeon proclaimed. “We will be the ones to take away his birthright instead.”

The old man smiled sadly. “I’m afraid my brother has grown quite powerful since last we dueled, and the spirits of the dead tell me that he has acquired an even more powerful ally.” Hallow paused, as if not wanting to say aloud what it was they would be facing. “A soldier of Heaven serves his cause.”

Simeon could not believe what he was hearing; from what he understood, the winged messengers served only one master.

“How?” he asked incredulously. “How is it that an angel of God serves a being of mere flesh? Is it his position of authority with the Church?”

Hallow raised his right hand, showing Simeon the ring that adorned his middle finger. “I wear this ring forged for King Solomon to control the demonic; my brother wears its opposite.”

“But Solomon had only one ring,” Simeon said, feeling foolish in correcting his master.

The necromancer slowly shook his head. “There were two sigil rings: one to control the demonic . . .”

Simeon was stunned.

“And the other to control the angelic.”

“Now do you see?” Hallow asked. “Now do you see why these texts and scrolls must be destroyed?”

“But—,” Simeon began to protest.

“But nothing,” Hallow roared. “My brother is ravenous for the power contained within these walls. . . .” He held up his hand again.

“And what rests upon my finger.”

•   •   •

Francis cut a tear in the fabric of reality with his fancy knife, and he and Remy stepped from an alley in Providence to . . .

“Where are we now?” Remy asked, standing beside his friend, taking a look around.

The cut quickly healed behind them, the makeup of the universe not tolerant of holes in the material of existence.

“This is where I saw Neal take Aszrus,” Francis said. “Although in daylight it doesn’t look like much of a happening place.”

They were standing outside a tall, chain-link fence that surrounded a vast property, which looked as if it was being prepared either for demolition or renovation.

“Are you sure this is it?” Remy asked, his fingers gripping the fence as he peered through the links.

“As sure as if I’d done it myself,” Francis said.

Remy studied the brick building. There was a cornerstone with
1913
chiseled into it just after the broken concrete steps that led up to the front entrance. Over the rounded stone entryway, it read
LEMUEL
.

“I think I know what this is,” he said, turning to his friend.

Francis was already on the other side, walking toward the entrance. “Connecticut,” he said over his shoulder.

Remy unfurled his wings and flew over the fence.

“We’re in Connecticut,” Francis said again. “There’s a sign for the demolition company hanging on the fence.”

“Then I definitely know what this is,” Remy said as they entered the cool shade thrown by the ominous brick building looming above them.

“Gonna share?” Francis asked.

“This is the Lemuel Institute,” Remy explained. “A prominent psychiatric facility that ended up with quite the reputation when some of its more experimental methods of rehab were exposed in the sixties.”

“Let me guess,” Francis said. “They were less than humane.”

Remy started up the steps toward the doors. “Sounded like it was a regular house of horrors—the mentally retarded mingling with the criminally insane, and the medical staff working practically unsupervised. The reports of unauthorized medical procedures were staggering. The place was finally shut down in the early seventies.” He stood at the door, peering through the filthy glass at the corridor beyond.