Authors: Tony Richards
I climbed the stairs, going up past the signs for accountants and dentists, till I reached my office door. The lettering on the frosted glass pane still looked reasonably fresh.
DEVRIES & MACDONALD – SECURITY CONSULTANTS
There’s no MacDonald. I simply thought that two guys sounded more secure than one. Cass only came in later, learning what I was all about and deciding to help. And ‘security consultant’ in the Landing is rather more involved a business than a matter of fitting burglar alarms. But then, you’ve already figured that out.
Maybe it’s the plain fact, once again, that I have never dabbled in magic. It gives me an outsider’s perspective on the subject. I can see things clearly where a mind filled with arcana cannot. And what happened to my wife and children drives me too. It drives me constantly, in fact. I seem to be able to solve problems other people can’t even get close to.
I could still recall – as I unlocked the door and then went in – those faintly colored flashes from the loft window next door. That was Goad, starting to practice genuine wizardry, then sharp-honing his skills. He’d bought all the books and implements he needed here, you see. They are freely available in town, and it’s the way most people who don’t have it in their heritage learn.
I’d done a little research on him, by then. I had no computer, there were none at the department. We’re, as you might imagine, a very inward-looking community round this neck of the woods. And few of our messages – part of the curse as well – ever seem to reach the outside world.
But the central public library had one. I found him on a cheaply put together little website. He’d had a magician’s act in Vegas. Apparently, not a successful one.
Here’s the other thing you have to understand about Raine’s Landing. It’s not simply that people practice sorcery round here. It’s more that, ever since the witches came, the whole place has become imbued with magic. It has dripped down through the soil, and soaked into the walls around us. The insects hum with it. The night winds breathe it. The whole place simply lends itself to woven spells and sudden transformations. And in coming here, Goad had found what he had always really wanted. The ability to change things that he previously could not.
That creeping feeling on the back of my neck had become a regular sensation, a month after he first moved in. And it wasn’t only the spells. There were even worse things than that.
I’d never actually caught him at it, but was sure that he was spying on my family whenever they were out in the backyard. And on Alicia especially. I spotted his curtains twitch when she was sunbathing one time, and insisted that she come indoors.
“Ross, you’re being paranoid!”
Except I wasn’t. Not at all. Later events would bear that out.
My office was just one medium-sized room, not recently-decorated that you’d notice. The white paint had gone rather dull and specks of it had peeled away. Last year’s calendar hung on the wall. The filing cabinets had come with the place – I barely ever used them. But there was an alcove to one side, with a washbasin and towel. I went to it, splashed some cold water on my face. Then, drying myself, gazed at my own reflection.
I’d always been on the narrow side, but these days I looked downright gaunt. My gray eyes didn’t have the sparkle that they used to. And my wavy, pale hair – a couple of inches longer than I’d worn it as a cop – looked thinner at the front. I pinched it with my finger and thumb and a couple of strands came away. A curse escaped my lips.
The door banged open. It was Cass. Who else? She was still wearing the same jeans and boots as yesterday, but a cream-colored T-shirt instead. The Kevlar vest was gone. Her lucky charm bracelet was rattling at her wrist. She doesn’t use magic any more than I do, but she can be superstitious occasionally. It’s just part of the way she is.
She looked rather squinty, as if she had had a restless night as well. And rather ticked off. I wondered who had managed to annoy her.
“Who’s that old guy by the statue?”
I shrugged. “Never seen him before. Why?”
“He told me that the world was going to end. And then he called me a harlot.” She peered across inquiringly. “What’d I ever do to him?”
I pulled another face at her. Cass, to put it mildly, is quite capable of defending her honor if she needs to.
A residue of sadness still remained in her dark eyes. But, like me, she was trying to keep the lid on it by staying busy. She ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair, then sat down on the corner of my desk.
And announced, “Got something.”
Nobody was ever going to hire her as a speechwriter, let’s face it. I peered at her, interested.
“Why didn’t you call me yesterday?”
“I tried – you weren’t home. And your cell phone was dead. Still hobnobbing with the upper crust, I take it.”
I had switched it off before I’d gone into the Manor. Woodard Raine, among other things, doesn’t like new technology.
Cassie, for her part, doesn’t like the people up on Sycamore Hill, and never has. She’s pure Raine’s Landing working-class – her father was a warehouseman and her mother a waitress. They both died in a road accident when she was seventeen – she’d had to make it on her own since then. I knew that she’d gone off the rails the first couple of years, although she’d never told me many details. But eventually, she’d sorted herself out. And there was nothing that she had in common with the self-styled aristocracy on Plymouth Drive. The wry twist to her mouth, the dryness of her gaze, reflected that.
Which slightly missed the point. I couldn’t get things done at all if I didn’t have dealings with the adepts. And besides, I was still waiting. What exactly had she turned up?
“Cassie?”
“Right. A few people came back to Cray’s Lane, later in the evening. As you can imagine, they were in a pretty bad way when they found out what had happened.”
I wondered what
that
had to be like. Going out for dinner or a movie. Ambling back after a pleasant evening, only to discover all your loved ones were gone. At least I’d been around when …
I moved away from that thought, trying to force it from my mind.
“Most of them weren’t in any state to talk.” Her voice was tight, but she shook her head and got past it. “The few who were knew nothing. They were totally bewildered. But you were right about one thing. Someone
did
see what was going on.”
“Terrific. Who’s our witness?”
“A ten year-old called Tommy Wilkes. He lives in the corner house on Amley Street, backing right onto Cray’s Lane.”
Better than nothing.
“Go on,” I said.
“When all the yelling started, Tommy hunkered down and stayed put, just like he’d been ta
ught. Except he was in his tree house, with a clear view of the street.”
He’d been outdoors, then. Maybe that explained why he had noticed, unlike all the other people nearby. I was listening carefully. And … might we really find out what was happening through the eyes of a child?
“He was pretty scared,” Cass went on, “but in a ten year-old sort of way. Kept bobbing around and peeking. And, just as the screams began dying down, he caught sight of a figure moving away. A man, only in silhouette. But he was tall and pretty gangly.”
She stopped at that point, blinking, something coming to her. And me too. I got up, started moving to the window.
When I looked down, though, the old vagrant with his placard was no longer in sight.
“Well?” Cass asked.
I shook my head.
“He’s wandered off. Probably nothing.”
If he’d been our guy, wouldn’t he do something more than stand there shouting and then disappear? Both of us forgot about him.
“I’ve got something else,” Cassie said.
She was leaning back a little on my desk, with the beginning of a smug smile playing across her features.
“Am I going to have to wait all week to hear about it?”
“As this guy was leaving, well, he left behind a souvenir. Tommy saw an object fall from his hand to the verge. So – being ten years old – once he was certain that the coast was clear, he shimmied down and got it.”
She reached into her pocket. Pulled out something the size of a matchbox, wrapped up in a handkerchief.
I went across, lifted it from her palm, unwrapped it. It seemed to glint very dully in the light above my desk.
My skin started prickling.
I emptied it into my palm. It felt very cool against my skin, far more than was natural. You generally only saw these in the museum over on Fairweather. It was a crude arrowhead, carved out of a lump of flint. The thing had to be hundreds of years old.
What was this about? I held it up between my thumb and forefinger. Its edges were still razor sharp, despite its age. And there were stains on it that looked like they might be blood, except that they were deep black, with the slightest hint of green to it.
I turned it over. Something on its surface winked. So I peered at it a little harder, adjusting its angle in the daylight from my window.
Lettering had been scratched into one of its flatter sides, so lightly I could barely read it. It looked like somebody had done it with a pin, or perhaps a fingernail. Block capital letters. I struggled to make them out.
SARUAK.
I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. A name? An invocation of some kind? But there was one thing I was pretty certain of, the more I stared. They were pretty recent, fresh.
“What is it?” Cassie asked me.
“What it looks like, I’d guess.”
“Why would he have left it behind?”
A new void had begun to open up inside me. A bewildered hollowness. Because this – it answered none of our questions. It merely posed new ones. If someone was playing a game with us, then I didn’t understand the rules at all.
“Beats me,” I muttered.
Though that wasn’t entirely the case. Maybe he’d dropped it there for us to find. As to why –
that
was the real puzzle, wasn’t it?
Extremely gently, I brushed the pad of my thumb against one of the sharpened edges.
And to my astonishment, it cut me. A bead of blood sprang up.
A cold draft moved through my whole office at the self-same time.
The air in front of my desk began to waver gently. Only one thing could make that happen – some kind of sorcery. I held myself in readiness. Wrapped the arrowhead back up, although I held onto it.
Cass, alarmed, got up and went back several paces. Her right hand dropped to one of her Glocks. But the fact was, we could only stand there, waiting to see what was going to happen. And we’d both been in
that
impasse before.
The wavering grew heavier, like ripples on a pond. It didn’t spread throughout the room, however. It was confined to a single area in front of me. A vaguely rectangular patch of air, its edges uneven but some five foot wide and rising eight feet off the floor. And that shape suggested …
Well, a doorway of some kind.
A drop of perspiration trickled down my brow. This
was
magic, I was certain. But a kind I’d never seen before.
A glance at Cassie told me she was equally dumbfounded. The bridge of her nose got all creased when she was like that, as if she was annoyed.
“Hey!” she blurted. “What
is
this?”
The rippling began to slow. As it diminished, something else began to take its place. Merely a vague outline, at first. Then it quickly coalesced into a solid shape.
The air became completely flat and still again. But not empty.
Something was now standing in my office.
It stood several inches taller than I did and was considerably broader.
But, despite the fact that it had all the usual requirements – two arms, two legs, a head – it wasn’t even remotely human. So maybe this was the ‘something’ that Raine had warned me of.
Its shoulders were as wide as one side of my desk. It was superbly muscled, with a great barrel chest. At first, I thought it might have fur. But then I saw that that was a mistake. It was smooth. An even, pale gray hue all over, a murky color that seemed a little indistinct, like the creature was made partly out of dust. That was not the case, though. It was definitely solid. Its weight was making the worn parquet floor creak underneath it slightly. And I could smell its rank, meaty breath from here.
Its legs were bowed slightly, the feet massive. And its arms were unnaturally long. It had hands rather than paws – as large as catcher’s mitts – but there were no nails at the ends of the fingers. There appeared to be something unusual about the tips of them, although I couldn’t tell quite what.
It growled, a noise like rocks coming apart. My gaze went to its face. It was densely ridged and oval. There seemed to be something rather lupine about it. A suggestion of sharpness to the muzzle. A savagery to the heavy brow. Its ears were long, went to sharp tips, and were pressed back flat against its skull. Its eyes shone an iridescent green, and studied us both threateningly.
But it was its mouth that was the worst thing, for the moment anyhow. Curving fangs protruded across the lips, distorting them. The beast was drooling gently, and it grunted as it breathed.
What
was
this? I took a step backward, becoming aware of something else. It had materialized between ourselves and the only doorway out of here.
I tried to edge round it a little. Cassie, very gingerly, did the same It responded by lifting those great hands of its a little higher. And, where I‘d noticed something odd about the fingertips …
Retractable claws – about six inches long and sharp-looking as scalpels – all came snicking out.
It snarled again, hunched forward, and its mouth gaped open. There were several rows of fangs in there. I realized, in the dull shock of that moment, that at least we now knew what had been in Garnerstown last night.
I had a brief thought.
Who created this?
And then my hand was reaching for the Smith & Wesson in my coat.
Cass, as usual, beat me to it. Her gaze became cold, her features set like stone. And one of her Glocks came snaking up.
Her first round, fired almost at point-blank range, hit the creature, making it snarl again, but then bounced off it. It left a small, dull mark against the thing’s gray hide, but that was all. I heard her curse.
But Ms. Mallory doesn’t ever give up on the first attempt. She simply drew her other handgun, started emptying both clips into the beast.
The creature stumbled back under the onslaught, but then started to fight against it, rapidly recovering.
I had my revolver out, was firing as well. But to an equal lack of real effect. The thing just took our heat, wincing with discomfort. And kept on pressing forward, trying to snatch the guns from both our hands. Its claws made a whistling noise, splitting the very air.
We
were the ones going back by this time, and I didn’t like that. You can’t fight properly if you have to keep retreating.
It couldn’t disarm both of us if we separated. So I stepped sideways, behind my desk. Gun smoke had already filled the room, my eyes were stinging gently. I was shaking slightly, wondering how to beat this thing.
The creature paused a moment, trying to decide which of us to follow. Its head went even lower and its green eyes blinked. And then its shining gaze pinioned me. I’m not quite sure why. Cassie was the greater threat. But perhaps it had noticed that I still had the arrowhead in my left hand.
The beast suddenly lurched forward, ramming so hard into my desk it overturned it. My chair flipped over savagely, forcing me to jump back. I dodged across to one side, tried to fire again.
The hammer came down on an empty chamber. And the creature was stepping up onto my capsized desk by this time. I glanced desperately at Cass.
One of her slim eyebrows arched. She tossed me her second Glock. She uses the extended clips, so she had plenty of shots to spare. The creature swiped at me with its long talons, missing me by barely an inch. I put three rounds straight into the center of its chest. It staggered back again and let out something that I reckon might have been a moan. But then it just recovered, like the last time.
I could see there was no stopping it this way. We might as well be taking potshots at the side of a barn door. There was another handgun in the top drawer of my desk, a Magnum. Except my desk was lying on its side. And the creature had climbed on top of it once more.
I snatched up my fallen chair and hurled it at it, acting out of desperation. One of those huge arms simply batted it away.
Cass, though, had a clear run at the door by this time. I’d at least succeeded in drawing it away from her. She took the chance that she’d been given, yelling back over her shoulder, “I’ll be as quick as I can! Just hold it off!”
Thanks.
I’d already figured that one out. I tried shooting at the creature’s temples. That got me a slightly better result. It pawed at them and stopped for a few seconds. But it wasn’t backing off from me, now. Not even a little bit.
I could hear Cass’ boots hammering down the stairwell, and I knew where she was headed. I just wasn’t sure what kind of condition I would be in by the time that she got back.
Perhaps it wanted the arrowhead. But that was the only solid lead we had. I wasn’t about to give it up. I dropped it into one of my pockets, freeing up both of my hands.
I put another slug into the creature’s face. Hit the corner of its mouth this time. It groaned again. Spat out a few flecks of darker gray liquid that I guessed was blood. But I’d already noticed something else. Those faint marks we’d managed to graze its hide with were already fading. This beast was not only hard to damage. When you
did
hurt it, it healed up quickly.
I barely pulled my head away as its claws went singing past my face.
I was backing off again, moving crabwise. Being forced into a corner. The chair I’d thrown was lying nearby, so I snatched that up as well.
By this stage, the creature wasn’t even flinching when the 9mms struck it. It seemed to have grown used to them. Determination shone in those peculiar, glittering eyes.
A click.
The Glock was empty. I dropped it, then held the chair out at full stretch in front of me. Where the hell was Cass?
The talons came whizzing downward. The chair fell to pieces like balsawood. A second set of claws came swiping at me but I ducked underneath the blow, dropping to the floor, rolling away. Then I lunged for my desk and scrabbled round behind it.
Tried to yank it upright, which was not an easy job. It was big, and built of stout New England oak. Difficult for just one man. But I kept on heaving, managing to get its top edge a few inches off the ground. The drawers slid partly open. I could hear the Magnum rattling around.
The creature – out of pique, perhaps – kicked the far end of it, sending it slamming into me. I found myself skidding across the floor, till I finally wound up against the far wall. I was bruised and dazed, but squinted back in the direction that I’d come.
The creature wasn’t climbing
over
the desk, this time. It was wading right through it with those massive hind legs, trampling it to get at me. It made huffing noises as it progressed, spittle flying through the air, like it was filled with pressured steam and it was going to explode.
I thought of the arrowhead again. When I reached inside my pocket, though … it wasn’t there. I tried the right one, with no better result. Maybe it had fallen out. I stared across the floor.
Too late. The beast was above me, like a storm cloud that had gathered. One of its hands was coming down again. I scrabbled to get out of its way.
Air rushed across my neck. I felt a tug, the back of my coat being torn. But otherwise, I got away unscathed. Except for how much longer?
In the ruin that had been my desk, I could see my other handgun, glinting dully in the wreckage. Still on my hands and knees, I went toward it breathlessly. And was just about to grab it when a vicious pain ran through my leg.
The creature had simply turned around, stepped forward. And – as casually as stepping on a bug – had planted a foot on my lower calf.
The muscles flared with pain. My leg was pinned in place like it had been nailed to the floor. Although the creature wasn’t trying to crush it, merely stopping me from going anywhere. When I tried to wriggle loose, it increased the pressure slightly. When I reached out for the gun, it did the same.
I took the discomfort, stretching out my arm until the fingertips were shaking. They got almost to within an inch of the Magnum, but no closer than that.
I twisted around to see what was happening.
Its right arm had come up once more. Its talons caught the light. This time, it wasn’t going to miss.
The claws were sweeping down next instant. I was raising both my arms to shield my face, as if that would make the slightest difference.
When a loud explosion made the entire office rock.
The gray creature was almost lifted off its feet. It went back practically two yards, slamming against a cabinet and then nearly losing its balance altogether. So it
could
be injured. Its jaws split open as wide as they could, and it let out a shriek that nearly burst my eardrums.
Breathing hard, I hauled myself half upright and then glanced toward the doorway. Cass was standing in it, triumph dancing in her gaze, the Mossberg smoking in her grasp. She didn’t load the thing with ordinary cartridges, either. She used BRI ‘saboted’ slugs, capable of blowing holes right through a concrete wall. And from the range that she had fired …
I looked back at the creature she had hit.
The round had penetrated slightly, leaving a dent in its stomach from which dark gray was leaking. A bruise the color of lead was becoming apparent round it. That looked more permanent than the other marks. I didn’t think that it would heal real soon.
But the thing wasn’t anywhere near dead. Obviously stunned and in genuine pain. It remained to be proven, though, if we could finish it for good.
Cass seemed eager to try. Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lower lip. She worked the pump, then stepped in closer, aiming for the head at nearly point-blank range.
The creature looked up, understood what she was doing. Its contorted features grew alarmed. I expected it to try and move away. Instead of which …
The air around it started rippling again, much faster than before.
And between one moment and the next, it had completely disappeared.
A long and breathless pause, as we stared at the empty space it had left, was finally broken by an aggravated “
Damn!
” from Cassie. She looked furious.
Not that I didn’t sympathize. But – for my own part – I was just pleased the thing was gone. It wasn’t her leg that had gotten stamped on, after all.
I doubled over and massaged my calf. Cass, still holding the shotgun, came and stood beside me, panting gently.
“You okay?” she asked.
“There’s probably nothing broken. That’s the up side. It still hurts.”
“Sorry about leaving you like that.”
She’d forgotten her annoyance. Her face was apologetic.
“No – you did the right thing. Thanks.”
I stared rather numbly at the wreckage strewn around my office.
“Ever
see
anything like that before?” I asked.
“I’m sure I’d remember.”
“Yuh.”
But I started to wonder. I hadn’t even told Cass about my conversation at the Manor yet, but … if this was the ‘visitor’ Raine had talked about?
There was something missing. Whatever that creature had been, it seemed merely an animal and nothing more, with no guiding intelligence. Why would it leave an arrowhead for us to find? It didn’t even answer Tommy Wilkes’ description.
And if it
was
doing someone else’s bidding, then what kind of lunatic would conjure up a sheer monstrosity like that?
Cassie murmured ‘damn’ again. Walked across to where the beast had last been, then stooped down and picked something up. Displayed it to me in her open palm. It was the saboted slug she’d fired, flattened to a pancake. It had caused some damage, certainly. But had not even penetrated fully. All the victory had melted from her eyes by this time, and they glimmered with a quiet dismay.
This was definitely something quite out of the ordinary we were facing.
I edged across and finally picked up my Magnum. Then I stood up properly, carefully distributing my weight. My leg was aching badly. That would be the case for quite a while. But at least I was mobile.