Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) (22 page)

The edges of the book were clean once again, the ragged wounds had been burned away in the energy pulse. I flipped the cover over and glanced down at the first page.

The page was blank. I flipped through several more pages, each blank.

I rifled through the whole book, looking for any mark, any drawing all to no avail. Every page was pale cream parchment without as much as a smudge or a doodle.

That was rather anti-climactic.

“Well, aren’t you a disappointment?” I said to the book, setting it down on my lap and flipping back to the front cover. Nothing there either.

I closed my eyes, rubbing them with my free hand while I kept a death-grip on Gram. The book was open and taunting me.

What a total waste. For this, Katie was struck down? It was so damned unfair.

Maybe I was looking at this all wrong. Maybe this book was darker than I’d thought. I thought to the shield, the one I’d used to slay the dragon Duchamp, the one the necromancer had butchered the dragon on and infused the metal with my blood, his blood, and the blood of a dragon.

It was dark, that shield; powerful. I set the book down on the couch and went back into the bedroom. I checked the mirror, just to make sure Gletts wasn’t watching for me, but the mirror remained empty. I opened the closet door and looked down at the shield. I’d debated taking it out to Black Briar to store in their underground bunker, but it felt right to keep it here, where I could reach it.

Qindra had wanted to study it, and I’d agreed. I just hadn’t said when, and she wasn’t currently pushing me.

I picked up the shield, the leather strap across the back was stiff with old blood. As I walked by the mirror, Gram in one hand, the shield in the other, I looked pretty damn scary. A force to be reckoned with. Even in my Death Pixies T-shirt and my hair longer than it had been since before I went away to college.

I was a badass.

The book hadn’t moved, which was good. I lay the shield on the floor, backside up and knelt beside it, Gram firmly gripped in my left hand. I’d seen the necromancer do something in my vision the first time I touched this shield that may have some bearing on this.

I sat on my heels, leaned forward and ran my thumb over Gram’s edge. A scarlet line appeared quick and clean. Blood was powerful, that much I’d learned. We’d seen the effects of blood magic when we fought the necromancer before Christmas. Crazy powerful and dangerous as hell. Just what the doctor ordered, I figured.

I smeared my thumb across the back of the shield, painting an arc of red across the blackened wood. There was a flash of smoke and the stench of burning meat then the shield vibrated against the floor, dancing about for the briefest of moments before settling down to a quiet hum.

Then I lay the book inside the curved shield, just above the leather strap and flipped it open to the first page. Here I smeared my bloody thumb across the page and sat back.

For a moment nothing happened. The bloody smear looked as you’d expect. Then it began to move, to be absorbed into the book.

Aha! Victory. The book required blood. Either it was hungry, which suddenly scared the heck out of me, or it needed a sacrifice of some sort to work.

The book throbbed, an insistent pulse like it had done near Katie. I pulled the book into my lap, keeping a death grip on Gram and grabbed the edge of the shield. “Open sesame,” I whispered.

My mind exploded in a flash of magic. For the briefest of moments, the only things in the world were me, the book, Gram and the shield.

Then I was falling sideways.

Thirty-two

Qindra waited in her rooms, watching for the danger to her and her wards. Why was everything with Beauhall reckless and dangerous? If Nidhogg reacted, she knew it would be Beauhall’s doing. But it would be Qindra who was at fault for not stopping the Mistress’s new Fist.

Zi Xiu gathered the little ones in the kitchen having them help roll out dough for dumplings. The head of the household had never questioned Qindra, just set about rearranging the kitchen schedule to make things flow smoothly. She was a wonderfully efficient servant.

The new Eyes was in with Nidhogg reading to her from one of the ancient tomes they had in the great library. Only the foot servants were in the room with them. It was all that Qindra dared alter without raising too much suspicion. Nidhogg would allow no fewer servants to be nearby.

Qindra was sure Nidhogg suspected something, but the trust there was irrefutable. If Qindra thought things needed to be altered, within reason, the great mother was amenable to the change.

Now, if things would just progress. Waiting was worse than dealing with the aftermath. Any minute now something was going to happen.

And so it came. Near on to five in the evening, Qindra’s baubles and trinkets began to glow with a warning as something passed over the house. This wave was small compared to the previous ones. Nothing broke, no vessel was overfilled with energy and exploded.

Was this the end? The final blow or was this the first drawing down before the tsunami?

She cast down into the shallow basin where the lights of the thralls could be seen if one knew where and how to look. While it did not encompass all of Nidhogg’s territory with any kind of detail, it allowed her to keep an eye on specific powerful agents. She touched the surface of the water with her wand and whispered Sarah’s name. A cluster of lights swam in the water, one shining brighter than all the others. Many other lights moved among the greater blur of their demesne, but none rivaled that of Sarah’s. Not unless she looked inward toward Nidhogg, or south toward Frederick Sawyer.

Suddenly, next to Sarah’s will-o’-wisp a second glow pulsed, black as a bruise, sucking in the light. It flitted for a moment, nearly blotting out Sarah’s own light, then it faded into nothing. The contrast was so stark, it took her a moment to realize that Sarah’s light had gone out as well. It hadn’t faded, like when one dies. It had just ceased to exist.

Thirty-three

I stood on a hill overlooking a great battle scene. The dead lay across the horizon in any direction I looked. The night sky bore down on me from above, the thick mantle of stars like so many accusing eyes. In the distance buildings burned, the great fires sending mounds of smoke into the air. I brought my gaze back to my immediate surroundings. The ground at me feet was covered with the broken bodies of creatures that at once reminded me of Bub, but not. He was a creature of fire and flame. Those at my feet were ice and frost. They were similar in form, but they bore no semblance of higher thinking—animals—wild things. Most had attacked with claws and teeth, but there were a few among them fallen who had borne rough shields and clubs.

There was no one living as far as I could see. Below the hill, toward the rising moon, there was a building of some sort. I began to pick my way through the dead, trying not to lose my balance in the patches of ice and snow. I stumbled once, catching myself on my outstretched arm, realizing that I held the shield in my right hand. Gram was in my left.

Halfway to the building, I made out a glow coming from within a smoking building—a glow that pulsed between green and purple, subtle colors like old bruises and decay. I thought for a moment that maybe I was dreaming, but I knew I wasn’t. Not for any concrete reason, other than I was still wearing my Death Pixies T-shirt, jeans, and my Docs. I had no armor, no helmet and amazingly enough, no wounds.

The building was low, a single story built from rough-hewn logs and a thatched roof. It was a long house, like those the Vikings built. The door was torn asunder and bodies of young men and women littered the ground before it. They’d died defending what rested inside, the glowing light.

I stepped over the young bodies, no more than teenagers, with rent limbs and horror stricken faces. Death had not been kind to any of the fallen—the ugly, the beautiful, the weak, or the strong. Once the fatal blow fell, the body collapsed into a misshapen pile of meat.

The stench of the dead was not so overwhelming due to the cold. But inside, a dying fire burned in a hearth large enough to drive a team of oxen within. This was the house of a great chieftain, a leader of many men. The great long tables within had been pushed against doors and windows, and yet the bodies within, old men and women, and babes too small to take up arms, all lay broken before the great hearth.

“Who did this?” I asked the dead.

None answered, thank the gods.

Near the hearth, propped in the corner closest to the dying fire, an old woman sat crumpled on her side, the green and purple glow pulsing from beneath her slashed and battered form.

I set Gram into her sheath over my shoulder, slung the shield around my back and knelt at her side. There was no blood in the building, I realized. None of the fallen here had slashing or bashing wounds.

I placed my hand on the old woman’s shoulder and righted her, pushing her back against the wall of the lodge. She weighed next to nothing, her frame stick thin. Her face was contorted as if in great pain, and in her hands she clutched a glowing book. It looked so familiar, like something I’d seen in the past. A noise rose in my head—a great rushing of wind and the distant howling of wolves.

Something yet lived, whether friend or foe, I had no idea. But wolves rarely meant safety. I was tired, exhausted from days of what? Fighting? My clothes were whole and I had no wounds. But my arms felt like I’d been working the forge, or swinging Gram for far too long a time. The book called to me, the pulsing of the light echoing my own heartbeat. Was it the key? Would it lead me to my goal? I glanced around the room one final time, making sure nothing moved, then wrenched the book from the old woman’s dead hands. The world exploded.

Thirty-four

Mrs. Gottschalk woke with a shout as a spike of pain pierced her head. A pride of cats scattered screeching and yowling into the furthest reaches of the house. A platter of sandwiches and tea set crashed to the floor at her feet.

“Attend to me,” she bellowed, grasping her head in both hands.

Two young women scampered in from an adjoining room, and one of the cats returned, slinking around the edge of the doorway.

“Clean this mess,” the old woman croaked, her head throbbing like an overripe melon.

“You,” she pointed to the closest woman who knelt, gathering sandwiches and broken crockery. “My medicine, bring it to me.”

The girl ducked a quick bow and scampered across the room, dumping the collected detritus onto a side table.

“Get a broom, stupid girl,” Gottschalt spat, as the second girl knelt to finish picking up large broken pieces of pottery. “Is there no one here with an ounce of sense?”

“What is it, Madame?” came a male reply.

Gottschalk looked up, saw the boy, Hague, with a cup in one hand and a napkin in the other. “What is it that ails you, Madame?”

“Bring me my tarot deck,” she barked, regretting the volume. “And kick that slug who is fetching my medicine. My head is like to split open.”

Hague turned, set his cup and napkin to the side and stepped past the girl who was digging through a cupboard and handed down a large bottle that sloshed nicely. The girl carried it over to Madame Gottschalk and handed her the bottle, pulling her hand back quickly, looking as if she may catch whatever was afflicting Madame.

The old woman pulled the cork from the mouth of the bottle and bent it to her lips, drinking down three quick sips. The vile cat and the boy stayed in the room as she sat back and closed her eye, letting the poppy solution dull the pain.

“Something has happened,” she said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. “Similar to the last time. Bring my cards, boy, and lay them before me. Let us see what has shattered the peace of the day.”

He pulled a folding tray from the corner by the large television and set it up before her. The cards whisked pleasantly as he shuffled them.

“Careful not to bend the edges,” she whispered, feeling the poppy trickle through her mind like icy fingers soothing a burn.

“Lay them out for me,” she continued, her breathing beginning to settle.

“Show me what the cards have to say.”

Let it not be our doom,
she thought as the boy placed the first card down on the tray.

The smith.
She grimaced and closed her eyes, not daring to see the next turn.

Thirty-five

I ran through an alley, my Docs echoing off the damp cobblestones. Gunfire blossomed behind me, far enough to not be a worry, yet. Somewhere in the distance an air raid siren wailed. Smoke choked the air as buildings on both sides of the street burned. Back the way I’d come the screams of the dying overwhelmed the sounds of gunfire and filled my head with the flavors of their pain.

Here the battle had passed already, a previous wave of carnage and loss. Uniformed men with guns lay sprawled in the streets, their bodies broken and slashed. Other men, civilians, lay shattered, their bodies riddled with bullet holes. These men bore axes, broken masonry, and lengths of broken pipes. These were those who were defending their homes. These dead outnumbered the men with guns ten to one.

I stood at the mouth of an alley, listening. I glanced to the left, past the group of dead men, toward an empty town square. To the right, the road angled back in roughly the direction I’d come from. Nothing that way but horror. I glanced back to the town square. There was no sign of movement within sight. I sheathed Gram, slung the shield over my right shoulder, and stepped out into the street. I paused at the closest gunman, his face smashed in by an axe handle, and knelt to check his gun.

The metal was old and the clip was empty. Other clips littered the ground. Others had looted here before me. I couldn’t stand around. I barely had my shit together as it was. There were things coming after me. I didn’t waste my time checking the other guns.

I dropped the machine gun onto the dead body of the soldier and drew sword and shield once again. If I ran into trouble, I’d be handling it the old fashion way. The row of shops that lined the street had been gutted by fire. I darted across to a smoldering bakery that was only identifiable by the sign hanging over the sidewalk.