“Philip, dear,” Zola said, projecting her voice. “Ah’m afraid we need to talk.”
That laugh. That dark, stuttering, maniacal laugh. Philip.
“Dear, we do.” Philip stepped out from behind a tree, the glassy surface of a shield flowing around him. His voice was rougher than the last time I’d heard it. The circles under his eyes were dark enough I could make them out in the shadows. His face was gaunt, drawn, filled out more by his beard than the plump roundness I’d seen at Stone’s River. It must have been a hard year for the old bastard. Good.
He stared at me. “Still sleeping well, Vesik? Still wondering if you’ve crossed that line? I can tell you already have. Look at those—”
“Volund is dead,” Zola said.
Philip shrugged. “He was weak.”
“He was one of your best,” Zola said. “Who is left? Jamin? Ezekiel?” she growled the last name. Philip flinched.
I could see the zombies moving towards us now, off to our right, shuffling past the caretaker’s shack in the falling snow. Something shimmered in my peripheral vision, standing beside Philip, but it was nothing my Sight could reveal.
For someone who seemed to have a knack for villainous plots, I thought Philip would have had a defense prepared for the Watchers. Apparently not.
Edgar landed silently in the distance, amidst the dozen or so zombies. Three of the zombies tore away from the group and closed on him with ungodly speed. Edgar simply punched the first one in the throat. I could hear the crack of bone over the groans of the undead. As the first vampiric zombie hit the ground, Edgar raised his hand and the next went up in a burst of yellow-orange flames.
James started hacking through the other side of the zombies, making his way toward a necromancer who was only now starting to back away.
Philip glanced behind him and cursed as Mike ran to help the Watchers. He raised his hand and two vampiric zombies appeared from the shimmering shields beside him. They streaked across graves, shattering headstones as their legs moved through them almost unimpeded. Almost too fast to follow, but not as fast as a soulsword.
The focus was in my right hand and my left settled an instant later on the blade rune carved into the staff. A shimmering blade wrapped in blue and gold and silver filaments shot from the empty hilt. The blade sliced clean through the chest of the first vampiric zombie, severing Philip’s power and the creature’s mobility in one bloody swipe. I didn’t have time to reset, so I raised the blade in an awkward backhanded motion.
The second zombie was just as fast. I didn’t get the sword around in time. The zombie knocked the staff away with one quick strike. The blade vanished and I barely dodged the creature’s follow through. I couldn’t outrun it. I couldn’t grab it with my necromancy because its aura was buried inside its body. I saw a blur pounce from the groundskeeper’s shack. I realized it was Sam as she struck the zombie with a single brutal kick.
“Sam, move!” I said as the zombie started to fall forward. She jumped to the side as I angled a horizontal slash at the zombie and channeled an aural blade up through the focus. I lurched as the focus grabbed more than I could give, but the momentum took care of the rest. The golden glow of a soulart erupted from the hilt, severing the zombie’s upper torso and head. Philip recoiled as he lost control of his creation.
“You still can’t stop me,” he snarled. His hand vanished into the shadows of his black cloak and the gnarled hand of the dead king came out with it. I saw Carter then, poised to strike at Philip, Maggie beside him. How in the hell did Philip not see them? Or did he really think they couldn’t touch him? Bingo.
“Nice trick, but I have a new one too,” I said.
He hesitated. It was all I needed.
I forced a torrent of necromancy through the focus, intertwining it with the soulart as it shot out across the field. Philip only had time for his eyes to widen as Carter and Maggie materialized beside him in a golden flash. Philip’s wrist snapped as Maggie lashed out and knocked the king’s hand to the ground. Carter broke the man’s leg with one swift kick.
Foster flew at the falling necromancer like a bullet, exploding into his full size a foot from Philip. His fist connected with such ferocity Philip’s neck had to be broken.
“Foster!” I said as I ran toward him and Philip. “You’re supposed to be grievously wounded.”
He pulled himself up to one knee, the strain obvious on his face. “I feel better.”
Zola walked up to the downed man beside me. He was still breathing.
“We need to question him,” I said.
“Ah just want to kill him.” Her voice was flat. I’d never heard her so emotionless talking about Philip. It was almost always rage or regret, not the cold edge of acceptance.
She flipped a blade out of the end of her cane and carved a circle around the fallen man.
“Orbis Tego.”
The shield snapped into existence as Mike and the Watchers made their way over to us. The zombies and necromancer were well and truly dead. And then we waited for Philip Pinkerton to wake up.
***
Edgar was standing between me and James. The younger Watcher stared at me. The look made my skin crawl. Edgar repositioned himself so James couldn’t see me and said something low and intense to the man. I did my best to ignore the exchange.
“I thought you said there were two necromancers aside from Philip,” I said as the radiant glow began to fade from Maggie and Carter as the soulart dissipated.
Maggie nodded. “The other is gone.”
“It was Zachariah,” Carter said.
“He’s never far from Philip,” Zola said as she squatted beside the glassy dome of power. “Where are Vik and Vassili? Dimitry and the fairies?”
“I sent them back to Rivercene,” Edgar said. “There are too many strangers in this town to know who’s a threat.”
Zola nodded. “Wise of you.”
Philip moved. He flinched as he tried to move his leg, and then looked up to find Zola.
“Fuck me.”
“That ship has sailed,” Zola said. “The only thing fucking you now is a barrel full of lead.”
Philip actually smiled, and laughed. The laugh was wrong somehow, broken. “What do you want?”
“There are rumors,” she said. “You travel with Ezekiel. Some say you control him.”
“Control him?” Philip asked as his stare trailed into the distance. “No one can control him.”
“Then why are you with him?” Zola asked.
“I’m not. I needed the Blessing to survive him. Did you not look over the hill yet? It should be most enlightening.”
“You let him near the grave?” Edgar said.
“Let
him?” Philip snapped. “Do you not remember his power? He is a god in all but name.” Philip lowered his eyes. “He is a god in name as well, to some.”
Edgar took a deep breath, and it almost sounded like a growl as he exhaled.
My heart bobbed up into my throat. “What’s over the hill?”
Zola gave a quick shake of her head and started up the short rise to the crest of the hill. I followed her, and was greeted by a vision I’d seen once before. A churning mass of restless souls, trapped within the scarred earth. Nothing I’ve ever seen comes closer to describing Hell. The specters were younger here than those I’d seen in Stone’s River, more humanlike as they clawed and threw themselves at the sides of the mass grave. They flailed silently, as others stepped on and through them, only to be dragged under in a constant, churning flow. The mass grave was below us. Dug up. Violated. Desecrated.
“Ezekiel is here.” Zola said, her stare never leaving the pit below us.
My gaze traveled from Philip back to the gaping maw in the ground. “Too fucking late,” I said.
“Who did he raise?” Mike asked as he strode down the hill to kneel beside the wound in the earth. “I can smell the brimstone, and there is fresh blood beneath the spirits.” He leaned closer and held out a hand, pulling a thin wisp of gray toward him. It may have been a jacket, or just a bit of smoke, but Mike’s hand closed into a fist, and the remnant fled. “Some of these spirits were destroyed tonight.”
“I never meant for him to open that grave,” Philip said, something verging on regret in his voice.
“Of course not, you only meant to raise the Destroyer and drown the earth in the dead,” Zola muttered.
Philip stayed silent for a moment, watching his old lover. “When the world is dead, they’ll never be able to hurt you again.”
Zola slowly closed her eyes and sighed. “Ah never wanted that.”
James finally lost it. “He should be put to death immediately!”
I tended to agree. We’d had enough trouble with Philip.
“I know we need allies, Edgar. Ezekiel has killed dozens of Watchers, and we don’t have the men to replace them. But a soulsword?” James said, his voice rising into a hysterical shout. “He is the enemy! He is a dark necromancer without question, Edgar! What possible reason could you have to let him live?”
Oh, crap, he meant me.
James’s attack came fast and hard. I was still gawking in disbelief as I raised a shield. It turned the wavy blade of a kris dagger to the side with an arc of electric blue sparks. I took a step back, my heel catching on the edge of a shattered tombstone. My head caught the edge of its neighbor as I fell backwards, sending my vision into a dangerous gray tunnel of stars and shadows.
Someone yelled. I saw a flash, an explosion, a sun? Too hard to tell. A voice screamed as I tried to roll over, a voice I knew. Zola. Another flash, yellow and orange and hot.
“Damian, no!”
Sam’s voice, Sam was here. Sam. I tried to will my vision back, struggling against the grogginess. Slowly, painfully so, my vision began to clear.
Laughter and cursing. The earth shook as Mike’s hammer came down on a swirling mass of shadows, and a dim red glow faded away in the center. He lifted the hammer and all that was left was a dent in the cemetery grass where Philip should have been.
“He’s gone,” Zola said. “You stupid little man! You dumb fuck!” she screamed and kicked James in the ribs.
James was flat on his back, unconscious. He’d probably feel those ribs in the morning.
“You okay?”
I glanced up to find Sam looming over me. I gave her my best half-conscious grin.
“Oh yeah, you got your bell rung.”
Edgar sighed and raised his hand toward James, fingers splayed. A second sun bloomed in his palm. I shut my eyes and winced as shouts of protest and pain went up from Mike and Zola when night suddenly turned to noon. A voice rang from Edgar’s throat. It was a huge, deep, ground-shaking basso, underscoring his methodical words.
“You shall not remember the weapons brought to bear this night by Damian Valdis Vesik. The soulsword is forgotten, the soulart lost to time.”
Edgar lowered his hand and the sun vanished from it.
“Ah should kill him, Amon,” Zola said, her rage barely contained. I couldn’t see her face as I was still waiting for my night vision to return, but it was plain in her voice.
“That would be unwise,” Edgar said. “We may need him before this night is over.”
“Ah doubt that,” Zola said.
“You heard it from Philip himself. Ezekiel was here.”
She sighed and ran her hand over her face. “If he’s still here, he’ll go for the mansion.”
Edgar nodded. “We practically sent him straight there.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
W
e ran.
Sam had Foster tucked into her pocket. The rest of us pushed onward, the snowfall growing heavier now as we neared the gas station. I could see the column of smoke against the clouds, a deep black where the fire still burned through the night. We stayed a block away, wary of being recognized.
“Where are the Watchers?” I said to Edgar between breaths. “The Cleaners? Shouldn’t they be here?”
He shook his head. “Yes, but Ezekiel has taken his toll. I don’t know what’s going on.” He pulled his cell out and dialed a number. We covered another block before he hung up with a curse.
That was unnerving. Mike and I exchanged glances. The demon shrugged and we kept moving.
“At least we warned Vik,” Sam said. She’d gotten through to the old vampire before Edgar started trying to reach the Watchers. Whatever had been done to the city’s power grid, our phones were still working.
“Surprised he carries a cell phone,” Edgar said. “He’s never been much for technology.”
That made me blink more rapidly in the snowstorm. “How long have you known him?” I asked as my breathing grew a little harder.
“A while,” he said.
Zola laughed without humor in front of us. She held the lead, her stamina and mobility almost beyond my own even though her body looked like she was in her eighties. One of the benefits of a dark time in her life. Sam sped up and exchanged a few words with her before falling back and matching my pace.
“I’m gonna puke,” Foster said.
“Not in this jacket, you bastard,” Sam said.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Your sleeve is half torn off.”
She glanced at the damaged arm and cursed.
I took several deep breaths in a row, too much talking while trying to run.
“It’s almost two miles back to the mansion,” Sam said. “Are you going to be winded?”
“Winded?” I said with a short burst of laughter. “Nah, I’ll be alright,” I said. The quick inhalation of icy air tried to say otherwise.
“We’re over halfway there,” Mike said as we ran up an alley and came back out on Main Street.
“Move faster,” Zola shouted back. “We’ll be safe in the mansion. We just need to get there.”
We all shut up and increased the pace. We were damn near sprinting by the time we crossed the bridge to cut through the snowy grass and the damaged silos of the construction yard.
The first necromancer was there, peeking around the silo, but looking in the wrong direction. Sam put on a burst of speed and his cloaked neck broke with an audible snap. She barely even slowed her stride. Idiot should have been watching with his Sight, not his eyes.
Carter misted in beside me. “Damian, there are necromancers behind the mansion, five at least, closing on the cellar.”
The little necromancer popped into existence beside Mike and said, “There are more by the river.”