The Gathering Dark Part 31

Peter reached out to hold Keomany's hand. The sphere's integrity wavered only the tiniest bit. He felt it lurch beneath them, an airplane pa.s.sing through momentary turbulence, an air pocket. The filthy, oily rain and the Tatterdemalion's storm could not be heard from within that protective s.h.i.+eld.

"Now," Peter whispered.

Keomany stared downward again, at the enormous brood mother, the colossal insectoid demon that lay curled on its side in the dry riverbed as newborn Whispers slipped from a pouch in its belly. The demon sp.a.w.n climbed to their feet, shaky as colts at first, and then quickly grew more stable and began to caper across the rocks toward the wall of the gorge, and to climb upward . . . to prey upon the people who still hid away in their homes in Ronda.

The Whispers had not been here long enough to slaughter the whole town. Ronda's tribulations had only just begun. Much of its population might still survive if they could stop this now.

The earthwitch shuddered with revulsion and Peter felt felt that emotion from her, shared it through the connection that was now theirs. Just as he felt the touch of Gaea, felt the pure spirit of the earth, the soul of nature, pa.s.sing through him. He feared that he might taint it, that somehow the dark magicks he practiced and the horrid deeds he had once performed might stain the radiance of the power now sluicing through him, was.h.i.+ng over him from Keomany's spirit into his own. that emotion from her, shared it through the connection that was now theirs. Just as he felt the touch of Gaea, felt the pure spirit of the earth, the soul of nature, pa.s.sing through him. He feared that he might taint it, that somehow the dark magicks he practiced and the horrid deeds he had once performed might stain the radiance of the power now sluicing through him, was.h.i.+ng over him from Keomany's spirit into his own.

Then he realized how arrogant a thought that was, the idea that he could have such an impact on something so much greater than he was.

Peter was a conduit only. Like the eternal balance of chaos and order, like his fingers meeting Keomany's, his sorcery twined with the natural magicks that she had tapped. As one they reached downward, the light of the Spanish morning that burned down upon them through that tear between dimensions shone upon the riverbed.

The light of another world, of Gaea herself, touched the soil of this h.e.l.lish dimension yet again, far more powerful than before. Peter allowed the sphere to sink even closer toward the ground, perhaps twenty feet above the rocks.

The tear between worlds widened. Above them the churning storm was driven back, the black-orange thunderheads ripped asunder, and the area of clear blue sky and golden sunlight widened.

The brood mother began to scream. Where it struck the exposed flesh of her belly, the skin began to blister. The enormous creature curled more tightly in upon itself to hide away from the suns.h.i.+ne, and unlike its offspring, its outer sh.e.l.l protected it.

But as the circle of light widened, the Whispers began to burn. They ran blindly, hissing, tendril-tongues darting about. Some tried to slip back into their mother's dark embrace but the brood queen had closed herself off to them in order to survive. As they ran, a high keening wail beginning to issue from them like the whistle of a teapot, the Whispers burst into flame one by one.

Their carapaces charred, glowed like burning embers, and then began to disintegrate as the fire ate them. In seconds, those who had been unfortunate enough to be touched by the sun were nothing more than dust. Yet the brood mother remained.

The ground beneath the hideous, ma.s.sive demon trembled and a fissure opened in the dry riverbed. Though the power flowed through Peter as well, though he tried to expand upon it, tried to paint the walls of the gorge with the light and vibrant life of another world, he had no idea what to expect. More pear trees, he thought.

But there were no trees, this time.

From that fissure in the floor of the river came a sudden torrent of water, a spray that fountained from the dry bed and began to flow over the rocks. The touch of the water made the ma.s.sive brood mother twitch, but nothing more. It began to splash the demon, to flow around it, and Peter realized what he and Keomany had done with Gaea's power and his own magick.

They had brought the river back. Or at least a part of it.

The gap in the storm above, the calm blue sky, continued to expand slowly. The sunlight shone down and the river water glistened as it flowed. But there were still dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Whispers climbing the walls of the gorge and no telling how many more already up in the city. The slaughter would go on.

For now.

But the Whispers were not their target.

"Now what?" Keomany asked.

Peter frowned. "I'd hoped the sun would take out the mother as well. Looks like a more direct approach is necessary." He glanced at her. "You'll be all right?"

Keomany smiled beatifically. "More than all right."

He wondered what it would have been like to be so infused with the natural spirit, the soul of an entire planet. Likely Gaea had barely touched her, for no single being could contain all of that. He himself had only tasted the essence of that magick and he wanted to languish in it, to invite it in. But it was not to be. A taste was all Peter was ever destined to have.

He broke contact with Keomany. In that instant it was as though every brush with darkness he had ever experienced came rus.h.i.+ng back into him. The first time he had slain an enemy in service to his father the emperor, and watched the Turk die on his sword. The night he had laid his throat bare to Karl Von Reinman and let his life drain out into the old vampire's mouth, given himself over to the hunger. All of the death he had wrought upon enemies, and upon those who were only prey, until he had realized that he had always been a warrior and never wanted to be a predator.

His time in h.e.l.l. Seemingly endless years of agony. The learning of sorcery, the mastering of magick . . . opening himself up again to the ominous powers that ebbed and flowed like the tides across the universe.

When he let go of Keomany's fingers, Peter was reminded of all of that. Reminded of what he was. A bitterness surged up within him, yet it was a sort of melancholy that felt familiar to him. Those touches of darkness, despite his benevolent intentions . . . they were what reminded him what it was to be human. They made him a better man.

Peter Octavian, born Nicephorus Dragases, b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of an emperor. Monster. Warrior. Mage. But in the end, still just a man. For a long time he had feared that frailty, that simplicity, and now he remembered that once upon a time it had been all he ever wanted. To be simply a man.

Eyes narrowed, he gritted his teeth and felt the magick flowing through him again. He glanced at Keomany and nodded once, and the sphere fell. It hurtled the last twenty feet and dissipated the moment it touched the rocks. Peter landed as though he had leaped from that height. Behind him, Keomany grunted as her feet struck ground, and she rolled, scrambling to get up again. The tear in the fabric of dimensions narrowed slightly above them, the h.e.l.lstorm pus.h.i.+ng at its edges, but Keomany's earth magick was enough.

Peter stood bathed in the sunlight, ten feet from the brood mother. From here it looked even more ma.s.sive than it had from above, like some whale that had been dragged into the gorge. Its thin outer sh.e.l.l pulsed with life and that skin steamed with the touch of the sun, but did not burn. The stench of the thing, this close, was terrible. Half of the demon was in sunlight, washed in several inches of water where the river spurted up from a fissure in the ground. The other half still lay within the h.e.l.lish orange light of this dimension, buffeted by the driving rain, dripping with liquid that ran like thickening blood down its side.

This was their only solution. He knew that. If this did not work, he was out of ideas. The Tatterdemalion was far more powerful than anything he had ever imagined. Even the demon lords that had tortured him in h.e.l.l were only physical creatures, terrible and cruel, but nothing like this thing, like this . . . h.e.l.lG.o.d.

Peter purposefully walked out of the sunlight, into the awful darkness and the roiling storm. The wind bent him over with its strength, the greasy rain slicked his hair and soaked his clothing anew. He ran the back of his hand across the stubble on his chin and then he raised both hands above his hand.

"You think we're insignificant!" he screamed. "But you made a mistake. You never should have shown yourself to me. You never should have let me know we'd gotten your attention. The only reason you'd have done that-whatever the h.e.l.l you are-is if we could hurt you."

Jaw clenched, Peter lowered his gaze, staring at the brood mother. "And now the time's come," he whispered, the storm stealing the words as they issued from his lips. "Time to hurt you."

The energy around his hands blazed more brightly. Once more he began to lift off the ground, barely even realizing it. The magick was in his control, but only just. Sorcerous power filled him, raised him, thrumming through his body. There in the hideous orange-black storm-only a few feet from the splash of sunlight from his home-world-Peter Octavian raised his hands above his head and let the power wash through him. His teeth bled, and the backs of his eyes hurt, and his bones ached down deep.

The light that glowed around his upraised hands s.h.i.+fted from blue to a deep, bruise-dark purple. Slowly, the mage brought his palms together, whispering words in a language only the darkness knew. Sparks of gleaming ebony began to circle round one another in the midst of that energy contained between his palms-a galaxy at his fingertips.

Peter brought his hands together, grabbed hold of the magick that burned there as though he were Zeus s.n.a.t.c.hing bolts of lightning from the air. The purple light solidified in his hands and sliced his skin, a hiltless sword whose blade was sharp as gla.s.s.

In silence he moved, leaping up through the rain, the sorcerous blade above his head, a beacon of magick whose light flickered up through the Cleft and off the bridge and the buildings far above.

The brood mother still lay half in, half out of the splash of sunlight Keomany had brought through, Gaea's light. But the gigantic demon must have sensed Peter, or understood his words. As he fell down upon her with that magickal blade, the monstrosity unfurled its body, moving far faster than could be expected of such a ma.s.sive creature. It opened up, and muscles undulating beneath that hideous sh.e.l.l, it rolled onto its belly, onto the dozens of legs there. In a sliver of a moment he saw the wide wet slit of its pouch from which thousands of Whispers had been born. Even now Peter saw the limbs of one of the mother's children poking from that birth ca.n.a.l, hiding from the sunlight that might destroy it.

The brood mother whipped its head around toward him and he saw countless amber eyes glowing there. Its maw opened as if it might attack or spew some unknown effluent upon him, but despite its incredible speed, it was too late.

The mage brought down the keen edge of the blade formed from the most ancient of magicks and it split the brood mother's face in two, slas.h.i.+ng eyes and flesh and black, twisted bone beneath. The sorcerous power of that sword burned the flesh like acid, eating away at its victim, spreading like fire as the brood mother screamed.

Its body thrashed but the damage was done. Its tail end whipped around, hauling itself out of the earthlight, but Peter had already retreated. The brood mother howled, a sound like a thousand bats squealing out their radar cries.

Peter stumbled back toward Keomany, who stared in abject horror at the result of his magick. Under the light of her golden gaze and as he reentered the earthlight that spilled through the dimensional tear above her, he felt filthy and vulgar, his own sorcery a thing to be despised.

But the sword still burned in his hands. His palms still dripped blood where the blade had sliced them. The brood mother had been a monster, had given birth to uncountable demons, but he had no sense that it was any more than a breeder, a mindless beast, no better than an animal. Its sp.a.w.n were evil, he had seen that in them, felt it. But killing this creature brought him no sense of victory. None at all.

Hundreds were likely already dead in Ronda, maybe thousands. Dozens of buildings were already destroyed. And it was only beginning. If Wickham was any indication, other cities had already suffered worse . . . the fires and the slaughter and the torture . . . and the Tatterdemalion was only going to spread his influence farther, dragging city after city into this tiny h.e.l.l dimension, this place the h.e.l.lG.o.d might well have created solely for this purpose.

Peter did not know why the Tatterdemalion had not simply swarmed across the earth with his Whispers, following nightfall around the world, bringing this storm to each new time zone and blotting out the sun. Why take it piece by piece instead of taking it all?

Unless he couldn't take it all, Peter thought. His mind flooded all at once with a barrage of questions and suppositions, all of which revolved around the idea that the Tatterdemalion had to do things slowly because it was not as powerful as it appeared to be. What if it's only a G.o.d in this little pocket universe? What if it's only a G.o.d in this little pocket universe? he wondered. he wondered.

With the storm screaming and the rain pouring down and the death and destruction the h.e.l.lG.o.d had wrought, its power was all around him. Yet he had already reasoned that it had given up Wickham too easily, that they had taken taken it from him. And had the Tatterdemalion been unable or unwilling to cross into the portion of Wickham that Peter and Keomany had returned to its rightful place? it from him. And had the Tatterdemalion been unable or unwilling to cross into the portion of Wickham that Peter and Keomany had returned to its rightful place?

All of these thoughts churned in his mind. Peter knew the answer was here, knew that the key to stopping the h.e.l.lG.o.d was not in s.n.a.t.c.hing back sections of the earth that it had stolen, but somewhere in the mora.s.s of questions he had about its limitations.

In the midst of the chaos storm he and Keomany stood in the dimensional rip and Peter glanced over at her once more. The rocks around her feet had been pushed aside by new plant growth that erupted from the ground. Olive branches grew and twisted around her legs like vines.

"What now?" she asked, and her voice had changed. It seemed almost to ring in his ears.

Peter took a quick look around. There were still Whispers climbing the walls of the Cleft-the last that would ever be born of their mother, though he was not foolish enough to think it was impossible there was another brood mother somewhere. But killing the Whispers would avail them nothing at the moment.

Nothing.

He stared up into the storm in fury and frustration. His fingers clenched the magickal blade more tightly, and fresh blood flowed on his palms and dripped to the ground. He had expected some kind of reaction, thought that the death of the brood mother would draw the Tatterdemalion down where it might be more vulnerable.

"d.a.m.n you!" Peter screamed, stepping once more from the sweet-smelling shaft of earthlight that surrounded Keomany. "You're so d.a.m.ned all-powerful? What are you afraid of, then?"

Behind him, Peter heard Keomany gasp and call his name. He turned and saw that she was pointing up at the bridge, at the extraordinary architecture that had gone into constructing its arches.

Atop the bridge, four figures stood looking over the edge. Allison was one of them and he knew Kuromaku must be among the others, for that had been her goal, rescuing him. But he could not make out their faces from this distance and did not know who the other two were.

Peter glanced at Keomany again, about to suggest that they ascend the gorge and meet the others to determine how to proceed. But before he could speak, there was a sudden lull in the storm, a quiet, ironically, that silenced him. The wind died and the rain was falling straight down. The thunderheads had grown darker all across Ronda and they hung heavier, lower, as though the storm might fall upon the city and swallow it whole. It roiled and pulsed as though it was alive.

Which, of course, it was.

Looks like I got your attention after all, Peter thought.

Then green lightning began to arc up from the ground piercing those pustulent clouds, and thunder like the world was exploding began to roll across the sky, so loud Peter felt it inside, thumping against his heart.

Lightning hit the bridge.

Jack Devlin had studied sorcery for most of his adult life. In his magickal a.r.s.enal were a handful of summoning spells, wards and bindings, exorcisms, and a total of three deadly attacks that were specific to some of the demon species he had dealt with in the past. Nowhere in his studies did it say anything about defense against lightning.

And he didn't have a f.u.c.king thing that would hold an eighteenth-century bridge together when it was dead set on falling apart.

As the first bolts of lightning struck the bridge, he was thrown to his knees. Sophie Duvic-the French woman who was companion to the vampire Kuromaku-screamed and swore loudly. For his part, Kuromaku said nothing. He was badly injured, barely able to stand on his own two feet but making a go of it. The grimly handsome Asian vampire would not die of his wounds-a vampire could not bleed to death-but there were other ways for him to die if he could not fight to stay alive.

Several bolts of lightning struck the bridge simultaneously. Enormous chunks of masonry blew out of the chest-high walls on either side, and in the center of the bridge a sinkhole appeared in the stone. It had begun to collapse.

Kuromaku staggered to the edge of the bridge and his head struck on the stone wall. He went down hard and Sophie was right behind him, crawling, shouting at him that now was not the time, that she was not going to let him die now after all they had been through. Father Jack could hear the hysteria creeping into her voice and was just amazed it had taken her this time.

The lightning came again, the thunder right on top of them now, and when it bellowed across the sky, Jack clawed his hands to his ears and cried out in pain. Beneath his feet the bridge began to sway.

Allison Vigeant ran past him, struggling to keep her feet, and went to Sophie and Kuromaku. He knew he ought to go to them, that as a man of G.o.d he should stay and help them get off the bridge. And he was was praying to his G.o.d, that was for sure. praying to his G.o.d, that was for sure.

But Father Jack hesitated. He didn't know these people. Get your a.s.s off the bridge right now! Get your a.s.s off the bridge right now! his mind screamed. But he couldn't do that. It would have made him no better than Bishop Gagnon, and Jack would not have been able to stomach that. his mind screamed. But he couldn't do that. It would have made him no better than Bishop Gagnon, and Jack would not have been able to stomach that.

"d.a.m.n it," he muttered, and he ran toward the other three, knowing that he had made an irrevocable choice, that he had thrown his fate together with theirs. And then he realized how foolish a thought that was, that his fate had been entwined with theirs from the moment this h.e.l.lish place had swallowed him.

With inhuman strength Allison hefted Kuromaku off the ground. Father Jack reached for one of his arms to help him walk but the vampire pulled away, indicating that he was all right. Sophie gave the priest a grateful look and they all started toward the north side of the bridge. The collapsed portion was ahead, but south would lead back to the Whispers and none of them wanted to risk that.

The wind buffeted them. Father Jack pressed himself together with the others, a wall of flesh-mortal and immortal-marching across the bridge as it trembled with each lightning strike, each rumble of thunder. The oily, mucous rain made their feet slide on the stone but they did not slow.

The storm fell upon them. A tornado finger dipped down out of the clouds like the blood red hand of the devil himself and touched the bridge just in front of them. The winds tore the stone away in ma.s.sive chunks, ripped a wound in the granite structure of the bridge, and it gave way, falling apart beneath their feet.

Once more Father Jack screamed to G.o.d for salvation. But there was no answer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Allison transform into a falcon again, and out of reflex he began to formulate in his mind the spell that would allow him to levitate. But then a piece of masonry struck him in the chest, cracking ribs and knocking the air out of him, and Father Jack was falling. He slammed into Kuromaku and their limbs tangled as they fell. He heard Sophie calling out to G.o.d in her native tongue but her pleas garnered no more response than his own.

Amid the rubble of that ma.s.sive bridge, they tumbled down into the Cleft of Ronda. As they fell, Father Jack felt a kind of peace envelop him that he had never known, a certainty of faith that he had always longed for but never found.

His time had come.

He did not flail as he fell, but gave himself up to G.o.d's will.

With the ground rus.h.i.+ng up toward him, the bridge collapsing all around him, Father Jack closed his eyes.

And he stopped falling. The sensation of plummeting ceased and he felt his hair standing up with static electricity. His eyes snapped open again and everything around him was a bright, glowing green for he was seeing it through the magickal field of energy with which Peter Octavian had caught him and Kuromaku and Sophie.

"Oh, Jesus, thank you," Jack whispered, glancing up at the sky, where he saw the tear in the heavens where the light of the Spanish morning poured through, a hole in this h.e.l.l.

A moment later the descent began again, but more slowly this time. Peter brought them down to the rocky riverbank. The falcon flew down to join them and Allison took human form once more. Jack's chest ached where he had been struck and a sharp pain confirmed for him that he had cracked a couple of ribs, but he was alive.

Relief washed through him, but along with it came awe. He stared at Peter and Keomany and marveled at the changes in them. The slim, delicately beautiful Asian woman had become a kind of G.o.ddess in her own right, at least at first glance. Golden light spilled and misted from her eyes, and in the midst of the suns.h.i.+ne that burned through into this h.e.l.l from another world, her hair blew in a breeze that was not part of this storm. Keomany was rooted to the place she stood, branches wound around her legs, moving slowly with a lover's caress.

Then there was Peter. If Keomany had taken on the aspect of a G.o.ddess, Father Jack saw in Octavian another face, the grim visage of a dark G.o.d of war or some terrible archangel. Hair and clothing drenched, still he burned with a purplish glow that sent sparks snaking along his body, and in his hands he held a long, ma.s.sive sword crafted from color and fire and light, from pure magick. Blood dripped from his hands.

"Jack," Peter said, his voice somehow carrying through the storm. He smiled, but there was something unsettling in the expression. "Good to see you again."

Then, holding his sorcerous blade in one hand, Peter stepped into the darkness, away from the gash Keomany had torn between worlds. The woman, Sophie, had been helping Kuromaku to stand but now the vampire stepped away from his human companion and despite his wounds he stood tall. Peter went to him and took Kuromaku into his arms and the two embraced as though they were brothers long apart.

"Peter," Allison said, gaze darting around, on guard as the thunder boomed and rolled across the sky. Lightning still danced above but the storm seemed to have calmed some. "Your plan isn't working. Can you get us out of here, back to our own world? Maybe from there we can-"

Octavian whirled on her, deep furrows in his brow. To Father Jack the mage looked somehow younger, his face thinner, his eyes brighter.

"Stop, Allison," Peter growled. "If we can't stop it here, there won't be a home to return to."

The vampire woman nodded. "All right. We stay and fight in h.e.l.l."

Peter shook his head. "This isn't h.e.l.l. Trust me."

Father Jack turned his back on them and stared up at the storm, at the hideous tower of orange-black thunderclouds, and he was certain he saw a face there, a terrible visage gazing down at them and silently laughing.

"You're right," the priest told him. "We make our own h.e.l.ls. This is just another demon with a f.u.c.king att.i.tude problem."

Peter could no longer feel the slashes in his hands. His skin burned with the power that coursed through him. Every bone and muscle seemed to ache and yet he felt as though he could have leveled the city with the magick that was in him.

Fury and despair warred in his heart, but he would not give in to either. He glanced at the others-at courageous Jack Devlin and fiercely loyal Allison, at his brother Kuromaku, who was much missed and now had been crippled, and at the beautiful yet ordinary human woman who stood by him.

Peter turned his back on them and stared at Keomany. The earthwitch raised her chin, feeling his attention upon her. Gold light seeped from her eyes and danced in her black silken hair. She smiled at him.

"No time like the present, Peter," Keomany said. "You got its attention but it still isn't coming. It's afraid afraid of you. I want to hurt the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. My parents' ghosts won't rest until I do." of you. I want to hurt the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. My parents' ghosts won't rest until I do."

Peter nodded. "Let's do it, then." He turned to the others but his focus was mainly on Allison and Kuromaku, undead warriors, trusted friends. "Be ready for anything."

He raised his hands and then opened them. Drops of blood hit the stones at his feet and a burst of light splashed from his palms; the sword he had conjured was gone. The mage stepped into the shaft of sunlight that still burned through the storm above, giving them a glimpse of the beautiful blue sky that ought to have hung above Ronda on this morning. He inhaled the scents of flowers carried on the breeze.

Keomany reached her hands out to him. The branches that curled around her legs seemed to grow higher up her thighs, holding on to her more tightly. She smiled and in that moment Peter felt he was gazing into the face of Gaea herself.

He took her hands, felt sharp pain as the cuts in his hands brushed her palms, his blood smearing her skin. This time when he began to summon the magick within him, he did not feel the resistance he had felt before. His sorcery might have been woven from chaos, and her earthcraft tapping the natural soul of the world, the order of things, but chaos and order had met before. They danced eternally, knew each other intimately.