Warrior (The Word and the Void) Page 9

  Steady, Ineke whispered. Find a weakness.

  Very helpful, Jack remembered thinking in something approaching panic, just before the Mange launched itself at him.

  He brought up his staff, trying to ward it off, concentrating on throwing it back, just as he had the creatures before it. But the Mange overpowered his futile attempt, which did little more than deflect its rush just enough that Jack was struck only a glancing blow by the massive body as it catapulted past and slammed into the wall behind him. A glancing blow was enough, however; he was nearly flattened. Shaken and dizzy, he spun around to face his attacker once more, watching it struggle up and turn back to come at him again. Jack knew that another rush would smash his defenses for good, and he would be lost.

  He needed to finish it now, or it would finish him. One chance was all he would get. A weakness, Ineke was whispering frantically. Find a weakness.

  Jack lit his staff with a blue fire of confidence and inner will power that was almost overwhelming. Sheathed in his strength as a Knight of the Word, he stood waiting on it, refusing to yield. The air around him crackled as if alive with a reflection of his determination, fiery electricity issuing from his body in a deadly web.

  The Mange attacked at once, charging from across the room, its huge shaggy body descending on him like a great darkness that would swallow him whole. He waited on it – though the wait was only seconds – a solitary presence at the center of the room. As the Mange reached him, jaws opening wide to take him in, he jammed the length of his staff down the monster’s throat and sent the magic’s fire deep inside. The jaws closed, enveloping him, and he was swallowed whole.

  He knew at once that he was a dead man; he felt the power of this beast overwhelming him, its teeth ripping him apart, shredding him like torn paper. He had no protection sufficient to stop it from doing so. He was a fragile bit of flesh and blood held fast in its terrible grip. Yet he did not perish. He held his staff firmly in both hands and kept its power surging into the dark interior of his attacker in a steady stream that never faltered. He refused to give way to the fear that ripped through him; he refused to be devoured. He found a way to hang on, to fortify himself with an unquenchable determination to live. His was the greater strength, he told himself. And the iron of his self-belief blossomed to feed the power of his black staff’s magic, which surfaced in a rush to shield him, against the creature’s efforts to consume him.

  Survive! The word ratcheted through him, an echo that would not be stilled. Endure!

  Then, abruptly, he was back in the room – alone once more, the Mange gone as if it had never been, his body untouched as if never attacked, the battle a dream. He took a deep breath to be sure, exhaled sharply, and looked around. Everything was exactly as it had been.

  Brave knight, Ineke whispered in his ear. You have prevailed.

  For a moment, he thought she meant that his nightmare was over, that the demon was defeated – that transforming into a Mange in an effort to overpower him had failed and now it was gone.

  But then he saw the orange glow brighten and the walls of the room fall away, and he was transported instantly into a massive cavern with walls that rose so high he could not find where they ended. All around him, dark and twisted figures occupied rows of bleachers like spectators in anticipation of a sporting event. Upon his appearance, their screeches and howls filled the air with a cacophony that hammered at his ears like a thousand horns wailing at once. They stamped on their walkways and pounded on their benches and thrust their arms and fists into the air. They were everywhere about him, and he could see at once that he was completely encircled.

  So it wasn’t over. He was in the arena where he had been told the demon was waiting for him, and he was the main event. He had prevailed over the ghosts and the Mange, but the one that mattered most – the slayer of Knights of the Word – he must still face.

  And as if he had summoned it, the demon materialized.

  Still dressed in its familiar black ensemble – frock coat, string tie, pegged pants, leather boots, western hat, and now wearing gloves as well – it stood on the far side of the area. Its eyes glittered with expectation and savage promise, its look at once predatory and pitying. “Jack McCall!” it howled, and the creatures gathered for the battle echoed the name in a raw frenzy of barely recognizable sounds.

  Jack did not wait on his adversary. He started forward, his black staff already alight with blue fire, wanting to close the space between them, determined to see this business ended. He heard Ineke calling to him, but he was too enflamed by his rage and dark intentions to listen to her. He wanted to get his hands on this monster and throw him down and force him either to return his family or admit it was all a lie. One or the other, but he would have the truth and have it now.

  Yet something was wrong. No matter how hard he hard he tried to reach the demon, he seemed to be going nowhere. He could not lessen the distance that separated them, could not close the gap.

  The demon’s laughter rang out across the cavern, rising above even the shrieks and howls of its minion audience. “What’s keeping you, Jack? Am I really so far away you cannot manage to reach me? Are you so weakened that such an effort is beyond you?”

  Jack! Ineke hissed frantically. Look around you!

  He did so and saw Feeders everywhere – hundreds of dark forms, writhing and leaping, shadows frantic with need, climbing over each other to reach him, yet not quite yet able to do so. He understood at once. These were the manifestations of his darker emotions, materialized as a result of his fear and fury and bloodlust. They were here at his behest and they would satisfy their cravings at his expense if they were able. They were drawn by the magic that he would expend in his battle with the demon. If he faltered, if he gave in, if he failed to control himself sufficiently, they would devour him.

  Jack remembered again the warning that Ineke had given him, about the efforts that would be made to break him down. Those attacks by the ghost creatures and the Mange had never been about killing him – though that might have simplified things for the demon. No, it wasn’t killing him that mattered. It was weakening him – stealing away his strength through a series of ordeals.

  Leaving him shattered.

  He stopped running, slowed, and finally stopped altogether. “You can come the rest of the way to me!” he shouted back. “Or are you afraid?”

  The demon moved towards him, easily covering the distance separating them. It approached without effort and without any evidence of tiring or exertion. “Want to see your family, Jack?” it asked.

  “You don’t have my family,” Jack replied quickly. “That’s just another lie.”

  “Really?” The demon was within a dozen yards now and stopped. “Is that what you believe?” The insinuation was evident in its tone of voice. “Or is that just what you want to believe?”

  He made a sweeping gesture with one arm and a dark object began to lower from the ceiling, slowly taking shape as it descended. A cage, Jack saw, when it was close enough, containing his family. His throat tightened with sudden anguish. Anne was holding Jack Jr. in her arms, and Mila was pressed up against her mother, arms around her shoulders. All three were crying, and the stricken looks on their faces were heart wrenching.

  Jack! Anne called plaintively. Daddy! Mila begged. Help us, please, help us!

  “You have a choice!” the demon shouted, turning in a circle so that his words would reach all those watching. “Either lay down your staff and renounce your service as a Knight of the Word, or watch them die!”

  It’s a lie! Ineke was screaming to him. It’s all a trick! He hasn’t . . .

  A sudden gesture from the demon struck a sharp blow, hammering into Jack’s head, right up against the ear in which the tatterdemalion was speaking. The blow rocked Jack sideways, and for a moment he was left dizzied. And her voice instantly stilled.

  As he struggled to regain his balance, he could hear his wife and daughter pleading with him to do as the demon asked, so
they could all go home and be a family again. He could hear little Jackie howling in misery, unable to understand what was happening. A trick, Ineke had warned. And, indeed, he was reminded of how he had been tricked before. But suddenly he knew this was different. He knew. The tatterdemalion was wrong this time. What he had seen as he looked into the cage as it lowered into view could not be mistaken. His family had been taken, and his precious Anne and their children were now in the hands of the demon.

  He straightened, trying to clear his head. A wave of understanding swept through him. It was asking too much to do anything but what the demon had commanded of him. He was helpless before its power, foolish to risk the lives of his family, stupid beyond words to think that anything mattered more than protecting those you loved.

  A deep weariness settled within him. All he had done to make a good life for his family was being threatened. All he cared about was in danger of being destroyed if he persisted in his efforts to do as the Lady had asked. Why destroy one demon when there were so many more out there? What difference did it make? Why should he sacrifice everything just to kill a single creature of the Void?

  A sudden wash of hopelessness descended, sapping his already fading resolve. He lowered his staff, his prior sense of commitment slipping away, preparing to accede to the demon’s demands, preparing to capitulate.

  Yet a nagging sense of wrongness persisted, and a refusal to give way to the doubts assailing him brought him up short. Memories of all that had taken place in the past few days resurfaced in a rush of warning. How many times had the demon attempted to trick him? How many efforts had it made to subvert his thinking, to bring him down with lies and deceits? Over and over, it had attempted to use his fear as a weapon against him, a crowbar to pry him loose from his resolve.

  Was not that happening again here? Was any of this as real as the demon would have him believe?

  Then a tiny bird appeared from nowhere, rocketing through the gloom towards the cage. A single heartbeat later, it was inside the cage with Anne and the children, rushing back and forth with such frightening speed that all of them took on the appearance of flickering images on an ancient, deteriorating piece of film.

  Revealing them to be nothing more than a mirage.

  The demon howled in fury, wheeling on the cage, hands thrusting towards its interior in a frenzied movement. The bird faltered, collapsed and went still.

  Jack realized at once what he had almost given in to. The curtain of glamour cast by the demon’s magic fell from his eyes. Ineke had been right; it was all a lie.

  He went straight at the demon then, and this time nothing slowed his advance. Without a word, he attacked, no longer crippled by uncertainty, no longer shackled by fear. He struck out with the power of his staff, his thoughts of what he wished for the monster clear and bright as daggers.

  The blow he struck was powerful enough to stagger it, but not to take it down. It recovered quickly, hands going to its sides, where it yanked its weapons free from the frock coat, in the manner of the old west gunslinger it was emulating. A pair of short iron wands appeared, tips glowing with crackling green flames. The demon pointed the wands at Jack, and fire exploded in two jagged lines. Although his staff caught and deflected the flames, he was thrown backwards. He regained his feet almost immediately, but fresh strikes from the wands took him down a second time. Burns and lesions blossomed on his skin, visible through the rents in his clothing. Fiery pain rushed through his body and he felt his strength dissipate.

  But he did not give in to it. He refused. He would die first. Memories of his boyhood struggle with the dragon in Sinnissippi Park resurfaced. He could have died then – perhaps should have – but he had stood firm, refusing to give in to the overpowering fears and doubts the possibility of dying woke within him. But it wasn’t only his life that was at stake now. This was not just about him; it was about Anne, too. Anne, whom he loved beyond measure. Anne and his children, for whom he would do anything. He must survive for them. He must justify the faith the Lady had placed in him all those years ago, when she had asked him to serve. What remained of him if he did not? He had been given the black staff and assigned this single obligation, this single moment in time, this one and only battle, because she believed him stronger than the evil he would face. He could not fail her now.

  He would not.

  He rose and came on once more, barely aware of the damage that had been done to him or the fresh blows from the iron wands that continued to hammer at him. The demon shrieked with more than fury now. A Knight of the Word could tell; a Knight of the Word could know. Fear was in the demon’s voice, distinct and unmistakable.

  Jack struck at it with the magic of his staff, still advancing, never hesitating. Images of his wife and children, caged and helpless, flickered in his mind, reminding him of what the demon had tried to do. The Feeders had gone into a frenzy, advancing with him. Memories of the demon’s insidious words haunted him, barbs that ripped and tore at him. He had been such a fool! He had been so weak! What had he almost done because of it? What had he almost given up? He was ashamed and embarrassed. He was diminished by what it made him feel.

  But he was newly committed, too. He was iron forged in fire. He was the man Ineke had urged him to be.

  Around him, the demon’s creatures had gone suddenly quiet, their voices stilled by what they saw happening to their leader, their confidence eroded. Jack fed off their loss of faith, his determination further strengthened. By now, his efforts were those of a berserker. Heedless of the danger to his life and the pain that wracked his body, wrapped in the armor of the magic that had been bequeathed to him, he bore down on the demon until he was on top of him and could see as clearly as his own foolishness the bright look of fear in his enemy’s eyes.

  Down came one end of the staff, bright with fire and sparking with bright shards of magic that mirrored its bearer’s rage. The demon faltered. Down came the staff a second time, and the wands dropped from its hands. Once more it descended, the arc of its swing leaving a path of blue fire like a contrail to mark its passing, and Jack McCall – a Knight of the Word at last – brought down his enemy for good.

  And the Feeders fell upon what remained eagerly.

  * * * * *

  In the aftermath of his victory, the arena and its audience and the cavern and the cage and the remains of the demon and even the Feeders all faded away. Jack was left alone in the basement in the old Winston house with only a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling to give confirmation to what he knew had happened. He stood in the center of what had only moments earlier seemed an arena, looking around with a mix of shock and disbelief.

  Then he remembered Ineke.

  She lay a few feet away, reverted to her original form, her small figure curled into a ball, but her transparency increased enough that he could see through her to the concrete floor. He knelt beside her and lifted her head. Her eyes, closed until then, opened.

  “Brave knight,” she whispered.

  “Don’t die,” he whispered back, his fear for her a palpable presence. “Please don’t die.”

  Her smile was wan and brief. “Do not be afraid for me. My time is over. What I came to do is done. I have to leave you now.”

  “No! You can stay if you try. I know you can!”

  There were tears in his eyes, and she reached up to wipe them away. “I will stay, Jack McCall. I will stay with you always. I will be there in your memory of this night forever.”

  Then she was gone in a slow fading away that left him holding only air. She had given herself for him, just as she had said she had been sent to do, and he should not have been sad for her. But such fortitude of emotion and stoic acceptance was for someone stronger than he was, and he felt his sadness flood through him.

  Long minutes passed as he knelt. But when his grieving had lessened sufficiently, he forced himself to rise and walk from the basement of the old Winston house, his body aching from the blows he had weathered, but his conscience healed
. Once outside again, he paused to breathe in the cool night air and look up at open sky.

  I am free, he thought. My service to the Word is over.

  Then he made his way back along the tree-lined edges of Lincoln Park and through the neighborhood residences surrounding it to reach his home and find his family.

  Chapter 14

  When he re-entered his house that night, Jack found it dark and empty. For a moment, he despaired. The demon hadn’t been lying after all; it had stolen away his family. But almost immediately he knew he was wrong. Whatever had happened to Anne and the children, they had not been prisoners of the demon. It didn’t matter that the demon had Anne’s cell phone. It didn’t matter that they weren’t here at home and he didn’t know where they had gone.

  Wherever they were, they were all right.

  He searched the house from top to bottom, just to be sure he hadn’t missed something. He tried to make himself call her aunt and uncle in Portland but hesitated when he realized it would only frighten them if they knew his family was missing. But he had to do something, so he pulled out his cell to make the call anyway and saw the familiar blinking light indicating Messages Waiting and punched in the retrieval code.

  First message.

  “Jack! Where are you?” Anne, sounding frantic. “Something’s happened. I need you to call me! The children and I are staying downtown at the Sheraton. We took a room for the night. Call as soon as you get this message!”

  The call ended. He went to the next. The second call was pretty much a repeat of the first. Then he listened to a third, this one made less than half-an-hour ago.

  “Damn it, Jack! Call me right now! Use the hotel number. I lost my cell.”

  Well, that explains the demon having it. He called the Sheraton and asked to be connected to her room. She answered at once. “Jack?”

  “I’m here. Are you all right?”

  “I am now, but . . .”

  “Stay right where you are. I’ll explain everything when I get there. I’m on my way.”