Chapter 27
I screamed as the demon tore me from Hexe's arms and, in a single bound, leaped the length of the room, to land before Esau.
"The girl is yours," the infernal said, hurling me at the wizard's feet. "Now return me to my home, as you promised."
"I'll free you when I am good and ready," Esau snarled at the demon.
The necromancer grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me to my feet. I tried to break free of his grasp, but his hold was as strong as iron. "I would advise you not to struggle, my dear," he hissed, as he bent my newly healed arm behind my back. "I know how all too easy it is to permanently damage a limb." I bit my lower lip, determined not to give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out in pain.
"Hexe!" Esau's voice shook the walls like a thunderclap. "So you finally put everything together, eh? Well, it certainly took you long enough. Show yourself, boy! There's no point in pretending to hide now."
"Let her go, Uncle," Hexe said as he stepped out into the open. "You have no reason to kill Tate now. She's no threat to you."
"That may be true," the necromancer replied. "But what she represents threatens all of Golgotham."
Hexe shook his head in disgust. "You're a chuffing hypocrite, you know that? You've done more to harm Golgotham than a dozen real estate developers ever could."
"That beating my proxies gave you must have rattled your brains," Esau said with a derisive laugh. "There is nothing I would not do to protect Golgotham's sovereignty and safeguard it from those who would pollute and weaken it."
"Including killing and terrorizing your fellow citizens?"
"The deaths of Quid and Jarl were regrettable. I had hoped their murders would result in Golgotham sealing its borders and becoming a human-free zone, but d py size="3">the populace wasn't ready for such radical change. Still, your friends' blood will not have been spilled in vain. The Unification Party is strong, and continues to grow. Come the next election, I will replace that stooge Lash as mayor of Golgotham. I will see to it that Quid and Jarl are treated as martyrs, and raise statues in their honor."
"And what about Gus and Bayard? Will you raise statues to them as well?" Hexe asked sarcastically. "Or are only Kymerans worthy to be recognized as martyrs?"
"What are a couple of five-fingered half-beasts of burden compared to the new era I will bring forth?" Esau replied with a shrug. "Their ancestors swore fealty to my forefathers, and by rights their lives were mine to do with as I saw fit. Their spirits will be appeased knowing their deaths were necessary to bring Golgotham's savior to power and keep our borders safe from the real estate developers and the fast-food chains."
I turned to glare at my captor in disgust. "You orchestrated all this death and suffering, simply to put yourself in politics and keep McDonald's and Starbucks out of Golgotham?"
"Trust a nump to see it in such a limited fashion!" Esau growled, giving my pinned arm an extra crank for daring to speak out. "The Kymeran people deserve better than a few cramped city blocks, selling cheap magic to disgruntled office workers and cheating husbands. For years the city of New York has slowly encroached on our sovereign territory; it is time we finally pushed back to extend our borders. Until we dedicate ourselves to recapturing the glory that was Kymera, we will never be free of human oppression!"
"Kymera was drowned by the Indian Ocean millennia ago, and what you're planning will destroy Golgotham just as surely as the tsunami!" Hexe countered. "I thought perhaps you were merely bitter and power-hungry, but you truly are mad if you think I will allow you to destroy the treaty and declare war on New York City!"
"What makes you think you'll live that long?" Esau laughed as the door to the homunculi's cage swung open of its own accord and Seth and Cain came bounding toward Hexe.
He raised his right hand and one of the brothers fell to the floor, as rigid as a department store mannequin, while his twin remained unaffected. Screeching at the top of his lungs like an angry baboon, the freed homunculus delivered a vicious roundhouse blow to Hexe's head.
"I've wanted to do that ever since you were five years old," Esau laughed via his proxy. "Your mother shamed our blood by bringing you into this world, and it's high time I took you out of it!"
Hexe backpedaled, trying to put distance between himself and the homunculus. The creature lunged at him, coming in low like a grappler. But this time Hexe was ready for him, freezing him in midtakedown.
Esau cursed as he was forced to relinquish control of his living puppet and turned to the demon crouched beside him. "Kill him!"
The infernal gave a frightened squeal and shook its head, as it still wore the wounds from the last time it had crossed Hexe's path. The necromancer held up the amulet with his free hand and shook it at the reluctant hellspawn.
"By this seal, I command you to do as I say!" he shouted angrily. "Kill him-and once you've finished tearing him limb from limb, I want you to take his head and show it to his mother before you kill her. Then, and only then, will I set you free!"
fons proxy.The demon snarled and grudgingly bowed his head in acceptance of his task, his remaining two eyes filled with a hate as hot as boiling lead. The infernal spun about to face Hexe, and with a single leap cleared half the space between them.
As the demon advanced on him, Hexe raised his right hand to his forehead, palm outward, shielding his third eye. A beam of white light shot forth from its center, where the lines of Heart, Fate, Head, and Life intersect, bathing the hellish courtier in its radiance. The demon's bellow of pain was so loud it shook the dust from the rafters and left my ears ringing. Now I understood the demon's reluctance to obey Esau's command. The wounds it had suffered the last time it confronted Hexe had weakened it considerably. Huge blisters rose across the demon's torso, causing the skin to fall away like handfuls of wet paper. It turned to look at Esau, stretching out a claw in supplication as the flesh was stripped from its body, begging to be released from its torment, but the necromancer merely stared ahead, his face as unreadable as a statue's.
There was a sudden movement behind Hexe, as Seth and Cain, now freed from their stasis spells, grabbed him from either side, pinning his arms behind his back. The white light winked out as if turned off at the switch. As Hexe struggled to extricate himself, the demon got back onto its crooked hind legs, tossed back its head and made a noise that passed for laughter among the damned.
The hellspawn stepped forward and grabbed Hexe by the throat, holding his head so that he could not look away, and pried his jaws apart with one of its talons. It then placed its face scant inches from his and took a deep, deep breath, so that its chest swelled out like a blacksmith's bellows, slowly sucking the air from Hexe's lungs into its own. I watched in horror as Hexe gasped for breath, his eyes starting from his head as his face began to turn blue. His body bucked and twisted mightily, but he was unable to break free from the homunculi's grasp.
"Your lover is doomed," Esau whispered in my ear. "And it is all because of you. If you had never set foot in Golgotham, none of this would be happening. Jarl, Quid, Skal . . . all of them would still be alive."
The only man I'd ever truly loved was dying right before my eyes, and I was powerless to stop it. But what could I do? I wasn't a sorceress, or a ninja, or a badass street fighter. I had no power in the day-to-day world, much less one full of wizards and demons. I desperately wished I had my cutting torch-at least I'd leave Esau with something to remember me by.
Suddenly there was a loud, high-pitched hissing sound, like a cross between an angry snake and a steam radiator springing a leak, and a loud thud that shook the entire building like a mortar round. The demon stopped to turn and stare at the door, sniffing the air suspiciously. There was a heavy thumping sound from the other side, as if a rhino was galloping full throttle down the hallway, then a tremendous crash as a copper dragon smashed its way through the door.
It was completely unlike any dragon I'd ever seen pictures of, with a squat, turnip-shaped body balanced on three sturdy legs, with lion's paws for feet, and a long, snakelike neck. With a start, I realized I wasn't looking at a true dragon, but the maternal furnace I had constructed from Jarl's blueprints brought to life, just as my old sculptures had been animated by Hexe's magic.
The copper dragon opened its jaws, releasing a plume of steam, and then snapped them closed onto one of the homunculi. It whipped its serpentlike neck back and forth, worrying the artificial humanoid like a terrier does a rat. do sizefont>
Esau cried out, his shriek melding with that of the homunculus as the copper dragon broke its spine, and abruptly let go of my arm. I quickly grabbed the talisman hanging from his neck and yanked as hard as I could, breaking the golden chain. As I ran toward Hexe, the copper dragon slammed its tanklike body against the remaining homunculus, crushing him into a paste against the brick wall of the warehouse.
I looked around the chaos, trying to find Hexe, only to spot him doubled up on the floor, desperately trying to suck air back into his lungs. As I made to rush to his side, my path was blocked by the Infernal Knight, its wings spread and talons bared. I did not flinch or scream, but instead held up the talisman for it to see. The demon's snarl disappeared and it bowed its head in acknowledgment.
"What do you command of me, Mistress?" the infernal asked.
"Go to hell. And take that chuffer with you when you leave," I said, pointing to Esau.
The demon squealed in glee, its remaining eyes lighting up with an unholy fire. It leaped straight up and over me, like Jack jumping over the candlestick, and landed beside its erstwhile master, grabbing him by the hair.
"Let go of me!" Esau shouted as the demon dragged him to the middle of the pentacle. "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Witch King! In the name of the Left Hand, I command you to release me!"
The demon laughed and a tongue of hellfire sprang into being at the topmost vertex of the pentacle and then raced down its edges, until the entire pentagram was ablaze. Esau cried out in fear and tried to break free of the infernal's grasp as the floor beneath his feet began to bubble like a tar pit, but the demon held him tight, all the while continuing to laugh.
I helped Hexe back onto his feet, and together we watched as Esau was pulled inexorably downward into the bowels of whatever hell awaited him, alternately begging for mercy and cursing us. Once the duo had disappeared beneath its surface, the hellfire extinguished itself and the floor returned to its previous solid state.
"Is he dead?" I whispered.
Hexe shook his head. "No. But he's going to wish he was."
I glanced over at the copper dragon, which stood nearby. It had reverted to its previous inanimate state, with only a few dents and an unsightly bloodstain or two as proof of its brief, miraculous life.
"How did you manage to animate that thing?" I asked. "I thought that required a specific ritual?"
"This isn't my magic," he replied. I could tell by the way he was squinting that he was trying to decipher the signature on the spell, which would identify whoever had enchanted the piece of alchemical equipment.
"Well, whose is it, then?"
His golden eyes widened in surprise. "It's yours."