murmurings had alerted Graves to the potentially catastrophic situation in the first place, but since his comrades' departure, the voices had grown strangely silent, as if too frightened to speak.
A sudden chill went through him. Graves wasn't sure how it was possible, for he had no real sense of feeling, but he knew, even before looking up at the sky, that something had happened to the sun.
An unusual cloud of solid black, miles wide and thick, was moving across the sky, blotting out the burning orb. He studied the dark, undulating mass and determined that it wasn't an atmospheric condition, but something altogether horrible. A droning hum grew in intensity, caused by the beating of millions of insect wings. Flies blotted out the sun, more flies than he had ever seen. His concerns went to his compatriots, and their mission, when a screech cut through the air like a surgeon's knife through flesh, diverting his attentions yet again.
The woman at Number Ten Louisburg Square was screaming, her hands clawing at her face as she looked down upon the grass in the grip of terror, her feet stamping the freshly cut blades as if in the midst of some wild, ceremonial dance.
Graves drifted closer, and arrived just in time to see the last of the Taffy's fluffy, white fur disappear beneath a sea of glistening, black-haired bodies and pink, fleshy tails. Rats, many of them the size of housecats, had swarmed the dog, the sounds of tearing flesh and the crunching of bone perverse evidence of an unnatural hunger.
The sky sun blotted out by flies, a dog attacked and consumed by rats. Graves again thought of Doyle and Eve, suspecting that he already knew the level of their success.
It was enough to fill him with fear.
Enough to frighten even a ghost.
All shadows were connected.
A twisting maze work of cold black passages entering into realms of further shadow, or worlds of light.
Squire had parked the limousine, after their five-hour drive back from the Big Apple, inside the townhouse's private garage. Parking was at a premium on the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, and he thanked the Dark Gods that Doyle had the foresight to purchase the property behind his residence and eventually convert it from storage to garage space.
Eve wasn't doing too well. She seemed better than she had when Doyle first helped her into the back of the car after their little scuffle at Grand Central, but still looked pretty much like a stretch of bad road.
'I'll take her up into the house,' Doyle told him as he helped the injured woman from the backseat of the limousine.
She had been unusually quiet for most of the drive, telling Squire to shut his trap only once. He figured she must have been hurt pretty badly. There was quite a bit of blood on the back seat's upholstery, and he had made a mental note to have it cleaned when things settled down. If things settle down, he cautioned himself.
'Go to the freezer in the cellar and bring her back a little something to help pick her up,' Doyle told him.
Leaving the two to make their way up into the residence, Squire found the nearest patch of shadow and disappeared within it. Hobgoblins traveled the shadowpaths. It was their gift and their greatest defense. This day he used them to reach the basement beneath the Louisburg Square townhouse. Squire had his pick of places to emerge, the cellar ripe with huge areas of gloom. It didn't matter the size or shape, a hobgoblin could bend and fold himself into just about any position.
The drive had been exhausting, and he welcomed the ease with which he was able to enter the cellar. In Doyle's employ, things were rarely so easy. He emerged into the basement from a patch of darkness beside a shelving unit that held the burial urns of some of Mr. Doyle's closest friends and business acquaintances. You never know when you're going to need to talk to one of them again, the magician had told the goblin once, shortly after acquiring another urn for his collection.
'Hey, guys,' he said to the urns. 'Got another bad one whipping up, you should be thankful that you're all dirt.'
The goblin did not need light. His eyes were used to navigating the pitch-black hallways of the shadowpaths. He slipped across the crowded storage room to the refrigeration unit humming in the corner. He tugged open the door, a cloud of frigid air escaping into the mustiness of the cellar. Multiple packets of blood hung within the unit, recently stocked by the boss for just such an emergency. That's the boss, always thinking ahead, Squire mused, taking what he needed. He wondered how far ahead Doyle had thought about the current situation.
He also wondered when it was going to be his turn to grab a snack. Sure, Eve was injured. Her health had to come first. But his stomach had been growling since Hartford. A burger and a milk shake would be nice. Even just a bag of fries. Hell, he'd settle for a donut.
Squire sighed. First things first.
The goblin made sure that the door was shut tight and quickly turned away. Squire recalled the problems of storing blood in the past. Dry ice had been what they used way back when, but it didn't offer much of a shelf life. He painfully remembered how much Eve would complain when she was forced to drink a batch that had spoiled. He again praised the Dark Gods for advances in technology as he plunged head-on into the nearest patch of shadow.
'What do you mean he was taken?' Graves asked, hovering above the oriental carpet in the formal sitting room of Doyle's townhouse.
The sorcerer had placed pages of the newspaper on the sofa and was gently lowering the bloody and beaten form of Eve down atop them. 'We were attacked and Sweetblood was taken.' The mage sighed, looking worn and weary. He removed his coat, walking through the spectral form of Graves as if he wasn't there.
Graves spun around, watching as Doyle hung his jacket on a wooden coat rack outside the parlor. 'You're one of the most powerful magicians on the planet, at least that's what you tell us. Who could have managed to do that to you?'
Doyle came back into the room rolling the sleeves of his starched, white dress shirt. 'The Night People. The Corca Duibhne.'
The squat, misshapen goblin, Squire, suddenly appeared from the shadows of the fireplace, stepping out into the room with multiple, fluid-filled plastic bags clutched in his arms. 'And we shoulda let 'em all get wiped from existence way back after the first Twilight War, that's what I say.' Squire took care not to track soot from the fireplace onto the priceless Oriental rug. He gnawed on the corner of one of the blood packs to open it.
'They attacked in surprising numbers,' Doyle said. He gestured toward Eve, who lay unconscious upon the sofa, bleeding onto yesterday's news. 'Eve was occupied with an antagonist of her own. The beasts overpowered us and made off with the arch mage's chrysalis. There was nothing we could do.' The magician shook his head, gazing off into space.
'There's silence in the ether,' Graves told them, crossing his arms. 'That can't be good.'
Doyle walked to a liquor cabinet in the corner of the elegant room and removed a crystal decanter of scotch, and a tumbler. He filled half the glass with the golden brown liquid, placed the stopper back into the bottle and put the decanter away. 'Not good at all,' he agreed, helping himself to a large gulp of the alcohol. It was yet another sensory experience that Graves had come to miss since joining the ranks of the dead. He envied the magician's ability to enjoy the twelve-year-old, Glenlivet single malt, spirits of a different kind altogether.
A low moan interrupted his thoughts, and Graves saw that Eve was awake. She sat up, wincing in pain, blood-soaked newspaper squelching beneath her. Her hand came up to rub at the back of her head, and came away stained with scarlet.
'Shit,' she muttered beneath her breath. A clot of thick, coagulated blood dropped from the corner of her mouth to land upon the front of her sweater, torn and stained from her conflict earlier that morning. 'What's a girl got to do for a drink around here?'
Everything hurt. Eve turned her somewhat blurred gaze to Squire, who appeared to be having some difficulty opening a blood pack. The goblin gnawed on the pouch's corner, but the plastic was proving too tough for the creature.
'Give it to me,' she demanded, reaching for the bag.
Insulted, Squire handed it to her. 'I was only trying to help,' he grumbled. But he set the remaining packs in her lap where she could reach them. 'All this drinkin' has made me a tad parched,' the goblin said, ambling from the
