stormed inside, eyes darting from left to right, searching for Angus.
He didn’t have to look far at all.
Angus was standing in the center of the room. A yellow-haired man with dark, bottomless eyes stood before him, holding Angus’ fat face his hands.
“Drop him,” Francis cried out, firing a single shot from the Pitiless pistol, striking the blond man in the shoulder. The attacker stumbled back, a look of shock on his face, as Angus slumped to the floor like a sack of dirty laundry.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man snarled.
But before Francis could even come back with a pithy retort, the man unleashed a blast of magickal force that screamed like a banshee as it traversed the room toward him. Francis dove from the path of the wailing supernatural energy, tripping over a naked leg sticking out from beneath a pile of dead bodies. Falling atop the fleshy mound, he turned to see the power arcing to the left, coming around in search of him.
Like a heat-seeking missile, he thought, scrambling to his feet.
The magickal spell was louder now as it zeroed in on him. He didn’t see much of a chance of outrunning it. Instead he reached down and hauled up the naked body of a woman, tossing it into the path of the oncoming magickal force. The body exploded, and the spell dissipated as Francis again withdrew his weapon to fire on Angus’ attacker.
The offending sorcerer was quick, however, erecting magickal shields that absorbed the impact of the bullets, sending the kinetic force of the shots back toward Francis. The floor and wall around him were chewed into splinters as he ducked for cover behind a threadbare chaise longue.
The shriek of another magickal spell filled the air, and Francis was on the move again, crawling across the floor just as the longue that he had been hiding behind went up in flames.
Scrambling to his feet, he saw that Angus was staring at him through hooded eyes.
“A little help here?” he suggested, firing his weapon on the off chance that he might hit his target.
“I doubt you’ll be receiving much help from him,” the sorcerer said with a snarl, as a magickal construct of pure energy resembling an enormous hand snatched Francis up from the floor, lifting him into the air.
The sorcerer then lifted his own hand, clenching it into a trembling fist. The magickal fist holding Francis squeezed, as well, and he felt the air forced from his lungs. Hungry darkness began dancing on the periphery of his fleeing consciousness.
“So, who might you be?” the sorcerer asked, striding closer as the Guardian fought to breathe.
“That…would…be telling…Deacon,” Francis grunted as the giant hand continued to squeeze.
The sorcerer seemed startled. “Deacon? You have me confused with someone I killed a very long time ago,” he said.
The sorcerer was looking up at him now, studying Francis’ gasping face as the grip intensified. Slowly the man raised a hand toward him, and that was when Francis saw what looked like tiny mouths on the flesh of his exposed palm, opening and closing hungrily.
Who the fuck is this guy?
Francis tried to avoid the sorcerer’s approaching hand, but it was soon clamped on his face, the eager mouths attaching themselves to his flesh.
The mouths started to feed, suckling on Francis’ life force.
The fallen angel moaned aloud, thrashing in the grip of the giant hand of magick.
“Oh, my,” the sorcerer said as the life energies of the angel flowed into him.
Francis’ question of the powerful magick user’s identity was suddenly answered with a scream. “Stearns!”
Francis forced his eyes open to see Angus swaying on weakened legs, and a large ball of flesh hurtling toward the sorcerer standing below him. He fell to the floor as Stearns let go of him, the magickal hand that had held him high dissipating in a sizzling flash.
Stearns turned to defend himself and was struck squarely in the chest by the ball of dead. He was hurled backward and pinned to the wall on the other side of the room.
Getting quickly to his feet, Francis ran toward Angus. “We’re getting out of here,” he told him, already beginning the process of weakening a space between here and somewhere else.
There was a deafening clap of thunder, and a gory rain of torn flesh and body parts fell down on them.
“If we’re leaving, it might be a good idea to do it now,” Angus suggested, eyes widening with terror as Stearns headed toward them, hands crackling with unbridled power, some of which had come from Francis himself.
“Give me a fucking second, will you?” Francis said, realizing that he was much weaker than he thought.
He had to think quickly, and the first place that popped into his mind appeared before them through the gossamer curtain separating one location from the next.
“Jump,” Francis said, grabbing Angus by a flabby arm and pushing him through the curtain.
Francis glanced over his shoulder to see Stearns raising his hands to unleash another blast of magickal force. But this time, Francis was faster. He flipped the sorcerer the bird, then fell backward through the curtain, firing the Pitiless pistol to cover their escape.
The doorway from one place slammed closed as he tumbled through to the next.
Stearns could still taste the interloper’s essence coursing through his body.
And it filled him with rage and concern.
The magickal force flowed from his splayed hand, passing harmlessly through where the passage had been to strike at the wall behind it, blasting away ancient plaster and wooden slats.
Stearns gazed down at his hand. The mouths were still there, yearning for another taste of their last prey.
What he was distressed the sorcerer. The piquancy of Angus’ rescuer was still fresh within him. He could taste a trace of divinity but the flavor was muted, tainted.
Even still, there was no mistaking what he was.
Stearns spun on his heel, walking through expanding puddles of gore as he left the room, wondering if his partners were aware of this wrinkle. The idea of his plans being disturbed was like a kernel of sand stuck in his eye: merely a bother, but irritating nonetheless.
Almost as annoying as being mistaken for Konrad Deacon. Nearly seventy years dead, and still his old adversary haunted him. The thought of Heath believing that it was Deacon who was stalking the cabal forced the hint of a smile to appear at the corner of Algernon’s mouth, but it was quickly gone as he recalled the origin of the one who had attacked him.
He threw open the door to Heath’s home, descending the steps to the limousine now waiting at the curb. He did not speak to Aubrey as he got in; his living-dead driver already knew that a private flight awaited them at the airport.
Stearns remained lost in his thoughts throughout the entire flight to Boston and the short drive from Logan International Airport to Back Bay. Carefully, he reviewed every detail of the plan he had formulated over the years, a plan that had not been fully realized until he had met his new business associates.
They had made his plans a reality with their knowledge of arcane magicks…magicks that they had, in fact, been responsible for introducing to humanity so very long ago.
Finally, the limousine pulled into the underground garage of the Hermes Building, Boston’s newest, tallest skyscraper and the jewel in Stearns’ vast telecommunications network. The building remained primarily empty, except for some rented office space, his own living quarters and the living spaces he’d allowed for his associates, and a state-of-the-art broadcasting studio that was the key to his plan.
The car stopped in front of the doors to a private elevator, and the ever-faithful Aubrey opened the door for him. Stearns pulled a key card from his coat pocket as he exited the limousine and slid it into the illuminated slot to the right of the stainless steel elevator door.
The door slid open with a cheerful ping, and Stearns stepped inside, pushing the button that would take him to his partners’ floor. He knew they would be awake in spite of the early-morning hour, standing, as they always did, perfectly still in a row in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a spectacular view of Boston.
He also knew that they were seeing far more than just the city. They were seeing beyond it.
