to be attacked and slain by lesser demons, but he’d taken a lot of them with him. The bodies of fallen sidhe were scattered across our end of the battlefield, but the survivors had pressed forward with Adan, Terrence, Ismail Akeem and Amy Chen, and they’d joined forces with the piskies to slaughter the remaining demons.
Oberon and I jumped down and crossed the street, and then walked together side by side toward the fading battle. “It’s hard to imagine,” I said as I surveyed the carnage.
“Let me guess,” said Oberon. “This was just, what-perhaps fifty of the Fomoire? You’re trying to imagine what the next battle will look like, and the one after that.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “And I’m trying to imagine how we’ll stop them.”
“We will find new allies to fight beside us, Domino, and new weapons to wield against our enemies. In the end, we will fight and we will win, or we shall perish from this earth and all the worlds beyond. It has always been thus. Do not try to fight a battle before your enemy has taken the field.”
We joined our friends and fought with them until long after the sun had fallen into the sea. When it was over, twenty-five sidhe were dead and more piskies than I could count. All of my people were wounded, but miraculously, all of them were alive. Ismail Akeem had lost his left arm in the battle, but he’d replaced it with the ghostly apparition of a healthy arm. He said the new arm would be good for wrestling with spirits before he ate them.
Adan’s right leg had been shattered when a giant fell on him. Honey had used her healing glamour on him and he was able to walk. He insisted on staying with me, so I loaned him Papa Danwe’s walking stick.
“What’s next, Domino?” said Oberon.
“Round up your sidhe and sweep the area,” I said. “Make sure there are no more demons skulking about, and if there are, take care of them. Amy, Akeem-go with Oberon and lend whatever assistance you can.”
“What of the rest of you?” the king asked.
I looked over to where Jack hovered beside Honey. He nodded once. “We’re going for Francis Mobley,” I said. Adan, Terrence, the piskies and I left the park and walked south to Compton Boulevard. There was one more demon to face before we could rest. fifteen
We found Mobley in the Salvation Army building’s soup kitchen. It was pretty sorry as inner sanctums went, and overall just a less than dramatic spot to make your last stand. We’d run into some of the Jamaican’s gangsters in front of the building and a few more guarding the doors of the soup kitchen. None of them had put up much of a fight.
Francis Mobley’s dreads flowed from beneath a red, green, gold and black Rasta hat down his back and past his hips. A full, bushy beard concealed most of his face, and he wore a white silk suit with no shirt. He stood in the center of a pentacle that had been drawn on the tile floor with chalk, and black candles burned at the five points of the star. His body was rigid and shaking, as if he were in the grips of a seizure, and his eyes were rolled back in his head. His lips moved as he silently mouthed the words of an incantation.
As we approached, his eyes began to burn. White froth formed on his lips and soaked into his beard. One eye popped and was followed closely by the other, and flames licked out of the sockets. Mobley’s body relaxed. One hand reached up and wiped the white foam from his lips.
Valafar grinned at us. “I wasn’t sure he would do it,” he said. “I’ve been whispering in his ear, always whispering, warning him that he would not survive this meeting unless he opened himself to me. Oh, the others, sure, he agreed to let them use this wretched body long enough to crawl forth into this world, but me? I think some part of him always knew if I ever got inside and sank my teeth into his soul, I wouldn’t leave until there was nothing left of it to sustain me.”
“We knew you’d come,” I said. “No way you’d give up your gate without a fight.”
“Is that what this is, then? A fight? You would test your selves in battle against a Lord of Hell?” He turned up his hands and flames erupted from the palms.
“I heard you were more of a low-ranking general,” I said.
“But no, since you asked, we don’t think it’s going to be much of a fight.”
“No doubt you’re right about that,” the demon said, looking around, “unless you’ve brought your little army with you. In that case, we might have a bit of sport.”
“The truth is, we’re a lot alike,” I said. “Your people and mine, I mean.”
Valafar laughed. “You are no more than a pathetic parody of my race. You were given all the tools, sure, but that little seed of weakness was planted deep in your souls. Empathy, I think you call it, or conscience. Humanity,” he said, spitting the word like a curse. The forked tongue darted out and licked his lips. “Whatever you call it, I can tell you this much-it tastes delightful.”
“Yeah, just like us,” I continued. “Someone I know referred to us as a small measure of spirit imprisoned in flesh.
That was made really clear when the Xolos were taken and human souls were unable to escape their corpses. People like us, we need help dying. We can’t escape the prison on our own.”
“Fascinating,” Valafar said. “Would you care to die now?”
“You know the most horrible thing about the zombies? You’d think it would have been the cannibalism, but it wasn’t. The worst thing was they were just people. A lot of them didn’t even know they were dead.”
“Yes, well, humans are imbeciles.”
“It’s not that easy to tell, though, is it? The flesh is still animated and the soul endures. It’s an easy mistake to make.”
“For a human, I suppose.”
“Or the Firstborn,” I said. “We really are so much alike. That’s why I was so sure you’d crawl up inside Francis Mobley without ever realizing he was already dead.”
The fire in the demon’s eyes dimmed and the flames dancing on his upturned hands winked out. He looked down at Mobley’s body. “What…” he stammered. “How?”
Jack raised his hand and smiled.
I laughed. “The big fight at Wilson Park? That was just to get your attention and draw your demons away from Mobley. Just long enough for one of the King’s Knives to slip in here and do his work. It was quick and painless- Mobley didn’t even notice. I figured you’d be trapped, just like a human soul. I noticed you bailed pretty quick when I shot that preacher you possessed.”
“Clever, but so what?” Valafar spat. “Even trapped within this rotting meat, I will destroy you.”
“You probably could,” I said, “but we’re not going to have a fight.” I brought my fingers to my lips and whistled, and my Xolo padded into the room. He sat on his haunches beside me and looked up, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. In the mortal world, he had a family and a good home. He wore a collar and a dog tag. His name was Noe.
Valafar laughed. “That pathetic cur is no threat to me.”
I reached down and scratched Noe’s ears, and then I looked up at the demon. “He’s not here for you, Valafar,” I said. “He’s here for Mobley.” The Xolo barked once and leaped to his feet, and then he faded from view as he crossed over to the Between.
“No,” the demon said. His eyes flared and he backed away toward the far side of the circle. “It’s not…you can’t…”
“You said yourself, you’re just a parasite. I’m guessing you won’t last very long in there without a human soul to chew on.”
The demon threw back his head and howled, and then the burning orbs flickered out. Mobley’s human eyes stared sightlessly at us for a moment before he toppled over and fell facedown on the tile.
Honey flew to Jack and tackle-hugged him in midair. She tangled her fingers in his hair and kissed him long and hard. “My hero,” she whispered when she finally came up for air.
“Save it for the honeymoon,” I said. “We haven’t even had the wedding yet.”
On Honey’s insistence and with Stag’s grudging authorization, we held the ceremony at the Ashram. I argued we could find a good spot in L.A., and failing that we could always go to Vegas, but Honey wouldn’t hear of it. She said the Ashram was a sacred place; I wasn’t sure if that was because Hecate was there, whatever she was, or because Honey had a thing for New Age eastern mysticism. I guessed it was probably Hecate.
The location proved to be a logistical nightmare. The convergence of two major ley lines meant there was more than enough juice for the Seelie Court, but there were enough dry spots in San Bernardino County they couldn’t just take the freeway. We had to build gates for them in the compound, and they had to make the trip through the Between.
