Hellforged

“Norden said he saw Pryce, but we lost contact,” I told Kane. “Norden may be hurt. Let’s split up and look for him. Be careful.”

We agreed I’d go left and he’d go right; we’d work our way through the graves row by row and meet in the center. I drew the Sword of Saint Michael and started forward, moving quickly but with caution.

The final chords of “Grave Robber” crashed to a halt, and the audience thundered its approval.

I unclipped the walkie-talkie and tried again. “Norden?”

Daniel’s voice came back: “He’s hurt.”

“Where are you?”

“About halfway in, two rows in from the west fence.”

I ran in his direction, leaping over gravestones that got in my way. “Wait, Vicky.” Daniel held out a hand as I got near. “It’s bad.” I pushed past him. Norden lay in a heap on the blood-soaked ground. He was cut to ribbons. Pryce and his goddamn sword work.

“He’s alive,” Daniel said. “I’ve called for an ambulance.”

Good. There were at least two standing by; I’d seen them near the news vans. Norden didn’t look like he could wait long. His skin was ashy pale, his breathing rapid and shallow. Blood speckled his face, and blue tinged his lips. Daniel had already sprinkled activated charcoal on the ground—Norden would’ve carried that from his Goon Squad days—to soak up blood and absorb its odor. Still, it’d be bad for Norden if any zombies got a whiff of all that blood. The sooner we got him out of here, the better.

Red lights splashed across the tombstones, and a couple of EMTs unloaded a gurney from the back of an ambulance. “Over here!” I called.

Onstage, a guitar chord reverberated, followed by a squeal of feedback. “Helloooo, Deadtown!” growled Monster Paul. “Tonight, we show the world that—hell, yeah!—the dead can dance.”

Drums crashed, and a heavy bass line thumped out. The night suddenly grew several shades darker.

As the dead dance, the Brenin shall claim what’s his.

Overhead, the sky teemed with crows—so many it looked like the darkness itself seethed. They cawed and shrieked, their clamor overwhelming the music. There were more than I’d seen outside the slate mine. More than enough to destroy every zombie here.

Daniel’s eyes followed my gaze, then widened.

I sheathed my sword and took out Home Sweet Home.

“Daniel, listen.” I spoke quickly. “That’s the Morfran. I’ve got to do the ritual to imprison it. Pryce will try to stop me. Whatever it takes, don’t let him.”

Daniel nodded, still watching the Morfran. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Detective Costello? Daniel?” We both turned at the voice. Behind the EMTs came Lynne Hong, cameraman in tow. “What’s happening?”

“Get out of here!” I shouted at her.

At the same time, Daniel yelled, “Lynne, don’t—”

The bassist faltered, hit a sour note, then stopped. Three more beats and the drummer stopped, too. That’s when the screaming started.

Hong stopped in her tracks. The cameraman spun around, not sure what to film.

I looked at the plaque in my hand, then up again at the overcrowded sky. Even with magical enhancement, could this one small slate hold all that? It didn’t seem possible. It had taken an entire slate mine to contain this much Morfran.

Screams pierced the night like sirens of terror. Now wasn’t the time to wonder.

I leaned the plaque against a tree and backed up ten feet. I took a centering breath and gripped Hellforged in my left hand. I tried to ignore the screams, the massive amount of Morfran overhead. Focus. Be pure. Do what you have to do. With my left hand, I traced large, clockwise circles. Immediately, I felt a shift in the energy around me as tendrils of Morfran were pulled into the movement. The screaming quieted. An eerie silence settled.

Circling felt like stirring a huge vat of nearly set concrete, there was so much Morfran dragging on my arm. Making the circles smaller increased the strain, but I kept going. With a strong tug of will, I pulled the Morfran toward me. A tsunami of ice-cold power charged up my arm. It lifted me from my feet and slammed me down flat on my back. Hellforged rocketed from my hand and spun into the darkness.

Screams again shredded the night, more this time. There was too much Morfran here. I couldn’t control it all at once. Okay, I thought, rolling onto my hands and knees and feeling around for Hellforged, I’ll subdue it in smaller batches. Some zombies would get hurt, but if I worked fast, maybe I could imprison all the Morfran before the attacks made it to phase three.

I found Hellforged. The athame jumped when I put my hand on it, but I caught it and got back to my feet. I took a deep breath—two, three—and tried again. This time, I kept the ritual light, drawing only the nearest Morfran closer instead of putting everything I had into pulling all of it toward me. The screams lessened. Sirens approached. Monster Paul urged the crowd to stay calm. Please let Tina be okay. I offered up that thought like a prayer, then closed my eyes and refocused on my task. I proceeded quickly, feeling for balance. When I’d pulled in as much Morfran as I could handle, I circled smaller and faster. It was almost time to switch hands.

“Put her down, you son of a bitch!” Daniel yelled.

His voice threw me. My eyes flew open, and Hellforged wobbled in its orbit. I kept circling, but I felt some of the Morfran slip away.

Daniel had his gun out, aimed at something to my right. Pryce held a struggling Lynne Hong a foot off the ground, his hands around her throat. She clawed at his fingers with her mittened hands, her eyes bugging out. Pryce looked at Daniel and laughed an ugly laugh. He tossed Hong aside. Daniel fired, but Pryce disappeared before the bullet left the gun.

Daniel sprinted to where Hong had fallen. He scooped her up in his arms and ran toward the ambulance.

My arm was still circling, almost like it was on auto-pilot. I returned my focus to the task at hand, tightened the circles more … more. I pulled in the Morfran that was still in my orbit and got ready to make the transfer.

Pryce popped back into the Ordinary, not ten feet in front of me. He picked up the plaque. “Home Sweet Home. How quaint.” He disappeared into the demon plane, taking the slate with him.

38

THE WHOLE DAMN SKY WAS BOILING WITH MORFRAN, AND Pryce had stolen my target.

Hellforged twitched, but I kept hold of it. I slowed the circles and widened them, just enough that the energy wouldn’t charge up my arm. The energy waned a tiny bit. The screams from Monster Paul’s audience didn’t. It sounded like full-scale panic out there now.

I was close to panic myself. My circling arm ached from the Morfran’s drag. I relaxed the circle a little too much and felt more Morfran slide out of Hellforged’s orbit. Again I picked up the pace; daggers of fiery pain stabbed my shoulder with each circuit. I couldn’t keep this up. Soon, I’d stop from sheer exhaustion, and hundreds of zombies would die.

The cawing rose to an insane pitch. The zombies were dying, anyway. I was holding back one small bit of Morfran, while the rest tore viciously into its victims.

“Vicky?” Kane called from the darkness.

“Here.” My voice croaked with fatigue.

He hurried toward me, winding through the tombstones. “There are two PDHs back there, the guys from the gate, and they’re—” He stopped when he saw me.

“Under attack by the Morfran,” I finished for him. “I can’t help them, Kane. Pryce stole the slate target Mab gave me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Slate?” He frowned. “Does it have to be a special kind of slate?”

“No, but—”

“Vicky, look around. Most of the headstones in this cemetery are slate.”