The possessed, or Ridden, can be deterred by running water and by fire, both of which tend to disorient them, but neither is capable of stopping them altogether. Even killing the Ridden’s body is not a permanent solution, since the Otherworldly parasite will continue to move and operate the body even in death. The only way to put down one of the Ridden is to introduce pure silver into the body, by bullet or by blade, which serves to sever the connection between the parasite and host.
That’s where my twin Colts come in.
The hoodlum released his hold on the woman’s arm, letting her slump back onto the pavement, as the Ridden turned to face me, his eyes darting to the silver-plated .45s in my fists. I wondered whether the hoodlum knew that his companion was more than he seemed to the naked eye.
Typically the Ridden I encounter in Recondito are lackeys of the Guildhall, working as muscle for a political machine whose methods and reach would have eclipsed Tammany Hall in its heyday; the demon parasites from beyond are offered the chance to experience the sensual joys of reality in exchange for their services, while the hosts are most often thugs-for-hire who have disappointed their employers once too often. That one of the two attackers was Ridden suggested strongly that these two were Guildhall bruisers enjoying a night away from roughing up the machine’s political enemies.
“Now step away,” I ordered, aiming a pistol at each of them.
After I recovered Cager’s body from the jungle, I took his Colt M1911 and my own and plated them with silver from the daykeeper’s secret mine, and cast silver bullets to match. I usually carry a pistol in either hand, but make it a habit never to fire more than one at a time. Despite what the pulp magazines would have readers believe, no one can hit the broadside of a barn firing two guns at once. The first time I tried it, honing my skills in the forest above Xibalba, the recoil drove the pistol in my left hand crashing into the one in my right, with my thumb caught in-between, the skin scraped off like cheese through a grater. And though the gloves I wear as the Wraith would save me from another such injury, I’ve found that the second Colt is much more useful as a ward against attack—the silver serving to keep any Ridden from venturing too close—and then ready with a full magazine to fire if the seven rounds in the other pistol run out before the job is done.
The silver of the Colt in my right hand was enough to make the Ridden think twice about rushing me, while the bullets in the Colt in my left were sufficient to give the hoodlum pause—I wouldn’t fire on a man who wasn’t possessed unless it was absolutely necessary, but it was clear that he didn’t know that.
“Por favor . . .” the woman said in pleading tones, scuttling back across the pavement from me, seeming as frightened of the Wraith’s silver mask as she’d been of her two attackers’ fists only moments before. “Ayuda me . . .” I knew it wasn’t me she was asking for help. But then, who? The shadows?
I intended to end the suffering of the Ridden’s host-body, a single silver bullet driving the parasite back to its home beyond the sky, and to chase the hoodlum into the night with enough fear instilled in him that he wouldn’t soon menace another girl walking alone by night.
“Now,” I said and Sent, gesturing toward the hoodlum with the Colt in my left hand, “one of you I shall send back to your Guildhall masters with a message . . .”
The hoodlum began to turn away, shifting his weight as he prepared to take to his heels and flee.
I smiled behind my mask, raising the pistol in my right hand and training it between the eyes of the Ridden. “ . . . and the other shall be that message . . .”
CHAPTER ONE
Izzie sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked down at her hands and had to stare at them for long seconds to assure herself that they were whole and unmarked, and hadn’t been eaten away to nothing. She could still feel a sensation of emptiness, of the darkness pressing in . . .
She swung her feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours came rushing back to her all at once. They had spent the night in the abandoned lighthouse, after finding the bodies in the subbasement of a warehouse, with rubber tubes snaking from shunts buried in their spines; bodies that were neither fully alive nor entirely dead. She remembered the unearthly smell and the feeling of disorientation in that dimly lit room. And the horror and revulsion that she’d experienced when the neither-dead-nor-alive bodies climbed with jerky, inhuman motions to their feet and began to shamble toward her.
The night before, Izzy hadn’t had the chance to question the reality of what was happening. But now, in the stark, cold light of day, she had to ask herself—had all of that really happened? Were they really facing hordes of people whose minds had been destroyed while their bodies were being taken over by intelligences from another world? From another dimension? The mere fact that she knew how crazy that sounded didn’t discount the possibility that it was crazy. Not when the simpler answer would be that she was the crazy one. Not when it was easier to accept that she had dissociated from reality and fabricated the whole thing, rather than believe that everything that she and Patrick Tevake had uncovered over the last few days was really true.
“Come on, girl,” she said out loud to herself, “get
