The Dark Master gathered the lords and they spelled her.
But the Dark Master nor the lords of the dark places controlled demons. Demons could be bound by the Great Demon Mother to the service of another entity, as Queezleyan had been bound to the service of the gem witches.
Lessor demons like the six-tailed rat demon didn’t have the power to slide people and objects between worlds, though.
Hilario opened his eyes. Made his tired eyeballs focus on the shimmering spikes of the black angel in front of him.
“We’re almost there!” Rachel shouted.
Rodney’s foot still pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The van’s engine roared, its screaming pistons almost matching the pizza delivery driver’s screams.
Hilario shucked off his dirty white gloves. Held his hand out to Marco. “Gimme.”
Marco shoved the bloodwood box at Hilario, yanked the lid off. Queezleyan, dazed from the magic sapping qualities of the box, didn’t move fast enough. Hilario’s hand wrapped around his neck. He jerked the six-tailed rat demon up.
“Say hi to your mom for me,” Hilario said.
Behind the van, the four fire-snorting werbulls plowed through the armies of orkes, ogres and goblins gathered in front of the tower.
The lords of the dark places turned to see what the heckity heck was going on.
The orkes on either side of Sinzerklaazz shoved him head first into the portal. Lightning crackled out in brilliant purple flashes.
The front of the van hit Sinzerklaazz’s feet. The giant’s flat soles were angled like a ramp. The van zoomed up them.
Became airborne. Pointed right at the swirling maelstrom of the Eye of Malachi portal.
Hilario grabbed the edge of the silky red bag.
Then he shoved his other hand–the one holding Queezleyan–into the black angel.
68
Too late for regrets. Or second thoughts.
The air sizzled with electricity. The stink of ozone filled his nostrils. Rodney had stopped screaming. The van sailed through the air in blissful since.
Except for the hiss and sizzle of the the black angel.
Oh, this better not be a bad idea.
His hand was so cold.
But he could feel the power, too. A massive engine, banked and idling.
But what kind of power? If it was the wrong kind, all of this was for nothing.
The black angel glided up his arm and enveloped him.
The van touched the portal.
69
The universe became still.
A drawn breath. Held. Full of anticipation.
Hilario could see everything clearly. The van. Rodney the pizza delivery driver behind the wheel. The quickly mouldering corpse of Igidbon, inhabited by the glowing, ghostly form of Larry Sparrow.
Behind him, Roger the ogre and Rachel–the freshly returned/crowned queen of the lost Green Realm–held the silky red bag open.
Detective Marco held the bloodwood box in one hand. In the other his talkative pistol.
Toward the back of the van, Odom the Paladin held his huge sword ready for smiting.
It was like Hilario was trapped in a barrel of molasses. With great effort, he looked down at his own hands. One hand clasped the open end of Sinzerklaazz’s red bag. The other held the six-tailed rat demon, Queezleyan. Who looked quite shocked. The little beast’s yellow eyes were as bugged out of its head as Rodney’s had been.
Damn you, clown. The rat demon’s voice echoed weakly in his mind. How did you figure it out?
He ignored the question. It wasn’t important at the moment.
Straining his muscles, he looked back up. Through the window at the frozen tableau outside.
Orkes and ogres and goblins hung in the air like a miasma around the four charging werbulls. Some of the dark lords had broken away from their enchantment of the Eye of Malachi to deal with the werbulls. No doubt trying to put up shielding spells.
They probably wouldn’t succeed.
At lot of beings were going to die this day.
But that was going to happen with or without his involvement.
The question was…how many of those deaths could be laid at his feet? And what was the measure of those lives? Did the lives in the normal world matter more than the ones in the unseen world.
You know they do, Hilario.
A new voice.
We aren’t allowed to directly interfere.
The black angel. Who, from the inside, wasn’t filled with darkness. But with light. Pure, radiant, joyous light.
We are conduits. We carry life energy from one place to another.
His heart, if it had still been beating in that singular moment, would have stuttered in fear.
I’m sorry for the things I’ve done, he said, I’m trying to atone.
Especially for the things the black angels might still be mad about. Oh dear.
Forgiveness is not part of our realm.
Oh dear.
Nor is judgement. We exist to protect balance. Though we are limited in how we can act.
But you are not, Hilario the Clown.
Who had the power to take a 1967 Ford Econoline van and its passengers from the normal world, through the layers of the unseen world, by way of the Spiral of Yev?
He did.
With a little help.
He squeezed Queezleyan’s neck. The little rat demon’s eyes bulged out even further.
You could have warned me, he told the creature.
Right. Like you would have cooperated, tubby.
Probably not. He would have sighed if his lungs had been functional at this frozen moment of time.
Played.
Tricked.
He was never optional in this whole drama. Somehow, it had ended up pivoting on him.
Who killed Larry? he asked.
The little rat demon laughed. His magic oven. The fire spirit escaped. Whoosh! Everything goes boom.
And who helped it escape?
Things happen. Accidents occur.
Playing both sides. And neither. Demons were notoriously unreliable. And the masters of the unseen world had let the fate of a normal world
