They had a saboteur aboard the train?
“Can you kill this demon?” she said to Hasp.
“Perhaps. But I’d rather not be ordered to do so.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes a moment, breathed deeply, and focused on what she had to do. “Just…please don’t kill any more dogs.”
“Are there any more dogs aboard?”
“No.”
“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.” The angel’s gaze lingered on Harper’s uniform, at the place where her hidden jewel rested against the hollow of her neck.
Harper shrugged off his stare and raised her Locator again. “Let’s keep moving.”
Observation Car One was a misnomer, at least at night, for the transparent carriage shimmered like the inside of a Mesmer crystal, the myriad light blotting any view of the dark landscape rushing by outside. Aether lamps made twinkling constellations on the many glass facets, while a spiral staircase of clear composite triangles led up to a viewing dome and an open terrace where passengers might stroll and take the air, weather permitting. Red plush chairs surrounded tea tables on which vases of pink and white roses had been artfully arranged. But even the heady odor of flowers could not wholly disguise the smell of the Pandemerian Railroad Company’s chemical antiseptic.
A twitch of movement on her Locator brought Harper to a halt. She adjusted the device before sending two full-spectrum pulses out in opposite directions. Then she changed her position and repeated the process. The needle fluctuated unevenly between both ends of the scale. “The device is still confused,” she whispered. “But I’m reading
Hasp slouched over his shiftblade and looked bored. “It smells like it’s here.”
Harper altered her position, and went through the procedure one more time. Finally she halted to one side of the stairwell, and slipped a Screamer from her tool belt. The delicate skeletal globe murmured in her hand, its Mesmer crystals sensing the proximity of uncontained spiritual energy. She twisted one hemisphere of the Screamer against the other, engaging the clockwork timer.
“Eight seconds,” she said.
Hasp shrugged.
“Six seconds.” Quickly, she checked her Locator. “No change. If it’s here, then it
The door opened and Carrick strolled in. “Harper? For god’s sake, I’ve been searching the whole damn train for you. We’re pulling into the portal station now. The guests are furious. This”-he batted a fist in the direction of Hasp-“glass-wrapped bastard killed a passenger’s nephew’s pet. They’ll be discussing lawsuits as soon as they can figure out who to sue. And the mess…” He stopped when he realized her full attention was on the Screamer in her hand. “What the hell are you doing? What’s that thing? Haven’t you caught this demon yet?”
“Almost,” Harper said.
“Almost isn’t good enough,” he said. “Do you think the PRC pays you to
“Two seconds,” she said.
Carrick’s temper reddened his face. “Not two seconds,” he snarled. “Now!”
“If you say so.”
The Screamer screamed. The interior of the observation car blazed with crimson luminance as furious bolts of Maze-light crackled and flashed between its glass-paneled walls. There was a sense of building atmospheric pressure, a violent snap, and then the air thickened with an earthy, rotten stench. The sphere in Harper’s hand glowed white. She dropped it, wincing-its metal frame was burning hot. Carrick stumbled backwards, shielding his eyes, and knocked over a tea table. Hasp hefted his shiftblade. Harper backed away, gagging at the dense odor, while loops of Maze-light whirled and pulsed and contracted into a bloody knot, and then vanished with a pop.
Something remained in its place.
Shorter than Hasp, but twice his bulk, the demon hunched over a stone hammer which looked heavy enough to level a mountain. It looked like a blisterman, but bigger. Grey sacs of skin covered every inch of its naked body; they were inflating and contracting like lungs. It was wheezing-but Harper could not discern a mouth or nose in its face, just pinprick eyes which stared out from the tumescent flesh. The enormous muscles on its shoulders and arms glistened and steamed with red fluids born of forced manifestation.
It turned to Hasp and said, “I am in pain. Why have you done this to me, angel?”
“Not me, soldier,” the archon replied. “I’ve no quarrel with you.” His eyes were fading to a somber grey. “You have been the victim of a clockwork incantation. Technology, these people call it.”
The demon cocked its head for a moment, as though trying to digest this unfamiliar word. The blisters on its skull puffed in and out, hissing faintly. Finally it said, “I am named Flower. I am trapped in this place. I heard noises. This is not the Forest of War.”
“You are aboard a steam locomotive bound for Coreollis,” Hasp said, “in the country of Pandemeria.”
“Those names are unfamiliar to me. What is a steam locomotive?”
“A vehicle propelled by burning the souls of old earth spirits.”
The demon nodded.
“Be wary, soldier.” Hasp indicated Harper and Carrick with a nod of his head. “These people will order me to kill you, and I am compelled to obey them. If you are slain in this world, your soul will go to Hell.”
Flower turned its pinprick eyes on Harper. “I do not wish this to happen. Send me home.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not until we discover who summoned you. Tell us his name.”
“I do not know it.”
Carrick had retreated to the end of the carriage. The chief’s face was slack and bloodless, but he found his voice at last. “Get rid of it, Harper.”
“Hold on,” she said. “We need to know who brought it here.”
His expression soured. “What are you gabbling on about?
“No,” she snapped. Why could the chief liaison officer not understand the most fundamental concepts of soul traffic? “I pulled it out of hiding, forced it to manifest. I didn’t summon it. It was already on board the train, remember?”
“Well, send it back to Hell before the passengers get a whiff of it.”
“It isn’t
“I don’t care!” Chief Carrick yelled. “I want it out of here now. It’s dangerous.” He turned to Hasp. “Kill it.”
The angel flinched and his glass armour flashed with pools of reflected aether light. His eyes suddenly darkened. The sound of clockwork came from his neck. He gave a grunt of pain, raised his shiftblade, and stepped forward.
“Wait,” Harper said. “I order you to leave it alone.”
Hasp staggered, then hesitated, his sword wavering.
“Kill it,” Carrick snarled at him. “Kill it now. That’s an order.”
Blood surged in a red web through the angel’s breastplate. The parasitic mechanism in his head chattered furiously, and then
“No,” Harper cried.
Carrick spat the order through his teeth, “Kill it!”
“I do not wish this,” the demon said.
The angel took a ferocious swing at the blistered creature, but Flower leapt back easily, now whirling its great stone hammer above its head.
“Stop it,” Harper yelled at Hasp. “That’s an order.”
Carrick grabbed her and clamped his hand over her mouth. “Kill it!” he yelled.
Hasp roared in pain. He brought his shiftblade back up, changing it from a sword to a heavy bone club, and then swept it down, aiming for the demon’s skull. The demon parried the blow with the shaft of its hammer. Petrified bone struck stone with a sound like a detonation. The concussion blasted half of the carriage windowpanes
