brothers. Incarnadine halted. He shouted a six-syllable word twice, the first time in a normal pitch, the second in falsetto. The dome broke apart, boiling away into pink smoke.
“Nice work!” Trent called. “Hey, I think it’s going to be all ri —”
Trent leaped over the rapidly widening crack in the earth that had opened at his feet. Smoke and fire issued from deep within the chasm. The crack branched off and clove the earth near Incarnadine, who leaped to the right, then did a hop, skip, and jump over a series of smaller lateral fissures that gaped in front of him.
Then the earth settled down, and the brothers continued their advance.
Streamers of scintillation had begun forming in the air around the house. They did not look particularly dangerous to Incarnadine, and he decided they were probably by-products rather than defensive phenomena, but he kept glancing at them occasionally as he walked and fired, mindful that they could develop into something.
As he swung his sword again and again. Gene wondered why his castle-bred skills were still with him, here, on Earth. He was thankful that they were. He would have been reduced to cold cuts otherwise.
Gene parried a wicked crosswise cut, sparks shooting off his blade. He riposted with a lunge, then feinted to the demon’s right side. He whirled, did a backflip, landed on his haunches, and slashed at the demon’s legs, cutting them neatly in two at the knee joints. The body toppled over an upturned chair.
Gene lurched to his feet in time to beat off a lunge by another demon. He backtracked, steadied his footing, then parried three quick cuts, riposting to his opponent’s head. He feinted to the thorax, then quickly jabbed at the eyes again. The demon backed off.
Snowy’s sword was like the blade of a whirling fan. He was up against two opponents and holding his own.
He was thinking of how hungry he was.
“Somethin’s happening out there!” Deena said, peeking out the dormer window.
They had found a relatively demon-free spare bedroom. Barnaby rose and looked out the window. It was hard to describe what was going on. There were two arenas of special interest: one, what was happening out in the field in back of the house; two, what was gathering around the house itself. The latter involved sparkling auroral displays that fluttered like sheets hung out to dry in a high wind. As he and Deena watched, the phenomenon grew more intense, partially blocking their view of the strange battle that raged in the backyard.
Barnaby sank to the bed. “I can’t watch anymore. Is the door locked?”
“Yeah. No, let me check it.”
Deena returned. “Yeah, it’s locked. I — what the
“I’m tired,” Barnaby said as he turned down the bedding. “I’m going to try to get some shut-eye.”
“You gonna what? You’re crazy!”
Barnaby crawled between the covers. “What else is there to do? We can’t get out of here. We might as well die in bed as anywhere else. Besides, if I’m dreaming all this, maybe I’ll wake up.”
“Well, move over.”
Deena climbed in with him. They looked at each other, then pulled the covers over their heads.
“Singularity vortex!” Trent yelled over the noise of battle.
“Yeah!” Incarnadine agreed. That was what the sparkling streamers that had enveloped the house were beginning ominously to look like. The flux of magical energies in and around the house and its environs were starting to warp the fabric of normal spacetime. If the process continued, the house would drop right out of the continuum, possibly taking the portal along with it. Incarnadine wasn’t sure exactly what would happen to the portal, but it would be nothing good; of that he was certain.
“We have to get in there,” Incarnadine shouted, unsure of being heard. A six-legged, three-horned quasi- rhinoceros charged at him. He sprayed it with green fire; the thing fissioned into six smaller animals. He laid down a blanket of fire over these. Result: three dozen reduced-scale replicas, all maniacally bent on goring him in the ankles. They continued to replicate and reduce in size, Zeno’s paradox coming into play. They would keep halving the distance to their target, but never reach it. Incarnadine stepped out of their path.
There was less and less to do. Another antique aircraft circled overhead, but was not quite so magically well constituted as its predecessors; its motor sputtered, then died, and the craft fell out of the night, crashing into the formal garden on the house’s east side.
More monsters, these looking a bit threadbare: another reject from a Japanese sci fi flick; a dozen more hackneyed horrors from central casting; something that looked from the waist up like Lon Chaney’s werewolf, but was web-toed and scaly in the other direction. It blew up very nicely. A second anomaly shambled toward them, looking for all the world like a gorilla wearing a vintage deep-sea diving helmet. Whatever movie it was from, it didn’t get very far.
There came a lull in the action.
With a weary sigh, Trent sank to one knee. “Man, I’m bushed.” He chuckled. “Getting old.”
“I think we’ve just about broken their back.”
Trent surveyed the field of battle, now empty. “No, they have something left.”
“I’d be willing to bet not. That last salvo had spell exhaustion written all over it.”
“Maybe so. We’d best make a run for the house now before that vortex —” Trent reconsidered. “Hell, maybe we don’t want to get to the house. I’m not sure I can deal with any continuum disturbances.”
“I’m fairly sure I can,” Incarnadine said. “Let’s move.”
Trent got up. “Whatever you say. You seem to be running the show now.”
“I still need your help. Got your second wind?”
“I’m on my fifth, I think. I’ve lost count. You know, that inductance gimmick really —”
The earth began to shake, and thunder rolled across the meadow.
“Oh, hell,” Trent said. “Here comes the finale.”
The thunder reached a crescendo, then a brilliant flash lit up the countryside.
All Hell came at them. Incarnadine looked out across the meadow and saw the Hosts of Hell in full battle regalia, arrayed to meet the foe. There were fiends, demons, hobgoblins, imps, and incubi of every description. Some sat astride great horned beasts of battle, some rode fantastic metal engines. Most charged on foot, screaming bloody mayhem.
Incarnadine flamed the first wave. They went down easily enough, but there were simply too many of them. He prepared himself for death, reciting the first lines of the Prayer of Leave-taking.
He looked up and saw a burnished curving blade poised to strike. The scaled horror that wielded it regarded him with molten red eyes.
“Now you will die, Haplodite scum,” the thing said to him.
“You send me to a better place, tiresome one,” the King replied.
“You — you.…!” The thing was beside itself with rage. But it did not strike.
“What seems to be the matter, O Fearful One?”
“You …
Incarnadine laughed. He laid his palms on the thing’s horny chest and pushed. There was almost nothing to push against. The matinee monster fell over like a papier-mache dummy.
He materialized a sword and swung at another bugaboo. It split down the middle, revealing its chintzy hollowness.
“Spell exhaustion!” he heard Trent yell. “Inky! They’ve shot their wad! They’re just buying time.”
“The house is about to go!” he shouted back. “Let’s get up there!”
It was easier said than done. They were flapped, batted, and swatted at by hosts of bogus fiends, all about as substantial as paper dolls, and as dangerous. But there were thousands of them, and they succeeded in getting in the way.
Trent and Incarnadine hedge-hopped through the formal gardens, then encountered more ersatz boogeymen on the croquet court. They pushed, kicked, and bulled their way forward, finally reaching the outer perimeter of the auroralike phenomenon. Once inside it, the cheapjack monsters disappeared.
Invisible fists pummeled them, jostling them this way and that. Fierce gusts of wind arose and tore at them. Leaning into the wind, they staggered forward. After fighting their way across a brick patio, they reached the back door.
Incarnadine began waving his hands. Trent tried the handle. The door opened. Trent grinned at his brother.
