Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (8 page)

“Hello, Gaunt,” said Hawk, not lowering his axe. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

The sorcerer Gaunt had once single-handedly cleaned up the Devil’s Hook, killing all the villains, and made the place almost civilized for a while. But it all fell apart again after he was forced to leave Haven. A good man in a bad city, he’d drawn his considerable power from a succubus, a female demon he’d called up out of the Pit, and bound to him, at the cost of his soul. He’d used evil to enable him to do good, and had no right to be surprised when it all went horribly wrong. The succubus was destroyed, and Gaunt lost his power source. Hawk and Fisher saw it happen. Gaunt had been their friend, then.

“Jesus, Gaunt,” said Fisher. “What the hell happened to you? And what the hell do you think you’re doing now?”

“What I have to,” said Gaunt.

“You look half dead,” said Hawk. “And what is that ugly thing squatting on your shoulder?”

“My new source of power,” said the sorcerer. His voice was calm, almost emotionless. “After I lost my lovely angel, my succubus, most of my magic went with her. I couldn’t protect the Hook anymore, and all the scum I’d kept out came rushing back, wolves with endless appetites returned to prey on the innocent. So I left Haven, in search of new magic. But after what happened to the succubus, the only demons that would answer my call were nasty little shits like this one. It’s really no more than a parasite, feeding me magic in return for the life force it drains from me. Not the best of bargains to enter into, but I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“From what I remember of your succubus,” said Hawk, “you’ve just traded one addiction for another.”

The demon glared at Hawk, stretching its mouth impossibly wide to show sharp steel teeth. Up close it looked like a living cancer, bulging red and traced with purple veins, and it stank of sulphur and the Pit.

Gaunt smiled sadly at Hawk. “In the end, power is all that matters. It’s all I have left. You want to know how I could do something like this to myself, don’t you? Ah, Hawk, I was already damned long before you met me. That’s the price you pay for bargaining with the Pit, no matter how noble your intentions. Trafficking with demons like this was no trouble at all to what’s left of my conscience. I needed powerful magic again, to do what had to be done, to save the Hook. I failed them, you see. I promised them they’d be safe, promised I’d protect them from the bastards who used and preyed on them, but in the end I couldn’t back it up. Now I can. I have returned, and this time I will clean up the docks and the Devil’s Hook for good. The dead shall be my soldiers, and no one will be able to stand against them. I will spread such horror through the city that no one will ever dare oppose my will again.”

“Your zombies are killing innocent people right now!” said Fisher. “Guards and striking dockers, men and women putting their lives on the line to protect their families. Or are you saying you can prevent the zombies from slaughtering defenseless people in the Hook?”

“No,” said Gaunt. “Some of the innocent always have to die, for the greater good.”

“They’re killing everything that moves!” said Hawk. “You don’t have any real control over them!”

“You’re wrong, Hawk! Wrong! I planned this all very carefully. I created the zombie control device, with a little help from my friend, and I sold it to the DeWitts. Suitably disguised, of course—they didn’t know it was me. But I knew they’d never be able to resist such an opportunity. And all along, the control device had my spell hidden at its heart, so I could override the DeWitts’ control at any time. I knew Marcus and David would be too greedy to look beyond the profits to be made, by replacing living workers with zombies. And that greed has brought their doom upon them.”

“Are they dead?” said Fisher.

Gaunt frowned. “Unfortunately, no. They ran like rabbits at the first sign of trouble. It doesn’t matter. My zombies will track them down later.”

“There isn’t going to be a later,” said Hawk. “Your zombies are killing innocent people. That has to stop. Now.”

“I thought you, if anyone, would understand,” said the sorcerer. “The DeWitts weren’t the only ones considering the introduction of zombie labor. This … carnage I’ve organized will make people too afraid to ever think of using zombies again. I’m saving thousands of jobs here, Hawk; saving lives and livelihoods all over the city. It’s regrettable that some will have to die to bring that about, but you should know; there are no real innocents anymore. Not in a world where the good must damn themselves to hell to gain the power to do good. So don’t talk to me of death and suffering; I face more pain and horror than you can imagine.”

“Stop this now,” said Fisher. “And we’ll find a way to save your soul. We’ve done harder things in our time.”

“Right,” said Hawk. “No one is ever really lost, who truly repents.”

“But I don’t repent,” said Gaunt. “I wanted power, and I willingly paid the price. I’ve … failed so many times, you see. I never did become what I wanted to be, what everyone said I had the potential to be. I never achieved the things I meant to. I couldn’t even protect my friend William Blackstone, never mind the people of the Hook. I have to win this time, Hawk. I have to win, just once. Whatever the cost.”

“And we have to stop you,” said Fisher. “Whatever the cost.”

“You can try,” said Gaunt. He gestured almost lazily with one hand, and a bolt of lightning shot toward Hawk and Fisher, crackling and spitting on the air. Hawk brought up his axe, and the lightning glanced away from the great steel blade, smashing through the closed glass window and dispersing in the outside air.

“It’s not that easy, is it?” asked Hawk, just a little breathlessly. “Most of your power and your concentration is tied up in maintaining control over the zombies, isn’t it? That’s why there weren’t any defensive spells downstairs. You’re not nearly as powerful as you used to be, Gaunt.”

“I don’t need to be,” said Gaunt. “I have all the help I need.”

Hawk and Fisher looked around sharply at the sound of slow footsteps dragging along the landing toward them. Fisher ran over to the door and looked out. All of the DeWitts’ private guards, dead once but raised again by Gaunt’s augmented will, came stumbling down the landing toward her, still wearing their stupid canary yellow uniforms. Fisher slammed the door shut, and looked for a lock or a bolt, but there wasn’t one. She put her back against the door, and braced herself to hold it shut. Heavy fists slammed against the other side of the door, followed by the thud of dead shoulders, but Fisher held the door shut. She dug in her heels and glared at Hawk.

“Do something, Hawk! We’ve got company!”

Hawk looked at her, and then back at Gaunt, lost in concentration over his spell. Through the broken window came the sound of fighting still going on further down the docks, interspersed with the screams of the hurt and the dying. Hawk knew his duty, but he didn’t want to do it. The sorcerer had been a good man once. He was still trying to be, in his own mad, twisted way. And once he had been Hawk’s friend. The zombies were battering against the closed door now, pounding at it with heavy weapons in dead hands, and the thick wood trembled as Fisher fought to keep the door closed. If they got in, Hawk and Fisher wouldn’t stand a chance in such a cramped space. Hawk looked back at Gaunt, torn with indecision, searching desperately for a way to avoid having to kill a man who had once been his friend. The sorcerer ignored him. And Hawk sighed once, and started forward. He knew his duty. He’d always known his duty.

He knew better than to try to cross the chalk pentacle surrounding the sorcerer. He’d seen such things before. The power harnessed in those innocuous-looking lines would fry the flesh right off his bones. Hawk hefted his great axe, aimed, and threw it, all in one strong fluid action. The axe crossed the chalk pentacle, the runes etched on the steel blade flaring fiercely for a moment, and then it sailed on to neatly sever the scarlet umbilical cord linking the demon to Gaunt’s neck. The cancerous thing toppled backward, screaming shrill obscenities, and the sorcerer gasped in shock and pain as the source of his magic was abruptly cut off. Hawk was already charging forward, crossing the now harmless chalk lines without hesitation, his attention locked not on the moaning sorcerer but on the tiny red demon. It leapt to meet him, moving inhumanly quickly, just a bloodred blur as it shot through the air to slam against Hawk’s chest. He staggered to a halt as its clawed hands and feet sank into his chest, the membranous wings flapping madly as it fought for balance. Hawk cursed at the sudden pain and grabbed the demon with both hands, but its claws had sunk deep into his flesh. Blood soaked the front of his tunic as he lurched back and forth, tearing at the demon. And then its severed umbilical cord whipped through the air like a striking snake, and tried to attach itself to Hawk’s throat. The parasite needed a new host.

Fisher abandoned her post at the door and ran forward. She heard the door crash open behind her, but didn’t dare look back. She crossed the chalk pentacle, grabbed a handful of Gaunt’s hair, and pulled his head back so she could set the edge of her sword against his throat. Tears ran down the sorcerer’s face, but his eyes were still closed in concentration, and outside the sound of fighting still went on. And through the open door came the slow, steady footsteps of the newly raised dead.

“Stop this, Gaunt!” said Fisher. “Or I swear I’ll kill you!”

“No, you won’t,” said Gaunt, not opening his eyes. “Deep down, you know what I’m doing is right. There has to be change in Haven. The guilty must be punished. Or everything we’ve done here has been for nothing.

“Hawk’s going to destroy your demon.”

“It has already given me enough magic to see this through. And you won’t kill me, Isobel. I was your friend.”

Fisher looked across at Hawk, who was still struggling with the demon. It was trying to plunge the end of its severed umbilical cord into Hawk’s neck, but he’d given up his hold on the demon’s body to grab the unbilical’s snapping end with both hands. There was an unnatural power in its jerking movements, and it took all his strength to keep the sucking end away from his throat. He could see his axe, but it was well out of reach, and if he took one hand away to grab for the knife in his boot, the demon would win. It was sniggering now, and its breath was unbelievably foul. Hawk braced himself, and used the last of his strength to turn the umbilical away from him, and plunge the sucking end into the demon’s own distended belly. The cancerous face looked briefly startled, and then it shrieked with pain and thwarted rage. It released its hold on Hawk’s chest, and he threw it away from him. It tumbled in midair, then sucked its whole body inside itself and vanished in a puff of paradox. Hawk, breathing heavily, looked at where it had been and blinked a few times.

“Well,” he said finally. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”

There was the sound of dead bodies falling suddenly to the floor, and Hawk spun around to see the DeWitts’ private guards lying slumped and lifeless on the bare wood floor. The nearest was an arm’s reach away. From outside, the sound of fighting had also come to a halt. Hawk looked at Fisher. She was standing over Gaunt’s dead body, and blood was dripping from the edge of her sword. She met Hawk’s gaze unflinchingly.

“I had to do it while he was vulnerable. He would never have given up control of his zombies. They were his last chance for power. His last chance to be somebody.”

“Isobel …”

“He would have let us both die!”

“Yes,” said Hawk. “I think he would have.” He sighed once, and went over to pick up his axe. He hefted it once, and then put it away. He looked expressionlessly at the sorcerer’s dead body. “He was … misguided. He meant well. He was my friend.”

“That’s why I killed him,” said Fisher. “So you wouldn’t have to.”

Afterward it was mostly about clearing up. The striking dockers went home, taking their dead and wounded with them. The Guards called in surgeons to tend their wounded and began the slow process of clearing the various debris off the harborside. The zombies, calm again without Gaunt’s influence, went back to work. The dockers’ demonstration was over for the moment, but both sides knew it would have to be fought again, and again, until someone surrendered or there was no one left to fight. A few hardcore zealots on both sides wanted to resume the fighting right there and then, but calmer heads dragged them away in different directions. There had been enough death for one day.

Hawk and Fisher walked slowly along the harborside, stepping around the pooled blood, already dark and drying. All of the dead had been removed; both sides had a dark suspicion that DeWitt might see the bodies as raw material for their zombie workforce. Guards stood in small clumps, drinking and smoking, smiling and laughing and celebrating their survival. Hawk remembered some of them showing unforgivable brutality to the fleeing dockers, and his hand moved to the axe at his side. Fisher took him firmly by the arm and guided him away.

“Gaunt was a good man once,” said Hawk. “He really did clean up the Hook for a while. But this … is what Haven does to good men.”

“You always were too sentimental,” said Fisher. “Gaunt was a power junkie who sold his soul for magic long before we ever met him. The road to hell has always been paved with the souls of those with good intentions.”

They walked on a while in silence, leaving the docks behind them as they made their way back into the Devil’s Hook. The grim gray tenements were strangely quiet, subdued for the moment by the news of what had happened in the docks. The few people on the streets gave Hawk’s and Fisher’s Guard uniforms hard looks.

“So,” Fisher said finally. “We saved the city again. Hark how the grateful populace applauds us.”

“We saved Haven for the DeWitts and their kind,” said Hawk. “The dockers didn’t deserve what happened here today.”

Fisher shrugged. “It’s politics. I’ve never understood politics.”

“All you need to understand is that the situation in the docks is still unresolved. This will happen again. More dead Guards. More dead dockers. Only next time … I’m not sure which side I’ll be fighting on.” He looked straight ahead of him, not even glancing at Fisher. “This isn’t what I came to Haven for. It’s certainly not why I stayed.”