Magick Rising (9 page)

me when you called. He’s okay.”

“Not for this, he isn’t.”

“Uh, yeah, Kel, he is. He knows more about that acidic ash tumor thing

than either of us do.”

Kelly seemed about to question him, but Miko shook her head. “Don’t

ask.”

Hadrian paced along the foot of the carts, studying each one.

The M.E. shrugged and pulled Miko to the first body. Rather the

collection of body parts. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

Miko was actively trying not to see, but she obediently looked at the

jigsaw puzzle parts with the decapitated head.
Ewww
. “What am I supposed

to see?”

“No ash-filled organ. No characteristic wound from the abdomen into

the heart.” Kelly turned to the second body. “Same thing here.”

“They’re human?”

“Yes, but I can’t say the same for two of them.” Kelly shot her a

puzzled look. “Why’d you ask if they’re human? What else would they be?”

Miko cast a glance at Hadrian across the room. “Later.”

Kelly gave Hadrian a wide berth. “If you want to talk about not human,

these two are it. They have the Butcher’s trademark wound tracks, as well as

those acidic organs. Everything else is where no M.E. has gone before.”

She gestured to Apophis and Malphas, detailing the feathers and

snakeskin and everything Miko had already seen. Plus more than she cared

to see.

Motioning Hadrian to lean down, Miko whispered, “Are these all

yours?”

“These two, but not the others. However, they have demon scent on

them from the attacks. Appoloin is sending me a message: This is what I will

do.”

“They can do that much damage to a lot of people at once?” She leaned

into him, felt his heart beating slow and steady.

Kelly finished up with an all-over shiver. “No one who hasn’t seen

them will believe me. Maybe not then.”

“I think it only matters that
we
believe,” Miko said. “You’ll have to trust

me. The police can’t handle this.”

“The police can’t . . . ?” Kelly met her level gaze then looked hard at the

two demons that Hadrian had dispatched. Exhaling sharply, she nodded.

“Okay. We’re in this together.”

She walked to the head of the last body. Unlike the others that were

partially draped, this one was completely covered. “I’m sorry, Miko. Really

sorry.”

An origami bird made from a dollar bill lay on top of the body’s clothes,

neatly folded at its feet. A large chocolate chunk cookie rested below it.

No
. Miko shook her head.
No
.

“I’m sorry, but it’s Bert. You don’t have to look. He’s already been

positively identified.”

Hand trembling, Miko pulled down the sheet to reveal his grizzled face.

His hair fell over his forehead, and she brushed it back. “Oh, Bert.”

Hadrian pulled her against his side, offering comfort and warmth. “A

friend?”

“A good friend.” Dried blood crusted his fingernails, and defensive

wounds covered his forearms. She brushed his hair back one last time then

firmed her lips. Bert had fought. Now it was time for her to do the same.

She waited until she and Hadrian were outside where the reflection of

trashcan fires lit the low-hanging clouds. The scent she now associated with

demons streamed up from the river, overwhelming all others.

“How do we fight them?”

MIKO FELL ASLEEP on Hadrian’s sofa after hours of argument about

her joining him in the imminent battle with Appoloin. She’d run out of

words and finally ended curled against him, falling uneasily asleep. He

imagined she fought demons or nightmares of them.

Closing his eyes, he sighed. For years he had no comrade in arms. Now

this woman, descended from Samurai magickers far away from his

birthplace, demanded to become part of his fight, putting herself at risk.

From her reporting on the victims of the crimes she covered, he knew a

crusader’s heart beat within her warrior’s body.

Hadrian drew her closer. She was muscular but fit well against him.

With more time, she might fit well in this life he realized he no longer hated

if she were there. She brought light to his darkness, passion to his

single-mindedness.

But his fate loomed. This battle was his last. Heaven and those who

preceded him waited. His longing for a release from centuries of hunting

and killing vanished in the face of leaving behind Miko Jones. The few

weeks he had observed her, the few hours he had spent in her company, the

single time he had held her as a man holds a woman filled his heart.

It didn’t matter. His fate was sealed. And tomorrow she would join him,

protecting the innocents while he took on the most demons he’d ever faced

at once.

DAWN BLOSSOMED late. Dusk closed in early. Clouds scudded across

the full moon as a biting wind coursed through the mountain passes and

scoured the city. Bonfires lit the riverbank. Larger fires illuminated men

whose faces morphed into familiar animals and unfamiliar creatures.

Miko and Hadrian paused in the shadow of the trees overlooking the

main bonfire. Miko forced herself to breathe, to find her center. It wasn’t

clear what a battle to prevent a Gathering of demons entailed, but based on

her experience last night, the outcome was in doubt.

One Hunter, a cat, and a reporter against how many and what kinds of

demons?

Hadrian pulled her against him, laying his cheek against her hair.

“When this is over, you’ll still be in danger. Leave and go somewhere far

away.”

“I can’t do that. Uncle Nic is still out there somewhere. He may be in

more danger than I am. I have my
kanzashi
. He doesn’t have anything to

protect him.” She turned her face into his neck and inhaled his scent.

Memory was all she would have after this.

His sigh ruffled her hair. “Then I’ll just ask that you take care in your

search. Find your uncle. Perhaps he can protect you.”

He crushed her against him as if to fuse them together, and she melted

into him. They clung to each other. Miko hoped he understood what she

could not say. He was heading for Heaven, and she was doomed to live

without him.

Through her closed eyelids, she saw the firelight increase. His lips

brushed her forehead, then he loosened his embrace.

“It’s time.” He looked toward where Appoloin waited. “Father Daniel

is expecting you?”

“He said he’d have the sanctuary stocked and ready. He spent the

afternoon blessing everything within reach and filling every container he can

lay hands on with holy water. He’ll be ready.”

Hadrian drew his sword and dagger. “We begin.”

Neither one of them said goodbye. She didn’t want it to be the last

word she said to him.

She waited for him to disappear into the trees before she started down

the hill toward the homeless camp. Without Bert, convincing the group to

take refuge in St. Michael’s might not be easy.

As it turned out, they were uneasily watching the growing bonfire less

than a quarter mile away. A scream from that direction erased their

reservations, and they collected their possessions without complaint.

Following the stragglers, she chivvied them to hurry. Chanting echoed

along the river, dark and wrong and far removed from the world she knew.

Would Father Dan and St. Mike’s be enough to protect them?

The priest met the men on the church steps, welcoming them and

passing them through to a trusted few he’d recruited after Miko’s call. She

didn’t know why he believed her or what he’d experienced that made him

agree to her request. But he didn’t hesitate. If they all survived this night,

she’d buy him a cup of coffee and find out.

“Miko!” Father Dan’s voice carried a warning. His eyes were on the last

of the stragglers.

She spun. A demon with a raptor’s beak and talons for hands grabbed

the last man. It ripped open the man’s throat, leaving his head to collapse to

one side, blood spurting. He was dead before the demon let him drop.

“Run,” she yelled, shoving those closest to her ahead. “Get to the

church.”

Several dropped their packs and sprinted toward it. A couple appeared

paralyzed. She reached the first one, jolting him into motion with her

shoulder. “Run, dammit.”

A crocodile-headed thing wielding a forked dagger attacked the second,

dragging him into the trees. The man kicked and screamed as he disappeared

into the blackness beyond the streetlights.

These were what Hadrian was fighting right now. Alone. And they

wouldn’t come one at a time.

She pushed the remaining men up the steps past Father Dan. Their only

safety lay in consecrated ground. She hoped.

The chanting grew stronger, louder. Shrieks and unearthly screeches

ricocheted off the buildings and underpasses. Hadrian was down there. She

started down the steps.

“Miko, wait. Take this.” Father Dan passed her the tall processional

crucifix from the altar. “I sharpened the bottom of the staff and the edges

and doused it with holy water. It might hurt those bastards.”

As she grasped it, he blessed her and made the sign of the cross on her

forehead. “Go with God.”

She pelted down the hill in the direction of the demon who’d taken the

last guy. Probably dead, but who knew? She had to try.

The only sounds she heard as she entered the trees were hers. Grabbing

a tree trunk to halt herself, she listened. A growl came from her right. She

slipped from tree to tree, careful to avoid stepping on downed tree limbs.

She reached a clearing. The demon was busy gobbling down what

looked like intestines. Blood pooled around his victim’s lifeless body. No

time for squeamishness, no time to cringe at what she had to do.

She raised the crucifix and lunged. One arm of the cross cleaved its

skull. The creature stiffened, then fell sideways. “That was for Bert, you

asshole.”

Miko yanked the cross from the thing, sending silent thanks to Father

Dan. They were really going to have that sit-down and coffee.

Remembering what Hadrian had told her about keeping a demon dead,

she reversed the pole and impaled the demon’s
crasboethiad
with the tapered

point of the staff with a satisfying sizzle. She pulled the cross out and got her

bearings.

She hurried downhill. No need to keep silent. The chanting and yelling

covered any noise she’d made.

She came to a halt at the riverbank. Heart pounding, she searched for

Hadrian. A flash of brilliance identified his location even though she

couldn’t see him for the intervening bodies. More than twenty chanting

demons gyrated or undulated or slithered around the fire, centered on what

had to be Appoloin.

She’d assumed the Demon Lord would be more grotesque than the

others, but he was surprisingly human in shape although over seven feet tall.

Fangs dripped blood down his chin. Then he lifted his arms and wings, each

as wide as he was tall, spread above and behind him. All he needed was a

pointy tail and a pitchfork.

Waves of hatred and evil rolled off him and the others, making Miko’s

stomach convulse. She promised herself she could be sick later. Right now

she had to reach Hadrian.

Ignoring her brain telling her to run and hide, she stepped into the open

area. None of the demons noticed her until she swung the crucifix and sliced

the head off a snake-shaped demon. This time she stabbed the
crasboethiad

and retrieved the cross without a pause. She vaulted over the demon’s dead

body. Thank goodness for all that time training at the
dojo
.

She saw Hadrian. He was holding a half circle of demons at bay. More

demons lay dead at his feet, and the dagger was too bright to look at for

long. Hadrian lifted his sword, swung, and a demon shrieked as its arm

dropped to the ground.

Behind Hadrian, the Angel of Death, wings brilliant as the sun, drew

the dead demons toward him and flung them into something she could only

describe as a vortex of nothingness. During their planning, he’d made it

clear that he couldn’t take part in the fight.

A lion demon slashed at Hadrian with teeth and a knife, opening a gash

in his thigh and immediately struck again. Hadrian threw up his sword to

block its attack.

Miko ducked under the snapping teeth of a
neko-mata
—a Japanese

werecat demon—and sliced at the lion. It twisted at the last moment, the

crucifix landing flat on its side. The smell of burning fur singed her nostrils.

In her peripheral vision, Hadrian dispatched the one-armed demon and

whirled back to her.

The lion demon raised up on its hind legs, and she rammed the cross

into its
crasboethiad
. As it fell, it dragged the crucifix from her hands. Demons

on each side turned, grinning and slavering demon spit.