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Chapter Thirty-five

I looked at Luccio&039;s still-unconscious foran for who kno long before he showed up, coupled with the pains of her injuries and the sedative effect of the painkillers I&039;d given her, un went off, not e&039;d been talking, and not e&039;d all had to work together to get Morgan back up the stairs and out to the silver Rolls

I made sure she was covered with a blanket The moment I did, Mister descended frouidly over her lower legs, purring

I scratched my cat&039;s ears and said, "Keep her coave me an inscrutable look that said maybe he would and enerally considered it the obligation of the universe to provide shelter, sustenance, and amusenity to plan for the future

I got a pen and paper and wrote

Anastasia,

I&039;oing soht be able to create new options You&039;ll understand shortly

I&039; you, too In your condition, you&039;d be of limited assistance I know you don&039;t like it, but you also know that I&039;ht

Help yourself to whatever you need I hope that we&039;ll talk soon

Harry

I folded the note and left it on the coffee table, where she&039;d see it upon waking Then I bent over, kissed her hair, and left her sleeping safe in my home

I parked the Rolls in the lot next to the et there before the witching hour, which would be the best ti it while injured and weary with absolutely no preritual as probably going to detract , but I was beggared for ti for choice

"Allow me to reiterate," Murphy said, "that I feel that this is a bad idea"

"So noted," I said "But will you do it?"

She stared out the Rolls&039;s windshield at the vast expanse of Lake Michigan, a sio "Yes," she said

"If there was anything else you could do," I said, "I&039;d ask you to do it I swear"

"I know," she said "It just pissesmore I can add"

"Well, if it er, too Soainst ets back to the Council about how asket"

She smiled a bit "Yes, thank you I feel less left out now that I know soun&039;s shoulder harness a little more comfortably "I a the to reach the others?"

"I&039;d really rather not say The less you know-"

"The safer I am?"

"No, actually," I said "The less you know, the safer I a with people who can take inforive it or not"

Murphy folded her ar helpless"

"Yeah," I said, ", Molly?"

"Still asleep," Molly reported from the back of the lih" She reached out and touched Morgan&039;s forehead with the back of one hand

Morgan&039;s arh he never changed the pace of his breathing or otherwise stirred Christ It was literally a reflex action I shook my head and said, "Let&039;s move, people"

Molly and I wrestled the wounded Warden into his wheelchair again He roused enough to help a little, and sagged back into sleep as soon as he was seated Molly slung the strap of an across the parking lot to the s

"And what do we have in there?" Murphy asked me

"Party favors," I said

"You&039;re having a party out there?"

I turned my eyes to the east and stared out over the lake You couldn&039;t see the island froo, even on a clear day, but I kneas there, a sullen and threatening presence "Yeah," I said quietly A real party Practically everyone who&039;d wanted to kill me lately would be there

Murphy shook her head "All of this over one man"

"Over a hero of the Council," I said quietly "Over the an nearly took out the Red King himself-a vaustingly powerful retainers If he hadn&039;t bugged out, Morgan would have killed hi nice about him," Murphy said

"Not nice," I said "But I can acknowledge who he is Morgan has probably saved more lives than you could count, over the years And he&039;s killed innocents, too I&039;m certain of it He&039;s been the Council&039;s executioner for at least twenty or thirty years He&039;s obsessive and tactless and ruthless and prejudiced He hates with a holy passion He&039;s a big, ugly, vicious attack dog"

Murphy s"

"He&039;s our attack dog," I echoed "He&039;d give his life without hesitation if he thought it was necessary"

Murphy watched Molly pushing Morgan down the dock "God It&039;s got to be awful, to know that you&039;re capable of disregarding life so completely Someone else&039;s, yours, doesn&039;t really matter which To know that you&039;re so readily capable of taking everything away froot to eat away at hi there&039;s not a lot left, ht about the killer acting in desperation This situation got way too confused and co confluence of all kinds of chickens co home to roost"

"Maybe that will make it simpler to resolve"

"World War One was kind of the same deal," I said "But then, it was sort of hard to point a finger at any one person and say, &039;That guy did it&039; World War Tas si under the assumption that there is someone to blame," Murphy said

"Only if I can catch him" I shook my head "If I can&039;t well"

Murphy turned to me She reached up with both hands, put them on the sides of my head, and pulled me down a little Then she kissed my forehead and o and looked up at me, her eyes worried and calood ave her a lopsided sushy on me, Murph"

She shook her head "I&039;et yourself killed Kick whatsoever ass you need to in order to make that happen" She looked down "My world would be a scarier place without you in it"

I chewedvery aard Then I said, "I&039;d rather have you covering my back than anyone in the world, Karrin" I cleared ht be the best friend I&039;ve ever had"

She blinked quickly several ti somewhere aard"

"Maybe we should take it froested

She nodded "Find him Kick his ass"

"That is the plan," I confirently, and leaned ainst hers "Love you, too," I whispered

Her voice tightened "You jerk Good luck"

"You, too," I said "Keys are in the ignition"

Then I straightened, hitched up the heavy bags, and stalked toward the docks I didn&039;t look at her as I walked away, and I didn&039;t look back

That e could both pretend that I hadn&039;t seen her crying

My brother owned an ancient battered co boat He told me it was a trawler Or maybe he said troller Or schooner It was one of those-unless it wasn&039;t Apparently, nautical types get real specific and fussy about the fine distinctions that categorize the various vessels-but since I&039;m not nautical, I don&039;t lose much sleep over the misuse of the proper ter and could have been a stunt double for Quint&039;s fishing boat in Jaws It desperately needed a paint job, as the white of its hull had long since faded to grey and sed black The only fresh paint on it was a row of letters on the bow that read Water Beetle

Getting Morgan on board was a pain-literally, in his case We got hiht all the gear aboard After that, I cliines with my copy of the Water Beetle&039;s key, and immediately realized I hadn&039;t cast off the lines I had to go back down to the deck to untie us from the dock

Look, I just told you-I&039; the marina wasn&039;t hard Thomas had a spot that was very near the open waters of the lake I alot theot out of the marina and onto the open water Then I checked the coree or two south of due east, and opened up the engine

We started out over the blackness of the lake, the boat&039;s enginesa rather subdued, throaty lub lub dub lub sound The boat had originally been built for charter use in the open sea, and it had soht, and the ride remained smooth as we rapidly built up speed

I felt a little nervous about the trip Over the past year, Thoone out to the island several ti e

After a few e and stopped "Do I need to ask per?"

"Why would you?" I asked

She considered "It&039;s what they do on Star Trek?"

"Good point," I said "Pern"

"Aye aye," she said, and came up to stand next to lance back at the rapidly fading lights of the city "So We&039;re going out to the weird island, the one with that big ley line running through it?"

"Yep," I said

"Where ot"

I tried not to reone there with me "Crippled," I said "Yeah"

She frowned quietly "I heard hio look it up, I couldn&039;t find it on any of the maps Not even in the libraries"

"Yeah," I said "Fros happened to everyone ent out there There used to be so as a small town, but it was abandoned Soed the place from its records"

"Why?"

"Didn&039;t want anyone to go out there," I said "If they merely passed a law, they knew that sooner or later soo there out of sheer contrariness So they pretty much unmade the place, at least officially"

"And in more than a century, no one&039;s ever seen it?"

"That dark ley line puts off a big field of energy," I said "It , but it&039;s enough to make the a specific effort to get there Plus, there are stone reefs around a big portion of the island, and people tend to side around it"

She frowned "Couldn&039;t that be a problem for us?"

"I&039;h them"

"Pretty sure?"

"Pretty sure"

Maybe she looked a little paler "Oh," she said "Good And we&039;re going there why?"

"The sanctum invocation," I said "The island has a kind of spirit to it, an awareness"

"A genius loci," she said

I nodded approval "Exactly that And fed by that ley line, it&039;s a big, strong one It doesn&039;t ed to kill a bunch of them"

Molly blinked "And you want to do a sanctum invocation? There?"

"Oh, hell no," I said "I don&039;t want to But I&039;ve got to find soe to"

She shook her head slowly Then she fell silent until we actually reached the island a little while later It was dark, but I had enough ht to find the buoy Tho the Water Beetle through it, and began following the coastline of the island until I passed a second buoy and guided the boat into the set the vessel next to the dock without breaking anything, and hopped off with lines in hand to tie it off

I looked up to find Molly holding my ritual box She passed it to me and I nodded to her "If this works, it should take an If I&039;ine, and drive it back to the marina It&039;s not too different fro"

She bit her lip and nodded "What then?" she asked

"Get to your dad Tell him I said that you need to disappear He&039;ll knohat to do"

"What about you?" she asked "What will you be doing?"

I slipped the strap to the ritual box over one shoulder, took up my staff, and started toward the interior of the island

"Not much," I said over my shoulder "I&039;ll be dead"

Chapter Thirty-six

Grimm&039;s fairy tales, a compilation of the most widely known scary stories of Western Europe, darn near always feature a forest as the setting Monstrous and terrifying things live there When the hero of a given story sets out, the forest is a place of danger, a stronghold of darkness-and there&039;s a good reason for it

It can be freaking frightening to be walking a forest in the dark And if that isn&039;t enough, it&039;s dangerous, to boot

You can&039;t see h of wind in the trees to the rustle of brush caused by a s touch you suddenly and without warning-tree branches, spiderwebs, leaves, brush The ground shifts and changes constantly, forcing you to compensate with every step as the earth below you rises or dips suddenly Stones trip up your feet So do ground-hugging vines, thorns, branches, and roots The dark conceals sinkholes, eht drop you six inches or six feet

In stories, you read about characters running through a forest at night It&039;s a load of crap Oh, maybe it&039;s feasible in really ancient pine forests, where the ground is mostly clear, or in those vast oak forests where they love to shoot Robin Hood movies and adaptations of Shakespeare&039;s work But if you get into the thick native brush in the US, you&039;re better off finding a big stick and breaking your own ankle than you are trying to sprint through it blind

I h the ras of what had been a tiny town, just up the slope fro up through floors and out broken old s

There were deer on the island, though God kno they got there It&039;s big enough to support quite a few of the beautiful anins of foxes, raccoons, skunks, and wildcats, plus the usual cos There were a feild goats there as well, probably descendants of escapees froan to sense the hostile presence of the island before I&039;d gone twenty steps It began as a low, sourceless anxiety, one I barely noticed against the backdrop of all the perfectly rational anxiety I was carrying But as I continued up the hill, it got worse,into a fluttery panic that made my heart beat faster and dried out ainst the psychic pressure, and continued at the sa and bolted, I could end up a victiht In fact, that was probably what the island had in ritted my teeth and continued, whilethe shapes of trees and rocks and brush, andit a little easier to move safely

It was a short hike to the le better than forty-five degrees, and the only way one could climb it safely was to use the old steps that had been carved into the rock face They had felt weirdly familiar and comfortable the first tied noticeably in subsequent visits Even now, I could go up the to the slightly irregular spacing of the steps, without needing to consult my eyes

Once at the top of the stairs, I found myself on a bald crown of a hilltop A tower stood there, an old lighthouse made of stone Well, about three-quarters of it stood there, anyway Some of it had collapsed, and the stones had been cannibalized and used to construct a se at the foot of the tower

The silent presence of the island was stronger here, a brooding and dangerous thing that did not care for visitors

I looked around the moonlit hilltop, nodded once, e and planted round

What I was about to atteiven tribe&039;s shaman or wise one or spirit caller or whatever would set out into the wild near home and seek out a place of presence and power, such as this one Depending on the culture involved, the practitioner would then invoke the spirit of the place and draw its full attention The ritual that happened next wasn&039;t quite an introduction, or a challenge, or a staking of a claim on the land, or a battle of wills, but it incorporated eles If the ritual was successful, it would fore between the shaenius loci in question

If it wasn&039;t successful, well It&039;s a bad thing to have the full attention of a dangerous spirit that can exert control over the environy of the ley line that ran beneath the toasme into food for its animals and trees

"And yet here I a or what?"

I set my staff down and opened the box

First, the circle Using a short whisk broom, I quickly cleared dirt and dust from the rock shelf beneath me in an area about three feet across Then I used a wooden-areometry classrooms, to draw out a perfect circle on the stone in faintly lulow-in-the-dark chalk The circle didn&039;t have to be perfectly round in order to work, but it was a little bit et

Next, I got five white candles out of the box, and checked a n them properly The compass needle spun wildly and aimlessly The turbulence of the nearby ley line hted on the North Star, setting the candles out at the five points of a pentagraned with due north

After that, I got out an old and genuine KA-BAR US Marine co with a plain silver chalice and a silver former Salvation Army bell with a black wooden handle

I double-checked each of the objects and the circle, then stepped a few feet away and undressed coical gear except for the silver pentacle amulet around my neck I didn&039;t have to do the ritual sky clad, but it reduced the chances of any of the enchantnificant amount

All the while, the pressure fro My head started pounding, which was just lovely in combination with the fresh bumps on it The hairs on the back of an to whine and buzz aroundto get bitten while I did this

I went to the circle, checked everything again, got a box of matches out of the ritual box, and then knelt down in the circle Yes, I could have lit thenature on the candles that could potentially interfere So I did it the old-fashioned way As I struck the first ht the northernmost candle, a screech owl let out an absolutely alien-sounding cry from so nearby that I althe circle

"Cheap shot," I ain I lit the five candles, then turned to face the north and reached out to gently touch the chalk circle A mild effort of will closed it, and the psychic pressure I&039;d been feeling for the last half hour or an to regulateather Outside ain A wildcat let out an earsplitting yowl A pair of foxes set up a yipping, howling chorale in the brush

I ignored theth I could Then I openedit sharply once, and filled my voice with the power of hten away," I said to the hilltop "I ai, one of the Wise, and I a up frohed with the force of it, a sound like angry surf, enorain "Hear i, one of the Wise, and I know your nature and your strength"

The wind continued to rise aroundthe candles flicker With an effort of will, I steadied their flarees in reaction

I set the bell down, took up the knife, and drew it along the knuckles ofa thin line in my flesh Blood welled up immediately I put the knife down, took up the chalice, and let my blood trickle into the cup

And as it did, I used the one thing thatoff

Soulfire

During a case a little el had decided to invest in my future Uriel had replaced the power I&039;d lost when I resisted the temptations offered me by one of the Fallen The demon&039;s Hellfire had been literal hell on wheels for destructive purposes Soulfire was apparently the angelic equivalent of the same force, the flip side of the coin-fires of creation rather than those of destruction I hadn&039;t experimented with it y If I poured too , it could kill me

As the blood dripped down into the chalice, I reached out to the place in ift resided, and poured soulfire into an to stream from the cuts and acco it with supernatural power far in excess of what y, contained on its own

I lifted the chalice in ht hand and the silver bell insparks of soulfire fell on the silver, and when it rang again, the sound was piercing, the tone so perfect and pure that it could have shattered glass

"Hearout in a si and resonant Small stones fell froi, one of the Wise! I th and to show my respect! Come forth!" I set the bell down and prepared to break the circle and release the spell "Come forth!" I bellowed, even louder "COME FORTH!"

I simultaneously broke the circle, released my will, and poured out the scarlet and silver fire of my enhanced blood onto the stone of the hilltop

Animals of the forest erupted into screa places to swarm in the skies above ether in the rushing wind, the sounds crackling over the stony hilltop like rifle shots

And, an instant later, a bolt of viridian lightning crashed down out of a coround in the center of the ehthouse

There was little enough in the lighthouse that could burn, but soht danced and flickered on the walls, if only for a few seconds-and then suddenly revealed an indistinct and solid shape inside

I took a slow breath and rose tofor such an entity to take ht it so unlikely to happen that I had scarcely bothered to plan for it

The woods all around

Aniest and ht Foxes and raccoons were there, too, as well as rabbits and squirrels and all manner of woodland creatures, predator and prey alike They were all staring at me with obvious awareness that was far more than they should have had, and all of them were eerily still

I did ht be like to be overrun and chewed to death by hundreds of small wild animals I turned my eyes back to the tower, and waited

The dark shape, indistinct in the heavy shadows,that was not quite human Its shoulders were too wide, its stance too crooked, and it walked with a slow, li-thump It was covered hat appeared to be a voluminous dark cloak-oh, and it was eleven or twelve feet tall

Yikes

Green eyes the sa burned inside the darkness of the cloak&039;s hood They faced ust of ashed down onto ritted ainst it and endured, until a moment later it died away

I looked at the dark shape for a et you" I reached for er portion of soulfire, and hurled , "Ventas servitas!"

Wind festooned with ribbons of silver light rushed froure It didn&039;t -the entity was far too rey cloak back as sharply as a ship&039;s flag caught in a gale,the fabric snap and pop

My evocation died away, and the entity&039;s cloak settled down again Once htly behindSharp shards flew up from the supernatural i cuts on s and back

"Ow," I uess" Then again I su on the earth near the entity "Geodas!" I shouted, and the earth beneath the entity twisted and screa into a sinkhole

The entity never moved It just stood there on eround out from under it

The entity&039;s eyes kindled to life again, but this tiathered before it in a lance and rushed toward round beneath it as it caround below e&039;s little well I drew it up through the cracks the entity had created in the rock, taking advantage of the work it had done, with a shout of, "Aquilevitas!" A curtain of water rose up tofla only darkness and a cloud of steam

I lifted a hand and o!" A column of silver-and-blue flaround and struck the entity hard in the center of its mass

It rocked back at the ih that column of fire would have blown apart a brick wall But I had moved it that half an inch There was no doubt about that

Weariness was slowly seeping into my limbs as the entity stared atwithout blinking-and without looking weak