Original art by Heather - deviantART Site · Used with permission.
Chapter 1
I had a problem in Chicago.
A month or two before, we left some unfinished business there. And by we, I mean me. Simon and I--Simon being my boss, mentor and head monster-hunter of our organization . . . in which the other is me--were up north taking care of someone else's unfinished business, which involved shooting at a bunch of ghouls and blowing up a shoggoth. Heady days.
Along the way we met up with another of our ilk, Lucas Agrippa from Detroit. He was a really nice guy. Fun stories, approachable, affable. I didn't trust him. He was after something that had been hidden away, the Ring of Mordiggian. I couldn't find any good reason to let him have it. I knew where it was.
More or less.
Since this was my unfinished business and not Simon's, I didn't get him involved. Instead, I called my cousin, Io. He's a mage. Not like David Copperfield, but more like Merlin. He even had the white hair that went with the job, even though he was younger than I.
His white hair--and the silver rings woven in it--were at the moment blending in beautifully with the snow and ice in rural Chicago. A contact I met last time I was here got me a place to stay in return for a future, unnamed favor. I hate those, but I was really starting to cool on hotels.
"It's really fucking cold here," Io said.
I shoveled another bit of snow away from the path to the front door. "Io, it's almost Christmas. In Chicago. Yes, it's really fucking cold here."
He stopped and leaned on his shovel. "Why am I even here, again? There's a frost giant in Canada I need to beat at chess. And I won't have to shovel his walk."
I sighed and moved more snow. "You're here because I can't snap my fingers and open doors. I might need to break into the Chicago History Museum, and you're my ticket in."
"Right. And why is your 'ticket in' shoveling snow?"
"Oh, fuck. Wait in the car, then. Run the heater. Listen to some Top 40." I was almost at the door anyway.
"I believe I will." Io dropped his shovel and walked off.
I dislike working with him.
After we settled in and had some authentic, deep-dish Chicago-style pizza, I pulled photocopies of a journal from my bag. It had belonged to a guy named Dixon that worked this area. The pages were all about the Ring, and what he thought it did. I passed them to Io.
"I think Lucas Agrippa is working with a pack of ghouls," I said after he'd read everything. "When Simon and I were here before, some of them came after us for a thing we had. In the process, I think Lucas let the ghouls eat his assistant's face. Anyway, Dixon's assistant, or replacement now, I guess, said that a new group of them moved in after Dixon's death. They're a bunch of old-schoolers, too. Mordiggian worship."
"And that is?"
"Um. Hold on." I consulted my own notebook. "Mordiggian is very big in the Dreamlands with the ghoul and cannibal set. Blah, blah, offers followers eternal youth and the ability to speak with the dead. Supposedly, the Big M is not malicious, only attacking those who have specifically offended his priests or followers."
"And that's you?"
"Well, yeah."
"Oh, good. I thought this would be boring." He looked at his watch. "When are we going? I want to get my flight out arranged."
"Not today. Tomorrow, they close early on holiday schedule, at three-thirty. I figure we give them a couple hours for everyone to clear out, then we go a-ring hunting. I have a guy on the inside, but he can't open the doors without a record of it showing up, so once we're inside we don't have to worry about setting off any alarms."
"Do you know where it is?"
"No."
"What it looks like?"
"No. Well, I got a rough description of it."
Io shook his head. "You know what's the worst part? I can't even blame you. I knew ahead of time that you're an idiot, but here I am."
"Um . . . thanks?"
"Fucking-a right. We go tonight, late. I just want to get this over with so I can get out of here. Call your friend, let him know we're coming."
"Your wish," I bowed to him, "is my command. You talk to Uncle Dave any?"
"He's dead. Good night for now."
"There's nothing fucking here. I hate you."
Io looked mad. Not to say that I blamed him. I looked at the journal papers again. About the location of the ring, it said nothing. But after it all, it had three words printed very lightly, "flames and fate."
I texted Oliver, my man on the inside. "Which way is the history diorama exhibit?"
I heard the beep on his phone, and Oliver came into the room where we were, his shaved head gleaming in the meager light. "That way," he said pointing, and went back to his rounds.
"You taking pictures while we're here? Who knows when you'll be back." Io paused. "I know when I'll be back."
"When's that?"
"Fucking never, you imbecile. Let's go. Oliver says that way."
We got there and I looked around the room. The one for the Chicago Fire of 1871 was very red. "Look at this one," I told Io. "Very carefully. I think there's something here."
"You better hope so."
We pored over it with our flashlights. Io cocked his head. "Hang on a sec. No way."
He got up close. "Shine your light here, on the church," he said. I did so, and he began to pick at the bell tower. A clear coating came off, and he hastened over.
I shined my light through the piece. Drawn on it in the same reds as the fiery diorama was a diagram of some sort. "Is that . . . is that part of the rail system?" I asked.
"Beautiful," Io said. "I'm in the supernatural sequel to National Treasure."
Io came downstairs around ten. I was busy with a pair of markers and a map.
"What are you up to?"
"I've been productive this morning," I said. "I sat up and found the spot on the rail system that this bit corresponds to. So, I went to Office Max and got materials to make a ringer. I'm marking it up now."
"Then what happens?"
"Then, we place it tonight. According to a guy I know in Detroit, Lucas will be here this weekend."
"And he gets the red herring."
"Right. We get the ring, and everybody goes home."
Io looked over my shoulder at my work. "What if the ring isn't here? What if all we find is another puzzle piece?"
I thought for a second. "I follow the trail to the ring."
He nodded. "And if Lucas knows how many pieces there are supposed to be?"
I dropped my markers. "I don't know. Okay?"
Io sat down with the map of the rail system. "I say, we make a trap. Mislead him." He raised his palms. "Send him to New York City. Get him completely out of our hair."
"Awesome idea." I went back to working on the decoy and my phone chirped. Caller ID said it was the guy I knew in Detroit.
He spoke for a bit and I grunted a couple of times.
"Alrigthy. Thanks for the head's up." I hung up.
"What is it?" Io asked.
I swept the decoy materials off the table into the trash. "Lucas is already here."
Chapter 2
"Anything yet?"
Io's voice was tinny in my earpiece. He was on the south side of the building on the corner of North and Clark, I on the north side in Lincoln Park. Watching. Burning my cell phone minutes. And so far?
"No, nothing yet."
"Well, what's his problem? I thought he was all hot and bothered to . . . never mind. There he is. And what is that he's got with him?"
"What's it look like?"
"Well, it's . . . big, but gaunt. Like a basketball player on meth. I can't make out too many features, it's eyes and face are covered. Um . . . its aura is black. Very, very black."
I left the spot where I was creeping in the trees and ran over to the backside of the Historical Society building. I couldn't see shit through the glass.
Closer, then. Keeping low, I crept up to the glass and peered in. Everything was quiet. And then it wasn't.
Oliver came flying through a set of closed doors, blood and splinters spraying everywhere. The large figure that'd accompanied Lucas in came through the doorway next, face covering off, exposing it's blackened snout, yellow eyes blazing.
It was a ghoul.
The creature reached down and picked the prone man up with one clawed hand as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. Its slavering maw opened to bite Oliver's face, then stopped.
Lucas stepped through the shattered door, palm raised. He looked just like I remembered, like a burly Wolfman Jack with a Steven Segal ponytail. Except now, the pleasant smile was twisted into a grimace, and the twinkling eyes had turned to flashing.
He waved the ghoul off and leaned down to speak with Oliver. Lucas said something and the other shook his head. Lucas shrugged and did something with his silver-tipped cane, mouthing words. There was a slight shimmer to the air over Oliver. It became a mist and I couldn't see anything.
I could hear the screams, though.
I loosened the old Army .45 I carried in its holster and prepared to go through the glass. Something red and wet hit the window in front of me, and I was seeing the room through Oliver's empty eye sockets. Too late.
I turned to run, pelting for the treeline. "Io," I breathed over the phone, "let me know as soon as they're out of there. You need to go in there and look at something, see how he did it."
I clambered up a tree and waited, breathing hard.
Some time passed, during which I imagined all the gruesome shit I was going to do to Lucas. Oliver's was the second death that I knew of that was on Lucas Agrippa's head. My friend. Those are rare in this line of work.
"Coast is clear," Io said in my ear, and I dropped out of the tree. The back door was open when I got to it. Io stood there, an unhappy look on his face.
The place was an abattoir. Mostly-unidentifiable bits were scattered everywhere at the ends of long trails of blood. Oliver's face, complete with shocked expression, lay at the bottom of the glass. So much blood hung in the air it was like walking through a copper-flavored mist.
"Tell me what you saw," Io said. I did. "This cane, could you see the head, beyond that it was silver?"
"You know what, I can't really think right now. My friend is in this room and he'll have to be picked up with sponges and buckets."
That's what did it. The sound that sponges make being wrung out came into my head and my stomach rolled over. I backed out the door I'd come in, and without Io's whammy on it the alarm went off. He followed me out, not trailing any footprints. Mine disappeared, too. I found a potted plant, dug a small hole and yakked into it.
I packed the frozen sod back down and we left.
"We can't stay here long," I told Io, sweeping all of my bullshit into a gym bag. "Lucas is working with ghouls, and they have a tremendous sense of smell. Unless there's something you can do about that?"
Io shook his head. "If I knew beforehand, maybe. Now, all I can do is disguise our trail away from here."
"Ah. Foresight."
"Yes, get some." He put his messenger bag by the door and walked over to me. "Hold still a second," he said, putting his left hand on my forehead. His right went to his and . . .
I was standing outside the museum again. Oliver cowered on the floor before Lucas. The cane came up and time froze.
My point of view got closer, focusing on the cane. First through the glass, then closer still. Details on the cane lit up. Fragments of reflections throughout the room did the same and flew forward, forming a 3-D picture of the entire thing.
The length of the staff was covered in etchings, some kind of savage hieroglyphs. They weren't right. Focus on one and the rest would writhe, like an optical illusion. Only, I didn't think it was. I felt queasy again looking at them.
At the tip of the cane sat a globe. I was wrong, it wasn't silver. It was glass. On the inside sat a set of teeth, fanged and clamped tight, like a disembodied smile. The teeth were silver.
Time began to move again. Lucas spoke his words and the floating jaws opened. The ball began to swirl with mist, then the turning fog inside the globe took on a pink hue as giant, invisible teeth fastened on Oliver.
. . . I was sitting on the dining room floor, back against a chair and legs splayed out. Io leaned against the table. Our breath came in short gasps, the both of us.
"I think," Io breathed, "we're in trouble."
"There," Io said, closing his laptop. "I've put out some feelers. That thing wasn't familiar to me, nor was it like anything else I've come across."
I put the rest of our bags in the closet by the door of our new hotel room.
"Put out feelers to who? This isn't something that'll get back to Lucas, is it?"
"To whom. And no, I don't think so." He leaned the chair back on two legs and propped his feet on the writing table. "We don't really travel the same circles. You guys and your Things From Beyond, or whatever, that shit usually falls out of my, ah, jurisdiction as one of the Century."
"The Century. You've mentioned them before."
"Yeah. There are one hundred of us in this half of the world, people like me. We've got our network of normals, too. The same way you hunt minions of Gozer, we clear out vampires, werewolves, you name it. Except we do it way more often."
"You really have jurisdiction?"
Io shook his head. "Just a phrase. Law enforcement agencies do have protocols to follow whenever we work with them, or when they call us in on something. This is--" he was cut off by a ping from the laptop.
"Already?"
He shrugged. "I guess so."
I grabbed a couple of dollars and went down the hall to get more sodas for both of us. As I came back inside, Io whooped. "Is that good?" I asked.
"I think. We still don't know what it is, but I have a viable counter-spell. Maybe." He peered at his computer screen intently. Left eyebrow twitched. "Um. Let's not run right out and try it."
"Oh, I don't know. Eaten alive by invisible teeth. Why does that sound familiar?"
Io tap, tap, tapped on his keyboard. Clicked a couple of times. "Yeah-huh. The author of the Al-Azif was devoured alive by an invisible monster in the middle of a bazaar. Damascus. Same thing?" He clicked back over to the counter-spell message. "Ah. That explains the Arabic."
I put my hands up. "If it is the same thing, that's fabulous. An artifact like that, there should be a trail. And some lore. Lemme borrow that thing there."
An hour later and I knew no more about Lucas' cane than I had. Io interrupted my search.
"You know what? Fuck the cane. We can go to the train station, grab the ring and skedaddle before he knows we were even here."
I nodded. "I hope so. According to the map, we should head south to the Rock Island District line. We can take that to where it meets up with the Heritage line in Joliet."
"Excellent. Let's grab that shit and head back to Texas, where it isn't fucking snowing."
Chapter 3
We took the latest train to Joliet. Io sang Christmas carols at me while fucking with something small for an hour and a half, and the train could not get there fast enough. The idea was to arrive late, hide out after closing and have four or five hours with the whole place to ourselves.
Io cast some kind of spell on us, and no one gave us a second glance as we wandered around. We sat on a bench for about an hour while everyone cleared out and the lights went down. After that we took a look around. The Joliet station was old, built in 1912, and every available surface was decorated.
"This place will take forever to search," Io said. We were in the Grand Ballroom. "Are there any helpful hints in those journal pages for this place?"
"I don't think so. Let me look," I said, pulling the photocopied pages out of my inner jacket pocket. Io shined a light for me as I pored over them, but nothing. "Maybe we should--" I was interrupted by a loud clang from somewhere in the station.
"Maybe we should hide for a second," Io said. I nodded and we found a nook to nestle into. I peered out into the gloom of the ballroom. A patch of darkness along the wall got darker, and out stepped Lucas with his pet ghoul.
"The fuck is that?" Io whispered.
Lucas was holding to his face what looked to be a magnifying glass, but I couldn't see through it. It was shiny and dark, like a patch of clear ice over asphalt. He was scanning the walls and frescoes with it. He stopped, walked forward to a corner left of the huge marble staircase.
Lucas pointed at the wall and the ghoul dropped the unconscious guard it was carrying (who I hadn't seen until he did that) and loped over. It sniffed the wall, pawing lightly over the surface. Then it grunted, a ghoulish equivalent of Eureka!, I guess, and drove a ham-sized fist into the plaster.
Ring? No ring?
Clutched in its paw was a small wooden box. The ghoul handed the box reverently to Lucas, who snatched it away and tore it open. Out came a folded-up piece of paper. It looked like a schematic or something. I peered at it, but as far away as I was, I couldn't make out detail.
The ghoul sniffed and growled something. It turned its head our way. I froze, and I could feel Io stiffen beside me.
"I know you're in here," Lucas' resonant voice boomed out. He slipped the paper and his eyeglass into a coat pocket and shifted his grip on the cane. "Come out or don't. It makes no difference to me."
He raised the cane and started a low chant.
I darted out of the alcove and launched a chair at Lucas. The ghoul intercepted it, batting it away as the chant continued. It sounded like Arabic.
The air above me swirled and began to mist. I had a brief glimpse of something moving and then there was a sharp and terrible pain in my left side.
Io came out of the niche, something flaming and bright over his head. "Ghaddir 'ilaa zh-zhalaami mina n-nuur!" he shouted, thrusting the brilliant thing in his hand at the mist.
The intensity of the pain in my side receded and the mist began to clear. The ghoul snarled, and I pulled that .45 from under my coat. I didn't wait for it to make any more moves.
The gun bucked in my hands as I squeezed the trigger, .45 slugs tearing into the yellow-eyed fiend.
Io kept up his chant and the invisible monster dissipated fully. Then the cane shattered in Lucas' grip. Ever calm, he threw a canister at us and booked it for the hole in the wall they'd come through. The canister, about the size and shape of a soda can, bounced once and exploded, the concussive blast blinding and deafening me.
My equilibrium was demolished and I fell over. I waited for my senses to clear.
When they finally did, I found Io sitting with his back to the wall, waiting.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
I moved a little and gasped at the lancing pain in my side. "I feel like an invisible beast was eating me. The spell work like you thought it would?"
Io made a see-sawing gesture with his hand. "Better. If I'd had longer to work on this," he held up a blackened acorn, "I think it would have gone faster. As it is we're still very okay."
"An acorn?"
Io nodded. "Yeah. From an oak. Tree of doors, baby. Let's get the hell out of here."
We (I) staggered away from Joliet Union Station at four in the morning with no idea where to go or what to do. It is distressing to me how often that describes my situation.
Two blocks from the train station and I was out of gas. I couldn't go any farther. Io helped me against a wall behind City Hall. "If you can make it to the river," he said, "I can clean that out. Probably need to pretty bad. Who knows what kind of preternatural cooties you've got crawling around in you now."
Ug. I nodded and put my hand out. Some minutes and one block later, I was lying on my good side next to the DesPlaines River with my coat and shirt off, freezing my ass. The bright lights of the Harrah's Casino twinkled at me, cheery despite my pain.
Io knelt over me, one hand on my ruined side, one hand on a tree. His eyes rolled back in his head and his lips moved, but I couldn't hear anything. My vision began to dim. No, that's not right. Streetlights and the Harrah's got dark, out of focus, while the tree grew vibrant. I could see it, then, the last bit of life this tree was clinging to in the dead of winter.
Io was funneling that life force into me.
A whitish-green glow left the tree and flowed into Io's arm. Across his chest. Down the other arm, into my side. My body spasmed as the warmth flooded through my torso, rent muscles re-knitting and scored bones becoming whole again.
If anything else happened, I missed it, because that's when I passed out.
I came to on my feet in the Harrah's lobby. Io was joking with the clerk about how drunk I was. I wobbled a bit, and they both laughed. Io got his keys and walked over.
"Wakey, wakey," he said. "We need to figure out what the hell is going on with Lucas. And I need to replenish my coffers."
"Nothin' in the notes," I slurred.
"And nothing on the old map, right?"
Io was talking about Dixon's map. I shook my head.
We made it to the room and I collapsed on one of the queen-sized beds. Io putted around, doing things to the doors and windows. I caught a scent of salt and saw several railroad spikes.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"I'm warding the room. All four cardinal points, above and below. Ain't nobody getting in here without taking a big goddamn hit."
"You think I can learn to do that?" I asked, but I didn't hear the answer because I was asleep.
I woke up feeling brand new.
Io was gone, downstairs cleaning up at the blackjack tables. There was a while there that I thought he used magic to win, but he says no. Something about aligning his plane of being with that of the "Luck Plane." I'm never sure how much to believe him.
There was nothing on the television about a dead night shift guy at the train station. Our room faced the river, so I couldn't look out my window for red and blue lights.
I got up and walked around the room some. I felt really good. Better, in fact, than I had in years. Is this what Jack LaLanne feels like? I thought about starting vitamins.
The door shook in its frame and I whirled around. My shoulder rig with the .45 in it was hanging off the bedpost. I jumped for it as the door exploded inward, followed quickly by a smoldering figure.
The ghoul.
It howled in anger and pain, the wards having done their job well. I rushed it and threw a side kick, exactly how I'd been taught. My foot landed solidly on the side of the ghoul's neck, and for all the effect it had, could have been made of pudding.
The ghoul's giant hand clamped down on my ankle and swung me around into the wall. Then it happened again, only harder. I kicked at the thick wrist once, twice, and it let me loose.
Somehow, I'd kept a hold of the .45. I rolled away from the ghoul and came up firing. The last couple of times I'd fought these things, guns had had almost no effect unless I hit them right in the mouth or eyes. This time was no different.
Three slugs embedded themselves in the ghoul's thick hide, the fourth ricocheting off the thing's dense forehead.
The ghoul snorted and rushed me, spearing me, throwing us both against the wall. It reared back and opened its jaws wide.
I jammed the pistol into the ghoul's mouth and pulled the trigger. It fell off me and down, writhing on the carpet. I kicked it in the head a couple of times to get its attention and stuck the barrel of the Army automatic in an eye socket.
"Night-night, ugly."
One more trigger pull and the ghoul was dead.
Chapter 4
Io got to the room around the same time as hotel security, who showed up with guns drawn.
"What the fuck is that?" the oldest of the four said, pistol aimed at the downed ghoul. Another of them saw the .45 still in my hand and pointed his gun at me.
"Drop the weapon and put your hands on your head!"
Io fingered one of the silver rings woven into his hair. He put out his right hand and said, "Apolismono." Each of the guards, as Io looked at them, slowly put their guns away and filed out of the room.
"Wow," I said after Io'd closed the door. "Somebody's been practicing that trick."
Io shrugged. "It comes in handy. What happened?"
I told him. "Lucas probably didn't come along because you broke his eat-you-alive toy."
Io looked at the ghoul, thoughtful. "So the question is, where is he? Come here. We're going to revisit the train station, take a look at that paper."
He repeated his actions from before, a hand on my forehead, a hand on his. The time at Union Station unfolded in a kind of fast-forward until Lucas unfolded the paper, when time stopped. Hyper-focus on the paper.
I awoke sitting on the floor next to the bed, just like that. "Did you get it?"
He shook his head. "No. But you did. You should have perfect recall of what was on it."
I thought about it, and holy shit, he was right. I grabbed a piece of hotel stationary and a pen and began to draw. Io watched over my shoulder, and then he gasped.
"If that is what I think it is, we have to beat feet. Now. Lucas Agrippa cannot be allowed to go there."
"I don't get it," I told Io as we raced back to Chicago in a stolen Ford pick-up. "I drew a fucking ship. How does that mean anything?"
"If you do not shut up, you will wreck my concentration. And then we will wreck. Just drive fast and do it quietly."
Well, excuse me. Although . . . I was doing over ninety on an icy road. Hmm. I shut up.
Once I got into the city proper, Io signaled it was okay to slow down. "Head north, for Wacker Drive where it crosses Clark or LaSalle." He was pulling his laptop out of his bag and soon had something brought up.
"Okay, this makes no sense to me why Dixon would put the ring here, but there it is. On the twenty-fourth of July in 1915, the SS Eastland rolled while tied to a dock along the Chicago River. The thing was notoriously top-heavy. Anyway, over eight hundred people died that day. Eight hundred, all at once." He made a face. "That kind of thing leaves a mark on a place."
"And the Ring of Mordiggian?"
"That's what confuses me. A being like Mordiggian wouldn't necessarily need that concentration of death energy to enter this world, but it may be an offering."
"So why would Dixon put it there? He wasn't the demigod summoning type, I thought."
Io looked at me for a second. "Didn't I just say that it made no sense to me?"
"Alright, alright. Wacker Drive, coming up."
Io closed his eyes and held out both hands. He frowned and his eyes snapped back open. "We're late. Let me out here. Stop the fucking truck!"
I slewed the pick-up to a stop and he jumped out. He ran off, shouting something, then jumped . . . vanished. What? He reappeared three blocks up, still running, then did it again.
I stomped on the gas.
When I finally caught up at the Clark Street Bridge, Io was engaged in full battle with a pack of ghouls. I ran two of them over and jumped out of the truck. Io held up a crystal or rock, shouted something, and a blast tore out of it, bowling over a trio of ghouls, through a stone pillar and toppled over a red VW Microbus. The fallen ghouls didn't even twitch.
"Stop him!" Io yelled. Lucas Agrippa was headed down a stairwell on the other end of the block. I drew and fired my .45 at him, but nothing hit. He kept on, smiling as he recognized me, the two ghouls following him down to the waterfront pier.
"Io!" I shouted. He looked over at me for a second and was immediately set upon by the remaining three ghouls.
He put out his hands and the ghouls stopped, bouncing back as if they'd run into a brick wall. Electricity played up and down Io's arms. He shouted out a word and tendrils of lightning shot out, snaking themselves around the ghouls. Lightning came out of the skies and fried all three of them.
"Come on," I heard Io say as I blinked to clear my vision. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the near staircase.
We got to the bottom as Lucas Agrippa was facing the water, finishing his incantation. The ghouls on either side of him wore purple robes and were putting on silver, skull-like masks. Out of the water sprang a ring, a little thing for so much trouble. He snatched it out of the air and put it on.
Io stopped and grabbed my jacket, holding me back. "Not yet," he said. Lucas hadn't taken any further notice of us, so dazzled was he by the ring. It shone oddly, constantly shifting and changing hue from one dark color to another.
Lucas closed his fist and held it to his head. Immediately, the temperature along the river dropped and the streetlights dimmed. He chanted and sprinkled a black liquid on the eye of the ring, which sizzled and spat.
The river, already cold, froze over. The water turned to white ice, and then began to darken. Quickly it was pitch-black and cries and moans rose from it. Eight hundred forty-four sets of blank eyes opened in the dark as a smoky column rose from the center of the river.
"Give me your gun," Io said. I did so, without comment. I . . . I just couldn't think of anything to say. From under his hoodie Io pulled a nickel-plated .357 revolver. A big one. He closed his eyes and began to murmur.
The smoky column became a colossal, eyeless being and Io put his hands out. Both guns vanished to spring into Lucas' hands. He didn't even notice. Io spread his hands, and Lucas did the same, still chanting.
"Oh, I whispered. "Nice."
Io's index fingers flexed and Lucas Agrippa shot his ghoul priests in their temples. They both fell as Lucas opened his eyes. His face filled with horror at what he saw at his feet.
"You dare!"
The voice was that of a 747 taking off.
Lucas' mouth worked, but nothing came out. He dropped the guns as if they were burning his hands.
The giant shadowy figure lurched forward and enveloped Lucas. He screamed once and fell silent. A dry, burning odor filled the air. I couldn't place it. The figure retreated after a beat, and I saw Lucas Agrippa dissolving, becoming shadow and then ash, being sucked into the body of Mordiggian, along with the spirits of the dead from the river.
And then, with a sound of rushing air, the shape was gone. Lights burned as they had before. The river thawed and began to flow again.
The ring sat on the dock between our guns.
I sat at the airport with Io for two hours. I wasn't sure what'd happened, and Io was abnormally tight-lipped. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.
"Man, will you tell me when the hell just happened?"
Io tilted his head, silver rings in his hair tinkling. "Dixon was playing a dangerous game. That, back there? I think it was a trap. For Lucas."
"He planned this shit?"
Io shrugged. "I doubt he meant for it to go down exactly as it did." Io paused. "Unless he was powerfully prescient. Anyway, you said that Simon got first look at Dixon's stuff, right? It was probably supposed to be him that shut Lucas down."
"How did you know what to do?"
Io shifted his bag. "Well, you told me that Mordiggian wasn't necessarily a malignant force, unless you were active against his priests. Those two ghouls in robes looked like priests to me. I've dealt with demigods before . . . they're not really particular about who they smite, see. They don't require a judge and jury. They see, they smite."
I sat for a bit. "What do you think we should do with the ring?"
Io grinned. "I believe Simon will know what to do with it. Or," his grin widened, "who to do that to next."
I laughed as we waited for a plane.