Hellhound

“The place I was in changed. It was still dark, but quiet all of a sudden. And instead of dead skunk it smelled musty, like a cellar. The Devil let go of my arms, pushing me away. I fell on a hard floor. It was cold, concrete. I scooted backward, trying to get away from him, but I hit a wall. I waited, like this”—she threw both arms across her face—“expecting red-hot pincers or a flaming pitchfork or whatever they use to welcome the damned to hell. But nothing happened. After a few minutes, I realized he was gone. I was alone.”

Pryce had pulled Bonita through the demon plane to deposit her elsewhere. I remembered what Butterfly had said about Pryce’s visits to a place in the Ordinary. “You said the place smelled musty. Can you remember anything else about it?”

“Pitch-black, like a cave. I never saw it, but I explored every inch. Concrete floor, like I said. Cinder-block walls. When I stood up, I couldn’t reach the ceiling, even on my tiptoes. There was hardly any floor space, though. I couldn’t lie down. When I slept, it was sitting up, my legs stretched out so my toes were up against the far wall and my back wedged into a corner.”

“Did you try the door?” Daniel asked.

“I didn’t even think there was a door at first. I screamed and screamed until my voice was gone because I was sure I was sealed into that place. But later, I don’t know how much, the door opened. It slid sideways into the wall, and somebody stood there. You can bet I found my voice for more screaming then. I thought the Devil had come back for me. But it wasn’t him. It was . . . I don’t know what it was. Even in Deadtown, I never seen nothing like it.”

“Please try to describe it, Bonita,” Daniel said. “We can bring in a sketch artist later if that would help.”

Bonita closed her eyes. Whether she was trying to remember or to blot the memory out, I couldn’t tell. “There was some light in the hall, but it was dim and the . . . the thing stood in front of it. And it wore a robe, with the hood pulled up and forward. I tried to back away from it, but the cell was so small. It stepped inside and set down a tray of food and water on the floor—I don’t mind telling you, I was hungry by then. I’m a zombie after all.” She ventured a small smile, which turned almost immediately into a frown. “But I almost lost my appetite at what happened next. As the thing straightened, it pushed back its hood and peered at me. Its face was like a skull covered with old, dried-out skin. And it had fangs. Like a vampire’s, but bigger. That made me start screaming all over again. The thing smiled, and it looked like those fangs grew a mile. Then it turned and left. There was another one in the hall—I saw it. The door slid back into place and I was alone again.”

Daniel and I exchanged a look. Her jailers were Old Ones, members of a race of super-vampires trying to turn their undeath into true immortality. The Old Ones were ruthless; the zombie plague had been their test run, released on thousands of innocent people, of a magically enhanced virus that could “cure” death. Their leader, Colwyn, a fifteen-hundred-year-old former druid, had recently escaped from police custody. If Pryce and the Old Ones were working together, it was the worst kind of bad news.

“Time passed. I ate food when they brought it—two of ’em always came together. I slept. I tried not to think about what would happen to me. And then the Devil came back. All of a sudden, he was just there. He grabbed my arms again, and we entered that other darkness. The noisy, smelly one. But this time, there was light. It flickered, like it was from fires all around, but I never seen no flames.”

“What happened then?”

“The Devil picked me up and threw me on a table. I thought for sure it was flaming-pitchfork time. He never let go of my arms, but he moved around behind my head and held me down from there. I struggled, but it didn’t help. The Devil said, ‘Hurry.’ It took me a second to realize he wasn’t talking to me. There was another man—he looked like the Devil, except he was older and had a beard. This one was a ghost. I could see that weird light flickering right through him.” She swallowed. “And there was . . . there was . . .”

We waited. It was hard, watching Bonita struggle to get past the horror of the memory, but she needed to express it her own way. The bearded guy was obviously the shade of Myrddin, free to detach himself from Pryce in the demon plane. I had a pretty good idea who—or what—Bonita was about to describe, but I didn’t want to put words into her mouth.

“It was horrible. Horrible. Huge, like a giant. But so . . . disgusting. It had blue skin all covered with warts, some of them big like tumors. I had to crane my neck back to see its face—and then I wished I hadn’t. The firelight was coming from its eyes. And then it grinned at me. More fire was inside its mouth. It lit up rows of sharp, pointy teeth big as steak knives.”

Difethwr, as I’d expected.

“The giant was a demon, Bonita,” I said.

“I knew it! I knew I was in hell. The whole time, from the very first minute I saw the Devil, I prayed and prayed. It’s how I kept from going crazy in that tiny cell. I promised, if I got out, I’d never do anything bad ever again.” She crossed her heart as she said it, as she’d probably done hundreds of times in her cell. But then a look of defeat dimmed her eyes, and again she buried her face in her hands. “And then what happened? I did get out, only to do the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. I tried to kill that lady.” She dropped her hands and leaned forward. “I don’t even know why I did that. I don’t know her. I never saw her before tonight. But these voices filled my head. Screaming. It hurt so bad. They kept shrieking, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill the lady!’ Like a million of them. They didn’t give me a choice.”

Bonita confirmed my suspicions that Pryce was causing zombies to be possessed by the Morfran. But now we were coming to the part I really wanted to know—how.

“When did you hear those voices for the first time?” I asked.

“After the bearded ghost cut me.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said, the Devil held me down on that table. He musta put all his weight on my arms.” She rubbed her upper arms like she wanted to erase the feel of it. “Then the other one cut me. Here.” She pulled down the neck of her T-shirt and pointed to her breastbone, marked by a vertical gash about six inches long. “The . . . the demon breathed on it. Fire. God, it hurt. I felt like my whole body was a red-hot coal. The ghost waved his hands over me and he said the same words, over and over again.”

“What words?” I grabbed a spare pencil and a piece of paper from Daniel’s stack. Even if Bonita didn’t remember Myrddin’s chant exactly, Mab might be able to make sense of it. And if we knew his spell, we could figure out a way to undo it.

“I don’t know,” Bonita said. “I didn’t understand the words, but I heard them so many times it’s like they’re written in my brain. They sounded like . . .” She frowned, concentrating. I gripped the pencil.

Bonita screamed. She pushed back her chair and waved her arms crazily.

Three paces from Bonita, where a second before had been nothing but empty space, stood Pryce. He lunged toward the zombie. In a flash, Daniel drew his gun and fired. Black blood spurted from Pryce’s chest, but before his knees even started to buckle, he disappeared. He was back in a wink, his wound healed—not even a spot of blood on his white shirt.

The guard by the door nailed Pryce with a rapid-fire blast of zombie droppers, and the same thing happened. Pryce disappeared before the bullets exploded. But this time, when Pryce reappeared, the Destroyer was with him.

Bonita fell to the floor and scrambled under the table. “No! No! No!” she screamed. I shouted in pain as my demon mark blazed to life. Difethwr leered at me, fire leaping behind its eyes. I couldn’t look away. The guard shot again. The Destroyer absorbed the bullets. If anything, they made its inner fire burn hotter. I felt the burning in my own arm.

The Hellion released my gaze and turned toward the guard. Flames blasted from its eyes, pinning the screaming man to the wall.

Daniel was on his feet, shouting. He fired again, but the Destroyer moved in front of Pryce, shielding him. Its eye flames burned white-hot.

The guard moaned and then went silent. The Destroyer pulled back the flames, releasing him. As the guard slumped to the floor, the Hellion turned toward Daniel.

“Look out!” I yelled.

Daniel ducked under the table. Flames scorched the wall behind where he’d stood a moment before.

“Enough, Difethwr.” Pryce’s voice cut through Bonita’s screams.

The Hellion knocked the table aside.

“I said, ‘Enough’!”

Difethwr, furious, whipped its head around. Flames streamed from its eyes. They raced toward Pryce, halting an inch away from his face. The two of them stood there, deadlocked. Then, inch by inch, the Destroyer reeled back the flames until they were a mere glow in its eye sockets. It growled and turned away.

Pryce straightened the sleeves of his suit jacket. “Hello, cousin,” he said, as though we’d bumped into each other on the street. “Ready to join our side yet?”

“Never.”

Pryce looked surprised. “Haven’t you been doing your homework? Surely the book wouldn’t hide from you the delicious irony of what’s to come.”

My demon mark smoldered as I tried to block out the vision of me attacking a defenseless woman on Boston Common.

“She knows,” the Destroyer said. “We can feel it in her.”

Bonita was curled up in a corner. Pryce bent over and closed his hands around her arms. “Thanks for keeping this one safe for me. This evening’s events have been most interesting, and I believe we have much to learn from them. See you in hell, cousin.”

The Destroyer’s rumbling laugh filled the room. Then the Hellion, Pryce, and Bonita—her eyes screwed shut, her voice wailing in despair—all disappeared.

16

“LET ME GUESS,” DANIEL SAID, AS HE STOOD AND BRUSHED off his clothes. “They went to the demon plane.” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">