Of Grave Concern Part 27

In a moment, I had the whiskey trader's hands locked behind his back.

The frenzied whackers were still working on Katie Bender.

"What the h.e.l.l is that?" Calder asked me.

"You got the h.e.l.l part right," I said.

"Are they men or something else?"

"Something else," I said. "These, you should kill."

Calder raised the revolver and emptied it into the pack, sending dead wolves flying. The rest backed away, snarling, while Calder reloaded his revolver from cartridges in his shirt pocket. There wasn't much left on the ground of Katie Bender-parts of one hand and a foot, some chunks of meat and splintered bones.

Crows called raucously from a tree on top of the bluff.

Calder again emptied the revolver at the pack. Again he reloaded. Two of his rounds had missed their mark and pierced the barrels behind. Whiskey ran on the ground toward the steps.

A whacker came around and tried to get at us from the creek side, but Calder turned and put a bullet in the wild man's chest. He fell back, and by the time he reached the water, he was a dead wolf.

"Where's the demon?" Calder asked.

"Here," Malleus said. He was standing at the top of the steps, the ancient pistol upraised in his right hand. "Your next question is whether this amateur has recovered her aura. I'm sorry to disappoint, but it is still safe in my collection."

"Hand it over," Calder said.

His pistol was leveled at Malleus.

"No."

Calder fired.

Malleus shrugged.

Calder fired twice more. The bullets pa.s.sed through the creature and pierced the barrels behind him. More whiskey gurgled to the ground.

"This is a forty-four-caliber Russian," Calder said. "It should have killed him."

"Told you," I said.

"Guns have no effect on me," Malleus said. "But I can certainly make use of them. Observe."

He whistled and called the last of the whackers. The wild man slunk over, low to the ground, his head down in submission. Malleus urged him to stand. When he did, the demon fired the pistol at him.

The whacker's chest exploded with a flash that looked like lightning and sounded like thunder.

Pieces of dead wolf littered the gravel.

Smoke curled from the barrel of the antique pistol. The crows were flitting overhead, made bold by the smell of carrion.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Malleus asked, sloshing powder from a flask into the muzzle of the pistol. Then he reached into his bag and came out with a fistful of auras.

"Let's see which of the bright ones we have here," he said.

He opened his palm, revealing six auras of varying sizes and colors. They glittered like jewels in his palm. The largest was violet and yellow and blue, swirling in harmony.

"That's mine," I cried.

"Give it to her," Calder said.

"This one?" he asked. He tossed the other auras on the gravel and held mine between his pale thumb and forefinger, lifting his hand to the sun. "It is my favorite. Oh, look how it shines!"

Then a black bird wheeled and dove and plucked the aura from his fingers.

"Pahghh!" Malleus cried. "The raven!"

It was Eddie.

Malleus raised the pistol and fired impotently. He had not yet loaded an aura into it. He dropped the gun and ran, with surprising speed, to where the woman and child were cowering near the wagon.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the child from the woman's arms and made a waddling run for the steps.

"Come after me," he said, "and I'll kill the child-then I'll eat his soul."

The woman dropped to her knees and began to wail.

Then Malleus ran down the steps.

Calder reloaded. Then he picked up Vanderslice's pistol and put it in his belt.

"Jack, what are you doing?"

"Going after him."

"But the boy," I said.

"What about the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" Calder asked. "Comanchitos grow up to be warriors, and warriors kill innocent women and children. Best to stop them now, before they get the chance."

"He's just a boy."

The mother was crying even louder, on her knees, begging for her son.

"We should kill the mother, too. She could produce more young."

"Jack, they didn't kill Sarah and Johnnie. They didn't kill your family. You're blinded by hate. It's Malleus, Jack. He's making you act this way. He feeds off misery, and he's using your grief against you."

"They should die," he said.

"Remember how you love justice, Jack?" I asked. "Do you remember how the whiskey trader put the body of the dead girl on the meridian marker to show his contempt for justice? His contempt for you?"

Calder rubbed his eyes. "These aren't the Indians that killed Sarah and Johnnie?"

"No, Jack. Fight the hate."

"All right," he said. "I'm all right now."

"You're sure?"

He nodded. "What now?" Calder asked. "How do you kill a demon?"

"Don't know," I said. "But I'd better figure it out soon, because I'm going back down there. Lead doesn't work, so we have to try something else-after we get the boy out."

"You can't."

"I must," I said.

"Okay, then," he said. "Let's go."

We walked down the steps, following the trail of whiskey that had leaked from the barrels. It had pooled at the bottom, and rivulets were spreading across the stone floor.

Malleus was on his throne, the frightened boy on his lap.

I stopped twenty feet away, on the near side of the fire pit, and placed a hand on Calder's forearm.

"No closer," I said. "Don't get near the demon's hands."

"Enough!" Malleus said. "I am nothing if not a businessman, and it is time to strike a bargain. I'll let the boy go in exchange for you, Ophelia Wylde."

"Not on your life," Calder said.

A finger of whiskey inched across the floor toward the throne. Malleus made an ugly sound and moved away, dragging the boy with him. His yellow eyes kept glancing down at the whiskey.

"Bothered by something?" I asked.

"You for the boy," Malleus said. "Quick, quick!"

He was sidling around toward us.

I stepped across one of the rivulets of whiskey and pulled Calder across with me. Malleus stopped.

"What are you afraid of?" I asked.

"Trade!" he said, and squeezed the boy until he cried out in pain.

I knelt down, dipped my fingers in the growing puddle, and smelled it.

"Whoa," I said. "It's not like the bourbon my father drank, but it must be at least eighty proof. Is that what you're afraid of, the alcohol?"

Malleus said nothing.

"Give us the boy," I said.

I stepped forward, following the streams of whiskey.

Malleus backed away.

There was a puddle of whiskey in the depression near the fire pit, and I knelt and cupped some in my right hand. Then I stood and flung the stuff at Malleus. He cried out, his hands going up to protect his face. Drops of whiskey sizzled and burned where they landed on his skin.

"Run!" I cried, but the boy was already in motion.

Malleus ran after him, but the boy jumped over a wet patch in the floor and landed in Calder's arms. Malleus stopped on the other side of the whiskey like he'd hit a stone wall.

I flung more whiskey at Malleus while Calder ran up the steps with the boy. Then I got a double handful from the puddle and flung it at him.

Then I ran as well.

"No," Malleus called. "Mercy! I will grant you anything. . . ."

At the top, the boy was already in his mother's arms. Calder was rolling a barrel over, and as soon as I was clear, he kicked it down the steps. We could hear it bound and skip down and then crash open on the floor. Then the flood of whiskey must have hit the fire pit, because there was a whoosh followed by a great blue flash and waves of heat.

"More," I said.

We both wrestled barrels over and let them roll down the steps.

"Please," Malleus cried. "The world is yours for the asking!"

Now the Indian woman and the boy were helping to roll barrels over and letting them tumble down the steps, adding to the conflagration. Flames belched up from the steps and twisted toward the sky.

Malleus began to beg in Enigma.

"What language is that?" Calder asked.

"n.o.body alive knows," I said.

Now Malleus was screaming in Enigma.

Three more barrels and we had used up all the whiskey, except for the full bottles, which the woman and the child were tossing into the flames. Then there was a furious popping, like firecrackers going off, and there shot from the flames rays of glittering color: red and brown and green and blue. The colors rocketed over our heads and shot into the sky.

"Was that him?" Calder asked.

"The auras," I said. "They'll find their owners . . . eventually."

"What about the ones he dropped?"

We found the five others on the gravel and threw them down the steps into the blaze. We watched as they shot over our heads in streaks of red and orange and yellow.

Then the earth trembled and Calder pulled me back. There was a great cracking sound and the bluff face collapsed, sealing inside whatever was left of Malleus.

The dust from the collapse rolled toward us, like a fog.