Chapter 62
“The repulsion spells are unraveling,” Dawes said. “There’s too much magic. It can’t all hold.”
She felt dizzy and sick, her thoughts a tangled mess.
But Reiter’s familiars were approaching.
There had to be at least twenty of them.
She glimpsed an aluminum bat in one girl’s hand, an older woman with coiffed blond hair holding a hammer, and a man who might be a professor gripping a shotgun.
There was Nell, the girl from St. Elmo’s who had taken Alex to Savin Rock, wielding a field hockey stick.
Dawes wasn’t sure what they were actually prepared to do.
Had they come to threaten, or were they willing to kill for Reiter?
“Fire a warning shot or something,” Tripp said.
“Like hell,” Turner said. “I am not drawing my weapon on this crowd.”
Dawes pointed up to the tower, a fresh wave of fear overtaking her. “We have a much bigger problem.”
High above, Reiter was shaking loose the salt chains. When he got free, none of them would be able to stop him. There was no way to climb the tower in time, and even if they somehow could, how were they supposed to face Reiter?
“Wait,” said Tripp. “I know what to do.”
Oh no, thought Dawes. But then Tripp licked his knuckles. The salt guardian. His albatross.
Its vast wings unfurled, its bright white head.
It released a long, shrill cry and shot into the air, sailing high over the towers of Old Campus and then soaring directly at the balcony where Reiter had balanced, trying to rid himself of the chains.
It descended on him, beating at his head and shoulders, beak pecking and jabbing.
Reiter thrashed and stumbled, shouting his rage.
He waved his arms furiously, covering his head and trying to drive off the great bird. In the next moment he was tottering over the edge of the balcony.
“Seabird!” shouted Tripp.
Reiter fell.
Dawes felt as if she were watching it all in slow motion. She knew he was a demon, but in that moment she was simply watching a body fall, the shape of a man, the end of something.
“Back up!” Turner barked, grabbing her sleeve.
Reiter hit the ground with a flat thud, the sound shocking, loud as a gunshot punctuated with the clank of the salt chains.
Whatever remained of the repulsion spells shattered and the familiars rushed forward, screaming and crying out, their dream of immortality lying in a heap on the pavement.
No blood, Dawes thought. He had landed on his back and lay face up, his eyes staring blankly at nothing, his limbs at impossible angles.
High above, the albatross gave its wailing cry, then arced downward and vanished into Tripp, its vast wings briefly lending him the shape of an angel.
She felt a slap of clarity inside her, as if Alex were there with them. Get your head straight. He’s not dead.
“We need to build a labyrinth around him,” Dawes said. “A perimeter of knots.”
Turner was striding toward the familiars with his badge out. “I’m going to need you to set down those weapons and back up.”
They all paused, suddenly unsure, looking at each other for guidance.
“People, please, I understand you were brought here with a goal. Emotions are running high. But I do not want anyone getting hurt.”
For a moment, Dawes thought it might work. These were people like her or at least the person she’d been, people who had never seen a body lying in the street, its shape brutalized and distorted, who had never encountered the police beyond a speeding ticket or a noise complaint.
The professor lowered his shotgun, his expression almost sheepish. The blonde with the hammer set it down and put her hands up.
Then Reiter began to move.
He pushed himself up, a sleeper waking, and Dawes saw that the back of his skull had been obliterated, leaving nothing but the dripping remnants of what had been his brain.
The bones of his shoulders and back splayed like the petals of a flower, revealing organs mangled into an indistinguishable mess of tissue.
Dawes pressed her hand to her mouth. It shouldn’t be possible for a body that damaged to bend its knees, plant its mangled feet, stand. But the body was only a vessel, a facsimile of the body that had once housed a human soul. Could he recover? Did a demon need a mind to think?
It shuddered, jolting in a little hop, and Dawes realized it was trying to fly. It released a frustrated growl. Then the thing that had been Reiter turned to his servants.
“Smash the tower,” he ground out, his voice a ragged whistle. “Break the bells. Whoever does this receives my gift.”
“It’s a lie!” Turner shouted. “He can’t grant you immortality. He doesn’t care if he gets you killed!”
It didn’t matter. Whatever spell of authority Turner had been weaving unraveled and the familiars rushed forward. The professor raised his shotgun.
“No!” Dawes cried.
Turner had his gun out. “Stand down! Stand down now! I will shoot!”
Reiter released an enraged, garbled howl. The professor’s distraction was the moment Turner needed. He tackled him to the ground.
The salt sword. Again, that clarity, that sharp instinct she didn’t recognize. She had to trust Turner and Tripp to take care of themselves. She sprinted for the duffel and drew out the salt sword.
It was awkward in her hands, but she knew what to do. She rushed forward and swung.
The blade lodged in Reiter’s side, hissing as it ate into his flesh.
Reiter made a sound between a shriek and a wheeze.
He whirled and Dawes lost her grip. The vampire lunged at her and she dodged away, but not fast enough.
His broken fingers struck her arm, knocking her into a parked car.
Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact and she toppled to her knees, shocked by his strength.
Her loris had emerged, crouched on her shoulder, teeth bared.
But what could its poison or bite do against this thing?
Reiter’s jaws snapped and she could see clear through his skull.
He lunged again, then screamed and fell backward, scrabbling at the salt chains still looped around the remnants of his neck.
Tripp had hold of the chains and was hauling Reiter over the ground, his brow furrowed, the flesh of his palms sizzling.
But the sword was still stuck in Reiter’s side and the vampire seized it. He pulled it out by the hilt and slashed at Tripp’s legs, cutting deep into the flesh.
Tripp shouted and went to one knee as his albatross emerged, wings beating the air.
“Tripp!” Dawes shouted as Reiter got to his feet again, shaking off the salt chains.
She tried to rush forward but arms grabbed hold of her. Reiter’s familiars, the blond woman and someone else, were on top of her, dragging her to the ground.
“You want to kill a demon?” Reiter rasped, standing over Tripp. “Here’s how you kill a demon.”
He drove the salt sword into Tripp’s chest. Tripp howled in pain.
The albatross dove at Reiter, but he swung the sword in an arc, cutting straight through it. With a single cry the seabird vanished.
“You can’t do it with just one blow,” Reiter said, his jaws grinding. He drove the sword in again. “You have to cut the heart…” Again he struck. “From its chest.”
Dawes screamed in fury and desperation. Blue flame erupted over her body. The familiars yelped and cringed backward.
Alex.
“Leave him alone!” Dawes demanded, charging at Reiter. She couldn’t explain the hellfire crawling over her and she didn’t care. Reiter held the sword aloft and she saw he had speared something on its tip. Tripp’s heart.
She slammed into Reiter, taking him to the ground, engulfing them both in flame. He shrieked and thrashed beneath her, hissing and spitting. Dawes thrust her hands between his broken ribs, curling her fingers into claws, digging into the meat of his heart.
Dawes had studied the exaggeration spell to help Alex use hellfire, but now it was hers to command. She called on the flame and let it course through her palms.
She met Reiter’s gaze as the fire consumed his heart. For a moment she glimpsed the boy who had been Lionel Reiter, frightened and alone. She did not relent.
The words that came to her lips were death words, and when she spoke, there was an echo in her voice. “Go down to the vile dust, from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”
Dawes felt Reiter’s heart collapse in her hands.
She released him and crawled to Tripp’s body. His chest was torn open and he was blinking slowly. He should be dead and gone, but he was not really Tripp. He was the demon who had been Tripp, who had still somehow managed to remain kind, who had wanted so much to be good.
“I can fix this,” she sobbed, taking him in her arms. There had to be some piece of magic, some secret lore in all the books she’d read that would make this right, that would give him his heart back. “Someone help me!” she cried out, but she knew there was no one to answer.
The albatross had returned, spreading its wings tenderly over Tripp’s ruined body.
“I did okay, right?” Tripp whispered. “I didn’t let you down?”
“You saved me,” she said. “You saved all of us. You’re the hero.”
“Come on.”
“Really,” she said, cupping his cheek. “You saved the day.”
The barest smile touched his lips. “One of the good guys,” he whispered.
She watched the last faint light vanish from his eyes. The boy who had become a demon became nothing at all.
“Take up our master’s mantle!” shouted the blonde with the hammer. “Storm the tower!”
Turner had the professor’s shotgun in hand and had placed him cuffed on the ground, but the other familiars were still armed and advancing.
Dawes knew she needed to get up. She had to stop them, had to protect Alex and Darlington. But she couldn’t make her legs move. She had tried to play soldier and she had lost everything.
“You stay back!” an unfamiliar voice shouted.
Dawes turned and saw Mercy leading a group of students she didn’t know—a boy in a baseball jacket, a kid on roller skates, a bearded hipster in suspenders, a young woman in a fanciful skirt and beribboned heels, a spider broach sparkling at her lapel.
They were carrying a bizarre assortment of weapons—guns, batons, a musket, a saber. They’d used her spell.
Her church group. The thought was clear and defined, so different from her own.
Alex, are you with me?
I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.
Dawes could feel her weakness, her pain. Alex was dying and she could do nothing to help.
Mercy and the others arrayed themselves around Turner and Dawes, blocking the path to the base of Harkness.
“Don’t let them through!” Mercy yelled, holding up what looked very much like a mace. Then her eyes lighted on Nell. “The Lord is my light and savior—whom shall I fear?”
Nell looked around at the other familiars. Had she known how very many there were? How many promises Reiter had made? She dropped her field hockey stick and ran.
Turner joined in with Mercy, his voice booming over the crowd. “When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and foes who will stumble and fall.”
I should pray too, Dawes thought. I should do something.
But she remained on the ground. She couldn’t seem to make herself move.
She had believed that Darlington could save Alex, that they could all save each other.
She had been sure there would always be another spell to work, another puzzle to solve, another path to go down.
But in the end, all her knowledge, all her preparation, all the love she’d poured into the world came to nothing.
No words arrived, no answers. She had nothing left and now there would be hell to pay.
Dawes didn’t know if Alex could hear her, but she said it anyway: “I’m sorry.”