Dead Set Read online

  “Cathy!” I shouted, bracing myself against the surge of cosmic power roaring through me.

  “Dad!”

  The kid was already spinning end over end away from me, her translucent body caught in the crest of a searing wave of Wild Magick.

  Get the cord, you fool!

  The remains of Ariadne’s Thread shot past my head like a kite tail in an autumn wind. I lunged for the end, catching it with my tired hands before I lost my one and only daughter to oblivion.

  “I’ve got you!” I shouted, a hand on her cord, but the Wild Magick was too strong. It was like drinking from the fire hose—too much and too fast, an unrelenting flood of energy. It had to go somewhere, and right now that somewhere was inside me. My heart pounded like a jackrabbit, and my hands throbbed. Cathy’s cord slid through my fingers as she spun farther and farther away from me, carried on the torrent of untamed Magick.

  “Dad!”

  “I’m trying!”

  I tightened my fingers down against the silver thread, but those numb digits had already become next to useless. The cord was still spinning out, and I couldn’t stop it. I closed my eyes and fought the urge to vomit. My guts twisted and my head spun—it was too much Magick, too much to control.

  You can’t control everything, Gene. Sometimes you have to just let go.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let go of the fear, the worries, or the regrets. I couldn’t let go of them, because I hadn’t known a life without them. Cathy spun helpless on that silvery thread, tears streaming down her translucent cheeks. “Dad!”

  You have to do it.

  I reached out for the Thinning, for the bare patches in the veil where the Wild Magick flows freely, and I sent everything I could straight into them. “Hold on, Cathy!”

  The Wild Magick coursed through me like a laser light show. It streamed up and out of the building, taking the roof off with it, and filling the Florida night with a spectacular display of light and sound. Old concrete and busted rebar rained down around us. Large chunks smashed into the newly restored concession counter, shattering glass and crushing displays.

  Porter, Kris!

  Sheets of torn steel slammed the casket shut, then bounced off, leaving deep gouges and dents. In the aftermath of the Wild Magick outburst, John Henry’s Spike vanished, its forged steel rusting away in the cranial cavity of that undead Magician. Fragile bones collapsed on the red carpet, breaking apart like fine parchment paper until all that remained was the shattered skull that landed in my lap.

  “Cathy,” I cried, coughing in the dust and grit, my hands still tight to Ariadne’s Thread. “Are you okay?”

  Through the hazy air, my daughter’s translucent hands gripped the edge of the concession stand, while all around her lay broken concrete, steel, and rebar.

  “I… I think so,” she said, pulling her translucent body toward me using the silvery cord like a tow-line. “Is it over?”

  “Yeah.” I pushed the crumpled bones aside and tried to stand. “We just need to get your mom and Kris, then we can figure out a way to—”

  Whoosh!

  “Dad!”

  Cathy’s lifeline snapped out of my hands, an unexpected gust of strong and supernatural wind pulling her up and out the roof.

  “Cathy!”

  “Gene,” Adam cried, throwing the front door wide and coughing into his sleeve in the thick air. “Gene, we’ve got a problem!”

  “Cathy’s Thread has been cut, she’s—”

  Adam rubbed at his red eyes in the stinging dust. “Gene, I can’t close the Hellgate. Something happened, and it’s too strong—things are trying to come through!”

  Cathy!

  There was Hellfire, and lots of it—the parking lot had become a modern-day Inferno. Rob, Justine, and the rest of the jiu-jitsu school were deep in it, fighting off the Minor Demons of the netherworld. Hell Fleas by the thousands streamed out into the night sky like malevolent embers of a raging campfire. The Hellgate itself was monstrous. Easily two stories tall, it engulfed the parking lot. The forces of evil marshaled on the other side. Black and twisted shapes crawled across that bleak landscape—Hell was on the move, and it was coming straight for us.

  “There she is!” Adam shouted, pointing to my daughter, who was currently clinging to the burning edge of the swirling vortex.

  “Cathy! Hold on. I’ll coming. Adam, where’s the flare?”

  My apprentice held up a burnt-out and empty flare casing. “I tried that.”

  “Crap.”

  Cathy’s silver thread whipped past her like a ribbon streaming into the burning Hellscape.

  Rubbery Minor Demons, Imps and the like, poured out of the gate like a class of pre-schoolers on free candy day. With bulbous noses and spindly arms, they clawed their way past the ring and into the parking lot. Most of them didn’t make it far before meeting the business end of a crowbar or lug wrench. Justine, Rob, and the rag-tag crew of The Qwik Fix had stuck around, and along with a smattering of jiu-jitsu students they were doing everything they could to stop the horde of wailing evil.

  “Gene!” Rob shouted from across the fiery parking lot. “What the hell is going on?”

  “You’re doing great, Rob,” I shouted back, giving my confused mechanic a thumbs up. “Adam, you’ve got to help me, I’ve got nothing left. I just channeled a hundred years of pent-up Magick out the top of the movie theater like it was the climax of a firework show erupting from my skull.”

  Adam zipped his hoodie and pushed up his sleeves. “Let’s do this,” he said before turning to face to fiery vortex. “Gene…”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do I do?”

  Ariadne’s Thread snapped and spun like a fishing fly inside the terrible darkness, its tantalizing dance drawing a rapidly growing audience of devilish admirers.

  “We’ve got to pull her back,” I cried, my voice barely carrying above the swirling pull of the fiery portal.

  “But what about the gate? We can’t let it stay open.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, Adam was right. The longer the gate stayed open the more people we put at risk, and the more evil things we gave access to our world in the process.

  “Then we need to move. Give me a hand.”

  My apprentice took my hand, and together we plowed our way toward Cathy. We hadn’t made it a few feet before a familiar voice and a bright pink Minor Demon slammed into us.

  “Hey, guys,” Stewart The Annoying said, flapping his wings to keep himself aloft. “I figured this was your doing.”

  “What are you doing here? I gave you an order not to let Cathy leave the house.”

  The Imp shrugged his tiny pink shoulders. “I tried, but it’s hard to do much when you get banished.”

  “What? How?” Adam asked, his hands holding tight to my whipping shirt.

  Stewart shrugged. “Tristan. Who would have guessed that kid’s a damn decent Magician—fooled me, that’s for sure.”

  My daughter’s silvery cord went taut—something had a hold of Cathy.

  “Something’s got her,” I cried, the broken edge of Ariadne’s Thread dragging me away from Adam and the Imp.

  The rubbery-pink Minor Demon spun around in the air and squinted into the churning flames. “That’s Asaroth the Defiler. You can’t let him get her.”

  Adam grabbed my arm and together we skidded toward the swirling gate. “What do you think I’m trying to do? Certainly open to ideas.”

  “On it,” the Imp said, beating a path toward my flagging child. The Minor Demon latched on to Cathy’s arms and pulled, pumping the air with his diminutive wings, but she wasn’t moving.

  “Kick, Cathy!” I shouted.

  “I am!”

  My daughter swung her feet wildly, but the pull of damnation was too strong. Her silvery cord cracked like a bullwhip and my daughter’s fingers slid on the portal’s fiery edge.

  “Let go,” the Imp said, fighting with his wings to keep her from vanishing into Hell.

 
“No, don’t, Cathy!” I pushed off of Adam and lunged for the tiny monster, grabbing a hold of his foot. “I’ve got you guys.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, grunting out his words. “It’s too strong. She’s got to let go. Order me to keep her safe and the gates of Hell itself will not prevail against her.”

  “I’m not letting my daughter go!”

  Tears streamed down Cathy’s shimmering cheeks. “Don’t let me go, Dad!”

  “I won’t!”

  Whatever was on the other side of that thread pulled again, and this time it yanked me forward enough for me to graze the fiery edge of the gate.

  “Agh!” Hellfire melted my shirt sleeve to my arm.

  Cathy slipped deeper into the swirling darkness—and that’s when I saw them, the inky black and soul-sucking eyes of Asaroth the Defiler, hungry for the succulent soul of an innocent Catherine Law.

  “Order me,” Stewart cried, his wings beating hard against the fiery vortex.

  “Don’t let me go, Dad!”

  “He won’t stop with her, Magician,” the Imp shouted, his wings failing. “He’ll come for the rest of you—order me and I’ll keep her safe.”

  “Cathy!”

  “Dad, I don’t want to die!” My daughter’s eyes burned red with tears as the flames of Hell licked at her face.

  “I’ll find you. I promise!”

  “Dad, no!”

  “I hereby order you, Stewart The Annoying, to safeguard my daughter from here to eternity.”

  The Imp shuddered, his skin turning purple. He broke free of my tenuous grip and threw himself onto my terrified daughter. Thick black tendrils stretched out from the Defiler, but the Imp bit down on the remains of Cathy’s cord, snapping it like a fishing line and holding tight to her.

  “Dad!” Cathy screamed, her ragged voice cutting me to the bone. My knees buckled and and my stomach rolled, but I couldn’t look away. Stewart tucked my only daughter’s frail body close, and together they vanished into the fiery depths of Hell.

  “He’s coming,” Adam shouted, yanking my arm. “The Defiler is coming, and he’s really pissed.”

  I couldn’t move, nor did I want to.

  Part of my soul had vanished into Hell, and the rest of it wanted nothing more than to join her.

  My apprentice shoved the spent flare into my weak hands. “Magick demands sacrifice, right? Well you just gave it one hell of a fucking sacrifice, so make it your bitch and close this damn gate.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “No, you said it yourself—Stewart will keep her safe, and you’ll bring her home. You are the most amazing Magician and father I know, but none of that will matter if you sit here and let the rest of the world burn.”

  “But—”

  Adam pulled me to my feet. “Do it for your wife—for your son! Do it for everyone you’ve ever cared about. Close the damn gate!”

  My apprentice was right—Magick demands sacrifice, and I’d just given it my firstborn.

  The Defiler’s black tendrils reached out through the yawning portal, spreading into the parking lot and withering whatever they touched—cars rusted, asphalt turned to dust, and somewhere Justine’s sidearm barked out rounds.

  “Do it!” Adam cried.

  I pulled back the melted remnants of my shirt and dragged the darkened tip of the spent flare along my bleeding arm.

  “Et ignis vitae!”

  The flare ignited, a strong and vibrant golden fire that roared defiant in the face of Hell itself.

  I stared into the abyss, hoping for one last vision of my daughter, one last look that would tell me she would be all right.

  You’ve lost your daughter to the gates of Hell—she’ll never be all right again.

  “Close the gate!” Adam shouted, his hoodie flapping.

  I held up the glowing golden flare and wrapped my hand over the flame.

  “Finis.”

  54

  Fall out

  I wish I was able to say I got to see the gate close, and that the look on Asaroth’s disappointed face had been worth the third-degree burns on my hand. But, if I did, I didn’t remember any of it. The newspaper loved the whole thing; in fact, Claudia Wilson quickly became a local legend with her amazing pyrotechnics display cleverly timed with the release of Demon High.

  The best Magick is the kind you’d never guess was Magick in the first place.

  Adam and Porter were in the hospital room with me when I woke. A few days had gone by, and the doctors had done a nice job fixing up my hand, but even with my Magick I’d still have a scar—Hellfire is a right bastard.

  My apprentice had found Porter and Kris, and with Justine’s squad car running point, had deposited us all at the hospital. In fact, it was Adam who had found Cathy’s unconscious body on the floor of our living room.

  The burned-out sigil scored into the floorboards and an empty chest told me what I needed to know—Tristan had banished my Imp and stolen Ten Spins Infernal Constructs.

  That little thieving bastard…

  It was another day before the doctors cleared me to leave, but life didn’t begin to return to normal—how could it? My wife spent day and night in Cathy’s hospital room, praying for a miracle—our daughter needed all the prayers she could get where she was now, I was certain of that.

  We found the white van, and inside plenty of missing pieces. Tristan and Morgan had been working together, but on what, I didn’t know. They were both lost in wind, and try as I might, I couldn’t find either of them.

  Even after my Magick beat down, I tried to reopen a small gate to Hell. It didn’t need to be big, just enough to communicate with Cathy, to tell her I would find a way to bring her back.

  It took days before I could manifest even the tiniest portal, and even then all I received for my efforts was a dusting of Hell Fleas.

  Wherever Cathy was, she was too far away for me to find her.

  More time passed and the tension continued to rise between Porter and me. I suppose we each blamed ourselves for what happened, for what little good that did us. Caught in the crossfire, Kris became a violent and distant version of his once goofy self. While we were in the hospital watching over Cathy’s body, we were also dealing with a young child hellbent on his own destruction.

  That’s how I found myself sitting here, in the Dad Wagon, or what was left of it, outside of the last place I ever wanted to be, waiting for one of my least favorite people.

  The Lincoln town car pulled in behind me. Oddly enough, while there was plenty of room, the lawyer didn’t park directly in front of 69 Mallory Lane—the House made sure of that.

  “Damn, Gene, this is one tough place to find,” Sharon said, stepping out of her car and retrieving her briefcase. “Now, what the hell is so important that you had to call me out here on a Sunday night?”

  “Did you get the document?”

  Sharon pulled a stack of papers out of her leather briefcase. “Yeah, listen—I’m not your lawyer, but this is some kind of crazy employment contract. Ten lifetimes? That doesn’t even make sense.”

  Maybe to you it doesn’t…

  “I have something to add to that stack,” I said, handing her a small white envelope. “Inside you’ll find my resignation, effective immediately.”

  “What?!”

  “You heard me. You said it before, you want me out. Well, here’s your chance.”

  “Are you under duress?” Sharon asked, shifting her eyes to take in the surrounding street, but—except for the House—we were completely alone.

  “No… but in a manner of speaking I guess we all are. Is the contract legal?”

  Relieved to be talking about something mundane, the lawyer laid the document out on the hood of her car.

  “Yes, essentially. If you throw out all the strange quid pro-quos, this is a pretty straight-forward employment contract, but it’s a little odd.”

  “How so?”

  Sharon paused to frame her words. “Well, I’ve never seen one wh
ere you have to give up something to get the job.”

  “Sacrifices—yeah, they’re a bitch.”

  She stacked the papers back together and handed them to me. “I don’t like you, Gene, but I hate what happened to your daughter. If this gives you some closure, then I’m happy for you.”

  I handed her the signed resignation letter, ending my term with Kinder. “Tell John I appreciated the job.”

  “I will.”

  I gave one final nod and stepped off the street and onto the curb. It took every ounce of willpower to not turn around right then.

  Do it for them…

  “Gene?”

  I stopped and fished a key out of my pocket, a key I’d promised someone I’d never use. The cold metal lay heavy in my hand.

  “I don’t believe any of this shit, but if that contract is real, then in two weeks I’ll forget I ever knew you.”

  I slid that cold steel into the lock of 69 Mallory lane, twisting it gently until the deadbolt thumped against the aging frame. A non-existent breeze ruffled the gossamer curtains inside.

  I took a deep breath and hoped I wasn’t making the worst decision of my life, then pushed the door open.

  “Goodbye, Sharon.”

  “Dad?” my daughter asked, leaning against the ice cream display case. “What flavor?”

  “You know me…”

  “Don’t make me guess.”

  I smiled and squeezed Cathy against me, willing this moment to last as long as I could. “Geez—don’t make a scene. Just tell me what you want.”

  “Cookies and cream, honey, you remember, right?”

  My daughter hesitated. “Yeah, that’s right, I remember now.”

  Cathy collected our ice creams and walked them back to the table. Kris was already face deep in his tiny bowl of chocolaty goodness, and even Porter—who staunchly avoided deserts—had made an exception and nibbled on a kiddie cone of vanilla soft-serve.

  The Law family was celebrating.

  It’d been two weeks to the day since Catherine Law had miraculously awakened from her coma. The doctors—being doctors—kept her around for observation, but in the end they had no other choice but to return her to us. In short, they’d grown tired of her stir-crazy antics and the constant wrath of Porter.