American Craftsmen (18 page)

I laughed. “Survival isn’t part of my mission objectives, sir.”

Endicott raised his sword. I readied just enough craft to parry him.

The House of Morton shook like a moderate earthquake. The largest gong of the night rung through me; the craft vibration trailed off into forever.

Endicott lowered his sword slightly, annoyed. “What the heck is it now?”

I shrugged. “My guest has finally arrived.”

A voice spoke upstairs, sepulchrally deep yet profoundly amused. “Aren’t you going to invite me down?” The voice was tech or craft altered, though the mocking familiarity seemed, well, familiar.

“No,” I said.

“So much for Morton hospitality,” said the guest. “Very well.”

The guest descended the stairs like a king in procession. He was tall and gaunt, dressed in a gray robe resembling a funeral shroud that covered his legs, making his movement look like hovering. He wore a mask of a stiffened corpse with a rictal smile, a likeness of death that even I couldn’t quite see through. His robe was dabbled in blood, and his broad brow and face were sprinkled with scarlet horror. The motherfucker was dressed as Poe’s Red Death.

“You goddamned idiots,” said Endicott. “You brought him back.”

This was the attire of Roderick Morton as high priest to his gods. This was what Roderick wore when he would murder every motherfucking soul in the room.

“Can’t be,” I said. “Didn’t do it, and it can’t be.”

He had come from outside, not from the Left-Hand spirits downstairs. Even now, those spirits howled in my ears for his blood. Was this Sphinx’s Chimera? If so, he was wearing the wrong mythical costume, with one strange addition. Ol’ Red here had a fucking magic wand. Was he going to kill us all with embarrassment?

Red waved aside the remaining wards and stepped down the last step. The last spirit stone in the House exploded into dust. I pressed “11” on my remote. I had saved the fatal gadgets for this guest. An enormous pendulum blade slashed straight down at the masked head. It should have sliced the enemy into clean halves. Instead, the blade dented against the macabre skull and crashed behind Red, burying itself halfway into the floor.

I pressed “12” on my remote. Crossbow bolts flew at the enemy from both sides, but they also bounced back with the recoil of cue balls. Damn. I hadn’t expected any real damage, but Red hadn’t even broken a sweat.

The pieces of M twitched and slithered toward the triumphant Red Death. Anyone with a normal skull would have been impressed by Red’s power. But Endicott just spat. “Who the fuck are you, wandy? Roderick Morton? The Wizard of Oz?”

“That would be telling,” said Red, “I’m a friend. Leave us.”

I didn’t know what to make of “friend,” but I also didn’t want another craftsman killed today. “You’d better listen to him, Major.”

Endicott spared me a look. “Christ,” said Endicott. “A zombie, and now this.
In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of here
.” For the first time this evening, Endicott had made a formal invocation. He must be a little scared.

Red stepped forward, arms open as if to embrace Endicott. Endicott shouted commands at Red like he was a rabid dog. “
Stop. Drop the wand. Hands up.
”

Red stepped forward. Endicott waved his sword and pointed straight at Red’s heart. The sword twitched and vibrated. Red stepped forward. Endicott’s arm spasmed wildly as he struggled to hold the sword front and center. The weapon wanted to turn back against its wielder.

Red stepped forward, well within reach of Endicott’s sword point if he could regain control. But Endicott’s eyes were elsewhere, in some private country of terror. Sweat beaded down his face and arm.

Another day, I would have given a lot to know what so frightened Endicott. But today, no feuds. I’d save Endicott, even at the cost of energy. “
Get out
, Endicott. Remember where you are.” That was no idle threat: the House hungered for him too.

Red said, “He helps me.”

With a grunt of effort, Endicott pointed the sword toward the ground. He looked at the door, at me, at the door again. “Two against one?” said Endicott.

“Then get some backup,” I said.
Idiot
.

With a crack like a warning shot, an explosion of plaster burst over Endicott’s head. “I’ll be back,” said Endicott. He ran, which was nice to see, though I couldn’t blame him.

“He won’t give us much time alone,” said Red, “though I so enjoy seeing you struggle. If you’ve been saving something…”

Yes, this was what I had saved myself for. I was where I needed to be. I guarded the subbasement passage, but also stood near where the iron rod penetrated the soil, where the first libation of Morton blood had stained it. I was in the heart of the House.

I whirled my hand in a circle.
Move air.
Air rushed out in all directions. My enemy pointed his wand, and the sphere of air ignited around the figure, singeing the hair on my fingers.

I clenched my hand toward the wand.
Break wand.
A ping like a bell, and pain shot up my arm, driving back my hand.

One more shot of craft.
Short sharp shock
. The enemy’s fingers twitched slightly. “Ah, that extra electrical activity is … refreshing.”

That left physical combat. With no pause to telegraph my strikes, I hit my enemy’s nerve plexuses with hard anatomical precision. But I was the only one who flinched at the pain, as if my flesh were striking the solid granite of a headstone.

I had not saved enough of myself for this unequal fight.

At the feet of the Red Death, the pieces of M squirmed together in ecstasy, as if they were trying to reassemble themselves. Winded, I asked, “Who are you?”

“Sorry,” said Red. “I won’t even let your ghost know that.”

“Then tell me why,” I said.

“It’s nothing personal,” said Red, “at least not this time. You and your kind are in the way. But I salute your stamina. You’ve cost me much more time and effort than any of the others. So far.”

My enemy pointed his wand. “Still, I owe you something for your trouble.” I felt a pressing weight on me, like boulders on Jupiter. “You may remember this from the Salem witch trials. The
peine forte et dure
. I’ll be considerably quicker in applying the weight. You will kneel, then bow, then grovel, then die.”

I gasped as another invisible weight was added. The Red Death tapped his wand in the air like a conductor. “Your lungs are surprisingly strong.” He touched the wand to my left side, and pain shot through my ribs. He slashed the wand at my right side, and I felt hot blood spurt, then stream down. I fell to my knees.

“While you still have enough breath, any last words?”

I said, “You’re a fool.” My leaden fingers found my remote.

Red was incredulous. “For taking everything you have?”

I said, “You’ve left me my Morton dead.”

“They can’t hurt me,” said the enemy.

“We just have to hold you.” I pressed “13.” “
Usher in the new age
.”

Against the weight of worlds, I rose to my feet. No one was getting past me. The House would do the rest.

The House groaned, and fissured along its crack. And from behind me, all the Morton dead—Grandpa, the Left Hand, and even the thing that looked like an ape—rushed in and fell on the Red Death. With Samson’s gambit, I was pulling down my family’s shrine. This would be the fall of the House of Morton.

While most of the ancestors forced Red to re-create Leonardo’s Vitruvian man, the Left-Hand Mortons pulled down at him through the floor. Auric energies peeled away as the enemy attempted to pull his limbs free. Spirits tugged at the mask in playful malice; but if it was a mask, it did not come loose. Others tugged at his robe, revealing elevator boots; my enemy was not above an intimidating parlor trick.

The Red Death bellowed and screamed with rage. “You can’t kill me! I have seen it!”

“No one can see the heart of the House of Morton.”

I stood straight now. I’d been driven back to the edge of the subbasement stairwell, but I had held the line. Red’s struggle against the power of the House churned my insides in painful sympathy. I couldn’t flee; I had to help keep my enemy fixed on the killing floor. It was worth my life to be certain that this Death died.

The zigzag fissure running from roof to subbasement rapidly widened, and along it the wall seemed to pour in on itself. A crack opened across the ceiling; more plaster fell on me and my enemy. From the other end of the House, collapsing walls blew a fierce whirlwind of sound and dust down the stairwell. Trophy stands and paintings fell from the walls; the cellar and the three floors above were buckling inwards. In another second, Red and I would both be done.

I laughed. Many old and beautiful things would be lost, but they were only things. No one else would die. Scherie saved, Endicott fled, and the Red Death screwed. “Almost worth it,” I said. Grandpa, very substantial now, squeezed Red’s throat and laughed too.

With a tumultuous shouting sound like a thousand rivers pouring into the abyss, the House of Morton fell.

PART IV

ON THE ROAD

Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic.

—Jack Kerouac

The office and dutie of the Powah is to be exercised principally in calling upon the Devil, and curing diseases of the sicke or wounded.

—Edward Winslow

CHAPTER

TWELVE

In the moment the cellar collapsed, strong claws grabbed my shoulders and pulled me backward. I flailed and tumbled down the cruel iron stairs to the first landing. Bits of the house pursued me.

The stairway shook; it was coming unmoored and would soon topple.

Near my head, a bit of a keystone crashed. I grabbed it like a stone ax and stood up. I crouched in preparation for this new assailant descending the nearly ladderlike steps after me, knife glinting in her hand …

Her manicured hand. It was Scherie. She held the knife in front of her like she might sacrifice me to the chthonic gods of the Left-Hand Mortons.

“Why the hell did you throw me down?” I asked.

“No time,” said Scherie. “Get moving, soldier. The car’s waiting.”

I moved. An empty mage, I could do nothing more. We descended the next two flights in a controlled fall. The subbasement corridor was still intact. I should have known; this had been the Left-Hand Mortons’ final bunker. But cracks were forming, reaching out toward me.

We were three steps off the stairway when, in agony of twisted, screeching metal, it came folding down. Bits of metal flew past us like released springs and embedded in the stone, adding to the web of cracks.

Scherie helped me dash in a stumble down the corridor. The accelerating collapse behind us swallowed space and time in its maw of tumbling stone. Mummified bodies fell from hidden recesses and burst out with glowing gasses from the bricked-over rooms. I stopped, winded, and leaned against the wall before the stone stairs. All my desperate planning, and here I was getting Scherie killed anyway. “Why are you still here?”

“Move it!” Scherie growled.

At the bottom of the stairs, I slipped on the smooth marble floor; Scherie helped me up. The central chamber sprinkled an almost gentle-looking rain of small concrete bits. Any second, the dome would fail.

Stay here with us
, said the Left Hand, attempting a seductive scream. I was very, very tired. I had no place to go.

“Goddamn it, move!” yelled Scherie.

The stone droplets became a painful shower, the smell of blood became the smell of rot.
You owe us flesh!
shrieked the Left Hand. I moved on all limbs like some half-formed primate up the stairs to the mausoleum.

With a deafening
boom
, the central dome failed. Waves of debris plumed up the stairway, filled with escaping evil craft that reached for me like a million small hands. The dust, the craft, faded. Spidery cracks were creeping about the Right-Hand vault. Whatever presence and strength had once filled this darkness was gone. We couldn’t rest here either.

Through the still open door, we fled, appalled, from that chamber. The booming of the Morton home echoed after us. The storm was at its wild peak as we left the unkempt grounds for the nearest side street. Suddenly, the rain and wind ceased and a wild light shadowed us from behind. Still gripping the stone in my hand, I turned to see where the ghastly gleam came from. It was the full, setting, and bloodred moon, which now shone vividly through sullen and silent fragments of the House of Morton.

“How could you fuck things up so quickly?” said Scherie.

“You should see the other guy,” I said, punchy with fatigue and a guilty, almost giddy joy that Scherie was still here with me. But at the side street, I froze. For the first time tonight, I was truly afraid. Across the road, blocks from where Roman had left it, was my new car. Scherie must have driven it here.

I said, “This is bad.”

“Why?” said Scherie. “Because I’m not as stupid as you thought?”

“Because if you figured this out, they will too,” I said.

“OK then,” said Scherie. She tossed me the keys. “You drive.”

I wanted to protest, but realized my objections would just waste time. There wasn’t even time to split up effectively; both of us had to leave
now
.

I threw the keystone chunk into the backseat and turned the ignition. “Do you have your gun?” Scherie didn’t reply, so I pulled out the cooled Colt and handed it to her. “You take this, and tuck it under your seat.” She didn’t argue.

The House was gone. Grandpa was gone, truly gone. I’d give that thought its full sorrow later.