God Hammer: A novel of the Demon Accords (33 page)

“I don’t know.  I suspect it has to do with a run-in we had with another employee.  She kinda scared the crap outta him and maybe it’s bothering her,” I said.

“Her?  That’s not usually the kind of thing she has second doubts about.  Must be something else, although we’re still have over a week before full moon.  Anyway, tell me more,” she requested.

I spent a full hour with Brystol, giving her solid material but not too much dangerous detail.  And she promised to keep my name out of print.  I had way too much attention from other circles as it was; I didn’t need more.  But all the talk about circles and families made me miss mine, so I called my aunt after Brystol left.

“Oh, if it isn’t the long lost boyo.  And to what do I owe the honor?” my aunt said.

“Aunt Ash, I just spoke to you the day before yesterday,” I said.

“And what’s wrong with making it daily thing?” she asked.

“Well, I was under the weather a bit.  Had a touch of food poisoning, but it’s gone now,” I said, adding the last bit in a hurry.

“Are ye sure?” she asked, all banter gone from her tone.

“Yes, the corporate doctor checked me out.  He could literally smell what the bacteria was.  It’s run its course.”

“And jest how did ye catch the wee nasty in the first place?” she asked.

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” I said, trying desperately to think of a way it could be made to sound funny.  “It was a bit of a prank by one of the other interns.”

“What?” Her tone combined shock with fierce maternal anger. 

“It’s been handled.  The guy that did it got fired,” I said.

“I should hope so!  Prank indeed.  What kind of a shop would they be running there?” she asked, still outraged.

“A very interesting one, Aunt Ash.  Very interesting.  Listen, not to change topics drastically and bluntly, but that Macha woman and the rest of the Irwin Circle approached me,” I said.

Inadvisable, young warlock,
Sorrow offered.

Couldn’t disagree with that, but I did want her advice.

“
What?
” she asked, voice rising.

“It’s okay.  They were mostly civil about it. She said they want to teach me, that they have secrets even you don’t know.”

“You
know
what they want, Declan.  Do I need to say it out loud and make us both uncomfortable?” she said.

Okay, I did know.  They wanted my genetic material, and they wanted it combined back into the Circle’s bloodline.  Mack wanted to be my manager and charge stud fees.  Something about how his family of horse breeders had always aspired to have a winning stallion that could be the family’s cash cow and the irony of finding it in his school roommate.

“No!  I mean, no that won’t be necessary.  Macha also thinks I have the Book of Darkest Sorrow.  Or at least that I’ve seen it,” I said.

She sighed, instantly making me feel guilty for being the world’s worst nephew.  “And jest how would she have been coming to that conclusion?” she asked.

“Well, they sorta trapped me on this overpass in the middle of a rainstorm and Sorrow offered up a really cool conversion spell and a shield spell.  Did you know that you can change one affinity’s energy into another affinity?” I asked.

“Of course, dear.  That’s what happens when a circle shares power,” she said.

“No, I mean internally.  I turned a small amount of Earth energy into Fire.”

“And Macha knows you did?” she asked, her voice more alarmed than before, if that was even possible.

“No, at least, I don’t see how she would have.  The shield spell blocked the rain, and that was enough to make her suspicious.  She would have thought I was spending reserves when I dried my clothes.”

“T’would be an incredibly useful spell for a dual affinity Crafter.  Even more so for a tri-affinity one,” she agreed. “I don’t think you should be doing this, Declan.”

“I think I have to, Aunt Ash,” I said.  “They’ll just keep tracking me down.”

“Then if yer dead set upon this course, don’t go alone.  Take some of yer high-powered employers wit ye,” she said, her brogue getting thicker as she got more upset.

“That is probably a good idea,” I admitted. 

“And did ye send for one of yer beasties?  Because I have jest the one here,” she asked.

“I did, Aunt Ash, but not for this problem.  Are you safe up there?  I can send it back,” I offered.

“No, no, we’re fine. And ye left the one that listens to me.  The other not so much,” she said.

“They were both supposed to listen to you.  What did it do?”

“Nothing, nothing lad.  I was perfectly fine with it, but it doesn’t share an affinity with me like the other.  You do know what they’ve become, don’t you, lad?” she asked.

“I have a pretty good idea.  Not sure how it happened though,” I admitted.

“Consequences, lad. It’s all about consequences.  Yer power changes even basic spells.  Ye have to always be keeping that in mind,” she said.  “But I’ll feel better knowing the great blooming thing is down there with ye.”

“I’ll be okay, Aunt Ash,” I said.

“I know it lad, I know it.  Just keep those consequences in mind.  Yer my only family left, boyo,” she said, voice quavering.

“I know and I will.  I love you, Aunt Ash,” I said.

“I love you too, Declan me lad.  And so does Darcy and even that scoundrel Levi,” she said.

That gave me an opening to ask about my former instructor and his latest escapades among the small population of single women in Castlebury.  After that, we said our good-byes and hung up.

I gave myself a few moments of homesickness, wondering about my friends and my best friend Rory in particular.  I could see how college and summer jobs could really change the way you saw your hometown.  Luckily, my generation grew up with a handy thing called texting and I spent the next half hour catching up with my oldest friend.

Then I mentally put on my big boy pants and went looking for Stacia.  Time to reach out to these witches.

It was a frustrating day that took a decidedly downward turn when I emerged from my latest meeting with HR and Deckert concerning Simon’s termination and his lightning fast removal to the West Coast.  Susskins had raised a fuss when Chet told him his intern was gone, Simon had made threatening comments about lawsuits in his exit interview, and the rest of the intern population was on pins and needles after one of their own got canned.  The one bright spot was a message, via a pre-agreed-upon, spam-type email from Mark, that he’d managed to get close enough to Cuttle that the Trojan phone had introduced its magical virus to Cuttle’s own phone.  Job done, he was heading back to the Big Apple.

So I went looking for Declan to see if his pet virus had reported anything back yet.  Only, instead of my intern, all I found was a message.  According to the HR secretary, he’d asked to see me and been told I was in an important meeting.  What he left was a note saying he was meeting with his estranged family circle in Central Park and he’d wanted to see if I’d go with him for backup.  His note assured me that I was probably too busy, but that he had Stacia with him, as she’d helped set the up the meeting. 

So now I was first feeling incredibly anxious that he was possibly headed into danger, second, guilty as hell that I wasn’t there for him and third, vaguely puzzled as to what Stacia had to do with setting up witch meetings.

I called Deckert and told him I needed a car and driver to go to Central Park.  He said no, I needed a car and
a full security team
.  ‘Sos, in wolf form, popped suddenly around the corner of the hall and then sat and just stared at me, so I replied back to Deckert that that would be fine but it needed to be a big car because we’d have furry company with us.

So twenty-nine minutes later, we pulled through the gates of Central Park in one of the big Mercedes vans, with Stevens driving, me in shotgun guiding him based on vague feelings of where Stacia might be, and Deckert with two other heavies in back, along with three hundred pounds of wolf-bear hybrid.

Stacia can always seem to track me down and I figured it ought to work in reverse, but we made a bunch of wrong turns till Stevens wondered about the dark clouds gathering over just one part of the Park. That seemed to be a dead giveaway for a bunch of witches.

“So are these gonna be pointy-hat-and-wart types?” Stevens asked casually as he pulled up next to a multi-use sports field that wasn’t being used for sports.  Instead, two groups of women faced off, forming two points of a triangle, the last point being Declan and Stacia standing closest to us. “Oh, looks more like rival PTAs.”

My Sight showed thick webs of black strands weaving and twisting about both groups of women.  One group was smaller, just a dozen or so, but the mass of black writhing about it was three times the size of the one over the other twenty or thirty women facing them.  Declan and Stacia were wrapped tight in a dark cylinder that I had come to recognize as one of his personal circles of protection.

“Everyone, make sure you have your amulets on,” I said as we de-assed from the van.  All Demidova security types wore my personal amulets, fashioned from Zuni soapstone fetishes.  They were strong anti-demon medicine, and my personal brand of power had always been pretty resistant to witches’ magic. Even ‘Sos wore one on his expandable collar.

My furry partner slipped out of the van first and beelined for Declan and Stacia, stopping just short of the circle of power protecting them.

I followed him, coming up behind the two with Deckert and company fanning out behind me.

“Hey boss.  Thanks for coming.  I thought you might have more important things to do,” Declan greeted me, glancing over one shoulder.

“Declan, when this is done, you and I are going to have a talk about where you stand on the priority ladder.  You should have had them interrupt my meeing,” I said.

“Oh.  Well, the secretary seemed pretty bossy and was adamant that you couldn’t be disturbed,” he said, eyes back on the two groups of women who were fifty yards away from us and yelling at each other.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The group on the left is Declan’s estranged Irish circle.  The one on the right is a local group that’s been hosting them.  That blonde one in the front, wearing leather pants, with the nasty mouth, is my friend Mitzi.  From what we can gather, Mitzi’s group was first honored and a little worried that these Irish bigwigs were here.  Now, they feel betrayed at being used to search for Boy Wonder here.  They were told he was just a relative.  Then I might have let something slip to Mitzi about how all the witch circles were after him and they must have done some research.  Then that stupid book came up and well, here ya go,” Stacia said.

“What do they want from you, Declan?” Stevens asked quietly.

“Well, um, mostly babies,” he said.

“What?” Stevens questioned, the other security guys looking confused.

“Witches have long-term breeding programs.  Males are rare.  I’m kinda even rarer,” Declan admitted.

“So they want you to do what?  Boink all these women?” Stevens pressed.

“Nice, Stevens. Real classy,” Stacia muttered.

“In a nutshell,” Declan said.

“So what’s the problem?” Stevens continued, looking honestly puzzled.

“I’m not going to contribute to a mass of fatherless children, raised by women I don’t trust,” Declan said, a note of steel in his voice.

“Boinking aside, what’s the lowdown here?” Deckert asked.  “Is this as one-sided as it looks?”

“It’s one-sided, but in the opposite direction of what you would think.  The Irwin Circle has much greater skill, each of them is individually more powerful, and they have greater access to the power around them,” Declan said, confirming what my Sight had shown me.

“Ahem,” I said loudly, addressing the witches.  The witches didn’t notice.  I glanced at Awasos and nodded.  He flowed into bear form, stood up to his full twelve-foot height, and roared.

They noticed that.  “Ladies, before you get more deeply involved in your conflict resolution, I just wanted to introduce myself,” I said loudly.

“We are knowing you, Demon’s Bane,” an older Irish woman said, frowning at me.

“Good. Well, you should understand that young Declan here is a member of my team and is fully backed by myself, Tatiana, and the entire Demidova Corporation.  He’s indicated to me that he won’t be fathering any children in the near future, so your argument might better be shelved,” I said.

“So you would stick yer nose in Circle business, would ye?  Thinking yer all high and mighty?  Declan is ours by right of birth and ye’ll wish ye had never been born if ye think to stand between us and ours,” the old witch spat out.

“He’s an American citizen, free to choose his own relationships,” yelled out one of the New York witches.

“Shut yer pie hole,” a younger version of the old witch yelled back.  Instantly, the noise ratcheted back up and the dark strands began to grow around them.

I looked to ‘Sos, but Declan caught my eye.  “I think I got this,” he said.

He looked down at the ground by his feet, a furrow forming between his eyes as he concentrated.  Then he raised one foot and stomped.  Not a light stomp, but a deliberate, focused, mother-of-all-insect-smashing stomps.

The earth shook hard, spreading out in a wave from his foot, getting more powerful as it reached the feuding witches, knocking more than half of them off their feet.

“Holy shit, D!” Stacia said, looking at him in shock.

He turned and grinned a sly grin at us.  “I’ve been building that up while they were bickering, plus I have some help,” he said a little cryptically.  Then he addressed the two groups of stunned women.

“I am the product of rape.  I grew up without a father.  I
will not
have that cycle repeated with
my
children, should
I
ever choose to have any,” he said.  “Macha, I agreed to meet with you, to hear you out.  But I am not yours and I’ve no interest in furthering your breed.”

“Ye don’t get to choose family, boy,” she said back to him. 

“But I do get to choose whether I stay in their company.  You imply forcing me whether I want to or not.  Maybe you can.  It’ll cost you, though.  It’ll cost you a lot, and if you take your eyes off me even once, it might just cost you everything,” he said.

“We would never try to force you, Declan,” Stacia’s friend Mitzi yelled, putting a hand on one hip to emphasis her curves.  “We will make you happy and you can raise your children with us.”

“I vote for her team,” Stevens muttered.  Stacia shot him a disgusted glare.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know any of you.  I’m not the father-them-and-leave-them type.  So no breeding from this kid,” he said.

“What about the book?” yelled one of Mitzi’s crew.

I reached behind my back and pulled the skin-covered book from where I had it tucked between pants and shirt.  “You mean this book?” I asked, holding it up.  “Darkest Sorrows?”  I fanned the pages, holding them where the witches could see that they were all blank.  Then I tossed it between them.

A young New York witch dove for it, but another young witch on the Irish side just flicked one hand and yanked the book to her.  She eagerly looked through it, only to frown as she failed to find anything written.  The old witch yanked it from her hands and inspected it herself.

“What kind o’trick be this?” she asked, glaring at me.

“The book was damaged by an eldritch blade, as you can see by the hole cut all the way through it.  All of its spells and writing disappeared when that happened.  You’re welcome to it,” I said.

“Bah, ye expect me to belive ya?” she said.  “The boy showed spells that I know he didn’t learn from his mother.”

“I had the book for a while, Macha.  I read some of it.  Then it got stabbed by an elf and what you have is the remains,” Declan said.

Macha stared at him, the gears almost visible as she thought about his words.  The book was passed among the other Irish witches, then thrown back on the ground, where a New York witch snagged it with an invisible yank.

“This isn’t done, boy,” Macha finally said.

“Well, we’re done with you, ya manipulating bitches” Mitzi’s leader said.  “Collect your belongings from our homes and be gone.”

“Ye’ve broken the Code of Hospitality and ye have the gall ta think we’d ever deign to stay with ye again?  Our relations be at an end,” was the response.

I actually felt when Declan dropped his circle, the power fading down into the ground.  “I think that’s our cue to get the F outta Dodge,” he said.

“Right. Let’s fall back, boys,” Deckert said, Stevens heading to the van’s driver seat while the rest of us walked backward.

Comments were being thrown back and forth out on the field, but they were desultory at best.  One young Irish girl stood stock still, eyes locked on Declan, face a mask of determined anger.

“Who’s that?” I asked him.

“Einin.  Macha’s granddaughter.  I think she’s pretty powerful,” Declan answered. “We’ve tangled before.”

“So she’d be first in line for the rights to, ah… well, you?” I asked.

“Yeah, although we’re probably like third or fourth cousins or something equally gross,” he said.

“She’s not bad looking,” Stevens said, leaning out the driver’s window to study the girl witch.  “Anything over second cousin and you’re good to go.”

“Eew, Stevens, just eew. Every time I think I’ve heard it all, you take it to a new low,” Stacia said.

“Well, baby, I’d be happy to get low with you,” he leered, waggling his eyebrows.