Mathieu (26 page)

Gaap went smooth again and fixed Mathieu with a penetrating gaze. “I see. And where did you come by that?”

“I don’t see how that matters.” Mathieu flexed his fingers and started to gather the darkness back into himself. The power, seemingly satisfied with its temporary freedom, came back easily. Maybe it knew what was going to happen next.

“I think it matters very much.” Gaap raised an eyebrow and stepped forward, roughly pushing Amanda to stand behind him, adding in a half-hearted slap when she didn’t move quickly enough. “It matters very much indeed to know who all that once belonged to.”

Mathieu ignored the statement. “You free her, I’ll take her place. You can have all of me, all the power, all the knowledge.” He took another deep breath and crossed his hands behind his back, clasping them tightly so the shaking in them would stop. He then jerked his chin towards Amanda. “I’m stronger than she would ever be. I’ll last longer, too. She’s almost all used up and you just got her.”

Gaap didn’t even glance at its Familiar. Instead it stepped to the edge of the circle and peered at Mathieu. “Will you love me? I thought she would love me but as you can see…” It shrugged one shoulder as its voice trailed off. The movement struck Mathieu as a strangely human gesture.

“No, I will not love you. You know as well as I that neither of us are capable of feeling anything like love or affection.” After a slight pause, Mathieu continued, “but I do offer you twice again as much power as you’ve already accumulated. And the knowledge of a different choir.”

Gaap’s
scales remained flat. “Fair enough,” it said. It then looked out at the room through the two shining barriers of energy. Mathieu turned to follow its gaze. Marcus and Jenn were frantically building some construct with salt near the North cardinal while Carol directed Eddie and Susan in something at the East.

Dwayne stood stock still, arms folded as he watched everything unfold around him. Mathieu absently wondered if what was unfolding resembled any of the prognosticator’s visions and then turned back to Gaap.

Gaap’s scales were no longer quite as flat. They seemed to flutter in time with its breathing or heartbeat. It finally spoke again. “I am unsure if I should accept your proposal. I can see why they want her back.” The Demon’s voice hissed next to Mathieu’s ear. “But what do you gain from this proposal?”

Mathieu closed his eyes tightly and then reopened them, looking straight at the source of his fears. “Oblivion.” At Gaap’s tilted head, he continued. “I want to stop feeling. No more pain, no more fear, no more anything. I want to be numb again, trapped in the darkness inside.”

“That,” Gaap said silkily, “is something with which I can oblige.”

“I figured that. That’s why I lied and had them bring you here.” The words were bitter in his mouth, but they were close enough to the truth that Gaap would not detect the delicate shadings of falsehoods. He hoped.

“Really? That’s clever.” Gaap’s voice shifted lower, oily and deep. “Give them to me as a gesture of your good faith. Drop the circles and let me have them. Show me you’re serious.”

“No.” Mathieu bit the word off sharply. “This does not involve them in any way. This is between you and me, not any of the others. If what I offer is not enough for you, we’re done. She’s as good as dead anyway.”

Mathieu started to trace a banishing gesture in mid-air but Gaap spoke suddenly. “Stop.”

Hand
frozen in mid-sigil, Mathieu raised an eyebrow at the Demon. “Yes?”

“You lied.” Gaap smirked. “You said you were unable to feel but…” It gestured out towards the others in the room and cocked its head. “But you hid the truth from me, naughty one.” It leaned forward to the very edge of the barrier, stretching the wall to bring its face to within a few inches of Mathieu’s. “You feel affection.” The scales puffed up in surprise again and then flattened as it looked deeply into Mathieu’s eyes. “You feel affection—love—for them. I see the terror in your eyes. I would smell your fear if the circle were down. I would taste it in the air. Only something as strong as love would make you ignore that fear and do this.”

Mathieu leaned backwards and away, controlling the urge to cringe with everything he had. “You know nothing of love. Besides, what I feel is no business of yours.” His lip curled in disgust as he spoke.

“Of course it is. I wonder what other secrets you’ll tell me when I make you mine?” The silvered eyes looked into and through Mathieu. “I accept your very generous offer. Lower this circle so that I may bind you.”

“There are conditions.” Mathieu shifted his weight away from Gaap, hands clenched into tight fists.

“There always are.” The Demon sounded weary as the scales fluttered lazily in some unfelt breeze. “Speak them.”

“You will not harm or pursue anyone in this room because of this summoning. You will not seek revenge or retaliate for the insult done you.”

“Done. And?”

“You will let me assume the binding from the girl. I will take the chain, you will not force it on me.”

Gaap appeared to think as the scales continued to quiver at their same rate. “That’s interesting to consider. Very well. Anything else?”

Mathieu
froze, panic slowly starting to manifest as his brain searched frantically for any other condition he could name, anything he could do to prolong the time until he had to drop that circle.

After a moment, he shook his head and said in a small voice, “no. Nothing else.”

“Bring down the circle. Come and take her.” Gaap roughly pushed Amanda forward.

She shambled a few steps forward and then stopped. There was no independent thought or movement in evidence.

Mathieu paused and studied her again through the shimmering field of energy. Her dead eyes stared back in his general direction, not seeing him, not seeing anything for that matter. He shuddered and swallowed hard, terror and dread tracing lines up and down his spine.

Nodding stiffly, he stepped forward and put his toe on the edge of the southern cardinal. Eyes closed, he slowly drained the power from the circle, gradually weakening the shields. The sigils flared and then dimmed, finally going dark. The power spooled back into those who had given it and the barrier came down in a neatly controlled collapse.

“That was well done,” Gaap said. “I’ll give that you do know what you’re doing.” He pushed Amanda forward across the now powerless border.

She shuffled forward again, four or five steps, before inertia took over and she stopped. Mathieu wrinkled his nose at her smell. No, Gaap did not believe in taking care of his property.

Mathieu stepped forward to her, looking in her eyes the entire time, hoping for some kind of reaction. There was none.

He shook his head as he glanced back over to Gaap. The die was cast. If he refused now, Gaap would simply take him and kill her. And everyone else in the room eventually as well.

The rusted iron chain circled her throat. He could see her pulse beating under it.

With one trembling hand, he slowly reached up and touched the chain with one finger.

Cold.
Piercing biting cold. Even as it brought tears to his eyes, he forced the rest of his fingers to touch and then to slowly wrap around it. He watched her eyes as he gently lifted the chain away from her skin, and then winced as the marks it left on her throat were revealed.

“I would hope,” he said quietly to Gaap, “that you would treat my body better than you’ve treated hers.”

“That was not one of your conditions,” Gaap replied.

Mathieu sighed at the answer. “Of course not.” He returned his attention to the chain, using his senses to touch the link between human and Demon.

“As I suspected,” he muttered under his breath. There would have been no way to take Gaap from this direction without killing Amanda as well.

Gaap raised what passed for eyebrows, the fluttering of its scales becoming more agitated. “I’m waiting.”

Mathieu started a little at the voice and then closed his eyes. He exerted his will and twisted.

Cold. Piercing bitter cold burrowed into his neck, tightened around his throat. He gasped for breath around the hated constriction, tasted the bitter tang of rust in the air.

His hand now rested on the hollow of Amanda’s throat, where his fingers tingled with the power that traveled from her body to his. It pulsed and burned, made his skin feel tight and hot and overstretched.

He hated that feeling more than any other feeling he had ever felt, even the feeling of being bound, of being taken by Gadreel.

Mathieu leaned forward and gently traced his hand up to Amanda’s cheek. “Amanda, can you hear me?”

The eyes remained flat and dead, the face still and emotionless.

Gently rubbing the girl’s bruised cheek, Mathieu spoke again, “Amanda, it’s over now. Your pain is over. It’s time to wake up and live again.” His voice tightened. “You are of my line—I pray through your mother—and you must be strong and brave and…”

A
sob closed off his throat, so he simply shook his head before he leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead. He found his voice again and whispered to her, “Tell them to do the right thing.”

Amanda blinked once, blinked twice. Her eyes slowly focused on him. “Daddy?” Her voice was thin and weak. “Daddy, where are you?”

Mathieu cocked his head over to Hugh. “He’s here. He’s waiting for you.”

Hugh answered from the far side of the second circle, “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

Amanda staggered and looked past Mathieu. “Daddy?” Her voice got higher and shriller. “Daddy?”

Mathieu laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her. Amanda convulsed at his touch. She knocked his hand away, fell to the floor and screamed.

There were no words in her screams, just a vocalization of fear and terror and pain, over and over and over.

Hugh fell to his knees and crawled to as close to her as the barrier would allow. “I’m here, baby. I’m here. I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry. I didn’t mean…” He leaned his forehead against the wall and energy flashed and flared around it.

Her screams continued unabated, terrifying in the depths of their agony and mindless fear.

Mathieu moved once again to comfort her, but Gaap roughly grabbed the chain at his neck and pulled him back. The Demon threw him easily aside to land against the barrier of the circle and then to the floor with a hiss of pain. Gaap walked over to Amanda and punched her hard in the face—once, then twice.

She shuddered and then fell to the floor, limp and silent.

Gaap walked back over to Mathieu, hauled him up by the chain and said, “I hate screaming. It would behoove you to remember that. Now get us out of here. This place reeks of humanity.”

Mathieu took one last long lingering look at the people on the other side of the circle, fixing Dwayne with the longest and most meaningful.

Then
he raised his hands, drew a sigil in the air, drew the power from the circle into himself and disappeared with his new master.

C
hapter Thirty - Six

“SON OF A BITCH!” Marcus punched the floor. “SON OF A BITCH,” he added for good measure.

“That wasn’t in the plan.” Susan sounded numb. “I’m really sure that wasn’t the plan.”

“It wasn’t in our plan, that’s for sure.” Eddie reached over and lightly gripped Susan’s hand. “I don’t know about his, though.”

“That son of a bitch tricked us.” Marcus still raged, this time turning his attention towards destroying the salt construct he and Jenn had been building. “He fucking lied to my face and fucking tricked us. Why?”

“Because there wasn’t any other way.” Dwayne’s voice was flat. “There wasn’t any other way to give you what you wanted and he didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

“You knew about this?” Jenn grabbed Marcus’ hands and held them tight while turning to face Dwayne. “You knew about this and didn’t tell us?”

Dwayne studied his own shoes. “I knew it as a possibility. Hell, more than that. But I wasn’t sure.” After a pause, he spoke again. “He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing.”

“No, of course not.” Marcus sighed. “He didn’t trust any of us.”

“Bullshit,” Dwayne shot back. “He’s trusted us with everything he has left. You know what he trusts us to do.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the woods. “He trusts us to do it before that thing has him for too long. He trusts us to do the right thing.”

“
He wants us to all get out of here alive and then kill both of them,” Carol said. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“If you’d seen what I’d seen, you’d have no problems with it.” Dwayne shook his head. “I saw what that thing was going to do to make him like her.” He pointed at Amanda’s slumped form. Hugh crouched over her body, trying to wake her without physical contact.

“Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit.” Marcus chanted the word over and over as he pounded the floor with his fist. “There has got to be another answer. There has to be another way.”

Jenn braced herself on her husband’s shoulder and stood up. She made her way over to where Amanda lay. “How is she?”

Hugh looked up at her. “How do you think she is? Look at her.”

The bites and bruises on Amanda’s skin were livid. Scars crisscrossed her sides and legs. Her lovely face had a fresh welt that was even now swelling and purpling. “Is she going to be okay?” Jenn winced as she asked the question because the answer was not only obvious, it was obviously ‘no’.

“I don’t know.” Hugh sighed and then spoke again. “That bastard not only tricked us and left her like this, he took her power before he went. She’s got nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“She’s got her life. And her freedom. Isn’t that enough?” Jenn gingerly reached over and touched a lock of Amanda’s lank hair.

“It’s not what we came for.” Hugh was seething. “All of this and she’s has nothing to show for it. Nothing.”

Jenn bit back her angry response and then asked quietly, “Do you want me to help you put her in your circle?”

Hugh snorted. “Of course not. There’s nothing here to bind, no power, nothing.”

“Nothing but your daughter.”

“What’s left of her, you mean?” Hugh shook his head and turned his attention back to the limp but still breathing form on the floor.