Mathieu (30 page)

Amanda glared at Jenn with tear-filled eyes. “He took its power. He didn’t take mine and I learned a few things before Gaap forced me inside.” She unconsciously wrapped her arms around herself and started rubbing, reopening the wounds that had scabbed over during the night.

Dwayne made a small noise in the back of his throat before speaking. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He was answered with a hateful glare and a hiss. “I think it is. It’s a grand idea.”

“No, it isn’t. Nor is this an opportunity for you to face down your personal demons.” Marcus paused and then continued. “No pun intended. But this is a rescue mission, pure and simple. I don’t want to deviate from that course.”

Amanda’s face hardened as she forced herself to meet his gaze again. “Of course not.” She said the words as if they were foul-tasting. She turned away from him, then paused and studied the pattern on the south wall. “Why did you change the spell? It’s different than the one he made me watch for—but not by much. Why did you change it?”

Carol cleared her throat and spoke, “We want Mathieu to live through this. We don’t know what happened to his last Familiar—the one before you, that is. We want to be sure.”

“She lived.” Amanda turned back to them. “She’s alive now. Merit got Gaap’s power and outran The Foundation. Gaap couldn’t even get close to her, and not for lack of trying. It dragged me all over creation just to try and win it back but she’s as strong as a demon now.” She winced and rubbed a burn scar on her upper arm. “Didn’t you know that? The Foundation knows all about her.”

There
was an awkward moment of silence before Jenn spoke. “I think your father neglected to mention that rather important tidbit to us.”

Amanda snorted. “It’s a bad habit with him, the not mentioning important things.”

“Yeah. I kind of figured that.” Jenn nodded and then quietly continued. “But I still don’t think you’ll ever be ready to face this thing.”

Trembling slightly, Amanda paused and then nodded. “You’re probably right. But I can’t help but feel that there’s something I need to be doing to get myself back.”

Carol cleared her throat before speaking. “If…. When we get Mathieu back, he’s going to be….” After an uncomfortable silence she continued. “He’s going to need someone who understands. Who can make a connection…”

“He touched you and you didn’t get hurt. Maybe you can help when we get him back. I don’t think any of us are going to be able to lay a finger on him for a long time, if ever.” Eddie blurted out, then winced and rubbed his hand in memory. Jenn caught herself rubbing her own for a different reason.

Amanda gave a short laugh, harsh and painful. “Of course I wasn’t hurt. He and I, we have the same scars, the same pain. I wear mine on the outside because I haven’t figured out how to hide it all yet.” There was a pause and she spoke again. “His are inside but when he touches you, it’s his pain you feel.”

“He’ll have more scars when we get him back. He’ll need help.” Carol gestured impotently.

“More help than I can give.” Amanda hugged herself again, seeming to retreat back into her shell. “More help than I could ever give.”

“That’s what needs to be done. If you can’t do it, then you need to be somewhere else when this goes down.” Marcus’s voice took on a stern note. “I mean it, Amanda. If you want something to do, then that’s it.”

Amanda
glared at him for a long moment before finally giving a short, sharp nod. “Fine.” Her voice was icy and calm, in complete contrast to her hunched shoulders and shivering frame. “Where do you want me?”

Marcus jerked his head towards the door. “You can wait there. Dwayne won’t get too close but he needs to be in the general area.” He returned his attention to his circle and clasped his hands together. “Are we ready to do this then?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or did you really want to know the answer?” Eddie half-shrugged, “because if you want the honest truth…”

“You can tell me all about it from the East,” Marcus interrupted. “After we’re done.”

“That kind of defeats the purpose of your question, you know,” Eddie groused as he moved to stand on his Cardinal.

“That’s the idea, smartass.” Susan flipped her hair as she took her position across from him.

Jenn squeezed Marcus’ hand before dropping it and walking to the South. Marcus followed suit and stood on the North.

C
hapter Forty - Three

Marcus took a deep breath and collected himself. He could feel a buzzing sensation in the soles of his feet and knew it was from the power they were summoning. He looked around the circle, checking with all of his senses that everyone was prepared and ready for the working. All of them slid into harmony easily, and the feeling in his feet intensified.

Any other time he would have reveled in the feeling, but now all he felt was a sense of trepidation about what going to happen next. It was with this in his mind that he rolled back his shoulders, straightened his spine and spoke, “Gaap, I summon you in the name of Gabriel, prince of angels. We summon you to come forth and return to us what you’ve taken.”

“Gaap, we bind you in the name of Uriel, prince of angels. We bind you to this world and reality. We bind you to our purpose.” Jenn’s voice grew louder as she spoke.

“Gaap, we call you forth in the name of Michael, prince of angels. We call you forth to answer to our charges and bend to our will.” Eddie spoke calmly and then looked over to Susan.

Susan raised an eyebrow back at Eddie as she spoke. “Gaap, we compel you in the name of Raphael, prince of angels. We compel you to come forth and serve us.”

“
Come forth, Gaap. Come forth in the name of
Adonai Melech
who rules all above and below and face us.” All of them intoned at once as they poured their strength into the spell and the circle before them.

The inside of the circle roiled with smoke and light before resolving into two distinct figures.

“Well, what do you little parasites want now? I’m fresh out of ponies.” Gaap strode forward out of the smoke to glare at Marcus. “And out of patience, as well.”

“You know what we want.” Marcus stared back at Gaap before stepping backwards to place his hand on the basement wall. “Give us back what you’ve taken or we’ll trap you here again.”

Gaap cocked its head and looked at Marcus. “You want this?” It gestured and the smoke cleared from the circle. Mathieu stood there, his posture limp as a marionette with cut strings. “I don’t think so.”

“I think so,” Marcus answered. He tried not to look at the figure in the circle but his eyes were drawn back again. Mathieu stood there, his clothing shredded and covered in bloodstains. His skin was pale and mottled with bruises. Some wounds were still raw and bleeding.

But the worst was the eyes. Eyes that before had been brown and warm, changeable in light—amber in firelight, deepest brown in sunlight, black in darkness—now were simply flat and dead. There was no life left in those eyes, no soul, nothing but emptiness.

“What would you give me for such a valuable possession?” Gaap asked the question as it moved to stand in front of Marcus, arms crossed. “After all, he gave himself to me willingly. There was no force or coercion involved.”

“I will give you your freedom.” Marcus tapped the spell on the wall again. “I can bind you to this place for eternity if you don’t give him back.”

Gaap looked at the wall and shrugged, its scales fluttering and then lying flat. “Once bitten, twice shy. I’ve already been trapped by that once. Do you honestly think I’d allow myself to be trapped by it again?”

Amanda’s
voice rang out from outside the containment circle. “Master, if I give you these humans will you erase your taint from my soul? Will you make it as though you’d never touched me?” Her voice was thick, as if filled with tears.

Gaap swiveled towards her voice and smiled sharply, every scale tightly flattened. “Done,” it said. “Give them to me and I will take away every thought and every memory you have of me.”

“Done.” Amanda’s voice rang out as she stepped forward into the outer circle and activated it with her personal strength.

“Not good. Not good. So fucking not fucking good.” Dwayne’s voice rang out as he tried to push Amanda away but was repelled by the circle of which they were all now inside. “Fuck. Not good,” he repeated.

“No. Not good at all.” Gaap repeated as it gestured towards Mathieu. Mathieu straightened a little as power was drawn from him and focused on the inner containment circle. “Actually, not good for you. Quite good for me, though.”

Marcus, pushed forward by the activation of the outer circle, threw himself towards the red containment circle, placing his hands on the border and pumping in all of his strength to reinforce the barrier between Gaap and the rest of them.

Gaap cocked its head and smiled, the scales now back to their gentle fluttering rhythm. “I will admit a detached admiration for your bravery and pluck, but I don’t think you realize how much stronger your friend has made me.” As he spoke the pulsing barrier of light rippled and then flared brightly. The light subsided and the barrier had moved outwards several inches.

Marcus yelped and drew his hands back, shaking them in pain.

Jenn had been transfixed in horror, watching everything play out in front of her. Her husband’s cry of pain cut though her senses even as she was pushed back from the south cardinal. She shook her head and yelled over her shoulder, “Dwayne, Carol. Get that circle down, damn it!”

“
I can’t.” Dwayne wailed as he pushed against the curtain of light blocking off their escape. “I don’t know what she did, but I can’t get to it.”

Amanda smirked at him as she walked forward to touch the scintillating sheet of light that separated Demon from human. “I learned a few tricks, didn’t I, Master?”

“So it seems.” Gaap gestured at Mathieu again, and the circle holding them grew and then dimmed, larger again. The space between two circles had shrunk in half.

Eddie pushed physically back on the new barrier and gritted out, “This is not going to happen. You are so not going to do this, you son of a bitch.” He closed his eyes, sweat beading on his brow as the wall of light stopped shifting and then slowly began moving back, inch by slow inch.

Gaap watched this display with a bemused expression before gesturing, causing the circle to expand again. Eddie shrieked with pain as the barrier under his hands flared brightly and then threw him backwards. He landed against the protective barrier behind them and cried out softly as he slid down to the ground.

Susan wailed, “No, Eddie!” She ran around to kneel at his side. “Come on, honey. Get up. Get up. This isn’t going to happen. We’re dying in bed, remember? Making love?”

Eddie groaned as Gaap laughed brightly, scales lifting and smoothing in time with the sounds of his mirth. “Oh, but my dear, that hasn’t changed. It’ll just be a change in partners.” It gestured again and the circle expanded again, leaving nothing but a body’s length in between the two areas. “And I can already feel your terror at losing control of your body again, my dear. I’m not going to be the first one force you to another’s will, but I will be the one who ends your pain.”

Marcus and Dwayne came over and helped wrestle Eddie to his feet, pulling him away as the barrier expanded again, cutting the area left in half. Susan, pale and shaking, tried to help but she was trembling so hard she could barely stand.

“
We need to punch a hole through and activate that spell.” Marcus looked over his shoulder at the paint that wetly gleamed in the shimmering light. “If we all pool together, we can break through.”

“Right.” Jenn reached forward without hesitation and grabbed his hand. “Right,” she repeated as she squeezed it with every ounce of strength she had, trying to convey everything she might not ever have time to say with that one motion.

“Right.” Dwayne grasped both their hands in his large one. Carol laid hers under their entwined hands Susan helped Eddie put his shaky hand in the middle by wrapping her fingers through his and putting their hands on top.

“Right,” Marcus repeated as he drew all their separate threads of power into himself and directed it at the barrier, using his other hand to aim it.

There was a feeling of distortion, then the air pressure in their little area changed as the shimmering sheet of transparent light suddenly revealed an opening little bigger than a man’s fist.

“I’ve got it. One more push, people. One more and we’ve got the bastard.” Marcus threw his weight forward, thrusting his arm through the hole and across the six inches between their prison and the spell on the wall.

The paint was still slick under his fingers as he pushed onto the sigil and focused all the strength they had left into activating the spell

There was a deep hum as the sigils lit up one after another in a spiral of power. Glowing red, green and gold, they shone brightly enough to force him to look away, eyes watering. On the opposite side of the room, the matching symbols suddenly lit up and then spread to the adjacent walls and then to the ceiling. After a few seconds of shining brightly the red containment circle on the floor began to shine with an intensity that caused a palpable pressure on human eyes.

Marcus drew his hand back and sighed in relief. “We’ve got him. We’ve got him.”

Gaap
watched casually in the middle of the red circle as the light brightened and the air grew heavy with power. A flash of what appeared to be lightning danced from wall to wall, to ceiling and down to the floor, tracing out Gaap’s name with power before bouncing back up to hit the Demon square in the chest.

Gaap grunted, stepping back at the impact before making a strange gesture. The lightning then flashed from Gaap to hit Mathieu.

Mathieu made a strangled sound at the impact and then fell to his knees, a smoldering circle suddenly appearing on the rags that covered his chest.

The Demon shook its head as it walked over to Mathieu and negligently inspected him before turning back to the group of humans huddled together in between the circles. “I told you that I wasn’t going to let that trap me again. Didn’t you believe me?” The inner circle glowed again, pushing forward and forcing the humans to break apart