Resurrection (10 page)

—or demon.

“Go, go, go!” Richard shouted, and Tommy went on automatic, scrambling up the stairs after Richard as the staircase itself tore from the wall and began to wobble like a gyroscope. Then fire shot straight up out of the hole, followed by another inhuman shriek.

His legs spread wide apart in a fight for balance, Tommy grabbed on to the wooden railing of the banister and aimed his Micro Uzi with one hand. Beside him, Richard swore.

“If you see the door open, stop,” he said. So Richard
was worried about the girls and the baby being shot by accident—

Stay away,
Tommy called out to Amanda in his mind.
Danger!

Marble squares shot into the air, smacking the cathedral ceiling overhead, crashing down and shattering. Flames licked the walls, singeing the ancient portraits.

Then something red and leathery burst through the fissure. It was a lizardlike head, at least as long as Richard was tall, and its green, glowing eyes were the size of the kitchen table. Its snout was elongated, and as Tommy aimed his weapon, preparing to fire, it opened its long jaw, exposing dozens of fangs, and fire shot out of its mouth.

“It's a dragon,” he shouted, so Richard could hear him. Despite everything he had seen—demons devouring his loved ones, a sea monster rising from the sea—something in him refused to believe what he was seeing.
A dragon. Oh, God.

It screeched again, and then fixed its eyes on the two men. More of the floor gave way as the dragon pushed its enormous body through the floor. Two long wings unfurled, and its neck telescoped, smashing into the walls of the foyer. Cracks bulleted up the wooden walls and split them apart. Large chunks of the ceiling rained down like bombs.

The dragon threw back its head again as it slammed against what was left of the ceiling. Snow sprinkled down. Tommy was thrown to his knees, and Richard grabbed his arm.

“Let's go,” he said, dragging him up the stairs. Tommy followed, his mind on the front door and Amanda, outside with Owen.

“We should open fire,” he bellowed at Richard.

“It hasn't attacked. No need to provoke it,” Richard replied.

Tommy! Help us!

It was Amanda. He heard her as clearly as if she were running beside him.

He heard a whoosh; it was the dragon, spouting another geyser of fire.

Outside the house.

He stopped, pivoted, and shot off rounds from his Micro Uzi. The smoke was so thick that he couldn't tell if he had hit the dragon's body, but its head slammed back through the ceiling as a stream of fire rocketed Tommy's way. He flattened himself on the swaying staircase and covered his head with his hands. Stinging heat ran along his skin. He stayed as he was, praying that he wasn't simply giving the dragon a better target.

Richard's weapon kept firing. Tommy felt the hard metal of his own Uzi and contracted his chest,
drawing it out from underneath him. Although he couldn't make himself look up, he aimed it in the direction of the heat. He was afraid the flames would burn the eyes right out of his skull.

The noise was deafening; his eardrums shut down until he could hear nothing but a soft pounding he realized was his heartbeat. Then the staircase tilted forward and he started to slide. He reached his hand forward and splayed his fingers, hoping he would snag one of the railings. If he didn't, he'd go flying directly into the path of the creature's mouth. Maybe by the time the dragon munched him, he'd be fried to a crisp.

His hand made contact with something hot; his skin sizzled and he grimaced. Then his shoulder slammed into a piece of burning wood and he cried out. The space in front of him was devilishly hot.

Then someone grabbed his right ankle and yanked him backward. He assumed it was Richard. Then he was hoisted up by his shoulders to his feet. His center of gravity was wildly out of whack because he was hanging at a strange angle—the staircase had fallen over. He scrabbled for purchase, and managed to get toeholds on the stair. Cautiously he opened his eyes…to a wall of smoke.

If Richard was talking to him, he couldn't hear him. Nor could he see him. When his arm was jerked
to the left, he blindly turned, struggling to keep his footing, trying to grip the railing without letting go of his Uzi. His burned fingers were stiff, and he swore as he felt the weapon go.

Richard pushed against Tommy's back as the two climbed the stairs like it was a ladder, his feet slipping and sliding. More than once he hung in the air, and Richard pushed his feet back onto the stairs. He had a moment of giddy hysteria when he imagined they were going through a fun house. Then they at last stepped onto an even surface—a landing—then forward a few feet—and up another flight of stairs, this set solid and upright.

Cold air washed down on him, and then snow, soothing his hands and prickling his face. A blast of wind told him they were outside, and he forced his eyes open. They stood on the slate roof of House Moore, wind and snow dervishing around them, as the huge red dragon burst from the front of the house and rose into the air. Its huge scarlet wings flapped with such force that it drew flames out of the house. Snow flurried around it in a vortex as it raised and lowered its enormous wings.

Beside him, Richard raised his Micro Uzi, tracing its trajectory. Then he lowered it with a frustrated shake of his head and turned. His mouth moved, but Tommy didn't hear a word he said. Tommy squinted,
then shook his head and pointed to his ears.

Richard gestured forward, and Tommy gave him a thumbs-up. Together they crab walked along the side of the roof, past turrets and gables, chimneys and skylights—none broken—silhouetted by the flames, until they reached the front edge of the section that had been ruined. Tommy looked down. There was no sign of Amanda, Nicole, or Owen.

There were several ways to get down from the roof; as he recalled, there was an old rusty ladder that ran down to the second story, and from there, more stone steps. They found it handily; Tommy scaled it, sending out his thoughts to Amanda, receiving no sense of her anywhere. He had no idea how he managed to move so fast—adrenaline, magic.

Soon they were racing down the gravel path that led to the caretaker's cottage. Amanda burst out through the front door and caught Tommy in her arms. They held each other for an instant; then Tommy looked past her to see Nicole on the threshold, with Owen in her arms.

“We need to call the fire department,” Tommy mouthed. He didn't know if he was speaking or yelling.

Then the tiny baby stretched out his hand. Nicole's mouth dropped open, and she spoke. Amanda pulled gently away from Tommy and looked in the direction of the mansion. Her face lit up.

Tommy turned, and looked.

House Moore was no longer on fire. A few wisps of gray steam were all that were left of the masses of flames and cauldrons of smoke. And instead of serious destruction of the front part of the house, ancient stonework had replaced the wood that must have burned away. The country house looked as if it had been built over an ancient castle, which the fire had now revealed.

Amanda said something. He stared at her blankly. She waved her hands and moved her lips.

“…castle,” Amanda said. He could hear her again. “Do you think it was there all along?”

“Did you see the dragon?” he asked her. His ears were still ringing.

She smiled faintly. “How could I miss it?”

“How did it get here?” Richard said, giving Amanda a tight hug, then moving on to Nicole and his grandchild. “They say that every castle has a dragon in the dungeon.”

Tommy closed his eyes and staggered a little. Now that the crisis had passed, his nerves were beginning to take over. Amanda slid her arm around his waist.

“Come into the cottage and sit down,” she urged him.

“I thought I'd lost you,” he said in a rush. “I thought
I'd never see you again.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Amanda Anderson, will you marry me?”

She stared at him, openmouthed. And then she shrieked with happiness and threw her arms around him.

Scarborough: Tommy, Amanda, Nicole, Owen, and Richard

Richard didn't trust the lawyer Derek as far as he could throw him. So he sat in the kitchen and watched as the warlock presented stacks of papers to Nicole. The incident with the dragon had rattled all of them a lot more than they were admitting to one another. It had served as a grim reminder that none of them was safe.

Which was why Nicole was making out her will.

“So, in the event of your death you have your
father, your sister and her fiancé, and Philippe who could raise Owen. Which order do you want those put in?” Derek asked.

“What do you mean?” Nicole asked, looking confused.

“He wants to know which of us is your first pick to raise Owen,” Richard explained.

His daughter looked at him with anxious eyes that nearly broke his heart. “Why do I have to choose?”

“It's just the way this is done,” Derek said, and to his credit, his voice still sounded patient even after three hours.

Nicole looked like she was going to cry. Richard sighed. “Sweetie, it's not a popularity contest. None of us is going to take the order personally,” he said.

She seemed to brighten at that. “Okay, then, that order. First dad, then Amanda and Tommy, and then Philippe.”

“Great. Now, given that you are a witch and that the first three are here with you and the last one is…um…missing for now, who do you want as your backup?” Derek asked.

Nicole put her head down onto the kitchen table. “Aren't those enough?”

“Ordinarily, yes. But you are far from ordinary. Even for a witch, you are extraordinary. Frankly, it's a miracle you're still alive.”

“Thanks,” she groaned.

“I'm putting a family locater spell on the will so that if all of you should die in the same incident…”

“You can say battle,” Richard informed him grimly.

Derek winced. “As Nicole's legal representative, I do not want to hear about any battles or any other activities that might break the law of either of our countries.”

“So, trying to be an officer of the court and raining down the type of destruction I'm sure you're capable of, you're a masochist, aren't you?” Richard asked.

Derek rolled his eyes. “I have been accused of having identity issues, if that's what you mean.”

The lawyer turned back to Nicole. “The spell will find Holly, if she's alive, and any other Cathers.”

Nicole straightened up. “You mean, that's all we would have had to do to find other relatives? Holly didn't have to go off with Alex? We could have just worked this spell?”

“No, this spell is the exclusive property of the law firm I represent. It's one of the specialized services we offer. No one else can use our spell, and we don't run a detective agency and so are not in the habit of using it just to find missing persons.”

“So, what, you've got a patent on the spell?” Richard asked, letting his cynicism show.

Derek smiled faintly. “Something like that.”

“So, then, just use the family locater spell,” Nicole said.

“Do you want to consider, as many witches do, putting the Mother Coven into your will as beneficiaries or possible caretakers for Owen?”

“No!” Richard and Nicole chorused together.

“Glad we've got that settled,” Derek said, raising an eyebrow.

“Can we be done now?” Nicole asked.

“I think I have enough here. I'll have my assistant draw these up, and I'll be back out Friday so you can sign them,” he said, gathering his stacks of paper.

Richard rose, ready to accompany the younger man to the door. They moved toward the side door of the kitchen, which led to a garden outside. The front entrance had been almost completely destroyed by the dragon, and Richard and Tommy hadn't been able to finish clearing away all the debris.

“Do you want me to have the house repaired?” Derek asked, pausing for one last look around.

“We're fine,” Richard said. The last thing he needed was more people in the house, where they could hide any number of traps and curses. “You sure that dragon wasn't in the will?”

Derek shook his head. “I'm afraid not, which means they weren't keeping it as a pet.”

“No kidding.”

 

It was the day before Thanksgiving, but Amanda felt anything but thankful as she made breakfast. Every day the darkness at the corners of her mind seemed to encroach a little more, swallow up the light. The worst part was, with the exception of the still mysterious dragon, there was nothing she could point out to her family. No, the danger seemed to be all in her mind, though she refused to believe she was imagining it.

Since the engagement, Tommy had been trying to coax her to stay in his room, but more than ever she didn't want prying eyes upon her when she slept. She knew that she had nightmares, and more than once had woken up to find that she had been sleepwalking. Still, even though she recorded all her memories, it wasn't enough. It didn't tell her why every third night she woke up staring at a portrait of Sir William in what had to have been his study. She had been working on a spell, though, that, while it would not capture her dreams, would at least allow her in the morning to watch herself having them. It was a third night, and she was determined to watch herself in the moments before she woke up in front of the portrait.

She stared down at her notebook with her latest collection of dreams. There was the usual collection of people, Holly being predominant this time. There was
also a series of images including a great phoenix with a key in his talons.

“I knew I shouldn't have watched that Harry Potter movie on television last night,” she joked to herself, thinking about the phoenix the school's headmaster kept as a pet.

She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the image to mind, fairly certain that the movie and not the house had been to blame for that one.
What do I know about that phoenix?
Suddenly she could hear a scream in her head followed by a woman sobbing and the crackle of flames. She gasped and opened her eyes. Around her the entire kitchen was engulfed in flames and her very skin was on fire.

She woke up screaming. Her bedroom door flew open and her father raced in, eyes wild and gun in hand. She stared at him wondering how on earth he had come to be there, or even how she had come to be in her room instead of downstairs in the kitchen.

“Amanda!”

She shook her head and stuttered, “Wh-what? Where am I?”

Seemingly convinced that there were no dragons in the room, he settled down on the edge of her bed and grabbed her hand. “You're in your room. It's three in the morning.”

“It is?” she asked, her eyes seeking out the clock on her nightstand.

Sure enough, it was. She watched as the digital numbers changed to read 3:01. Why couldn't she remember anything after breakfast? she thought in a panic.

“I'm looking forward to a turkey dinner tomorrow,” her dad said, suppressing a yawn.

She blinked at him. It was three a.m., which meant that she had been dreaming about being in the kitchen and fixing breakfast and thinking about the phoenix.

“Me too,” she managed to say back, despite the sudden fear that gripped her. The dream had felt absolutely real. Was she losing it? If she could no longer tell the difference between her waking life and her sleeping life, what did that mean? She shivered.

“You want me to get an extra blanket?” her father said, noticing and misinterpreting the action.

She shook her head slowly. “No, thank you. I'll be fine. I'll see you in the morning,” she said, desperate to be alone so she could try to sort things out.

Her dad, however, seemed to have other ideas. “You know, I've noticed something strange since we moved here.”

She perked up, actually daring to hope that she wasn't alone, that she wasn't crazy. “What?”

“I haven't had any dreams.”

Disappointment flooded through her. She wished she could say the same. “Maybe you just don't remember them.”

He shook his head. “I don't think that's it. Ever since the war, I've had nightmares. Everything that's happened lately has made them worse, or at least more frequent. We came here, though, and not a single one. I talked with Tommy and Nicole yesterday. Neither of them is dreaming either.”

Amanda sat up straighter. Now, that was strange. As kids, Nicole had been a lot more prone to dreams and nightmares than she had. “And I'm having nightmares every night,” she admitted.

He nodded. “Yes. I don't know what it means, but one thing I've learned in life is there are no coincidences, just plans you don't know about. I'm starting to think we should get out of this house.”

“No!” Amanda burst out, surprising even herself. “If there is something going on here, I need to find out what it is. I feel like there's something I'm supposed to do or find.”

He nodded slowly. “Anything I can do to help with that?”

“I don't think so. If there is, though, you'll be the first to know.”

She sat there staring her father in the eyes, praying to the Goddess that he understood.

“Okay, but if things get too intense, we go when I say, no arguments.”

She actually laughed. “Given the fact that we're still here after the dragon, I'd hate to see what you think too intense is.”

He laughed for a moment, but it didn't reach his eyes. “No, you really wouldn't want to.”

He kissed her forehead and stood up, and moved toward the door. She glanced at it, still somewhat surprised that Nicole and Tommy hadn't also come to check up on her.

“One other thing, sweetheart.”

“Yes, Father?”

“I saw you tonight in the hallway when you cast the sleeping spells over Nicole and Tommy. Just don't ever do that to me. Are we clear?”

All she could manage was a nod as terror closed around her throat like a giant fist. She had no memory of casting those spells.

Outside Mumbai:
Armand, Pablo, Holly, Alex, and the Temple of the Air

Armand woke covered in sweat. As he lay still trying to slow his heartbeat and regulate his breathing, he tried not to dwell on the nightmarish faces that still swam behind his closed eyes. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he threw himself to the side and
opened his eyes just in time to see a black, scaly demon slice through his pillow with a sickle.

Without a word Armand raised his hand and sent a blast of fire toward the demon. It hit him full in the chest and only burned a moment before snuffing out. The distraction was all that Armand needed. His lips moved in prayer, and a moment later the demon exploded, showering him and his sleeping covenates with gore.

“Not again, Armand,” Pablo said sleepily.

“I just washed my hair,” Holly groaned, sitting up and looking at him crossly.

A few weeks before, they would have thanked him. He knew it was confirmation that they shared his fears. Ever since he had exorcised Holly, something had changed. If there was a demon anywhere around, it seemed to sense him, to find him.

“Demon magnet,” Alex muttered before going back to sleep.

Two of Alex's followers—Armand still didn't know their names—rose and set to work repairing the wards that the demon had somehow managed to break through. It had become standard procedure to ward any place they were going to be at for more than an hour. Any longer than that, and the demons started coming.

Armand lay back down, but he knew he would get no more sleep that night. Something had to give.
The demons who were being drawn to him were all different, and every time they came, he flashed back to exorcising Holly and the sheer number of different rituals he had needed to perform.

His path had never been an easy one. He had studied to be a priest and at the last moment had turned aside to study the ways of the Goddess. He had managed to blend the two religions and had found others with similar beliefs and needs. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't quit. Would he have had his own parish by now? Would he have advanced through the ranks? Would he have ministered to the lost and suffering? Or would he have become an exorcist? For so long the church had stopped teaching the sacred rite. Almost too late they had seen their mistake. Now they were scrambling with only a handful of trained exorcists still alive, who were dying as old men without passing on their wisdom.

“Tell me what to do,” he breathed to whichever deity would answer.

A sudden thought came to his mind with such startling clarity that he knew it
was
an answer. He remembered when he was just a boy back in Paris, he had met a great man, a prophet who could see the future and read a person's soul. He had come to speak to the congregation at Armand's church.

His name was Jacob.

And he had told them that he lived in India.

On the outskirts of Bombay…now known as Mumbai.

How could I have forgotten that?
he thought. But Armand had been only three years old then. How could he have remembered?

His heart began to pound. His mind tried to tell him that he didn't even know if this Jacob was still alive.

Seek and ye shall find.

He rose silently, then froze. What if it were a trick, designed to lure him away from Holly and the others? What if, by leaving, he abandoned them to demonic attack and worse—possession?

And yet…Jacob had been a holy man. He had told Armand that he would become an orphan. His parents had laughed…and then crossed themselves.

They had died within the year, both of them. To a strange malady.

Perhaps Jacob had given them the disease.

I don't know what to do,
he thought. So he sank to his knees and prayed.

Venga,
said a voice.
Come.

Warmth spread through him, taking the edge off his terrible fear. Resolved, he touched Pablo on the shoulder and moved away from the others. Pablo was beside him in a moment.