I looked down at the book. I had nothing. I didn’t have the power of the book, I didn’t have the Spear of Mortal Pain, and I didn’t even have my chthonic crossbow. I turned to Erasmus. “Take me back to my place.”
He clutched my arms and the dark coldness of transportation gripped me until all three of us appeared, rather dramatically, in the middle of my shop…surrounded by my astonished coven, the Ordo, and some new recruits.
Everyone froze, mouths hung open, eyes wide.
“Hi, everyone. Did you miss me?”
“Kylie!” screamed Jolene and launched herself into my arms. I embraced her with one arm, still holding the book.
“It’s okay. I’m back.”
She sobbed on me, and then Nick put an arm around the two of us, and then Seraphina came up and did the same. I looked past them to Doc. He had tears in his eyes and was shaking his head. “I’ll be gosh-darned,” he kept saying.
I shuffled forward, loosening my coven hug, to gaze at Doc. Even Jolene stepped back, wiping her eyes.
“How in tarnation did you ever do it?” he said, voice shaky.
And then Seraphina looked to Erasmus. Before he could escape, she grabbed him into a hug and kissed his cheek, leaving a big purple blob of lipstick there. When she let him go, he hung back, trying to disappear into the shadows, but the auxiliary Wiccans wouldn’t let him, all vying with each other to shake his hand.
He looked absolutely miserable and I couldn’t stop smiling.
When I turned my head, I saw Ed. He was blinking away tears. I offered him a warm smile. But when he noticed Shabiri, his whole demeanor changed. He stalked right up to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her. She struggled for only a moment before succumbing. Maybe she’d be getting over Erasmus in no time.
“How the hell did you do it, babygirl?” Jeff embraced me, and I couldn’t help but inhale a whiff of what smelled like…wet dog.
“As always, I had a lot of help.”
Doc was stepping forward to take my hands. “But how did you do it, Kylie? Last we saw of you and Mister—dang it, I’m calling you ‘Erasmus’ from now on, young man.”
“I am hardly young or a man,” he said from the shadows. He had managed to shake off his admirers.
“I don’t care. I never should have let you talk me into doing that spell for you. I’m so sorry.”
He seemed puzzled by Doc’s remorse. “Don’t be. It was the means by which we bargained with Lord Satan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, we’ll give you all the explanations you want later,” I said urgently, “but Baphomet is on his way and he’s setting the forests around Hansen Mills on fire.”
The auxiliary Wiccans burst into murmuring. I knew some of them were from there.
“And we’ll deal with him when he comes,” said the last voice I wanted to hear.
I whirled. Ruth Russell…wearing cargo fatigues, a trooper sweater, and sporting a…sword?
“You’ve had quite an adventure,” she said, hand on the hilt of the sword, hanging in its scabbard on her belt.
I turned to anyone who would listen. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“Mrs. Russell is okay,” said Jolene. “You should have seen her use that sword on a lindworm. It was very Bayonetta.”
“Since when?” I said, glaring at Bayonetta.
“Since she showed up expecting to be the Chosen Host,” said Doc. “Kylie, don’t you remember? No one could recall your grandfather ever having lived here. And the Stranges had been wiped out of the memory of even people who looked at the archives. Your grandpa had used a very powerful forget-me spell.”
Seraphina stepped in. “And she didn’t know who you were. Only that odd things were happening around you. It wasn’t until you reminded her of your grandfather that she remembered she even knew Robert Strange.”
“So what?” I couldn’t believe everyone was falling all over themselves to defend her. “What about all the stuff she supposedly knew about? What about Dan Parker?”
“Yes,” said Ruth. “What about Dan Parker?”
“He’s dead. And you killed him in a summoning ritual.”
“No, she didn’t.”
I turned. I couldn’t believe Jeff of all people was saying this to me. “Oh yeah? And what do you know about it?”
“When I wolfed, I didn’t get a sense of evil from her. Because believe me, when I’m wolfed, I can tell something’s off.”
Well damn. That was a whole lot of corroboration. I turned to Ruth. “Okay. I guess I’m wrong. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. I thought a lot of bad things about you until I figured out who you were.”
We seemed stuck and just stared at one another. Until I put my hand out to shake. She took it. “All fair and square…cos?”
She winced a little. “Don’t call me that.” Old habits die hard, Ruth.
“Okay then,” I said, trying to put aside my own prejudices. “If it wasn’t Ruth, then who was it? Someone paid the Ordo to start summoning and someone ritually killed Dan Parker to summon a demon assassin to get me.”
No one could offer any suggestions.
“A lot of folks in town aren’t fans of you,” offered Ed, who still had his arm around Shabiri. And she didn’t seem to mind one bit.
“Yeah, but if they don’t like witchcraft, I don’t think they’d indulge in their own summoning. Doug, how much cash did they send you?”
“A lot. Ten thousand bucks.”
“Whoa. So someone with money. Ruth, among your cadre of friends…”
“There is absolutely no one I suspect. No one even remotely interested in the occult that I can tell. No one side-stepping the mandala on my porch. Except for your Mr. Dark there.”
Erasmus coolly acknowledged her with a nod.
“Haven’t we got bigger fish to fry?” asked Nick. “Isn’t Baphomet on his way?”
“Yeah. And the book…” I dropped it onto the table with a slam. “…is dead. Its last act was to get me out of the Netherworld. I’m not a Chosen Host anymore, Erasmus isn’t tied to it, and Baphomet can’t get it. Oh! What about the rift or vortex-thingy? We have to close that—” I made a rush to the door, but Doc stopped me.
“Already taken care of. It’s done.”
“Oh. You’ve been busy.”
He smiled with pride. I glanced to where the auxiliary Wiccans were huddled together. Mostly the teenagers who had stood by Jolene and Nick. Some I recognized from when they defended by shop from Baphomet. There was about a dozen of them. “So then, Baphomet is looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore. Do you think he knows that?”
Something slammed hard to my roof, making the rafters shake. “I thought there were wards.”
“Oh no,” said Doc. “Jolene, get out the scryer.”
The auxiliary Wiccans stepped aside for Jolene. She grabbed her Hello Kitty skull bag and took out the stick with the crystal attached. She shoved it into my face. But nothing happened. She pushed it toward Doc, toward Nick, toward Seraphina…only a faint glow. The magic wasn’t gone, but it had returned to whatever level it had been before. The book had enhanced the magic while it was alive; there was nothing but their own skills to rely on now.
“What about our enchanted bullets?” asked Ed.
His what now?
Doc pursed his lips in thought. “Now that, I don’t know. We infused magic into an inanimate object. I believe it would still work. But…I’m not sure. And as for the wards, they should hold. The house, too, is an inanimate object.”
Ed got out his gun. “Well, no time like the present to find out.”
George took out his weapon as well and Nick hurried forward to grab his arm. “Be careful, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. Citizen.” He smiled, mustache and all. I took that to be some kind of game they played. Made a note not to ask.
There was something I was missing. The book was alive once and now was an inanimate object. And things, not people, could retain magic. “Is the chthonic crossbow still here?”
I was shocked when I heard it coming toward me, and I didn’t have those Chosen Host skills anymore to catch it. The auxiliary Wiccans dove out of the way when it cleared the staircase. I chickened out at the last minute when it got near and ducked. It smashed into some teapots on a shelf and clattered to the floor. Sheepishly, I went to retrieve it. “Sorry, old buddy,” I said as I gingerly picked it up. I blinked for a mere fraction of a second and it had armed itself. “Okay, you’re still working. But I doubt this will kill a god.”
Ruth unsheathed her sword and it glowed.
“Cool,” I said. “A magical object?”
“It’s called the ‘Answerer.’ A legendary Irish sword. It might slay a god.”
“Isn’t it amazing what you can get on the internet these days?”
She gave me a searing look.
Just for old time’s sake—and maybe to shove it in Baphy’s face—I grabbed the book and tucked it under my arm.
I turned to the teens, who had decidedly confused looks on their faces. “You guys, just…hang here. Stay safe.” I looked to Ed, George, and Ruth and gave the go ahead.
We four…no, make that six with Erasmus and Shabiri…no, now eight because Jeff and Nick had wolfed—walked outside to meet our doom. Wouldn’t it be a stupid trick of fate if I had survived the Netherworld only to die here in Moody Bog? I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want it to happen to any of us.
The sky was bright from the fires in the distance where Hansen Mills used to be. I hoped there would be a chance to rebuild it. I know Ed and George should have been over there, but they sensed, as did we all, that this was more important. We had to subdue Baphomet somehow or there would never be any peace in Moody Bog or anywhere else. I guessed this was the final showdown. Gee, I kind of hoped it would have been with Satan…and there again, a sentence I never thought I’d say.
Something cleared the trees. Something gigantic. It blocked the moonlight for a moment before he landed, goat feet and all, on good-old, now scarred Lyndon Road.
I shivered. I had forgotten to put on a coat. I’d left mine in the Netherworld. But with the book under my arm and the crossbow tucked at my side, I stepped forward.
“Kylie Strange,” he said in that imperious voice. “I—”
“Honestly, blah, blah, blah! Did you go to the villain school of villainy talk? What’s with all the speeches? I know you want the book, I know you want to be worshipped, I know you want your fellow gods and goddess to take over my world. Anything else?”
He scowled. “Yes. I want your head.”
“You want an awful lot. But hey. Here’s something for you.” I tossed the book toward him and it landed on the asphalt beneath him.
Bless his little goat eyes. They lit up. Reaching down for it, he grasped it in his clawed hands and lifted it up in triumph. He used a claw to open the book and frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“No more power. It got all used up. I’m the last Chosen Host there will ever be.”
He tossed the book back at me. I stepped out of the way just in time as it landed.
“You lie! Nothing can destroy the book!”
“Satan can. I took it to him and he destroyed it for me.”
“Lord Satan?” He took a step back. “He destroyed it? How can this be?”
“Because I asked him pretty please.”
“What did you give him in return?”
“A year’s supply of beef jerky. No! What do you think, goat head? A soul.”
“But…you live.”
“Not my soul. His soul.” I pointed to Erasmus.
“He is a demon. He has no soul.”
“Well he doesn’t now. He was human for a little bit. And then we bargained with his soul.”
“But…he’s a demon! You lie!”
“No. He was human and I waited till he was just about out of soul and then I gave him his amulet back.”
Ed gasped. He was staring at me with rounded eyes.
Baphomet was still puzzled and appeared uncomfortable as he took another step back. “You…tricked Lord Satan?”
“Yeah, and lived.” I raised the crossbow. “So…what do you think I can do to you?”
His weird goat eyes scanned my posse: two demons, two werewolves, two cops, one sword wielding witch, and one former Chosen Host. Maybe the odds were against him this time.
But as he measured us, his eyes narrowed. “There is no magic in you. You cannot defeat me.”
“But we are gonna try.” I fired. My aim wasn’t that bad, even without the Chosen Host skills. It hit him dead center. He cried out with that goat/cow sound, but no light emanated from him. It slowly began to occur to me that there was nowhere for him to go. The rift was closed and so was the book. Unless he operated like a demon—and I was pretty sure he didn’t because he had to be summoned—he was trapped here. That wasn’t good for us.
I cast a glance at Ruth. She was ready with that gleaming sword. It was weird seeing her in anything but her self-important skirt/jacket combos, but even in her combat fatigues, she still wore that damned necklace like a badge of honor or something. She must have thought of me like I thought of her; reckless, stuck-up, dangerous—
Hold on a second.
“Ruth, what’s the inscription in that locket again?”
“What? At a time like this?”
“What did I tell you it said?”
She puffed a breath, keeping half an eye on Baphomet. “‘Within the hurasu gates, the enemies of man shall fast remain.’”
I motioned with my crossbow—that had armed again—toward Baphomet. “He looks like an enemy of man to me.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Doc said that ‘hurasu’ is Babylonian for ‘gold’. The locket is gold. The locket is the hurasu gate!”
She was still staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. And yeah, that was a possibility these days. I knelt, grabbed the book, and thrust it toward her necklace. When they connected, the little secret slot opened. The book still worked.
And then the sky lit up with fire all around us. At first, I thought it was the forest, ablaze thanks to Baphy. But the fire came from around Baphomet himself.
He was more than puzzled now. He was terrified. He swiveled his big goat head all around, looking at the strange magical fire shooting up around him. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”
The fire encircled him and then converged, encasing him in flames. But it didn’t seem to be consuming him, or hurting him. But it definitely trapped him.
Ruth’s locket was rising up on its chain as if it were in zero gravity. Rising up toward Baphomet.
The flames were like a cage and he began to struggle. “No! NO!” The flames started to shrink and took Baphomet with them. He shrank and shrank until he and the fire were the size of a single candle flame. And then, all of a sudden, that flame shot toward the locket, entered it, and slammed the little slider shut.
The necklace fell to Ruth’s chest while we all looked around astonished.
“Did that just happen?” asked Nick, morphing back in to a guy. A naked guy.
Slowly, everyone converged on Ruth, even the extra Wiccans, warily coming out the door. She quickly whipped the necklace off her neck and held it out, staring at it. “It doesn’t feel any heavier,” she said quietly.
Doc was suddenly beside her, and so was the rest of the coven. “By Godfrey,” he whispered. “May I?” He reached for the locket and Ruth was happy to give it to him. He examined it from all angles. “I think he is well and truly in there. For good. Unless this touches the Booke of the Hidden again.”
I tossed the book against my door as Doc turned the necklace, catching glints of moonlight on it. “It’s a prison now.”
“Can it be returned to the Netherworld?” I asked.
Erasmus shook his head. “No. Because of the presence of the god, it cannot be taken through.”
“Then…what do we do with it?” asked Jolene.
I shrugged. “I’d drop it in the middle of the ocean.”
Erasmus took the necklace from Doc. “Is that the consensus?” He looked to each face.
“I’m planning on burning the book,” I said. “So anything that will keep him imprisoned is fine with me.”
Erasmus studied it, brows gnarled over his eyes. “I was imprisoned by the book.”
“But your intent wasn’t evil,” I said before anyone could say anything. But they all still looked at me doubtfully. “It wasn’t! Yeah, he eats souls but that wasn’t his fault.” I turned back to Erasmus. “You only knew this life. Baphomet had his chance and he didn’t take it.”
He glanced at me. It seemed as if my opinion was the only one that mattered. But I wanted to make certain that it was the right choice, so I turned to Doc. “Well? Should it go to the bottom of the ocean?”
Doc nodded gravely. “This isn’t a decision we make lightly. This is an intelligent being, but he won’t live with us. His only desire is to control. For the sake of my species, I say yes.”
Erasmus smiled grimly. “I shall return momentarily.” He vanished, and seconds later he was back, soaking wet. He whipped his hair back, sending a shower of sea water all over Jeff who had also morphed back into a naked man. “I had to make certain it wouldn’t float or be found by adventurers,” said Erasmus. “I placed it in the bottom in a great underwater canyon.”
“Do you mean…the Mariana Trench?” I asked.
He shrugged. Steam puffed off of him and his leather duster. “Has it a name, now?”
“In the Pacific Ocean?”
“Do you think there are limitations to my transport?”
That was another heady thing to think about.
“Well, that’s that!” said Doc.
A car pulled up and we all stepped back. Jeff and Nick excused themselves, running between the teen Wiccans, and ducked inside the shop, no doubt searching for their clothes. When the headlights switched off, Reverend Howard climbed out.
“What a relief! You all look like you’re all right.”
“It was touch and go there,” I admitted, looking to my comrades, “but we’re fine.”
“And Mrs. Russell. What an…unusual outfit you’ve got on.”
“Do you like it? I’m thinking of wearing it more often.”
He took measure of her—and the sword in its scabbard—before facing the rest of us. “I saw this strange light over here and I worried some of our more reckless citizens were causing a ruckus.”
Ed holstered his gun and adjusted his belt. George followed suit. “We took care of those troublemakers earlier,” he said in his best officious voice.
“No one got hurt, I hope. It’s been a crazy few days here, I don’t mind saying. I’ve got a lot of questions.” He walked around us, nodding to each coven member, to the teens. And then he spotted the book in the doorway. He bent down to pick it up. “Booke of the Hidden? What’s this?”
“It’s the seat of all our troubles,” I said.
He opened the cover, and I was relieved not to feel any sense of ownership or jealousy. It was dead to me, just like it was supposed to be.
“It’s blank,” he said, thoughtfully. “How does it work?”
I scoffed. “What do you mean?”
“How do you make it work?”
“It doesn’t, thank goodness.”
“But, uh, how can my Lord Baphomet use it, then, if it doesn’t work anymore?”