Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

The super imp let out a mighty screech and ran straight at them.

“Am I still supposed to save my thrust?” asked Charlotte, her voice shrill with panic.

“Please use it!”

She wasted no time. She threw her hands out and gave another forced grunt. Eric felt the familiar warm breeze blow past him and the super imp’s right arm separated at the elbow in a spray of black gore, along with much of the right side of its abdomen.

The monster fell to the floor, but like its ogre cousins, it was surprisingly determined. It immediately rose again, stumbling, with a great mass of smoking entrails bulging from the gaping holes in its torso.

“Aim was a little off…” breathed Charlotte.

It was true. If she’d landed that shot square in the creature’s head or chest, it probably would’ve dropped dead and spared them any further trouble. Instead, it was still coming. But Eric tried to remain positive. After all, it now had only one wickedly clawed hand with which to disembowel him.

“Get back,” he told her, placing himself between her and the approaching beast. She’d told him she was good for three spells and that was the last one. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself again until she’d had time to rest. It was up to him to protect her.

With his crappy mop…

If he died, this was going to be an embarrassing last stand.

He lifted the mop and shoved the ratty head into the mutant imp’s toothy face. He’d hoped to distract the creature, and it seemed that luck was with him because the thing immediately sank its teeth and claws into the filthy strands, momentarily entangling itself.

Eric put his weight into it and began shoving the monster backward.

“Be careful!” Charlotte begged.

“This is as careful as I know how to be!” he returned.

The creature freed itself and tried to snatch the mop out of his hands, but it tripped over the wheelchair he’d been steering it toward and went sprawling onto its back with an enraged howl.

Thinking fast, he thrust the mop into the creature’s face again. His only thought was to try to break those nasty-looking teeth, hoping to inflict enough pain to keep the monster off balance until it succumbed to its smoking injuries. But the thing wasn’t nearly as stupid as its bigger relatives. It seized the mop handle with its one remaining hand and then began slashing at Eric with the claws on its feet, forcing him to back off.

For a moment, the two of them were locked in a dangerous tug-of-war with the mop as Eric tried to keep his grip on his only weapon and the monster tried to pull him close enough to gut him with its wicked toenails. Then Eric gave the wheelchair a swift kick, knocking it against the thing and distracting it long enough to wrench the mop from its grip.

Like the ogres, this mutated imp seemed oblivious to any pain it felt from the injuries Charlotte inflicted on it with her spell. But unlike the ogres, this thing was crafty, calculating. Eric could see the intelligence gleaming in its huge eyes as it maneuvered its legs beneath it and crouched before him, regarding him.

He experimented by feigning a jab with the mop. As he expected, the thing made a swipe at it, attempting to grab it and no doubt meaning to wrench it from his grip. Once he was disarmed, it would waste no time tearing him to pieces.

He wasn’t sure what to do next. If he backed away, it would rise and attack. If he lunged, the thing would defend itself. There was nowhere to go and he had no idea how he was supposed to kill anything larger than a spider with a stupid mop.

Then the monster ended the standoff by hurling itself at him.

Its teeth and claws locked around the mop handle, forcing him backward.

Desperate, he attempted to kick the creature in its side where it was wounded, but all he managed to do was throw himself off balance so that he stumbled and fell to the filthy floor. Now it was all he could do to hold the snarling beast off with the mop handle.

But just when it seemed he was all out of options, Charlotte stepped in, swinging a long piece of rusty metal like a baseball bat.

The super imp sailed backward through the air and slid across the floor almost all the way to the far doorway. It managed to tear the mop out of Eric’s hands in the process, but it didn’t matter. Charlotte ran after it, swinging the piece of metal over and over again, clubbing the cowering creature until it stopped thrashing and that foul smoke was rising from its ruined head in thick, black billows.

Then she backed away, panting.

Eric thought the metal object she’d found as a weapon might have once been part of one of those IV stands, but he couldn’t quite tell. Nor did he care. The important thing was that the monster was dead and they could now get out of this creepy basement.

“You okay?” she asked, tossing her makeshift weapon aside.

Eric nodded and rose to his feet.

“We have to get back upstairs.”

He didn’t need to be told. He was already hurrying down the hall. If there was one super imp, there could easily be a dozen. Or a hundred. Holly and Alicia could be in trouble.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Charlotte as she followed him up the stairs.

Eric glanced back at her, confused. “About what? You saved my ass back there. Twice.”

“I nearly got you killed,” she said. “If I’d aimed better, you wouldn’t have needed saved.”

For a moment, Eric wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Then he remembered that the spell she launched at the super imp hadn’t been perfect. If her aim had been just a little to the right, he could have skipped that entire debacle with the mop. “You did fine,” he assured her. “Anything else would’ve been finished after a hit like that. How were you supposed to know?”

But she wasn’t having it. “It was careless. I should be better than that. Del needs me to be better than that.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did great back there.”

They reached the top of the steps and started back down the hallway toward Shondra’s room.

“I can’t believe he’s powerful enough to summon imps and ogres.”

Eric looked over at her.

“How do we fight something like that?”

“Not to be a downer, but don’t forget he also spews fire, is able to mess with Delphinium’s spells and apparently can mutate his imps into bigger, meaner killing machines.”

She scowled back at him. “You’re not really helping.”

“Sorry.”

Suddenly, they were both stopped by the sound of a frail voice calling out, “Eric!”

Eric and Charlotte looked at each other. The voice was that of a man. The only people here who knew his name were women…

“It came from in there,” whispered Charlotte, gesturing to the room they’d just walked past.

Eric turned and peered through the doorway. It was a simple room with just two beds. Only one was occupied. An old man lay sleeping.

No one else was here.

He stepped inside the room and looked around, but he saw nothing that should’ve been able to speak his name.

He looked at Charlotte, but she only shrugged. “That’s Mr. Hamblin,” she told him in a whisper. “He came in yesterday from the retirement home. Mild stroke.”

Eric nodded, but as he turned to leave, the old man said, “You won’t be able to save her.” The voice belonged to Mr. Hamblin, but he’d heard the words before, uttered by another old man, the drunk he dragged from the burning strip club. You won’t be able to save her.

He turned and stared. The man didn’t move. His eyes remained closed. But as he watched, his lips began to move: “It has to be you. The only way.”

He stepped up to the side of the bed. “What do you mean? What do I have to do?”

He didn’t think Mr. Hamblin would say anything else, but he had one more word for him: “Sacrifice.”

Eric felt a chill creep through him. “What sacrifice?”

But the old man had fallen silent again. Somehow, he knew the strange discussion was over.

Charlotte stood beside him, staring at Mr. Hamblin. “You…um…get a lot of ghostly messages like that?”

Eric stared down at the silent old man. “It’s been one of those nights.”

He remembered the woman he encountered while in the grip of the monster in the basement. (Save me!) He still didn’t know who she was, but somehow he was sure that this wasn’t her. She was somewhere else. He had no doubt he would find her in time. Just like he’d answered Delphinium’s plea for help, he’d one day have to seek out the odd-eyed woman. But this was something else. And this had everything to do with this magic man business.

“Sacrifice,” said Charlotte. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Me neither.”

From somewhere farther down the hallway came a commotion. Someone was yelling.

“What’s going on?” asked Charlotte.

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” replied Eric. “Come on.”

The noise was coming from beyond the double doors at the far end of the hall. Shondra Lowe’s room was in the middle of the hallway, nowhere near the disturbance, which was considerably better luck than Eric had been having all night.

When they arrived in the doorway, they found Shondra wide awake and sitting up in bed, her arms wrapped around her daughter. She looked shaken and confused, but she certainly wasn’t at death’s doorstep.

“She just woke up a few minutes ago,” Holly informed them. It seemed that she, like Eric, had awakened from her unnatural sleep as soon as the thing in the basement began to die.

Charlotte hurried to the side of the bed and took one of her hands. “How do you feel?”

“Weak,” she replied. “Thirsty.”

“You saved her, didn’t you?” said Siena, looking from Charlotte to Eric. It was the first words he’d heard her speak. “You found what was hurting her and stopped it.”

Charlotte nodded. “We did.”

“What’s going on?” asked Shondra. “They told me I had pneumonia. But Siena says I’ve been asleep for days. I’ve been having these awful nightmares…”

“It’s okay now,” Charlotte promised. “But we’ve got to go. All of us.”

“Them too?” asked Eric, surprised.

“We can’t leave them,” she insisted.

“She just woke up. Is it even safe to move her?”

“Del can help her,” said Alicia. “Probably better than the doctors here can.”

“But it’s not safe there,” countered Holly. “The magic man…”

“That’s right,” agreed Eric. According to Delphinium, the farmhouse was going to be the center of an epic witch battle in the morning. And morning was rapidly approaching.

Shondra was looking around at them all, confused. “Who are you people?” she asked.

“We’re friends,” Charlotte assured her. “We’re going to help you.” She looked back up at Eric. “I won’t leave them,” she insisted. “They still need us. I can feel it.”

Eric shook his head. “If you say so.” More yelling drifted down the hallway and he turned and looked out the door. “But we’d better hurry. Something’s going on down there.”