Chapter Forty-Nine

 

 

TED BURNETT, NEWLY returned to a normal state of mind, blinked rapidly and looked around the room. His gaze took in the three scientists lying on the floor in pools of their own blood. One, Hans Westin, had mercifully bled out and expired. The other two looked as if they might have gone into shock.

Burnett finished his survey of the room, and turned to the two women. You!”He pointed an angry index finger at Libby. “I know you—I’ve seen your picture. You’re Chastain, the witch!”

The exorcism ritual had left Libby exhausted, but she managed a tired smile. “That I am—none other.”

He looked at Ashley. “And you—who the fuck are you?”

“Nobody you want to know,” she said evenly, and then with more snap in her voice, “And nobody you want to talk to in that tone, asshole.”

Burnett stared at her for a moment longer before turning his rage back on Libby. “You! Witch! You fucked up my project, didn’t you!You fucked me, you bitch!”

Libby was too tired to get angry. “I’m the one who just freed you from demonic possession, that’s who I am,” she said, as if she just wanted the conversation to be over.

With an inarticulate cry of rage, Burnett reached under his jacket and produced a Sig Sauer automatic—the same weapon the demon had made him use on his associates—which he pointed at Libby.

Libby had magical defenses against that sort of thing, but she was caught flatfooted. She could only stare as Burnett raised the gun and thumbed back the hammer. “You fucking bitch!” he screamed.

Ashley, however, was not noticeably drained by taking part in the exorcism spell, and she was not about to let this moron kill Libby. She had a variety of responses at her disposal, some almost merciful. But Ashley was in a bad mood.

That’s why she used fire.

She said a word in a language no human would understand, and made a quick throwing motion toward Burnett. Although her hand was empty, a ball of fire the size of a basketball suddenly appeared in the air, moving very fast.

The fire caught Burnett right in the chest, and began to spread rapidly. He dropped the pistol and fell to the floor, shrieking in agony.

A moment later Mal Peters hurried in, carrying a mid-size suitcase. He had just finished dragging the unconscious CIA guards around to the rear of the building, out of sight. Although there were no private homes in this block, somebody living farther away might had heard the explosion as the power pole was knocked down. There was the chance that a police car would cruise the area for a while, looking for damage or casualties. Finding none, they would eventually report the call as a false alarm and go on to other tasks.

Now, seeing the burning form on the floor that was the source of the screaming, Peters put his suitcase down and walked rapidly toward him, pulling the newly-replaced Kimber automatic from behind his back. Without looking toward her, he said, “Ashley, you promised you were going to stop doing shit like this.” Then he shot Burnett twice in the head.

“You’re always such a spoil-sport,” Ashley said, but not like she meant it.

Peters walked over to the closest of the gut-shot scientist, who was lying in a slowly-expanding pool of his own blood. Peters looked at him for a few seconds, and then fired a round into the man’s head. Then he went to the other surviving scientist and did the same thing.

Noticing Libby’s expression he said, reasonably, “What else were we gonna do? Call 911 and wait for the cops? From the looks of those two guys, they probably wouldn’t have lasted long enough to reach the hospital, anyway.”

Looking at the Kimber in his hand, he muttered, “I can never hang on to one of these, anymore.”He wiped the pistol down until he was sure it was clean of his prints, then carefully wrapped Burnett’s dead hand around the grip. Picking up the CIA man’s Sig Sauer, he said, “Nice gun,” lowered the hammer, and placed it in his belt at the small of his back.

Peters then went over to where he’d left the suitcase.

“Okay, I’ve got enough Semtex here to level this place and everything inside it,” he said. “Probably without much damage to the adjoining buildings, too. I just have to find the right spots to place it.”

He turned to Morris. “Help me out here, Quincey?”

“Sure. I might as well make some contribution to the proceedings.”Morris smiled when he said it, though.

Libby looked at him. “I’d say you’ve done pretty damn good already, cowboy.”

“Once Quincey and I are all done,” Peters said, “I’ll set the timers for ten minutes—plenty long enough for all of us to get clear of the area before the fireworks start. We’ll meet you ladies at the car in a little while, okay?”

Ashley took Libby’s arm. “Come on, girlfriend—we’ll let the boys play with their toys for a while.”

“I’m not—” Libby stopped without finishing what she was going to say.

“Pardon?” Ashley said.

“Nothing. Never mind. Let’s go wait in the car.”

“Works for me. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Mark Twain in Hell? He used to say the conversation was first-rate.”

Once they were in the back seat of the SUV, however, Ashley didn’t tell the Mark Twain story, assuming there really was one. The two women, the witch and the demon, sat quietly. After a while, Ashley took Libby’s hand.

“Lucifuge Rofocale’s back in Hell by now,” she said. “Strong work with the magic there, by the way.”

“You helped,” Libby said, “much to my pleasant surprise.”

“To paraphrase Martin Luther, I could do no other.”

“Don’t tell me you knew him in Hell.”

“No, never met him. I’m not sure he was even there. He might have made it Upstairs, despite everything the Vatican says.”

“To the relief of Protestants everywhere, no doubt,” Libby said.

“My point is,” Ashley said, “Luther might not be in Hell, but Lucifuge Rofocale most certainly is. And that represents what the guys on your side of the fence might call a ‘mixed blessing.’”

Libby turned and look at her. “Why’s that?”

“He’s back there, and now he knows I’m here. My… transfer to this plane was exactly publicized at the time they did it.”

“Oh,” Libby said quietly. “I see.”

“As the number two guy in Hell, he’s probably got the juice to get me recalled,” Ashley said. “And I can only imagine what he’ll have in store for me once I get back.”

“Oh, my Goddess… Ashley—”

“On the other hand,” she said, as if Libby hadn’t spoken, “there’s a civil war going on down there—or there was, the last I heard. The power structure may be all fucked up. Or it could mean that Lucifuge Rofocale will have more things to think about than petty schemes for revenge—for a while, anyway.”

“So, you’re telling me…”

“That I could be recalled at any point. Five minutes or five hundred years doesn’t make much difference in Hell. There’s no way to know how much time I’ve got, before somebody with enough authority decides to bring me back.”

Libby slid over across the bench seat toward Ashley until their bodies were touching. She put an arm around Ashley’s shoulders and leaned forward.

“Then I suppose,” Libby said softly, “we really ought to make the most of the time we have left.”