The casket flew open in Toby's hands, spraying jewels, jars, scrolls, chalk, string, and sealing wax in all directions. Seeing a flash of purple, he grabbed for the amethyst. The ladder was ablaze, with flames roaring up through the hatch as if it were a chimney. There wasn't much left of Lady Valda. To be more exact, Lady Valda was everywhere.
"Hamish," Toby said hoarsely, scrambling to his feet, "let's get out of here!"
Where was Hamish? Standing up had been a mistake. There was nothing to breathe up there, only hot smoke. Toby crouched down again, rubbing his eyes, choking. There was precious little air even at floor level. Hamish was flat on his face, coughing feebly, barely conscious. Toby scrabbled across to him, hauled him over his shoulder, and turned for the door.
Oswood blocked the doorway.
The chair and table and even the walls were a crackling inferno. Barely visible through the suffocating smoke, the demon was a flicker of blades and hatred, claws and facets. It made no move to advance — it would rather gloat as the mortals choked or burned to death.
Crouching low to find air, Toby surveyed his options. He didn't seem to have any.
Suffocation was probably the best way out of this. He wasn't quite ready to die, though. Hampered by Hamish's dead weight, he reached for the metal casket, grasped it by its lid, and hurled it underhand. It passed clean through the demon and crashed into the apothecary's counter with a sound of shattering glass. He grabbed the next available missile and discovered that it was one of Lady Valda's arms. With a yell of horror, he threw that also. It did no more good. His eyes were streaming tears and his chest labored for air. In seconds the whole room would explode in flame. To linger was death; to approach the monster was suicide.
He groped for something else to throw, and his hand touched Krygon's corpse. Demon sword! Through his stupefied wits ran the words of Father Lachlan: "They are supposed to possess powers against demons."
The flames glinted on the yellow jewel in the pommel of the dagger. It was more of a dirk than a sword, but it had slain a demon. He transferred Hamish to his left shoulder and tugged the dagger from Krygon's corpse. As he raised it and aimed it at the demon, the hilt shivered in his hand. The blade lit up with a weird greenish light. It grew longer, a shining, fiery sword. Aha!
Holding the weapon at arm's length before him, steadying Hamish over his shoulder, he charged forward in a crouch. The demon flamed in fury and vanished out of his path. He reeled through the doorway, into the apothecary's shop. Ahead was daylight, the square of the window barely visible through smoke. He straightened, swung around just in time to catch the glowing monster coming at him, flailing claws and edges. With a stamp of his foot, he lunged as Gavin the Grim had taught him to use a rapier, although Gavin had never explained how a swordsman should transfer his weight when carrying a man over his left shoulder, or outlined the correct technique for wielding a shaft of green light against a shimmer of blue — perhaps a saber cut would be a better maneuver.
The lunge proved adequate. Weapon and victim were as insubstantial as moonbeams, and yet Toby felt the impact as if he had thrust a real sword into real flesh. The demon screamed an impossibly high note and recoiled, flailing flashes. He kicked the door closed on it and stumbled back against the counter. There was still only smoke to breathe. Hamish moaned, starting to struggle and protest that he was all right. Toby backed across the room, then set him down as gently as he could to leave a hand free for the door. There was no sign of the demon pursuing, but he did not think he had killed it — wounded it, perhaps, if demons could be wounded.
CHAPTER SIX
The fog was thicker than ever, a great heap of white wool filling the street, but the air was clear and fresh, smelling of the sea. Astonishingly, the city was still waking to the new day — like the nightmare it already resembled, the whole Valda episode had not lasted nearly as long as it had seemed to. Stores were opening for business, workers hurrying to their labors. Wagons rumbled along the street, entering and leaving the burgh; gulls shrieked unseen overhead. No one paid any heed to the two choking, weeping vagrants who emerged from the apothecary's to catch their breath in the cool damp.
They were blood-spattered and smoke-stained. Shaking with reaction, Toby rearranged his plaid, wondering how a kid like Hamish had managed to hang onto his sanity at all. The dagger was no longer a shining sword of green light, only a fancy dirk with a yellow jewel, but it was one more thing to make him conspicuous, and he tucked it out of sight in the folds at his waist.
He glanced up at the building. The fire was not showing yet, but the roof must burn through very soon. The absence of a rear window meant there was probably another house hard against it at the back, and there certainly was at the side — a larger, taller structure. He had started a fire in a wooden town; he had loosed a demon.
Rory had told him he was just a walking disaster.
Hamish had his feet on the ground, and was leaning on the wall, trying to smile between spasms of coughing. "Gotta get outta here!"
"Can't! There's a fire!… and a demon!"
"Oh, no!" Hamish rolled cherry-red eyes. "You gather a crowd, you'll be recognized! Every able-bodied man gets rounded up for firefighting. There's a price on your head…" He pushed himself upright and staggered.
"I can't leave a demon loose! I can't let innocent men try to fight a fire with a demon in it."
"What can you do?" The boyish voice became shrill with urgency. "Let the tutelary deal with it!"
"The tutelary's busy, Valda said. I've got a demon sword, thanks to you." Toby pulled out the dagger again and looked at it doubtfully. The blade was shiny clean; Krygon's blood must have burned away.
"Me? What'd I do?" Hamish was convulsed with more coughing. His always-dark face was black as a moor's from the smoke.
"You saved my life, friend! Tell me how these things work."
The roar of the fire was audible now, and a red glow showed through the window. A band of men was coming along the road from the country, heading for town. They moved like ghosts in the fog, but they must see the fire in a moment. They would smell it — why had no one raised the alarm by now?
"Me tell you?" Hamish wailed. "I don't know! Nobody knows. You big idiot, you mustn't hang around here. This is suicide! Come on!"
"There's no other way out of this building, but I suppose a demon doesn't need doors."
"It could be a league away by now! Why would it stay around? Toby — you're the one who's going to get impaled. Move!"
In the adjoining house, someone screamed. The sound came through an open shutter upstairs, but whether it was a man or a woman screaming, Toby could not tell. Nor could he guess whether the screamer had merely detected the fire or Oswood had left the burning building and entered the other.
As he moved to look in the direction of the sound, the blade in his hand flashed green. He waved it, and it flashed again. Another scream… When he aimed the dagger at the noise, it became the glowing demon sword. Again the hilt quivered in his hand, eager to find its destined prey. That way! it was telling him. The men solidified out of the fog, shouting questions, running to investigate the screams.
"Run!" shouted Hamish.
"Go find Father Lachlan!" Toby snapped. "If you can't find him, tell the tutelary — if it's willing to listen." He gave Hamish a push and sent him staggering off along the narrow street.