I loaded two shells filled with blessed silver pellets, then one of garlic-soaked rock salt, then another double-ought buck, and one more silver for luck. I didn't pay attention towhat Karl picked.
Once we reached the chain link fence at the dam's entrance, I saw that the gate was secured with a chain and a big Yale padlock. Maybe Sligo had come in the long way; or it could be he just floated over it.
A shotgun blast would take care of the lock, but I didn't want to announce that we were here until I had to. I looked at Vollman and said, barely above a whisper, "Can you...?"
The old vampire nodded, took hold of the lock, and said something under his breath. It sprang open, and I watched him remove and toss it aside. I was sure glad he was willing to expend the energy.
The three of us began the short walk along the top of the dam to the pump house. Ahead, I could see light coming from behind the two windows, brightly illuminating the cracks of the tightly closed shutters.
I kept waiting for all hell to break loose, although I had no idea what form it might take – alarms, devil bats, automatic weapons fire – who knew what kind of shit Sligo might have prepared?
With every step I heard from my guts, which were caring on an ongoing monologue with my conscious mind. This is a bad idea, Stan. We could die here, Stan. Get us out of here, Stan – before it's too late.
I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Call me brave, optimistic, or stupid. I was leaning toward the third explanation, myself.
Nothing happened. I didn't know if Sligo was indifferent or careless, but for most of the short walk all we heard was the chuckling of water in the dam and a few night birds in the trees behind us.
Then inside the pump house a woman started screaming, and suddenly I was running.
Karl was only a couple of steps behind me when I reached the door. As I'd figured, it was steel. I tried the knob, in case Sligo was really confident, but it seemed he'd at least locked the door.
I backed up as far as I could, looked at Karl and pointed at the lower hinge. Then I said, "On three," and took careful aim at the upper one. Inside, the screaming continued.
Part of my brain was wondering if I was going to get a face full of ricocheted buckshot as I said, "One, two–"
The two shots melded into one big boom. The hinge I'd fired at was in pieces, and a quick glance showed me that Karl's was, too. The metal itself had buckled around the impact areas.
I grabbed the edge of the door where it was protruding and yanked, hard as I could. That pulled it loose from the frame a little. Then Karl got a grip further down, and together we tore that thing free and slammed it to the concrete at our feet with a clang that I could feel more than hear, since I was temporarily deaf from the shotgun blasts.
As soon as the door came down I became almost blind, as well as deaf. My God, it was bright in there, and my eyes were still adjusted to the semi-dark of outside. But if I stayed put, I was a dead man, so I dived at an angle where I hoped the doorway was, rolled, and came up on one knee – which hurt a lot more than it used to. I felt more than saw Karl do something similar in the other direction.
If Sligo threw any magic at us in the next few seconds, we'd never know it until too late. But either Vollman was on top of his game, or Sligo wasn't, since nothing came our way as my eyes adjusted. Now I could see that the glaring light came from at least a dozen glowing globes hanging from the ceiling, supplemented by several portable spotlights whose glare bounced off the walls and ceiling every which way. Sligo must have installed all of this; I was pretty sure it wasn't part of the original pump house blueprinte'd at l>
I didn't take time to gawk around, but your eyes can take in a lot of information really fast, especially if you're as keyed up as I was. As I scanned the room in search of something to kill, I was dimly aware that the usual spellcasting paraphernalia was all over the place: incense burners, gongs of different sizes, tall candles in metal holders, the whole nine yards. But the real show was up front.
The building seemed at least twice as big as you'd think from looking at the outside, which I assumed was more of Sligo's magic. At the far end of the room, three long tables were set up, forming an open rectangle with the open end facing the back wall. They were covered with cloths of black and red with arcane symbols woven into them, and on top of those were all the tools and toys the modern occultist can't seem to do without: bowls, flagons, more candles, knives, and so forth. But you could tell the middle table was special. That was where he'd placed, in an ornate brass holder, a thick, oldlooking book with a cracked leather cover.
Looked like I'd found the Opus Mago at last.
Taking in all that took only a few seconds, and then my attention was riveted to what was dangling from the ceiling. Or rather, who.
A length of chain was suspended over the middle of the open rectangle, tied around a rafter. From the chain hung, head down, the nude, bleeding form of a woman. Her legs were tied at ankles and knees with rope that sparkled in the light, as if shot through with some kind of metal filings. The same stuff had been used to bind her wrists, and a length of it ran from there to attach tightly to a ring affixed into the stone floor.
The woman had fallen silent when Karl and I burst in, but it wasn't hard to figure why she'd been screaming. She looked to be bleeding from three points, in a line between her groin and breasts. The wounds were three symbols carved into her body, probably by the silver-bladed knife in the hand of the man who stood nearby. He was giving Karl and me the kind of look that most men reserve for Jehovah's Witnesses who show up during the Super Bowl.
I assumed the man was the one I'd started calling the Evil Wizard Sligo. But the woman I knew for certain: it was Christine.
I brought the shotgun up to aim, but Sligo took two fast steps sideways that put Christine's body between him and my gun barrel, using her as a shield. Well, nobody said that Evil Wizards have to be brave. Off to my left, I saw Karl moving forward slowly and at an angle, probably maneuvering for a clear shot. I shuffled to the right, with the same idea in mind.
Then Sligo shouted a couple of words in a language I didn't recognize and brought enough of himself out from behind Christine to make a quick throwing motion in my direction, before ducking back.
Motherfucker throws like a girl.
But I guess form doesn't count for much in magic, because an orb of fire about the size of a beach ball appeared in midair, moving fast and coming right at me. I had just enough time to realize that I was about to die when the fireball dissolved into nothing, about twenty feet from me.