“So you recognize me in this form?”
“Of course; who else would be walking around in your dead wife’s body?”
Erys turned to Marz, speaking to him as she would a servant. “Make sure Her Majesty isn’t wearing an ivory necklace or bracelet.”
Marz nodded his understanding, motioning to one of his men to search Lady Syra. As the Maladanti reached out to frisk her, the Witch Queen drew herself up to her full height, peering down her nose at him with a glare sharp enough to cut glass. Cowed, the gangster had to satisfy himself with a visual inspection of her wrists and neck.
“She’s clean, Boss.”
Just then the baby started to cry, galvanizing every muscle in my body. I stepped forward, eager to answer his call, only to have Gaza block my way.
“Let me go to him!” I snapped, more command than plea.
Bonzo shrieked and hurled the baby bottle at me, and then began rocking the cradle faster and faster, causing my son’s cries to grow more and more agitated.
“Get that thing away from my child!” I shouted.
“Now, now,” Boss Marz said, clucking his tongue. “Is that any way to talk to your babysitter?”
“You’ll get your brat back, soon enough,” Erys replied, “but not before the abdication decree is signed.” She pointed to the table that had served as a torture rack for Hexe, which now bore an old-fashioned inkstand and blotter, as well as an elaborately calligraphed document written on parchment.
Lady Syra stepped up to the table and took the quill pen from the inkstand and stabbed her forefinger with its sharpened tip, using the blood for her signature, and then helped Hexe by pricking his thumb with the same quill. Hexe’s left hand signature, while nowhere as neat as his old one, was at least legible.
The moment Hexe finished signing his name, I headed for the cradle. Bonzo refused to surrender his perch, and bared his teeth at me. But I refused to back down.
“Get away from my baby, you stupid monkey!”
“Let her have it,” Boss Marz sighed, waving the familiar away with a beringed hand. “Maybe now the damned thing will stop crying.”
The baby was beet red in the face, his eyes screwed shut, and his toothless mouth open wide as he voiced his fear and displeasure to the world, but seemed otherwise unharmed. As I lifted him from the cradle, his shrieks turned into whimpers. It was all I could do to keep from crying along with him as I cradled him in my arms. The terror I had felt from the moment he was taken from me instantly disappeared, but the dread I felt for our lives was still there. I hurried back to Hexe, who pulled us both into the circle of his arms and held us fast.
“Finally!” Boss Marz exclaimed in relief. “I thought it would never stop caterwauling.”
“Place the Royal Seal upon it, and it shall be official,” Erys said as she dripped black sealing wax onto the bottom of the parchment.
As Lady Syra drove her signet ring into the wax, the ring abruptly dropped from her finger, as if it had suddenly grown too big to stay on. Erys quickly snatched up the piece of jewelry, holding it up like a trophy.
“There. It is done,” Syra said in a flat voice. “You’ve got what you wanted. Now let me and my family go.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Syra,” Erys replied with a cold-blooded smile. “This piece of paper is meaningless, as long as my corporeal form remains trapped in another dimension. But, thanks to you and your family, I won’t be there for much longer.” She pointed to a huge, shrouded object at the far end of the warehouse. With a snap of her fingers, the canvas covering fell away, revealing a gigantic stone portal, standing twelve feet high with a lintel fifteen feet long, covered in occult petroglyphs.
“As you see, I have prepared a means of returning not only my corporeal self to this dimension, but for bringing along a host of new friends in the bargain.” Erys then turned and bowed in my direction. “As much as it pains me to do so, nump, I must thank you for consigning me to the Infernal Region. If not for you, I would never have found allies bold enough to embrace my vision of returning the Kymeran race to power by overthrowing humanity. They were even kind enough to teach me the finer points of possession!
“Manipulating homunculi was one thing—but to pierce the barrier between this world and the Infernal Realm by sheer force of will is another matter entirely. Luckily, I knew where to find the perfect vessel for my disembodied spirit—one that would not put up a fight when I moved in.” Erys said, gesturing to her body as if it was nothing more than a suit of clothes. “Besides, it is only fitting that my beloved Nina’s flesh should play a role in the destruction of the human society that robbed her of her future.”
“So what is the Maladanti’s reward for helping you bring this mad dream of yours to fruition?” Hexe asked dourly.
“We will be Golgotham’s new police force, replacing the PTU,” Boss Marz replied with a broad smile. “We will be a scourge to all who would defy the Witch King, regardless of how many fingers they possess.”
“So, it was Esau’s plan to smash my right hand with the witch-hammer.”
“I wish I could claim such ingenuity!” Erys laughed. “Marz came up with that plan all on his own. But I must say, the idea of destroying the one thing you held in highest regard—your Right Hand magic—was absolute genius.”
“Thank you, Lord Esau,” Boss Marz said humbly. “That means a lot, coming from you.”
“I believe in giving credit where credit is due. In fact, you inspired me to use my Infernal allies to locate the Gauntlet of Nydd. I knew Hexe would do whatever it took to regain his dexterity—his pride in his Right Hand magic was his weakness. I’ve studied General Vlad’s spell books for decades, so it wasn’t that difficult to weave one of my own into the existing enchantment and pass it off as the real thing. The chance to dance my fool of a nephew around like a puppet on a string was too good to pass up.
“I hoped to use the gauntlet to strip him of all he held dear—his friendships, his reputation, and his family. He thinks he’s so much better than the rest of us, blathering on about the Right Hand path and how Kymerans should stop bartering in curses. I wanted to bring him to such despair that he would finally recognize the Right Hand path for the foolishness it is—and then break him like a bundle of dry sticks across my knee.”
“You did all that just to torment my son?” Syra scowled. “Your own flesh and blood?”
“Whatever kinship I felt for your half-caste bastard disappeared when he took up with that nump bitch,” Erys snarled. “He’s nothing more than a race-traitor—and now he has completed the disgrace to our bloodline by siring that five-fingered freak! The birth of such an abomination is sign that the time has come for a second Unholy War.”
As if to illustrate her point, Erys aimed her left hand at the portal, contorting all six of her fingers at such angles that they looked as if they’d been broken and pulled out of joint. A lightning bolt of purplish-black energy leapt from her hand and struck the lintel stone, causing the inscribed sigils to glow with dark energy. A red mist began to form within the stone doorway as the membrane between this world and the Infernal Region thinned itself.
There were movements in the dim red fog that filled the portal’s threshold, and vague shapes began to emerge, gradually becoming more distinct. I saw what looked like an army, lined up and girded for war. What little I was able to glimpse of the waiting hordes was so appalling I shuddered in revulsion and horror.
At the front of the Infernal legions stood four foot soldiers—if masses of human entrails given form and movement could be called such things—upon whose slimy shoulders a funeral bier was balanced. Although I could not see its occupant, I knew the body the frightful creatures carried was the corporeal form of Esau.