"Hey, wait a minute!" I yelled after them. "We can get there much faster if ... nerts!" I was talking to an empty door frame. I turned back to Frisson. "Quick! A new verse!"
"An old one!" Frisson flipped, pulled, and handed it to me.
"Cherchez la femme!"
I took the parchment and read the verse.
For some reason, the words held my attention more strongly than they ever had - this in spite of the frantic crawling fear I had for Angelique. Somehow, I knew she was in greater peril now than she had been since the day she had died - but my gaze was riveted to the paper, holding each word as I read it in a savage contrast of blackest black and whitest white. I couldn't have torn my gaze away until I finished chanting it. Then I could, and I did.
Frisson was beside me. We were in a very large room with curving walls - another laboratory, one far more elaborate than the first - and there was Angelique's corpse, stretched out on a table, with the little pink flask beside her rib cage and Suettay bending low over her, hands outspread and moving in strange patterns as she chanted slowly in a deep, heavy tone.
Her real laboratory! In a flash, I understood. The other one had only been stage dressing, a trap to catch me - and I had walked right into it!
Fortunately, so had Matt and his friends.
Suettay's mumblings were making the air dark with gathering magical force. I could feel tremendous power brewing all about me; it made my hair stand on end in more ways than one. It didn't take much thinking to figure out what she was doing - pushing Angelique's soul back into her body, but this time, without any chance of escaping. The instruments of torture stood ready at hand, along with a long, curving knife.
She was going to sacrifice Angelique all over again!
I snapped out of my daze. If ever I'd needed help, it was now!
But Frisson had beaten me to it. He was already chanting.
Just as he finished, so did Suettay.
The magic field seemed to implode with a soundless concussion that staggered both Frisson and me - and the bottle turned clear, the corpse's eyes fluttered!
"Why!" I shouted at Suettay. "With a battle raging about you and a kingdom falling - why stop to torment this one poor girl?"
"Because only thus may I snatch victory from the jaws of disaster!" Suettay glared at me, a finger spearing out toward my heart fortunately, ten feet away. "Even now, when I complete the ceremony, he will grant me power sufficient to hurl you all to perdition! Beware!"
She raised the knife. I shouted, and would have leapt at her - but just then, Angelique sat up as far as her bonds would allow, blinking about her, bemused - and I caught my breath. Even battered and bruised, her face was so lovely that it held me spellbound. Oh, it was the same face that I'd been seeing all along - but it was real now, made of flesh and bone, and vivid in a way her ghost never had been, even in the darkest night.
Suettay screamed with triumph, snapping the knife up high in her right hand, the left pressing Angelique back down as her scream turned into a stream of syllables that I couldn't understand, and the knife swept down ...
Behind me, a voice snapped, "Max! Destroy that knife with a sudden case of metal fatigue!"
The dot of arc light shot over to the knife, touched it - and as it slammed into Angelique's ribs, it turned to dust!
Suettay screamed in rage and frustration. She swatted at the arc light, catching it in a fist - and screamed as the spark tore through the flesh, shooting out to hover in front of her, spitting, "Foolish mortal!"
Beside me, Frisson was chanting,
Suettay screamed in rage and frustration.
The air glittered; then Friar Ignatius was there, stumbling and reaching out to brace himself against the lab table.
Suettay took one look at him and screamed again.
Sir Guy and Gilbert leapt from behind me to opposite sides of the table, grabbing Suettay by the arms and shoving her back against the wall. She shrieked in rage, then shouted a verse, and a million bits of steel appeared, hovering over her-darts, to hurl at both knight and squire!
But Matt stepped up beside me, chanting,
The bright field split and started to swoop toward knight and squire - and disappeared.
Suettay shrieked another verse, hands twisting, fingers writhing, and Gilbert and Sir Guy cried out, letting go of her and frantically trying to loosen their armor, which began to glow with heat. Freed, stretching her arms, the witch crowed with triumph, - but the tall blonde knight stepped up, slamming her back against the wall and pinioning her wrists, as Frisson yelled,
Sir Guy and Gilbert groaned with relief and stepped up to help the blonde knight.
Suettay was on the ropes and she knew it. She screamed another verse, in anguish ...
And something exploded in the middle of the laboratory. The cloud of reeking smoke shrank in on itself, and a huge devil stood there, hurling hot coals at the knights, leveling a giant pitchfork, and bellowing, "As you have called, my master sends me! Get hence, feeble mortals! Do not impede this emissary of the King of Evil!"
The knights turned as pale as Angelique's ghost and ducked flying coals, but they stood firm, the blonde crying, "You have no power over us, minion of evil! Get hence!"
Suettay screamed, thrashing in their hold.
The devil growled and advanced, lifting his pitchfork.
"Angel!" I cried. "If ever you wanted to interfere, now is the time! Appear! Help! Please!"
"I thought you would never ask, man."
I stared. It was my angel, all right - I recognized the basic face, the glow, and the wings - but he was dressed in a chambray shirt, blue jeans, and boots. He had always had long hair, of course, but now he had a beard, too.
Matt darted a quick, incredulous look at me. I spread my hands and shrugged.
The hippie-angel grinned, holding up a palm. "Get back where you came from, pestiferous porter! Go back to Hellmouth, and don't ever come up here again!"
The devil bellowed in rage, turning its pitchfork toward the angel and hurling - but the points bounced off the angel's palm, and the devil convulsed in sudden agony, screaming incoherently as he faded away. Suettay cried out, loud and long, but it was a howl of despair.
"Even now, there is salvation for you." Friar Ignatius stepped up, reaching out to her.
The angel turned toward them, beaming-literally. His light spread out a ray toward the witch-queen, but she turned and hissed at him, and the ray hovered just short of her.