The Nimble Man

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The red mist that swirled outside the Ferrick house had its own strange luminescence. A crimson glow came in through the windows and though they were closed, from time to time the house whispered with a breeze, a draft from nowhere, and the candles in the living room flickered and threatened to go out.

Danny did not want the candles to go out. There were very few things he was certain of this night, but that was one of them. Without the candles there would be only that red glow, and he would have to wonder a little harder what was causing it.

He sat on the sofa in the living room with his mother beside him. She clutched his hands for comfort, but he wasn't sure which of them was comforted the most by this contact. It was weird to him. All the shit that he normally cared about — his skateboard, his tunes, his room, the latest video games, even the way he looked in the mirror — it all seemed so small now. What good was that new shirt from Atticus he'd wanted now? Little things had always been part of his mother's stress, too, but she'd always seemed to know the difference. Danny guessed they were both learning more about the big picture now than they ever wanted to.

Together they watched Arthur Conan Doyle pacing the length of the room. The man — the mage, Danny had heard him called — barely seemed to notice them.

From the moment Danny had returned to the house, magically transported here by Ceridwen, Mr. Doyle had been lost to them. Danny had been impressed by the guy in general, but he had not thought very much about the magic he supposedly wielded. Mr. Doyle seemed grim and courageous, but not really very intimidating.

That had changed.

Conan Doyle paced the room with his teeth ferociously clenched, prowling back and forth as though each step was some small victory. His eyes gleamed with dark purple light that coalesced into tears and then evaporated, trailing tendrils of lavender smoke behind him. The jacket Conan Doyle had been wearing was draped over a chair and his sleeves were rolled up. In the moments when he paused at one end of the room to turn and pace the other way, he reached up to run his fingers over his thick mustache. It was a pensive action, the unthinking gesture of a man readying himself for a fight. His whole demeanor, the marching, the rolled-up sleeves, contributed to that image.

He looked mean.

They weren't friends, the Ferricks and Mr. Doyle. They had not known each other long enough to be friends. But they were allies. Even so, Danny would not have interrupted him, even if the hordes of hell were crashing down the door. In the reddish glow from the mist outside and the flicker of the candles, Conan Doyle looked like a demon himself.

But he's not the demon, is he? That'd be me. His pulse quickened.

His mother leaned on him a little. He could sense her fear, practically taste it, and he understood. All she wanted to do was curl up with her baby boy, close her eyes, and pretend that the nightmare world that was seeping in through her windows and under the door, the monsters she had invited into her home, would just go away. But they weren't going to. And her baby boy was one of them.

No matter how she yearned to shut her eyes to what was happening, however, Danny knew she would not. Julia Ferrick was not that kind of woman. The world had thrown some real shit in her path in the last few years, and she had never let it stop her.

His fingers gripped her hand and he gave her a squeeze. "It's going to be all right," he whispered, his voice a rasp, almost menacing, even to his own ears. With the grotesque and malevolent atmosphere that had enveloped the city, he was becoming more of what he was. He knew he should be frightened, but it felt right to him. Even his thoughts were changing. His mind… he felt more adult, in a weird way. Smarter, even. It was more than a little fucked up.

When she glanced at him, there was a storm in her eyes almost as intimidating as the fury in Mr. Doyle's.

"You shouldn't have gone, Danny. You should have stayed here. When I think about where you were… the danger…"

Again his fingers tightened on hers. He narrowed his gaze and cocked his head, wanting to make sure their eyes were locked, that she would not turn away.

"No, Mom. It was the right thing to do. No matter what…" he glanced nervously at Conan Doyle, who had instructed him not to go. "It was the right thing. If I hadn't gone, Ceridwen might never have been able to tell us what Morrigan was up to. And besides…"

He took a breath, then closed his mouth. His tongue brushed against the backs of his jagged teeth. The skin his horns had torn through still itched and flaked, but he resisted the urge to scratch it.

"Besides what?" his mother asked warily.

Danny let out a breath through his nostrils, plumes of hot air as though from a furnace. "It felt good. For the first time, it felt like I was part of something."

Her expression was crestfallen, as though he had just broken her heart. But Danny could not run away from what he was, and neither could his mother.

Mr. Doyle stopped his pacing in the precise center of the room.

Danny and Julia Ferrick stared at him.

"Mrs. Ferrick, I am sorry to have taken advantage of your hospitality in this way. Rest assured, Squire will make an appearance shortly, after which I and my agents will no longer be a burden to you."

The words were simple enough, but Danny didn't like the sound of it. It sounded as though Conan Doyle was going to shut him out of it again. A flutter of anger went through him and another blast of hot air came from his nostrils. It burned coming out, as though he was some dragon-boy, but he doubted that fire-breathing was going to be one of the abilities his demonic nature was going to give him.

"Where are you going?" Danny asked. His mother said nothing. He figured she was just relieved to be quit of Conan Doyle and all of his friends.

Mr. Doyle rolled his sleeves back down and began to button them. He did this as though there were nothing at all in the world that ought to be worrying him at the moment. There was a fussiness about him as he smoothed the fabric and then took his jacket and slid it on again. He truly was a man of another age.

When he glanced up again, that purple glow steamed from the corners of his eyes and another glimpse of his fury flickered across his face.

"Where? To war, of course. To battle. There's nothing to be done for it now. If Eve, Clay, and Dr. Graves succeed, it will be helpful, but even if they do not, we must do our best. No matter the consequences. The alternative is unthinkable."

"The alternative?" Julia Ferrick asked.

Danny glanced at her, squeezed her hand, and nodded at Conan Doyle. "Come on, Mr. Doyle. We've been through enough of this with you. I think we've earned the right to know. Who is The Nimble Man? What's this all about?"

For a long moment, Arthur Conan Doyle peered down his nose at the Ferricks, frustratingly aloof. Danny wanted to hit him, but then he remembered the rage burning just inside the man, and knew he shouldn't push. At length, Conan Doyle's expression faltered and now Danny saw tragedy in his eyes, catastrophe in the twist of his lips.

"I made a mistake," Mr. Doyle said roughly. He cleared his throat and raised his head a bit, meeting their gazes with more assurance. "I made assumptions, you see."

"No. We really don't," Danny told him.

Conan Doyle nodded. "All right. Plain as can be. Morrigan has always been cruel and calculating. She rejoiced at the pain of others and schemed to get what she wanted. This was her nature. Arrogant cruelty, deceit, betrayal.

"When I learned from Ceridwen and her father Finvarra that Morrigan had turned upon her own people, had made a gambit for control of Faerie, I assumed she had simply reached the inevitable point where her spite and jealousy and her lust for power had eliminated what little caution and patience she might have had. Upon her defeat, she came into this world, and I thought all of this was about power, for her. About destruction and bloodlust and the pleasure she receives from others' pain, yes, but mainly about power. Having someone to rule. To subjugate.

"But it wasn't about that at all.

"It's about faith for her. She's a religious fanatic, not a dictator. And that is oh, so much worse."

Danny had been following him, at least for the most part, up until now. He shook his head. "I don't understand. What do you mean?"

Julia Ferrick sat a bit forward on the sofa, peering at Mr. Doyle with keen interest. "This Nimble Man. She worships him? He's… some kind of god?"

Mr. Doyle smiled at her as though he had seen her in a new light, and his expression revealed a newfound respect. Danny found himself oddly proud of his mother.

"Precisely," Conan Doyle said. "Or near enough. The myths of heaven and hell speak of the Fir Chlis, the angels who rose up against the Creator. They were defeated and banished, cast out of heaven and forced to build a new order for themselves in damnation.

"All but one. None of the myths record the name of this once-angel. They refer to him only as The Nimble Man. Somehow he escaped the full brunt of the Creator's wrath, but though he avoided hell, he could not return to heaven. He became trapped in stasis in the ether between those realms. Neither of heaven nor hell, he nevertheless could see both, could hear and sense them. He had the gifts of the Creator, and the fires of hell at his command, but also the desires of the damned, and the guilt of the sinful. Emotion shredded his mind.

"I've been misreading this situation all along. The omens and portents we've seen have been happening as harbingers his arrival. The Nimble Man has the powers of heaven and hell at his command, but he is utterly and completely insane. And Morrigan is trying to bring him to Earth."

Red mist had started to gather inside the museum, seeping in through broken windows and shattered doors. Clay raced through the museum with an ancient battle axe in his hand, hopes and suppositions coalescing in his mind. The dead had not deviated much from their purpose here, and so most of the exhibits and corridors were untouched. He ignored those undisturbed places. But where there were broken display cases or other traces of the passing of the dead, he paused to look around.

But he did not pause for long. He had an idea that he would find what he searched for back in the grand entry hall of the museum. Behind him, he heard Eve and Graves coming along. There were still some of the walking dead in the gift shop, of all places. Clay thought that perhaps they had gotten themselves stuck in the aisles or in a corner and were confused, like rats in a maze.

The dead could not think clearly. Their minds were muddled, their souls numbed by being forced back into flesh that was rotting. They were able to understand Morrigan's commands — go to the museum, retrieve the Eye of Eogain, and return to her — but little more than that. And some of them could not even retain that much thought.

As he raced into the grand hall he heard shouting.

"No! Get away from me!"

Beneath the final few steps of a circular stairwell that went up to the second floor, a night watchman had tucked himself away, hiding from the dead. Six or seven of the shambling dead, these so rotten that bits of flesh flaked off of them as they moved, had begun to encircle him. Their bodies were too far gone, their minds too desiccated, for Morrigan to continue to control them. Now they fell into the instinct of the walking dead, the hatred of the living, the hunger for supple flesh and hot blood, for life.

Even as Clay raised his battle axe and rushed across the room, one of the dead fell to its knees and tried to reach beneath the steps. Its skeletal fingers clawed the watchman's navy blue uniform pants and the man began to shriek, kicking out with both feet. Black shoes cracked dead fingers, and when the watchman saw this, he began to curse loudly again, fear replaced by fury. He slid out a little, landing a solid kick in the zombie's face that collapsed its skull like papier mache. But now that the man had moved, the others were able to get hold of his legs, and they began to drag him out.

"This is becoming tiresome," Clay muttered to himself.

With all of the zombies on the ground, trying to grab at the watchman, he waded into them, kicking and stomping. The axe was idle in his hand as he crushed the spine of the nearest creature. He swung his heavy boot and kicked the head off of a second. Clay stomped another skull to powder, but by then they were rising and he stood back, brandishing the axe.

"Oh, my Lord," the watchman whispered as Clay went at the withered corpse of a woman in a blue cocktail dress, hacking off her head. "Is this real? Is it the End Times? I… I thought I'd be saved. I've been faithful."

The axe fell, cleaving a skull in two, then Clay swung it low and cut the corpse of a uniformed soldier in half at the midsection.

"Good for you," Clay said.

He finished off the last of the zombies in the museum, their moldering corpses sliding to the ground with the thunk of bone and the rustle of autumn leaves. One of them continued to moan, its voice like storm winds raging outside a lonely cottage. Clay stamped a foot upon its head, cutting off the eerie sound, and freeing the soul within.

The watchman flinched when he looked up.

Clay raised both hands, including the one with the axe. "I just saved your life, friend. A little gratitude."

The man's jaw dropped and he nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Th-thank you so much. But… you didn't answer me. Is this it? The End Times?"

The shapeshifter studied the man for a moment and then shook his head. "Not if I have anything to say about it. Look, you couldn't have been the only one on duty."

The watchman shook his head. He pulled himself out of his hiding place and stood. With a shaky hand he pointed into the darkness on the far side of the massive hall. Clay frowned as he followed the man's trembling finger. Sprawled on the floor beside a statue of a man and a woman locked in a romantic embrace, with a child seated at their feet, was another figure. This one was as unmoving as those in the statue, but it was flesh, not stone.

"Hank, you idiot," the watchman whispered, grief in his voice. "You idiot."

"What happened?" Clay asked, studying the man intently. "Tell me exactly what happened."

The watchman was not a small man, but he trembled as he spoke, and he shook his head, still not quite believing what he had just survived.

"We… we were trapped in here. With that fog and the power out and, well, we were arguing. He didn't want to leave his post. I wanted to go home, be with my wife, if this was really it. When we saw… when we saw them coming…" His eyes went wide and he laughed, more than a little hysterical. "Zombies! When we saw them coming, we hid behind the counter."

Clay glanced over. It was a long marble counter where visitors could get information and buy tickets. He had passed it on his way in. The watchmen must have been hiding behind it even then. If he had known…

"It got quiet for a bit, but I made Hank sit tight. Then… we heard them coming out. The moaning, the sounds they made, I felt like I couldn't breathe just listening to them. But Hank, he had to look, had to raise his head, see what they were up to. Idiot.

"'Dave,' he says, 'I think they're stealing something.' And he starts to get up! Can you believe that? He starts to get up. I drag him back down, practically wetting myself. I'm a good Christian. I never thought I'd still be here when the Beast took hold of the Earth. 'Who cares?' I say. 'Let 'em take whatever they want! These are the Last Days.' But Hank's not going for that. His eyes got all crazy. He always took the job too seriously, like it was an honor, working here, like the exhibits were the Shroud of Turin. He loved all this stuff. He started shaking, just out of control, and then he was gone before I could stop him. At first there were only five or six of them, and maybe he thought he could take them, they didn't look real fast. He grabbed the nightstick off his belt and went in swinging.

"The fool."

Clay nodded, putting it all together. Time was wasting. He couldn't spare another minute with the watchman. Not if he was going to stop Morrigan from getting the Eye. He grabbed the watchman by the wrist and pulled him toward his friend's corpse, but when the man held back, not wanting to see what had become of his friend, Clay relented and continued on his own.

Hank had been torn apart. His nightstick was fifteen feet away, droplets of blood all around it. The dead man had been eviscerated. He was so badly damaged that he would not be coming back from the dead. If Clay looked closely enough he knew he would find that there were things, organs, missing. Eaten by the dead. But he did not care to investigate. He turned quickly back to the survivor.

"The thing that the dead were taking. What was it?"

The man looked as though he might collapse at any moment. His flesh was as pale as that of the dead. "That's the thing. It was a head. This preserved thing, from a bog. I don't… I don't know more than that. Hank could have told you. He knew every piece in every exhibit. Lord, he loved this place."

"Yes," Clay whispered, and he knelt by the ravaged corpse and put his hand on the man's chest. He twitched several times and his eyes fluttered and for just a moment his features might have blurred.

"Hey!" the watchman called. "Hey, what are you doing to him? He's dead! He's — "

His words stopped short. Clay assumed it was because he had just remembered the battle axe, and what it was capable of.

When Clay stood, he could see a trail of ectoplasm, a pale stream of spirit energy, a tendril of smoke that extruded from the body of the dead man, off into the darkness on the far side of the museum. The zombies who had killed this man were also the ones who had the Eye of Eogain. And the trail of ectoplasm that linked a corpse to its killer would lead Clay right to them.

"Stay here," Clay told the watchman. "I doubt they'll be back, but it's not safe outside. Stay until the mist is gone."

"Or until the devil calls my name," the watchman muttered.

Clay shook his head. "It's not the end, my friend. Just a taste of it. A sneak preview. You just stay here until it's over."

"How long do you think that'll be?" the man ventured, his moment of swagger gone and his horror and grief returning.

"Hours. A day. If not by then, then maybe never."

The watchman stared at him. Obviously the man had been expecting some words of comfort. But Clay had none to give.

Axe gripped tightly in his hand he plunged into the shadows of that grand entry hall, heading off into the far corner, away from the front doors, following the tendril of ectoplasm as though it were a leash at the end of which he would find his goal. At a wall the trail turned left, and ahead he saw damp, luminescent crimson mist clouding inside, rising up toward the high ceiling. There were tall windows there. Shattered.

Shattered outward. The soul-tether led him out through the broken windows, glass crunching under his boots.

An instant later, there were no boots. In the space between one footfall and another, he dropped to all fours and his hands and feet had become massive paws. His flesh flowed, bones shifted, and now his head was heavy and he shook his lion's mane as he raced after Morrigan's undead servants.

Clay threw back his head, felt his chest expand, and he roared, the sound echoing off the faces of buildings and sliding through the bloody fog. He roared a second time and a third, and then he paused to glance back at the museum.

The ghost of Dr. Graves appeared in the red mist beside him as though grown from the darkness. Graves stared at him, nodding in approval.

"Remarkable," the ghost said.

Clay swung his massive head toward Graves. "Eve?" he growled.

"Coming," Clay replied, pointing to a second floor window.

It exploded outward in a shower of jagged glass and Eve dropped through the air in a neat somersault, legs tucked beneath her. She landed in a crouch beside him.

"You roared?"

"Follow me," Clay growled.

He set off at a run, retaining the lion form. The others did not ask questions. They could not see the soul trail that led him on, but the three of them were allies, now. Amongst them was a sense of purpose. They all knew what was at stake.

"Where did Squire get off to?" Eve asked.

Neither Graves nor Clay responded. The goblin would have to take care of himself, for now. Mr. Doyle had given them an assignment. It was time to fulfill it.

Claws scraping pavement, Clay followed the tendril of ectoplasm around a corner and saw their prey. There might only have been a small number that had left the museum through that shattered window after killing the watchman, Hank, but now there were dozens of them spread out across the road, shambling at different speeds. Some dragged a leg behind them, injured. Others crawled on their bellies, responding to Morrigan's command and unable to stop.

Through the crimson fog they moved, and when the wind blew, Clay could hear their moaning.

In their midst, right at the center of the road, four of the dead were clustered close together. One among them held something in its arms. From behind, Clay could not see what it was, but he could guess.

"Destroy as many as you can. I'll get the Eye."

Eve was preternaturally quick. Faster, even, than a lion. She raced ahead of them, leaped onto the back of a gleaming new BMW, and launched herself into the air. From the scabbard slung across her back she drew her sword, and even as she landed in the midst of a crowd of the dead, she swung the blade. It whistled through the air and the carnage began.

A ghost could move with unreal quickness, stepping through space instead of across it. Dr. Graves appeared instantly amongst the dead. A man in a gray suit walked between a woman in a dark green dress and a small boy, all three of them holding hands. A family.

Graves plunged his fists into their rotting flesh and tore their souls loose, set them free. It was a mercy.

The lion, the shapeshifter whose name sometimes was Clay, bounded toward the quartet of walking dead who were escort to the Eye of Eogain. He drove the first down beneath his weight, cracking its bones. One massive paw lashed out and with a single swipe of his claws he tore away part of the second shambling corpse's spine.

He began to change. But this time he slowed that metamorphosis. It was painful, letting the flesh pause in between forms, bones not set correctly, muscles half-formed. Clay grasped a dead woman by the shoulders and opened huge leonine jaws, then snapped them closed upon her head.

The lion-man spat bits of skull and desiccated brain onto the pavement.

Then he morphed again, and now he was just Clay. Just Joe. Just a piece of the connective tissue of the world, touched by the Creator and attached to the heart of every living thing.

The zombie holding the skull of Eogain continued shambling in the general direction of Beacon Hill, toward Morrigan, as though the carnage around it had not happened at all. Clay reached for its head, clutched it around the neck with one hand, shoved his right hand into its mouth and tore off the top of its head.

Eogain's skull — silver eye glittering in its socket — tumbled toward the ground. Clay caught it before it struck the road. He raised it up and stared at it, saw the symbols engraved in the silver, and wondered what Morrigan would do without it.

"Eve!" he shouted, turning toward her. "I've got it."

But the raven-haired beauty was otherwise engaged. More dead had appeared. They came along the side streets. A manhole burst open and clanged onto the road and several cadaverous figures dragged themselves up from the sewer. Clay stared at them, wondering where they were all coming from.

Morrigan, he thought. She's sensed what we're up to. And she's not giving Eogain's Eye up without a fight.

Dr. Graves and Eve were surrounded, but holding their own. Eve was tearing out their throats, and Graves their souls. But Clay shook his head. There was no way to know how many walking dead Morrigan could bring against them, and he had the Eye. There was no reason to fight.

"Forget them!" Clay called. "Let's go!"

"Good idea!" Eve shouted back at him, tearing open the torso of a dead man. "Where are we going? You've got somewhere there aren't any dead guys?"

Clay looked around, searching for the best route of escape. Even as he did, he saw that he was a target again. At least a dozen of the dead were beginning to encircle him, slowly, as though ruled by one mind. And perhaps they were.

"Hey, big boy!" a familiar voice called.

Squire crawled out from the darkness beneath the BMW fifteen feet away. The goblin looked tired.

"Where the hell have you been, munchkin?" Eve snapped at him.

Squire shot her the middle finger. "Busy. Now, listen. I just shadow-walked back to the Ferricks'. Conan Doyle wants us all to meet up with him in front of the State House, as soon as we can get there."

"Glad to hear it," Clay called, turning round and round, ready to tear into the zombies that surrounded him. "How did you plan to get us there?"

The goblin put his hands on his hips, the ugly, twisted little beast looking almost comical. "The limo's right around the corner, smartass," he said, pointing just up the street. "I've got to get back to Conan Doyle."

And then Squire dove back into the darkest of shadows beneath the BMW, barely avoiding the grasp of a dead girl who could not have been more than eighteen when she breathed her last.

Clay glanced around at the zombies that were closing in on him, clutching the skull of Eogain in one hand.

"Wonderful."

Mr. Doyle buttoned his jacket, smoothed his mustache with fingers crackling with magic, and gazed down his ample nose at Danny Ferrick.

"I think not, Daniel."

Anger flared in the demon-boy's features. His chapped, leathery skin flushed with color and tiny embers burned in eyes turned to charcoal. Then he shook his head and despite his devilish features, Conan Doyle could see the boy in that face again.

"Listen, Mr. Doyle, I know what you're worried about. I know what you think. My mother…" Danny glanced over at Julia, at the woman he had always thought of as his mother, and there was sadness and apology in his gaze. "My mother doesn't want to accept it, but I know what I am. You're not wrong about that.

"But you're wrong about me.

"Maybe my blood is a demon's blood. Maybe I'm not human. But this is my world. This is my house. I'm still Dan Ferrick. I still… I still love my mother, and my friends." He glanced at Julia again, but then he turned his tumultuous eyes upon Conan Doyle.

"I can feel the darkness in me. It's in my head sometimes. And it's in my heart. I laugh at things I shouldn't. Sometimes I want to.. hurt people. But I know it, Mr. Doyle. And I keep it reined in. The darkness. That's got to count for something. I'm not going to let it control me. And if I'm going to be able to fight it, you have to give me the chance to do it for real, not just on the inside. You don't have a clue what it's like to be me. To live now. Yeah, you're alive, but you grew up so long ago you might as well be from Mars for all you know. You know all this stuff about magic and other worlds. Whatever. You don't know much about this one. So you can't know me, or what I've got going on in here." He pounded a fist against his chest.

"I'm not gonna let the darkness win. Not inside, or out. So I need to be part of this. To remind me, all the time, what I'm fighting against."

Mr. Doyle took a long breath and let it out slowly. He pulled his pocket watch out by its chain, glanced at the time, and then slipped it back in. They had to go. There was no more time for discussion.

Julia must have seen it in his face, for she began to shake her head, her breath coming faster, in sharp hitches. "No. Not my boy," she said. Then she turned to her son. "You're wrong, Danny. Maybe part of you is what he says. But there isn't… I won't believe there's some kind of evil in you."

"That's just your mouth talking, Mom," Danny said softly. "You know what's true. I know you do."

The two of them were gazing at one another, Julia's heart breaking, when there was a soft whisper of noise, like the ocean in the distance. It ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but Conan Doyle glanced around, recognizing the sound.

Squire emerged from the shadows beneath the coffee table into the flickering candlelight.

"Brought them the limo, and the message," he reported.

"Thank you, Squire," Conan Doyle said. Then he nodded toward Julia. "Now, if you'll keep Mrs. Ferrick company, young Daniel and I have an appointment to keep."