The Nimble Man

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Eve drove wildly down Beacon Street; wielding the limousine like a weapon of war, running down the bothersome dead, crushing them beneath its wheels. She couldn't have even begun to describe the satisfaction she felt.

"Tell me again why we let you drive?" Clay asked from the backseat, as the corpulent body of a naked man suddenly covered the windshield, pale rolls of decaying flesh pressed against the glass, obscuring what little they could see of the road ahead.

"Think of it as a reward for the good job you did in finding the Eye," Eve said, swerving the car in an attempt to dislodge their passenger. The zombie held on, its nubby, yellow teeth scraping the glass as it attempted to bite its prey.

"Fat son of a bitch," she growled. "How am I supposed to see what I'm hitting?"

Graves did not precisely sit, but rather lingered in the passenger seat beside her. Now the ghost leaned forward and reached through the windshield, his ectoplasmic arm easily passing through the glass and then through the chest of the obese man on the hood of the car. The animated corpse went rigid as Graves tore out its imprisoned soul, the spiritual essence writhing and wailing in his grasp. Graves let the soul swim free, but the corpse remained on the windshield.

"Great," Eve barked. "First I had a living dead guy blocking my view and now it's just a dead guy. That's such an improvement." Steering the car with one hand, she fumbled for her seatbelt. "This calls for drastic measures," she said, as she snapped her restraints into place. She shot Clay a glance in the rearview mirror. "Buckle up."

"What are you going to do?" He knitted his brows, clutched the mummified head of Eogain protectively beneath his arm, and struggled to strap himself in.

Eve pressed down on the accelerator, rocketing down Beacon through the blood-red mist. She watched the speedometer climb past eighty, feeling the car shimmy and shake, listening to the bumps and thumps, as it obliterated the obstacles in its path.

"Eve?" Clay asked again.

"That oughta do it," she hissed, squeezing the steering wheel in both hands.

She could feel Graves' cold, spectral stare upon her. "Perhaps you should slow down before — "

Eve stomped on the brake. The abrupt stop at that speed threw her forward. In the back, Clay grunted as he, too, was caught by his seatbelt. Graves was entirely unaffected. He studied her with cold detachment as the brakes screamed and the car fishtailed, spinning them completely around. But Eve had accomplished what she'd set out to do. The fat corpse flew off the hood of the limo, a missile of decaying flesh that collided with other shambling dead walkers, clearing a path through them.

"Extreme, but effective," Graves said, unruffled, floating just above the passenger seat.

Eve grinned as she banged a U-turn in the center of Beacon Street, crushing more of the dead beneath the wheels. "That's me in a nutshell."

The dead staggered through the blood-red fog. Some of them sensed the presence of the living and began to move toward the State House. On the steps of that grand structure, Conan Doyle tugged out his pocket watch and checked the time, wanting nothing more than to begin their attack, to get back into his home and discover whether or not Ceridwen still lived. He cursed under his breath and clicked the watch cover shut, then glanced out across Boston Common, ignoring the dead.

Danny Ferrick stood beside him on the stone steps. "Holy shit. Zombies," the boy said. "Real zombies. I mean, you did notice the zombies, right?"

The boy's voice cracked fearfully, but he held his ground as the walking dead began to ascend the steps toward them.

"Yes. I noticed them," Conan Doyle replied. He allowed himself a small smile. Danny was a brave boy. The rotting carcasses of these decrepit creatures had been returned to life against their will. Conan Doyle thought that perhaps when his own time came, at last, when the herbs and magicks of Faerie would no longer keep him alive, it might be best to be cremated.

The scent of the dead, the stink of grave rot, assailed his nostrils as they moved closer. Close enough that Conan Doyle could see the maggots that squirmed in their decaying flesh.

"Stand close to me, boy," he told Danny, and he extended his arms, pointing his open palms toward the advancing cadavers.

The spell flowed from his lips in guttural Arabic. Symbols etched in purple fire swirled up from his hands, increasing in number and size, flowing in a crackling wave toward the dead things upon the stairs.

One moment they were ascending and the next, as the fiery sigils touched them, they were no more, their decaying flesh and bone turned to trails of oily black smoke that became lost in the churning, scarlet mist.

"Damn, Mr. Doyle. That is wicked cool. Do you think I could ever learn to do something like that?" Daniel asked with admiration.

"Could you learn?" Conan Doyle repeated, "Yes. Will I ever teach you? I seriously doubt it."

"Why not?" the demon boy asked. "Afraid I'm going to use my super powers for evil or something?"

Conan Doyle simply stared at the boy. He could feel the arcane energies still coursing through his body, leaking from his eyes. And within Daniel Ferrick, he could sense an altogether different brand of Arcanum. "There is nothing at all amusing about that, young man. Do not make me doubt my decision to include you in this endeavor. We'll discuss your place in the greater scheme of things another time."

The boy avoided eye contact, choosing to look everywhere but at him. Conan Doyle watched at Danny's gaze grew wide and he pointed down the steps at the sidewalk below.

"There're more of them," the boy said.

Conan Doyle saw that he was right. More of the dead were appearing out of the mist, approaching the steps.

"Lots more," Danny added, his voice a rasp.

The corpses ambled out of the concealing fog, up onto the sidewalk and through the open gate that encircled the statehouse steps. One of the dead, little more than dirt-covered bones, tilted back its eyeless head and opened its mouth in a silent scream. Rich black earth, rife with squirming life, spilled from its gaping maw, and Conan Doyle prepared to summon another incantation to defend against this latest incursion.

He never released the spell. Just as he was about to raise his hands again, there came the shriek of rubber on pavement and the roar of an engine, and his limousine erupted from the bloodstained night, riding up over the curb onto the sidewalk, colliding with the zombie horde, splintering bones and scattering bits of their decaying corpses.

"Sweet," Danny said as the limo came to screeching halt in front of the gate.

The driver's door swung open and Eve emerged. Clay exited the back seat and Dr. Graves floated out through the roof.

Conan Doyle clasped his hands together behind his back. "I was beginning to worry."

"We would have been here sooner," Eve said, slamming her door. "But traffic's a bitch."

"Where's Ceridwen?" Clay asked, shifting the mummified skull of Eogain from one arm to the other as he came around the car.

Conan Doyle studied the faces of those who had gathered beneath the banner of his cause, his Menagerie. Denizens of the weird, but warriors, each and every one, sharing the common goal of staving back the encroaching darkness. It was a precarious battle, one that might as easily tip the scales toward shadowy oblivion as to the embrace of light. But it was a war that he had sworn to continue, one that he believed was worth fighting, even if it meant the deaths of those loyal to his mission.

No sacrifice was too large, for it served a greater good.

"Ceridwen, I'm afraid to say, has been captured."

The words hurt him, each of them barbed, sticking painfully in his throat as he struggled to speak. The others appeared taken aback, knowing only too well the level of power the Fey sorceress was capable of wielding as well as his emotional involvement.

"Here's an idea," Eve said, sweeping her raven black hair away from her exotic features. "How about we go get Ceridwen and kick Morrigan's Faerie ass? That sound like a plan?"

Conan Doyle looked out over the heads of his comrades. The dead were still out there, but now they seemed loathe to come closer — some primitive survival mechanism had been stirred to life in them, though he did not know if it stemmed from his own magick, or from the arrival of his Menagerie.

"If only it were that simple," Conan Doyle replied. "We now know why Morrigan has sought the power of Sweetblood. She wishes to free the Nimble Man."

He waited a moment, allowing them to digest the severity of the situation.

"Which, from your tone, I guess should have me shaking in my boots. And maybe I will when you tell me why," Eve said, obviously unfamiliar with the legends.

It always amazed him how a creature as ancient as Eve could sometimes be so oblivious.

Clay stepped closer to the rest of the group, red mist swirling around his malleable features. "A fallen angel," he said, his expression grim. "But not like Lucifer and the others. He escaped the Almighty's wrath but was trapped between Heaven and Hell. In my wanderings, I've encountered entire religions based upon him, with the ultimate goal of freeing him, but no one has ever had the level of power needed to accomplish this…"

"Until now," Eve finished, the situation becoming clearer.

Conan Doyle nodded. "With her own witchery and Sanguedolce's power, Morrigan has enough magick now to tear a hole in reality. If she knows what she is doing, she could free the Nimble Man."

Dr. Graves was a strange sight in that fog. His own ethereal form was a mist of its own, churning in upon itself, but a breeze blew the red fog so that it caressed him. He was a cloud standing still in a tempestuous sky as the rest of the storm moved on.

The ghost was troubled, and his form solidified a bit as he moved toward Conan Doyle. "You said that Morrigan needed the Eye of Eogain to focus Sweetblood's magick if she was going to try to leech it, to use it. And as you can see, we did not return empty handed. How can she release The Nimble Man now? Haven't we already won?"

"A fair assumption, Dr. Graves," Conan Doyle agreed, "but another wrinkle has been added to the cloth." The mage rubbed at his eyes, the continued exposure to the unnatural fog causing them to itch and burn. "Without the Eye, Morrigan will most certainly decide to forge ahead with a physical locus to channel Sweetblood's magickal energies. An ordinary human would wither almost instantly with such power coursing through them. We have kept the Eye from Morrigan. And because we have, I believe she will have no choice but to attempt to use Ceridwen herself to channel that power."

"Could that be done?" Graves asked.

Conan Doyle sighed, the consequences of this act of desperation on Morrigan's part too horrible for him to bear.

No sacrifice is too large, for it serves a greater good. The words reverberated through his thoughts.

"It will most likely kill Ceridwen, as well as release Sweetblood from his self-imposed imprisonment," Conan Doyle said. "But the answer is yes. With Ceridwen as the… well, as the circuit breaker if you will, Morrigan will be able to free the Nimble Man."

Ceridwen was back in Faerie, and her mind was at peace.

The warm winds caressed her face as she walked hand and hand with Arthur through the royal gardens. She noticed her mother sitting on a stone bench in the distance, and Ceridwen could not help but smile. Everything was as it should be, not a detail out of place.

Upon seeing them, her mother stood, waving in greeting. But Ceridwen's smile faltered when she saw that her mother's clothes were tattered and stained with blood. It was then that she remembered that her mother had been taken from her long, long ago. A shiver of grief went through her and she turned to Conan Doyle for comfort, for some explanation of the dread she now felt.

But it was no longer Arthur who held her hand, and the grip on her fingers had turned cold and constricting.

Morrigan smiled and pulled her close, teeth as sharp as a boggart's. "Fight all you like," she snarled, "but it will not alter the outcome."

Her fantasy shredded, Ceridwen returned to reality. Pain suffused every inch of her flesh and her eyes burned with unshed tears. And now she remembered what had happened, the confrontation in Conan Doyle's ballroom with her aunt, the savage Morrigan. She had sent Danny away on a traveling wind and turned to face Morrigan and her lackeys alone. The battle with had been swift and brutal, and she had been defeated.

Now she lay draped upon Sweetblood's chrysalis. A surge of the ancient mage's power rushed through her, and she cried out in excruciating pain. They had bound her atop that strange encasement, the sorcerous energies leaking from the cracks in its surface filtering through her body to be collected by the eagerly waiting Morrigan. Her cloak was in tatters, burned through, almost nothing left of it, and her tunic and trousers were smoldering.

"Do you see how wonderfully it comes together?" her aunt asked, manipulating the distilled power of the arch mage and sending it back into the sarcophagus, causing the size of cracks in its surface to increase. With each splinter of that amber glass, more of Sanguedolce's magickal potency tore through Ceridwen, more power at Morrigan's disposal.

"Fortune smiles upon me this day. It is unlikely that you will live long enough to witness my triumph, but let me assure you, it will be glorious."

The magick coursed through her, the pain continuing to grow. The mage's power was overwhelming. Ceridwen had heard tales of Sanguedolce's prowess, but never imagined a mortal might be able to wield such might.

Morrigan droned on and on about her plans, but Ceridwen was no longer listening. To escape the pain, she fled to the past, remembering what it was that defined her, what had shaped her. There was pain in the past as well, but it was that pain that had forged her, as though in a blacksmith's forge.

From her earliest days, sadness had been her companion. She could barely remember a day when it had not walked by her side. Her mother had been slain in the early days of the Twilight Wars, the victim of a Troll raid upon their forest home. She had been but a mere child, forced to watch her mother's fate from a hiding place within the draping bows of an ancient willow tree. In that moment, she had sworn never to be helpless again.

There were times when the night was deathly silent, and in those quiet snatches of darkness she could still hear her mother's screams. She would awaken filled with righteous fury only to find that there was absolutely nothing that she could do.

Ceridwen cried out now, agony wrenching her back to the present. Pain assaulted her as more fissures formed in the mage's sarcophagus, allowing the flow of magick through her to intensify.

Morrigan laughed, amused by Ceridwen's suffering, but this was nothing new; her aunt had always reveled in the torment of others.

Once more, to escape her anguish, she allowed her mind to drift into the past. Ceridwen recalled with perfect clarity that day, fifteen seasons after the murder of her mother, when the sorcerers of Faerie had taken her into their care, training her in the ways of elemental magick. They had sensed within her a certain fire, unaware that it was an inferno of rage and an unquenchable thirst for revenge. What an excellent pupil she had been, absorbing the intricate teachings as the forest drank the rain.

She saw the battlefield in her mind as it had been so very long ago, littered with the bodies of both friend and foe. The Twilight Wars were in full swing and a battalion of Corca Duibhne was continuing to advance on their position. That was when they had first set her loose, allowing her to use her fury over her mother's murder to conjure up the forces to destroy the enemies of the Fey.

Her magick had been fearsome.

Ceridwen had reveled in their suffering, as the spirits of the wind tossed the enemy about the battlefield like children's toys, stealing the breath from their lungs before the earth swelled up to swallow them whole. Those who did not meet their fate from earth or air were washed away on angry torrents of torrential rain, or burnt to cinders by lapping tongues of hungry fire.

Morrigan had laughed that day as well. Gazing out at the carnage that Ceridwen had wrought, her aunt had found the level of devastation and death absolutely joyous. There was no doubt that she would find the fate of the world beneath the ministrations of the Nimble Man amusing as well.

Ceridwen could feel the surface of the chrysalis splintering beneath her, the magick burning up into her body. She began to convulse, the sorcery too much for her weakened body to contain, and at last she found solace in a memory that brought bliss that was the equal of its pain.

She would never have imagined herself capable of the love she felt for Arthur Conan Doyle, a mere human. Their lives had become entwined, their love for one another blossoming soon after the closing horrors of the war. For a while, with him, she had almost been capable of forgetting the trauma of her mother's murder — of the many lives she had taken in wartime. It had been as though she had been given another chance at life, an opportunity to wipe the past away and begin anew.

How foolish she had been to think that the fates would ever allow her to be truly happy. Happiness, she had learned, was the most fragile and ephemeral of things.

Sweetblood's magick roiled inside her. Ceridwen opened her mouth in a silent scream, sparks of magick leaping from her mouth to dance about with dust motes in the air of the ballroom. She did not think that she had ever experienced pain so intense, but her sorrow when Arthur had abandoned her had been near enough. If pressed, Ceridwen would have had difficulty deciding which torment had hurt her more deeply.

She had wanted him to stay in Faerie with her forever, but that was not to be the case. He had tried to explain why he had to return to the world of man, that he was needed there, to protect it from harm. Ceridwen had pleaded with her lover, telling him that she needed him far more than those of the Blight, but her pleas had fallen upon ears made deaf by his commitment to the world of his birth.

Ceridwen felt her anger surge. Only her fury at Arthur had given her the strength to move past her sorrow. Her sadness had turned to bitter rage, and it had made her all the stronger.

But evidently not strong enough.

The sound was like the cracking of glacial ice. Shards of the chrysalis fell away to shatter upon the ballroom floor.

Eve guided the limousine through the tight, winding streets of Beacon Hill with a reckless skill, and Conan Doyle breathed sigh of relief when they arrived at their destination without plowing into something in the damnable red fog.

"This is close enough, Eve," he told her, from his place in the rear of the limousine, where he sat opposite Daniel and Clay.

Eve immediately brought the limo to a shuddering stop, driving up onto the curb to keep from completely blocking the road. Conan Doyle silently applauded. Despite the supernatural horrors out on the streets this damnable, impossible night, he was sure there were police and fire emergency crews out and about. They might need to pass.

"As good a spot as any," Eve said as she put the car in park. "Don't forget to lock your doors, gentlemen. This neighborhood has gone to Hell."

They exited the vehicle. Louisburg Square was down the street a ways, on the left. Up ahead, an SUV was burning, the flames and black smoke billowing from the wreckage starkly visible through the shifting crimson fog.

"We'll approach on foot," Conan Doyle told them, leading the way.

They slowed their pace as they passed the burning vehicle, all of them casually glancing inside the blackened wreck to see if there had been anybody inside.

"Ceridwen did that," Danny said, motioning with his chin. "We needed a distraction to get Morrigan and her freaky henchmen off the floor we were on so we could get downstairs. She summoned some kind of fire spirit to blow it up."

Conan Doyle said nothing, sublimating his fear for her, concentrating on the task that lay before them. When they reached the edge of the square, just outside the fenced park in its center, they all paused.

"So, how are we doing this?" Eve asked, casually picking the lint from the arm of her jacket, as if what they were about to attempt was no more important than choosing a restaurant.

"The time for subtlety has come and gone," Conan Doyle said, searching the fog for a glimpse of his home. There had been a dramatic change in the sinister energies in the atmosphere just in the minutes that had passed since they had left the State House. If they had any hope of stopping Morrigan, it had to be now. "We hit them from every side, and all at once."

"Clay and Dr. Graves," he said, turning his attention to the shapeshifter and his spectral houseguest, "the two of you shall enter the house from below, through the basement, and ascend accordingly."

He felt a hand grip his arm and turned to face the demon boy.

"What about me?" Danny asked. "You're going to let me help — aren't you?"

Conan Doyle knew that the boy's mother would not approve, but there came a time when the concerns of doting parents had to be set aside and matters of the world taken into account. This was such a moment.

"Daniel and Eve shall enter from above," the mage instructed. "The rooftop door should provide you with access."

The boy smiled, glancing toward Eve. "It's you and me," he said, clenching and unclenching his hands. "We got the roof."

"You don't say," she teased.

"What about you, Conan Doyle?" Graves asked, his voice like the whisper of the wind through the dead leaves of autumn trees. "Will you be going inside?"

Conan Doyle was taken aback by the question. His home had been invaded and Ceridwen held captive inside. The fate of his world was in the balance.

"Of course I'm going inside, old friend," he answered incredulously, stepping from the street to the cobblestones of the square. "But I shall enter just as I always have. Through the front door."

Clay watched as Eve whispered something to Danny that he could not hear. Then she led the demon boy off into the thick fog. Just before it would have obscured his view of her completely, she glanced back at him.

"Meet you on the inside," she said.

He nodded. The two of them had certainly had their share of conflict, but it was always reassuring to have her around. She was the only thing on the face of the Earth that was as old as he was. Or nearly so, at least.

Now he glanced at Dr. Graves. The ghost hovered above the street, and he was strangely reminded of the balloons of cartoon characters that were pulled down the streets of New York on Thanksgiving Day. For all of his eternity spent on this world, Clay loved the little things, the odd little details that had become such a part of humanity. Parades, for instance. He loved parades. He hoped the world survived so that he could see more of them.

Graves started toward Conan Doyle's townhouse, and Clay set off after him, swift and sure, his boots all but silent on the cobblestones. The ghost paused beside the old house.

"So, we start from the bottom and work our way up," Clay said.

The ghost nodded and began to sink into the street.

"Hey, what are you…"

"I'll meet you there," he said, just before his head disappeared into the ground. Then the ghost was gone, leaving him alone in the street.

"Son of a bitch," Clay muttered, closing his eyes and thinking of a form he would need to take in order to get into the basement. He hated to be the last one into a fight, and he wondered, as he began to change, if the ghost somehow was aware of that.

Clay doubled in size, his body becoming powerful and squat. He was now covered in a fine, shiny fur, his domed head nestled firmly between brawny shoulders. Lifting his short, muscular arms, he looked down upon the four railroad-spike claws that adorned each paw.

The creature he mimicked was not a mole and not a bear. It was not anything human eyes had ever seen. For though the Creator had put upon the Earth a great many wondrous things, there were beasts he had imagined with his Clay, but then abandoned. Things no one in the world had ever seen. Unless they had seen Clay in action.

Happy with the shape, he dropped to his bony knees and began to dig, the claws making short work of the cobblestoned street and layers of heavy stone beneath. It took him no time at all to burrow a tunnel down under Louisburg Square, through a wall of brick, and into one of the sewers that ran below the townhouses.

The air in the sewer was thick with gases other than oxygen — most likely a mixture of nitrogen, natural gas and methane — and he altered his lungs so that he could breathe down there. His vision in this shape was poor, but his sense of smell was heightened to the extreme. Clay could smell the distinctive scent of the Night People.

He loped down the partially flooded passage, splashing through the filth until the aroma of the enemy was so strong that he knew he must be just beneath them. Clay dug into the wall, beginning a new passage that would take him into the basement of Conan Doyle's townhouse.

Moments later he exploded up through the concrete floor into the room. His poor eyes located the drifting, translucent shape of Dr. Graves floating in the air.

"Thanks for waiting," Clay rasped as he shifted back to his human form.

Now that his vision had returned to normal, he saw that Graves was focused on one particular corner of the room. At the same time, he noticed the stink in the basement, a smell he had become all too familiar with of late. He had been so focused on the Corca Duibhne, he had all but completely overlooked it. But in the cellar, it was overpowering. Choking.

The smell of blood.

"Good God," Clay whispered as he looked upon the bodies stacked up against the wall like cordwood, and others hanging by their ankles from hooks on the ceiling. "What is going on here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Graves asked him. "They're storing food. Using the basement as a larder."

Danny's eyes had become accustomed to the fog.

Bizarro, he thought, following close behind Eve as she made her way down one of the small alleys between the homes on Beacon Hill. It unnerved him, in a way, that he could make out the shapes of things through the thick, roiling mist. His vision was changing along with the rest of him, adapting to his environment. Which made him wonder what other surprises his body had in store for him.

He could make out a small wooden fence at the end of the alley ahead of them and was about to point it out, when Eve quickened her pace, vaulting over the obstruction with ease and grace. Danny clambered over the fence as quickly as he could, fearful that his companion would leave him behind. He landed in the small yard on the other side in a crouch, his new eyes scanning the fog.

"Keep up, slowpoke," he heard her say, her voice carried on the breeze and swirling with the mist. He caught sight of her fluttering coattails as she went over another fence across the yard. It was sort of a shame that she'd put the coat on at all. The top she had on was nicely clingy and he liked to watch her move. Even with the coat, he could appreciate her… but without it…

Chill. Keep your mind on staying alive. Danny bounded across the small patch of grass, tensing the muscles in his legs as prepared to scale the next obstacle. The power in his jump took him by surprise and his arms pinwheeled as he tried to keep his balance while hurtling through the air. He cleared the fence with feet to spare and landed on all fours, unable to prevent the smile from blossoming across his face. Danny immediately thought of Mr. Davis, the track and field coach at his high school, and how the man would have shit his pants if he'd ever seen any of his track team make a jump like that.

"Decent," Eve said, leaning against a brick building.

"Where are we now?" he asked, rising to join her. They appeared to be in another small yard.

"We're at the back of Conan Doyle's place. Figured we'd get less attention if we got to the roof from the back."

Danny stepped back, looking skyward, up the rear wall of building. Though no taller than four stories, the top of the townhouse disappeared into the crimson mist.

"And we get up there how, exactly?"

Eve pressed herself flat against the building, sinking her long fingernails into the mortar between the bricks. "Silly rabbit," she chided, beginning to climb. "As if there was any other way."

The way she crawled up the wall, Eve reminded him of some kind of lizard, barely making a sound other than the faint scrape of claw upon brick.

"Wait," he hissed, on the verge of panic. He didn't want to be left alone. Danny desperately wanted to be included, to belong. For the first time in oh so very long he felt as though he were part of something; that he truly mattered. He did not want that feeling to end.

Eve stopped midway, and maneuvered her body around so she could look down at him.

Not a lizard, he thought. A spider. She reminded him of a really big spider.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

He couldn't believe she was asking the question. "I can't do that," he told her, growing angry.

Eve righted herself and began to climb again. "Bet you didn't think you could make a six foot leap over a fence either," she said as she disappeared into the mist.

She was right about that, he decided, approaching the wall and doing as he had watched her do. Danny placed his hands against cool brick, digging his fingernails — no, they were claws; his fingernails had fallen out months ago — between the bricks, as Eve had done. He attempted to pull his weight upward.

And succeeded.

Much to his shock and surprise, Danny was climbing the wall. Would you look at this, he wanted to scream, increasing his pace to catch up with Eve.

Fucking Spider-Man ain't got nothing on me.

Conan Doyle stood at the bottom of the stairs that led up to his front door and cleared his throat. He knew they were there, crouching in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to strike. He removed the pocket watch from his coat and saw that more than enough time had passed for his operatives to get themselves into position.

Taking the first step, he placed one of his hands upon the wrought iron railing.

"Who is this, my brothers?" came a hissing voice from somewhere in the shadows.

Conan Doyle stood perfectly still, gathering his inner strength.

"A fool, I'd wager," responded an equally sibilant voice. "For who else but a fool would dare approach our mistress's lair."

The Corca Duibhne sentries emerged from their hiding places on either side of the steps, weapons crusted with the blood of their victims.

"Poor little fool," said one of the advancing Night People. "Does he even know whose dwelling this is?"

Conan Doyle stepped back from the stairs, letting his hands dangle by his sides. There were eight, all of them wearing variations of black leather. Their faces appeared oily, shining in what little light was available. He was reminded of how much he despised this species, and how the Twilight Wars never should have been declared over until each and every one of the foul creatures had been exterminated like the vermin they were.

One of the Corca Duibhne came forward, waving a fierce looking knife before him. "Do you know, foolish little man?" it asked, a cruel, humorless smile upon its oily, black features. Conan Doyle noticed that one of its eyes was missing. "Do you know whose house this is?"

Conan Doyle casually adjusted his shirt cuffs, matching them to the sleeves of his jacket. "Of course I do," he said, returning his hands to his side. His fingers twitched eagerly.

The Night People began to laugh, converging, forming a circle around him.

"Do you hear, brothers?" asked the creature with the missing eye. "He knows full well whose house this is."

"Tell us then," hissed another, this one wielding a kind of axe. Again they all laughed.

Conan Doyle raised one hand, sparks of blue fire dancing from the tips of his fingers.

"Why, it's mine," he told them, and then those cerulean flames arced out from his hand, engulfing them. The Corca Duibhne cried out in a pathetic mixture of surprise and agony as the magick took hold of them, the smell of their burning flesh filling the air.

Conan Doyle closed his eyes and breathed deeply, taking the heavy aroma of charred flesh into his lungs. Just like the good old days, he thought, images of the war cascading through his thoughts, and the mage slowly climbed the steps to his front door.

"And now I've come home."