Midnight's Angels - 03 Read online

  Ritchie Vallencourt, on the other hand, wouldn’t even meet the judge’s eyes. He introduced himself quietly, then added, “It’s a great honor to meet you, sir.”

  And when Levin reached out to grasp his hand, he practically jumped back. But the judge wouldn’t have that, stepping in and sliding his fingers around the sergeant’s palm.

  “How nice to meet such a polite young man. What a pleasant change,” he commented, glancing across at me and beaming in a smug, gratified way.

  Despite his democratic principles, he was obviously enjoying this. If there’s one word that sums up the adepts of Sycamore Hill, then that word is ‘patrician.’

  I suppressed an angry comment.

  “Anymore been happening down there, sergeant?” the judge inquired.

  Ritchie’s face finally came up, the pale eyes gleaming.

  “Not that I know of, sir. Like I said, six homes that have been …” And he struggled for the right word. “Changed. Apart from that, there’s nothing else to report. But it’s enough, ain’t it?”

  Then he squinted at me curiously.

  “Do you suppose that this thing and your angels are connected?”

  It was far too much of a coincidence if they were not. I told him so.

  “There were two of them in the commercial district? Should I send some of my people up there?”

  That wasn’t a particularly tempting prospect. I remembered how urgent Willets had been, ordering me out of there. He didn’t seem to think I had a chance against those things, and I was far more skilled at fighting supernatural beings than an ordinary cop.

  “Not a good idea,” I said.

  “So what exactly do we do?”

  I set my palms against the windowsill. “We wait.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “For whatever happens next.”

  And when he peered at me, I added, “Something always happens next.”

  * * *

  Ritchie made use of the speakerphone as well during the next couple of hours, so that all three of us could hear the reports from his colleagues. And everything we listened to had the same tone to it, that of stalemate. The cops still couldn’t see inside the affected homes. It remained pitch black beyond the windowpanes, with not a hint of movement. And no sounds were emerging either. The houses might as well have been abandoned, although we knew perfectly well that they were not.

  There seemed to be no spread of this contagion or whatever you’d call it. And no sign of the intruder that had caused it in the first place. We’d agreed the meteors had somehow brought this down on us. But that was the only thing that we were even halfway sure of.

  “Maybe it’s safe to go in now?” one of Ritchie’s men suggested.

  Which got him yelled at by the judge.

  “No, forget that! Absolutely not!”

  When he turned to me, his narrow face was reddened.

  “Know what’s really getting to me? Normally, when something bad comes down, I get this feeling. It happened when Lucas Tollburn died, remember? But I keep on reaching out with every sense I have, and I’m still getting absolutely nothing.”

  “You sense nothing bad?”

  “Nothing at all. Crazy, isn’t it?” He straightened up, his nostrils flaring. “Those altered people down there? It ought to start alarm bells ringing in my head. Instead of which, I can’t sense them either. It’s like they’re no longer there.”

  The tension in the study had become palpable, by this hour. All that we could do was listen while the cops down there kept calling in.

  I hated this. What I really wanted was to head down there myself and kick down doors, confront the situation. But I’d be ignoring my own advice.

  At the moment when I thought that I was going to explode, the eastern horizon brightened, phasing through from gray to platinum. Then a ray of golden light appeared, the sun finally coming up. Levin switched the lights off in the room so we could see more clearly.

  Shadows lifted from the houses in my field of view. The details and the colors of the town began making themselves apparent. Green and red expanses of rooftops. Backyards, pools, and parks.

  As if on cue, there was another chime from the doorbell. We could hear Fleur go to answer it. A muffled conversation followed, and I thought I recognized the other voice. And then there was a sudden blur of movement in the hallway directly outside the study door.

  It resolved itself into the shape of Willets. He’d conjured himself up here rather than bothering to use the staircase. And he must have used his last reserves of magic doing that. Because the middle-aged black man looked exhausted to the core.

  His face was bloodless and his eyes were discolored. Dried sweat left a sheen on his brow. His prematurely gray hair was askew. And when he tried to step into the room, he teetered, almost falling.

  Ritchie -- forgetting his fear of adepts -- rushed across to help.

  In the years that I’d known Lehman, I had never once seen him in this condition. The man looked like he’d gone twelve rounds with a herd of buffalo.

  And then I realized the truth of the matter. Those angels I had seen him fighting … had he been fighting with them all night?

  There were questions that badly needed answering. But I could see that now was not the time. The man was on the verge of collapsing. Judge Levin had hurried across and was helping as well. They propped the man between them, and maneuvered him into the swivel chair behind the grand cherrywood desk in here. When they let go of him, he flopped a moment, like a fish. But then he seemed to understand that he was safe and let himself sink into the deep, luxurious upholstery.

  Fleur, an attractive although slightly dumpy woman, had come upstairs after him and was hovering anxiously in the doorway.

  Willets’s head slumped back against the leatherwork, his mouth lolling open. He was not merely worn out but parched. Levin snapped his fingers. A crystal jug of water appeared on his desk, with a glass beside it. The judge filled the latter, and then pressed it to the doctor’s lips.

  Willets sipped, then coughed. He was so badly hunched that he looked almost boneless. But a little color returned to his cheeks.

  “Thank you.”

  Levin moved the glass away. The doctor blinked a few times and then turned his scarlet-studded gaze on me.

  “Glad to see you’re still around.”

  “Same here,” I replied. “So, did you win your battle?”

  Despite the state that he was in, he formed his mouth into a tight, humorless smile.

  “If you understood what’s come down on us this time … well, you wouldn’t ask a question like that.”

  “Are you telling us you know what these things are?”

  The man looked back at Levin.

  “My guess is, the judge here has been trying to find out. And has come up with absolutely nothing. That would be a fairly accurate assessment?”

  I was used to other people talking in strange riddles, but not him. We waited apprehensively. Those burning red pupils of his swept across us, taking in our sheer bewilderment. And then he tensed a little, managing to straighten slightly.

  “Those things out there? They’re less than nothing. That is what we’re up against this time.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Standing in the darkness for so long, he’d felt as if the shadows were scouring at his edges, almost like he was dissolving. Thank God the daylight had come around. You could always rely on that, at least. Morning’s advance had made him whole again, and he was grateful.

  Harrison Whitby glanced in the direction of the rising sun and squinted. It was not a good idea to look at it directly or too long. So he returned his attention to the house on Cartland Street, which he’d been guarding since the small hours. It was totally unchanged.

  The light didn’t arrive all at once. It came stealing down the byways of Raine’s Landing like some stealthy, golden-colored cat. Wherever it touched it would disperse the gloom, and fresh colors became apparent. The trees along th
e street took on a crisper look. And the dwellings around him were transformed from lifeless slabs to proper homes.

  And then it touched the residence in front of him. Started at the shingles on the roof first, and then tumbled down the eastern-facing wall.

  What had looked for hours like a grim, forbidding building actually seemed to shrink a bit in size. That was psychological, he understood. The house just seemed a good deal less imposing now the sun was up. It turned out that the walls were a very pale green. There was a doormat on the porch with a round smiley face printed on it. Some children’s toys were scattered nearby, a couple of brightly colored balls and what looked like a broken G.I. Joe.

  There were plants as well, in brightly glazed pots. Of what kind Harrison was not sure. His wife, Eudora, was the one who was into growing things, not him. He couldn’t tell a chrysanthemum from a cactus.

  A window came open in a house across the street, creaking, making his gaze swing around. He’d not had to deal with the general public up until this point. But an old man’s head came poking out, its white hair tousled and its pale gray-blue eyes wide, like an owl’s. The guy took in the fact that there were uniformed men on his street, and seemed to wake up pretty quickly.

  “Something happened to the Hermanns?”

  Harrison gnawed at his moustache, wondering how to handle this. He had years of experience to fall back on, and finally opted for a soft but steady show of authority.

  “We haven’t quite established that,” he called back. “If you could get back in, sir, please? At least until we’re certain what the problem is?”

  The white head popped back straight away. But the intrusion, however brief, immediately set him thinking. Folk would start heading into work before a whole lot longer. Kids would start making their way to school. The homes around him would begin disgorging people, many of them passing by this very threshold.

  And might they be in any danger? What exactly ought he do about it?

  He glanced across at Lee Drake, which was little use. The man was staring into thin air, and seemed to be chewing on imaginary gum. He was an okay cop, but not what you’d call overly bright. Besides, Harrison was the senior officer here, and it was his decision.

  He decided to call it in, then noticed that the old man’s head had popped out again across the way. The fellow was not as good at following instructions as he’d first appeared. He had on a pair of thick-lensed glasses this time, and was peering curiously at something.

  “What’s happened to the windows?”

  “Sir?”

  “Have George and Vi fitted blackouts? Why the hell would they do that?”

  Harrison turned back around, and stared at the front windowpanes. The sun had risen by a few more inches, its reflection glinting on the glass. But he still couldn’t see inside. He knew the downstairs curtains were not drawn. You ought to have been able to make out some furniture, the flat surfaces of the inner walls if nothing else.

  Instead of which, it was like gazing into a perfectly rectangular tar pit. That troubled him badly.

  And then he noticed something even more unsettling. Around the edges of the house, in the porch and below the eaves, the shadows that the sunlight had melted away …

  They were returning.

  They spread as he watched, darkness beginning to reclaim the whole exterior of the place. That couldn’t be. He didn’t see how it was possible.

  “What the --“ he heard Lee Drake blurt.

  It was like the Hermann residence had become detached from the regular world, no longer subject to its influence. The place was not merely dark, he reckoned. No, it was in the total grip of darkness.

  Harrison stared at it coldly for a while, and then a new thought struck him. Was this the case with the other affected dwellings too?

  He went across to his car and got quickly on the radio.

  CHAPTER 11

  Levin offered him a glass of brandy too. He’d left the decanter downstairs, but an adept could put that right easily enough.

  “At this time of day?” Willets declined with a small shake of his head. He still looked breathless, but his strength seemed to be coming back. “Is there any coffee left in that pot? Aw, the hell with it!”

  He snapped the fingers of his left hand, and a steaming mug of java appeared in his right. It had the crest of Boston U. on it, which was where he’d been a lecturer before he had come here.

  A shaft of golden light was streaming in through the dormer window, making the brass fittings in the room gleam and lighting up the big, glass-fronted armoires that hugged the wall on one side. I felt glad of the warmth that accompanied it, the way that everything looked sharper, clearer. I spend too many of my working hours hunting vague shapes through the murk.

  But it was not a sentiment shared by our host. Levin squinted and ducked his chin a little when the sunlight brushed against him. Almost as if he had something to hide, some kind of ugly blemish. That wasn’t the case, but I could see already the problem. Those who venture constantly into witchcraft’s realms -- they prefer sticking to the gloom. “Let not too much light in upon magic,” Willets had once told me. It’s a notion that the major players on the Hill take very seriously.

  So the judge went across to the heavy maroon velvet drapes, and pulled them most of the way shut. Only a gap about a finger’s width remained. In the sudden dimness, Willets’s pupils shone like molten metal. Levin reached out with his power and switched his desk lamp on.

  Damn, I hated being in the adepts’ world, where something as simple and natural as the broad clear light of day becomes a problem. I had learned to live with it, but only partially. Heaven help me if I ever learned to live with it the entire way.

  “So, doctor?” Ritchie put in gently. He had never met the man before, but had to know his reputation, and was still being a lot more deferential than was usually the case. “Maybe you can tell us what exactly’s going on here?”

  The man peered at him, studying him up and down. Trying to get his measure. And he appeared to see what a straight shooter Vallencourt was, a solid and committed cop.

  Willets smiled again, a little more warmly than before.

  “Maybe I can, Sergeant. But I’m not sure you really want to hear it.”

  Which did not sound in the least bit good.

  “We’ve faced bad stuff before,” I reminded him. “Bad as it comes, and then some. How’s this any different?”

  Willets turned his gaze on me, the soft smile still in place. But it had taken on a faintly mocking edge, like there was something that I was not getting.

  “You’ve faced evil spirits, Ross. Monsters and madmen with more power than they ought to have. But what we’re facing this time falls into a different class entirely.”

  I was getting fairly tired of this, impatience nagging at me. I knew that he’d been through an awful lot. But he was dragging this out, playing to a captive audience, perhaps because he hadn’t had one in a good long while. It was fine to behave this way on a podium in Boston. But I wasn’t any freshman, and I wasn’t much impressed.

  The doctor seemed to get that. He had always dealt with me straightforwardly in the past. His head dipped, his bright pupils disappearing. Then, he came right out with it.

  “I spend a lot of time on my own, in the dark. You know that.”

  His voice was back to its stern, gravelly normal pitch. It seemed that his powers of recovery were very strong.

  “A lot of time to think and ponder,” he said. “And explore. Just with my mind, you understand. This body,” he touched his shoulder, “stays put. But I’ve been delving recently as deeply as I can into the roots and origins of magic. Following the trails it leaves, as far back as I can go.”

  He was the one who had explained to me that the whole business had a hierarchy, a structure. He’d explained who Saruak really was. And he’d known in advance about Lucas Tollburn, sensed the presence of the Wand of Dantiere.

  “By gradual degrees, I’ve come to
understand the truth.” He raised his face again and fixed me with his gaze, “That there are things out there, in the darkness beyond our plane of existence that, if humankind knew what was there, most people would curl up and die simply from the terror of it.”

  Which sounded overly dramatic to put it mildly. But, considering what had come down on us last night, I let him continue.

  “Truly dreadful entities, Devries. Beings with power beyond our grasp, and not a shred of conscience to hold it in check. Creatures that, confronted with a newborn child, would simply laugh and devour it. And what keeps them from overwhelming us? The light of day, in part. But mostly the light in our own hearts. Our basic, simple humanity is our best defense against them.”

  That was kind of hokey to my way of thinking, and not the way the doctor usually spoke. I read books and watched TV. Knew what went on in the outside world. And a lot of it was not too cute or happy, our humanity often failing us. So I told him that, making no bones about it.

  “You’re right. It’s true. Yes, all of that happens. But it happens when we forget who we really are. We stop thinking of ourselves as merely human, or stop thinking of our fellow men in those terms at all, and that’s when the dark forces manage to gain entry to this world, and Hell on Earth breaks out.”

  I thought about old footage that I’d seen, of previous regimes and wars. Peculiar uniforms and strange salutes, and people behaving like automatons. And I could see his point. But nobody was here for any philosophical discussion. I knew Willets well enough to see this was leading somewhere. I just wasn’t sure how long he’d take.

  The room had become utterly quiet. Even Levin looked subdued. He had sat down on a chair near the wall, and was staring at the doctor with his tented fingers pressed against his lips.

  I could even hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the downstairs hallway. It seemed to be measuring the passing seconds slower than it ought. Willets sat a little more firmly, his composure coming back.

  “Last night, I managed to reach further than I’d ever done before. Right out to the edges of the Universe, in fact. And I found an evil there I’d never even guessed at.”