Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

Doyle felt his skin prickle and the hair rise on the back of his neck. His stomach clenched and he was forced to pause a moment to avoid spraying vomit all over the floor. With a flourish he crossed his wrists and then spread his arms in front of him and some of the magical seepage that had infected the air around him dispersed. Sweetblood did not want any visitors. It was too late for that.

"You must not disturb the mage!" the demon bellowed in its hellish, grinding voice.

Doyle whipped around to see it lunging for him, but in that same instant Eve plunged two long talons into its right eye. The sound was sickening and a spray of viscous gray fluid spurted across the cracked tiles.

"You're missing the point, Fido. Someone's gonna wake the old bastard up. Better us than the alternative," Eve snarled.

The demon shrieked and tried to reach for her, then threw itself backward, crushing her between its own body and the floor, impaling her on those terrible spines. Eve screamed.

Doyle ignored her.

He reached out toward the tiled wall. His fingers traced lines in the decades of dust and grime that had accumulated there. Despite Sweetblood's magic, this place had not been entirely untouched by time; not like the brownstone. Doyle thought this was all part of the ruse, part of the cover, in case another sorcerer should have gotten this far. He saw through the glamour as others might have, but he was skilled enough also to see past the diversion.

With a glance over his shoulder he saw that Eve was choking the guardian, though her own blood pooled on the subway platform. He saw the door that he had been about to enter and wondered what lay beyond it, what peril Sweetblood might have placed there to dispatch seekers who came too close to discovering his location.

With a blink of his eyes and a flick of his wrist, Doyle cast a spell that shattered the tiles on the wall. They showered down in fragments, revealing a stone wall behind them that he doubted had been part of the original plans for this location. A tiny smile passed over Doyle's features and he laid his palm upon the stone.

"Lorenzo," he whispered. "Can you hear me? Some choices are not yours to make. Your power can't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands." Doyle closed his eyes and summoned magic from a well of power he had accumulated within him over the years. Images like shards of broken mirror glass tumbled through his mind, of family dead and friends left behind, of grief and the wonder of discovery, of a man he once had been, and the trifle his meager efforts at entertainment seemed to him now.

This work, laboring in the shadows between the darkness and the light, was what mattered.

" Tempus accelerare," Doyle whispered, and his fingers went rigid as power surged up his arm. It ached to the marrow and he gritted his teeth. Friction heated the palm of his hand where it lay against the stone wall.

And the stone crumbled away to nothing in front of him.

There was an alcove behind it, a space in the wall perhaps ten feet high and equally broad. Within that recess was a block of amber, like a massive slab of rock candy. It was honey-gold with hints of red, and through it, Doyle could see a distorted view of the man encased within. Sweetblood's eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, as though he lay in a casket rather than frozen in a trap of his own creation. Though dulled by whatever substance encased him, Sweetblood's magic crackled like electricity in the air within that recessed chamber.

"Time to wake up, now, Lorenzo," Doyle whispered. "No matter how reluctant you may be."

The ground shook beneath his feet. He heard the sounds of Eve and the guardian in combat, the snorting, rasping of their breathing. He smelled Eve's blood and the fetid ichor of the demon. Trains rumbled elsewhere along the New York subway system, their growling echoing in the tunnels. But Doyle had stopped registering any of these things as he stared through that amber slab at the features of his former mentor, the man for whom he had searched for decades. A mage with enough power to scar the face of the world.

It was only when Eve screamed his name that Doyle realized something had gone terribly wrong. On instinct, he manifested a magical energy charge from his fingers as he spun around to see what had alarmed her. Even as he did so, they were already leaping up onto the subway platform.

Corca Duibhne. The Night People.

They were lean creatures with taut, ropy musculature and skin the color of rust, shaped like humans but no larger than a girl in her early teens. The Corca Duibhne were stealthy and swift, able to merge with shadows and creep along seemingly sheer walls. All of them, male and female, had black and spiky hair and eyes so oily-dark that they seemed nothing but pits of shadow in their heads. They had been called The Night People in a time when the only stories about them were told in a fearful huddle around the village fire. Yet now they had adapted to the modern world. They wore human clothing and sported bits of silver in their ears and noses where ordinary people might have piercings.

But the Corca Duibhne were not ordinary. They were not human.

Doyle began to shout for Eve but his voice faltered as he saw the Night People overrun her and the demon guardian Sweetblood had chosen to protect his hiding place. Both had been weakened by their combat. The guardian had a shattered arm and had been blinded in one eye. Eve was bleeding from multiple wounds, her clothes sodden with sticky scarlet, and the Corca Duibhne were strong and fast and far too many. She was ferocious and nearly impossible to kill, but Eve would not be of any help to him at the moment.

"Damn you, Lorenzo," Doyle muttered. "This is your fault."

The Night People lunged for him, first three, then seven swarming over Eve and the guardian to rush at Doyle. But he knew they weren't really racing at him. Their goal was behind him. Doyle placed himself in their path and he could feel the hole in the wall behind him, the magic that pulsed from the amber slab in which Sweetblood was encased. The Corca Duibhne gnashed their jaws, baring teeth that were jagged and cruel, and their oily eyes focused on him.

"Don't be an idiot," snarled the one in the front, its voice low and insinuating.

Doyle had waited long enough. He raised both hands, palms outward, and azure light flashed from his fingers throwing blue shadows on the high walls and a cerulean glow out into the tunnel. A wave of magic traveled with this light and the force of it slammed into the Corca Duibhne, cracking bone and ripping flesh, throwing the nearest of them sprawling across the floor in a tangled heap. But there were too many of them still swarming up from the subway tunnel.

The guardian demon was dead. Doyle saw one of the Night People greedily dragging its head away from the others as a keepsake. Eve fought alone, but she was not quite so buried as she had been in those rust-colored bodies. Her talons flashed and throats were torn and skulls crushed.

Still, there were too many.

Doyle inhaled deeply and rose to his full height, glaring down at the creatures that began to gather in a hesitant circle. They were wary of him now and he tried to adopt his most imposing air. Sparks still danced from his hands and his vision was tinted with blue as some of the magic contained within him leaked out his eyes. He focused his will and sensed the power of Sweetblood emanating from the amber slab behind him. I can feel it, Doyle thought. Perhaps I can siphon some of it.

He clawed the air in front of him, leaving shimmering streaks of light hanging there. The Night People hesitated once more, but only for a moment before they began slowly edging toward him again, closing in.

"Corca Duibhne. You have no idea who you're dealing with," he thundered, voice booming across the platform, echoing off the walls. "I am the only student Lorenzo Sanguedolce ever taught."