Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

But not before he saw something that turned his blood to ice.

Smoke was pouring out from many of the Hermes Building’s shattered windows, but there was also something else. At first glance it could have been mistaken as smoke, thick and black, but Mulvehill noticed that it hadn’t moved the way it should have. Just as the image had gone to static, Steven Mulvehill saw the strange blackness flow out from one of the windows, dripping down the front almost like wax from a melting candle.

It wasn’t natural, and he felt that familiar surge of panic come upon him as he remembered his experiences of late. He looked toward his living room windows at the sun shining outside his Somerville apartment, and he could have sworn that he heard screaming.

Mulvehill closed his eyes and saw the darkness running down from the skyscraper, slithering like a thing alive.

The disheveled anchor had returned, talking about what they believed was happening down in the Copley Square area, that the Hermes Plaza had been cordoned off by the fire department and police, and that they were still trying to determine whether this was an accident or something of a more malicious nature.

He had turned off the TV before he even realized that he was doing it. His hands were shaking, and he craved a drink like never before.

It would be so easy to put a stop to these feelings, he thought. A few quick gulps of whiskey would do the trick nicely. He already imagined the warm sensation in his belly as the booze took effect.

But it didn’t change the fact of what was happening at the Hermes Plaza.

He’d seen it on the television, and now, as much as he’d like to, he couldn’t un-see it.

What happened to me is now going to happen to others, he thought, imagining the darkness as it spread down Boylston Street, doing God knew what to whoever it encountered.

Mulvehill was terrified, but he had been terrified since his collision with the supernatural more than two weeks ago.

There was a moment of temptation where he almost picked up the phone to call his friend, to call Remy Chandler to ask him if he’d seen the news, but he managed to stop himself.

As far as he knew, this wasn’t about Remy. It was about him and the world he lived in, a once-secret world that from what he had just seen on the television was no longer hiding.

Hiding.

Mulvehill knew that this was what he had been doing: hiding himself away from the reality of it all, hoping that it wouldn’t come for him again.

He was still scared but he was also angry, which was a good thing, because he was finally feeling something more than overwhelming fear. Mulvehill embraced the anger, fueling it with the shame he felt over hiding away in his apartment.

He knew the fear would kill him if he let it, slowly eating him away, making it so that he would be forced to leave the job that he loved. For how could he be a cop if he was afraid of what could be around every corner, hiding in every shadow?

The image of the darkness as it poured from the skyscraper came into his thoughts again, followed by a surge of panic, but he pushed it down beneath the fire of anger he’d continued to stoke.

What’s happening at Hermes Plaza? he wondered with equal parts fear and intense curiosity. He thought of others like him, before he’d learned the truth about the world- the real world — and experienced a surprising urge.

Mulvehill left the living room, entering his bedroom and going to the dresser in the far corner. Pulling open the bottom drawer, he rooted around beneath a stack of old sweatshirts for the cigar box he kept there. Opening the lid, he looked at the old service revolver, something he had kept as a backup weapon since first making detective. In the drawer there was also a box of ammunition, and he loaded the gun.

For what he was about to do, he thought that he might need some protection, and hoped that bullets fired from a gun would be enough.

He grabbed his jacket from the back of his closet door, shoved the loaded handgun into his pocket, and headed for the door.

Before he lost his courage.

Algernon Stearns wasn’t quite sure, but didn’t think he had ever seen anything so magnificent that filled him with so much rage.

A blast of fire so hot that it started to melt the metal of the apparatus he wore sprang from the fingertips of his foe. A quickly erected spell of shielding was the only thing that prevented him from becoming nothing more than smoldering ash on the studio floor.

He conjured his own offense, casting the spell at the sorcerer who appeared to be wielding power of some divine origin.

There had always been a part of him that suspected that Konrad Deacon had survived the cabal’s betrayal of him, that the sorcerer had gone off someplace to hide and lick his wounds, but Stearns never imagined him returning in such a way.

Commanding a level of power that practically made Stearns’ mouth- mouths — water.

He felt the hungry orifices on his hands open up, eager to feed upon the unimaginable power now in the control of his enemy.

Where did he go? And how did he come to possess a power this great? Stearns wanted to know as he evaded another rush of unearthly flame that scoured the rubble-strewn ground where he’d been standing.

The exoskeleton was still functioning on a reserve-battery charge, a precaution that he’d enacted when considering how important this operation was and how many things could possibly go wrong. Hiding behind a crumpled section of soundproofed wall, the sorcerer adjusted the suit’s functions to allow him to collect and utilize some of the energies that were now being cast at him.

“Are you hiding from me, Algernon?” Deacon asked, a sickening tone of superiority dripping from his words.

Stearns waited, wanting to be certain that the suit was functioning properly before reentering the fray. Seeing that everything appeared to be in working order, he uttered a spell of destruction, felt the magick of murder collect in his hands, and emerged from hiding, throwing the death spell with the controlled precision of the murderer he was.

“Hiding, Konrad?” Stearns asked, the magick leaving his possession in the form of a humming ball of roiling energy. “It appears your time away has certainly bolstered your confidence.”

One of Deacon’s fiery wings folded down to block the spell. The magick detonated just in front of its target, but its effect was still devastating, shrapnel of pure magickal force peppering the air and slicing into his body.

“What was that, Konrad?” Stearns asked, striking while the iron was hot. He unleashed another blast of concentrated magick, blowing away part of the floor beneath Deacon’s feet, causing him to stumble. Stearns watched as Deacon attempted to recover, imagining the death magick from the shards protruding from his foe’s skin already starting to permeate his blood, weakening him from within.

“Was that a scream? Don’t tell me that even with all that power you’ve managed to acquire, you’re still no more of a threat than a child.”

Stearns came in closer, a corruption spell now encircling his fist. He brought that fist down, connecting with Deacon’s face and driving him to his knees.

He was stepping in for another strike when Deacon retaliated. His wings of fire exploded to life, flapping wildly and flicking globules of divine fire.

Stearns was driven back, wiping frantically at the flashes of fire that clung to the armored skeleton he wore.

“Impressive,” he sneered. “But still not enough.”

Deacon’s body had begun to radiate an insane amount of heat, the air warping around his form as he readied himself for what was to happen next.

“It was my biggest fault, you know,” Deacon said, stalking toward Stearns.