Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

Stearns was ready, hundreds of different spells floating around in his mind, just waiting to be used.

“No matter how powerful I became, or how much knowledge I acquired, I always felt myself second to you,” Deacon continued.

Stearns erected a shield of magickal protection while propelling another wave of pure, undiluted malice at his foe. Deacon responded effortlessly, catching the spell in his hand and allowing it to fizzle into nothing.

“Even when I knew that I was better, there was still that nagging voice at the back of my mind,” Deacon explained.

“A voice to trust,” Stearns said with a sneer, unleashing a barrage of destruction to attempt to drive his enemy back.

But Deacon kept coming.

“Now there’s a new voice speaking inside my head,” he said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Whispering that the old Konrad Deacon is gone.”

A rush of hurricane-force wind swirled from Stearns’ fingertips; he hoped it would give him the time he required to consider his situation. He needed Deacon to be unprepared for what was to happen, unable to fight back when he began to feed on the energy he so coveted.

“But there was still something that nagged at me, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.”

The wind drove Deacon back, but only by inches. The sorcerer planted his feet, the ground crumbling into dust as he held his place and started to advance again.

“And then I realized what it was,” Deacon said. He flapped his wings of fire and propelled himself across the brief expanse.

Stearns would be a liar if he said that he wasn’t afraid. But, as is often the case, from great fear comes great reward.

Deacon pounced on him, driving him back to the floor with inhuman strength.

“I realized that it was still you, Algernon,” Deacon said, looming over him. “No matter how powerful I felt or how powerful the new voice inside told me that I was, I knew that you were still out there.”

Lying on his back, Stearns looked up at Konrad Deacon. There was a fire in his eyes and something else-something that hadn’t been there seventy years ago.

It was madness.

“You were still out there, ready to take what belonged to me.”

Stearns watched as Deacon raised a hand that started to burn like a miniature sun.

Oh, how he coveted that power.

“So the only way that I could truly be at peace was to find and deal with you,” Deacon said. “To finally take something away from you…your life.”

“You’re quite the prophet,” Stearns spoke, focusing not on the idea that his own death was merely moments away, but that he would soon have his latest desire.

The mouths beneath his metal gauntlets were dripping in anticipation as Stearns raised his hand to Deacon’s face, grabbing hold of the magician’s cheek in a steely grip.

At first Deacon was smiling, amused by his enemy’s struggles, but that look quickly turned to unease and then to pain as the mouths, aided by the sorcerous mechanics of the exoskeleton, proceeded to feed.

“You should have heeded that voice, Konrad,” Stearns said gleefully. “For there is nothing that you can possess that I am not strong enough to take away.”

There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home…

The line from her favorite movie echoed over and over inside Ashley’s head as she and the others made their way slowly down the hallway.

Just seconds ago, they had passed a wicked old library, its high wooden bookcases stacked from floor to ceiling with books, and now they were in the corridor of one of those fancy office buildings. Ashley wondered what awaited them in the shadows up ahead and where they might be after they passed through them.

She pictured them all entering the cool shadow and emerging in the crowded and damp-smelling basement of her Beacon Hill home. The thought caused the corners of her mouth to tick upward as she imagined them all climbing the stairs up from the basement, she leading the way, eager to introduce her new friends to her parents.

My parents.

How long have I been missing? They must be worried sick.

Squire’s hand reached out, snagging her arm and violently yanking her back and from her thoughts.

“Pay the fuck attention!” the goblin screamed at her.

She was startled, and at first didn’t know what he was talking about, until she saw that she had been on the verge of treading across a circular patch of shadow. She stared into the blackness, witnessing a ripple of distortion across the liquidlike surface as something moved beneath it.

“Sorry,” she said. They were all stopped now, watching her. The building moaned like some kind of haunted house, and it sounded as if something big might be moving around behind them, where they’d just come from.

“I think there’s a stairwell up here,” the guy Francis said, taking all the attention from her.

He’d turned with the fat guy, and they were moving again.

“Here, take this,” Squire said beside her. She looked down to see that he was trying to force some sort of small sword into her hand. Ashley hesitated, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“No, that’s okay…I’m good.”

“Take it!” the goblin demanded, roughly pulling at her arm and shoving the cool grip of the weapon into her hand. It was heavier than she imagined it would be, and it served as yet another reminder of how absolutely insane this all was.

“I don’t want this,” she then said, letting the sword drop on the carpeted floor. “I can’t…”

“You can and you will,” Squire said angrily, picking up the sword and shoving it right back into her hand. “If you don’t, you’re gonna die.”

She was suddenly back in her senior college-placement biology class with Mr. Harpin. Adapt or die, she heard the old man with the extremely large Adam’s apple proclaim as they discussed evolution.

“Adapt or die,” she said aloud, clutching sword’s hilt.

“Yeah, something like that,” Squire agreed. “Now, let’s keep an eye on where we’re walking or…”

“Where are they?” Ashley asked.

Squire followed her gaze and saw that Angus and Francis were gone.

“Son of a bitch,” the goblin hissed. “Whatever the fuck is going on in this building must’ve caused shit to shift again. Who knows where those two are now? There goes our safety in numbers.”

She felt bad for slowing them down, causing them to lose their numbers.

“Yeah, but now I got this,” she said, waving the short sword around.

“Be careful you don’t poke your eye out,” the goblin grumbled. He grabbed her elbow more gently this time and urged her to start moving.

“Let’s go. Maybe we can catch up to them.”

They started down the hallway again, careful to avoid any puddles of shadow spreading across the red-carpeted floor. She was being extra careful now, hefting her sword, ready.

Ready for what?

Ashley didn’t know…didn’t want to know…She just wanted to get home and see her parents.

There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home… There’s no…

It was as if a curtain of solid black material had dropped down in front of them. Squire’s arm shot out to prevent her from going any farther, but she had already come to a complete stop.

“This is what I’m talking about,” the goblin muttered. “Everything’s shifting around.”

She could see that he was leaning forward slightly now, like he was sniffing the air in the darkness.

And then they heard the sounds.

“Hey, there you are,” said a voice from behind the curtain, and at first she thought that it sounded like Francis. But she realized that it was too happy-sounding for the balding man with the golden pistol, and before she could say something there was a flash, followed by a crack of thunder, and Squire went flying backward.