Kevin Hearne - Hexed

It exploded satisfactorily, but we heard no screams of dismay. We entered and shuffled forward, swords raised defensively, and I asked Leif, “You smell anyone?”

The vampire shook his head and said, “Not on this floor. Only dust.”

That relaxed me somewhat, and I almost got squashed to Druid marmalade because of it. A huge column of basalt fell from above as I squared with the dust-clouded hallway, and only my peripheral vision and reflexes allowed me to roll out of the way in time. It crashed loudly onto the floor of the lobby, shattering the tile and sending aloft a small spray of ceramic shrapnel. But then the column of basalt didn’t lie still, the way stone should. It moved , back and up, until I saw that it was attached to something much larger looming in the cloud of hallway debris—namely, the torso of a very large basalt golem, with eyes like pilot lights set deep in a boulder it used for a head.

“Another behind you!” Leif shouted, and I rolled again as a second massive arm smashed the tile where I’d been lying into ceramic tortilla chips. This one had been waiting in the opposite hallway, guarding the entrance to the stairwell. I was back up against another glass wall with a single door in it. Beyond was a large, undeveloped office space, with a bare concrete foundation, no dividing walls, open ductwork in the ceiling, and plenty of room to dodge a couple of golems.

“We need space!” I said, and I scrambled to my feet and tried the glass door that led into the interior. It was unlocked—there was nothing to steal in there. Leif dashed through it right behind me, and the basalt golems promptly smashed through the entire wall in pursuit. I felt some shards tug at the flak jacket and one cut the back of my left arm, but I ignored them for the moment as we sprinted to put some space between us and the golems. The building gave us plenty of room to run; I guessed there was about twenty thousand square feet in there.

“These stone guardians may pose a problem,” Leif said wryly. They moved with all the grace and silence of a landslide, the chalky scrapes of their joints heralding the thunderous impacts of every step they took. “They don’t have any juicy veins for me to tear out, swords won’t cut them, and they won’t stop unless we leave.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “Golems are nothing more than Kabbalistic enchantments—” I stopped, realizing I might literally have the magic touch where they were concerned. I could laboriously unbind the rock into its component elements, but that would take time I didn’t have and energy I didn’t want to waste; a simpler solution was available, thanks to Rabbi Yosef. “Hey, I want to try something,” I said. “Pick one and charge it—just climb up its face or something so it isn’t watching me. I’ll follow up.”

“How much time do you need?” Leif frowned. We were fast approaching the east end of the building, and soon we’d have to turn and face them anyway.

“I need only a second or two,” I explained as the golems rumbled behind us. “Don’t let it grab you or anything. If you can do the same with the other one afterward, even better.”

“Okay,” Leif said, “here I go.” He pivoted on his right foot and leapt at the nearest golem, spitting out one of those hoarse, hissing vampire cries that signal to victims they’re nothing more than a walking package of Go-Gurt. He stepped neatly on the golem’s knee and leapt up to its head, ramming an elbow into its nose and actually chipping off a few pebbles, before using its half-raised arm to launch himself over the head. Leif hung by a single hand off the golem’s pitted volcanic skull, until it tried to flail at him with its arms. This distracted the second golem too, which veered to take a swipe at Leif dangling off its brother’s back, and that was my chance. I darted forward and rested my palm upon the thigh of the first golem, and after a moment its struggles ceased, its eyes flamed out. The Kabbalistic enchantment had been snuffed by the wards bound up in my aura, and it fell heavily backward as Leif leapt away. The second golem was still focused on Leif, and it was a simple matter to dash behind it and repeat the process, a brief touch on the rocky hamstring sufficing to end its animation and send it tumbling on top of its brother.

“Hecate’s frosty tits, how did you do that?” Leif demanded. “I thought we were going to spend all our time dodging them.”

“A better question is, how did the hexen manage to create them?” I asked. “They’re not Kabbalists. In fact, they used to kill them during the war—oh. That’s how. They stole the spells off their victims.”

“Fill me in later,” Leif said. “The clock is ticking.”

“Right. Think you could toss one of the golems’ heads through the ceiling and make us a hole to get to the second floor? I don’t fancy walking back there,” I gestured to the west end of the building, “and climbing up a booby-trapped stairwell.”

“Neither do I. Let me see how much they weigh.” I could match Leif’s strength if I had access to the earth—we’d tested it once with an arm-wrestling match in a park—but right now he had to play the Herculean one, with my magic in short supply. He lifted the second golem’s head, which must have weighed a good half ton or more, and hefted it experimentally in one hand. It appeared to strain him as much as a juggler might handle a grapefruit.

“Throw it at an angle, perhaps, then follow up with one of your grenades?” he asked.

“An excellent plan,” I agreed, taking out one of the grenades, “but you’ll need to throw me through the hole afterward. Druids can’t jump.”

Without another word, Leif chucked the boulder up through the ceiling with a magnificent concussion and a cry of twisted steel, and it almost plowed through to the third floor as well. I was glad it didn’t: The idea of the hexen taking pot shots at us from above held little savor for me.

I tore out the pin and lobbed a grenade through the hole, in the direction of the elevator shafts and the stairwell to the west, where I figured the floor’s defenses would be concentrated. In such an open area, the grenade ought to do plenty of damage.

Unfortunately, its explosion killed only a single one of the creatures waiting for us. Leif tossed me through the hole, sword drawn, and I landed somewhat ungracefully to face the charge of seven bloodied and enraged demon rams coming from the stairwell entrance. Goat-headed, curly-horned, and cloven-hoofed, they had the torso and arms of the Spartans in 300, and no amount of Visine would ever get the red out of their eyes. They were armed with spears, but I noticed that they also had long knives hanging from their right sides. They were undisciplined; they should have charged me in a wedge. Cold Fire was out of the question, since none of us was touching the earth. They’d all have to be dispatched the old-fashioned way.

As I charged them, a quick count gave me eight—seven, plus one melting into goo by the stairwell—and it had been eight demons, by our earlier count, who had impregnated die Töchter des dritten Hauses .

“Come on, you horny bastards!” I cried as I slapped away the tip of the vanguard’s spear and then slashed through his throat, which his bulging eyes seemed to think was unfair; he thought he’d been charging an unarmed man. I danced away to the left to force them to turn and break their momentum. The next two chuffed balls of hellfire into their left hands and threw them at me as they tried to change direction.

I lunged right through them, heedless of the flames from which my amulet protected me, and beheaded them both with one stroke. The others now realized I was armed and slowed their approach, moving more cautiously and trying to surround me as I backpedaled away from their spear tips. Leif leapt up through the hole behind them and cut down two more. The remaining two divided their attention between us. One of them threw his spear at me as he charged. I ducked under it and then he was on me, his long knife drawn, and we each grabbed the other’s sword arm as he bowled me to the floor. We rolled around, each trying to gain advantage.