Drinking Midnight Wine

  More dead came lurching forward and Toby went to meet them with a confident smile on his lips and a dangerous gleam in his eyes. His sword was a blur as he moved quickly among the slow-moving dead, cutting them up and easily evading their grasping hands. He was soon breathing hard from the exertion, and his arms and back ached fiercely, but his success put new vigour in him, and he felt as if he could have done this all day. To his great surprise, he found he was actually enjoying himself. After a day of being the butt of everything that happened to him, it felt good to be involved in something simple and straightforward, with a whole bunch of tangible bad guys for him to take out the day’s frustrations on.

  But still, for every dead body he dismembered and sent crashing to the floor, there were still more coming forward, and appearing out of nowhere to join the crush. Good as he felt, Toby knew he couldn’t keep this up for ever, and just maybe they could: the dead didn’t get tired. It occurred to Toby to wonder just how many dead Hob had at his command. There were a lot of cemeteries in Bradford-on-Avon: very old, very large cemeteries. As he thought that, the crowd of risen dead around him seemed even thicker, and the smell became almost unbearable. Toby set his back against Gayle’s barricade, and fought on.

  There was a sudden cry from across the hall, and Toby looked round sharply just in time to see Jimmy Thunder fall beneath an unstoppable wave of the dead, that was dragging him down by sheer weight of numbers. The thunder godling was still fighting, throwing broken bodies away from him, but the dead held him down, clawing at him with their cold hands and fastening on him with their yellowed teeth. Toby got a brief glimpse of Jimmy’s face, already streaked with blood, as he looked right past Toby to Gayle.

  “Dammit, Gayle, take on your aspect!” he yelled, his voice touched with hysteria. “Your presence might be enough to block Hob’s sending!”

  “I daren’t,” Gayle said miserably. “That has to be what the Serpent wants. He must have set up some way to turn it to his advantage. It’s the only trump card I’ve got. I daren’t play it too soon.”

  “Gayle, damn you …” And then the thunder godling was lost to sight and sound under a mass of the dead that writhed like a pile of maggots.

  Toby heard the mirror on the wall scream, right behind him. He looked round to see three of the dead hammering at the mirror, trying to smash and shatter it with their cold fists. Toby cut all three of them down before they even knew he was there, and was back defending Gayle in a moment. He rather thought he was getting the hang of this. Even if his arms hurt like hell, and it was growing harder to get his breath with every minute. His image in the mirror babbled thanks, and then raised its voice urgently.

  “Use the artefacts in the display cases!” the mirror shrieked almost hysterically. “They’re all weapons!”

  Toby looked over at the rows of glass display cases. His sword was getting harder to wield. The dead were taking longer to go down. He didn’t have a godling’s strength, but if he had a godling’s weapons … Most of the cases were already out of reach, overrun by the dead, but the first few … He used the last of his strength to clear some space with his sword and then sprinted forward to smash the glass of the first case with his swordhilt. The sign said Mirror of the Sea.

  His prize, when he got it out, turned out to be a small hand mirror, in a battered steel frame. Toby lifted it uncertainly in his free hand, not at all sure what he was supposed to do with the bloody thing, and then the carved runes on the back of the mirror seemed to come alive, twisting and squirming before him, and words came from his mouth before he was even aware he knew them. He didn’t understand what they meant, but the mirror did. He could feel power roaring in the ancient artefact, like a head of steam that had been building for centuries, and was only now breaking loose. The mirror shook and shuddered in his hand and then a jet of dark water shot out of the mirror’s face.

  The water came flying out like a fire hose, an endless stream under enormous pressure, bowling the dead clean off their feet and casting them away. None of them could stand against the crushing impact, even for a moment. Toby grinned fiercely as he turned the mirror back and forth and the pounding stream of water mowed down the dead around him. The mirror was a gateway to the ocean, to the deep dark bottom of the sea, where water under unimaginable pressure never knew the light of day. He knew this, just as he’d known the right words to activate the mirror. And more: where the waters hit the dead and soaked their clothes, they were slowly dissolving. Their mouths screamed silently as dead flesh melted away. It was the salt in the ocean water, Toby realised. Salt had always been a defence against zombies. He laughed aloud and advanced on the dead and they fell back before him.

  Until a dark, rubbery tentacle studded with twitching suckers suddenly burst out of the mirror’s face, blocking the flow of the water. Something in the depths of some faraway ocean had discovered the hole, and become curious. Toby shook the mirror hard, but the face remained blocked. The tentacle snapped back and forth, curling and uncurling, until it encountered a zombie that had ventured too close. It snapped around the dead body, crushing the midriff to pulp in a moment, and then tried to pull its prize back through the mirror. Toby swore disgustedly and threw the mirror to the floor. The tentacle had made it useless to him.

  The dead were already regathering and advancing once again. Toby turned to the next display case.

  Thor’s Gauntlets turned out to be a pair of ancient, ratty leather gloves, falling apart and much mended with assorted patches. Like the mirror, they were covered in sigils and runes, this time spelled out in black iron, but Toby didn’t need to be able to read them to know what you did with a pair of gloves. He put his sword to one side and snatched the gloves out of the shattered display case, pulling them on carefully. They were so delicate the leather felt like lace, but they fitted him perfectly. Toby felt a new strength flooding through him and smiled confidently as the first zombie came within reach. He drew back and hit the dead man square in the face. The zombie’s head shattered and flew apart, and the glove all but disintegrated under the impact, falling away from Toby’s hand in scraps of crumbling leather. Some artefacts just weren’t built to last.

  Toby swore loudly, pushed aside the headless body that was still reaching for him and hurried over to the third display case. Some of the dead were getting too close to Gayle’s barricade. From the way she was glaring desperately about her, it was clear she could sense the danger, even if she couldn’t see it. Over to one side, Jimmy Thunder was still fighting desperately under the mound of dead bodies holding him down, crying out angrily as they clawed at his flesh and snapped at his face. And that was when Toby realised he’d left his sword behind. He snarled, and smashed the glass case with his elbow, yelping at the pain. This had to be the one. There was no way he’d be able to reach another case.

  He was hoping for the mystical equivalent of a tactical nuke. What he got was Surtur’s Tooth. Just a bloody big tooth, yellowing into brown, easily ten inches long, that culminated in a jagged broken end from where it had been ripped out of something’s jaw. There were no runes, this time, just the tooth. Toby cursed dispassionately and reached for the tooth anyway, only to jerk his hand back at the last moment as the mirror on the wall screamed at him.

  “Don’t touch it with your bare hand! It burns!”

  Toby tried again, with the hand still wearing one of Thor’s Gauntlets, and gingerly picked up the tooth. It was surprisingly heavy, but it didn’t burn him. A dead man came out of nowhere to go for his throat, and Toby reacted instinctively, jamming the tooth deep into the zombie’s chest. The dead body burst into fierce yellow flames. It fell to the floor, kicking and arching its back, and then was still as the leaping flames consumed it. Toby allowed himself a sigh of relief, and then went to meet the dead as they came crowding in around him. Whenever the tooth touched dead flesh, the bodies burned, and soon the floor of the great Norse hall was littered with charred and blackened forms with no movement left in them.

 
Hob’s unwilling army was at rest again, all his unnatural life burned right out of it.

  Toby was soon able to rescue Jimmy, and with the somewhat battered and bloodied thunder godling at his side, quickly finished off the rest of the dead. No more new dead came popping out of nowhere to attack them. Hob had clearly seen the futility of losing any more of his dead servants to Surtur’s Tooth. When it was finally over, Toby and Jimmy stood together, both grinning fiercely. Toby felt good, pleased, at having finally achieved something. And, for the first time, he didn’t feel intimidated by the big thunder godling’s presence.

  Jimmy clapped him on the shoulder, staggering him for a moment. “Not bad, Toby Dexter. Not bad at all, for a mortal.”

  They shared a smile, and then Toby looked down at the great tooth in his gloved hand. “What is this thing, anyway?”

  “My ancestor Thor had a run-in with Surtur, back in the old country. Surtur was a major fire demon. Still is, as far as I know. Certainly if he ever turns up here wanting his tooth back, I plan on giving it to him with all the politeness at my command. Nasty things, fire elementals.”

  They went back to dismantle the barricade around Gayle and she emerged to hug Toby tightly. She was shaking, but it took Toby a moment to realise that it was from laughter, not fear. She pushed herself away from him and grinned at him.

  “My brave hero. I’m sure it was all very perilous, Toby, but you have to understand that all I could see was you and Jimmy charging back and forth, attacking empty air. I couldn’t see the dead until you burned Hob out of them, and they were just everyday bodies again. Poor souls.”

  “Wonderful,” said Toby. “My big moment, and I’m the only one who saw it.”

  Gayle looked around her, at the dozens of smouldering corpses scattered across the hall floor. “None of this was their fault. They didn’t ask for their rest to be disturbed. But that’s Hob’s way; to let the innocent suffer, rather than put himself at risk.”

  Toby looked around him, and for the first time saw his recent enemies simply as men and women, their final peace desecrated in the name of Nicholas Hob’s ambition. He felt ashamed. He’d enjoyed fighting them, cursing them, destroying them.

  “What am I going to do with all these bodies?” said Jimmy, just a bit plaintively. “I can’t keep them. I don’t have the cupboard space. Besides … they’re really creeping me out. Hate liches.”

  “They’re all going to have to be properly identified and returned to their proper resting places,” Toby said firmly. “We have to do the right thing by them. None of them wanted to be here. They’re just more of Hob’s victims. The death-walkers can probably help.”

  “Yeah, well, those people give me the creeps too,” said Jimmy. “But I suppose you’re right.”

  “First,” said Gayle, “we have to stop Hob.”

  “Damn right,” said Toby. “I won’t stand for this. He has to pay. I think it’s time we took the fight to him. No more reacting to whatever he does. We have to go to him, catch him wrong-footed. We have to go to Blackacre.”

  “Now you’re talking!” said Jimmy Thunder. “No more messing about. Just barge right in and bust everything up. It’s what I do best. I’ll take care of Angel. Once we’re both in Mysterie, I’ll really kick her arse.”

  Gayle looked at Toby. “Like I said, limited.”

  “I think we need a plan first,” said Toby, diplomatically. “I’ve been thinking. First we need to talk to the Mice …”

  TEN

  UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTERS

  On the edge of town, isolated and abandoned, stood Blackacre. The trees rose still and tall, though life had left them long ago, and no animal or bird or insect disturbed the suffocating silence. But in this place where nothing lived, something moved. A thick fog, blue-green and shimmering with its own unearthly light, came stealing through the trees, billowing slowly out from the ancient farmhouse that was the foul and rotten heart of Blackacre. The fog pulsed and heaved like a living thing as it progressed, swallowing up everything in its path, until it reached the boundary of the dead wood on every side, and then it stopped abruptly and was still; waiting for some poor damned fool to come and disturb its domain.

  Night had fallen by the time Toby Dexter, Gayle and Jimmy Thunder came to Blackacre. A focal point, a God For Hire and a woman who was so much more than just a woman. It was a clear night, but no stars were out, leaving only a ghostly silver light from the full moon to show their way. If anything, the evening seemed even hotter than the day had been, and the night air was close and sweltering. Toby pulled his sweaty shirt away from his chest as he played the beam of his flashlight ahead of him. He felt increasingly uncomfortable, and not just from the unrelenting heat. He’d never been to Blackacre before, even though it lay only just outside the town where he’d spent most of his life. No one went to Blackacre, not even in calm and reasonable Veritie. Everyone knew the stories. Now here he was in Mysterie, where such stories had power, approaching the last redoubt of the Serpent’s Son to face the dragon in his lair; and suddenly all Toby’s plans and preparations seemed as nothing, compared to such ancient, established evil. If Bradford-on-Avon really was the secret heart of the world, then Blackacre was the hidden canker in that heart.

  Toby still wasn’t at all sure what he and his companions were going to do, once they finally came face to face with Nicholas Hob and Angel. He only knew, on some deep, instinctive, primal level, that direct confrontation was the only strategy left to them that had any chance of success.

  They had come to Blackacre because they were meant to be there.

  Gayle had insisted they wait for darkness before setting out. And so they watched the enemy sun sink slowly down the sky, as the sky turned as red as blood, and then disappear into the dark purple of evening. Darkness would hide them from the Serpent’s sight, and the watchful, sorcerous gaze of his Son. Toby still had a hard time accepting that the familiar sun that shone every day, the giver of life and light, was actually the home of Humanity’s most ancient and awful Enemy; but he had to admit, a night attack made sense. The element of surprise was practically the only thing they had going for them.

  He led the way up the long, gradual hill that culminated in the old forbidden wood, glaring into the dark and shining his torch ahead of him like a weapon. The moonlight helped, but the blue-white glow made everything seem unreal, like walking through a dream. Toby had the only flashlight. Apparently thunder godlings didn’t need such things, and Gayle stuck close to Toby. She’d grown ever more silent as they left the town behind them and she seemed to stumble more in the dark than Toby and Jimmy put together. She was holding onto Toby’s arm, and it seemed to him that the growing pressure of her fingers was more for comfort than support. Jimmy Thunder was quiet too, only cursing under his breath from time to time as earth turned unexpectedly under his great weight. And so, in silence and with uncertain courage, they came at last to the dead place, the scorched land, and stood at the boundary of the dead wood, looking in.

  The thick fog enveloping the trees came as a surprise to them. It hung about the trees like a shroud, thick and impenetrable. Toby shone his light into the fog, and the glowing mists swallowed it right up. He looked back at the town, laid out below in a patchwork map of glowing amber lights, and there was not a trace of fog anywhere in the slow, hot summer night. He turned back to the eerie glow of the blue-green mists, and swallowed hard. He didn’t need to be told that there was nothing natural about this fog that shone with its own unclean light and stopped impossibly abruptly at the edge of the dead wood. Just looking at it made his skin crawl. Whatever Hob was up to in there, he really didn’t want it seen. Suddenly Toby realised that Gayle was clinging tightly to his arm, breathing heavily, and actually shuddering as she looked at the fog before them. Toby didn’t blame her. He had an unpleasant feeling that if he stood and looked into the fog long enough, something would come out of it to look back at him. Something he wouldn’t want to meet at all.

  “Are we going to
stand here all night?” said Jimmy Thunder, and Toby all but jumped out of his skin.

  “I don’t know,” he said sharply. “Maybe. Are you telling me this fog doesn’t disturb the hell out of you too?”

  The thunder godling shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger shit than this in my time. The fog’s actually a good sign, if you think about it. It means that Hob’s fallen back on the defensive. He can feel things are coming to a head, and he’s worried someone might come to stop him. This fog might look impressive, but it’s really only a protective shield. According to the Waking Beauty, the real defence here is the small army of walking dead Hob has staked out around his farmhouse, ready and waiting to slice up any uninvited visitors. And since none of my artefacts is of any use this close to Hob’s seat of power, we’d better hope your plan to get us in is going to work.”

  “It’ll work,” Toby said immediately, trying at least to sound confident. “I’ll get us to Hob. Hopefully by then you and Gayle will have worked out what the hell you’re going to do to him. Because if you haven’t, I am going to start running and I won’t stop until I’m in a different time zone. Mice! Where are you?”

  They came tumbling up the hill towards him, a whole crowd of large furry animals, leaping and pirouetting and jostling each other, laughing breathily from high spirits. Toby felt better immediately, just from looking at them. Life blazed so brightly, so freely, in the Mice. They piled up before Toby, pushing and shoving each other and grinning broadly. Toby grinned back as he took in four familiar Mouse faces.