It took some time to realize that the demon had stopped chasing them, possibly because the answering cry of one of his comrades came from up ahead. Two huge wooden doors lay at the end of an alcove to the left, and they all ducked through into a huge room full of books. One of the doors had a hole in it, looking to have been battered in. Gene and Snowy slammed the doors shut, then began piling heavy wooden tables in front of them, laying the first on its side to block the hole in the door.
Soon the pile of tables and chairs mounted beyond the top of the doors. Snowy was about to throw the last of the oak tables on top of the pile when there was a flash and the pile flew to splinters amid a shower of sparks. The smoke cleared, revealing two demons with fiery swords standing just outside the doorway. They bellowed triumphantly and jumped forward.
A huge steel door materialized in front of them, sealing off the entrance.
“That ought to hold the bastards!” Linda screamed, then burst into tears.
Gene held her, watching the door, listening to the loud banging sounds that had begun, coming from the other side.
“They’ll cut through that steel eventually,” he said.
“It’s two feet thick,” Linda said, drying her eyes. “Oh, Gene, they’re the evilest things in the world. Horrible, horrible —”
“They won’t get us, Linda. I promise. I won’t let them.”
They all backed away from the door. Sheila clung to Snowclaw, wanting to lose herself in the forest of his warm fur. She noticed the smell of burnt hair and ran her hand across the burn along his chest.
“Snowy, you’re hurt.”
“Nah, just got singed a little.”
More horrendous banging sounded, but the door seemed to be holding for the moment.
It hit Sheila suddenly. She couldn’t put it into words if she tried for a year, but something had happened. She understood the magic of the castle. It was like noticing a huge feature of the landscape for the first time, something so big and obvious that you wondered why you hadn’t noticed it before.
She let go of Snowclaw. “Gene! I have it figured out! I can summon the portal!”
Gene nodded understandingly. “Do so. Like, immediately.”
“Uh … oh. Yeah, sure!”
Sheila looked around. The library was huge. The main floor held rows and rows of open shelves stacked with books. There were more shelves spaced around the walls, interspersed with study nooks and carrels. Above were two stories of galleries, with more shelving and still more books. Other, smaller side rooms let off the main floor, and she crossed to one of these, stopping in front of the high pointed arch that formed its entrance. The arch would make a good frame for the edges of the portal.
Now all she had to do was summon the portal. Easy in principle, but now that she thought about it, her general knowledge of the castle’s magic would have to be refined and adapted for this particular job. It would take some time.
A fearful crash sounded, and the steel doors shook.
Sheila turned back to her task. She would have to learn her new magic real fast.
Twenty-seven
Estate
As Incarnadine, lord of the Western Pale, sprinted for the woods, he wondered which way of dying would be the quickest and least painfuclass="underline" being crushed to death under huge reptilian feet, being burned to char, or being eaten alive, torn apart in the maw of the gargantuan creature that was now chasing him. The question was academic, inasmuch as the creature would most likely combine all three methods. First tenderize the meat, parbroil it to taste, then gobble it down after a few brisk chews.
Flames from the creature licked at his back. Something crackled around his head, and he realized his hair was on fire. Slapping at his head, he willed a forfending shield to cover him and hoped it would be efficacious.
He dove into the woods and hid behind a stout oak, peering around its trunk. The monster was temporarily blocked by the trees. It roared out its disappointment over losing a quick meal, streams of thin red flame shooting from its nostrils. Then, extending its upper limbs, it took hold of two birch trees and pried them apart. The trees snapped like matchsticks and fell over. The monster began to bull its way into the woods, branches snapping as it moved.
Incarnadine examined the hand-held missile launcher that had materialized in his grasp. It was a long tube affair, set about with gadgets and gizmos. It was very heavy. He studied it for a moment. He was not familiar with its type, but the device did not look overcomplicated. Probably a Soviet design. He balanced the tube on his shoulder and put his eye to the aiming scope. He centered the beast’s thorax in the cross hairs and waited for a clear shot. Finally getting one, he squeezed the trigger-grip.
The missile whooshed away, spewing yellow flame and leaving noxious fumes in its wake. Incarnadine did not see it hit, but heard the explosion.
When the smoke cleared, he saw that the beast was down, its massive head wedged between two tree trunks, the glow of its yellow eyes dimming quickly. Then, suddenly, the huge animal vanished with a bright flash. Nothing remained but trailing smoke.
The missile launcher also disappeared, but with less fanfare. Incarnadine walked out of the woods and rejoined his brother on the meadow.
“Nice solution,” Trent said.
“Thanks. Better than conjuring a knight atop a foaming charger, or some such poetry.”
“Whatever it takes.”
They advanced up the sloping meadow, soon reaching the crest of the hill. Below them stood a large manor house done in the Tudor style, surrounded by trees, gardens, and numerous outbuildings. Dim light glowed behind curtained windows in the main house.
“So far, so good,” Trent said. “What next, I wonder?”
As if in answer, a bright green shaft of energy lanced out from what looked like a large tool shed near the house. A blinding green aura enveloped the two brothers, outlining the bell-shaped forfending shields around each of them.
Trent made circles with his index fingers, moving first clockwise, then counter. “Okay, they don’t have enough power here to get through our shields using the fancy high-tech stuff.”
“Maybe we have a ghost of a chance after all.”
“Maybe. The stuff they do have is nothing to sneeze at. Looks like it might boil down to swordplay, though. I can’t figure it. They must not be connected to their continuum.”
“Hope springs eternal. I thought they’d be running a channel right through the castle to here.”
“That’s what I figured. But maybe Ferne’s still holding out.”
“I don’t see how she could be,” Incarnadine said. “But more power to her. For the moment.”
Another bolt, this one a bright magenta, shot out from the trees.
“Testing different frequencies,” Trent said. “Maybe they’ll find one that works. In the meantime, this will keep them honest.”
Trent raised his arm and pointed at the source of the firing. A blue-white shaft of energy speared out from his fingertip and hit the shed, which disintegrated in a fiery explosion.
“Good shooting,” Incarnadine said.
A sudden droning came from above — the motor of a plane. Looking up, they could see its outline against the stars. The plane banked, then went into a screaming dive.
“Sounds like a Stuka,” Trent said. “The bombs we can live with, but it could strafe us with silver bullets.”
Tiny sparks of flame budded along the black outline of the bomber, and the rattle of machine guns sounded. A few slugs chunked into the earth at Incarnadine’s feet.
Behind them, something rose from the trees on a pillar of fire and streaked into the night, heading along a collision course with the plane. Within a few seconds, missile and plane met in the air about midway between the house and the top of the knoll. A brilliant starburst of light blossomed at their joining. Almost simultaneously, a huge explosion tore up the meadow about twenty yards in front of where the brothers stood. A second bomb hit just behind them, splattering chunks of frozen brown earth.