“When Kim arrives, he will have the other chalice.” He held up the one in his hand. “It is important he not join them.” He held the goblet out to Peeve. “You must hide this somewhere out of sight, but somewhere you can reach it when we need it.”
“Where I can reach it?” Peeve asked.
“We?” Eddie asked.
“When Kim comes, he will have the fakir. We must be able to overpower him and get the chalice away from him. If we can, we must get the rings from him as well. They control the fakir. It is through them that he binds it to his will.”
“The thing that ate Gong. The cloud.” Eddie traded glances with Peeve. “You want me to fight that.”
Boukai smiled, a predatory smile a wolf might have worn. “No. I want you to manage Kim. I will handle the fakir.” And then he laughed, a great and terrible laugh, and shrugged out of his coat. He threw the overcoat on the countertop and stopped laughing as suddenly as he’d begun.
“Hide the chalice,” he said. Then he spun to face the door. “He is here.”
Peeve scooped up the goblet and ran behind the counter. Eddie moved halfway down the counter, out of direct line of the door. “What do I do?”
“You must See,” Boukai said, unbuttoning his shirt halfway. His sleeves were already rolled up, revealing blue-ink tattoos covering both his forearms. When Eddie squinted, the tattoos shimmered as the goblet had. “I will fight his magic. You must fight the man.”
The plateglass window exploded.
Eddie looked out into the storm and screamed.
In Kim’s study the fakir had been a cloud, a hazy harbinger of death and dread. To his new Sight it was much more. It was a wraith. A demon. A creature of mist and malice with wings and talons and great gaping teeth. It wove its way through the window even as the door opened and Kim stepped through, the other goblet clutched in his hand.
“You!” he shouted, when he saw Boukai.
Boukai smiled and gestured. The tattoos on his arms flowed forward, dark and shiny tendrils to duel the fakir. Where they touched, arc-white sparks danced. Sounds crackled inside Eddie’s head, and he realized he was standing still. What the hell do I do know?
“Get out of here!” Peeve shouted. He popped up from behind the counter with a pump-action shotgun leveled. Eddie swore and dove to the side. The gun’s explosion was just as loud as the sound of the demons fighting, but this sound shook his chest and echoed through the small shop. Eddie twisted his head to see the shot, expecting to see Kim’s bloody body slumped to the floor.
He was still standing, arms outstretched, watching the fakir duel whatever Boukai had summoned.
Peeve ratcheted the slide and fired again. This time Eddie was looking that way, and he Saw what happened. The buckshot blazed into the fakir’s center and sparkled like fireworks for a brief instant before it disappeared to wherever Gong had gone.
“Son of a bitch,” Eddie whispered.
“You cannot fight it,” Kim screamed.
The fakir circled the black man like a hound on the hunt. Boukai kept his eyes on it, his arms raised. Eddie tried to focus on whatever was growing out of his arms but they moved too fast. Like the goblet, they were there and they weren’t. What if the fakir was like that? He looked at it, but it still appeared hazy.
Kim lunged two steps forward. The fakir advanced, crackling with energy, struck the tendrils along their length. Eddie was forced to look away. The light was so bright it hurt his eyes, but when he looked down he saw it cast no shadow. Just as at Kim’s place.
“Eddie!” Boukai cried.
Eddie looked. The fakir was high off the ground, with just enough of itself lowered to guard Kim from Peeve’s gunfire. As he watched, Peeve ratcheted and fired again, but this shot went the same way as the rest. He squinted, and looked. The goblet was inside Kim’s coat, tucked there as he used both hands with the fakir.
There was a crack, and Boukai fell. The fakir flickered at him, caressing his head and shoulders, but the tattoo tendrils were still there and held it at bay. Eddie’s brow furrowed in amazement as Boukai himself seemed to shimmer and bounce between realities, but he steadied back to one person. Eddie ground his teeth and looked around for something, anything. It was obvious Boukai was losing. He had to do something. He looked around him, around the store, trying.
But there was nothing to See.
“Do something,” he whispered to himself. And then he Saw it.
Kim was holding his elbows tight against himself, holding the goblet secure around its side. Eddie concentrated, squinting with his mind even as his eyes narrowed. A slender chain appeared, trailing off the goblet toward the counter, toward Peeve. Eddie twisted that way, thinking to warn Peeve, when it hit him.
The other goblet. And then he looked again and saw the chain pulse and undulate, toward Kim and his rings. When the pulse reached him, the gold symbol on Kim’s forehead glowed a little brighter. And then the fakir advanced, a bit stronger. It was feeding off the goblets somehow. It was magic.
“I will fight the magic,” Boukai had said. “You will fight the man.” Eddie frowned.
The magic is kicking his ass, Eddie thought. But Kim’s still a man. And that was it.
“I know how to fight a man,” he said, and clambered to his feet.
He charged.
He was within two steps before Kim dragged his attention from the battle with Boukai to see the threat. All he had time to do was shout “No!” before Eddie slammed into him. He hit Kim in the midsection, crushing the goblet between them. The rim of it cut painfully into his shoulder even through the fabric of Kim’s coat. They fell in a pile on the floor.
Boukai screamed. “The chalice!”
Eddie fumbled for the goblet. Kim brought one hand down on it and wrapped his other around the back of Eddie’s neck. His touch burned like fire. Eddie screamed and lashed out. His fist connected with Kim’s chin. The fiery touch disappeared. He looked down. Kim was conscious, but his eyes were wandering. Eddie dug through the man’s coat, found the goblet, and flung it behind the counter toward Peeve. He heard it clank against the floor. He glanced back long enough to make sure the ethereal chain had gone with it and then looked back at Kim.
“Got it!” he called. There was no answer. He looked.
Boukai was on his knees, his arms held above his head. The tendrils that had so adroitly fought the fakir were slender shadows of themselves, and white had leached its way up the tattoos on his arms. Eddie looked at the fakir, writhing above him, probing with taloned wings. He turned back around, cupped Kim’s head in his hands, and slammed it against the floor. The man whimpered. Eddie did it again. And again.
He stopped.
The rings. He reached down and grabbed Kim’s limp hand. He clutched at the ring there. It burned his fingers. He yelped and let go. Checked over his shoulder. Boukai was on his back, but the fakir was motionless, waiting.
“Peeve!” Eddie called.
“Is he dead?” Peeve asked, peeking over the countertop.
“Get over here. I need you to take his rings off.”
Peeve crept out from behind the counter, leaving the shotgun where it was. “Why can’t you do it?”
“Because they burn my fingers.”
“Why are your fingers more important than mine?”
“Peeve, damn it. Just do it.”
Peeve reached out with one finger and tapped the ring. Nothing happened. He tapped again. Then he grabbed it. “It’s barely even warm,” he said.
“Take it off,” Eddie said, watching the fakir. He felt something nibbling at the edges of his awareness. He hoped it wasn’t the cloud starting to gnaw on him the way it had taken Gong’s arm off. “Then the other one. Be careful.”
“Careful of what?”
“I don’t know, do I?” Eddie waited. Peeve got both rings off, and nothing happened. The fakir didn’t move. Neither did Boukai.