I sidled up to a tree, leaned my arm against it, and sighted on his shape in the bright darkness. I pulled off one careful shot and he went down. I wasn't sure how badly he was hit, but I'd hit something. He fired back, and I hit the ground.
Nathaniel crawled to me on his belly. "What do we do?"
Niley yelled, "You cannot cross the circle, Anita. If you kill us, all you can do is watch Charlotte die."
I risked a peek. Niley had taken cover. I could shoot Linus, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure what that would do to Charlotte. I didn't know what the spell entailed. I just didn't know that much about sorcery.
"What do you want, Niley?"
"Throw your gun out."
"You throw yours out, too, or I shoot Linus."
"What happens to Charlotte if Linus dies in midspell?"
"I'll take my chances. Throw out the gun."
He stood and tossed the gun off the side of the hill. I couldn't hear it hit over Linus's chanting, but he'd done it. I moved out of the trees and tossed the Browning away. I still had the Firestar.
"The other gun, too," Niley said. "Remember that Linus searched you earlier today."
I tossed the Firestar away into the broken grass. It was all right. This wasn't about guns anymore.
I felt the spell close. Linus's last word reverberated on the night like a great brass bell that had been struck slightly off-key, but it echoed for all the flatness of the note. It echoed and grew until the skin on my body tried to crawl away and hide, creeping as if every insect in the world were under my skin. For a second, I couldn't breathe or move. Then Niley's voice came, "You are too late, Anita. Too late."
Charlotte was screaming through the gag on her mouth. Screaming, over and over again, as fast as she could draw breath.
I stared across the meadow and found that there was something else in the circle. I wasn't sure if it was the blackness of it that made it hard to see, or if it was like smoke, never exactly one shape. It seemed to be about man height, maybe eight feet, not much more. It was so thin that it looked like it was made of sticks. Its legs were longer than they should have been, bent wrong somehow. I realized that the longer I stared at it, the more solid it was growing. The neck was a long serpentine, bent back on its shoulders like a heron, and it had a beak for a mouth. If it had eyes, I couldn't see them. The face looked blind and only half-formed.
"You are too late," Niley said again.
"No. I'm not." I stood and walked out of the trees. Niley seemed terribly confident now that the demon was here.
"Only Linus can send it back to whence it came. If you harm him, then it will certainly devour the fair Charlotte."
I ignored him because I knew the plan was for the thing to eat Charlotte. Let them think I believed they intended to save her. Let them think she was still useful as a hostage. I wanted to get close enough to see the circle of entrapment they'd put up.
Charlotte had stopped screaming. I could hear her voice trapped behind the gag, but she was speaking now, not screaming. A strong woman, a very strong woman.
The demon paced the edge of the circle, flicking a long, thin, whiplike tail. It was becoming progressively more agitated, moving around the circle like a prisoner trying its cell.
"The circle is complete," Linus said. "You are mine to command."
The demon hissed at him, and the sound made the inside of my skull ache. It turned and gazed at me, though it had no eyes. I was on the edge of the circle now. I could see that Charlotte had closed her eyes, and I knew now what she was doing. She was praying.
I dropped to my knees beside the circle. I didn't feel anything from it. Which meant it wasn't meant for me. Whatever it was meant to keep in or out, I wasn't one of them. "She's pure, Linus. She's pure of heart and soul. She isn't a fit sacrifice for this thing."
"The pure are a rare and fine treat for my master."
"No, you can't feed her soul to it, Linus. Her soul is spoken for, and this thing cannot touch her."
The demon moved as far away from Charlotte as the circle would allow. It wasn't happy. "Give it its orders, Linus," Niley said.
"I offer you a sacrifice of flesh and blood and soul. Take this my offering and do my bidding."
The demon moved to stand over Charlotte. It snapped its beak next to her face, and she shrieked. The prayers stopped, and it laughed, a sound like grinding metal.
"It's a circle against evil, isn't it, Linus? Just evil."
"You're a necromancer," Niley said. "You are evil."
"Don't believe everything you hear or even read, Niley."
The demon raised fingers to the moonlight, fingers that ended in black knives. Charlotte opened her eyes and screamed. The Lord's Prayer would have been reasonable, but I blanked. All I could think of was Christmas. "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over the flock by night." I stepped over the circle. It was nothing to me. It was meant to keep out and in evil. I wasn't evil.
"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid."
The demon was chattering, snapping at me, razor claws slicing around me like fan blades, but it didn't touch me. "And the angel said unto them. Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." I knelt and started untying Charlotte. When I pulled her gag away, she started to recite with me. "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."
I cradled Charlotte's na**d body in my arms. She clung to me and cried, and I was crying, too. And I knew I had to get us out of that circle because I only remembered about three more verses.
"And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Charlotte couldn't stand, and I had to half carry her. We stumbled near the edge of the circle, and the demon rushed us in a wave of clattering, snapping, horror. "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying ... " I stared down at the circle as I prayed, that carefully constructed circle ... "glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men." I erased the circle with my hand. I broke Linus's circle of protection.
The demon threw back its head and shrieked. The sound was like a rooster's crow or maybe a growl or maybe something else. It was as if even hearing it, I couldn't hold it in my mind.
It rushed out of the circle and fell on Linus. It was his turn to scream and scream as fast as he could draw breath. Blood flew in a wash, sprinkling us like rain.
And suddenly, there were flashlights and men yelling, "FBI. Don't move." FBI?
The flashlights found the demon. The light glistened on the beak, and blood shimmered on it as if it had bathed in it. If they hadn't tried to shoot it, I think it would have left them alone. But they fired into it, and I pushed Charlotte to the grass, hiding her body under mine.
The demon rushed into the feds, and they started dying. I yelled, "Bullets won't work! Pray. Pray, damn it, pray!"
I tried to lead by example and found finally that I could remember the Lord's Prayer. A man's voice echoed mine, then another. I heard someone else doing the 'Bless me, oh, Lord, for I have sinned' liturgy. Someone else was praying, and it wasn't Christian. Hindu I think, but every religion has demons. Every religion has prayers. All it takes is faith. Nothing like a real, live demon to give you some of that old-time religion.
The demon stood with a man's body raised to its mouth. The neck was cut and it was lapping the blood with a long, sticky tongue. But at least it wasn't killing anyone else.
Prayers rose up into the darkness, and I bet none of them had ever prayed so hard, in church or out. The demon stood on its crooked legs and walked back to me. Charlotte was muttering a new prayer. I think it was the Song of Solomon. Funny what you'll remember under stress.
It pointed a long finger at me and spoke in a voice that was deep and rusted as if it wasn't much used. "Free," it said.
"Yes," I said, "you're free."
The beak and the blind face seemed to waver. For just an instant I thought I saw a man's face, pure and almost shining, but I would never be sure. It said, "Thank you," and vanished.
Feds were everywhere. One of them gave Charlotte his coat that said F.B.I. on the back. I helped her sit up and slip the coat over her. It hit her at midthigh.