The Red Scrolls of Magic

“By the Angel,” she said. “A tornado.”

It did look like a tornado. A crazy-looking tornado, black spirals of cloud with a harsh white glow at its center, whirling in the sky directly above a crumbling villa perched atop the mountain. It illuminated the night sky with a sickly gleam. They stopped the car halfway up the mountain and stared at it.

“You think this is the place?” Aline said dryly.

“I’m so glad we didn’t get any silly reinforcements,” muttered Helen.

The churning funnel’s menace was punctuated by periodic lightning bolts splitting the sky. When they did, thunder shook the air and the ground below them, unnatural in its closeness.

“I have to get Magnus out of there,” said Alec. He gunned the Maserati’s engine, sending it hurtling up the road. Helen and Aline gripped each other for dear life as the car whipped back and forth up the hairpin turns.

At the end of the road were massive iron gates through which they could see the villa’s main building. On either side of the gates, high stone ramparts extended in great curves around and then behind the building, circumscribing the grounds.

One gate was open, but two cult members were guarding the entrance, both wearing white suits and hats that might as well have glowed in the dark.

Alec left the car behind the road’s last curve, where it couldn’t be spotted from the gates. They climbed out of the car and crept to twenty feet away, without either guard noticing. On cue, Aline stepped out of their cover and waved. As they’d guessed, the cultists’ leader had made sure that a glamour wouldn’t work on the Crimson Hand, but they planned to use being visible to their advantage. In the split second the cultists looked her way, Alec pegged the guard on the left with a well-thrown rock, striking the man between the eyes and knocking him out. When the other guard turned to see what had happened to his friend, Helen charged, her body a blur as she sped across the road and tackled him to the ground. One elbow later, he was out too.

They quickly trussed the cultists up and stowed them behind a row of bushes before continuing onto the villa grounds. The front driveway was packed with cars, parked haphazardly.

Alec counted two more cultists manning the front doors and a handful milling around the driveway, but there was surprisingly little other activity. “Where did they all go?” he wondered.

“Wherever the tracking rune leads, probably,” said Helen.

Alec led them around the side of the villa, hugging the outer ramparts, until they reached the back of the main house. The ramparts continued back, but dense, overgrown gardens gone to seed blocked their ability to see farther into the grounds. He checked the tracking rune once more and pointed at the gardens. “Through there.”

“Great news,” said Aline. “That place looks like a safety hazard.”

Helen nodded. “Straight to the death tornado it is.”

Once the three of them were in the gardens, they were invisible from view from the house. They had to hack their way through thorny vines and tightly packed branches, but the wind howled and thrashed so loudly that Alec was sure no one could hear them. They crept down the length of the estate, moving from cover to cover, until the garden gave way to a clearing. The clearing ended in the ruins of a high stone wall.

Aline sucked in her breath.

A massive, bipedal lizard with a row of serrated teeth across its forehead was marching back and forth in front of the wall. It had a second, lower mouth as well, full of dripping tusks. Its whipping tail was edged with razors.

Alec squinted. “Rahab demon.” He had fought several of those just a few months ago.

Aline shuddered and shut her eyes. “I hate Rahab demons,” she said passionately. “I fought one in the war and I hate them.”

“Maybe it hasn’t seen us?” suggested Helen.

“It’s smelled us,” Aline said grimly.

Alec noticed that Aline’s fingers were trembling and her knuckles were white on the hilt of her blade. Helen reached out a hand and placed it on Aline’s. Aline smiled at her gratefully, her grip relaxing.

Helen spoke softly. “Maybe the wind will carry away our scent.”

The lizard-like demon raised its snout, licked the air with its tongue, and looked their way.

Alec grimly drew his bow. “Well, our luck so far is holding.” Without further preamble, he punched an arrow into the demon’s chest, making it stagger. Before the arrow had even struck its mark, Helen was on the move, covering the distance to the Rahab in a heartbeat. A slash to its leg just above the knee caused it to bellow in pain, and then Helen danced nimbly out of the way as it swiped at her with its massive claws. Quicker than seemed possible, its long tail swept the ground, cutting Helen’s feet out from under her.

Aline had closed the distance herself and now leaped and buried her daggers in the demon’s back. The demon emitted a high-pitched, nearly inaudible whine. Aline yanked one of her daggers out and jammed the blade into its neck. The demon reared and lashed at her with a whiplike tongue. Aline ducked under the tongue and held on for dear life, slicing at the demon with a viciousness Alec had never seen from her before, leaving the demon bleeding from a hundred wounds. She finally dove off, somersaulting onto the soft grass and back to her feet. This gave Alec the clear shot he needed. He took quick aim and buried one more arrow in its exposed neck. With a great crash it fell to the ground and vanished, leaving a sick scent in the air and lashings of ichor on the trampled grass along the stone wall.