Page 53 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
As more and more boggarts poured down the stairs, I glanced behind me to make sure that Sally and Mabel were safely out of the way. Sally stood in front of Mabel, her hands at her sides, but the bands of power that were woven around her were almost flickering with leashed energy. I decided that she could more than take care of herself and the reaper, and turned back just as three boggarts that had raced past the fighting forms of Hunter and Finch leaped toward where Jim stood next to me.
I smiled, brief memories of battles in the past lighting up my mind, and raised my sword.
FIFTEEN
Diary of Effrijim, Demon Sixth Class
“To the left! No, your other left! No, sorry, my bad, your first left was right. I mean left. The left is the right left ... ACK!” I didn’t know there were as many boggarts in the world as came pouring down the stairs and into the chamber containing the Lake of Upside-Down Sinners, but there was a metric butt-ton of them, and they were all heading straight for us.
“You’re not—gah!” Parisi spun around, her sword slicing through the air, a couple of boggart necks, and two boggart arms. “Not helping with bad directions.”
I lunged at the boggart that was bearing down on her, since she was twirling and twisting and leaping through the air as she fought. Ahead of us, Hunter and Finch were paring down the waves of boggarts, but about half of them slipped through to where Parisi and I were the next defense.
Behind us, I could hear Sally warning Mabel, “Be ready to get Parisi out of here the second we have these boggarts under control.”
“All right,” Mabel answered. I glanced behind as I bit deep onto a boggart’s leg, its nasty blood filling my mouth with the taste of rotted vegetation, ignoring its screams and attempts to beat me on the head. I must have severed something important, because the boggart went down in a cloud of oaths and tried to crawl away as I spat out the nasty taste. “But ... I don’t want to tell you what to do, but shouldn’t you be helping them? I’m a dancer, not a fighter, but you’re a former Sovereign.”
“Sugar, do you honestly believe if there was any way I could wade into battle and open a can of whup-ass on those boggarts, I wouldn’t do so? Alas, the Court has very strong opinions about former Sovereigns dismantling the security they put in place,” Sally answered, handily sidestepping when the crawling boggart tried to reach for her. She kicked it in the leg I’d bitten, which left it curling up and howling in pain. She caught me staring and smiled a smile that made my hackles rise involuntarily. “A little kick between friends is fine, though.”
Parisi had been busy while I was distracted, because when I turned back to help her—although I gotta admit, my mom had it going on when it came to dispatching boggarts—there was a smallish mound of green-oozing bodies to her left. “Way to go, Mom. Can I call you Mom?” I asked.
“No,” she said, screaming something wordless when six boggarts with arms linked mowed down both Finch and Hunter. The latter was up on his feet immediately, while Finch appeared to have gotten in the way of one of the boggarts’ swords, because when he got to his knees, I could see the blade coming out of his back.
Finch looked down at himself as he staggered to his feet. The hilt of the sword poked out of his stomach. “You bastard! Tatiana is going to tut at me, since I swore to her I wouldn’t get harmed, and I hate making her tut over something so ridiculous. Have that, you filth!”
Heads went rolling down to the water, where they slipped into the lake with a whispered splash, bodies flopped onto the ground, and the stone floor become as slippery as a skating rink by the time the flow of boggarts had slowed to a mere dribble.
I picked up one of the small knives that had dropped, and, clamping it firmly with my teeth, attacked a boggart that was rushing toward Parisi. “I think this is the last of them,” I said around the hilt of the knife. “We should be good now.”
“Famous last words,” I heard Sally say as an uncanny silence filled the room. Well, silent except for the panting and heaving of everyone who’d just battled what seemed like an entire battalion of boggarts.
“What—” I started to say, then felt it.
“What is this strangeness?” Parisi asked, ignoring Finch’s strangled scream when Hunter, without warning him, whipped the sword out from where it pierced the vampire. She was panting heavily, sweat making her face red and shiny as she looked around. “What is this feeling?”
“Oh no,” I said, the feeling of dread and absolute wrongness growing stronger with each passing second. “Don’t tell me they can come here?”
The last was asked of Sally, who tried to smile, but it came out strained. There was something about her eyes that I didn’t like, a worried light that had me regretting everything I’d ever eaten. And I’ve eaten a lot of things.
“I’m afraid they can. They are the gaolers of the Akasha, and this is technically part of the Akasha.”
“Who are you talking about?” Parisi asked again. “And why do I feel like I am covered in honey and a herd of biting ants is heading my way?”
“I don’t think ants make a herd—” I started to say, but just then, darkness settled at the top of the stairs and started to ooze its way down.
“Hashmallim,” I heard Finch say in a voice filled with amazement.
“What is—” Parisi stopped when the darkness on the stairs resolved itself into four Hashmallim, the incredibly scary, insanely powerful, inhuman beings that guarded the Akasha, and were made up of darkness and terror and a stubbornness that would do any Newfie proud. She spoke a word I didn’t understand.
“Yes,” Sally said, moving a step closer to Mabel. The former’s expression was fairly passive, but her eyes were bright and watchful. “That is their old name, before the Court made them the guardians of the Akasha.”
Parisi studied them for a second as Hunter and Finch retreated to stand a few yards in front of us. Then she rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and strode forward between the two men, her sword in hand. “I am Parisi of Madurai, a Defender of the Blood. You will stand aside.”
“Your mom has serious balls,” Mabel said softly. “I don’t think I could walk up to them like that. They make me want to run away screaming while setting my hair on fire.”
“Yeah, they have that effect on people,” I said, then, feeling it was important to make a stand next to Parisi, shoved my way between Finch and Hunter and stopped next to her.
One of the Hashmallim turned my way, although it was hard to tell if he was looking at me or not, since they didn’t have actual faces. Not with the long cowls and robes that flowed over them, keeping them to a large, vaguely human shape that seemed to suck in all the light and joy and happiness around them and leave the air filled with fear, horror, and pretty much outright unending terror.
