Council of Fire Read online

  He crouched down next to Coffey, keeping his head just high enough to peer over the retaining wall.

  Not long after he did so, someone in the crowd of militiamen—you could hardly call it a military formation—gave the order to fire. An instant later, the first of the muskets went off. As volleys went, it was about as ragged as you could ask for.

  Still, a lot of muskets had been fired. But looking at its effect upon the mob of monsters, York realized that it had been quite ineffective. One of the creatures was down, writhing about, and two or three others were clutching at wounds, howling like proverbial banshees. But none of the other monsters seemed to have been affected in the least.

  They had their bat wings wrapped around them, as if they were cloaks. York wondered if those wings provided a defense against musket balls.

  Within seconds, the monsters hurled themselves across the square at the militiamen crowded into their southwest corner of the Common. As they came, the monsters unfurled their wings. They weren’t using them to fly—York suspected they were too heavy for those wings to bear them up into the air—but did they provide enough lift to enable the hideous things to run swiftly instead of using the side-to-side crab waddle he’d seen earlier when they left the blacksmith shop.

  It didn’t take the creatures more than a few seconds to get across the square and fall upon the militiamen. A few more guns were fired, but they had no better effect than before.

  The first line of militiamen were engulfed by the monsters, who started tearing them with their claws and biting them with those ghoulish iron teeth. Most of the rest turned and fled toward the Broad Way. There were so many of them trying to escape at once, however, that a large number were forced to exit the Common by racing to the east, skirting the buildings on the southern side in hopes of reaching the side streets.

  Only a few of them made it. York could hear three or four racing down King George Street, just below him and Coffey. He was worried initially that they might try to climb up onto the roof themselves, but it soon became evident that they had no intention of staying anywhere in the area. The sound of their shoes and boots slamming onto the street below quickly faded.

  It was hard to hear them anyway, because by now the monsters were in full feeding frenzy. Between their cries of glee and the screams of militiamen being rent apart and devoured, a man could hardly hear himself think.

  “Get down, York!” hissed Coffee. She was now below the retaining wall altogether, curled tightly against it, completely out of sight of anyone—anything—in the Common.

  York decided it would be wise to join her. But before he could do so, the sound of a man’s angry shouting drew his attention back to the scene in the square.

  Jupiter, he saw, was furiously trying to get the monsters he’d summoned to leave off their feeding frenzy and pursue the militiamen who’d escaped down Broad Way. He was not simply bellowing at them, he was striking them with his hammer—which seemed to do a lot more damage than the bullets fired by the militia had. One of the monsters was knocked flat, dazed; another had an arm broken; two more were clutching at bruises and screeching.

  In purely military terms, Jupiter’s actions made sense. It would be foolish to let an enemy escape with no further harm. But Jupiter was not dealing with undisciplined soldiers, here. He was trying to return order to a pack of monsters.

  He’d lost control of them by now. That was obvious to York. One, then two, then three of the creatures leapt onto Jupiter, tearing with their claws and biting with their iron teeth.

  Jupiter fought them off. The man was incredibly strong and the hammer he wielded did terrible damage. But more and more monsters piled on, until York couldn’t see the blacksmith under the pile of wings.

  He slid down and joined Coffey at the retaining wall. She grabbed at him and he gladly returned the clutch. In a world gone mad, this pretty girl seemed to be the only thing left that was sane.

  Chapter 51

  You do not hurry this sort of business

  When Admiral Boscawen reached the corner of Cortland and Broad Way, two blocks south of the Common, he and his small party were forced to take shelter in a recessed entryway to one of the buildings. The few militiamen racing south on Broad Way were in a complete panic, and would trample anyone who got in their way. Boscawen had seen soldiers routed on a battlefield, and he was sure that they had thrown away their guns so they could run faster.

  What was happening? He found it well-nigh impossible to believe that poorly armed slaves and freedmen could terrify even the most undisciplined militia enough to produce this frantic retreat.

  Once the last of the militiamen pounded past the recessed entryway, Boscawen stepped back onto Broad Way and looked to the north. He couldn’t see anything, but he could hear some nerve-wracking sounds. Cries or shouts, not screams, but he couldn’t discern any words in that uproar.

  He looked at the man standing next to him, who was the only other officer in the small group of soldiers he had with him: the Virginian, Washington, who had remained in New York, helping with the organization of the regular troops that remained there.

  “Washington, take one soldier and move up to the Common—softly, now, and stealthily. I need to know—”

  “Admiral!”

  That was a women’s voice. Turning, Boscawen saw Minerva emerging from Cortland Street on the other side of the Broad Way. She was alone except for the man called . . .

  Boscawen searched for the name. It was from the Bible, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

  The memory search ended abruptly, when Washington shouted: “Admiral! Look!” The lieutenant was pointing to something up Broad Way.

  Looking in that direction, Boscawen saw a bloodcurdling sight. A gigantic spider—its legs must have spanned three feet—was coming toward them on the sidewalk. Its cephalothorax was lifted up and its chelicerae were raised, ready to attack and inject venom into its prey.

  “Form a line!” Washington said, with remarkable composure. He and Boscawen stepped aside, allowing the seven marines in the party to come forward. Four kneeling in front and three standing behind, they formed a line across the sidewalk, muskets at their shoulders and ready to fire.

  Washington ordered, “Ready!”

  “It’s just a J’Ba Fofi, Lieutenant!” called out Minerva. Boscawen saw that she and her male companion—Absalom; that was the name—were already halfway across Broad Way. The black woman stretched out her hand toward the spider and clenched her fist, exactly the way she might have squeezed the juice out of a lemon.

  Looking back up the street, Boscawen saw that the monstrous arachnid had come to a halt. It seemed to be frozen in place, with its legs curling underneath its body.

  Then Minerva flung her hand aside, as she might discard a lemon, and the spider fled back up Broad Way. It was clearly no longer a menace, at least for the moment.

  Minerva was now at his side. “The things are a nuisance—horrible one; you’ve got to keep them away from children—but they don’t pose a mortal threat to a populace prepared to deal with them.” Her lips tightened. “Unlike the monsters in the Common, who are quite capable of slaughtering an entire city. Didn’t you hear them?”

  He shook his head. “I heard shouts, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

  “Words!” barked Absalom. His lips were twisted into a jeering smile.

  “Those are not words, Admiral,” said Minerva. “Sasabonsam do not speak any language. Those are just cries of glee, as they feed.”

  “Feed . . . ” His voice trailed off for a moment. Then, clearing his throat: “Feed on what?”

  “The militiamen, I imagine,” she replied. “And whatever civilians had the misfortune to be in the square also.”

  “The blacksmith named Jupiter summoned them,” said Absalom. “We got reports from people who saw him coming out of his shop followed by dozens of the monsters.”

  “Sasabo—” Boscawen struggled with the unfamiliar term. “What are they?”


  Minerva’s expression was stern. In that moment, she looked much older—and much, much more ferocious—than she normally did. “You may think of them as West African ogres. Some of them are vampires.”

  Boscawen looked back up the street. From their vantage point, two blocks from the Common, he could see nothing. But now that he understood the meaning of the cries coming from the north, he had little trouble imagining the horrid scene.

  West African ogres. Dozens of them . . .

  There was no chance he could suppress the creatures with the small number of marines he had at his disposal—and the militia was completely dispersed by now. Those of them who had survived.

  “Is there anything you can do, Minerva?” he asked.

  She looked at Absalom. After a moment, he shrugged. “Can’t get any worse.”

  “Yes, it can,” Minerva said forcefully. She looked back at Boscawen. “I can summon grootslang, admiral. But I warn you—they are greedy creatures. They will demand payment, and if they do not get it, they will prove to be even worse than the sasabonsam. Much worse.”

  “Greedy . . . for what?”

  For the first time, she smiled. There wasn’t much humor in it, but it was definitely a smile. “Oh, gold always suits them. Silver, also. Gems, jewelry—they’re much like your European dragons that way. They like to hoard treasure.”

  Boscawen scratched his jaw. “How much gold?”

  “As much as you have, Admiral,” was her answer. “The grootslang are . . . peculiar. However they do it, they know how much anyone owns in the way of gold, silver and jewelry—and they will insist on being given all of it. Assuming there’s enough to interest them in the first place, of course.”

  Boscawen pondered the matter, for a few seconds. If he gave these—whatever they were called—all the specie in his vault, how could he replace it? The two people who knew the process were now gone. Alexander remained in New York, but Boscawen doubted the man could do the work on his own.

  “Admiral, look!” shouted Gustavus. He was pointing up Broad Way to the Common. Two horrid-looking creatures had debouched onto the street. They looked like . . .

  Well . . . Ogres.

  By now, the two monsters up the street had spotted them. One of them began coming their way; the other scurried back out of sight, screeching like a banshee. Calling on his—her?—fellows to join the new feast, no doubt.

  Boscawen decided he had to deal with one problem at a time. “I can provide the gold. Summon these grood—whatever.”

  Minerva looked at Absalom. “I will need your help.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Minerva reached into her gown and withdrew something; then, squatted and cast the objects in her hand onto the street. They were beans of some kind. Perhaps a dozen of them.

  “What help can you give her?” Washington asked Absalom. “Is there any way the troops could help as well?”

  Absalom grinned—quite cheerfully, given the circumstances. “Oh, no, I don’t believe you can, sir. These things are from our homelands, not yours.”

  Now, he too squatted down. Looking up at Washington, he added: “It’s always a chancy business, calling on beings from another dominion, especially ones as mighty as grootslang. But chance is what I have some say over, if you recall.”

  More screeching came from up the street. Looking, Boscawen saw that eight or nine of the ogres were now coming toward them down Broad Way.

  “You’d best hurry,” he said to Minerva.

  She waved her left hand, as if shooing away flies. “Oh, la! You do not hurry this sort of business.” As she was speaking, she was also giving the beans an intent scrutiny. Then—for whatever reason; Boscawen had not an inkling what it might be—she selected three of the beans and popped them into her mouth. She chewed them briefly and spit the remains back onto the street.

  Boscawen glanced up the Broad Way again. The monsters—the sasabon—whatever—were now just a block away. Thankfully, although they’d spread their frightful bat wings, they didn’t use them to fly. They were approaching in a peculiar scuttling manner, shifting from side to side, which reminded the admiral of crabs more than anything else.

  He had to restrain himself from urging Minerva to hurry again. Glancing down at her, he suspected she wouldn’t hear him anyway. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be in a trance, murmuring words in a language that Boscawen was not familiar with. One of the multitude of African tongues, he imagined.

  Suddenly, her eyes opened wide. “Ulla!” she barked. “Ulla battay!”

  Instantly, the three beans she’d chewed upon began to swell. And swell and swell and swell—and as they swelled, began to take on shapes.

  Gruesome ones. That was evident long before the things reached their final size. When they did . . .

  Boscawen looked up at them. Up and up and up. The creatures were elephant-shaped but stood at least five feet taller at the shoulder than any elephant Boscawen had ever heard of. They towered over Minerva, who had stepped forward, almost into their midst.

  The bodies were elephant-shaped, and so was the basic structure of their heads. They had the huge elephant ears, as well.

  But nothing else was particularly elephant-like except the tusks—and there were four of them, not two. The tail was thick, powerful, long and armored, very much like a crocodile’s—if a crocodile’s tail ended in a spiked ball.

  The front of the head—call it the face—resembled an octopus more than an elephant. Six tentacle-like appendages surrounded a mouth which had a beak at its center rather than teeth, just like a cephalopod. But these tentacles were thicker than an octopus’ would be, even one with this immense size, and had none of the distinctive suckers possessed by octopi and squid.

  The eyes . . . Boscawen looked away; not in fear, but in revulsion. The eyes resembled those of no animal he’d ever seen; not a mammal, not a bird—not an octopus, for that matter. They didn’t even look like eyes so much as open, pus-oozing wounds.

  Minerva spoke, again in that unknown tongue.

  One of the creatures responded in a low rumbling voice. That was definitely a language, but Boscawen understood none of it. He didn’t think it was the same one Minerva was using, but he wasn’t positive because the voices themselves were so different,

  It went on for some time. A number of sentences, if the language had any analog with human tongues.

  When the thing had finished speaking, Minerva turned her head toward the admiral. “She says you are very rich and if you try to cheat them you will be destroyed.” She grimaced for a moment. “Then she spent some time explaining the manner of your destruction, but I see no need to translate that. It was quite disgusting.”

  Boscawen could well imagine. He glanced up the street and saw, to his relief, that the ogres had ceased their forward progress and were milling around. By now, there were at least two dozen of them. Clearly, the newly-arrived monsters were making them nervous,

  “Will they agree to help us?” he asked.

  “Yes—if you vow to turn over all your gold afterward.”

  Not knowing the proper protocol, assuming there even was one, Boscawen peered up at the one in the middle sand said: “Yes. The gold is yours—if you get rid of these sasa—sasa—”

  He looked to Minerva for assistance “Sasabonsam,” she said. Then, made that same hand-waving gesture. “Oh, la, it’s a good thing grootslang don’t get offended easily.”

  Absalom chuckled. “If they get rid of the sasabonsam. What a jest!”

  The huge grootslang suddenly erupted into motion. Within a few seconds, Boscawen realized the absurdity of his qualification. He might as well have asked a pride of lions if they could get rid of some baboons.

  “Oh, la,” Minerva said. Then she laughed softly.

  Chapter 52

  His worst fears had materialized

  The sounds being made by the monsters in the Common changed suddenly. York started to rise up to see what was happening, but Coffey jerked h
im back down. “Will you please stay hidden?” she whispered.

  That was . . . probably a good idea. So York just listened, as intently as he could.

  The sounds for the past few minutes had been the grisly noises you’d expect creatures like this to make while they were feasting. Jupiter’s shouts of rage had ended quickly once the monsters swarmed him. York was sure the blacksmith was dead by now—dead, and mostly eaten.

  For all their appalling nature, those sounds had been reassuring, in a way. Predators at a feast were not predators on a hunt.

  Now, though, the noises changed in tone and timber and grew louder. Then, much louder. Within seconds, the monsters were producing a ruckus that matched the one they’d been making when they were facing off against the militia.

  “I have to see what’s happening, Coffey,” he whispered, as forcefully as a whisper allowed.

  She glanced up at the retaining wall, and then nodded her head. “All right. But be careful.”

  Slowly, York raised his head high enough to look over the wall and down into the square. Almost at once, he realized he was in little danger of being spotted by the monsters swarming in the Common below. The creatures’ attention was entirely focused on whatever they saw down Broad Way. Like all predators considering potential prey, their concentration was intense. They wouldn’t be looking anywhere else for the time being.

  Now, the monsters began moving onto Broad Way, with more and more of them vanishing from York’s sight altogether.

  If he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him and Coffey either. This might be the right time to descend the staircase, return to the streets and make their escape.

  Escape to where, though? York had no idea what part of New York might be a safe haven from creatures like these. At least up here on the roof he had a chance of defending Coffey and himself against monsters coming up that narrow staircase. One at a time, with his strength and his hammer, he might have a chance of beating off the horrid things. Let them swarm . . . Not a chance. Jupiter had been doomed the moment that happened.