Ash dropped her head in apparent defeat, but Simon felt a sudden lance of pain. His chest flared with agony and he doubled over, hearing himself scream. Kate shouted something as he was slammed over the low wooden barrier into the pews. He saw Ash racing for the front of the church.
The necromancer jumped onto the altar in full stride, sank her puppet to its knees, and grasped the sacrificial dagger lying there. She fell back against the altar and plunged the blade into Barnes’s chest, driving it in up to the hilt. She curled over the wound and gave a final deep push of the knife. Barnes’s body then sank flat as his last breath finally escaped.
Simon and Kate reached the altar. Thick blood welled around the knife’s guard, spreading out over Barnes’s unmoving torso. The necromancer’s eyes were frozen wide. Simon carefully placed a hand on the chest of Barnes’s body, then the throat. He probed with his fingers. “If he wasn’t before, he’s dead now.”
A drop of black blood dripped onto the altar. A geyser of white erupted and Simon found himself skidding across the floor to smash against the pews. Papers and candles were tossed everywhere. The church filled with the sound of glass from shattered windows dropping to the floor.
Simon felt strong hands under his arms and flinched in shock at the hairy, clawed fingers he saw. Charlotte lifted him to his feet like a doll. He pulled himself from the unnerving grip of the werewolf. “Thank you, Charlotte.”
The altar was surrounded in light like a waterfall flowing up. Simon tried to approach, but he felt enormous pressure pushing him back. His head ached from the sheer force of it. Kate was crouched where she had been tossed, her arm thrown before her face as if weathering a gale. Hogarth fought his way up beside his mistress to protect her from the deluge.
In addition to the strange eldritch power flowing out of the altar, Simon could see the aether gathering in the air. The greenish wisps were thickening into streams. The mystical event was pulling aether across space to this spot in London.
On top of the altar, Ash stirred with palsied wildness like a marionette. Eyes seemed unfocused, but the body still looked around at the torrent of power. “Blood enough at least.”
Ash seized the hilt of the dagger and pulled it from her own chest. Barnes’s body sloughed off a tattered jacket and tore open the shirt, baring the muscular torso. She shoved aside a thin chain around her neck and plunged the dagger into her side, betraying no pain or feeling. With both hands working the knife, she sliced through the heavy muscle of the chest, cutting a long incision from the side of the rib cage to the breastbone. With almost disinterested precision, she began to cut up between pectoral muscles.
Simon spoke a word and a rune glowed on his arm. Bracing against the solid form of Charlotte behind him, he slapped his palm to the floor and unleashed a colossal shock wave up the aisle. It smashed tiles into the air along its path until it reached the roaring altar, where as he watched in disbelief, it dissipated into nothing.
Simon rose with another whispered word, sending runic strength into his limbs. He tried to force his way toward the white flood covering the altar. Charlotte was at his side, on all fours, gripping the flagstones with her claws, dragging her powerful frame along with him. Her head twisted from side to side, growling. The ancient wind blasted into them felt like a Harmattan from the desert, driving sharp pricks of unseen sand into both man and monster. Slowly they inched into the maelstrom.
Ash dug fingers into the gash in the body’s flesh and began to pull open the chest. Pinkish muscles and yellowish connective tissue showed clearly under the separating skin. There were hints of white bone from the ribs. In the midst of the exposed gore, the knot of Barnes’s heart was visible, but still as the grave.
Ash struggled to get some view of her unprotected heart. She ripped the chain free of her neck and took the gold signet ring in her hand. She pressed it into the heart. There was a small curl of smoke. With a faint wet voice, she said, “Rise.”
Ash looked toward Simon. A pleased smile forced itself onto the slack face. The necromancer pulled the ring away from the dead heart and the rush of power around the altar instantly vanished. Simon and Charlotte both toppled forward onto the floor as if a wall had disappeared.
Simon gained his feet and he heard Kate’s voice shout in the sudden silence. Behind the altar, a ghostly figure stood in the darkness.
Simon saw another specter pass through the south wall behind Kate. Then a third walked shimmering between the columns on the north side. Charlotte touched Simon’s arm and he saw the wolf girl staring toward their rear. A final spirit passed through the main doors and began to drift up the aisle. All four specters then converged on the altar where Ash sat with Barnes’s chest cut open and branded heart exposed. The necromancer waited.
Chapter Twenty-seven