Hexed_ The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne [115]
When Malina finished, there was an impenetrable yet translucent shield around her, and she looked like she was just getting warmed up. It was far beyond the conic wards I’d seen from Bogumila and Klaudia.
Rabbi Yosef’s crazy squid beard had seen enough; the tentacles quailed and would go no further. They started to retreat, rolling up quickly into the rabbi’s face as he considered how to deal with a far more accomplished witch, then he startled and took a step back as he saw me coming, covered in the gore of witches and demons and my own blood, with Fragarach held ready in my hand. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t say hello, just raised my sword to his throat and said, “Freagróidh tú.” He froze up in the blue glow of the spell and started spluttering something at me in Russian. “You will not speak except to answer my questions,” I said, and he promptly shut up.
“Thank you, Atticus, that will make this so much simpler,” Malina said.
“No, stop,” I told her, as she was gearing up to lay him out. “I need to talk to him first.”
“He must pay for Bogumila’s death!” Malina blazed from behind her shield.
“Yes, he must. But first he will speak plainly to me for the first time. What is the name of your organization, sir?”
He fought it, of course, but eventually he said, “The Hammers of God.” Understanding clicked in my head. That stylized P on the hilt of his knife had been a hammer.
“Where is Father Gregory tonight?”
“He is on a plane back to Moscow.”
“How many are in your organization?”
“I do not know the exact number.”
“Give me your best guess. How many might show up to avenge you should you disappear tonight?”
“At least twenty Kabbalist fighters like me. That is standard when one of us disappears. But they may send more if they think the threat warrants it.”
I turned to Malina with a wry grin. “It is prudent that we stopped to chat, is it not?”
“He still must pay,” she insisted, as Klaudia, Kazimiera, Berta, and Roksana raced to join us and surround him.
“You want to face twenty or more of him?” I asked.
“He is lying about that.”
I shook my head. “You’ve experienced this spell yourself, Malina. He cannot lie. Perhaps there is another way we can make him pay yet avoid a confrontation that may lead to more bloodshed on our side.”
Malina clearly found this suggestion distasteful. She wanted to kill his ass right then and there. “What do you propose?”
“Take a few nice locks of his hair while I’ve got him here. He’ll know he’s in your power then. You can send him some explosive diarrhea or something like that, something painful and humiliating yet short of death, and you can also set up a dead man’s enchantment so that if you die, he dies too. And then we’ll explain to him, in small words, how he killed a very nice witch who was trying to help us kill all the evil witches upstairs, and he and his Hammers of God should just leave us the hell alone from now on, because we have the East Valley well under control.”
Malina weighed my words. She knew that she was more than a match for the rabbi, but he’d been stronger than Bogumila. Twenty more of him against the five remaining members of her coven weren’t good odds, and she understood this. She agreed, albeit with great reluctance, and dispelled the light show swirling around her. Her sisters accepted the decision without comment, but I could tell they didn’t like it either.
“There, Rabbi, you see?” I said. “Heinous witches don’t let asspuppets like you live. Only merciful ones who understand, like me, that you’re trying to do the right thing but you’re just too dim to understand what it is. So we’re going to show you. Right after Malina takes some of your hair.”
Malina flipped off his hat and tore a giant handful from his scalp, stuffing it into the pocket of her leather jacket. We all enjoyed his pain. Then I released the rabbi from Fragarach, bound his sleeves firmly behind him in a similar fashion to what I’d done in my shop, and we led him through the building and explained how we’d completely