“That’s right, Butterfly,” I said out loud. “You stay in your chrysalis.” Maybe Tina’s trick would help me keep it there.
12
ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION I’D SEEN ONLINE, PURGATORY Chasm State Reservation opened at 9:00 A.M. By the time I exited the Mass Pike at Millbury to take Route 146 South, it was already a few minutes past the hour. The morning was chilly and overcast, one of those April days that make you wonder if spring has decided to go back into hibernation. Since I’d be traipsing through the woods, I’d worn a fleece jacket over a T-shirt, along with comfy jeans, and traded my city boots for a sturdy pair better suited to hiking. I had a flashlight in my pocket and carried a couple of concealed daggers; I also wore my InDetect around my neck, tucked inside the jacket. There wouldn’t be any demons running around here in the daylight, but it might pick up something from Pryce’s hidden cauldron—assuming I had the right Devil’s Coffin.
The parking lot was empty except for one other car. It probably belonged to the ranger who was staffing the Visitors’ Center. Near that building was an outdoor information center displaying a big map of the park. Hugging myself against the cool morning air, I stopped to examine it. The entrance to the chasm was just ahead: go up the road, pass a picnic shelter, and then turn left. The Devil’s Coffin was at the far end of the chasm, about a quarter of a mile down the Chasm Loop Trail. A quarter of a mile—what was that, two or three city blocks? Not so bad.
The display held photocopied maps of the park. I grabbed one to take with me and headed toward the chasm. A stiff breeze nipped at my face, making my eyes water. Clouds tumbled across the sky, occasionally letting a sunbeam through. It was the kind of sky that might drizzle or clear up or even toss a few snowflakes at you. I wasn’t surprised I was the only hiker here.
In a couple of minutes I stood at the entry to the Chasm Loop trail. I looked at the map in my hand. I looked back at the rough wooden sign that read TO CHASM. Yep, it definitely pointed this way. And then I looked at the jumble of boulders that littered the steep slope ahead. This was the trail? A trail is supposed to be wide path covered with pine needles and meandering through shady woods. This mess looked like the rubble left over after a boulder-hurling contest between giants.
Just a quarter of a mile, I reminded myself. No more than three blocks—if those blocks were an obstacle course going straight downhill. At least I’d worn decent hiking boots. I sighed and stepped onto the first boulder.
Blue stripes, spray-painted on the rocks, marked the so-called trail. But at this point, there was only one way to go: down. I jumped from one rock to the next, sometimes sitting and sliding to the one below. Steep cliffs rose on either side of the narrow chasm. In shaded places, some ice still clung to the rock walls. Halfway down, when I landed awkwardly and almost twisted my ankle, I began to have doubts. How the hell could Pryce lug a heavy bronze cauldron packed with demons over this terrain?
The same way he’d got it out of the museum, probably. Using his father’s magic, some kind of levitation spell. Like the spell he’d used on Phyllis’s Drude. I stumbled and whacked my hand on a rock. Ow! I wouldn’t mind knowing a levitation spell myself right now.
I paused and leaned against a boulder, catching my breath and examining the scrape on my hand. Thinking about Myrddin’s magic had opened the door to an unwelcome thought I’d been trying to avoid. It had taken the life forces of five people to resuscitate Pryce after I’d killed his demon half. I was supposed to have been one of them. Myrddin had tried to transfer my life force to his son. He’d failed, of course, but some part of my life force—some part of my soul, of what made me me—had gone into Pryce. I’d felt it being ripped, slowly, agonizingly, from my body. I didn’t know how much of my life force Pryce received. Any was too much. What advantage did it give him? Was he aware of my movements? Could he hear echoes of my thoughts?
Pryce didn’t have to know my location to send that Harpy after me. When you sic Harpies on someone, you focus on the person. The Harpies lock onto the victim, wherever he or she may be. Then, Pryce had raided the dreamscape of my last remaining client the night I was doing her job. That could have been a coincidence, but somehow I didn’t think so. Pryce knew I’d be there and set me up for a fall. One hell of a long fall.
Clouds dimmed the light, and I shuddered. Did Pryce know I was here now? The chasm was deserted. No one descended the slope behind me. No one I could see, anyway. Those huge boulders offered way too many hiding places. A chill prickled the back of my neck. Was it the breeze, or was I being watched? I scanned my surroundings. A flash of movement caught my eye, and my heart leapt. My hand went to my dagger, then relaxed. A chipmunk. It was just a chipmunk, scurrying from the shelter of one rock to another.
Quit spooking yourself, Vicky. It was a good thing no one else was here. If I were any jumpier, I’d be a menace to other hikers. I shook off the creepy feeling and scrambled the rest of the way down the slope.
At the bottom of the gorge, the going became a little easier. Boulders littered the chasm floor, but a narrow path—one that actually looked like a trail—wound through them. The ground was spongy and wet, its puddles glassed with a thin layer of ice. In some places deep, gooey mud sucked at my boots and sent me back onto the rocks. I passed signs marking named formations: Lover’s Leap, the Devil’s Pulpit. They all looked like everything else down here—huge hunks of gray rock.
A low wooden bridge crossed a particularly swampy section of the chasm floor. Ahead, on the right, was the Devil’s Coffin. A sign bolted to the chasm wall identified the spot. Beside the sign was a shallow boulder cave, like the pictures I’d seen online. A large rectangular rock rested on the cave floor, jutting out past the entrance. The rock tilted, making the head of the Coffin, the part inside the cave, higher than the foot. It was more the size and shape of a bed than a coffin, but I guess “the Devil’s King-sized Mattress” doesn’t sound quite so scary.
I hopped onto the Coffin and scrambled up it into the boulder cave. The cave was as shallow as it looked from the outside. There was barely enough room to stand behind the Coffin. The wall was solid; no narrow passages wound deeper into the cliff. I breathed a sigh of relief. No cave exploring for me today.
It took only a couple of minutes to inspect the place. The walls, covered with ghosts of graffiti that park workers hadn’t managed to scrub away, crowded the slab on three sides. There was no sign of digging on the cavern floor. I got down on my hands and knees to peer beneath the Coffin, shining my flashlight into niches and cracks. Nothing there but rocks and dirt.
Rearing up, I pulled out my InDetect, lifting its cord over my head, and turned it on. The device buzzed to life, shooting out rapid-fire clicks as it warmed up. The clicking grew fainter, slowed, and then stopped. I stood on the Coffin and scanned the boulder cave with it, moving in a slow circle and sweeping the device up and down. Nothing. I let my arm drop, and the InDetect clicked a couple of times. I moved sideways, and scanned the center of the Coffin stone. It clicked again, but faintly, picking up residue of past demonic activity.
That could mean anything, I thought, turning off the device. A demon-haunted hiker carrying the effects of previous attacks. Some kids sneaking in at night to scare each other with a séance. It was also just possible the InDetect could be picking up a cauldron full of demons that had sat in the center of the Coffin. Yet there wasn’t any cauldron here now.
I tapped on the stone, searching for a hollow spot, but I found nothing. Of course, Pryce could have cloaked the cauldron using magic. Wizards have ways to deflect people’s perception, so that even though you’d swear you were moving in a straight line you’d actually go around the cloaked item. The cauldron could be right here in front of me, and I’d never see it. I waved my hand over the spot where the InDetect had made those faint clicks. Nothing but air. I tried again, keeping my arm straight, making straight lines in an X, feeling for anything out of the ordinary—a brush of bronze, a strange airflow pattern on my hand. Still nothing. I turned the InDetect back on and made another X. Again, just a few faint, irregular clicks. If the cauldron was here, it would stay hidden until Pryce was ready to use it.
That’s why I’d be back at night. If Pryce showed up to dump another sackful of demons into the hidden cauldron, I’d be ready for him.
I went to loop the InDetect around my neck again. Clicks erupted like a sudden hailstorm on a tin roof. I looked at the device. It was pointing at my abdomen.
The Eidolon. My stomach roiled at the thought of that parasite attaching itself to my guts, gorging itself on my emotions. The discomfort grew, and the InDetect made even more of a racket.
I turned the device off, then hung it around my neck and tucked it back inside my jacket.
“Listen up, Butterfly,” I said loudly, glad there was nobody around to hear me. “You disentangle yourself from my guts and flutter your ass back to Uffern, or I’ll dress you up in frilly pink underwear and conjure a bunch of your demon buddies to come and laugh at you.”
My stomach settled down immediately. The tingles of dread pulled back from my limbs.
What do you know? Tina was right. As much as the thought scared me in so many ways, maybe she might make a halfway-decent demon exterminator.
I spent the next couple of hours exploring the rest of the park, hiking its trails and looking for anything that might give me a clue about the cauldron. The park isn’t very big. There are some picnic areas and playgrounds, but all its trails together add up to only three miles of hiking. Most of those trails are the kind of easy nature walks through the woods I’d pictured before I got here. But to get to the Devil’s Coffin, no matter which way you approached, you had to climb down a boulder-strewn slope into the chasm.
FOR LUNCH I GRABBED A CHEESEBURGER AT A DINER IN MILLBURY. I sat at the counter, dunking my fries into a pool of ketchup, and thought about what I needed to do. I’d have to return to the Devil’s Coffin to watch for Pryce. Maybe I could end this tonight and still go with Kane to his retreat this weekend.
