She reached forward, and tapped the casket. “And I have my little friend here.”
“Servants of the Holy Trinity, see what you have in your midst!” shouted Lopez.
The monks didn’t move. They stood like statues, arms outstretched, warding.
“They are mine, body and soul,” said Ursula. “Unlike Lucrezia I insist on total control.”
“She stinks of ice and Chernobog,” said Pierre.
It was true, thought Erik. That was what the smell reminded him of. Breaking sea ice, with a sickly sweetness over it. It was very strong now.
Suddenly, the Savoyard priest clutched at his crucifix and sat down, gasping. A moment later his eyes rolled back and he slumped on his side, unconscious.
Manfred ignored Pierre’s collapse. He glanced at Erik and said lazily, “I heard she was fat as a sow when she joined the order. Sold her soul for a pair of tits.”
Erik realized what Manfred was doing: Exactly what the Venetian swordmaster, Giuliano, had taught them. Unbalance your enemy, make them angry. It was a dangerous game. Erik was not prepared to leave him to play it alone. “She got cheated,” he sneered. “She’s still too ugly to get customers anywhere except the docks.”
But the gibes seemed to have no effect on Ursula at all. Erik caught the tiny, tell-tale signs of Manfred tensing. When he lunged forward, so did Erik. So did Von Gherens and Etten.
Erik’s sword struck the air above the circle. It was like hitting a wall. He caught a glimpse of Ursula swinging her staff. A huge and shadowy hand swung towards him. It didn’t actually make contact, but fear and pain washed though Erik. He wanted to scream, to turn and run. Von Gherens stumbled and fell; Etten whimpered; Manfred grunted and tried to press forward—but was driven back.
Ursula shrieked words Erik did not recognize. Small biting, pinching imps leapt out of the air. They turned to ashes as they struck armor, but there were so many it impossible to see or move.
Then Lopez shouted: “Reverse your swords! Hold them like a crucifix! And ground the tips in the honest earth.”
Erik and Manfred immediately obeyed. Staggering back onto his feet, so did Von Gherens. Etten tried, but the sword slipped out of his hands. Lopez began to chant in Latin. Immediately, the imps were immobilized in the air, then began to shrink, then vanish into wisps of smoke. The monk guardians began to crumple.
Ursula shrieked again. Another command of some sort. The four monks seemed to summon their fading strength and began scuffing the soil with their sandals. Within a moment, the circle which Ursula had scratched was broken at the four cardinal points. At the broken points, hot air seemed to eddy out of the circle and wash over Erik and Manfred and the others. The same hot air, swirling at the four compass points like miniature cyclones, sucked the monks dry in an instant; four skin-bags full of bones collapsed to the ground. The heated air seemed to glow and darken simultaneously, as if drawing power and form from its consumption of the monks.
“No closer!” warned Ursula. She laid a hand on the casket’s lid. “No closer or I will release the Woden.”
Lopez walked forward, coming to stand next to Erik. He held a very small crucifix in his hand. “This is a fragment of the true cross, witch. Evil cannot prevail against it.”
Lopez’s words seemed to have no effect. Ursula’s lips curled in what Erik would have called a sneer, had it not been for the emptiness of the face which framed it. A woman can sneer; a vessel cannot.
“Besides, if you open that casket,” said Manfred, “your plot is at naught.”
At that moment, Ursula’s face underwent a transformation. A horrid one. The face thickened, grew heavy; the shapely cheeks sagged into jowls; the fair brow swelled, looming now over sunken eye sockets. Inside the orbs, a woman’s dark eyes became slits of pure black. And now, for the first time, emotion filled the face. Anger and cruelty, overlaid by triumph.
Erik understood that the vessel was now filled to the brim, and overflowing. This was not Ursula; this was Chernobog himself, lurking inside her flesh.