Free Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) by Simon R. Green Page B

just traded one addiction for another.”
    The demon glared at Hawk, stretching its mouth impossibly wide to show sharp steel teeth. Up close it looked like a living cancer, bulging red and traced with purple veins, and it stank of sulphur and the Pit.
    Gaunt smiled sadly at Hawk. “In the end, power is all that matters. It’s all I have left. You want to know how I could do something like this to myself, don’t you? Ah, Hawk, I was already damned long before you met me. That’s the price you pay for bargaining with the Pit, no matter how noble your intentions. Trafficking with demons like this was no trouble at all to what’s left of my conscience. I needed powerful magic again, to do what had to be done, to save the Hook. I failed them, you see. I promised them they’d be safe, promised I’d protect them from the bastards who used and preyed on them, but in the end I couldn’t back it up. Now I can. I have returned, and this time I will clean up the docks and the Devil’s Hook for good. The dead shall be my soldiers, and no one will be able to stand against them. I will spread such horror through the city that no one will ever dare oppose my will again.”
    “Your zombies are killing innocent people right now!” said Fisher. “Guards and striking dockers, men and women putting their lives on the line to protect their families. Or are you saying you can prevent the zombies from slaughtering defenseless people in the Hook?”
    “No,” said Gaunt. “Some of the innocent always have to die, for the greater good.”
    “They’re killing everything that moves!” said Hawk. “You don’t have any real control over them!”
    “You’re wrong, Hawk! Wrong! I planned this all very carefully. I created the zombie control device, with a little help from my friend, and I sold it to the DeWitts. Suitably disguised, of course—they didn’t know it was me. But I knew they’d never be able to resist such an opportunity. And all along, the control device had my spell hidden at its heart, so I could override the DeWitts’ control at any time. I knew Marcus and David would be too greedy to look beyond the profits to be made, by replacing living workers with zombies. And that greed has brought their doom upon them.”
    “Are they dead?” said Fisher.
    Gaunt frowned. “Unfortunately, no. They ran like rabbits at the first sign of trouble. It doesn’t matter. My zombies will track them down later.”
    “There isn’t going to be a later,” said Hawk. “Your zombies are killing innocent people. That has to stop. Now.”
    “I thought you, if anyone, would understand,” said the sorcerer. “The DeWitts weren’t the only ones considering the introduction of zombie labor. This … carnage I’ve organized will make people too afraid to ever think of using zombies again. I’m saving thousands of jobs here, Hawk; saving lives and livelihoods all over the city. It’s regrettable that some will have to die to bring that about, but you should know; there are no real innocents anymore. Not in a world where the good must damn themselves to hell to gain the power to do good. So don’t talk to me of death and suffering; I face more pain and horror than you can imagine.”
    “Stop this now,” said Fisher. “And we’ll find a way to save your soul. We’ve done harder things in our time.”
    “Right,” said Hawk. “No one is ever really lost, who truly repents.”
    “But I don’t repent,” said Gaunt. “I wanted power, and I willingly paid the price. I’ve … failed so many times, you see. I never did become what I wanted to be, what everyone said I had the potential to be. I never achieved the things I meant to. I couldn’t even protect my friend William Blackstone, never mind the people of the Hook. I have to win this time, Hawk. I have to win, just once. Whatever the cost.”
    “And we have to stop you,” said Fisher. “Whatever the cost.”
    “You can try,” said Gaunt. He gestured almost lazily with one