Blood Magic

by N. P. Martin

  Leona let go of my arm and shouldered her rifle, keeping the barrel pointed downward as she surveyed her surroundings, looking every inch the professional soldier. “Seems quiet.”

  “So far. No doubt that will change when we move further inland.” No doubt at all. I was pretty certain that Belger knew we were there on his private island. Any warlock or wizard worth their salt would have been able to detect intruders immediately, even if said intruders happened to be invisible to everyone but themselves.

  Leona seemed concerned as she stared toward the dark woods about ten yards away. There was something ominous about those woods like an evil presence lurked there. “Something isn’t right about this place.”

  “Your instincts are spot on as always.” I stared down the beach toward a rocky outcrop that jutted into the water like a huge demon mouth. “There’s a lot of darkness here.”

  “Darkness?”

  “Evil.”

  We exchanged glances like we were crazy even to come to the island in the first place. Which we were, of course. Batshit crazy, although Leona didn't know the full danger. How could she? If she knew magic like I did—if she knew the full extent of its dark potential in the hands of someone like Hans Belger—I doubt she would have come with me. Or maybe she would have. One thing about Leona was that she was loyal, and despite only knowing me for a few days, she seemed more than willing to help. When I first met her three years before, it took her nearly a year before she displayed the kind of loyalty toward me that she was exhibiting now. I guess I should have been grateful, but I still wondered what was different. Was it because on some level she knew I was telling the truth, or because deep down she still remembered me, even if it were only on a subconscious level that her being or soul still recognized what her conscious ego could not? As curious as I was, it wasn't the time for indulgence. It was a time for focused action so we both could stay alive.

  “All right,” Leona said, her slender fingers curling around the stock of her rifle. “Are we going to do this? I want off this island as soon as possible.”

  I didn't blame her for wanting to leave. So did I. The presence of dark magic on the island was palpable, more so to me because I still bore the stain of it inside me, and that stain was acting like a magnet to the black magic that permeated every square inch of the island. Drawing the magic to me, which demanded access so it could fill me up and consume me once more, we moved off toward the interior of the island. Leona threw me a look and asked if I was all right. "The magic here is corrosive," I said. "I can feel it burning my skin."

  “I don’t know about magic, but this place gives me the damn creeps.”

  “We’d better get a move on then, before—”

  “Before what?”

  “Before someone or…something, comes looking for us.”

  “Very fucking reassuring, Creed.”

  Smiling despite myself, I fell into step beside her as she strode across the sand and headed for the trees. The wind on the island was blustery, and it whistled as it blew through the branches, rustling the dry leaves. What daylight there was got swallowed up the second we entered the woods. The trees were thick and gnarly, their branches twisted in a grotesque way that didn’t seem natural, like sinewy arms with spidery fingers that looked like they might try to grab you if you got too close. The terrain included patches of grass and dirt that occasionally became swampy. We moved around the swampy parts, knowing we would disappear as surely as if it were quicksand we were trying to traverse.

  There was also a smell in the air that I can only describe as the lingering smell of death. On my travels in Europe years before, I once visited the Auschwitz concentration camp because I wanted to see for myself the large scale horror and brutality that man was capable of, and because I was curious about how strong the magic would be in the place. As it turned out, the black magic in Auschwitz was as strong as I expected it to be. Maybe not as potent as it once was when the camp was fully operational, but I still felt burned by it as soon as I walked through those gates. Needless to say, Auschwitz was also full of ghosts, mostly the lingering essence of those who had died at the camp, and also at least one vengeful spirit that I saw haunting one of the gas chambers. The ghost of one of the Nazis who ran the camp. Aside from that, though, my overwhelming impression of Auschwitz was summed up by the toxic stench of death that poisoned the air around the place. You didn't need to know magic to smell it. Everyone could smell it, could feel it seeping into their skins as they toured the death houses. The Devil's Playground had that same sickening scent of death to it, like thousands of people had died there over the years.

  Then as if to prove my assertion, we came across a sight that caused us both to stop and shake our heads in sheer disgust. At least ten corpses in various states of decay were nailed through the chest to an unnaturally thick-trunked tree. A few were nothing more than skeletal remains with bits of ragged skin and rags still clinging to them. The rest spanned states of decay from fresh kills to the aforementioned; men, women, and even a child too. The trees used as though they'd become a systematic part of the evil effigy or trophy cabinets, seemed to reflect the greatest degree of deformities that astonishingly still somehow managed to separate them from their diseased brethren, perhaps as though being used to reflect such evil could be further mutated from just the air of darkness that was likely to have mutated their brethren. The spikes in their chests were thick like railway spikes. As the flashlight on Leona's rifle moved over the bodies, the extent of their wounds also became apparent. Each one had died a violent death. Some had bullet holes in them, others slashes and gaping wounds made by sharp blades. Still others twisted around in a way that didn't seem possible, as if a great force had twisted them so.

  “What the fuck?” Leona said.

  “I mentioned they hunt people on this island, didn’t I? I’m assuming these people were the hunted.”

  That wasn't the full extent of it either. As we moved further through the trees, it became apparent that there were bodies everywhere. Some strewn across the ground, others hanging from the branches of trees, ropes around their necks, their bodies in horrific states of degradation. At one point my boot kicked something heavy on the ground, and when I looked down, I saw it was a disembodied head. The head of a young woman to be precise, her lower jaw ripped off by someone or something. Everywhere we looked there were signs of death and decay, extreme violence and bloodshed.

  And something else.

  Some of the bodies looked eaten as if something with a huge mouth had taken chunks out of them, after and possibly before death. I decided not to mention it to Leona. She seemed spooked enough already.

  “I’ve never seen so much death in one place.”

  For Leona to say that, I knew the island must have been bad because Leona had seen her fair share of death over the years, serving in some of the most war-torn places on Earth. She was no stranger to horror, but the kind of horror on display on the island, the sheer malevolence behind it, was enough to turn even the hardest of stomachs.

  We carried on through the woods, doing our best to ignore the human remains that came into view with every step we took. Then after walking in silence for more than twenty minutes, the dark woods seeming to go on and on, we came to a clearing, on the edge of which was a large mound of rock jutting out of the ground. We both shone the beams of our flashlights over the rock and noticed there was a hole in the center, like a cave entrance. To the side of the cave entrance was an iron gate. Some warning signal sounded in me as I moved the beam of my flashlight from the cave entrance to a trail in the grass that led off into the trees like something going in and out of the cave had worn away the grass underfoot.

  “What is it?” Leona asked. “A secret entrance to somewhere?”

  I shook my head just as I caught a strong, musky smell coming from the cave. “More like a pen.”

  “A pen?”

  “Yeah, like a dog pen.”

  “A dog pen?”

  I cl
osed my eyes for a moment as I cast my awareness out around us, reaching into the woods in different directions, not sure exactly what I was looking for, but knowing there had to be something out there. Then I sensed it a couple of hundred yards to the west of us, something alive and predatory. Something closing in. When I opened my eyes again, I said, “We should go. Now.”

  "What is it, Creed?" Leona asked as I started jogging into the woods again.

  “I don’t know. A werewolf maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “A fucking werewolf?” Leona was running alongside me now as we tried to avoid the bodies scattered over the woodland floor. “Those things are hard to stop. They just keep fucking coming. Are you sure?”

  “You couldn’t smell it?”

  "Maybe, I'm not sure. Where are we running to?"

  A howling noise cut through the night air behind us, sealing with it the debate over what I'd sensed, and we both stopped dead. “Shit. That’s not far away.”

  Leona shouldered her rifle. “Fuck it. Let it come. I’ll kill it. It can’t see us anyway, right?”

  "No, but it can still smell us, whatever it is."

  Something crashed through the trees about a hundred yards away, splintering branches, churning up the earth with heavy sounding paws or feet. Without thinking, I formed a sphere of blue energy in my right hand, ready to blast whatever came through the trees at us. Leona stood near me, her rifle shouldered as she sighted into the trees beyond.

  Snarling noises sounded as the creature got closer. Then there was more noise from the east side of the woods, the snapping of branches underfoot. Loud, menacing snarling. "Oh, shit," I said. "There's more than one. It's coming up my side."

  “Take it,” Leona said. “I’ll take the one in front.”

  Leona was more at ease than I was with the fact that we were about to be flanked by unknown enemy combatants. Her training was kicking in, whereas fear was the only thing kicking in on me. Over the years, I'd come across numerous entities that could be described as monsters—werewolves, wendigos, vampires, pissed off ghouls and goblins, various other creatures that most people never see or hear off but which are still out there—and some of those monsters I had to face down in battle, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. It wouldn't have been the first time I got bit by a werewolf or thrown across a room by a vampire. I would face those things if I had to, but I certainly didn't get pleasure from doing so (as Leona sometimes seemed to). The rush of battle has never really been my thing, even if in said examples I've been forced to fight. In terms of a flight or fight response, I'm more the flight kind of guy, one who'd rather read a good book.

  Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck as the creature nearest me forced its way through the trees and undergrowth. As it drew closer there was no mistaking the hard and loud rhythm of its breathing, gut instincts screaming that regardless of what caused it, there was a madly salivating predator anticipating the rarity of still living human meat and an opportunity to make a kill of it. The creatures were no doubt responsible for the half-eaten bodies lying around. Belger’s pets, probably used in the hunts. Bastard must have let them out, which meant he knew we were here on his island.

  We waited, but nothing came. The noise stopped as well.

  “What are they doing?” whispered Leona.

  As I kept staring at the trees, a pair of glowing red eyes made my heart stop for a second. “Playing with their meat,” I replied.

  No sooner had I said it when the red-eyed creature came bounding out of the trees toward me. In my peripheral vision, I saw the blur of movement as the other creature charged at Leona.

  Adrenaline dumped into my system.

  Then the fight was on.

  31

  Pit Bulls On Steroids

  MY FOCUS LOCKED on to the animal that was charging at speed toward me just as gunfire sounded from behind me, telling me that Leona had her own fight on her hands. With my adrenaline pumping, I tried not to panic when I saw the creature coming, its red eyes fierce in the dark of the night. The full moon still beamed overhead, casting its pale silvery light over the hellhound-like creature that burst through the undergrowth. The thing was moving so fast, I only got a snapshot of what it looked like. It was bigger and bulkier than your average wolf of comparable size. Excess musculature warped its look grossly, as though it were a pit bull on steroids, bred purely for fighting and killing things much larger in size and weight. At first, I thought it was a werewolf, but then I noticed the long spikes sticking out of its back along its spine like thick porcupine quills. Then, as the creature got nearer and opened its mouth to snarl, I caught sight of the long incisors curving down from the top of its mouth. Not quite as long as a saber-toothed tiger's, but long enough to make me shutter. Certainly not something you would expect to see on a wolf, but very much so on a hellhound, which I’d encountered before. This creature, however, seemed more like a hybrid that some twisted mind had dreamed up in a lab. Like the fucking Island Of Dr Moreau this is, I thought.

  I didn't have time to think about the Razor Wolf's origins, which is what I'd decided to call it, regardless of any other impressions I may have had. It leapt at me from ten feet away, getting scary height and velocity thanks to the rippling muscles beneath its gray pelt. With a sharp intake of breath, I drew back my hand, which still held the sphere of crackling blue magic. As I released the magic blast from my hand, I was vaguely aware of more gunfire from Leona's automatic coming from behind me, then a scream of pain which undoubtedly came from Leona. This knowledge was reinforced by her shouting, “You fucking stinking mutt!”

  I wanted to run to Leona so I could help her, but my focus had to be on the beast cutting through the air toward me, its jaws wide open, globs of saliva dripping from its stained teeth. The magic blast caught the creature in the belly, halting it in mid air like it had just slammed into an invisible brick wall. It was thrown back several feet before it thumped to the ground and skidded back into the trees.

  While the Razor Wolf was down, I chanced a look over my shoulder, calling Leona’s name and getting no answer. I couldn’t see her anywhere, nor the Razor Wolf that had attacked her. “Leona!”

  A blast of gunfire resounded through the trees, loud in the night. Hard to tell exactly from which direction it came from.

  She’s out there somewhere with that thing, I thought. I have to help her.

  For the moment, though, I turned my attention back to the Razor Wolf I had just put down. It was now rolling to its feet, snarling at me, its red eyes never leaving me (or at least where it sensed me to be) as it shook its head as if to clear it so it could ready itself for another charge.

  There was no time to mess about. Leona was out there facing off against the other Razor Wolf. If the creatures were creations of Belger’s, the warlock would have made them hard to kill. It was doubtful if bullets would stop them.

  No ordinary bullets anyway.

  Sticking my hand inside my coat, I found the pistol in its holster and pulled it out. It's a rare occasion when I have to get the pistol out, normally reserving it for hard to kill beasts like werewolves, vampires or Fae (or genetically engineered wolves with foot long incisors and spikes in their backs). Unsure of what I would end up facing on the island, before I left, I made sure the pistol was loaded with heavy duty ammo. In this case, that ammo was hollow point rounds infused with chaos magic. The hollow points by themselves would inflict enough damage on most creatures. The chaos magic gave the rounds an extra kick, though it was hard to anticipate the effect of the magic itself. It being chaos magic, it sometimes had a surprising effect on whatever creature it infused. Sometimes they exploded. Sometimes they would be reduced to a puddle of goo on the ground. The last time I used the bullets was on a goblin serial killer (if you can imagine that). Nasty little fucker was taking victims from my neighborhood, so I tracked it and shot it in its ugly head with one of the chaos bullets. Imagine my surprise when the goblin mutated into something even uglier, and twice the size, nearly kil
ling me before I managed to take it down.

  As I pointed the pistol at the Razor Wolf, I prayed that the pit bull on steroids wouldn’t get any bigger after I shot it. It was scary enough as it is.

  The Razor Wolf made a barking noise that any hellhound would kill for, so bone-rattlingly scary was it. Then it dug its huge paws into the earth, its muscles tensed and rippling as it took off toward me again.

  I thumbed back the hammer on the pistol and tried not to panic too much as I got the beast in my sights. When the creature got to within six feet of me, I pulled the trigger, the heavy recoil slamming it against the palm of my hand.

  The bullet was on target, catching the wolf in the upper chest just as it reared up to launch itself at me. The power of the shot forced the wolf back down again, and it made a high pitched yelping sound as the hollow point ripped through its chest. I pulled the hammer back on the pistol, ready to fire again, but after a moment, I realized I wouldn't have to. The wolf was down, blood pumping from the fist-sized hole in its chest, tendrils of chaos magic crackling inside the exit wound, already racing around the body of the wolf, doing God knows what to it.

  I stood back as the creature thrashed around on the ground like it was full of deadly poison, arcs of chaos magic (dark blue mixed with flecks of cobalt) breaking out all over its body, which was beginning to bubble in places as if its very molecular structure was changing.

  More like its fucking insides are turning to mush, and it's about to explode like a goddamn blood volcano, I thought.

  I’d seen it happen before. Trust me, you don’t want to be standing within a ten foot radius when it did happen, not unless you wanted to look like one of those game show contestants after they got dunked in a tank of offal.

  As an unearthly howl of pain and fear sounded from the creature's mouth, its skin still bubbling all over like hot mud now, I decided not to stay for the big finale and turned and ran off into the trees, in the direction I'd heard the gunfire coming from a few moments ago. "Leona!" I called, as I tried not to run into any trees or trip over any human detritus on the ground.