by N. P. Martin
Her lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed in response to me using the authority card. On this mission at least, she knew I outranked her. “Just open the door, Creed.”
Seeing that she wasn't going to back down, I went for a compromise instead. “All right, I'll open the door. But only this one. When we get off the island, we contact Brentwood, and we let Division handle the rest. Deal?"
She stared hard at me for another moment, then said, “Fine. But I want the bastard in that other room as well.”
Jesus, she had a real hard on for those two. Not that I blamed her. “Just make it quick. I don’t have time for this.”
Using my magic, I had the door unlocked in a few seconds. Then I stood aside to let Leona do her thing. She opened the door and stepped into the room just as the woman inside issued a loud scream. A second later, a shot rang out from inside the room. I stood outside, unwilling to see whatever horrors the room contained.
Another shot rang out.
Then Leona emerged from the room a few seconds later, the porcelain skin of her face now an ashen gray color. She looked at me with eyes that had seen too much horror to bare. “Open the other door,” she said in a flat voice.
I didn’t argue with her, crossing the corridor and unlocking the door to the room in which the man named Frank resided with his torture victim. Once again, I stepped aside to allow her access and Leona wordlessly entered the room, a kind of dead focus in her eyes. Then I heard her say, “Oh…my God…” to herself as if she was witnessing some unimaginable horror in there.
Then Frank’s voice: “Who said that? Who’s there?”
Bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Frank was dead.
Gunpowder smoke escaped from the room, the acrid scent assailing my nostrils along with the smell of human offal.
A final shot sounded.
Bang!
Leona all but staggered out of the room, the color completely drained from her face now. In the corridor, she leant over and vomited onto the floor.
Jesus Christ. How bad is it in there?
Not that I wanted to look, but a morbid need-to-know got the better of me. Before I knew it, I had made the grave mistake of standing in the doorway so I could see into the room. Almost immediately, my mind was overloaded with images that were just too horrific to even comprehend at first. In the brightly lit room with the dark walls, my mind struggled to take in the scene. There was something like a dentist's chair in the middle of the room, and strapped to the chair was a small body that had been tortured and mutilated in ways that I couldn't even begin to describe. The girl's body was barely recognizable as human anymore. It just looked like a twisted mound of flesh sitting there, but even so, I still made out the features of the girl underneath all the blood and mutilation. There was other stuff in the room as well—a gurney loaded with tools, nasty looking torture implements racked on the walls (a chainsaw, a weed whacker, a huge drill)—but I hardly took those things in. Before I finally turned away, my eyes fell on the body on the floor. The man called Frank, full of bullet holes, blood pooling rapidly around his body and joining with the girl's blood already over the floor.
Moving quickly away from the door, I pressed my back flat against the cool concrete wall and closed my eyes for a second while I tried to keep my gorge down. I opened my eyes again to the sight of Leona still retching in the corridor, a small pool of vomit on the floor by her feet. “You all right?” I asked her.
Leona threw me a sharp look after wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “I just put a bullet in a little girl’s head because she begged me to kill her,” she snapped. “What do you think?”
It was then, in her eyes and the medley of torrential emotions tainting the color of her soul, that I knew in my bones that if there was ever any doubt about the decision to obtain assistance from Leona in this mission, then it was gone and only an apocalyptic failure of good judgement was left in its wake. The only doubt now being whether I could've walked away from this episode if I had kept her and Division in the dark about what I had to do before getting back on track with stopping Mr. Black? That is, if I actually do manage to walk away now that the element of surprise is gone. Although, given Belger's magical and bestial protections, the element was likely well and truly gone to begin with. Well, at least that is what I'd tell myself, as it's a far better option than to go away thinking the love of my life cost us our lives.
Turning away from her gaze as guilt stung me, I gave her another moment before softly suggesting we push on. She barely nodded in response.
As we went to walk down the corridor, all the lights began to flicker on and off, and a sudden chill froze the air around us. I put an arm out to stop Leona as I became aware of a malevolent presence in the corridor. In the gloom an intimidating and hooded figure then emerged, blinking in and out of view as it walked toward us, seeming on and off to merge with the shadows so they appeared to be dragging along behind it.
It was him, I knew.
It was Belger.
Belger stopped half way down the corridor, still cloaked in shadow, and spoke in a low, deep voice that was chillingly casual in tone. "I hope you came here to die, for die you shall. Slowly."
I swallowed hard and prepared myself for battle.
34
Soul Ripper
BESIDE ME, LEONA took aim at the hooded figure standing not twenty feet from us. Belger had his head bowed slightly, but even so, I could still see the bright greenish glow to his eyes under the hood. It was doubtful if the old warlock had any humanity left in him at this stage. He was probably controlled completely by the black magic he had undoubtedly given everything to over the millennial timespan of his lifetime. It felt like I was in the presence of a dark demigod, or a lower Dimension Lord.
“Why did you come here?” Belger asked in that voice which seemed to go directly into your head, invading your mind like a parasite, and attempting to penetrate your psychic defenses.
I didn't answer him. What was I going to say? That I was there to steal his soul? That we fancied a tour of his sick facility? No, this was only going to go one way—with Belger trying to kill us. And given the warlock's power, it would take little effort for him to break down my weakened defenses. Our only option was to stick to the plan and to try and take him by surprise. For all his power, he didn't seem to know why we were really there. Not yet anyhow.
"Get ready," I said quietly to Leona just before I stepped forward to address Belger. "We're here to put you down, Belger. This island is an abomination. So are you and your sick followers."
Belger gave a gravelly chuckle and raised his head slightly, his bright green eyes fixing on me in the gloom. "You think you have the power to kill me, wizard?" He laughed. "No one has that power in this dimension."
"Yeah, well." I started to summon whatever magic I had left in me, which wasn't much at this stage. "We'll see, old man." After reminding myself never to try and write witty comebacks for any fantasy novels (hey, I wasn't exactly in top form at that point), I took a few steps forward and made a show of conjuring up my magic by forming a sphere of bluish-white energy in each hand.
Belger laughed once again, a sound that only served to highlight, in my mind, the woeful inadequacy of my magic right then. It was shocking how much of my power had seemingly drained into the ether, leaving nothing behind but cold, empty channels that were becoming more and more barren and lifeless. And as if sensing the danger, my soul was deciding to make another break for it as well, this time with renewed vigor. If we were going to capture Belger’s soul, we would have to do it fast, before Belger killed us in the slowest way imaginable. I certainly expected that our failure would lead to an agonizingly long death; perhaps even one that involved repeated catastrophic torture that he proceeded to heal before starting out over and over and over and... well you get the point I'm sure.
Hans Belger stepped forward under one of the flickering lights, raising his head to reveal his grotesque mask of a face from within his hood
. The way his sunken face was nothing more than dark, leathery skin attached to a misshapen skull, it was like his human essence had been somehow sucked out of him, leaving behind nothing but a shell through which the blackest of magic flowed. I thought that if you drained Belger of his magic, his body would probably cease to exist at all.
Belger was turning his head from side to side as if he was trying to see something. Which he was. He was trying to see into me. I felt his invasive presence poking around inside me, slithering through me like razor-backed snakes. “There is something not right with you,” the old warlock said.
"You're not the first person to ever tell me that," I said back, using the time to try and increase the strength of my magic, which wasn't happening at all.
Belger stretched out his arm then, his long, bony fingers moving like he was trying to grab something. “I see now. It’s your soul. I can feel it trying to escape your body. Here, let me help it along. It seems to be struggling.” He made a fist with his outstretched hand and drew his arm back sharply.
At the same time, a massive pain went through my chest. The same sharp, cutting pain like last time, only far greater. “NO!” I shouted, fighting to keep from falling to my knees. I gritted my teeth against the hellish pain, as it felt like the fucking Alien was about explode from my chest. I then managed to raise my right hand enough to launch the already conjured energy blast, my aim thankfully proving true even under such harsh conditions.
Not unsurprisingly, though, Belger simply took the blast in the center of his mass with barely a flinch or a pause. Straightaway, I conjured another blast and fired it at him. This time, Belger stopped the sphere of blue magic mid-air before redirecting it at Leona. The blast hit her in the chest, and she cried out in shock as it took her off her feet and sent her flying back down the corridor behind me.
"Leona!" I shouted…or tried to. The pain of having my soul ripped out of me was becoming unbearable. All I could do was fall to my knees like a puppet with severed strings.
Then I screamed shrilly like a pig having its throat cut as my soul finally burst free from my body, a luminescent white orb with a wavy tail behind it making it look like a little comet. It was so beautiful I wanted to cry. My soul then drifted upward in a languid sort of fashion before slowly passing through the ceiling, on the way to wherever it was going. I could only stare upwards in dismay, a terrible sense of emptiness quickly filling the space left behind by my departed soul. Any sense of emotion or humanity that I may once have had, drained away just as fast.
“There now,” Belger said, unmistakable glee at his own sadism in his voice. “Does that feel better? I’m sure you were glad to get such a weight of your chest.” He laughed loudly, his cackling voice echoing horribly off the walls and through my ears.
Then I remembered Leona. I called her name as I looked behind me, but saw no sign of her.
Where did she go?
The magic blast should have knocked her out, although it was possible that Division had discovered a way to partially neutralize the effects of the magic. Brentwood had a whole team behind him researching ways to counter magic and balance the scales a bit for field agents like Leona. Whatever the case, Leona appeared to be gone, probably having seen the futility of what we were trying to do and thus saved her own ass. If I still had a soul, I would have felt desperately sad and alone at that moment, not to mention shitty for believing Leona capable of leaving any man behind, but all I felt was nothing.
Leona was gone. I was going to die. That’s all there was to it.
“Go on, Belger, you Nazi fuck,” I said. “Just kill me.”
“I will,” Belger replied, coming closer. “After you tell me why you are here.”
“I came to steal your rotten soul.”
The warlock stopped a few feet from me, his burning green eyes fixed on my own. “Only a fool or a desperate man would attempt that. Which are you?”
“Both, it looks like.”
“Why would you need my soul?”
“To give to a demon so it could save my own soul.”
“Too late for that now, isn’t it?” His lipless mouth formed a rictus grin.
“Fuck you.”
Belger stretched out a hand that exerted invisible pressure around my neck, hauling me up to my feet and holding me there. He’d obviously attended the same Dark Lord University as Darth Vader. “What if I don't kill you? I could always use another ghoul to do my bidding. What do you think? Would you like that? Lots of foul meat around here for you to feast on."
I said nothing as I stared back at him, hardly even caring what he decided to do to me. Keep me or kill me. It was all the same to me without a soul at that moment.
Then out of nowhere, ear shattering gunfire explosively echoed through the narrow confines of the corridor, and despite the difficulty in situating its origin it was still possible to deduce it having come from behind the warlock. His body bucked as at least two rounds went right through him, one of which whistled past my head on the exit, the other ricocheting off the wall and exploding the bricks out, the shards like glass that cut into my face. Belger roared as he released his invisible grip on me so he could spin around to confront whoever was shooting at him. He shot out one hand and formed a shield of magical energy in front of himself to stop any more bullets from hitting him.
Surprisingly calm and indifferent to the fact that I almost got shot in the head, I backed over toward the wall and looked down the corridor to see Leona standing, Beretta in hand, emptying her clip into Belger. A voice then sounded in my head:
Now would be a good time to do something.
Yes, of course! With Leona now distracting him, Belger now had his back to me. Whipping out my pistol from under my coat, I took aim at Belger's back, pulled back the hammer and fired, hitting the warlock between the shoulder blades. Belger cried out and staggered forward, though he still maintained his shield against Leona's continuing stream of rounds. As he half turned toward me, I fired again and shot him in the neck, forcing him back against the wall.
“Leona!" I shouted. "The box!"
I didn't know if she heard me or not, for at that same moment, Belger's magic slammed me into the wall like a cannonball to the gut. As I fell forward, it was all I could do to remain conscious. My head hit the floor as I was looking up at Belger, who was still not too far away, and who was screaming in agony whilst his bulletproof shield dropped away. He appeared to be bathed in a mass of dark, undulating shadow, and it took me a second to realize the swirling blackness was coming from the box that Sanaka had given me. Leona had somehow managed to open the small container and get it in front of Belger. The box was now ripping out Belger's soul, a feeling I knew all too well. To hear him scream, you would think it was ripping him apart in the process.
When the Warlock's soul finally emerged from his body, it was a twisted black thing that writhed and screeched as it got pulled along. No matter how powerful Belger was, or had been, his soul couldn't resist the pull of the box, and seconds later, riding on a final scream from Belger, the black soul was sucked into the box, and the lid got closed on it.
As I slipped toward oblivion, I saw Belger's robes fall to the floor as if he had simply disappeared from existence.
35
Ghoul Status
WHEN I CAME to it was to the sound of the world's loudest sewing machine, or so my befuddled brain thought at the time. There was a sense of motion underneath me, and I soon realized I was in some sort of transport. A helicopter maybe, judging by the chopping sound that the engine made. Then a figure was leaning over me. It was Leona. “Creed,” she shouted over the engine noise. “Creed, are you all right?”
I tried to tell her I was, but for some reason, my mouth didn’t seem to work. It was like I had lost the connection between my mind and body. Then as Leona stared down at me, I looked into her eyes and the memory of what had happened hit me all at once. The confrontation with Belger. Losing my soul.
My soul is gone.
> A pained mewling noise escaped my lips.
“Hang in there, Creed,” Leona said. “We’re getting you home.”
We?
I focused past her and saw Brentwood, his dark face staring back at me, impassive as always, as if he was totally indifferent to my condition. Which knowing Brentwood, he probably was.
He wasn’t the only one to feel like that either. I felt dead inside. Scraped out. The only emotion that seemed to be left in me was the misery that came with knowing I was no longer a human being. That I was just an empty shell, not even a shadow of my former self. My magic, all that I had ever known, had been snatched away from me; and with it, the whole of my humanity. How ironic that I went to Belger’s island as part of a plan to get my soul back, only to have it ripped it out of me while I was there. Soon, I would be a sad, shuffling thing, roaming around aimlessly, all memory of my former life gone.
Dead, but not dead.
In my gut, I felt a powerful appetite begin to grow, one that I knew quite soon that I wouldn’t be able to ignore. An appetite for rotten meat. Any meat, the more decayed, the better to match the sense of decay I already felt seeping through me.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Creed,” Leona said.
No, it wasn’t. Nothing was going to be all right anymore.
After that comforting thought, I passed out again, grateful for oblivion.
* * *
The helicopter had landed when I next awoke. Brentwood was pulling the door open, and cold air came rushing into the inside of the chopper, bringing me round slightly, enough that I could sit up. "Where are we?" I asked, my voice flat and emotionless.
“Back in Blackham,” Brentwood answered after he had exited the helicopter. “We’ll get you to a hospital, Creed.”
I shook my head. “No.”
Leona stood over me. “You need to get seen to, Creed,” she said.
