Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  Why did he suffer for those deaths when Braylen walked free with his conscience clear?

  Why did the Creator hate him so much?

  “You’re thinking too hard again,” Naya said.

  Algernon stopped walking as the puffy clouds overhead turned to smoke. They rained stone around him.

  He stood in Naya’s office, not on a road in South Cascain. His thoughts had wandered to strange places. As usual.

  Naya stood beside the couch, where he’d sat a few minutes ago. Why had he stood?

  Never mind. It didn't matter.

  He’d grown so much over the past year that he could kiss her forehead without reaching.

  Had it been a year? Time passed so strangely for him. What did time even mean anymore?

  “I’m just—” Just what? He had nothing to put there.

  “I know.” She took his hand. “But you’re somewhere else instead of here.”

  He squeezed her hand and shook his head. “I’m sorry Eldrack stuck you with such a difficult charge.”

  “I chose you, Algie. He didn’t stick me with you.”

  He let his mouth quirk with a faint smile. “Then I’m sorry you have such terrible judgment.”

  Naya smacked his hand with a light tap. “I wish you’d stop saying things like that. You're so hard on yourself. You’re not a burden. Not to me and not to the Fallen.”

  He tugged her closer. “Why are you so…” Sweet. Patient. Pretty. Understanding.

  She gazed up at him while he groped for the right word. “The Creator led me to you because you need me.”

  The Creator hated Naya. Algernon could think of no other possibility. Someone as wounded inside as he needed too much for one person to give.

  But he didn’t say so.

  Not right after she’d chided him for hating himself.

  And not when she stood so close he caught her actual scent under the taste of her power.

  Roses. Naya smelled like roses.

  “What do you need?” he murmured, unable to tear his gaze from her lips.

  She raised his hand and rested her chin on his knuckles. “I need you to stop thinking of yourself as garbage.”

  “What would you prefer?”

  His shoulder flared with pain. All the death wounds bleated their displeasure with him. The slash across his neck fluttered in desperate harmony with the holes in his gut, side, back, thigh, ear, eye, and the back of his head.

  And, of course, the dark emptiness in his chest throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

  “You could think of yourself as a man. Flawed but not more than any other man.”

  A lie, but a pleasant one. He could probably live with it. Unlike the growing agony.

  “Do healers ever marry their Fallen?” he asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound too strained.

  Anything to change the subject. Even to an arguably worse one.

  She rolled her eyes and pushed him away. “Go cause trouble somewhere else. Come back when you’re ready to be serious again.”

  He laughed through his pain, charmed by how easily she saw through him.

  Naya’s bemused smile faded to concern. “Why are you bleeding from your eye?”

  Dark, brooding smoke overpowered him. He fell through a wash of bright, welcoming blue.

  He landed too hard to stay on his feet. His body crumpled to the floor, hitting with a jarring crack.

  Every inch of him screamed and scrabbled to return to Naya. She fell through his fingers like sand.

  He didn’t know anyone named Naya.

  Braylen leaned over Algernon, inspecting the blessedly numb wound in his shoulder. “Fascinating,” he said.

  Algernon lay, unmoving, unblinking in a pool of blue-white light. Smoke drifted in the shadows, concealing the world beyond.

  Mother shoved Braylen aside, her body wreathed in angry fire. “Get your hands off my son!” she roared. “He’s not a specimen for you to poke and prod!” She chased him into the darkness.

  Father knelt beside Algernon with his hands over his face. “This is all my fault,” he repeated over and over. His pointed ears cast strange, sharp shadows.

  Algernon wanted to sit up.

  His body refused to obey. Every part of him stayed still. Even his heart.

  The absence of pain terrified him.

  “I’m not dead,” he whimpered, though he couldn’t tell if his mouth made noise or not. “I don’t want to be dead. Father, make it stop. Please.”

  Grandma Katona’s wrinkled hands pressed into the light. She wrapped angry blue gauze around his feet without showing her face.

  “He’s been touched by the Creator,” Braylen protested out of sight. “You’re a mage, Tara! You can see the swirl over him. We need to study it.”

  A sharp slap cut the air.

  The air tasted like silver grinding between Algernon’s teeth.

  “You’re a monster,” Mother snarled. “You murdered my son.”

  “You’re a shortsighted wretch,” Braylen said.

  “Get out!” Mother shrieked. Bright, welcoming blue flames sprang to life and ripped through the shadows concealing her.

  Brimstone flared, drowning out everything else.

  Glowing with witchy rage, Mother stood over a kneeling Braylen, her hands clenched into destructive fists. “We’re taking him where you’ll never find him.”

  Braylen scuttled out of sight. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

  A door slammed shut in the distance.

  “We ask for your benevolence, o Creator,” Grandma Katona murmured. “Take this soul to your breast and care for him.”

  Her swift, shaking hands wrapped the gauze up Algernon’s legs.

  “Wait,” Algernon said. “I’m not dead. Why do you think I’m dead?”

  Glass and metal crashed. Mother screamed her rage.

  “This is my fault,” Father said again and again.

  “Yes! It is your fault!” Mother shrieked. She slapped Father with a hard crack. “He never should have been here! And now—” She raised a hand to her mouth. Tears streamed down her face. “Algie,” she sobbed in a breathless whisper. “My little boy.”

  Father sat up straighter and stared at his clean hands in horrified silence.

  Where had Algernon’s blood gone?

  Into the void.

  “Algernon is beloved,” Grandma Katona droned. She sounded so empty.

  Like Algernon.

  Her hands remained the only part of her in the light. He wanted to see her. Why couldn’t he see her?

  A smudge of smoke and shadow concealed her from him.

  He didn’t deserve to remember her. The Creator knew what he’d done.

  “Guide him and bring him peace,” Grandma Katona said.

  Mother collapsed into a weeping pile of despair.

  “Let me help,” Father whispered. He leaned over Algernon and took the roll of gauze from Grandma Katona’s hands.

  The blue fire rippled over the floor to reach Algernon.

  “We can’t mark his grave,” Grandma Katona said. “Braylen will find it if we do.”

  She and Father wrapped gauze over Algernon’s face. They paused before covering his eyes.

  “We’ll have to take him far from here.” Father touched Algernon’s forehead with a fingertip and bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Algernon. I love you. But that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough for you.”

  “I know, Father,” Algernon said. He wanted to cry but couldn't.

  He was dead. Braylen killed him.

  Corpses shed no tears.

  They covered his eyes with gauze.

  Everything glowed with brilliant, welcoming blue and smelled of dark, brooding smoke.

  His world tipped and he fell into a hole. His shoulder blazed with a fresh wave of pain.

  Ragged edges of dirt studded with knobs of twisted root extended into infinity. Everything smelled of dark, brooding smoke and damp, unyielding earth. Above the hole, his father stood with a sho
vel, silhouetted against the bright, welcoming blue sky.

  “He’ll never think to look here,” Mother said.

  She sounded subdued. Hurt. Dead inside.

  Father dumped a shovelful of dirt into the hole. Weight landed across Algernon’s chest, pressing him deeper into the hole.

  “I’m going on a trip,” Father said.

  “Of course,” Mother said. “Our home is destroyed anyway. Where do you want to go?”

  “I’m going on a trip by myself,” Father said without pausing in his task.

  Another load of dirt slapped Algernon’s legs.

  Shame settled over Algernon. His death had ruined his parents. Father couldn't even look at Mother anymore.

  “Adyn.” Mother touched his shoulder.

  He shrugged out of her reach and tossed more dirt into the hole. The load punched Algernon’s neck like a slash with a knife. A spray of icy droplets rolled across his face, filling his view with grainy distress.

  “I’ve already lost Algernon. I don’t want to lose you too.” Mother wrung her hands and sidled along the edge of whining.

  “I can’t deal with you right now, Tara.” Father kept shoveling dirt. “I know you blame me for this.”

  Every new load of dirt compressed Algernon deeper into the hole. Chill settled into his bones. The distance between him and his parents grew with every passing moment.

  He wanted to say something, but what? No words could ease this. For any of them.

  Mother lowered her hands and her head.

  “He’s my son too,” Father snapped. “A fact you seem to forget until you need someone to shovel dirt. That’s all you want from me. Someone to shovel dirt for you.”

  “That’s not true,” she whispered.

  Algernon didn’t believe her any more than Father did. When had she stopped loving Father? The moment of Algernon’s death?

  He’d destroyed them.

  If only he’d admitted to his sins. Things might have turned out differently.

  Dirt hit him in the face, blocking his view.

  “I’m done listening to you,” Father said. He sounded tired. Spent.

  Why did Algernon have to see and hear this? When did the end come for him? Would it hurt?

  “Please,” he mewled. “No more.”

  Blue settled over him. He breathed in smoke.

  “I accept your price,” he whispered.

  His body unraveled. His tapestry pulled apart.

  On the other side of a gaping hole inside him, blue slipped over the threads, coating them. The tapestry wove itself again.

  Algernon blinked until his vision cleared of stinging smoke.

  Braylen sat on a stump beside a campfire with more streaks of gray in his hair than Algernon remembered. He’d developed a slight paunch. A cane lay on the ground in easy reach.

  The flames licked at darkness. Stars dotted a swathe of black sky in a slash between trees. Shadows danced on the brown carpet of dead pine needles and leaves.

  Everything smelled of desperation and tomatoes.

  Was this finally the end?

  Algernon gripped the hilt of his sword.

  He didn’t have a sword anymore.

  Yes, he did. A kind, patient woman among the Fallen had crafted this one for him. With it, he’d destroyed all his childish notions of the greatest sin. His parents had raised him with such a naive view of the world.

  Justice demanded sacrifices, and Algernon had ceased to worry about his role in delivering them.

  He could do this job and leave in silence. The Fallen had fashioned him into a capable, competent assassin. Even when he worked for his own benefit instead of theirs.

  But he wanted Braylen to know. He wanted the man to see who’d come for him.

  He stepped into the light with the fire between them.

  “I wondered if you’d ever find me,” Braylen said. He sipped from a blue metal mug.

  “Is that why you came here, of all places?” Algernon asked. He crossed his arms, not sure how he felt to finally confront Braylen.

  After all these years, he’d figured out where to go and how to get there without Eldrack knowing. Without anyone knowing.

  Not even Naya.

  “It’s poetic, isn’t it?” Braylen raised his arms in a gesture to indicate the small clearing.

  Algernon snorted. “Nothing important happened here.”

  “On the contrary. This is where I was proven right.” Braylen’s smug grin infuriated Algernon. “It worked. You’re immortal! I cheated death.”

  No. Eldrack and Naya had cheated death.

  But Algernon wouldn’t say so. This ass needed none of that information.

  “You should try it on yourself,” Algernon said.

  Braylen sighed and stared into his mug. “I can’t replicate your unique situation.”

  Algernon laughed.

  This man had killed him and learned nothing from it. They all had Grandma Katona and Eldrack to thank for that. Otherwise, Braylen might have murdered more kids trying to replicate his experiment.

  “Yes, I’m sure this is hilarious to the man who’ll live forever,” Braylen grumbled.

  Almost ready to let Braylen live so he could stew in his inadequacy for many more years to come, Algernon took a step closer to the fire. “What do you think is unique about my situation?”

  “Don’t take me for a fool, Algie.”

  “You don’t get to call me that,” Algernon snapped. “You call me Algernon.”

  Braylen rolled his eyes. “You’ve clearly managed to get a handle on your power, Algernon. You tell me.”

  He could humor the man for a while. “There’s an unusual component to my aura. Do you know what it is?” Algernon smirked. He knew. Penny had figured it out. Eventually.

  His parents had crafted that abominable, wretched ring, the cause of all this suffering, before his mother knew she was pregnant. With him. All those energies had changed him.

  Not a lot. Enough to destroy everything, but not much.

  “No. I never had a chance to study you.” Braylen’s lip curled. “Your thrice-damned parents insisted upon burying you. Like fools.” He flicked a hand at the fire burning over Algernon’s unmarked grave. “I could have examined you until the transformation completed. You would’ve awakened in a safe, comfortable place instead of having to claw your way out of a grave.”

  Algernon had awakened in a safe, comfortable place. He hadn’t clawed his way out of a grave. Two Fallen agents had dug up his corpse.

  Stifling another laugh, Algernon strolled around the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. He took his time. No need to hurry to reach the monster on that stump.

  Once, he’d thought himself a monster. No longer. Braylen fit the sentiment much better.

  “My parents really were thrice-damned, weren’t they? Mostly by you, of course.”

  “I never tried to hurt them on purpose.” Braylen closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you go back to them?”

  “I’m dead.” Halfway to Braylen, Algernon shrugged at the obvious reason. “I don’t exist anymore. Maybe I’m a delusion sent by the Creator to torment you.”

  Braylen had certainly tormented him more than enough.

  The nightmares had lasted far too long for anyone to maintain true sanity. Not even a Fallen agent with a dedicated and devoted healer.

  “Maybe,” Braylen said. “Why now?”

  Algernon stepped beside him. “Oh, Braylen, please.” He snorted. “Do use your head.”

  “My head? What does that mean?”

  In a swift, fluid motion, Algernon drew his sword and plunged it into Braylen’s back. The tip punched through his gut.

  “It means I came to kill you, moron. For killing me. I hope you enjoy your travel through the void, murderer.”

  Braylen gasped and sputtered. “Spilled. Blood. Sin.”

  “You’re a fool, Braylen. An arrogant, idiotic fool.”

  Algernon planted a foot on Bray
len’s back and shoved him into the fire.

  Braylen screamed.

  “Funny. Penny always told me revenge would hollow out my soul. I feel rather like I filled it in. Isn’t that poetic, Braylen?” He grinned at the flailing body in the flames. “Oh, that’s a shame. You’re too busy burning to answer.”

  He stooped and wiped his blade clean on the grass.

  “Treat your blade well and it’ll take care of you,” he murmured as he stood and strolled into dark, brooding smoke rimed with bright, welcoming blue.

  Algernon blinked rapidly in a world suddenly bereft of blue. He choked on a shocking absence of smoke.

  The flames...no, he didn’t want that. He groped for something else. Anything else. Even the worst.

  No, please, not the worst. But something else.

  Stone. He smelled dry stone. Lemon whispered beneath it with a tiny dab of mint.

  The unwanted yet tantalizing memory receded, falling through his fingers like sand.

  He lay on a soft surface facing a white ceiling. Warm light glowed from a candle. A stranger with a polite smile stood beside him.

  This man had a long face with soft lines not yet showing the signs of age. He reminded Algernon of a clerk, someone who spent all his days inside and scribbling in a ledger or notebook.

  “Again?” Algernon asked.

  His voice cracked and scratched in a raw throat.

  Eldrack raised his brow. “Don’t be alarmed.”

  Alarmed? Algernon giggled at the idea. He sat up.

  She sat nearby, in a chair against the wall. His healer glowed with radiance and life. He longed to touch her.

  “Naya,” he rasped.

  “How does he know my name?” Naya whispered.

  “He can hear you,” Algernon chirped, checking the room for a blue glow and smoke.

  The candle flickered.

  His torment would never end.

  “Eldrack, tell me a story,” Algernon said. He giggled again, unable to stifle it.

  Nothing was real. Ever. Braylen had condemned him to an endless cycle of death and rebirth. Could he change anything? Would it happen differently every time?

  Did it matter? If the Creator had given him this strange, undying burden to bear, he had only one choice.

  Accept it.

  “How do you know our names?” Eldrack asked.

  “Ask Miru.” He dissolved into giggles, hoping Eldrack never got the joke.