Dead Man Walking

by Zach Adams

  “Vodka. Out of peroxide.” The behemoth replied, his thick Russian accented-voice still seeming a tiny bit higher-pitched than Isaac would have expected. Apparently exhausted by the verbal exchange, he cleared his throat and stomped back out into the wherever they were. Isaac was grateful that Nurse Luka left the light on.

  A few moments later, Volkov entered. In the time since the limo, he had changed into a white tee shirt, a leather biker jacket, and grease-stained blue jeans. He grabbed a plastic folding chair from the corner and dropped it with the back to Isaac, straddling the seat with his chin resting on top of it. He thrust his hands into his pockets when Isaac noticed that his knuckles were swollen and purple.

  “Ivy, you’re awake. I hope you’ve had a chance to rethink my offer.” Volkov said. His voice was hoarse and even from a few feet away Isaac could smell alcohol on his breath.

  “I’d tell you to blow me, but I think a breathalyzer should go first,” Isaac snapped. Volkov grinned. He looked ready to pass out, but that didn’t make his dead-eyed smile any less unnerving. Isaac’s insides suddenly felt inadequately protected.

  He’s on so many substances, he’d probably tell me anything, Isaac thought. The more he talks, the longer it takes me to die. I hope.

  “It seems like, if all of reality gets ripped apart, that would be pretty bad for business,” Isaac began with uncertainty. “Why are you cooperating with the vampire?”

  Volkov blinked a few times and raised his right eyebrow. After a few beats he responded.

  “The world burns either way. What do you do when a monster steps into your office to demand you supply their clubs with heroin and garlic? Weird, a vampire asking for a crate of powdered garlic, I think. That idiot Ben swears he saw the night-creature snorting lines of the stuff, like he forgot what we actually sell around here. But anyways, I’d prefer to die richer than Seth Darcey, so I agree. Then I get a call about a sudden expansion into Alaska’s mountains, some big to-do at the turn of the New Year…” He stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck. Suddenly he looked much more focused and stared venomously at Isaac. “Sneaky bastard, you’re trying to get me in a monologue,” Volkov said. He shoved his chair across the room and jabbed a finger in Isaac’s face.

  “You’re going to fucking die in twenty hours when the Forgotten One comes,” Volkov growled. “I tried to make it less painful for you, for old times’ sake. I liked your folks. Ungrateful prick.” He stomped out of the garage, switching off the lights behind him.

  Before he could close the door, Isaac asked him, “Do you really think I killed Dimitri?”

  “Who the fuck is Dimitri?” Volkov grunted. Then he slammed the door behind him.

  “Well, crap. It worked in the comics,” Isaac said to the darkness.

  So, Volkov is working with L’æon. Why are they trying to hit backspace on the whole universe? For that matter, what is it they’re going to do to accomplish that? Who is the Forgotten One? What do they have to do with us? And is it L’æon giving us these weird dreams? Panic rattled off questions as fast as Isaac could think of them.

  One problem at a time! Rage shot back. We can ask questions once we’re out of this garage.

  Except our appendages are tied and there are most likely several armed guards past the door, Isaac told the brain gang. So just be quiet, you eternal cluster headache.

  While waiting for someone to come back and kill him, Isaac passed time by counting snowflakes as they hit the windows. He made it to one hundred forty-two thousand and eight, lost count one hundred and twelve times, and added a random amount to the number whenever he got distracted. It was a rather pointless exercise, really, but it was a monotonous comfort for the moment. With little else to do until something else arrived to advance the plot, Isaac began to wiggle his body across the floor, hoping he would find a way to pull himself upright eventually. After a couple of times knocking his head against the cold concrete, he stopped a few feet away from where he began.

  Get to one of those tables with tools on them, Isaac told himself. He renewed his wiggle. This time, he added a few rolls and took care to keep his head away from the ground.

  Almost there…

  Isaac rolled sideways into a small table with a second shelf at about ankle-level. He could see there was something on top but couldn’t tell what it was from his current angle. He planted his feet under the lower shelf and tried to use the weight as leverage to sit up. It never worked in P.E. class, so he wasn’t entirely shocked that it didn’t work at first here.

  Isaac tried a few more times, almost shaking tools to the ground with him. He stopped just short of this and hoped no one heard.

  Keep the noise down or someone a lot less compassionate than Nurse Luka will be coming through that door! Panic reminded him.

  As he stared at the table and tried to think of a new plan, Isaac heard a pop like a large chewing gum bubble. A smell like apple pie followed. Isaac’s eyes darted around the room, as much as they could reach while he was tied up on his back. There was a faint glow from inside a nearby automobile corpse.

  “This is not - Äb!” The glow said. The voice was familiar to Isaac and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The owner of the voice tumbled from the metal shell and caught themselves just in time to land softly on their feet. Isaac could hear the whoever-they-were patting dust from themselves before they stepped out to greet him.

  A beaming, ragged L’æon approached.

  “Isaac, there you are!” The vampire gasped. “I thought I had thrown off the locator spell, lack of concentration and all… But I guess it got me close enough!” He knelt beside Isaac, examining the ropes around his limbs.

  “You -!” Isaac began to yell. L’æon looked panicked as he waved his middle and index fingers in a spiral at him.

  “Äl’sílë!” The vampire hissed. Whatever sound Isaac may have uttered died at the tip of his tongue. “We must keep quiet, those large men with the firearms outside seem rather tense. I shall remove the muffling charm once we are safe.”

  L’æon patted Isaac on the shoulder and magically undid the knots. He overshot the spell a bit and instead of coming untied, the ropes dissolved into a pile of threads. The vampire chuckled, embarrassed.

  “Whoops. Long day, I suppose,” L’æon said. “Now, I took the liberty of tracing your book-bag to a room on the next floor up, but I was not able to get a precise spot. Transport spells are more difficult with a guest, even when I am in top form. Without an exact image of the bag’s location, we could easily attract some undesirable attention. Or a stray thought from either of us could confuse the spell, sending us anywhere in the universe. From outside, ideally at a greater altitude, I may be able to get a stronger signal.”

  Isaac had almost forgotten how dizzying it was to keep up with L’æon when he spoke.

  Must be to disorient the prey, the brain gang said. Isaac did his best to shut them up as L’æon weathered his own ongoing brainstorm.

  “I could keep a blending charm over us until we reach it. You would have to stay within half a meter of me for it to remain intact, and if anyone looks for more than a few seconds they could see through it.” L’æon screwed up his face in thought. There was no indication that he noticed what was happening in Isaac’s head.

  “I suppose if there was a better idea, I would have it,” L’æon said with a shrug. He closed his eyes and pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “Næ’räcín äkh nä’, äy yü täjnë,’’ he sang in a chilling minor harmony. Then, as the sound drifted into the distance, he opened his right eye and waved the same palm back and forth over Isaac. A sensation like changing a hot shower suddenly to cold ran over him. The vampire opened his left eye and waved his left palm over himself, and promptly vanished. There was no indication of his disappearance, he just ceased to be there. An unseen, long-fingered hand grabbed Isaac by the forearm and pulled him through the steel door.

  That led them to a grungy hallway with chipped tile covering the f
loor and smoke-stained white walls, the ceiling lined with long fluorescent lights. To the left was a kitchenette filled with a half-dozen men not quite as large as Nurse Luka, but with automatic rifles to compensate. The stink of tobacco and sweat wafted from them.

  Isaac and L’æon went the opposite direction. Several yards to their right was a bright red door halved by a metal bar labeled “EMERGENCY EXIT”, with a staircase going up halfway between them and the door. The steps had that sort of soulless, flattened blue-gray-brown carpet one finds in old office buildings and public schools.

  The upper floor of the garage was no prettier than below. Cigarette butts, beer bottles, and crumpled newspapers littered the place. A row of five offices had been hastily converted into barracks, each with three more thugs snoozing on fold-out camping pads. Every man had a presumably loaded firearm on the floor beside him.

  L’æon guided Isaac to the end of the corridor. Beige Schafer was in the fetal position on the floor, his eyes closed far too tight to be asleep. He was trembling, and Isaac felt a twinge of pity for him. The pair did not stop for Beige.

  The sixth room was the only one with a light on, though it was dim enough to almost be pointless. The space was cleaner than the rest, which only meant the cigarette butts had been swept into a corner and the bottles lined up neatly against the wall. Alex Volkov was behind a desk in front of a large window, the blinds open. The snow was still beating down savagely. He was snoring loudly on the desk with his face in a mound of yellowish powder, an empty glass bottle on its side nearby.

  “Ungh… Vampire сука…” Volkov mumbled in his sleep. A puff of powder flew out from under him, dusting the wood around his head. As they crept deeper into the room, Isaac spotted a katana propped up against the crime boss’s desk. An actual, deadly-sharp katana; exactly what an inebriated lunatic ought to have.

  On the wall opposite the door was a set of three lockers which used to be blue, but the paint was chipped to reveal wide expanses of steel-gray and rust-orange. They approached them and Isaac felt the cold shower sensation run back from his feet to his scalp. L’æon was standing in front of him again.

  “Patience, please. These dialing locks are more difficult than knotted rope,” L’æon muttered. He put his hands over the lock and closed his eyes tight.

  “Mör’næ ä bí’tärës, mör’næ ä bí’tärës, mör’næ ä bí’tärës,” L’æon sang in a deep voice. The locker door wobbled weakly each time. With a frustrated look he repeated the incantation, a little more firmly. This time the metal box sprang open with a resounding clang.

  “What the hell?” Volkov said. He jumped back in his seat and clumsily swatted powdered narcotics from his face. Once he regained his vision, he zeroed in on his visitors.

  “Я, блять, убью тебя!” The Russian roared as he pulled out his revolver. He fired three times at Isaac and L’æon, missing each one.

  While he reloaded, Isaac swiped his backpack from the locker and threw a nearby bottle at Volkov. It smashed against the weapon, shards of glass embedding themselves in his chest and arms. The gangster howled in rage and pain.

  L’æon pulled Isaac out into the corridor, where Volkov’s employees were waking up and wondering what the commotion was about. Others were marching up the stairs, ready for war. The beige lump on the floor was now crouched against the wall, pointing and waving.

  “It’s Falcone and a new guy! He got out!” Ben honked at them.

  While L’æon figured out a plan, Isaac turned to his former boss. The assistant librarian looked terrified and broken. Volkov had clearly wasted no time making Schafer his personal punching bag. Isaac didn’t consider himself the kind of person who kicks a guy while he’s down, but in Beige Schafer’s case, an exception could be made. Isaac swung his right foot as deep into Ben’s stomach as he could, provoking a series of quack-like cries.

  Wanted to do that for two years, Isaac thought triumphantly.

  By this point, the entire corridor had flooded with gangsters, all pointing guns in their direction.

  “Isaac, I am on the verge of exhaustion,” L’æon said without moving his lips. He must have thought it prevented the thugs from hearing him. “I may just be able to send us both somewhere not here once we get outside. It will not be accurate, so I need you to clear your mind and we need to get outside. Do you trust me?”

  Isaac glared at him.

  L’æon gave a few wordless chirps then performed a jumping, twirling dance back and forth across the room. It gave him a look like the Tasmanian Devil attempting to do ballet. The gangsters all stared at him, their mouths hanging open.

  “Häzün!” L’æon chanted three times in a rhythm as he danced.

  A few of the mobsters took aim and pulled the trigger, but their guns jammed. Two more simply fell apart in their owner’s hands. They threw the useless weapons aside and started toward L’æon with their fists raised. That was when the dancing magician saw the prime opportunity to do a spinning jump, sideways, directly into the crowd of criminals. They went down like bowling pins, directly down the staircase. Isaac heard a few groans.

  “Luck charm!” L’æon called from below. “One of the least taxing spells I know of. The diversion is the tiring bit. Come, outside before they get up!”

  Isaac fled down the staircase. Every single one of Volkov’s employees was unconscious, or nearly so, in a heap on the floor. L’æon was sitting hunched over on top of the pile, a wearily gleeful look on his face.

  “Falcone!” Volkov roared from above. He appeared to have removed most of the glass from his skin. He stomped over his men, dragging Ben behind him, by the time Isaac and L’æon reached the exit. Two bullets pierced the door just as the pair stepped away from it.

  “Stay close, Isaac, this could easily go wrong,” L’æon panted. They were back out in the blizzard, offering some protection from the crazed Volkov.

  With a proper chance to look at him up close under a streetlight, Isaac could see how battered the vampire was. He hadn’t sustained nearly as many injuries as the frail human, but he had clearly overworked himself. His suit, which looked as though it was put through a shredder only for the owner to change their mind halfway through, was stained with a glittering black substance which looked like outer space turned to liquid and dried on the fabric. His eyes were dark and heavy.

  Volkov burst through the door, firing wildly in their general direction. His arms and chest were covered with blood. He howled incomprehensibly into the snowy night as he stormed toward them.

  “V-vægö næ’räcín dä äl’ötía,” L’æon stammered. He remained on his feet only by holding Isaac’s shoulders. The pair began to turn opaque but did not move anywhere.

  Volkov closed in on them, able to get a much better shot in person.

  “Please keep your mind clear, Isaac, we need to get to a safe place,” L’æon pleaded. They ducked behind Volkov’s parked limousine.

  L’æon took a deep, struggling breath. His hands shook as he prepared for a new incantation.

  Safe place, he says! Rage said. Safe place, the murdering, treacherous, lying -

  Nowhere is safe! Panic cried. He took our safe place away! He took our friends and family away! Good look clearing that from your thoughts!

  “Vægö næ’räcín dä äl’ötía!” L’æon tried one more time. As is tradition in this story, the second attempt was much more effective. Volkov slid across the ice and fired into the space where Isaac and L’æon previously hid. Isaac hadn’t managed to clear his mind, nor would he ever, so the spell could have sent them almost anywhere. As they blinked into wherever teleporting things go, the only safe place he could see in his mind was the library.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Location, Location, Location

  ?2018?

  Much like it had when he was sent to Spenard, the world in front of Isaac melted. The snow, the limo, Volkov, basically everything but L’æon swirled and vanished like wet paint down a drain. He wasn’t sure if the sensation of h
is stomach being yanked through his spine was from the unfocused spell or his own anxiety. Isaac guessed that the greater perception this time around was a result of L’æon’s grip on the magic, tenuous though it was. The last time he had been teleported, these effects occurred within a second, whereas now they took several.

  For an instant, Isaac had a sense that they were surrounded, that somewhere in the void was a vast consciousness which saw the human and vampire in much the same way they saw atoms. The weight of it pressed in on every cell in Isaac’s body, by nature of its very being. As he worried he would be crushed, a gray spot appeared in the center of his vision. Like the previous paint metaphor in reverse, the gray spot spun outward into somewhere. Off-white walls, stiff blue carpets, and bookshelves just barely too tall for Isaac to reach the top materialized. Underneath the pair’s feet was a wide, rectangular, wooden table, placed perfectly to stare through the windows into the city.

  “The knowledge place,” L’æon said, sounding both relieved and in awe. “These writings must have acted as a lightning rod. Where else could be safer?” He skipped around, gazing lovingly at the books.

  Isaac looked from the vampire to #9 on the wall. The infuriating clock read 6:17 AM. L’æon bounced back to the table and took a seat. His pale face was flushed, or at least whatever passed for flushed with him, and he was gasping for air through shallow giggles.

  “I apologize, the strange workings of magic excite me,” L’æon said as Isaac slid from the table into a chair opposite the vampire. “With so little energy to direct the spell, and both of us in a panic, I must admit I was afraid of where it might have taken us. But to end up here… The Eternal Lightbringer smiles upon us today.” He paused and watched Isaac, waiting for some sort of response. None came.