The Mammoth Book of Dark Magic

by Mike Ashley

  Both their faces were plain to see. Not a line could be forgotten. Ryan closed his eyes, and still their faces were outlined against his sightlessness as if with wires burning white-hot. He threw the book across the room and bolted for his bedroom door.

  He stepped from bare wood onto naked air. His wings snapped open without the need for any conscious command to reach them. His head-long fall became a naturally graceful glide that carried him down, down to the vast sea of forest and the piteous, defiant roars of a dying dragon and the face of a maiden, lovelier than any girl he had ever known, wreathed with roses.

  I give you this power, but you must earn its reward.

  He awoke knowing what he must do.

  He awoke half choked by the stink of exhaust fumes as the bus pulled into the Port Authority terminal in New York.

  Ryan did not have enough money for a cab so he took the bus down-town. He got off at the wrong stop, got lost, wandered in sullen pilgrimage through streets where crumpled newspapers blew like tumbleweeds. Finally he broke down and asked directions.

  It was sunset when he found Uncle Graham’s address. A flimsy strip of black-and-yellow tape flapped wearily from the hinges of the big entry door to Uncle Graham’s building. Ryan’s taloned paws moved grandly, daintily overstepping the dull red-brown stains spattering the threshold and the sidewalk before it. Silence sang a hymn of welcome as he entered the loft, the last of the sunlight adding its own wash of color to the row of paintings Uncle Graham had left behind.

  The girl from upstairs came down to see what was going on, alerted by the noise of a slamming door. Ryan told her, “I’m here to dispose of my uncle’s things.” He showed her the key and told her enough about Uncle Graham to convince her of his legitimate right to be there.

  She shrugged, thin shoulders sheathed in stretch jersey glimpsed through thin brown hair. “Save it, okay? I couldn’t tell if you’re making it up or not anyway. I hardly knew anything about the guy. I mean, sure, I knew he was, like, gay, and he painted. I was scared for awhile after he got killed, but—”

  “I really am his nephew,” Ryan insisted, clutching the doorpost until he imagined he must have driven his talons inches deep into the wood.

  “Hey, no argument. You got the key.” Another shrug, welcoming him to help himself to the apartment and all found so long as he did not trespass on her well cultivated indifference.

  She wasn’t pretty. She was what the fashion world would call a waif. Ryan was more attracted to girls whose breasts were larger than orange pips. Still he invited her in. At first she declined, but she called herself an artist too. She had never had the chance to study Uncle Graham’s work up close before. She might have come downstairs anytime while Uncle Graham was still alive and asked to see his paintings; she never did. She admitted to Ryan that the idea had never crossed her mind.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  Again that shifting of the shoulders to let a person slide safely out from beneath uncomfortable questions. “I didn’t want to intrude. I thought, you know, what if he’s got someone over?”

  He found tea to serve her. She drank in short, dull slurps, her eyes forever darting sideways to keep him under surveillance. She wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t his type and he wasn’t attracted to her at all.

  What’samatter, Lundberg, doncha like girls?

  He gave her all the charm he had, the way he’d done with Karen Pitt, the way he’d perfected with all the college girls he’d ever sweet-talked into bed, the way that proved to everyone who never asked for proof that he wasn’t like his uncle. Before she left, he got to kiss her and buy back his peace.

  Uncle Graham’s bed was made of pale pine with a bowed headboard, the kind you order from L.L. Bean catalogs. One of great-grandma Ruth’s handsewn quilts lay across it, a bearpaw design in red and blue. Ryan lay down on the bed, quilt and all, fully clothed, and rested the little clay dragon on his chest. He gazed into its silvery eyes until he felt the lake waters rolling off his flanks and the alien moons of the dragons’ realm welcomed him home.

  He circled the skybowl once, his scent marking air as his hunting ground and his alone. Below, he dreamed the peasants singing for him to descend and accept the sacrifice. Later, he thought, and the power of his mind rumbled across the sky like thunder. When I have earned it.

  The thunder of his thoughts rolled back to overwhelm him, knocking him sideways into a spin. When he righted himself he saw that the green land had vanished, the crude songs of the rustics thinned into the braying of traffic, the shriek of sirens. The stone forest of the city stood stark against the moon. He dipped into the canyons, following a trail of vision.

  It was easy hunting; he knew the prey. He found them with his mind, not with his eyes. They were in a bar, drinking beer, laughing and talking and sometimes trying to get the attention of the women. The lure was loudest, telling the women what he’d like to do to them, telling them how grateful they’d be, telling them they were frigid, bitches, bull-dykes when they turned away. The killer with the club only smiled, and sometimes one of the women would smile back. That made the lure scowl and call her a whore.

  “Hey! What you starin’ at?”

  Ryan gasped with surprise as the lure’s hand shot out and closed around the collar of his shirt, yanking him forward. Stale beer stank in his nostrils and sprayed saliva dotted his cheeks as the lure shouted, “What, you see something you like, faggot?”

  “Get your fucking hands off me!” Teeth like steak knives ground against each other as Ryan smacked the lure’s grip away. By chance one talon scored the skin of the lure’s forearm, a long, shallow cut. Sapphire eyes widened in childlike awe to see the blood go trickling down.

  “Shit, he pulled a knife on me!” he yelled.

  “What knife? Where?” the killer drawled, glancing at Ryan’s empty hands. “You’re crazy, Ted, you know that?”

  “Stinking fag knifed me,” the lure insisted. “Goddamn it, this whole neighborhood’s crawling with ’em, like roaches.”

  “Who are you calling a fag?” Ryan asked quietly. Being what he was, he did not need to raise his voice to make the menace heard.

  The killer gave Ryan a slow and easy grin. “Don’t pay attention to him. He’s been drinking. He don’t know what he’s saying.”

  “No shit.” Ryan readjusted the lay of his shirt, sounding so calm he astonished himself. He had no idea of how he had become real in this place, how these two, his quarry, had gone from being part of a dragon’s vision to tangibility. He did not know why he felt the dragon’s body on him so surely that he wanted to grab these men, shake them, and demand, Can’t you see what I am?

  “What the hell are you doing, talking to this guy?” the lure cried stridently, tugging at the killer’s sleeve. “You see what he did to me?” He stuck his bloodied arm out for inspection.

  “With what?” the dark one replied. He sounded bored. “A fuckin’ fingernail? You see he don’t got a knife, so with what? Jesus, grow up. You probably did it to yourself.”

  “With what?” the lure mimicked, spreading empty hands.

  “Asshole,” the other muttered and turned his back.

  Ryan walked out of the bar. The air was cooler than it had been all day and there was the promise of rain. He walked to the corner to check the street signs. The bar was only two blocks away from Uncle Graham’s apartment. This is where it began, he thought. He wondered which way they would walk when they finally left the bar. He hoped they would walk together at least part of the way. He needed them to be in the same place at the same time. Then, one fiery breath, one slash of his claws, one short snap of jaws that could sever the body of a full grown stag—

  It is a well-known fact that dragons do not forget those they love. Their love is always loyal, sometimes blind. This is perhaps a failing.

  He took to the sky again to scout his place of ambush. He was fortunate: The area was rich in alleyways. He landed lightly on the roof of the building across the street from the bar,
warm tar underfoot making his paws itch, his toes curl. He set his silver eyes high, telling the hours by the slow journey of the moon.

  His prey emerged when midnight was two hours gone. A woman was with them, holding fast to the arm of the killer while the lure tagged along behind, head down, shoulders hunched forward. Her hair was the color of lemon-yellow paint and just as lifeless, her face crumpled with rude laughter. She clung to the killer’s broad shoulders, her stumbling feet scraping the sidewalk. The lure stared at her, disgust very plain on his face.

  The three of them wove their way across the street, tracing the pattern of the drunkards’ pavane. High on his perch, the dragon could still snuff up the reek of beer, sour wine, sweat, and old perfume. He flapped his wings once to lift himself into flight, taking care to do it so that the sound remained as muffled as possible. He wondered whether the men intended to share the woman and whether the woman wanted that. He knew that if they desired it, her wants would be nothing.

  He hovered over them as they walked, a shadow on the pavement in their wake, a dark shape gliding over rooftops, safe from detection in a city whose inhabitants so seldom raised their eyes to heaven. He watched them stop at street corners to laugh; he saw them stop in the middle of the street to argue.

  “What the hell you doin’, Ted?” The dark one glanced over his shoulder, the woman wrapped around him like a cape. “You still here? You wanna take a left back there on that last block if you wanna get home.”

  “I know how to get home.” The lure’s chin rose, daring his companion to contradict him. “I thought maybe you could use some help with her. You know, in case she pukes all over you before you get her back to your place.”

  The killer laughed. “Okay, come on.”

  “I’m not gonna puke,” the woman objected. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the lure. “You’re just pissed ’cause you couldn’t find someone to go home with you.”

  “Like I’d want to screw what comes into that bar,” the lure replied loftily.

  “Yeah?” The woman looked canny. “What kind of bars do you like, baby?” She made it mean things.

  “Shut up, bitch,” he snapped. He would have hit her if his friend were not there. The dragon knew this. As it was, the woman turned to the dark one, squawking indignantly.

  “Hey, baby, it’s okay, that’s just him, he’s a little nuts, you know?” the killer said. “Don’t push his buttons, okay? And don’t go saying shit like that about my buddy.” Something in his voice tightened by an almost imperceptible degree. Drunk as she was, the woman sensed it. The dragon saw her cringe.

  “I didn’t mean nothing,” she said.

  “Like hell,” the lure snarled. “‘What kind of bars?’ Like I don’t know! Stupid damn—”

  “She don’t know you, Ted, that’s all,” the killer said. “If she did, she’d never even think of saying something like that about you.” He showed his teeth, and the lure returned the gesture, a look too sharp to be just a smile. The dragon saw them exchange the secret of a crime in a single glance.

  The dragon came to earth. By rights, the walls of the alley it chose should have been too narrow to accommodate its wingspan, yet they did. This place was perfect, only a few yards ahead on the prey’s path, on a street whose emptiness was a gift. It waited. The argument was over. They would all continue down the street in this direction now. The dragon had decided on fire. Fire was quick and clean, if indiscriminate. It was too bad about the woman.

  Footsteps rang on the pavement. The dragon’s eyelids, smooth as shell for all their scales, drew back until the darkness filled with the silver light of its eyes. It heard the woman say, “What the hell’s that in there?” and the killer answer, “Who gives a—?”

  Then he had them. No deer was ever so transfixed by the headlights’ glare. The brilliance of his gaze washed over them, a stark light to shear away everything but the truth. He gathered his breath for the flame.

  And in a distant room a dreamer held a book open to its last page, falling into the silver eye of a dragon and seeing only truth.

  I can’t.

  The fire died in his throat. He felt the dragon’s form, the dragon’s power slip from him. The image of the rose-wreathed maiden blew away like dust. The splendor of his eyes dimmed and vanished, leaving the alley lit only by the spill of the streetlamp. Rain began to fall, mizzling, penetrating. He felt cold.

  “Who’s in there? Come out!” the killer shouted. The spell was broken. Ryan crept forward because he didn’t know what else he could do. “It’s the kid from the bar!” The dark one sounded genuinely surprised.

  Not too surprised to seize Ryan’s arm and squeeze it hard as he jerked him forward. “What d’you think you’re doing, following us?” The fingers drove deeper into soft flesh. “You some kinda pervert?”

  “I told you what he is!” the lure cried stridently. “I can smell ’em.”

  “Yeah, maybe you can,” the killer muttered. His grip shifted to Ryan’s shirtfront. “You were right the last time.”

  “Honey, let him go; he’s just a kid,” the woman pleaded.

  “This kid—” he gave Ryan a shake to make his teeth clatter “—was in the bar before, trying to start something. What d’you wanna start, kid?”

  “Watch out for him; he’s got a knife on him,” the lure piped up.

  “Big deal.” The killer reached into the pocket of his jeans. “So do I.”

  The blade snicked silver in the shadows. Ryan saw the reflection of his eyes along the shining edge. He remembered all the things that had been done to Uncle Graham, the things the police told Dad, the things Dad only hinted at to him, shaking. These two had only smashed his uncle’s skull after they had done everything else they wanted. He heard a plaintive voice inside him say, They killed me without a moment’s hesitation, Ryan. I know I was looking to die, but like that? As less than a man, less than an animal, just a toy for willful, sadistic children? They’ll kill you without a single regret. It will shatter Chessie’s heart. Why didn’t you destroy them when you had the power?

  And Ryan’s heart answered, Because that would make me one of them.

  “Jesus, let him go,” the woman whined. “You’re not gonna cut him, are you?”

  “You don’t wanna see, close your eyes,” the killer instructed her.

  “Oh, shit, you’re crazy too.” With a shake of her head she tried to bolt, but the lure grabbed her and held her fast.

  “You don’t wanna go running for the cops, do you?” he hissed in her ear. “Nah, I bet you don’t.” He seized her straggly hair and punched her hard in the face before she could scream. She groaned and folded to the ground.

  “Hey! What’d you do to the bitch?” The killer spoke with the same heat reserved for street punks caught putting scratches on a new car.

  “Ah, so what?” The lure shrugged. “Like you can’t do what you want with her now?”

  The knife rose, a straight line of cold blue across Ryan’s sight. He shut his eyes. A fist slammed into his shoulder.

  “Uh-uh, pervert,” the killer told him. “You gotta see it coming. I wanna see you see. Open ’em.” Another violent shake of Ryan’s shirtfront. “Open ’em!”

  So Ryan opened his eyes.

  Screams.

  Screams not his, screams that battered his ears as the pure white light flooded the alleyway again. They jarred him free of his captive body, throwing him skywards into the rain. He gasped to feel chill droplets pattering over skin still human, then turned in wingless mid-flight to look down at what this release had left behind.

  He expected to see the two men staring up after him, mouths agape like the lowest wonderstruck peasant of the dragons’ realm. Instead he saw them crouching in the alleyway, on their knees in filth, hands trembling before their faces. He realized that they were trying not to look, trying to shield their eyes from the assault of sight. He let go his tenuous hold on the air and touched the ground behind them, beside the fallen woman.

  H
e saw the dragon’s eyes.

  It was a great beast, huge, splendid, grander by far than the youngling worm that once housed Ryan’s soul. The alley walls strained, bricks and mortar crumbling under the pressure of containing it. It lay with paws folded under its jagged chin, its gleaming eyes regarding the two men almost casually, in afterthought. There was no intent of a killing in its attitude. It only looked at them, slumbrous, steadily.

  They tried to look away and could not, tried to close their eyes and found the lids frozen wide, tried to make screens of their hands and knew a strange paralysis that withheld that mercy. They had to look. They had no choice but to see.

  And some destroy them because of how they see themselves in the dragon’s eyes.

  In one eye’s curved and shining surface, the killer crouched in a dark place, jabbing sticks at phantoms, wailing with fear. His naked body was covered with lesions, his limbs skeletal, his face all blades of bone beneath a patchwork of bare, purple-veined scalp and pitiful tufts of hair.

  In the other eye, the lure clung to the killer’s arm, pressed himself against that towering, healthy body. He let his mouth wander at will, his eyes holding all the ecstasy of long-deferred fulfillment. His hands were everywhere, touching, caressing, claiming all he desired for his own. I want this, his image mouthed in the monster’s mirrored gaze. I’ve always wanted this . . . I’ve always wanted you.

  The dragon raised his head and blinked once, shuttering away the vision. When he opened them again, he disappeared.

  The two men turned to stare at each other, the rain running down their faces. The woman stirred and whimpered, waking. They did not hear her. Ryan stooped to murmur in her ear, “Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.” She cursed and shoved him aside.

  So he ran away. He ran alone, stumbling down the rainwashed street, wondering how far he would be allowed to go before the spell of the dragon’s gaze broke, before the others came after him. He thought he could hear them behind him, coming up fast. His breath burned in his chest. He did not dare to look over his shoulder. His hunters were as certain a presence as the night. He could almost feel the icy breath of the knife on his flesh.