by Ian Fortey
The spidery limbs shuddered and fell away from Vincent’s body. He didn’t move even as the hands released him. His body was still and silent as she approached him.
“Vincent,” Selena said quietly. She crouched down next to his head. Vincent’s back had been torn apart from his shoulders down to his waist. But he was still breathing. Dirt and tears had caked to mud around his eyes and nose. His shallow breath pushed dust away in tiny puffs.
“Vincent, I need your help,” she said.
“I’m not,” he whispered. His fingers flexed. They were holding one of the dead puppet’s hands.
“It’s okay now. But we have to do something.”
“I’m not a murderer,” he said. He slowly pulled his hand from the puppet’s.
“No. I don’t think you are,” she agreed.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said. She touched the back of his head and nodded.
“It’s over for now. But Maggie needs to be stopped. Abigail needs to be stopped. Marchosias needs to be sent back to Hell. And I can’t do it on my own”
Vincent opened his eyes slowly. He winced and stared at her.
“Are you real?” he asked. She shrugged.
“Dead. But real,” she answered.
He coughed into the dirt and moved his hands closer to his body.
“I don’t know what to do. What did I even do? Did I kill you? Please tell me what I did.”
“I can’t tell you what you did, Vincent. I don’t know everything. All I know for sure is that you did not kill me.”
“Then why?” he said, struggling to move. “Why is this happening to me?”
“That is not a question I can answer.”
He tried to push himself up but failed and fell into the dirt again. He exhaled loudly.
“Maybe it would be better if I died. What’s the point of saving my life if I can’t even remember who I am?”
“People need you right now. I need you right now,” she said.
He groaned and tried to move again.
“You’re already dead.”
“But Dezzy isn’t. My sisters aren’t. Abigail is forcing them to bend to her will. But they are good people. They are warm and loving, and they deserve life, Vincent. You deserve life. The people of Burnham that Abby plans to destroy deserve life. And if Marchosias is left unbound, he will not just kill the people he finds, he will turn them into monsters. His curse is a plague that spreads, victim to victim. Humans who fall prey to his demonic transformation. That is the curse of the wolf. His darkness could consume the world.”
“I already saved the world once,” Vincent said.
“Then this one should be a breeze, Necromancer.”
He opened his eyes again and looked at her. His expression looked as hopeless as any she had ever seen.
“I feel like I’m dying, Selena. I can’t use Maggie’s magic. I can’t use the demon’s magic. I don’t know what to do.”
“This pain is real, but it is also only inside your head. Your wounds are not real. You are not dying unless you let yourself die. And you do not need to use Abigail’s magic. I will do that. You need to use your magic. Necromancy. Biomancy. We are in a forest, a Goddess Wood. Tell me what you can feel. Tell me of the Life and Death that surround us. We must use our power together just like Maggie and Abby are using theirs against us.”
“You said our magic won’t work together,” Vincent replied. He forced himself up from the ground, up to his knees, over the broken puppet in the soil.
“I said many things. I was wrong about you, wasn’t I? In this field where I died, we were performing a ritual and I watched as my own magic combined with necromancy, blood, Chaos, Forteana, and science. It was working. It was doing... something. You saw it as well, even if you don’t remember. They can work, I think. We must make them do so.”
Vincent sighed heavily, painfully. He wiped dirt from his face and looked her in the eye.
“I’ll try,” he said. “I need to see your power. Feel it,” he said.
“Good,” Selena said. Abigail would already be working on some new torture. They did not have nearly enough time. But they had to try.
***
Dezzy watched as Selena’s body seemed to shatter like glass and vanish from where it hovered in the air next to Vincent. They had bound Vincent to a tree and his body shuddered, a cry of pain escaping his lips every so often.
The roots binding Dezzy were strong. They had nearly cocooned him. He had little leverage to move or try to break free of them. And he couldn’t even call for help, assuming any of the witches were still able to think for themselves.
He could smell the magic in the air, all kinds of it seemingly coming from everywhere, but he had no idea what was happening. What he did know was that, from where he was trapped, he could see both the cave and the area outside it. Abigail and the ghost of Maggie Huxley were completely absorbed in dealing with Vincent and Selena. They were not watching the cave. They should have been.
The werewolf was hunkered down in the shadows. The day was fading to night sooner than it should have. The moon was full and wide, like a silver dollar in the sky.
Dezzy pushed around in his mouth with his tongue, feeling the patch of flesh that had grown over his face, replacing his mouth. He had no lips any more, just what felt like a new cheek stretching from one side of his face to the other over his teeth. It was an unpleasant feeling, to say the least.
If he could talk, he would have yelled at the other witches. The smell of blood magic was on them. He was sure they were being controlled by the ghost, but anyone under a blood bond still had some sense of self. Self-preservation was the strongest force to try to overcome, as far as Dezzy knew. You needed really powerful magic to make someone accept death without fighting. That meant the witches were probably willing to save their own lives. If only they would pay attention to the werewolf.
He wriggled and rolled against the roots, looking for a way to break free. He had never truly wished that he was a man with any kind of power, not when he was alive the first time and not when he was the Scion. But he could see now that it would come in handy when fighting evil witches and vengeful ghosts.
The sun had completely set, and moonlight bathed the forest. The silver light filled the entrance to the cave. Dezzy could see the wolf as it stalked from the darkness. It didn’t even bother to rush. Chaos beings were like that, though. He had always tried to avoid Chaos whenever he could beyond the Veil. It was madness to do otherwise.
In Dezzy’s time as the Scion, they did various jobs for the Prince of Nothing. His main duty was to help the newly lamented choose the correct path beyond the Veil. But he had other tasks as well. Sometimes he had to travel near the Void and feel the anger of the blood magic that bubbled within. And there were times, though not often, when he carried out duties near the Dimensional Rift, the place from which Chaos magic was born.
Some of those beyond the Veil called the Dimensional Rift Hell, but Dezzy understood that was not the case. Hell was how a finite mind tried to grasp the tumult and madness of beings whose very nature refused order and balance. Beings for whom pain was not a physical discomfort but an essential aspect of existence. Torment to a Chaos Lord was like digestion to a mortal. Not only was it essential, it was autonomic. It was not a thing a Chaos Lord considered or planned or even gave a second thought to. It just was.
The most terrifying thing about Chaos, at least as far as Dezzy was concerned, was the passive nature of it. Because the Chaos Lords were not passive. Incalculable suffering was their innocuous state. So when they applied themselves, suffering became exponentially more terrifying. More creative. And some of the Chaos Lords were very creative. Beings that were, for all intents and purposes, infinite, had a very long time to learn and grow. It was not a thing a mortal should ever have to know about. It was not a thing a mortal could ever fully understand.
A true Chaos Lord was beyond the finite d
imension of humans and other mortal races. It could not exist in the same time and space any more than a human could enter an ant’s hill and expose the colony to the full understanding of quantum mechanics. But it could funnel some of its conscience into a shell. Into a thing born out of the darkest and most depraved nightmares. And that little drop of Chaos could manifest in the world of mortals as almost anything. Even a werewolf.
Marchosias stepped out of the cave. Moonlight bathed its black fur in a white glow. The wolf stood up to its full height, towering high above everything around him, and lifted its head to the night. The werewolf howled, the sound amplified by the cave, reverberating through the night. Dezzy felt his insides vibrate. The forest shook as though it was a thing alive and in desperate fear.
Having been dead once for several years and, as a Scion for all of mortal history, Dezzy was not easily frightened anymore. He viewed life—and the experiences it brought—differently. But this frightened him. The rancid stink of Chaos magic that seeped into his eyes and nose and ears made his blood run cold. It terrified him.
The fear was a by-product of the magic itself, as intentional as everything else. The form of the wolf was not chosen by accident. It preyed on deep rooted fears bred into humans at a genetic level. The ancestors of modern man knew to fear wolves and most modern humans instinctively had a fear reaction to any large predator. The golden eyes, the sharp fangs, the claws. They all represented danger and death.
The three witches at the cave did not move at all, bound by whatever enchantment robbed them of their will. Dezzy tried to call out, but his mouthless face could only produce muffled cries. It didn’t matter, he knew that. They now saw the wolf as clearly as he could. But the enchantment rooted them in place.
Marchosias plucked the nearest woman from the ground. The oldest of the three, the one working behind the counter in the shop with the younger woman. The wolf lifted her like she was a doll. She screamed, and Dezzy realized they were still very much aware of their circumstance. Only, Abigail had left them powerless to act on their own volition.
The wolf’s jaws clamped down on the woman’s throat. The snap was wet. Her scream ended in an abrupt gurgle as the head tumbled from her body, the throat ragged and bloodied. The monster threw her body back into the cave before turning to the next woman, the blonde girl who had sold Dezzy his cupcakes.
“Sandra!” someone yelled, an enraged scream.
Dezzy looked back to Vincent on the tree. Abigail had finally taken notice of the demon. Her hands gestured quickly, and the forest buzzed with the scent of renewed primal magic. Something forced the wolf back, and the other two witches were finally able to move. They fled from the wolf, returning to Abigail as the wolf plucked their friend’s head from the forest floor and hurled it, smashing Abigail in the face and knocking her to the ground as her nose exploded in a gout of blood.
Dezzy’s bonds weakened, the roots suddenly going slack. He gasped, feeling his mouth again as the spells holding him in place died. He struggled from the roots, pushing them off of his body, and got to his feet. The wolf turned its head, gazing at him.
“Ahh, man,” he muttered. He was never a fan of the lesser of two evils, but in this case, it seemed pretty clear. He ran to the witches.
“I hope you guys have some kind of plan here,” he said. Behind him, Marchosias howled again and bounded after.
***
Vincent stared up at the moon. The burning cold had receded from his body. The pain in his back felt real but different, like it was just a memory. His hands were still bound to the great tree that held him up, but something had changed. He looked down and watched as Dezzy sprinted across the forest floor in the light of the moon, running towards two of the witches and the ghost of Maggie Huxley. Abigail was on the ground, her face a mask of blood. Her eyes were closed, and she was not moving. He couldn’t tell if she was dead or just unconscious, but he could see no magic coming from her at all.
Marchosias howled and lumbered forward, hunched over and running on its hind legs but scraping at the forest floor with its front claws to maintain its balance. Behind it, the headless body of one of the witches lay before the entrance to the cave.
There was no mirror handy, no way for him to communicate with Selena. But if he saw, then she saw. One of her sisters was dead. Their plan would have to work or everyone would die in moments.
“Welcome back,” Fix said. “Things are worse, if you can believe that.”
“Marchosias!” Vincent yelled from the tree. His voice boomed through the forest. It was too loud. A tiny flow of primal energy sent it through the trees to the ears of everything that could hear. Selena had already begun to work.
The wolf snarled, slowing its run and looking up at the tree.
“Patience, Necromancer. Wait on your tree, I will get to you in time. There have been werewolf necromancers in the past, did you know that? You will not be the first,” it said, chuckling.
“I will give you a chance,” Vincent yelled. He tried to sound convincing as he stalled for time.
“What chance?”
“A chance to leave, now. A chance to live.”
The wolf laughed as the witches tried to pull Abigail to safety. Dezzy helped them while the ghost of Maggie Huxley stood her ground before the demon.
“Your magic has already failed. When I kill these witches, and this man, I will devour your legs, and your arms. I will leave you alive and trapped in your own body that you might see the world I create in my own image and know it was your failure that started it all.”
“Silly pup,” Vincent countered, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. The wolf’s eyes narrowed in the moonlight. Maybe he was being convincing after all. “You haven’t even seen my magic.”
Primal energy twisted around the tree behind him, releasing the bonds holding him in place, and Vincent fell to the ground, landing on his feet. He rubbed his wrists and adjusted his shirt as he took a step toward the wolf. On the ground, at his feet, was the severed head of the witch named Charlotte. Her throat had been torn apart.
“What are we doing?” Fix asked.
“Going for broke,” Vincent whispered. He looked over his shoulder at Dezzy and the two witches with Abigail next to a tree.
“If this doesn’t work, you need to run,” he said.
“It’ll work, man,” Dezzy said with a smile. He didn’t even know what was happening. Vincent smiled back. He was glad Dezzy was with him on this awful road trip.
White and purple threads of Death pulsed in the forest floor all around Vincent. He could feel Selena’s primal energies dancing on his fingertips and flooding out into the world. It flowed over the threads of necromancy, like plastic sheaths on electrical wiring. Where the primal energy spread, he could see new threads of necromantic energy that had been invisible to him. First, a handful, and then more. Soon, the entire forest was a blinding inferno of shining purple and white energy. There was so much Death that he thought something had gone wrong, that Selena’s power was casting illusions.
He delved into the Death weaves all around him. They felt brittle and delicate, like nothing he had ever experienced before. They were like drinking straws and each was filled with the green and golden traces of Life. They formed in clumps or spread like veins. There were shapes and sizes Vincent had not seen anywhere in Alder Falls, even when he summoned the ancient dead.
He traced the shapes with his mind, letting the primal and necromantic energies blend together to create form in his consciousness.
The earth began to rumble. The forest trembled and leaves shook from the base to the tops of the trees. The glow increased and increased some more. The forest was nothing but Death wrapped in Life wrapped in primal energy.
Vincent could see the world with his eyes, he could see the cave and the trees. He could see Marchosias in the moonlight, for the first time, showing hesitation. The wolf did not understand what was happening. No one did. No one
could.
In his head, all Vincent could see was a blinding, radiant light. Blue, purple, white, green and gold. It drowned out the world, the patterns blending into one. The energy became something new and solid in his mind. There was no longer primal or necromantic energy. There was simply black and white pulsing energy in all things. Life and Anti-Life. What was and what was not. And they were the same, just mirrors of each other. In the forest there was no Death. There was the end and the beginning of Life. Dead plants gave birth to new. Dead animals fed the soil, fed the land and the insects and the trees. Vincent could see it all connected now.
Primal magic was the magic of balancing life and death. Of order and chaos. Of light and dark, fire and ice, night and day. It was not just a distinct magic. It was the ordering magic. It directed power and influence. It worked with blood magic because it could direct blood magic. It worked with necromancy because it could direct necromancy. It could hone it. It could amplify and intensify it. It was like a magnifying glass to a beam of sunlight.
“What power is this?” Marchosias asked.
“My power,” Vincent answered. He closed his hands into fists. Life and Death surged in his veins. The forest exploded.
Necromantic power pulled forth the ancient remnants of long dead trees. Branches and roots burst from decayed logs and vines, merging Life and Death as the trees rose from the earth. Necrotic vines bloomed with new life, rotten wood sprouted tendrils and thorns that lashed out at the wolf.
The corpses of animals, from the smallest squirrel to coyotes and bobcats and bears, rose from the ground or climbed up on the trees that crested the forest floor, like whales rising from the depths. Skeletal jaws clamped down on the wolf’s arms and legs. The dead animals grew as they moved, blood and muscle and fur growing to cover old and rotten remains that time had forgotten.
Life forged a path into Death, and the two became one. A ring of long dead trees rose around Marchosias, their rotten and insect-riddled wood growing strong again. Bark covered bare wood, and branches exploded outward like spears. The branch of a birch tree pierced the wolf’s side, and it howled as the wood buried itself deep and pushed through the other side.
