The Dead of Sanguine Night

by Travis Simmons

  “Come, I can lead you home,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “My name is Lauren. There’s no need to be frightened.”

  Margaret smiled timidly and reached out for the necromancer’s hand.

  :Be careful,: Lincoln warned. :Remember the mind control.:

  But Margaret hadn’t felt any kind of outer influence compelling her to grab the necromancer’s hand. Addie said that they would be able to tell if they were being controlled in the way they knew when a vampire was controlling them. They would feel an urge to do something against their will. Either the necromancer wasn’t controlling her yet, or she was such a master of mind control that Margaret wouldn’t have felt any outer suggestion even if the death mancer commanded her to end her own life.

  Lauren tightened her grip and gave her a wistful smile. “What brings you out at night?” she asked.

  “I…I’m not sure,” Margaret answered, partially because she didn’t have a story in mind, and partially because she wasn’t sure if someone who was under the necromancer’s control would really know the reason they had strayed from the safety of their home and into the dangerous streets.

  Lauren frowned. “It’s foolish to be out on the streets at night with all of the deaths that have been happening in this area.”

  Margaret didn’t answer, but allowed herself a quiver that echoed down her arm and to the necromancer’s hand. She hoped that Lauren felt that she was scared, rather than that she was waiting for the moment to spring and slay her.

  :Ghouls,: Samuel broadcasted. :Everyone, be on the lookout. Ghouls are surrounding the area. If we start killing them, she will know. Addie, can you find a way around?:

  :Got one,: Adelaide answered. :Follow me.:

  “Ah, here we are,” the necromancer said.

  :I see them,: said a thick male voice Margaret didn’t recognize. Likely someone from the Pralin clan that normally patrolled the City Center. They must have linked up with their broadcasters with Margaret knowing. :Right on the corner of Boulva Street and Main. Addie, can you make it here?:

  Margaret fought the urge to check the rooftops for the person who spoke.

  :Yes, be there in a moment,: Adelaide said.

  :Goat, hold on,: Samuel said. :We’re coming.:

  “This…is nice,” Margaret said. It was a nice home, though she hadn’t remembered seeing the house before, and she would have certainly remembered this specific house being on the corner of Boulva and Main, because it was her home.

  Everything about the house was precisely as she remembered it. The gray brick of the walls and the dark green thatching of the roof. The cedar hedges that were trimmed to shoulder height, and the lamppost that flickered on the corner of Danthea Way and Chase Avenue.

  :Something’s wrong,: the same, thick voice intruded again.

  Nancy moaned from where she stood in her kitchen, listening in. The broadcaster suddenly fell silent.

  “That didn’t take long,” Margaret said. “To think, home was just around the corner. Thank you!” she tried her hardest to sound grateful and not worried or suspicious as to how the necromancer was able to make her house appear. There was something she should remember, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Of course,” Lauren said once Margaret almost had the answer to the question plaguing her thoughts. How was she able to do that? But something seemed to be holding the answer at bay, some kind of force had intruded on her mind and blocked out the answer as surely as it was jamming the broadcaster from receiving any further instructions from her father and the other hunters. “Let me walk you in.”

  The hedges parted naturally for a gate walkway that led to the front door. The gate opened with ease at Lauren’s touch and the necromancer led Margaret up the paved walk and to the front door.

  The door opened onto a small entryway where pegs hung for jackets and a bench on either wall allowed for people to sit while putting their shoes on. Rows of shoes lined the underneath of the benches. The doorway from the entryway led to a small common room that was more of a hallway. Stairs on the right wall ascended to the bedrooms upstairs and a door on the wall adjacent to the stairs led into the kitchen where she could hear her mother toiling away with dinner preparations.

  Where’s Mitzy? Margaret wondered, but no sooner had she thought about the dog than the Akita bounded out of the living room to the left and jumped on Margaret, nearly knocking her over. Mitzy nuzzled her neck and kissed her ear before jumping down and investigating Lauren.

  “Well hello there,” Lauren said, bending low and petting Mitzy. “It’s a little late for dinner,” Lauren said, glancing up at Margaret. The smile she wore was tight and almost seemed forced.

  Margaret didn’t answer.

  “Home already?” Nancy called from the kitchen.

  Margaret waited to hear some kind of commotion on the broadcaster, but nothing was forthcoming.

  Upstairs there were several loud thumps, like someone was dragging a bed or something heavy across the floor. Margaret looked up, and then to Lauren. The necromancer only smiled.

  “That was a short hunt,” Nancy called, coming around the corner that divided the kitchen from the dining room. Her mother leaned in the doorway. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Hunt?” Lauren asked. For once the necromancer looked flabbergasted instead of Margaret.

  Margaret didn’t have a second to waste waiting for instructions. It was clear that the broadcaster was jammed, likely from the mancy surrounding her home. She had to strike while the necromancer was confused.

  Margaret reached under her jacket and felt the short sword that hung there. It was thin enough to conceal, but big enough she could do some serious damage with it. As quick as a striking snake, Margaret drew the blade and turned. It was one fluid movement from sheath to embedded in the necromancer’s neck.

  Lauren’s eyes flashed with crystalline, ghostly blue power, and then faded. The necromancer slumped to the ground, slipping off the thin blade. As she fell, Margaret felt a chill rush through her, like a gossamer curtain of ice. It drifted through her mind, and she shivered. When it passed, the entryway of her home faded and the broadcaster buzzed back to life.

  She found herself standing in the midst of a dark, shabby living room. Couches and chairs stood along the wall, slumping to the floor on broken legs. A cracked fireplace sat in the far wall from the doorway. To its left stairs ascended up to a second level. Directly across from the entrance stood another doorway, darkened with gloom.

  In the doorway stood two blackened figures. As they slumped to the ground on all fours, Margaret heard a rush of hurried footsteps from upstairs.

  The broadcaster buzzed with shouting voices and a flurry of activity.

  :Maggie,: Adelaide cried out. :If you can hear me, get out of there!:

  She reached for the door, but it was locked.

  “It’s locked,” Margaret said, rattling the door as if that would persuade it to open. It was just her luck that the rest of the house was a shithole, but the door stood firm.

  :Well, unlock it,: Lincoln buzzed through the broadcaster.

  “Great idea, if only there were a key!” Margaret fired back. She turned toward the dead necromancer, slumped on the floor. It was odd that her body wasn’t bleeding, or even stranger that the ghouls were nestled on the floor near the necromancer, not coming closer to Margaret.

  Other blackened figures stood at the base of the stairs. Skin tight, like paper, blackened in fire, stretched over their skeletal frames. The sight would typically frighten any normal person, but the hunters fought ghouls regularly.

  Lauren coughed, and Margaret’s head snapped her way. The necromancer’s eyes blazed with cold fire. The ghouls backed away from the necromancer as Lauren pushed to her feet. She dusted off her full skirts and smiled at Margaret.

  “Well, that was bracing,” she said. Her voice wasn’t as lusty as it was when they first met. Now it held a note of breathlessness, as if her windpipe might have been damaged in th
e blow, and she was having a hard time pushing the words out of her mouth.

  Margaret shook her head. This wasn’t right, she’d sliced halfway through her neck. She should have been dead. But here she stood. Unless she’s not alive! The thought tore through her mind. It triggered something of her morning research, but just as before, the thought was fleeting, as if somehow Lauren was able to keep the thoughts from reaching the surface of Margaret’s mind.

  “I killed you,” Margaret said.

  “And yet, here I am!” the necromancer spread her arms wide, a smile splitting her face.

  “She’s not dead,” Margaret said. There was no answer from the broadcaster.

  “So, you’re a hunter?” Lauren said. “I should have known that you would come looking for me sooner or later. No matter, I’ve gathered some of your friends.”

  “Margaret?” Nancy called from somewhere deeper in the house.

  “Mom?” Margaret asked, looking around Lauren to the darkened room behind her where the ghouls lurked in the doorway. There was no answer from the broadcaster.

  “Tricky little bit of mancy you have in your ear,” Lauren said. She clasped her hands before her waist. “Doesn’t work when you’re in the same house as those that share it, does it?”

  “This is another trick,” Margaret said. The thought finally came to her, the thought that the strange power was keeping at bay. The answer she’d been looking for since she arrived. “You’re an illusionist. I’ve read about that kind of mancy. This isn’t real. My mother isn’t in this house.”

  Lauren shrugged. “Am I?”

  “This house was a lie when you showed it to me,” Margaret said. “And you’re doing it again with my mother.”

  “Margaret, help me!” Lincoln screamed from deeper in the house, the same direction as Nancy. Margaret’s eyes darted toward the darkened kitchen. The screams and cries were coming from in there, somewhere.

  Lauren looked back toward the ghouls, and all of them, including those at the base of the stairs, made their way into the kitchen, cracking and popping as they walked until they vanished from sight. Several moments later, Nancy and Lincoln screamed again.

  It’s not my family, Margaret was resolute. She gripped her sword tighter. Margaret darted in, her sword swinging down toward Lauren. The necromancer didn’t move. She laughed as the sword hacked deeper into her, following a different trajectory through her collarbone and down toward her heart.

  “Feisty,” Lauren said. She laughed pulling herself off the blade. “You don’t learn, do you?”

  Lauren lashed out, her fist catching Margaret in the chest. She fumbled backwards, her arms wind milling under the force of the attack. She barely kept hold of her sword as she slumped down onto the couch, the breath choked from her body. When she caught her breath once more, Margaret spoke.

  “I’m not going to fall for your tricks.” She pushed to her feet. Her legs were a little wobbly, but she locked her knees. “My clan will be here any moment with reinforcements.”

  There was a thud on the front door. The necromancer didn’t seem to be surprised. “Maybe these are tricks,” Lauren said with a shrug. Only one shoulder went up, the other one seemed to be useless. Her arm dangled at her side where Margaret had chopped through muscle and bone. “But can you really trust what your mind says?”

  Adelaide screamed. It echoed from somewhere beyond the kitchen. Margaret doubted if the house was actually that big, but all of the sobs and cries were coming from that direction.

  The door opened with a great crash and Margaret turned, relieved that help had arrived. Relieved that her family and friends were really safe and they were moments away from ending this nightmare. But it wasn’t help that bustled through the door. It was an army of ghouls that tumbled inside. Teeth gnashing, white, bulbous eyes trained on her, yet seemingly not seeing anything. Their hands, withered, without nails and more than one showing bone through the leathery tissue, reached for her even as their death moans rattled out of their chest.

  “You better save your family before it’s too late!” Lauren tossed her hands into the air and spun around, as if dancing to the sound of the screams.

  “Goat, help me!” her father yelled.

  Margaret glanced toward the kitchen. If this wasn’t an illusion, then she was dooming them. But if it was, why couldn’t she hear them through the broadcaster? Was it really necromancy interfering with their communications…or was it that Lauren truly had them within the depths of the house?

  There was no time to consider options. Ghouls were lumbering down the stairs and into the living room.

  Margaret shoved past Lauren and toward the dark room where she could hear the screams closer. It was a kitchen. A chandelier barely clung to the ceiling, looking like it might collapse at any moment. The table was covered with filmy glasses and plates piled high with molding bread. To her right, the counter was covered with mouse shit, filth, and broken dishes, and something that looked a lot like dried blood.

  There was only one other way out of the kitchen and that was on the far wall. A darkened hallway with green, floral wallpaper and a mauve colored, threadbare rug led deeper into the house. At the other end of the hallway, an oil lamp burned behind a butterfly shade. The plaintive fire did little to illuminate the end of the hall, but Margaret could make out doorways along the hall that led into partially lit rooms, casting halos of light into the hallway.

  Ghoulish hands reached for her, and Margaret fled down the hallway, her sword clasped in hand, though it might as well have been forgotten in her panic.

  The first room she stumbled into was small and pink, or it might have been pink at one time. Layers of wallpaper shown through from beneath scratches and deep grooves in the walls. To the left sat a bare bed, more holes in the mattress than not. A cracked window, filmed with age and dirt, stood against the opposite wall…and on that wall was her brother.

  Lincoln’s lax body had been hung from the wall with chains. A chain around his neck was all that was holding him in place. His face was a pale blue, his hands nearly gray. His glassy eyes stared down at the floor. Three ghouls stood before him, their blackened, leathery hands tearing into his flesh, pulling guts from his cavity and to their waiting mouths where they chomped on his intestines. A foul stench filled the air, the mingling of intestinal gas and a stronger, ranker smell of urine and feces.

  “Oh no,” Lauren said behind her. In her voice, she sounded truly sorry. “You’re too late to save your brother. What will your father think? He’s put so much hope in him, and you let him down.” Lauren clucked a few times. “All of the trust and love he gave you, and you’ve squandered it.”

  Margaret turned, lashed out at the necromancer with the sword, but it passed through her. Deeper in the house, she heard the necromancer laugh.

  Margaret turned back to her brother, her mind muffled. She didn’t want to believe that this was real, that this was her brother, but the proof was before her. Lincoln was dead. She didn’t realize that she had cut down the ghouls until she was standing amidst their blackened bodies, reaching up for the chains that held Lincoln to the wall. Moments before she could loosen her brother, a terrible scream echoed out of the room across the hall.

  There was no hope for her brother now, but there may be some hope for whoever was in the next room. Margaret dashed across the hall and into a room only slightly larger than the one her brother’s body occupied.

  There was Adelaide, writhing on a bare mattress with ghouls bent over her. Their bodies blackened as if they were victims of a terrible fire. Their eyes read with bloodshot, pink muscles exposed through the cracks of their flesh.

  Margaret charged into the room, severing the head from the ghoul nearest the door, and pushed the others away from her friend with a warning swipe.

  “It’s too late!” the necromancer shrieked with glee as the ghouls merged with the shadows of the farthest corner of the room.

  Lauren stood in the doorway, bent at the waist, cackling as
if this was the greatest comedy she’d ever seen. “Hunters! Who thought they could be such fun? Looks like I’ve been targeting the wrong people all this time.”

  Margaret charged at her and slammed her sword through Lauren’s center. Even if it didn’t do a thing, it made Margaret feel better. Time and again she jammed the sword home, but Lauren only laughed in her face. Once more the necromancer pulled herself off the blade and fled down the hallway.

  “Dead,” she said, pointing into the next room. “Oh, and Nancy’s made a huge mess!” Lauren said, pointing into the next. Margaret didn’t want to turn back to the room. She could hear the ghouls feasting on Adelaide now that Margaret wasn’t near to protect her friend. The librarian’s screams fell silent.

  Lauren stood at the end of the hall before the lamp. Her eyes flared with ghostly blue power.

  “Go ahead, you can check if you want.”

  But there were no more screams, and Margaret didn’t want to check the other rooms and see why the screams had stopped.

  What she did want was at the end of the hall. Lauren. To kill the necromancer once and for all. There was a thought in her mind, something that she should be remembering from her studies earlier in the day. The thought tried to flit away, but Margaret reached for it, chasing it through her mind. Right when she was about to uncover what it was, she was struck with a great force. Margaret stumbled back against the doorframe, the memory, the key to defeating the necromancer retreated to the fare recesses of her mind an enigma once more. She shook her head and through the broadcaster the sound of banging pots shook her brain.

  :Margaret Sara Vantasyl, you listen to me now!: Nancy yelled. :It’s all an illusion. She’s woven a spell over you.:

  :Did you get through to her?: Lincoln asked.

  :Yes, I believe so.: Nancy said.

  :Goat, if you can hear us, please let us know,: Samuel said. :If you can hear us, say the word hear…somehow so she doesn’t know you can hear us.:

  “I can’t hear the screams any longer,” Margaret said.