by Flynn, Mac
"Wait a sec, so this guy-" I gestured to the short, portly fellow, "-is the leader of those devils?"
Bartlett glanced down at himself. "Yes, this disguise fools idiots and those who are too rushed to notice. You both fall under one of those categories, but I must excuse you, Vincent, for your lack of care. I have been in the anti-supernatural business long enough to be able to hide my identity when I wish. However, that time has passed."
My eyes widened when I beheld long, curled horns sprout from Bartlett's forehead. His body stretched upward until he was six feet tall, and a tail swept out his rear and cracked the air like a whip. His suit ripped open and exposed tight, bulging muscles, and his skin changed to the familiar red color of a devil. He fisted his thick, powerful hands as his fingers blended into three, and his shoes broke open to reveal cloven hooves. If there was ever a devil on earth, this guy was it.
"Oh shit," I commented.
A smirk slid onto his face. "It is far worse than that." He stepped back to a pile of boxes and tipped the top one over. Piles of bones slid from the box and onto the floor. He took a vial of liquid off a nearby table and dumped the contents onto the bones.
A small tornado whipped out of nowhere and swept up the bones. The wind glowed with a brilliant white color as the bones spun around in the tornado. The tornado lined the bones up in six piles and lifted the bones up so they were all placed as they should be. The song with the lines 'the leg bone connected to the hip bone' ran through my mind as the wind built the skeletons from the toes up until they were complete. The wind swept away from the bony bodies, but they stood on their own. A dark purple glow appeared in their sockets, and they looked around in wonder.
"Where am I?" spoke one skeleton
"This isn't my grave!" another exclaimed.
The third stepped toward us and shook their bony fist in our direction. "What the hell have you two fools done?" the skeleton growled.
"Harriet?" I yelped. The skeleton was indeed Harriet reunited with her former body.
"Stand down, bones," Bartlett ordered the skeletons. I was dismayed when Harriet shut her mouth with a bony rattle and stepped back into line with the other five. Bartlett gestured to the bones. "You see, as the caller of their resurrection I have complete control over them which is very unfortunate for you both as, unlike we devils, they are nearly impossible to destroy." He snapped his fingers and the skeletons leaped at us.
Chapter 13
Imagine trying to fight a half dozen skeletons in the confines of a small room filled with vials, the contents of which you have no idea what it is or would do to you, with a devil maniacally laughing in the background. Also keep in mind one of the skeletons was a client of yours who still hadn't paid you for running your asses off trying to solve her problem. Take that image, and that was pretty much the dilemma Vince and I faced as the skeletons jumped us.
Vince and I dove out of the way and I rolled beneath a nearby table. The skeletons landed where we just stood, and that was their first mistake. Brutus had stood stock-still and absolutely quiet during Bartlett's big bony reveal, but now the dog had the bones within reach and dove at the chance for a delicious nibble. The zombie mutt chomped down on the nearest leg bone, and the skeleton victim yelped and tried to kick him off. Brutus wasn't letting go, and instead climbed up the leg bone with an aim for the juicy ribs.
That was one bony distracted, and five more to go. The one formerly known as Harriet and another one followed me under the table and the other three went for Vince. Vince slid under one of the tables in the center of the room and spun around to face them across the table. He pulled the spray bottle given to him by Romero from his coat and a red mist shot from the item. The mist covered the bonies, and they screamed in agony as steam arose from their bones. The unnatural purple light flew from their eye sockets in a long, glowing stream of brilliance and their bodies collapsed into piles of dusty bones. The streams of light swept upward through the ceiling and disappeared.
My own battle wasn't going so well as I ducked and dove beneath their slashing, bony hands. They hopped atop tables as I slid beneath them, and liquid goop from the vials spilled everywhere. I ran myself into a corner, literally, as the bonies slunk toward me with their wide, evil grins on their faces. "Vince, a little help here!" I shouted.
He tossed me the spray bottle and charged Bartlett. I juggled the plastic bottle for a few moments just as the bonies jumped me. I slid to the ground, grabbed the neck and sprayed a healthy dose of the lamb's blood over their bodies. They screamed like their brethren and fell to the floor as their souls were forced from their bodies.
"Sorry," I squeaked as I stepped over them. There went our agreement with Harriet.
I joined Vince and we both confronted Bartlett, who now stood with one of the hated magical books in one hand. The pages were open and he was backed against the near corner of the basement wall. There was a smile on his lips as he held his free hand over the pages.
"You believe you can defeat the prince of all the devils, pathetic vampires?" he snarled.
"No, but we're going to try," I quipped.
Bartlett chuckled and his fingers wiggled above the book. "Then try with the full force of all hell's might inside of me."
A tendril of black mist arose from the book and swirled around him like a transparent snake. Bartlett stretched up and his height extended to seven feet so that his horns brushed against the top of the ceiling. His horns curled twice over themselves like a ram, but a bull-like mane of thick, black, coarse hair tore open his shirt and swept down his bare back. He reared his head back and his nose widened and flattened like that of a bull. His clawed hands thickened to almost hooves, and his pants tore open so only the cloth around his waist remained. His muscles thickened and stretched as they were pumped full of the demonic powers he'd called from hell. The yellow in his eyes changed to bottomless black, and he looked at us with all the fury of hell.
Bartlett cast aside the book and bellow at us. He pushed off from the wall and Vince pushed me aside and jumped to the opposite wall before we were both trampled. The raging bull rammed through the tables and slammed into the upper part of the far wall. His horns sank deeply into the structure, but he pressed his palms against the wall and pulled himself out. Holes remained in the walls and the cracks swept across the wall, destabilizing the entire structure.
Bartlett faced us and his black eyes fell on me. I stood against the corner opposite the stairs and the wreck of a thousand vials lay around me so that I dared not move for fear of turning into something monstrous like that. Bartlett snorted and burning sulfur erupted from his nostrils. The bull charged me, but a flash of Vince swept in front of me and grabbed the bull by the horns.
Vince whipped his head over his shoulders at me. "The bottle-" he couldn't finish his sentence before the bull swung his head from Vince's grasp and impaled Vince on one of its horns.
"No!" I screamed as Bartlett lifted Vince off the floor.
Vince grasped the horn that stuck through his upper chest and thrashed, but he couldn't budge. "The-bottle!" he choked out. Blood drizzled from his mouth and spilled from the hole in his chest.
I tossed the bottle to him, and Vince caught it in one hand. Always the show-off. He jabbed the bottle onto the other horn and they were both doused by the contents. The bull creature flung its head back and Vince was thrown from the horn. He landed hard against the far wall of the basement and Bartlett stumbled blindly around the room destroying what remained of his experiments. The creature clutched at his eyes and clawed at his skin, but that only spread the blood to further parts of his body. The pure blood ate at his impure self, and in ten seconds his body collapsed to the floor in a puddle of bubbling, gooey red mess.
I rushed past the red puddle and over to Vince. He lay atop a mess of boxes, and when I saw him I covered my mouth to stifle my gasp. Half his face was gone, dissolved by the blood, and even now it continued to eat away at him. I collapsed to my knees in front of him and grasp
ed one of his dissolving hands. Brutus came up beside me with a bone in his mouth and whimpered.
Vince managed a small smile at me. "Are you safe?" he whispered.
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I managed to nod. "Yeah, but-"
He pressed the fingers of his free hand against my lips and shook his head. "The sacrifice was worth the reward," he countered.
I squeezed his hand and shook my head. "You idiot. Now we're both going to die," I sniffled.
"Take what remains of my life, and live," he offered me.
I blinked at him. "Do what?"
He clasped my hands in both of his and the ring glowed brightly. "Take my life, and you will live. What remains of my immortality will sustain you for decades."
"I-you can do that?" I asked him. Vince smiled and nodded, but a coughing fit interrupted the moment. Blood spewed from his mouth and the blood deepened its march into his skin as it revealed parts of his skull. "Vince! Vince, don't leave me! I don't want your life, I want you!" The light from his ring grew brighter, and reminded me of a past brilliance. My eyes widened and I pressed our rings together. "Take my life! Like I did to you in the alley after we first met!"
Vince shook his head, but I pursed my lips, grasped his hands and closed my eyes. If the transfer could work one way, it could work the other. It just had to. I focused all my thoughts on my life energy and on the cold, dissolving skin of Vince as his fingers rotted away beneath mine. "Come on! Come on! Please take it!" I chanted.
A bright light shot through my eyes and I opened them to see my ring glow brighter than the light from his. My light overwhelmed us both in a warm brilliance that covered us like a heated blanket on a cool winter's day. Life pulled from me into my ring as it had done in the alley when I fought Field, but the pull wasn't violent or painful. It was soothing and warm, and I couldn't help smiling as my life faded into the powerful trinket.
Through the brilliant light I could see Vince's face as he lay atop the boxes. The energy from my body slipped into his ring, and through that into his finger and to the rest of his body. The light washed away the blood and knitted his flesh back together. Muscle and skin covered bone, and life entered Vince's dark red eyes.
The light from my ring faded as Vince's life grew, and in a moment the glow dimmed to nothing and shadows slipped over us. Sunlight from the rising day star shone through the holes made by Bartlett's horns. An indescribable exhaustion swept over me. The world around me dimmed to where I could only see Vince's dark, and yet angelic, face. My head grew woozy and I fell forward.
Vince sat up and caught me in his hands. I'd never known them to be as warm as they were then. He turned me over to cradle me in his arms. "You saved me once more," he whispered.
I managed a weak smile. "I did, didn't I? This. . .calls for. . .a nap." I couldn't keep my heavy eyelids open, and sleep took me.
Chapter 14
In my sleep I dreamed. I hadn't dreamed for many weeks. In my dream I stood on a plain filled with a bright white that stretched on forever. A smooth white floor lay beneath me, and above me lay the endless white sky. The void was large and empty, but I wasn't terrified. There was a peacefulness that filled my whole being and made me smile.
"There you are," a voice quipped. I spun around to find Harriet standing behind me. No longer was she Harriet the ghost, but woman of flesh. She strode toward me with her perpetual frown on her face and her shoes clacking softly on the hard floor. "I've been looking all over for you. It's a hard time finding sleeping people."
"Sleeping? Then this really is a dream?" I wondered.
"Well, sort of. I think the man upstairs is giving us a nice room that won't distract us from what I have to say," Harriet explained.
I cringed. "I'm-I'm not dead, am I?"
Harriet snorted. "No more dead than that vampire you're stuck to, and speaking of him there's some unfinished business we have to talk about. That's why I've come to see you. You kept up your half of the bargain, so I suppose I'll tell you were you can find what Hilda gave tp me."
My face lit up with a bright smile. "Really?"
She held up her hand. "Don't think I'm getting soft. I'm just holding up my half of our agreement. What you're looking for is in the hollow tree, the one I used to rest in after that ugly man stole my body." She wrinkled her nose at the remembrance. "He did it just to get Bobby to pay his bills, but that idiot boy refused and thought he could keep that devil out of his cottage with his own anti-supernatural junk."
My eyes lit up as I recalled finding the man. "Bobby! He's-"
"I know. I've already been to see him," Harriet revealed. She sighed and shook her head. "I did all I could for him in the other life, but he made his own grave and it's all done now. No loose ends or wandering around the yard."
"So you get to go to the other side?" I asked her.
Harriet nodded. "Yep, thanks to you. Whatever you sprayed on me released my soul from those bones and let me up here, but I couldn't go all the way until I finished my business with you. Now that that's all done it's time for me to join that choir up there. I'm not much of a singer, but I'll give it a try."
"Good luck," I called to her.
She snorted and I noticed her feet lifted off the ground. "Keep that for yourself. You're going to need it dealing with the people who killed Hilda. Oh, and give them a good beating for me, too, will you?"
"I will!" I called back. Harriet rose higher, and the farther she went the faster she flew. I tilted my head back and waved to her until I couldn't see her anymore. Then I returned my attention to the nothingness around me and blinked at it. "Um, how do I wake up?" I wondered.
In answer to my question a burst of light appeared to my left. I glanced in that direction and saw a swirling wind of light with a dark center. From the center I heard the echo of a familiar voice call my name. "Liz? Liz?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Vince?"
"Liz?"
"Vince!" I rushed into the light and it engulfed me in its warm brilliance.
That's when I woke up to a massive hangover. Oh, and the darkness of my shabby bedroom in our even shabbier apartment. My eyes fluttered open and I grimaced when the granddaddy of all headaches hit me with the daintiness of a pro wrestler in a glass factory. I sat up and rubbed my aching head. Beside me on the edge of the bed sat Vince, and his sparkling red eyes and smile told me he was glad I was awake.
"What hit me?" I mumbled.
"The energy transfer. It drained your life force enough to keep you in a coma for two days," he revealed.
I blinked at him. "That long? What'd it do to you?"
"I was given enough energy to withstand the sunlight to the car and return us to the apartment," he replied.
"So practically no side effects?" I returned.
"Practically none," he agreed.
I dropped my hand to my side and smiled at him. "Good. At least one of us doesn't have to deal with this, and you're-well, you're as alive as you've ever been."
Vince's smile faltered. "I am, but you should not have transferred as much energy as you did."
I frowned. "Why? Didn't you need everything I gave you?"
"Yes, as did you."
I raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"
Vince turned away and pursed his lips. "Do you recall I once told you the power of the ring should be used sparingly?"
"Actually, you've probably told me that a lot of times, but I don't think I've listened," I quipped.
"No, you haven't, and the consequences are already visible." One of his hands slid over to mine and I glanced down. My eyes widened when I saw that my hands were very thin like Vince's, and the fingernails were much longer than I remembered.
I raised my hand to my face and turned it over. "So I lost weight?" I guessed.
"No, you lost a large part of your humanity," he revealed.
I looked past my hand to glare at him. "Vince, you're speaking in riddles. Just spit out what's wrong with me," I ordered him.
He stood and fa
ced me. "Your use of the ring has cost you a majority of your life energy. A few more uses will cost you your human life."
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. "What? That wasn't part of the deal with this ring!"
He shook his head. "That is the most important part of the deal. The ring gives you an immortality of sorts that extends your human life beyond what is normal, but using the ring removes those years. The episode when we were both human and you used the ring drained several centures worth of use. You have used the ring beyond even your normal lifespan, and have shortened your life to barely a few years."
I jumped off the bed, but my head swooned and my legs buckled. I fell forward, but Vince caught me and I lifted my eyes to his face. "You mean I'm going to kick the bucket?"
"No. You will finish your transformation into a vampire."
My mouth dropped to the floor. "I'm going to what?"
"Become a vampire."
I pushed away from him and the back of my knees hit the bed. I fell back to sit on the edge and my eyes stared straight ahead without seeing the filthy walls. "A vampire?" I whispered. I ran a hand through my hair. "I. . .I guess that isn't-" I shook my head and looked up at Vince. He stared down at me with indifferent red eyes. "It's bad, isn't it?"
"All the weaknesses of a vampire will be yours," Vince told me.
I cringed. "So more hunger?"
"A great deal."
"No more sun?"
"No longer."
"But more superhuman strength and speed, right?"
He shook his head. "You would start at the same strength as you are now."
I clutched my head between my hands and stared at the floor. "This isn't happening. This just isn't happening." I couldn't stop the tears of frustration that rose in my eyes, and I looked to my partner for pity. "Please tell me this is your idea of a really bad joke. I mean, it's okay being a half-vampire human person thing, but the whole thing? I like the sun. I like interacting with people who I wouldn't consider my food."
