The Last Line Series One

by David Elias Jenkins

  The team moved quickly down the pitch black corridors, working from memory and utilizing their bizarre night vision contact lenses. They were so practiced at this technique that no words were necessary, just the occasional shoulder tap or hand signal. Each room they came to was breached, a distraction flash bang thrown in, and cleared.

  They could hear shouting and panicked running from the insurgents within the building. A couple of times they heard gunfire being returned, but it was wild and disoriented, usually off in a room they had yet to approach.

  In the third room two cultist insurgents had barricaded themselves behind an upturned desk and were clearly prepared for a fight. Stromberg and Isaac both threw in fragmentation grenades then hugged the wall as the smoke and debris shot out of the doorway. Fight over.

  The team padded up the main staircase. As they stacked up against a wall at a junction they heard the angry voices of more cultists running down the corridor in their direction. Brock drew his blade and as the first insurgent was moments away he thrust it expertly around the corner, puncturing the man’s thorax and severing his spine. The second man ran wide, fumbling for the AK-47 that had become tangled in its sling. He looked up into the eyes of Charlie who put a silenced bullet through his left eye.

  The team moved down the corridor towards a set of ornate double doors. Usher halted his team and signalled to the entrance.

  Isaac crouched down beside him and whispered.

  “This is it boss. Moment of truth.”

  “We don’t know how capable he still is. Expect resistance.”

  Suddenly the door burst open and a single cultist came running out, firing indiscriminately. His black braid trailed behind him as he advanced rapidly down the corridor.

  “Praise to the Dark!”

  Usher put two rounds quickly in the attacker’s chest but in his manic state the man kept on coming. The entire team then double tapped the fanatical man, until he fell to his knees and crashed into the wooden balustrade around the stairwell. He lay there in the splintered wood for a few moments spluttering blood and drool, then spasmed and lay still.

  The team advanced down towards the now ajar double doors, delivering a final headshot to the fallen cultist as they passed.

  Breathing heavily in the darkness, Empire One stacked up against the wall outside the door. Usher weighed up the risks. They had to go in, this was where they believed Isaiah Argent to be, but they didn’t know how much resistance to expect.

  Usher was about to give the signal to storm the room when a dry wheezing voice came from inside.

  “You can come in Major Usher. I am unarmed. There is no one left protecting me.”

  Usher and Empire One were no strangers to their target and they knew not to let their guard down. Usher felt his pulse quicken as he took a deep breath and prepared to take the room. The illuminated rectangle of light he would become silhouetted within when he advanced was known as the ‘funnel of death’ and was not a place any soldier liked stepping out into. Usher set his jaw and took a single step into the doorway with his carbine sweeping the main areas of threat.

  Once Usher was inside the rest of his team followed, fanning out into their quadrants to cover the entire room. Within a few seconds it was obvious the room was clear except for the single hideous owner of the voice that had called to them.

  The room was a large and comfortable living quarters that had been turned into some kind of operations centre of sorts. Maps and charts were crudely tacked to the walls, along with photographs of potential targets. There had been some attempts to burn stacks of papers in the log fire at an alcove but it was clearly a hurried affair.

  In the centre of the room, a torso was hung within an ornate circular brass contraption fixed across a fissure in a blackened and dead tree. The figure was pale grey and covered in pustules, the long sinewy arms reaching out and manacled into the frame. Below the thorax the body was ragged and trailing intestines. The legs were nowhere to be seen. The head hung limp against a hollow chest, lank hair trailing down. From the back spasmed a single dragonfly wing that was broken halfway along its stem.

  Empire One stood before this corpse and pointed their weapons. Usher took a step closer and spoke.

  “Hello Isaiah.”

  The head snapped up and regarded them with sunken eyes. It smiled to reveal a set of long almost equine teeth.

  “Major Usher. As you can see the devoted have been putting me to good use. Though to no avail I think.”

  Usher recognized the blackened tree stump Isaiah Argent was fixed to. It was the depleted remains of a World Tree, a biomagical conduit between realms. There were several ways to open a portal between Earth and the dark place the Unseelie came from but most were unstable and finite. World Trees were stable enough that they could potentially allow entire armies through. What they required to do that was a blood sacrifice and the more magical the blood, the better.

  Usher looked in disgust at the final attempt by this foul creature to bring havoc upon the world.

  “Run out of things to sacrifice?”

  Behind Usher, Isaac was filming the scene in the room and taking photographs to upload back to the command centre. The ghoul Isaiah Argent attempted a grin but fell into hacking coughs. When he regained his breath he spoke.

  “You took more out of me during our last meeting that I thought, Usher. How I managed to make it here I’ll never know. I tried to continue my work, but as you can see, you didn’t leave much left of me to sacrifice.”

  Usher drew his blade. This creature, so diminished now, had been responsible for countless terrorist attacks on innocent civilians. There was only one way to be sure his kind was eradicated completely.

  “We’ve come for the rest of you Isaiah. You’ve got one chance to come clean. Did anything come from your side through that excuse for a World Tree you’re hanging from?”

  The tree was dead and blackened but Usher could take no chances. Isaiah glared at them with a look of triumph.

  “Only one thing. I had barely the strength left to open a portal at all. Only one heard my calls out into the dark. But when that one is my own master, it is enough.”

  Usher felt a chill at this. “Your master. I never imagined you taking orders from anybody.”

  “We all take orders from somebody, Major. I am what you like to call a ghoul. My life is un-life and it was given to me by a craftsman and artist of beautiful vision. He has come through to your side, and will work such dark wonders in your world. You are all going to die. But even that won’t be the end.”

  Usher stepped up in anger. “Haven’t you brought enough nightmares into the world?”

  Isaiah stared at Usher with his pale corpse eyes. The stench from his decaying body was obscene. “With my last breath I would eat your loved ones, Major. There is not an ounce of mercy in my soul for your kind. But your world we are very fond of, and we intend to take it.”

  In one fluid motion Usher sliced through the wrinkled grey neck and the head of one of the most heinous supernatural terrorists in the world fell to the cold stone floor. Yellow blood seeped out from the torso, bubbling and steaming on the flagstones. Behind Argent’s corpse the bark of the tree began to crack and turn to ash.

  Usher breathed a sigh of relief.

  “They like to talk, don’t they? Well that’s that.”

  Isaac stepped forward and joined Usher in watching the spindly World Tree crumble to dust and Argent’s putrefying body with it. He slipped two cigars from his tactical vest and passed one to Usher. Usher struck a match on the wall and lit them both up as the rest of the team scoured the room bagging any evidence they could find.

  Isaac puffed out some smoke and shook his head.

  “I’m only a grunt boss, but that exchange just there. It didn’t sound much like a happy ending to me.”

  Usher gripped the cigar between his lips.

  “No. No it didn’t.”

  2.

  “You’re going to tell me where in Par
is the key is. If you don’t, I’m going to take you apart piece at a time. Then I’m going to feed each piece to my friend here.”

  The bound man glanced nervously around the gloomy concrete basement he was being held in. His captor was partly in shadow, just out of reach of the single dim bulb swinging overhead. Somewhere in the gloom over his shoulder stood another figure, no more than a silhouette. A strange low growl came out of the shadows from its direction.

  “I…don’t know what you mean. What key? Who are you people? I’m a banker I don’t know what you think I’m involved with. Is this about money?”

  The Necromancer gave a wry smile and shook his head.

  “Life is the most wonderfully defiant little thing.”

  He placed a cigarette holder between his lips and inhaled.

  “Squeezing itself into the tiniest corner of the Universe, digging in to the few hard won places where it can catch the shallowest breath, the tiniest sip of water, the sliver of shadow for shelter.”

  He walked over to his captive audience who was strapped down to the table.

  “From the moment it flickers into existence it is assailed by heat and cold and pressure and time. Invisible torrents of overwhelming power batter its defences like the roaring ocean. Forces beyond imagining are set against it, yet despite the inevitability of losing the war, it fights for the right to exist to the very last breath.”

  The Necromancer stood in front of the naked man who struggled desperately against the straps that held him down.

  “You are crazy! You crazy lunatic insane bastard! Let me go! Let me out of here!

  The Necromancer paused for a moment holding his breath; his bloodshot eyes looked at the man strapped to the table. Then he gently exhaled a stream of smoke and continued.

  “The last stand on a Universal level, the tiny defiance that is life smiles grimly out at the invincible army against it and draws its sword. It’s impossible not to admire that kind of tenacity. It’s you against the Universe.”

  The bound man’s eyes tried to connect with his captor’s.

  “You’ve got me confused with someone else. I don’t know about any key, I don’t know about this group you keep insisting I belong to. I just want to go home.”

  The Necromancer prodded the bound man’s forehead with a long bony finger.

  “In a final two fingered salute to the star-filled void, these tiny sparks of consciousness even have the nerve to enjoy their brief time, to see beauty and grandeur in it and most importantly, in each other. It’s quite moving.”

  The Necromancer seemed sad and wistful as he prepared his instruments. There was no malice in him, his musings were sincere. The bound man began to panic and desperately struggle against his bonds. The horrible realization dawned on him that there was absolutely no way he was strong enough to break the leather straps holding him down. The Necromancer politely waited for him to stop thrashing and be still before continuing.

  “Sooner or later, the borrowed stuff of the universe they have cloaked themselves in begins to crumble in the solar wind. The suit of atoms around them blows away and they are left naked, a massless pinpoint that exists in a place inaccessible to the world of matter.

  The Universe, having stacked the game in its favour from the beginning, once again cleans the house.”

  The Necromancer smiled, showing his crooked, stained collection of teeth.

  “Of course, that’s only if people play by the rules.”

  Tears were running down the bound man’s cheeks and his voice broke with hiccupping sobs.

  “I’ll play, I’ll play, ok. What’s your rules? I’ll play by them, I’m in. I’m in count me in I’ll play the game, just tell me what are the rules?”

  The Necromancer took a beat and a drag on his cigarette before continuing.

  “Now you’re just being a sycophant. I expected more from the Black Star. I thought you people were made of sterner stuff.”

  The man shook his head.

  “I don’t know what that is. I’ve never heard of any Black Star.”

  “Of course you do it’s the secret society you work for, dedicated to finding and documenting people like me.”

  The man vehemently shook his head.

  “I’m not a member of anything, sir. I don’t know who or what people like you are.”

  The Necromancer raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

  “You have been entrusted with a key. A key that can unlock the magical defences of the hiding place of the Bones of Lilith. You know where the key is, and you know where it leads. You are going to tell me.”

  The man shook his head.

  “How can I tell you what I don’t know?”

  The Necromancer puffed on his cigarette.

  “People that cheat the house, people like me, they have to keep moving, and casino security is always on the lookout for cardsharps and the like. You understand the analogy? The Universe has its own sentinels to ensure that we all play by their regulations and crumble to dust like good little motes. Angry, imperious, officious Angels, do gooders and administrators telling us what we can and cannot do with all this beautiful stuff.”

  He pinched the man’s cheek as one would a baby as he said the word stuff.

  “People like me who tinker and reinvent, improve, they are on the Universal equivalent of the Most Wanted List. Did you know that? Risky business. Searchlights everywhere scanning the grounds for us….what do you think the sun is? Great. Big. Searchlight. That’s why I stay down here, in the gloom. Dark places for dark work. But good, noble, worthy work all the same.”

  The captive man nodded his sweaty head.

  “Yes noble work, I’m sure you have the best intentions, you don’t mean to do harm. That’s why you have to let me go. Because deep down you’re a good man.”

  The Necromancer paused for a moment as if considering his merit. Then he waved his hand and continued.

  “But with enough disguises we can ply our trade in peace. If you know where to look, and you know the right people, you can get your hands on all sorts of new raw materials. Real top quality stuff.”

  The captive suddenly lurched forward against his bonds, lank hair clinging to his face.

  “I’m not raw materials. Look at me. Look at me! I don’t know what is going on in your head, what you think you’re doing, but you’ve had some kind of a breakdown, you’re not seeing things right. Look at me. I’m a person, a human fucking being. You can’t do this to another person, it’s not ok. You’re trying to make this seem normal in your head but it’s not, it’s not ok. You just, you just have to untie me and let me go. I can’t see your face I don’t know who you are it’s not too late.”

  The Necromancer ignored him. Behind him the shadowy figure shifted. It made curious mewling sounds and a foul smell emanated out of the dark from it. Like an infected wound. The captive tried to strain his eyes into the gloom but the figure was cloaked in shadow.

  The Necromancer appeared at his captive’s ear, his hot breath crawling across his cheek.

  “There’s a black market out there you know. Hidden from the watchful angels that ensure the casino always wins. A black market of rare and exotic goods. A fleshmarket full of things to absolutely die for. A real bazaar for those artisans willing to break a few rules. Like any good chef will tell you a great recipe is all about high quality simple, raw ingredients. And I want to prepare such a feast. And why not? Why not eh?

  I mean, just look at what we usually have to work with! Bits and bobs just lying around. Having to scavenge for vacated and rotting shells. Cobbled together husks of carbon and water, sloppy bags of juice dragging themselves around desperate for food, needing to lie down and rest every night just to cope. Pathetic. How can people be expected to win this war against an indifferent Universe if we don’t upgrade our arsenal? You’re not risk takers you people.”

  The Necromancer began to pace the room, casually shrugging and pointing his cigarette holder for punctuation. He seemed introverted now, h
aving some internal debate with himself. The captive man was now grotesquely fascinated with the mysterious figure standing in the shadows of the room. A sickening fear was building in his stomach.

  “Sure I can throw together a puppet, a skinbag, some manner of shuffling walker if you hand me a few spare parts. A working lung, a pumping heart, a gelatinous eye. I’ll give you a corpse that can walk!

  Not going to take over the world with a few mindless revenants though are we?”

  The Necromancer stood perfectly still and stared at the man on the table. Slowly the bound man realized that his captor was waiting for an answer. In a tiny broken voice of utter despair he looked up at the shadow he knew was going to kill him.

  “No. No we can’t.”

  “The thing about necromancy. It’s all a bit traditional. Always blowing the dust off old books and donning tattered robes. How about a little bit of innovation?

  I’m trying to explain to you here. You’re yesterday’s model. Sure you’re fine as a basic template, but your lot trying to make it in this Universe. It’s not working out. I simply can’t work like this. So, I’m taking it to the next stage. We are far better equipped at dealing with existence. We come from a place where the raw materials have an entirely different quality, follow completely different rules. What you tend to call magic.

  So I’m giving you a gift.”

  “No, don’t. I don’t want it.”

  “Where I get my raw materials, and of course I can’t reveal my sources, every Tom Dick and Harry Houdini would be pestering them then, wouldn’t they? But my creations really are a superior class of Revenant. I think you’ll be impressed, you really will.”

  The bound man no longer had the strength to fight his bonds, he could not negotiate with this madman, and he had nothing else to offer. All he could attempt to do was placate this monster.

  “I am impressed, I really am, but you don’t have to show me, just the words, the words are enough.”

  The Necromancer nodded patiently and moved over to his workbench. His long thin fingers ran across a set of gleaming surgical steel implements, razor sharp. Next to these more familiar surgical tools were objects that defied description, eldritch tools for purposes beyond man’s comprehension. The Necromancer picked up a long hooked blade and turned back to the bound man.