Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Marilyn's body thumped to the floor. Astarte's gun clicked, out of ammunition, and she wdumpered.

  That tiny sound, so fraught with terror and despair, snapped Bellamy out of his trance. He whirled, leaped across the Shroud, whipped out his gun, and fired.

  The first bullet took Dunn in the hindquarters. The werewolf yelped, staggered, lurched around, then faltered as if in surprise. Bellamy had the distinct impression that Dunn recognized him despite the alterations to his appearance. Taking advantage of the monster's hesitation, he squeezed off a second shot. That one hit Dunn in the chest.

  The colossal wolf sprang. Trying to dodge, Bellamy also threw up his arm to shield his throat and head. Dunn's enormous fangs snapped shut on the limb, shearing through skin and muscle, and the ghost tumbled down with the beast on top of him.

  Bellamy kept firing. Dunn's body jerked with every shot. Though evidently less deadly to werewolves than silver, perhaps the darksteel bullets were doing more damage than less exotic ammunition.

  But it wasn't enough. Dunn kept attacking as fiercely as before. In another second or two, he was going to sever Bellamy's arm. The wraith tried to escape back across the Shroud, only to discover that he couldn't make the transition. Perhaps his Shadow had momentarily usurped control of his Arcanos and was using it to hold him in harm's way.

  As he fired his last shot, Astarte ran up to Dunn and started battering him with her gun. For a second Bellamy hated her. While he distracted the werewolf, she should have run away. As it was, they were all going to die.

  Then he heard rushing footsteps, rumbling up the stairs. The animal-rights activist had evidently managed to convince the officers on the ground floor that something was amiss.

  Releasing Bellamy's mangled forearm, Dunn raised his enormous head and peered in the direction of the noise. Ordinarily he probably wouldn't be afraid of ordinary humans armed with conventional weapons, but with the malignant power of darksteel now searing his wounds, perhaps he questioned his ability to handle them.

  He glared down at Bellamy as if evaluating whether he had time to finish him off. Trying to look as ferocious as a supine man with a shredded limb could, the ibambo brandished his pistol, reminding Dunn of its existence. He hoped the monster hadn't been counting his shots.

  Dunn snarled, wheeled, and dashed away. His form blurred and became increasingly translucent. After a few seconds Bellamy couldn't see him at all.

  Bellamy clutched his arm in an inadequate attempt to stanch the spurting blood. Despite the severity of his wounds, he didn't feel a tremendous amount of pain, just a cold shakiness that warned him he was going into shock. He tried to heal himself, but nothing happened. Maybe some wraith powers were more difficult to use on the bright side of the Shroud.

  Her aura glowing orange, pink, and blue, Astarte dropped to her knees beside him. "Frank?" she breathed.

  Pleased that she'd recognized him despite his disguise, and that she wasn't shrinking from him, Bellamy did his best to give her a reassuring smile. "Yeah. I can't stay. I have to go where I can fix my arm, but I'll be back. You have to get out of here. If the police take you into custody, Dunn and the other Atheists will know where to find you."

  At that instant, excited voices sounded from the far end of the hall. Astarte looked wildly about, obviously realizing that, with officers approaching from both directions, she was boxed in. "Shit!" she said.

  "Give me your talisman," Marilyn croaked.

  Startled, Astarte and Bellamy jerked around. Lying in a pool of her own gore, the Arcanist extended a trembling hand. "You're alive," the FBI agent said stupidly.

  "You, on the other hand, are dead." Marilyn replied. "Amazing. After all these years of groping, I'm seeing everything, learning everything, all at once. But there's no time to talk about it. The charm."

  Astarte fumbled a little brown cotton bag out of her pocket. Bellamy caught a pungent aroma of spices leaking from inside the cloth. Marilyn produced a similar pouch of her own. Pressing the two together between her bloody palms, she mumbled.

  The glittering motes in her aura, which had never vanished entirely, now multiplied and shone dazzlingly bright, particularly around her hands.

  When she opened them, the bags were gone. An instant later, the first contingent of cops dashed around the corner. Bellamy winced, but the officers ignored him and his companions, stepping around them without seeming to notice they were doing it, directing their attention exclusively to his corpse, the spatters of blood, and the claw marks on the linoleum.

  "Now this is an invisibility spell," Marilyn said. "Unfortunately, it won't hold for long. Help me up."

  No doubt realizing it could be fatal to move her friend, Astarte grimaced and hauled the Arcanist to her feet. They wrapped their arms around each other.

  "Can you really walk?" Astarte asked.

  "Yes," Marilyn gasped. "No problem, just help me to the car."

  "You won't see me, but I'll follow you out," Bellamy said. "And then I'll take you somewhere safe." Astarte and Marilyn staggered away, leaving a trail of the Arcanist's blood behind them, and he tried once again to reenter the Underworld. This time, it was easy. He drank in some of the emotional charge crackling in the air and directed the energy into his arm. After a few seconds, his wounds began to close.

  Still spotted with a few stray spatters of Marilyn's blood, Astarte paced back and forth across the musty music room, treading obliviously on the top of a pothole-sized Nihil. The white Skinlands candles which one of the Queen's servants had found grudgingly doled out a measure of wavering light, barely enough for a mortal to make out the shape of the grubby cello case in the corner, or the features of the bust of Mozart on the piano. The withered orchids in the porcelain vase on the table still gave off a trace of perfume so faint than even a wraith could barely smell it.

  His wounded arm itching, Bellamy stood and watched the mortal girl. He wanted to talk to her as much as he'd ever wanted anything, but he was afraid to. Afraid that now that the desperation of battle and flight was over, she'd cringe from the creature he'd become. Finally he projected himself across the Shroud, materializing behind her back. He felt shy about popping out of nowhere in her view, even though she'd seen him do it before. "Hi," he said.

  She jerked, but it was hardly perceptible. She'd suppressed the reaction just as he might have expected, knowing how she hated appearing rattled or vulnerable. She turned, looked him up and down, and said, "I've finally done it. This is going to kill my mom."

  "What?"

  "I'm dating a black guy."

  "It's a disguise," he said. "My friend Titus will turn me back—"

  She threw her arms around him. Embracing her in turn, he kissed her. The moment held the promise of exquisite pleasure, but he found that he couldn't experience it fully. If he surrendered to the sensation, his control of his Arcanos would waver, and death would drag him back into the Shadowlands.

  After a time he realized she was shuddering, and lifted his mouth away from hers.

  "Are you all right?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Astarte stammered, her teeth chattering, "it's just that you're so cold."

  He felt a pang of shame and confusion. "I'm sorry." He released her from his arms, but she only moved back slightly and took his hands in his.

  "It's okay," she said. "I kind of like it."

  Not knowing what to say to that, he asked, "How did you recognize me?"

  She snorted. "After all the shit we've been through together? What a moron question."

  "If you say so. Anyway, I see you've got a new look, too. I like it."

  "Well, tough. As soon as I get my stuff back, I'm going to change back into my old self, too." She hesitated. "Marilyn was right, wasn't she? You are a ghost."

  "My new associates say ibambo, or Restless. But yes."

  "What's it like?"

  At a loss for an adequate answer, he shrugged. "It's like existing in two worlds at the same time, the living one and the land of spirits. They ov
erlap. So far, the wraith world is full of black magic and demons, but I'm hoping I just arrived at a bad time."

  Her eyes shone. "I'll bet it's great. And this is really the Ghost Queen's palace?"

  "One of them. It's full of abambo, going about their business by the greenish glow of their lamps. You just can't see them or the light either. But they'll protect you and the Arcanists too, as soon as they get here. Ordinarily ghosts don't have much use for occultists and parapsychologists, but they're frantic to get the werewolf notebook translated."

  Astarte's mouth twisted. "I just wish they could have started protecting Marilyn a few hours sooner. She finally gets what she's wanted her whole life, and then Dunn tears her apart a minute later."

  "I thought she was going to die in the car," Bellamy said. "Since we made it here, she's got a chance. Titus, one of the Court magicians, gave her an infusion of life energy, the same way he healed my arm."

  Astarte turned Bellamy's forearm, inspecting the raw-looking scars. "It doesn't look like he did that great a job."

  "Apparently werewolf bites are tough to fix. They're poison or something. But I'm okay. The marks will go away when I get a chance to sleep."

  "I feel like such a piece of garbage," Astarte said.

  "Why?"

  "I goaded Marilyn into walking into the trap. I got her hurt. I shouldn't feel anything but worried and rotten. And I do feel that way, but I'm happy too, because I found you again."

  Bellamy remembered how he'd stood idly by, entranced by the sight of his corpse while Dunn mangled the Arcanist, and experienced his own pang of guilt. "I understand what you mean. But nobody's infallible. You made what you thought was the right move, and Marilyn chose to make it with you. I don't think she'll hold you to blame for the way it worked out."

  "I hope not," Astarte said, shivering, "even though I do myself." She extricated her hands from Bellamy's grip and rubbed them together. "Sorry. I need these back for a little bit."

  "It's okay," Bellamy said, doing his best to conceal a foolish sense of loss. The relentless pull of thi Underworld intensified. "Uh oh. I don't know how much longer I can stay visible to you."

  "Don't ;gp yet," Astarte pleaded. "It's only been a few minutes. You've hardly told me anything."

  "It isn't something I can control" Bellamy said. "Not yet. But I'll learn. I'll fix things so we can be: together all the time."

  "You'd better," she said, opening her arms. He tried to hug her, but his limbs passed right through her, and vice versa. She scowled. "Oh, great, Frank. Great timing."

  "I'm sorry," Bellamy said, even though he knew she could no longer hear him. He kissed her softly on the cheek.

  "Sickening," rasped a guttural voice. "Thank the Orishas I'm not a mammal."

  Bellamy jerked around to see Antoine and Titus standing in the doorway. The gator seemed to leer. The hoodoo man, his wizened face painted half gold and half silver, regarded his fellow humans with a somber expression.

  "What are you people, voyeurs?" Bellamy asked sourly. Evidently surmising that he wasn't going to rematerialize in the next few seconds, Astarte: stalked to the piano, sat down on the bench, folded back the lid, and started glumly depressing the yellowed keys. About half of them still produced a note, the others, a dull click.

  "All abambo spy. on the Quick," Antoine replied. "And if you insist on hanging out on the other side of the Shroud, we'll peep at you, too. Get used to it."

  "We only arrived a moment ago," Titus said. "We had to find you because the Queen, is ready to hear your report." He led his fellow wraiths into the corridor.

  "It's about time," Bellamy said.

  Titus glanced about, making sure no one else was in earshot. "The: Maelstrom had a bad effect on her, even here in the Haunt, where she should have been immune/ At first she experienced something like a crippling migraine, and later, it was more like epilepsy."

  "It all just keeps getting better, doesn't it?" Antoine growled.

  "Maelstrom," Bellamy said. "I assume that was the storm. The wind that could cut us to. ribbons and called the Sinkinda Out of their holes."

  "Yes," Titus said. "The raw power of Oblivion, streaming out of the Tempest and across the Shadowlands. Caught outside a Haunt, you were lucky to survive it. Of course, that was only a little one."

  "You're kidding," Bellamy said. "What triggers it, anyway?"

  "No one knows for certain," Titus replied. "Or at least my teachers didn't. The huge storms tend to occur at times of great upheaval and calamity. The most devastating;©ne: in recent memory began when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. Before it ran its course, a dragon rose from the Labyrinth and killed the Emperor of Stygia himself, not that we Africans were inclined to mourn for him. Some Sages believe that when hordes of souls cry out as one in fear, misery, or despair, the Void answers, and a Maelstrom is its reply."

  "My god," Bellamy said, moving to One side of the icorridor to allow a cloaked warrior with a rhino horn jutting from his forehead to pass, "could that he it?"

  "Could what be what?" Antoine asked.

  "The Atheist atrocities are creating 'fear, misery, and despair.' Shaking people's faith in God, the government, and their neighbors. Maybe the point of it all is to create these storms."

  "Hm," said Titus, frowning. "No, I can't see it. Even though Les Invisibles claim to enjoy a special understanding with the Spectres, Maelstroms are just as dangerous to them as they are to us. I can't imagine how such a ploy would help the loa seize the throne."

  "I keep telling you," Bellamy replied, "your local rebels are hooked in to something bigger. The masterminds heading up the conspiracy brought them in because they wanted their expertise at possessing the Quick. That's one of the things I learned tonight. I'm guessing it's the real Atheists who need Maelstroms. It's just our bad luck that their goals are such that they mesh well with Geffard's ambitions."

  "I suppose it's possible," said Titus dubiously. Antoine grunted.

  They turned down the passage leading to Marie's throne room. Drumming pattered in the distance, and Bellamy caught the fragrance of incense, sandalwood tonight. The guards flanking the entrance, one male, one female, both armed with sabers and CAR-15 assault rifles, stood up straighter upon glimpsing Titus.

  After a few more steps, Bellamy said, "Did you hear me promise to fix things so that Astarte and I can be together like a normal man and woman?"

  "Yes," Titus said.

  "Can you teach me how to do it?"

  Titus hesitated, then said, "As you gain skill with your Arcanos, you'll be able to journey to the bright side of the Shroud for longer periods. Your appearance there will become increasingly lifelike. And yet, there will always be differences that set you apart. Even if you steal some poor mortal's body, or somehow manage to reanimate your own, the scent of death will cling to you."

  Bellamy grimaced. "But you just said yourself that there are spells and secrets you don't know."

  "That's true," Titus answered, "but—"

  "Then I'll find a way. I hope you'll help me."

  Titus sighed. "I owe you my life, my friend. I'll do whatever I can for you. But first we have to save the Queen."

  They stepped through the substance of the doors into the long, torch-lit hall. The Nihil cracks in the walls hissed louder than on Bellamy's previous visit, perhaps an aftereffect of the Maelstrom. Enthroned before the two dark idols, Marie sat as erect and impassive as usual. But Bellamy sensed a fragility, a brittleness about her, as if a loud noise might shatter her into a thousand pieces.

  He, Titus, and Antoine salaamed at the foot of the three-step dais. "Rise," said Marie, her husky voice rougher than usual. "You came back quickly, Mr. Bellamy. I thought it would take weeks to infiltrate Geffard's counsels and uncover his secrets."

  "Actually," the FBI agent said, "that plan fell apart. Antoine was right, I ran into a situation I hadn't anticipated and couldn't bluff my way through. But I managed to go on investigating anyway, and I found out quite a bit." He gave
her a terse account of his adventures.

  By the time he finished, Antoine's tail was twitching back and forth, and his clawed feet dug at the floor. Had he not been a wraith, they would have gouged and splintered the wood. "Those back-stabbing bastards!" he snarled.

  "Your orders, Your Majesty?" Titus asked.

  Marie raised her hand, gestured vaguely, and let it fall again. "I don't know. I.. .I have none as yet."

  "What? 'Antoine exploded. Bellamy was similarly aghast.

  "I told you," said Marie, "I need detailed information before I can decide anything."

  "I established that Geffard and the werewolves are working together to take over the city," Bellamy said. "I found their base of operations. What the heck do you want?"

  "Don't take that tone with me," snapped the Queen.

  "I'm sorry," Bellamy replied, his jaw clenched. "No disrespect intended. But—"

  "Can you tell me how many werewolves there are? How many of these Bane demons they can conjure into the Shadowlands? How many abambo Geffard commands? Or the true nature of the two-faced spirit you encountered? If not, then our tactical disadvantage is nearly as great as before. Perhaps we should hold off acting until your Arcanist friends translate the notebook, or until I try again to petition the Orishas."

  Though he knew her hesitancy was the fault of her enemies' magic, at that moment Bellamy could have slapped her. "Try to understand, Your Majesty. We can't afford to wait on that or anything else. Chester saw me poking around Les Invisibles' stronghold. When he comes to, he'll tell Geffard we're on to him."

  Marie frowned. "You should have destroyed the man."

  "Maybe," said Bellamy, "but it's a moot point now. What matters is that if you give Geffard a chance to act, he'll move the voudoun dolls somewhere else, somewhere we can't find them, and then the curse will go On making you sick. He might even launch an all-out assault on us thinking we're about to do the same to him. Trust me, no matter how spotty our intelligence is, we'll be a lot better off if we hit him before he has a chance to deploy his troops for battle."