by DD Barant
I try to reply, but my mouth isn’t working. Go to hell, I think, and that seems to get through.
“Let’s go together, shall we?”
He knocks on the door. He’s wearing black leather gloves.
The door swings open. “Yes?”
It’s me.
My hair’s different, I might be ten pounds heavier, and I don’t recognize that T-shirt I’m wearing—but it’s definitely me.
He waves his hand in front of her face while murmuring a few soft words. Her eyes glaze over and she freezes. He steps past her into the apartment, gently removes her hand from the doorknob, and closes the door behind him.
He tells her to go sit down on the couch, and she does. Then he pulls a long, curved dagger from a sheath inside his coat.
“You know what comes next, don’t you?” he says inside my mind. “I’ve decided that the best punishment is for you to witness your own death. This is you in the future, Jace; as you can see, you’ve returned to your own Earth. I’m not going to tell you how long you’ve been here, but I will say this: Your murder won’t come as a complete surprise. Before I let you go—and, obviously, I do let you go—I’m going to kill this future version of yourself, while you watch through my eyes. I’ll let you live with that horror until I decide to let you go home, at which time I’ll erase your recollection of this murder. Mostly.”
His voice is smug, self-satisfied, on the verge of laughter. This is the moment every serial killer lives for, the one where he can feel the weight of someone’s life and death in his own two hands. He’ll draw it out as long as possible.
“I’ll leave just the barest echo of these events in your memory,” he continues. “A sliver of dread, a chill in your soul. Enough to give you bad dreams, keep you nervous and afraid. Until the day I come for you—until this very day.”
My future self’s eyes suddenly flare with fear, though she doesn’t move.
And then he cuts her throat.
She bleeds out in less than a minute. He watches attentively every second, and he probably has some kind of spell in place that lets him feel my emotional reaction.
He’s not going to be happy with it.
“Nice try,” I subvocalize. “Good setup, decent follow-through. A for effort.”
“You don’t believe this is real, do you?” he asks, staring at the lifeless body now sprawled sideways on the couch. “You’re angry, a little sad, but not terrified. Not despairing.”
“I know it’s real. It’s just not me.”
He cleans the knife by wiping it on the body, then puts it back in its sheath. “I assure you, it is.”
“Oh, her name is probably Jace Valchek. But she’s not an FBI agent—probably not even in law enforcement—and she’s never visited another reality.”
He doesn’t reply to that, because he knows I’m right. “Just because I’m using your eyes,” I continue, “doesn’t mean I have to pay attention to what you are. That graduation photo on the far wall isn’t mine. I don’t decorate in pastels. And that smell in the air—thanks for the use of your nose, by the way—seems to be from some kind of potpourri, which I loathe. That’s not me.”
“Very observant.” He chuckles. “I suppose you’ve deduced that this is yet another alternate reality? One that has another version of you living in it? Or had, I should say.”
Another version of me. One that hadn’t done anything wrong, one that was killed simply for the crime of being who she was. All because of this bastard’s sick fixation. I feel a surge of anger, but I can’t let him get to me. My only chance is to get inside his head instead of letting him get inside mine.
“Who was she, a waitress? A librarian? Something nice and passive, I’ll bet, someone easy. Bet you had to look pretty hard for her, too—probably aren’t a lot of meek Jace Valcheks out there.”
“Not anymore, no.”
That chills me, even though it comes as no surprise. Yeah, this isn’t the first Jace he’s killed. And as much as I hate to admit it, I suddenly feel diminished—there’s nothing like the knowledge that you’re not unique to take you down a peg or six. I could kill you on a whim, he’s telling me. Plenty more just like you, any time I feel like slaughtering one.
And then, just to prove his point, he yanks me into another reality. Same apartment, different decorator. Different Jace—so that’s what I’d look like as a blonde—who screams when a strange man suddenly materializes in front of her. This one, he doesn’t bother with the whole hypnosis schtick; he just stabs her.
And then it’s time for another.
And another. And another.
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to overload me on horror, show me how completely and totally beaten I am. I can’t look away, can’t even close my eyes. I can do this to you anytime I want, he’s saying. You’re powerless. You’re nothing.
After the fifth one, I start to laugh.
“Losing your mind already?” he says, watching a dying Jace spasm on the floor in front of him. “I really hoped you’d last longer.”
“Oh, I still have all my marbles. I just realized something.”
“How inconsequential you are?”
“Just the opposite. See, from what I understand of the multiverse, it’s infinite. And infinite possibilities times infinite realities equals infinite Jaces.” I laugh again. “You can’t kill me, you moron. I’m like that whack-a-mole game; no matter how many versions of me you ice, there are always going to be more. You’re like an amoeba nibbling on a whale and congratulating himself on how big his stomach is.”
Okay, I’m not crazy about comparing myself to a whale in any context, but I’ve got to get under his skin. Because, honestly, he’s getting under mine.
I’m bluffing. Seeing myself die is like a hard punch to my soul every time it happens, but I can’t let him know that. I push that emotion aside and summon the coldest, nastiest, most cynical attitude I can muster; a my-boyfriend-broke-up-with-me-on-New-Year’s-Eve, I- have-the-worst-hangover-of-my-life-and-just-finished-my-third-pot-of-coffee kind of snark, something truly black and vile. It’s the only armor I have.
“You call these Jaces?” I spit. “They’re pathetic. Losers, imitations, cheap knockoffs. God, this one looks like she has a prison tattoo.”
“You’re not fooling me.”
“And you’re not impressing me. What, you thought you could demonstrate how powerful and unstoppable you are by killing a series of file clerks and coffee baristas? Ooh, what a bad, bad man. Hey, why don’t we drop in on Disneyland? You can prove your manliness by beating up a teenager in a Goofy costume.”
“You fail to see the point. Do you have any idea how much sheer power it takes to cross even one dimensional boundary?”
I do, in fact. A lot. The fact that he can casually squander that kind of power is a great deal scarier than the murders, but I can’t acknowledge that—especially now that I’ve got him on the defensive. Yeah, he’ll be throwing in the towel any second now.
“I don’t get magic, anyway,” I continue. “I mean, how do I know any of this is real? Maybe it’s all an illusion.”
“I’m not an illusionist,” he says, and now there’s anger in his voice. “I am a sorcerer. I manipulate reality itself, I don’t perform tricks for crowds of subhuman idiots.”
Subhuman idiots? Obviously, he doesn’t have the highest regard for either his former colleagues or the supernatural races; maybe I can use that against him.
“I see I’ll have to be more … inventive in order to gain your respect,” he says. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now. People to see, places to go, worlds to conquer…”
He makes another gesture, and the scene shifts again—but this time I’m back in my own body. A body with my wrists cuffed together, the chain running through a metal ring in the arm of a heavy wooden chair, the kind specifically designed to take the weight of a golem.
I’m in a throne room.
I’m pretty sure it didn’t start out life as a thr
one room. In fact, I’m guessing that it used to be some sort of big corporate boardroom, the kind that usually has a table the size of an aircraft carrier and big windows overlooking an impressive view. This doesn’t have either, but I can see deep impressions in the carpet where the table used to be.
And then there’s the throne.
I guess Ahaseurus is a traditionalist at heart, because he’s got an honest-to-goodness, ornately carved, gigantic armchair at the head of the room. It would be more impressive if I didn’t recognize the corporate logo of a medieval-style restaurant worked into the base.
My chair is off to the side, along with about a dozen others. Azura is in the chair next to mine, bound with some kind of silvery rope and apparently unconscious. I’m not that surprised to see she’s still alive; Stoker impaled her with the Midnight Sword, a blade that can manipulate time. One of its effects is to cause injuries that vanish after a specific amount of time has passed—a weapon with an undo option.
Ahaseurus himself lounges on the throne; standing beside him is a woman dressed from head to toe in white, with a white veil that covers all of her face except her eyes.
Eyes I know only too well. They’re the same ones that look back at me every morning when I brush my teeth.
You’re probably wondering why he seems so obsessed with you, Stoker had said. It’s because of your counterpart—the Jace Valchek of my world. It’s why you were targeted in the first place, why Asher brought you over.
I’d almost forgotten about the woman Ahaseurus was traveling with, the one that Azura had posed as over the phone. She’s another Jace, of course. And according to Stoker, she’s the one from this world.
I stare at her, at the pallor of her skin, at the emptiness in her eyes, and realize something else.
She’s dead.
That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Ahaseurus is from a reality with plenty of animated corpses running around, and he used a zombie to construct the spell that created golems in the first place. But why a dead Jace when he has so many live ones to choose from?
Because serial killers love to keep trophies. And just as a romantic never forgets his first love, a serial never forgets his first kill. Why should he, when he can have it follow him around forever?
I know, deep in my gut, that this isn’t the Jace of this world after all. She’s much, much older than that—as old as Ahaseurus himself. She’s the Jace of Azura’s world. Ahaseurus must have turned her into one of the underdead after he murdered her, so he could keep her by his side forever. Brunt may have thought he was the last of his kind, but he was wrong; Ahaseurus had one more in reserve, a prized possession he just couldn’t bring himself to part with.
He studies me from his perch, looking like he should be dressed in purple fur-lined robes instead of the black silk suit he’s wearing, a crown instead of that red turban; even so, his bony, hawk-nosed profile still reminds me more of an undertaker than an emperor.
“Chassinda,” he says, “bring in our other guests, won’t you?”
The woman in white moves forward slowly, her gaze fixed dead ahead. She isn’t lurching, but there’s a certain stiffness to her gait. I can smell a strong floral fragrance as she moves past, but there’s something underneath it, the merest hint of decay. I guess even sorcery can’t stave off entropy forever.
When she’s gone, Ahaseurus smiles at me. “My most trusted aide. More of a pet than an assistant, but I’m quite attached to her.”
I’m thinking furiously. Azura’s out of commission, I’m chained up and disarmed—but I still have allies. My best hope right now is that one of them will come through.
And then they do. They come right through the door, in fact: Cassius and Tair.
Too bad they’re also in chains and being herded by a pair of heavily armed lems.
Cassius has been beaten, his pretty surfer-boy face looking more like a boxer after eighteen rounds in the ring with a trained sasquatch. Tair is in slightly better shape, but he’s in half-were form; thropes heal quicker that way. There’s a lot of blood on his fur, though.
Silver Blue is right behind them, following Chassinda. The expression on his shiny face is somewhere between fury and worry—he looks like someone who just used what he thought was a spray-on tan and is extremely upset by the results.
“Ah, Mr. Blue,” says Ahaseurus. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to discuss the reliability of your employees.”
Blue strides right up, but stops about ten feet away. He’s still a little too close for my comfort; the reek of garlic coming off him is intense. Chassinda returns to her place beside the throne. She stares straight ahead, not blinking.
“What’s going on?” Blue demands. “Why is my lieutenant in chains?”
“Because he’s an animal,” says Ahasuerus. “Both of them are—I thought you understood that.”
“What’s Tair done?”
“I think one of my associates can explain it better than I. Ah, here he comes now.”
Charlie stalks through the door. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but he knows I’m there. He strides up to stand beside Silver Blue.
“What—” Blue says. It’s all he has time to say, because Charlie draws his short sword from its scabbard and decapitates him with a single backhand blow.
“Silver and garlic do little against cold steel, I’m afraid,” Ahaseurus says as the body slumps to the floor. “And what your lieutenant did wrong was to follow your orders.”
So much for allies.
“And now, Miss Valchek, it’s your turn.” Ahaseurus gestures.
And Charlie turns in my direction.
TWENTY
Well, it’s not like I didn’t do it to him first.
“Stop,” Cassius says. He sounds terrible, like he’s barely holding on to consciousness. Pires are pretty much invulnerable—but there are definite exceptions, and silver weapons are one of them. Cassius looks like he’s been worked over with a pair of very expensive candelabra.
“Why should I?” Ahaseurus asks. “Oh, wait—you think I meant he should kill her. No, no. Mr. Aleph?”
Charlie turns back to the sorcerer, who leans over and picks something up from beside his throne. “Here.”
Charlie takes my scythes from him with one hand, sheathes his sword with the other. Tests the weight of them as if he’s never held them before, as if he’s never borrowed them from me and practiced until he was almost as good as I was. “A partner should be prepared,” he’d said. “You should be able to handle yourself with my weapons as well as I do with yours.” And then he’d given me the first of many lessons in the proper use of the gladius.
“I just think she needs a little alteration,” Ahaseurus says. “Removing her vocal cords, for instance. Don’t worry if you make a mess; I won’t let her bleed to death or asphyxiate. Underdead magic is quite handy for stabilizing injuries.”
Charlie snaps both blades open with a flick of his wrists. Looks like it’s coming back to him.
But he still just stands there, staring at me. He brings his elbows in close to his body, his wrists against his belly. He holds the eskrima batons straight up and down, the scythe blades curving away from him at chest level. He widens his stance a little, bending his knees and moving his hips ever so slightly back and forth. He lowers his head, moving it forward and down. There’s something about how he’s holding his body that’s strange but familiar, like I’ve seen it somewhere before but not on him—
A dinosaur.
I’ve never seen a live one, but I’ve seen plenty of computer simulations in big-budget movies and PBS specials. He’s adjusting his weight for a nonexistent tail, getting ready to lunge forward on immense, muscular legs and bite me in half with jaws like a steam shovel. But he doesn’t have any of those things; he has my scythes, which he’s holding as if they were tiny little forearms jutting out in front of him. Because, at heart, that’s what Charlie is; not a walking sandbag, not a zombie, not even a snappy-dressing, swing-dancing cop. He’s a pr
ehistoric, carnivorous dinosaur.
He’s the Devouring Ghost.
I remember the story Silverado told me while we were both locked up. I remember how the shaman made the Devouring Ghost his Spirit Animal, and how the Ghost eventually devoured him, too; and I think I finally understand just what it was the old bounty hunter was trying to say.
Charlie told me once that he’d gone bowhunting and bagged himself a couple of grizzlies. “They were big,” he’d said. “They just weren’t big enough.”
Not to an apex predator like Tyrannosaurus rex. Seven and a half tons of meat-eating hunger, he wouldn’t consider something as paltry as a full-grown bear to be more than an appetizer. Taming something like that would require more than just powerful magic—you’d have to find a way to channel that hunger, make it something that worked for you. You’d have to impose order on raging chaos.
That was what the golem activation spell did. It imposed a bit of underdead magic on the life essence of an animal—and since the underdead were basically servants of the living, that translated into golem loyalty. It was all about balance; the Lyrastoi had used much the same process to combine underdead magic with the essence of bats, producing an immortal being with the heritage of a flying rodent—but that was imposing zombie magic on a were bat. Golems were the reverse, imposing were magic on what, I suppose, could be best described as a zombie rock. A mineral substrate with just enough underdead magic in it to let it bond with the spiritual essence of the animal being used—otherwise, you’d just have a rock that thought it was a steer, or a lion, or a snake. Strangely enough, it must be the underdead part of a lem that gave it the capacity for rational thought.
But Charlie’s had his balance messed with—by the Balancer gem, of course—to make him follow Ahaseurus’s orders. More order, less chaos. His T.-rex-iness is being suppressed—and his body language tells me he doesn’t like it. Is, in fact, fighting it.
I don’t need to get Charlie to see reason. I need to get him angry—that’s how Silverado must have been able to resist, must be what he was trying to tell me in that jail cell. I have to let Charlie’s inner Barney out, the one that drinks heavily in his trailer between takes and gobbles production assistants like potato chips. I have to get Charlie’s goat, then refuse to let him eat it.
