Four Summoner’s Tales

by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss

  It was his fear for Savannah that he could not overcome.

  “Ah, damn it,” Aguilar said, looking down in dismay at the spots of blood on his expensive white shirt. “Messy. But . . . if we’re going to make some kind of deal, we couldn’t have him around. A man who will betray his friends cannot be trusted. His sister died that night in your town, you know? She wasn’t supposed to be there. He thought she had gone to Hidalgo to visit friends. My men murdered his sister, and he still called to tell me what you were all planning. What a pal.”

  Aguilar spit on Aaron’s ruined face, the second time he’d been spit on in mere minutes. Zeke saw that Aaron had fallen on his left side, baring the Reaper tattoo on his right biceps and burying the angel on his left, and that seemed only right.

  “He used to work on my ranch,” Zeke said, gazed fixed on Aguilar. “I was fond of him back then, but as of this moment, I can’t say as I’m sorry the son of a bitch is dead.”

  Aguilar began to walk, gun pointed at the ground as he circled the cluster of prisoners. There were more than forty of them and half that number of cartel killers, but the gunmen were ranged about them in a circle like a pack of wolves. Aguilar moved through the open space that separated the wolves from their prey.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Ezekiel,” Aguilar said, his voice carried on the desert wind though Zeke couldn’t see him from the other side of the circle. “I’ve just been having a little fun with you. We spend so much time on business that when we get an opportunity to play, it’s hard to resist. You of course know that if word got out that we let even one of you live . . .”

  Prayers went up from the group, and curses followed in equal measure.

  “Listen to me, Carlos,” Zeke said. “If you’re worried about how it’ll look, what kind of message you’d be sending, think about how it will look when word gets out that you’ve staked a claim in Hidalgo County, that you’ve got an open pipeline into the U.S. Or how it’ll look that you turned such a thing down.”

  Aguilar had made it three-quarters of the way around the circle and come back into view. Zeke glanced at the faces of his friends and neighbors and the vacant gazes of the dead and he held his breath.

  “It would be an interesting experiment,” Aguilar admitted. Zeke exhaled, glanced over in search of Savannah’s face and did not see her. “But if we were to negotiate, there is only one place to start.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Aguilar’s smile vanished and the amusement bled from his eyes, revealing only ice beneath. He turned to his prisoners with a snarl.

  “Which one of you is Enoch Stroud?”

  Zeke blinked several times and shook his head. It felt as if he’d just woken up from a dream in which Enoch had never existed. Until the moment Aguilar had mentioned his name, he had forgotten all about the little hoodoo man. Enoch had come to them, had raised their dead and dragged them all down here to Mexico, and yet for a few minutes it was as if he had been erased from Zeke’s mind.

  A ripple of confusion went through the pipers and they began to shuffle aside, expanding the circle, nudging and guiding the blank-faced undead until a path had formed among them leading to a circle within the circle. At its center, alone, Enoch stood staring at Carlos Aguilar with murder in his eyes.

  “How the hell . . . ?” Harry Boyd said. “For a minute there I didn’t remember the little creep existed.”

  Aguilar aimed his gun at Enoch and the pipers and their dead scuttled farther away. The cartel killers raised the barrels of their weapons and barked orders in English and Spanish, making sure no one tried to make a run for it.

  “You?” Aguilar scoffed. “You’re the great brujo? El nigromante?”

  Enoch said nothing, but Aguilar walked toward him, pausing to look more closely at the resurrected dead. He glanced at Charlie Boyd and Big Tim, but when he got to Martha Vickers, he reached out and ran a finger over the strange new fontanel skin growing over her head wound.

  “Oh, you’re going to teach me how to do this,” Aguilar said, turning to stare at Enoch. “Whatever it is, I want to learn. When one of my people is killed, I want to be able to bring them back.”

  Enoch’s gaze glimmered with a familiar yellow light, but it was as if an eclipse were taking place in his eyes. They turned black and the little man seemed to darken, as if the moonlight could no longer find him.

  “Chingate,” Enoch muttered.

  Aguilar sneered, pointing the gun at Enoch’s forehead. “Fuck myself? Fuck you, chilito. You want revenge because I killed your daughter? Big deal. I killed a lot of people’s daughters, and their sons, too. That’s what we do, asshole. You get in the way and you get dead.”

  He gestured toward the people gathered around them.

  “Maybe you got some black magic in you, brought these people back to life. But now you got a chance to keep them alive . . . them and the rest of the idiots you brought down here with you. You’ve got five seconds, man. You gonna teach me, or am I going to put a bullet in your heart?”

  Zeke caught a glimpse of Savannah, standing behind Harry and Charlie Boyd. He mentally urged her to retreat, to hide herself more deeply among the others. For a second, he thought she had seen him, that she had returned his gaze, but then Aguilar started marching back and forth in the gap, counting.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  Aguilar glanced over at Zeke and shrugged as if to say he was trying his best here.

  “Enoch!” Zeke shouted. “For God’s sake—”

  “Four!” Aguilar barked, turning on Enoch with a venomous glare. Then he sniffed, as if he couldn’t quite summon a laugh, and shook his head. “Ah, fuck it.”

  He shot Enoch twice in the chest.

  “No!” Zeke roared, rushing toward the widening gap between the two frantic groups of prisoners and then staggering to a halt, staring in astonishment.

  Enoch had barely flinched. Blood began to soak through his shirt.

  “You want to talk about making deals?” Enoch said, eyes so black they made the night seem bright. “I made a lot of them, Carlos—deals with every devil who would listen. You cut my daughter into pieces and I’m going to do the same to you, first here, and then down in hell, for every minute of eternity.”

  Aguilar shot Enoch twice more in the chest and then once in the forehead. The force of the gunshots knocked Enoch down, blood flying, as Aguilar rapidly pulled the trigger on an empty chamber.

  Enoch lay on the ground, half curled into a fetal position, chuffing with laughter as blood drooled from his lips.

  “Guillermo!” Aguilar shouted, and the scarred man rushed over to hand him an assault rifle.

  He turned the gun on Enoch, bullets erupting from the barrel, blowing holes in the little conjuror at close range, turning his body to bloody wreckage. When the gunfire stopped, it echoed out across the desert and the smell of oil and cordite floated on the air. The good citizens of Lansdale, Texas, now so very far from home, wept and prayed, and Alma Hawkins fell to her knees and sobbed loudly, cradling her belly in both arms.

  Zeke felt tethered to Savannah by some invisible umbilical. Carefully, not wanting to spook Aguilar or draw attention to his daughter, he started moving toward her. Harry Boyd stood by Savannah with his son, visibly struggling against the urge to fight back.

  No, Harry. No, don’t do it, please don’t do it, Zeke thought.

  “Damn. That’s too bad,” Aguilar said, scanning the faces of his prisoners and then looking beyond them, to his men. “It would’ve been pretty useful, being able to bring you sad culeros back from the dead if necessary, but I guess we’ll have to make use of the dead folks we’ve got right here.”

  Ice ran through Zeke’s veins. He couldn’t breathe, could only stare at Aguilar’s grinning face.

  “Nothing like slave labor,” Aguilar said, admiring the size of Big Tim Hawkins. “Especially when the rest of the world thinks they’re dead anyway and nobody’s gonna come looking for them.”

  Aguilar’s grin t
urned sly. He approached Harry and Charlie Boyd and Zeke froze, trying to will the killer away, wishing him upon anyone else, damning any of the others to whatever suffering might be in store as long as Savannah could live.

  Not again.

  But Aguilar waved Harry aside with the assault rifle and—eyes downcast with shame—Harry gave Charlie a shove and let the devil pass.

  “Beautiful,” Aguilar said. “Some of them might be more useful than others.” He reached out with his left hand to caress Savannah’s brown cheek, tracing a finger along the freckles on the bridge of her nose.

  Zeke was sure he saw her wince. It felt like a trigger in his heart.

  “Don’t you fucking touch her, you son of a bitch!” he roared, rushing at Aguilar. “You killed her once! Isn’t that enough?!”

  A big hand grabbed his arm, holding him back, and Zeke whipped around to see that Vickers had finally woken from the fog of his grief. Vickers shook his head, eyes pleading with Zeke to say nothing more. But Zeke knew nothing he did would make a difference in the end.

  “Enough?” Aguilar said. “I guess not.”

  Zeke screamed as Aguilar shot Savannah in the chest and belly.

  As she crumpled to the ground, he tore free of Vickers’s grasp and lunged. Aguilar turned and the gun barked again, three or four rounds stitching across Zeke’s chest; the pain searing through him was nothing compared to the anguish in his soul.

  He fell face-first, kicking up dust as he skidded in the dirt on his stomach. The smell of his own blood filled his nostrils, his vision already dimming.

  Unable to do more than twitch and loll his head to one side, he watched as Aguilar backed out of the gap among his prisoners. The rest of the cartel killers tightened the circle, wolves finally drawing near at the scent of blood.

  “Fuck it,” Aguilar said. “Kill them all.”

  The gunfire seemed almost quiet compared to the screams.

  9

  Zeke drew a long, gasping breath, eyelids dragging open. He could feel the chilly night air on his face but nothing else, save for a dreadful heaviness, as if his body had been submerged in fresh cement. His breaths came at long intervals, wet and ragged, each of them a chore. His mouth opened and closed and he forced himself to take a single breath through his nose.

  The copper stink of blood filled his head and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his vision, only to discover that the blurriness and the blackness that seeped in at the corners of his eyes would not go away. The stars above him were dimming, the moonlight fading. A rush of sound filled his ears and he felt himself flinch, but when he took another breath, he realized the barrage of thunder was nothing but the memory of gunfire, that the bullets were now only ghosts, their voices echoing across the desert.

  Dying, he thought, the cold weight on his chest heavier. Zeke strained to move and succeeded in shifting his body just enough to feel things tearing inside him. He didn’t have the strength to scream.

  Savannah, he thought. My baby girl. I’m sorry. I hope you’re with your mother now.

  The cold weight of his flesh began to lift and he felt a lightness spread through him. His head lolled to one side, the shadows that veiled his eyes deepening. Yet he saw the bodies that lay around him and recognized the long bone pipe clutched in one ruined hand. The blood smears originally painted onto the pipe had been obscured by a new flow of blood, and the hand-carved pipe seemed to soak it in.

  So much for the hoodoo man.

  But then the bloody hand twitched. Enoch had been torn apart by bullets, body a blood-soaked mess, but now his fingers gripped the pipe and he sat up. Through darkening vision, Zeke watched Enoch bring the pipe to his lips. A portion of the little man’s skull had been obliterated, but his eyes glowed with bright golden light as he began to play a variation on those same ugly, powerful notes.

  Zeke felt nothing.

  He forgot to breathe.

  He did not close his eyes, but they went dark, nevertheless.

  10

  When his eyes open, his first reaction is relief. The ceiling overhead is the ceiling of his bedroom, with the frosted glass dome light fixture that Anarosa chose for the room. He closes his eyes again, just for a moment, and lets out a wheezy breath of gratitude before opening them again.

  Not dead.

  But then he tries to move and cannot manage it. Not a twitch. Fear floods through him and he thinks about where the bullets struck and realizes that he is paralyzed, that one of them must have severed his spine.

  Someone moves off to the left of his bed. He hears a soft female sigh and thinks for just a moment that it must be Skyler . . . and then she moves toward him, standing beside the bed, filling his field of vision, and he sees that it is not.

  It’s Savannah, whole and beautiful, alive and well. Her hair is tied back tightly and she wears no makeup, but she is so pretty that it fills his heart just to see her. His baby girl. Tears spill from her eyes as she gazes down at him and he wants to take her hand, to hold her and speak a father’s love for his daughter, but he is frozen.

  “Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry,” she says, voice breaking. “It was the only way.”

  Only when she lifts it to her lips does he see the small bone pipe in her hand, his name scrawled upon it in her blood.

  A figure moves to the foot of the bed and he realizes that it is Enoch, also whole and healed.

  And Savannah begins to play.

  A Bad Season for Necromancy

  DAVID LISS

  Few, perhaps, are the children who, after the expiration of some months or years, would sincerely rejoice in the resurrection of their parents.

  —Edward Gibbon

  It would happen, from time to time, that my father would offer me advice that, while not precisely wise, was neither altogether foolish. Given that he was a man who enjoyed boxing my ears, bloodying my nose, kicking me in the arse and testicles, sticking me with needles, on occasion branding me with an iron, or otherwise causing pain, misery, and scarring, advice was always more pleasant than other sorts of fatherly attention.

  The last such morsel of wisdom was proffered perhaps three weeks before I rebelled against his tyranny by striking him in the face with a hammer and running off with his fortune. My father, having learned that he had not, in fact, been clapped by the whore he currently favored, had been in a reflective mood, and with his mustaches only moderately flecked with beef and pudding crumbs, he turned to me with something not entirely unlike paternal regard. Spitting upon the floor, by way of introducing a new topic of conversation, he observed that there are but two sorts of people in the world, villains and victims, and that a man must be determined to be one lest he make the error of becoming the other.

  I prefer not to embrace so dark a view of the human nature, but a man in my condition might easily fall into the habit of hedging his bets and living as though these words contain at least a hint of truth.

  The fortune I took from my father that memorable day of hammer-swinging was in excess of three hundred pounds, the greatest quantity of money he had ever possessed, and certainly the greatest he would ever be likely to possess. I knew that I would never have a better opportunity to escape his clutches, for the prize was tempting and the enthusiasm of his celebration was, if not without precedent, at least unlikely to be exceeded.

  We were staying in a delightfully indifferent inn in Nottingham at the time, notable for the beauty and business sense of its serving girls. The very day I set my mind to do this thing, my father was kind enough to offer me an excellent opportunity. While he completed a vigorous bout of drinking and whoring, I lay upon my bed with my eyes open, awaiting his return. At last I heard him fumble with the unlocked door, until by some miracle of coordination he managed to operate the machine as its designers intended, cause the door to—behold the miracle!—swing open. Further advertising the likely success of my venture, my father dropped to the floor and, after a moment of careful consideration, crawled drunkenly toward his bed, resting himse
lf at last upon a spot very near his intended destination. He lay still for a moment, then raised his head and vomited cathartically. This jetsam then served as a most agreeable pillow on which he could lay his weary head as he contentedly embraced oblivion.

  For all his faults, my father was a patient man and a perceptive one, and I was haunted by the fear that he knew precisely what I intended. I am inclined toward the impulsive, but I made myself wait perhaps a quarter of an hour before making my move. I might have waited longer, but the stench of vomit was an encouragement not to be ignored, and his snoring was loud, gurgling, and undeniably convincing.

  In the dim glow of the rushlight, I managed to collect his recently acquired sack of bank notes, coins, and jewels. I donned my inferior set of boots and had just begun to turn the door handle when, like a mythic creature rising from its grave, my father shot upright and rushed toward me. His teeth shone from the darkness, and I saw chunks of his vomitus clinging to his three days of beard. His hair, still long and thick though he was upwards of forty years of age, was wild like a demon’s, and his eyes were wide with rage. Some instinct, perhaps a preternatural sense of avarice, had informed him of what I intended, and nothing could induce him to embrace sleep when his hard-won money was about to bid him farewell.

  I was prepared for violence, if not specifically from my father. One does not commence to take a fortune out into the night without considering the possibility of assault, and I had hung a mason’s hammer on my belt. My mind driven now only by fear, I unlooped the hammer and struck my father in the cheek. It was a blind swing and a reflexive impulse. I have never loved violence. Much to my father’s disgust, I have shrunk from it and endured his mockery while I refused to beat or cut or stab our victims. Yet, so great was my will to preserve my life and money, I did not hesitate to strike him now.

  He squeaked like a mouse in a cat’s jaws, and he fell to the floor. Then, without thinking, I bent over him and philosophically considered the merits of striking him in the face once more. It was as much as he deserved, you may be sure. A thousand memories of closed-fist blows to the gut, of sticks and canes against my buttocks and sacks of walnuts to the back of my head, came rushing at me. Another blow—a disfiguring blow, even a killing blow—would have been no more than justice, but as a parting gift to the man who had sired me, I spared his life and did not strike him a second time. He had, after all, taught me the importance of filial duty, and while, like him, I am apt to be vengeful, I am unlike him in my inclination toward mercy.