by Nazri Noor
I knew I had no reason to believe him, but there was something almost honorable in how forthright Sterling was with me, how he specifically said that he was ordered not to hurt me – and how he still had an urge to feed on my blood. It creeped me the fuck out, not gonna lie, but I was relieved when he told me that I was safe from his bizarre demon-worshipping, bronze mask-wearing death cult, if only for one night.
And I wanted my jacket back, too. That was the very first priority after I was killed. I went all the way back to that shitty apartment I rented with my shitty roommates just to retrieve the thing, this ratty old sucker that by rights should have fallen apart ages ago. But it still fit, and it had worn its way to this comforting softness.
Back when I still lived with my dad he threatened to throw it out all the time, and that became a running joke. He would never have done that, not when he was responsible for stitching every little rip, for patching over its holes. That jacket, that’s who I was. And that’s who I still am.
It was right where I’d left it in the apartment, slung over the back of a chair from the night when I’d discovered the Pruitts. I picked up the jacket, feeling its familiar textures and mended tears under the pads of my fingers. It was hard to believe how quickly things had changed, between finding out about the entities, and now this revelation about the dagger.
I sighed, only wishing that things didn’t have to end this way. I might not ever get the answers I needed, about what happened that night someone shoved cold metal into my chest, but maybe those answers didn’t matter anymore. Maybe it was time to move on.
Before leaving, I made one last sweep of the apartment, just to check that I hadn’t left anything behind. It smarted a little knowing that I was forced to leave something I couldn’t ever take with me regardless. But dad was going to be fine. Whatever the Lorica wanted, it was with me and the things I could do, not with a man whose grief was slowly dragging him into darkness. They wouldn’t touch him. At least that’s what I told myself. That’s what I needed to believe.
Some day, when I learned more about magic, on my own terms, I would find a way to reconnect with my father. As for how that would happen, exactly, would be up to future-Dustin to decide. Maybe someone would help me with a spell to make him forget that I was ever dead, and we could just pick up where we left off. Maybe I could use some kind of magical disguise to ease him into it. Anything that wouldn’t traumatize him, any way that could help me get back one precious sliver of the family I used to have.
Right. That was it, then. I started shutting the lights off, one by one, this heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was tough realizing that I was doing exactly what Hecate had warned me against: running, again. But what choice did I have? I couldn’t fight the Lorica. Who was I against the combined might of the country’s greatest sorcerers?
I clicked off the final light, sighing in resignation, the sound of my breath the only thing left in the apartment – which was why it jolted me when I heard something else.
“Sterling told me you would be here.”
I whirled around, my hand flying to the knife in my pocket as I looked for the source of the voice. I didn’t have to look very far. The man was only a few feet away from me, the only thing separating us a scant measure of floor. He stood by the window, the tan of his skin visible in the light of the moon, slick, styled hair falling in locks over his shoulders, his beard carefully trimmed. The man wore a fine suit, and a soft leather glove on one hand. On his fingers gleamed gold rings embedded with jewels in amber, orange, and ocher. And his eyes, most striking of all, were yellow, like a cat. Like a beast of prey.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I said, holding one hand out between us. “I’ve had enough weirdness this week.”
The man stepped forward, his movement so lackadaisical that it was hard to find it threatening, and he spread his arms. “I’m just here to talk.”
About what? The god murders? My own death? There were so many variables at play now that it was nothing short of exasperating trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. But this, at least, I could figure out on the spot.
“You’re Sterling’s boss. Whoever you are.”
The man tapped the side of his nose, aquiline and handsome, his grin confident. “The very same,” he said.
“He promised me that no harm would come to me tonight,” I said, willing hardness into my voice, summoning the last dregs of my flagging confidence. “He said he was ordered not to hurt me.”
He pressed his hands together, holding them in front of him with the fingers laced, like this was just some business meeting, and not some prolonged threat.
“That was what I ordered him to do, correct. But I made no such promises myself.”
I pulled the knife out of my pocket. The man’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of it, and he chuckled.
“Let’s not be so crude, Dustin. I’m only teasing. Surely Sterling told you that I only wanted to talk.”
I frowned. “How do you even know my name? How do you even know about me?”
“And the special things that you can do. How indeed.” He ran a finger along the length of the rickety wooden thing I called a dinner table, then inspected the tip of it for dust. “When you died – and I do apologize for bringing up such a stinging memory – your gifts awakened inside of you. Such a stressful, terrible moment for it to happen, but there we are. Magic came alive inside of Dustin Graves on that night, setting aflame. And those of us who perceive magic, those of us who live it, we can see that fire from afar.”
I looked around uneasily, only taking some small comfort in the fact that my entire apartment was, at this point, one giant shadow. I was only afraid that I still didn’t have the strength to make another shadowstep.
“So that’s how the Lorica found me? Is that what you’re saying? Because I was some giant beacon when I died – when I awakened?”
The man nodded. “It was such an interesting signature, too. Not quite like the norm. Imagine that you are only accustomed to seeing orange fire, which, silly me, is how you have experienced fire your whole life anyway. And one night, a black fire appears. It is curious, and it draws many of us.”
“So it’s not just you and the Lorica who are after me.”
“That I know of. You are – different, to say the least, Dustin. May I call you Dustin? You may call me Carver.” He smiled tightly, then went on. It was a formality, I knew, and he didn’t wait for a response, just went on speaking. “Who knows how many parties are interested in what you can do, and who knows what lengths they’ll go to find and, shall we say, acquire you. It’s only a shame that you awakened in such unusual, such excruciating circumstances.”
“What do you mean?” The hand I was holding the knife with was lowering, like the fight was going out of me. I knew something bad was coming.
“You didn’t know?” Carver tutted. “When one awakens to magic is not accurately documented. All we know is that it happens eventually, whether in childhood, adolescence, or even in middle age. Your experience was accelerated because of what happened to you. Your awakening was not an accident. Someone meant to do that to you.”
“I – I don’t understand.”
The man sighed, though not to express impatience. It sounded sad, almost. Sympathetic. “Every mage has a spark inside of them, one that grows into a roaring fire when they come into their power. Whoever did this to you threw kindling on yours by thrusting you into a horrific situation. They forced you to awaken.”
“Then my murder had a purpose.” I looked at the knife in my hand, my grasp around it now loose, my fingers limp. But I tightened my grip again, my blood going hot. “You had something to do with this.”
Carver’s eyes flashed. “Don’t be foolish.”
“You’re part of the Black Hand.” I pointed at his leather glove. “Hell, you are the Black Hand.”
He spoke slowly, incredulous. “The Black Hand.”
“That’s right. You sacrifice people to
your dark gods. No, not just earth entities. You psychos worship the Eldest, don’t you?”
It was bait. I didn’t have the slightest idea what worshipping them entailed, or how insane someone would have to be to try, but if he knew what the Eldest were –
“Don’t you speak of the Eldest so lightly,” Carver sneered. Ah. So he did know. “Those things existed before any of us did, even before the gods of myth. They reach everywhere. They hear everything. They see all.”
“You seem to know so much about them.” I admit, I was more than a little smug that my gambit had gotten him to spill. “So you do worship the Eldest.” It was him, then, him and Sterling and Gil, and all those other men in bronze masks. They were my murderers.
“You need to stop speaking of things you do not understand. Who in their right mind would worship the primal forces of madness, chaos, death? I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Graves.” He ventured a step forward. “And I’m sure you don’t, either.”
I raised the knife again, woefully aware that it wouldn’t be much help against Carver, whatever he was.
“Oh, I know all right. You’re just like that servant of yours. A vampire. You saw what happened to him. All I have to do is tell my mentor.” I reached for the gem dangling from my neck, deliberately not touching it with my fingers, aware that I couldn’t call on Thea’s help again. I prayed that he would call my bluff. “She’ll send more sunlight to burn your vampire ass.”
Carver’s laugh was smooth, like whispers of warm desert wind, like sand tumbling across dunes. “Me, a vampire? No. I’m different. Older. More powerful.” He sent his gloved hand out, reaching for my pendant. “Let’s just eliminate this nuisance, shall we? It’s only getting in the way.”
In a panic, I scrambled away, backing up against the last few inches of space I had to retreat into, then hurling the knife as hard as I could. I watched as it streaked towards Carver’s throat, the tip of it glinting in the moonlight. He held up one hand, fingers outstretched, then closed it into a fist. In midair the knife shattered into a puff of harmless metal shavings, a cloud of glittering dust.
I gaped. “Well fuck.”
Carver cracked his knuckles. “Indeed.”
My hands groped at my body of their own accord, desperately seeking anything else to use as a weapon. I cringed when I patted at my pockets and felt my cellphone – just something else for Carver to obliterate – but my fingers probed in my jacket and found something else. It was tiny, cold, glassy: the bottle of lightning that I’d used to kill the power at the Pruitt mansion.
Carver beckoned. “Give me the pendant, Mr. Graves. No one needs to be hurt tonight.”
“You and your people tried to kill me once, and that didn’t work. You just came to finish the job. Sorry. Can’t let you.”
I threw the bottle at Carver, harder than I’d thrown the knife. Maybe it would hit him before he had time to react. His eyes did widen in surprise at the sight of it, but that was quickly overtaken by a look of boredom.
He raised his hand again, the gemstones on his rings glowing, then clenched his fingers into a fist. The bottle disintegrated into a sparkling mist of razor dust – but the lightning needed a place to go, and his body was the closest thing.
Carver’s screams curdled my blood. The room lit up as his entire body became a beacon for all the electricity that had been stored inside the crystal phial. The tiny box of my apartment filled with the smell of cooking flesh. I didn’t dare look at Carver’s face, and maybe I felt a momentary swell of pity for how painful his death had to be, but this man – he had tried to kill me. An eye for an eye. I ran for the door and threw it open.
And while the sound of sizzling didn’t cease, the smell of burning hair and meat still wafting through the room, Carver had stopped screaming. I was almost tempted to turn and look if he really was dead, but I didn’t have to – he spoke.
“Feisty,” he groaned. Outside in the hall shouts and footsteps thundered, the neighbors alarmed by his screams. I didn’t know why I bothered, but I dared to look him in the face. I really shouldn’t have.
Carver’s skin, whatever was exposed of it, was a burnt, molten mass of disrepair, his left eye fused shut, his cheek a slurry that looked likely to run right off his jaw, his mouth a ragged, pulped mess. I bit my tongue, fighting the urge to vomit right there.
He shouldn’t have survived that. Carver, whatever he was, couldn’t possibly have been alive. I zipped up my jacket, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and turned to run.
“Graves,” Carver burbled from the remains of his mouth. Something in his voice, a bizarre, distant authority in spite of his ruination, made me stop long enough to listen. “Why are you so afraid of what you are? Come to me if you want true knowledge. Come to me if you want true power. Come to me if you want the truth.”
Chapter 18
My heart pounded against my chest. Had I been wrong all along? The Lorica really did want to help me, and that thing with the dagger, it was all a misunderstanding. Wasn’t it? My brain pounded in time with my heart, one threatening to explode out of my skull, the other from my chest.
What else was I supposed to do? Who else could I go to for help? The police? Hah. The thought of Carver disintegrating bullets in midair, or a gun out of someone’s hands – hell, he could probably do it to people, too, turn them into fine mists of blood.
Besides, the Lorica hadn’t sent anyone to hound me yet. Didn’t that mean something? That they knew I was coming back, that things were going to be okay? I hurried onward down the block, looking over my shoulder for any sign of Sterling, Gil, or worse, Carver.
God knew what Carver was, but I had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t going to take him long to reconstitute and come after me. It was him, then, the Black Hand. I should have known all along, and I should have known that Sterling was lying about not harming me. And now he knew where dad lived, too. Awesome. Great job, Dust.
Finally, the Lorica building loomed into sight, its silhouette in the gloom squat and misshapen, but just then it was heartening, like a fortress from another time. Safety, I thought, or something like it. I held onto my backpack, focused on a patch of darkness on the asphalt, and shadowstepped.
It was cold and creepy as always, in the Dark Room, but it was still a damn sight better than trying to bypass the security system. I needed to talk to someone, and fast. Herald, but that would take too much explaining for why I ran out in the first place. It would have to be Thea. Did she even stay this late? Should I have contacted her via gemstone first?
Not that it mattered anymore. My feet hit wooden flooring as I emerged from the shadows. I didn’t spot anyone in the Lorica when I arrived, or no one who mattered, anyway, the lower level filled with the quiet murmur of grunts pushing paper. I made a beeline for Thea’s office, throwing the door open and dashing in.
“Thea.”
She made no motion and didn’t seem at all surprised by my frenetic entrance, keeping her back to me as she gazed through her windows. I always did find it strange, how internally, Thea’s office was only on the second floor, yet it still afforded her a view of the city as if we were twenty stories up. Whatever she was looking at had her fullest attention.
“Thea?”
She finally acknowledged my presence, turning her head slightly over her shoulder. “You’re back, Graves. I was worried when Herald told me you’d burst out of here.” She faced me, a small smile spreading across her lips. “And it seems you’re content to burst in just as suddenly as you’d left.”
My breathing slowed as I composed myself, and I put some semblance of rigidity into my posture. The urgency was still coursing through my blood, but I knew instinctively that just babbling everything at Thea at top speed wouldn’t help my case.
“The Black Hand,” I said. “They came for me again. This time it was their leader. At least I think it was.”
Thea raised an eyebrow, like she was having a hard time following what I meant. “Oh. O
f course. The Black Hand.” She cleared her throat and tutted. “See, this is what comes of mistrusting those who only want to help you.” Her words cut at me, but her expression was soft, almost kind.
“I. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Thea smiled. “Yes, that seems to be a theme for you, Mr. Graves. But you did well to come directly to me. Darker elements are trying to seduce you, when I’m the one that you should be trusting. This Black Hand character. Did he offer you anything?”
What a strange thing to ask, I thought. Shouldn’t she have been more concerned about him trying to attack me?
“Truth,” I said carefully. “He offered me the truth.”
“Deception,” Thea said, shaking her head. “They’ve moved past attempting to murder you. Now it’s indoctrination that they’ll pursue. You’re more useful to them that way. And worse still that they have someone working on the inside to help them.” She pulled something out of her pocket, placing the familiar, spiny sharpness of it on her glass desk.
I stared at the dagger, than back up at her. “Herald? You don’t mean that. He can’t be working with them.” Couldn’t he? Just an hour ago I’d almost believed that Herald and Thea – no, that the entire Lorica was in league against me. My fingers ran through my hair of their own accord, tugging in confusion.
“We have good reason to believe it was him,” Thea said, her voice a mix of resignation and cold accusation. “He’s working with the Black Hand. Or are you trying to convince me that he’s innocent?” She took a single step, and that smallest movement filled the room with her presence: sharp, brilliant, suffocating. “Perhaps the man you met convinced you. Have you decided to trust your murderers so easily?”
“You know that isn’t true. Herald is innocent. Where is he?”
“He’s safe,” Thea said, in a way that told me he wasn’t. “For the moment. The Lorica has ways of handling internal matters that will ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.” She took another step forward, close enough that she could lay a hand on my shoulder. Thea squeezed, the gems on one hand glinting as she did, and it was almost comforting.
