My eyes widened. “Two years? There’s no way he’d still be alive, he’d have to be–”
She held her hand up to silence my questions. “Without Philip’s help, the demons would not have been stopped. Ah fear even now, without his help, they cannot be stopped.”
I eventually managed to close my gaping jaw and speak. “You were really around then? In the Civil War?” I shrugged and held my hand out in invitation as I said, “How?”
“Another time, Damian. For now, we have far greater concerns. Someone is releasing the demons we bound.” She reached into another pocket hidden inside her cloak and pulled out a small pile of crumbled metallic debris. “This is all that’s left of a relic holding a greater demon. No demon, not even an arch-demon, could have broken this binding from within.
“We buried it at the Battle of New Madrid in 1862.” Her hand formed a fist around the iron detritus. Zola’s lips compressed into a tight line and she stared at me. “Damian, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
I set the demon doll down, walked to the fridge around the corner and opened the door. I crinkled my nose at the stale smell wafting from the seldom-used appliance. Four bottles of Duvel Belgian Golden Ale lined the top shelf. I grabbed two bottles and two glasses from the cabinet beside the fridge and headed back to the living room. A quick pour and I handed a glass to Zola, left the bottle by the couch, and sat down with a glass and bottle of my own.
We both raised our glasses in silence and drank. I savored the light burn of the ale as it went down. I met my master’s gaze for a minute in the darkness and warmth and said, “Well, shit.”
Chapter Four
I woke up in the short bunk in the tiny corner bedroom with a yelp as pins and needles stabbed my ankles. It was the fifth or sixth time I’d startled awake that night. My feet were numb, the circulation cut off by the slightly raised edge of the bed’s frame. That hadn’t been a problem when I was younger, and shorter. It was only nine in the morning, but my back screamed at me to get up once and for all. The bed was so stiff and crunchy I wouldn’t have been surprised if the mattress was stuffed with straw from the Civil War.
Zola, on the other hand, was waiting on the porch with an extra mug full of coffee as I stumbled out the door on my numb feet. She flashed a genuine smile as she held it out to me.
“I have pins and needles in my feet.” I took the coffee and drank. “No Frappuccino?”
She snorted.
I moaned between slurps. “Thank you. That’s fantastic.”
Zola reached into her cloak and pulled the two demon dolls out again. She sat one on the rusty chair near the edge of the covered porch and the other on the plain wood railing. “It’s time to train, boy. Ah will show you once.” She held up her right index finger to reiterate the once. “Be sure you pay attention. The dolls have a common bond in the talisman binding the auras to them. That is their weakness.”
I nodded as I sucked down more coffee. My eyes moved to the doll in the chair. I focused my Sight and watched the aura spin through its head a few times. I couldn’t suppress a shiver.
Zola moved fast, utterly silent. Her aura flared as she focused her necromancy, the heavy black and white ribbons of power billowing out from her hand. I watched it surround the doll on the railing and latch on to the sickly aura. Zola curled her fingers and the aura stretched away from the doll, black and red swirling and thinning as she pulled. She moved it across the porch until it touched the aura of the other doll. A tiny shimmer rippled out from the point of contact and Zola said, “Pulsatto!”
The doll on the chair sunk in on itself as the wave of force hit it and the metal chair behind it bent. Its burlap body fell forward in an anticlimactic display.
“That’s it?” I said.
“Did you see the hole?”
“The shimmer?”
“Yes, that is your target. It creates a weakness in the demon’s aura. Where your attacks were useless, now you will find them strong. Where you once had stale hardtack to saw through a corn stalk, you’ll have a scythe.” She flexed her hand and turned toward the dolls. “Now you try.”
“Touching it with my power, is it going to, you know, show me the demon or anything weird like that?”
Zola shook her head. “It shouldn’t. Not the way you sense the life of a person when you use your power on the dead.”
“Thank God for small favors.” I raised one side of my mouth in a half grin and then slammed the rest of the coffee. Zola’s lesson seemed simple enough. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. Drag the aura out, smack the point of contact with an incantation and voila! Demon chop suey.
I focused my necromancy and my aura pushed out in a wave of power. Whenever my necromancy touched the dead or another aura I could feel it, like it was my own hands grabbing onto a physical object. My smirk turned into a grimace as I touched the aura of the first doll. It felt greasy and warm and wriggly and wrong. I rushed the exercise, stretching the aura out as fast as I could and yelling “Pulsatto!” the instant the auras touched.
Imagine my surprise when the force of that blow bounced back and hit me square in the chest, launching me backwards through the porch railing with a magnificent crack of wood and a hail of splinters. With no breath left to scream, I bounced silently off the ground once and slammed ass over head into the stone side of the well. I groaned … a lot.
“Yes, well … Ah think you need some more practice, boy.”
Zola’s face was a little fuzzy in my blasted vision, but I was pretty damn sure she was smiling.
* * *
Ten hours. Ten hours of getting my ass handed to me by an inanimate doll. My shirt was singed, soaked, and shredded. Much like my dignity. My jeans looked more like a pasty mixture of grass and mud than pants, and blood was running into my eye from a gash on my forehead.
Apparently my performance hadn’t been too terribly impressive. My head rang as Zola clocked me on the forehead with her cane. “What are you, a damned Sunday solider?”
“Ow.”
“Dammit, boy. Concentrate and do it right or Ah’ll beat you senseless.” She glared at me and tapped her fingers on the top of her cane. “You’ll be dead with the first demon you meet at this rate.”
She was right. Hell, she usually was.
I groaned and stood up. I was careful, drawing the aura out quickly, but steadily. It stretched and thinned and touched the other doll’s aura a moment later. I held on, despite the ghastly feeling that the auras were trying to pass through my own. It was only an instant, but that single instant lasted an eternity. The second aura shimmered, and a hole rippled out behind the disturbance.
“Pulsatto!”
I cringed, waiting for the blowback, but this time the force found its home. The chair buckled with a scream of stressed metal and slammed to the wooden porch with the demon doll stuck firmly inside. I released the aura of the first doll and shivered as it slithered away.
“Mmm, better boy, better.”
Chapter Five
It was Monday before Zola and I headed back toward civilization. I was sore and bruised and quite sure every bone in my body was broken. Every time I turned the wheel or hit a bump or tapped the accelerator, something screamed at me to stop moving. Good god was I sore.
I hit another bump as we came off the gravel drive, cursed, and grimaced as my shoulder radiated with shooting pains. Zola laughed at me. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at her. “Can I help you?”
She flashed me a toothy grin and shook her head.
“My pain amuses you, doesn’t it?”
Zola scowled at me before her smile widened and she nodded in another fit of laughter.
I blew out a breath and said, “Great. You know, I always thought you had a sadistic streak when I was a kid. It’s a bit more than a streak though, isn’t it.”
“Moi?” she said with feigned shock.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “So, if I’m driving you to Saint Louis with me, how the hell did you get
down to the cabin?”
“Ah took a friend to the New Madrid battleground. He confirmed my suspicions about something releasing the demons. What truly frightens me is not even his power could reveal what manner of creature released them. There were traces of demons and vampires, but something else had been there too.” She turned her head and stared out the passenger window as the forested hills rolled by.
“And who was this mystery person, if I may be so bold?”
“The vampire lord, Camazotz.”
My mouth made spluttering noises for a few seconds and hung limp for a few seconds more. “As in the vampire to end all vampires, Camazotz?” My brain flipped over everything I knew about the vampire lord. A lot of people thought he was the original. The Mayans had worshipped him, though their images looked more like a half-bat half-man thing. In reality, he was a hunter of all things dark and creepy. On occasion, that included other vampires. He’d earned his title by wiping out some forty badass vampires in one day, torn to bits by one of their own kind.
“He is a good man. He kills only what deserves to die.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “You showed me pictures of his trophy room. There is no way in hell anyone knows if all those kills were justified.” I shivered at the thought of that stone room filled with skulls, skeletons, and taxidermies.
She shrugged. “He dropped me off at the cabin after New Madrid.”
The car drifted out of its lane a bit as I stared at Zola in disbelief.
“The road, Damian.”
I jerked the car fully back into its lane. “Camazotz,” I whispered. “Mother fucking Camazotz dropped you off?”
“He’s a good man, Damian. You would do well to respect him.”
“A good vampire,” I muttered.
“And Sam is a vampire, and you are a necromancer, boy!”
“Touché,” I said and her glare broke down into laughter.
We drove the rest of the way in relative silence, watching as the green hills receded and were replaced by overpasses and strip malls and concrete. Saint Louis was still pretty green, but it was nothing compared to the deeper parts of Missouri.
It was dark by the time we rumbled across the cobblestones and pulled into a parking space in front of the shop. “Hey, the shop’s still there. Go Frank.”
Zola looked over at me as she closed her door. “Frank?”
“My new help. He’s a commoner, but he knows a bit about our world. Cara gave him the Sight.”
“He must be a capable man if Cara gave him such a gift.” She looked impressed.
I scratched my head and tried to hide a lopsided grin. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” I took a couple quick steps forward and opened the door for Zola.
“You know,” she said as she walked through the door, “your shop has existed in one form or another since the town was called Les Petites Côtes.”
I’d never heard the name before, but I grinned when she called it “my shop.” There was a certain amount of pride in being a proprietor for such an old store. I followed Zola in and was very surprised to find Sam talking to Frank and no one yelling. There were all kinds of things wrong with that. They were laughing. Good god I worry about my sister sometimes. Sam waved when the bell jingled on the door. I could see Frank’s jowls vibrating with mirth as we stepped closer.
I stopped after another step and shouted, “Foster!”
“Yes, O friend of mine?” He peeked out from behind a pack of crow feathers.
Ugh, the “It wasn’t me” greeting never bodes well. I pointed to the pair of chattering mortal enemies and said, “You didn’t by chance give Frank any hints about buttering Sam up, did you?”
“Nope, I can honestly say I did no such thing.”
I sighed and rubbed my hand on my cheek. “Uh-huh, so who did?”
Foster’s eyes flicked to the side then back to me as Aideen landed next to him. Her movements were slow and flowing, nothing like the quick jerks and twitches of a human.
I did a double take as I realized what Foster’s eye flick meant. “Aideen?” I stared at her as a small flame of suspicion kindled in my gut.
She shrugged and her lips slowly pulled up into a smile. “They both seemed lonely.”
“What did you do?” I said as I narrowed my eyes.
Her smile widened without showing any teeth. “No magic, I only spoke with Sam about giving Frank a chance. You know she needs more in her life than you and your parents.”
“But,” I sighed and my eyes trailed back to Frank and Sam, laughing, together. “Frank? Just because a rat and a hawk are lonely doesn’t mean they should be friends.”
“You trust him, do you not?” Aideen said.
I stared at the fairy and images of flyswatters flitted across my brain. I sighed and rubbed my chin stubble. “Damn I need to shave.”
“Damian?”
“Yeah, I trust him.”
“And would you care if Sam accidentally ate Frank?” Foster said. Aideen glared at him.
“Hmm, I see where you’re going here.”
Aideen slapped Foster in the back of the head and fluttered toward the back room.
I stared at Sam with her perfectly straight black hair, flared jeans, and thin black leather jacket. She put her hand on Frank’s forearm and laughed again. It was good to see her in high spirits. Frank was not her type in oh so many ways, but if it made her happy, even for a little while, who was I to stand in the way of that? I sighed and headed toward the counter, Zola chuckling behind me.
“Hey, Sam.”
She turned and glanced at me before her gaze tracked down to the small woman beside me. “Zola!” Sam blipped out of existence and was suddenly hugging Zola like a long lost teddy bear. I guess in some ways she was just that. Zola treated Sam like a daughter and in turn Zola was like a mother to Sam, having helped her retain much of her own aura and personality when she was first turned. Our parents didn’t take it too well when Sam became a vampire.
When Sam eased off a bit, I said, “Frank, this is Zola Adannaya. Don’t piss her off.”
Zola extended her hand and shook Frank’s. “A pleasure, son.”
Frank was wearing black slacks and an awful blue polyester shirt. He nodded and managed a crooked smile. He’d heard some stories about Zola, so I can see why he was a bit intimidated.
“Thanks for watching the store Frank. The place looks great.”
His eyes moved back to me, crooked smile still plastered to his face. “No sweat, Damian. Foster helped me out. A lady came in looking for a few types of feathers and I had no idea what was what. Foster took care of it. Talked a few customers into some of your jade charms, too.”
My eyes widened. Those weren’t cheap and rarely sold. “Really?”
“Yep, the big one went for three hundred.” Frank’s smile straightened out a bit. His eyes shifted to Sam. “You mind if I take off, Damian?”
“Not at all. I’m going to drag you into my next meeting with our gemstone dealer. Maybe you’ll be good at buying. We do alright, but I do manage to pick out some shelf warmers.”
Frank smiled and nodded as he started pulling his windbreaker on.
“I’ll walk you out,” Sam said.
Frank and Sam. Sam and Frank. I thought, no, I hoped, she was just being polite, but once Frank had his coat on, Sam slipped her arm through his and leaned into him a bit. I rubbed my face and blew out a breath. My brain hurt.
A flash of fairy shot through the door and into the shop as Sam and Frank walked out.
I heard a whistle followed by a voice I didn’t recognize saying, “Woo hoo sexy girl!”
Sam lit up like she was having an allergic reaction. The blush was an absolute spectacle against her pale skin.
I heard Foster yell, “Sorry Sam!” as she continued down the street. She smiled and waved. Frank’s head was cocked back and his shoulders were shaking, but I couldn’t hear his laugh as they walked out of view.
The newcomer settled down by the register. He
had sharp features like Foster, but his hair was a rich red and his muscles were out of control. I just stared at the little fairy, waiting for him to start flexing and posing.
“Ah, you must be that sook of a necromancer, aye?”
“Umm, aye?” I said.
The fairy nodded his head. “Good tah meet a friend ’round this hackit town.”
“This is Colin,” Foster said as he rolled his eyes and mock despair filled his voice. “He’s not from around here.”
I stared at Foster and blinked. “Really? Hell, I never would have figured that one out.”
“Oh, sarcasm, I never would have seen that coming,” Foster said, mocking me with my own words.
I stared at the fairy again and he just stared back. I finally gave up and looked back at Colin. “It’s good to meet you.”
Colin laughed as he said, “He’s a funny one, aye.” He followed Foster to the back room.
I smiled, shook my head, and turned to Zola. “So, why don’t you help me out with this big bad throw down?”
“Ah’m busy, bigger fish to fry on the east coast. Ah need to leave in a couple days.”
I didn’t even ask. Bigger than a demon? What the hell is a bigger fish than a demon? Thanks but no. I didn’t need more crap to fuel my nightmares. “I don’t even want to know, Zola.”
“Well, you’ll probably find out eventually if everything goes well.” She grinned and jabbed me in the shoulder with her cane.
I winced and rubbed the screaming muscle. “Awesome. I’ll try to contain myself in the meantime.”
Sam walked back in, laughing.
“Why is my pain so funny?”
She shrugged and when she reached us I snapped out, “Get a quickie in out there?”
Modern Magic Page 70
