by Bryan Fields
“Ah. Testing how much pain I can take?”
Rose shook her head. “No. You have to want it, to assert your ownership. Just hang on to the crystal, no matter what. Focus on that.” She lifted the crystal up and turned it so the back of her hand was resting on the table.
I took hold of the top half of the crystal, and then released it and removed my belt. I doubled the belt over and bit down on it. I grabbed the crystal again and nodded to Rose. She licked her lips and began speaking in Draconic.
The stone’s surface shifted from smooth to spiky. Scores of needle-sharp spires lanced into my hand, thrusting through bone and erupting out the other side. My head snapped back, screams muffled by the belt clamped between my teeth.
The spikes piercing my hand pulsed and thickened. Bones cracked and split, tendons tore. I pounded my free hand on the desk, shaking my head back and forth. Blood streamed over the crystal, seeping into cracks and fissures to pool in the heart of the stone.
My gut clenched and I doubled over. My belt flew out of my mouth, but I didn’t have enough breath to scream. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rose, pressing her arm into the table with her free hand. Her head was down, shoulders hunched and shaking. Her whimpers escalated into an inhuman keening shriek.
The crystal vanished, but the pain didn’t. It just wasn’t as agonizing. I sat up, gasping, staring at the mass of meat and bone on the end of my right arm. Rose’s hand seemed to have had the skin and much of the muscle flayed off. I closed my eyes and sobbed.
That was when my hand started putting itself back together. If anything, it was even worse. I passed out while screaming.
When I woke up, I had dried blood crusting my eyes and running out of my ears. Rose was on the floor next to me, still unconscious. I rolled over, grasping her hand and pressing it to my chest. I sagged back against the floor and practiced breathing until Rose began moving.
I patted the back of her hand. “Are you all right?”
She smiled. “Yes. Listen.” She looked up at the ceiling, waving her finger in a slow circle.
I listened. At first I couldn’t hear anything, but soon I heard the quiet. All the noises from outside seemed muffled. I could feel a palpable aura of solidity around us. It felt the way I’ve always imagined it would feel to be inside Cheyenne Mountain when they close the vault door—one step short of entombed, but safer than anywhere else in the world.
I pulled Rose to me. “Please tell me we don’t ever have to renew that.”
“No. Bought and paid for.” She held her arm up, flexing her fingers. Satisfied, she muttered a brief incantation and the blood vanished from our bodies, clothes, and the carpet. “Blood creates ownership, just as with your sword. Now we’re protected from scrying, thieves, and wandering salesmen. Anyone who already knows where we live can find the house, but everyone else will just walk past it.”
“So what are the odds Grover is protected from scrying as well? If he’s from your world, would he know how to do the blocking spell?”
Rose shook her head. “I can do a simple scrying spell to test it, but I don’t think he’s from my world. Giving a Human a key to locate Earth is forbidden. Besides, a mage powerful enough to plane-travel wouldn’t have any healing powers. The Humans who can do that sort of healing would have no power once they got here. Different world, different deities. I think he’s something new.”
The phone rang. I took a deep breath and answered the phone. “This is David.”
“You surprised me, David.” Grover had the same, half-distracted tone to his voice. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since someone surprised me. It was… refreshing? Yes. Refreshing. However, since I have yet to meet anyone Earth-born possessing the magical talent of a stabbed rat, I have to assume you are not local. I’m therefore elevating my expectations of you, and you would do well to meet them. By the way, my name is Ingrim Thain. I took poor Grover’s name when I first came to this world. He didn’t need it anymore.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. “My warning still stands. Once I release the information I have, and it will go out no matter what, the drug trial is over. Whatever you’re planning, the feds will shut it down. You might want to pack up whatever is precious to you and hop on back to the old home world while you still can.”
“I’m sorry, but that is not in the order of things.” He breathed out a long sigh. “You seem a fine chap. It’s a waste to destroy you. I wanted you to know that. Goodbye, David.”
I hung up the phone and looked at the clock. Twelve hours until our findings would be released to the authorities. I’d be feeling a lot better about all this if Thain hadn’t been enjoying himself so much. Like it or not, I had a lot to lose in this fight. I was going to have to change tactics.
Rose came back into the room with a plate-sized mirror made of obsidian. She sat on the floor and placed the mirror in front of her. “This is a very low-power spell, but if he has any protections at all, we’ll find out.”
“His real name is Ingrim Thain,” I said. “For some reason he wanted me to know that.”
She nodded and focused on the mirror. She didn’t move for a minute or so. Without looking up, she said, “I see him. He’s wearing a mask, something Egyptian. It looks like he’s outdoors. Trees. I see lights on water. Near a lake. Something else nearby. Swing set. Playground. He’s…” She shook her head and looked up at me. “He’s across the street.”
I walked to the front window and stared out into the night. Out in the street, there was movement between the glow of the streetlights.
Well, at least I’d been right about the flying ass monkeys.
Chapter Six
Zombies in the Park
The figures moving down the street didn’t stumble or shamble, instead, they ran from shadow to shadow, staying out of well-lit areas. They settled into a skirmish line, advancing on the six centermost houses on the street. They looked like normal people, except for the feral attitude and the number of knives they were carrying. I counted almost two dozen—two or three at least for each building. Why weren’t they converging on us?
He doesn’t know which house is ours. I ran into the kitchen and dialed 911. “Yeah, hi, there are about a dozen guys dressed as zombies out in the street in front of my house. I’d say it was a prank or some kind, but you never know. Exactly, better safe than sorry. Thank you.”
Rose growled at me. “I can go home, change, and be back with both my brothers in a handful of seconds. We can burn them to ashes before the police get here.”
“I know.” I pointed out the window. “But they’re still living people. You can’t just kill them. Besides, if you do, he’ll see you. He’s trying to flush us out. He wants information, so we answer with deception.”
“Oh, subtlety.” She snorted, leaving wisps of smoke trailing from her nostrils. “I guess you can try that. Let me know how it works.” She went into the living room and kicked back on the couch. Thirteen shook his head at her and walked past me toward the front window.
I smiled. “This way you get to stay a surprise and have a big, dramatic entrance when the time is right.”
Rose waved me away. “Let me know if there’s anything the cat can’t handle.”
Flashing red and blue lights flooded in through the front window. I joined Thirteen there, watching the cops assessing the situation. One was ordering the crowd to drop their weapons and the other was calling for back up. Neither saw the guy with the spear until he came up and stabbed the cop who was using the radio from behind. The cop dropped the handset and sagged against the door of his car. His partner turned and fired, putting three rounds in the center of the attacker’s chest. Then he grabbed the handset on his own shoulder, shouting into it as he covered the advancing crowd.
My sense of duty was yelling for me to grab my sword and join in the fray. I suppressed it, because this was only the first skirmish, and we needed information. Duty won out. I dove into the coat closet in the hallway and rooted around u
ntil I found the dust-covered two-hander I used to fight with back in my stick jock days. Armed with five feet of duct-taped rattan, I headed outside.
The stabbed cop was on the ground next to his car, with a crowd of knife-wielding maniacs surrounding him. I charged in. The Society forbids attacks from behind and blows to the knees, precisely because they’re so darn effective. One guy tried to swing at me, but my parry broke several of his fingers and sent the knife flying. Most of the others either backed up or broke and ran.
The last three were real trouble. The first had a blood-smeared machete and a police riot shield, while the second carried two hunga-munga knives and moved like a trained fighter. I fell back to draw them away from the downed officer.
Machete Guy attacked with a wild swing at my neck. I stepped back again and planted my feet. While he was off-balance and trying to recover, I swept up and under his shield, breaking his elbow. I dropped to one knee, catching the guy across the shins. Just like in football, one tibia equals two feet. He howled and dropped. He still tried to come at me, but he wasn’t making much progress.
Hunga-Munga had danced off to the side, watching the fight. Instead of closing, he backed up. His knives had three or four short blades sticking out of the handle at different angles, making them excellent throwing weapons. He tried to circle me, blades constantly moving, and completely missed Thirteen’s approach.
The cat erupted from under the police car, sinking his front claws into Hunga-Munga’s upper chest and raking his hind claws across the man’s crotch. Hunga-Munga dropped his knives and tried to grab the cat. Thirteen hissed and struck, ripping the man’s cheek open and leaving bloody furrows across a ruined eye. Hunga-Munga grabbed his face. Thirteen dropped to the ground and slashed the man’s right Achilles tendon. Game, set, and match to the cat.
Bachelor Number Three was a kid. Maybe fourteen, tops. He was holding the officer’s sidearm. His hands were bloody to the elbow and his mouth was ringed with gore. I charged before he could aim.
I swung up and chopped down on his wrist. The gun dropped. I let momentum carry me half around. I turned my head, looked over my shoulder to target the guy, and came around full-circle, catching him in the ribs. He tried to dive out of the way and put his skull into the police cruiser door. He dropped. I kicked the gun under the cruiser, grabbed the wounded cop under the shoulder, and dragged him to the sidewalk. His partner dropped the last of three attackers with the butt of his flashlight and called for more backup and EMTs.
I took a quick look at the downed cop’s injuries. He was in bad shape. Lots of cuts, some deep. Lots of bite marks and missing flesh. I got my shirt off and applied pressure to the worst spots until two more police cruisers pulled up. The attackers scattered, some with cops in pursuit.
I turned the wounded cop over to the EMTs as soon as they arrived, and collected a warm blanket in trade. Wrapped in the blanket, I stood where the OIC pointed and waited to give my statement. The marauders were all in custody, and a good sized crowd was gathering. I started to relax, until I saw the guy walking across the grass toward me.
He was bare-chested, wearing a white linen kilt, gold bracelets, a beaded gold necklace, and a full-head mask of Anubis. His skin was patchy and dry, his clothes decrepit and threadbare. Some bits of him were missing entirely. It had to be Thain.
He looked over the area, ending with the cluster of handcuffed attackers sitting on the ground. Some were still struggling against the cuffs and trying to lunge at anyone who came close to them, but most were sitting still and not moving at all.
Thain waved his hand, and all semblance of them being living human beings vanished. They were partially-decayed corpses—some more animate than others. Thain used his finger to write hieroglyphic symbols in lines of fire on the air in front of him. When he finished, the letters blazed for a moment before vanishing. All the handcuffed corpses fell to the ground and crumbled to powder.
Thain wasn’t finished with the magic show. He held his fist out toward me, and a shining ostrich feather struck me in the chest. It passed through skin and bone, settling into my heart. Falling to my knees seemed to take forever. I heard each beat as my heart slowed and stopped. I raised my head enough to stare into the eyes of the Anubis mask. All I saw there was shadow.
Something moved in the grass at his feet. A crocodile raised its head, grinning as it waddled toward me. The crocodile was wearing a gold headband, and it had the front claws and chest of a lion. The back half of it looked mostly hippopotamus, stomping along on legs that seemed far too short for such speed. The scary part was that I recognized it. It was the goddess Ammut, the Devourer of Souls.
Which meant the feather was the feather of Ma’at, and it was weighing my heart to see if I was a good person. If I failed, Ammut would consume me. No rebirth, no reincarnation, no Summerland. Sometimes I hate being well educated in all manner of weird shit.
Ammut crossed the street in easy bounds, slowing to a stop in front of me. She snapped at me, but didn’t get any closer. She just shifted from paw to paw, watching, jaw hanging open in a feral grin.
I stared back at her, trying to think of what I needed to say. I have not committed sin. I have not slain innocents. I have not lain with my neighbor, nor his wife. I have not spoken against the gods. I have not defiled the temple. I have not farted in elevators. I— I have not—
The roaring in my ears drowned out any other thoughts. Dark red blotches filled my vision, blocking out everything but Ammut’s slavering jaws.
Thunder sounded. Again. And twice more. I opened my mouth and drew sweet, sweet air into my lungs. The thunder diminished into regular heartbeats and the red miasma retreated from the edges of my vision. I got to my feet. For a brief moment, an ankh burned over my heart, glowing like molten gold. It vanished, taking Ammut with it. It left me bursting with energy and ready to take on the world.
I glared at Thain and spit on the ground in front of him. “You hit like a bitch.” I summoned Kindness to my hands and charged.
Thain fell back, dodging my first blow. He drew a long bronze dagger and slashed at me. I knocked the dagger from his hand with my return stroke. I took a half-step back and changed to waki-gamae stance, holding Kindness behind me and parallel to my right leg.
Thain crossed his arms in front of his heart, fingers extended to frame his jaw line. I didn’t have to understand the words to recognize a spell being cast, so I went with the best counter-spell I know of—swift and blinding violence.
I roared my kiai and struck, slashing Thain from shoulder to hip. He stumbled back, ribcage dangling open. Nothing emerged from the wound but dust and a few bugs. His chest had only desiccated organs held in place by crumpled sheets of papyrus. His heart was little more than a lumpy black sponge wrapped in silver chains.
Behind me, one of the cops said, “Holy Mother of God…” He followed his catechism with three rounds from his Glock. All three blew through Thain’s chest and kept on going until they hit a tree.
Thain pushed the pieces of his ribcage back together. The fusing bones cracked and popped like bubble wrap being crushed underfoot. He brushed dust from his hands and looked at the chaos and carnage around us. He turned back to me, grasped the Anubis mask with both hands, and lifted it off his head.
He was bald, skin tight and dry against his skull. His lips had either pulled back or broken away, revealing a general lack of teeth. His nose had decayed away and his eyes were missing. Instead, a nauseating green glow filled his eye sockets.
Thain nodded and asked, “Do you think you can stop me, David?”
I shrugged. “Find out.” I dropped the sword’s point behind me and charged. No upward slash this time, I kept the blade low and cut him across the outside of his leg. He staggered, dropping the mask.
I grabbed his shoulder, driving Kindness through his back and into his heart. The blade stopped as though I’d hit a brick wall. Something threw Kindness backward, slamming the hilt into my sternum. The sword careened off to the le
ft. I hit the ground, holding my chest.
Thain turned around and exhaled a cloud of scorpions. I covered my face and rolled, trying to brush them off with the grass. I crushed some and knocked others loose, but the little bastards were everywhere. My arms, stomach, and back erupted with stings. I howled, flailing my arms in a wild attempt to knock them off me.
One of the cops unloaded his shotgun into Thain’s head. It knocked Thain back, but it didn’t drop him. The gaping wound sealed itself, leaving the cop fumbling for more shotgun shells. All he could say was, “Ohshitohshitohshitohshit…”
Another cop came to my rescue by spraying me with pepper gas. He—mostly—avoided spraying my face, and the gas either killed the scorpions or chased them away. I didn’t care which. The bad news was the gas made the scorpion stings even worse.
Thain stuck with his creepy-insects theme, sending a wave of scarabs gushing from the gaps in his torso. They engulfed the officer with the shotgun and started eating. Thain stood over him holding a red crystal on a silver chain. As the cop screamed and writhed, a red mist flowed up from his body and into the crystal. Thain seemed to be enjoying it.
I staggered to my feet, Kindness in one hand and a convenient tree trunk in the other. I set my feet and brought Kindness down on the red crystal with everything I had.
The impact knocked me backward into the tree. My hands and arms were numb, and refused to respond. I slid down the tree until I was sitting next to it, staring. I wasn’t sure where Kindness had landed, but I couldn’t see her.
The scarabs flowed back up Thain’s legs and crowded back into his chest, leaving behind a tattered remnant of uniform and a skeleton with shreds of flesh sticking to it. Thain twisted the crystal’s chain between his fingers, smirking at me.
“Blades are no better than bullets, fool. The rune Iron-Can’t-Bite protects me. No metal known to mortal man can afflict me.” Thain opened his chest to wrap the crystal’s chain around his heart again.
