Dying Is My Business

by Nicholas Kaufmann

  I’d lost track of the mohawked revenant below, but now I saw it again. It was holding something in its hand. A gun. My gun. It must have picked it up from the floor. Now it was pointing it at Gabrielle’s back.

  “Behind you!” I shouted.

  Gabrielle spun around, lifting the burning sword again, but it was too late. The gun went off. She jerked back, a red splotch blossoming in the spot between her shoulder and chest. She spun from the shot, and the burning sword took off the mohawked revenant’s head. Gabrielle crumpled to the floor. The burning sword extinguished itself. She lay so still that I was worried she was dead. Then I saw her take a shallow breath and knew she was only unconscious. I felt a surprising amount of relief. Apparently, I was starting to care about these people. It was a new feeling.

  Reve Azrael loomed over Gabrielle, a cruel smile twisting Thornton’s features. She picked up the gun, and aimed it squarely at Gabrielle’s head.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Reve Azrael pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, empty. I let out my breath. I’d never been so relieved to run out of bullets.

  She tossed the gun aside. “No matter. She will be dead soon enough, just like the rest of this accursed city.” She looked at Thornton’s hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Oh, but I like this body. Dead, yes, but whole. Strong. Thank you for making it so much better than the rotting carcasses I’m used to. I think I’ll keep it a while. It has so many useful memories to draw from. And one in particular that I am most thankful for.” She walked to the bookcase that hid Isaac’s vault, and pulled the small leather globe. The bookcase swung open. Isaac’s face remained defiant as he watched her punch in the combination on the keypad of the metal door behind the bookcase. Then the metal door swung open, too, and bright light spilled through the doorway from the vault, accompanied by the strange, deep hum I’d heard before.

  “Ah, such marvels,” Reve Azrael said. She walked inside.

  With the shadowborn between us and her, there was nothing we could do to stop her from helping herself to the contents of the vault. All we could do was retreat up the steps to the landing. The shadowborn stayed where they were at the bottom of the steps, keeping us penned in. Either they were awaiting further instructions, or they were just toying with us, knowing they’d won.

  Isaac was crouching over Philip, keeping pressure on the vampire’s wound. “We can’t just let her take it,” I said, but Isaac didn’t answer me. Philip groaned in pain. “We can’t just let her win!” I insisted.

  “Did you really think it would end any other way?” Melanthius asked, stepping forward. The rictus smile of his golden skull mask looked like a smirk.

  Reve Azrael emerged from the vault, carrying the box. My heart sank. This was it, then. We’d lost. Reve Azrael had Stryge’s head.

  “Picture it, mage,” she said as she joined Melanthius in the center of the room. “An entire city of the dead. It’s almost enough to make me want to spare your life, just so you can see it before you die. Almost.”

  Isaac’s eyes were cold and hard. “There are ten million people in this city, Reve Azrael. Someone will stop you. If not us then others, but someone will stop you.”

  Reve Azrael laughed. “Who? The Guardians? They do not care. They will sit on their hands and watch, as they always do. Or perhaps you think the wretched denizens of this city will rise up to stop me, these selfish, blind, and craven fools who swarm the sidewalks like mindless vermin, who cower in their homes in fear of each other? None of them will move against me. No one will risk their own lives. Even you never did, mage. Oh yes, I am aware of your clandestine activities, the thefts of artifacts from all over this city. I have been aware of you and your operation for some time now. Did you really think no one would notice? How foolish you are, how shortsighted. No wonder I defeated you so easily. Next, I expect you will beg for your life.”

  Isaac remained quiet.

  “No? Very well, mage.” Reve Azrael turned to the shadowborn. “Kill them. Then bring our buzzing little fly to me.”

  The shadowborn climbed up the stairs toward us. I backed up a few steps, holding the spear in front of me. The shadowborn vanished. I spun one-eighty, desperate to see where they’d gone, clutching the spear so hard my knuckles looked like snow. Philip was still lying on the landing, half conscious, but Isaac was on his feet again, scanning the room intently.

  The shadowborn appeared again, one on the landing right behind Isaac, and the other on the steps just above Bethany and me, cutting us off. Damn. Divide and conquer. There was a reason it was a classic strategy. It tended to work.

  The first shadowborn was about to stab Isaac through the back when the mage spun, dropped, and rolled, sending a blast of fire from his palms. The shadowborn dematerialized before the flames hit it.

  The second was already coming down the steps toward me and Bethany. I feinted at it with the spear, feeling about as intimidating as an extra in a Tarzan movie, but the shadowborn vanished. I guess if you’re able to phase out of the material plane whenever you want, you don’t have to be big on courage.

  “Trent, give me the spear,” Bethany said. I tossed it to her. She caught it, took a small charm out of her vest, and threw it to me. “Take this. When they come back, do your thing.”

  I looked at what she’d given me. It was the displacer charm. The bean-shaped burlap pod was still pierced through the middle by the rusty old nail she’d driven into it. “Do my thing? What does that mean?”

  She didn’t have time to answer before the pair of shadowborn reappeared again a few steps below, storming up toward us. I pointed the charm at them and pressed the nail in its center. A dark red blast erupted from the charm’s tip, and the whole room tinted carmine like I was looking through stained glass. Both shadowborn recoiled, stumbling dizzily back down the stairs. They lost their grip on their katanas and put their hands to their heads. Good. I hoped it hurt.

  Bethany didn’t waste a moment. Holding the spear out in front of her like the world’s shortest Amazon, she leapt off the stairs directly at the shadowborn. The spear pierced the chest of the nearest one and came out its back with a dry chuk, as if it had gone through a bag full of hay. The shadowborn lurched back, yanking the spear out of Bethany’s hands, still skewered through the middle like a cocktail olive.

  “They can’t phase!” Bethany shouted.

  From behind me, Isaac sent out a crackling beam of energy that made the hair on my neck stand on end. It struck the second shadowborn and blew it back across the room, where it crashed into one of the few display cases still standing, and landed in a shower of glass, metal, and small glowing crystal obelisks.

  But it would take a lot more than that to put the shadowborn out of commission. I ran down the stairs, grabbed the spear handle sticking out of the first shadowborn with both hands, and pushed it backward. Stuck through with the spear, the shadowborn kicked and dragged its feet as I pushed it farther and farther, but momentum was on my side. With nothing in its leather jumpsuit but very old bones, it wasn’t strong enough to stop me. I kept running, kept pushing, and drove the tip of the spear into the second shadowborn, which had just gotten back on its feet. I kept moving, pushing with everything I had until they hit the wall. The spear went through them both and embedded itself in the wood, pinning them there like butterflies.

  I stepped back, moving out of their reach as they clutched at me. Without the ability to phase, the shadowborn were stuck fast and not going anywhere. They looked absurd, pathetic even, but I had no sympathy for them. As far as I was concerned, if I ever saw another one of these undead ninja assholes, it would be too soon.

  I turned around, expecting to see Reve Azrael and Melanthius, but they were gone. The polished wooden door that led out of Citadel was open. They’d run off, escaping into the same city they wanted so badly to destroy.

  Thirty

  I ran outside into the rain. The storm clouds had turned the late afternoon as dark as night. It took me a moment to get
my bearings. I hadn’t been awake when they brought me to Citadel, so I didn’t know where I was. There was no street outside, no sidewalk or lamps either, just grass, and a thick forest in the distance. The familiar skyline of Fifth Avenue loomed above the trees, illuminated windows glittered against the clouds. I was in Central Park, I realized, closer to the East Side than the West.

  There was no sign of Reve Azrael or Melanthius. Not even footprints; the grass had already been pounded flat by the small army of revenants they’d brought with them. I scanned the forest edge in the dark, but I knew they could be anywhere by now. Central Park was more than eight hundred acres of forests, grottos, and hidden paths. I couldn’t even tell which direction they’d gone.

  I turned to go back inside, and got my first view of Citadel. An imposing three-story building of gray stone and stained-glass windows, it took my breath away. At each corner, a stone tower topped with crenellated battlements rose two additional stories above the domed roof. Suddenly the name Citadel made sense. It looked more like a fortress than a home. A paved path, just wide enough for a Parks Department vehicle, snaked past and forked in two. One path led back into the woods. The other ended in a patch of dirt beside Citadel, where the Escalade was parked.

  Funny, I’d been through the park numerous times and never noticed this building before. But then, I wasn’t supposed to. No one was. That was the point of wards.

  I went back inside. Isaac had burned the shadowborn while I was out, leaving only a spear sticking out of the wall and a mound of ashes beneath it.

  “Reve Azrael is gone,” I reported.

  “Of course she is, she got what she wanted,” Isaac said, his tone bristling with anger. He cast another spell to burn the bodies of the revenants scattered on the floor—either as a precaution or because he was so furious, I couldn’t tell—and in a flash the carpet was so thick with ash the room looked like the inside of a cremation furnace.

  “Isaac, I need your help,” Bethany said. She was crouched over Gabrielle’s unconscious body on the other side of the room. She’d torn open the shoulder of Gabrielle’s shirt and was applying pressure to the bullet wound to stop the bleeding.

  Isaac hurried to her, telling me to go look after Philip.

  The vampire was still on the middle landing. He’d regained consciousness but was weak. I helped him down the steps. He leaned his weight on me, his body as hard and heavy as stone. I finally got him onto the antique Queen Anne couch where we’d laid Thornton’s body earlier. Even as he settled onto the couch, breathing hard and sweating, he never took off his mirrored shades. I took that as a sign that he was probably okay.

  Philip winced as he adjusted himself to get comfortable. “Hurts like hell,” he said. “Take it from me, never be on the wrong end of a shadowborn’s sword.”

  “Too late,” I told him.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re the man who doesn’t stay dead. Must be nice not having to worry about it.”

  “Not as nice as you’d think,” I said. “Anyway, what’s it to you? I thought vampires were supposed to be dead already.”

  “You’ve been watching too many movies, man. I’m as alive as you are. Vampires just live longer, that’s all. And we’re a hell of a lot harder to kill.” He poked gloomily at the long tear across the fabric of his shirt. “Damn. This was the last of my black turtlenecks.”

  “If it’s any consolation, my shirts get ruined all the time, too,” I said. “You learn not to get attached.”

  Philip pointed at a small marble box sitting on an end table. “Do me a favor and hand me that box?” I got it for him. When he opened it, I saw it was filled with dirt, as rich and dark as coffee grounds. He took some in his fingers and smeared the dirt on his wound. He winced again, like someone putting antiseptic on a fresh cut, but the dirt seemed to lessen his pain.

  “Is that … magic dirt?” I asked. This was what my life had become. Asking if dirt was magical.

  “It’s just dirt,” he said, but didn’t explain further. He rubbed some more on his chest. “I’ll be fine now. You don’t need to stand over me like a mother hen.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said.

  Philip seemed to be recovering fine. Gabrielle had me a lot more worried. I went over to where Isaac and Bethany were crouched over her. They hadn’t moved her off the floor yet. They didn’t dare move her at all until she was stabilized. Isaac was holding a wooden bowl filled with some kind of fibrous green goop, while Bethany scooped out handfuls and patted them over the bullet wound. I knelt down beside Gabrielle. Her face was coated in sweat from shock, but she was still breathing and I could see the faint throb of her pulse in her neck. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She hasn’t lost too much blood,” Bethany answered. “The Sanare moss will stop the bleeding and help the wound heal faster.”

  “The bullet went right through her,” Isaac said. “The exit wound is pretty bad, but at least the bullet missed the brachial artery in her shoulder.”

  She was lucky. It would have been a lot worse if the bullet had stayed inside her. I knew that from personal experience.

  I watched Bethany apply more of the Sanare moss to Gabrielle’s shoulder. “Why did you give me the charm instead of using it yourself?” I asked her.

  “It wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” she said. “There was something wrong with my containment spell, remember? Reverse engineering is never as good as using an original spell.”

  “But still, you gave it to me,” I said. “You thought it would work if I used it?”

  She looked up at me. “It did, didn’t it? That’s what happened last time, so I took a chance it would happen again.” She shrugged. “Somehow, magic just seems to work better for you.”

  “That was a hell of a chance to take,” I said. “If it hadn’t worked…”

  “But as she said, it did,” Isaac said. “How often does that happen to you?”

  “How often does what happen?”

  He looked at me curiously. “Is magic always more powerful when you’re in contact with it?”

  I shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

  “It happened with the Anubis Hand, too, didn’t it? When you used it, it didn’t just stun the gargoyles, it killed them. Burned them up, that’s what Bethany said. And then there’s the shock Gabrielle experienced when she went too deeply into your mind. She said it was like feedback. Her own psychic energy coming back at her, but stronger…” He trailed off, tapping his short red beard in thought.

  Great, I thought, more reasons to think of myself as a freak. But I’d seen magic in its rawest form, and it was terrifying. If it was connected to me somehow, I had to know. “Okay then, so what does all this mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” Isaac said with a sigh. “Magic is an element of the natural world, no different from wood or fire, even if it has been tainted by the Shift. Casting a spell is just channeling and transforming that elemental energy, but even so, the energy should remain constant. If the charm didn’t work for Bethany, it shouldn’t have worked for you either.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “You’re a mage. Aren’t your spells supposed to be stronger or something?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing. Mages have access to a different level of magic, and through study and a greater understanding of the element we’re manipulating, it can be carried inside us with less chance of infecting us—”

  “Wait, less chance?” I interrupted. “I thought mages were immune.”

  “Nothing is foolproof,” he said. “There have been mages who’ve become infected. Some were weak-willed, or had an affinity for darkness already. Others … well, fending off the infection can be a struggle even for the most powerful among us.” I didn’t like the sound of that. Did it mean Isaac could become infected, too? At any time? “But, Trent,” he continued, “even a mage can’t make a faulty charm work, let alone operate with the kind of increased intensity that one did. That was all you. Somehow, you’re like a sh
ot of caffeine to magic. A supercharger.”

  “How?” I asked. “I don’t even know when I’m doing it.”

  “The real question isn’t how, Trent, it’s why,” Isaac said. “Why does magic become stronger around you? Why can’t you die? And why is Reve Azrael able find you whenever she wants?”

  Isaac had studied magic enough to become a mage, and yet even he didn’t know what to make of me. That wasn’t exactly comforting.

  “Guys, she’s coming around,” Bethany said.

  I looked down at Gabrielle. Her eyes fluttered open.

  Isaac smiled at her. “Welcome back. You gave us quite a scare.”

  With her good arm, Gabrielle pushed a few loose dreadlocks out of her face. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, gravelly. “I’m sorry. I saw his face and I—I just couldn’t do it.”

  “It’s all right,” Bethany said. “Don’t move. Just try to relax.”

  Gabrielle groaned as the pain of the gunshot wound finally sank in. “At least tell me you stopped them.”

  Bethany scooped more of the Sanare moss onto Gabrielle’s bullet wound. “I wish I could, but they got away. They took Stryge’s head with them.”

  “They took Thornton, too,” I said.

  Tears welled in Gabrielle’s eyes, and she turned away. “So that monster is still walking around in Thornton’s body, doing God knows what with it?” She choked back a sob, but then she couldn’t hold it in anymore and her body shook as she wept.

  “I need you to keep still,” Bethany said.

  “Keep still?” Gabrielle demanded, her sadness shifting to anger. “How the fuck am I supposed to keep still? She has his body, Bethany. She’s wearing him like a fucking dress. We have to go after her.”

  “Opening that bullet wound again isn’t going to get Thornton back,” I said. “Let them fix you up.”

  “While she takes him farther and farther away?” Gabrielle raged. “How can you say that? You know what he was to me. You fucking saw it!”