by M. R. Forbes
“You’re resistant to magic, remember,” I said, “It won’t work on you, anyway. It sure is toasty out here, though.”
We kept going, heading for the cabin. A wisp of smoke was escaping from the chimney, and I could smell something cooking.
“Aww man,” Frank said. “Is that burgers?”
“Smells like it to me,” Amos said. “And I don’t get my foods wrong.”
The scent was making me ill. A wave of nausea passed over me, and I had to stop moving and lean over, ready to lose whatever bile I had in my gut.
“Conor? Dannie said, coming to my side and putting her arms around me.
“The smell is awful,” I said, trying to cover my nose with my coat.
“Nah, it’s awesome,” Frank said. “I’ll go rid you of it.”
He started toward the cabin again, practically at a run.
“Frank, wait a second,” Amos said, calling out to him. He turned to look at me, shaking his head. “Fuck. This ain’t real.”
“What?” I said, at the same time Ashiira broke away from us, walking in the opposite direction, staring at something that wasn’t there.
“It ain’t real, Baldie. Yellow is fucking with us. I don’t get my foods wrong, and I can tell when I’m being charmed. It comes with the territory.”
I closed my mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. I wanted to dispel the hamburger scent, but I couldn’t get my shit together well enough to do it.
“Might not be Yellow,” Amos said. “Might be a House Stud. Hold tight.”
I nodded as Amos broke after Frank, running as best he could. He was fairly agile for such a large guy.
“Conor,” Dannie said, still standing with me. She leaned down, her mouth against my ear. “I want you.”
I turned my face toward her. “What?”
“I want you,” she repeated, leaning in toward me and trying to kiss me.
I moved my head away. “No, you don’t. You’re under a spell. We all are.”
“The only spell I’m under is yours,” she said.
“What about Ashiira?”
“You think I would have sex with a dragon? What do I look like? Just because he’s got those pecs and that smile? I don’t need that. I need you.”
She slid her hand over my chest. I doubted it was anything close to being sexy. I had to grab her wrist before she could get to my pants.
“Dannie, you’re charmed,” I said. “Yellow is fucking with us.”
I pushed her back, the bile rising to my mouth. I had to stop this. I put up my hand, trying to remember the spell, drawing in the death magic from the fields around us. I coughed before I could finish, spilling the bile onto the snow.
“That is so hot,” Dannie said beside me.
No, it was fucking gross. I looked toward the cabin. Frank had already gone inside, and Amos was almost there. I tried to find Ashiira. He had started running and had almost vanished over the snow-covered hill.
I would have thought a dragon would be impervious to magic like that, but maybe his age was a detriment when it came to charms. Either way, we were falling apart before we even got started, broken by a House wizard way before we even got a sniff of Samedi.
Honestly, it was embarrassing.
Still, maybe I could make the most of it.
“Dannie, tell me something,” I said, facing her again. Her head darted towards mine, and this time I let her kiss me. She didn’t seem bothered that my mouth probably tasted like a sewer. The idea of it made me nauseous all over again.
“What is it?” she asked breathlessly.
“Do you remember what happened to you after you died? That night in the cemetery?” I was pretty sure she wouldn’t remember any of this if we managed to break the spell.
Pretty sure.
“We had sex in a cemetery?” she asked. “Kinky.”
I shook my head. I should have known.
A sharp echo sounded. A gunshot. It was followed by two more. I looked back at the cabin. The door was hanging open. A moment later, a lanky asshole in a warm-up suit landed in the snow outside, with Amos right behind him.
He scrambled to his feet as Amos pointed at us. The asshole glanced our way, grimaced, and snapped his fingers.
Immediately, the charm vanished. The smell went away. The nausea went away. Dannie backed off, rubbing her head in confusion. Frank came back out of the cabin, chewing on the leg of a chair. He dropped it when he realized it wasn’t whatever he had thought it was.
“Ashiira?” I said.
“I’m coming, brother,” he replied, able to think for himself once again.
I straightened up, glancing over at Dannie. She looked back at me, but other than the face she made because of the taste on her lips, she didn’t seem to remember what she had been doing. Otherwise, she should have at least been a little embarrassed.
“I fucking hate tricksters,” I said, trudging toward the cabin.
Death magic was chaotic. Trickster magic was just plain annoying. Worse than illusion. Worse than anything, as far as I was concerned.
We reached the track-suited beanpole, who was busy trying to wipe the snow off his velvet. I put my hand out toward him, ready to grab his wrist and show him some real magic. Amos waved me off.
“Hang on a second, Baldie,” he said. “Let him be.”
“Why? He nearly got us all killed.”
“I’m just doing my job,” the trickster replied. “Yellow would tell me I should have fought to the death, but forget that. I know when I’ve met my match.” He yanked his thumb toward Amos. “Big guy here only took two shots to figure out which girl was me.”
“They were nice girls, though,” Amos said. “They even had horsey tails.”
Ashiira came charging up to us, his eyes red with anger. I got in front of him before he could tear the trickster apart.
“Hang on there, Ash,” I said. “He was just doing his job.”
“I don’t suppose you have any real wings?” Frank asked.
“First things first,” the trickster said. “Who are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Night,” I said, holding out my hand. “Conor Night.”
He reached out and took it.
“Necromancer,” I finished.
He tried to pull it away. I held tight.
“Conor,” Amos said.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Cecil,” he replied, shaking slightly as I gripped his hand.
“Conor,” Dannie said. “Leave him alone.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Is Yellow home?”
Cecil shook his head.
“Where is he?”
The trickster looked away, as though there was something sneaking up behind me.
“I’m not falling for that,” I said, pushing a smidge of death magic his way. He shook a little harder and tried to pull away.
“Conor,” Amos said again.
“There’s some bad shit about to happen in the world,” I said. “I need Yellow’s help to stop it.”
“Mr. Yellow is at a wizard moot,” Cecil said. “Please. Let me go.”
I did. He drew his hand back, rubbing at his wrist. A bruise had appeared where the magic had touched him.
“A wizard moot?” Ashiira said. “Why wasn’t House Red invited?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Y left in a hurry. He said something about Mr. Black going dark and a fucking ancient undead evil, and then he asked me to keep an eye on things and vanished.”
“If the Houses are talking about Samedi, we might be in luck,” I said.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dannie replied. “They’re probably trying to figure out how best to weather the storm, not how to stop it.”
“You have access to the Machine in there, Yellow Ranger?” Amos asked.
“I can’t let you go in there,” Cecil said. “Mr. Y would kill me.”
“News flash, we’ve already been in,” Frank said. “I ate half a stool.”
�
�Couldn’t you have picked a different word?” Amos asked, laughing.
“You’re a sick man, Amos,” Frank replied.
“So I’ve heard. Anyway, Gumby, if you don’t let us in, I’ll kill you.” He paused, and then his smile turned slightly. It was effectively evil. “Or better yet, I’ll let Conor here do it.”
Cecil backed up a step. “You stay away from me,” he said. “You say you know something about whatever’s happening out there?”
“More than any of the heads of the Houses probably do,” I said. I knew what he was getting at. “I’m willing to share what I know with Yellow when he comes back.”
He smiled. “Well, it wouldn’t be very hospitable for me to leave you standing out in the cold, now would it?”
“No, it would not,” Amos said.
“You aren’t going to pull any trickster bullshit?” Dannie asked.
“Well, I can’t make any promises, I mean -”
I reached out toward him again. He twirled out of the way, nearly falling over to escape my grip.
“I mean, of course not,” he said. “We’re good.” He stepped to the side, motioning to the door. “Please, step inside. Me casa e su casa.”
“This isn’t your house,” Frank said.
“A technicality,” Cecil said. “What are you waiting for? My balls are going to fall off if we stay out here much longer.”
“Heh, that’s what I said,” Amos said, moving past the trickster and through the door.
We followed him in.
Of course, Mr. Yellow’s house was much bigger on the inside.
11
It was all Yellow.
“So,” Cecil said as we gathered in the foyer of Yellow’s mansion, which was definitely not a small cabin in the middle of Siberia. “What are you guys, anyway?”
“What do you mean?” Dannie said.
“A fat guy. A necro. A-” he paused when he looked at Frank.
“Trogre,” Frank said. “Half-troll, half-ogre.”
“Nice. A trogre. A pyro?” he guessed, looking at Ashiira. “And a stripper.”
“I’m not a fucking stripper,” Dannie said.
“Hah,” Amos said. “Why did you say she’s a stripper?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. You just have that look.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind,” Cecil said, his face flushing. “All I’m saying is, you’re the most diverse collection of freaks I’ve ever seen working a job together.”
“Social skills,” I said. “Get some.”
He bit his lower lip. “Um. Sorry.”
“Believe it or not, we’re the world’s best hope of stopping a lich from using the dead to start a war against the living,” I said.
“I’m terrified to believe that,” Cecil said.
“You can’t stop it,” a new voice said.
We all turned our heads at once, as a fossil of a man entered the room, leaning on a staff and looking more like a wizard in a fantasy novel than the real deal.
“Mr. Y,” Cecil said. “I. Uh. They.”
“Forget about it, Cee,” Mr. Yellow said. He looked at me, his eyes tired. “You can’t stop it,” he repeated. “Not before it starts, anyway. The dead are already starting to rise.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Everywhere,” he replied, sending a chill through my spine.
“What?” Amos said. “How can that be? Nobody can work magic everywhere at once.”
“I don’t know,” Yellow said. “There hasn’t been a lich in this world for forty-thousand years.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said.
“You caused this?” Yellow said, his face twisting in anger. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Whoa,” Amos said, stepping in front of me. “Hold up there, Colonel Mustard. Most of this bullshit was Black’s idea.”
“Black? He didn’t come to the wizard-moot. Where is he?”
“Dead,” Dannie said. “Or taken. However you want to think of it. Samedi ate his soul and took his body.”
“It sounds worse when you say it like that,” Frank said.
Yellow shook his head. “The Houses don’t have enough power to contain this threat, not without Mr. Black.”
“Then it’s a good thing Conor here does,” Frank said.
“You?” Yellow said again.
“It takes a necromancer to kill a lich,” Ashiira said.
“And how would you know that?”
“Mr. Yellow,” I said. “Meet the new Mr. Red.”
“New Mr. Red?” Yellow replied. “What happened to the old one?”
“Again, dead,” Dannie said. “Again, Samedi. And if you don’t think he’ll be targeting the heads of the Houses, you’re dumber than Conor. You’re a threat to his ability to destroy the world.”
“Fuck,” Mr. Yellow said, in a way that made it clear he didn’t say it often or even feel completely comfortable saying it. He paused a moment before looking at me again. “Well, you’re here. I assume that means you want something?”
“Machine access,” Cecil said.
Mr. Yellow laughed. “That’s all? Access to the Machine? And that’s going to stop the lich how, exactly?”
“Osmosis,” Frank said, laughing.
“I’m looking for a spell. A portal to the afterworld.”
“There is no afterworld.”
“I used to think that too,” I said. “Before I got tuned in to death magic. By the way, there is.”
“Well, Machine resources are one thing we have plenty of to spare. But then, I imagine that’s why you came to my door. I’m not exactly the most powerful wizard among the houses. I suppose that would be Purple, now that Black is out of the picture. I’m sure that bitch will be gloating about it soon enough.”
“At least until Samedi kills her,” Amos said.
Yellow smiled at the comment. There was no love left to lose between most of the Houses.
“Cecil, take our visitors down to the Machinery and help Inari get them settled with whatever they need. Mods, hacks, cheats. Anything.”
“Cheats?” I said, raising an eyebrow. I glanced at Dannelle. “You never told me anything about cheats.”
“Please,” she replied. “Like we were ever close to being able to afford that.”
“I expect to be informed of your next steps when you’re finished,” Yellow said.
“Does that mean you’re going to help us?” Amos asked.
“I have a personal interest in keeping the world from being overrun by corpses.”
“Nobody ever told me you were such a card, Mr. Y,” Amos said. “I would have come and worked for you if I had known.”
“Amos,” I said.
“If you’ll follow me,” Cecil said, motioning to us.
12
High School reunion.
“Well, look at us,” Amos said as we boarded an elevator. “The original crew, back together. I bet this would make for a nice selfie.”
“I’m sure it would,” I said. “Too bad the only thing that’ll fit in the frame is your head.”
Amos laughed. “Not bad, Baldie. I think you’re getting better at put-downs.”
I ignored him, turning to Dannie. “So, tell me more about Machine cheats.”
“They aren’t as cool as you think they are,” Dannie replied. “They’re not all that different from mods. There’s a nuance to it that I don’t have time to explain to you.”
“And I’m not smart enough to get, right? Because I’m not tech savvy.”
“Your words, not mine, but yeah. Something like that. The simple explanation is that cheats are little packages that go against the grain of the Machine’s programming. What makes them better than mods is they don’t need to be activated. They’re intent based.”
“That’s the simple version? Can you give me an example?”
“Let’s say you want to walk through a wall. You could have the ghost mod, which makes you inta
ngible. Or, you could have a cheat that allows you to slip through things. One is active; one is keyed to an intent. One needs to be used; one occurs automatically. Also, and here’s the biggest nuance, while the mod changes your avatar and makes you able to pass through the wall, the cheat changes the wall, which allows you past.”
“So mods affect you, and cheats affect the world around you?”
“You could put it that way,” Dannie admitted.
“It makes a hell of a lot more sense than what you just said,” Amos said.
The elevator stopped. The doors started opening. I looked down as water began pouring in.
“What the hell?” I said. “Stop the doors.”
Amos started laughing. Cecil had a stupid grin on his face. The water vanished.
I reached out to grab the trickster, but he ducked under my hand and into the hallway.
“That’s for scaring the shit out of me,” he said, making sure to keep some distance between us.
“Just wait until next time,” I replied.
“Come on,” Dannie said, putting her hand on my shoulder.
We followed Cecil down the hall and into a dimly lit room. I’d been to a few of these places already, and they were all pretty much the same. Rows of chairs, helmets resting on top of powerful computers that were all tied to a central server located somewhere else in the room. An Operator who was probably young, female, sassy, and appropriately disinterested as she kept watch over the users. A lingering smell of sweat and other bodily fluids that made the place smell like the worst cross between a gym and a latrine.
“Inari,” Cecil said. “We’ve got fresh meat.”
I was sure with a name like Inari I was going to get exactly what I was expecting.
I did.
Sort of.
Inari appeared from around a corner, probably where the main server was resting. Only I knew her by a different name.
“Oh, fuck,” she said, seeing me. Her eyes shifted to Dannie. “Oh. Fuck!”
Tears sprang into her eyes, and she charged toward Dannie like a horny bull. Dannie backed up a step, not sure what to make of the reaction.
She had never met Prithi in the real world before.
