by M. R. Forbes
I looked over at the trickster. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. You didn’t notice how many of them were over there?”
“I was too busy trying not to die.”
“Yeah, we can’t all make ourselves look like a phone booth,” Amos said.
“Can we go back to Merlin?” Frank asked. “There may be something to that.”
“There isn’t,” I said. “None of the Arthurian Legends have ever been proven to be true.”
Frank glared at me. I guess he was still pissed. “I don’t mean Merlin specifically. Connect the dots, Boss. We know not everything magical died during the first reversal. Tarakona survived. Samedi survived. Death survived. Who else? What else? Somebody who had a spell to open a portal to the afterlife?”
“Heh, I think your depression is making you smarter,” Amos said. “It’s not a bad thought.”
“Not at all,” Dannie said. “What if Samedi knows they exist or used to exist? What if he’s trying to get there?”
“To get the spell before we do,” I said.
“Or kill the ancient wizard who knows it,” Ashiira said.
“Merlin,” Frank insisted.
“I’m tired,” Amos said. “Can’t we do this in the morning?”
“We’re all tired,” I said. “But if Samedi is already a step ahead, we don’t have time to rest.” I pulled myself to my feet, stifling a cough. “If I can keep going, so can you.”
“You may have cancer, but you aren’t carrying around any extra weight,” Amos said.
“That’s a choice,” I replied.
He laughed. “Maybe I’ll get that stomach surgery when this is done, slim my ass down. You think the girlies would like that?”
“It would certainly make your hair look bigger,” I said.
He ran his hands along the top of it. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Nothing,” Dannie replied. “If we’re going, let’s go before I collapse from exhaustion. I’m dead tired.”
We all looked at her. She smiled.
“Dead tired. Get it?”
We continued to stare.
“Everybody’s a fucking critic,” she said, walking toward the roll-up. “No sense of humor at all.”
Amos spread his duster, checking his pockets. “I’m out of ammo,” he said, withdrawing a machete from a sheath hidden somewhere on his bulk. “Good thing I brought this.”
“If I never see another zombie again, it’ll be too soon,” Cecil said.
“Good luck with that hanging around Skeletor, here,” Amos said.
Dannie lifted the door, pushing it all the way up. “We’re clear. Make a run for the building on the corner there and duck into the storefront. We can wait for an opening to make the next sprint.”
“I can’t believe you just said run and sprint,” Amos said. “What do I look like to you?” He swung the machete a couple of times. “I’ll walk.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, joining Dannie near the door. “Dead tired. I get it. It’s funny.”
She looked at me, a hint of something behind her eyes. “Shut up.”
Then we ran.
22
Well, that’s got to hurt.
Amos stayed true to his word. He didn’t run the five hundred feet or so from the garage to the storefront on the corner, instead taking his sweet ass time sauntering across the street, swinging his machete like he didn’t have a care in the world.
The deadies tried to get to him. They ganged up on him, ten strong. But he was an unstoppable force and an immovable object, and they couldn’t get through the ballistic cloth of his duster, rendering their bites and scratches ineffective.
And then Frank found his second wind, or maybe he just regained his anger at the fate of the couple he tried to save. He joined Amos in the execution, making enough of a mess of the deadies that I nearly vomited watching them go. They made a pretty incredible team, both large, both hard to hurt. It gave me a good feeling about our chances, at least until we reached the end of the road. If we reached the end of the road. Then? I’d cross my fingers on both hands, but I only had the one.
I could only hope it would be enough.
They broke through the horde, making it to us within a few minutes. The deadies didn’t care about being hurt, and they followed behind them, unable to move quite as smoothly as a living thing. It was one thing I had never truly understood about bringing souls back. The magic gave them extra-human strength, but motor coordination tended to be lacking and less exact. It didn’t help normal people, but Ghosts were trained fighters, even Ghosts like me.
“You guys going to run again?” Amos asked, walking up to us. There were a hundred deadies at his back, still ambling in our direction. “Or you want to try it my way?”
“Your way looks harder,” I replied. “Besides, what am I going to do, smack them with my stump?”
He laughed. “Good to see you have a sense of humor about it, Baldie. Go on then, Frank and me will catch up.”
“No,” Dannie said. “You’re slowing us down too much. Start running.”
“Aww,” Frank said. “I’m having fun.”
“Right on,” Amos said, putting up his fist. “Bump it, brother.”
Frank completed the fist-bump. I sighed. “Enough. Let’s go.”
We ran. Not as fast as I would have liked, but fast enough that Amos was huffing and puffing by the time we neared the Tower grounds. I could see now that Dannie had been right about the density increasing near the site. Some of the deadies here were going into the Tower, instead of coming out to attack us.
“There’s something in there,” I said.
“As long as it ain’t the world’s most disgusting orgy,” Amos said. “Maybe Samedi’s a total perv.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said. “Cecil, do you think you can cook up a distraction?”
“Let me think for a minute,” Cecil said. “My magic doesn’t work as well on the dead because they don’t have any hopes, dreams, or fears for me to mess with.”
“You say that with such conscience.”
“I’m not the one who brings souls back from the other side,” he snapped in reply.
I glanced over at Dannie. She looked back at me at the same time, and I could swear her eyes shifted just the tiniest bit. She didn’t seem surprised I was looking at her, but that could have been because she had been brought back from the dead, like it or not.
“I’ve got it,” Cecil said, smiling. “Watch this.”
He breathed in, drawing his trickster magic to him. Not being attuned to that frequency, I had no idea what it sounded or felt like, but I could imagine snickering and mirth.
“Baaaaa!”
I looked out into the street. A sheep had appeared there, standing by itself and bleating. It drew the attention of the closest deadies, and it started running away.
They followed it a dozen feet or so before stopping and turning back toward the Tower.
“Damn,” Cecil said. “That didn’t work. Like I said, there isn’t enough of them there to get them going.”
“I’ve got this,” Dannie said. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to use my new wheels.” She flexed her legs for emphasis. “I’ll draw them away, you get inside and find whatever it is we need to find.”
“We shouldn’t split up,” Amos said. “Especially not you, Dannie. Remember what I said before?”
“I’ll be fine,” Dannie insisted. “Did you see the way they move? They won’t catch up to me.”
I didn’t want to let her go.
I also knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going to let me decide.
“Stay safe,” I said.
She nodded, climbing out of the broken window of the store and into the street. Amos watched her go, open-mouthed, wanting to say something but unable to do it. He turned to me instead.
“If she dies again, I swear I’m going to kill you.”
There was no humor in his voice. No warmth. To be h
onest, it scared the shit out of me.
“She’ll be fine,” I said. I had confidence in her.
She ran into the mass of deadies, shouting and hollering, drawing their attention. They paused and stared for a moment, and then they began to follow.
I went out the same window, walking almost casually along the side of the street toward the Tower. The others followed me, though Amos didn’t take an eye off Dannie the whole time. She made it to the Tower grounds, to the abandoned guard house ahead of it, and then toward the entrance. The closest deadies turned to follow, leaving her in the middle of nearly three hundred of them. How was she going to get back out?
“She should have at least taken my machete,” Amos said.
“You should have offered it to her,” Frank said.
“Yeah. Damn.”
We kept going, making it to the guardhouse, trying to find her in the crowd. She appeared a moment later, throwing fists and feet and knocking the closest deadies back, creating a hole and racing through it. They gave chase, moving away from the Tower.
“In we go,” I said, making a break for it.
Frank, Ash, and Cecil stayed close. Amos didn’t move.
“Amos,” I said.
He shook his head. “I promised her I would keep her safe. Whether she wants me to or not.”
I didn’t argue. Who could? Besides, I felt better knowing he was out there.
I kept going forward, ducking into the entrance. There were still some deadies inside, and they turned and charged when I entered. I took a frightened step back at first, but the magical fields were crazy strong on the site, and I pulled in the death magic, reaching out and touching the first of the undead to reach me. I pushed my magic into it, finding Samedi’s thread and snapping it, causing the soul to evacuate almost instantly and the corpse to crumple to the ground.
My success made me smile. Samedi was much stronger than me, but he was spreading his magic across thousands of the dead. I was able to concentrate all of my energy on one at a time, and as long as I didn’t try to go to deep, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
I touched four more of the deadies as they neared, slapping my hand against their heads and blasting death magic into them. Their links snapped, and they collapsed, and while I half-expected Samedi to reanimate them, he didn’t. Maybe his attention was turned elsewhere?
“Nice trick,” Cecil said, looking down at the corpses. “Why didn’t you do that sooner?”
“I wasn’t close enough to death to do that sooner,” I replied.
It was easy to know where to go now that we had made it inside. All we had to do was follow the line of deadies. Frank wound up taking point, enthusiastic in his dismantling of the walking dead, using a level of violence I hadn’t seen since he had ripped his captors apart back when I found him. He growled and groaned like a monster, crushing heads, ripping off limbs, and otherwise making me sick.
“I hate you fucking deadies,” he said, kicking one into another and knocking both to the ground. “Every fucking one of you.”
We moved through the Tower, past the tourist areas and across to the stairwell down into the dungeon. The undead were thicker here, and Frank had to shove a dozen of them down the steps to clear a path for us. We made it in, through the dimly lit and narrow corridors, musty and dank and old. The tourism board had set up some scares along the way that were activated by motion sensors. They weren’t scary at all compared to the real thing.
“What are they looking for down here?” Cecil asked. He was staying behind us, his brand of magic limited against the dead.
“Something that’s going to be a huge problem for us, I’m sure,” I replied. Like we weren’t already in trouble.
We kept going, the density of the deadies increasing as we followed them in. I already felt like shit, but I started feeling worse, the constant use of the death magic pulling the remaining life from me one touch at a time.
I couldn’t quite see the end once we reached it. The undead were crowded around it, a cloud of dust hanging over them as they dug into the floor. Frank charged into the group, pulling them away and slamming them into walls, leaving them damaged enough for me to put my hand on and send back to wherever. We cleared the remaining twenty or so from the immediate area that way, making a great team.
Once we were clear, we approached the spot where they had been digging. Not into the floor, like I had thought. Instead, they had been pawing at the wall, a line of old stone that was weakened but not quite ready to give.
“Ooh, a secret passage,” Frank said. “I love secret passages.”
It was good to see his rage was helping to return him to his status quo.
“How does Samedi know there’s anything back here?” I wondered out loud. “He was trapped a long time before this place was built.”
“Maybe his soul paid it a visit?” Frank said.
“The dice?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Could be.”
The deadies hadn’t managed to break through the wall yet. Frank approached it, cracking his knuckles as he neared. Then he took three steps toward it, thrusting his hands out and slamming them into the worn stone. I wasn’t all that surprised when the wall collapsed in front of him, bringing down a ton of dust. I covered my mouth and nose with my jacket, squinting to see through the haze.
I nearly lost my head as the rusted blade of a sword whistled toward me, coming from within the dust. I fell away, dropping to the ground as I heard the sickening sound of the blade connecting with something meaty.
Cecil cried out, his blood splattering on my face as I rolled to my knees. He had a deep gash across his abdomen, and his entrails were spilling out of it, blood pouring from his body.
The sword-bearer was still tough to see in the dust, but I spotted his outline, raising his sword and bringing it back for a second, more powerful stroke.
“Grrraahhhh,” Frank shouted, moving past Cecil and tackling the figure. They both fell back through the hole we had just created. “Oh shit!”
Frank cried out again, and then I heard the sound of metal bouncing against stone, growing more distant as it sank further and further away from me.
I scrambled into the opening on my knees, sliding to a stop in front of the well. I leaned over it, looking down into the pitch black.
Both Frank and his attacker were gone.
23
Stained.
“Do you think he’s-” Ash trailed off.
I stared into the well for a few seconds, panicked at the loss of my Trogre. Then I remembered Cecil and spun around, shoving myself to my feet and retreating out. The trickster was on the ground, dead and for the moment staying that way.
I fell to the ground beside him, putting my hand on his still-warm flesh. I gathered the death magic, reaching out and into him, trying to bring him back. I couldn’t raise users when I was on the meds. It took more juice than I could control. Down here, in the lousy shape that I was in?
“Cecil,” I said softly. “Come back. I still need you.”
I felt the tug, like catching a fish on a hook. I started yanking him back.
A second thread joined mine. Samedi. He was reaching for Cecil, too. Did he have the power to take him?
I strengthened my reach and my resolve. As long as I didn’t let him sneak through, he couldn’t hurt me or gain Cecil’s corpse. As long as I stayed focused, he was going to lose this race.
“Come on, Cecil,” I said.
I heard footsteps approaching, the slower walk of the deadies. I cursed silently, keeping my energy pouring into Cecil, dragging him back from the beyond.
Samedi tried to stab my power with his, but his net was spread so wide he had some holes, and this was one of them. I was steeled enough to hold him back, and he retreated when Cecil’s eyes began to show some warmth. It was a tiny victory comparatively speaking, but I was happy to take it.
“Cecil,” I said again.
His head turned, and he looked a
t me, somewhat confused. “What?” he said. Most souls were confused when they were brought back so soon. He seemed relatively composed. Could it be possible that Death was giving me a little bit of an assist?
“You died,” I said.
He looked down at his eviscerated gut. “Crud.”
“Yeah. Sorry to drag your soul back, but we need some help.”
I pointed to the incoming deadies.
His head swiveled. He sighed. “Why doesn’t he do it?” He pointed to Ashiira as he pulled himself back to his feet.
“You can’t get hurt,” I replied. “You’re already dead.”
“It figures.”
It figures? I had raised a lot of corpses, but that was the most flat response I had ever gotten.
The first of the deadies reached him. It ignored him, thinking he was one of them. He waited for it to pass before pushing it toward me. Intentionally? I slipped to the side, and it continued stumbling until it went down the well after Frank.
“Are you kidding?” I said, tightening my grip on his soul.
He speared the second deadie in the eyes with his fingers, blinding it. He jumped on a third and broke its neck, throwing it down the well after the first.
“You got me killed,” he said.
“I did not,” I said. “I barely got out of the way of that sword.”
“Exactly. You don’t move; I’m not dead.”
He was more of an asshole in death than he had been in life.
“Life is shit, and then you die.”
I looked past him. There was a break in the assault. I had to make a decision. Go back to Amos and Dannie or try to find some way to where Frank had vanished. It was against my better judgment, but I decided I needed to find Frank. Whatever Samedi wanted was there somewhere.
“We need to go down,” I said to Ashiira.
“How?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’m open to ideas.”
We went back to the well and looked down.
I couldn’t see the bottom. I also hadn’t heard Frank or the sword-bearer hit, which meant it had to be a long way. I looked past the hole. There was a small pile of debris behind it that appeared to be a cave-in.
