by M. R. Forbes
She stared back at me. “I. I don’t remember.” She shrugged. “Damn it; I just know how I feel now. I just know I want things to be different. I don’t want you to die.”
“I don’t want to die either,” I said. “But the only way to get rid of Samedi is to drag him through the damn portal, and I’m the only one who can do it. Do you think I’m not terrified? You know me, Dannie.”
“Fuck. I just wish there was some way out of this. I feel like I wasted the time we had together.”
“We did what we had to do. If I hadn’t gotten sick, I would still be with Karen and Molly. We would never have met.”
“I know. Maybe that would have been better. But we are where we are. I just needed to tell you before it was too late. I don’t know why. It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it. But it was eating me up.”
I didn’t know what to say. I appreciated her honesty, but I didn’t feel the same way. We were friends, and that was all I wanted. I wasn’t even good at that.
“I’m glad you told me,” I said. “I don’t want you to have regrets.”
She smiled. It was forced again. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way. You didn’t have the experience that I did. I just, I don’t know. I hope you don’t regret anything once you’re gone.”
It was a curious thing for her to say. “Do you think I will?”
She was quiet for a few seconds, and then she nodded. “Yeah. I think you will. Everything becomes magnified. Everything you’ve done right. Everything you’ve done wrong. When they say to make peace with yourself before you pass, they’re right. It’s the best thing you can do.”
It was the most anyone had ever told me about passing to the other side, and it was like all of my fears were being realized. I knew everything I had done wrong. They gnawed at me while I was still breathing. I could only imagine how they would torture me when I stopped.
What if this was her way of getting back at me, or getting me to confess? What if she were trying to frighten me more so I wouldn’t go through with this? What if she was trying to help? Or, what if she was working with Death, guiding me the way he wanted me to go, betraying me because of the way I had betrayed her?
There were too many possibilities and no way to know what the truth was. She was my best friend. She had just told me she loved me in a non-platonic way.
And now I wasn’t sure I could trust her.
I stared into her eyes, but there were no answers there. I forced a smile of my own. I should have told her the truth then. I should have confessed to breaking my promise to her. I should have cleared the air and let the chips fall where they might. I didn’t. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said awkwardly.
Then I turned away from her and started walking again.
I couldn’t see her reaction. I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to find the fucking spell and kill the fucking lich and be done with this bullshit and not have to worry about any of it anymore.
What if that was Dannie’s true goal? Start preparing me for the end, and make me want to die because living was too damn complicated anyway. I might have believed that except dying seemed pretty damned complicated itself.
We kept walking, moving more easily through the jungle now that Queen Kipiezl was guiding us. Her lobizon ranged ahead, clearing the path of any smaller predators that might have blocked it. We didn’t say much to one another. Dannie said even less. Maybe she was embarrassed, but I doubted it. She had never been one to embarrass easily. I think I felt more self-conscious than she did.
The further we walked, the more I started to realize that the quiet wasn’t coming from discomfort. At least, not natural discomfort. I started to notice the chaos of the death magic and the way it seemed to bend around the jungle ahead of us. There was a pallor hanging over this section of the landscape, a dark pressure that pushed harder and harder on us the closer we got. It was subconsciously wearing, a negative energy that was slowly gaining a grip on our souls.
The jungle reflected it, too. The plants began to thin out, the foliage becoming more brown and more decayed. I glanced over at Dannie, and she had tears in her eyes again. I looked at Frank, and even he seemed morose. I started coughing, trying to clear my throat, spitting blood up and out.
Whatever the druids had done here, it was an effort that hadn’t been washed away by time.
The city, Kuhikoxl, was cursed. Heavily cursed, with death magic at the heart of it.
“Here we are, my Lord,” Kipiezl said. Her brown body was tinged with black, as though she were decaying, too. “Beyond these trees lies Kuhikoxl. The City of the Damned.”
36
Damned.
The City of the Damned.
It looked the part.
A decaying stone wall wrapped around it, spreading off in both directions from our location, angling away as far as we could see through the thick air. Dead trees and vines rested beside it or still clung futilely to it, and there were numerous animal bones scattered nearby. There were buildings beyond the wall, plain square structures made of heavy stone, differing sizes that probably spoke to their differing purposes. A small pyramid rested near the center, climbing a hundred feet or so into a sky that was buried in thick, dark clouds.
My best guess was that the druids here had done something a long, long, long time ago that had caused the entire city to become a wasteland, like a nuclear meltdown of death magic that made it unapproachable and unsurvivable to anything animate. The first reversal had probably deadened the radioactive nature of it, not eliminating it completely, but deadening it enough that creatures and plants had managed to start finding life within it, only to be wiped out again when magic returned.
That was my theory, anyway. I could sense the death magic field ahead of me, strong and chaotic enough that it was hurting my ears like there was a well of the stuff sitting somewhere inside. And maybe there was. It seemed this should have been a great place for Samedi to hide, but I doubted he was here. Death knew we weren’t ready for that showdown.
“Do you guys mind if I just wait outside?” Frank asked.
“Me too,” Amos said. “Look at my arms.” He rolled up the sleeve of his coat to show us his goosebumps. “Fucking creepy.”
“You should not go in there, my Lord,” Kipiezl said. “There is nothing for you there. Nothing but death.”
The lobizon had backed away from the walls, taking position behind us. I caught motion out of the corner of my eye, turning in time to see a few of the other wisps vanish back into the closest living plants.
“Death is what we came for,” Ash said. He looked at me. “What do you think, brother?”
“I’m going in,” I said. “The death magic is strong here.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Ash admitted. “The fields are dead to me in this place.”
Interesting. My understanding was that all of the magical frequencies came together. Sometimes in varying strengths, but always as a single unit.
Obviously, my understanding was wrong.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Frank said. He held up his arm. A grey and green rash was developing along it. “Please don’t make me go, Boss. It hurts.”
“Frank, back away,” I said. “Dannie, why don’t you go with him?”
“No,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”
Was this part of her new understanding of love? Or did she have an ulterior motive? Why did everything have to be so damn complex?
“I’ll wait here,” Amos said.
“No, you won’t,” I replied. “You’re resistant to magic. You’re coming. Dannie, I don’t know what this place might do to you.”
“I don’t care. I’m coming, Conor. You can’t stop me.”
“Don’t worry about it, Boss,” Frank said. “I’m fine out here on my own with the flesh-eating pixies and their rabid dogs.” He smiled, indicating he was joking, but I wasn’t convinced.
There wa
s also nothing I could do about it.
“We’ll enter,” Ash said. “You have my permission to wait here if you’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” Kipiezl said. “I am very afraid. But I will serve you, my Lord, until the sparkly is mine.”
I could tell by Ash’s face he was hoping she would stay. It would have been easier to get away from the wisps if we could get some distance from them. That wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway.
I took the lead, walking over to a collapsed portion of the wall and putting my hand on the stone. Somehow, the death magic had been absorbed into the rock, giving it a consistent flow of power. I felt it start coursing through me, reaching through my body. It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t get a good feeling from it.
“Ash,” I said. “I think you should wait out here.”
“Why?” he asked.
I stepped over the stone, bypassing the wall and entering the site. The sense of heaviness and dread subsided somewhat, replaced with another sensation.
“You’ll die,” I said.
“What?”
“The reason why the immortals can’t enter. The reason Frank has that rash. This place actively attacks anything magical.”
“Why don’t I have a rash?” Ash said, looking at his arm.
“You may be more resistant than Frank, but trust me. If you come in here, you’ll feel it.”
“I told you, my Lord,” Kipiezl said. “Nothing but death here. Nothing to see. Come back to our camp with us; we will pleasure you.”
Amos raised an eyebrow again but stayed quiet this time.
“I don’t have any magic,” Dannie said. “I can come with you.”
She reached out and touched the wall, stepping up onto the rubble to pass through.
She cried out, taking her hand away and falling back.
“Dannie,” I said, rushing back toward her.
She was laying on her back, looking up at her hands. They were both smoldering, the same rash Frank had gotten spreading from them and up her arms. She looked terrified.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
I kept staring at her. I didn’t completely understand, either. She was sensitive, but she didn’t have any magic. She never had. It was the reason she was Dannelle instead of Miss Black.
So why the fuck was she reacting this way?
A hundred reasons flashed through my mind. None of them were easy to accept, and all of them pointed back to one place.
Death.
Whether or not Dannie was working with Death to fuck me over, help me out, or whatever, she had just proven that Death still his hooks in her, one way or another, and not using death magic. He had done something to bring her back. Something I didn’t understand.
Unless she was an Oscar-worthy actress, she had also just proven she had no idea she was still under his control.
Which left me with more questions, foremost among them being whether her declaration of love was even hers, or if it was Death pulling the strings again.
Dannie was on her knees now, sobbing. I backed out of the city, kneeling beside her.
“Dannie?” I said. “It’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t,” she said. “Shit. No, it fucking won’t.”
“You can go wait with Frank and Ash. I won’t be long.”
She looked up at me, angry. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it, Conor?”
“Get what?”
“He doesn’t care. Death. He doesn’t give a shit if you know the truth because it’s too fucking late. You’re stuck.”
I opened my mouth to ask her what truth. But I didn’t. I didn’t need to. I realized what she meant. I realized she was right.
I felt cold. Colder than I had ever felt. I felt angry, too, but it was barely noticeable compared to the sudden emptiness that consumed me. I had been swindled. Cheated. Used and abused. We all had. Dannie worst of all.
“I’ll find a way to fix it,” I said. “I’ll find a way to fix all of it. I’m not letting them win. Samedi, Hades. They can both go fuck themselves. They aren’t going to win.”
Dannie’s face changed instantly, flattening out into stone. Her eyes narrowed, and her lip curled in a dark smile.
“Yes, Conor,” Death said through her. “I am going to win. And you’re going to help me, because if you don’t, this entire world is going to die. Your wife. Your child. They’re all going to die at Samedi’s hand. I may be evil, necromancer, but I’m the lesser of two.” He started laughing, the same cold laughter I had heard the first time he had used Dannie’s spirit to threaten me. “Now get in there, and do what you came to do.”
I clenched my fist. My mind was a blur, blank and furious. Amos was standing beside me, and I could see the pain on his face. Even he had tears in his eyes.
Dannie’s face changed again, the warmth and humanity returning to it. She looked up at me, and then over at Amos. She was scared, like a frightened child. It was unfair. So fucking unfair.
And it was all my fault.
“Conor, what happened?” she asked, looking at her arms.
She didn’t remember. She had no idea.
I still felt cold. I finally had my answer. Dannie didn’t know I had brought her back before I buried her. She didn’t know about the promise I had broken, or what a lousy friend I was. Her love wasn’t a game. It was her, without the defenses. Without the fears. Her spirit wasn’t contained the same way mine was, or Amos’ was.
It had taken me this long to figure it out. Yeah, right. I hadn’t even figured it out. Death had rubbed the truth of it in my face, slapping me with it like a two-ton gauntlet.
Dannie didn’t have to temper her emotions with the idea of mortality because she wasn’t mortal.
She wasn’t even alive.
City of the Damned. The title couldn’t have been more appropriate.
I was home.
37
Leverage.
“What the fuck are we going to do, Baldie?” Amos asked. “Seriously. This is so far past the point of being fun.”
“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “We have to think of something.”
“Geez. You think killing one demi-god is bad enough. Now we need to take out two?”
We were inside the walls of the city. Just the two of us. Frank and Ash were outside with Dannie and the wisps. Dannie was withdrawn, and who could blame her? She knew what she was, and what she wasn’t. She knew she had been used to drag me into this mess, and that everything was accelerating out of control.
My heart was broken again, but I didn’t feel it the same way as the first time. Maybe because I hadn’t completely trusted to begin with. Maybe because I was already too close to death for the shattered pieces to kill me. Maybe because there was a part of me that was holding out hope. After all, Dannie’s soul was in that body. It knew who and where it was, and it believed it was alive. Didn’t that make it somewhat true?
“He’s been fucking with us the whole time,” I said. “He told you he could bring Dannie back to life?”
“He said if I helped him lead you to Black’s place, if we dealt with his problem with him, he would bring her back for good. I didn’t believe him at first, but then she turned up at my door. He dangled her in front of me and pulled her back, and of course, I agreed to help him out. Why wouldn’t I? You know she’s the only thing I had in the world that I still cared about.” He paused, shaking his head. “But she’s gone, isn’t she? For good.”
“No. She’s here for now. But we can’t get rid of Death without killing her.”
“And he knows it. I don’t think he expects we won’t kill him because it’ll kill her. I don’t think he believes he can be killed.”
“Maybe he can’t,” I said. “Then what?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He was silent for a few heartbeats. “Hey, maybe if we can get him to come to the Amazon rainforest, we can throw him in here and watch him burn?”
“Good thinking,” I said flatly. “How d
o we get him to come here?”
“We can refuse to do his dirty work for him.”
“Not get the portal spell, and let Samedi keep running amok?”
“Heh. Yeah. I guess that won’t work either.”
We made our way to the first of the buildings. It was long and low, with a simple rectangular entrance. There had probably been a door there once, but it had rotted and vanished a long time ago.
I peeked in. The light was having trouble getting inside. Dead vegetation covered the ground beside piles of dust where half-destroyed human bones were resting.
“Gross,” Amos said. “Guess they slept in here.”
“It looks like they died in their sleep. However this was created, they weren’t expecting it.”
We backed out, walking between two structures in the direction of the pyramid at the center. It didn’t take a huge leap of intellect to assume we would find the spell in there.
“If Tarakona had the spell, that means he was here once, right?” Amos said. “The wisps seemed like they knew him. They called him the Great Worm.”
“Wyrm,” I corrected.
“That’s what I said, worm.”
“It’s similar, but it’s spelled differently.”
“Whatever. The point is, he knew about this place. He got inside, or he got someone inside. They got the spell for him.”
“Ash didn’t say anything about that, but Tarakona’s memories are still jumbled for him.”
“Maybe it was the wisps,” Amos said. “They knew about this place, too. They knew to stay away from it. But what about when the reversal happened? They would have been reborn from normal creatures infused with magic. Bats, if I had to guess. Or maybe moths? So how do they remember Tarakona from before? Unless they’re immortal, too?”
“There’s still a lot we don’t know about the reversal, or the time before it. Silver made that pretty damn clear. The wisps might be immortal. Maybe they’re the reason this part of the jungle has never been explored. Where are you trying to go with this?”
