The Dead Pools

by Michael Hesse

  I lifted my hand and everything about me slowed and stopped. The dark fires surrounding Ortiz froze in place. The screams rebounding off the walls silenced. It was the strangest thing, as if the universe itself paused and held its breath.

  Somewhere far off, well beyond the walls of the cell I heard piping. It was just a sigh floating in the still air, but it carried the scent of lilacs in summer. A woman’s hand, soft and warm rested upon the back of mine. I saw nothing, even with spirit-eyes, but I could feel it resting upon me, gentle as a butterfly’s kiss.

  My mind cleared as I dropped my hand. I wouldn’t use magick to kill. No matter how desperate the situation, I wouldn’t step over that line again. I would confront whatever emerged from Hell’s forge alone. For good or ill, I’d made my decision.

  All at once, everything snapped back into place. The world sped back up. The dark fires banked and withdrew, the agonized screams leapt across the cell a final time as a transformed Ortiz lurched into the room.

  The dark shadow I’d first encountered was gone. In its place was a misshapen creature torn from a fever dream. A wide slashing mouth bisected a bulbous head framed by two smoking pits for eyes. Below the malformed head two spindly arms grew, terminating in twig-like fingers from a child’s drawing. All of this sat atop a slug-like body glistening with the effluvia oozing from dozens of frothing pustules. It made me gag to look at him.

  “Holy crap Ortiz, you got the raw end of that deal!”

  Slugboy didn’t find it funny. Turning towards the sound of my voice he let out a scream that shook the walls.

  Whatever Ortiz had become, he was fast. He raised his stick-figure arms and twirled them over his head in a blinding pattern. I barely had time to twitch through a defensive glyph before black lightning raced from his fingers striking me in the chest.

  It sizzled as it struck, but my defenses held. I felt the drain immediately. I wouldn’t be able to take much more of that and it was only Ortiz’s first shot. Note to myself: when faced with a similar situation next time fuck the mission and run like hell. Also, don’t taunt the monster.

  I dove to the side as he readied his second strike. The next bolt sizzled through the space I’d just occupied, sending up a shower of pulverized cement. Maybe those smoking pits he had for eyes didn’t work too well or maybe he just didn’t care.

  As I danced away from a third strike that came uncomfortably close, I had an idea. Despite the visible pyrotechnics, the underlying rules of magick hadn’t changed. The sheer amount of energy Ortiz was flinging about was astounding, but it must have a limit. Ortiz could only contain so much before he’d have to replenish. If I could cut off his access to the altar, he’d eventually start burning spirit to fuel his spells.

  The plan itself was good, though it had one glaring flaw. I’d have to survive long enough to sever his link with the altar. Also, I had no idea how long he could go before needing a refill. Okay, there were two glaring flaws. Worse still was the fact that I was already burning my spiritual energy to power my defenses. I guessed I had enough to reform my shields two, maybe three more times. After that I would have exhausted the very essence of myself.

  Overall my plan had three obvious holes, but it was still better than standing around and getting fried. A bad plan is better than no plan at all, I decided. As Ortiz readied his fourth strike I moved towards the altar, but not fast enough.

  His next blast caught me in the side, shredding what was left of my defenses and sending me tumbling across the room. I raised my hands to run though the shielding glyph again and realized I was fading. The bolts themselves must be draining my life along with the spells I worked. This was getting better and better.

  I didn’t have any choice, though. Even the running and jumping I was doing was eating away at my life’s energies. Everything I did in spirit form was powered with my very soul. Dying here and now though was distinctly worse than taking a bullet on the battlefield. If I died here, I was gone. There would be no journey forward, no Summerland, no rebirth and renewal; nothing. I would cease to exist.

  With the last of my soul’s fire flickering in front of me I picked myself up off the floor and realized that at least one thing was working in my favor. Ortiz’s last blast had sent me flying towards the altar. I stood between him and his power source. If he missed me, there was a good chance he’d fry his own well. It was a slim chance, but it was the only one I had left.

  I needed to piss him off so he wasn’t careful with his aim. I’ve had worse ideas, bar hopping with Ramirez Friday night quickly came to mind, but it beat standing around waiting for the inevitable end. At least I’d go out on my own terms.

  I waited while Ortiz began his windup, making sure he didn’t have time to analyze the situation. “Hey Slugboy,” I called, “I’ve flushed better looking shits than you—

  Damn he was fast. The words hardly cleared my mouth before Ortiz launched another attack. Raising his hands above his head, he drove them down through the interlocking glyphs spraying me with goo. Flecks of slug snot sizzled against my shields as I leapt to the side.

  Just in time. My taunting must have driven him bug-shit crazy because the bolt that followed was greater than anything he’d thrown before. A boiling black locomotive hurtled across the cell, missing me by fractions of an inch and slammed into the wall above the altar with catastrophic results.

  Technically Ortiz created a feedback loop, but that’s a banal term for what happened. Ortiz’s bolt shredded the twisting Hellion script, but it was more than words scratched onto a jailhouse wall. Whatever that script truly was, it was tied to Ortiz. It was the link to the very forces that created him; a sort of magickal DNA.

  It wasn’t pretty. Black fire boiled across infernal calligraphy howling like wounded animals as it was slowly consumed, but it didn’t die easily. A mass of writhing tentacles lashed back from the wall, filling the air above my head with midnight tendrils reminding me of jellyfish combing the oceans for prey. Even as I scooted out from under the coiling horror a single filament, no larger than a human hair, fell upon my shields.

  A flurry of blue sparks erupted from the breech, burning the tendril to ash, but the damage had been done. The last of my soul’s fire flickered softly, beating like a dying heart. Knowing I only had seconds before it was utterly extinguished, I scrambled to my feet and threw myself at Ortiz. Better to die in battle, than cowering on the floor.

  By this time Slugboy was wrapped in Hell’s embrace. Hundreds of the tentacles, some as thick as my forearm, swarmed over Ortiz, hacking and tearing, filling the air with a cloud of his charred remains. But still he fought on, his shark-like mouth snapping, stick-figure fingers clawing against the inevitable. The asshole just wouldn’t die.

  I launched myself at his head, determined that I’d see him fall before I was utterly erased. Memories and dreams, the very essence of who Ortiz was popped like soap bubbles as I sailed through the sooty cloud. A child’s plump hands holding a crucifix at his confirmation, a battered red bike swishing down a trash-strewn hill, the sweetness of a first kiss; each memory blossomed briefly before being washed away by the next.

  Each stolen moment flared briefly inside me, feeding the struggling flame at my core. Seconds and minutes of Ortiz replaced the life I was burning, stemming the outward flow. We lost our virginity together on a dusty mountain road; buried bodies under a swollen Harvest Moon. Hunger surged inside me; a voracious, unreasoning, unstoppable hunger that recognized each stolen instant for what it was: food.

  This must be how a vampire feels, I thought. This is the thirst that drives them, stealing lives to burn in place of their own. It was a rape of the foulest sort and I was powerless to stop it. My life or his; in the end there was no question. I landed atop Ortiz’s bulbous head, driving my fingers through the smoking pits of his eyes and drank.

  No longer a spectator, I looked through Ortiz’s eyes, felt what he’d felt. For a brief moment I was Ortiz as his memories crowded out my own.

  D
ead bodies were scattered across a warehouse floor, tossed about like dried leaves on the Autumn breeze. I was stretched out on a catwalk, held above the slaughter as a voice whispered in my ear.

  Fear washed the words away, but the intent was clear; this was a message. I curled my fingers tighter, drinking deeper.

  I stood on top of a hill, staring out of Ortiz’s eyes. All morning we’d hiked through the jungle urging the Americans to keep quiet. The hike hadn’t been difficult, but the American’s were soft. They complained incessantly about the heat, the bugs that flew into their open mouths and eyes, the sores growing on their pink little feet. As if it were el Jefe’s fault that they were stupid and wore suits and church shoes into the jungle.

  By the time they reached the top of the hill, I was ready to shoot them all and be done with it. All the while el Jefe urged patience and Marco translated. We walked and we walked while the sweat ran down our backs, grinning at the Americans too stupid to learn our language.

  An angry sun staked itself directly overhead, cooking everything beneath it as Marco handed out binoculars. Without them the village of Bajios Noche was just a little brown smudge. We’d cleared the village several years before for other Norte’s and I hadn’t been back since. It should have been a ghost town, so I was surprised when my binoculars revealed two men standing in the square before the old church.

  I zoomed in to get a better look. They were strange men, paler than the Americans who groused and stank beside us. They weren’t obviously armed, but there was something menacing and unnatural about the way they stood there under the blazing sun. They made no move to shelter in the shade, there was no shifting of feet or other signs of discomfort. They just stood there, oblivious to the scorching sun, staring out into the square.

  Jefe spoke and Marco translated. “Until now the power of these Norte’s was only eclipsed by their arrogance, but today we can level the playing field. Watch.”

  El Jefe lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “go.”

  For a moment nothing happened. Then one of the Americans started gesturing wildly and I lifted my binoculars to see what he was so excited about. Down in the village I could make out the shapes of five men stepping out from their hiding place and into the square. Even from where I stood, I could see that they were all heavily armed with automatic weapons.

  “Notice the guards,” el Jefe was saying excitedly, “they only recognize the living.”

  Our men were walking slowly, shuffling their feet and kicking up plumes of dust, but the guards in front of the church didn’t turn at the sound of their approach. When they were forty, maybe fifty yards from the church the five-man team raised their weapons and began firing. They made no attempt to seek cover or gain a vantage point, they simply stepped down the street emptying their guns.

  The shots were wild, unfocused and most buried themselves uselessly in the dirt street or smacked into the side of the church. The team el Jefe had sent obviously had no training, but with automatic weapons they didn’t need much. The guards were hit.

  Even from where I stood, I could see gouts of blood and flesh blown from their bodies, but they didn’t cry out. They didn’t fall. Coolly, calmly, the guards moved effortlessly into shooter’s stances and returned fire. They were much better trained, but they were no match for the heavier weapons our team carried.

  The guards managed two head shots, bringing down members of our team before the heavier caliber bullets chewed them to pieces. Even after they fell, they continued to fight. It was surreal, like the nonsense of a Hollywood movie. The guards crawled through the dirt, driving their broken bodies towards our men until one of the remaining three stepped up to them with a handful of grenades.

  Without any hesitation, he pulled the pins and thrust them towards the broken men. The resulting explosion threw pieces of all three men about the square. The two remaining members of our team dropped their exhausted weapons and drew long knives from their hips. Without any acknowledgement of their fallen comrades they calmly turned and entered the church. Shortly afterward, I heard screaming.

  Marco turned, answering a question from the silver-haired American I’d missed. “That’s true Senor, but with our product you can always make more—

  The memory shattered, exploding into a thousand jagged shards just as Ortiz focused on the American. I caught a fleeting glimpse of hard eyes, the left ringed by numerous scars like rays in a kid’s drawing of the sun, before a gleaming blade severed the memory along with Ortiz’s neck. Lodged as I was in Ortiz’s skull I was thrown backwards off his body while I tried to reorient myself to my new circumstances.

  The feeding had been primal, animal, and overwhelming, but my reintegration into the reality of the cell was worse. Standing opposite me twirling her eldritch scythe was the horror I’d already encountered twice before and hoped I’d never see again. The Santa Muerte decapitated Ortiz, ending his final incarnation with a single viscous blow and calmly pulled the remnants of his soul into her dark embrace.

  The midnight tentacles flailed impotently before withdrawing back into the hellion script. The feedback loop was broken and whether Ortiz journeyed towards oblivion along their route or in the Bride of Hell’s care was of no consequence. His destiny was wrought the moment he accepted service to the Infernal powers.

  I may be a slow learner, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Before the Santa Muerte finished her meal and turned her attention towards me, I grabbed at my tether and ran.

  Chapter 13

  Fort Benning, Sunday 16:00

  Thorn’s Quarters

  If the outward journey of the Ghost Walk felt like cosmic exploration, the return felt like I’d strapped myself to a lightning bolt. The Ghost Walk is a front-loaded spell; almost all the energy consumed in the endeavor is expended in reaching your destination. It’s like stretching a rubber band to its furthest point. All the energy is used in the stretching, once you let go it snaps back on its own.

  At least that’s how it felt. With my tether firmly in hand I spoke the trigger and was instantly rocketing home. Unlike the outward journey, there was no time to coolly assess my surroundings or worry about the destination. I was a bullet exploding from a gun, a fastball blazing a path between the pitcher’s mound and the catcher’s mitt.

  And I wasn’t alone. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. It was like stepping into a dark room and knowing that someone else is there, hiding within the velvety black. Prickly fear ran up my spine. I spun about, wildly trying to catch a glimpse of my pursuer, but there was nothing I could find, only the sensation that she was there, following me. For the second time in as many days I’d trespassed on the Santa Muerte’s realm and it wasn’t something she’d forgive.

  I shot up and around the gleaming ball of amber and into the dark night that stretched between it and my body. This was the Long Stretch, the Silence, the Absence, and a hundred other names all inadequate as description. This was the space where a wandering spirit weary from its travels becomes distracted and loses its way home.

  And the gods knew I was weary. I was still shedding my life or Ortiz’s life; I couldn’t tell or care any longer which memories slipped through my lacerated spirit. Seconds, minutes, hours, I was leaking a trail of moments that any creature of the void could follow. Too weak to care, I settled into the ride and prayed I’d return before I bled dry.

  She was drawing closer. I knew it, even if I couldn’t see her in the miles of endless dark. I knew she was out there. I heard the rustle of her cloaks as she stooped to examine a drop of spilled time. I heard the clack of dead teeth grinding together, the swish of her scythe as she probed the darkness between us. I whipped my head around finding nothing but the echo of her relentless tread, but I knew she was there.

  Her fetid breath tickled my ear. You can’t outrace death. It’s foolish to try. There is no victory, no finish line you can cross where death won’t find you. In the end, it catches everyone.

  And then I was throug
h, spilling out from the dark and into the searing light. It beat against my battered spirit, singeing the tattered remnants I held together by sheer will. For one terrible moment a cacophony of light and sound beat against me and then I was home.

  Home was a favorite winter coat. Home was flesh and blood and a beating heart. It was a luxurious bed that you never want to leave on a lazy Sunday morning. Home was the familiar aches and pains, trembling knees that had been locked in place far too long, the itch running down your back that you can’t scratch. It was all the sensations reminding us we’re alive. Pleasant and painful, I gathered them together like old friends. I was home.

  The pleasantries didn’t last long. A wet popping noise drew my attention away from the wonder of homecoming and back to my altar. At first glance nothing had changed. The incense expended its last puff and the candles had burned down to little nubs of melted wax. It was the scrying bowl that drew my interest.

  Little bubbles were forming at the bottom of the bowl and collecting along the sides. Even as I watched the bubbles grew in strength, rapidly coming to what my mother called a soft boil. Each bubble burst as it reached the surface in a little puff of steam, filling the air with the cloying scent of rotting meat.

  Holy crap, she’s coming through. I froze. My blood ran cold as the warm fuzzies dancing through my body turned and made a beeline for the door. I couldn’t begin to understand how she was doing it.

  Following me through the Long Stretch, sure I could make some sense of that. I’d been bleeding memories throughout my trip back to the real. I could conceive of a spirit following that path, but to break into the real, through water? That went against everything I’d ever learned.

  Maybe there was some residual energy keeping the gateway open. Stranger things have happened. I reached over the bowl and snuffed out the candles while I ran through the steps I’d need to perform. Glancing back, I saw that I wouldn’t have much time, the water was boiling strongly and a black stain was spreading across the depths. Damn, she was relentless.