Immortal Make

by Sean Cunningham

  “Yeah? Why not?”

  She grinned at him. “Because we both need a snack to recover our strength.”

  Focus on the words.

  That’s what Julian had told Fiona. It was only the beginning of magic, but it was the key to unlock all magic. To shape thought, to reform mind. To channel imagination, to bend reality.

  The green magic was not with him. Not for this. He had betrayed it. He had no strength left within himself. All that remained was the ghost electricity his sword had absorbed from Zoe’s attacks.

  It wasn’t much, not for what he meant to do. But it might be enough if he had the right lever.

  Julian took up position at the head of the sarcophagus. Standing over the steel bones of the titan, he concentrated on the words.

  With words of magic, he took his mind into conceptual realms that mundane languages lacked the terms to describe. He bent the geometry of space-time around himself, built a high point up to which light and matter and thought curved.

  His sword left his hand. Floated above the sarcophagus. It shone brighter and brighter with ghostlight.

  As the space around him rose, he felt the titan bones sink beneath him in counterweight. They began to vibrate. At first as a side-effect, as radiant intent spilled from the spell-matrix he constructed around his sword. Then, as he made the first gestures to include the corpse in his spell, the bones began to sing in harmony.

  And that was when the full abyss of time fell away beneath him.

  In dreams, Fiona could do anything.

  Anything she could imagine. Anything she could will.

  But Crispin was too fast for her.

  They plunged through one dreamscape after the next, as fast as Fiona could imagine them. In each she was at the centre, appearing as she always did in her black coat and big boots. The focusing mandala throbbed around her finger. Crispin changed from dream to dream, from moment to moment, adapting to whatever she imagined. And he was getting faster at it.

  She imagined a garden of statues. The statues – wolves, panthers, hawks – sprang into life and attacked. Crispin became an iron bull and smashed his way through them. She turned the ground to quicksand and he soared into the air on a pterodactyl’s wings. She called swarms of sparrows from the trees, thinking to overwhelm him with numbers. He became a hydra, sprouting head after head to snap them out of the air.

  Fiona put them on a beach with a tsunami surging over the sand. Crispin spun into a waterspout, flinging seawater into the sky. She baked the dreamscape into a desert and he turned to dry lightning. At her gesture, copper coils sprang from the sand to capture him in box-like capacitors. He exploded into a ball of fire that knocked her off her feet.

  Since she spoke to Julian she had been trying to stall, nothing more. But Crispin gained ground with each exchange.

  And then Crispin was his human shape again, though made of paper. He came at her, arm raised high above.

  Fiona’s shadow reached to grapple with him.

  Her shadow ripped him apart, but he sewed himself back together again instantly. His arm swung towards her. Fiona raised her arm to block him. She was too slow. The focusing mandala pulled tight around her finger.

  Crispin slapped her across the cheek.

  And she was awake. They both were. Back in the hangar in Essex. Crispin wore the shape of a towering serpentine creature, scaled in black. He strained against the grip of her shadow – he had almost overwhelmed it. His teeth were inches from her throat. His tongue flicked out and touched her neck.

  She heard a whirring sound, like a circular saw.

  Then the screech of that circular saw as it cut.

  Crispin threw back his head and roared in pain. Fiona’s shadow shoved and he went backwards. Fiona stumbled, arms out to catch her balance.

  One of Mr Shell’s gemstone eyes gleamed in her direction. A circular saw the size of the palm of her hand extended from a hatch in his shell. “I hope my attempt at assistance was not untimely, Miss Fiona.”

  Sparks spat from the back of Crispin’s right leg, like he didn’t have blood any more. Hopping on his left leg, he spun and lashed towards Mr Shell with his tail.

  Fiona punched with her right hand. She hit nothing. But her shadow mimicked the gesture. It hit Crispin in the thigh and knocked him over.

  Mr Shell opened fire with his taser coils.

  Fiona tried not to question why her shadow had chosen to obey her. She raised both arms above her head, fists together, and brought them down. The two black arms that extended from her shadow did the same.

  Crispin sprang back. Concrete shattered as Fiona’s shadow struck the floor.

  He lunged, but black glass flashed in front of him. Mr Beak cut across the scales of Crispin’s brow with the edge of his wing. It was enough for Fiona to dive out of the way. Crispin landed in a huddle, cursing and clutching at the sparks spitting from his forehead.

  Another blast of electricity struck Crispin, crackled across his scales. Jessica came up beside Mr Shell and they fired again, together. Mr Beak curved in for another swipe and cut across Crispin’s tricep.

  “You’re supposed to be helping Jacob,” Fiona said.

  Jessica replied with a thumbs-up. “Should be any second now.”

  Crispin’s body convulsed. His injuries healed, closing with an audible sucking sound. His scales changed and the electrical bolts hitting them discharged down to the spike at the end of his tail, where they crackled and spat.

  “I’m full of shapes,” Crispin said, laughing. “I can change into whatever I need to.”

  Come on, Julian. She didn’t dare look.

  Crispin struck the floor with his tail. A wave of energy knocked Fiona clear off her feet.

  Julian’s consciousness stretched as time fell away beneath him. The sensation was much like his brain had turned to taffy and been pulled out of his skull through his eye sockets.

  His mouth almost tripped over a word. He had to steel himself against the shifting of his mind. The spell had gone so far that if he got a word wrong, he would explode. Or everything else would.

  Down, through time, through thousands of years. He glimpsed a circle of men and women on the ground where the titan had been entombed. Talking. Arguing. Fear cloaked itself in logic. Saner voices bowed in defeat.

  And that was just when they made the ancestors of the werewolves. He saw them again, later, desperate, certain they had no choice but to tap the power of the titans to fight the enemy. Certain that they could maintain control.

  The same decision Julian had already made.

  He pulled back from the gulf of the past. Set his perceptions firmly in the present. He was almost there.

  In a paper-thin slice of time, he saw his friends locked in combat with Crispin. Fiona, Jessica, her automatons. He heard a non-sound, a collapse of magical probabilities into action. Jacob would join the fight in moments.

  Crispin. In that wafer of time he was a wave, a near-infinite progression of forms fanning out across non-corporeal directions. Julian couldn’t tell through the chaos which form he had actually taken. But he knew that Fiona and the others couldn’t hold out long.

  And then he glimpsed the wizard’s ghost.

  What was left of Savraith shimmered, rippled, barely coherent. He had to be willing himself to exist from moment to moment. He had no physical presence any more. He was just the concept of Savraith, not quite dead.

  The wizard stretched out a hand towards Fiona.

  No. A chill ran through Julian. Not to Fiona. To the young woman who stood close by, her face covered in the marks of a wizard of Teleoch.

  “Sorcha,” Savraith croaked. “Help me. I cannot come back alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” the girl said, though her voice was as dead as a dry river. “We’ve found another.” Her gaze flicked to Fiona and back.

  Then they were both gone.

  Julian’s crystal sword shone brighter and brighter. The spell neared its final configuration. He felt space-time as
it bent to his command. He fumbled in his satchel for his London A-Z.

  And then the ghost machine exploded.

  Fiona didn’t hear Jacob’s daemon rise. Her ears still rang from Crispin’s blow. But she couldn’t miss the flashes of light.

  The first was yellow with flame as the ghost machine was blasted apart. Then blue-tinged white. Quick, intense flashes, like lightning, shooting in all directions.

  The daemon was twice Jacob’s height. Humanoid, built like a silverback gorilla. It spread its long arms wide and opened a gaping maw, a hole of utter blackness where its face should be.

  Jacob gestured. The daemon charged.

  Crispin roared and met it. Monster and daemon struck with a crack of thunder. Crispin reeled back and lightning crawled across his scaled skin. The daemon struck Crispin again and again with its fists.

  Then Crispin hit it with a backhand. His claws tore across the daemon’s electro-flesh. Liquid sparks arced through the air. Jacob staggered, clutching his chest.

  Fiona’s hearing came back. She could hear Crispin’s laughter.

  She pushed herself to her feet and ran at Crispin. His tail blocked the monster in her shadow even as he tore into Jacob’s daemon. Crispin pushed the daemon back towards Jacob, step-by-step.

  By the black sarcophagus, Julian was almost lost in the light blazing from his sword. He didn’t look ready. Fiona pressed her attack.

  Then Alice was there. And Rob, bounding along in his leopard form. Like dancers who knew by heart the other’s moves they cut into Crispin’s reach, bit his hamstrings, clawed beneath his ribs. They came at him from different directions, pulling his attention this way and that.

  Rob shifted forms. He turned into a giant snake. With a hiss, he sank his fangs into Crispin’s ankles, where the scales were thinnest.

  With the sound of tearing flesh, Crispin grew two more arms.

  He grabbed Jacob’s daemon by the head. Raised it high. Swept it around and caught Rob square in the back. Rob hissed, his scales melting. Crispin’s tail speared through Alice’s thigh. She screamed as Crispin discharged into her all the electricity burning in his scales.

  Crispin’s red eyes turned to Fiona. Monstrous rage and gleeful humanity flickered back and forth there.

  He was on her in a blink. Nothing that big should be able to move that fast. Her shadow caught his wrist. Then caught his second wrist.

  Crispin raised a third arm. Stroked her cheek hard with a claw. “Running out of hands, little meat. Now you die. Now I rule.”

  All the sound in the warehouse was sucked away. Pulled into Julian’s sword. The crystal blade tolled like a bell. With a flash of purple, it shot across the hangar.

  Crispin, confident in his strength, didn’t even try to dodge. The scales of his back hardened into a shell.

  The sword punched through.

  Crispin screamed and arched his spine. Fiona willed her shadow to keep its grip on him. To give Julian time to complete what had to be the last step in his spell.

  Then Jessica hit her around the middle and shoved her backwards. “Get clear, you ninny!”

  The light from Julian’s sword became blinding. Fiona wrapped her arms around Jessica and pulled her down.

  Crispin vanished. There was a loud boom as the air rushed in to fill the space he’d left. With a ringing sound, Julian’s sword struck the hangar floor. Its light flickered, like a guttering candle, and went out.

  Fiona rose slowly to her feet, her arms still tight around Jessica. There was Rob, growing scale-clad arms and legs. Alice rose from a crouch, testing the air for enemies. Jacob came towards them, holding his ribs, and his daemon lumbered over to guard him. Julian still stood by the sarcophagus, arms out to his sides, his face hidden as he stared at the steel bones within. He had a London A-Z open in his left hand.

  “Everyone all right?” Fiona asked.

  “What happened?” Jacob asked.

  “Julian teleported him to Evelyn’s,” Rob said. It was hard to tell, with his features those of a snake, but he seemed to be grinning. “We set it up with her a while ago, just in case we ran into any nasties we needed to drop off somewhere.”

  Jessica pulled out her phone. “I’ll check she caught him.”

  Alice padded over to Julian’s side. “Julian? Are you here?” She put a clawed hand on his shoulder.

  Julian started and noticed her. Whatever Alice saw in his expression, it made her take his arm, as though he were about to fall over.

  “Yeah hi, Evelyn? Did a big shapeshifting asshole just land in your place? Julian might have sent him. You know, the Reverend Protocols. Yeah? He’s in what? Temporal stasis? Great, I’ll come and check it’s working properly later. Oh don’t get all like that. No, I won’t put Julian on. You can call him after. See you.” She tucked her phone away. “We’re good.”

  “The ghost machine is wreckage,” Fiona said. “Does that mean Savraith’s ghost is gone for good?”

  “The psychographic plate I used was blank,” Jacob said. He had stopped holding his ribs, but from the way he stood Fiona could see he was still in pain.

  “But there are others? Jess, make sure they’re blank or destroyed. Or both.”

  Alice still held Julian’s arm. Fiona put one hand on the side of the sarcophagus and leaned around Alice. That’s when she saw Julian’s face.

  His eyes glistened black. Tar-like liquid made black tracks down his face. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Can he hear us?” Fiona asked.

  “Yes,” Julian said. “I’m fine.”

  “Mm,” Fiona said.

  Julian turned his head in a jerky motion. “Rob, you’re a snake.”

  “I know. Awesome, right? I don’t reckon that’s the end of it, either. I wonder how many other shapes I’ve got in me.” He stretched his neck. “You with us there, matey?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” The liquid film covering his eyes began to drain down his cheeks as he blinked. “We need to decide what we’re doing with this.” He tapped the side of the sarcophagus.

  “That’s easy,” Jacob said. “We’re keeping it away from them.”

  Fiona spun round. From the hangar door, spreading out into a line, came over a dozen vampires. Lady Christina Denton was a cloud of darkness at their head. From a doorway that led into other rooms, about the same number of werewolves stood with their teeth bared.

  “Aw shit,” Mr Beak said. He perched on Mr Shell’s back.

  Rob sighed. “What are the chances they just want to talk?”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” Fiona said. “I want them to hear me without me having to shout.”

  She suppressed her surprise when Julian brushed his fingers against her throat. He flicked his hand and made a spreading gesture with his fingers. “Go ahead.”

  Fiona thought she heard a ting from the steel bones in the sarcophagus.

  “I want one representative from each side to come forward.” Her voice carried across the warehouse, filling it not with volume but with intensity. Several of the vampires flinched. Some of the werewolves laid their ears back against their skulls. “One who speaks for all of you.”

  Christina began to ghost forward, but a sharp word from another woman stopped her. Their argument was brief, but it was the other woman who approached. Two of the werewolves growled at each other until one lowered his head. The other loped towards Fiona and her friends.

  Strength. Fiona recalled that conversation in the pub, between Alice and Rob. Both sides respect nothing but strength. All she had to do was convince both the representatives of the vampires and the werewolves, who were probably the strongest of their kind, that she was stronger than either of them.

  And you all look like you’ve been through a war, the voice in the back of her mind pointed out.

  She reminded the voice that they’d won.

  “Who are you?” Fiona asked.

  The vampire raised an eyebrow. When she spoke, it was with a slight French accent. “Who are yo
u?”

  “As the person with the titan corpse aimed at you both, I’ll ask the questions. Tell me who you are. Now.”

  They both bristled. Fiona sensed her friends readying whatever shreds of strength they had left. But she saw the smirk on Jacob’s face, the hideous grin Alice wore, the way Rob stretched his scaly limbs as though eager for another fight. And it helped that Julian looked frightening, with drying black tears all over his face.

  The vampire conceded first. “I am Isabella. I lead the vampire court of London.”

  “Antiere,” the werewolf growled when Fiona glared at him. “We’ve met before.”

  “Have we?”

  “Under Trafalgar Square,” Rob said. “He showed up with the council after we beat Savraith. He was in his human shape.”

  “Good enough,” Fiona said. Both Isabella and Antiere stiffened again, but she pushed on. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re both going to call off whatever you had planned for tonight. Send everyone home. Everyone.”

  They both started to speak at the same time.

  “Enough.” And to her surprise, the monster in her shadow raised its arms behind her. Isabella and Antiere both tracked it with their gazes as its hands spread above her. For the first time, they began to look unnerved.

  “Enough,” Fiona said. “I’ve had enough of all of it. Send your people home. And tell them to stay home tomorrow night as well. And the night after that. And we’re going to keep on that way, nobody attacking anybody first.”

  “It’s too late,” Isabella said. “First blood has been spilled tonight. We have a right to retribution.”

  “You don’t kill your way to peace, Isabella,” Fiona said. “Crispin believed that. You know, the big four-armed monster we were fighting when you showed up? The one we beat? If you want to try killing your way to peace, that’s what you end up facing. Or rather, you’ll end up facing the people who beat him.”

  “The Shadow Council is broken,” Antiere said. “Without it, there’s no chance at peace.”

  “The three of us are a council,” Fiona said. “Right here and right now. We’re going to agree to stop fighting.” She softened her words. “It happened once, remember? It’s not impossible. The alternative is that you go to war with me and my friends. Is that really what you want?”