Dead Spark

by Al K. Line

  The process began in earnest.

  It was different this time, more intense and yet more liberating. She was removing the infection piece by tainted piece. I felt the heat and the tight swelling of my leg recede, felt my whole body suddenly relax as I slumped forward when the virus was drawn away from my system and down into the place it all began, curling up tight at the source of the bite.

  This was the perpetual death zombies endured. An immortality of the most corrupt kind that gave life beyond death and allowed the infected to keep on moving when it shouldn't be possible to do so. This was the part that reanimated the carrier.

  Weaker and weaker it became, the magic that had insinuated itself throughout my body reversing progress and regrouping at the source. My limbs were my own once more, my mind too, back to being a man not a monster. My true Hidden self restored. I felt the change within, felt my cells, my blood, my heart, my mind, all of it be released from the stranglehold.

  The part of the virus that gave life after death was condensed into a tight ball at my leg. The magic I had accumulated and that which was now an inherent part of me restored to all its pure and wondrous glory.

  I reached down, entranced by the act, and still utterly under Amber's thrall I felt a lump grow at my thigh. I spread my fingers apart and fought to remain calm as a fiery red bulge grew and grew like a tumor. The skin spread tight then tighter still, then as thin as paper. I screamed and howled and heard Dancer do likewise. Amber yelled then the world spun on its axis.

  The skin split and a foul, blasphemous lump of dark, ghostly meat tore at the skin as if it were emerging from an egg.

  The poisonous ball of venom hurtled through the smoke, spreading and becoming little more than a darker patch of air. It collided with a similar presence that I could only assume emanated from Dancer, and the collision further distributed the already broken power.

  The smoke cleared as it slammed into Amber's mouth, forcing her back a few feet. She was wild, hair blowing like she was in a cheap shampoo commercial, her features contorted with effort as she struggled with the essence of the undead she'd taken upon herself.

  She froze, body rigid, and I wondered if she'd gone too far. That she'd taken on our pain and suffering only to drop down dead.

  Then she shook, great spasms that sent her arms flailing and her head snapping left then right. I knew, just knew, that she had died for a moment, as Dancer and I had done, but it passed in less than a second and she had control.

  She coughed, not just any old cough, but a gut-wrenching purge of all the foulness she'd consumed, and out it came, worse than the preliminary ingestion of our infection by orders of magnitude.

  Terrible, foul and malodorous lumps of magical disease erupted from her stretched mouth and shot upward, slammed into the ceiling in fat lumps, spread out across the entire room then slowly faded away. Cleansed and cured of all nastiness as the magic returned to the Empty.

  Amber lowered her head and the first thing she did was light up a cigarette.

  "Right, now it's time to get rid of the cravings. That's the reanimated part dealt with, no more chance of you guys being true zombie. We just have to deal with the other issue now."

  "Oh, wow! I feel so much better," said Dancer waving his arm about, showing no concern for the gaping hole in his forearm, the ragged tatters of flesh and the exposed bone.

  "Me too. That was amazing," I said, staring in wonder at the mess of split flesh that was my thigh.

  Even as we spoke, our magic was busy repairing the damage. Flesh was knitting back together, veins and torn muscle strands fixing themselves at incredible speed as if our bodies rejoiced in the chance to function properly after so long without such control.

  "It's not over," warned Amber. "You won't turn into zombies if you die, and the infection that kills you is gone, but you aren't out of the woods yet. Hold still, the next part is the most crucial. If I don't get it perfect, take exactly the right thing, you'll be lost to yourselves. I have to remove the hunger, the obsession with what sustains the zombie. It's much more elusive, and a lot harder to find, so whatever you do don't move and don't resist."

  Amber stared at her cigarette butt curiously, as if surprised she'd finished it, then stubbed it out in an ashtray.

  "We have a lot of things to talk about once this is over," I said, wondering where we could start, still unable to comprehend how she was even alive if her mother had died when she was a two-month-old bean in her womb.

  "We do," said Amber, holding my gaze. "Okay, time to get this over with."

  Amber breathed deep and spread her arms wide in what can only be described as purely for the drama. This is it, I thought, she's actually doing it.

  There was an almighty crash from the hall, sounding like a mirror breaking, and two very large and very goony goons stormed into the living room.

  Ignoring us completely, hardly even glancing our way, one picked Amber up under his arm, and before we had time to react, so out of it were we, they were gone, simply vanished.

  "Fucking vampires," I moaned, which I thought was rather apt given the circumstances.

  Feeling Kinda Funny

  I scrambled to my feet, body feeling strange because I was in complete control once again. I'd forgotten what it was like to have total dominance over my own limbs and I felt light, almost like air. Everything worked as it should, moved where I wanted it to, did what I wanted. And what I wanted right now was to tear Dancer's flesh from his body, rip it into long strips of meaty morsels and let the slimy goodness slide down my throat.

  Smash. I wanted to smash him real good. Grab his head in my hands swollen with magic and yank. Spin it around and around until it twisted off. Suck it. Suck out his brains like ice cream from the bottom of a chewed-off cornet and let the gray goodness satiate my overwhelming hunger.

  "Um, I think we need to find her, and fast," I said, words garbled as I stared Dancer in the eyes, my hands tight around his throat, his gripping me just as firmly.

  "That's a very good idea."

  "On three?" Dancer nodded. "One, two, three. Release." We let go at the same time and took a quick step back from each other.

  "Spark, I really, really want to eat your brains right now. Brains!" Dancer recoiled in horror and the worst thing of it all was I wasn't shocked.

  It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to say, mainly because I felt exactly the same. Oh, he smelled so tasty, and that was gross, or it should have been. He always smelled of death, of formaldehyde and damp soil, of the places the dead are laid to rest. Or often not.

  He smelled yummy. Of brains and goopy bits, and warm flesh.

  "I want to eat you, too. We have to fight this, dude. If we don't, it's gonna be one helluva tea party."

  "What happened? Who were those guys?" asked Dancer, like I had the answers.

  "You tell me," I said, shrugging. I didn't feel as concerned as I should have, the overriding urge to tear flesh forcing everything else to fade into the background like an afterthought.

  "How would I know?" Dancer gripped his hands tight, knuckles white, just to stop himself lunging for me.

  "Because she came to you and told you who she was. You must know things about her. Don't tell me you didn't investigate her because I know for a fact you would have. You don't let people like that into our lives without going over them with a fine-tooth comb."

  "Okay, I may have done a little digging, but I didn't come up with all the goods. She's a bit of a mystery woman in case you haven't noticed."

  "Aaw, hell, what is wrong with us? We gotta go get her. If she is my daughter and—"

  "She is."

  I gave him the daggers for interrupting. "If she is, then I want to know how, and if not, well, we still have to save her. Come on, let's go. You can tell me what you know on the way."

  "The way where?"

  Damn, but he had a good point. The vamps would be long gone. I had no idea where they could have taken her, or how to track her in a hurry. "Guess we
need to go back to the car."

  "Spark, you know that's a very bad idea, right?"

  "Yeah, tell me about it."

  Yummy

  Closing the door on the suburban dream felt otherworldly. It was as if nothing had happened. From the outside, the house looked quiet and exactly like every other one in the street. Amazing what goes on behind closed doors, right?

  We checked the road, looking fruitlessly for a sign of where they might have gone. As expected, there was nothing. No hint or clue to help us start our search.

  Part of me, okay, most of me, didn't even care. Emotions were crippled, stunted little nubs of things that took a backseat to the important stuff—feeding my soul with the essence of others. Taking their hopes and dreams, their power and their life force and stuffing it inside until I was fit to burst.

  I knew I'd been right about the virus, that the root of the problem was a need to feed off the truth of what it was to be human. The rest was just background noise to allow the feeding to continue indefinitely. Being dead yet not dead gave the zombie the ability to continually top up on this primordial energy that permeated the universe. It allowed them to focus like no human had ever focused before. To be single-minded and utterly driven.

  Hardly ideal when you just discovered you had a daughter, and now you'd met her she was taken, and was the only person who could make you whole again. Talk about lazy parenting—I'd win awards if it wasn't for the fact I couldn't be arsed to show up and collect.

  "Come on, let's go," said Dancer cautiously, keeping an eye on me.

  "Fine, but don't try anything funny," I warned.

  We split up, walking either side of the center line of the road, checking each other constantly as we walked. "Tell me what you know. All of it."

  "I will, but first I want to say sorry, again."

  "You've said that too many times already. How could you do this to me? How could you keep it from me?"

  "Because you were being a moody bugger and it was her choice. We're friends, but that doesn't mean I disregard other people's feelings entirely. She was confused, a little scared, and unsure of what she wanted. She said she wanted to meet you, or thought maybe she did, but needed to be sure the timing was right."

  "So, what happened?"

  "You. You happened. You were fighting your demons, deciding if you wanted to be involved in our world or not. I told her what you'd been through, about your decision, and she thought it best to wait."

  "That all makes sense. But what doesn't is you not telling me she was out here somewhere or even that she existed."

  Dancer stopped and stepped away from me, the cravings clearly intensifying. "What would have been the point? Tell you that you have a daughter but she's steering clear until you sort your head out? Like that would have made you come to your decision any sooner. It would have just clouded your judgment."

  I thought for a while, pushing down the intense need to poke out his eyes with my fingers and lick the juices from the seeping sockets. "Damn, I hate it when you're right."

  "Haha, that's why I'm Head. I know this is tough, I can't imagine how tough, but it was best to wait. If all this mess hadn't happened then I would have got in touch with her and we could have set things up properly. But she warned me, Spark. She told me that under no circumstances was I to tell you about her or try to push things. If I did then she'd be gone, would know, and that would be it."

  "So what's she afraid of?"

  Dancer looked at me like I'd lost what little sense I had. "Isn't it obvious? She got caught up in something and wanted it to be on her own terms. My guess is she didn't want anyone to know about you since it could put you in danger as you'd obviously try to protect her from whatever is happening."

  "And why would she think that if she didn't know me?"

  "Brains. Lovely brains. Mmm." Dancer's body shook and he got a faraway look in his eyes as he recovered and began walking toward me.

  "Dancer, careful, buddy." He lunged for me. I slapped away his arm and shouted right in his ear, "DANCER!" He jumped back, freaked, and grabbed his own arm as it reached out for me again.

  "Hell, we have to get this sorted."

  "True. The only thing worse than being a zombie is being alive and still wanting human bits and bobs."

  "Ugh, this is so nasty. I feel gross." He shook like a dog and then continued. "You don't know quite what a reputation you have, do you?"

  "How'd you mean?" I asked, nonplussed.

  "Black Spark, Dark Magic Enforcer, is pretty damn popular. Everyone in our world knows who you are. I mean everyone. The handsome guy with the bleached hair who traveled to Japan to avenge his family, killed the most powerful female vampire in the world. You're legend. There are even comics about you."

  "Haha, very funny. I just did what I had to do. No reason anyone else would be interested." Why would they? It was personal.

  "But you still did it. You went under the skinner's knife and emerged triumphant. I don't even want to think about how famous you'll be once word spreads about Dragon and the damn dwarves."

  "I guess, but it's just work. And it's not like I actually defeated him, anyway. Lots of my jobs don't work out how I planned them, you know that."

  "Sure I do, and I also know that you're one lucky bugger. That's part of the mystique, though. The wizard who always triumphs. It doesn't matter how, your jobs always work out in the end. Young trainees worship you. Why do you think Mithnite is so damn happy to be taken under your wing?"

  "Cause he was homeless?"

  "You are such a dick at times," said Dancer.

  "Hey! That's my line, and you're the dick." I thought for a moment then asked, "Do you really think I'm handsome?"

  "As I said. Dick."

  I'd never thought of myself as having much of a reputation. Not outside Cardiff, anyway. Sure, I was one of the best in the city, but it's a small place. And yes, I got called on for jobs from other places, from other Hidden now and then, but I'd usually been tied up working for Rikka, so often turned them down. And since Japan? I'd stayed off-grid, refused all offers of work and kept my head down. Not thinking my exploits with Kimiko would be of any interest to those outside my immediate circle. Guess I was wrong.

  "Hey, where can I get the comics? Do I look good?"

  "No, you don't. They gave you too many muscles and not enough pain-in-the-assness. And most of it is wildly exaggerated."

  "Oh, sounds great," I said, feeling somewhat cheery for the first time since the nibble incident.

  We continued walking away from suburbia and back to the car. I had so many questions I didn't know where to begin. So I started at the beginning. "Do you think she really is my daughter? How is it possible? That story about Sarah being pregnant and then dying with the fetus only two months old, that can't be true. Can it?"

  "Honestly? I don't know how she's your daughter, what happened after Sarah died to make this possible. But this is the Hidden world we're talking about, so you know anything can happen."

  "No, it can't. Things like this absolutely do not happen. C'mon."

  "Fine, it's a new one on me. But let me ask you a question. Is she your daughter?"

  "Yes," I said, knowing it was true. "She is. I don't know how, or what the truth is behind her story, but she's mine and Sarah's, I'm sure of it."

  "There you go, then. The minute I saw her I knew she was yours. She looks like you, but also has your aura, something of you inside her. Shame about the hippie thing, but then nobody has perfect kids."

  "This is crazy. She's older than Kate. I can't have a daughter older than my girlfriend."

  "Not a lot you can do about it, is there? Oh, we're here."

  We stopped at the entrance to the alley, and as we peered around the corner to make sure that nothing had happened while we were gone, I caught a scent so beautiful, so intoxicating and overpowering I lost my mind.

  Dancer growled beside me, a deep, ancient rumble of the hunter fixated on his prey.

  We steppe
d out into the alley's entrance and with tattered rags for clothes, stinking of old blood and fresh marijuana, incense and cigarette smoke, we sprinted down the alley, arms clawing wildly, utterly lost to ourselves.

  The rest is a total blur. I was so deep into dreams of flesh it was maddening. I would rip these tasty treats to shreds and no way would I share.

  Lady Trouble

  "Do not move," warned Persimmon.

  I didn't.

  "What happened?" I asked, then panicked a little. "Um, does talking count as moving? Cause if it does then I'll be quiet."

  "Dick," muttered Persimmon before getting off my chest where she'd been sitting, knife at my throat, leaving me under no doubt she'd use it if she had to.

  I could have blasted her, I was sure, as Faz Pound was back feeling rather fine, at least right now, but you don't do that to friends, even if they are doing the whole sharp blade at throat thing.

  Persimmon got to her feet with a single bounce, and I sat up with only a slight, manly groan. Okay, I whined and said, "No fair," but I felt manly.

  As I used the wall for balance to help me stand, I took in the scene and noted that Mithnite was backed up across the alley, an aura of magic surrounding him for protection, his eyes focused and his hands ready to do the nasty on yours truly.

  "Where's Dancer?" I asked. "And Kate, is she okay?"

  "I'm down here," came a voice from the other side of the car.

  "And I'm about a millimeter from his neck," came the beautiful tones of my vampire girlfriend.

  "Hope you two aren't cheating on me. That's pretty low, guys." I gave an apologetic smile and raised my eyebrows to show I was sorry for whatever I'd done, knowing it wouldn't have been anything friendly, and wandered around to where they were.

  Dancer got up, Kate right next to him, and remained very, very still. One look at Kate made it obvious why. Her teeth were bared, milky vampire venom dripping onto his ruined shirt. Dancer was trying to smile to placate Kate but it made him look like he was attempting a bad vampire impression.