Silence in the Flames (The Traitor's Shadow Book 1)

by Ryan Talbot

  Erzabet was going to have a hell of a time smoothing things over with Ganesh’s people, but that’s what she got paid for. Technically, it’s what I got paid for, but let’s face it, I wasn’t good at it, she was.

  I pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one. Mentally, I counted from ten to one, then yanked the door open. I took the stairs back to the street two at a time. My driver lay across the front of the car, his throat slit. And of course, the bastards had spiked the tires. They’d wanted to be sure I wasn’t going anywhere fast.

  I wasn’t about to stick around for the second wave. Casually taking the cigarette from my lips, pretending it had gone cold, I dug my lighter out of my pocket. I felt my Sight surge and rolled the chrome lighter slowly in my hand, using its reflective surface as a mirror.

  Sure enough, one of the thugs, looking for all the world like a hole in the Veil itself, peered down at me from the rooftop above. I didn’t see any weapons, and he wasn’t nearly big enough to pose a serious threat. He had to be a scout. I relit the cigarette, and continued down the street as if nothing was wrong. There was a subway station not too far away. These bastards had done their homework; they knew my habits already. Normally, I’d wait for another car. In life, I’d been careful to always vary my routines, to maintain an airtight level of unpredictability. After death, I got a little more lax about such things. It seemed I was going to have tighten that up, and quickly.

  Periodically, I scanned the windshields of the cars along the curb, ensuring my new friend was still with me. After six blocks, I was getting sick of waiting for the hammer to drop. There’d been nothing stopping him from calling his pals after I’d gone off plan. I mean, really, by this point, I should’ve been home drinking scotch and showering the gore off my skin. I turned the corner and saw the stairs leading to the subway station. It was time to take control of this cluster-fuck. It was time to play this my way.

  6

  I took two running steps and hurtled the railing, dropping twenty feet to the last stair. My legs buckled beneath me and I rolled back to standing. Turning quickly, I growled out a series of warding spells, shoving my empty hands toward the stairway. The aether rippled as the wards took hold, covering the entryway like a massive spider web. Think of wards like a “No Trespassing sign”, except it’s loaded with high explosive. Whatever the ward is set to protect against triggers the explosion, or agony spell, whatever.

  I sprinted toward the subway platform, grinning at the thought of my pursuers triggering my wards. In retrospect, I should’ve focused on running instead. My wards exploded with the force of a semi-truck hitting a school bus. Shards of agony spells whirled through the station scattering civilians as their skin ignited with phantom fire, their throats filled with imaginary glass, and their eyes were torn by ghostly ravens.

  “Fuck,” I whispered as the innocents around me thrashed, choked, and tore at their faces.

  I turned to face the remnants of my ruined wards. Nine Skull-kids stood on the stairs. Their eyes betrayed the smug grins hidden beneath their bandannas. A tiny Asian kid ran a glittering obsidian ritual knife across the bottom of his bandana, miming their intent. He was the one that broke my wards. That bastard had to die first; a sorcerer could make even the simplest fight into a full-on battle. Eight of these pricks would be tough enough without the added hassle.

  The moment the sorcerer opened his mouth to speak, my hand twitched toward my lower back, toward my waiting pistol. The other skull kids fanned out, wisely making space between themselves. My pistol centered on the sorcerer's face, and spoke a Word of its own. The vapor trail of the round carved through the air, and my Word of correspondence followed in its wake. The stupid bastard had shattered my wards, bathing all of his friends in the essence of my magic. That was tie enough to bind them to his suffering.

  The bullet smashed into the smug bastard's face, and his friends shared his agony as the projectile severed his tongue, blowing a hole in his cheek and ruining his picture-perfect smile. Before the spray of blood, pulverized teeth, and tongue landed, I was in motion. The sorcerer was down; that was a given. Aetheric or not, a point blank shot to the face was a career ender. Unfortunately, his pain would only stagger his friends for so long.

  The Skull-kids had me boxed in, stretching themselves into a V-formation with the sorcerer at its point. I emptied the remaining four rounds of my magazine into the left side of the vee, dropping them, as I turned my attention to the bastards on the right of me. My hands loaded a fresh magazine before the cooling bodies hit the ground. The train sounded its siren song of screeching brakes as it approached the station, waking the reeling kids from their pain-induced stupor. I threw myself at the kid closest to the edge of the subway platform, driving my heel into the hollow of his solar plexus, and hurling him in front of the train.

  The last three came at me as one. The first, the closest, threw a hay-maker that would’ve ended me had it hit. I barely got my gun hand up in time to deflect it. The hit shattered my wrist, and my pistol clattered to the ground. The second kid spun low, and swept my feet from under me. My back slammed into the ground knocking the wind out of me. Black spots coalesced into a rapidly closing tunnel as my head bounced off of the floor and directly into the path of the third kid's elbow. Blood filled my mouth as the shards of my teeth ripped through my cheek and gums. In my blurring, fading vision, I could see my hands waving weakly in front of my face. They wasted no time, driving kick after kick into my face and body.

  “Stop it!” The voice was tiny. “You leave that man alone!”

  For a moment, the rain of blows ceased. I lolled my pain-wracked head around to see the speaker. My heart sank. My savior was a little girl in a ballet outfit. Her pink slippered feet kicked fearfully at the ground.

  “Mind your fucking business, kid!” Number One snapped. He pointed a bloody finger at her. “Go find your fuckin' mother.”

  “Stop!” She screamed, bravely stabbing her tiny finger back at him.

  The Skull-Kid drew back his hand.

  “Don't...” I mumbled blearily as I rolled to my knees. “You...fucking dare.” My shaking hand traced a rune in the air, shielding the girl.

  The slap landed, and ice-white flames burst from the girl's skin, blowing the Skull-Kid off of his feet. He rolled to a smoldering heap, breathing raggedly and clawing at his face.

  “Run,” I yelled at the girl.

  The other Skull-Kids, came at me as one. I slapped their fists away weakly as I stumbled to my feet. Desperately, I shoved my Marked hand against the Veil and screamed a Word of seeking. The hits rained against my head, and I staggered backward. My vision faded, the darkness that filled my eyes deeper was than any I had ever known. The darkness coalesced into the outline of scales. Silver voids tore through the darkness, and I recognized them instantly.

  YOU CRIED FOR AID, MY BROTHER. I AM COME.

  Leviathan's ancient voice nearly broke my spirit. It rattled my skull, and drove what was left of my soul into hiding. The Black Dragon, the Great Devourer, the Maw of the Void. Leviathan had many names, and none of them did justice to the terror that was he.

  “Help me,” I gasped. “Kill them all.”

  SPEAK MY NAME, BROTHER. NONE SHALL STAY YOUR PATH.

  Through cracked, bloodied lips, I invoked Leviathan's name, his blessing. Energy flooded my broken, battered body, and I surged to my feet. I threw myself at them, knocking them aside with the force of a hurricane. There was a chorus of shattering bone as they flopped against the pavement like rag-dolls. Cradling my broken wrist against my chest, I coughed out a Word of healing. Limping, I retrieved my pistol and looked around at the carnage in the station. Yeah, Erzabet was going to have a busy night.

  7

  I took a single step across the threshold of the Grove and knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. The Grove was dark, both literally and spiritually. I forced my Ghūllish blood to the surface. My Sight flooded with remnants of sorcery and I could taste Corrigan’s
spellwork. I knew it by the copper it left on my tongue and the scent of yew and mistletoe. There was always blood in Corrigan’s work. Always. The other was unrefined, it was sloppy and it was everywhere.

  I turned a slow circle, recreating the battle in my mind. The trees were bent and twisted all around the temple complex, as if a bomb had gone off. The trees were smoldering and their shadow sides, the sides that faced away from the temple, were untouched. Corrigan. What could have taken him to that point? Sorcery isn’t like mundane weapons. It can’t just be turned on and off. It starts with the Drawing, where you pull in the energy you’re going to need to effect change. Then there’s the Correspondence, where you tie the energy to its target. And finally, there’s the Release, where you let the magic go. That’s the part that’s different. A bullet has no mind, no emotion. Magic is the opposite. It is composed entirely of thought and it is driven by emotion. Control is necessary to direct it, to guide and shape the intent and carefully moderate your emotion so that the effect is exactly what you intend. I stuck with destructive magic because my emotions ran from two extremes—moderate dislike and rage.

  Corrigan, on the other hand, had absolute emotional control. He was at peace with himself and his goddess. This was the kind of sorcery that I would expect from myself. Someone, something, had pissed him off beyond all bounds of sanity. The only source of hope that I had was that the temple complex was completely untouched. There was no sign of desecration. I walked toward the altar slowly, my senses tuned to anything out of the ordinary.

  The wind kicked up and dust devils swirled past me. I felt a pulse of anger from the center of the temple. Hekate was displeased. Corrigan’s attackers were still here. I turned a slow circle in my crouch, my eyes gauging the distance from the nearest cover in all directions. I could step out of the Grove and cross back to the Lifeside, but that would leave me in the open and ensure that whatever was here knew exactly where I was and exactly how far I was from my nearest safehouse. The altar was more than just some rocks; it was a direct conduit between the divine and the disciple. In this case, me. If I could just make it to the altar, I could augment my sorcery with Hekate’s rage. Before I realized it, I was running full-tilt across the clearing. The trees behind me exploded outward, splintered logs blew past me propelled by gale force winds. My fear goaded me forward with renewed vigor as the air snapped around me, chilling me to the bone.

  I dove the last ten feet and rolled onto the stones of the temple screaming a Word of warding as I placed my hand on the altar. Glowing golden force exploded out from around me, encircling the temple in a dome of prismatic light. They moved as one against the temple. There were four of them, each of them shaped like a man, featureless and indistinct. The first was visible only as it passed in front of the others, swirling vapor made up its body and arching lightning formed its eyes. The next was made of fire and smoke, cascading flames creating a mane over her shoulders with flickering blue embers for eyes and smoke wreathing her body. The third slid forward, its legs unmoving. Its body was of ice and water with deep, black eyes. The last, the largest was of stone and earth, gleaming garnets stared menacingly at me.

  “Stop!” I yelled. “By the authority of the Prince of the Earth, and the Lady of the Crossroads, I command you to cease your hostile action!”

  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t feeling particularly emissarial. I was stalling and completely out of ideas.

  “Surrender, Saklas,” the massive Earth elemental spoke.

  “You have me confused with someone else, creature.” I held up my Mark. “I’m Jason Beckett.”

  “You will submit,” Water hissed.

  “Submit!” Fire screamed.

  Lightning slammed against the dome. “Submit!” Air howled.

  The force of the strike blew me off my feet. The shield stopped most of it, but the concussion was immense. I could feel heat dripping down my face. I touched my ringing ear, and my hand came away bloody. The motherfucker had ruptured my eardrums. I grimaced. This was going to make things significantly more difficult. Normals can’t hear Words, and for the most part, they can’t comprehend sorcery at all. But there is a cadence to speaking, an inflection and rhythm that must be perfect in order for sorcery to be more than just a jumble of syllables. If you can’t hear, you can’t speak. The motherfuckers knew what they were about.

  The elementals moved closer to the dome each surrounded by a corona of their power. I weaved back and forth woozily. The concussion was fading, but not nearly fast enough. My vision was unfocused and I couldn’t keep my feet under me. Sensing my weakness, the elementals attacked as one. The dome shuddered and buckled against the onslaught, but it held. This wasn’t it. Corrigan would have invoked similar protection when attacked, given that he was Hekate’s Disciple, her emissary, and her high priest, she would have fought even more fiercely for him. The elementals were shock troops. Which meant one thing, I was in far more danger than I was prepared for.

  What could shepherd elementals? Angelics didn’t use them, the Fae fed on them or sicced them on prisoners, even the Chthonic gods were less apt to use them after their rebellion against the Primarchs. I wracked my concussion addled brain for an answer. I had nothing. No one trusted elementals, no one would leave them under their own power for long, they were far too dangerous for that. The ringing in my ears began to subside, just in time for another explosion.

  A massive boulder slammed against the dome, tearing my eardrums anew with concussive force. Ice and fire blasted the surface and I felt the ward beginning to give. I shouted a clumsy incantation as I rested my hands against the stone floor of the temple. Fiery runes ignited over every surface of the temple forming a pentagram inside a hexagram inside a heptagram, all contained within a circle that roughly corresponded to the circular floor of the temple. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. If the elementals breached the barrier, the substance of their bodies would be used against them, each step deeper into the temple would sap them as they crossed farther into the center of the design. And all of that energy would feed back to a single point, me.

  No sooner had I completed my makeshift attenuation trap then the dome shattered into a million fragile pieces. Water surged forward and threw his arms wide, sending a huge wave of dark seawater. I shouted a Word of force and shoved back at the wave. The air rippled with the power of my Word, and the ground buckled creating large furrows reducing the wave to a minor splash on the temple floor. Energy surged within me, and I could feel my wounds beginning to heal faster than even my investiture healed me. Even as the smile began to creep across my face, Earth lumbered forward, another huge boulder in his hands. I drew my Beretta and whispered a curse over the bullet as I squeezed the trigger. It struck him in the center of his wrist and exploded. The rock in his grasp proved too heavy for his shattered wrist, and it fell. Right on top of Fire.

  There was a sulfurous burst of heat followed by a wet sizzling sound as the heavy stone crushed Fire into the earth dampened by Water’s onslaught. One down. There was no way that she could survive the smothering crush of the rock and the drowning embrace of the water. An idea began to form, and hope began to worm its way back into my heart like the insidious whore that it is. Water whipped his hand at me, and razor sharp shards of ice whistled through the air. I dropped to my knees, and screamed a Word of conflagration as I pushed at him with my Mark. A blast of pure white fire slammed into Water’s chest. For a second, the fire bound us together forming a perfect correspondence. That was all I needed. Tucking my pistol into my belt, I spoke a Word of binding, locking him in place. The icy fire of Perdition swirled around his aqueous flesh. I screamed out a minor exorcism and clutched my hand in a crushing motion. His body locked up, ice forming from his core outward.

  Earth’s foot crossed the threshold of the temple and slammed down on the stone floor. That spark of hope? It died. My heart nearly stopped as the force of Earth’s energy shot through me. His stony flesh creaked as part of his divine spark died and
translated into me. He paused, growling low, his garnet eyes flared and he tossed his head back and roared with laughter. I clutched at my chest and struggled to stand.

  “Stupid fleshling,” he spoke through his gravelly chuckle. “You write fire on stone. Stone obeys me, not you!”

  Inch thick stone spikes ripped upwards from the temple floor, skewering my stomach, thighs and wrists. I screamed and tried my best not to thrash. My brain worked feverishly, but the pain was blinding. Energy still surged into me, as Earth stubbornly stood on my runes. But without forming a coherent thought, there wasn’t much I could do.

  There are two things that extreme pain is good for, the first is killing you. The second is peeling away the meaningless and bringing clarity. Much of my sorcery training had involved a great deal of pain. For a moment, my mind froze and took stock of what was, and what was not. The pain was temporary. I would die, or I wouldn’t. What mattered now, was that Earth stood on an attenuation array attuned to me and the stones of Hekate’s temple were a perfect correspondence vector. My mistake had been laying the array on the stones, rather than in the stone.

  Whimpering, I forced my wrist farther down the spike until my hand rested on the stone. I lifted my eyes and caught Earth’s garnet-eyed glare and spoke a Word of inversion. I scratched out another rune using the blood pooled around my wrist as ink.

  “Gotcha, Bitch.” I rasped out.

  “No,” Earth held up his hand as his aetheric eyes saw the rune under my hand. “Do not!”

  “My Lady,” I held Earth’s gaze. “Do ut des.” My lips finished the ancient Roman prayer and I smiled.

  There was a ripple in reality as Hekate heard my prayer. Earth screamed as the goddess ripped the entirety of his essence from him in one massive draw. Every candle and torch in the temple burst into glorious flame. Life flooded my body as the spikes withdrew, and power tore through me like a fat kid through a dessert buffet.