by M. R. Forbes
He had grown over the last six months. A lot. He was easily twenty feet long, his scales looking more solid and well-formed in the dim darkness of the space above the magma flow. I walked over to the glass and put my hand to it, feeling a slight tinge of heat from the bond on my back. I claw came up and pressed itself in line with my palm.
We didn’t speak to one another. We didn’t need to.
“Are you kidding me?” Frank said. “I mean really? Are you kidding me?”
“We’ll be outside,” Peter said, drawing back with Mrs. Yellow and leaving Frank and me alone in the room.
“That’s Tarakona?” Frank asked.
I smiled. “No. That’s his son. Tarakona is much bigger than that.”
Frank’s smile faded. “Bigger?”
“Conor.” The voice reverberated in my head, a little too loud. I grimaced and took a step back from the glass.
“Mr. Tarakona,” I said.
“I don’t like when my operatives keep secrets, Conor,” he said.
Ashiira shrieked and flew higher, abandoning the window. A large eye replaced him a moment later. It bore into me.
I probably should have been afraid, but it had been a long day already.
“We don’t have an exclusive contract,” I replied.
His voice shivered in my head as a sort of laugh. “You’re free to work for anyone you wish, ghost. But when you aren’t being paid-”
“How do you know I’m not being paid?”
“There were no transactions posted to your account. Besides, she has nothing to pay you with.”
“Money isn’t the only thing that motivates me,” I said.
“She has nothing to keep you alive with either, necromancer.”
Was I that simple? Maybe I was. “That isn’t exactly true. Her blood can cure me.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah.”
“She is lying.”
“How do you know?”
“Her blood is special; that is true. She is special. More special than you realize. It can be used to reverse magic. It cannot be used to cure your very human disease.”
“Can anything? Black promised me he could.”
“He was also lying. Nothing can save you, Conor. Nothing can cure you.”
“How do I know you aren’t the one lying to me?”
Another shiver of laughter. “You don’t.”
Damn Houses. Damn dragons. Why couldn’t anything be simple?
“Peter said I’m the only one who can free Sandman. That I’m the only one who can open the locks.”
“Yes. That is why I risked my safety and the safety of my child to rescue you, Conor. It is also the reason she came to you. You alone in all the world are capable of freeing her.”
“I take it that it has to do with my abilities?”
“Death magic, yes. I gave you the ring for a reason, Conor, not because I have a love of necromancers. Your power is the only power that Mr. Black cannot call upon or control. Your power is the only power that can break his magic. What Mr. Black has yet to realize, and what I suppose you have yet to realize, is that in working to end magic he has aided his greatest enemy.”
“You?”
“You, Conor.”
“I’m not his enemy. Not really. I just don’t want him to end magic and wind up killing me.”
“Yet that is exactly what he wants to do. That is his sole remaining purpose and goal in life. That puts you in direct opposition. Is that not what the definition of an enemy?”
I had never thought of it that way before. “Yeah, I guess it is. So how is he helping me?”
“Xenoxofril.”
“What about it?”
“Think about it, Conor.”
I stared at the massive eye staring back at me. The key to everything seemed to be the meds. What was the secret? I glanced over at Frank. The Xenoxofril had turned him from a human into a monster. It had done that to a lot of the people it had been used on, though the change was more refined and controlled by now. How was I different? Why was I different?
It was the magic, I knew. I had always been sensitive. I had always stood on the wrong side of the awesome wall, relegated to wishing but never having. At least, I had thought that was it until I got sick. I was meant to be a necromancer. I was born with the innate ability to control the death magic, all I needed was to die.
But I hadn’t died. I had survived, thanks to Dannie and a few years worth of the meds.
Meds that had been improving over those years.
Meds that now undid magic. Dispelled it. Destroyed it.
Just like death magic.
“I see you’re beginning to understand,” Tarakona said.
There was a reason my power hadn’t faded when I took that last hit. There was a reason it continued to get stronger the longer I stayed alive.
The Xenoxofril was like steroids for necromancers, and I had been juicing for years.
“You wanted me to bulk up,” I said.
“I’m not the only one,” Tarakona replied.
I knew immediately what he meant. “The demon?”
“Yes. It sensed your growing power. It aligned itself to you.”
“What is it?”
“Something older than me. Something dark. Something powerful. It is not a demon. Perhaps it was a man, once.”
The description gave me a fresh chill.
“It can’t be that powerful. It ran away from Mr. Black.”
“Its motives are its own, Conor. You must be wary of it.”
I remembered what it said on the airplane. It wanted to own me. No. Not me. The power. I reached into my pocket and gripped the dice. They were like ice in my palm.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Finish the job. Understand the consequences of the decisions you make, and the reverberating effects of your success or failure. I will assist you as I can, but you can be assured Black will not be idle after our move against him.”
“What about Sandman? Let’s say I set her free. Are you going to keep her captive?”
“It is for her own safety.”
“Is that the same bullshit reason Black used to take her in the first place?”
“It is the truth. I wish it were not so.”
I looked away from the eye. Tarakona cared more about the new world that the return of magic had created than Black did. That didn’t mean he was any better or worse when it came down to it. He was just different.
“I will do my best to keep Mr. Black distracted while you finish what you’ve started,” he said. “With some luck, we should be able to prevent him from interfering. Even so, you can’t waste time with your pets. Get in, find the door, and get out. Forget stealth if you must. Use the mask and dice if you must.”
“Didn’t you just tell me to be wary of them?”
“Yes. You can’t let Mr. Black use her, Conor. Whatever the cost.”
“How do we know he isn’t using her already? How do we know this little incident won’t cause him to move up his timetable?”
“He won’t kill her until he is certain his compound will work, or he will risk losing it completely. He can only drain her blood once.”
I didn’t like it. Any of it. What else was new?
“Hey, Mr. T,” Frank said. I was surprised he had managed to stay quiet for as long as he had.
Tarakona’s eye shifted slightly, focusing on the trogre.
“Uh. Hi. I was just wondering if you might be able to hook me up with a gun or something. You know, regular human guns are too small for these sausage fingers of mine.” He held up his hand and wiggled them.
“Yes. I suppose if you’re to help Conor you’ll need a little extra equipment. I will have it arranged.”
“Thanks, boss.”
The door opened behind us, and Peter walked in. Tarakona didn’t look at him before he began sinking back into the depths where it was warmer. Ashiira followed behind a second later, pausing to shriek
at me one more time before vanishing.
“Good talk,” I said, staring through the glass at the rising heat from the magma below. I wasn’t sure exactly what had been accomplished by the visit. After all, I was being thrown back onto the same track I had already been running along, with the train of inevitability still bearing down on me. At least, I had learned a little something about myself during the visit.
And about Tarakona.
“You already know how this works, Baron,” Peter said, holding out a tray with a glass of water on it.
“What about Frank?” I asked.
“He’s never been outside. He doesn’t need to drink.”
Being back here had caused all of my memories of the place to return, including the location from beyond the walls. I nodded. The upside was that I wouldn’t have to grit my teeth through the teleport again.
“What about my guns?” Frank asked.
“They’ll be provided. Your Operator will join you at your destination as well.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“You tell me.”
I pulled out my phone and checked my image of the list. The other starred location was in Japan.
“Tokyo,” I said, sighing right after. I’d never been there before, but I had heard stories. Too many stories. The only good news was that House Red’s power was much more consolidated there, even if its new head was seated here. The bad news was that I knew I was in for a culture shock I would rather have avoided.
I reached out and took the glass, raising it to Peter before downing the water. Then I went over to the sofa and sat, waiting for it to knock me out.
As I rested against the soft back of the antique leather, I felt the dice grow warm in my hand and heard the soft cackle of the entity’s laughter behind slowly drooping eyelids.
“It is almost complete,” it said. “It is coming.”
I was drugged and unafraid. I don’t know if I was speaking out loud or only in my mind. Either way, I tried to talk to it. “Where the hell were you when I needed you?”
“We have a deal. A deal we have. The power of a soul, for the power of a soul.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“A trade. A fair trade. You use me. I use you. The bargain is made. It is coming.”
“What’s coming?”
“The end, necromancer. The end.”
25
Tokyo Express
I had expected that when I came to I would be in a hotel somewhere. Maybe in one of Tokyo’s famed mile-high towers, looking down through the clouds at the vastly altered city below.
Instead, I woke up strapped into a jump seat in the rear of a large cargo plane laden with boxes of who-knows-what, the sound of large engines buzzing in my ear, my entire body shivering from the vibrations. Someone was sitting next to me, and I had to blink a few times before I realized it was Frank.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, noticing me. His mouth curled into a wide, toothy grin. “You like my new duds?”
I stared at him. He had a black skullcap stretched over his massive scalp that came down to the ridge of his eyebrows, matched with a heavy duster that had to be bulletproof, hanging open and revealing a fitted black button-down beneath, along with a pair of black special ops style cargos. A massive pistol rested on his left thigh, and I imagined a matching gun was on his right.
Even more striking than that was his right eye. It wasn’t the same dark orb I had last seen him with. He had replaced it with an augmentation, a mechanical, magical eye that was no doubt feeding him all kinds of info about the world around him. It was also likely paired to the hand cannons, able to help him manage the beasts.
“Tarakona took care of you,” I said. Enhancements like that were common on the most successful ghosts. They were the only ones who could afford it. The eye alone probably cost upwards of three million.
“And he asked first,” Frank said. “I figured, I already got a new body. Why not? Besides, it’s cool as hell. Did you know that you’re five-foot-eleven and weigh ninety-seven pounds? Or that your muscle mass is-”
“Yeah, I knew that,” I said, cutting him off. “Where are we?”
“Did you know those artifacts Mr. T were talking about don’t register on this thing at all?” Frank said, ignoring my question, or maybe not hearing it.
My hands were folded on top of my coat. I didn’t look down at the pockets, or make any move to touch the mask or dice. Whether the thing that lived in them was a demon or not, it was easier to call it a demon, and it was starting to piss me off.
“Where are we?” I asked again.
“Somewhere over Japan by now, I would think. On our way to Tokyo. Exciting, eh?”
“How long was I out?”
“Twelve hours.”
I put my hand to my forehead, rubbing my temple. I stopped suddenly when I realized that I hadn’t lost my memory of Tarakona’s lair. I could recall exactly where it was, how to get there, and what it looked like inside. Whatever he had given me, it hadn’t worked this time. Tarakona had said the Xenoxofril was increasing my efficiency with the death magic. Had I unconsciously subverted the memory wipe?
“You okay, boss?” Frank asked.
I nodded and then coughed. I was still on the downward spiral though I felt pretty good all things considered.
“How long until we land?”
“Can’t be long. We’re descending. Eight thousand feet.” He tapped under his eye. “I love this thing.”
“Airspeed?” I asked, curious.
“Two-fifty. It also measures stuff like pounds of force in my punches, heart rate, even calories burned. Celia, that’s Mr. T’s doctor, said a big guy like me needs to eat at least twenty-thousand kcal per day to stay healthy. The best benefit of this whole thing is that I can eat all the pizza I want. Or sushi, since we’re going to be in Japan.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Tokyo, and Japan in general, was one of the most fascinating examples of how the reversal had changed the world. Not only had the landscape been altered by the sudden, explosive, and barely controllable growth of new flora and fauna, but the wildlife and the people themselves had changed in ways that differed from most of the other parts of the world. The island was home to a number of different new human species besides the elves, ogres, trolls, orcs, and goblins that much of Europe and the States had come to know. It was as though the island had always been intended for something more primitive, raw, and exotic.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was happy Godzilla wasn’t real. Or at least if he was, he hadn’t made an appearance yet.
“Do you know if Myra is already here?” I asked.
“I haven’t heard. Peter stuck us on this plane because they weren’t feeling too good about drawing Mr. Black’s attention. It’s a longer flight from LA.”
“Not that much longer, and we were delayed a bit. Any word on Black?”
“Right before we left I saw Mrs. Yellow looking very unhappy. I think he may have hit back at her. You know, I never knew anything about any of this stuff. It boggles my brain to think that everything I thought I knew barely scratched the surface of the truth.”
“I felt the same way when I learned about it.”
“Yeah? How did you wind up mixed up in this?”
“It’s just how things worked out after I got sick.”
“Nothing’s that simple, pal.”
I thought of Karen and Molly. Of the night I met Danelle. Of the day she died. I thought of Jin. Nothing was simple. The world wasn’t simple. Maybe dying was? Maybe I should have just let it happen?
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, boss. If you change your mind, I’ve got big shoulders.”
I sat and stared at the frame of the cargo plane for the remaining twenty minutes of the flight, losing myself in memories of a time when things weren’t simpler, but were definitely more defined. I could hear Molly’s voice in my head, shouting “Daddy!” as I came ho
me from work. I would pick her up and kiss her face, and talk to her for a minute before Karen would reach us. She would babble about whatever without taking a breath, and I would inevitably wind up laughing.
Damn, I missed that.
26
Foxy lady
The plane touched down twenty minutes later. There were no windows in the back of the plane, so I had no view of what we were in for until the aircraft had finished taxiing and the rear bay of the plane started dropping open.
A blast of semi-warm air entered as it did, and I breathed in the sharp smell of vegetation that I had always heard permeated the air around here. It was a mixture of flowers, fruits, and earth.
It made me cough.
I got to my feet and headed for the door. There was no sign of any other passengers on the plane. No sign of a pilot or crew either. They were staying in front, maintaining our privacy. Did they even know who they had transported here? Probably not.
“Feels warm,” Frank said, adjusting his duster. “Maybe I overdressed?”
“How else are you going to hide that thing?” I motioned toward the cannon.
“True. At least we can skip customs.”
The door finished sliding open, and I made my way onto the ramp and down. A pair of legs appeared as I descended, long and toned and covered in a light dusting of reddish hair. The rest of her came into view a moment later, her appearance catching me slightly off-guard.
Kitsune were nearly non-existent outside of Japan, mainly because of their dietary need for a certain fruit that turned out to be hard to grow anywhere else, and expensive to export in the small quantities needed for the population. As a result, while I had seen pictures before, it was my first experience standing face to face with one.
“Baron?” she said.
She was wearing a skirt with a leotard or something underneath to help keep her modest, along with a white button-down shirt and a satchel that she clutched under her arm. Her entire body except for her face was covered in the same, impossibly soft looking reddish downy fur. A long mane of darker red hair flowed down her back behind fuzzy ears, which were perched on top of her forehead. A draped tail swung mildly back and forth behind her, and when she smiled, she revealed a set of sharpish teeth.
