"Haha, how did you possibly guess? It's my body, Spark, it's eating itself and I can't stop it." Method leaned forward and whispered, "I think maybe I'm not true vampire anymore." He put a hand to his mouth and looked about guardedly as if saying the words could get us both killed—he was right, any sign of weakness and he'd be history.
"This is a job for a witch, maybe a wiccan. Hell, go talk to a seer, they'll be able to see what's in store for you. This isn't my thing, Method, but I am sorry. Look, you know once you're vampire that's the way it stays. You're losing it, buddy." I got to my feet, ready to leave. No way was I getting involved in this. It would lead nowhere but to an early grave, and I like being alive, it means I can have sex with Kate. I'd lived for over a hundred years without getting killed and had no plan to do it today.
"Spark, please? I can't trust anyone else. I need to know what's happening. I'm..."
"What? Come on, this is getting seriously creepy."
Method stood with a groan and a hell of a lot of effort—he looked a lot worse standing than he did sitting. "I'm not even hungry these days."
"Okay, let's go. We can't talk here."
I nodded over to Brewster Bunker but he just practiced his vacant stare. Not that he needed to; he nailed it long ago.
Method made his way over to the steps and I followed him through the smoke haze. Watching him climb up to street level made it abundantly clear he was in an atrocious condition.
Flesh hung off him in folds. His body misshapen beneath a loose-fitting suit he'd obviously had tailored to hide the wasting away, but it wasn't working. He was like a skinny guy in a deflated fat suit. Wobbling flesh bunched at his arms, hanging low beneath thin legs making it hard to walk, knees all lumpy where the excess skin from his thighs sagged low. Even his ankles were thick and overflowing—it looked like it was extremely uncomfortable.
Exiting onto the street felt like stepping from a sauna into an ice-bath even though it was mild, the change in temperature playing tricks with the body. But Method was sweating like a virgin at a vampire orgy and looking just as scared.
He was holding out on me, no doubt about it.
Only question was why?
Walking the Streets
Cardiff is a strange city. Capital of Wales—a kind of country in its own right although part of the United Kingdom—it has rapidly morphed into a modern metropolis with chain restaurants that suck at your soul and more outdoor cafes than is sensible for somewhere so bloody wet. On the plus side, it's easy to get around as traffic flows smoothly, and you are never more than half an hour from open countryside. It's the Hidden that make it strange, though.
Capital for all things magical in the UK, it houses the UK Hidden Council and numerous Heads of the various magical beings that are human or once human. From shifters to witches to vampires to zombies, although the zombies don't really have a Head, what with the whole trying to eat your brains and gnaw on your arm thing.
It makes it interesting, cosmopolitan, and there's never a dull moment.
Even as we walked through the quiet streets, Method clearly building up to something, signs of the Hidden world were all around. Cats skulked in alleys, pigeons eyed us warily, but I saw what they truly were—Hidden creatures such as gremlins or imps, Regulars never able to see beyond the protective camouflage that kept them safe and unknown to anyone not touched by magic.
Nobody knows what goes on right under their noses, and if they did they'd freak. So it's us and them, Hidden and Regulars, and that's the way it's always been. Me, I've got something similar, a touch of magic always buzzing away in the background making me the everyman. Unmemorable and unimportant to those that see me. I'm forgotten mid-sentence, never to be recalled again, which makes ordering a pint problematic but there you go—I suffer for my art.
An idea came to me as I watched Method struggle to walk, huffing and wheezing. He looked like he was already dead, not an eight-hundred-year-old vampire that ran the cutthroat business of faery dust for the whole of Wales, focus on the south where Cardiff is sited. The Hidden love this stuff, can't get enough of it. And trust me, if you've ever tried it then you know why.
Personally, I've only ever had it the legal way, an incredibly rare gift from a faery, and it's intoxicating and incredible but scary and dangerous as hell—endless Hidden have paid the price for using the extremely hard-to-come-by wares that Method peddles, even though it costs an absolute fortune.
"Okay, we're almost at the car, then we'll go see the Chemist. He may be able to help."
"The Chemist? Don't think I'm in the mood for comedy, Spark, if you can call it that."
"Don't ever tell him you dislike his routine. He's very sensitive, you know that. He may be a ghoul, but he's also the best damn potion maker in the country. Apart from Grandma, of course."
"A bloody potion won't help me," moaned Method.
"You'd be surprised. And what have we got to lose?"
"S'pose. Damn, I'm exhausted. I can't even walk these days."
"Let's just go see him. Then you need to be straight with me. No lies," I warned, "or you're on your own."
"Fine, just help me. I'm dying here."
"Not sure how that would work, with you being a vampire and all. It'll take centuries for you to waste away to nothing, even if you don't feed." I couldn't imagine the pain and horror of such a death. If vampires don't feed when they need to then it's the worst kind of withdrawal imaginable.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Method said with genuine fear. "Slowly turning to a living skeleton and experiencing the whole damn thing. I'll be too weak to move, but won't die until the last of the blood magic is gone."
"Just get in the car," I said with a sigh as we made it to one of my boss's cars I still had from a previous job. "And anyway, so many people hate you that I'm sure someone would oblige and put you out of your misery."
"Maybe, or maybe they'd rather watch me slowly turn to dust and live the nightmare for as long as possible." He had a point.
Method grunted and groaned, but I managed to help him into the passenger seat, thick folds of flesh overspilling—I seriously doubted he'd get the seatbelt to fit. "Damn, dude, how big were you?"
"It's glandular. Or, it was."
"Yeah, whatever you say." I closed his door and turned to move to the driver's side, catching sight of two very wide, very serious looking men heading right for us, dressed in dark suits with darker expressions. "Friends of yours?" I asked, knocking the window.
Method took one look at them and freaked. He never was the most gangster of gangsters, more a thinker than a man of violence, but still, he was overreacting. "Let's go," he shouted.
I turned to face the two men, and then saw why he was so worried. They flickered, revealing the other half of their nature for a second.
"Shit. Shifters." I dashed around to the driver's side as the two men's clothes fell away as they morphed from juiced-up bodybuilders to two very scary looking, and well-fed, Great Danes. They were bloody huge, easily up to my chest, and damn but they could move fast.
In an instant they were running full-speed, teeth bared, shining yellow and deadly as they passed under a streetlight.
"You and I are gonna have words," I warned Method as he squirmed in his seat, leaving me to the bow-wows.
I called furiously to the Empty. It answered with a rush of magic into my system that almost overwhelmed me. It came in hard, slamming into my body at full-force. My eyes snapped to black, vision enhanced, seeing the true nature of the world and the magic it contained. My ink swelled until it pushed tight against my clothes, swirls and perfect abstract patterns channeling magic through my system. Boosting it, circling it through my chakras, increasing its potency as it went.
My tattoos practically burst through my skin as they fattened like angry eels, magic screaming until I was ready to unleash hell on the shifters, and maybe Method, too, for getting me involved in something I knew nothing about.
The dogs leaped over the car, t
wo pairs of deadly teeth aimed right at my throat.
Nice Doggie
With magic-enhanced reflexes, I ducked easily as the pooches scratched deep gouges in the paintwork before landing in the road. They skid to a halt then turned fast, muscles bunched, ready to eviscerate me with their next move.
"Look, nice doggies, why not leave us be and go about your business? I'm not in the mood, it's late, or, er, early, and I've got things to—"
They pounced in unison, one for my head, the other right at my midsection. Backed up against the car, I lifted both hands and willed magic into my palms. Down it came, shunting terrible forces through my ink, patterns squirming as magic backed up then was released in a spasm of pain. Black fractal shards of death shot out of my hands like a nail gun with a stutter. This was nothing but a taster of my full capability, but I knew it would suffice.
Tiny darts as small as needles punctured their bodies in a thousand places, entry wounds invisible as the magic shot through fur, skin, flesh and bone. But the exit wounds were as large as a fist, the magic spreading into fat balls as it exited then returned to the Empty with a hiss and a puff of gray smoke.
The bodies slammed into the asphalt, a mess of gore as innards splatted and steamed. Their teeth tinkled like tiny gremlin shot glasses clinking together to celebrate my victory.
Death, there's always death in this world I've chosen to be a part of, can't ever seem to escape from.
These were no professionals. Just ill-informed goons not expecting an experienced dark magic enforcer to be acting as unknowing bodyguard for Method. My ink settled and my eyes faded to regular color as the Empty took back what I'd stolen. The loneliness took me. A hollow feeling, as if I were less than a whole man now. The world mundane and dull after the peek through the looking glass at the reality of this world so many walk through with eyes half-closed.
Sickness came calling, the magical comedown that can leave you praying for death as payback for the thievery, but I'd grown out of that particular sacrifice and I denied it entry, forced my body to fight it off. Then it was just me, the man known as Spark, my Hidden name, the only one most in the Hidden world ever use—they have no right to use my real name, that's for family and close friends only.
I stormed around to the passenger's side and ripped the door open. "What the hell are you involved in here, Method?" I spat, anger and violence ready to blast him to hell for what he'd got me involved in.
"Sorry, Spark. I don't know what's going on, honestly. But people are after me, doing things to me, and I don't know why."
I studied him for a moment. He seemed genuine, but where was the ruthless gangster? This man was a faint shadow of his former self. Weak and frightened rather than strong and afraid of nothing. "You better not be lying," I warned, then shut the door on him, straightened my tie, put my hands through my hair and got in the car.
"You don't know who those guys were?" I asked as I drove through the city, sticking to the speed limit.
"No idea. I've always got on fine with the shifter communities. Heck, some of them work for me and they're always good clients."
"This a regular thing, people trying to kill you?"
"Yeah, lately." Method wiped his brow with the back of a bony hand, skin bunched around his wrist. In the stark light of the streetlights we passed, his face showed just how damaged his body was. He looked like a skeleton wrapped in poisoned skin, cheekbones sharp as my grandmother's tongue. Eyes sunken, the life and the sense of menace faded, replaced with sad resignation.
"Where's all your people? Your goons? What about the other vampires?"
"Spark, I've still got goons, that's why I'm still alive, but I wanted to meet in private. You know I don't deal with the other vampires much. Give me the creeps, always have."
"But you're a vampire!"
"So what? It's not like you get on with all humans, is it?" He had a point. "And anyway, they never liked that I stayed large. Damn fools with their preening and posturing, makes me wanna throw up."
"Okay, business then? This about business? Someone trying to take over?"
"Nope. Business is better than ever. With all the coal mines closing or closed, all the industry either gone or about to go, I'm richer than ever and have more people working for me than ever. I've got a mini army to protect my interests now. I still rule, you can bet on that."
This was crazy. Why the hell was he being targeted, then? "Well, there has to be something," I said, exasperated and a little annoyed by his evasive answers.
"Spark, that's just it. It could be any number of Hidden out to get me. You know what it's like in our world, and I'm a bloody gangster. Everyone hates me, it comes with the territory." He had a point about that, too.
We were silent for the short drive to the Chemist's, Method leaning back against the leather seat, wheezing and battling for breath.
I woke him after I parked up across the street from the Chemist's and we crossed. I knocked, and a few minutes later, after some curtain twitching and the sound of way too many bolts and locks being removed, the Chemist opened the door.
Sour body odors, the stench of strange potions, and the overpowering heat of his lab burners hit like I'd stepped into hell itself.
"Can we come in?"
"Sure, Spark. Who's the mannequin?" The Chemist peered at Method for a few seconds, then squinted, or tried to. It's hard to get the facial expressions right when half your face has melted down to your chin—yeah, he's a ghoul, and he freaks out everyone that sees him. "Damn! Method, is that you?" He moved closer, then said, "It is! What happened?" as he grabbed us both by the arm and dragged us into the inferno that was his home-cum-lab.
I gagged and tried not to breathe—you're likely to catch a contagious disease if you do—but I succumbed, took a tentative drag on the polluted atmosphere, checked and found to my relief I was still alive, so moved further into the room.
The Chemist bolted and locked the door, then turned and said, "So, what can I do for you fellas? I hope you've got money? Did you see my act earlier?"
Method grunted then said, "I've got plenty of money, but this was Spark's idea, not mine. I don't think there's anything you can do for me. And, er, yeah, I caught the end. Very funny." He's a better liar then I am. I was almost convinced.
"I missed it," I said, trying not to look relieved.
"Shame. Now, Method, I am the Chemist. I can do a lot of things for a lot of people, and you, my friend, have been the victim of—" Something spat and boiled over at the long workbench and the Chemist went to deal with it.
"He's got what?" I asked, keen to get home to my bed.
"What?" asked the Chemist, adjusting the burner beneath a bell jar. "Oh, yeah, he's been hexed. Not by a wizard, but by a witch. She's stuck a mörkö on him."
"Damn, you're screwed," I said.
"Yep, he is," said the Chemist.
"Shit," said Method.
"Cup of tea, anyone?"
We waited for the murky brown liquid to boil. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Fear the Bogeyman
"Are you sure?" asked Method, staring dubiously at his tea. I tried mine—I should have known better.
"Yep, I can see it right there on your back. Great fat thing it is, like a smooth mountain of flesh, just a head and then a blob. Nasty bugger. Its eyes are as white as its teeth and it's grinning at me and making me real nervous." The Chemist looked away.
Damn, if it was freaking a demon ghoul that still to this day fed on necrotic flesh and was so misshapen he made Freddy Krueger look like a model, well, you know it's kinda gross.
Method tried to look over his shoulder, utterly freaked, but clearly saw nothing. The Chemist is true Hidden, born of magic, so is privy to things we aren't. Especially regards to supernatural creatures that are more myth than anything.
"This can't be right," said Method. "Mörkö are just bogeymen, used to scare kids. They aren't actually real."
"Come on, even I know that all myths and fairy tales
are based on fact," I said. "You should know better. It's Finnish, right? And you're Finnish?" A lot of powerful vampires and Hidden hail from Finland. It's where humanity first learned about the Empty—there's definitely something in the water there. Or, it's so boring they make stuff up to entertain themselves then wake up one morning only to discover it's now real, and keen on biting.
"I haven't been back to Finland for centuries, and this mörkö is just a story. Anyway, you said it was a witch doing this." Method put down his tea and wiped at his face. He was overheating. The weight of the skin without the flesh beneath must be a terrible burden, and the sauna-like conditions of the room were not helping.
"Yeah, it's a witch all right, and she's set this on you. It's riding your back, sucking your energy right this minute. Hell, it's growing as more of your flesh is consumed. Surprised you fellas can't see it." The Chemist spoke conversationally, like this was just us guys talking about sports.
I inspected an oversized, murky test tube, jumping back as something squirmed inside and hit the glass. "Can you remove it? Can you break whatever hex he has?"
"I can get it off him, sure, but it'll hurt."
"That's okay," I said.
"Hey, this is me we're talking about, not you," objected Method.
I shrugged. "Suit yourself."
With a sigh, Method said, "Fine, do it."
"Okay," said the Chemist preparing a relatively clean beaker. "But this won't remove the hex. There will be something else along soon enough. You've been chosen by some old crone and she's got it in for you. Any Hidden creature that sniffs out the hex will be drawn to you and it could be worse next time."
Full Metal Magic: An Urban Fantasy Anthology Page 16
