by Kelly Gay
“Hank!”
His half-drawn weapon clattered to the ground as the hellhound slammed into him. They fell to the floor, the hound’s teeth snapping inches from Hank’s face. “Shoot it, Charlie!” His big hands squeezed the beast’s jowls, holding it at bay.
I ran to the side, trying to get a line for a clean shot. “I’m trying!”
“Try harder, for Christ’s sake!”
I ran closer to the debris pile, my attention so fixed on the two that I tripped over a small piece of plywood, landing hard on my hands and knees. The hellhound lifted its head and stilled—perfect time to shoot it if I hadn’t been on all fours, the wood angled between my calves.
The wide nostrils flared intensely. In and out.
Oh shit.
I rolled, kicking out the board and then scrambling to my feet, adrenaline firing as Hank’s warning shout echoed through the warehouse. I didn’t look back, didn’t have to. I just ran, arms pumping, leaping over debris and trying to get a lead so I could turn and fire.
Too late, though. No one could outrun such a creature.
Paws landed on my shoulder blades. Warm, moist breath breezed across the back of my neck an instant before my face met the floor. I struck with at least two hundred pounds of hellhound on my back, every ounce of air forced from my lungs as my forehead smacked the concrete with a loud crack. Pain surged over my skull like a shockwave—hot, consuming pressure that stunned me for several seconds and stole my vision.
Wet jowls smacked eagerly, the sound of an eating frenzy that finally terrorized some sense into me and made me gasp for what little air my squished lungs could hold. It had straddled me, paws on floor, belly grazing my back, and its muzzle nudging and pressing and licking my neck. I closed my eyes bracing for the killing bite …
… that never came.
No fangs, no broken skin, no scent of blood; just an intent, slobbery licking at the back of my neck, drool running down both sides.
And then it hit me. Of course. Brimstone. Sonofabitch! I had a rescued hellhound living in my house. Brimstone’s scent must be all over me … at least to the beast on my back it was. Slowly, I lifted my aching head and rolled slightly to look over my shoulder, but a bright flash stopped me cold. Everything became suspended, but my mind burst with color. Colors that soon became images …
Hank behind the beast …
Firing …
Four small fetuses curled within the womb of this terrifying animal …
And then just as quickly as it came, the vision ended and reality rushed back in, the yell already in my throat. “Don’t kill it!” I didn’t need to look beyond the beast to know my partner’s dark silhouette was already there, weapon raised for a clean shot. “Low stun, Hank! Don’t kill it!”
A nitro capsule sank into the beast’s hip to the sound of Hank’s curse. She leapt straight up, yelped, and bounded away, each stride becoming slower and slower as the nitro spread through her muscle. It didn’t take long before she fell onto her side, her distended belly pushed skyward and her entire torso rising and falling in quick pants.
The cold would paralyze her long enough to figure out a plan of action, but it wouldn’t kill or damage her permanently. No doubt the healing process was already beginning—something all off-worlders, beings and animals alike, were blessed with. Pump too much nitro into a Charbydon, though, and no amount of natural healing would help. They were particularly sensitive to the cold, just as most Elysians had a severe reaction to high frequency sound waves.
I rolled from my side onto my back, staring up at the dark ceiling and taking several more deep breaths to calm my pulse. That’s when my sense of smell kicked in, and my gut clenched into a hard, sour ball at the foul, rot-scented saliva encasing my neck and dampening strands of my hair. Nice.
“Goddamn, Charlie,” Hank said, stunned. “You okay?” He reached down with an outstretched hand.
“Peachy, thanks. Who wouldn’t love a tongue bath from a hellhound feeding on body parts?” I slapped my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet, realizing my words only made me more nauseous.
Once upright, dizziness swamped me and pain stabbed my brain in hot pulses. “Fuck.” I squeezed Hank’s hand and bent over as bile stung the back of my throat and the mother of all migraines descended.
“Breathe.” Hank peeled my fingers away from his hand. “You can heal now, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right.” My response came between small, quick breaths. “That’s a little hard to do when your breakfast is about to come back up.” I closed my eyes as his footsteps retreated toward the direction of the hellhound, using the time to refocus and reach beyond the pain.
Hank was right. Thanks to my new genetic make-up, I had the ability to heal courtesy of both the Elysian and Charbydon DNA that now ran through my system. Double whammy—and something those in my small circle of friends believed made me indestructible. Of course, there was the little problem of figuring out how to use those abilities. Unlike my partner, it wasn’t second nature for me to heal or manipulate the natural energy that existed all around us. It took concentration and effort. Two things that were kind of hard to do when you’re in pain and about to barf.
“Here.”
A cloth hit me on the left side of the face, bringing with it a burst of machine oil aroma. I straightened and pulled the old work rag off my shoulder. It was better than nothing to wipe the slime off the back of my neck. I tucked the rag between my knees, twisted my disheveled hair and then tied it into a knot, my band lost in the hellhound lovefest. Then I set to work slowly wiping the slobber from my skin, eyes closed, and focusing on sending healing messages to my aching head.
Cool breezes. Laughter. Peace. Joy. Love. Strong emotions that I tapped into, that gathered in my chest with each long, controlled inhale until a faint tingle spread out in all directions. My toes wiggled in response. Once the healing energy was alive within me, I zeroed in on my head, pulling the energy up, directing it, and letting it take over.
A deep, accusing voice broke my concentration. “She’s pregnant.”
I cracked one eye open to see my partner standing in front of me with his brow raised, one corner of his mouth drawn down, and both hands on his hips, drawing back the sides of his black leather jacket. The stark white of his T-shirt was almost too bright for my head to bear. I finished with the rag. “And your point?”
A flash of exasperation widened his eyes. He flung a hand and a glance back at the hellhound. Anyone seeing her lying there like that could tell she was expecting. “You knew it was pregnant.”
I shrugged in answer. How in the hell was I supposed to explain? And why even bother? So I could feel more freakish than I already was? No thanks. Those closest to me knew I was changing, still morphing into something no one had ever seen before thanks to the gene manipulation. Two months had passed since I learned the truth behind the strange evolution taking place inside of me, but damned if I wanted to talk about every weird-ass side effect. Healing. Making nightmares a reality. Throwing bolts of power out of my hands. Eating like a sumo wrestler. Why not visions? A sharp laugh burst from my throat and I rubbed a hand down my face.
Might be cool if it wasn’t going to kill me.
I finished with the rag and tossed it into a nearby trash pile. “I’ll call Animal Control and have them send her back to Charbydon.”
“They never send them back, Charlie. It’s policy to euthanize them. You should’ve let me kill her.”
There was a time I’d have agreed wholeheartedly with my partner. Having Brimstone around must be making me soft. I blew my long bangs away from my eyes. “Why? Because some asshole brought her here for God knows what reason and then abandoned her? She’s not evil, Hank. She’s just an animal trying to survive.” I brushed the debris from my raw elbows and hands. “I’ll make sure they send her back.”
I marched away, tracking down my Nitro-gun, which had skidded down the warehouse floor when I hit the ground, glad for a reason to get out from under Hank’
s curious gaze. Once I located my gun, I holstered it and then called a friend at Animal Control.
My next call was to Liz. We had a body to raise from the dead. And this was just the break we needed.
2
Liz made it in fifteen minutes. Not bad for her day off. But then, Liz was one of those people always prepared, always organized, and always on time. I’d hate her for it, except that she’d weaseled her way into my heart a long time ago with her wry sense of humor, dedication to the job, and pitbull tenacity. I’d learned just as quickly as the other new officers, when meeting the chief medical examiner for the first time, that the small-framed doctor and licensed necromancer with the striking Asian features had balls of typanum-infused steel. Everyone respected her. Everyone.
And a natural-born necromancer like Liz was rare—only one in every major city, if you believed the statistics. Having her on the ITF payroll was a major bonus to the department.
I remained crouched near the nymph’s body as Liz’s telltale footsteps—quick and determined—grew louder. She stopped behind me as I glanced over my shoulder to see her in a plum-colored velour jogging suit, her large black duffel bag hanging off one shoulder and a canvas gurney rolled up under her arm like a yoga mat—she always kept one in her trunk because, hey, you never knew when you might need to move a body, right?
“That knot on your forehead is the size of an egg, Madigan. Kind of looks like a third eye.”
“Don’t you ever say hello? You know, actually greet a person before pointing out their flaws?” Rhetorical question. We both knew she never did.
She squatted down next to me. “Eh. Greetings are a waste of time. You know a person wastes seventeen hours of an average lifespan just on greeting people they already know?” Her bag rested on the floor between us. Her straight black hair fell forward, curving just under her chin, but held away from her vision by the corners of stylish horn-rimmed glasses.
“No kidding, really?” The faint scent of gardenias tickled my nose, a welcome break from the decay all around us.
“No. I just made it up. But I bet I’m close. You also smell really, really bad. Could use a charm like the one put on these corpses.”
“Thanks. Your honesty is touching, really.”
“Mmm. So I take it the fact I’m here on my day off means you don’t plan on calling the ITF?”
“By the time the ITF gets here, secures the scene, and debates on whether or not to raise the dead, our victim wouldn’t have anything left to tell us. I’ll make the call after we’re done.”
Unable to argue the truth of my words, Liz turned her attention from the pile back to the intact victim on the floor, leaning closer and closing her eyes as she ran a flat palm a few inches over the body.
I was antsy. Every moment we waited was another moment Daya’s last memories slipped away. Liz couldn’t bring back the nymph’s spirit, but she could reanimate the corpse long enough to engage what was left of those final memories. The longer the dead stayed dead, the less of a chance one had to learn anything useful at all.
“Patience, Madigan,” Liz murmured, sensing my energy. “Have to sweep the body, get a good look at everything first. You know the drill … No energy signature on her. Never seen this kind of drain before; looks like she’s been sucked dry. Practically mummified, and she’s stiff, yet her skin isn’t cold. Bizarre. You do know,” she said, tilting her head to look at me, “the ITF has been working the Adonai missing persons case …”
“I know. I’ll call. We’ve been monitoring this case, too.” I turned my attention back to the gruesome pile. “And now that they’ve been found dead, DC will want us to look into it.”
“You mean take out the killer. That still doesn’t bother you, does it?”
We’d had this discussion before. Liz was privy to our cases and the truth of what we did because we needed her and we trusted her. But from the beginning she’d made it clear she was uncomfortable with the power we’d been given.
“Depends,” I answered, “on who or what killed these people. You know as well as I do some things can’t be locked up, or reformed, or tried in a court of law. Hank and I do what needs to be done.”
A heavy sigh escaped her red lips, and her attention went back to the body. “And so do I.”
There were no illusions about what Liz was referring to. Raising the dead came with a hefty price. Every time a corpse was raised, it cost the necromancer a little bit of life force. And once it was gone, you couldn’t get it back, couldn’t recoup it like blood loss. How much loss depended on a lot of factors: how long the victim had been dead, how long the necromancer kept the dead animated, and how skilled the necromancer. Fortunately for Liz, she was the best. But still, I asked, “You sure about this?”
A soft snort came with her answer. “Serial killer powerful enough to prey on Adonai? Yeah. You need me. I’m sure. Where’s Hank? We need to get started.”
“Checking the perimeter.” I stood and brushed off my palms.
“And the hellhound you told me about?”
“Over by the office. We should have enough time to do this before Animal Control gets here.”
Liz surged to her feet. “All right then,” she said, unrolling the canvas, “let’s do this while it’s still worth it.”
Hank’s footsteps echoed through the lofty space as I helped Liz roll out the canvas and place it on the floor alongside the body. “Perimeter is clean,” he said, approaching. “Doubt the killer uses this for anything other than a dumping ground.” He gestured to the corpse. “We’re not going to do it here?”
“No,” Liz said. “We need to raise her away from the others. That empty storage room I passed up front should work.” Her voice dropped to a low mutter as she bent to grab Daya’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want any residual power to raise a body part … or a dead cockroach. Trust me, that’s no fun.”
Hank and I exchanged incredulous looks over the sunken, dead body we were about to raise, not sure if she was serious or joking.
Liz tossed us two extra pairs of gloves. “Charlie, get her ankles.”
I cleared my throat, pulled on the gloves, and then grabbed both ankles. They felt wooden; no shift or give. The only thing that moved was the tangled mass of dark hair that dropped away from the shoulders as we lifted Daya onto the gurney.
Hank took over Liz’s spot, threading his fingers through the canvas handles as Liz picked up her large duffel—the bag, I knew, held all of the ritual equipment needed to raise the dead—and began leading the way to the front of the warehouse and into the empty storage room.
Once inside, she bolted the door and then set to work, using a canister of salt to make a large circle on the dusty floor. Then she used what looked to be a very old compass to draw a salt pentagram inside the circle, three of the points touching the circle at what I guessed to be the north, east, and west compass points. At each point of the pentagram, she placed five black candles.
“Now,” she said, straightening to survey her work and shove her eyeglasses back up the bridge of her nose, “we need to lay her on top of the pentagram, head on the east point there.”
I’d seen enough dead bodies in my line of work, ones in worse shape than this, but knowing what we were about to do … Hank let out a heavy sigh, his expression resolute. It didn’t take a genius to see he was about as thrilled as I was with the prospect of disturbing the dead.
As Liz removed her ritual bowl from the bag and set several additional items on the floor, we stepped over the salt circle, careful not to touch the lines, and placed the nymph in the center of the pentagram as Liz had instructed. As I straightened, the sight made me shudder—the way the body remained mannequin-stiff, not melding against the floor like a living body would.
“Out of the circle. Here.” Liz held out a lighter. “Charlie, light all the candles.”
I removed the gloves, swiped the lighter, and tried to shake off the willies. Necromancy had the uncanny ability to spook the hell out of the most se
asoned officers. And I was no exception.
When I finished lighting the candles, Liz took back the lighter, tucked her black bob behind one ear, and proceeded to light a bundle of belladonna. Once the dried leaves caught, she blew the flame out, letting the ends smoke and propping it in the ritual bowl.
“If something goes wrong, break the circle immediately.”
Hank and I nodded.
“There’s a video recorder in my bag. Hank, please set it up and turn it on. I’ll ask her questions. Sometimes I’ll get a vision in my head, too, so don’t get discouraged if what she says doesn’t make sense. Once we’re done, we can piece together her death, and hopefully get a lead on her killer.”
Hank stepped to an empty, built-in shelving unit and, after rolling the recorder around in his big hands and doing a fair bit of frowning, he found the on button and made sure everything was functioning properly. He set the camera on one of the shelves at the correct angle before returning to stand at my side.
Liz took the bowl, the smoking belladonna, and a sheet of papyrus paper into the circle, sitting just inside the north point. A curtain of confidence and serenity fell over her as she centered herself. A low hum began in her throat, which slowly turned into a deep, resonant chant.
The room grew cold. So cold that my breath floated into my line of sight.
Liz selected a stem of the smoking belladonna, and used the charcoal end to scratch out symbols on the paper, all the while chanting her dark, necromantic song. When done, she leaned forward, pried the corpse’s mouth open, and matter-of-factly shoved the paper inside. Very much like a medical examiner who’d seen it all.
The mouth stayed open.
I was really starting to regret ditching the ITF Necromancy Seminar last spring. Maybe if I hadn’t, my heart wouldn’t be pounding like a Charbydon drum and my skin wouldn’t be crawling like a nest of scattering spiders.
Liz took the belladonna bundle and blew the smoke all over the body. As it drifted up, it stayed within the invisible dome of the circle, which was a very good thing. Too much in the air would cause me and Hank to drop unconscious onto the hard cement floor. Liz, however, was immune thanks to her unique physiology—a few gifts passed down from an off-worlder somewhere deep in her family tree. It had made her future as a necromancer a no-brainer.
