Demon's Play

by David McBride

  The afternoon gave way to dusk as I paced the circuit of my house, thinking furiously. What was the necromancer’s goal in snaring Paulo’s spirit, or trapping those two zombies to attack me? Unless it was just terror tactics and an inherent hatred of Inquisitors the actions didn’t make much sense. I was running out of time to figure it out. Most necromancers were close to powerless in the daylight, but night wasn’t far off, the sun already slinking towards the horizon. But this necromancer wasn’t like the ones I had heard of anyway. Most were extreme introverts, almost to the point of preferring the company of the dead. But Christian was recruiting and throwing power about, basically daring anyone to stop him. Perhaps he wasn’t encumbered by the light of day at all.

  Disheartened, I made my way to my bedroom. I knew what I had to do. It was the only way, the only solution I had to the problem at hand.

  I dropped down in front of the nightstand and popped the latch. My heart thudded in my ears as blood surged in anticipation. The books and first-aid kit that sat inside I discarded on the carpet behind me. I punched the button on the top left at the back of the compartment to release the false back and pulled it out as well. The gun and money sat over to the left, but I ignored those and looked directly at the two vials that sat on the right. They blazed neon blue in the darkness of their hideaway. I pulled one out and held it in front of me with shaking fingers. The liquid danced and seemed to grow brighter as I pulled it out into the light of the room.

  The dreaded drug dreamscape didn’t seem so frightening as it floated innocuously in its vial. It was a drug tailor-made for vampires with magic and darkling essence as its main ingredients. It was illegal because of what it did to most of its users. With vampires it was a combination of enhanced strength and an overwhelming bloodlust. When considering how powerful and dangerous vampires are normally one realizes just how catastrophic that could be. With everyone else, paras and humans alike, it usually caused either sickness or death. Psychics that had taken it had ended up in the loony-bin from the overload of sensation. Somehow I had avoided that. Not only did I survive, but I discovered that my powers were operating at a higher level than I had dreamed possible. I was the exception to the rule.

  I uncorked one of the vials and put it to my lips.

  The blue liquid slid down my throat with a warm rush that reminded me of a fine scotch. I put the empty vial back in the cabinet, replaced the false backing and everything else, and closed it up. An eel wormed its way around my stomach warming me from the inside out. I stood and went to the bathroom, turning on the faucet as I looked in the mirror. Already the blood vessels in my eyes had fattened into dark red worms at least twice their normal size. The water streamed over my hands as I cupped them and lifted them to my face. I grabbed a towel off the rack and dried my face. When I looked at my eyes again a soft lambent jade light was reflected back at me.

  Laughter erupted from me in an unbidden, bubbling rush. It was a rough sound that was strange to my ears. It fit with the alien green-brown eyes that pulsed back at me from the mirror. My eyes were normally a uniform dark brown, like polished mahogany, but these new eyes were the color of a clover. As I concentrated on the shining orbs they began to fade back to normal. I sighed with a mix of relief and loss.

  Hurrying to unlock the basement door, I missed the pad for the thumbprint several times with my shaking hands. Once inside, I gathered up the weapons I had set aside and put them on, stuffing the extra clips in the pockets of my trench coat. A minute later I was ready, standing on my front porch breathing in the cold late-fall air. My power uncoiled from me and stretched itself like a waking cat. It reached out and tasted the necromantic energy that drifted on the air like the scent of dead leaves. I never would have felt it without dreamscape. It was a soft undercurrent, but unmistakable if you had felt it before.

  Almost before I realized what I was doing I had jumped into my car and started it up, the engine coughing spitefully to life. Tires squealed on pavement as I sped off to follow the trail my mind laid out for me. My hands and feet seemed to work of their own accord as they steered the car toward their destination. My mind was just a willing passenger along for the ride until further notice.

  The golden ball of the sun had dipped below the horizon and painted everything in copper hues. The Second City flashed by in a blur, and soon I was deep into the merge, nearing the human sector. That made me pay closer attention. Another incursion into the human areas was the last thing I wanted. Lou had enough on his plate as it was, he didn’t need the people forming lynch mobs because of one rogue necromancer.

  As the pavement flowed beneath me to carry me to my destination my power reached out, moving about the people, touching their minds and hearts. It was heady stuff. The magic lifeblood that flowed through the city was in my mind. I could have reached out and touched it if I wanted to. I shook off the euphoric feeling and pressed on, clearing my head.

  Pulling alongside a cemetery on the east side of the merge, I parked and shut off the car. The necromantic energy was so thick here I imagined I could taste graveyard moss on my tongue. I spit reflexively as I got out and made my way through the front gate and down the paved path between the rows of headstones. Lights had sprung on up and down the trail. The sun had finally given up the fight and relented to darkness. Stopping where I was, I looked around and tried to find where I wanted to go. The feeling here was overpowering and I knew that the daylight wouldn’t have been much more than a nuisance to this necromancer. That’s why I was able to pick up the trail while the sun was still out.

  Something on the far side of the grounds called to me. It recognized me and wanted me to come closer. I could feel what it wanted as clearly as if it had spoken it aloud. As I got closer, however, I realized that this felt too much like the zombies the other night. It was a remnant of power, not the source.

  Damn, the caster might not be here, I realized. I started to run. The magic responded with something that felt like a dog wagging its tail at a person, hoping for a belly rub. But I knew that this dog had teeth and would gladly rip my face off with them if given the chance. The lights dimmed around me, the ones up ahead were out entirely. I pulled my gun free from the hip holster, thumbed off the safety, and chambered a round.

  Something roared off to my right, a deep animalistic sound of hunger and the urge to hunt. I slid to a stop and wheeled in that direction looking for signs of movement. Nothing. I looked back to the left and saw what I had feared I would: an open grave. The dirt had been pushed off in little hills to the sides. I pushed my senses out further trying to recapture that feeling I had and home in on it. A snarling came from behind me and I whirled to meet it. Something darted across the paved walkway and hid among the tombstones. It wasn’t a zombie, it was far too fast. It had to be a ghoul.

  And there were two of them. I cursed at my stupidity for racing out here without letting anyone know where I was going. Although I hadn’t really known where I was going until I got here. But no one even knew that I had left my house. My training kicked in and squashed all those concerns, compressing them into a ball of uncertainty and moving it to the back of my mind. The smell of rot hung in the cold air like a blanket, attempting to choke me with the fetid odor.

  Something prickled the skin on the back of my neck. I swung in time to see one of the creatures running at me on all fours across the soft grass. I fired two shots without aiming. One hit a headstone and exploded the top of it into tiny granite chips, and the other went sailing into the night, swallowed by the darkness that seemed to hang particularly heavy in this section of the graveyard. The ghoul lurched to the left to avoid my aim, but it just gave me that extra second I needed to zero in on it.

  Alarm bells in my head went off. I ducked and rolled in time to see the other one sail through the air where I had been seconds before. With the momentum of the roll, I was able to come up in a crouch. I aimed at the ghoul as it landed on the far side of the trail, talons skittering across the pavement. The gun barked twic
e in quick succession. The first bullet caught it in the back just below the shoulder blade. The second was lower and hit it on the side of its leg. It tumbled into a tombstone and howled in anger and pain.

  The other one circled me warily, trying to keep headstones between us. The injured one got up and snarled at me, limping slightly, keeping its weight distributed on its three other limbs. I had never seen a ghoul up close before, and I found I was unprepared. It resembled a man in only a loose fashion. The basic physiology was there, but it looked more like the missing link than a person. The forehead was sloped forward so that only the smallest slit of eyes could be seen. The flesh was gray and dead and looked as if it had been poured on like candle wax. The remnants of clothes hung off of it in ragged strips. Talons like the one I had found at the scene of those two murdered boys tipped every finger and toe. Except for one; it was missing a talon on its right foot. This was the ghoul that had killed those two men in the human sector. It smiled at me as if reading my thoughts, revealing jagged-set fangs that overlapped and stuck out at awkward angles. Black sludge dripped from its lower lip and hit the ground with a wet plop.

  The second one loped over next to the first and sat on its haunches, as if waiting for a signal from it. I didn’t wait for them. I fired once and hit the wounded one dead-center in its sloped forehead, putting a hole in it and blasting bits of gore out the back. The beast grunted, recoiling and striking a tombstone, knocking the engraved stone over and cracking it in half. But the creature stayed on its feet and began worrying at the wound with those dark talons. As I watched, it wrestled the flattened bullet free; disregarding the further damage it inflicted on itself, and dropped the metal to the ground. It scratched at the wound as if the massive wound were a mosquito bite. A low coughing sound came from the two things and I realized that they were laughing at me.

  They tensed to pounce as one, the power that animated them singing through their veins. The gun was still pointed at them, but I knew now it was useless. The silver casing and the blessed saltwater tip was an annoyance to them, nothing more. I let it drop to my side and concentrated. My power leapt to attention with the same desperation a condemned prisoner facing execution would show a potential phone call from the governor. It swirled about me and reached out to touch the animating energy of the two creatures. I found myself crouching into a position to mimic them. The gun fell from my hands and clattered to the ground. My Second Sight opened wide and I could see the black and red energy swirling within them. It was spiritual energy twisted by the necromancer and placed in these two bodies which he had shaped to his liking, crafting their flesh like a mad sculptor. The one on the left seemed familiar somehow, its energy resonating with my own. I looked closer willing myself to see what it was, who it had been. Then I saw it.

  It was Paulo.

  In my mind’s eye I saw the dark spell trapping his spirit and carrying him away. Now I knew why.

  Rage and disgust filled me and overflowed. Energy, the lifeblood of magic itself, crackled around me. I had never felt this powerful before. The creatures must have sensed the change in the balance. No more toying with their food. They leapt as one, arms extended, claws reaching for my blood. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. I rolled to the side, watched them sail past me into the rows of granite grave markers, and lashed out at them with every ounce of power I had. I reached deep inside them until I could feel the power binding the energy to the bodies. It fell into my hands like a mass of spider webs, sticky and beautifully intricate, yet fragile. I pulled the essence of the spell apart with metaphysical hands, ripping it to pieces as I imagined those things would have done to me. The results were immediate. As they got to their feet to circle back and attack again they stopped and stood stock still. The spell put up a fight. It didn’t want to release them so easily, but I forced it out, gutting it and feeding it back into the ether.

  The ghouls fell over and moved no more. I picked up my gun and walked over to them, stepping around the final resting places of people as I went. The bodies began bubbling and melting as if a blowtorch was hovering over them. Within a minute both bodies broke down into a disgusting puddle of their component parts.

  My power, exhausted from stresses it had never endured before, came back to me in a trickle, like sand in an hourglass. Not only was my power wrung out, so was my body. It hadn’t been a long fight, but the adrenaline crash was hitting me and I was struggling to bring my breathing under control. It wasn’t until I had calmed down and propped myself against a weeping willow tree that I felt Paulo and the other I had freed lingering near me. Once free of the binding spell their energy had returned to normal. They were free of the malignant influence of the necromancer. I turned to see two faint blue outlines standing behind me. Paulo and another young man hovered inches above the ground, smiling at me in gratitude. I found myself smiling back and inclined my head to them.

  What do you say in a situation like that? Is there anything to say?

  With that eerie unity that they had displayed while trapped in the ghoul bodies they both nodded back to me. Then they straightened, turned, and walked away, their feet never touching the ground. Paulo looked back over his shoulder and gave one final wave before they both vanished into the night. The lights flickered back to life slowly bathing the graveyard in an orange light that, while not entirely necessary in the false twilight, I found incredibly reassuring.

  9

  Sitting in my car drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I looked into the rearview mirror and checked my eyes. They were almost back to normal, even the inflamed blood vessels had begun to shrink back to regular size. Normally it took several hours for the effects of dreamscape to wear off, but it had only been an hour since I had ingested it and already the effects were dissipating. The only reason I could think of for the premature drop-off was the amount of energy I had been channeling. It must have overloaded the drug’s capabilities and burned itself out. I was treading on dangerous ground here. I had to be careful.

  A chirping noise floated out of my glove compartment. I opened it and pulled out my cell phone. Flipping it open, I looked at the caller I.D. Number unknown.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Long time, no hear, Frank.” The voice was deep and familiar.

  “Simon? Is that you?” I found myself smiling as the voice on the other end chuckled.

  “The one and only, brother. You busy?”

  I looked out at the expanse of the cemetery. The bodies of the ghouls had dissolved into puddles of gristle and bone fragments and the thread of power that I had had such a stranglehold on earlier was gone like a whisper in the wind. Lou would be glad to hear that the ghoul that had caused him so many problems was dead and gone, but there was no reason that telling him about it couldn’t wait till later. “Just wrapping something up. So what’s the occasion? I haven’t heard from you in over a year now.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I know, we really should keep in touch, and not just when the shit hits the fan.”

  That burning sensation in my gut came back with a vengeance. “So this is a business call then?”

  “’Fraid so. Ben told me about your necromancer problems and I thought I should come out and lend a hand.”

  “Wait,” I said, brow furrowing in confusion. “You’re coming out here?”

  “I’m already here,” he answered quickly.

  “Who’s watching L.A.?”

  “My apprentice is taking care of things while I’m gone.” He didn’t sound the least bit apprehensive about that, but Simon rarely sounded worried about anything. He had survived the Vampire War, fighting alongside the magic users who were defending humanity against his fellow vampires. It took a boat-full of guts to stand against your own kind in a war, especially when the penalty for treachery among vampires is a fate far worse than death.

  “Okay, but why are you coming out here in the first place?” I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger and massaged gently. I had a feeling I
knew the answer but I wanted to know for sure.

  There was a long pause as I waited for a response. For a moment I thought we had been disconnected, but then his voice came through, quiet and serious. “Because I believe this is the same necro who killed seven people in my city before dropping off the map and I want another shot at him. That’s all I’m going to say until we meet in person.”

  “Fair enough.” The beginnings of a headache were forming behind my eyes. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m on route 880. Meet me at Selena’s in twenty minutes.”

  “Going to make nice-nice with the master vampire?” I said, mockingly.

  “Even Inquisitors have to follow the rules. It would be rude if I didn’t.”

  We said our goodbyes and hung up. He knew better than I what the vampires were like with their rules and etiquette. It was one thing about them that hadn’t changed in hundreds of years, even during the war. If you went into another vampire’s territory you announced yourself to the master of the city and declared your intentions. Being an Inquisitor, Simon wasn’t really bound by the old rules, but he chose to observe them anyway. Most vampires serving as Inquisitors did. It was easier to introduce yourself when you arrived than fight off a master who had taken umbrage at your social snub later.

  And Selena was not one to trifle with. She was one of the old guard. The ones that believed that without tradition and rules all of society would crumble to dust. Simon respected her for that and would act accordingly. It’s why he was an honored member of our ranks.