Faster and faster I went, until finally I was out over the water. A lone figure was moving towards a boat that was anchored farther out. Of course, I had time to think before I could make out the maroon of Christian’s coat. How else would a self-described messiah get to a boat anchored offshore? He would walk on water wouldn’t he? If I had lungs or a voice box at that moment I would have laughed. Christian’s muttered spells filled the air as he walked confidently over San Francisco Bay, his feet sinking a couple of inches into the water with each self-righteous step. A moment later I was hanging over his shoulder like the conscience he so clearly lacked. His chanting rose in pitch and suddenly he was rising out of the water and floating onto the deck of the ship.
The cargo ship was covered in thick layers of enchantments. The largest one was something akin to what Christian had used on the church he had used before. It was an obfuscation spell that would make people avoid this place without knowing why. They wouldn’t even be able to see the giant vessel unless they were specifically looking for it. The rest were more protective wards like the ones on the army base. Christian walked through them without them so much as twitching, his Demonic enchantment keeping him invisible. Luckily for me, I seemed to be invisible to them as well.
Multi-colored containers were stacked four high along the deck. They were slick and shiny with the days’ rain. Christian’s boots squelched as he waded through small puddles. His eyes roamed over the boxes and then locked onto one.
“There you are,” he said softly, and grinned.
Moving swiftly, he entered a narrow lane between the rows of containers, whispered a spell, and rose to the third box up. I followed, rising on the energy of his spell like a leaf in an updraft. He touched a finger to the latch and there was a small burst of blue light. The doors swung open for him, and I peered at the darkness held inside. There were more protective spells here, I could sense, and I wondered why Ben would have bothered. If someone could have gotten this far would a few more deterrents stop them?
Christian held out his hand, palm up, and a wisp of green light formed there. It rose like a drunken pixie and made its way forward, its pale emerald glow pushing back the shadows. Christian stepped inside and I followed.
When the light made it halfway in, a bolt of blue electricity arced from the wall and struck it, destroying it in a spectacular explosion of multi-colored sparks. Christian rubbed at his eyes, momentarily blinded by the intensity of it. I didn’t have that problem. That’s why I was able to see the small stand at the back of the container that held the Book and the four frogs that sat around it. As the last of the sparks faded and darkness returned, I could still make out the four tiny sets of eyes. They glowed with pale shifting colors and watched Christian avidly.
Living sentries, I thought with awe. Ben had laid out his defenses like the tactical genius he was. For someone to get through all of his other defenses they would need to be cloaked like Christian was. Wards like the ones that protected this boat and the base were stupid; they needed a clear target and intent. If one could hide from them they didn’t need to worry. But if you bonded a ward to a living creature, like a frog for example, they just needed to be aware of you with one of their senses to subconsciously direct the magic.
“Well now,” Christian said with a hint of amusement. “What do we have here?”
The glowing sets of eyes blinked, one after another, and a figure stepped out of the darkness. She was an old withered crone of a woman with gray hair that hung in tangles to partially obscure her age-ravaged face. Hunched over a wooden cane that made hollow thumping noises as she hobbled forward, she licked dry lips and smiled to reveal yellow, cracked teeth. The cane rose and pointed at Christian. He stumbled backwards as if shot in the heart.
“No,” he whispered. “This can’t be right. You can’t be here.”
She cackled and jabbed at him with the cane. “You’ve been a very bad boy, Ethan. You haven’t done your chores.”
“I haven’t gone by Ethan in a long time. My name is Christian now,” he said, trying to recapture his bravado, and I wondered who this woman was that she could cow him so. “You don’t belong here. You can’t be here!”
She looked over a hooked nose with eyes as dark as the bottom of the ocean and sneered. “Since when do you tell me where I can and can’t be? And giving up the name I gave you? Wicked little boy! Maybe a lick of the cane is too good for you.” She nodded fervently and rapped the cane twice on the ground. “Yes, I see the devil in you, boy, and you know the only way to get it out, don’t you?”
“No mama,” Christian whimpered. “Please don’t. I’ll be good. I promise.”
A deep, rumbling growl came from behind the woman. A second shape slowly separated itself from the shadows. A beast of a dog padded forward, lips parted in a snarl, drool slopping onto the floor in front of him. It eyed Christian with eyes as dark and hungry as the old hag’s.
“False promises are all you offer, son of Lucifer. You may have outgrown the cage, boy, but you’re not too big for Scout.” The dog moved forward, crouching in anticipation. “He still smells the sulfur on you, the wickedness. He can make you clean again. He’ll chase the devil out of you one way or another.” From beneath her dirty gray sweater she produced a small gold cross and kissed it. She closed her eyes and began singing a hymn under her breath, the cross gripped tightly in her gnarled fingers.
If I had a stomach it would have been twisting with disgust. I was watching something out of Christian’s childhood. His mother, probably unaware that he had possessed magical abilities, had locked him in a cage with the family dog. The fact that some dogs had an innate hatred of magic was what had made Scout as vicious as he was, but the old crone, his own mother, either didn’t know or care. That cage, I thought with horror, was where a young boy named Ethan died and his alter-ego, Christian, was born.
The dog took two steps closer and Christian dropped to his knees, his breathing taking on the rapidity of a man trapped in a sinking ship. He grabbed at his hair and pulled, rocking back and forth in rhythm to his mother’s song. Scout came to a stop bare inches from the necromancer and gave a growl that sounded like a far off avalanche that was moving steadily closer. At this distance I could make out every wicked tooth in the dog’s mouth, and see the small patches of gray fur in his predominately black coat.
With a jerk, Christian stopped his insane rocking and released the death grip he had on his hair. “No!” he shouted, and stared the dog right in its black eyes. “This is wrong.” He looked up at his mother who had stopped humming. “You’re dead.” Then down to the dog. “And so are you.” He stood up and straightened his dark crimson jacket. With a sneer he added, “I should know, I killed both of you.”
The dog backed up a couple of steps, but the old woman simply laughed. “As if a weakling like you could kill me. You’re as wretched and pitiful as your father; no wonder he always protected you.” She hobbled closer to him, but this time he did not back away. “If it weren’t for him I would have strangled you in your crib and spared the world from your sinfulness.”
Christian, his unflappable confidence now returned, grinned. “Then perhaps it was cosmic irony that I ended up smothering you with your own pillow.” He shot a hard stare at Scout. The dog retreated, its tail tucked firmly between its legs. “And you, you filthy mongrel. I felt more pity for my neighbor than you. It took him three miles to realize that somehow your leash had been attached to the back bumper of his truck. The poor man felt so awful, and all I could feel was gratitude.” His lips twisted into a smile that was eerily reminiscent of his mother’s. “On the plus side, Scout, you had the most beautiful death-howls I’ve ever heard. They went on and on, rising and falling and rising again, until you finally hit the crescendo. And then…nothing. A perfect ending to a masterful symphony.”
“I’ll cut your tongue out for speaking such blasphemy!” the old crone cried.
“You’ll do no such thing, Ester.” She gaped at his use of he
r first name. “This is just some complex illusion that the wizard made—which, to be honest is quite impressive—but you have no real form. You’re just smoke and mirrors, both of you. The New World I’ll make has no place for you, mother. In fact I’m making it because of you. Once everyone is dead and I bring them back there will be no more pain or suffering, no more monsters that beat their children with chair legs or frying pans. Death won’t be a sword hanging over everyone’s head anymore; it will be the beginning of a new life, a better life. You’ve been dead and buried for years now, mother, and I won’t…bring…you…back.”
The images of the woman and dog wavered, became transparent, and slowly faded back into the darkness. Christian sighed heavily, as if a giant weight had been lifted from him. The four sets of eyes blinked, and one by one they turned their attention on me.
Oh crap.
They could see me, and they viewed me as just another intruder. The colored eyes shifted to orange and a scene began to form in the middle of the container. There were sounds of screams, inhuman shrieking that bounced off the metal walls and battered me from all directions. If only I had hands and ears to cover one with the other.
Christian stood transfixed as dozens of apparitions solidified around us. Demons from the tribes, all screaming their bloodlust to the sky, were tearing into limp human bodies that were strewn across the floor. A Nimak demon raised the half-naked body of a man to his mouth and took a bite out of the torso, wet crunching sounds cutting through the din of the others. Four Krylick demons swarmed over a young woman who batted at their ant-like heads with limbs weak from blood loss. They pushed her down and thrust their clicking mandibles into her spasming body. She gave one last mute cry as her eyes fluttered shut.
Behind the chaos stood a figure, motionless and massive. Two broadswords were strapped across its back, the pommels sticking up over its shoulders. The statue from the basement of the safe house. What is that doing here? Why are they showing me this? The illusions that Christian had seen were from his past, something that would shake him to the core of his being, but I had never seen anything like the wildly feral demon attacks I was seeing here. And the statue? I had only just seen it this morning. What could it mean?
The statue’s eyes opened, revealing a blinding white light that flooded the chamber. The head swiveled slightly to the left, and suddenly I was caught in the brilliant incandescence, the light searing into my unblinking vision.
“Well,” Christian said, “as fascinating as this is, I have something to retrieve.” He waved his hand languidly through the air, a faint trail of green energy flowing from his fingertips, and the scene fell apart. The humans and demons returned to the shadows. The statue took a moment longer, as if fighting its return to nothingness. A sharp gesture from Christian and the four frogs at the back of the container exploded with muffled thumps. Bits of scorched amphibian rained down around us. “That was odd,” Christian muttered. “Unless…” He turned in a full circle, eyes squinted in the darkness. His gaze floated by me, then paused, and snapped back. “You!” he thundered. “Now I know what you are!” Yelling words in a long dead tongue, I felt his power push out against me.
And with an emerald flash I was falling again.
34
My eyes flew open and I was staring at two pairs of feet dancing around each other. I wiped at a wet spot on my face and my hand came away bloody. Charles had struck a glancing blow with the rock, but it was enough to make my cranium twinge with every movement. It felt like I had stuck my head inside a church bell at noon.
“Please, my queen,” I heard Charles say. “Stop fighting me.”
With much effort, I raised my head and looked at the two figures in front of me. Charles had dropped the rock next to me and was busy parrying the blows of a petite woman. He dodged a punch, holding both hands out in front of him, and started to repeat his plea. She grabbed a hold of one of the wrists and swung him savagely. With inhuman strength she bashed his head repeatedly into a container, each strike sounding like a gong being struck. His body went limp after the tenth blow and she dropped him, letting him sprawl to the ground. His head flopped in my direction, a mass of broken bones and lacerations that began to heal even as I watched.
The woman came to stand over me. The azure color of her spirit suffused every cell of the body she wore, making her glow like an angel. Through my Second Sight I could see how beautiful she truly was and it nearly blinded me. She leaned down and tilted her head inquisitively.
“Cassie?” I croaked. She smiled but said nothing. Instead, she pointed to me and then to her own eyes. I held my hand up in front of me and could see a faint backwash of greenish light. My eyes were glowing, but it was beginning to fade. Charles made a soft moaning noise and rolled onto his side. “We don’t have much time. Can you take me to the others?” I asked her. She nodded and held out a hand to me. I took it and let her help me up, my legs shaking with the effort. Blood fell in a steady patter from my scalp.
Leaning heavily on Cassie’s shoulder, we made our way through the twisting maze of storage boxes and equipment. After a couple of minutes we stopped just out of sight of a parking area for the military jeeps and trucks. All the lights were on there, creating a little oasis of white in the bleak surroundings. Normally most of the base would have been lit up with glaring sodium lights strategically placed to deter intruders and allow sentries to walk their rounds with ease, but the combination of the magically charged storm and all of the powers released here recently had burnt out most of the electricity. Someone had preserved these lights specifically. Christian, I realized, had planned for even this small detail.
We edged our way closer and ducked behind a deuce-and-a-half. Rain pattered weakly against the canvas that covered the back half of it. As I moved closer to the front to take a look around, Cassie grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards her. Again she pointed at me and then at her eyes. They were still glowing she was telling me. That would give away our position if anyone happened to look in our direction, so I closed my eyes and focused on shutting down my Second Sight. It usually wasn’t this difficult, but it seemed like the overabundance of magic in the air was reacting strangely with my body. Lord knew that little out of body experience was new, and my shining eyes had only started this week. In fact, now that I put some thought into it, all these changes seemed to happen when I was exposed to necromantic energy in particular. Was Christian somehow responsible for that too? No, I thought, if he was responsible it was by accident, not design. He had seemed as confused about me as I was.
Cassie squeezed my shoulder. I opened my eyes to her pale face hovering close to mine. She pulled back from me quickly, as if scared, and shook her head to let her curly hair fall across her face like a mask. She still couldn’t bear to be observed as she was now. If only I could tell her what I had seen, what she truly looked like to someone who could See. She pointed to my eyes and gave me a thumbs-up, and then she pointed at me and to the ground.
Stay here.
She ran off soundlessly, a sparrow in the night, and returned a moment later with one of the rifles the soldiers had used. She handed it to me, and I popped out the clip and saw it was only down two rounds. The red tips of the incendiary rounds looked like dried blood in the dark. I reloaded it and peered around the truck. A pitifully small group of soldiers sat bound in front of a group of running jeeps whose lights were turned on creating a small island of light in the night. Commander Mason was strapped to the hood of one of the jeeps and he looked as if he were unconscious. The upper portion of his uniform was ripped to shreds revealing a chest that was mottled with bruises and scorch marks. Ben sat with his back to me, his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. Simon and Clara were bound together on the opposite side with a steel cord that had probably been used at one time as a winch cable. In front of them were the remaining acolytes—Caleb and Zachary, minus Charles who, with any luck was still recovering in the container yard—and a number of ghouls and zombies. A
number of soldiers who had died in the fighting were standing among the zombies. My gorge started to rise at the sight of uniformed men and women, some with their innards exposed or pieces of bone protruding through their skin, standing guard over their former friends. I shrugged off the tide of revulsion as the training pushed forward like a bulldozer.
“Can we start workin’ on ‘em yet?” Zachary asked Caleb. “This standing here is boring the crap out of me.”
Caleb didn’t take his eyes off of Ben as he answered. “No. We wait until Christian gets back, then you can have your fun.”
“My fun? What, you too good for a little carnage all of a sudden?” He stepped closer to Simon and Clara. “I’m looking forward to the vampires the most. I’ve never had a chance—”
“You can have the woman, but Simon’s off limits. And if anyone gets a shot at him it’s going to be me.”
Zachary giggled like a little boy, even though he looked to be the oldest and most desiccated of the acolytes. “Oh yeah, I saw him punch through your gut, Caleb.” Turning to Simon, he said, “That was freakin’ awesome by the way.” He resumed speaking to Caleb. “Way to hold his arm steady with your ribcage. Not the strategy I would have chosen, but to each his own.”
Caleb turned to look at Zachary. “Zach, if you don’t shut up I’m going to rip your head off and throw it in the bay.”
I lined the iron sights of the rifle on Caleb.
“Calm down, boss,” Zachary chuckled. “I’m just a little pent up is all.” He leaned down and cupped Clara’s face in his hand. “But I think I’ve found a cure for that. Isn’t that right darlin’?”
Clara didn’t pull away from his grip. Instead she looked him right in the eye and said, “It could be. All you have to do is let me out of these ropes. I’ll make sure you forget all of your problems.” Her eyes were locked on his and I thought that, even from my place fifty yards away, I could see her blue eyes shine with power.
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