Dead of Night: The Nephalem Files (Book 3)

by Douglas Wayne

  That also explained why Cedric was down here investigating for the council instead of Max. Normally this job would go to a tracker or a hunter, but instead they sent the guy in charge of internal affairs. Even though Max swore otherwise, I couldn't help but feel that Cedric was involved as well. Why else would Abby be able to get away with at least four separate incidents where lives or property were damaged? The first cemetery was a freebie since the council wouldn't have made a move until she did. Dabbling in the dark arts puts you on a watch list, but doesn't necessarily mean you are given a death sentence. Instead, they give you a bit of space to see what you are going to do. Abby should've been brought down not long after she raised her first corpse. How she was still on the streets was beyond me, but even with the weight of the council, I couldn't help but feel that the odds were squarely in Abby's favor.

  She had power well beyond what others of her kind even dared to consider, and I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg. While I feared the zombies and even the death aura, what I feared more than anything was her normal range of spells. I could imagine her causing parts of my body to rot and fall off by merely touching me with her hand. Her spit was probably like acid and would dissolve anything it touches. The most terrifying was the thought of her being able to pull my spirit from my body as necromancers had been known to do in the past. Human souls were an important part of fueling larger animations though they are rare to see. The most common type of animation is that of a lich, and one of those hasn't been seen for nearly five centuries.

  What makes liches unique, and subsequently hunted, is the use of a human soul to power the spell. Normal, everyday human souls will not suffice, nor will the soul of another powerful being not wanting to physically change. It has the be the soul of the necromancer himself, and he has to do it willingly.

  In truth, any wizard could become a lich, but generally only those who work with the dead dare research the spell. If the ability to live for ever didn't have such a harsh price, I'm sure more people would at least consider it. Thankfully it does, so we get to live in a world relatively free of undead super wizards with a thirst for power and recognition above all else.

  If he didn't any different advice on how to combat her, I decided I needed to figure out what was so important about the necklace she was willing to risk being caught out in the open to retrieve it. Max wasn't the type of person to sit down and research little things like that, but he'd fought enough dark wizards I hoped he might have a better idea.

  "Why the necklace?" I asked. "What could be so important about it that she risk being caught?"

  "Over the years, I've learned one thing about rogue wizards. They all have an overwhelming sense of invulnerability. It's almost like they don't expect to get caught, or even pursued. Eventually they get to a point where they believe nothing can stop them, not even the almighty himself. That's when most of them get foolish and make a mistake."

  "What kind of mistakes?"

  "The type that gets them caught," he said. "Whether or not you want to believe it, I've been following this case very closely. Until just now, she hadn't even been spotted. Now we have a name to go along with the face, as well as a family name, so we can trace the lineage."

  "Does that mean the others in the Leclair line also have magical blood?" The downside to being an only child born to parents who themselves were also only children made it difficult to figure this one out on my own. Of course, if my parents were alive, I would've been able to ask them about their parents, just to see if it gets passed down the line.

  "That's a possibility, though one I seriously doubt. It's near impossible to known when, or if, the trait will even show up in a person. Usually you have to wait until adolescence before the trait shows the slightest sign of being activated. The usual sign is watching for kids who were generally poor at a task that suddenly excel in them. You may find this hard to believe, but we have scouts in most schools who are trained to look specifically for that?"

  "There are wizards in schools looking for younger ones? What would you do if you found one? Kidnap them and take them back to the council for proper training?"

  "That was my solution, but the others didn't see things my way. Something about law enforcement not being keen on kidnapping." He laughed on the other end, telling me he was only kidding, which was good. I actually started to believe he was being serious. "Instead, they send someone to the child's house, usually another young wizard trying to learn the ropes himself. Gives them a feeling they aren't the only ones going through the changes. Most of the children, and parents if they are still around, agree that they need to learn to control the ability if nothing else."

  "What do you do with those that refuse?"

  "They stay at home. Like I said, we don't try to force anyone."

  "I don't seem to remember getting that choice?"

  "Oh, you did, just in a different form. I asked you if you would rather live with me and learn how to master the abilities that manifested after your parents died, or spend the next six years in foster care."

  Like that was a hard decision. It was like asking me if I wanted a box full of toys or a box full of dirty laundry. Even at a young age, I'd heard enough about the foster care system to know my odds once I got inside. I know people try to tell you that there are more good ones than bad, but all it takes is one negative experience with one of the bads to turn an otherwise good kid back a way he never intended to go. I may not have known anything about Max, but he was at least willing to teach me how to use my newfound powers. It was more that any foster parents would've been able to do.

  "Back to the necklace," I said, remembering I only have a limited amount of time to work with. "What would possess a magic user like her to actively pursue an item like that?"

  "Could be a number of things. It could've been one of Oliver's relics that she wishes to return to the estate or something she saw on one of the corpses and wanted to keep for her own."

  "What else?"

  "The other possibility is that the item is enchanted. As a hunter, I've learned that wizards only tend to seek out items that can either aid with their power or help with their defense. There is, however, another interesting option. As you learned while fighting the technomancer, every type of wizard has a weakness. There is the possibility that the necklace can exploit one of her weaknesses."

  "You're saying there's an item that can allow the wearer to teleport?"

  "Never personally seen one, but it is possible. Just like your regeneration ring. Items like that are rare. So rare it is odd to see anything magical outside of the council's vast stores."

  I wanted to ask him if he knew how to tell what enchantment was on an item, but held my tongue knowing he wouldn't know the answer. Ever since we'd met, he had always been the type of person to try something out and see what makes it tick. Just like those kids who get a brand new computer and feel the urge to open it up and disassemble it piece by piece, just to see what makes it tick. At least he was always the type to clean up the mess, and even fix most of them, after he was done.

  I sat there silent on my end of the phone for a moment, wanting to ask him more. There was a part of me deep down that wanted to know if what Abby said was true, if he truly was vulnerable to the death aura. I suppose it's that sick fascination we have with learning the flaws of our heroes. In modern literature, it is common to read about heroes having these falls all the time. Usually the change is temporary, but the hero usually comes out of it either more powerful than before, or he at least learns a lesson about his power. Similar to how Superman died in the comics, only to come back a lot more powerful than he already was. In his case, the power was unstable, but even still, I question if that change isn't happening to Max.

  "Thanks for everything, Max. I know we don't always see eye to eye..."

  "Never see eye to eye, you mean," he said with a laugh. "Don't mention it, Junior. Just do me a favor and get back home in one piece, even if that means you leave the city to its fate."
>
  I knew he was trying to bait me into leaving again, so I ignored the remark, allowing him to have the last word. Instead, I just reply, "I'll call you once I'm back home."

  - 28 -

  After getting off the phone with Max, I noticed it was getting very close to noon, meaning my care package was just about complete. Part of me started to worry about Cummings and Ross, knowing I'd invited them right into the lion's den. Sure, it was part of their job to investigate dangerous people and situations, but it didn't make me feel any better. I just hoped they had something that could disrupt Abby's concentration, allowing me to disable her in some way.

  To tell the truth, I didn't really expect to disable her. Sure, the council, and even the feds, wanted to ask her a few questions, but there was far too much risk in allowing her to roam free for even one extra minute. Couple that with the fact I might only get one chance to do it, and you can begin to understand my dilemma.

  That was without the issue of someone being able to detain her long enough to even question. Nothing in the normal world has been built with the old world in mind. Metal jail cells and thick brick walls may hold your everyday, run-of-the-mill criminal, but I could be out of a cell like that in a matter of minutes. While Abby wouldn't be able to break out of a cell the same way I could, her methods could be even more sinister.

  I could see her weaving some sort of spell to incapacitate one of the jailers. She would demand him to open the door for her or she would kill him. In the end, she wouldn't care what he chose, because she would force him to do it anyway. Even if she had to kill him to reanimate his lifeless body. From there, she could easily rebuild her forces while slowly making her escape as she could easily target noncombat personnel to bolster her ranks before making her way towards the armed officers.

  Just the thought of it made my spine tingle, knowing that in one single night she could go from prisoner to magical powerhouse in a matter of hours. Stopping her once was going to be bad enough. Having to do it twice was nothing short of suicide.

  No, if I managed to get close enough, I fully intended to do what was needed to bring her down, even if that meant I had to kill her.

  Before shooting across town, I sent Stacy a text, just to see if she'd come up with anything. I didn't expect an answer yet as I had given her a tall order. Not only did she need to figure out what the necklace was, I needed her to find out what it could do. To make matters worse, I needed her to figure it out in under a day, otherwise this whole farce could be over long before it even began.

  Traffic on the roadways was light, as most of the people were heading towards the riverfront and the holiday activities, and I was heading the other way. I stopped on the way to pick up a cup of coffee and a packet of caffeine pills as I struggled to keep my eyes open during the drive. If it wasn't for the occasional honking, or my tires running over one of the rumble strips alongside the road, I would've crashed the car in a ditch a dozen times by the time I reached the Federal Building.

  At the building, cars fill the parking lot, leaving only one spot at the front of the building. It wasn't a handicapped spot, but it almost looked like it was left open on purpose. Why else would a spot that good be open while the rest of the parking lot was full? It's not like this is a grocery store, where people would be coming and going all day long.

  I drove around the lot three times before finally pulling into the spot. It may have made me suspicious, but I wasn't about to park down the street and walk.

  Once inside the building, I notice about thirty different people all wearing dark colored suits gathered in the lobby. There were at least three distinct groups all focused in a conversation that all ended the moment I walked in the door. The sheer number of eyeballs on me had nervous. Did I walk into the wrong building?

  In the back of the room, a Cummings' familiar face steps out through the crowd. He's holding a large steaming cup of something, coffee I guessed. Most of the others also had cups, some in steaming mugs, others in clear glasses or Styrofoam cups.

  "Raymond," he said, smiling as he pulled the cup from his lips. "Glad you could make it."

  "What's this?" I asked, looking around the room. "Federal agent convention?"

  "And you're the guest of honor," Ross said, approaching from behind. He was dressed like the others, which I imagined was some form of field uniform, so they could notice each other easily while in a crowd.

  "All these people are here to help take Abby down?"

  "There are more back in the break room," Ross said.

  "And about fifty of New Orleans' finest over at their station," Cummings added. "Once they heard civilians were in trouble, it was hard not to get volunteers. I was going to call the National Guard, but figured it would be overkill."

  That I agreed on. It was going to be bad enough with a few hundred armed men walking the streets of downtown New Orleans without adding a few hundred more from the army to them. Pointing out the dead from the living would be hard enough if people got bit and started to turn. The last thing the city needed was a gun happy soldier holding an M-16 firing at anybody that got close.

  "I take it you got the care package ready?"

  Cummings nodded and pulled a box off the counter next to the receptionist and handed it to me. Inside there was a gun already loaded with a magazine. Right next to it was another loaded magazine, so I gave it a quick look to make sure the ammunition was correct. Holding a gun was going to be bad enough without it holding lethal ammunition. The bullets inside the magazine were made of a brass colored cylinder holding a powdery black tip. I reached my finger in and touched the tip, noticing the flexible coating on the end.

  There were also two fist-sized metal cylinders, each with a metal handle secured by a pin held in place by a circular ring. "Flash grenades?" I asked.

  "Just two," Cummings said. "Make them count. Half of the agents are also equipped with them with explicit instructions not to use them near large groups of people. You should do the same."

  I nodded, realizing that stunning innocent civilians would do nothing more than ensure that more undead get added to the crowd. I wasn't sure how the zombies chose what to feed on, so my mind focused on the zombie movies I'd seen and guessed they would feed on any source of meat that was remotely close.

  There were also two tasers in the box. One was the small handheld type that would only be useful if she were to get close. The same type many women carry in their purses to keep would-be attackers at bay.

  The other taser looked more like a gun, with a small plastic trigger on the end. The range on this one was probably ten to twenty feet, but could easily let me take her down while in a crowd as long as I could get close.

  Finally, there was a small gray box, about the size of a small takeout box at the bottom. I opened it up and noticed a black Android smartphone with a small bluetooth ear piece next to it.

  "What is this for?" I asked, holding up the phone and ear piece.

  "Communication. It is linked to the phones we all carry, sorta like a walkie talkie. All you have to do is press a button on the phone, or on the ear piece, and it will transmit your message to everyone here. It's a lot better than working through dispatch, especially as I expect the local circuits to be overwhelmed pretty quickly once your friend shows her face."

  Ross added, "it also has a tracking chip embedded, so we can track your every move. Just in case something goes wrong."

  I handed the phone to Cummings. "I'm not into this 'big brother' stuff."

  "I'm with ya," Cummings said. "But look at it this way. Half of the agents in this room are only here temporarily. I expect about twenty more before tonight. Most of those aren't from around here. If you were to call for help, they might ever find you, even if you can give a perfect description of the area you are in."

  I thought about it more and understood. While I'd been here a few days, I wasn't going to be much help on giving directions to my location either. As long as the phone and tracker was temporary, I'd be able to put u
p with it for one night. "Fine," I said, trying not to sound like a disappointed child. "But you get it back the second this is all over."

  "Don't take this the wrong way, Ray, but we'd kill you long before you were able to take it with you."

  I smirked at his response, realizing that the phone was also set to track at least him, if not everyone else in the room. If it were to get in the wrong hands, they would have to get a load of new phones, or track it down. Neither one was a fun proposition, especially knowing the phone would be near impossible to track if it was turned off.

  I let out a nervous laugh before breaking it by asking, "so, what's the plan?"

  "Follow me," Cummings said, leading me to a door in the back of the room. The door opened into a long hallway with a half dozen doors on each side and a set of double doors in the back. Behind us, I hear the footfalls of the other agents as they follow close behind.

  Cummings leads me through the set of double doors, into a large conference room with large folding tables set at regular intervals, all facing towards a cleaned whiteboard in the front of the room. Each of the tables had four chairs set up behind it, facing the front of the room. Half of the chairs were already occupied with what looked to be more agents, already in place for this briefing. He offered me a stool in the front of the room while the rest of the agents all filed in and filled the remaining chairs. Once everyone had entered the room and was seated, he began.