A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1)

by Daniel Ruth

  “So if you're done criticizing my wardrobe, perhaps you could give us your opinion of this,” Officer Conrad asked seriously. He did everything seriously. It probably came from being the first official shifter on the police force. A shifter in armor is the very definition of over the top. I was betting that if the mayor had his way, he would be the center of the new supernatural department. I believed this because he had been on many news clips. He was the mayor’s favorite and seemingly the new face of the police department. Jeremy insisted on showing me the reruns.

  “Well,” I drawled. This was the tough part, so I kind of put it off. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “I am familiar with Faramond,” he stated simply. That stopped me cold. Faramond was a vigilante in the city, famous for having the power of a champion of fairy. He was reputed to be monstrously strong and a nigh invulnerable hulking brute of a man. But that wasn't why I turned away and groped the window sill as I desperately tried to keep myself from breaking down into a giggling mass.

  You see, where I come from, fairies are tiny magical humanoids about a foot or two high. The good fairies are notorious for playing relatively harmless magical pranks on humans while the evil fairies play rather deadly tricks. I had never actually met him, but the mere thought of a champion of the little clowns just cracked me up.

  “Are you all right, Professor?” That calmed me down fast. Even the flipping pinnacle of officialdom was calling me the Professor. Gathering myself, I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes and slowly turned around, putting a serious look on my face.

  “Yes, it's just the tragedy of all of this finally hit me,” I said seriously. It was indeed sad to see the dead lying about me, but it's hard for me to get emotional over humans unless they are close friends. I still mourn my friends killed by Mr. Evil, but dead strangers just don't do much to me even if the smell was a bit much.

  “Yes, but we'll find the people that did this and bring them to justice,” Officer Conrad said, his voice quivering with determination. He was a very serious man.

  “There may be a slight hitch in that plan,” I cautiously offered. I hate to get between and man and his dream. “What did this wasn't people.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, spearing me with his eyes.

  I opened my senses and scanned the area around us quickly to confirm my suspicions, and then locked down my senses again from the unpleasantness around me.

  “Notice the general lack of blood from these corpses?” I asked, waving my hand to encompass the bodies around us. “Only these two corpses actually bled anything. The others were just torn apart while fighting.”

  “Torn apart? While fighting?” Conrad seemed startled, but at least he wasn't calling me an idiot or charlatan yet. The day was still young.

  “This body actually has a part of a circle inscribed in blood on the forehead.” I trailed off in thought. “Looks like it wasn't completed.”

  “What wasn't?” the shifter officer asked, confused.

  “Oh, sorry,” I mumbled. “Got ahead of myself. Zombies. Most of these are zombies.” Gesturing to the two bloody corpses, I continued. “Except for those two. Looks like the ritual got interrupted.”

  “So someone was creating zombies and someone else broke in and killed them all,” Conrad asked, looking as if he was coming to grips with the situation.

  “Well,” I paused for a second. “No.”

  “Then what?” he asked, starting to get an impatient note in his voice.

  “Zombies take some time to animate from the dead. All of these were already up and about. Only those two were fresh and the ritual seems to have been interrupted.”

  “So someone was creating zombies and someone else broke in and killed them all,” Conrad repeated.

  “I said no,” I said, slightly miffed that he had ignored that part.

  “Then what...”

  “I was getting to that part,” I interrupted. “A bunch of humanoids with supernatural strength broke in and tore the zombies apart, and probably drove the maker away.”

  “Okay, so how is my interpretation incorrect?” the supernatural officer asked with reined-in patience.

  “Well, the zombies aren't dead and although the two on the ground look dead, in a couple of days they'll be up and about again.”

  “That doesn't sound good,” the officer deadpanned.

  “It gets worse,” I offered pessimistically. He just gave me a long stare. In the background, I heard the police shuffling around nervously. This was beginning to sound like a grade B horror movie.

  “Yeah, the zombies will pull themselves together and go seek their master soon, unless they have other orders,” I started to say.

  “They're wearing the colors of Baron Samedi,” a very pale Cromwell offered.

  “The whosis?” I asked. These human packs were impossible to keep track of. And that name sounded familiar.

  “They are a gang of thugs that are a bit infamous for their blatant operation outside the law.” The officer gulped as he put together the pieces in his mind. I looked at him puzzled. I had thought everything was blatantly open and illegal in the Blight. “Murder, drugs, extortion, you name it, they do it. Out in the open and fearlessly.”

  Looking at the temporarily inanimate zombies around us, I nodded. “Fearless. The dead don't know fear.” I corrected myself. “Sorry, the undead. Actually they are animated dead. I am not sure how they are classified. Amusing, that he took the name of the vodoun spirit of the dead. At least he has a sense of irony.” I had read some books on the subject; it was just as misguided as most of the other ideas, but it had some interesting insights to spirits.

  “So how bad is this?” Officer Conrad took control of the conversation again.

  “Well, the zombies are bad,” I admitted. “They can only be damaged by silver and killed by destroying the body with fire. I think you have to separate the head too.”

  “So they can be destroyed. The police can...” I coughed to interrupt him.

  “Ahem, invulnerable juggernauts of supernatural force,” I inserted as a reminder. “I think you may need some of the supernaturals help on this, unless you shoot them from the air with silver bullets. And I think we have seen that the police shouldn't fly around here too much,” I said, looking knowingly at Cromwell.

  “Still, we can work this,” the well-built shifter stated confidently.

  “Against the zombies, probably,” I nodded thoughtfully. “I really think the vampires could possibly cause a problem though.”

  I admit I play to the crowd just a teeny bit. Moments like this, the people surrounding me with their jaws agape, were the times I lived for. I guess I'm petty, but I do enjoy it.

  “Wait a minute,” Officer Conrad spluttered. It was the first time I had seen anything resembling uncontrolled emotion in his face since I met him a few months ago. “Zombies and vampires? Together? That’s a bit hard to believe.”

  I had been wondering where the suspension of disbelief would end. People that deal with the rational, even the not-so-rational of shifters and vampires, technology and super science and so forth, always draw the line at magic. He'd lasted longer than I thought. I shrugged eloquently.

  “At the same time? That's stretching probability,” Officer Conrad floundered on.

  “Well, it's not really a coincidence,” I said, catching his attention again. “It's fate.”

  “What?” he barked, once again agitated. I loved it.

  “No, just kidding,” I offered brightly, ignoring his low growl. “Seriously though, the zombies have obviously been around a while. Officer Cromwell has known of the gang for a bit. I doubt they were all turned yesterday.” Cromwell thoughtfully nodded his head. He looked like he had swallowed something sour.

  “Vampires tend to enter a place and entrench. They make themselves a home and...” I paused here for a moment to think. My information on vampires was flawed. In my own dimension, vampires were an evil plague that started from a single extra dimen
sional entity and spread to human minions, and soon you had a horde of thousands of nearly mindless vampires. In short, they held an eerie similarity to how the zombies and their maker operated.

  When I had heard that vampires and shifters had been granted protection under the law, I almost swallowed my tongue. Images of a land controlled by vampires had flitted through my mind in several nightmarish variations. Shifters were one thing, after all except for a few animal instincts, a mild pack mentality, and occasional unfortunate hygiene incidents, they were mostly human, for better or for worse. Vampires though... I had to see this. I had made my way to one of the vampire clubs to see how the heck this had snuck into society, and been completely surprised. These variations were definitely supernatural undead creatures, but it was hard to deny they had culture; no dead bodies littered the alleyways or the club nooks and crannies, and most important... they didn't radiate evil. Being psychic, I can feel that entire evil thing when it's in unnatural things. Humans and other non-mystical races are harder to detect the evil vibe from.

  “They are also pretty territorial,” I said, picking up my train of thought where I had left off. “This looks like the start of a turf war.”

  “Would they as bad as the zombies you mentioned?” Cromwell interjected.

  “Worse actually.” I waived my hand at the carnage around me. “These guys didn't stand a chance. They share a few invulnerabilities, but on the undead supernatural food chain the vampires are several rungs higher.”

  “What makes them worse?” Officer Conrad asked. He seemed to have gotten over the idea of his city being infested with supernatural horrors and was ready to get down to business on how to get rid of them.

  “Well, that depends actually.” I paused and waved my hand at the carnage around us. “Because they are territorial, they almost had eliminated competing undead. Is that a bad thing? Well, only you can decide I guess...”

  “This place looks like a butcher's workshop, how can it be good?” Conrad growled out, the animal in him inching towards the surface.

  I ignored it, though Cromwell and the other officers edged back away from the armored man. “Look at it this way. Every zombie is most likely a murder victim. They have no personality and obey the zombie creator without question, who is the one that most likely killed them. The magic that animates them also will likely make them immune to any resurrection techniques.”

  “Do they have souls?” Conrad asked, in a tight voice.

  “I have no idea, ask a priest. I don't even know if vampires have souls.” I shrugged. Humans worry about the silliest things. I didn't even know if humans had souls. Or care.

  Conrad looked startled at the question, the others just looked vaguely nauseated. “So what, are these vampire vigilante heroes?”

  I gave him an annoyed glance. “How the heck should I know? They could even be a rival gang. You can book them for taking the law into their own hands, but frankly everyone here was already dead when the vampires came in and kicked butt. The master got away, so they didn't actually kill anyone, but apparently a mass murdering zombie master got away.”

  “So they allowed the 'zombie master' to escape,” Cromwell slowly said, as if trying to get a hold of the situation in terms he could understand. I had no idea if the vampires were heroes or villains. Considering this was the Blight, it was likely just a rogue vampire gang moving in. That would be just as bad or worse than the zombies.

  “Do the police actually have a procedure for this?” I asked the flustered cop. Conrad looked at me with a thoughtful frown. I could see he already knew where I was going with this question.

  “Well, if there's bodies or evidence,” he muttered to himself.

  “What happens when the murder victim gets up and tells the police officer there's no problem and to run along?” I asked, seeing the poor man wince.

  “That’s why the mayor is trying to form the new department to deal with these things.” Conrad’s deep voice reassured the younger officer.

  I had my doubts of the effectiveness of such a department unless some of the older vampires and werewolves joined it. As we had found here, unless you can identify what the hell you're actually seeing, having a division of police officers with supernatural strength isn't going to do squat. Perhaps my doubts showed on my face. I never claimed to have a great poker face.

  “It will be one step in the right direction,” the large man elaborated while staring at me. I just shrugged. Who was I to ruin his dream? “So how do we track the zombie master down?”

  “That is the easiest part. Follow the bodies,” I stated triumphantly.

  “We can't wait for this guy to kill again and raise a new army,” Cromwell squawked indignantly.

  “New army? Why would he need a new army?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Oh no.” I saw Conrad looking around with a new eye at the crime scene. Cromwell just looked confused. The poor smuck.

  “Oh yes. What part of the 'only can be destroyed by fire' shtick did you not understand?” I know I had mentioned this part before, but I can forgive these guys for suffering information overload. It would be a lot to take in if you weren't used to it.

  The police officers who had been standing around, trying not to look like they weren't hanging onto our words, almost danced away from the bodies. Conrad stayed put, though he was keeping a cautious eye on the corpses and pieces of corpses. It probably helped his peace of mind immeasurably to know that he was strong enough to tear them to pieces if they made a grab at him. I know it made me feel better.

  “When...” He cleared his throat as he thought about his question. “When will these things come alive?”

  I held up my finger dramatically, and then dropped it and shrugged. “Not a clue.” Watching the mixed emotions flit across his face entertained me for a few seconds before I mercifully continued. “However, if I had to guess I would say before tonight, you have a decision to make.”

  “Decision?” the shifter asked as if he wouldn't like the answer. He was right.

  “Yes. My educated guess that sometime before sunset these parts are going to start pulling themselves together and once they do, they are going to make a beeline for their Sammy’s location,” While I was describing this, my fingers were making little walking motions. I am not sure if Italians were quite so emotive with their hands, but I figured it would be even better to get the point across.

  “Baron Samedi,” Conrad muttered a correction, deep in thought.

  “Oh my God.” Cromwell made a soft groaning noise in the background. It startled me that the man was almost blasé about the missile attack and so squeamish about animated corpses. I saw Conrad give him a small frown, though I couldn't tell if he was concerned about the man or disgusted at his unmanliness. If it was the later, he would have seen an echo of Cromwell's unease in the other officers in the room as they shuffled from foot to foot, subtlety shying away from the bodies as if they would come alive and tear them apart.

  “So...” the armored man prompted softly.

  “So... you either gather up these pieces and burn them before they pull themselves together, assuming your police procedures allow it,” I said to Conrad, subtly reminding him that he had some rules to thread. “Or you follow this army home to the master and perhaps into the arms of a second army of zombies.”

  “I think we can come up with a compromise.” Conrad's posture changed as he came to a decision. “Cromwell, get these parts tagged as hazardous waste. See if we can get the paperwork completed to incinerate these without having to go through decontamination ourselves. Use the nanite infection protocols. You may have to have the chief contact the mayor or it may take too long. Leave one complete corpse here. We will follow it back.”

  I coughed slightly to draw the attention back to me. “And the ambush that may be waiting for you?”

  “What would you suggest?” Conrad looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Only you and other supernaturally strong creat... er... people are anywhere near s
trong enough to defend themselves from one of these, let alone do enough damage to them so you can burn them. If you have people tagged for that new department, I suggest you call them in. Otherwise, you'll need a posse of werewolves and vampires.”

  I could see the shifter's lips pursed as he mouthed the word posse. “Posse?” he whispered a moment later. I looked at him in confusion. Jeremy and I had just watched a cowboy movie the other week, and the concept was very clear.

  “Yeah, a posse. Where you deputize a gaggle of strangers to bring some poor SOB to justice.” I gestured with my hands. “You know, a legalized mob!”

  “Right, a posse.” I could have sworn I saw a slight smile cross his face, but it was probably my imagination since it didn't crack.

  “So is there anything else I can do for you, or are we done here?” I asked.

  “I think we are done. Thank you for your consultation. I will have a check drawn up for your time.” Conrad nodded to me and I paused in confusion. What was a check? Wait, I was getting paid for this?

  “Um, thanks.” I had mixed feeling about getting paid for giving advice. On the one hand, it’s the standard way mortals deal with one another; on the other hand it seemed to cheapen my advice. I figured I would deal with the emotional conflict by using the money to buy something to put in my house. Maybe a gem or bit of gold.

  “Oh, before you go, does this zombie master have access to any other magic?” the shifter casually asked. I froze, a storm suddenly going off in my head. There was no reason the zombie master would restrict himself to raising the dead. He could very well be a caster of another type as well.

  Looking around the room with a fresh eye, I looked at the walls and ceiling to see if lightning or fire had marked the surface, gradually becoming somewhat disappointed in the obvious lack of such damage. I would have noticed it coming in, but hope springs eternal.

  “Doesn't look like he used any blatant magic other than the zombie thing. If you see any glowing walls or fireballs or sheet lightning you should call me right away.” If he did that, maybe he would leave some books behind. Something other than zombie-raising books. Humans are common enough; why would you want undead humans running around too?