The Dying Art of Magic

by Natalie Gibson

  The powerful king then turned his attentions to the woman strapped to the table directly in front of the observation window. He smelled her and then turned to face the scientists. One of them gestured toward the woman lying prostrate in front of him.

  They made an offering. A woman of power, even though not of his lineage, should be extraordinarily tempting. He approached her and ran his hand over her backside. She squirmed and whimpered, but this only encouraged him. He got behind her and gripped her hips with both hands, crushing her pelvis without effort. With the scientist looking on, he cut and tore her back with his teeth and claws.

  Kwabe shook. Then he started to convulse. His head whipped this way and that. His knees bent back in the wrong direction and he dropped to all fours. His bones and muscles changed. He grew in both mass and density. His bones of his face shattered and reformed in a muzzle. Hair tore through his skin. When it finished and he stood on all four lion-like paws, he was more terrifying than any werewolf movie ever portrayed.

  The bearded violence monger seemed to be enjoying Kwabe’s pain and screams so, that he didn’t seem to notice the small needles. He moved around the table to 603’s side and sank his teeth in deep. He drained her as he had Kwabe. Again, he tore his wrist and forced it against his victim’s mouth. As she drank, he picked up one foot and saw the syringe retract back into the tiny hole in the floor where it had come.

  The doctor wiped away the sweat from his top lip. Whatever happened now, they had some blood.

  He roared in outrage and it shook the earth. He darted from this side to that, but everywhere he stopped, ceiling, floor or walls, a needle found its way into his skin. The men looked calm behind the bulletproof wall, sure he could not come through. They were wrong. He punched both fists through the glass and pulled a man the doctor knew by the name of Ray, through the jagged opening, tearing off his white coat and most of his skin.

  He tossed the bloodied and broken man behind him. Kwabe made quick work of devouring the poor man’s calves. In an instant 603 stood on the table naked and convulsing. The doctor watched expecting her to change as Kwabe had, but she didn’t. All of her wounds closed up. It was the only change he could see until she looked up at the camera, almost locking eyes with the doctor. Her eyes were solid black side to side and lid to lid. When she smiled, it was more terrifying than seeing Kwabe. Her teeth were all incisors.

  A hungry shark.

  She jumped down from the table and crossed to where Kwabe fed. The beast backed away from its meal as she approached. It knew its place in the food chain; below hers. Keeping her eyes on Kwabe, she reached into the bloody pulp that had been Ray and came up with his heart and another dark red organ. She hopped back up onto the table and sat with her legs crossed as she sucked the organs dry.

  Then the spawner of evil creatures reached into the hole in the window through which Ray had come. He gripped each side and pulled. A giant section of the Plexiglas broke free. He burst through into the small crowded observation room. He tore each man limb from limb as they begged him not to, until only one remained. The doctor couldn’t quite see what happened but when the scientist’s body flew through the hole, landed at Kwabe’s feet, and began to convulse, he knew.

  The Akhkharu created a third monster.

  It all happened just as the woman said it would.

  They had some blood, and everyone was dead.

  The doctor had to do something and what he decided went against all of his carefully laid plans. He spoke into the intercom in Sumerian. “We are here to serve you, Mighty King. We provide the violence you desire, oh great Lord. I open my gate to you, knowing you could destroy me with a thought.”

  He pressed the code into his console and light on the far wall of the observation room changed from red to green and a door opened a crack. The ancient being slammed it open and the doctor found himself face to face with a monster with nothing between them except a desk. The doctor stood, bowed and spoke again in Sumerian, “Welcome, Your Majesty.”

  The Sumerian King spoke that ancient language, “Open, and let my children into the night. You keep them from my work.” His voice a chorus; his word law. The doctor bowed to him and gave the computer command.

  The two newly made vrykolak made for the exit on all fours, building up quite a momentum for such a small space. The vitala followed them closely, appearing as a blur on the monitor. The doctor switched the screen just in time to catch a glimpse of the beasts as they fled the compound toward the mountains to the west in the light of the full moon. He thought one had paused to howl at that moon, but without sound he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t see 603 leave, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t gone.

  The doctor pushed his glasses back up his nose as he straightened and smiled. “Anything else, Holy One?”

  “My blood. I would have it back from those who took it without my consent.” Said with contempt and followed with a smile that did more to dishearten the doctor than the contempt.

  “Certainly. At once.” He typed the command that opened the storage drawer in the observation room where all vials of blood would be stored. He reached to the wall mount and initiated the intercom, “Anyone alive out there, bring the blood into my office.”

  When he got no response, he started toward the door. He would have to retrieve the vials himself. The vitala, once known as 603, appeared in the doorway.

  “Sorry, no one out here but me.” Shrugging she added, “but I’m not technically alive either.” She was covered in the dark blood that comes from human organs. In one hand she held one such quivering organ and in the other she held the vials. She quickly knelt before the god-king, offering both up to him. “Your blood and the heart of the most evil man here.”

  The ancient spoke to her in Sumerian. “Drain them all. You will need your strength to fight Ereshkigal. Follow the scent of your brothers. They already battle her.”

  She didn’t move and the doctor spoke up to the mighty man, “She does not speak the language of the gods. I will interpret if it please your majesty.”

  The giant gestured that it would, then turned on his heel and sat in the chair closest to him. He looked quite relaxed and, if he hadn’t been covered in the arterial splatter of two dozen men, might have looked peaceful as well. The chair squeaked and groaned, trying to stay in one piece under his weight.

  The doctor did as he was granted permission to do. He relayed the message to 603. She didn’t care for her orders coming through the doctor. She growled. She stared at him with those solid black eyes as she lifted the heart to her mouth. When it was dry, she dropped it and the wet heavy plop made the doctor feel nauseated. She unstoppered each of the vials and poured them all into her mouth at once. A look of pure ecstasy washed over her. She even shivered, her breathing sounded labored, as the hardness came back to her. A shark again, a hungry predator.

  Such a waste! So much serum could be made from even the small amount sticking to the sides of the vials. “Good? Better than my little concoction?” The doctor took the black case out of his pocket and brandished it at her. “There are three injections left in here. I’ll trade you for those empty test tubes.”

  Before he could blink she stood beside him. With a movement too quick for him to see, she batted the case out of his grasp. It shattered against the wall. She clamped down on his shoulder, bruising him, pushing him down over the desk, just as Kwabe had done to her not an hour ago. His bones groaned in her superhuman grasp. As she was about to bite in, her maker stood and held up a hand in the universal sign for stop. Instead of biting, she whispered in the doctor’s ear, “You better hope he never learns English. The day he does is your last.”

  She disappeared. The doctor straightened up and the god sat back down. The voice that sounded like legions hurt the doctor’s brain, “Tell me why I just saved your life, Paion.”

  The doctor did not allow his shock at the god-king knowing the Fellowship’s name to show on his face. He answered plainly and was quite proud that he kept
his voice from shaking, “You need me to translate.”

  The dark-haired giant said, “Wrong. I speak English very well,” in English and then waited for the doctors.

  The doctor grasped at straws. “I have knowledge that could help you. I can find you the knife of Ereshkigal and save you any hassle from the outside world.”

  NATHALIA THREW the last zambi body on the now raging fire. A wolf-like howl sent a chill up her spine. She froze long enough for a posthumous arm to reach out from the flames and grab her ankle. Eiran appeared in a flash.

  “Listen to Ki. Our mother speaks in a whisper, but we can always hear her if we try.” Eiran instructed her as he extricated her leg from the dead limb.

  She winced at the level of violence happening in the building a few hundred miles away. She immediately recognized the Akhkharu that drank her blood and marrow, even at such a distance. We have to go. That monster is hurting and killing people.

  “No. A freshly turned Akhkharu is impossible to defeat. Your blood gives him strength.”

  So, this was all her fault. All that death she felt was possible because of her blood running through the veins of a monster. A monster that couldn’t yet be killed. She ran and jumped up to a plateau on the rocky mountainside nearest and Eiran appeared beside her.

  “His strength will diminish over time as he loses control over his cells and his appearance will start to betray his evil will. Then and only then will a circle of brothers be able to bring him to justice. You handled the zambi very well. Tonight you will also kill his vrykolak.”

  Eiran disappeared.

  She could feel his presence so knew she could still talk to him. Vrykolak? What in the great Mother is a vrykolak?

  Eiran replied silently so that only she could hear him, It is an evil creature turned by an Akhkharu on a full moon night.

  A werewolf? she mentally shouted.

  Maybe. I do not know that word.

  Nathalia could hear the scrabbling to her left and turned to face the vrykolak. It certainly looked like something from a horror movie. A dog-like animal that ran on all fours. It was covered in coarse gray black hair, but the fur darkened around its muzzle where it clumped together.

  An Akhkharu finds and then drains an already vicious and violent man. Then he feeds the dying, but not dead man, his own blood. The conversion is painful for the man and the Akhkharu gains strength from it. The man becomes a murderous monster that cannot be reasoned with. He, more animal than man, cannot be saved, only destroyed.

  As she looked at its muzzle, it snarled, showing off its sharp teeth. When it snapped at her, the movement shook a small drop of something loose. She watched with great interest as clotted blood fell from its face onto the ground.

  Nathalia scrutinized the splatter patterns on the rocks. Now was not the time to be distracted by small mundane details, she told herself. Before she had time to think and plan, the vrykolak charged Nathalia.

  It was fast, but she was faster.

  Instinctively she stepped to one side at the last second and the vrykolak slammed face first into the rocks behind her. The rock cracked and a giant fracture rippled its way up the mountain face. So she learned: vrykolak are strong but stupid.

  Nathalia asked, How am I supposed to kill this thing?

  As the beast stood there on its trembling legs, trying to shake the pain from its head, Nathalia reached her hand out and stroked the wolf’s back. Not a smart move, but she couldn’t resist. She had to know what that fur felt like. Thick, but not as rough as it looked. She could feel each individual strand as it ran across her palm. Then she realized what was different about this animal.

  It didn’t glow with any measure of life. Not like the sheep and lizards, nor man and Eiran. She didn’t hunger for its prana because it had none to speak of. This was a dead thing like the zambi.

  The vrykolak turned around to charge at her again as she pondered the ways to kill something that was already without life. Her blood-fed brain switched gears and she thought about her hair. She knew now why it felt so different to her. It wasn’t dead at all. Each strand was so sensitive because they were alive.

  Eiran must have heard what she was thinking because he answered her as the vrykolak charged again, Yes, it is alive because our cells never die. I had to remake your hair and nails from living cells. Now pay attention to the fight.

  Nathalia jumped straight up into the air and delivered a kick to the vrykolak’s hindquarters as it ran past, sending it over the edge. Loud cracks sounded as it landed in the zambi fire not far from them. Scrunching her face at the stink of burning fur, Nathalia examined her hair.

  Is that why the mothers are all still so intact? Their cells aren’t really dead?

  The scrabbling sound came again, but slower this time and the wolf made involuntary noises as rock met injury. Yes, we can reconstruct humans just as we do ourselves, but we cannot fabricate the spark of life. The mothers will never rot. They appear forever as if they recently died. Now, how will you kill the vrykolak? He approaches and heals quickly.

  Eiran hadn’t warned her in time. The monster grabbed her ankle with a fingered paw and tugged. Hard. Nathalia fell forward. Her mouth hit a rock. She felt her teeth go through her lip and part of her tongue. Blood pumped into her mouth. About to spit it to the ground, she heard Eiran’s sharp warning in her head, Don’t let even a drop hit the ground. Keep your mouth clamped shut and swallow it.

  Nathalia jumped up onto the next higher ledge and did just that. She swallowed every drop of that delicious nectar. She found herself sucking a little harder when she realized the wounds in her mouth were healing quickly and reducing the flow. Her blood tasted different than the shepherd’s. Sweeter and prana dense. Her head felt light as if every care in the world had been erased. Her body tinged with the joy of the experience. Have you had your own blood? I may never drink anything else.

  Another vrykolak joined the wounded and weary one already pacing the plateau under Nathalia’s feet. They both looked for a way up to her. The first one, skin healed but fur charred, tried a few times but only succeeded in bringing down a rain of pebbles onto its own head. The new one had lighter coloring than the first. It looked up at the path the dark one was trying and failing at and seemed to be making a plan.

  We have all tasted our blood and become obsessed with it. Addiction to our own blood has started many brothers down the path that leads to taking another Nephilim’s blood.

  Nathalia wondered what Eiran’s blood tasted like. Indescribably delicious, came the answer but not from Eiran. Taste it, like fruit from the tree of knowledge in the mythical garden of Eden, and know the truth.

  Just like that, the hunger clawed at her again. She pushed it down with great effort. She felt, more than heard, the encouragement of Eiran. The other voice, that she was beginning to be unable to distinguish from her own, fell silent.

  The newly arrived vrykolak scratched and pulled its way to her. It was successful, but only at the expense of the scorched wolf who been trying to follow but got buried under an avalanche of rocks.

  Big ones.

  The pile moved, but just barely. The new wolf laid down before Nathalia and put its head on its paws.

  Go ahead, pet it. Eiran encouraged her.

  Nathalia clacked her tongue and wagged her finger at the beast, Oh, no. I’m not falling for that. The puppy dog eyes never worked on me. If I come over there you’ll just bite me.

  The wolf grinned at her and angled its head so she could see its teeth. Well actually all she could see was the space where the teeth should have been. It was toothless. She crawled toward it cautiously and it actually wagged its tail at her. She reached out and rubbed its back.

  First she was struck with how much softer this one was than the dark vrykolak. Then she was floored by the realization that this was no un-dead creature. She focused her attentions on it and could see that it read high on the prana scale. It glowed just like…Eiran?

  Eiran in wolf form licked he
r hand and then her face, but was careful not to get near her mouth that had been wounded. It tickled her and she fell back. He jumped up and stood over her, nosing her throat and ears, licking her forearms that she tried to use to protect herself from his playful attack.

  Her laughter rang out inside his head, Stop that. She turned herself over and tried to crawl away and the mood changed abruptly. Both on all fours, he stood right on top of her. He clamped the scruff of her neck in his toothless mouth. She felt the other type hunger creeping back.

  With difficulty, she managed to compartmentalize her hunger and put it away. She found a place for her hunger, a tiny box deep inside. Easy to reach and getting easier to seal. Her incisors retreated. Don’t we have a vrykolak to deal with, a real one?

  Eiran disappeared. Nathalia rolled over on her back and looked up at the full moon. Sister Annu, give me strength, she thought. She immediately felt more in control.

  She heard Eiran’s voice below her, “Jump down here.”

  She landed on her feet beside Eiran, who was already pulling rocks away from the vrykolak. It radiated anger and aggression and desperately tried to free itself. “Corruption is cleansed by fire. You and I can ease the anxiety of their passing. Push your feelings into his mind as you did with the shepherd. Put him at peace.”

  Nathalia reached out and made a connection with the monster. His blind rage flared red and tried to sever her connection. She concentrated on the happy moments of her life. They were few and far between but there were some. A few with Maeve were expected, but a new one cropped up as ammunition. She used it. It didn’t seem possible, but her happiest memory was the moment right after her suicide, when Eiran had come and tabalu with her. She remembered in great detail how it felt. She’d relaxed in his arms and listened to his sweet song. After a burning heat on her neck, there was nothing.