by Jim Butcher
People who have near-death experiences often talk about moving toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Or ascending toward the light, or flying or floating, or falling. I didn’t get that. I’m not sure what that says about the state of my soul. There was no light, no kindly beckoning voice, no lake of fire to fall into. There was only silence, deep and timeless, where not even the beating of my heart thudded in my ears. I felt an odd pressure against my skin, my face, as though I had pressed into and through a wall of plastic wrap.
I felt a dull thud on top of my chest, and a sudden lessening of the burning in my lungs. Then another thud. More easing on my lungs. Then more blows to my chest.
My heart lurched back into motion with a hesitant thunder, and I felt myself take a wheezing breath. The plastic-wrap sensation tugged at me for a moment, then lifted away.
I shuddered, and struggled to open my eyes again. When I did, Kravos, still holding my throat, blinked his eyes in shock. “No!” he snarled. “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
“Susan’s giving his real body CPR,” someone said, behind him. Kravos whipped his head around to look, just in time to catch a stiff cross to the tip of his chin. He cried out in startled fear, and fell off of me.
I sucked in another labored breath and sat up. “Hell’s bells,” I gasped. “It worked.”
Kravos struggled to his feet and backed away, staring, his eyes flying open wide as they looked back and forth between me and my savior.
My savior was me, too. Or rather, something that looked a very great deal like me. It was my shape and coloring, and had bruises and scratches, mixed with a few burns, all over it. Its hair was a wild mess, its eyes sunken over circles of black in a pale, sickly face.
My double peered at me and said, “You know. We really look like hell.”
“What’s this?” hissed Kravos. “What trick is this?”
I offered myself a hand up, so I took it. It took me a moment to balance, but I said, “Hell, Kravos. As flexible as the boundaries between here and the spirit world have been, I would have expected you to figure it out by now.”
Kravos looked at the two of us, and bared his teeth. “Your ghost,” he hissed.
“Technically,” my ghost said. “Harry actually died for a minute. Don’t you remember how ghosts are made? Normally, there wouldn’t be enough latent energy to create an impression like me, but with him being a wizard—a real wizard, not a petty fake like you—and with the border to the Nevernever in such a state of flux, it was pretty much inevitable.”
“That was very well said,” I told my ghost.
“Just be glad your theory worked. I wouldn’t be very good at this, solo.”
“Well, thank Kravos here. It was him and Bianca and Mavra who stirred things up enough to make this possible.” We looked at Kravos. “You aren’t getting to sneak attack me while I’m doped unconscious, bub. It isn’t going to be like last time. Any questions?”
Kravos hurled himself at me in a fury. He overpowered me, and bore down on me, far too strong for me to overcome directly. I thrust a thumb into his eye. He screamed and bit at my hand.
And then my ghost came in. He wrapped his arms around Kravos’s neck and leaned back, hard, tugging the man’s body into a bow. Kravos strained and struggled, his arms flailing, strong as any maddened beast. My ghost was a little stronger than I, but he wouldn’t be able to hold Kravos for long.
“Harry!” my ghost shouted. “Now!”
I gripped Kravos by the throat, letting all the frustration and fury inside well up. I held up my left hand, and my dream self’s nails lengthened into glittering claws. Kravos stared at me in shock.
“You think you’re the only one who can play in dreams, Kravos? If I’d been ready for you the last time, you’d have never been able to do to me what you did.” My face twisted, mouth extending into a muzzle. “This time I’m ready. You’re in my dream, now. And I’m taking back what’s mine.”
I tore into his guts. I ripped him open with my claws and wolfed into his vitals, just as he had to me. Bits of him flew free, dream-blood splashing, dream-vitals steaming.
I tore and worried and gulped down bloody meat. He screamed and fought, but he couldn’t get away. I tore him to pieces and devoured him, the blood a hot, sweet rush on my tongue, his ghost-flesh hot and good, easing the ache of emptiness inside of me.
I ate him all up.
As I did, I felt power, surety, confidence, all rushing back into me. My stolen magic came raging back into me, filling me like silver lightning, a tingling, almost painful rush as I took back what was mine.
But I didn’t stop there. My ghost fell away as I kept going. Kept tearing Kravos apart and gulping down the pieces. I got to his own power when I ate his heart—red, livid power, vital and primitive and dangerous. Kravos’s magic had been for nothing but causing harm.
I took it. I had plenty of harm to start causing.
By the time I’d finished tearing him to shreds, the pieces were vanishing like the remnants of any foul dream. I crouched on the dream-floor as they did, shaking with the rushing energy inside of me. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up.
I must have looked feral. My ghost took a step back and lifted both hands. “Easy, easy,” he said. “I think you got him.”
“I got him,” I said quietly.
“He was a ghost,” my ghost said. “He wasn’t really a person any more. And even as ghosts go, he was a bad egg. You don’t have anything to regret.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to live with me.”
“True,” my ghost answered. He glanced down at himself. His bruised limbs grew slowly translucent, and he began vanishing. “That’s the only bad thing about this gig as a ghost. Once you accomplish whatever it was that caused you to get created, you’re done. Kravos—the real Kravos—is already gone. Just his shell stayed behind. And this would have happened to him, too, if he’d killed you.”
“Do unto others before they do unto you,” I said. “Thanks.”
“It was your plan,” my ghost said. “I feel like hell anyway.”
“I know.”
“I guess you do. Try not to get killed again, okay?”
“Working on it.”
He waved one hand, and faded away.
I blinked open my eyes. Susan knelt over me, striking my face with her hand. I felt wretched—but that wasn’t all. My body almost buzzed with the energy I held, my skin tingling as though I hadn’t used a whit of magic in weeks. She struck me twice more before I let out a strangled groan and lifted a hand to intercept hers.
“Harry?” she demanded. “Harry, are you awake?”
I blinked my eyes. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I’m up.”
“Kravos?” she hissed.
“I pushed his buttons and he lost control. He got me,” I said. “Then I got him. You did it just right.”
Susan sat back on her heels, trembling. “God. When you stopped breathing, I almost screamed. If you hadn’t told me to expect it, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You did fine,” I said. I rolled over and pushed myself to my feet, though my body groaned in protest. The pain felt like something happening very far away, to someone else. It wasn’t relevant to me. The energy coursing through me—that was relevant. I had to release some of it soon or I’d explode.
Susan started to help me, and then sat back, staring at me. “Harry? What happened?”
“I got something back,” I said. “It’s a high. I still hurt, but that doesn’t seem to be important.” I stretched my arms out over my head. Then I stalked over to the dirty laundry and found a pair of boxers that fit me, more or less. I gave Susan a self-conscious glance, and slipped into them. “Get something on Justine, and we’re out of here.”
“I tried. She won’t come out from behind the washing machine.”
I clenched my jaw, irritated, and snapped my fingers while saying, “Ventas servitas.”
There was an abrupt sur
ge of moving air and Justine came tumbling out from behind the washing machine with a yelp. She lay there for a moment, naked and stunned, staring up at me with wide, dark eyes.
“Justine,” I said. “We’re leaving. I don’t care how crazy you are. You’re coming with me.”
“Leaving?” Justine stammered. Susan helped her sit up, and wrapped the red cloak around her shoulders. It fell to midthigh on the girl, who rose, trembling like a deer before headlights. “But. We’re going to die.”
“Were,” I said. “Past tense.” I turned back to the door and reached into all that energy glittering through me, pointed my finger and shouted, “Ventas servitas!” With another roar of wind, the door exploded outwards, into a large, empty room, splinters flying everywhere and shattering one of the two lightbulbs illuminating the room beyond.
I said, voice crackling with tension and anger, “Get behind me. Both of you. Don’t get in front of me unless you want to get hurt.”
I took a step toward the doorway.
An arm shot around the edge of the door, followed swiftly by Kyle Hamilton’s body in its masquerade costume, his flesh mask back in place. He got me by the throat, whirling me in a half circle to slam me against the wall.
“Harry!” Susan shouted.
“Got you,” Kyle purred, pinning me in place with supernatural force. Behind him, Kelly followed him in, her once-pretty face twisting and bulging beneath her flesh mask, as though she could barely contain the creature inside her. Her face was warped, twisted, distorted, as though whatever was beneath it had been so horribly mangled that not even a vampire’s powers of masquerade could wholly conceal its hideousness.
“Come along, sister,” Kyle said. “Tainted or not, we shall tear open his heart and see what a wizard’s blood tastes like.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Fury surged through me, before fear or anxiety, a fury so scarlet and bright that I could scarcely believe it was mine. Maybe it wasn’t. After all, you are what you eat—even if you’re a wizard.
“Let go, Kyle,” I grated. “You’ve got one chance to live through this. Walk away, right now.”
Kyle laughed, letting his fangs extend. “No more bluffs, wizard,” he purred. “No more illusions. Take him, sister.”
Kelly came at me in a rush, but I had been waiting for that. I lifted my right hand and snarled, “Ventas servitas!” A furious column of wind slammed into her like a bag of sand, catching her in midair and driving her across the room, into the wall.
Kyle screamed in fury, drawing his hand back off of my throat and then driving it at me. I dodged the first blow by jerking my head to one side, and heard his hand crunch into the stone. The dodge cost me my balance, and as I teetered, he lashed out again, aiming for my neck. All I could do was watch it come.
And then Susan came between us. I didn’t see her move toward us, but I saw her catch the blow in both of her hands. She spun, twisting her hips and body and shoulders, letting out a furious scream. She threw Kyle across the room, in the air the whole way, and with no noticeable trajectory. He slammed into his sister, driving them both into the wall once more. I heard Kelly scream, incoherent and bestial. The black, slime-covered bat-thing beneath the pleasant flesh mask tore its way out, shredding damply flapping skin with its talons as it started raking at Kyle. He struggled against her, shouting something that became lost in his creature-form’s scream as he too tore his way free. The two of them started clawing at one another in a frenzy, fangs and tongues and talons flashing.
I snarled, and rolled my wrist, flipping my hand toward them in a gesture wholly unfamiliar to me. Words spilled from my lips in thundering syllables, “Satharak, na-kadum!” That scarlet, furious power I had stolen from Kravos flashed over me, following the gesture of my right hand, lashing out in a blaze of scarlet light that spun around the maddened vampires. The scarlet blaze whirled about them, winding too swiftly to be seen, a ribbon of flame that cocooned them both, burned brighter and hotter, the spell enfolding them in fire.
They screamed as they died, sounds like metal sheets tearing, and somehow also like terrified children. Heat thrummed back against us, almost singeing the exposed hairs on my legs, my chest. Greasy black smoke started to spread over the floor, and it stank.
I watched as they burned, though I could see nothing beneath the blazing flame-cocoon. Part of me wanted to dance in malicious glee, to throw my arms up in the air and crow my defiance and scorn to my enemies while they died, and to roll through their ashes when they’d cooled.
More of me grew sickened. I stared at the spell I had wrought and couldn’t believe it had come from me—whether or not I’d taken the power, maybe even some primal knowledge of this spell, from Kravos’s devoured spirit, the magic had come from me. I had killed them, as swiftly and as efficiently as with as little forethought as one gives to crushing an ant.
They were vampires, some part of me said. They had it coming. They were monsters.
I glanced aside, at Susan, who stood panting, her white shirt stained dark brown with blood. She stared at the fire, her eyes dark and wide, the whites filled in with black. I watched her shudder and close her eyes. When she opened them again, they were normal once more, blurred with tears.
Within the confines of my spell, the screams stopped. Now there were only cracklings. Poppings. The sound of overheated marrow boiling, bursting out of bone.
I turned away, toward the door, and said, “Let’s go.”
Susan and Justine followed me.
I led them through the basement. It was large and unfinished and damp. The room outside the washroom had a large drain in the center of the floor. There were corpses, there. Children from the masquerade. Others, dressed in rags and castoff clothes. The missing street people.
I stopped long enough to send my senses questing out over them, but there was no stirring of breath, no faint pulse of heartbeat. The corpses showed no lividity at all. The floor lay damp beneath our feet, and a hose still ran out a trickle of water, to one side.
Dinner had already been served.
“I hate them,” I said. My voice rang out too loud, in that room. “I hate them, Susan.”
She said nothing, in answer.
“I’m not going to let them keep this up. I’ve tried to stay out of their way before. I can’t, now. Not after what I’ve seen.”
“You can’t fight them,” Justine whispered. “They’re too strong. There are too many of them.”
I held up a hand, and Justine fell silent. I tilted my head to one side, and heard a faint thrumming, at the very edges of my magical perception. I stalked across the room, around the bodies, to an alcove in the wall.
Cheap shelving had been installed in the alcove, and on the shelves sat my shield bracelet, my blasting rod, and Bob’s skull, still in its fishnet sack. Even as I approached, the skull’s eyes flared to life.
“Harry,” Bob said. “Stars and skies, you’re all right!” He hesitated for a second, and then said, “And looking grim. Even dressed in boxers with yellow duckies on them.”
I glanced down, and did my best to picture a vampire wearing boxers with yellow duckies. Or a wizard wearing yellow duckies, for that matter. “Bob,” I said.
Bob whistled. “Wow. Your aura is different. You look a lot like—”
“Shut up, Bob,” I said, my voice very quiet.
He did.
I put on my bracelet, and took up my rod. I scanned around and found my staff wedged into a corner, and took it out as well. “Bob,” I asked. “What is all my stuff doing here?”
“Oh,” Bob said. “That. Well. Bianca got the idea, somewhere, that your stuff might explode if anyone messed around with it.”
I heard the wryness in my voice, though I didn’t feel it. “She did, did she.”
“I can’t imagine how.”
“I’m doubling your pay.” I took Bob’s skull and handed it back to Justine. “Carry this. Don’t drop it.”
Bob whistled. “Hey, cutie. That�
�s a real nice red cloak you got there. Will you let me see the lining?”
I swatted the skull on the way past, drawing an outraged, “Ow!” from Bob.
“Stop goofing around. We’re still inside Bianca’s, and we still have to get out.” I frowned, and glanced at Justine, then swiftly, left and right. “Where’s Susan?”
Justine blinked. “She was right here behind—” She turned, staring.
Water dripped.
Silence reigned.
Justine started trembling like a leaf. “Here,” she whispered. “They’re here. We can’t see them.”
“What’s this ‘we’ stuff, kimosabe,” Bob muttered. The skull spun about in its fishnet sack. “I don’t see any veils, Harry.”
I swept my eyes left and right, gripping my blasting rod. “Did you see her leave? Or anyone take her?”
Bob coughed. “Well. Truth be told, I was looking at Justine’s luscious little—”
“I get the point, Bob.”
“Sorry.”
I shook my head, irritated. “They snuck in, under a veil maybe. Grabbed Susan and went. Why the hell didn’t they stick around? Just put a knife in my back? Why didn’t they take Justine, too?”
“Good questions,” Bob said.
“I’ll tell you why. Because they weren’t here. They couldn’t have just carried Susan off that easy. Not now.”
“Why not?” Bob asked.
“Trust me. She’d be a handful. They couldn’t do it without making a fuss, which we’d notice.”
“Assuming you’re right,” Bob said, “why would she just walk away?”
Justine glanced back at me, and licked her lips. “Bianca could make her. I’ve seen her do it. She made Susan walk into the laundry room on her own.”
I grunted. “Looks like Bianca’s been hitting the books, Bob.”
“Vampire wizard,” Bob said. “Black magic. Could be very tough.”
“So can I. Justine, stay behind me. Keep your eyes open.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice quiet. I strode past her, toward the stairs. Some of the energy I’d felt before had faded away. My pain and weakness grew closer to me, more noticeable. I did everything I could to shove it to the back of my mind. A swift little thrill of panic gabbled in my throat and tried to make me start screaming. I shoved that away, too. I just walked to the bottom of the stairs, and looked up them.
