Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report, Book 1)

by Virdi, R. R

  “Great,” I muttered to myself, “the hell am I going to find a pure soul.”

  “That’ll take some time Graves,” he replied.

  “Uh sorry, wasn’t asking you, no offense.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “So…blood and bullets, anything else? Does it matter where we put ‘em,” I asked. “We talking about headshots, pump ‘em full of lead, what?”

  “The latter,” he answered.

  “Uh, there a magic number or something?”

  “A full magazine should be sufficient Graves.”

  I nearly choked; I had to empty a full clip in to the Ifrit? Hell, the way Ortiz had been shooting, we’d be lucky to have half a clip.

  “Uh, one sec there pal,” I told Gnosis as I turned to address Ortiz, “hey Bonnie, how many rounds you got left?”

  “Bonnie?” Ortiz mouthed silently with a quirk of an eyebrow, she quickly ejected the clip, frowned and then held up three fingers.

  I sighed, “uh, small problem there chief,” I said to Gnosis. “We’ve only got three shots left, what do we do?”

  “Make them count,” he said as if it were obvious.

  “Gee thanks, and after that?”

  “You still have the original option,” he replied.

  “Yeah, convince James to make a selfless wish and give up the power of a really powerful Jinn,” I snorted, “like that’s going to happen.”

  “Graves,” he said firmly, ignoring all of what I had just said, “you know the power of human blood.” It wasn’t a question this time.

  “Yeah.”

  “For a pure, truly pure human soul, magnify it, exponentially.” He said quietly, it was almost a whisper and I swear, there was a hint of fear in his voice. Gnosis wasn’t one to get scared, or to show it atleast.

  I didn’t know what to say, but then again, when has that ever stopped me before? “So uh…it can do some pretty nasty stuff huh?”

  He let out a frustrated sigh.

  That answered my question.

  “Graves, the potential it carries, especially when used as a weapon, is…” he trailed off, inhaling deeply before continuing, “this can be used harm a great deal of creatures.”

  “What, like a one size fits all monsters kind of deal?” I said in surprise.

  “Yes,” he whispered, “with a few exceptions,” he added in a hushed voice.

  I let out a low whistle, this was some powerful stuff, that is if you could get your hands some blood pertaining to a pure human soul…not that many of those out there.

  I could feel my anger rising when I realized what this meant, what it could have meant if I had learned this long ago, “why didn’t you ever tell me about this before? Hell, why not yesterday?!” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral but failing.

  No answer.

  “You were afraid I’d use the knowledge to pretty much go around killing anything and everything I wanted, not much could stop me right?” I said, instantly realizing the reason why Gnosis had kept this from me.

  “Knowledge is power Graves, you know that.”

  Damn, this was powerful stuff, a way to kill almost any monster, at the very least hurt them seriously, I could see why he was apprehensive about telling me this.

  It was hard saying the next words to him, really hard, but I managed to get them out. “Gnosis, I give you my word, I won’t misuse what you’ve just told me.”

  That may not have seemed like much, but it was, I may not be nicest guy but there’s a reason I have a great deal of contacts in the supernatural world. That reason is my word, it’s good, it always has been and there’s a great deal of monsters out there that can attest to that.

  “See that you don’t,” he warned, “and Graves.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I figured, this squares us huh?” I drawled.

  “No, now you owe me one,” he said with utter firmness.

  “Hey, wait a—”

  There was an audible click as he hung up the phone…

  Who knew that such a small…being, could be such a large ass?

  We rounded a corner and ducked out of site behind some rather large and probably extinct ancient mammal. It kind of looked like a bear mixed with a wolf mixed with a really gnarly temperament. I dubbed it the werebear.

  Ortiz elbowed me gently to get my attention; she was impatiently chewing on her lip and looking at me expectantly, “so?”

  “Well, I think I might’ve found a way to kill this thing,” I said slowly.

  “Great, what is it?” she said hurriedly.

  “Maybe,” I added immediately after she finished her last sentence.

  “Maybe?!” she exclaimed before letting out a frustrated sigh, “alright, it’s not like we have much choice, what is it?” she demanded.

  “Bullets,” I began and she shot me a very angry glare and a look that implied that I was an idiot, “covered in the blood of a human of pure soul.”

  That last part caught her off guard, the angry look slipped of her face and was replaced by one of confusion.

  “More blood? What is it with the whole blood thing?” she asked, irritated.

  Wow, that was a big question with a big answer, how to explain something like that to someone with very little to no knowledge of the magical, the supernatural, the just not normal?

  “There’s power Ortiz, power in a person’s blood, every persons blood.” I said heavily. “Some people can tap into this power, it’s what’s behind warlocks, witches and the like,” I explained.

  She let out a derisive snort, “witches,” and the caught my eye before sighing, “you’re not kidding are you?”

  I shook my head to let her know that I wasn’t, “there’s energy, life force, mana, call it whatever you will Ortiz, and it lies within every person.”

  “I don’t see how this helps us, how does this all work?” she asked, rubbing her temples in frustration, this was probably giving her a headache.

  I exhaled before explaining further, “Ortiz, blood is a more powerful source of…well power than anything else today in modern science, if you can tap into that or find a way to use it, you can do a lot.”

  “Like…make mystical mumbo jumbo bullets that can kill a monster?” she said hesitantly.

  I nodded, “yeah, or worse.”

  Her eyebrows shot up in surprise when I said that, “worse?”

  “I’d rather not get into it Ortiz, blood can be used for all sorts of things, rituals and more, it can be used to hurt monsters….or people.”

  She bit her lip pensively but otherwise didn’t say a word.

  “The blood of someone of pure soul, well it’s kind of multiplies that potential to a whole ‘nother level, the potential for good or bad…” I said, letting the last words hang heavily in the air.

  “Ok,” she said, nodding more to herself than me, “so we’re playing with magical fire or something similar right?”

  I nodded.

  “And we could get burned, bad,” she continued.

  I nodded again.

  “So we’re just going to stick with blood and bullets I’m assuming, right Norman?”

  Another nod.

  “So…” she muttered to herself, “where do we find someone who’s pure of soul and get our hands on their blood?” She asked, raising her head to look up at me only to find that I was staring back at her.

  “Me!” she exclaimed.

  “Well it sure as hell isn’t me,” I snorted, “and you’re all that I’ve got,” I said with a shrug.

  “Gee,” she said dryly, “you really know how to compliment a girl.”

  “Ortiz,” I sighed, “you were just thrust into a supernatural fustercluck, stuck by me through an inferno, being chased by fiery monsters, trusted me and more…what do you want me to say? If that ain’t pure of soul, I don’t know what is.” I didn’t realize was saying all of that until I had actually said it; silence was hanging in the air after I did.

  A wry smile came over her face when she spoke, “tha
t’ll do pig, that’ll do,” and then her voice turned to a whisper when she said, “thanks.”

  I nodded quietly.

  The air was filled with the very familiar and disconcerting sounds of hissing, pools corrosive acid landed near us, eating away at the tiling around us.

  “Ooookaay,” I said nervously, “do or die time Ortiz, for the record, I prefer do as opposed to die.”

  Ortiz quickly ejected the clip of her pistol and began thumbing out the last few rounds and lumping them into her left palm. She looked at her right hand a bit worriedly; she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, calming herself down before she moved her hand closer to her mouth. Ortiz took the soft thin tissue that ran between her thumb and forefinger and placed it in her mouth; she bit down hard and winced. “Son of a bitch,” she cursed in a whisper as she pulled her hand out of her mouth. Blood began to well up in between her thumb and her index finger. “How much blood do I have to coat these things in?” she asked, “I don’t want them to be soaked, not sure if the gun will fire.” She added.

  “Just roll ‘em around a bit I guess,” I said with a shrug, “then let the blood dry, shouldn’t take long.”

  More hissing sounds filled the air and soon once again, a series of corrosive blobs landed near us, closer to the corner we were hiding around than before.

  Damn those things were getting closer too quickly!

  “Good,” Ortiz muttered as she clenched her bleeding hand into a tight fist, closing her eyes tightly shut as more blood began seeping out, “we don’t have a long time.” She quickly tossed the three remaining rounds from her left hand into her blood-covered right, rolling the bullets around quickly before slipping them into her pocket to dry. She slammed the empty magazine back into the gun; it made it easier to carry rather than having to carry both the magazine and the pistol. She held up the ammo-deprived handgun in front her face, giving it a slight twist in the air and frowning as she said, “this won’t do us much good now.”

  “Yeah, it’s essentially a paperweight till we get those rounds back in it,” I replied.

  “Even so,” she started, “we’ve only got three.”

  “Make ‘em count,” I said with an indifferent shrug, echoing what Gnosis had told me earlier.

  Ortiz sighed in frustration.

  “Well,” I began, managing a weak smile as I spoke, “you could always pistol whip,” I quipped.

  “I’m think I’m going to Norman, right across your head after we get out of this.”

  I snorted, “if we get out of here in one piece Ortiz, you can pistol whip me all you want.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she replied with a smile, holding up the gun in a mock attempt to hit me with it. It was good to see her smile, even in the midst of all this, she had managed to cling onto her sense of humor, that was good, she’d need that, we’d both need that…and the bullets too.

  I noticed her smile slip for a quick second and turn into a painful grimace before. I frowned and noticed her flexing her right hand over and over; I looked down at my torn clothing and tore a wide strip from my already ruined shirt and began folding it half, making it thicker.

  “What are you doing?” Hissed Ortiz, “come on, we need to move.” She said, just as another series of acidy goblets impacted the floor by us.

  I quickly peeked around the corner and saw that the salamanders were no more than ten feet from us now; upon seeing my noggin poking out from around the corner, they launched another volley of noxious corrosive spit my way. “Eek,” I yelped as I pulled my head back just in time before there was a series of splat noises on the wall, which began to crumble right before us.

  “Norman,” she said a lot more firmly, before she could say anything else, I held up my hand and she stopped talking. I grasped her right hand and pulled it towards me, prying it open; I began to wrap the long length of fabric I had torn from my shirt around her palm.

  I quickly and gently tied it off and beckoned for her to follow me, “come on Bonnie, there’s a Jinn that needs killin’!” I said as I jaunted quietly down the hall that would allow us to circle back around to the Ifrit and where the security desk once was.

  She shook her head and tried to suppress a smile as she jaunted besides me, “you know Bonnie and Clyde got shot right?”

  “Well they went down fighting,” I replied, “and that’s the point.”

  “Actually,” she said as we continued quietly moving towards the end of the hall, “they were ambushed,” she whispered, “didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  “Okay fine,” I whispered back, “but we’re doing the ambushing here and we are definitely going to put up one helluva fight.”

  Ortiz eyes and face turned to solid steel, “damn right,” she growled as she fished the bullets back out of her pocket.

  Fortunately for us, the blood on the rounds had dried, it doesn’t take long for blood to dry once it’s been exposed to air, especially when it’s small amounts and it’s been smeared on something. It generally takes a few minutes of less, not to mention the fact that some of the blood must’ve been absorbed by the fabric of Ortiz’s pockets. The bullets weren’t really caked in blood, the bright brass of the rounds still shone under the museum lighting but there were a few splotchy smears of red on each round, bits of the brass coloring showing through the blood.

  Ortiz ejected the magazine and thumbed the rounds back in, slamming the clip into the handgun with an audible click. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before she pulled the slide back on the pistol and chambered the first round. Ortiz stared at me hard, her eyes unwavering and her jaw set, she was ready to do this but I still had to ask, I had to hear her say it.

  I stared right back at her in the same manner she was staring at me, “ready?” I asked in a quiet and reassuring whisper that contrasted the steely look I gave her.

  She took another deep calming breath and nodded silently.

  I gave a jerk of my head towards the end of the hall we were nearing, motioning for her to come one. I ducked down into a crouch and crept forwards silently, Ortiz behind me as we neared the end of the hall.

  As I turned back to look at Ortiz, a flurry of movement at the other end of the hall caught me eye. “Shit,” I swore in a harsh whisper, causing Ortiz to turn around as well and notice what I had. The salamanders had rounded the corner and were looking directly at us. The moment they noticed us, the few remaining salamanders jiggled in unison before letting out a collective shrill shriek and surged towards us. They sent a wave of their corrosive spit hurtling through the air and towards us. “Move!” I shouted to Ortiz as I bounded up to my feet, grabbing Ortiz’s collar and forcibly hauling her up with me. I yanked on her collar hard, pulling her towards me and then shoving her around the corner as I followed right behind her. The mass of acid spit landed harmless right behind us but the violent sound of the hiss sent shivers up my spine, man that was close! I thought.

  Both Ortiz and I looked straight ahead, down the current hall and to the open area that lay at the end of it. We had gone around two hallways that circled back to where we had last seen the Ifrit. The only problem was that this hall was narrow and the walls on both sides meant we couldn’t see the entirety of the opening up ahead, nor did we see the Ifrit.

  “Careful,” I whispered to Ortiz as I took point and began jogging forwards, cradling the Ifrit’s vessel in my hands. Ideally I would have liked to have been able to move more slowly and quietly but with the Salamanders advancing behind us, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to be pinned between them and the Ifrit. Ortiz ran right behind me, running with both hands on her gun that she held about waist level, the barrel aimed down at the floor.

  Once we had made it to the end of the hall, I looked back to Ortiz and gave her a knowing look to which she nodded in response. I turned the corner with a burst of speed, charging into the open area and then freezing completely still at what I saw.

  The Ifrit was standing about thirty feet directly in front of
me but that’s not what made me freeze. She wasn’t paying me any mind but I was certainly fixated on what was going on before me. Her entire left arm had reverted back to her earlier disguise; it was human, completely bare without a shred of clothing and bearing a hideous scar that she had received courtesy of Ortiz. The transformation went a little past her arm to a bit of her chest; the rest of her body however still remained unchanged. It was still a burnished red that shone in certain places; she still had those volcanic rock like protrusions and that shark like mouth with obsidian teeth. Her leg was still ruined, the gaping hole I had made was still leaking that disgusting black motor oil like fluid and it was still the wrong way around.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out why the Ifrit had decided to shift its arm back to its human form, it couldn’t touch anything without severely burning whatever it was touching and right now it was holding James. The Ifrit had her hand in a vice like grip around his throat, holding him up off the ground effortlessly as he dangled limply from her supernaturally strong hold. She had brought his mouth closer to hers, her dagger lined mouth spreading into a wide predatory smile as she brought him nearer. That’s when things got weirder than they already had been.

  The Ifrit squeezed harder on his throat, forcing him to open it as he began to gag, she exhaled deeply and smoke began billowing out of her mouth. It didn’t behave like normal smoke, it didn’t waft through the air but rather condensed into thick almost liquid looking streams, they resembled a bunch of smoke like tendrils really. They darted towards James and began forcing their way into every orifice they could find, slithering forcibly into his mouth, ears and nose. His body began to jerk and spasm violently; it was like he was having a seizure, horrible gagging noises were coming from him as the smoke forced its way into him.

  What I saw next really boggled me; James there was having his body reconfigured in some strange way. The first time I had met him he had looked a fair bit older than his actual age but that was more due to his haggard and disheveled appearance, I had chalked it up to stress and working overtime. Just moments ago he looked like an extremely frail elderly person who should’ve been on their deathbed. And now, he was starting to regress, slowly, his elderly features began to become noticeably younger.