by Lan Chan
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. Taking in a laboured breath, she wrapped her hand around my ankle. I felt her trying to compress my skin. She was attempting to teleport us once more.
“Why isn’t it working?” Astrid said. “I feel....I feel...” She trailed off into a series of hacking coughs. Over her shuddering back, I spotted another picture on the wall. This one was of two golden-haired children. One of them was a spitting image of Astrid at about Cassie’s age. The other child tugged at my heart even as rage filled it.
In the picture, Kai had his arm around her shoulders, as though a second before it was taken, he had hauled her into view. They didn’t have cameras because of the magic factor, but in Rivia there were mirror mages who could take a telepathic picture and reproduce an image through their art. Nora and Mani had a picture of Sophie and me in their apartment that had been produced the same way. They were not impressed when I said a camera phone was faster.
In the picture, Astrid’s expression was bland. She must have been annoyed with him at the time. It was completely out of place in this room of death.
“Where are we?” My head was beginning to pound.
“Ward,” Astrid heaved.
“Come again?”
She sat heavily and dropped her head into her hands. Her arms failed. She ended up slumping back on the ground again. I pressed my palm to her forehead. It came away slick with sweat. At the same time her skin was burning up.
“Ward,” she pressed. She jerked her head in the direction of the window. When I got to my feet, the room turned upside down. I cast out frantically and managed to catch hold of what I thought was a hat rack. It turned out to be a fully formed skeleton nailed to the wall. There were still bits of muscle and sinew dried on the bones. Gross.
I ripped my hand away and trudged to the window. It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. Everything light inside me felt like it was being sucked out.
I glanced back at Astrid to find her staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. I’d seen that look before on Skander Rameros inside the Dominion prison. She was being drained.
Ward. Ah shit.
The Dominion mages trained for years in the art of magical extraction. They used it as one of their defences against the criminal supernaturals. They also sold the same magic bound to wards for security. As a human, the draining wouldn’t affect me as badly as it did a supernatural. Still, it felt like my limbs were made of anvils.
I was halfway to the window when a series of voices speared through the house. They sounded gargled. Their speech was unintelligible and desperate. But sometimes you don’t need words to communicate. I felt their ravening hunger as surely as I felt the fear turning my limbs into liquid.
It’s interesting how shitting your pants can light a fire in your butt. I forced myself to glance out the window and regretted it immediately. My gaze landed first on the monolith gravestones and statues in the cemetery across the street. The clichéd mist hung around the base of the gravestones as gnarled, leafless trees twined their branches to create a dappled barrier to the moon. The moon itself had a sickly green tinge to it. My attention was dragged to movement on the ground. The bare patches of earth outside could hardly be called a lawn. Never mind the outlines of the runes that had been burned into the earth. All of it faded into the background as a few dozen grey bodies lumbered closer to the house.
I’d learned about ghouls in Demonology 101. As always, seeing the image of something in a textbook was vastly different to watching it scamper toward you like a demented crab. Though they were humanoid, ghouls picked up speed by running on all fours. Right now they were hauling ass towards us. Their skin radiated faintly with an unhealthy grey glow. It was said that they had come into being as a result of necromancers turning to demonic means of controlling their power. While they weren’t overly quick for supernaturals, it was the other aspect of their being that caused the sweat on my back to turn cold. They fed on flesh and devoured everything, including bone. Sometimes, when the job was small enough, they were the cleanup crew. I liked my bones exactly where they were.
I had just completed the protection circle around the house when a hairless ghoul leaped from the driveway directly onto the window in front of me. They weren’t good at climbing, but the stupid bars on the windows allowed them purchase.
It looked right at me. The thing’s mouth was a red slash that opened wide. I watched dumbfounded as its jaw unhinged like a snake’s. It tried to chew through the wall, and in turn, my circle. I whimpered and clutched at my head as those spiny, blood-caked teeth scraped against the circle. Undead energy rolled through me. It made nausea tie up my insides in knots. Unlike my bone-witch magic which left a neutral magical footprint, undead magic was like sludge. It caked everything in despair. I understood that was how the ghouls hunted for fresh meat. They trapped their prey with lethargy and ate them alive.
Another ghoul thudded against the side of the house. The one hanging on the window used its heavily muscled arms to drag its body up so that its clawed feet could give it better traction. And then it began to pry the metal bars away. The sound in my ears was nothing to the mental tearing in my mind.
I cowered and turned away. Stumbling over to Astrid, I found her semi-conscious. “We need to go!” I shouted. I felt everything through a layer of fog. Beneath it my heart was racing at an unnatural speed. I tripped twice trying to get Astrid to stand. She blinked heavily. Every now and then her eyelids would snap open and I’d get a shot of hope. But then they would slide closed again. I’d succeeded in bracing my shoulder under her arm when the angle made me waver. As dead weight, I was never going to be able to drag her anywhere. Not for the first time, I cursed my inability to wield high magic. If I could teleport or create a portal, we would be okay. Then again if I was a mage, I’d be halfway drained by now.
“Astrid,” I pleaded. “You have to walk.”
Not that I had any idea where we would go. Still, I tried. That lasted about two steps before we went crashing back down to the floor. In that moment, a dozen sets of teeth tried to gouge holes in my circle. Blue and black light flickered all around us. My knees buckled. On the floor, I clutched my head and tried not to scream.
I wasn’t thinking straight when I approached the window again. A ghoul’s neck was as powerful as any other limb. Once they got a lock jaw on something, they would never let go. So why weren’t they tearing into my circle at a greater speed? The ghoul at the window had pried out three of the bars. Two more and it would be able to squeeze inside. Shit!
I was about to turn around and look for a weapon when my attention was drawn to a pocket of what I thought was empty air. The image wavered. And then I saw him. The same figure that had branded me between dimensions. He was moving in this direction but at an unhurried pace.
The ghoul bellowed something awful-sounding to my ears. It heaved against the bars. It kept looking behind me at Astrid. How much strength would it get from eating a Nephilim?
Panicked, I tried to call to the demon blade. Absolutely nothing happened.
“Astrid!” I screamed. She was out cold. Dammit!
Messed up as it was, seeing her so peacefully sleeping made my eyes droop. Maybe I should close my eyes too. Something slammed against the side of my head. I careened to the right and only remained standing because I’d hit the edge of the kitchen table. It jabbed into the side of my hip. The pain shocked me alert.
My head cleared. I realised the hit hadn’t been physical. One of the ghouls was close to breaking through the circle. Once it did, the whole thing would crumble. I bit my tongue and tasted blood.
This place was tiny. So close to a cemetery it could potentially be a caretaker cottage or something of that ilk. I shuffled to the adjacent room. A bathroom. The mirror was shattered and there was a big brown stain on the floor. The other door led to a small bedroom with a single military-style cot. And look at that, another brown stain. More portraits of Astrid decorated the
walls. Some of them were with her father. There was one with a very young Cassie and another with both Kai and Max.
It occurred to me this could be some bizzaro world manifestation of something inside Astrid’s mind. How the hell were we going to get out of this?
I tried to reach for the reserves of darker magic inside of me. Where there should have been a vast ocean, I saw only a wading pool. And with each breath, the pool contracted. The hedge magic was also teetering on the edge of exhaustion. In a last-ditch attempt at a Hail Mary, I tried to throw the hedge magic wider to see if I could connect to the trees in the cemetery. Nada. I got as far as the edge of my circle. When I touched the putrid skin of a ghoul, the magic died.
It sputtered when I tried to erect a smaller circle, but there wasn’t any juice left. The sound of glass smashing had me whining. I raced over to Astrid and placed myself in front of her. Some protector I was turning out to be. Think. Think. Think.
The stench of rotting flesh muddled my brain. The wooden door of the shack rattled for a beat before it was ripped from its hinges. Boom! The side of the house exploded in a shower of brick and mortar. It vomited dust onto the kitchen floor. Mist seeped in and smothered my scream. Ghouls landed with a thud. When I’d touched the ghoul with my magic, its skin had looked smooth but was rough like sandpaper. Up close they were just as robust as any shifter. Their heavy footsteps rattled the objects on the table to my left. Glass jars chimed as they hit each other.
That’s when I saw the bowl of salt. I shoved my fingers into the grains at the same time one of the ghouls lunged. It barrelled towards me in an inelegant waddle. I threw a handful of salt at it. Grabbing the bowl from the table, I sprinkled the rest in a crooked circle around Astrid and me. The ghoul bellowed its rage. Salt laced with the last vestiges of my magic burned its skin. Where the grains touched it, the glow of my magic flared.
My smugness lasted about two seconds. Though we were momentarily safe, we were also trapped inside a salt circle surrounded by ghouls.
The ghouls slashed their claws at the new circle. I winced as they scraped and stomped around us. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for them to manoeuvre without bumping into each other. When this happened, there was a frenzy of shoving and biting. I imagined if one of them went down, they wouldn’t hesitate to make use of the free feed.
Astrid didn’t stir. I pressed my palm to the pulse at her neck. It was barely detectable. If we were here any longer, she might not survive.
I glanced up at the ghoul in front of me who was pacing its small spot of floor. Survival wasn’t really an option. Tired of being patient, the ghoul drew its clawed hand into a fist and punched. My body jerked at the impact. Blue and black magic radiated from where its fist touched the barrier. The salt shifted under its feet. The protection was but a flimsy layer now. I swallowed hard. My hands were two clammy mitts. I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest.
There was no way out of this. I wanted to scream my frustration. The ghouls around me crouched. They lowered their bodies so that I was looking directly into their eyes. I closed mine. If they all came at me in unison, there was no way the circle would hold.
I wanted to pound my fist against the floor and wail. Inside this dimension or whatever it was, nothing could get to me. Even calling out to Azrael hadn’t worked. Surely if he’d heard me, he would have come at a time like this?
When nothing happened, I peeled my eyes open to find a dozen ghouls in suspended animation. They sat there like domesticated animals, their chests heaving, saliva dripping from their blackened mouths. A shadow appeared through the opening in the wall.
Half-undead monsters only feared one thing: their master. He was male judging by the breadth of his shoulders. He wore a cloak that resembled the seraphim fashion. Where his face should have been, there was only darkness and a swirl of aether. It was like there was nothing holding the hood of the cloak up.
“What the hell are you meant to be?” I snarled.
The ghouls parted for him to approach. I inched back a fraction only to run into Astrid. The man placed a palm gingerly against the circle’s barrier. The glow of my magic was faint. To be able to control the ghouls so completely, he had to be some kind of necromancer. His hands were gloved. The leather was much gentler than the claws of the ghouls, but the sensation left me feeling completely hollow.
Astrid whined. I turned to find her nose was bleeding. It made me think she was still awake somewhere behind that sleepy mask. Her struggling caused blood to seep onto the floor. Blood.
I could punch myself for my stupidity.
Biting the skin of my forefinger, I began to draw runes on the floor. The necromancer watched me with curiosity for a second before he raised his right hand. It was a command to charge. The ghouls went berserk. They came at the circle with an intensity I hadn’t even seen from the shifters. In the small space they were all collateral. They struck each other just as much as they did my circle. There was no way to tell if the gargled sounds coming from their vocal cords were screams of anguish or pleasure. It didn’t matter. I was in for a world of hurt.
The blood runes thickened the magical barrier, but even that wouldn’t last forever. Thanks to Lucifer, my blood was stronger than a human’s should be, but I was still human nonetheless.
The necromancer stepped back a few paces. He crossed his arms over his chest. For all intents and purposes, he was completely at ease. Something simmered beneath the layer of apathy in my mind, but I couldn’t reach out to it. It made the runes flare hotter. Where the ghoul’s claws hit the circle, it now seared them blunt.
I met their crazed hunger with my tempered rage. And then the necromancer flicked his palm. The force that gathered outside of the circle was far beyond anything the ghouls could produce. It was a magical battering ram.
I heard the rushing sound of wind building into a storm. It snowballed into a crescendo. Gritting my teeth, I tried to counter with the blood magic Basil had taught me. I made the rune signs for protection, for aid. But it didn’t come. Two seconds later, I heard a crack inside my mind. The circle broke.
I screamed as the claw of a ghouls slashed across my cheek. Without the tension of the circle to buffer its hit, the ghoul’s punch caught me and slammed me back against the wooden closet in the corner of the room. The back of my head bumped into the door handle. I heard a lock unlatch as I blinked back stars. At the same time I raised my arms in front of my face. With the last of my strength, I drew a blood circle around Astrid. Ghouls piled onto her to be rebuffed momentarily. I estimated the circle would last another thirty seconds.
Something latched onto my ankle. The ghoul dragged me forward. I kicked out wildly. It did all of nothing. My elbow hit the closet door that had fallen open with my struggling.
Something inside reflected the moonlight coming from the broken wall. I slammed the heel of my boot repeatedly into the nose of the ghoul who was dragging me along the floor. It snapped its teeth and tried to take a chunk out of my calf. I twisted to the side, and then let it pull me forward. My shoulder smashed into a table leg. The impact caused the jars to knock against each other. They began to tumble off the top, breaking as they hit the floor.
I snatched a piece of broken glass. My hand burned from the liquid coating the glass, but it was the better alternative at the moment. At the closest angle, I drove the pointy end of the glass into the ghoul’s eye. My aim was terrible. If Diana were here she would be groaning. Missing the mark, I dragged the makeshift weapon across the ghoul’s cheek. It did more damage to my hand than to the ghoul. Blood, my blood, spatted into its eye. It reacted as though burned and gave up its prize. It didn’t matter. There were plenty of other ghouls waiting to claim me.
My head felt like it was being weighted down my rocks. Something flashed behind me. Stupidly, I turned my attention away from the ghouls in front of me to take a peek. A mirror! A fricken floor-length mirror!
I dove for the thing at the same time the necromancer threw a shot of
blackened magic at me. The power grazed my hip causing my limbs to spasm. The left side of my body stopped working. Mid-step, my leg collapsed. I went tumbling down and crashed into the mirror that had been my target.
The necromancer came charging towards me. I slammed my hand onto the mirror and screamed Basil’s name. Of all the people I knew, Basil was most addicted to the MirrorNet. If anyone would be online right now, it would be him. My gamble paid off. The mirror swirled into a bulletin and Basil’s face appeared.
“Lex!” he screamed. And then the necromancer caught hold of me. He ripped me from the mirror. Basil’s image disappeared. The protective circle around Astrid shattered. A ghoul bit into her thigh. She didn’t make a sound.
The necromancer clutched me by the throat. I couldn’t look into his eyes, but that didn’t matter. Seeing Astrid attacked had dispelled the lethargy that held me captive. I slapped my hand against where the necromancer’s face should have been. What I felt was the swirl of unimaginable despair. I had felt the same numb defeat in the icy cavern below the Fae forest. I blinked and the image in front of me changed. I was on an open battlefield once more.
To my left, a horde of demons scrambled over each other to get to the oncoming charge of supernaturals. It was ten-to-one odds in favour of the demons. There were so many of them, I could count for weeks and not make a dent in their numbers. A lone Nephilim materialised in the sky above the advancing supernaturals. The green of Kai’s angelfire haloed his body. I drew Morning Star and joined the demons meeting him head-on. No!
I bit my tongue once more to assuage the image. My pronunciation of Dead Languages was hopeless. So bad there were supernatural toddlers who spoke them better than me. But in that moment, all I could think of was a single word. One I had seen in the circle Lucifer had drawn as he used his power to birth more demons.
