Greyborn Rising

by Derry Sandy

  “And what do you think now?”

  Lisa thought she knew where this was going. “Obviously they are real, tragically and terrifyingly real, but you want to destroy the world to prove that the monsters exist?”

  “Oh no, you misunderstand my goal. I do not want to prove anything. I intend to elevate the obeah man to his true place of power. When the Grey was first opened, the Absolute was only tainted with a trickle of the true horrors that place conceals. But even that trickle was enough to turn the night into a time of terror. People vanished without a trace, bodies turned up drained of blood, men and women were dragged from their hovels and their mansions and bitten and clawed and disemboweled. Things came through locked windows, through keyholes, under doors. Things waited under the silk cotton tree for the lone traveler. Children were called from their yards by the lure of the Duen-song. Bullets and blades could only do so much and when men realized this, they turned to the obeah men and the sorcerers. They turned to magik.”

  “So, you want to bring back the good old days.”

  “Not the good old days,” Lucien shook his head with impatience. “I want the Absolute and the Grey to be one. When the relentless flora of the Grey starts to take root, man will be unable to cut the trees or burn the grasses fast enough. The lesser grey-beasts will kill the creatures man relies on for food. Man will fight. He will shoot at the leviathan and be swallowed. His aircraft will be brought down by the thunderbirds. Man’s armies will march against hordes of lagahoo, but every man bitten will spring up and fight under the thrall of the master. The night sky will be filled with soucouyant, burning bright, thirsty. The Grey is vast, easily a thousand times the size of this realm. Man will be outnumbered, choked-out, and slain. Eventually, as the remnants of humanity cling to a bestial and hunted existence, they will venerate the magiks again, it will be a golden age of obeah. With his spellcraft, the obeah man will carve out toehold for man. We will beat back the darkness, stave off death. The trappings of modernity cannot survive the ruthlessness of the Grey. Man will have to adopt an existence that is more harmonious with his surroundings. You saw it yourself Lisa, you saw how the villagers in the Grey lived and were sustained by it. Obeah will never again be a ridiculous old wives’ tale.”

  Lisa was horrified. “Millions will die before anyone even knew what was going on. I went to the Grey with two very powerful people who were fully aware of the peril and quite capable of defending themselves, yet we spent every moment a mere misstep away from death. How can you even guarantee your own safety when those things start coming through?”

  “If I cannot protect myself then I’m unworthy to be part of obeah’s renaissance.”

  It suddenly dawned on Lisa exactly whom she was dealing with, Lazarus, Lucien, whatever or whoever he called himself, was insane. “You are mad. And we cannot willingly help you in this.”

  The man smiled. “Do you think I would let the success of this plan hinge on your willingness to participate?”

  When he said those words, Lisa glanced at Kat, thinking that Lucien meant to hurt the prone woman in order to wring compliance from them.

  Lucien noticed the look. “Oh no, I have special plans for her so don’t worry. For you, I have something else.”

  Lucien began mumbling something inaudible. Sam, who had held his tongue up until then, whispered to Lisa. “We have to go now. We should not have come.”

  But it was too late. Lucien pointed to them both and from his hand’s sprung whips of a shadowy substance. The tendrils of shadow snapped toward them before they could move and pierced Lisa in the chest and Sam in the head. The wounds were bloodless and did not seem to even be physical at all, but the pain was so intense that Lisa could not even scream. She was paralyzed by the agony.

  Then she felt the smoky tendrils delving her. She knew what they were searching for, the key. She marshaled her strength and threw up a shield made of pure willpower between the shadow and the key. The shadows slashed through the shield as if it were made of rags. She threw up another, gritting her teeth. Again, the shadow broke through. This continued until she had no more strength to give. She sank to her knees as the shadow accessed the source and Lucien was reunited with his power.

  Sam also seemed to be locked in a metaphysical battle, one which he was losing. Tears streamed down his face. Lisa knew the moment he gave up because a small uneven hole appeared in the air behind Lucien, at first the hole was black, but then Lisa spied a landscape through the hole that she recognized only too well. Beyond the hole she saw the green lushness of the Grey. A breeze now came through the hole, bringing with it the crisp cool scent of the Grey and the howls of an approaching pack of lagahoo.

  Chapter 37

  Rohan came to slowly. His eyes felt gummy and he sensed a thousand tiny shards of glass and bits of pavement embedded in his face and hands. The marks had saved his life, but he would be a long time in healing.

  “Kamara.”

  “She ran off through the woods, Ro, she and that dog with the boy and the old man.”

  It took Rohan a moment to realize that it was Richard speaking to him. He was sitting on a chair an arm’s length away from Rohan.

  “Richard? What? Where?”

  “We are back in Stone.”

  “But the maboya…” A nasty feeling took root in Rohan’s gut. He tried to raise his hand but realized he was bound to the bedposts with plastic cuffs.

  “Richard, what is this?”

  “You know, Lucien might be insane, but he has a point. The Order needs the greyborn.”

  Rohan’s stomach sank. “Richard, what are you doing?”

  Richard continued, “The entire Order is not corrupt, neither is the entire Guild. Just a few of us who can see reason and logic have sided with Lucien. Can’t you see it, Rohan? The Order’s strength has waned steadily over the centuries. We did our jobs too well. The greybeasts we haven’t killed have been tamed. Shapeshifters are now so well-integrated with society they consider their power a disease, fucking lycanthropy they call it. They hide when the moon is full, Rohan. They stockpile meat from dead livestock in their fridges for when the hunger overcomes them. Soucouyant are rare and those that exist feed mostly on animals. Obeah is dying, Rohan. The magiks have been reduced to parlor tricks occasionally employed to enchant a lover or make a business competitor shit his pants in public. Humanity has been allowed to prance around and indulge in frivolous pursuits. When Lucien opens the Grey, it will be a revival. Power will again vest where it belongs, with the strong and the cunning.”

  “Richard, millions upon millions will die. The Grey is separated from the Absolute for good reason.”

  “Rohan, there are seven billion people in the world, seven billion. Many are lazy, insane, morally bankrupt, and self-centered. The greybeasts will cull humanity of these weaklings. The Grey’s invasive and resilient plant life will destroy the trappings of civilization. The strongest will survive and the Order will be restored to its rightful place.”

  With sadness Rohan realized that he was talking to a converted man. This was not the Richard he had grown up with. “How long have you been on his side? How many of you are there?”

  “Just a few Rohan, just a few. I met Lucien by accident or maybe it was by design. Someone at the Watchers house fed us a report about an obeah man who was doing human sacrifices. I went to the location by myself, the same house we raided in Laventille. I got inside easily enough but no one was there and when I tried to leave I could not. The house was alive, and it tortured me for a very long time. Then a man appeared offered me a bargain. He would show me the path out. He said it would not be easy and my escape would not be guaranteed, but if I survived, I had to meet him for lunch at a specific place. I escaped, and out of curiosity I met the man. He explained to me that the power of necromancy and obeah allowed him to create the house that trapped me. He told me that the Order was atrophying because of a lack of employment, that we had become an anachronism.”

  “But that’s a good t
hing, Richard. It means people are safe.”

  “People don’t need to be safe, Rohan. Humanity needs a predator. When the sun rises tomorrow, the world will be a different place, a more brutal place, the type of place in which the Order will flourish again.”

  Rohan was trying to slip his hands out of the cuffs, but they had been tied tightly. “Why have you kept me alive?”

  “We will need every Orderman to face what’s coming Rohan. It will be the ultimate test of our mettle.”

  Rohan felt helpless. He was not getting through to Richard with reason and he cast around for another avenue of attack. As he thought, he realized that Richard mentioned that Kat had run off with the men and the dogs. “Where is Imelda?”

  “I left her for the maboya, or more accurately, your woman left her. Even Jonah ran off. See how cowardly humanity is.” Richard laced his fingers together and smiled.

  Rohan could not fault them for fleeing. Part of him was happy Kamara ran. Fleeing meant she had a chance. A small part of him, however, was disappointed that she had not stayed to fight beside him. Between having to cross swords with the re-animated corpses of Isa and Dorian and now Richard’s betrayal, his faith in the people he knew was taking a beating. He shook his head. He could not allow himself to go down the treacherous path Lucian had led Richard. Isa and Dorian had been remarkable men, and Kamara? He had to trust she had made the best decision she could. He had to maintain his trust in humankind in order to fight the horrors that were surely coming.

  Rohan had nothing else to say to Richard. As he was about to turn his head away from the man, a maboya entered the room. It was tall and its skin was milky white marbled with greenish blue veins. Richard turned and spoke to it. “I thought I told you all to stay out on the grounds. Clear the house immediately.”

  The creature did not budge. Richard stared at it and slowly rose to his feet. The he went for a gun at the small of his back and at the same moment the creature rushed forward. Richard managed to fire twice, one went through the creature’s left eye socket the other through its chest. Neither had much of an effect. The creature bore down on Richard and tore into him with its mouth of needle-like teeth. Richard wrestled with the creature. The pair rolled beyond Rohan’s line of sight. Soon the only sound was a wet chewing as the maboya fed on Richard’s body. Rohan lay very still. Bound and weak, he could only hope that this one would leave when it was done with Richard and that no others came through the door.

  Then another form filled the doorway. It was Kamara. Agrippa was at her heel and behind her Tarik and Jonah supported a battered Imelda. Kamara spoke to the maboya. “Take the body and share it with the others. Then wait for me.”

  The grotesque creature left the room dragging Richard’s remains by the ankle. Kamara rushed to Rohan’s bedside and cut his bonds with the edge of her katana.

  “Jesus you are badly hurt. Tarik, he needs healing.”

  Rohan was baffled. “How?” was all he could manage.

  In reply she held up her hand. Showing him the Nights of Need. The tattoo had taken on the form of a maboya in chains.

  “I can control them, because I need to.”

  Chapter 38

  Lucien sucked the power he needed from Lisa and Sam through black umbilical cords of magik. They were so young, so fresh, and though they considered themselves adults they were still children really. He would remind them of the true power of obeah. They would come begging for him to use his knowledge in the fight against the things from the Grey.

  By now Richard should have descended on Stone with a horde of maboya and killed everyone in that place. He smiled at the thought of Stone’s violation. He had a special hatred for Stone, inhabited as it was by Kariega’s descendants. The other houses would either stand or fall in the days to come, but Stone had to be blotted out of existence.

  Isa had been stubborn and had passed his stubbornness to the younger members of his house. Rohan, his woman, Voss the betrayer, Katharine the soucouyant, they would always fight for humanity’s cause. The only pity was that he had not been able to kill them all sooner. They were resilient, he would give them credit for that.

  He glanced over at Katharine. In the centuries that had passed she had aged not one day. Lying, still as she was, you could almost forget the lethal danger she posed. She was the worst of the lot, a greyborn who sided with humanity. He would deal with her as soon as the doorway reached the critical state where it no longer needed his influence to continue opening. That state was close, and when the time arrived the doorway would continue to widen until the Absolute and the Grey were one.

  Lisa and Sam, tethered to him by ropes of black magic, looked as if they were near to death. Sam knelt, staring ahead sightlessly and muttering incoherently. Lisa lay on her side, with her back to him, occasionally convulsing. They were not likely to survive the process. He held no specific malice towards them, beyond the fact that they were blind and weak. Their demise was simply collateral damage of his necessary and noble quest. Many more would die as obeah was returned to its rightful place.

  When the wall of fire slammed into him, burning the clothes off his back, and causing his skin to crackle and bubble in places, Lucien Sardis had to admit he was taken by surprise. He turned around and there she stood, a nimbus of soucouyant fire burning blue about her body, white flames dancing in her eyes.

  “Onyeka, you should have stayed dead,” she said as she strode towards him. He tried to gather the power to do something, but the pain, as roasted flesh sloughed off his arms, made concentration difficult. He teetered as if about to fall but she caught him digging her nails into his shoulder. She leaned close to his ear

  “That was a strong drug in Crayfish’s smoke. You should have given me more.” With that she tore out his throat with a clawed hand.

  Lucien Sardis fell to his knees dying, finally free of Onyeka’s controlling influence.

  ***

  Kat looked at the doorway to the Grey expecting it to grow smaller and smaller and eventually vanish without Onyeka’s magic. Instead of growing smaller the gateway still steadily grew larger. Lisa should have begun recovering but she still lay on her side, shivering as if in the grips of a fever. Something was wrong. Kat stood over Lucien’s fallen body. Was he still alive? She tore open the cadaver’s chest and destroyed its heart for good measure.

  She was sure that Onyeka’s spirit had not fled the flesh before the flesh had died. Yet the portal now spanned from floor to ceiling and was about three men wide. Kat prepared a spell to slow the opening while she figured out why the porthole had not failed the moment she had torn out the man’s throat. A massive form appeared in front of the rift. It was a lagahoo all teeth and muscle. It paused momentarily at the threshold before stepping into the Absolute, howling to alert the rest of its pack.

  “Go back or die here,” Kat said, meeting the beast’s amber eyes.

  It grinned, drool falling from its lower jaw and replied telepathically, You are a traitor, soucouyant, you will be the first to be devoured.

  The lagahoo rushed her and she killed it, tearing off its lower jaw and wrenching its neck around. It fell to the floor while another leapt through followed by three more. She was a hurricane of fire and brute force. But she could not maintain the defense indefinitely. More creatures came through the hole and she began to sustain injuries, a claw ripped through her face, fangs opened her thigh. She killed six, seven, twelve but she was being taxed now. They were fast, claws raked her back opening her from shoulder blade to waist. She fell to the floor on her hands and knees and they were all around her.

  A hail of arrows flew through the porthole and feathered the lagahoo closest to her. Beyond the porthole she saw men and women with tattooed heads and loincloths of long blue feathers loosing arrow after arrow from beyond the hole. The press of lagahoo broke. Some rushed back into the Grey while others scattered about the room. Kat rose and killed the first two she could get her hands on. The men and women who had loosed the arrows were now forc
ed into close combat with the lagahoo that had retreated through the gateway. The men wielded spears, the lagahoo tooth and claw. The ones that remained in the room closed on her again.

  Four people entered the room, momentarily surprising everyone; it was a lion-man who Kat somehow knew was Voss, Clarence, Ghita who she had met in limbo and another girl she suspected was the one that had taken Lisa to the Grey. Clarence, Voss, and the girl spared no time attacking the lagahoo in the room. Ghita closed the door behind her to confine the conflict, at least temporarily.

  “We must hold the gateway,” Kat shouted over the snarls and shouts. “Whatever comes out must die in this room.”

  Something was definitely wrong; the hole was not closing and Lisa was not recovering.

  “Ghita.” Kat shouted over the howls of dying lagahoo as Clarence, Voss, and the girl tore into the pack savagely, killing some and forcing others to flee through the hole. For a moment the room was quiet. Ghita vanished and reappeared close to Kat.

  “Yes?”

  “When your father was taken by Lazarus, where did it happen?”

  “In his office, in this very house, do you want to go there?”

  “Yes, that might be a good place to start looking.”

  “Looking for what?” The girl held out a hand.

  “Onyeka, the man who killed your father,” Kat said as she took the small hand in hers. “Voss, you must hold the porthole. They will come again, more lagahoo and other things. The Grey knows that the hole is open. They will come.”

  Voss nodded solemnly.

  Ghita squeezed Kat’s hand and the next minute she was standing in a carpeted hallway in front of a tall door in dark wood. Though the door was closed she knew that beyond the door someone was doing something with obeah. The cool dark winds of magic forced the hair on the nape of her neck to stand on end. A thousand restless spirits whispered in her ears, some warning her to flee, others encouraging her to advance. Ghita was gone.