Eldritch Ops

by Phipps, C. T.

  Please, I begged, willing my hand to open and getting nowhere.

  Because you asked so nicely.

  My hand opened.

  “She’s got her hooks into you deep, doesn’t she?” Malcolm said, looking at me with pity in his eyes.

  “So it would seem.”

  “Spirits of violence feed on the dark and hate in one’s soul. You need to let go of it to starve them out.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. Violence and death were such an ingrained part of my life, I couldn’t imagine living without them. Indeed, if not for my natural contrariness, I doubt I even would have minded Bloody Mary’s presence. How fucked up was that?

  I was about to bid my farewells to Malcolm when I saw something on the monitors. Shannon O’Reilly, my girlfriend, walking down the hall in a red trench coat, black pants, and silk shirt. Beside her was a plain blonde-haired woman with glasses who was talking at length, though I couldn’t make out the words.

  “Ah, crap. Is this live?”

  “As live as you or me.”

  “I have to get down to the United National building right now. I think a friend of mine is about to get in over her head.”

  “Biggity, you crazy.”

  “Yeah, I am, but I’ve—”

  That was when I heard a vehicle squeal onto the road, and hit the ground out of instinct. Seconds later, the boarded-up windows and walls exploded with hundreds of bullets intended to kill us. It looked like someone higher up in the Vampire Nation had gotten wind of my presence and decided the local goon squad was an insufficient response.

  Lying down next to Malcolm’s shredded body, I started crawling away, deciding to take the better part of valor. The door was breached seconds later and a squadron of armored militia men wielding assault rifles burst in.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was having a bad week. Crawling on the broken-glass-and-splinter-covered ground, I felt half a dozen cuts open up across my body.

  Concentrating, I somehow willed the attackers not to notice me. Bloody Mary may have had something to do with that because I was able to reach a nearby closet, turn the door knob, open the door, and slide in before anyone noticed me. Not that my situation had improved all that much. I was now trapped in a closet, in the dark, with six armed men outside.

  If they were men at all.

  I’d gotten a semi-decent look at my attackers after they’d burst through the door, and they didn’t look anything like the yahoos who’d kidnapped me off Night Row. They were paramilitary types with urban gray and white camouflage pants, ski masks, black berets, and Pantheon Corp-manufactured M90s.

  It was possible they were blood slaves, but somehow, I doubted it. These felt like the kind of assassins I’d encountered on my way to the airport. Unlike Black Squadron, these guys seemed to shoot first and ask questions later.

  They are Skull Squadron, a group of loyal dhampir whom the Vampire Nation uses to fight the Nassau wizards and hunters who seek to liberate their land. Their father is leading them tonight. Bloody Mary’s voice was excited, like she was at a football game. Though there were hints of something more sexual to her anticipation.

  Great. Just once I’d like to meet some nice vampires, I thought, hearing them search the rooms around me. Upstairs, there was the sound of shouting, followed by gunfire. Skull Squadron didn’t seem to be pleased with the performance of my captors. I closed my eyes. I just need to focus on keeping myself hidden.

  I feel that’s not an option, my dear Derek, Bloody Mary said. The only reason you were able to get here was because I helped with your rather pathetic attempts at a cloaking spell. You are going to be found as soon as I drop it.

  I gritted my teeth. “I see.”

  You are going to fight against these fool half-breeds, are you not? Bloody Mary asked.

  Speaking as a foolish half-breed, yes. My fists clenched while I tried to figure a way to take down a bunch of superhumans with assault rifles.

  Then allow me to level the playing field. I believe we have gotten off on the wrong foot. Bloody Mary surprised me by sounding apologetic. I have no wish to control your mind; I swear this on every god and demon in the astral plane. I admire your beauty, your ability to kill, and the grace of your planning. Let me help you achieve your potential as a warrior.

  “No,” I muttered, knowing I was outmatched.

  Even if Shannon and others die because of your foolishness? Your sister is still out there too, Derek. Bloody Mary sounded unconvinced.

  They’re pretty good at taking care of themselves. No damsels in distress on this train wreck I call life, I said.

  Can you take the risk of them screwing up your investigation? Bloody Mary said. You are far too arrogant to trust even the people you love most with your actions.

  She had me. “Help me.”

  Outside the closet, I could hear the movement of a man as he overturned computers and other objects around the room. It was strange behavior if he was looking for me, but consistent with that of a man who was under a spell. Bloody Mary was protecting me, even if I didn’t want her to.

  Reach into your pocket, Bloody Mary cooed. There you will find your salvation.

  Against my better judgment, I reached in and found my fingers wrapping around a ring. Pulling it out, I saw the cursed artifact that I’d thrown away in my bedroom. My wedding ring shined despite the blackness of my surroundings.

  “I am not calling it my precious,” I said, no longer concerned about them hearing me.

  I’m surprised you haven’t made any Stormbringer jokes, Bloody Mary joked.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  Michael Moorcock? Elric Saga? Evil magic sword? Bloody Mary asked.

  “Is it a fantasy series?” I asked, not knowing what she was talking about.

  You should duck now, Mary said.

  “What?” I repeated, looking through the keyhole and seeing the dhampir outside aiming his M90.

  “Oh shit,” I said, hitting the ground.

  Covering my ears, I was deafened by the sound of bullets exploding through the wooden door in front of me and tearing through the clothes above my head. A patch of light was opened as the rounds punched a hole and tore through the other side of the closet. Skull Squadron didn’t take any chances. But then again, neither did I.

  Drawing on my hatred, rage, and despair, I poured my power through the ring and threw it outward. It was unlike any other sorcery I’d ever worked before and left me feeling changed. All the darkness around me swirled into a wave and lashed out, eating the light in the air before blasting through the closet door and decapitating the dhampir on the other side.

  The light bulbs in the computer room exploded and all the power in the house went off, plunging it into darkness. I felt the black all round me like it was a comforting cloak. The shadows were at my command, and they had a tangible substance. Somehow, I had become a master of obscuromancy, or shadow magic. It was wizardry associated with hell and evil.

  I didn’t care.

  Skull Squadron wasn’t made of amateurs, though, and immediately turned on night-vision goggles before unloading with their M90s at me. I created a shield of darkness in front of me, solidifying it to something harder than steel. Hundreds of rounds disappeared into the solidified blackness as I felt immense power within my ring.

  Kill them, my love, Bloody Mary whispered.

  “Yes,” I muttered, feeling stronger than I had ever felt before. This was what a wizard was supposed to be.

  I lashed out, and horrific alien tentacles composed of Stygian darkness exploded through the chests of four Skull Squadron members, the otherworldly tendrils ripping them apart in a spectacularly gory fashion. I could feel the Bloodsword grow stronger as it fed on the blood I spilled and the lives around me being snuffed. A part of that power passed to me, increasing the mystical power at my disposal.

  I exalted in the ecstasy of it all, right before I was smashed in the back of the head and thrown through an open door onto the ho
use’s dining room table. All the black tendrils and mystical darkness I’d summoned vanished into the ether.

  Lying in the broken remains of the dining room table, I found myself picked up by a member of the Skulls who removed his night vision to reveal a man with olive skin and piercing blue eyes. His fangs were extended, and I realized he wasn’t a dhampir but a full-fledged vampire. Perhaps the father of the unfortunates I’d just killed.

  I didn’t get a chance to say anything to the enraged father because he threw me against the wall, grabbed me with his super speed before I hit the ground, and threw me against the wall again. He then took me by the throat and smashed my head through the plaster of the wall. I felt the magic within me weaken and suspected I’d be dead if not for the magic I’d absorbed from those I’d killed.

  The vampire pulled me out and started punching me in the chest. All the magic I’d gained from the ring seemed to vanish, abandoning me at a critical moment. I wasn’t going to let that setback stop me. Throwing every bit of life I had left in me into my fists, I slammed them into the side of the vampire’s head.

  He screamed, blackish energy surrounding his head and my hands. This aura seemed to burn him like sunlight. I slammed my forehead into his, causing the vampire to grab his injured face. Delivering a series of punches to his skull, I leapt into the air and spin-kicked him through the dining room window. I shouldn’t have been able to do it, but it seemed like my body no longer functioned like a normal human’s.

  So, this was what it felt like to be one of the monsters.

  I didn’t get a second to rest before a flock of ravens exploded through the shattered window, swarming me and pecking me dozens of times with knife-like beaks. The vampire had transformed into a murder of crows and was going to kill me one bite at a time.

  I screamed, throwing out countless knives of living shadow from my body. Every single crow was impaled and when the shadows vanished, their bodies fell to the ground, where they turned into ashes.

  I fell to the ground, beaten and broken. The initial rush from using so much magic had passed, and I felt like an addict who’d been denied his fix. Blood poured from my wounds on the ground, and I didn’t know whether I was going to live or die.

  Magnificent, Bloody Mary said. Your control over your shadow power is crude but effective. I knew you could kill the Father.

  “Screw . . . you,” I said, spitting up blood. I wondered if the vampire’s beating had punctured a lung. I couldn’t go to a hospital and wondered if I didn’t deserve to die for abandoning my moral principles like I had. I’d given into the allure of black magic and had added to my already horrific body count.

  You overestimate your wounds, Bloody Mary said. You also complain about things you have already chosen to do. Why waste time on regret? You would do the same if given a choice between yourself and another killer again.

  “I am not like that,” I lied.

  Oh Derek, you amuse me so, Bloody Mary said.

  I had no response for that.

  This is going to hurt, Bloody Mary said.

  Pain like I’d never felt filled my body. I screamed in agony as my bones knit themselves into place, tissue healed, and muscle regrew. Magic that would have normally taken days worked in the span of minutes, but these were some of the most painful of my life. In the end, I was nothing more than a quivering mass on the ground.

  Such a complainer, Bloody Mary said. Women used to go through more pain during childbirth and did so for much of human history. It’s the problem with you male champions. You’re such whiners. I don’t know why I keep choosing you.

  I climbed to my feet, tears falling from my right eye. My right eye could see through walls and half a dozen other tricks but couldn’t shed tears. I needed to make this right, no matter the cost.

  Stumbling over my own legs, I maneuvered to the living room where Malcolm’s body was lying on the ground, riddled with bullet wounds. Unlike the ones I’d shot him with earlier, these didn’t appear to be the kind he could regenerate from. Either they’d overloaded his immune system, or the bullets were made of a metal a lycanthrope was vulnerable to, like silver or orihalcum.

  Blood-magic enhanced, Bloody Mary corrected. After learning how to manipulate the essence of life from me, he passed it along to their followers. You could learn how to use it in such a manner too if you’d just let me teach you.

  “I want you to help him,” I said, looking down at Malcolm’s cold, dead eyes.

  He’s dead, Bloody Mary said.

  “There’s varying levels of dead,” I said, breathing hard. “His brain is intact, he’s only recently been shot all to hell, and I know you can do this. He’s just some dead, not all dead.”

  Quoting The Princess Bride doesn’t change anything, Bloody Mary said, surprising me again with her depth of pop culture knowledge. Still, I will try. You realize you will have to draw on depths of power you have never imagined probing.

  “I just killed a bunch of guys. How much more bloody do I have to make things?”

  Somewhere between the Aztecs and the Assyrians, Bloody Mary said, making a joke. For a proper resurrection that doesn’t turn your associate into a cannibalistic monster, you will need to focus on positive emotions. I’m not sure there’s enough good in your life to raise a man from the dead.

  I paused, thinking about her words. “How many people would I have to kill to do it the Assyrian way?”

  Too many before the body got cold, Bloody Mary said, making a tsk-tsk noise. Come on, Derek. It’s worth a try. I’m eager to see whether you can succeed or fail.

  “I thought a demon wouldn’t want me to heal someone,” I said, pulling out the Bloodsword from its sheath.

  That shows how much you know, Bloody Mary said.

  Kneeling with the weapon lifted in the air, I tried to concentrate, struggling to keep my eyes open. I wasn’t sure if it was the aftereffects of Bloody Mary’s healing magic or whether I’d sustained a concussion.

  Six of twelve, half a dozen of another. Even I have difficulty tampering with human brains. You should be fine in a couple of hours.

  I ignored Bloody Mary as I tried to find a memory that was good enough to satisfy the needs of the spell. I had no idea where to begin. I had plenty of good memories, but they all felt shallow to the needs of a spell to restore the dead.

  Indeed, I felt guilty about the fact I’d gotten Malcolm killed trying to get access to this safe house. Aside from discovering where Shannon was right now—inside the place I needed to get into—all I’d accomplished was getting the computers shot up and a bunch of Vampire Nation’s foot soldiers killed.

  This was a disaster, and it was my fault.

  I needed to think positive emotions, though, or this would fail. If his body got any colder, there was no way this sort of magic would work. There were sorcerers who could resurrect the dead, manifested gods too, but this was more like plugging a magical defibrillator into him. If I could draw away the blood magic from the bullets and restart his regeneration, I could bring him back.

  Yeah, I had to think this was easy even if it was a load of crap. Otherwise, the magic wouldn’t work. I searched for a memory pure enough to serve as a focus for my magic. My marriage had ended tragically, my childhood had been spent in preparation of Red Room service, my relationship with Ashley had ended poorly (to say the least), Shannon and I were stalled in a state of kinda-together, and even my time with my sister was tainted with the knowledge we were both going to die in the Red Room’s service. The past seemed a dead end, tainted by the compromises necessary to survive.

  Outside I heard a thunderclap, and it was like a bolt of lightning had struck my mind. The past would always be tainted because we were always dealing with mistakes, compromises, and regret. We could romanticize it and whitewash it, but the past would never be as perfect as we wanted it to be. The future, though, was always open to possibilities. Someday, I could get Penny and me out of the Red Room’s service. We could work to bring an end to the endl
ess Cold War between the House and other factions. I could forge a future with Shannon. I believed in possibilities. I hoped for the future.

  Concentrating on these feelings, I imagined a world where there was at last peace between the supernatural and the mundane. A world where the House was torn down and all of its secrets exposed, showing the Truth to humanity. I saw a world where humanity had matured to the point where it no longer needed a secret society to protect it with lies and misdirection.

  I saw a world with no need for people like me.

  Interesting, Bloody Mary observed.

  The Bloodsword glowed with a soft white light and enough magical power flowed from the room around me to cause the bullets inside Malcolm to force themselves out. His heart began beating again and his regeneration kicked in. Even so, it took about ten minutes of me pouring magical energy into him to stabilize him. If I hadn’t killed five or six supernatural beings, I doubted there would have been enough ambient power to restore him.

  Yay for black magic used in the service of good.

  Malcolm choked, and the werewolf lay still for another twenty minutes. I wanted to pick him up and take him out to the car, so I could get out of this place and go after Shannon, but moving him at such a critical juncture might defeat the resurrection.

  And no one died for me. Not again.

  The complete absence of cops or reinforcements to Skull Squadron told me that things were hectic in Nassau right now. Either the vampires trusted Skull Squadron to take care of me or they’d degenerated to the point that no one was watching out for each other.

  I didn’t care which.

  Finally, Malcolm’s breathing steadied. “D, I think I am going to avoid associating with you in the future.”

  I laughed and helped him up. “That’s probably a good idea. We might want to get out of here, though.”