Cursed Earth (Kat Drummond Book 12)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  “There isn’t enough time!” Thor shouted, banging his fit into his armrest, cracking it.

  Silence.

  We stared at the god. His fist soon went limp, and his arms dropped to his sides. He looked down.

  “There is no use hiding it. It’s basically an open secret. But we aren’t sure how much longer we…I have left on this world.”

  Athena’s eyes widened, shocked. This was news to her. And me. Phillip, unsurprisingly, was not surprised.

  “Without the apples of Idunn, my kin are aging. It is slow. Uncertain. But, in some of us, mortality is drifting ever closer. We need to fight this war. Now. Before it’s too late.”

  No mockery came from Athena. Rather, she outstretched her hand and touched Thor’s knee. The two shared a look, a glance I could not truly understand. I wasn’t like them. Far from it. And, perhaps, they had more in common to unite them than they did to drive them apart.

  “Facts remain,” Phillip interjected. “Athena is right. It is not time for war. But, that time will come. Kat Drummond…will you help?”

  The three of them stared. Longing, desperate, calculating.

  “I…I’ll think about it,” was all I could manage to say.

  “That’s all I ask,” Athena replied, eyes not moving from Thor. I couldn’t help but feel the need to leave. To allow the immortal and not-so immortal time to commiserate.

  I nodded my farewell and turned to leave.

  “Last Light,” Thor said. “I know this may not seem like your fight. That I may just be an outsider…”

  “No…Thor. It’s not that. It’s never been that. But, you know what the costs of this will be. And while I may be needed there, I am also needed here. I can’t abandon my post without knowing that there will be someone to man the breach in my absence. Not again.”

  Before I could be roped into anything else, I left, only stopping as I reached the empty stairwell. I let myself breathe. If I was Brett, I’d have taken out a cigarette.

  “Are you okay?” Treth asked, frowning as he manifested next to me.

  “Yeah, yeah. Just…no. I’m not.”

  “What is it, Kat? It can’t be that they’re gods. You weren’t like this with Athena before. And you were doing fine with Thor at first. What happened?”

  What did happen?

  “I saw a future I didn’t like, Treth. I saw myself storming the 6th Convent. And I saw people dying.”

  “You’ve killed before. A lot. And the Conclave is evil.”

  “I know…but…I don’t have the taste for it. I don’t want to do it. There’s a world of difference between a monster and a human. Even if the human is monstrous.”

  Treth placed his hand on my back. It still felt odd. Like air with just a little bit of pressure.

  “You’re the hero they need because you don’t want to be, Kat. I’m convinced that if you desired this power, you’d not deserve it. But, that isn’t the case. You don’t revel in it. And, even when you could have, should have, risked tearing a hole in the In Between to summon us, you don’t. You fight your own battles, as best as you can, as you have always done. Vessel or not, I know you would have been a hero.”

  I snorted. “And Hope City would be covered in eternal darkness and plague, and that’s if the vampire god hadn’t gotten to it first.”

  Treth shrugged. “You’d have found a way without me or some spirit purification nonsense.”

  He smiled. “I believe in you, Kat. Fight this war. Or don’t. I’ll trust your gut.”

  I didn’t reply but couldn’t help but smile. Just a bit.

  “You’ve grown up a lot, Treth.”

  My ghost blushed, noticeable even through his spectral pallor. I laughed.

  “Let’s get out of here. It stinks of bureaucracy.”

  I moved down the service stairwell far faster than my ascent, unrestrained by my heavily armoured Whiteshield companion from before. It was no time before I reached the balcony, overlooking the foyer.

  The crowd had thinned, just a bit. Even the most direly bureaucratic parts of government did their job eventually. Sometimes.

  I began my descent down the final flight of stairs towards the foyer when I stopped.

  Treth indicated surprise at my actions. But I couldn’t help but feel that there was something off. That acidic gut feeling that I always felt when something was about to happen. Treth called it my hunter’s instincts. And, despite my lack of desire for the saviour role, it was seldom wrong.

  I peered out over the foyer. The crowd had thinned. The dwarves were gone. Only a few elves, holding the flag of some attempt at a micro-state, remained in the dignitary queue. But, there were still quite a few humans waiting for their passports. That was all normal. But, there was definitely something off.

  A man stood in the centre of the foyer. Not in any queue. I took a step forward, squinting for a better look.

  The man was pale. Sickly. Bad posture with an unusual gait. He wasn’t moving, even as people bustled all around him.

  My heart pounded, as I took another step forward.

  The man didn’t move.

  I took another. A group of school kids were slowly making their way up the stairway, led by a harried teacher. Probably preparing for a cross-border field trip.

  The bustling and chorus of chatter and rifling paperwork was drowned out by the hammering in my ears. And the acidity in my stomach didn’t cease.

  The man looked up. Slowly. Across the foyer. And his eyes stopped on me. He stared into my eyes. And his were milky white.

  There was no hesitation, even as a dozen thoughts entered my mind and the man’s chest and belly started to swell.

  I didn’t know how I yelled. I thought all the air had escaped from my lungs. But, I somehow managed to get one word out before diving towards the school children, putting myself between them and what would soon be a graveyard.

  I managed to yell a simple word.

  “BOMB!”

  Too late…

  Chapter 4.

  Ashes

  Brett once told me that the reason Drakenbane was paid the most out of all the agencies was because of fire. It fought fire-breathers, it chased them through the flames, and it had to find some semblance of order in the ashes it left behind.

  I understood what he had meant now.

  Fire had consumed the foyer of the Foreign Affairs ministry. And it left behind ashes. A blackened room, peppered with bone, nails and all manner of shrapnel left inside the bomb-zombie.

  I should have died. Most of the people in the room had. Two dozen, at least. Among them, my Whiteshield companion. His face had been torn up as he looked up at me as I yelled. But it seemed I didn’t know how to die. It seemed more and more to be a curse.

  The children, thank Athena, had survived. A small consolation. Their teacher had been eviscerated in front of them, as Treth and I shielded their bodies from the onslaught of bone, metal and fire. They screamed. And that was the last thing I heard.

  Until, blackness. Whispers in the dark. I didn’t understand them. Whispers. A dozen. A few dozen. Maybe a hundred.

  And then…the voice of a paramedic looming over me.

  “Thank the Titan! The Last Light is alive.”

  I awoke with a start, surprising even the medic. They had thought me alive, not conscious.

  But, that was the least of my worries. All around me, I saw death. Flashes of Ithalen and New Sintar scoured my mind. I shook my head, banishing them, and was brought back to the here and now.

  And the wounded before me.

  I rushed to my feet, ignoring the medic’s pleas to remain still. I felt agony through my skin. My back was on fire. But some of the dying weren’t dead yet. And I could help them.

  The medics were only able to heal me in short bursts as I rushed between the direly wounded, incanting healing magic from Gorgo’s mind faster than I had ever done before. Thoughtlessly. Desperately. I only noted after it was done that I was incanting the spell that could also cure
lycanthropy. I hoped none of these victims were werewolves!

  The paramedics didn’t notice what I was incanting. They were too busy channelling their own spark or the weyline to heal me and the others.

  It all became a blur to me. A blur with highlights of Treth’s glowing visage leading me to another victim that needed my help. As I drew closer and closer to the epicentre, the healing became harder. Longer. Less satisfying. Until, finally…

  “Enough, Last Light…” the medic whispered, half-awed and half-dismayed. “They’re already dead.”

  My arms slumped to my side. Gorgo fled my mind. No more incantations came. No more power flowed through me.

  I was surrounded by ashes. On my knees. Wondering why the world was like this.

  A hand rested on my shoulder. I looked up, expecting to see a medic trying to use their sparse power to heal me when I didn’t need it. I wasn’t going to die. I never died.

  But it was Trudie. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, streaking black. I stood up, my knees aching, and embraced her. I didn’t sob, but I felt tears just about to break free. But not yet. It wasn’t over.

  Crusaders streamed into the building. At Trudie’s back was Senegal. The ginger werewolf talked to a paramedic. He didn’t try to hide the pain in his golden eyes. Ari examined a scorch mark. And, flanking their pack master, were Trudie’s two new wolves. The Gibson twins. A boy and girl who couldn’t be older than seventeen. This was no place for them. Well, it shouldn’t be. They were unmoving, their golden eyes glued to their alpha.

  “I thought you had a meeting,” I whispered, but there was an unmistakable implication in my statement. I’m glad you came anyway.

  “Jane thinks this will help with PR,” Trudie sneered. “But I don’t care about that. We’re here to help.”

  “Thank you, Tru…Troodz. I…I don’t know if there’s much any of us can do.”

  I released my friend and examined the room, with a clearer mind.

  The dead lay strewn where the explosion had catapulted them. The gravely wounded were being lifted onto stretchers, healers channelling golden light into them to keep them stable. Those with less drastic wounds lay still, or had been ushered into the corner, where they wouldn’t get in the way. The children I had saved shivered. Most were too shocked to be crying. Pale-faced. Thousand-yard stares. It wasn’t right.

  Trudie saw where I’d been staring. She nodded, as if to herself.

  “Let’s go, pack. If the medics need help, help them. Otherwise, comfort the survivors as best you can.”

  The pack separated, with Senegal and Ari heading towards the paramedics and lifting stretchers like they were paper parcels.

  Trudie and the twins disappeared into the bathroom. It wasn’t long before they returned. Trudie was still in human form, leading two golden wolves, wearing Crusader tags on their collars.

  She led them to the children, whose eyes brightened with both awe and shock. Trudie said something to them, out of my hearing, and they slowly stood to touch the twin werewolves.

  If the twins looked intense in human guise, they were the opposite in wolf form. Positively golden retrievers! Bouncy, yet calm and reassuring. They licked the children whom they knew would receive it well. And allowed the children to tug on their ears and fur. While Trudie and Senegal’s wolf-forms were semi-humanoid, allowing them to combine beast and human into a deadly combination, the twins excelled at going full dog. And, despite all that had happened, the children embraced them with glee.

  All except one. A little girl who kept sitting, staring into the distance. Trudie sat next to her, and began speaking, until the child hid her face in Trudie’s chest, and accepted her warmth.

  “She has always been more suited to being a saviour than a hunter,” I whispered, for Treth’s benefit.

  “It’s good for her. All of them,” another voice replied. “It took Jane to realise that the best way to make werewolves family friendly was to make them into dogs.”

  I turned to Brett. Despite his joke, he was frowning, his forehead creased with concern.

  I wanted to hug him. To let him hold me until this was all forgotten. To take me away from the ash and noise. But it wasn’t that time yet. I had work to do. Always.

  “Do you know what happened?” I asked.

  He nodded. He didn’t balk at my coldness. There was time for warmth later. Time for weakness away from prying eyes.

  “An explosion. People are calling it terrorism. Some of the agency stations are calling it necro-terrorism.”

  “Apt.” I rubbed my head. Both Treth and Brett took a step forward, showing their concern.

  “I’m fine,” I half-lied. “Just a headache. I should be dead, so it’s a small consolation. Do you know anything else?”

  “A man exploded. Bomb?”

  “Not sure. But it wasn’t a man.”

  “Is that where the necro comes in?” Brett’s frown deepened even more. I didn’t blame him. There was no precedent for this. At least, not at this scale.

  “A zombie. Or a flesh puppet. Doesn’t matter. But it was being controlled. As it spotted me, it swelled and detonated. Like…”

  “Like at the Necrolord’s flesh factory…”

  Brett said what I was thinking. And what Treth was thinking too. Two years ago, I had been chasing after Candace Evergreen as the Necrolord. During a raid on one of her organ harvesting facilities, she had set a trap in the form of an exploding corpse.

  “This was worse.”

  There were children here. I liked to believe that not even Candace would have gone that far during her madness.

  Brett looked over his shoulder, at the now demolished metal detectors.

  “There’re metal shards all over the place. And nails. How did this thing get through security?” he asked.

  “Security isn’t going to stop every single person with a stent or metal supports in their bones. Beep enough times and any security guard will just let you through.”

  “But surely they could have seen that this thing wasn’t alive?” Treth asked.

  I turned to face him. Brett got that expression of agonised patience when he knew I was talking to my ghost.

  “Flesh puppets and zombies can be given voice boxes by their master. With enough make-up and, if the body was fresh enough, he could have looked alive enough to fool anyone not determined enough to check everyone for a pulse.”

  “And his eyes?” Treth pressed.

  I rubbed my chin, staring towards the entrance. Brett looked at me questioningly.

  “Treth is wondering how security didn’t notice the undead’s white eyes.”

  “Contacts, perhaps? I wouldn’t want to put contacts into a zombie’s eyes though.”

  “Its eyes were white,” I said. “But…it knew I was here. Perhaps, it removed the contacts before revealing itself.”

  “Why?” Brett and Treth asked in unison.

  “It wanted me to know…”

  A mop of blood-red hair flanked by pointed elf ears interrupted my dark contemplation as Ari stepped between us, locking her feet together as if a soldier. In her mind, she still was one.

  “Commander, I found something…”

  In her hand, she held a piece of twisted metal. It was small. A bit bigger than a dog collar. Ari offered it and I accepted it.

  The topside was blank. Mangled and scorched. And just a bit of some sort of residue. I knew what it was already. Innards. Scorched innards. This had been inside the undead bomber.

  But there was something on the other side of the scrap metal. Indented into its surface. I turned it over and felt my blood chill.

  “Kat Drummond,” it read. “No hero lives forever. Your final hour approaches. Sincerely, the Necrolord.”

  I had suspected it. And, a small part of me knew that I had been the target. But the part of my brain that defended my psyche had kept that thought at bay. Had perished the thought that I had caused this. All of this.

  Again. Just as Candace’s abomination ha
d wreaked havoc in Old Town those years ago to send me a message, so too had this bomber slaughtered all these people.

  For this. This piece of flimsy metal carried in the corpse of a bloated zombie.

  Not even to kill me. But to warn me.

  I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel a pinch of the terror one should feel when a necromancer wants you dead.

  I felt anger. And, more than that, I felt a guilt that took every ounce of breath away from me. I didn’t feel my knees buckle or feel Treth and Brett’s arms as I collapsed.

  I had brought this upon my people.

  “Kat…Kat…” Brett and Treth echoed in my ears.

  Ashes. All to deliver a message…

  They continued to talk to me. My friends. My love. My vision blurred.

  Necrolord…

  This wasn’t Candace. Of course, it wouldn’t be. I had defeated the real Necrolord. Thoroughly.

  My legs straightened. Awareness flooded into me and Treth and Brett went silent.

  They killed people to get to me. This new Necrolord.

  Perhaps, they thought to frighten me. They failed.

  Because they had made a grave mistake.

  If you’re going to kill the Last Light, you don’t give her a warning.

  Treth, Ari and Brett backed away. For a second, I registered fear in their eyes. A flicker. What did they see? I did not care.

  All I felt now was rage. Rage at whoever did this. And a fiery, dark compulsion that would only end when I killed them myself.

  Chapter 5.

  Blame

  “The Necrolord!” Hammond exclaimed. “Wasn’t she the one who…you know…last Christmas?”

  “I thought you trusted her commander!” Henri added.

  “I…” I tried to interject but was interrupted again.

  “Things change,” Kyong spoke over me. He was livid. He’d seen the photos of the foyer. I had never seen him so openly angry. “We need to hunt her down and punish her for what she’s done. She can’t get away with this. Even if she did save my life.”

  “Wait…you saw the Necrolord?” a newbie asked, incredulous. A lot of the crowd who weren’t present at our fight with Darius last Christmas Eve were confused at the outbursts.