by N. P. Martin
"Christ, all right!" Leona said agitatedly. "Now is not the time for a pissing contest. I mean, take a look around, will you?"
Brentwood and I looked at each other as we silently agreed to put our mutual hostility aside, for the sake of the dead people in the room. All sixty-seven of them. “All right, Brentwood,” I said. “Fill us in.”
Nodding, Brentwood began to reel off what he knew so far. “All of these people here sat down around 8:30 p.m. to watch a screening of Evil Dead 2.”
“Groovy,” I said.
“What?” Brentwood asked, scowling at the fact that I had interrupted him.
“Nothing. Carry on.”
Leona threw me a look, and I shrugged. I mean, if you see an opportunity for an Evil Dead reference, you gotta go for it, right?
"Anyway," Brentwood continued. "The current owner, a Mrs. Duvall, closed the doors once the film began. Then at around 9:00 p.m she heard screaming coming from the screening room. She ignored it, thinking people were screaming because of the movie. Then a few minutes later, she seen a flash of orange light around the screening room door and then heard more screaming. When she went to investigate, she couldn't open the door. That's when she rang the local cops, who got here about half an hour later."
“Good response time for Lafayette,” I said. “It’s usually hours…or never.”
“We picked up the call,” Brentwood said. “Got here at the same time as the cops.”
Brentwood's Division kept a constant monitor on the emergency channels in the city, always on the lookout for any calls that concerned odd or supernatural goings-on. I was convinced that the Division's reach extended further into every phone and internet cable in the city, but they would never admit that, of course.
“Let me guess,” Leona said. “They were all dead when you got here.”
"Correct," Brentwood said. "All sixty-seven had their throats cut. So far, it also seems they were all marked with the same symbols as before. We're still checking bodies, though. We've a lot to get through."
"How was he able to do this?" Leona asked. "It doesn't even look like any of them put up a struggle. It's like they just sat there and waited to be killed. And why sixty-seven people? Did he really need that many for the ritual?”
“Magic," I said in answer to her first question. "He cast a spell on them. A Paralysis Spell would be my guess. They wouldn't have been able to move. Our Mr. Black would then have just gone from person to person with his blade like these people were no more than cattle lined up for slaughter. As for numbers, I’m not sure. My guess is that if there were a hundred people in here he would have killed them all just the same. Which raises another question.”
“What?” Leona said.
“The time it took him to do all this. The time it would’ve taken to cut all those throats.”
“Are you thinking he had accomplices?” Brentwood asked.
“It’s a possibility. He could’ve brainwashed a few helpless fools into helping him, but I seriously doubt that. Mr. Black is a loner. He hates people, and probably thinks he doesn’t need them either. No, he did this on his own. I’d say with the use of additional magic to speed things top somehow.”
“What about that shit on the walls?” Brentwood said. “What is it?”
“A residue from the use of black magic. A bit like ectoplasm. I’d tell your techs to be careful with it. It’s been known to put bad thoughts into people’s heads if handled too much. Violent thoughts.”
“My guys know what they’re doing.”
“You find anything else?” I asked him.
"Yes, actually. A video of Mr. Black."
“A video?” Leona said. “How?”
"This place still uses old fashioned projectors and film reels," Brentwood said. "The projector room is up there." He pointed to a small window above the seats at the back of the cinema. "The projectionist was in there when Mr. Black showed up. He managed to get a three-second video on his phone through the window before he was killed. Had his neck twisted completely around. Never seen anything like it."
“Can we see the video?” I asked.
"The phone has been taken away for testing, but I had the file sent to my phone."
Just as Brentwood reached into his jacket pocket to get his phone, there was a loud whummfing sound. The sound you get when flames ignite. Then there was an even louder scream. Everyone looked to the back of the cinema to see a forensics tech covered in flames, waving his arms around wildly and screaming continuously as the fire melted his flesh. The body he had been examining was ablaze also. It was no ordinary fire either. The flames burned a bright green color and seemed to burn hotter than ordinary fire. In seconds, the forensics tech had stopped screaming and had dropped to the floor.
Before I could even say holy shit, another corpse ignited not far from the first one, then another and another in a chain reaction at different places around the cinema, spraying out green flames like human blowtorch's and giving off a fierce heat in the process.
“Booby traps!” I shouted.
“Get those flames out!” Brentwood yelled.
"No!" I told him. "That's not just any fire—it’s hellfire! Everyone in here will burn if we don't get out now!”
“But the scene—”
“Now!”
"Damn!" Brentwood turned and yelled for everyone to exit the room. People rushed to the door, trying not to panic as the flames spread at a rapid rate, filling the room with the acrid smell of burning flesh.
The three of us ran back up the aisle toward the door, only to be blocked halfway by one of Brentwood’s agents who was currently on fire and burning to a crisp in front of us. Without hesitation, Leona took out her gun and put a bullet into the burning agent, who immediately stopped moving and fell to the floor as the flames continued to burn his body. As brutal an act as it might have seemed, Leona did the guy a favor, putting him down like that.
“We’re trapped!” Brentwood shouted.
My thought was to grab Brentwood and Leona and teleport them out of the building. But after casting a quick spell that showed up the glowing lines of the magical wards painted all around the room, I realized that Mr. Black didn’t want me leaving here, knowing full well I would have to try and deal with the fire first if I wanted out. Which in Mr. Black’s mind, would probably be the end of me anyway.
"Move!" I said, stepping past him and holding both hands out in front of me, tapping my magic so I could use an ice blast on the flames. But the spell had no effect on the roaring hellfire, which refused to succumb to the effects of the freezing ice.
"Creed," Leona said. "Whatever you're doing, do it fast. The fire is coming behind us too!"
I looked over my shoulder to see a frightening wall of green flame advancing toward us, almost like the flames were sentient and were actively seeking people to burn.
Turning my attention back in front of me, I refocused and tried a different tact. This time I tried to force the flames down enough so that at least Leona and Brentwood could jump over them and get out the door. It wasn't easy as the hellfire was intimidatingly strong, but I dampened the flames down by a few feet, then shouted for Leona and Brentwood to move, which they both did, leaping over the lowered wall of flames.
Leona turned around as she landed. “Creed!” she said, her face twisted with worry.
“Go! I’ll be right behind you. Go now!”
Leona took a few steps back, looking like she didn't want to leave me, but she had to, or she would have burned to death. She turned and bolted to the door as the flames seemed to chase her up the aisle. When I saw her get safely through the door after Brentwood, I released the spell and the flames in front of me leapt up to the ceiling and spread across it, intensifying the heat in the room to blistering proportions.
Surrounded on all sides by advancing green flames that sounded like they were screeching in delight at the prospect of incinerating me, all I could do was put my head down, pull my demon skin trench coat over me and run
in the direction of the door.
40
Unleash The Magic
I BURST THROUGH what was left of the cinema door to find the flames had already spread to the foyer, and were burning everything in their path at such a rapid rate, it was as if all they wanted was to keep burning until the whole city had been consumed. I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone was going to stop the growing conflagration.
"Creed!" Leona was standing by the front exit, waving frantically for me to get moving. From outside, the sound of sirens roared. It looked like the firefighters had arrived, although I had a horrible feeling that water wasn't going to stop those supernatural flames. I wasn't sure that anything would.
“Come on, Creed!” Leona shouted again. “Before you fucking burn to death!”
Just as she said it, I felt a searing heat on my back as the wall of flames from the cinema caught up with me. Running toward the exit, I began struggling out of my coat at the same time, hardly able to touch the thick material it was so hot. When I burst outside, Leona helped me remove the smoldering coat, and I let it fall to the ground. Despite the great heat it had to endure, the trench coat seemed largely unaffected, if a little blackened.
Leona looked at me with a mixture of concern and relief. “I didn’t think you were going to make it out of there.”
“For a minute there, neither did I,” I said, gazing as the firefighters’ hoses released their payload on the green flames devouring the smoking building. “Are you all right?”
"I'm okay." She came up close to me and took my hand, squeezing it for a moment before letting go. Leona didn't normally do public displays of affection, especially around this crowd, so she must have been worried. "You saved our lives."
I shrugged. “You would have made it out okay.”
“No, we wouldn’t have,” Brentwood said, walking up to us, his jacket off, probably having been burned by the fire. “Lawson’s right. You saved our lives, Creed. Thank you.”
I nodded my thanks, unused to hearing such genuine gratitude from him. Normally he was scathing in his passive aggressiveness. “Let’s hope we can stop these flames from spreading any further.”
The firefighters had several hoses pointed at The Roundhouse building as they tried to douse the green flames, but unsurprisingly to me, the water didn’t seem to be having any effect. The flames burned like thermite, melting through even the large blocks of stone like they were Lego bricks. Everyone stood back and watched as the firefighters hit the flames with everything they had, but the green fire just kept advancing, melting everything in its path, including the foundations of the building itself, causing it to sink as the flames burnt into the ground.
“Nothing is stopping it,” Brentwood said.
“And nothing will,” I said. “That fire is supernatural. Only magic can stop it.”
“You’re the wizard, Creed. Can’t you do anything?”
“You want me to use magic in front of all these people?”
"You can go around the back of the building," Leona said. "There's an alley. No one will see you."
“All right," I said, turning to Brentwood. "I'll do my best. Get all these people out of here, though, in case I can't stop it."
Brentwood focused hard on me. “You will stop it, Creed.”
“Sure, no pressure.”
“I’ll go with you,” Leona said. “We can go through one of the empty houses. Come on, before the whole damn street burns down.”
It will be more than the street that burns if I don’t manage to get things under control.
Leona ran to one of the empty houses a few doors down from the burning cinema. Then she raised one of her long legs and forcefully slammed her heavy boot into the door left of center. The door splintered slightly, but didn't open. She cursed as she kicked at it again. This time the door flew open to reveal a dark hallway. Leona rushed inside like she was about to arrest someone and I ran in behind her. The house was stinking, the smell of mold and decay heavy in the dank air. Claws of some sort scraped the floors upstairs; probably vermin nesting. I followed Leona down a hallway and into a kitchen where you could hardly see anything. She tried the door, and it opened, but there was a plywood board nailed over the frame. "Allow me," I said as Leona stood aside and I fired a blast of magic at the sheet of plywood. The board got wrenched from its nails as it flew back several feet, into a wide and vacant alley, just as Leona had stated.
“All right, Creed," Leona said, looking up and down the alley. "There's no one there. Go do your thing."
Using magic in full view of the public could’ve been disastrous. With so many Sleepwalkers looking on it probably would only have ended up making things worse. I had the feeling that Mr. Black knew that when he set the booby traps. He knew the hellfire could only be dealt with magically.
Son of a bitch. What the hell was his beef with me anyway?
I wished I could remember what it was that lead to me knowing where Mr. Black's then next sacrifice was going to occur, or whom it might've been who tipped me off, or even how I might've known who the next victim was going to be. So in essence, I wish I knew how it was that I managed to arrive at the crime scene seconds or minutes too late, so I could once again use whatever info I had to seek out the next place he'd strike—just like I did last time, only better. Now it felt like I was back to square one. God knows how long I had been chasing him the last time, or how many people he killed before I caught up with him.
No time to dwell, however. My main priority had to be figuring out a way to put out the hellfire. The flames seemed resistant to anything that might extinguish them, so any water or ice based spells were out. Like any fire, though, this one needed oxygen to flourish and spread. All I had to do was to cast a spell containing two individual facets, assuming indeed that hellfire requires oxygen to breathe like the way any other fire does. Yes, I know it's a bit iffy, but hey, you can't blame a man for hoping. So first, my spell had to contain the flames by creating a vacuum space over which all areas it had already spread to were covered. Then, the secondary aspect would be like a syphon that promptly sucked out all the air contained within the vacuum. I say promptly because by now the area involved had tripled in size from the time Leona and I left Brentwood to clear bystanders. It should smother the hellfire in one fell swoop, without suffocating any poor firefighters still looking on from just inside the area Brentwood had cordoned off.
"Any time you're ready," Leona said.
"Step off, Leona," I snapped, a bit more harshly than I meant to, but she knew not to rush me when it came to magic. It didn't matter how many times I tried to explain to her the intricate processes that have to be set in motion when casting any spell—the deep focus and conviction required—it never seemed to sink in with her. Leona viewed magic as a skill like any other, like shooting for instance, and as such it could be done at speed under pressure if practiced enough. Which it could in expert hands such as my own, but you still had to be careful you didn't forget something or fuck up the delicate internal processes involved. Otherwise, the results could be less than impressive, and often dangerous.
I got as close as I could without the heat scorching my face off, thinking to that I was going to enjoy killing this Mr. Black when I finally found the fucker [i.e. found him again]. There was no other option. Letting such a monster live would not be doing the world any favors, nor the victims or their loved ones.
Centering myself as best as I could under the pressure, I dug as deep as I could go and gathered up every ounce of magic in me, drawing it into the center of my body before beginning to infuse it with intent, all backed by the unwavering conviction that the spell I was about to cast would work. Any self-doubt or uncertainty would only weaken the magic.
When I was about to cast big spells like that, I always entered the Chaosphere first. The Chaosphere is a giant open space inside my mind that is filled with the buzzing, crackling energy of pure magic. It is a place I created long ago, a place where I could access and work wi
th the magic I had learned how to cultivate and channel inside me. Every magic practitioner has their own version of this place. I call mine the Chaosphere because that's what it resembles: a giant sphere of pure and completely chaotic energy requiring the sorts of skills and knowledge only gained by years of experience and research.
I stood in the center of that Chaosphere as if standing in the center of a hollowed-out sun, the energy that flowed around me at once terrifying and exhilarating as I began to pull strands of energy toward me, twisting them this way and that, melding them together, twisting them again, forging them into new forms and shapes, the whole time allowing my intent to infuse every single strand of magical energy to ensure each one would bend in the direction of my will.
I don't know how long I was inside the Chaosphere. In there, the constructs of time and space ceased to exist. I could have been in there minutes or days at a time, and I wouldn't have known either way. When I was ready, the real world would open up again, and the magic would go rushing out to wherever I needed it to go.
In this case, it was aimed toward the green inferno before me. I cast the magic out like a net, and a bluish-white bubble began to form around the entire Roundhouse building, sealing in the flames that still raged within it. Once I was sure I had covered every lick of green flame, I began to shrink the bubble so that it beat down the flames, suffocating the fire and sealing it in. The expanse I had to cover was so great that it took everything I had to keep the entire area constantly covered, painfully aware that if only one flame escaped, then in a flash the whole thing could start all over again.
With both arms out in front of me, I drew them together as if I was physically shrinking the bubble around the fire (which I was in a way, as magicslinging always felt physical). The rippling magic drew ever tighter around the flames, until finally, the green fire became no bigger than a tennis ball in the center of the ruined Roundhouse building. Not that you would have been able to see that small green ball of flame through those thick blocks of stone. I could see fine, however, but on a different field of vision thanks to the connection I had with my magic (my magic and I were separated by nothing, and if I needed to see it, I could, no matter what was in the way).