Beaten Path

by Martin Shannon

  “Something I saw in your book…”

  “Ten Spins’ Infernal Constructs?!”

  My spectral apprentice nodded. “Yeah, I need a distraction.”

  “No! Ten Spins’ Magick is dangerous.”

  Adam frowned. “And this isn’t?”

  He has a point.

  “Fine—a distraction. You got anything in mind?”

  “Nope, but you’re Eugene Law. You’ll figure something out.”

  “Adam!”

  It was too late, my apprentice vanished.

  The dead are so damn annoying.

  I dug my hands into the mud and worked up a decent-sized black ball of nastiness.

  “Hey, Delia!”

  The Blood Queen swung around to put the full weight of her attention on me. Those warm brown eyes no longer exuded passion. They’d become a picture window to crazy—Magician and Troll blood had put her in a happy place.

  That’s terrifying.

  I slung the mud ball and smiled as it perfectly smacked against her bloody face. If you’re going to get eviscerated by a deliriously powerful Skeeter in the heart of the Green Swamp without your Magick, you might as well have a little fun doing it.

  Adam, I hope you know what you’re doing.

  Delia hit me like a jungle cat, knocking my already exhausted body into the mud next to Adam’s. Her jaw’s expanded, the rows of teeth peeling back at the edges of her lips while beneath them the beginnings of a serrated tongue flickered in and out. This was sure to be my end, and I wondered briefly just how many times I could skip out on death before I got sent to the supernatural principal’s office.

  Any time now would be good, Adam.

  35

  After Life

  The fleshy folds of Delia’s jaws threatened to envelop me. Blood, red and blue, trickled from those swollen cheeks. The Sangre Reina lived up to every bit of my memory. She reared back to remove my throat from my neck, then stopped.

  Huh?

  She froze, her eyes rolling back in their sockets, before a jumbled set of words tumbled from her mouth. “It worked. I’ll be damned.”

  “Adam?”

  Delia’s beautiful and bloody face twisted in frustration. “Yeah… sort of. It’s like a massive ocean in here. Oh man, she is strong.”

  The Blood Queen wrestled with my apprentice for the wheel in her frontal lobe, and somehow that pudgy guy was winning.

  Delia held out her hand to pull me up. “Okay, where’s that mirror? I think I can hold her for—”

  I hadn’t gotten to my feet before Stinkstone’s granite fist blasted the Blood Queen like a rogue moon-shot, knocking her off her feet and sending the woman crashing into the scrub palmetto.

  “No!” I shouted, trying to get the Bridge Troll’s attention. “That’s not her. Well, I mean it is, but it’s not. Adam’s inside her trying to get her to look in the mirror.”

  The Bridge Troll tilted his head to one side, then shrugged, using his other stone-like arm to knock me back into the dirt on his way toward the fallen Skeeter.

  “Adam!”

  Delia’s face appeared in the broken palmetto, but this time it wasn’t my apprentice running point behind those wild eyes.

  “She’s back,” I cried.

  The Troll swung another pile-driving fist, but the Blood Queen was faster. She slipped under the clumsy punch and the sides of her jacket tore open. Something inside raked across the massive Troll’s legs. Rich blue blood rained beneath the beast and Delia soaked it up like an unholy sponge before turning her attention back to me.

  The mirror!

  The Soul-Splitter lay in the muck a few yards away, but without Adam’s help there was little chance of her looking at it willingly.

  The Skeeter took a few steps toward me then stopped. “Gene, I’ve got like five seconds before the next wave hits. She’s just too strong.”

  I didn’t waste time responding and made a run for the mirror.

  “Hurry!” the possessed Blood Queen shouted before falling to her knees, hands against her head. “She’s doing something. This is Magick I don’t know.”

  A thin white mist swelled around my dying apprentice’s body.

  Adam’s voice vanished, only to be replaced by the Delia’s alluring timbre. “Nova Mortuis!”

  Hints of flame and spent embers appeared among the mist, the ashen hands of the damned reaching for Adam’s body.

  She’s summoning New Dead!

  Adam seized control back from the Blood Queen, just in time to see the peeling ashen hands of New Dead reaching for his body. “Gene!”

  “Gotcha,” I yelled, slapping my palm down on the tiny disc mirror. The Deep Magick trapped inside shuddered in my hand.

  Magick is belief—Cathy, I hope you are right.

  I turned back to Adam, only to find the Skeeter on top of me. “This ends now.”

  “It sure does.” I held the mirror up.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” She said, tilting her head to one side.

  “Huh?”

  Muck covered the mirror’s face, and with it my only way to recapture Delia’s Darkling.

  The Blood Queen batted the disc out of my hand effortlessly, then clamped down on my neck with her hands. “I should have killed you a long time ago, Eugene Law.”

  “Adam?!” I shouted, fighting the words past my rapidly closing throat.

  “He’s… preoccupied,” Delia said, directing my attention to the ghostly apprentice surrounded by a pack of hungry New Dead. Their ashen bodies clawed for him. “Don’t worry, you’ll be joining him soon.”

  “Like hell he will.” Kaylee’s clarion voice shattered Delia’s concentration, and new staff smashed into the Blood Queen’s head. “Get the mirror!”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” I scrambled for the glinting light in the darkening swamp, my fingers touching it the instant a car horn echoed through the trees.

  “What the?!”

  A ghostly sedan, one of those old land yachts, rumbled across the sky above me. Adam’s ride was coming, and that meant one thing—my apprentice was dead.

  My stomach churned and took the air out of my lungs with it.

  Don’t focus on that. Focus on the mirror or you’ll all be getting your tickets punched.

  “Gene.” Adam swung his arms wildly at the advancing New Dead. “Help.”

  “Get to your body.”

  “I’m trying!”

  I dove into the muck, grabbing the mirror with my hand and rolling over to find a bruised Kaylee in the fight of her life with the Blood Queen. Delia had taken more than a few solid hits from the green sapling staff, but Kaylee appeared to have received the worst of the exchange—teeth marks covered her face and arms.

  Adam’s ghost cried out for me again. “Hurry, Gene!”

  Kaylee swung her staff, but the Skeeter slipped out of its path, then yanked it away, sending the Old Magick tap root careening into the night. “I’m going to enjoy drinking you dry.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Little Ed wrapped his strong arms around her neck from behind. She raked her hands across his face, but no blood poured out, only the faint trickle of saw dust.

  The golem smiled, grabbing onto Delia’s head and holding her eyes open with his strong fingers. “Do it, Gene!”

  I held up the mirror, the Deep Magick inside humming in my fingers.

  The Blood Queen writhed in Little Ed’s hands. “I can’t hold her for much longer.”

  ‘I believe in you, Dad.’

  I wiped the mirror across my leg and held it up in front of Delia. “Let’s do this!”

  The Swamp Witch placed her hand on mine and together we unlocked the subtle Magick of the Soul-Splitter.

  The Sangre Reina screamed and placed a withering hand on top of ours. “No! I won’t go back to that again!”

  “Gene!” Kaylee tightened .

  “I see it!”

  The Soul-Splitter hummed, its Deep Magick pulling apart the Blood Queen atom by ato
m.

  “Not again!” Delia squeezed her hand and the mirror’s sharp edge dug into my skin.

  Boom!

  The mirror exploded and sent a tidal wave of Wild Magick crashing over Delia and Little Ed.

  “Eddie.” Kaylee reached for her son.

  The mirror had been unmade, and to stand in front of it was to take the full force of that Wild Magick. Delia’s skin peeled away like curling paper, the blast furnace of chaotic energy melting organs and charring bones.

  Crack!

  The wooden boy’s hands crushed her burned-out skull to powder before falling away himself.

  Kaylee released my bloodied hand and fell on her son. “Eddie!”

  “Gene!” Adam shouted, turning my attention back to the fallen apprentice, and the New Dead that had him surrounded.

  “Adam, get in your body before your ride gets here!”

  The silvery steel sedan coasted to a stop a few feet from his body.

  “I… can’t!”

  I clutched at my bleeding hand and stumbled toward him. One of the New Dead caught my apprentice’s ghost by the hoodie and dragged him down. “Help!”

  “Get off of him.” I threw myself into the mass of ashen bodies.

  Clawed hands and blackened eyes filled the space in front of me, but I swung my fists anyway. I sent burned flesh packing with each blow, but still they kept coming.

  New Dead released their grip on my apprentice to come after me. “Get in your body.”

  Adam hesitated. “What about you?”

  “Get in your damn body before I change my mind.”

  Adam’s ghostly form scrambled to climb into his fallen shell, but stopped just short of getting inside when the sedan’s passenger door opened and a bright light shone down from the glowing interior. “Dad?”

  “Don’t take it!” I shouted before a tidal wave of New Dead pulled me under.

  Burned hands, too many to count, landed blow after blow; each one pushed me further toward the ground, and sweet oblivion.

  “It’s not your time…” I whispered, my vision filling with the coal-black eyes of New Dead.

  Is it mine?

  My eulogy was cut off by the flashing silver of a perfectly balanced saber. A saber that cleanly separated the closest monster’s head from its burned-out body.

  Petty?

  “You may be a terrible person,” the spirit said, his sword a whirling dervish of righteous fury. “But that doesn’t mean I am.”

  Thank you, Private.

  The ghostly sedan’s door closed, and it roared off into the night sky, disappearing among the few stars strong enough to brave the early evening.

  Adam?

  36

  Sight is for the Birds

  Private Petty swung his blade like a man possessed, the saber’s edge cutting a path through tarry eyes and ashen limbs. “Go,” he cried, smashing the snarling face of a fiery New Dead against his fist.

  I fought through the remaining hands and dragged myself to Adam’s body. My apprentice didn’t move, his face quiet and grey.

  “You little bastard.” I pounded a fist against his chest. “If you took that ride I swear I’m going to find a way to haul your ass right back here.”

  Adam’s still form didn’t budge.

  Tears returned the edges of my eyes and I slammed my hand down again. “You hear me? Get your ass up right now. I’m not doing this without you.”

  “Gene…” Kaylee’s warm hand pressed against my bare shoulder. “He’s gone.”

  “No, he’s not. No, no, no. This kid and I go way back. You hear me, Grayson?” I grabbed his blood-smeared hoodie. “You don’t get to leave yet. I’m not losing you, because I’m tired of losing. You hear me?” I shouted at the stars above. “This ends now. Put him back or so help me, you’ll see the real power of Eugene Law.”

  Everything hurt. My hands burned and my gut heaved. A cool breeze did little to alleviate the pain in my heart. Somewhere in the pile of thawing rubble that had been the bird house a tiny baritone voice bellowed, “These Muscles are gonna…”

  There was a Thinning coming. It was small, you had to reach out to feel it, but I wasn’t going to let it pass without a fight.

  “What are you doing?” The concern was evident in Kaylee’s voice. Her hand gripped my shoulder tighter. “Don’t do it, Gene. You know it’s not right.”

  “Neither is losing him.”

  I fished Jerry’s 9D glasses out of Adam’s pocket. Marred with blood, the folded paper glasses lay heavy in my hands.

  I have to try.

  I wiped them on one of the remaining clean patches on my enchanted denim.

  Kaylee’s grip on my shoulder loosened. “Of all the stupid crazy things…” The warmth of her Magick flooded into my tired body. “If you’re going to break the rules of nature, you might as well do it with some help.”

  I reached out to the Thinning, pulling at the Wild Magick.

  “Softer, Gene,” the Swamp Witch said, gingerly twisting and twirling the chaotic Magick like an artisan. “Be gentle with it…”

  I unfolded Jerry’s 9D glasses and pushed them on my face, then forced the barely constrained Wild Magick into action. “No time.”

  The swamp exploded in an infinite pattern of lines and color. The Magick of the Thinning and the deep well of old power that was Sturkey collided in mind-wrecking confusion. To see this far beyond reality was insanely dangerous. The Jerry who’d made these glasses had hung himself not long after creating them, and as I stared into the infinite I had a pretty good idea why.

  “It’s beautiful…”

  The Swamp Witch’s soft hand squeezed my shoulder, reminding me of her presence and the ticking clock. “Can you find him?”

  Kaylee was right. There should have been an echo of Adam, just enough to pull him back, but like the ringing of a bell it wouldn’t last long.

  Lines exploded out of my fallen apprentice like spiral art. A thousand threads of life long potential: love, joy, sadness, and pain, all of them fading and snapping like spiderwebs in the storm. Something flickered in the center of the maelstrom of radiating lines—his echo.

  “Gene?” Kaylee whispered. “Can you—”

  “I’m losing him,” I said, reaching past the threads and digging for the flickering center. “I need more power.”

  Kaylee’s Magick hummed through me, more power than I’d expected, but still it wasn’t enough. Adam’s soul echo sunk beneath the swirling colors.

  “I can’t get to him.” I pushed deeper to follow the fading beat. “I need more power.”

  The Thinning…

  I reached back out for the Thinning, but it was already fading. It was too small and too weak—it wasn’t going to save Adam’s echo. The tiny light pulsed beneath my fingers then vanished, dropping deeper into the young man’s chest.

  Kaylee’s Magick surged. It surrounded me like a warm blanket, but it wasn’t enough to catch the echo. “Gene, I can’t keep this up.”

  “Damn it, just give me a few more seconds.” I pushed my fingers past the threads of Adam’s life. The echo pulsed again, flooding my vision with a burst of white before falling deeper. “Damn it, come back.”

  A soft sadness washed over me and a familiar voice resounded in my ears.

  “Sir, let me…”

  Private Petty’s spectral form dropped to its knees next to me. The fractured light of Jerry’s glasses revealed the Private for who he was: a sad young man. Gone were the costumes, the famous actors, and movie effects. All that was left was a grief-stricken and broken youth.

  “No, Private. Stay back,” I said, not wanting him to get pulled into the torrent of Magick I was bleeding out to dig for the echo.

  “I can help.”

  “No, you can’t—not without risking yourself. Do you have a death wish or something?”

  Those were the wrong words, and as soon as I spoke them I wanted to pull them back, but Private Petty simply nodded and placed his fading hands on top of
mine.

  The memory hit me like a thunderstorm. It swept up my mind and brought me to the open road. It was late, and they were flying down the dark highway far too fast to be considered safe. His wife was shouting something, but he didn’t care. Her blond hair bounced in that tightly wound ponytail as she yelled at him, her words fading in and out of the stuttering memory.

  “Slow down, you’re drunk!”

  He was. The haze of alcohol had stolen his reaction time, and his clarity. But he had to be, because it took away the pain.

  What pain?

  The letter on the back seat.

  A flash of black and white words burned in my head.

  Denied.

  Private Petty was no soldier. He’d never been one, and he’d never be one.

  A burst of headlights and the tumbling darkness as the car slid off the road. His final vision was of lifeless blue eyes beneath blood-smeared blond hair.

  Private, I didn’t know…

  The young man smiled. “Please, call me Michael.”

  “I…”

  “Gene.” The spirit placed a second hand on mine. “It’s time. I forgive you.”

  Michael’s energy washed over me and into Adam.

  “No! Stop! You do this and there’s no going back. This is oblivion. Don’t you understand me? The end of everything… Everything!”

  “I know.”

  Adam’s echo pulsed again, this time even more faint.

  “No, I don’t think you do. Kids say that all the time, ‘I know,’ but I’ve got news for you—you don’t. You will never see your wife again, or your unborn child. You won’t be stuck gathering lint in my pocket, you will be unmade.”

  “Goodbye, Gene.”

  Try as I might, I could no more stop the rush of Michael Petty’s spirit than I could hold back the tide. He roared through my fingers and down into Adam’s chest, pulling up the dead man’s echo like a magnet and drawing it to me.

  I latched on to that echo and yanked. “I’ve got him.”

  A kaleidoscope of white light filled the 9D glasses and I fell back, clawing at the paper lens. Somewhere the Swamp Witch screamed, but I couldn’t see her. In fact, I couldn’t see anything.