And that’s what happened.
My leg hurts so much. The blood is still flowing, although it oozes now instead of spurts and there’s the taste of it in my mouth.
The air five feet away rips like rotten cheesecloth, a tear from floor to ceiling, and the edges fade to nothing as a jagged blackness appears between the lips of ragged reality. Cold blasts from the black, cold like the bottom of the ocean, like the absence of even the thought of heat. The blood soaking my armor freezes, cracking and crackling. I can see my frail breath.
And Ng falls out of the black. The tear closes up behind him without a sound.
Gosh, he looks like hell. Face all cut up like someone took a razor to it. He kneels there, arms wrapped around his torso looking beat, so exhausted I can feel it like heat radiating from his skin. He doesn’t see me, but that’s okay.
He’s back. One of the team. Back from God knows where, and it’s good to see him. I’m so grateful that my eyes water and the tears trickle down my cheeks.
It feels good, but I’m so tired. Warm blood from inside thaws the icy crust around the knife.
I guess this is the end for me. It’s not so bad. It’s a lot like going to sleep, like … slipping into a warm bath. It’s not ….
Chapter Sixteen
Rat
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
I kept going, deep into the crevice, which turned out to be a maze—a gloomy one with sheer walls and the stale smell of dust in the air. I was still haunted by the fading echoes of Tweezer’s voice, but I couldn’t let the other Magician distract me because it might not be him. If it wasn’t, then this was a helluva trap, and sometimes the only way get out of one is to spring it.
Half my problem, I thought, was the lack of color. Any pair of nightvision glasses, be it tech or magic, turns the world into a monochromatic nightmare that gives the viewer an astoundin’ headache if used too long. Like the doozy I was pickin’ up starting right behind my left eyeball and runnin’ up my forehead, across my skull and down to the nape of my neck.
Standard to all Agents is a first aid kit. Sounds simple enough, right? Bandages, alcohol wipes, an aspirin or two. You’d be dead wrong there because the main thing in the first aid kit is a spell gem for pain. The Shape in the gem could give hours of pain-free mobility and relief, even in the case of a broken bone, although that’s plenty dangerous enough because the ability to feel pain keeps us from harmin’ those hurt places even more. However, sometimes you gotta keep motorin’ on without distractions. First aid kits measure about five-by-five inches and fit snug into a thigh pouch. Besides a gem for pain, there are also some interestin’ pharmaceuticals that would fetch a pretty penny on the street, like Oxy.
Oxycodone can knock you clean on your ass if you’re not careful, but at that point, I was far past bein’ careful considerin’ the day I was havin’. One pill was all I needed and twenty minutes later I coulda bit my own lips off and not have minded one bit. It brought more than just pain relief because I wanted to conserve my magic just in case there were more beasties waitin’ for me deeper in this maze of rock.
During that twenty minutes I didn’t see a damn thing but more crevice, more turns and whatnot, oftentimes findin’ a dead end and havin’ to double back. Each corner I took, each new path, I looked up, hopin’ to see somethin’ new, perhaps a handhold or crack I could use to climb outta that damn place, to get to the top of the planed monoliths. On the top of these great slabs of blue rock I might find safety, respite, and brother, was I ever in need.
“C’mon, Tweeze,” I implored quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “Talk to me so I can find you.”
It might not have been Tweezer who talked to me, luring me in deeper and deeper, but whoever it was knew about Truth or Consequences, so I was willin’ to go on a little faith. Soon enough the voice came back.
“Go away, Rat. You’re going to die if he gets his hands on you.” The strange acoustics of the maze brought Tweeze’s voice right to my ears.
“Don’t care,” I muttered, not really speakin’ to the voice. Where was I goin’ to go? Behind me, beyond the maze of the crevice, was blue dust and a bunch of pug-ugly monsters that wanted to snack on my fritters. No way I was goin’ to let that happen, let me tell you.
So I walked on all low and slow, a 9mm in one hand and a K-bar in the other, ready to do somebody wrong if they looked to harm me. All I encountered was more crevice, a darker blue against the robin’s egg color of the sky.
Deeper and deeper I went, sometimes havin’ to double back at a dead end or where fallin’ rocks blocked the way. Part of me wanted to study the monoliths, to see what made up the aggregate. The nerdy geology nut that lived inside my brain was yellin’ at me to check the edges of splintered rock for quartz or mica. It’d been years since Geology 101, but I still had the bug. I guess if I hadn’t been a Magician, I woulda wound up workin’ for some oil company in Texas or thereabouts, tellin’ the higher-ups where to drill. Woulda been a lot less dangerous than castin’ spells for the BSI. Definitely more borin’, that’s for sure.
And there he was.
Boy, there he was. My stomach commenced to flip-floppin’ all around the moment I made that last turn and saw him there up on the sheer wall of the dead end.
Old Tweeze kinda looked like a punk kid, but he’d been through modified SEAL trainin’ like me, so there was grit and gristle coverin’ his bones. He could take care of himself just fine, but whatever or whoever did that thing had made him helpless as a child. Both arms were sunk up to the shoulders in the crevice wall, as well as both legs up to the knees. The result was a man hangin’ about five feet up facing out, looking like a human pillow tacked up there. Tweeze’s chest was thrust out, forced that way by his arms bein’ buried so deep. His legs couldn’t move an inch because of how solidly they were anchored. It took a moment for me to realize that—he was hangin’ there so awkward and all. He was strugglin’ to breathe, the weight of his body draggin’ on his diaphragm. It reminded me of those old-time stories of the Romans crucifyin’ people, how they died of asphyxiation instead of blood loss or pain.
Like Tweeze was fixin’ to do.
His eyes met mine and he undulated slightly, flexin’ his thighs so that his body rode up a bit higher. His wince told me it hurt his shoulders some, but it provided his lungs much-needed relief so he could speak. His armor had been cut from his body, and whoever had done it did a piss-poor job. They’d cut him up a treat. The thin wounds had long since scabbed over, and he’d been left with nothing for modesty. His twig and berries hung for all in this damned world to see.
Gathering a painful breath, he said, “Run, you [BLEEP]ing idiot. Run.”
Those words lacked the energy of urgency. He couldn’t afford it, I think.
“I ain’t runnin’ nowhere, dude.” Eyes peeled … had to keep my eyes peeled because I couldn’t let fatigue blind me. This was the part, if it was a movie, where the bad guy sprung his trap—perfect spot for it—a dead end some fifteen feet wide and twenty deep with Tweeze at the end playin’ the role of a hunk of tasty cheese. Perhaps cheddar.
“He’s gonna kill you, Rat.” That hurt for him to say. I could see the effort drainin’ him.
“Who is this dude, anyway?” I held up a hand. “Never mind, save your breath.”
“It’s the Killing Man, the Angel of Mass Murder. He’s after us. All of us.” Gasp, wheeze. “Especially us Magicians.”
I approached slowly, lookin’ out for booby traps, and came close enough to Tweeze that I could see the individual drops of sweat fallin’ from his chin.
“Stay away!” he hollered weakly.
“Not gonna happen, buddy,” I replied. “Know just the spell to get you outta there. Gonna crumble that stone into powder.”
A half-hitch of a sob, but no answer. Instead he sagged, fallin’ as far forward as he could, which wasn’t a whole helluva lot. Then I saw what he’d been tryin’ to say, but had been too hurt and exhausted.
“How is that [CENSORED] possible?” I breathed, more than a little horrified. I mean, I could see the area of demarcation from skin to stone, but there was no cutoff. It was as if he was slowly becomin’ one with the monolith. Same with his legs. They blended seamlessly into the rock, which was flesh-toned about a centimeter away from the surface. “This can’t be, Tweeze. You should be formin’ blood clots, havin’ strokes, all sorts of bad things. What’s been done to you is medically impossible.”
That got me a tired laugh. “Jesus, Rat, this guy can do anything. He sucks the magic out of things. He about drained me dry and left me here to hang.” Tweeze panted, pushin’ himself with his legs so his lungs could fill with air. “He escaped his cage and is loose again on the world, man. Last time he got out, he went to Colombia and taught a thing or two to a couple of followers who turned out to be the nastiest serial killers ever, but he got caught and was stuffed back into his cell for a couple of decades. Now he’s out and he’s hungry.”
Exhausted, Tweeze slumped and winced. How he could stand such torture was beyond me.
“Don’t talk, dude,” I told him, heart hammerin’. “Save your breath.” My mind raced through its library of spells until the right one popped into place. “I think I gotta spell that will put all this to rights.”
“Too late,” he whispered. “Too late. Get out.” His face spasmed and he bared his teeth, the large muscles at the corners of his jaw bunchin’ fiercely as pain racked him. “To get out, you haveta go through … although it might kill you slow.”
The next words were lost as he vomited spiders onto his chest.
Yeah, spiders. They came pourin’ out of his mouth as he made a hrrrruuukin’ sound. Little bitty spiders half the size of a dime—brown and black bodies all covered in gut slime—fell to dusty ground or clung to his bare chest.
Before I could do some serious barfin’ myself, the skin of his abdomen began to ripple like it was a sheet hangin’ on a clothesline.
I turned away, stomach roilin’, only to see some dude standin’ ’bout fifteen feet away, a strange little smile puckerin’ his long face.
What can I say about the weirdo except he was wearin’ some old-timey sorta fancy duds. You know, the kind worn in all those Sherlock Holmes movies and such. Heck, he even wore a top hat made of silk.
His face never seemed to come into focus, but that smile still haunts me.
“You seem quite distressed,” he remarked, smilin’ wide.
I reckoned he was the one Tweeze referred to as the Killin’ Man. “Get him down offa there!” I yelled, seein’ three kinds of red.
He cocked his head to the right. “Now why would I do that?”
“This is his world, Rat,” wheezed Tweeze from behind me. “His … personal little snow globe.”
My pistol came up faster than thought, but he disappeared so quickly I didn’t even see him go.
“Now that’s unsportsmanlike, Mr. Rat,” said the man from somewhere I couldn’t see, although his voice came at me loud and clear.
I looked back to see the skin over Tweeze’s belly begin to split. Tiny spiders commenced to boil outta the wound. I could see my friend was in too much pain, his face all contorted every which way, to muster up a scream.
“Fix him!” I yelled.
“No.”
Ghost-Lite cut in, “Who are you talking to?”
“Shut up,” I subvocaled, lowering the pistol. “Please.” Down to beggin’, but I wasn’t too proud. Anythin’ to save my friend.
“Use your magic. Free him with a spell.”
Good idea. I squinted, fixing a Shape firmly in my mind.
“NOOOO!!!” Tweeze’s scream came from the very depths of his tortured spirit as he gagged on spiders. “He wants you to! He’ll drain you.”
Drain me? I took a few moments to chew that over and realized that if the fancy man drained Tweeze, it was because my buddy had used magic and then had it sucked right out of him. Not all of it or he’d be dead, but enough to weaken him. Enough to make him a victim.
[DELETED] that noise.
I let loose with a spell, aiming at one of Tweeze’s shoulders, and the stone around his upper torso began to disintegrate as even tinier spiders began to leak from his penis. Larger ones, the size of half-dollar coins, emerged from … from … well, it’s best not to say.
Tweeze’s left shoulder came loose, causin’ his body to sag toward the right, and I caught sight of somethin’ that froze my tummy up solid. Where his left arm used to be ended in a jagged stump about two inches from his armpit. Instead of bright arterial blood there came a spurtin’ of little brown and black spiders so small they looked more like motes of dust instead of insects.
“Jesus, oh bloody Jesus Christ!”
What I had to do came to me in a flash, somethin’ that if I was in Tweeze’s place, I’d want him to do.
The pistol in my hand barked twice, both rounds hittin’ Tweeze above the eyeballs. He slumped.
“Too bad about your friend.”
I didn’t bother to turn around. I watched spiders boil from my friend’s body. “You gonna kill me like you killed him?”
“He chose the wrong path.”
“And what path leads to life, I’m wonderin’?”
“Follow me. Give me your magic freely and you will live. Choose the other path and your fate will be worse than your friend’s.”
I watched the spiders begin to eat, and a tear slipped down my face. Cryin’ for my friend. Cryin’ for me too, I reckon.
Soft footsteps, barely a whisper through the blue dust. “You have no idea, boy, who you face, do you? I was walking this earth when your ancestors scribbled paintings on cave walls with their own feces. I’ve faced kings, queens, emperors, and they all bowed down to me.”
A hand with slender fingers appeared at the corner of my eye and touched my shoulder lightly, like a butterfly’s kiss. “But you, ah … you have potential, boy. You have it in you to be one of the greats, perhaps even the greatest.” I felt his mouth draw near. “And all you have to do is freely give me your magic. It’s just that simple.”
We all make sacrifices to get what we want, but what do you do when you have everythin’ that defines you? I had my magic and the pleasure of castin’ spells was somethin’ that no one besides another Magician could understand. Magic is a lover that never demanded anythin’ of me except to use it. Never got jealous, or mad, or even slapped me in the face when I was caught in a compromisin’ position. It was like water or air and it was always there for me.
Simple, eh? This Angel of Mass Murder might as well have asked me to bite off my own head.
As I stared at Tweeze’s body pissing spiders into the dust, I finally made the connections he wanted me to make. The answer to the riddle of this place—how to get out—and I smiled sadly.
“You know what, Mr. Killin’ man?”
“What?” Air hissed across my ears.
“Sometimes you just don’t get what you want.” And I was movin’ and hustlin’, steppin’ on spiders that squished under my boots most satisfactorily. When I made it to ol’ Tweeze’s body, I grabbed hold of his ripplin’ skin and pulled. It tore like wet, rotted cotton, and spiders poured out all over me, skitterin’ every which way, gettin’ into my hair, my eyes, and my mouth. I bit down, crunchin’ chiton and spittin’ out nasty goo that tasted like bad eggs and I kept pullin’ and pullin’ until Tweeze was wide open while the spiders bit at me and I bit back. Just ahead there was blackness, a void that sucked at me and the spiders, and I jumped in just as somethin’ sharp skittered off the back plate of my armor. I laughed as I fell, along with about a zillion spiders, into darkness so complete and cold that it ate at my mind like a hungry shark.
I fell and fell and fell, but I didn’t mind because I w
as outta there, out of the blue world, the Killin’ Man’s personal little snow globe, as Tweeze called it.
Just as I was ready to commence dyin’, the world opened up all around me and I landed hard on short-pile carpetin’ the color of sky as the sun dips below the horizon. It clean knocked the wind outta me, and I lay there gaspin’ as little frozen spiders rained down around me. Steam began to rise from my skin as I warmed up.
Eventually I made it into a sittin’ position.
“We seem to be back in our world,” said Ghost-Lite unnecessarily.
I nodded, still catchin’ the breath that I’d lost back in the dark.
“Mr. Ng and Ms. Jacobs seem to be near our location. I can lead you to them when you are able, sir.”
Yeah, fine. Whatever.
I couldn’t say the words. I could only hope he understood my nod, and as I sat there, the enormity of what I’d experienced finally caught up with me. My friend, my best friend, was dead. Dead by my hand.
My chest hitched. Then it heaved as tears blurred my vision. I cried like a little boy who’d lost his parents. Cried for what I had lost amidst a scatterin’ of dead spiders.
Chapter Seventeen
Kal
Nothing Else Matters
“You, sir,” said the man from Dervish Industries doorway, “are you well?”
That was definitely debatable. “As good as can be expected, I guess.”
The man looked me up and down, noting my singed hair and all-around dishevelment. “If you say so.” He squinted. “Hey, I know you. You’re that Kal Hakala guy from television. Saw you on Ellen.” A well-manicured hand appeared, beckoning. “You want a drink?”
What could I say? “If you have soda pop, I have a thirst.”
The door opened wide. “I have everything. Come on in.”
I followed, taking in my host’s appearance. A tall man, a shade under my six-four, slender and lithe. Jet-black hair combed back from a high forehead over glittering dark eyes and an aquiline nose. Movie star quality, this one. In fact, he was so good looking it was intimidating. Best thing to counter all the handsome was an industrial accident. Women dig scars, right?
The Spirit in St. Louis Page 16