Power

by Doug Burbey

  The effort to open his eyes made him sob but he did it anyhow, looking at the man with his head pillowed on his arms in the warded area. Shane figured best case he had a few hours, but worst case it might be under a half hour. Different people reacted differently and he didn't know how much the man would remember when he finally woke. Either way, Shane need to be far away.

  Slipping his phone into the pocket of his pants, Shane pushed himself to his feet, using the wall to hold him. He started weaving his way out of the maze of books and shelves. Each step caused nails to pound this skull and his vision to gray at the edges. Salt coated his lips and he licked them, only then realizing tears and blood were streaming down his face.

  Fuck. If I go out in public like this people will lose it. But I have to get out of here before he wakes. Who knows what he'll tell people.

  Slumped against a wall he pulled open the robes and pulled up the undershirt wiping his face. Glancing at it, the smears of blood and wetness didn't surprise him.

  I need alcohol and bed. I can't keep doing this.

  Even thinking hurt so he stopped. He made his way slowly through the building, trying to listen and avoid people. Either by chance or luck, the building seemed quiet today and he made it out the door to where a guard stood.

  "Sir, are you okay?"

  Shane forced a smile but stopped when the guard flinched back. "Migraine."

  "Ah, I understand. Let me call a taxi? Or do you live close enough for a pedi?"

  Shane couldn't parse that sentence. "Not far, five six blocks."

  "Let me assist." A shrill whistle almost sent Shane to his knees and he must have cried out.

  "Excusi, excusi," the guard apologized over and over as he helped Shane stand. More noise assaulted him as a clatter of wheels approached. He managed to stammer out the hotel across from his as the guard and someone else helped him into a conveyance. The jostling and pain occupied him until the man stopped.

  Cracking open his eyes and wanting to cry as light seared to the back of his brain, Shane realized they were there. He pried himself out of the cab and tried to pay but the man waved him away jabbering something in Italian. Shane just nodded and stumbled across to his hotel, even as the man pedaled away.

  He waved down a staff member and asked for a bottle of vodka, painkillers, a chunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread to be delivered to his room.

  The darkness of his room came as a relief as he stumbled in. He sank against the floor panting, not thinking, not doing anything except breathing in and out, focused completely on that and ignoring his mind screaming in agony. Time ceased to exist as he breathed. The knock on the door pulled him out of his stupor. He didn't bother to stand up. He just reached up and opened the door.

  He cracked open his eyes as a worried maid handed him the bottle of vodka, painkillers, cheese, and the loaf of bread.

  Trying not to bite her head off, he assured her he didn't need anything else and closed the door.

  He took a large swig of vodka that he chased down with a handful of pills and another swig of vodka. With effort, he crawled to the bed and pulled himself up. One more swig, then he carefully set the bottle down, fell into the bed and everything ceased.

  15

  What Not

  The sound of people walking by outside his door pulled him to wakefulness. Shane lay there, eyes closed and assessed his state of existence.

  I'm still alive. So probably no stroke. Though might not know until I get up. My head feels in one piece, but that might change when I move. Maybe I should just lay here longer?

  The thought appealed, but the idea of peeing the bed did not sound anywhere near as nice. Warily he lifted himself up and while his head hurt, it was mild hangover level of hurt. Not the ‘please let me die’ levels he'd surpassed the other day.

  I am never thralling again. The pain isn't worth it. Hell, I don't even know if I got anything worthwhile out of all that.

  Grumbling, he made it to the bathroom, showered, then came back out and grabbed the vodka, pain pills, cheese, and bread. Still unable to bear the light, he checked the time. He'd been out about twelve hours. That meant it should be dark out. He cracked open the window and enjoyed the breeze that drifted in. This time he managed to sit in the chair at the table. After vodka and painkillers, he set to work on the cheese and the bread.

  Between the food, vodka, painkillers and rest, by the time the bells rang four times he also felt human.

  I need to ask Lewl if I can kill myself doing that. I suspect the answer is yes. And that I've come way too close as it is.

  He sighed and stared bleakly out at the city just starting to wake from its slumber.

  So, did I gain a damn thing? All that pain, forcing people to my will?

  He shuddered.

  Next time I'll just fucking kill them. Stupid Fae wards. Why the hell didn't Lewl know about those? Dammit, now I need to find another teacher.

  Shane struggled to try to recall what the man had said, but it all just faded in his head, not even a theme he could make out. Seriously contemplating throwing the bottle through the window, a beeping from his pocket caught his attention.

  Frowning, which hurt, he dug in his pocket and came up with his phone. A blinking screen telling him his battery was about to die.

  What in th- oh fuck, that's right.

  Shane started to dive for the charger, but the spike of pain bad enough to bring tears to his eyes made him think that moving slowly to get the cable and plug would be a much better idea. He got it plugged in and went to search for a notebook and pen. Glancing at the remains of his meal, he called up some more food and drink, trying to occupy himself until the phone had charged enough to turn back on.

  While he waited he thought about the angel. Though Fae would be much more logical.

  Could it be an Angel that is still alive? Or is their myth truth? Surely he'd have to be close enough to be aware of the wards. Did he sense me trying to cross? Did he know about the Demon's coming in? If so, why didn't he help?

  Shane hadn't been a believer in a very long time and the War had crushed most of what existed, but angels? Angels had always been symbols of hope. He hadn't thought about them also being real when the demons showed up. But now he considered it more than when Lewl had mentioned them.

  If they are around, they sure as hell didn't help us. It’s just like I thought, they don't care.

  He pushed it to the back of his mind and answered the door, taking the delivered food. After another hefty swig of vodka, he still hurt dammit, he checked the phone, again. His patience finally paid off. Shane powered it back up and left it plugged in. After logging in, he moved to the recording and found he had recorded for four hours before his phone had run out of memory.

  Fuck, how long did he talk? Did I get it all or not enough?

  Shane took a deep breath, flipped open the notebook and hit play, his entire being listening to the words that he had recorded.

  He hit replay a lot as he took notes, filtering out the slight accent and the turning of pages. The most disturbing part was the soft moans and whimpers of pain that came from him. That made him very uncomfortable.

  "Are you finished?" His own voice asked on the recording.

  "Yes." Shane reached over and hit stop looking at his notes and fought back a sigh.

  Three mentions of his special box he had to consult. Four mentions of wise men in the Eastern Deserts he traded information and spells with. One mention of what had to be a Fae enclave back then. And two of a man with wings who smelled of heaven and hell.

  All of which tells me damn near nothing. This doesn't give me much to go on dammit.

  He wanted to throw a fit. Why sentence them all to death and taunt them with the possibility of a way out for a few, but not let him find the keys?

  Shane pushed the phone away but hit play by accident and listened to the Prefect tell him there was more. Shane blinked. He didn't remember any of this. Just telling the man to go to sleep. He leaned back a
nd listened, but the excitement had fled.

  He listened to the Prefect read from what sounded like fairy tales.

  "And so I asked the great mage, what secret he kept in his box that gave him the answer to so many of our troubles?

  I sat there pensive wondering if he would answer me when he avoided so many others. Surely he would not keep the secret unto his grave.

  With a sigh, Merlin filled his glass with the rich mead from the North.

  "This I will tell you, but only because the item is no longer here. Taken by those it once belonged to. I trust by now it has traveled far away from me, never to be seen by my countrymen again. So I can see no harm in telling you. But warn those who read this tale in time far from now to be aware, for this item kills as it gives."

  I leaned forward anxious to hear what so many had wondered.

  "In my box was the Heart of Kali. Upon her I would gaze, seeking the truth in her mysteries. But the price she took from me was great. Was it not for who I am, I could never had harnessed her. She is a greedy mistress. Only those of all four can truly use her for long enough to master her. But now it matters not I suppose."

  With that the Merlin fell silent and would speak no more of the past, of Arthur, his love Guinevere, or even of the betrayal that destroyed once great Camelot."

  The Prefect fell silent with those words and Shane heard the book close.

  The next words were him talking, something he vaguely remembered and he shut off the phone, staring out at the city, but not seeing.

  The words of the librarian came back to him.

  There's an old record about a ship of treasures taken from the heathens being dispatched to Rome about 535 AD. If so that would be about the right time. And the ship making it there. The books usually went overland but the treasures, they went by ship and all too often storms or pirates prevented them from ever making it to their destination.

  He had an answer, something that called to him. And it was lost to him. He didn't know if crying or screaming would be the correct answer.

  All that pain, the answer I seek, and it is useless. Why did I even bother? The Heart of Kali went down and is somewhere on the bottom of the ocean floor.

  The memory of the blasted plains behind the demons streaming through the portal resolved in his mind and the thousands of bodies crushed beneath their hooves as they streamed onto the Earth.

  Fuck them. I'm not going down like that. I will find a way off. No matter what.

  But the desire to get up and deal right at that moment faded. His head still hurt, hell his body hurt. He hefted the bottle of vodka and worked on polishing it off as he watched the sun creep up from the depths of darkness.

  16

  Desert

  Eight Months Later

  Shane looked at the sun spreading burning heat through the desert and then looked around from the shadowed crevice he stood in. There were still objects of power in the world, objects and people that could teach him. He'd learned from some Yogi masters in India. Found a Tibetan monk who showed him a bit of Chi magic.

  His biggest luck had been founding a woman in Russia, or what had once been Russia, who taught him how to enchant. Using demon blood made it easier. But she'd shown him how to use even chicken blood. The patterns did different things. When pushed about how'd she'd learned these, she'd just smile and say, "Baba Yaga taught us." He could never get any more out of her. But the book of patterns and how to create them, painstakingly copied from her book, remained something he prized above most other things.

  Rumors of scrolls from the time of Abraham, scrolls that held the magic the Pharaohs used to help construct the pyramids had drawn him out here. Where maybe he'd find something else of value.

  If he could find one, he could find someone to translate it. Usually, money and beguilement proved to be enough. He had avoided thralling since Rome. It had taken him two days to recover, not counting the hangover. And he still couldn't swear he hadn't had a stroke. It had taken a week before he could use Fae magic again without his nose turning into a blood fountain.

  Either way, rumors of the scrolls had him here, in the middle of the forsaken wilderness, seeking touches of magic. Tired from his hike, he leaned back into the shadows of the rocks. Fae magic excelled at getting him water in the middle of the desert but food, not so much. Another few days and he'd have to head back to what passed for civilization here to get some more supplies, but until then he'd keep looking.

  Some urns in an old cavern was his best bet left. Something from a time when magic was used had to still be left. It had to be. As always, the imagery of what he saw on the other side of the portal drove him as he unfocused on the here and now and sought a tingle of anything not absolutely mundane and boring.

  It had become something easy to do, and he had amassed a small collection of objects, but nothing of any real power. Letting his senses expand, he carefully blocked off life magic. When he had started he'd been amazed at how much life these barren hills contained. Now it formed background chatter he needed to tune out.

  Time slipped away as he searched, making everything into quadrants so he didn't miss anything. About two-thirds of the way through his scan something tingled at the far end of his reach. It didn't feel familiar but it wasn't not magical.

  Shane opened his eyes and looked at his map. If he reached any further it would cause a headache and those he avoided. With a sigh, he packed up his stuff and stepped out of the shadow in the crevice. The heat slammed into him with the power of a fist.

  Stupid desert. Swear it could almost make me believe that life can continue. How can there be so much life here? But the Demons will destroy it all.

  With that in mind, and hat and sunglasses on, he began to walk to the quadrant where he'd felt the magic. The first few days he'd tried to scan and travel at the same time. But after the second snake bite and the third time he'd tripped and almost gone off a cliff, he'd taken to sitting and scanning. No sense in getting himself killed.

  Walking didn't require thought, just his eyes open and his awareness of what went on around him. He'd tried to get ahold of Lewl. There were some questions he wanted to ask her, but Rich's phone had been disconnected and the email address they had provided had bounced. There was another method, but now wasn’t practical to try it. Instead, he kept his eyes open. The few other Fae he'd run into only gave him wary looks, so he kept his question list growing.

  Two hours later he found himself looking up at the foothills of the Zagros mountains. Their dry craggy slopes gave no hint that anyone could live near here but he knew lots of people lived in these mountains - people he'd really rather avoid.

  He found some shade under a scraggly tree and closed his eyes to seek. The strange magic seemed vaguely familiar but he couldn't place it and it seemed sunk deep into the mountain. There might not be a way to get to it, but he had to look. He settled down to eat and draw some water from the ground, using magic to coax it up. When he'd rested and had enough to drink, he rose and started walking again, reviewing information in his head.

  Mountains like these were where they found dead sea scrolls in jars and other antiques in caves that had been lost to time. Too many areas were full of superstitious people, and with the death of Cairo, people were even more skittish.

  Maybe that is good for me. I'll find a nice cavern with some information that will tell me what I need to know, to learn more.

  At the back of his mind, he still hoped he might find a chest of treasures, including the Heart of Kali but his rational mind knew that came from too many years playing video games, and the promise of loot.

  Starting up the climb, he wished he had a staff. It would make getting up the slopes a bit easier.

  The dry ground shifted and rolled under his feet. This area of the country didn't have the rolling sand dunes so popular in pictures. Instead, it had ground that cracked and shifted unexpectedly under his weight.

  Halfway up the slope he paused, exhausted and dehydrated.

&
nbsp; This had better be worth it. Spending way too much energy and water on this.

  He took out his canteen and sipped it slowly, then reapplied lip balm and sunscreen. Heat stroke wasn't to be messed with and no magic he'd found let you ignore the environment.

  As he rested he searched again, his head jerking up as a strong tingle came from further up. It still had that odd flavor he couldn't place. With a spurt of energy he headed back up, angling a bit to the side to where the magic had called at him.

  Twenty minutes later he stood looking at the solid side of the mountain, magic pining him from deep behind it.

  "Stupid geology," he muttered and started working his way sideways, looking for something that implied there might be a way in. He'd used up the demon blood over the weeks out here and plowing through that much earth would both drain him and could cause a collapse destroying what he wanted to find.

  It took a while, and he felt like he'd covered half the mountain, though that would have taken him days, it was not a little hill, when he found the crevice. The sun had started to set by the time he saw the shade behind a scraggly brush.

  Calling it a day. I need to rest and I’d rather go in during the daylight.

  With that he pulled off his pack and set up his simple camp, pulling water from the earth. That proved more difficult on the mountain, than it had been on the valley floor. Nights in the desert were colder than most expected but Shane had no issue with that; this wasn't his first experience in the desert. Setting up a simple ring of earth magic around him, it would alert him if anything bigger than a small bug crossed it. Waking up to scorpions, snakes, or camel spiders could freak out anyone. Those damn spiders were huge.

  He fell into an exhausted slumber, waking twice to convince a desert denizen it really didn't want to curl up with him. The mice he didn't mind so much, the scorpion no way. When the light of the sun hit his face he woke up, ready to find what kept tingling his sense. Breaking down camp took no time and he moved into the crevice. A flashlight lit up the area as he squeezed through.