by Richard Amos
“I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
“The pain in my head says otherwise,” I countered.
“I had to. You would interfere. We don’t need that shit. We need to be free to live our lives.”
“He doesn’t look well,” Dean added gently. “We can help.”
“That’s a lie and you know it. You’d either kill me or lock me up.”
Dean didn’t answer.
“Kyler’s special,” Thomas said. “Real special. His power isn’t like those dicks at Deathwell. He’s not like anyone else. He brought me back into my body, fully resurrected me with his magic. All that violence trigged his power, brought it to life. But I was so badly burned I couldn’t stand the pain I’d woken up with. So I ran, shamefully, and fell into a pod somewhere in the woods. I didn’t want Kyler to see me like that, all charred and blistered, screaming in agony. I was selfish to run.” He shook his shimmery head. “What happened after I fell into the pod was a miracle and a curse. It cured the pain but made me invisible. Sometimes I can be completely gone, but most of the time I shimmer like this.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“At least we could be together. But there was a problem. Somehow, Kyler had locked onto all of my crew, got his magical hooks in deep when they’d cut me down.” He sighed. “But with that weird connection he’d made to them, he’d also landed himself some serious pain. They haunted him, all of them. Not just the memory of what they’d done, but their energy was tied to him—their living spirit. It was like they were a poison he needed to get out. So it was my mission to kill them.” He sighed. “He’s not in control of those charms. He didn’t mean for that stuff to happen. All he wanted was for them to be dead.”
“And you thought killing them would save him.”
“Yeah. He was using again, after getting clean. He had to, so he could block out their voices. You saw him. He almost died that day in my house, but I saved him. Then your boyfriend and cop found the old crew hideout we’d crashed in, and we had to move. This was the only place I knew I could come to, even though…” He stopped.
“What?”
“This was where I lived as a kid until my junkie mum killed herself. Dad left before I was born. She…she never got over it and hung herself while off her face.”
Oh, God. “I’m sorry. This is—”
“I don’t need pity.”
“Okay. I get it.” These poor young men had experienced nothing but darkness in their short lives. All they wanted to do was be together, to live their lives in love.
“I took to the streets then,” Thomas continued, “nothing but a kid, found my way as best I could. Then I met Kyler and knew that love was possible. Even if he was putting that stuff inside him, I loved him, I helped him. We both came from shit, lived on the streets, had a bad start in life. But we’d found each other, and he was getting clean and we were planning a new life in the South of France. Somewhere hot with a pretty beach. We hadn’t decided. But then life fucked me again when Sander lost his mind with that death magic stuff. Now this mess. I have to help him, but I don’t know what to do. Why didn’t it work? They’re all dead, but look at him.”
Fuck. What did I say to that?
I watched his shimmering shoulders slump. “He’s not getting better.”
If I mentioned the necros helping him, he’d probably go off on me.
“He didn’t want any of this magic.” He sighed. “I thought I could save him from it. But he’s getting worse. He’s fading and I don’t know how to stop it.” He stroked the sweaty face of his love. “Wake up, Kyler. Please.”
There was a vulnerability in Thomas’s voice that didn’t fit the violent serial killer he’d been profiled as. He was someone getting his revenge, a vigilante for love. It was amazing he’d told us all of that. Whatever he said, he wanted help. He was so young, only eighteen.
“You won’t like this,” Dean said, “but the neromancers are Kyler’s best hope.”
He was braver than me for saying it.
“No!” Thomas yelled. “I don’t want those bastards near him. I don’t want anyone near him. I told that American guy the same thing. No one puts their hands on Kyler. No one!”
American guy. Oh, bollocks. “Was his name Parker Smith by any chance?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“The fucking prick! He gave us this address.”
“What? How? Did he follow us?”
“I’ve no idea. He likes to play games. You have to let us go, Thomas.”
Dean was working through the binds, loosening them up bit by bit.
“No, I can’t. You’ll ruin everything.”
The purple magic continued in its brightening.
“Look, you opened up to us,” Dean added. “You must know you can trust us deep down. You have to let us go. Parker Smith is dangerous.”
“Kyler?” Thomas said, distracted. “Kyler?”
“Thomas, listen to me,” Dean urged.
But Thomas was too lost in his love.
I watched as Kyler moaned, as his eyes started to open, as the magic grew brighter and brighter.
“You’re awake!” Thomas rejoiced. “Oh, Kyler. I’m so happy you’re awake.”
“Thomas…” Kyler wheezed as he looked up into the shimmering figure, his eyes full of purple magic
Something was seriously wrong.
“How’s it coming?” I whispered.
“Almost there,” Dean replied.
Kyler screamed, his spine bending.
“Kyler!” Thomas cried.
Kyler lifted off the ground, spine continuing to bend until he was in the shape of a half moon. Thomas was trying to pull him back down, to straighten him, but failing, a powerful force lifting his skinny frame higher.
“Thomas!” Dean roared. “Untie us so we can help!”
I couldn’t see how we could, but more hands on deck was better than one pair.
Above Kyler’s chest, the magic crackled, and a black shape started to form.
“What the fuck?” I gasped.
It took the shape of a hexagon, carmine and veined purple, growing until it was the size of a beach ball.
A charm of death.
It released purple lightning that shattered the windows and tore at the ceiling. Then it spun violently, pulsing purple, no more lightning, but churning up a wind that stole my breath.
Kyler screamed again and Thomas screamed his name.
The charm started to grow again, swelling and swelling. It’d take over the fucking living room within minutes!
Shitshitshitshitshitshit!
There! Dean had cracked it! Our arms were free. Together we worked on the other ropes around us as the charm continued to grow at a terrifying rate.
Done. Free with moments to spare.
With no time to untie him, me and Dean grabbed Lars and dragged him into the hall as the walls creaked and the house started to shake. A crack ripped through the wall next to me.
We didn’t stop dragging the copper until we were on the other side of the street.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DEAN
Lars was free from his binds, his jaw on the floor at the show only feet away.
That charm of death had broken through the house, swollen like an overfull water balloon. Brick cracked, glass shattered, and the air up and down the street was disturbed, churned into a roaring frenzy.
It’d attracted the attention of other people, who ran or watched, or tried to do both and ended up tripping over themselves—people who’d been squatting in the rotting houses.
The houses either side of it were starting to take some of the strain as the charm grew and grew, bulging just like their neighbour. I could only hope they were empty.
The rain was getting heavier, soaking me through to the skin. We moved further down the street, crouching behind a car, a tree creaking above in the wind.
“How do we stop him?” Jake said.
It was too dangerous to go back inside, and too dangerous t
o leave whatever was happening to continue much longer. There was powerful necromancy being summoned, which would only lead to bad things.
Throwing an exploder potion wouldn’t work. Too risky with the wind.
There was only one way. “The council.”
“What?” Jake enquired.
“Wands,” Lars said, clearly on the same wavelength as me.
Jake shook his head. “We can’t let them do that. What about the necros? They might have something to stop him. Or even Mila. Right? There’s always a better way than a wand.”
Seeing as the arrival of the pods had stopped all guns working, or so it was believed, wands were the only firearms left in the world.
“I’ve put out a call to the council already,” Lars said.
I was nodding as Jake looked back and forth between us. “He’ll die. They’ll die.” I could see he was desperate to find another way, but there wasn’t one showing itself.
Muddy waters. Thomas had killed, yes, but victims hadn’t deserved anything less. Anyone could see that, but the law wouldn’t. Maybe Thomas and Kyler did deserve to be happy together, but the grim reality was they just seemed to be doomed.
“I’d love to be able to give them hope, Jake, but—”
“Yeah, the world just sees them as screwed, a waste of time.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Poor them, right? Dealt the shitty hand.”
“Yes, they were dealt a bad hand,” I replied. “But that’s not what this is about now. If there was a way to stop whatever Kyler’s doing without hurting him, I’d go for it. But we’re between a million rocks and billion hard places.” I took his hand. “We’ll do what we can.”
The harshness of the real world really stung sometimes.
What were the facts we had? Kyler was connected to the now dead five killers of Thomas. Killing them hadn’t broken that awful hold they’d had over him. Also, he’d resurrected Thomas and had incredible power—as we were seeing.
There was still only the one route out of this.
As I looked over the car, an almighty boom went off. The house exploded in a spray of brick and dust and glass. Instinctively, I leapt onto Jake, covering him with my body. Something heavy hit my back, but not enough to cause damage, only hurt.
“Fuck!” my fiancé cried as debris rained down.
The worst of it missed us, Lars too, from the shield of the car. The officer had a cut to his forehead, and left hand, but he wasn’t badly hurt.
“You good?” I asked him, getting to my feet.
He nodded in response.
I helped Jake up, brushing dust off him as he did the same to me.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No. You?” I could see he wasn’t, but that was never an assumption anyone should ever make in a situation like this.
“Dean…” He was looking the other way.
Remnants of the house, and from the neighbouring buildings that’d taken damage, were scattered down the street in chaotic devastation, some if it near my feet. Bricks had smashed the front and rear windows of the car, dented the roof.
We’d been lucky.
The house had pretty much gone, apart from the lower shell and foundations. Kyler was still floating in the air with his spine bent back, the huge charm spinning above him. Thomas was below him, shimmering and helpless. I could just about hear him.
“Shit!” Lars grunted. “Someone’s hurt.”
There was a man on the ground, facedown.
“Is that a pool of blood?” Jake asked.
Lars took off, running to help. Jake and I followed him across the sea of damage.
The man had taken a hit to the head, a hole in the back of it where he’d been struck. And he was lying in his pooling blood.
“Oh, no,” Jake said. “No.”
This had to stop. One body was one too many.
“Kyler!” I heard Thomas, then, clearer than before.
The wind had taken to forming a cocoon around the pair, spinning in a protective violent shield nothing could penetrate. It didn’t suck anything in, pushing debris away from the shielded lovers.
How tough was it? Could wand get through? I had a feeling it could.
We had a wand, but I couldn’t leave the scene to go get it. It’d take too long to go to the office and back. It was times like these I wished I carried it with me, even if it was a deadly instrument that unnerved me. I really didn’t like using it. Too much power—that’s why they were outlawed.
Wait…
“They had a wand,” I said. “Kyler used one against me.”
Jake frowned, a darkness falling across his features. “Remind me why I don’t want him to die again.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“He could’ve killed you,” he said, as if he’d just remembered Kyler’s attack. “The fucking prick.”
“Jake! Focus!”
He blinked, taking a few seconds to come back from the dark place. “Sorry. Yeah, the wand. What about it?”
“Can you see it anywhere on the ground?”
Sirens in the distance. Police. Ambulance. Fire crew. They’d all come.
He scanned around himself. “Let’s see if we can find it.”
His tune had changed. Shit. I could only hope he wouldn’t snap now he’d had this remembrance. No matter what, I didn’t want him to go crazy with rage.
“I’ll go this way,” he said.
I wanted to tell him to stick by my side, or not to go too far, but that wouldn’t help. We needed to cover as much of the road as quickly as we could.
“Don’t go near the house,” I said.
“Haven’t got a death wish, treacle.”
The image of those dead goblin bodies blinked behind my eyes. All those flies, the screams of Rebus and the others, that awful perfume shieling the stench of decomposition. And I had no clue what it was all about—only that Jake and I were somehow caught in the middle.
That sensation of helplessness would never truly die.
I kicked debris away, hunting for the wand that might not be there. My eyes met with Lars. He was still with the dead guy, making calls.
He mouthed to me that the council were on their way.
I looked over to Thomas and Kyler again as the sirens grew closer. No change. Thomas pleading, the scene the same.
I turned to Jake as he searched for the wand. He was having as much luck as me. It probably wasn’t here.
Purple waves of magic were flung across the sky from the hexagonal charm in all directions, crackling like fireworks. The charm’s spinning had slowed down, now throbbing and releasing its energy. The magical reach was wide, as if it were spreading across the city.
No. Those charms reanimated corpses, turning them violent.
Shit.
The sirens were almost on us.
Purple magic was spiralling up from Kyler, feeding the charm. Thomas was frantically trying to reach him, jumping yet missing each time, inches away from grabbing him.
If only I could get in there.
“Oh my God!”
I spun to see what Jake was shouting about.
On instinct again, I ran, leaping over debris to get to him.
They staggered toward the fence, skeletons and rotting bodies, some more intact than others. Mud caked every inch of them. An army of dead with red eyes, their jaws moving, some silent, some moaning. The ground of the nearest grave burst open, a skeletal hand tearing its way upward.
A dead guy that looked fresher than the others broke into a run and leapt the fence, making a beeline for us.
“Holy shit!” Jake cried and pulled his spear.
The other walking dead sped up too, either jumping the fence or crumpling into a mess of limbs and bones because they were too far gone.
Jake caught the guy on the end of his spear right through the chest as another came at me, followed closely by a woman with half her face missing.
“Shit!�
� Lars cried and fired his taser. The dead guy beside him went to get up and met the sole of the officer’s heavy boot before anything could happen.
I dropkicked the guy who lashed at me with muddy hands, and put my fist right through the woman’s head. A spray of bone and rot and maggots burst from her skull, catching me in the face.
Quick glance at Jake before the next body reached me. He’d sliced through the guy from stomach to shoulder, now taking down two other men with his weapon.
Crunch. Squelch. Those sickening sounds rang in my ears as I fought. A pile up was going on over at the fence, making a convenient ledge for more dead to climb over.
They moved as if they were alive, even if they were half-rotted.
Why did the cemetery have to be so big? There were so many dead and they were so damn relentless!
Three at a time, leaping the fence like athletes, coming straight for me. At the head of the group was a woman with worms hanging from her nose, her hair lifted by the wind into brittle, fair weeds. I leapt back as she clawed at me and lost my footing on a brick. She sprang, rambling some gibberish that was nothing more than death noise, and we tumbled across the debris.
“Fuck!” I yelled and unleashed punches into her.
Something sharp stuck me in the right side. Deep. It was hot there, and I soon felt the blood flowing. The others had landed with her, pulling at my arms and legs. Teeth bit down on my boots as another guy crawled up claw at my face. I kicked the biter off and shoved at the woman as the filthy nails of the crawler guy gouged across my forehead.
“Get the fuck off him!” Jake boomed and her head exploded at the swing of his spear.
Roaring, he booted the crawler in the face, and I heard his spear stick something else. Blood ran down my face, dripping into my eyes. Shit. That man had cut me deep.
Jake was back, panting by my side. “Oh, God! Dean! I’m—”
A skeleton wrapped in rags landed on him, jaws snapping at his face. I swung upward and shattered its jaw, then Jake shoved it off him.
“We have to get out of here!” he said, taking my hand. “Oh, God! That cut!”
I winced, unable to get upright. “Shit. Jake, there’s something stuck in my side.”
“I—”
A heavy figure bundled into him, his spear flying out of his grip.