Necessary Evil

by Donald Hanley

“Um, you’re welcome.” My breath let out in a sigh as she slid off the bed and then caught in my throat when she slipped under the covers and snuggled up against me. “What are you doing?” I squeaked.

  “I’m cold.” She was lying. The bare leg pressing against mine was as warm as it was smooth. She wiggled around until she had her head resting on my chest and her hand on my stomach, scant inches from discovering the effect all this was having on me. “This is nice,” she murmured. “I could fall asleep right here.”

  “Um, yes.” The odds of me falling asleep were pretty much nil at this point. I didn’t dare move, lest something of mine brushed against something of hers. I was all too aware of the feminine softness of her pressing against me right about kidney-level.

  “So about that list,” she said.

  “What list?”

  “The one you sent Justin.”

  “He sent it to me!”

  She tapped her palm on my stomach to get me to stop telling such outrageous lies. “We’re not going to be able to do them in order. I hope that’s all right.”

  “We don’t have to do them at all!”

  “So for number nine, how big does it need to be?”

  “Number nine?” I’d barely glanced at the list once I realized the sorts of things it included. Melissa apparently had it memorized.

  “Yes. Did you mean just a little one, like on my shoulder,” she used her fingertip to draw a circle around my navel, “or one of those fancy illustrations that covers my whole back? It has to be something that Mr. Franklin can’t see when I’m at work,” she warned.

  “You mean a tattoo?”

  I practically heard her roll her eyes. “Of course I mean a tattoo, Peter.”

  “Why do you want a tattoo?”

  “I think the real question is, why do you want me to have a tattoo? I get to pick the design, right?”

  “I don’t want you to get a tattoo!”

  “Then why is it on your list?”

  “It’s not my list!”

  “Peter,” she said firmly, propping herself up on her elbow, “I’m not going to do any more of these things for you if you can’t be serious about it. This isn’t a game.” She rolled onto her back, pinning my arm under her shoulders. “I was thinking I’d get a triple moon to honor the Goddess, or maybe a full pentagram with all the colors – you know, gold, green, blue, white, and red. About this big so it’s not too obvious.” She circled her thumbs and forefingers to illustrate.

  “Aren’t you too young to get a tattoo?” I asked hopefully.

  “You have to be eighteen and I’m officially eighteen and three days.” She glanced at the alarm clock. “Four days. You could get one too,” she said thoughtfully. “Something epic, like a dragon or a flaming sword. What do you think?”

  “I think my parents would kill me if I came home with a tattoo.”

  “They wouldn’t have to know. You could put it here.” She scooted down and touched her lips to the point of my shoulder, “or here,” she pushed the covers aside and kissed me over my heart, “or –” She moved lower and then stopped, lifting her head. “Did you hear something?”

  All I heard was the thumpity-thump of my heart. I had to swallow before I could respond. “Like what?”

  “Like a splash.” She abandoned me and slipped out of bed, hurrying over to pull the curtains aside. Moonlight blasted my retinas until I blinked them back into working order. “There’s something in the pool!”

  “What is it?” I got out to join her, taking a furtive moment to move Little Peter to a less prominent position under my shorts before peering over her shoulder.

  The Olympic-sized pool was right below us, taking up a good portion of the back yard. The underwater lights were on, giving it an unearthly glow, and a slender shadow glided towards the shallow end, trailing a long flaxen tail like a comet. “I think that’s Susie.”

  “Susie? What’s she doing in my pool?”

  “Swimming?” I suggested.

  “Why isn’t she asleep?” she complained. “Everyone’s supposed to be asleep!” She made it sound like all her plans were ruined now, although I couldn’t see what difference it made. Susie reached the end of the pool and stood up, using both hands to sweep her hair back from her face. She looked like the world’s least buxom mermaid from up here. “Oh my God, is she naked?”

  “Probably,” I admitted ruefully. “I’m surprised she held out this long, frankly.”

  “Peter! I –” Her voice cut off as she suddenly stepped back and bumped into me. “There’s something out there,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, it’s Susie,” I frowned.

  “No, something else!” The moonlight flickered and faded and she gasped as she pointed up. “What’s that?”

  At first I thought it was just an odd-shaped cloud shrouding the moon, but the sky was otherwise perfectly clear. Whatever it was swept past, all but invisible against the night, and then it swooped back again, lower this time. In the pool below, Susie looked up and then scrambled out of the water.

  “Susie!” She couldn’t hear me through the window. She planted her feet on the patio, her right hand raised as the thing suddenly plummeted to the ground, landing on the grass not ten yards from her. I could barely see it against the shadows cast by the trees surrounding the property. “Stay here!” I ordered, pushing Melissa behind me as I brought up my spells and searched for the one I needed. I concentrated on a spot just to Susie’s left and tapped Teleportal.

  A dizzying moment later, I was standing beside Susie facing the creature. It seemed to be formed out of shadow itself, with no clear outline or features, but it was at least a foot taller than me. It rippled strangely, like a sheaf of thin black tissue paper in a stiff breeze, even though the air was absolutely still.

  “Get back in the house!” I told Susie. She ignored me, of course. I raised my right hand but my targeting reticle couldn’t seem to latch on to anything, as if the demon – this thing had to be Lilixandriel’s next champion – wasn’t actually there.

  I always assumed that Susie needed her wand to cast spells but she proved me wrong. “Fiat lux,” she said, and her hand blazed with a painfully bright golden glow, lighting up the patio like it was noon. The demon retreated a short distance but Susie’s magical handful of sun didn’t seem to affect it at all.

  The patio door banged behind us but I didn’t need to look away to figure out who it was. “Peter Simon Collins!” Daraxandriel called anxiously. “Be wary! That is Sadraximbril Shadowmaster.”

  “What can he do?” I called over my shoulder. At the moment, he seemed perfectly content to just stand there, which was fine by me.

  “She,” Daraxandriel corrected me. She stood on Susie’s other side, clad in her Dallas Cowboys jersey. “Ware her shadows, they can blind and smother and cut thee.”

  “Great,” I muttered as I tried to get my reticle to lock on. “Get out of here, Susie!” I got a rude noise for my trouble.

  “Daraxandriel.” Sadraximbril’s voice was like a thousand people in a concert hall all whispering the same thing at once. “Thy clutch-mate sends thee her fondest greetings.” Daraxandriel spat something that sounded like an Elizabethan curse. It didn’t faze the demon at all. “Witchling,” it went on, “stand aside. Lilixandriel bids thee no ill-will and would not see thee suffer thy sibling’s fate.”

  “Nope.” Susie snapped her fingers and her golden light shattered, sending a hail of flaming darts right at Sadraximbril. Every one of them struck and every one of them was immediately snuffed out. “Darn it,” she grumbled.

  The door banged again. “Peter, don’t just stand there, do something!” The slap of bare feet on the pebbled concrete heralded Melissa’s arrival on my left, wand in hand.

  “I’m trying! I can’t target her!”

  “Use Fireforge! It’s an AoE!”

  “Where is it?” I scanned my spells frantically but Fireforge was a new addition and I couldn’t remember what the icon looked like.

&
nbsp; “Second set, third spell!”

  I found it and pointed the crosshairs at Sadraximbril’s feet, spreading my fingers until it encircled her. I tapped Fireforge and the grass within the circle immediately burst into flame as the ground turned into molten stone. Sadraximbril studied the effect for a moment and then drifted up, hovering a foot above the furnace I just lit under her.

  “Thy skills are feeble, Stonebearer,” she whispered. “This is a waste of my power.” My hope that she was about to give up and leave were dashed a moment later, when she split into a hundred copies of herself and spread out left and right like the world’s scariest paper cutout doll.

  “Dara!” I called urgently. “How do we kill her – it – that?”

  “I know not,” Daraxandriel confessed regretfully. “None have challenged her and lived. Ware, she comes!”

  The shadow copies started to encircle us, bobbing just a few inches above the ground like they were filled with helium. They all had the same general shape, just a vague suggestion of a humanoid form, but they were two-dimensional, thinner than paper. When they turned sideways, they were almost impossible to see.

  The four of us stood back-to-back-to-back-to-back, trying to keep all of the shadows in sight as they surrounded us. “Anyone know any good shadow-dispelling spells?” I asked uneasily.

  “Fuge!” Susie’s favorite imp-destroying spell had no effect.

  “Um.” Melissa sounded scared to death as she pointed her wand at the nearest shadow with a shaky hand. “I don’t know any fighting spells.”

  Whatever Amy did to her apparently hadn’t done any good. I wondered if she’d stop time again if we got into trouble but I didn’t dare wait to find out. I couldn’t target any of the shadows directly but I could aim at things behind them. I highlighted a section of the lawn and tapped Flame Lance.

  A bolt of red-gold fire shot out from my hand and shredded the shadow it blasted through before igniting the grass. My victory was short-lived, though, as the fragments reformed without any apparent damage. “God damn it,” I muttered.

  Fire didn’t do any good but maybe ice would. Frost Lance shattered another shadow. It reformed as well but it seemed to take longer to reassemble itself. Is she getting weaker, I wondered, or does the cold slow her down? I flipped to my second set and hit Blizzard.

  A frozen whirlwind swept around us, instantly dropping the temperature at least fifty degrees and filling the air with sharp-edged ice crystals. The shadows retreated out of range, moving a lot faster than I thought they could, their edges torn and ragged where the ice ripped at them. A thin layer of ice covered the patio and us, which was a problem since none of us was dressed for an Arctic excursion. Susie’s wet hair crackled when she turned to glare at me and Melissa’s teeth chattered. My goosebumps had goosebumps.

  “Y-y-y-you’re b-b-barely affecting it,” Melissa said, rubbing her shivering arms. “It’s like it’s n-n-not really th-there.”

  “This would be a good time for a sorcerer to show up,” I said, hoping that might trigger something in her. “Wither or Soul Drain might hurt her.”

  “Or m-m-maybe flying unicorns will c-c-carry us out of here,” she snapped. “What else do you h-have?” We didn’t have much time. The air was already starting to warm up again and the ice was melting underfoot.

  Earth Bind didn’t do anything that I could see and I still couldn’t target Sadraximbril to try Immobilize or Hinder. The shadows began to move in again and Melissa pressed up against me. Susie, on the other hand, stepped forward and held her hands out to her sides, palms out.

  “Catena fulgur,” she stated and electricity snapped and crackled around her fingertips as her sodden hair tried to rise. I leaned away from her, alarmed, as she clapped her palms together.

  A ragged streak of lightning shot out, striking the nearest shadow, and then continued on to the next and the next, one after the other in quick succession. The shadows twitched and writhed when they were hit, briefly lighting up with an actinic aura, but they recovered immediately and they looked angry, even though they had no faces that I could discern.

  The lightning sputtered out before it got halfway around the circle and the shadows began to close in around us quickly. Several rose up into the air like misshapen kites, as if they planned to come at us from above.

  “Thy death shall be unpleasant,” they whispered in unison. “Few dare to assail me. None survive.”

  I hit Susie with Iron Hide as they rushed us and then I spun around to do the same to Melissa, but it was too late. A shadow sped in straight for her, slashing at her with its razor-thin edge, and then, literally in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

  “Melissa!” I tried to grab the shadow as it sped by but it just slithered through my fingers and left a stinging welt across my palm like a paper cut. Daraxandriel leapt at it like a ruddy-skinned panther and managed to snag it, hauling it to the ground and wrestling with it, nearly tumbling both of them into the pool. Then I saw Melissa standing not twenty feet away, looking down at herself in shock. “Melissa!”

  She looked at me wide-eyed. “I just did Shadow Step,” she breathed. “How?”

  “Don’t worry about it! Just – duck!” Another shadow flitted at her and she spun around and jabbed at it with her wand. It disintegrated like a sheet of paper tossed into a furnace and I thought I heard a far-away shriek. “What did you do?”

  “Wither,” she whispered disbelievingly. “I’m a sorceress.”

  “Great! Help Dara!” I turned to do the same for Susie but she seemed to be in no danger at all. Iron Hide made her invulnerable to edged and piercing weapons but the shadows didn’t even seem to be trying to touch her. They whirled around her like a cyclone of paper crows and Susie just watched them, looking annoyed.

  Something stung my arm and I spun around, batting away the shadow trying to wrap itself around my head. An angry red line down the length of my arm oozed tiny droplets of blood, as if someone had just slashed me with a razor. It hurt like hell and I hoped whatever did it wasn’t poisonous.

  The blood seemed to attract the shadows and they swarmed around me, cutting at me with their edges. I tried to cast Arcane Shield on myself but I needed my hands to protect my face from their relentless attacks.

  “Die, Stonebearer,” Sadraximbril seemed to whisper in my ear. “Thy soulstone and the Burning Throne shall be mine.”

  “Don’t move, Peter!” Melissa shouted from somewhere behind me. I tried to hold still but a searing pain across my back staggered me and suddenly all the colors in the world leached away, leaving behind only a washed-out gray blur.

  I collapsed to my hands and knees, feeling my heart stutter as my life drained away. Someone shouted in the distance but I couldn’t make out the words over the shrieking of rage and agony in my ears. I wondered if that was my voice as I slumped onto the hard pavement.

  An eternity later, somebody rolled me over onto my back and I had a vague sensation of someone patting my cheek. Pain stabbed through me as my cuts protested this treatment but I didn’t have the strength to react.

  “What do we do?” I knew that voice. Maria. Marianna. Marlena. Melanie. Melinda. Melissa. She sounded anguished.

  “Place the Philosopher’s Stone over his heart.” Dena. Darla. Dara. She sounded anxious. I felt something smooth and hard and warm press against my chest.

  “What did you do to him?” Susie. She sounded curious.

  “I tried to hit them with Soul Drain but he got in the way. I couldn’t stop it. Why isn’t anything happening?”

  “Fret not, Melissa, the Stone will – oh!”

  The soothing warmth on my chest spread out, suffusing me from the top of my head all the way down to my toes. My cuts stopped aching and I took in a long, deep breath, letting it out slowly.

  “Peter?” My eyes eased open and I found Melissa leaning over me worriedly. “Oh my God, Peter! You’re alive!”

  “Shouldn’t I be?” I tried to sit up but she held me in place.

&nb
sp; “Stay still!” she insisted. “You’re hurt!”

  “I’m fine. What happened?”

  “I almost killed you!”

  “Why?”

  The misery in Melissa’s face morphed into irritation. “What do you mean, why? I didn’t do it on purpose. You got in the way!”

  “Oh, sorry.” My brain cells still weren’t all firing in synch but I knew there was something important I needed to know. I tried to look around but I couldn’t see much from my prone position, just the night sky overhead. Night. Dark. Shadow. Shadowmaster. I tried to sit up again and this time they let me. “Where’s Sadra-whatsit?”

  “Gone,” Daraxandriel told me somberly.

  “Gone as in left or gone as in dead?” It was an important distinction, especially when she hesitated. “It’s not that hard a question,” I said worriedly.

  “I do not know the answer, Peter Simon Collins,” she admitted. “Sadraximbril fled after Melissa decimated her shades but I cannot say whether she can survive their loss. She is gravely wounded, of this I am certain. She shall not trouble us again soon.”

  “You did it?” I asked Melissa doubtfully.

  She sat back on her heels, looking affronted. “Is that so hard to imagine?” she asked tartly. “You’re not the only one with powers now.”

  “It’s not fair,” Susie grumbled. “Now I’m going to have to play that stupid game of yours just so I can keep up with you two.”

  “You’re welcome to try.” I really wanted to tell them the truth but Amy still had control of my tongue. “But Dara plays and she doesn’t have any magic, does she? Well, other than the whole succubus thing.”

  I got to my feet and sucked in my breath as I finally got a good look at everyone else. Melissa and Daraxandriel were both marked with countless cuts, oozing red and black blood, respectively, and their clothes were slashed to ribbons. The three of us looked like we’d been wrestling in a briar patch. “Oh my God, you’re hurt!”

  Melissa looked down at herself as if she hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out. “You’re worse off,” she argued.

  “I’m already healed.” I rubbed at a streak of blood on my arm, revealing the unmarked skin underneath. “Hold on.”