Death Magic Rules

by Sharon Stevenson

She nodded to herself, looking decidedly smug. “Kit’s got a secret boyfriend. I saw you arrive tonight. Was that him? It was, wasn’t it? You’re seeing one of those magic Users.”

  I just about choked on my drink. I put the mug down and cleared my throat. “No. That was a creep who won’t leave me alone. I’m thinking about calling the police if he doesn’t take the hint.”

  “You’re joking.”

  I shook my head. “He’s got this idea in his head that I’m nasty to him because I like him.”

  She chuckled into her mug.

  I glared at her.

  “Well you have to admit you can be a little bit spiky at times,” she said.

  “Screw you,” I muttered.

  “My point exactly,” she said in a sing-song-tone. “So if it wasn’t the User, who is it?”

  “It’s no-one. I’m not seeing anyone.”

  She just kept smiling knowingly at me, like she knew I was hiding something. If we’d been drinking alcohol, she’d have tried to get me drunk faster than her so she could get me to spill my secrets. I’d learned after about the third time she’d done that. I tended not to drink in her company.

  “You’re the one who has a new boyfriend,” I told her. That haircut wasn’t to impress her mirror.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You cut your hair and you’ve lost weight.” I was just guessing the second thing. She tended to worry more about what she ate when she was dating. Not that she’d ever be caught dead with something so fattening as a slice of chocolate cake. I’d taken a slice of the cake Nick had given me just to make myself feel better that the kids hadn’t eaten something that might not be okay. I knew I was being completely paranoid, which was why I hadn’t ‘accidentally’ tipped the thing onto the floor before Kat decided to serve it up. So far I hadn’t puked my guts up over the table, passed out or died, so I was pretty sure it had been safe.

  “A girl can care about her looks without thinking about a man, can’t she?”

  She was being awfully coy, so I let it drop. She clearly wasn’t sure about the guy yet. She tended not to drop any names until she knew they’d be sticking around for a bit. Sam wouldn’t have met him yet either. It wasn’t serious. She’d spill until I didn’t want to hear another word once she was sure, but right now she wasn’t talking.

  “I’ve been thinking about selling the pub,” I told her, surprising myself as much as I’d apparently surprised her. I’d thought about it, but I hadn’t had the guts to really look into it. I kept putting it off. It wasn’t really my pub to sell, but it kind of was.

  She shook her head, eyes wide. “You can’t do that. That’s Mum and Dad’s pub.”

  “They’re not coming back here. They can’t. I can’t keep running it on my own. It’s too much work. I don’t have a social life.” The pub was my life most of the time. Friends had faded away, one by one, as I got more and more absorbed with it. I couldn’t go out at weekends. I didn’t have much time left for dating. The pub was all I had.

  “So hire staff. Take time off. It’s a good business, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not making any money,” I grumbled. It was a lost cause. I didn’t even know why I was talking to Kat about it. I’d talk to Mum and Dad next month in Madrid. “Did Mum give a hotel name or anything for their trip?”

  “She said she’d tell me next time. They’ll call again next week. You’re really going to see them?”

  “You’re really not?”

  “They left us here on our own,” she said, shrugging. “Why should we go running whenever they call?”

  “They had no choice.”

  “So they say.”

  “Dad would have been arrested.”

  She shrugged again. I didn’t know what else to say. It was an endless argument. We’d never agree on what our parents did. They’d made sure we were okay before they left and they were doing their best to keep in touch. Wasn’t that enough? Did they really owe us more than that? I couldn’t help wondering what the hell Katrina wanted from them.

  “Wouldn’t Sam like to see Spain?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t like heights. He’d be a nightmare on the plane.” She wasn’t going to change her mind, and I didn’t know why I felt the need to keep trying.

  I finished my hot chocolate and got up. “I should go, it’s getting late.”

  Twelve – Mickey

  Pete came back and paced about the flat, cleaning up and loading the washing machine and finding a million and one things to do besides sit down. I was ready for heading home when Kit called me.

  “Hey, Mickey, I just got home. Did you want to come over or just talk on the phone?”

  I glanced at Pete and knew I’d be better off going over there. He’d only perch on my shoulder, listening in to make sure I told the truth and nothing but. My stomach churned. “I’ll come over.” I shook my last can of beer and polished off the dregs as she said she’d see me soon.

  “Who was that?” Pete asked quickly as I hauled myself off the couch.

  “It was Kit, okay? I’m going to see her like you told me to.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Oh. Oh, well good. Great.”

  I handed him my empty as I passed, checking out the window. It didn’t look like the nicest of nights, but at least it had stopped raining outside. I headed out and down the street. The pub was still shut but the lights were on in Kit’s flat. I stopped outside the pub. Did I really want to be doing this? Did she really need to know? The living room curtains twitched. She waved me up. I swallowed. This was it.

  I headed around back. The alley that leads to the flat was a creepy little place I always expected to encounter a junkie squatter in. So far I’d been lucky but I was fairly sure one of these later night visits was going to end in a stabbing one of these days. I rushed up the steps to her door just as she opened it from inside.

  “Hey,” she said as she let me in. “So what’s up?”

  I headed up the stairs to her flat as she locked the door. I didn’t know how to start. I wasn’t drunk enough. I stopped halfway up the stairs. “Got any vodka?”

  “Uh, sure. Just go up. I’ll be there in a sec.” She headed through the doorway to the pub.

  I went into her flat. The TV was on mute in the living room. There was a big box on the coffee table. I flipped the lid and found half of a massive chocolate cake. It was her nephew’s birthday today. I remembered her talking about it. I dropped the lid and headed into the kitchen. We’d need glasses. A mixer was optional but preferred. I opened the fridge and liberated a bottle of Pepsi. All I could find were wine glasses or mugs so I settled for wine glasses.

  Kit came in with a bottle of vodka. She smiled as she put it down. “Big announcement?”

  I laughed. It came out strange, shaky and louder than I meant it to. She didn’t seem to notice as she nodded at the glasses and uncapped the bottle.

  “How bad is it?” She poured a little and glanced at me.

  I motioned for her to keep pouring. The glass was almost half full when I said, “that bad.”

  She raised an eyebrow and passed me the glass. “Fill your boots.”

  I added cola almost to the brim and took a drink while she fixed her own.

  “I don’t blame you. It’s been a long day,” she commented. “A long few days really. All that business with Pete and that bitch in Vegas.”

  I nodded.

  She sighed and took a sip of her smaller measure. “My head feels like it could burst.”

  I felt pretty great aside from the butterflies that were getting ready to tear a hole in my stomach if I didn’t tell Kit what I needed to soon. “Pete likes you,” I blurted, not sure I’d actually said it out loud until I caught the sour look on her face.

  “If that’s what you came around to tell me, I already know and I’m not interested.”

  “Is it because he was a prick? Because he’s always a prick. He can’t seem to help it.”

  “Did he put you up to this? O
f course, he did. What am I saying?”

  “He didn’t,” I said quickly. I had to think of something before I messed this up for Pete. “He just told me I had to come around here and confess to you because it wasn’t fair to string you along.” I can’t even believe I just said that.

  She’d paled. “No. Don’t say it. You can’t. I don’t feel the same way.”

  “I’m in love with another guy.”

  “Oh, thank god,” she said, hand going over her heart. “So am I.”

  “So you’re not… Wait. What did you say?”

  “I don’t love you, Mickey. Maybe I did once, but not anymore.”

  I felt slightly muddled as I put the glass down. “Not that, the other thing. You’re in love with some guy? Who?”

  She sighed dreamily as she stared through the wall. This wasn’t Kit, it couldn’t be. She never went all gooey over any guy. “Nick.”

  “Okay, I think you might be having a stroke because there’s no way you would ever like that creepo.”

  “He’s soooo sexy,” she whispered, shivering as she took a drink.

  “This isn’t right,” I told her. I didn’t know what was wrong but something was definitely wrong. I’d seen the way she reacted to Pete’s weird-ass neighbour before. He was just some creepy User arsehole… Wait. Was I missing something? I thought about it. He’d saved her from Britt; Pete had filled me in on the finer details earlier while he obsessively cleaned his flat. Had Kit actually fallen for that freak because he’d saved her? She did come pretty close to being killed.

  “What’s not right about it? Am I not allowed to have feelings for a guy who isn’t you?”

  I sighed. “That’s not it. You just didn’t seem to like him before. At all.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Okay.”

  She smiled at me. “So tell me about your guy.”

  “Well, you’ve kind of met him…”

  Thirteen – Tim

  The castle was always cold. It was most noticeable whenever I teleported in from a place that had a more reasonable temperature. The air-con in Britt’s penthouse hadn’t quite been up high enough to turn my fingers blue. My room was freezing in comparison. I switched on the wall-mounted electric heaters and wondered how long it would take him to call for me. My alarm clock showed the time as a quarter to eight. I breathed a small sigh of relief. I couldn’t be accused of staying out all night when I was supposed to be working. I might have even managed to get back in time to go unnoticed.

  I relaxed. It had been a hell of a long day. Sitting down on the edge of the bed I took off my jacket. The mess from the night Mickey came over was still on the ground so I teleported it outside. The broken glass and sticky tequila didn’t belong on my floor. I never should have let Mickey break that bottle, but I’d thought it might make him feel better. Maybe it had. It was always kind of hard to tell.

  The buzzer by the door flashed before it went off. I got up, pulling myself together. I was being sent for after all. The Animate on the other side of the door would no doubt be under strict orders to drag me kicking and screaming to the King’s quarters for a questioning. Did he know about Nick already? Of course, he did.

  I opened the door. The Animate before me was one I recognised instantly. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain he lurked with another, the two dragging the messed up corpse of my father back to the castle to be healed. I folded my arms. “What the hell do you want?”

  He took a breath. “I was talking to the guys on last night’s shift. I need to know. Is Peter MacDonald an Animate? Is he working here?”

  Okay, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting. “Why do you care?” Was this some kind of trick? Had the King sent him down to ask stupid questions as a wind up? It wasn’t really his style. I still didn’t like it.

  “He was… like a son to me. I just had to know.”

  “Yes, he’s an Animate. No, he’s not working here.” I couldn’t say anything more. I was still suspicious. None of them usually dared speak to me. It wasn’t a direct order that they not harass the King’s recruiter, but it was pretty much implied.

  He sighed wearily. “Oh no. Poor Jackie.”

  “If that’s all, I’m kind of busy.”

  “The King sent me to get you. I just had to ask when I got the chance. Thank you, for telling me.”

  I just nodded and came out of the room. “Where is he?”

  “In the science lab.”

  Unusual. I followed the Animate down the corridor. If this guy was telling the truth, Pete had seen his mother’s boyfriend drag my father away that night. He had puked all over the table. I supposed that reaction made a bit more sense now. “Did he say why he wanted to see me?”

  “He never does.”

  It was odd to be having a conversation with one of them. He seemed a lot less imposing as we chatted. I supposed that was probably why the King usually preferred that they not talk. It was all the better to keep people afraid. It would be quicker for me to teleport to the King’s lab, but he didn’t like it when I did that either. He preferred me to stay with my Animate escort. He punished me the last time I teleported to his quarters instead of following his Guards. I suppose ‘preferred’ isn’t really a strong enough word. Demanded was probably more fitting.

  I sighed as we trudged down endless corridors. The damp smells and sounds of scurrying rodents weren’t very pleasant. Half the time I felt like I was outside in a dingy part of town, walking around these old corridors. Finally, we came upon the door to the lab. The Animate left once I went inside. It was only his job to get me there. If the King wanted me to stay he could make me. I closed the lab door, wondering why it was so dark.

  “I’m here,” I called out, sensing him in the room but unable to pinpoint his exact location.

  The main room was empty; the testing area had often been used by the Royal healers to fix up battle-worn Animates. The war was over and had been for decades. The healers had gone into semi-retirement, called upon only when needed. The King was deeper into the mess of adjoining rooms. I tracked him down as quickly as I dared, heading through the various disturbing experiments-in-progress and trying not to get too close to any of the damn things. The King was in the final room. The blue-white glow of the regeneration chambers made me squint as I came into the room. He turned around, smiling. “Ah, Tim, there you are. So glad you’re back. Where have you been?”

  “I was looking into purchasing Britton Rock’s Animates from her,” I lied, realising the brilliance of what I’d just said only moments after I’d said it. It was another problem solved if he went for it.

  “Oh, really? How is that?”

  “She can’t be bothered with them. They’re going to be awkward to move around when her gig at the MGM comes to an end.” I’d read that stint was finishing up next month so it was plausible enough, I thought.

  “And why wouldn’t she come straight to me, hmm?”

  “She knows how busy you are, and she enjoys teasing me.”

  He nodded and put down the blood-dripping electrical drill he had in his hand. I didn’t bother to ask why he’d been holding it. The matching blood stains on his overalls seemed self-explanatory.

  “How many are there?”

  “Eighty,” I said. “She could sell them all if you wanted them.”

  “Tell her I’ll give her a grand a piece for their contracts. Nothing more.”

  A deal the real Britt would have laughed at. Luckily, Nine wasn’t the real Britt.

  “You called me?”

  “Ah yes. I need someone to hold the clones down while I check something.”

  “Clones?”

  King David motioned to the chambers. “I’ve been told they’re ready to go.”

  “Oh.” That’s what those were. “Uh, what are you checking for?”

  He led me over to a steel operating table. A man with features vaguely resembling the King’s lay there, deathly-still, blood pooling around his head. King David pushed his head
to the side and pointed out the hole he’d drilled.

  “Some of them were tainted. I need to find out which ones. I drill a small hole and if their brains melt out of it I know they’ve gone bad. If nothing happens, it heals back up and I’ve got a functioning clone. See?” He pointed to the thin trail of grey-ish goo that was slowly sliding out of the clone’s head. His eyes were clouded over.

  “He’s dead.”

  The King nodded. “Of course he’s dead. You can’t stay alive once your brain melts.”

  He’s lost it. I don’t know what caused this, but he has totally and utterly lost his mind. I opened my mouth, but words refused to form.

  He watched me patiently. “Well?”

  “Eh…”

  “Come on, I want to get these chambers open.” He pushed the body off the table and went to the closest chamber, punching the entry code into the control panel. I watched him, wondering what to do. My first instinct was to go along with what he was asking, even if the whole thing creeped me out beyond belief. I moved forward when he turned back to me.

  The chamber whooshed open. The clone’s eyes opened groggily as if they had been stuck shut. Again, he bore a resemblance to the King that was nowhere near close enough to pass for him. We manhandled him out of the chamber as he sucked in air. He flopped onto the table when we lifted him, the slime from the chamber coating his skin and making him slippery. I wiped my hands on my trousers and glanced down at the clone as the King picked his bloodied drill back up. “Move him onto his front,” the King said, powering up the drill.

  The clone emitted a whine as I moved him. He seemed conscious but somehow simple-minded. Having no idea how the cloning process worked, I couldn’t figure out if this was normal. I stepped back as the King held him down and drilled a hole in the base of his skull. “There we go,” he said, grinning as he stepped back.

  The clone was whining pitifully, like a wounded animal. The sound cut right through me. I fought back a shiver. It didn’t do to show any sign of weakness in front of the highest level User in the land. King David poked at the hole he’d just drilled, the sucking sound making me queasy. “Ah hah! We’ve got a good one. He’ll heal.” He looked around. “Use one of the other tables for the next one. We’ll stop when we’ve found four.”