Death Magic Rules

by Sharon Stevenson

  He snorted. “As if I couldn’t get out of that shithole.”

  His arrogance was going to be his undoing. I just hoped he didn’t take me down with him when he fell. I had no control over this. Why wasn’t I killing him again?

  Nine stood up and waltzed over to the bar. She bent down and opened a cupboard. When she stood back up straight she had a rolled contract in her hand. She smiled sweetly. “Calvin Whyte.” She passed the contract to Nick, shaking her head when he snatched it from her and instantly ripped it up. “Some people have no manners.”

  I smiled wryly when she glanced at me. She was right. Nick was oblivious as magic flowed from him. He teleported his Animate into the room; the shirtless guy didn’t look very dead right now. The glamour showed off a tanned complexion and light brown hair that fell to his shoulders. His expression was strange, overall downbeat but with unmistakable lust in his dark eyes. His arms were outstretched as if he’d been holding someone.

  He straightened himself up quickly and bowed before Nine. “My mistress, how can I be of service to you?”

  “You can go with your new master,” Nine said, motioning to Nick.

  The Animate glanced slowly towards Nick, horror entering his expression. “Have I done something to displease you, my mistress?”

  Nine sighed and went back to the bar. She started pouring herself a drink. “Do as you’re told.”

  He kept his mouth shut, but his expression never altered. Nick frowned at him and materialised a t-shirt he proffered quickly towards the half-naked guy. “Put this on. It’s not warm where we’re going. You look like a dick-head.”

  The Animate took the t-shirt and put it on slowly. His lips started to move, but I didn’t get to hear whatever he was about to say. Nick teleported them out without another word.

  Nine looked at me. “Well, we found the contracts,” she told me. “Time for a drink?”

  I supposed I should stick around in case he made a surprise re-appearance. It wasn’t such a bad idea. Nine touched the vodka bottle, and I nodded. She smiled as she poured for me.

  Twenty-Two – Pete

  Kerry smelled nice—kind of summery, like fresh flowers. She’d pulled me into a kiss while the trailers were running and I’d barely seen any of the stupid, loud movie. She’d even let me feel her up a bit. Things were going well enough for the dumb-ass side of my brain to start making plans to take her home. It wasn’t like I could do anything with her even if I did get her to say yes to that. I sighed as we got up, noticing Mickey’s empty seat and feeling marginally guilty.

  “I don’t really want to go home,” she whispered in my ear.

  Too bad, I thought. I just smiled at her. She wouldn’t get why it couldn’t happen, and I wasn’t about to have the whole ‘actually I’m dead’ conversation with a complete stranger. No matter how good a kisser she was.

  My thoughts slid to Kit. That was never happening. I had to forget it. She deserved better.

  I’d gone back a step with Kerry. This was the kind of thing that had gotten me in this undead mess in the first place. She might seem sweet and innocent with low self-esteem, and the chances were she probably wasn’t hiding homicidal desires, but it would be my own stupid fault if it turned out she was just like Angie.

  “I’ve got to go to work,” I told her, hoping it didn’t sound like the brush off it was.

  “Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed but not angry. She probably wasn’t about to try and push me in front of a bus or something then.

  We walked out the theatre and into the lobby. I wondered again where the hell Mickey had gotten to. I was keeping an eye out, but I’d started to wonder if he’d gone home. Crime scene tape sealed off the men’s bathroom. I stopped walking, seeing the cop talking to the usher just outside the door and going slack.

  Where the hell had Mickey gone? Why hadn’t he come back? I dropped Kerry’s hand and rushed forward. The cop glanced up when he saw me coming. “What happened?”

  “Sir, this is a police matter. I’d ask that you…”

  “My cousin went to the toilets and never came back. I need to know what’s happened.”

  His disinterested expression changed. “Your cousin never came back? How long ago was that?”

  “About I don’t know forty-minutes? Maybe.”

  He frowned at me. “He was missing that long and you never thought to look for him?”

  “I was with a girl.” I motioned back to where Kerry was. “What happened? Is he okay?”

  “What does he look like?”

  Damn it! Something bad happened, and he was wasting my time asking me stupid questions. “About my height with darker skin and shorter hair and a vampire bite on his neck.”

  The cop raised an eyebrow at the last part. “Doesn’t fit the victim description.”

  Thank Christ for that then. Still, it begged the question: where the hell did Mickey get to?

  “That sounds like the guy who found the body,” the usher said, nodding his head back towards the ticket booth. “He passed out. Got him in the back office.”

  Well, I supposed it was better than him puking everywhere. “Where’s the office?”

  Kerry’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Can we go yet?”

  “You should go,” I told her. “I need to look after my cousin.”

  She muttered something in my ear that was insanely difficult to decipher. I frowned at her. A red glow whisper-faint coated her eyes. What the hell?

  “Hey, stop that,” I told her, pushing her off. I didn’t know what it was but I didn’t like it, not one bit. She was using magic somehow. She wasn’t a User but she was using magic. I glanced at her hands. They were normal. She wasn’t a Healer then either, I didn’t think. What the hell was she?

  I looked down and cursed under my breath. My skin was blue again. She’d removed my glamour. She stared at me with those odd eyes. Not a User, not a Healer. Was there some other kind of person who could use magic?

  “Hey,” the usher called out. “No Animates allowed.”

  Craptastic. I frowned back at him. “What about Users?”

  “Hells no,” he said, shaking his head as he approached.

  “She’s a User.”

  He took something out of his pocket that looked like a calculator but with tiny light-bulbs on it. He directed it at her and shook his head. “Not a User. She can stay. You have to go.”

  “But my cousin…”

  “He’s okay. You can wait outside. I’ll let him know where you are.”

  “But she could…”

  He gave me a shove. “I’m legally entitled to set you on fire, man. Get moving.”

  I grumbled as I headed out. Kerry smiled at me, eyes still sporting that eerie red glow. She might not be a User, but she was something and I was damn well going to figure out what. I paced in front of the building when I got out there. My gaze stayed on the lobby. The glass doors made it easy to keep an eye on things from outside.

  Kerry was headed towards the cop. Somehow, I didn’t think this was going to end well. She was smiling sweetly and nodding her head meekly, but I could still see the glow of magic in her eyes. What the hell was she? She had something to do with whatever had happened in that bathroom. I should have guessed it.

  “Come on, come on,” I kept muttering for Mickey to hurry the hell up. I wanted out of here before she did something else. If she hurt Mickey, I would…

  “She’s a freaking ghost,” I realised, knowing the only other entity that could use magic was a dead human in spirit form. While technically Animates ran on magic, it wasn’t something they could use. We were tools for Users, and little more than that. This was something else—possession. That bitch had entered a host body and was using it for her own weird purposes.

  She smiled at me as the cop pushed open the bathroom door and bent to get under the tape. She followed him into the room. A queasy feeling made me shake. I needed Mickey to hurry up. Whatever that bitch was up to it wasn’t anything good. I didn’t want
my cousin stuck in there with her. I motioned to the usher until he came to the door. He pushed it open and leaned out with a weary sigh. “What? I can’t give you a refund since you already saw the movie…”

  “The girl, she’s not human.”

  He frowned at me. “She’s not a User.”

  “She’s a ghost possessing a human. She just went into the men’s bogs with that policeman too, so you’d better believe you’re going to have another dead body on your hands if you don’t let me back in.”

  He rolled his eyes and sighed again. “What exactly do you think you can do about it?”

  “I’m an Animate. I can command ghosts.”

  He stepped back, letting me in. “I’d better not regret this.”

  Hah, I could say the same thing. I shot him a wry smile before I darted towards the men’s room.

  “You’ve got five minutes, man,” the usher yelled.

  The lights were out in the toilets. The dark lobby didn’t shed any light into the room when I pushed the door open. I slipped under the crime scene tape, baulking at the thought of a dead body still being in the room. It was pretty funny, considering my current state. I let the door creak shut behind me.

  “Kerry?” My voice echoed through the room. If I recalled correctly the first section was two banks of sinks along the walls with a wide space between. There were stairs up to another section of urinals and lockable stalls. There was plenty of space to hide in.

  I went over what I knew from reading the manual. “You have to obey my commands,” I warned her. “Come out and make it easy on yourself.”

  I took a few cautious steps into the room. Not much could happen to a guy who was already dead. Even if she took my head off I could be put back together again by Nick. Not that I fancied having a severed head, even if it wasn’t permanent. Another step forward and I bumped into something solid yet squishy. Dead guy detected. I prodded at him. He swung a little. He was clearly hanging from the ceiling. Nice.

  I stepped around him. “Kerry, come out here.” I focused on picturing her and making her come to me. I wasn’t sure it would work without her full name. She might not have even given me her real name. Damn it. How the hell was I supposed to banish her if she wouldn’t come when I called on her? Was I wrong about what she was? Shit.

  Heading further into the room, I felt out the stairs and headed up them. The red glow of her eyes lit up the darkness a few feet in front of me. My skin crawled. She wasn’t even blinking. I suddenly didn’t want to be in here.

  “I banish you,” I told her, folding my arms and standing my ground.

  Wet sucking noises came from the darkness in front of me. I really didn’t want to know what she was doing to that cop.

  “Kerry’s the name of the girl you’re using,” I started thinking out loud. “Kerry, if you can hear me you have to tell the ghost to get out. It’s your body, not hers. She can’t force you to host her regardless of what she’s told you.” Getting the ghost out of the host body would hopefully make her easier to banish. If nothing else, she’d stop being able to use this girl to kill. “Listen to me, Kerry. She can’t make you do this. She can’t make you kill him. You can tell her to get to fuck…” My voice cut off as something hit me in the neck. Whatever it was, it was slimy and fell to the tiled floor with a wet slap. Yuck. Okay, I’m guessing Mr Policeman is missing a part, and given that he’s not screaming in agony I’m guessing it was probably a fatally important one.

  I moved forward, utilising the super-speed Nick’s magic gifted me. She hissed at me as I reached out, wrapping my hands around her neck. Her hands grappled with mine, scratching and pulling. I barely felt it. Whatever she’d done to the cop, she hadn’t used her hands. She gasped to breathe, strangled words that made no sense coming out. Up close, her face was a mess. The glow from her eyes lit the dark liquid smeared around her mouth. Her teeth looked sharp as she struggled to speak. I pressed harder. “I banish this ghost from this innocent’s body.” The glow faded the tiniest bit. I couldn’t tell if it was because I was killing her or the ghost was leaving. Shit. I didn’t want to kill her. I eased my grip. “I banish this spirit. I banish it now. Leave. Go to Hell.” She roared, mouth opening wide. The light that came from within Kerry’s body was blindingly bright. I staggered back, letting go. She didn’t move towards me, shaking as the red tinted light exited her. The ghost when she materialised didn’t look human. She looked like something other. Without eyes, she stared. Her mouth opened to reveal fangs. She hissed at me and was gone a moment later. The room was plunged into darkness once more. Sobbing came from where Kerry stood. I stepped forward. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, of course, but it was the only one my brain could come up with. She just kept sobbing. I put an arm around her and started to walk her forward. She collapsed into me, arms closing around my neck. I lifted her up and moved towards the stairs slowly. The seconds it took me to manoeuvre us out into the lobby were fraught with peril. I staggered on the last step, which was suddenly slippery for some reason I didn’t want to know about. I managed to elbow the wall which kept us from crashing to the ground. Kerry gripped my neck tighter and buried her head into my shoulder.

  With a relieved sigh, I got us out into the lobby where the usher was waiting with an expectant expression on his pock-marked face. He narrowed his eyes. “What’s with all the blood?”

  “Hey, I got the evil spirit banished, didn’t I?”

  Kerry wouldn’t let go of me, even when I tried to put her down. She clung, sobbing and rubbing her bloodied face into my shirt.

  “Don’t tell me that cop is dead.”

  “Eh, okay I won’t?”

  He shook his head. “Come with me, both of you, and hurry up about it. I’ll have to call the damn cops again.”

  He headed towards the ticket counter. I ignored the looks from the incoming crowd as I dragged Kerry along with me. She was a blubbering mess, but I didn’t really blame her. Not after what that thing had put her through. The usher led us into the back office where Mickey was lying passed out on a grubby sofa. I took Kerry to the other seat in the room and disentangled myself from her gently. She stared as I pulled away, gasping in horror as her eyes locked with mine. She jerked back quickly, breathing rapidly.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, taking in my blood-stained t-shirt and my blue skin. “You’re the guy I was making out with?” Her voice turned into a squeal at the end. Her cheeks paled. Most of the blood she’d caked her face in was on my t-shirt now.

  “Aye well, I’m not too pleased about it either,” I snapped back.

  She rubbed at her neck and stared at the usher as he headed out the room. “Don’t leave me in here with…”

  “I’m calling the cops,” the usher cut her short. “Stay there.” He locked the door behind him to reinforce his point.

  She shivered. Her neck was red where I’d gripped it, little bloody marks where I’d felt my nails dig into her skin. “What’s going on?”

  It wasn’t up to me to tell her but I supposed she’d need to know since she was kind of a murderer now.

  “An evil spirit possessed you.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh my God.”

  “You don’t remember any of it?”

  Mickey groaned behind me. He was stirring.

  “I remember being scared. I remember… you looked human. Oh, god, I thought you were human.”

  “I am human,” I snapped. “I’m just dead.”

  She shivered. “Just… don’t hurt me.”

  “Christ,” I muttered, looking back at Mickey as he opened his eyes.

  “What happened?” he asked, groaning again immediately after. “Why does my head hurt?”

  “You fainted, you big girl.”

  “Fuck you, dead-boy.” He frowned, rubbing at his head. “Hey, why is there blood on you and why do you look dead again?”

  “This one here was possessed by an evil spirit.”

  Mickey started to laugh. I rolled my ey
es at him. He laughed louder, slapping his knee. When he eventually stopped, gasping in breath, he shook his head at me slowly. “That’s some taste in women you’ve got there, Bro.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “I did something bad,” Kerry said, staring to sob again.

  “It wasn’t you,” I told her. “You can’t think like it was.” Although the police probably would… “Mickey,” I said. “I’m not a valid witness for this.”

  Her eyes bugged out suddenly. I think she understood what I was getting at. It was not good news for her future.

  Mickey hadn’t a clue what I was getting at; I could tell by the glaikit look on his face. “Eh, what?”

  “It was an evil spirit, Mickey. It was the spirit who killed those people, not Kerry. The police will have no proof of that. I saw it, but I’m dead. What did you see, Mickey?”

  His mouth dropped open as the penny finally dropped with a loud clang. “Ah. Um, I don’t know. What did I see?”

  What could we tell them, in other words? Shit, this was dicey.

  “Please,” Kerry said, clasping her hands together in from of her. “Please help me. I don’t want to go to prison.”

  “Pete, Bro, I don’t know about this,” he said. “The living can’t see ghosts. I don’t think they’ll take my testimony seriously.”

  “Well, I can tell them what I saw but it’ll be ruled out instantly. I don’t have rights, and I can’t be used as a witness.”

  “The window,” Kerry said, getting up quickly. “Help me out?” Her eyes pleaded with me.

  I sighed and looked to Mickey who just shrugged. It was probably her best shot. I went over and gave her a boost. She struggled to get it open, but she managed. When she was gone, I looked at Mickey. “We should probably leave, too. They might pin what happened on us. The questions would be awkward at the very least.”

  He got up. “I’ll give you a boost.” He helped me up and then pushed the chair over to get out himself. He looked tired as he climbed out and shut the window. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”