by Ian Fortey
“Let me show you,” Maggie said.
“We need to do something fast,” Fix said.
“Got it,” Vincent said. “Maybe.”
While Maggie and Abigail spoke, Vincent let his mind wander. Scavenging little snakes of purple and white energy sped through the house. If Selena was unable to see blood magic, then he was expecting Maggie and Abigail would be just as blind to necromancy.
The ghost was not necromantic. Vincent wasn’t sure she was a ghost at all. He found no sense of death in her, which meant he had no power to control her. But she was not the only dead thing in the house.
Vincent sank the threads into the cellar. In his mind he saw two flashes of energy, the purple and white bundles like calm fires burning in the dark. He reached into each one and twisted the threads inside of them, wrapping them around and around inside. The power flowed across old, dead flesh. It circulated through veins and arteries; it pulsed along nerves and muscle tissue.
Maggie’s blood magic and Abby’s primal magic had come together like dueling rivers, a confluence of energy that raged and surged. Selena stood her ground. It was Vincent’s body she was standing her ground in, but he did not move to flee, either. He didn’t think it would matter anyway, with the amount of energy Abigail was conjuring. She had enough power flowing to scorch a hole in the Earth and take half the town with it.
“Liquescimus—” Abigail began. The words were cut off when a hand plunged into her mouth. The body of the drowned man clung to her, heavy and pale, and he choked her. Axl took out her legs, causing her to tumble to the ground. The massive buildup of energy puffed harmlessly from existence like a machine shut down in the middle of a start-up.
“We need to go,” Vincent said out loud.
“I need to find my other sisters,” Selena said. “Abby will get us all killed.”
Vincent ran, cutting Selena off before she could say anything more, and ducking out of the house. It would not take long for Abigail and Maggie to figure out a way to kill the undead Vincent had set on them.
Dezzy stood up from behind the tree the moment he saw Vincent.
“I take it things went badly,” he yelled across the lawn. Vincent waved at him to get moving. He ran and grabbed Dezzy’s arm on the way past.
“Things are bad, yeah,” Vincent agreed. The two of them sprinted down the street. Vincent had no idea where he was going, but anywhere had to be better than where they were.
“Are we being chased?” Dezzy asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“We need someone who can use primal magic to handle this,” Fix said.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what we need,” Vincent said, answering both voices.
“We need Selena’s help,” Fix said.
He was right, of course. Vincent had seen her casting whatever spell she was casting, and it had meant nothing to him. When he first started to understand the way necromancy worked, he had been able to be inside Bogdan Dalca’s memories. He learned the magic as Dalca had learned it. He could see the threads of Death in things and understood what they meant. But primal magic was nothing like necromancy. It was a rush, it was running water, and he was trying to catch it in his fist. It made no sense to him. When Selena, or even Abigail cast spells, they all looked the same. The power, the weaving, it was unintelligible.
Short of resurrecting every corpse that was in Burnham’s graveyard. Vincent had no idea what he could do to fight Abigail and Maggie. Worse, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter. Their magic was so fluid, it would make short work of anything he summoned. Necromancy was a stopgap at best. Against blood and primal combined, he was outmatched. He saw that in the house. And he thought there was a good chance Selena was outmatched as well.
The two men turned a corner, running aimlessly down small, quiet town streets. Vincent just wanted to put distance between himself and Abigail. If he could get somewhere safe and spend some time thinking about it, maybe he could come up with some kind of plan.
“Did Selena sell us out, man?” Dezzy asked, slowing his pace as he breathed heavily. They turned up another street that came to a dead end with some trees. Vincent headed towards it.
“No. No, actually. It’s Abigail. She’s possessed, I think. Or something like it. Her and that angry ghost. It’s where the blood magic is coming from.”
“I knew Huxley was going to be trouble one day,” Dezzy said. He was still carrying his plastic poutine bucket. It made him look like an overgrown child.
“Maggie Huxley? You know her?” Vincent asked. Dezzy nodded.
“I know a lot of dead people,” he replied. Vincent laughed. Dezzy helped transition all the dead from life to beyond the Veil. But if Maggie had transitioned past Dezzy, why was she in Abigail now?
“How is her spirit here if she moved beyond the Veil?” Vincent asked. Dezzy stopped next to a pickup truck at the end of the street. He pulled his balled-up t-shirt out of his pants pocket and picked up a rock off of the ground.
“Well, you know by now it’s not always a one-way trip, man,” Dezzy said. He wrapped the rock in his shirt and then looked around the neighborhood. He slammed the rock into the truck’s side mirror, the shirt muffling the noise to a dull clink, and pulled a large shard of glass free.
“So, Maggie Huxley died ages ago. Hundreds of years ago. But I saw her again. She had gone to the Void. Lots do, that’s not so crazy. But when she came back, she wasn’t herself anymore. That lady died with a lot of anger in her and the Void—the Void loves that kind of thing. A mortal body houses a lot of power, man. Stuff you can’t find in nature. Like a hurricane is powerful, but does it feel anything? Does it think? A person does. That kind of power is precious to some things out there.”
Dezzy wrapped his shirt around the mirror chunk and twisted the fabric, tying it into a small, pretzel bundle with the mirror in the center. He handed it to Vincent. Selena’s face looked back at him from it.
“There you go, lady. Now you can join us,” Dezzy said. Selena smiled.
“Thank you, Desmond,” she said. “Please, tell me what happened to Maggie.”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know for sure. I didn’t see her in the Void. That wasn’t my gig. But she’s all blood magic now, so that means she probably had made a deal in the Void. A big one.”
“What kind of being could do that?” Vincent asked.
“You know why they call mortals Bloodless in the Void? Because you lose your blood when you die, your spirit has nothing. That means you’re worthless as far as the Void is concerned. ‘Blood is life, Blood is death. Blood is.’ That’s what they say, anyway. The Void is full of blood magic, just like the Dimensional Rift is full of Chaos. She could have met anything over there.”
“Does it matter?” Fix asked. “She has power now.”
Dezzy and Vincent slipped into the woods and off of the street, weaving into the trees until Burnham had vanished from sight.
“I can’t believe she’d do this,” Selena said. “Abby’s always been impulsive and a little reckless, but she’s never been stupid. Or cruel.”
“Blood magic is a tricky one,” Dezzy said. “Uncle Stan says it’s like using a bazooka to kill a fly. It’s more than you need and dangerous for everyone. ‘Emergency use only’ kind of thing.”
“Do you think he could help us?” Vincent asked. “He knows blood magic. Maybe he can do something here.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think he can get here in time, man,” Dezzy said.
Vincent had to agree. They didn’t have days to wait. They needed to act quickly.
“Selena,” Vincent said, looking into the mirror. She stared back at him.
“Find my sisters,” she said.
“What if they’re in on this crazy plan, too?”
“You heard Abby, she’s not going to tell them I’m here. She wants to siphon my power and kill you. We need them.”
“But what if they don’t help?” Vincent asked. “I know y
ou want to believe they will. But you didn’t think Abigail was using blood magic either.”
Selena stared at her reflection, at Vincent.
“No, I didn’t think that. I’m a fool, Vincent. Thank you for reminding me,” she said.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“Then what did you mean? That I have no idea what is going on, but you do? That my sisters are betraying me, but you are my friend? That I am dead and you will save me? What did you mean, Vincent?”
“I meant that this is dangerous. For both of us. I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to be used to kill people. I don’t want any of this.”
“Of course not. Because you can’t remember what kind of monster you are.”
She looked away from the mirror, and Vincent heaved a sigh, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what to do, Selena. I don’t know how to show you what happened or convince you I’m not a killer, because I don’t know if I am or not. We can’t keep doing this.”
“I mean, there’s a way you could see,” Dezzy said suddenly. He was looking at a large maple tree, touching the bark lightly. “There’s sap in here, you know. So good on pancakes.”
“How could we see what happened, Dezzy?” Vincent said. Dezzy knocked on the wood.
“You just need to go back beyond the Veil. You did it once, right?”
“Your uncle poisoned me with waffles,” Vincent said.
“Well, you know. All roads lead to Rome, right?”
“What?”
“I’m just saying, you could go back. Talk to the Scions. They’ll set you straight,” he said.
“But I need to die to go there,” Vincent said. Dezzy nodded.
“For a minute, yeah. I can do it, man. No worries.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Yeah. There are like, a dozen ways to kill you in this forest. Or I could drown you, or something. Then bring you back. It will be temporary, man,” he offered.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Fix said.
“Do it,” Selena said. “The sooner we get this resolved, the better. I can’t let Abby do this to herself and to my sisters. It’s not right.”
“I get that,” Vincent said. He looked at Dezzy. “You can bring me back, right?”
“Who do you know who knows stuff about death?”
“Including you and Selena I only know about four people and all but one of them have died, and that one is a mortician.”
“Right, now who do you know who’s got more experience with death than me?” Dezzy asked. “Trust me, Vincent. I can do this.”
Vincent looked at Selena in the mirror. He took a deep breath and nodded.
“All right. How are we doing this?”
“You ready?” Dezzy asked. Vincent gave him a curious look.
“Right now?” he said.
Dezzy moved behind him quickly, wrapping his arm around Vincent’s neck in a chokehold. He squeezed tightly, and Vincent felt his airway close. He grabbed Dezzy’s arm.
“I know this sucks a little but try not to fight because then, you know, it won’t work. I can bring you back, I promise,” Dezzy said. Vincent tried to gasp, forcing himself to fight his own instincts and lower his hands.
“This is a terrible idea,” Fix said. Vincent choked. The pressure on his neck was intense. It did seem like a bad idea. But he needed Selena to believe him. He needed her to know what happened. If he didn’t have her help, he had no idea how to deal with Abigail.
Black spots danced before Vincent’s eyes. He gasped, struggling to pull in air. His face felt like it was thickening somehow.
At some point Vincent realized he was on the ground. He didn’t remember falling down. Dezzy’s arm was still firm around his throat. He struggled to breathe, but there was nothing to pull in. He was not sure how long it took, but he did feel like he was dying.
“Say hi to Emmanuel for me,” Dezzy said. And then everything went black.
Chapter 6
Vincent sat up in the forest. Dezzy was gone. Selena sat opposite him, disoriented. She had leaves in her hair.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Forest,” Vincent said, rubbing his throat. His ribs were still sore from earlier. And now he was dead.
“Thank you for that, Vincent. Is this... death?”
“Yeah, we’re beyond the Veil now, I think. Seems to start where you died and move on from there.”
Vincent got to his feet and looked around.
“Emmanuel?” he called out.
“Hello, Mr. Living Man,” Emmanuel said. The boy was simply there, standing before Vincent and Selena as though he had always been there. “Oh, wait. You are dead,” he added.
“For now, yeah. How have you been?” Vincent asked.
“Dead,” Emmanuel said. He turned to look at Selena.
“How come you’re here together? That doesn’t usually happen,” he said.
Emmanuel looked the same as he had when Vincent saw him last. A plain t-shirt and bare feet. His hair was tight curls and his skin was just slightly darker than Dezzy’s. Vincent wondered how he was related to Stanley Crisp, but did not want to pry.
“Dezzy says hi,” Vincent said. Emmanuel smiled.
“Can you take me with you like you took him?” the boy asked.
“I’m not sure. But I can try,” Vincent offered. Emmanuel turned his head then, as though listening to someone whispering in his ear. He frowned and kicked a twig.
“Never mind. The Prince says no. Are you dead-for-real dead, or are you here for a secret mission?”
“Secret mission, I think,” Vincent said. “My friend Selena here needs your help. Dezzy said you could show her how she died. She thinks I killed her but I don’t know what happened.”
“That’s a heck of a story,” Emmanuel said. He looked at Selena and then took her hand.
“I can’t do any of that stuff. You need to talk to someone else.” He took Vincent’s hand as well and suddenly they were not in the forest any longer.
The sky above them was red and laced with crackling branches of white and yellow lightning. The sound was deafening.
Vincent felt his hair stand on end, and the wind battered at him from all sides. It was dry and hot and smelled like smoke and ash.
The land stretched out before him, a blank canvas of wilderness. No hills, no trees, nothing but red sand under a red sky, and the occasional dust devil kicked up by the furious wind.
To his left, Vincent could see people. A line of them that stretched to the horizon. People of all shapes and sizes. They stood in line so far back, it vanished from sight. There had to be thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Maybe more.
“Vincent,” Selena said, yelling to be heard over the wind. He turned to her, but she was not looking at him. She was looking behind them.
The great line of people came to an end before a massive set of stone steps. Three steps high and each one perhaps a mile wide. At the top of the steps was a hole, a gaping chasm in the air. It was wide and tall and looked for all the world like some giant being had simply punched their fist through reality itself and into something that existed beyond. The edges flapped like the tattered remnants of an ancient flag in the wind. But they were the edges of space, of the sky and the desert and all that Vincent could see.
The hole in space was taller than a skyscraper at this distance. Vincent followed the trail of people heading towards it with his eyes. The perspective was tricking him. Maybe his mind was tricking him, refusing to believe what he was seeing. The hole was larger than he thought. Maybe miles high and miles wide.
Inside the hole, a free-standing abyss floating in space, was a flurry of movement and energy. Blood magic spilled from it in great, pillowy gobs. But there was more mixed in. Vincent could see the energies he knew from the Font in Alder Falls. He could feel necromancy in it, and he could see primal magic. He saw other powers and t
hings that he had not encountered before. It was like an active volcano of power. And the people were walking into it.
“Goddess, save me, what is that nightmare?” Selena asked. The wind ripped the words from her mouth.
“That’s the Void,” Emmanuel answered. “The Bloodless travel here to stand at the Precipice and gaze into the Void. The Prince of Nothing offers hope for finding their path in the Darkness, to move beyond and defy those that would feast upon order and light for all eternity.”
“What is the Prince of Nothing?” Selena asked.
“He is Nothing,” Emmanuel said.
“Or everything,” a familiar voice said. Teresa approached from nowhere, the second Scion of the Prince of Nothing. Vincent had met her on his last trip beyond the Veil. He liked her.
“Teresa,” Vincent said, smiling.
“In the flesh, so to speak. Most folks don’t come here for a second round, Vincent. And you brought a friend.”
“We need to see how she died,” Vincent said. “I need to know. If I’m a killer, I need to know why.”
“Most killers I’ve met wish they could forget,” Teresa said. Vincent shrugged.
“Guess I’m an idiot,” he said.
“No doubt about that,” Selena agreed.
“If you wish to see, you need to move forward,” someone else said. An elderly man, with hair as white as flour and dark skin. He looked familiar to Vincent, but he had not met him before. He looked like Stanley Crisp.
“And you are?” Selena asked.
“I am the Scion of Tomorrow. But you may call me Asnage,” the man said.
“You’re Stanley’s grandfather,” Vincent said. The old mortician had told him about his grandfather back in Alder Falls. The old man smiled at Vincent, and it was as though Stanley was standing right there with him.
“I am. And I have heard of your doings, Mr. Donnelly. Don’t you go getting my grandson killed. Or my great grandson.”
“Dezzy?” Selena asked. Asnage nodded.
“It has been strange here since he left,” the old man said.
“Dezzy was fun,” another voice said. It came from nowhere. Then a figure formed next to Asnage, first as a shadow and then a man. The clothing, the hair, the face—it was Dezzy.