Shadow Play

by Domino Finn

  I didn't answer. His words made sense but they didn't feel right.

  "I have been ensorcelled to the Horn for five hundred years," he explained. "You and your companion Martine recovered me in Saint Augustine. It was the first human interaction I'd had in a century. And with a Taíno occultist, no less."

  I scowled and kicked myself for not asking these questions sooner. The second I realized there was a sentient presence in the Horn, I should've known it could shed light on my forgotten past.

  "Why did I have the Horn?" I asked.

  The wraith shrugged.

  "How did I know about it?"

  "Brujo, you overestimate my involvement. I do not know how you came to find me, only that you did. You did not confide in me your dealings. But I do recall your partner, Martine, being worried about unknown agents searching for the Horn. They wished to buy it."

  "I didn't want to give it away," I ventured.

  The apparition nodded. "In truth, I wanted no such thing as well. I warned you of the terrors that could be unleashed if the artifact fell into the wrong hands."

  That part surprised me. "So you do have a conscience?"

  The red eyes flickered silently.

  "So what happened?" I prodded.

  "I only know that you went to meet these agents, against Martine's advice."

  I leaned against the wall and thought it through. "Martine was the one who successfully hid the Horn in my grave while I was dead."

  At this point I was eager for information. I didn't know what the Spaniard did, and decided to chance leaving it all on the table. I believed he could help me, so I told him.

  "I must have left the artifact in Martine's care and boarded the boat with the intention of finding out what the mystery players knew of the Horn. A group Tunji called the Covey. Only they got the better of me. The ambush countered my shadow magic and kept me in close quarters, against an elemental and a vampire. Once subdued, I was dragged into this abandoned house and laid in this pentagram."

  The red pentacle glowed with a dying fire, just an echo of what it once was. The wraith circled the empty floor earnestly. "You remember all this?"

  "I pieced it together."

  "Ah," he said. His fingers traced the five-pointed star. The red spell. "This is what they used to bind and weaken you. A circle and a star. They wanted you alive, for some reason."

  "Just enough so they could finish me off. Tell me something I don't already know."

  He considered the evidence for a moment longer. "They would have worked this ritual for hours before your arrival. Maybe days."

  "I guess I should take that as a compliment."

  With growing anticipation, I pointed to the dull essence that overlaid where my body had been. The gray spell. "This is the zombification curse they used on me. It's foreign but it's voodoo. Figured you might have seen something like it before."

  He simply said, "African magic."

  I nodded. With a West African vampire as one of the players, I'd figured as much. "The basics are familiar to me. It looks like a slow burn, repeatedly woven into my flesh, layer after layer. It was meticulous and could have taken hours of focus all by itself. But I can't tell about the rest."

  "What rest?"

  I kneeled down and waved my hand over the center mass. The black spell. "This void over my heart. It's darker than any shadow I've ever seen. I can't make it out."

  The wraith cocked his head as he studied the spot. "Yes... I see it now." He waved a hand over the energy as I had, but the darkness swirled beneath his desiccated fingers. It reacted to him as he teased it. The closer my companion peered, the brighter his eyes flared. "Fascinating."

  The leftover Intrinsics of the black spell surged and overflowed from the central well. The darkness spilled to the left and the right, washing the floor with two long streaks. The specter froze. His skeletal face seized. Then he suddenly stood upright and backed away.

  "The Wings of Night," whispered the Spaniard. "It is impossible."

  "The what?"

  "The spell. It is a deep death. A boundless sleep. It was cast upon you."

  "You recognize it?"

  He nodded grimly. "I am perhaps the only one that can. This magic is not steeped in African voodoo at all. The Wings of Night is an ancient Taíno legend. Years of my life were dedicated to researching it. I collected whispers from every shaman across the Windward Islands to better understand the spell. But it was a myth that could not be reproduced."

  I watched the void of energy settle into the shape of black wings extending from my body. It inspired imagery of angels and demons, but I knew better.

  "What was the spell?"

  "The legend speaks of the Taíno land of the dead."

  "The Murk?"

  "Of sorts. The natives believed in an island where the dead resided. They called it Coaybay. At night, spirits of the dead could visit the living by taking the form of bats, but had to return to the island during the day. Our explorers never found such an isle, but the Taíno always knew our attempts would fail. They claimed no boat could reach those shores."

  "Only the wings of a bat," I finished.

  "Precisely. Which would suggest that your spirit was provided with these wings. For ten years, your body was devoid of spirit, instead residing in the Taíno land of the dead." The wraith spoke to me but transfixed his gaze on the starless void of the black spell. "Even I do not have that power," he said with contempt.

  I clenched my fists. "Who does?"

  The conquistador spun around, as if suddenly frightened. His barren skull twisted in multiple directions.

  "What is it?" I asked, noting nothing unusual in the surroundings.

  "It appears, brujo, that we are no longer alone."

  Chapter 27

  "Where?" I asked, gathering the surrounding darkness to my fist.

  The wraith put a hand in the air, wrinkled digits peeking from fingerless gloves. "It is him," he whispered. "The ghost you seek."

  A visit from Christmas past. I searched the room with my shadow sight. "I can't see him."

  "Could you ever?"

  "Good point." I'd almost forgotten my spiel about ghosts not being visible. In fairness to me, shadowy wraiths tend to disprove that fact. "So what do we do? Wait for him to jump in the hot tub again?"

  "No. He wanders the fringe. He is almost ready." My companion strolled closer to me.

  I eyed him warily. "You're not going to slam my head into a gravestone again, are you?"

  "Oh, brujo," said the Spaniard with a guttural chuckle. "The things I could teach you."

  A simple wave of skeletal fingers caused the room to shimmer. We weren't transported—not exactly—but the broken glass on the floor, the displaced appliances and cracked drywall, all signs of recent activity disappeared and gave way to a pristine room. Somehow it was even more hollow than the empty house had been.

  "Is this the Murk?" I whispered.

  "Not quite. But it is a representation of what I can perceive. A blurred reality, if you will, where I can pull in what I like."

  And with that, a figure of blue light faded in. It was a black man, an African wearing a leather vest over an exposed chest. He wore a hat with feathers in it. Clearly spell fetishes of the voodoo variety. But it wasn't the Haitian voodoo I was familiar with. Tunji Malu's West African roots were indeed the connection.

  "An Obeah man," I said.

  To the layman, Obeah and voodoo are the same thing. It's even mostly true, except Obeah encompasses a wide range of folk magic and forbidden sorcery. Obeah men see voodoo as a perversion of their craft and a softening of their power. Which explained the vampire's disdain when he'd spoken of the Haitians.

  It also explained why no one in Miami had recognized the zombie magic I'd been a thrall under, including me. One part Obeah spellcraft, one part asanbosam compulsion—it was quite the exotic cocktail.

  The wraith noted my tension. "Do not worry," he spoke, gliding smoothly toward the other ghost. "This sp
irit is neutered. Weakened by his near banishment, no doubt."

  The words were comforting but unconvincing. I remained at the ready as my companion addressed him.

  "Come, creature. Tell me of what you know."

  The Obeah man's eyebrows twisted in uncertainty. He scanned the room like a cat placed in new confines.

  "Jaja," called the Spaniard. "That is your name, isn't it? Come hither."

  I marveled at the wraith's power. To see the dead so freely, to know them, and to entwine others in the sight—it was madness. Jaja settled his eyes on my companion and all fright drained from his face.

  "He cannot speak," stated the wraith. "But he may be useful yet. Come, Jaja, and show us what happened in this place." The Spaniard wrapped an arm around the other spirit, and the room transformed yet again. Holographic blue images sprang from some magical spring and filled the room with the past.

  We were in the Star Island house from the crime scene photos now. The glow of the Intrinsics was gone. Instead, the pentagram on the floor was marked in blood and chalk dust. I lay on the ground, a skinnier version of me, but me nonetheless. Before my zombie hardships I didn't have much in the way of muscles, but I should've been sharper than the mess I now witnessed.

  Between the ambush on the boat and whatever led to this moment, I'd been nearly destroyed. My arm was twisted unnaturally. My legs were mangled. Slashes across my gut pumped blood. My face was unrecognizable from the beating. Cisco Suarez, the dead man.

  When the phosphorescent image of my body twitched, I jumped with fright. It defied belief that anybody could survive such circumstances. Then again, 'survive' is a relative word.

  Only key parts of the room were visible in the eerie blue light. The Obeah man from the past circled my body and chanted, but it was clear he wasn't alone at the ritual. Others were present, in the room but out of frame. The spellcraft of the hologram only constructed images in the immediate vicinity of the pentagram.

  Tunji Malu, the barrel-chested leader of this operation, stood over me holding a blade curved into a circle. The vampire had gray skin and metal teeth that reflected the light as he spoke. "I am finding it exceedingly difficult to rephrase the same question in different ways," he said flatly. "Give me the Horn, human, and this all ends."

  I spit through bloody teeth and told the vampire to go to hell. That led to a series of attitude adjustments, mostly of the slashing variety. My stern refusals turned to screams. Still I didn't tell them what they wanted.

  I winced at the sight and glanced at the wraith, also watching intently, but detached. His face was stoic. If he respected me for protecting the Horn, he didn't show it.

  Tunji argued with another figure, present but not illuminated by the ghostly light. A coarse growling consumed the room like surround sound. Scaled paws paced into the scene, the rest of the animal still obscured.

  Jesus. There was a whole team here. They'd sent an entire unit to kill me. The Covey.

  While the others spoke muffled words, Jaja performed the constant ritual. My power leeched away at each utterance. The circle held my defiance in check, binding me to the spot. The helplessness was too much to watch. Give me a stand-up fight any day.

  The Obeah man turned to Tunji and spoke in a native tongue. Another voice I thought I recognized said, "Let's get this over with."

  I closed my eyes. I didn't need to see the face to recall that voice. I thought of everyone I'd met since my resurrection. Went over the evidence I'd accumulated. The Risky Proposition, where this scene had started. The rock I chipped away that had stripped me of my darkfinder. The cooling lava from the commissioner's office.

  The elemental. Tyson Roderick was with them.

  Tunji Malu nodded and the Obeah man let out an exhausted smile. He'd been concentrating for hours. He was finally ready.

  I didn't see it in this hollow phantasm, but I knew the gray magic was spreading through my body now. I was ready to die.

  Jaja kneeled beside me, stepping into the circle but careful not to tarnish the pentacle. He leaned in, placed his thumbs over my neck, and spoke words I couldn't understand.

  Cisco Suarez, mangled and broken on the floor, still had surprises. His good arm shot upward. The African didn't even have time to squeeze my throat. His startled face twisted in panic, like a man driving off a bridge.

  I smiled. That was Jaja's last expression.

  He was a good Obeah man. Experienced. It was just a small misstep, but once he made it he knew he'd underestimated me. He knew he was dead.

  The thing about necromancers is, blood gives them power. Blood is one of our most vital channeling agents. Half of my voodoo-based spellcraft outright requires it. And if you're gonna torture and saturate a necromancer with his own blood, you better make damn sure he can't get his hands on you, broken or not.

  My arm wrapped around the man and pulled him towards me. The blood seared his skin. The sheer amount of it combined with my near-death state conflated into something terrible. And boy did I let loose. An explosive force ejected him away from my body. The Obeah man shot across the room like a cannonball. His charred body embedded into the drywall and hung limply. It was the same spot the refrigerator would later crash into, where I'd found his blood.

  "Impressive," commented the Spaniard.

  Tunji slammed the flat of his blade against my arm to hold me down. The volcanic elemental joined in. His image entered the blue light and held me to the floor with his bare hands. His rockskin protected him from my burning blood.

  At the same time, the scaled, four-legged beast leapt on my body. It was a strange creature with bright-yellow fur and scales, the size of a dog but the attributes of a dragon. A scourgeling, maybe. Its paws singed as they touched me. Instead, the animal settled on clamping my calf between its jaws.

  I flailed the only free limb I had. Darkness drew into my foot. The dragon may have held me with its teeth, but while it did so it was a sitting duck. My shadow-assisted kick was unimpeded. My bare foot raked through the scourgeling's face, sending confetti and streamers into the air. The magical dragon vaporized.

  "An illusion," I said as I watched.

  The Cisco on the floor struggled uselessly for another moment but, even with his legs free, the vampire and the elemental were more than he could handle. He gave in to the exhaustion.

  "We should kill him now," urged Tyson.

  "The ritual is entrenched," spat the vampire. "I can finish it."

  The entire scene flickered and faded slightly. "What's going on?" I asked the wraith.

  "The spirit is breaking apart. There's not much time."

  The ghost of Jaja stared passively at the wall he had lodged into, barely reflecting on active events anymore.

  "Keep him going," I hissed.

  The glowing blue figures ceased grappling as they overpowered me. The fire left my eyes. Killing the Obeah man had been my safeguard against the black magic. Or so I had hoped. But Tunji was right. The ritual's power was present. It was there to be shaped, already malleable. Anyone with a cheap reference spell book could've closed the curse's loop. And what Tunji lacked in voodoo expertise, he made up for in natural vampiric ability.

  As I lay dying, I saw it. The buildup of shadow. Of true darkness.

  It wasn't just a manifestation. I'd done those hundreds of times and knew this was something deeper. Inner.

  It was the black spell.

  The orb of shadow tore through time and space to consume my body. It seeped into every cut and open wound. It crept into my nostrils and under my eyelids and between my muttering lips, swallowing my whispers whole.

  The elemental jerked away. Tunji rushed his magic in a panicked flurry. But the darkness didn't wait.

  An ancient language spilled from Cisco Suarez's dying lips, and the darkness disappeared inside my body like it was never there. Only once it was gone, so was I.

  Chapter 28

  The corpse lay in the center of the pentagram, devoid of life and undeath alike.

/>   "What just happened?" I asked.

  The Spaniard's reply was reverent. "You cast this on yourself, brujo."

  "No way."

  "You were dying," he insisted. "Losing control. You couldn't fight them anymore. This was your only possible counter."

  I stared in horror at Tunji Malu's confused features. The vampire pounded on the corpse's chest. Shook its shoulders.

  What happened to me wasn't his doing.

  "Did you kill him?" asked the elemental.

  "I'm not sure," answered Tunji, "but there's still time."

  The vampire continued the ritual as the entire scene flickered again. The spirit of the Obeah man was weakening. We watched the horrific scene until the Spaniard broke the silence.

  "You beat the vampire to the punch. Died on your own terms. Under your own spellcraft. A death, yes, but a reversible one."

  I shook my head. I didn't have that kind of power. "You did this to me," I swore. "I was cursed by the Horn."

  The wraith didn't speak, eyes fixated on the vestiges of the ceremony. I couldn't watch it anymore. I was dead, anyway.

  Besides, I'd gotten the answer I wanted. The black spell that stained my soul. Instead of succumbing to my injuries, before allowing the ritual to complete, I'd cast a deep death spell on myself. The Wings of Night. The price for such spellcraft was my life, but it was a life stolen from the grip of Tunji Malu.

  The vampire still had my body, of course. The zombification curse and fiendish compulsions were hooked into me. So the Covey still created their zombie. I was animated. Compelled. I became their formidable puppet, but that's all I was.

  Tunji never had my memories. My motives. He'd never managed to achieve his primary aim: recovering the Horn of Subjugation. And as powerful as his pull on me was, I was a puppet dangling from frayed strings. The battle with the voodoo high priest finally broke the deep death spell. Cisco Suarez woke from his long sleep. The zombification curse withered under my body's newfound life.