by Jeff Hale
Great.
I kept going and found myself feeling a sense of dread as I neared a rundown looking trailer house a little bit further in. It was completely still and silent in the area and the other trailers looked to be abandoned. I slipped into my Aether Sight, allowing me to see the flows and lines of Aetheric energy. Sure enough, the trailer virtually throbbed with the Aether as black energy poured off the area.
Shit.
I let my sight gradually return to normal, and brought my shield up around me, although I wasn’t sure how much help it would be. I shook my head as I slowly opened the door to the trailer house. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It reeked of human waste, sweat, and rot. The second thing was a scream that tore through the small trailer, filled with pain and fear, followed by low chanting. The living room was small, with an old rickety table and two chairs on the far side of it, next to an opening that led to a second room. To my right was a small kitchen area.
I glanced into the kitchen area, and instantly wished I hadn’t. Dismembered body parts, organs and the bloodied clothing of several individuals littered the floor and sink. From the general shapes and sizes of the limbs, they appeared to be all female, all young. MAGE was really slacking if they just now caught wind of this guy. He’d been active for a long time, considering the state of decay some of the bodies were in.
I almost retched at the sight, but managed to bring myself back under control. I knew it would only get worse. I heard the scream again, and wondered how the hell no one in the nearby neighborhood had heard it, and why the charnel smell didn’t reach past the front door. The only thing I could think of was Aetheric energy holding everything back.
I made my way to the opening by the table and chairs. There was a small room with a tiny cot that was covered in blood and other bodily fluids that were best left to the imagination. I had a feeling a black light would more than likely make that bed glow like a Christmas tree. Okay those images just didn’t mix, but hey, it was analogous regardless.
There was a trapdoor on the floor in the corner on the left side of the room. I moved towards it, took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it as the stench invaded my nostrils again. I swallowed back the nausea then knelt down and lifted the door, which opened to a set of narrow wood steps leading down into the earth. The steps ended at an old wooden door. The chanting, and another scream, came from behind that door.
“Where the fuck are you, Talon?” I asked out loud. Neither of my backup was here yet, and they should have been.
“Excuse me?” Raven asked, appearing next to my shoulder and startling me. She’d probably been with me the whole time and I wasn’t about to question her on it.
“Talon, my familiar. I just realized I haven’t seen him in… a while now. Where the fuck could he be? He’s never been away this long before, and he always helps me in these sorts of situations.” I reached out with my senses, tried to feel my connection with my familiar, but didn’t make any contact.
“Don’t panic, this area would repulse any spirit creature or ghost with any sense whatsoever, and the other agents will be there to help. We’ll be fine. I hope.” Raven’s voice didn’t sound very reassuring at that moment.
“No turning back now,” I said, putting one foot on the steps. “But I didn’t see the agents out there. I think the fucking idiots actually went in. Can’t waste time now, let’s go.” I took the steps as fast as I could, Raven right behind me, and could feel a rush of energy wash over me from her direction. She was preparing a spell; it felt just like it had in the apartment.
I hit the door at the bottom of the stairs at almost a dead run and managed to shoulder it open, all but splintering the rotted wood in the process. As I passed through the threshold I drew my daggers and ignited them, ready for anything except what I found.
The interior was a medium sized cave, dimly lit by electric lights, and all four agents were waiting for me, but not in the way MAGE had intended. One had his head on backwards and held a piece of rotted board. Another was holding her left arm in her right hand, wielding it like a club. The third had his intestines pulled out, and was swinging them around like a gory length of chain. The fourth was using two rib bones for daggers, his own I assumed since most of the skin and muscle had been flayed from his bones, his chest cavity had been emptied, but his ribcage, minus two ribs, was intact.
Not only had they gone in early, but Amar had already managed to turn them into undead guards. No time to dwell on it. These people were already dead. I recognized their faces, but didn’t really even know their names. I put it out of my mind as they rushed at me.
Funny thing about zombies; the movies would have you believe they were dumb, slow, shambling creatures that were easily outrun and outsmarted. Reality check; they were fast, deadly, and if a smart necromancer was guiding them, capable of astonishing tactics in combat.
Luckily for me, one movie cliché was true. They were very much vulnerable to fire.
The one with the backwards head rushed me first, swinging for the fences with his piece of board. I brought my left dagger across and up, severing the rotted wood near his hand, the right dagger entering his chest dead center. I then lifted that dagger upwards, cutting easily through the dead flesh, the dagger finishing its gory journey when it exited the top of the thing’s head. The sickening sound of rending flesh filled the cavern.
As I finished the motions, dropping the first zombie, the female was already moving in for the kill and I felt a squelching wetness hit my left arm. I had barely regained my balance when she caught me on the back of the neck with her arm club. I stumbled and would have fallen had the third not had my left arm wrapped in his intestines.
A sudden blast of violet energy, followed by a sense of wrongness as Raven’s spell rent a hole in the Barrier, blew the female zombie into a pile of ash, and after a second, even the ash was gone, blown away into the Aetheric winds. I didn’t think twice about the situation, and capitalized on it. I brought my right dagger across to cut through the intestine chain that held me, pulling with my left arm as I did so, tugging him off balance. I finished the spinning motion that the maneuver had sent me into as the dagger sliced through the intestines with ease, the smell of burning rotted flesh filling the air.
I spun back around, bringing both daggers across the zombie’s neck and waist, cutting through him. I quickly followed through by halting my motion suddenly and reversing my momentum, sending my left foot into the air in a spinning roundhouse that caught the fourth zombie square in the side of the head, sending it reeling. I went with the motion and followed through with my right foot in a reverse roundhouse, which saw the heel of my right foot connecting with the zombie’s head hard enough to send it flying from his shoulders. I felt the energy flow through my body, like I had when I had shattered that boulder. As I landed squarely on the ground, I heard the zombie’s body hit the floor behind me. I looked up and saw Raven standing in the doorway, her face frozen in an expression of surprise.
“What?” I asked, suddenly worried that there were more zombies behind me, or worse.
“I’ve… I’ve never seen anyone move that fast before. Not even a quickling fae, and I’ve never felt any sorcerer pull Aetheric energy with such… ease,” she said as she leaned against the doorframe.
“We can figure it out later. We have to find Amar now. We’re on our own now if you haven’t figured it out, and I’d like to possibly have some modicum of surprise when we find him. My bets are he’s in further in.”
Raven trailed behind me as I searched for a way further in, and if I hadn’t known it, I’d have no idea she was even there. I couldn’t hear a sound coming from her direction and when I turned she wasn’t in sight, but this time I knew she was there; somehow I could still feel her presence.
I was right, there was a small chamber behind the first. It was filled with dead bodies like in the trailer above, but these looked to actually be preserved, and I could smell the sharp reek of formaldehyde.
>
I heard Raven retch and I stopped for a second so she could catch her breath. I looked back at her in surprise, able to see her again now. “I didn’t figure the smell would affect you that much.”
“It doesn’t,” she replied. “It’s the magic he’s using. It fucking reeks.”
I nodded at her and started looking around for a way to continue through this chamber. I found what I was looking for on the right side, a roughly carved stairway that continued further down into the earth. I heard something squish and as I brought my dagger to bear to shed more light, I saw a carpet of maggots writhing on the stairs.
I shook my head to chase away the nausea. I had to walk on those to even get down there. Amar was nothing if not excellent at demoralizing those who went against him in his own lair. I suddenly felt very foolish.
What the hell was I thinking? This guy had been alive for centuries before I was even born. No amount of raw talent on my part was going to stop this guy. No way I could incapacitate him, let alone kill him. He was part of a dynasty that made a deal with the King of fucking Hell.
Pull it together, Kerensky. Can’t turn back now. Gotta find a way to nail this guy so I can go after Serena’s killer.
That thought motivated me enough to start down the stairs, the squishing and popping of the maggots under my shoes echoing down the roughhewn passage that served as the walls to the stairway. I managed to tune it out, somehow.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs I was assailed by a cloud of flies so thick I couldn’t see, and I could feel them biting me anywhere I had exposed skin. I brushed them away from me and managed to force myself through the swarm and keep moving down the tunnel that led away from the stairs.
Past the flies and down the hallway, which was lit by old-fashioned torchlight, I saw two more zombies, obviously older than the four agents I had just fought. I didn’t even think, just reacted. I re-ignited my daggers and threw both of them end over end, catching both zombies in the head. As the daggers took flight, I was running after them. When I reached the zombies, I pulled the daggers free and pushed them both aside. They toppled to floor long before they ever had a chance to react. There was a door at the end of the tunnel and I rushed it. As I planted my shoulder against it, it opened at that exact moment, and I stumbled into a large cavernous room.
The room itself was actually a natural underground cave. In the center was an altar formed directly from a small stalagmite. Amar stood behind the altar, and dozens of zombies formed a circle around the room along with a few scattered skeletons, former zombies whose flesh, muscle and organs had rotted off. Spirits of the dead wandered about, amorphous forms flitting between the motionless undead creatures as though seeking their own dead bodies.
Amar was a regal looking creature with features that bespoke a Greek descent. He had on a nice white silk button up shirt, a pair of expensive looking slacks and a midnight blue velvet cloak with runes writhing around on it, held together at his neck by a large jeweled brooch. I realized the brooch depicted a similar design as Ms. Dietrich’s tattoo; the hooded skull with filed teeth.
And on the altar itself was… Jessie?!
“Jessie!” I yelled out just as Amar looked up at me.
“So. MAGE has found me. And the fae court’s agent, too? How quaint. You will make fine additions to my collection here,” he said, gesturing to the creatures around him.
“Go ahead, lich, I’ve already destroyed your guards outside,” I stated, trying to intimidate him.
“Why do I need them? They were only there to deter humans if they got too close. You two… you two I can handle myself.” He undid the brooch on his cloak, allowing it to drop to the ground. I vaguely noticed a skeleton wander over and pick up the cloak as Amar rushed forward, muttering low words as he incanted a spell.
I saw Raven bring a hand up but then she started flickering in and out. She gave Amar a confused look as she suddenly completely vanished. I shook my head, knowing I had no time to think about it, and charged him, only to be stopped in mid-rush by a feeling like a cold hand clutching my heart.
“Fae are so predictable. All you need is a way to send them back to where they came from and poof! They go back to their reflection, or whatever it is they call it,” he gloated. “Now I can deal with you alone. You killed my Elsa, and I will not let that go unpunished. And you? You will be punished. You will beg me to die and become one of my puppets!” he shouted, thrusting a pale hand forward and shouting an invocation. A bolt of pure dark energy struck me in the chest, sending me crashing back into a wall.
I shook it off and started to stand, when another bolt slammed into my head, whipping it back into the wall. My vision swam, and a jolt of pain went straight to the front of my head. Multi-colored sparkles floated around in my plane of sight. I tried to stand again, but the pain in my head was overbearing and the injuries I’d sustained from his zombies were starting to take their toll.
“You are a tough one. Yes, you will be a fine addition to my collection.” He chuckled dryly as he walked towards me, the sound skittering along my skin. Then he raised his hand, and I saw nothing else.
TEN
They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t dead… yet. But I knew this place and time. I had been here before, and though it was a long time ago, it was playing out in my mind like it had happened yesterday.
I was fourteen and Spring Break had just started. I was at McCarran Airport waiting for Serena to get off the plane from Oklahoma. We were still close friends, though recently that relationship had grown… complicated. She claimed to be in love with me, and that she wanted to be my girlfriend.
I was confused by the whole thing. I liked her, but I had always thought of her as my sister, so it was a bit awkward for me sometimes. I didn’t know how to act around her anymore, and as I watched her come through the gate, I knew it was only going to get more difficult. I never could get over just how beautiful she was these days.
She hadn’t changed much since I had seen her last Christmas; she was still at just a shade under five foot, slender, but with definite curves. Sporting a C cup chest size on her small frame made her look slightly top-heavy, but I wouldn’t complain. She was wearing a tank top that showed off her toned stomach, and a pair of short, cut-off denim shorts that left her nicely shaped legs bare. She was a bit of a tom-boy so she was always running around outside, hiking, swimming, and generally staying active.
Her light-blonde hair flashed in the sunlight as she approached me, and her deep emerald green eyes were bright with happiness. She stopped about ten feet away from me for a second, and then rushed me and leapt at me, wrapping her arms and legs around me in a tight hug. I caught her and held her for a few minutes before letting her down. Despite my mixed feelings about her, I was more than happy to see her again.
“Serena, I can’t believe you’re here! I didn’t think your parents would let you come by yourself!” I said excitedly. I turned as I grabbed her hand, and saw Dave, Nina, and Lee, Nina’s older brother, waiting a little ways off. “Come on, we’re gonna have a great time while you’re here,” I continued, leading her back to the group.
“Serena! Hey, girl, it’s good to see you again. Now Rick can stop moping about and talking about you. We’d swear he worshipped you.” Nina laughed.
“Nina!” I yelled. “I do not! She’s just a close friend. I’ve known her a long time, so of course I have a lot to say about her.”
“Right, which is why you have to tell us about every phone call, and make sure we know everything that happens when we take you to Oklahoma to see her,” Nina said as she pointed at me, smiling the entire time.
“Aww, Ricky. I didn’t know ya thought about me that much.” Serena was blushing.
Great. Now she was going to think I loved her the same way that she loved me. Which of course I didn’t. Or did I?
“Come on, guys, we still have to get her luggage and get back to my place, then we’ll hav
e plenty of time to hang out.” I headed to the luggage pick up terminal, Serena’s hand still in mine.
“Whatever you say, Ricky!” Nina said, grinning at me.
“Hey! Only Serena gets away with calling me that. Got it?” I retorted. I hated the name, but I let it slide with Serena. Besides, she’d call me that no matter what I said.
“Uh, yer place? Aren’t ya staying with Nina and her family?” Serena asked, hesitating. She looked a bit worried, maybe even anxious.
“The Hawthornes are letting us stay in my parents’ old place while you’re here. Violet knows that we would want to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. It’s okay, Dave and his family live right down the road, so if we need anything we can go there,” I said, knowing she was nervous when there weren’t adults around for emergencies. I had talked with Mrs. Hawthorne about us staying at my parents’ place since it was paid for anyway, and Dave’s parents were right down the street, literally. We had moved anything that I wanted to have there yesterday. As long as Dave’s parents checked in on us every once in a while, Mrs. Hawthorne was okay with it. Besides, she trusted Serena.
Once we got Serena’s luggage we headed out to the parking lot. Dave fell back a little and gestured for me to do the same. I looked over at Serena, still holding onto my hand, talking with Nina about different make-up companies and whether or not they animal tested. Serena hated animal tested anything, and refused to buy something if it was. She also didn’t wear a lot of make-up, when she did at all. I shrugged and dropped her hand. She didn’t seem to notice, beyond smiling up at me as I drifted back to where Dave was walking.
“What’s up, Dave?” I asked, knowing he had something he wanted to talk to me about.