The rumble of satisfaction sounded again. “I have laboured at my revenge for centuries, thinning out the ranks of the descendants slowly, as is my nature. But there are times when it is quicker for me to step aside and let history take its course.”
“Ah, so it was easier to leave us to the Russians and the Germans,” she said as she dropped the money into the hole and covered it with earth. It spoke the truth; her parents and five of her brothers gone in less than five years. She rose to her feet and stamped down the spot.
Night had fallen and the only light was the fire in the cottage. Anna dusted her hands as she entered and the aitvaras skidded back to rooster form, black wingtips whispering by her legs. The dirt was still under her nails but the money was on the table, clean and neatly stacked. It was not surprising, but still her heart sank.
She sat down with a sigh and began to shred the chervonetz notes, over and over again. Each time she let them fall to the tabletop, fire lit the edges and they reassembled.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, caught up in the rhythm of tearing. “I know we’re the descendants of some warlord who once supposedly controlled half of Lithuania, or some other embellishment I’ve never benefited from. But what my mother never explained to me was why. What is it that you are taking vengeance for?”
There was a pause, the aitvaras’ shadow was long in the light of the hearth, the reflection of its tail stretching across the floor like fingers. “Long ago I brought that warlord success,” the walls said, reverberating in her chest. “And for that I was worshipped—by him, by his children and his children’s children. But then the new god came and the old were forgotten. I was called a devil and they tried to drive me from my home.”
Anna gave a short, bitter laugh. “Haven’t you heard? The Soviets are here, there are to be no gods, old or new.”
The creature didn’t answer.
“So this is because you felt slighted, is it? How pathetic. It’s been six hundred years; your revenge is too slow.”
“And yet, once you and Adomas are dead, it will be complete.”
How long do we have before this money brings fate crashing down on us? Will I talk to my brother across this table? Will he have a night to rest with his new wife in the small bed with the red blanket? Perhaps a few of my brothers deserved their fate, but not Adomas.
Anna cocked her head to the side and the rooster cocked its head along with her.
She grabbed one of the ten-chervonetz notes and half the coins, carefully creased the face of Lenin, folded up the edges of the note and wrapped them around the coins until she had a neat, secure little packet. She then repeated the process with the second note. She held one in place with a thumb against each palm and strode slowly towards the hearth.
She stared into the flames where they danced along the cracks in the logs. The heat pulled at the skin on her legs and the smoke touched her nostrils. The aitvaras paced beside her, alternating flashes of black and fire. From it, there was nothing: no heat, no scent.
Laughter came from the walls and the aitvaras shook its jet comb. “Go on then,” it said, pointing with its beak. “Throw them in. Let’s have this over with.”
“If you have brought us this gift,” Anna began softly, “it means you know there is nothing outside these walls that will kill us, at least before we bring the next generation into the world and render your revenge incomplete.”
The aitvaras flapped its wings and its tail glowed brighter.
“No matter if we are sent to the Gulag or fight for the Forest Brothers or get hit by a runaway carriage, Adomas and I will not die. Or else you would not be here. If you did not put this money on our table, in wait of the Russian you stole it from, we would live.”
Anna looked at the packets and back to the fire. Her mother’s voice rang in her head: Don’t touch it; it will burn your fingers.
She bit down on her lip so hard she drew blood. When the creature turned for another strut, Anna whirled on her heel and grabbed a hold of the fiery tail feathers with both hands.
The aitvaras screamed.
It started as a chicken’s squawk but then grew deep and powerful. The walls shook so much she feared the cottage would come down around them. Anna screamed too, but the sound was lost like a match in a wildfire. Her hands blistered and tightened, the money turning molten in her grasp.
The aitvaras ran on its rooster feet, pulling her behind it like a ragdoll around the cottage.
The pain in her hands was unbearable.
Her skin burned off in layers down to the raw nerves, hissing and popping as it went. Then, to her relief, she couldn’t feel them anymore.
She fought to gain footing on the wooden floorboards, then pulled back her shoulder with all the strength she had. Three tail feathers pulled free in her left hand and burst into sparks around her before fading into the darkness. She clung to the remaining with her right.
The aitvaras’ screams took on new vigour, changing tone as it reached the doorway and the dragon form washed over it. In an instant, Anna’s feet were above the ground as the creature took to the sky. She dangled behind it by her right hand which was fused to the two remaining feathers. Her hand floated inside the shadow of a black dragon tail unable to solidify.
The aitvaras crested in the sky. It made no attempt to shake her: it could not cause her death directly, but it cursed her liberally to the heavens.
The air was cool and growing colder; the stars bright and beautiful. Her left hand hung limply at her side; it throbbed at the unnaturally straight line where char met flesh. In the quiet she could hear the sound of it sizzling. Her fingers were black as coal, forever burned into a claw around a fistful of ash and slag.
She smiled weakly. She was shivering and there was something warm in her mouth. Far below her, the countryside stretched like a black blanket. Pinpricks of light were rare, save for a great cluster off in the distance that must be Kaunas. She saw the lights of a train snaking its way through the forest. And she saw Adomas. He was sitting at a window seat, staring into the night, a woman asleep on his shoulder. She had an honest face and hands used to work.
They were almost home.
She lifted her stiffening left arm and pushed her elbow into the leathery hide of the aitvaras. With her leverage in place, she pulled the remaining tail feathers.
She hung for a second in the summer sky above her homeland. The tail dissolved, the aitvaras screamed, and the air burst into flames and wrapped around her.
She was free.
“HEY, YOU,” NIKOLAI said, grabbing the collar of an old man they met on the village road. “My money has gone missing, do you know anything about it? Justus?”
The translator spoke with the man in Lithuanian. Nikolai could tell by the head shakes and hand gestures that the answer would be no.
Nikolai let the man go and Justus took up his conversation with the soldiers about the fireball in the sky last night. They’d talked about nothing else their whole walk from the last village to this one but Nikolai had more important matters than meteorites on his mind at the moment.
He had found nothing but frustration since he’d been sent here from the smoking rubble of Stalingrad with a medal pinned to his chest to work as a collective farm supervisor. Migration had been heavy in this area, there weren’t enough people, there weren’t enough tools, and no one spoke a word of Russian.
He had to get his money back. It was a small fortune he’d hoarded during the war in gold chervonetz, bills, and roubles, one he didn’t want to lose and one he didn’t want the higher-ups to find out about.
He grabbed a second man passing by, a younger one, both arms weighed down by carpet bags and a woman by his side.
“He says he doesn’t know a thing. He just got back into town this morning on the train,” Justus translated.
The woman searched her clothing and produced the stub of a train ticket.
“I don’t care what anyone says,” Nikolai said with a sharp chop of his
hand. “I’m going to search every house in this village from top to bottom until I find it.”
Justus thought it necessary to translate this to the young couple, who shrugged.
Three men huddled together by the side of the road caught Nikolai’s eye.
“What are you doing here? Justus, ask them what they’re doing here.”
Justus raised an eyebrow as he translated their answer. “They say that one’s old rooster laid an egg.”
“Rooster? These country idiots! Did you tell them roosters don’t lay eggs?”
“I did, but they still insist.”
“Here, let me see.” He squatted in the midst of them and snatched the egg. He held it up to the sunlight. As Nikolai stared at it, he saw flames dancing below the surface. His mouth went dry, the farmers were crowded around him but he couldn’t make out a single face.
“Let’s go and start the search,” Justus said, his voice sounded far away, drowned out by the buzzing in Nikolai’s head. “We want it done quickly, huh?”
A warmth spread through his chest, Nikolai waved his arm. “Aw, don’t bother, I’m sure I just misplaced the money.” The flames leapt at the back of his eyes, more consuming than the sun. “This, I’m keeping.”
Midnight Man versus
Frankie Flame
Chadwick Ginther
HUMANS HAVE BUILT fires and shared stories of what lurked in the dark for our entire existence. If they only knew why midnight was a time to dread.
I smiled.
Midnight.
The witching hour.
My hour.
I’m the Midnight Man. I put the monsters back to sleep.
EVEN BEFORE FRANKIE Flame had been cremated alive the old mortuary and its adjoining church and graveyard had been weird. The church was haunted in locals’ eyes in the way most old buildings were—people felt the weight of its history, not spirits from the Kingdom interacting with our world. The complex was up the hill from Mort Cheval; a little city with a big appetite for the odd. Frankie Flame wasn’t my problem’s real name but it was what I called him. I liked to name my villains. Francis MacDonald had lost big betting Calgary would win the Stanley Cup. Oh, and he’d been an arsonist who specialized in insurance fraud with a side business in murder.
Legend says he jumped from the furnace and ran to the church, burning all the way and bringing it down around him. Same legend says Frankie’s spirit, still burning, now runs to escape a fate he’d already succumbed to.
When Frankie’s ghost had first appeared, it’d been no big deal. He didn’t have the power to kill. Not then, or at least, not yet. And since I didn’t have the power to summon him, Frankie had always sat on my backburner. A death on the grounds early in the morning—or late in the night, depending on your reckoning—had changed all that.
The decedent, one Todd Bickle, had been a cameraman on Ghost Walkers, a bullshit ghost hunting show. My police contact said Bickle spontaneously caught fire, and nothing could put out the flames. After thirty minutes of dousing, smothering with blankets, and Todd screaming, the fire died, as if it’d never been. The Ghost Walkers crew had obviously caught some spookier action than they’d hoped for.
Either Frankie had levelled up, or somebody had made a long distance call to the Kingdom. That meant a necromancer. Which meant it was my job. The bad guys—villains all—called themselves necromancers, called their gear necrotech. I usually called them dead. At least, I did after I was done. Only problem with killing necromancers: given their skillset they often weren’t done after they were “done.”
The first thing a necromancer does after they roll into town is take over a mortuary or funeral home. It gives them cover and access to raw materials. Next they go after their competition, whether by buying them out, or more commonly, burying them.
That’s how I joined the Fight, when necromancers killed my family.
Before I’d joined the Fight, there’d been no one to battle that evil for me. Now the Midnight Man fought for everyone else. Ever since I’d retaken my parents’ old funeral home and made it my hideout, I’d held Mort Cheval from all comers.
Tonight’s mission couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was low on gear. The last necromancer I’d dealt with, The Black Crown, had exhausted my reserves—the curse of scavenging their necrotech and not being able to make my own. I had two clips of tombstone bullets, a ball-and-chain bomb, my Hades cap, and my Grave Sight goggles. It was unlikely my Colt Model 1911s or remaining gear would do any good with a pure spirit like Frankie Flame, but I had to try.
THE CHURCH AND graveyard predated Mort Cheval’s founding and the old church was a hotspot for Mort Cheval residents. Wedding photos. Grad photos. That’s why there’s been so many Frankie sightings. People hoped to catch him in their special moment.
No one had been buried here in a long time. Grave stones, toppled by time or the teens who congregated here to drink, lay prone in the tall grass amid branches, rocks, and swarming ticks. I did a quick scan—never underestimate the willingness of late night mourners, partiers, or tourists to muck up a mission. I saw no one.
I wasn’t worried about being seen. My Hades cap kept me hidden from the living as long as I wished, providing there were shadows. Unfortunately it was the dead who worried me, not the living, and they were everywhere, and saw everything. You also never knew who they talked to. If one warned Frankie, my part-time fireman gig might be over before I could get the truck rolling.
I slipped on my Grave Sight goggles and the world turned red.
Unlike the necromancers I usually hunted, I couldn’t see into the Kingdom beyond, but my goggles kept spirits from surprising me. They also showed me where their power connected them to the Kingdom, and how I could best dispatch them.
In the penumbral grey of my Grave Sight, the old church was still whole, still ruined, still burning all at once, its three states superimposed over one another. A typical sight when the Kingdom is overlain with our world. Shades stood and wept all along the cracked causeway leading into the old church’s walls. A phantom bell swung in a phantom tower, but only the roaming spirits could hear it sound.
The crematorium was where I needed to go. It remained mostly intact; a conical roof clad in cedar shakes topped octagonal walls. Three rectangular windows on each facing had long ago lost their glass. Broad steps—the width of its facings—lead to an arched double door entrance. Trees had infiltrated the stairs and entrance; slender trunks and creeping ivy formed natural bars over the doors. Hints of landscaping survived, but wildness had dulled those edges.
I pushed through the foliage and shoved at the doors. Rusted hinges protested. If anyone waited for me, they’d hear me coming.
I trailed my hands over the walls, taking in the graffiti and scratches, scoring the soot left behind from Frankie’s last trip out of the furnace. With my Grave Sight goggles on, I saw that old fire, fresh as if it still burned. I could almost feel its heat. Time to find whoever’d taken Frankie Flame from light show to murder show.
It didn’t take me long, the chanting drew me in. Even if I wasn’t in the know, I would’ve suspected him for a necromancer. He looked like your typical bugeater: dressed all in black with greasy hair; long fingernails on digits encrusted with rings. Although I supposed I couldn’t point fingers when it came to the “none more black” sartorial choices, considering my head-to-toe black leather and the Jolly Roger emblazoned on my Hades cap.
“Francis MacDonald, come forth and burn again,” a man’s voice, raspy from too-enthusiastically calling on the dark powers, said. “Francis MacDonald, come forth and burn again.”
Whatever the necromancer’s plan to raise Frankie Flame’s spirit, I guessed each repetition of Frankie’s true name brought him closer to success.
Braziers burned with coals and he upended something—no doubt an unpleasant something—into the last one remaining unlit. The braziers ringed a rectangular hole in the chamber’s centre. That hole, once the elevator to take bodies to the fi
re, was my ticket to the furnace room—to Frankie Flame—assuming this chucklehead didn’t kill me first.
“Howdy,” I said, firing my Colt.
Tombstone bullets kill dead things deader. Usually. Tonight, the bullet pinged off an invisible ward my Grave Sight goggles couldn’t penetrate.
The bugeater whipped around, and I added sallow skin to his necromancer’s ID package. He had a number of magical geegaws, but I couldn’t tell which had stopped my bullet. His Grave Sight gave his sunken eyes a milky corpselike cast as he probed me for any exploitable weakness.
If I got too close, he’d use his death magic to end me. There was no telling how close was too close with thanatomancy, either. Effective range varied necromancer to necromancer. As did strength of effect. Maybe he could only make old wounds—sore knees, dislocated shoulders, a thousand aches and pains, distract me. Maybe he could stop my heart. Give me a stroke.
The necromancer smiled. Evidently he’d seen something. I put my back to the wall. I saw something too. Him. In my sights. I had twenty-five more rounds. And if both clips couldn’t break his wards? I’d dust off my knucks. Few necromancers liked fisticuffs. That’s what they had meat puppets for. We circled the chamber.
He had a Zippo in his hand. One brazier unlit.
He smiled again.
Damn. He wasn’t trying to kill me. He wanted to stall me. To call and bind Frankie. He wanted to watch me burn.
“Drop your gun,” he said. “It’ll have no effect on me.”
“Obviously, you don’t know who I am.”
He snorted. “You’re a deluded fool who thinks he’s a hero—a paragon. A fool who believes he can stop the inevitable by dressing in a ridiculous costume.”
Okay, he did know who I was, and he was being purposefully hurtful. Costume. My uniform was iconic.
“If you knew who I was,” he said, smirking, “you’d run screaming.”
Fire: Demons, Dragons & Djinns Page 22