Jar of Souls

by Bradford Bates

“Probably both,” I said, a grin breaking out on my face.

  “I’m just saying the first time my dad dragged me into a nest, I almost lost control of my bowels.”

  “Gross,” April whispered.

  “How is that different from last time we fought Gaston?” I joked.

  “I thought we came to a silent agreement not to talk about that.”

  “Eww. Double gross, guys!”

  “Don’t worry, April, I’m sure it won’t happen again,” I said.

  “Yeah, and if it does, I wore my Depends,” Marcus said.

  We all broke into little chuckles and smiled at one another. That’s why I loved my friends. We could make up crude jokes, and they just kept us loose for the fight ahead. I flashed my smile over at Britta, and she gave me a tiny wave. It was good to see her there by my mom; I knew as long as she stayed close, nothing would happen to her.

  Adam moved into the large empty lot. There was one solitary building to his right. It hadn’t seen any kind of use for years from the look of it. The roof was damaged, and the two large warehouse doors had been taken off or removed at some point. I couldn’t see anything inside of the building; darkness shrouded the interior. It didn’t look as if anyone was even squatting here, so the building had to be in worse shape than we could see from here. Trash rolled across the ground as a slight breeze blew across the wide-open asphalt lot.

  Adam turned toward the building and waited. Lapointe and Julian stood on either side of him, and the three of us fanned out behind him. The pack and Britta stayed behind us, and they started to face outward in a circle at our backs, my mom and Britta at the center of it. The Lycans started to change, something that I had never seen before, so I made sure to pay attention.

  My first thought was that it looked painful, and my second was I was happy that I would never have to do that. Their bones broke and regrew; their clothes ripped and shredded. In some cases, they nearly exploded off of them. Julian and my mom must have had magical armor because it expanded and grew with their new forms, making them the only two who weren’t naked. I felt a little better knowing that I wasn’t going to see my mom naked and that I wasn’t the only one who destroyed clothes at such a rapid pace.

  Now I knew why their swords were so big. As each of them finished the change, they harnessed the massive blades over their shoulders, just like Marcus had done with his katana. The only difference being their swords made his look like a toothpick. I had encountered Lycans in both forms this week, and I had to say the massive beastman form was the scariest by far.

  Britta looked a little worried now that she was encircled by ten eight-foot-tall clawed monsters, their muzzles slightly open, exposing their massive teeth. I wondered just how much one of them weighed; I was betting it had to be close to five hundred pounds. They stood on two feet and their claws still had thumbs. When we got back, I was going to have a lot of questions for my mom about what they could do. Some of those might even be answered by the coming fight.

  Julian howled into the night, and it didn’t take long for the entire pack to pick it up. They were signaling their readiness to go to war. Their cries ceased as one, and then we waited. Eventually a lone figure appeared on top of the building. I could tell from the clothes that it was Gaston. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his damaged clothes since our last fight. It made a sick kind of sense as I doubted he felt much of anything anymore. There was no one for him to impress. His only companion was death.

  Adam strode forward and held out the Jar in one hand. He shouted defiantly toward the lone shape on the roof. “I have what you want; all you have to do now is take it from me!”

  Gaston’s voice drifted down to us. The distance did nothing to deteriorate the harsh grating sound of it. It came to us almost as a whisper, even though he must have shouted it. “That is exactly what I intend to do.”

  Two people stepped out from the interior of the deserted warehouse. At least I think they were people. Their spines seemed to curve, giving them the appearance of being hunched over. They lifted their hoods, revealing their pure white skin. Both of them were hairless, and I was sure that one of them at some point had been a woman. They waited for a moment, and as if hearing some unspoken command, both of them opened their mouths at the same time. They had teeth that were too sharp, but not in the same horrendous shark-like way that Gaston’s mouth had.

  The two forms didn’t speak. They just closed their mouths and watched us. Adam didn’t move; he was waiting for Gaston to reveal his hand. The two white-faced monstrosities turned their heads at the exact same time. It reminded me so much of a dog that I almost laughed. They were listening to something we couldn’t hear, and it was creepy as hell. They moved their heads back into the normal position and continued to stare at us.

  Adam held his hands out wide to signal everyone back. “Wait for them to make the first move,” he said, his voice strained.

  Julian looked at Adam and then back at his pack. “Let us kill these two for you and then you can end this battle.”

  “I said to hold. Follow the plan.”

  “To hell with your plan. Charge!” He growled.

  The Lycans behind him broke their circle and charged forward, everyone except for my mother. She stayed right next to Britta as they moved up behind us. The Lycans covered the ground toward the silent and still ghouls. Just as they were about to clash, movement from inside of the warehouse brought them to a stop, all of them except Julian, who recklessly kept charging forward.

  “That fool is going to cost us this battle,” Adam said with a hiss while he watched. “There is nothing to do now but join them and hope for the best.”

  Adam strode forward at a measured pace, and all of us fanned out around him. My mother left Britta’s side and moved behind all of us to make sure we weren’t attacked from behind. In front of us, the undead streamed out of the warehouse. Julian’s charge brought him into a wave of them. He dove forward, slicing his massive blade across the first shambling line.

  The rest of the pack, seeing their Alpha alone, charged forward again. The two white-faced ghouls moved back through the crushing press of the undead to watch them work. Julian continued to slice through the undead, but it became apparent that he was going to fall under their numbers soon. They swarmed him like ants, and he cried out in pain as human teeth finally found purchase on his flesh.

  He tried to spin his sword around in a massive circle to buy himself some space, but there were just too many of them now. He fell to his knees and was lost in the crushing press of the undead. Adam moved forward and, with a flick of his hand, incinerated a huge swath of them so Julian’s pack could reach him. They moved in, swords moving up and down like hammers as they cleared the undead away from their leader.

  Marcus joined the fray, ashing the bodies they left behind. I was pretty sure it was him who raised the earthen wall, cutting off the massive wave of the undead, but it could have been Lapointe as well. The Lycans finally extracted Julian from the horde of undead. He didn’t look good; his fur was covered in blood, and he had a large chunk of his flesh missing out of his left arm. He growled into the night. The pain of the multiple bites healing was too much for him to contain. He fell to one knee and then rose again. He lifted his massive sword above his head and howled. The pack echoed his howls of rage and then charged back into the rising horde of zombies.

  I decided it was time to give Julian the battle that he wanted. Undead had started to stream around the earthen magic wall. April and Britta moved to opposite sides and started picking the zombies off. I called on my gift for the first time and shattered the wall, blowing it outward. Huge rocks slammed into the undead, ripping off limbs and pushing them back. The Lycans didn’t wait; they took the fight back into the horde, Marcus ashing the bodies as they fell to the ground.

  Adam was watching the roof, looking for Gaston, and I was looking for the ghouls. They had to be somewhere. If we could stop them, maybe we could stem the flow of some of the undead. I had
never seen so many zombies in one place. Last time it was hard enough battling the six Lycans; now there had to be at least a thousand people trying to kill us. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out they had some of the undead Lycans in reserve. The only good news was that these were acting more like normal zombies and didn’t have the added power that the Lycans had.

  It wasn’t too much longer before the first member of the pack fell under the press of the undead. This one wouldn’t be getting back up again. He tried to flee and was pulled back in by the two ghouls. Just as soon as they had dragged him back into the masses, he was gone forever. I knew it was petty, but I hoped it was the one who had made the crude motions toward Britta. None of the others deserved to die.

  I didn’t think the ghouls would be strong enough to take down a werewolf by hand, but I had been mistaken. That put their strength at almost equal with Gaston’s. They weren’t casting any spells, though, so we still had a small advantage. Adam reacted to the lost team member by incinerating a huge swath of the undead. He must have removed at least fifty bodies with that one attack, but more streamed into the gap, heedless of the ash falling around them. The Lycans cried out this time in mourning, and then their howls turned to growls of rage.

  Marcus and I continued to ash the fallen undead, and Adam and Lapointe tried to make big indents where they could. April and Britta were working to keep our flanks safe, and Mom was back there cleaning up any that they happened to miss. It felt weird saying Mom, especially when I looked back to see a massive beast wielding an even bigger sword. It finally felt like we had things under control, and that was when the howls of the undead pierced the night. I’m not sure exactly how to explain the difference; it was like if you took a normal wolf’s howl and mixed it with the sound of gravel falling off the back of a dump truck.

  Three of the huge undead wolves crashed into the Lycans, catching them almost completely off guard. Two of them fell under the assault, and their bodies were dragged back into the swirling masses of undead. Adam and Lapointe brought down two of the huge wolves while Julian cleaved the third in half. It didn’t matter to Gaston if they died. They were easily replaceable, but our forces weren’t. We were already down three pack members and had only made it through about half the zombie horde. Who knew what else they had in store for us. We had yet to face Gaston or either of his ghouls.

  Now that the crush of the zombie horde was slightly less crippling, we started to see the ghouls here and there darting in to strike at the Lycans. There was no sign of Gaston since the battle started. I could tell that Adam and Lapointe were saving their strength for the final showdown, so that meant I needed to get to work. Marcus was incinerating the bodies that hit the ground, and April and Britta still controlled our flanks. I turned my focus toward trying to find one of the ghouls.

  I could see her every now and again. Her pure white head gave her away as she darted through the zombies. I pulled the swords from over my shoulders and strapped my staff behind me. Jumping into the crazy whirling danger zone of the Lycan’s blades was something I hadn’t intended to do, but it was the only way to get close enough to have a shot at her. I moved between the pack, cutting down zombies where I could. It felt good to be doing something more than cleaning up other people’s kills.

  Spinning to the left, I took the arm off one zombie only to see it nearly split in half by the bigger sword of a Lycan. I dipped under his blade as it sliced to the side and lopped the head off of another one. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a burst of white as it shot forward. The leg of a zombie fell from my initial strike. My second sword barely swung around in time to block her attack. The creature hissed and garbled some insult that I couldn’t make out, and then the battle was on in earnest. She came at me as fast as one of the Fallen. I used my blades to deflect her claws. They seemed to chip away at her skin, and she started to drip the same black ichor that had come from Gaston.

  Something was different, though. These wounds seemed to actually hurt the ghoul, and although it was hurting her, she just kept coming at me. I stayed on the defensive, letting her cut herself against my blades, until finally there was an opening I couldn’t ignore. I called on my gift to augment my strength and slammed one of my blades into the creature’s chest. The scream of agony she let out was almost enough to make me drop my blades and fall to my knees. Somehow I found a way to hold on.

  I twisted the blade as I yanked it free, hoping to make the wound bigger. Black blood pumped from her chest in the place where her heart should have been. Despite the wound, the creature continued to attack, her strikes coming now at a frenzied pace. I was having trouble blocking them, and if she kept this up, it wouldn’t be long until I was in danger of falling.

  Marcus dodged in from the left, so I turned the creature to the right, exposing its back to him. He took one of the beads off of his bracelet and shoved it into the wound I had made, before running away. I took that as my cue to get the hell out of dodge. I lashed out at her leg, hoping to slow her down, and when that didn’t work, I called on my magic to form ice around her legs. It wouldn’t hold her for more than a few seconds, but that should be all I needed to get away.

  I had made it back into the area the pack had carved out when I heard the explosion. The noise was louder than it had any right to be. I had seen Marcus detonate his beads in the arena, and they sounded nothing like this. I wasn’t sure how much of that explosion my shield would have deflected. Even from ten feet away, I found myself flying through the air. The night lit up around me, and I could see the marks on the asphalt from where bodies had fallen. My shadow grew out in front of me and then drew closer as I fell. On second thought, I might have been seriously wounded had I been closer to the blast. The heat mostly dissipated as it hit my personal shield, but the ground sure didn’t seem softer when I landed flat on my face. I turned to look at what Marcus had done and stood in awe of the destruction.

  His one bead had left a huge crater in the ground, and all of the undead in a fifteen-foot circle had been vaporized. That took a little bit of the sting out of my fall. I felt two giant hands slide under my arms, and I was lifted to my feet. A silver Lycan stood behind me. It had to have been my mom. I nodded to let her know I was ok, and she turned back toward the back of the group. I looked over at Marcus and mouthed WTF? He just shrugged his shoulders and went back to ashing the corpses the Lycans were making.

  This time it was six undead wolves that attacked, all coming in from different angles. We lost another one of the pack members as two of the giant beasts brought her down. The inspector killed both of them with a lance of power. It was a cool move—he seemed to have cast out one bolt, but at the last second it forked, cutting both of them in half. I followed up his spell by destroying the still-twitching corpses. The pack managed to bring down two of the beasts. April got another one, and that left one more.

  I spun around to see Britta moving around one of the beasts, shooting it as she went. My first instinct was to run toward her to help, but even though she wasn’t making much progress, she didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was doing, but as my mom’s sword cut the beast’s head off in one stroke, it finally clicked. Britta had been shooting to keep its attention while moving it into position for my mom. Smart girl. For her first time in combat, she sure was keeping a level head. Not to mention all that spinning and ducking made her outfit fly around. It looked freaking awesome.

  She dropped a clip from her gun and then slid another one home before moving back toward the right flank. I turned around to ash a few more corpses, and then I heard a scream. Spinning to my left, I saw that the last ghoul had bitten April on the shoulder and was shaking her body back and forth. He was trying to savagely rip her flesh from her bones. She had slammed a sword into his chest below the ribs, but the creature didn’t react. Her other sword had fallen from her now useless arm.

  Before my mind could even catch up, I was sprinting toward her. As I ran
past Marcus, I saw his head turn and I hoped he was following me. The ghoul stopped shaking her to watch my approach. He must have decided for the moment I was the bigger threat because he dropped April back to the ground. When she landed, she let out a little whimper of pain. The sound of it sent me into a rage. I sheathed my swords and reached for my father’s staff. I cast everything I had to the ghoul.

  It seemed to shrug off the magic as if it was nothing. Fire washed over it, burning away its clothes but leaving the monster unscathed. April’s blood still dripped from its lips. The smile it gave me sickened me. I tossed my staff to the side, pulling out my swords again, and ran straight at the hideous monster.

  My swords struck its arms and were turned aside; unlike the female ghoul, this one seemed not to feel the pain at all. I spun away from its claws and then lashed out again with a series of offensive strikes. It batted aside my blades easily before leaving four gashes down my chest from its claws. The thing’s claws were sharp; it shredded my leather jacket like tissue paper. I stepped back to reassess the situation, but it didn’t give me more than a second before launching itself at me.

  I wondered what made it so much stronger. Had it been alive longer? Had Gaston poured more power into its creation? I probably would never have the answer, and definitely wouldn’t if I didn’t start to focus on what I was doing. I blocked everything it had, and then finally my gaze fell to April’s blade still lodged under the thing’s ribs. So it could be hurt, just maybe not on the arms, or else the wounds just healed so fast that they didn’t matter to the creature.

  Jumping to the side, I kicked out, catching the hilt of April’s sword. The creature let out a growl and then looked down as if realizing for the first time the blade was still there. Its black eyes found mine, and it smiled again. It tilted its head to the side as if trying to understand me, and then it slowly pulled the sword out of its body, letting it clatter to the ground. I watched with growing amazement as the black blood stopped flowing almost immediately and the wound sealed itself.