by Al K. Line
I remained cautious, not cocky. It never pays to think you're the best, because you rarely are. But I had faith in my own abilities, understood my strengths and weaknesses, and fear is something I never let dominate my actions.
Life has thrown too much my way for me to be frightened. I've seen, okay, experienced, too much horror at the hands of human beings and preternatural creatures—there's only so much you can take before something snaps in your head and the fear is eradicated.
The sun beat down something fierce as I shielded my eyes and looked into the sky as a helicopter passed overhead. Then my focus was back on the ground, mindful of each step, moving quietly through the sticky jungle, the way easing as life gave way to death. Or, death of a sort.
Strange Cemetery—officially titled Resting Place for obvious reasons—is a very peculiar place. Not somewhere I visit too often as, well, a lot of the people I know live an awful long time and it's only been around for forty or so years.
Once we came out to the world, the uproar died down and we all got on with coping with the same old crap life delivers regardless of your magical prowess, but the one issue that hadn't been resolved was death.
For as long as most Strange had known, we'd buried our own well away from any Normal cemetery, but a case back then meant we had to confront the issue head-on. A wizard, married to a Normal, died, and his request was to be buried next to his wife. There were grumbles from Strange, all agreeing it was a bad idea, but Regulars, and the "Law" said his wishes had to be upheld even though they were told it was the wrong decision.
So when he decided he didn't want to be dead and came back as a rather distressed looking wizard that refused to leave the cemetery and spent his time freaking out mourners, well, we got the official Strange Cemetery, and boy is it.
There is no church, just a series of scattered buildings more like compact houses. Built solidly from cut stone, single large spaces inside for the sending off of our dead, various traditions used in the different buildings, most of them rather esoteric and far removed from traditional services for the deceased.
It sits in a large, old field where decorative shrubs and roses perfume the air, protected by the high walls as much to keep certain things in as prying eyes out. It's still pretty empty, and very rundown. Nobody ever wants to visit and make repairs, and most Strange have taken to cremation anyway. Just to make certain nobody reanimates them or turns them into anything nasty interrupting their afterlife.
You can walk for a good ten minutes within the walls, enjoying the peace and the solitude if you don't mind the odd ghost, or a ghoul in denial feverishly digging in the dirt, refusing to accept that every coffin is made of thick steel and locked securely, another reason why most of us shun such an end.
Plots are free, but even that isn't a good enough draw. I don't think there's been a single burial for years. It's beautiful in its own way, but there's a definite tinge of neglect and a sadness to the place. The few graves it contains, and the more prolific crypts, are spread far and wide through the grounds, no being interrupted by your neighbors here.
Some of the buildings have fallen into disrepair, others are still fairly pristine, and this did seem like a place Blue would pick. Just to be morbid and soak up the magic that permeated the ground, walls, and air—it's brimming with magic from various groups in an attempt to ensure whoever was buried remained dead and undisturbed. Hexes, wards, talismans buried in the walls, spells spoken into boxes and buried deep in the ground, scores of them connected by wires that ran around the perimeter and acted as silent sentries, the place seeped like a magical maggot on a fisherman's hook. Oozing magic that was untethered and abandoned, twisting the reality a little, making things feel somehow off but you weren't sure how or what effect it was having.
I was standing at the gates. All was quiet, which I knew was wrong. Yes, cemeteries are meant to be quiet, but not ours, not Strange Cemetery—no final resting place for those that simply change their minds. I tapped in a security code on the one piece of equipment that was entirely modern and pushed on the gate, suitably squeaky and atmospheric. Then I was in, closing it behind me.
Rather than be at the center of the cemetery, the gate was butted up tight against the western wall, the view limited, showing little but the shrubs against the high wall, the view of the cemetery proper blocked by a wall running at right angles from the gate forming a corridor to stop any snooping. Why they didn't just use a solid gate has always been a mystery, but who am I to question city planning and its endless red tape and quirky sense of design?
Once out in the open, I immediately felt exposed after the cloying atmosphere of the jungle. No wayward plants here, no foreign invaders come to take the dead. The magic was too strong, too imprinted with the memory of Strange and too locked down with the mess of magical barriers that disrupted the Pool and made my head feel woozy until I took a moment to shut it down for fear of losing my sense of reality.
The grass was mowed, that sweet smell that always makes me smile. Stripes ran the length of the various sections, other parts wild, left to meadow so the bees and the butterflies could feast on the summertime goodness.
And there she was, Blue, off in the distance, unmistakable even from here. Wandering the grounds seemingly without a care in the world. She waved at me, then picked a flower and took in its scent.
She disappeared behind a small copse of towering oaks, crooked and clinging to life, here long before the dead and still going strong.
Centering myself, expanding with magic as I drank greedily from the Pool, I followed.
Look, it's my job, what else was I supposed to do? This is how it works, how it's always worked. If you aren't up to the task then you get replaced. This is a dangerous business and I may wax lyrical at times about this and that, but at the end of the day I can kick ass and have no qualms about blasting killers into the afterlife. So what better place than here? It would save on funeral costs.
"Look out, Blue, Swift's coming to get you." I tugged at my soaked, pink vest, fought valiantly with my hair, fished out a stogie from its case and lit it after a battle I refused to lose.
I took deep puffs on the sad excuse for a smoke and trailed after Blue as the smoke drifted lazily on the gentle breeze that rippled the grass and seared my lungs more harshly than the smoke—if it was any hotter it would have burned the grass.
Time to earn my keep.
A Lucky Break
The sun burned my skin as I eased up on the protective aura, letting all magic build for the capture of Blue. Damn but it was blistering. The air weighed heavy, trapped by the walls, and the oaks gasped as leaves curled, unsuited to the new climate.
I leaned a hand against the bark of the largest, thankful for the shade, wondering how long before our native species gave up the ghost if the Shift remained. Blue wasn't far away now, standing and waiting for me, alone.
Was she trying to trap me? Set me up, her new gang members waiting in ambush? I sent out feelers in the air, allowing my mind to wander through the magic, taking twists and turns, floating on eddies that steadied as I forced my will through their esoteric tendrils.
Nope, nothing I need worry about. Just Blue, me, and a few lost souls refusing to follow through on the rules of life and death they ought to obey.
I stepped out, walked past the trees into the open toward her, smoke rising straight up as the breeze died a sudden death.
"You've been up to no good, Blue. Time to answer to your Queen."
I moved closer as I spoke, then took a final drag and crushed my cigar beneath my work boots—I was gonna have awesome blisters after wandering around with wet feet all day.
She sneered. "Queen, ha! I don't answer to that woman, she's such a bitch." She had a point. She was, but we still all answered to her, even Robin and I.
"You killed people. Innocents. What do you think you're doing?" Closer, moving slower now, ready for her to make a move.
"They were disrespectful. They had it coming. I
have to show them I'm not gonna be treated like that." Blue lifted an arm and brushed at her hair, bangles rattling, the silver catching the sunlight I'd made sure was behind me, making her squint.
"You can't kill innocents because they don't cow-tow to you. We have rules, laws we have to abide by. You chose to live here so you have to follow them, you know that. Everyone does." I felt my immersion deepen, my connection to the local Pool more than adequate for this task. It was still fat from returned magic, the corruption there in pockets, the effect of the Shift, but I drew carefully, certain to take clean and pure energy.
"I live by my own rules and this stupid city and its idiot Strange are in for an awakening. I'm done with you people. Now the Rift's cleaned the place up, I'm mopping up all that will make my job harder." She spoke with an accent, even after so many years in our country, making her sound as exotic as she looked. It was kind of giving me a complex, wishing I could be so beautiful and elegant and mesmerizing, but it wouldn't stop me doing what had to be done. Nothing would.
We were close now, close enough for me to see the anger flashing in her eyes. What was this really about? "Okay, look, you can explain all this to Levick. He wants you brought in so that's what's gonna happen."
"Fuck you, Swift. Him too. All of you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm part of this place now, I have its power. You just try and drag me off and I'll tear you into chunks and let you rot then feed you to the ghouls. I'm the one that says what will happen, not you, you little sycophant. Doing as you're told like a good girl. What, Mummy promised you a sweetie did she? If you brought in big bad Blue?"
I was surprised she knew. A lot of Strange didn't, as we don't exactly advertise the relationship and you'd never guess unless told. "No, she's annoyed at me, actually, so nothing new there. This is my job, stopping the death of innocents, preventing people like you giving Strange a bad name. You'll ruin it for us all."
"Ha, that's rich coming from someone that killed a soldier yesterday and whose freak of a boyfriend killed more this morning. I know what you've all done, it's double standards."
"No, Blue, it isn't. Those men had it coming, the people you killed didn't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I knew them. You forget, I know most in the city, and you killed innocents."
"Spare me," she spat. "Nobody's innocent, not in Strangetown."
Blue launched without warning. A step, a bended knee, and then she was coming. Fast as a hyena, silver flashing as she arced through the air.
Magic took me over as I slipped into enhanced vision, my body amped, time slowing as I became something different. Everything running at triple speed, allowing me to react in a way impossible to anticipate. I noted with interest that she held a small blade, part of a thick bracelet she'd released, now a curving knife ready to slit my throat at the end of her trajectory.
I twisted, spinning around her as she landed in front of where I would have been, her arm slashing the air a fraction of a second too late. I held myself in check and blasted the ground rather than her, the dirt exploding behind her, then doing the same to her side as I carved out a burial plot of her very own.
She rolled as the ground shook, heading toward the hole as the earth tilted, my actions directing the shock wave that would see her resting peacefully for a while as I called it in and got her collected.
But at the last minute she sprang away, pushing down hard with her hands and vaulting the hole as momentum carried her forward.
Even as she turned and pulled her hair into a ponytail, I felt the air thrum and the fractured ground, the loose dirt and sod, it all shot into the air high above our heads, her voice heavy-accented as she spoke fast in a language I didn't know.
The airborne earth attacked from all directions. First tiny pieces, then larger and larger as she increased her draw on the Pool, pulling up the ground in great chunks and hurling them at me.
I wrapped myself in a tight layer of protection before the assault cocooned me in a shroud of earthy death, and crouched low, making the protection stronger.
She was good, but I was better.
Hands on the ground, I became at one with the tainted soil. Magic ley lines weaved this way and that, created by wizards and witches over the years, now long forgotten, and I let the power they contained release all at once, her at the center of it as I twisted them and turned them and they closed in to hold her fast, stop her from using magic.
I saw the shock register, the disbelief that I could harness the lost spells and the art of others and bend it to my will, just as she had been doing for who knew how long in this place, but for a different purpose. At that moment I understood what her intentions were, why she had chosen this place for her hangout.
No matter, she was done for. I had her.
The magic swirled in the air, fat and red, wispy and black, spells made real by my connection and calling, each working for me now. Brought back to life and coming close to her, now wrapping around her, stopping anything getting out, her magical abilities negated.
A sound from above almost made me lose focus, but I kept my concentration, knew it was just the helicopter from earlier. But it sounded off somehow, and then I realized it probably didn't know about the no-go zone above the cemetery. These people weren't dealing with anyone local, were out of the loop. The sound changed, the blades speeding up as it spasmed in the sky like a lost bird battered by the wind.
Blue looked up and strained against the magical bonds that almost held her utterly captive. She squeezed an arm up over her head, skin rippling as the energies pulled against flesh.
The helicopter was directly overhead. Low now, the pilot fighting for control. He was winning, it was righting and would be gone.
Blue pointed at the sky and whispered something. The elements obeyed. The forces wrapped around her grew stronger under my control but she channeled some up and away.
Black spells of binding shot up, looking like fat lumps of corrupted meat, old and mostly ineffective. But combined with her waning power, the magic in the air, and the weirdness caused by the Shift, it was enough to do the job.
I watched, aghast, as the ethereal power almost vanished but somehow made it to the helicopter, shot past the body, and shattered the rotor blades into a million pieces.
There was silence for one beautiful moment, then reality spat us back out.
We ran for our lives as ten tons of metal plummeted toward us.
Bugger
Burning balls of death and lumps of metal rained down in all directions. More by sheer luck than anything, we made it clear of the first impact zone, and for a moment I thought I would be fine.
I was chasing after Blue, not allowing her wanton destruction to stop me getting her, but she was fast, and I was shocked she could do something so utterly destructive, knowing full well she was taking the lives of the men.
Steel slammed into the ground around us as we got up to speed, shards of metal that would slice you in two, chunks that would crush your skull, scraps of seat and spikes of rotor blade along with endless fragments of molten plastic.
Blue turned as the sky burned and the ground erupted, a wicked sneer on her face, and then her eyes went wide.
I felt the explosion a moment later as the fuselage hit. It erupted in a fireball that mushroomed into the sky. My back burned as the heat expanded, and then I was blasted forward, sailing high into the air as the full force of the aftershock hit.
No chance to prepare, I came down to earth hard, getting a mouthful of sweet, cut grass, body feeling all crispy. I panicked I'd lost my hair, maybe my limbs.
The last thing I remember before blacking out is Blue squatting beside me, face close to mine, saying, "Well, that was pretty lucky."
"Bugger," I moaned, then all was blackness.
Cryptastic
I was freezing cold, shivering uncontrollably. It was a feeling I never thought I'd experience ever again, yet it wasn't welcome. I longed for the blistering heat of the Shift, to be out
in the sun, sweating and moaning about the jungle.
Instead, my teeth chattered, words impossible to speak. The wind didn't blow, the birds didn't sing, and the bees didn't buzz. The sun certainly didn't shine in here.
I was beneath the earth, locked away and unable to escape no matter how hard I tried, and trust me, I'd been trying for two days now. My world was cold, my world was dark, my world was scary. My world was gone.
You know that stuff I said about no longer being frightened of anything? That too much has happened for me to ever be scared again? Well, it may have been true before, but it wasn't now. Now I was close to panic, to going crazy and clawing at the stone lid of the sarcophagus until my fingers were rubbed down to the bone.
Only one thing allowed me to hold it together—I wouldn't give Blue the satisfaction. No way, Jose.
Magic wouldn't work, not that I was so sure I'd have got out even if it had, my current condition was so far from ideal. I wasn't burned badly, that was something, but I was exhausted, weak from the magic use and the explosion, too hungry and tired to focus properly. I needed to eat to replenish my energy, huge quantities of food same as always after using magic.
Even then I would have been stuck. The crypt I was in was one of only a few in the cemetery, just about the only places where magic wards were kept up-to-date, checked on regularly.
Why? Because they housed powerful, less than friendly Strange. It didn't matter that they were dead, they had to be locked down so there was no chance of them coming back and tearing through the city. They were dangerous people when alive and would be just as dangerous, if not more so, if they could return and roam the city with not even death a threat.
It was just my luck to be in Harcon Bale's final resting place. Yeah, he was in here with me, and to say it was cramped is an understatement.
"You smell so good," came the nightmarish whisper of Harcon, his stinking corpse shifting to get close again. His voice came not through the mouth, it was too far gone for that—lips shrunken away, teeth fallen out, tongue a weird blackened stub of a thing—but was in my mind, spoken through the magic he clung to even in death.