Water Nymph

by Edmund Hughes

  “You aren’t leaving, Andrea,” he said.

  “Like hell I’m not!” Andrea rounded on him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Jack and I aren’t staying here tonight. Not with you!”

  She hurried over to where Jack was on the stairs and pulled him into her arms. At ten, Jack was already almost too big to be carried, but that didn’t stop Andrea from doing it anyway. She stomped toward the door again, and this time, James didn’t stop her.

  He swore as the door shut and ran his hands through his hair. He listened as Andrea’s car started, and then drove away. He listened to the sound of his family leaving.

  “Should you really be letting her leave in that emotional of a state?”

  Peter had entered the room at some point. The concern was clear on his face, but there was no judgement in his expression for his former apprentice.

  “Maybe not…” said James. “I don’t fucking know. Maybe I should let her go and stop making her life so much more complicated than it needs to be. Or maybe I should go.”

  “It hurts her,” said Peter. “The fact that you never married her.”

  “She’s the one who refused my proposal,” said James. “Twice.”

  “Because you wouldn’t give up your career with the Order and settle down,” said Peter. “It’s still an option, you know. You’d be comfortable here on Lestaron Island, James.”

  James looked as though he was considering it. He ran a hand over his face and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I need a drink,” he said.

  He followed his former master into the kitchen. A bottle of wine was already sitting on the counter. Peter lifted it into the air, gave it a small shake, and then frowned.

  “This bottle of wine was nearly full when we left to deal with Zack Koffman,” he said. “And we weren’t gone for that long.”

  It a took a moment for the words, and their implication, to register with James.

  “Fuck!”

  ***

  James’ tracking spells had always been precise. This time, however, they didn’t need to be. They found Andrea’s car before reaching Lesser Town, in the middle of the road, after one of the trickier turns to take at high speed. It had rolled over several times, and it was completely totaled.

  “No…” James fell to his knees by the side of her body, which had been thrown loose at some point during the crash. Broken glass from the car’s windows cut into his palms, but he didn’t seem to notice. “This… can’t be happening.”

  Peter emerged from behind the car with a shattered expression on his face. He held young Jack’s unmoving body in his hands, trying to put pressure on as many of the wounds as he could.

  “Is he…?” James swallowed, unable to get the words out. “Is he still…?”

  Tears streaked down Peter’s face as he gave the tiniest shakes of his head. The body in his arms was pale. Jack was dead.

  ***

  “James!” shouted Peter. “You mustn’t do this!”

  “I have to try!” shouted James. “It was my fault. I… I have to try.”

  The summoning circle had been drawn hastily, but James’ desperation had forced each curve and line to be perfect. Jack and Andrea’s bloody bodies lay side by side across the stone floor of the mansion’s cellar. Zack Koffman, bound, gagged, and unconscious, was leaned against the wall in the corner. James lit the last candle and fell to his knees, taking a deep breath.

  “The demon would have said anything to plant this seed in your mind,” said Peter. “Anything at all. They’re entities of evil, James. You can’t possibly expect this to go well.”

  “Your staff,” muttered James. “I… I don’t have the magical essence to do this on my own right now.”

  “James—”

  “Peter!” James’ voice was desperate, ugly, and toeing the edge of insanity. “Please, Peter, for the love of god! This is your daughter and your grandson! Don’t let them die! Don’t let me… be the one who killed them.”

  Peter didn’t look up. He kept his gaze locked to the floor, away from the reality that surrounded him. He swallowed, then held out his staff, passing it into James’ hands. James held it tight in one fist as he touched the other into the summoning circle, closing his eyes to focus.

  “Mezolak,” whispered James.

  The air above the summoning circle wavered, and then filled with impossibly dark, swirling smoke. The smoke coalesced into not one, but two shapes. James recognized Mezolak by his masculine features, but the other with him was clearly a woman, if such a thing could be said about a demon.

  “She’s my sister,” said Mezolak, answering James’ unasked question. “You have power, mortal. Adana cannot usually follow me through from the Other Realms, no matter how she might strive to. But your spell was open, a doorway in place of a hole. Open enough for us both.”

  Adana turned her head at an inquisitive angle. She was disturbingly beautiful, even with the bizarre crimson fault lines running through her onyx skin.

  “You said something about… bringing people back,” said James. His voice was weak, and raw with emotion.

  “Ah, yes.” The smile that flickered across Mezolak’s face was the stuff of nightmares. His dark lips curled away from teeth as red as fresh blood. “I should have guessed. To call for me in such short order. Mortals are so predictable.”

  “Please!” snapped James. “Can you help me? Can you… save them?”

  “Where would the vessel of life essence for such a revival come from?” asked Mezolak. “Are you intending to try to sacrifice yourself, mortal? That would not do, given my price.”

  “This man,” said James, jabbing a finger toward the warlock. “I… will sacrifice him, for the sake of my family.”

  James couldn’t look at Zack Koffman as he spoke the words, despite the fact that he was still unconscious. Peter was shaking his head back and forth with slow, horrified movements.

  “There is a beautiful irony in the events of the mortal world,” said Mezolak. “A tragic, poetic rhythm that flows underneath the surface like a perfect current.”

  “Will you do it?” asked James. “Will you… save them?”

  “Their bodies are not in an unworkable condition,” said Mezolak. “But you will have to choose. One or the other. Not both.”

  James let out a shaky sigh. Tears were already flowing from his eyes again, leaving wet, glistening streaks across his cheeks.

  “You’re asking me to choose… between my son… and the woman I love?” asked James.

  “Yes,” said Mezolak. “Choose between saving one or losing both.”

  “It’s not too late, James,” said Peter. “We can walk away from this.”

  James looked like he was considering it, but he gave a small shake of his head, along with a broken smile.

  “Andrea would never forgive me,” he muttered. “I couldn’t do that to her. Bring her back to a world where her only son is dead because of that crash. A world where she’s only alive because I chose her over him.”

  “The boy, then?” asked Mezolak. “Yes… I see the logic in that.”

  “He won’t forgive us,” said Peter.

  “For saving his life?” shouted James. “Jack will understand why we—”

  “Why we spilled the blood of a man to taint him with the black magic of demons?” asked Peter. “Answer me this, Mezolak, or whatever it is you’ve named yourself. What would this do to the child? You can’t expect me to believe that there would be no ill effects from this, this… necromancy!”

  Mezolak and his sister both laughed in unison.

  “The spell is not perfect,” said Mezolak. “There will be some memory loss, along with leakage of the life essence vessel’s personality. In the case of the honorable Zack Koffman, I cannot tell you exactly what that means.”

  James glanced over at the unconscious form of the warlock.

  “It’s a risk I’ll have to take,” he said.

  “The man was a criminal!” shouted Peter. “How many
people had he killed, without remorse, to attract the attention of the Order? James, will you be able to live with yourself if this turns Jack into a…”

  Peter shuddered and shook his head, frustration or disgust preventing him from finishing his thought.

  “I have to do it,” said James. “I can’t live knowing that I could have tried this and didn’t.”

  “Then allow us to discuss the price my aid will require,” said Mezolak. “The real penance that is needed.”

  “What?” asked James.

  “You will lend me your body, mortal,” said Mezolak. “You will share it with me for a time. At least for long enough for me to impact the mortal world until I get sick and tired of doing so.”

  “No!” shouted Peter. “I will not allow this!”

  Peter surged forward, throwing himself toward the candles backing the magic of the summoning spell. James hesitated, but only for an instant. Peter didn’t have his staff, and James was already channeling most of his essence.

  He launched a blast of invisible magical force intended to disable, rather than kill. Peter shot sideways, slamming into the stone wall of the cellar. He grimaced and clutched at his ribs as he slid to the ground, and his breathing became slightly labored.

  Mezolak and Adana both began laughing. Mezolak extended a hand toward his sister, and she intertwined her fingers with his. James took several deep breaths, and then nodded to the demons.

  “What guarantee do I have that you’ll hold to your word?” asked James.

  “My kind takes our oaths seriously,” said Mezolak. “I would even go so far as to allow you to see your son alive again before demanding my price.”

  James stared at Jack’s unmoving, dead body. His expression was that of a man who’d already made his choice.

  “Then…” He swallowed and met Mezolak’s gaze. “You would also need to make an oath to stay away from him. Stay away from my child once you have my body.”

  “That would be acceptable,” said Mezolak.

  “…Okay,” said James, after another few seconds.

  “James…” said Peter, in a strained voice. “Please…”

  “Do it,” said James. “I agree to the terms of our bargain. Now please… bring back my son.”

  Mezolak grinned and lashed a hand outward in the direction of Zack Koffman. A lance of dark purple magical energy speared into the warlock, impaling him through the midriff. Zack screamed and clawed at the point of impact as the magical energy began flickering across his skin in patterns reminiscent of spiderwebs.

  The life faded from him over a period no longer than ten seconds. His eyes went glassy, and his screaming shifted into a silent, reflexive exhalation. Mezolak pulled his hand back, and the magical spear came with it, pulsing in the familiar, lilting rhythm of a human heartbeat.

  He reached his arm out, extending it toward Jack’s body. The purple energy didn’t stab into him with the same violence as it had with the warlock. Instead, it slithered across its skin, moving with a dark, sinister intelligence. The magical energy split into tiny fragments, all of which crawled across him like insects, finding points of entry into his body at the mouth, eyes, and the various bloody gashes left from the car accident.

  His wounds began to heal, flesh knitting and materializing to fill the gaps. Bits of broken glass from the car’s windows and fabric from the tears of his own clothing pushed outward from a few wounds as his body rejected both the damage and foreign contaminants.

  Color returned to Jack’s face, and he let out a tiny, pained groan. Peter went to him instantly, pulling the boy into a defensive embrace and covering him with his black leather duster.

  “There,” said Mezolak. “Are you ready to pay the price, mortal?”

  “I need some time with my son, first,” said James. “I need to… let him know that I love him. And that the only reason I did this was—”

  The question apparently had not been one that Mezolak had needed an answer to. He glided forward through the air as James spoke, and then slammed across the last few feet separating them in what would have been a tackle, had he been in possession of a material body.

  When Mezolak collided with James, his demonic form dissolved into smoke. The smoke went in through James’ mouth and ears, and he fell backward onto the floor.

  “James…” said Peter. He kept Jack’s body shielded. The other demon had vanished as soon as Mezolak had moved across the confines of the summoning circle, but the room still felt like it had a dark presence within it.

  James began to laugh. It was a cruel sound, and it echoed off the stone walls of the cellar. Peter hugged Jack tighter to him with one hand and picked up his staff with the other.

  “This…” said James. “Feels good. This… feels excellent.”

  “You have what you wanted, demon!” shouted Peter. “Leave my house. Do not come back.”

  James laughed again, and Peter didn’t stop him as he made his way up the stairs and out of the mansion. He brought Jack to his room and then returned to his cellar to handle what remained of the tragedy of the night. To bury his daughter, and to find a way to dispose of the evidence of the most disgusting crime he’d ever been a part of.

  CHAPTER 23

  Jack was lying flat on his back on the grass as he stirred from the memory. It was mid-afternoon, and there was a generous breeze on the air, hinting at another storm to come. There was no sign of Mezolak or anyone else around him.

  He stood up and screamed through gritted teeth. He was still amidst the cherry trees, and he swung his fist into the trunk of the nearest one as hard as he could. He hit it several times, leaning into the pain as his knuckles tore open. He needed the pain. He needed any distraction available.

  There were too many images that he couldn’t get out of his head. The demonic spell crawling over his mangled body. Zack Koffman grimacing in pain as he died. His father, or rather, Mezolak, laughing after the price had been paid.

  He wished he could throw away the knowledge. He wished he could go back to the moment he’d first committed to digging up his father’s grave and force down his own curiosity. It was all just too much.

  He’d been dead, and then he’d been brought back to life. What did that even make him? Mezolak had implied that some of Zack Koffman’s personality might have transferred over to him along with the life essence. The life essence of an evil warlock who’d been sacrificed to save him.

  It was overwhelming. It was enough to make him question everything, down to who he was and if his choices were truly his own. Jack had killed people before and abused his vampiric powers. Had he been doing it because he had to? Or was it an impulse born from Zack Koffman’s sacrifice, a small, corrupted part of his psyche drawing from a subconscious that belonged to someone else?

  He let out a shaky breath. His heart was pounding out a chaotic rhythm, and his shirt was soaked through with sweat. Jack felt a perverse, irrational sense of not being safe. Like he was being chased, but by something he couldn’t run from. Something that would find him, regardless of where he tried to hide or what he tried to do.

  Jack headed back into the mansion. He felt like he was on the verge of breaking down. He needed something to drink, but the idea of heading down into the cellar to grab a bottle of wine made him feel like throwing up. He could still picture where his and his mother’s bodies had been and hear how his father and Mezolak’s laughter had echoed off the stone.

  He went to the kitchen instead. There were a few bottles of wine in the cupboard, and he drank one of them in less time than it took him to get it open with a corkscrew. It was heavy in his stomach, and numbing in a way that didn’t satisfy his needs.

  Jack was thirsty, but not for water, and not for alcohol.

  He stood outside Ryoko’s door for a couple of seconds, forcing composure over himself. He heard her stirring as he knocked.

  “Come in,” she said, in a quiet, innocent voice.

  Her smell hit him in a wave as he entered her room, but it wa
sn’t what caught Jack’s attention. Ryoko was lying in her bed, under her covers. Her maid uniform lay crumpled on the floor nearby. She was smiling, but the expression seemed so forced on her face that for a moment, his own concerns slipped into the background.

  “Ryoko,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  She didn’t answer him for a couple of seconds, and the silence only made her expression look that much more hollow.

  “Do you need to feed?” she asked, in a shaky whisper. “You can, if you want.”

  It was the exact impulse that had driven Jack to come see her, and yet he suddenly felt as though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  “No,” he said, ignoring the mild headache he’d been sporting since his fight with Mezolak. “No, I just… came to check up on you.”

  She’d seemed like she’d been starting to do a little better when she’d made him food earlier. But now, it looked as though that single act had drained all of her energy. Jack sat down next to her in bed, his heart aching as he looked at her and saw the lethargy in her face and posture.

  “I’m sorry about how messy my room is,” she whispered. “I didn’t manage to get much cleaning done around the mansion, either. I’m a bad maid…”

  “It’s okay,” said Jack. “I know how hard things have been for you lately, Ryoko. I just want you to rest until you start feeling better. I can hold down the fort until then.”

  “I just want things to be like they used to be, between us,” she said. “And I want… I really want you to start feeding on me again.”

  Jack sighed and squeezed her leg. It was hard to be there for her while at the same time feeling overwhelmed by his own problems. He cared about her, though. More than he cared about himself, in so many ways.

  “Ryoko…” he said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think part of the reason why you’ve been feeling this way to begin with is because of how much I was feeding off you. The anti-enthrallment potion might prevent some of the effects of my bite, but not all of them.”

  She bowed her head forward and let out a quiet, tired sigh.