by Nazri Noor
Herald knelt by me, his hand going to dad’s neck, over his chest, under his nose.
“He’s alive,” Herald said. “He’s alive, Dust, don’t worry. Your father’s going to be okay.”
“Who could have done this?” The door was ajar. A robber? Who the hell would come to a dump of a community like this and think there was anything worth stealing in a ten-mile radius? A junkie, maybe. Someone desperate or drugged-up enough to break into someone’s house and steal their shit. “Who would do this to him?” I demanded, as if Herald would have any answers.
“Calm down, Dust. Let me focus. It’s going to be okay.”
I shut up when I noticed what he was doing, when I saw the filaments of purple light trailing from his fingers. There was no telling what all Herald had in his compendium of spells, but instinctively I knew he was doing his best to cast healing magic over my father. I could have hugged Herald right then and there. I could have bought him two whole steak dinners.
Tendrils of violet light danced over my father’s body, curling against his skin. What it was doing, exactly, I couldn’t tell, but it was enough to get him conscious again. Dad moaned softly, finally stirring. Herald kept up his spell, his incanting finally ended. He turned to me and gave me a tight smile.
“He’s going to be okay, Dust.”
I nodded, then stroked my father’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay, dad. You hear that? You’re going to be fine.”
He stirred then, his head turning to follow the weight of my hand.
“Hmm,” he murmured. “Dust?”
“Dad?” Something like fire lit up in my chest. My smile must have burned like the sun. “It’s me, dad. It’s me.”
“It’s me, dad.”
It was another voice. I could have convinced myself that it was an echo, because I recognized the voice as my own.
“Oh God, Dust,” Herald said. “Holy fuck.”
I looked down the same direction he was staring, down the same corridor, to find my own face leering back at me.
“It’s me, dad,” the thing in the hallway said. “It’s me.”
I snarled. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
I didn’t even have to think to tell my body to move. Instinct did it all for me. I rushed the homunculus, with no plan in mind, whether to strike it, or burn it, or slash it with a blade from out of the Dark. I just caught a glimpse of its grin before it turned tail and bolted, smashing into the front door with its shoulder and throwing it open. That only made me want to hurt it more.
Somewhere behind me I vaguely registered Herald shouting for me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, I realized, and I didn’t want to. All that mattered was for me to put an end to the homunculus, to end this creature that had fucking dared to put a hand on my father.
It was dark out. Night had fallen, and whatever else the creature was, it was cunning, sprinting straight into the woods near the community. I ran after it, keeping my eyes focused on the pallor of its skin, and on the strange glimmer of red that shone from somewhere inside its hand. Had these things learned to use magic? Was it an artifact? Didn’t matter. I wanted it dead.
My lungs heaved. I skidded to a stop, the dry, dead leaves carpeting the earth rustling as my shoes disturbed them.
I stalked through the darkness, the starlight showing that there was nothing around me but trees. That, and more dead leaves, and dirt, and dry twigs that snapped underfoot. I knew it was stupid, giving myself away like that, but I was far too angry. Then something dropped out of the night and threw me to the ground, knocking the air clear out of my lungs.
The homunculus straddled my chest, grabbing me by the lapels and slamming me into the earth. Every blow pushed more of my breath out of me, and as soft as the ground was the creature still assaulted me with enough strength to leave me weak, winded.
The thing at the warehouse had come at me from behind, from out of the darkness. It knew my moves, how I liked to attack. And this one dropped on me from out of a tree, the way I’d recently learned to literally get the drop on my enemies. It was clever. It had my memories.
Its fist slammed into my jaw, and I grunted, tasting blood. So it also liked to punch. It struck again, this time with its other hand. Something rattled and clinked as cold, serrated metal cut into my cheek. It was the chain of an amulet. The red glow from the thing’s hand was the garnet set into a verdigris pendant.
A verdigris amulet. Where did the homunculus get that? It attacked dad. Which meant –
The homunculus raised its fist, its breathing labored from the effort, and from the soft laughter it issued each time it struck. It poised to punch again just as I thrust my arm out, slamming my open hand against its face.
I summoned the flames.
The homunculus reared back, shrieking as amber fire burst from the palm of my hand. Maybe I didn’t understand the physics and arcane intricacies of throwing fireballs yet, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fuck something up by touching it. The creature broke away from me, scrabbling across the ground. The joy of burning the thing, the sheer ecstasy of incineration swelled in my chest, singing like a battle cry.
The confusion was all I needed. I couldn’t tell you how I truly felt to see my own face consumed by flames. Half of it was charred, melted, the other half still grinning and leering at me with its remaining black eye. It was taunting me. I leapt for its throat. We both came crashing to the ground, but this time, I was on top.
“You can come for me all you want. But you do not come for my family.”
“My family,” the thing burbled through its half-ruined mouth. “My family.”
“You do not. Hurt. My family.” Each time I paused, I struck the homunculus in the face. Each blow ruined it more, twisted the same features I saw each time I looked in the mirror. And with each punch, the thing underneath me quaked, and groaned, and laughed.
“My family,” it gurgled.
I grasped it by the throat, pressing my thumb far too hard against where its voice box would be. The thing gasped, then chortled. This was it. I’d been made into something that was now only half human, and that other side of me that was something else, that was other, it longed to rear its head.
The craving for violence felt far too familiar. The Dark Room’s occupants rallied behind the scar in my chest, frothing and fighting to escape so that they could rend, and flay, and smother. And when they dealt the killing blow, I knew I would feel their same grisly satisfaction.
“I’ll send you to hell,” I sputtered through gritted teeth, my grip tightening around the thing’s neck. “Then I’ll find Thea. I’ll find your mother, and I’ll kill her.”
I’ll kill her, I thought, my insides blooming with preemptive delight. I’ll fucking kill her.
“Mother,” the thing laughed. “Mother.”
Something in me knew to stop choking the homunculus, to ease the pressure on its throat long enough to let it get some air down, to let it breathe – and to let it believe for long enough that I was going to allow it to live. My scar burned as I lifted my head to the stars, as I searched the night sky for the last traces of my humanity, of mercy.
A glorious warmth spilled down my chin as the wound raked into my cheek bled freely. It was the price that the Dark Room demanded each time I brought it into our world from out of the gloom. And with the woods around me plunged into shadow, the stage was set for my impostor’s absolute evisceration.
I hissed at the pain and pleasure of my wound opening and bleeding. Six huge spikes burst from the ground, gleaming and velvet-black, solid blades of shadow sent from the Dark itself. I felt the warmth of flesh as they pierced the homunculus through its limbs, its chest, its throat. I felt every rivulet of its artificial blood as it ran down the spears and spines that were as much a part of the Dark Room as they were an extension of me. The warmth brought me comfort. The warmth brought me rapture.
The homunculus shuddered, choking and gurgling its last. Then it went still. I curled my fingers through th
e dead thing’s hair, staring into the scorched face of the brother I had slain. This was better than sex. It was better than redemption. Nothing in that moment could have pleased me more.
I watched as the homunculus dissolved into gore, as the red-rust slime of its body seeped into the earth. I threw my head back and sipped in the night air, clawing at my chest, fighting to keep down the howl that threatened to escaped my throat.
I raked at my hair, thrumming from the pleasure of the kill. The stars sang to me as they watched. The stars whispered. Murderer, they called me. Sinner. I dared to look back at the stars, and from deep inside of me, I laughed.
Chapter 17
“Sit still,” Herald grumbled.
I winced at his touch. He was a lot cruder than Asher, tugging on my jaw to align it as he cast his spell, but beggars can’t be choosers. My cheek still fucking hurt, and I was happy to take all the restorative magic I could get. He frowned harder, pulling on my jaw roughly when I accidentally let my head loll off to the side.
“Fucking ouch,” I mumbled. “Your bedside manner needs some serious work, Igarashi.”
“So do your fighting skills, but you don’t see me bitching about them.” He smirked. “Oh wait. I just did.”
Dad looked between us open-mouthed as purple tendrils of energy surged from Herald’s skin to mine, probing my body on a cellular level to stitch together the shallow, torn flesh in my cut.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” he croaked.
“Where to start?” Herald said, his eyes turned up to the ceiling. “Let’s see. A psychotic sorceress faked your son’s death, thereby triggering his latent arcane abilities. He turned into a kind of magical sneak thief – not a criminal, mind you, he works on the side of good. Well, mostly. And now he fights evil on a regular basis, including the thing that attacked and knocked you out.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, watching me with more than a little smugness. “That about enough to bring him up to speed?”
“More or less,” I grumbled. I gave dad a tight smile. “That sums it up. This is my job now. Mainly it’s to secure enchanted artifacts so that my boss – this immortal wizard guy – can research them and make sure they stay out of the wrong hands. I live in a pocket dimension with a werewolf and a vampire. Also a Filipino dude who happens to be a necromancer.”
Dad stared at me mouth agape, his forehead knitted into bewildered creases.
Herald sighed. “Easiest way is to show him, Dust.”
I shrugged. This was the second time I was asked to show off my talents in as many days, but lest we forget, I’m totally okay with being the center of attention. And if it meant helping my dad understand my new situation, well, so much the better.
“Dad? Don’t freak out, okay? I’m about to show you what I can do.”
He lifted a finger. “Hold that thought.” He turned for the fridge, pulled out a beer, somehow snapped off the top with his bare hand, and took a long, delicious pull. He slammed the bottle on the counter, half of it already gone, then nodded. “Okay. I think I’m ready. Wait. Probably not, but I don’t really have much choice, do I?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Here goes.”
This was second nature by now, and the shortness of my jaunt meant that it was as easy as breathing or blinking. I melted into my own shadow on the ground, the top of my head sinking into the floor just as I heard my father gasping.
I did a brisk jog through the Dark Room, following the pinpoint of light that I knew would bring me over to the shadow by the refrigerator. I emerged there, the fridge humming quietly beside me, then cleared my throat.
Dad’s mouth hung open in shock over my disappearance. He gave off a noise somewhere between a grunt and a yelp. His eyes flitted from my hair to my feet, then back again. Shaking his head, dad lifted his beer to his mouth and tossed back the rest of it.
“Wow,” I said. “You need to control your drinking a little bit.”
Dad ran the back of his hand across his lips, then rubbed it on his shirt. “Depending on where this is going, I might actually start drinking even more.”
“Dad, c’mon.”
“Bad joke. I’m sorry.” He clasped his hands together, pushing his knuckles into his forehead, before he looked at me again, studying me for a moment. “So this is who you are now? This is what you do?”
I shrugged and tried on a little smile. “Hey. It’s a living.” I stared at my thumb. “You’re not mad, are you?”
He frowned. “All these months I thought you were dead. You’ve got friends, a job, a home. I couldn’t be happier. I won’t pretend to fully understand what you do, but I’m proud of you.” He cleared the room in two strides, looking as big as he did when I was a child, like someone who would always take care of me. He wrapped his arms around me, cuffing one hand behind my neck, and pulled tight. “I can’t believe you’re back, Dust. I thought I lost my son. I couldn’t be luckier. I love you.”
I squeezed back, feeling smaller, letting myself be enveloped in the warmth of the only parent I had left. God but I didn’t know how much I’d missed being around him. I choked out a little laugh, fighting to stifle the sob in my throat.
“Love you too, dad.”
He stepped back, clapping me by the shoulders, then fixed me with the same blue eyes that I saw every time I looked in the mirror. “I don’t know what you are, exactly, but I’m proud of you.”
I ran a finger under my eye, sniffled, then chuckled. “I’m not sure what I am, either, but I think it has something to do with this thing that mom left behind.”
I pulled the amulet out of my pocket, lifting it up to our faces. The pendant spun on its axis, the garnet glinting like a red eye. Across the room, Herald folded his arms, watching the amulet intensely.
Dad made a face, his lips pursing, as if he’d just tasted something awful. “She was attached to that thing, but it always creeped me the hell out. Didn’t know why she kept it around. It has no value, as far as we’ve checked. It’s just as cheap and worthless as the others.”
The stifling silence from Herald’s end of the room made me look. His eyes were burning into me with grim understanding. I watched dad warily.
“The – the others, you say?”
“I only held onto them as keepsakes, but I have them tucked under the bed. Never look at them, you know? Like I said. It all freaks me out. Something about the way they’re designed. All those curls, they look like tentacles. Like squid or something.”
Like shrikes, like the children of the Eldest. I avoided Herald’s gaze, but I could basically hear his thoughts.
“Where are the rest of these objects, Mr. Graves?” Herald said, his voice level and artificially professional.
Dad looked between us, his face a mix of confusion and suspicion. “I’ll just go and grab them,” he said, heading to his bedroom.
I rushed to Herald’s side as dad sauntered off. Herald tugged on my wrist just as soon as we were in whispering range, his face conspiratorially close to mine.
“These artifacts belong to the Eldest and their servants. Where the hell would your mother get them?”
“How the fuck would I know?” I growled. “This is the first we’re both hearing of this.”
“This is bad,” Herald said, glowering. “First order of business is for us to remove them from the premises. I sense no enchantment on the amulet, but I can’t say the same for the others.”
“But the homunculus came specifically for the amulet. So it isn’t enchanted. Fine. It still gave off a signature strong enough to attract the creature.”
“Even more reason for us to remove the entire lot,” Herald said. “It sounds like Norman wouldn’t mind very much. He doesn’t seem attached to them. They’ll be safe back with the Lorica.”
My eyes narrowed. “Or,” I said, very evenly, “or at the Boneyard.”
Herald cocked an eyebrow. “The what now?”
“Shush. We’ll talk about this later. Here he comes.”
&nbs
p; Dad was balancing a box in his arms. Not just a box, actually, but a proper wooden chest, about the size of a shoebox. It looked a little weathered, and unremarkable apart from the meaningless, generic designs carved into its lid and its sides.
Yet even without any real training for sensing the presence of magical objects, I could detect something sinister about the chest. It was that unsettling, uncomfortable feeling you get when something’s off, even if you don’t know what that something might specifically be.
I watched in trepidation as dad set the chest down on the kitchen table. Herald leaned closer, arms folded, like he was dying to know himself. Dad lifted the lid, and I held my breath.
It was a whole lot of nothing. Just junk: dented pieces of metal, broken jewelry, the pommel of a dagger with its whole blade missing, and something that looked like a metal chopstick. What did bind the objects together, though, was that all of them were made of tarnished bronze, in that same, strange verdigris color as the sacrificial daggers, as Vanitas. Here and there, I caught the dull, lifeless glimmer of dusty, long-hidden garnets.
“These things are functionally worthless,” Herald said, casting a professional eye over the contents of the box. One hand nudged at his spectacles, as if to afford him a better look. “They might have been enchanted once, but right now? Nothing. Still, even as junk, they give off enough of an energy signature, which explains why the homunculus came here.”
Dad sighed and clapped one hand on Herald’s shoulder. Herald looked abashed by the gesture, or perhaps by the sudden contact.
“Listen,” dad said. “You seem like a nice kid, but for all I know you may as well be speaking French.”
“I’m. I’m Japanese,” Herald stammered.
“Not the point, Herald. Dad? The thing that attacked you, it’s called a homunculus, and there’s a lot of them wandering out in the city right now. We’re trying to figure out why, but all we know is that they’re attracted to magical items.”