by Nazri Noor
My heart thumped. This would be so much easier if I could just take a person with me into the Dark Room, but I couldn’t pull that off with a homunculus, and even then I’d meant to do it in an attempt to kill. Who knew what the living shadows of the Dark would do to a friend?
But what if that friend wasn’t human? What if –
“Better hope this works,” I muttered, turning Vanitas in one hand, cutting the smallest nick I could manage in the palm of the other.
The Dark Room wanted its price, so I had to make it count. I knew it would take my blood, but instinct and experience told me that the shadows were stronger, more vicious and volatile each time I willingly gave more of myself. I opened the door, just the fraction of an inch, and a blade of pure darkness erupted from the shadow at Susanoo’s feet –
And struck at thin air. He’d disappeared in a flash of electricity, leaving nothing behind but sparks and the smell of ozone. He reappeared again, looking over his shoulder just long enough to grin at me.
“Try again,” he said, winking.
“Give up, shadow beast,” Amaterasu said, swinging her sword back to prepare another salvo of fire-birds. “We know of your foul tricks.”
Not all of them, I thought to myself.
The last of the ice clinked to the ground as Susanoo smashed away all that was left of Herald’s shield. Violet light flickered and faded from around Herald’s hands. He was out of arcane energy, and with a busted ankle, it wasn’t like he had anywhere to go.
“The coup de grace,” Susanoo said, his chest puffing out as he gloated. “I want to end this in a most spectacular way.”
He threw his sword into the sky, and I watched as it vanished into the clouds, joining a burbling, newly-risen storm that swirled threateningly far above us.
I had to time it right. “Susanoo,” I called out. “I’m trying again.”
He turned to me, his eyes now as dark as the gathering storm, his laughter as booming and deep as a hurricane. “Go on,” he said.
My palm bled freely as I summoned another spear of darkness from the ground, and Susanoo’s laughter rang around the crystal chamber as he blinked out of existence once more. There it was – my window of opportunity. I raised Vanitas and hurled him into my own shadow, and he vanished into the Dark Room. Susanoo reappeared, shrugging and grinning smugly, and as he came into existence, so did his shadow.
“Time for your friend to die,” Susanoo said. “Sayonara, little sorcerers.” A bolt of lightning came crackling down to meet us.
Vanitas zoomed from out of the god’s shadow, driven with the same velocity I’d used to throw him. The sword speared the god at an angle, skewering him from spine to sternum.
“Oh,” he said, glancing down at the point of the sword sticking out of his chest. The lightning he’d called from the sky no longer seemed interested in Herald, and went rocketing in search of the closest source of metal.
I wasn’t expecting that part. How the god screamed.
I’d assumed that Susanoo would have some kind of resistance to lightning, given his portfolio, but maybe electricity really, really hurts when it’s conducted by a sword that’s stuck through your entire body. I looked away as the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils. Between the burbles of pain and the agonized howling, I swore I could hear Susanoo laughing.
“Well played,” he gurgled. He hit the ground with a wet thump.
“Brother!” Amaterasu’s sword fell from her hand as she rushed to his side, clanging to the floor. I wasn’t going to take any chances. If this was our ticket out, then we needed to take our shot.
“Herald. Now.”
He slammed his palm into the ground, sharpened pillars of ice rising from around Amaterasu’s body, slicing into her robes, pinning her in place. I groaned as I opened slits and slivers of the Dark Room, throwing out a dozen black blades of shadow, sharp enough to stop her in her tracks, to threaten her throat and her heart, but not quite long enough to pierce her skin. Not just yet. We’d trapped her in a cocoon, an iron maiden made out of frost and shadow.
Amaterasu held perfectly still. Her eyes burned through my skull as she glared at me. “You win, shadow beast. Leave now, and let me tend to my brother.”
“Show us the exit,” I said, “and we’re out of here, like, yesterday.”
Her lips pursed tight, but a panel slid open in one of the crystal walls around us.
“Go,” she commanded coldly.
Focusing on the Dark Room, I closed each of the gaps I’d opened in reality. The shadow blades ensnaring Amaterasu’s body vanished. I walked over to Susanoo’s twitching form, retrieving Vanitas from his scorched body. He yowled as I yanked the sword out of him. He coughed, then laughed again.
“Defeated by mortals. What a day. I look forward to fighting you again, shadow beast.”
“Not any time soon I hope,” I said, still averting my eyes. “No hard feelings, okay? Cool. Bye.”
Susanoo said nothing more, only gurgling and chuckling wetly into the ground.
I slid my shoulder under Herald’s arm, helping him to his feet. My hand – the bloody one – happened to land on the back of his neck.
“Dust. Aww. Gross.”
“Quit your bitching. I’m trying my best.”
We hobbled through the exit as Amaterasu blasted the last of the ice imprisoning her, then dashed to her brother’s side, kneeling on the marble. Her crystalline chamber dropped like a curtain around us, and from the warmth of her domicile, we were thrust back into the cool, crisp calm of a dewy Valero morning.
I looked around, heaving, and still wincing from the gash in my hand. “Huh. We’re where Amaterasu’s tether should be. Mrs. Yoshida’s garden.”
A lovely little zen garden, really, in the backyard of an even littler old lady’s house, out in a nicer part of Valero.
Herald slumped to the ground, rearranging his legs against the stone-lined earth, gritting his teeth as he channeled the dregs of his power into his busted foot. The violet light around his fingers flickered, but he sighed in relief all the same. The healing magic must have worked.
“Throw me some of that when you’re done, would you?” I watched him a little jealously, the chill air of the morning at least doing its work of numbing the stinging in my hand. “Man. You think Susanoo’s going to be okay? I didn’t murder him or anything, did I? He wasn’t in his domicile, after all.”
Herald shook his head. “I don’t think so. Susanoo is brash and arrogant, but he wouldn’t risk his life. Not for a sparring session. Amaterasu, Susanoo, and the god of the moon are all siblings. They must share power between their domiciles in some way. He wouldn’t have just hopped over to hang out at her place if he knew it would make him so vulnerable.”
“Oh. Oh good. I don’t need more gods on my ass.” I wiped at my forehead, the sweat beaded there already cooling like little droplets of ice. “Can you believe? The only entity we’ve met that didn’t want to kill me was a demon.”
Herald scoffed. “Dust. Mammon threw us into Amaterasu’s dimension, fully knowing that she still held a grudge against you. That was the second price. That was your punishment.”
Understanding dawned, and I clenched my hand, then yelped softly, because it was the one with a wound in it. “Damn it, you’re right. Something about Mammon’s domicile was messing with my head.” I was impulsive, even more than usual, and borderline irrational about getting what I wanted.
“Prince of greed,” Herald said, shrugging. “Not entirely your fault.”
“So demons don’t play fair, either.” I sighed, my breath gusting into fog. “Par for the course. I guess I’m not as charming as I thought.”
“Well,” Herald grunted, pushing himself to his feet. “Muster it up, anyway. We’re going to need a little charisma in a minute.”
“Huh? What do you – ”
Herald’s body folded into a bow. “Ohayou gozaimasu, Yoshida-san. Great morning, isn’t it?”
The wizened little woman named Mrs. Yoshida looked
at each of us, perhaps deciding that she’d had enough of weirdoes turning up in her garden at dawn.
“Ohayou gozaimasu,” she said in polite response, before lifting a whistle to her lips and blowing. The whistle made no sound, but the dobermans snarling and racing out from the other side of the house sure did.
Bloodied and broken, we hoofed it out of Mrs. Yoshida’s garden, with a small fleet of angry, frothing dogs in hot pursuit. Ah. Nothing like a little bit of cardio at the ass-crack of dawn.
Chapter 24
Eight hours wasn’t enough sleep for me to recover. Hell, twenty-four probably wouldn’t have made any difference, either, but Sterling was already itching to drag me out again. Literally. I woke up, and he was actually hauling me out of bed and towards the bathroom.
“Get your ass ready, Graves,” he said, throwing a towel in my face. “We have an appointment to keep.”
Right. The meeting with Diaz. I’d totally forgotten. I groaned, slinging the towel over my shoulders. “Five more minutes?” I bargained.
“We can’t miss this,” Sterling said. “Because then our only option is to try again tomorrow after nightfall, which is dumb, because what if those homunculi show up again?”
“Fine,” I grumbled, scratching at my scalp, smacking my lips. “Wait. How’d you get into my bedroom?”
“I picked the locks. Obviously.”
Well. That woke me up. “So you mean you can break in and suck my blood any old time you want now?”
He held a hand to his chest, feigning offense. “Why, I would never do that to you, Dustin. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
I glowered, and all he did was give me a sly grin.
“Five minutes,” he said, “then we leave for Nirvana.”
“Huh?”
“Diaz’s home,” Asher said, ambling into the room. “It’s what they call the place where he and his vampire friends live. Remember?”
I raised my eyebrow, looking between the two of them. “Yeah. Is this a wise arrangement?” I lifted a hand, counting off on my fingers. “So that makes one vampire and two human mages. And we’re going to a meeting that involves a blood witch and – did you say twelve vampires?”
“Diaz specifically asked for Asher to come along.” Sterling shrugged. “Besides. I can take ’em. Push comes to shove, I handle twelve of them, and you take the human.”
“Be serious.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Asher said. “Carver gave me this. In case of emergency, he said.” Beaming, he raised something on a chain around his neck, holding it out in front of his face. It was a pendant, set with an amber gem. Huh.
“Fine,” I said. “Okay. That makes me feel a little better.”
Sterling tugged on Asher’s shirt to get a closer look, clapping him on the shoulder and mumbling small assurances about his safety. Asher didn’t seem to care, if I’m honest. He looked positively thrilled to be walking into a den of lions.
We took a rideshare out from the front of Mama Rosa’s restaurant. Sterling pouted and muttered over how we totally should have booked something as luxurious as Bastion’s ride. Asher was just happy to be there, happy to be out in the world.
He clung to his window, face pressed up against the glass, curious about every damn thing he saw. It was hard to hate him for it. He sat there staring, even seeming to appreciate the increasingly crappy urban landscape as our car crossed from the Meathook over into the Gridiron.
We got out on the sidewalk somewhere in the industrial district, not very far from where Sterling and I had encountered Other-Dustin. Somewhere in the night, I could hear the furious pump of angry house music. Industrial house music, even. Hah, I’m such a genius. Our driver, a friendly Eastern European dude with a thick accent and an even thicker beard, told us to watch our backs.
“Is not safe,” he said.
Asher waved amicably as the man drove off. Sterling scoffed.
“Not safe for the locals, maybe.” He thumbed his chest. “Get it? ’Cause we’re here now?”
“Right,” I said. “Very funny. Asher, did Carver explain your contingency plan at all? Do you know what your amulet does?”
Fire a beam of concentrated sunlight, I was hoping he would say. Cast a single-use batch of protective shells around each of the three of us in case things got hairy.
“Oh.” He lifted his hand to his throat, his pendant glinting in the streetlight. “He says I just have to break this.” He tapped the gem lightly with his fingernail. “Then it’ll teleport me back to the Boneyard.”
“Just you?”
Asher nodded.
I looked up into the sky, hoping Carver could hear me. “Damn it to hell, Carver.”
“Relax,” Sterling said. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s just like you to worry about this shit. Look at Asher. He’s fine.”
Asher beamed.
“Listen. You’ve been in tighter spots. You commune with gods who poison you and want to rip your head off, like, all the time. This is going to be a cakewalk.”
I squinted at him. “You’re being awfully nice to me for some reason.”
Sterling shrugged, wearing his most winning smile. His fangs glinted. “Hey. I’m a swell guy.” He cracked his knuckles. “Also, if anyone asks, it’s way less complicated if we just pretend you’re both my thralls.”
He said that in one breath, and way too quickly, like he didn’t want me hearing. “Whoa, wait, what?”
“Awesome,” Asher said. “I’m a thrall.”
Kid’s sweet. I never said he was very smart.
“Just shut up and follow my lead.”
Sterling rolled his shoulders, his leather jacket squeaking as he did, and he smoothed back his hair. Suddenly he seemed taller, and maybe a bit stronger. Asher and I followed as Sterling led the way to a short flight of steps, down to a door that was hidden just below street level.
“Password,” said a voice on the other side.
“Your mom’s chest hair,” Sterling said. He pounded on the door with one fist, though not nearly strong enough to break it down the way I knew he could. This was his idea of being polite.
“Sterling?” the voice said. “Is that you? Come on, you know the rules. I’ll get in trouble if you don’t say it.” The voice was trying its hardest to be authoritative, but mainly just came off sounding pitiful.
Sterling rolled his eyes. “What feeds in darkness grows ever stronger,” he droned.
“Awesome,” the voice said. The door cracked open, revealing an exceedingly tall and exceedingly pimply youth, dressed in what must have been his idea of vampiric attire. He was fair-skinned, but not quite pale enough to be one of the undead. “Thanks for playing,” he said, ushering us in.
We stepped through and continued to a bare cement corridor, the ceiling lined with industrial piping, the walls lined with a whole lot of nothing. That distant music kept playing, though, and I imagined it coming from the secret underground sex dungeon-cum-dance club that I’d seen in, like, basically every movie about vampires, ever. I chuckled to myself.
“So that guy,” Asher said. “I’m guessing he wasn’t a vampire.”
“Rudy? Nah. Just a hanger-on. Keeps hoping he’ll get turned some day, but that’s up to the vampires in Diaz’s coven to decide.”
I raised an eyebrow, walking faster to keep up with Sterling. “Whoa, whoa. A coven? Is that what you call a gang of vampires?”
“We call ourselves what we like. A clan, a pack, a murder of vampires. Does it really matter? The distinction is that Diaz is a blood witch. It’s why he refers to his family as a coven.”
“Family, huh?”
Sterling stopped at what seemed like a random point in the hallway, turning to me with half a grin on his lips. “When everyone you know and everyone you love is dead and gone, you don’t have much of a choice. You pick and gather your allies, your friends. It’s both a perk and a curse, but when you’re undead – you get to choose your family.”
“Am I part of your family?
” Asher asked, all unabashed innocence. He took the words right out of my mouth.
Sterling smiled, ruffling Asher’s hair. “If you want. Sure you are, little buddy.”
Huh. So we were his family? The Boneyard. Carver, Gil, Mama Rosa, even me. Asher chuckled, running his hands through his hair in an attempt to fix it. Sterling turned towards the wall, then rapped his knuckles against the cement. It made a hollow knocking sound.
“Ah. Some things don’t change.” He rested his hand against the wall, and it slid open.
The room beyond was barer than I expected, like the inside of a warehouse, only underground. It looked like a bunker, or an industrial basement. Cement walls, cement floor, cement ceiling, but done up in luxuries that I could only describe as plush.
Nirvana had thick rugs, comfy sofas, and even several tastefully placed potted plants. I admit, I was sorely wrong about the S&M dungeon I was expecting. The only real indication that vampires inhabited this place was the decorator’s overwhelming proclivity towards the color red.
Well, that, and all the coffins. At least the ones that I could see. The absence of windows meant that the vamps living in Nirvana – or unliving, rather – didn’t really need closed caskets to sleep in, but I guess old habits die hard. I didn’t realize that Sterling’s preference for sleeping in an actual bed, you know, the kind meant for human beings, made him more modern and progressive than his brethren.
All of whom were stunningly beautiful. You could tell they were human, once, if only in shape and name, but I was caught like a deer in headlights. Asher was similarly enthralled. Everything about these creatures was heightened, from the sharpness of their eyes and their cheekbones to the perfection of their bodies. Skin, whether black or brown or white, was supple, flawless, lustrous. Turns out that becoming one of the undead was better than any moisturizer.
The vampires milled about, chatting, laughing. A couple were playing video games. One sat in a corner, reading. Among them were humans. Thralls, I assumed, but no one was chained, put on a leash, none of the stereotypes I would have expected from mortals who would serve as human cattle for their vampire companions. There was something, I don’t know, consensual about it all. I guess Sterling was right all along. I did have some prejudices about vampires.