by Nazri Noor
I spotted Connor, the big, bald vampire who’d attacked me in the alley, towards the back of the room, working on weights that no one should be capable of lifting. Salimah turned her head towards us as we entered, balancing a glass of something that could have been blood, or could have been a very rich wine in one hand. She nodded at us, then towards the center of the vast underground apartment.
Sitting there like the still, unmoving eye of Nirvana’s storm was Diaz, a lean, swarthy young man in a loose tank top and fitted jeans. As he approached us, I noted that he was barefoot – vulnerable, yet comfortable in what I could still only perceive as a den of apex predators.
“Sterling,” Diaz said, his smile warm and welcoming. “It’s been a while.”
“Diaz. These are my – companions.” He gestured at us. “This is Dustin, and this is Asher.”
Diaz’s smile went even wider, his eyes crinkling. “Ah. The shadow mage. And this one must be the necromancer. Younger than I expected.”
“Can’t help it,” Asher said, shrugging and offering a smile of his own.
Diaz chuckled. “Come. We have things to discuss.”
He led us towards the back of the room, to a table close to where Connor was still bench pressing what must have been the equivalent weight of a loaded refrigerator. His eyes flitted nervously between me and Sterling. I smiled, but he only gave a grunt. Or maybe that was just from the strain of lifting. Who knows, really.
Diaz gestured at the shrouded object spread out on the table. I skidded to a halt when I realized that it wasn’t just a bunch of stuff with a cloth thrown over it. There was a body underneath.
I was aware that the room was still humming with activity, but there was a different quality to the bustle now. The vampires were going about their business more reservedly, as if they were straining to listen.
“Now,” Diaz said, folding his hands. “Dustin, was it? I must apologize for my colleagues’ earlier behavior. My undead companions are very protective of me, you see. That sense of responsibility extends to my collection of curiosities, the Heartstopper among them.” He clapped me on the shoulder, squeezing with a firm touch. “Let me be the first to apologize for how crudely Connor treated you.”
I heard one or two restrained snorts go around the room. The vampires were keeping tabs on us after all. Connor grunted even louder, and this time he set his weights down on the ground, as if to pay us his fullest attention. The earth moved the tiniest bit as his barbell clanged to the floor.
“You know, don’t worry about it. No harm done. I gotta admit, I admire how you guys can interact so harmoniously.” I chuckled and nudged a thumb over at Sterling. “I can barely get along with this one. It’s a work in progress.”
Sterling hissed. I shrugged. Diaz chuckled.
“I confess, my abilities play some part in that. The dynamic I maintain with my twelve undead companions is wonderfully symbiotic. They offer protection, strength, and – entertainment.”
He turned his head so subtly when he spoke, as if to display the series of scars on his neck, around his clavicles, on his shoulders, little raised dots where fangs had punctured his skin. I tried not to swallow.
“In return I offer magical support, the many gifts brought by my artifacts, and to an extent, wisdom.” He held his hand out to Sterling. “You said you had a sample for me to examine.”
Sterling riffled through his pockets, then extracted one of the phials of blood that he had taken from the homunculus at the warehouse.
“How the hell did you manage to keep that fresh?” I asked. “You have a fridge in your bedroom?” I blinked, then turned to Asher. “Dude, do you have a personal fridge, too? Am I the only one who – ”
“Shut up,” Sterling said. “The phial’s special. It’s from Diaz.”
“The vampires of Valero come to me with their needs.” Diaz took the phial, holding it up and examining it in the light, then letting it roll around in the palm of his hand. “These phials hold a very minor enchantment that helps preserve the organic matter contained within. The same enchantment that allows the Heartstopper to preserve dead flesh.”
He uncorked the stopper, then tipped a couple of drops of blood directly onto his tongue. Around us, the vampires were transfixed, their eyes glued to the phial in the blood witch’s hand. Diaz smacked his lips once, twice, savoring the blood.
“Sterling was right. This is horrible. Inorganic, and thin. Very much the same quality of blood as we found on this corpse.”
Ah. So it was a corpse after all. I held my breath, even though I fully knew what to expect when Diaz threw the sheet off the body. Spread over the table was a perfect copy of Dustin Graves, pale in death, stark naked, with a teardrop-shaped ruby in the hollow of its chest. Sterling gave the corpse a once-over, then made a low whistle.
“Not bad, Graves.”
Asher murmured his assent.
“Sterling. Stop perving over my dead body. And Asher, just – you two need to shut up.”
“On the contrary,” Diaz said, “we’d very much like for Asher to use his communicative talents. This creature stole my Heartstopper, one of my own signature enchantments, then returned within a matter of days, doubtless with the intent to steal another one of my artifacts. But we were ready for him this time.”
I didn’t ask how the homunculus died, but the puncture marks on its neck and chest should have been a clue.
“I’m amazed you managed to preserve it this way,” I muttered, reaching out to press on the thing’s forearm. It was cold, and stiff to the touch. I tried not to think about how I would look very much the same if I was dead. This was how I must have looked the night Thea sacrificed me, splayed naked across an altar.
“It’s the Heartstopper’s doing. The artificial quality of the homunculus’s blood was a clue that something was not quite right. Its form lacks a firmament, something fundamental to bind its body together.”
Asher piped in. “You mean a soul?”
“Exactly. Without it, Dustin’s clones can barely hold the threads of their sordid lives together. That they can exist at all suggests that there is a glimmer of something that keeps them alive. Asher. I’d like for you to commune with this creature’s spirit – or whatever vestiges that could be considered its spirit.”
“Oh, wow. Yeah. I could certainly try.”
“And then maybe it can show us where to find the others,” I said. “Stem the tide at its source.” Find Thea, and kill her.
“Yes,” Diaz said. “Precisely what I had in mind.”
He stepped aside, beckoning Asher to approach. Sterling nudged him encouragingly, pushing between his shoulder blades. Asher took his place at the end of the table just above the homunculus’s head. He laid a hand on each of the corpse’s temples, then shut his eyes. Everyone in the room – mortal or vampire – fell into complete silence.
It didn’t take long for his talent to manifest itself. Through his lessons with Carver, Asher had further refined his ability to communicate with the dead. It was part of his portfolio, after all, this historically sought-after talent to exert power over death itself. That rarest of gifts made Asher a valuable asset to the Boneyard, and someone I was glad to have on my side.
Green tendrils of energy curled like snakes from Asher’s elbows down to the creature’s head, wrapping and writhing until they slithered into every exposed orifice. I fought the bile rising in my throat as filaments of emerald power wriggled their way into the corpse’s eye sockets, its nostrils, its ears. I watched, waiting for the thing to speak through Asher, or perhaps for Asher to hear its voice in his head and convey its message to us.
I didn’t expect for Other-Dustin’s dead eyes to flicker open and stare directly at me, for it to speak in my own voice.
Chapter 25
The homunculus smiled at me. There was none of the characteristic malice I’d come to expect from its breed, just an odd expression I could only describe as serenity. I’d go as far as to say familiarity.
; “Brother,” it whispered.
My blood froze. This thing wasn’t my brother, not by any means, whether natural or paranormal. When the creature said it again, I wondered why my heart twinged with an emotion I couldn’t name.
“We need answers,” Diaz said, with all the gentleness of a doting parent.
Something in his demeanor went even looser, and as calming as his presence was before, it made him radiate even more of his unusual charisma, perhaps the same kind of magnetism that allowed him to pacify and even befriend an entire brood of the bloodthirsty undead.
The homunculus brought its black eyes to gaze at Diaz with something approaching fondness. It blinked slowly, and nodded. Asher kept his hands on the creature’s temples, maintaining a steady flow of necromantic force to keep the channel open.
Diaz’s voice was whisper-soft. “How many of you are there?”
“Many,” my voice answered. “Very many.”
Somehow, that felt more chilling than any concrete number the creature could have given us.
“I don’t think it’s lying,” I said quietly. “They have very basic intelligence. They can only really parrot information. But many could mean anything.”
“Many could mean anything,” the homunculus echoed, smiling at me with my own lips, the wrinkle beside its left eye crinkling the way it would on my own face.
“Your brothers,” Diaz continued. “Are they like you? Are they stronger, or do they hold the same power?”
“Same,” it said lazily, blinking again, its eyes caught in an odd kind of distant reverie. “All the same. All brothers.”
“Then we know that they have the same level of strength. The same talents.” Sterling gave a slow, relieved sigh. “At least we know they aren’t all like you, Dust. Imagine an army of these things that could use shadow and fire.”
Dread twisted in my stomach, as if anything about this doppelganger situation could possibly be any worse. For a fleeting moment I saw copies of myself roaming Valero, flinging fire and conjuring blades of night to slaughter and kill.
“Yeah,” I said evenly. “Good thing.”
“Guys,” Asher said, sweat glazing his forehead. “I can’t hold the connection much longer. Its life essence is slipping. Last questions, now.”
“Very well.” Diaz stepped closer to the table, bending to look into the homunculus’s eyes. “Where are your brothers?”
“A field. With grass. And stones. Big, flat stones, and bones below. Buried bones.”
“A graveyard,” Sterling said. “It’s describing a graveyard.”
“Latham’s Cross?” I folded my arms, staring at the ground as if it could give me the answers I needed. “That’s the biggest graveyard in Valero. Their base couldn’t be that far out of the city, or the attacks wouldn’t have come so frequently.”
“Sounds about right,” Sterling said.
“Guys,” Asher grunted. “Last question. The body’ll break down any moment.”
He got that right. The homunculus began to twitch, its face twisting with what first looked like discomfort, then pain. Diaz placed his hand on its forehead. For a moment, the homunculus stilled and settled.
“Dying?” the creature said, in a plaintive voice that wrenched at my chest. Why was I feeling for this creature? All we shared was our blood. I owed it nothing, not even sympathy.
“I’m sorry.” Diaz nodded, his eyes lowered, his mouth drawn. “Before you go. Who made you?”
“White Mother,” it answered, its eyes glazed with a mix of fright and reverence. “White Mother tells us where to go. What to take.” It blinked again, its eyes flitting about the room, the ceiling, as if searching for something. “White Mother sends us again and again. She sends so many brothers tonight.”
Many brothers? Tonight?
“Where are they now?” Diaz asked, his voice so soft that I nearly missed how it was trembling.
The homunculus writhed and twitched on the table, as if wracked by some hideous agony. It was in the throes of death. Its head slammed against the table as its neck bent back. Then, like a rubber band released, the tension left the thing’s body, and it collapsed against the table again, soft, loose, languid. It smiled, then it whispered.
“They’re here.”
Diaz stepped back, his face a mask of shock, and Asher yelled as he tore his hands away, the necromantic energy receding into his fingers. The homunculus screamed as its body dissolved into goo, its skin and meat and bones sloughing and dripping to the ground. I watched as the Heartstopper rolled off the table and clattered into a puddle of gore.
Then the door burst open. Heads spun as we turned to face our attackers. My heart pounded like war drums, and the tension caught in my throat.
First five, then ten, then at least two dozen men who looked just like me poured into the room, each wearing the same gleeful leer, each mouth locked in an expression of demonic ferocity. They tore through Nirvana, savaging the human thralls, breaking bones and faces with makeshift clubs, planks of wood, lengths of pipe. The homunculi fought with inhuman brutality, and with terrifying precision, expertly singling out every mortal in the room, prioritizing their injuries and deaths.
We scattered. The vampires leapt into the fray, tearing into the homunculi with fists and fangs, and springing back when they found that the creatures were equipped with strength that far surpassed human bounds. Diaz shouted as he flung spells across the room, scarlet beams of energy blasting homunculi off their feet.
Sterling, Asher, and I stuck together in our own unit, our backs towards each other for protection. I knew I heard Sterling attempting to strategize, but it was hard to make anything out over the roar and clamor of battle.
More of the homunculi were pouring into the room with each passing minute, replacing those slain by the might of the coven. I glanced at my palm, then the door, waiting for the right moment to tear my wound open, to pay the blood price I needed to give in exchange for the magnified eldritch power of the Dark Room.
Between studying and waiting for an opening, I somehow picked it out. A single homunculi had stayed out of the thick of battle. Now it strode confidently for the center of the room, something at its throat pulsating like a distant star.
It was a gem. A shining, white opal.
“No,” I said, the dreadful realization prickling at my skin. “Diaz. Get your coven out of here. Now.”
I could tell he heard from the way his eyes bore into me for the fraction of a second, but he turned back to the battle, forging on in fury. I tugged on Sterling’s jacket.
“Sterling, you need to get the fuck out of here.”
“I can help,” he said. “No way I’m leaving. These are my kind, and – ”
“Asher,” I shouted. “Your pendant. Use it on him.”
Asher clutched Carver’s amulet, scanning the room, and found exactly what I saw: the homunculus, its jewel glowing rhythmically, like the timer on a bomb.
“Oh shit,” Asher said. He ripped the necklace off his neck, wrenched Sterling by the collar, then smashed the jewel into his forehead. It shattered, issuing a tiny puff of smoke.
Sterling clutched at his brow, his teeth bared. “The fuck are you doing, Mayhew? If you think for a second that – ”
Sterling vanished before he could finish his sentence, teleported instantly to the Boneyard through the smashed jewel’s enchantment. Asher stepped to my side, clinging to my arm.
“You did the right thing,” I said.
“It’s happening.” He pointed at the homunculus. “Look.”
“Diaz,” I screamed.
Too late.
The gem at the homunculus’s throat shone stronger, brighter, until it flooded the entire room with the force of its brilliance. But this wasn’t the smothering light that Thea had once used to blanket the entire city of Valero in a shroud of white. This was something more natural, and more dangerous.
Sunlight.
Twelve voices screamed in dire agony as the raw fury of the sun itself fl
ooded the room, its rays reaching every corner of the underground lair. Those same twelve voices were throttled into grave silence as the blinding light receded. I removed my hand from my eyes. Where the vampires of the coven once stood were only piles of dust. Diaz fell to his knees, his mouth open, his eyes huge with disbelief.
I ran to Diaz’s side, pulling Asher with me. “Stay close,” I said. “Don’t move.”
I reached for the shards of broken gemstone in Asher’s hand, using their jagged edges to carve a fresh line in my palm. I scanned the room for the thirteen or so homunculi still remaining, marking their places in my mind’s eye.
Everywhere but here, I thought, looking at my feet, reaching to the ethers, to the corners of the chamber my soul called home. Bring terror to this world, just, everywhere but here.
Spears of blackest night erupted from the shadows, each skewering a homunculus from spine to skull. Even from where I stood I felt their muscles twitching against my blades, the warmth of corrupted blood running down their razor edges. I felt, too, the tide of warmth running down my palm, the sticky, slick red of my own blood as the Dark Room drank its share of my life force.
I snapped the door shut. The blades vanished, and twelve, thirteen bodies slumped to the floor, lifeless.
“Holy shit,” Asher muttered. “You killed them all.”
He caught me as I stumbled, my knees stinging as I crumpled to the ground. Through bleary eyes I surveyed the room, the panoply of corpses littering what was once the coven’s home, what used to be Nirvana.
But one of the corpses was moving.
We missed one. Scratch that. We missed two. They had feigned death, completely bypassing my assault by blending into the piles of fallen human thralls. The homunculi rushed Diaz, grabbing his arms, one slugging him in the face to stop his words mid-incantation, the other reaching into its shirt to pull out another opal amulet.
Asher broke into a sprint. “No,” I shouted, too winded, too exhausted to chase him, or to even summon another blade from the Dark. Diaz and the homunculi vanished in a flash of white light before Asher could even reach them. He skidded to a halt, shielding his eyes against the radiance, cursing under his breath.