by Multiple
The girl smiled at the compliment. “Someday I’ll bring back a person, just like Papa does. Right now I just play with the animals.”
“Like Carmel here.” Kristoff bent over and lifted the small dog away from the small pool of Vera’s blood on the floor. “This little guy loves blood, doesn’t he Gracie?”
Gracie giggled. “Yes, he’s so bad.”
“I hope you’re not giving him too much. It makes him hyper and harder to control. Remember what happens when you lose control.”
“I know Papa. I don’t let him have much. Just a little bit when I kill the birds.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, a father and daughter conversation on how to kill animals, raise them from the dead, and the importance of keeping the family dog from drinking their blood. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but resisted the impulse. It was irrational and would solve nothing. Instead I said, “Are we done here? I’d like to go back to my room.”
“First, take Vera’s finger with you.”
Startled by the request, I stared at him. “What?”
He frowned at me. “Pick up your friend’s finger and take it with you.”
I looked to where the finger lay, smaller than a pen cap as Vera was a petite woman. The flesh already looked gray from the loss of circulation, and I knew from the other finger Kristoff had forced on me that, it would soon begin to dry and the skin would start to flake off.
Displeased with my hesitation, Kristoff said, “Are you disobeying me?”
My collar grew warm around my neck, similar to the sensation right before I had been shocked in Athena’s office. “No,” I said, my voice so soft it was barely audible.
“Then do as I ask.”
I moved to comply, gingerly picking the finger up between my own, larger, fingers. “Can I go now?”
“Go. Have all the crystals charged when I see you next or Vera will pay.”
I didn’t linger and left as fast as my feet could carry me. The trembling held off until I sat on my small bed. Then I began to shake so hard my teeth chattered. Anger, rage, and fear rushed through me, finding release in the fat tears rolling down my face. And through it all, I stared at Vera’s pinkie realizing how much was at stake, how much we both stood to lose if I didn’t find a way to get us out of this mess.
Funny, I had thought when Mark died and I went through the manslaughter trial that I had lost everything a person could lose; money, friendship, love, freedom, and respect. Turns out I hadn’t even come as close to hitting bottom. Now I had lost control of my own life, of my own choices and people I cared about were still dying. I had become poison. Worse, I had no idea what the antidote was.
Unable to look at Vera’s finger anymore, I turned out the light and huddled in bed, waiting for sleep to come. I didn’t dream when it did, just floated in nothingness until gradually I found my way to the astral plane.
Only half aware I had left my body, I drifted in the gray fog, allowing its ebb and flow to carry me. The astral plane is an odd place. I think it’s probably the genesis of the concept of limbo—a place where nothing really exists, where people’s shadows only pass through, but never stay. Aside from other people also traveling outside their bodies, I never saw anything other than the ubiquitous gray fog. There were no landmarks or paths and people were little more than ghosts on this plane. We had no ability to physically manipulate the astral environment beyond moving amid the fog.
There was no night or day either, just the same dull light that never wavered or changed. Sometimes I wondered if Rip Van Winkle had gotten lost up here, trapped in the astral plane by some malicious Sidhe trick only to wake up twenty years later. I shuddered at the thought. This was no place for humans to live. It was part of the other world, the world of spirit. Certainly no place for a sane man to be trapped for two decades.
Given the static nature of the astral plane, I found the appearance of a bright orb of light intriguing enough to jar me out of my stupor. Not that it was easy to ignore since it sailed right up to me, shining full force in my face. I put a hand to my forehead, shielding my eyes from the harsh-as-a-helicopter-searchlight and frowned, curious.
It zipped away, hesitated, and then came back to flash me in the eyes again. The orb repeated this exercise several times before it occurred to me perhaps I was supposed to follow the light. The next time the light zoomed off, I moved with it following as it swerved in and out of the fog, soaring up and then shooting down with no notice. It reminded me of trying to catch a firefly when I was a kid.
I kept up as best I could while scanning the horizon trying to figure out where the light could possibly be leading me. Eventually, I saw a stooped figure in the distance, and, whoever it was, acknowledged me with a wave.
I returned the wave with a tentative one of my own and stopped following the trajectory of the orb, suspicious. The last person I had met up here had been Kristoff and that had not ended well. Was this person in front of me Kristoff or someone…something worse?
The light, noticing I wasn’t following, rushed back and then took off again only to circle back when I still hadn’t moved. It began to spin around my head with ever increasing speed, creating its own wind as it passed my face. When it tired of that, it zoomed off to the figure in the distance and they appeared to commune for a moment. The light returned and instead of harassing me like a gnat jacked up on pixie dust, it spoke.
“Come, I won’t hurt you.”
Wary, I said, “How do I know that?”
“You don’t, but I can help you and you aren’t in a position to turn down help.”
I weighed my options and decided the stranger was right. I needed all the help I could get. Maybe I should give someone who wasn’t trying to kidnap me and subordinate me to their evil purposes a chance.
I moved forward, tense and ready to run at the first sign of betrayal, but the figure stayed still as if he or she knew moving might startle me. As I got closer, I was able to make out their features and realized the person in front of me was the renegade mage.
“Fred? Is that you?”
“Hello Sofia. Good to see you again, I’ve had my beacon searching for you the last few days, hoping you’d find your way up here.” He approximated a bow with his crooked little body, blue eyes blinking up at me from behind his thick glasses.
Confused, I asked, “But aren’t you a renegade?”
“That’s what we like them to think.”
“We?”
“I’m a member of the FIB.”
“You’re with Fairy Intelligence?” I blinked, shocked. He’d looked so cowed, so harmless.
He nodded and the air around him wavered until Fred disappeared and a tall, slender man stood in his place. “Agent Zrayus at your service.”
I blinked taken aback by his transformation from a frail old man to the lithe, sinewy elf standing in front of me. I had not seen any of this coming.
A thought came to me, one that brought hope to my heart. “You’re going to rescue me?”
“Well, no.” He sighed. “You know about the dragons and the renegades?”
“Yes.” I’d heard his no, but refused to believe it.
“All our resources are on that right now trying to prevent an all out revolution in the human world. We barely have enough people to deal with that.” His grey eyes met mine, steady as steel.
“Oh.” My heart became heavy. “So there’s no one to rescue me and you can’t leave because you’re wearing a collar.”
He gave a sad smile. “We just can’t spare the people. I’m sorry.”
“You’re wasting my time.” I started to leave, furious that help was so close yet so far away and, worse, had no intention of coming any closer.
He held up a hand. “Wait, I can help you rescue yourself. Remember, I made your collar.”
I turned back to face him.
“And we need your help.” He raised his hands toward me in a pleading gesture.
“My help?” I looked at him,
confused.
“We need someone to incapacitate the necromancer.”
I drifted back, wary. “What do you mean incapacitate?”
He gave me a hard look. “Do you need a definition? What do you think it means?”
“I’m supposed to kill him?” Repulsed by the thought, I floated further away from the mage putting more distance between us.
He drifted after me.“Kill him. Tie him up. Hack him to pieces. The FIB doesn’t care, so long as his army of zombies doesn’t come to the dragons’ aid.”
I closed my eyes at the ‘hack’ part. Even to prevent a revolution, I didn’t think I could hack someone to bloody bits. “Why me? Don’t you have some kind of Fairy S.W.A.T?”
“No one knows where to find the necromancer.”
“We’re just outside Boston by the ocean in a warehouse district. It’s a three story brick building.” I crossed my arms and gave him a look.
“Oh.” He blinked in surprise. “We thought you wouldn’t know where you were.”
“I know Boston and they didn’t try to hide the location from me.” Score one for me against the overconfidence of villains.
“Good to know.”
“You’ll send someone to help?” I refrained from begging. Barely.
He shook his head. “I’ll try. I don’t know if we’ll get there in time. We’ve dispatched everyone with the assumption we wouldn’t find the necromancer—he masks his location with witch magic. I convinced them to let me try and find you up here, thinking maybe you could do something.”
“He’s got my friend. He’ll kill her if I don’t do as he says.” I couldn’t keep a note of desperation out of my voice.
Zrayus’ expression grew solemn. “He’ll kill more than your friend if you don’t stop him.” He paused and heaved a sigh. “Look, things aren’t going well. The renegades have a large, well-hidden network, and the dragons have the Sidhe crown. We’ve been focusing on getting the crown back. Once the dragons cross over and merge their forces with the necromancer, it won’t matter if we know where the zombies are, there won’t be anything we can do to stop them.” Zrayus gave an apologetic shrug. “It’s all about priorities. If they can’t lose, there’s no saving anyone.”
So I was on my own and in the column titled ‘Collateral Damage.’ Great. “How am I supposed to do anything with this?” I gestured to my collar.
“I can show you how to inactivate it. You won’t be able to take it off, but at least you won’t get shocked.”
“But won’t that kill you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Athena thinks she has total control over me and my magic. She couldn’t be more wrong. No harm will come to me.”
Well, that was good news, but…“If you can inactivate the collars, why don’t you inactivate yours and come help me?” I brightened at the idea.
“I wish I could, but I can’t and it has nothing to do with my collar. Mine is a dud. I have other…duties”
“Athena?” I almost wished I could see Athena’s face when she realized her collars weren’t foolproof.
He nodded. “She’s the brains behind all this, we’ve got to stop her or she’ll just regroup. We want to end this and she’s the key to winning the war as opposed to merely winning a battle.”
“What about the dragons? Even if you find the crown, they won’t stop just because they’re not invincible anymore.” I couldn’t see Zyllven giving up on his plan to have kids—excuse me, dragonlets—any time soon.
“We’ve actually had some help with that. Some human has gotten them to agree to let him negotiate with your government on their behalf.”
“I don’t understand. Why worry about the crown then?” I frowned at Zrayus.
“Because they’re honor bound to follow through with Athena’s plan, but if we can remove her from power, they’ll stand down. If we can’t stop her, stealing back the Sidhe crown becomes important. We’re working every angle we can find.”
“Wait,” I went still. “You said you had human help. Who?”
“John, no, that’s not right.” He scratched his head. “I think it was Jacob.”
“Jacob?” My heart stuttered in my chest.
“Does it mean something to you?” Zrayus gave me a sharp look.
“My client was left for dead in Fairy by the renegades. His name was Jacob and he had contacts in our government with the Interspecies Commission.” Could it be that Jacob had survived? Dared I hope?
He smiled. “Sounds like the guy I’ve been hearing about.”
“He’s alive then.” Jacob was alive. I couldn’t hold back a smile at the thought. This was the first good news I’d heard in a long time.
“Yes.”
“If you see him, tell him I said thanks for everything.” I closed my eyes and pushed away the memory of Jacob’s skin on mine, the way he smelled, the way he held me whether I cried in pleasure or pain. It was over, I had to accept that and let it go so I could focus on what I needed to do.
Zrayus looked puzzled. “Sure, but you’ll probably see him before I do.”
“Not if Kristoff kills me. I’m not you. I don’t have advanced training or magic to kill people with. You’ve got better odds of walking away from this than I do.”
“Fair enough.” Zrayus nodded. “I’ll pass the message on.”
“So, tell me how to inactivate this stupid collar.”
He pointed to my neck. “Press on the blue stone, it’s not set very tightly and it’ll pop out with enough force. The stone completes the magic circuit, without it the collar won’t work.”
“That’s it?” I raised my eyebrows, not quite believe it was so easy.
“You can’t take it off without a mage, but the stone will come out. I made sure before I put it on you.”
“All right and then I have to figure out how to deal with Kristoff. Any suggestions?”
“Do it quick.” He made a sharp chopping motion with his hand. “Athena will be ready to make her move soon. Take the first chance you get and don’t hold back.”
“There’s no special karate chop or something?” Fairy Kung-Fu would’ve come in real handy right about then.
“No. I’ve found wine bottles work the best in a pinch. Something heavy and hard right in the temple works very well.” He mimed hitting someone in the head.
I opened my mouth to tell him, I hadn’t seen any wine bottles, when something jerked at my legs, yanking me down to my knees. My body was reaching for me, pulling me back. I looked at Zryaus who gave me an encouraging nod, “Go. You know what you need to do.”
Sure I knew what needed to be done, the question was did I have the strength or the courage to do it? I didn’t have a chance to share my doubts with Zrayus though, as my body insistently dragged me through the fog and back to where someone was shaking me rather harshly by the shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m up, I’m up,” I said, annoyed. I sat up and switched on the bedside lamp wanting to see who was in my room. The light revealed the face of the man I had met in the kitchen my first day at Kristoff’s and there was something…off about his touch. A pit of dread opened in my stomach.
He put a finger to his lips. “Shh, I don’t want them to hear us.”
“Who are you?” I peered up at him, groggy. I was still processing my conversation with Zrayus and it was hard to keep up.
“You don’t recognize me?” He gave a coy smile.
I shook my head. “Never seen you before in my life.”
“Not how I look, who I am.” He thrust a hand at me. “Read me. Look at me with your second sight.”
I laid a hand on his, noticing he was cold and his flesh hard. He didn’t smell, but I already knew he was another zombie. I’d felt it when he touched me while I slept. Shifting my focus until the world was blurry, I looked at him with my second sight. A familiar blue aura swirled with white came into focus, only now it had a pale gray tinge to it. Even with the overlay of death, I recognized it as someone who couldn
’t possibly be standing in front of me. “Mark?”
“Yep.” He grinned, pleased with himself.
I snatched my hand back. “But it’s not you,” I said pointing to his body.
“No.”
“How?” Mark was in a body that could pass for a living person. Somehow he’d promoted himself from ghost to the lifelike living dead. Holy shit.
He raised an eyebrow. “You really have to ask?”
“You mean… Kristoff…” My throat went dry and I couldn’t say anything more.
Mark nodded. “Yep, he gave my soul a body so I could live again. I wanted to use my body, but it wasn’t fresh enough.”
I shuddered. I would never think of the word fresh in the same way again. “You’re a zombie.”
“Technically, yes, but most zombies don’t have a soul. I do.” He extended his arms and turned in a circle. “See? I don’t rot and I never will because I have a soul. I’m alive again.”
The word alive would also never be the same for me again. “But aren’t you in his control now?”
“Sort of. It’s not like the others who have to do everything he says.” His chest puffed with pride. “He can’t really control me, not unless he focuses a lot of energy into it. I’m my own man. It’s part of the deal we made.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage. Never mind whoever had used his body before had probably been his own man too until he’d been chosen as a vessel for Mark’s spirit. I shook my head and forced myself to move past my shock and think. “Wait, what deal?”
“I help give you to him, he gives you to me. Now we can be together.” He leaned in to kiss me.
I moved so fast, even I was surprised to see how far across the room I went to avoid Mark’s advance. We stared at each other for a moment. Hurt reflected in Mark’s new green eyes and I was sure mine reflected wide-eyed horror. As torn as I had been about Mark’s death, I would’ve never wanted to make him a zombie and trap his soul in dead flesh just to keep him with me. Death had marked a permanent change in our relationship, one that couldn’t be overcome with magic.