by M. R. Forbes
Samedi threw Frank’s corpse aside, rising and spreading his hands. I could feel the tide of death magic being lifted away from me and toward him.
“You should have stayed away,” he said. “We’re two of a kind, you and I. You could have lived forever, never to taste the bile of death. Never to smell its stink.”
I sank to my knees, leaning over the stone, bleeding out. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding, but it was slowing. He was taking all the death magic away, steering it from me, stealing it to keep me from using it. The portal was open. I needed to pull him through. But how could I? I had no hands. I had no breath.
Kirin turned behind me, redirecting her eyes to Samedi. He waved his hand and she was knocked aside, landing face down. He walked toward me.
“You have no idea what you’ve done, Conor. You destroyed the only thing that could have stopped me. You killed yourself when you could have lived. And for what?”
He came to a stop ahead of me. I looked up at him. The world was going dark. My eyes were failing. Everything was shutting down.
“Amos,” I said. “Get the stone in the portal.”
He was behind Samedi, somewhere I couldn’t see. If he hadn’t heard me, it was all over.
“Conor,” Dannie said, her voice still audible in the fading death magic. “He heard you. It’s time.”
“This world is mine,” Samedi said. “Thank you for helping me claim it.”
I was almost out of strength. I rocked back on my knees, straightening up, still staring back at the lich. The motion revealed the stone to him, glowing as bright as a star.
His eyes widened in surprise.
“The power of a soul, for the power of a soul,” I said, closing my eyes.
I knew what was going to happen next. I’m not completely sure how, but I knew.
The druids had opened that small portal all of those years ago.
They had tried to contain the power of death magic and hold it in an artifact, a stone.
They had brought out Hades himself. Death.
Only the stone couldn’t hold him, and he escaped. He fled, leaving the netherworld behind, leaving souls unable to cross beyond it. In response, the druids protected themselves from all immortals, including Death, not realizing what they were doing to themselves. They all died.
Leaving the souls trapped in the netherworld gave Death his power here. Power he found he didn’t want to give up. He fell in love with Macha, the Morrigan. He didn’t want to go back. Not ever.
When Samedi came to power, when he mastered the death magic and refused to die, he became a rival whose madness threatened the world Death had come to enjoy and see as his own. It was war, plain and simple. Death won the first round. He helped the wizards of the time make the prison that trapped Samedi’s soul, the prison that would later become the dice.
Only he knew the prison was temporary. He knew Samedi would escape one day. He needed a permanent solution. A necromancer who didn’t die when they were supposed to. Me. Only I could end the war. Only I could get Samedi into the netherworld. Only I could enter the City of the Damned and retrieve the spell they had used to open the portal.
He didn’t know the druids still had his stone. He didn’t know that I had found it and brought it back with me.
He certainly would never have guessed how I intended to use it.
I let it go then. My life. I let myself die. I chose it. I wasn’t afraid at all. I was certain.
Samedi was going to love this.
My body collapsed. Dead.
My soul survived. It entered the stone. A prison of sorts, but not completely. Like with the dice, I was contained, but not contained. And I had powered it up with my dying blood. I had filled it with death magic.
Magic I had at my disposal.
The power of every soul in the netherworld in the palm of my proverbial hand.
I reached out with it, tendrils of darkness snapping from the stone and wrapping around Samedi, capturing his arms, his legs, his neck. He screamed and writhed as they sank into him, bypassing Mr. Black’s flesh and seeking out his wayward soul. The magic found him there, cowering in the darkness, as afraid as I had once been.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It isn’t as scary from this side.”
I took him, latching onto his soul and pulling it in, bringing it into the stone with me. In my consciousness, we were both whole in body and spirit, standing in a white room, surrounded by blurred reality.
The Morrigan twins, Badb and Nemain, were out there, stunned as Black’s body collapsed, suddenly emptied of Samedi. Macha started reaching down toward us, seeking to capture the stone.
“Oh no you don’t,” Amos said, shoving her out of the way.
He loomed large over us, coming in fast, the shotgun held backward in his hand like a golf club.
“See you on the other side, Baldie,” he said, cocking it back. “Tell Dannie I love her, and I always will. You ain’t so bad yourself, in the end.”
The stock came forward and hit the stone, launching us into the air.
We entered the portal, and everything went dark.
I was dead. But it wasn’t the end. Not for me.
It was only the beginning.
48
Death becomes him.
I stood in front of the portal, looking in at the pitch black void Baldie’s spell had created. The rock he was carrying was gone; a perfect swing from yours truly had sent it flying into the black hole. Thank all that was decent it hadn’t come back out.
Skeletor’s body was at my feet. Face down in the dirt, blood still oozing from his arm where deadie-Ash had chomped it off. He wasn’t in there. I knew that much. He had vacated, taking Samedi with him into the magic rock, and completed the job.
Thanks to me.
Of course, he also left me with a major fucking mess.
For one, how was I supposed to close the damn portal?
I heard motion behind me, and I turned around, bringing Matilda up to my waist with one hand, reaching into the pocket of my duster with the other, grabbing a couple of shells.
The immortal bitches were standing there. The goth twins. They were looking at me. Probably overwhelmed by my masculinity. I had already tossed them a couple of times, but not in the way they probably wanted. Although, that would be one threesome I might actually be afraid of.
Nah.
I caught someone else moving out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head just enough to catch them in the periphery. Macha. The other immortal. She was coming my way, too.
“You girls want some?” I asked, shifting Matilda so I could feed her more easily.
I had been worried the patch job Baldie had done on my leg would give out the moment he croaked. Luckily, it was holding up. Disgusting, but holding up.
They looked upset. Not angry. Sad. Like their puppy just died. Samedi was their squeeze; I got that. I knew what that was like.That they fell for a psychopath like him in the first place? I couldn’t get behind that.
The twins turned away from me to look at their sister. The three of them came together, each of them with tears in their eyes. They exchanged hugs, talking to one another in another language. They had all lost their men. I would say I felt bad for them, but they had helped Samedi kill how many innocents? Fuck that.
They were there one second and gone the next, the twins exploding into a bunch of crows, while Macha became a pigeon or a dove or some other annoying bird. They all went skyward together, leaving me ducking for cover under my duster. I had seen what they did to Baldie’s coat earlier, and I didn’t want any of that.
“Conor?”
I heard a small voice from behind one of the headstones nearby. I kept Matilda ready, walking in that direction.
“Conor?”
I came around the side of the marker. Kirin was there, sitting on the ground, slightly dazed. She turned her head to look at me as I approached, her freaky snake hair shifting with her.
“Whoa,” I said,
looking away from her before her power could take effect. “Close them peepers or something, will you, kid?”
I gave her a few seconds before looking back at her. She had her head down, the snakes settling around her shoulders. It was fucking creepy, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“What happened?” she asked.
I laughed. “Heh. It looks like Baldie killed Death and the lich. We saved the world.”
“We did?”
“Yup. You helped.”
“Death is gone?”
“Uh-huh. Don’t worry about it, kid, he was an asshole, anyway.”
“I’m all alone.”
She lowered her head to her hands and started to sob. Maybe I put on the tough guy act, but I’ve always been a softie inside. I couldn’t stand to see her tear up. I leaned down next to her and put my arm over her shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
“How?”
I didn’t answer right away.
I had no fucking clue.
“Start with one second and go to the next,” I told her. “I can help you out. Give you a place to stay. Show you the ropes.”
She started to turn her head to look at me again and then stopped. “Sorry. Habit.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” I said. I scanned the ground, finding her blindfold nearby. I retrieved it and tied it around her head. “No accidents. You’ll have to get used to this.”
“I’ll try. I can’t see very well through the rest of them.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “The rest of them?”
I looked at the snake hair. Each end had a mouth, teeth, eyes. I didn’t know she could use them. Gross.
“Got it,” I said before she answered.
I held my hand out. She saw it well enough to take it. I helped her to her feet.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Brazil,” I replied. “The girls are-” I caught myself. I had to tone it down in front of the kid. “Nice.”
I looked back at Baldie’s body, and then at the portal. I felt my eyebrows tilt inward.
The portal was gone.
“Huh,” I said.
“What?” Kirin asked.
“There was a portal to the netherworld there a minute ago. It’s gone now.”
“Oh. Netherworld?”
“Long story. I’ll fill you in on the way home. Where was Death keeping you, anyway?”
“He said it was a monastery, but I don’t know. He kept me blindfolded the entire time. The food was good, and the people seemed friendly.”
I don’t know why I asked. I didn’t really care. To help keep her calm, I guess.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s time to go.”
I took a few steps toward the entrance. Ash’s corpse was in front of me. Except, it wasn’t a corpse anymore.
His eyes were open. His head was lifting off the ground. He looked confused.
“Amos?” he said in his gravelly dragon-voice.
“Ash?” I replied. “Ain’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Am I?” he said. He turned his head, looking back at his body. The blood was gone from it. So were the cuts that had killed him. “I seem okay.”
“Trust me, pal, you were dead,” I said.
“Amos!”
The shout took me by surprise. I swung Matilda around, nearly shooting Frank as he walked toward us.
“Shit,” I said. “You too?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
He was healthy and whole. Like we thought Dannie had been. But there was no way Death had swapped out one dragon body for another or one trogre body for another. There was no Death anymore, and there weren’t any other dragons, for that matter.
What the hell was going on?
“You were dead,” I insisted.
“I don’t think so,” Frank said. “I got knocked out in the fighting. I had the strangest dream, though.” He looked over at Baldie. “Oh. Oh no. He’s dead?”
“He told us he had to die to stop Samedi,” I said. “Why are you surprised?”
“It’s not that,” Frank said. “It’s just, in the dream-”
“He was there,” Ash said. “But he looked different, hair and everything. Dannie was with him.”
“He said it wasn’t my time yet,” Frank said. “And when things die before they should, it messes up the whole equilibrium. He said the only way to close the portal would be to send me back.”
“I had the same dream,” Ash said. “Then there was this white light, and I was back here.”
“Me too,” Frank agreed.
“Huh,” I said. “No kidding?”
“No kidding,” Frank said. “Hey, Kirin, it’s Frank.”
“Hi, Frank,” Kirin said. “You were dead?”
“I guess so.”
“But if you were dead, and Baldie sent you back,” I said. “That means-”
I froze. We all did.
I don’t know where the laugh track came from, but it split the world around us, coming from everywhere at once, bouncing off the tombstones and reverberating across the city.
I couldn’t help but laugh, too.
Laughter that echoed along with Conor Night.
Thank you!
I wanted to add this extra page to thank you for reading Ghosts & Magic to the end. For some of you, the process may have only taken a few days or less, but for others - you’ve been waiting to find out what happens to Conor, Dannie, Amos, and the others for over a year and half since Dead Stare was released.
If you count yourself among one of the fans who has been patiently waiting - I am sincerely grateful and humbled by the fact that you came back to this series after all that time.
Regardless of how long it’s taken you to get here, thank you, thank you, thank you for reading the series. If you enjoyed it, I strongly urge you to please consider leaving a review on this book and/or all of the books to say how awesome you thought they were. Here’s a shortcut to get you started. It should bump you to the Amazon storefront for your country:
www.mrforbes.com/reviewdeadend
Is this really the end of Ghosts & Magic? I never say never. I love the world it takes place in, and I have ideas for other stories I can tell in it (for example, the ending leaves room open for a very odd couple partnership). So, we’ll see. This may not be the last you’ve heard from Amos, Frank, Kirin, and perhaps even Conor Night.
Cue maniacal laughter…
Other Books By M.R Forbes
M.R. Forbes on Amazon
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Man of War (Rebellion)
mrforbes.com/manofwar
In the year 2280, an alien fleet attacked the Earth.
Their weapons were unstoppable, their defenses unbreakable.
Our technology was inferior, our militaries overwhelmed.
Only one starship escaped before civilization fell.
Earth was lost.
It was never forgotten.
Fifty-two years have passed.
A message from home has been received.
The time to fight for what is ours has come.
Welcome to the rebellion.
Starship Eternal (War Eternal, Book One)
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A lost starship...
A dire warning from futures past...
A desperate search for salvation…
Captain Mitchell “Ares” Williams is a Space Marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty, whose Shot Heard ‘Round the Universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He’s handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he’s as efficient at charming the media and bedding beautiful celebrities as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters.
After an assassination attempt leaves Mitchell critically wounded, he begins to suffer from strange hallucinations that carry a chilling and oddly familiar warning:
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nbsp; They are coming. Find the Goliath or humankind will be destroyed.
Convinced that the visions are a side-effect of his injuries, he tries to ignore them, only to learn that he may not be as crazy as he thinks. The enemy is real and closer than he imagined, and they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent him from rediscovering the centuries lost starship.
Narrowly escaping capture, out of time and out of air, Mitchell lands at the mercy of the Riggers - a ragtag crew of former commandos who patrol the lawless outer reaches of the galaxy. Guided by a captain with a reputation for cold-blooded murder, they’re dangerous, immoral, and possibly insane.
They may also be humanity’s last hope for survival in a war that has raged beyond eternity.
Hell’s Rejects
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The most powerful starships ever constructed are gone. Thousands are dead. A fleet is in ruins. The attackers are unknown. The orders are clear: Recover the ships. Bury the bastards who stole them.
Lieutenant Abigail Cage never expected to find herself in Hell. As a Highly Specialized Operational Combatant, she was one of the most respected soldiers in the military. Now she's doing hard labor on the most miserable planet in the universe.
Not for long.
The Earth Republic is looking for the most dangerous individuals it can control. The best of the worst, and Abbey happens to be one of them. The deal is simple: Bring back the starships, earn your freedom. Try to run, you die. It's a suicide mission, but she has nothing to lose.
The only problem? There's a new threat in the galaxy. One with a power unlike anything anyone has ever seen. One that's been waiting for this moment for a very, very, long time. And they want Abbey, too.
Be careful what you wish for.
They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. They have no idea.
Balance (The Divine)
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My name is Landon Hamilton. Once upon a time I was a twenty-three year old security guard, trying to regain my life after spending a year in prison for stealing people’s credit card numbers.