Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper

by Morgan Blayde

  I summoned one of my PX4 Beretta Storms. My thumb nudged off the safety. I lifted the semi-automatic, taking careful aim. My left hand held a child’s doll long past her prime. She wore a sun-yellow dress with many frills, and her hair had once matched. Time had faded the fabric. Old blood had once matted the hair. One eye was cornflower blue. The other an empty socket.

  The doll had brought me as well. That and a promise to a ghost child who’d just died a second time. I normally killed if the price was right—or if someone looked at me funny—but this one time, it would be for honor.

  Turning, the Reaper saw me. He pulled the flute from his grinning face. His eyes were patches of black. Empty, no demon or ghost light inside them.

  I squeezed the trigger. My gun bucked in my fist. I rode the recoils, sending round after round. Brass cartridges ejected into the air. A few of them rattled off my Kevlar armor. Firing, I tracked Death as he ran.

  You’d think Death wouldn’t be afraid to die.

  He scurried low, apparently experienced at staying alive in a gunfight. His black robes billowed, taking several hits. I thought I heard a hiss of breath and a smothered curse on his lips, the lips he didn’t seem to have.

  Might be fey glamour. Nothing I’m seeing could be real.

  Not wanting to be left out, the phantom hound ran for Death, zigzagging the plots. The beast refused to run over the graves, losing time. I guess he didn’t want to offend other ghosts.

  I didn’t have that problem; I like offending everybody. I emptied my magazine and sent it back to my satchel to be automatically reloaded. A thought rang out into the ether, commanding obedience. My demon sword came, fading into my hand from elsewhere. I gripped the hilt, bracing my mind for the wave of pitiless hunger that rolled off the blade, begging for another soul to drink.

  Working on it, I told the sword, but no more fooling around.

  Death ducked behind a white marble mausoleum large enough for a family of eight. His steps were fading fast.

  Skull-Boy really knows how to run. Never mind, Dog and I are faster.

  A mass of sludgy shadow, Dog turned the corner next.

  As I got there, I heard him yelp in startled pain.

  What the hell!

  Rounding the corner, I saw no trace of the Reaper. The ass-wipe had gotten away. Of more immediate concern, Dog was in the paws of a band of children that had a milky transparency in the silver light of a half moon. The children were tearing the dog’s ghostly substance apart by handfuls. Dog was a good boy; he didn’t fight them: the ones he knew he ought to protect. Like the evil rug-rats they were, the children used this against him, so he vaporized, going incorporeal to save himself.

  Suddenly without their meal, they turned their attention to me. These were ghosts—a particularly nasty type. The Slavic word was Drekavac. The children had died unbaptized, born from mothers abandoned by their boyfriends, shamed. No choice really. Baby necks break easily when choked. The resulting baby ghosts would have spent a great deal of time killing small birds and animals so they could grow old enough for vengeance. Their unnatural ages were now running four to ten, but they lacked mental maturity, being little more than ghostly ferals.

  Gnawing ectoplasm, they stuffed their mouths with what they’d torn from the dog. I had very little time before they swallowed, and unleashed the power they were infamous for: the scream of death. I waded in with the iron of my sword, slashing through their spectral mass, disrupting materializations. The demon sword howled with dark joy, drinking freely.

  Then all I could hear was screaming from those still intact. I screamed too, my brain turning to mush as needles of sound spiked into my eardrums, scrambling my brain. The twilight sweep of crosses and headstones stretched in impossible ways. My balance was shot. I stumbled back. I fell. The doll dropped from my hand. Her one eye stared in silent accusation as if to say: Do not fail me.

  The children came at me with bared, pointy teeth and impossibly long, clawing fingers.

  I struggled to lift the blade.

  Darkness surged up in me from my other half, my inner dragon spilling power into our mutual flesh. My pained scream transmuted to one of ecstasy as golden lightning wreathed my flesh. Heat wound around my limbs like pythons while an electric, crackling voice distracting me from the ghosts’ attack.

  And I did lift my sword. Its eldritch glow left a red blur in the air as I slashed horizontally, the blade sweeping almost two feet off the ground. An arc of crimson light spread out like half a ripple on an unseen sea. The bloody arc slashed into the children, biting through their protoplasmic substance, leaving distortion behind and rips across their bodies.

  Hah! Take that, ankle-biting parasites!

  One of them had been slashed with both the sword and its energy. His substance attenuated, spooling into the air, into my hungry blade like a black hole feeding on stellar plasma. The screams of the ghosts snapped off as they went intangible and invisible, all except the ghost touched by my demon blade. His scream died, too, but he didn’t escape. He unwound, decaying until the sword claimed all of him, leaving not even a faint smear of light behind.

  My sword said, Ah, the taste of terror. That never gets old.

  I didn’t need a mirror to know that one of my eyes had gone dragon while the other stayed human; my vision was a mishmash of sensory data. I closed my human eye, and the competing images in my brain resolved to a silvery-green, a night-mode of seeing that edged into mystical frequencies of light so auras and residual magical energies were also visible. The ghost children weren’t just incorporeal, they’d fled the scene.

  I flicked my wrist and released the hilt of my katana. It vanished, leaving a small vacuum the air rushed to fill, and leaving less light to see by as well. I picked myself up and recovered the doll before retracing my steps to the front gates of the cemetery. Without out Skull-Boy and his choir of death to concentrate on, I had a chance to better study the details around me. This place wasn’t typical of Santa Fe graveyards. Most of them weren’t this crowded and over-adorned with crypts, pointy monuments, and angels. This style was more common with eastern cemeteries.

  I passed through the wrought iron gates, not bothering to close them, and turned back for a last glance. Like a heat mirage, the place wavered and faded—like the location itself was a ghost, or hidden by glamour. I felt warmth in my dragon eye as it shifted back to human DNA. Enough light remained in the sky for me to see the muted colors in the scrubland around me: the pale-green sage clumps, the low-growing yellow-white chamisa, and Apache bloom, its white petals shaded pink by feathery seed pods. Boulders were present that had not been in the cemetery before.

  Ghost Girl was gone now—not into the light—into the nothingness of utter extinction. Skull-Boy had destroyed her so I couldn’t return the ugly doll. Better hang onto it in case I need access to some spectral dimension again. The doll would serve

  as a key, until its residual energy became exhausted.

  I turned from the vanished cemetery and trudged across the rough terrain. Time must have flowed differently in the cemetery than outside it. Nothing else accounted for the sky already brightening with dawn. The walk back lasted half an hour at least, bringing me to the top of a rise behind the Branden Conservatory compound. The old Victorian mansion down below had once stood alone, well outside of town at the end of a dirt road. With the city’s expansion, that road had become paved. Sewer lines made the old outhouse unnecessary, a relic of a bygone age. Lights were on at the hall, in the Victorian, and in the main building of the school, but as far as I could see, I was the only one running around the property.

  Spoke too soon.

  A smudgy shape slunk along the ground, a churning darkness running on four feet. Dog was back, having pulled himself together after losing the chunks eaten by the ghost children. What interested me the most was his straight-line course toward the converted Victorian. His back bristling, Dog hit the outside cellar door. Snarling, I thought he was on a hot trail. His substance
flattened, going smoky as he seeped through various cracks. In moments, no sign of Dog remained.

  I went down the dirt bank, dodging a patch of cactus, and strolled through a garden with a circular fountain where a slim stream of water spit up and fell back into the basin. Went to the cellar door where Dog had passed. There was a latch and lock. The wood was old, the hinges rusty and unimpressive. A stomp with my steel-toed boots and the latch screws parted company with the door. I let myself in and went down a short flight of wooden steps.

  There was an antique scrub board, an ironing board, an old push mower, a few wooden barrels, and lots of shelves with mason jars lined up. I peered into the gloom, looking for Dog. Shadows in the corner stirred and whined. I went over and found the beast. He was standing over a body. I knelt and shooed the ghost dog back. He went, apparently having no use for a corpse. I rolled the body to see the face. Dr. Shawcross. His eyes stared at nothing. His clothing had seen better days. The hilt of a butcher knife protruded from his chest. This was definitely not Dog’s work. He had no opposable thumbs and I’d seen no sign of strong poltergeist phenomena around him.

  I stood and turned away. The Reaper had gotten off way too easily. He hadn’t suffered near enough. I felt crushing disappointment. I walked over to the shelves, needing something to break. I curled my fingers into a tight fist and was about to pound glass when I stopped myself. I stared. The jars held ears, and eyes, lips, and tongues. One had a human heart. Another jar contained a liver. Fingers. Kidneys. A spleen. The prize collection of a murderer.

  Someone found this and—filled with disgust and righteous fury—they avenged the dead. Question is, who? I might never know. Well, nothing left to do now but stop the concert tonight.

  I went back outside and reentered the Victorian by a kitchen door. Workers hustled, loading up push carts with meals. Prepping to serve dinner to the students, no one offered me more than a glance or two. I crossed the room, passed an arch, and entered a dining room that spilled into what had once been the living room.

  Several long tables with chairs made a labyrinth on the gold-stained, eucalyptus floorboards. Fresh, white plaster gleamed on the walls, probably replacing what had once been old-fashioned wallpaper. Grace and Madison sat at a corner of one table, place settings in front of them, and sweaty glasses with ice water in reach. Grace saw me and waved enthusiastically. Madison’s cool, blue eyes locked onto me, absorbing my approach with no sign of emotion. She seemed not to have suffered injury, and was dressed far more normally in a vintage outfit, white and frilly with a lot of lace on top, and a draw-cord waist. I was sure she had weapons hidden by the bulky skirt. Her gaze dropped to my hand, to the damaged doll I carried. Her brow furrowed slightly with unvoiced questions.

  I sat across from Grace, and handed her the doll. She took and stared at it, and lifted her eyes to mine. “You shouldn’t have. And I really mean that, Uncle Caine.”

  Good. She’d managed to remember our fictional relationship, our cover while snooping around the school.

  “It’s an antique. I think it might be worth restoring. Interested?”

  Grace looked at the doll with an evaluating eye. “You might be right about not throwing it out. A child once loved this. I can feel the residual emotion.”

  Madison shot her an interested glance. “You can?”

  Grace grinned at her. “A family trait from my mother’s side of the family.”

  “Cool.” Madison picked through the silverware on her unfolded, cloth napkin. She held up a spoon. “Can you bend things with your mind, too?”

  “I don’t do spoons.” Grace set the doll on the floor beside her chair, and straightened as Justin came over stand by her. He wore jeans and a tee shirt with a green frog playing the banjo. The frog was a puppet with Ping-Pong ball eyes and an open mouth with a small red-felt tongue. The bronze-haired boy with the flat, brown eyes had the same easy smile as they’d seen when he’d been practicing in the music room. He ignored me, his eyes on Grace.

  The eyes of the frog on his shirt seemed to bore into me with lunatic intent. My hands itched for their guns. I fought down the impulse to summon my Berettas and darken those bulging eyes forever. Remember, I told myself, you’re trying to be less of an evil asshole, and more of an evil, Machiavellian mastermind. My long-term objectives required that I build on my followers and connections, what the Old Man referred to as “piling up capital in terms of loyalty.” While visiting the Red Lady’s moon, I’d seen a glimpse of the far future, of myself as an immortal. I wasn’t immortal yet—that I knew of—but it wouldn’t hurt to develop strength for such a long-term agenda.

  “Mind if I join you?” Justin asked.

  Grace returned his smile. “Have a seat.” Grace’s eyes went to the black case Justin carried. “Been in the practice room again?”

  He pulled out a chair and sat beside her. “Yeah, we have a

  concert coming up, a public relations and fundraising thing for the school.”

  I wondered what the haint in the auditorium would say about that. Or maybe, that was what it was waiting for—an audience. And I still didn’t know how the presence connected to the serial killer I was hunting—if it did. I, too, had noticed the flute case Justin carried. It would be way too easy if he had a white jade flute in that thing. Not likely though. We’d already seen the instrument he played. An ordinary metal flute, not jade, white or green. Finding something like that would have been too good to be true.

  I glared at him. “Everybody play the same kind of flute around here as you do?”

  He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, and patted his case. “Uh, yeah, I guess.

  Sterling silver, C type.”

  “Can I see it again?” Grace asked.

  Shrugging, he opened the case and stared. “I don’t understand.”

  Inside the case was a flute much smaller than normal. It wasn’t steel, but stone, a white variety of jade. The mouth-part was Himalayan silver. This was the same flute I’d seen in the hands of Skull-Boy. From where I sat, I could feel a malevolent energy from it tainting the air, a feeling of dark hunger that called for the touch of my hands. The instrument wanted to be played, needing it badly.

  A cursed relic.

  Justin stammered, “I-I don’t understand. That’s not my flute.” The frog on his shirt looked equally shocked.

  “You must have accidentally switched it with someone,” Madison said.

  The reaper. Has to be. But he’s dead. Isn’t he? Maybe Shawcross had a partner. I suddenly felt very happy. There’s still someone I get to kill.

  Justin looked thoughtful, staring up into space. “Well, I did just come from using a practice room. I had the first hour booked, getting ready for the concert tonight.”

  “Who came in for the second hour as you were leaving?” I asked.

  “Tia Brooks. She’s a first year. And her instructor, Mr. Hastings.”

  Hastings? Awful fast recovery, going from traumatized victim to a music tutor like nothing happened.

  “They both had flutes?” I asked.

  Justin looked at me. “Flute cases, yeah. We put them together on the piano while coats were coming on and off.”

  “One last question,” I said. “Was everything normal over at the school?”

  “Oh, no, police are there. They were calling for a morgue pickup when I left. Seems the security guard had a heart attack last night. He was pretty old.”

  Madison stood and looked at me. “You want to walk over there, and check things out.”

  I nodded briskly. “But first, I think I’d better take custody of this.” I held out my hand for the case.

  Justin handed it over, the lid still open.

  The dragon in me stirred in the shadows of my mind, his attention focused on the jade and silver. Pretty. Mine! I want it. He moved my hand, and I was suddenly holding the cursed flute with bare, vulnerable flesh. Having time for a single thought, I used it to stab my dragon self.

  YOU colossal IDIO
T!

  THIRTY-ONE

  “The best dreams have nightmare bleeding in at the edges.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Like a ghost with nothing better to do, I occupied the dusty darkness; at my feet, the loose sheets of an old newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, March 20, 1996. One story caught my eye, British alarmed at outbreak of mad cow disease. I’m back in the nineties?

  The sound of creaking wood drew my attention. I looked up at a nine-year-old girl framed by attic windows. Everything near her lay muted in graytones, but not the girl herself. Her colors seeped in like a stubborn stain. She wore pink ribbons in golden curls and a frilly sundress. Her eyes were a strong shade of blue that could not be tamed by the shadows: cornflower blue. She’d been tied to a rocking horse, the source of the creaking I heard. The wooden pony was an antique, painted white with a golden mane and tail. Obviously handcrafted.

  The way things come clear in dreams, I knew the little girl had sat mounted for hours. Her fidgety posture showed that her butt hurt. Her puffy face showed she’d cried in the dark after the oil lamp burned its store of kerosene. She’d waited in fear for the monster to come back. I could taste the acrid tang in the air. The girl was also hungry. Tired. Afraid. And from the stillness, terribly alone in her trial.

  I saw doubt in her eyes: Would anyone come looking? Would anyone save her? Could she save herself?

  She returned to gnawing the ropes on her wrist with small, bright, white teeth. I knew she’d not finish in time. The monster would come back, and something terrible would happen.

  Nightmare was a breath away, waiting restlessly to sweep in.

  There’s nothing here I can change. This is a dream of the past. A waste of my time, really. Unless I’m finally shown something new.