I made sure to park well away from the other RVs. I didn’t want anyone to bother me because if anyone bothered me, I might lose it and hurt someone. I remembered the flash of blood as the door clipped Russell’s head, and a sick feeling of guilt settled into my stomach.
Well, maybe the whiskey would help with that.
I broke the seal on the bottle, poured myself a cup, and drank half of it in one swallow.
Wow, that burned. That reaction might seem naïve, but I didn’t have any experience with hard alcohol. I coughed a bit, gasped, and took another swallow, blinking sudden tears from my eyes. My head was starting to buzz a little from a combination of exhaustion and the punch from the liquor. It was kind of a pleasant sensation, at least compared to the way my mind had felt for the last century and a half.
I took another drink, got out of the van, and opened the back door. I sat there with my bottle and my cup, refilling it every time I took a drink. From here I saw a patch of forest and a retaining pond, hundreds of insects whirling around a nearby streetlamp. It was hot and muggy, but I felt cold, so cold, even in my heavy sweater.
The whiskey was warming me up. After three or four cups, I realized I was ravenous, and I grabbed the bag of food and started eating.
It doesn’t say much for fast food that it took a quarter of a bottle of whiskey for me to find it palatable. I ate with a will, washing down the fries and the bites of a cheeseburger with burning swigs of whiskey. The salt and the grease of the fast food tasted amazing, which wasn’t how I usually reacted to greasy food. Like, part of my brain noted that it was objectively disgusting, but the alcohol intake had shut down that part of my brain, so whatever was left working found the food delicious.
Apparently, alcohol can make anything taste good.
I got to my feet, wobbled a bit (for some reason I was intensely dizzy), scooped up some rocks, and sat on the rear fender of my vain. I took a moment to arrange the rocks into orderly piles and then amused myself by flinging the rocks into the retaining pond, taking drinks of whiskey right out of the bottle, and shoving bites of fast food into my mouth.
I found the sight of the rocks splashing into the pond hilarious. Guess booze can make anything funny.
My stomach started to make unhappy noises, but I ignored it. Everything just tasted so good. I had gotten through nearly half of the whiskey bottle, and I was starting on my third cheeseburger when I saw someone walking on the other side of the parking lot.
I surged to my feet, whiskey bottle in one hand, my other hand hooked into a claw as I gathered power for a spell. I was drunk enough that I almost fell over, but I managed to keep my feet. Maybe the anthrophages had found me. Or maybe the bloodrats had swarmed out of the sewers. If they came, I was going to make them burn, I was going to rip as many of them apart as I could before they killed me again…
Then I remembered that I wasn’t in the Eternity Crucible. I was standing a parking lot at four in the morning, with a mostly empty whiskey bottle in one hand and a mouthful of cold, greasy meat.
And that thought recalled the many times the anthrophages and wraithwolves had torn me apart, pieces of my own flesh landing in my mouth as I screamed…
That thought sent my unhappy stomach into full revolt.
I got two steps before I doubled over and threw up everything I had eaten and drank in the last hour. Though it felt like I puked up everything I had ever eaten in my life. Once I had emptied myself out, I tried to straighten up, only to find that I could not keep my balance. I stumbled back, hit the side of my van, and slid to a sitting position.
That felt really good.
I fell over on my side, staring at the retaining pond and the woods.
That also felt really good. Not moving felt good, so I decided to stay motionless for a while, which was just as well because I don’t think I could have gotten up I had wanted to.
I either fell asleep or blacked out.
But I don’t think I blacked out because I had a dream.
It was more like a hallucination. As I watched the woods, birds started to land in the trees, hundreds and hundreds of birds. They were ravens, and despite the darkness and their black feathers, I saw them just fine, which seemed odd.
Hundreds of ravens, and all of them were staring at me. Their eyes were black, blacker than the night. The last time I had seen anything that dark had been when Sergei Rogomil had called on the powers of the Dark One possessing him to kill me.
Footsteps tapped against the asphalt, and a man came into sight.
He was short (though taller than me, of course), and wore a black suit coat, a black vest, black dress pants, and black formal shoes, his shirt stark and white and buttoned to the throat. He had black hair with gray streaks at the temples and deep, deep black eyes. My first thought was that he looked Hispanic. No, that wasn’t right. Arabic? Greek? Iranian?
I couldn’t tell. Something about the dark-coated man just seemed…odd. Off, somehow.
I didn’t like his eyes. They reminded me of something, though I couldn’t recall what.
The man squatted next to me, gazing at me with a thoughtful expression. He tilted his head one way, and then another, and the hundreds of ravens behind him duplicated the motion.
“So you’re the one I’ll have to use,” said the man. His voice was pleasant and deep, with an accent I could not place.
He leaned a little closer, and with a bolt of fear, I knew what his eyes brought to mind.
When I had fought Castomyr, in the final moments before I shot him, he had created a magical vortex inside his mansion. He had been planning to use that vortex to open a gate to the Void to summon a Great Dark One, and he had been nearly finished when I shot him. When I had looked at the vortex, it had given me the sensation of looking through a keyhole to see a huge eye staring at me, something colossal and malignant and terrible that wanted to reach out and crush the life from me.
The man’s dark eyes inspired the exact same sensation. Like there was something huge and horrible behind them that wanted to rip me apart.
Good thing it was just a dream, or else I might have screamed.
“Poor little dear,” murmured the man. “The Eternity Crucibles were not meant for humans. I wonder if you’ll go insane or if you’ll kill yourself first. You should last long enough for what my servants need, though.” He chuckled to himself. “They say I have no mercy. How wrong they are! Perhaps you shall be killed doing my work and be spared the suffering to come.”
He laughed to himself again, and the darkness in his eyes seemed to scream.
Then he vanished, and so did the ravens gathered on the trees behind him.
I wasn’t aware of anything for a long time after that.
Then I became aware of the nastiest headache of my life.
Oh, that wasn’t pleasant.
It felt as if someone had driven a spike into my forehead and my brains had just leaked out of my ears. After a while, I got my eyelids open and regretted it at once as sunlight stabbed into my aching eyes. A foul, acrid smell filled my nostrils. Had someone thrown up?
Oh, yeah, me.
I sat up with a wince, blinking into the glare. The sun had come up, its rays falling over the parking lot. My mouth felt as dry as the desert, and my eyes felt like I had filled them with sand. Additionally, falling unconscious in a parking lot isn’t all that comfortable, and my body ached.
But I had known worse.
I had known far worse.
After a minute I got to my feet. I spotted the discarded whiskey bottle near the puddle of vomit and half-digested fast food.
“Idiot,” I muttered to myself, and I kicked the bottle away.
A flush of shame went through me as I remembered all the various idiocies I had indulged in last night. For God’s sake, I had stolen a car and robbed a liquor store. People ended up on Punishment Day videos for that kind of thing. If I did something stupid and ended up getting arrested for it, Morvilind might kill me, and then Russell would die
of frostfever.
All because I hadn’t kept my act together.
Then and there, I decided to become a teetotaler. I had thought the whiskey would take the edge off and let me keep some food down (which in retrospect was pretty stupid). It hadn’t worked. Not only had it not worked, now I had a hangover on top of everything else.
That was not an improvement. I suppose some people could find escape in alcohol, but apparently, I was not one of them.
And I still felt so cold. It had to be at least seventy degrees out, and it was still muggy, but I still felt icy cold.
“Miss?”
I turned and felt a flicker of alarm.
Two middle-aged Homeland Security officers in their blue uniforms walked towards me, pistols on their belts, the sunlight reflecting off their mirrored sunglasses. My hungover brain kicked into overdrive and realized what had happened. Likely one of the senior citizens in the RVs had seen the unconscious girl lying next to a puddle of her own puke, and like good citizens, they had called Homeland Security to resolve the situation.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Once, this would have frightened me. Now it was an annoyance I had to handle carefully, lest it blow up in my face. I could have killed both officers with an effort of will, but going around murdering Homeland Security officers is not a great way to avoid attention.
Also, you know, geez.
Horrible things had happened to me, but I wasn’t a monster. I had gone to hell, and it had broken me, but I don’t think it had turned me into a monster. At least, I wasn’t going to start murdering people for convenience, even though I had the power to do so.
I really hoped that I wasn’t going to start murdering people for convenience.
“Yes, officers?” I said, trying to summon a sunny smile.
“Miss,” said one of the officers. Both of them had the look of veteran men-at-arms. “We had a report of public drunkenness.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, well, I’m afraid that’s my fault.” An idea came to me as I glanced at the puddle of vomit. “Well…my boyfriend broke up with me last night. He said I was too fat. I…I don’t know. Do I look too fat? I don’t think I look too fat? I…”
The best lies were mixed with truth, and I had indeed broken up with my boyfriend last night, though it was my fault, not his. In a few moments, I had spun a tale about my failed relationship, and the officers were offering me tissues for my tears and a pamphlet about eating disorders.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, miss,” said the officer, “your boyfriend is an idiot. If I wasn’t married and if I was twenty years younger, I’d be asking you for your phone number myself.”
“Oh,” I said sniffling. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“But stay away from the hard liquor,” said the second officer. “At your size, it will hit you over the head like a sledgehammer.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I had just learned that one the hard way.
I pretended to cry a little more, the officers issued me a stern warning against any further adventures in public drunkenness, and I promised to read the pamphlet and visit the counseling center that had printed it. Once that was done, the officers went on their way, and I breathed out a sigh of relief.
I had dodged a bullet there. Last night had been a long train of stupid decisions, and any one of them could have been disastrous. And it had all been for nothing. I didn’t feel any better, and I had put myself at risk for no gain whatsoever. I mean, I had spent a hundred and fifty-eight years in the Eternity Crucible, I had died fifty-seven thousand times, and I had killed an Elven noble.
Had I escaped all that only to get drunk and crack my head open on the van’s rear bumper?
If my balance been a little worse last night, that might have happened.
And if I got myself killed stupidly, Russell would die of frostfever.
I had to keep myself under better control. Then and there, I made a harsh promise to myself to not to indulge in stupid vices and risks, no matter how bad I felt.
I closed the van doors and climbed into the driver’s seat, trying to decide what to do next.
It turned out to be an easy decision.
Pain exploded through me as Lord Morvilind cast his summons spell.
Chapter 3: Forerunner
I blinked in surprise.
Lord Morvilind always made sure he got my attention. The summoning spell hurt. It felt like getting hit by a two-by-four while my blood burned.
Except it didn’t hurt as much as I remembered.
No, that wasn’t right. It still hurt like hell, but my perception of pain had altered. I had died in agony so many times that pain didn’t affect me as much as it once did. I mean, it still hurt and I didn’t like it, but it didn’t throw me shuddering to the floor as it would have once. I was fully aware of the pain, but it didn’t dominate me the way it once had.
It was a thoroughly weird sensation.
Well, however it felt, Morvilind wanted me to show up. I reached for my phone to text Rusk that I was on my way to Morvilind’s mansion. Then I remembered that I had smashed my phone in a fit of grief and pain after I had broken up with Riordan.
Yet another stupid thing I had done. I really needed a phone. I really missed Riordan. But it was safer for him to stay away from me.
I said a few bad words and crawled into the back of my van. Thankfully, I had an activated burner phone, and I entered Rusk’s number, explained that I had lost my main phone and was on my way, and sent the text message. I wondered if I should shower and change first, and then I realized that Lord Morvilind wouldn’t care, and neither did I. Though I did brush my teeth because my breath was nasty.
Fast food, whiskey, and an upset stomach do not give a girl minty fresh breath, let me tell you.
I should have felt frightened. Lord Morvilind had always frightened me, from the moment we had met. He could kill me with a thought. He could inflict tremendous pain upon me. If he was summoning me, it was because he was about to order me to do something dangerous. I ought to have been terrified.
Instead, I felt only…blank. Numb, I guess. I mean, Morvilind could only kill me once. He wouldn’t kill me over and over and over and over…
My mind started to shiver with bad memories, and I pushed them aside. I couldn’t freak out now. Russell was counting on me. I had to keep it together while I talked to Morvilind and found out what he wanted me to do now.
I climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the van. The old engine coughed to life, and I left the parking lot and headed across Milwaukee. The air conditioning in the van didn’t always work right, which was just as well since I was still cold even as the temperature climbed into the eighties. The morning traffic picked up, and soon I joined the line of cars traveling north on Interstate 43.
Morvilind’s mansion was in Shorewood, a suburb of Milwaukee that mostly housed rich humans and Elven nobles. It overlooked Lake Michigan from an estate the size of a park, and it was a sprawling pile of marble and glass and gleaming stone, built in the traditional Elven style that looked like a combination of old Roman and Imperial Chinese buildings. I pulled up the driveway and stopped the van by the front doors, and I paused long enough to check my reflection in the rearview mirror.
I didn’t look great. My hair was greasy, and I had pulled it back into a ragged tail. I looked thinner and paler than I remembered, and my bloodshot eyes had an odd glitter. I looked like I was in withdrawal from strong drugs, or maybe like I was just insane.
I got out and looked around, old, old memories bubbling through my mind. From the perspective of everyone else, it had only been a few weeks since I had been here last, but from my perspective, it had been a century and a half. I remembered the brutal, unforgiving training I had undergone from Morvilind and his various retainers. His retainers had taught me about guns and bombs and locks and computers and security systems and physical fitness, while Morvilind himself had taught me about magic.
I had been standing right here when Mr. Can
e the banehound had tried to kill me. Of course, if he came after me now, I could blast him to ashes, impale him on icy spikes, use telekinetic force to shatter his bones and crush his skull…
I laughed aloud at the thought, an unsettling, reedy sound. I made myself stop.
The door opened, and a paunchy middle-aged man in the formal black and red livery of an Elven noble’s servant emerged. He had a dignified air to him, but he nevertheless looked sad.
“Miss Moran,” he said.
I stared at him for so long without blinking that a hint of unease went over his face.
“Rusk!” I said, at last, the memory clicking. “Yes, I remember. I remember you. Your daughter. She was…she was hurt. How is she?”
Rusk hesitated. “Unchanged, I fear. His lordship awaits you in his library.”
“Yes,” I said. “I forgot. He always likes to have our little chats there.”
Rusk nodded, and I followed him into the entry hall. “Miss Moran…are you all right? You seem…ill.”
I considered the question for a moment. “We probably shouldn’t talk about it.”
Rusk only nodded. Once he would have said something snippy about my ragged appearance. His wife’s death and his daughter’s coma had drained a lot of the life out of him, and now he sometimes seemed like a ghost going about his duties.
He led me to Lord Morvilind’s library. The library occupied a large room at the rear of the house, high windows overlooking the bluffs and the rippling waters of Lake Michigan. The floor was white marble, polished and gleaming. Books written in both high Elven hieroglyphics and the common Elven alphabet covered the walls, along with countless volumes on ancient Earth’s history and peoples. An elaborate summoning circle had been carved into slabs of gleaming red marble before the high windows, a design so intricate that my eye could not follow it.
The room had changed in the last year (or the last century and a half), partly because of my actions. The two ritual tablets I had stolen for Morvilind sat on his work table next to the three enormous computer monitors he used. The Cruciform Eye rested upon a pedestal beneath a glass case, a fire seeming to burn in its depths.
Cloak Games: Tomb Howl Page 3