half-lich 02 - void weaver

by martinez, katerina

  “Then we won’t let them.”

  “Isaac,” Jim said. He put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I won’t let them take Alice either. I’ll do the best that I can to keep them away from her.”

  Isaac swallowed whatever apprehension he had and nodded. “I should make the call,” he said. “They’ll come if I tell them to. I’m a fugitive after all.”

  Alice took Isaac’s hand and squeezed it gently, but she kept her eyes on the road. “It’ll be okay,” she said, “It’s about time I took one for the team anyway.”

  Jim handed Isaac his phone, and Isaac took it. “The moment I hang up, they’ll prepare teleportation spells,” he said. “I’ll throw their magic off for as long as I can, but we’ll have ten minutes at the most to do what we have to do.”

  “We’ll have to take the wards down in order to let the magistrate in,” Jim said.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Alice gripped the steering wheel with both hands, gunned the engine a little harder, and said, “Call in the cavalry.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Awaken

  Alice pulled the Mustang off the highway and onto a side road which led to the Crescent Hills Cemetery. The wrought iron gate lay open, and Alice drove beyond it and into the graveyard itself. A paved driveway wound between graves, allowing for quick transportation across the many acres of land the graveyard occupied. The moon was high, and its pale, translucent light touched the tips of headstones which stood proudly, maintaining their duties to display the messages they bore despite the passage of time.

  As Alice cruised along the path, taking in the smell of wet earth and cut grass, she became aware of an almost constant buzzing sensation in her chest; a feeling which intensified as they reached the center of the labyrinthine web of tombstones and trees. But the buzzing soon transformed into goose bumps that radiated into her arms and back. The feeling was faint, and it came in pulses, but she had to admit it was causing the scars to tingle almost painfully.

  “I don’t like this,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else.

  “Let’s just keep our eyes open,” Jim said.

  “I don’t think we will need to look very hard for them,” Isaac said, “We will find them easily enough.”

  A crow cawed from a nearby tree, and when Alice looked up she saw a whole murder of them sitting on its many branches, looking down at her, following the movement of her car as it rolled along, their eyes gleaming with cold intelligence. One of them shrugged, dropped from the tree, and took flight, cawing as it went and melting into the night. A moment later she saw it land on the head of a decapitated angel sitting atop a mausoleum, but it wasn’t the mausoleum the crow had wanted her to see—it was the figures standing just beyond it, at the crest of a hill. She counted seven people, all wearing dark clothes and dusters.

  “Over there,” she said as she pointed.

  Isaac nodded. “I see them,” he said.

  Jim leaned closer to the window, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and narrowed his eyes. “Yep,” he said, “The mausoleum. Look at it, Isaac. Can you see the runes? They’ve set wards up using the structure as a center point.

  “So they’re broadcasting an area of anti-magic as opposed to using a confined space?”

  “Looks like it. The runes are crude, too; they were set up in a rush.”

  “Good. That makes the wards easier to take down.”

  “There’s still the issue that, as soon as we get close enough, our magic will be useless.”

  “Not mine,” Alice said.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Jim said, “But I don’t think you know how to dismantle another mage’s spell, do you?”

  “She doesn’t,” Isaac said, “But I do, and my magic will work.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Isaac closed his eyes, took a deep, calming breath, and sent a call into the Tempest. From its home on that storm-ravaged island, the Good Doctor tipped its head up to the furious sky, nodded, and then dispersed into a cloud of shadow that spread through the sky like ink in water. When Isaac opened his eyes, the backseat was filled not only with Jim, but also the Good Doctor. It nodded, and Isaac nodded in return.

  “Summon your Guardian, Jim,” Isaac said. “Your magic will be blocked, but as soon as the wards are down, we’ll need it.”

  Jim nodded and closed his eyes too. Suddenly the car was feeling like it was too full, too cramped. Alice parked by the side of the road, killed the ignition, and stepped into the night. The initial, more frequently used part of the graveyard had been clean and well kept, but here the stony paths were cracked and pockmarked with weeds. The trees seemed withered and barren, and many of the tombstones were discolored and worn out, the writing on them faded to beyond recognition by anyone who didn’t already know who was buried beneath them.

  As Jim and Isaac stepped out of the car, Alice felt herself floating across toward a nearby grave. She could feel her skin starting to crawl, the hairs on the nape of her neck start to rise, and her heart begin to flutter like a panicked bird in a cage. Slowly she knelt before the headstone and let her fingers run across the cold marble. In the back of her mind she heard a voice, not of the person buried underground, but of a priest quoting the Bible. Someone was sniffing, or crying. She heard dirt clattering against the top of the coffin—but she heard this sound as if she herself were inside the casket.

  “Alice?” Isaac asked.

  Alice pulled her hand away from the headstone and whatever connection she had made, whatever echo she was hearing, ceased. She drew herself up, turned, and said “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Good. I think it’s time.”

  She nodded, slipped her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, and slowly walked along the cracked path, across the road, and onto the damp grass which led up to the mausoleum. The crow which had been perched on top of the building seemed to have multiplied, because there were many of them now, watching them carefully as they went. None of them were shrugging or cawing—they just sat there, their heads twitching as Alice, Jim, and Isaac walked up to them, and then beyond them.

  “It’s happened,” Isaac said. He was looking at his magic bangle which seemed to sit inertly on his wrist. “We’ve entered the warded area.”

  “I feel it too,” Jim said.

  “How long do we have before the magistrate arrives?” Alice asked.

  “Maybe seven minutes,” Jim said.

  “We have to stall them for eight minutes, then—just to be sure.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” Alice said.

  “What do you have in mind?” Isaac asked.

  “You’ll know it when you see it. Do you think you can tear down the wards?”

  “I got a good look at the runes. It was an amateur job. Nothing I can’t undo.”

  “Shouldn’t you undo them now, then?” Jim asked.

  “No. If we take them down they’ll know, and we want them to be complacent.”

  Alice nodded. “Isaac, tear down the wards when it all kicks off. And Jim, you find cover.”

  They cleared the mausoleum and were standing in the open at the crest of a hill on which there were no headstones. Twenty yards away, the legionnaires had already turned to face Alice’s party as they approached. Cameron was with them. He was okay, but there was blood on his face, likely from a wound on his head. It pleased her to see a similar wound on Logan’s face—a claw mark across his cheek, to be precise. She wondered which cat had the privilege.

  Alice took a step in front of Isaac and Jim and said “Here we are.”

  Logan, who had been grinning, stepped forward. “Here you are,” he said, “And here we are. Nice choice of place, too. I’m not sure I would have picked a graveyard, but still. There’s something quaint about it. And Jim, it’s nice to see you. I’m not entirely pleased that you’re aiding and abetting a fugitive and his dirty little secret, but I’m sure you have your reasons.”


  “This doesn’t have to end like this, Logan,” Jim said, “There is still a way to come back from this.”

  “This isn’t going to end badly, Jim. This has all just been one huge misunderstanding—one that could have been avoided if Moreau over there had come clean with the full story from the beginning, but he chose to do things the hard way.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “How about we get to it?”

  “Getting right down to business. Alright, Werner.” He gestured with his hand, and one of the legionnaires pushed Cameron up to Logan’s side. “This is a simple exchange. We do it right, and nobody gets hurt.”

  “Somebody did already get hurt.”

  “Nothing that a little magic wont’ fix,” he said, grinning.

  “Before anything happens,” Alice said, “I just want to know. Why do you want me so badly?”

  Logan nodded, not at her, but at himself—as if he had just had a private conversation in his mind and had come to a completely unrelated decision. “Alright,” he said, “I can see why you might be curious, so let me lay it out for you. When we first showed up at the museum that night, I knew something was wrong. I had felt it for hours, maybe even days. This buildup of… something. I just didn’t know what it was. Then we get the call that something’s gone down at the museum, and I feel like the mystery is about to reveal itself to me, but then it disappears. What’s worse, Moreau over there decides to shut his mouth and keep things to himself.”

  “I told you what had happened,” Isaac said, “I told the entire magistrate what I had encountered and what, I suspected, was on the loose. It was you and the praetors who didn’t believe a word I said.”

  “Oh, I believed it, but I thought you had a hand in it. Still do. I knew there was something you weren’t telling me, and I thought maybe that was the final piece of the puzzle—the last bit of information I needed to get in order to see what you were really up to. Why’d you hide her from us, Moreau? Huh?”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “But it is my fucking concern! I’m the Legio Prime; it’s my job to root out threats to our kind and squash them. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to know someone’s hiding something and to be unable to get the information out of them because the law demands I treat them with respect? Do you know just how much bullshit that is? So I broke a couple of rules. When I deliver you to the magistrate and they see just what an interesting little secret you’ve been hiding, I’ll be thanked for my services.”

  “Thanked? Because you brought me in?” Alice asked. “Just how interesting do you think I am to your magistrate?”

  “A lot more interesting than you think, especially when I tell them what your connection to this creature Isaac’s been talking about is.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Isaac said.

  “Don’t I? I didn’t just learn her name when I was rummaging around in your mind, Isaac. I learned a little more than that. Enough to know that she’s as much a threat to our kind as that other creature is. Only she’s here. Now. Where’s the other one, huh? Where’s Nyx?”

  “Closer than you think,” Alice said, “And if you know so much about me, then you’ll know that I’m the only one who can help deal with this thing. Your magic is useless against her.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “No. We won’t. When she comes and she murders every last one of you, who will be the one left standing? Me. Why? Because I can protect myself from her. And I can protect all of you, too.”

  Some of the legionnaires exchanged glances.

  “You can’t do anything, Werner,” Logan said, “You aren’t a legionnaire. You aren’t even a mage. What can you do?”

  “More than you think.”

  “You can explain that to the magistrate when I bring you in. Now, let’s get this thing done so that we can get out of this place.”

  Alice’s eyes flashed to Cameron and he gave her a slight nod. “Okay,” she said. “Cameron walks this way, I’ll walk that way. No one else makes a move, and you get what you want.”

  Logan nodded, gestured, and Cameron began to walk. Alice did the same, taking it one step at a time. Her body was still prickling all over, sometimes her arms, other times her neck, always her back. Maybe this was due to where she was—they had come to a graveyard, after all. But Alice had chosen this place for a reason. All week she had felt disconnected from her own power, like a phone that hadn’t been charged for a long time. But the moment she touched her Chest of Haunts, everything had changed. It was as if she had received a fresh infusion of power, and this was before she had stolen Doug’s soul.

  The graveyard had been a gamble. She didn’t know if standing here would have the same effect, would offer her the same charge, but it had paid off. She could feel the power coursing through her, could sense the presence of spirits nearby, hovering closely, watching in their sleepy state as this Mexican standoff unfolded over their place of rest.

  All she had to do now was keep her cool and not play her hand too soon.

  Cameron separated himself from the line of legionnaires and within a couple of seconds came shoulder to shoulder with Alice. He looked at her, staring intently into her eyes, and said “You don’t have to do this for me.”

  “Go,” she said, “I’ve got this.”

  Cameron glanced over his shoulder at Logan, who was watching with his head bowed low and a grin on his lips. He then kept on walking until he reached Isaac and Jim, who were ready to pull him to their side of the battle line as soon as he got close enough. Isaac drew him into an embrace so that he could whisper into Cameron’s ear and tell him the plan. If the legionnaires had noticed, none of them made a move to show it. They just stood there like a villain’s entourage, watching quietly and ready to act at their master’s notice.

  Logan extended his hand as Alice approached, but Alice didn’t take it. Instead she squared up to him and stared into those—infernal—red eyes.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Logan asked.

  Alice shook her head. “No,” she said, “You kept your word and delivered Cameron to us, and I kept mine and delivered myself to you. Now you’re going to wait until they’re gone, and we’re going to leave in the opposite direction.”

  Logan flashed a wolf-like grin. “I’m afraid not,” he said, and his legionnaires mobilized. Isaac, Jim, and Cameron stiffened in response to the legionnaires movements, putting their fists up and preparing for an attack despite their lack of magical power.

  Alice rolled her eyes. “Really?” she said, “You’re going to go back on your word? How did I not see that coming?”

  Logan grabbed her by the arm and squeezed. The pain was like an internal scream that caused her nerves to tremble, but she drew in a breath and didn’t allow him the satisfaction of hearing the sound manifest in the physical. “If you knew,” he asked, “Then why did you submit?”

  “Because,” she said, “I needed to get close to you.”

  He squeezed more tightly, almost to the point she feared her forearm would simply break under the pressure of his vice-like grip. “Oh? And why’s that?”

  “I wanted you to know it was me who had done this.”

  Pretend you’re a mage, Isaac had told her, imagine your effect, flex your magic muscle, and it will happen.

  She closed her eyes, drew on her power in the same way she had done back at the apartment moments before Raegan’s corpse got up to fight, and then opened her eyes again. They shone with the cold light of long forgotten stars, and when Logan gazed upon them, even he couldn’t help but marvel in their glow. But this wonderment didn’t last.

  Logan’s lips drew back into a sneer. “What is this?” he said, “You can’t use magic here.”

  Alice’s lips tugged into a grin of her own, and she uttered a single word. “Awaken.”

  Her power pulsed out of her like an invisible shockwave. For a brief moment which hung suspended in time she was everywhere at once. She could see the legionnaires and
the look of shock on their faces as the Half-Lich’s magic pulsed through them like a cold wave. She saw Jim running for cover behind a tombstone, and Isaac sprinting toward the mausoleum, the bangle on his wrist glowing blue streaked with black, crackling with the power of the Void. Cameron turned his body against the wave to shield himself from the brunt of it before diving for cover.

  She stretched her psychic tendrils as far as they could go, wrapping them around every spirit she could sense. And when she had them, she pushed the single word she had spoken aloud into their beings, infusing them with her power and rousing them into action. Suddenly the graveyard, which until now had been calm, filled with awful, howling voices and the whooshing of phantom wind.

  Dead spirits had awoken to fight, and this time it was Alice who commanded them; not Nyx.

  CHAPTER 27

  Convergence

  Hordes of unquiet, dead spirits rushed in and encircled the group of mages. With Alice’s power coursing through them, their normally invisible bodies had transformed into balls of light and smoke vaguely in the shape of the people they once were, and had given them voices with which to scream and howl obscenities at the legionnaires who would dare disturb their sleep.

  Logan’s grip loosened, and Alice wriggled out of his grasp. He thrust his hand out to grab her again, but she jumped back and out of his reach with her arms outstretched. From behind her, a rush of ghosts came rushing up at him, swarming him like locusts. Logan batted them away with his hands while the other legionnaires ran for cover. Some of them, Alice saw, had gained enough clarity of thought to start using magic, but Jim, Cameron, and Isaac had the advantage.

  Alice directed the wave of spirits with her hands; she the conductor, and they her orchestra. In that moment, wrapped as the spirits were in Alice’s psychic tendrils, they were almost like extensions of her own body. She could see her targets through their eyes, could feel with their bodies, and could hear what was in their minds. It was a jumble of voices and flashes of disjointed memory at first, like a movie reel made up of pieces of a hundred different movies, and for a moment Alice thought she would lose control of the horde. But then her power reasserted itself, a puppeteer taking a firmer hold of the strings at his fingers, and the static in her mind ceased.