by Nazri Noor
“Don’t be a dick, Herald, this is hard enough as it is.”
He scoffed. “Speaking as a member of the Lorica, I want you to know that this is highly irresponsible, and a direct violation of the Veil.” Then Herald sighed. “But speaking as your friend? I understand why you want to do this. And I support you.”
I smiled at him. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” Herald said, brushing his hair out of his eyes, giving me a rare smile in return. He drove on, and I waited for the followup. “It’ll only cost you a steak dinner.”
Ah. There it was. “Whatever you want, buddy. Anything you like.” And I suppose I was thankful for the shift in scenery, because it meant a change in subject as well. “I think we’re almost here.”
The vegetation was thinning. We’d passed a whole lot of nothing in the course of finding my father’s new home. I wouldn’t exactly say we were out in the boonies, but saying it was the edge of town might have undersold the distance. We definitely weren’t in Valero anymore. Things were getting pretty rural, and the shift from a bunch of trees to actual buildings was a welcome sight.
“We’re almost here,” Herald said, tapping his phone. “We just have to make a right turn, and – ”
“Yikes.”
“Oh,” Herald said. “Oh wow.”
I didn’t know whether Herald was seeing the same thing I was, but it wouldn’t have mattered. All the houses looked about the same, each in a more or less similar state of disrepair. What was once white was weathered, lawns untended, and shingles? What shingles? I had to admit, I was surprised that any of these houses were even on a GPS map.
My heart did a little tumble. Dad lived in one of these things. I should have guessed that his mental health would have taken even more of a nosedive all this time after my death. I should have come to see him sooner.
But it was going to be okay. We were going to get together again, on better terms, this time, and I was going to do what I could to move him back into the city, get him back on his feet. Maybe he could even reapply for his old job. We could be a family again.
“Color me crazy,” Herald said, “but it kind of looks like nobody lives around here.”
“I believe you. Half these places look almost abandoned. Which one is he in again?”
“Number forty-two. That one, on the left.”
It looked like every other house, except that it seemed slightly more maintained. The porch was still as busted as any other, floored over with uneven wood, the beams scarred with chipping paint, the railings grown over with weeds. The setting sun only made it look all the more forlorn. I had to get him out of there, and soon.
“This is it,” I said.
The engine sputtered to a halt. Herald tapped the steering wheel twice, as if with some finality. “Yeah. This is it. Get out there and make me proud.”
“Wait, you’re not coming with me?”
“What are you, Dustin? Twelve years old?”
I batted my eyelashes. I don’t know, don’t judge me. Like I said, the whole point of taking Herald with me was for moral support.
“Fine,” Herald growled. “Fucking fine. You’re such a baby.”
“Thanks, man.” I scrambled out of the car. “You’re the best.”
Herald did what I thought was his best not to slam the car door too hard. “Huge, fucking baby.”
My feet carried me to the porch, and I had to admonish them mentally. Not too fast. We’d waited months already, I thought. Another minute more wouldn’t make much difference. I stood at the threshold, breathing slowly, checking in with myself. This was it. I looked over my shoulder. Herald stood there expectantly, arms crossed, lip turned up, as supportive as he’d ever be.
“Go on,” he said, but not unkindly. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, more jittery than I’d hoped. I turned to the door, lifting my hand for the knob –
Which was when I noticed that the door was ajar.
“Huh,” I said. “Funny. It’s already open.”
Herald peered over my shoulder. “Maybe he left it open. Maybe he was carrying stuff from the car and forgot.”
I craned my neck over to the side of the house, where my dad’s beat-up old sedan was parked. Both the doors and the trunk were shut.
“Something like that, probably,” I told Herald. But something unsettling stirred in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t like dad to leave the front door open.
I cracked it further open, just to test. Everything seemed mostly normal. The lights in the living room were on. There were boxes on the floor, still unpacked, gone dusty from being untouched. A brown plant sat in the corner, untended and unwatered.
Beyond the plant, on the kitchen tile, lay the body of Norman Graves.
Chapter 16
“Dad. Dad?”
I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast in my entire life. I bolted to his side, the tile cold against my knees even through the denim. What the hell was I supposed to do? I cradled his head, without even knowing if that was okay. I swept the hair away from his brow, because it was all I could do.
“Am I allowed to do this? Herald, am I supposed to do this?” I wasn’t sure when my voice started cracking. It became a little harder to see Herald, which was when I realized that the tears were starting to flow.
Herald knelt by me, his hand going to dad’s neck, over his chest, under his nose.
“He’s alive,” Herald said. “He’s alive, Dust, don’t worry. Your father’s going to be okay.”
“Who could have done this?” The door was ajar. A robber? Who the hell would come to a dump of a community like this and think there was anything worth stealing in a ten-mile radius? A junkie, maybe. Someone desperate or drugged-up enough to break into someone’s house and steal their shit. “Who would do this to him?” I demanded, as if Herald would have any answers.
“Calm down, Dust. Let me focus. It’s going to be okay.”
I shut up when I noticed what he was doing, when I saw the filaments of purple light trailing from his fingers. There was no telling what all Herald had in his compendium of spells, but instinctively I knew he was doing his best to cast healing magic over my father. I could have hugged Herald right then and there. I could have bought him two whole steak dinners.
Tendrils of violet light danced over my father’s body, curling against his skin. What it was doing, exactly, I couldn’t tell, but it was enough to get him conscious again. Dad moaned softly, finally stirring. Herald kept up his spell, his incanting finally ended. He turned to me and gave me a tight smile.
“He’s going to be okay, Dust.”
I nodded, then stroked my father’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay, dad. You hear that? You’re going to be fine.”
He stirred then, his head turning to follow the weight of my hand.
“Hmm,” he murmured. “Dust?”
“Dad?” Something like fire lit up in my chest. My smile must have burned like the sun. “It’s me, dad. It’s me.”
“It’s me, dad.”
It was another voice. I could have convinced myself that it was an echo, because I recognized the voice as my own.
“Oh God, Dust,” Herald said. “Holy fuck.”
I looked down the same direction he was staring, down the same corridor, to find my own face leering back at me.
“It’s me, dad,” the thing in the hallway said. “It’s me.”
I snarled. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
I didn’t even have to think to tell my body to move. Instinct did it all for me. I rushed the homunculus, with no plan in mind, whether to strike it, or burn it, or slash it with a blade from out of the Dark. I just caught a glimpse of its grin before it turned tail and bolted, smashing into the front door with its shoulder and throwing it open. That only made me want to hurt it more.
Somewhere behind me I vaguely registered Herald shouting for me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, I realized, and I didn’t want t
o. All that mattered was for me to put an end to the homunculus, to end this creature that had fucking dared to put a hand on my father.
It was dark out. Night had fallen, and whatever else the creature was, it was cunning, sprinting straight into the woods near the community. I ran after it, keeping my eyes focused on the pallor of its skin, and on the strange glimmer of red that shone from somewhere inside its hand. Had these things learned to use magic? Was it an artifact? Didn’t matter. I wanted it dead.
My lungs heaved. I skidded to a stop, the dry, dead leaves carpeting the earth rustling as my shoes disturbed them.
I stalked through the darkness, the starlight showing that there was nothing around me but trees. That, and more dead leaves, and dirt, and dry twigs that snapped underfoot. I knew it was stupid, giving myself away like that, but I was far too angry. Then something dropped out of the night and threw me to the ground, knocking the air clear out of my lungs.
The homunculus straddled my chest, grabbing me by the lapels and slamming me into the earth. Every blow pushed more of my breath out of me, and as soft as the ground was the creature still assaulted me with enough strength to leave me weak, winded.
The thing at the warehouse had come at me from behind, from out of the darkness. It knew my moves, how I liked to attack. And this one dropped on me from out of a tree, the way I’d recently learned to literally get the drop on my enemies. It was clever. It had my memories.
Its fist slammed into my jaw, and I grunted, tasting blood. So it also liked to punch. It struck again, this time with its other hand. Something rattled and clinked as cold, serrated metal cut into my cheek. It was the chain of an amulet. The red glow from the thing’s hand was the garnet set into a verdigris pendant.
A verdigris amulet. Where did the homunculus get that? It attacked dad. Which meant –
The homunculus raised its fist, its breathing labored from the effort, and from the soft laughter it issued each time it struck. It poised to punch again just as I thrust my arm out, slamming my open hand against its face.
I summoned the flames.
The homunculus reared back, shrieking as amber fire burst from the palm of my hand. Maybe I didn’t understand the physics and arcane intricacies of throwing fireballs yet, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fuck something up by touching it. The creature broke away from me, scrabbling across the ground. The joy of burning the thing, the sheer ecstasy of incineration swelled in my chest, singing like a battle cry.
The confusion was all I needed. I couldn’t tell you how I truly felt to see my own face consumed by flames. Half of it was charred, melted, the other half still grinning and leering at me with its remaining black eye. It was taunting me. I leapt for its throat. We both came crashing to the ground, but this time, I was on top.
“You can come for me all you want. But you do not come for my family.”
“My family,” the thing burbled through its half-ruined mouth. “My family.”
“You do not. Hurt. My family.” Each time I paused, I struck the homunculus in the face. Each blow ruined it more, twisted the same features I saw each time I looked in the mirror. And with each punch, the thing underneath me quaked, and groaned, and laughed.
“My family,” it gurgled.
I grasped it by the throat, pressing my thumb far too hard against where its voice box would be. The thing gasped, then chortled. This was it. I’d been made into something that was now only half human, and that other side of me that was something else, that was other, it longed to rear its head.
The craving for violence felt far too familiar. The Dark Room’s occupants rallied behind the scar in my chest, frothing and fighting to escape so that they could rend, and flay, and smother. And when they dealt the killing blow, I knew I would feel their same grisly satisfaction.
“I’ll send you to hell,” I sputtered through gritted teeth, my grip tightening around the thing’s neck. “Then I’ll find Thea. I’ll find your mother, and I’ll kill her.”
I’ll kill her, I thought, my insides blooming with preemptive delight. I’ll fucking kill her.
“Mother,” the thing laughed. “Mother.”
Something in me knew to stop choking the homunculus, to ease the pressure on its throat long enough to let it get some air down, to let it breathe – and to let it believe for long enough that I was going to allow it to live. My scar burned as I lifted my head to the stars, as I searched the night sky for the last traces of my humanity, of mercy.
A glorious warmth spilled down my chin as the wound raked into my cheek bled freely. It was the price that the Dark Room demanded each time I brought it into our world from out of the gloom. And with the woods around me plunged into shadow, the stage was set for my impostor’s absolute evisceration.
I hissed at the pain and pleasure of my wound opening and bleeding. Six huge spikes burst from the ground, gleaming and velvet-black, solid blades of shadow sent from the Dark itself. I felt the warmth of flesh as they pierced the homunculus through its limbs, its chest, its throat. I felt every rivulet of its artificial blood as it ran down the spears and spines that were as much a part of the Dark Room as they were an extension of me. The warmth brought me comfort. The warmth brought me rapture.
The homunculus shuddered, choking and gurgling its last. Then it went still. I curled my fingers through the dead thing’s hair, staring into the scorched face of the brother I had slain. This was better than sex. It was better than redemption. Nothing in that moment could have pleased me more.
I watched as the homunculus dissolved into gore, as the red-rust slime of its body seeped into the earth. I threw my head back and sipped in the night air, clawing at my chest, fighting to keep down the howl that threatened to escaped my throat.
I raked at my hair, thrumming from the pleasure of the kill. The stars sang to me as they watched. The stars whispered. Murderer, they called me. Sinner. I dared to look back at the stars, and from deep inside of me, I laughed.
Chapter 17
“Sit still,” Herald grumbled.
I winced at his touch. He was a lot cruder than Asher, tugging on my jaw to align it as he cast his spell, but beggars can’t be choosers. My cheek still fucking hurt, and I was happy to take all the restorative magic I could get. He frowned harder, pulling on my jaw roughly when I accidentally let my head loll off to the side.
“Fucking ouch,” I mumbled. “Your bedside manner needs some serious work, Igarashi.”
“So do your fighting skills, but you don’t see me bitching about them.” He smirked. “Oh wait. I just did.”
Dad looked between us open-mouthed as purple tendrils of energy surged from Herald’s skin to mine, probing my body on a cellular level to stitch together the shallow, torn flesh in my cut.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” he croaked.
“Where to start?” Herald said, his eyes turned up to the ceiling. “Let’s see. A psychotic sorceress faked your son’s death, thereby triggering his latent arcane abilities. He turned into a kind of magical sneak thief – not a criminal, mind you, he works on the side of good. Well, mostly. And now he fights evil on a regular basis, including the thing that attacked and knocked you out.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, watching me with more than a little smugness. “That about enough to bring him up to speed?”
“More or less,” I grumbled. I gave dad a tight smile. “That sums it up. This is my job now. Mainly it’s to secure enchanted artifacts so that my boss – this immortal wizard guy – can research them and make sure they stay out of the wrong hands. I live in a pocket dimension with a werewolf and a vampire. Also a Filipino dude who happens to be a necromancer.”
Dad stared at me mouth agape, his forehead knitted into bewildered creases.
Herald sighed. “Easiest way is to show him, Dust.”
I shrugged. This was the second time I was asked to show off my talents in as many days, but lest we forget, I’m totally okay with being the center of attention. And if it meant helping m
y dad understand my new situation, well, so much the better.
“Dad? Don’t freak out, okay? I’m about to show you what I can do.”
He lifted a finger. “Hold that thought.” He turned for the fridge, pulled out a beer, somehow snapped off the top with his bare hand, and took a long, delicious pull. He slammed the bottle on the counter, half of it already gone, then nodded. “Okay. I think I’m ready. Wait. Probably not, but I don’t really have much choice, do I?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Here goes.”
This was second nature by now, and the shortness of my jaunt meant that it was as easy as breathing or blinking. I melted into my own shadow on the ground, the top of my head sinking into the floor just as I heard my father gasping.
I did a brisk jog through the Dark Room, following the pinpoint of light that I knew would bring me over to the shadow by the refrigerator. I emerged there, the fridge humming quietly beside me, then cleared my throat.
Dad’s mouth hung open in shock over my disappearance. He gave off a noise somewhere between a grunt and a yelp. His eyes flitted from my hair to my feet, then back again. Shaking his head, dad lifted his beer to his mouth and tossed back the rest of it.
“Wow,” I said. “You need to control your drinking a little bit.”
Dad ran the back of his hand across his lips, then rubbed it on his shirt. “Depending on where this is going, I might actually start drinking even more.”
“Dad, c’mon.”
“Bad joke. I’m sorry.” He clasped his hands together, pushing his knuckles into his forehead, before he looked at me again, studying me for a moment. “So this is who you are now? This is what you do?”
I shrugged and tried on a little smile. “Hey. It’s a living.” I stared at my thumb. “You’re not mad, are you?”
He frowned. “All these months I thought you were dead. You’ve got friends, a job, a home. I couldn’t be happier. I won’t pretend to fully understand what you do, but I’m proud of you.” He cleared the room in two strides, looking as big as he did when I was a child, like someone who would always take care of me. He wrapped his arms around me, cuffing one hand behind my neck, and pulled tight. “I can’t believe you’re back, Dust. I thought I lost my son. I couldn’t be luckier. I love you.”