Davis stood inches from the circle’s edge, smiling. The stink of his cancer filled my senses, and I knew immediately what he wanted. Same thing humans always wanted from such as me. Most humans who summon us never get it right, and just bringing me into a circle wasn’t the end of the show. There were still words to say before I was good and bound to service. One word with the stress on the wrong syllable and I’d have a screaming chew toy.
Davis spoke carefully, slowly, holding a tablet in front of him, though he hardly looked at it. He’d clearly studied the ritual, knew it so well he could say it in his sleep. That fascinated me. The last man who’d attempted this particular summoning had been reading too quickly from a paper book. When I set it ablaze, he dropped it mid-sentence, and never got his wish. Most humans are in a terrible hurry to make me grant them wishes, but not Davis. He’d piqued my curiosity. I wondered if he might be able to craft a wish that I couldn’t twist into catastrophe.
I’d rarely ever met a man who could. The few who managed to bind me almost always discovered that their wishes never quite came true. Most men demanded money. The money they desired had to come from somewhere. A suddenly empty bank vault coinciding with a suddenly wealthy man usually caught the authorities’ attention, and the man would find himself the richest fellow in prison. Occasionally someone would wish for the money to be taken from criminals, who had stolen it and didn’t deserve it anyway. Criminals don’t take well to their fortunes disappearing, and are more efficient than banks at tracking down where it all went. Meeting a man who could express a wish that resulted in only what he wanted, without offering me any room to maneuver... That would be something.
At last Davis finished his careful recitation, and looked at me with the slightest hint of nervousness in his eyes. “Do you understand why you’ve been brought here, Amsterdam?”
“Of course. You are a powerful wizard who has summoned me to do his bidding.”
He frowned. “I’m not a wizard. I’m a businessman. I’m Davis McInerny. I run the largest moving company on the East Coast. I have offices in every major city from New York to Tampa.”
And you’re dying, I thought. It doesn’t really matter how rich or powerful you are, when a disease can defeat you.
He was still talking. “I tell senators what to do. Do you understand?”
How amusing. He thought I would be impressed with his money and influence. I smiled, and sank into a deep, respectful bow. “Your wish is my command, oh master.”
He swallowed, and placed the tablet on the floor by his feet. “Anything I wish?”
“Anything, oh master.” Humans love to be called master It tends to throw them off, make them believe I’m subservient. Just because I was curious about this one didn’t mean I would forget the old ways. “One wish, so choose with care. Once that wish is granted, I will return to my home, our agreement completed.”
Davis pulled himself straight and tall, and cleared his throat. “I wish for my cancer to go into remission.”
Short and to the point. It might seem that something so succinct would be the perfect wish. It covered only that which he desired most, and had no conflicting clauses that could be used against him. But it was far from absolute and I was disappointed by how boring it was. I’ve been summoned by men who spent days crafting their wishes, consulting elders and poets to be certain their words could not be misconstrued. Once a young warrior in ancient Macedonia had his wizards bring me forth. He spent a full day reading his wish, and he ended up conquering most of the known world of the time. He’d covered every contingency in the scope of his wish. Every contingency, that is, except poisoning, and frankly, I think he would agree that it was worth it. That was a wish to remember. Davis had, in some small way, reminded me of that man, and to hear him spill his most cherished desire in the space of nine words was anticlimactic.
I didn’t let my disappointment show. Instead, I closed my eyes, and reached into the fabric of space and time to reweave Davis’s internal structure. I spoke to his cancer, ordered it to retreat and give the man carrying it within him some peace. The disease did as I commanded. All things do, in the end. While I waited for his illness to give way, I wandered a little through Davis’s history. I saw memories of Davis shooting men who’d betrayed him, tossing bodies into landfills so that they would never be found. I saw anger and hatred and a lust for power that almost rivaled that of the Lord of Flame itself. Davis was a businessman, and he’d become so by being a criminal. Fortunately for him, such things didn’t matter to me. At last I grew tired of seeing his past, so I opened my eyes. “Your health is restored, oh master.”
He rushed across the room and through a door. Now that all was quiet, I transformed into a jet of flame and slipped my bonds. I believe he enjoyed a few months of health until the cancer noticed I was no longer nearby to tell it what to do, and returned with a vengeance.
With this latest binding complete, Davis erased the edge of the circle with his toe, releasing me, then had his goon lead me upstairs to a room. He stopped outside a dark oak door, opened it, then shoved me into the room beyond.
“You stay here,” he growled, releasing his hold on the silver chain and slamming the door behind him.
There was a bed big enough for four of me, with sheets so soft I worried I’d slide right off. The windows were clothed in rich, red linen curtains that pooled on the floor. A huge television set was fixed on the wall opposite, with more channels than anyone could ever watch. These were not comforts that mattered to me. If he’d understood my nature at all, Davis would have housed me in a sauna, with the temperature turned as high as it could go. But the uncomfortable accommodations weren’t the problem. The door had verses of scripture carved into the wood and painted with silver plate. The glass of the windows was also inscribed. They were verses from the Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, even the Zend-Avesta. All verses designed to keep me too distracted to ever pass through. The question of which human god is true has never bothered such as me, but the verses were chosen so I would be drawn to discover their likenesses and differences. They were unsolvable puzzles, far more imprisoning than any lock could ever be. It was the same trap as I wore on my wrist, only writ large.
I was offended by this slight to my honor. Offended beyond description. Despite the binding, despite having me under his control until he actually spoke the words of his wish, he forgot one very important part of our arrangement. He forgot he needed me happy.
After I had been trapped in the room for a few days, distracting myself from the question of the verses by watching hours of a show in which humans fought fires and made love with each other, Davis at last arrived at the door.
“This time, I’m ready. You won’t be able to misunderstand my wish this time.”
I bowed low, rose. and waited without speaking.
“Nothing to say?”
“I await your words, oh master.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then smiled, his hollow cheeks darkening into shadow with the effort. He unfolded a sheet of white paper, holding it before him as if reading a speech. “I wish for every imperfect, diseased cell to be removed from my body, cast aside, and destroyed, leaving only the perfect cells behind for me, so that I will never again suffer under the misery and weight of sickness.”
I tilted my head curiously. It was a better wish than the first one, more specific to his needs. “This is what you want?”
He let the paper drop, and stared at me. “It is exactly what I want.”
I gazed at him. He’d once been powerful and strong, merciless with his enemies. He was used to getting anything he wanted, but there was no arguing with one’s own body. Now he was a sickly old man, grasping at just a few more days of life than he’d been allotted. I suppose another creature would have had sympathy for him. Perhaps if he had not offended me so deeply...but no. As I mentioned before, I long ago stopped letting sentiment intrude on my
dealings with humans. He had expressed his wish, and that was precisely what I would give him.
Once more I reached into the fabric, undoing what fate had already done. Before I had encouraged his cancer to vacate its home, but this time I ordered it away. I roared, in the silence of his body, charging the illness to retreat from my fire. I cast the disease out of him, and forbade it from ever returning. I warned the healthy cells within him to behave themselves, not to react and follow their diseased fellows into unmanageable growth, or they, too, would be destroyed. Davis’s body trembled in obedience to my will. Once I was certain that every living organism within Davis had heard and understood my command, I went back to myself, and opened my eyes.
Davis’s muscles contracted, and his hands gnarled themselves into hideous knots. He grabbed for his abdomen with his twisted fingers and let out a wail of shock and pain, the cords of his neck straining with effort. He stared at me, terrified at the agony that was only just beginning. A glutinous brown liquid welled into the corners of his eyes, dripping slowly down his cheeks. The same substance filled his ears, spilling out and running onto the shoulders of his pristine white shirt. Liquid ran from his nose in unstoppable waves. Davis opened his mouth, choking on the filth that poured from his throat. He coughed and sputtered, trying to draw breath, clawing at his neck, but as he scratched his skin, instead of blood, more of the brownish secretion oozed from the wound. It seemed to be coming from every pore in his skin, covering him in a sticky, glistening foulness.
He collapsed to the floor, his back arched in an agonized curve, his legs kicking against the bed frame. The ooze flowed away from him, collecting in a massive puddle across the floor, seeping into the fibers of the carpet. I stepped back so it wouldn’t touch my foot. As the substance left him, he became thinner and thinner. His cheeks sunk into his face until I could see the outline of his teeth on the surface of his skin. His arms tightened, losing what little muscle there had been and leaving only the looseness of skin and bones. In seconds, his slender frame had shrunk to a skeletal joke of his original size.
The ooze from his orifices slowed, and stopped. Davis spat the last bits of waste from his mouth and lay back, panting. He tried to raise an arm, but having lost so much of his mass had left him weaker than a newborn. There’d been more to his cancer than even his doctors had told him, clearly. “Is it...done?” he asked, his voice a mere breath.
I was watching the puddle. The spread of liquid was coalescing, pulling together into a thick mound that stretched and grew. It rose into a pillar, slowly forming into a manlike shape that reached as high as my hip. It bowed to me, and I laid a hand upon it. It burst into bright flame, and I could have sworn I heard it laugh.
“What’s...happening?” Davis was trying to pull himself across the floor to me, but he had no muscle with which to move what was left of his body. He fell back. “What is that?”
“Oh master, I have granted your fondest wish. Your disease has left you. You retain only those parts of yourself which remained healthy and strong.” I spread my hands in a pose of regretful respect. “In order to destroy the cancer once and for all, I have set it ablaze. Perhaps I should have disposed of it in another fashion, since it seems to be scorching your carpet.”
Tongues of fire licked at the carpet, spreading across it to the curtains. They caught rapidly, and soon a merry crackling filled the room. Davis cried out, scrabbling at the floor with his useless hands. I lifted him into a chair. “Aren’t you happy, oh master?”
“Get me...out of here,” he wheezed. I shook my head.
“Alas, oh master, I am trapped by the limitations you have placed upon me. The leather—” I held up my wrist. “And the verses carved upon the windows and doors. I am as much a captive as you.”
The fire leaped from the curtains to the bedclothes, and very shortly the bed was burning. At last I was beginning to feel warm, for the first time since I’d arrived in this place. Smoke filled the air, velvety soft to my frozen lungs, but Davis wasn’t enjoying it as well as I. He coughed violently, nearly sliding out of his chair in the process. I sat down in the midst of the inferno that was once a bed, and sighed with pleasure. The glass in the windows began to groan, and I knew that soon it would crack. The verses would be interrupted, and I would be free to leave the house.
Davis’s burning disease flowed toward me, and wrapped itself around my cuffed wrist. Focusing its heat on the leather that tortured me, it ate and burned the horrid strap until it gave way. Cleansing heat chased away the memory of the stinging salt. I flung myself to lie flat in the flames, soaking in the bliss of pure heat. Bits of ash floated above me, delicate as snowflakes but the color of shadow. I sent tongues of fire careening through the air ducts of the house. I listened carefully, and was rewarded by the shrieks of downstairs servants as they ran for the doors to escape the sudden, inexplicable fire. The glass in the window groaned once more. The time was at hand. This fire had been a delightful dalliance, but I belonged in a place of true flame, and I’d been away far too long. I stood from the warmth of the burning bed.
“Oh master, our business is concluded. I bid you farewell. Enjoy your health.”
Davis reached for me, his face blue from coughing. “Am...ster...” He couldn’t finish the ridiculous name he’d attempted to saddle me with. With another mighty round of hacking, he fell from the chair, and this time I didn’t help him to sit again. The glass in the window shattered with a lovely chiming, and the call of the verse puzzle eased into nothingness. I was free. I settled my consciousness into perfect tranquility, transformed into a jet of flame and looked back once at the man on the floor. His clothes had caught, burning away from his body, but he was too weak to do anything except flail about. His efforts did nothing to combat the fire. The skin of his chest and arms bubbled and hissed, blisters rising and bursting too fast to be counted. The pain must have been tremendous. His eyes had rolled back too far for him to see any longer. But I knew he could hear, so I bent close, letting my flame lick at his hair.
“Amsterdam is not my name,” I whispered, before slipping into the inferno and home.
The Witch Hunter
M. B. Weston
I would have buried the axe in the girl’s neck if my walker hadn’t gotten in the way. I tried to jerk the axe out, but it stayed stuck in the drywall. It had to be done. The girl in the picture was the prettiest. I had to work fast. I needed the axe. My arm muscles burned as I yanked on that infernal tool. Why wouldn’t it budge? I let the axe rest in the wall for a moment, and I stared at my arms. What had happened to them? They had become leathery and were covered with age spots. And how did my fingers become so twisted? These arms couldn’t have been mine.
But that’s my writing.
Shaky letters written in black marker covered my arms. One arm said, Time is short. I squinted at my other arm, trying to bring the words into focus, but they were too faded. Between the age spots and the dry, withered skin, I could only make out the first word: Beware. But what did it mean? Why would I write that on myself?
I gave the axe another good pull and lost my grip. I wobbled backwards and fell to the floor. I stared up at the portrait of the young girl with the white dress, the pink hat and sash, and the axe buried in the wall. Anger and heat rose up inside all the way to my ears. My hands and arms trembled. The axe should have been in her neck—not her heart. Now it was ruined. I let out a frustrated shriek. The hallway’s fluorescent lights flickered. I loved it when the lights listened to me.
I stopped screaming, and my thoughts grew foggy. Where was I? I looked around, trying to remember. I sat in the middle of an unfamiliar hall. Mauve paint covered the walls. I didn’t like mauve. It was too much like pink. I liked stone walls better. They seemed more natural. Pea-green carpet lined the floors. Green I liked too. It reminded me of the forest, and I missed the forest. I touched my face. It felt hot, and the lights still flickered.
What was I doing on the floor? I couldn’t quite remember.
I tapped my finger on the carpet. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. The rhythm relaxed me. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. I knew I needed to do something, but I couldn’t remember what.
Three servants ran down the hall toward me. The pulsing light made them look as though they were running in slow motion. They wore dreadful, unattractive, periwinkle-blue clothes. I called them rags. They called them scrubs, but I didn’t see the difference. You used one to do the other. That’s how I knew they were servants.
“Miss Helena, No!” yelled one. Her sweet voice echoed in time with the lights. I liked that one. She was young with cream skin and soft, black, spiraling curls. She was pretty, and pretty was good. I called her my Pretty Princess because she reminded me of a daughter I had once. Normally, I remembered her real name, but tonight was a bad night. Some days were good. Some were bad. Tonight was bad. Just like ugly was bad.
Princess knelt next to me. “Are you okay?”
“Where am I?” My voice sounded older than I remembered: withered and shaky, just like my arms.
“You’re at the Enchanted Gardens Memory Care Facility.”
The name she gave me meant nothing, but I had this feeling I should have known it.
“Did you hurt yourself, Miss Helena?”
“That’s not my name.” I had grown tired of all the servants insisting on calling me Helena. Sometimes it made me so angry I could feel the walls shaking. I glanced down the hall, trying to figure out where I was. Time was short. I needed to find my way back.
Another woman with straight brown hair and olive skin joined us. Her shoes squeaked. The sound made me shudder. She knelt next to Pretty Princess and reached for my arm to help me up.
The Big Bad II Page 34