by CW Lynch
"You are making me better," said a voice that was both Cane's and that of the Ink.
And if the Ink had a face of its own it would have smiled. It was going to like it here.
Adam King came to a halt at his brother's body. He watched, transfixed, as the pool of blood and fluids underneath the body were slowly sucked back inside, borne on the back of a dark and viscous liquid that seemed to be a part of Cane and yet utterly alien to his body. The wide gashes in his flesh closed like flowers at sunset, folding together perfectly. Where they joined, the same strange black fluid bubbled briefly, sealing the join and leaving behind only the tiniest trace of itself in a tracery of swirling black tattoos. Adam winced as he heard bones cracking back into place and an otherworldly creaking of bone reforming and meshing at a speed that defied all science. He watched as his brother's detached jaw bone clicked into place and new, fresh teeth pushed their way through his gums coated in a film of dark liquid.
"What is it?" asked Able, but the ghosts had no answer, and the barriers around Adam King's mind remained in place even now. Able thought he sensed something from the interloper, a stray fragment of thought or memory leeching through the walls. Adam knew what it was that he was looking at, and he was afraid.
With a trembling hand, Adam drew one of Malcolm's pistols and fired.
The bullet hit Cane King's chest in an eruption of blood and black. The bullet wound gaped for a moment, then vanished, new flesh crowding in to fill the void. Another swirl of black on Cane's King skin was the only remnant. Adam fired again, and again, and again, always with the same result. Eruption, convulsion, blood… and then the dark matter that had claimed Cane King remade his flesh, restored his blood and bones.
"He can't hurt him…" whispered Able.
"He should run," said the ghost of Wally Wu. Ever the coward, he had somehow found the courage to be the first to speak, if only to council retreat.
"He won't," said Able.
"Then we'll die," replied Wally sadly. "Again."
Cane King's eyes opened.
GARRITY'S GAMBIT
"Son of a bitch," said Taylor, scrapping a mush that had been Nutt's intestines off his suit. "You nearly shot me."
"So did he," replied Garrity curtly, kicking the dead cop. The shotgun had almost cut him in two. "You're lucky I was here."
"Why the fuck are you here?" asked Taylor. "King's pissed you know. Wants your head for this fuck-up."
"Not my fuck up," grumbled Garrity, fixing Taylor in his dark, piggy eyes. "You asked me to get them here, I got them here. This was your show, you and Cane and that weirdo bitch of his."
"Your intel was wrong," said Taylor, finally getting the last of the worst of Nutt's bowel off his shirt. "You told us they were in pieces, but they came in all guns blazing. And this vigilante guy? Nowhere to be seen."
"Maybe it was one of them after all," replied Garrity. "Maybe this guy. He was supposed to be a real hard case."
"You say that now. You told us he was broken."
"Well excuse me for not knowing exactly how he would take the news that his partner had been cut up to snack-sized pieces. It's not like that happens every day."
"No," said Taylor, "I suppose it doesn't."
"You sound sad about that."
"Maybe I am," said Taylor, smiling at Garrity. It was a strange smile, the smile of a creature that understands how to move its facial muscles in order to create the shape of a smile, but that has no idea what that shape means. "Wouldn't that be something?"
"You're a fucking psycho, Taylor. One day that's gonna bite you in your psycho ass."
"You still haven't told me why you're here."
"One of my guys did a drive by. Told me you had a little war going on down here."
"And you thought you'd drop by to make the most of it?"
"Saved your ass, didn't I?"
Taylor didn't answer. He had to give Garrity credit, he would have done the same thing in his shoes. A firefight-cum-cluster-fuck like this, bodies dropping everywhere, one more wouldn't make a difference - even if it was Taylor's. It wasn't Garrity who had saved Taylor's life. No, Taylor owed his life to the dead cop on the floor.
"Sounds like I owe you," said Taylor.
"Sounds like."
"Get out of here, Garrity. Lie low for a while and I'll keep you out of King's cross-hairs."
"I'm not afraid of King," bristled Garrity, "Or you. Don't forget who runs the cops in this town, Taylor. Right now, by the looks of things here, my guys outnumber the Kingsmen two to one. Don't make me miss my badge."
The two men stood and stared at each for a moment. Another stand-off, this time with guns lowered but no less deadly for it. Taylor knew that Garrity was right. He didn't credit him with the intellect to have orchestrated it, but the fat dirty cop was too sharp to miss the obvious opportunity. Cane was still King, but Garrity was suddenly the general of the biggest army in the city.
The stalemate was broken by the echo of gun shots from somewhere downstairs, the sound bouncing up the spiral staircase.
"You look like shit, Taylor," said Garrity. He turned away, unsure whether this meant that he had won or lost the battle of wills with Taylor. "Try not to get shot again."
Taylor watched as Garrity's corpulent frame ambled away, his shotgun swinging by his side, and licked his lips at the thought of cutting the fat man open and showing him the inside of his own skin.
KILLING A KING
Cane King leapt to his feet as Adam King swung the Magpye's long handled fire axe down. The old, rusted blade clanged against the concrete floor, a tiny shower of sparks flying up. Adam lost his grip on the axe handle and the weapon spun out of his grasp across the floor.
Bent forward, Adam felt the hard tip of Cane's elbow slam into the back of his neck. Above the armoured collar of the coat, the mask offered little protection and the force of the blow sent Adam down to his knees.
A kick swiftly followed, but Cane's expensive leather shoes connected only with one of the metal plates that were stitched in the Magpye's coat. A momentary respite for both men, as Adam struggled to his feet and Cane regained his balance.
Adam pulled one of Malcolm's pistols out of its holster and levelled the barrel at Cane.
Cane grinned. His face was a tracery of dark ink, the creature that lived now beneath his skin cycling through forms and shapes and patterns in search of the perfect match between it and its new host.
"You could never shoot, Adam," Cane said. "I hope you've got some help in there."
"You know who I am?"
"Look at my face," growled Cane. "Of course I know who you are. Grace might not have been able to hurt you, but we both know that this is different. This is King vs. King now. To the death."
"As it's always been," said Adam grimly.
Keeping his gun trained on Cane, Adam reached behind his head with his free hand and unzipped the Magpye's mask. He felt the cool air on his face as he let if fall to the floor but also, somehow, the whispered breeze of something leaving, as if an invisible creature had passed close enough to let its breath touch his cheek. The mask looked up at him from the floor, its dead glass eyes the eyes of some other creature. More than just a false face, that was true face of the creature called the Magpye. Somewhere deep in the dark waters of dead men's memories that swirled around the barricades on Adam King's mind, a dark shape stirred in anger.
"So, who the fuck are you supposed to be then?" said Cane, turning his lip in disgust.
Adam realised that he hadn't looked at his own son's face since he had stepped into his body earlier than evening. The thought had never occurred to him. He was Adam King, regardless of the face he wore. Still, family was family and Able deserved to meet his uncle - even if Cane was about to die.
"You're looking at my son, Cane. I called him Able. Rather apt, don't you think?"
"I never understood our family's obsession with biblical names," replied Cane. "Especially given the nature of the family business. I appreciate the irony though
. Tonight Cane gets to kill Adam and Able."
"I don't think so," replied Adam. "You might have stumbled into Grace's powers, but you never took the interest I took in the other side of our family history. So relentlessly modern, weren't you Cane? Always telling us how you were going to drag us into the twenty-first century. Well, here are. We're in your precious twenty-first century and what has it brought us? I'm a ghost, you're a newly minted magician, and we're about to do what our family really do best… fight to the death for power and control."
Cane lifted his hands and watched as The Ink swirled on them like oil on water. Magicians buried their ancient knowledge in patterns and here he was, with all that knowledge suddenly at his fingertips. He felt like a blind man, suddenly shown a rainbow. He could feel the Ink in his mind, not a voice so much that talked to him, but a narration. The Ink told him a story, his story, and Cane liked the sound of it.
"Your death," Cane replied flatly. "The Ink has already told me. This is the part of the story where you die for the second and last time."
Adam pulled the second of Malcolm's pistols and levelled it at Cane.
"I don't think so. I spent my life studying the power that ran through our family, preparing to inherit my birthright. You have no idea what that power is that's inside you right now, whereas I've had a lifetime of preparation for mine. Believe me, brother, when you finally taste the power it is so much more than you can imagine. You tried to kill me once before, I don't think you'll do any better this time."
Cane didn't blink, didn't move. He simply stared at the boy who spoke with his brother's voice, a scrawny half-dead looking thing with alabaster skin and milky white eyes. A walking corpse, with the voice of a ghost. Grace had been taken by surprise, and her blood covenant with the Kings meant that her magic could never harm one of them. That was why Cane had sent his Kingsmen to the circus that night instead of her, to burn it to the ground and kill everyone in it. He wanted his brother out of the way and wanted any trace of the bastard he'd sired wiped from the face of the planet as well.
And yet, here they both were. If you wanted a job done properly, Cane realised, you had to do it yourself. Apparently, that included murdering your brother and nephew.
"Let's see," was Cane's only response as he hurled himself bodily at Adam.
Floating in the cool waters of memory, Able held his breath. He had dreamt of his moment, of being face to face with Cane King. He had imagined his hands around Cane's throat, his blade in his heart. He had imagined throwing him from the top of the highest building in the city, watching his body tumble through the air until he hit the ground and burst like an overripe fruit. He'd shared the dreams with his ghosts and they had shared their own with him. All of them had come up with such creative ways to murder, revenges so personal and intimate that Able had feared the ideas that ghosts didn't share.
And now, here they were, little more than spectators as the Kings re-enacted the bloody history of their forebears. Brother against brother, uncle against nephew, a legacy of murder and death permeated their very souls and was passed from one to the next in their shared blood.
"We should help him," said Able to the others. "He's going to lose."
"Not yet," said Malcolm. His fake Texan drawl had vanished. There was something hard and cold in his real voice, the clipped British accent that Able had only ever heard him speak with a few times before. Some fragment of Malcolm's hidden memories bled through, and Able realised that it was a voice that had ordered terrible things to be done, somewhere in Malcolm's secret past. "We need him to be weakened. He will call for us, and that is when you must strike, Able."
"Strike?"
"Take control," explained Dorothy. "Force Adam out and take your body back."
"I don't know if I can," said Able. "You heard what he said to Cane. He's studied this for years. I don't have a clue what I'm doing."
"Trust us," said Magda, her voice calm and confident. "As you always have. We are your family, Able."
"So is he, apparently," said Able, his psychic voice surly. "I'm a damned King too, aren't I?"
"Oh my darling boy," soothed Magda. "You are so much more than that. You might have Adam King's blood in your veins, but you have your mother's too, and ours. You are a son of the circus, Able Quirk."
Adam fired wildly. He'd expected Malcolm's ghost to guide his aim, but the British trick shot expert left Adam to his own devices and the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the old print engines as Cane King collided with Adam and drove him off his feet.
Winded, Adam brought the handles of the pistols down weakly on Cane's shoulders as Cane lifted Adam upwards, his arms tightening around his brother's ribcage. The coat offered no protection now, and Adam gasped as Cane's grip tightened.
"All that time with your dusty old books," growled Cane. "You should have spent some more time learning to fight."
Malcolm's pistols flew from Adam's grasp as Cane slammed him against one of the old printing machines. Caught between the force of Cane's charge and the metal plates in the back of the Magpye's coat, Adam felt a rib break and let out a howl of pain.
Cane kicked the pistols away as Adam slumped to the floor, clutching his side.
"Son of a bitch," he grunted, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dirty floor.
"You'd … know," replied Cane, panting between words.
"Didn't know you could fight," said Adam. "Always assumed you had other people do it for you, like everything else."
"You forget, I'm the younger brother. Means I have to fight for everything. Grandpa used to take me down to the docks, enter me in the bare knuckle fights. Every Friday night, every Saturday night, from when I was twelve years old."
Adam pulled himself to his feet, shifting awkwardly inside the heavy coat. He shrugged it off, letting it hit the floor with a clang. He wondered how the hell Able had been able to move so quickly in the thing. They were in the same body, so why did he feel so god-damn old compared to the kid?
"All the time you were in the library, playing prince to your little court of wizards, I was learning how to beat up men three times my size. I learnt a lot of important lessons in those fights. Learnt a lot from Grandpa too. Stuff he never taught you."
Adam smiled. "You learnt to fight men. Good for you. How are you with ghosts?"
Able felt the defences around Adam King's mind drop. The cool waters of shared memory rushed forward, eager to fill any void and to absorb Adam back into the whole, but stopped without warning. Able felt the tug, the oh-so-familiar pull of one mind on another, but remained somehow motionless. Adrift, in limbo, neither shut out nor let in.
"Not yet," said Dorothy. "He's still too strong."
Cane's fist hammered into Adam's face, splitting his lip and cracking the bridge of his nose.
Adam stumbled back, but stayed on his feet.
"Something wrong?" asked Cane, landing another solid body blow to Adam's already weakened ribs.
"Ghosts…" muttered Adam, managing to dodge a swinging blow from Cane and land a blow of his own across his adversary's temple.
"Ghosts?" mimicked Cane, swirling his hands through the air theatrically. "Is there anybody there?"
Adam launched a kick at Cane which Cane blocked easily, grabbing his brother's foot and twisting him onto the ground. He kept his grip tight, twisting further until the bones cracked. Adam screamed as his ankle shattered.
"Guess not," said Cane, stamping his foot down into the small of his brother's back.
"Er… guys?" said Able. "I think Cane is about to kill us."
"Don't underestimate Adam," said Dorothy. "He's a King. They're all fighters."
Able didn't answer. There was something Dorothy wasn't telling him, again, and he found the medic's memories shrouded when he tried to probe them. He wondered if seeing Adam King die at the hands of Cane would be enough revenge for the ghosts, even if it cost Able his life.
Cane raised his foot again, this time over Adam's head.
"I
fucking love the sound of a skull cracking open," he said to himself, bringing his foot down hard.
At the last second, Adam rolled out of the way, leaving Cane's foot to slam painfully down onto the concrete. Adam's hand flashed upward, one of Able's light blades held between his fingers, and drove the blade and his fist together into the side of Cane's knee.
Cane lashed out, kicking Adam away from him, before limping a few steps away. Blood had already drenched the lower leg of his trousers.
Adam, clawing his way up the side of one of the old printers, keeping any weight off his shattered ankle, watched as the dark red stain on Cane's trousers turned pitch black before slowly, impossibly, vanishing all together. Cane's blood belonged to the Ink now, and not a drop of it would leave his body.
Cane flexed his leg, smiling to himself.
"All that time, desperate to be the one to have the ghosts of our forefathers rattle around in your head," he said calmly. "When a power like this was right there, ripe for the taking, all along."
"So much for you bringing us into the twenty first century then?" said Adam. His hand had drawn another blade from the Magpye's belt, Able's belt, and he did his best to conceal it alongside his thigh. Closing up a stab wound or a bullet wound was one thing; he wondered how well the Ink would cope if he cut this brother's head off.
Adam tossed his own jacket onto the floor, then flexed his arms over his head. Through his shirt, Adam could see the ink dancing in patterns he'd never seen before. Shapes, symbols, sigils: the magician's art etched into the skin of his brother.
"Ha!" he laughed, walking casually across to his brother. "Don't be so sure, brother. Acquire, modernise, expand … that's the King mantra nowadays. Look on this as a… merger."
Shaking, trying to keep his weight on one leg, Adam tried desperately to call the ghosts forward.
Afloat in the water of memory, Able felt the draw from Adam's mind growing stronger. He knew the others must feel it to.
"It's time," he said, more commanding than normal.