by CW Lynch
Able pulled up his mask. The stench from the pit grew stronger. Unscrewing the lid from the flask, he brought the cold metal to his lips and began to slurp down the contents. It was thick and greasy, a gruel of old blood and dead flesh. Marissa had been careful, using flesh from the oldest graves hidden in the circus and Able didn't feel any new ghosts entering his mind as he slurped down the remnants of the long dead. Out there, beyond the pit, ghosts didn't have to be tied to their remains. It gave him hope, to know that there was something else, another type of death, another type of afterlife. Not the circus trap that he knew waited for him but something better, something worth living and dying well for. He tried to focus on that, as his throat filled with the meaty soup, as he once again swallowed down dead flesh to fuel his body, and the strange power of the Magpye.
"Will it be enough?" asked Dorothy, breaking his silence.
"It will have to be," replied Able. "Don't give him any more than he needs."
"I'm not up to this Able. I'm a patch-you-up man, you're asking me to remember every inch of a human body, inside and out."
"You've never let me down, Dorothy. You've never let anyone down."
"Well, there's always a first time," said Dorothy gruffly.
"My body knows how to repair itself," said Able. "All it needs is food and time. I just need you to guide it, give it a new direction."
"And how the hell do I do that?"
Able opened his mind just a fraction and, into the swirling mix of his mind and Dorothy's, the unmistakable presence of the Magpye fell like a shadow. "I'll show you," said the creature. "I am the power that brings life to this body. I can bring life to another. We just need you to build it."
"Build a body… simple," said Dorothy.
Able glugged down the last of the contents of the flask.
"Are you ready?" asked the dead medic.
"Ready," replied Able.
"Then we begin," said the creature.
The pain hit Able almost immediately, sending him to his knees and then down onto his belly. He writhed around on the dusty floor, panting and gasping for air. Doubling up, he vomited onto the ground before screaming in renewed agony.
Inside his head, his defences crumbled and Able felt the unmistakable presence of Adam King.
"I know what you're trying to do, Able," he said. His words were slow, patient, but Able could feel the racing panic behind them. Adam's mind overlapped with Able's in a way that no other did. Perhaps it was because Adam had replaced him once and taken control of his body completely and against his will, or perhaps it was the blood link between the two of them. Like father, like son, both damned forever. "Don't do it. You need me. You need my knowledge."
"You taught me what you know," said Able, struggling to form the words in his mind as pain tore through his body.
"And if you lose all that, when I'm gone?" asked Adam. "Those are my memories, mine! What happens if you forget everything I've taught you without me? How will you control what you are without my memories?"
"I'll take… my chances…"
In Able's mind he saw his father's face, contorted in rage and in fear, stricken with panic and desperation. Adam King, his father the stranger, the deposed head of the King crime family. Would be magician, Magpye-in-training, Able felt all of Adam's strength and his weaknesses in equal measure. He felt his memories, no longer guarded, wash over him. The last time that this had happened he had felt like he was being erased, being replaced and overwritten, by Adam. Now, it felt more like Adam's life was flashing before Able's eyes. It was his father's story, told without bias or prejudice. It was the story of a child born into wealth and privilege and power and taught magic and cruelty as a way of life. It was the story of a young man who looked for a way out, for a way to avoid an unavoidable fate. Was it any wonder he had turned to Marv, the master escape artist? It was the story of someone seduced by a place, and a family, outside of everything he had ever known. He saw the circus through Adam's eyes, not as a place of family and of love as it had been to Able, but as a place of strange magic and forbidden escapes from the life that was being forced onto Adam against his will.
"I can show her to you," said Adam, his psychic voice desperate. "I can show you your mother. I can bring you to her through my memories."
Able didn't reply. The memory of his mother had already raced past, her face a blur to him as always, and been replaced with a psychedelic whirlwind of magic with Marv at its centre. He felt the same intoxication that Adam had felt, felt the release of escaping the life being foisted on him, felt himself seduced by Marv into the world of the magicians. It was Marv and the circus that Adam had loved. The memories grew closer to the present, slowing as the inevitable end of Adam's life grew closer. Despite himself, despite his conviction to be rid of the ghost of his father, Able scoured the images that flowed past for just a momentary glimpse of himself.
"They hid you," said Adam. "They kept you from me."
"Liar," hissed Able. "You knew. How could you not?"
Able watched as the night that the circus burned replayed again in his mind's eye, this time through his father's eyes. He saw how intertwined their fates were, and always had been. Adam, the man trapped and seeking freedom. Able, the boy who was free but who would become trapped in his father's legacy. Two families, at war without even knowing it. And all of it, all for a power that Able wished he had never known.
The power of The Magpye.
"Ending it," said Able, choking, "Means ending the Kings. All of them. Including you."
"But why me… first?"
Adam's voice was growing distant, echoing in Able's mind as if they were at opposite ends of some unseen tunnel. Able felt his body convulse, felt the hooks that kept Adam's ghost tethered to Able's mind tear free, each one sending a wave of pain through Able's body that dwarfed the one before.
"Why?"
Adam's voice grew quieter still, his presence weaker. His memories were gone, leaving only Able's memory of him. There was a blank space where he had been. A hollow that ran through Able's mind and into his heart.
"He's gone…" panted Able, free from the pain. Inside the leather of the suit he felt cold sweat on his skin. His mouth was full of bile and blood, not all of it his. "Is it over?"
"Oh no, not yet," said the sneering voice of the Magpye. "Doctor, it's time to get to work."
"I'm not a doc…"
"Oh come now," said the Magpye coyly. "You can have your few secrets from Able, but you can hide nothing from me."
Before Able could ask either the ghost or the creature another question, Dorothy began his work. It began with bones.
At first there was nothing, just the blank space in Able's mind where Adam had been. Then, one by one, there were the bones. Bones had been Dorothy's speciality, breaks being a more common occurrence than anyone would like in the circus. The spine came first, a vertebrae at a time, one on top of the other linking together. Then the pelvis, the legs, before a rib cage sprang forth like a blossom. Piece by piece, from memory, Dorothy assembled the skeleton.
As the thing became complete, Able felt the first knot of pain in his stomach. Nothing more than a twist at first, an unnatural movement that sent acid up into Able's mouth. Then, as Dorothy carefully began to build a circulatory system around the skeleton, Able felt more twists and turns inside of him. He felt a weight, something other than himself inside himself, an alien something being grown to Dorothy's design.
"I can't do this," said Dorothy. "The basics are fine, the major arteries, veins but… there's more detail. Too much detail."
"We said that doesn't matter," said Able. "It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be… complete. Just keep going. I've got a feeling that this is going to get painful."
"Oh it is," chimed in the Magpye. "And don't think I'll be letting you play any little tricks to dodge your pain, Able. You want Adam King gone, you pay the price."
Able gritted his teeth. There was always a price.
&
nbsp; "Just get it done, Dorothy. Please."
Dorothy's work sped up, the circulatory system growing random and confused in places. Arteries crossed randomly with veins as Dorothy tried to correct his errors, tried to trap the flow of blood as a heart, a tiny heart of diseased grey muscle, grew out of nothingness and began to pump spasmodically. Able felt it inside him too. A second heartbeat, out of kilter with his own, a new life, an afterlife, born inside him through the dark power of the Magpye.
The weight inside him grew greater and he felt this strength ebbing away. It had to be now. It had to be over. From Dorothy's memories more organs grew and were joined together, manufactured from the broth of corpse meat that Able had consumed in the healing factories of his own undead body. Lungs like withered grapes flapped loosely for a moment, then inflated with weak gasps of air. A stomach, a liver, kidneys, a doubled over length of rotten intestine.
"Jesus, Able, I can't build a brain. This is wrong, this is all wrong."
Panting, desperate for air, Able could barely respond. "Just, finish it."
His stomach convulsed and he felt something start to move again inside him. Not the twisting and turning of his stomach now but the deliberate movements of a thing with new muscles and new skin, a thing that was being to think for first time as Dorothy clumsily mashed together the lobes of a new, living brain.
The last of a new skin, thin and paper-like, wrapped itself around the thing in Able's head. A face, twisted and malevolent, began to construct itself and eyes as white and as dead as Able's opened and stared at him.
Rolling onto his stomach, Able clawed his way over the edge of the pit. His stomach was distending, pressing against the tight leather of his bodysuit. It pulsed and moved as the thing inside explored its surroundings. His gloved hands clinging to the edge of the shaft, his head hanging over into the black void beyond, Able opened his mouth wide and began to heave.
In his mind, he held on to one single thought.
"Get it out."
Inch by inch, he felt the thing rise up. He felt its clawed hands forcing his insides to open, felt the tearing and ripping inside himself as the thing pulled itself upwards. His body twisted and contorted, urging the thing onwards, pushing it forwards. Able vomited blood as he felt the small bones in his neck snapping and his throat being forced wide. Choking, gagging, he spewed the first inches of the thing into the world.
A hand came first. A tiny, claw-fingered hand of flesh that was a mottle of milky white and grey. New flesh, dead flesh, melded together inside of him. An arm followed, spindly and frail, and then, with Able's jaw cracking away from his skull and his mouth flopping low, the thing's head pushed its way out. Its domed skull was exposed in places, the skin so thin that it peeled away like layers from overripe fruit. As it began to tumble forward, its milky clear eyes swivelled around to look at Able.
The thing's shoulder popped out of Able's mouth and its tiny body soon followed. The body was too small for the head, a disproportionately small torso that seemed to be little more than a fleshy bag full of organs, the bones so weak that many of them had been broken as the thing was un-born from Able. Collapsing onto his chest, Able scrabbled around to pull the thing loose from his mouth. With a painful tug, the thing slipped and slithered out, and Able could only watch as it tumbled away from him down into the pit, its legs kicking and thrashing as it went.
Wheezing, almost unconscious with pain and horror, Able simply lay at the edge of the pit. In his mind, he felt Dorothy pull away and vanish into the waters of memory.
"That is the worst thing, the worst thing, I have ever done Able."
But Able didn't answer. Pushing himself up onto his knees, he forced his slack jaw bone up into place and used the mask to secure it there. He could already feel the tendons reconnecting. In a few hours it would be set perfectly back in place and whatever ravages his body had suffered internally would be fixed too. In small, unsteady steps, he headed for the door.
Behind him, in the pit, he heard the unnatural wail of an unnatural thing, a thing born of death and cast down into the pit. He heard the cries of Adam King, back from dead.
"Goodbye, Dad," said Able, as he vanished through the door and back out into the night.
THE INSURANCE POLICY
Marv woke up looking at himself in a mirror. It didn't seem like had much of a choice though, as there wasn't a surface in his line of sight that wasn't either a mirror, or chromed, or gilded. Glass, chrome, gold, and a lot of lights. There was only one kind of place that this could be, and that was a casino. Marv had spent a lot of time in LA. There was a good chance his afterlife would look like this, but he was very much alive. Marv knew he hadn't been unconscious for that long, he hadn't travelled far, and so that narrowed the field of available casinos down to just one.
This was Cane King's new casino.
"Fuck," muttered Marv, as he began to assess his situation. Behind him, a drip was slung from a metal stand. The line went into his left forearm and whatever was coming down it had Marv numb from his toes to his lips. It was probably a blessing because, rather than tie his wrists and ankles to the chair, someone had bolted them there. Six inch bolts, one through each wrist, secured tightly top and bottom. His feet where similarly bolted to the floor, blood oozing out of his bare feet onto the floor. Marv hoped that there were no broken bones. A lifetime of always getting away with it, no matter what it was, meant that Marv had rarely had to think about consequences - he just thought about what kind of mess he might be in the next day and smiled. Of course, in the last few months he'd had to reassess his track record. He almost always got away with it.
Drugged, immobile, probably suffering a concussion, and bolted through the wrists and feet. Marv found himself grinning in the mirror.
Fuck it. This was going to be one incredible escape.
Downstairs, in a glass walled office suspended above the main gambling floor, Cane King looked down at the throng of eager visitors. Opening night of a new casino. A free ten-thousand dollar chip to everyone who could get through the door. Free food, free drinks, and a chance to be seen next to Cane King, the man who ruled every television set in America. Cane looked at the faces in the crowd. Celebrities, politicians, religious leaders. His Kingsmen mingled amongst them. Every waiter, every doorman, every security guard. The curdled cream of the city's new criminal elite. From princes to paupers, saints and sinners, nobody was beyond his sphere of influence so long as they lived and breathed and walked the face of the Earth.
And, after tonight, not even passing through the veil into death was going to be enough to outrun Cane King.
Beneath his perfectly pressed and crisp white shirt, The Ink swirled and danced excitedly. There were so many stories, every face in the crowd a new wellspring of secrets and deceits and betrayals, Cane felt like the thing that lived in his skin was almost drunk. He felt almost drunk, but he couldn't say that he didn't like it.
"You got enough eyewitnesses down there?"
The voice belonged to Mick Garrity, uncharacteristically bold as he grunted and snuffled his way through Cane's private buffet.
"I think they'll suffice," said Cane. "After tonight there won't be a single person on this planet who will believe that I am anything other than a victim of an organised campaign of terror and blackmail. They will rally behind me and I'll be untouchable again."
"I don't trust these new guys. One of them will talk," grumbled Garrity.
"That's never been a problem before," said Cane dismissively. "Not one of them would dare."
"You've never been this exposed before," replied Garrity. "This plan of yours goes south, and that's it. The whole fucking house is coming down on our heads. I've got FBI, DEA, NSA, all on my ass twenty four hours a day. Just tell me you've got guys ready to take the fall for this shit tonight."
"I've got guys ready to take the fall for this," said King, irritated. "And if you don't want to be the hero cop who got killed in the line of duty trying to stop them tonight, then you'll
make sure that only they go down for this."
Garrity didn't answer. Since the débâcle at the paper-mill. it had taken every ounce of the dirty cop's guile and skill to misdirect the various and overlapping federal investigations long enough for Cane to put his own plans in motion. Owen White's story was starting to fall apart under scrutiny, and Cane King needed a bigger, bolder lie to take its place. Luckily for him, he'd been brought up a liar. The Ink had the power, it was true, but there was no substitute for Cane's ability to look America right in the eye and tell her he loved her as he stuck a knife in her guts.
"You think he'll really come?" asked Garrity, breaking the silence. "The freak?"
"Oh yes, he'll come," said King, ignoring the slight on his brother. The truth about Magpye, Adam, and the bastard Able was one that King was determined to keep away from Garrity. "Taylor delivered me a little insurance policy just this evening. The vigilante is the final part of the puzzle. Once I've taken from him what's rightfully mine, he'll take the fall for everything else that's happened. I'll do my dirty laundry in public, weep for the lives lost, and America will love me for it. I'm going to teach them to love me again. It's almost Shakespearian, Garrity."
"If you say so," said the cop, licking something from the ends of his fat fingers. “If you say so.”
THE NOTE
Able swung his leg up and dismounted the bike. He'd taken his time getting back to the circus. He felt weak and drained, but purified by what he had done at The Pit. He couldn't change who his father was, couldn't scrub Adam King out of his DNA, but there was no good reason to keep the bastard alive in his head. Adam's memories where gone, his voice was gone, and now Able to get on with the business of forgetting him completely.
Of all the ghosts, Adam was the only one that Able didn't owe a damn thing.
Forgetting Adam didn't change Able's plans, of course. It was Cane King who had ordered the murder of Able, his family, and his friends. It was on Cane King's orders that Able's home had become a charred graveyard. Cane was the last piece on the chessboard, the last one that needed to be put away, and preferably in a pine box.