The World in Shadow (Eternal Warriors Book 2)

by Vox Day

  Should this turn out to be the genuine article, I suspect these last twelve lines could shed some important light on our understanding of the Akkadian-Assyrian culture and its relation to their deities. Indeed, the references to blood and wine, as well as the prospects of a return that is closely related to some rather apocalyptic events, are very remniscent of certain aspects of the Christian mythology. Considering that the inscription would almost certainly have been carved some time before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 605 BCE, the potential implications here are staggering!

  Now you simply must tell me where…

  The rest of the letter was simply three more paragraphs asking, pleading, and finally begging Derek to reveal where he’d acquired the Akkadian text. Brien grinned, wondering what the good professor would say if Derek told him that it had simply printed itself out on his laser printer one random afternoon. He’d never believe it, of course, and he’d probably think Derek was lying, although what would possibly be the point? As usual, Derek had done the right thing by keeping his mouth shut, and now they had the translation. But despite that, and the additional bonus of the professor’s insight, Brien still didn’t know what he should think about the text. It had to be a forgery, of course, but why was it encrypted in a virus?

  “What do you think?” he asked Derek.

  Derek squinted his eyes almost closed, then yawned.

  “I think… hmmm. I think that if this is a virus, it’s the weirdest fucking virus I ever heard of!” He paused and shook his head. “Naw, I don’t believe it. I just don’t. It’s not a virus. Nobody does this sort of thing. It doesn’t blow up, it doesn’t screw with your files, I mean, there’s not even any ‘hey loser, you just failed the stupid test’ message. It’s too out there. I mean, hell, we’re the weirdest people we know, and we don’t even do this stuff.”

  That made sense, in a way. How much crossover was there between people who knew Akkadian and the kind of programmer who was skilled enough to write a virus like this one, assuming it was a virus. Brien had no way of knowing what the exact number might be, but it had to be pretty small, if not downright nonexistent.

  “So what are you saying, that it’s magic?” Brien imitated a scary string violin and twiddled his fingers in the air. “Whoo-oo! Come on, that’s ridiculous. You don’t even believe in that stuff.”

  “Of course not,” Derek said, looking disgruntled. “But wouldn’t it be cool if it was? I mean, then we could have a real Nottambuli, and have this Shalmaneser guy ripping out the guts of everyone that messes with us! No more taking shit from anyone. And when you consider how many people we owe a good stomping, I think we could keep him happy for quiet a while.”

  The thought did have its appeal. The King of the four sun zones, or whatever he liked to be called, could do a lot worse than to start off with Peterson and Schumacher. Brien would love to see the panicked look on their cruel, stupid faces once they got a chance to go nose-to-nose with someone who really knew what cruelty was all about. It would serve them right!

  “All right,” Brien laughed. “You start figuring out what the mighty god’s great sign is, and once we summon him, we’ll take revenge on all our enemies. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go to the mall and see how much dinero this tux is going to cost me.”

  Man, Derek hadn’t been exaggerating when he said that taking someone to the prom was going to cost at least three hundred dollars. This stuff was expensive! The limo was going to run forty dollars an hour, so he was looking at least two hundred right there. The tuxes ranged from fifty to a hundred, plus another twenty for the flowers, and maybe fifty bucks for dinner, so even without renting a hotel room, the evening was going to cost him between three and four hundred dollars. It was a good thing he hadn’t blown his savings on that painted Orc army he’d almost bought last month.

  What a disaster that would have been. But everything was cool, he had the money and there was no doubt that Tessa was worth it. He loved the way she said hello to him now; still just a little shy, she kept her pretty eyes downcast and usually the faintest hint of a smile danced on her lips. Would he get to kiss those lips in just a few more weeks? The mere thought of kissing her goodnight sent him into transports of ecstacy. Oh, this was incredible, this was awesome.

  It would be so different, having a girlfriend. He’d still hang out with Derek, of course, nothing was ever going to change that. But he looked forward to hearing Tessa’s voice on the phone, making plans with her, spending the hot summer days with her lying on the beach, then going out for ice cream afterwards. He dreamed of making out with her in the back seat of his car, or better yet, on the lonely bench that sat on the end of the pier at the private beach near her house. How romantic would that be? And he would be the most romantic boyfriend ever, bringing her flowers every day, candy, anything her heart desired.

  Emboldened by his happy daydream, he glared at the phone. It was Saturday, and five delicious days had passed since she’d looked at him and said yes. It was time to call her, but something stayed his hand. What if she’d changed her mind? What if someone else had asked her since Monday, and she’d already decided to dump him, but just hadn’t told him yet.

  No, he thought, Tessa wouldn’t do that. She’d been extra nice to him all week, so surely nothing had changed. Firmly holding on to that thought, he reached out for the telephone, picked up the receiver, and for the first time, dialed the number that he’d learned by heart three years ago.

  Ring… ring… ring…

  Brien was just trying to make up his mind if he dared to leave a message or not when someone picked up the phone. It was a woman, with a faint English accent, which meant it must be her mother, he realized.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “Uh, hello,” he said uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and gathered himself. “May I speak to Tessa, please? This is Brien Martin.”

  “Yes, of course. Please wait a moment, Brien.”

  That went pretty well. Brien nodded, satisfied with his performance so far. Not the best start, but a decent finish. Just relax, he ordered himself. His tongue felt fat and awkward. Relax!

  “Hi Brien, is that you?”

  His heart leaped into his throat like a world champion salmon heading for the sea. For one dreadful moment, he thought he was going to choke.

  “Mom, hang up!” she shouted, and there was a click. “Brien?”

  “Yeah, um, hey, Tessa, it’s me.” He forced himself to swallow. “I just wanted to call and see if you, ah, had any idea what color you were wearing. You know, your prom dress. I thought maybe if you told me, I could try to find a tie that’ll match or something.”

  “That’s so sweet,” she said. “My dress is red, but it’s not really red-red, it’s more of a scarlet-red. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” he said, not really understanding.

  Her dress was red. Dfinitely the black tux then, and without tails. James Bond was the effect he wanted, not a cocktail waiter. But would a black tie-and-cummerbund or a red combination go better with her dress? It was hard to say.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Tessa spoke again.

  “Tell you what, what are you doing now?”

  “Me? Nothing, really.”

  “Well, I’ve got this party tonight I have to go to, but I’ve got a couple of hours free, so if you want, perhaps I could meet you at Rosedale and we could look at the ties and vests together.”

  “That sounds great!” Brien answered enthusiastically. Vests, he wondered? Were you supposed to wear a vest with tuxedos? Well, whatever she wanted was fine with him. He’d go in chain mail if she wanted. “We can meet at the ice cream place, it’s just around the corner from Desmond’s.”

  “That’ll work fine,” Tessa confirmed. “And if there’s nothing at Desmond’s, Gingiss is right on the other side of the mall. See you in, say, an hour?”

  “I’ll be there.” Brien promised her.

  He had never been so certain of anything
in his life.

  An hour could be a very long time, Brien reflected, as he sat on one of the low, wooden benches fixed permanently in the middle of Rosedale’s broad hallways. He didn’t want to be late, and hanging around the house just waiting for the time to pass was driving him crazy. He’d made the drive to the mall in record time, which was too bad, since now he had nothing to do for the next fifteen minutes except sit and watch the hard-core shoppers as they flowed mindlessly past the window displays like sheep with credit cards.

  What were they doing in here? Was it always like this? It really was too nice to be inside. This was the first decent weekend they’d had since the spring rains had finally ended, and it felt just like summer outside. Summer, boy, was he looking forward to that! You could make a few extra bucks mowing lawns, that was always easy, since it stayed light out until past nine o’clock, and of course, the best part was always the girls wearing their short shorts. He realized embarrassedly that that last thought was no doubt inspired by a pair of cuties who were just walking past him. They probably weren’t more than tenth-graders, judging by their loud, conspicuous giggling, but they were worth checking out.

  Everything about the two girls, their clothes, their hair, and their strange behavior, screamed:‘Notice me. Notice ME!’ It was only polite to give them what they wanted, Brien told himself as he stared at them openly without embarassment until they reached the corner and turned right. The B. Dalton’s bookstore was in that direction, but somehow, Brien was pretty sure that wasn’t their destination.

  He glanced back towards the glass doors at the entryway, and his vision was arrested at the sight of the slim girl in white who was just entering the mall. He gulped uncomfortably, unable to take his eyes away from her. It was Tessa, but not as he’d ever seen her before. She wore white-rimmed racing-style sunglasses, which she pushed up on top of her head as her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the mall. Her hair was tucked back neatly behind her ears, and she walked with an easy air of confidence Brien had never seen her show at school.

  As she came closer, Brien saw that her baby-doll t-shirt didn’t quite make it to the top of her skirt, which was made out of a stretchy material that clung to her slender hips like a second skin. She’d apparently been out in the sun earlier today, because her normally fair skin was ever so lightly tanned. Her midriff was exposed, and he was shocked to see that her belly was pierced, with a silver stud just above her bellybutton and a skull-and-crossbones filling it. Too radical! He felt a hungry stirring at the sight of her; she looked like she’d just stepped out of a video or something!

  He stood, feeling a little faint-headed, as she recognized him and smiled. It was a charmingly lopsided smile, and over it her eyes danced, as if she knew the effect she was having on him. He wanted to kiss her hand or make some wildly romantic gesture, but he was frozen in place, unable to move. I sure hope my mouth is closed, he thought. Openly drooling wasn’t generally the best way to make a good impression on your prom date.

  “H-hey, how you doing,” he said with only the slightest difficulty. “You look great!”

  “Thanks,” she beamed. “I’m going to a party tonight, so I thought I’d just get ready before I met you here. Two of my friends are supposed to show up in about half an hour, but Mandy is always late and she’s the one driving, so we’ll have plenty of time. My Dad dropped me off.”

  Oh. Shoot! He’d been hoping it might be possible to stretch the tuxedo shopping into a dinner and maybe a movie, but so much for that idea. He shrugged. On the other hand, she probably wouldn’t be dressed like this if she wasn’t going to the party afterwards, so it wasn’t all bad.

  “Hey, no problem. Who’s having the party?”

  “One of the soccer players, Jason Case. You know him?”

  “Yeah, I think we had a chemistry class together last year.”

  Geez, was she in with that crowd, he wondered? I hope not. Somehow, he’d never imagined her hanging out with the jocks. She never had at school as far as he knew. Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it tonight.

  He concealed his disappointment and pointed to her implanted jewelry. “That’s pretty cool, when did you do that?”

  “Do you like it? Really?”

  She seemed to appreciate his noticing it and stuck out her stomach as she fingered the skull.

  “I wanted to get a tattoo that looked kind of like this, only with roses instead of the crossbones, but my Mom flipped out and said forget it. She said she’d buy me this instead, so I took her up on it. See, there’s little garnets for the eyes!”

  Brien obediently bent over to examine the silver skull, but he was distracted by a tiny drop of sweat trickling down the left side of her stomach. This close to her, he couldn’t help noticing the sweet scent of her body, and it was delicious. She smelled of honey and almonds, and he could almost feel the sun’s warmth radiating from her body.

  “Wow, I guess you really do like it!” Tessa commented happily, when he finally managed to force himself upright and away from her.

  “Yeah, it’s… it’s cool. Really cool. Garnets, huh?”

  Oh, how he wanted to pull her close to him and bury his face in her neck, and inhale that wonderful fragrance forever! Honey and almonds, almonds and honey…. This was turning out to be the best day of his life!

  “So come on,” she commanded as she pulled at the short sleeve of his shirt in the direction of the formalwear store. “We don’t have all day.”

  Forty-five minutes later, after trying on more combinations than he could count, Brien, with Tessa’s approval, decided on a black Pierre Cardin tuxedo with a black tie and a black-and-red vest. Tessa doubted that the red of the vest precisely would match her dress, but she was sure the shade was close enough that the two of them would look very nice together.

  Brien stood in the three-way mirror, admiring the way that the jacket made him look slimmer, and more sophisticated. He ran a hand through his hair, imagining what it would look like slicked wetly back. Not James Bond, exactly, but not all that bad either. He shot a sidelong glance at Tessa, and was heartened to see her nodding approvingly at his ensemble. Maybe he could talk her into bagging the party tonight, and they could—”

  “What’s up, girlfriend!” he heard a girl’s high-pitched voice shriek from the front of the store.

  Or not. Oh well, her stupid friends were bound to show up eventually. The three girls babbled excitedly, and although Brien caught a few random words,‘prom’,‘beer’, and ‘party’, they were speaking too quickly for him to follow what they were saying.

  “Sir, will that be all?”

  The sales assistant was a nice, chubby old lady. Brien checked to see if Tessa wanted him to rent anything else, but she was too busy talking with her friends for him to catch her attention. He reluctantly removed the jacket, slipped off the vest, and handed both articles to the sales lady.

  “Yeah, I think that’s it.”

  “I think you’ve made a very good choice, if you don’t mind my saying so. So then, you can pay twenty percent down, and give us the rest when come you pick it up. I believe you said the date of your school’s prom was May seventeenth?”

  She rapidly punched the numbers into an old green-screen computer.

  “Your total will be two twenty-five, thirty-two. So we’ll need forty-five dollars to reserve everything.”

  He gave her the money, and tucked the receipt into his wallet, then turned back to Tessa. She was practically glowing with enthusiasm, and her excitement lifted his spirits again. So what if she was going out with her friends tonight? She’d been doing that for the last three years and it had never bothered him before. Why should it bug him now?

  She clutched at his shoulder, and her touch sent tingles through his body.

  “You know Mandy and Jennifer, right?”

  He nodded to both girls, and shook Mandy’s proffered hand.

  “Yeah, I’ve never met you guys personally, but I know who you are. Nice to mee
t you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Brien,” Mandy cooed.

  Mandy was kind of cute, Brien thought, in fact, she’d actually be pretty hot if she dropped about ten pounds. Jennifer, on the other hand, was a big girl, almost as tall as he was, and she easily outweighed him. She looked like a linebacker wearing a wig.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said flirtatiously.

  She had a grip like a linebacker too. Brien tried not to wince, or wring his hand once she released it. It wasn’t easy.

  “Well, we better get going,” Tessa told him. “I like what we picked out, don’t you? Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday in Econ.”

  Brien couldn’t believe it when she leaned in towards him and kissed him on the cheek. He caught the scent of honey and almonds, and then it was gone as she turned and flounced cheerfully away, an angel in white lacking only wings to complete her perfection. He stood there in the front of the cash register like a statue, stunned, holding his right hand to his face.

  He swallowed once. He blinked once. He swallowed again. He blinked once more, and finally the spell that rendered him mute released him. Tessa had already left the store.

  “Bye,” he said softly, full of joy, and unable to comprehend his good fortune.

  Chapter 18

  Blood Magic

  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults with the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord….

  —Deuteronomy 18:10-12