The Devil Is a Gentleman

by J. L. Murray

  I twisted again and looked over at Gage just as another volley of shots rang out in the room. My hearing was muffled now. Gage was wobbling his head heavily, and I could see something going on with his arms. I saw him go down, his knees buckling as the spell ended.

  I could hear the muffled sound of the blasts, each shot like a stab in the head. I turned with a grunt just in time to see Yuri blow half of a stocky guard’s head off. Luka was dead on the ground. One of the Guard remained. Three of my guys were still standing, including Yuri. I lurched around again to face forward. The Blood just watched. And the pull was becoming stronger. I could hardly move anywhere but the direction the magic was forcing me.

  There was a shot behind me and I twisted my head with a great effort to see one of my guys fall, holding his stomach. The last living member of the Guard shot him again in the chest and Yuri shot the guard three times in the face. I felt a hot sensation on my hip and I put my hand on the lump in my jacket pocket. I unzipped it. I looked at The Blood. All were still standing there, hands still linked. Dorrance was eerily calm, and the others were watching the gruesome scene before them, some in horror, a few smiling, as if this were a show. And the low thrum was overwhelming.

  I was a foot from the circle. I felt as if my chest were being ripped out in the struggle against the unseen force pulling me. I could see the white of the Caster’s eyes. There were voices coming from the fire. They seemed to echo inside my head. I wondered if my father’s voice was one of them, but there were too many. I couldn’t differentiate.

  I reached out with my left hand. I could touch the two people closest to me in the circle. Guns were still going off behind me. The two men in front of me turned to look at me, examining me like I was something in a museum. Their bodies were vibrating worse than the room, and as I grasped an arm, a volt of magic shot up through me like electricity and I pulled my hand quickly away with a hiss. One of them laughed. I pointed my gun at Dorrance.

  “Are you going to kill me, Niki?” Dorrance mouthed mockingly. I felt rather than heard his voice. The gunshots had done something to my ears. “In cold blood?” I smiled and with an enormous effort, turned toward the Caster. I saw Dorrance form the word “no,” his face suddenly alarmed.

  “No one casts on a Slobodian,” I said. I couldn’t hear my own voice, but I felt the words tumble out. I swung my right arm around and pulled the trigger, hitting the Caster in the neck. I didn’t think it would kill her, but at least she wouldn’t be able to speak. She grabbed at her throat, blood spurting and gushing through the wound. The other men and women around her made surprised gasping noises. No one was smiling anymore. The Caster turned toward me, her face a mask of shock. The book hovering in front of her began to spin. The symbols retracted violently from the air back onto the pages and the book dropped, still spinning as it hit the ground. The Caster’s eyes returned to the unnatural dark of the angelwine. The pulling stopped and I stepped back, catching my breath. The buzzing stopped so suddenly that the absence of the vibration seemed louder than the gunshots behind me. The table closed up again, the copper unmarred, the Hellfire gone. It was as if it had never been there.

  Finally free, I rushed over to Gage, still gasping for breath. He was lying on his face, struggling to turn over. I pulled him until he was on his back. I could taste the gunfire. I filled my lungs with air and looked down at Gage. He was saying one thing over and over. It took me a moment, but it suddenly occurred to me. He was saying Get out, get out over and over again. I motioned to Yuri. “Get him out of here,” I said. I didn’t know if the words came out, but it didn’t matter. Yuri understood. He looked at me and frowned. “Just go,” I said, pointing at the door. I pointed down at Gage and pointed toward the door again. Yuri whistled and the other guy that had come in with us, the only other one left alive, came over. They hauled Gage up and half carried, half dragged him out. Gage was trying to struggle against them, but he was still stiff as a board from the spell. Yuri glanced at me as he went. I tried to convey that it was all right, but only managed a nod.

  I looked at Dorrance. He was smiling, his reptilian eyes cold and black. I was alone with The Blood. And I knew what I had to do. I had known it would be like this, ever since Natalie told me to keep the vial close to me. They would never leave me alone. And I couldn’t allow them to continue doing what they had done to my sister. Natalie. The Morrigan. I prayed that my men had gotten her out safely. I reached for the vial and its heat burned my hand. I almost rejoiced in the pain. They would never be able to bring Sasha here. If Natalie had burned up her blood with angelwine, that’s what I would do too. I savored the burning for another moment. The vial seemed to grow hotter and hotter. I stood and took a step toward The Blood.

  Dorrance wasn’t smiling anymore. The blood sprayed from the Caster’s neck and hit the copper table, hissing and smoking where it landed. He seemed to finally notice how injured she was, and what the blood was doing to his colleagues. One by one, the members changed, turning toward the bleeding woman. Teeth grew down to rest on their chins. Nostrils flared and eyes slitted. Their entire bodies elongated. There was a growl that seemed to continue from one to the other. All except Dorrance. He didn’t change. He just looked angry. He was saying something to the Caster, not to help her or comfort her, but to stop her from reeling away from the circle. Her hands, still linked with her cohorts, were slick with blood and she was struggling to hang on. She grasped at the hands that were linked in hers, but they were growing, elongating. She slipped, still trying to grab at them as she fell to the floor with a wet thud. There was a snap in the air as she went down and she grasped at her neck, trying to stop the blood from flowing out.

  Dorrance scowled, his angelwine-dark eyes narrowed and his teeth bared then and began to grow, just like the others. They were going to tear me apart and I knew it. They would never find Sasha, but I would be damned if I was going to go quietly. Dorrance suddenly stopped and raised his face to sniff the air. The glint of the vial caught Dorrance’s eye just as I raised it to drink. He froze and seemed to grow even paler than he already was.

  The man next to the fallen Caster suddenly lunged at her as she writhed on the ground. I heard a sickening rip as he sank his teeth into her body near the wound, and then jerked his head back to pull a chunk of meat away from her shoulder.. I put the vial to my lips and poured the entire glowing contents down my throat.

  Frank Bradley said it burned. It did more than that. It seared down my throat and my eyes widened as I staggered back. It was like I’d swallowed burning kerosene. It exploded in my chest and stayed there, and I might have gone mad with the pain, but the pain started to feel good. My hearing cleared and I could sense everything. Every heartbeat, every drop of Caster’s blood hitting the floor, and every breath of everyone in the room. And there was a smell. A metallic smell like fresh meat that made me salivate. I could smell their blood.

  I dropped the empty vial and it shattered, and I could follow the course of every tiny fragment of its broken glass. One of the women surged forward suddenly in a blur towards the back of the room, but I was in front of her in a quarter-second. She reached for the stone bowl on the sideboard. I took the vase and smashed it into her face, then hurled the bowl with the thimbleful of angel blood against the wall so hard it went through the plaster, making a giant spiderweb of cracks from floor to ceiling. She looked at me, enraged and tried to lunge at me, but I was faster. She went for my throat, but I was already behind her and had one elbow locked under her chin. With one swift motion, I twisted her head around with a crack and she fell to the floor, dead.

  ” You’re an idiot,” said Dorrance, through growing teeth. He left the circle and began walking toward me along with the nine others. “That angelwine will kill you if we don’t. No one’s ever taken that much at once.”

  ” I know,” I said, my voice guttural and hoarse. I could feel my body changing still, my spine cracking and popping as it stretched out, my shoulders creaking as they widened, the pain bot
h overwhelming and intoxicating. “But you’ll be dead before me. I might even have enough time to piss on your corpse.”

  A man lunged at me and I caught him in my left hand, feeling his soft throat under my fingers that now seemed to be made of steel. I squeezed hard and felt the crunch and a tacky warmth flow over my hand. I looked to find I had pulled his head off of his body. It hit the floor with a crack and rolled to Dorrance’s feet, trailing blood as it went. His body sprayed blood as it fell, splattering all over me. It only seemed to make me stronger. I licked sticky warmth off my lips.

  I found my gun was still in my right hand and I held my arm out and pulled the trigger, hitting another man straight through the eye. He crumpled immediately. Dorrance pulled the long black knife out of its sheath and looked at it. He raised his eyes to me and I smelled his fear. He took a step back. His teeth receded into his gums. He seemed to know now that he was defeated. It was still eight to one, but he knew I would win. I sensed his defeat, the scent of bitter bile, the quickening of his heart. I was so hungry.

  I shot again and a woman sneaking up on my left fell with a thud. I pulled the trigger again and the gun gave a hollow click. It was empty. I dropped it on the tile with a clatter and yanked someone’s head down hard, smashing it on the floor like an egg. I advanced on Dorrance.

  Three together fell on me and I felt them pulling at my clothes, tearing, trying to get at my flesh. I reached out hard with my hand and felt the skin break and pulled at the first thing my hand grabbed. A heard the man scream as his insides came out with my fist like a handful of snakes. He grasped at his guts as I moved so fast around the other two I couldn’t even fathom how I’d moved. I wrapped the intestines around them and with a bestial scream they lunged for the smell of meat and the screams cut off after two beats. I cracked the heads of the two gorging off their friend together and felt their skulls collapse under my hands.

  I heard Yuri come in through the door and I felt his shock reverberate through my bones. I heard his gasp and the fast beating of his heart. But he recovered quickly and went to work. I heard the sound of his ring hitting the butt of his gun, a gun so big it would have been hard for my hands to hold. I smelled the blood and the meat, but forced myself to ignore my hunger. I went after Dorrance as I heard three shots, one after the other and felt a hot spray of blood across my back. I wanted to rip Dorrance’s neck open and let his blood run down my throat.

  I could feel the fire going through my veins. I could feel it eating me, taking away the living parts and replacing them with seared, blackened things. It brought me back to reality with a shudder. Frank Bradley had taken far less angelwine than me and had lived for a few hours. Long enough to kill his mistress, talk to me, and get to his cabin before the fire consumed him. How much longer would I have? Minutes? Seconds?

  I could feel myself dying. I stepped toward Dorrance, his eyes like round, dark coins, the knife held out in front of him. “This is for my family,” I growled. This was why I had taken the angelwine, this was why I agreed to work with Yuri. This was what had driven me this whole time. Family. My family. The Blood had offered my father an escape from poverty, but had forced him into a world even more cruel than the one he left. They had used him as a guinea pig. They had taken my sister and broken her, too. It was my family I was dying for. I wouldn’t let them find Sasha. They wouldn’t find anyone ever again. They were all dead now. All except Dorrance. I felt the flames lick at my hands. He shoved the knife toward me, a frightened growl whining from his thin lips. I watched as the red fire burst from my hands. I was on Dorrance in a second. I felt a vague tug in my ribs and looked down to see the gray hilt of the knife sticking out of my ribs. The handle was polished stone, I saw, a match to the bowl I had smashed into the wall. It didn’t hurt, but Dorrance screamed and pulled his hand back to his chest. I looked down to see the fire pouring out of me like blood, spurting out in arcs and sizzling out on the floor.

  My hands were torches now. I could see Dorrance through a veil of red on my eyes, the fire coming from my mouth and shooting out of my chest. I grabbed his face with my hands and forced his face towards mine. “This is how the angelwine kills them,” I said and was amazed at how clear my voice rang out through the flames filling my mouth. “This is the pain you’ve caused, the people you’ve hurt. You did this.” I looked up and saw Yuri frozen, staring at me. The door behind him opened and Gage came running in. It was suddenly quiet. The only sound was the crackle of fire in my ears. Looking down I realized Dorrance had stopped screaming. His face had blackened and his body had burned down to the bone. I let go of him and his charred remains fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. He may as well have been a pile of dust on the floor.

  ” Niki,” Gage said. He grabbed his head in his hands. “No, goddamn it, Niki!”

  I tried to tell him it was okay, but the words wouldn’t come. I felt the fire taking over. I couldn’t move or speak, and Gage was fading in a red fog.

  ” Goddamn you, Niki, you have no right,” I heard him say, his voice a garbled, thick scream. “It’s not your choice,” he rasped. I heard a thud and saw his form through the red falling to his knees, his body shaking. He was sobbing. I couldn’t take the sight of Bobby Gage sobbing. I had to go to him, to tell him to stop, that I didn’t want it, but I fell to the floor instead. The burning didn’t hurt, I couldn’t feel anything. I felt light and then the world was soft just for a minute. There was no hardness or pain or noise. There was only me, and a shudder of relief went through my body.

  The softness pulled at me and soon I was standing up. I could see Gage through a velvety haze. He was still crying, his body racked with sobs. I took a step toward him, but I felt too buoyant, like I would just float away if I put my mind to it. I looked back and saw my blackened body on the ground and I knew. I knew. It was real. And I knew. I was dead.

  Chapter 19

  I crouched by my body, thinking of how many times I’d seen a spirit do this and how pointless it was. I was a spirit now. A ghost. I reached my hand out to touch the smoking pile of blackened flesh and my hand went through with a feeling like static. It didn’t make a sound. Just silence and a feeling of loss deep within me. I looked back at Gage. Yuri was helping him up. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me, but I walked over to him anyway.

  “Bobby,” I said. “Please hear me.” But he let Yuri lift him up, his eyes seeming to be stuck on my body. I tried to touch him, but there was only static. It was like touching a warm spot. I knew why they were drawn to the living now. I got it. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t anything. Any feeling at all was better than the sheer nothingness of not existing. I watched Yuri help Gage to the door, but Gage stopped him before they got there. He turned back to look at me and I saw his face crumble again. “No, Bobby,” I said. “Don’t cry anymore. I can’t take it.” But he didn’t hear me. I could barely hear myself.

  I sat down by the dead thing on the ground, the thing that used to be me but wasn’t anymore. I could feel the beginning of forget, gnawing at my mind, making me a dead-eyed spirit. There was no crossing over. Not now. I would become just another ghost in the haze. A spirit in the street. I tried to remember what it was like. I knew there was a haze but I couldn’t remember what it felt like to go through it. I remembered that I didn’t like it but couldn’t remember why.

  I sat and began to forget.

  Bobby wouldn’t leave. He screamed at Yuri to go without him and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. I watched him. Saw him staring at my body. At least I thought it was my body. I remembered dying, but I could no longer remember how. The numbness was starting to feel like cold. I would have given anything to be warm just one last time. I felt a shudder in the air and I looked up. The man hadn’t moved. I thought I knew him. Bobby, I remembered. Bobby Gage, my partner. My friend. He wasn’t crying anymore, just staring off into space. I felt the shudder again. Gage didn’t seem to notice.

  It eased its way through the open door. I saw it at once, though
it was completely silent. Not a sound, not even a whisper of the black cloak dragging behind it on the ground. A forgotten memory blazed in my mind and I knew it was a him and the him was Death. As if in reply, he raised his bone-white face to the light, his sockets blacker than black, his teeth bared, lipless and smiling. A spidery hand eased out of the robe as he came toward me and I felt warm. It was as if I had never felt heat before that moment and I closed my eyes to revel in it.

  Another memory surfaced. A hand taking mine, its heat surprising me. Who had that been?Death was coming towards me and I wasn’t afraid. It was relief. I recalled something about Heaven. A war. No crossing over. Death stood in front of me. He raised a hand to touch me and he seemed somehow disturbed by me. I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew that looking at me was hard.

  I held out my hand to take the bones in mine, to comfort Death. But as we touched, it wasn’t cold bone I felt, but flesh. Hot flesh that felt like fire. And I didn’t go through. I was solid to him. I remembered. He wasn’t a skull in a robe. He was Sam.

  I tried to cry but couldn’t. Sam wrapped his arms around me and if I closed my eyes I could pretend we were back at the Deep Blue Sea and I was alive and Sam was holding me. It felt so natural that I was surprised it had never happened before. I felt the hot hands take my face and it was like coming in from the cold.

  “Niki,” he said. “Look at me.”

  I looked and I saw Death. A skull stark against the black hood. But I saw features, little by little. The ghost of a cheek, a shift in the eyes, the curve of a lip. I saw Sam in the face of Death.