Darkness of the Soul

by Kaine Andrews

  The last to be counted in the first group was the worst. Someone had really gone to work on her before she died, and the cuts and slashes were a brilliant red against the pallid flesh. Woods could see that her nipples were missing, and someone had cut a cross into her belly. One of her hands was half gone; two fingers were missing, and the stumps looked ragged and chewed on, the thumb severed cleanly and glimmering with bone. Her forearms had been skinned, leaving the flesh hanging like ribbons. All of that was bad, but the face was the worst. Damien was sure whoever killed her hadn’t done that. She might have been pretty once, with high cheekbones and eyes that looked like they might have been a brilliant green before death clouded them. Her hair hung in tangled bloody knots down to the middle of her back. That was all okay, even in death—just a little disturbing, but mostly okay—but the gaping hole where the left side of her head had been until a minute ago had his gorge on the rise. Chunks of coagulated blood and brain tissue had flown away from the fresh wound, and what was left of her gray matter was peeking out through the hole in the skull. He could see it quivering, like it was worried about what had happened to the rest of it and was now cowering in a safe corner.

  She tried to smile as she reached Damien. She tightened her good hand on his elbow and dragged him toward her, craning her neck up to him as if about to ask for a good-night kiss. He could see her teeth, already bloodied from the work she’d done on Drakanis before the gangbangers had thrown him into the wall, and he could smell her breath. Apparently, she’d had time to ferment before getting dragged down here and finally beginning the embalming process, because she didn’t have the reek of chemicals the others were giving off. She smelled like sausage left out in the sun on a summer day. Flies buzzed in her nostrils, performing their devotions and looking at him as if to wave hello.

  “Damien,” she croaked. “I’ve waited for you.”

  Impossible. No fucking way. He was trying to scream, but nothing of the sort was escaping his throat. He managed only a high teakettle whistle that was probably annoying the shit out of any dogs nearby but wasn’t doing much for summoning help. His mind continued to fixate on the negatives, citing a hundred reasons why it couldn’t be, but it didn’t change what he knew in his gut, the thought that was making him scream. This was Sheila, his Sheila, back from the dead and twice as pissed. She’d tried coming back through the living, and that hadn’t worked, but she was finally going to get hers now.

  Something in her eyes gleamed, and the smile widened. Even if she hadn’t looked already dead, even if there hadn’t been a hole in her head the size of a football—and how that tiny bullet had done so much damage, he had no idea—that smile would have made him scream and try to get away anyway. It was the smile you saw on serial killers’ faces when they were about ready to kill their families and then themselves, the kind of smile he had always pictured Dahmer had worn while working in his kitchen.

  Her grip was incredibly strong; the pressure she was putting on his elbow was enough to make the bones grind against one another, and with another squeeze, she managed to make him drop the gun.

  “You don’t need that with me, baby.” She was still trying to smile, as she pressed her body up against his and writhed in a mockery of passion against him. “I just want to play nice.”

  The gangbangers’ corpses and the old man were shuffling past Woods toward Drakanis, hunger gleaming in what remained of their eyes. Drakanis was still down, groaning and trying to pull himself back up while blood ran down his arms and neck from ragged-looking wounds that the Sheila-thing had probably made.

  Those near the door were fanning out, and still more were piling in. The way they were coming in, like corks popping from a bottle, made it seem like there was a whole lot more of them out there, shoving them through the door as they all tried to get in at the fresh meat. Woods knew he should be doing something, but the horror that had its hand on him had shorted out all his mental circuits.

  Drakanis managed to get up to his knees. He was flailing for one of the freezer compartment handles, hoping to drag himself the rest of the way. The corpse that was missing his jaw snatched one of Drakanis’s arms and dragged him up to eye level, while his friend with the missing forehead yanked the other. The two of them started a tug of war with Drakanis, wringing screams out of him like a wet towel.

  The Sheila-thing took her gaze off of Damien long enough to glance at the other corpses and their new playmate, and then she smiled at him. “Make a wish, honey.”

  Woods’ paralysis was broken for a moment when she looked away from him; he took the time offered to try to wriggle away, bearing down with all the mental force he could muster to try to undo her grip while he clawed at her face with his free hand. She whirled on him, snarling and trying to grab his free arm with her bad one but didn’t move fast enough. In a second, he was free and backing away, with a strip of her flesh buried under his fingernails and dangling like someone’s obscene war trophy.

  He felt the air around him tingle suddenly and could smell ozone. He managed a single exclamation of “Fuck!” before the burst hit him, sending the old man and the gangbanger who weren’t playing tug-of-war with Drakanis flying past him and into the throng that was filling up the back of the room. He hit the floor, rolling away from the mess as the scent of frying bacon filled his nostrils. Apparently, Drakanis was capable of a few tricks besides the basic garden-variety telekinesis. The things had stopped their moaning. Now they were screaming, but apparently whatever animated them hadn’t made them smart enough to stay away from the fire.

  Drakanis managed to draw back his arm, yanking it out of the hands of one of the corpses and driving it forward and into the missing jaw of the other, grabbing at the rotted tongue and yanking it hard. He could feel something inside him, something that felt like a rat running in circles in a cage, looking for a way out, and he knew he had the ability to let it out if he wanted to. He just didn’t know if he should.

  The decision was taken away from him when Flattop decided he’d had enough with trying to tear him apart and opted to sink his teeth into Drakanis’s hand, tearing through the flesh and bone like they had no more substance than a melted candy bar. Drakanis shrieked, his body telling him that some part of it was missing while his mind denied it, and panic flooded his bloodstream with adrenaline. The rat escaped its cage, flowing out of him with even more force than the blood that was now running down Flattop’s chin. It drove out of him and sent a shock into Flattop, who immediately let go and started screaming.

  Part of Drakanis, the part that was watching all of this through the mental lens that told him this was not—could not be—happening, had decided this was all a dream and that what you did in a dream didn’t really matter. That part convinced him that, for good or ill, he should just let loose with whatever he had. The part that was still processing the missing pinky finger, the pain in his back and neck from hitting the wall, and the terror of being dropped into a room filling up with corpses agreed.

  What came next was as much of a surprise to Drakanis as to the things in the room. Light poured out of every orifice in his body, including the hole in his hand where there had been a finger for thirty-eight years. Woods had never seen anything like it, but he could sense what was coming and buried his face in his arms. The Sheila-thing cowered back, a look of horror passing over what remained of her features.

  The light enveloped Drakanis’s body and then flared out from him in a sunburst pattern, arrows of pure force driving into the throngs of the dead. The burning ones were extinguished, though it didn’t end their agony. Most of the others were driven back. Blood, mucus, and embalming fluid rained out of them, soon to be joined by body parts and bones. The force of whatever was pouring out of Drakanis was simply liquefying the things. Only a handful nearest the door, the Sheila-thing, Woods, and Drakanis himself seemed spared. Even the walls and compartments were being dented in and scorched by the force of i
t.

  Flattop, being closest to the center of the destruction, was completely disintegrated, leaving nothing but ash behind, and Drakanis fell against the wall where the thing had been. The light began to dim, and in the aftermath, Drakanis could see very little except for a blazing blue glow over everything, as if he’d stared into the sun for too long. He released a breath, feeling exhaustion and pain seep into the core of him, and slumped.

  Christ. I think . . . Woods caught coming off of Drakanis’s mind but exactly what he was thinking was something Woods couldn’t find out. Drakanis had fainted by the time he got that far. He flopped onto his back, grabbed for his gun, and raised it up. He was trying to draw a bead on the Sheila-thing. Even though he’d covered his eyes, all he could really see was a floating ghost image of the initial burst, and Sheila was nowhere to be seen.

  The handful by the door who were still up and animated—and since no more were popping through, he supposed that whatever Drakanis had just done had either taken care of any more that were waiting outside, or maybe these really were the last of them—shuffled uncertainly forward, deciding that they were still hungry. Woods dragged himself to his feet, using his peripheral vision to try to line up the sights with them. He wasn’t sure why, since a gunshot hadn’t stopped any of them so far, but he figured if he blew enough pieces of them off, they wouldn’t be able to do any significant damage, at least. He took a potshot at the closest one. The corpse didn’t seem bothered by the report or by the bits of metal and plaster that rained down on it from the spot in the wall that Damien had hit; it just spread its torn lips wider and moved a little bit faster. The others took their cue from the new leader, apparently having judged him as not being a threat.

  Damien’s breath was rasping in his ears, and he could feel his heartbeat pulsing at his temples. His heart was trip-hammering hard enough to telegraph the pulses to his hands, making the job of trying to aim even harder. Still, he squeezed off the remaining shots in the magazine, one after another. A few hit their targets, tearing off chunks and sending them stumbling backward, but most just hit the wall. He heard a click and then another as he hit empty, but the third time he pulled the trigger after running out, an extremely satisfying crash went off, and he saw the foremost corpse—a little girl, maybe ten years old, wearing a sundress and looking like she was just on her way to a picnic—hit the ground, lacking a head.

  What the fuck . . . ? he thought, but then his eyes hit the door. They were clearing up a bit—enough, at least, to be able to see through the blue haze instead of just staring at it, and standing at the door, a gun that looked bigger than God in his hands, was Parker.

  “Come on, now!” he shouted. “That boy’s nothing but skin and bones! Why don’t you have a taste of this!” He was actually laughing, Woods saw. Somehow, the big man had gotten in and was having the time of his life despite how fucked-up crazy this whole situation was. He saw someone standing just to the side of Parker as well, unholstering a gun and helping him pick off the remaining corpses. It took a moment for Woods to recognize her, given the bad state her hair was in and the haggard look on her face, but he guessed it had to be Brokov.

  If he hadn’t been in shock, he might have cheered; as it was, he nearly did it anyway. Then the rotten smell returned, right behind him, and before he could turn, the Sheila-thing had him in her broken grip, tightening her fingers on his throat and whispering in his ear, “Couldn’t do it the easy way, could you, babe? Never could.”

  His eyes flew wide, and he started to shout a warning to Brokov and Parker, but too late, he saw the door swing open again, as Taeda slid through it, raised her pistol butt-first, and clocked Brokov in the back of the head with it. Brokov’s eyes had just registered that Damien and Drakanis were there; they widened in recognition before they went blank and she slumped to the floor.

  Parker managed to turn, and if his instincts had controlled him like they wanted to, he might have pulled through okay, but seeing a uniform slowed him. Even as he was trying to process what he was seeing, Taeda was smiling at him, reversing her grip on her pistol, and walking toward him. Parker started to say something—what it might have been, even he didn’t know—but his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell on top of the piles of slime, debris, and bones that had been left after Drakanis’s light show, a single insignificant “pop!” happening right before.

  Taeda stepped away. She drove one boot into Parker’s temple as he went down and then started to advance on Woods, smoke drifting lazily from the barrel of her pistol. “Like she said, Woods, couldn’t do it the easy way, could you?”

  The Sheila-thing’s grip tightened, as she bit at his earlobe and laughed. “Good night, baby,” she whispered to him as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 35

  11:30 pm, December 23, 1999

  Within the talu`shar, darkness reigned supreme, as always. Nothing broke the unending black; there was no change in scenery to indicate the presence or absence of anything. Sound was not heard here unless the demon within willed it. No smell filled the air—if indeed it was air—within. Such was the way of things, as it had been since the first Warden constructed the prison and chained the Beast, and so it had been meant to stay for all time.

  But time had dulled the memory of the Wardens, and whispers of power had turned them from captors to slaves. Depravity and despair had driven them further and further into the Beast’s camp, each coming closer to breaking the chains and loosing the Beast. From their acts, the story and purpose of the talu`shar had been perverted, until it was assumed that it had always been intended for the sowing of misery. The Beast had nearly been freed during that time, and it laughed in unison with its Wardens.

  Then the betrayer had come, the noruk-to, and had dashed all of the Beast’s hopes and plans. He had reforged the binding, had taken the gifts given to him and turned them against the giver. He had thought it over then.

  But the Beast was wily, and the Wardens were not the only ones susceptible to the siren song of its gifts; it chose another, using him to destroy the betrayer and reclaim the talu`shar for those more suited to the Beast’s purposes. A century ago, it had slowly begun to rebuild its power base, bringing others into the fold and destroying each Warden when it seemed he might be growing powerful enough to attempt the same feat the betrayer had achieved. As the decades crept by, it felt the chains loosening again and knew its time might at last be coming. It called to one who would take it across the seas, to the place where it could be reborn, sniffing through the threads of destiny with gifts most were unaware it possessed, until it felt a place that called to it.

  That Warden had done well for himself, taking the Beast to America and feeding it well. Still, it had not been enough, and the Beast nearly despaired. Driven almost to madness by the centuries of imprisonment, it raged against its prison and battered itself all but senseless, before sensing a single crack in the walls of the universe, a single spot that it might use to its advantage.

  The Beast had reached out, sending a small fraction of itself toward that crack and for a time had felt the freedom. It had been made real, manifest once again in the world of the living. The one who had the power to call it was fearful and sought to beat the Beast back, but he was weak and the portal was already opened. The Beast allowed the whelp to think he had won and then had taken a trophy for itself.

  It had tasted the despair in the soul of Damien Woods, so akin to the ancient betrayer, and feasted upon it. It took a measure of that despair into itself and returned it a thousand times over, bloating the boy with powers beyond his control or comprehension, deluding him into thinking he served some force to counter the one that had claimed his lover’s life.

  The Beast had learned a great deal about the value of mythology while corrupting its Wardens; twisting the youth’s mind had been simplicity itself. Woods had wanted something to believe in, and the Beast had been more than capable of
giving it to him. It had so thoroughly marked him that he didn’t even realize he served the very thing he hated so much.

  With the two of them, it had been even easier to locate the one it needed. The betrayer had remade the binding; only the blood of the betrayer could break it. With Woods and Karim both searching, it had been simple enough to put them in place and find the noruk-to’s blood.

  Then things had started to go wrong. The Beast had found the child, and Karim had broken him, but unlike the father, no spark of power remained in him. The blood was right, but none of the spirit was there. The years wasted searching, the anniversary passed with nothing to show for it, and the Beast was chained for another year of madness and misery.

  All had not been lost yet, however; while the Beast would have preferred the child—both for the blow it would give to the father and to satisfy Karim’s preferences—Drakanis himself still possessed a shred of the old talents, the spark of his ancestors, and would do admirably. Only a year to wait . . . and then freedom.

  Now, as its hour drew ’round once more, the Beast smiled to itself and waited.

  Chapter 36

  11:30 am, December 24, 1999

  Reno was silent, a rare thing for a city that slept only marginally more than Las Vegas; no people walked the streets, and businesses were hearing their doors open so little that many proprietors were already considering hanging their closed signs and heading home. Since midnight, the citizens had been huddling together in their homes feeling the pulses of headaches or cramps in their bowels, their brains singing with pure fury and raw terror, though none could have explained why. It just felt safer to stay inside, away from strangers.