Shadow & Light

by Stephen Ayer

  “Vampire should know better.” I know best.

  “Don’t play that game with me. Maybe that shit works on little girls and poets. I know your type and I know this world. There’s always a catch. You’re not fuckin’ me over.”

  The man sighed and ran his fingers through greasy hair. “No guarantees when nature is bent. Except that it bends.”

  And snaps back in your face. “You can’t bring the person back. You get the heart beating but ain’t shit you can do about the soul.”

  The man in black folded his hands. “Negotiations failed, I suspect. Admire your nature. Worth preserving. Hate what master might do to Francis. My best effort is least of its. What you deny, it will take.”

  Frank loosed a small laugh and grinned. “That sounds... like a threat...” He walked forward, his eyes on the swaying dream grass. He stopped when he saw the man’s black shoes.

  “A warning.”

  “Let me give them one in turn.”

  The man turned around as if to leave, looking over his shoulder. “Your message?”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  The man chuckled. “What?”

  The vampire shot his hand forward around his throat. “You heard me.” His fist smashed down up the man’s narrow nose, cracking it to a spray of dark red. Like a fleshy sinkhole, runnels of red ran deep into the new depression in his face. His choking sounds rang out in the fog. Frank silenced them by pulling his head back until his neck snapped.

  The man in black collapsed into the grass. A pool of crimson spread from his face. Frank shook the blood off from his fingers. Just as satisfying as the first time.

  Only her long, gracile arms and her sleek cheekbones, saddled with wrinkly and elder skin hinted at what beauty she formerly possessed. Age marks and liver spots splotched her sallow complexion like a rotten wheel of cheese and the angel was reminded of the terrible bearings of witches past.

  They were never so ugly as the one now. Great power makes for great falls.

  “Avosi...” she rasped, keeping her head down and her face shrouded by scraggly hair. “This piece of floating rock is older than either of us. I can’t remember a time I didn’t want to be here. Once I saw the decay of my kind I saw what must be done, and I alone.” Her head rose up ever so slightly and her jagged nail raked against the throne’s arm rest.

  “How cruel the lash of Fate can be. When I knew how to save ourselves, they called me a traitor. When I did what had to be done, the city was split in three. When I had enough influence to correct my mistake, Avosi and Calanar both, were beyond my grasp. Now I sit on its throne, with no influence... and no power.”

  Peter tensed. Witches were crafty folk. He knew once starved for magic, their cunning bloated into demonic proportions, capable of anything to attain their pinnacle once more. He dared not tell her what loomed above in the ceiling.

  He took it for a play of shadow at first and wouldn’t have noticed it but for that he saw it at just the right angle as he descended down the steps. From the throne level it was impossible to notice unless one knew what to look for.

  He hoped the witch didn’t.

  Baba Yaga seized up and through withered gray strands peered the dimmest of emerald glows. “Are you here to kill me, angel?”

  Peter strode forward before her. The scene looked like some twisted rendition from ages past, with a dignitary more resplendent than the ‘queen’ herself, the court filled only by the lost hopes of a lost age. “I would say you’re already dead. Though tempted as I am, I can’t in good conscience leave you here.”

  Her head jerked to the side and a low growl emerged from curled lips. “And I can’t in good conscience leave here.” The gleam of broken teeth shined out behind her frayed curls, glowing in the ghost light that refracted off the dusty marble.

  “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

  She let loose something that was in between a laugh and a cough and slumped forward. “You had a... feeling. Do angels feel? Do they love? Put that much vaunted good conscience to use and begone. Leave a crone to her throne.”

  “I would not leave you with a stick. You didn’t truly entertain the thought that I would leave you alone in this city did you?”

  “It was a dream... a possibility.”

  “You can dream all you wish in sleep. There is no need to die over this.”

  Baba Yaga looked up, eyes gleaming. “And what brings this sudden mercy? Do you fear me now, even in my ruin?” Careful, witch. “I have slept too much. I would not go back to Calanar no more than I would that icy tomb.”

  Death it is then.

  ***

  Frank looked down to the second Black Star and surrendered to its pull. Cold spread across his body as he was taken from one stone to another. He drifted down to the palace but did not see himself enter the stone. Legions of prehistoric stars caught in a sea of cosmic tar flashed before his eyes in that passage.

  He forgot them as soon as he saw them, his brain grasping at the wake of stripped memory.

  One moment he floated, the next he stood.

  This stone was not as empty. Gaunt and hollow faces formed in the fog before he passed through, their whispers haunting his ears. ‘A new one...’ some said, their voices gurgled and thin. If drowned men could talk. Hints of jade sunsets passed above Frank, their full brilliance hidden by the misty veil.

  Frank saw dead white eyes blink at him in the darkness, the shape of their faces long and dark like shadows at dusk. “I’m not here to stay.” As he walked through the chilled haze he saw the silhouette of a mountain peak in the distance, though it disappeared as soon he focused on it.

  Silence fell like night. One voice carried itself to the vampire’s ear, so weak and yet so eager, like dying primordial roots clawing for more water. ‘The words they all say... all stay... a son of Lilith will be so sweet...’ The vampire felt the dark rot of his soul peel back for a moment, exposed to that ancient, burning presence, one that had walked in the dawn of his world, beheld the steps of Cain, the apocalypse of rain and wind that had doomed so many of its kind, the waning of magic and so much more.

  Frank shuddered and caught a hold of himself, spitting out a bit of smoking phlegm. Chills swam over his feet, the smell of dank water and spoiled blood wafted past his nose. He saw that he was in a puddle... where the ripples spread inward. “I can give you someone sweeter.”

  A rush of spirits came up behind him, like a hurricane of whispers. ‘Show.’ Their presence blew primeval winds across his body.

  The vampire willed a window of divination into being like before. This one was as wide as the sky itself and in it he saw Peter at the foot of a throne’s steps, the witch digging her claws into the arm rests. Frank smiled at their silence. “I’d say you’ve lucked out into a juicier catch.”

  The spirit’s breath echoed like wind through an open tomb.

  “Very well.” Peter marshaled the fire of his will into his palms. This is going to be like the old times. Where the day wasn’t over until there was a heathen in the ground. He didn’t have an exact plan for what was to happen. Still, no matter how this was going to end, it was going to begin with force.

  Advancing upon her throne, he appeared like a dashing blur of white, his white jacket pale like the moon in the chamber’s surreal light. Baba Yaga screeched like some blood drunk harpy and leaped off her throne, claws outstretched and jagged teeth gleaming. The angel caught her by the neck in mid-air, swatting away her flailing arms and thrashing legs.

  Despite her long limbs, the rest of her decrepit form was squat, as if suffering from a stunted spine. The angel sent the sacred light of his soul searing onto her throat. He placed his other hand over her face, his fingers sinking into the loose folds of skin around her forehead. Steam sizzled forth and she gibbered like a crazed beast.

  Her beryl eyes flared gold for a moment from the sheer power coursing off the holy warrior, her cursed form a conduit for his smite.

  Peter grunted in pain as one of he
r tremendous arms slammed into his left; her spider like nails skirted for purchase over his bicep and dug in. Ice and shadow curled and seethed like insidious roots within his muscle tissue, deadening nerves and weakening bones. His restraint faltered. The witch jumped off from her moldy, wretched haunches and pounced on his chest.

  He scowled as her clawed feet dug into his chest, blackening the flesh around his wounds. He caught one of her claws within his hand and scalded it within the cage of his palm. When he let go, her shrieks accompanied the sight of raw and useless fingers. The two tumbled to the ground and the angel roared in fury as he rid himself of her ripping and tearing entanglements.

  His left arm ran with rivers of red. The sleeve on his right arm lay stained with the witch’s inky silver flecked blood. He felt his heart shudder as vital warmth soaked into his chest and ran down his stomach.

  The witch’s fingers grasped for his like a desperate parasite, her bladed teeth snapping and gasping for a bite out of his righteous flesh. In a flash of rage the sable haired angel backhanded the silver tressed witch across the face, snapping her ungainly nose with an abominable crack, followed by a crescendo of brackish fluid spewing from her nostrils.

  Lost in his fury, he yanked her up by the throat and kicked her in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Her ribcage broke inwards as she was flung back into her throne. Oily black blood streamed from the silver veined corners of her mouth; she loosed a miserable rattle.

  “Oh sweet angel... such anger.” Her voice was phlegmatic, her syllables drenched in her own verbal rot. “I hope you’re not tired. I will not be sent to your fallen brother so easily.”

  Before either could do more, Baba Yaga was crushed and impaled by the object from the ceiling. Chunks of her throne broke away and the witch pushed feebly against the craggy heft of ebony stone that drank her blood as sure as her soul. “No...” she moaned like a lost banshee, “not like this...” Better the black stone above than the brimstone below.

  Peter held his bleeding side and limped up the steps to her throne. “Fate it seems reserved its cruelest whip for last.” He looked at the torso sized stone, imperfectly cut and greedy of all light. “You and the Black Star make suitable companions.”

  She writhed and jerked along the stone, trying to pull it out but to no avail. Breath came from her crusty lips in short, sudden bursts. The angel thought he heard weak incantations just under her utterances. Such feeble sorcery only helped sprout the slightest of cracks in the Star.

  Just as she gave her killer the last of her magic, so too did her killer take the last of her. The unearthly glow faded from her eyes like the setting sun and her body stirred no more.

  The angel peered at her unsightly corpse in curiosity. Familiar words circled through his mind. Suffer not the witch to live.

  He looked at the ceiling socket where the star had fallen from and back to the witch’s corpse. Dim light and a hushed whisper leaked from its opaque surface but for an instant and then there was nothing but silence.

  He took another look at her shriveled corpse and marveled again at the forbidden relic. “What are the chances...” he wondered aloud

  “It’s a little more likely than you think.” said Frank from behind the angel. Peter turned around made a mental note to not let him ever sneak up on him again. The vampire was seemingly normal, only the slight layer of sweat on his skin and the exhausted bearing in his dimly lit eyes spoke of his strain. Within his pale hand he thumbed Baba Yaga’s necklace fragment of a Black Star while his eyes were fixed on the piece that lay embedded in the witch herself.

  “I had one fucked up trip.” said the vampire as he walked up to Baba’s corpse, taking in her various deformities, rots and pustules. He let out a cruel laugh when he saw her dead, milky eyes. “Told you they weren’t beauties and damn... time smacked her hard.”

  Peter scrambled for words, still amazed at his luck. “Now, Frank, I made a deal to get to her...”

  Frank put up his hand. “Yep I know. The snake in a suit wants his trinket. Doesn’t matter anymore with this baby.” He eyed the impressive specimen that lay pierced into the throne, running his hand along its jagged yet impossibly smooth surface.

  The angel frowned. “That piece has her soul in it.”

  Frank rested his hand against the fragment and looked to Peter. “Bill was mum on what kind of condition it was to be delivered. Now that it has the soul of an ancient scag probably increases its value. You– ” The vampire’s eyes drifted past the angel and onto the shadow that walked down the rows of audience steps. “You just never know with these people.” he finished.

  The tall man in black walked into the dead light and clapped his hands together in excitement, showing a joy that even Frank found disturbing. “Hello.”

  “Hey,” said Frank, leaning back against the Black Star. “You made it.”

  “Always. Death didn’t help.”

  Frank smirked and leaned on the throne’s arm rest. “Don’t take it personally. I do that to a lot of people.”

  “Surprise again. First catacombs, now this. Gift for escape in short supply, compensation not...”

  “Fuck money. What about this cross on my chest? What about freedom?”

  “Master and employer do not traffic in debased currency.”

  “Something they have in common with the Templars then.”

  The man in black shrugged and took a step closer, scrutinizing the object behind the vampire. “That is piece employer saw. Francis swore no oath. The servant did.” He looked to Peter. “Payment is due now.”

  Frank glanced at the angel and then threw the witch’s necklace. The man in black refused to catch it, letting it scatter before his feet. “That’s your piece of the pie. Now scram.”

  The smugness faded from the man’s face like black clouds choking out the sun. “You misunderstand—”

  “No.” said Peter, turning to the man. “The deal was that you receive a Black Star.” He gestured to the necklace, “And now you have.”

  The man put his hands behind his back and looked at the necklace and then to Peter. “Cunning improvisation. Thrills to see, disappointed to receive.” He picked up the pendant and it disappeared beneath his palm in a flash of green light. “Oath is complete. Doubtless my employer is displeased. Employer might negotiate. Master would take.” He eyed the witch-impaling Star chunk hungrily. “Until time of acquisition... travel well, servant and Francis.”

  “I always do.” said Peter as the man dissolved into darkness.

  “I didn’t expect him to just go like that.” said Frank as he petted the larger Black Star like a cat.

  Peter shrugged. “What more could he do? What was offered fulfilled our pact.”

  Frank yawned and leaned against the Star. “Yeah, I guess I thought there would be more violence.”

  “You were hoping there would be more violence.”

  “Same thing.” Frank backed away from the star and looked to Peter. “Alright. Since you can’t touch this thing, you’ll have to take my hand. Try not to fuckin’ burn me. Or I’ll drop you.”

  The angel sighed. “Now you have to think very clearly and precisely on where you want to go, especially with a specimen of this—”

  Frank held up his hand. “Yeah I got it. Bill briefed me on this, just in case.” The angel wearily took the vampire’s hand. Though he wasn’t directly touching the Black Star, already his mortal shell felt woozy from the sheer strangeness of the object.

  Particles of dust, undisturbed since the last Caesar bestrode the earth, rose off the pearlescent marble, lit by the wan witchlight in hues of pale viridian and cerulean. Peter felt tingles rise up in his body, like his organs were all slightly floating upwards from an unseen gravitational pull. The hairs on his arms and neck stood on ends, provoked by the unnatural charge that had insinuated itself in the room.

  In a loud clap he, Frank and the Star were taken from the room, leaving the rushing air to fill the gap in nature. Before his eyes, motes o
f dust and ancient light turned into the luminous gems of the cosmos. He felt as if he was hurtling through space and yet could feel the blistering winds whip across his face. They howled with such force he thought they might lash the flesh off his skeleton. Screams hung by his ears, not like some distant wail but as if the screamer were at his shoulder, having found an audience for their torment.

  The angel found it hard to keep his eyes open in the celestial gale force winds. But even through failing sight, he saw how sanguine stars bent and melted into long strands of distant astral fire. Tastes of every sort from across a dead universe played across his palate, some pleasant, most revolting. Tinges of acrid and sour delicacies smote his tongue, while other more strange and alien flavors beyond description soothed it. He had grown hot and ruddy from blood rushing just below his skin, aching to burst out of his pores in a grand crescendo of angelic red.

  He thought he was going to pass out and dared not contemplate the consequences of fainting during such a star spanning trip. Invisible weight pressured all around his skull while the feeling of white, fiery ice ran up his spine. Just when he thought his body was going to buckle under the crazed and cacophonous reign of light, shadow and sound, it all ceased.

  He tasted nothing, felt nothing, and saw nothing. Nothing but the purest darkness was before his eyes.

  Slowly he felt sensation come back.

  A liquid warmth slithered along his chest and legs. The sound of a familiar voice and then stomping over shallow, sloshing water. Salt greeted his nose and the cry of gulls agitated his ears.

  It was over.

  Chapter 26: The Wrap Up

  Miami, Florida

  Peter squinted his eyes as the rosy orange light of the sun streaked sky fell below the horizon. He watched while the Black Star fragment was covered up by container doors, followed by a satisfying slide and clicking of the lock.

  It had been a day since he washed up on the town’s sandy shores, the locals taking his disheveled appearance for a man who had drank too much and slept too little. After calling in his location from a pay phone, Bill’s men came through with a response time that had left even him impressed.