by C L Walker
“Yes, and no.”
Farris was smug and I didn’t understand why; if he wasn’t a god then he was more in danger of death by my hand than ever. Why would he be so pleased with himself? And why was the sky so brilliant with strange stars?
The angels began their next attack, this time treating me with the respect I deserved. No more headlong dashes, no more careless strikes. They were measured and kept their distance.
I had no finesse and I didn’t need it. I dove into their midst, fists flying and tattoos burning. I swung at one, only for him to step out of the way at the last moment and provide an opening for another. The blow landed, smashing through the shield the blood-tattoos had put in place and cracking the ribs on my right side.
I dodged the next few attacks while I refocused. The angels were stronger than expected, and I’d seen a few levitate back over the building edge. They could remain suspended but on earth they couldn’t fly, so there must have been a platform below for them to land on. I hadn’t seen one from the ground, but I hadn’t been paying attention.
The dagger-wielding hollow man scored a strike, burying the blade in my thigh. The tattoos were weakening and my enemies were fighting smarter; I was in trouble.
I needed to either expend the last of my energy in a grand attack that took them out of the fight, or I needed to land an attack of my own and siphon off some of the power surrounding me. A big, crazy move, or a careful, well thought out one. The decision was obvious.
I crouched, willing the tattoos to do my bidding. They were more than happy to oblige, focusing the remaining stolen life-force and readying it for my use. The angels crowded around.
I stood and sent out the energy at the same time. It wasn’t a careful spell or a defensive ritual. It wasn’t subtle. The wave of stolen power blasted them away from me, tearing through their corpse flesh and sending all of them over the edge of the building. I had an opening again and I took it, running for Farris and planning to end it all.
He sent his shield at me, a paltry shadow of what I’d just done. I smashed it aside with the dregs of the power pooled in the tattoos. He raised his hands to defend himself at the last moment but it had no effect.
I punched him once, in the face, and he was dead. The tattoos were practically dormant again, still and powerless, but I’d done what I set out to do.
The assistant stood and walked toward me, clapping his hands as he came. Gone was the cowering man from earlier; this was Seng’s true form.
“Why are you so happy with yourself, Seng?” I said, turning to face the new threat. From the corner of my eye I saw the angels ascending to the rooftop again, their ravaged flesh repairing as they came.
“Because I knew you were coming and I knew what had to happen. You are so predictable.”
I had a little power left, enough that I thought I could guarantee Seng’s death. I took a deep breath and walked toward him.
“I did like the meat-puppet,” Seng said. He stood with his hands in his pockets, feigning calm. In his position I would have been scared. “But it was time to move on. We’re almost there.”
“You’re not.”
The blood-tattoos covering my legs lit up and I was before him in a flash. The ones on my right arm activated and I sent everything I had into my final attack; the angels would have me at their mercy when Seng was dead, but Seng was going to die.
My fist passed through the empty space where the god had been a moment before. I flailed wildly, unbalanced and unsure what was happening.
He was behind me, still standing with his hands in his pockets, still calm.
His voice felt like ants crawling in an open wound. “I thought you’d be more of a challenge. I planned on you giving me more of a fight.”
“Why the illusion?” I said. He was close enough that I could hit him, if I could confirm that he was standing where he appeared to be. He was a trickster god, after all, and I had forgotten to factor that in.
“This?” he said, waving at the rooftop. “So you wouldn’t see what really awaited you.”
His false vision of the rooftop faded, giving way to the truth: the roof was larger than it had been, nearly twice the size, and angels were everywhere. There were a legion of them, all standing ready to fight under the blood-red sky, as still as the dead they had ransacked for their bodies.
I was beaten. If he gave the order and the hollow men attacked I had no chance of standing up to them. In my prime it would have been a glorious battle, but I wouldn’t have been sure of victory even then. Now I was done for.
I could still kill Seng, though, if I could find him.
I mimed the next punch, trying to make it seem like I was putting my full force behind it without actually doing so. The god wasn’t stupid, unfortunately, and all he did was step out of the way.
The nearest of the angels, the inner ring that surrounded me, stepped forward. I was out of time and almost out of power. I didn’t know if the Seng I saw before me was real or another illusion. I had to risk it.
I attacked, dipping into the last of the power I’d stolen. The illusion of Seng took the force of my blow and remained unaffected.
I ran for the edge of the roof, willing the tattoos to prepare for the coming fall while giving me the speed I needed. They obliged as best they could, but they were close to the end of their stores. The angels weren’t quite fast enough to catch me, but I was using my remaining energy at too high a rate. When I fell I was going to need everything I had to keep myself from dying.
They let me get to the edge before stopping me. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the fall anyway, but the angel nearest the edge reached out almost casually and grabbed my arm before I could jump.
“All I had to do was make you fight until you were done.” Seng stood beside me, his hands still in his pockets as though he hadn’t moved. I suspected he hadn’t, that he might not have ever been on the roof. “I also know how you got your power to work again, which is helpful. It means when I kill you now I know it’ll actually be the end of your cursed existence.”
“Don’t kill Erindis,” I said. “She is an innocent in this.”
I hadn’t realized until I spoke the words that I was going to die. Not in a concrete way, not as humans felt when they saw the end approaching. Begging for her life meant I was really done for.
“When I have the power from that hell I will be too busy with more important things to chase after your woman.”
Seng nodded to the angel holding me and a moment later I was on the floor, gasping and broken, my ribs shattered. I hadn’t seen the attack coming.
“Thank you,” I managed to wheeze. “Thank you.”
“Like I said before, I like you like this.” He crouched before me, looking deep into my eyes and savoring what he saw there. “You wouldn’t have a place in the world I’ll build, anyway. You are too weak, too pathetic.”
I let him talk. I could see the end and I’d done all I could; there was no point in further discussion.
He stood again and nodded to the angel. I was lifted in the air, cradled like a child by the cold arms of the hollow man, and walked over to the edge.
“On second thought, Agmundr.” The angel turned so I could see the god’s final taunt. “I think I will kill Erindis. You killed my woman, after all.”
I wanted to scream at him, to fight the arms holding me, but there was nothing left of me to use. I looked down as the angel held me over the edge at the dizzying fall that was coming.
He let me go and I offered a final curse to the elder gods as I fell. The tattoos leapt into action but there was nothing they could do beside wriggle around and distract me from the coming end. There was no more stolen power for them to use, no more magic for them to weave.
They found a source, moments before the ground rose up and obliterated me, but it was no better than the fall. They took my life-force, my soul.
The blood-tattoos, in a moment of desperation, glowed a faint, dull red, and then I was gone.
Chapter 24
I’d thought I would never die. I’d dreamed of the day when Erindis returned to her true glory and remade the world, ushering in an eternity of her rule with me by her side. All I’d ever had to do was wait until the end of days.
Now I knew that to be a fantasy. I was in agony and the world was gone. Darkness surrounded me. I wondered if I would find a place in some afterlife I’d failed to seal or if I’d simply fade away. There were no open gates to any of the hells and I knew the heavens were out of the question.
Pain was my entire reality now, a constant howling torment that formed the beginning and end of my existence. I had no body, no organs, no soul. Just pain.
Which was odd, I realized. If I was dead and there was nowhere for me to go, then why was I still hurting?
I’d been played. Seng had known what to do, even if he hadn’t known exactly what to expect. He’d had millennia to plan, and I should have known better than to run at him without thinking. That was the old me, the me powered by the blood of a dead elder god. Now I was weak and I hadn’t factored that in. I’d pretended that I was more than I was.
The darkness had texture, like fine leather. I could feel it against me as well as inside of me. It permeated my being and gave me something to hold onto, to keep me from spinning away in the maelstrom of pain. Which was also odd, given that I was dead.
Seng was going to open the gate to one of the hells and he was going to devour the souls desperate to escape. He had never been a mighty god but in the modern world he would be. There were no beings powerful enough to put him in his place, not since I’d killed them all. The elder gods were still around but they seemed to no longer care for their creation.
I hated being weak. I loathed the helplessness, the impotent anger, the need to bottle my fury when all I wanted was to let it out. It was unnatural and unpleasant.
If I could be there when Seng opened the gate, I thought, I’d be as able to absorb the power as he was. It would never give me back what I’d had before the end of days was defeated, but it would be more than anyone else on earth. More even than Seng, with his tiny divinity.
A light was forming in the darkness, though I couldn’t focus on it for some reason. Probably because I had no eyes to see with. It was diffuse and weak, but it was there. Unless my mind was playing tricks on me, giving me something to occupy me until the end truly came.
The light grew, brightening and brightening until it was blinding. I had no eyes to close and it added to my suffering, just one more injustice in a litany of them.
Seng was going to kill Erindis. With me gone he had no reason to, but he would anyway. He’d threatened it every time he bothered me and I knew he’d follow through on the threat now that he had the power to do so. He was spiteful, but no more so than I was. I’d done worse to get revenge on fallen enemies.
Erindis was going to die. She might already be dead, without my own immortality to anchor her to the world. That was what kept her young, kept her healthy; her ties to me. It was why I’d jumped at the chance to be cursed, why I’d never given up and ended it despite an eternity of hating my life. As long as I lived, so would she.
The thought of her dead hurt more than anything else. It overpowered the agony of my nonexistent body. I had failed her through my own stupidity, rushing in when I shouldn’t, risking my life when I didn’t need to. But it wasn’t my life I was risking, it was hers, and I’d done it anyway.
The light was everything, obliterating further self-indulgent thought. For a moment it washed away my consciousness and I thought the end had truly come.
The world around me came into focus as my head healed, pieces of my body sliding into place, muscle and skin joining to leave a fresh whole.
I was alive. I was in pieces and every part still attached to me was screaming in agony, but I was alive.
I couldn’t move my head, so Bec moved to stand before me. I tried to speak but nothing happened.
“He’s alive,” she cried. The look on her face was one of horror, not elation. Whatever state I was in, it was enough to sicken her.
“I wasn’t sure…” Roman appeared behind her, his hand over his mouth and his eyes wide. “There’s no way. How?”
I tried again, managing a barely intelligible croak. “The curse.”
The tattoos covering my body were there to control me, of course, but they were also there to ensure I would never escape. It seemed even death was off limits to me.
“We got you some more of the vampire blood,” Bec said. She was pressed against a stunned Roman, trying to back away from me. “We broke in to find you.”
It took all my meager strength to force words from my mouth. “Seng?”
“No idea,” she replied. “You…you hit the ground and everything went crazy.”
I was getting stronger. The mass of pain was changing as the tattoos repaired my body. Soon I could feel my arms and legs, and tell that I was lying on a cold, metal surface.
I raised my head to look around: I was in a large room, chilly and clean. Metal hatches lined the wall before me.
“Where am I?”
“The morgue.”
I ransacked the memories I’d been gifted when Fletcher summoned me and found the word; the authorities had found a dead man and shipped me to their holding place for the recently deceased.
“We have to leave,” Roman said. He inched backward, unable to tear his eyes off the mess I had become.
“Not yet.” Bec held the locket out before her in the palm of her hand. “It’s time.”
She wanted to put me back. At first I was pleased; elated, really. I was going to see Erindis, however briefly. I would be free of the agony I felt, and of the threat of Seng and his angels.
Seng. He would try to kill Erindis when he got his power and he would fail, but my wife would experience hell before he gave up. If I was alive then she couldn’t die. Eventually he’d bore of trying and find somewhere to stash her until I returned.
“No,” I said, weakly trying to grab her hand. My depth perception was off and I missed her by two feet.
“You can’t walk out of here,” Bec said. “We can’t carry you. This is the only way I can think of.”
I didn’t know if she’d be able to summon me again. I didn’t know if Roman would let her, either. He might take the opportunity and steal the locket from her. I couldn’t leave yet, not with Erindis in danger.
“I’ll manage.” I forced myself to rise, against the screaming of my muscle and the pounding of my head. I dragged myself up from the table and turned to face them.
“He’s going to fall apart before we get to the door,” Roman said, still staring.
“I’ll be fine.” I looked at my right arm and recoiled from what I saw: raw flesh, uncovered by skin, dripping watery blood. My other arm still had skin – and the fine, almost invisible tattoos etched there – but it bent the wrong way as I lifted it from my side.
The pain was intense, almost unbearable. For Erindis, I knew, I would bear it.
I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head, but it was almost impossible. Random thoughts fought for dominance, blocking my attempts at controlling the tattoos. Images of Erindis clashed with those of Seng. Masters long dead stood before me, flashing into existence for a moment and being replaced by another, and another.
“Enough,” I growled. I would do this. I had to. I needed the tattoos to direct their healing to the parts of me required to leave. I needed to be mobile. The rest of me could wait.
They obeyed, slowly at first, but I could feel it. My left arm straightened and snapped into place, the joints pulled together by muscle reforming. My legs were the least broken part of me, only shattered bone and scraped skin. They jumped and shook as the weak power of the vampire blood was put to work.
“It won’t be enough,” Roman said.
“Then I’ll put him back,” Bec replied. Neither of them could look away.
“Put me back and I’ll kill you both when I r
eturn,” I snapped. “Or your descendants.”
Roman finally looked away, glancing to the large metal door with the exit sign above it. Bec put my prison back in her pocket.
I was out of energy, the tattoos tapped. From what I could see of myself I was a mess, but I was sure I’d be able to walk. I braced myself and stood, testing out the limits of my broken body.
Everything was still screaming at once but it was different, less powerful. I could ignore it if it meant I could continue.
“Let’s go,” I said as I took a tentative step forward.
“Put a coat on him or something,” Roman said. He hurried to the door and pulled it open, checking to make sure we were clear to leave.
Bec handed me the largest white coat she could find; it barely covered my nakedness and wouldn’t fool anyone, but it was better than nothing.
I followed them out of the room and into a hallway, then out of the nearby exit and into a loading dock. We passed an unconscious man beside an open van and Bec shrugged when I looked at her.
“There was no other way in,” she said, leading me to the waiting car. It was a new one, from her endless supply of borrowed cars. I suspected she was stealing them.
I crawled onto the back seat, my body too tired to move anymore. I closed my eyes to the sound of the engine starting and lost consciousness.
Chapter 25
Bec brought me a broth made from shredded chicken meat and something called tapioca pudding for desert. She said it was the thing people brought when someone was in hospital. It was like she was acting the way she thought a normal person should.
The broth was fine, though not exactly filling. The pudding wasn’t to my taste.
A day had passed and I was raring to go. I was also barely able to stand; the small amount of blood they’d used had given the tattoos enough to work with to put me back together and keep me alive but not much else. I’d exhausted it all in trying not to die, so now I was having to heal the human way.
“I’m safe now,” Bec said. She sat beside my bed in a back room of ACDCs normally reserved for drunken performers. Her hair was a mess and she wore what she called her work pajamas; loose clothes with flowers all over them that smelled of beer.