Blood and Magick

by James R. Tuck

  Ahriman skewed sideways, chair tilting, legs slipping on the wood stage. He fell over, arms twisting like chicken wings, still chained to the pole. His skull bounced off the stage with a wet, melon thunk.

  He lay there, mouth hanging open, hair falling like a ragged veil over his eyes. Blood sprinkled out of his mouth as he drew jagged breaths in. A low groaning noise came from him.

  I stood over him, fists clenched by my side. I kept my voice even. Bored. “Did that one break your jaw?”

  He didn’t answer, just lay with his arms tangled up behind him, groaning and bleeding. My foot lashed out, driving the pointed toe of my boot into his stomach. The groan cut off as air was evicted from his lungs. Blood sprayed in an abstract pattern across the stage.

  “Answer the question.”

  His voice was pulled tight, strangled. “No.”

  My fingers tangled in his hair. It was coarse, like thin steel wool in my grip. Pulling hard, I hauled him and the chair he was taped to upright. A sour smell wafted off him. Sweat and blood mixed with the green stinking roil of fear and pain.

  In the puddle of bloody spittle on the stage was a tooth. A molar.

  Sliding my chair, I sat down in front of him. He hung forward, chin to chest. A purple bruise was crawling up the right side of his face. I leaned toward him, putting my elbows on my knees.

  “Ahriman, just tell me what I want to know. I don’t want to do this, but I will keep it up all night.”

  The laugh barked out of him in a spray of red droplets. “Whom are you lying to, Deacon Chalk? You love this. You enjoy hurting people.”

  “Tell me what Selene has planned and why she wants the children.”

  “You know you get a dark thrill every time you have to kill someone. You only feel normal when you are hurting someone, trying to pay back the world for taking your family away. You are every bit the monster I am.”

  I didn’t answer him. I stood up, moving over to the other end of the stage.

  “Ha! I am right! Evil is in your heart, Deacon Chalk. You’re a killer. A monster who hunts and slays, reveling in every drop of blood you spill.”

  At the end of the stage, I picked up the hammer and a handful of nails.

  Moving back, I sat in the chair again. The hammer was old, hickory handle cracked but sturdy. The head of it was patinated black with age; the wide, flat striking surface pitted and marred from driving countless nails. It was heavy in my hand.

  The nails were thick, almost as wide around as a drinking straw, and about three inches long. They had a flat head the size of a dime, a cross etched into each one. The shaft of the nails had been ground to a wicked point and notched with V’s to keep them from pulling out. I placed one, point down, on the meat of Ahriman’s thigh.

  His eyes were wide. “What are you doing?”

  I hefted the hammer in my right hand.

  “Tell me what I want to know.”

  “I will tell you nothing!”

  I tapped the nail with the hammer, the face of it chinging on the head of the nail. It sank into the meat through cloth about a half inch. The warlock sucked air in through clenched teeth. I looked the question at him. He spat at me, the spray not reaching my face but splattering on my arm instead.

  I drove the nail home.

  A scream ripped out of Ahriman, head thrown back, tendons jutting out of his neck. Blood gushed around the head of the nail. It began to smoke, the iron reacting with the fae blood in his veins.

  Somebody moved behind me, chair scraping and falling over. I didn’t look, eyes on the wizard, trusting my people. Josh came around the stage, swinging wide to be as far away as possible. His hand was to his mouth as he rushed by and out the door.

  The scream died, ending in a choking sob.

  I let him sit for a moment.

  Reaching back in my mind, I pulled in the images of the body bags back at the restaurant stacked side by side. Each bag was a person whose only mistake that night had been to go out for dinner. My mind flashed to the hallway in the theater carpeted with the bodies of people who just wanted to go out and enjoy a fucking movie on a Friday night. They started off with popcorn and Jujubes, and wound up bled dry on a theater floor. I let those images settle around me like armor, taking me to that dull, empty place where killing can be done.

  “Tell me what I want to know.”

  I put another nail next to the one embedded in the wizard’s thigh.

  A spasm rattled through him as he felt the prick of the point. His head jerked, eyes wide and white under a curtain of hair. “Stop, stop. I’ll tell you.”

  I sat back, waiting.

  His head slumped, shuddering to a stop at the end of his neck. “Selene is going to tear a hole in the world.”

  After a long moment of listening to Ahriman suck air between his teeth, I leaned forward. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “This world is a tuning fork. Every time a convergent event happens, the fork is struck, making a ripple. Those ripples echo out, making new realities. Selene is going to tear asunder the walls that separate each of them.”

  “Why the hell would she do that?”

  Ahriman looked away, mouth drawn in a hard line. My thumb dropped on the head of the nail still in his thigh. It was rigid in his flesh, stuck in the bone.

  “Don’t get brave now, witch-boy.” My thumb pushed, pressing in. He jolted back, jerking against the cuffs on his wrists. “What. Does. She. Want?”

  The warlock flopped, teeth gnashing toward me. “She wants her love back! She will destroy everything to have him by her side again!”

  I pulled my thumb away.

  “This is the Russian dude? Chernobyl or whatever his name was?”

  “Chernobog, his name is Chernobog.”

  “He’s dead.”

  Ahriman sucked air in, chest shaking. “There is another reality out there in the multiverse where he is still alive. Her and her daughter will take him from there, bringing him to this world.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Okay, they get Daddy to come home. What do you get out of the deal?”

  He spat, eyes gleaming with the feral light of a fanatic. “I will give Selene her paradise with her lover. I’ll put them on some Eden in the sea and then I would have worlds of the dead to play with. All my favorite playthings of the past have been used up. After we open the rift I can enjoy them all without restraint. If one of them breaks I could simply pluck another from another world.”

  The sensory flash I had experienced when I pulled off his amulet echoed inside my head. I knew he wasn’t talking about board games. No, Ahriman was one sick sonnuvabitch. He meant play in every sick, twisted, perverted way possible.

  My stomach curdled at the thought.

  “Tell me how to stop her.”

  The muscles in Ahriman’s face contracted, hardening. His lips locked together, a twisted, close-mouthed snarl. I pushed the nail deeper into his leg with my thumb. “Tell me.”

  His head jerked back and forth.

  The hammer flashed up and slammed down on the nailhead. It drove home in a gush of blood, slipping quick and jarring to a stop in the bone. Ahriman howled, a deepthroated animal sound. I was up, arm across his throat, driving him back against the brass pole, chair and all. It shook and shimmered as I pressed him there. The howl cut off in a choke, Adam’s apple hard underneath my forearm. My voice ripped out of me.

  “TELL ME HOW TO STOP HER!”

  Jerking my arm away, I let him fall, the four chair legs banging into the stage with a jolt. His head bounced like his neck was broken, snapping back and forth, teeth clacking together like tiles breaking. My fingers twisted his hair, yanking his face to look at me. Eyelids fluttering, he snarled, rabid like an animal. The hammer swung back over my head. Top-heavy, it pulled back on my wrist.

  The air around me went icy.

  The temperature plummeted. Gooseflesh chased its way up my arm. Breath rolled out of my mouth in a white fog of condensation. Letting go the warlock’s h
air, I stepped back. The hammer fell to the end of my arm.

  Ahriman’s head dropped, shoulders jerking, hitching up and down. Lank hair swayed in front of his battered face.

  Laughter stuttered the air—a strangled, high-pitched cackle that chased across my nerves like racing spiders.

  The wizard’s head lolled, face angled like the neck was broken. His eyes had rolled back into his head, showing only bloodshot whites. Every tiny micromuscle of his face was Charley-horsed, jerking into knots, pulling his features into a horrible rictus. Those fish-belly pale eyes stared at me, seething a malice older than humanity.

  Ahriman wasn’t home anymore.

  I looked at the demon that possessed him.

  “Well, hell-boy, like my dear old daddy used to say before he left this shitty world, you just signed up for a world of hurt.”

  35

  Father Mulcahy stepped up on the stage holding his black bag in a calloused hand. I leaned in as I passed him, speaking low out of the side of my mouth. “We still need information before you make with the casting out.”

  The priest nodded and kept walking toward the demonpossessed warlock. I stopped at the end of the stage and looked out at the room. Special Agent Heck had come in at some point while I was questioning Ahriman. I hadn’t noticed; then again, I’d been kinda preoccupied. He perched stiffly on a barstool, black suit coat unbuttoned.

  My eyes fell on Kat, Larson, Boothe, and Special Agent Heck in turn. I raised my voice. “This is where you all keep your ears open and your mouths shut. If you’ve never dealt with a demon before, then be prepared for shit to get extremely weird. They’re master manipulators, so ignore him and let the good Padre handle it.”

  Behind me came a twittering laugh, discordant notes like rats scrabbling behind a wall. The skin on the back of my skull tightened. “Good Padre? What a fucking joke. If you knew what this man had done before you met him, you wouldn’t trust him at all. You’d kill him where he stands.”

  I didn’t turn around. Raising my voice, I spoke over the demon. “They tell lies and worse, they mix them with truth. They know things no one but you should know. Ignore it, every bit of it. If you listen you give him power over you.”

  “You can warn them all you want. They will know the truth when they hear it. Like dear, sweet Kathleen. She will know that you’ll hate her for the choice she has made. For the thing she does not tell you.”

  Kat looked like she had been struck. Her eyes opened wide, color washing out of her face. “I . . .”

  “Shut up, Kat.” My voice was harsh. “It’s trying to drive a wedge between us. You know better. Don’t respond to it. Don’t give it any ammo to use.”

  “See, Kathleen? ‘You know better.’You heard that from him earlier. He already hates you for being with Larson. For being such a slut that you would let that joke of a man touch you. You should have been his, and instead you gave it up to someone who is so weak he could never protect you.” The voice hissed. “Secret-keeper.” It spat. “WHORE!”

  Kat turned away as if someone had slapped her in the face. Larson’s skin boiled red. He rose in his chair, fists clenched. I held my hand out to him, palm up in a “STOP!” motion. He stood there shaking with anger.

  I spoke over my shoulder to Father Mulcahy. “Sooner would be better.” The priest kept working, kneeling over his open bag. He had to be precise, ritualistic. Ritual is where the power is. We just had to hold it together until he was ready.

  A cackle cut the air. “Yes, priest. Hurry your fucking ass up, some of us still have throats to slit tonight.”

  Larson began to sink back in his seat. The demon spoke again. “Sit down, you coward. Do what Deacon Chalk tells you to do. He knows best. He’s three times the man you are; just ask Kathleen.” The demon’s voice dropped, an insidious whisper. “You know. You have seen the way she looks at him. He could have her in a second. You are just the one who will, not the one she wants.”

  Larson’s chair flipped as he leaped to his feet. Kat’s hand grabbed his arm. “It’s not true, Larson! I love you.”

  “Oh, the whore has spoken.” The demon’s voice was sibilant, the S’s sliding into each other, long and drawn out. “Not just a whore but a liar as well. You know you love Deacon Chalk, you have for years now. It burns deep inside you, but you know he has NEVER looked at you like that. He found you in your filth and shame, used like the slut you are. Used like you asked for by going to find Darius in the first place. You’ve always been a whore, and Deacon Chalk knows it.” Kat burst into tears. “Cry all you want! You know being with Larson has turned his pity for you into disgust!”

  I was tensed, ready to stop Larson from coming on the stage. I wasn’t prepared for Boothe.

  Boothe cleared the bar with a leap, lycanthrope strength carrying him over. In a flash of unnatural speed, he was on the stage, gun in hand and pressed against Ahriman’s temple. His face curled in anger, cheeks mottling scarlet, eyes narrowed in fury. “Shut up. Shut up. SHUT THE HELL UP!” The gun barrel shoved Ahriman’s head sideways. “Say one more thing about her and I’ll kill you!”

  Two strides put me across the stage. My hand clamped on Boothe’s arm. I leaned back, using my body weight to yank him away from the warlock. Ramming into him with my shoulder, I shoved him off the stage. “Everybody stop. Right. Now.”

  The demon’s cackle whistled through Ahriman’s teeth, cutting the air. The shrill “tee-hee-heeing” crawled like an earwig, burrowing deep into my brain. It was maddening. The nerve under my eye fluttered like a butterfly that’d been pinned alive. “Y’all are playing into his hands. Knock it the fuck off.”

  Boothe shook his head. Slowly, he put his gun away. “I can’t handle that damned laughter, Deacon. And the shit he’s saying to Kat is . . .” He turned and roared. Anger ripped from his chest, splitting the air like a crack of thunder. His hand flashed down against a barstool, crumpling the metal and vinyl into a tangled wreck. Breath bellowed in and out of the Were-rabbit, his sculpted chest rising and falling. “He just needs to shut the hell up.”

  “And now we hear from the sodomite! You should keep your disgusting mouth shut, faggot. Nobody cares what you say.” The air was brittle, crackling around the edges with tension and pain. The demon leaned forward, stretching Ahriman’s arms in a disjointed tangle as it leered at Boothe. Rolled back eyes gleamed under a veil of scraggly hair. “They all know you only come to Kathleen’s defense because of guilt. The lust in your heart for Larson. You jump because you burn for what she has.”

  “ENOUGH!” Father Mulcahy rose up. His arm swung, an aspergillum clenched in his fist. Droplets flung, splashing in a line across the demon’s face. The blessed liquid sizzled when it struck the demon-possessed warlock, raising blisters like it was hot bacon grease. The demon howled in pain. “I bind you in the name of Jesus Christ. Hold your tongue.” Ahriman’s jaw clamped shut, muffling the curses of the demon.

  I looked around the room again. Boothe was still standing by the stage, muscles corded in his shoulders, hands clenched into fists. His eyes were slitted as he seethed, staring at the demon-possessed warlock.

  Kat hunched over, hands covering her face. She shook as she sobbed. Larson hovered over her, hands moving toward, then away. Almost touching her for comfort, then stopping. His face kept turning, looking at her, then looking up at me. The expression he wore kept changing, making him unreadable.

  Special Agent Heck sat on the same stool, unmoved. He hadn’t fallen into the trap and had kept his mouth shut. The demon hadn’t spoken to him. Not at all. Was it because he was a pious man, with no sins to pull out and use against him? Or was it because of something else? Something darker? Was it possible that Special Agent Heck was collaborating with the witches?

  My skin went cold.

  I didn’t know anything about the man in the dark suit. He’d shown up and I had taken him in, letting him join me in this. My head swirled with the implications. Before I realized it, my hand was halfway to the pistol under m
y arm.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  Hold on just one damn minute.

  I hadn’t just taken Special Agent Heck on his own recommendation. Longinus had vouched for him. Longinus who I had fought side by side with. Longinus who I had bled with. Longinus who was a living, breathing saint with a holy relic for a weapon.

  Son of a bitch.

  The demon had done its work well. Spreading filth and corruption, half-lies and twisted truths, to drive us apart. Realization struck me like a cannonball. By not saying anything about Heck, that damned demon had made me doubt him.

  Special Agent Heck turned as if he felt my intent. His eyes went to my hand, hanging still in front of me, angled toward my gun. They flicked to my face.

  He nodded at me once, dipping his chin down, then up slowly.

  My hand dropped to my side.

  God damned demons.

  36

  The demon glared at Father Mulcahy with blind eyes. The muscles around the eyes bunched, thickening the brow and sharpening the cheeks. Capillaries had burst in the sockets, spreading plum-colored bruising around them like a mask. It gnashed Ahriman’s teeth together in a grind that could be heard across the room.

  The priest stood tall, holy water shaker in one hand, crucifix held in the other. The cross swung toward the demon’s face. “Who am I speaking to?”

  The demon snarled, the sound ripping out of Ahriman’s throat like guts torn from a caught fish. Father Mulcahy slashed down with the aspergillum, slinging holy water across the demon’s chest. “In the name of Christ Jesus, I command you to speak your name.”

  The demon’s mouth opened, words spilling out of it in a guttural language. The syllables were harsh, chopping the air. Each consonant felt like someone panging two pans together. They vibrated behind my molars, drawing my jaw painfully tight.

  Father Mulcahy pointed with the holy water shaker. “Speak English, hellspawn.”