by Eric Asher
“The broken shards of the stone daggers,” I said. “Alexandra seemed to think this is the only armory that has some.”
“I have only one question, necromancer.” Caroline eyed me. “What was the name of the werewolf in the ghost pack who despised you? Who attacked you in the Burning Lands?”
“Jimmy?” I asked, immediately answering her question before fully contemplating what the consequences of a wrong answer might have been.
Caroline nodded. “It’s him.”
“As we told you,” Hess said.
“And what if I hadn’t answered back quite right?” I asked, wanting to know what awful things could’ve happened to me.
Caroline slowly pulled a gun from behind her back. “Fae bullets. Euphemia seemed quite confident they could pierce the shield of most magic users.”
I was both impressed and happy to be alive.
Caroline nodded, and some of the tension in the room slowly subsided.
“I’ll get the shards,” Hess said. “Wait here. I’ll return shortly.” She didn’t really go anywhere, simply walked across the room to another display case and began touching the base of the podium with her medallion in a series of complicated gestures.
I turned to Dell. “How are you holding up? This place is worse than Gettysburg. Well, not quite that bad.”
“I know what you mean,” Dell said. “I think I put on about five pounds in the last week just from eating chocolate.”
I smiled. Coming in contact with too many ghosts could be incredibly draining for a necromancer. Dell helped compensate with chocolate and sugar, but mostly chocolate. We had trained together with the Old Man down at Zola’s cabin. And I fondly remembered our snacks, which had usually consisted of s’mores.
“They really starting to move on Saint Charles?” Dell asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, and against the military. We have one sergeant and a few privates who are probably on our side. I don’t think the rest of them want to understand. They want us dead.”
“What’s new?” Dell said with a humorless laugh.
“How’s the Old Man?” I asked.
“Good,” Dell said, “killing a lot of things. It’s what he does best.”
“He’s still working with the Obsidian Inn?”
Dell nodded. “Yeah, he’s been tooling around with Ward. Morrigan’s been sending them on special missions.” He made little quote signs with his fingers when he said “special missions.” I wasn’t sure if he was bitter about it or just amused with the idea of the Fae goddess sending his rather infamous master on missions.
“I heard you had a run-in with the Morrigan,” Dell said. “Something about an old city the water witches destroyed? And a harbinger of the dark-touched?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You heard right. I also found out that old demon staff Gwynn Ap Nudd had gifted me hadn’t been much of a gift after all.”
“Beware the gifts of the Fae and all that jazz,” Dell said. “It makes so much more sense when they just come at you with a sword, instead of playing with you for a year before trying to kill you. That shit drives me nuts.”
“So what are you doing here?” I asked.
“Originally they sent me out here to test the barrier in the corridors they built under the battlefield.” Dell shivered. “I don’t know how you made it through that. They got me about fifteen feet into that thing, and I was done.” He shook his head. “The power of whatever they used inside the corridor knocked me out. Flat on my ass.”
“And you just decided to hang around here after that?”
Dell smirked. “Not exactly.”
Caroline sighed. “He’s here because of me. I asked his master for a favor.”
“You asked the Old Man for a punching bag,” Dell muttered.
“And there is no better punching bag than a disrespectful necromancer,” Caroline snapped. I would have thought she was truly furious with Dell, but for the sly wink she gave me.
I thought I’d try to poke the bear, well wolf, a little bit. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Dell dating someone from your pack, does it?” I turned an innocent wide-eyed stare on Caroline.
“Of course not,” Caroline said, Dell echoing her precisely. Caroline ignored him as if they were siblings.
“Dell’s proven himself to have a reasonable mind for strategy,” Caroline said. “He’s a welcome addition. We have Utukku, werewolves, and Fae guarding this place, but it still leaves us open to some of Nudd’s more sinister powers.”
“Dell is your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?”
“Shut up, man,” Dell said, “I don’t want to die today.”
Caroline made a disgusted noise and shook her head. I think deep down she enjoyed our banter.
Echoes of nail on stone sounded behind me, and I glanced back to find Hess with a small leather satchel in her left hand. She held it out to me. “There are many shards here. They should be adequate for forging many weapons for your military allies.”
I took the sack and nodded to Hess. “Thank you.” The satchel was heavier than I’d expected, and I wondered just how many fragments were inside.
It occurred to me then that I hadn’t checked to see if I still had the hand of Gaia. I couldn’t remember if I’d managed to shove it into my backpack or not. My panic must’ve shown.
“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.
“The hand of glory,” I said as I unzipped the edge of my backpack. “I’m not sure if I dropped it inside the corridors.” Almost before I finished speaking, I felt that slightly pliable, cold dead flesh brush against my fingers.
“You seem really happy about touching dead things,” Dell said nonchalantly. “You touch dead things a lot? And what kind of dead things do you touch?”
“Shut up, Dell,” I said.
“So, is there an easier way out of here?”
“You have a hand of glory,” Dell said. “I’m pretty sure you could walk out of this place whenever you want.”
“If you would like to be cut into a thousand ribbons of stringy flesh,” Hess said “then yes, you can use the hand of glory whenever you would like.”
I frowned at the Utukku. “You could have warned me about that before I actually picked up the hand of glory.”
Hess shrugged and slightly bared her teeth.
Caroline shook her head and eyed Hess. “Sometimes I think they have no sense of humor at all. And other times I think their sense of humor is just as terrible as a necromancer’s.”
I astutely ignored Caroline. “Where should I go to be safe? And please don’t say it’s back to those catacombs.”
“You need not go back that way,” Hess said. “Up the stairs and through the glass doors. You’ll see a small church across the street. I warn you, there are many ghosts here. You need only reach the church on the other side of the street, and you’ll be safe to use the hand of glory.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Can you get word to Mike the Demon?”
“Word has already been sent,” Caroline said.
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Of course,” Hess said. “There aren’t many demon blacksmiths who are allied with Damian Valdis Vesik.”
I thanked the group again and started up the stairs. Caroline caught my sleeve as I passed her. I looked down, meeting her fierce brown eyes. “What is it?”
“Have you seen Alan? Or any of the pack?”
“Hugh is still in Kansas City, and I know Alan has been traveling back and forth since the attack on the coven, to spend time with his family and his pack. I think it’s been hard on him.”
Caroline nodded. “It’s been hard on a lot of people. Carter was a loss to many.”
“He was also a terrible influence,” I said.
“Why?” Caroline asked.
“If it weren’t for him, you probably wouldn’t be stuck here with necromancers for friends.” I flashed her a small smile.
She barked out a short laugh and nodd
ed once. “Tell Alan I said hi. And tell Hugh, if he ever needs me, I’ll be there.”
“You should call him and tell him yourself.”
“I’m telling one of his pack members,” Caroline said, glancing down at the curved half-moon of scars on my forearm. “That’s as good as telling him myself.”
I took my leave of them then. I strode toward the front door, remembering Hess’s warning. If someone warned the necromancer there were many ghosts, it was unlikely to be a pleasant experience. This was no different.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I stepped outside, and the presence of the dead wasn’t the only thing that was jarring. I’d left Saint Louis only a matter of minutes ago. It’d been a rainy, saturated mess. But here the sun was out, still morning, but warmer and brighter and on the surface, beautiful to look at.
I knew the smartest thing to do was hurry down the concrete path, to stay focused on the little church across the street that was almost as plain as that old church in Pilot Knob. But something called my attention, tugging on my aura. And even as my feet carried me toward that church, something drew my gaze to the south.
Ghostly cannons stood along the ridge, manned by the dead. The earth didn’t heave and move like that horrible corridor under the ground, but this place was terrible. My steps slowed, and I stared slack-jawed at the sunken road in the distance where, piled one on top of the other, lay the soul-bearing ghosts of countless soldiers. I knew enough from the stories Koda used to tell me that it had to be Bloody Lane.
My presence here drew the attention of darker things, and I could feel the gravemakers surging beneath the battlefield. There were more here than anything I’d experienced since Gettysburg. I didn’t know if it was the mantle of Anubis, or just my own inherent necromancy, or some combination of the two, but I wanted to call to them. I wanted to see how many would rise. And that thought alone was enough to send the terrible bark-like flesh bubbling to the surface of the earth near that cluster of ghosts.
I shook my head and hurried away; I had to get to back Saint Charles. The faster I got back, the faster we could help Park, and hopefully solidify our alliance with the National Guard there. I stepped into the grass between the sidewalk and the asphalt road that cut through the battlefield. It was a mistake. The pavement had provided more of a barrier than I’d realized. My shoulders sagged with the weight of that place. It was no longer the gravemakers my powers wanted to reach out to. It was the countless souls tied to the earth, and tied to death.
I gritted my teeth and focused on the church, on putting one foot in front of the other. I closed my mind off as best I could, so the cries and screams faded until I could focus once more on the feel of the earth beneath each footfall. I wasn’t sure what they expected Dell to truly do in a place like this. Either one of us would be at risk of being overwhelmed by the dead.
I hurried across the asphalt, and a few more steps over the tortured earth took me to the front door of the old church. I didn’t wait. I glanced back, taking in the modern vista of the welcome center, and the ocean of dead behind it. I wrapped my fingers between Gaia’s and stepped into the only place I thought might be darker than Antietam.
* * *
I took a shaky breath as the comforting darkness of the Abyss wrapped its arms around me, and I savored the silence before Gaia had fully formed at my side.
“Are you well?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, you were right about that being an uncomfortable trip.” I gave her a half smile. Uncomfortable was a hell of an understatement.
“Do you wish to return to Death’s Door?” Gaia asked.
I didn’t think I’d ever heard her refer to the shop as Death’s Door. I wasn’t sure if I was amused or disturbed. “Yes. Please.”
I watched distant lights in the Abyss shift and move and blink out. I wondered what titanic creatures might be lurking in that vast space, slowed by the strange time here, locked in perpetual frustration, much like Tessrian.
“Can you help me return Tessrian to the Burning Lands?” I asked, trying to take my attention away from the leviathans that seemed to be growing ever-closer.
“It is possible,” she said. “But you would need to travel with the Key of the Dead once more, and that is a dangerous thing to bring into the Abyss. Though I suppose it may be less dangerous than freeing Tessrian on your plane and bringing her here as a free being.”
“I’m pretty sure I may have issues either way,” I said. “Even if I don’t release her here, I’ll have to release her in the Burning Lands. Once she’s out, and in a realm where she has much power, well, things could get interesting.”
“She has no sense of time inside her prison,” Gaia said. “You could leave her there.”
“No,” I said, “that’s the one thing I can’t do. I gave her my word, Gaia. And that has to mean something.”
“The word of men can be coerced. Though I suppose, if you cannot trust your own word, then whose can you trust?”
I wasn’t 100% sure if Gaia was agreeing with me or trying to make a point about people in general, but I was going to go with the former for now. We slowed, and Gaia frowned. “We are here, but there are more bodies within your shop than when you left.”
“Living bodies?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s good. I guess I’ll see you soon.”
“Travel well,” Gaia said, and she released my hand.
She still hadn’t mastered the art of returning me to Death’s Door. I wasn’t sure if it was the wards, or the blood shield, or just the general chaos of magic around the shop, but sometimes I had a smooth landing, and sometimes Gaia sent me flailing into a brick wall.
I cursed when the back door appeared in front of me, and grunted when I smacked into it a moment later. “Ow, that was my nose!”
“Is it broken?” asked the deadbolt from the other side of the door, an edge of unabashed glee in its voice.
“I don’t know,” I said, talking into my cupped hands.
“You okay?” Foster asked as he glided into my vision.
I scrunched up my nose and winced at the pain, but I didn’t think it was enough that it was broken. And honestly, even if it were, I’d be tempted to let it heal on its own. Getting my nose healed by magic was one of the most painful things I’d ever experienced.
“Gaia said there’s an extra body here. Who is it?”
Foster blinked at me. “That old Titan is right. Come see for yourself.”
* * *
To say I was happy to see that the extra body in front of the shop was not only alive, but was Mike the Demon, was a gross understatement. The bulky blacksmith raised a hand in greeting, his thick leather apron stained with recent work.
“Hey, Mike,” I said. “Good to see you again.”
“And you, my friend,” Mike said.
“Where’s Sarah?” I asked, when I realized his figurative and literal shadow was not with him.
“I suppose she has found her independence in little bits,” Mike said, “now that she seems to have been reborn. She’s with our allies at the Obsidian Inn.”
“So everyone’s okay there?” I asked.
“In a matter of speaking,” Mike said. “With a conflict imminent, I don’t know that I would say anyone is okay.”
I nodded.
Foster landed on the countertop beside Aideen, and that’s when I noticed the array of weaponry that had been laid out across the glass. A few clips of modern ammunition next to a dozen or more survival knives, and perhaps most odd, two ancient swords.
“Are you going to fashion a weapon out of all these?” I asked.
“They’re already weapons,” Frank said. He popped his head up from the aisle off to my right, scaring me half to death.
“Christ, Frank,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I didn’t see you there.”
A large form moved outside the front window, and I blinked at the shadow before I realized it was Aeros strolling by on the cobblesto
ne street.
Mike glanced at the window. “I may have coaxed him out of hiding. I hadn’t spoken to the old rock in quite some time.”
“What about Alexandra?” I asked.
“I came with a message of my home,” Mike said. “She was needed back at the Obsidian Inn. Nixie and Euphemia had asked her to return.”
“Let’s hope we don’t need them here,” I said, wincing as I rubbed my nose.
“Are you well?” Aideen asked.
“Let’s just say I had a rough landing,” I said. “Although I did get to see Caroline, Dell, Utukku, and some of her people. That was an unexpected surprise.”
Aideen frowned. “If Caroline was there, then I know what armory you were at. That would be a trying trip for any necromancer.”
I nodded. “I didn’t think anyone was supposed to know where these things were at?”
“I don’t,” Foster said. “And I don’t want to. The less reason people have to torture me, the better.”
Frank barked out a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Oh,” I said, fishing around in my backpack for the leather satchel. I lifted it, and held the aged leather out to Mike. He took it carefully.
“It’s perhaps good that Alexandra isn’t here. These blades can be somewhat unstable when they are shattered. I wouldn’t want to see her come to harm.”
“How dangerous is it?” I asked. “Is this dangerous enough that it could kill her?”
Mike blew out a short laugh. He untied the top of the sack and pulled out a curved sliver, which reminded me more than anything of an underwire from one of Sam’s bras that had once jammed up my parents’ washing machine. “They don’t truly turn to stone.”
“Those water witches they sank into the rivers sure look like stone,” I said.
“So, what is it?” Frank asked. “Like rigor mortis for the Fae?”
Mike frowned and nodded. “An apt description.”
“Rigor mortis is temporary,” I said. “Do they become something else?”
“I usually burn my enemies,” Mike said, “for I rarely had the opportunity to study what happens to them.”