by E. A. Copen
I was right about the puppet strings. They were barely visible, as thin as fishing wire, and extended up into the clouds and out of sight. It wandered closer, making a clicking sound with the mandibles around its mouth. Such a facial construction didn’t lend itself to forming words in human speech, but that didn’t stop it from projecting words into my mind.
I SEE YOUR PAIN, MORTAL. I KNOW THE ANGER THAT BURNS IN YOU. YOU HUNGER FOR A LIFE FREE OF PAIN.
“A life free of pain isn’t much of a life,” I snapped back.
The beast’s attention shifted to Chanter and then to Emiko, the lidless, bloodshot eye rolling back and forth between them. SO MUCH HUNGER HERE. SO MUCH PAIN. YOU HAVE DELIVERED THEM TO THEIR END, MORTAL.
“It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” I quoted before I could stop myself. Apparently, the beast didn’t appreciate my smart-assed pop-culture reference. It rolled its one eye over me and flexed its mandibles. Green slime dripped out of its mouth and the mandibles picked it up, spreading it around like a lubricant.
“Don’t snark at it,” Chanter growled. “Kill it!”
Before I could do anything, two tentacles whipped out from underneath the creature’s shroud and wrapped around my neck. Dark, greasy magick pumped out of tiny suckers on the ends of the tentacles and into me. My hands shot up and tried to pry them free but it was no use. My fingers passed through the creature like butter.
Chanter’s form disappeared and reappeared behind the beast with a wooden club-like weapon in his hand. He raised it, ready to strike the beast on the hump in its back, but the beast was ready for him. It turned on him without letting go of me, backhanding him in the face. BE GONE, NUISANCE!
The strike sent Chanter crashing back into the walls of the castle. Hands came out of the wood to grab him and pull him, struggling, through the wall.
Emiko threw a hand forward, the long sleeves of her silk kimono billowing in the wind. A wave of dancing, pastel colors flew out from her fingers and struck the beast. It roared in annoyance and pried one of its tentacles away from me to smack her. She dodged to the left and passed through me, the sensation cool and…uncomfortable. Though it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as whatever the beast was doing to me.
While Emiko did her best to draw fire from one of the beast’s tentacle arms, I still stood, paralyzed by whatever magick it was working on me. It wasn’t painful, not in a physical sense, but the dark, oily feeling permeated me, creeping out like ink in water to taint every part of me. The further it spread, the less will I had to fight. Exhaustion hit me along with a renewed psychic assault, forcing me to relive all the terrible moments I’d just come through. All the while, the creature’s greasy voice pounded in my head.
EMPTINESS. SADNESS. PAIN. LOSS. THIS IS LIFE. WHY DO YOU CLING TO IT?
“There’s more to it than that,” I answered through clenched teeth.
I searched for the spell that I had used the day before, but as I suspected, the shadow and fire wouldn’t come just because I called it. The night before, it had felt alive in my hands. Alive, aware, and with a will of its own. Something like that shouldn’t have been my first choice for magick. Yet here I was, searching for the deepest, darkest, scariest, and most out of control magick I could find.
The beast’s tentacle squeezed tighter. I glanced down as the inky feeling settled into my lower torso. Everything below that was already gone. Holy shit. The beast was eating me. No wonder I couldn’t get enough energy together for the spell.
Emiko’s little rainbows of energy weren’t much more than an annoyance to the beast, if it stopped batting at her, she might get the chance to do something worse. I could feel her drawing energy to her as she bobbed and weaved, darting closer each time. Her eyes met mine, searching for a signal. I considered giving it to her, telling her to go ahead and merge with the beast. Being trapped in there with the personification of Emiko’s hunger and whatever it might do to me was preferable to letting it finish Mia. Mia and Sal deserved a chance at happiness, one that I would just get in the way of.
I didn’t get the chance. The ground rumbled. I winced as pain flashed through my head when a bright light shot through the beast, snapping the tentacle in half. With nothing to support me, I fell and then fumbled to get upright. Out of the little wisps of me that were left, my body reformed itself. Although I was more iridescent than before, I didn’t seem any worse for wear.
The ground thundered again and blinding, bright light poured out from something that stood between me and the beast. I raised a hand in front of my eyes and squinted, fighting to identify the strange, four-legged shadow that stood in front of me. My left hand instinctually closed around the feather and talon necklace, and suddenly, my vision cleared.
Standing between me and the beast was a brilliant, white wolf. He stood with his teeth bared and dripping black gore, head low, and ears back. Gray, black, and red werewolves I had seen, but never one with such pristine, white fur and never one so big…so beautiful. I couldn’t help but stand there and stare in awe. Who was it? Whoever it was, they’d managed to hurt the beast. Long, deep gashes dripped black, foul-smelling ichor from the beast’s back and neck as it howled in pain.
Another wolf leapt out from behind the broken down doors of the beast’s palace. This one, I recognized. Chanter’s wolf was slightly smaller than the white wolf and silver-gray in color. He lowered his head and growled. The beast would find no easy retreat into its fortress.
The white wolf looked back at me and snarled. That’s right. I was supposed to be doing something.
“Right,” I said, still not sure who I was talking to. “Keep it busy.”
The white wolf leapt at the beast and tore into it again. Emiko backed away. No need for a magick nuke. Not yet, anyway.
I closed my eyes and tried to drown out the sounds of battle, the strange, airy feeling of being a disembodied spirit, the fear of failure. The beast tried to scream into my mind, but every time it tried, Chanter, Emiko, or the white wolf (whoever he was) kept it too busy to succeed. I pushed all of that out of my mind and reached deep, searching for the strange magick of shadow and flame I had touched the day before.
And I found it.
I opened my eyes, the air around me suddenly crackling and popping. Darkness fell on me in a thick, palpable mist, and I bound it to my will. The darkness reacted, coiling around my arm up to the shoulder. Inside of it, I could feel the same living presence I’d detected before. It was a conscious shadow, clamoring to be unleashed. I held it, pulling more and more of it into me from the depths of my magick. Impatience coursed through the shadow, anger, need. I had to wait until everyone was out of the way.
The white wolf dodged to one side, only barely missing the snap of the beast’s jaws. Chanter was not so lucky. The beast swung his neck wide and crashed his head into Chanter’s side like a battering ram. Chanter’s wolf skidded away and lay still next to the doors. Emiko darted above, ready to slam down into the beast should my methods fail. They wouldn’t. Now that I had a clear shot, I was golden.
I released the shadow. It flew forward almost unbidden, all the energy of its need to consume and destroy, propelling it hard into the beast’s body. When it struck, the shadow broke like water over the beast, flowing up and over, enveloping it in utter darkness. I could feel the beast struggling, but it might as well have been a cat in a burlap sack. The darkness was impenetrable.
“Hunger,” I scoffed, closing my fingers around the tail of the darkness. “Let’s see how much you can eat.”
The darkness retracted, and the poor beast thought I’d let it go free. It staggered back, eye scanning wildly. I sent a pulse of power down through the darkness, an order. The darkness hesitantly obeyed. It reared back like a snake and then streamed forward into the beast, this time ramming its way down the beast’s throat. The beast’s bloated belly swelled even further. Its tiny arms and broken tentacles waved wildly, fighting the darkness as it filled the beast, but it was pointless. Its belly swelled to tw
ice its original size, then three times.
I grunted and poured more magick into the darkness. Even though I was exhausted, there seemed no end to the shadow I could call to fill the beast, so I poured even more into it. The white string around my middle snapped. I ignored it and gave even more.
When the beast had quintupled in size, its belly so large that it’s head and limbs disappeared inside it, I lit the shadow with an effort of my will. Fire raced down the darkness, licking at it, feeding on it, one with the darkness, with me. The beast screamed as it burned inside but it didn’t die. Not fast enough. With a flick of my wrist, I sent a snap of energy down the shadow that vibrated into the beast. It shook uncontrollably.
Then it exploded into a million flaming pieces.
Burning flesh rained down from the sky. The shadow snapped back against me when I called it, unhappy to do so. It wanted to be free. The darkness wanted more. I put every bit of effort into keeping it contained.
The last golden string tied around my middle snapped and fluttered away.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I reached out to grab the string, but it slipped through my fingers, trailing off in the night breeze. After using up so much energy to kill the beast, all I could do was fall over and watch it go.
A white blur flew past me. With a running leap, the white wolf caught the string in his jaws, somehow managing not to bite through it. He wagged his tail and backed toward me, lowering his head so that I could take the string. I couldn’t lift my hand.
Emiko knelt beside me and tied the string to my finger. She smiled warmly at me and touched my cheek, her form growing dimmer. “Our time together grows to a close. I must follow my darker half into the beyond. You must go home.”
I groaned. “I don’t think I can stand.”
Emiko looked up at the gathering storm clouds just as the first raindrops fell. “You should go soon.”
Chanter shifted back into his human form almost instantly. He knelt next to me. “And that, girl, is why you have friends.” He picked me up as if we were both completely solid. The white wolf laid down in front of Chanter, who placed me on the wolf’s back. “Hunter will take you home.”
I blinked. “Hunter?”
The big, white wolf rose to his feet, barely bothered by my weight. He shook his head and sneezed.
“Who else did you think would come to your rescue?” Chanter smiled knowingly at me. “There were only the three of you in that spell: you, Emiko, and Hunter. Well, and a little bit of me, of course.”
“What will happen to you, Chanter?” I asked.
He frowned at me. “What do you know about ghosts, girl?”
I thought for a minute. It took a lot of effort the way my head was pounding. “Unfinished business,” I said at length.
“And this foray was mine. Now that you are safe, at least for the time being, I’ve done my part. I suppose I could have left after I was sure Saloso adjusted the spell ingredients accordingly, but an old man can indulge.”
“But,” I stammered, “what about Sal? He still needs you. What about Cynthia? The minute I come back, she’ll attack everyone in the room. The Vanguard is still out there, and I don’t know anything about these new powers. And…and…”
The list of reasons why Chanter couldn’t go seemed endless. I needed him. Sal needed him. Chanter was the rock that we stood on, the person who made everything in Paint Rock work. Without him, what would we do? Even his ghost was better than nothing.
Chanter sighed and knelt, pressing his forehead against mine. “Oh, Judah, you stupid, stupid, white woman.” It was a gentle chastisement, almost endearing. “If I stay, I won’t be the Chanter you knew. I will fracture, as Emiko did, as you will if you stay. These things that worry you, I worry about them, too. I worry after Hunter, Nina, and everyone I must leave behind. But I do not have any answers that you cannot find yourself. Search your heart, your mind, your memories. Listen to the wind when it whispers in the sand and the night birds when they cry out. Hold onto yourself and the core of who you are. As for Saloso…” He chuckled. “The boy has a good woman behind him now and two young ones to look after. He will find his way.”
I used the last of my effort to throw an arm around Chanter. “It won’t be easy,” I said, squeezing.
He tipped his head into my arm. “No, girl, it will not.”
Emiko, now almost completely faded, floated down into my view. “You must take a message to Marcus for me. Tell him…” She hesitated.
I nodded. “I’ll tell him.”
Emiko smiled at me. Thunder rumbled above us, and the rain picked up. It washed her form away.
“You must go now,” Chanter said, nodding. “Hunter, move swiftly and take your mother home.”
Hunter took off at full speed down the side of the mountain, following the buzzing length of golden string tied to my finger. The string never tightened or gave slack, and I never had to wind it, no matter how far we went. It was always there in front of us, trailing off into the far distance.
We wound down the mountain and onto an empty road. Hunter ran tirelessly down it and followed the string into a barren field. His paws splashed hard against the puddles, and I had to hold on tight to his fur to keep from being thrown off. He scaled another hill, traversed another valley, the rain growing harder and faster with each passing moment. He ran for hours, and then for days, never seeming any closer to our destination. We passed forests, cities, and lakes, and still, he ran.
Slowly, my strength returned. On the third day, I was finally able to lift my head. I had accepted long ago that my eight minutes were up. Even though we were still following the golden string, we must have long ago surpassed the eight-minute deadline. I wondered if Cynthia had succeeded in her quest. Was Marcus dead? I imagined so. Dead and buried, probably.
On the fourth day, we came to a sandy beach at dawn, and Hunter slowed for the first time. The string went down into the water and vanished.
“Give up, Hunter,” I said into his shoulder. “This is a waste of your time and talent.”
Hunter shook his head, panted, and trotted into the ocean. I reached down and ran my fingers through the foaming surf. When was the last time I had seen the ocean? Had it been this beautiful? This sparkling and clean? This cold?
Hunter took us out beyond where either of us could stand and paddled in place there. I was too weak still to swim. He whined.
“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes. “I tried.”
Hunter took in a deep breath, clamped his teeth down hard on my arm, and dove into the icy blue.
My eyes snapped open, vision distorted by shallow water. I tried to draw breath, but all I got was water, water that I coughed out. Someone held me underwater.
In a panic, I spread out my fingers, summoned my will, and sent a focused blast of magick out. Whoever held onto my legs got a direct hit. So did the end of the tub and anyone else that was behind it. The back half of the cast iron tub cracked and broke, sending water spilling onto the floor.
I bolted upright and gasped, drawing in the most desperate, painful breath of my life.
The tub lay in ruins, the bottom quarter of it shattered into deadly missiles that wedged themselves into the wall. One had gone in not two inches from Marcus’ face. Luckily, he’d hit the deck in time. Sal had gone through the wall and now lay in an inch of ice water, blinking up at the ceiling. I owed them an explanation, but there wasn’t time. Cynthia was still somewhere in the room, and I had to stop her before—
Metal slammed into metal behind my head, and Reed grunted. I scrambled out of the broken tub awkwardly, fueling the movement with magick. My limbs were still floppy and barely responsive without the effort of will. Hunter’s fingers closed around my arm and he hauled me back, falling on his rear after a few feet. I used him as leverage to turn myself over onto my back so I could see what was going on.
The silver cylinder I’d seen Cynthia charging with magick was no more. Instead, she’d extended it into a freaking sc
ythe, one she was swinging wildly at Reed. He barely managed to dodge her next strike, then lost his footing on the icy floor and fell. Cynthia raised the blade of her weapon over Reed.
Marcus appeared in front of her. I hadn’t seen or heard him move. Judging by how surprised Cynthia was, she hadn’t either. Suddenly nose to nose with him, she went back a step and readied her weapon to take his head. Marcus snarled, bared his teeth, formed his fingers into a claw-like pose, and reached out, wrapping his fingers tightly around her trachea. Cynthia’s eyes went wide, and she forgot all about her charge to assassinate Marcus, breathing being her new priority. She dropped the scythe and it clattered to the floor, once again a harmless block of silver.
“You, my dear, are fired,” Marcus said, and tore her throat out with his bare hands, dropping the wad of muscle, tendon, and flesh on the floor as if it were trash. Cynthia didn’t make a sound. She couldn’t. There was absolute horror on her face for a moment before her eyes grew glassy and she went limp.
Marcus dropped her, spat on her, and turned back around to a room full of stunned bystanders to adjust his cufflinks. His entire suit was ruined, covered in a line of blood that stretched from his collar down to his waist. His eyes… They were completely black, although his voice didn’t betray the lack of self-control that normally went along with black eyes in vampires. “Good help is so hard to find in this economy,” he muttered and used his monogramed handkerchief to start cleaning the blood off his fingers.
Hunter tightened his hand on my shoulder and then searched for my hand. “Mom?”
I squeezed his fingers when I found them. “I’m here.” I closed my eyes. “How long was I gone?”