Unturned- The Complete Series

by Rob Cornell

  I spun around, ready for anything. Mostly ready for another hell beast.

  Green stood with his back to me, facing the parking lot. He was looking at nothing, because the car had disappeared.

  “Easy, buddy. It’s an illusion. The car’s still there.” I didn’t bother telling him there could have been half a dozen other cars parked in the same spot. His poor, pot-addled brain had enough to process without trying to grasp the impossible physics behind that tidbit.

  He didn’t move, so I grabbed him by the arm and tugged him my way. His stance was as solid as he looked. He didn’t budge until he was ready to budge. Thankfully he snapped out of his awe and came along willingly.

  He muttered under his breath all the way up to the third floor, which housed the Ministry Investigation Division. This district’s MID didn’t have as many guardians staffing it as those in Detroit itself. The further from the metro area you went, the thinner the guardian coverage became. Unlike normal law enforcement, the Ministry guardians didn’t need or want to cover everywhere. Anything beyond the Detroit Ministry’s direct jurisdiction didn’t much interest them.

  And the Global Ministry Faction filled in the gaps when necessary.

  The desk sergeant downstairs had relieved my worry that my contact could have moved on by letting me know, not only had he stuck with the Royal Oak district, he had risen to second in command of its MID.

  The MID offices looked so non-magical it was kind of sad. They had long since abandoned their hooded robes and torch lit catacombs. Now they worked in a cubicle maze with desks, phones, computers, and copy machines. The air smelled of printer toner and burnt coffee. Fluorescent bulbs behind clear plastic tiles in the drop ceiling gave it all a startling sharpness that hurt my eyes.

  Matt Pierce welcomed us into his office with a big smile, showing off his nicotine-stained front teeth. He shut the door behind us and ushered us into a couple of chairs in front of his desk. He wore a shirt and tie with the sleeves rolled up. His pink scalp showed through his blond crew cut. He was one of those fair-skinned guys who could go up in smoke if they spent too much time outside during the summer.

  He slapped me on the back hard enough to sting. Matt liked to hit. It was his way of showing affection. “Where have you been, mate?” he said in his faded British accent as he rounded his desk and sat. “Besides foolin’ around with vamps, Mr. Unturned.”

  I gave him a flat stare. “Not you, too.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, but it’s quite a story, right?” He turned his gaze to Green. “Right?”

  Green stared, lips slightly parted, breathing through his mouth. “Uhh.”

  “This is Green,” I said. “He’s a witness.”

  Matt raised his blond eyebrows. “You’re back on the job then? I heard you’d stopped taking contracts.”

  For crying out loud, the rumor mill sure did grind in the paranormal community. “This is a special circumstance,” I said, letting him believe this was for a contract without lying to him outright. Asking for MID help for a personal matter wouldn’t have gone over so well. This, at least, gave me an air of legitimacy. “I need him to look through your mug book.”

  Matt’s brow wrinkled. “What are you hunting?”

  I smirked, trying for cocky. “I’d rather keep it quiet. I don’t need a bunch of other hunters chasing my leads.”

  “You think I’d tell, mate? I’m hurt.”

  “Just playing it safe.”

  He seemed to consider that. Then nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll set you up in a room.”

  He led us to a conference room with a long oval table surrounded by office chairs on wheels. Green and I took a seat. Matt asked, “What are your parameters?”

  “Skinny, tall, and covered in tattoos,” I said.

  “Hm. Should be easy.” He headed out, gently closing the door behind him and cutting off the whir of copiers, trill of phones, and bleep and hum of fax machines.

  “What’s going on?” Green asked with a confused frown.

  “If this guy you saw has a criminal record with the Ministry, he’ll have a mug shot. I’m hoping you’ll find him if you flip through the book.”

  His eyebrows drew together. He did not look any less confused. “There’s only one book?”

  I laughed. “You’ll see.”

  Twenty minutes later, Matt came back with a leather bound book about the size of an old CPU tower. He thumped it onto the table with a humf. “Sorry it took me so long. ‘Nother chap couldn’t decide if he was looking for a woman or a banshee. Can’t he tell the fucking difference? I mean, it’s obvious, right?” He smacked Green on the shoulder. “Right?”

  Green cringed. The poor bastard looked shell shocked.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Matt said. “Just let me know you’re done on the way out.” He pointed at me. “We need drinks.”

  “Several,” I promised.

  He slugged me in the arm and left.

  Rubbing the spot he’d hit, I swiveled my chair around to face the book on the table. The leather was a deep forest green with a gold border around an otherwise blank cover. I flipped it open to a random spot in the center. Printed across the thin parchment were mug shots, six to a page. Despite the material they were printed on, the pictures looked as clear and vivid as a digital photo on a computer screen.

  The pages smell like cedar.

  Each photo was a full length shot. The twelve faces on the pages I had opened to all belonged to tall, skinny looking guys with various tattoos. I slid the open book over to Green.

  He jerked away as if it might snap at him.

  “It’s not going to hurt you,” I said. “The book is enchanted, obviously. The guardians can use certain parameters to bring up mug shots that match. It’s like a magical database without all the pesky typing.”

  Green looked up from the book at me. “How deep does this rabbit hole go, Sebastian?”

  I smiled. “Pretty fucking deep, my friend.”

  He reached for the book, touched one of the pages, then drew his hand back. He blinked a few times, set his jaw, and nodded to himself. Then he pulled the book closer and looked at the mugs. He studied each picture with care, taking his time. When he got through the twelve, he shook his head. “None of them.”

  “No big deal. Flip the page.”

  “Which way?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Magic, remember? You’ll get through them as you need to.”

  As if he wanted to test my words, he flipped back three pages. Another set of six mugs on each page materialized like spilled ink taking a life of its own to form the pictures.

  “Whoa.”

  He scanned through these a little quicker than the others. Then he tucked his thumb in about a hundred pages down and flopped them over.

  Twelve more mugs appeared, all of them different than the others.

  Green gasped.

  At first I thought he was awed by the magic, then he poked his finger at the picture on the upper right corner of the left page.

  “That’s him.”

  I leaned forward. Skinny and tall was right. Based on the markings on the wall behind the man, he stood almost seven feet. His thin neck, the entire surface covered with tats, looked like it could snap in a strong wind. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt that left his narrow midriff showing. He could have bought the shirt from the kids section, yet it still hung loose on him.

  I touched the bottom of the picture and a name written in neat script scrawled itself across the page.

  Horton Plutskinst.

  What a name.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, though I could see the certainty in his eyes.

  He nodded. “No doubt. That’s Tree Man.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I reconnected with Matt and he was able to give me a last known address for Mr. Plutskinst. Green looked ready to pass out, so I took him home. He fell asleep on the drive. It took Odi threatening to suck his blood to wake Green up and send him insid
e.

  I had Plutskinst’s address on a small sheet of notebook paper in my back pocket. It felt like it might burn a hole in my ass. I wanted to follow up right that second. But it was after midnight, and pounding on his door to wake him up and confront him directly wasn’t the approach I wanted to take.

  I took Odi to my grandparents’ house and arrived about two in the morning. The snow continued to fall, thick enough now to make the roads a little wonky. My Jetta didn’t weigh all that much, so I took it slow, tacking on an extra twenty minutes to the trip.

  Looking at the house, I had to admit the layer of white, the steady snowfall, and the moonlight all combined made the property look beautiful. The bare branches of the maples and oaks surrounding the edges of the acreage were lightly dusted. The cold still needled me, yet I took a moment to stand outside and appreciate it. Then, strangely for me, I decided to stay out in it.

  “Let’s practice some fire magic,” I said to Odi.

  He drew his head back and cocked an eyebrow. “You serious?”

  I gestured toward the stretch of land behind the house. “Plenty of room.”

  The smile on his face nearly killed me.

  Don’t forget, that smile is on a vampire.

  Why did that voice in the back of my head always try to ruin everything?

  We trudged out about a hundred yards from the house and directed our casting away from it. I had Odi start with his small flame. He could call up the equivalent of a candle flame instantly now. I had a stupid grin on my face the whole time I worked with him from then on.

  With concentration, he grew his flame larger and larger, until it stood a foot off his palm.

  “This is magical fire,” I said. “It has the same basic properties as all fire with the significant difference that you control it. But if you lose that control, the fire acts like any other. That means it can burn you, too.”

  He stared at me through his flame, its light shining in his wide eyes.

  “But if you’re really good, like me…” I raised both hands and engulfed them in fire. “…you can let in just enough heat to keep your hands warm in freezing ass weather like this.”

  We both laughed.

  “Can I do that?” he asked.

  “This?”

  I held my hands out in front of me, still surrounded by fire, and turned them over and back as if displaying a magic trick instead of real magic. Then I swung them out at my sides and back in front of me. Orange light trails arched along their twin paths.

  “Show off.”

  I cut my power off, and the flames winked out instantly. “How does your hand feel?”

  He looked down at his own flame floating barely an inch above his palm. “A little hot. But it doesn’t hurt.”

  I realized I’d made an error of judgment. Odi was a vampire. He didn’t feel pain as acutely as a human. Which meant his level of comfort (or discomfort) was different from mine. I would have to take that into account, because he could end up cooking himself before he noticed how hot his fire actually burned.

  “Let’s hold off on that,” I said.

  “Aw.”

  “Hey, you’re really catching on. You—”

  “Sebastian!”

  I jumped at the sound of my mom’s voice cutting through the night. I turned toward the house. She stood on the porch in her night gown, waving her hands above her head frantically.

  “The hospital called,” she shouted.

  And from her tone, I knew they didn’t have good news.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My heart raced as I jogged down the hall on the ICU floor. I ran by Sly’s old room. All the glass from the shattered window had been swept up. Most of the equipment inside had been removed, leaving the empty bed alone in the center. I didn’t know where they had moved him, so I ran to the nurses’ station.

  “Sly Petrie,” I said, panting. I had a stitch in my side. I had taken the stairs up, too impatient to wait for the elevator. My chest ached from my hard breathing.

  I must have seemed like a crazy man, but the round-faced nurse behind the desk didn’t appear the least bit phased. She’d probably seen it all on this floor—well, except for hell beasts slinking down the halls. She didn’t seem to recognize me. I wasn’t sure if she’d been on duty at the time of the incident, but if the Ministry clean-up crew had done their job right, it wouldn’t have mattered. She wouldn’t recognize me.

  A hint of a sad frown touched the nurse’s face. “Dr. Prashad is waiting for you.” She directed me to the proper room, and I sprinted for it.

  Prashad stood beside the bed. None of the machines bleeped or clicked. A number of their displays were dark. Sly lay motionless, his skin tone yellow, mouth hanging open and a small collection of foam in the corners. His eyelids were half open, but all I could see was the jaundice of the whites, as if his eyes had rolled back into his head.

  Which they had, I knew, the moment I saw him.

  My stomach twisted. My face felt tight. Tears blurred my vision.

  Prashad inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry.”

  I barely heard him. He didn’t exist to me. Nothing did, except for my friend. My dead friend.

  My mouth split open, and a roar exploded out of my throat, rattled in my chest, burned like magma all the way up. The edges of my vision faded to red. I charged to his bedside and knocked Prashad out of the way. I clutched the plastic bed rail and shook it. I wanted to tear it loose. I could feel some give, and that made me yank even harder.

  “No,” I sobbed. Thick mucus warped my voice into something I didn’t recognize. “No, no, no. Gods damn it, no!”

  Prashad said something behind me. The rush of blood in my ears muffled the words. I spun on him. “Get out of here you incompetent fuck. Get out.”

  His eyes widened. He staggered backwards as if I had shoved him.

  “Get out!”

  He shuffled sideways, then turned and hurried out.

  My hands felt hot. I looked down at them. A blue glow surrounded them. Not quite fire. More like hot vapor. I felt the plastic rail soften in my grip. With one mad jerk, I yanked the rail and two chunks of it came away. I threw them aside, and they clattered away along the tile floor.

  I tried to draw back the growing heat in my hands. My skin started to peel away, revealed the bone and sinew beneath. The pain only fueled my rage. If I didn’t redirect my magic, I would burn my hands to black stumps. I sucked in a deep breath, thrust the force of my power outward.

  A wild gust of wind spun through the room. The machines skated away on their wheels or tipped over. A box of latex gloves on a nearby counter ripped open. Gloves scattered like rubber windswept leaves. The rush of air caught a cabinet door, flung it open, then wrenched it free at the hinges. The door sailed at the glass wall, struck it with a corner, then bounced away, leaving behind a spider web pattern in the glass.

  I heard frightened shouts from down the hall.

  I didn’t care. I couldn’t care.

  The wind picked up speed, whirled around me like a cyclone, snatched the privacy curtain off its track in the ceiling and sent it fluttering through the air, following the wind’s current until it caught on and draped a chair.

  “Sebastian.”

  The voice was calm, even, but firm.

  I turned toward it.

  Mom stood in the doorway. The wind whipped her long gray hair across her face. Her stern eyes bore into me.

  “Stop it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Stop it.”

  I felt like maybe I could. I only had to jam my power deep within me. Draw away the power, and the magic would die. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to tear apart this place, blow every brick apart, and swirl away all the horrible excuses for healthcare professionals up into the sky, beyond the clouds, and let them drop where they may.

  I didn’t have that kind of power in me, of course. No sorcerer did. Not with their inborn magic alone. But I could still cause a serious amount of damage. I could
still kill someone. As angry as I was, I didn’t want to do that.

  I clenched my teeth and bared down on my power. I forced it to draw in instead of pour out. As I did, the wind slowly died, all the stuff caught in the gale dropped to the floor, and, eventually, the room fell silent.

  I looked down at Sly. I had blown his covers off, revealing him in his hospital gown. His skinny legs stuck out the bottom of the gown and looked so fragile. The wind had mussed his hair and—gods, what a fool I was—turned his head away from me.

  Tears streamed down my face, hot against my cheeks, the few that curled into my mouth salty.

  “He’s gone, Mom. He’s gone.”

  She crossed to me, wrapped an arm around me, and pressed up against my side.

  We cried together. I don’t know for how long. A thousand years. The whole while I felt the pain along the backs of my hands where I had burned off my skin. I ate that pain and made sure to taste every agonizing bite. I deserved that pain.

  But Sly…

  Sly didn’t deserve any of this.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I felt them staring at me. At us. I wiped snot and tears off my face and turned to face them. At least half a dozen faces peered in through the glass wall, some of them whispering, others frozen in awe or horror or hate. It all looked the same to me. I was only vaguely sorry that the Ministry would have to “attend” to them again, maybe even alter their memories once more.

  I had caused a lot of trouble for the hospital’s ICU.

  But they had let Sly die.

  Fuck them.

  Mom touched Sly’s face, brushed strands of his hair off of his cheek. She choked on a sob. Her trembling vibrated through me.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. The question sounded so innocent and vulnerable. Not the voice of a centuryand a half year-old sorceress. Not the voice of my mother.

  My wind had turned the air in the room frigid. My sweat cooled and felt like dried paste on my skin. My tears felt the same way. I kept thinking of tall, skinny men with tattoos. Tree Men. A Tree Man named Horton, to be specific. Along with Horton’s address, Matt had gone over his rap sheet with me. Horton had a number of charges against him, including assault by magical means. But two of the charges were for possession of illegal effigies. It appeared Horton had a thing for hurting people from afar, using a representation of his target to dole out abuse.