by Gaja J. Kos
In the end, I decided to play it safe. At least until I was face-to-face with the stranger.
Unfortunately, that proved to be a far more difficult thing to achieve. I had no idea how, but when I skirted around the last of the high tables and veered towards the booths where the stranger lingered, he was already gone.
I swore. Vehemently. But as the third string of curses wanted to leave my lips, I noticed a dash of fabric out of the corner of my eye.
No, the bastard didn’t disappear.
He was headed out the door.
And so was I.
Chapter 7
I never could figure out what had given Martin and me the ability to share zombies. If I had to venture a guess, I would say it probably came out of being nearly inseparable since we were both in our late teens and only learning how to wield this power we were growing into.
Necromancers weren’t rare, exactly, but occasions when we flocked together certainly were. Maybe we were just solitary creatures by heart. Maybe it was our magic, refusing to exist in the proximity of its own like.
Either way, we were on our damn own for the majority of the time. Not exactly a major setback if one raised zombies to do their dirty work and could let them drop dead—well, er, as dead as they were—at any given second. But those of us running legit business—for sups or humans, it didn’t matter—could suffer a heavy hit in case something went wrong.
Having someone who could pilot the already reanimated corpses instead of you was a blessing. One I hadn’t needed until now, true, but in this moment, it sure felt like a gift from the gods.
I placed a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Can you man the bar for the rest of the evening?”
He didn’t ask me why I was handing him the reins. He simply nodded, vines of his power already tapping into the ethereal bonds that curled from my core, creating a channel between me and the reanimated flesh. Goosebumps erupted down my skin as I felt Martin’s presence graze against my magic. In a way, it felt oddly like an overstuffed tunnel, packed so tightly it would drive a person mad. And under any other circumstances, it probably would have. It wasn’t merely unpleasant; it was an intrusion into something intimate.
However, the familiarity of Mart’s touch in my mind, in my very core, made the transferance tolerable. I waited until there wasn’t a single sliver of space left unsaturated by his presence, then slowly retracted my own necromancy.
A breath whizzed out of my lungs once the last of the tethers was gone, and I scanned the bar, my gaze skimming the three zombies. Seamless. The transition had been seamless.
“Thank you,” I said and placed a quick kiss on Martin’s cheek before dashing out the door.
Due to the power shift, the stranger had a head start, but there were sufficient traces of his essence still lingering in the night air. I dashed into a nearby alley, called to the demonic particle form, and let it swoosh through me with all its force. The next second, I was already floating on the currents, following that faint thread weaving through Maribor’s darkened streets.
In a manner of minutes, I had him.
The bastard was moving fast. Not exactly running, but not strolling like the rest of the people outside, either. For a second, I contemplated dropping down on top of him as he entered a fairly quiet street, but something about the way he acted implied he had places to be.
Places I clearly needed to be, as well.
So I stayed a few steps behind, floating just high enough not to brush against any other pedestrians walking about. While chances of anybody sensing me while I was in particle form were slim, I didn’t dare risk coming closer. That barrier I’d felt around the man when I’d scanned him at the bar bugged me to no end, instilling a fair amount of caution I knew better than to ignore.
While I certainly could flee with expert speed and couldn’t be physically harmed, my chances of fighting in this disembodied state were next to zero. Something about it muted my abilities, making me more vulnerable for any attacks of the metaphysical kind, while at the same time preventing me from lashing out with my magic. I was grateful enough to even be able to sense threads of power, if not exactly able to tap into my own.
As I continued to trail the stranger, the streets around us became emptier, losing that urban glint in favor of a much more industrial vibe. Hostile vibe, as well.
I should have known his path would take him Melje’s less than appealing industrial zone, but still I’d hoped that wouldn’t be the case. While I’d always been fond of Maribor, this was a section I tried avoiding at all costs. Every place has its bad side. But Maribor’s… Nothing good ever came out of this part of town, but even more so, nothing good ever went in.
But luck, it seemed, went only so far, and mine was obviously determined to dispel entirely.
A few more blocks and we were as deep within the heart of the rundown zone as we could get. A shiver buzzed through my particles. If the shady individuals lurking about weren’t enough to drive a person away, the shells of old houses tucked among soulless, industrial monstrosities were grisly enough to make any sensible individual contemplate taking a walk elsewhere.
All in all, Melje was the kind of place you wandered into at night if you wanted to die.
A bitter laugh flowed though my mental tones. The irony most definitely wasn’t lost on me.
But before I had a chance to doubt my actions—and maybe make the wise choice to retreat—the figure slipped into a particularly nasty-looking building brushing against the night sky. I hovered by the entrance for a second longer, then decided to slip around and push in from the back rather than go for a direct approach. I wasn’t that careless.
Besides, with the abundance of destroyed windows the building boasted, finding a crack to squeeze my particles through wasn’t all that hard.
I followed the sound of voices, floating past a myriad of conveyor belts and heavy machinery right to the heart of the warehouse. The closer I got, the clearer it became that whoever was here, they were arguing. Good. Heated emotions like that always made the people involved slightly less attentive to their surroundings. And, in this case, cleared the path for me to get closer.
After a quick check to make sure my own senses weren’t overlooking anything that would jump at me from the dark, I lowered myself to the ground at a fairly safe distance from the bickering group and reformed.
My feet made no sound as they touched the dirty concrete, and before I even took a breath to fill my once more corporeal flesh, my magic was already scanning the rectangular hall. The feedback, however, wasn’t one I expected.
I cocked my head to the side, brow furrowed, and tested the air again.
No change.
Human. They were all human.
And yet there was a presence of something other lingering around their cores, almost as if magic leaked onto their skin. Not changing, but marking them in some way I couldn’t quite unravel.
I frowned and reeled in the tendrils of magic, not wanting to push any harder. If a person of power was hiding somewhere among them, I couldn’t risk letting them sense my probing, regardless of how gentle it might have been. I blew out a slightly frustrated breath, then slowly made my way towards the heart of the hall on foot. I kept myself shaded to the best of my abilities—a demonic trait I wished I’d inherited more of, not just these few wisps of darkness I could produce—and moved from crate to container, my movements perfectly silent. Not that it mattered much.
Because the group was arguing, oblivious to anything but the harsh, heated words. And, judging by the sound of it, things were escalating quickly.
When I reached the final line of merchandise, I climbed up. The jagged edges made for excellent purchase, and in a manner of seconds, I was already crawling across the dusty surface of the top, pushing forward until the voices came with a visual.
My stalker from earlier was standing in a group of fifteen or so men—some hooded, some not, but all of them fit, even if obviously sporting very different ages. A pair of
them were restraining another by his arms quite forcefully, but their faces… It wasn’t violence I saw written in those harsh planes, but concern.
“You don’t have to like it, Rado,” my stalker said to the one who tried slipping from his cronies’ grip. “It’s either the necromancers’ lives or your family’s. There really isn’t much of a choice now, is there?”
“I can’t be the only one who disagrees with murdering necros,” the restrained human snapped back, gaining a nice little choir of supporting voices in return. “We’ve already brought, what, five corpses here for him? How many more can he possibly need? And for what?”
“It doesn’t matter what Alexander wants with them,” another answered. “Fuck”—he thrust a hand in his long black hair—“you saw what he did to Mario’s wife and his two little girls when the sod refused to kill that woman.”
Nausea rolled through me. I had to use all my restraint not to throw up over the edge. Gods, they were killing necromancers. Plural. But even more so, the news coverage of the family slaughter flashed before my eyes with sickening vividness.
Supposedly, the husband had flipped, skinned his wife and disembodied both daughters. He pleaded innocent at the trial, but all that got him was a one-way trip to the high-security psych ward.
It was one of the men restraining Rado who spoke up next. “So what, we kill ten more? Twenty? A hundred? Until a month ago, I didn’t even know necros existed. Yeah, I knew of the one Vitan went after yesterday, that blue-hair chick, but, fuck, this is a whole community we’re speaking about. It’s genocide.”
“We should’ve gone to the police when it started,” another said.
“And what?” It was my stalker who hissed those words. “We already had blood on our hands. They would only throw us in jail, and Alexander would come through with his threats regardless.”
The group shifted uncomfortably, muttering their agreement, excuses, and gods knew what else. Only one figure remained oddly calm, his features concealed beneath a dark hood. Perhaps, unlike the rest of them, he really didn’t mind the killing.
Palms sweaty, I raised myself slightly off the surface, mindful not to disturb the dust. I’d seen enough for one night.
These men, while responsible for the murders, weren’t of importance. But I had a lead now. Alexander.
There couldn’t be that many people going by that name who also had an intimate knowledge of the necromancers active in the country. All I needed was to narrow down the suspect pool.
I inched back, muscles stiff from the fear I had no way of dispelling. The soles of my sneakers brushed against the edge of the container, and I eased myself over it, trying to find a foothold, when a loud creak ricocheted off the warehouse wall.
A creak that originated from inches above my head.
I swore, palms digging into the worn, thin iron as the damn thing peeled away from the top of the container and swung me sideways. Right into the group’s line of sight.
Another whine sounded from above, only this time, it wasn’t just the wall of the container that bent and twisted. The entire bloody thing gave way under my weight.
I didn’t have time to call to my particle form. I didn’t even have time to think about anything but not getting buried under the sharp pieces of rusty iron. I dropped down onto the ground, the impact kicking the wind out of my lungs, and feverishly rolled away, clearing the space mere moments before the whole container—and the one beneath it—tumbled to the side.
Dust and debris littered the air, a particularly nasty bit of iron scratching the concrete bare inches from my head. I pulled myself up into a tight ball, arms held in front of my face in a desperate attempt to shield myself from a very pointy death. But just as I thought I’d survived the brunt of it and peeked from behind my arms, I noticed that I wasn’t alone in the aftermath of the crash.
No.
A tight circle of humans stood around me, more guns pointed at my head than I could count.
I swallowed. Past the pain. Past the fear.
Fuck. There was no way to skirt around the harsh reality.
My magic wasn’t designed to shield me from an assault like this.
And not even the change to particle form could outrace a flying bullet.
Chapter 8
Time slowed to a terrible crawl. I had no difficulties seeing every damned detail, felt the taste of death lingering in the air. And yet I knew no more than a fragment of a second had blown by.
It was a cruel trick of fate, making me believe as if there were still time to do something, not just linger a heartbeat away from falling into Veles’s realm with a bullet lodged in my brain.
For what little good it would do me, my magic still rolled and coiled beneath my skin, its instinct to protect flaring up, yet at the same time refusing to surge and whisk me away. The men must have been sensitives, because the way they tensed up meant they knew something was going on.
Sadly, it didn’t discourage them one damn bit.
If anything, they pressed even closer.
The successive clicks of seven guns echoed through the space like a macabre choir. I fought the impulse to close my eyes. Damn it, if I were going to die, I at least wanted to go down facing the fuckers. Lena would have been proud.
The cloaked man who remained silent during their meeting pushed forward, gently separating the sea of men and loaded metal with liquid grace. I sucked in a breath, accepting it as my last one, when, all at once, the surroundings snapped into real time.
The man cast his hood back, growling, “Shield!”
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t as much as let surprise sweep through me as those distinct emerald eyes met mine. Magic exploded from my core the instant Alin unleashed his, burning the very air around us. Men shrieked, guns melting in their hands and taking the skin off those who were too slow to let go of their weapons. I watched Alin move in a blur of pure power, all fists and kicks and tendrils of fire-touched darkness.
My own shield was a translucent wall as I lay on the ground, not daring to even move lest I interfered with Alin’s lethal dance. All I did was draw on that small part of my strength that had been designed to protect, focusing on spilling outward until I was panting and a vicious headache started to pound in my head.
With the guns gone, the magic kept the bastards from reaching me, although certainly not for lack of trying. Every man who wasn’t on the receiving end of Alin’s lethal fury angled to breach the protective bubble, ramming into it as if attempting to take down a bloody door.
And, on my side of things, it felt like it, too.
I ground my teeth with each new attack, infusing more and more of that piss-poor amount of defensive power into the atmosphere around me. But even as the brunt of my concentration went into the task, my eyes simply refused to leave the—now very much bloodied—demon.
I’d never seen anyone fight like that. Not even Lena.
Power flowed from him in seamless, deathly currents that hit their targets every damn time. Precisely, as did his punches. He snapped the neck of a hooded man, then lashed out backward with his boot as another came at him, sending the bastard flying straight into the embrace of a shadowed vine that stripped him of his life with bone-chilling swiftness.
There was a kind of silent, lethal beauty in the way Alin fought.
Mesmerized, I watched him engage the humans until they were nothing but heaps of flesh scattered on the ground, and the demon lord was the only one left standing. A victor on a field of carnage.
I swallowed, gingerly lowering the shield—and regretting my decision the instant I saw the pyres of anger burning in the green of his eyes. For a second there, I stopped breathing and simply stared at him, torn between the impulse to shift into particle form and flee, or stay and face the force of nature that was Alin.
To my surprise, I chose the latter. And Alin—he reeled his power back in.
Neither of us said a thing as I somehow managed to lift myself off the ground in a cloud of dust and
stand on rather uneasy feet.
I brushed a strand of electric blue hair off my face, daring to meet that burning emerald. “What are you doing here?”
A barking laugh met my words. “What we agreed to.”
My eyebrows rose. In all honesty, when I’d come to Alin for help, I hadn’t expected it would be him doing the dirty work. Isn’t that why every underground lord had their underlings?
“At least I was,” Alin growled, “until you fucking swooped in and took the whole fucking container down.”
I didn’t want to, but I winced. That certainly wasn’t one of my proudest moments. Fidgeting, I bit my lip and mumbled, “Thank you. For saving me.”
“It’s part of our deal,” he said rather dryly, but I could still see a glint of anger pulsing beneath the cool surface. He shrugged off the bloodied cloak and cast it onto the ground.
“I can’t have you interfering with my business if you want me to hold up my end of the bargain, Lana.” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the russet strands. “If you’re so bent on waltzing in like you did today, then why the fuck even come to me in the first place?”
He was right. I wasn’t going to apologize to a demon-slash-gang lord. But he was right.
“So do you have any idea who this Alexander guy is?” I asked.
The distaste that crossed his hard, handsome features made it clear the name was one he’d come across before. He kicked away a corpse, stepped over the next, and motioned me to follow.
As we distanced ourselves from the carnage, Alin pressed his hand lightly against the small of my back, guiding me around a series of crates and broken machinery before he met my gaze. “Alexander wanted to join our ranks a while ago. I gave him a test period, like everyone else with potential, but he failed to get the final admission. My organization works because the men are reliable. They know how to follow orders, regardless of what their individual aspirations might otherwise be. But Alexander…” He shook his head, then swung the rusty iron door open for me to pass, the sudden absence of his palm against my back more unnerving than I wanted to admit. “He put on a good show, the prick, but every facade eventually goes to shit if you poke at it for long enough.”