by Gaja J. Kos
A demonic lair under a church.
Even I had to admit it was clever.
I floated farther south, following the gang as they made their way towards the Drava River. Although there were quite a few people out, none of the passersby seemed to be paying the muscular, armed men any particular attention. Someone, it seemed, was very good at glamor aimed at non-supes.
Intrigued, I observed the meaningless interactions—a glance here, a glance there, everything one would expect while walking down the streets, but nothing beyond it. This wasn’t just glamor to conceal; it was the kind that cast an illusion, which only deepened my appreciation. Witch or Leshy heritage was my bet, but for the life of me, I couldn’t pinpoint who the source was.
The men reached the river without incident, then crossed one of the main bridges and headed west until the houses and residential blocks became sparser. Alin stopped his lethal procession in the thick shadows of the trees lining part of the road, the men gathering around him instantly.
I floated closer to take in the solitary, inconspicuous-looking building sitting behind a high hedge just a short distance ahead from where the group now stood. Alexander’s residence. It had to be.
“You go in.” I heard Alin’s voice, a bare whisper on the wind. “You kill. Swift and merciless.”
Everything about his words was hard, the demand lurking within them icy cold. No emotion, only the unyielding command of someone who had seen, and survived, far too many battles.
My atoms shivered.
He didn’t care why Alexander was targeting necromancers. In this moment, Alin was nothing but an executioner, bent on fulfilling his job.
Stunned by how easy he slipped into this second skin—or perhaps his true form—I nearly missed it when the group split up. A few of them doubled back down the road, undoubtedly angling for a back door entrance, while Alin and the rest moved to the front.
This time, I didn’t dare linger in the background. It wasn’t some rational decision, but an act fueled by the inkling inside me that urged me forward with such intensity I had no choice but to obey.
Alin lifted a hand, halting the group, then raised three fingers. Everything went still for a second, then the first finger fell. And the second.
When the third followed suit, he sent a pulse of power crashing at the door. Wood exploded, splinters flying everywhere, and on the heels of destruction, his men moved as one, spilling over the threshold.
Quickly, I followed, pushing my atoms to go as fast as I could, then stopped abruptly when I saw what waited inside the house. Or, rather, who.
A tall brown-haired man, his body nothing but lean muscles beneath a dark cloak, stood in the middle of the room.
Alexander.
And behind him was a horde of zombies.
In the split second I laid my eyes on the scene, the entire world halted so perfectly, so absolutely, I could have sworn not even a rogue breath pierced the deathly still. The next, power crashed and rolled, and every damned body—alive and reanimated—sprang into action. The zombies pushed past Alexander like a parting ocean, engaging members of Alin’s gang until they became a tangled mass of weapons and blows. Even in my particle form, the sudden onslaught of blood in the air made me nauseous.
Not so much the smell, but the implications it carried.
Because the zombies… The zombies were fucking military-grade corpses, handpicked by their necromancer for their durable bodies and strength. Shit. Army, police, even gang brutes—Alexander had reanimated them all and built himself an army that could fend off even a supernatural attack of the highest rank.
Crush it, even, since those were Alin’s men, falling onto the ground.
I scanned the room for the demon lord himself. He was a beacon of blue fire, the flames spreading through the space, engulfing the zombies with enough strength to melt the flesh off their bones.
Yet whenever the blaze retreated, the zombies were left standing unharmed.
Shit, shit, shit.
I knew what it was—and Alin, it seemed, realized it, too.
He physically engaged the zombies coming at him, directing his power at the necromancer rather than the bastard’s work. Because it was him he needed to stop if he wanted to rip apart the zombies.
What Alexander did was dangerous and rare, but terrifyingly efficient.
He didn’t imbue the flesh of the dead with his necromancy; he linked them to his own life force.
With a connection like that, Alexander would feel every death like a dagger sliding through his mind, but that was a scenario unlikely to happen. Because as long as his own body was shielded, nothing of the magical variety could end the reanimated flesh.
The zombies could be cut down into pieces and rendered inept, but in that state, they were far from destroyed. The only way to kill them was to burn them down to ashes, and that could only be achieved through magic—or fire, if you were able to hold the reanimated in place for long enough, which was next to impossible all on its own.
Fuck.
I pushed across the room, following Alin’s movements as he hacked and fought his way closer and closer to Alexander. Blue tendrils coiled towards the necromancer like vines—the same technique I had used on Alin earlier when we play-fought. Only, unlike him, Alexander hadn’t left a damned inch of him unshielded.
If the bastard truly had a dash of Vedmak or Vesnin blood running through his veins, he was probably using a magic-laced amulet for protection, the potency of such a charm far grater than if its bearer would have been wholly human. Shit, I needed to find out what it was, what kept him safe from Alin’s power—and rip the damned thing off his flesh, laying him bare for Alin to move in and destroy.
But the bastard was robed, and there wasn’t as much as a glint of a chain alerting me to the presence of an amulet. Crap.
I was as close as I could get, and short of slipping beneath his clothes, there was no way of seeing from where Alexander was syphoning the fucking power. I circled around, torn between revealing myself and trying to overtake his zombies and just keeping out of damned sight.
What use, really, was I, when Alin’s men were falling like untested rookies before the strength of Alexander’s magic? I started to make my way out, hoping I could maybe hide myself off the premises and tried to expend my necromancy from there, when the now familiar lull stopped me cold.
I whisked around, dread rushing through my atoms as I laid eyes on the carnage.
The floor was slick with blood and unrecognizable heaps of flesh, a few of the zombies still feasting on the fallen. And before Alexander, was Alin, pinned in place by muscular, reanimated hands, a peculiar shimmer dancing around his skin like undulating waves of heat above sun-kissed pavement. It flared purple as a final murmur left Alexander’s lips, and the necromancer smiled, the glint in his blue eyes dripping with sadistic victory and making my mind explode with silent cries.
Because that shimmer—it was a containment ward.
Alin couldn’t reach his particle form, not even the umbilical cord, connecting him with his lair. He would never be able to escape the zombies’ grasp.
Or the polished, lethally sharp blade of the sword now resting in Alexander’s hands.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Demons could be killed in their flesh just like any other being. Our immortality didn’t give us a get-out-of-jail card. It simply made us tougher to kick off this plane and into the underworld. Trepidation zinged through my atoms, slowing down Alexander’s movements as he pulled back his arms, preparing to deliver that final blow.
I didn’t think. I simply propelled myself down with everything I had, magic rushing through me as I torpedoed towards the ground and reformed even before I landed, placing myself firmly before Alin.
And right on the collision course with Alexander’s sword.
Chapter 17
The sword swept sideways bare inches before it would have cleaved my head in two, and an amused, menacing laugh rolled through the air as A
lexander’s gaze met mine.
“Well, well, well,” he purred, a sound far, far from pretty. “All that work, all those men, failing, and here you come to me of your own volition, Lana Kasun. Or do you prefer Lana Ambrose?”
I didn’t answer. And nobody moved.
Not even Alin, though I could feel his anger crashing into my back like the sea undulating beneath a stormy sky, fierce and powerful.
“You know,” Alexander drawled, his voice staggeringly casual, unlike the grip he still had on his sword, “I’ve heard a lot about you in these past months. Necromancers… They talk a lot when they believe information will stop my associates from taking their lives.” He laughed. “Funny, how one likes to delude oneself under the proper circumstances. But you”—his gaze studied my face, then traveled down my body before moving up again—“you’re different.”
There was a glint in his eyes I really didn’t like. It hinted at actual admiration, and that was enough to chill me to my very bones.
A smile touched Alexander’s lips. “You…” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. Or his luck. “It will be an honor to face you personally, Lana.”
I swallowed. Fucked-up. That’s what he was. If only that streak of madness didn’t make him even more deadly. I licked my dry lips and met his gaze.
“Why? Why would you hunt and kill necromancers? Your own kin?”
Something close to disgust flashed across his face, but it was brief, barely a flicker. He shrugged. “Why does anybody do anything? Why does the captive demon lord sneering behind you taint his hands with blood?”
“Power,” I whispered.
Alexander’s laughter carried through the room. “Not just a pretty face, then.”
I glanced around, taking in the zombies, the touch of Alexander’s necromancy flowing within them. Thin line. I was walking a thin line, but I had to give it a shot.
“Right, but there’s one thing I still don’t understand. You’re already powerful. What you’ve done here, the magic I sense… Why would you feel threatened by necromancers of…lesser talent and strength?” I stumbled on that last part, perhaps more than anything because it was true.
I’d never felt the kind of strength Alexander was exhibiting. The things he could achieve with it… I shuddered.
“I do not feel threatened,” he hissed, and I flinched before I could catch myself. “I simply do not need these insects interfering with my work. I do not need them to walk the earth, directing even a smidgeon of attention anywhere else than where it belongs. With me.”
I didn’t point out that masses always gravitated towards power. It was a rule of nature that held, regardless of how much one might wish otherwise. Beings of power acted like magnets, and although there were disputes—even fights to the death in the demonic society—they were usually born of the unwillingness to admit that someone was better.
That, however, didn’t seem to be Alexander’s case. He was already more than a few levels higher than any of us could even dream of reaching. His recognition, fame—whatever the fuck he wanted to call what he craved—would have come in due time. And yet I’d never even heard of him until that day in the warehouse.
None of it made sense. If he would have simply shown himself to the supernatural community as the necromancer he was, he would have won the recognition in a blink of an eye. I hardly believed there would be anyone left ignorant of his strength if he raised a few zombies for the people to see. But the bastard didn’t only want to be the best of the best, did he?
He wanted to be the only fucking one.
A shiver slipped down my spine. Even in the Shadow World, we didn’t get cases as messed up as that. Fighting over territories was one thing, but what Alexander was suggesting... Shit.
“It will be a pleasure to—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. Power shot from my core, my necromancy smashing into every corpse on the ground while the mix of demonic and Kolduny strength rammed into the ward containing Alin.
The double attack caught Alexander off guard.
I felt, rather than saw, the spell shatter, and a battle cry tore itself from Alin’s lips as he flung himself at the two zombies pinning him in place. Sadly, the upper hand lasted no more than a second.
I threw myself to the side and out of the way as Alexander came at me with the sword, but my movements were automatic, relying on instinct rather than thought. Because my mind—it belonged to the reanimated.
Each and every one of the men Alexander had killed, by his hand or by proxy, was now on his feet. The bastard might have chosen military-grade corpses, but Alin’s men weren’t that far behind.
With a long breath, I cleared my mind, and I used every bit of knowledge I had. What Lena had taught me. What Alin had. Even the things I’d figured out on my own as a woman running a bar. I used it all, fed it into the zombies, including those maneuvers my own, smaller body could never hope to achieve.
The reanimated clashed like an ocean of deathly force, punching, cutting, and slashing at each other, while Alin and I fought Alexander and his zombies with the force and precision of our energies. But, somehow, the bastard still managed to keep throwing distractions at Alin, sidetracking him from what he needed to do. From what we both needed him to do. Shit, shit, shit.
Without Alin’s immediate assistance, Alexander and I were matched.
As long as the would-be zombie lord kept pushing his creations Alin’s way, I didn’t stand a chance at besting him. Not one-on-one. Not even with the reanimated members of the gang at my back.
Sweat rolled down my temples and my stomach was doing some seriously uneasy flip-flops, but still I kept on trying, knowing that the moment I’d give in even an inch, he would blast me out of existence.
Sadly, that was a prospect likely to happen.
While my powers were still strong, I had trained with Alin before coming here…
I paused.
I’d trained with Alin.
My hand slipped to the dagger tucked in the inner pants holster at my waist. I’d never thought I’d be this happy to possess a weapon.
Alexander was watching me, but not nearly well enough. I pulled a few zombies from the fight and sent them running his way, then charged with all I had, the dagger resting securely in the palm of my hand. Infused with magic, it sliced through the protective sheen enveloping Alexander’s body, but didn’t pierce flesh.
I spun the blade around, ready to strike again, only the bastard beat me to it.
He twisted to the side and lashed out with a foot, sending me flying against the wall. Whatever the hell ran in his blood, it matched my demonic strength because the sheer force of his kick danced black spots across my vision.
Fury contorted Alexander’s face as he rushed at me, the promise of my death swirling in his blue eyes as wildly as his black cloak billowed behind him. Still gripping the dagger, I called three of the nearest zombies to my side. Even as they moved, I knew they were going to be too late.
One shot. I had one shot to stab him before he’d do me in, ending me with a thrust of his damned sword.
The blade cast off a sinister shine as it soared through the air, Alexander’s movements precise, yet unpredictable. I forced my breath to calm down, forced myself to study him, to find that opening—when an invisible force rammed him aside.
Alin materialized where Alexander had been a split second ago, his powerful frame riddled with cuts and scrapes, and nothing but ice cold fury resting on his features. He ran after Alexander, but the scumbag rushed out the door, a thick, inky protective sheen dropping down from the support beam the instant he crossed the line.
Fuck.
The bastard was getting away, but the zombies—they were still fighting. I rushed to Alin’s side, keeping a wall of reanimated flesh between me and the battle still raging throughout the room.
“We need to leave,” I hissed. “Without Alexander here, the zombies will last longer than I can.”
Anger puls
ed off Alin’s body in heated waves that sucked the very oxygen out of the air, but he nodded, strong arms wrapping around my back and waist.
“Let go,” he barked, and the instant I retracted my necromancy from his fallen subjects, we were nothing but atoms, flowing down the umbilical cord only he could reach.
We landed not in the throne room, but the personal, almost intimate chamber that was purely his. The place of power. The one he had been given at birth.
Oddly, it didn’t feel as if we were purely in the Shadow World, but more like sitting on a seam between the demonic and human lands. Admiration rushed through me at the thought, but the peculiar sensation also left me a little disoriented.
I was glad when Alin didn’t release me the instant we materialized, although I let out a little gasp of surprise when he swept me off my wobbly feet and carried me to the adjacent room—his private quarters. He eased me onto the ground then, his touch gentle, even when his expression was anything but.
I opened my mouth, but before any words could flutter into the air, he spun around and walked to the other end, nearly obliterating the boxing dummy standing there with a combination of fists and power.
“What the fuck were you thinking coming after us?” he shouted, emerald eyes turning dangerously dark and drilling into mine. “Why can’t you just fucking listen for once?”
I winced at the harshness of his tone, the exhaustion making it only that much worse to keep my emotions in check. I felt like crying, and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t if he kept shouting at me.
But all Alin did was groan, then stride across the room to the sofa dominating the opposite wall. He threw himself onto the black cushions and buried his head in his hands, a labored, frustrated sigh ricocheting off the walls. I had no idea why, but I padded over, not exactly within reaching distance, but close enough.
“I’m being a dick,” he rumbled, the words muffled as they burrowed into his hand. He rubbed his face, then glanced up, looking every inch a torn man. “Alexander would’ve…” He let out a breath, the powerful frame of his shoulders visibly loosening. “You saved my life.”