Grave Sacrifice

by Russ Linton

  Out came his knife. Some kind of frontier bear killer of a blade with a wicked hook. I dropped into the fighting stance Araceli had shown me. I motioned for him to come at me.

  “Bring it, Daniel Boone.”

  He waited, trying to lure me inside. A shadow crept up behind him while he played it safe. Jagged teeth bared in the void. Atofo’s blade came slamming down into the top of the officer’s skull.

  The soldier didn’t drop right away. Dead, for the second time, he didn’t seem to realize it yet. He staggered to face his killer.

  Atofo snarled. With his talons, he raked the dude across the face. The head whipped my way, his cheek and eye ripped open.

  “Don’t look at me, bitch! That was a sneak attack.” The final swipe took the last bit of life out of the officer and he disintegrated. Atofo dragged his bare foot through the remains. “Already killed him three times now.”

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  He pointed at the stairs up to Colonel Marti’s private quarters. “Waiting for the Big Chief. Isn’t home.”

  “Way to think ahead and not share.”

  “Like you would’ve listened! Remember? CAW CAW!”

  I was not going to let this fool play bent with me right now in the middle of this siege. “Have you seen Araceli?”

  He pointed toward the closed doors of the chapel on the other side of the courtyard. “She said she’d be there. We’re supposed to keep all these mongrels away while she works.” He gave me a worried look. “I have a poultice for bad ears. Smells like a porcupine’s anus, but clears up hearing loss.”

  “Atofo, let’s think about this. If Colonel Marti isn’t here and isn’t in the battle, where else could he be?” I asked.

  He started to argue, wagging his finger. A piece of dangling skin on his fingernail caught his attention and he flicked it away. “We might have dropped the ball there, eh?”

  We ran into a fresh batch of reinforcements from the barracks while crossing the courtyard. Araceli’s repairs didn’t weaken his blade, only enhanced it, and we ripped through the undead like a whirlwind of steel and obsidian.

  Francisco’s wedge of men on the stairs had pushed to the courtyard. I shouted and pointed to the barracks. He gave a quick nod before parrying a bayonet, spinning the attacker around, and forcibly wielding the soldier’s weapon against the crowd while he slit his throat. Damn glad he was on our side.

  If he could get his men into the barracks, that might give us the edge. He’d make it happen. Would it make a difference?

  Stop restraining my power! Release me and I will end this for now and all time. Or are you a coward?

  Kibaga was coming at this hard. Come to feed on my uncertainty. How far would he go? If this joker could level a fortress, make it like it never existed, what could he do to a city?

  “I’ll do whatever I have to do to save my friend,” I said. “But we do it my way.”

  “Ms. Stabbyhands will be fine,” Atofo said as he raced beside me. He must’ve assumed I was talking about Araceli.

  She’d had some dark ass thoughts, what with dragging terminally ill patients over here for a sacrifice. Then all this with the ritual she hadn’t shared any information about. The magic in the book was closer to what she did. I’d just trusted her all this time that she had it under control.

  But with vengeance powers goin’ awwf in my own brain, I realized how hard that could be.

  The closer to the sealed chapel doors, the more worried I got. How far off her game was she? I’d kept her from getting revenge on her father’s killer, she’d then run into this freaky twisted version of Alchemy, and the one thing I’d seen make her smile lately, Caleb, had been abducted by powers beyond death. All that aside, she’d tied her fate to a guy with one foot in the grave.

  I came to a stop with a hand on the chapel doors. Painted black and studded with iron, white marble stained with age arched above them. What would we find in there?

  “Atofo, I’m not sure Araceli can take care of herself right now.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes eagerly on the door. “The little Alchemist is like a badger. You think they’re going to be dinner and then they’re all attached to your face, clawing out your eyes.”

  “I just want to know you’re going to help me get her out of whatever she’s gotten herself into. None of this fronting between you two.”

  “Do I have to promise?”

  I nodded.

  He rolled his eyes and raised three fingers. “Scouts honor. Like a real scout. So it counts.”

  I’d have to settle for that with Atofo. Whatever the hell was going on in there, I worried I was running out of time to help her. Caleb. Kitterling. Anything happened to any of them, I might just let Kibaga raze this national monument, for real.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  We entered the chapel quietly. If Araceli was quietly doing her thing to get Caleb and Kitterling out, we’d post up outside and hold. If Colonel Marti was in there? I rubbed at the raised scar on my wrist. Hope he had some prayers ready.

  The little chapel only had room for two rows of pews and they’d been pushed aside. Eroding floral designs bordered fonts carved into the corners. A ledge on the front wall served as the altar. Candles glowed there around a certain book made of flesh and blood, pages twitching in the trickling heat. One of Araceli’s knives shone in the candlelight.

  On the floor in front of the altar, more candles outlined a roughly sketched magical circle. The Colonel had taken a knee in the center. Araceli knelt beside him.

  “Should we come back?” Atofo huffed his nasty graveyard breath over my shoulder.

  I did the church thing and put a finger to my lips. What was she doing? Was this part of whatever ritual to free Caleb and Kitterling? What would Araceli’s prep school training see here?

  She’d drawn the circle quickly with a piece of chalk. The design on the floor had three concentric circles. I recognized an alchemical symbol for Venus alongside an antlered skull, and the rough sketch of a woman in robes. The bit of graffiti tugged at my memory. Naw. Couldn’t be right.

  I crept closer. Atofo followed, lightly closing the door. Araceli and Marti were chanting in Latin. Legal terms, I could stumble my way through, but Old World magical incantations, I didn’t know. They continued chanting, lost in a trance.

  With the noise of battle behind the sealed doors, I heard a gurgling. More bad vibes of the recently experienced kind. My eyes went to the holy water fonts. Red blood stained their stark white bowls.

  Araceli had made her own ritual concoction. Sykes failed immortality, the Flagler prison, elements she’d thrown together along with whatever was in that book.

  And beyond ritual, I saw ceremony. I didn’t attend church much. But there were things you don’t forget. Keandra and I stood before an altar...we didn’t kneel, we didn’t recite Latin, but some churches just might.

  “Is she...”

  Atofo nodded.

  Araceli had lost her damn mind.

  Had she expected us to wait for Mrs. Araceli Marti to come out and tell us to summon our friends? That how she wanted this go down? And the symbols here, the circles, the nods to fertility and longevity, was she making this place his prison? Her’s?

  “I should say something,” Atofo whispered.

  I had nothing. Dry fire. None in the chamber. I let Atofo step up.

  “I object!” he shouted, his deep voice booming off the arched stone vault. Both the Colonel and Araceli started. He turned first, his mustache bristling at the wedding crashers. “What?” Atofo demanded. “I wish somebody would’ve done that at my wedding.”

  Colonel Marti sprang to his feet. Araceli dipped her head and made a weak attempt to keep him in place, but he shrugged her off. For his special day, he’d gone with dress uniform, sword included. He drew it with a vicious swipe.

  “I see this criminal has no bounds to his indecency.”

  I ignored the undead clown. “Sister Alchemist Princ
ess, you wouldn’t be making deals for your soul with the dead dude, would you?” I asked.

  “Ace,” she said, her voice a low warning. “We’re running out of time.”

  I came forward, not even caring about the officer’s menacing stance. He wanted to duel now? I was ready to eat. But I damn sure wanted an explanation.

  “Out of time for what? For you to make this sacrifice? I told you, that isn’t how this goes down.”

  She shot to her feet. Colonel Marti put out a hand, a “My Dear, leave this to the menfolk” on his lips, and she smacked his arm away.

  “How? How will this power corrupting your soul save us?” she said, gesturing wildly at the ribbons of shadow leaking from my chest.

  I didn’t know what to say. Kibaga still raged inside. Pretty sure he couldn’t be convinced to raise the dead this time. These necromantic energies were too different from the Sunset King’s stolen power. No, Kibaga’s solution involved leveling the whole fort, and I think he could. That might plug whatever necromancy time warp had been created, but it wouldn’t help Caleb and Kitterling.

  “Dolores, remain calm,” Colonel Marti said into the silence. “This is our day and nobody, not even this crass vagrant, can ruin it.”

  I stepped up and waved my sword. “Maybe I sacrifice this clown? That good?”

  He crouched, poised like a fencer. “Have at thee!”

  Araceli bitch slapped him and hard. The sound echoed in the small chamber. He fumbled for words, but couldn’t come up with the completion.

  “This moron? He’s a golem. A robot.” She backhanded his head again and his hat went sideways. More bobbling for words as he lost his fighting stance and fussed with his fancy hat. “These undead are soulless simpletons.”

  “Hey,” Atofo said quietly. He stood beside me, knife out. The shaman had gone from enjoying the Jerry Springer episode and fallen into an intense focus. He moved closer, eyes intent on deciphering the ritual circle, the altar.

  Araceli continued ripping into Colonel Marti. “There’s nothing but duty and jealousy keeping him here. No bond. No phylactery. I’m his special connection. Me. Because he believes I’m his lost love. And he’s the focal control of this little spell, like the clock at Flagler, remember?”

  “Dolores,” the Colonel finally stuttered, “what are you saying?”

  Araceli rolled her eyes. She glared at her dense husband to be. “Honey, let’s just finish the ceremony, okay?”

  His expression beneath the hole through his head glazed over and he gave a distant nod. “Yes. I’ve been waiting so long for this.”

  “So what happens to you?” I demanded.

  “We fade away into a mirror world of this chapel. I’ll be his undead bride for the rest of eternity. And I hope to God you have the balls to come by and take my head with the goddamn demon sword!” she roared.

  “No! That isn’t how this goes down!”

  “You can’t die here, Ace! Too many threads in this Armageddon end with you. Too many powers have come to your aid. Me? I’m extinct. I’m the last of a species with only a few corrupted perversions remaining. My duty requires me to make this sacrifice.”

  “She’s got a point there,” Atofo grumbled. But his heart wasn’t in the trash-talking. He continued to circle, examining the symbols on the floor while Marti kept an eye on him.

  “Drop the savior complex,” I shouted. “You think I wanted all this? Is that what you’re on about? That I’m out to steal your glory? Only reason I’m here is by accident. I went to die in the wrong damn place and woke up a spirit who sold my parts to his patron.”

  “This is about Caleb, not me, warlock! Kitterling might already be completely sundered from his soul, but Caleb has a good chance if I act now! This,” she said, indicating the circle, “will save him and trap this oaf.”

  “And trap you too!”

  Her voice started to tremble. She fell in on herself, vulnerable. I saw a little girl staring down at her father’s body. Weakness. For the first time. “Caleb doesn’t deserve to be exposed to this...this curse.”

  This wasn’t the imprisonment curse she was talking about. The curse was a world all fucked up by magic. That’s what she was talking about. The curse of her. To leave no doubt, she drove it all home.

  “Izaak,” she said, “he doesn’t deserve that life either. He needs a father at home. Me? Where do I have to go? Who do I have?” She waved a shaking hand at Atofo who’d managed to slip even closer in the wavering candlelight. “I have my duty. That’s all. My curse is to lose the ones I love and I’m choosing to end that. Today.”

  She held out her hand and her knife on the altar shot into her palm ready to plunge the knife deep in her own chest.

  Atofo exploded into the circle from a standing leap. His big form checked the Colonel and the officer pitched toward me, his hat toppling to the ground. I swatted away his clumsily aimed blade with the Shaw Sword. Inside the circle, Atofo grappled with Araceli over her knife.

  Colonel Marti got his balance and spun toward the scuffle. “Unhand her!”

  I moved in on the Colonel, ready to execute a takedown. Atofo would need help with Araceli but somebody had to keep a sword out of his back. My lunge didn’t go unnoticed and Marti expertly changed direction. I got my sword up barely in time to parry.

  “Dolores! I’m coming!” he cried, his frantic eyes fixed on me, the only obstacle between him and his bride to be.

  I readied for the next flash of steel. One sword-fighting lesson since my first fight with this clown wasn’t enough. Traces of Kibaga’s warrior spirit helped keep the first few passes even. But the Colonel was a player. Once he’d felt out my weaknesses, he set his brow and the muscle memory of a skilled fencer came back to those dead hands.

  By the altar, Atofo applied brute force and raw power to Araceli’s smaller form. They were a tangle of limbs and turning parts. He held her down while she twisted and grabbed, every move she made intent on breaking free, his full focus on controlling her blade.

  Dead or not, Marti had been a master with a blade in a time when the fights weren’t for medals but for blood. I winced with every cut he opened. The more deadly stabs, I barely parried.

  Sure, he’d learned swords as a way of life or whatever. But I’d learned pain. Could’ve been an even match, if I weren’t the only one who could bleed. I shuffled back into the ritual circle behind the relentless attacks.

  Their fight on the ground, Araceli had managed to mount Atofo. She had the ferocity, the skill, but the Timucuan was just too damn big. Her free hand was going for another knife. With a wild roar, he launched off the ground with her straddling his chest. Still holding her knife hand in an iron grip, he smashed the blade on the edge of the altar. It tore from her grasp and skittered toward me.

  I stopped to kick it across the room. My foot just half a step out of place, Marti’s sword jammed into my side.

  The thick wool officer’s coat caught the blade. I felt the sharp tip press into my skin then get dragged away, opening a gash. Pain blinded me and I nearly fell. That wound, I’d just recently healed. Marti grinned and came in for the kill.

  I was done playing. Whatever the cost, I reached for Kibaga’s power and got an immediate callback. Sputtering light from the candles got doused. Shadow crested up to the arched ceiling. The Colonel’s confident advance stopped as I watched him peer wide-eyed into the dark.

  I laughed. Or maybe that was Kibaga, an eerie sound in the pitch. Colonel Marti lashed out toward the noise, but I wasn’t there anymore. I lashed out with the demon slayer sword well above his thrust.

  His head joined his hat on the floor with a muffled thud. Seconds later, he was ash.

  A dangerous silence fell. Candles flickered to life. Atofo and Araceli stood apart, panting. He leaned heavily on the altar. In one hand, he held one of her knives. One more was jammed into his forearm, blood pouring. Another he pressed against the floor under his foot.

  “Tell me she’s out of knives,” Atofo panted.r />
  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, clutching my side and tossing my chin toward Marti’s dust. “No more wedding.”

  Araceli stared me down, jaw set in grim determination. “He’ll be back. This won’t end.”

  Her eyes flicked to something I couldn’t see and I started to move. Slowed, just a fraction of a second by the pain rippling up my side, I watched her arm shoot out and the knife I’d kicked away came hurtling past me.

  This time, her hand wasn’t open to catch it. She’d swung her guiding fingertips toward her throat.

  “Noooo!”

  Too far away. I snatched at the air. Shadows extended my reach and I thought maybe Kibaga had spared some final power for this moment. But the sliver of moonlight shredded the grasping tendrils.

  Araceli lay on the ground, Atofo standing over her, the alchemical missile jammed into his heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Ow.”

  Atofo collapsed. He didn’t fall dead, just staggered to his hands and knees in jerky movements like a wounded beast. Crimson strings of blood and saliva poured over his bottom lip and pooled on the chapel floor.

  “Atofo!” I let the sword fall and raced to his side, crouching by him, trying to see where he’d been hit.

  He swatted me away. A frustrated growl rose in his throat and he spit a glob of blood onto the chalk-marked floor.

  “What did I say?” He strained to speak, his bloody smile that of a predator off a fresh kill. “White people need therapy.”

  Araceli had gotten herself upright. She stared, dazed, trying to understand what happened. Her ponytail a tangled mess, I saw strands of her hair between Atofo’s fingers.

  He’d brutally yanked her to the ground and taken the knife.

  I tried again to get him to lie down. He fought, fingers tracing the designs along the floor. Then he seemed to lose all strength. He stumbled to one elbow and rolled onto his back.

  I peeled aside the Spanish overcoat he’d borrowed from Caleb’s closet. His chest a patchwork of tattooed scales, the silver dagger ruined that hand-drawn symmetry. Only the narrow pommel stuck out from his sternum.