At the Behest of the Dead (18 page)

There was no sound, no breath. A void encompassed me
, and when I tried to think, what should have been my head was instead a giant box of pain. Then I felt like my skin was being pulled off. It was a shame that I had no mouth because all I wanted to do was scream bloody murder.

Then the vortex open
ed up again and it was a rollercoaster ride to a shuddering stop that ended with me gasping for breath while staring out of a stranger’s eyes. Balkir woke up and screamed behind me, but he was no longer in control. I stared out of one bloody eye, my view distorted, like I was stuck in a fish bowl. Pain racked my body and made me scream, only nothing came out because I had forgotten to inhale.

The room was ripped open and the demon was suddenly there. He batted aside one of the students, shook off a hastily cast ice harpoon fro
m Collin, and went for me. The ‘me’ I was now. Not the ‘me’ I was fifteen seconds ago.

Blood was life and life was essence. All that I had been, and all that was tied to my body
, was now inside of Balkir. It didn’t matter whose skin I wore. My soul was being sought by the demon, and no matter where I hid or whom I hid in it would find me.

Glenda fell back, holding
a couple of pieces of straw she had produced from somewhere. She wrapped them around her fingers, tying them as she chanted. Within seconds she had a man shaped object in hand. She was chanting as loud as she could, her hands covered in blood. I wanted to reach for her, only the demon reached for me first.

It snapped up my body in elongated hands. The demon’s mouth had been a slit
, but it opened wider and wider. I tried to claw free, though its talons sank into my body. No, Balkir’s body. He screamed somewhere in the back of my head, but I was almost oblivious to it as the demon’s fangs sank into my back and stomach. It lifted me into the air and shook like a dog. I screamed in Balkir’s voice. Blood splattered everywhere, and I knew I was going to be sucked into the maelstrom with the creature then tortured for an eternity. The only comforting thought was that at least I would be taking Balkir with me.

There
was a sharp pain as Glena raised her little stick man above her head and stabbed in into my leg, but it wasn’t my leg at all. It was the leg of a man that lay crumpled on the ground.

The dem
on tore Balkir’s body in half. However, I didn’t even feel it as I was once again in the vortex.

Pain made my soul shirk i
n agony; pulsing waves of it made me wish for death, only I knew this would be my world for an eternity. The demon had us now and we were completely at its malevolent mercy.

The void closed into a tiny space
, and I went from intense all over pain to serenity as I floated on a sea of calm introspection.

Then the peace I had briefly felt was shattered as consciousness kicked my ass out of the fugue state. I was back. More accurately, back in my body with my soul
, even though I felt like I had been passed through a meat grinder, flattened into a patty, and then cooked under a broiler. There was no single part of me that didn’t hurt and, worst of all, I couldn’t breathe!

I opened my eyes to darkness. That’s when I realized that Glenda had her mouth pressed to mine as she breathed life back into me. But it was nothing as amazing as
a spell to resurrect the dead. No, that was left to my kind. Rather, she was performing CPR. I wished I were lucid enough to appreciate her attention, because her lips were warm and soft and the only thing that didn’t cause discomfort.

Her eyes bore
into mine and seconds later I falling into them, like the lost soul that I was. She gestured then placed one hand over my forehead and dumped a foul brew down my throat. I gagged and tried to beg her not to silence me. Then darkness was all around.

Chapter
Nine

T
he void was immense.

My essence floated and enjoyed a moment of freedom. The pain had faded
, although I was aware that my body was a mess. Was it too late to wish that I were dead?

A voice spoke my name and a figure rose like a flame before my eyes. The face was familiar
, but I couldn’t say why because my mind was still a jumble. It spoke, and after a few words I became aware that the voice was talking to me. No, it was calling to me, and to my great disbelief it seemed to belong to a person in even greater pain than I.

“Phineas, l
ook to the staff. All that has been kept from you will be clear.”

I shook my
head, only there was nothing to shake. It was the voice of an old friend. Awareness came again, this time of loss. Not of mine but that of a loved one.

“Salazar?”

“Phineas, the staff!”

“Salazar! Tell me what you mean! Why did
Balkir kill you? Why?” But I was shouting at a ghost. I thrashed, though it was no use. I needed to follow him, but something bound me. So I fought, though I had no strength. It was a maddening struggle.

Then someone pounded on my chest and fire
raced across my face. I opened my eyes and formed a spell that would incinerate the room.

T
he words evaporated before I could utter them.

Glenda stood before me and she did not
appear pleased. She had that disapproving look on her face, and it was only compounded by her arms being crossed under her breasts. Her hair pulled back in a tight pony tail. Her smooth skin was marked by lines of consternation as she looked me over.

“Stop!” She put one hand over my wrist and forced my
fingers down to my chest. I had been pounding against something like I was trapped.

“You’re going to hurt yourself, or the wall. My bets on you.”

“Urgh,” was the only intelligent thing I could manage.

“If you do that again I’ll tie you to the bed.”

“I thought you weren’t into that stuff,” I croaked.

She pressed my wrist down o
nce more, this time pinching the skin when she withdrew her hand.

“
Ow!”

“Big b
aby.”

I was back, b
ack in a body. My own judging by the amount of pain that was building. The worst was in my chest, where it felt like I’d suffered the mother of all heart attacks.

The room was dark
, but Glenda hovered and even patted my hand in a reassuring manner. She brushed the hair off my forehead and wiped it with a wet towel. Since when was Glenda so caring?

“That was brave, Phineas.”

“Just kill me now.”

“I warned you that this would happen.”

“You didn’t warn me strongly enough. Next time employ a stick.”

I managed to roll over and find the pan she had prepared. Bile and blood poured out of my mouth and I gagged on the taste, the smell, the feeling
of lumps like curdled milk. This triggered my gag reflex -- again -- and I couldn’t breathe. She used the towel to wipe my mouth.

“I have something that will settle your stomach.”

“If it’s a new line of work, I’m ready.”

She dumped something down my throat when I tried to ask her a question. I gagged back the noxious stuff.

“Enough!” I protested, but I did feel better. What was that crap? Moonshine?

“So tell me the end of the story. Was it a happy o
ne after you knocked me out?” I did not cover the hostility in my voice.

“
Balkir was sucked into the wards.”

“What was he after? He
wanted something only Salazar’s death could unlock. So what was it? They’ve known each other longer than some civilizations have been in existence.”

“Good question. We’re still trying to put the pieces together. Do you have any idea if Salazar left you something? Some message? Some hint?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

The void called again but I ignored it. Having Glenda in the room was comforting. But that was the extent of the relationship I desired. She could play
nurse as long as she wanted to, as long as we didn’t try to go back to the way things had been. How had things been? Well, a disaster. I could think of few lovers less suited for each other. Opposites attract – until they want to kill each other. To say our break up had been epic would be like saying the iceberg had been a damn shame when the Titanic happened upon it.

“
Ow, my head. Why do I get the feeling you had a hand in this? Something to get me back up here and into your clutches.”

“Why you shallow, albino skinned … charlatan! If you think I had anything to do with that mess, you can just go chase another demon without me.” Then she slapped the shit out of me
, so I leaned over and puked.

After
taking a moment to recover, I looked at her and wished I had something nice to say.

“Really?
Balkir? How much of that demon Viagra did it take? He must be close to two millennia …”

“Do you want me to hit you again?”

I need a new line of work.

**

Sleep was my companion, but not before Glenda managed to pour some other wretched elixir down my throat. I fought her, though I was as weak as a kitten and she was able to pinch my nose between her fingers. I gagged on it, sputtered, tried to tell her to go to the hells, but the words never came out because warmth suffused my body. It pushed me close to the void, but instead of the all-consuming blackness I found myself floating somewhere soft and comforting.

I
tried to hold onto reality, though it was pulled away and I slept. Before I passed out, I remembered the words that had been burned into my mind not so long ago. Break the staff. That was it. Salazar had managed to get a message to me, but I was too weak to do anything about it.

Then I didn’t know anything at all for a long time.

**

Two nights in a row
I’d managed to get my ass handed to me. Two nights in a row I barely escaped with my life. I was ready to go back to the old way, where nothing crazy ever happened except the occasional spilled potion component, or waking to Bilbo’s beady-eyed stare, or old kindly old ladies stopped by and asked me to do a job. Wait. Scratch that last wish.

I tossed and turned and thought long and hard about getting up
, but the part of my brain that told my body what to do was having issues.
Move leg!
Went my command. Leg responded with a close approximation of the middle finger.

It was the second day since the fight and no one would leave me alone. I asked Glenda to put a sock on the doorknob and she giggled. Then I asked for a do not disturb hex and that made her mad. “Do your own damn parlor tricks!”

I considered asking one of the younger guild members to do it, but none would stop by my room long enough. When I did sleep, I usually woke to fresh water, food, and on occasion – flowers. Now who in the world would be so sweet? Glenda said it wasn’t her, said I must have a secret admirer. It certainly wasn’t Ashley. If anything, she would likely send me a pile of dead roses. She was probably too busy looking for a job anyway, since I’d managed to put her out of business.

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift into that region that isn’t quite sleep. My
brain wandered until I thought I heard someone come in the room.

“Get up
, you idiot of a warlock.” Glenda kicked the bed.

So much for peaceful dreams.

They’d put me in one of the recovery wards and that made me nervous. The name ‘ward’ reminded me too much of the hells below, and in one of them a very angry demon was probably torturing Salazar. Being in the wards was bad enough, but someone who had once commanded demons and bent them to his will wouldn’t have been a welcome guest.

I looked over my
room. It was sparse, much like a hospital room, except for the artwork. Dark inks had been used to paint warlocks dashing across a starry sky. In one mural a guy with a flowing beard offered a sword to a young man. Merlin. I bet that guy was a warlock that didn’t get his ass kicked every day.

The other feature in the room was Glenda.

Her jet black hair hung in her typical bob. The ends caressed the bottom of her chin like soft daggers. She wore a skintight red leather suit that would probably be right at home in a dominatrix’s wardrobe.

“You teach like that?” I asked.

I glanced down to find that the thin sheet had fallen halfway down my chest, revealing the partially healed wounds from my chest piece. The scars were so old and worked over they looked like raised scabs that never quite healed. I shifted around and determined that I was buck naked.

“I wear a robe,” s
he said, rolling her eyes.

“Lucky robe,” I muttered.

“Pardon?”

“Do me a favor.”

“If it involves dumping a pitcher of water on your head, I’m all ears.”

“Nothing so dramatic. All I did was get a little confused with your lips.”