At the Behest of the Dead (31 page)

Balkir
gestured and my bonds fell away. I wondered what fresh madness this was but didn’t wait to find out. I rolled off my hard bed and almost managed to get my numb hands underneath as I crashed to the hard floor.

“
Ow.” I managed to mutter as hundreds of the little demons ran past.

What? I thought they were planning to d
evour me. Maybe a lucky break. Maybe, just maybe, I could whip out a spell of shielding, or better yet an illusion to hide behind. I tried to grasp at the cusp but it simply wasn’t there.

“Strange, isn’t it?”
Balkir said next to me in a lecturer’s tone. “We spend our lives learning how to reach through the curtain that separates us. How to go deeper and deeper beyond the cusp. But when you are on the other side it doesn’t make sense. How was it we grasped for this power, yet when we are here the power … is not.”

I struggled to my feet and almost got my hand up before
Balkir’s fist crashed into my head.

I spun and went down again. My head buzzed and went numb. My eye would have a dandy
of a bruise.

“I could come up with a thousand tortures for your meddling
, but sometimes the classics are the most satisfying.” He kicked me in the stomach.

I was tossed onto my back
, but had to roll onto my side and curl up. I couldn’t get anything into my lungs. The kick had been precise, catching me right in the solar plexus. I gagged, sucked in a tiny bit of air, and saw stars.

More blows
, and I wasn’t sure how long the beating went on. I drifted between pain and a surcease that tried it’s best to carry me away. Consciousness, though, would not depart no matter how much I wished it.

At one point
, I was sure he was using some kind of stick or staff on me. My legs, arms, and back were covered in welts.

I cried out, promising things that made me feel nothing but shame.

After something approaching forever, the blows let off and I was allowed to float in a world that was blessedly free from pain. There was an ache between my eyes, but I figured that was just from one of Salazar’s strikes. Blood dripped from my nose and mouth. I took in a breath, and it passed into lungs covered with cracked ribs. I had pissed myself at one point, but blessedly had managed to keep control of my sphincter.

“
Phin,” A familiar voice said.

“
Piss off,” my unfamiliar voice replied. It was scratchy and I knew it was from screaming.

“Listen. I haven’t much time.”

One eye fluttered open and I wished I hadn’t bothered to open it. The ground was still there but it was out of focus. My left eye refused to budge. Fine, screw you then.

The o
bsidian floor was slick. Now who had spilled a glass of water in the room? Then I realized it was my blood. The thought of water almost drove me insane. At this point I would have sold my soul for a glass.

“
Phin!” The voice again.

“You aren’t real, Salazar.”

“I’m as real as you, idiot son.” I looked up to see my old mentor huddled beside me.

“Is this your Obi-Wan moment? He struck you down but you are more powerful in death and all that shit.”

“Nothing of the sort. I fled when the demon eviscerated me. The portal was open so I took it straight to this realm.”

“So you’re in hell too?”

“Yes. First ward, but I have little power here, Phineas. I am only essence and have no substance. If Balkir sees me, he may be able to hold me in thrall. Listen to me and listen well.”

“I hurt everywhere.” I tried to roll away from the trick my mind was playing.

“Stop whining and listen!”

I tried to sigh
, but it came out a rasp.

Skittering shapes rushed around the room. Where had the huge demon gone? His form, so human like, had scared the shit out of me. I might have been a powerful
warlock on the other side, but here I wouldn’t last two seconds against the demonic monstrosity.

“You’
ve been gelded, but not for good,” Salazar whispered in my other ear. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the mind fuck. “Think of the image on the letter I left you. Hold it in your mind and remember sinking into it. Do you have it?”

I didn’t but I tried. I concentrated on my trip to the secret room. Glenda had been with me and it was
her, as my anchor, that allowed me to focus enough to imagine the letter in my mind. The hand drawn glyph swam into view and I felt, once again, the sinking sensation.

Something lashed out and struck me
, but not a physical blow. My brain sang as something smacked at the core of my being and passed through my physical body and into my essence.

“You must focus.”

“Christ, leave me alone!” I tried to scream, but the words were barely a hiss of consternation. “Wait, gelded?”

I did my best to reach for my balls
, but moving, even an inch, was pure agony.

“Not there, here!” And a finger poked me between the eyes.

“Aches there.”

“Of course it does. You are a child of the cusp and he knows that. You have so much power here, so very much, but he has suppressed it. You must break the bond. You must!”

“What bond?”

“Listen, just listen. The room. You found it?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking of the biggest secret at the school and how I was forbidden from touching or sharing any of the artifacts.

“I warned you to never use the tools there. But things have changed.”

“Yeah things have changed. I just got my ass kicked six ways from Sunday.” I said and spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Ignore the letter. Do you hear me? Open the way, go back,
gather tools from the room. Then you must return and destroy Balkir. I don’t mean defeat him. I mean rend him and grind his corpse to nothingness. You must survive and win. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, right. Go get help and come back and kick his ass. Sure, right after I die.” I tried to pass out again.

“Do not let him have the key! It’s part of you and will not work unless you release it. That’s what this is about. Do you understand?”

Words muttered somewhere in the distance reassured me that
Balkir was still in the room. Great. What fresh hell was I in for? I tried to laugh at my own pun but failed miserably.

The Salazar ghost was going on about some fate of the earth bullshit but I didn’t care. What I did care about was how much I hurt and how many ways I wanted to do harm to
Balkir. I didn’t just want to hurt him. I wanted to, as the fake Salazar apparition said, rend him. I wanted to tear off his skin and leave him to sizzle in the ward.

“Idiot son,
” Salazar muttered again.

The shape in my mind still hovered on the periphery, like it was just out of reach. I focused on it and centered it in my mind. Something stuck me
, but this time it was an icicle between the eyes. It slid into my skull and rooted around.

Being beat up by
Balkir had been horrible. I was left almost a cripple and every inch of my body hurt. By contrast, having my old teacher, Salazar, in my head was the single most painful experience of my life. Razor blades bit at my eyes, head, and skull. My spine went cold and the pride I had felt a few moments ago at my ability not to shit myself evaporated.

“YOU!”
Balkir howled. I opened my good eye one more time to see the form of the old demonologist raising his staff. Before me knelt Salazar, but he had true substance this time. Dirt and grime marred his features but his hooknose, always a source of pride, was even red with blood. I wasn’t sure which of us was in worse shape, even with him being dead.

“Phineas!” Salazar screamed and
something gave way behind my eyes. There was a barrier in the distance and I was drawn toward it. My head spun as I rushed across the ruthless expanse of my mind. Closer and closer. I tried to stop but it was no use. The glyph rose before me, massive, mighty, pulsing with life. It detached itself and came for me. I tried to throw my arms out but they were useless.

The shape tore into me, shredding my limbs and mind. I tried to howl but nothing came out.

I succumbed to the darkness that had been clawing for me. However, not before I saw Salazar rising into the air and fleeing as fireballs swept after him.

“Happy trails,” I muttered and passed out.

**

Glenda and Ashley stood before me. Glenda had on the same red leather she was so fond of. It was form fitting and she certainly had the form for it. Ashley wore a simple dress that caressed the tops of her knees. It was bright
red and suited her. I felt like I was seeing her sunny personality and not really her clothing. Even my dreams were filled with metaphors today.

I wanted nothing more than to go to Ashley and fold her in my arms, tell her that detective
Andrews was nothing. That she was all I desired, but she kept shrinking away from me as if I were climbing a mountain that had no end.

Glenda leapt into view and her smile turned to horror. Her lungs filled and then she screamed words that I couldn’t make out. Ashley gestured at something behind me but I couldn’t turn my head to look. Then an ocean of flame rolled across the landscape behind them. It consumed trees, clouds
, and the very earth itself. It rolled over them and turned them to ash as I screamed in horror. Then it was on me and I was on fire. I howled, but it was no use because I was nothing.

The void was everything
.

Hints of light opened up at the corners. I was in a box, a massive one that must have been my new prison. Then the corners unfolded and elliptical lines of blue fluttered and spread out until they met. I covered my eyes with my hand but not before the light was there. It was, more so than the fire of my dream a moment ag
o, even more encompassing. What could I do with it? My body was broken. I had been defeated and had nothing left. I had no spells, no components. Some of my fingers were even smashed, so drawing the simplest of glyphs would be a slow and painful experience.

But the light was still there.

“What?” a voice from far far away asked.

“What?” I asked back
, but the words didn’t come out right. Was I missing teeth?

“The key, the key the key …” a tiny voice whispered over and over. I tried to chime in
with the pedantic tone. “The key the key the key.”

The key. But
Balkir was stuck here just like I was. Or was he? Did he have some way to return to the other realm?

Something pulsed underneath me
, then a massive weight picked up my already shattered body and slammed it into the ground. I screamed long and hard at that one and was glad for it, because at least I had found my voice.

That wasn’t the only thing I had found.

It came to me like a literal bulb that blazed as bright as the sun. I had found the light and it was mine to command. But even as I did I had only one thought. The key.

Chapter
Sixteen

T
here was a moment of breath taking beauty when all I wanted to do was inhale the flames that surrounded me. I wanted to meet immolation just as Glenda and Ashley had a moment ago. I wanted the light to become physical and consume me; take away my pain and end, forever, my suffering.

Then I thought of an even better use for it.

My eyes slammed open like a doorway. I was able to see everything. I don’t mean that as another lame metaphor. I was literally able to see every pulse, breath, whisper, person, soul, demon, and otherwise that resided in this hell. I had no doubt that if I so desired I could look outside this room and see the rest of the ward.

With a word
, I asked one of the skittering demons to assist me. It came to my call but instead of one it was legion. Things moved in the bubbling pools of lava. Heads shuffled and broke through the surface. Eyes, black as the obsidian floor, turned to regard me. Voices begged me to tell them what to do.

“Rend!” I howled as I came off the ground.

Balkir was at least fifty feet away when he heard my voice. He turned, whipping his staff around, and cast a ball of flame the size of a subcompact in my direction.

I should have dove for it or ra
n until I reached tomorrow, but things were different now. I saw the glyph for what it was. I saw the thread that connected it to the cusp.

So I snipped it.

The ball of flame ran out of steam and faded to nothingness before it had rushed even half the distance.

“No!” h
e howled and tried again.

“Rend!” I said
, because nothing else made sense.

The power was there and it was real. It was all consuming
, and I thought that I could obliterate this ward with it.

“Careful!” t
he apparition of Salazar yelled as it dropped from somewhere high above. “Do not use too much.”

“What is too much?” I laughed and cast a howling banshee of flame back at
Balkir. The whirlwind rose from the black ground and tore chunks of stone as it moved. They swirled in a hazy miasma that ripped apart everything it touched. Demons large and small tried to get out of its path but couldn’t move fast enough.

Balkir
rose into the air encased in some kind of opaque ball and avoided the path of the whirlwind, so I simply told it to pursue. The force swept up and followed.

He landed some ways to my right
, so I walked toward him. I pulsed with power and let it bleed forth as I stalked him. Wisps of lambent energy surrounded my form, flickering in and out of existence. I wanted him to know fear. I wanted him to piss in his robe and beg for mercy. He would get none, but I wanted to hear the words anyway.

A force of winged demons rose from the lava pool and intercepted my banshee. They went
down screaming, but took the force out of my flaming tornado.

“This changes nothing!”
Balkir screamed and gestured. His hand, covered in a glyph of some sort, blurred. His form was close behind and became corporeal. Oh no, he wasn’t getting away that easily.

I also gestured, a call to the pool nearest
Balkir. Lava responded by rising into the air and coating the area where he’d stood. A new shape appeared where Balkir had been. The monstrous demon with the broken horn and missing ear. Balkir slid into him as if slipping behind a curtain. If that wasn’t the ultimate charlatan trick then I didn’t know what was.

“Rend!” I howled again and cast another banshee at the shape. It was so effortless, like the simplest of spells made real. There was no struggling with components or words
. I simply drew on whatever Salazar had let loose in my head and the power responded.

I waited for the demon to be immolated
, but it shrugged through the onslaught and strode for the pool.

I gestured again, knowing the motion of my hand had no effect on the powers I was wielding
, but like any warlock worth his salt I was also a showman. The pool rose at my command and became a wall of lava. I told it to solidify but quickly realized my mistake. I had no other elements to call upon. No water or ice to hasten its cooling. The air was there but the two weren’t generally friends. I could accelerate it to hasten cooling but it would take a long time.

The demon stepped into the wall and sank. I howled in fury as its head turned to regard me. Eyes darker than the floor bore a calculating look
into me as they joined the flame and slid below the surface.

I ran to the edge of the pool
, determined to somehow pursue.

“Stop!” Salazar called. I turned to see where he was and found him kneeling, one hand on the floor, the other gesturing for me.

“Salazar!” I yelled and rushed to his side only to learn that he wasn’t really there. I reached for him but his form had no substance.

“How is this possible?” I asked.

“My body is gone but I remain in a weakened state. We understand so little about this place and you must learn it or it will also consume you.”

“But I’m so powerful here. I can help you come back.”

“Do not! If you try I fear it will truly end me. I have only the barest of links to the world of men and would be nothing if dragged to the other side.”

Even as I considered ways to return my teacher to the other side
, I gasped as the pressure in my head popped. Power had been everywhere. I had been consumed with it, reveled in it, but now it was fading. I lashed out and grabbed at more but it was useless. Like trying to grasp a waterfall with only my hands.