Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed (39 page)

“This.” Taziar pulled out his utility knife. “And this.” He patted the fire extinguisher. “I’m not much good with any weapon. If you’re capable enough with yours, I shouldn’t need one. I’ve seen and felt what guns can do.”

“Not against Bolverkr.” Another wave of frustration struck Larson. “Those magical shields of his deflect bullets, too. And I’m not shooting Silme unless I have to.”

“Nor would I expect you to. I don’t want to harm Silme, either.” Taziar looked away, his food forgotten.

Only then it occurred to Larson how callous his attitude must seem.
Here I am going on about how I don’t want to hurt Silme, even though she was indirectly the cause of Astryd’s death. He understands how I feel about Silme. He’s not going to do anything foolish. And he cares for her, too.
“Look, Shadow. I’m sorry. I’m just sick and tired, frustrated, annoyed ...” He paused, hardly daring to admit it to himself. “... and scared. I’m also damned scared.”

“Good,” Taziar said.

“Yeah. What’s so good about it?”

“It’s just good to see something normal in all this chaos. Now get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” The suggestion startled Larson. “How am I supposed to sleep?”

“I don’t know, but you can’t afford not to.” Taziar glanced at Timmy. “We can’t go to Bolverkr. We have to wait until he comes to us. If I were him, I’d be thrilled to know my opponents had decided to exhaust themselves by staying awake forever. So I figured we’d work shifts, one of us up during the day, the other at night. There’ll be some overlap for exchanging ideas.” He waved at the darkening confines of the warehouse. “I’m guessing I’m more used to a night schedule than you. Besides, you’re more injured. So you sleep now.”

“Here.” Larson rummaged through the bags, emerging with a flashlight and a package of batteries. Placing the batteries into the stem, he switched on the light and handed it to Taziar. “Not the best lantern in the world, but it’ll have to do.”

Taziar accepted the flashlight, staring at it curiously.

Larson crawled over to Timmy. Catching a shoulder, he shook the boy.

“Hmmn?” Timmy rolled toward Larson.

“Timmy, sorry to wake you, but this is important.”

“Uhn-huhn.” Timmy signed, opening one eye reluctantly.

Certain Timmy was awake enough to hear, Larson continued. “At any time, the witch and an evil sorcerer named Bolverkr may appear here. No matter what happens, I want you to stay in this corner and away from the fight. Do you understand that?”

“Uhn-huh.”

“Don’t do anything else unless I tell you to. Or unless I’m killed. Then, you run away. Got that?”

“Uhn-huh.”

Larson frowned, believing Timmy had received the message, but wishing he could make sure. “All right, go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” the boy murmured.

Larson moved away, hoping a sudden spell against him would not strike Timmy as well. He curled against the wall, barraged by worries and tension. His muscles cramped. He closed his eyes against a burning discomfort, certain he would never fall asleep. Yet fatigue overtook him in minutes.

Larson awakened to Taziar’s warning shout. Instantly alert, he sprang to a crouch, and his eyes snapped open to blinding light. A grim sense of evil engulfed him, and he caught a dull, retinal impression of a brilliant flash against the painful glare. Taziar crashed against him, bowling him into a concrete corner that bruised his leg and sent pain shocking through his wounded shoulder. Something struck the stone where he had lain. Electricity raised the hair along the back of his neck, and a thunderstorm odor permeated the air.

A second later, Taziar’s weight disappeared. Again, Larson leapt to a crouch, blinking wildly as the flare of magics faded to a darkness pierced only by the flashlight’s beam on the floor. Taziar had scuttled along the wall, and was now several feet from Larson. The Shadow Climber clutched the fire extinguisher as if it were a baby. Bolverkr’s dark form towered in the room’s center. Silme stood some distance behind him, her arm flexed in menace, her fingers clenched around a glowing sphere of readied sorcery.

Larson seized the .45, firing a quick-draw hip shot. The bullet struck Bolverkr’s shield, whining off into the darkness. Impact staggered the Dragonrank sorcerer back a step, and Larson stole the second it gained him to dart around for Bolverkr’s unshielded back.

“Al!” Timmy shouted from the corner, now behind Larson. “Watch out! The witch!”

Larson ducked as he fired. His shot pinged off at an angle, defining the edge of Bolverkr’s shield.

A deafening hiss reverberated through the room so abruptly that even Larson jumped, though this time he recognized the sound of the fire extinguisher.

Silme screamed. Her spell splintered to glimmering fragments around her. White powder coated her dress.

Apparently equally startled, Bolverkr ripped both his arms downward. Magic pulsed through the room, chokingly thick with Chaos smoke, and he disappeared.

“Bolverkr!” Silme shouted, suddenly without an ally. Gathering her composure, she began another spell.

Larson spun crazily, trying to relocate Bolverkr.
Only two bullets left in this gun. Got to make them count.
He felt for the .38 and found it tucked in his belt, its presence reassuring.

Awkwardly, Taziar backed away from Silme, still gripping the fire extinguisher.

Light tented between Silme’s fingertips, chaotic as a spider’s web, its glow intensifying with each new strand. Suddenly, she tensed.

Again, the fire extinguisher boomed, blasting some of its contents over Silme.

For the second time, Silme’s unfinished spell fizzled to harmless sparks. “You little bastard!” she shrieked. “You
insect!
” She began to charge Taziar, then retreated, hurriedly forming another spell. Chaos in the form of tarry smoke undulated from her, gorging the room with a foul-smelling, translucent mist.

Bolverkr! Where the fuck is Bolverkr?
Larson wished his eyes could adjust fully to the wavering darkness, afraid to concentrate on Silme for fear of missing Bolverkr.
Shadow knows what he’s doing.
Taziar’s plan seemed clear now.
He’s trying to force her to keep casting, to drain enough Chaos for her identity to come through.
Larson tried not to contemplate the situation too hard.
Guess this is where we find out whether Chaos and life energy are the same thing here.

“Allerum!” Taziar screamed. “Behind you!”

Even as the warning came, Larson heard rushing footfalls at his back.
Bolverkr!
He whirled, firing as he moved.

But the person who charged was not a sorcerer hellbent on vengeance, just a boy under his influence. The bullet tore through Timmy’s abdomen. He collapsed, screaming in agony and terror.

Timmy.
A thousand emotions paralyzed Larson. The .45 fell from his fingers, the sound of its landing lost beneath another blast from the extinguisher. Larson could not know that Bolverkr had drawn illusions in his brother’s mind, warping Larson’s form to look like Bolverkr’s own. Nor could he know that Bolverkr had imitated Al Larson’s voice, desperately commanding the boy to battle. Larson knew only that he had sent his eight-year-old brother into an unbearable anguish that could only end in death.

“Timmy.” Larson’s voice rose to a hysterical shriek. “Timmy! Timmy!”

Behind Larson, light flared and snapped, slashing ricocheting bands through the confines of the warehouse.

Larson could not gather enough interest to turn, but his instincts betrayed him. He spun, apathy transforming the movement to an awkward stumbling. Silme’s magic silhouetted Taziar in blue, revealing an expression of stark realization through air smoky as a barroom’s.

Suddenly, the Shadow Climber collapsed. The fire extinguisher crashed down on his abdomen, driving breath between clenched teeth. The magics faded to a sultry afterimage. He lay still, eyes open and staring, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Timmy’s screams fell silent.

Larson’s muscles all seemed to give out at once. He dropped to his knees, no longer caring whether he lived or died. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he crawled toward the still form of his brother, dragging himself with an effort that seemed heroic. He reached for a pulse. His hand hovered over the boy’s neck, the ragged, scarlet hole in Timmy’s shirt mesmerizing him, a solid fact in his consciousness that he tried to drive away but could not. He willed his hand forward. It disobeyed him, hanging in midair like a thing disconnected. Until Larson touched Timmy, he could presume the boy lived.

Even as Larson waited, poised between fantasy and knowledge, a grimmer reality intruded.
Silme’s still alive. And she’s planning to destroy my world.
His hand retreated from Timmy, closing over the Police Special instead.
My best friend is dead. My brother is dead. And I’m dead, too. But I’m going to take my enemies with me.
Slowly, he twisted, raising the gun.

Haze swirled through the warehouse, turning Silme into distant shadow. She stood over Taziar, her expression as blank as the Climber’s. She did not seem to notice the threat behind her.

Larson drew a perfect bead on Silme’s spine at the level of her chest. His hand tensed. The gun trembled in his grip. Despite all that had happened, he could still feel her warmth against him, still remember the concerns of the world that she repeatedly, unselfishly took upon herself.
She’s not Silme anymore. She’s the Chaos-warped stranger who killed Taziar.
Rage rose in Larson like fire, and he gathered the courage to shoot.

Suddenly, shadows leapt, broken like glass, as light erupted in the middle of the room. Bolverkr appeared between Larson and Silme, black smoke trailing from his figure.

Aim destroyed, Larson pulled his shot. He whipped the gun toward Bolverkr.

The Dragonrank mage laughed. Sorcery glazed eddying mist, and the air seemed as tense and impending as a predator coiled to spring. A ball of white-hot magics flared into his hands with the suddenness of a gas jet.

Larson fired. The shot struck Bolverkr’s shield at the level of his heart, then bounced into the shadows. Chaos-smoke leeched from Bolverkr’s spell. He tensed to throw, then went suddenly rigid. Light danced and died in his grip. He whirled toward Silme, the threat behind him abruptly forgotten. “Bitch! What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?” He used a commanding tone, yet a hint of frenzy betrayed him.

His back. No shield.
Even as Larson reaimed, Bolverkr lurched out of the firing line. Smoke boiled from him.

“The power is mine,” Silme chanted, invisible in the thick wash of dispersing Chaos. “You gave it to me. It’s mine!” Her voice was almost unrecognizable. “
And I want it all!
”

Dense as grease, the Chaos-smoke roiled through the room. Larson’s lungs ached, and his eyes burned. The air became rancid, suffocating him toward the brink of unconsciousness. He sank to the floor. The world blurred to two dark figures who pirouetted like dancers or like demons capering through the ruins of hell.

“Silme, I said I’d share. There’s enough for us both.” Bolverkr pitched backward with an abruptness that all but sprawled him over Larson.

Silme’s answer was a shriek that combined pain and fury. “It’s mine! All mine! Give it to me!”

Larson scrambled for consciousness, desperate to gather the shards of his composure. Dizziness battered him, upending him through a smoky swirl of vertigo.
They’re fighting through the link. They’re battling over the same ugly, evil Chaos that turned Bolverkr into a monster and Silme into an enemy.
With effort, Larson raked his limbs toward him, trying to regain enough balance to rise, forcing his focus to his own snarl of pain and grief. The handle of the pistol gouged his palm. He forced memory for a solid grounding.
Timmy’s dying.
The thought flooded Larson with grief, numbing him. The gun slipped from quivering fingers.

Silme and Bolverkr tore back and forth, limbs jerking as if in a seizure. Though no physical blows fell, sweat sheened their hands and faces, haloing features strained with mental effort. The smoke thickened.

Timmy ... is ... dying.
Larson gritted his teeth, demanding a rage that would not come. His vision all but disappeared beneath the hovering blanket of Chaos darkness.
His killer is here. I can avenge him.
A dribble of anger suffused Larson, crushed by a voice from within.
You, Al Larson, you are Timmy’s slayer.
And the swirling Chaos dragged satisfaction into the thought.
Slaughter. Destruction. Chaos ruin.

Larson fought the battering tide of Chaos’ smoke. Again, he raised the gun. But the darkness slammed his sight to nothing. Even movement was lost, and only the muffled exchange of the Dragonrank mages’ curses told Larson the battle continued.

But, where his own efforts to spark fury had failed, the strain of fighting Chaos succeeded. Larson surged to his feet, the gun clamped in both fists, desperately scanning the fog for his target.
Bolverkr. You’re going to die, you son of a bitch.
Larson stumbled toward the noises of the war.

Even as Larson moved, Bolverkr jerked backward with the sudden triumph of a tug of war.

Silme gasped in frustration.

Larson sprang for the sorcerer. The gun’s barrel drove against the back of Bolverkr’s skull. And Larson pulled the trigger in a red fog of anger. “Die, you bastard!”

An explosion rang through the room. Bolverkr toppled, Larson atop him, his body twisted, but the gun still clamped to the Dragonrank mage’s head.

Silme screamed. Slammed suddenly with all the remaining Chaos, she crumpled.

“Let’s see you heal this.” Larson fired at Bolverkr again, point-blank. Blood splattered Larson’s face. The Chaos seethed around him like a living thing. Perceptions struck him, distant and not his own. He knew a familiar war in Vietnam, escalating, fed by Chaos from another era. He saw trains and subway cars scrawled black with graffiti, children with knives battling in alleyways and concrete parks, intolerance of skin color, ideas, and religion sparking to a violence justified by warped, self-righteous moralities, a New York Larson no longer knew as home. The gun spoke repeatedly, until it dry fired, its wielder’s finger still spasming on the trigger.