Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (23 page)

The chattering intensified. I didn’t have to.

I didn’t even look up, just started firing. Shoot, work the lever, repeat as necessary. Behind me, I could hear the massive, earth shattering sound of Al’s rifle going off and the less impressive, if still thundering, blasts of Tiffany’s shotgun.

The chattering became an angry hissing that all but blotted out the sound of my gun. I fired until I was empty and then ran as hard as I could.

In front of us there was the harsh white light of the sky. The trees must have been thinning. That would mean they couldn’t follow us. Not above anyway.

I kept loading the gun, pumping my legs as I loaded bullet after bullet. I heard Al slide a fresh clip into his rifle. Why hadn’t I picked a rifle with a clip?

We broke into the clearing and I spun around, working the lever. Nothing was behind us. The noise had ceased, the forest becoming suddenly quiet. We backed away slowly, keeping our weapons aimed into the woods.

“They won’t bother you now,” said a voice behind me.

I swung around, ready to pull the trigger on whatever was behind us.

Standing in the clearing in the dim, eerie light of the clouds, was a thick, muscular man dressed in a black, pinstriped suit and grey trench coat. Perched atop his head was a smart bowler and small black spectacles perched on a sharp nose.

He didn’t seem to care that two rifles were pointed straight at him by two very nervous, and slightly insane, individuals. Oh, and Tiffany. In fact, he was smiling.

“They will not bother you,” he repeated, looking at me over his glasses. His eyes shown yellow in the cloud light. “Not while we are talking anyway.”

I glared at him. This wasn’t like the thousands of monsters behind me. Those were just manifestations, figments, symptoms of the contamination. This was a real live Nidian, one of those who’d broken into my head.

“Get out of my head, Nidian.”

He held out his hands innocently. “You let us in, Wizard. We merely accepted an invitation from a,” his teeth flashed, “very generous host.”

“What do you want?”

“Must it always be about want?” he asked, touching his chest with his hand.

I shot off a round, the bullet zipping right over his shoulder. He didn’t even flinch.  “Alas, Wizard, though we have enjoyed our time here, and your hospitality has been nothing if not exemplary, we would like to pursue new venues.”

“I don’t think you’ll want to go back to Nidia,” I said, giving him a grin of my own as I cocked the lever of the rifle. “It doesn’t look much better than this place.”

I saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. “Quite right
. But I was not thinking Nidia. I was thinking something a little more…exotic.”

I laughed. “You can kiss-”

He held up a hand. “There is no reason for this to become unpleasant, Virgil. Think on it. You do not want us here, and we have tired of it.”

“And what do you propose?” I asked.

“He wants you to let them out,” Al said. He had the trigger pulled down part of the way. A single twitch would set off the round. “He wants you to breathe them out into reality.”

“Quite right,” said the Nidian. “Very astute of you.” He looked back to me. “Think, Virgil. Your mind is under enough trauma as it is without my people feeding o
ff you. Why should you continue to carry this burden? Let us into the reality. Free us.”

“You can’t do that!” Tiffany said. “You cannot free a Nidian.”

“
Another
Nidian,” the creature corrected.

“What’s he talking about?” she asked.

“And then what?” I asked, ignoring her. “You tear your way through our world, setting up camp wherever there’s blood? I think not.” I motioned around. “I don’t think this has as much to do with wanting in my world as it is wanting out of this one. How many of you are left these days anyway?”

He frowned. “Not near as many since you let Priscilla out.”

“Sounds like you’re dying off. Must be the weather,” I said with a smile. “I think I’ll just let you rot in here, see who dies first. Priss sure did learn how to adapt to society, but I really don’t see that being a common thing among your people.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Think about it. The Guild
has contingencies for this. Those who failed to keep themselves hidden would die, probably even many of those who did. The world would be in very little danger from my kind.”

“Why?” Tiffany asked. “Why breathe you out just so you can all die?”

His grin became lethal. “
I
would not die, Wizard. That is reason enough.”

“Virgil,” Tiffany said, her eyes darting in between me and the creature. “You can’t be considering this. Even if you could get them out, which I doubt, they’ve been here for years, you wouldn’t…” I saw doubt in her eyes. “You wouldn’t put that many people in danger?”

I waited, considering the option. It sure would make things easier to have the parasites out of my mind. It would bring some levity, some peace. “Nah,” I said, working the lever of the rifle.

Before I could fire, the Nidian had leapt through the air, transforming in the process. When he landed in front of us, the man in the pinstriped suit had disappeared, replaced with a tarantula the size of a car.

He charged me, black eyes empty but for rage. A high-pitched gurgling escaped his throat as he attacked, his multisegmented mouth gnashing and clawing at the air.

We were already firing, pumping bullet after bullet into the spider. He all but ignored mine and Tiffany’s shots, barely flinching under Al’s.

I dove out of the way, sliding in the ash. I fought to keep the rifle up, to fire and work the lever while maintaining my balance.

The Nidian spun around, giving me a deep, rumbling hiss. “Free us!”
he rasped, his eight glossy eyes shining in the cloud light. “You have no choice!”

I shot him in the face in response, shattering two of the eyes. “Wouldn’t if I could.”

He fell back, roaring in anger. He thrashed and roared and stumbled to the ground, his legs no longer working in tandem.

Behind us the woods responded to his screams.

I turned around and was met by a scene straight from my nightmares. A wave of black, glossy fur surged out of the forest, bearing down on us with vicious intensity.

I didn’t wait to admire them. I fired, putting a bullet right in the center of a multifaceted face while backing away from the horde. The first spider’s head exploded like a black melon and it stumbled to the ground with a crash, its fat, swollen body thrashing and writhing in the way of its brethren.

We continued backward, sending a hailstorm of bullets into the swarm. We didn’t even aim, it would have taken a sharpshooter and a steady hand to miss. It was all I could do to keep the rifle loaded while still working the mechanism.

T
he damn tarantula’s thrashing began to gain more symmetry, its heavy body beginning to raise itself up. We made the decision at the same time.

We
ran.

I ran for my life, firing the rifle awkwardly over my shoulder. We entered the far side of the woods, dodging through the trees and bushes as we ran. I didn’t dare look behind me to check if there were pursuing us.

My hearing still worked well enough to let me know.

The ground began to slope down, the woods getting thinner. The thicker ash that had accumulated here made running even more difficult. I could hear the spiders drawing closer
, practically feel their hot breath on the back of my neck.

Ahead of us I could see a large, yawning cave. Maybe if we made it to the cave we could bottleneck them, pump enough lead into them that their bodies would plug the cave and prevent them from reaching us. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all I had.

Suddenly, the ground quivered, knocking us to our feet.

I rolled over, my gun at the ready. Just in time to see the tarantula take an unnatural leap through the air and watch as it bore down on me. I let
off a shot and rolled again, its massive, furry body landing where I had been.

It wasn’t dead though, not by a long shot. It was thrashing in the ash, trying to orient itself. I was performing a similar act. I couldn’t seem to get upright, to get above the deep level of ash. I thrashed through the dust
, trying to crawl away.

Finally, I stumbled to my feet, trying to put as much distance between
myself and the Nidian as possible. The other spiders were rushing down the hill. They would be on us in seconds. Al was on one knee, firing into the mass while I faced the tarantula. I had lost sight of Tiffany.

The earth rumbled again, and this time I felt the ground shift. There was sudden silence as the spiders stopped, ceasing their incessant hissing.

The ground beneath the tarantula broke, a great pit opening up beneath it. The tarantula scrambled at the edge, trying to pull itself up but it was too heavy. It began to slide into the pit.

I didn’t watch. I raised the gun and started firing. I shot until the gun clicked empty.

The spider still wasn’t done though. With a last surge of strength, it drew itself from the pit, launching itself at me. I could only watch as the spider sailed through the air, its horrible blank eyes baring down on me.

Suddenly, something big and black and horrible rose from the pit. It wrapped flexible, tentacle like mandible
s around the spider, crushing the life from it and dragging it back into the earth. Before I knew it, both it and the tarantula were gone.

Al had stopped firing. The spiders were fleeing back up the hill. Tiffany dragged herself out from under one of the Nidians. She was covered in black ichor but looked no worse for wear.

Al and I looked at each other and smiled.

“I…” I took a deep breath, trying to catch it. “I hate spiders.”

Al loaded a new clip into the rifle. “I would too if my head was full of them.”

“Your head too,” I said, loading my gun as well.

“Well, maybe that’s why I hate them too.”

“You two are children,” Tiffany said, but she was smiling.

Fucking Nidians. The least the Brand could have done was kill them too. It should have been good for that at least. But they were still everywhere.

“Makes me think twice about looking at Priscilla,” Al said.

“She’s not like them,” I countered heatedly. “Don’t say that.”

“The Nidian mentioned a Priscilla,” Tiffany said, losing
her smile. “Who is she?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She dropped it but I could see the suspicion in her eyes.

And Al wasn’t entirely wrong either. That was a big part of the reason I had never taken her up on her offer. Or offers. Or anything that was offerish. I wasn’t really sure how that would work, where our friendship would end and her dinner would begin.

I looked into the pit. “What was that?”

Al didn’t join me. “I’m pretty sure that was Blackthorn, Virgil.”

I raised my eyebrows. He had gotten bigger. “How do you know?”

He pointed toward the cave. “That’s the new lair.”

I studied the cave mouth. It was huge, easily big enough to swallow a house. Al was right. He had definitely gotten bigger. Its mouth was lined with amethyst and sapphire, glittering wickedly in the faint light.

I could feel him waiting, watching us.

It was a foreboding sight to say the least. I had been to Blackthorn’s lair before. The last one had been in a tree though. It was a big tree, sure, and almost as mean looking as he was, but it had still only been a tree. I guess it didn’t provide him the comfort it once had.

Or the prey.

“Well,” said Al, shoving me. “Go get him.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “What do you mean go and get him? This was your damn idea!”

“And it was a good one,” he replied. “But I can’t do anything except possibly kill him. And probably not even that. I don’t think that would work. You need something more.”

I looked at Tiffany and she shrugged.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Not my department, boss. You’re the Sorcerer, ensorcel him.”

So that’s how I found myself at the mouth of a deep, dark cave, its edges like glittering, crystal shark teeth, hungry for flesh. It slanted down, burrowing into the earth. It would almost be a straight drop if I were to enter, or fall, into it.

The walls looked as sharp as the opening. It wouldn’t be a fun ride and I doubted there would be anything fun at the bottom.

I cocked the rifle, listening to the echo as it played down the tunnel. A dry, scraping sound echoed back.

I slung the rifle over my shoulder. I wasn’t going to do it like this. Al was right, I knew what to do. I knew exactly what was needed.

“Blackthorn!” I yelled. “Get out here you sorry excuse for a belt. Get out here and face me you sad, sorry serpent.”

Deep in the tunnel, two purple lanterns lit up, staring up at me.

Sorcerer
, he whispered, his voice soft and delicate, feminine in its grace, masculine in its depth. It reverberated up the tunnel, resonating in the crystal.
How good of you to visit my home
.