Zombies Sold Separately (31 page)

It was too much to absorb all at one time. “Okay, skip the hosting part and move on to the next step, if there is one.”

“Step five.” Desmond took a deep breath. “After a ‘normal’ exchange of essences, and a ‘normal’ sealing, Amory then puts the stone into a collection he keeps and sends the Host back to the Otherworld he’s trying to take over. The stone must not be lost or damaged or its Host body will die, so great care is taken to preserve and protect these stones.”

“So the Host’s essence is still around,” I said. “It’s just trapped in a stone now.”

“Yes,” Desmond said, “that is exactly what happens.”

I said, “That means all of these Zombies running around were once Sentients.”

Desmond nodded.

“So you said the purpose of this was to take over this new world?” I asked.

“Correct. No cause was known, but Kerra was a dying planet and killing its people with no remedy to change that,” Desmond said. “Amory had to find someplace to take his people. A world to take over and make his own.”

“What happened with Yorath?” I asked.

“The world turned out to not be hospitable to the essences the Hosts now carried so he had to abandon his takeover,” Desmond said.

I glanced to the blue sphere. “What about when he came to Otherworld?”

Desmond moved so that he was now beside the hologram of my Otherworld. “The environment wasn’t as hospitable as they had hoped.”

I tried not to think about those dark days. “They weren’t there for long.”

“Amory found Doran.” Desmond rubbed his temples. “The Sorcerer’s magic worked in my world and his people thrived. He was ruthless. He and his Sentients took over my world and my people.

“The entire world.” Desmond turned his pain-filled gaze to me. “Amory took or murdered everyone.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Slow chills rolled down my spine. “Everyone?”

“Yes,” was all he said. An incredible sense of sadness filled the room.

I had the urge to touch his hand to comfort him, but I didn’t. “How did you end up here?”

“This Earth Otherworld was Amory’s second choice for his people, so I knew of it,” Desmond said.

“How exactly did he overcome you?” I asked.

“He tricked me.” Desmond shook his head. “I gave up my power for my people in my world so that he would let them live and not use their bodies for Hosts.” Desmond scowled. “He lied and took my people or murdered them, and I ended up powerless in my home world.”

The black sludge I’d felt in my belly after my nightmares returned. This was a living nightmare.

“By the time I discovered the plan, his people had infiltrated everything.” Raw pain and anger made Desmond’s jaw tighten. “I was too powerful for his magic to work on me directly. My power was as great as his.”

It wasn’t boasting when Desmond spoke about his magic, that much was easy to see. It was simple fact in his reality.

“But when it came down to it, my power meant nothing.” Desmond looked away from me, toward a window covered with a dark curtain. “Amory had numbers, and his numbers won out. By the time he had infiltrated our ranks, we as a people could not defend against so many.”

Desmond sounded as if words stuck in his throat and he had a hard time getting them out. Pain like I’d never seen was on his face. The pain of loss so deep it could never be overcome. “And then they were gone. My people. The people of my world. Gone.”

The genocide that had happened in the Doran Otherworld because of the Sorcerer Amory and the Kerrans was incomprehensible. How could anyone,
anyone
be so evil?

Even the Vampires, as evil as they are, could not come close to doing what had happened to Desmond and his people. An entire race. An entire world.

Desmond paused, as if he was trying to collect himself. He turned away from the window. “Amory had an ability to detect wherever I was in Doran. He had a mission initially to capture and kill me after his double cross, but he realized it was far worse for me to know that I had no power to recapture Doran and I posed no threat to him.”

Desmond gave a heavy sigh filled with what must have been the hopelessness he had eventually felt in those days. “And then it was too late. My world’s fate was sealed and there was no chance to reverse it. I chose to flee that world and come to the Earth Otherworld.”

The Sorcerer went to the hologram of the Earth Otherworld and lightly caressed it. The glow of the hologram rippled. “I chose to come here and I have lived a quiet life.”

He moved his finger and all of the Otherworlds started bouncing against one another like balls in a game of billiards. “I knew he would attempt to destroy me. Now that Amory’s Sentients were led to me, he may know that I am in this Earth Otherworld. I don’t believe he would consider that I have my powers here. If he did he would do whatever he could to kill me. He doesn’t know that that I may be the only one with the power to threaten his plan.”

For a long time I was quiet, not knowing what to say to a man who had lived through so much. But I had to work to save this world now and I had to ask him questions. “Why is he here if your world worked for him and his people?”

“I can only guess.” Desmond shook his head. “It’s either for power, or my world must have turned against him, too. It just took a while for it to happen.”

“When I first came to your loft,” I said, “you were afraid. Like you expected this.”

“I was concerned it might happen one day here,” Desmond said. “The Earth Otherworld was his second choice.”

I had so many questions spinning through my mind, so much I didn’t understand.

Desmond walked between the holograms of Otherworld and Yorath, a sparkling wave of light rippling away from his path. He picked up a thick, heavy book that had to be at least a thousand pages off an end table. He rubbed his thumb on the cover.
Neurology
was written in large letters across the top of the book.

I raised my eyebrows. “Sorcerers use textbooks on the brain?”

Desmond gave a slight smile. “I’ve had twenty years to study the human species and how a norm’s brain functions.” He set the book down with a loud
thump
on the coffee table. “I have an entire section of my library devoted to it.”

“Science and magic,” I said with wonder.

From a bookcase he selected another thick book, this one with a red cover but no spine. Hand scribed in gold on the cover were runes I didn’t recognize. He opened the book and I smelled old parchment and dust.

The Sorcerer carefully turned a few pages of the book. “I’ve also researched as much as I can on nearly every paranorm race.” The parchment pages were covered with illustrations drawn by hand as well as elegant script I couldn’t read from where I was standing. I wasn’t sure I could read it if I was looking right over his shoulder. “Paranorms have not been brain-mapped in the same manner as norms, but I understand much of how each species’ minds work.”

“Has Sorcerer Amory studied humans and other races of beings in the same way you have,” I asked, “in order to perform such heinous acts against other beings?”

“I do not know.” Desmond carefully closed the book and I heard the soft brush of the parchment pages. “But it is a wise thing to do if the resources are available.”

“How different are paranorms and norms when it comes to the brain?” I asked.

“Even though paranorms and norms appear entirely different,” Desmond answered, “in many ways we’re not so. Our brains function in very similar ways.”

“How exactly does it work,” I asked, “when the Host body is taken over?”

Desmond eased the tall book back into its place on the bookshelf. “The Sentient who takes over the Host body now has access to every part of that person.”

I thought about what the Sorcerer was saying. “So even though the Host’s essence is removed and put into a stone, a part of the being the Sentient possesses is still there?”

“Yes.” He turned away from the bookcase, this time holding a textbook with
Memory: Imprints on the Brain
in block print on the cover. “The Sentient brings his own knowledge and his personhood to the Host, but he combines that with all of the physical and mental capacities of the person now in the stone. Therefore, the Sentient has total access to their brain, their speech, their physical abilities. They can transition between their own mind and the Host mind at will, conscious of both.”

All I could do was listen to Desmond and try to grasp what he was saying.

“Someone like you, a Tracker with powers of the Dark Elves, would be particularly appealing.” Desmond pushed the book back into its slot. “If your friend Olivia is a Tracker as well, Amory would use someone like her to infiltrate and take over your group. By now he knows what Olivia knows about your structure, your approach to the case. What you are aware of and what you are not. What your leadership structure is. All of it.”

I sucked in my breath. “The Sorcerer taking over the entire team of Trackers would be devastating.”

“Yes,” Desmond said. “Trackers are powerful and could threaten his effort, so you all would be prime targets. By now, if he has been here any length of time, there are government officials that have been taken as well and he knows everything they know.”

“I need to make sure I understand this all correctly,” I said. “As an example, Amory targets someone with intimate knowledge of nuclear weapons, perhaps a scientist. He then has a Sentient take over his target.… To everyone that scientist knew, he would appear to be the same person, someone completely trusted by others in the sense that he was before.”

“Yes,” Desmond said.

“That scientist would actually have the mind of the Sentient,” I said, “but all of the knowledge and access of the scientist. But the scientist himself would be in the stone.”

“Yes, and no one would ever know,” Desmond said. “Your friend Olivia … You could not tell she no longer inhabited her body.”

A slow chill rolled over me. “No, I couldn’t.”

“After his technique is perfected in his targeted world, Amory goes after people of power first. Those in government, law enforcement, military leaders and business leaders. He infiltrates every area of the world.” Amory looked at the floating magical hologram of the Earth Otherworld. “When Amory has his numbers in place, he will enact his plan … from finding Hosts for his Sentients, to genocide of the rest of the human race.

“How he will do that in this world, I don’t know,” Desmond said. “In my world, he wiped them all out. Every one of my people.” Desmond’s voice sounded hoarse. “Once he had tricked me out of my powers, I think he only left me alive so that I would forever be tortured by the memories of the people I love.”

For a long time silence hung between us. “I’m so sorry,” I finally said.

Desmond looked away from me and stared at a painting of a dark forest that hung over the piano. “So am I.”

I took a deep breath. I needed to find out as much as I could even though I hated the pain it obviously caused Desmond. “I have something to show you.”

The Sorcerer turned and studied me as I set my purse on an end table and opened it. I brought out the two cloth-covered stones and started to unwrap one.

Desmond’s face went ashen.

“No.” He stepped back, his hands held up to ward me off. “Put them away.
Put them away
!”

All of the holographic Otherworlds in the middle of the room sparked and exploded into showers of blue, green, red, and purple as Desmond backed away. The images of the Sorcerer Amory and the two other beings disappeared as well, and then there was nothing. All of the holograms were gone.

Desmond’s eyes looked wild again, like they had back at the loft. “Keep those forsaken stones away from me.”

I stared at him. “This is part of the reason I’m here. The Magi said—”

“Magi.”
The Sorcerer started pacing. “Magi, Magi, Magi.” He continued to pace for several moments and scrubbed his hand over his stubbled jaws. “Of course. Of course I’ll help.” He seemed to be having a conversation with himself and his sort-of-Scottish brogue sounded stronger. “There was never a question.”

Desmond came to a full stop. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take a look at those stones now.” He pointed to the coffee table. “Set them there but do not unwrap them yet.”

I picked up my purse on the end table and held the wrapped stones in my other palm. In addition to the pricking feeling I always got when I touched them, they seemed to weigh me down and my arm felt tired, aching, until I set the stones on the coffee table. They’d felt so heavy that I could imagine them breaking through the wood and landing on the floor with hard thumps.

Desmond closed his eyes for just a moment, then seated himself on the edge of the couch. He gestured for me to sit and I took the closest chair and set my purse on the floor. I leaned forward, my forearms on my thighs and my hands clasped.

The Sorcerer looked at me with a sad expression. “I am sorry, but I never expected to see one of these again and here you have brought two to me. Just knowing they are here made the memories somehow fresher than before.”