“So, you seek the citadel.” said a voice very close to my ear. I spun to see who had spoken and a flurry of feathers brushed the side of my face. A raven sat perched on my shoulder. It cawed at my sudden movement and took flight, landing on a nearby hitching post.
“So.” it said again, “you seek the citadel.” Its voice wasn’t like that of a mynah bird or other mimic. It was quite urban, actually. Its tiny, dark eyes were like chips of stone taken from the city wall. They gleamed a bit as they regarded me.
“Yes.” I said, “I’m looking for the citadel.”
“You need a guide.” the raven said. It was not a question. “The streets of the city have many twists and turns and there are dark places where travelers become lost. It is best to have a guide.”
I considered the idea for a moment. It wasn’t unusual for spirits to guide travelers on an astral quest, but I’d never encountered this particular spirit before.
“What will your help cost me?” I asked.
“Nothing.” the raven said. “My aid to you repays a debt.”
“What debt?” I said.
“An old one.” was all it said.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Memory.” the raven said. “Follow me.” The black bird took wing and fluttered above the heads of the people milling on the edge of the bazaar. I followed as quickly as I could, keeping up with the raven as it seemed to skip across the top of the crowd, leading me out of the marketplace and deeper into the city. When the crowd thinned, I was able to keep up, even though the raven moved more quickly.
“Through here.” it called, flying into an alleyway.
I turned the corner and found myself somewhere else entirely.
I stood in Jase’s apartment. The air was hot and sweat rolled down my face, collecting in drops on my chin and the end of my nose. A thin haze of smoke filled the room from the brass brazier. It was set on a tripod in the middle of a red circle drawn on the floor and marked with arcane symbols. I raised my hands, palms downward, and the symbols of the circle seemed to glow with an inner fire.
I cupped my hands above the brazier. I was very angry, and bitter, salty tears mixed with my sweat. I poured that anger into the brazier, and the dark coals hissed and began to glow cherry-red. The heat came off them in waves, and tiny droplets of salt water fell from my face, sizzling on the coals.
I opened a pouch and cast powdered incense onto the coals, sending sweet, pungent clouds of smoke into the air. The smoke made my eyes water even more. My vision blurred, but I didn’t falter. The room filled with a faint, bluish haze. The glow of the brazier and the candles around the circle provided the only light.
I plunged the blade of the dagger into the coals for a moment, sterilizing the knife with the searing heat. I swirled it through the smoke, watching the sharp edge part the mists. Then I held my left hand out over the brazier.
I made the cut as quick and clean as I could. The pain was shocking, like a bucket of ice water in my face. My sweat turned cold and my hands tingled as I watched the dark red blood well up from the narrow cut along my palm. It overflowed the edge and dropped onto the hot coals with a hiss. The air filled with the smell of burning blood, hot and metallic, and the coals burned brighter.
Three times I allowed my blood to drop onto the coals, intoning as I did.
“By the power of blood, I call thee, blood calling to blood. From the fires of my heart, I call thee, fire calling to fire.” Tears were streaming freely down my face, but I kept my voice firm and strong. “From the heat of my anger, I call thee, anger calling out for justice. By the power of Earth, by the power of Air, by the power of Fire Eternal and the Waters of the Deep, I conjure and charge thee, arise, arise! Arise at my command, and truly do my will.”
Flames roared up from the brazier, sending out thick clouds of dark smoke. The smoke and fire gathered, infused with my will and my anger and my sorrow, and looked back at me with burning eyes. I took a step back from what I saw there, driven back by the wave of menace that poured off it like searing heat. I threw up my hands and cried out.. .
And found myself standing at the end of an alleyway. The raven sat perched on a windowsill, regarding me with its dark eyes.
“Come.” it said, “this way.” and it took flight down the street.
I followed as quickly as I could, booted feet pounding the cobblestones. That’s when I noticed I wasn’t wearing the simple robe and sandals I’d arrived in. I was dressed in modern street clothes that were at least ten years out of date, if not more. The raven was a good distance ahead and I couldn’t seem to keep up, no matter how fast I ran. It banked around the corner of a building and I followed, when the sound of raucous laughter stopped me in my tracks.
The alley I’d turned into held a party, a bunch of gangers in street leathers, their bikes parked against the walls of the alley. My raven guide was nowhere to be seen. There were at least a dozen of them, maybe two, and several looked over at me and smiled or offered calls of greeting.
“Hoi, chummer! Zappinin?” a voice called. A tough-looking human girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen offered me a can of beer. She wore black leathers and her hair was styled in short blue spikes.
“You’re already a couple behind.” she said, handing me the beer. She tipped back her own, downing the rest in a couple of swallows before breaking out another.
Something seemed to draw me into the crowd of gangers, and I slowly made my way toward the back of the alley. People clapped me on the shoulders and back, shouting over the sound of the music blasting from portable speakers set up around the alley. Some of the gangers were dancing drunkenly, while others hung out near the walls and talked or made out. I tried to find the raven, or to pick out something that could tell me what I needed to do in this place to continue on toward the citadel.
“Bastards!” a voice cried from the far end of the alley. It was barely audible above the noise and the music. I turned toward it in time to see a young man, hair disheveled, face streaked with soot and grime, clothes spattered with blood. It was me. Me from more than ten years ago.
“Die, you fraggers!” he yelled, and the world exploded into flames.
My clothes and hair were on fire. I screamed and tried to drop to the ground, to put out the flames, but they were all around me. All reason fled as I tried to do anything to get away from the fire. Everyone around me was screaming. The music died with a hideous squeal as the speakers and the player melted from the tremendous heat. I saw the girl with the blue hair drop to the ground, her flesh blistered and charred. I rolled along the ground, up against the wall, thrashing around, trying to put out the fire.
There was a dull boom, and one of the bikes exploded. Shards of hot metal pelted me and the heat seemed to suck away all the air. There was nothing but fire. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. There was nothing but terrible pain. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. All I could do was lie there and listen to the cries of pain and the crackle of the flames as both slowly died away, replaced by a sobbing sound like someone’s soul had been torn out. I barely noticed it and in a few moments it died away, too.
I felt cold and my skin was wet. I was dying. I knew that for sure. The cold hand of panic gripped my heart. I didn’t want to die. A warmth washed over my face and exposed skin.
Then live,
a voice said, like someone speaking over a radio channel full of hissing and crackling static.
Help me,
I thought, and the warmth fell over me like a blanket, spreading out from my heart into my limbs and my face. My body felt numb and I flexed my hands. My eyes opened and I could see my clothes and my skin, charred and burned. My hands moved of their own accord, lifting up in front of my face and turning over. I looked at them like I’d never seen them before.
“I live.” My lips formed the words. It was my voice, but it wasn’t me who spoke. It was something else. Something living inside me.
“I live!” it said again, raising my hands toward the sky.
I looked up at the top of the alley and saw a raven sitting there, staring down at me. The world went black and silent.
“Please, don’t
..
.” a voice said. It seemed to come from very far away. I fought my way toward it, but at the same time I was reluctant to leave the cool and comforting darkness. Then suddenly I knew why.
There was a man lying in front of me. He looked fairly young, probably no more than twenty. His features were a mongrel mix of racial types, liberally sprinkled with the piercings so common on the streets. He wore synth-denims and a jacket with patches sewn onto it, covered with scrawls in dark ink. His face was bruised, and dried blood covered his mouth and chin. I noticed his hands and feet were bound with silvery-gray tape.
“Please.” he moaned, looking up at me with terror in his dark eyes, “please don’t kill me, man. Please . . .” His words trailed off into a sob as he began to cry. I looked down to see the gleaming knife in my hands. The skin was blackened and shriveled, drawn tight over muscle and bone. I turned back to look at the sobbing figure in front of me.
Please don’t,
I thought, echoing his cries for mercy.
No more.
“I live.” my own voice said softly, “I must live. I must kill to live.”
“NO! Please!” I couldn’t tell if it was my voice or the victim’s.
The knife flashed out and the man cried out in terror as the blade stroked his neck. Blood fountained from a severed artery, but it was nothing compared to the rush of energy that poured out of the dying man, like an explosion of heat and light. My arms spread wide, and I could feel the heat, the power of the man’s life, pour into me, into us, like water filling up a vessel. It felt good. Better than drugs, better than chips, better than sex, better than
everything.
I moaned, or it did, I couldn’t tell any more.
Part of me sobbed, the pleasure was almost painful.
No more
, I said in my mind,
please
,
no more.
My lips smiled as the last morsels of energy were consumed. The dead body was limp and cold, lying in a pool of blood.
“Good.” was all it said.
I couldn’t tell how much time passed, how many died. It was a lot. Different faces, different races, men and women, old and young. It didn’t care who. It chose them solely on how bright they were, how filled with the fires of life it needed to survive. It learned quickly that fear and terror stoked those fires hotter before death, that it could make the most of a victim by prolonging his or her end, making each moment count, savoring it. It got better and better at using my body, too. It never repaired the damage, the burned skin and clothes. It had no interest in such things. Only a desire to live and to kill. It said it cared about me, but it didn’t, it didn’t care about anything except what it needed.
Sometimes, after it fed, I could feel my body for a little while. It hurt so much and there was nothing I could do about it. It didn’t last for very long, just a few minutes alone in the dark with nothing but pain and cold. Then the warmth would start to spread through my limbs again and it would be back, moving my body like a puppet.
In those few cold and lonely minutes after each death I started to carry out my plan. It wasn’t too difficult to find a strong piece of rope in the home of one of its victims, to tie it around my waist to hide it. I carried the rope back with it to where we lived, in the underground. Tying the knot was more difficult, it took time to get it right, and I had to hide the rope whenever it started to return, hiding any hint there was something wrong. I don’t know what it would do if it found out what I was doing.
Fortunate that it collected some old furniture, bits of junk for the lair. It wanted to know more about people, and I could feel it picking through my thoughts and memories like old trash, looking for more. I tried to keep what i know hidden. It didn’t think much ofme. I’m just something it needed, even less than a dog or a horse. It didn’t suspect.
When I was ready, I tied the rope to a sturdy-looking pipe, standing on an old chair. I dropped the noose around my neck and slid it closed, feeling the rough fibers of the rope against my burnt skin. I didn’t know how it was keeping me alive. By all rights I should have been dead. I should have died in the alley. It shouldn't have been allowed to do this. To use me like it has. It has to stop. I started to feel the warmth spreading through my body and, suddenly, it knew what I was planning.
NO!
it said,
Stop!
It tried to seize control, but I still had enough control over my body to kick the chair away.
The rope went tight and there was a snapping sound. I heard it scream one last time before it all went dark.
It was dark for a very long time, and cold, so very cold.
I was very angry. More than angry, anger incarnate. That smoldering anger kept me warm, kept me going. I used my power to seize the body’s fleeing life force and hold on to it tightly, like a man clutching a lifeline. I held those last moments of life and didn’t let go
. I cannot die, I must live,
I thought.
The body dangled limply from the rope. I wanted to remove it, burn it, break it, but I could not. I didn’t have the strength left. All I could do was hold on, cling to life with all my strength. The physical world was so full of new sensations, brimming over with hot, simmering life. I could sense it all going on above me. So close, so close. All I needed was to hold myself in this world forever. Then my power would have no limit. I could feed on the life of this world as much as needed.