The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (45 page)

The air to the left of my elbow chilled rapidly, and I ducked down on reflex. A wash of cold air and a growl flooded my ears. I rolled against the wounds on my back and slashed up above me. This time I connected. The servitor released a moan, almost baleful.

Almost feminine.

This thing was a manifestation of Ches’s thoughts. Before it became twisted by hate and starvation, it had been part of her very mind. And now it was a blend of Ches and Elle. It was difficult to imagine those two people stitched together into a being of hate and revenge, but here it was, lurking in the darkness with me. Wounded.

Killing this thing became suddenly painful to me. But that was my thoughtform. Love of those two people. Granted, my love for Ches had diminished. No, it had vanished.

Or had it?

I took in as much of my surroundings as the flashlight would allow. No windows. No doors. No natural exits. The only exit was the hole this thing made in the wall. That, granted, was a feat. And it probably burned up most of its remaining soul energy to do that much. It was trying to escape, though, and probably couldn’t navigate through the wardings on the steel door frame. Creatures of energy, living and unliving, tended to follow architecture. Especially old architecture. There’s something about the planning and building and living in a house that imprints hard and fast boundaries on the other side of the Veil. Which was probably why such beings preferred forests and swamps and anything but cities.

I backed swiftly to the hole in the wall. This was its only exit. Sure, given enough time, it may find a way out. Perhaps the plumbing leading up into the walls or down into the sewer. Perhaps some innocuous rat hole leading to the street. But it would take as much time to find as it would me. At least, that was my theory.

I reached up behind my shirt and smeared my finger across one of the gashed in my skin. It stung like hell, but it gave me a potent warding reagent, and one which I didn’t have to charge. Reaching behind me, I painted four solar crosses on what I decided would be the four corners of the hole the servitor knocked through the sheetrock. It was quick and dirty, but the warding snapped into life with verve. This fly-by-wire magic wouldn’t last long. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it to.

“There!” I shouted into the darkness. “You’re trapped in here with me, now.”

I paused to listen for any more skittering, wheezing, or even a response.

“You’re buried underground. You getting that yet?” Still no response. I had to try and rattle this thing to find it. “The first homo sapiens had this figured out. You trap a soul underground, it can’t escape to haunt the living. And that’s what waits for you here. Slow death and decay.”

Something fell in the corner of the cellar. I moved the flashlight to see, and found an old tin can rolling on its side.

“You’ve long outlived your purpose. Even your creator wants you dead.”

Skittering shot across the space directly in front of me, and I stabbed forward with my darquelle, hitting nothing.

“You don’t like that, do you? What’s the point in creating life if it’s meant to die? We all have an appointed time, and if we attempt to extend that time, the Cosmos responds with unspeakable cruelty. I’ve seen it happen.”

The energy in the basement shifted. It was sudden and dizzying. I wasn’t sure what it indicated, but I braced for something to happen.

Yellow eyes blinked open several yards in front of me. I shined the flashlight in their direction. Instead of simply vanishing, a full-figured silhouette remained in its light, detailing a humanoid shape against the ragged brick and mortar wall of the cellar. The silhouette didn’t approach as much as it grew larger against the brick. I brandished the darquelle nonetheless.

“Are you ready?” I muttered to the dark figure.

The yellow eyes blinked away.

Skittering.

Pain.

Fresh slashes across my chest and right arm sent pain flashing through my chest. This felt deep. Internal.

Like a heart attack.

I swished through the air with the blade, but the pain grew unbearable. I lost my breath. My chest heaved, trying to suck in any kind of oxygen. The floor slammed against my knees, but the only thing that cut through the panic of suffocating was the mind-shattering pain inside my ribcage.

The flashlight beam dulled into darkness. It couldn’t have been the battery. I was blacking out. The remaining shadows scurried. The frenzy had begun. The damned shadows had been waiting for this moment for several months, now. They were ready for me to perish, and then escort me to whatever Hell awaited me.

Part of me was prepared. I had spent so much energy hunting down my soul. It was draining. It had robbed me of every good thing in my life. My career was in ruin. I lost my last chance at wealth. My friends had all suffered as a consequence of my actions or inactions. I was so damn tired.

The pain dulled, and on a deep level I understood I was dying.

Well, I had tried.

My vision blurred into the final darkness, and I sucked in one breath.

And saw Emil Desiderio.

He was hunched over his desk in our flat in London, hand-copying some stupid text he had loaned from a smelly Baltic fellow in the East End. This was his usual Saturday night thing. Copying. Translating. Doing anything but living a life that, by God, I was entitled to live. Ten years we had lived in this moldy flat, couched between a charming Pakistani family with an unbearably noisy toddler, and a twenty-something from Kent who liked to play punk music in the middle of the night.

Our flat was a maze of books, scrolls, cabinets, jars of reagents, and bric-a-brac from Emil’s travels. I had long since explored the interesting items in his collection. All that remained was more work.

And I was sick of it.

He was particularly engrossed in this one particular translation. I caught a glimpse of the original text. Looked like Cyrillic. Whatever. The last important magic that came from Russia was wiped out by the Golden Horde. The Huns had well and truly driven magic west of the Caucasus, and all that remained were minds eager to explore every practical element of life. Ah, the Russian perspective. It was refreshing, really, but useless to a man like Emil.

So whatever had held his attention so thoroughly had to be historical, and thus of no use to me. I decided to take this opportunity to slip out. This was getting to be my regular thing. Weekends avoiding Emil, ditching and spending an evening at the Carpenters Arms with Genie and her friends. I had been working up the nerve to ask Genie out for weeks, but Emil’s demanding schedule had made that nearly impossible. Still, she always managed to find me at the Arms, probably because she figured I would always find a way to sneak out on a Saturday night. That had to mean something.

“You’re done with the Diometrides, then?” Emil grumbled as I tried to turn the door knob. Busted.

“Yeah.”

“Care to present it for inspection?”

I sighed and stomped over to my desk. I had, in fact, completed my translation of the Diometrides text earlier that day. I hadn’t double-checked it, though. That could take a good week. At that very moment, I didn’t care. I snatched my composition book and tossed it onto Emil’s desk.

He lifted his hand, keeping his quill from smearing onto his page, and turned slowly to glare at me with those bushy gray eyebrows. His eyes were deep, constantly ringed in dark circles as if he applied makeup each day to sell the whole world-weary look.

“You’re angry,” he cooed. “What is this?”

“The Diometrides.”

“No. This attitude. This recent distaste for the studies you requested of me.”

“Emil. I’m tired. I’m thirsty. Frankly, I’m bored.”

He turned away. “You’re allowing the demands of the flesh to cloud your focus.”

“Too right, I am!”

“Then you will succumb to the flesh. This is what is left for you, Dorian. You have chosen to awaken to a reality that has no respect for the flesh.” He turned back to me, his eyes oddly drawn and soft. “You cannot choose to return to ignorance.”

“I just need a bitter, Emil. I did my work. I did the translation. I even cataloged that stupid box of crystals that Joe from Australia brought you. I need to blow off some steam.”

“It is important to realize you are young now. When you are old enough to feel the weight of this other Life we have chosen, then you will realize the simple things are no longer available to you.”

He reached up and gripped my hand. I jumped. He never moved this quickly.

“I have given you the key to a Cosmic endeavor, Dorian. Open the door. Step through the passage that leads to gnosis.”

I pulled away, trying not to completely freak.

“Emil? You’re hitting the vodka early tonight, aren’t you?”

His eyes fell, and he shook his head, turning back to his text, though his quill didn’t move.

I stood behind him. He was being completely weird. I mean, weirder than usual. I was ready for a tongue-lashing, some sermon about my responsibilities. But instead he gave me a half-drunk diatribe on gnosis.

The beer sounded real good at that moment. I stepped out of the flat and hustled down the street to the Arms. Genie and her usual crew were already there. They had bought me a pint. God, their faith in me was eerie! That night I had three pints, and I managed to get Genie’s phone number. The beer gave me the courage to ask her out. Her beer gave her the grace to say yes.

It was going to be the best night of my life.

Then I returned to the flat and found Emil. He was lying on his bed. His arms and legs had been hacked away from his body. His face lay to the side, calm and accepting. Whoever had done this to him had his cooperation. He seemed ready to die, and my stomach dropped when I realized that he knew this was coming. That diatribe he gave me was to be his last words to me. And I practically ignored him.

Those words had been forgotten.

Until that moment as my flesh perished.

Another breath.

The pain rushed through my chest again.

This flesh. This agonized flesh. The heart could stop, and I may die. I may not even have a soul, but something of my mind remained. And that mind had broken free in that one fleeting second from this shadow world into which it was born.

I opened my eyes and took in the room. It was no longer dark. At least, it was perceivable. The walls were made of living shadows, all sharp-toothed, all reaching for me. These were imps, blasted, hateful little creatures of death no more potent on this realm than a swarm of hornets.

As my body crumpled away under the pain, my mind hummed with thoughts aflame.

I thought of Emil. I asked myself how he would have judged me at this moment.

That was easy enough. He would sniff at these simple creatures. They were nothing a basic Banishing Cross couldn’t repel.

The Banishing Cross.

How utterly simple. It was the first lesson Emil had taught me, even before we had left New York for London. It was the cornerstone of all hermetical workings, at least for any novice. As one became naturally attuned to one’s personal energy, the Banishing Cross became unnecessary.

But I had never visited this realm of existence. I had never crossed the Veil. And my heart was still pumping.

I centered my mainline and released a pure white light in the form of a cross, emanating from my heart chakra. I situated myself in the center of this cross, then fired the third axis out from my heart chakra. All lines of white light extended out as far as I could perceive the Cosmos, and at once I was anchored, an immutable fixed point in my personal universe.

The light intensified and awaited the banishing ritual. Some used the Sephiroth of Qabbala. Some invoked archangels. Emil had trained me in those early days to choose my personal angels, the forces of Good in my life that possessed the strongest meaning. In those early days, I had chosen my parents, Aunt Viv, and Emil as my banishing angels.

But this was a new life. I had new angels.

One by one I called them, firing them against the imps clouding me.

Edgar.

Wren.

Julian.

Ben.

The light burned away the shadows. One by one, the imps wilted, fled, dissolved.

Leaving only one shadow glaring at me with yellow eyes, wreathed in the white light of my burning intent.

I forced myself to my feet, gripping the darquelle with my palm against the hilt.

“And this one is for Elle.”

I thrust forward, stabbing directly into the heart of the servitor.

White-hot energy spilled across my arms, against my chest, and out into the Cosmos along with a final baleful moan.

My face hit the floor.

Dust filled my nose.

The light dropped into immediate darkness.

My flashlight lay several feet away, shining at a few innocuous bricks.

Someone called my name. It was Edgar. Yes. Edgar.

I pushed against the filthy stone floor, wincing at the slashes in my back. I took several deep breaths, coughing out dust. But otherwise, my chest felt fine. No arrhythmia. No tightness.

My back, on the other hand, still hurt like hell.

“Dorian? You okay?”

I coughed again and tried to speak.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “More or less.”

A flicker of silver reflected the flashlight beam as I rolled to my feet. I snatched my darquelle and considered it in the low light.

Footsteps bounded down the stairs to the room behind me.

“Hey, man.” It was Edgar’s voice. “Holy shit!”

“I’m in here.”

“What’s back here?”

I turned to find Edgar peering through the hole in the sheetrock.

“Apparently I have a coal cellar.”

“What about the thing?”

I paused and re-centered myself. The energy in the dank space was utterly terrestrial. Nothing was in flux. Nothing was drawing energy. I looked down to the darquelle and noted its disposition. When a ritual blade is first “blooded,” it takes on a kind of life of its own. A kind of sinister cognizance that only seasoned Netherworkers can stomach. It wasn’t easy to describe the fullness of character the blade exuded at that moment, but the best single word I could conjure was “sated.”