Tim Marquitz - Resurrection

Baalth growled, his voice like two tectonic plates colliding. “Do it.”

She snarled and met the demon’s turbulent eyes. The rumbling aftershock of his anger quelled her revolt in an instant. Head hung low, she turned back to me.

“Are you sure he knows?”

I held Chatterbox out to her. “He’s still animated, which means the link to his master is still active. He might not know where he is on a conscious level, but he feels the pull of Reven’s will, and that’ll lead us right to our missing necro.”

Veronica rocked back and forth, mustering the fortitude to follow Baalth’s order. She didn’t want to do it, and while I certainly understood why, we weren’t sitting on a font of options. If we were gonna find Reven in time to keep Longinus from being raised, we needed to get on it. There wasn’t time for her squeamish reluctance. I gave her a stern look and wiggled Chatterbox in front of her.

Her cheeks flushed bright red as she roughly snatched the gibbering head from my hands. “You so fucking owe me for this.”

“Don’t fool yourself. This doesn’t even come close to making us even.” I met her graveyard stare with one of my own. Backed up by Baalth, I was feeling bold. I’d have to watch my back later, but right then, I was King of the World. The best part was she knew it, too.

Muttering something guttural behind clenched teeth, she broke off the staring match, her gaze drifting down to Chatterbox. The red drained from her cheeks a second later, a subtle green tinge replacing it. Not much for romance, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and dove in.

There was a soft squish as Veronica’s mouth collided with the head’s and I saw her tense up, no doubt fighting the instinct to vomit. I could see Chatterbox’s eyes light up, his flickering tongue visible through the holes in his decayed cheek. It looked like an epileptic caterpillar, twitching back and forth, burrowing deep into Veronica’s mouth. He was getting his undead groove on.

Behind us, I heard a moist splash and looked up to see the battered Marcus bent over double, spewing into the clouds. Freed from Lilith’s hold by Baalth’s brute force, magical reorientation, compounded by my not-so-gentle rearrangement of his face, I was surprised he was even conscious, let alone able to stand and realize what was going on. It gave me a newfound respect for his endurance, even if I could never respect him as a man. He was one tough bastard.

For that matter, they all were. Beside him, barely able to stand, but doing it nevertheless, was McConnell, torn stitches and all. His shaggy head was turned to the side and he stared off into the fog, not interested in following Marcus’s vomitory lead. Of the three, only Poe held his ground steady. His face was a mask of cold indifference, though even he seemed to look without seeing, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

I’m not sure what that says about me, but I was all about watching. I can’t say it turned me on, even as depraved as I am, but somewhere deep down, somewhere dark and vindictive, a part of me cheered like I’d won the lottery. It was a petty part, but I’m at peace with my faults.

My amused attention returned to the show just in time to see Chatterbox’s eyes go dim, the remaining leathery flesh on his face pulling tight as Veronica fed on his energy. His tongue waggled to a stop and withdrew into his cavernous mouth, as she asserted her will.

The contest over, Veronica pulled away with a gasp, dropping the head into the clouds as she stumbled back. A moment later, she too christened the roiling fog with vomit. Sepulchral heaves rattled her ribs as she retched, her body wracked with trembling spasms. It wasn’t pretty.

With surprising restraint considering his recent mood, Baalth stood there quiet as she emptied her gut, his hands clenched into tight fists. Agitated sparkles of energy fluttered around them, like lightning bugs after a summer storm, but there was no other sign of his displeasure. A few moments later, Veronica still struggling to regain control, he at last turned his searing gaze to me.

“As promised, our pact is fulfilled.”

With a snap of his fingers a contract appeared, floating in the air before us. I had just long enough to recognize the mark at the bottom of it before it burst into reddish flames. Within seconds it was nothing more than willowy ash, fluttering down in wispy spirals of black and gray. However dramatic it sounds, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders.

“Now, for the rest of our arrangement-” He reached a hand out to me, his palm glowing scarlet.

I took a quick step back, avoiding it. “Hold on a second.”

His lip curled into a sneer and I felt the ground beneath me sway. The look in his dark eyes was murderous. He leaned in close, roaring, “You dare-”

“No, no, no. It’s not like that.” I waved my hands frantically to keep him from killing me before I could explain. “It’s just if I walk out of here stronger than when I came in, Lilith will know something is up.”He glared at me for a moment before his features softened, the fury in his eyes abating. His upper lip quivered for a heartbeat longer, before settling into a mirthless grin. His anger in check, he nodded for me to continue.

I did, as quickly as I could get the words out. “For whatever reason, she wants me dead. She’s already set me up twice and I’ve managed to walk away both times. I’m hoping she’ll be so pissed off when I reappear this time she’ll want to do the job herself. But if I pop up on her senses glowing like a Christmas tree, she’s gonna know better than to come after me. I need her to think she’s still got the upper hand.”

Baalth stared at me for a moment longer, pondering what I’d told him. Then suddenly, his eyes lit up and a crooked smile flattered his lips. “I’ve a solution that suits both our needs.”

He held his glowing hand out, the building energy shimmering as though it were alive. It danced and swirled about his palm, pulling together into a dense mass, roughly the size of a baseball. As it pulsed and throbbed, it cast off tiny red sparks, its mass condensing more every second until it was no larger than a pencil eraser. Shrunk down, he passed it to me.

A bit hesitant to take it, torn between the need to trick Lilith into coming after me and the desire for power, I gave in to the latter.

Greed is an amazing motivator. I’d never have another opportunity like this one. It was the quintessential offer I couldn’t refuse.

Its magical warmth caressed my hand as the tiny ball settled in my palm. I just stared at it for a moment, its power slapping against my senses like storm-driven waves against a tide wall. Baalth had told me he’d pass on a portion of his power, but I’d expected it to be a trifling amount, never thinking he’d be too generous. Given our history of butting heads, he surprised me.

Contained inside the tiny sphere was more mystical energy than I could have imagined possessing, at least in any realistic way since I’d turned down my uncle’s offer of Anti-Christ. It wasn’t enough to tip the balance in any sort of cosmic way, and it definitely wasn’t anything compared to what Baalth still held, but it would be one hell of a boost; a satisfying one, for sure.

Now, with it in my grasp, I began to second guess my plan, wondering what I could do to Lilith with my newfound magic. Images filled my head of the potential carnage I could wreak upon her, the ruin I could bring to the backstabber who’d betrayed my uncle and who’d set me up to die. There was no bottom to the well of inventive agonies my sudden inheritance inspired. Baalth, however, apparently not interested in letting me revel in the moment, yanked me from my delusional tangent with a perverse command.