Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

Zayvion started whistling. Soft, swaying, the song was an old folk or country tune, something that brought to mind half-remembered words of a man wanting to waltz with a woman but ending up dead, his lonely ghost calling her name and wandering the land.

At the end of the chorus, Zayvion stopped, turned. He pulled the machete out from beneath his coat. Chase had an Illusion for that one too. To the nonmagical eye, he was doing nothing more than stretching.

But the beasts saw him for what he really was. A seven-foot-tall, burning black and silver god of a man wielding a wicked steel and glass machete glyphed to a killing edge.

The beasts leaped. Zayvion caught the first one through the chest with the tip of his blade. He pulled the blade free and pivoted, swinging the machete more like a billy club than a sword, putting the strength of his body into it. He sliced the next beast in half. Both sides of the creature fell to the grass and quivered.

I blinked, lost my focus on Sight for a half second, and the scene changed to Zayvion standing there, lighting a cigarette while the dogs wandered aimlessly around him and eventually made their way into the shadows under the bridge and out of sight.

Note to self: Chase can kick some serious Illusion ass.

I concentrated on Sight again. The glyph was still there, still working.

And Zayvion was still fighting. Silent, even in the noisy grass, he took the next beast through the thick head, the blade wedging and not coming free. He abandoned the machete, and a string with glyphed blades at the end appeared in his hands.

It didn’t look like a formidable weapon, and frankly, I was trying to figure out why he didn’t just pull a gun. Zayvion said a word I didn’t hear-maybe Chase was working a Mute spell too-and the string burned with wicked fire. Magic dripped like flame down the edges of the blade. He swung the string in a tight circle and folded it against his chest to shorten and change the string’s direction. The blade whipped out and cut off the front legs of the creature nearest him. A second strike through the ribs, and the thing moved no more.

This time I saw the Hunger’s muzzle open in a howl.

But I heard nothing. Definitely a Mute spell. Zayvion probably didn’t use a gun because Mute, even a really strong Mute, still allowed some noise to escape. And it was harder to hold an Illusion and Mute spell at the same time, doubly so in the dead zone of St. Johns. But a machete and rope-pretty easy to mask the sound of their strikes.

And apparently, the howl of undead, unliving beasts.

The rest of the creatures seemed to finally figure out that Zayvion was going to finish them off in short order. As if a cue had been sent, they took off running, fast, fluid, disappearing beneath the bridge.

Zayvion swore-that I heard-and Chase and he set off after the Hungers, their heartbeats tapping fast at my wrist.

Shamus flicked his cigarette to the ground and rolled his boot over it. He also dropped whatever spell he had been using to hold up that wall.

He coughed a couple times and spat.

“Shouldn’t we follow them?”

“No.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, but not before I noticed the blood at the corner of his lips. “I’m going to clean up. You can watch if you want.”

It really bugged me to just stand around while other people were working, but I’d said I only wanted to come so I could learn. So I could keep my people safe from those creatures. So I would know what to do next time. So I never had to haul Davy’s broken and bleeding body into the hospital again.

All I’d learned so far was that it took at least three people to handle the Hungers. And a certain knowledge with weapons.

Which meant, if I really wanted to know how to fight these things, I had a lot of learning ahead of me.

Shamus must have taken my silence for agreement. He walked off toward the dead-at least I hoped they were dead-bodies of the Hungers.

I put the knife back in my belt and followed, noting the circle of dead grass where Shamus had stood had grown to six feet in diameter.

“Bet you suck at gardening,” I observed.

Shamus shrugged. “It’s all about energy exchange. It could always go the other way, me feeding a plant instead of drawing the life out of it.”

“Do that often?”

Shamus looked at me over his shoulder. “No.”

“Why not? Have something against plants?”

“No, but I haven’t met a vegetable good enough to sacrifice a year of my life for.”

“What?”

“Energy exchange. Death magic is all about transition, transfer, mutation, change from one state into another.” At my look, he rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. This is the ABC’s. I can draw the life energy out of a living thing, like a plant, or I can give my life energy to a living thing, like a plant. Once that connection is set, it is a carrier for magic. And that carrier-say it with me: Death magic-shifts how magic responds when it is cast into glyphs.”

We stopped above the inert creatures. They were reduced to a strange collection of torsos, limbs, and body parts. Zayvion’s machete stuck out of the skull of one of the things, hilt toward the sky, with just enough blade showing that it caught silver in the light. Fluid, thicker than blood, oozed black from every wound. I still didn’t smell any kind of scent from them.

What had Shamus said? Death magic was hard to Hound?

“So, yeah, I like my vegetables. Don’t love ’em enough to die for them.” He knelt and poked a finger at one of the Hungers. His finger disappeared to the last knuckle inside the flesh, like he’d jabbed a stick into sand. He pulled his finger back. It came out clean.

Not so much creepy as sort of barf-inspiring.

It didn’t seem to bother Shamus. “I’m going to stay here and retrieve the rest of the energy they fed on-since a lot of it was mine. Give me your word you’ll stay out of trouble.”

“Scout’s honor,” I drawled.

“Close enough.” He traced a spell, one I did not know, into the air above the creature nearest him. The Sight spell I had cast was gone now, and I’d promised not to use any more magic, so I had to settle for the very normal sight of Shamus kneeling over four butchered nightmares.

He tipped his head back a little and closed his eyes. He whispered something, a single liquid word. Then a look of rapture crossed his face. His heartbeat slowed, and when I turned my thoughts to how he was feeling, I was surprised at the slick, lazy euphoria that filled him. Apparently, this was the upside of using Death magic.

The Hunger nearest him began to fade. Within two minutes, it was gone, all the remaining energy that made it solid absorbed by Shamus, leaving nothing, not even black blood behind.

Shamus sighed. Maybe it was my imagination, but he didn’t look quite so pale. Without opening his eyes, he whispered that liquid word again. The next beast began to fade, and a second, stronger rush of euphoria took him.

If I stayed in touch any longer with his emotions, I was going to get a friggin’ contact high.

The wind picked up, pushing the misty air around and reminding me that it had been a long day. I was cold. Tired. Wet. I tucked my chin into my collar and exhaled, my breath doing little to warm me up. I wondered if Zayvion and Chase were done running the Hungers down. I glanced over the way they had gone, didn’t see any movements there. Of course, Chase was pretty good at Illusion.

“Daniel Beckstrom.”

I spun at the voice behind me.

The Necromorph crouched on all fours in the shadows behind the metal building. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but he was thicker, stronger than when he’d jumped me. I think he’d been feeding well too.