Nicholas Kaufmann - Dying Is My Business

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Given his line of work in the employ of a psychotic Brooklyn crime boss, Trent finds himself on the wrong end of too many bullets. Yet each time he’s killed, he wakes a few minutes later completely healed of his wounds but with no memory of his past identity. What’s worse, each time he cheats death someone else dies in his place.
Sent to steal an antique box from some squatters in an abandoned warehouse near the West Side Highway, Trent soon finds himself stumbling into an age-old struggle between the forces of good and evil, revealing a secret world where dangerous magic turns people into inhuman monstrosities, where impossible creatures hide in plain sight, and where the line between the living and the dead is never quite clear. And when the mysterious box is opened, he discovers he has only twenty-four hours to save New York City from certain destruction.

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The rest of us gathered by Stryge’s body as Philip approached with his captive. Melanthius’s golden skull mask regarded me stoically, emotionlessly.

“This isn’t over,” he hissed.

“Wanna bet?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact,” Melanthius said, “I do.”

On the ground between us, Stryge sat up suddenly. I jumped back.

Stryge’s eyes opened, and where they had once blazed with white fire, they now glowed red with Reve Azrael’s necromancy. The thirty-foot-tall revenant rose to its feet, towering over us.

“My God,” Isaac breathed.

“Stay back, all of you!” I shouted. They backed away. Melanthius chuckled inside his mask.

Reve Azrael looked down at me through Stryge’s eyes. She spoke through the Ancient’s wide, tusked mouth. “I owe you a debt of gratitude, little fly. My plan would never have worked without the one weapon that could kill an Ancient. You.”

“You knew what I would do to stop him,” I said, fuming. “You used me.”

“You exist for me to use.” She turned her enormous host body to the others and said, “Release Melanthius.”

“Why don’t you come and get him?” Philip snarled back.

Bethany, still holding my gun, lifted it and squeezed off two shots. The bullets bounced off Stryge’s withered skin.

Reve Azrael laughed. “Tiny, foolish thing. You think because this body is dead its hide is any more vulnerable? It is still the body of an Ancient. It contains vast, inexhaustible power. There is no limit to what I can do.” She started toward Bethany. Bethany backed up, but Reve Azrael stopped suddenly. She looked down at her host body. “Wait. Something is wrong. This body is nothing but an empty shell. What has become of Stryge’s power? Where is it?”

I looked up at her. “Take a guess.”

She turned her glowing red eyes to me. There was so much anger in them, so much rage, that they glowed all the brighter for it.

“You thought you had the perfect plan, but there’s one thing you forgot to take into account,” I said. “Ancients aren’t like the rest of us. Their magic is different from ours.” She stared at me, still not comprehending. “Ancients were the first living creatures in the world, right? They’re millions of years old. Magic alone couldn’t have kept them alive all this time. It’s the strength of their life force; it’s part of what they are. Their life force is their magic. And now it’s in me.”

“Of course,” she sneered. “That is what you do, isn’t it? Absorb their life forces for yourself? Steal what rightfully belongs to others? You are a thief, little fly, in more ways than one.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But what does that make you? Just another talking corpse.”

Reve Azrael bellowed in rage, furious that she’d been denied Stryge’s power. Her anger distracted her, and Isaac took advantage of it. He pushed out his hand. Crackling arcs of electricity flared from his palms and hit Reve Azrael in the back. She roared louder and turned to face the mage. He hit her with the spell again. This time it knocked her backward. Arms spinning wildly, she fell onto one of the huge, sharp stone fragments. The weight of her body coupled with the unyielding strength of the stone drove it into her back and out through her chest.

She struggled and squirmed to pull herself off the sharp stone, but she couldn’t. She was stuck. Good. I wanted her to suffer the way she’d made others suffer. I wanted her to hurt. But this was only a host body, not the real thing. I had no idea if she could even feel pain through a revenant.

She stared at me angrily. “You have Stryge’s power, so why do you not use it? Why hesitate? You could unmake me in a heartbeat, break me apart into dust!”

As tempting as that sounded, it wasn’t an option. I couldn’t control the power inside me. But she didn’t have to know that.

“Because you have something I want,” I replied. “No more games. No more evading the question. Tell me the truth. What do you know about me?” She didn’t answer. I tried again. “Who am I?”

“Trent, just end this,” Isaac said, coming forward.

“Wait,” I barked at him. He stopped where he was, but he didn’t retreat. “We found your homunculus, Reve Azrael. I know that’s how you kept tabs on me, but it doesn’t explain everything. The only time you could have hidden it on me was when you came to the house in Bennett’s body, but that doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t have come to the house unless you already knew I was there. How did you know?”

She stayed silent.

“Trent,” Isaac warned again, but I lifted my hand to stop him.

“Tell me the truth,” I demanded. “How do you know me? Who am I?”

“Allow me to take Stryge’s power back from you, and I will give you all the answers you seek,” she said.

“Stryge’s body is ruined,” I said. “His power is useless to you now.”

“I can still read his memories,” she said. “These wounds and broken bones mean nothing. Once Stryge’s power is returned to his body, they won’t matter.”

“Trent!” Isaac shouted. His palms began to glow. “End this, or I will!”

“It still burns inside you,” Reve Azrael said. “But it is not made for mortal bodies. In time, the power will consume you from within. It will destroy you. Give it to me, save yourself, and I will tell you everything.”

I watched her lips curl into a smile, and felt cold inside. She was using me again, manipulating me to get what she wanted, and she would keep on doing it as long as she had something she could hold over me. I’d been down that road before, and I didn’t like it the first time. Isaac was right, it was time to put an end to this.

Willem Van Lente’s sword lay on the ground nearby. I walked over to it and picked it up.

“Listen to what I am offering you,” Reve Azrael insisted.

I carried the sword back over to her.

“Fool, this is the body of an Ancient,” she sneered. “A sword forged by man will do nothing.”

“It’s no ordinary sword,” I said. “Search Stryge’s memories. I’m sure you’ll recognize it.”

Her eyes went wide as it came to her. “No,” she shrieked. “I have worked too hard and waited too long to be cheated like this! It’s not fair!”

“Lady, if you’ve got a problem with the way life treats you, get in line.” I lifted the sword up over my head, its blade pointing down between her eyes.

“Wait! Do this and I will never tell you what you want to know! You will live out the rest of your days knowing how close you came to the truth before you threw it all away.”

“I’ll live,” I said, and drove the sword deep into Stryge’s forehead, into his brain, severing Reve Azrael’s link to his body. The red glow faded from Stryge’s eyes as her consciousness fled. I pulled the sword free, the barbs on the back of the blade caked with thick grue.

God, I thought, we did it. I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, against all odds, we’d actually saved New York City. I laughed with relief, and nearly dropped to my knees in exhaustion.

A sudden, pained cry startled me. I turned around to see Melanthius standing behind Philip, holding a small silver dagger to the vampire’s neck. Loops of severed rope dangled from Melanthius’s wrists. He inched backward toward the ruins of the Cloisters, keeping a firm grip on his hostage. Bethany lifted the gun again, drawing a bead on Melanthius’s gold skull mask over Philip’s shoulder, but she didn’t fire.

“Shoot him,” I said.

She shook her head. “I can’t. It could hit Philip.”

“He’ll be fine, he’s a vampire.”

“Silver saps a vampire’s powers. The bullet could kill him.” But she didn’t lower the gun. She kept it trained on Melanthius, waiting for him to slip up and give her a clean shot.

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