Undead to the World (33 page)

Sigh. Just when I
need
a singleminded killing machine, he goes and reforms. I can hear the universe—several
of them, in fact—sniggering behind my back. Real funny, guys.

I open my eyes. Stoker does the same. We stare at each other for a moment, and then
he smiles and glances around. “Huh. Now
this
is what I call a jailbreak.”

“Oh, you’ve just exchanged one cell for another,” I say. “This one is slightly larger,
but a lot more dangerous. Azura filled you in?”

Stoker nods. “Anything new since the last time you two spoke?”

I tell him about Athena, and the tunnels, and the Gallowsman. He takes it all in stride.
I hate to say it, but I’m actually glad he’s here; no matter how capable or competent
this reality’s Stoker is, he hasn’t spent his entire life training to fight supernatural
beings. Mine has.

He’s examining his own arms critically as I talk, but I know he’s paying attention.
“Hmmm. Not in peak shape,” he murmurs. “Fewer scars, as well. Guess it’ll do. What’s
our plan?”

“We take down the master vampire,” I say. “Then figure out a way to deal with the
Gallowsman.”

Charlie clears his throat. “You keep calling him that. The master vampire. Why don’t
you use his name? We know who it has to be, right?”

I hesistate. “Yes,” I admit. “It’s Cassius. I don’t know how he ignored my cross—maybe
it’s because he’s from a reality where religious symbols don’t affect pires—but it
has to be him.”

But it isn’t really Cassius, I want to say. It’s a magnified, distorted version of
him, warped by this reality’s rules and Ahaseurus’s magic. A Cassius with his ethics
gutted, a centuries-old pire stripped of any morality or empathy and filled with a
bottomless loathing for yours truly. Yeah, I have no trouble facing the truth of that
at all.

“You know where he is?” Stoker asks.

“No. But I know where he’ll be.”

“Where?”

“Wherever I am. He knows I’ve got Ahaseurus’s spell book, and Cassius is no slouch
at magic himself. It’s his shot at taking control. He’s probably searched my place
already.”

“But it’s not there?” asks Doctor Pete.

“No, I brought it with me and stashed it here.”

“Maybe we should have a look at it ourselves,” Doctor Pete suggests. “I may not be
a high-level shaman, but I know my way around a book of spells.”

“I know a few things myself,” Stoker says, giving the Doc a curious glance.

“I’ll get it,” I say.

I hid the thing in Charlie’s garage, under a stack of old motorcycle magazines. It’s
still there. I pull it out, then pause for a minute before going back into the house.

Something’s not right.

Charlie’s garage is neat, tools all hung in their places, floor swept, boxes on shelves
properly labeled. But still, I have this sense of something being out of place.

I look around. It takes me a moment, because it’s right under my nose; it’s the stack
of old magazines I used to hide the book. It’s the only thing here that’s not neatly
organized—the magazines are just in a pile on a bench, not even properly aligned with
one another. I frown, then look under the bench; there’s an empty cardboard box there
labeled
MOTORCYCLE MAGS
1992
–
94.

I start looking through the pile. I find what I’m searching for in the middle, where
the casual sloppiness of the magazines has been used to hide a slightly larger object.
It wouldn’t have meant anything to me a few days ago, but now I realize what I have
in my hands … and what it means.

I go back inside, holding it in one hand and the spell book in the other. I’m not
sure if it’s safe to let them touch.

“Jace?” Charlie says when I walk in. He can tell right away that something’s up, without
me saying a word.

“I thought there was only one book,” Stoker says.

“So did I,” I reply. “I was wrong. This is the missing piece of the puzzle. I know
who killed Ahaseurus now, and I think I know why.”

“Who?” Charlie asks.

“You,” I tell him.

TWENTY-ONE

“Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants,” Charlie mutters. “You wanna back that up and
try again, or should I just let you slap on the cuffs?”

I hold up what I found in Charlie’s garage. “See this?
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I was giving Charlie a hard time about reading it at the bar.”

“Yeah, that really clears things up,” Charlie says. “I knew a guy once who went on
a killing spree after an all-night binge of
The Wind in the Willows.”

“This isn’t just a book, Charlie.” I toss it on the coffee table. “It’s an illustrated
version, what’s called a graphic novel. In other words, a
comic book.
”

Comic books. Harmless hobby of kids and middle-aged geeks, right? On the world of
my birth, sure … but not on the version of Earth I call Thropirelem. There, shamans
use comics’ combination of words, images, and imagination to turn them into powerful
mystic totems, so dangerous that they’ve been outlawed since the nineteen-fifties.

Doctor Pete leans down and picks it up. Studies the cover, but doesn’t open it. “Yes.
I can feel the mystic potential being routed through it. Is this what Longinus was
killed for?”

“I think so—but that was only part of it. See, everything in this town was carefully
manipulated to make my life a living hell … but you can’t really suffer pain unless
you have a little pleasure first. In the end, it gives you even more to lose. That’s
why Charlie Allen—the Charlie of this reality—really was my friend. He was someone
I could trust, someone who really and truly was on my side. That way, whatever horrible
thing Longinus had planned for him was guaranteed to cause the maximum amount of anguish.”

Stoker nods, his gaze on Charlie. “So he recreated Charlie as closely as he could,
right down to his loyalty. Big mistake.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I should have suspected something when Charlie offered to help me
get rid of the body so quickly. He had no idea I’d be the one to discover the corpse—and
once I did, he figured the best solution to keep me from being locked up was to sanitize
the crime scene.”

Charlie looks thoughtful. “So this version of me figures out that Longinus is behind
you having such a craptastic life. He goes to Longinus’s house, confronts him, maybe
catches him in the middle of some kind of ritual. He kills Longinus and steals the
mystic artifact he was using, then stashes it while he tries to figure out what to
do next, not wanting any of the other cult members to get their hands on it.”

“Yeah. He leaves in a big hurry, then can’t go back for fear of being discovered.
Until I force his hand.”

Doctor Pete is turning the graphic novel over in his hands, studying the back as well
as the front. “So this is, what—the mystic center of all the spells woven through
this place?”

I nod. “Has to be. Think about it: a girl, ripped out of her own world and thrown
into another. When I first got my memory back, I compared my situation to Alice’s
in
Through the Looking-Glass
, but this place is a lot more like a warped version of Oz: I was taken from a supernatural
world
into
a small town in Kansas. There’s a storm that
prevents
me from going anywhere. The beasts are anything but cowardly, the tin man’s heart
is too large for his own good, and the guy with the big brain is an albino afraid
of burning in the sun. I’ve even got a faithful
dog
, for Christ’s sake.”

“And at the middle of it all,” Doctor Pete murmurs, “A genuine wizard who specializes
in illusions. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of resonant structure that would work with
this kind of sorcery. Preestablished patterns waiting to be mystically energized…”

“Right down to the Yellow Brick Road,” I say. “Once again, its purpose is inverted:
it leads out, not in. The highway.”

“And the Gallowsman?” Stoker asks. “Who does he represent?”

“He’s the Wicked Witch,” I say. “No flying monkeys, just a hangman’s rope. Makes a
backward kind of sense, I guess; you find both in trees, but one defies gravity while
the other uses it to kill.”

“Classic black magic,” Doctor Pete says. “Turn a cross upside down, perform a holy
ritual in reverse. Turn a work of joy and wonder into one of despair and terror.”
He taps the cover lightly with one finger. “But poor Charlie Allen had no idea what
to do with this. It would take someone trained in shamanism to properly utilize it,
especially now that the one who cast the initial spells is dead.”

“Somebody like Stoker?” I ask.

Doctor Pete hesitates. I know what he’s thinking:
Oh, sure, as long as you’re fine with placing the mystic equivalent of an atomic bomb
in the hands of a professional terrorist.
Okay, Doctor Pete wouldn’t make the bomb reference—they don’t use them where he’s
from—but otherwise that’s got to be what’s bothering him—

“I don’t think so,” Doctor Pete says carefully, then says something else. It’s a short
phrase, not in English, and sounds less like language than a series of growls and
whines.

The book becomes
more.
That’s the only way to put it. The colors on the cover get brighter, the lines crisper—not
just the lines of the illustration, but the lines of the book itself, its outline
in space and maybe time. It’s more
booklike
than it was before, making it both more real and more unnatural simultaneously. It’s
almost like a hyperrealistic, three-dimensional drawing of itself.

“Doc?” I ask. “What’s happening?”

“For everyone’s safety, please don’t come any closer,” Doctor Pete says. “It’s not
unusual for an artifact like this to be mystically encrypted or booby-trapped. I’m
doing my best to interrogate it without setting anything off.…” He mutters a few more
animalistic words, and it feels like the air in the room gets thicker.

“Uh-oh,” says Charlie.

“That wasn’t an exploratory incantation,” Stoker says.

“No,” agrees Doctor Pete. “That was to ensure nobody does anything rash, like try
to grab me. Though only you, Mr. Stoker, would have the acumen to understand exactly
what I’m holding and just how useful it’s going to be.”

“You want to explain that, Doc?” Charlie says.

“Of course, Charlie. This book is a focus for more than illusion and memory spells;
it can concentrate and magnify a variety of occult forces, much like the Gallowsman
does. But what he does with misfortune and despair, the book does with more potent
supernatural energies: the pure essence of a lycanthrope or a hemovore, for instance.
It can channel that energy, pump it up, and return it a hundredfold—turning an ordinary
pire or thrope into something much more. It’s why the supernaturals here seem less
human and more predatory.”

“Good thing we’re all human, then,” I say.

Doctor Pete chuckles.

When I hear that sound, I don’t need to hear any more. I know who I’m talking to now.

“Not exactly true,” Tair says. “I—this body, I mean—has been bitten by a thrope. Tiny
little bits of werewolfy virus are coursing through my bloodstream, just waiting for
the first full moon to explode into furious activity.”

“Was it you all along?” I ask. “Or did you just hitch a ride and lurk in the background
until you saw an opportunity?”

“A little of one and some of the other, actually. You brought both of us across—the
Doc and I each have that particular memory you accessed—but I’ve managed to impose
a state where we’re both present at the same time, though not in equal amounts. Basically,
one can passively watch and the other can act. I’ve resisted acting until now—you’re
too smart to fool for long—but this is too good to pass up. And don’t think the Doc
is coming back, either; I just used the book to give him a little shove through the
extradimensional door. He’s back in his own body, back in his own reality, back in
his own prison cell. And me—I’m
here.
”

“For now,” I say. “Until we eliminate the alpha wolf. Then you and everyone else she’s
infected go back to normal.”

Tair shakes his head. “Oh, I’m aware of the situation. But let’s reason this out,
shall we? To dewolf everyone, you have to kill the African Queen. Can you do that?
Ruthlessly execute a former ally, someone you’ve fought alongside? Yes, she’s currently
locked in the trunk of her own car, but this is more about willpower than opportunity.”

I don’t answer that, so he keeps on talking. “And anyway, there’s very little point
in returning the status to quo. Most of the wolf-bitten are probably already dead,
or will be soon. No, I doubt very much that you’d execute Ms. Shaka just to cure me
of lycanthropy.”

“You’ve got it the wrong way around,” I say. “Now that Doctor Pete’s not a factor,
the only one I
need
to execute is you.”

He smiles, but I can see in his eyes that he realizes he’s made a tactical error.
I smile back. “Anyway,” I say, “I doubt if I have much to worry about from you, anyway.
You’re not even a lycanthrope anymore, just a guy who got a hickey from the real thing—and
this is all going to be over long before the next full moon.”

“You’re right about that,” he admits. “The last thing, I mean. But obviously you haven’t
been paying close enough attention; see, I’m holding the mystical equivalent of a
full moon right here in my hands.…”

He says something else in that guttural language, and this time I can identify at
least one word:
Luna.

And then he begins to change.

I’ve seen thropes transform before, too many times to count. But this is different;
this is the very first time the body Tair’s stolen has been through this, and it’s
not ready—it’s being forced to change, the flame of lycanthropy inside him getting
sprayed by arcane gasoline. Fur erupts from Tair’s skin, bones loudly crack into new
configurations, fangs and claws snap out like spring-loaded knives. It must hurt like
hell, but his mouth and throat are transforming so fast he can’t even howl.