Undead to the World (36 page)

I return to the living room, where Damon and Charlie are sitting across from each
other. Charlie’s studying him with a thoughtful look on his face, and Damon’s blithely
ignoring him.

“Huh,” says Charlie. “Really?”

“There’s a little video I’d like to show you,” I tell Damon, pulling out my phone.
“I tried to send it to you earlier, but it didn’t go through. Went to someone else
entirely, actually—they had a very similar address.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.” His eager smile almost breaks my heart. I could tell him I was here
to burn down his house, and he’d probably hand me a book of matches.

I call up the video—not so different from placing a call to Azura herself, now—and
I’m relieved when she pops up and says, “Jace! What’s going on? Tair just woke up,
only it’s
not
Tair; he claims he’s Doctor Pete. I don’t know how much longer I can stay hidden
from the prison guards, either—my masking spells are good, but they do random mystic
sweeps every few hours.”

“I’ll make this quick. I need you to do the memory thing one more time.”

She sighs. “I’m in a prison cell, remember? About the only person I can link you up
to is Doctor Pete or myself—”

“We’re doing Cassius remotely again. It didn’t work last time because I had the wrong
guy. This is the real thing.”

She frowns, then nods. “That would explain the link going down—we didn’t have it plugged
into the right socket. Okay, just say when.”

“Now would be good.” I hold the phone up for Damon to see. He’s been following our
conversation with a puzzled but intrigued smile.

There’s a flash of white light.

TWENTY-THREE

This time is different from the others. It’s a much newer memory, and for the first
time I’m playing myself.

I’m sitting in a chair, but I can’t move anything below my neck. Magic restraints.
Cassius sits next to me in a similar chair, and I can tell by his posture that he’s
in the same situation. We’re in some sort of cave, with torches flickering on the
walls.

Standing in front of us is Ahaseurus.

He studies me coolly, with that undertaker’s face of his: long, bony, hawk nosed.
“One of the fascinating things about an extended lifespan—as I’m sure you’ll agree,
Mr. Cassius—is watching certain patterns arise and take root. Clichés, for example.
When a particular phrase, persona, or event becomes popular to the point of overuse,
it’s not, as some people claim, due to creative laziness, or even a cultural tendency
to conform. No, such patterns repeat themselves for the same reason a particular configuration
of DNA does: because it’s successful. A catchphrase is no different from a stubborn
species of fungus that grows upon a boulder and refuses to die.”

“Not sure if you’re comparing yourself to a fungus or a cliché,” I growl, “but either
one works for me.”

He continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “For instance, the antagonist of a drama explaining
his master plan to the protagonist when he has her captive. A tiresome device, no?
Always leading to this information being used against him at the climax, after her
inevitable escape. Why does he do it? Hasn’t he ever seen a spy movie?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “I know why, because I have been doing this very same
thing for a very long time—long before it ever became a cliché. In fact, I may have
been the one who started this particular phenomenon … except that none of my captives
have ever escaped to use this knowledge against me.
Not ever.
”

“Chassinda did,” I say.

Chassinda was the first woman Ahaseurus ever killed. He enjoyed the experience so
much that he brought her back to life as a zombie, then kept her around as an undead
trophy for hundreds of years. But even though he’d sewn her lips shut, Chassinda found
a way to give me vital information—information I used to defeat her owner.

Ahaseurus is still smiling, but his eyes are cold. “You mean the escape of the grave?
I stand corrected. If that is your definition, then
all
of my captives have found freedom. All … except you.”

“Yeah, I’m not much of a follower.”

“Ah, but you followed
me,
did you not? Seeking to rescue your lover, you came all the way to the Dark Continent …
where, despite the assistance of the African Queen, all three of you wound up my prisoners.”

He sees the look on my face and chuckles. “Yes, I captured her as well. No last-minute
rescues for you. Now, where was I … oh, yes, clichés. The reason the antagonist reveals
his machinations to the protagonist is simple: because it provides him with a great
deal of enjoyment. It allows him to demonstrate how clever he is. To preen and strut
before his possession. To see the hope die in her eyes as she realizes—as she truly
knows,
for the first time—that these are the last moments of her life. It’s
this
moment that those who take life live for, not the act itself. I could no more deny
myself this pleasure than I could deny myself breath.”

“Good,” I say “That’s
my
job.”

“Not for much longer. You’re about to enter a new profession—one that you won’t enjoy
very much, I’m afraid I, however, will get a great deal of satisfaction out of it.”

“You know, I just made a decision,” I say. “I’m going to
end
you. Up until now I thought I’d just have to capture you, because you’re the only
one who can send me home without me turning into an old homeless woman—but
fuck
that. I’m just going to kill you, the first chance I get.” I let out what’s supposed
to be a melodramatic sigh of relief, but it feels more real than I expected. “Whew.
That’s going to make things
so
much simpler.”

“Oh, but I’m going to make them simpler still. You see, there’s yet another reason
I can divulge my plans to you: You aren’t going to remember them. In fact, you aren’t
going to remember who you are, or what you do, or the fact that I even exist. You’re
going to be my plaything, in a very special place I put together just for you.”

That
scares me, worse than any threat of physical torture. The sharpest weapon I own is
my mind, and he’s just told me he’s going to blunt it. It makes me feel sick, and
angrier than I’ve ever been.

Cassius has been silent until now. He doesn’t believe in threats or posturing—I know
he’s been spending the time studying the situation, evaluating every aspect and considering
possible courses of action. “I have taken precautions in the event of my death,” he
says to Ahaseurus. “I presume this is not a surprise to you.”

Ahaseurus favors him with a cold smile. “Of course not. It’s what I would do.”

“Then you don’t intend to kill me.”

“Not unless I have to.”

“Then know this. The price of tampering with Jace’s mind is your own soul.” He says
this in a flat, matter-of-fact voice; it’s not a threat, simply a reminder.

Ahaseurus’s bushy eyebrows go up. He appears to be slightly taken aback. “I don’t
think that’s a claim you can—”

“It’s not a claim, it’s a vow,” Cassius says. His voice has gotten softer, almost
casual. “I don’t undertake them lightly. In two thousand years I’ve only made such
a thing once before. It remains unbroken. Beings such as you and I tend to view mortals
as ephemeral, not worth serious consideration. They simply don’t endure, do they?
But hatred does.”

His voice has an edge to it now, one I’ve never heard before. An amused, bitter tone.
“Pledging another’s destruction can give purpose, direction, to a life that stretches
across the long, dusty years. You know this all too well. So do I. And I’m telling
you that, should you violate Jace’s mind, you will become my purpose. My direction.
My reason for continuing to exist. All the many, many years I have spent learning
to survive, everything I know of war, every bit of knowledge I possess concerning
the profession of tracking, hunting, and destroying other beings—all of it will be
brought to bear on ending your extremely long life.”

Ahaseurus stares at him. So do I. It’s an all-or-nothing declaration, one with only
two possible outcomes: Either the wizard lets us go, or he kills Cassius.

And he’s not going to let us go.

After a moment Ahaseurus lets out a rueful little chuckle. “So be it,” he says softly.
“But you will not perish just yet. You have a role to play in my little drama, a very
important one. You will be the father of a new race of vampires, Cassius. Your blood
will unleash them on a world where they are only stories, and the African Queen will
do the same for thropes. There will be no slow assimilation, no gradual decline of
the human race this time; it will be fast and brutal and relentless, driven by a war
between the two supernatural species that will demand each propagates as quickly as
it can. You will both watch this happen, helpless to stop it, and only when you are
drowning in guilt and despair will you finally die.”

I shake my head. “Why? You’d murder a whole
planet,
just to make me suffer? Talk about overcompensation—I mean, honestly, after the first
million casualties or so, I’m going to be done. Anything past that is just make-work.”

He turns back to me. “Oh, it’s not just about you. Or even the one Earth. That’s the
problem with you mortals: you have such tiny, limited perspectives. An immortal such
as myself thinks on a far grander scale; using genocide as a psychological weapon
against an individual is simply one gambit.” I didn’t think it was possible to utter
a line like that without irony, but, all I hear in Ahaseurus’s voice is arrogance.

“I find it hard to believe even you could top that,” I growl. It’s a lie, but I need
to know what else he’s planning; it’s the sunshiny optimist in me beaming through.

“I recently discovered a very interesting alternate Earth, with the unique quality
of being a sort of natural gateway; it’s much, much easier to cross the dimensional
divide to any number of alternities from there, though getting to it in the first
place is proportionally more difficult. I’m in the process of solving that problem,
though, with the help of my new lieutenant. He’s a collector of negative forces—forces
I’m using to break down the barrier between this world and the reality I just mentioned.
Once he’s established an entry point under my control, I believe his world will make
a fine capital for my empire.”

His empire. A network of realities, all of them under Ahaseurus’s thumb. It won’t
be just the sorcerer jumping from world to world anymore, it’ll be him and a supernatural
army.…

Which is when I start to laugh.

Ahaseurus watches me, smiling indulgently. He thinks this is a ploy—maybe I’m stalling,
maybe I’m just trying to provoke a reaction. But he’s wrong. This is real, genuine
enjoyment.

I get myself under control. “You’ve been out of touch, haven’t you? Sure, holing up
in another dimension means you’re hard to find, but it also means you’re out of the
loop. Haven’t been able to check your e-mail lately.”

“There’s nothing I need to check—”

“You were putting together an army of damned souls—actually, you subcontracted the
job, since you were busy with your transdimensional shortcut project. Well, guess
what, Sparky? Before I came here, I stumbled across your little project … and oops,
clumsy me, I sorta broke it.”

The look on his face tells me he thinks I’m guessing. I grin and start firing details
at him. It may be the last chance I ever get to piss him off.

It takes all of thirty seconds before he lets loose a roar of pure fury. His eyes
flood with an unearthly blue light, and he points a hand crackling with the same energy
at me.

The world fills with lightning, then disappears.

*   *   *

Reality, such as it is, swims back into focus. I immediately look over at the paunchy
albino I knew by the name Damon Eisfanger.

He’s perched on the edge of the recliner, his back straight, his shoulders squared.
His features haven’t changed physically, but he’s wearing an alert, focused expression
that’s light-years away from Eisfanger’s eager cheerfulness. He considers his own
pale, pudgy hand.

“I see,” he says.

He clenches his hand and stares at it. The flesh begins to shiver, then blur into
translucence, revealing another, firmer fist beneath it. He moves his gaze along the
arm, the effect traveling with it; it’s as if he has some sort of Reveal Vision, invisible
beams from his eyes burning off the illusion wrapped around his body.

I know that’s not it, though. It’s just sheer willpower, focused by an experienced
shaman, peeling off a layer of decaying magic like a sunburn victim stripping dead
skin. I wonder what he’s going to do when he gets to his face.

He asks for a mirror, of course. As a vampire, Cassius doesn’t show up in it, but
the illusion does—for a second or so, anyway. Then it just dissolves, leaving him
staring at his nonexistent reflection.

He puts the mirror down. Glances at Charlie. “Jace. Charlie?”

“Got it in one, boss.”

He nods. “Good to see both of you. Sitrep.”

That’s op-speak for
situation report,
the kind of shorthand you use in the field when you don’t have time for multiple
syllables. I break it down for him, as quickly and succinctly as I can; right now,
we’re not lovers, we’re two professionals in a very bad and dangerous place.

But even while I’m running down the insane events of the last few days, I can’t help
noticing that I’m suddenly feeling a lot better.

He asks one or two relevant questions, but otherwise doesn’t interrupt. When I’m finished,
he thinks for all of three or four seconds, then says, “I’m sorry you had to go through
all that. However, you needn’t worry about my going feral. I can feel the primal power
of this reality—it’s similar to that of Azura’s world, though not as strong—but my
memories weren’t supplemented with artificial hatred the way the African Queen’s were.
Once her own memory implants degrade, she should be able to regain control as well.”