Resurrection (7 page)

Just as we reached the bottom of the open crypt entrance, about four feet from the roof, I kicked my legs out, slamming them into the wall. When they connected, I pushed with all my might redirecting our momentum. It worked...

...kinda.

My head and shoulders shot out through the crypt, but it wasn’t enough. We were moving too fast. McConnell’s back slammed into the ceiling hard, followed a split-second later by the zombie crashing into us.

The impact drove the wizard’s head into the back of mine. Stars exploded in front of my eyes, my vision whirling as our ascent ended abruptly. Through the haze, I felt our weight return. Gravity, my old nemesis, had reasserted itself. We were falling.

In a panic, I reached out with both hands and grabbed whatever I could. My fingers sunk into the soft, thick carpet and latched on. It didn’t take but an instant to realize that wasn’t gonna work.

Red strips of carpet peeled away like from an orange, curling up in strips between my fingers. I shouted a million epithets as we fell, tumbling back into the hole.

As my hands slid past the edge of the crypt, I tried again, desperate. This time I got lucky. My fingers locked onto the concrete lip. I bore down with everything I had, the sudden snap of McConnell’s and the zombie’s weight nearly tearing my fingers off. My hands and arms felt as if they were being massaged by a blowtorch as McConnell slipped down, pulling the shirt tight against my throat like a noose. I gasped, unable to breathe. Frantic, I dug in while summoning every ounce of energy I could muster. I fought and I fought, inching my way upward. The relentless zombie tore at McConnell all the while.

Each torturous inch was like crawling a mile naked across a carpet of glass shards. Every muscle in my body shrieked, but at last, I’d gained enough ground I could leverage my arms against the sides of the crypt opening. With one last agonizing effort, I’d pulled us through far enough that only our lower bodies hung inside the hole, not counting our zombie hitchhiker. It clung on viciously snapping at McConnell’s back, which probably looked like bloody hamburger by now.

Comforted by the solidness of the ground, my heart still doing somersaults in my chest, I could at last do something about the zombie. Unable to reach my gun, I started to kick, lashing out with everything I had. It wasn’t much, but fortunately, it was enough. The zombie slipped loose and fell back into the hole, chittering madly.

Free of the undead, I slipped McConnell’s arms from around my neck and sucked in a deep breath, my throat raw. Even so, it felt glorious. But with no time to waste, I undid the belt that held the wizard’s legs to mine and pulled him the rest of the way out of the hole. Once I’d done that, I rolled him over. What little optimism I’d gained from our escape withered.

While not disemboweled, the wound was as close as you can come without being so. Not having the skills to deal with it, I yanked my shirt off his arms and used it to stuff the wound, keeping pressure on it with one hand. With my free hand, I dug out Candy’s phone and put a call into DRAC.

If McConnell was gonna live, he’d need more than my help.

Chapter Six

At DRAC headquarters, the doctors wheeled McConnell off in a hurry. Recruited for being the best at what they do, their empathic psychic talents augmenting their surgical skills, he was in good hands. Though his wounds were serious and he’d lost a lot of blood, they believed he’d make it. I guess that’s good news to someone.

Fortunately for me, my wounds were nowhere near as severe. With the exception of the bite, my injuries were caused by natural means, the majority of them having already closed. Only a few of the deepest cuts still remained, their puckered edges creeping together, knitting shut with each passing minute. I’d have to see to the bite later.

Thanks to my demonic heritage, I didn’t have to worry about most of the injuries I sustained on the job. Only those caused by supernatural sources—magic, undead, demons or angels, et cetera—required assistance to repair.

Unfortunately, even in an age where magic was its most refined, it couldn’t do much in the way of healing. More a tool for destruction than anything, magic lacked the subtlety needed for such delicate work. Outside of beings like God or Satan, no one really had the control to adapt their power to heal.

That was too bad for McConnell. Though getting the best care humanly possible, there were no guarantees of success. There was only one other option that offered him a better chance of survival and that was off the table: my uncle’s blood.

Gifted to me by Lucifer before he disappeared, the blood was a potent source of power. A few tiny drops would heal most any wound, no matter how grievous, in but a minute. A beneficial side effect to it, when taken in bulk, was that it granted a short-term surge of magical energy that increased strength, vitality, and physical resistance.

Down to the last two vials, the others either stolen by my ex-wife or broken by McConnell’s assault on my house, there was no way I was sharing,
especially
not with the wizard. Regardless of what he’d done for me in the tunnels, he wasn’t deserving of my uncle’s gift. Baalth would just have to be angry if the bastard croaked.

Speaking of Baalth, I gave him a call. After explaining everything to Poe, who no doubt was using his powers as a mentalist to see if I was telling the truth, I was passed on to the demon. Baalth hopped on the line growling.

“Where’s McConnell?”

“He’s at DRAC, in surgery.”

I could hear a rumbling in the background. “Will he make it?”

“If there’s a chance, it’s here.”

Baalth was quiet for a minute before he responded. “The piece of shit that did it?”

I sighed. Baalth believed in killing the messenger. “He got away, but I’m still on the case.” I tried to sound positive. It’s really not my strong suit.

Another rumble kicked off, the line crackling with static. “Finish the job.” A barely repressed hiss of anger tinged his words. “Have McConnell returned to me as soon as he is out of surgery and stable. My people will take over from there.” He hung up. Whatever was grinding his gears had to be serious. I’d never heard him so on edge.

Muttering to myself, I hurried to Abraham’s office. He’d want to know what I found. Comfortable from the months I’d slept on the couch, I opened the door without knocking and slipped inside. The scent of old wisdom hit me instantly. Lined with wall-to-wall shelves, loaded down with ancient books and magical texts, the office was an occultist’s wet dream.

The desk, on the other hand, was a maid’s worst nightmare. Piled with overflowing files and an assortment of paperwork, pens, and stained coffee mugs, the face of the desk was nowhere to be seen.

Out from behind the computer monitor, its sides covered in brightly colored sticky notes, Abraham peeked out at me. “Have a seat, Frank.”

He went back to work, ignoring me as I sat. Though his face was lined with concentration, he looked good; healthy, happy even. His recent hookup with Rachelle Knight, DRAC’s mentalist, third member of the High Council and resident ditz, must be doing him some good.

During the Asmoday coup, he’d been exhausted, worn to the bone and it showed. Not that the impending end of existence would be easy on anyone, but Abraham was a sensitive soul who took humanity’s ills as his own. Like the mythical Atlas, he held the world aloft, his shoulders bearing its massive burden.

A shiver ran down my spine as I leaned back in the chair rubbing my eyes. My imagination far too vivid for its own good, I couldn’t get the image of a nude Abraham holding up a globe out of my head. Gratefully, Rahim’s arrival distracted me.

I looked back at the door as the tall wizard lumbered in. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, his normal outfit a tailored suit, Rahim appeared frustrated. His face was scrunched, lined. Tall and dark, I normally couldn’t help but picture him as Darth Vader. It was a little harder to do today.

Two months out from a broken back, mostly healed thanks to the magic of my uncle’s blood, there were still some signs he had yet to fully recover. Though subtle, he walked with a limp, his pace deliberate, careful. He’d lost some weight too. Always a physical man, almost in spite of his magic, he’d been lean and powerful. Now, he looked like he’d been on a crash diet; his chest narrow, his limbs thin and wiry. While he spared me a big smile as he walked by, I saw him wince as he dropped into the chair behind Abraham’s desk. His wounds had taken their toll.

Abraham stopped what he was doing and glanced over at Rahim. I caught the glimmer of the look that passed between them before they turned to face me. As usual, there was something I wasn’t being told. It was standard operating procedure around here. I tried not to let it bother me.

“You were at Rest Land? What did you find?” Abraham asked.

I nodded as I brought out the phone, scrolling to the photos before passing it over. “Other than a heaping pile of dead bodies and a vicious assassin, there wasn’t much of interest there except for the symbols.” I gestured toward the cell.

Abraham examined the pictures while Rahim looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Assassin?” he asked, his Barry White voice trembling a bit.

“I’m not sure what he was, but assassin fits as well as anything else I could call him. That’s who took out McConnell.” I had his full attention as Abraham clicked away on his computer. Able to multi-task like no other, I knew he was still listening, so I just went on. “Baalth called in a favor and asked me to go after a guy who’d laid a beating on his lap dogs. After he told me they’d been looking into the Old Town disappearances, I went along figuring I could work some intel on the side. He sent the cowboy with me, to keep me in line no doubt, and we stumbled onto a hidden chamber beneath the mausoleum.” I passed on the exact location as Rahim wrote it down.

“I presume the assassin got away by your lack of information on him.”

“Yeah. The bastard was fast, plus I needed to get gray boy out or his boss would have a conniption with my name written all over it. I didn’t even get a good look at the guy.” I shrugged, knowing my lack of solid information didn’t help.

Abraham looked up from his computer, mumbling something under his breath. He sat back, glancing at Rahim, then to me. “Our zombie-animator is likely a necromancer named Reven.” He snapped the phone shut and set it on the desk.

I shook my head not recognizing the name. Rahim appeared to, but didn’t seem impressed by it.

“Those symbols you found are resurrection sigils. They’re used in necromantic rituals to, obviously, bring the dead back to life.”

“How do you know it’s this guy, Reven, that’s doing it?”

“Unlike magic, Necromancy is a more unique, individual craft. While certain aspects of it are common, holding to the tenets of the art as defined by Zarek Ashu, the first true necromancer, it has evolved as an individual pursuit. Much of the literature has been lost or destroyed over the years, forcing the would-be necromancers to adapt their methods. Each has their own way of tapping into the power to raise the dead, and as such, their styles have become calling cards, of a sort.” He pointed to the phone. “The symbols you found match those of Reven. It’s him, or perhaps an apprentice of his.”

“I’ve never heard of the guy. Is he powerful?”

Rahim shook his head, stepping in to answer, “Not in the traditional sense. Of course, anyone who can raise the dead is a threat, but he’s certainly not on Asmoday or Gabriel’s level, or even that of your cousin, Scarlett.”

I shrugged, noting his intent. You see, Scarlett is an angel, and I’m not talking about her personality. To be honest, she can be a bit of a bitch sometimes. But anyway, I’m talking a full-blown, holy angel that lives in Heaven. While not a world-beater, she has her share of magic.

She helped us thwart Asmoday and his plans for world destruction, but that whole adventure kinda messed her up a bit, not that she was all that stable to begin with. She never understood God’s disappearance, not that any of us truly did, nor could she understand the chaos that cropped up afterward. Her worldview had been blown out of the water when the Angelic Choir split into factions and began to fight one another. The angels always were a family, their only falling out being my uncle and his followers. It broke her heart to witness the unexpected dissension that tore her home apart.

Her heart took another hit when she learned Gabriel, God’s archangel, had joined forces with Asmoday. It shattered completely when Gabriel captured her and handed her over to the demon lieutenant. After Baalth ended Asmoday’s coup, Scarlett returned to Heaven in a fury, determined to help restore peace. I hadn’t seen her since.

“So, what’s our concern here?” Though his little zombies had proven annoying, I couldn’t picture this Reven guy as much of a threat. Fun on Halloween, sure, but he was clearly not a mega-villain.

“Mostly that we don’t know what he has in mind. He’s raising zombies to kill and kidnap the living, and while that’s certainly enough to warrant our attention, there has to be more to it.” Rahim sighed. Like Katon and I, he didn’t look up to dealing with another crisis.

“Reven’s too old to be your assassin. Did you find any signs of him at the cemetery?” Abraham asked.

“No, but I wasn’t really looking. He could have been there. The zombies
did
get up and come after us, but the place looked like temporary storage. There wasn’t any furniture or belongings, or anything that would indicate someone alive was staying there.”