Undead to the World (34 page)

Or talk.

The thickness in the air that’s preventing us from moving evaporates. I’d like to
say that I’m the first one to react, but that distinction goes to Stoker. He lunges
up from the couch, driving his shoulder into Tair’s gut and knocking him backward.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
drops to the ground.

“Get the book!” Stoker yells.

I scoop it up. It doesn’t do me any good, though; my knowledge of shamanism is strictly
informal and secondhand. The only people in the room with any training are currently
locked in hand-to-hand combat.

And what a fight it is.

Stoker shouldn’t stand a chance. He’s big and muscular and experienced, but Tair’s
a supernatural being. In their own world, Tair would disembowel him and throttle him
with his own intestines.

But that’s not where we are. And Stoker seems to be adapting a lot quicker than Tair.

Stoker’s strategy is simple and brutal: cause so much damage that all Tair’s resources
will go into fixing it, while inflicting massive amounts of pain to keep him off-balance
and confused. Tair’s already in agony; Stoker intends to keep him there while turning
up the volume.

It’s ugly and vicious and cruel—but from a purely technical point of view, it’s a
thing of beauty. An elbow strike to the muzzle that breaks Tair’s jaw and sends newly
minted fangs flying, followed by a knee to the ribs and an elbow to the temple and
a punch to the snout, blow after blow after blow. Stoker’s not holding back, putting
everything he has into offense and nothing into defense; he’s got bloody knuckles
from hitting Tair in the mouth and at least one set of clawmarks on his chest. He
ignores them and what they mean; this isn’t
his
body he’s fighting with, after all.

I think it’s the first time Stoker’s ever been able to really cut loose. An ordinary
human taking this sort of beating would have been unconscious or dead in the first
few seconds; a pire would have been annoyed, but unhurt. But right here, right now,
Stoker can unleash all the rage and hatred that’s been burning inside him his whole
life and not care about the consequences.

Some people think werewolves are invulnerable to being hurt by anything other than
silver, but that’s not how it works. They can be hurt by anything, they just heal
really fast—and Tair is healing even faster than that.

Stoker uses it against him.

He hammers at Tair’s upper arm until it breaks. Then he bends it in a direction it
was never meant to go—and holds it there until it heals.

That only takes a second or two, but it’s long enough for Tair to regain a little
composure and launch a less frenzied counterattack. He’s down on the floor by now,
and he slashes at the back of Stoker’s ankle, trying to hamstring him. Tair’s claws
rip through Stoker’s boots with ease, but the heavy leather provides enough protection
that Stoker escapes being crippled.

Stoker releases Tair’s arm and jumps back, out of range. He’s lost the momentum of
his attack, but managed to take one of his opponent’s weapons out of commission; Tair’s
arm is a weird L-shape now, almost impossible for him to use effectively.

“My turn,” Charlie says.

He opens up with the shotgun. The blast catches Tair in the eyes.

While the thrope can shrug off the damage caused by the bits of wood in our improvised
ammo, the silver shavings are another matter. They blind him, and not in a temporary
way.

I pull one of my scythes from my belt and snap it open. Tair snarls, recognizing the
sound. I know him well enough to predict what he’ll do next: try to run. Hide somewhere,
fix his arm, regroup. He’s smart that way.

Not this time.

“Sorry, Tair,” I say. I’m between him and the nearest window or door. “End of the
line. You gambled, you lost.”

He understands. He crouches there, his right arm at that disturbing angle, and tries
to shift back to human form. It almost works: his fur shortens, his frame shifts,
his claws retract. But only for a moment; having let the wild genie out of its bottle,
he discovers he can’t just stuff it back inside. His fur and claws lengthen, and his
muzzle returns—though his eyes don’t. He growls in frustration, shaking his head like
a dog with a flea in its ear. A gigantic, rabid dog on the verge of losing control …

Stoker plucks the other scythe from my belt and snaps it open with a single flick,
almost as easily as I would.

“No!”
I shout, and then Tair leaps for my throat.

Stoker and I strike at the same time. I duck, swinging up as Tair passes over me and
slicing open his belly. It’s a nasty wound, especially with a silvered blade, but
I’ve seen Tair survive worse. It’s designed to hurt him badly enough to end the fight
and force him to listen to reason.

Stoker isn’t interested in a conversation.

He shows this by aiming for Tair’s neck. It’s an easy hit; Tair’s blind, in midair,
and Stoker has plenty of time.

But it’s still a shock when Tair’s head thumps onto the floor next to me. I hear the
body slam into the front door.

He transforms back into human form; that’s what thropes do when they die. His skull
and face reshape themselves, until I’m looking at Doctor Pete’s familiar features
instead of the head of a monster. His eyes are still ruined.

I stare down at him. Tair was an egotistical, arrogant bastard, one who screwed me
over more than once, but he had style and his own peculiar brand of honor. Ultimately,
he was a collection of bad choices, rage, and self-interest … and that’s why I felt
sorry for him. We’re all one ill-considered decision away from a different life, but
we never get to see what that life might entail. Tair did. I couldn’t even blame him
for those bad choices, because he didn’t really make them—they were created by sorcery,
an artificial history as fake as anything Ahaseurus imposed on the citizenry of this
town.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” I say, glaring at Stoker.

“Yes, I did. He wasn’t trying to escape, Jace; he was in a killing rage. The lycanthropic
essence he’d charged himself up with was overpowering his mind. He wouldn’t have stopped
until all of us were dead or he was. I made the only choice.”

I wish I could argue with him, but I suddenly just don’t have the energy. I should
be happy—Doctor Pete is finally free of Tair, and once that’s been verified by the
prison shamans I have no doubt he’ll be freed.

But it doesn’t feel like a victory.

*   *   *

It’s much darker outside than it should be at this time of day. It’s the storm, filling
the sky overhead and looking less and less natural every minute. Crimson lightning
dances through the black and gray clouds, which are churning and boiling more like
smoke from a volcano than anything generated by the atmosphere; it wouldn’t surprise
me if they began to belch poisonous toads on our heads.

Stoker’s been studying both the spell book and the graphic novel for the last half
hour. I’m so burnt out from near-constant betrayal that I don’t even care if he decides
to Benedict Arnold me; I’ll just let Charlie shoot him and soldier on. When the only
person you can trust turns out to be the perp you were chasing all along, you kind
of have to give up and go with the flow.

We moved Tair’s body out to the garage. His head, too.

“I think I know a way out of this,” Stoker says at last.

I’m curled up on the sofa, working on my third cup of coffee. Charlie’s staring out
the window with the shotgun in his hands.

“Go ahead,” I say.

Stoker taps the spell book with one finger. “I recognize some of these. Gateway spells.
There has to be a door into and out of this place, and this is the key that unlocks
them.”

“So where’s the door?” Charlie asks.

“It’s not a door, it’s a road,” I answer. “The highway work site, the one guarded
by the road crew. That’s where it has to be.”

“So let’s go.” Stoker gets to his feet.

“Not yet,” I say. “We’ve got unfinished business.”

“Cassius.”

“Yes.”

“Planning on capturing him the way you did the alpha wolf? That’s not going to work.”

“I know. I’m hoping I can talk to him.”

Stoker shakes his head. “That’s exactly what Ahaseurus would want you to do. He’s
already scripted the inevitable confrontation between you two, and all possible endings
are bad ones: He betrays you. He doesn’t betray you but dies in your arms. You kill
him. He turns you. He turns you and
then
you kill him. You kill him because you
think
he’s going to betray you, and then you discover his innocence. You
know
this—you’ve run all these possibilities already. What possible outcome could you
even hope for?”

“The one where he doesn’t father a race of evil vampires that turn this planet into
their own private blood reserve. You know, the kind of horrific nightmare you’ve spent
your entire existence fighting.”

He meets my angry gaze calmly. “Good. I know what the stakes are; I just wanted to
make sure you do, too. Because I
know
how clever Cassius is. If we don’t take him down fast and hard, he’ll game us. You
know he will. And there’s nobody better.”

“I’m aware of that.” I keep my voice cold, my body language tense. Considering the
situation, it isn’t difficult. “But he’s working at a disadvantage. He doesn’t have
access to his usual intelligence network. This isn’t his world. Ahaseurus will have
altered his mind, just like the others—but this is Cassius we’re talking about, a
pire thousands of years old. He’s developed techniques to store and retrieve his own
memories that make him much more aware of his own mental processes. The psychic blocks
Ahaseurus will have been forced to use will be equally powerful, which puts Cassius
at a further disadvantage. If we were going up against him at his full strength, we’d
already be dead—but he’s being forced to play this damn game too, which handicaps
him. And that’s the
only
thing that gives us a fighting chance.”

“She’s right,” Charlie says. “You know what our best weapon against Cassius is? Himself.
We gotta break whatever chains Ahaseurus wrapped around his brain. He must be fighting
to get loose already. With the local magic starting to fray at the edges, maybe we
can finish the job.”

“Too risky,” Stoker says. “He could mislead us. We can’t gamble with the future of
every human being on the planet—”

“I’ll do what I have to,” I say.

“And so will I,” says Cassius.

He’s standing in the hall that leads to the garage. He must have come in through the
side door.

And he’s holding a really big gun in one hand.

*   *   *

“Charlie?” Cassius says pleasantly. “Put the shotgun on the floor, please. Sheriff,
do the same with your weapon. And step away from the spell book—if you so much as
utter a single arcane word, I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

He doesn’t mention me or my scythes. Why should he? They’re only a threat in hand-to-hand
combat, and he’s got a gun—
my
gun, a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan chambered with .454 rounds that can be used to
hunt moose. It looks very, very odd in his hands, like a battle-ax being wielded by
an astronaut.

Charlie and Stoker do as he says.

“Where’d you get my gun?” I ask.

“Longinus, of course. He had no use for it, and seemed to think it was funny to give
it to me.”

“How much did you overhear, just now?”

“Oh, pretty much all of it, I think. Intriguing, but about what I was told to expect.”

“Whatever Longinus said to you, it wasn’t the truth.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that. I’m in the intelligence field, after all; I understand compartmentalization
and plausible deniability. Longinus told me as much as he could, and lied to me when
necessary. Even so, I have a firm grasp of the situation.”

He sounds very sure of himself—but then, Cassius always does. “Yeah? Can you explain
it to me?”

“I’ll do my best. Whether or not you believe me is up to you. Please, all of you,
sit down—Charlie, I’m sure your leg must be bothering you.”

We take seats on the couch. He picks up the spell book and graphic novel, and moves
both of them out of reach before he begins.

“None of this is real, Jace. Oh, yes, we’re physically here, events are occurring—but
not for the reasons you think. This town isn’t what you believe it to be.”

“Oh? And what is it?”

“A training exercise. One being run by the intelligence agency both you and I work
for. They do this sort of thing every few years, pushing agents to their psychological
limits; illusion spells and memory implants are used to manipulate both the present
and past, to see how we’ll react as things gradually get worse and worse.”

“You said
we.
Surely they don’t subject the director of the NSA to this—”

He cuts me off with a harsh laugh. “Director? Jace, I’m a field agent, just like you—or
Zhang, or Tanaka, or Isamu. We all have our little dramas we’ve been programmed to
play out, and it’s all smoke and mirrors. Nobody actually
dies,
it just appears that they do.”

I study his body language, his eyes, his phrasing, looking for signs that he’s lying.
I don’t find any. He seems to really believe what he’s telling me, as preposterous
as it sounds.

I guess it makes a sort of sense, from a brainwashing point of view; if you want to
convince a spook of something, appeal to their paranoia. Spin a web of conspiracy
and half-truths, a structure complicated enough to occupy their attention while obscuring
your real intentions. It’s almost credible.…

Unless you’re a trained psychologist.

“So this is all a carefully crafted scenario?” I ask. “Designed to see how field agents
react to escalating stress through gradually increasing chaos and persecution? Okay,
that’s a viable explanation for some of the insanity around us. But in order to make
that explanation work—to properly explain away a hundred possible tiny discrepancies
and contradictions—it’s necessary to use false memories and illusion spells, correct?”