Knowledge Aforethought, page 9
When we all filed into the room, she grinned, showing off her fangs. “Ah,” she said, eyes widening in the dim light. “You decided the price was too high to pay. So instead you are going to steal it.”
Charlotte drew her greatsword, the metal rasping against its sheath and making it seem all the more ominous. I could see her profile and her teeth were drawn in a snarl with a hint of ferocious pleasure lingering there. Mary, too, was grinning like the thought of a battle pleased her. Machiavelli and I exchanged a glance and, as one, turned. It was too late. The entrance to the chamber behind us was being guarded by two ghouls. They would have been tall had not their bodies been hunched over. Their teeth gleamed in the torchlight, dripping in venomous drool. Their eyes flashed yellow with hunger. They took a single step forwards, claws rasping on the stone.
I heard the vampiress speak in the background, her attention taken with Charlotte. “Were you not enthralled with the prospect of fighting a war?”
“Fighting doesn’t frighten me,” Charlotte replied. Her feet scuffed on the floor and I imagined that she was stepping closer to her quarry. “Starting a needless war? No, even that doesn’t frighten me. It does confuse me, though. Did you actually expect us to go through with it?”
Alsatia laughed, the sound grating. I winced and noticed that the ghouls did the same. Interesting. “That’s not the point, my dear,” she replied. There came a sound that was sharp and horrible, piercing my ears so that I instinctively drew my hands up to my ears and looked over my shoulder to see the vampiress dragging her claws across the stone, fangs bared in a giddy smile.
Looking away, though, would cost me.
Ghouls, you see, are not as dumb as they look. They look like mindless monsters interested only in their next meal and who are supremely capable at getting it. In reality, they could beat Yolanda at chess. (Granted, beating my assistant at chess is not a huge accomplishment, but still.) So when I turned my head to see what was making that horrible noise, they pounced.
The body of the slightly smaller one slammed into me, driving me into the floor. The larger ghoul was only a microsecond slower, but its claws were just as sharp. As the smaller ghoul’s momentum carried it off of me, the larger sank its claws into my chest and its teeth reached for my throat. I yelped, before the sound was cut off. The pain was sharp and terrible, but it was nothing like what I had felt when Death touched me. The wounds were bad enough, though, to cause the edge of my vision to go dark.
In the background, I heard a scream—I was fairly certain that it was Machiavelli, but the rage in that scream didn’t make sense. I heard the vampire cackling, that sound completely familiar. And I heard the air part, probably as Charlotte’s greatsword joined the battle. I heard the victory cry of the ghouls and then their strange laughter, like a reptile and a seagull had a child.
A few heartbeats later and the pain dissipated enough for me to move. I groaned and reached up to touch my throat, fairly certain what I would find. I was right, too. The flesh was torn to pieces, the edges ragged and bloody. In anybody else, the wound would have been fatal. But I worked for Death and had just lost my soul. Annoyingly, this had happened before. This time it was slightly different in that I didn’t completely black out, but the main point was that I couldn’t be killed.
It sucked. A lot.
I had to wait a few more seconds, even a minute, while my wounds healed enough for me to move around and stand. A lot can happen in a minute when you’re fighting. This minute had brought about the decapitation of the larger ghoul—thank you, Charlotte—and the vampiress gaining a cut on her cheek. Mary and Machiavelli faced off against the smaller ghoul, Mary wielding a dagger and Machiavelli the thin rapier that he had tied to his belt before we started this crazy attempt. So we weren’t completely out of the fight.
I groaned, this time on purpose and much louder, drawing the attention of the people we were fighting. Everybody froze.
“Cal Thorpe!” Charlotte exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. Mary’s jaw fell open and even Machiavelli looked a little sick. I had a feeling my throat was still healing. “You are not dead!”
“Why aren’t you dead?” Alsatia asked, eyes just as wide as everyone else’s. It seemed that everyone was perfectly content to pause their desperate fight while I explained things. Even the ghoul, venom dripping onto the floor, didn’t move towards me, instead hanging back with a confused expression.
“Ah, well…ow,” I said, cracking my back. “I hate it when that happens.”
“This has happened before?” Mary asked, sounding more like a curious journalist than a shocked companion. I shrugged.
“Well, the first time was when an angry Irishman cut my throat open. Then a vampire tried to drink my blood to enthral me and poofed—”
“Poofed?” the vampiress asked. I nodded.
“Poofed.” I pushed my glasses farther up my nose and continued. “Then the Order of Silence tried to have me killed only to freak out when that didn’t really work. It was a mistake on Death’s part, when we shook hands to bind me to him—”
“You work for Death?” the vampire shrieked. I nodded again.
“I mean, I thought he had fixed it, but then this whole accidentally lost my soul bit happened and here we are again. Though it was different then. The pain lasted longer. Now, it’s just like a mild ache. I mean, to be fair, the ache mostly happens when the wounds are trying to reknit themselves, but oh, well.” I turned slowly around the room and fixed each and every person there in my gaze for a few seconds before ending with Charlotte and I staring at each other.
She was breathing hard, but not heavily, the gleam of adrenaline plain in her eyes and in the flush of her skin. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was enjoying this. Her hands shifted grip on the greatsword. “You cannot die.”
“No,” I said, holding my hands out to my side and knowing full well that I looked grim, covered in blood and bearing no wounds. “I cannot die.”
Charlotte looked over her shoulder, addressing the future vampire queen. “Are you certain you wish to pursue this useless task? Guarding an artefact you cannot even wield against a man who can face Death and never lose?”
The only noise that followed was the rasping breath of the ghoul. Alsatia grew pale, which was surprising given her species. She brushed her hands on her dress and her claws retracted, as did her fangs. A few moments later and she was nothing more than a slightly-questionably-dressed woman with a look of fear in her eyes. “Take it,” she said, and without a further word, ran past the four of us, the ghoul quick at her heels.
Charlotte and Mary acted at once, moving to the wooden door that the woman had been guarding. Charlotte beat it down with a few swift kicks and the two entered, leaving me behind with Machiavelli.
“Did you know that this would happen?” he asked, placing a hand gently on my shoulder.
“What, that I would be attacked and killed? Or well…you know,” I said. I reached up and touched my throat, expecting to feel that sense of fear and impermanence that came with one of my false deaths. There was never confidence, never smugness, only fear. Except this time, the fear was lingering somewhere else. Instead, I felt nothing. “Like I said, it’s happened before. Death accidentally removed my soul from my lifeforce when he was making me immortal the first time. Instead, he should have just severed my lifeforce while keeping my soul. He fixed that. This time, though, my lifeforce was already severed. I was already immortal—relatively speaking—when he unbound my soul. So, to answer your question, yes, I had a feeling that this would happen.”
Machiavelli nodded and considered. He stared at the headless body of the ghoul, which was starting to dissolve in its own venomous drool. “I don’t know if that makes you a reckless man or a foolish one.”
“Does it matter?” I asked, cleaning my glasses on the only clean piece of cloth I could find on my tunic.
Machiavelli nodded. “Yes. Because if you are just reckless, then the consequences of your actions are never even considered. If you are foolish, then they are considered and then ignored.”
That, surprisingly, made sense to me. “Well, either way, everything ended up alright.”
“For you,” he answered, then walked away to go and see what Charlotte and Mary had found. I stayed where I was, feeling those words hit me straight and true. They struck me sharply when most of the things I was feeling did not. When I had not even felt the fear my quasi-death brought me. I was soulless. I did not know what that meant, what was going to happen to me. I now knew, though, that I might not like the result.
All the Time in the World
The Medici vault—at least the one containing their mythical and magical items—was not at all what I expected. I suppose a part of me had been thinking that it would be like coming upon a dragon’s hoard, with gold and jewels and things piled haphazardly around, gleaming like treasure ought to do. The reality was something rather different; it looked like someone had gone through and done a decluttering on a celebrity shoe collection. The items were placed neatly into little nooks that were carved into the stone walls. Each one held a tiny label and did not gleam at all.
It took Charlotte less than a minute to find the amulet. It, too, was not what I expected. Rather than some gold monstrosity like you would see in the movies, it was in reality little larger than a man’s finger joint. The centre was a blue stone, like topaz or something, wrapped in a band of tarnished metal. It was cut in the shape of an eye and the tiny glyphs were a bit grimy, but other than that, there was hardly anything distinguishing about it.
Charlotte examined the amulet, then put the string over her neck and turned to Mary.
“Do you think she’ll try to wield it?” a woman’s voice purred in my ear. It was a familiar voice: seductive, tempting, invigorating. I turned to the owner and frowned.
“She’s not that stupid,” I said. I then realised who I was talking with and let out a yelp, leaping back slightly. “Life! What are you doing here?”
Everyone in the vault turned to look at our intruder. She clapped her hands giddily and fixed me with a grin that should have had me fairly melting on the floor from the intensity. All I felt instead was a mild tickle in the back of my mind. I frowned deeper. Life was dressed in what I would guess was the 1494 version of a cocktail dress. It was low-cut, purple with gold trim, probably more formfitting than it should have been given the modesty of women during the time period, and was about the only identifiable thing about her. The rest of her, as always, was ever changing. Impossible to pin down. I knew only that she was one of the most entrancing women I had ever encountered. This time, though, it was a little easier to look at her and to see past that horrible power that emanated from her. What I saw when I looked past that power was not good.
“Oh, crap,” I said, leaping forwards to grab Machiavelli by the wrist and then pull him back. Mary was also drifting forwards. “Mary! Ah, crap. The Author!”
She shook her head, pressing her palm to her forehead. “What? Cal? What is going on?”
Charlotte, unsurprisingly, had drawn her sword and was pointing it at Life as though she were just any other intruder. I could see sweat beading on her brow and her breath was starting to turn ragged, though she had barely moved. I knew that effect. It was what Life did when people fought her, with will power or otherwise. She drew people in. She was the all-encompassing temptation. She was also wild, unpredictable, dangerous, and outright mean sometimes.
“Okay, okay, enough!” I shouted, forcing my voice louder than the power Life was emitting. I stepped between her and everyone else and jabbed her in the shoulder with a finger. “Tone it down a bit, alright?”
Life blinked, completely startled. The power dwindled until it was contained within her person, then she retreated into the open room with the dead ghoul. We followed her. Charlotte lowered her sword but did not sheath it. Machiavelli, having stood up so well against all the magical enemies we had just faced, not to mention his world being torn to pieces metaphorically speaking, was now trembling almost uncontrollably. Mary, too, looked a little ashen, though there was a touch of anger in her expression.
Life folded her arms and glared at me. “Who are you?” she demanded, drawing herself up. She was taller than me, but since I was just about as average height-wise as a person could get, that wasn’t new. Not to mention I’d ignored her power before, even without having no soul. “Why can you touch me?”
“You mean without burning into a crisp while screaming my brains out?” I retorted. “Yeah, blame your husband for that.”
Life looked closer at me, drawing near enough that I could feel her breath on my nose. Her eyes swirled, power focusing in the gaze. I imagine it would have been enough to burn me to pieces, had I been normal. Only problem was, I was far from normal and things weren’t improving from there.
“You are human,” Life said at last, pulling away. She sniffed. Folded her arms. “And you are immortal.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That is not fair. You should not be able to do that. I did not allow it.” Life lifted her chin. Charlotte edged towards me, nudging me in the back and making me jump.
“This is Life?” she breathed in my ear. I nodded.
“Like I said,” I continued, explaining to Life, “your husband did this to me. It’s not my fault.”
“My husband?” Life asked, her lips splitting into a grin that would have looked crazy on a madman. She took a step towards me. It was a sort of half-seductive dance that would definitely end up with me in serious trouble, except for the fact that I wasn’t scared. I should have been. I really, really should have been, but I wasn’t. Life stepped right up to me and brushed her hand down my cheek. “My husband isn’t here.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered, taking a self-preserving step back from Life. I tilted my head back and—trying to remember something that Yolanda had told me a while back when I discovered that Death didn’t carry a cell phone and I couldn’t just call him—summoned Death. “Chant thy name, thrice and done, Death, Dying and the Dead, beest thou a summoned one.”
The room shattered into darkness around us. Life screamed, the sound pressing against my eardrums like a knife. I saw the others also press their hands to their ears. Charlotte’s mouth was open in a scream. Mary and Machiavelli huddled together, the two least prepared to deal with the situation. I think they were too terrified to even scream. I just held on and endured.
After too long, Life stopped screaming. The darkness receded. Death stood calmly next to Life, brushing a stray piece of dirt off of his clothes. He looked around and saw the four of us huddled on the ground, covered in blood and dirt, the body of the ghoul nearly dissolved in the corner, Life standing there with a petulant look on her face. He coughed, bringing his impossibly black hand up to rub his neck nervously.
“Ah,” he said. “Oops.”
“Oops?!” Life snarled. Her power once again spread from her, flowing outwards and washing over everyone in the room until it collided with Death’s power. Sparks crackled where the two behemoths touched.
“Ahem?” I asked, drawing the attention of the two powerful entities. They turned towards me and seemed to realise what they were doing. Death’s power retreated swiftly, gracefully. Life’s power lingered a moment before it, too, pulled back like a predator who had been disappointed at not catching its prey.
“What are you doing here, my dear?” Death asked. He reached out and ran a strand of Life’s hair through his fingers. It looked like a black hole swallowing a star. Life clicked her tongue and tossed her head, pulling her hair free.
“I was coming to see if this warrior was going to be one of my champions,” Life said, gesturing vaguely to Charlotte, still on the ground and catching her breath. “She has the Eye of Carteria. Who else would be brave enough to fight me?”
“Fight you?” Charlotte asked, voice a growl and her teeth ground together.
“No offence, lady,” Mary said, struggling to sit up straight and leaning heavily on Machiavelli to do it. “But why would she fight you?”
“That’s the only way to be a favoured of Life,” I explained. “To seize Life and live to the fullest, you have to fight and struggle and do really stupid things.”
“Dear,” Life murmured, leaning towards Death while eyeing me uncertainly, “who is this human? He says that you made him immortal?”
“It is a very long story,” Death replied, sounding a touch weary. I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, trying to push back that annoyance that buzzed in my ear like a furious bee. Great, of all the emotions that remained for me to feel strongly, annoyance and anger had to be at the top of that list?
“It’s really not that complicated,” I said. “Time sent me back so that I could deal with the relationship problems between the two of you. Your husband from this time didn’t realise that he had already made me immortal in the future and touched me. He—”
“You lost his soul?” Life widened her eyes and turned her full attention to her husband. He nodded, not in the least sheepish. Life, then, did something completely unexpected. This being her nature, I should very much have guessed that she would do something like this. Which would make the unexpected expected and gets into a whole lot of philosophy and mind-trickery that I don’t have time for. Anyways.
Life squealed like a teenager at prom and flung herself at Death, wrapping her arms around him. Death chuckled, the sound rumbling, and wrapped his arms around her. Honestly, it was the most affectionate I had ever seen the two and it was a little startling. It was also a little graphic.
I coughed, pointedly, before they could start tearing clothes off of one another.
“That is amazing,” Life said. She released Death from her embrace then ran over to me. It was like looking at a child running for a new and already-beloved toy. I held up my hand and she stopped mere inches from running into it.
