Warbound (The Grimnoir Chronicles Book 3)

Germany has the strongest army in the world, and the Germans don’t like being laughed at and are looking for somebody on whom to vent their temper and use their strength. It is 38 years since Germany had her last war, and she is very strong and very restless, like a person whose boots are too small for him. With the formation of this great legion, a momentous hour has struck. The Ninth Army is an indestructible blend of technology and magic. Every last soldier is a mighty wizard. Nothing can match us. Nothing. Our rivals are envious of our magic, and they force us to legitimate defense. Germany will triumph. Bear yourselves as Huns of Attila. For a thousand years let the French tremble at the approach of a German!

—Kaiser Wilhelm II,

Speech at the Magical Services Branch Headquarters,1914

Dead City, Germany

Dead City was a horrible place.

Faye didn’t like zombies one bit. To be honest, they scared the heck out of her, and she was a very difficult to girl to scare. She hadn’t allowed herself to be scared very much since the day Madi had murdered her Grandpa, and the times she had been afraid since had been more about being scared for her friends and very rarely for her own safety. There simply wasn’t much out there that she couldn’t handle if she just kept calm and took care of business, and being scared never helped that. Zombies were different though. They were unnatural. They were just nasty, gross, make-your-skin-crawl, make-your-stomach-hurt, make-your-hair-stand on end, scary, and in this awful city, they were everywhere.

She tried to move fast, never staying in one place for too long. Luckily, Dead City was a mess of broken edges and fallen walls. Very few of the buildings were in one piece. The only ones which had been repaired was from back when the people were still trying to make it decent and livable, by the living people like Heinrich, back before the Kaiser’s million undead soldiers had gotten too crazy and too hungry.

Faye appeared on the fifth-floor window ledge of what had probably once been a bank. At least she thought it looked banklike, since there had been big stone columns out in front. Only one of them was still standing and the others had fallen to lie broken in the road. The columns were whiter than the grey ground, so they looked a little like bleached bones. Not that there weren’t plenty of real bones lying around.

Scanning for threats, Faye leaned out around the corner. The gritty dust under the soles of her shoes crunched. At least this ledge didn’t break like the last one she’d landed on. The place was positively falling apart. The coast was clear. The poor hungry zombies who’d been chasing her around the first floor were still down there screaming and throwing a fit. She figured they’d forget soon enough and go back to their shuffling and muttering.

Jacques had given her a map. On it he’d marked the spots where he thought Zachary might be staying. It was a big, clumsy, hard-to-fold mass of paper, so she’d simply memorized the whole thing in a few seconds and was trusting in her far superior head map. It didn’t help, however, that Jacques’ map had been made from back when this place had still been Berlin, and things had made sense. Some of the roads on the maps were flooded canals now. Others were filled with buildings that had fallen. But even then, there were a lot of places to check, and so far she hadn’t had any luck.

Her search would be totally pointless if it turned out that the zombie she was looking for had gone crazy and wandering aimlessly like most of the undead around here. She didn’t mind the wanderers so much; they showed up on her head map just fine so she could stay one step ahead of them. The talkers and jabberers were nice too, because she could hear them coming. It was the ones who were holding still that worried her. Already she’d nearly Traveled right into two of them. Living things positively glowed on her head map, moving things too. Dead and still? That was a problem.

The windows on this floor had no glass in them. Come to think of it, she didn’t think a pane of glass had survived anywhere in the city. Hadn’t seen a single one yet, matter of fact. Had the Peace Ray shattered them all? Or had the undead smashed everything they might see their ugly reflections in? Either way, she could see inside the dusty room. There was nothing that she could spot with her grey eyes or that she could sense on her head map that suggested there was any danger.

Jacques had said that Zachary would gravitate toward “living” in the tallest places. Back when he’d been alive he had been some sort of artist, and he’d even drawn illustrations in the pulps, of cowboys and Indians and spacemen and pirates and gangsters. Surely it was in an artist’s nature to like rooms with a view. Jacques had also given her a package to deliver, should she find him. She didn’t know what it was, but the satchel was really heavy and felt like it was filled with books. Either it was a gift, or maybe Jacques thought that the more weight she Traveled with, the faster it would use up her Power, and he was simply trying to get her caught and eaten. Well, fat chance of that, because Faye was still the best Traveler ever. So she’d show him.

“Zachary? You in there?” Faye stuck her head through the window hole. “Hello? Anybody?”

She hadn’t seen the dead woman. She’d been still for so long that it was almost like she’d been stuck to the floor. The zombie sat up with a screech, spilling a choking cloud of grey dust. It startled her, but more than anything Faye really felt sorry for these poor dead folks. She would’ve loved to do them all a favor and kill every last single one of them, but zombies didn’t die easy. You could even cut them into pieces and the pieces just kept on twitching and screaming. She’d heard that they kept on feeling hungrier and hungrier, but nothing could ever feed them. They moved only because magic had stuck their souls to their bodies like some horrible glue. What would it be like to get hurt, but to never get better, and to always feel whatever it was that killed you? Delilah had been the toughest person Faye had ever known, so she’d handled it for a bit, but in the end getting turned into ash by the Peace Ray had been for the best.

The zombie lurched for Faye, but her legs really had been fused to the floor from sitting for so long, so it took her a second to tear free. Like most of the undead Faye had seen so far, this one was weathered, all dry and shrunken, and naked, clothing long since rotted off, and too crazy or in too much pain to care about dressing proper. There was a great ripping noise, a bunch of leathery leg and butt jerky was left on the floor, and then the zombie was coming right at Faye.

She had already picked her next stop. “Sorry to wake you, ma’am,” and then Faye stepped off the ledge and Traveled safely away.

Faye was really thankful for her particular abilities right about then. She’d been blessed to be a Traveler, as it really was the best kind of magic ever. When she’d first started meeting other types of Actives as she’d sought out the Grimnoir, she’d been a little jealous of the other’s seemingly more useful abilities, like super strength or healing or controlling animals. But now Faye knew that she was the lucky one. Nobody else would be able to get around Dead City in one piece . . . Not that she could imagine anybody ever wanting to.

So many walls had fallen over that it had created a maze where the streets had been, and in some spots it was hard to tell where the streets ended and the sewers which had been beneath began. It wasn’t like the roads were level anymore, with big piles of spilled brick like the buildings had puked their guts up before they’d died.

There was lots of graffiti at ground level. It looked angry, but it was all in German, so she couldn’t read it. None of the graffiti was new, though. So the dead had probably done that sort of thing at first to pass the time before they’d either given up or run out of paint.

It was in one of those tunnels created by fallen walls that somebody answered her calls. The response had gotten her hopes up, only it turned out to only be another undead having a brief moment of coherence, and though she didn’t speak the language, she’d thought the dead man was asking if she were his daughter, but then he’d lost his mind again and tried to eat her.

The sun was getting high. Hours had passed, and she was getting tired, hungry, and thirsty. Dead City was huge. All of these years that she’d heard about the destruction of Berlin, she’d never realized just how dang big it was. She had Traveled two hundred and eighty-seven times since she’d started her search, and she hadn’t even scratched the surface. Her Power was still burning bright, but her body was getting worn out.

She stopped in what had probably been a park to eat her lunch. The bench was lopsided, the trees were barren sticks coming out of the ground, the stream was dry, and the bridge that had crossed it was now just a big pile of rocks, but at least it was in the open so she could see in every direction long enough to eat the chicken sandwich she’d packed.

She supposed there had been a lot of lakes around Berlin, because when it had all gotten broken, the lakes had come spilling back in. There was water everywhere, but most of it was cloudly with muck, and she’d seen a few zombies floating all bloated and soft like, or bits of people sticking out of the muck, so she’d be darned if she was gonna drink any Dead City water. It made her glad she’d brought a canteen.

It was nice to take a minute to relax, and then she realized that there was a severed head stuck in the branches of a nearby tree. Like every other plant she’s seen in the city, this tree was all blasted, black, ashy, and dead, and for once the random body part seemed equally still. “How’d you get up there?” she asked the head, but when she did, the eyes opened and it started hissing at her. The noise must have drawn attention, because within thirty seconds there were answering moans and shrieks from all around the park. Company was coming. “Thanks a lot, jerk.” Faye stuffed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and took a swig of water so it wasn’t so dry that she’d choke—now that would be an ironic way to die while in Dead City—and she Traveled to her next selected destination.

How had Heinrich survived here for so long? She gained new respect for her friend as she walked the broken rooftops. Occasionally she found evidence of other mortals who had tried to enter Dead City, but usually only bits and pieces of them. Jacques had told her about foolish treasure hunters, so she figured the half-eaten man she found with a shovel, burlap sack full of jewelry, antiques and a Mauser pistol had been one of those. The C96 was all dried out and could use a good cleaning, but she kept the pistol anyway. She had her Browning .45 hidden beneath her shirt, but a spare gun never hurt.

One hour of time and forty Travels later, Faye had her first stroke of luck. Not only was this dead man mostly sane, he was rather polite, helpful, and even well dressed.

“Hello?” Faye crept across the broken floor tile, darting between the beams of sunlight sneaking through the boarded-up window slats. She’d learned the hard way in the last apartment building that sometimes the zombies could be wedged into the ceilings too. That one had nearly pulled her hair. “Anybody home?”

“Hallo. Wer ist da?”

“Sorry to bug you.” Faye peeked around the crumbling brick corner. There was a tall, thin shape standing in the back of the next room. His stance was wary, not all hunched over and dragging like most dead folks she’d met. “My name is Faye. Do you speak English?”

There was a long pause. “Yes . . . Forgive me. I do not often receive visitors. Come in.”

What luck! He didn’t immediately try to eat her face and he spoke English!

It was dark inside, but her grey eyes could see just fine. He was dead all right, bug-eyed, skin all dried out and cracked-open scabby, but despite that he was dressed in a very snazzy army uniform, and his chest was covered in ribbons and medals and gold braids leading up to big golden things on his shoulders which looked like they should be used for cleaning boots, and speaking of boots, his went up to his knees and were so polished and shiny that if there was sunshine they would probably be blinding. He was even wearing a sword, and it was one of the only metal things she’d seen in town that wasn’t rusty. On the table next to him was a bottle, which had been empty since Faye had been a little girl, and a weird German helmet with a spike on top of it. The helmet was darn near as sparkly as the boots. “I was getting ready for the parade.”

Apparently there were different kinds of zombie crazy.

“I’m Faye. What’s your name?”

“Field Marshal . . .” His voice was a hissing wheeze. The zombie tilted his head to the side. “I do not remember . . . What are you doing in my study? American, no? Have you brought the new draft of the armistice treaty? Are you with Pershing’s expeditionary unit?”

In a sense, yes, her and Mr. black Jack went way back, but she didn’t want to complicate matters. “I’m not in the army or nothing. I’m here looking for somebody. Maybe you can give me directions?”

The zombie general, or whatever he was, gave her a bow with a flourish. His bones creaked ominously. “Of course, young lady. How may I be of assistance?”

“I’m looking for a man who lives around here somewhere. His name is Zachary.”

“Zachary, you say? I do not know this man, I think . . . Did you see my medals? How they gleam?”

“They’re very nice. The man I’m looking for can tell the future.”

“Ah, the Fortune Teller. Yes. I know of him. He moved to the top floor of the Fenstermacher building down the street.”

“Really? Which one is that?”

“It is not far from here. It is the one the Kaiser had a radio tower built on top of . . . I went there once. All of the notable members of high society in Berlin did. An actual Fortune Teller. How marvelous, I thought. I wished to know if there was any chance the Kaiser’s forces could turn this run of bad luck . . . Alas, there was not.”

“Thank you, Field Marshal. You’ve been a big help.”

The zombie sounded very sad. “Not so many of us visit the Fortune Teller anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“I think he is a charlatan. Our fortunes were all the same. I do not remember mine exactly.” His dried features seemed to scrunch up in confusion. “It was very . . . depressing.” He shuffled around to his table and picked up his empty bottle. “Please, please don’t go. Stay and have a drink.” He poured an imaginary drink into the dry glass. “I could use some company for a bit.”

She was rather impatient to go, but she felt bad for the old dead soldier. She took the proffered empty glass. “Okay, but just one.”

One imaginary drink had turned into five, and then ten, and the field marshal had told her stories about where every one of his medals had come from, and then he’d talked about his lovely wife, and their twin babies, who were probably her age by now, but the undead didn’t seem to have a real good grasp on time. It was funny how that worked out, but it wasn’t like imaginary booze was going to befuddle her or the empty bottle was going to run out of anything except for dust, so Faye had sat their pretending to sip air while an old zombie held a conversation.

It was the least she could do for the good advice, and she figured an hour spent like that had probably saved her ten times that long searching the city, assuming the field marshal had given her the right address, of course. She’d made her apologies, said she had other commitments, and Traveled through the ceiling.

Faye had to dodge between two groups of particularly aggressive undead who seemed to be having a turf war over the main boulevard, and then she nearly got her head blown off when it turned out one of them still had a working rifle and was a fairly good shot with it. That neighborhood turned out to be a real pain since there were other snipers up on the roofs, so it forced her back through the building interiors and torn-up streets. A sleeper had scratched her boot with his bony fingers and a few minutes later a different one had ripped a chunk of fabric from her blouse. That one had made her angry enough that she’d shot it a few times with the old Mauser pistol, just to make a point, but the gunfire had merely drawn more attention, so she’d had to Travel fast.

She reached the Fenstermacher building. It had probably been a big factory of some kind before it had started falling apart. The radio tower the field marshal had told her about had rusted badly and was leaning over. The next time there was a strong wind, it would probably end up in the street, and she supposed any zombies that got squished underneath it would just be stuck and angry forever.

Faye picked a spot in what appeared to be a large, empty room. So far, avoiding corners seemed to be the safest method. She popped into existence, dropped softly to the floor, and looked around for any dusty lumps that could be angry dead folks. Clear. At least there was quite a bit of sunshine for once. Then she realized that her gentle landing hadn’t disturbed any dust, because the floor had been swept.

“Hello? Zachary?” But she knew right away she’d found the right place, because pinned to the nearest wall was a sheet of paper with a picture drawn on it, a quick and simple ink drawing like you’d see in the pulp magazines.

The word Spellbound had been scrawled across the top.

The picture was of her.

It was a good likeness, not like looking in a mirror or anything, but she could easily tell it was supposed to be her. That was nice. Nobody had ever drawn her portrait before.

There were more pictures pinned up, lots and lots of them. The drawings were of people mostly, but also places, and things, and machines, and events, and demons, and even stuff she didn’t recognize. There were hundreds of them, and when she took a few steps, she realized that all of the other walls in the room, from floor to ceiling, had paper stuck on them too.

Faye whistled. “That sure is something.”

She showed up as the subject often, probably more than anybody else, but she recognized many of her friends; Francis, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Garrett, Lance, Delilah, Jane, Black Jack Pershing; there was Heinrich hitting a demon with a pickax, and even Mr. Browning showing off some new gun. Then there were her enemies, the Chairman screaming at her to give back his hands, and Isaiah Rawls and Mr. Harkeness plotting away, and Mr. Crow both as a man and as a demon, and Mr. Madi fighting on the Tokugawa. Then there were people who were sometimes both, like the one of Toru beating somebody’s head in with his spiky club, and J. Edgar Hoover bossing folks around.

It went on and on, so many faces. So many scenes from her life. Some of the papers were yellowed and crispy with age, like they’d been drawn years ago, but they showed recent events, like Mr. Bolander calling down the Oklahoma lightning, or Faye’s fight with Toshiko the ninja girl, or Whisper right before she ended her life in Washington D.C.

She froze at one that showed Madi standing over the fallen form of her grandpa, massive revolver pointing down to finish him off, and then at another of haystacks burning while a poor, scared, injured girl hid under a cow trough to carve a beetle out of her foot.

Then there was page after page after page of folks she just plain didn’t know and places she’d never seen. Thousands of them, and it wasn’t like they were sorted into groups. One person she recognized would be squished onto a wall among dozens she didn’t. The only reason she could take it all in so quick was because it only took her a fraction of a second to scan over each one, record them with her grey eyes, and sort them out with her head map. There was a stranger who could create sucking black wounds in the world like the thing that had eaten Mason Island, and a mechanical man that looked just like a real man, and an old samurai with a big shadow living inside his head.

Were these all things that had actually happened? No . . .There was one of her and Francis, holding hands up on a tall bridge, but she didn’t recognize the moment. There was a fancy UBF dirigible going up in flames over some foreign city with Captain Southunder still bravely manning the controls. A Peace Ray firing and a skyline she recognized as New York crumbling into ashes. Mr. Sullivan and Toru about to duel to the death on a rocky beach. A little boy crying as he was carried away by a monster without skin, while behind them a whole city was getting cleaned out of people, skinless monsters picking them like fruit.

The details weren’t always right. Like the artist had only seen part of the picture and then guessed the rest, or maybe he only caught a quick glimpse and then had to recreate them from memory, but they were close enough to know that Zachary’s magic was real.

“Hello, Faye.”

It was rare somebody could sneak up on her, but she was awfully preoccupied. “Zachary?”

“What’s left of me.” He came around the corner. Dead, but in much better shape than anyone else she’d seen in the city. It made sense, she supposed, since he hadn’t been dead near as long. If it had been darker, she might’ve even mistook him for an alive person. He’d probably stayed out of the weather. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Faye nodded. “I guess you can’t really surprise somebody who can see the future.”

“Sure you can. I don’t see every little thing.” The skin of his face was drooping and grey. There were holes in his cheeks where you could see white teeth. If he’d had hair when he was alive, you couldn’t tell because all the skin on the top of his head was gone and it was just a white skull dome. His clothing was frayed and torn, but far cleaner than anyone else’s around here except for the field marshal’s. His eyes, still clear and intelligent, swept across the room. “Saw you coming though. Saw that for a long time. What do you think of the gallery?”

“It’s nice, I suppose.”

Zachary shuffled in with a bad limp. “It wasn’t always like this.” His voice was raspy and dry, but he still sounded like an American. “Back before I got killed, my Power was weak. Just sporadic looks into what might happen. I could only see little bits and pieces once in a while. It wasn’t like I could actually tell the future . . . You heard of déjà vu?”

Faye nodded. It was the sort of thing that Francis had read about in a magazine and thought was amusing enough to share with her. “Like you feel like you’d seen some things before?”

“My magic was sort of like that, but a little better. Happened often enough when I was a kid that I started drawing the pictures that would come into my head. That way I could prove later I wasn’t making things up. Took years to sort of get it straight, but even at my best I’d get some things right, lots of things wrong, wasn’t much better than guessing. No wonder the Society never paid much heed to what I had to say. I was about as useful as flipping a coin. See, back then I didn’t realize that the Power sees things different than we do, and sometimes it was showing me things that could be.”

“I’ve talked to the Power. It’s sorta weird like that.”

“Wasn’t until after I croaked that it really started clicking. Believe it or not, death is handy for some things. When your choices are focus on the pain or focus on your Power, you get pretty good at focusing on your Power.” He made a sad noise, but then Faye realized he was laughing, so she laughed with him. “Now I can’t shut it off. It’s all there, all of it, all the time, from all over the world, and maybe even some other worlds that don’t exist quite yet. Things that are, will be, might be, doesn’t matter, the Power just keeps on shoving it into my head and I keep putting it down on paper.”

“You’re a good drawer.”

“Thanks.” He gestured absently at the walls and she realized he was wearing gloves. He must have caught her staring. “The gloves? Yeah, I don’t like to leave bits of me on the paper. All that effort, my hands are getting worn out. I can barely hold a pen anymore. It really hurts.”

“But you have to keep drawing?”

“Same way you have to keep Traveling. You can’t even imagine what life would be like without being able to Travel, can you?”

“No.” That would be horrific. Horrific and slow. “It’s sorta who I am.”

“This is different, but kind of the same. You ever have a toothache, Faye?”

“Sure.”

Zachary nodded. “Being dead’s like a toothache. Only for your whole body. Forever. You ever been real hungry, so starving that you’d eat anything?” She’d already seen that he’d drawn the shack in Oklahoma, so he already had the answer. “Being dead’s worse, only you can’t ever stop that hunger. And that gnaws at you. It gnaws at your soul.” He touched his head absently with his glove, and some more skin fell away from the top of his skull. “I gotta keep drawing. Keep listening. Otherwise, that toothache will gnaw right through the rest of me and I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d just be the hunger, like the rest of this town.”

That reminded her. “Jacques sent a package for you.” She pulled the satchel around and opened it up. It was filled with packages of typing paper and ink bottles and pens, and then she understood why it had been so heavy.

“Thoughtful of him, but never mind that. Don’t need them no more . . . My work is done. See, I only needed to stick around long enough to talk to you. This was all for you, Faye.”

“For me?”

“The Power wanted you to have it. I know why Jacques sent you. Last time we’d spoke was before the Power really started talking to me. See, I think I had too much humanity in the way before to really listen good, to really see the possibilities. Jacques figured I’d show you destroying the world, because that was what I’d shown him before.”

“Do I? Do I really destroy the world?”

“More often than not. There are lots of worlds and lots of Fayes, so that was just the most likely outcome. Not the only one.”

Now she was really confused.

His foot made a horrible sound as it dragged along the floor, and then Faye noticed that there were crumpled up balls of paper scattered about underfoot. She hadn’t paid them any mind before. She picked one up and uncrinkled it. This picture showed her, only older, and much scarier, her features all twisted up, and she was killing lots of people with all manner of magic, fire, and ice, and lightning, and from the looks on their faces, they weren’t bad people at all, just innocent folks, women and kids even . . .

“See what I mean? And that one isn’t the worst. Not even close.”

She crumpled it back up and tossed it down. “You hide the bad ones.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes they scared me so bad that I tossed them right out the window, watched them float down. I saw too many good ones, so I know your heart, Faye. I prefer to think of what can be, not the worst-case scenario. Now Jacques, he has to think about the worst. Poor Jacques. I never saw your face back when I was alive. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to, you know? Power didn’t want me to see. You got no idea how many pictures I’ve got here of him, agonizing over some hard decision, staring off into space, trying to decide what to do.”

“Fourteen,” Faye answered without hesitation.

“He’s doing it right now, I bet.” Zachary chuckled, but it was a horrible sound, what with the air blowing out the holes in his cheeks.

Faye went to the nearest one of her teacher. Jacques looked incredibly weary in that one. “What’s he doing with that vial?”

“Deciding on whether to poison you or not, I think . . .”

Faye was offended, but it made her more sad than angry.

“Don’t hold it against him. That much responsibility on one man is a hell of a thing. It’s probably my fault, you know, I warned the others about you. I showed them . . . I told them there’d be another Spellbound coming. He’d devoted years of his life hunting the last one, lost his girlfriend to Sivaram, even. What’d you expect him to do?”

“If I die, will there be another one after me?”

“I don’t think you realize it yet, sister. Now that we’ve been found, if you die, there’s nothing after you. The Power is a funny thing. It’s smarter than they think. It’s picked you, Faye. It picked you for a reason. With Sivaram it saw a way out, a way to break a cycle. It’s been to a lot of worlds and bonded with a lot of intelligences, but humans are the first one that ever surprised it. We’ve got something the ones before us didn’t have: Creativity. It didn’t realize humans were that capable, and for the first time in a million years it got its hopes up. It tried, only Sivaram wasn’t good enough, so it picked you next. It’s directed you this whole time, guided you, put you in the path of the others it’s picked. I draw them too.” He gestured at the walls. “All of us have a job to do, but you’re the only one that can put it all together. You are the only way the Power sees to beat the Enemy once and for all.”

“The Enemy is real. I knew it.” She glanced around. “How come there ain’t no pictures of it? You’ve got its little helpers and the people it’s twisted up and skinned, but no pictures of the big Enemy.”

“That’s the bad part about my Power being stronger now. I never saw it before. I couldn’t see things without bodies back then. Now? I’ve tried to draw it. Take your pen, jab it through the paper, into the table even, hard as you can, and then start making a circle. You’ve got to cut it deep. You shred the paper. And all you get is ink bleeding out into a bigger and bigger circle. When I try to see it, I have to push so hard that blood starts seeping through my gloves. If I keep going, I start to bleed inside my head and then it comes out my eyes. The blood and the ink, that’s the only way to draw the thing that’s coming.”

Blood and ink . . . She looked at one of the pictures of Mr. Sullivan, his shirt ripped open and the self-inflicted scars on his chest burning as he ripped an Iron Guard in half. “So the Power’s picked me to fight the Enemy? I know what happens if we lose, Power runs off, and we end up like the Summoned, but what happens if we win?”

Zachary tilted his scabrous head to the side. “That’s entirely up to you. It all depends on how far you’re willing to go and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”

Faye knelt down and reached for another crumpled sheet of paper.

“Don’t,” the zombie warned. “Not that one.”

Faye opened it up anyway. She stated at the picture for a long time. It was the worst thing ever. “I’d never do that. I’d never become that.”

“Then don’t. I know you think you wouldn’t now, but you could. I can see the possibilities, and you can feel the truth. You’ve tasted what it’s like. You’ve taken someone else’s magic from them before and made it your own. You get strong as you’ll need to be, and it’ll change you.” Zachary turned and began walking away. “These are all for you, Faye. It wanted you to have them, to know who can help you, and who wants to hurt you. Learn them. Learn where you came from, and what might have been, and what might still be. I know it won’t take you long. Nothing takes you long.”

“Where are you going?”

“This was what the Power asked from me. I’m done. Now it’s time to make the gnawing stop. There’s a furnace downstairs. I’ve already stocked it full of coal. I plan to light it, then climb inside and burn until there’s nothing left of this damned body for my soul to cling to. See you.”

Faye looked down at the horrific picture in her hands. I will not become the devil. “Thank you, Zachary.”

“Good luck, Faye.”

Art to come

Faye with zombies