Black Alice: 6) I Put A Spell On You

I let my shadow extend, the sensation feeling like part of me unfolding and stretching as she grew larger and larger. Where she touched, we could feel and taste and smell every fine detail. The wall behind me had a gang tag I could read by taste, the paint was so fresh. The feel of the pavement and sidewalk was as immediate to me as though my own skin were touching it. She rolled down the length of the fence, in the direction Irish had indicated, and not far away she found a section of the chain link fence sagging away from its support pole. This must be where Irish went in earlier. I jogged over to it, ducked under the bar along the top of the fence and stepped into the yard.

The rain had stopped, but there was enough cloud cover that the yard was a morass of shadows. City lights made the clouds a dull rust color, and it went really well with the jagged metal and rusted junk motif. I wandered into the deep gloom between two rickety-looking stacks of metal, the shadow exploring the darkness and feeding the lay of the land back to me. I could feel each dry weed and uneven rumple in the earth, every drop of rainwater dripping from the pallets of iron, every contour within fifty feet. I could smell rotten wood and taste rusty metal and wet, half-frozen earth. It was pretty quiet back here, all the scrap muffling the noise of Detroit, and the deeper I went into the darkness, the more unsettled I got.

I hadn’t realized it, but the ambient magic in this area was pretty low. The yard was old, and there were no power lines running over or under it. The farther I got from the street, the less magic there was to work with. It wasn’t a dead zone – you hardly ever run into those in urban areas, but it wasn’t helpful. I started wishing I’d thought to bring a few of my batteries with me. As an artificer, I have a slight advantage in low magic areas. A lot of my toys carry their own charge. Others, like my belt, ran off what I could draw from the surrounding area. Failing that, they’d draw off me. Off my own spark, which thanks to Leo was fully charged and good to go, but it wouldn’t stay that way long if things got hectic.

I made it another twenty or thirty yards deeper into the maze before I realized that it was too quiet back here. It brought me to a halt as I listened, frowning. I couldn’t hear anything moving, and worse, neither could the shadow. Well, she doesn’t “hear” so much as feel the vibration of sounds. It’s like tasting a noise. I chewed my lip, staring into the still darkness. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like this place should be crawling with vermin. Rats, snakes, rabbits or raccoons and opossums, feral cats; that kind of thing, but it wasn’t. There were insects, those few of them that had survived the frost, but nothing else within the shadow’s range. Weird.

And bad.

Had the toxic utangard spill already spread far enough to corrupt everything in the yard? A shudder rolled down my spine as I considered that. If that was the case, things were going to get really ugly back here. I consoled myself with the thought that at least it hadn’t seemed to affect the insects, briefly imagining giant carnivorous spiders and warped, crazed swarms of hell-beetles.

I heard a distant report of gunfire off to my left and started, surprised. It was a ways off, but it sure sounded like Irish’s hand-cannon. Several shots, too. Had Irish found the pack of Cur-ruptions already? I jogged up a few rows and paused, listening again. There was a crash in the distance, same direction as the shots, I was pretty sure. The yard did funny things to echoes.

I grinned. How much fun would it be if I had to go rescue Irish from the monsters? I’d never let him live it down. I ran a few rows towards the noises, dodging debris and finding sure footing without looking, as the shadow mapped the terrain ahead of me. I closed maybe half the distance and came to a skidding stop as we suddenly tasted that foul, outland stench, and it was close. Much closer than that ruckus we’d heard. She also alerted me to more noise – music. Also close.

“What the -” she flooded my mouth with the taste of those dogs and that black bile before I could finish the exclamation, and I turned and spat, trying to get rid of the flavor. It didn’t work, of course.

I hauled her up short, remembering how the creature in Irish’s car had been able to sense her touch, and dug around in one of the pouches at my belt, pulling out an antique Edison light bulb. I tapped it gently against my thigh to wake up the fireflies imprisoned within, and the bulb flickered to light, a warm yellow glow only slightly marred by the shadows of the flies buzzing inside. It had taken me hours to wire those little Christmas lights onto the buggies’ butts. I tossed it in the air and it hovered there, a few feet over my head, brightening as the fireflies worked up to full strength. I waved the hovering light on ahead and followed it, drawing my gun and loading it with salamander rounds. Fire had seemed to work really well.

The stench of those creatures was all over this row. They had come this way, and the weeds had died where they’d trod. Here and there we tasted smears of black slime steaming where the rainwater dripped onto it. The music got a little louder, and I could make out a harmonica playing a jaunty, catchy tune. I smiled.

Things were looking up. I suspected this hunt had just gotten a lot simpler. I heard another crash off in the distance, a big one. It sounded like a car crash. What was Irish doing over there? More gunshots, and some of those were a different gun. Something was shooting back. What the hell?

“Damn it.” I tossed a look towards the harmonica music, then back towards the sounds of a fight. I hesitated, wondering if Irish had stumbled into another nest of critters, or maybe the outlander itself, and if so, what kind of beastie shoots back? I remembered him wading into the fireball, and finally decided he could manage to hold his own for a few more minutes while I checked this out. Brandishing my gun, I trotted another couple of rows up towards the music and leaned around a stack for a peek. My jaw dropped.

I’d found the cur-ruptions. There were six of them that had repaired themselves after Irish had dismembered them… no, seven. Also, another four in lesser stages of corruption. Either Irish hadn’t found those ones, or these things were contagious, and had infected the rest of their pack. One had been cut in half, and the two halves had glued themselves back together with thick, twisting curls of that black snot, looking for all the world like one of those goddamn toy slinky dogs. Another had been beheaded, like the one in Irish’s car, but instead of reattaching the head, this one had just spewed forth a couple dozen of those eyes stalks, standing out of a web of those pulsing white sphincters. Another two had fused into a single, six-legged misshapen lump, with two heads attached side by side by strands of slime and pale snot.

Of the lesser four, one was unmarred, on the outside, at least, but she was pregnant and her stomach was swollen to grotesque proportions, rendering her immobile. She lay there panting and whining on her side, distended belly rising three or four feet above her, and whatever was inside was moving. I watched her stomach, stretched nearly to the point of being transparent, shifting and writhing, as things inside moved. A second one was losing its hair in giant clumps. I could see them falling out, and the bald patches were layered in slick black hexagons, like chitinous insect armor. Its eyes were swollen out of its sockets and bloodshot, and its tongue hung out of its mouth in black, wriggling strips, dangling between its teeth and drooling that disgusting ichor.

I had to assume the stench was beyond bad. My sense of smell had shut down in self-defense.

The dog-things crouched in a rough circle, noses pointing in towards the source of the music. At the center of their circle was a very ordinary plump brown rat. The little thing was trembling in utter terror, eyes bugged out, frozen in place. I was amazed its little heart hadn’t exploded from sheer fear. Tied to the rat with dirty white string was a plastic baby monitor, one of those white ones with the bright primary colors on the knobs and speaker. Every eye in the circle, and there were a whole hell of a lot more than there should have been, was locked on that poor, cowering rat.

“Pardell?” I called, softly. “It’s Alice.”

The music stopped, replaced by a relieved voice. “Alice? Holy shit, am I glad to hear your voice! I wasn’t sure how long I could keep them occupied!”

The second Pardell had stopped playing, the creatures in the circle had twitched, shaking themselves and looking around. Two of them spotted me at the same time and rose, snarling thick, bubbly snarls.

“Shit!” I squeaked. “Don’t stop playing, man!”

“Sorry!” The song started up again, from the beginning, and I finally recognized it. Dell was playing Screamin’ Jay Hawkin’s I Put A Spell On You. The dogs hesitated, shuddering, and then flopped back down to listen, entranced. A lot of the eyestalks, though, stayed focused on me. And there were a lot of those. They were growing from black pools that centered on the beasts. They were growing from pale sphincter clusters attached to the scaffolding on either side of the row. It was like Irish had called it, a nest.

I’d known Pardell for years. He was what we called a Piper. As in Pied? Yeah. He wasn’t actually an Arcana member, because according to the bigshots his talent wasn’t impressive enough to qualify, and neither was his ability to use it. When I’d met Pardell, he could talk to or control three, maybe four animals at a time, if he was having a good day. I’d seen the potential in making an ally out of him, and gave him a little present. Namely, the very harmonica he was playing. It boosted his ability, by drawing more magic than he could channel on his own. Sounds impressive, but it wasn’t that big a deal, really. Instead of four rats, he could handle maybe thirty with the harmonica, assuming he was close to a good power supply, like a streetlight or a power outlet. And even then, he was running the risk of burning himself out, if he kept it up too long. Using the harmonica was like overclocking a computer. Enhanced performance, sure, but only while it lasted. He was probably pushing the edge of his limits, right here. But it explained where all the other critters were. He’d Hamlin’d them away from the area, before charming the dogs.

He couldn’t be too far away. Those baby monitors didn’t have much range, which meant that he was probably stuck in the same low magic zone I was.

And that meant he really wasn’t going to keep this up much longer. Already, the dogs’ glances were shifting between the monitor and me. Now that they realized I was here, Pardell was going to have a much harder time keeping them still. And if they hated me on sight the way I hated them, then there was no question. None.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Somewhere behind me, I could hear more shouting and shooting and crashing. Irish was still occupied with whatever he’d run into. Sounded like it was really giving him a run for his money, too. I leveled the gun and let the shadow off her leash.

The shadow growled in my head, a happy, hungry little sound, and I fired as the darkness came alive. The Edison bulb winked out, and all the ambient light vanished, and we were plunged into pitch blackness as the shadows swelled and thickened. The gun bucked in my hand, silent and dark, as the shadow swallowed the sound and drank the muzzle flash.

I was aiming by feel, my mental topographic map of the area and the shadow’s perfect sense of shape and distance within her embrace. My first shot hit the poor pregnant bitch, with her little whines and pants and wide, worried eyes. I felt her eyes widen as the bullet hit her in the throat and ignited, and I shook myself to clear my head. Must be the fresh soul. I’m not usually such a softie. The shadows took her, sweeping over her and swallowing the phosphorescent flare from the bullet. I could taste fried dog hair, though, feel the heat as the salamander blood in the bullets ate into her flesh, burning her up from the inside out. The shadow followed the bullet in through the charred hole, flooding the dog, down her throat and eyes. I felt her latch on to the vital energies within the dog, the jumping flashing energy of life itself, the charges jumping from neuron to neuron in the dog’s poor confused head, and the shadow snuffed it all, feasting on it even as she drained light and heat and sound from the surrounding areas.

I was blind, sure, but it didn’t matter. By the way the eyestalks were flailing around, the cur-ruptions were just as blind, and they didn’t have my senses. Operating on our tactile map, I strode ahead, firing again and again. Another shot for the pregnant bitch’s giant belly, and two more for the big one made of two dogs. Each of those tried to flee in a different direction, and they almost tore themselves free of each other while they smoldered and began to burn from within. Worse, those puppies were ripping their way out, spilling out writhing streamers of that black snot as they tore loose. Something over there squealed in a high-pitched tone never meant to be heard on Earth, and in the stygian silence I felt and tasted that eerie wail. I cringed at the un-noise and gave the shadow a mental slap, and hard, too. Dammit, I needed the sound. If these things couldn’t hear Pardell’s song …

I shifted and fired again, and this time the dull crack of my gun split the night. A bullet took a creature in the head and ignited and I dropped to my knees as another monster soared over my head. All of them were moving, charging blindly and mad with rage but I was always just out of reach. In this cloud of darkness, nothing could sneak up on us. I leapt and spun, shooting and dodging and fighting in graceful deadliness.

Now that I could hear the harmonica again, naturally, it stopped. The song broke off and I heard him yelling “Alice? Alice?”

Ribbons of slime fell on me as one of the dogs exploded when I shot it, and I felt my belt’s enchantment flicker and wane, heard hissing over my head as the crud bubbled and sizzled and oozed down on either side of me, hardly inches from my skin. I fired again as the creature unfurled like a horrendous flower, and the salamander blood went to work. I twisted around on my knees and fired twice more, teeth ground tight as I realized the goddamned things were surrounding me. Maybe it was the gunshots. Maybe they could smell me. But they weren’t as blind as I’d have liked. They were closing.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard a tremendous crash. I leveled the gun and fired twice at an advancing beast as my shadow tore into three more injured dogs, writhing in all that energy, corrupted and foul as it was. I felt corpses slumping to the earth, alien eyestalks glazing over as the shadow snuffed their animating energies.

My god, it was the worst thing I’d ever tasted. I missed my next shot from gagging too hard.

There was a giant creaking sound distantly behind me, a slow, ponderous high-pitched sound, metal screaming as it bent and slid along more metal. I threw myself back, wondering what the hell all that racket could be, and fired at some other drooling thing as it lunged at me. I hit it twice and the gun clicked empty. “Fuck!”

My exclamation was drowned out in a thunderous crash, followed by another long, slow, screaming creak of metal on metal. Jesus, what the hell was that?

I holstered the gun and thrust my hands into my pockets, pulling out a double handful of sunflower seeds and throwing them out in a wide buckshot scatter all around me. I ducked, feeling the wind flutter around me as one of the giant, oozing creatures just missed me. Dragging my thumbnail against my fingernails again, my hand crackled with electricity in the darkness, and I waved it over the earth, igniting the seeds. They caught, fire arcing in slender threads from one seed to next, building a network of flames that rose in a dome over where I crouched. My shadow hid the light, and two of my foes were flash-incinerated when they moved into the web. Fine ash rained down on me, and I pulled an ink pen out of my jacket pocket, the flare I’d mentioned to Irish.

I had lost track of how many of my opponents remained, but at the thought my shadow supplied the answer. Four. Another of them crumpled to the ground as she invaded it, snuffing the life of the dog and letting the parasites wither and die. Three.

Cool. I lit the end of the pen by sticking it into the fireseed web as the earth shook under another gigantic crash. The pen ignited, a straight line of vivid blue fire, and I swept it in a wide arc, catching two of them and causing them to fall in smoking pieces as though I’d hit them with a light saber.

Hey, a light saber. I should make one of those!

I’d also set fire to one of the big scaffolding rigs, and I sent the last of the flare skyward as the pen grew uncomfortably hot in my hand. I bid the shadow to drop the darkness, and looked with my own eyes into the face of the last cur-ruption. A boxer, it had been, and much of the dog’s face was still visible, peering out in bewilderment from the mass of eyestalks and ropy white tendrils sprouting from its chest up along its back to its tail. A gaping maw opened in its chest, huge, with enormous teeth. It was snarling, but I couldn’t hear it over another of those long, tumbling creaks.

Wait… tumbling? Was that racket getting closer? “Alice, run!” screeched Pardell’s voice from the baby monitor. It was blackened and half-melted, and I saw that the brave little rat had died in the fireseed websplosion.

The shadow lay over my hand like a glove, protecting me from the blazingly hot pen, which was now just fitfully sputtering little gouts of blue fire. I hadn’t counted on that much spillover heat. I tossed the pen at the last beast standing. “Catch!” It landed amongst the tendrils on its back, and the beast began twitching as it caught fire. It rolled, the boxer’s face howling in pain an instant before it burst into brilliant flame.

“Alice! Now!”

“Little busy, pal.” Another tremendous crash, and another wobbling, tortured scream of metal ripping along metal. I met the stare of those waving stalks, and the scared boxer, reloading the Baby Eagle. I was out of salamander rounds, naturally. I made a mental note to order more salamanders from Randall, and clicked home a clip of dragon’s breath. That’d do. Only a few of the things were still moving, and a few shots of this would finish them off.

Another gigantic crash shook the ground I was standing on, and dammit, what the hell was that? That tortured scream of metal came again and I slapped my hands over my ears. It was only the shadow and her sensitivity that let me hear the monitor through all that racket: “The racks are falling! Dominoes, Alice! Fucking run!”

Oh. Fuck.

Table of Contents / Chapter Seven >>

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Tags: James Agle, Marci Sischo, serial novel, urban fantasy