I t was interesting how I’d ignored the signs of Alex being possessed. One of the things you learned as a shaman was the fact that people generally weren’t under the control of their spirit twenty-four/ seven. Exerting that kind of control was far more than most could pull off and even they had their equivalent of sleep. No, instead, it was more that the spirit was always there and influencing your actions. People with a rage spirit were always angry, sadness, well, you get the picture.
Figuring out where spirits interacted with mental illness was something a lot of doctors had wasted way too much time on since medication worked better than exorcisms in most patients. However, none of that mattered compared to the fact that Alex’s recent jerkishness was a sign that he was carrying around an ancient Unseelie spirit.
I noted that was bothering me more than the fact he was trying to kill me now. His hands were wrapped around my throat, but he was barely exerting any pressure. We were totally in autoerotic asphyxiation territory here versus actual strangling (and shut up, I looked it up after what happened to poor David “Kill Bill” Carradine). Alex was holding back on exerting his full demon-god given strength and hurting me. I could see the slightest bit of humanity flicker behind Alex’s eyes as there was all sorts of inner turmoil going on inside of him, even in the cavern that was the heart of the Boogeyman’s power.
“Fight him, Alex!” I said, feeling a bit cliché. “The Power of Deer Christ compels you!”
That was when I summoned all my magic and blasted Alex with an exorcism spell that slammed into the Boogeyman with the force of a big rig. That was, after all, another fun thing about me. You see, I only knew a couple of spells, but the ones that I did know had the force of a Grand Druid behind them. Grand Druids being entirely Wicca good and love the Earth despite the fact they sounded like something the KKK would come up with. Racist assholes ruin everything, I swear.
Deer Christ? Bloody Mary asked. I’m not familiar with that god.
C.S. Lewis made a lion Christ , I said. No reason not to have a deer Christ.
I thought you were a pagan , Bloody Mary said, having no appreciation for our circumstances.
The Earthmother is kind of a dick , I thought back. Long story. But I don’t count on her to have my back during this.
That was when I saw Janet aiming her pistol at me and I ducked to one side. It was impossible to dodge bullets, but you could dodge the way people were aiming. One thing that video games had taught me was that moving around was actually a much better way to avoid being shot than it would initially seem. This is why machine guns existed and you were just bucked if you got attacked by them, no matter what the movies said. Thankfully, Janet was just carrying around a gun she’d been able to hide in her fanny pack.
“You can’t stop the apocalypse!” Samantha-Janet shouted. “With the power of the old gods, I shall usher in a new age!”
“Lucien, occupy your brother!” I shouted. “I’ll deal with Sabrina the Teenage Bitch!”
“Again, I think that joke only applies to Emma,” Lucien said, healing by assuming his half dragon form and bolting like a gecko across the ground to tackle Alex. I hadn’t driven out the Boogeyman, but I hoped I’d loosened him up. “Don’t you know that gendered language hurts us all?”
I knew he was joking in his usual sarcastic assholish way but now I was just pissed off. “It doesn’t count when I say it!”
I felt a bullet whizz by me before I rolled across the ground, hiding behind a pair of stalagmites that rose out of the ground. That was when my possessed cousin ran for the lectern and grabbed hold of the book.
“No!” I shouted, realizing that her attempting to steal it was probably going to bring down the mother of all curses.
I sensed Alex’s magic lash out at Janet even as she trembled, holding the book tight against her chest. “I’m not dead yet. I will find a new body after this.”
Samantha was in charge now. Lifting my pistol despite the fact I didn’t want to shoot Janet, I aimed it at her. “If you’ve hurt my cousin, I will kill you again and again until it sticks.”
“Away,” Samantha said, making a wave with one hand.
I was literally blown back eight feet, landing with a thud that sent me bouncing across the ground. I wanted to try the exorcism spell I’d used on Alex, but I’d used all my juice on that, and it would take a few more minutes, at the least, to try to use it again. Given Alex was fighting it out with Lucien, I had to wonder if my attempt had been utterly wasted on him too.
Shoot her , Bloody Mary said. Or you will regret it.
No! I snapped at the demon in my gun. I wish I had Raguel here.
He’d say the same , Bloody Mary said. My ex and I still agree about many things.
Wait , what? I asked, actually distracted from the horrific thing going on around me.
“Klaatu, Barada, Nikto!” Samantha-in-charge said, reading from the book. Well, not really no. She said a bunch of other evil sounding shit that I couldn’t put to pen. However, my mind mentally substituted the famous three words spoken by Ash in Army of Darkness when reading from the Necronomicon .
“Oh crap, what did I just miss?” I asked, looking at Samantha-in-Janet as she struggled to stand. Her eyes were starting to bleed and that was never a good sign. Alex’s curse had hit Janet hard and the fact it was equally affecting Samantha didn’t help matters.
This is going to suck , Bloody Mary said. I should have brought Derek.
I had no idea who Derek was but just watched Samantha-in-Janet, I struggled to figure out a way to help my cousin. “How do I stop her from dying?”
You have bigger problems now , Bloody Mary said. The Boogeyman is manifesting.
But he hasn’t killed the film crew! I mentally shouted.
He doesn’t need to , Bloody Mary said. All the deaths of the loyalists above , Preacher and Alice especially , have completed the necessary components for the ritual. The Book of Midnight means that the requirements for a great summoning are far lesser.
I didn’t get a chance to figure out what she meant because all the energy inside the cavern began to gather into a single place. It was like a black hole for magic had emerged among us, sucking up all the power imprisoned here. It swirled into a vaguely humanoid shape as I felt a terrible evil incarnate that reminded me of the Big Bad Wolf only worse. I’d faced down gods before but this one carried an aura of all too human evil.
Much to my surprise, I saw the dark magic incarnate into something far too familiar. Standing there, looking identical to his form in my dreamscape, was Phillip Tzu. He was wearing the Freddy Krueger shirt and a pair of brown dress pants with dress shoes. He also radiated power that was difficult to put into words but felt unimaginable. Somehow, like Janet and Samantha, he’d merged together with the Boogeyman.
“No!” Samantha-in-Janet shouted. “We had a deal!”
“I made a new deal with your associate,” Phillip said. His voice seemed to pierce the soul with every syllable. “Just as he broke his agreement with Alex, so does the Boogeyman break his deal with you. The two of us shall institute a democracy of fear to replace the current one of misinformation as well as hatred. I am also strong enough to allow him to manifest his full power while too powerful for him to utterly dominate. A pity, a few more decades, and Alex might have been able to pull this off. You, however, have been neglecting your studies, Samantha.”
Samantha-in-Janet started flipping through the Book of Midnight as if she had to look for a counter spell. “No, I won’t let it happen like this. I will never serve you again.”
“Some time in Hell will change your mind,” Phillip said, conjuring a wand in his hand. “In the words of Joan Rowling: Avada Krevada .”
Samantha screamed and fell over. It wasn’t actually the killing curse, but he’d made an homage to it with a spell that was equally as lethal.
“No!” I shouted, aiming my gun at Phillip and pulling the trigger repeatedly. I went through six rounds before realizing that it was doing nothing.
Phillip just stood there, smiling. “I know protections against celestial and infernal magics. I can raise a shield against one or the other whenever I know which is coming and you’ve already made it clear what sort of sorcery you’re using.”
“Bastard,” I said, staring at him. “You killed my cousin.”
Phillip scoffed. “I just drove my daughter’s ghost out of her body. Alex’s curse is killing her and there’s nothing you can do about it. I can, however, restore her to full health. Resurrecting my ninja clan is going to be a pain in the ass but I have a number of potential new recruits who will more than make up for recent losses.”
I stared at him in slack jawed disbelief. “You’re offering me a job, are you insane?”
“Am I?” Phillip asked, as if the question amused him. “It is the only chance to save your inbred relation.”
“Not inbred,” I said, struggling to figure a way out of this. “We’re just kind of double-related.”
“That’s what an inbred person would call it,” Phillip said, showing he had Alex’s sense of humor (or vice versa). I didn’t like it. He wasn’t done yet, though. “That isn’t the only thing I can offer you, though. The power I have at my command can bring to heel the human population of the Earth. They will learn to fear the shifters and vampires who serve me. You will be able to walk unmolested and live lives of wealth and privilege.”
I stared at him. “I don’t want to rule over people, I just don’t want to be shot for being furry three nights a month.”
Lucien and Alex had disappeared behind him, which made me wonder if Phillip had wished them to the cornfield (that was a Twilight Zone reference if you didn’t get it). The loss of both made me realize just how screwed I was. Phillip was radiating an aura of fear that was every bit as strong as the Boogeyman’s and I was struggling to stand up to him. Worse, there was something about his words that was getting into my head that I couldn’t quite put into words. It made me realize Janet might not have had a choice to make the deal she had if his daughter had the same power.
“People will always destroy what they do not fear,” Phillip said, inverting a commonly held piece of advice. “But it doesn’t just have to be for the greater good that you side with me, Jane. I know things that can benefit you as well.”
“I don’t need money,” I said.
Phillip scoffed. “The reason you can’t use a vast array of magic but have incredibly powerful spells is because your mixed vampire and shifter blood puts you slightly left of center for channeling. It’s the magical equivalent of dyslexia.”
“What?” I asked, struggling to stand. My body felt very heavy and I wanted to kneel.
“I can realign your chakras and make both the magic of the undead as well as natural world freely available to you,” Phillip said. “Before you refuse, I should also point out that my mother couldn’t have possibly missed this. She had you chasing your own tail, fluffy and white as it may be, thinking something was wrong with you or that you were stupid. All because she has some exaggerated belief wizards and witches should be humble.”
I had to admit that was a gut punch. I didn’t disbelieve him either. Alex had only become as powerful as he had when he’d abandoned Kim Su’s teaching to strike out on his own. Kim Su had never wanted to teach me, but I’d always figured it was a Yoda reverse psychology thing. Maybe she had been more interested in teaching me how to use what little magic I knew than to actually expand on what I could do. Still, it was a shitty thing to do.
Phillip pointed his wand at me. “What’s your decision, Jane? This is a one-time offer. Remember, you can always kill me later.”
Wow, Phillip’s parents had done a number on him. He really did buy this whole Sith Lord philosophy thing. “Yeah, I think I’ll pass. I’d rather die than become someone who tortures their loved ones for their own good.”
Phillip blinked, seemingly surprised by my choice. “You know, Jane, for most people that is just hyperbole. Few people have the courage to stand up for their convictions in the face of death while having a choice otherwise. Respect.”
“Go shove it up your ass,” I said, making a break for the Book of Midnight .
Phillip fired a blast of red lightning at me, only for me to use the book as a shield. Much to my surprise, it worked, and the magic was absorbed into its pages. That was when I felt a strange sensation in the back of my pants, which sounds much dirtier than it was. In fact, I felt the shape of a gun stuck into my jeans.
Well , the apocalypse is averted for now. What did I miss? Raguel asked.
Your wielder is an idiot , Bloody Mary said.
What in God’s name are you doing here? Raguel asked.
Long story , Bloody Mary said.
Shut up! I shouted at both. I am trying not to die!
“I hate when they try and run,” Phillip said, aiming his wand at me. “They only die tired.”
That was when I saw Janet standing up, blind and suffering the final effects of Alex’s curse protecting the book. “Be… gone.”
“What?” Phillip asked.
There was a flash of green light as I felt the last of my cousin’s life consumed by the magic she cast, and I found myself in the middle of the camp site. Much to my surprise, I saw Lucien and Alex there as well as the movie crew. The shifter girls were present too. Phillip was present and looking just as confused as the rest of us. Janet had cast a spell to teleport us all out from the caverns in hopes of getting reinforcements, I guess.
Before Phillip could respond, I hit him in the face with the Book of Midnight as a club. That staggered the wizard and the god he was carrying around inside him, possibly because of the magic inside it or just because he hadn’t had time to raise his defenses.
“Bad guy! Attack or run away!” I shouted to everyone.
Phillip growled and slammed his hands on the ground. Surrounding us, rising from the ground were dozens of spirits that formed into living smoke that had the vaguest outline of Hollywood ninjas. Phillip’s ninjas hadn’t actually been that different from commandos as Lucien had said but these looked more like the guys who showed up in cartoons or You Only Live Twice . They immediately descended on our group, attacking indiscriminately as we were now under siege by the nastiest spectral army since The Return of the King .
“Jane, give me the book!” Alex shouted to me, sounding more like his old self. If it was a trick and he was still possessed by the Boogeyman, I would have been a moron to do so. Still, something about his eyes told me to trust him and I did. I threw the book to Alex before I pulled out both pistols and fired into Phillip’s back. The demonic and angelic bullets pierced his back this time even as I fired a half-dozen rounds into him before he turned to blast me. That was when his attack was disrupted by William throwing a wood axe into the side of his head. Phillip looked more irritated by it than anything else, then he blasted William dead with one blow.
Phillip’s eyes turned red and his mouth deformed like a kind of Del Toro monster before Lucien turned into his full dragon form, spread out a pair of wings, and blasted him in the back with a napalm-esque jet stream of fire. It wasn’t ordinary fire either, but a kind of massive magically-infused flame that I could only assume was hellfire. Lucien had called on his demonic heritage to provide oomph for the blast and it was hot enough to melt Captain America’s shield. Simultaneously, that was when Alex completed some sort of spell from the Book of Midnight .
Phillip screamed. It was pain, frustration, and amusement all at once. I’d never heard anything quite like it before. The flames consumed Phillip Tzu’s body and the figure that had stood there before, infused with the power of a god, was now simply gone.
“What did you do, Alex?” I shouted at him. “Is he dead?”
“No,” Alex said. “I sent him to Hell.”
“Can’t he get back?” Lucien the dragon said, clawing through the ninja spirits and seemingly able to dissipate them. “We escaped Hell ourselves.”
“I don’t think so,” Alex said. “I sent him to the realm of your mother.”
What a pleasant gift , Bloody Mary said. I think I’ll feast on them for an eternity.
Have at it , I said, wondering if it was that easy.
You call that easy? Raguel asked.
Alex should have sent his father’s soul to Hell to the beginning , I replied.
Phillip would have escaped , Raguel said. Now he has merged with a god. That is far harder to bring through to the Earthly plane. He could escape by giving up all that power , but I somehow think that would be even harder.
I can assure you that he won’t , Bloody Mary said. It’s almost like I planned this from the beginning.
With that, Bloody Mary’s presence left my mind, and I felt her handgun become an ordinary firearm. I tossed it on the ground and started shooting at the remaining ninja spirits that seemed lost and confused without their master.
Did I just screw up , Raguel? I asked my gun as I defended the people I’d been hired to protect.
Mary held back during this latest push by Hell’s forces , Raguel said. If she successfully consumes the Boogeyman and Phillip like she did Lamia as well as Dracula , then she is likely to become the new ruler of Hell. Lucien and her other champions are also powerful enough to become generals for the next round of Armageddon’s conflicts. However , there is one thing that prevents that from happening.
Which is? I asked, shooting the last of the ninjas who screamed in a voice that sounded like Alice before dissipating.
Lucien and the others aren’t evil , Raguel said. Which means this may be a pyrrhic victory for her.
Way above my pay grade , chief , I said, taking a deep breath. “Everyone alright?”
Surprisingly, they all were. Even William was already back from the dead and stretching. They were also in surprisingly good spirits. Christine was already bragging about the fact she’d hit one of the smoke ninjas with a rock while Arthur pointed out it had passed through its head due to her being the one Muggle among us. All were happy except for Jesse, who was looking around fearfully. “Where’s Janet?”
Yeah, that was going to be a conversation.