Darkness of the Soul (20 page)

With a final thought of
Fuck,
I’m
sorry,
Sheila,
Damien released the energy, but not in the way Karesh had expected him to. Karesh had expected a pyrotechnic display, some explosion that would destroy both of their bodies. Every sign he had gotten from the Disciple indicated that was exactly the idea.

What Damien did instead was allow that power to double back on itself into a mental feedback loop and then pictured it driving through the connection Karesh had forged, a mental tac nuke on course for whatever passed for the Warden’s slime pit of a mind.

You
wanted
in,
asshole.
Now
you’ve
got
it.
Damien threw open the doors of his own mind, giving Karesh full access to everything rattling around in there. Even as he felt thoughts and ideas begin to fade, shut down one by one as the magic shattered his brain, he saw Karesh’s eyes widen, felt the killer trying to pull back his mental probe, but it was too late.

He could hear Karesh screaming in his head—and maybe with his ears too, but he wasn’t sure about that—and as his vision centers shut down, he had the satisfaction of seeing the bastard’s eyes roll back in his head and him drop. Damien let go then and felt something inside break. He’d known this would probably be his last day, but he hated to be right about those kinds of things.

Damien fell, sprawling over Karesh’s body as the last of the magic left him. Then there was nothing, for either of them.

Chapter
17
 

The darkness swirled around him, penetrating every part of his being and filling him with renewed purpose and power.

How long he had been floating here, in this place that was not really a place at all, he did not know. He remembered nothing of what had come before, nothing save his service to some being—god or demon? He did not know; that dwelled in this place of shadow.

He felt that he had somehow failed that being, broken some important vow, and that this apparent rebirth—for in his failing, he was somehow sure he had been slain, though the face of his murderer yet eluded him—was meant to be as much of a punishment as it was a reward or a second chance.

His suspicions grew more deeply seated when the voice echoed out, seeming to come from all around him and within him, from his very blood, carried by the tangible darkness that carried him along even now.

“You are awake.” There was no compassion in the voice, and neither did it bear the simple statement of fact that it implied. It carried with it only a deep-seated feeling of disappointment and rage, one that harmonized with his own flesh, blood, and bone, bringing them to an almost unbearable agony. As he writhed in the weightless space, there came no further response for a long while. How long, he could not say, for as well as being apparently placeless, the darkness was also timeless.

After an eternity, the pain faded, and the voice came again.

“You will not fail again.”

He shook his head violently, trying to bring some sense of focus to his surroundings, trying to force remembrance of what had happened, how he had come to this state. Still, nothing came. There was just an empty space where memories should have been.

Hoping to evade further agonies, he tried to make his lips move, tried to force sound out of his throat and into the darkness around him. None came, but the other voice answered his attempts, now sounding slightly amused.

“How quickly you forget. Your voice shall do no good in this place; speak with your mind instead, worm.”

How?
he thought, but then another blast of the pain ripped through his spine and drove him to screaming soundlessly in the void.

“You understand how.”

As the pain faded, he managed to form something resembling a coherent thought and tried to think of it as reaching the owner of the booming voice, the giver of pain and apparent teacher and mentor to this place.
How
have
I
failed?

He felt the darkness within and without, coiling as if to drive him into another spasm of torture, but then the sensation faded. The silence felt almost contemplative, as if whatever had spoken to him was trying to decide if there was incompetence or simple amnesia behind the question.

Then it felt as if all the darkness moved collectively, a sigh from deep within that racked the entire body of whatever sort of beast the darkness and the voice were. Sounding almost sorrowful—but like with all other emotions but indignant rage, it had the tinge of unreality to it—the darkness seemed to shake its head.

“You allowed yourself to die. You knew full well that such was not in the terms of our agreement; you are not to cease living until you have chosen a replacement. What is worse is the fashion in which you died; you thought yourself prepared for anything, capable of bringing down any foe who stood between you and glory. You allowed yourself to be surprised, to be bested by a mere child.”

I
am
sorry.
I
don’t
remember
 
.
 
.
 
.
 he began, but was cut off as the darkness’s voice bellowed at him. Had it been a man standing there, he believed he would have been covered with spit and rendered deaf; as it was, the sound assaulted his soul rather than his eardrums, and deafness was a mercy that would be denied him.

“I
know
you
don’t
remember!”
There was a pause then and another of those heavy sighs, as if whatever it must speak next was difficult for the thing that lived in the dark to relay. “You may recover what was lost, given time. But for now, it matters not. Be thankful he gave his life to end yours; as you are now, you would not have been able to stand against him, and conflict would have been inevitable.”

Though he was still lacking any memory of what had happened, the tone in the voice—tinged with something that sounded a great deal like fear—seemed like a good enough reason to consider the death of this other as good fortune. Anything that could make something that lived in a darkness like this consider fear at all was likely something to be avoided by someone who was apparently mortal, as he was.

He considered asking any further questions with a great deal of trepidation, fearing another flare from the darkness, but it remained silent, and at last, he could do nothing but ask, unless he chose to go insane. One thing could be said for this place—the choices seemed simple enough.

Who
was
I?

The silence continued on, and for a moment, he considered—with equal parts dismay and relief—that whatever lived there had decided to leave him alone. He was not proven to be so lucky.

“No one of importance. A failure. A better question is perhaps ‘Who shall I be?’”

Finding a small measure of courage in the fact that he hadn’t been punished for asking, he pressed forward.
Who
shall
I
be,
then?

“You shall be Lintar, favored son of the
talu`shar
. But you shall also be Karesh, to remember your failings in name if not in mind.”

The words echoed through the newly christened Lintar’s brain, dredging up fragments of a past that was no longer his: images of blood and pain and chants of power granted him by his master—the master of this void, he had no doubt—and turned upon those who would oppose him. Then the trickle of memory ceased, and he was left again without a past, but he had at least been granted a chance for the future.

I
will
not
fail
you
again,
Master.
Bolstered by his naming and eager to return to the world of flesh painted so lightly on his nearly blank mind, he managed a smile, feeling the darkness within him boil once more. There was no pain in it now, however. Now it was ecstasy of the highest caliber. The darkness without seemed pleased.

“I know you won’t. Now finish the task you were granted.”

Karesh Lintar, formerly Karesh ibn Karesh, formerly Karim Alvat, opened his eyes.

Chapter
18
 

8:30 am, December 14, 1999

Parker and Drakanis were seated in the corner of the local Denny’s, ignored by the other patrons almost as much as they were ignored by their waitress. They had spent the past forty-five minutes eating with as much gusto as they could muster for the $1.99 breakfast special and downing cup after cup of the shit-tasting sludge the waitress claimed was supposed to be coffee. Several times, Parker had tried to get Drakanis to talk, but he just shook his head and continued eating.

Now, as their coffee cups were being refilled and the plates taken away, with cigarette lit and belt loosened, Drakanis cracked his neck and stared Parker in the eyes.

“You ready? I warn you, it isn’t good stuff. And might be more trips down Paranoia Lane.”

Parker barked laughter, dropping his cigarette into his crotch and nearly choking on his coffee. Once he had regained some sense of composure, he rolled his shoulders.

“Spill it. That particular street is rapidly becoming my home address.”

Drakanis studied his friend for a long moment, trying to decide how bad off Parker was. He didn’t look good, that was for sure, but given the morning—hell, the week—he’d had, Drakanis didn’t suppose he could really blame the man. He supposed if the early morning call from the killer hadn’t thrown Parker for a loop, nothing in the painting’s story would send him off the deep end just yet.

“All right. The basics—the facts, as anybody knows them—are simple enough. Some crazy Thug—like, from the cult of the death goddess, not some idiot with a teardrop tattoo on his eye—painted it, so far as anybody can guess, some time in the third century. He was real popular with his fellows apparently. Claimed to be the lover of Kali, binder and father of a hundred thousand demons, and so on.”

“Charming gentleman, I’m sure,” Parker remarked with dry sarcasm.

“Right. Anyway. So he paints it, claims it was divine inspiration, that this thing was the way to whatever the hell they call Heaven over there. This goes over pretty good until they find out that he killed half his underlings and used their blood to paint the damned thing. So, of course, they take the nice logical action. They kill him and decide to torch the thing.”

Parker noticed that Drakanis was looking a little green around the gills as he got to this part. He stayed quiet, though. He just signaled for another cup of coffee and waited to hear it. Mikey would tell the tale in his own time and in his own way. No reason to rush him or shove him into the uncomfortable bits.

“If anything about it is true, they supposedly… well…” Drakanis paused, looking greener than ever, as if he was trying to decide if he was going to tell this part or not. Finally, he forced his gorge down and spat it out. “Cut him up. Severed spine; eyes, penis, ears removed.”

Parker nodded. “Sounds like what our boy has been up to. Any more fun little facts about it?”

Drakanis shook his head, snuffed the cigarette, and almost immediately lit another. He opened his mouth, about to say something, but the waitress decided right then would be an excellent time to nag them. Her eyes flickered fire as she asked them if there would be anything else, clearly trying to tell them that there had better not be. Parker earned himself a glare that would have killed small animals when he requested refills on the coffee and flapped her off before turning his expectant gaze back to his partner.

Drakanis shook his head, smirking a bit. “She wants to stuff someone else in the booth, looks like.”

“Don’t give a fuck what she wants. We’re talking here. Get on with it.”

“Like I was about to say, though, there’s not much more factual to the mess. A few accounts of it being in this collection or in that gallery, but it always vanishes—usually messily—within a month or so. The painting, by the by, is officially called
Talu
Shar
or some such. No translation offered, and I can’t find it in any dictionary or on any translation Web site. A name, maybe, is anyone’s best guess.”

They both fell quiet for a moment. Drakanis was staring into his coffee as if the history of the world might be described in the swirl of cream floating in it. Parker nervously flipped his cigarettes end over end on the table. At one of the other tables, someone’s kid started bawling.
Didn’t
get
your
Rooty
Tooty
Pancakes,
huh,
kid?
Parker thought, not without a trace of sympathy. One of the waitresses scurried over to see what the problem was. Their own waitress was still glaring at them from behind the counter, like she could use her incredible mental powers to make them leave.

Finally, Parker broke the silence. “So, what’s the legend then, since the facts are almost bad enough?”

“Well,” Drakanis started and then shrugged. “More of the same really. Someone gets their hands on it; they tend to suffer an unpleasant accident. Anyone around them—and usually a few other folks, if the stories are to be believed—tend to go through a run of bad luck; heart attacks, strokes, that sort of thing, they seem to just crop up real frequently all of a sudden. In other words, the same pattern.”

Parker suddenly felt like a lightbulb had turned on in his head. He felt incredibly stupid for not asking it earlier. Now his eyes burned with such intensity that even Drakanis flinched back at Parker’s outburst. “Hold up; you said this has been going on for how long?”

“Since the thir… oh, fuck.”

Parker was nodding. “Right. Now you’re catching on. You’ve been out of the game too long, Mikey. We’re not dealing with one psychopath, not anymore.”

Drakanis still looked like he wasn’t all there, his eyes wide, jaw resting on his chest, his head shaking. “What, you think the Thuggee or something are running around in Reno, killing people over the damn painting? It still doesn’t make any sense, man. Forget the time difference, just stop and ask why they’d be giving it over to people just to kill them later. Doesn’t jibe.”