Minutes to Midnight (20 page)

Panic.

I tried calling the sword…and to my
surprise, it appeared.

And promptly sliced the palm of my left
hand.

I screamed with the pain and the sword
vanished as I pitched forward on my knees, lost my balance and fell
over on my side. Blood streamed from the cut and smeared the black
stone beneath me as I tried to push away from it. Fresh blood in
this enclosed room was like chum in the water for a blood-drinking,
Ghoul-reanimating zombie. Dammit! The sword came but angled to the
position of my hand. I was lucky I wasn't scratching my ass when it
appeared or it could have gone much worse.

Yeah… Maybe not.

On my side, I realized my
best chance at calling the sword again would be if I got my arms
in
front
of me. I'd
seen in movies where the hero or the captive moved their hands from
behind by pulling their legs through their bound arms.

That was easier to visualize than describe.
Either way, I didn't have much time to lay there and wonder if I
could do it. I had to. And I had to ignore the throbbing pain in my
hand and nose.

The zombie started moving again. It was a
jerky movement, not like the fluid ease Rippin' Jack moved with. I
assumed the Djin was more powerful than the blood so it animated
the body better. Without the Djin's power, the body had to work
through rotted joints, bones, and oozing skin to move. That
assumption might buy me a little time. Because if I didn't get my
hands in front, I would be Lamia food for sure.

First I put distance between myself and the
zombie, scooting to the end of my chain in the opposite direction.
I also inadvertently mopped the floor with my blood, smearing it on
my jeans. Great. I'd just made a bread-crumb trail right to me.

I'd read about people doing this in
handcuffs, and cuffs had a much shorter chain than the manacles
binding my wrists. I bent my legs back, bowing my torso out as I
grasped the tops of my boots and then my ankles. I had to maneuver
the manacles and chains over the toe. It took a lot to do that. I
was limited to the length of my arms plus how tightly I could bend
my legs and push them against my back end. Once I worked the chain
to a place over my ankles, I chanced a glance over at Rotting
Boy—

Shit!

It was crawling to me, its clouded eyes
focused in my direction. And it was less than two feet from the
post. Apparently its legs weren't working, so it was dragging
itself across the floor with its hands and elbows.

Time to work
faster
.

My shoulders burned in agony as I bent
forward, legs folded, and worked the chain along my shins. This
would be easier if my ankles were chained close together. Then I
could shove one leg through, then the other.

This was like a torturous game of…well,
there wasn't anything I could compare it to. And it was taking too
long. By the time I managed the chain to just below my knees,
Zombie Boy was just past the post. If it got to me now, there was
nothing I could do. My knees were bent and locked with my arms
around them, wrists chained really…really tight. Blood covered
everything—my hands, my jeans, the floor, the chains…

I just had to get the chain worked another
inch or two and I'd be able to straighten my legs, thus sliding my
arms in front.

But, see, I have the worst luck. It always
worked against me. You know those smiling, happy waving cats you
see in Asian junk shops? The kind they call the Lucky Cat? I had
one cut me once when I picked it up. Got an infection.

Go figure.

So I wasn't too surprised, but I was
disappointed, when I was just short of getting the chain over my
knees and the thing yanked hard on the chain tethering me to the
post. I gasped as the collar choked me. My shirt and jeans made it
easy for me to slide back to the post. I looked at Zombie Boy, and
from what I could tell, he'd grabbed the chain to pull himself to
me. Oh, how happy he must have felt when he realized he could pull
me to him!

I figured one more yank and I'd be right up
against him. I pulled and pushed my shoulders to the left and
right, trying to work that chain over my knees. If I could just
straighten my legs, I could roll the chain over. I pulled at the
chain and yelled.

That's when Zombie Boy yanked the neck chain
again and I went sliding and rolling to him. Its cold, boney hand
on my face stopped me, but I couldn't move my arms to push him
away. I was helpless as it pulled me closer, caressing me with its
bone-yard fingers. I was on my right side and it was basically
mounting me, pulling up and on top of me. One of its hands pushed
my face into the stone floor, and the other was pulling at the
chain to bring me closer.

"Aww…" It hissed as it
yanked at the manacle around my neck. "You're
wearing…protecschion…." The way it spoke was proof his mouth was
rotting—er—had rotted. And it smelled….
bad
. I rolled back and forth, trying
to pitch it off me. With its weight pressing me down I couldn't
pull the chain further up my leg. The collar proved to be a burden
and a boon as Zombie Boy tried to bite my neck and smashed its
teeth on the metal. "Your blood…iz gooooood."

Right—now it was all clear. The difference
between a zombie and a Lamia. Zombies went after brains and Lamias
wanted blood. Simple, right? But to kill either of them, I had to
cut off its head.

My right palm ached and
burned. The sword wanted to come through because it knew I could
easily decapitate the Lamia with the blade. But it also knew my
legs were in the way. At the angle my hand rested, the blade would
run
through
my
right shin,
through
my right thigh, and possibly stick into my stomach. Unless I
angled my hand differently.

While Lamia Boy tried mercilessly to fight
the metal around my neck, I tried to visualize where the sword
would go if I moved my hand. I was pretty sure if it struck the
stone, it would slice right through it. But I also didn't want a
screwed-up version of Excalibur if it got stuck in the stone floor.
I needed to get the Lamia off my neck and down to my legs.

"Hey, you know…" My voice was muffled
because most of my face was being pressed into the stone. "The
femoral artery—"

But the bastard was already thinking it,
having bashed too many teeth on the collar, and it moved to my
hips. "Yessss …."

Truth was, in the position I was in, there
was no way he could get to my femoral artery. But it did get him
off my neck. I started to pull at my arms again when he released my
face. Just a few more inches and I might make it.

Then the bastard bit my left thigh.

I was on my right side, my right hand
against my shin just beneath my knee. The moment I felt his teeth
lock down on my muscle, I screamed. The blade released whether I
was ready for it or not. I felt a burning sensation in my left
thigh, but the pain from the Lamia's teeth eased back. I heard
choking noises as the pressure of its body on me lessoned. I looked
up to see the flaming blade had traveled through my thigh and into
Lamia Boy through the jaw and into its brain. More than seven
inches of the tip of the blade stuck out of the top of its head. I
also saw fresh blood on its lips and what looked like a piece of
denim.

My vision swam when I thought about where
that blood and flesh came from. Shaking, I told the blade to
disappear and it did. The Lamia Boy tipped over and away from me.
After two ragged breaths, I pulled the chain forward and bent as
far into a fetal position as I could. My blood along with a last
thrust slid the chain and my arms over my knees and I tried to
straightened my legs. I did it! I had my hands in front of me.
Manacled, but workable. But as I tried to push myself into a
sitting position, I slipped on the blood covering the stone floor.
I also caught a glimpse of the raw and bloodied hole in my left
thigh where that monster had taken a bite out of me just to the
side of the long gash where the blade had cut through flesh and
jeans.

Son of a….

That's when I really started shaking. I
straightened my right leg—my left one just wasn't responding. I
prayed to whatever World would have me that it hadn't hit the
femoral artery anyway because there was a lot of blood. I was still
chained to a post in a doorless room. In the Peripheral. I had to
get out of there and get back home. I believed the Djin would do as
he was hired and they would be in the Material World.

Sliding a bit on the bloody stone, I used my
chain to pull myself into a standing position with my right hand.
My left hand still throbbed from the slice across its palm. I was
right next to the post, the Lamia's body a foot away from my feet.
I held out my shaking right hand and the sword came. With a single
stroke, I cut the chain in half. I then sort of sat against the
post and hacked down at the chain between my ankles. The iron
turned to dust. Then with a bit of difficulty, I managed to wedge
the sword between my knees and slice through the chain between my
wrists. Dust again.

I reached up with the sword and touched it
to the thick band around my neck.

Dust.

I was pretty sure if I wasn't bleeding I'd
be feeling a lot better without the magical iron.

Lamia Boy came back to life at that moment,
and I'd sort of half expected it. I mean…given my lifelong argument
with luck and Ghoul blood. When it pushed itself up on its hands, I
swung the sword to my right and easily removed its head from its
body. Lamia 0, Me 1.

I looked own at my bleeding thigh, and
hissed when I touched the skin around the bite. Make that Lamia 1,
Me 1. And don't think the question as to whether I would become a
Lamia myself wasn't already rolling around in my bruised brain. I
just couldn't think about that right now. I stood and looked up at
the sun. It did look like mine. In fact…I wondered if it was the
same spell.

I raised my hand to it.
"
Alka
." The huge
ball slowly descended toward me. "
Batiltu
." And it stopped where it was.
Same spells. Sumerian. If the light was old magic, then maybe
whatever was hiding the door was also…old magic. I figured, I could
give it a try, or I could just blast my way through.

After ripping the bottom
half of my teeshirt off and wrapping it tightly around my thigh and
a smaller part of it around my left hand, I used the post and the
sword to balance myself when I stood. I kept the sword as a cane to
walk. I limp-clacked my way to where the door had been and held up
my damaged hand. "
Gisig
petu
."

Whatever illusion had concealed the doors
broke the moment they opened. I moved to them as fast as I could
and breathed a sigh of relief when I crossed the threshold. I
recognized the hallway Rippin' Jack escorted me through, and a
distance away I could see what looked like a mirror. But the closer
I got to it, the more I realized it wasn't a mirror, but a hole
hovering in midair.

I could go through that gate and be back in
the cemetery. But then I'd suffer Cairn sickness as well as bleed
to death from a sword wound and a bite. I had to take a chance. I
didn't want to be stuck here indefinitely.

I tried to move faster toward the gate. But
every step was harder than the next. I'd lost a lot of blood, and
if I didn't get that bite treated, it could get infected, given all
the rot and nasty in that thing's mouth.

I lost my footing as my knees gave out. Both
of them. I landed on my right side, unable to lift my head or do
anything else. The castle grew dark. "Mike…I'm so…so sorry…"

OLD ENEMiES

I was back in the tree, wrapped in rough
bark. I couldn't breathe or move or speak. It was cold and I was
afraid of the dark. Things lived in the dark. Mom had been afraid,
too. She used to bless the house every night and light a white
candle in the window to ward away the bad things. Dad never
understood, nor did my sister and brother. Dad called her names,
bad names. Dad said it was burning those white candles that set the
house on fire and killed her.

The tree was talking to me, telling me about
the earth and the worlds that existed around it. It told me I
needed to be still and listen to my small, still voice.

But when I did…when I made myself still in
that tree and stopped fighting the bark closing in on me so I could
hear that still voice… all I heard was it screaming….

"Darren?"

I knew the voice.

Opening my eyes was
difficult. They felt swollen and sore. As I tuned into my body,
then
everything
felt swollen and bruised. Memories came back piecemeal. The
arch in the cemetery. Rippin' Jack possessing Mike. A castle made
of obsidian-black stone. Zombie Boy chomping down on me—