The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (5 page)

After dropping off Bob’s victim at the local cathedral and swinging by the nearest Taco Bell, the team, with Bob in tow, hurried to “the shop” as Bob called it. The place was, ironically enough, another of the many Chinese herb shops specializing in items of dubious origin and quality that were “guaranteed” to repel demons.

Captain Metzger pulled up just down the block with Jack and Cyn in the Lexus right behind. Jack sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, munching a
gordita
and feeling the aura in the air— it was dead. No spells had been cast recently. Disappointed, he grunted and took another bite.

“Maybe the lack of spells means he doesn’t know we’re coming,” Cyn suggested.

Jack didn’t believe it. A necromancer left traces and the only undead presence was the lingering taint around Bob; more than likely their bird had flown the coop. With a nasty Taco Bell burp, he zipped his jacket over his Kevlar armor, grabbed his to-go bag and his sword and strolled toward the darkened store. Cyn, toting a shotgun, joined him on his right while Captain Metzger had his left.

“Chalupa?” Jack asked, offering the bag to the soldier. “I was saving the gordita but you can have the chalupa.”

Metzger shook his head, his eyes at squints; he wasn’t scared. Jack had never seen him scared. Instead, he got hyped up, his blood running fast, his eyes twitching at any shadow that didn’t look entirely kosher.

Cyn was more relaxed. Demons were her big fear and there weren’t any around and it wasn’t likely that one could be called by the time they kicked in the front door of the shady store.

Both priests were drooping from exhaustion, so Jack counted it a lucky thing that they wouldn’t find a demon inside. The only one who looked truly scared was Bob. He was no longer the empty shell that he had been; he had come alive and now his haunted eyes stared into the store.

Jack should have taken that as a cue, that and the fact the place was devoid of graffiti. It was the only establishment on the street that could make that claim, which suggested that the local scum were too afraid to tag the building.

They strode to the door. It was glass and steel…and it was unlocked. It pointed to a quick exit by the owner, but in fact it was an invitation.

Confident that he would find the place empty, Jack walked in and paused, scanning the eclectic and sometimes obscene goods for sale. It was a haphazard and unruly store that was part Chinese herb shop, part voodoo parlor and part tourist trap. From the walls hung antelope horns and silver swords. On the shelves were glazed ocelot eyes, and crosses made from jet and ivory and cedar. In a glass case behind the register was a burnt piece of wood that was supposedly part of the True Cross.

Deeper in the store were darkened alcoves where tarot or palm readings occurred, and in one of them was a figure that sat so unbelievably still that Jack missed him at first. It was Metzger who nudged Jack and pointed with his shotgun.

“So far you are disappointment, Mister Dreyden,” the man said. His voice, made sinister by the dark, was marred by a Chinese accent which was thick, mangling his words.

“Wait until you get to know me,” Jack replied. “I’m pretty sure that I’m more of an embarrassment than a disappointment.”

“Yes.”

Jack glanced at Cyn with a raised eyebrow and said to her: “Yes? That’s all he has to say? He’s a pretty cool customer seeing as he’s outnumbered five to one. What do you think? Is he tougher than he looks?” Cyn only shrugged. He could see the fear building in her eyes and he wanted to reassure her; however the man took that moment to stand.

It was like watching a shadow of a kite unfolding and growing. Only his face was fully visible, looming larger, threatening…and yet, in the last, the person who came to stand across a low, knee-high table from them was a head shorter than Jack and thin as a reed.

The danger that surrounded him was not in proportion to his size, however. It was a magnitude greater. This was no necromancer, this was something more. Jack pushed Cyn behind him. “Wait outside and take the priests with you. I got this.”

The man chuckled, low and evil. “Leave them to stay, Mister Dreyden, my glory will only be greater.”

At that exact second, Captain Metzger clicked the safety off of his shotgun. The metallic
snick
was a trigger in itself and things took on a slow motion quality. Jack saw blood and more importantly, he felt blood. He knew the blood and what it meant.

The man clenched a fist, the source of the blood and very quickly the source of the spell. Jack had misjudged the man in a huge way. This was no shopkeeper looking to make a buck, and this was no necromancer letting a demon fight his battles for him.

This was a sorcerer.

His hand clenched and drops of blood fell, forming, not a hieroglyph, but a Chinese character. It was tinged silver—the soul of the man; the power of the spell.

The fist with the blood glowed. He raised it and brought it down. Metzger bellowed an order that was ignored. Cyn flinched. There was no other way to put it. She saw the glow in the man’s hand and her muscles bunched uselessly in anticipation of what was coming. The priests started to trace the sign of the cross in the air but they were too slow.

Only Jack did anything constructive and his moves were dictated by the erratic nature of fate and his own instinct. There was a low table separating him and his opponent. He leapt over it, just as the man brought his glowing fist down on the floor, yelling: “Shishin Ighn!”

Blinding light flared and there was an explosion of thunder as silvered electricity blasted outward from the man’s fist. The bolt separated into six blazing streaks of light, each one crackling across the floor and then up the legs of Jack’s team. They convulsed as the power ran up their bodies and then they fell, twitching.

Jack couldn’t spare them a glance. He had been in the air as the lightening passed beneath him and he watched it in amazement and fear. The power it took for that spell would have left him useless for a day and yet the man wasn’t through.

By some secret means, he opened up another cut on his left wrist; another avenue to his soul. It was access to more power and a second spell. Jack knew he couldn’t count on getting lucky again and so he threw himself into the attack, desperate to keep his opponent dodging his sword thrusts instead of casting spells.

And the man could dodge.

When it came to the sword, there were very, very few people on the planet who could best him man to man, sword to sword…and yet this man slipped and ducked and dodged his sword time and again. They danced all around the store, upending bottles of ginger, knocking over warthog teeth and breaking furniture, and yet Jack couldn’t touch him.

Jack wanted to think that his inability to skewer the man was because he was using a heavy “zombie” blade, one that was hell against the ghouls and animated corpses because of its heft and the weight of its edge, but the man was a ghost. It was like trying to stab smoke.

He was, in a word, magical. No one could move that fast. Jack would have had more success hacking a fly in two.

And it was just a matter of seconds before the man would slam that glowing fist against the floor and fry Jack in place. In desperation, and realizing there wasn’t anything more desperate, Jack abandoned the sword. He basically launched it at the man, knowing that he would dodge it—and he did.

Then Jack launched himself as well. His arms spread, desperate to catch the man, to pin him down, to turn the tables so that he would be on equal footing. Jack was quick; blazing quick. It was the only thing that allowed him to get his strong, fencer’s hands on the man.

There then came a desperate struggle in the dark.

No longer was the Asian trying to plant the glowing hand on the ground. Now, he was trying to plant the knuckles square on Jack’s chest where the electricity would blacken his heart like an over-done roast.

And yet the advantage passed to Jack. The Chinese man had the bones of a bird and the muscle mass of a fourteen year old boy. Jack lifted him clear off his feet, threw him down on his back, and was delighted to hear the whoosh of air shoot out of him.

The glow died in his hand and the hitching in his throat meant that another spell wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, or so Jack thought.

“Where’s my cousin?” Jack demanded, staring deep into the man’s black eyes; Jack had him straddled, basically sitting on this chest and holding his arms out from his body. “Where the hell is Robert? And don’t lie! The glyph that Bob Chapman had in his possession could only have come from Robert Montgomery. It wasn’t just an Egyptian hieroglyph, it also had the cuneiform wedges and that meant it was the original script, the original language of man.”

The Chinese man grinned, showing oddly small and blackened teeth. “It no script of man. What you say is opposite of truth.” His grin became strained and there was sweat in his black hair; it looked like oil. He struggled against Jack’s strength. Although he was small and thin, he was also wiry and strong in a slippery sort of way. He twisted and squirmed like a bag of snakes.

“Stop!” Jack hissed. “Or I’ll...” The wrist Jack had thought pinned and useless shot to the right and suddenly the man’s hand was free. Jack didn’t freak or panic. He had everything
but
the wrist under control and he knew that in order to cast a spell, the man would have to cut himself. It was the only way to open a new port to his soul…and somehow he did cut himself.

He jerked his arm and suddenly his wrist was bleeding. Desperately, Jack grabbed the wrist in an iron grip but it was too late. “Shishin Ighn!” his enemy cried as a single drop of blood hit the floor of the shop. It formed one tiny glyph, intricate and beautiful. Up close, Jack saw that the character wasn’t Chinese; it was a proto-hieroglyph, only it had been rendered into something that resembled art by the man’s skill or power.

The glyph was altogether fascinating to Jack and its lines and swirls etched themselves into his memory, though why, he didn’t know. With the Chinese man’s fist glowing, and sparks arcing between his knuckle and Jack’s chest, he was never going to be able to use it.

All it would take for the man to kill Jack was a single touch.

Chapter 4

Akron, Ohio

Jack Dreyden

The tiny arcs of electricity stung the flesh and dazzled the eyes. They also glinted off metal and Jack saw how the man had cut himself. There was a razor blade woven into the fabric of his pants right at hip level. His clothing was what Jack would have described as “oriental.” They were loose, black, and soft. They were more like stylized pajamas than real street clothes.

And they shouldn’t have razor blades in them...unless the man had so thoroughly prepared himself for battle that he had considered every possibility, including being straddled by a much larger man. The implications were frightening.

“Who are you?” Jack asked in amazement as well as to buy time. His grip on the man’s wrist was becoming slick with sweat and the arcs of electricity were causing his muscles to twitch.

“I am man who send you on and for you it is no peace. Your soul is marked.”

There was no time to wonder about what that meant. Jack had been concentrating so much on the man’s wrist and the flashing power in his fist that he hadn’t kept control of himself. He was over balanced. Before he knew it, the smaller man had used Jack’s weight against him and he found himself under the Asian who pressed down with all his strength.

More arcs, more pain, another glint. The man didn’t have one razor blade sown into his clothes; he had many and in odd places. And he had one perilously close to the back of Jack’s right hand—it wasn’t perilous for Jack, however.

Grunting with the effort, Jack forced their locked hands to the side and felt the razor slide across and into his skin. It was a cold feeling, followed by a rush of warmth and the
knowledge
of his soul. It was right there bubbling up from the laceration.

Jack felt it with his mind; he took it and directed it. The blood/soul mixture trickled down his wrist to drop onto the floor where Jack formed it into a curious and beautiful glyph. The Chinese man saw it and his eyes were suddenly big and round. Jack had the advantage now—his hands were clamped on his enemy’s wrists. When the lightning came, it would course directly into those wrists and up those arms and even if it didn’t kill his enemy, it would likely turn him into a mewling, drooling shell.

“Shishin Ighn!” Jack cried, but just as he did, the man literally flew off of him. It was more magic and though Jack had lost his chance to end the fight, he couldn’t help but to marvel at the strength of the man. He had used the lightning spell three times already
and
he had been doing some spell that added to his agility, and yet his hand still glowed and his eyes weren’t dim.

The two men faced each other with twelve feet of littered floor between them. Although Jack was tired and almost drained, he felt as though he could win the fight. Cyn was groaning and Captain Metzger was groping for his shotgun. Time was on his side.

Magical power was on his opponent’s side. In a blur of speed that only magic could have caused, the man leapt in the air with his glowing fist raised and then brought it down as though he was trying to destroy the building. There was a flash and a crack of thunder—this was followed a fraction of a second later by another flash.

Jack had been expecting the move and even though he was slightly slower, he managed to release the magical energy pent up in his fist almost at the same time. The two bolts raced at each other in a blink and then there was a third flash as they collided. The room was saturated in a strobe of light that dazzled the eyes momentarily. Jack turned away, grimacing and thus didn’t see that his weaker bolt was overcome and that his enemy’s bolt raced across the floor and then ran up his legs.

The pain was harsh and bitter, but also relatively weak. Jack’s bolt had drained it of some of its force. It traveled up his legs to about mid-thigh and then lost its power. Jack fell forward, with a strangled cry, unable to feel his feet. Everything was numb from his knees down, while north of his knees, his legs felt as though they were on fire—but he was alive and what was more, his enemy was spent.

They both were. There was no more magic left in either man. Two steps away was Jack’s sword. He crawled to it as his opponent looked around for a weapon of his own. He had not prepared himself for every contingency; he was backed into a corner with a furious but ice cold man in front of him.

At that moment, Jack was, in essence, soulless. He was the demon in the room now. He lurched forward, his feet coming alive with the feeling of a thousand burning needles jabbing him; it didn’t help his mood, which was altogether black.

“Where’s my cousin. Where’s Robert Montgomery? And before you answer, know this: I want you to lie to me. I want you to give me an excuse to slide this blade into you. So go ahead and lie.”

From behind him, Cyn said: “Jack, please take a step back. You’re not yourself.” This caused the Chinese man to give Jack a sly smirk.

“Don’t let him hurt me,” the man said, his accent suddenly thicker. “I give up.”

He lifted his empty hands; they shook as though with fear. Jack knew the man wasn’t afraid, though he should have been. “I asked you a question,” Jack demanded.

“Please, Jack,” Father Jordan said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

That was the wrong choice of words. Jack leapt forward, swinging the sword. Without his magic, the man wasn’t nearly as quick as he had been and he could only save his face by sacrificing his left arm, which he raised in a defensive move.

Jack’s razor sharp blade was three and a half feet of heavy steel; he could have hacked off the man’s arm if he wished. Instead he felt that
death by a thousand cuts
was more appropriate. The blade went a half inch deep into the man’s ulna just below the elbow.

It had to have hurt like a bitch, but the man only snarled a foreign curse as the arm fell limp to his side, bleeding without any of the telltale silver. Behind Jack, he could hear Cyn’s gasp and could feel the priest’s outrage. But Jack didn’t care and he was just getting started. No gasp was going to tear down the mountainous rage within him.

“One more time, where’s my cousin? Only he has access to the glyph that you sold to Bob Chapman.”

There was a pause; too long of one for Jack in his state and he again attacked. Just as he did, Cyn cried out again: “Jack, no!”

She was his anchor. She was his soul when he didn’t have one. He turned the blade so that it struck with the flat instead of the edge. It wouldn’t draw blood but it would leave a healthy mark since he didn’t pull the swing this time but brought it down full force on the man’s shoulder. There was a hardy
smack
; it was completely unsatisfying. He wanted blood. A second blow was a little better and a third broke all the fingers on the man’s right hand as he tried to block the blows raining down on him.

Cyn grabbed Jack’s arm and anchor or not, it was a near thing to hold back the fury in him.

“Maybe everyone should leave,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “Me and this evil piece of filth need to have a talk...a real talk.” As the others glanced around, not knowing what to do, the two sorcerers eyed each other. The man’s face bent in disgust, twisted in impotent fury and then sagged as he finally realized that he had been beaten and that there were only a few minutes left to him.

He nodded at Jack and there came an understanding between them. Then he bowed his head and said: “My name is Truong. I sought out you cousin in hope for exchange of ideas or knowledge. I search for wisdom.”

Father Timmons surprised Jack by saying: “You mean you were after more power.”

Truong gazed at him blandly. “It two sides of same coin. One is equal to other, but, yes, I seek power. You cousin is now strong. His dead sorcery is very strong. His knowledge is very great.”

“You found him then,” Metzger said. “Where is he?”

“A land of Sudan. There is much death in this land and many bodies for him. No one notices if they go missing. No one talks of this. The people is much very afraid. I do not know what he was doing in this land, but he was north of Khartoum in desert land.”

Jack glanced back at Cyn. “The Pyramids of Meroe. It has to be.” She nodded, a little crease working above the bridge of her nose. Jack addressed Truong once more. “How did you find him? He’s become an expert at covering his tracks, so how did you do it?”

Truong became guarded; Jack saw it in his eyes. “I am from a secret peoples. Only Chinese. Only sorcerer. None can know of them. My tongue would rot out of my mouth before name is spoken. It no can be spoken. They have knowledge of much thing in world, even the whispers of dark things; of secret things. They know you cousin.”

“A secret society of sorcerers?” Jack asked, trying to understand what Truong was saying. When the man nodded, Jack followed up, stating as fact: “You will tell me how I can find them.”

“I can not. Is no possible.”

“He’s not lying,” Father Jordan said as Jack began to bristle.

“Of course I no lie. Why would I lie?” Truong asked. “My life is no longer mine.”

Cyn looked into Jack’s face. “What’s he mean by that?”

Jack flicked his empty eyes at Truong; they were two soulless creatures, but at least Jack had an excuse. Without a hint of remorse, Jack explained: “He’s going to tell us everything and then I’m going to kill him. I’ll make it quick, though. That’s our deal.”

There was a general uproar around the two sorcerers, but neither moved or took their eyes off the other. Jack couldn’t take the chance, there was no telling how quickly Truong would recover his strength.

“You can’t do this, Jack!” Father Timmons warned. He was angry and thrust himself forward, but he wasn’t stupid. Jack’s eyes were flat grey and Timmons didn’t dare get too close to him. He squeezed to the right of Cyn, partially using her as a shield and added, “We are supposed to be the good guys, here.”

Good?
With his inner core so empty, Jack simply couldn’t understand the term. With a shrug of indifference, he said: “He would kill me.”

“We don’t stoop to their level,” Cyn said. “Remember your trial when dealing with Robert’s army. You would’ve
become
Robert if you had failed. Don’t fail now!”

A grunt escaped Jack. These were all fine platitudes and he supposed he didn’t want to be a “bad guy,” however, that was defined, but he did want to be a “live guy” and that wouldn’t happen if he let Truong go.

“How about I put it this way, he will
kill me if I don’t kill him first. That’s just the way of it. Right Truong?” The Asian only shrugged. Since he couldn’t exactly lie with the priest right there this was the closest he could come. Jack stabbed him with the sword.

Truong tried to dance back, but without his magic, Jack was faster. He lunged forward, unfurling like a whip so that he was in full extension when the tip of the sword slid through the muscles of Truong’s chest and ground on the bones of his ribs. The placement of the strike was precise and purposeful.

An epee would have slid through the intercostal muscles and buried itself in lung tissue, possibly causing the lung to collapse—Jack didn’t want to kill Truong just then; he wanted to hurt him. They had a deal and that one shrug had been practically an admission that he was backing out of it.

There were cries around him, all of which went ignored. “Tell them,” Jack growled. There was no need to say:
Or else
. The
Or else
was obvious in his eyes and in the way he was a coiled spring; he was quite ready peel the flesh from Truong’s bones.

“Yes,” Truong said, glaring. “He not wrong. It is way of sorcerers. Power is from slay others. Power is from soul. Power is from enemy defeated. I would slay my enemy and take his spell. That is the way.”

“It’s the way of all things,” Jack said. “The cat grows in strength by eating the bird. The wolf eats the rabbit. The man eats the deer. It’s natural and it’s the only way.”

Cyn shook her head, saying: “It’s not the only way. The mother
gives
her milk to her child, freely.”

Father Timmons also spoke up: “And the Christian gives to the needy from his bounty.”

Truong gave Jack a sly smile and a knowing look. “Is way of sorcerer. And necromancer, too, Miss Cyn. Your cousin knows this. Your cousin will kill you. He is strong. He stronger than Truong. He
knows
much and see much. He play game better than you. He is cunning. Ahh, but now is time.”

“Yes,” Jack answered, slowly, wondering why Truong was asking to be killed. It seemed smarter to draw this out. He could buy time by playing on the sympathies of the weak, or yapping through another long explanation of the nature of sorcerers. That’s what Jack would do. He would do anything in the hope of getting lucky, or...

“Hey!” Metzger suddenly cried, interrupting Jack’s train of thought. “Bob’s gone!” The others spun around; however, Jack kept his eyes dead on Truong. The smile on the man’s face was like poison, killing any rationality in Jack.

“He has book of spells, too,” Truong said. “So sorry, Mister Dreyden. So, so sorry.”

The sword in Jack’s hand began to quiver. His immense fury was almost out of his control. Through gritted teeth, he said. “Find him! Break into two teams. Metz, take Cyn in the Lexus. Timmons take Jordan in the Camaro.”

“But...” Timmons began.

“No buts!” Jack screamed. “If you want to save a hundred innocent lives, find and kill Bob. If you want to
try
to save one guilty one, then by all means, hang around and yap.”