Capítulo 18: Chapter 18- You Have No Power Here (Gandalf the Grey)
POV- Dominic
That night was a rollercoaster for sure. My potential girlfriends' mom coming back from the dead, and then approving of me was a definite win, however, the zombie swarm and the fact I had to unhand said mother in front of her daughters really put a sour note to the night.
The dipshit responsible was exhausting as well. Loud, obnoxious and the way he repeated several different poetic synonyms for whatever word or expression he was saying drove me up the wall. The twins, understandably, went to visit their mom, Caroline that night, needing to get away from everything, leaving Hope, me and Alaric as the main watchdogs for the undead muppet, though Penelope was at least happy to bring us snacks or drinks when we were guarding.
It turned out Jo had reverted into some kind of dust after the zombies were dealt with, as Liz and Josie siphoned the magic present in her body. The interrogation, however, made it seem like the Necromancer had pissed on her grave or set fire to her corpse with the way Alaric was laying into him, punching, kneeing, body-slamming. By the time the sun rose again, Alaric had returned to the school to fetch an interrogation kit made for vampires and werewolves, which is to say, a rather large assortment of sharp-looking knives, torture tools and a blowtorch.
Through all of it, the Necromancer laughed, enjoying Alaric's grief and anger. Being little more than a walking and talking corpse, his body felt no pain, the nerves dead inside.
Hope, who'd gone to bed and taken Penelope with her, even tried the kinder approach, trying to negotiate with the noisy old bag of skin and bones. "Just answer our questions and we can let you go," she promised. 'I doubt Alaric would go for that deal,' I thought, looking at the pure hatred in his eyes.
The two continued to interrogate the noisy dead guy for two days before I returned. As one of the only people who could put him down in an instant both Alaric and Hope were more than happy to have me on hand, not that I got involved with the beatdown. 'Alaric needed to vent and Hope is constantly trying to help others. Knowing why the monsters want the knife is beneficial, I understand but the way she throws herself at problems can be a little frustrating.
My ears perked up when Hope was doing an interrogation. She'd mentioned the former creatures that had come for the knife, though he didn't believe her. But it was hearing his description of his death that caught me unaware.
"One minute I'm dancing with the dead on the sand. And next…there was just blackness."
She pushed, realising he hadn't described one particular event, "But you don't remember who killed you?"
His arms lifted in exasperation, explaining, "No, but that's not uncommon. The subconscious has a way of protecting the mind against the trauma of death. See it all the time in my line of work."
At this I stood, interested to hear this piece of information. "I can remember my own well enough. I remember being spotted, the dude trying to get in the car and then the pain in my back as he stabbed me over and over again. Really, the only bit I don't remember is the time skip where he took me out of his car and dumped me in an alleyway."
"Interesting. Not only do you remember, but you are also both cognisant and accepting of the death. To be quite honest dear boy I was worried you had gone mute after you put me in a coma."
Hope returned the conversation to the Necromancer's death, suggesting, "But theoretically, that memory still exists. We can access it?" Her eyes darted to me and I nodded, understanding that I would be doing another memory scan.
"You want to take a walk through my subconscious?" He laughed a little at the idea. "Well at your own peril my dear," he said softly, his accent making his words seem grating rather than charming or scary. "'Cause I'm not quite tall enough yet to ride the scary rides."
While his teeth were shaped into thin, needle-like points, I couldn't think of anyone less scary than him, besides maybe Landon or Wade. However, what made this guy worse was the pompous and edgy character he performed. "Yeah, but she's not the one who'll be exploring your mind."
"Not just my mind boy, but every thought I've ever had, decisions made without my control. If you think the dead are scary, then this will be misery." He then began to laugh again, missing the blank look on Hope and my face. Opening the gate, I step inside, pushing him down by his shoulders to take a seat in the chair.
"I'm not going through your subconscious. "No…I'm going to dig through your unconscious. The wild mess of unthinkable thoughts that come unbidden into your mind. Every hidden thought, memory and dream you've ever had. All, with the push of a button." Stabbing my sharpened nails into his neck, the undead chatterbox fell into a deep sleep, unawakenable unless I restored him.
"See you later gorgeous," I say calmly with a smile, though it was only an attempt at hiding my trepidation. The unconscious of a regular person is dark and dangerous, let alone one from an undead necromancer with hundreds of years of experience. Again, my poor acting was revealed as she planted a kiss on my lips, squeezing herself tight against me.
"Grab the memories you need and get out. I know that for vampires getting memories from older beings can take more energy and the only person you've done this to before was Dr. Saltzman's ex-fiancé." Thankful for the advice, I kissed her again, though again it may have been to help steel my nerves before I began filtering decades, if not centuries of memories for information. 'And my powers aren't even meant for this in the first place. All I'm doing is manipulating their brain to engage with memories as they sleep, offering prompts to trigger a response.'
And so with a healthy amount of trepidation, I sunk into his mindscape, the ever-shifting mess of thoughts, memories and ambitions never brought to pass. 'It's surprisingly…quiet,' I thought, looking around the mortuary. Rather more modern than anything the Necromancer himself would have seen which gave me an inkling as to what had happened. 'Because he is unconscious and is thus not in control, my own thoughts are manipulating his mindscape,' I observed, looking at the neatly ordered cabinets. Normally they would hold bodies but for me, they were like filing cabinets, each one a collection of decades of memories and experiences. And so began what felt like an eternity.
I watched as he studied his art, causing mayhem and mischief mainly. I witnessed his friends perish and the loneliness sap at his mental fortitude, listening as his voice and mind shifted from calm, collected and mischievous to rambling, narcissistic and petulant. Looking for his death, I skipped a few decades, finding precisely the moment he was stabbed in the heart from behind. 'Stabbed with the magic knife everyone seems to want,' I note. Unable to see the attacker's face itself, I comforted myself by exploring the memories the Necromancer had of his afterlife. At first, it was nothing but a black space, alone and empty, however, the space changed after a few years. Unfortunately, the old Necromancer was practically insane by this point in his memories. Worn down by the sound of his own voice.
Then suddenly, as I skimmed through the memories, I heard the Necromancer's voice. "Your ability to render me unconscious is rather powerful, young man. Have you been busy peeking through my thoughts while I slept?" 'How's he even awake? He's not meant to be able to resist it.'
"Ahh, yes. I understand your confusion," he said seeming to spawn in front of me, sitting on the operating table of the morgue. "You see as a master of death, I hold an excellent understanding of the process of the human body and the effects of undeath, including the way the brain sends messages to the body." He looked proud of himself at having broken my ability and if it wasn't for the headache I'd been dealing with from sifting through the decades of memories, I would have mocked him. "Including, how to force a dead body, such as my own, to switch between states of consciousness. You're rather good at this. Far better than the vampires I've met before."
His voice turned cheery and his smile grew, showing off his needle-like grin. "Not that it is enough," he said. "Because as you know, everybody dies. You will be too weak to save your girlfriend. That precious little thing that suggested this in the first place. And as a vampire, you can curse her with immortality, grow tired of each other over time and eventually live a cursed existence, or you can watch her grow old and die. To watch those you love die in battle, slowly and painfully, as they rot into piles of disease-ridden flesh and maggots while you remain forever young. Trapped in the body of a child as everyone you ever love ages and dies."
Through all of this, I was silent, cautious, yet curious as to his words. 'He's seen more immortals than I have in his years. Probably seen relationships build, bloom and decay.' Yet there was one thing the Necromancer had said that was wrong.
"Yeah, but she's not a witch and I'm not a vampire, you talkative scrap of rotten flesh. I'm a sleep demon."
"A what? Demon? Preposterous, they don't exist." Unfurling my wings as my horns, claws and tail grew, I watched as he stepped back, aghast. "But then-"
"Yes, Johnathan Harker, there is a hell and you will be spending a lot of time there." Whether there was or not didn't matter as the confusion and fear clouded his thoughts. I'd already learned all I could about Malivore from him, and thus he held little to no value to me anymore. "As punishment for ruining the natural order…and for ruining the birthday of two sweet girls, I invite you to a preview of Hell." Inducing a torturous rotation of simulations, similar to what I did to Jed, I placed him in a dream, so thick it would appear reality, yet without forgetting my words to him. This was but a preview. With time dilation mine to command, the Necromancer was not only killed by strangers and friends but handled in multiple ways. He remained fully conscious when they buried him, cremated him, mummified him and even when they crucified him. The advantage of this being a dream was that it didn't activate the nerves in his body, but seemed to inflict pain nonetheless. Unlike I had with Jed, this time the mind cycle of torture was built not from his reputation but his thoughts and memories. People he was friends with would scorn or forget he even existed.
After a few rounds, I moved on, remembering the anger he had shown at being remarked at as a 'looked-down upon' sub-school of magic used by the weak. With a smile, I revealed my own memories of what a necromancer is, showing him the weak mob characters in games and movies who were beaten, killed or otherwise destroyed over and over again.
"No one remembers you. You are no more than a sub-school of pathetic witches too desperate and weak to attempt actual magic. Not a single person has heard of you and I want you to know, that as the last person to ever know your real name, Johnathan Harker, it will never be brought into the world again. The students will know a weak witch tried to make a scene and was destroyed for it, never knowing who you were. From dust to dust. From nobody to nothing."
I pull myself from the now expressionless Necromancer, too tired and weak to show more of a reaction as he felt for the first time, truly dead. His state was so bad that even as I looked at him in reality, his body was paralysed due to the mental and psychological trauma I had inflicted. I looked over at Hope and smiled with a wicked grin, before being scolded by Alaric who I had somehow missed.
"Tell us what you have learnt before you two go back to whatever it is you do." And so, I did, explaining the myth of the golem, sealed by three items, including the knife. The black void that is inside of Malivore and the lack of identity behind his killer. Each were shocked by the information, yet understood the potential threat for what it was. A golem that devoured the supernatural, removing them from the world's consciousness. My words grew slurred as I continued and my eyes were like lead as the headache I had seemed to develop into some kind of supernatural migraine.
'I definitely pushed my mind too far in sorting through decades of memories within the span of a few…' I took a peek at my watch, "two hours." The surprise alerted Hope while Alaric remained in thought about the new threat, as well as the sleeping one bound to the chair. "I was in there for two HOURS?"
"Dom, honey, what's wrong?" She was scared, worried by my reaction.
"I watched his entire adult life up until now…in two hours." I wasn't sure if it was my exhaustion or something else, but the concept was terrifying to me. It was like I had watched a biographical movie about the man. That's all his life was…a movie. My exhaustion hit me like a cannon and within moments, I was leaning against her. Her tiny body held up mine with her werewolf strength as she moved me out of the cell. My last conscious thoughts were on how great her pomegranate shampoo smelt before blackness took me.
~~~
I dreamt of the void that is Malivore. Of finding myself trapped in the eternal darkness alone. If I'm honest, the idea of being alone sounds like the most terrifying aspect of being trapped in Malivore. Not the confinement, not the eternal imprisonment, but the isolation.
Waking to the sensation of being on a boat at sea, I realised Hope had been shaking me to wake me up.
"DOM! WAKE UP! Seriously Dom, now!" She cried out, still shaking me like a ragdoll. When my eyes opened, she told me that the knife had gone missing and that some undead relative of one of the younger students had visited the school while I slept.
"How long was I out," I asked wearily. My body still felt sluggish and heavy and my head was thumping from the bright lights and loud noise. 'Like a hangover from hell,' I reckoned, making my way out of my room to the source of all this crap.
"14 hours, babe. If this wasn't serious, I wouldn't have woken you."
Trekking my way to the wolf cells, I find the smirking Necromancer. His eyes were still unfocused, and he was still trapped in the perpetual dream, yet he seemed proud of himself. Like a pitch from a premier league baseballer, it hit me. "The fucker used the dead to steal it." I'd seen what he could do, summoning witches and spirits for information and magical assistance, which left me with little choice.
"Wake," I commanded and with a jolt he did. The smirk only grew into maniacal laughter I ended with a quick slap, my claws ripping through his face. "Where are you taking the knife?"
"Ah well, while you left me in your nightmares, I used my powers to manipulate the dead I had already summoned in case I was to be captured in some way. You see, if the knife reaches Malivore, I will be free. And I have a witch on my side."
Hope behind me was disgusted, knowing there was almost zero chance of stopping the knife from being taken. "She could use a spell and teleport it, there's no way of stopping the witch."
"Unless they're an undead summon," Alaric's voice sounded from the doorway. "Like any summon, the caster is the connection." 'For once, I'm glad for his company,' I chuckled, turning back to the Necromancer.
"I'm immortal, undead, unkillable. You could rip me apart and I could still manipulate others to stitch me together again."
"He's right," I said quietly. "A master of undeath with so much experience. Your soul is your essence…and I can guarantee you won't escape your death." I leaned forward so no one could hear my next words to the scummy bastard, "Scream for me, as I burn your soul." Despite my body's ache, the black flame seemed unbothered, forming quickly as it engulfed the rotting and rotten man in a tall pillar of swirling black flames.
Unlike the physical torture Alaric provided to the Necromancer, which caused no pain whatsoever, despite Alaric's every attempt to vent his anger on him, the man screamed now. Loud, panicked and in pain, the scream sounded through the cell. Luckily, it was short-lived, only lasting a few seconds before petering out into nothing. The flames slowed, then died out, revealing a perfectly cleaned skeleton in the place the Necromancer had sat, the chains still present. "Well, I'm glad I won't have to touch his gross-ass skin," I joked, earning only a scoff and a sigh from Alaric and Hope respectively.
"All this means is that the knife didn't make it to Malivore yet, but with the undead now released, so too is another monster," Alaric said gravely. I managed to catch another few words about the witches tracking it before I, once again, collapsed into sleep, not recovered from yesterday's mental and perhaps magical exertions.
~~~
POV- Hope
Looking down at the serene face of my boyfriend, I wondered exactly how tiring it must be to sort through the memories of a century-old necromancer. The flames had tired him out after the Arachne, though he'd probably never admit it, yet today, despite being a complete wreck, he had pushed himself again, knowing we had no way to destroy the damn-near unkillable mage.
Emma had organised the witches, with Penelope's help, surprisingly, however had lost the trace on the knife, making us suspect that the knife had in fact been returned to Malivore. Which meant that the monsters would soon be hunting the other two items used to seal the creature…wherever they are.
Brushing his hair from his eyes, I wondered what kind of miracle it would take for us to live our lives peacefully…without risking the eradication of our friends and families. Between my own history, my family's and now Dom's existence, it seemed the dream of our future might have to be put off until this Malivore was defeated…or sealed once more.
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