Necromanson (Beta) Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Henry gave her a quizzical look just before his stomach rumbled with hunger, returning his neglect with a retaliatory gut punch. “Raid the evil wizard’s fridge before we go?” he asked in a low voice. Athena answered with narrowed eyes and a bewitching smile.

“Okay, we rig the place to blow on the pretext of getting something to eat, then we make a run for it,” Henry whispered. “As far as he knows all I can do is lift books,” Henry paused for a moment. “And maybe we can find some contact information to get a hold of some not-evil wizards.”

“I’ll bet you five bucks even evil wizards have phone numbers on the fridge,” Athena whispered.

Henry stifled a giggle. “no deal, everyone has phone numbers on their fridge,” he said as he opened the door boldly, maintaining the cover of looking for something to eat. The two of them left the room, strolling through the halls confidently, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. They came to the lobby and glanced around, looking for an obvious route to the kitchen, but none presented itself.

Flickering lights caught Athena’s attention, and she tugged on Henry’s sleeve, pointing up to the top of the second story stairs, where the light illuminated the lofted ceiling. The two of them crept up the stairs, unsure of what horrible experiment that was making the muted sounds of pain and anger, and a creepy static that flowed over them as they approached, raising the hairs on Henry’s neck.

They reached the top of the stairs, and found themselves standing behind the butler… or whatever he was, playing a pro wrestling game on a big screen TV in front of him. The grunts of exhertion and the cheer of the crowd that had raised his hackled resolved themselves in his mind, allowing him to let out a breath of relief.

Beside the massive bruiser was what appeared to be a stopwatch, counting down what Henry could only assume to be his break between lifting weights for sixteen hours a day. Henry winced, unsure of what his reaction would be to being interrupted in the middle of his leisure time, but he walked into the man’s peripheral and waved him down.

The huge lug paused his game and glanced over. “What?” he asked, sounding displeased.

“Kitchen?” Henry said, jerking his thumb behind him while appealing with his best lost and quizzical look.

The man stared at them for a moment, then blinked. “First floor, through the center, third door on the left,” he said, turning back to his game and unpausing it without a second glance.

Athena and Henry trotted back down the stairs, following the big man’s instructions. Henry glanced over as they walked down the hallway and saw Athena shaking her head. “Damn,” she said softly.

“You’re thinking about how hot he is, aren’t you?” Henry asked, his tone dry.

“He’s so hot!” Athena exclaimed quietly. Henry chuckled as she took a deep breath, making a double handed chopping gesture. “Okay, focus.” The two of them made it to the kitchen, and Henry snagged a bagel while Athena made a sandwich.

“Do we have time for a sandwich?” Henry asked, taking a bite out of the bagel.

“There’s always time for a sandwich,” Athena said, before lowering her voice. “how about the escape plan?”

“I’ve set three explosives,” Henry whispered. “Keyed to hand signals. If anyone in the house gives a thumbs up, the door to our room will explode, give an okay sign and that knife block will explode, and finally, I packed a lot of punch into the center of the lobby. Throw up the horns and a two foot section of the center of the lobby will become shrapnel.”

“Got it,” Athena said, layering ham, cheese, and a bit of lettuce on the sandwich, making Henry stare at his hastily grabbed bagel reproachfully.

“I’m making a bagel sandwich,” Henry said, eyeing the ingredients Athena had laid out.

“No time,” Athena said, slapping the top on her sandwich and prancing out of the kitchen, forcing Henry to follow as she took her first bite. Henry glowered at her, resigned to his simple fare as they approached the lobby.

They came into the well lit lobby, and stopped short. Zack, wearing unfamiliar clothes, a belt riddled with pockets, and with a pale blue crystal wand in his hand, stood blocking the front door. Beside him was his bruiser, glowering as though he’d been pulled away from the title fight for busy work.

“There you are,” Zack said, sighing in relief. “I’d thought something had befallen you, but Matt here told me you were just looking for something to eat.”

“We were,” Henry said, raising his half eaten bagel. “So we’ll just go to bed now.” The two of them turned to go down the hall toward their room.

“Wait, Henry,” Zack said, taking a step forward, “I’ve done some more research on your condition, and I’ve found a spell that will help stabilize your power. Come with me, and we can prevent you from thoughtlessly hurting yourself or others.”

Henry stood, staring at Zack from across the lobby. He took another bite of his bagel. “How long are we gonna keep this up, Zack?”

“Keep what up, my friend?” Zack asked, his smile slipping for a moment.

“I’ll come with you,” Henry said, pointing the half-eaten bagel at the magician. “If you can explain to me why the gutters in the gym locker, men’s bathroom, and boiler room were all meant to be filled with blood.

Zack stooped and put a hand to his temple as if nursing a migraine. “It slipped my mind,” he said, his eyes flashing with murderous rage. “That you were the one responsible for that fanciful bit of plumbing.”

Zack heaved a sigh and drew himself up, and the world seemed to bend around him, like the focus of a fish eye lens. “Fine,” he said, his voice rumbling through the mansion. “I’m going to kill you, Henry. You’re nothing more to me than an oyster with a priceless pearl, waiting to be shucked.” The hairs on Henry’s neck raised as invisible power swirled through the air, not as powerful as the night the demon was born, but Henry could feel the subtle force gathering towards the old man.

“Run!” Henry shouted, grabbing Athena’s shoulder and hauling the small woman along like luggage. Behind him, Henry heard the crackling of electricity, and he glanced back to see lighting dancing along Zack’s body, rising to gather on the hollow crystal wand he held above him. Henry would have thought it cool were he not running for his life.

Henry dove into the kitchen, lightning filling the hallway behind him. Henry pushed himself up, after the dazzling light had faded, spitting out the taste of ozone. Athena rolled off him as he rose, scrambling to the knife block. She grabbed the block of wood filled with expensive knifes, and threw it down the hall with a grunt of effort.

Athena watched the knife block slide down the hall, and as Zack approached it, she ducked back into the kitchen and put her thumb to her forefinger, extending the last three in the American ‘okay’ sign. A loud crack echoed through the mansion, along the with the shrill clanging of tortured steel rebounding off concrete at high speeds.

They ducked their heads out, and saw the pitted concrete that lined the hall, paint torn away from the walls around the blast. “House is sturdy,” Henry muttered to himself, admiring the building’s structural integrity. At the end of the hall, Zack came to his feet, coughing amidst the wood dust and smoke swirling around him. He didn’t take his eyes off the two of them, even as his body convulsed with another coughing spat, reminding Henry of a gunslinger unwilling to blink.

Zack’s clothes were immaculate, the only sign he’d been standing in front of a knife filled grenade was a lock of white hair that had come untucked from behind his ear. “I knew the old man was tough, but this…” Henry said, shaking his head. The blast had knocked him off his feet, Henry had noticed, so maybe he could move the old man out of the way. Henry reached out with his mind, built up force, and unleashed it on the old man’s midsection, intending to fling him out of the hall.

A brilliant field of force sprung up around the wizard, brightest around his waist where Henry had intended to fling him aside, sending cascading waves of light around the old man in an egg-shaped outline. Zack shouted and raised the crystal focus, squinting against the glare. Henry jerked his head back, rolling away from the door.

Bands of concrete emerged from every surface within ten feet of the doorway, curling inward like some bug-eating plant. Athena, a breath slower than Henry, found her legs locked to the cold floor by a quickly hardening band of stone. Athena beat on the band for a moment, bruising her hands against the unyielding restraints, before reaching into her pocket with a snarl.

“Hold on,” Henry said, focusing on the band. “Don’t chew your legs off just yet.” with a small effort, he snapped the concrete, and it crumbled away from Athena’ s legs. Henry hoisted her to her feet, standing clear of the inwardly curling concrete.Finding nothing to grasp, the spell merged back into the floor and the path to the door was clear, with only an angry old spellcaster to contend with.

“I’ve got an idea,” Henry said. “I’m going to blind him for a moment, do you want to break right or left?”

“I’ll take the left,” Athena said, following Henry to the door.

Henry nodded and began filling his mind with power, stretching the mental rubberband as far as he could handle, before ducking out into the hall again, low. Henry’s brows furrowed when he spotted no sign of the old man in the hall. His heart skipped a beat, realizing he’d been outmaneuvered.

The pain in the muscles of his back confirmed his suspicions. Henry’s entire back became a massive cramp, twisting his spine backwards painfully even as a pained scream erupted from his lungs. Zack stepped out from the wall of the kitchen, as if he had simply walked through the solid concrete to flank the two of them.

Henry had fallen into complacency, hitting the same place more than once, expecting a wizard to walk through whatever he flung at them like Jason Voorhees, instead of thinking, which was their hallmark. Henry glanced over his shoulder, and saw Zack bearing down on Athena with his focus. He unleashed the remains of the built-up power directly over Zack’s face. It wasn’t as blinding as he originally intended, as most of the built-up energy had faded when he’d had the shit shocked out of him.

***Athena***

The air in front of Zack’s face turned opaque as his shield absorbed the energy, momentarily blinding him. Athena seized the opportunity and scrambled out the door. She came face to face with the bruiser, standing a good two feet taller than her. Athena pumped her legs for even more speed and when she was almost within reach, dropped into a low slide.

The blonde, for his part, reacted quickly, dropping his knee down, intending to stop her like a hockey goalie, but she slid under the knee dropping with three hundred pounds of force, busting her nose and losing a few strands as his kneecap came down on her hair. Without stopping, Athena came to her feet and sprinted for the entrance. She tugged on the front door and found it locked, and her gun was nowhere on the table beside it.

With a frustrated growl, Athena glared at the blonde coming to a stand at the opposite side of the lobby, blood streaming from her nose. He watched her as he rubbed a sore spot out of his knee where it had impacted the ground. Beyond him, Athena saw Henry struggle to stand as glowing script began to circle around him.

“I didn’t want to do this, since you’re cute,” Athena said under her breath, before she ducked her head down and darted to the hall leading to their room. Athena sprinted to the end of the hall of room, and the big man trotted after her, moving with a slight limp. He followed casually, as if he already knew she was cornered. Athena turned and watched with dread as the big man made it to the entrance of the hallway, calmly stalking towards her as she backed away, her eyes wide.

The big man’s face was solemn as he approached. “Sorry about this, ma’am,” he said as she backed away from him, shivering, trying the handles on the doors and finding them locked.

***Henry***

Henry groaned as the white, glowing script circled around him, lifting him from his feet. Henry found himself floating alongside Zack, his limbs numb. He tried to hit Zack’s head again, but he only succeeded in making tiny opaque ripples appear six inches in front of the old man’s face. The ripples caught Zack’s attention, and he looked down at the captive floating beside him as they walked deeper into the mansion, descending a flight of stairs.

“You don’t even need to move, do you?” Zack said, “you have no idea how remarkable that is.” Zack hold the focus out toward Henry’s temple, and with a surge of panic, Henry focused all his energy on the crystal rod. A crack spread down the delicate crystalline structure, branching out and clouding the light that seemed to travel down its length.

Zack pulled the focus away, staring at it with a frown. He shrugged and tossed the focus aside, before pointing down at Henry’s temple again. He snarled a phrase and Henry felt as though his head had been dunked in water. A strange pressure closed in around him, dulling sounds and vision. Henry tried to bring power to bear, to move something, but the energy roiled around inside him, as thought it had been trapped in a snow-globe.

Zack wordlessly led Henry’s motionless body down the hall, coming to a hidden stairwell that slid aside at a wave of Zack’s hand. Henry floated behind Zack, hyperventilating as he tried to move any part of his body. Zack disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell ahead of him, and Henry struggled to move as the shadows of the underground staircase began to slide over his body.

Zack took him to a plain room, with smooth concrete walls and floor. On the floor a gold circle had been laid into the floor, with guidelines cut into the concrete, making spontaneous ritual working less laborious. At Zack’s motion, Henry floated to an apparatus in the center of the room, designed to hold a human aloft and restrain them at the same time. Its design immediately reminded Henry of a lift that a mechanic used to work on a car’s guts.

Henry’s eyes went wide as he realized Zack’s intentions most likely involved cutting him open. Whistling to himself, Zack began to strap Henry’s arms and legs in as his body came to rest on the thin bar of steel, allowing a complete view of his sides and back from underneath. Henry began to pound on the fishbowl that his head seemed to be dunked inside.

“Zack,” Henry slurred, his voice barely audible over the rustling of Zack’s clothes as he happily hummed to himself.

“Mhmm?” Zack said, his eyes on the next strap as he leaned over Henry to tie him down.

“Those guys that tried to grab me in the woods,” Henry said, putting all his focus into speaking. “Did you send them?”

“Yep,” Zack said, tightening the strap around Henry’s waist. A small rumble echoed through the mansion, And Zack raised his head, his gaze distant. Henry saw the light reflecting from his eyes shift, as though he were flipping through viewpoints on a computer screen. After a moment, he looked back down at Henry. “What did you do?”

Henry shifted the pounding against the glass barrier in his mind to a focused accumulation of pressure behind a diamond drillbit. Henry pushed with everything he had, feeling the barrier begin to give as he went, sending cracks through the rigid container.

Henry smiled. “I killed a few, sent the rest running,” he said, putting on a face he didn’t feel.

Zack frowned at him. “Not them, I don’t care about them,” he said, moving to a nearby table and picking up an industrial pair of shears. “What did you do that caused that explosion?”

“Look,” Henry said, meeting Zack’s gaze. “I’ll be damned if I tell you anything about what I can do or how I did it. Let’s just say I left a few surprises around the house.”

Zack absorbed the information for a moment, then nodded, and stooped to begin cutting off Henry’s shirt. “I can deal with that,” he said quietly. “This spirit that inhabits your body, did you know there’s a way to get them out?” Zack cut along Henry’s sides and roughly tugged the front of his shirt out from behind the leather belt, tossing it aside.

Instead of responding, Henry turned his attention inward, drilling at the walls keeping his power contained. The hard barrier cracked and gave way, only for his drill to meet a soft, stretchy layer of tough plastic holding the glass of his metaphorical snow globe together. Forward progress stopped, and Henry found a small fraction of his energy leaking out.

With a desperate push, Henry summoned the trickle of power and began working on his escape plan. Zack pulled a rolling table beside him, darkly reminiscent of a doctor. “The Anima Cogitationis stays with its host indefinitely. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that wizards discovered that the two are separate, what with their extreme rarity combined with their often useless nature.”

Zack reached onto the table beside him and took a leather headband with a hole in the center, strapping it around Henry’s forehead. Zack produced a black material about the size of Henry’s thumb, covered in tiny runes. The stone shone as though it had been polished by a master jeweler, every facet of the stone smooth and straight. Zack leaned forward and screwed the black stone into the gap in the leather headband, directly above Zack’s forehead. The stone slid forward, pressing harder and harder against Henry’s skin, and when he finally gave a hiss of discomfort, Zack nodded, leaving the black stone digging into Henry’s skull.

“There was an Anima Cogitationis of nose picking once, did you know? And dog petting,” Zack said with an amused chuckle. “Mostly they spawn from gifted children, and so they are childish in nature, but yours…” Zack shook his head. He refocused on Henry, suspended below him with his shirt cut away.

“Organ failure is the most effective way to make the spirit jump ship. If it thinks you’re dying. It’ll bolt from where it’s burrowed in the back of your mind,” Zack said, before giving the black stone digging into his forehead a flick. “It doesn’t work if I just kill you, the spirit will die too, without the opportunity to run, so we gotta rock the boat first.”

Zack turned back to the table and came back with a scalpel, making Henry’s heart jump out of his chest, causing him to struggle so hard that it actually manifested as small twitches beneath the leather straps. “So we start with less vital organs and work our way up to the important ones. Did you know you can survive for three weeks without kidneys?”

Zack knelt down beside Henry, his knife disappearing from the bound man’s gaze as he desperately tried to turn his head. As Henry hyperventilated, a searing pain bloomed along his side. A scream was torn from Henry’s weak lung’s. Lacking force, it dwindled down to a choking bleat, reminiscent of a goat.

The pain grew, and spread, throbbing, across Henry’s abdomen, and still, he couldn’t see what Zack was doing. Henry, between gasping screams, swore to kill the old man, any way he could.

“The dog petting one sold higher than the nose picking one,” Zack casually said, his face just beyond Henry’s field of view. “Yours, though, I’m definitely keeping.” A soft padding echoed in Henry’s ears, he realized dimly through the haze of pain. Zack glanced up from his work, a speck of blood near his hairline.

A brown leg swept past Henry’s narrowing field of view, impacting with the old man’s face. The field of power sprung up between the two of them, but Zack was still flung against the far wall, landing against the concrete wall, losing his breath. Athena stood above Henry, reached into her pocket, and slapped a piece of weathered paper down on Henry’s chest.

***Athena***

Athena felt her back hit the end of the hallway, as the blonde Adonis slowly entered the row of doors. “Give up here, and I’ll take you to the boss,” The towering man said apologetically, “Otherwise I gotta snap your neck.” As far as Athena was aware, Zack wasn’t the sort who’d let someone walk away. Athena felt a scowl cloud her expression, and she tilted her head forward as she stared down the hall at the blonde.

Athena squinted her eyes, counting the number of doors he’d passed. “You seem like a nice guy,” Athena said. and cute, Athena added internally. ”It’d be a shame to kill you here, so quit working for the old geezer, and help me save my friend.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m his-“ Athena couldn’t wait any longer as he passed in front of their door, and she reached down and lifted her shirt, flashing him. The giant stopped in his tracks, and registered an instant of confusion as his eyes took in the sight of her breasts. Athena gave him a thumbs-up and a grin.

The door to his right exploded, slamming him and hundreds of oak shards against the far wall.

Athena squinted her eyes against the explosion, and charged forward as soon as the blast erupted. The hulk lay slumped against the door on the opposite side of the hallway, bleeding from the ears. Dozens of oak splinters had embedded themselves along his entire right side, and Athena winced in sympathy. Athena knelt down beside the big man’s corpse, and began rifling through his pockets, looking for a key to whatever safe her gun was in.

All she got was a cellphone that revealed a horrifying workout schedule, a pair of rubber bands, and a paper fast food straw wrapper. Athena lunged to her feet, tossing aside the cell phone, and ran up the staircase to the second floor, finding her gun on the arm of the couch beside the controller for the console. Athena breathed a sigh of relief, checked the bullets and then began searching for Henry.

Athena jogged along the first floor, her bare feet padding silently down the halls as she listened for any sound telling where they might have gone, she ran down the hall where Zack’s study had been originally, but didn’t hear anything. Athena turned and ran back to the hall with the kitchen, her breathing beginning to come fast as she glided along the hall.

Athena stopped short in front of a gaping void in the end of the hall that had not been there previously, leading deeper beneath the cold stone mansion. The arched portal loomed in front of her, the ambient light of the hallway barely penetrating the darkeness inside, revealing the first smooth step of a stone staircase.

Athena screwed up her courage, and with a deep breath, stepped down into the darkness, creeping down the spiral staircase. Halfway down the stairs, a scream of pain lanced through her heart, and as the sound devolved into sobbing, Athena took the sheet of paper out of her pocket. When she had been perusing the books about magic, she had found one symbol, hailed as one of the simplest, and therefore most widely effective forms of magical defense and disruption, scrambling attack spells, charms and imprisonments alike. Its effect was to destabilize magic, throwing the energy involved haywire, disrupting the effect.

The picture printed in the book was a broken circle, with jagged lines intersecting at odd angles. Athena broke into a sprint, heading toward the sound of screams, and she found herself approaching light spilling from a doorless arch.

As she entered the room, Athena saw Henry bound to poles emerging from the floor, and Zack squatting beside him, appearing to be about to reach a hand into a deep gash along Henry’s side, which oozed with blood.

Athena’s vision went red, and she lunged forward, kicking the crazy old man across the face. Zack was flung away, and without waiting a moment, Athena slapped the purloined spell onto Henry’s chest, hoping to destabilize whatever held him powerless before she swung back around to glare at the old man, leveling her gun on him.

***Henry***

“What did you do to him?” Henry heard the voice dimly through the pain, and the fishbowl around his head. Henry realized that the sphere containing his power felt… brittle. With a push, the barrier flaked away like an eggshell, peeling away larger and larger sections as he pushed.

Sounds and sights no longer felt distant, and Henry took as gasping breath as the pain in his side intensified. Henry hadn’t thought that was possible, and he let out a soft groan.

Zack had no response for Athena, and he simply snarled and waved his hand. Athena fired one round, that caused a portion of Zack’s shield to turn opaque, before she was flung against the far wall by an invisible force that swept through the room, knocking the table over, and jostling Henry in his restraints, flinging the paper on his chest against the wall as well.

Athena hit the wall with devastating force, and the air in her lungs was forced out, and she found that she couldn’t get it back. Her diaphragm had been paralyzed by the impact. With widening eyes, Athena tried to force air into her unwilling body.

“Goddamn interruptions,” Zack said, motioning toward Athena, an arcane word rolling from his lips. Once again a concrete flower bloomed from the far wall, and its petals turned inward, binding Athena to the wall. “Where the hell is Sam when you need him?” Zack eyed Athena for a moment, before he frowned. “Guess I know what that explosion was.”

Athena cut Zack’s musing short with a ragged breath, and Henry frowned, a brutal idea surfacing in his mind. Zack turned back to him as Henry began working on killing the old man.

Henry closed his eyes and expanded his senses to the air in the room. “Zack,” he said, as the old man righted the table, ignoring Athena’s glare from across the room.

“Yup?” Zack asked as he picked up the torture implements, replacing them on the table.

“We’re cool,” Henry said as he siphoned the oxygen out of the area around Zack’s shield, replacing it with nitrogen.

Zack turned to face Henry with a frown. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I just want you to know that you won’t haunt me,” Henry said, wincing at the pain of speaking. “I heard from a credible source that you have to feel guilty about killing someone for them to be able to haunt you.”

Zack chuckled, but his breathing was getting slightly faster. “Haunting is a pretty plebian thing for a soul to do, but aren’t you confused?” Zack asked, not noticing own his labored breathing. “You’re about to die.”

Henry ruthlessly depleted the air around Zack’s shield, his eyes still closed. “Just a heads up.” Henry murmured as he sealed the oxygen-less bubble around Zack, tying a mental bow on it.

Zack chuckled, and turned back to his table. “Now where were we…” Zack’s words trailed off as he dipped, catching himself with the meat of his palm against the table. He began outright panting, staring down at the floor for a moment, before he raised his head, staring at Henry, his expression wild.

“What did you do?” he demanded, shoving himself off the table, panting.

Henry shrugged, nothing particularly eloquent coming to mind.

Zack leaned over Henry, and pressed down on his opened side. The gash twisted, wrenching a scream from Henry. “Fix! It!” Zack screamed between gasps for air.

Henry moaned as the screaming agony plateaued, caught his breath, and stared the old man down. “No,” he said, his voice shaking.

Panting at an incredible pace, Zack lunged to the table, grabbing a scalpel before he sank down beside Henry, aiming to use his weight to plunge the knife into Henry’s neck. With a swift thought, Henry pulled the scalpel from the old man’s weak fingers. The blade tumbled past his face, missing his eye by an inch or two. The wizard’s fists came down on Henry’s chin and neck, before Zack slumped over beside him.

Henry choked and coughed for a moment from the impact to the neck, but managed to stabilize his breathing. He looked over at Athena, still glued to the wall with a concrete band over her mouth. Henry’s sight began to flutter, growing dizzy as he focused on releasing Athena. Henry knew if he didn’t get some help, the gaping hole in his side would have him bleeding out in a matter of hours, so he persisted, resisting the impulse to close his eyes and sleep as the adrenalin left his body, replaced by waves of tired agony.

Henry didn’t remember anything that happened after that.