get people to think I’m someone else, think I’m some place I’m not, or not pay attention to me at all.
If you’re skilled enough and powerful enough you can pack a paper charm with some pretty serious shit. And with that look of screaming panic on the woman’s face, I can’t imagine this one’s anything good.
Between the fact that she’s pulled a preprepared charm and that she hasn’t drawn any power from the pool, I at least have an answer to one question. She’s not the guy I ran into last night wearing some woman’s skin. This might not be her real body, but at least I know I’m dealing with two different people.
I don’t give the paper a chance to hit the ground. I can’t reach it all the way over here, and I doubt I would want to. Instead I throw out a shield that, hopefully, will protect me from the worst of the nastiness it’s about to unleash.
I feel a flare of magic in the train car when the paper hits the floor. The slip flares like flash paper and a sudden inferno of green fire engulfs the car.
The flames explode through the enclosed space, rushing past everyone and everything, though nothing ignites. Instead the lights in the car flicker and die, the windows blow out. Cell phones spark, the train’s cameras explode. I feel the force of her spell slam against my shield, pushing me hard against the wall of the car, the spectral flames trying to burn through my defenses. The passengers jerk in their seats, convulse like they’re having grand mal seizures, fall limp in their seats, or hit the floor.
I feel every one of their deaths.
The sensation of their collective dying is a punch in the gut, their souls separating from their bodies a hammer blow I wasn’t expecting. One or two dead I’ll feel like a pinprick in the back of my mind. Easy to ignore. But thirty in one shot leaves me reeling, forces me to my knees. A few cast off ghosts as they die, confused, unfocused. The rest are just gone.
A second later it’s all over. The train continues on its way, the sound of its passing over the tracks deafening through the blown-out windows. The only things alive in the car are me and the Russian woman at the other end.
We stand there staring at each other a moment, both of us shocked into silence. “They were in the way,” she says, her voice barely audible over the sounds of the train.
“Hell of a rationalization for mass murder,” I say. Jesus. My vision goes out of focus and I don’t know if it’s an aftereffect of some of her spell getting through my defenses or because I’ve never been around such a massive die-off.
She starts to walk down the aisle toward me, eyes unfocused. “I’m going to throw you out onto the tracks,” she says. “And then I’m going to drag you into a dark corner and skin you alive. Take your power, take your memories. Take everything you are.” I get the distinct impression that she’s not talking to me so much as thinking out loud.
Dizzy and unsteady, I get to my feet. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m down with that plan. I don’t know who the fuck you are lady, or why you and your boyfriend have such a hard-on for DIY taxidermy, but you really should have done your homework before you decided to screw with me.”
Her attention snaps onto me out of whatever sick daydream she was having. She laughs, halfway down the aisle. “Look at you. You can barely stand. What are you going to do?”
“Look up the word necromancer some time.”
Used to be a time where this would have taken me days of preparation and thousands of dollars in materials, but after I hooked up with Santa Muerte, whether it’s because I have some of her power, or if it just unlocked more of my own, things changed. Now what I’m planning is little more than a thought. It’s more complicated than I’ve tried before. After all, thirty people is a lot, but the principle is the same.
I throw out my magic, latch onto the tiny, lingering bits of life left in all those corpses, and
If you’re skilled enough and powerful enough you can pack a paper charm with some pretty serious shit. And with that look of screaming panic on the woman’s face, I can’t imagine this one’s anything good.
Between the fact that she’s pulled a preprepared charm and that she hasn’t drawn any power from the pool, I at least have an answer to one question. She’s not the guy I ran into last night wearing some woman’s skin. This might not be her real body, but at least I know I’m dealing with two different people.
I don’t give the paper a chance to hit the ground. I can’t reach it all the way over here, and I doubt I would want to. Instead I throw out a shield that, hopefully, will protect me from the worst of the nastiness it’s about to unleash.
I feel a flare of magic in the train car when the paper hits the floor. The slip flares like flash paper and a sudden inferno of green fire engulfs the car.
The flames explode through the enclosed space, rushing past everyone and everything, though nothing ignites. Instead the lights in the car flicker and die, the windows blow out. Cell phones spark, the train’s cameras explode. I feel the force of her spell slam against my shield, pushing me hard against the wall of the car, the spectral flames trying to burn through my defenses. The passengers jerk in their seats, convulse like they’re having grand mal seizures, fall limp in their seats, or hit the floor.
I feel every one of their deaths.
The sensation of their collective dying is a punch in the gut, their souls separating from their bodies a hammer blow I wasn’t expecting. One or two dead I’ll feel like a pinprick in the back of my mind. Easy to ignore. But thirty in one shot leaves me reeling, forces me to my knees. A few cast off ghosts as they die, confused, unfocused. The rest are just gone.
A second later it’s all over. The train continues on its way, the sound of its passing over the tracks deafening through the blown-out windows. The only things alive in the car are me and the Russian woman at the other end.
We stand there staring at each other a moment, both of us shocked into silence. “They were in the way,” she says, her voice barely audible over the sounds of the train.
“Hell of a rationalization for mass murder,” I say. Jesus. My vision goes out of focus and I don’t know if it’s an aftereffect of some of her spell getting through my defenses or because I’ve never been around such a massive die-off.
She starts to walk down the aisle toward me, eyes unfocused. “I’m going to throw you out onto the tracks,” she says. “And then I’m going to drag you into a dark corner and skin you alive. Take your power, take your memories. Take everything you are.” I get the distinct impression that she’s not talking to me so much as thinking out loud.
Dizzy and unsteady, I get to my feet. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m down with that plan. I don’t know who the fuck you are lady, or why you and your boyfriend have such a hard-on for DIY taxidermy, but you really should have done your homework before you decided to screw with me.”
Her attention snaps onto me out of whatever sick daydream she was having. She laughs, halfway down the aisle. “Look at you. You can barely stand. What are you going to do?”
“Look up the word necromancer some time.”
Used to be a time where this would have taken me days of preparation and thousands of dollars in materials, but after I hooked up with Santa Muerte, whether it’s because I have some of her power, or if it just unlocked more of my own, things changed. Now what I’m planning is little more than a thought. It’s more complicated than I’ve tried before. After all, thirty people is a lot, but the principle is the same.
I throw out my magic, latch onto the tiny, lingering bits of life left in all those corpses, and
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