The Necromancer Trilogy - Black Magic

Chapter Nineteen - How Nightmares Are Made

Blue ducked, rolled, and came up firing. His mouth was full of blood, his mind on overtime. Run, duck, jump, vanish, appear, fire, and fire, in some terrifying pattern that seemed to have no end. The enemies kept on coming.

 He could see that they were losing. He watched Merry go down beneath trampling feet and didn’t see him come back up. He watched Bastard take a bullet to the head, and Susannah get one in her spine. Chicco fell at a bolt of blue lightning. Cal took a tumble over a wall and disappeared from view.

  Blue dodged a wave of fire, eyebrows singed. He had lost Adele in the mess, had no idea where she was. Reinforcements just kept coming, every Necromancer he killed being replaced. There was a new problem, too.

“Sixth, left! Noah, take right flank! Go!”

An army of children was hitting the hill and castle in a blaze of power. They were highly trained. They knew what they were doing. The boy organising them, a fire-eyed loud-voiced boy in uniform, knew what he was doing too.

 Blue didn’t want to kill them. They were children; who knew what they had been told? But a war is a war and these were enemies and there was nothing to be done about that fact. Blue gritted his teeth and levelled his gun at the boy-general’s head.

It isn’t murder, he told himself. Not during a war. He’s not a person. He’s a thing. A concept. An abstract idea. Just a blob. Like in a video game. He’s a nothing.

But even so, he was glad when the bullet missed. Less glad when a section of the wall detached itself and flew at his head, causing him to dive to the ground and roll down the shelved slope, but still glad, even for a moment.

 Adrenalin didn’t give him time to feel pain. His brain had shut down all unnecessary processes, concentrating all its will on keeping him alive. It felt powerful. It felt like ruling the world.

Matt had torn a hole in his cheek with his teeth, the iron taste of blood almost reassuring. His pristine military appearance was befuddled by battle, to his inner relief. He was commanding as if he had been born to do it. For the moment, he didn’t allow himself doubt.

“Tallulah, to the top of the hill! Storm, to me!”

They obeyed without question. It wasn’t theirs to reason why. Matt found the control startlingly good. He loved the feeling that nobody could disagree. It was a guilty enjoyment, but it was there.

 Storm caught up with him, still able to run faster, and managed to gasp out a question.

“We’re going to turn,” Matt managed, between clenched teeth as he spun round and flung his hands up, sending a row of people toppling into one another like dominoes.

“Turn?” Storm frowned, flicking his fingers and smiling a little sheepishly as a man’s hair caught fire.

“Yes, turn.” Matt faced his friend. “We’re going to abandon those who trained us, and we’re going to destroy them.”

Storm blinked. “You’ve gone mad.”

“No, I’m perfectly sane. I’m not a puppet, Storm! Duck, by the way.”

Storm ducked and a small car cartwheeled through the space where his head had been.

“We’re going to destroy the Cause and our trainers,” Matt grinned, a lunatic grin in a mud-stained face with eyes shining like the gates of hell. “There are three armies in this war now. Spread the word!”

Storm couldn’t help answering the smile, the devil lighting his face. “Right you are, general!”

He sped away, turning invisible mid-stride as he bounded up the hill to give the order to the nearest captain.