Chapter 4
I think it was a day or two after I noticed anything strange. Nico had told me that once you were "aware" things started coming after you.
It was a dog. A giant hound, hiding in the shadows, nose on the ground. It was horrible, with slobbery spit strings just hanging from its jaws. And when it howled, I could see the yellowed teeth and red tongue.
No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. And sometimes I didn't either. Most of the time I saw a little Chihuahua, surrounded by a some fog.
I think I experimented a bit, and it turned out that if I had some part of my body touching a keyring that Nico had given me years ago, I could sort of see what the misty stuff was hiding.
The keyring was a cheap plastic one, made in the shape of skull. Nico had given it to me a few Halloweens ago, and I hoped it gave me luck.
When I told Nico about the dog, he frowned a bit. "You should meet me at the park, 2:30 on Saturday."
I agreed. I hoped he would explain this further, dogs and magic keyrings.
-
The next day would be Saturday. But I had to prepare, just in case. I picked the lock to my mother's office, which she rarely used. I broke into her display cabinet, and took a couple of bronze knives she'd dug up in Greece, before I had been bored. I hoped some of them were the celestial bronze that killed monsters.
I thought it was sort of dumb that my parents used old fashioned locks, not the gel print ones at the bank. Anyone worth his salt could break in.
I tucked the knives into my combat boots. They had been made with specially sewn straps with buckles to hold knives. My boots were issued by the army and I had picked them up on sale at a flea market.
And I brought a stainless steel pocket knife. Celestial bronze didn't work on mortals, and getting mugged would be pretty dumb. Stephanie would report it to my dad and there'd be no more going out. For my own "safety" they'd say. Maybe a bodyguard if I was a bit more than a little hurt.
I went to sleep full of anticipation. I wondered what Nico would say or do; he'd always been a bit unpredictable.
On Saturday, I put on my combat boots and black tank top. I was getting into the martial spirit. Saturday had always been my lucky day. I was born on a Saturday; my parents were married on a sunny Saturday in June.
I took my bike to the park; Los Angeles had serious traffic problems. Nico was sitting under a palm tree, waiting for me.
"Min!" Nico looked me up and down, his eyebrow raised.
"Like the bling?" The hilts of the daggers glittered in the sun. "I hoped some of it would be celestial, but, since I'm a mortal I can't tell the difference between regular and magic."
"The one on your left leg is celestial, the one on the right is nicely made, by a blacksmith that knows his work, but it's just regular."
I unstrapped the bronze knife on my right leg. I was about to throw it away, but Nico's hand on mine stopped me.
"Keep it. You might need it. You know, there are some rather unsavory characters out there." Nico was smiling.
"So…" I plunked myself next to Nico under the cool shade of the palm. "Aren't you going to tell me all about what you've been up to lately?"
Nico was a bit hesitant. "Sure, but I'd rather show you. See that?" He pointed to a dead dog, roadkill. It was lying on the road, its ribs showing. A group of crows pecked at it. A murder of crows, I remembered from English. That was the correct plural form.
"Well, you ought to be holding your keychain right now".
I gripped the keychain, which I had conveniently put into my pocket earlier.
"Devoveo, concedere vita," Nico murmured. I could barely hear him under the noise of the traffic; it was so faint. His hand stretched out, and he pointed to one of the crows. It fell to the ground, and I could see that it was dead. All the other crows fluttered away.
Nico crooked his finger at the dead crow. "Animare!" The dead crow hopped back up, and I gasped. No pedestrians came to watch. I guess it was because a mist or something had surrounded it.
The crow hopped towards us, and I flinched back instinctively. It was hard not to get unnerved by a zombie crow.
The crow hopped closer to Nico, and I saw that he was unafraid. He started speaking to it, so fast that I couldn't catch what he was saying. The crow bobbed its head a couple of times. Then Nico pulled a knife from his pocket, and with a quick flick, a few drops of blood fell from his wrist and into the crow's waiting mouth.
"This crow will carry messages; it'll fly to you if I need your help. Call its name, 'Drolnya', if you need to send me a message. It'll come to you, no matter where you are. I don't really understand how to explain it, but I'll do it as best I can.
"You see, I have power, a gift from my father. I can steal the souls of the living and make them work for me."
I gaped at him, then whispered, "Necromancer…"
Nico smiled sadly. "You could say that. They don't exactly work for me. I force them. With the power of my blood and being, I control spirits.
"Spirits, especially from the living, have so much potential. Like stem cells. With a hundred souls, you could power Chicago for two days. And if you think about it, that's a lot of energy.
"Since you're looking at me like that, I admit I could use my own spirit. It's life force, in a crude way to describe it. But it tires me, and it already takes a lot to use that much concentration and willpower to force the spirit into submittance.
"Life force is energy. I use the same sort of method like Zeus. He turns his unlimited life force to make energy for his magic and lightning. But since I don't live forever, I'd rather not use my life.
"My sister had a similar gift, but her's was never as strong as mine. She could banish spirits, condemn them. She restored order, and I created chaos.
"To help balance all this terrible power, I was given Persephone's blessing as a child. I can give back power."
With these words, he gave my hand a light tap. All of my feelings of tiredness and pins and needles from sitting in one position disappeared. It felt like a super jolt of energy, like five Red Bulls in five minutes.
"Wow! That's awesome! Did you use your life force just then?" I felt like I could snap a tree in half, or run a twenty five mile marathon.
"That was the crow. It was quite young, and its power is so strong." Nico shook his head sadly. "It had years of life ahead of it. But at least it was a crow. Humans are so much harder. It's a lot of willpower to squash."
I gaped at him. Nico pushed himself of the ground, the crow hopping around him. It flitted off the grass and onto his shoulder.
"We should go now. Stephanie will be wondering where you are." Nico held his index finger near his shoulder, and the crow hopped on. He flung his arm up to the sky, and the crow took off, its obsidian feathers gleaming blue in the sun.
Nico and I walked home, since it was now rush hour.
