Yes, I'm aware the some of you wanted to kill me for that cliffhanger. It was motivation to actually write faster. XD I can't promise this will continue because I still don't know what kind of schedule I'm going to have once I get past the field training part of my new job, but I'll do my best. It helps that I've reached the part that's the most fun to write, too. This chapter begins some wild speculation on my part concerning Zorc and the Millennium Items, but I feel entitled to it since there was much left unexplained in the series. If I get anything painfully wrong, feel free to let me know, since I don't have much time for research. Otherwise, please enjoy, and keep the wonderful reviews coming.
Chapter 11
Harry spat a string of curses that would have made Hermione hit him as he ran as fast as he dared down the tight maintenance stairwell. His head pounded with a ferocity that nearly blinded him, and warm blood trickled down his neck and onto his robes. He paid no attention. He couldn't afford to. He had already let his guard down once, and now Zorc was loose in the Ministry.
Stupid, stupid, stupid…
How could he have turned his back on Bakura? Malik had warned him all along that Zorc might still be in him, might even be in control of him.
And I never once believed him, even though I knew there was a chance that Bakura could still be dangerous. The trail of dead people he left in his wake was proof of that. Yet I dropped my guard, and now there's a demon loose in the Ministry of Magic. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He reached the landing and barreled through the door into the Atrium. It was crowded, with more witches and wizards milling around it than he had ever seen before. That meant the Ministry lockdown had gone into effect. Harry was glad; he had been afraid that the head of the Auror's office would not take him seriously. For that matter, he had been dubious that his Patronus had worked. It was the first time he had tried using it to send a message.
Harry stepped out of the stairwell and began to push his way through the crowd. To his right, the long rows of fireplaces had been extinguished, and at the end of the hall was the telephone booth, pulled down and locked in place so that no visitors could enter. Ahead of him, on the other side of the new fountain, the crowd around the lifts grew thicker. Right in front of the elevator doors was a black-robed line of Ministry Security wizards. Harry shoved his way through the grumbling wizards until he reached them. "Has anyone found the Dark Wizard?" he asked the first one he saw. Out of simple necessity, he had told the head Auror that Bakura was a Dark Wizard. It would have taken too much time to convince everyone that a demon-possessed boy was among them.
"No, sir," the tall wizard replied. "There are four lifts left to check though."
Harry stared at him blankly for a second. Sir? This man is at least twice my age.
"Sir, if you would prefer to return to the interrogation room to wait, I believe we can—"
"No! Absolutely not." Harry shook away the surprise at being addressed in a formal manner. There was no time to deal with such trivialities. "This boy is far too dangerous. He has to be handled by an Auror."
The man looked put out, but Harry ignored it. He had a sneaking suspicion that Zorc wasn't on the lifts anymore—he remembered all too well how he had vanished from the net of magic he had been caught in back at the Ishtars' mansion. Hermione's words rang in his ear. There are plenty of things he might find interesting here, she had said. Most of those interesting things were in the Department of Mysteries. So were the Millennium Items.
There was no maintenance stairwell that led to level nine. There were only the elevators. It was a security measure, accord to the wizard who had told Harry about the stairs. But all the lifts had been halted, and it would take too long to get one working again. His only option was to drop straight down the elevator shaft.
"Can you help me get to level nine?" Harry asked the security wizard.
"Of course, sir. I'll send a memo to get a lift working again right away."
"I don't have time for that! Reducto!" Harry shot the spell at the nearest grille, which blasted back into the elevator shaft and fell to the bottom with a loud series of clanks. "I've got to go down now, and it would help a lot if you could use a levitation spell on me," he continued, pushing past the man. Putting one hand on the wall for support, he leaned over and looked down the shaft. The bottom was lost to darkness, and he lifted his wand. "Lumos," he muttered, and by that light he could see the ground and the hole in the wall where level nine's entrance was, several yards down. Not too bad, he thought, but his head still swam at the idea of jumping down there.
No choice. There's a demon down there, and he's my responsibility. I have to stop him. "Well?" he said, looking back at the security wizard.
"Sir, I've never performed a levitation charm on a person before," the man sputtered. "I'm not so sure I can do it."
"Get some help then," Harry snapped. He looked around to see a couple more security wizards watching them. "You," he said, pointing at one. "Help him get me down there."
The two wizards exchanged incredulous looks, but they raised their wands. "Wingardium Leviosa," they said in unison.
Harry felt a strange sensation as the spell took effect. Weightlessness was something he had never experienced before, and that combined with the throbbing of his head made his stomach roil with nausea. Once again, he shoved the pain and sickness away and instead turned his attention to the elevator shaft as his feet left the ground. Pulling himself in, he pointed his wand down to illuminate the way while he pushed against the wall to lower himself. The two wizards who had cast the spell moved forward and peered down at him in fright as he guided himself down the shaft to the bottom. The trip took less time than he had thought, and soon he was able to grab the grille that blocked the way to level nine. "Okay!" he yelled back up the shaft.
He stumbled as gravity returned, and only his grip on the grille kept him from falling back to the bottom of the shaft. The nausea intensified so sharply that his stomach heaved, but somehow he managed to keep his breakfast down. Moving back, he used another reducto curse to break through the grille, and then he stepped out into the dimly lit hall. Looking down the elevator bank, he saw another lift door gaping open. Harry's jaw clenched; that could only mean he was too late. Zorc was here already. He took off running down the hall to the Department of Mysteries door.
He burst through it into the circular room, and nearly rushed headlong into Yugi, Malik, Kingsley, and an Unspeakable he didn't know as they came out of a door to the side. "What?" he cried, skidding to a halt.
"You!" Malik snarled, turning on him with such a wild look on his face that Harry pointed his wand at him in defense. "You let him get away!"
"Let him?" Harry snapped back as the walls began to spin. "He tricked me!"
"Only because you were stupid and let your guard down!"
Harry sputtered in anger, but he had trouble forming a response. Malik was right, and he knew it. It was the litany he had been repeating in his head ever since he saw Bakura's maniacal grin disappearing from view in that lift.
"Oi, minna!" Yugi yelled just as Malik opened his mouth to say more. All of them turn to the white-faced boy, and then turned to look in the direction he was pointing. Harry gasped, Malik growled. The Unspeakable let a high-pitched whimper, but Kingsley made no noise. He only narrowed his eyes and tightened his mouth.
Kaoru lay in a wide puddle of blood, her eyes as open and unseeing as the gash across her throat. As the group stared at her, the walls of the room came to a stop.
"Anderson," Malik said finally. "Show us the way to the veil."
The man seemed not to hear him. He was trembling, his eyes never leaving the woman's body.
"Now!" Malik yelled in his ear, and the man jumped.
"Yes, yes, of course," he said. "Of course, of course. Now….which one was it again?"
Malik rolled his eyes in frustration. "Let's just open them all," he said to the others.
"Wait, what do you mean by veil?" Harry asked, though he had an awful feeling that he already knew.
"Well, it seems you stupid wizards have decided to study death by opening a door to the underworld," Malik snapped as he pushed open a door and looked inside. "No doubt Zorc sensed it, and now he's headed right for it." He stepped away, and Kingsley reached over to grab the door before it closed.
"No no, it's over here," Anderson said finally. He cut a wide circle around Kaoru as he hurried to the other side of the room.
Harry watched him go, caught somewhere between panic and horror. Another person had died. Were there any others? Had the demon caught someone else while he had lain on the floor upstairs, trying to gather his wits around the pulsing pain in his head? What did he seek beyond that awful veil? How much more powerful would he be if he got what he wanted?
How could I have been so stupid? I let him get away.
To his side, Yugi seemed just as frozen. He had knelt beside Kaoru's lifeless form, and with one hand he clutched her kimono sleeve, while the other held tightly to one of the Millennium Items. He didn't respond when Malik called his name, and jumped nearly out of his skin when the Egyptian grabbed his arm.
"Come on," he said. "We don't have time. That goes for you, too," he snapped at Harry. Turning around, he pulled Yugi by the arm over to the door that Anderson was opening. Harry looked over to Kingsley, who inclined his head in the same direction, and together they followed the two foreigners.
"Are you hurt?" Kingsley asked quietly as they entered the next room.
"That damn demon nearly cracked my skull open, but I'll be fine," Harry replied. "What happened down here?"
Kingsley didn't get a chance to answer. Up ahead, Malik gave a shout as he opened the door to the next chamber that sent them all running forward. This room Harry recognized all too well—the amphitheater, the stone dais, the cracked archway. He could almost see Sirius falling back into it all over again.
Except it was not Sirius disappearing through the veil. Each and every one of them watched as Bakura's wild white mane slipped from view through the tattered grey folds.
Silence reigned for the space of two heartbeats, and then Yugi hurtled down the steps, yelling, "Bakura-kun!"
"No!" Harry cried, sprinting after him. He caught up to the smaller boy as Yugi started to climb up onto the dais. Harry grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back so forcefully that they both fell over.
Yugi jumped back up and made for the dais again, but this time Kingsley was the one who grabbed him as he and Malik caught up. "Do not," he said. "If you go through that veil, you will die, too."
"'Too?'" Yugi repeated. Then he spouted something in Japanese. Kingsley merely tightened his grip and looked at Malik.
"Yes, Yugi," Malik snapped. "He means that Bakura is dead."
Yugi seemed to wilt. "That…cannot be," he whispered, looking back at the veil. "Why would Zorc do that?"
"Since when has Zorc cared?" the Egyptian replied.
"No, I mean why would he kill himself?"
"He didn't." Malik turned a grim look at the veil. "Zorc's body is sealed in the underworld. He has wanted to reclaim it all this time, and if he does, he will have access to his full power."
"I'm sure it will do him a whole lot of good in the realm of the dead," Harry said with a snort.
Malik turned a cold sneer on him. "You speak as if Zorc were human. He's not. A demon like him can jump between the worlds at will."
"How can you tell?" Harry shouted back. He was sick and tired of Malik's attitude toward him, and his patience finally snapped. "You don't know what will happen any more than I do. I may be new to this kind of magic, but I do remember that the last mess involving this demon happened three thousand years ago, and that most of the records concerning it were destroyed! You didn't even know the name of the pharaoh that ruled during that time! And you want me to believe that you have some special knowledge of what's going on now? I don't buy it."
"I have the knowledge that Pharaoh Atem himself told me after he regained his memories," Malik replied in a deadly quiet voice.
"So now you're falling back on a dead guy that can't possibly confirm anything."
"He's right," Yugi spoke up. He stared at Harry, the look of someone who struggling to hold back despair. "Atem was part of me. I was there…I helped him find his memories. I…I saw what Zorc wanted and what he could do. No one was able to really defeat him then, and we don't have the knowledge to seal him away in the same way now."
That took all the fire out of Harry. He slumped back against the lowest step of the amphitheater and looked up at the veil. It fluttered sharply, and the familiar sound of whispers from just beyond it reached him. Looking away, he said, "It doesn't seem that Zorc wants to come back this time."
"What, you think we're lucky?" Malik snorted. "Think again. He'll come. There is nothing he loves more than bringing death to the living."
"So we shut the door," Harry said as he aimed his wand at the arch.
"No!" squeaked Anderson from his position up in the chamber's doorframe. "You cannot destroy that arch! There's no telling what might happen if you try."
"And it would be a waste of time anyway," Malik chimed in. "Zorc can just open another himself now. And if you manage to close this one without somehow killing us all, he might emerge somewhere else in the world."
"If such is the case, then we must contain him here," Kingsley said, drawing his wand.
Yugi looked up at him with wide eyes. "How?"
For the first time ever, Kingsley looked uncertain. "The net we used a couple of days ago may work."
"That one that he got out of in a few seconds when he was just a spirit in a teenage boy?" Malik said.
"You have any better ideas?" Harry snapped at him. "You're the one who knows about this shadow magic."
"You mean the shadow magic that barely managed to seal Zorc back when it was at its most powerful?" Malik shot back. "You're the one who knows about all the latest and greatest magic."
"Which it seems has little effect on him. I tried Stunning him after he hit me, and he shook it right off." Harry shook his head and stood up straight. "I give up," he said to Kingsley. "Hermione would be better help at this than me; I'm going to find her if that's all right, sir."
"You need not ask my permission, Harry. We need all the help we can find."
Harry nodded and turned to leave the chamber. However, he had only just jumped up to the second tier when the ground beneath him began to rumble. He whirled back around and stared at the veil, which was no longer fluttering—it was whipping as if a high wind was blowing through it. Behind him, he heard Anderson shriek in terror, and turned long enough to watch the man's robes disappear as he ran away. Yugi's shout brought his attention back to the veil as the trembling intensified.
An enormous clawed hand reached through the veil and slammed against the floor, clutching and scratching long grooves through the stone. Then it reached forward, grasped the edge of the dais, and pulled. A muscular arm appeared, followed by a shoulder, and then somehow, impossibly, a great horned head squeezed through the arch.
Harry backed up until he stumbled over the next tier and fell, then he scooted back until he hit the side of the next step. Dimly he noticed the others scrambling away from the arch as well, but most of his attention stayed on the spectacle before him. Zorc continued to pull himself through the arch, his body squeezing through the tiny space and puffing out as it emerged. First his other arm, then torso, great leathery wings stretching out to slam against the opposite walls of the chamber, then another head.
Finally the beast extracted its legs and stood up, a great long tail sliding out last. It had to stoop, and still its horns brushed the ceiling, but it seemed not to care. Its great glowing blood-red eyes had found Harry, and it widened its mouth in a gruesome, tooth-filled parody of a grin.
"What good does your little stick do you now, mortal?" Zorc growled.
Harry could not begin to answer. He was quite sure that he was about to die.
The demon reared back as much as he was able and laughed. "Let the world know darkness and weep," he said. "Zorc Necrophades lives again!"
He reached up and began to claw through the ceiling.
All the wizards in the atrium felt the rumble. The noise level rose, and the crowd around the elevators pressed forward as everyone began to demand to know what was going on. "Everything is all right," the tall security wizard shouted above the crowd. "The vibrations are just a normal part of Ministry security measures."
In truth, he had no idea what was causing the shaking. He was just as confused and worried as everyone else, but it was his duty to keep the crowd under control. He had no desire to be crushed by a panicked mob. His efforts seemed to be in vain, however. Only a couple of witches seemed to hear him, and they were too caught up in the mob's emotions to pay any heed.
The rumbling suddenly spiked in intensity, coupled with a sharp boom that echoed throughout the atrium. The gathering shrieked and began to push at each other, but there was no way to tell what was happening and there was nowhere else to go.
There was another great shake and a boom, and this time the fountain tilted. People scrambled to get away from it, but it was too late. The fountain raised a foot out of the ground and then exploded, chunks of gold and stone flying everywhere as some water vaporized and the rest sprayed in every direction. Those unfortunate enough to be standing nearby were hit and sometimes crushed by the flying debris, or burned by the superheated steam and water. The rest watched in horror as a great black monster rose through the jagged gap in the floor and jumped straight up to the roof, ripping at it with its claws.
So it went on every floor as Zorc tore his way up through the Ministry. On every floor, witches and wizards were caught by surprise and sometimes hurt or killed by flying debris as the demon burst violently through the floor and continued on to the next level. Those who were close enough heard his wild laughter and ran away trembling.
On the fifth level, Ron and Hermione heard the crashes and screams and came running out of the library to investigate just in time to see Zorc's legs and tail disappearing through a hole in the roof. A piece of the stone ceiling fell close enough to almost crush them, but they stayed where they were, wondering what had happened and terrified that Harry had been hurt.
Zorc did not stop when he reached the first level. Much like the wizards below, the Muggles in the streets above had felt the rumblings of the demon's rebirth and destructive climb, and many had gathered in the streets in an effort to pinpoint the source. When Zorc burst through into the midmorning air, several people went flying along with the pieces of the road and various cars. The rest scattered, trampling anything in their path as they tried to get away.
Zorc ignored them and jumped onto the nearest building, using his claws and wings to ascend it. This was not the tallest skyscraper in the city, or even in the area, but it was enough for him. He reached the top and looked around at the spread of London. So many people, and so close together. This, he knew, was not even the biggest city in the world. All these foolish mortals had packed themselves in like sardines, so much the easier for him to eat. Or just play with. Zorc grinned, and then he turned his face to the sky and let out a roar so loud that it could be heard in every corner of London. The building he stood on creaked and groaned, but he paid it no mind. The moon shone faintly in the sky not too far away. Zorc reached out and used his power to pull it from its track, bringing it closer to the sun. Let there be no more light.
The land seemed familiar. Sand dunes stretched as far as he could see in every direction, thought that was not very far. The pale misty brown of windblown sand obscured the distant view, even though there was no wind. Above, the sky was black as if on a cloudy night, yet the slightly oppressive feeling that clouds gave to the air was not present. He was not even sure there was air, not in this place. There was no source of light either, and yet he could see every bland detail.
What a bleak place death is.
There was really nothing he could complain about. He had brought this on himself: first for forging a pact with the demon, and then for allowing it to control him and use him to rampage through the living world until it found its way here. He had vowed revenge, but he could do nothing. The demon had had too much power, and it was power that he had given it. Bakura had no one but himself to blame.
He wondered if there was anything more to the underworld. Here was where Zorc's body had lain, silent and inert until the demon had jumped joyfully into it. It had not used the Millennium Ring or any other magic; it had simply ripped itself away from Bakura. There had been a flash of mind-numbing pain, but Bakura did not die from it. Of course not. He was already dead. Here, in the world of the dead, the living could not be. There, the world of the living, he could not go. All the knowledge he had was now useless. He could not help Malik or Yugi. He could only stay here and wait for them.
Something moved at the edge of his vision. He turned to it and stood still as a smaller figure formed through the fog, walking toward him. Another dead person, of course. Bakura wondered who it was. Anubis, perhaps, coming to weigh the deeds of his heart and render judgment. He could just skip the process, as far as the thief was concerned. His heart belonged to Ammit the Devourer; he could not deny that. Yet as this figure came closer, he saw that it was much shorter than an Egyptian god would be.
Then he recognized the outline of the hair and thought for a heart-stopping minute that Yugi had come here as well. It figured that Zorc would target the Pharaoh's vessel first.
But then the walking man broke through the sand-fog, and Bakura realized with relief that it was not Yugi. This one was taller, his skin darker, and he wore the clothes and trappings of his station in life. This was Pharaoh Atem. Even after all this time and despite how much he had changed, Bakura could not help but feel disgust and annoyance at his presence.
Atem stopped in front of him. "You do not belong here," he said.
"Oh?" Bakura replied. "This isn't hell? By all means then, point me in the right direction and I'll be out of your way."
"I do not mean that," the pharaoh said. He raised a hand and pointed at the thief's chest. "You are alive. You do not belong here in the underworld. You should go back, and fix what you have set in motion."
Bakura blinked in shock and looked down. It was the first time he had taken any notice of his own body, and he was surprised to find that he looked the way he had originally: larger, thicker, with dark skin and the red overcoat he had stolen from the tomb of Atem's father. Against his chest, the Millennium Ring still hung, glowing faintly. "Is this keeping me alive, then?" he asked, picking it up.
Atem said nothing.
"What are you doing here?" the thief asked him, letting go of the Ring. "Is the afterworld such a small place, or have you just been waiting to torture me? The gods know I deserve it."
"After I passed through the door, I was met by the original wielders of the Millennium Items," Atem said. "My old friends and advisors from my time as pharaoh. They had been watching over Zorc's sealed body in death just as they had watched over Egypt in life. They told me the truth. Even though I thought I had destroyed Zorc, his spirit still roamed free in the living world and would try to make its way back here. So I too took up the vigil. If Zorc managed to come back here, we would not be able to stop him, yet we knew that he would need a living vessel to bring him here, and so it was for that that we waited."
"And here I am." Bakura spread out his arms. "Happy to see me?"
"Not particularly."
The thief grinned. At last he had broken through the stiff, formal façade that Atem had put up. But this was serious business, so he pushed aside the impulse to keep throwing barbs at the pharaoh. "I can defeat Zorc for good, but I will need help," he said.
Atem's eyes widened. Whatever he had been expecting, this clearly was not it.
"Do not be so surprised, pharaoh. You knew me once as two different people. The one you think you see now, who reviled and plotted revenge on you for the sins of your uncle, and the reincarnation who befriended your vessel and was plagued by an evil spirit." Bakura looked down at his hands. "I am both now, and neither. And I want only one thing: to defeat Zorc."
He looked back up to see that the pharaoh had reassembled his expressionless mask. "Such a task will not be easy, thief. Have you any plan?"
"I have the plan left by the wizards who first separated Zorc from his body and sealed the two away. Those were the same ones who wrote the Millennium Book, from which Aknadin attained the knowledge to make the Millennium Items."
"I remember it well," Atem said. "But it was stolen long before we could translate any other spell."
Bakura snorted. "Of course. It was stolen by me. It was the first task Zorc assigned to me after I forged a pact with him. He wanted it destroyed because it contained the final secret for defeating him. What he did not realize was that through our pact I had gained the power to understand it, and I read every word of it before I burned it."
"Then you know what must be done," Atem said with sadness in his voice.
"I suppose you do as well."
"I have spoken with the spirits of the wizards who first sealed the demon. There can be no guarantee that anyone will survive this."
Bakura gave a helpless laugh. "Everyone will die anyway if Zorc is allowed to remain free. This is a last resort, after all. And maybe we will be able to find a way to reverse the merger. Magic has evolved since our time, after all."
"Perhaps." But Atem did not look hopeful.
"I will need your help, pharaoh," Bakura said. Again he could not help but enjoy the shocked look on Atem's face, and again he pushed the feeling away. "You are the only one who is able to wield the rage of the Egyptian gods. Yugi is strong, but he does not have the magic like you."
"My place is here," Atem said, though he clearly longed to return to his host. "Even Yugi agreed. That is why he dueled me to defeat."
"He didn't know what we do now, and he will join you here soon enough if you do not come with me." Bakura extended his hand, and he knew he had won. Atem could not bear the thought of Yugi dying, not so soon. The pharaoh reached for the proffered hand, and their fingers passed into each other. Stepping forward, Atem kept going until he melded completely into Bakura's body. Both found the act distasteful, and both bore it only because it was temporary. Bakura kept iron-hard walls up around most of his mind, allowing the pharaoh access only to what he could see and hear around him. That was just fine with Atem; he had no desire to see into the twisted and broken corridors of the thief's mind, and he kept his own mental barriers high and strong. Soon enough he would be back within the safe familiarity of the puzzle and Yugi's mind, and together they could chase Zorc.
Bakura looked down at his Ring. "Show me the open door," he said softly, and four points lifted and pulled to the left.
"It's close, pharaoh," he said. "I hope you're ready."
He started walking.