Rigor Mortis
Chapter Seven: The Dance Macabre
It was dark when we finally arrived to Vassurbunde. We had not met up with any resistance, though Moebius remained convinced that we were being followed. He was busy looking over his shoulder when, with a gleeful cry, I spotted the large black silhouette of my father's manor. With renewed strength, I ran to the darkened town, heedless of whatever dangers might lurk in the alleys and sidestreets. It seemed like an eternity had passed since I roamed these streets. So much had happened! I was no longer the unexperienced and untested child who cried and whimpered at the slightest confrontation. I was the Necromancer, part of the Circle of Nine, and I feared nothing. The streets were barren and empty, and there was a horrible stench in the air, as though the peasants had managed to create even more waste. Only then did I hear the running footsteps of my friend, trying to catch up to me. He strode beside me with a worried look upon his sharp face.
"Moebius! Welcome to Vassurbunde!" I cried happily,holding my arms out wide.
"Where do you live?" he asked quickly. I pointed at the manor, standing majestically amidst the dilapidated warehouses and residences and he whistled, clearly impressed. With another look over his shoulder, he suggested we get inside quickly.
"Why? What's wrong, friend?" I asked.
"I'm not certain. Something is wrong..." he nearly whispered, "Can't you feel it?" I shook my head in reply.
"You're being paranoid, Moebius. Perhaps all those lies are catching up to your conscience," I replied and wagged my finger as he had done many times.
"I'm serious," he hissed.
"You always are..." I laughed. Then I asked suddenly, "Did you kill all those vampires? The massacre at the Citadel. Did you do it?" The look I received from him was one of mixed surprise and outrage and I immediately wished I had not spoken.
"What would you do if I told you that I did?" he replied, a strange light coming into his eyes.
"I...I'm sorry...I didn't mean..." I stammered, reverting back to my cowed demeanor.
"Oh but you did..." he grinned. "What if I told you that I did? That I slew each and every one of them, and delighted in watching the life fade from their eyes?" He stepped closer and I grew afraid. "Someone has to do the dirty work, Mortanius. Though gods and kings talk and banter about doing mighty deeds and waging righteous wars, people like me are standing in the sidelines, ready with the shovel. Let me ask you a similar question, friend. Did you enjoy siccing your grandmother upon your hated father?"
My face burned when he brought up my most horrible secret. I had come to the conclusion long ago that, under the pressure and frustration of my overbearing father, I had unintentionally raised my grandmother from the dead, even though I had not known the reanimating chant. But I had told no one! Not even him!
"No, Moebius I did not! It was an accident!" I shouted, not even bothering to wonder how he knew of that sordid affair.
"Of course," he shrugged and laughed. "So it was an accident when you whispered the chant over the old bag's corpse? When you whispered the damnable words, in complete innocence and directed her to your father's flesh?" He laughed wickedly and I was glad we were alone on that darkened street. He threw his head back, and in the prophetic voice he used at the taverns he shouted.
"How did it go again, Necromancer? Say it with me, boy! Say it with me and despair! Y'AI NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE-L'GEB F'AI THRODOG...U'AAAH!"
A low moan came from the shadows of the alley nearest us.
"What the hell was that?" he asked in a whisper, turning to look. I took the opportunity to get the best of him. I swung...
...and before I knew it, I was on my belly with Moebius pressing his knee into the small of my back and holding my arm behind me in a most wrenching grip. He bent down close to my ear and began to whisper in a voice like poisoned honey.
"Listen to me, Mortanius. You're my friend. I like you far too much to want to hurt you but I will have you end this sort of behavior now," he said and gave my wrist a vicious twist. I gasped in pain and ceased my writhing. "You see? I have the upper hand."
"Let me go!" I cried, nearly in tears.
"You have to prove to me why I should."
"Please..." I said but that yielded no results. I tried again. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry!"
"That won't do it. No, I think I like you like this after all..." he drawled and pressed his weight down even more upon me. It felt as though my arm were about to break!
"What do you want me to say?" I demanded.
"I want you to beg..." he began to say. Suddenly, he released me. Shaking from the pain, I managed to stand. He brushed away some grit in my hair and smiled, with his hands on my shoulders.
He had an embarrassed flush to his face.
"I'm sorry. I get a bit defensive sometimes. I will explain everything to you in due time. About me...about the massacre...about Jadwiga. I trust you, Mortanius. You know that? I actually trust you." He sighed to himself and added, "And when we get back home, I'm going to teach you how to fight," he chuckled.
"But I don't want to fight," I replied, rubbing my sore arm, shocked at his sudden change of mood..
"What will you do if a vampire decides to make a tasty snack out of you?" he asked as we resumed our walk to the manor as though nothing had happened.
"Why would any vampire want to feed off of me?" I snorted.
"Mortanius!" he exclaimed, "You're young, tragic and so wonderfully solemn! You'd be doomed for sure! Besides, a starving vampire isn't very discriminating."
"And would learning how to fight help my chances at all?" I scoffed.
"We Serioli thought it worked out pretty well..." Moebius replied, "It's very simple. Vampires have some ridiculously sensitive nerve endings in certain places...along with a specialized digestive system...the base of the skull...the esophagus...the carotid arteries, all for example... you've got one vulnerable creature. Press hard in the right spot and victory is yours."
"So you did kill them."
"Yes, Mortanius," he sighed. He suddenly looked much older than me, even with our seven year difference, there in the misty moonlight, "but I didn't enjoy it, no matter what I may have said earlier."
I was about to ask more questions but then we heard another groan come from the darkness. With his arm around my shoulders, he quickened our pace and motioned me to not look back at the source of the noise as we walked through the dank and empty street.
"It's probably a drunk, or something..." he said and I could tell that he didn't believe his own words. "Do you think your mother will have anything to eat?"
"I sure hope so," I answered and then I gasped. Lying in the middle of the street was a huddled mass of rags and filth, clearly a downtrodden man. He was wearing a heavily stained overcoat and a ratty old hat and he looked as though he had seen better days. Perhaps he was drunk and perhaps he was not, but he wasn't safe just lying there like that.
"Sir?" I prompted, shaking him by the shoulder. "Sir, you have to get up. What if a cart comes and runs you over? Sir?" He only moaned wretchedly in response. I called over to Moebius to help me when the man finally lurched to his feet. He gave out another groan and swayed perilously. I reached out to help him but Moebius suddenly shouted from behind me.
"Mortanius! Get away from him!"
Dumbly, I peered into the man's face. The hat he wore hid most of his features but the horror made itself very plain nonetheless. The flesh of his face was as white as a graveworm and the skin around his mouth was badly shredded, giving him an eternal and sardonic grin. With arms reeking of rot, he reached out for me. Moebius suddenly threw me to the ground, forcing the breath out of me in a painful blow. I heard a sound, as of metal scraping against metal and I knew Moebius had drawn the sword he had insisted on taking with us. Still doubled over, I looked up only to see him behead the creature, as quickly and gracefully as a vampire. Done with his work, he hauled me to my feet.
"That was a zombie!" I exclaimed after I caught my breath. I heard distant groaning and moaning coming from the other streets, too many voices were giving out the the undead signal for 'food'. At each avenue and each alleyway, stood swaying forms, reeking and terrible in the scant moonlight. Their glassy eyes goggled at us hungrily while mouths hung agape. I noticed that some of them seemed to have sustained horrible injuries but they didn't seem to be hindered in the least. Here was one with a mangled stump for an arm. There was another with no jaw! Her tongue lolled like a dead thing onto her bloody chest. Slowly, with outreaching arms, they were coming for us. There were thirty of them at least. We were surrounded!
"What happened here while I was gone?" I asked. Moebius didn't answer. He readied his sword.
"Stay close!" Moebius hissed. Though there were many, they were stupid, and made no effort to get out of the way of the blade that bore their final death. Those that ventured too closely were laid to rest. Despite his wickedly quick sword, they had all come too close, and Moebius couldn't behead them all at once. I watched in impotent horror as they seized him, always with that horrid moaning, and held him down as they eagerly begun to feed.
"For it is in the Humours of the Body that the Evil Trick is worked..." a passage sprang into my mind, nonsensically but with grim portent. I had done this. Listening to the agonized screams of my friend, I closed my eyes and began to chant. I wasn't concerned with them grabbing me...they wouldn't harm their master...
"OGTHROD AF'F GEB'L-EE'H YOG-SOTHOTH 'NGAH'NG AI'Y...ZHRO!" At the final syllable of that foul formula, all the hideous beings ceased their feasting and dropped lifelessly to the ground, as though they were puppets whose strings had suddenly been cut...but wasn't that the case after all...? Things grew murky and I felt horribly weak and drained as I crawled over to the body of my friend. He still clutched the sword, but for all the good it did him. He had been lain open by the claws and teeth of those monstrosities and blood covered him in a fine glaze. It was as the first time I had met him...
"I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." I cried over and over again, cradling his inert body in my arms. I watched as he smiled, always so knowing, even while on the brink of life...and then, he was gone.
Everything faded to a merciful black...and I was dead to the world...
Author's note: Once again, ripped from the pages of Lovecraft's 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', I got the weird chant that's all in caps. Don't hate me...sniff I'm just a fangirl...