Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Precedent Law Rule Two states: Violence against thanatists is strictly forbidden. Captivity, however, is allowed, so long as respect is paid.
—Sir Alexander Brown, The Exploitation of Precedent
In the light of the alley streetlamp, Cassius raised a trembling arm.
“There, on my wrists.” He pointed his shaking fingers at his throat.
“And around my neck.” He wore a necklace and bracelets woven of gilded thread.
“Ankles, too,” he said, his body spasming as his blue double pulled almost free of his flesh. “Touch them.” “The gold twine?”
He nodded. “A thanatist’s touch restores the binding that seals spirit to flesh.”
No idea what a thanatist was. Guy had to be delirious. But there was definitely some kind of blue ghost pulling out of him. He convulsed again, banging his head against the cobblestone. His face tightened in pain. “You see it, do you not? My semblance pulling away from me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then seal my bindings . . . please.”
I prayed this was some insanely vivid dream and reached for the golden threads.
Small symbols were woven into them—a key, an inverted Y, a theater mask, and a few others.
As I touched the bindings, the image of my brother Dan letting me crawl into his bunk bed during one of Mom and Dad’s fights filled my mind.
The thread and symbols brightened, except for the Y, which rewove itself into an upside-down half circle with a dot at the center—the musical symbol fermata, which meant to stay on the note—same as the tattoo on the back of my wrist.
As soon as I’d touched all five threads, the memory of Dan faded to nothing. I knew I’d just been remembering a warm recollection from the past, but it was gone, and I felt . . . lesser somehow.
Cassius’s bluish double settled back inside him. He took a heaving breath and closed his eyes, seeming to relax. Then he rolled over, got to one knee, and bowed his head. “I am at your command.”
I raised my hands. “Relax, man. Glad to help. You were just having a seizure or something. It’s passed now, that’s all.”
“No, that is not all. I would have slipped back to the Strata and forgotten myself if you had not re-bound me. Death has changed you, Jack Solomon. That is why you saw my semblance leaving my body. And that is how you kept it from doing so.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Thanaturgy,” he said. “What your world calls necromancy. After death, most souls either move on or linger. Some that linger are called back into bodies to serve. They can continue to do so as long as their bindings are kept strong by a thanatist.”
“You think I’m a necromancer?”
“Be cautious how you use that word,” he said. “To some it is a slur.” “Either way, buddy, I think you must have hit your head pretty damn hard.”
“Some few souls neither move on nor linger.” He said it like a fact. “Instead, they prove their power over death by escaping the winds and fires of the Asphodel Meadows and taking up their body again. The way you have tonight.”
“Again, man, how do you know that?” I pointed toward Henry’s place. “And how did you know where to find me?”
“I am a vestige,” he said, “a semblance of my former self bound to
a corpse, then required to serve my binder. Only thanatists can seal bindings. And only thanatists return from the Meadows. As for finding you, I was actually looking for Mr. Wilkinson, who has a reputation for helping—”
“Did you see us get shot?”
Cassius nodded. “Then I ran to avoid the same fate, since, unlike you, if I die, I cannot take up my body again.”
I’d spent my third-grade summer helping Auntie Gloria with her Glendale Funerary Services.
If you fix ’em up right, folks think they’re just sleepin’, she’d said once, tufting up a cadaver’s grey hair.
Auntie had made me work on that dead woman for hours .
. . until I’d thought I saw her breathing.
So, dream or not, the idea of the dead coming back didn’t seem so far out to me.
I had Auntie Gloria to thank for that, rest her soul. Still, this was beyond crazy.
I glanced over Cassius’s remarkable physique. “You look pretty good for a dead man.”
He frowned and pointed at the ground. “Tell me what you see in our shadows?”
His shadow had looked odd from a distance.
Closer now, it seemed soft, as though light were passing through it, softer at the edges, too.
But his gold bindings, even in his shadow, gleamed.
Then I looked at mine and almost pissed myself.
A thin gold rim surrounded my whole shadow, which was also darker than Cassius’s, with harder edges, more permanent somehow.
Maybe I’d slammed my head on the street when I fell, too. I shut my eyes for a few seconds. Opened them. The strange shadows hadn’t changed and the dude in the centurion costume was still there.
“My bindings are yours,” Cassius said. “I serve you now.”
I really wanted to ask him about his centurion getup, but I had to find Henry, see whether he was alive or dead . . . or somewhere in between. I stood. “Nah, man, get up. You don’t owe me anything.”
Cassius got to his feet, and raised his hand toward me in some kind of salute. “That is not the way of things.”
I didn’t have time to indulge him. But I did need to put one suspicion to bed. “Listen, if you want to do something for me, answer me just one question.”
“If I can . . .”
“You say you saw us get shot, and ran.” I watched his eyes closely as I asked, “Do you know what happened to Henry after he went down?”
He stared firmly back. “No, Jack, I do not.” “Did you see—”
A flash of light erupted near St. Giles.
The scent of ozone wafted down the alley.
A moment later, something growled in the darkness beyond the light of the streetlamp.
A hulking shadow hunched on four legs, its white eyes glinting in the darkness, staring my way.
Cassius took a step toward it, placing himself between me and the creature, but its eyes never lost their focus on me.
The night got suddenly colder, my breath rising in plumes. Then my thoughts jumbled together for some reason, and I was suddenly angry at everyone and everything and didn’t know why.
The low, rumbling growl faded. A short silence. Then the creature charged me.
“Run!” Cassius shouted, the sound shaking me from my trancelike anger.
I turned and raced toward Flitcroft Street, that strange adrenaline surging hot inside me again, my legs carrying me faster than I thought I could go.
But I had a better handle on it now. And the burning warmth shooting down my veins felt almost good.
The night flashed by, Cassius close behind me.
Galloping feet pounded after us, closing.
If I could just get to my flat before it caught up. Just the other end of the alley—
The sound of Cassius’s running feet stopped. I looked back and saw him turn to confront the beast, help me escape.
I pulled up. I couldn’t let him fight this thing alone, and started back.
The creature had the build of a Rottweiler, but was five feet tall at the withers.
Its muscles rippled beneath short, black fur that had split open at its elbows, shoulders, and hocks.
Its clawed paws were the size of rack toms. Its fangs as long as my bird finger.
Drool seeped from its black lips. Barreling toward us, it growled, baring its yellow, glistening teeth.
Then it leapt at Cassius, knocking him to the ground. The centurion clamped his massive arms around its chest. As I ran up looking for a way to grab the beast, it whipped the centurion around and tore his neck open with that mouthful of teeth.
Cassius stopped moving.
The creature, reeking of blood and wet fur, raised its head and stared at me. Then came full on.
I turned and rushed down Flitcroft as fast as I could. Something, like the push of magnets facing opposite poles, passed over my skin right where Henry had stopped to do the mime-wall routine. Warm air swirled around me, and I stumbled forward onto my knees.
The creature’s heavy gallop was pounding close behind me. I turned to face it, just as it slammed up against the strange barrier I’d passed through. It crumpled to the cobblestone alley, picked itself up, bounded at me again, and crashed against the barrier a second time.
I didn’t wait for it to make another charge. I hauled ass for the Iron Horse, hoping Henry was still alive, that he was there, and that he could explain what the hell was going on.