Shadow Plague Read online

  As I leaned closer, the fractal-shaped tattoos that covered my body lit up with crackling energy. Black magic filled the air. The enemy was closing in. And getting ready to attack.

  The snowy ground trembled and buckled under my skis, and thick chunks of ice erupted all around. A massive white giant grew from the snow, casting a large shadow across the moonlit mountain. The creature that emerged looked like a mash-up of Sasquatch and the Incredible Hulk.

  The beast measured about eight feet tall, and from the look of its muscles had to weigh at least a few tons. Primal, Neanderthal-like features glared back at me, the eyes glowing a fearsome red in the dark woods.

  The monster wasn’t covered in fur—so it wasn’t the Abominable Snowman after all. Instead, its skin was smooth and pale like its frozen hunting grounds. An ice sculpture come alive, its white-blue skin shimmering in the moonlight shafting through the trees. No wonder this creature had escaped detection—it perfectly blended in with its snow-capped surroundings.

  As the monster flexed its bulging muscles and opened its giant hands, which were three times the size of my own, I felt only confusion. How could this thing be the killer I was hunting? Sure, it could maul a man, but it couldn’t drill a bunch of holes in them first. I didn’t see anything that could make those wounds. Weirdly, this insight sent another chill down my back. Something was wrong with this picture.

  But there was no time to further dwell on these thoughts as the beast brought its enormous paws down on me.

  Instincts kicking in, I darted aside on my skis. The giant fists missed me by inches. Instead, they smashed into a nearby tree, felling it in one violent crash. Wood cracked and splintered, and the tree slammed to the ground, sending up plumes of snow.

  Surprisingly enough, the beast didn’t make a sound. It simply shifted its weight, eyes locked on me as I put some distance between myself and it.

  I’m not a coward, but I know how to pick my battles. I was buying myself some time, precious seconds during which I hoped to figure out my next move. But I couldn’t get my mind to cooperate. Note to self: Having a giant ice monster on your ass isn’t conducive to creative thinking.

  As the monster barreled after me, silent and swift as the wind, I jumped into motion. Now I was hurtling down the mountain, the white beast tearing after me like an avalanche. Ice-laden trees tore past me in a mad blur.

  Yet the creature was gaining behind me despite my rapid-fire descent. How did the massive monster move so fast and display such light-footed grace? Despite the thing’s considerable bulk, it came after me with the speed of a charging gorilla. Even as I spun through a maze of trees at fifty miles per hour, the beast remained doggedly on my tail.

  I didn’t intend to keep running forever. After all, I wanted to slay this creature, not escape from it. It had taken hours to draw it out, and I didn’t want it to get away. But I was in dire need of a plan. At times like this, I really missed my old life as a SWAT captain. I would take a hostage situation over playing a game of cat-and-mouse with Bigfoot’s uglier cousin any day of the week.

  Up ahead, the trees cleared and gave way to a white plain of snow.

  I gritted my teeth. Time to stand my ground.

  I leaned into the slope and applied pressure on both of the ski edges while bending my knees for balance. My mad descent began to slow. I performed a sweeping turn to the left, making sure to keep my skis parallel. Once I’d finally come to a halt, I looked up at the albino Hulk tearing toward me. Twin knives, like the fangs of a saber-toothed tiger, snapped out of my gauntlet while my other hand reached for my magical machine pistol.

  Determined, I pumped a few rounds into the creature, which soundlessly reared back in the darkness. Magazine empty, I focused my magic on my skis. They evaporated into thin air, and thick snow boots replaced them, allowing me to surge toward the incoming monstrosity. I was eager to drive my dual blades into its pallid flesh. It’d had been a long damn night.

  My heart sank as I drew closer. The holes my bullets had stitched across the creature’s powerful chest were closing up, one by one. Most surprisingly, there was no blood anywhere. What was this creature made of? Not flesh and blood, from the looks of it.

  This question was still going through my head as the beast stomped toward me. Despite its bulk, it left no footprints in the snow, almost as if it was floating over the ground. That was weird, even in the monster business.

  “Alright, Octurna, now that you’ve gotten a look at its ugly mug, do you have any ideas what I’m up against here?”

  The white behemoth pounced before she could answer, and I jumped sideways as its long gorilla arms slammed down onto the ice. I drew my magical whip as the monster whirled in my direction. A silver chain studded with sharp blades flashed in the pale moonlight as it lashed the air. A heartbeat later, the metal whip snapped around the monster’s neck, blades hooking into white flesh. Teeth gritted, I applied pressure on my end, pulling on the silver lash with all my might.

  The move proved more successful than I could have anticipated in my wildest imagination. The blades on the chain sliced all the way through the creature’s neck, skin giving way to the magic, and then its whole head came off.

  I took a step back as I withdrew the whip. The creature remained erect, almost as if the body was still catching up to the fact that it was missing its head. If this had been a movie, the creature might have made one final dramatic move in my direction before it grasped that it was already dead and joined its severed head on the white ground. Unfortunately, my reality was different. Instead of falling down, the headless ice giant lurched forward, unaffected by an injury that would have killed any other living creature.

  I took a step back, a part of me refusing to accept what I was seeing. How could this fucking thing still be alive? And how was it able to home in on me without its senses?

  I stole a glance at the oversized head on the ground. The red light in those eyes had dimmed. Once again, no blood poured from its wound — just snow and ice.

  “Seriously, Octurna, a little help?” I growled.

  Patience, the sorceress said. I am still searching.

  I cursed under my breath and activated my teleportation spell. My range was still a modest ten to fifteen feet, but it was enough. I popped up behind the beast, hoping to get the drop on it. The headless creature somehow sensed my new position and pivoted. And as it closed it in, a tangle of fiery red tentacles exploded from its chest. Hook-like teeth protruded from the tips of the mass of tentacles whirling at my face.

  Okay, cool. So that’s how this thing made all those tiny little wounds. Good to know.

  I cast my defensive shield, and the tentacles reared back, withdrawing into the body of the snow beast. As I studied this decapitated creature more closely, I became convinced that it really was made out of snow. And that suggested to me that the real monster might be hiding inside a fake body made of snow.

  Encouraged by this latest discovery, I lobbed a fireball at the headless monster, which now appeared far less eager to rush me. Maybe it didn’t fear my weapons, but it did respect my magic.

  The pulsating ball of flame engulfed the ice creature, melting the body within seconds and confirming my suspicions. With the ice body reduced to a puddle of water, the real monster stood revealed in the glow of the moon. A three-foot-long albino slug reared up from the forest floor, twin eyestalks pointing in my direction. It looked like a giant snail without its shell… except for the swirling mass of red feeding tentacles.

  I was still staring at the abomination when an invisible force snapped my gauntleted wrist back. I stifled a scream as I felt the bone break. The fucking slug had telekinetic abilities. In fact, it was using them right now to create a new snow golem to inhabit. The ground shook and rippled around the giant slug as muscular legs formed from the snow. I had no desire to go another round with Frosty. I had to end this now.

  With my wrist broken, I wouldn’t be able to use the knives as edged weapons. The regenerative po
wer of the dragon blood flowing through my veins was impressive, but it would still require a certain amount of time to mend the break. I would have to rely on my magic for this next part.

  With a fearsome roar, I cast my levitation spell. The two blades snapped out of the gauntlet. I focused on the blades and mentally tore them free, sending them flying toward the slug. The creature deflected the first blade, but the second knife found its target.

  Twelve inches of silver pierced the slug like a spear fired from a harpoon gun. The slug flailed and shrieked in agony on the ground.

  I reloaded my blessed machine pistol and pumped a round into the beast. With no new golem around to absorb the volley of silver, my shots hit their target. Tentacles writhed, and the creature flailed as the bullets lashed its translucent body. With a shrill hiss, the slug collapsed in a puddle of gore.

  As streams of red poured out and painted the white landscape, I drew closer. The thing at my feet resembled a pile of ground beef.

  “I don’t know what this thing was,” I said, knowing Octurna was listening. “But it’s dead now.”

  Do me a favor, Jason, make sure to bring me the monster’s remains. I want to learn more about this creature.

  I thought I could almost detect excitement in the sorceress' voice and shook my head. She was bloodthirsty, but I kind of liked that about her.

  Heeding the sorceress’ request, I flicked my good wrist, and the slug’s shredded remains levitated into the air, dripping blood. Who was I to refuse a beautiful woman?

  2

  The three-foot slug lay splayed out on a stone altar inside the Sanctuary’s temple. I had made love to both Octurna and the treacherous Guardian Diamonique on this same altar. I tried to push those memories away, focusing on the dead monster instead. The sorceress stood at the head of the altar, eyes fixed on the creature as she studied it with an air of dark fascination.

  “So you’ve never seen anything like this before?” I asked.

  “I battled all manner of supernatural beasts during my Guardian days, but this appears to be a new specimen.”

  Octurna snapped her fingers, and twin orbs of blue light ignited around her hands. Lips pressed into a severe line, the sorceress unleashed the balls of shimmering energy. Waves of pulsating azure magic washed over the monster’s remains and scanned the creature’s anatomy on a cellular level. Various areas of the gastropod’s body lit up, and a triumphant smile curled Octurna’s lips.

  “Just as I thought. The creature was created by fusing magic with a human essence.”

  I frowned as I tried to wrap my head around this latest revelation. “You're telling me this thing used to be a person?”

  Before the sorceress could respond, a shimmering, transparent human form materialized in the pulsating light that now enveloped the slug’s body. The ghostlike silhouette hovered over the gastropod, making me think of Diamonique’s ghost form. The one that I’d brought back to life with a truly epic session of boot knocking on the altar.

  As I’ve noted before, I lead a bizarre life nowadays.

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “Magic uses organic matter as a base. It rebuilds tissue and fuels rampant cell growth,” Octurna replied.

  The illumination intensified, and the magical blue hologram took on human features. I gasped as the figure morphed into a young, athletic-looking nude man. The ghostly image floating above the slug sported a variety of stab wounds and burn marks that corresponded to the ones found on the creature’s body.

  “So this is the guy…?” A pang of guilt hit me. The fella couldn’t be older than twenty. A kid, really. He reminded me of my old Marine buddies. We had been about his age when we first signed up. Had he chosen to become a psychic slug with an appetite for human flesh? I doubted it. No, some terrible Cabal magic had turned him into this savage beast. And that meant he was as much of a victim as the poor souls he’d killed.

  “I know what’s going through your mind, Jason,” Octurna said.

  I clenched my jaw. “Do you?”

  “It’s not your fault. You had no choice. Someone had to stop this creature. This young man died the day magic transformed him into a monster. You set him free and saved countless lives in the process.”

  I nodded grimly. On some level, I knew Octurna was right, but it didn’t change how I felt.

  “What else do we know about this guy?” I asked.

  Octurna closed her eyes, her magic tapping into forces beyond my still-evolving abilities.

  “His name was Joe Reno. Age twenty, a rising star in the snowboarding community with Olympic prospects. He was staying at a ski lodge when he went missing twelve days ago.”

  I nodded. That was around the time the murders started. Something had tuned Joe Reno into a monstrous killing machine. I wondered what sort of dark magic could have done the deed.

  I studied the sorceress, hoping she might have an explanation, but she seemed as perplexed by this mystery as myself.

  The orbs of pulsating energy caressed her striking features, creating the impression that she was carved from marble. I knew a well of deep passion boiled beneath Octurna’s armor. She was capable of great warmth and compassion, but she rarely let those feelings rise to the surface. I had never met a woman so guarded, and she was worse now than when I first met her four months earlier. The betrayal by her former best friend and lover Diamonique had hit her hard.

  I wanted to reach out to her, but I knew she wouldn’t let me give her any kind of comfort. Wouldn’t let me in.

  The light dimmed as the young man’s spectral form evaporated into thin air, and reality returned to normal.

  Octurna regarded me, her eyes ablaze with determination. “Follow me, Jason. There is something you need to see.”

  Okay, that sounded pretty ominous. The sorceress turned away from the grisly remains displayed on the altar, and I fell in step with her. Five minutes later, we were back in the observation chamber. The familiar bank of magical church windows that functioned as a surveillance system for black magic activity shimmered in front of us.

  The sorceress took a seat on her black throne, her eyes locked on the various scenes of reality playing out on the windows. This is where Octurna felt at her most comfortable, an empress holding court. She carried herself with an air of power, but she also seemed lonely on her stone command chair as she almost longingly surveyed the images of the real world. Who could blame her? She’d been trapped in this castle for more than a century, ever since the rise of the Shadow Cabal and the systematic destruction of the Guardians, the order of magical cops she’d once belonged to. A death curse prevented Octurna from leaving her fortress, which existed outside of time and space, turning her castle into both a sanctuary and a prison.

  Nowadays she experienced the world through these windows. That’s how I had first come to her attention. At the time, I'd been a SWAT captain way in over my head. My team ran into a succubus and a horde of possessed victims. If not for Octurna’s timely interference, I wouldn’t have survived my first brush with the paranormal world. She had taken me in, healed my body with dragon blood, and shared her magic with me.

  I'd come a long way since that fateful day. My bag of magic tricks was growing, and so was my knowledge of this strange new world. Each day brought new lessons. And today’s was about to begin.

  Octurna pointed at the screen. The windows showed various shots of Montana police personnel combing the mountain where I had stumbled upon the body of the dead ranger. That was no shock. I had called the cops as soon as I had taken out the slug. The ranger deserved a proper burial instead of becoming food for scavengers.

  The images in the windows shimmered and changed, and the frozen mountain gave way to a variety of video feeds. Some came from news outlets, others from video hosting sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Voices drifted into the observation chamber, and I took a step closer to get a better sense of what the sorceress was showing me.

  In one of the videos, a red-skinned beast
with the lumbering gait of a gorilla lurched through a park in Paris. Another video showed a bat-winged serpent shooting past the Hollywood sign. The footage in both videos was blurry and shaky, and the comments on the various sites suggested that only the most devoted conspiracy theorists considered the vids to be real. To most people, these were fakes, the work of amateur Spielbergs messing around with cheap digital effects. The creatures captured on-screen even looked fake to my eyes. Or maybe I wanted them to be fake.

  “Thirty sightings all across the globe in the last week alone, and more than sixty people dead. There are numerous reports of strange attacks in the largest cities in the world: Paris, London, Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles. Some caught on video; some relayed in the stories of survivors. The news outlets naturally aren’t reporting wild tales of monster attacks, but even the mainstream media can’t ignore the growing body count. Instead, these videos are being shared on social networks, feeding occult conspiracies, while the press and media speculate about a rise in serial killings.”

  The online footage of the exotic nightmares froze in the church windows. The blurred still images looked even less real than the vids.

  "I have gone over these videos repeatedly. None of these beasts match anything in my experience or appear in any of the monster manuals.”

  “So what are you saying? New monsters are popping up every day?”

  “It appears that way.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe the Cabal needs to update their monster manuals?”

  My comment earned me another long look from the sorceress. “I believe someone is creating these beasts,” she said. “The question is why.”

  “I thought the Cabal liked to operate in the shadows. I mean they call themselves the Shadow Cabal, right?” My feeble attempt at humor wasn’t going over so well, and I continued in a more serious voice. “I thought the Cabal was all about manipulating reality without letting regular folks catch on that something weird is happening. At least not until it’s too late.”