CHAPTER 15 - REAL POWER

Someone had relit the candle, now that the danger was past, but folks had learned—two women were hanging heavy drapes over the front windows to make sure the light didn’t leak outside.

“Hey, Kat’s awake,” Alfred called out. He knelt on the floor beside her.

I wended my way over. She was indeed awake, although she still looked dazed. I joined Alfred in kneeling at her side. “You okay, Kat?”

She nodded. “Woozy. Virgil gave me some painkillers. You were outside?”

“Yeah. Goblins,” I replied.

“Really?” Kat asked. When I nodded, she sighed. “I was hoping it was all a bad dream.”

“Me too. But sadly, nope. We’re still in the shit.”

“My leg feels weird,” Kat said.

I looked at Alfred, who shook his head, She wasn’t fully awake yet and either didn’t know or didn’t want to. It wasn’t my job to force her into that before she was ready, so I lowered my voice and shifted the topic. “I gave you a second crystal. Found another stamina one, so yours is double strength now. Should help you heal faster.”

“Thanks,” Kat said. “That was awesome of you. I think I’m gonna sleep some more, okay?”

“Very okay,” I replied. “You get some rest.”

She was back asleep in just a few minutes, but this time it looked much more like regular sleep, instead of the feverish unconsciousness she’d displayed earlier. Kat was definitely going to pull through, now. I only hoped she’d be able to survive what we’d done to her.

“That was nice of you, giving her another stone,” Alfred said. “And thanks for the one you gave me, too. Here—one good turn deserves another.”

He handed me a small black jewel. He must have looted that from a zombie at one point or another. I took the stone from him, quickly swapping out the Augment spell to test it.

“Thanks!”

This one was something new. Alfred had found himself a Drain Life spell. That was interesting, and I left it slotted. This was the first direct damage type spell I’d seen since this whole mess began, and I was excited to get a chance to see it in action. I went to pocket the Augment stone again, then noticed something odd—it was broken! The stone had shattered into several large shards. When I tried to absorb it into me again, it failed. The thing had lost its magic.

“Well, that sucks,” I said.

“What’s that?” Alfred asked.

“Look—the stone broke when I took it out,” I said, holding out the shards. “I’d been trying to test the ones I found, see what they were, but I guess if you swap them out too much or something, they can fail. This one just broke apart when I popped it out.”

“Makes sense,” Alfred replied.

“How?”

“Well, as much as any of this stuff makes sense, I mean,” he replied. “If this was a game and you were just swapping spells like mad, that would be a little overpowered, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess,” I replied. “Hey, how did you know I gamed?”

He chuckled. “Well, I could say because everyone our age does, but mostly it’s because of how well you handled everything. Zombies, goblins, spiders, and more—none of it made you so much as blink.”

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I’d been doing a lot more than blinking, but I knew when to take a compliment. “Thanks.”

“No worries I’d never have gotten here without you.”

A short while later, I’d drifted off beside Kat when something woke me. At first I worried it was something about Kat, but the heat she’d been giving off was gone, and I was pretty certain she was out of the woods now. I lay there watching her and listening. That’s when I heard the voices. They were clearly trying to keep their volume down, but the space just wasn’t that large. It was easy enough to pick out Bradley and Lords’ conversation.

“Look, they have how many of those things?” Bradley was asking. “We have barely any. Time to collect them so we can redistribute them to the actual fighters.”

“You’ll note she was out there fighting, Brad,” Lords replied. “In fact, her monster took down one of them. I don’t recall you doing that.”

“Exactly my point,” Bradley snapped back. “She has the power to do that. Her friend, too. They each must have more stones than any of us. Think how much safer all our people would be if we had more stones to protect them.”

“Enough of this, Brad. We’re not taking people’s things, even weird things like these. You want more stones, grow a pair of stones of your own and go after them, same as that girl did.”

Bradley walked off in a huff at that point. It was good to know Lords was sticking up for me, but I predicted problems coming from Bradley, and I didn’t know how the other police would lean. Were they close supporters of Lords, or would they buckled if Bradley tried to execute a palace coup?

It was increasingly looking like this might be a waypoint in my journey, not a final destination. I couldn’t afford to stick around if Bradley was going to become a threat. As far as I was concerned, wanting to remove my ability to defend myself constituted a threat.

I made sure the spare stones were all tucked away deep inside a zipper pocket inside my main pants pocket. Sooner or later I’d figure out a more secure way of handling them, but this would do for now.

Then I closed my eyes again. Rain was just starting to drum on the rooftop as my eyelids shut and I returned to a deep slumber.

Gideon Carver sobbed as rain poured down around him, mixing with his tears. He was all but blind, between the dark, the rain, and his crying, but he’d gone beyond caring.

The graves were dug, both of them. His wife. His daughter. Both of them gone, savaged by something while he was away because he hadn’t managed to return to them quickly enough. He knelt beside the fresh graves, running his fingers through the dirt.

More than anything, he wanted them back. The worst part was he could do it. He could animate them both. He had the magic to accomplish that, now. Drop the other two and he could have his beloved family again.

Except they wouldn’t really be his family. They’d be monsters wearing their faces. None of Carolyn’s memories would remain. The undead version of his daughter Kim wouldn’t play with him or ask him to dress up. Everything they had been was gone now. Lost forever. Even with all his power, he couldn’t actually bring someone back from the dead, not really. His power generated the semblance of life, not real life.

He staggered back inside the house, leaving the horse outside to watch for dangers. The goblin zombie came with him to keep him safe indoors, just in case some threat snuck in. This was his life now, running from one danger toward another, always wondering when something new would leap out at him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but lost in his own mired mix of fury and hate, Gideon didn’t mind having unpleasant thoughts.

Gideon settled himself into his bed, secure behind a locked door, with a servant that never slept standing guard. The zombies stank a little, but not enough to make him send his guardian away.

A good night’s rest would clear some things up, at least. He knew there was no coming back for his family. Even if this all miraculously faded overnight, that bit of damage felt permanent.

For that matter, this new world felt awfully permanent, too. Gideon felt in his gut that things were not going back to normal anytime soon, if they ever did. These stones that the monsters dropped? They were the new power in the world. Cars didn’t work, electricity was gone. But those stones conveyed real power on anyone who had them, and the more of them they had, the stronger they’d be.

Which meant all he needed to do to rise to the top of this new pyramid was to gather more stones than anyone else. That was what real power looked like, now. With real power like that, he could have protected his family somehow. Saved them.

But since they were already gone, he’d gain the power anyway, and then use it however he saw fit. Tonight, he’d sleep. In the morning, when it was light again, he and his minions would take to the streets and go monster hunting. Gideon knew that out there, others would be doing the same thing. The race was on now, for real power. The sort of personal power granted by the stones was something new and strange in the world. Once, people who had guns made the rules, then it was people with wealth. Now, real power would rest in the hands of those who could use magic.

Gideon planned to surpass all the rest.