While holding Peter, he tried to bite me as well. I had no choice but to throw him to the ground like a dangerous animal and then back away.

  The acolyte Sarah had attacked was still steaming, but his screams were less intense now. Sarah was eating the back of the young man’s neck, pulling on his spinal cord with her teeth. Then Peter scurried over on all fours to join her as he went to work on the acolyte’s face.

  Vomit erupted from my mouth in a long stream. All the whiskey I had drank earlier. As I stood choking, Sarah looked up and growled at me, her entire face and neck, her hands too, covered in bright red blood.

  Looking behind me, I saw Rupert lying on the damp grass. He wasn’t moving, and his blood had stained the grass crimson everywhere.

  Oh god… Rupert…

  Finished with the acolyte, Sarah and Peter turned their attention to me. With blood dripping from their mouths, they stood up and glared at me.

  “Sarah… Peter… it’s me,” I said weakly. “It’s Edgar.” I looked at Peter. “It’s… it’s Daddy, buddy. It’s me. Don’t you recognize me?”

  I knew they didn’t recognize me. Even if they did, whatever Mullagin had done to them had turned them into undead savages. Their only need was for flesh.

  Staring at them, I knew what I had to do. There was a shovel nearby, and I went and picked it up. With tears streaming from my eyes, I turned to face them as they advanced slowly toward me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, crying my fucking eyes out now. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. You didn’t deserve it. I loved you… I loved you so much…”

  But not enough, Edgar, eh? Not enough. Just do what you have to do.

  I stood gripping the shovel with both hands, knowing what I had to do. But even though my wife and son looked like blood drenched monsters, I just couldn’t bring myself to swing the shovel. Then Sarah lurched forward and clamped her mouth onto my forearm, biting down hard, her teeth scraping against my radius. Screaming, I lifted my leg and kicked her back. Her mouth came away from my arm, taking a chunk of my flesh with it. Sarah lost her balance and fell back onto the ground, just as Peter bit into my leg. Screaming again, I dropped the shovel and grabbed my undead son’s head, tearing him away from my leg, holding his head as I stared into his eyes. I didn’t even recognize him. My son was now something else. He was no longer the little boy I knew and loved so dearly.

  At that point, I gained some kind of detachment. These were monsters in front of me. My family was gone, and whatever these two were, they weren’t my family.

  Grabbing the shovel again, I raised it high and brought the steel end down on my son’s head, hearing his skull crack with the impact. He fell to the ground, but his eyes remained open as he stared up at me. So I hit him again, this time in the face. And again. And again. Until his face had all but caved in and was now unrecognizable. Just a mess of flesh and bone.

  Sarah roared, as if for her son. Though I knew she had no feelings toward Peter. Monsters don’t have feelings. As she got to her feet, I swung the shovel with all my might and connected with the side of her head, hitting her with so much force that her neck broke. She staggered sideways, but didn’t go down, her head now hanging horribly to the side.

  “Why aren’t you dying?” I screamed.

  Because they’re already dead, that’s why, you fool.

  Peter was up again, his face caved in as he came toward me with outstretched arms.

  “No… don’t. Stop! Please!” I swung the shovel at him, this time turning the steel part sideways. The blade sliced through Peter’s neck, decapitating him. I screamed when his head rolled over beside his grave. His body had stopped moving, though.

  Turning around, I faced Sarah again. She was coming toward me now as well; her head all bent to the side in that ghastly way as she kept growling at me, lusting after my flesh.

  “I’m so sorry, my love.” I swung the shovel as I had swung it at Peter, at her neck, decapitating her as I had my son. Her head tumbled in the air for a second before plopping down on the grass. Only, her eyes were still open. And she was still snarling and growling.

  I just wanted it all to end. So I used the shovel to chop my wife’s decapitated head into pieces. Then I did the same to my son’s head. And finally, it was over.

  Or at least, they had both stopped moving.

  Now I had to bury their remains again. Along with Rupert and Mullagin’s acolyte. I spent the next few hours sorting all that out, carefully arranging the grave sites so no one would know what had happened. All that was left was the blood. But it was starting to rain heavily. It would soon wash the blood away.

  By the time I was done, I felt totally insane. My mind had left me, leaving behind only confusion and a feeling of extreme distress. The only thing I knew now was that I didn’t want to go on living. Not after everything I had done. Even my anger toward Mullagin had been swept aside by the tide of anguish flowing through me. The pain had to stop, and I was going to make it stop.

  Rupert’s car was parked outside the cemetery gates. Getting in, I immediately opened the glove box and found the Glock 19 in there. Then, putting the gun on the front seat, I drove back to my house, leaving Rupert’s car in the drive.

  By the time I got inside the house, I was calm. Fully focused on what I had to do. There was no place for me in this world anymore. Leaving it was my only option.

  In the living room, I sat down on the couch. Glanced briefly at the photo on the wall of me smiling next to my wife and son. Then I put the Glock to the side of my head and unhesitatingly pulled the trigger, blowing my brains out.

  That should have been it for me. I was dead.

  And yet somehow, I woke up to find blood everywhere and a massive exit wound in the left side of my head.

  “Oh Jesus, it didn’t work…”

  “Oh, it worked all right,” said a voice from behind. Then a figure walked around in front of me. A stocky guy in a long black coat, dark hair, eyes a weird color. And he’s speaking in an English accent, his voice all gravely. “I just brought you back, old son.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Lixby, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

  I stared at him for a second, then loosely shook his hand. “Lixby? What are you, a fucking Tellytubby?”

  Lixby smiled. “Funny, but no. I’m something else entirely.”

  It didn’t take me long to work out what was going on. What had happened to Mullagin was now happening to me. Mullagin had died and been brought back by a devil. That’s how he got his magic powers and immortality. In return for his soul, of course. And now this Lixby prick was about to offer me the same deal.

  “Whatever you’re offering,” I said, “I don’t want it. I just wanted to die, to leave this world. Now fuck off and leave me to it.”

  “But you haven’t even heard what I’m offering yet,” Lixby said.

  “I’m guessing magic and immortality.”

  Lixby smiled like he wasn’t all that surprised. “That’s just the icing on the cake, old son. What I’m really offering you is revenge.”

  “Revenge?”

  “On the fucking twat who pulled that stunt at the cemetery. On Andre Mullagin.”

  It all came flooding back then. The ritual. My wife and son returning as monsters. Me having to decapitate them both. Not to mention Rupert, my best friend, who had died horribly. And Mullagin’s face. I remembered that clear as day. His smug smile. The look in his eyes letting me know it was all because I had dared step up at one of his precious meetings, threatening to unseat his authority.

  Fucking cunt…

  Lixby smiled as if he had heard my thought. “I’d like to show you something.”

  “What are you?”

  He smiled. “Does it matter?”

  I shook my head as my blood and brains seeped out of it. “I suppose not.”

  Lixby waved his hand, and an image magically appeared in the air right in front of me. Like a TV screen, but the edges were all wavy. On this magic screen, I saw and heard Andre Mullagin. The bastard was inside his study with Francesca and a number of other acolytes. He was telling the story of what went down at the graveyard. He was laughing when he was telling it. They were all laughing. “That chump thought he knew magic,” Mullagin said. “I showed him what real magic was!”

  “Do you think he survived?” Francesca asked, her beauty turned to ugliness now. “Aren’t you worried he’ll come for you?”

  Mullagin snorted. “Let him try,” he scoffed. “If it’s another lesson in magic he wants, I’ll gladly give him one. Besides, he’s probably been eaten to death by his own family by now…”

  My fists clenched as I stared at the image in front of me, which had paused to show Mullagin’s face, and the self-satisfied grin on it.

  “That was just a short while ago,” Lixby said. “They’re laughing at you, Edgar. Are you really going to let them get away with what they done? After all, if you hadn’t been drawn into their shenanigans in the first place, your family would probably still be alive. Wouldn’t they, Edgar?”

  I couldn’t help but think he was right. If I hadn’t gone to that meeting that night, I never would’ve ended up in the state I was in. I would’ve realized the light was red. My wife and son would still be alive. But that was on me. No one forced me to do anything. What wasn’t on me was what happened at the cemetery. I just wanted my family back, and those bastards used my grief and guilt against me. And all because I posed a threat to fucking Mullagin.

  Well, now I did pose a threat. A real fucking threat.

  “Tell me what I have to do,” I growled.

  “Gladly.” Lixby conjured a rolled parchment out of nowhere, then unfurled it. “You just have to sign on the dotted line. In blood.”

  There was so much text on the parchment, I didn’t even try to read it. To be honest, I didn’t care what it said. All of my anger and guilt had been poured into the notion of getting revenge on Mullagin. Punishing him for what he had done to my family. And to me. That’s all that mattered. “So you take my soul? Is that how this works?”

  “Not right now,” Lixby said. “You get to keep your soul until I need it. It’s a bit like keeping money in the bank. I have claim over you and your soul now. That’s enough.”

  “Claim over me?”

  “Yes. It means you have to do whatever I ask of you.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then you get to experience where I’m from. For eternity. And believe me, you don’t want that. Trust me.”

  I nodded. “You got something I can sign this with?”

  Lixby conjured a quill. Leaning forward, he dipped it into the exit wound in my head. “There you go,” he said, handing me the quill.

  “You’re so helpful.” I took the quill and signed my name on the contract.

  With the satisfaction of a salesman who’d just closed another deal, Lixby rolled up the parchment and put it inside his black coat. “You won’t regret this.”

  “I think I might. But at this point, I don’t give a shit. I just want Mullagin dead.”

  “All right,” Lixby said, standing now with his hands in his coat pockets. “This is the part where I usually give you a heads up about what to expect. But I think you’re already familiar with magic, and with the Hidden World. I will say this, though. There’s a lot about magic you don’t know. Pure magical energy is about to pour into your body, old son. Which is a bit different from doing the low level spellwork you’ve been doing.” He paused to laugh a little. “A lot different, actually. You’ll have to find a way to control it before it kills you. It will drain your life force. And because I like the interest that accrues in the bank of souls, I’d prefer it if you didn’t die just yet. Your desire for revenge should help you focus your energy, so it doesn’t overwhelm you. As you seem like a fairly capable soul, I have no worries you’ll manage. Anyway, time for me to get going.”

  “Why me?” I said, just as I felt a mild tingling in my body, like a low-level electrical charge. “Why’d you chose me? Or does everyone who dies get a visit from your kind?”

  “Not everyone,” Lixby said. “Just the ones who have a burning need still in their hearts.”

  “A burning need for what?”

  “To go on living. And to transcend. These are gifts we give, after all. Not everyone is deserving of them.”

  “I was told the Archaons think no one is deserving of them.”

  Lixby’s eyes turned a bright yellow then, and his face shifted into some shadowy form for a few seconds. “The Archaons may rule from their heavenly thrones, but they no not what it is like to exist in these worlds. To have boots on the ground. To be in the thick of things. No matter who we are, we all just do what we have to do. Despite the so-called rules. Don’t we?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Welcome to your second life, Edgar Elwood.” He took a few steps back. “Talk soon.”

  The second he disappeared, a great force invaded my body. A force that was excruciatingly painful and beyond exhilarating at the same time. It was the most invasive thing I’d ever felt. The force—magic, I correctly assumed—went about pulling me apart from the inside. Shredding nerves. Shearing muscle. Splitting bone. Violently ripping me apart on a molecular level. Or at least, that’s how it felt. In truth, I had no clue what was happening to me. A universal force had invaded my body and was now changing it in ways that I couldn’t hope to comprehend. That’s all I knew. After a while, I lost all sense of time. My entire being was taken up by the agony and the ecstasy of my transformation. Like continuously orgasming and getting stabbed repeatedly at the same time. As sensory sensations go, it was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

  Then it just stopped, and I realized I was lying on the floor. For a while, I was afraid to move in case my body just fell apart at the seams. But soon, I felt the energy in me. A strange energy that was a part of me now, as much as my blood and my nervous system were. And I realized that the force of magic had bolstered my body in order to contain itself. So I wouldn’t just blow up when I tried to use that energy. In truth, Mullagin had already spoken to me of his own magical rebirth. It had been while he was full of drugs, and while he fucked Francesca. He told me about the greatest orgasm he had ever had, and about the most pain he had ever felt. He spoke about it like it had been a holy experience, as if his entire being had been flooded with god energy.

  Standing up, I figured Mullagin hadn’t been far wrong. I did indeed feel god-like.

  Invincible.

  And all I wanted to do was destroy.

  Right place, right time, I thought as power flowed through me. I just keep on riding those waves, don’t I?

  It was a Thursday night. There was no meeting of the Order of the Unshackled on Thursdays. Only Mondays and Fridays. Sometimes Wednesday. But never Thursday. That night was reserved for Mullagin’s own solo rituals to “aid his own spiritual development.” So he said anyway. He could’ve just been chilling at home with a few DVDs for all I knew. In fact, I hoped he was.

  On the drive to Woodland Hills, it felt like my body was burning up from the inside. I was leaking magical energy like a goddamn sieve. And when I looked at myself in the rearview mirror, I was shocked to see that my face had aged by at least ten years. I looked middle-aged, for Christ’s sakes. Even my hair was half gray. “What the fuck?”

  Then I remembered what Lixby had said about life force. Somehow, I had to calm down the magical energy within me. It was too agitated. Too excited. Like some entity that had just escaped the dimension it had been trapped in for aeons, and was now so overjoyed at being free that it was about to suck the life out of the very vessel that was giving it freedom.

  Pulling over, I shut off the engine and tried to sit still as I shut my eyes. Mullagin had taught us how to focus our minds, which he deemed necessary to good spellwork. And he was right. The brain was the engine that directed all that magic. Without focus, there was just chaos.

  So I focused my mind as I had done many times in the last year. Bringing my thoughts to heel. Taking control of my body. Bit by bit, everything in me calmed down. As I breathed, I felt the magical energy circulate through me. Soon, its steady pulsing was in time with my slow breathing. Intuitively, I found the Synchronicity Waves that took me closer to mastering this new force within me. I breathed at just the right time. Moved my body by minute increments in precise sequences. Allowed the right thoughts to drift up from my subconscious. All of which helped me get a tight grip on the raging energy that was now a part of me.

  When I opened my eyes, I looked in the mirror again. Still aged. Not to worry. At least I had things under control now. And I had a good idea of what I needed to do in order to replenish the life force that had escaped me.

  Starting the car up, I pulled off and continued driving toward Mullagin’s mansion. My only focus now was on making that bastard pay for what he had done. No other thoughts even entered my head. It was exhilarating to have such a level of focus.

  When I reached Woodland Hills, I parked the car just up the road from Mullagin’s house. I didn’t want him to know I was coming. Especially since I now knew what he was fully capable of. He had been leading his second life a lot longer than me, and he would have much greater control over his powers than I did. Best to play it safe. I didn’t want a full on battle. I just wanted Mullagin dead.

  There was a secret side entrance that lead into the grounds of Mullagin’s mansion. No cameras. Getting into the house was easy. The cellar doors were always open. In no time at all, I was standing in the entrance hallway of the vast house. It was past four in the morning. Mullagin should be asleep. So should Francesca, whom Mullagin shared the house with.

  Creeping up the stairs, I turned down the still lit hallway and went straight to Francesca’s bedroom. From experience, I knew her door would be locked. She told me once it was a habit she picked up from all the foster homes she had stayed in growing up, when the men of the house would pay her nighttime visits. Quietly, I pushed down the door handle, just to make sure. It was locked.