“My brother,” Christoff said, focus on the closed door, and not on the reaper. He didn’t cry, his face didn’t crumple. I would have thought he looked stunned, but his eyes were too alert, albeit moist.
“Was dead already,” Peter commented. “He tried to sacrifice himself heroically and he fucked it up.”
“No,” I said. “He held the machine’s ankle.”
“If you want to make shit up for the kid, that’s cool, but trust me, Callan’s not worth it,” Peter said.
“I can’t lie,” I told him. “Pretty damn sure I can’t lie. One of the rules. So if I say I saw Callan hold that thing back enough for us to close the door-”
“Okay,” Christoff said, cutting me off. “Okay.”
I kept talking anyway. “He did good, Christoff. I’m not his biggest fan either, but he did good.”
Christoff set his jaw.
With the door closed, the group that had been keeping the door in place was now free to spread out, giving a wide berth to the reaper.
Or whatever it was.
Touch of death, skeleton body, scythe arms, and tattered rags.
I was also aware that there were a few homonculi lurking about. One or two that had apparently collapsed as Kathy had hit them with chairs or one of my friends had kicked them were gone now. Slipping away while our collective attention was elsewhere.
Ominous.
The mortals ringed it, while I watched from the mirror. Now and again, I moved to the mirror Alexis wore, trying to get a better view of the reaper.
No, I wasn’t helpless. I was loathe to spend power if my connection to this world was as tenuous as it had seemed to be earlier, and I didn’t feel like I should imbue an object and attack the reaper or Eva. It would be too easy for me to take too much, or for them to retaliate and cast me out.
If I couldn’t get in while the doors were shut, what did that say about my ability to get out? What happened if the mirror broke?
There was only one place that would take me.
Okay, maybe two, but I really hoped I wasn’t due a visit to hell.
No, I wasn’t limited to just standing here.
I broke into a run, heading for the shelves, climbing the ladder to the second floor.
I found the bookshelf on types of Other.
Risen: a treatise on the animate deceased.
Morte Vilify: Perversions of Death.
I began flipping through. I cheated, looking only for the pictures.
Nothing in the first book. I set it aside.
Perversions of Death, then.
All of the pictures were in the middle.
Wood cut images. I found something damn close to the reaper in one picture, joined by two others. The reaper-alike had a long jaw and fingers stretched out to the same length as its forearm, the tips sharpened. It had one brother with flesh attached, bloated fat, spiked orbs hooked to a swollen, distended tongue, from dangling genitals and from the intestine that protruded from its middle. The third was gaunt, but had skin draped over it, heavy iron rings causing the skin to stretch down. Her lower teeth were exposed, while the skin formed a dress around her lower half, the skin of her breasts wrapped around her chest and hooked in front with a large metal ring on the upper. The skin of her hands was joined together and folded around, so her arms formed a permanent loop.
The Bane is form’d of one with a blight of body, already within the grasp of Death, they yet hold a breath of life. The Dark Necromagus must be at the bedside of the deceased as they cross over, to catch the breath in a prepared vessel. Thrice must the blighted man be bestowed that foul breath that escapes the mouth of the long dead, as airs and humors bloat the corpse, the soul released at death introduced between each to accept and accommodate those airs most foul. During these times the body will be well restrained, as the soul will be in the worst of agonies and the body will not be limited to their normal strength.
“Tell me how to kill it,” I said. “Come on…”
Those Magi who practise with the dead in ways most profane take some time to prepare the Bane, according to the nature of the blights that claimed them. For a blight of bone, the skeleton will be stripped, softened and re-hardened by alchemic admixtures. For a blight of the lower stomach, the intestines will be dragged out and repurposed–
Skipping ahead.
Peter had protected himself from one of the scythe-claws with a book that he was now holding in front of him with both hands, but the scythe was eating away at the paper, and the point was drawing closer to him.
The others had a chain wrapped around the other scythe and were trying to hold it back. Tug of war, against one individual.
I kept reading.
The Bane is oft used as a devise against those who practise, for death has already taken them thrice over, while their spirit and soul are inured to the worst torments and agonies. Barriers will serve their purpose, but hexes and deleterious magics will often glance off the Bane, rendering them a potent devise against the unwary. Without expecting their workings to go awry and come back to them, such a Magus might find themselves dealing with their own practises and the Bane both.
The creator must deliver their instructions to the Bane with gravest care, as the Bane is obedient to a fault, the soul broken many times over. Once destroyed, the Bane will never return.
Still nothing about how to destroy it.
When defending oneself against a Bane…
Here we were.
…care must be taken, as the Bane is a thing of blight, and will blight all it touches. Many will alter their Banes to make this contact easier. Fire will serve if the Bane was carelessly wrought, but many will be coated or painted to protect their flesh. One might surmise that the Nosferatu are a natural variation of the Bane, insofar as they are natural. The Nosferatu, if this theory were correct, would incubate spirits of death within them, and depositing them within a victim, inviting them to and from the veil of death. The blight, both pre-existing and given, would be one of the blood.
As such, consider the same methods that function on the Nosferatu. A length of green wood will serve as a conduit for the living energies to vacate the dead prison that confine them. Natural energies, too, will suffice, with daylight, running water from a natural source, lightning strikes, clean fire if the Bane is not pre-treated, a spike of crystal, or a stalagmite with a history of attachment to the ground serving to provide this conduit of natural forces. Like the Nosferatu, the Bane is a wretched thing, and death should be seen as a mercy.
The Bane was partially wrapped in chain. It hacked at the chain with one of its bone scythes, and Ty intentionally dropped the chain, making it too slack to cut.
The chain around the undead creation was starting to look a little worse for wear.
“It’s called a Bane. Green wood is supposed to kill it,” I said.
“Nope,” Ty said, snatching up the chain off the ground. The two different ends of chain were being held at opposite ends of the Bane, “All out, unless that wood you’re made of is green.”
“No,” I said.
The chain snapped, a link breaking. Ty nearly lost his balance as the sudden slack in the chain loosed.
The chain had caught on bone. It was still caught, only one arm somewhat free.
“Running water,” I said.
“Opening the door is a bad idea.”
“Wouldn’t work. Needs to be from a natural source. Lightning. Not sure of that needs to be natural either.”