Necromancer Legacy - 1. Drugs won't help you

Black skies loomed over the city where they should have been blue. He saw monsters where normal people stood and walked in the street. Blood instead of skin. Fire instead of eyes. Black smoke in the wind. Carrying the scent of ashes.

“Are you okay?” Nick Russell heard someone say from behind.

He blinked and turned around but there was no one there. People walked past him on the sidewalk. Cars drove by noisily. Nick looked up. The sky was back to normal. A cloudless, dark blue expanse stretching over New York.

This had been a rough week.

Nick had no idea what the visions meant. But he felt more ill every time they happened, like a poison spreading slowly in his veins. And he always felt cold.

He got home to his apartment, hoping his roommate Shane would distract him. They had an apartment together in Hell’s Kitchen.

Tonight Shane wanted to watch the movie Wolf of Wall Street.

Once Nick had thrown his jacket, keys and wallet in his bedroom he went to sit on the living room couch with Shane. They didn’t own a TV. They just watched movies and series on Shane’s seventeen inches laptop. So Shane brought said laptop onto the coffee table, and then he grabbed the table’s legs to slide it closer to the couch. The rattling sound made Nick wince, and he massaged his temples. His head hurt so much lately.

“How was work? You look tired.” Shane sat in the couch and paused the video right at the start. He lifted his feet and swung them up on the couch, the floor creaking underneath as he made himself comfortable.

“It was fine. And I’m fine.”

“Right.” Shane arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep?”

“No. I mean yes.” Nick settled back in the couch and grabbed a pillow, holding it against his chest. Shane was still sending him doubtful glances. “I’m fine, I just want to watch the movie with you.”

Magic words.

Shane’s eyes lit up and he nodded, reaching toward his keyboard to click something and start the video.

And Nick really tried to watch it. He tried really hard to keep his eyes open. Of course, Shane watched religiously. He was all cozy, covered up with his silly purple leopard blanket. Shane always watched movies as seriously as if he were a professional movie critique.

Nick had trouble keeping his eyes open because he hadn’t slept in a while. Shane was absolutely right, of course. He was tired, and worn out. He actually had two jobs. At his first job today he’d almost forgotten to make a customer pay. At his second job he’d almost forgotten to lock up behind him, which would’ve been really bad obviously. In the subway he’d struggled to keep his eyes open, too.

He just kept dreaming about really weird stuff. Actually, it was terrifying, so much that he was afraid of falling asleep again.

But it sounded so silly. Afraid of falling asleep. Frightened by some stupid nightmares. He wasn’t a child. Well, to be fair, he was still just eighteen. But standing at six feet two, he was often told that he looked older than his age. He couldn’t exactly start telling people that his dreams scared him.

So Nick had awful dark circles under his eyes and he looked like some sleep deprived idiot. Great.

And now, the worst thing was that he was starting to see freaky visions even when he was awake. Black smoke, black clouds, people covered in blood.

Cheerful stuff.

Earlier, walking back home from the subway station, he had seen someone standing in a first floor window. It was just some building similar to where he lived with Shane, just a few blocks away. Regular apartment building with boring brick walls and everything.

The person looking out the window had been on fire. They were staring straight at Nick with freakish blank eyes, with a sort of black smoky aura around them, and the smell of burnt flesh had filled his nostrils. But then he blinked, and the vision disappeared.

It was like something out of a horror movie—the good ones, that are actually scary. And he wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Like he was in a dream.

And sometimes there was a voice in his head. Something like a whisper, but strong-willed at the same time. “Will you take back what’s yours?”

What was that supposed to mean?

And the visions disappeared whenever he heard that voice.

Nick shivered.

So either he was imagining things again, or there was a dark red stain on the opposite wall. The walls were a dull grayish white color. The paint was all cracked, but for some reason the landlord wouldn’t allow them to paint over it. Nick had never seen that red stain before, though. It was right there, next to the desk with the turntable Shane had bought but never used.

He couldn’t stop staring at that stain. It seemed to be moving. Wriggling like a worm.

The rest of the room disappeared for a moment. There was only red, as the stain seemed to get bigger, and bigger.

“Nick? Nicholas.” Shane was poking him, bringing him back to reality.

Shit. How far in the movie were they? He looked at the laptop, seeing Leonardo Dicaprio’s face getting frozen mid-monologue as Shane paused the video. More than thirty minutes in. He looked up.

The stain was gone. His heartbeat slowed down. He hadn’t realized it had gone up. The room seemed really silent, like there had been a buzzing in his ears before, and now it was gone.

“The pizza’s here.” Shane had already brought the carton to the couch, and he was sitting next to Nick again. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I really think you should eat something. You look… pale. Like, more than usual, I mean.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” His voice sounded weak and groggy, even he could tell. He cleared his throat. “At least I don’t think I was.”

Shane shrugged. “Yeah, you were. You don’t like the movie?”

“That’s not it.” Nick imitated Shane and grabbed a slice of pizza. But he realized he had no appetite. In fact, the smell of it made him feel a bit sick. Weird; he usually liked pizza. Who didn’t? “Looks like a pretty good movie.”

“Do you want to start from the beginning again?” Shane offered.

“No, I—I think I can catch up.”

“Okay.”

They started watching again. Well, Shane did. He ate his pizza with appetite, too. Nick wished he could do the same. But he dropped his slice in the box. Watching the computer screen made him really sleepy. It wasn’t the movie itself. It just strained his eyes. At some point the image became all blurry.

He shook his head clear, and glanced at Shane instead. His roommate was the kind of guy that always got so absorbed in a movie that he wouldn’t notice if the world was ending—let alone if someone stared at him.

Shane’s t-shirt was white with little black lightning bolts all over it. His pale hair was shaved on the sides and longer on top. Around his wrist was a black rubber bracelet that said ‘Friendship is magic’ in colorful letters.

Nick was starting to hear that buzzing noise again. And dark spots filled his vision. Panic gripped at his heart like an ice cold fist. He wanted to get up from the couch—do something, anything—but he couldn’t. It was like someone was pinning him there, someone stronger, a lot stronger.

Blood trickled down the walls all around the room. He knew it wasn’t real, but his chest constricted in fear anyway. He tried to look to the side, but his head wouldn’t move. He couldn’t even twitch a muscle. Although, even without looking, he could tell Shane wasn’t there anymore. In fact, the room was empty and black. Only that red stain remained. But now it had spread to a vast circle, and it was shimmering. The world seemed to tilt upside down, and Nick’s stomach did an unpleasant lurch as he fell face down, next to the red circle. He still couldn’t move. And that red circle was getting wider. Soon it would touch him. It was blood. He knew it was blood. He could smell it. Could almost feel it. Metallic and thick.

From the corner of his eye he saw someone standing on the other side of the circle.

He was tall and wore all black, with a hood covering half his face. His waist was thin but his shoulders were squared so Nick assumed he was male. He brought his hands up to his hood like he wanted to take it off and reveal himself, but he seemed unsure. He wore fingerless gloves and black nail polish.

Nick remembered having a similar dream before. This wasn’t the first time.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t wake up, no matter how much he wanted to. He had researched sleep paralysis a couple of days ago, and concluded that this was similar. But there was no treatment for that. It certainly wasn’t supposed to happen so frequently.

The puddle of blood had never been so close to reaching Nick before. A few more inches and it would touch his hand, which was right next to his face. The person on the other side stepped closer. He wore heavy black boots but they made no sound. There was only a suffocating silence. The smell of blood in the air. And the smell of ashes.

A voice in his head again.

“Your brother never used it. Will you?”

That same fierce, blood curdling whisper. Nick felt the sudden urge to scream. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He looked at the other person. But he was gone. There was no one else.

And the blood reached him.

But then everything seemed to just… fade away.

There was only Shane, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him awake.

“You’re missing the movie,” he whined.

“S-Sorry…” It was weird to see Shane, to come back to reality. Everything was so normal. His purple blanket, the worn dark blue couch, matching blue curtains.

They were ruffled softly by the wind right now. The nightmare was fading, but Nick still felt horribly cold. He shivered violently.

“I’ll just close the window,” said Shane. He looked a little worried now. He was unfolding his legs, but Nick stopped him.

“No, don’t, I’m fine.”

Shane sighed. “Why is it so cold anyways? It’s supposed to be spring in like, what, a week? What global warming, right?”

“Yeah. Sorry about the movie. I’ll watch it with you another time.” He got up, and felt dizzy. “I’ll just take a shower.”

“You should really go to sleep early tonight. None of that going out with your friends when you’re working the next day crap!” Shane called, but Nick ignored him. Who was he, his mom?

Sleeping was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

Going out with his friends, on the other hand, sounded pretty great.

***

His favorite place to go out was a short eight minutes walk from his apartment.

He zipped up his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. It really was cold; the wind was harsh. As he looked up, he saw that it was a full moon tonight—or almost full, anyway. He couldn’t see any stars, because of the city lights. But the moon shone bright. He picked up the pace, walking down 9^th Avenue. He walked as fast as he could, eyes looking straight ahead. He tried to convince himself that nothing weird would happen. And if he did see something odd, he would just ignore it. Easy.

But then Nick got the feeling that he was being followed. He couldn’t really walk any faster without people giving him a weird look. This was ridiculous. There were other people in the street. Maybe there was just someone walking behind him, matching his pace. He hated when that happened. But it wasn’t the end of the world, was it?

He sort of looked behind his shoulder briefly, trying to be subtle about it, and pretending to be interested in the shops lining the street. There was no one there. His stupid brain imagining things again, surely.

When he crossed the street in between two cabs, he thought he saw an animal—a dog, or a really big cat—crossing the street right after him, and then hiding between two buildings. Weird. Well, if it was just a dog, then it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe the dog liked Nick’s smell, or something. Maybe it reminded the dog of its previous owner, who was now dead, and the dog had been abandoned in the streets, and—

Stop thinking.

He just kept walking, hands in his pockets, head held high, jaw set, showing anyone who was thinking of randomly bleeding and producing black shadows that he wouldn’t care. Well, it worked, because no one did.

The bar was called Laid-Back. It was an open-minded place—in other words the clientele was mostly gay. The door was painted fire truck red, and it looked small and modest from the outside, but once you got inside it was actually pretty great. There were black painted stairs, and the second floor featured a long bar counter, some lounge areas and a large enough dance floor.

They had hired a new door guy, apparently. Great.

“ID.”

Well of course he wanted to see Nick’s ID. And he had no fake ID. He just knew someone.

“Just a second,” he said.

He called Jay. He was a bartender here, and also a good friend of Nick’s colleague. Nick had been to Laid-Back a couple of times. They were all friends by now. There shouldn’t be a problem. He raked his fingers through his hair as he waited for Jay to pick up the phone.

“What’s up?”

“The new guy won’t let me in.”

“Got it. Come through the back.”

There. No problem. Nick felt the door guy’s stare on his back, but he ignored it. He walked around the building and shivered as the wind got particularly intense. The concrete was all cracked back there. One of his boots almost got stuck in a large crack in the ground, and he stifled a curse. A worn down chain link fence ran around the small, mostly unused parking lot behind the building and the wind was making it rattle against the pavement. Nick spun on his heel as he thought he heard something moving, like the discreet sound of a dog’s paws… That stupid stalker dog again? But he didn’t see anything.

Whatever. It didn’t matter. He whipped around, and saw that Jay was opening the back door for him. They always kept that one locked. Nick hurried inside, eager to get away from the cold. Jay wore skin tight clothes with silver and black necklaces around his neck and shiny designer shoes.

“Two nights in a row, you’re on fire this weekend!” Jay locked the door again.

Nick shrugged. “Yeah, well. Couldn’t stay home, you know? It’s… boring.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. It wasn’t boring, just… the walls kept turning to blood. But he couldn’t really tell him that.

Jay guided him upstairs. They went through the ‘employees only’ section, passing a row of lockers.

“Is Julian coming tonight?” Jay asked.

“Yeah, he texted me earlier. He got a new piercing this morning.”

“Awesome. Where?”

“Nose.”

“I thought he already had one there.”

“Now he has two. He can pull it off.”

“He always does.” Jay pushed a door open and they entered the club. They had to raise their voices to be heard over the music. “Did you do his piercing?” Jay asked.

Nick smiled. “Yeah, I did. He said I did a good job, too.”

“Awesome! It’s cool that he’s letting you learn.”

Nick sat at the bar; a long, slick black bar counter, with bright red stools. The napkins were red, too. That was pretty much the theme of the place. Red and black velvet couches sat in the corners, with glossy black tables. The walls were brick imitation, in a dark, almost black color. The DJ played electronic music, which put Nick in a better mood right away, and the lights were flashing already; strobe lights and multicolored spotlights going all over the place. It wasn’t that crowded yet.

“The usual?” Jay asked.

“Yeah that would be great.”

Jay’s cocktails were awesome. Nick’s favorite was the passion fruit mojito, with extra rum of course. He really needed it right now.

He gave some cash to Jay, and then he let him take care of some other customers. Nick spun on his bar stool and looked at the dance floor. Some people were dancing already. They were being shy about it, laughing with their friends. It was still early. They wouldn’t be shy about it later. The guys would probably take off their shirts, too. Not that anyone was complaining.

Nick let out a deep breath. He took off his jacket, and threw it across the counter. Jay nodded at him, grabbed it and put it safely behind the counter. Nick smiled and took a couple more sips of the delicious drink. It would be okay. He was safe here. Whatever was happening to him wouldn’t follow him here. It couldn’t. This place was full of people. And they were nice, open-minded people. He drank some more, and he relaxed some more. He would just have fun, like always. The music was so great, too. Entrancing, fast-paced, loud bass—the kind that made your heart beat faster. It made him feel like dancing.

Later.

When Julian showed up, Nick ordered two more drinks; one for him, one for his colleague and friend. Julian always made a couple of heads turn. He had red dyed hair and of course lots of piercings and tattoos. He wore skinny jeans and a white tie, and nothing else. At twenty five, Julian already owned his own tattoo and piercing parlor. Nick had been working there for a year now, at first part-time, and now pretty much full time since he was done with school.

He had lied about his age, to get the job. But when Julian found out, he was already attached to Nick, and he didn’t mind. He didn’t fire him. Eighteen was a little young to be a piercer, but why the hell not? Julian said he had the talent for it.

Julian always had so much energy.

“Let’s go dancing!”

“There’s barely anyone—”

“Doesn’t matter! Come on! Jay, you should come dancing with us.”

Jay arched an eyebrow. “I’m working.”

“Ask someone to replace you, or something.”

“Just…” Jay waved with a hand. “Take him dancing, Nick. You guys enjoy your drinks, all right?”

“Come on.” Nick grabbed Julian’s tattooed arm, and led him to the back of the dance floor, right next to the DJ booth and one of the giant speakers. They had turned on the artificial fog machine, or whatever they called it.

“Shit, look at those lights. That’s crazy.” Julian took a sip of his drink, but excruciatingly slowly.

“What did you take?”

Julian gave a helpless shrug. “MDMA. Don’t judge me.”

“You know I don’t judge. In fact,” Nick took a deep breath, “can I have some?”

It wouldn’t hurt to feel good, for once.

Julian tilted his head. “Have you ever had any?”

“Yeah last summer. You don’t remember?”

“Oh yeah. But you didn’t like it.”

“Of course I liked it. That was Roxy.”

Their colleague. Roxy was the tattoo artist. And she hadn’t liked the MDMA because she had mixed up too much alcohol with it. She hadn’t been reasonable. Nick was definitely a reasonable person.

He took the pill Julian slipped him, and swallowed it with a sip of that mojito. Completely reasonable. Just one little pill, and two drinks.

“Oh, I remember that party now! You did like it! You made out with that really hot guy.” Julian’s eyes were huge, with his pupils dilated. “That was a good night.”

Nick smiled as he remembered. “We didn’t just make out.”

“Nice!” Julian smiled back and started dancing.

Nick needed a little more time to get in the mood. But he did like the music, and the atmosphere. He was starting to forget about all the crazy visions stuff. He didn’t even want to think about it anymore. He just wanted to have fun. To enjoy this moment.

He eventually finished his drink, saw that Julian had finished his too, and he went to put the empty glasses on one of those black tables. As he slipped back to where Julian was dancing, Nick spotted a pair of eyes looking at him from all the way across the dance floor. They were nice eyes too, though he couldn’t tell their color from here.

“Hey do you want some?”

Nick looked down, and saw that Julian had taken out a pack of gum. Nick nodded and took one.

He tried to find that guy in the crowd again. And he did. He wasn’t too hard to find, actually. He looked pretty good; handsome in a boyish way, dark blonde hair, tousled and wild as it brushed his shoulders, like a halo around his face. And he was making his way through the crowd, closer to Nick. He looked a bit shy, though, like he felt out of place.

For now, Nick just exchanged knowing glances with the stranger as he danced next to Julian. He wasn’t feeling his high just yet, but he already felt more confident—placebo effect, perhaps. Didn’t matter. He wanted to dance with this guy. Maybe more than dance.

“I won’t be far, okay?” he told Julian.

Julian smiled and nodded, making weird, sort of sensual movements with his arms as he danced. Nick shrugged and pushed his way through the crowd to get to the boy with the inquiring eyes. As he got closer he saw that they were pale green.

“Are you by yourself?” Nick asked him.

“Yeah. It’s my first time here,” he replied. His voice was kind of raspy, like he’d been smoking or something. But that wasn’t a bad thing.

“Do you like it so far?”

“Yeah I think so.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sasha. What’s yours?”

There was something odd about his tone, something forced, or faked. Nick told himself he was probably just being paranoid.

“I’m Nick. It’s nice to meet you.”

He could tell Sasha was athletic, and he was almost as tall as Nick; something like 5’11. His ridiculously tight clothes looked like something his bartender friend Jay would wear. His t-shirt said ‘I want to be tamed.’

“I like your shirt.”

Sasha looked a bit flustered at that. He looked away, pretending to pay attention to some of the other dancers.

“Um, yeah, thanks… I like what you’re wearing, too,” he eventually said.

“It’s my gayest outfit,” Nick replied. Well, it was true; shiny black jeans with a thin—almost transparent—wide neck shirt. “I look silly and proud of it.”

Well, at least this made Sasha laugh. He still seemed really uncomfortable though. That was understandable, Nick supposed, if it was his first time here and if he had come alone.

“You want a drink?”

Nick had decided earlier to be reasonable and all. But he couldn’t let Sasha drink alone, could he? That wouldn’t be very considerate.

Sasha was eyeing the bar counter warily, for some reason.

“I’ll… okay, but I’ll just wait here…”

“They don’t bite, you know?”

Sasha just blinked.

“The bartenders,” Nick said. “One of them is my friend. He won’t card you if that’s what you’re worried about.” Sasha did look underage. Not that Nick was judging.

Still no answer. Nick figured maybe mister-pretty-boy had no cash to buy drinks and was embarrassed about it.

So Nick pointed toward Julian.

“You can go with my friend if you want. The one with the red hair. I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay, cool.”

Nick got another mojito, and he got a strawberry-coconut daiquiri for his new friend. It was another one of Jay’s specialties. It was much sweeter. He had a feeling Sasha would like it.

As he made his way back there, he let himself enjoy the music. It was so good, so intense… And damn, those multicolored flashing lights really were amazing.

Crap. He was starting to feel his high. That was bad timing. Sasha would think he was some weirdo. Which he wasn’t, of course. He was a completely normal person. At least he wanted to be one tonight. Good news was, at least he wasn’t having any freaky visions. He felt strangely safe here. Best decision ever.

So he just needed to focus on acting normal. Act normal. Act normal.

Sasha thanked him for the drink and tried it. And then his eyes brightened, which made Nick feel really, really happy—but that could be the drug, too.

“This is really good!”

“I’m so glad you like it.”

Oh, God, the music was so great. Nick started moving, he couldn’t help it. And he took a sip of his mojito. A very slow, careful sip. It tasted pretty good. He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying it. Then he opened them again, and realized Sasha was staring at him.

Right. He was probably acting weird. But this felt so great, like everything was in slow motion. There were so many people around, and they all looked great, and Nick suddenly felt the urge to go talk to every single one of them, and ask them if they were having fun.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Sasha asked.

“Nothing.” Nick cleared his throat, and looked away.

Nick went to dance closer to Julian. “How are you feeling?”

“So great, man. You?”

“I’m starting to feel it. Do I look normal?”

“Perfectly normal. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

He nodded slowly, and saw that Sasha was staring at them. Oh well, whatever. Julian said he looked normal, so it was probably fine.

“You look really hot,” he told Sasha before he could stop himself.

Sasha’s face flushed a bit at that, and he just started drinking his cocktail really quickly. Nick smiled and moved a little closer.

“You don’t want to dance?”

He slowly curled his arm around Sasha’s waist. And they started dancing, but Sasha was really tense. He looked away, and swallowed. Nick could see his Adam’s apple moving. He wanted to kiss his neck. Sasha’s skin was a nice pale gold shade.

“Um, Nick, I want to ask you something…” He sounded so nervous.

“Relax. What is it?”

“I, um… Wait, never mind.” He took a couple more sips of his berry red drink. Some of it lingered on his lips before he licked them. God…

He really wanted to kiss him.

But then he stopped. He stopped moving completely. Something was off. He suddenly… stopped feeling good. But… that wasn’t right. This stupid drug was supposed to last three hours, not three minutes.

‘Drugs won’t help you.’

What was that? That voice in his head again. It didn’t even sound mean, just… mocking. But still. Come on, not now. It was going so great. They were having so much fun.

“Nick? What’s wrong?” Sasha hesitantly took his arm. His skin was warm. No, Nick realized, it was his own skin that was becoming cold. He always got cold when the visions happened.

When he breathed, it came out as white smoke. He started shivering really badly. This was ridiculous. It was really warm inside the club.

Several people on the dance floor had their faces covered in blood. It was trickling down their bodies. He knew it wasn’t real. He closed his eyes. But when he opened them, everyone was covered in blood. Even Sasha.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I have to go outside.”