A Conversation in Blood by Paul S. Kemp

Author:Paul S. Kemp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-01-24T05:00:00+00:00

The Afterbirth ran out of the building that smelled of sweat and urine and sex and vomit and lurched through the dark streets. He left a trail of his blood in his wake like a line of crimson thread stretching out behind him, but he soon felt the pinch in his skin as the wounds he’d suffered stitched closed. He knew he was taking a great risk moving openly through the street but he could smell the Great Spell in the air, smell it as sharply as ever and he could accept no delay no none. He’d rely on the dark to conceal his appearance, to hide the truth of him.

At his passage dogs barked and growled from out of the night, cats hissed and darted down alleys, and horses and mules whinnied with fear, bucking in their stalls and pens. His weight cracked cobblestones underfoot and he hunched low, knuckles sometimes scraping the street. The hour left the avenues mostly empty but he saw or smelled a few people, most of them rife with the stink of alcohol and unwashed bodies. He could feel their eyes on him as he passed, could guess at the questions his form raised he figured they’d assume the night or their drink or drugs had played tricks with their vision and that they’d mistook what they saw.

The spoor of the Great Spell was rich in the air, more powerful than he’d ever sensed since…since as far back as he could remember, and what he could remember he could not trust as his own. He drooled and muttered as he ran, following his noses, sometimes needing to double back and circle around because he hit a dead end, but moving ever south through the city. The sun would rise before too long. Already the sky to the east had gone from black to gray, the stars fading into the background. He had to hurry.

“Fasterfasterfaster.”

In time the roads gave way to a large park or plaza, a swath of grass and trees and statues. The Afterbirth did not slow and hurried across the park, muttering with excitement and hope, moving toward a large walled compound at the park’s far end. The Great Spell was behind the walls, he could smell it, could almost taste it, and spit dripped from his malformed mouths, mingled with the blood to further wet his cloak.

Somewhere in the minds that inhabited his numb malformed body was the knowledge of how to cast the Great Spell. He would use it to end his existence, end his pain, for a word rose out of the murky depths of his memories, hit him hard enough to temporarily slow his stride.

Palimpsest.

He could not remember what it meant but the word stuck, a splinter in his memory, irritating, needing to be pulled out. He knew that it had to do with the Great Spell, with an error in the casting, but…

It struck him and he remembered that in the casting there were leftovers, always leftovers, like him, the Afterbirth, that was it, that was what he wanted to recall.

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