by Tim Akers
Esther stalked into view, crouching forward with her shield tilted up, and an assault rifle gripped in both hands. Her sword was slung across her back, the flat brim of her helmet tilted close to her eyes. She fired a roaring enfilade down the hallway, her whole body quivering with the recoil. It was deafening. She shouted something behind her, then locked eyes with me.
“Rast, get over here! Your friend is trying to get to the actuator! We have to cut him off before he reaches the core!”
“But I...but I...”
A hail of bullets hissed down the hallway, dancing against the stones and sending shrapnel into the air. Esther ducked down, sighted her rifle, and sent three short bursts downrange. Then she stalked forward. There was a muffled thump ahead of her. As I stood numbly watching, a whole fireteam came up in Esther’s wake. They were MA troops, olive-drab tac gear caked with dust, rifles up, moving liquid smooth down the hallway, as if they shared one mind, one will. At their head was Gabrielle.
“Owen, we need to secure this door. Whatever that thing is, it came out of the containment zone! We can’t afford to get flanked,” she yelled. Owen appeared out of the murk. He knelt beside the door and started messing with it. There was a shower of sparks, and the walls started sliding shut.
Gabrielle glanced up and locked eyes with me. In just that brief instant she weighed me, assessed my threat level, and discarded me from her mind. I wasn’t dangerous. But I wasn’t helpful, either. If anything, she looked disappointed.
“Take a knee, Rast,” she barked. “We’ll handle this.”
The walls were rumbling closed. She and Owen disappeared down the hall, into a rippling exchange of gunfire. In a second, I wouldn’t be able to follow. It would be out of my hands. In fact, I might not fit through that rapidly narrowing gap even now. It was probably best to stay here, stay down, stay safe.
I jumped through the gap, landing in a cloud of smoke and whistling bullets. The portal slammed shut right behind me. The klaxons were deafening. I could barely see in the roiling smoke. Muzzle flashes sparkled to my right, answered by a brief blast of machine pistol fire, and Eric’s cackling laughter.
To my complete surprise, I ran toward the fight.
Chapter THIRTY-THREE
MUNDANE APOCALYPSE
The hallways of Mundane Actual were in chaos. Gabrielle and her team disappeared into a roiling cloud of smoke, taking the running gun battle with them. I tried to follow, but they were moving fast, and clearly didn’t want to wait up for a slightly out of shape knight in full plate. There were bullet holes in the drywall, and most of the harsh fluorescent lights were shot out. I passed a few doors, but the keypads next to them were flashing LOCKOUT, and the ones I tried were sealed tight.
Guess that leaves me only one way to go. Where was it Esther said Eric was going? The actuator? What could he possibly want there? I thought. Wait, didn’t he say something about the actuator to Chesa?
I was coming up on a T-intersection when Gabrielle’s team came out of nowhere. They were falling back down the crossing passageway, appearing briefly before retreating to my right. Gunfire stitched the air in front of me, the disciplined fire of an orderly withdrawal, but moments later they opened up with everything. An absolute hail of lead crossed the hallway in front of me, chewing through drywall and zipping into the ceiling. Tracer rounds turned the air bright yellow. The clatter of rounds impacting against something hard and impenetrable rose to my left, and moments later Eric stepped into view.
The self-titled Anachromancer held his staff in front of him with his left hand, and the stubby machine pistol in his right. A dome of spent bullets hovered in the air around his staff, with more piling up by the second. Eric fired back indiscriminately. There was a dry clatter from the gun, then a flash of light around the magazine and the shots continued unabated. Eric was laughing in a very mechanical bark. His feet were swathed in squirming roots that tore out of the ground each time he took a step forward, only to burrow into the concrete whenever he set his squamous foot back down.
The gunfire from down the hall came to a stop. Eric kept shooting for a few seconds, then lowered his weapon and shrugged. He shook his staff, dislodging the field of hovering bullets, sending them clattering to the floor like a thousand piggy banks spilling their coiny guts onto the concrete. That’s when he noticed me.
“John! I thought you were done for. Man, I’m glad you’re here.”
“So you can shoot me again?”
“I mean, eventually, sure. But it looks like your friends have given up.” He gestured broadly down the hallway. His eyes shone with madness. “I’m sorry, it looks like they’ve executed a strategic retreat to gather their thoughts. Maybe come up with a new plan. That’s the part of the story we’re at, right? The hero forms a plan? Moment of darkness?” He laughed maniacally. “Are you waiting for the big reversal, John? Because it isn’t coming.”
“What the hell are you doing here, Eric?” I asked. I crept closer, shield close to my body and sword in a low guard.
“John, man, I need you to focus up, here. We’re changing history. We’re making a new world. A new world! My own world. It’s going to be marvelous.” Eric stood casually, staff cradled in the crook of his left arm, the machine pistol swinging comfortably in his right, beaming like a drunk at the ren faire. If it weren’t for the lingering smell of cordite and trees growing out of his tear ducts, he might have been my old friend.
But he wasn’t. All the shit that had happened in the last few weeks, it was all on him. My parents’ house, Matthew almost dying, the very fact that I was in this world in the first place. All of it. And here he was strolling casually toward me, grinning like an idiot.
“You’re not making anything, Eric. You’re destroying things. Does this look like a new creation to you?” I asked, backing up as he came closer. I motioned to the torn-up walls, the smoke rising from burning flakes of drywall, the flashing alarms. “You’re ruining everything!”
“Well, not everything,” he said. “Not the parts I like. And I don’t like this part.”
“That’s not for you to decide!”
“Sure it is,” he said. He stopped by a door flashing LOCKOUT and paused. “I’m literally the guy deciding. This door? Not very compelling.” He pressed the MP5 to the keypad and squeezed off a stream of blistering lead. The keypad disintegrated, and the door popped open. Eric pushed it open with his staff, leaned inside and looked around. “Looks like a break room. Break rooms are boring. Gonna write it out of the script.” He produced a grenade out of thin air, popped the pin out with his thumb, and tossed it into the room, then kicked the door shut with his heel and walked toward me. There was a muffled thud, and the door blew open, showering us both in debris. I stumbled backward, shield up, wincing as cinders danced off the ground at my feet. Eric was nonplussed. “We’ll do something better with that space. Trust me.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted, backing up. The hallway opened up around me, becoming a larger room. “You could have killed someone!”
“Kill your darlings, they say. My darlings. And I don’t even like these people. Too serious. And I have to be honest, John, I’m not really feeling our relationship is going that well. I think it’s time for us to see other morality paradigms.”
My heel banged into something solid, nearly toppling me. I waved my arms to regain my balance, then took a look around. My heart sank. The smoke was clearing out, and the shattered walls and scorched ceiling made the place difficult to recognize. But one glance behind me confirmed my worst fears. I was standing at the bottom of the wide stairs that led up to the vault that held the actuator. The vault door was closed, and a flashing light signaled emergency conditions overhead. Somewhere, a klaxon sounded. Nothing stood between Eric and his goal except me.
“What’s the matter, John? Hoping someone’s going to come save you?” Eric asked. I took a step onto the stairs, shield and sword at my side. “Done with being a hero?”
I was ab
out to answer when he lifted the MP and started shooting. There’s something primal about being shot at. I reacted the way any sane, nonmagical person would have, by jumping away and cowering. Bullets stitched their way across the floor toward me, and I kept dancing side to side. After several heart-stopping seconds, the little machine pistol rattled empty.
“Oh no, John! John, I’m out of bullets! Oh no!” Eric stared at his gun with open-mouthed horror. “What will I do? My plans are ruined! Oh wait, I’m not out of bullets at all!” The flash of light returned, traveling up the length of the magazine. I could hear the brass shells clicking together, like dominoes being lined up. “I never run out of bullets! Ever!”
“You never run out of being an asshole, either,” I said.
“Snappy comeback. Too bad there’s no audience.” He dropped the barrel, sighting straight at my chest. The muzzle flash nearly blinded me.
A whole magazine’s worth of bullets slammed into my chest. There was a long tearing roar as he emptied the gun. I stood there, waiting for the smoke to clear. When the pin clicked down on an empty chamber, Eric lowered the gun and stared at me.
The silver disks of deformed bullets slid off my chest, singing as they bounced off the concrete stairs. I kicked them aside and descended.
“Reversal,” I said, rolling my shoulders. My neck popped in a very satisfying yet slightly gratuitous manner. “And now the big reveal.”
I raised the shield, blocking Eric from view but also blinding him to the movement of my blade. I drew my sword overhead and charged forward. A few scattered shots ricocheted off the face of the shield, then I heard Eric drop the machine pistol. Impact, and I swept the shield aside, chopping down with the sword. Eric caught the forte of my sword in the crook of his staff and twisted it to the side. I flicked my wrist, magically changing the enarme straps of my heater to single-hand in the middle, then punched Eric in the throat with the rim of the shield. He stumbled back, and I followed up with a sweeping slash. He barely got his staff up to block. My blade bit deeply into the ropey wood of the staff. I punched again with the shield, driving him back, yelling as I struck again and again, each blow hacking at the staff. Sweat broke out across Eric’s face.
“It’s not all drinking and flirting with pretty girls, Eric,” I said. “You might have spent some time fighting, if you meant to be a proper villain.”
“Not really my thing,” he answered. “Too much sweat.” He knocked my shield aside then thrust with the staff, forcing me to retreat. “Besides, magic is easier.”
“Yeah, I have that, too.” I flexed my fingers in the tight embrace of the shield’s leather grip. Panels irised open around the edge, transforming the heater into a round Viking shield.
“Not very flashy,” Eric said. “Try this.”
He waved his staff overhead in a wide arc, then slammed it down in front of him. A twisting creeper tore free from the staff and rolled toward me, growing as it approached, until it was about the size of a bike wheel. I slashed at it, but the whirling vines twisted up around the blade, tangling the sword. I danced to the side, pulling my sword free, trailing vines, and slashed again. Tangling roots crawled across my hilt and onto my hands. Before I could counterswing, my wrists were trapped, with leafy vines spreading up my arm. I jerked back, but the squirming vines were implacable.
“This isn’t your story we’re writing,” Eric said. He was out of breath, but his cheeks were flush, and his eyes glassy. “No more than it’s Chesa’s, or your precious Watch. It’s my story. My destiny. Mine!”
He approached. Half my body was trapped in vines, but I still had my shield. I swung it at him, the rim glancing off his shoulder. He batted it aside, then circled my wrist in his hand. I tried to change my grip again, but vines burst out of the veins on the back of Eric’s hand. They crawled across my hand, burrowing between my skin and the leather straps of the shield. The shield fell to the ground, transforming back to a heater as it hit the floor. Eric grabbed me by the shoulders, then pulled backward. To my great surprise, the fantasy version of Eric Cavanaugh was as strong as an ox. I vaulted over his shoulder, to land headfirst on the ground behind him. I rolled, somehow springing to my feet, though I was woozy from the impact. My sword landed in a tangle of vines, well out of reach. My shield was still at Eric’s feet. He kicked it at me contemptuously.
“If all they gave you was a magic shield, you kinda got screwed, John,” he said.
Eric shook the staff, smiling as it reformed. Twisting vines grew up in the gaps I had hacked out, the whole shaft growing wide before knitting itself back together. Eric’s fingers were intertwined with the staff, as though he was becoming part of it. Roots burrowed into the back of his hand, tapping into his veins, spreading out under his skin.
That doesn’t look good, I mused, before remembering that Eric was trying to kill me, and that his well-being was the least of my concerns. I scooped up my shield, then looked around for a weapon. There was a pistol lying discarded in the rubble of a collapsed hallway. I tried not to think about what had become of its owner and snatched it up. Safety was already off, so I leveled it at Eric’s face. He raised his brows.
“You think that’s going to work, John?” he asked, more curious than accusatory. “I mean, those guys must have shot me a hundred times. What makes you so special?”
“Beats me. I mean, I was able to kill a dragon with a car. Esther said that was impossible. Maybe if I can do that, I can kill an asshole with a gun.”
“Oh, but you didn’t really kill that dragon. I did. Kind of. See, I figured out this mythological world thing existed, but every time I pressed into it, I got pushed back. Like it was rejecting me. I needed someone else to break the veil and take the brunt of that pushback, and then I could kind of slip in through the gap while everyone’s eyes were on you. You remember the favor I gave you? That’s what dragged Kracek into our world, and let you kill him with your mom’s car.” He brushed his fingers off on his robes, strolling casually forward while he talked. “Man, she must have been pissed about that. Did she ground you, John? God, I’ve been thinking about that for weeks.”
“You did this. All of this. My parents’ house, Tom Tom...people are dying, Eric. Is that worth it?”
“You’re being a little ungrateful, John. Without me, you never would have found this place. Don’t lie, you’ve enjoyed the last few weeks. You like being a hero. But that’s over now. All of this is.”
“Not yet it isn’t,” I said.
I squeezed the trigger, wincing as the pistol barked in my hand.
Or...more like chirruped. Maybe croaked...I had inadvertently shut my eyes, and when I peeled them open, I saw my pistol had turned into a centipede the size of a proper Chicago hot dog. It writhed in my hand, tiny legs scratching at my palm. I dropped it with a yelp, dancing away as it scurried back into the debris.
“You always did have a way of breaking things in the most interesting ways,” Eric said. “That’s what made me think you’d make a good decoy, actually. Like the world was already rejecting you. Like a disease, John. Too strange for the mundane, and too boring for the mythological. But you’re starting to get too interesting. Time to put that to an end.”
Then Eric shoved his staff into my belly. Even through the armor, it was a hard blow, and knocked the wind out of me. I backed up, tripping over something and came down hard on my butt.
“It’s not too late, you know,” Eric said as he strode over the wreckage of the hallway. There had been a lot of fighting here, and at least one heavy explosion. “Chesa and I had an agreement. I promised to not bother her, and she promised to not get in my way. But sometimes people break promises. You know all about that, don’t you, John? Chesa really thought you two were going to go the distance. But there’s no reason you can’t have a second chance. Go, build your own place, just the two of you. That cabin of yours would make a good start. All you have to do is walk away.”
“I can’t,” I said, struggling to my feet. “I can’t let you
get away with this.”
“You don’t really have a choice,” he said, then slammed his staff into the ground. Roots burrowed through the concrete, running toward me in a jagged path, cracking the floor open like an egg. I tried to back away, but they climbed the stairs faster than I could move. I turned to run.
And slammed smack into the closed bank vault of the actuator room. I bounced off the steel drum of the door and fell down the stairs. Eric’s twisting roots erupted from the ground, seizing me by wrist and ankle and chest, squeezing until I couldn’t move, not even to turn my head. His footsteps slowly climbed the stairs, until he was standing next to me. I stared up at his twisted body, wincing at the thorns poking through his cheekbones and piercing the flesh of his forehead.
“I think we’re done here, John. I have more important things to be doing right now.” He gestured, and a stalk of roots jumped up to slam into the number pad on the door. Eric’s eyes lost focus and the roots squirmed. “It’s always something obvious. Just have to feel...it...out. There.”
There was a pleasant chime, and then the vault unsealed with a hiss. The handwheel spun, and then the door creaked open. Inside, klaxons sounded, and frenzied voices started shouting. A string of bullets zipped through the opening.
“This has been pleasant, John. If you’d like to get together later to discuss my writing, I’d be happy to do that. As long as you promise to actually READ THE DAMN BOOK FIRST!” Eric adjusted and calmed himself, smoothing his robes as he approached the door. “Goodbye, John.” As he stepped across the threshold, the yelling from inside got louder, and was answered by a peal of thunder and Eric’s mad laughter. The door started to close.
I looked back down the hallway, where Esther and Gabrielle and the rest were hiding. There was no time. I couldn’t wait for them to catch up.
I jumped through the vault door. It boomed shut just as I cleared the threshold.