In the City of the Nightmare King

by V. S. Santoni

  Inside the speeding vehicle, the driver struggled with a burger wrapper, too distracted to notice the boy in the road. The boy lowered his phone and, seeing the oncoming car, tensed his body and shrank. Time slowed down and the car came to a sudden halt. Confusion flooded the boy’s face when he realized the driver hadn’t hit the brakes. He neared the vehicle in disbelief, even touched it to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but it still didn’t move. He ran across the street to safety, and the car resumed moving. The entire sequence replayed in the oculus as if it were a looping video. The somnambulists all spoke at once, each repeating the same words: “Demetrius Johnson. Age sixteen. Address: 3752 Hastings Street; Atlanta, Georgia.”

  Melchior depressed a triangular button pinned to his lab coat. The owl-man’s face transformed again, feathers slipping under flesh, talons reverting into fingernails, yellow eyes shrinking and turning blue as he shapeshifted back into a human.

  A Smith walked in. “Yes, sir.”

  “Demetrius Johnson. Age sixteen. Address: Hastings Street, 3752; Atlanta, Georgia,” Melchior said.

  “Yes, sir.” The Smith left as quickly as he’d arrived. The vampire’s face turned back into an owl head.

  “What was that?” I asked Mikey.

  “That was how the Institute finds wizards right as their powers develop. The magic ring around the Institute magnifies our magical sensitivity, and the Institute uses us and this mechanism to track them down.”

  The vampire spoke: “The time of the quelling is upon us. Mammon has grown extremely hungry. Only the souls of thousands of wizards will keep him sated, else he escapes his prison in the Dreamhaven and sets back our plans.”

  “Yes, Alichino,” Melchior responded.

  “How go the preparations?”

  “As expected.”

  Contrary to what Gaspar had led us to believe, the quelling wasn’t used to maintain the power hierarchy in wizard society; from the sounds of it, it was used to feed a monster trapped in the Dreamhaven. A monster called Mammon.

  “I’ve heard tell that you’ve had problems with the rebels. A few escapees that encountered Mammon themselves in the Dreamhaven.”

  “Nothing we can’t handle. Our operation in Chicago has routed the source. Furthermore, we’ve been able to uncover where the Defectors have transported their central hub, Sanctuary.”

  “Where?”

  “The Sonoran Desert, thirty miles northwest of Blythe, California.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Their Sanctuary is running low on supplies. They will need to contact the Defector cell in Blythe, which we have infiltrated. I’ve sent our agents to finish the job.”

  Alichino and Melchior started for the door. Before he walked out, Alichino stopped and looked around the room. His focus fell on Mikey, who stared back with icy hate. Alichino smiled and continued out the door with Melchior.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Alison said, “and what did you mean when you said he was a vampire? Like glittering in the sun and drinking blood and stuff?”

  Mikey watched the door like he waited for them to return. “Drinking blood, yes, but the rest is nonsense. Vampires are wizards who’ve made deals with Void-spawns in exchange for power. The wizard must join their soul with the Void-spawn and become what is known as a dual-soul. What they become can only be likened to a living god. The hunger for blood is a side effect of the wizard’s union with the Void-spawn.”

  “Why was that vampire bossing Melchior around?” I asked.

  “Because Alichino is one of the Institute’s administrators. He is, in fact, the only administrator I’ve ever seen.”

  Blake walked back to the tube containing Mikey’s actual body. “Will the Dreamhaven prisoners get the green sickness too?”

  “No. We are exposed to a much higher dosage than they are.”

  “So, they’re just using you guys like batteries for their magic-finding machine?” Alison said. It was crude, and insensitive, but completely true. “What about the quelling? And . . . feeding Mammon?”

  “From what I’ve gathered, Mammon is a Void-spawn, a very powerful one. They keep it trapped in the dreamworld and feed it wizards to keep it happy, but every thirty years, the creature grows extremely ravenous and tries to escape. The Institute performs the quelling ritual and gorges the beast on souls to pacify it.”

  “How long have they been doing that?” I asked.

  “I only know of two other times they’ve mentioned.”

  “When?”

  “They didn’t give specific dates.”

  “Why? Why’re they keeping it in there? What plans might it interfere with?”

  “That I do not know.”

  “Alichino said we encountered Mammon. Was Mammon that giant monster that came after us when we were looking for the Cave of Miracles?”

  “Although I’ve never actually seen it, I’ve sensed a powerful Void-spawn in the mist, so I assume so, yes. The mist in the Dreamhaven and that monster you fought were manifestations of Mammon.”

  “What if we stop the quelling?” Alison asked.

  “The beast might escape.”

  “Then what?”

  “I do not know.”

  The grim uncertainty in his response left my blood cold. Stopping the Institute’s monstrous quelling meant unleashing a Void-spawn so powerful that it frightened even the demigod-like vampires. These Void-spawns were natural allies, but something had stoked a shadowy power struggle that led them to imprison one of their own. All so they could pursue plans unknown to any of us.

  “So, is this why you brought us here?” Blake asked.

  “No,” Mikey said. “This isn’t everything. Come”—he started phasing through the floor and into the room below—“I have more to show you.”

  We sunk through the floor intangibly and hovered down into a room filled with upright glass tanks, many much larger than the Dreamhaven pods. Each vat contained a bizarre creature floating in eirineftis. My wizard sense immediately told me the things inside the tanks were Void-spawns. Much like the Dreamhaven facility, this lab also arranged its tubes in rows, but being so large far fewer tubes occupied the space. The tank nearest where I landed held a serpentine monster with a face like a rooster—beak and wattles and everything—and sharp, raised fins that covered its scaly body. Cannulas stabbed into its flesh drew out a purple fluid that flowed into a quietly humming pump next to the tank. The purple liquid gathered into an obround-shaped glass chamber at the top of the pump. The next tank over contained a creature with a man’s torso, but a face and wings like a bat. Its body was also riddled with cannulas extracting purple fluid.

  “What are they doing to the Void-spawns?” I asked Mikey.

  “They are withdrawing the raw materials they use to manufacture eirineftis.”

  “But this stuff’s purple,” Blake said as he leaned over and analyzed the first creature.

  “Yes, before it’s been refined.”

  The Institute captured Void-spawns and drained their blood to make eirineftis. They then used that eirineftis to seize wizards and other Void-spawns. One row over was a busted tank, broken glass jagged like sharp teeth. The pump connected to the tube was lifeless, but a clipboard dangled off its side. The first page header read: Subject: 004199 Bandersnatch. Scribbles loaded with scientific jargon followed. We had encountered a Void-spawn called the Bandersnatch when I first came to the Institute. At the time, I wondered if the creature had escaped. This left little doubt.

  Blake walked up behind me and eased a hand on my shoulder. I gave him a pale look and handed him the clipboard.

  “Bandersnatch,” he said at a low rasp.

  Below where the clipboard hung, a red tube extended from the pump and plunged into the floor. All the pumps had similar red tubes. “Where do these go?” I asked Mikey.

  “Into Lake Mi
sty,” Mikey said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The machine synthesizes eirineftis from the blood, and they pump it into the lake.”

  Alison made a grossed-out face. “Yuck! Why the hell would they do that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Blake said. “People drink the water and it kills their powers.”

  “You mean they’re using this stuff to keep people from becoming wizards?”

  We gathered around Mikey. “Yes,” he said. “Blake is correct. The eirineftis is pumped into Lake Misty, purified, and bottled in the Pura factory, then it is shipped all over the country.”

  “But not everyone drinks Pura bottled water,” I said.

  “No, but Pura has a contract with this country’s government, so, one way or another, Pura’s water finds itself in everything: food, drinks, even the manufacturing of plastic. The continued exposure to eirineftis keeps the masses from manifesting their powers, but it also withers their health.” But the method wasn’t foolproof—Alison and I had proven that. Of course, that’s why the Institute existed, to pick up the stragglers and feed them to . . . Mammon.

  The world around us melted away like an illusion, leaving us standing on a platform floating in a sea of darkness. Like many times before in the Night City, some unseen light illuminated everything, allowing us to see each other. The floating island wasn’t remarkable—just a desolate piece of gray rock. The Nightmare King had transported us back to the Night City.

  Mikey walked to the platform’s edge and turned his back to the Void. “Go and tell the other Defectors what I’ve shown you. Hopefully this information will help them save the others.”

  “You almost killed us with your bugs and shrinking hallways,” Alison said. “You could’ve just asked nicely.”

  “Forgive me. I wouldn’t really have hurt you. I just wanted a bit of fun before I died,” said Mikey.

  “Charming. I bet you make friends easily.”

  Mikey turned his back to us and gazed into the darkness, like a child staring into the mouth of a well. “My time here is over. But where you go, no Nightmare King may follow, for there is something more powerful in the Night City than I.”

  His words triggered memories. Hanno Scherrer had written the same thing in his journal. The Night City’s final guardian wasn’t the Nightmare King; it was Death.

  “What’re you going to do?” Blake asked.

  Inky tentacles crept up from the cliff’s edge and slithered around Mikey’s legs. “I’ve been sick for too long. Now, the Void must claim me, as it does all things.” He paused as the tentacles climbed to his thighs; they wrapped around his waist, his arms. “You’d do well to turn away, Johnny. With your magic restored, leave this place. You can’t rescue Hunter. The Void has already claimed him, and it will drag him back to nothingness.” He waited for his words to settle on my mind. “Blake, I’m sorry. What happened to Gerald wasn’t your fault. Stop blaming yourself. You don’t have to be everyone’s protector. Please, start protecting yourself.”

  “Mikey!” Blake reached for him, but the shadowy tentacles succeeded in pulling Mikey into the darkness.

  Chapter 19

  Hunter’s aura was just beyond the darkness ahead. Stronger, closer—so close his minty breath rang fresh in my nose. Our quest to save him had detoured because we needed the Nightmare King, Mikey, to drop his magic barrier, and now that he was gone and his spell lifted, our powers were back. Only one obstacle remained: confronting Death itself. I had never planned to let Alison and Blake follow me this far. No matter what they did or said, I wouldn’t let them come any farther. Rocks clumped together before me, shaping into a bridge that extended over the darkness.

  “You two go back,” I said, “you have to warn the Defectors that they’re walking into a trap.” I took a few steps onto the bridge.

  “We do this together, Johnny,” Blake started for the bridge, but the bridge snapped and moved away from the platform.

  “Johnny, no!” Alison tried to grab me, but it was too late—her and Blake were already shrinking behind me. Going it alone scared me, but they had helped me enough. Only I could shoulder this burden, and I wouldn’t let them risk their lives for my foolish endeavor.

  The rocky bridge stretched so far ahead that its terminus didn’t even register. Fear plagued my lonely walk, and in the darkness strange sounds, like those I heard in the mist back in the Dreamhaven, surrounded me. They took all forms, from trilling, low-pitched gurgles to reptilian growls and high-pitched whines, like babies crying. The Void’s somber call reached for me. I uncomfortably wrapped my arms around myself and sped up. But no matter how far along the bridge I walked, I never came any closer to the end.

  A crumbling sound came from behind. I turned and gasped when I saw a Goliath monster, human in shape, towering like a hundred-story skyscraper and hovering in the darkness. Its freakishly pale skin looked gnarled and twisted, as if horribly burned, and spidery blue veins crept around its chest and shoulders. An oily whirlpool sloshed in the middle of its chest, with tarry creatures that resembled people moaning and reaching out from it. Amid all their indistinguishable cries, they called my name: “Johnny.” The hole in its chest created a powerful suction that pulled apart the rock bridge and swallowed it piece by piece. Its monstrous aura reeked of one thing: Death.

  Its tornadic chest cavity threatened to suck me in and pulverize me. I broke into a desperate sprint. But no matter how far my legs carried me, the bridge stretched on infinitely.

  An unfamiliar woman’s voice cut through the air: “Johnny!” It distracted me and made me lose focus on the bridge spell. The rocks wobbled, ready to drop me into the Void. I kept running but tightened my hold on the magic holding the bridge together. A shadowy tentacle whished past my ear and embedded itself in the ground ahead. Great, the big scary monster had stabby tentacles.

  The woman called my name again, this time more distressed: “Johnny!” Five more inky tentacles sprang out of the whirlpool on the monster’s chest and flew toward me. Fear muddled me, and I lost the spell. The path collapsed. I imagined myself whipping through space and appearing in Alison’s mom’s attic in Chicago, then I crashed to the floor.

  I quickly checked myself for wounds. Luckily, the creature’s tentacles hadn’t flayed me. Where was I? Frantically, I canvassed my surroundings—a darkened attic filled with wooden crates, old toys, and a few empty chests. It certainly wasn’t Alison’s mom’s attic, but at least it wasn’t the Void. It dawned on me then that physical space didn’t exist in Everywhen. With my magic restored, reaching Hunter only required I will myself closer to him. The bridge had been a manifestation of that desire.

  Behind me, a lattice window in a gable stared out across a ruined city. Rain buffeted empty buildings along the avenues of a war-torn sprawl, and debris congested the streets in big chunks. This was the city I’d seen on the horizon when I first came looking for Hunter. The lightless Void spread across the sky like a ceiling, but in the distance, it looked like a supernatural fire painted green-blue streaks that extended high into the darkness. Hunter was out there. I could feel him.

  A hatch with a ladder led me down from the attic and into a murky hallway. Every door along the passage was locked, but at the end of the hallway I found an imperial staircase leading down to an entryway. This place was like a shadow version of Sanctuary. Two locked French doors barred me from the antechamber at the bottom of the stairs. I forced them open with a thought.

  A woman wearing a silver hauberk and cuirass with a single pauldron covering her left shoulder waited in the antechamber, blocking the front doors. A tiara spiked with a single horn nested in her long white hair, and she carried a sword strapped to her hip. Her aura soothed me. It washed over me in comforting waves, told me I was safe around her. It reminded me of Hunter, but I didn’t know why.

  “I need to get past you,” I said brusquely.

 
“I’m coming with you.”

  “What? Who are you?”

  “You’ve met me before,” she said. “My name is Amalthea.”

  The first time I came to Misthaven, Hunter introduced me to a kindly and mysterious old wizard named Alwina. Hunter had been working for her as a stable boy. She kept a unicorn named Amalthea at her farm. “But you’re . . . not a unicorn.”

  “I take on many forms.”

  I remembered the strange light orb that had guided me through Darkwood Forest. The neighing of a horse and the clopping of hooves. “Were you in . . . Darkwood Forest? Did you lead me to the magic pond in the Dreamhaven?”

  “I am bonded to Hunter. I must rescue him, or we will both die,” she said, ignoring my question. Long ago, I’d sensed Hunter on Amalthea’s aura. Finally I knew why.

  “Bonded? Like a Void-spawn?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought wizards turned into vampires when they formed a dual-soul with a Void-spawn?”

  “The word Void-spawn is used to describe many different types of beings. I am not like the creatures who make wizards into vampires. Our will, our intentions, define the nature of our bonds. Those of us who seek to do good form good bonds with wizards; however, those of us who seek to do evil, likewise, form evil bonds. Similarly, our own strength dictates the nature of the bond.”

  Different types of Void-spawns formed different types of bonds with wizards. Void-spawns existed in a hierarchy, some more powerful and more complex than others; some cruel and malicious, others kind and benevolent. Surely, the more powerful Void-spawns made more powerful bonds, but in the case of vampires, that bond came at a cost. “Hunter never told me he was . . . bonded to you.”

  “I came to him in a dream and asked him to form the dual-soul with me. I’m certain he never quite understood the implications of that dream.”

  “So, you . . . possessed him?”

  “No. Taking control of a wizard’s body is not the same as forming a dual-soul. Hunter and I exist in synchrony. He is not subjugated by my will. Furthermore, if the host of a possession dies, there is no threat to the existence of the occupying entity. If one part of a dual-soul dies, so does the other.”