That was the difference between the Mara that had taken over Mikey’s body and Amalthea. If they were powerful enough, Void-spawns could crudely take over someone’s body, residing inside the host like a parasite, but a dual-soul was a special bond, usually mutual.
“You tricked Hunter into forming a dual-soul with you. Why?”
“Because I needed him.”
“For what?”
“To fight against the Void’s servants.”
“So, you formed a dual-soul with Hunter to spy on the Institute?”
“Yes.”
“Do you even care about what happens to him, or are you only using him as a tool?”
“We are a dual-soul. If the Void claims him, it claims me as well.”
“What happens if you leave Hunter and form a dual-soul with another wizard?”
“A futile gesture: I would carry the Void-touch with me.”
“So, you’re only here because you’re scared of dying?”
She gave me a passionless look. Void-spawns didn’t think like humans. To Amalthea, Hunter served only as means to an end—she needed him alive to accomplish that end. Her selfish reasoning angered me, her tricking Hunter into forming a dual-soul, but telling her no wouldn’t dissuade her.
“I need to hurry,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Rain slickened the desolate streets outside, making for dangerous, uneven footing. The never-ending rain eroded the skeletal buildings around us. Humanity’s fears about Death had created this place, the final gateway to the Void. Its quietly pattering rain—lonely and cold—was a solemn reminder of Death’s constant presence.
Amalthea moved swiftly through the streets, never making a sound. That she moved with such alacrity in all that armor impressed me. One couldn’t discern that she had ever been anything but human. A dilapidated building spilled rubble into the road, and I tripped and fell while trying to maneuver around it. Amalthea caught me before a piece of exposed rebar could impale me. She kept walking ahead. I took a moment to recover from my near-death experience and made sure to travel more warily after that.
Hunter’s aura called out indistinctly. Empowered by Amalthea’s bond, the horn perched on her tiara oscillated with a golden light—the same color as the orb I’d followed to the magic pond in the Dreamhaven. It responded to Hunter’s aura, growing brighter the closer we came. Amalthea pointed to a plaza with less debris scattered about. Hunter’s aura emanated somewhere north beyond the plaza, but I didn’t know where. We traveled until the horn stopped fluctuating and shined brightly, coming to a tall building with blown-out windows. I took a wide step through a window and entered the building, and Amalthea followed. Our investigation led us several stories up, until the deteriorating structure was too damaged to navigate safely, then we turned back and plunged into its depths. We didn’t find Hunter anywhere. Amalthea’s horn kept shining, though, and my wizard senses still tingled wildly. This had to be the right spot.
We headed outside to investigate the building’s exterior, to get a better sense of things, but the ground trembled when our feet touched it. My wizard senses picked up a familiar aura. A second tremor came about, originating in the east. We turned and looked. The hideous pale giant that had chased me earlier lumbered through the city, coming toward us. It could’ve easily reached us in a few steps, but it stopped moving. Eyes of all sizes sprouted all over its body, and six enormous wings—also covered in eyes—extended from its back. A golden halo formed over its head and started spinning.
“What the hell is that thing?” I asked.
“Death,” Amalthea said. She unsheathed her longsword and pointed the blade at the monster. “Run, Johnny! Now!”
“No! If you die it’ll kill Hunter.”
“Hurry. Find him. Form a dual-soul with him.”
“What? How?”
“All humans are descendants of the Void-spawns. I will try to distract the monster so that you can pull off the spell. Look deep within yourself, Johnny. You have all the power you need.”
“But what about the Void-touch?”
She changed her stance to a right-hanging guard, eyes still fixed on Death. “I will take the Void-touch onto myself.”
A shadowy pool formed under us and widened into a large circle. Several oily, humanoid shapes emerged from it. Their dull fingers grew long and thin, becoming spikes. Big crooked mouths formed on their faces and curved into smiles. The creatures lowered their backs, ready to attack. One took a swing at me. Amalthea pushed me aside, unsheathed her sword, and sliced the monster in half.
“Go!” she said, and I ran.
Hunter’s aura continued to emanate from somewhere around the building. I made my way toward an alley on the side, away from Amalthea and the shadows. A power pole-sized tentacle sprang from the vortex on Death’s chest and struck the building. It dragged itself across the surface and collapsed part of the building into the street. Concrete clumps crashed in front of me, kicking up a dust cloud. The tentacle swept down again—I leaped out of the way before it could crush me, but it wasn’t done. It lashed out once more and smashed behind me with such force that it sent me sprawling. Before it could finish me off, Amalthea jumped in from behind and cleaved it in half. The wriggling tentacle hit the ground and melted into a black slime that scurried away like a rat. I got up and continued into the alley, maneuvering around the debris left by the tentacles attack. Amalthea stayed behind.
I prodded the walls, searching for another way into the building. A black pool formed under my feet and grew until it covered the alley floor. I lifted a leg, and sticky black strands stretched from the slime like glue. The muck burdened my movements, but I managed to make my way to the alley’s far end, and to the building’s rear. Six blobs rose from the ooze and surrounded me. They took humanoid shape, their hands turning into claws. They hunched down, ready to charge.
I held out a hand and squeezed my fingers around the hilt of a newly manifested light sword, then widened my stance and readied myself for their attack. One creature charged and leaped at me, claws raised. I thrusted upward and skewered the monster mid-flight, and it melted back into the pool. Another glob rose from the slime a few feet away and took shape, replacing the one I’d just slain. The other five rushed me, two jumping in from my left while the others flanked my right. I shaped the sword into a lance and threw it at one in the air, but the remaining four swarmed me. They didn’t rend me with their claws, though; they grappled me and turned back into blobs, covering me in a heavy tar coat and dragging me down into the sludge. The last one that took shape threw itself on top of me too. Magic surging in my muscles, I swept my arms from side to side, hurling off clunky glops, but the goo under my feet had climbed up my legs and further weighed me down. I screamed and dropped to the muck on my hands and knees.
Amalthea entered the alley, yelling my name, but before she could reach me a spear-like tentacle plunged through her back. The bloody tentacle lifted her into the air. She struggled to pull herself off, but another tentacle came down from above and speared her again. Her tiara’s horn broke off and sank into the inky pool. Amalthea reached for me with one desperate, trembling hand. Blood trickled out the corner of her mouth. Several more tentacles erupted from the black slime and stabbed through her all at once.
Her body went limp and the sludge swallowed me.
Chapter 20
Darkness all around me. I raised my hand and formed a light ball, which skittered away the shadows. The pool had dropped me into an underground tunnel, with old rusty train tracks partially covered in dirt running through the floor. Hunter’s aura felt stronger than ever, but it was fading, making it difficult for me to track with my wizard senses.
“Hunter!” I called but heard nothing back. Nearby, something shimmered brightly enough to chase away the encroaching darkness—Amalthea’s horn. Even when my wizard senses failed, the horn’s magic had stayed connected
to him. I took it with me.
I started into the tunnel, one hand holding a ball of light and the other raising the horn. Whispers echoed in the passage—vague at first, but the deeper I plunged into the crumbling heart of the Night City the sharper the voices became, their words faint pleas for me to run back to the world of the living and tell everyone of the Void’s indomitable power.
Amalthea’s horn was like a flashlight helping me find my way through enormous cracks in rubble, under cement clumps with black water running down them in rivulets as I traveled deeper into the lightless caverns.
Another whisper, this one clearer, snake-like: “He is the lonely heart beating in the darkness.” I stopped moving and listened closely. “He is the rain’s sweet petals tasting somber lips.” The eerie voice taunted me, dared me to find Hunter. I sped up, rushing down the tunnel, halting only long enough to listen to the strange voice again: “He is a dream set sail on a cyanic sky, stilled only by your voice.” The voice wasn’t coming from anywhere in the tunnel; it was coming from inside my head.
“Who are you?” I said out loud.
I am your voice.
“Liar! Stop messing with me!”
Search your heart: in the darkness of night, when you are all alone, I am what speaks to you.
“You’re the Void! The endless nothing that eats all life!”
I am the fear of loneliness dwelling deep within your soul.
“No! You’re the absence of love and light!”
I am the truth you fear most of all: that there is no love; no light.
“I’ll never accept you! I’ll fight you until my dying breath!”
Even if that fight proves futile? Even if death swallows everything in the end?
“Even if death swallows everything in the end. Death can never swallow love.”
And when humanity dies?
“Love can never die. Love will always exist. Because we experience it. We give it life with words and song and art. We fight wars over it. We build entire nations for it. Because love is the only true thing in this whole, fucked-up, miserable world.”
So is death.
Here, on the boundary between life and death, the Void played tricks from the shadows, whispering uncertainties into your ears. Just like Hunter had warned me it would. But it had no teeth here, so I refused to listen. With the horn’s brilliance guiding my way, I felt for Hunter’s aura, and when I sensed it, I followed it until I found him lying on the floor, unconscious in his letterman jacket. I defused the light ball, fell to my knees beside him, and dropped the horn. It clinked on the ground and slid a few feet away. I cradled him in my arms.
“Hunter! Wake up! Wake up!” He couldn’t hear my pleas, though. His life force had dimmed to a weak spark, and the horn’s light was dying too.
I pressed my forehead to his and thought back to Amalthea’s words. Form a dual-soul with Hunter? How was I supposed to do that? A black splotch formed on Hunter’s cheek, the skin becoming like ceramic—it cracked then turned to ash and slowly flaked away. I lowered him to the ground and pressed my hands against the black spot, fighting to keep it from spreading, to keep Hunter from crumbling away. How was I supposed to bond our souls as one? I didn’t have that kind of power. No one had ever taught me that spell.
“Please, don’t leave me, Hunter. Dad always said that a family isn’t something you make with a piece of paper. It isn’t something you’re born into, either. A family is something that can endure anything. You, me, Alison, and Blake—we’re a family. And I’m not letting this family fall apart. I need everyone there when we beat the Institute . . . I need you all there . . . I need you . . .”
But the blackness spread until his whole body turned to ash and sifted through my fingers. He was gone. And when the light from Amalthea’s horn finally died out, darkness engulfed me and I followed . . .
A light beam broke the endless darkness, forcing me to open my eyes. I rose in a golden meadow, like the one near Alwina’s farm. Bugs chirped loudly in the midsummer heat. A gentle breeze carried the warm scent of grain.
Hunter’s voice called to me from afar: “Johnny!”
He was running toward me, waving a hand in the air, his face glowing with life. I ran to him, yellow tall grass swishing under me. I moved faster than I ever had in my life. We were like two speeding trains on a collision course, and nothing could keep us apart. Not even death. Hunter tackled me to the ground, and we fell laughing amidst aurulent leaves. We looked high into the shining blue sky and screamed with laughter.
I squeezed his cute, soft cheeks, turned them red beneath my fingertips. He gave me the biggest, cheesiest grin, then brought his face down until our noses were only a hair’s breadth apart.
And he kissed me.
Our lips pressed, I closed my eyes and the nightmare ended.
Chapter 21
Alison and Blake hovered in my field of vision as I opened my eyes. Alison’s face went bright when she saw me wake up. “Oh my God, Johnny!” Linh and Maleeka popped up behind Alison and Blake. They looked shocked that I was awake.
My head still felt fuzzy, but I threw myself upright. “Where’s Hunter?”
Alison stepped aside and let me see him lying on the other bed. He rose weakly, balanced on trembling elbows, and everyone gasped. He sucked me into a curious gaze. I felt everything he felt, and his awestruck look told me he felt everything I felt too. The barriers between our souls no longer separated us. We’d become one—a dual-soul. His bare feet hit the cold floor, then he ran over and threw himself on top of me. Overjoyed, I held him close and ran my fingers through his feathery hair. Everyone looked on in disbelief.
Maleeka said, “You . . . saved him . . . from the Void.”
Hunter kissed me several times, trying to see if I was real, before settling next to me on the bed. “How long have we been out?” I asked.
“Not long,” Blake said, “Linh and Maleeka said we were out for a few hours, and we only woke up ten minutes before you.”
“How did you save him?” Linh asked.
Hunter shrugged.
“I don’t know,” I said, not sure how to explain. “Where’re Nephelie and Aquila?”
Hunter’s Lazarus-like resurrection had left Maleeka fumbling for words. “They—they went to meet with a local Defector cell.”
“Did you tell them it’s a trap?”
“Yeah, but we got the information to them too late. Nephelie told us about an hour ago that they were pinned down in some ghost town northwest of Blythe called Midland.”
“Where’s Luther?”
“He went into that cabinet before they left. He hasn’t gotten back yet.”
“We have to help them.”
“That ghost town is about twenty or thirty miles away from here. How are we supposed to get there?”
Traversing the desert on foot didn’t seem like a good idea. Then it dawned on me. “Follow me,” I said, getting off the bed.
I led everyone to the green pickup truck parked in the garage. We searched the inside for keys but didn’t find any, so I ran back inside and flung open all the cabinets in the laundry room and kitchen until a found them. I came back and handed them to Blake. He hopped in the driver’s seat and Alison slid in next to him. Linh looked ready to join, but Maleeka stopped her.
“Someone needs to watch the kids.”
“Then leave one of the boys. I’m not babysitting,” Linh said.
I looked at Hunter. “Sorry, Hunt. There’s no way for us to know if you’re fully healed yet.”
“I can’t let you go without me, Johnny. We just got back.”
“Don’t worry. I literally saved you from Death, remember?”
Hunter didn’t look satisfied by my reassurance, but he stayed behind anyway. Linh jumped in front with Alison and Blake. Maleeka and I kicked all the junk off the truck bed and climbe
d in the back.
We drove through the oppressive heat until reaching an overlook near Midland. Blake parked the truck there, got out, and walked to the lookout. The desert sands had long ago covered Midland’s remnants. Now only a few squat buildings remained, all eviscerated by the elements. A few old vehicles lay scattered about, each partially buried in dirt.
Blake pointed to a black Institute truck parked at an angle amid a cluster of buildings. The vehicle faced the structures on one side and its back doors were open. A Smith wearing what resembled a black, plated bomb suit tromped away from the vehicle, toward the buildings. The armored Smith carried a long rod connected to a fuel tank on their back. A Smith without any armor accompanied them. My standpoint didn’t afford me a strong enough view to make out any significant details about either.
“What’re those things they’re carrying?” I asked.
“Gas guns, it looks like,” Maleeka said, walking up next to us. “I’ve seen them before. They fill them up with eirineftis so they can gas multiple wizards at once. I’m guessing that one’s wearing anti-magic armor too.”
“Anti-magic armor?”
“It’s covered in glyphs and symbols that ward off magical attacks. Those’re the Institute’s heavy-duty guys.”
“How do you deal with them?”
Maleeka pressed her lips together uncomfortably. “Don’t get caught, I guess.”
We left the truck behind and made our way down the rocky cliff until we found a hiding spot behind a rusted car. The long-rusted vehicle’s back end lay submerged in the dirt, the front half tilted at a sixty-degree angle. Not prime hiding-place real estate, but good enough. Another Smith wearing anti-magic armor emerged from around the van, Aquila’s limp body slung over their shoulder. Her aura pulsed vibrantly, telling me she was still alive.
In the City of the Nightmare King Page 20