In the City of the Nightmare King

by V. S. Santoni

  “Another one. And that one has Aquila,” I whispered.

  “Nephelie told me she’s hiding in one of the buildings, playing cat and mouse with the other agents,” Maleeka said.

  Blake maneuvered around the sunken car and crept toward the armored Smith. Alison reached out to stop him, but he moved too quickly. She shot me a nervous glance, and I chased after him. I kept my back low and caught up to him. He directed my attention to the fuel canister on the Smith’s back.

  There’s a line running directly from the tank to the spray rod, Blake said. And look there. He pointed to the tubes around the helmet. It must be a cooling system. They’re pumping air into the suit through those tubes. If we switch the tubes on the gas tank with the ones feeding air into the suit, when he hits the spray valve again, it should redirect the eirineftis into his helmet and knock him out.

  Taking on that walking tank was a little intimidating, but we didn’t have many options, and we needed to hurry and find Nephelie. The van’s side that wasn’t facing the buildings provided cover from the Smith’s view. They dropped Aquila into the van, and when they turned around Blake snatched the spray rod and smacked them in the face with it. The blow staggered them, but they swiftly set about struggling with Blake for control over the rod. I jumped on their back while they fought with Blake and started unscrewing a tube on the canister.

  Blake tightened his grip on the rod. The Smith jerked to the right and pressed the firing valve, blasting the ground with eirineftis. They pulled left, but Blake kept the nozzle pointed down. The Smith clocked Blake in the nose with the handle, but Blake still refused to let go. I undid the tube on the tank and detached one from the Smith’s gas mask as they thrashed around. The Smith knocked Blake down with a kick then swung side to side, trying to shake me off. Blake was getting back up when the Smith gassed him. I finished rerouting the oxygen and the eirineftis before the Smith hip-tossed me to the ground. They pointed the rod at me and fired, but the gas redirected into their helmet. They clawed at their neck and face, hurriedly unlatching the front of the mask and popping it open. Gas hissed and poured out, and the man inside let out one long, exaggerated wheeze before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell over.

  Blake got knocked out during the fight. Not wanting the other Smiths to catch us, I motioned for Alison, Maleeka, and Linh to help hide the bodies.

  Alison lifted Blake’s arms and groaned. “It’s too hot for this, Blake.” I secured his legs, and we carted him behind the sunken vehicle. Maleeka and Linh did the same for Aquila, setting her down next to him.

  Although the armor made the Smith incredibly heavy, Maleeka, Linh, and I managed to drag his body to the van’s blind side. Once safely hidden behind the van, Maleeka took off the Smith’s helmet. He looked to be in his twenties, with brown hair and freckles. She handed me his helmet. I looked back at her, confused.

  “Put it on,” she said.

  “What? Are you serious? What if he told them with his mind that we were here?”

  “Then they would’ve come a lot faster. My guess is all those wards and stuff”—she pointed at the weird symbols etched into the armor—“don’t let them send out psychic messages.”

  “Fred! Fred!” a fuzzy voice came from inside the helmet. They’d wired a communication system into it. Maleeka was right—the wards kept them from sending messages with their minds.

  I snatched the helmet. “This is, uh, Fred.”

  “Fred?”

  “Uhhhhh, yes? Y-yes.”

  “You all right. I thought I heard a commotion.”

  “No, I, uhhhhh, don’t see any commotion. Do you see any commotion? Because I don’t see any commotion, and if there was a commotion, I would definitely see a commotion, but I’m not seeing any commotion.”

  Maleeka facepalmed. “Ay dios mio.”

  “Are you all right, Fred?”

  “Totally,” I said, nodding as if they could see it. “This heat is getting to me.”

  “The obmagikos is climate controlled . . .”

  If I kept talking, I was going to blow my cover. “I’ll meet up with you in a minute.” I slammed on the helmet. The inside stunk like rotten raspberries, that familiar eirineftis stench. Not enough to knock me out, but it still made me dizzy. We undid the rest of the Smith’s armor until he was in his skivvies. The heavy armor posed a challenge. Maleeka told me to lay on the ground, then she and Linh put it on me. After they finished, I lay on my back, motionless because the armor weighed a ton, making it hard to stand. Linh grabbed one arm and Maleeka the other, and they helped me up. A few burdened steps later, I’d gotten used to moving in the obmagikos, as the Smith on the headset had called it, but it was too cumbersome to run in and didn’t lend itself to precise movements.

  Alison, can you hear me? I said. She didn’t respond, proving Maleeka’s theory: the armor prevented psychic communication. “I can’t talk to you with my mind.”

  “Let’s hope you won’t need to,” Maleeka said, “Go find those other Smiths. I’ll tell Nephelie you have on one of the suits.”

  Maleeka, Linh, and Alison hurried back behind the sunken vehicle. Certain they were carefully tucked away, I walked over to where I’d seen the other Smiths heading earlier. I passed through an alley between two buildings and found Žižek standing next to an armored Smith, both at least twenty feet away from a hollowed-out cement structure. Of all the Smiths the Institute could’ve deployed, it had to be Žižek. The armored Smith kept his gas gun trained on the empty building. No doubt Nephelie was hiding inside.

  “You can’t stay in there all day,” Žižek said in his usual, semicomical tone. He noticed me and nodded to the building. “Fred, gas her out.” My legs shut down. I told them to move, but they refused—fear weighed them down more than the armor. Žižek looked at me again. “Fred, will you please go and fill that building with eirineftis?”

  “There’s movement,” the armored Smith said.

  Nephelie emerged from the shadowy doorway, one hand resting on her hip.

  Žižek stepped forward, a gleeful smile on his face. “I’m glad you’ve chosen to join us. We already have your friend. Why don’t you just throw up your hands and give up?”

  Nephelie walked until she was a safe distance from the building, then aimed her eyes to the sky. “Sorry, boy. Not today.” The clouds turned black and started swirling. They picked up speed and became a stormy vortex. A lightning bolt crashed down, striking the ground between Nephelie and the two Smiths.

  Žižek took cover behind the armored Smith and stayed close. A second bolt streaked down from the sky, but before it could vaporize the two Smiths, a green dome of light appeared around the top half of the armored Smith’s body. The lightning zapped it to no effect.

  “Whoo-hoo, girlie,” Žižek jeered. “Looks like you want to party.”

  Nephelie took a step back and held out her hand, palm up. Golden energy coalesced into a glowing ball above her hand. The ball started expanding, and it kept growing until it was twice the size of her head. The ball exploded into a hundred bolts that flew at the Smiths and futilely bombarded the forcefield, every hit rippling the shield like raindrops on a lake. Nephelie dropped her hand but kept an impassive, focused expression.

  Žižek stepped out from behind the armored Smith and chortled. “You really are something else, lady. But I don’t know what you think that little light show is going to do.” Nephelie held her intense gaze on Žižek. “Gas her.”

  Intervening would only expose me. The armored Smith clunked forward, raised his gas gun, and sprayed a massive cloud of eirineftis. Nephelie covered her mouth in the bend of her elbow before the fog swallowed her. A few coughs and wheezes sounded from within the cloud, then stopped. The armored Smith released the firing valve and stood at ease. I watched, hoping Nephelie would emerge undaunted, but the mist cleared and she was on the ground, unconscious. They’d toppl
ed her with piddling effort.

  “I was hoping she’d lead us to those little runts. I had some unfinished business with two of them. Pick her up and let’s head back to the truck. Those kids will die without the adults.” Žižek laughed, like the thought of wizard children dying amused him.

  “You were slow on the uptake, Fred,” Žižek said, studying me. “Did you get . . . taller?”

  The armored Smith picked up Nephelie and slung her over his shoulder, then started back to the van.

  “No?” I said, not sure how to respond. Žižek analyzed me a second or two longer. His unreadable expression made my heart sink. Even knowing that the armor guarded my thoughts offered little comfort. Žižek soon lost interest and followed the armored Smith. Relieved, I hurried after them.

  “So, Fred,” Žižek said while we were walking, “how’s the wife?”

  Fred had a wife? Of course Fred had a wife. Smiths weren’t priests. “She’s great.”

  Žižek flashed a sadistic grin. Did he trick me? Did Fred even have a wife?

  “Stay here and keep watch,” he said when we reached the van. He walked to the van’s blind side with the other Smith. Not wanting to tip them off, I turned my back and stood guard.

  My helmet risked filling like a water pale if I didn’t stop sweating. A tear on the driver’s side tire caught my attention. Someone had sliced it open. Probably Alison, knowing her. Now the Smiths couldn’t escape. That’d either prove a blessing or a curse. Something tickled my nape. I reached back and discovered an undone oxygen tube—I’d forgotten to fully seal the helmet.

  The armored Smith came from around the van. I spotted him approaching with his gun raised, ready to spray, so I grabbed the rod and raised it over our heads. He fired a blast into the air before I forced down his hands and bend the rod. He depressed the valve again, but the gun didn’t work anymore, so he unlatched the canister and let it roll under the van, where it clinked against the gas tank and stopped moving. He kicked me in the abdomen and knocked me to the ground.

  “Oh boy,” Žižek said, coming around from the other side.

  Inside the heavy armor, I tossed side to side, trying to fling myself over, but I was like a flailing turtle. Žižek put his foot down on my helmet and pressed. The pressure made it hard to move without straining my neck.

  “Fred doesn’t have a wife. Also, you didn’t screw on your gas mask right.” Žižek kicked my ribs, but his toe took the brunt. He yelped and hopped away holding his foot. The armored Smith kicked me, too, but the padding inside my suit didn’t dull the impact this time. It winded me. He kicked again, then started stomping on me, denting the plating. Every blow felt like a sledgehammer, and my armor kept me from curling into a ball to protect myself. Suddenly, he stopped kicking, and I felt someone push me over. With momentum finally on my side, I rolled onto my stomach and got to my feet. Alison had snatched the other Smith’s helmet and was taunting him from a few feet away. He snarled and swiped at it, but his bulky armor waylaid his movements. Alison tossed it behind him, then Linh caught it and threw it to Maleeka. They tossed it back and forth, further infuriating him.

  Žižek stopped tending to his foot. He wriggled his fingers at his side, fidgeting with the vivit apparatus—constructing a fireball.

  “Get out of the way,” I screamed.

  Žižek looked at me as I swung my fist into his mouth. The fireball leaped out of his hands, spinning out of control and striking the eirineftis canister under the van. Alison, Linh, and Maleeka jumped out of the way, but the heavily armored Smith wasn’t quick enough—the canister and gas tank exploded and he was engulfed by the ensuing blaze. The blast sent Žižek flying several feet away and knocked me back down.

  Instead of struggling against the armor this time, I unlatched the moorings holding me in place and threw off the chest plate and helmet. I sloughed off the armor around my feet too. Luckily, the obmagikos had eaten the impact, so I got away only mildly disoriented and bruise-free. A plume of green smoke hovered over the flaming vehicle, and the lingering stench of eirineftis burned my nose. Maleeka and Linh lay on the ground nearby, knocked out from either the gas or the explosion. At least they were alive.

  Someone cleared their throat behind me. A few feet away, Žižek stood with his pristine suit covered in dirt, and a bloody gash stretching from chin to cheek. He gripped Alison’s shirt with one hand and held a light sword to her throat with the other. A few scrapes and bruises marked Alison’s skin, but she looked more inconvenienced than afraid.

  “I can’t believe you’re damseling me in the year of our lord 2020,” she said.

  “Keep quiet, funny girl,” Žižek said. “The two of you have been giving me headaches for a while.” Still clenching Alison shirt, Žižek slowly backed away. He was stalling, with Institute backup probably en route. I kept my hands at my sides, motionless, hoping not to elicit any unwarranted, deadly actions.

  Johnny, do something?

  What, Ali?

  I don’t know. Talk to him. Buy some time while I think.

  “What’re you going to do with her?” I asked.

  “Melchior wants you all back pretty bad. I have some buddies coming . . .”

  Look down, Johnny, Alison said as Žižek rambled. The chest plate, Maleeka said it blocks magic. Throw to it to me and I’ll use it to block his sword. Then I’ll grab that eirineftis tank off that armor, and you’ll hit him with that light sword spell—

  No way, Ali, I can’t pull that spell off that fast. I’ll kill us.

  “. . . they’ve never been here, but I’m sure it won’t take them long to find it,” Žižek finished. He grinned maliciously and changed his face to my father’s. “Whatcha thinking about, son?”

  I’d had enough of this guy’s shit.

  I kicked Alison the breastplate. She grabbed it, swung up, and caused his light sword to dissipate. She swiftly spun around, out of his grip, and bashed Žižek in the face with the armor, throwing him off balance. She extended her arm then and the eirineftis canister flew into her hand. I formed a light sword and chucked it at the canister as she shoved it into his hands. The spell pierced the tank as he vanished in a cloud of smoke. He popped back up immediately, about fifty feet in the air, and came crashing down with a crunch. I’d only intended to puncture the canister and incapacitate him, but the gas had knocked him out midteleport.

  Alison came up beside me as I stared down at Žižek’s body. “I think we won.”

  “Let’s get everyone in that truck and leave before his backup arrives.”

  We tossed everyone onto the cargo bed and sped back to Sanctuary.

  Hunter took one look at the truck bed and made a morbid face. “Please don’t tell me they’re all dead?”

  “Nope,” Alison said, shouldering one of Blake’s arms while I handled the other. “Could you get the door? I really don’t want my boyfriend to end up with a concussion.”

  Luther walked into the kitchen as we lugged Blake in. “Goodness,” he said.

  We set Blake down in a chair and he almost slumped to the floor. Alison grabbed him and held him steady.

  “Luther,” I said, “the Institute set a trap for Nephelie and Aquila. We had to go help them.”

  “Yes. Hunter told me everything. I decided to stay behind should I need to ferry the children away to safety.”

  “More agents are coming. We’ve got to get out of here,” Alison said.

  “I’ll activate the moving spell. You bring everyone else inside.”

  Hunter and I walked back into the garage and picked up Aquila. The children eventually caught wind of what was happening and gathered in the kitchen to watch us drag everyone inside. Luther had moved Sanctuary while we weren’t paying attention. I only noticed because, after Hunter and I set Nephelie on the floor next to Aquila, I looked out of the window above the sink and saw the treetops of a misty pine forest.
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br />   Alison, Hunter, and I rushed outside to see where Luther had taken us. We sat at the base of a gently sloping mountain covered in pine trees, in the middle of a lake surrounded by much taller, snow-capped mountains. The gray dirt underfoot was slick and muddy, like it had recently rained, and the air carried a light chill. The coolness wasn’t much for Midwesterners like Alison and me, but it had a Southerner like Hunter trembling.

  Back inside, we caught Luther as he left Nephelie’s study. “Where are we?” Alison asked.

  Luther walked into the dining room headed to the kitchen. “Wizard Island, Oregon.”

  “That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”

  “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “Is there any guarantee the Institute won’t know we’re here?” I asked as we came into the kitchen.

  Luther looked at everyone lying on the floor like he wondered what to do with them. “No, but it should buy us some time. Let’s bring them into Nephelie’s office.”

  We did as requested, setting them on tufted leather sofas in the study. While we waited for them to wake up, we told Luther everything: about the room where the Institute kept the Dreamhaven prisoners, the vampire Alichino and the admins, the quelling being a sacrifice to a Void-spawn called Mammon, the somnambulists the Institute used to find wizards, the Nightmare King and how—through some miraculous means—Hunter and I had formed a dual-soul that had saved him from the Void. The whole time, Hunter and I shared our thoughts effortlessly. It wasn’t like reading someone’s mind—we were inextricably linked, the fabric of our beings woven together.

  Luther scanned me, searching. “It is true,” he muttered, “neither of you is Void-touched.”

  “Has this ever happened before?” Hunter asked. “Have two wizards ever formed a dual-soul together?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. As far as I know, wizards can only form dual-souls with Void-spawns. Though this does lend some credence to the myth that we’re all descended from Void-spawns.”