Wolf of the Tesseract

by Christopher D Schmitz

  The traitor sank to his knees amid his screams and crackling of the heat. He quickly reduced to a pile of organic ceramic, cinder, and ash.

  Nitthogr turned back to his chosen illuminati. “Make preparations for the Great Awakening! And must I need to reiterate what happens if you betray me to my brother? He works against us from afar.”

  The sorcerer scooped up his runes and stepped away. Trask’s blackened bits crunched and broke under Nitthogr’s foot. The sounds brought him deep satisfaction, a happiness he anticipated hearing so much more of very soon.

  Like a jolt of lightning, Claire’s eyes rolled forward and she shot back into the land of the conscious. She sat up with such force that she nearly tumbled into Rob’s arms. For a moment, she shook violently as her mind tried to get accustomed to the temperature shock; sweat poured off her trembling frame.

  She gazed at Rob with a look of confusion. There wasn’t time to address it; old Ma Kechewaishke also rocketed into consciousness, albeit her landing was more graceful.

  Ma took a deep gasp and straightened up, stiff for only a moment. Her eyes unclouded and she rushed to Claire’s side. She wore a mixed look of both elation and alarm upon her face. “Did they touch you?”

  Claire only stared at her, slack-jawed and unable to string together any words in her muddled mind.

  Ma grabbed her by the arm and shook her so hard that sweat droplets flung violently off both of them, like a shaking, wet dog. “Did they touch you,” she called loudly, trying to snap the girl out of her fugue.

  Slowly, like a bewildered child, Claire pulled up her moist pant leg and exposed her lower leg. A blackened spot grew like an angry stormhead on her calf. Still catatonic, she stared at the wound with vacant eyes.

  Ma Kechewaishke squeezed her eyes tight and sighed with disappointment. When she opened them again, she addressed Rob.

  “It’s a psychic wound,” She stated flatly. Worry permeated every word. “She has been marked by the enemy.”

  Rob spotted the difference in her. Ma had become a completely different person since her astral journey. She had undoubtedly made contact with the great Gichi-manidoo. Rob wished he had time to share with her Gichi-manidoo’s role in the divine scheme; religious texts of the Prime had much to say about how the manifold realms of the Tesseract often misinterpreted spiritual forces under a pantheistic pretext. But Ma’s look of worry and her shortness of breath insisted that their time grew shorter each second.

  “They will find us, and sooner rather than later.” Her intense eyes nearly burned into Rob’s soul.

  “Gichi-manidoo told you of the vyrm?” He and Claire had shared so little information with her until now.

  “Yes. And I’ve seen their war raging across the heavens. I’ve seen the end: I saw through the desolation and into the void where Sh’logath dwells in his nonexistence—he awoke from his slumber and devoured all of Gichi-manidoo’s beauty. And then, I too was devoured, but not before Gichi-manidoo told me what you must do!

  “You must take the Stone Glaive!” Ma reached over and squeezed Claire’s arm. She only stared blankly at her for a long moment.

  “There is more?” Rob interjected.

  “Her father…” she trailed off.

  Rob nodded, understanding how the vyrm operated: swiftly and decisively. He pressed a hand to Claire’s face while she looked at both of them, quite confused by their conversation and even by her presence in the rank, sweaty hut.

  “Bithia’s father remains entombed, so the Princess is the last of the royal blood on the Prime—one piece of the puzzle is already in his possession.”

  Swallowing hard, Rob looked down at his ward. He knew what that meant: if either Claire or Bithia died, Nitthogr’s options in this grand game would become so limited that he would call upon Sh’logath and unleash the Devourer. The sorcerer could afford to play this cosmic game of chicken. Either side needed both pieces in order to win.

  Rob scooped Claire up into his strong arms. She looked into his face and squinted, trying to remember. “I know you, I think?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  “I—I can’t remember much. I wandered in a giant maze… for years, I think… I just kept forgetting everything. Every time I took a wrong turn I forgot more and more! Oh, Zabe!” She buried her face in his chest.

  “Zabe?” he asked.

  She looked at him again confused. “Robert?”

  “Her memories are… folding upon themselves, and unfolding, all at once,” Ma tried to explain. “It’s the vyrm poison. They will use it try and hone in on your position in order acquire her. The confusion is like the hobbling poison of a snake; now that she’s vulnerable, they will try to constrict around you while she is slowed.”

  “What can we do?”

  “It will wear off in time.”

  “How much time?”

  “Not enough.” Ma insisted. “Even now, they come to ensnare you. You must keep moving, always moving, or they will retrieve her and all will be lost.” She motioned for them to follow her. Ma Kechewaishke led them back to her hovel. Rob carried Claire the short distance.

  Peeling back a tattered, woven rug, Ma lifted a loose floorboard and pulled out an old, steel coffee canister. Several empty ones like it littered the crawlspace surrounding this last, full one. She set it down with a loud thud. The sound of its weight betrayed its size and it gave a decisive “clink” when it moved.

  “You must flee. The enemy is already making haste to your location.” She nodded to the lidded can even as she shuffled over to the nearby coat rack. Ma threw off the old seaman’s raincoat to reveal a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  “You’re going to need that,” Rob assured her.

  He picked up the incredibly heavy cylinder she had motioned to and opened it. Two fistfuls of ancient gold coins filled the can. Rob looked at Ma Kechewaishke incredulously.

  “How else do you think I could afford all that?” She nodded out the door to the mounds of empty whiskey bottles that buried her yard. “But there’s no time for stories. You’ve got to go. Consider this a gift from Gichi-manidoo.”

  She finished loading and checking her shells, and then chambered a cartridge. “My neighbor has a fancy speedboat just down the shore. Usually leaves the keys in it.”

  Rob nodded, understanding she had embraced more than her role as a noble sacrifice as she stood in that doorway with a shotgun in hand. Ma Kechewaishke had seized her destiny—she was buying all of reality a little more time so they fight the oncoming storm.

  From the corner of his eye, Rob spotted an old, faded National Geographic map pinned to the wall. It depicted the sun and different solar and lunar bodies and plotted their orbits.

  “They can track her anywhere?” he asked as he stashed coins in pockets and wherever else he could.

  “Almost anywhere,” she confirmed. “Wherever the Old Snake’s power holds sway.”

  “Do you know what moon phase it is?”

  Ma nodded almost apologetically. “Stonehenge?”

  Rob nodded resolutely. “Stonehenge,” he stated resolutely. “It only makes sense.”

  “Blessings, and Godspeed,” she bid them and then watched them forage through the overgrown brush behind her hovel. The path had grown over making the way to the beach difficult, but she had no doubt that they could escape.

  Ma Kechewaishke gave a long, contented sigh and then turned back to her rocking chair. She sat down in the familiar haunt and rocked gently, a smile upon her face and the shotgun across her lap. Ma Kechewaishke thanked Gichi-manidoo for His many blessings and for giving her such an honored part in the divine plan.

  Humming an old tune she learned as a child, she smiled at the setting sun as it neared the horizon. It won’t be long now, she knew.

  . . .

  Surrounded by her team of government operatives, Vivian sat in her cargo van. Most of them consisted of vyrm operatives who had also infiltrated the secretive military branch under her direction, or that of the
Heptobscurantum. She ran operations from the van, parked right in the heart of La Pointe. The town only consisted of a few blocks in any given direction and the location afforded them a perfect vantage to secretly spy on the ferry in case they tried to escape.

  She’d dispatched two agents. One she’d sent to the eastern side of the bay near the old Indian Cemetery; there was a latent portal there that might be used to shift between the realms of the Tesseract if their prey knew how to access it—something Zabe had already proven capable of doing. The other agent had been sent to scout further up the island with a handheld piece of technology brought back from The Prime.

  The tracker could detect the psychic disruption which the vyrm psychics had caused in Claire’s spirit-journey. They could run, but they could no longer hide, and this was not an overly large island.

  Agent Brock, the scout, reported in over his secure channel. “I see them, trying to circle around the back of the house… the guy is carrying the girl—she doesn’t look so well.” Long pauses punctuated his whispered reports over the com line. “Just a little old lady in a rocking chair nearby… target’s car is still in the driveway.” The line crackled with a burst of static.

  “Man this place is a dump… moving in to intercept.”

  “Use caution,” Vivian warned.

  “Understood.” Brock left the channel open and the van load of operatives could hear the swishing of his pants against the tall grass as he moved in.

  “Can I help you?” and elderly voice called out, barely audible over the radio line.

  “Yes ma’am. I’m looking for my friends. They own that car over there… I spotted them from the road.”

  “They’re just using my outhouse around back…ate something disagreeable.”

  A long white ripple of quiet static. More sounds like movement, then a long and loud string of expletives flooded the channel followed by a shotgun blast and returned gunfire.

  Vivian muttered profanities of her own. “Agent Sams, get your butt up there and find out what’s going on!”

  “Help. Oh God, I think I’ve been roofied.” Vivian read the text on the cellphone she’d recently stolen from Jackie and smiled. Charsk’s psychics had delivered on their promise. For the next couple days, Claire would barely be more capable than a drunken amnesiac.

  The tall, blood-splattered grass crunched underfoot. Vivian kicked an empty bottle of Jack Daniels out of the way while she barked orders to her crew at the Kechewaishke property. “Burn the whole place down; eliminate all the evidence.” She glanced down at Brock’s body; he lay where he’d bled out in the grass. “Including this. I’ve got a new lead to follow up on.”

  Jackie’s text had come in from a phone number that Vivian didn’t recognize: an anonymous prepaid phone, no doubt. She was certain the text had come from Claire. Where are you? I’m coming to get you! She responded, pretending to be Jackie.

  Nothing makes sense! I think I know this guy, but he’s talking crazy! I think I’m hearing voices in my head! The doctors must be right!

  Vivian couldn’t contain the grin that crawled across her face. Just when the trail had gone cold on the island, she’d caught a break.

  Can’t tell James! Don’t tell him I’m with another guy! Vivian had to credit Charsk’s troops. The poison overruling her strong-willed nature must have helped endear Claire to Nitthogr’s James persona again.

  I’ll text when I get back to Duluth. He’s driving. Doesn’t know I have a phone. Be there soon. Will text a location, Claire’s final text read.

  Stuffing Jackie’s phone into her pocket, Vivian quickly pulled out her encrypted work phone and dialed a contact of her own. If she called in a favor and secured a helicopter, she would probably beat Claire back to Duluth.

  Rob led Claire by the hand through the little café and seated her at a table. She still seemed like a walking zombie. Debilitated by the twilight poison, she’d regressed to a mental age of about thirteen years old, and suffered random bouts of complete disassociation.

  He sat her down and looked out the window, hoping that Ma was right and that it would soon wear off. The nearby sporting goods store closed soon and he needed to gather a few supplies immediately. He scanned the sidewalks. All seemed relatively calm.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Rob asked a nearby barista. An older woman, she wore a denim smock and an Ask me about Jesus button; she seemed to radiate positivity. Rob thought her a more trustworthy person than any other options.

  The middle aged woman looked up from behind the counter. She smiled warmly in reply. “How can I help you?”

  “Can you keep an eye on my friend for just a few minutes while she drinks her coffee?” He pointed to Claire who sipped on the hot cup and grimaced.

  Claire turned to Rob and fixed her befuddled eyes on him. “Are you sure I like coffee,” she called with a drunk-like cadence.

  Rob twirled his fingers near his temples, indicating mental disorder to the woman. “I’m trying to get my friend the help she needs, but I need to step across the street for just five minutes. Can you just make sure that she doesn’t go anywhere before I get back?”

  The woman bobbed her head sympathetically. “Well, it’s not too busy at the moment. I’ll see what I can do.” She leaned forward to whisper in her heavy Scandinavian accent, “but if she insists on leaving, I can’t keep her here, you know.”

  “I know,” he commented. Rob assured her, “Five minutes?”

  She slipped her hands into the pouch on her apron. “Sure, and I admire what you’re doing.” She took out two tiny pamphlets from the pocket and slipped them into his hand.

  Rob nodded and told Claire he’d be right back. “This nice lady is going to keep an eye on you for the next couple of minutes. I’ll be right across the street. If you get bored you can read these.” He gave her the religious tract and the drug rehab clinic pamphlet the barista had given him, and then he jogged across the street.

  Claire eagerly watched him go. As soon as he’d stepped off the sidewalk she impulsively reached for the hidden cell phone and texted the address to her friend. I’m alone for the next several minutes. Don’t know when he comes back!

  A text reply came back: OMW. She choked back the dark drink in tiny sips and leafed through the brochures, watching the window for signs of Rob’s early return.

  Only minutes later, an arm reached over her shoulder and set a warm cup of chai tea before her. Claire looked up. Vivian had set the mug down and sipped a chai latte of her own.

  “You didn’t look like you were enjoying the coffee,” Vivian said politely as she took a seat across the table from her. She carefully angled the chair so that it still afforded her a view of the window.

  Claire gave her a confused look, but shrugged, not strong enough to fight through the mental grog, but she recognized the friendly face. “Is Jackie coming?”

  “Probably. Drink your tea, dear, and tell me everything.” Vivian turned slightly to wave off the barista, nonverbally indicating that she was a friend.

  Claire took a big gulp and the floodgates opened up. She relayed the confusing litany of disjointed events: fleeing from a burning man and a werewolf, an old archaeologist with a dead wife, a trip to the island, and fleeing from snakes in her old school. None of the events connected to each other in Claire’s mind, even as she accurately summarized many of her recent trials. To her, they seemed like a series of bad dreams, but barely connected in some manner. “You were in some of them, too,” Claire mumbled.

  For a moment, the haze began to lift, but only slightly. “I’m not sure why I’m really telling you any of this, even,” she said before taking another gulp of chai. “After all, aren’t you the snake lady?”

  Vivian laughed, noting the concerned look on the hovering barista’s face back by the counter. “Are you sure of all these stories?”

  “Oh yes,” Claire exclaimed like a lush who’d had too much wine. “The shaman on the island warned me not to get bit… I’ve seen some crazy things the
last couple days… but I’m not crazy am I? Jackie knows I’m not crazy.”

  Under the table Claire fired off a quick, blind text to Jackie. Coming? Viv’s here. She slurped down the last of the Chai.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Vivian replied with a grin. “But maybe you’ve been drugged. What did that shaman give you? I think you should come with me right away.”

  Vivian’s breast pocket vibrated and chirped with a distinctive alert tone that Jackie had set for her best friend. Vivian looked down at it with a guilty look on her face.

  “Why do you have Jackie’s phone?” The fog in Claire’s mind had begun to lift as her anger and sense of self-preservation welled up.

  “She loaned it to me,” Vivian lied.

  Claire felt it was lie, but couldn’t quite verbalize that. She looked down at her empty paper cup with suspicion, but her arms felt heavy.

  “I certainly did not!” yelled Jackie, who’d just walked into the café. She held a tablet with a tracking app running. “I knew I’d find whoever stole my cell. And it figures!”

  The middle-aged barista stood slack-jawed. She worked her voiceless mouth for a few seconds, not quite knowing how to respond.

  “Jackie!” Claire slumped her head, suddenly too weary to hold it up. She could only stare at the empty chai cup. Vivian’s words echoed in her ears, maybe you’ve been drugged.

  Jackie drew a Taser from her hip pocket and told Claire to get up and run. Claire couldn’t pick out the individual words; everything blended together at this point. She tried to flee, spotted the barista panic and call the emergency line.

  Claire’s brain swam and spun. She barely made out Jackie and Vivian fighting; Vivian drew a gun. Her vision went dark and her mind swirled like a margarita blender. Head rolling back, Claire blacked out.

  . . .

  Rob saw the altercation through the window before he even got to the sidewalk. He tucked the large duffle under his arm and ran to the door where he found a frightened barista cowering behind the register and pointing to the nearby catfight.