by David Moody
Maddie tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m okay now! Put me down…we’ll get there faster!” She had to shout to be heard over the din. Rollo spun her over his shoulder, making sure she was oriented in the correct direction. With barely any delay, they were back at as close to a full sprint as the crowds would allow. More than once Maddie had wondered how Rollo had kept them shielded; yes, he was fighting hard to do it, but sometimes it seemed as if people were actively avoiding him, which didn’t make quite as much sense, because all of those running were operating at a purely instinctive level: run from the danger. She didn’t have the time to dwell on it, and, ultimately, what did it matter?
A broken body landed to the side of the pair—a tick had picked the terrified and screaming woman up and launched her. Maddie couldn’t be sure, but it did seem as if that had been on purpose. The poor soul had smashed headlong into another, both skulls shattering upon impact. Three of the things had been slicing and slashing through people, heading straight for Maddie and Rollo. When they realized they were going to come up short, they began to follow suit with the first and were hurling bodies out of their way. People were flying through the air like screaming banshees. Ticks were taking out groups of people as they came down, doing their best not to be injured upon landing. Arms and legs snapped, along with caved in heads and ribcages. The carnage was indescribable, and the repulsive noise was deafening.
“Maddie!” Rollo urged.
“I see them.” How could I not? she thought. She was doing all she could to redouble her efforts. The light above Maddie dimmed; she looked up in time to see the terrified face of a large man bearing down on her as if he’d been laser-guided. She put her arms up in defense, knowing full well it was like trying to stop a truck with a sawhorse. It was Rollo, again, who saved her, practically flying through the air himself as he shouldered the man out of the way while simultaneously shielding Maddie. He stumbled as he took the brunt of the hit on his lower back. Maddie grabbed his hand to keep him from falling over as they continued.
“Almost there,” she said breathlessly. She charged headlong through the doors as they slid open for her. She was halfway through the lobby when she stopped, hands on her knees, head hanging low as she pulled in air.
“Made it,” she said to an empty foyer. “Rollo?” She looked around. He’d been less than two feet away; there was no way he hadn’t made it. She ran back to the door and looked out the glass. There he was, standing not five feet away, looking all around. Maddie reached out, grabbed his arm and pulled him through.
“Where did you go? Where the hell am I?” He was spinning around, trying to take it all in. “Is this the hotel from Australia? How?” He stopped asking questions, and they both backed up as two ticks thundered past. “Can they get in?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how I get in.” Though she had an inkling she may have just told a partial lie. She didn’t know how she got in, that she could, was revealing in its own right.
“We have to help them.” Rollo had his hands pressed against the window as he watched the slaughter.
“What’s happening? Who’s he?” Sam had come down to the lobby. “I thought we killed it?”
“We killed one. Apparently there’s a whole colony, or a whole colony here, anyway. Our moon is not this one…or not this one right now. It’s so damned confusing. Come on—the rings are our only chance.”
“The rings? We in Middle-earth?” Rollo asked as he followed the two women.
Maddie had no trouble finding the doorway, unlike when she’d left. In fact, she hadn’t even thought about its mysterious issue of disappearing. Thistle was there, her arms over her head as she stretched.
“Who is he?” She immediately became suspicious.
“I’m Rollo,” he said, as if that explained everything. He extended his hand in the way of a shake.
“I don’t care if you’re Oprah; don’t come any closer.” The pressure in the room changed as Thistle tapped into her unseen power.
“Trust issues. Now move out of the way,” Maddie told him. “Thistle, people are getting killed out there, we need to help.”
“It’s here already? Arridon isn’t here; we can’t leave…he’ll never find us.”
Maddie swept her hand; the scene below was being shown on multiple screens in horrific high definition.
“Are people turning into those things?” Thistle asked.
“No, I mean, I don’t think so.” That thought never occurred to Maddie, although, it was possible, she supposed. She’d seen firsthand the nightmares the Bleed could produce.
“What can we do?” Sam was having a hard time assimilating what she was watching.
“We can put a protective bubble around most of them like Jenny and I did before. I can set it up, Thistle, but it’s going to take your psychic manipulation to make it happen.”
“What do I do?” Thistle was panicked.
“I don’t know specifically; you just have to think about it.”
“Think about it?”
“No time.” Maddie lightly touched a panel, the rings began to glow and rotate. Rollo backed up. “Your turn, Thistle.” Maddie was looking over her shoulder at the woman. Thistle had a doubtful look but instead of wasting time with pointless questions, she began to think on the way to save the people below. The hotel started to shake. There were slight tremors at first, and then it was rocking, to the point that all four had to grab onto something to keep from being tossed to the floor.
“I don’t think this is right!” Maddie yelled, urging Thistle to stop. It was too late. Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back, her arms upraised.
“Maddie, she’s going to break the moon!” Sam shouted, Normally that would have been something said on the side of lunacy, right now, she had to agree with her.
“Help me!” Thistle yelled.
“I don’t even know what you’re doing,” Maddie replied. She looked to the screens; instead of seeing the effects of an invisible bubble being formed, she watched as the ground was in the midst of great upheaval. Jagged rocks formed a large perfect circle, coming up like the teeth of a great white shark attacking a seal. And like that great beast rising from the water, the rocks rose, engulfing everything within their massive jaws. “Save them, Thistle! We’re trying to save them!”
“She is! Look!” Sam was pointing excitedly to the screen. The jagged rock-teeth had turned into a ten-foot wall and were still climbing. The rings were now glowing so brightly that looking directly at them would leave nothing but starbursts in one’s eyes for long minutes—if not searing the cornea outright.
Once Maddie knew what Thistle was doing, she aided as best she could until it all finally, and thankfully, stopped. A great, unbroken, fifty-foot-tall wall encircled what was left of humanity. A few of the monsters had been trapped inside, but once the people realized there was not an endless onslaught of them, they turned to fight and won by sheer numbers alone. Stabbing, punching, or, in one instance, just wearing the thing down altogether as it savagely destroyed beings. Still, a great many people now found themselves in no-man’s land, looking up at an impregnable fortress. They were on their own, on the outs from those safely encircled. The monsters had easy pickings.
“There’s so many of them still out there.” Sam had one hand outstretched to the screen and the other holding her chin and covering her mouth.
“Who are you all?” Rollo asked.
Maddie raced over to Thistle, who was on the verge of collapse. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” Thistle tried to push her away. Rollo moved closer to Sam and was watching, as she was.
“That’s great and all, but now you’ve got all those people cocooned in, like, a square mile. What about food and water?” Rollo had turned to where Maddie was helping Thistle to a chair.
“Can only put out one dumpster fire at a time,” Maddie told him.
“Can’t you do something about the ones outside the wall?” Rollo asked.
“Like what?” Maddie was f
eeling weary, and irritable on top of that.
“I don’t know! Aren’t you three gods? Can’t you do whatever you want?”
“Does it look like we can do whatever we want?” Maddie snapped.
Rollo pointed to the screen. “Yeah, it kinda looks that way to me.”
“He’s right. We need to do something,” Sam said.
“Thistle is tapped, and whatever I do, it’s not strong enough to do that.”
“Maybe I can.”
Maddie was about to tell her that was ridiculous; she was just a what? A teenager? But Thistle and she were the same age, so that meant nothing. Maddie wasn’t an engineer or a theorist, but she had an exceptional understanding of mechanics and how things worked on a fundamental level. If the Bleed was in the process of destroying everything, didn’t it somehow make sense that forces were being assembled on the other end of the spectrum that were designed to stop them? Something vast and unknowable? Jenny, who was apparently a half-god, had found Maddie, who could, for some reason, manipulate the machinery. She, in turn, had brought Thistle and Sam forward. It made sense that maybe the universe was assembling its greatest warriors to do battle one final time, to decide the ultimate fate of creation.
“Great, And then there’s Sandra…maybe she can bitch them to death.”
“What, Maddie?” Sam asked.
“That was out loud?”
“Wait.” Thistle weakly raised an arm. “You did help. I didn’t do that on my own.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Rollo said the words, though any of them could have.
“The rings.” Thistle paused. “It was basically my idea, Maddie, you facilitated it, and Sam, I think…I think you amplified my power. I can do things, I know that, but I didn’t do that.” She pointed to the screen.
“Whoa, I have powers?” Sam looked at her hands as if they, too, might begin to glow.
“A thought just came to me; I hate to use the term “hero,” but I’ve read enough books to think that maybe heroes are being assembled to combat the Bleed.”
“And we’re the heroes?” Sam asked.
“You are gods,” Rollo said. He looked on the verge of running out of the room and back into the scared throng inside the newly formed crater.
“I’m a damn mechanic.”
“What’s that prove? Jesus was a carpenter,” Rollo said. “Two years as a Theology major,” he said as the group looked at him. “I thought about joining the clergy, then I found Mary Jane…and Mary Jane.”
“What?” Sam asked.
“A female and a ‘special’ plant,” Maddie explained.
“Yeah, all of a sudden, vows of celibacy and sobriety seemed like a drastic measure. Right now though, I’m wondering if I would be feeling a better measure of comfort in the faith I forewent.”
“You’re from the States, surfing in Australia. Going to go out on a limb, here, Rollo. If you were a priest, you’d be dead.”
“There’s that. Not much comfort there,” he said.
“So tired.” Thistle could barely keep her head up. “There’s something else. The Bleed or whatever controls it, I didn’t feel its presence as strongly as before.”
“Makes sense. When we’re reaching out for other worlds, other realms, it’s like a beacon calling all to it, whether friend or foe. When it’s concentrated close, it’s more like a flashlight. Can you imagine what we could do with this if we get Jenny back? And what about your brother, Arridon? It may even be likely that Derrick has some power.”
“What about Tyler?”
“He’d be lucky if he could power a LED with a nine-volt.”
“Maddie!”
“Sorry, kid, I call them as I see them.”
“I still love him.”
“Never said you didn’t. But if your brother can do things, it would follow that so can your mother. I hope it doesn’t come to the point to where we need her help, because she’s unreliable. If she in any way believes she could be harmed, she won’t do it.” Maddie watched Sam for a response.
“You don’t have to keep looking at me, Maddie. There’s no argument here in that department.”
“Is there a chance I’m here for a reason?” Rollo asked as he stepped forward. “You know, like a knight summoned to protect the heroes.”
“Don’t know. Normally I don’t put much stock in coincidence; you can find it in just about any aspect of life if you look hard enough. But you did keep me safe until we reached the hotel, and what’s happening now is beginning to border on incredulous. Someone way above our station is pushing important pieces into place in preparation for a great war. I hate being manipulated, and I hate it, even more, when I don’t know who from and the ultimate reason behind it. I spent a fair amount of my life with my nose buried in technical manuals—there’s no lying there, no deceit, just straight facts that can’t be altered by perception.”
“I don’t want to state the obvious, but it looks like we all might be missing it, I mean, except for me, because I’m about to say it,” Sam started. “If the forces of what we’re hoping are ‘good’ are getting us together, doesn’t it make sense that the other side would be doing the same?” She did her best to point at Rollo as nonchalantly as possible. It was as obvious as a three-year-old with chocolate on their face, shaking their head that they had not eaten part of the newly baked cake made specifically for their sibling’s birthday.
“Hey, didn’t you hear the part where I said I was going to become a clergyman?”
“That’s exactly what a double agent would say.” Sam was all in.
“There could be truth to her words,” Thistle stiffly stood in preparation for a battle. “I’ve seen it.”
“That doesn’t make sense; him being here is completely random,” Maddie replied.
“How did you meet him?” Thistle asked, never taking her eyes off of Rollo, who was beginning to squirm under the intense scrutiny.
“I, um, wanted to go check things out, I walked out of the hotel…he was there…waiting.” Her speech was halting as she thought about the events.
“Hold up, I wasn’t waiting, I was just there. You’re the one that appeared out of thin air right in front of me. You started it.”
“He followed me when the ticks came; he helped me to get back. I’m not sure I could have done it without him.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m a helper.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he was helping you. You could have just been a means to an end,” Sam said.
“To do what? You’re all starting to feed into a paranoia of your own making. I’m not even armed,” Rollo said.
“None of us are either,” Thistle said. “Doesn’t prove anything.”
“Maddie, I saved you.”
“Multiple times,” she added.
“Doesn’t that count for something?” he asked.
“This isn’t a lynching,” she said.
“Yet,” Thistle replied.
“We can’t just go around killing everyone we’re suspicious of. What’s the point of saving anything?”
“Maybe we can just make him go outside,” Sam said.
“You’d send me out into that shit? I’d just as soon take my chances inside here,” he replied.
“You might regret that decision.”
“Thistle!” Maddie shouted.
“I just lost my father, my brother is gods know where, and I barely know either of you. As for Rollo, I don’t know him at all, and I trust him even less. He goes or I do.”
“I don’t think we should do anything rash.” Maddie had her hands out in a placating manner, Thistle’s fists were clenched and down by her side. Sam was watching the whole thing unfold, her eyes as wide as her mouth from astonishment.
“I’m not the enemy. I could help—I have helped. I’m staying, and gods or not, I don’t think the three of you can make me leave.”
A ripple of fear traveled up Maddie’s spine and cascaded over her head. He’d
just moments before borne witness to what they had achieved, and that didn’t concern him? She was aware that surfers tended to smoke weed, but even that could not justify such a significant short-term memory loss.
“Enough of this charade!” Rollo’s body quickly began to change color and shape. He was growing taller and broader, massive, even. Huge muscles stretched his hairy red skin taut. His pushed-in face gave him an underbite, the better to reveal his large counter canines. “I am Kalandar!” he bellowed. “Breaker of dimensions, destroyer of worlds, third conqueror of Aradinia, and soul-eater of ghouls! The right-hand demon to the possessor, first of my kind to go forth into the wilds and return. I am the bringer of chaos into order, the slaughterer of Bazzaros, second kin to Denderia (she of the famed raid on the heavens), and fabled defender of the Red Witch. My exploits so legendary as to span multiple tomes. I have borne witness to the descent and will be there leading the ascent. My might so feared, my skill so dreaded, my knowledge so vast that entire prison realms have been erected to keep me trapped; all have failed. I am the chain breaker, a gargantuan among gods, the one so feared I was removed from Hades. All that stand before me quake in awe. My name alone strikes foreboding into the hearts of my enemies. There are none alive, now nor ever, who could stand before me. Those who would oppose me are impotent in their challenge! You would dare now to defy me?”
Thistle was the quickest to react, she pushed her hands toward him; an invisible energy field crashed along his side, shoving him toward the wall.
“I hope, for your sake, that isn’t the best you can offer, little girl.” His voice thundered as he squared to face her. “I would prefer this to be an epic battle as opposed to a crushing of leverets underfoot. A satisfying enough experience, but one hardly worth calling out about.”
“Maddie?” Sam was petrified, unable to think clearly enough to do anything other than ask what she should do.
“What are you?” Maddie was shuffling toward Sam, hoping to be able to shield the girl from whatever might come next.
“I think I have made that abundantly clear.” Kalandar took great strides toward her, flinging Maddie out of the way. She crashed against the wall, the wind knocked out of her sails and her lungs. She lay with her head against the cool floor, trying to breathe. “Hmm, you do have power.” The demon had picked Thistle up, his massive hand completely around her neck and upper chest. She struggled to be free from him, but it felt like iron chains had been bound around her. He laughed when he pulled her in close and sniffed her head. “You have let your mana drain dangerously low; that was not a wise decision on your part. It has always amazed me, the fragility of these little bodies you inhabit, and yet your kind have thwarted our efforts for so long. Strange. Do you prefer to be crushed or snapped in half?”