Nightmare City: Book 1 Of The Nightmare City Series (Urban Fantasy)

by P. S. Newman

  “Distraction tactics are futile,” Greyson said as we strode towards the edge of the Pit. "Those heads can look in every direction at once."

  All three heads were fixed on us from the edge of the Pit where the chimera had retreated to. Not because it was afraid of us but because it could better guard its charge. I caught glimpses of Bella and Cecelia between the chimera's massive legs. As the doppelgänger’s photo had implied, the chairs they were tied to tilted back over the edge of the Pit. If the ropes holding them snapped or were severed, they would fall into the abyss. Bella's eyes were closed over her gag but Cecelia's were open and alert. They widened when she saw us approaching.

  I glanced around, trying to spot the doppelgänger. I expected him to be here, but not even the bright beams from the helicopters above revealed him. He’d probably found a safe hiding spot from where he could watch the spectacle and control the chimera without having to worry about being discovered.

  Ten minutes.

  I unclipped the fire extinguisher from my belt and handed it to Greyson. "Keep the chimera occupied. I’m going to look for the doppelgänger."

  Taylor frowned at me, but he knew we didn’t have time to argue about this. “Fine,” he growled, turning towards the chimera. “But give it hell from me.” He drew the shotgun from his back and took aim.

  Greyson looked at me. "Be careful."

  "You too."

  I split off to the left and started to run, watching the chimera out of the corner of my eye for as long as I could. I heard the thudding of boots as Greyson and Taylor picked up speed towards it.

  The right head fixed on me. It opened its maw and roared. A shotgun blast rang through the air. The head jerked to the side, stung by pellets. A second blast nailed another head, just as the third let loose a volley of fire in my direction. I zig-zagged closer to the Pit. Flames flared to my left in an explosion of sparks as a fireball hit the ground next to me. Heat blasted my side. I kept running and dared a glance over my shoulder. Greyson and Taylor stood between me and the chimera. Taylor kept shooting at the heads while Greyson aimed a steady stream of carbon dioxide from the extinguisher at them. The chimera would be distracted enough for me to slip away by the time their ammunition ran out.

  I focused on where I ran. A helicopter’s beam of light followed me from above, kept me visible. Come on, March. Time to work your magic. I reached the edge of the Pit and swerved left, running along it. Lava simmered in the chasm to my right. The ledge I'd spotted four days ago with Taylor came closer. The spotlight was still trained on me. I was almost at the ledge. If that light was still following me, I'd have to keep running and waste precious time coming back. Damn it, March. Your move.

  Nine minutes.

  The circle of light around me swerved toward the chimera and its battle with the shade hunters. That's it, well done. Far more interesting things going on back there. I kept running in the sudden gloom, sending a silent thank you to March. There was still enough light for me to see, but the cameras would have trouble following me. Exactly how I wanted it.

  The ledge appeared beneath me. It was further below the edge and narrower than I remembered. I didn't have time to find the perfect spot to climb down. I only had to disappear from view before March's silver tongue lost its touch and the other reporters decided to check up on me. I stopped at the edge and crouched down, leaning over. More heat and stench hit me. It burned on my face, in my eyes and nose. Blergh!

  I dangled my feet over the edge, turned around and lowered myself until I hung by my fingertips. The sharp rock dug into my hands. I looked down. A lot of air remained between my feet and the ledge.

  Hopefully, the rock wouldn't crumble beneath the impact.

  Hopefully, I wouldn't land awkwardly and twist an ankle.

  Hopefully, I wouldn't lose my balance and fall into the Pit.

  Eight minutes.

  I took a deep breath for courage, let go, and dropped. My feet hit the ground. I bent my knees to soften the impact, my hands scraping over warm rock. The ledge held. I turned and crouched in the shadows, my back against the wall, feeling for the presence of the Pit's creator. I closed my eyes. As before, I didn't have to touch this shade to sense it. Its essence was a blast to the senses. Fear hit me, primal and crippling, seizing my heart, squeezing the air out of my lungs. Resignation followed, absolute surrender to an inevitable fate. And a faint tickle of hope, insubstantial as a prayer, that Judgment Day couldn't be far. The world had already gone to hell, after all, even if the demons never showed themselves. Purgatory would be short...

  I closed my heart before the fear and self-righteous devotion consumed me, pulled me down across the churning threshold into the eternal fire where tortured souls screamed for release. I grabbed the dreamer’s emotions with my shade power and began to unravel them, dissecting every single one. Searching for something I wasn’t sure would be there. It was harder than I expected, despite the Pit’s overwhelming essence. It would be so much easier if I could touch the shade, but that was too far down at the bottom of the Pit, underneath all that lava.

  A sense of familiarity joined the maelstrom of emotions. I grabbed it, dissected it. Anger, jealousy, and a sense of betrayal, mixed with a dash of self-importance - Sean’s doppelgänger. The essence was faint, barely discernible amid the screaming essence of the Pit’s unknown creator. And yet it carried weight, like an anchor digging itself into the sea bed. I didn’t often feel this part of a shade’s essence, because there was only one spot it could be felt: at the shade’s manifestation origin.

  This was the doppelgänger's connection to where it had popped into existence. Just as I'd suspected. Sean had lied. Hot tub, my ass. This was where the doppelgänger found his endless supply of firepower. He’d manifested in the Pit, which fed him its fire, which he, in turn, fed to the hellhounds.

  I took a deep breath. I hadn’t tried phazing a shade without touching it since I’d first manifested in this reality. Back then, it hadn’t worked. It had to work this time. I poured my power into the Pit's essence, grabbing the fear, resignation, and hope, and crushing them to dust. One by one, they faded into oblivion. As they lessened, I had to send my power deeper, further, harder, to connect with, catch, and release the dwindling emotions.

  With one last push, the Pit’s essence dissolved, melting like snowflakes in the summer sun. And the doppelgänger's connection along with it.

  I slumped to the ground. My breath came in short, hard gulps. I was soaked in sweat. My mouth felt fuzzy. I looked down. There was still lava at the bottom of the chasm, but it had changed. Its level had dropped several feet and the color had darkened to a fiery crimson. Heat fanned my face, yet it felt less... aggressive.

  A howl split the air.

  I looked up and along the chasm's edge to where Bella and Cecelia tilted like toy figurines over the brink. The chimera towered above them, its back to them, the three heads striking, snapping, spitting at its attackers. Greyson and Taylor dodged, spun and sliced with their blades. They weren’t making any headway. Flames still blazed over the chimera's hide, and its fangs still dripped red. Maybe I’d been wrong about the source of its power.

  I staggered to my feet and faced the rock wall. In my haste to get down, I hadn't stopped to consider how I would get back up. My phone told me it was five-and-a-half minutes till the timer hit zero. I had to get out of here now.

  I inspected the rock. It was craggy and sharp, with crumbling, sandy bits in between. A film of foul-smelling slime covered every cranny. This would be interesting.

  It's not far, I told myself as I grabbed two jagged outcrops of rock. Only three times my height. Easy as pie.

  I found footholds and tested them with my weight. They held. Trying to rely mostly on my legs to lift me, instead of my arms to pull me up, I climbed. Right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm. Repeat. Slow but steady. Don't look down.

  My line of sight rose above the edge. I grabbed it. Right leg, push. Left leg, push. My upper body lifted over th
e edge. I collapsed to the hard ground on my belly, legs still dangling - and caught sight of a pair of leather Ferragamo loafers, two feet away. Facing me.

  A jet of fire blazed down in front of my nose. I jerked back and slipped down, barely holding on to the edge. The stench of singed hair curled up my nose. I was pretty sure it came from my eyebrows.

  "What did you do?" The voice was so hoarse, I hardly recognized it as Sean's. Or rather, the doppelgänger's. I looked up, into bloodshot eyes. His face shone pale in the flickering orange glow. He looked diminished. Lessened. But far from defeated. His mouth was pinched in Sean's stubborn scowl.

  "I erased your source of power," I told him, trying not to let the relief show on my face. Phazing the Pit had worked on the doppelgänger, at least.

  He stared into the abyss below me. "How is that possible? The Pit is still here."

  "You're looking at the consequences of the dream that created it. The chasm and the lava weren't part of the shade itself, but collateral damage caused by it." From now on, the lava would cool and solidify. The chasm could be filled up and closed. Eventually.

  "You were supposed to make it all disappear. In front of the cameras." He jabbed his hand at the helicopters in the sky. Their spotlights illuminated the battle between the chimera and the hunters down to the last molecule of dust, while the doppelgänger and I stood in the gloom offered by the lava left in the Pit. Nobody paid us any attention.

  "That was your intention all along, wasn't it?" I said. "To expose me."

  He looked down at me. "How did you manage to draw their attention away?" he asked, avoiding my question. "I told them to pay special regard to you."

  "Your ally, Miss March. She didn't want to go to jail for a big scoop that... wasn't."

  "You made a deal with her."

  "No, that was you. I just talked some sense into her."

  How long did Bella and Cecelia have left? I estimated four minutes, but there was no room for margins. Every second counted. I had to eliminate the doppelgänger and join the battle. Pronto.

  "I'm going to get up now," I told him, missing Aunt Vy’s cries for blood in my head. Usually, at this stage, she would have been all up in my grid for just lying there with my legs dangling over the edge. She was there, I felt her presence in my mind, but she remained silent. I’d never realized how much I relied on her battle cries to prime me for a fight.

  The doppelgänger stepped closer. "Don't move!" His hands shook above me. "Drop your gun and slide it over to me."

  "If you kill me, your chimera dies with me, and your carefully laid plan will never come to pass."

  "You don't know anything about my plan," he spat. "The gun. Now!"

  Drat. I distributed my weight so I could hold on with one arm and draw the Walther with the other. I shoved it towards him. He stopped it with his foot.

  "Happy now?" I asked. At least he didn't ask me to drop my sword, too. I couldn't reach Aunt Vy while I clung to the rock.

  "Ecstatic. If you reach for your sword, you're toast."

  I took that as an invitation to pull myself the rest of the way out of the hole. He took two steps back. He knew a single touch from me would be his doom. I had to distract him, lull him into a false sense of security, if I wanted to get close.

  "It was a brilliant scheme, actually," I said. Appealing to his intelligence always mollified the original version. "Was it yours or Sean's in his dream?”

  "Please," he said with a snort. "Sean would never allow himself to follow through with anything like this, no matter how much he wanted to. That's why he created me. To do all the things he secretly yearns but is too much of a chicken to do."

  "Like killing David?” I asked. “Or ruining his life?" I rose to my feet, brushing sand and dirt off my armor in an exaggerated manner that hopefully implied I wasn't going to attack him right this second. I kept my hands away from my swords.

  The doppelgänger smiled. "You think I was trying to kill him. But that would have been too easy. He doesn't deserve easy."

  "So you planned to expose me as a shade and set him up as the one who helped me integrate into society."

  His smile turned predatory. "David will go to jail and lose everything. His fame, his status, his money. The love of his life. Who, incidentally, will also end up in jail for harboring you, leaving Bella all alone. And David will have to live with the knowledge that he couldn't save the people he considers his family."

  Present tense. He still thought his plan would work. He might be right. If he kept me talking long enough, my only option to save my friends would be to phaze the chimera in front of all those cameras hovering above. Then again... there was a second option. One I didn't want to contemplate just yet. I still had approximately three-and-a-half minutes. Time to make them count.

  "Were your attempts to kill him also part of the plan?" I asked, shifting my weight to inch closer to him. One touch would be enough.

  "No. That would be too easy. He just got in the way while I was setting things up. And taking potshots at him was fun.”

  “Those potshots could’ve killed him.”

  He waved it off. “Unlikely, with you and your hero shade around. Admit it," he added, with an arrogant lift of his chin. Wanting me to partake in his brilliance. I didn't mind as long as it kept him talking. One touch, skin on skin. "It threw you off long enough for me to put the real plan in motion."

  "It did.” I sidled closer. "You were at David’s house to plant those pictures of me for Taylor to find. Just as you were at PharmaZeusics to procure the secret lab you set up at the old Meta-Tech factory. What’s the lab for, by the way?"

  "None of your business." He stepped back, keeping the distance between us. He pointed his left hand straight into the air, keeping the right trained on me. "And you’re not as subtle as you think; I’m done talking. Time for you to get back in the spotlight."

  Fire blazed from his outstretched fingers, the flames licking towards the sky. The blast of light blinded me, and I took an involuntary step back from the heat. The doppelgänger laughed. Another light, white and artificial, surrounded the doppelgänger and me in a bright cone, drawn to us by his flare. I kept my eyes on the doppelgänger. As expected, he squinted up at the helicopter that had trained its light on us. I drew the dagger from my belt and hurled it towards him.

  His eyes snapped back to me as soon as I moved. He ducked to the side. The dagger flew past his shoulder and clattered to the ground behind him. Fire blasted from his right hand, straight at me. His aim was uncanny. I leaped to the side but the jet of flames followed me and I had to dive to the ground. As long as he had his fire, I’d never get close enough to touch him.

  A four-legged shadow tackled him. All I saw was a long tail, yellow eyes, and white fangs. The latter buried themselves in the doppelgänger's raised arm as he pitched over, unbalanced by the unexpected hit. Was that a panther? They tangled on the ground.

  I picked myself up and drew Aunt Vy. I expected her blade to grow in anticipation of blood and battle, but she remained inert and heavy in my hand. “Come on, Vy, now’s your chance to help Bella,” I screamed at her in my head, hoping to pull her out of her disconcerting silence. Nothing.

  The doppelgänger had dislodged the black panther's jaws from his arm with a punch to the nose. The panther hissed but didn't back down. Fangs snapped and flames spat. Before I could decide to either leave the doppelgänger to my unexpected backup or get back to the main fight, a second creature ran up to the combatants on two powerful hind legs. It stood at least two heads taller than I. A wicked, curved claw on each foot clicked on the ground. The torso was short but muscular, culminating in a flexible neck and long head that consisted mostly of jaws. Needle-like fangs flashed from immobile lips. Clawed fingers flexed on stunted arms. It ran up to the doppelgänger and slashed out with its right hind leg, tearing a hole into his left shoulder with a wicked claw.

  The doppelgänger howled, more in surprise than in pain. I had to admit, I was also having trouble
wrapping my mind around the fact that he was being attacked by what looked like a raptor dinosaur. Where the hell were these critters coming from?

  A bark sounded, and a third creature flew at the doppelgänger. This one was easier to identify: wavy white-brown fur, dainty paws, a long snout with small, sharp fangs - Lassie.

  Understanding dawned. These were Bella's shades. But she couldn't possibly be dreaming them up right now. Where were they coming from? Not that it mattered. They were here, trying to bring down the enemy while I stood and gaped. I gripped Aunt Vy tighter and charged the doppelgänger.

  He lurched to his feet with a defiant roar. Fire blasted from his fingers, hitting the panther and the raptor full-on. The panther squealed and collapsed, its body charred to a crisp. The raptor backed away with a hiss, though it didn't seem to mind the heat as much. The doppelgänger kept blasting, aiming for the collie and me.

  Flames enveloped me. I covered my head with my arms and dodged. The flames followed, inescapable. The boiling heat singed my arms and tightened the skin on my face, even as I retreated with giant steps until I reached the edge of the Pit. The doppelgänger kept blasting. I couldn’t get close without being fried, but I had to take him out. Now.

  I hurled Aunt Vy into the jet of fire streaming at me.

  The flames stopped as if switched off. I blinked against the brightness fried onto my retinas and finally spotted the doppelgänger on his knees, Aunt Vy’s hilt sticking out of his side. Bullseye!

  He was pointing my gun at me. The gun shook in his right hand as blood poured forth between the left fingers he clutched Aunt Vy’s blade with. I’d hit him good and he was feeling it. “Let me go,” he said, “and I’ll call off the chimera.”

  The beast chose that moment to roar so loudly I felt it tremble through my chest. A scream pierced the air, high and terrified. I spun around, saw one of the chimera’s three heads focused on Bella and Cecelia behind it, mouth open, a deep orange glow pulsating at the back of its throat. Taylor’s gun barked twice and the giant head whipped about as if punched, the orange light in its throat dimming. Taylor shot again, drawing the head’s attention away from Bella and Cecelia. Greyson was keeping the other two heads occupied.