by James Hunter
This was all new for Winona, however. She was as wet behind the ears as a dog playing in sprinklers, yet she seemed to be handling everything in gigantic-stride.
Ferraro had her M-4 up and at the low-ready, buttstock lodged in her shoulder pocket. I had my pistol in one hand and a flashbang in the other, primed and ready to go. “Alright, let’s do this thing,” I said, giving Winona a tip of my head.
The Bigfoot moved like the wind, pivoting on one leg and lashing out with one appropriately named big-foot, which hit the rickety wooden door like a battering ram, tearing it off its frame and sending it clattering into the gloomy interior of the mill proper. As soon as the door was open, I moved—pulling the pin, depressing the spoon, and lobbing the flashbang into the hostile territory, making sure only my hand was visible before ducking back behind Ferraro. A brilliant burst of light and a pop followed after a four count—the flashbang was a little like a grenade, at least in appearance, but nonlethal. Just an assload of light and sound meant to disorient potential targets, giving us a few vital seconds to clear the room.
As soon as the flashbang sounded, Ferraro dashed forward, keeping low as she maneuvered inside, immediately sweeping her weapon high—checking for overhead assailants—before swinging right, clearing her slice of the pie as she moved. I followed close on her heels, clearing left, preparing the weaves for a lance of flame or a javelin of force while simultaneously holding my pistol out and at the ready.
Ferraro’s weapon-mounted flashlight cut shallow swathes in the darkness, but it was still damn hard to see, which I hadn’t been prepared for. The gloom on the outside was unnatural, sure, but it was still daylight. The rickety boards should’ve allowed in some light, even if only a thin trickle.
But it was dark as sin in here, dark as midnight in the deepest ocean. Even worse, the interior was also radically different in both shape and size than what I’d expected from my survey of the mill’s exterior. The place should’ve been a couple thousand square feet, and that was a generous estimate, but this place was bigger than a baseball stadium. Buildings in the Hub could be like that sometimes. Drastically different inside, expanded in their physical dimension since they were built into the endless and flexible Ether—the black space existing between the worlds, which was also home to a motley crew of terrifying, eldritch beasties.
I’d never seen a place like this outside of the Hub, though. Inworld—what Rubes might think of as Earth—is mostly fixed, its laws more rigid than places in Outworld. Even the Vis, which seems like magic, which seems to defy the laws of physics, is actually just an extension of the natural laws governing reality. I reminded myself that this place, whatever it’d once been, was no longer some crappy, run-down mill. Nope, this place wasn’t even a true part of Inworld, not anymore.
I focused on the half-formed weaves in my hand, pushing a flow of will into the fire construct, tweaking it minutely, dispelling some of the ambient heat, willing an orb of flickering orange flame to life. The molten mini sun hung, suspended in the air, a foot or so above my hand, its warmth beating down on my skin. I glanced around, taking in the scenery, which was … let’s go with rustic.
Giant rusted out gears dotted the floor next to an old truck axle, scarred and corroded with age. A set of pitted railroad tracks, with a serviceable handcart in place, curved off to the right and dead-ended at a brick wall. I spotted a ginormous old-timey band saw, complete with a conveyor belt, and a series of chains and pulleys, undoubtedly used for hoisting logs into place.
Remember how I said I’m a fan of horror movies? Well, all the telltale signs that we’d stepped into one were sitting right in front of me, glaring at me, promising me terror and pain to come. Creepy building, poor lighting, giant death saw. Karma sure can be a bitch when she wants to—I briefly wondered if Karma and Lady Luck ever got together and plotted ways to make my life more difficult.
Ferraro slinked back over to my side; Winona followed her lead and pulled in on my left.
“Che palle,” Ferraro swore, voice low as her eyes searched the darkness before us. “This doesn’t make any sense—everything about this situation is wrong. Everything. We should retreat. Pull back and reassess. Obviously we missed something important—this place is too big to clear on our own. Too many unknowns here.”
I stole another look, taking in the cavernous space with the feeble light available. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. There were innocent people trapped in here somewhere, and I wanted to get ’em out, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good for us to get caught in a trap and eat the end of a gun barrel or worse. I backed up toward the door, but Winona’s giant hand landed on my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks.
“We may not leave that way,” she said, sweeping her other arm toward the entryway we’d come in just moments ago.
Ferraro spun, sketching her flashlight beam over the surface of the wall. Son of a bitch. The door was gone. Winona had blasted the friggin’ thing off its hinges—sections of shattered wood dotted the ground a few feet away—but the wall was now just old wood, solid and unbroken.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ferraro said again, frazzled, her brow scrunching as her eyes bore into the unblemished wall. “We came in right there.” She shone her flashlight onto the busted up door to emphasize the point. “Winona, we’re going to need you to punch a hole back through.”
The Sasquatch shook her head. “This is a true thin place now,” she said, her words deep, equal parts fear and reverence. “Whoever has done this thing … they have fashioned a true axis mundi. A connection point between the spirit world and Earth. When we crossed the threshold, we crossed into a different realm, one sharing a tenuous connection with Inworld. Such places are a rarity, even for my people, who regularly travel the worlds—often they do not correspond to reality in the way we understand. There is surely an exit somewhere, but such places are often designed to waylay intruders. They are nearly impossible to escape if you do not know the path.”
“God, what a mess,” I mumbled, going through scenarios in my head.
There was a rustle of movement off to my right and another off to my left, which ripped me from my thoughts.
Ferraro tensed at the noise, resuming her scan of the gloomy, nearly formless interior of the not-mill. This situation sucked more than a black hole, but there was nothing to do for it. With that wall buttoned up nice and neat, there was no going back—at least not the way we’d come. All we could do now was suck it up and soldier on. And I sure as shit wasn’t gonna stumble around in the dark for the next decade, looking for an exit while nasty, unseen things stalked my trail. Hell no to that jazz.
Winona’s nostrils flared in and out, pulling in great whiffs of musty air. “Be on guard,” she said, body tensing as she lowered herself onto all fours, a gorilla preparing to charge. “We are not alone in this place.”
Yep, that settled it. We needed light, and we needed it yesterday.
“Watch your eyes,” I said. “It’s about to get bright in here.” I pumped more energy into the blob of fire hovering above my palm, feeding it more will and more air, letting the fire consume the oxygen and burn hotter and brighter until the temperature was almost too much to handle on my unprotected skin. Perspiration broke out across my forehead and trickled down my chest and arms in rivulets, leaving my clothes suddenly damp and sticky.
Still I held, forcing more and more Vis and oxygen into the tight ball of flame. Finally, when I knew it was time to put that bad boy to work or watch it blow up in my face, I threw my hand skyward, forcing the flaming orb high overhead, affixing it in place some twenty feet off the ground. It dangled there, shimmering and burning like a personal sun—a breath later the orb exploded, a wave of orange light shooting out, the ripple from a stone tossed into a pond, illuminating the area around us in a giant strobe of light.
The horde of creatures, silently padding toward us on all sides, froze as the mill filled with light, as though by not moving we might not see t
hem. But see them I did, and I’d probably keep on seeing them in reoccurring nightmares for the next ten years.
Short little freaks—not a one of ’em stood much over four feet, though they were broad in the shoulders and through the chest. Humanoid in shape, but far closer to reptiles in nature: slick gunmetal scales ran over their exposed flesh; flat faces, with slit-eyes and mouthfuls of needle-like fangs; long, lashing tails, dragging through the dust and debris of the mill.
The sparse clothing they wore was uniformly tattered and bloodstained—probably taken from some unlucky victim—and each wielded a rusty blade of one sort or another. The creature closest to me held a gleaming set of garden shears, while the one behind him bore an old machete. Another, off to the right, wielded a tarnished straight razor.
I’d seen their like before, but I’d never had cause to tangle with ’em. The Little Brothers of the Blade. The misbegotten spawn of the Lamia—repulsive reptilian women who were themselves the misbegotten spawn of Echidna, the ancient Mother of Monsters. The Little Brothers were all-around nasty sons of bitches, dwelling beneath the Hub in the miles and miles of meandering sewer ways. Little assholes ran the black market organ trade, catching unwary prey and parceling them up for anyone with a little extra cash.
Human eyes might go to a pack of Sun Dogs, Ahuizhotl, bizarre creatures from Central America—part dog, part ape, all vicious predator—who found eyeballs to be an aphrodisiac. Bear in mind that the Aztecs, folks who considered human sacrifice just another day at the office, were scared of the Sun Dogs, so that oughta tell you everything you need to know.
Or maybe the internal organs would be ground into a paste, shoved into the stomach lining—the nauseating human equivalent of haggis—and sold to the Jorogumo, who considered the dish a delicacy. Oh, and what is a Jorogumo you ask because you don’t already have enough grade-A nightmare fuel? Giant, lute-playing, spider women—their name literally means whore spiders—who routinely seduce men of ill morals, luring them to their lair, where the poor schmucks would have their innards sucked out with a festive bendy straw. Fine, I made the bendy straw part up. Still, you just try to get that crazy-ass image out of your head.
And humans weren’t the only ones on the menu either. Halfies, magi, full-bloods, other Hub dwellers. All had bits and pieces which could be harvested and sold off for the right price. The little shits even cannibalized their own departed, selling scales, glands, fangs, and poison sacs. You name it. No one in Outworld liked the Brothers, but mostly they were a cancer people simply avoided.
The light washing over the space sputtered and died, all the pre-stored energy running dry. The Little Brothers charged the second the light overhead faltered, the pitter-patter of their footfalls filling the mill’s interior.
“Ferraro, cover me!” I shouted, sprinting forward to meet the onslaught as I conjured an awesomesauce cyclone of flame around myself … well, a whirling tornado of light, technically. It looked like flame—which would hopefully be some small deterrent to the Little Brothers—but, in reality, it was only a flashy gimmick, a bluff designed to dazzle folks and put out some serious wattage like a portable laser light show.
Sadly, it wouldn’t burn a sheet of notebook paper. Heck, a blow-dryer produces more heat. The construct also marked me out for the enemy—the working provided a twenty-foot radius of illumination, but anything inside that warehouse could see me from a mile off. I was counting on that fact. I put myself front and center to draw the baddies in, exposing them so Ferraro could pour lead into ’em while Winona waded into the creatures like the living wrecking ball she was.
A guttural howl of inhuman indignation rent the air, Winona venting her frustration, followed by a tight burst of controlled rifle fire from Ferraro.
I put both ladies out of mind as the first lizard-man leapt at me from the top of the band-saw conveyor belt. I hefted my pistol and fired once into his chest. There was a pop of light, nearly invisible against the manic tornado of flame swirling around me. The creature tumbled backward as a crater blossomed in his chest; blue-green blood splashed the floor as he fell.
Before I could take a breath, I spotted another overgrown gecko, this one closing in on my left as two more converged on me from the right. I swiveled at the hips, firing a pair of shots into the dastardly duo—one holding a scythe, the other sporting a lab coat and a bone saw—blasting a pair of colossal holes into the baddies. The Brothers crumpled like a pair of paper cups, legs giving out as muscles went slack in death.
At the same time, I extended my left hand toward the other beasty, focusing my will into a spear of flame, thick as my wrist. The construct erupted outward, smashing into the oncoming lizard and setting the filthy rags he wore aflame. He shrieked as the fire spread, running up his scales and down his limbs, and cloying, sickly sweet smoke poured off the poor bastard.
Pop-pop-pop. The shots came from behind me—Ferraro, laying down more fire—and the burning lizard-man pitched over to one side, his struggle ceasing. More shots rang out, and the Little Brothers fell back a step, giving me room to work.
A band of four or five creatures approached from straight ahead, low-crawling along the ground like giant monitor lizards rushing in for the kill. Bad move. I slammed my right foot down onto the floorboards, channeling Vis through my foot and into the unfamiliar ground. The floor shook and rattled as an invisible ripple of power darted out, lurching through bedrock and toward the oncoming creatures. A heartbeat later, jagged spikes of stone and shattered lengths of wood tore free from the earth, skewering the crawling creatures in place. Yowls of agony filled the air as they writhed and wriggled, unable to free themselves.
A pack of eight broke into a run on my right, angling for Ferraro. I threw out my left arm, hand flying open—a gout of silvered force rolled out, sweeping over the ground and scooping the gigantic two-ton band saw into the air. The massive contraption of metal and gears hung suspended for a moment, hovering in flight, before I slammed it down with a slight effort of will. The machine crashed into the Little Brothers with bone-pulverizing force, smashing them into the floor with a sickening squish. Disgusting. Abhorrent. Nauseating.
But now was not the time for second-guessing, nor was it the time for compassion. Now was the time for death, quick and brutal and terrible.
With another wave of silvered force, I snatched up a pair of giant rusted-out cogs and sent them zipping through the air: two-hundred-pound metal Frisbees of death. I didn’t see the disks land, but I certainly heard the massive clanks as they collided into the floor, followed by more inhuman wails.
The downed creatures were already out of mind as I formed my next working. Using thick, braided strands of magnetism, I pushed out a cone of force, directed at one of the hefty chains dangling limply from the rafters. With a heave of willpower, I tore the chain free; the wood beams holding it in place cracked and burst, raining down splinters of rotten wood. I drew more energy in, only to redirect it back into the chain, twisting and contorting the metal until the links ripped apart. I funneled in massive flows of flames, and the steel bubbled and melted in an instant, leaving me with a hundred globs of coal-red liquid metal suspended in the air.
The advancing Little Brothers slowed, unsure for the first time. They should’ve run.
With a scream, I threw my left hand out; the balls of smoldering metal cruised into the air and descended like a volley of arrows. Flaming hot arrows, which seared flesh and charred bone. A chorus of howls and shrieks followed, accompanied by the rancid scent of roasting meat. I stumbled a step and dropped to one knee, suddenly feeling woozy and lightheaded. I needed to bring it down a notch or I was gonna run out of juice, and now would be a very bad time for the ol’ gas needle to hit “E.”
I shook my head, clearing away the pinpricks of light crowding on my peripheries.
More of the Brothers had already replaced their fallen kin, a small army now flocking toward me like a family of hungry gators smelling something warm and savory and delicious. There
were so friggin’ many of the creepy bastards. And even though Ferraro’s rifle dropped encroaching creature after encroaching creature, they were still closing in. I pushed myself to my feet and leveled my pistol, firing three more precise shots, each round ending a Little Brother, but doing virtually nothing to halt the tidal rush of snake-men.
I lashed out with another fire beam, zigzagging my palm back and forth, scorching the front-line attackers, but failing to stop those who were taking shelter behind their brethren, using them as living shields.
The creatures were pressing in, ever closer, ever tighter. A noose pulling snug around the throat of a doomed man. Around my throat. At this range, and with these numbers, the flame lance was more a danger to me than them—if one of those assholes caught fire and tackled me to the ground, we’d both burn to death. I let the construct unravel as I holstered my handgun. With a small effort of will and a whisper of power, I muttered the phrase “gladium potestatis.”
A thin, single-edged azure blade, about three feet in length, and looking as fragile as lace, appeared in my outstretched hand. Sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, my Vis-wrought katana was exactly the right tool for the job—
One of the Brothers struck with a lightning-quick, overhead machete blow. I calmed my breathing, brought my sword up to the ready, Chudan, and flowed into action. Deflecting his steel with a rapid uke-nagashi counter, letting his pitted weapon slide off the surface of my upraised katana, before swinging the blade around and up, its razor-edge cleanly slicing through his neck, spilling a gout of goo. I spun, flicking through the outstretched wrist of another Brother; the limb, holding a wicked buck knife, clattered to the floor as the creature reeled back, screeching.
Ferraro’s rifle fire was now a constant cadence, broken only sporadically as she reloaded. The screeches and squeals of the Brothers drifted through the air, coupled with booming howls from Winona, who was lost somewhere out of sight.