by M C Ashley
“Blake!” Nathan called out from the shield. “It’s a dream!”
“I know that already, kid!” I shouted back, barreling to my right to avoid a beating.
Wait, I thought. This is a dream.
I grinned and stood up straight.
“I have a plan,” I said.
Focusing my mind, I imagined conjuring a weapon in my hands, and I felt a machine gun materialize in them out of nothingness. Smirking, I fired the gun and watched the specter howl in despair as round after round of 10mm Auto cartridges entered its body. Spasming from the onslaught, the specter tried to run away, but I followed it, continually hitting its vital organs, if it could be said to have them.
“Yeah, take that!” I shouted, continuing to fire.
However, the specter seemed to change suddenly, as if the bullets were having no effect and charged at me.
“Uh oh.”
The machine gun disappeared into the nothingness I’d invoked it from. I yelped and dodged the specter’s lunge, barely preventing my carotid artery from being slashed open.
“Why do your plans always fail so badly!” Nathan yelled.
“Shut up and do your job!” I yelled back.
I leapt at the walls of Cinderella’s dream bedroom and used it to give myself time to fire a bolt of darkness at the specter, hitting it square in the head. It seemed to do nothing, though, so I went back down to the floor and grabbed a lamppost from the room to clobber it with. The specter slashed the lamppost into pieces and cackled loudly. Then it ran at me and slashed my other leg.
Even though I knew I wasn’t really bleeding, I could still feel the pain, making me wonder if the dream could cause wounds from this realm to enter the real world.
“Hey, Nathan, quick question: What happens if you die in a dream?” I asked, dodging another blow.
“Don’t know,” he said. “Wouldn’t recommend trying to figure it out.”
“Figures,” I mumbled, sending a telekinetic wave in front of me, temporarily staggering the specter.
I felt a rumbling underneath my feet, and the specter ceased moving, too disturbed by the sudden tectonic activity to care about me anymore. Then, revealing this as a ruse, it leapt at me and we grappled in the center of the room, my dream body bleeding every time its talons made contact with my skin.
“Blake, she’s about to wake up!” Nathan shouted. “We need to get out of here!”
The rock shield vaporized a second later, as I saw Cinderella nodding off on the bed, ready to wake up. Nathan ran toward me, holding out his hand. The house crumbled around us.
Looking the specter in the eye, I head-butted it, and it fell backward, unprepared for the blow. Regaining my composure, I sent a light beam at its face, continuing to stagger it, and I leapt over to Nathan and took his outstretched hand.
2
I woke up to find Zea watching over me, frantically healing every wound that had appeared on my body. I leapt up, surprising her. She tried to force me back down, but I pushed myself up and yelled at the top of my lungs. Balling my fists, I punched the brick walls of the sewer, not caring that it hurt.
“What happened?” Clooney asked, his voice slightly revealing his shock.
“It didn’t work!” I yelled.
“But, Blake it—” Nathan started to say, but I interrupted him.
“Shut up, Nathan!” I yelled. “Don’t you get it? We had our chance and now it’s over! We’ve got to come up with some other way of getting to her! This was worthless!”
Chapter 16
1
I smacked myself in the head. Nathan tried to say something, but Zea put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head.
“Great,” I said. “Now what?”
“What happened?” Clooney asked.
“We got in there, talked to Cinderella, and got attacked by this specter. I think it was Zoë.”
“She was in the dream too?” Zea asked.
I paused, trying to calm myself down. I wasn’t going to get anything done by being mad about this situation. Was it really her? It didn’t seem like it. It hadn’t talked. It certainly hadn’t felt like I was dealing with a sapient being. It was definitely sentient, but most things that had some form of a mind could be aware of themselves. A rat was sentient. But was this ebony specter anything but that? Was it merely Cinderella’s version of what Zoë was like and had that given it some form of sapiency?
“That was only a shadow form of the real thing,” Nathan said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s weaker than what Zoë will be in the real world. If anything, she’ll be stronger.”
“Oh, frak me,” I said.
Clooney and Zea exchanged confused glances.
“Is he swearing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Must be some past profanity.”
“Well, yes and no,” I said. “The show got a little complicated at the end.”
They decided I was crazy and moved on with their lives. Nathan shook his head and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“Then what can we do?” I asked. “We have to do something about Zoë. Maybe if we somehow were able to destroy her mansion?”
“The only thing that could take that place down is a huge amount of energy directed right at it,” Zea said. “Even if we combined our powers in one attack, we’d get inside, but wouldn’t be ready to get attacked by her vampire enforcers, not to mention Zoë herself. We’d be dead before we ever even got inside.”
“Wait a second…” I said.
“It didn’t work, Blake. Give it up.”
“No, if we use—” I gazed at Zea and sized her up “—it would make sense. Yes. You’re perfect!”
Zea gave the slightest hint of a blush I barely noticed at the time.
“Destructionist invocation is the key here,” I said. “If we can’t take Zoë on in a fair fight, then why don’t we make it unfair?”
“I don’t follow,” she said.
Clooney nodded. “It has merit,” he said. “I’m actually surprised you concocted that plan so soon.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“I still don’t understand,” Zea said.
“He plans to use your Psionic abilities to blow up Zoë’s mansion,” Clooney said.
Zea turned to me. “It’s always blowing things up with you, isn’t it?”
“It’s who I am,” I said, smiling.
“But how?”
“We charge you up.”
“But they’ll sense us coming before we do that.”
“Not in water.”
“You know it negates our invocation.”
“Not if we let itself charge up first.”
“I don’t understand,” Nathan said, shaking his head.
“It’s simple, we use the water underneath the bridge to channel an invocation designed to blow it up. We need a Psionic, someone who’s used to dealing with that much energy at once. I’d do it, but I’m afraid that I might unnecessarily send the energy elsewhere, or absorb it myself.”
“I see,” Zea said. “Normally water doesn’t work with us if we try to invoke other abilities near it, but if we use the energy in the water instead of primarily focusing on our power, then we can charge up the circle. That’s…quite brilliant. One wonders how you came up with the idea.”
“I—that’s not fair,” I said. “I’m smart.”
“Be that as it may, it doesn’t prevent us from being discovered,” Clooney said. “The Collective aren’t fools. They’ll have guards posted around and underneath the bridge.”
“Which is why we make it look like we’re supposed to be there.”
“Elaborate.”
“This whole city pretty much operates on anything goes, right? I saw as much when I walked inside for the first time. If we make it look like we’re celebrating the festivities in a carefree manner, then they’ll have no reason to suspect us.”
I looked at Zea.
“No,” she said.
“Yo
u’re the only woman here,” I said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If that wasn’t why you were protesting, then why were you?”
“I like living too much to fall for another one of your gambles.”
“You could always take me,” Clooney said. “I can make myself look like a girl.”
Nathan furrowed an eyebrow, not understanding anything going on.
“No,” I said and then turned to Zea. “It has to be you. Using too much illusion invocation, especially near water is dangerous. We could be caught. The less we rely on invocation so that we can rely on invocation later the better it’ll be.”
“I still don’t understand why my gender’s important here,” she said.
“He needs,” Clooney said, “someone to pretend to be his paramour to swim with. All this being done amorously to throw off the watching guards, who wouldn’t suspect such a lust-filled couple of any wrongdoing against the regime.”
Zea’s eyes widened and she glared at me. “You little creep!” she roared.
I blocked a slap. “That’s not what I meant!” I protested. “He’s just twisting the words I haven’t said yet!”
Clooney chuckled. “Guilty.”
“Okay, listen,” I said. “The point isn’t to use you it’s to…use you?”
“This is doing little to boost my confidence in this plan,” Zea said.
“Okay, then let me explain. Here’s why I need a woman. When I walked into this city I saw a vampire coercing a man to sleep with her. If we made it look like you were doing the same thing—but obviously not, since you’re not a vampire—then we’d fool anyone into thinking we’re going out for a naughty swim and not a pyrotechnics setup.”
Clooney snorted. “‘Naughty swim,’” he repeated. “How old are we? I think we’re all aware of what that entails.”
Nathan looked at me quizzically and I shrugged, making me realize it would probably fall on me to explain the birds and the bees to him. I cringed. It had been awkward enough with my father. Somehow, I ended up learning how to detect succubi and received a lecture on the dangers of underestimating dragon fire. And he wondered why I never brought girls back home.
“Fine,” Zea said. “I see your point. It has merit. Then again, so have all your plans. What’s to stop them from questioning us?”
“We act like good actors?” I offered.
“He actually has a point,” Clooney said. “Deception works well if people think that you think that you believe in what you’re doing. It has to be organic. Believe your own lies and no one should bother you.”
Zea looked from him to me and sighed. “Fine.”
2
Zea led me forward, her arm tucked underneath mine, as she occasionally gave me alluring look, but she appeared more annoyed than anything. I tried not to laugh at her and instead focused on what was ahead of us. There were enforcers around us. If we weren’t careful with containing our abilities, we’d get caught.
But I doubted that. We weren’t alone in the riverside. Passersby, vampiric and mundane alike, barely noted our presence, too focused on their own lives to care about another insignificant member of Vice City.
Someone had renovated the area around the Harbor Bridge. Now it had massive sewer systems, providing many outlets should we need to escape. I wondered if we even needed to bother trying to trick anyone.
If anything, we fit in.
“We don’t completely,” Zea said. “People are offering second glances at us. That can’t be good.”
“Maybe they think we’re attractive,” I said, offering her a smile.
Zea huffed. “This is serious, Blake.”
“I know, Zee. I’m just trying to be positive.”
“I understand that. That doesn’t excuse it. We need to stay focused.”
“Then act like it’s a delight to be out with me.”
“What?”
“You’re scowling.”
Zea paused for a moment and calmed herself down, producing a genuine smile. I smiled back.
“You should do that more often,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“Smile. It’s very pretty.”
Zea smiled again. “Stay focused.”
I laughed.
We reached the edge of the riverside to where the Harbor Bridge loomed above us. We looked at each other and the water. Mercifully, given the time of year it would be warm. There were others in the water, but Zea’s eyes directed me upward, where I spied a group of enforcers carrying sniper rifles. Nodding, I allowed her to direct us to the left, where we slid down an embankment next to one of the sewer holes. Placing our gear to the side, we took off our more conspicuous clothes, although we had both agreed that we wouldn’t shed too much beforehand, just enough to be comfortable in the water.
“Are you ready?” Zea asked, taking her hair out of her ponytail and sweeping it in the air.
“As ever,” I said, taking off my sunglasses.
My mismatched eyes would be conspicuous, but as we’d be in the water away from others, I doubted anyone would notice, even if they looked through a telescopic sight.
Nodding at each other, we smiled, held each other’s hand, and jumped into the water.
Being Christened and working in water can be a difficult thing to understand. On one hand, water naturally cancels our abilities, but it can also be harnessed for our use if you know what to do. I always liked swimming as a child, but noticed after some time that none of my peers seemed to enjoy it the same way I did. My father had explained that since I gathered so much power around myself that my body barely noticed the sensations that other Christened people felt when interacting with water. He described it as if the body were constantly receiving a low level static shock, sometimes numbing them, and occasionally harming their cells if they stayed too long in it. Knowing that made me understand why no one else really challenged me to swim to the other side of the pool when I was young. Now, however, I’d found someone who was as used to leeching away power as myself and wondered if maybe I’d found an equal of some sort.
We surfaced after our jump and she splashed me. I laughed, my peripheral vision allowing me to see that the snipers had noticed us. Acting casually, I grabbed Zea by the back of her hair and pulled her under momentarily. She recovered quickly and socked me in the jaw, offering a short laugh. The snipers talked to one another and, even though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I did sense that they were ignoring us now.
I grinned at Zea, who took the cue and dived down, as I followed. The current was slow, allowing us plenty of time to prepare our circle. We swam to the center of the bridge and surfaced again for air. Despite our enhanced abilities, we could only hold our breaths a couple of minutes longer than mundanes.
I gazed at the mouth of one of the sewer openings, seeing the outlines of Clooney and Nathan concealing themselves in the shadows. No one would know they were there unless they focused. The snipers couldn’t because the Bridge was at the wrong angle to see anything in the tunnel.
Diving down again with Zea, we found a large enough area to construct the circle and, working in tandem, we crafted a rough draft. The muddy sea ground proved pliable enough to aid our digging, giving us plenty of time that could’ve been wasted on rougher terrain. Surveying it from several feet above the circle, Zea and I then surfaced for air.
“If we keep it like that, we should be fine,” Zea said.
“There’s a bit of a kink on my end of things,” I said. “On the right side of the circle I dug too deep. I need to put some mud back to help make it symmetrical.”
“Good call. Too many deviations and this could fail. I’ll double check to see if I did anything similar.”
In agreement, we went down again, correcting our mistakes. We moved upward again to examine it and Zea nodded, content that it was good enough to get the job done.
I dove down and touched the circle to activate it, allowing it to start using the
water’s energy to power itself slowly over time. Anymore and it would announce our presence to anyone who was spiritually able to pay attention, water interference or not. I gave Zea the thumbs up and motioned upward, as we swam up, taking in a deep breath when we surfaced.
Swimming to the side where we’d left our things, we pretended to still be playing with one another, as I raced her there. I was surprised at how seamlessly we moved from one act to the other. Surely anyone else would’ve been fooled.
When we got back to our packs, I felt a faint sense of unease. Had I not been drenched with water at the time, I probably would’ve felt something worse.
I looked around me, discovering Enforcer Cole walking toward us, a rogue grin on his face. Flanking him were two guards wielding assault rifles.
We needed time to dry out. Any invocations we offered would be severely weakened by the water. I looked over to where Clooney and Nathan were and didn’t see them. Cursing under my breath, I looked at Zea, who already had her hand on her spatha.
“So, we meet again, Mr. Lupin,” Cole said, laughing.
Zea looked at me.
“I don’t have the legs to be called Zatanna,” I said, shrugging.
She shook her head in confusion.
“Can you blind them?” Zea asked.
“Not for long,” I said. “Two seconds.”
“All I need. Your idiocy has inspired me.”
Pride swelled in my chest. Sometimes it was nice to be a bad influence.
“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t send out your physical description to all of my men?” Cole asked, sneering. “It’s not every day that you get to meet a Sentinel…” he turned to Zea “…and a Psionic too it seems. A pleasure to meet you again, dear.”
“It was the snipers,” I said. “They saw me and radioed to you or whatever you do to get information spread here in this dump. I’m guessing there wasn’t a kill on sight clause to that description, seeing as I’m still here.”
“You would be right.”
“Huh. Then why don’t I feel good about that?”
“I would recommend telling your companion to stand down. I will shoot her.”