Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  It strikes me that really there aren’t so many seers, after all.

  We have been around for much longer than humans generally believe, he says. In our mythology, humans are the third race. The first is Elaerian...the second Sarhacienne, or Sark, which is us. The third is human. Each race is said to destroy itself at a certain point in its evolutionary cycle, as a means of moving to the next level. Elaerian, the first race, no longer exist outside of the Barrier.

  His light turns wistful before he focuses it back on me.

  Sarhacienne means “Second” in the seer tongue, he continues. What humans believe to be their earliest civilizations were mainly the remnants of ours. Egypt. Mesopotamia. Even parts of the Americas and Europe. It is said we did not have sight before the Second Displacement.

  He gazes over the sea of humans, sighs.

  We did not notice at first when humans began to appear among the animals. According to our mythology, they arose from the air. Which could mean space...or sky.

  I am trying to follow his words, but am lost in the images he sends me...white stone cities rising and crumbling to dust, chanting seers in caves high in the mountains, the strange, water-like Elaerian with giant glowing eyes and beautiful laughing faces.

  We believe a third Displacement is coming, he sends.

  Red starbursts color my light veins, changing them to a deeper scarlet. The diner starts to shimmer like smoke, then fade...

  ...When fingers abruptly clasp my light wrist.

  He enfolds my body with his, and in no time at all, he is all I feel. The diner reemerges, the blobs of human light, the plastic cat crouching by the cash register on the counter.

  Even after it all comes back, he doesn’t let go of me.

  What happened? he asks.

  You’re kidding, right? How would I know?

  Emotions change your frequency. He is upset, which startles me. You must be calm when you are in the Barrier, Esteemed Bridge! Calm!

  I’m sorry, I say, more out of confusion than knowing why.

  Do not be sorry...do as I say!

  His fear still sparks through my light body. I send calm to him, somehow...I can tell it startles him, but it affects him, too, enough that he lets me in. Eventually, I feel his light growing still once more. I can feel him controlling it again, however he controlled such things.

  Dangerous how? I ask him then.

  He sighs, but he still doesn’t pull away from me.

  The Rooks are looking for you, he tells me. They would send many seers after us. More than I could handle.

  So they really want me dead? These Rooks?

  He hesitates. Yes. He pauses. ...Or with them.

  With them? I think about this, remembering Terian’s words. And that would be bad?

  We should not talk about this here, Allie.

  I look around the diner, then ask anyway. So what is a Rook exactly? Just a renegade seer? Not one of the Seven? Or do they hunt humans?

  He looks at me, his light once more a pale blue.

  They are the enemy, he sends simply.

  6

  TERIAN

  The corpse of a man who died in his early twenties lay with artistic precision on a stainless steel table.

  Clear tubes protruded from his throat, from veins in his arms, legs, his stomach. He was additionally fitted with several color-coded sets of electrodes that dotted patches of his bare skin, a computerized headband and the more conventional saline I.V. The organic-looking headband with its soft, skin-like texture blinked rhythmically, the only light not coming from one of the four monitors that dominated the walls of the bone-white room.

  A technician adjusted settings on a rolling console beside the steel table, utilizing a standard interface and keyboard that projected data and findings to one of those thin screens that covered a portion of the organic-coated wall. Fluid coursing through the clear tubes disappeared into the same wall, changing color subtly soon after each adjustment the technician made. Temple electrodes on the corpse’s head flashed a dark blue once the fluid stabilized, signaling that another piece of the organic end of the transfer had been completed.

  Fogged pupils stared blindly at the ceiling, irises and whites the same milky gray. As the tubes carried the genetic virus to their host, the eyes changed to an opaque yellow, the color of daffodils...or strong urine, the technician thought.

  Over time, that yellow began to brighten.

  The skin looked different as well, not flushing with life exactly, not yet, but somehow less...dead. That much took twelve hours.

  It would have taken longer, but the body had been prepped well in advance.

  Day one came and went. The technician’s boss came to the room, several hours past the first signs of change. An older woman, she checked the readouts on the monitor, made more and infinitely more subtle adjustments before nodding a stiff approval to the junior tech, who watched her every move in undisguised tension.

  “Now,” the woman doctor said. She had the barest hint of a German accent. “Now, we wait.”

  Terian lay entirely still.

  His new body’s only hint at motion lived in an elusive attempt to focus his eyes.

  New eyes...to him at least...they looked out from the foreign planes of an unfamiliar face. His face, although he hadn’t gotten a good look at it, yet. Terian gazed up at a flat, dead ceiling, wishing he’d thought to have them enhance the view. Bone-colored, white with just the barest depth of yellow, the dull shimmers of the organics weren’t enough to distract him.

  He would have them put a fifth monitor there, for next time.

  The basics of his probable situation filtered into his awareness.

  A period of adjustment always awaited him on the other side; he should be used to it by now, but the very nature of the change made familiarity with its workings impossible, at least in those first, virginal moments. To ease his confusion, Terian had imparted a program into the transfer process itself that reminded him of the fact of his death and rebirth, even before bringing him fully awake. The disorientation would not desist entirely until that process was complete, however—which, despite its temporal insignificance, took no small amount of time to Terian’s subjective mind.

  He hated the quiet.

  He disliked the emptiness that lay between states of active consciousness. While every death remained unique from the one before, all instances shared certain similarities in physical sensation and mundane forms of psychological stress.

  In the beginning, silence always met him.

  Therefore, whatever the desirability of said state, the most intelligent course of action lay in accepting this fact with some attempt at grace...even introspection.

  Philosophical musings should accompany death, he thought, no matter how temporary. Death, like life, should not be viewed as being without consequence. This mental ritual contained a vestigial superstition and yet, Terian liked the idea of being appreciative of his own ample gifts, particularly those of his mind and character.

  Gradually, memory began its stealthy return, too.

  Pieces of his past filtered through Terian’s consciousness like leaves falling in cold wind. Some stuck, eliminating gaps.

  Technically, all of his memories had been connected to this new body since the raw technique of transfer, but with every body came a new set of nonphysical structures, a combination of Terian’s mind and the mind of whomever’s body he now wore. Gaps remained while his aleimi relearned pathways to access the material world.

  More time passed.

  He applied pressure to the process of his rebirth, trying to access his previous body’s final moments. This early remembering took work, mainly in the form of separating his own, multi-life memories from those of the body he now wore...which of course carried only one mortal life’s worth. Well, really, not even that.

  Terian liked his bodies young.

  When they finally surfaced, the images and sensations came with no warning, a movie that began and ended without p
rompt or fanfare. A shadow rose from the dark; Terian heard the sound of another’s stressed breathing. The touch of wet fingers flattened his forehead, grinding his head into soaked ground littered with pebbles and sharp leaves. He saw a dull flash of jagged metal, felt a shocking splash of warmth on his neck and face.

  Dehgoies Revik. Of course.

  If he could have, Terian would have chuckled. His friend was perhaps not so changed after all. Perhaps there was still a lot of the old Revi’ in him, even now.

  Terian should have brought more than one body.

  As he thought it, a shadow fell over him, blocking the white, pock-marked ceiling.

  “Sir?” a voice said. “It is too soon. You must rest.”

  Fatigue encumbered him, a stress borne of birthing, of straining back to life...even as drugs aided his return to a blissfully dreamless sleep.

  Does he remember? a familiar voice said over him.

  Terian cannot open his eyes.

  He floats over himself, watching as they speak within his mind like it were a conference room on one of Galaith’s many private planes. Terian hovers there, listens.

  He remembers his death, she comments.

  It was Dehgoies, was it not?

  Her thoughts turn affirmative. The images we’ve pulled indicate that is probable. Would you like to see?

  The other’s light indicates yes.

  She plays the memories, as one plays a film excerpt, or a video from television.

  Ah. The voice sighs as its owner watches, but the emotion behind it feels complex, a flavor of pride mixed with regret. His words remain all business. Are you checking for anomalies each time our Terian returns to a new body? Each and every time, Xarethe...no exceptions?

  Yes, she says, her voice stiffly certain. He is not resurrected without a thorough examination, father Galaith. There are no anomalies. No irregularities of any kind.

  There is another silence while he thinks about her words.

  She breaks it, her voice cautious that time.

  Sir, if you don’t mind my asking. Dehgoies. Is it strictly necessary that he—

  I do mind, Xarethe, Galaith’s voice holds the faintest of warnings. Ensure that our friend Terian remains stable, happy and free of any disturbing thoughts with which any good and loyal friend of mine should not be burdened. And ask him to contact me as soon as he is able...

  Of course, she sends.

  ...As she speaks, the voices begin to fade from Terian’s hearing, drifting from his consciousness like a boat blown further and further away by a cool breeze.

  The next time he woke, the old doctor was there in person, bent over the main monitor.

  How long have I been out? he sent to her.

  She made a few final adjustments before she glanced down at him, smiling. “Approximately thirty-two hours in total, brother.”

  Terian blinked, tried to move his jaw. It remained sore.

  Tracking has continued? he sent.

  “Of course.”

  How many?

  “Three squads. And we have utilized the human media.”

  Where is he now? he sent. Dehgoies.

  “We are still compiling the last set of memories,” Xarethe said, rather than answering him. When she looked over next, she smiled. “Your diligence is noteworthy, brother. But your recent imprints of his light will have to be collated before we will have a realtime track. Until then, the usual channels are being utilized.”

  So you haven’t found him. Terian stared at the ceiling. Did anyone recover the body? ...My body, he clarified.

  “Of course. The team is already working on it, brother. Estimate 141 days minimum to clone and reconstruct.” The old doctor sat in a chair beside the bed, looking oddly anachronistic as she squinted at readouts over cat-shaped bifocals. “Full re-load in 167 days.” She smiled at him again, taking the glasses off her veined nose, exposing pressure marks from the frames. “You won’t be disappointed, Terry.”

  Is this one a temp? Terian sent. I don’t remember it.

  “A temp,” the woman said. “Yes.” She smiled at him in a grandmotherly way. “Would you like the same personality structure as the body he killed? It is no trouble at all. I have the base characteristics loaded now.”

  What’s available?

  “This is a seer’s body, so you have access to that biology and the requisite skills—”

  Intelligence? Problem-solving? Can I boost them at all?

  The doctor made a low clucking sound, a modulation of the sharper, more aggressive clicking common among seers.

  “There are limits, Terry. You are fairly well dispersed right now.”

  I can’t lose any of the others?

  The old woman chuckled, even as she gave him a sharper look. “All are on assignment, Mein Herr. If you remember, you are using a significant amount of your problem-solving skills with body number nine already.”

  Terian frowned inside his mind, staring up at the ceiling.

  He could see no solution, and it bothered him.

  The doctor offered, “I can add creativity. A slight warning...it would be associated with a form of sociopathy that can be a bit unstable.”

  Terian didn’t hesitate. Do it, he sent. If he could have moved his lips to smile, he would have. And if he kills me again, I’ll blame you this time, Xarethe.

  She smiled, but when she turned that time, her eyes were hard as glass.

  “Whatever story keeps you hard at work, my fragmented little friend.” Rising to her feet, she adjusted her glasses back on her nose, peering again at the machine. “I may have some words for you, at that, if you ruin another of my bodies so quickly.”

  She glanced down over the bifocals, giving him a harder stare.

  “I will deny I said this,” she said. “But do us all a favor, Terry. Kill that son of a bitch already. I am tired of this cat and mouse game with him.”

  Terian’s lips twitched in humor.

  I don’t think that would go over well with the big boss. His face creased painfully with another attempt at a smile. I would have liked to see you in your prime, Xarethe...

  The old seer looked at him, and for an instant, her eyes flashed a hard white, her lids falling to half-mast, until they appeared almost reptilian.

  No, she told him. ...You wouldn’t.

  7

  ESCAPE

  I stared out the dirty window of the bottle-green Plymouth, watching trees and rocky coastline slide by, now broken by low-hanging clouds and fog. We were still on Highway 1, nearing where it merged with 101, not far from the Oregon border.

  I hadn’t been on this stretch of road since I was a kid.

  What took minutes on Highway 5, or even 101 North from San Francisco to Eureka, took hours along Highway 1, making the twisting two-lane road hugging the jagged coastline feel endless. But Revik wanted us off the main highway, at least until we crossed state lines.

  Even within seaside towns, he took side streets, avoiding the main “strips,” if they could be called that in towns that maybe had four bars, a salt-eaten motel, a greasy spoon, a church, a head shop and one drive-through coffee stand.

  Somewhere near Fort Bragg, he uncuffed me from the door.

  I suppose I should’ve been grateful for that, but as my hands and ankles remained bound, my gratitude was limited. I watched the sun slink into the Pacific as pelicans skimmed by, beating long wingspans.

  I felt him looking at me.

  When he didn’t stop after a few minutes, I exhaled sharply, facing him.

  “What?”

  He turned the worn, leather-wrapped wheel of the Plymouth, sliding onto the main street of another seaside village whose name I didn’t know. We passed a few bars and an auto shop. His pale eyes shone in the neon signs as night approached.

  “We are low on gas. Can I trust you?”

  “Dehgo...whatever your name is...”

  “Revik.”

  “Right. Are you going to tell me? What that guy meant about me ending the w
orld?”

  He exhaled. “Terian was trying to unbalance you. But it is true that they...” He amended, “...We believe you to be someone important.”

  “Important how?”

  “Allie, can I trust you, if I—”

  “Revik, important how?”

  Clicking to himself, he pulled into a nearby Arco station.

  Stopping in front of a pump, he turned off the ignition. When an attendant walked right up to the window, I realized with some surprise that we must be in Oregon already. Revik rolled down the window, which stuck a few times. He gave me a last warning glance.

  “Hey! Cool car, man! What can she do on the freeway...?”

  The boy’s words trailed, just before his eyes filmed over.

  Revik sat up to tug the money clip from his back pocket, handing through a few bills of paper currency to the kid attendant. I noticed the attendant’s eyes didn’t look at me as he took the folded paper. They also didn’t glance at the rust-colored stains on Revik’s shirt, or the slash of the same on his pale neck.

  “Revik...”

  Frowning, he glanced at me, then at the rearview mirror.

  I watched as he licked his fingers, rubbing at the dark stain on his neck. Then he leaned over my lap and pulled open the glove box. Taking out an oil rag, he poured some water in it from a plastic bottle and rubbed it over his neck, erasing the mark completely.

  “Where did you get this car anyway?” I said. “Speaking of cool cars.”

  “I stole it.”

  I felt my jaw tighten a little, but truthfully, I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting for an answer. Looking back at the minimart attached to the gas station, I only nodded.

  “Revik, I’m hungry. I’m thirsty, too.”

  Instead of answering, he handed me the half-full water bottle.

  I tilted it over my mouth, drinking.

  His tone remained neutral. “Like I told you...historical periods have beginnings, middles and ends,” he said. “At the end, the dominant species has an opportunity to evolve...in several possible directions. We seers call these opportunities Displacements.”