Reborn (Frankenstein Book 1)

by Dean C. Moore

  But the smell. Why do Hollywood writers always forget to factor in for the smell? Probably quite the turnoff when pimping out sexy teenagers; kind of kills the charisma. Speaking of… why were these tunnels so immaculate? Unused? Part of new construction not yet hooked up to the rest of the system? No, an elemental wizard—keeping it flushed.

  The maze—she was deliberately following a twisted path he would never remember, especially not in this state, with his rational faculties dimmed. Not that he was much of a cartography savant on a good day. It would take one of those to remember all these twisted paths that looked exactly alike. Even the landmarks—the floating sewage—had there been any, would be constantly getting swept away.

  Something was stalking her. Was she simply sensing Soren’s presence on her? If he really was astral traveling, there might well be a way for psychics to track that. It was just another out-of-body entity, after all. If they could see ghosts, why not?

  No. It was something else. He’d never elicited that kind of terror from her. Not even when he was chasing her on the streets above after felling the beastie. Of course, now he was nearing her lair; that might explain the change in attitude. But she could veer off, lead him on a wild goose chase, and failing that, just exit the tunnels. He was right on top of her, reaching out to her. She didn’t recoil from his touch. And her eyes were focused far away. No, this was something else. He tried to turn around, but his astral traveling skills were limited. He had no idea how he was doing what he was doing as it was.

  And then she stopped looking over her shoulder and they both saw it. Right in front of her. Whoever this dude was, he was no apparition. He wore a top hat, and walked with a flashy Egyptian cobra-head cane; the head made of gold, the staff, some exotic maroon-colored wood. He was dressed in black; it might have been a tux; it wasn’t like Soren was up on expensive attire. His face—Soren’s first impression was he’d met his match. This guy was a scientist like him. And like him, he made a job of investigating the paranormal—to further his own abilities—and the reach of his own science. It was way too much information to read off his face, despite the intensity and the intelligence in the eyes. But the liquid in the tank—it was boosting Soren’s psychic abilities somehow. He just knew. One look at the guy and he just knew it. He’d met his alter ego. His Moriarty. Just like him, only smarter, and way meaner. Shit! Now Soren was scared for his own life.

  An arm grabbed the girl out of the way. In another few seconds she’d have run straight into Victor Truman—his name just popped into Soren’s head. “Hi, there, Precious. Going out on the town without me? You know that never leads to anything good.” The teen attached to the arm that had rescued her from Victor brought her in for a kiss. Great, Soren. Your nemesis and your principal rival for her affections—all in the same night. Tell me your stars aren’t aligned—like Mercury in retrograde.

  Casanova’s not a bad looker himself. The bangs of his black hair jelled to fall over his forehead just enough to give him that well-cultivated wild, bad boy look. The sharp, haunting yellow-brown eyes well recessed under the straight across eyebrows for just the right air of mystery, simultaneously teasing, sorrowful, and playful. And flawless skin that could only exist on the supernaturally healthy.

  Lover Boy waved his arm as he brought it around behind her to complete the embrace. And that wave caused a roar and a flood of water to cascade down the adjoining tunnel—so fast that it didn’t have time to spread into their tunnel. Instead it moved like a freight train—illuminated with a bright-diffused light, again courtesy of the elemental’s magic; gone was the faint glows of the water-insulated LEDs dotting the tunnels. The rushing water swept away the very formidable Victor Truman, bashing him against the walls of the cement tube harshly and repeatedly, as if the liquid had a mind of its own. As if the currents inside it—of course, it was just another layer of Lover Boy’s control. His name was Player, more of a nickname. Seemed he had a sense of humor even sicker than Soren’s. And he had no qualms about playing nasty pranks on people, basically to challenge them, to see what they were made of, but mostly to establish the pecking order in their little tribe, so they knew exactly who the top dog was.

  Player tensed for the same reason that Soren did. Victor Truman was laughing. He was enjoying his little ride, which someone had sent him on for free; the top hat on his head, yet to fall off. His several-thousand dollar suit (Soren didn’t feel like he was going out on a limb on the price) didn’t even look wet. And that high forehead—just showing off his brain power by making more room for the grey matter at the same time that it highlighted it, didn’t show one wrinkle’s worth of worry. Like Soren, he could breathe underwater just fine. Unlike Soren, who needed the special amniotic solution he was currently suspended in to sustain him, Victor Truman needed no such crutch. His science was more advanced than Soren’s. That made him a serious threat. But it also was one hell of an opportunity. If Soren could just get his hands on that guy’s tech….

  Player led Naomi—so that was her name—down the adjacent corridor. The amniotic fluid was allowing Soren to bridge all of their minds; that might not be a good thing if the bridge turned out to facilitate traffic both ways.

  Now the water was stalking Naomi and Lover Boy. “Enough, Player. I’ve been pursued enough for one evening. Stop with your sick little games.”

  “That’s not me, sweetheart. That’s him.” He grabbed her and forced her into a run, both of them panting as they pushed out their words.

  “Impossible. No one handles the elements better than you.”

  “He does. Water, at least, anyway.”

  “He can’t still be alive.”

  “The son of a bitch isn’t just alive; he’s rather amused by me.”

  Naomi scrutinized the expression on Player’s face. “What has you so scared? I’ve never seen you this rattled before.”

  “I just caught a glimpse of my future self, the kind of warm individual I’m turning into. God, I’m such an asshole. Why do you put up with me?”

  “I don’t. I’ve tried to kill you several times myself, if you’ll recall.”

  “I never took that as anything but foreplay.”

  “You’re right. God, you’re such an ass.”

  Player lifted them both over a gap in the floor so neither of them would trip, while keeping them both running at a full trot. Soren didn’t get a sense Player was being chivalrous; just saving his own ass without foregoing his girl toy.

  Player yanked her down another cross-tunnel, just in time to keep them from being overrun by the water. And then the water stopped flowing. The deafening roar gave way to complete silence. The water held in place as if by an invisible shield. And a face materialized in the water. “Player. Naomi.” Soren could tell Victor was saying their names for the sheer shock effect it would have on them; the fact that he knew their identities. The little bit of theater worked just as expected. Naomi’s and Player’s faces paled. “You really must come out and play with me some time,” Victor said. “But I’m afraid my break time is over. I really must be on my way. Ta-ta, children, until we meet again.”

  The face in the water disappeared. And in the next instant, so did the water. Soren got the sense that Victor was controlling the water, not with elemental magic, but by toying with the geometries of the underlying water molecules themselves; was he a mandala magician? If he could split water molecules, that might explain his breathing underwater. Soren was beginning to appreciate that his left-brain dominance receding inside the tank was what was doing wonders for his right-brain’s intuitive insights and his psychic abilities as well.

  Player and Naomi sighed in tandem with Victor’s vacated presence. But their hyperventilating was a long way from settling down. “Hey, we’re panting in concert, just as if the sex is going really well.”

  “Figures you’d mistake a mind-fuck for sex, you juvenile delinquent. Now, let me go. Pretty-boys who have powers that nothing can climb over but their own egos is becoming too much of a t
hing for me. I need to find another type.”

  “So, you admit, for now, at least, I am your type.”

  She glanced back in the direction Victor had headed off in. “Actually, I think I have a new type. People who understand the nature of magic and supernatural abilities better than I do. Someone who is as much scientist as wizard.”

  “Uh, oh. I see you met someone new. Another of our kind.”

  She startled at how easily he’d seen past her misdirection, and deflected, averting her eyes, “Not exactly.”

  “No matter. I’ll set him straight on the natural pecking order around here soon enough.” Player was clamping down on her arm.

  She wrenched her hand away, rubbing the soreness out of the spot. “Lay a hand on him and I’ll kill you myself, even if I have to master a thousand more abilities to do so and read every spellcasting book from here to Narnia.”

  Player grabbed her again, as if really using her like a security blanket, even if he was afraid to admit it. “Narnia? You do realize that place isn’t real, right?”

  She groaned and yanked her arm away from him again and left him standing where he was as she marched off. Or was that more of a tromp? A traipse? A slog? A stomp?

  ***

  Soren gasped as he surfaced from the tank. The healing complete, the astral traveling had come to an abrupt stop. Way too soon. He still hadn’t ascertained where the lair of paranormals was—not exactly. And who the rest of Naomi’s sidekicks were. He needed to know the team they were fielding, everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, if he was going to make the most of them. Of course, that was assuming they took to the idea of his being their new leader. Something told him that was going to be one tough sell.

  THREE

  Victor strolled the avenue with his cane tapping the concrete and his whistle floating on the breeze. The enchanting lady walking ahead of him turned in response to the melody escaping his lips and was herself enchanted. Such lovely emerald-green eyes. Hair so red, it didn’t look real, but still, not dyed, the strands so well-behaved, so un-frayed. He continued whistling as he walked up to her, her eyes raised to his, no longer blinking. He touched her cheek. With no makeup, it felt like an optician’s eyeglass cloth, only warm and pulsing.

  “Careful,” she said, as he took her in his arms, her smile lighting up the night better than the three-quarter moon, her Victorian dress looking just so period appropriate, “I’m a succubus. It’s only fair to warn you….” It was fair to say her warning had fallen on deaf ears because he was already kissing her, draining her. It didn’t take her long to figure out what was going on. She fought her way free of the kiss, wrenching this way and that in his arms. “This… this can’t be. It’s just not possible.”

  “Ah, but it is, my dear.”

  “Not even another, stronger succubus….”

  She didn’t get to finish that sentence. The last of her psychic energy streamed out of her mouth into his, showing up as a glowing yellow-orange ethereal mist. She was already limp in his arms. “You won’t be the first woman to go weak in the knees upon seeing me,” he said, laughing at his own joke. She began mummifying, and seconds later exploded in a dust cloud.

  Victor coughed out the flecks from his lungs. Smiled at the old couple in the rocking chairs on their front patio; the husband giving him the evil eye, the wife, with her eyes popping out at what she’d just seen. Her Graves’ disease, which caused her eyes to bulge, was made to order. As was the one twitching eye-lid of the husband giving Victor the evil eye.

  “Devil!” the crone shouted.

  “I assure you, madam, nothing so pedestrian.” Victor tipped his top hat to her and ambled on. He would have loved to linger to give them a lecture on mandala magic, and how it was possible to warp space-time geometries so precisely as to unmoor the soul’s physical connection to this plane. But like the whole thing wasn’t beside the point from their plebian perspectives. As to the woman turning to dust afterwards…. Well, with a little more exquisite fine-tuning of his space-warping geometries, the atoms making up her body just couldn’t maintain their bonds to one another.

  He loved this section of town. The Victorian Reenactment district. Blocks and blocks of nothing but 19th Century England, London specifically. There were several Jack the Rippers plying their trade here. Mostly for the tourists who insisted on his presence, who flew from halfway around the world to die by his hands. Suicide by proxy was all the rage. In this global economy, who could blame them? The local citizens, not having much by way of 21st century employable skills—not being nearly computer savvy enough—had taken the Amish way out, found a way to retreat into the past, and had rebranded themselves as actors specializing in the Victorian era.

  The city was full of such districts, especially in the impoverished sectors, and this was Syracuse; most of the city was impoverished. Urban blight in America was hardly limited to Detroit, Michigan anymore, which ironically, was currently experiencing more of the old-fashioned kind of renaissance. The one where neighborhoods got facelifts—not entire personality makeovers.

  He must have wandered too far. Crossed some invisible line. He was still getting used to the different districts. God help any tourists who didn’t have a complete lay of the land and his kind of defenses. The horse drawn carriages on the cobblestone streets…. The fine ladies in their silk dresses and parasols twirling overhead in the absence of rain…. The chaperones walking a respectful distance behind young courting couples… everything screamed Victorian England, but he’d clearly overstepped himself.

  The giveaway was the vampire descending toward him, shapeshifting at the last second. Dropping the giant batwings and the mummified exterior with the pointed ears. Taking his human form again, his clothes grew up around him like the bark around a tree. The last bit of magic would have been sheer thought projection. The shapeshifting was real enough, but this being would have had to remain naked. That didn’t mean he still couldn’t get inside your head. He was the real deal, alright. Not like so many of the imposters running around the various districts. He had evidently meant to feast on Victor, but a quick tour inside his mind told him it wasn’t the best idea. He knew if he approached any closer, he could well have the tables turned on him, and he himself might become entranced. As Victor had continued strolling toward him the entire time, he morphed again and flew off before Victor could come any closer.

  Victor could focus his mandalas so that nature’s building blocks, the atoms, reconfigured themselves into molecules of his choosing, say endorphins that favored a trance-like state, that would have allowed Victor to hypnotize the vampire. Victor doubted the vampire understood the hows of it; it was more like his own sixth sense telling him to back off.

  In a land of apex predators, the one who would be king would have magic stronger than anyone else’s, able to neutralize all comers. But there was really only one way of doing that. You had to understand how to override all forms of magic. And for that strategy to work, you needed science, you needed understanding. You needed to know how the magic worked. “Wicca” was once the term for “wisdom.” The wiccans were the original scientists and deep thinkers. But over the years, those who practiced magic had forgotten their roots, gotten caught up in the powers, and lost track of what made those powers work. And so, those with powers had allowed themselves to become vulnerable once again to people like Victor Truman.

  Victor honestly couldn’t remember if the vamp back there was one of the entities he’d summoned from another realm or not. Of late, there seemed to be little room inside his head for anything but his spirit science, he called it, his merger of science and magic, and for perfecting the craft. He had his reasons for inviting these supernatural entities to his city. And those would become painfully evident soon enough.

  While Victorian England had given way seamlessly to Shelly’s England with its vamps and werewolves and Frankenstein monsters created by the very first scientists, which explained why he’d received no warning, certain districts brooked
no entry without passing through customs. It was upon a customs officer that he stumbled onto next.

  The guard held out his arm in a halting gesture. This one seemed to have an ordinary-sized head that had continued to shrink as he put on muscle relative to the rest of him and now looked like a well-centered pimple on top of his shoulders. “I’m afraid I’ll need to see your papers to ensure you’re qualified to survive this sector without losing your mind, sir.”

  Victor chuckled. An artificial intelligence to oversee the various districts and to track everyone’s every move would have been far more efficient. And a barrier field between districts, an energy wall, in essence, generated to supply the feedstock for countless nanites that made over the citizens as they passed between districts, supplying them with whatever costuming they needed, and downloading to their minds and bodies whatever skill sets, aptitudes, and outlooks were necessary to survive the various districts—now that would have stood a far better chance of working, while keeping all the chickens to their various roosts. He’d read as much in Dean C. Moore’s, Escape From the Future.

  But this city couldn’t afford an AI. And it would never have been approved if the budget allowed. Too many people feared that kind of runaway intelligence that could stay ahead of everyone and everything. So, the world over, they’d opted for runaway individuals like Victor, who it was presumed might be skirted a lot more easily, if need be. What they got was the flipside of a centralized intelligence keeping an eye on everything and everyone. They got a decentralized intelligence. Countless individuals, just like Victor, if a good deal less talented, genetically modifying themselves with CRISPR units, hoping to get The Hulk out of Tiny Tim, only to end up with green skin and none of the superpowers to go with it. But at least humanity was finally shedding its provincial nature. Soon no two people would be genetically related enough to be part of any collective, save one of course, the trans-humans.