by Carver Pike
Then, only a foot from Hugo’s face was Lord Shiva. He was huge, and beastly, like a demon with power beyond belief. His tongue was forked and his skin was blistered and deformed. Horns curled up toward the ceiling from the top of his head.
Lord Shiva’s hands shot forward, emanating light. Hugo screamed as the light spread across his body. His clothing peeled away from his body, and his skin followed suit, ripped from his bone and muscle. Through the agony, the relentless pain, he did not die. He screamed a scream he’d heard in the tunnel and he knew he’d become unimportant.
Chapter 13 - Dark Side Assassins
An ocean of black salt water crashed against a rocky shore. Rain pelted the blanket of choppy water, creating a thunderous sound. High above, the pale moon fought through the storm clouds to shine nature’s spotlight on an old wooden pirate ship that hovered a hundred feet above the dark side Pacific. A crack of lightning lit the sky behind the ship and the rain strengthened, like watery nails slamming down, trying to attach the ship to the water below.
On both sides of the vessel, pale, boney rowers sat on their butts, twenty on each side, but all with the same tired face and long, grey, stringy hair. They sat with their chests resting on their knees, breath entering and exiting, causing them to heave up and down. The oars rested beneath their knees.
It wasn’t often they were allowed to sit idle. Four hours of sleep and three daily breaks of fifteen minutes each were all that was allowed. Unless of course they were parked, but then they were forced to clean the ship or load supplies. It was a life of slavery, preferred to the other option, which was to become unimportant.
In many ways, Lord Shiva had saved their lives when he allowed them to board the ship. Rest and food were the only two things the rowers required. Those were the two needs of all men, both living and zombie, and the rowers were somewhere in between. All other desires were erased from their minds the moment they first touched their oars.
Slither stood at the center of the ship, staring up at the sky, sensing his disgruntled partners standing next to him, tired of waiting. He often thought of what to call the other two and he settled on partners, as the words friends or buddies wouldn’t do. In truth, he didn’t like them much at all.
He lowered his gaze and focused on the exhausted face of one of the rowers. Like the many men resting in the rain, he and his two associates were slaves to the cause, chained in spirit to Lord Shiva of Bala Nishta, only moving around the dark side of the world when ordered to do so by the boss.
Plucked from a world of plundering, scavenging, fighting, and raping, the three hired to carry out Lord Shiva’s demands had led lives in the dark side’s gutters. They’d all fought to the death and had all survived the worst of their clans. They were the best of the best, assassins for hire turned assassins for Lord Shiva’s service. He looked to his left and surveyed the two killers standing next to him.
Viking was a massive man, with long, filthy and tangled hair. Wearing the traditional garb of his people, he seemed to welcome the rain on his soiled skin. Later, as he did every night, he would remove his clothing and stand alone on the bow of the ship, naked, letting the rain and moonlight wash over him. He’d explained to Slither once that it was his favorite of life’s pleasures. Well, that and the taking of a good woman.
The battle axe strapped to his leather vest gleamed in the moonlight, as the rainwater washed caked blood down the handle in streams of copper. Some of it ran through his hair and splashed onto the sides of his bushy beard.
Viking was the only human of the three Bounty Clan members. He’d never crossed through the mirror though. Viking didn’t know this, but Slither had learned that Lord Shiva had had Viking’s good self murdered on the other side of the mirror, to ensure he’d never leave his service. Viking looked to his right, over at Slither, and his lip rose above his teeth in a sneer.
Slither knew that Viking didn’t like the companions he’d been forced to become brothers with. He never liked anyone. He’d murdered most of his Viking clan brothers when he was only a young twenty something. Slither knew that Viking would have killed everyone on the ship if it hadn’t been for the odd inability to do his companions harm, which he supposed had been placed over him by Lord Shiva, some sort of dark magic to keep them trusting in one another. Or at least not kill each other.
Viking lifted his right, super-sized arm, and ran his hand through his tangled hair, squeezing water off of it.
“Hargh!” Viking called out and then spit a gob of phlegm onto the wooden deck at his feet. “Hargh!” he yelled again through the sound of the pouring rain. “How much longer do we have to wait out here? I’ve got a woman half naked in my bunk right now and my cock is throbbing, if you know what I mean. Hargh!”
Slither shook his head, hating how the big brute always pushed the envelope when it came to respecting Lord Shiva. Where most men feared the boss, Viking didn’t seem to give a shit one way or the other, a fact that could be amusing if it didn’t mean the possible elimination of the entire team.
Slither looked down at his hand and the green, cracked, reptile skin, which appeared slimy in the rainwater. He let his forked tongue slither out of his mouth to catch a bit of the cold rain. He caught Viking watching him out of the corner of his eye and knew that the big man hated his slanted, yellow eyes. Viking had said once that Slither’s eyes were the only thing in the whole world that freaked him out.
Slither reached for his ninja-like hood, which hung down behind his neck, and pulled it up over his head. His body was covered in black. His shirt, pants, gloves, and boots were as dark as his charcoal heart. A Japanese sword clung to his back.
“We whhaaittt assss lonnng assss necesssssary,” Slither ordered.
Although never given command and never voted in by his comrades, Slither fancied himself the unnamed leader on the ship. He was the most responsible of the clan and the most respectful of Lord Shiva’s might. Somehow, it seemed that his brothers didn’t quite understand Lord Shiva’s power.
Slither’s upbringing in Javonpais, the dark side of Japan, taught him, if nothing else, honor and the importance of following through with tasks. Where Viking was wild and mostly interested in what treasures would be rewarded at the end of a job, Slither found solace in the fact that he was following his destiny, which was to do as Lord Shiva requested.
When first forced to partner with Viking, Slither had spent many days arguing with the man and his barbaric ways. The constant sound of his “hargh” used to drive him nuts. He’d once punched Viking in the throat in an attempt to get him to cut it out. That had been a brutal battle. It had been that fight that resulted in the loss of Slither’s tail, and had proven they were ultimately restricted from killing one another. Unlike the tiny lizards that roamed the dark side, Slither proved unable to rejuvenate limbs. The sore spot above his ass still ached from time to time. When it came to the end of the fight, Slither’s sword couldn’t seem to reach the crown of Viking’s head, as if an invisible hand had caught the blade and kept it from piercing flesh. Lord Shiva’s power was lenient enough for the loss of a good serpent tail, but too strict for the loss of a barbaric face.
If it weren’t for the partner on the right, or the woman, or whatever he was at the moment you were speaking with him/her, Slither may have tossed Viking into the ocean that night. If he couldn’t kill the man himself, maybe the ferocious sea and its seemingly endless stock of creatures might.
Standing to Slither’s right was Changeling, a confusing sort. His face changed from a feminine but creepy-looking man with pale skin and pitch black eyes to a woman with a sinister but beautiful face and emerald green eyes. His hair was long and red, and never changed, but depending on which face you were looking at, it either added to his strangeness or to her beauty. His clothing was more masculine than feminine, with brown leather pants and shirt.
Beneath the clothing was a mystery. His chest appeared to be flat, but it was rumored he had both male and female genitalia down below.
His voice was either deep and manly or soft and whispery, depending on which face he donned. His appearance changed constantly, back and forth every few seconds, unless he was concentrating on keeping one face. Doing that drained him of energy and had left Changeling in a very sickly state a time or two, so he was mostly seen transforming from one to the other.
“He’s always fashionably late,” Changeling said in his female voice, passing Slither a wink.
“Hargh! For fuck’s sake, girly boy. Stop flirting with the snake!” Viking yelled.
Changeling changed to his male self and laughed. “Jealous, Neanderthal?”
Before their conversation could go any further, the sky boomed with unnatural thunder. The dark clouds reformed themselves into the shape of Lord Shiva’s horned head, like a smoke demon calling out to them.
“Silence!” Lord Shiva ordered.
Slither and Changeling snapped to attention. Viking turned nonchalantly, unimpressed.
“It is time again,” Lord Shiva announced. “You must go forth and hunt.”
“Whhhhattt woulddd you havvvve ussss doooo?” Slither asked.
“Two infants have been born into this world,” Lord Shiva said.
“Hargh!” Viking coughed up phlegm. He spit over the edge of the ship. “The fuck are infants?”
“I think he means babies, like from the other side of the mirror,” Changeling said in his womanly voice. “How is that possible, Master?”
“Babbiessss?” Slither asked.
“Find the small clan that is shielding these sniveling children,” his voice thundered from the sky, ignoring their questions. “Kill them. But bring the infants to me!”
The Bounty Clan was silent. Slither was trying to make sense of what he’d been asked to do, and he assumed the others were doing the same. Viking was probably imagining what he was going to do to the naked lady in his bed at the moment, but more than likely, Changeling was as confused as he was.
Slither knew that none of them had ever seen a person under the age of sixteen, the age at which images appeared on the dark side of the mirror. Kids simply didn’t exist. It had never been possible. Why was it now?
“I sense your suffering minds!” Lord Shiva yelled. “Bring the infants to me, and I will explain everything.”
Slither bowed. Changeling curtsied. Viking grabbed his crotch and spit more phlegm.
“Bring me what is mine!” Lord Shiva’s voice called out as the clouds split up like billiard balls on a hard break.
Chapter 14 - No Turning Back
“The trawler!” Tact announced with a grin that seemed to go from ear to ear. “It’s out there on the water. I know it’s too dark to see it, but trust me, it’s a real beauty.”
The brawler stood with his hands out toward the water, as if introducing the most spectacular ship known to man. He raised his eyebrows and smiled again, waiting for a response. No one cheered. No one hooted or hollered. Excitement hadn’t taken over the crowd the way Tact seemed to think it would.
Gabe didn’t know what to say. He believed their new friend that there was a boat somewhere out there in the black of night, and he could clearly see the small rowboat tied to the broken dock in front of them, but he’d never been fond of the water. If he had, he’d have joined the Navy. He wasn’t afraid of it, he just didn’t have any experience with boats.
He’d grown up in the city, in Detroit. He could hotwire a car, he could hang with the best of them in a street fight, and he could even outrun most of his neighborhood friends and climb a fence in a jiffy, but being on a boat was as foreign to him as outer space. Plus, somehow, he didn’t imagine they were about to step foot on a luxury yacht. Chances were they’d be boarding some kind of pirate ship, like the kind from Treasure Island. He couldn’t help thinking of the ship at the end of The Goonies, which made him chuckle a little under his breath.
“Well, I can’t wait to see it,” Lisa spoke up, breaking the odd silence and surprising Gabe.
He cocked an eyebrow and looked at her.
“You can’t?” he asked.
“I love boats,” she said.
“You know there must be like giant boat-eating squids out there in that water, right?” he reminded her.
“Well, look who’s being a negative Nancy,” she said as she followed Tact out onto the iffy dock planks.
Tact dropped down to his knees and pulled a rope that brought a small rowboat closer to the dock.
“I don’t know about this,” Hawks said.
“You and me both, brother,” Gabe agreed.
“I know this boat is small, but the trawler is actually a pretty big one,” Emma assured them. “I’ve been on it once before.”
“You have?” Bronc asked.
“Long ago. Old memories, my love,” she said while touching his cheek. “An old life long forgotten.”
Ayana stood far back from everyone else, as if not even considering taking the trip across the water.
“You don’t seem so sure about it,” Gabe said as he held an open palm out in her direction.
“I don’t like this. My people, we stay far from the wet death,” she said. “Tact, I thought we would go by land.”
Tact handed the rope to Bronc and stepped back onto dry land.
“We would be foolish to try to make this journey by land,” he told them all. “Yes, it is possible, but to do so we’d have to travel all the way around the Black Lake. Chi-Killian is clear on the other side. We do not have the food, money, or time to make that kind of trip.”
“We can figure it out,” Ayana argued. “I don’t like this at all.”
She pointed out at the lake in the direction of the invisible boat that lurked somewhere in the darkness.
“We will cross the lake quickly,” he assured her. “We’re headed straight to Chi-Killian and the Pleasure Pier. If we go at a safe, slow, and steady pace, we should reach there in four hours.”
“And by land?” she asked.
“Keeping those babies away from every person alive, all the images who might want to sell them for a bit of coral, which means taking back roads and crossing dangerous lands, hmm, I’d say at least a week.”
Tact stood with his hands on his hips. It was clear that he had no doubt that crossing the water was the best option, and he seemed to be finished trying to convince everyone else. Ayana finally walked slowly toward the dock, shaking her head in disagreement the whole way. She muttered something in a strange language Gabe couldn’t quite hear, let alone understand. He looked over at Hawks and saw his friend smile, obviously happy she’d decided to tag along.
“Alright,” Tact announced, becoming jovial and animated once again. “It’s gonna take at least two trips to get everyone out to the big boat. I’ll take Bronc, Emma, and Ayana over first. Then I’ll come back for the rest of you.”
It was settled. Tact took the first group out to the boat, and as he’d promised, he came back for Gabe, Lisa, and Hawks. Gabe felt like a wimp on the small boat. He clutched Lisa’s arm like a small child. She laughed and teased him, but then held his hand and comforted him.
He could swim; that wasn’t the big deal, he just didn’t like the feeling that a whole world existed below his feet, and he could see none of it. He’d seen Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Open Water, and tons of other movies where underwater creatures seemed to love tormenting and dismembering folks who belonged on dry land.
Plus, at the back of his mind, he had the memory of the Gildwards that had yanked Lisa under the water on their way to the Slums of York. They’d barely survived that battle, and that was in a small lake of sorts. This was an ocean, and Gabe was sure there had to be a deep pool of potential terror lying below the surface.
Finally, they reached the large boat and climbed aboard. Gabe was pleasantly surprised when he reached the deck and saw how large and safe the boat seemed. He stood with a firm base and tried to get the boat to rock from left to right, but it was too large and wouldn’t budge.
“It’s not a cano
e, Bob Hope,” Tact teased.
“Gabe,” Gabe said, reminding the man of his name. He turned to Emma. “How long does he need to know somebody before he calls them by their real name?”
“Sorry,” Tact announced. “You trust me to get on the boat, I trust you enough to call you by your name, Gabe.”
Gabe nodded. “Thank you. Can we do this quickly? I feel trapped here.”
Ayana moved close to Gabe and whispered, “I don’t like it either.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe caught Lisa as she glared at the other woman. He laughed and wrapped Lisa up in a hug.
It took about a half hour for Tact to prepare the boat for launch. Gas wasn’t an issue as Tact explained that Sasha insisted it was always kept full and ready in case they ever had the need to escape quickly.