by Lee Isserow
Lincoln looked on from beyond the creature with a hideous wide grin, and wider eyes. He looked as though he relished every second his gelatinous mate bore down on the two freelancers.
Somewhere, deep inside his head, he was well aware that he should have had some empathy―perhaps even do something to intervene. However, he did nothing, the spores dancing around his skull were puppeteering his train of thought. The brood mother wanted to destroy them, and so he wanted to destroy them.
He circled around the massive glutinous bulk of the beast, laid a hand on it and traced a path out in the thick sludge of its body, engraved a sine wave in its flesh as he walked towards the two magickians just out of its grasp. His eyes caught Ana's, then Rafe's, the intent clear on his face. He threw his hands up, fingers pirouetted with large, theatrical gestures, a showmanship unlike anything Ana had seen before―but she recognised the casting.
His fingers circled back on themselves, palms laying flat in front of his chest―she had never seen it acted out with such intense melodramatic flare. It looked as though he were performing for the brood mother, putting on a show, proving to her that he could do his part in their twisted cross-species relationship.
Ana took a deep breath as he brought his hands upright, and nudged Rafe to act. Lincoln threw his fingers apart, and a blast of solid light pounded into the side of the barrier he two of them redirected their focus to defend. The shield buckled further, the two of them ducked to the floor to avoid having their heads crushed as the brood mother's jaws bent their defences under its mighty grasp.
Rafe was pouring with sweat, he could practically feel the magick in his blood mocking him, already picturing the hangover that would hit him for the next two or three days―assuming they survived.
In his mind's eye he saw himself waking up, his arms around Ana, holding her close.
A perfect, impossible future.
He would never let her get that close in real life, but in the fantasy, anything could happen. He saw himself getting up, putting coffee on, catching his reflection in the mirror, hating the patchwork quilt of his skin. But in that fantasy, he hated it less. There was a knowledge that fictional version of himself had, that such a thing didn't matter to Ana. She could love him despite it, and as a result, he could love himself just a little. Perhaps he could even forgive himself for trusting the wrong person and losing a part of himself in the process. . . because he had gained so much more since then, because of her. . . She made it almost seem worth being ripped apart. . .
Rafe shook off the fantasy. He pulled a hand from the barrier and grabbed hold of Ana's arm. He knew how they were going to not only defeat the beast―but make sure it wasn't going to bear another single damn spore.
Chapter 42
Tasty human snack
“Let the barrier down!” he shouted.
Ana looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrow cocked, saying more with an expression than she could manage with every iota of her energy dedicated to keeping the barrier in place. After all, it was pretty much her and her alone that was keeping them from being crushed to death.
“I mean it.”
“No!” she grunted through a grimace. “You got spores in your stupid head.”
“I don't,” he insisted. “Right now, you can't do two castings at once. . . not yet. . . and we can't do a damn thing about this bitch in the Natural World.”
Ana's lips parted, but she had no further objections, only a wide smile that set off a wicked look in her eye. She knew exactly what he was thinking.
She took a deep breath, centred herself, and found a moment of silence in her head. She ignored everything else around her, even another massive blast of solid light from Lincoln, that shook what was left of the barrier. It was going to fail one way or another―and one way or another, they were going to end up inside the brood mother. . . Better it be on their terms than hers.
As she let the breath out, and pulled her hands back, she grabbed hold of Rafe as the two of them let the barrier dissipate.
The creature's great, mucusy jaws came down upon them with a loud, syrupy slosh. It gnashed its jaws, pulled them back into the main bulk of its body as it tried to chew down its meal.
But as it did so, the brood mother discovered that its tasty human snack was not nearly as delicious as she imagined it might be.
Chapter 43
The Mirror Realm
As the four quadrants of the brood mother's foul fleshy mouth came down upon Rafe and Ana, with barely fractions of a second to spare until they were to become the thing's dinner, Ana smashed through to the Mirror Realm.
This wasn't an attack, like she had done countless times, a crack the veil of reality as an offensive strike. This was something entirely different, a notion that Rafe had suggested as a possibility down the line, when she had honed her skill.
They flipped through the air, wind rushed into their faces, down their backs, then switched directions on a dime, as if they were being thrown head over heels, and landed with an unceremonious crash on the other side. The ground beneath their feet was shattered like glass, but healed itself, automagickally, just as any cracks between realms that Ana brought forth had done.
Rafe hacked and coughed, his stomach confused by the flip, doing its best to kick up some vomit―but there was nothing in it to regurgitate, just slivers of rough and angry bile that scalded his throat at the tail end of dry heaves.
Ana rose to her feet, the world around them looked not dissimilar to the one they had left, but it was certainly not the same. Everything in the barn glimmered and glistened. Upon inspection, Ana could see that there were no smooth edges to objects, everything from the hay to the walls had a sharp texture, and everything refracted light in the most heavenly of fashions, as if they had shifted into a world of prisms.
“Is this―”
“The Mirror Realm,” Rafe explained, throat hoarse from the dry heaving. “Your realm.”
“Way to be melodramatic. . .”
“Way to be deadly serious. You're a mirror adept, this is literally the facet of reality your magick is connected to.”
“Still sounds lame,” she said, as she grabbed his hand and helped him up to his feet.
“For every thing there is an equal or opposite thing. That's what this place is―”
“Can you save the lesson for another time?”
Rafe nodded. She was right, this was not the time to attempt to teach his partner about her gift. There was a job to be done, and it wasn't going to get pleasant any time soon.
Her walked over to the crystalline representation of the brood mother, circled her, eyes fixed on her form. The grey and violet goop of her body had embellishments, fluid that floated around inside the mass, slime within the slime, that was not her own.
He reached in to the creature's body, attempted to fish it out, but his hand passed straight through her. He scoffed at himself for even attempting it. “Need your help.”
“Are you trying to do what I think you're trying to do?”
He nodded, trying to hold back his own disgust.
“I'm not fishing around in there. . . “
“Don't expect you to, but it's your realm―”
“Stop saying that!”
“I can't touch things here. . .”
“You think I can?”
“I know you can. And deep down, you know you can. . .”
Ana looked beyond him to the brood mother, then back to Rafe. He had so much confidence in her, he always had confidence in her. She wondered how she ever doubted knowing who he was. For as long as she had known him, he had always been supportive, caring, and always did the right thing―even if it was technically the 'wrong' thing from the mundane way of looking at things. Ethics in the magickal world were something she still had to get her head around, but at that moment, there were more important matters at hand.
She grabbed hold of his coat, breathed deeply, focussed her mind on him being able to make contact with things in the Mirro
r Realm. She sent her intent not only to the reality around her, but through his body, as if Rafe's hand was an extension of her own.
He pursed his lips, and thrust his arm into the glassy form of the brood mother, his fingers made contact with the strands of white-ish goop that whipped around her otherwise grey and purple mass. The slime caught on his fingers, stayed in his hands, whilst the rest of her body went straight past him, as if it weren't there at all.
He swum his hand around the beast's body, grabbed all the goo he could, pulled it out from the creature's mass, and stared down at it with disgust.
“I don't think I've ever had so much of another man's splooge in my hand. . .“ Rafe muttered, as he looked around for somewhere to wipe it, realising that there was nothing but sharp, hard, reflective surfaces in the realm. He glanced down at his coat, and reluctantly wiped Lincoln's semen on the cashmere. The coat was ruined anyway, what was one more stain. . .
“The way you phrased that sounds like you're familiar with men ejaculating into your hand, albeit with less volume. Do tell!” She looked almost giddy with excitement at the prospect.
“Stories for another time,” Rafe said, with an almost coy smile. “First, we gotta flip back, and put this jello back in the mould.”
Ana stared at him with a wide, unbelieving stare.
“What?”
“You know how sometimes you try and sound like an action hero, and totally miss the mark?”
“Just take us back to the Natural World.”
“This is one of those times.”
“I'll take your critique under advisement, now flip us back. Please.”
Ana smiled wide, and grabbed Rafe's arm. The realm around them shattered into a million pieces, and they fell head over heels back to the Natural World. The brood mother could no longer breed, and one way or another, they were going to put it down.
Chapter 44
Is that what this is all about
Reality shattered in the barn, shards from between realms splintered off into the ether as Rafe and Ana returned to the Natural World.
The brood mother turned, roared an angry gargle. A thousand tentacles shot out towards the two of them.
“Whenever you're ready. . .” Rafe muttered.
Ana threw her hands out towards the tentacles, ”I don't think you're ready for this, Jelly!”
Fractures cracked out in mid-air, the tentacles all torn into a thousand pieces that slopped and splattered on the floor of the barn. The cracks tore through the beast's body, shattered its colossal viscous form into slimy slices that slid away from the mass, and exploded a grey and purple rain of sludge on to the ground below.
“See, that's how you catch a phrase.”
“It's catchphrase.”
“What's catchphrase?”
“You don't 'catch a phrase', you have a catchphrase.”
“Really? Do you want to go 'put some jello in a mould', Mister action hero?”
“No need to be facetious.”
Ana was thrown across the barn, and crashed into the wall with a thud that shook the entire structure. Dust rained down from the ceiling, as Lincoln glared at her, and sent another blast of solid light into her unconscious body, just to be sure she was well and truly out cold.
He ran over to the separate parts of the brood mother, grabbed hold of one section, and took it over to another. The goop slid through his fingers, and left a slimy trail behind him on the ground.
“No! You can't be dead! I can't live without you!”
“Jesus man,” Rafe scoffed, “have some dignity!”
Lincoln turned, a fire in his eyes. “You did this! You killed her!” He threw a blast of glittering light at him.
Rafe dropped to the floor to duck under it, rolled over and picked himself back up.“Technically she killed her. . .” he indicated to Ana, and glanced over amidst the glib retort, hoping that she was okay.
“You! Her! You're all the bloody same!”
With a twirl of his fingers and slam of his palms, a shockwave rippled through the air towards Rafe. He countered with a thin and frail barrier that just about held, but the force of the blast sent him scooting back four feet, lines traced in the dirt where his boots scraped against the filthy barn floor.
Lincoln scowled. “You don't know love! You don't understand what it is to be a father! A partner!” He threw his fingers through the air, sent lighting arcing across the barn. Rafe jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the strike. The hay behind him burst into flames.
With a grunt, Rafe picked himself back up again, and dusted the barn detritus off his coat. “Lincoln, you've known me for what, thirty years? You know full well I know what it's like. . .”
“Oh, like that counts! Is that what this is all about? Jealousy? You wanted my family to be as dead as yours?!”
Anger coursed through Rafe's entire body. More anger than he had felt in years. His fingers found the stain on the coat before his mind knew what he was doing. the tips covered themselves in Lincoln's seed. He raised his hand into the air, fingers stretched wide, and brought them in to a point. “Canilu―
“What? What are you doing? Is that my―”
“Noco.”
The words left Lincoln's throat. His pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks.
He was no longer in control of his own body.
His mind was blank.
Every drop of magick that flowed through Rafe's body was funnelled into enacting the casting, turning him into a blood slave―or in this case, a semen slave.
At Rafe's command, Lincoln leaped through the air, flipped forward, diving face-first into the concrete floor. His cheekbones cracked, and nose exploded into a shower of blood. He picked himself back up, ran straight into the barn wall, turned around, leaving a sanguine trail dripping under him as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him, straight into the opposite wall.
Rafe could feel a pounding in his head, and did all he could to ignore it. He also chose to ignore that it should have been well beyond the strength he had left to cast such powerful magick. But the anger was giving him more strength than anything he had ever felt since he had been sapped. He thrashed his hands through the air, and puppeteered Lincoln back to the centre of the room.
“No!” he gasped, the words barely came out of his lips, forced through on a whispered breath, as Rafe continued to manipulate him, forced him to kick and jump on the gloopy pieces of the brood mother.
The pounding was now not only in Rafe's skull, but rippled through his entire body. Sweat was pouring from his brow, a shiver over and under his skin. He fell to one knee, tried to catch his breath. He could see a glint in Lincoln's eye, green glow shining out from under the mess of blood and crunched bone that used to be his face.
He had regained control.
“You'll pay for that, Rafe. Not only with your life, but with the life of the woman you lo―” Lincoln was shot across the room by a blinding bolt of light.
He slammed into the wall of the barn and collapsed in the dirt.
Ana rushed over to Rafe's side, put her arm around his shoulder, held his hand. Their eyes met, and bit by bit, the pounding in Rafe's head eased up. The shaking and rippling through his body vanished. He stared at her in silence, looked her up and down, checking without words that she was in one piece.
“I'm fine,” she said. “Are you?”
He nodded.
He didn't have words, couldn't tell her what just happened, couldn't face explaining to her why it happened. Not then. Not there. Not yet.
She collapsed next to him on the floor, and looked out at the mess of blood and slime spread out across the concrete. The remnants of the brood mother's body were jiggling in the first glows of dawn light, which was doing its best to crack through gaps in the barn's roof and walls.
“That was kinda easy,” she said, as she put a hand to her aching head. “For the most part.”
“It's never that easy. . .”
“Oh, you mean it's gonna d
o a Terminator?”
“T2. But yeah, pretty much. . .”
As if it had been waiting for the cue all over again, the disparate pieces of the brood mother crawled together at speed, and the viscous beast glued itself back together.
It burst open at the centre, a massive toothy mouth formed from the gelatinous whole.
“Where does it get teeth from?” Ana asked.
“That's a question for literally any other time!”
The monster seemed to collapse in on itself, getting shorter and wider, then sprung up, leaped through the air and fired tentacles out as it hurtled towards Rafe and Ana. The teeth in its mouth grew to over a foot long, massive jaws primed to devour them.
Chapter 45
Clean up
Ana shot up a barrier just as the mother landed on top of the two of them.
“Feel like we've been here before. . .” she grunted.
“You and me both.”
“Any more great ideas?” Her breath was heavy, as she put everything she had into holding the salivating slime beast back.
“Seeing as I've got a handful of an idiot's spunk, I'm probably not the guy you should look to for ideas. . .” he sighed, as his eyes skirted the barn for something―anything that could help them. His gaze stopped at a collection of ancient-looking metal milk jugs that hung on a wall. “Actually, now you mention it. . .” he indicated over to the milk jugs. “How do you feel about containment castings?“
“Do we have to make the thing into a terrifying glass monster first?”
“Nope.”
“Good, because I don't know if I've mentioned it, but that's a damn stupid way of doing things. . .”
Rafe scoffed. “Need a hand propelling the barrier?”
“If you wouldn't mind.”