by Dina Given
The men were curled on the floor in fetal positions. Their bodies were shrunken and their skin shriveled. It looked like they had been sucked dry, and only their wrinkled husks were left behind. Their mouths were open in a silent scream, and their fingers were curled into claws clutching at their chests, as if trying to hold on to the last of their life force. It was a gruesome sight, and the thought that I had come so close to the same fate made me sick.
Zane placed a gentle hand on the small of my back, encouraging me to enter the room. It was empty though. The display pedestal was gone along with Sharur. I ran my hands through my tangled hair, trying to hold back a scream of frustration. Why would they go through the effort to repair the security system and place guards to protect an empty room?
The answer didn’t come to me right away, but when a dark shape loomed in the doorway, I figured it out. It was a trap. Connor, that son of a bitch, had expected me to escape somehow and knew I wouldn’t be able to leave without trying to get Sharur. He didn’t know I would make the attempt tonight, but he must have figured it would happen eventually. This was his insurance policy that I wouldn’t get out.
Zane, who had his back to the doorway, saw my expression and spun on his heel, positioning himself between me and this newest threat. A giant of a man stood there. He must have been almost eight feet tall and broader than the doorway he stood in. He had to sidle into the room sideways. It looked like his muscles had muscles, with biceps and thighs as wide around as a thick tree trunk and just as solid. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and chiseled features with a dead expression. He might have looked human, but Zane and I both knew there was something not right about this guy.
“What is it, and how do we kill it?” I asked.
“It’s not one of mine,” he replied. That was what I had been afraid of.
I fell into a fighting stance yet had no weapon. I felt naked and helpless without my Glock. Zane, aware of my predicament, moved to my side, lifting his glowing staff and calling forth the energy needed for his magic. Then, three hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle lunged at us.
The creature disguised as a man blurred as it moved in a flash. It bypassed Zane easily and pummeled into me, the pungent odor of wet earth assaulting me along with it. I thought I was going to spit up my stomach upon the violent impact. It hit with enough force to slam me into the rear wall with a sickening thud.
As I lay on the ground, breathless and stunned, it loomed over me. I wanted to defend myself, but I couldn’t unfurl my arms from around my injured stomach. Surely it was going to kill me quickly and efficiently, probably by snapping my neck. At least, that was what I would do if I had someone cornered like this who didn’t have a gun.
However, before it could touch me, a fireball slammed into its back. The creature fell forward, stumbling over me as I whimpered, fearing the flames would spread to me, but he regained his balance and stood up without any of the flames licking me.
Rather than screaming and writhing in pain, it calmly and silently turned to face Zane. The smell of its cooking skin invaded my nose and made me want to wretch. It was like garbage burning in a wet swamp.
While I watched, the flames grew smaller, flickered, and then finally extinguished. A thin gel-like film coated its charred skin. The gel continued to ooze out of its pores, sloughing off the blackened skin and leaving behind shiny, pink flesh. The entire process took only seconds.
The fire had burned off its hair and melted cartilage, leaving the creature smooth, without a nose, lips, or even eyelids. It opened the hole in its face that used to be its mouth to reveal movement in the back of its throat. The creature’s stomach convulsed and it gagged, the sound wet and thick. Slippery tentacles spilled out, twitching and reaching for Zane, who stood directly in their path.
One slimy arm shot out and wrapped around Zane’s neck, squeezing. His hands reflexively grasped onto it, trying to pry it loose, when a second and third tentacle wrapped around both wrists, holding them wide. Zane was completely helpless and gasping for air, his face quickly turning blue. His eyes rolled toward me.
“Zane!” I screamed, surprised at hearing the pure anguish in my voice. Was that really how I felt about him? Yes, it is, I realized. I couldn’t say why. Maybe it was a simple attraction to the bad boy, but it felt like more than that. I knew him, needed him, owed him.
Panic flowed through my veins creating adrenaline, infusing me with the strength to push myself to my feet, my stomach an agonizing knot of pain that screamed at me with every move. I had nothing to fight with other than my body. Even if I had been in top condition, which was far from the case, I didn’t stand a chance against something that supernaturally large and strong. Although, that didn’t stop me from closing the gap between myself and the creature, running and leaping onto its back before it knew I was coming.
It had written me off as incapacitated and hadn't expected the attack. Before it could retaliate, I slipped both arms around its neck and leaned back, using the full weight of my body to constrict its throat. I could feel the wriggling tentacles underneath the thin skin of its neck, struggling to free themselves from my grip. I pulled back harder, and one of the tentacles compressed, popping off with a gush of slime that dripped down the creature’s chin and over my arms. I could feel my grip loosening as that slime coated my skin, but I didn’t need to hold on for much longer.
The tentacle that had come free was the one wrapped around Zane’s wrist. He shook his arm until the rubbery appendage unraveled and slipped to the floor. With his now free hand, Zane reached into one of the pouches at his waist and pulled out another small stone, this one the clear green of a Heineken bottle and all sharp edges. He pressed it into the flesh of the tentacle still wrapped around his neck, puncturing its skin and digging the object in. With one sharp punch, he shattered the stone embedded in the tentacle. The creature dropped Zane instantly, and he fell to the floor, gulping air. I couldn’t maintain my grip any longer, and I slid off the creature’s back, crumpling next to Zane.
The creature ignored both of us, its tentacles writhing furiously as even more rubbery appendages tried to escape their human prison. The pressure was too much, and the creature’s head burst open, freeing a bulbous, gelatinous blob from the shell it had been wearing. This was the true owner of the tentacles; it had only been disguising itself as human, like the bug wearing an Edgar suit in Men in Black.
The tentacle that had been punctured by Zane’s stone was quickly turning a mottled gray, the skin beginning to shrivel and split. The dryness spread up the tentacle until it reached the main body and branched out to all of the remaining arms. The creature’s frantic movements slowed then stopped. Left behind was a pile of ash in the shape of the creature, which then collapsed, spewing forth a black cloud.
I closed my eyes, nose, and mouth, but I had been too close. I choked and gagged on the dried flesh of a slime creature. Gross!
With my eyes watering and unable to take a breath, I crawled along the floor, desperate to find the way out. Something hard and warm clamped down on my wrist. I had lifted my elbow to slam it into this new threat when the grip shifted, and I felt Zane’s warm hand slide into my own, giving me a reassuring squeeze. He pulled me along behind him until we made it back out into the hallway where the air was clear.
We didn’t have the luxury of time to rest and catch our breath; as a result, we coughed and panted while jogging down the hall, hand-in-hand, back to the elevator. “Zane, wait,” I gasped, trying to stop his relentless forward momentum, but it was as ineffectual as halting a stamped of wild buffalo. “But Daniel¾”
Zane finally stopped in front of the elevator doors, pushing the button. “I’m sorry, Emma. I truly am, but even if Daniel is here, he’s going to be just as heavily guarded, if not more so, than Sharur. Connor knows you would try to save him. Also, after that stunt we just pulled back there, soldiers are going to be all over us in a matter of minutes. We have to get out before they realize you’re gone.”
&nb
sp; A soft ding signaled the arrival of the elevator, but I didn’t want to get in. “Stay alive now and you’ll have another chance at rescuing Daniel,” Zane said, trying to coax me into the elevator. I stepped inside. When the elevator doors slid shut behind us, enveloping us in temporary safety, we slumped against the wall and exchanged a glance.
We were both covered in black ash that stuck to the slime already coating our skin. It dried into a crust that cracked and flaked when we moved. It made me think of Ghostbusters, when they were coated in sticky marshmallow at the end of the movie.
As the thought came to me, a crazed laugh bubbled up from my belly. It came from a combination of grief, stress and the utter insanity of this moment. I must have sounded hysterical, although Zane seemed to find my insanity quite amusing because he burst out laughing as well. We made quite a pair, but I think we both needed the cathartic moment to cut the fear and relieve the tension.
It took a few minutes before we finally quieted. When I reached up to press the button to bring us back up to the lobby, I realized Zane was still holding my hand. He caught me noticing, the smile slipped off his face, and his hand fell out my mine. Averting our eyes, I pressed the button, and we were on our way.
The lobby was dark and empty. As I suspected, Connor hadn’t known this would be the night I would try to escape, and he certainly hadn’t expected me to get past his pet. Therefore, no guards were on duty in the lobby, looking for an escapee.
We made it out of the building without setting off the alarms, since they didn’t trigger when the door was opened from the inside. I followed Zane through the darkened woods surrounding the old hospital until we reached the water where, in a particularly dense patch of tall grasses, he had moored a black rowboat with oars and a small outboard motor.
He slid it silently into the dark waters and helped me in before carefully joining me. Picking up the oars, he rowed us down the river with only the soft sounds of the waves lapping against the hull. When we were safely away from North Brother Island, Zane started up the motor and picked his way along the coastline of the Hudson River.
I was struggling to stay conscious. My eye lids felt like lead weights, and I would jerk awake every few seconds when I caught myself dozing off. The excitement of the evening, the warm air blanketing me, and the lull of the motor made for a strong narcotic. However, I knew Zane was just as tired as I was, and I didn’t want to leave him alone to deal with his own struggle against sleep.
“Where are we going?” I asked, wanting to know, but I also wanted to keep us awake with conversation.
He seemed grateful for the distraction. “There is an abandoned warehouse along the river in Brooklyn where I have been staying. It’s safe and out of the way. You can stay there for tonight, and then we can find your friends in the morning.”
“You’re just going to let me go?”
“That’s the plan. I’m going to do my best to stick with it.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Look, I’m not saying there isn’t a risk in staying with me, but you’re at an even greater risk if I just drop you off in the middle of Times Square when the government is looking for you. They can access street security cameras and find you in a heartbeat. Anyway, we’re both injured and exhausted. Neither of us are in any shape to organize a safe transfer tonight. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
It was hard to argue with that logic, so I fell back into silence. Minutes later, Zane cut off the motor and picked up the oars.
“We’re here,” he said, gracefully steering us to a ladder alongside an old peer that led up to street level. He tied off the boat and helped me onto the rungs.
At the top of the ladder, a massive warehouse loomed over us. Many of the old, leaded glass windows were broken or missing, with plywood nailed over them from the inside. Colorful graffiti decorated the entire surface of the building. Trash and detritus was strewn along the street and collected against the walls.
Zane led me to the warehouse’s steel doors. Although they were covered in spray paint, there was no sign of scratches, dents or rust. Clearly they were newer to the building and quite secure. Zane removed a small set of keys from his pants pocket and unlocked the door’s three deadbolts. Then he pushed the heavy metal slab open and flicked on a light inside.
The light came from a single bulb on a string in the second floor loft, illuminating only one corner of the warehouse dimly. I followed Zane up a set of steel steps into his makeshift home.
I had been expecting an unmade mattress on the floor, empty pizza boxes, and a big screen television. Wasn’t that how most bachelors lived? It certainly described Daniel’s apartment. Instead, Zane had created a comfortable, if modest, living space for himself.
Tucked into the far corner of the room was a queen-sized bed, adorned with clean, charcoal gray sheets as well as a white feather comforter and pillows. A small black table stood next to the bed with a single, silver lamp, and next to that was a chest of drawers. The walls were unadorned. There wasn’t a single painting, poster, or photograph anywhere in the room. The only object was a small, decorative box sitting on the bedside table, and I itched with curiosity to know what was inside.
Against the wall opposite the bed was a glass-topped desk covered in papers and a laptop computer connected to a large flat panel monitor. A door stood ajar next to the desk, leading to a modest bathroom with white subway tile walls and floors and a shower that was calling my name.
“Do you mind?” I asked, nodding toward the shower.
“No. Let me get you some clothes.” He pulled a pair of boxer shorts along with an oversized I Love NY T-shirt from a drawer and handed them to me.
I took them with a grateful smile and made my way to the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later, we were both showered and dressed in boxers and tees. Zane insisted I sleep on the bed while he took the recliner, but as tired as I had been, I lay in bed wide awake. I knew Zane was awake too, since I could hear him shifting uncomfortably every minute or so. His presence was disconcerting in so many ways.
How was I supposed to fall asleep in the presence of the man who had been trying to kill me up until tonight? Could I really trust him with my life? Of course the answer was no, but I also saw tonight as a temporary cease fire. I felt like I could trust that, for the next few hours, he wouldn’t try to harm me.
Then there was the matter of that … er, vivid … hallucination I’d had when under the influence of the serum. I couldn’t figure out whether they were real memories or hallucinations brought on by the drugs. Either way, they kept intruding on my thoughts every time I looked over and saw Zane sprawled out on the chair, within touching distance.
It felt warm in the room, so I kicked off the comforter, looking to cool off a bit.
“Can’t sleep either, huh?” came Zane’s husky voice from the darkness.
“No. I must be wired from all of the excitement tonight,” I lied.
I sat up against the pillows and turned on the bedside lamp. Zane also sat up, folding in his recliner and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. When he ran his hands through that long, black hair, all I could think about was how much I wanted those to be my hands knotted in his hair.
“Why did you come for me tonight?” I asked instead.
“I told you, Alex asked me to.”
“The last time I checked, you and Alex were enemies. Why would you do something like that for him?”
He let out a long breath and leaned back in the chair. “It’s sort of a long story.” I raised my eyebrows expectantly, inviting him to continue. “Alex and I weren’t always enemies. In fact, there was a time when we were closer than brothers. We were raised together, apprentices to the same mage. We even joined the Council together.”
“So what happened?”
“You happened,” he responded softly. I flinched as if I had been struck. Was that why Alex hated me so much, because I had come between him and his best friend? “Well, that’s actual
ly an overstatement. Marduk happened, but you were directly involved.”
“I’m listening.”
“Emma, there is something very important that I have to tell you, and I don’t know how you are going to take it.” He stood and walked over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge, careful not to get too close. However, my hormones thought he was plenty close. “It was me.”
I waited for a moment for clarification, but it didn’t come. “It was you who did what?”
“I took away your memories, or blocked them, to be more accurate.”
“What?” I breathed. I wasn’t sure I had understood him correctly. The room was spinning, and I felt lightheaded.
“I blocked your memories and sent you through a rift to Earth to protect you. We … you and I … were together once.” He looked at me from under his long lashes and our eyes met. “In love,” he clarified, in the event I hadn’t understood his meaning. “Marduk found out and saw our union as a threat. With our combined power, he was afraid we could have easily overthrown him. He tried to have me killed, and when you found out, you got … angry. You weren’t very well-trained at the time. I had been trying, and you had made progress, but you always let your emotions control you.”
It was hard to imagine that. “I’ve learned to control my emotions since then. I didn’t have much of a choice,” I responded, thinking back to my time in foster care.
“Well, back then, you weren’t quite so … disciplined. You lost control, did a lot of damage. It made you the target of a lot of races that suffered from what you had done. I knew the only way to save you was to get you out, so I did.”
“But didn’t that weaken you?” Understanding dawned on me in that moment as I followed through the consequences. “Marduk got to you, didn’t he? Because you were too weakened from saving me to defend yourself?” Zane nodded. “And that’s why Alex hates me, because you let yourself become a victim for my sake.” I didn’t need an answer to that one; I knew it was the truth.