Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

  The repercussions, once I let go, would be more powerful than normal. I resolved to at least fly to someplace safe before letting go. Assuming Lacey wouldn’t simply set my clothes on fire and say no.

  She should understand the desire to fight. She loved battle, the conflict, watching two people tear at each other like giants from a lost age. That’s why Lacey agreed to watch over Bottom Pit during my absence.

  “I’ll be risking my life. And passing this curse on to someone else. You owe me if we’re going to do this together. Tell me what to expect.”

  I rubbed my head slowly and sorted through a dozen bits of information. My father’s words were suppressed and the images with them torn into for more details.

  “Come sunrise, just after the sun crests the island—” I was fairly sure that’d be when Lacey was at her most powerful, when the sun could hit us in full during the fight. Why, or how her powers worked I didn’t know. “I’ll call Boss Wylde. And if she’s feeling generous, she’ll let me pull upon a purer form of the flame than I normally use.”

  “How much? Purer, I mean. My own flames are, closer to water in how they act.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never had to fight something insanely big.”

  Huge wasn’t the word to describe it. In my other form, I felt large and powerful. This creature dwarfed the fire breathing version of myself.

  Leviathan

  “It’s a leviathan,” I repeated the name my primal mind used. It’d called the creatures in vampire shadows, Night Shades, and Warden Bennett agreed. Leviathan might be this creature’s name.

  “What the hell is a leviathan?” Agent Brand asked. She pointed at the video feeds which faced west. “It’s a Ryuujin.”

  “You have your stories. I have mine. If you want me to answer your question, stop talking.”

  Brand sighed, and pantomimed buttoning her lips. I had never seen anyone do that before in real life.

  “If she says no, that thing eats you and you die, I probably die, and maybe it goes wild enough from a tummy ache to create a tidal wave.”

  “And if she says yes?”

  “The extra power should help me increase in size.” The elements were our gifts. That’s what the voice of my father had said. “And if I take in only one, well.”

  “Well what? Can you take in more than one? Are there more elementals? Like metal. Or forest. Or gold?”

  “No.” I squinted then shook my head.

  Agent Brand shrugged. Her elements were nonsense sounding. I only knew of four, but the world had been filled with strange creatures. The various sector governments had been too effective during The Purge.

  One of the screens started beeping. Brand stood and stared at the monitor. She sighed and blew out air slowly.

  “Whatever. You still ready for this?”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t sunrise yet.

  “No,” I answered. “It’s not sunrise.”

  “You need flame, right? Not the actual sun?”

  “It’ll work. But the bigger the flame, the more power she’ll be able to channel.” Hopefully. It wasn’t like Lacey sat down and said, “Here’s how all of my powers work.” When alone we passed time by watching the fights below, or engaged in more adult activities.

  Oddly, it wasn’t too different from Kahina. We had talked in public a bit, but not about anything major. I fought off the umpteenth sigh for the night and resolved to be more interesting for the next woman. Assuming I ever found another person I could risk getting close to.

  “I can shift pretty fast. You go to the platform. Keep that thing distracted from the normal people. I’ll get a fire started then dose myself.” She pressed the button and an alarm sounded. The siren carried all over the island. I could feel it embedding into every tree, rock, and cutting across the air until it faded near the island’s far side.

  “If we time it right, I’ll look like an unwilling sacrifice that you’re keeping it from, and it’ll get mad, irate, and snap me up without thought.”

  “Then I use the fire.” I nodded. It made sense. Then I had to pray to whatever Gods Daniel’s kind had murdered, that Wylde would be willing to assist.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “If I help you survive, Miss Wylde has promised to seek an answer to my curse.”

  “Did she?”

  Brand nodded. “She said you’d want to fight the Ryuujin.”

  “Did she say she’d help me?” Here we’d been talking about me borrowing Wylde’s power and it sounded like Brand already had the answer. I’d been worried over nothing.

  “I did ask. She said it would depend on if you were nice to her or not.”

  Fuck me sideways. I hadn’t been nice at all. She’d bathed me in flame by way of revenge. This plan was already going to pieces.

  Annoying Mistress of Flame. Plays power games. Unwelcome. Untimely. A distraction.

  “Come on.” Agent Brand reached for a small ladder set into the wall. She yanked a thick latch and slid it to one side. The lock had partially rusted and the grinding on my senses made my teeth hurt.

  By the time I looked up again, Brand was out the escape hatch and soaring through the air. Her wings burned the night air. A wave of wind blasted into the lookout tower by her wings stirred up the Warden’s ashes.

  I didn’t know where she planned to dose herself on hemlock. Her knowledge of the secret layout to this tower was beyond normal. She simply adapted to crazy situations and plowed ahead.

  We were both risking our lives over a stupid and easily avoided fight. Yet, we sought answers to our personal problems while putting others first. For Brand it was preventing the curse which ruined her life from destroying her descendants. For me, it had been getting Leo and Stacy off the island and keeping those close to me safe.

  On the way out of the ceiling hatch, as the Warden’s ashes drifted above, it occurred to me the Wardens, Brand, and I shared another trait in common. We continued giving of ourselves to keep the world ticking by.

  Until the day we came up short. I may not have been an official sector agent, but their motto made sense. Everything for the peace.

  21

  For The Flame

  I shifted. It felt like blowing up, puffing full of air, and stretching all at once. The tower’s top grew crowded, and soon I felt like a cat perching on a far too small fencepost. My wings spread wide. The ground no longer felt so far away. I stood on thickened hind legs and sniffed the air. Salt hung heavy with sea spray.

  Waves along the west rolled. Beneath those waves the Leviathan slowly coiled, steadily approaching shore for its sacrifice.

  Brand soared ahead. She’d lowered herself over the trees and set the top limbs aflame. Every few seconds she would cry a piercing sound that vibrated my bones.

  People, like ants, ran through the woods. They exclaimed a number of different words— lost in a muddled haze of sensations. I mused that their lives hung in the balance.

  The notion was discarded. They weren’t family. Their lives weren’t as important. Maybe they had led lives and were someone’s children. Those who survived the upcoming battle should count themselves lucky.

  I leapt from the tower. My hind legs drove into the fortification with extreme force. Its base crackled and slowly started to topple behind me.

  By the time it crashed, tearing apart trees under its weight, I had taken to the air.

  Mine.

  For a minute, I aimed straight toward the moon. Its glowing light called me in ways that the budding forest fire below couldn’t compete with. I wanted to follow the crescent glow for hours in a never ending game of chase.

  The ocean rolled. I felt waves part with more force than they should have. Waves fifteen feet high formed in an instant and careened toward Atlas Island. I veered back on course, remembering my self-assigned task.

  Kill the sea worm.

  I debated demanding Lacey’s attention. The fire hadn’t grown to be large enough yet for any real power. Levi
athan turned its rising head and squinted beady eyes in Brand’s direction. Water poured down in buckets.

  Once again the sheer size impressed me. It was all I thought about, mostly from jealousy. If Brand was a regular bus, then I was two double decker buses. That creature belonged a few sizes further up the scale. It could curl in a football stadium in the same way cats occupied their tiny beds.

  Despite the darkness where I flapped, it turned and locked on me. I huffed and gathered air under my wings to propel myself higher.

  On the island’s eastern end, the side facing Western Sector’s mainland, boats sped along. Laden with people in chains. Helicopters flew away.

  They flee. Lithe Twins must have warned Pink Meats.

  Don and Dee had left hours ago with my small group. Maybe they issued an evacuation. I wondered about the hundreds left on this side of the island. Warden Bennett simply may not care about those deemed too savage to retain their presence on the kinder side.

  “Fuck them,” I growled. The words rumbled and earth below thrashed, as if speaking words my mouth couldn’t form correctly.

  I spoke like the voice in my head. Deep. Dark. If the devil had been real he’d panic at hearing the two word declaration.

  Size and strength. This creature had both. I owned the sky. I owned the earth. I breathed fire and called her my Mistress.

  “Let all those dead gods hold witness, I will take the ocean from you, worm,” I said. The ground echoed in time and rocks heaved.

  TRY

  It responded. The fact that it could speak into my head made me pause for a moment. Had it heard all my thoughts about the Pink Meats? How long had it listened to me?

  Brand’s cry pierced the air once more. Her wings lit the night as she flew toward the altar. Behind her a long tail, longer than her entire body, trailed in a mixture of fire and feathers. Trees burned. Brush turned to cinders. Prisoners screamed in terror.

  I took flight after her, straight for the sea serpent in the distance. It moved sluggishly, as if immense weights looped about its body. My mouth opened in a roar, shaking the earth below.

  People pointed up at me, their tiny arms like toothpicks. Trees closer to bushes in size. Bushes like insignificant leaves. And the enemy.

  Will fight. Will claim. Will be undisputed ruler.

  The enemy opened its jaw and lunged at me. It fell forward and slipped under my flying form. I raked claws along its hide and snarled as the talons glanced off thick hide. It felt like scraping metal.

  Giant Sea Slug.

  I thought disdainfully. The creature had a thick hide that seemed designed for shrugging off even my claws.

  WORMY FIRE BAT

  It responded.

  Hell. Mental banter. Just what I wanted to deal with while risking my life. I sneered then angled my wings in a wide U-turn. Beneath me the rest of the creature’s body wiggled. The ocean’s waters shook with budding waves caused by the leviathan’s deceptively fast undulations.

  My efforts would buy Brand time. She would play as a sacrificial pawn and further wound the beast. By then it’d be too slow and I’d simply need to harass it and hopefully open up deep gashes in its hide that would keep it out of the water.

  Would a creature from the ocean care about bleeding? Whales might, because carnivorous animals would gather. There were no whale-sized sharks to take this monster down. Or, if there were, Brand hadn’t filled me in.

  The leviathan met me a second time, striving to swallow me whole as I flew overhead. My senses gave me an edge in feeling the ripples of muscle which would propel the creature. It kept swimming toward shore, getting more purchase as it reached shallow waters.

  I felt Brand’s body shift. Her weight changed very little but the heat and bulk dissipated. Fluffy feathers became strands of hair and she stood near the altar, pushing over a few people who were still unconscious.

  All the others I’d left were gone, having fled at the first sight of the giant creature. I could feel some limping away with companions slung over their shoulders. One wolf clawed at the stones to the safer side of the island.

  No guards were present to shoot him. They’d gone. I could feel their heavy weapons laden with metals on the large boat. A second chopper spiraled through the air.

  My senses snapped back in time to dodge another lunge from the sea monster. Its huge teeth snapped closer than ever and the hot smell of sour fish suffused the air. I snorted and pulled myself higher, gaining altitude and pretending not to notice Brand.

  She frantically injected herself with syringes and groaned. The noise rippled softly, a cry almost as sharp as the one she gave while a bird. I knew the tiny Asian teen muttered words but they were buried in the overwhelming ripple of water and air.

  I longed for the silent serenity of earth. The low steady hum of constant motion became muted by rock. Moles, worms, and bugs scratching paled in comparison to the constant swish and whoosh of other elements. All of that would have been preferable to playing tag with a creature that could snap me in two.

  By the fourth pass the creature was getting too close for comfort. I had a sense of its timing. It knew my path couldn’t shift that quickly. Small bursts of fire drove it back.

  Finally, I felt Brand in position. She stood, naked, and felt abnormally cold. Around her wrist was a rope, like she’d been tied in place upon the altar. I flew toward her, directing the monster’s attention to the bait.

  FOOD. EXCELLENT. SMELLS DIVINE.

  Those weren’t its exact thoughts, but the closest my mind could translate. How it smelled anything with all the muck was beyond me. It wiggled through the water and reared above Brand with a speed I hadn’t experienced.

  I stared at Brand. She glared at me and shook her head in jerky denial. It was official, I did not like this plan at all. The idea she’d be sacrificing herself to give me an edge on a creature I could hardly dent didn’t sit well.

  But what were our options? Leave and let Western Sector continue to sacrifice people? Never mind, I’d had those thoughts before. We were in this stupid venture together.

  The thought didn’t make me feel any better. There’d be a clock on how long Brand might survive. I’d have to pray to those Gods I swore by, while begging Wylde for power, and not getting eaten.

  The Leviathan loomed above Brand. It wiggled and hissed with a thick tongue hanging out of its mouth like a puppy’s. I landed on the creature’s back and took advantage of its distraction to get in a few good tears.

  It fucking ignored me, as if I was merely scratching its back. Which I might well have been. The sheer disrespect of not even acknowledging my efforts to rend its guts irked the hell out of me. I beat my wings and twisted claws that had found small amounts of purchase.

  The added weight helped tear off ribbons of flesh. Not enough to seriously wound the beast, but green-blue liquid oozed from between its rubbery scales. It turned and snapped.

  I squawked in outrage. The fact that I made such an undignified noise set me into retreat. My hind foot caught on the creature’s hide. It rolled and twisted after me, slinging around my body.

  Somehow the idea of battling with other giant monsters was not one of the pieces of advice my father had given me. Daniel also had little to say on the subject. I blacked out briefly as the world spun faster than it should have.

  I went flying away and tumbled through the air. Instinct kept my wings pulled in until I reached a more stable tumble. They went back out again and air pooled, providing a solid platform to push against.

  For a moment, I wondered exactly how any of these powers worked. I could feel the air tightening and becoming denser under my wings. It pushed back to give me lift. But if I wanted to pool it in the other creature’s face, that couldn’t happen. It was instinctual knowledge.

  Why then—did fire bend to my will? I remembered, Lacey. It wasn’t my will, it was her power being given to me, only temporarily.

  A huge fire was in front of me. I reasserted my position, Brand’s, and
the roaring flame. Lacey should be easy enough to pull through with this flame. If she could manifest a small amount of power from a bonfire, a forest fire would give her miles more to work with.

  I brought myself high again and prepared to dive onto the Leviathan. If claws wouldn’t work, perhaps sheer force of mass would.

  Tongue runs over teeth. Sharpness tingles. Jaw sets. Prepare to attack sea slug once it devours Bright Burner. Will eat. Will be weakened. Will be defeated.

  It reared at the last second and shied away from devouring Brand. Giant eyes glared at me.

  TRICKERY

  The leviathan’s voice bellowed. If my own rumbled off the deep earth, this one carried for miles. Piercing clearer than Brand’s fiery cry and with a stiffness of liquid sloshing in my ears. Water stirred at its outcry as earth did for me.

  It knew. It knew because the Godsdamned other voice in my head had fucking spilled the grand plan out loud. How on earth could I battle this creature when it kept gaining strength and I couldn’t match it?

  The leviathan snorted and twisted. A large coil of the beast’s body bore down upon the altar where Brand stood. She yelled and fell to the ground. I felt the crunch as her body squished into paste.

  Heat flooded immediately after. Her body turned into a single pyre amid an island aflame. How many years had an unguarded thought cost her?

  Worst still, based on my multiple attempts to do serious damage, I may not be able to defeat this beast. We’d destroyed the habitat that kept it docile.

  I needed Lacey’s power. Whatever gift she could bring to the fight would help me. I could become the creature that had razed the world to ash a dozen times over. Only for a little bit, only long enough to defeat this creature and secure our safety as beings outside the big four.

  Wylde had more than enough flames to listen. It may not be sunrise, but this could be enough fuel. I winged higher and lifted my head to face the sky.