by Morgan Blade
My people stirred from their suspension, staring around with horror. They’d been in battle before, but this was worse. Not done in the heat of battle, warrior against warrior, skill to skill. Fish-in-a-barrel? No. Even in that scenario, the fish has a chance. Not a good one, but still a chance. In everyone’s eyes, I saw shadows of fear. They knew the body pieces could easily have been theirs. There’s a reason people like to pray to gods very far away.
I saw Imari, my First Sword. She wore armor made of flames, her skin dark as obsidian, a flaming sword in her hand. I unclipped my walkie-talkie and tossed it to her. “Coordinate with Izumi. Get everyone home. We’re done here. I’ll join you later.”
I whispered to Selene. “Let’s go home. Colt is probably worried.”
And pissed about being given a time out. He’s missed everything.
Selene nodded woodenly. A haze of red light enveloped us and the world went away.
THIRTY-THREE
“Only the heartless are free.”
—Caine Deathwalker
How long had I been here? One day, two? Was the Red Moon still in the sky of Fairy, hanging over the fey like a threatening fist? I didn’t know.
The rooms opened into hallways that ran in unexpected angles, or sometimes opened onto other rooms. Turrets and alcoves ambushed when least expected. Libraries gave way to solariums, dining rooms to kitchens. Sitting rooms opened to dens with massive chairs and fireplaces. Whatever need I felt was soon tripped over, but all the doors to the outside kept moving farther. It was as if the fortress didn’t want to let anyone go.
Display cases tantalized with exotic treasures from across the centuries, items from unknown hell-dimensions, and clutter from lost empires. Jeweled daggers and solid gold masks called to the larceny in my soul, whispering seductively: Take me, I’m yours.
I passed a suit of red lacquered, bamboo armor with stag-horn helmet and a carved demon face, grimacing. He wore a tanto, small sword, and great sword, just needing someone to give him an insult. Around a wall, he had a crusader counterpart from the 1400s, a knight in chainmail, a bucket-like helmet with eye and nose slits, and a white surcoat with a knight templar’s red cross emblazoned front and back.
All the personal spaces were higher in the fortress. As I thought of Colt and Selene, stairs offered themselves. I moved up a red runner. The railing was heavy, massive, the kind of surface an adventurous boy ought to love sliding down. I hurried upward, determined to deal with Selene decisively. She couldn’t keep us here, one big happy family, on our own private world. Destiny wouldn’t allow such a retreat. My obligations called to me as well. Ordinary, normal, conventional: these words were never meant to apply to our genetic codes. Selene knew it, but this was the first time Colt could have died. She adjusted badly by becoming our jailer.
I passed a landing with a miniature palm in a Chinese urn and quarter-turned to take another flight of stairs. Flight gave way to flight, turn to turn, and I never reached the floor with the room Selene and I shared.
Colt had complained of being forcibly returned home. He lurked on the battlements, hanging out with the iron gargoyles, or practicing swordplay with them in the courtyards. He avoided his mother. Her love misunderstood, Selene sulked in her room.
And she doesn’t want to have this argument.
I was tired of wandering around, getting drunk, getting laid, but not otherwise seeing Selene. I’d tried talking to Colt, but he blamed me for breaking his Mom. I took it in silence, not wanting to explain to him that she’d always been broken, one way or another, and becoming a goddess hadn’t fixed that.
It all needs to end, one way or another.
But still the damn stairs went on and on. It was enough to make demons cry, and demons have no tears, drinking those of others for their wine.
Damn, I’m getting into a hell of a mood. What is wrong with me?
Three flights of stairs later, I gave up. Fine. Maybe the kitchen has some fresh pizza.
Insanely, the next landing up opened onto the ground floor. A hall took me to a dining room. The dining room opened unto a modern kitchen. I felt heat coming from a stone oven, and got there just in time to pull out a cheese-bubbling, pepperoni pizza with mushroom slices. A pitcher of cold beer sat on a nearby counter. I ate two slices and finished off the pitcher.
Oddly, it hit me strongly, like my usual vitality had taken a hit along with my mood.
I finally reached the conclusion that if no one wanted to see me, I didn’t want to see them either. I concentrated on the Demon Wings tattoo on my upper shoulders and back. The idea behind the design was that a normal person could sneak out of hell with such ink because seeing “demon wings” a demon would think you were one of them, not a straying human. You’d be overlooked like a mouse creeping past a dozing cat. That was why I used the tribal design as the basis for my You-Don’t-See-Me spell.
Wanting my own world to retreat into, I mentally channeled golden magic into the pattern.
This will teach ‘em.
The door from the dining room opened. Colt hurried in. “I smell pizza.”
Knowing he couldn’t hear me, I said, “Help yourself.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He went to the counter where the pizza lay out, minus two slices, and helped himself, bringing the wedges over on a napkin. Pulling out the chair next to me, he sat down to munch.
I swiveled to look at him. “Wait, you’re talking to me again?”
“Yeah. Staying mad is hard work.”
I blinked. “Wait, you can hear me, see me?”
He slanted me a look that questioned my sanity. “Sure. Why not?”
“Because I just powered up my Demon Wings spell. You shouldn’t be able to.”
My son smiled in egotistical triumph. “I do a lot of things I shouldn’t be able to.”
I frowned, missing something. Uneasiness from my dark subconscious was finally piercing my conscious mind, telling me something had been wrong for a very long time that I should have noticed.
“Colt…”
He looked at me, a point of pizza at his mouth.
I stood, one hand on the counter, turning to look at him. “Been too quiet. Too silent, too long.”
“This place is always like that.”
He didn’t understand me. I didn’t understand me. The room swayed. “Colt, get your mother. I’m in trouble.” Darkness closed in. I felt myself falling, then nothing.
A child’s urgent voice echoed across an impossible distance. “Dad! Dad!”
I woke up in a dungeon. Selene’s dungeon. Wearing a white doctor’s coat over a tight red dress, she swung a magnifying glass over me, peering through it, her eye becoming giant-sized. The outer rim of the lens had a circular tube, a bulb throwing off bright white light. She looked into my eyes, then swung the light away.
I lay on a slab, or maybe an autopsy table. A tray of surgical instruments sat on a nearby stand. There were chains and manacles on one wall, and various devices that might have been stolen from a top-of-the-line hospital, including an IV drip. Yes, there was a needle in my arm.
I felt weak, drained, like an untreated diabetic at the edge of a coma.
Selene continued to lean over me. Her eyes were red-lit, her face worried. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
“I get that a lot.”
A small shadow came out of a dark area of the room, Colt. He looked worried. He came up beside his mother and covered my left hand with both of his. There were tears on his face. “I’m sorry I was mean to you.”
“I’m sure I deserved it. I always do.”
“No,” he said. “You didn’t.” His face grew serious, focused. “You were trying to tell me something. I didn’t really listen.”
“Was I?”
“Right before you fell down,” Colt said.
I tried to remember. It was impossibly hard. Like I was hiding something from myself.
Myself. Hiding. Almost got it.
“Do you remember anything I s
aid?” I asked.
His brow furrowed as he thought. “’Too quiet, too long?’ maybe, something like that.”
I asked myself a simple question. Hasn’t it been an awful long time since my inner dragon has said anything to me?
The silence that had bothered me, wasn’t an external silence, but one inside my mind. My dick and balls had been quiet, too. My voices were gone. I’d gone sane.
Fuck! No, that can’t be it.
Still, something having to do with my dragon side was off. The Demon Wings spell I’d tried to activate earlier didn’t use shadow magic, just the golden lifeforce of my inner dragon. The spell had failed. That meant my dragon soul was failing.
Why. How.
“Maybe an imbalance from linking to the Heart Stone. It makes me part of Fairy. Fairy is failing. I’m failing. I need to get the backpack from my Malibu armory, and add the crown to the stone…” I tried to focus on the armory spell, to call the backpack to me out of the ether. It didn’t work. “Can’t get it.”
Selene pushed back from the table. “I’ll go. Colt, you stay here and keep your father comfortable. I won’t be long.”
“My armory has automatic defenses,” I warned her. Magical and electronic. Gas, stun grenades, pressure sensitive floor plates…there’s infrared trip beams.”
Eyes still clouded by concern, she gave me a forced grin. “Don’t forget whom you’re talking to.” She patted my shoulder, then washed out in a burst of crimson light. The light cleared and she was gone.
It grew a little awkward; me flat on my back like corpse at an autopsy, Cole standing there, being brave, his little hands on mine. What does one talk about at times like these?
“So, uh, how did they manage to grab you while I was in the Phantom Court? Some kind of powerful glamour, right?”
His face twisted in pain. He blinked back tears. “We had an ordinary family. You were home all the time. Mom wasn’t always killing things, splicing them back together. It was quiet, peaceful. And no one made me wear stupid outfits. You and Mom went out on a movie date, and I was left here…with Grace. She made me grilled cheese sandwiches and nachos, and let me pet her tails.” His little hands were in the air, fingers rippling over an imaginary fox’s tail. “They were soft. She was so warm…”
Uh, oh, sounds like Julia has some competition for his little heart.
I sighed. “It sounds like someone threw your hopes and desires back at you. You were given what you wanted most, so you stayed in a glamour where you were happy.”
“Guess so.”
“So, what happened?” I knew the rough details, but not from his perspective.
He shrugged, but thankful didn’t pin my hand down with his, letting his hands drop to the edge of my bed. “I heard a storm over the fortress. Lightning, wind, and thunder. Then I felt cold water and heard someone scream. Grace begged me not to go, but someone was in trouble…a woman…”
I put it together: the C-4 went off. Water rushed into the cracked ice dome. Startled, Queen Kellyn screamed in surprise. And Colt broke free because he couldn’t not help a woman in trouble. I had no idea where Colt came by such a trait, considering his parents. He was a better kid than we had a right to.
Growing sleepy, I drifted off. Darkness held me a while, and it seemed like rubbery tentacles were brushing over me, caressing, comforting. Then I surfaced. Drowsy, eyes closed, I felt like I was floating. My hand felt warm, trapped, pressed down by a lot of strength. Someone spoke to me. A male voice, older than Colt’s.
I eased open my eyes.
It was Colt. Older Colt. He’d tagged-in to give his younger self a break. Strong enough to crush a world, his right hand on mine, he stared away into the shadows of our past. “It was the day I understood you. You’d never stop fighting for us all. You couldn’t, or all the worlds would sweep away our dreams. And I saw the dead. So many killed to save me. So much blood. Deep red, the color of love. And there was Grace, crying for me, avenging me. You had death in your eyes, cold, pitiless. I understood: your love would never be warm or safe, but it would never go away. It could not be defeated.”
He paused and I thought he was done. I wondered if I needed to let him know I was awake. The pain and awkwardness for us both would be severe.
He continued. “In the later years that lay between us, somehow, I forgot about the Battle of the Wild Hunt and the near death of Fairy. The details blurred. Softened. New disappointments crowded in. They piled up and seemed so important. They weren’t, they aren’t, not when I really remember. You have never once failed me—not when it was important. It wasn’t right for me to blame you for letting Aunt Imari die. I only saw her ugly death, not the courage and love in her sacrifice.”
My eyes burned. I stared up at the ceiling. In my future, in Colt’s past, Imari had given her life happily to save Colt. And I had let her do it. Of course, I would. A thousand times over. A father makes hard choices. If I could change things to save them both, I would.
Can I? A lot of the future is set. If I try to change the future, I could lose both Colt and Imari. Imari might need to die.
I had a headache. Hammers pounded away. I could swear I heard my skull softly cracking. I closed my eyes and faded off. I imagined a faint voice calling to me from out of my inner darkness: Caine…help me…
THIRTY-FOUR
“In the end, children are clay in
our hands. Hahahahahahaha!”
—Caine Deathwalker
I came awake as Selene pulled the IV needle from my arm. She didn’t tape a cotton ball over the hole. Not much point when my body closes minor wounds immediately. Colt was gone, both versions of him. Selene lifted my hand in hers. She stared at me, eyes like red crystal pools. “Caine, wrap your hand in dragon magic. I want to feel the burn.”
I tried. I think. There was a haze of gold, a few snap-and-crackles of current.
“Underwhelming,” I said. “I must really be tired.”
“I don’t think that’s it. I’ve got the Heart Stone.” Selene reached off to the side and swung a green, heart-shaped crystal into view. “There seems to be a crown-shaped hole inside. Let’s finish this.”
She set the crystal on my stomach. “You have to do this. If I do, Fairy will bond to me. That’s not how this is supposed to play out. The Red Moon can’t stay in the sky of Fairy. Dragon Fall is coming. In the future hell, the Red Moon will be needed over the Dragon World.”
I stared at her. “You’re not my Selene, are you? You’re one of her future selves.”
“Yes, my love. My younger self is working through a time of fear that weakens her. Saving you requires strength, purpose, utter devotion—or you will be lost. I’m not going to allow that. You have one more child to give me.”
I continued to stare. “Talk about pressure.”
Selene smiled with infinite tenderness. “At the end of time, when the multi-verse is burning, worlds are dying, and the awfulness from beyond comes in force to devour us all, your warrior’s will shall save us all—though not without cost. Show me that heart now.” The glare of light in her eyes made that an order.
“You are the final Selene, the one who holds my hand as we plunge into the Final Battle for all realities.”
“From red dragon, to goddess. From goddess, to…this.” Her hands waved down her body. “When you become a god, I must become even more. Fate is a terribly cruel mother.”
I reached a hand past my face, groping for the green agate crown. I touched it on my head. My fingers curled and scraped, pulling. It wouldn’t budge.
What the hell!
“It won’t fucking come off,” I said.
“What!”
My hand dropped to my side. “See for yourself.”
She slid along the bed, up to my head, and felt the agate crown, applying firm pressure.
My headache intensified. “That…hurts, but rip the damn thing out if you have to.”
She growled low in her throat. “This is not how I remember the timeline
going. We’re not supposed to be having this problem.”
Her eyes blazed, beaming red as she studied my head. “The fey crown is alive. It has grown roots into you, like a tooth.” There was shock in her voice. “This is the work of the Unzar.”
“The un-what?”
“In their language, it means flawless. It is the enemy’s name for itself.”
“Wow, conceited much?”
“They do their best to live up to that name. The existence of other life, life they did not create, implies gods that are not them. They take that as a direct affront. Worlds will die to appease their sense of dignity.”
“But we’ll stop them.”
“Unless they stop us first. They are just beginning to understand that they must fight us in time as well as space. This looks like a beginning step in that direction. They don’t want the Heart Stone restored. That would give Fairy a future and us a mighty ally at the end of time.”
“But you can get the crown out of me—without killing me, right?”
She pulled back, releasing the crown. “I’ll try, but most of the surgeries I’ve done haven’t required that my subjects actually survive. This is different.”
“It’s not like we have a choice,” I pointed out. “Wait, surgery? You’re going to cut into my skull?”
“If I can stimulate bone growth, you shouldn’t be left with any extra holes in your head. Don’t worry. I’m almost positive I can do this.”
My skull!
“There might be a little memory loss, some minor personality shift, but your reproductive capability shouldn’t be impaired.”
I glared at her. “Way to look at the bright side.”
“I need to give you some drugs, sterilize the operating area, and break out the superglue.” With an abstracted tone, she continued to mused to herself, reviewing the upcoming procedure. “I think I have a good hammer and chisel around here some place. What about sponges?”
“You’re asking me? Damn! Get the drugs going. Make it the good stuff.”