Darryl’s spherical range of vision began to extend farther and farther, providing even more detail as the indigo sea receded from view. When the process was complete, the entire ground was overlaid with white cirrus and gray stratus clouds. In patches where there were no clouds, there was a blue soil, dotted with little black stones. Standing securely on a cloud, Darryl looked down at a nearby blue patch and followed his attention to some of its ebony pebbles. He found that the stones operated like peepholes, giving him as he concentrated a view of the orange and red forests, all situated amid turquoise-tinted blades of grass, miles below the ground of clouds and blue soil.
Darryl shifted his focus. The air surrounding him was replete with tri-colored rings, floating about like incomplete bubbles blown by a playful child, all of them bouncing away from one another when two or more came close enough to almost touch. The moody sky not-too-far above him churned, appearing one moment like a thick, reddish mud and the next like a more fluid, creamy substance that appeared to be milk. Even though there was no sun or other source of light, much of the atmosphere was as bright as that of an afternoon on a clear spring’s day. But the leviathan overshadowed the ground on which Darryl’s soul stood.
Although he now saw it in a different environment, Darryl still had the same level of fearsome awe when looking at the giant riddle-maker. It was positioned on all fours, standing on dirty-white cushions of clouds. Darryl stared and studied its silvery green scales, its orange-brownish claws, it blue-grayish squid’s head, and its tentacles, each featuring a variety of colors that tangled together while maintaining the integrity of their distinct hues.
“As you have answered your question correctly,” MadaMadaM said, “I shall give you the gift of a helpmeet in your quest.”
Darryl wanted to ask “What quest?” and “What’s a helpmeet?” But he remembered the leviathan’s earlier admonition and kept silent, hoping it would explain all he needed to know.
“The quest to earn redemption for your soul,” MadaMadaM said. “At a particular location in Xyn, well guarded by the minions of another, the soul of a young one, a beautiful one, is being kept prisoner. She is a prisoner of twisted love. The soul was imprisoned by a very sick lover who now walks freely on the surface of Reality. You shall be well on your way to Salvation if you free her.”
“If I can’t?” Darryl found the courage to ask.
A chain appeared out of nowhere. One end of it was buried underground; the other trifurcated and ended in manacles shackled around Darryl’s neck and wrists. Darryl couldn’t speak. Even though his soul had no mouth and no larynx, somehow the manacle at his neck took away his voice.
“What should happen to a man unable to save his own soul?” MadaMadaM said.
The patch of blue soil in front of Darryl shook, experiencing a very localized quake. Among the clods of speckled blue clay thrust upward and outward leapt a creature with the shape and face of a wolf, the size and skin of a tiger, and the spanning wings of a mutated eagle. A chimera. Darryl saw the other end of the chain that bound him was attached to a collar on the beast’s neck.
MadaMadaM said nothing more. There was no advice, no warnings, no riddles, not even a nonsensical explanation of what was happening. There was only a silent signal that prompted the eaglewinged creature to spring into the air, dragging the shackled soul of Darryl behind it like a slightly weighted kite string as it flew higher and higher, faster and faster, toward the sky of mud and milk.
After penetrating the sky’s barrier, Darryl saw sights he never could’ve conjured words to describe even if he’d been able to speak as they travelled through mixed terrains, bizarre environments, and impossible habitats. As his soul was dragged through it all, he experienced a sensation similar to the one his body of flesh had felt when pushed into the tub of spiced honeymilk.
The chimera eventually stopped, bringing them to rest in an area of XynKroma consisting of dark green trees and brown, red, and silver leaves. Most of the trees were rooted and stretching upward for miles, but others had fallen to lie on a foot-high bed of foliage. The chain and shackles that had bound and connected Darryl and the chimera were now gone; they’d dissolved at some point during the journey. Darryl briefly considered maybe the reason they stopped was because the chain was gone. He then considered another one.
The chimera was resting on its haunches, gazing at Darryl’s soul. Darryl didn’t like the look in its eyes, nor the manner in which its mouth hung open, but rather than engaging it in a staring contest, he focused his attention on the appearance of his soul. It was revolting. Humanoid shape notwithstanding, his soul’s composition resembled something a disturbed child might concoct if left unsupervised for too long: a milky blood-mud-honey pie. He then understood the look in the chimera’s eyes. He was only thankful that, after the beast opened its jaws wider and pounced, he didn’t experience the sensation of being devoured. Darryl didn’t feel his sloppy self being chewed, swallowed, and consumed. The sight and thought of it were confounding enough; to actually feel the pain and torture of it would’ve been too intense for him to withstand.
While his soul slipped into darkness, Darryl sensed he remained in one piece. The chimera’s teeth weren’t rending him into parts; its teeth, tongue, and jaws only helped reshape him, making him easier to swallow. As his substance mixed with the acids and other substances in the creature’s stomach, through the immediate sounds of swishing, churning, and rumbling, Darryl heard a more distant sound of gagging, heaving. He realized exactly what it was when he felt a sudden shift in the processes inside the beast.
The chimera was vomiting. After being swallowed and partially digested, Darryl was being regurgitated. Since no part of him had ever been separated from the whole, Darryl’s soul came up and out all in one piece, out and down all over the body of the beast as it stood on its hind legs, its face pointed upward toward the blank, wintry sky.
Darryl’s soul covered every single inch of the beast, leaving not even the smallest part or patch of skin or fur exposed. Freshly introduced to the atmosphere, the regurgitated soul hardened, and the shape of the body underneath it transmogrified, assuming a human’s shape, a human male’s shape, with broad spanning wings jutting out from its back.
Darryl stood erect. He folded and respread his wings before picking up a fan of silvery leaves in order to examine himself in their reflection. His head had a wolf ’s shape, with tiger-striped eyes. His skin had a violet tone. He was nude, but he wasn’t cold. The surface of his form was firm but soft, similar to the skin of his body on Reality’s surface. And his vision, much like that on Reality’s surface, was limited; he could no longer see in every direction at once. All in all, he felt comfortable. It was a change, but was it an improvement?
“That is irrelevant.”
Darryl heard a voice speaking simultaneously with the appearance of a transparent bubble in front of his face. The bubble contained black letters clearly spelling out the words as he heard them. It gave him the impression of a bubble one might see in a comic strip, but it wasn’t a cloudy thought bubble or a clean speech bubble; it was something in-between the two, and something beyond.
“You are now outfitted for battle.”
The bubble popped after Darryl heard and read the word “battle.” He looked all around for the source of the voice and its accompanying visual effects. He discovered it only after he’d turned a full circle and stopped to look directly above him.
Another chimera. This one also had wings, but these were colored like the most exotic parrot’s, shaped like the most horrific bat’s, and flapping in a manner contrary to a hummingbird’s, something approaching the slowest motion—but it was apparently enough to keep the two-foot-long, silvery crimson fish’s body afloat. In Darryl’s current condition, neither the chimera’s hawk-talons nor its piranha-teeth were enough to scare him. The incongruent creature provoked only one reaction.
“What next?” Darryl asked.
“Now that you have been acquainted with y
our helpmeet, Sprat—”
“Who?”
Darryl’s interruption of the creature’s words didn’t cause the bubble containing them to pop. The black letters inside the bubble only disintegrated into a nectarine-shaded mist as the bubble’s skin took on a tint of coral-green. The letters and bubble went respectively back to black and clear when the creature resumed speaking.
“Sprat. The one who consumed you so you could assume its necessary qualities.”
The other chimera, Darryl thought.
“The other pole-pet,” the creature said. “Only the specially chosen are gifted with the assistance of a pole-pet in XynKroma. I am Van-Jill, the pole-pet of The Beautiful One, whose soul you must free if Creation has a hope of being saved.
“Come.”
SIXTEEN
“Come on,” Ava said, “are you going to tell me your great idea or not?”
“I told you twice in the car,” Robert said as they stepped out of the elevator. “I need to make a call.”
“Sure, and that’s all you said. Your friend Sonya was right about you needing a burner.”
Maybe. Up until recently, Robert felt he’d no reason to own a cell phone. His watches worked just fine for instant communication to Darryl and to Adam—the Institution’s heart and lifeline—and his apartment’s landline was used mostly for ordering pizzas and cursing at telemarketers. Normally he would’ve made the call from home, but it was impossible when his new self-proclaimed partner refused to leave his side.
“No burner is more secure, or private, than what we have here,” he said.
“Aren’t you at least going to tell me who you’re going to talk to?” Ava asked.
Robert felt a sensation on his right wrist. He put two fingertips to the face of his watch.
“Right now,” he said, “we’re going to talk to Adam.”
The two rushed through The Burrow’s halls toward the chairman’s office. Adam wasn’t waiting for them in reception room. To Robert’s surprise, he and Ava were allowed to enter Adam’s main office. This wouldn’t be good.
“Sit down, Mister Goldner, Miss Darden.”
Both did as instructed. Neither said a word.
“What I am about to show you is extremely disturbing. But it is necessary for you both to see this. It was posted on the Internet sometime within the past hour, and probably recorded only a short time before that.”
When Robert and Ava had entered the room, all of the monitor screens in Adam’s office were scrambled, as was normal. But after warning them, Adam picked up a remote control with one hand and typed something on his desk’s keyboard with the other. In a few seconds, one of the larger screens gradually gave a clear picture.
Darryl was in a dark room. A dark room with splashes and flashes of colors. A dark room with a group of five women. Robert sat in a cushioned chair, removed from it all, watching the colors, watching the women, watching them all gracefully and mercilessly thrash, beat, humiliate, and torture his partner.
He’d known something like this was coming. He’d hoped he was wrong. Robert hated being right about things going wrong. But here he was, staring at a violent action flick, a movie clip featuring an adventure in meaninglessness. Brutality for the sake of brutality.
Ava gasped, mumbled, and made other vocal noises as she watched, but Robert mostly tuned her out. After getting over the initial shock of seeing Darryl in such a predicament, he took in the entire presentation of the film. There was sound and there were voices, but none of them were produced by the people on the screen. What they were watching had been recorded and the soundtrack added later. Music and dialogue that was both spoken and sung; it was like a snippet from a movie musical. Robert recognized some of the words. They were from The Blackbook of Autumn Numbers. He was watching a scene snatched from the book and dramatized for others’ enjoyment. He was also watching two sickeningly familiar faces. Among all the shifting faces on the screen, theirs were the most recognizable. Another MC3 Production, just as he feared. He hated being so right about things going so wrong. Robert itched even more to make his delayed phone call.
“Mister Smith,” he said, “those women, in the white and black, they’re the same two who attacked Ava. They’re the two who beat her up before we found her.”
“Mister Smith,” Ava asked, “who are they? Do you know?”
Robert could hear it in her voice. She was struggling to suppress her anger. Maybe it was anger at the fact she’d been taken out by the pair, or maybe it was anger that Robert hadn’t even bothered to describe the women to her earlier. He hadn’t given her descriptions because he hadn’t felt it was necessary, and he knew it’d lead to questions about how he knew. But he wasn’t ready to discuss those videos with her just yet. First things first.
Adam paused the film on a shot where both women could be seen on the screen at the same time.
“The blonde one is Veronica Blake. The dark-haired woman goes by the name Vanessa Blight. Both names are most likely pseudonyms. What is certain is that, together, they once comprised the pair of Infinite-Definite terrorists classified as ‘Initials V.V.’ They left these initials written at the scenes of their assaults, usually using the blood of their victims to write them. We stopped hearing reports of their activities about a year ago. Some figured they had been captured or killed, but apparently they were somehow recruited and initiated into a new and far more dangerous sect of angels.”
“More dangerous than what?” Robert asked.
“Than anything with which you are probably familiar, Mister Goldner. They are Sprytes, very unique angels who can somehow hide their status from the eyes and senses of other angels. Sprytes seem to be very skilled in the practices of a highly advanced form of Light Magick. For instance, they do not need to use the eyes to gain access to the soul of a victim. Skin-on-blood contact works just as well. In addition, they can read minds like one reads a Braille book, simply by placing their fingers on or near the pulse of their subject. They are very few in number, and all of them, to my knowledge, are female. Together, those two have been making a name for themselves as ‘Blink & Blank.’”
“I suppose Blink is one-eyed blondie.” Ava spoke slowly as her fingers slowly curled, straightened, and curled—making fists and relaxing them—over and over again.
“Yes,” Adam said.
“Why haven’t I heard of these two before?” Robert asked. “Or anything about these Sprytes?” Or anything about rare types of Virus-carriers like Ava?
“I only divulge information to Watcher agents on a need-to-know basis,” Adam said, “when they need to know it.”
Robert fought hard to keep his facial expression respectful, as blank as Adam’s mask, though he was becoming more and more bothered by Adam’s manner.
“Anyway, Mister Goldner, what I know is very little. My file on them is minimal. Perhaps they are adept at other arts of which I am unaware.”
“That’s all we need to know right now, huh?” Ava said, almost under her breath. Robert was starting to find her manners a bit refreshing.
“That is all I can tell you, Miss Darden.”
“We also know another thing,” Robert said. “They have Darryl. Right?” He wanted to know how the film ended but didn’t want to ask outright. And he didn’t want to have to watch it. He knew how the scene from The Blackbook ended, but how faithful were the filmmakers in adapting it?
“As far as we know,” Adam said, “yes. He is most likely still alive. We do not know where, and can only guess at why.”
“I don’t want to know why,” Robert said. “I want him back.”
“I have contacted the proper authorities on this matter,” Adam said.
“Fine. They can back us up.”
“Mister Goldner, you should know the Heartland Security Agency is becoming increasingly concerned some of our agents are overstepping their bounds. It may be wiser to allow them and other law enforcement agencies a period of doing without us, just to see how well it works for them.”
“Finding Darryl is well within my bounds, sir.” He found adopting the same tone with the chairman as Ava even more refreshing than hearing her do it.
It was impossible to know by sight alone if Adam was taking offense, annoyed, or on the verge of rebuking him, but out of respect, Robert put a damper on his manner. He didn’t waver on anything else.
“Mister Smith, you know he’s not just an associate or acquaintance to me. Darryl’s…He’s more than just my partner. In Sterling, in those woods years ago, he saved me. And if after I get him, the HSA wants to play alone in what they probably think is just a game, well, that’s their business. And yours, too, I suppose. But I’m going out there to bring him home.”
“I cannot stop you,” Adam said.
“But you won’t be able to help me,” Robert said, “you or anyone else at the Institution.”
Adam nodded. Robert wished he could see behind the mask, read a facial expression, take a shot at determining what Adam was really thinking.
“I understand,” Robert said.
“Good luck.”
Robert knew that was the cue for him to get out of Adam’s office. He’d almost forgotten about Ava. He didn’t notice she was right behind him until he was more than halfway down the hall.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“I’m going to make my call,” he said. “May I have a little privacy please?”
Ava looked ready to snipe back at him, but her expression quickly changed, as if a better idea had popped into her mind.
“Okay.” She used an index finger to push her glasses higher on nose. “I’m going to see if Mister Bernard’s around.”
Robert watched her walk down the hall. The moment she turned a corner and was out of sight, he rushed into one of the little rooms with the most secure phones. He dialed. After ten rings, a sleepy voice finally answered.
Broken Angels Page 24