by Calinda B
Seasons accompany these swift changes. The atmosphere around the three males transforms into icy winds, blizzards, pouring rains, summer showers, baking heat, and fall colors.
All of this happens within a couple minutes.
“Hope springs eternal here,” he says with a sarcastic edge. “And who says I live here?”
“Don’t you?” Daniel arches one eyebrow to glare at him. “But that’s not what I was referring to. Here’s one of the things that blows my mind. We just left, right? A few minutes ago?”
“It’s been days,” Rafe says. “I should know. The berserker rage is coming on.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing. I think we just left, you think it’s been days….what’s your perception, Sanguis Numen?”
“A hell of a long time, I’d say. I’m with Rafe…more like days or weeks.”
“But it could have been years,” Daniel says. His mouth twists. “Which means…”
“Marissa could be dead by now,” Rafe says, shaking with rage. “Where the hell is this fucking gate? Whether it’s been seconds, days, hours or years, I can’t contain much longer.” He slams his vibrating body into a tree, transforming it into a pile of quivering sawdust.
“I’ve got your back,” River says. “That’s why I’m here, remember?”
“How can I fucking forget? You remind me every two seconds,” Rafe growls.
“Come on, you two. We’ve got a job to do. I, for one, am no one’s babysitter.”
“You got that right,” Rafe says. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be so far away from the Light Rebel, would we? You should have tended to your beast babies.”
“Fuck you,” Daniel responds. “I’m not the one who tried to strangle her last week, or whenever that was. Fucking time warp land.”
“Fuck you twice,” Rafe snaps.
“Quiet!” River puts his arm out to stop them. “I think I hear your underground Wonderland.”
The three men halt, listening, heads cocked to the side. In the distance, a chorus of bone-chilling growls, snarls and horrifying cries punctuate the air.
“Goddamn it, that sounds worse than I expected,” Daniel says. He takes off at a jog, the other two matching him stride for stride. They reach a rocky outcropping made of smooth, shiny obsidian. Slender, spidery fractures split the rock in places. Daniel gestures to the fissures. “This is where their caterwaul emerges. There’s a den down there. Sounds like the mother is consuming her kids. Shit.”
“Good to know,” Rafe scoffs. His body begins to blur as the berserker rage grows in intensity. An unearthly vocalization ruptures from his throat, low, deep and terrible.
The beasts below respond with their own cries.
“Great,” River says, glancing between Rafe and the rocks. “They’re bonding. What’s the plan, Navid? We need to do this, now.” He runs his hand across his face, fingering the scar that marks his cheek.
“Definitely not the plan we made on the way here,” Daniel says. “If I drop in there, I doubt I’ll make it out alive. And I’m only one person—food for a couple, not many. If we let them out right now, well, they’re as out of control as he is.” He stabs his thumb in Rafe’s direction. “Rafe can match their energy, which will help, although we need to caution him from simply shredding them to pieces. When he’s in this state, anything’s possible, and we need to keep the beasts alive.”
“Talk about fucked up,” River says. “Your dark, vicious world helps keep balance so we have to keep them alive? Now that’s whacked.”
Daniel looks askance at him. “It is what it is. I have the power to deal with them. You have the means to tranquilize them, but not if dipshit here takes off after Marissa. If that happens, you follow him and put him down. I’ll deal with the dark creatures.”
“I can still hear, asshole,” Rafe says, shimmering in and out between a completely blurred form and flesh and blood. “Are you going to turn me loose on them, or what?”
“I’m thinking. Shut the fuck up.” Daniel paces in front of the outcropping. “Okay. Let’s do an act of public service. I was looking at the Corruption Perception Index the other day.”
“Because?” River says, one of his eyebrows raised high.
“It’s part of my job as Night Numen to keep track of these things.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Now you do. Anyway, Somalia, Afghanistan, North Korea…those places are still at the top of the list. I hate to just march in and mess with a situation without consent or provocation but we need to do something swiftly. And, chances are, taking out a few bad guys randomly won’t fix the system. But it could give the good guys some breathing room. Somalian banks have become a slush fund for the greedy. Corruption’s rampant there. Stealth Numen, can you manage to retrieve one of your maps?”
“Of course I can.” His voice springs from a blur of color. “I told you. I’m fucking good at this job. No one but me can maintain in this state.”
“Uh, define maintain. Does it include destroying my woman?” Daniel asks.
“Screw you.”
A map appears before Daniel and River.
“And fucking hurry up, will you? My client’s would have turned me loose long before this. It’s taking everything I’ve got to not head out after Marissa.”
Daniel and River both look in the direction of the color smear where their companion should be standing.
“He doesn’t sound so good,” River says. “Let’s get a move on.”
“Right,” Daniel says. “I happen to know where one of their rat’s nests is—it’s a compound east of here.” He indicates a colorful spot on the transparent map, near the coast of Somalia. “What say we let the dogs out and pay them a visit?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them dogs,” River says, glancing toward the den. “How do we get there from here? We’re somewhere in the United States, right?”
“Not exactly. This place maintains its own sense of time and space.”
River nods. “Haven’t spent much time here.”
“Come on, you two, I’m not kidding,” Rafe growls. “Let’s get this over with.”
“You’re the one who has to find the place,” Daniel says. “This is your world, not ours, Stealth Numen. Have you got a visual on where we need to go?”
“Coordinates locked and loaded.”
“How long will it take to get there?” River asks.
“Few seconds, few days, few years. It’s a perception thing,” Rafe says, his voice sounding strained.
“How will we get the beasts there?”
“That’s where the berserker comes in,” Daniel says. “You’ll stay topside, feeding us the chains. Rafe and I will muzzle them and cinch them to some high tech, stronger than metal kind of chains. They’re around here someplace. I keep a locker nearby.” He scans the surroundings. “Rafe’s going to lead them.”
“What, like a fucking dog walker?” Rafe says.
“It’s our best option. If one of them gets out of hand and starts to eat the others or eat us, you’ll keep them in line.”
“We can’t possibly take all of them!” Rafe says. “That’s suicide!”
“We’ll take several of the male leaders and the mothers. The mothers will return to regurgitate food into their babies’ mouths. The males are the most aggressive, but they’ll eat their fill and haul back the carcasses for the others to pick at. They’re not without survival instincts—meaning they live by a strange all-for-one kind of code.”
“When they’re not eating each other, that is.” River’s gaze trains on one of the larger cracks in the rocks. “Let’s do this before there’s no one left.”
Daniel’s already midstride to the storage locker. After removing the spell-cast, he opens the heavy metal lid, prying it back, and retrieves handfuls of slender filaments with sturdy leather handles.
River eyes them skeptically. “Those look like dental floss. They’ll snap like thread when the beasts tug on them.”
“Nope,” Daniel s
ays, tossing a few to him. “Forged them myself. They’re strong. Here—hold these. Lay them out neatly in a row. We’ll divide them up. Then, I’ll go inside and call them. We’ll put the muzzles on and chains around their necks, contain them and bring them up. The Stealth Numen’s energy will subdue them, at best, and overpower them if need be. Got it?”
“Yeah, got it. And hurry. Rafe’s going berserk worse than I’ve ever seen him. I used to track him, too, you know.”
“Didn’t know, don’t care. Let’s do this.” Daniel lifts his hand, mutters an incantation, and the ground beneath them shatters, revealing more spidery cracks. Red and purple noxious mist seeps from the fissures. He falls to his belly near one of the larger splits, puts his fingers in his mouth, and lets out a strange sounding whistle, like an unearthly keening. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
Within seconds, hundreds of creatures gather below, lunging at the cracks, falling over one another, snapping, growling and snarling. The ground beneath the men’s feet quivers with the intense sounds. Two Maligners seize each other’s necks, ripping and tearing until blood sprays on the ground below and one of them staggers and falls. Maimers, Shredders, and other underworld monsters clamor to get set free, eager to feast. A huge Annihilator dashes into the center of the beasts, roaring, his claws swiping at anything that moves.
“Shit. Let’s hope this works.” As Daniel eases the split wide enough to let himself through, his body stiffens. His head whips up and he strains to listen, to hear her voice, her thoughts, anything. “Oh, God,” he says, his voice cracking. “Marissa,” he says, in a voice so low the others don’t hear him over the cacophony of noise below. “My beautiful Light Rebel is dead.”
Chapter 23
Letting out an anguished cry, Daniel crumples, his head landing on the ground.
“What is it? What’s happened?” River rushes to his side, grabbing his arm.
Daniel shakes free with an angry tug. “It’s…it’s…” the sentence fades as a Maimer slides his front leg through the opening near Daniel, raking vicious claws along his flesh, leaving four jagged gashes underneath the torn fabric of his pants.
The blur of Rafe immediately grabs the Maimer’s leg, squeezes it until it yelps, and shoves it back in the opening. “What’s going on, Navid? I thought we were ready for action.”
“I heard…I felt Marissa fade.”
“Fade as in dead?” River asks, his face draining of color.
“I think so. God, I did this to her. Me and my fucking stupidity. I’ll never forgive myself.” Every muscle in his body bunches with rage.
“Well, then, it won’t matter when I try to kill her, which I’m about to do if we don’t redirect here,” Rafe says through clenched teeth, assuming form, blurring into a wash of color, re-assuming corporeal form. “Pull it together. It could be a sorcerer’s ploy.”
“I’m such a goddamned moron,” Daniel says.
Two Shredders lunge at each other below, razor sharp fangs lacerating each other’s necks.
“Stop with the self-condemnation, Navid. You made a mistake. I’ve made mistakes. Rafe makes mistakes. We all make ‘em.”
“Not like this one. My heart and soul have died because I’ve neglected my responsibilities.”
“You don’t know that,” Rafe says, assuming form once more. “You know how illusions can be made to mess with the minds of the opponent. Man, I should have been turned loose a couple hours ago. I’m barely able to hold it together.” His neck muscles bulge, ropy and corded, as he paces, red with effort, clinging to whatever control he has left as sweat pours from his face and chest, soaking through his t-shirt. “I’ve got to release some of this rage. I’m going down there…now.” He makes a fist and prepares to punch through the ground.
“No!” Daniel cries, leaping to his feet. He seizes Rafe’s arm and torques it behind his back.
In one swift move, Rafe whirls, swings, and lands a solid punch along Daniel’s jaw.
Daniel’s head flies to the side and he staggers backwards. “What did you just do?” He roars, lunging at Rafe. He wraps both arms around him and slams him against a tree.
Rafe shoves back, knocking Daniel on his ass. “I gave you a gentle tap. I could have sent you across the trees into lands you don’t even know exist. Now let’s do this!”
“He’s right! We don’t know if what you felt was the truth or a sorcerer’s folly. Let’s focus,” River says, forcing himself between them, preventing Daniel from lunging again. “Let’s not quarrel among ourselves for God’s sake.”
“All right,” Daniel says, spitting blood from his mouth. “Damn, you’re strong when you go berserk.”
“I’m holding back, Navid,” Rafe says. “I could destroy you.”
“Not if I destroyed you first,” Daniel counters.
“Come on, knock it off,” River says.
The arm of another demon swipes from the underworld. Its eight inch claws rake the ground before retreating into the cave below.
“Grab those restraints,” Daniel tells River, resuming command. “Rafe…get ready.”
“Roger that,” Rafe says.
“Ready,” River says, restraints in hand.
“I’m going to coax the Annihilator closer. If the others see I’ve got control of him, they’ll back off long enough for me and Rafe to restrain them. Rafe, do that thing you were about to do, only do it with control. We don’t want them swarming out like angry bees.”
“This thing?” The blurred form of Rafe says, slamming his fist into the ground.
“That’s the one.” Daniel puts his face next to the opening, and whistles, long and low, vibrating with the magical force of his Night Numen sorcery.
All the creatures below become still.
Daniel whistles again.
An Annihilator stalks into the center of the beasts. He lifts his muzzle and growls at Daniel’s face.
“Damn, that beast has bad breath,” River says. “I smell it from here.”
“You eat carrion and see what your breath smells like,” Daniel hisses. He lets out a series of chuffing growls from his belly.
“Fuck me, Navid. Are you even human?” River asks.
“Debatable,” Daniel says. He lets out a thunderous roar.
The Annihilator releases a responsive growl.
“They’re speaking in tongues,” Rafe says.
“Right,” River scoffs.
“Okay, they’re subdued for a moment,” Daniel says. “Make the opening wider. I’m dropping down. Rafe, you follow, quiet as a whisper. Use your stealth abilities. We don’t want them to even notice you’re down there with me. River’s going to drop the restraints once I give the word. You and I will quickly put them on the brutes I point out. Remember—we want the mothers and the badass males. The males will be easy to spot—they’ll all challenge me. The mothers will be at the back of the circle. Avoid the ones in the middle.”
Rafe slams his fist into the ground once more, widening the opening.
Daniel drops directly in front of the Annihilator.
The smooth pale-skinned creature’s nostrils flare, sniffing the blood still seeping from Daniel’s leg. It pulls its flesh back along its short, powerful, black muzzle, revealing twelve inch, razor sharp fangs. Its front legs are as tall as Daniel. Its back bows upward in a hunch, giving it a grotesque, gargoyle-like appearance, while a mane of coiled, barbed protrusions lines its neck. Lowering its coyote-like face to Daniel, it circles him, snarling.
The other creatures shrink away, growling, salivating, restless.
“You’re an ugly fuck,” Daniel says. He points his blue-eyed gaze directly at the Annihilator’s silvery-gold one, challenging, defiant, making the strange chuffing growls again. “You with me, Stealth Numen?” A soft touch lands on his back briefly.
Daniel and the beast continue slowly circling one another. “This will need to be swift, Rafe. If it isn’t, we’ll be dead.” Again, the soft touch lands on his back in affirmation. “We’ll need to alter our
speed to restrain them before they know what hit them. You ready?” A small tap indicates consent. “Lower the restraints, Sanguis Numen. Quickly...”
As the three men explode into action, a cacophony of sound and motion fills the cave. The silvery tethers are lowered, one by one, at super speed. Rafe grabs each one, moving at hyper velocity, muzzling demons, fighting with others.
The Annihilator lunges at Daniel. Daniel leaps and grabs the beast’s neck, holding on as the creature swings his head violently back and forth, trying to get at Daniel.
“Can’t hold too long, Stealth Numen. This demon’s mane is shredding my arm. You nearly done?”
“Almost,” Rafe yells.
He assumes form long enough for Daniel to witness him slugging a Decayer into subdued acceptance of the leash around his neck. “Use whatever you can find to make the opening larger, Sanguis Numen. We’re about to emerge!” Daniel calls.
A huge tree trunk plummets through the opening like a battering ram, barely missing Daniel and the Annihilator before it’s withdrawn. “That worked. You squashed a couple Maligners, but it will feed some of those we leave behind,” he yells, as beasts of every kind set to their dead companions, gorging on the warm flesh. “Toss me a leash, Rafe.” The leather handle lands in his hand and he lassoes the Annihilator’s muzzle, pulling tightly before hauling his body over the beast’s back like a cowboy in the rodeo. “Let’s go.”
Daniel and the Annihilator explode from the underground.
A hundred or more beasts follow, restrained by Rafe. “It’s time for a walk, mutts,” Rafe says, his biceps bulging with exertion.
The ravenous creatures lunge and pull, seeking food.
“Hand me a few,” River calls.
“Get over here and take them,” Rafe yells, “I can’t exactly let go.”
“Got to seal the underworld so the rest don’t escape,” Daniel yells. With one swift movement of his hand, the opening seals shut. “Okay, Stealth Numen. Guide us to corruption.”
Chapter 24
“Rock a bye, baby, in the tree top, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall…”