by Eddie Patin
Jason looked over to the kitchen doorway for a moment then looked back at Riley.
"Do you think it means anything?"
The soldier shrugged and went back to scrubbing.
"I'm sure she had a good reason," Jason muttered, pulling up his OCS. He tried to find any information on time dilation, but couldn't figure anything out. "She's a nice girl."
Riley and Gliath exchanged looks. Riley smirked.
"This should be good to go, old buddy," the soldier said, handing the bolt to Gliath. "Go ahead and reassemble."
"Yes, Ranaja."
As Gliath put his shotgun back together, Jason pulled out the extra box of 7.62x39mm ammo he'd brought with him and began filling up his magazines. Two mags were still fresh—maybe he'd topped one off and couldn't remember—but the other two were low.
A few minutes later, Morgana appeared in the doorway, carrying two wooden plates of food. She moved briskly, setting plates down in front of Jason and Gliath, then she went back for two more, serving Riley and herself. Each plate held what looked like two roughly-scrambled eggs and a heaping serving of sliced-up roast ham. It smelled amazing.
"Wow!" Jason exclaimed with a grin. "Thanks!"
She gave them each an eating knife and a wooden spoon for the eggs.
"My pleasure," the young woman said, sitting down with them. "It's the least I can do with what you three are doing for this village. Food stores are low, but we came upon a good supply of ham last night."
"Came upon?" Riley asked, stabbing the meat with the little knife. He cut off a piece and tried it, then smiled.
Gliath ate fervently. There was nothing on the plate that a big panther wouldn't enjoy.
Morgana sighed, looked down with her hands in her lap, then picked up her knife and spoon and began eating. She glanced up at them, apparently very tired.
"We still have a slight supply of eggs, and Lillian trades for more when she can. But the ham ... well ... the Palmers down the street won't be needing their pig anymore."
The four of them cut and ate in silence for a moment.
Jason finally looked up, almost afraid to ask. "You mean the family with the woman and the baby last night?"
Morgana nodded, looking down at her plate, and took another bite.
They ate quietly for a little while. Jason had that horrific scene from last night down the street replaying in his mind. He recalled the horrible vision of the dead baby and the mother with her guts hanging out, her legs twisted and broken on the floor as she reached out in animalistic desperation. He remembered hearing her mad shrieks and the baby's primal little squeals. He remembered a man shouting briefly.
"Hey, do you remember hearing a man last night?" Jason asked, looking at everyone and setting his knife down. "At the ... uh ... Palmer house I mean. Before we got there."
"Yep," Riley said, taking another bite of ham.
"That was Mr. Palmer," Morgana replied, her green eyes flickering up from her food for just a moment.
"Well, where was he? What happened to him?"
"There was no trace of a third victim," Gliath said quietly.
"He was probably taken," Morgana said.
"Taken?!" Jason replied.
"Yes," she said with a sigh. The young woman put down her utensils and looked up. When her gaze met Jason's, he felt a little electric zap in his chest and couldn't help but smile. When Morgana didn't smile back, he looked down and scooped up more eggs. "The gargoyles go where they please every night. They attack people in the street, of course, and usually, they kill some of the people who are up on the crosses. They also force their way into houses like you saw last night, but they don't just kill my people. They capture some and fly them away—likely to the necromancer. Perhaps it was a task he'd assigned to the beasts back when he was still alive."
"What for?" Riley asked.
Morgana looked over at the soldier and shrugged. "I don't know. They have always done it. Estren believes that the necromancer was doing experiments or dark rituals on the people who did not have enough faith in the Golden Lady. I suppose they may be simply eating the taken, or delivering them unto the necromancer, but it has nothing to do with the cult. The gargoyles have been attacking since before the cult emerged in New Bozeman."
Jason speared his last piece of ham meat and put it in his mouth. It wasn't spiced or anything—no more than a little salt perhaps—but it was tasty as hell. Then, it occurred to him that if the pig was alive last night, and they were eating it this morning.
"Did you...?" he started, looking at Morgana. "Did you actually slaughter a pig while we were sleeping?"
Morgana held Jason's gaze for a time, but her green eyes were tired and elsewhere. She looked down, took a bite of eggs, then looked up at Riley.
"Did you three know the other warriors from the stars who came before you?"
Lillian interrupted all of them, emerging from the kitchen with a wooden bowl of something. She primly walked down to the dining table and sat down far away from the Reality Rifters with her bowl and spoon, then produced a book from under her arm, and smiled tightly as Jason and the others looked over at her. Then, Lillian cracked open her book and began to read while eating.
"Not really," Riley said. "I know their leader but we don't work together."
"Do you know the demon?" Morgana asked.
"Demon?" Jason repeated.
"Xarzeth the Black. Did he not send you?" she asked.
That was a strange thing to bring up. How did Morgana know a demon? Did demons actually exist? Jason looked at Riley and saw the soldier staring back at him. Riley smirked. Planeswalking is fruking weird, his look seemed to say. Sure, this was a dark ages world and all, but it was feeling pretty normal. Well—aside from the cult, and the gargoyles, and the mist. There was a goddamned necromancer involved. Why couldn't there also be a demon?
"Never heard of him," Riley replied.
"Then where did you come from?" she asked.
Jason opened his mouth to answer but paused. He remembered when Riley and Gliath had fumbled their initial meeting with him back home. They were supposed to just approach him about his powers, apparently, but—as Riley put it—they didn't want to cook his egg.
"The stars," Riley said.
"We are ... um..." Jason added, brushing off the hard look coming from Riley. "It's complicated," he said, "but the easy way for you to understand, Morgana, is that we're monster hunters and so were the other warriors from the stars."
"I spoke with the other warriors at times," she said, "but they didn't stay here with me; not like you." Jason felt the mood of the table delving into gloom.
"And thanks a lot for this hospitality!" Riley exclaimed brightly.
Morgana nodded and looked down, cutting at her ham. Jason saw that Gliath long-finished with his plate. The leopardwere sat stoically, watching the conversation like an old wooden American Indian statue.
"My people are in a terrible place," Morgana said quietly. "The Communion and that bastard Estren have almost completely taken over New Bozeman—this town that my family has worked so hard for over a hundred years to establish and protect. We used to be a thriving community. This was a safe place from the trogs and other monsters outside of the walls." She paused to eat another bite.
Jason looked across the length of the table to Lillian and saw the older woman watching them intently. Her book was open and a spoon dangled from one hand, but she was transfixed on Morgana's words.
He looked back at Morgana and felt his heart hurt; he could feel her years of pain radiating off of her. Jason wanted to help her, but he kept remembering Riley's warnings to not get involved. He knew exactly what the soldier would say, too. Doesn't matter. There were infinite universes, etc.
"Don't think about it," he muttered suddenly.
Morgana looked up. "What?"
Jason felt his face flush and his neck turn red. Did he just say that out loud?!
"Oh, uh ... nothing. Sorry."
"Do you t
hree ever...?" she started, looking up with those bold, green eyes, "do work for noble causes?"
Jason opened his mouth again. He wanted to offer to help but he didn't know what to say. There was nothing he could say that would make sense from their perspective as a group. He certainly couldn't speak for Riley and Gliath and offer up their guns for no reason, could he? Or could he?
"We work for gold, woman," Riley replied, looking at Jason as if he could read his mind. What the fruk are you thinking? his face seemed to say.
"What if we could perhaps gather up some gold for you?" she said, immediately radiating fear and desperation. "Is there any way that you could see helping me restore this town while you are hunting gargoyles? Can you help me overthrow Estren? Maybe after the gargoyles are gone? This is our most desperate—"
"Morgana!" Lillian cried from her place at the table with a shrill voice. "This is foolish, girl! These men are here to kill monsters—not murder people!"
The young woman looked at her sister-in-law with wide eyes then turned back to the three Reality Rifters. It seemed for a moment like she might be about to cry.
"I'm sorry to ask," she said, her voice on edge. "It's just that my people—"
"We can't," Riley replied flatly, scooping up another bite of eggs. "We're here to kill some gargoyles and then we have to leave right away."
"But what about after?"
"We'll have another job," the soldier said.
Morgana was suddenly frantic and her eyes flashed over to Jason, full of need.
"I'm sorry," Jason said, afraid to hurt her. He reached for the right words, but couldn't find them. "I know you that have big problems, but we shouldn't get involved." He felt like he'd just stabbed his own heart with a sliver of ice. The words were disgusting. Jason looked at the girl's beautiful, grief-stricken face and wanted nothing more than to see her smiling and happy. "I dunno," he amended. "Maybe we can help you. Maybe."
Morgana's eyes transformed in front of him from desperate to hopeful. Some of her hair had dropped down into her face amidst her fretting, and Jason wanted so badly to reach out and brush it out of the way and push it behind her ear.
Jason looked back at Riley and Gliath.
Riley glared back at him with a thin smile. Gliath was Gliath.
Turning back to his food, Jason finished his eggs. The others resumed eating and the table sat in nervous silence. There was an uncomfortable energy building in the air, and Jason felt like it was about to burst.
Finally, when breakfast was finished, Morgana gathered up all of the dishes and left to clean them.
Jason looked over at Lillian, who sat with her book closed, high-strung and glaring at all three Reality Rifters.
"Don't you dare put my sister in danger," she hissed, then stood and left for the kitchen.
A moment later, Riley chuckled.
"Ya know," the soldier said, "we can also just stay home during the day and come back here every night to hunt. We don't need to talk to any of these crazy frukers."
"She's not crazy," Jason replied, looking back at the kitchen doorway. "Morgana anyway," he amended. "There's something wrong with Lillian, but Morgana is ... nice."
Riley kicked back and let out a long, belting laugh.
"What are you doing, Jason?" he asked. "Don't forget the mission, man! This isn't too bad of a job. As long as we stay wary, then it's pretty easy, really. We've already got eight hearts. Only twenty-two more. We can finish this in two ... three nights tops."
"Yeah," Jason replied with a sigh. "I know."
"So, you like the girl," Riley replied with a smirk. He scratched his beard and plucked up a .45-70 round of ammunition from the table, immediately twirling it around in his fingers with amazing dexterity. "So what?"
Jason frowned. "I don't follow you."
"Remember," he went on. "None of this matters! All that matters are the golem hearts."
That didn't feel right. Jason found himself shaking his head. "I don't know about that," he said. "This girl is special."
"And so are the infinite other versions of her, right? Are you going to let her get in with us and put the team at risk? She's one of infinite poor young girls with political problems, dude. We shouldn't get involved in the politics. There are infinite alternate versions of this New Bozeman backward shethole, and nothing we can do here—killing that weird fruker or his weird bitches and all of the weird soldiers—would make any difference. It's all already happened! Everything that can happen will happen."
"So we just..." Jason replied sourly, grasping at the words. It was complicated. He didn't know what he thought. Did nothing matter here because of all of that bullshit? He liked Morgana. He wanted to save her. So there were infinite Morganas out there. Were none of them special? Of course, this one wasn't any more special than the next, but was it so wrong to want to help this one, even if it didn't matter?
"Don't think about it," Riley replied before Jason could finish.
"Don't think about it?" Jason said with a scoff. "Is that your reply to every issue with planeswalking?"
Riley smirked and looked at the ammo cartridge tumbling back and forth over his knuckles and fingers.
Jason stood.
"We should make a trip home," Riley said.
Chapter 18
After their late breakfast, the Reality Rifters collected all of their gear together and went up to Damien Soloster's old room to rift home.
The bright and roaring rift looked strange and out of place—spinning and casting sparks all around the medieval-like bedroom—but then, Jason and his friends were out of place themselves, weren't they? The three of them stepped through quickly and Jason collapsed the rift before Morgana could come in to see what was causing so much noise.
It was a sunny day back home in Ridgeview, Colorado. The light of midday poured in through the new overhead door's windows, brightly illuminating the interior of the garage. Jason looked at the new door and smiled. That light sure opened up the place. He briefly wondered how hard it would be to take some of these riches they'd been earning as a group and add on to the house, making it bigger. He'd already been thinking of setting up new shelving for the garage; to build that 'gear-up station' that he was contemplating before. Up until now, they'd been stacking whatever loot and monster parts (the minotaur hides, mainly) onto one of the stainless steel tables in the back, or lining stuff to sell at the Market on the concrete floor up along the walls.
Jason still liked his idea of gear-up stations along the garage wall where they could each keep their armor and essential gear put away and stacked up in their own individual spots.
This 'monster hunting' stuff was so cool...
Jason pulled off his backpack and opened the main compartment, removing the wrapped-up bundle of golem hearts, all clacking against each other as he handled the package. When he unfolded the cloth and saw some blood, his mind's eye immediately flashed back to the tortured baby and woman screaming with her legs twisted and broken and her entrails hanging out. He recalled the grisly scene of the villager down the alley having his arms ripped off.
A cold dread built up in Jason's heart as he looked at the eight glowing stones, some still slick with body fluids. He closed his eyes and shook his head to dissipate the terrible visions.
"I need a beer," Jason said, bringing the stones to the game processing sink. He rinsed off each heart and stacked them up along the back of one table.
They still needed several more.
Riley and Gliath had disappeared into the house. They were probably grabbing more ammo. Jason supposed that it was a good time to get another box of his own rifle ammo. Why not?
Walking into the house after putting his backpack back together, setting his AK down on a garage table, Jason headed to the kitchen with that beer in mind. He heard the shower running as he passed the hall and was half-surprised to see Gliath in the kitchen—still in human form—rummaging around in the fridge and pulling out plastic bags of cool hunks of meat.
/> "Still hungry, Gliath?"
Gliath with his Native American face looked back at him, his long, black hair waving as he turned.
"Yes, Jason Leaper 934. I require more meat than Morgana Soloster's ham."
"Makes sense. Mind if I get through to get a beer?"
Gliath stood aside for a moment with two packs of meat held under one arm and Jason snatched a bottle of Laughing Lab from the six-pack carrier in the fridge door. He pulled the magnetic bottle opener off of the freezer door and popped open the beer with a hiss, then put it back onto the fridge.
Stepping back, Jason leaned against the counter and took a nice, long sip.
Cold, malty red ale flooded his mouth. So good.
"Ah," he said, looking back at Gliath. "So, that's Riley in the shower."
Gliath nodded. "The bath prepared by Lillian Soloster last night was insufficient for his needs after harvesting the golem hearts last night."
Jason nodded then looked at Zelda, his cat, as she jumped up onto the counter. She meowed.
"Hi, girl," Jason said with a warm smile, petting her face. "Hungry?"
As Gliath sat at the table eating raw meat, Jason fed his pet—it looked like his canned cat food supply was low again—then eventually wandered back to his crafting room, still enjoying his beer. Opening his gun safe, Jason grabbed another box of 7.62x39mm. He heard Riley shut off the shower. Heading back into the garage, Jason pulled out all of his AK mags and made sure that they were topped off again, then put everything back together. He meandered to his armchair and relaxed for a while.
In time, Riley emerged again with his beard and dark hair still wet, bright-eyed and adjusting his armor and belt. He slipped into his long hellhound-hide duster jacket once more.
"That's fruking better," the soldier said, plopping down onto the couch. "You ready to head back, Jason?"
"Sure. So, you think it'll take three nights over there to get thirty hearts?"
Riley scratched his beard. "If we stay out later, I reckon that we can do it in two. We should adjust our sleep schedules a little to sleep more during the day until the job's done."