The Dominion Pulse

by Brad A. LaMar

  “Stop it!” Arawn pleaded. “Leave her alone!” Arawn charged forward and received a blast from Elathan for his trouble. He flew backwards and landed roughly on his back as the air was cleared from his lungs.

  Elathan threw his head back and laughed like a maniac. He pointed his fingers in Argona’s direction and smashed her again and again with his torturous pulses. Her body flew into the wall over and over and she collapsed hard on the solid floor. Blood trickled out of her mouth and contusions began to pop up over every visible area of her skin.

  The golden god rushed at Arawn and grabbed his jaw, nearly snapping the bones in his grasp, and pulled the Celtic warrior to a standing position. Elathan twisted Arawn’s head so that he was forced to look at the map. “Only one remains, Arawn, and then I will be more powerful than any being who has ever lived. When that happens, I will enter your brain and gouge out the information I want without abandon. I will feed your still living body to the demons that Caoranach creates, and they will feast on your corpse for a thousand years.”

  “I will never betray the Earth,” Arawn choked out as tears streaked down his face.

  Elathan’s eyes widened with murderous madness as sweat dripped through his golden hair. “Then let’s see if she can hold out as long as you can.”

  …

  Time was slowly plodding along, stubbornly refusing to be pushed faster that its normal rate, so Brendan and the others stood around near the side entrance of the CHH and waited for the Chamber to open. Ken and the Smith sisters had opted not to go, but they wanted to see the others off.

  Brendan felt a little weird just loitering on the side of the CHH with his friends, especially when there were two fairies, a Púca, and a Gnome among the group. At least the Leprechaun could change her size.

  There were a few people walking around campus, but for the most part Syracuse was a ghost town. That was good in case anything weird happened, Brendan considered.

  “You guys getting nervous?” Patty asked, hovering about eye level with the humans.

  “I never get nervous, pretty thing,” Rohl said.

  “Actually, I’m a little nervous,” Dorian admitted. “There really hasn’t been much information about Nether Corridors in the last three centuries. I was shocked that this one was even here.”

  “Believe it, honey,” Wanda stated. “There ain’t many have come and gone, but they do from time to time.”

  “So, we can exit through this portal, too, right?” Frank asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Patty confirmed.

  “I would guess that would be best,” added Wanda.

  Lizzie glanced at her cell phone. “Almost time to go.”

  A bright light shone on the group from near the front of the house. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Everyone looked up but Ken recognized the voice. “Detective Simmons? What are you doing here?”

  Simmons walked forward with his gun drawn and pointed at Brendan. “Brendan and I need to have a conversation.”

  “Not now, Simmons,” Brendan said, stepping forward to put himself between the gun and his friends.

  “You think you have a choice?” Simmons was already grabbing his phone and dialing. “You’re coming with me and we’re going to talk about dozens of missing people.”

  A bright light caught Frank’s attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw that the space around the door was illuminated and pulsing. “Brendan?”

  “Not now, Frank,” replied Brendan.

  “This is simple math, O’Neal, me plus gun plus you minus gun equals you plus me heading to the police station.”

  “Who is this idiot?” Rohl said, stepping forward. He looked up at Brendan. “Want me to transform into a horse and kick him into next week?”

  “Wh… what is that?” Simmons asked, his face showing his confusion.

  “Brendan,” Frank called out again. “The Chamber!”

  Brendan glanced back and nodded. Frank reached out and twisted the knob, making the door fling inward creating a violent vacuum. Instantly, those closest to the opening—Frank, Lizzie, Dorian, and Garnash—were pulled inside and disappeared in the darkness. Ken fell to the ground and fought against the pull but it was too much and he and the Smith sisters went flying in as well.

  Rohl’s instinct was to grab Brendan’s leg to fight the suction, but Brendan pried the Púca free and let the wind current take him.

  “What is happening?” Simmons demanded as he lost his feet and slammed into Brendan.

  Brendan struggled to stay upright as well, but he was determined to not let Simmons get pulled into the Chamber. “You don’t want to know!” he shouted above the roar of the wind.

  Brendan took Simmons by the shirt and pinned him against the wall just outside of the vacuum’s path. “Stay here, for your own good.”

  Brendan let go and was sucked into the blackness. The roar was dying down and Simmons stood against the wall more frightened than he could ever remember being, but curiosity and the need to know the truth got the best of him.

  Detective Simmons pulled away from the wall and with the vacuum’s final breath, he, too, followed Brendan down the proverbial rabbit hole.

  …

  Camulos cracked the door to Wayland’s workshop and peered out onto the golden streets of Sarvaloo watching for any suspicious voyeurs, but when nothing seemed out of the ordinary he stepped outside. He pulled his new sword up—blood-stained as it was—and admired it like a kid at Christmas. It was perfect. Wayland was every bit the master smith that Gio was back in his own era.

  Pity I had to kill them both, Camulos mused with a sneer.

  He looked down at the masterpiece in his grasp and took in a deep, satisfying breath. The sword was bright, shiny, and silver, which would have made Nuada proud, but the blue veins of Camulos’s own god killer sword struck an awesome contrast to the inherent goodness of the original’s intent.

  “A splash of reality in an idealist’s relic,” he said aloud, allowing his excitement to get the best of him.

  His eyes shifted up and down the street as he became self-conscious about the deed he had done. Would there be enemies at every turn trying to take his perfect weapon? He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves as he considered his current position.

  “Did you get a new sword, Camulos?”

  The voice nearly made the fearsome god of war jump out of his boots. He spun around and spotted Conchar and the Seeker standing near the corner of an intersection.

  “Yes,” Camulos replied smoothly. “I just had it made.”

  “How nice for you, but we have work to do,” chimed Conchar. “Lord Elathan’s final realm must be taken.”

  …

  Oscar ignored the two traveling companions and tried to focus on the beat of the dominion pulse of Tir na nOg, the Realm of the Gods, but in the heart of Sarvaloo, it was proving difficult to sift through the static that cities often bolstered. Machines and electric energy—some of it of the magical variety—buzzed in the air like white noise.

  He needed to focus.

  It was so hard to do that with all of the pedestrians and strange autos that traveled these streets. They reminded Oscar of futuristic hovercrafts, but like the buildings, bridges, and architecture of Sarvaloo, the autos also had an ancient aura about them, like the ancient Egyptians or Celts could have designed them.

  Oscar closed his eyes and tried to block out the distractions. First, he filtered out the grinding of the mechanisms that powered the transports, then the chatter of the people as they marched on to their destinations. Soon the general buzzing of the city subsided and Oscar’s radar was on high alert. Then, there it was, soft as a whisper and gentle as a breeze.

  Lub-dub!

  …

  “It’s useless to resist,” Elathan cackled.

  He reached out with tentacles of gold and ensnared Argona like a giant squid with the energy of a power plant and sent ten million volts searing through her nearly incapacita
ted body.

  She screamed in torment causing Arawn to look away and begin to weep.

  “I’m sorry, my love.” Arawn looked back at her with guilt-stricken eyes. “I can’t or everyone on Earth will die.”

  Elathan threw a casual look at Arawn, his eyes bursting with golden energy as he continued to pour the voltage into the war goddess. “They’re already dead, Celtic warrior; the time they have left is just an illusion.”

  …

  Brendan opened his eyes and blinked several times trying to shake loose the knock his head took entering the Chamber. The others were still down, laid out in piles on a grimy dirt and stone path. He cracked his neck as he got to his feet and scoped out the area.

  The path stretched out before them with thick leafless trees lining either side. The sky above was gray and heavy with the clouds of a pending storm. He turned around to look at the portal they had entered and saw a stone archway etched with arcane symbols reminiscent of the ones that could be found on the megaliths of Earth, but older. The center was pure black, dark as a cave. Brendan walked closer to it, but got the impression that no one was supposed to touch it. After a few moments the darkness gave way to stone bricks closing off the entry port.

  Dorian started to stir and Brendan knelt down beside her.

  “What happened?” she asked. She sat up and held her pounding head. She wondered if this was what a nail felt like beneath a relentless hammer.

  “We’re in the Chamber,” he replied.

  “How are the others? Many of them aren’t magicks.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Brendan and Dorian moved from Lizzie to Frank to Garnash first, all waking up with the same pained expression. Ken, Rohl, the Smith sisters, and Simmons awoke next, totally confused about what had happened.

  “Thanks for the warning about the super vacuum, girls,” Garnash said sarcastically. “You’ve been really helpful.”

  “Don’t think we don’t hear that tone, Gnome,” Patty stated.

  “Uh-huh,” Wanda began. “You needed to get here and we got your sorry butt here, didn’t we?”

  “Ease up, Garnash,” Rohl interjected. “These angels are just trying to help.”

  “Shut it, Rohl,” Garnash ordered.

  “Okay, okay, relax,” Lizzie said, stepping in between all of the small individuals of the group—and trying to not step on any of them. “We’re here so let’s deal with it.”

  “Excuse me,” Simmons said, raising his hand. “Can anyone explain what just happened?”

  “You just jumped into something that’s way above your pay scale, Detective,” Brendan said, offering Simmons a hand up.

  Simmons looked at it suspiciously and then begrudgingly took it. Brendan pulled him up and for the first time, Simmons saw something different in Brendan. There was a sense of power to him that had somehow escaped his notice.

  “So where are we?” the detective asked, waving his hand over the landscape.

  “Let me give you the short version and we’ll let you catch up as we go since you are obviously a part of this now, like it or not.” Brendan pointed at the smaller members of the group. “Detective, meet magical beings from a few different clans. Rohl is a Púca, Wanda and Patty are fairies of the American persuasion, and Garnash is Gnome royalty. Together we have been fighting against the evil beings that come here from the realms of a place called Otherworld.”

  Simmons laughed. “I get it, you’re all on drugs, you somehow gave me the same narcotic, and now we’re all living the same fantasy.” He cackled again.

  “Are you out of your mind, Simmons?” Frank said, stepping forward. “Believe what your eyes tell you. This isn’t a joke.”

  Simmons stopped smiling and pulled his gun. “Take us home, now.”

  Brendan shook his head and then held out his palm. The gun wobbled in Simmons’s grasp and then the weapon was flung from his hand through the air into Brendan’s hand.

  “Hey… how did you do that?” Simmons asked frantically.

  The detective began stepping towards Brendan to get his gun back but Brendan lifted him into the air with a single thought. “Detective, we tried to tell you, but you don’t want to believe it. You should have taken my advice and just let us go.”

  Brendan set him down gently and tossed him the gun. “If you wait here, the door should open up in about a week and you should be able to get back home.”

  Brendan and the others began walking away down the foggy stone and dirt path. Something was in this place that could help them, Brendan was sure of it.

  “A week? You can’t just leave!” Simmons shouted. “You have to answer for all of those missing people, O’Neal!”

  Brendan didn’t bother to look back, but soon enough the clicking of Simmons’s footsteps were heard trying to catch up.

  “Decided to join up?” Lizzie asked.

  “I need to see what’s going on, and then you are all under arrest,” he declared.

  “Whatever, flatfoot,” Rohl said with a grin. “We’ll all be lucky to get out of here alive.”

  …

  Argona’s body landed harshly on the floor in front of Arawn. He lunged forward and took her face in his hands.

  “Argona? Speak to me!” he said in a panic.

  “Can you feel that, Arawn? Can you feel her soul slipping away?”

  “That can’t happen. She’s a goddess!” Arawn screamed.

  “But I am an ultragod, warrior, and at my hands all things shall die.”

  Arawn tried to fight back the tear, but his heart was breaking and his mind flooded with images of a life without her.

  Elathan gave the Celtic warrior a disapproving look. “You did that to her; you’re the one killing her,” he said softly, chastising Arawn.

  Arawn tried to ignore Elathan and instead leaned down and kissed his love on the forehead. “Don’t leave me, Argona.”

  “She doesn’t have a say in the matter,” Elathan said.

  …

  The beating of the dominion pulse was growing louder. It was somewhere high above Oscar’s head. He craned his neck back and looked up from the base of a copper colored building that was taller than any building he had ever seen before. It had to be a thousand stories tall and as big as a Las Vegas city block at its base. It was a masterpiece of architecture constructed of glass, metal, stone, and some sort of energy that flowed through the whole building.

  Oscar looked for a handhold on the side of the building, but there was none to be found on the smooth surface, then he noticed a door. He marched over and the doors slid apart. The two in his company followed him inside. A moment later Oscar and the two stepped onto a lift and were taken to the roof terrace. They stepped out and that’s when Oscar heard the beating, as steady as a drum.

  “Nochtann do chroí!” Oscar commanded, using the words that flowed through his mind. “Reveal your heart!”

  He repeated his phrase with command and confidence causing the pulse to surge to the exact size that he willed. He pulled out the token from his pocket and put his hand fully into the center of the pulse. The wave that followed flowed out over all of Sarvaloo and on into the countryside and well out of sight.

  Oscar closed his eyes and took in a deep breath smelling for the blood of the Watcher. Oscar reached out his hand and held it towards the Watcher’s body. He closed his hand and pulled triggering a clouded mist of red to float out of the Watcher and directly into the pulse, which incited a second wave.

  Oscar had completed his quest, and he was exhausted.

  …

  Brendan turned around to say something in response to one of Simmons’ ignorant comments when he noticed something was strange about his vision. While he saw Dorian, Lizzie, and all of the others—including the detective’s confused expression—he was also seeing a city from a tower view. He knew some sort of heart vision was coming since he felt the beating slam into his chest twice in a row, but this was a unique experience. He could hear his group talking and every
little sound that vibrated through the air from Frank’s sneeze to the clicking sound of footfalls on the stone, but at the same time he could hear the hustle and bustle of a vibrant city.

  “This place smells,” Brendan heard Wanda say to her sister, while simultaneously hearing the groaning and moaning of a man laying prone on the rooftop bleeding through his clothes.

  Brendan closed both of his eyes and everything went silent. He took a few breaths, flustered by the way this heart vision was going. His head felt the brunt of an out-of-nowhere headache so he opened his left eye to fight it back and noticed something even odder than the double-vision vision. His friends were all there and the city had vanished, leaving him only with the sights and sounds of his surroundings.

  The heart vision must have passed, he thought, but when he opened his right eye and the city terrace scene returned. What the…?

  Brendan closed his left eye and the Chamber and his friends vanished leaving him only a view of the city. His physical self stopped walking, but his vision self moved forward and stood over the fallen man. Upon closer inspection, Brendan identified Camulos as the downed man. He was mumbling to himself like a deranged person, so Brendan leaned down to see if he could make out what the war god was saying.

  “I’m the Watcher…Watcher…Elathan…dirty fools will pay…”

  Watcher? Brendan repeated to himself. This vision was showing him something that was important, but he wasn’t sure of what.

  “Watcher…what’s a Watcher?” Brendan mumbled before the heart vision faded away.

  “Are you alright?” Dorian asked as Brendan opened both eyes. “You kind of just stopped walking.”

  Brendan turned back to his group with pursed lips. “Elathan has control over all of Otherworld.”

  “What?!” Garnash said aghast.

  “Dad found the last dominion pulse.” Brendan shook his head. “Elathan has never been stronger.”

  …

  “You’re going to have to kill us, Elathan,” Arawn said stubbornly. “I will never tell you the demon mother’s location.”

  Elathan glanced up at the map of Otherworld and smiled when he saw that Tir na nOg was now shining brightly with golden light. He turned back to the pigheaded Celtic warrior and snarled.