by Indi Martin
Morgan raised an eyebrow at her, and she felt a flash of her old animosity towards him. “What exactly is your plan?”
“If any of them touches any of you, I’ll fry them,” she replied crossly. “After the first few, no one else will try. Hopefully that’ll buy us the time we need until I’m done.”
There was a cold moment of silence, and Gina didn’t like the flash of fear she saw in everyone’s eyes except Morgan’s. He didn’t look afraid, just sad. “Can you do that?” he asked quietly, and she knew he wasn’t asking if she had the mental firepower. She flashed back to the grinding sound of the knife slipping through the cloaked man’s trachea and forced herself to hold Morgan’s gaze.
“Yes,” she replied, though her mind wasn’t in full agreement with the assertion.
“We could steal cloaks, sneak in,” he argued.
“We’d still end up surrounded, and I would be too distracted to help you fight. Better that they know we’re there but are too afraid to attack us,” she replied evenly, walking past him toward where he and the Cat had scouted. The words seemed rational enough to her, and bolstered her resolve speaking them aloud. “Let’s go,” she said, biting her lip once she was ahead of everyone. Before I lose my nerve.
74
“Are you sure about this?” asked Nate, his breathing nervous and irregular.
The black door standing atop the hill took no notice of his question, but the blonde girl nodded, looking more confident than she sounded when she replied, “Absolutely.” The darkness beyond the door didn’t look the same as the previous doorways had; there was something slick and oily about it, and it moved, oozed, within its frame.
“You’ve done this before?” he confirmed.
“Yeah,” she answered, grabbing his hand. “It’s not fun, but I’ve done it a bunch of times. I just can’t change anything.”
“Then why-” he started, but she was pulling him into the shadow, and this darkness felt as different as it looked, crawling across his skin like a million insects, and he screamed, writhing in the unpleasant air, until he landed hard on his back, knocking the scream out of his lungs with an “oomph!” He clambered to his knees, looking at his surroundings, and felt the scream threatening to rise again. It was the house, again, but it was different, newer, cleaner, more well-kept. Melissa sat on a white bench, cooing reassuring platitudes at him, but his eyes went past her to the old woman sitting in a rocking chair. She looked thin, nearly transparent, and her image seemed to flicker in and out of solidness.
“It’s okay,” continued Melissa. “We’re safe here for now. She’s not going to hurt you.”
“Who is she?” he asked, accepting her hand for help up on the bench.
“Nathan Jones, meet Esther Locke, Harold Locke’s wife,” she smiled. “Esther, this is Nate.”
“Pleased to meet you,” rasped the old woman, and her voice sounded distant, as though it were echoing through a hallway before reaching his ears.
“Locke,” repeated Nate slowly.
“That’s his name. The bad man from the house.” She looked proud, beaming at the old woman’s fuzzy image. “It took me forever to find her. She’s buried pretty deep.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, staring at the elderly woman’s image.
“Well, she’s just a memory,” explained Melissa with a dismissing wave. “But she’s stronger than a lot of his other ones. She’s been helping me.”
“But we’re in his memory, Locke’s,” argued Nate, holding his head. “She is him. How can she help us? Won’t he know where we are?”
Melissa looked to Mrs. Locke for advice, and the old woman merely shrugged at her, causing several static lines to run through her, reminding Nate of his old television. “I think she’s one of the last bits of Locke that’s still human,” answered Melissa after a moment. “That hasn’t been corrupted by that thing, that shadow.”
“Oh, honey, he wasn’t exactly a peach while he was still alive, either,” laughed the old woman, startling Nate into a surprised chuckle.
“The first time I met her, she hid me when he came looking, and he never found me,” explained Melissa, reaching out to touch the old woman’s hand in gratitude.
“So, what do we do? I mean, taking his memories for a joyride feels a bit like painting graffiti on a burning bridge.” Nate shook his head. “What’s the point?”
Melissa turned to him, excitedly. “I’m not still alive, not technically, and neither is she. All that’s left of us is our will, and hers is fading.” The old woman flickered and nodded. “We drain away, like batteries, until there’s no more memories left. And then we’re gone.”
Nate nodded slowly as he processed her words. “You said you can’t find Luke or Danny.”
She bit her lip. “No. No, I can’t. But we can’t dwell on them, Nate. This is about us, surviving. You’re still actually alive, actually tethered to reality instead of this halfway holodeck. You might be able to change something.”
Nate scoffed. “How would I change something in someone else’s memories?”
“Reality is all perception,” instructed Mrs. Locke, her pointer finger daintily in the air. “The only reason Harold has become what he is, well, it’s his connection to the shadow beyond. He was always a hateful man, but that darkness tapped into his full potential. It feeds him power, suggestions, instructions. You might be able to sever that connection by altering the memory of the moment it was made.”
“Listen to you!” laughed Melissa, patting her on the arm. “When I met her, she was all riddles. Like the Sphinx. I knew you had it in you.”
The elderly woman’s image flickered, and she grimaced. “Desperate times,” she replied, sipping her cup of tea.
“I get the feeling that sounds a lot easier than it is,” remarked Nate, replaying her explanation in his head. “You’ve told me why, but still not how.”
Esther Locke set her teacup on the bench beside her and struggled to stand up from the rocking chair. Melissa took her by the elbow, but the woman flickered at the contact and the girl’s hand passed through her. “I’ve got it, sweetie,” she crooned. “Nate, I can show you to the moment. You’ll just be an observer, until you try to interrupt, and then you have very little time.” She hobbled across the porch to the house’s front door, decorated with a festive fall wreath. “I would recommend smudging the sigils. They have to be exactly right, and they were.”
“Why are you helping us?” asked Nate in a quiet voice. The old woman turned her eyes to him and smiled, her image solidifying for a moment as she did so, before the static lines began interrupting her again.
“Harry wasn’t always a bad man, but he wasn’t always a good one,” she replied with sad eyes. Her voice crackled and broke, as though she were coming through on a sketchy radio transmission. “Many of my family and friends didn’t understand why I stayed with him, and sometimes I didn’t either. My life would have been very different if I’d left, perhaps better. Probably better. It just wasn’t a common thing to do, and I was afraid of being on my own.” She shrugged. “I can’t change any of that now, but I know he appreciated my presence in his better moments, the fact that I hung in past the worst of it. I survived Harold Locke, but his life was bettered by my faith in him. This, this isn’t what he would have wanted. And it’s certainly not what I want.” She cast her eyes to the deck and shuffled to the front door, leaning against the wood. “I can do one last thing for my husband, and that’s help you defeat what he’s become. Lay him to rest. I miss the good in him, what little there might have been.”
“But you’re…” Nathan struggled to understand. “You’re not really Esther Locke.”
“Does it matter?” she asked, opening the door to reveal the undulating oily darkness beyond. “You don’t have much time, you shouldn’t be spending it chit-chatting with me. Go and do what needs to be done.”
Melissa appeared beside him, startling him, and intertwined her hand in his. “Ready?” she asked softly.
>
“Smudge the sigils,” he whispered to himself, repeating the words like a mantra. “Smudge the sigils.”
“Right, do that,” agreed Melissa, pulling him into the awful, prickling shadow once more.
75
Morgan hated this plan.
He hated it with every fiber of his being. It was reckless, and stupid, and he wanted no part of it. But Harwood was walking with purpose down the path, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her walk into a bloodbath alone. He patted Mati one last time on the neck, before dropping his reins and slapping him on the rump, sending he and Aleka running down the path. Morgan jogged toward Gina to walk beside her, his giant friend pounding the sand directly behind him. He took a deep breath and tried to loosen his shoulders; he would need to be loose if this went sour, and he saw no other possible outcome. Gina was strong, but he had seen the enemy, and they were legion. This is not a good plan, he repeated to himself and grimaced.
They walked on silently in the desert sun, the tension palpable, until they crested the final foothill before the gathered army. Morgan heard Agni give a faint gasp, but couldn’t tell if it was the sea of cloaked men that elicited it, or the hole in space that hung in front of the mountain. He’d called it a wall, because that’s what it was when they first encountered it in Snow Hill, but here it was an ominous rip in reality obscuring the rocky cliffs behind it, a veil of viscous darkness that shimmered and waved. Morgan’s eyes refused to look directly at it, sending chills down his spine whenever he noticed it in his peripheral vision. It was impossible to miss.
Gina walked on without a hitch in her step; she gave no reaction to either the army or the shadow, and the rest of the party rushed to keep up with her. Morgan tried to catch her gaze, but her eyes were staring front, her jaw set. They were nearing the edge of the congregation, and the nearest few cloaks gave a shout of warning, sending ripples through the masses as the gathered cloaks turned to face the intruders in waves.
“This is not a good plan,” he hissed toward Gina, seeing knives seemingly jump into Agni’s hand and hearing Toma unsheathe his blade behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, just before a blast of pain hit his temples. His eyes screwed closed and he fell to his knees, his mind erupting in pain. He heard gasps of pain around him, and Kyrri yelped and snarled. The pain quieted slightly, replaced by words that floated in his mind and echoed in his ears with Gina’s voice - but not quite her voice. “Do not attempt to harm us or get in our path,” announced the echo in his head. “Or you will die. This is the only warning I will give.” He heard a snap, and the pain vanished. Morgan jumped to his feet.
“That hurt,” he advised, and heard the other companions grumble their assent.
“I can’t separate you all from the masses,” she replied in a low voice. “I can attack one or two, but to talk to all of them, I had to just broadcast. I did apologize,” she added bitterly.
“I hope you’re right,” he said, seeing two of the nearest cloaks break off and run toward them, their swords drawn.
Gina narrowed her eyes, and her features seemed longer, more predatory, for just a moment as she hissed air through her teeth. The two men dropped where they stood and began writhing on the ground, silencing the mumbling crowd with agonizing screams. The cloaks around them edged backward and watched, wide-eyed, as the would-be attackers began bleeding from the ears and the eyes, clawing away bloody mats of hair as they dug their fingernails into their scalp. In only seconds, the men fell silent and still on the ground. Morgan instinctively reached out to touch her, catch her if she lost her balance or fainted after using her telepathy, but the air around her pricked his fingers and he snatched his hand away.
“Gina?” he asked tentatively.
She gave no response, her green eyes staring ahead at the wall, and she resumed her forward march. Morgan exchanged a glance with Toma, who looked petrified, and smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way before walking forward to keep her at his elbow. He didn’t feel particularly reassured by the display, and was concerned that she wasn’t responding to him, but didn’t want to push the issue either. He knew it must be a battleground in her skull, and it was too late now to turn back.
The gathered masses parted like an organized unit to let them pass. An arrow flew toward her head, but she raised her hand and it fell to the ground. Somewhere in the crowd, a man began screaming. He couldn’t see past the gathered cloaks to the afflicted man, but it was from roughly where the arrow had been fired. You’re playing awfully fast and loose here, he thought, trying to form the thoughts loud and clear in his mind. If it reached her, she gave no indication.
As Morgan had feared, the crowd closed in behind them as they passed, and though the men maintained a large circle as they walked through, he could feel the tension of the throngs barely held at bay. If that line breaks… he thought, but dismissed it, tightening his grip on his flintlock and laying his left hand on his dagger hilt. The thought didn’t need to be finished. If Gina couldn’t hold them back, they were all dead, that was simply reality. He could hear swift breathing from the Cat on the other side of Gina, whose fur was sticking out in all directions under his armor and whose teeth were bared, and heavy panting from Toma behind him, who was walking backwards with Agni, watching their six. He heard nothing from Agni; the man moved gracefully and with silent ease, his daggers at the ready in his outstretched arms.
As they neared the front of the crowd, Gina stepped up onto the raised wooden platform constructed just in front of the shadow, and Morgan could feel the weight of the thing behind the tear, the gravity of it. He fought the urge to laugh, fearing that if he did so, he might not stop, and joined Gina on the dais along with the other three. Kyrri was hissing and spitting at the men on the platform, keeping them at bay, but they hadn’t been close enough to see her display at the edges of the crowd, and they inched forward en masse.
“Protect me,” whispered Gina, turning her back on the army. “I can’t take them all.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, turning his attention to the men. He, Toma, Kyrri, and Agni were arranged in a half-circle around her, facing out with their weapons, but there were so many cloaks. Too many.
“What I came here to do,” she sighed, and he saw her raise her hands out of the corner of his eyes. Movement to his left grabbed his attention, and he pointed his pistol at the head of the man jostling at the edge of the pack.
“I will kill you,” he said grimly, and his arm didn’t waver. The man drew his cloak down to cover his face in shadow, and he stepped forward, his eyes dangerous points of light in the darkness. The men around him edged closer, following his lead. Don’t make me shoot you, he thought at the man, narrowing his eyes, but the deep hood took another step and tensed up, reaching into his cloak to draw his sword. Morgan glanced to the side to see the crowd closing in on all sides and closed his eyes for a moment. This isn’t how I die, bubbled up to the forefront of his mind, surprising him, and he opened his eyes and fired his flintlock at the main aggressor. The man’s head snapped back, his hood flying off of his skull, and Morgan had time to notice a small black hole in the middle of his forehead before he dropped to the ground and all hell broke loose.
<><><>
Gina let her instincts take over the moment she stepped on the platform, the shadow pulling her mind into its orbit and all of her attention focused on closing the rip. The world seemed to darken, blur, and she was alone before the creature, the dark god, the hungry shadow, so hungry. She fought to push back, but it was so strong, its gravity so immense, that she felt herself being pulled in despite her struggles. Panic shrieked at the edges of her consciousness, an alarm bell that screamed for her to turn away. She heard shouting, dimly, and then the crack of a gunshot.
A hand passed in front of her face, blocking her vision of the wall, and she stepped back from it, startled, to see Gavin Crowell’s smug face leering at her. “What are you doing?” he asked, shaking his head and clucking his to
ngue. “Do you really think you stand a chance against my brother?”
Gina turned away from the shadow, breathing heavily, and noticed that the world was still, frozen. The cloaked men had broken their self-imposed barriers, rushing the platform. Morgan’s flintlock pistol hovered a few inches above the ground from where he threw it, and he was stretched out, his arm slicing outwards with the recently unsheathed dagger across a Brother’s throat, the blood spray hanging in the air like Christmas tinsel in search of a tree. His chiseled face was contorted into a grimace, his eyes narrowed. Toma was falling backward, holding another cloak’s blade barely at bay with his right hand, while his left fist was about to connect with the man’s jaw. Agni had two men bleeding at his feet, and had just loosed a dagger, which hung cartoonishly in the air pointing at another attacker’s eye. Kyrri’s teeth were buried in another man’s arm. Gina walked over and stole a blade from a man who was centimeters from stabbing the Cat in the back, burying it instead in the man’s heart. No blood fell, and the man hovered off balance, waiting for time to resume in order to die. She whirled to face Crowell, who was watching her with a raised eyebrow. “What’s it to you?” she snapped, her mind racing. “Our deal is done.”
“This one’s on the house,” smiled Crowell, but his smile was fanged and wrong. He snapped his fingers and time resumed. Agni’s knife pierced through the attacker’s eye, and he dropped to the ground; the man who was about to kill Kyrri doubled over, staring at the blade sticking out of his chest as the light dimmed in his eyes. Crowell snapped his fingers again and a great wind seemed to sweep through the cloaks, a life-taking gust that sapped every man it touched, and the army fell to the ground as one, dead, leaving only her companions blinking in confusion on the platform.
It didn’t go well in Snow Hill, and we only had a few starving hippies in our way, echoed Morgan’s words in her mind, and her eyes went wide with horror. “NO!” she screamed, as she heard a howl sound from behind her.