Hard Reign

by John Hook

  “Las Vegas,” I quipped.

  The Shirk who had been leaning up against the arch gave a half smile and mumbled: “Something like that.”

  “What’s in it for the folks who run this place?”

  “Who knows?” The Shirk shrugged again.

  “Someone does. However, I’m sure you don’t. Okay, we’re going in.”

  The Shirk stepped in front of us and squared his shoulders. Muscles tightened under his shirt, His face had a glow. He was hoping for an excuse for violence.

  “There are three rules in this place.”

  “Do tell.”

  “First, once you enter, you cannot leave.”

  “I take that to mean if we try to leave someone will try and stop us. They probably won’t succeed, but we can worry about that later.”

  “Second, you leave your weapons here.” The Shirk nodded at Izzy and Kyo. Kyo slipped into a stance in a single fluid motion that made it pretty clear anyone planning on taking her sword would probably be missing limbs.

  “Good luck with that.” I smiled.

  “You may seek your pleasure in any activity you like, but you may not harm another to do it unless they wish to be harmed.”

  “Now there’s an interesting rule. How do you enforce that?”

  The Shirk at the back stepped forward and reached into the basket.

  “With these.”

  In his hand, he held what was clearly a collar made of a ceramic material. Izzy stepped forward and grabbed it out of his hand, a very serious expression on his face.

  “Give me that!” the Shirk shouted, but I stepped in his way.

  “Izzy?”

  “Take a look.”

  Izzy held out the collar. There were two gaps where the collar would rest against the neck. Extending out of those gaps were the same biological tendrils we had seen in the clips that held people captive at the tower we had destroyed.

  “I don’t think we’ll be putting these on.”

  The Shirk held my gaze and tensed. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

  I stepped back, preparing to give myself room to maneuver for a fight, but Saripha stepped up, her hood still up. She put a hand on the Shirk’s chest. He turned to look into her eyes and then his face just seemed to drain. His gaze became almost blank. Curiously, so did the faces of the other two Shirks.

  Saripha spoke. I almost didn’t recognize the voice as it was in a very different register. It was quiet, as if only intended for the three Shirks, but it had a power and authority all the same.

  “We are going into the city with our weapons and without collars. You will not stop us and you will not remember once we have passed. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, of course. Go on in.” The Shirk she was touching spoke as if this was normal and expected.

  I dropped the collar in the basket as we entered. The Shirks, behind us, went back to lounging around as if nothing had just happened.

  We entered the city along the left bank of the river. It was crowded and congested. The little boxy buildings we had observed from afar were indeed shops. I assumed all their wares were glamours. Each shop was jammed with relics and foods from all over the world—well, all over the world we had come from. It didn’t matter that no one was buying much. Pottery from South America, textiles from the Middle East, even Buddha statues from the Far East, which just drove home what a crazy place this was. Vases, drums, brass lamps, old watches, fruit, wine, crystal, you name it. The smells alone, of exotic spices and perfumes, was almost overwhelming. The streets were packed with people, and signs and banners hung everywhere. Most of the banners had characters I didn’t recognize. I suspected no other former humans did either.

  The signs were mostly for the shops and I suspected you saw them in whatever language you spoke because I heard many languages being spoken on the street. People’s glamours appeared in many kinds of dress. Again, it was an international assortment. People seemed to travel and talk in like groups and people who were different from each other tended to not talk. Everyone wore the collars we had refused and many stared at us and backed away. We had our weapons and no collars on.

  The shops were brightly lit and there were fair imitations of neon lights on marquees and in the windows. At first I thought they were glamours, but it seemed to be done with a glass material that had similar properties to the clay that allowed it to contain the lava-like substance.

  Just past the shops were large, well-lit casinos with people going in and out. Other people were drinking heavily or drunk. Prostitutes, both female and male, of many different races, lounged languidly near the entrances of casinos, and sometimes a drunken patron would come by and produce what looked like a handful of poker chips and they would slink off somewhere into the back streets, arm in arm.

  Finally we came to a park at one end of the “strip.” It was well groomed with low bushes, palm trees and a scraggly moss-like ground cover that seemed to be a stand-in for grass. There were a couple of rough-hewn benches and we took a seat.

  “You have any clearer sense of this place?” I asked Saripha.

  “The hedonism is real. There is a tremendous amount of pleasure being generated here. Some of it is frantic and there is a lot of addiction here. But there is something darker underneath.”

  “You people are new here.”

  We turned, startled. It reminded me of when I first arrived and Rox surprised me in the park in Rockvale. The voice belonged to a dark-eyed, brown-skinned youth who appeared to be in his early twenties. He could have been Caribbean or southern Asian, but his clothing wasn’t giving it away. He was dressed in a loose Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and sandals. He smiled.

  “I can help you. Ask me anything. If you want a guide, my prices are reasonable.”

  “Prices?” I looked at the others and then back at the young man. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen money being used in Hell before.”

  “Yes, well this place is very different. Here you need money. When you get enough money you can get your fantasy.”

  The young man pointed at the wall in the distance. This immediately got my interest.

  “What is your name?”

  “I am Patar.” His voice was plain, without any recognizable trace of an accent. His English was very formal.

  “Tell me about this place of fantasy,” I said.

  “Anyone who is allowed to come here is given a chance to experience their greatest fantasy. You walk through the doorway into the inner city and all your dreams come true. However you can only go if you have enough money.”

  “Ah,” I said. I looked at the others. Everyone was wearing the same look of bemused cynicism. I turned back. “Of course, all your dreams come true. So how do you get money?”

  “By willingly doing things that give others pleasure. At first you can sell your bodies. Then, as you get more money, you can make more gambling in the casinos. You can also agree to be a slave to someone else and they have to pay you.”

  “Let me guess. If you agree to do things that feed certain dark appetites you get more money.”

  Patar looked at me, unsure what I was asking.

  “Pain. Do you get more money for doing unpleasant things that might give others pleasure?”

  “Well, yes, especially if you don’t do well at the casinos, that is a good way to make money fast.”

  “I bet.” I smiled. “How about seeing the Magister? How much does that cost?”

  A look of sheer terror came over Patar’s features, but then his face eased and he started laughing.

  “You are kidding, of course.”

  “Of course.” I grinned back. “How about you show us where you go when you want to buy your fantasy? I’d like to see what we are going to be saving up for.”

  “I need to be paid for showing you,” he said earnestly.

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “Yes, but you have beautiful women,” he said eagerly.

  He started to move in Kyo’s direction but jerked
to a stop with my short sword at his throat.

  “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we buy your help with your life?”

  I could see the wheels turn in his head and then his eyes went to my neck. His face went through several changes that included both horror and confusion and then his face became neutral but serious.

  “You don’t have collars,” he said, fingering the collar around his own neck.

  “Yes, which means we can turn you into a proto if we choose.”

  “Th-they won’t like that. They don’t want protos in the city.”

  “You’ll find that I don’t really care much about what they want.”

  Patar thought about that for a moment.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Yes, okay. I will show you the entrance to the place of dreams.”

  I let Patar take the lead, but I held his arm in case he got rabbity, which I suspected he would do at the first opportunity. As we got closer to the wall, there were fewer and fewer shops and fewer and fewer people. The people who were there watched us with curiosity, but made no move to interfere. Finally we entered on a wide open area with flat stones approaching a large set of double doors. There were two Shirks in front of the doors.

  Patar jerked out of my arm and ran. I let him. I sheathed my short sword and returned it to my belt as we walked up.

  “A group. Do you have your money?”

  I looked at the doors. They were intricately carved with patterns. They looked heavy. If they were bolted from the inside we wouldn’t be going anywhere just yet. I was hoping the presence of the Shirks meant they weren’t.

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “Then you’ll have to get some. Maybe you will win the lottery.”

  “There’s a lottery?” I asked.

  The second Shirk seemed to notice something and an alarmed expression came on his face.

  “They don’t have collars.”

  The Shirk in front of us registered the information and looked at my neck. He stepped back. Both Izzy and Anika had arrows trained on them. They broke and ran.

  I stepped up and grabbed the big handle on one of the doors and pulled. At first, I didn’t think it was going to budge. Then, with a groan, it swung open. Beyond the doorway was darkness and, deeper in, a blue light.

  “I take it we are going in there.” Izzy returned the bow to his back.

  I nodded. “As far as I can tell, it is a way through the wall. I’m pretty darn sure the Magister isn’t on this side of the wall.”

  We heard a commotion. We turned and saw a group of Shirks armed with clubs rushing towards us.

  “Shall we?”

  I motioned and we all entered the darkness and pulled the door closed behind us. It was hard to see, so we made our way to the blue light. As we stepped into it, it seemed more than just light. It was actually purple and thick, like a fog. I felt suddenly numb. I wanted to reach out to one of the others. Words formed on my tongue, but I couldn’t speak. Finally I was floating.

  Alone.

  11.

  I woke up slowly from a thick sleep. It was still too cold. I must have dozed off. That wasn’t like me. I didn’t usually get sleepy in the cold. Now, with the usual bodily temperature drop from being asleep, I was absolutely chilled. That was with the two sweatshirts I was wearing. I rose up from the desk where I was sitting. Every joint in my body seemed to ache.

  As my head slowly cleared, I was remembering bits and pieces from what must have been an elaborate dream. I was trapped somewhere. With some people. And there were creatures—demons, I seemed to be thinking. I shook my head and looked at the cold coffee in the bottom of my pot. I looked out into the airshaft through the kitchen window. Still plenty of light. I hadn’t slept away the whole afternoon. A walk over to Veniero’s on 12th Street for a good latte and some pastry would help clear out the cobwebs.

  I grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste from the shelf over the kitchen sink. I always found it weird to do bathroom stuff in a kitchen, but that’s how these old tenement apartments were designed. The toilet was in a small closet off the kitchen. The kitchen itself included a claw foot bathtub for which I had created a fold-down countertop hinged to the wall. Came in handy in a crowded kitchen with almost no working surfaces. I brushed my teeth to get rid of the taste of sleep and then ran a comb through my hair.

  I went back into the main room, which I used to write, and flopped into my chair again. I saw my coat draped on another chair. I had pulled it out to go down and tell Rostov Janovic, my odd landlord, that it was still miserably cold. What had stopped me? How did I fall asleep?

  I leaned back in the chair trying to pull what I could remember of my dream together. It felt busy and elaborate and jumbled. Nothing seemed to pull together enough to make sense. Wait a minute, wasn’t Janovic in the dream? I felt a moment of dread but I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  “Brain too frozen to work,” I said out loud.

  I sighed, picked up my coat and put it on. Maybe all these layers would help convince Janovic to get the boiler fixed. He really was pretty creepy, now that I thought about it. I didn’t like having him in my dream.

  I went out of the apartment and locked the door. I’d try to catch Janovic in his first-floor apartment before heading out to 12th Street.

  There were four apartments on each floor. Two of the ones on the fifth floor were vacant. I always eyed the remaining apartment on my floor with suspicion because it had been deserted since there had been a fire. I figured Janovic was holding out until the building was sold to the new owner, who would renovate and turn it into a co-op. Maybe Janovic figured he didn’t need to give the fifth floor heat with only one apartment occupied.

  I walked down four flights of stairs and came up to Janovic’s door. The door was painted dark green and had an oily texture to it. Some of it was peeling in thick fleshy boils. I hesitated from knocking as if my hand might become infected if I touched it. Something was bothering me. It was as if I had forgotten something important, but I just couldn’t get it to come. I heard music at low volume. Something tinkly, maybe a balalaika. I heard no other sounds from inside indicating that someone might be home. I was thinking I would go to Veniero’s and just try again when I came back, but for some reason I turned towards the back of the hallway.

  There were only two apartments on the first floor. The back part of the hall was used for utility spaces. On one wall was a door to the basement steps, right next to all the resident mailboxes. The door was slightly ajar. The basement was where, presumably, access to most of the building infrastructure was provided. Electrical boxes, plumbing and, of course, the boiler.

  “Will miracles never cease,” I thought to myself. “He’s already down there fixing it.”

  I’m not sure why I headed in that direction. Maybe I wanted to ask him how long it would take. I took two steps and heard a slight mewling sound, although I couldn’t tell where it came from. Maybe it was some element of the music in Janovic’s apartment. Then, for just a moment, the lights flickered.

  Suddenly, it was as if someone had slapped my face with ice. I became hyper-aware as every nerve in my body became alive. A wave of visions swept me under and a dark sense of horror pulled me down. I saw the whole thing in my head in what must have been seconds but felt like hours. Descending the steps past the rusty shelves with greasy rags and rat turds, the appliance graveyard below, the dark and humid hallways. I could hardly breathe, it was so hot. The form I couldn’t bring myself to look at on the boiler but I knew it was a woman. Lying on the floor as Janovic stood over me, dropping a car battery to the floor. Blood pooling around me as the knife plunged in again and again. Janovic’s sweaty, smirking face leaning close to me as blackness closed in.

  I found myself standing out in front of the building, trembling. People eyed me oddly as they passed, but mostly they scurried on, trying not to make eye contact. My knees were wobbly and I was shaking. I leaned up on a parking meter. I felt as if I had just had
a panic attack. I looked back at the doorway to my building as if I expected someone to come out and tell me everything was all right. No one did.

  It wasn’t all right. What I had seen was intensely real, like a movie. Every detail from going down the steps to the… end. Except it couldn’t be a memory. I clearly wasn’t dead and I was pretty sure that if I looked under all my layers of coat and sweatshirts, I would have no knife-wound scars.

  I seemed to be left with two choices. One was that I was remembering something from my dream this afternoon. I had recalled that Janovic was in it and that I had experienced a feeling of dread whenever I thought about it. However, this didn’t feel like remembering a dream. It was too linear. There was too much logical detail. I didn’t dream like that. I didn’t think anyone did.

  The other possibility was that it was a premonition of some sort. Janovic really was in that basement. He really was torturing some poor lost soul. Woman. I kept stepping around it, but I knew it was a woman and I knew her pain would be horrible. Maybe, if I went down there, I would be killed, just as I envisioned. I wasn’t one of the heroes I wrote about.

  Of course, there was a third theory. I was crazy and had just had a paranoid delusion or panic attack.

  The simplest solution would be to simply go back in and go down to the basement, but I couldn’t get myself to do that. I decided to head over to 12th Street. I was angry that I was retreating even if it seemed the odds of there being a prisoner in the basement were slim. I didn’t know, and no one should be left to suffer like that.

  The streets were cold, colder than my apartment. A slate-gray January sky hung low over the city and a sharp, bone-deep wind blew down 14th Street, which was wide and exposed. I turned down Avenue B, which was better as the buildings around me blocked much of the wind. As I walked, taking in the normal street life of the East Village, I began to calm down and the immediacy of what happened began to fade.

  It had to have been my dream. It was just too crazy.

  I turned the corner onto 12th Street and walked the two blocks over to First Avenue. The windows on the front of Veniero’s were steamed on the inside. The red lettering on a yellow background of the signs that showed above the windows seemed warm and inviting on this otherwise drab day. The pastries and cakes in the window were even more inviting. I went in.