by Adam Thielen
“Is it working?” demanded Koch.
“I don’t know. The activity has been depressed, but that may not mean much. I have no idea what we are dealing with here. I will watch for the same synaptic burns. If none appear then I would guess it did work.”
“It’s not enough,” the chairwoman decreed. “The connection is ethereal, we need to cut him off. We need to cut them both off.”
Phillip shrugged. “It’s the ether, Angela. What can we—”
“Decades of study and the humans have given us little more understanding than we had a thousand years ago,” Koch sneered.
“Polonium,” Phillip uttered.
“Yes?”
“They discovered polonium,” he said. “With enough of it, we might be able to block their connection. In any case, we can’t use it forever. They can’t serve their purpose without traveling through the Ethereal plane.”
“That’s it,” Koch beamed at Phillip. “It just needs to give us time to figure this out. Do we have some?”
“No.”
“Goddammit, Phil.”
Koch pulled out her com. “Robert. I know. We need polonium. No, I’m not shitting you, Rob. We have a second situation and need polonium. Yesterday. Just get some. Yes. Well, get some from mage enforcement. Pretty please. Closing.”
The chairwoman sighed. “Crackerjacks. I don’t even know why someone chose him for the order some days. He may not make it back in time, if it’s not already too late.”
She thumbed her com again. “Matthias. Dear, tell me you weren’t sleeping. Do not lie to me Matt. Were you dreaming? Are you sure? It’s okay if you were, I just need to know,” Koch repeated that line several times. “Right. Okay, change of plans. It will be dusk soon, and time is of the essence. Your friends discovered a machine at Grapeseed. I can send you a shortcut Tamra provided when she left. That machine must be destroyed… What do you mean, no?”
Matthias requisitioned a vehicle while Koch sweated on the other end of the line.
“I mean, I have done your favor, nearly died for it,” he argued. “And why is this not an official council directive?”
“Because they don’t know about the machine. You know more than those half-wits ever did about this and hopefully ever will. You’re privileged,” growled Koch.
“You will owe me,” he bargained.
“This machine is the cause of the ghoul outbreak. Destroying it is vital to the security of our people. When the humans convene tonight, someone is going to point the finger at us. This is your chance to be a hero; to your people, to the world.”
Matthias let it soak in. “You’ll still owe me.” He hung up, smiling.
Koch lowered the com and took a deep breath. She stared at the pods silently for several minutes, then spoke. “Hundreds of years before I was even born, these men were contained in crude capsules, tormented by inept witch doctors with various toxins to keep them sleeping,” she recounted as if the room itself were listening. “Had they not already been near immortal, such treatments would have killed them several times over. They survived eras of insane ignorance. They lived through revolutions I don’t even remember anymore. Over a hundred vampires betrayed the trust of the council, sacrificed their lives, lied to their loved ones to keep these assholes alive… And now one is dead. Another threatened. If they die, if even two of them die, I will have tarnished a great legacy and possibly rekindled a long dead threat to the entire world.”
Phillip was rapt.
Angela continued. “I cannot let that happen. There is one more thing we can do; a last resort to save them.”
Phillip shook his head, confused. “What?”
Breath came out of her mouth in a sound that was less than a whisper. “Wake them.”
* * *
Taq lit the fuses and steered his horse back up the ravine as quickly as he could manage. He had just made it to the top when he heard- and felt the explosion. His horse reared up on its hind legs. Taq grabbed the reins tightly, managing to stay on. He looked back at the bridge as the end of it tumbled away. He turned the other way and could see a cloud of steam rising into the air.
“C’mon!” he yelled at his horse as it lowered back onto four legs. He steered it toward the steam and whipped it with slack from the reins, it started slowly trotting. Taq whipped it repeatedly into a hard gallop. It only took a few minutes to reach the train, but he now had only a few more to board it before it reached the bridge.
As the train passed him, Taq spun the horse around and spurred it into motion again. The train had almost fully passed him before his horse matched its speed. “Now how the hell do I get on?” he puzzled. Lucky for him it was not a particularly fast vehicle. He brought the horse to the side edge of the rear platform. Taq took his feet out of the stirrups and leaned over to grab the platform’s railing. His horse started drifting away. “Shit!” he yelped. Taq frantically pulled his left foot onto his saddle and pushed off, allowing his right foot to reach the platform. He grabbed the rail with both hands and brought his left foot onto the platform. Looking behind him, he saw his horse abandon the chase. “See ya, partner.”
Taq needed into the locomotive and fast. There were a dozen cars with two dozen doors and a Tom Morrison standing between him and his destination. He climbed the ladder and started running along the roof toward the next car. Upon seeing the gap between car tops, he screeched to a halt. “Damn it,” he cursed. There was a large gap, and he would have to jump eleven of them.
* * *
Taq realized he was going to need to cast, despite the inflated toll it took on him in this world. He needed to be lighter, much lighter. He lay on his back, closed his eyes, and took two slow breaths. He thought of Annie’s game; “just connect the dots, nice and slow,” he told himself. A wave of heat washed over the mage. It wasn’t harsh or sudden, but instead smooth and gentle. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Taq sat up and breathed a sigh of relief. He stood and jumped straight up. He went four feet high before coming down. Not bad, he thought.
From one car to the next he leapt, easily making each jump. Despite his new weight, he was still exhausted by the time he reached the locomotive. He fell down onto its platform and opened the door. An old stocky man sat on a stool with a newspaper in hand. He looked at Taq, startled and annoyed.
“What the hell are you doing in here? Get!” The conductor shoo’d him with the newspaper.
Taq stared at him for a moment. The man started to stand from the stool. Taq pulled out the revolver. “Here’s the deal,” he said as the old man settled down. “You are going to jump out this door or I’m going to shoot you.” Taq slid open the side door of the locomotive.
“Horse feathers!” the man accused.
Taq pulled the lever back. The conductor instantly stood up and leapt out of the car, screaming. Taq looked around the cabin to try to discern if the machine would continue without further instruction and decided not to touch any of it. He backtracked through the cars, using the doors this time.
* * *
Morrison tapped on his holster, then moved his hand away. Several passengers stopped what they were doing to watch him. He pointed to a table. “Have a seat, Kate.”
Kate slid her hand to her back, touching the knife to ensure it was still secured under her belt. She walked forward and sat down at the booth while Morrison moved in sync with her, sitting on the other side of the small table.
“I thought I understood, but I don’t,” he said. “I’m here, but I’m not here. You are Kate, but you aren’t. I have a connection to you, I’ve touched you, but I don’t remember touchin’ you. I’m trapped here, but it’s always changin’, and I still don’t understand what you others are doin’ here.” The volume of his voice had slowly increased as he spoke.
Kate thought while he waited for some sort of reaction. Finally, she said, “When you try to escape, you hurt others. You have hurt me. Your connection to me will kill me.”
“Ah, I get it now,” he nodded. “Another one h
ere to stop me.”
“You can’t escape. You have tried many times, it just doesn’t work.”
Morrison’s face contorted. “You’re lying.”
“I don’t care about what you are doing, but you’ve done it before, many times,” she explained. “You make monsters out of people. I just don’t want to die,” she whimpered, following it with an harsh cough. That part she did not need to embellish, though Kate made sure Tom saw the blood.
“Aw, c’mon,” he griped. “Fine. I see what it is doing to you. I will sever it.” He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow for a moment.
“Feel any diff’rent?”
“I… I don’t know,” considered Kate.
“Best I can do, doll,” he remarked. “Now let’s say that you are right. Why can’t I escape? Help me understand this.”
“I… can’t,” she stammered.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“You’re too dangerous,” she quavered.
Morrison drew his gun and leveled it at Kate’s chest. “Tell me!”
The door behind Morrison slid open and Taq stepped in with his revolver in hand. “Put the gun away, Tom.”
Morrison didn’t move. “You again, but different. Always different.”
“Kate and I are leaving,” Taq announced.
“Ah, yer here for her,” he started, breathing in deeply. “Always over a woman.”
“She doesn’t have the answers you need.”
“Maybe you do,” Tom surmised, still staring ahead at Kate. “Why can’t I get out of this prison?”
“I don’t know why your possessions fail. That’s the truth. Let her go.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tom. “But neither of you are walking away.
Morrison pulled the trigger. CLICK. It refused to fire. A woman who had been intently watching the scene let out a short scream.
Taq pressed a thumb into his temple and groaned in pain. Kate stood up but Morrison grabbed her and swung around putting her between himself and Taq. Morrison pointed the gun at Kate’s temple, looked at her and back and Taq, who had lowered his gun. The rest of the passengers jumped from their seats and escaped through the rear car door.
Morrison wrapped his gun arm around Kate’s neck and grasped the back of her head with his left hand and closed his eyes. Kate’s eyes widened, glowing a pale blue.
“NO!” yelled Taq, pushing a hand forward, using telekinesis to push Morrison backward. He pulled Kate with him, both falling to the floor. Kate pulled the knife out as they fell. She rolled over on top of him and drove it into his chest, screaming.
BANG! Kate rolled off of Morrison, knife sticking out of his chest. As she sat up, blood started seeping out of her right shoulder. Morrison’s body convulsed. His hand grasped the knife, then went limp.
BANG! BANG! BANG! Taq shot Tom in the chest twice and once through his face. He then dropped the gun and leaned over Kate. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t—”
Before he could finish, Tom sprung to life, his hand grabbing Taq around the neck. The pressure was not enough to strangle Taq, but long fingers had wrapped themselves almost all the way around. Windows in the car exploded outward. Parts of the train cracked and then began to break apart, revealing not a frontier wilderness, but instead darkness decorated with pinpoints of light.
Tom rose to his feet. His clothes wilted away and his body thinned. His limbs elongated and his aura emerged as bright yellow. Eventually only Taq and this monster existed, surrounded by distant stars. Not stars, something else, thought Taq.
Realizing he was in the Ethereal plane, he looked around and wondered at the lights. He willed himself close to one. It took the form of an aura as it expanded. Taq felt the fiend’s grip tighten. He pushed his hand into the monster and immediately realized he was simply too weak compared to it. He was slowly being devoured.
“Why are the auras so distant?” wondered Taq. It dawned on Taq that it was perhaps a representation of the monster subduing Taq’s ethereal form. Drew’s voice droned, “You have hurt one here before; you know how. Find Tamra.”
I think I understand, thought Taq. He summoned an image of Tamra into his mind, searched for her. One at a time the stars expanded into human form around him. The monster could hold onto him, but it could not stop him from traveling.
Taq found a human-shaped snowstorm and could feel Tamra’s presence. There was a second storm standing next to her. Attempting a kind of ethereal judo, Taq pivoted and pushed the fiend into Tamra’s aura, delivering to it a painful shock as its presence collided with her polonium.
The fiend was strong, and it realized what Taq was doing. It started countering his moves and pushing him into Tamra instead. Spasms tore through his body. He wrestled out of it, still held by the neck. Then he felt the push of the creature waver.
Still on the train, Kate pulled the knife from Morrison and repeatedly stabbed him in the chest, then on the neck, and even through his eye sockets. She had become crazed, releasing a cross between a scream and a growl while perforating his body.
Taq overpowered the fiend, pushing him into Tamra until it released his grip on Taq’s throat. He pushed himself through the veil, creating a ghostly visage in the facade. “Tamra!” he yelled. “Get ready!”
Tamra and Charles had been watching her polonium continue to glow brighter and brighter with some concern. Concern that turned to shock at seeing an image of Taq in front of her. “Get ready for what?” she asked, but it was too late, the image was gone.
Taq grasped the fiend’s head, using his remaining strength to push the creature into the physical world, even if only partially and only for a brief moment. Kate was still stabbing away. The vampire mage’s connection to the dream world left it vulnerable to her strikes.
In front of Tamra appeared another figure, this one ghastly and deformed, monstrous and shriveled.
“What the fuck is that?” screeched Wu, flinching away.
“Stand back!” Tamra yelled. She moved to the ghastly form and placed her hands into its chest. Her polonium’s glow grew more intense until it faintly hummed. It then discharged the energy starting from her chest. Electricity skipped along her arms and out of her hands, branching through the fiend’s visage. The monster howled in agony. Its figure imploded into a red orb, then exploded, sending a shockwave into the physical world that threw Tamra and Wu backward.
Taq watched the explosion from the Ether. Unable to find any trace of the fiend, he returned to the dream world. The train was whole again, and below him lay a thoroughly tenderized Tom Morrison. Kate wheezed beside the body, bleeding from a gunshot to the shoulder.
“Here,” said Taq, taking her hand and placing it over the wound. “Keep pressure on it. That’s what they always say isn’t it?”
“Taq, I don’t think this is working out,” she teased, coughing mid sentence. “He did something to me. I can’t get up… I feel like I’m shrinking.” Her words trailed off.
“Drew!” shouted Taq. “Wake us up god dammit!”
Taq put his arm behind Kate’s back and under her legs, lifting her up. He carried her through the sliding door to the next car, then sat her down onto a table.
“I really screwed this up, didn’t I?” she fretted.
“Oh, I think we did alright. I’m just sorry I was late.”
“I’m dying,” she said weakly.
“Then I guess we die together.”
“What do you mean?”
“I needed to be sure he wouldn’t survive. I blew the bridge ahead. It won’t be long now,” he assured.
“You’ve got to jump off!” she cried.
“I can’t leave you, and I won’t throw you.”
“You don’t even know me, Taq. Please don’t do this.”
“I want to tell you something. A few years ago, I knew someone a lot like you,” started Taq. “A neuro… she was perfect. It didn’t work out, and when she left I felt like I’d never find anyone to spend my life with because they’d never be her. Th
e only one I wanted didn’t want me back. It’s sad to admit, but I thought about her every day. And then I met you. Ever since that day, that is who I think of. You.”
Taq slid his hands around her waist and moved closer, placing his hips between her legs while they hung off the side of the table. Through the cabin window he saw the grass and trees disappear as the cars traversed the bridge.
“Taq,” Kate said softly. “Kiss me.”
Taq obliged, leaning into her, pushing his lips onto hers. Kate’s arms wrapped around his neck. Her tongue playfully caressed the inside of his mouth as he chased it around with his own. Their mouths moved in a slow passionate rhythm. The car shuddered, and Taq’s feet lifted off the floor slightly: gravity had ceased. He held fast onto Kate as the car tumbled downward. Floating in the cabin, they clenched their eyes and pressed their bodies together, waiting for the impact.
* * *
The neurometric sensor alarm buzzed once again. On its display the waves recording brain activity continued to shrink until they were too small to register above background noise picked up on the sensors.
“Mother. Fucker.” Koch grabbed the display and ripped it off the wall. Regaining control of herself, she dropped it at her feet.
Phillip scrolled through readouts on another display. “Synaptic burnout, same as before.”
“No,” Koch denied. “We can’t lose them all.” She walked over to Gressen’s pod, the only one still alive, and stared down at its almost skeletal figure.
“I know what you are thinking, but it’s too dangerous,” Phillip warned. “The whole point of these monsters is to prevent a walking version of them.”
“We will restrain him, and you will lower the sedatives until he is just barely conscious,” she frantically ordered. “It will be fine. Primitives with sticks and stones defeated three of them in their prime, and there aren’t any humans here to feed on.”