by J. C. Diem
“Why not?” I couldn’t see him, since he was just a figment of my imagination, but I pictured him to be wearing a quizzical expression as he asked me that question.
“We might have saved them, but they’ll never see us as heroes. They can only see us as monsters. They thanked us for saving them the first two times by killing most of our kind and locking the rest up to be tortured and experimented on. Even that wasn’t enough, so they booted us off the planet. They’ll never be grateful to us no matter how many times we save them. They’ll always try to exterminate us once we’ve finished coming to the rescue.”
“That is not the real reason why you hate them,” he said astutely.
We both knew why I despised the race that we’d all originated from, but he wouldn’t let me be until I voiced it. “One of them murdered the person I love the most in the world,” I said dully.
“And for that, they are all worthy of death?” he asked gently.
“Yes.” If it had been in my power, I would have killed them all myself.
There was a contemplative silence for a few moments. “I have said once before that Fate is a fickle yet harsh mistress, but I do not believe she is completely heartless.”
The fact that Luc thought of fate as a female entity almost made me smile. “Fate cares less about us than I do about the traitorous meat sacks. It doesn’t have a heart at all.”
Now I pictured Luc with an eyebrow raised. “If that is so, then how am I still able to communicate with you?”
“Because you’re not real. I’ve conjured you up so I don’t go completely insane.” Of course, there was a good chance that that ship had already sailed. Only crazy people had conversations with dead people, even if it was just in their minds.
“How do you know that I’m not real? You haven’t even tried to find me.”
I heard reproach and sadness in his tone and fresh guilt hit me. Before I could respond, my senses detected a group of humans approaching the mausoleum. My hallucination disappeared, leaving me feeling more bereft than ever.
My chosen abode was in the heart of the Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane. Four stone sarcophagi were my silent roommates. They were so old that their writing was almost illegible beneath layers of dust and cobwebs. No one had ever visited the tomb before, let alone a whole group of people. Hardly anyone came to this section of the graveyard at all.
Curiosity, my old nemesis, drew me back to my resting place again. Still in particle form, I didn’t bother to re-form my body to listen in on the group. I now had the ability to pluck thoughts directly from the minds of anyone I chose. Kokoro would be proud of me if she’d known of my new talent. Or maybe she’d be angry because I could now do what she no longer could.
The first mind that I delved into belonged to a sixteen year old girl. This place is giving me the creeps! I sensed a shiver run down her spine. She’d agreed to accompany her boyfriend on the trip but she really didn’t want to be there.
The next mind I touched on told me what they were all doing here. Just one more year of dragging these gullible saps through the supposedly haunted cemetery and I’ll finally be able to move to the UK. The thought came from a fifty year old man. He was almost rubbing his hands together in glee at the prospect of moving overseas. He’d always wanted to live in the UK and now his dream was almost within his reach.
Ugh, it’s one of the ghost tour groups. Now that I knew who and what the group of humans were and why they were here, I wasn’t happy about it at all. My curiosity was satisfied, but now I was annoyed. They’d never come this close to my resting place before but they seemed to be heading directly towards me this time.
This is so awesome, an excited teenaged boy thought, breaking into my reverie. He was the kid that had dragged his reluctant girlfriend along with him. I thought this was going to be bogus but I can actually feel evil emanating from that tomb! His enthusiasm reminded me of Geordie and added to my general misery. I missed all of my friends, but I missed Geordie most of all.
I wasn’t surprised that the humans were picking up on the malevolence that I felt towards their kind, but it was irritating to have them flocking around me to soak up the gloomy atmosphere. Any second now they’d be invading my inner sanctum. The thought of my particles being trampled on by human feet propelled me into re-forming my body. The blanket fell to the filthy ground as I stood. Weathered but still sturdy, the wooden door had a keyhole but the key itself was missing. Taking two steps forward, I placed my hand against the door just as the tour guide tried to push it open.
“Huh. The door seems to be stuck.” Disgruntled, the tour guide put his shoulder against the door and struggled to shove it open.
“Is it locked?” the young female asked. All up, over a dozen people were in the group and all were eager to gain entry so they could gawp and take photos of my home.
“I guess it must be,” the tour guide said after straining with all of his might to force the door open. A bright flash of light filtered through the cracks as someone took a photo of the mausoleum. More shots followed, leaving bright spots dancing in front of my eyes. I moved aside slightly when a tiny shaft of light pierced the dimness through the keyhole. The tour guide shone his torch through the opening and attempted to peer inside. “It’s too dark to make out anything inside.”
A guy in his mid-thirties pushed his way through the group. “Stand back, I’ll get it open. I paid good money for this tour and I’m not going home until I see a ghost.” His name was Tom and he was half drunk. I could smell beer fumes wafting off him even through the door.
“You can’t kick the door in,” someone protested. “That’s vandalism! Have some respect for the resting place of the departed.”
“Do I look like I give a shit about the departed?” Tom sneered. His foot thudded against the door, which I easily held shut with one hand. Dust sifted to the floor and one of the boards creaked alarmingly. It would only take one more kick to snap the wood and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
As insidious as smoke, I invaded Tom’s mind and sent him a picture of a rotting corpse rising out of one of the sarcophagi with its arms outstretched and bodily juices dripping to the ground. Faltering as the image filled his mind, his second kick missed the door and he lurched forward. The thump of his head connecting with the wood was followed by his unconscious body falling to the ground.
Wonderful, thought the ghost tour guide in dismay, this isn’t exactly going to be fantastic for business. “Give him some room,” he urged as the entire group surged forward to help the unsuccessful vandal.
“He should be ok,” someone decided. “He didn’t split his head open and it looks like he’s already coming around.”
“What happened?” Tom groaned as he came to. Several pairs of hands helped him to his feet.
“You tried to break the door down and conked your head,” the male teen told him.
“I hope you have a good lawyer,” Tom said to the tour guide. “I’m going to sue your arse off for this.”
“No one held a gun to your head and forced you to try to break in,” another man pointed out.
Embarrassed at knocking himself out, Tom took a swing at the offending man. A short scuffle broke out before the two men were separated.
“I paid to see ghosts, not to watch grown men acting like children,” an elderly woman sniffed.
“This tour sucks,” the frightened teenage girl declared. “I vote we leave.” Her vote was seconded and the group straggled back the way they’d come.
Peace descended and I lay back down on the hard and uncomfortable ground. The threadbare blanket settled over me once more and I subsided back into a semi-sleep. I searched for Luc, hoping to resume our imagined conversation, but he remained stubbornly absent.
·~·
Chapter Three
As my sleep deepened, I fell into a familiar and disquieting dream that had plagued me even before my friends and I had managed to make our way from Viltar back to our home world.
&nbs
p; Even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was on a boat. The rocking motion was a dead giveaway. Salt and fish were usually the predominant odours but they were conspicuously absent this time. While I was lying on a bunk bed, it was smaller than the ones I’d dreamed myself into before.
Rolling out of the bunk to my feet, I scanned the wall for a porthole but found none in evidence. Stepping through a hatch into a narrow hallway, I began to suspect that I wasn’t on a normal boat at all.
A man appeared through a doorway ahead and hurried towards me. He wore a dark blue uniform that looked naval to me. Looking right through me, he made no effort to avoid a collision and passed through me as though I was a ghost. I caught a hint of his frightened thoughts as he hurried away. He wasn’t sure what they’d been sent to investigate, but his captain was nervous about their mission. A worried captain meant a worried crew and everyone on board was tense.
Feeling the hands of destiny settling on my shoulders, I debated about ignoring the dream and trying to wake myself up. Gregor’s intuition that fate would try to force me to fulfil the role that it had set for me hadn’t left my mind. Just see this dream through and find out what everyone is so worried about, my inner voice suggested.
Gone was my alter ego’s snarky, sarcastic attitude and now it sounded almost humble. Ever since it had instigated the breakup between Luc and me, I’d had little time or patience for my subconscious. Frankly, I wished it would die a long and painful death. Even a short, painless one would do, just as long as it didn’t screw anything else up for me again. Not that there was anything left to screw up. I’d hit rock bottom and my life couldn’t possibly get any worse than it currently was.
My curiosity had always been difficult to resist and it was no different this time. With great reluctance, I trudged after the sailor. Entering a high-tech command centre, I finally realized I was in a submarine. I’d seen enough movies that involved the submersible vessels to recognize the consoles and equipment. The periscope in the centre of the room was also a telling sign.
A man in his fifties with prematurely white hair, a greying beard and weathered skin was in charge. The crew’s eyes darted to him regularly, gauging his mood to see if they should be frightened or not. A quick sweep through the minds of the crew told me they were on edge. As I’d already figured, they’d been sent out to investigate the disappearances of sea creatures. All on board were English so I assumed we were in the waters somewhere near the UK.
“Sir, I’ve just picked up something on the radar,” a young sailor said and indicated the screen in front of her. Unseen by all, I crossed the room to examine the screen. It was mainly dark but a few bright green dots were scattered across the monitor. A far larger dot had appeared right at the top of the screen.
The captain hurried over to peer over the sailor’s shoulder. “What is it?”
Shaking her head, the young woman shrugged. “I don’t know, Sir. Whatever it is, it’s big.” Her tone was ominous and the mood in the room plummeted even further.
Straightening up, the captain debated about his choices for a few moments before heaving a quiet sigh. He’d been sent to learn everything that he could about the depletion of aquatic life in the area. He’d also been ordered to search for several boats that seemed to have vanished. He had little choice but to investigate the blob that had been picked up on the radar.
At their captain’s orders, the submarine changed course and headed towards the object that was moving slowly towards us. As the captain reached the periscope, I sent my consciousness into his and looked out through his eyes. Blinding light swept over the deck then away towards the stormy sea. A lonely lighthouse sat at the end of a distant promontory, doing its duty to keep ships safe from harm.
The light flashed in a full circle before repeating the journey. The third time that it made the trip, it fell on a shape that hadn’t been there the first two times. Whatever it was, it was darker than the clouds that stormed overhead. It was so vast that I could barely comprehend what I was looking at.
“Mother of God,” the captain breathed. Panic seized his insides and he froze as the creature cut swiftly through the waves.
“Sir, the unknown object is gaining speed,” the young sailor advised. Her voice had gone up several octaves as panic set in. “It will be on us in less than five minutes!”
Snapping out of his paralysis, the captain issued orders for them to retreat. Laboriously, the submarine turned around and prepared to dive, but it was far too late for them to escape. Even if they’d been able to dive, I doubted that would have saved them from this particular adversary.
I watched through the captain’s eyes as the dark mass approached. It towered over the submarine, which probably looked like a toy in comparison. A shudder ran through the vessel and my stomach tried to fall to my feet when we suddenly rose into the air. Sailors were thrown to the ground and screamed in shock, pain and terror. Still watching through the periscope, the captain clenched his teeth to hold in a scream of his own as a gigantic split appeared in the black mass.
With a tortured screech of metal, the vessel was torn in half. Several sailors fell through the opening and were snatched out of the air by dextrous appendages. They were tossed into the maw of the beast and the two halves of the submarine followed them. The captain’s screams became impossible to contain when several rows of teeth formed and closed around us.
Snapping awake from the dream, my suspicions of what was causing the depletion of ocean life were confirmed. Just before the Viltarans had fled from their home world, I’d sensed several familiar life forms on board their vessel. I’d sensed them again when we’d crash landed our stolen spaceship in one of the rivers near Manhattan. I now knew what it was that had stowed away during the ride to Earth in the hope of making a new life on a far more hospitable planet.
So, now that you know what the danger is, are you going to join up with your friends and work out a way to stop them? I didn’t ponder on the question that came from somewhere deep within my psyche. My answer was immediate and firm. “Nope,” I said out loud.
Baffled astonishment met my words. Why not?
“You don’t get it,” I said out loud to the voice inside my head. “I don’t care if they eat all the humans. In fact, I kind of hope they do.”
But…but… Distressed by my uncaring attitude, my alter ego floundered for an argument that I might listen to.
You do not have a choice. I frowned when a different voice spoke inside me. It was vaguely feminine, but it didn’t sound like me at all. You are my creation, Mortis. I have set you a purpose and you must fulfil your destiny. If it had been able to beat, my heart would have been thundering inside my chest. Unless I’d gone completely crazy, and that was a distinct possibility, Fate itself was talking to me.
A grim smile tilted the corners of my mouth up slightly as I realized that I had Fate by the proverbial short hairs. It clearly expected me to get off my butt and come to the rescue once more, but I wasn’t going to cooperate this time. I had nothing left to lose and I wasn’t about to let myself be used again. “Screw my destiny,” I said. “You killed Luc, you bitch. You’re deluding yourself if you think I’m going to rush to help the walking blood bags just because you want me to.”
My inner voice gasped in horror at my temerity at being so disrespectful to the entity that was in charge of our futures. When Fate responded, it held a touch of amusement in its tone. God isn’t the only one who works in mysterious ways. I allowed you to think that Lucentio was dead so that you would be able to develop your talents further. You now have the skills that will be necessary to face the adversaries that threaten not just humanity, but your own kind as well.
A spark of hope raced through me at the possibility that Luc might still be alive. “Tell me the truth,” I said to the new voice inside my head. “Is Luc ok?” I was tempted to send out my senses immediately and discover the answer for myself. Dread that this conversation was just another figment of my imagination stopped me.
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Lucentio is alive, Mortis, the voice responded. But he is gravely wounded. Only you are able to heal him and restore your beloved to his full health. I sensed the voice fading and then there was silence. Even my subconscious remained quiet while I thought over the information that I’d just been given.
Clutching the ragged dog blanket to my chest, I closed my eyes and readied my consciousness. With a deep mental breath, I sent out my senses in search of Luc. Expecting him to still be somewhere in France, I found only our five companions in the small country.
Sweeping my senses out further, I found a group of strange vampires somewhere to the east of France. I sensed a vaguely familiar presence in their midst, but it was faint and I couldn’t latch onto it. My hope increased but there was no way to tell if it was Luc or not until I saw him for myself. Gathering myself to teleport, I hesitated and took a moment to scan the minds of the strange vampires. All were expecting me to appear and none were planning on offering me their hands in friendship. Instead, I’d be more likely to receive a spear in the back. I didn’t know who they were, but they knew me and they’d planned for treachery.
As stealthily as possible, I slid into the mind of one of the guards and used his eyes to peer around the room. It wasn’t really a room at all and appeared to be a cavern. The guards stood in a circle with their backs to whatever or whoever they were guarding. I desperately wanted to turn the vampire around to see if it really was Luc in the centre of their circle but I didn’t want to give my presence away.
Somewhere below the guards, I sensed dozens more of my kin. All were dead to the world. Most were barely a few months old, in vampire years and others were even younger than that. While I’d been mourning my loss, someone had been busy building an army. There were far too few of them to attempt yet another vampire invasion, but instinct told me they were up to no good.