by DM Fike
“Seriously this time?”
Nobody nodded solemnly. “Cross my heart and hope to fly.”
Avalon rubbed her sore shoulder. “What does this have to do with Miasmis?”
“Bedwyr isn’t too fond of the new statue quo.” Nobody laughed at his own joke before moving on. “He’s an Aossi with his own reason to hate humans. He wants to finish what Kryvalen started and eradicate them on Llenwald. Bedwyr has scavenged bits and pieces of the demolished statue, and with it, he’s trying to create another Child of the Statue, another conduit to Gaea to reclaim all that lost magical power.”
Nobody paused. “And he’s doing it using Saluzyme.”
Avalon grew cold. “That can’t be true.” Avalon’s mind rushed over the last several years dealing with Miasmis. “Saluzyme is a medical facility on Earth. My father—”
“Worked for Saluzyme?” Nobody finished.
Avalon jumped to her feet. “How do you know about my father?”
“Because I’ve been tracking Saluzyme for a while now. I snuck in a few nights ago and found a file about you on the bigwig’s desk. It has your entire medical and personal history. You ought to read it.”
“I don’t care what you found.” Avalon shoved her face into Nobody’s. “My father would have never, ever done anything to harm me. He took a job at Saluzyme trying to save my mother and me. He died protecting us.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t.” Nobody did not back down. “He was probably a pawn in Bedwyr’s scheme. I’m sure most human employees of Saluzyme are. That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been experimented on.”
“I contracted a rare hereditary illness.”
Nobody lifted her shirt sleeve and jabbed the green bruise on her arm. A burning sensation permeated her core. “You’ve been injected with the Jaded Sprite Statue, right there. Everyone with so-called Miasmis has been infused with it. They all die of exposure to the statue. You were lucky. From what I’ve heard, people generally have an experience more like your mother’s.”
His casual statement regarding her mother’s death enraged Avalon. She slapped Nobody. Hard. Across the face.
The two faced each other, Nobody shocked and Avalon heaving, her shoulders falling up and down.
Nobody slowly rose to his feet. Without a word, the gremlin exited the room.
Avalon collapsed onto the bed, completely deflated. She tried to grab a coherent thought out of the jumble in her mind. Had she really been experimented on? With magic from another world? Did James have anything to do with this?
What about her father?
A large thud made her jump. Nobody had slammed a thick medical file on the nightstand next to her.
“Read it for yourself,” he said flatly. He fled without a backward glance.
Avalon stared at the familiar folder, the one James had scribbled in during her appointment only a few days ago. She reached out to touch it but recoiled. She couldn’t bring herself to open it. Angrily, she shut off the lamp, casting the room in darkness. She threw the covers over herself and faced the opposite wall, but she could feel the file’s presence, even as she drifted off into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 15
AVALON AWOKE TO a crack of thunder that shook the walls, the floor, the roof, the bed, everything.
She bolted upright, disoriented and ears ringing from the force of the sound. Little hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Although it was late morning, barely any sunlight penetrated the thin curtains.
A guttural scream cut through the house. “Kay,” Avalon whispered, jumping out of bed. She collided with Digs and Nobody rushing out of Kay’s bedroom into the hallway. They all fell in a heap on the floor.
“What is going on?” Avalon asked.
Digs grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the kitchen. “Move!”
He barely got the words out when a flash of lightning snapped like a whip through the hallway. The boom made her teeth rattle. Then the world became deathly quiet. She could see Digs mouthing something but could not hear him at first.
“…fairy’s going to bring the house down!” Digs’s voice came back in a whisper, gradually growing louder as her hearing returned.
“We’ve got to stop him!” Nobody shouted back.
Digs gave the gremlin a death glare. “I welcome you to try.”
Avalon clutched onto Digs. “What’s going on?”
“A thunderstorm rolled in, and the boy must have inadvertently tapped into it. I can’t even approach him in this state. We need someone to redirect the lightning away from the farmhouse.”
Nobody clamped onto Avalon’s shoulder. “She can do it.”
“What?” Avalon asked. “No, I can’t.”
“You brought down a lightning bolt back at the roller coaster.”
“No, it just happened. That couldn’t have been me. I…”
Kay screamed again, and the three flinched as another lightning strike shook the farmhouse outside. Helen walked in the hallway with her shotgun, stride purposeful.
“You better learn how to control lightning real quick, unless you want Quickdraw McBullet here to pull the trigger.” Nobody tugged Avalon’s arm. “C’mon!”
The pair raced past the living room, where Avalon caught a glimpse of Chia and Vimp clinging to each other underneath a table, whimpering. She followed Nobody out of the kitchen into the pouring rain. Avalon gaped at the impossibly black clouds, water drenching her instantly from her head to her bare feet. A flash of lightning struck somewhere inside the mass of clouds, illuminating the flat landscape for miles and rattling the stones on the ground. Avalon placed her hands over her ears to lessen the tremendous noise.
Nobody brought his face up to hers. They were inches apart, water flowing in rivulets down their cheeks. “YOU. CAN. DO. THIS.” He yelled each word to be heard over the storm.
She shook her head.
He nodded. “OR. KAY. DIES.”
Another lightning bolt flashed, shaking the vehicles so hard that the new truck’s alarm went off. At this rate, Kay would fry everyone. Remembering the look in Helen’s eyes, she knew the giantess would shoot Kay before that happened.
Nobody must have sensed the shift in her demeanor from terror to determination. He led her away from the house to a drenched muddy patch of sagebrush. He fled into the broken-down pickup, giving her the thumbs up after settling inside the vehicle.
Avalon hesitated, water pouring over her. She tentatively lifted one hand to the sky, then brought it back down again. Nothing happened.
Her stomach twisted. She gulped air, feeling stupid. She couldn’t do this.
But if she didn’t, Kay was dead.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. A rhythm pounded deep inside her body. The air above her pulsated to the same beat.
Letting her instincts guide her, she thrust both hands back into the air, reaching as if to grab the clouds out of the sky. The electricity in the clouds swirled like water rippling in a pond.
Grab it, the voice whispered.
Avalon brought her hands down, and lightning struck her. Electricity streaked down through her palms, into the veins of her arms, straight into her stomach. It sizzled and screeched, a trapped animal, waiting to be released.
She tried to keep it contained, but it hurt. The energy formed barbs inside her, scratching underneath her skin.
“AH!” she screamed, flinging it away.
Her hands felt like a wire brush scrubbed them as the energy surged outward, but then the pain subsided. Avalon found herself kneeling, staring at mud and soaked desert weeds. Pure sunlight shone around her. The clouds had evaporated into a bright sunny sky.
Avalon groaned. She sank, wrung out to dry like a dish rag. Panting, she peered through the wet strands of her hair and found the old pickup truck smoldering.
She had struck Nobody’s hiding spot with all that lightning.
“Nobody!” Avalon hobbled toward the vehicle. She grabbed a door handle and hissed as it burned her pa
lm. She kicked at the door instead, frantic to get inside.
She heard a loud thump on the opposite side of the truck and rushed around to find Nobody on the ground, the door blown off its hinges beside him. He landed with his face half covered in a puddle of wet soot. Avalon yanked his head out of the puddle, his green hair spreading out in a frizzy sunburst pattern.
“Nobody?” She shook him. “Nobody, are you ok?”
He did not move. Avalon checked for a pulse, searched for a breath. She couldn’t feel anything through her still shaking fingertips. She tilted his head back, trying desperately to recall the CPR training she’d received in high school.
Her lips were almost on top of his when he smiled. “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”
Avalon jumped back. Nobody opened his eyes and pushed himself into sitting upright. “It’s the hair, isn’t it? It drives all the women crazy.”
Avalon opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again.
“Speechless, I see. Rest assured, I am fine. You have rescued your dandy in distress.”
Avalon raised her hand to slap him. He cowered.
She hesitated, then pushed herself back away from him.
Nobody busted out a belly laugh, which echoed across the plains.
“What, no farewell kiss?” he asked as she clutched her burned hand to her chest. “That’s okay!” he called as she retreated back to the house. “I know it’d make your boyfriend jealous.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
“Could have fooled me. You tamed lightning for him. Not bad for a magic noob.”
Avalon paused to examine the flawless summer sky, then looked down at her burned palm. What was happening to her?
CHAPTER 16
BANISHING THE STORM brought Kay more peaceful rest, but Digs said the next few hours would be critical in determining if the fairy would take a turn for the better or worse. After receiving some healing light magic from Digs, which completely returned her hand to normal, Avalon opted to sit by Kay’s side. She meant to stay awake, but after the events of the morning, an all-consuming tiredness overtook her. She ended up half slumped on the bed next to the fairy, asleep.
She woke hours later in a pool of her own drool. As she wiped her face with her arm, she noticed that Kay appeared to be sleeping quietly. With her throat parched, she went into the kitchen for a drink.
She found Vimp with his face plastered against the window above the kitchen sink, his tail twitching back and forth over the faucet. Avalon pushed his tail aside to pour herself a glass of water.
“What are you staring at?” She stood on her tiptoes to peek over his pointed ears.
Outside, Helen chopped wood, her massive arms bulging as she lifted huge round slabs to the block. She brought the axe up over her head with ease, the blade tearing through the wood like butter. It must have been close to one hundred degrees outside and she hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Helen glanced at the window, glaring when she noticed Vimp. She yelled something, performing a gesture as if snapping something in two. Vimp squealed and jumped down to the floor.
Avalon couldn’t suppress a smirk. “You get in her way?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Vimp shivered.
While drinking her second glass of water, Avalon noticed a pile of papers shoved into a folder next to the sink. She rubbed Vimp absentmindedly on the head, knowing what she had to do, even if she didn’t want to. Vimp followed her, hoping for more attention.
Avalon located her own medical folder where Nobody had left it the night before. Sitting down on her bed, she placed it her lap. Vimp swung his legs to and fro next to her off the side of the bed.
“What do you think I’ll find in here, Vimp?”
The little devil shrugged.
“Guess we’ll see.” She opened the packet.
She came across a picture of herself, taken a few years ago, her face a bit thinner, skin paler than now. All in all, she looked pretty healthy. She vaguely remembered James having the picture taken before her first series of Miasmis injections. The subsequent pages contained personal information in neat boxes. Date of birth. Parental information and employment. Insurance. Weight and height. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
She read through the first pink sheet. Blood screen numbers and random medical jargon filled the page, complete with James’s observations and notes. It read like gobbledygook. She recognized AEG chart scans and dosages related to various experimental injections. James had signed everything with his illegible signature at the end. Nothing jumped out at her.
Impatient, Avalon flipped through the textbook number of pink pages. More treatments, AEG scans, and random medical notes flew by in a blur. She might as well have been trying to solve a crime in a foreign language.
“This is pointless, Vimp.” She was about to shut the folder when Vimp reached over and grabbed at papers, laughing as he strung them all around.
“Hey! Stop that!” She pushed him off the bed, and he landed on the floor with a squeak. He scurried out of the room in a fit of giggles.
“No wonder Helen’s giving you death threats,” she muttered at the mess Vimp made. Not sure how to reorganize all the notes correctly, she searched for page numbers or dates to clue her to any sort of order. Rummaging around, she noticed a photo stapled to one of the pink sheets. Curious, Avalon grabbed it.
She gasped when she saw a picture of the cloaked girl in the heather field under the impossibly tall mountain. She had never told anyone about those dreams.
And how could a dream produce a photo?
Trembling, she turned it over. It was timestamped a few months before her mother’s death, at the height of Avalon’s Miasmis seizures. She scanned the pink sheets attached to the photo.
The top sheet had AEG charts, indicating that she had been scanned the day the picture was taken. Unlike other AEG reports, though, there were no numbers or figures logged. All the boxes for dosage numbers were left blank.
The only field filled was the Notes section. It read, “Patient continues to see Subject #2 at previous location. It is a typical appearance. There is no contact between Subject #2 and patient, only a silent acknowledgement. Subject #2 hides face and refuses to communicate. She only reacts to the mention of Subject #1.”
The last page of the report was signed with a simple “B.”
Avalon reread the notes section four times. Perhaps she was Subject #2 and her mother was Subject #1, but that didn’t make any sense. She should be the patient, right? And who was “B?” James had been the only person she remembered ever treating her.
Avalon scanned the rest of the files spread about on the bed. She found a handful of other odd AEG reports with photos stapled to them. The notes always referred to a Subject #1 and Subject #2. Every single report was signed with a “B.” The photos themselves varied. A few more showed various angles of the cloaked girl. Others showed a picture of her Miasmis bruise, her arm covered in oil, not unlike the stuff Digs had used on her previously. She never remembered oil during any of her scans.
But the last photo, dated only a few weeks before her father died, made her stifle a cry. She was strapped not into the usual AEG but the prototype in her father’s lab, the Entelegen. She had often done her high school homework as her father tinkered with the machine well into the night. He had slaved manically over that machine to the point of exhaustion, hoping it would be the key to curing his girls from Miasmis.
In fact, her father had been testing it the night he died in the freak fire at Saluzyme.
The notes section attached to the photo read, “Extraction unsuccessful. Unlike most in her cohort, patient has survived, but Subject #2 has vanished. Placebo treatments and a follow-up regimen will begin shortly.”
Avalon’s blood ran cold. The Entelegen had never been finished. She was sure of it. And she knew she had never undergone treatments with it.
What did all of this mean?
A noise caught Avalon’s attention, the sou
nd of bed springs creaking on the other side of the wall. She couldn’t make out the muffled words, but she recognized the voice.
“Kay,” she breathed. He was finally awake.
CHAPTER 17
KAY’S EXPRESSION BRIGHTENED when Avalon came to his bedside. “So, you were not part of my imagination,” he said softly as she sat next to him.
Avalon choked on a laugh. “Seriously? Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”
Kay leaned back into the pillow. “I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I had to save someone I really cared about.”
“You did,” Avalon said. “You saved me with lightning magic. You reversed time.”
He shook his head. “Nay, it wasn’t you. It was someone else.”
“Oh.” Avalon’s heart dropped for a second, but she thought about the intensity of the storm he had caused in his fever state. “Maybe you’re getting your memories back?”
“Maybe.” But he didn’t sound sure.
Digs stomped his way down the hall, his every step an audible signal to his approach.
“Ah, young fairy,” he said, seeing Kay and Avalon together. “Glad you are awake.”
“This is Digs, the Aossi who healed you,” Avalon told Kay as she relinquished her chair to him.
“Do you mind if I take a look at you, lad?” Digs asked, a familiar bowl in hand. Kay nodded his consent.
Digs hovered his glowing hands, mumbling incoherently into his beard. He made a quick sweep from Kay’s matted bedhead to his ankles. “You certainly seem in better shape,” Digs performed a second round over the knight’s body. As he hovered over Kay’s chest, Digs suddenly pulled his hands away as if someone had slapped them. “Except your pulse spiked.”
Kay focused on the doorway as he straightened upright in the bed. “What’s he doing here?” He instinctively reached for his sword at his waist and scowled when he could not find it.
Nobody leaned casually against the doorframe. “That’s not a nice way to greet your savior,” he clucked his tongue.
Avalon wanted to soothe the fairy. “That’s Nobody. He helped us.”
Kay did not take his eyes off the gremlin as he asked, “Explain yourself.”