by Tim O'Rourke
Out of bullets, so his gun was useless, Karl reached for the only other weapon available. He searched blindly with one hand. His fingers brushed over what he believed to be his baton. Closing his fingers tight about it, he pulled it free of his pocket.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he groaned on seeing that he was in fact holding the pocket-sized umbrella the Bot had given to him. Before he could drop the useless item, it sprung open in front of him. The silver point protruding from the top shot outwards, burying itself into one of the vampire’s sunken eye sockets.
Karl heard the vampire scream in agony. Not knowing what had caused the creature to shriek in pain, Karl glanced around the leathery material that had formed a protective dome in front of him. His disgust soon turned to delight when he saw the silver point jutting from the top of the umbrella buried deep into the vampire’s skull. In the pulse of the emergency lights above, Karl saw the vampire’s pale flesh around its eye socket begin to crack. It was like the vampire’s skin was turning to stone. Sensing that the silver point was harmful in some way to the vampire, Karl wasted not a moment more before driving the pointed end of the umbrella further into the creature’s face.
The vampire began to scream and wail as the pale flesh covering its face began to turn grey, then black. Deep cracks began to form. It clawed at the leathery dome, but its jagged claws just slid over the black material. Then, as if a bomb had been detonated deep within the vampire’s skull, its head blew apart in a shower of dust and ash. Karl watched in utter disbelief as the vampire disintegrated into a plume of black powder that was snatched away to nothing on the wind.
“Holy fuck,” Karl said, staring at the umbrella he still held in his hand. “That Bot was…”
Before Karl had a chance to finish his sentence, the front of the patrol vehicle crumpled inward. He shot forward in his seat before smashing into something hard and rock-like. So distracted had he been by the vampire and umbrella that he hadn’t seen the fast approaching wall of rock jutting out of the hard-panned ground.
Slumped forward in his seat and unconscious, Karl was unaware of the fire that had started beneath the car. A thin line of blood began to trickle from the corner of his mouth as greedy flames began to eat the car and everything trapped within it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The year 2067
From inside the elevator, Annora looked out across the vast circular crater. She watched Franziska remove the long black leather coat she wore. Franziska dropped it to the ground at her feet. She now stood facing Annora, wearing just a white T-shirt and tight black leather trousers. At first, Annora was curious as to what Franziska might be. She knew that Kiera and Potter were Vampyrus and that Jake Stranger was a wizard-come-wolf, but she had no idea what kind of creature Franziska might be. Then, as if in answer to her question, Franziska raised her arms before her. To Annora’s amazement, she watched as the flesh covering Franziska’s arms began to melt away. It was like it had never really been there and was just some kind of an illusion.
The skin that only moments ago had covered Franziska’s arms flickered and shimmered as if it wasn’t made of flesh at all, but light like that of a hologram. Once the shimmering skin had disappeared, Annora could clearly see that Franziska’s arms were constructed out of a series of cogs, pistons, and pulleys. It was as if the two limbs had been built from the inner workings of a grandfather clock. Annora had never seen anything like it.
In the year 2018, from where she had originally come from, she knew that science had moved on and robots could be made. But they were just early prototypes, and nothing like the intricate workings of the arms that Franziska had now revealed. And in the stillness of the night, Annora believed she could hear the faint sound of tick-tocking. At first she wondered whether in fact, the elevator that she cowered in had finally decided to come to life. When the elevator stayed exactly where it was and perfectly motionless, Annora realised that the sound of tick-tocking was coming from Franziska—from her clockwork arms.
Seeing Kiera, Potter, Jake, and Franziska standing before her, as if ready to strike, Annora tried to pull the wire mesh gate across the front of the elevator. But somehow it had seemingly become stuck and refused to move on its ancient hinges. Realising she was trapped and had no place to go, she stepped out of the elevator. No sooner had she stepped clear of it, Kiera, Potter, Jake, and Franziska struck.
Kiera and Potter shot up into the air, their black tatty wings, with those creepy black claws, flapping like sails behind them. They raced at a blistering speed just feet above the floor of the crater and toward her. Jake threw his hands forward, as if punching the air. Several bolts of seething blue energy exploded into the ground at her feet. Annora screamed and lurched backwards. As she regained her balance, she looked up to see Franziska now standing right in front of her. How Franziska had closed the gap between them so quickly, Annora had no idea. Perhaps Franziska had mechanical legs, too?
Without warning, Franziska gripped Annora by the lapels of her coat. With ease, she lifted Annora off the ground before throwing her back through the air. The world span all around Annora as she cut through the air before smashing into the steep wall that towered around the crater. Annora hit the wall with such force, that it fractured all around her, sending plumes of rock and dust up into the night.
Certain that every bone in her body had been broken, Annora slid down the wall before collapsing on the ground. But to her amazement and surprise, she felt no pain. Before she had a chance to reconcile that fact and realise how odd it was that not one of her bones was broken, Franziska was dragging her back onto her feet.
Franziska pulled Annora close, their noses almost touching. Her metal fingers tightened around the collar of Annora’s coat. Now that the two of them were so close, Annora could clearly hear that it was definitely Franziska’s hands and arms that were making the tick-tocking sound. Annora glanced down and could see a thousand or more tiny discs, cogs, levers, and pulleys working in perfect harmony all along the length of Franziska’s hands and arms.
“If you were human, wouldn’t what just happened have killed you?” Franziska smiled at her. “And I’m guessing that you haven’t got one single broken bone in your body.”
As if to prove the point again, Franziska tossed Annora across the crater as if she were nothing more than a floppy ragdoll. Again, Annora crashed into the rocky wall. She cried out, not in pain, but shock as she slid down the wall once more and hit the ground. Before she’d had the chance to get to her feet, she was being yanked upwards again. But this time it wasn’t Franziska who had hold of her, but Kiera.
Just as she had done a few hours before, Kiera raced up into the sky with Annora in her arms. Over the sound of the buffeting wind, Kiera looked at Annora and said, “No one want’s to hurt you—”
“You have a funny way of showing it!” Annora shouted back before Kiera could finish. “Just let go of me!”
“Okay,” Kiera sighed, “if that’s what you want.”
Kiera loosened her grip on Annora. Fanning her wings out on either side of her, so she held steady in the air just above the crater, Kiera looked down and watched Annora’s plummeting descent back toward the ground.
Annora hit the ground with such force, a series of fissures radiated out from beneath her across the floor of the crater like cracks in a broken plate.
“When is she going to realise that she’s not entirely human?” Kiera sighed under her breath before racing back into the crater.
Again, before Annora had the chance to get back onto her feet, Potter was on her. Pulling back his arm as if to punch her, he drove his claws forward, burying them in her side. He felt her warm blood gush over his claws, as he pulled his hand free.
Potter looked down at Annora as she lay bleeding on the ground at his feet. Wanting to antagonise her, but not out of spite, but so that she may tap into the hidden power they all knew she had, Potter raised his bloody hand to his mouth and began to lick her blood from his claws. He hat
ed the taste of it. It had been so long since he had drunk any blood other than Kiera’s. Whereas Kiera’s blood tasted sweet in his mouth and in the back of his throat, Annora’s blood tasted bitter. He wanted to spit it out, but he didn’t. He wanted to appear like he was enjoying himself so that he might stir up the anger he hoped was raging inside of Annora Snow.
From where she lay on the ground, Annora stared up at Potter. She placed one hand beneath her coat and covered the wound. She felt blood trickling between her fingers. But just as she had felt no pain when she had been smashed into the wall, the wound that Potter had opened in her side didn’t hurt either. Perhaps she was in such shock, that she was now numb to the pain. But would that account for not having any broken bones after being tossed through the air by Franziska, and dropped out of the sky by Kiera?
Although she didn’t feel any pain, she could feel something else deep inside of her. The sight of Potter standing over her, that smug look on his face, as he licked her blood from his fingers like a child enjoying an ice cream, made her feel suddenly angry. However, it wasn’t just anger that she felt, but seething rage. She had never felt anything quite like it. It was more than rage she could feel bubbling away inside of her. The pit of her stomach felt as if it had suddenly been charged with electricity. But she felt scared, too. And in a blinding flash of light, as if hit by a sudden memory, she saw herself sitting in the patrol vehicle with Karl Potter. She felt scared as he had manoeuvred the patrol vehicle at a terrifying speed between the towering skyscrapers. And it was that fear that she had felt then that had caused those tendrils of magic light to suddenly flare up inside of her and lick from her fingers.
And as Annora’s mind began to swell with sudden flashbacks of Karl Potter, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was remembering a dream that she had long since forgotten. In those flashbacks, she saw herself in Karl’s strong arms. She saw their bodies entwined as they made love on the floor of his apartment, in his bed, across the kitchen table. They shared a coffee in their favourite coffee house. Ate dinner in their favourite restaurant. Did they even have a favourite restaurant? They curled up next to each other on the sofa as they watched TV. They shared a bath. She cooked breakfast while he made their lunch for work.
If the visions she was now seeing were correct, she and Karl Potter had shared an intimacy and love. They had shared a life together. It was a life she now wished she had not forgotten or been snatched away from. And as those memories and flashbacks stirred strong and powerful feelings inside of her, the love that she had once felt for Karl Potter began to resurface. It was like she had never been dragged back in time and away from him. It was like she had never stopped loving him—never forgot how to love him. Her feelings for Karl Potter were now as strong as they had been before that fatal car crash. It was like it had never happened. And just like the night when the patrol car had spun out of control and crashed into the side of a skyscraper, Annora felt the same fear that she had felt back then.
“At last!” she heard Jake Stranger shout in triumph. “Annora is tapping into her power!”
Annora rolled onto her side. She no longer felt blood trickling from the wound. In fact, there was no wound. Somehow, her body had miraculously healed itself. But the hand she had pressed to her side beneath the coat felt strange. It wasn’t just because her fingers were covered in the sticky blood that had once come from the wound, but because the hand was now throbbing like a heartbeat.
“Get up!” she heard Potter shout. “Get up and show us what you’re made of!”
Still feeling angry at Potter, Annora suddenly sprang to her feet. With hands outstretched, she faced him and screamed. “I’ll show you what I’m made of!”
Extending her fingers fully, she unleashed a torrent of blazing light at Potter.
“You’ve got to be quicker than that!” Potter hollered, as he sprang away.
The streams of light Annora had unknowingly unleashed from her fingertips, sprayed across the floor of the crater and into the wall. Chunks of rock began to rain down.
She spun around in search of Potter, still not exactly sure what was going on or how she had managed to fire bolts of lightning from her hands. Jake raced toward her, his fists glowing blue with light.
“Do you feel it?” he shouted at her. “What do you feel inside?!”
“Like I’m burning up!” Annora screamed back. Her intestines felt as if they were on fire—as if they had been tied into knots. She felt streams of electricity coil themselves around her veins as they made their way to her heart.
“Focus on that power you feel,” Jake said, leaping around behind Annora and taking hold of her shoulders. He pressed the side of his face against hers and whispered into her ear. “The trick is to pull the magic into you as if you’re taking a breath, and then release it as if you’re exhaling.”
Trembling from head to toe, and feeling unsteady on her feet, Annora felt as if her whole body was consumed by an uncontrollable energy. Annora did as Jake suggested. Very slowly, she tried to draw the energy back into her—back from her fingertips and into the pit of her stomach. She felt a burning sensation deep inside of her, and when it became too much to bear, she released the energy once more with a terrifying scream.
With Jake Stranger standing behind her, hands on her shoulders, Annora released wave after wave, bolt after bolt of blistering energy across the crater. She took aim at Potter and Kiera as they swooped back and forth through the air. Her energy shot past them like bullets and when she couldn’t hit them, she turned her attention to Franziska. But Franziska was just as quick on her feet as Kiera and Potter were in the air. She seemed to be able to dart from place to place in a blink of an eye, her metallic arms gleaming bright in the moonlight.
The fact that Annora was unable to strike them down only inflamed her anger. She punched the air with her fists. And as she did so, she noticed that her fingers looked longer—stretched somehow. Each of them was capped with a long, ivory nail. They looked identical to the claws she’d had in the video footage.
Jake could feel her fear and anger. With his hands still placed on her shoulders, he leant in close again and whispered once more into her ear. “Take it nice and slow. Long, deep breaths. It’s not easy, I know, but you will master it in time. Don’t let the energy consume you. You control it, it doesn’t control you. Remember that.”
“But my hands,” Annora cried out, glancing sideways and staring into Jake’s eyes. “They look like claws. I hate them. They’re hideous.”
“In time you will learn to accept them,” Jake said. “In time, you will come to accept what you truly are.”
And to hear Jake say this to her reminded Annora of the conversation she’d had with Kiera as they’d made their way across the wasteland to the mountains. Looking away from Jake, she searched for Kiera, but she didn’t have to look far. Kiera was no longer hovering in the air, but was now standing at her side.
Kiera could see the pain and confusion in Annora’s eyes. Kiera could remember having the same haunted expression on her own face when she had learnt what she herself truly was. This was the moment she’d dreaded for Annora Snow. But Annora wouldn’t have to face it alone.
With the streams of light slowly flickering out at the ends of Annora’s fingers, Kiera pulled her into her arms and held her tight. Looking over Annora’s shoulder at the others, Kiera said, “I think that’s enough for one night. I think Annora is beginning to understand whom and what she really is.”
Although Annora was not Kiera’s daughter, she knew that right now, the young woman she held in her arms needed a mother more than anything. Kiera hoped that one day, Annora might find out the identity of her parents just like she herself had done. Although Kiera could only hope that when Annora did discover the identity of her true parents, it wouldn’t be as heart-breaking for her, as it had been for Kiera.
“Come on,” Kiera said, placing one arm around Annora’s shoulder and leading her back across the crater. “Let’s go back ins
ide and get some rest.”
Just as Kiera hated to see Annora so upset and in distress, Potter, Franziska, and Jake felt the same way, too. Each and every one of them, at some point in their lives, had been through the same misery and anguish that Annora was now experiencing. And as they made their way silently behind Kiera and Annora, each of them lost to their own thoughts and memories, Jake Stranger couldn’t help but think that Annora Snow seemed like such a sweet young woman that whoever her parents truly were had missed out on being a part of her life. He thought it was a tragedy that Annora couldn’t find comfort and the answers to the questions she was looking for in the arms of her real parents, but instead was left searching for clues among a group of misfits, all of whom had never really known their own parents either.
Jake knew that if he was to ever become a father, he wouldn’t want to miss one day of his child’s life. He would hate to think of his own daughter, if he was ever lucky enough to have one, suffering in the same way that Annora Snow now was.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The year 2067
In the light of the moon that broke through the storm clouds above, the Bot shone like a silver bullet as it ran at speed across the wastelands that spread out like a shadow in all directions from Outpost 71. The Bot’s arms moved like pistons as it ran at an inhuman speed toward the burning vehicle in the distance. It left a trail of dust in its wake as it hurried toward the flames that lit up the night in the distance like a giant torch. Other than the noise of its metal feet skipping and pounding over rock and stone, the Bot made no sound. It didn’t breathe and there was definitely no sound of a beating heart. It had no soul—no personal thoughts or feelings. Its only desire—prime directive—was to save the man who was trapped in the burning car ahead. All the interactions it had had with the man named Karl Potter had been designed to protect him. It was what the Bot did. It was what it had been programmed to do.