Broke and Famous

by Elizabeth Gannon

  Sasha didn’t even need to take her pulse to know she was dead. She’d taken enough of a jolt of magic to kill a hundred people.

  She ran a hand through her hair, trying to decide what to do…

  Then stormed towards the closed door and twisted the knob. Finding it locked, she used the crowbar to wrench the ancient wood from the jam, and she pushed the door open.

  Inside was… nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Sasha blinked into the semi-darkness, surprised to find the small space completely empty. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it.

  She walked all the way into the room, looking for any kind of hidden panel or invisible safe. But… no. Aside from some dry-rotted boards on the floor in the back corner, there simply wasn’t anything in here.

  Which meant that wherever Magnolia’s version of the God Machine was, it wasn’t here.

  Sasha turned around to continue tracing the wire through the neighborhood, when she slammed straight into Thraex.

  She let out a startled sound, stumbling backwards as she impacted his chest and all but bounced off. She let out a laugh. “Oh, thank god. It’s just you, Thraex.” She let out a relieved breath. “I thought it was someone...” Sasha trailed off, suddenly terrified.

  The man standing in front of her was not Thraex.

  She’d spent waaay too many hours looking at that man, and this wasn’t him. She could tell instantly.

  He might look like Thraex, but the way he held himself was all wrong. His clothes weren’t correct. His face had too many lines that weren’t appealing at all.

  And his eyes… His eyes were horrible.

  Sasha stumbled backwards again. “Who… who are you?” She stammered. “What have you done with Thraex?”

  “I could ask you the same question.” The man informed her, his voice sounding more regal than Thraex’s amused drawl. “You did, after all, steal him away from me.”

  “You’re… you’re his father?” It wasn’t really a question. She knew it just from looking at him.

  “He’s a slave.” Xerzinax reminded her. “I am his father, just as I am father to the trees and the air.”

  She took a step away from him, even though she recognized that it would be useless.

  “That idiot woman brought me here,” he gestured to Magnolia, “but she didn’t understand how to transfer all of my power.” He held up his hands and energy shot between his outstretched fingers. “I’m still weakened, but I will regain my power shortly, no thanks to her.”

  “She’s dead.” Sasha swallowed. “She killed herself.”

  “Spared me the trouble, I suppose.” Xerzinax didn’t appear at all broken up about his associate’s demise. “I am so weary of killing her petty enemies in exchange for her technical help. But perhaps, when I’m returned to my full greatness, I will bring her back to life and grant her youth, just to enjoy her body. Just to show her that there are worse ways to end your life than the one she previously experienced.”

  “Why?” She asked, recognizing that it was a silly question, but still confused. “If you have your own dimension… why are you here?”

  “Honestly?” He seemed to genuinely consider that. “I got bored.” He confided. “I haven’t felt anything in longer than I can remember, and I can remember everything since the dawn of time. I have complete control over an entire dimension, girl. I have fulfilled all of my goals.” He held up a finger. “Except one... I still need to take care of the last thing I’ve never done.” He reached out to touch her hair. “Has he had you yet?”

  She pulled away from him.

  “He has, I can tell.” He leaned closer and inhaled deeply. “I can smell him on you.” He tilted his head to the side. “He was working with me the whole time, you realize.”

  Sasha didn’t believe that. She didn’t believe it, even as her eyes filled with unshed tears.

  “Oh yes.” Xerzinax nodded, once again reaching out to touch a strand of her hair. “I sent him here. As my herald. To prepare this world for me. To make it weak…” His tone became darker. “I should have known he’d screw that up. He always was a disappointment. I was too gentle on him.” He let out a sigh. “But in the end, he’s just a vessel.” He gestured to his body. “This one is wearing out, as you can see.”

  She glanced at Xerzinax’s eyes, which were surrounded by crackling energy, like the skin around them was being torn apart from the inside, and revealing the emptiness within.

  She turned away, shuddering in revulsion.

  He used that distraction to reach out and slide his hand into her pocket, grabbing the crystal that Thraex had given her. “When I use this in that woman’s machine? I’m going to get my full powers back.” Xerzinax continued as he looked down at the object, his voice was smooth and low. “I’m going to take him over. And then I’m going to take this whole dimension over, one world at a time.” He smiled, eyes running down her body. “And then I’m going to add you to my harem. And you’ll get to look into his eyes… while I strip you of your clothes… possibly your skin… and teach you to worship me.”

  He reached out to touch her again, and Sasha swung the crowbar at his head. The steel bar impacted his skull and basically bounced off, doing little more than surprising him.

  He was still blocking the only exit to the room. Sasha was trapped.

  He righted himself, and caught her arm when she swung at him again.

  She let out a pained cry as his fingers closed tight enough to just about break her bones.

  He looked almost curious about her reaction, tilting his head to the side.

  She tried to shove him away, but he was as immovable as his son.

  “If you don’t love me, I will destroy you.” He warned, using his grip on her arm to propel her back into the room. “I’m going to destroy everyone in this dimension if they don’t love me.” His eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Why don’t you people love me?”

  Sasha deliberately took a step backward onto the dry rotted section of the floor, and plummeted downward.

  She hit the second floor landing in a heap, letting out a pained howl as her ankle twisted. She knew she had seconds at most though, so she pulled herself to her feet and hobbled down the decaying stairs as fast as she could.

  With every step, she was certain she could hear him behind her, waiting to grab her again.

  She hit the ground floor, looking back over her shoulder to see if he had caught up to her yet, and slammed straight into him.

  She let out a terrified scream, reaching up to hit him in the face as hard as she could.

  “Ow!” Thraex stumbled back a step and grabbed her wrist in his iron grip. “The hell has gotten into you, Miss Sasha!”

  She was so relieved to see him that she started crying, unable to even voice what had happened.

  He pulled her from the building, eyes on the entrance like he was waiting for Xerzinax to appear at any moment too. “It’s alright…” He soothed. “Calm down now, it’s alright…” But he didn’t sound nearly as confident or sure as he pretended.

  She yanked away from him. “No, it’s not alright!” She insisted, pointing towards the building. “Because your demented father is in there!”

  “Yeah.” He handed her the security photo from Rouillard’s murder, which showed Xerzinax standing over the body. It looked like Thraex, but once you’d seen the other man, there was no doubt it was him. “I know.”

  She slapped the photo against his chest, not even wanting to look at it. “No, I mean he’s in there.” She frantically pointed at the building. “He’s in there, right now, and he’s working with Magnolia to take over this dimension!”

  Thraex’s expression didn’t change, then he started towards the entrance of the building, like a gunfighter getting called out into the street at high noon.

  “No,” she grabbed him and held him back, “don’t go in there, you moron!” She pushed him away. “That’s what he wants! He wan
ts your body!”

  “Everybody does.” Thraex assured her flirtatiously. “I’m used to it, chère.”

  “Really?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re going to try to flirt now?”

  He shrugged. “Might be my last chance, Darlin’. I can’t beat my daddy in a fight. No way, no how.”

  “And so you’re, what?” She gestured to the building. “Just going to walk in there and let him kill you?”

  “I didn’t say I was afraid to try to fight him.” He squared his shoulders. “Him and me have had a fight comin’ for a spell now.”

  “No.” She shoved him away from the building, hard enough that he stumbled off the curb and into the street. “No, you’re not going to toss your life away to prove your ‘manliness’ or whatever other idiot thing you’re thinking.”

  “Well, I gotta…” He began.

  “No, you don’t.” She shoved him again. “You’re going to come with me, and then we’re going to decide what to do about him.”

  “By that time, he’ll already be out conquering the world, chère.”

  “And how is letting him kill you going to stop that?” She pushed him again. “Use your damn head!”

  He stopped trying to get past her, but kept his eyes on the front of the building. “He ain’t even in there.” He said softly. “I’d know it if he was… He’s gone now.”

  She swallowed, feeling scared again. “He said…” She stopped the thought, then started it again. “He said he sent you here.” Her voice cracked. “Sent you here… to help him.”

  Thraex looked down at the ground. “Yeah.” He nodded, looking sad and ashamed. “He sure enough did.”

  “And you helped him?”

  “Once I saw you… only thing I ever planned to help that man do was die.” He met her eyes. “I’ve been plannin’ my betrayal of him for years. It’s just been a matter of gettin’ my protectors in fightin’ shape.” He touched her arm. “I need you to save me. Again.” He took her cheek in his hand. “Because you’re Sasha Westgate. And that’s what you do...”

  She shook her head. “You should have told me, Thraex. You should have told me that you were…”

  “That I’m what? A low-down cheat? Was born simply to be the spare body for the multiverse’s biggest asshole?” He moved towards her again. “I told you the important stuff.”

  “You told me that you couldn’t be trusted.” She reminded him.

  “Yep.”

  “And you told me that you were a slave…”

  “Also true.”

  “But you failed to mention destroying a machine which could have brought peace to the world.”

  “It probably didn’t even work anyway.” He defended. “And it would only have brought peace to this world because nobody would be here anymore.”

  “And you failed to mention that this entire time you’ve known that your father was going to come to this dimension, and that’s the only reason why you were ever even here…”

  “But I told you that I loved you.” He said softly. “I remembered to say the important things.”

  The words hit her like a blow and left her gasping for air. “No,” she whispered, “you most certainly did not tell me that.”

  “I think I have, sure enough.” He insisted. “’Cause you’ve known it’s true for years, that’s why you could never stand the sight of me.”

  “We…” she stumbled backwards, moving away from the building, careful to avoid the glowing prison which now trapped all of her friends and neighbors inside the border of the park, “we should not be discussing this right now.”

  “Now’s all we’ve ever got.”

  “The world could literally end any minute!”

  “Exactly.” He shrugged. “All the more reason then.”

  Sasha held up her hand to stop that line of thought. “I… I can’t deal with this right now.” She whispered.

  He nodded. “You haven’t been able to deal with this for two decades, Darlin’, that’s the root of a lot of your troubles.”

  “Just…” she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and started dragging him down the street towards the Westgate Foundation building, “just come home and we’ll all figure this out.”

  She limped down the street, arm in arm with her ex step-brother, whose body was doomed to be taken over by an extra-dimensional demon god, and who had been secretly working for said demon god for as long as she’d known him. But who also loved her, of that she had no doubt. And who would gladly sacrifice himself to protect her family.

  Life in Reichelt Park was so confusing sometimes.

  ****

  It took them a few minutes to get back to their building, and they found Kurtz and Colby already there.

  Westgates tended to accept insane situations without much of a fuss, so her family was already up to speed on the crisis.

  They were all sitting around in the lobby of the Westgate Foundation building, strategizing.

  Even Zhanna, which was… weird.

  The woman didn’t look at all happy to learn that her ex was back in town and looking to take her son from her, even if that son was basically the duplicate of the man.

  Which said something for her character. That she could love someone who looked so much like the man who’d tortured her.

  Zhanna was talking worriedly to Thraex in Cajun, visually inspecting him for injuries.

  He held up his hands and moved away. “I’m fine, Mama, I didn’t even see him.” He gestured to Sasha. “Miss Sasha’s the one who got the brunt of him this time.”

  Zhanna turned to look at her, meeting her eyes. And for the first time, Sasha didn’t see the woman who had stolen her father away. She saw a woman who loved her son and who was strong enough to withstand someone as horrible as Xerzinax. Sasha had merely had a three minute conversation with him and had ended up sobbing, she could only imagine how bad Zhanna’s life with him must have been.

  “You gonna help my boy?” Zhanna asked her, sounding serious.

  Sasha nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I sure am.”

  Zhanna seemed to accept that and simply made a small “Hmm” sound, like she’d misjudged Sasha.

  She took that as a good sign.

  “So,” Kurtz said, looking at Thraex, “to summarize: you’re evil and you’re only here to kill us. And then your dad is going to take over your body and use it to rape everyone.”

  Thraex thought that over for a beat, then nodded. “’Bout sums it up, yeah.”

  Kurtz took on a disgusted face. “You’re the only man in the world whose dick has got its own lore, Thraex.”

  “Are you done?” She snapped, wanting to put an end to their bickering. “Magnolia has strung up that wire around town through Triumph Industries’ construction sites, crisscrossing the park and forming a giant magical symbol of power. We can’t stop that without investing a lot of time to defuse it, time we don’t have, because once Xerzinax puts the crystal into Magnolia’s machine, he’s going to send all of our friends and neighbors to the worst possible reality that exists…”

  “There are some real shit dimensions.” Kurtz agreed calmly, sounding rather unimpressed with the looming apocalypse.

  “Zoe wants to know if there is a dimension of nothing but giraffes.” Colby held her pet up to coo at it. “Wouldn’t that just be the cutest place to live, Zoe!?!”

  Zoe the giraffe didn’t appear to want to live in the dimension of giraffes, no matter how much more room there would be there for giraffe advancement.

  “Probably have like some kind of giant Giraffe Statue of Liberty on the beach.” Kurtz fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “’You blew it up, you long-necked bastards! Damn you all to Giraffe Hell!”

  “We need to focus here.” Sasha demanded. ”Magnolia is trying to kill us!”

  “Well, why don’t we ask her where her machine is?” Kurtz suggested.

  “Because she’s dead.” Sasha informed him.

  “Oh god, he’s killed another one.” Kurtz glared at
Thraex, cigarette dangling from his lip. “You’ve got a taste for it now, don’t you, you fucking maniac.”

  “He didn’t do this!” Sasha protested. “It was his father. And we’ve got to stop him. All we need to do is really examine the enemy we’re facing.”

  “We’re facin’ an omniscient livin’ god from another dimension, who has no limits and no weaknesses.” Thraex deadpanned.

  She winced. “That… that could be a problem.”

  “I’m a scientist.” Kurtz nonchalantly lit his cigarette, then flicked the lighter closed. “I’m not afraid of any gods.”

  “Blasphemous, but a good attitude at the moment.” She praised, then turned to Thraex. “You must know something about him. He’s trying to take over your body, for goodness sake.” Sasha pressed. “Anything we can use? What can he even do?”

  “Well… he’s pretty fast.” Thraex shared.

  “Define ‘pretty.’”

  “At his full power, he can travel at the speed of light.” Thraex informed them in a clinical tone. “Cubed. Multiplied by 100,000. Which is fast enough to cross the entirety of the observable universe in 1/30 of a second.”

  Kurtz thoughtfully exhaled a cloud of smoke, then nodded. “That’s pretty fast, yeah.” He admitted.

  “He’s not a scientist though, he needed her to handle the tech, and I seriously doubt Magnolia let him in on where the machine is located. She wouldn’t give him access to that kind of power until she’d gotten what she wanted. But he’ll naturally get stronger the longer he’s in this dimension, so we have…” Thraex thought it over, “maybe an hour until he’s powerful enough to really come after us again. And then he’s goin’ to go for Magnolia’s machine, and it’ll all be over. Because he has all the parts he needs to turn it loose.”