New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet

by C. J. Carella

  Unless it was a symptom of something worse, the paranoid side of me wondered. I set the thought aside. There were plenty of other things to worry about.

  I could have read a book or watched something on the wrist-comp, but I didn’t feel safe enough to do either. So I ate some more food and kept looking around, waiting for Christine to emerge from the mist.

  She didn’t, but the mist started to withdraw. The gray-white mass had become a part of the landscape, and it took me several moments to realize the clear area around our camp was getting bigger. A few seconds after I noticed the change, the cloud rolled backwards at faster than a walking pace, quickly disappearing back into the forest. I had no idea what that meant.

  “Materi tvojij kovin'ka!” Vasyl shouted behind me. I whirled around.

  Darkness was rolling towards us from the opposite direction the mist had come from. It was as if nightfall was descending on the forest at impossible speeds. Unlike the mist, though, I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I’d read about something very much like it, in the comics and in serious history books. There’d been plenty of accounts about sudden unnatural darkness in the journals of German and Russian veterans. The false night always came first, and death followed soon after; after a dozen massacres, even rumors of its appearance were often enough to rout hardened combat units. This was the encroaching shadow that had made SS men piss themselves and cry for their mothers.

  Baba Yaga was coming.

  Vasyl knew just what t we were facing. After his initial curse or prayer, he yelled one more word. “Kurwa!” The old guy grabbed his rifle and took off at a dead run, heading away from the approaching darkness. I wished him luck; the poor bastard didn’t deserve to get caught between us and the Witch of Pinsk.

  I turned to Father Alex. “You should run too.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” he said in a soft voice. His eyes had a sleepy, dreamy expression. “And I can help you, lad.”

  He touched my shoulder with one hand, and my perceptions changed.

  It was a bit like how Christine described her special ‘vision-thingy.’ The darkness was still there, swallowing the morning sunlight and turning everything pitch-black, but I could sense things within it, constructs of light roughly in the shape of trees, and a humanoid figure running among them, moving at inhuman speed, a light form that my altered senses recognized as a display of emotions. Father Alex had somehow made me share his empathy powers, and through them I could spot Baba Yaga.

  The Witch of Pinsk was in a pretty good mood, in a way that reminded me of Kestrel. She was glad to be on the hunt, and eager to hurt someone, anyone.

  Time to change that.

  I rushed to meet her. Whatever Father Alex had done did not dissipate after I moved away from him, thankfully. She didn’t know I could see her, and her emotions changed from amusement to shock when she ran right into my fist. I put everything I had into the punch; the result was pretty impressive. Nearby trees shattered by the shockwave, and both of us bounced back and ended up on our asses a few feet from the point of impact. My notional ears – I’d dropped the false face as soon as I got into the fight – were ringing from the echoes of the thunder-like sound we’d made when we’d collided, and my hand felt pretty sore where it had crunched into Baba Yaga’s face. My hope was that her face and neck were in far worse shape.

  I flipped back to my feet. The Witch of Pinsk was sprawled on the ground; she wasn’t moving, but her aura was still glowing. Her colors had changed; she was angry, and she was hurting, but she wasn’t out of the fight, not by a long shot. I rushed her and tried to stomp on her neck; she rolled away just in time and leapt away, moving fast, faster than me. Fuck.

  We played tag for several seconds. She flitted up trees and I knocked them down. I reached her a couple of times but she dodged my punches and kicks. As the chase went on, however, I noticed I was speeding up with every passing second. I was catching up to her.

  She didn’t notice my increasing speed until my hand closed on her coarse curly hair and I yanked it back, stopping her on her tracks. The angry screech she made when I grabbed her sounded like a thousand cats being dropped into a vat of boiling water, but I ignored the way the sound drove spikes of pain into my brain and chopped at her neck with the edge of my hand. She fell silent and went limp in my grip for a second, but just as I was shifting my hold on her to snap her spine, she became something else. I couldn’t get a good look at her through the darkness, but so far her outline had looked like an athletic woman about an inch shorter than me. She changed forms and now I was holding something larger, a beastlike thing with long limbs, leathery skin and nasty claws and teeth. I lost my grip on her hair as she slashed at me with talons like razor blades that cut through my protective aura and the skin and flesh beneath, and now it was my turn to go on the defensive while she tried to gut me like a fish.

  Fighting her was like being inside an industrial wood chipper. I blocked her claw strikes, taking deep cuts on my forearms to spare my face and neck. She kept coming, biting and tearing at me, growling like nothing that had any business walking the Earth. I managed to back away far enough to kick her in the gut, which rocked her back a few paces. I bled from a dozen injuries, but they were healing fast, much faster than when I’d been plain Face-Off, vigilante. Power rushed through me, increasing my healing ability, my strength, my speed, and I didn’t care that my insides felt like they were burning; what’s a little pain when you can go hand to hand with a creature of legend?

  Baba Yaga’s mood was beginning to change from rage into fear. She dealt half a dozen mortal injuries on me, but I shrugged them off and went back on the offensive. The Witch of Pinsk tried to flee again but I swept her feet from under her and kicked her in the side before she could scramble away. I felt her ribs collapsing under the impact. Her screeches of agony were painfully loud, but sounded like music to my ears. My next kick broke one of her arms like a twig. I had her now. I was gonna –

  Her aura disappeared and I was plunged into total darkness. I felt the connection with Father Alex being cut off.

  I felt him die.

  There was not time to grieve. I kicked Baba Yaga again, going for the place where I’d seen her last, but it was a glancing hit and she rolled with it. She was hurt, but she wasn’t hurt enough, and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  I didn’t stop moving. A still target was a perfect target. I back flipped a dozen yards back, then reversed course and, by pure luck, slammed into her. That wasn’t exactly good luck, though; her talons drove right into my lower abdomen, ripping into me. I tried to twist her head off but couldn’t get a good grip before she broke away. That was the last time I laid a finger on her. Baba Yaga danced around me, easily avoiding my flailing blows, and tore me to shreds. It was the death of a thousand cuts, each slash hitting me from the sides or behind, no matter which way I turned. After a while, my healing factor couldn’t cope with the wounds. I went down.

  It stopped being a fight and became simple torture.

  * * *

  The sunlight was back, a pale whiteness that welcomed me back to consciousness.

  I was lying face down on the dirt, muddied and wet with my blood. The ground hadn’t frozen, so I couldn’t have been unconscious for very long. I was still healing, but much more slowly than before, there were places in my body where stuff was hanging out, stuff that shouldn’t be outside my skin; the cold air burned me where I’d been flayed and hadn’t quite healed up. My arms and legs were shackled. The second I tried to move, an all-too familiar agony coursed through my limbs: it was what I’d felt on the receiving end of the power disruptors. The pain was intense enough to make me black out for a few seconds.

  When I came to again, I saw Father Alex lying next to me. His face had a surprised expression, and his head had been twisted the whole way around, so although his corpse was lying on its stomach, his sightless eyes were looking towards the sky. I hoped he’d found something good waiting for him on the other side. I’d known
he was almost certainly going to get killed on this fucking caper, and I’d let him come anyway. And we’d gotten fucked anyway.

  A moment later someone tossed Vasyl’s body next to Father Aleksander’s. Someone in a pair of oversized combat boots.

  “I gave old Vasyl a chance to die like a man; he did.” said a familiar voice. “But Mykhailo, he didn’t fight back. I hope he is with his God, now.”

  Akula.

  I didn’t say anything. Curses and death threats would be just empty words. If I got the chance – when I got the chance – he’d get what was coming to him.

  “I didn’t have choice,” he said apologetically, his grammar worsening. He sounded genuinely upset. “I didn’t denounce you to the Dominion. It was one of my men, he sells me out. I get two choices, get what I deserve or rejoin Iron Guard and all is forgiven. And we didn’t find you until an hour ago. Somebody told the Witch where you are. Not me.”

  I was in no mood to accept an apology, so I remained silent.

  “They want both of you alive,” Akula added. “Another unit has gone to get the girl now, to take her alive and unharmed. Maybe you can make a deal.” He didn’t sound very hopeful.

  If the Ukrainians knew where Christine was, the First must have been the one who sold us out.

  I could start struggling again, just so the pain would shut off my thoughts, but I forced myself to stay still.

  I didn’t deserve the release of agony.

  Christine Dark

  Pripet Marshes, Dominion of the Ukraine, March 25, 2013

  Stop struggling. Just be still, that’s a good girl. Be still and let go. There will be no pain, and all will be well.

  The voice was sweet and soothing and Christine wanted nothing more than to surrender to it, to go back to sleep, delicious quiet sleep.

  Not sleep. Death, you idiot! He’s trying to lullaby you to death, like he did back under Central Park, and you’re letting him! What’s the matter with you? Her brain was such a bitch.

  Hush, little one, just let go. The nice voice again, but now that her brain was working again she could detect a not-so-sweet note of anger in it.

  How about ‘No,’ you condescending a-hole?

  The sweet voice fell still. Christine opened her eyes.

  She was lying on a cold stone floor, and a wizened little child-thing was kneeling over her. The pallid face was lined with deep wrinkles that marred the young boy’s features, and his eyes were glowing orbs filled with white light. She felt the First’s mind trying to take control over hers, but now that she knew what was happening she fought back; the child-thing recoiled and screamed in pain, throwing his hands over his eyes as if she’d thrown acid at them.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled at the crying critter. A part of her was sorry for him, but she mostly felt angry and disgusted. “You were supposed to help me!”

  “I can’t help you,” he said. His real voice was squeaky and about as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard. “I saw the most likely outcome, saw it right through your eyes.”

  “And now I know what not to do! Didn’t you see that?”

  “The most likely outcome remains the same.” Even with the squeaky voice, the First’s pronouncement carried the certainty of a death sentence. “You must not access the Source or this world will die.”

  “Okay, I won’t. Send me home, then.”

  “You would access the Source there as well. You would destroy that world, and then come back and do the same here.”

  Earth Prime has a Source too? Where are all the superheroes, then? No time to deal with that, though. There’d been something else her doppelganger had told her. “And you called the Dominion on me? Are you completely insane? They’ll make me access the Source and then it’s game over!”

  “They will fail. You will resist their attempts to control you, and they will only succeed in killing you; that is an acceptable outcome.”

  Oh, God. What if the old childlike critter was right? What if the only way to save the world was for her to die?

  “If that happens, I’ll kill you, I guess.” Mark’s words. But if her evil bitch self was right, Mark was going to die before he had a chance to fulfill his promise. The unfairness of the whole thing washed over her. She’d been plucked from her normal life only to be forced to choose between death and more death.

  Wait, just wait a second. Remember Cassandra. She couldn’t tell what the future was, not exactly. Why is Baby Freak so sure?

  Good point, brain. “Cassandra said the mere act of observing the future can change it.” The blind seer had told Mark that factoid a bunch of times. “And how do you know that the Ukrainians are going to fail? What if I let them win just out of spite?”

  The First’s glowing eyes widened and she felt pure horror coming off him like stink from a skunk.

  “You were just trying to play it safe,” she told him. “You saw my alternate future self and you crapped your pants and figured it’d be easier to kill me, instead of helping me avoid that future. You’re the worst teacher ever, you’re a cowardly little shit, and I’m done listening to you!”

  The First lashed out with his mind one more time, but she sensed the attack and blocked it; the psychic blast bounced back onto the treacherous little d-bag. The child-thing screamed in pain once again and fell limply to the ground. Was he dead? Christine decided the kindest thing to do was not to check, because if he was alive she’d be tempted to finish him off. She shook her head at the thought. Yeah, she probably should kill him, and she’d almost certainly regret not doing it, but she couldn’t bring herself to murder someone in cold blood.

  Christine rose to her feet. Her winter coat had been burned right off and the leather jacket underneath was pretty scorched, courtesy of her evil twin, but the skin underneath had healed off already, thanks to her kewl powerz. She turned her back on the First’s limp form and looked for an exit. They were in some sort of underground cavern, which probably wasn’t natural at all in a place with a water table that made Florida look like Nevada. One end led deeper down; the other had sunlight at its end, making it the easiest choice of the day. She rushed out. Time to find Mark and Father Alex and get the eff out of Dodge.

  They were already waiting for her.

  Her empathy should have picked them up, but somehow didn’t. There were at least a dozen guys with disruptors, and they opened up on her the second she stepped outside. She didn’t get a chance to form a shield; the twisting purple beams hit her and overwhelmed her with agony.

  Christine didn’t even have time to wish she had killed the little freak.

  * * *

  She was back in her old room in Mom’s house. Back in her Hello Kitty pajamas. Back to wishing this was reality and all the other crap a really bad dream. Christine started to deeply resent these dream visions. Why couldn’t they switch things around a little? It was as if they wanted to reuse the same set to save money or something.

  Christine looked around the room. Nobody was there so far. If the First poked his misshapen little head into her dream, though, she was going to kill him.

  Somebody knocked on the bedroom door.

  Okay, that was new. Her vision peeps usually just let themselves in and played with her mind without so much as a by-your-leave. “Come in,” she said to whoever.

  Dad opened the door and walked in.

  Neos aren’t supposed to get any older after they get their powers, but one look at this version of Dad showed that wasn’t quite true. The man who came in looked pretty much the same – same red hair and freckles, same build and features – but his expression, the way he moved, the way his eyes sparkled when he met her, they were completely different, less worn-down and time-ravaged. And, most important of all, not crazy. This was a sane man who smiled when he looked at his daughter.

  She’d never seen Dad smile before. It wasn’t a huge smile, it was wry and thin-lipped and he looked almost embarrassed about it, but it was a smile.

  “Christine,” he
said. His voice was still a little hoarse, but it was much smoother than before. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  It was hard not to get emotional, but she’d been through too much. She couldn’t trust her senses; she was in Dreamland and nothing was what it seemed. “Pardon me if I don’t start jumping up and down and giving hugs and stuff,” she said dryly. “I don’t know if it’s you, or the First playing tricks, or what.”

  The wry smile didn’t waver. He sat down on the swivel chair by her old computer desk and turned to face her. “I can’t blame you for being suspicious, sweetheart. You’ve been lied to and manipulated before, by me as much as anybody else.”

  Christine nodded, sitting on her bed and watching him carefully. If he did anything funny she was going to turn into Snipe, kickass Elven rogue, and start hacking and slashing.

  “You know how to find out the truth, Christine. Just look at me.”

  He wanted her to use the Christine-vision thingy on him. The last time she’d used it on Dad had been bad. She’d blocked out most of it, but she remembered enough to know she never wanted to look at him again. At some point in his life, Damon Trent had forged a link to the Outsiders, and he’d lost his mind and soul in the bargain. It had been a horrible thing to see.

  Christine never ceased to be amazed at her capability to do things she absolutely didn’t want to do. She sat up straight on the bed and opened up her third eye or whatever, the ability to see energy and emotions and so much more. As always, the result was unexpected.

  Damon Trent’s soul stood before her. Not the whole thing, though. It was a fragment of the whole, she realized without understanding how she knew this, but she was used to that by now. Like a piece of a hologram, the fragment retained most of the patterns of the whole, but this fragment wasn’t tainted and mutated by the Outsider’s energies. This piece of Damon Trent wasn’t insane or cursed. Diminished as it was, it was a human pattern, beautiful and warm and loving.