by D. B. West
Orak looked on Tyler pityingly for a moment, then said, “That’s not a birthmark, that is a genital mutilation scar.” Stripping off his glove, Orak reached out his index finger to place it on the birthmark over Tyler’s heart. “There is a reason few of the Elvahn attempt this. This is going to be unpleasant for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tyler jerked violently at the sensation of falling, just before his face slammed into a filthy puddle. Coughing and gagging on the smoke that surrounded him, he rolled over, his hands grasping around in the mud surrounding him for his rifle. Tyler realized with another jolt that he was not controlling the body which was now struggling to regain its feet. Instead, his drug-fogged consciousness was somehow travelling along with this person, experiencing some sort of battle through their perception.
He was lying in a muddy trench, reinforced with wooden beams to keep the sides from collapsing. A mortar shell had exploded nearby, sending him flying. Another soldier was yelling nearby, but the body Tyler was in had been deafened by the blast. Apparently the soldier understood the intent, as he got to his feet and began running further down the trench, rifle shouldered and ready to fire.
He was not in control of the body, but he had full use of its senses. He was limping, his right leg a blazing agony, and he could feel the warmth of the blood trickling from his ears and nose. As he rounded a corner in the trench, a grenade landed only a few feet in front of him, and he ducked back as the explosion sent a spray of dirt and blood past him. Turning back, he stared in slack-jawed terror at an unrecognizable figure, its face and limbs shredded by the blast.
The body he was riding along with did not seem to share his fear. Peeking around the corner with its rifle raised, the man immediately began firing at the gray-clad figures dropping down into the trench. Tyler recognized the style of their helmets from his high school history class, and realized with awe that he was fighting Germans.
His body was racked with pain every time the rifle he had shouldered kicked back, but every squeeze of the trigger sent one of the German soldiers stiff-legged to the ground. Emptying his cartridge after only a few shots, the soldier ducked back behind the corner, but instead of attempting to reload he snatched a grenade off the webbing he wore. Ripping the pin free, he tossed it blindly down the trench, and then picked his rifle back up to eject the cartridge.
Peeking back around the corner, he couldn’t immediately get a clear shot through the smoke his grenade had created. A hail of bullets whizzed past him, one staggering him back as it deflected off his helmet with a brain-rattling PING. The soldier was shouting something, but Tyler could not make out what he was saying through the ringing in his skull. Taking a few steps back, the soldier crouched down, and as a German appeared at the corner he fired upwards, the man flailing backwards as his face exploded from the bullet.
Two more Germans rushed the corner, both collapsing as the soldier continued to fire. While he desperately tried to load another clip, several grenades landed on the pile of bodies he had downed. The soldier backpedaled, slipping and falling flat in the muddy trench. The blast from the grenades peppered the soldier with shrapnel and bits of flesh, and the concussion stunned him briefly.
A German glanced around the corner, and seeing that the soldier was down, swung his rifle out towards him. Tyler could barely see what was happening, blood was flowing into the soldier’s eyes, and his entire body screamed from the burning shrapnel. Even as the German levelled his rifle, the downed soldier grimly drew a revolver from his belt, cocking the hammer on the huge pistol. The German’s shot exploded through the soldiers belly just as the revolver thundered, knocking the German from his feet.
Two more immediately replaced him, both firing their rifles wildly at the downed soldier. Tyler knew he was mortally wounded. The bullets ripping through him jerked his arm, and the hand holding the revolver wavered as his lifeblood seeped away. He kept cocking the hammer and firing, though, gasping one hitching breath at a time. Three more times he managed to fire the pistol, dropping one of the Germans, as the other rushed forward. The remaining German slammed his bayonet into the soldier’s chest, impaling his heart and tearing one last agonized gasp from the soldier.
Numbness spread through his body as his vision began to fade. The last thing Tyler could clearly see was the soldier’s hand slowly cocking the revolver one last time, and with his last ounce of strength squeezing the trigger, the blast muffled by the German body almost on top of him. His dimming vision began to spin wildly, giving Tyler shifting views of the carnage around him. His last coherent thought was, I know that gun.
Tyler’s body gave a violent spasm on the hospital bed, causing the tubes inserted on each side of his chest to twinge painfully. Coughing and sputtering, he slapped Orak’s hand away from his chest.
“That is how your soul was released from its body, once,” Orak said conversationally.
“I know that gun,” Tyler coughed, trembling visibly all over. “I mean, like, it’s in my house. I know that revolver.”
“What are you talking about? Are you still drugged?” Orak asked, forehead furrowing as his finger moved threateningly towards Tyler.
“No!” Tyler coughed, scooting up the bed. “Take that black magic voo-doo finger and shove it back up your ass! What the fuck are you? Where am I?”
“Calm down,” Delmont said from the other bed. “We’re in a medical facility, you’ve been drugged up after being injured.”
“Damn, man,” Tyler said, glancing over at Delmont. “They should have saved the drugs for you. You’re fucked-up. Wait, what the hell happened? How did we end up here? Where is my brother?”
Orak stared down at the young man trembling in the bed before him. Tyler looked emaciated next to Delmont, whose musculature was obvious even through the multitude of bandages covering his injuries. Tyler had pulled his sheet up to cover part of his nudity, but the tubes coming from both sides of his chest prevented him from moving freely. The chest tubes were connected to water seals, which bubbled fitfully with his ragged breathing.
“What is the last thing you remember?” Orak asked Tyler.
“I…I had some horrible nightmares, man,” Tyler said, squinting up at Orak’s blue armored figure. In the dim glow from the emergency light, Tyler couldn’t make out much of Orak’s features, and he tried to lean forward to get a better look at the Elv. “I think I might still be having them, honestly,” he said, looking around the room.
“What do you remember?” Orak repeated sternly.
“Okay, okay, man…” Tyler said. “My brother Jay and I went to the hospital down in Chapel Hill. My dad was dying, and we were taking him off life support. I…I held him, while he passed. He flat-lined, and I…” Tears welled up in Tyler’s eyes, and he jerked the sheet up to wipe his face. “Man, I don’t know…I think I might have gone crazy.”
Tyler raised a hand before Orak could repeat his request, as the armored figure sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you, man. I’m just trying to figure it out. Some dude burst into the room, and he threw the nurse out on her butt. Jay and I were about to whip his ass, but…the whole room just burst into flames. Everything, all around us. I remember it got all quiet, like, I couldn’t hear a thing or make any sound…and my mouth and eyes felt weird, like my head was bubbling. I saw…I saw the fire eat Jay’s legs, but where he fell close to me, it couldn’t touch us. The fire just kind of parted all around us, and then…man, I dunno. This is insane, but…I saw Pops get up. He was gone, man, I’m telling you, but he got back up. He grabbed the guy making the fire, and he tossed that bastard out the window. I remember I couldn’t breathe, and I grabbed Jay ‘cause I was falling down beside him…then there was this noise, like thunder, and I was out.”
“Next thing I know, I’m having some nightmare about being in a trench fighting German dudes, and I’m shooting them with my great-grandfather’s old revolver Pops has locked up at the house. One of them stabs me, right…here…” Tyler trailed off, looking do
wn and rubbing a finger over the faint brown birthmark over his heart. “Ok, Papa Smurf,” Tyler said, looking back up at Orak. “Your turn. Tell me what the hell happened.”
“That nightmare you had was a deathnote, a flashback from your soul” Orak said simply. “The soul remembers, even when the flesh does not. If you recognized some family heirloom, it’s quite likely that part of your soul is a reincarnation. It’s common in families.”
Tyler stared at Orak slack-jawed. “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re saying I’m my own great-grandfather?”
“No,” Orak said, glaring down at Tyler. “Souls are energy. Your kind knows well that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply exists in different forms. Souls manifest from the aether into physical bodies. Many of them do it repeatedly, and the flesh they inhabit will often bear the marks of their past struggles.”
Orak crouched down on one knee by the bedside, so that Tyler could see him more clearly. With another heavy sigh, Orak said, “We will talk more about this, I promise you. I want you to focus on something more immediate right now. You were not dreaming, when the fire consumed you and your brother. You were targeted, just as this man was,” Orak nodded towards Delmont. “Because you possess a very rare ability. That is how you survived the fire. You have the ability to channel what my people call ‘aether.’ Channeling this aether will let you do things other humans cannot do. I am here right now for two reasons. One, I need your help. Two, in order for you to help me, you need to learn how to control your abilities. You are both powerful, but you will soon be dead if you do not let me assist you.”
“Dead?” Tyler said. “That dude with the fire is out, man, Pops took care of him. What else is happening?”
“In your case Tyler Morrison,” Orak replied. “You will likely end up killing yourself. What you did to protect yourself from that fire was idiotic. You created a vacuum around yourself. The fire couldn’t reach you, but you may have noticed you also couldn’t breathe. Anyone with a bit of sense would have wrapped the source of the flame in the vacuum, not themselves.”
Tyler looked offended. “Damn, man, it isn’t like I knew what I was doing. I didn’t have Papa Smurf on site to show me the error of my ways.”
“Stop calling me that. My name is Orak. I’m not blaming you, I’m simply pointing out that you don’t know what you’re doing. It would never have been an issue if you had not been provoked. You likely would have lived a normal, peaceful life. You would rarely find yourself in such emotional distress that the aether would lash out that way. Delmont here can tell you, though, that these are not normal times. Your world is about to be attacked by another alien race called the Abbadon. You will be hunted. You will be forced to call upon the aether. And if you do not know how to control it, you will die.”
Delmont had sat quietly in his bed listening to this exchange. “This Orak person is right,” he said. “I was at work…I guess it was just this morning. This thing got in somehow, a creature like a giant spider, or praying mantis. I don’t know how to describe it. It was taller than me, and it could speak, at least a little bit. It attacked the office with some sort of little roach things, and then it ripped me apart. Goddamned thing did this to me,” Delmont said, waving the stump of his left hand over his body, before touching it to his face. “That monster took my eyes, took my hand. You say you need our help, but I don’t know what you expect us to do. I sent that thing on its way to hell, but it took a big part of me with it.”
Orak stood up, and took Delmont’s left arm by the wrist. “This man Tyler might end up killing himself with the aether, but not you Delmont. Your death would come fighting, I don’t doubt it. What you did, killing one of the Abbadon hand to hand, untrained and with only your will to protect others and survive…I think you are exactly the hero your people need.”
“You, on the other hand…” Orak said, looking back to Tyler. “You might not be the hero humanity needs, and certainly aren’t what they expect…but I think you will do.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess?” Tyler said.
“Kind words,” Delmont said. “But that’s all they are. Neither of us have much fight left in us. I heard what the doctors said about you, Tyler, when they were in here.”
“Wait, what did they say? What are these tubes in my chest…what’s wrong with me, exactly?”
Orak stepped back to Tyler’s bedside, and took his hand. “I don’t know if it was the amount of aether you channeled, or some effect of the vacuum you created, but…both of your lungs were partially torn. The chest tubes are a temporary measure, to prevent them from collapsing again. The medical reports I saw indicated you will need surgeries in the coming days to remove the damaged tissue. Also, when your lungs initially collapsed you suffered cardiac damage. Your doctors aren’t sure how much just yet, but they are estimating you’ve lost at least twenty-five percent of your heart function. They can treat you, but the records said ‘with the damage done, the patient will always need supplemental oxygen, and will likely have trouble with most activities of daily living.’”
Tyler stared at Orak, then looked down at the sealed boxes of water hooked to his chest tubes. They continued bubbling with each of his ragged breaths, seeming to confirm what the strange figure had told him. Looking back to Orak, Tyler said, “So you come here looking for our help…to do what? What are you proposing exactly?”
Orak stood up between the pair of men in their beds. “Delmont, you fought with one of the creatures we call the Abbadon. There are more of them coming. They will target the two of you, and others like you, because of your abilities. Tyler, the man who attacked you could clearly channel the aether as well. I don’t know who sent him, or what his intentions were…but I have suspicions. I need your help in fighting the Abbadon when they arrive. They will come for Aki and I, and alone we have little chance of resisting them. We also need your help in stopping an Elv named Zion. Delmont, he was the first one to come into your room yesterday, and he is the catalyst for all of these events. The Abbadon are launching their attack because of what Zion has done.”
“Here is my offer, then” Orak continued. “If you will agree to help me bring Zion to justice and help me fight the Abbadon, I will show you how to control your abilities…and I will heal your bodies.”
Delmont’s sightless eyes turned towards Orak. “You said ‘heal our bodies’…you can fix all this?”
“Yes. I can make both of you whole. I can return your hand and your eyes Delmont. Tyler, I can repair your organs, and then show you both how to use the aether to stand against what comes.”
Delmont growled, “I know a deal with the devil when I hear one.” Just as Tyler chimed in “What’s the catch?”
“I already told you ‘the catch,’” Orak sighed. “If you both agree, I will heal you, and teach you. In return, you will stand with Aki and I to fight the Abbadon, and to help me bring the Elv Zion to justice. If you prefer to think of it as ‘a deal with the devil,’ then reflect on this. I am offering you a fighting chance. You can die in these beds, of your injuries or of the next attack. Or, you can take my offer and fight with me.”
Aki, who had been leaning against the door, padded over to stand by Orak. “It might be best to choose quickly,” the dog said. “The guards have realized that something odd is going on in here. They’ve been trying to bang open the door, but I’ve stifled that for now. I believe they intend to knock out part of the wall soon.”
Orak nodded to Aki, saying, “Hold them off as long as you can without hurting them. We will turn ourselves over to them immediately if they breach the wall.”
Turning back to the two injured men, Orak said, “I understand your suspicions. It may help put your minds at ease if you understand one more thing. I make you this offer against my better judgement. I don’t trust your kind, and I truly debated whether awakening your power was worth the risk you may ultimately pose. Aki convinced me that in the end, we stand a better chance of surviving what comes
if we assist each other. Aki also reminded me that I don’t like cats.”
“What? Cats? What does that have to do with anything?” Delmont snorted.
“I don’t like cats,” Orak repeated. “But we had one around the Bore where we were stationed. It wasn’t exactly what you know of as a house cat, but the term is the closest thing that will translate. It was about half Aki’s size, and bad tempered. It was always lurking around outside, trying to get a handout from someone. It stank, and it would always try to slash at my legs. I couldn’t stand the filthy creature. The first winter it was around, Aki and I found the thing half frozen outside, so we made it a bed and fed it. The food we put out attracted a pukka, a snow worm. The worm didn’t care if it ate table scraps or cat, and swallowed both. I had to kill the pukka and cut it open to get the cat out. It survived, and it stopped slashing at me when I went in and out of the base.”
“So…you think if you help us survive, our races will be better friends?” Tyler said.
“No, I could care less. Aki reminded me that even if you don’t like someone, you don’t just stand around and let a fucking bug eat them,” Orak said flatly.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Tyler said. “And I respect that more than you can know. If you really think I can help you, and it will fix all this…” Tyler motioned towards the tubes sprouting from his chest. “I’m in. Just let me know what I need to do.”
“What about you, Delmont?” Orak asked.
“I said it was a deal with the devil. I didn’t say it was my first one. When you waltzed in, I was just sitting here thinking that maybe I deserved all this. Being blind seemed like a suitable punishment for the things I’ve witnessed, and losing a hand could be karma for the things I’ve done. The best part of me bled out and died somewhere in Afghanistan, and what was left has just been waiting to catch up. Now you’re saying that I can lay here feeling sorry for myself until someone puts me out of my misery, or…or I can sign on for another tour and fight a war with you. That about right?”