Shadow Plague

by William Massa

  I clenched my teeth as Octurna peeled from the shadows behind the sex demon, a silent witness to the massacre. Resentment surged inside me. I didn’t deserve to relive these nightmares of my past.

  Get the hell out my mind! Make it stop! I shouted, my chest tight with emotion.

  I don't know if the sorceress was listening, but the world dissolved. This was worse than an LSD trip. What horror did Octurna plan for me to revisit next?

  To my surprise, I was back in Octurna’s Sanctuary. The sorceress ensconced on her command chair, eyes glued to her shimmering kaleidoscope of windows. She watched the display with a sense of deep longing. Crushing loneliness gripped me.

  I turned toward the windows and saw men and women being hunted down by mysterious robed figures. The spooks surrounded their prey and closed in, red orbs where their faces should be under the black hoods.

  Octurna watched helplessly as the agents of the Shadow Cabal slaughtered her fellow Guardians. Friends and lovers perished brutally. I understood that none of this was happening in the present--it was my turn to receive a glimpse into Octurna’s past. The poor Guardians being slaughtered in those windows had been dead for a century now. I continued to peer through the windows and witnessed as the Manhattan of the early twentieth century morphed into the modern-day city of today.

  Grief turned into loneliness and ultimately despair. Despite the terrible melancholy washing over me, I forced myself to keep watching. I was witnessing snapshots of Octurna’s past; I was feeling what she must've felt. Apparently, this meeting of the minds was a two-way street. Invading my memories came at a price--she had to give me a glimpse into her inner world. Or maybe she had chosen to show me this moment, to help me feel less alone in my sea of terrible memories and guilt.

  I witnessed her pain, her isolation. I experienced the horror of being cut off from reality for a hundred years, of having lost everyone I ever loved and cared about. I was all alone. Death seemed like a sweet release, yet I refused to embrace it. Couldn’t it. The future of the human race rested on my shoulders.

  I gasped, the burden too much to bear. How had the sorceress persevered in the face such crushing loneliness?

  I answered my own question. A hunger for vengeance kept her going. And beyond her desire for revenge, there was the terrible knowledge that she was the only one who could save humanity from the Shadow Cabal. Loneliness gave way to grim responsibility. I was the world’s last best hope. I couldn’t give in to my dark feelings, no matter how much I wanted to. Couldn’t just lay down and die.

  The fortress evaporated around me, replaced with the strip club I’d just visited in New York.

  The multi-colored spotlights swept the glitzy club as thundering techno thrummed up my spine, the driving beats intent on pounding me into submission. Fortunately, the scenery offered some distraction. Everywhere I looked, I saw beauty. Glistening bodies of all shapes and sizes writhed to the hot rhythm of the music. There was a dreamlike quality to the club, both familiar and alien, unlike my other memories.

  And then the scene grew blurry, and the surroundings slipped out of focus. I sucked in my breath as the establishment morphed into a gutted warehouse. None of the glamor and glitz remained. I'd taken a wrong step into a crack den.

  The instant I spotted the slimy monster at the center of this shithole, my suppressed memories came flooding back with a vengeance. A mad rush of images and impressions slashed through my mind. I remembered making love to Keira. Remembered realizing it had been nothing but a terrible illusion.

  I stared at the repulsive monster that had orchestrated this nightmare. Its outstretched tentacles wrapped around the moaning male patrons of the club like gigantic umbilical cords.

  How could I have ever forgotten about this horror?

  “He erased your memories,” Octurna explained in a somber voice. She tried to hide her emotions, but I sensed she was unnerved by the inhuman presence in the club. And below her fear, I picked up something else, a sense of recognition.

  I whirled toward her. The sorceress had materialized a few feet away from me. She looked stricken as she took in the horrific spectacle.

  “You’ve seen this monster before?” I demanded. “Do you know what we’re up against?”

  As my eyes met hers, the world tilted and spun, and I found myself in a medieval castle. The gothic structure reminded me a little of Octurna’s fortress. Holding cells lined a stone passageway, and cries of pain and terror filled the oppressive space. The air was pregnant with the foul stench of animal waste—bestial roars and shrieks mixed with the human screams.

  This sure as hell wasn't one of my memories. I had to be inside Octurna' s mind.

  Guard up, uncertain where I was or what I would find in this creepy place, I advanced gingerly down the dark corridor. A door rattled next to me and made me flinch. Something behind the door was reacting to my presence.

  My heart pounded as I stopped in front of the cell. A small observation window set into the top of the door drew my interest. Moving as in a dream, I slid the metal panel that covered the door’s window back and came face to face with a nightmare. A terrifying mutant beast—a grotesque fusion of a lion, alligator, and bear—stared at me with bloodshot human eyes from behind the barred opening.

  As the creature roared in agony, other monstrous cries joined in. The entire corridor erupted with sounds of anger and frustration, and the walls shook as more of the trapped monsters howled out their fury against the intruder. I was unwelcome here. Humans had no place among beasts.

  But you’re not human anymore, are you? a voice whispered deep inside me.

  I had to remind myself that none of this was real. We were in Octurna’s memories. As I processed what I was seeing, understanding hit me. This place was a prison for monsters.

  “Not a prison, Jason. The laboratory of a madman.” Octurna’s voice shook with anger and raw terror. “Welcome to the castle of the monster maker.”

  11

  The tour through the palace of terrors continued. As we ventured deeper into Octurna’s memories, my mounting sense of unease increased. I stole a few more glances into the holding cells and wished I hadn’t. Indescribable horrors greeted me each time. I had faced my fair share of creatures in battle, but it felt different to see these abominations as prisoners whose confinement was driving them mad.

  These beasts were victims of black magic, like me. But that didn’t make them any less dangerous.

  I took deep a breath as we passed through the door at the end of passage and entered a large chamber that reminded me of a cross between Frankenstein’s lab and a medieval torture chamber. My mouth went dry as I spotted both monsters and humans chained to a series of stone operating tables. I saw a vampire, a transformed werewolf and a myriad of other creatures for which I had no reference point. These were horrors beyond my imagination. Overseeing this nightmare was a slight figure decked out in a red monk’s robe.

  “It was in this chamber that Xorron, the monster maker, created his hybrid creatures. The bastard was practicing genetic engineering on a magical level. He used humans and supernatural beings alike. All became clay from which to former ever more fantastical beasts.”

  My gaze combed the chamber, then landed on two black-robed servants that flanked the twisted bastard. I recognized the faceless servants.

  “Are those…?”

  “Yes, Nuala and Zamira were among his first creations. They were forced to serve his will, but ultimately the Guardians freed them. They repaid their freedom by offering me their undying loyalty. Golems who could turn into humans were of lesser interest to the monster maker than humans who transformed into living nightmares.”

  Xorron, whose face still remained hidden from view, stepped up to one of the restrained test subjects and raised his arms. The terrified man squirmed on the table and strained against the heavy chains. I wanted to run toward the poor guy and free him, but the sorceress snatched my arm and stopped me dead in my tracks. Her nails dug into my skin
, her intense gaze urging me to calm down and abandon such foolish thoughts.

  “You cannot help him, Jason. You cannot do anything. Remember, we are in my mind. I am letting you into my world so you can understand what sort of evil we must face.”

  I bit my lips and tried to shake off the helplessness that had gripped me.

  A ball of magical energy erupted from the robed figure’s outstretched hands and engulfed the prisoner on the table. As the crackling power took hold of him, his screams intensified, and his limbs jerked against the iron restraints.

  My whole body shook. I couldn’t just stand here and do nothing even though I knew this was history. The entire horror show felt too real. I refused to block out the suffering of these poor people. My life was not about war and fighting, as it might seem from a quick trip through my worst memories. It was about helping people. Watching from the sidelines while this freak tortured innocents wasn’t in my genetic makeup.

  Before I could do something rash, Octurna snapped her fingers, and all sounds drained from the scene. It felt like someone had switched off the volume in a movie theater.

  Octurna nodded at me to follow her. We moved deeper into the chamber. As we circled the table fronted by Xorron, the impulse to get involved roared back to life. The human test subject was still thrashing on the table even though no screams escaped from his full open mouth. He had started to mutate, a series of sharp protuberances inching from his body. Who knows what horror he was about to become. Every instinct told me to put him out of his misery. Then I’d tear Xorron limb from limb to ensure the monster maker closed up shop for good.

  My eyes locked on the face underneath the red robe, and I gasped in surprise. I was looking at the stunning features of an angel. How could such a beautiful woman perpetrate such horrors? This thought was still going through my mind when the face collapsed and melted like wax. A pair of eyes stared back at me form the bubbling mass as a new face developed, almost as if an invisible sculptor was shaping the gelatinous flesh. I watched in horrified fascination as the visage of a bald man materialized from the blob of organic tissue.

  My attention flicked back to the figure writhing on the mad wizard’s operating table. Countless quills pockmarked the man’s skin, who had turned into some humanoid porcupine creature. The monster maker’s face was changing too, transmuting into the features of a middle-aged Asian man with a mane of jet-black hair. I continued to observe, open-mouthed, as the new features grew a long beard before my eyes.

  Octurna flicked her wrist, and everyone around us stopped moving, both the mad wizard and his strapped down test subjects frozen in a tableau.

  “So Xorron was a monster himself?” I asked.

  “Not a first. Xorron started as human, a well-respected wizard who fell prey to his magic. A failed shapeshifting spell turned him into a creature of a thousand faces: both male and female, nothing and everything. Perhaps he was always mad, or perhaps the botched spell pushed him over the edge. As far as I know, he was always obsessed with monsters.”

  I eyed the red-robed figure. “What do you mean?”

  “He was sexually attracted to nonhumans. He would travel the world, seeking new monsters to seduce.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, shuddering with revulsion.

  A split second later I felt like a hypocrite. I had bedded monsters myself, but the two golems were different, at least in my mind. Like Xorron, they were shapeshifters. In their human forms, there was nothing monstrous about them.

  To my surprise, Octurna shrugged. “I do not judge him for his proclivities, as long his partners consented to the union. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “If you say so,” I muttered.

  Octurna stepped closer to the monster maker. “His fetish pushed him to develop his considerable telepathic abilities. He used his mental powers to convince his conquests that he was a member of their species.”

  Disgust welled up in my gut. I had experienced the power of those hypnotic abilities. Xorron was the ultimate sexual predator, capable of hypnotizing his victims and turning them into his willing slaves.

  “The magical accident changed Xorron, and his interest turned into an outright obsession. He created new species for his pleasure and gratification. Without the permission of the Magical Order, he created this laboratory in an Eastern European castle and ran experiments on human subjects.”

  “Even Dr. Frankenstein wasn’t that twisted.”

  The sorceress gave me a thin-lipped, humorless smile. “Using magic and the blood of other beasts, he conjured new nightmares such as the world had never seen before.”

  I took in the lab in growing disbelief. “All this to satisfy a kink?”

  “Xorron had always seen himself as a monster. He found an extraordinary beauty in their savagery, their untamed nature and otherness. ‘Gods walk among us. It is they who deserve to rule.’ Those were his exact words. His accident with the shapeshifting spell sealed this notion in his mind. He became convinced that humanity was the real monster, and his hatred for his own kind grew. Naturally, he had little love for the Guardians. We hunted dangerous beasts worldwide to keep them from harming humans, and that made us a bunch of hypocrites in his eyes. After all, the Magical Order had created these creatures in the first place.

  “As Xorron became further removed from his humanity, he started to believe that monsters should replace mankind. He focused all his energies into making it a reality.”

  My brows shot up with understanding. “That’s why Xorron engineered this monster bug.”

  Octurna nodded. “A sexually transmitted disease that would turn half the population into beasts while the other half would remain unaffected, becoming their prey.”

  Another insight hit me. “Xorron must've created the disease over a century ago. So why has the virus surfaced after all this time?”

  The sorceress snapped her fingers and the scene resumed. The figure on the operating table, which barely looked human at this point, erupted to screaming life as the quills kept extending from this body. Then the man abruptly dissolved into a bloblike mass of melting flesh. The creature now distantly resembled the psychic parasite I’d faced in the New York club.

  “What’s happening to him?” I asked even though I should have used the past tense.

  “Many of the Xorron’s subjects didn’t take to his magic. They were stillborn aberrations. Others didn’t change at all.”

  I shuddered. I felt like I'd stepped into the lab of a crazy Nazi scientist. But this wasn’t a madman using crude medicine for his tests, but a lunatic wizard wielding power beyond the imagination of most people.

  Xorron loomed over the creature with an almost loving gaze despite the setback. He was one sick guy. But as far as I could tell, he was still a guy—a standard-issue human with a few extra features. How had he mutated into the Jabba the Hutt slug that had engaged in a tentacle porn session with me?

  I would get my answer a moment later.

  A loud explosion rang through the cavernous lab, and the steel door blasted from the wall. Three badass combat magicians decked out in their best steampunk chic burst into the lab. Magic crackled in their hands as fierce and bright as the fire in their blazing eyes.

  I recognized these magical warriors. One was a fresh-faced Octurna, circa a century ago. Two of her closest associates from those days, Diamonique and Arion, flanked her.

  Young Octurna radiated sensuality and cut a striking figure. Her expression was cocky as she strode into the room. She was having fun battling bad guys and saving the world from the forces of darkness. Even though Octurna hadn’t aged in the last hundred years, she was a different woman now. She had lost her sense of fun a long time ago.

  The scene froze again, and I pivoted toward the sorceress. “You and your Guardian buddies stopped the monster maker a century ago. That’s why you recognized the effects of the virus when you studied the remains of those monsters.”

  The sorceress nodded. “I had my suspicions, bu
t I had to be certain.”

  Anger bubbled up my throat. “You should have at last warned me what I was up against.”

  “I needed proof that Xorron was back. I didn’t want to influence our investigation until we knew more.”

  I glared at the sorceress. She played her cards so close to the chest that it was difficult for her to be open with me. I understood that, but my job would be easier if she just told me the truth.

  “Xorron never completed the virus, at least not to my knowledge. We put an end to his plans that day.”

  As if to prove her point, the action resumed once more. The aura of power intensified around Xorron as he faced his enemies. Mistaking the energy field for an impending attack, young Octurna lobbed a fireball into the monster maker.

  With an explosive hiss, the projectile engulfed Xorron, and his green-glowing aura turned purple and black. The sphere of magic intensified and became blinding, and the insane wizard’s body fused with the blob-like creature splayed out on the operating table, creator and creation dissolving into a giant puddle of protoplasm.

  And then the lab and castle evaporated around me. Octurna and I were inside the Sanctuary once more. Sweat coated my forehead, and my heart thudded in my chest. I was back in the real world, but my body still thrummed with the urge to fight.

  “Your magic transformed him into the monster I came across in New York.”

  Octurna nodded, her face looking even paler than usual.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “If the Guardians defeated the monster maker a hundred years ago, why is he back now?”

  “I do not know. But I will find out, Jason. I will save you.”

  12

  A drizzle lashed my cheeks as I fought my way up a forested hill. Grey clouds billowed menacingly across the sky, promising more rainfall. What had brought me to this desolate mountain in Hungary on such a dreary day? The answer was simple--I was on my way to the ruins of the monster maker’s castle. As far as field trips went, I’d had worse.