Paradigms Lost

by Ryk E. Spoor

  I nodded. That fit with the way things had worked before. “Okay. Then let’s finish checking out the cabin before the sun starts getting low. I want to get back to the hotel and figure out my approach before I get caught in this cabin after dark.”

  She nodded and we got to work. Time passed, and the light was slanting a lot lower by the time we headed back to the hotel.

  “Now that is interesting,” I said a while later.

  Syl came and looked over my shoulder. “What?”

  I pointed at the twenty-three-inch flat panel I was using for a display in our hotel room. “That’s the pattern of shot that hit the wall when Dave Plunkett tried to blow away the thing in his doorway.”

  She nodded. “Shot hit the wall. So there wasn’t anything there?”

  “No, that’s what’s interesting. Dave is a good shot. I was able to use the pattern of shot that grazed the doorframe to reconstruct his shots pretty clearly. He made a darn close grouping, centered here, here, and here.” I poked my finger at three points in the main image. “After picking up some of the shot, I know what kind of load he had in there, and the spread tells me the choke, or lack thereof. He had a cylinder barrel, which means that at fifteen feet the grouping was about seven and a half inches, and about twenty inches on the far side of the common room, where the wall is. Big house. And I personally wouldn’t be using number four shot for werewolves, but hey, that’s his choice. Does give me a nice number of pellets—around a hundred forty per ounce.”

  “So you reconstructed the shooting.”

  “Exactly. Now, look; I’m assuming ideal patterns, which don’t exist, but I can come fairly close. When I run it through someone firing three shots at these angles, I get a pattern very close to the one I found at the edge of the doorframe; standing at the bed, he was a little off to the side of the door, so he clipped it a bit. But take a look at the pattern on the far wall.” I ran it through several cycles. “Compare that to the real pattern—I’ve reduced it to the same wall with dots that I get from the sim.”

  Syl studied it for a minute. “It looks . . . denser than the real thing. More dots.”

  “Quite a few more. And I’ve run it many times. I never got anything that low, or even close. But the doorframe proves he really did fire three times, with the same kind of shot. My best guess is that about half of the first load never reached the wall.”

  “So . . . some of it did?”

  “Yeah. It’s not missing a whole load’s worth, which is really weird. It means that whatever was standing there wasn’t solid enough to stop all the shot cold, but was solid enough to stop some of it. And it wasn’t there for the second or third shots.” I looked at the screen, feeling grim. “That means that this thing can be solid enough to stop bullets. So much for it not being able to be dangerous.”

  Suddenly, Syl’s cell phone began playing a song by U2, causing us both to jump. “Hello? Yes . . . what? Oh, my God! Yes, of course . . .” she looked at me in shock. “Hold on . . . Jason, it’s Samantha Prince. She says Aurora’s back.”

  I understood the shell-shocked look. Samantha Prince (“Sam” to her friends) had been one of Syl’s closest friends in college. Her open personality made her a magnet for everyone with a problem . . . including a certain girl named Aurora Vanderdecken, who apparently had a lot of problems. Samantha had been a friend and confidant to the girl for months . . . and then Aurora had vanished, no warning, no letters, no trace.

  This had happened at the same time Raiakafan had shown up, about a year or so ago. After that much time, even Aurora’s family had started to accept that she was gone forever. “Is Sam sure it’s her?”

  “Very sure. But she’s not in great shape, and with her background . . . Jason, I don’t want to leave you alone with this, but . . .”

  I hugged her and took the phone. “Samantha? Jason. I’m glad she’s back. Look, Syl thinks you could use some help.”

  Samantha’s voice sounded relieved. “I know this must be an inconvenient time for you . . . my goodness, with what you’re involved in I suppose there are no convenient times . . . still, Syl has always been such a help whenever I’ve needed her. Aurora isn’t making a lot of sense, but she’s clear that she doesn’t want me to contact too many people. She’s insisting that we not even tell the police yet. It’s very confusing.”

  “It’s no problem. I’ll send Syl down right away.” I handed the phone back to Syl.

  A few minutes later, having hung up with Sam, she came over to me. “Are you sure you want to handle this without me?”

  “Want to? Not exactly, sweetheart, but look, I know how close you and Sam were, and I like her myself.”

  “Yes, I noticed,” she said, trying to sound like her usual lighthearted self.

  “Can’t blame a guy for looking,” I said, grinning. “Anyway, you go help her out. Charter a flight if you need to on this short notice. And if you need anything, well, give Verne or me a call.”

  “Thank you, Jason . . . I love you.” She hugged me fiercely and we kissed. “Oh no, I didn’t drive up here separately! I can’t take the Hummer; you need the equipment!”

  “Then get a taxi. It’s only money. Or better yet . . .” I pulled out my cell, hit my speed dial.

  “Domingo residence, Morgan speaking.”

  “Morgan! Hey, look, a personal emergency has come up for Syl; she has to go visit some old friends, and we’re stuck up here on that investigation. Can you—”

  “But of course, sir. I will send a car up immediately.”

  “I could call a taxi—”

  “That would never do, sir. Master Verne would insist.”

  “Thanks so much, Morgan.” I hung up. Syl was packing away her things. “Gonna miss you.”

  “You just be careful while I’m gone, Mr. Information Man,” she said, using one of her old nicknames for me. “I want a home and a husband to come back to.” She looked up at me. “It’s going to take at least an hour for the car to get here.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Something you’d like to do in that time?”

  Normally, she’d have countered by playfully withdrawing her implied invitation. Instead, she just said, very softly, “Yes,” and came to me.

  After she left, I stared out into the darkness that had swallowed up the limousine. That almost overenthusiastic “good-bye” session had told me how much she was worried. She knew that I never left an investigation unfinished. And she couldn’t see where this one would end.

  “Great,” I sighed. “Now I’m worried.”

  CHAPTER 79

  Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep . . .

  I checked all the connections again. I’d spent the entire day wiring the cabin with a multiplicity of sensors, lights, and other gadgetry, all hooked to a dual redundant set of generators and controlled both from the laptop computer in the master bedroom and from my Lumiere smartphone. I was taking no chances that my preparations would fizzle at the wrong moment, especially now, as the afternoon sunshine was starting to fade. I made sure I had fresh batteries in everything I was carrying, and tucked the Mjölnir charm inside my shirt.

  Syl had called around noon, to let me know what I’d already guessed: whatever was going on with Aurora was going to take some time to figure out and I had to deal with this one on my own. Apparently Aurora’s problem wasn’t exactly “normal” and she needed the aid of Syl’s particularly deft touch. Verne and Meta had given me some advice on useful approaches that didn’t require the talents of a wizard to pull off. I’d put as much of that advice to good use as I could in designing the pattern of lights and other devices around Dave Plunkett’s cabin.

  I glanced at the west windows, where the remaining shafts of sunlight were definitely reddening, and went outside to grill a steak. No point in facing some Unknown Horror from Beyond on an empty stomach. I used a combination of spices, including cilantro, red pepper, and paprika, and sesame oil, cider vinegar, and honey, taking my time in the preparation and trying to keep my other senses alert
. I wanted to evaluate the process of how this presence, whatever it was, acted. Any little quirk in its behavior might help determine what it was and how I might beat it. Oh, I thought I’d already come up with a weapon or three, but at least some of the possible explanations for the thing made it possible that killing it wouldn’t be necessary.

  By the time the rub had worked its way in and I was ready to grill, the sun had gone down. I switched on one of the outdoor lights I’d rigged and started grilling. I could already feel a . . . pressure, was the best way to put it, an oppressive, nondirectional weight that dragged at my spirit. Concentrating on the pleasant, hot smell of the grilling steak made it feel more like a contest—the “weight” tried to force me to ignore pleasant and happy feelings, while my own focus on my pleasures gave a stronger and more palpable sense of direction (if direction was the right word for something that was purely emotional) to this external influence.

  As I sat in the brightly lit kitchen, eating my dinner, I figured out what this leaden depressing sensation reminded me of: it was similar to being in a very bad mood and having to go somewhere that you would normally enjoy. If you didn’t know this was external, it would feel like depression, or perhaps the lurking tension of a phobia waiting to strike—as though you were afraid of spiders and didn’t see any, but were sure that there were a few hiding somewhere nearby, ready to stalk delicately out into screaming sight.

  So I enjoyed the steak, but not nearly as much as I might have. Even in the lighted room—and the lighting helped, that much I could tell from having to cross back and forth between the kitchen and the darker deck area where the grill was—the damn thing’s influence was insidious. I noticed momentary flickers of fear and sadness in my thoughts: worry about Syl and her flight home, feeling I was simply unable to handle this problem, a creeping sensation between my shoulderblades . . . Then it faded back, as though either it had given up on trying to overcome my focus, or else it was planning a more opportune moment for its attack.

  The “opportune moment” was pretty clearly whenever I went to sleep. The thing’s history made that clear. I could stay up all night if I wanted, but truthfully, that wouldn’t help me much at all. I needed to confront whatever it was directly and get some grasp of what I was facing.

  So, after taking a walk far away from the cabin to let my dinner settle, I went to bed. That bed, however, had a whole range of controls near it. Even though the mysterious force had backed off, it took me a while to fall asleep. When you know there is a malevolent something waiting for you to nod off, it’s not exactly easy to close your eyes, let alone go to sleep. Given that this thing affects the mind, I was pretty sure it could tell whether I was asleep. It had probably known the very moment that the Plunketts had awakened, but it had always waited for its targets to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I also couldn’t use any artificial sleeping assistance; when I woke, I couldn’t afford to be sluggish.

  I went to bed around nine o’clock. I think I finally managed to drift off to sleep around midnight.

  CHAPTER 80

  Nightmares on Demand

  It was a terrible sleep, filled with indescribable oozing fear, and a slithering feeling of something creeping ever-so-slowly up on me . . . with the echoing sensation of complete loss and loneliness, not a friend or companion for a thousand miles. I forced my eyes open.

  A monstrous black shadow, barely visible against the gloom of the night-shrouded bedroom, loomed above the bed. Blank eyes glowed the gray leaden color of winter, and a shadowy, taloned hand stretched towards my throat. My heart hammered completely out of control, each beat jabbing pain through my chest. I tried to speak, to even scream, but my throat was drier than dust and only a faint, incoherent croak escaped. The thing smiled, that frozen witchlight limning a mouth filled with sharklike teeth, and one talon traced a sharp, ice-cold line down my cheek, screaming images of dismemberment and abandonment through my head. I can’t move! I thought, my horror rising.

  But that was what it wanted. It wanted, needed the strength of my fear and horror. I was handing it the weapons it needed. I pushed against it, focusing will against fear, forcing my hand to grasp the little cylinder I’d strapped into it. Unfortunately, my arms were caught in the covers; I probably shouldn’t have used any covers at all, but mountain cabins without heat aren’t amenable to that sort of thing. I concentrated, trying to ignore my fear and the icy claws near my jugular, pulling my hand out one millimeter at a time. The thing’s expression flickered, as though it was nonplussed by my ability to act at all, and a tidal wave of terror thundered down on me.

  That might have been a mistake on its part. I let that terror galvanize my arm into motion rather than immobility, and my hand came fully out from the bedclothes. Pointing my shaking hand as best I could, I squeezed my thumb down on the button.

  A blazing line of blue-green fire seared its way across the room as the overpowered laser pointer sent enough concentrated photons streaking outward to set paper across the room on fire. Seeming bright as the sun in the pitch-black room, the laser carved a razor-thin line across the black shadow. The dead eyes doubled in size and I heard an ear-piercing shriek of agony and shock as it literally stumbled back, unable to just vanish as it had when confronted previously. I tried to rise and give pursuit, but my adrenaline-soaked muscles shook and I fell with an undignified thud and clatter to the floorboards, the equipment hung over me banging the wood and jabbing into me, feeling weak and shaky as a crippled old man. The thing was clearly worse off, though, and it fled out the doorway, fading; the feelings of horror, fear and loss now focused outside of me rather than inside. I knew I must be feeling what it was feeling now, and I dragged myself to my feet and staggered after it.

  I was shaking, sick to my stomach, and trying to push myself as hard as I could. It didn’t occur to me until I was going through the doorway that thing could probably sense what I was doing, or at least where I was and what my intent was. So I wasn’t at all ready when black claws slashed across my hand.

  The impact was . . . weak. The thing might be able to assume solid form, but it was still more a thing of spirit than flesh. But it wasn’t trying to hurt me, I realized too late, as the strap holding the pointer in my hand came apart and the second pillow-soft but swift blow knocked the pointer from my hand. I staggered away, trying to find the miniature laser, but the casing was black and totally invisible in the darkness.

  Without a weapon to hand, I faced the monster, towering above me in pain-filled rage. I grasped for the smartphone; enough subtlety, it was time to turn on the lights.

  There was nothing in the holster. With renewed horror, I realized one of the clattering noises when I fell out of bed had been the phone falling to the floor. And my laptop was . . . on the other side of this thing.

  It gave a soundless roar, a silent bellow filled with screaming terror and hate and doom, sending my pulse skyrocketing. It snarled and smiled again, keeping between me and my equipment, sending another wave of horror and isolation and loss that almost made me faint. My heart staggered, and I realized that the monster meant to kill me with fear alone. I have to fight this!

  But . . . it had cut the strap. It had touched me, but it hadn’t actually hurt me. I had hurt it. And there was something . . . else, something nagging me . . .

  At those thoughts it moved another step towards me, almost immersing me in twisting living darkness, screaming despair and death into me.

  Into me.

  Now, I could feel it. It was . . . it was not quite real. Or the fear was real, but the source was not. It was the difference between burning with fire, and burning from having soaked in ice water, or swallowing habanero puree. The pain is real, but only one of them is really going to hurt you.

  And I could prove it, by remembering real fear. I remembered fighting Elias Klein, a friend turned monster, and how the terror welled up from within in cold flaming waves as I tried to outrun him. I remembered the inhuman colonel as he prepared to sacrifice me in the He
art of Eönae, and the pure knowledge—not mere sensation, but bone-deep knowledge—that I had failed, that Syl, Verne, and all my friends were dead because of that. I remembered running down a Florida street, duelling a creature that could kill me with a glance.

  The external pressure of fear wavered, hesitated for a moment, and I focused once more, this time on the greatest fear of all. I let myself for once feel it fully, as I had for one moment in the hospital almost two years ago. I brought out that memory and made it real, the moment when the urbane and ordinary man before me had transformed into a hulking, shaggy nightmare of diamond teeth and claws, with a shrieking roar that shattered glass and left nothing but total terror in its wake, the moment I had first faced the Werewolf King, Virigar.

  And in the moment that memory became the truth of terror, the thing in front of me stumbled backward, shredding and coming apart like mist in a wind, screaming its own fear, fleeing that image of horror in my head, leaving behind a trailing sense of loss, abandonment, sadness, and defeat.

  I sank, shaking and soaked with sweat, to the cabin floor. Something had happened here. Something that might just tell me what I needed to know.

  I didn’t feel a sense of triumph, or even of relief. I felt a tragic loss. And that—more than anything—told me I was on the right track.

  CHAPTER 81

  Secrets of Ancient Days

  “You need what?” Verne looked confused. I had driven back to his house the next day, and slept there while waiting for him to wake up in the evening. I had not gotten much sleep in the cabin, even though the thing had made no attempts on me the rest of that night.

  “I need to know about Atlantaea. At least a few details.”

  He nodded, still clearly not understanding what I was looking for. “I will tell you what I can. But you must understand that I have spent countless centuries not thinking about it.”