by Prolusio
A picture: A wife with her hand on her big belly. Two more: A daughter taking her first steps. A wife holding her to the sky.
Billy blinked back the red haze in his eyes. Between his forefinger and thumb, a third picture combusted: A man he should remember but didn’t holding a little girl he’d never met.
The Professor yanked him deeper between the trailers. “Find him another one, Stan, so he stabilizes.”
Billy’s jeans smoldered.
“Don’t want him naked.”
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore but the hunger.
Because everything else had burned away.
The Shifters tell their children a story:
You are descended from our Progenitor, a goddess more powerful than Nanabozho, than Kutkh or Loki or any of the other figments of the normals’ imaginations. You are descended from one of the true gods who walks this earth—a real woman, a real goddess—and that is what makes you exceptional.
When the Progenitor of Burners would ignite the world, your Progenitor tricked him inside the mountain. When the Progenitor of Fates would set him free, your Progenitor tricked him of his midnight sword—and pinioned the first Burner to Vesuvius’s cinder cone. And when the mountain exploded and the dragons came, your Progenitor negotiated for your safety.
So remember, my children, you are exceptional. But you must follow our Progenitor’s examples: Trick a Burner. Steal from a Fate. And always be wary of a dragon.
WELCOME TO THE DELLS
Yesterday…
Lincoln’s wax head bounced down the convenience store’s aisle. A distinct sucking sound slurped off the linoleum flooring with each hit, an ugly noise reminding Ladon a little too much of a dog vomiting.
The head rolled into the bottom shelf by his feet. Cereal boxes toppled, and poor Lincoln’s fake beard dislodged from his fake chin.
All Ladon wanted was coffee. A nice large cup, one big and strong enough to keep him driving without the need for Dragon to burst random jolts into his mind all night. The beast waited on the store’s roof, directly over Ladon’s head, pulsing beats of boredom and annoyance at Ladon. He didn’t want to be pulled into chasing down Burners yet again, any more than Ladon did. But a promise was a promise, and they were a man and a beast of their word.
So here they were in Wisconsin Dells, gathering intel on the damned fire ghouls from a bunch of mercurial Shifters who morphed allegiances faster than they morphed their appearances.
Blond and skinny seemed to be the latest craze. This town was full of far more blond and skinny people than it should be, even for this part of the country.
Ladon looked down at the wax head lying next to his foot. Blond, skinny, and fight-crazy. But then again, Shifters did like to yell and beat their chests.
Please buy duct tape, Dragon pushed into Ladon’s mind. The center tool bin has split again.
Ladon looked up at the ceiling. Did the beast not pay attention? I have a dead president’s head at my feet, he pushed back. Their van’s tool storage could wait.
What do you expect? Shifters argue. A mental shrug hit Ladon’s mind. We also need batteries.
Ladon glanced at the front of the store. This should have taken ten minutes, tops. In, out, and back on the road. Real issues needed care but no, the stupid Shifter kid behind the counter had decided to mess with the huge male tourist standing next to the now beheaded statue of Lincoln.
“You enthralling my wife?” the man yelled.
Ladon carefully watched the man’s movements. His elbow glided when he threw his arm around and his weight altered between his feet in the special way only morphers were able to do, but only within a limited range—which meant a solid class-two. He could alter his body, but not fast enough or thorough enough to be a true threat to Ladon.
He wasn’t ageless, either. His hair had gone salt and pepper, though his muscles bulged and he looked like he could snap the kid’s back with one hand.
Ladon had sensed him when he walked into the store. The wife and a teenaged daughter walked in first. They’d both stopped, their gazes settling on Ladon. He’d smiled, doing his best to be charming. The girl stared, wide-eyed and with a rounded mouth, until her mother pulled her toward a display of bananas.
He didn’t sense anything from them. They were probably both normals without abilities, or at least not activated.
‘Allure’ and ‘attention here’ pheromones had flooded the store. The kid behind the counter obviously didn’t like that the women had singled out Ladon and not him.
The husband had ripped an arm off the wax figure of Lincoln and swung it at the kid. Now Abe’s head lay next to Ladon’s feet.
“You little dirtbag! How long you been active, huh? You what, fourteen? Your balls haven’t dropped and they’re activating you? What kind of backwater, white-trash clan you part of? Your parents cousins?” He took another swing at the kid.
The boy cowered. The teenage girl clutched her mother, her eyes wider than before. The mom frowned and pulled her daughter away.
If you leave, we can stop at a different store. The beast grumbled and a vibration moved from the roof, down the walls, and into the shelving next to Ladon. I am hungry. We will need to stop again anyway.
The morpher yelled again. Enthrallers like the kid often needed to learn their manners, and better at the hands of another Shifter than a non-Shifter, even Ladon. Just because the kid had the ability to change people’s minds didn’t mean he had a license to use it whenever he wanted.
Still, Ladon should do something. If nothing else, the girl didn’t need to see her father like this.
The store’s manager trundled out of the backroom, a plastic clipboard in his hand. His face looked bloated like he’d tied his tie too tight, or he’d eaten too much salt. He glanced at Ladon as he walked by, scratching at his puffy neck.
“Is there a problem here?” His head swiveled between the two Shifters. He sniffed, catching the ‘allure’ in the air. His entire body looked dumbfounded, the same physical confusion that jostled through every normal who ran into a Shifter with mind control abilities. “Look, I’m sure we can settle this—”
“Shut up!” Both the morpher and the enthraller yelled at the same time, their voices resonant and full of command.
The manager blinked, his mouth wide open and slack.
The kid waved his fist at Ladon. “It’s not my fault!”
Ladon groaned. All he’d wanted was a cup of coffee.
And duct tape.
He looked up at the ceiling again. “Then come down here and get it yourself!” he yelled.
The big morpher turned around, his eyes bulging and his neck throbbing. “What did you say?”
“Don’t you recognize him?” the kid whispered. “He’s the human half of the Dracos. He looked at your women. Are you going to let him do that? Him and his dragon will carry them off. And your girls will like it.”
Ladon pointed at the kid. “Punk!”
The kid smirked and targeted ‘rage’ hit Ladon full in the nostrils. His body tensed and his blood pressure jumped. The sudden urge to throw bags of chips at the two Shifters was almost too much.
The morpher shouted and whipped three chocolate bars at Ladon’s face.
He dodged two and caught the third. The bastard enthraller sneered—he’d been spiking the morpher and Ladon hadn’t sensed it.
The candy snapped in Ladon’s fist. The kid might be good, but he wasn’t good enough to enthrall Ladon.
The mother gaped and pulled her daughter behind the soda fountain.
Ladon walked toward the two Shifters. He tossed the now-ball of chocolate and it bounced off the counter into the kid’s face. The punk clenched his jaw and another wave of ‘rage’ rolled off him.
The morpher’s neck bulged again and he bellowed, running at Ladon. Dancing to the side,
Ladon grabbed the man by the neck. He spun him around, pointing his face toward his family.
“Don’t give the kid what he wants.”
The morpher breathed, obviously fighting the enthraller’s pheromones. Ladon let go and the man stood straight, but his fists continued to clench.
“Let’s go.” He reached for his wife.
She looked over his shoulder, her face full of fear, but she moved close to his side and stroked his shoulder.
“Shhh, sweetie,” she whispered. “Oh, your neck’s red.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did he—” She pointed at the enthraller.
The morpher shook his head and pulled her close. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey!” the kid yelled. His voice echoed through the store, its pitch and resonance perfect for holding the attention of anyone within hearing range.
Damn it, Ladon pushed to Dragon. The punk’s got vocal control.
Scents were bad enough without a boost from a modulated voice. This little prick could easily turn the other three Shifters against Ladon. He didn’t want to have to restrain the girl. Or the puffy normal.
“I think the pretty thing should stay with me.” The punk pointed at the daughter.
The store shook as Dragon came down off the roof. Wait, Ladon pushed, and the beast stopped just outside the sliding doors. Restraining innocents was still preferable to a dragon in the store, even a dragon whose hide mimicked to invisibility.
The daughter walked toward the enthraller, her head tilted to the side as she watched him. He smiled and extended his hand, wiggling his fingers.
She grabbed his palm, her body erect and strong, not at all in the dumbfounded stance of someone enthralled. She wrenched his wrist back.
Ladon heard bones snap.
The enthraller dropped to his knees and a sudden pulse of ‘surprise’ flashed through the store. But it stopped as quickly as it started. Pain could do that to an enthraller, disrupt their control, especially a stupid one who didn’t have any manners.
All the blood drained from the enthraller’s face. He vomited onto the floor.
Ladon didn’t like it when he couldn’t sense Shifters. They were annoying enough when he knew they were there. But this time he chuckled, watching the girl’s iron grip on the boy’s limp hand.
“I’ll come back if I need to,” she said, her voice as resonant as the kid’s. “But you won’t ever do anything like this again, will you?”
The kid nodded, his face turned down toward his own bile.
She bent toward the still-glazed manager. “He’ll mop up his mess before he gets that looked at, right?”
The manager nodded.
She leaned down to the kid. “You should show more respect for the Dracos,” she whispered.
Standing up, she smiled at Ladon and bowed her head before stepping back to her parents. Her father wrapped his arm around her shoulder, his head bowed, and they walked out the doors.
Out front, Dragon’s ghost form glimmered briefly. The girl stopped. Her hand came up to her mouth and she shuffled backward, her body rigid. Her father stepped in front of her.
Dragon vanished again.
Ladon stepped over Lincoln’s head, his shoulders slumping, and walked down the aisle in search of the duct tape.
The Fates tell their children a story:
You are descended from our Progenitor, a god more powerful than his namesake Janus, than Manu the Great or Shai or any of the other figments of the normals’ imaginations. You are descended from one of the true gods who walks this earth—a real man, a real god—and that is what makes you exceptional.
When the Progenitor of Shifters tricked the first Burner to his end, your Progenitor knew her plans. When she would leave the Burner to the mountain, your Progenitor sacrificed his talisman to ensure the ghoul’s fate. And to this day, if you walk the haunted streets of Pompeii, you may tread upon the shards of his sword—and upon cost and purpose.
So remember, my children, you are exceptional. But you must follow our Progenitor’s example: See what must be seen. Do what must be done, because no one is as bound by fate as the Fates themselves.
CINDER to DUST
This morning…
A new talking head popped onto the television’s screen. “—and rescue teams scour the rubble for survivors.”
Mira’s stomach clenched. A warehouse in Indiana had detonated yesterday afternoon, then this happened yesterday evening. She set the remote next to her breakfast.
The scene cut to a German Shepherd in a special Kevlar dog-vest and a firefighter in full gear crawling over smoldering concrete. The animal barked frantically as he dug between two bent steel girders.
“As the Chicago area reels from last night’s tragic explosion in Schaumburg, the nation wonders. Could this be another attack on our—”
Pressure cinched tight around Mira’s left eye. She leaned forward, her palms flat on the kitchen counter. Something moved in what-was-is-will-be and spread over the threads of the universe like burning grease. She couldn’t read it directly, but it had ignited the present.
Her seer had been screaming for a full twenty-four hours. Screaming to run, to hide, to do something, but she didn’t know what. Answers weren’t coming through because a wall of chaos blocked off all understanding.
She glanced at the television again.
Burners. Flames and acid and randomness so thick no Fate could see through it rampaged across the Midwest. They’d eat every normal and Shifter they caught.
Her finger tapped the remote. Two thousand years she’d been living each day, dancing with her seer, doing her best. But it still got away from her sometimes. Especially now, with the pain in her joints.
She flicked the television to a different feed from Chicago. Another explosion ripped through the crumpled shopping mall. Screams burst from the television’s speakers and the picture fractured. A black screen followed, then the anchor’s slack-jawed horror.
Thumps from the bedroom above boomed through the kitchen. Shadows moved—the light fixture swayed.
Mira looked toward the stairs. In thirty seconds, her daughter Rysa would burst down the steps, her pack dangling from her hand, and rush into the kitchen. She’d mutter and purse her lips and turn in a circle. Then she’d ask Mira why the news flashed across their television.
Twenty seconds, now.
One of Mira’s hands poured orange juice without her willing it to move. The liquid sloshed as it hit the glass. The other hand braced her neck.
Ten seconds and flustered energy would bounce through the room, worries about grades and graduate school dropping from her daughter’s lips. And Rysa would look into Mira’s eyes and ask how she felt this morning. Then she’d promise to be home early enough to make dinner, so Mira wouldn’t have to cook.
Rysa could have moved into an apartment near campus. Started her own life. Mira was thankful she hadn’t.
Her throat constricted. The skin under her fingers warmed. Her body did what it would do, her seer screaming Now! Do it now! She needs it now!
Mira leaned forward and an iridescent glop fell from her mouth into the drink.
Three, two, one…
“Mom, I’m late!” Rysa’s pack thumped onto the hallway tile. In the kitchen door, she turned in a circle and tugged down her t-shirt, her dark auburn hair swishing around her face.
Mira gripped the glass. In the juice, patterns, bright and swirling, playing over the glop’s surface. It dispersed, taking on the color of the juice, and vanished.
The same footage playing all morning flashed onto the television: Shaky, grainy cell phone images. Young people laughing followed by three explosions arching across the far side of the mall—pop, pop.
Boom.
The voiceover thundered, full of the perfect resonances needed to ramp up horror in the minds of the viewers. “Fourteen de
ad. Thirty-nine remain missing. Chicago mayor Em—” Click.
Rysa turned off the television as she stepped in front of the blank screen. “Mom, are you okay?”
Mira held out the juice. What-is danced through the corridors of her mind, ignorant of the past and future, as it always was. How many times over her two millennia had she bent to the whims of her seer? Running from the ashes of Vesuvius, across the cold north of Europe, to this new world. Crossing this continent more times than she remembered.
But it had saved her just as often. Maybe it meant to save her daughter, too. Rysa would drink and attend her classes as the iridescence spread through her blood. And then her Fate’s ability would activate.
No matter what the future held.
The little gold eagle of Mira’s bracelet clinked against the rim of the glass. “Drink it. You need your vitamins.”
“Do your joints hurt again? Isn’t the new med helping?” Rysa touched Mira’s shoulder. Her lips thinned and her brow creased as concern darted through her green-gray eyes.
“I’m fine. Drink.” Mira pressed the glass into her daughter’s palm.
Rysa gulped down half the juice. Her face tightened, her eyes narrowing, as she watched Mira. “Don’t watch any more about the attack. It’s terrible and you don’t need that, okay? There’s nothing you can do.” One last gulp and she dropped the glass onto the counter. “I can stay home today if you need me.”
Mira shook her head. “No, no. I’ll lie down. You go to class.” The words, fated to be said, fell from her mouth. The burning world flicked behind her eyes and she clamped them shut, hoping to force it back.
“I’ll be home late. Gavin wants to have coffee.” Rysa waved her hand dismissively, her nose crinkling. “But if you need me, you text, okay?” Her long legs carried her toward the door.
“I will.” Mira planned to rest, like she said.