by Tobias Wade
And now she is complete. For the first time in her life since she was a child stolen from that alien shore, she is home again.
“Glory to The Beast,” Kathleen kisses Jessica lightly on the forehead, “and blessed is she who comes to cleanse the failing race of man.”
Jessica breathes deeply of the water which nourishes her more than the air once did. Her vision is clearing by the second, an electric thrill igniting her body, her nerves playing a symphony of delight. Somewhere deep inside there’s a small tinge of pain as the seed begins to sprout, but that doesn’t bother her anymore. Blessed is the pain, for it is the breaking of the barren earth giving way to let new life grow.
Jessica stretches her arms and marvels at their strength as they cut through the water. She can feel her arteries and veins gently open as the growing seed snakes its way through her body, and with it comes a surging warmth to overcome the numbness of her death. She stretches her legs luxuriously, feeling her atrophied muscles swell and firm. Dead connections rewire as new networks are woven through her new body which responds instantaneously to her will.
The barriers which obfuscated her mortal senses are lifting, and Jessica does see. She sees the gutted hulk of the capsized boat and the loose planks floating through the water. She sees the litter of the broken vessel being scattered by the waves, and the heavy metal debris from the engine drifting silently into the depths. She sees the knife driven into Eric’s lifeless heart, and the long trail of blood which is already attracting a string of curious fish.
Kathleen laughs, twirling in the water in ecstasy at the display. “Do you see? Do you love it?”
“Yes,” Jessica says, kicking off powerfully with her legs. “I love it more than anything.”
28
KNOCK—KNOCK—KNOCKING. The collapsed tunnel isn’t going to keep the demon out for long. Dantes can picture it all too clearly, hurling itself against the other side of the rock, splashing its loose skin across the stone in its reckless frenzy to smash its way through. It’s so filled with mindless rage that it doesn’t seem capable of even speaking, let alone using its infernal powers. A very small blessing in a very dark place.
He strips off his thermal wet suit down to his boxers and discards the rest of his diving gear in a disorganized pile.
“You’re just going to leave it here?” Jacques asks, struggling out of his own suit.
“Too hot to wear, and it’ll slow us down to carry,” Dantes grunts. “We don’t need it anymore.”
“The demon might destroy it before we get back…” Jacques protests. His voice trails off as the KNOCK-KNOCKING starts up again, a little closer this time.
Jordan claps a hand on his shoulder. “Making it back is important but making it there is more important.” His gruff voice seems to linger in the closed space like an unsettling thought that can’t quite be pushed from the mind.
“I don’t want to die,” Jacques says softly. He makes a strange sound almost like a laugh, but it cuts unnaturally short. “I know nobody really wants to die, and I’m not saying I’m scared or anything, it’s just…”
“You didn’t have to come back,” Jordan says. “You saw what you were up against in Stockholm. You could have just walked away.”
Dantes is already loping along the tunnel, the other two hasten to keep up.
Bullshit, ” Jacques spits. “I’ve seen men who walk away before their time. They might hide for another twenty years, and all that time they’ll be just as dead as the ones who didn’t get away.”
“Guess we’re already dead one way or the other then.” Dantes pauses to flash an unsettling grin. “Nothing left to fear then, is there?”
Jacques gives another short laugh. Jordan joins in, booming bellowing laughter that’s too loud to be genuine, but he can’t seem to stop. And why not? There’s too much tension to just suffer in silence. It has to come out somehow: maybe with a scream, maybe with tears, but laughter seems like the easiest way.
“We’re all in our underwear, getting chased by a demon.” Jordan howls with laughter, his face red and eyes watering.
“That’s enough,” Dantes scolds, his face anxious and drawn. “Hush, listen.”
The tension returns with the silence. Jordan starts to chuckle again, unable to control himself. “A fucking demon,” he whispers, seemingly to himself. “Wouldn’t my gran love this? She always told me I was going down below one day. Well, here I am, Gran. Where are you?”
“Hello? Is somebody there?” a strained voice hisses from ahead.
Dantes raises a hand and they stop on a dime. Their flashlights snap into place at the far end of the tunnel. It’s wider ahead and seems to be growing wider still as it opens into a cavern. A gaunt white face peeks around one of the stones to squint at the lights.
“Don’t hurt me!” the pale face wails. An emaciated figure drags itself hand over hand, steadying itself on the rock wall.
The pale man’s fingers slip from the stone and he tumbles to the ground where he lays there trembling, evidently too weak to stand. His dirty white T-shirt has been reduced to shreds, his shoes are missing, and his feet are bloody and torn. Dantes moves forward to inspect, but Jacques leans in to whisper in his ear:
“That’s the man who was traveling with Henry. I saw him in the woods when his spirit was pulled out of the book. They left together—we can’t trust him.”
“I’m not trusting him. Not yet,” Dantes replies.
“Demons!” the pale man howls. “Please, don’t take me back. I can’t—not again—please. Just kill me, why don’t you? Kill me and be done with it.”
“We’re not demons,” Dantes says, edging closer to get a better look. “Demons wouldn’t carry flashlights, now would they?”
“Half-demon then, doesn’t matter,” he rambles. “Or half-humans? Doesn’t make a difference. Half anything is a monster. Best to kill them—but me first. I deserve it, God knows it’s past my time.”
“Who are you?” Dantes asks, approaching cautiously. “How did you get down here?”
“He called me his Krisha,” the man mumbles, averting his eyes. “I think I had another name, but I can’t remember anymore. If he calls me his Krisha, then I am his.”
“Elijah,” Jacques hisses. “The demon called him Elijah.”
“Who? Who brought you here?” Dantes is close now, almost at the end of the tunnel. A quick scan of his flashlight reveals the crumbling towers and ramshackle buildings which once might have been a great city beyond.
KNOCK—KNOCK from down the tunnel, faint but insistent. A distant feral roar accompanies it like a desperate animal so wild that it doesn’t care whether it kills or dies, as long as there is blood. Krisha lifts a finger to point in the direction of the sound.
“No time to wait. You’re coming with us,” Dantes says. “We can help you, but you have to trust us and tell us everything you know.”
Jacques coughs, a guttural sound of obvious disapproval. Dantes glares at him, and the Frenchman shrugs.
“We can’t just leave him here,” Dantes says.
“Well, he certainly doesn’t seem like the same person who followed the demon,” Jacques concedes cautiously.
Dantes reaches down to help the man up, but the dirty figure scrambles backward in a skittering crab walk .
“Don’t touch me!” Krisha shrieks.
“Shh, come on, fella,” Jordan says. “We’re going to protect you from the demons. Nobody’s going to touch you, but you have to be able to walk.”
“Demons… demons…” Krisha mutters, dragging himself to his feet. “I’m not scared of the demons. They can do what they like with me. It’s him who wants me back.” His voice lowers to a reverent whisper as he adds, “He saw me. Not like you’re seeing me now, not like I’m looking at you—I mean he saw me. All the way through me. The Beast knows everything about you, Dantes Sosa. He’s watching you too.”
The pale man is collapsing to his knees again, but Jordan steps forward to catch him. Krish
a allows himself to be supported and leans heavily upon Jordan, his fingers feebly clutching and releasing Jordan’s shoulder like a kneading cat.
“What was The Beast like?” Jacques breathes low.
Krisha starts to giggle. Dantes and Jordan exchange anxious glances. The troop continue their way into the cavern leading the limping man with them.
“Is he here? Has he come through the portal?” Dantes asks.
Krisha shakes his head. “I went through the eternal well to his side. It was the only way—the only way—that’s what I thought. If I’d known what was waiting, I would have just died. I should have laid down and let him kill me and died right there instead of slipping into those black waters.”
“You know where the portal is then,” Dantes says. “You’ll take us there.”
Krisha’s body stiffens, but he responds automatically to the authority in Dantes' voice. Yes, master,” he says. He pauses a moment as though considering what he’d just agreed to before continuing. “You’ll help me too though, won’t you? His demons are looking for me, but you’ll protect me, won’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right. We’ll keep you safe,” Jordan coos.
“Not safe until they’re gone. You’ll kill them, won’t you? Not just their bodies, those come and go. You’ll go through the portal and pull them up by the root, and you’ll kill them for good.”
“How do we do that?” Jacques asks.
Krisha sighs. “You don’t know. Of course, of course, it’s okay. You know about the seeds though, don’t you?”
“We know they grow inside people and turn them into demons, yeah,” Dantes says.
“Turn them into—no, not like that. The human stays human and the demon stays demon. It just moves them about, you see. Think of it like the demon is the sand in an hourglass. The longer the seed grows inside someone, the more demon comes through, until in the end there’s nothing but demon here and nothing but human on the other side. Break the human vessel and the demon will flow back to the other side, leaving the human dead. Break the demon vessel and the human will return while the demon dies. You see?”
“I fucking knew it!” Jordan shouts. “We can get Ender back then, can’t we?”
The knot in Dantes' throat throbs uncomfortably as he swallows the dry air. If this is true, then it means when he put those bullets through Mackenzie he’d only killed the human part. The part that loved Jessica—the part she loved in return.
“How do you know this?” Jacques presses.
“I saw it happen—it’s how I got away,” Krisha rambles, his eyes darting everywhere, except to the people he’s addressing. “The Beast had me. The demons were close. No escape. Not until one of them started screaming and distracted the others. There was a light which seemed to be leaving her body—dust in a sunbeam, snow flurry on a dazzling slope. It must have hurt too, hurt like a mortal wouldn’t survive. But it just went on screaming and screaming, buckling on the ground like all its bones were trying to get out of its body any way they could. The Beast tried to soothe the creature like a mother over its young, caressing it and singing to the tortured soul…
“‘It’s only the human leaving your body,’ The Beast had said. ‘You’re lucky it wasn’t the other way around.’ They didn’t notice me until I was already back at the portal, and by then it was too late to follow.”
That must have been when Mackenzie died. Dantes opens and closes his mouth twice before the sandpaper in his throat let’s slip, “He could be lying. He could be one of them or be controlled by one of them to lure us into a trap. Why would we trust him?”
Jordan lifts his arms theatrically in the dead air, turning slowly to take in the silent grandeur of the dilapidated city. “Boy, they’ve already got us where they want us. Kathleen trapped us here for that thing to get us—that thing which looks a helluva lot like a full-grown demon to me. If there’s any shot to go in there and save Ender…”
“Ender Maston? Yes, yes, I saw him too!” Krisha chimes, wringing his hands in delight. “He saved my life by telling me not to trust Henry. He told me to escape to the other side and hide the book. His demon isn’t fully grown—he wanted to help us.”
“The Codex Gigas?” Jacques asks. “Why would Ender ask you to hide that?”
“It’s the only way to close the portal,” Krisha says. “The human part of Henry wanted to seal the eternal well, but there isn’t any human part left. The divine spirit growing from the seed is all there is in him now, and that wants nothing more than to let The Beast enter this world. I hid the book to keep it safe, but I don’t understand how to use it. If you go through, you can kill the demon vessels and banish the demons already here.”
“If.” Dantes' mouth presses into a hard line. “There’s too much we don’t know. Jessica is still up there, and I’m not going to leave her with these things prowling about.”
“Up there with Kathleen,” Jordan interjects. “For all we know, she’s already taken the damn seed or…”
“Don’t.” Dantes' voice has the edge of a knife.
“… already dead,” Jordan continues. “But if she did swallow the seed and it’s already started to grow inside her, then it seems like killing the demon vessel is the only way to set her free too, isn’t it?”
Dantes glares at Krisha, trying to read the maniacal grin which has slowly been spreading across his face.
“He reminds me of the ghost miner Ramose,” Dantes grunts. “Ender never should have trusted him. We all knew it, but none of us did anything about it. And now we’re falling for the same damn trick, following some lunatic to a place there might not be any coming back from.”
The grin vanishes from Krisha’s face, replaced by a look of profound contemplation which seems unnatural on the animalistic man. He speaks in startling lucidity: “It’s natural to be afraid. It seems to me that the true horror of demons is not the fear of the demon itself, but the mistrust of one’s friends that evil thoughts may instill. That mistrust is the seed you plant, and only you may choose how far it may grow.”
“Take us to the portal,” Dantes says. “We will weigh our options there and learn more.”
Krisha’s grin sneaks its way back across his face. He lets himself drop to all fours to scamper across the rough stone, propelled by a sudden vitality that seemed absent until now. “Come along then, watch your step. Dreadful falls along the way, especially where the lava rivers flow.”
Dantes exchanges uneasy glances with the others.
“For Captain Ender,” Jordan says, although there isn’t much fight left in his voice. He hurries after the pale skittering man.
Dantes sighs and hastens to keep pace. Jessica wouldn’t take the seed, would she? She’d rather die. It wasn’t the most comforting thought.
From behind them a sound like a small avalanche reverberates through the tunnel, although it sounds less like the rocks are tumbling against one another and more like they are being smashed to pieces. If the demon wasn’t through already, then it wouldn’t take it much longer. Then the feral roar—all too real—all too close—leaving no doubt. It would be on them soon, and besides the portal itself, there may be nowhere left to run.
29
What once was mortal of Henry Wiggins no longer exists in this world. The hour of his torment has passed as the last of his old skin drips away from bones now harder than steel. The raw muscles pump tirelessly to launch him twenty feet at a time, only pausing for long enough to secure a grip before he leaps again. Shreds of discarded flesh and bloody footprints too large for any human to remember where he has been? , but he doesn’t care about being followed. To him, there is only the hunt and the swift kill to follow.
His heavy breathing has been replaced by a long undisturbed intake, a perpetual death rattle as air drags through his exposed trachea. He doesn’t breathe out anymore. Nothing consumed by him is wasted by the mechanical perfection of his new body. He lopes easily through the darkness which he wears thick about him like a cloak. His prey ar
e close enough to taste. The shriveled vestigial organ of his tongue is minuscule in his distended mouth, but he doesn’t need that anymore. His frayed nerve endings cover his body, the electric thrill of his senses able to savor the smallest particles directly from the air.
His glory is to be the first reaper in the harvest The Beast has sewn. He will welcome The Beast when he enters through the portal, and he will be blessed by his creator for his devotion to the divine plan. Four humans: practically naked, blindly staggering through the heat of a dead city, are all that would challenge the coming storm. Helpless as mewing infants in the midnight forest, they cry out for one another in vain attempts to reassure each other against their own sensibilities. They’d do better to remain silent, but they babble nervously about their plans and try to gauge each other’s reactions, not trusting each other or even themselves as they wander closer to a world utterly removed from their understanding.
It’s almost a pity that they won’t live long enough to see The Beast.
“What was that? Did you hear something?” the older one asks.
The rattle stops. The darkness waits.
“No time to waste, hurry now.” The pale one lifts itself from its perch on a rock, useless eyes scanning the emptiness of its surroundings. “Follow the river.”