by wildbow
Two knives attached to razor wire flashed out, each traveling in a half-circle in each direction. The blades struck home, each one slicing the Infante across one eye.
Superficial damage. Not complete blindness, but partial blindness at the least.
But she repeated the strike. Flicking knives on wire, one after another. Each one furthered the damage. When he raised one hand to cover his eyes, she opened other wounds.
He dropped Jessie, and she collapsed. The horror still lurked in her throat, tendrils reaching down past epiglottis, toward lungs and stomach both. Her fingers found little purchase on the thing’s skin, and even the hornlike growths weren’t enough.
Tendrils wrapped around her face and neck, trying to secure the thing’s position.
“You know my reinforcements are approaching even now,” the Infante said.
“I know,” Mary said.
“You won’t win.”
“I know,” Mary said.
Jessie stabbed at the thing, the blade sticking through a cluster of tendrils and biting into the wood of the road. The struggle that followed was a hellish thing, because it mandated she take the hardest road and threatened to end her if she hesitated for a second while walking it. She dragged the thing free of her sinuses, throat and mouth, inch by inch, and it made sure that every inch felt like she was hauling knives and fishhooks out, the points facing in the worst directions.
It felt like it was grabbing the inside of her chest. It closed its airways and tried to starve its host of oxygen so she might relent. A tentacle touched her eye, and threatened to find a gap to disappear inside and unfurl hooks in there.
“Let us go,” Mary said. “You know we’ll cross paths again, if you understand me at all. You won’t be seen fighting and doing anything less than your best against the likes of us, you won’t be seen bleeding, not like that, and we…”
“Get to live another day,” the Infante said.
Jessie hauled the thing free, then stabbed it, and stabbed it again, and again, and again—
“Is that a yes?” Mary asked.
“It’s a yes, with a promise that I’ll have far worse in store for you on our next meeting.”
Jessie finished stabbing the horror to death. She looked up, panting.
The experience of the thing lingered in her head. It was a card of the wrong shape and size, one that threatened to scatter the others if she placed it wrong. She could remember every detail of it, and she did remember every detail, as it lingered in her mind’s eye, not yet positioned or sorted out.
She looked at Lillian, then hopped to her feet. She rushed Lillian, throwing herself at her friend, and was clawed at in return. The parasite ruled here, the parasite decided the order of action, lashing out at movement or at faces.
Jessie endured the scratches and injuries, reached into Lillian’s belt pocket, and retrieved a syringe. She plunged it into Lillian’s throat. Tranquilizer.
She didn’t deploy all of it. Some of it she reserved.
Pulling the needle free, she stabbed the horror, depressing the plunger.
She kept it there, ducking her head down, burying it against Lillian’s shoulder, so the scratches wouldn’t do too much damage to her face. She endured, waiting, until something jostled them.
Mary.
Lillian’s strength was dwindling as the tranquilizer took hold. The horror increased the intensity at which it fought, but the tranquilizer had its effect there too. The spikes began to retract, and the horror’s movements grew more sluggish.
“We need to go,” Mary said. “I know a way out.”
Previous Next
Enemy III (Arc 18)
Genevieve Fray was very still as she sat on the wall that overlooked the gates. Warren sat with his back to it, facing the city, while Avis stood on the battlements, facing the sea, a blanket wrapped around her and her wings. Wendy was with Warren, chattering incessantly and brightly, the stitched’s finger pointing at things that drew her attention, while Warren solemnly looked on.
The Academy city sprawled out before them, and from a certain perspective it appeared almost frozen in time. The birds were active, as were the rats, stray dogs and cats. The clouds flew across the sky as if time was passing at twice the speed it was, while nearly everything else looked like a very realistic painting.
Efforts to control the city had the bulk of the population quarantined. The only groups that moved now were the rebel’s and the necessary few who were relocated from one place to another. Squadrons of stitched guarded areas, weapons in hand, all wearing raincoats that hid all but the lower half of their faces. The faint steam that rose off of each cluster was all that really moved, while the stitched themselves remained as still as the dead.
“The Lambs still aren’t here,” Avis said.
Genevieve Fray nodded. The only Lamb in Hackthorn was Sylvester.
“I see a thing!” Wendy said. She pointed. “Look. It looks like it’s half rat and half cat, it’s on the peak of a roof over there. Why would they mix a rat and a cat? What do we even call it? They both end with—at.”
Warren set one overlarge hand on Wendy’s head.
“It had a bow in its fur,” Wendy pointed out. “Someone must have loved it, or they love it. I like that.”
Warren nodded.
The last of the boats had come and gone for the time being. Barring surprises, no more boats would arrive today. There was always the chance of a boat arriving outside of schedule, but there was a chance of many things happening. The odds were good that the Lambs wouldn’t turn up tonight. It was a two day trip from Radham to Hackthorn, and it had been six days in total since Jessie and Helen had left Sylvester.
She was here to communicate a message to Sylvester. That would be her role in this.
He was stopping to rest. He had barely eaten, and though he was hydrated he had gone at least twelve hours at one point without drinking the water that managed his chemical leash. The fact that it had been some time since his leash had last been reinforced meant the consequences hadn’t been dire. The modified molecular chains had been shed as they were replaced, cast off with replacement cells, but the leash nonetheless demanded its due. The most sensitive parts of the body would be rebelling, eyes sensitive to light, ears ringing, stomach turning, the brain throbbing with a headache. The muscles and bones wouldn’t shed the leash so easily, and would feel it more.
Even sitting still, caught up in his thoughts, he fidgeted and shifted restlessly, trying to balance the fact that muscles twitched and cramped when still and both muscle and bone ached when he moved.
He stared off into space, lost in the moment, his body almost operating by a different apparatus than his brain. He seemed almost oblivious, even though he was surrounded by his people.
“It’s now or never,” Avis said. “It would be better if the Lambs were here, but…”
But indeed. Sylvester was arguing with himself and losing. What started out as a single incidence that he barely registered quickly became the new normal, the parts of his brain he could negotiate with Wyvern became non-negotiable, and he was quickly approaching the point where he lashed out at others like he had done with Professor Ferres.
Fray stood and she approached Sylvester. All around her, children turned to follow her approach.
Sylvester’s eyes were flat as he looked at her. He had been aware of her for some time, but he hadn’t acted on it. Even now, he almost looked through her.
Fray laid a hand on one of the children’s heads. The child looked up at her. Evette.
“It would help if you actually spoke,” Sylvester said.
Fray remained silent.
“Yeah,” Sylvester said. “Right. That would defeat the point. Every one of you represents something, and you in particular represent me not having a danged clue.”
Fray broke into the abstract. Different faces looked in different directions. One of those faces looked at Sylvester with sympathy. She reached out for Sylvester, reached ou
t to take him in her arms—
He flinched away. “Yeah, enough of that. If you want to help, how about you get lost? I know you guys don’t actually listen when I tell you, but it’d help. My thoughts are so scattered they’ve actually grown legs and are walking around, they’re talking over each other. Can you just… not be one of those things I’ve got to deal with?”
Fray let her hand fall.
“Please,” he said, without much emotional affect. His eyes remained devoid of focus as he looked at everything and nothing at the same time. Sylvester’s thoughts turned to other things, and Genevieve Fray ceased to exist as a more concrete entity.
“We need to keep moving,” the boy in the yellow raincoat spoke.
Sylvester acted on that without argument. He stood, wincing at the muscle aches. As his eye traveled, his mind moved by the same measure. Figures in the crowd became defined as Sylvester’s thoughts did, and to him the concrete manifestations of ideas and thoughts were indistinguishable from reality. In the moment, feeling the pain, his mind’s eye drew images of Academy Doctors in the guises of children, drew an image of the fat Fishmonger as a child, of a child noble with black hair and a cane, who whispered of pain and punishment while a sickly boy with his own stick nodded.
It was the boy in yellow who walked beside Sylvester, now.
They were joined by a retinue. The boy in yellow looked unkempt and wild beside his friend, but his friend was so very put together that he might have made anyone look less, wearing dapper clothes that included a coat that clung to him. The boy in the yellow raincoat was rough around the edges, his outfit improvised to serve a functional purpose, with a butcher’s apron instead of a medical one, a raincoat instead of a lab coat.
In this, he was a stark contrast to his friend. His friend’s clothing served a more ideological, psychological purpose, almost assuming the role of Doctor without claiming it.
Sylvester had deciphered them and named them appropriately. It wasn’t that hard, even, especially after he realized that the boy in the neat clothing paid particular attention to a young lady who resembled Mary Cobourn.
The boy in yellow was the Snake Charmer, the immaculate boy was Mary’s creator, Mister Percy, the pair, like so many others, writ in youth.
“This is doable,” the Snake Charmer said. “It’s all going to pieces, and it has been for a while. It’s corrupt, it’s poisoned, and it’s doomed. If it’s crumbling, then we recognize it and work with it. Capitalize on it. That’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done.”
“Are you talking about my mind or society?” Sylvester asked. “It’s unclear.”
“I’m talking about everything,” the Snake Charmer said, with a note of anger. “We’re going to need to improvise. We work with broken pieces and fill in the blanks.”
The Devil spoke, the sickly boy with his cane, speaking with the guttural voice of a monster, “Cut down those who get in the way. Hurt them badly enough that others think twice before doing the same.”
Sylvester shook his head a little, trying not to listen.
There was a system in place. Sylvester had once switched perspectives and skillsets with ease. He had been able to calibrate his brain and take on any role. In the constant reorganization, these things had been lost in the shuffle, partially overwritten, remnants drawn out, filled in, and then shuffled back in, over days, weeks, months and years. The slate, however, had never truly been wiped blank, only set out of reach.
Comparisons could be made to the gestures. Broad ideas encapsulated into something that could be used.
Sylvester, scattered, almost didn’t exist anymore. Each idea and thought process existed in the form of a figure that accompanied him. The Devil was such a thing, speaking of things that Sylvester had always feared lay beneath the veneer of his humanity and civility. In his existence as a sickly boy with an unholy voice, he would bring those things to pass if given a greater role.
The Snake Charmer would help that to come to be if it meant achieving the necessary goals.
“Keep the plan in mind,” Percy said, adding his voice to the conversation. “We wanted to get the attention of the people at the top? We maintain that course. It is something we can very much do.”
“You’re contradicting each other,” Sylvester said.
“No,” Percy said, at the same time the Snake Charmer shook his head.
“One of you is saying to let it go, use what I can, find a new direction. One of you is saying to keep the plan in mind.”
“Keep the end in mind,” Percy said. “But stop focusing so much on maintaining the same steps, the same prerequisite steps to fulfilling it. Use resources at hand, use what’s easiest and most freely available. Capitalize on any and all vulnerabilities, use any and all footholds.”
Sylvester reached a crossroads. He paused, looking down each street. The streets were largely empty, but there were stitched further down the road.
The girl in the layered clothing, ever silent, rested her hands on Sylvester’s shoulders, and he flinched at the contact. Damp from the rain, her red hair stuck to her head, her clothes flattened out with colors bleeding between the damp and transparent fabric. The clothing looked less like cloth now. Lines of floral patterns became vein-like in the right light.
She hugged Sylvester from behind. Her hand formed a gesture, and the line between the crowd around Sylvester and his Lambs blurred further.
Wait.
He waited where he was, eyes closed.
“Any and all vulnerabilities, any and all footholds,” Sylvester repeated Percy’s line from moments ago.
“Absolutely,” Percy said.
“In your original interpretation, that included exploiting and stepping over the bodies of children. Repeatedly.”
“It did. Many of your rebels aren’t fully grown adults, Sylvester,” Percy said. “You’ve always been fond of your mice, of your Lambs and Bo Peeps.”
Sylvester didn’t have a response to that. In the moment, voices overlapped, ideas becoming words that became noise, a constant static of shouts, threats, violence and whispers, with very little that was comforting.
“The idea was always to achieve big things,” Percy said.
Sylvester nodded.
He could question, challenge, and he could keep his guard up, not quite letting any one figure take the reins, but he was physically and mentally exhausted, and he conserved his strength carefully, in vain hope that he would be able to correct his course or stop things if a moment called for it.
In this, he didn’t question and he didn’t fight. Percy got his points, working his way in deeper.
Still hugging Sylvester from behind, Sub Rosa gestured as a small group of rebels approached the stitched.
Go.
Sylvester crossed the street.
Stitched reacted to the sighting of him, but they were a hair slower than humans were. The students who were addressing and examining them had their backs to Sylvester, and as they turned they would only see a glimpse of Sylvester.
“Move fast,” the Snake Charmer said. “They’ll ask questions, and they might realize it was you. We want to be gone by then.”
Sylvester nodded.
The Snake Charmer indicated the way. Between buildings. Sylvester saw another cat-rat hybrid, but this one didn’t have a bow in its fur. They weren’t too uncommon. He wondered if he could catch and cook it, if he had to.
“We’ll get proper food. Priority number one is to get ourselves sorted out,” the Snake Charmer said. “Clothes, food, allies.”
“We get things laid out so we can get back to the mission,” Percy added.
“You guys keep contradicting each other,” Sylvester said.
“No,” Percy and the Snake Charmer said, at the same time. Percy deferred and the Snake Charmer spoke, “The world and the system they’ve established don’t give us any advantages. It’s up to us to take them. There are rebels, delinquents, and freed experiments who only want to see us put somethin
g great into action. They’re talking amongst themselves about the fact that we carved Ferres up and they believe it’s right, or they’re sitting in the background, believing it without the opportunity to say it.”
“Clothes make the man,” Percy said. “Style and grace matter. You can pull that off, even while you’re hurting like you are. Food… well, that was more S.C.’s purview, getting the meals sorted out.”
“So you’re agreeing,” Sylvester said.
He stopped in his tracks as he reached the end of one alley, and saw where the course had taken him.
He was back at the foot of Hackthorn Academy. The reclining lady of Hackthorn stood high above him, back arched, one arm folded beneath her, the other outstretched.
“And you led me here,” he said. He turned, and his eye swept over the crowd that surrounded him. Every face was one he should recognize but needed interpretation at the same time. All had been translated into an age appropriate for Lambs, for sympathetic reasons, out of his desire for companionship. They included countless slain and maimed soldiers and Ghosts, the plague men and the stitched. They included experiments, great warbeasts now looked like boys and girls with body modifications.
Sub Rosa stroked his hair with one hand.
“We’re all in agreement,” the Snake Charmer said.
“That’s worse,” Sylvester said.
Sub Rosa pointed, directing his attention.
There were guards. Not many, but enough that getting in would be difficult. Three teenage boys and one stitched that kept them company, a very large man who wore no shirt, the namesake stitches crossing his chest and forming the ‘Y’ shaped intersection at the chest, flesh of the torso and neck bulging where hardware had been stowed within. He was made to be strong, not to be pretty, clever, or effective.
Sub Rosa stroked Sylvester’s hair, her hand moving in gestures.
Sylvester closed his eyes, feeling the sensation of the hand moving through hair, and he could remember one of the Lambs doing the same. Had it been Lillian? Something tender, occupying long minutes between other moments, where she might kiss his eyelids, his forehead.