by Lee Dignam
“I am human.”
“Hardly. You’re not human, and you’re not quite… me… either. You’re something of a half-breed. Doesn’t that piss you off?”
“Why would it piss me off?” Alice asked. She had started to walk in a circle around Nyx, so that if Nyx wanted to look at her she wouldn’t be looking at the spot where Silver lay, whether unconscious or faking.
“Because,” Nyx said, “I can do things you can’t. I have abilities you could never dream of having. At the same time, we have the same limitations, don’t we? We’re both monsters who need to eat human souls in order to survive. Parasites, really.”
“Parasite?”
“Don’t pretend to be offended by that. You know it’s true.”
“So you’re calling yourself a parasite too?”
“Sticks and stones may—well, you know how the thing goes. I don’t let myself get tied down by labels.”
“You were once nothing. You only exist because you gave yourself a label—you called yourself Nyx and stole the identity of an ancient god so that you could impose yourself on the world.”
“I guess you’re right there, but that’s irrelevant. Besides, we’re getting off topic. I promised I could make you human again. You could go and live a normal little life. Go to a normal place of work. Do what normal people do.”
“Is that right?”
Nyx turned her head to look at Alice, who by this point had almost entirely flanked Nyx’s right side. Silver was to her back, still unconscious, but now there was no risk of her eyes falling on him. She still couldn’t quite figure out why she hadn’t taken the sword away from Silver. Maybe she didn’t care that he had it because Trapper hadn’t worked on her. Didn’t Cora say she couldn’t die? Then maybe Nyx couldn’t either. That would be a problem.
“Absolutely I can,” Nyx said, with all the conviction of a preacher directing herself to an eager congregation.
“So, you make me human, and then I leave you alone?” Alice asked.
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that you care about this place? Ashwood doesn’t care about Ashwood. Why should you?”
“This place is my home. There may be a lot of assholes here, but there are a lot of innocent people here too. I can’t let you just do what you want with them.”
“Would they do the same for you?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why risk your chance at happiness for people who couldn’t give a shit about you?”
“What do you know about happiness?”
“I know that I’ll be happy when my father joins us. Being in as many human bodies as I’ve been in lately has really given me amazing insight into human emotions. They’re great, aren’t they?”
“So that’s all you want? To bring your father into the world? Say I take your offer—then what happens? If Chaos comes, the world burns. What normal life could I live? Or do you think I would be stupid enough to believe your lies?”
“Silly Half-Lich,” Nyx said, “Chaos, like me, simply wants to exist. Once he comes, Ashwood will be his home, and then he can experience the world in the same way you and I get to experience it now. And when he’s here, he’ll be proud of me for having successfully pulled him out of the Void and into this beautiful, green earth.”
“That’s what all this is about?” Alice asked, cocking her head. “You ruined my life and killed countless of people because you’ve got daddy issues?”
“When you put it like that it sounds stupid.”
An angry heat rose into Alice’s chest and burned as if she were on the brink of regurgitating a lump of hot coal. “I don’t believe anything you say,” Alice said. “None of it. And whatever you’re trying to do with Cora, it won’t work.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because she told me she can’t die. How can you sacrifice something that can’t die?”
Nyx smiled, let Cora slip out of her psychic control, and approached Alice where she was standing. Alice chanced a glance across the skyscraper roof and noticed she couldn’t see Silver anymore. He wasn’t lying where he had been a minute ago and he wasn’t anywhere else within her line of sight. This made her heart start beating hard against her chest. Where had he gone, what was he planning, and when would he make his move? Alice would need to be ready, but her own adrenaline was causing her to tremble.
“I’m afraid Cora fed you a little white lie,” Nyx said. “Did she tell you she was incapable of dying?”
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “She did,” Alice said.
“I hate to burst whatever notions you may have had about immortality, but the truth is she can most certainly die.”
“I watched her get thrown out of a building.”
“That’s what you saw, but that wasn’t what happened. We were waiting, Alice. We staged the whole thing. Come on now, catch up—your mind is quicker than that.”
Lightning tore the sky in two, and as the flash lit the skyscraper roof, Alice thought she saw the shadow of a man skulking around near Cora. There one instant, gone the next. Nyx went to turn her head, but Alice stole her attention again.
“So I can die?” Alice asked.
“You can, but I can’t. I’m afraid I lied about the whole ‘do I not bleed?’ thing. It’s easy to lie to you, but I’m not lying about this. I can make you human again, and when Chaos comes, I can give you at least a couple of years where your screwed up little world can and will continue to run as normal. After that…”
“What?”
“Well, Chaos will gorge on Ashwood’s souls until there are none left. When this place is good and dry, he will need to move on to a new city.”
“You can see why that’s a bullshit proposition, right?”
“I don’t think that it is. You see, if you let this happen without a fight, you will be known as the person who made this all possible. My father will make your life incredibly comfortable, if that’s what you want.”
“Wasted breath.”
“Is it?”
“I’m never going to agree to anything like this, and if you think that I would, you don’t know me very well.”
“That’s a shame, but I guess it doesn’t really matter whether you accept or not.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because whatever you decide, I’ve still managed to keep you talking long enough for that to happen.”
Nyx threw her thumb over her shoulder and pointed at Cora, who was standing with her face up to the sky, her mouth open, and her arms outstretched. Tresses of violet smoke were rising out of her eyes and mouth, floating into the path of the powerful jet stream which seemed to carry the glittering smoke into the sky.
She’s dying, Alice thought, and her body shifted as if to try and help, but Nyx put her hand up in front of Alice and stopped her from going any further.
“Think about what you’re going to do next, Alice,” Nyx said. “She betrayed your trust, tried to sell you out, and you’re going to save her? Why? Why waste your energy?”
She was right. All it had taken was that moment of inaction, as Alice’s attention went from Nyx to Cora, for her to decide on whether or not she would risk her own life, and her one shot at catching Nyx off-guard, to try and save Cora. She had been too good to be true, hadn’t she? All the things she had said had been lies. All those times she had hung around Alice, it had all been reconnaissance. She had been reporting everything back to Nyx, and was operating on inside knowledge—that was why she knew exactly where the surgeon was that night, and why she knew Nyx would be at the construction site. It wasn’t some obscure power Alice had yet to learn.
Why should Alice risk her own life, and the lives of everyone in Ashwood, to save Cora? Because if I don’t try, and Cora dies, then Chaos comes, Alice thought.
“Fine,” Alice said, “Do what you want with her.”
Nyx cocked her head and turned her eyes down at Alice. “Really?” she asked. “Well, I didn’t think you’d give up quite that easily, but I’
m happy for it.”
Alice slipped Trapper off her neck and looked at the little plastic box with a fond smile on her face. “I guess I won’t be needing this, then, seeing as it’s useless against you. And maybe I’ll take you up on the human thing.”
Nyx’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “I’m not buying it.”
“You don’t have to. All you have to do is catch.”
Alice flipped Trapper toward Nyx’s face, counting on the most basic of human instincts to kick in and afford her a single instant to act. She was right. Nyx’s hands jerked up to snatch the camera before it could hit her face. She may have known she couldn’t die, but her body sure didn’t. Seizing the initiative, Alice bull-rushed Nyx, charging into her midsection and toppling her to the floor.
“Now!” Alice said, and Silver sprang out of the shadows with his sword drawn.
He directed his left hand at Cora and blasted her with enough Void magic to send her sprawling to the floor, dazed but slowly becoming able to act of her own free will. Nyx stared up at Alice, barred her teeth like a wild dog, and pushed Alice up and off her body with the strength of ten men. Alice didn’t just roll off of Nyx; she flew several feet into the air and came to a rolling stop only after hitting one of the antenna’s legs.
She turned her head up to look at Nyx and saw that she had gotten to her feet and was closing in on Silver.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Silver said, as he and Nyx circled each other like gladiators in an arena.
“Ah,” Nyx said, “So this is where Bazor went. I must say, we’ve missed his Glasgow smile.”
“Enough talk,” Silver said, and he lunged, his sword swinging in a powerful downward arc.
Nyx’s arms began crackling with power, but rather than block the sword’s attack, she dodged out of its path and stepped away from Silver. He went in for another attack, and Nyx jumped back just far enough to avoid the swing of the blade. Lightning lit the sky and thunder rolled angrily above. Silver frowned, and a battle shout erupted from his throat as he charged in with the sword for a flurry of attacks. Nyx moved like she was made of water, always able to stay one step ahead of the blade but never striking back.
Why isn’t she attacking? Alice thought, and then it hit her; Nyx was focusing entirely on not getting struck with the sword. To attack Silver was to invite an opportunity for him to strike her with the sword. The way Nyx was looking at it with such concentration, ensuring to stay the hell away from its arc, could it be that she was scared of it? And why wasn’t she using magic on him?
Silver’s flurry of attacks pushed Nyx back onto the podium on which she had been standing, beneath the antennae. Alice got back on her feet and started to run toward them, her hands now glowing with stolen power, her body charged and adrenalized to the point where the world around her seemed to slowed down to a crawl.
Nyx’s movements were slow but deliberate, Silver’s were powerful but reckless—but there was something else now, too. It was Cora; she was running into the combat.
“No!” she screamed, and she threw herself at Silver, causing him to topple to the floor and the sword to fly out of his hand and go clattering across the podium. “There,” she said to Nyx, panting and out of breath, “Now you can kill him and give me what you promised me.”
Alice sped up, her heart pounding in her head. She saw Nyx’s eyes lock with hers. A wicked, satisfied grin manifested on her face, but instead of plunging her power into Silver, who now lay defenseless on his back, she turned her attention Cora, grabbed her by the neck, and pressed two fingers into her forehead.
“You… die first…” Nyx said, and her fingertips lit up in a bright, violet flash. An instant later, Cora’s body exploded into a cloud of shimmering dust. Nyx smiled and followed the ribbons of light, which were Cora’s life force, as they floated into the sky surrounded by tresses of sparkling dust.
Alice didn’t stop running. She saw the sword, grabbed it in her stride, and raced toward Nyx, who was too busy exulting in what she had just done—what she had just accomplished—to care that Alice was coming. If Alice had been thinking, she would have considered not playing into Nyx’s waiting arms, but she wasn’t thinking. She had the sword in her hand, Nyx’s soft, pink throat was exposed, and with one decisive thrust, Alice introduced them to each other.
The sword went in through the side of Nyx’s neck like a hot knife through butter. Nyx gargled on her own blood, but the smile and those wide eyes of hers remained fixed on her face. Alice pulled the sword out and Nyx toppled to the floor, bleeding and convulsing. The Xiphos sword began to glow with soft, blue light to match the glow emanating from Alice’s hands. The sky grumbled and groaned. Alice looked up into the eye of the storm in time to see arcs of purple lightning shooting across it in quick, violent bursts.
Silver picked himself up.
“Holy shit,” he said. “She’s dead. They’re both dead.”
Alice watched as the last tresses of glimmering soul-smoke rose and were absorbed into the sky. “Dammit,” Alice said, and she looked down at Nyx in time to see a ribbon of glimmering, purple and blue light spilling out of her open throat. She didn’t have to be told what that was.
“What’s that?” Silver asked.
“That’s Nyx,” Alice said, and she dropped the sword, reached for the ribbon of light and grabbed it. The soul was cold and struggled to release itself, but Alice clamped her hands around it even more tightly and wrestled it until it was under her control.
“What are you going to do with it?” Silver asked.
“I’m giving her what she always wanted.”
Alice opened her mouth and guided the soul into it. She could feel the resistance even as her body pulled Nyx’s essence inside of itself, but the creature Nyx had created was too powerful for her in her current state. When the ribbon of light disappeared beyond her lips, Alice closed her mouth, doubled over, and dropped to her knees. She shook for a moment as her body absorbed the foreign essence it had consumed, but a moment was all it took.
In the back of her mind she could hear a distant voice… and it was humming.
CHAPTER 30
Wave of Shadow
“Alice,” Silver said. He shook her shoulders. “Alice!”
Alice opened her eyes and looked up at him. The world was spinning, and she thought she could see a light aura manifesting above the crown of his head—a shimmering halo of blue light streaked through with silver ribbons. She smiled dreamily, mesmerized by the swirling colors.
“You’ve gotta snap the hell out of it, Alice. It’s happening, you hear me? Chaos is coming!”
“What? Where is it?”
“Dammit. Wake up, Alice!”
A loud explosion almost indistinguishable from the crash of thunder rang out close to where Alice was kneeling. The force of the blast rocked the rooftop and sent her and Silver sprawling to the floor, but the impact knocked her mind back into the present, allowing her normal cognitive functions to kick in again. Like a hard reboot. She shook her head and stared into the flashing sparks of light strobing out from the center point of the explosion—a tear in the fabric of reality.
The tear widened, and widened, and then imploded, leaving a cloud of purple smoke and a cold wind blowing out from where the source had been. When the smoke cleared, Alice saw Isaac, Jim, and Cameron standing there on the podium. Her chest warmed at the sight, even if they—much like the cavalry in just about every action movie she had ever seen—were too late to help with Nyx.
“There,” Cameron said, and he led the other two men to where Alice and Silver lay.
Isaac reached for Alice’s hand and helped her up.
“I killed her… I killed Nyx.”
“You… did?”
Alice nodded. “But she did what she needed to do. Look.”
Isaac turned his head up toward the sky and his face darkened.
“We need to do something,” Silver asked.
Isaac turned to look at Jim and Cameron, the
n directed himself toward Alice again. “Where is Nyx?” he asked. “Her body is there, but where is the essence?”
Alice pointed at her chest. “In here,” she said, “With me.”
“You absorbed her?”
“I had to. She would have just found a way back, or worse—someone else to inhabit.”
“Do you have any idea what eating her essence might do to you?”
“None, but I didn’t have a choice, and I don’t want a lecture. We need to figure out how to stop this storm, and we need to do it fast.”
Isaac turned his head up toward the eye of the storm again. He then looked at Jim, Silver, and back to Alice. “I think I have an idea.”
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“When you used Trapper on Nyx, you stole a portion of her energy and stored it in this Polaroid. We were then able to use the energy in the Polaroid to ignore the effects of the storm and get here—to you. The energy in this picture gave my power a boost, and broke right through the interference caused by the Void storm. If you consumed all of Nyx’s energy…”
“You can use me to shut down the storm,” Alice said.
“It’s possible.”
“Then you have to do it.”
“Now hold on,” Jim said, “We have no idea what that thing wriggling around inside of you is going to do to your internals. That could be a ticking time bomb you’re carrying—one we could set off if we aren’t careful.”
“What’s the alternative?” Alice asked. “If we don’t try something, Chaos comes, and all of this was for nothing.”
“What are we even suggesting here?” Cameron asked, “I feel like I missed something.”
“I had an idea to kill the storm,” Isaac said, “I would send my magic through her and repair the shield protecting our world from the Void, but it didn’t work.”
“What’s your new idea?”
“It isn’t a new idea. I tried this once and it didn’t work. I wasn’t strong enough. But if the four of us channel our magic through Alice and into the Void itself, and push Chaos back with all the might of the Tempest…”
“You want to use her as a lightning rod?” Jim asked.