They both turn around.
“The park?” Cobb asks.
Maya and I spent two full days exploring the park and its variety of tourist-friendly locals. Twice the size of New York’s Central Park, the thirteen-hundred-acre City Park is a massive collection of park greens, willow and oak trees, two stadiums, botanical gardens, an art museum, Storyland for the kids, a lake, several golf courses, and more, all featuring New Orleans’s telltale old-world style mixed with hints of bayou. In the mirror dimension, it’s populated by one single structure.
The colony.
47.
The structure is massive, resembling a half-sized black and gray version of Australia’s Ayers Rock—Uluru to the natives—an 1,100-foot-tall, six-mile-circumference sandstone formation. While Uluru rises from the flat plains of the bush, the colony is partially concealed by the tree-laden swamp, but it still manages to tower above it all. While looking at the closer, smaller colonies, I’d missed the one looming over them all, so big that it could be mistaken for landscape. I hadn’t seen it before because the cemeteries and smaller colonies kept my eyes on the right side of the road.
Several of the large six-winged centipede Dread lazily circle the perimeter above the colony. A few mothmen, just distant specks, flit about, entering and leaving the colony via one of many tunnels hewn in the outer wall. The base of the structure is hidden from me by the vast swampy jungle that is the mirror world.
I slip my vision back into the real world. Instead of the colony, I see a straight road leading to the New Orleans Museum of Art, which, with its Roman-style columns, looks like it would be more at home in Washington, D.C. Three colorful banners hang behind the columns like an afterthought, added when someone realized the parliamentesque style of the exterior didn’t scream, “art.” Beyond the museum is the park: endless trees with hints of buildings hidden within. I shiver at the idea that all the people using this park, to play with their children, watch a game, or experience a little culture, are surrounded by Dread, unknowingly moving through the heart of a colony. Of course, this also explains the many reports of hauntings within the park, and probably accounts for the prevalence of black magic, voodoo, and New Orleans’s dark history.
“Are you okay?” Cobb asks, helping me to my feet.
I take stock of my body, paying attention to aches and pains, and find … nothing. “I’m … fine.”
He shakes his head, unbelieving. “Don’t be macho.” He reaches for my head, pulls me down to inspect the fresh stitches. “What the … this was a good gash, right?”
I never saw it, but remember the tree branch cracking against the top of my head. “Allenby stitched it?”
“But there’s no wound,” he says. “There’s just a line of stitches. Lift your shirt.”
I comply and am surprised when Cobb flinches away from me. “Holy shit.”
I don’t look. I can’t. “I’m still changing, right? Becoming like them?”
He shakes his head. “You look … normal. Better than normal.” He motions for me to look, and I do. My body is healed. No cuts. No scrapes. No scabs. And the vast amount of bruising covering my torso is gone. I might not look like a Dread, but this kind of healing must come from them. And now that I’m thinking about it, I feel stronger and more energized than I can remember feeling ever before.
“So, I guess that’s good news,” he says, then changes topics, perhaps sensing my discomfort. “What did you see?”
“You don’t want to know.” I head for the back of the SUV, pop the back door, and open my gear bag.
Before I can dig inside, Blair steps up next to me, holding out a smartphone. “Still nothing on the local tracking app, but—”
The phone chimes. We all flinch.
“It’s got a signal,” Blair says, as I take the device.
A map of New Orleans centered on my location is displayed on the phone. A blue dot reveals my position just before the bridge. Using my thumb to move the map, I scroll upward. A red dot appears, dead center in the park, on the north end of Scout Island, surrounded by Couturie Forest, the only swath of forested bayou to be found in the city. On the plus side, she’s not far. Not so much on the plus side, it’s going to be a slog reaching her, in either dimension. Despite the good news of locating Maya, something confuses me. “This is more than a half mile away.”
Blair looks at the screen without taking it from me. “It’s a GPS signal. She’s in our frequency again.”
Why? I think. What’s the point in bringing her back and forth between frequencies? The answer is obvious. “They’re luring us in.”
“Us?” Cobb says, sounding as worried as I feel. None of us wants to walk into a trap.
“Lyons,” I say, hoping I’m right. “They don’t just know he’s coming; they want him, too.”
A sudden chill runs over my arms. The hair stands on end.
“Do you feel that?” Cobb asks.
I don’t answer.
I can’t.
The Dread are near, and some unlocked primal part of my mind says that if I acknowledge their presence, they’ll acknowledge mine in a horrible way. It turns out, that is their intention, regardless of my actions.
“Ah!” Blair shouts. He’s by the driver’s-side door, looking about for something that isn’t there, or at least can’t be seen. I haven’t shifted my vision yet, but I know we’re not alone.
Suddenly, Blair starts scratching at his face, like someone’s just dumped a bucket of spiders over him. He shouts and hops, his cries warbling. For a moment, I’m paralyzed as fear spilling over from Blair takes hold. He screams, and it feels like a lightning bolt has struck my chest.
I hate fear. Even more than the Dread, it is my enemy.
“What do we do to our enemies?” The voice belongs to a drill sergeant, his words returning as a fresh memory.
“Kill them,” I respond, both in memory and in the present. “Fucking kill them.”
I step around the side of the SUV, weapons forgotten, fists clenched, but am stopped by Blair. He levels a shaking handgun toward my chest. I nearly retreat but manage to stand my ground. A subtle shift in the frequency of my vision reveals Blair’s company. A Medusa-hands has its tendrils buried deep in his head while a mothman hovers above, whispering waves of fear into the man, the little limbs lining its abdomen shaking frantically. It’s a lethal combination, and for a moment, I think it’s directed toward me. But it’s not.
“Don’t let … them … win.” They’re Blair’s last words before he turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger.
The sharp report of the handgun and sight of this brave man’s brains bursting out of his skull both increase my fear and galvanize my course of action. With a scream, I charge, lunging at the Medusa-hands as it retracts its tendrils from Blair’s head.
Halfway to the creature, I realize I probably should have taken a weapon. But it’s too late now. I’m committed. And I’m not exactly defenseless.
I leap into the air, painlessly shift my body between frequencies to the world between—which I note is a mix of Dread world trees and New Orleans city—cock my fist back, and drive it into the bottom of the thing’s triangular head, impacting the yellow vein-covered flesh beneath two of its four eyes. The impact is solid. The monster flails away, sliding smoothly at first but then stumbling and falling. As it falls, the black shroud covering its lower limbs falls aside, revealing at least twenty thin, triple-jointed legs, all ending in sharp barbs.
If the Medusa-hands were alone, there might be time to rush back and grab a gun or knife, but it’s not alone, and there isn’t time. Before I can even think about what to do next, a wave of fear tears through me, scouring away my fragile emotional defenses the way a nuclear blast would remove my skin.
But I stand against it. Maybe it’s the rage, or the part of me that’s becoming more Dread, but the fear, while powerful, doesn’t completely undo me. It does, however, freeze me in place, all my energy going toward overcoming the effect.
A memo
ry surfaces. My first kiss with Maya. In the rain. Like some Hollywood cliché except soaking wet, cold, and out of our heads in love. I scream, but not in fear. A vibration moves through my body, curbing the effect of the Dread’s influence. When my mind clears enough, I turn my eyes up toward the mothman. It’s ten feet away, four wings beating, hovering beyond the reach of my physical body. Its four red eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. I’m not sure the things can even blink, but this slight expression of emotion, of doubt, in the monster’s split-pupil eyes is the last bit of encouragement I need.
I stand on shaking legs. Feels like I’m lifting a bulldozer. But the harder I fight, the less the weight, until suddenly I’m free. Like a snapped elastic band, the wave of fear generated by the mothman pulls back, the whisper cut short, pursued by an attack of my own. My body buzzes with energy, static whispering-roaring. And the Dread … it arches back and clutches its head. The furiously beating wings go rigid and the monster plunges from the sky, landing in a heap. The pain of pushing fear is gone, replaced by a sense of power.
I slip back into the real world for a moment to check on Cobb.
He gasps at my return, clutching the side of the SUV, Faithful in hand. But rather than take the weapon from him, I decide to enable his recovery from the fear effect. “Cobb, I’m going to bring one of them to you! Get ready for a fight!”
“What?” he shouts in what I now easily recognize as terror.
I slip back into the world between and bend over the recovering mothman, grasping its arm, which is covered in short, thick hairs. I pull it up, lean back hard, and propel the thing toward the side of the SUV. Before letting go, I force it into our reality and slam it into the vehicle. It crashes against the door and falls to its hands and knees.
Cobb shouts in surprise, jumping back, but quickly realizes the monster isn’t affecting him. With a battle cry, Cobb raises the machete into the air.
I don’t watch it come down. Back in the world between, the Medusa-hands is back on its many feet, scrabbling toward me over pavement, tendrils stretching for my head. There’s no avoiding it—by conventional means. I slip fully out of the world between and dive forward, passing through the Dread’s location. I feel a chill through my body, but nothing more. I roll to my feet just as I reenter the world between, coming up behind the not-so-spry Dread.
I sweep its legs out, snapping some of them. The Dread retreats fully to the mirror world before hitting the ground, and I follow it. The thing lands with a splash, much of it now underwater. I jump on its chest, which feels like thin skin wrapped over bony nodules, and stare into its yellow eyes, seething with anger.
Tendrils snake out of the water, glowing yellow, eager to influence my thoughts. I don’t give it the chance. A burst of fear, sent into the thing’s core, makes it shake. The four eyes widen, just a touch, the rectangular pupils narrowing.
Armed only with my bare hands, I flicker out of the mirror dimension, punch downward into empty space, and then reappear atop the Dread. My fist has occupied the space at the center of the Medusa-hands’s head, shifting matter, destroying stationary matter. I splay my fingers out, further shredding the Dread’s brain. The monster spasms and falls still.
Then I’m back in the real world, no trace of gore coming with me. That is, until I turn around. Bloodred gore, glowing and inhuman, covers the street. The mothman lies beside the SUV, hacked to pieces. Cobb stands there, breathing hard, Faithful in hand.
“Feel better?” I ask him.
“Much,” he says.
I push the mothman parts back into the mirror dimension. I don’t think seeing a dead bogeyman lying in the streets of New Orleans would do anyone any good. When I’m done, I turn my attention to Blair. He’s definitely dead. I place my hand on his chest, offer up a prayer for his soul, and hide his body beneath the waters of the Dread world swamp.
“We can come back for him if we survive this,” I tell Cobb, upon seeing his surprised look.
I take one last peek into the mirror world, watching the colony and the air around us. There are no reinforcements en route. The two Dread must have stumbled across us, perhaps having recognized the significance of a vehicle made of oscillium. I heard no whispering communications, so they must have acted without instruction and without calling for help.
With the bodies taken care of, I have Cobb drive back toward the art museum and pull over. Checking to make sure we’re alone in both dimensions, I head for the back of the SUV, gear up, and then approach Cobb, who is sitting behind the wheel. He rolls down the oscillium-tinted window. “Don’t get out of the car. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. Better yet, pretend you’re asleep. You’re not going to feel the Dread unless they make physical contact with the car, so don’t assume they’re not around just because you can’t feel them.”
He nods. “I’ll be ready when you need me.”
“Cobb … thanks. For everything. You’ve done more than anyone could have asked.”
“Protecting life is my business,” he says, and I realize that in many ways, Cobb is my antithesis, not just physically but professionally. Where I once took life for a living, he saves lives. And I’ve learned a lot from him, about facing fears, about honor and trust. He’s a better man than me. Unfortunately, I’m not yet done taking lives, and that probably means that Cobb isn’t going to get a break from saving them.
“Besides,” he says, “helping you has been the most important thing I’ve ever done. No matter who you used to be, I know who you are now, and am glad you took me captive.”
I smile. “I did give you beer.”
He nods. “You were a conscientious captor.”
I pat the door twice and step away. “Stay safe.”
The window begins rising up. “I’ll be here when you need me.”
I give a wave and step off the road. The slap of my boots on the sidewalk picks up speed as I jog, then fall silent as I move to the grass, hoping no one spots the armored man with two handguns, an assault rifle, two trench knives, and a machete, about to wage a one-man war.
48.
The distance from our parking spot in front of the art museum and the edge of Couturie Forest is nearly two miles if you follow the roads. I reduce the distance a little bit by cutting through patches of woodlands, but there is no avoiding the several bridges along the way, not without going for a swim. The trip takes me fifteen minutes, all of it spent in the real world, visually monitoring nonhuman frequencies. Each passing minute weighs on me, drawing my eyes to my watch again and again, watching the timer tick down to ninety minutes. So far, I seem to be moving unnoticed. The colony is either not afraid of being attacked, has defenses I can’t see, or is too busy elsewhere. Possibly all of the above.
I stop at the edge of the forest, hiding in the foliage at the center of a roundabout, the last real road I’ll see once I enter the trees on the other side of the street. But before I do …
I take out the phone and, with a swipe of my finger, open the tracking app. Maya’s position hasn’t moved. She’s definitely inside the colony, smack-dab at the middle but still registering on the GPS, still in this world. Or maybe it’s just the tracking device. They could have taken it out of her. I slip into the mirror world and watch the signal disapear. I nearly drop the phone in the foot-deep water when someone speaks behind me.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The voice is distorted, gravelly, and deep.
Hair on the back of my neck stands tall. The Dread can speak?
“Turn around,” says the voice. “Slow.”
I comply, hands out to my sides.
I’m expecting a bull to lunge or tendrils to stab into my head, but the figure behind me, while all black, is human. The oscillium armor matches mine, but the man’s head is covered by a mask and he’s wearing the round goggles that allow humans to see the Dread, which is generally a very bad idea. He’s pointing a sound-suppressed handgun at my chest, shaking slightly.
“The hell are you do
ing here, Crazy?”
While I’m glad he’s not Dread, the gun at my chest makes me nervous. I have a hundred memories of situations far worse than this. In them, I’m cool, collected, and thinking about solutions, most of which are absolutely nuts. Now, I’m having trouble looking away from the weapon’s barrel.
“Who am I talking to?” I ask.
The man tugs his mask up with one hand.
Katzman. And he looks even more nervous and squirrelly than me. So much so that I ask, “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he says, his head twitching. “It’s the drugs.”
I nearly ask, but then remember BDO, the mix of benzodiazepine, dextroamphetamine, and OxyContin. Makes the user feel invincible, even in the face of the Dread. That’s when I realize something startling: Katzman is in the mirror dimension. He’s got split pupils just like me.
He sees the surprise in my own Dread eyes and explains. “All of Dread Squad can move between worlds.”
“How long have—”
“A year. We’ve been training for D-day ever since.”
A year … I think, but ask, “D-day?”
“Dread-day. You were supposed to lead this little party, but last I heard, you had lost your marbles, which makes me wonder, why are you here?”
“You mean, why am I not dead along with Winters?”
He’s genuinely startled by this news. They had, after all, been his colleagues. Maybe even friends. “What?”
“Lyons had her killed. They tried to get Allenby, too.”
“Bullshit.”
“Right after they restored my memory.” Speaking of which, I have a few memories of Katzman. There was a time when he served as my second in command. Dread Squad had been my idea. “You were already on your way here.”
He doesn’t argue the point. The timing fits.
“I don’t blame you,” I say, letting him know I’m not here for personal vengeance. I hold up the phone, allowing him to see the tracking app. Since we’re in the mirror world, there is currently no signal, but it’s still a useful visual aid. “Maya is here.”
MirrorWorld Page 30