by N. P. Martin
"Welcome to Crystal Mountain," Moira said with more than a note of bitter sarcasm. "The place of dreams."
"Or in your case, Moira…welcome back," Charlotte said, now walking beside us. "I’m sure LeBron will be pleased to see you again."
I snapped my head around to look at Moira. "You know LeBron?" I asked. "You told me you’d never met him."
Moira closed her eyes for a second before looking away. "It’s complicated…I’m sorry…"
Charlotte sniggered. "What, she didn’t tell you she used be one of LeBron’s playthings? His favorite by all accounts."
"See!" Max practically screamed inside me. "I told you, Creed, didn’t I? You couldn’t trust her!"
"Christ, relax Max, will you? Who gives a fuck if she used to…do whatever with LeBron? She helped, didn’t she?"
"What the fuck has she done, Creed?" Max said. "Tell me! How has she helped us exactly? We could’ve easily got here by ourselves, and you know it."
For once, Max wasn’t wrong. All Moira had really done was tag along. I could’ve walked here and got captured all by myself. Still, I couldn’t deny her heart seemed to be in the right place, even if her desire to leave the Gray Land’s made her overplay her hand a little. She could still be useful inside this place.
"I say we kill her," Max said. "Better yet, I’ll kill her."
"No one’s killing anybody," I said. "At least not her."
"I see what’s going on here. I know you inside and out, Creed. You have a soft spot for this bitch. In fact, you have a history of having soft spots for bitches that don’t deserve it."
"Hold on a—"
Charlotte pushed me forward, cutting short my rebuttal to Max. "Keep moving, Mr. Technicolor," she said, directing me towards a long tunnel off to the right, that seemed carpeted with trippers.
"This place feels like a giant crack house," I said as I started down the wide tunnel, Moira no longer walking by my side, but behind me.
"That’s a very astute observation," Charlotte said. "It is kinda like that. But it’s also much more."
"More?" I said stepping through the mass of bodies on the floor, noticing the doors made of iron set into the walls in places, and wondering where the doors led to.
"Much more. Not that you need to worry about that."
"And why’s that?"
Charlotte stepped in front of me, blocking my path and bringing me to a stop next to one of the iron doors. "Where you’ll most likely end up, you won’t be seeing or doing very much, at least not in this world."
I frowned and nodded as if her threats didn’t concern me, and then smiled at her. "There’s something you should know about me," I said.
Charlotte raised her once blonde eyebrows and cocked her head like she was mightily interested in what I was going to say next. "Oh yeah, Mr. Technicolor? And what’s that?"
I leaned toward her slightly. "I have a way of getting out of these things, and bringing the house down along with me. It’s a special skill that I have."
Charlotte snorted and shook her head, though I could tell she was shaken slightly by the conviction behind my words. "Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?"
"I guess we will."
"In the meantime, though…" She turned and pulled opened the door we were standing beside. "You need to go in there."
I glanced quickly inside the room and saw nothing much in it. "It doesn’t look very inviting. What if I refuse?"
"For fuck’s sake, Creed," Max said. "We could kill this bitch and all these other docile bastards lying around. What are we waiting for?"
"Not yet, Max. There are too many of them. We’re playing the long game here…"
"You and you’re fucking long games," Max all but screamed. "Throw caution to the wind for once…take a fucking chance!"
I tried not to look irritated by Max’s childish behavior as I continued to stare at Charlotte.
"There are many here who would drain you dry in seconds," Charlotte said. "If I tell them to." She placed a hand on my chest, and I felt an immediate pull inside as a tiny strand of my soul energy was stolen by her. "Hell, I could do it myself right now. In seconds, it would be like you never existed."
"But you wouldn’t, would you?" I retorted. "I don’t think your boss would be very happy if you siphoned me off by yourself. I’d say he’d be pissed."
Charlotte shook her head dismissively. "You think because you are a living soul that you are special?"
"Well, yes…"
She laughed. "No, you are not. Or at least, you won’t be…"
I frowned. "What does that mean?"
"You’ll find out soon enough, Mr. Technicolor," she said. "Now get inside before I cut you. Pain is as real here as it is on Earth."
She held up the machete as she glared at me. Giving her a look back, I walked inside the room, with Moira being pushed in behind me. Then the heavy door was shut and locked.
Max laughed. "Congratulations, Creed," he said. "You have now landed us back in jail. Fantastic job."
"Shut the fuck up, Max!" I barked out loud. "It won’t be for long."
"I think you said that the last time as well…"
"I got out, didn’t I?"
"Yes, and now you’re here, aren’t you?"
I sighed. "I’m not talking to you anymore."
Moira was standing in the corner of the dimly lit room, her arms folded as she refused to look at me. "All right," I said to her. "Start talking…"
She shook her head in anger. "About what?" she snapped. "About the fact that I used to be one of LeBron’s whores because it was a way to get free trips? About the fact that he enjoyed doing despicable things to me, and that I let him? Or about the fact that he gave me magic so I could be with my son inside some fantasy trip where my son always died at the end?"
Moira’s gray eyes glared at me as they filled with tears. "You’ve upset the bitch," Max said. "Just break her neck now and get it over with."
"All right," I said to Moira, backing off slightly. "It just feels like you’ve been lying to me this whole time. Although now I can see why."
Saying nothing, Moira sat on the dirty floor with her back against the wall.
"At least ask the stupid bitch if she knows where your family is," Max said. "She must know, given how familiar she is with this place."
"Do you know where my family is being held?" I asked her.
She shook her head. "If they are here at all, they are most likely in the Draining Chamber, if they aren’t like all the other trippers here."
"The Draining Chamber? What’s that?"
"The place where LeBron keeps his captured souls so he can slowly drain them of their soul energy." A sigh left her. "He does it slowly, allowing the energy of the individual to replenish, before draining them again. That way, he has a constant supply."
The thought of my family being drained of their soul energy didn’t sit well with me. "You know where this Draining Chamber is?"
"Of course, but we’re locked up in here, in case you didn’t notice."
"Not for much longer," I said going to the door.
"Even if you get the door open, there will still be people outside to stop you."
"Let them try."
"That’s the spirit, Creed," Max said. "Let’s get out there and show that grayed-out filth what real violence is."
I said nothing as I held my hand over the lock in the door, my anger helping to focus my weak magic on unlocking it. It took a fair bit longer to move the lock than it would have done had my magic been at full strength, but I got there in the end, and the lock finally turned with a heavy click. "Let’s go," I said to Moira with my hand on the door handle.
Moira got to her feet, but she didn’t move toward me. "What about LeBron’s people? There are too many of them…"
"Wrong," I said, my face setting into a determined scowl. "There’s not enough of them."
Pressing down the handle, I opened the door and stepped outside.
24
Making A Break For It
I may have mentioned before that I am not a fighter. That’s not strictly true. Under ordinary circumstances, I have nothing to prove. I’m not one of these guys that constantly has to brow beat people, or beat the shit out of them in order to prove my superiority over them. There are usually better, smarter ways to handle a confrontation, or to make a fool of someone.
But the circumstances I was in now were far from ordinary. I was stuck in a colorless, depressing land, surrounded by the souls of the dead. My family were most likely being drained of their soul energy as we speak, and I had a demon inside me that didn’t know how to shut the fuck up. On top of that, I was missing Leona, and I was also tired of fucking predators taking advantage of the ones I loved.
Needless to say, I was pissed as hell. Even at less than half of my magical strength, I was going to show these dead motherfuckers what a sorcerer scorned really looked like.
I started with the first person who approached me when I walked out of the prison cell. Some burly guard with a long knife strapped to his leg. Before the guard could even reach for his knife, I shot him with a blast of magic that sent him flying back into the wall, knocking him unconscious in the process. I stared down at my hand for a second, slightly shocked by the power of the magic blast.
"Your anger is fueling your magic, Creed," Max said, sounding like he was enjoying every second of me going psycho. "Use it! Lay waste to these cretins!"
Max’s words, which normally would have annoyed me with their blatant encouragement to do harm, spurred me on this time. My anger soon turned to fury as more grayed-out motherfuckers came running at me. Encouraged by the strength of the last magic blast, I sent another down the tunnel. The blast caught one guy in the chest, forcing him back so hard he knocked over half a dozen other people like skittles.
Behind me, I sensed someone approaching, and when I turned, I saw a woman charging at me with a knife, a look of feral aggression on her gray face. I still wasn’t sure if these people were intending to kill me or just bring me down, but it didn’t matter to me either way. As the woman thrust her blade at my belly, I slid quickly to the side and punched her hard in the skull, sending her veering away from me. Then I finished her with a kick to the chest that sent her slamming into the wall, where she dropped the knife and slid to the floor.
When I turned, I saw Moira standing next to me, both her swords out. "You’re a crazy motherfucker, you know that?" she said.
"Crazy is what we need right now," I said, my eyes wide as I looked around. "Which way?"
Moira pointed down the tunnel toward the front entry. "That way. We have to get to the top of the mountain. That’s where the Draining Chamber is."
"And LeBron?"
"He’s up there to."
We didn’t get a chance to say much else, as more people came charging at us. I was about to use my magic again when I felt the all too familiar sensation of losing control of my body, as Max took it upon himself to take me over. "I can’t let you have all the fun, now can I?" he said.
"Fuck it," I said, knowing there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. "Whatever. Knock yourself out."
"With pleasure."
As the group of Grays were almost upon us, Max thrust out his hand and grabbed the man in the lead by the throat, picking him up off the ground and tossing him hard against the wall. The others hesitated, but then kept coming, albeit more cautiously. Max, however, gave not one fuck for their caution, and charged at them like a madman, roaring as he went in a voice so deep I could hardly believe it was coming from my throat. From there, he started grabbing those nearest to him so he could tear off their limbs like a child who had become bored with a raggedy old doll. He punched one man so hard in the face that his fist came out the back of the man’s skull. He gouged out the eyes of someone else, tore the balls off another, shoving said balls into the mouth of another, before biting the person’s nose off and spitting that at someone else.
It didn’t take long for the Gray’s to start backing off out of sheer terror, and I didn’t blame them. Even if they couldn’t really die, and always came back from whatever "death" they experienced here, being torn apart by a raging man-demon probably wasn’t high on their list of most pleasurable experiences. So they ran screaming in fear. Even some of the trippers lying around were woken out of their alternative realities by all the commotion and violence taking place around them. Most of the awakened trippers snapped their eyes shut again when they saw what was going on. Those who dared to keep theirs open looked like someone who was, well…having a bad trip.
"Nice job, Max," I said. "Now hand over the keys."
"I don’t think so," Max said aloud. "I’m not done yet. I’m just getting started, in fact…"
"Max, come on! Our priority is to get upstairs, not to cause as much bloodshed as possible."
"We can do both."
"Goddamn it…"
"You all right, Creed?" Moira asked me.
"Creed is fine," Max told her. "You have me for the time being…"
Moira drew back as she realized who she was talking to. "Where’s Creed?"
"In the back." Max gave her a sneering look. "Don’t worry…I won’t bite you…yet."
"Leave her alone, Max!" I shouted. "Just fucking move forward."
Max was about to do so when he caught sight of Charlotte standing at the end of the tunnel. In her hand was a staff with a glowing ball of whitish energy on the end. "I suggest you get back in your cell," she shouted. "Or I’m going to have to put you back in. That means you too, Moira."
"Who does this bitch she think she is?" Max said dismissively as he began to walk toward her.
"Wait!" Moira shouted.
Max didn’t listen. He kept stomping toward Charlotte.
"Be careful, Max," I said. "I think that’s—"
I never got the chance to finish the sentence before Charlotte shot a blast of energy from the staff she was holding. The sphere of energy moved so fast that even Max had no chance of blocking or avoiding it, so he—that is I—took the full impact of the blast in the chest. Not only did the impact lift me clean off my feet, sending me flying, but it also felt like it had burned a hole right through me.
"She’s all yours," Max said after he had given me control of my body back.
I couldn’t even think of a sarcastic reply, never mind speak one. I was too concerned that I had a massive hole in my chest. When I barely lifted myself up to check, I was relieved to see my chest still intact, despite the tendrils of smoke rising from me.
Charlotte was standing over me, staff in hand. "Didn’t I tell you to get back in your cell? You should’ve listened."
In spite of the pain, my anger didn’t relent. "Screw you…Gandalf."
"I’m going to enjoy killing her," Max said. "I’ll shove that staff right up her pussy until it comes out of her mouth."
"Up you get, asshole," Charlotte ordered, now standing back as she aimed the glowing tip of her staff at me.
"A gift from your boss?" I asked when I was finally able to stand up.
She smirked. "Something like that. I can use it to kill you if I want."
"So why don’t you then?" I said, stepping defiantly toward her.
"Don’t fucking tempt me," she warned.
"She’s bluffing, Creed. She won’t kill us. She’s not allowed to."
"We both know your boss wants me alive," I said, trying to be reasonable now. "Why don’t you just save everybody some trouble and take me to him now?"
"Forget it, asshole. You don’t call the shots around here." She motioned with the staff then. "Get back in your damn cell before I zap you again."
"Zap me? That’s cute." I deliberately smiled at her as I took another step forward. "You know, Charlotte, in your haste to assert your dominance over me, you forgot about one thing."
"Oh yeah? And what’s that?"
"Me!" Moira said as she came up behind Charlotte, stabbing her in the back with one of her
swords.
A look of shock registered on Charlotte’s face as she dropped the staff and looked down at the blade sticking out of her chest, her dark gray blood dripping onto the floor. "No…" she said shaking her head.
"Enjoy forgetting any of this ever happened," I told her just as Moira pulled the sword out of Charlotte’s back. Charlotte then dropped to the ground, seemingly dead.
"Fuck!" Max screamed inside me. "I wanted to do that!"
"Reign yourself in, Max," I told him. "Who cares who killed her? We have a job to do."
I could almost feel him sulking inside me. "Bunch of bloody spoilsports…"
"Whatever."
Moira was staring down at Charlotte’s body. "I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time."
"What exactly will happen to her soul now?" I asked. "How does it work again?"
"I thought we had a job to do," Max said in a childish voice. "There’s no time for you to indulge your inner nerd…"
"You die here in this place, and then you just materialize in the desert like nothing ever happened," Moira said. "You forget you were ever here before. It’s like you just arrived."
"So technically, this might not be your first rodeo here?" I said.
Moira shrugged. "That’s a possibility, I suppose."
"Some souls could’ve been in this place a lot longer than they think," I mused.
"You’re depressing me. Can we go now? I’m surprised we haven’t been surrounded yet."
I frowned as I looked up and down the tunnel. "Good point. Why hasn’t everyone here descended upon us by now? The ones that aren’t tripping anyway."
"It’s LeBron," Moira said. "I know it. He wants us to come to him."
I nodded. "All right then. Let’s give the bastard what he wants."
25
The Draining Chamber
It was a measure of LeBron’s confidence that he allowed Moira and I to make our way up through the labyrinth of passageways that made up his vast mountain lair. There was apparently an elevator that led right to the top of the mountain, but after giving it some thought, I deemed getting inside a reinforced steel box to be too dangerous. It would’ve been too easy for LeBron to trap us inside and do God knows what to us, and I didn’t want to give the bastard that opportunity. So I opted for the scenic route instead. This route would’ve taken much longer if it hadn’t of been for the fact that my magic was still running high from the encounter outside the prison cell. My anger had calmed somewhat, but there was still enough of it left to replenish my magic, at least enough so I could teleport Moira and I almost to the top of the mountain. There were very few people in that part of the lair. Those we did meet along the way generally stood aside to let us pass.