More and more of the dark was separating into tentacles and reaching for Erik and Daya. Elana and Elliot could only distract it so much. Matthias fell flat on the floor to avoid the two tentacles that tried to smash him, evidence his power had no effect on this thing. He let the camouflage drop and rolled to the side as they slammed into the ground where he had been and jumped back to his feet.
“Elana! Over here.”
Matthias rose as she rushed to her twin. She sank into him, they were glowing, and suddenly there was one being where there had been two. They were dressed in a loincloth and nothing else, breasts covered by a large multi-strand necklace with bloody bird wings hanging from it. Each of their four arms carried a weapon. The top pair of arms held a kabutowari and a kama, the bottom pair wielded a kusarigama. They flickered between tangible and in- while Matthias and everyone else but Daya gaped.
Then they moved forward and started to hack at pieces of the darkness which fell to the ground and faded. It was exactly the distraction he needed.
Matthias kept moving. While his power might not work on the mass of darkness, it still had other uses. He moved into the corner that Byron and Brady were in, discussing in low murmurs with the Angelics what was happening in front of them.
“Fascinating, they seem to actually be hurting it.” This from Furred-Blue-Insect. “Though it is most likely because it does not have a proper hold on this realm yet.”
“Yes, but still it is more than we have done.” This from Black-Soap-Bubble.
“It will not work on our side but they may be able to come up with something,” Flaming-Pillar-of-Sand replied.
Matthias moved away, though he desperately wanted to stay and listen to what they had planned, but he now had a plan himself. Furred-Blue-Insect had said that this dark did not have a proper hold on this world yet, so it had to have some sort of anchor and it was wrapped around the damn tree that was feeding it light.
He moved back toward the fight, watching as Erik and Daya heaved the person out of the darkness. They looked fine with surprisingly no burns that he could see. Erik rushed the person over to the door and laid them on the ground gently. He then returned to the battle, grasping tentacles, screaming as they burned him and yet still ripping them apart with his bare hands. Daya was doing the same, her form providing protection; the shadow ripped through her stone skin but she was able to regrow it in seconds and the dark never reached underneath. Tae was staying back, yelling out helpful hints of where the tentacles would strike next.
ElanaElliot was whirling to and fro, slicing through the darkness. As Matthias watched, a tentacle caught them in the back and they screamed in an odd double voice, then flickered in the light as the tentacle moved through their body. Then ElanaElliot was gone and Elliot was curled on the ground weeping, Elana nowhere to be seen. Erik dived for him and pulled him to safety.
Matthias concentrated, the world in front of him fading from bright color to black and white and then finally to heat signatures. The dark was there in its absence, cold, its edges mapped by the warmth around it. Daya was hard to spot, being nearly the same temperature as the air around her. However, Erik and the tree were lit up in bright white, burning hot. He studied the tree and he could see the place where the darkness was linked to it, the place where it fed.
With a silent apology to Erik, he aimed and fired. Erik screamed and the trunk shattered. Unfortunately, the tree was not nearly as absorbent of damage as the darkness. The shot passed right through it as it dissolved and struck one of the two metal and glass staircases, which then shattered into a million pieces. He watched as those pieces shattered further and further until the whole set of stairs was simply gone, no residue on the floor, as if it had never been.
As soon as the trunk shattered, the invader let out a long shriek. Matthias dropped the weapon to cover his ears with his palms. It did nothing. The dark’s scream of pain was not simply sound, but all five senses. His eyes watered, he could taste metal, and his skin was on fire; somewhere he was aware the pain was not his own, but it did not stop him from falling to the ground and crying out as an echo of the dark’s pain ripped through his body.
ERIK
He was ripping a tentacle to shreds, ignoring the burning of his hands and the pain as the dark tried to devour him immediately on contact.
Then his whole body lit up with pain and nausea and again all of his skin seemed to be on fire. He would have vomited again had there been anything in his stomach to throw up. Erik managed to remain standing as the tree shattered.
Whatever kind of weapon Elliot and Matthias were using, he wanted every one destroyed. He could feel the way they cut through the world like butter, the way they broke apart the bonds of creation. It was not natural.
Then the screeching began and Erik was the only one not to fall to his knees. He felt the scream inside his own chest as if a part of him were dying, but it paled to what he’d already felt today. He watched the darkness slowly fade from sight, every piece of it gone so quickly that he almost could believe he had imagined it, if it weren’t for the destruction everywhere he looked and for the body shallowly breathing near the door.
When the dark was completely gone, the screaming stopped. Everyone began to rise from the floor. Erik felt a wave of relief as he saw Matthias rising to his feet, unsteady, but apparently unharmed. Elliot had stopped weeping but was still shaking as Daya helped him up while questioning him about Elana’s whereabouts. He hurried over to the body he’d pulled from the dark. She was young, perhaps midtwenties. Even her clothing—jeans and an iridescent blue-green long sleeve shirt—seemed undamaged. Her black hijab was slightly askew and Erik wanted to fix it but, unsure of her level of devotion, he called Daya over to check on her instead of doing it himself.
Her eyes began to flutter and they opened like a shot.
She screamed and Erik scrambled back, away from her. She screamed again and Erik realized she was looking over his and Daya’s shoulders. When he turned, there was the large white-furred, blue-skinned beetle thing watching them all with both its faces.
“Do you mind?” Erik had not meant to yell so loudly but the adrenaline and fear was still rushing through him, not to mention the throb of pain in his hands and through out his body. It was too late, however, as the woman had fainted again, and who could blame her. Matthias was behind him, already on his b’caster.
“I need a pick-up at Embarcadero Mall, Building Four. A young woman affected by unknown phenomenon, we need to take her in for observation.”
“It would be better if we took her. We are closer after all.”
Everyone turned to stare at Byron and Brady with anger fairly sparking off their skin.
“I don’t fucking think so.” Daya’s power was still on the surface and her skin looked gray, hard, and able to cut easily, exactly like her tone. “You are some pieces of shit. What in the hell did you think you were doing, just hanging out on the side?”
“We have tried our own strengths against it and have seen how they fared. We wanted to see how you did,” Byron said matter-of-factly, as if that would calm their tempers.
“You said you wanted to ally against this. Allies do not keep important secrets that could endanger another ally’s life.” Matthias voice was quieter than Daya’s but no less angry and pointed.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” This time it was Brady. None of the Angelics seemed to want to get involved.
“I’m talking about the fact that you knew that thing was not anchored in our world. You knew it didn’t have a proper hold on this place, which is pretty vital information.”
Erik rose to his feet and nodded behind Matthias. The anger and pain still rode close under his skin and he wanted to take it out on these two, wanted to hear them scream under his hands. They looked at each other and said nothing, which made Erik imagine their throats under his palms.
“Exactly what the hell was that?” Elliot exploded as if he could not keep it inside any longer.
“We do not know. Rest assured that we are working on that question, but we can no longer wait for research; we need action.” The thing made of soap bubbles burped.
“More importantly, how did it get a foothold in this world? If it’s not here yet, how did it make it through?”
“There are portals from your world to ours, many of them, though they tend to cluster. Our city is the mirror of this one; one of the places it swallowed was our mirror of this place, and so it likely flowed through a crack and made its way here.”
Byron stepped forward and tried to put his arms around Erik and Matthias’s shoulders. Both ducked out of his grasp, Matthias all but growling. Byron was undeterred and smiled as he said, “But all is well now. We shall join forces and defeat it together.”
“We’ll have to talk to the Maestres before any such decision is made,” Elana spoke up from behind them. She looked paler than usual, but it was her. Daya rushed over.
“Well of course you do, but Matthias and Erik don’t have to, do they?” He smiled at the two of them. Erik did not like the confidence spread across his face.
“We will still want to discuss things among ourselves.”
“Unfortunately there is no time for that. You’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“Excuse me? I’m sure as hell not going anywhere just because you think I should. It’s not going to happen,” Erik said. Matthias was livid, his olive-toned skin flushing darker and teeth clenched so tightly you could tell through his cheeks.
Suddenly power began to sing through the air. Winds began to whip around them, and Byron and Brady quickly backed away from them and behind the Angelics. Matthias and Elliot were moving toward the doors while Elana floated above, keeping watch in all directions.
“Incoming!”
Three more Suits rushed into the central plaza as the ground began to shake and buck beneath their feet. Erik and Daya kept their feet longer than the others, but it was as if the earth were deliberately trying to buck them off. The ground under the Suits feet was steady as a rock. Matthias managed to squeeze a shot off, even as he fell. He clipped the thing made of sand and fire and the wind died down immediately, while a scream from a thousand throats rose up from the center of the mass, now missing a crescent chunk from its right side.
Erik groaned and bit his lips bloody, to keep from screaming aloud as the world was ripped apart and reformed all around him. He wiped at the wetness on his face, palm coming away red.
The shaking stopped and the two unharmed Angelics froze. The beetle’s fur was rigid and on end and the soap bubble was bubbling frantically, as if boiling. Erik turned to the three Suits. One was floating above the ground, pants legs whipping in a wind only she could feel, the other two looked like twins, both dark haired with chiseled jaws and an S-curl on their forehead.
He dived for the twins, glad to have something to hit, something to relieve this tightness under his skin, this pain that was only slowly fading. Reaching down, he moved the bracelets into place. The twins broke apart and came at him from both sides; he blocked one punch but the other caught him in the temple, turning the world upside down and gray for just a second. He recovered in time to catch a follow-up punch; he broke the fingers with a squeeze and punched him in the jaw, hearing a crack as he connected. The man hit the floor and Erik turned to the other, only to find him gone.
He took in the rest of the fight. Matthias and Elliot simply stood there, weapons trained on the two uninjured Angelics, which stopped them from involving themselves further. As long as they didn’t fire, Erik was fine with that. Their companion lay in a pile on the ground, whirling weakly and making little pathetic screams every few seconds.
Elana was feinting with the flying woman, and despite his clumsy moves Tae had the other twin well in hand, always out of the way of a hit and always at the right place to score one of his own.
“Stop!”
Byron’s voice echoed through the space and apparently the Suits were accustomed to obeying because they froze midmove. Tae, Elana, and Erik had no such compunctions and used the distraction to knock out their respective opponents, though for Elana it was more scaring the woman into Daya’s grasp and letting her take it from there.
“Erik.”
The voice stopped him as nothing else had. He turned to find it and there he was on the balcony above them, Daniel, back against Byron’s front, Byron’s hand wrapped around his throat. His voice was raspy from pressure and fear. He was thinner than when Erik had last seen him, the golden skin of his cheeks sunken. The skin under his eyes was bruised a dark copper.
“We thought you might need some encouragement.”
“What in the hell?” This from Tae who had moved up next to him.
“Help.” This from Daniel, a tear falling down one side of his face.
“Let him go, Byron.” The voice that came from Erik was one he didn’t know. An anger he did not call moved through his body. It felt like when his first rages took him, the ones he had faded into. It felt bigger, and larger than his body. “You have one chance. Believe me, if I have to come up there I will rip you limb from limb.”
The threat was no idle one, he could see himself doing it, one limb at a time, taking that tall, thin man apart piece by piece.
“Probably, but are you willing to risk his life?” Byron squeezed a little tighter and Erik saw Daniel’s eyes bug a little even as his mouth opened to gasp for air. “If I were you I would tell your compatriots to put their weapons down before I tire of this and rip his head off.”
The growl he let out next was a promise.
DANIEL
Erik looked different. Even in his terror he could see that. He wasn’t a boy any more. It was Daniel’s own fault he did not know the man standing below him. He had deleted all of the messages from Erik. He had sent the letters back and refused all the visits. It had been for the good of both of them and he regretted none of it. Daniel had to adjust a wholly different life. One where he was a convicted sex offender, not a cast member in a popular teen show.
A world where his boyfriend was somehow a victim he had done something to. It hadn’t mattered to the court how small their difference in ages was.
What had mattered was how he was over eighteen and Erik was under it and they had had sexual contact in North Carolina. That was enough for a conviction. Even then he probably would have gotten a slap on the wrist had it not been for Erik’s father’s influence. He didn’t have the evidence of it yet, but he had people looking for it. The homophobic asshole.
So yeah, when he’d ended up in jail he had taken the advice of his lawyers and parents and everyone else with common sense and cut off all contact with the still-underage Erik. Erik had most likely gotten the same advice. Which he’d of course not listened to. Instead, Erik had walked away from it all and tried to keep in touch. Daniel still deleted all the messages unheard; he had more to worry about for the next while, like surviving. So he tried to push the young man out of his mind the way he had been trying for the past year. Then there had been something else in the cell with him and he had been swept away and now here he was, scared for his life. Now the things in front of him made no sense. Monsters the likes of which he’d never heard or seen, and a young woman translucent and floating. Erik fighting as if he were born to it.
“He’s such a pretty boy. I can see why you liked him, Erik.”
Suddenly Daniel was flying through the air, dangling over the balcony with his feet kicking in the air. He scrabbled at the hand around his throat, desperate for a breath. Then the voice said, “Shh, just let it happen.” And his hands fell to his sides even as his brain was screaming at him to fight back. “Stand down all of you or the innocent dies.”
They hesitated, especially the Mediterranean-looking man with the gun in his hand.
“Matthias. Elliot. Put them down.” Erik’s voice sounded weary but forceful, as if he would make them do so. Even though Daniel didn’t really understand what was happening, he did
get that this was a major sacrifice. That Erik was putting himself in the path of danger to save Daniel.
They did as he said.
Daniel saw mist suddenly rising from the ground. The thing of floating bubbles in the air was twisting and shifting colors and the mist was doing the same. As soon as Erik and his friends took one whiff, they started to list toward the ground.
Erik was the last to fall, already running for the higher ground, trying to get to Daniel. He felt more tears slip down even as Erik reached the first landing and fell back unconscious, toppling down the stairs. Daniel tried to cry out but was choked off by the hand around his throat. Erik lay still where he’d fallen.
“Well, you served your part well, but I think we’ve had enough of you.”
Then he was flying through the air. He screamed and it came out bloody and scared because he had no way to slow down, no way to stop, and he was flying toward a shimmer in the air, toward the small broken stump that was aimed at his chest like a javelin. It hit and he screamed as he began to die. The blackness came up to take him away and he whispered over and over as he sank into it.
“Erik. Erik. Erik.”
ZEBUB
LIL
She argued Chayyliel, and Mayer, out of dressing her in anything more elaborate than what had become her usual pants-and-shirt dinner attire.
“June is an expert in seduction and negotiation. I’m sure they would see through anything we did. Wouldn’t they just view it as desperation?” They had eventually agreed, so she was wearing black pants with an odd shimmering green pattern halfway between feathers and scales, along with boots that had the same pattern but more green than black. The shirt was again a simple white thing that buttoned up at the sides with shining black buttons. She kissed Min and Davi good night and nodded to both Arel and Jagi before going outside to wait for her escort. Usually it was one of the Turms. She was unpleasantly surprised to find Haydn walking toward her.
The Root Page 31