The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child

by Phillion, Matthew

  But he wasn’t in Sevilla for the memories. He’d sensed the threat, the wrong-ness, had passed through here, something that didn’t belong on this plane of reality, and he’d followed, a hunter chasing prey that knew it was being stalked. He didn’t feel as though he were in any sort of danger—no, strangely he felt as if the presence was afraid of him. But the closer he got to the thing he sensed, this intruder in the realm under his protection, the more he sensed something else. Some second shadow, an underlying scent. Whatever it was he found himself chasing along the low roads, it didn’t come into this world alone. And whatever parasitic thing followed it across the void…

  That thing, he knew, did not fear Doc Silence in the least.

  And then there was the other problem. The problem he’d had his entire career, really. The problem known as the Lady Natasha Grey.

  It wasn’t hard, in his investigation, to figure out that the Lady was somehow involved. Natasha was one of the few magicians left in this world more powerful than Doc Silence, and she moved in a part of the magical community he did not, trading in power and favors, collecting artifacts and curses like currency. Magic, though, is like a fine art—everyone’s work is unique, and if you are an expert, a collector, if you will, you can spot another artist’s handiwork easily enough. Whatever this wrong-ness in the magical demi-world was, Natasha Grey had a hand in it. Doc would recognize her mystical fingerprints anywhere.

  He was shaken from his reverie by a small boy staring at him from near the great fountain dominating the historic site. Doc tilted his head at him, and the boy pointed to a shadowed archway nearby. Before Doc could speak to him, the boy darted off, but Doc knew well enough what was happening. He went to the archway and waited.

  “The amount of guilt you walk around with, Doctor, you could have been a priest,” an old, familiar voice said. Doc turned to see a silver-bearded man dressed all in black step from the shadows to greet him.

  “Arturo,” Doc said, extending his hand. The old man shook it. “It takes a priest to know one, doesn’t it?”

  Arturo nodded, gesturing to his clothing. He was dressed as a Catholic priest, black suit and white collar. An old Jesuit, Arturo was a friend, if Doc could call anyone such a thing, both a man of religion and a student of the arcane. They’d known each other a very long time.

  “You set off all sorts of mystical warnings when you arrive in town, you know,” Arturo said. “Just because you’re one of the good guys doesn’t mean the world is unaware you bring trouble with you.”

  “I’m chasing trouble this time, my friend,” Doc said.

  “I thought as much,” Arturo said. “I know what you’re looking for.”

  Doc leaned in. This was the first time he’d encountered a witness, or at least one who knew what he’d seen.

  “Tell me,” Doc said.

  “There’s a girl,” the priest said. “New to this world—you know what I mean by this?”

  “A traveler,” Doc said.

  “Yes. And not even remotely human, despite the shell she wears,” Arturo said. “She travels in the company of two dogs that are absolutely not dogs.”

  “Guardians?”

  “Some sort, yes,” the priest said. “Though I’m not sure what their true form was. I’m not you, Doctor. I couldn’t take the risk.”

  “You took enough of a risk just looking,” Doc said.

  “I’ll be honest, she did not seem dangerous,” Arturo said. “Lost, out of place, perhaps, but not dangerous. But I’ll tell you, Silence, that she had riders.”

  Riders. A nice way of putting it, Doc thought. Sometimes creatures traveled between the planes of reality—Doc had done it himself many times, most recently when he and Lady Grey had become trapped on the higher mystical planes and needed Jane’s help to get home. Often, travelers between planes would seek out the guardians of the ones they visited to announce themselves, but not always. The travelers were rarely the problem, though. The dangerous thing was when they were incautious. Because when you traveled between worlds, you opened a door. And like any open door, sometimes unwelcome things slipped through behind you.

  “She had a lamprey,” Doc said, using an old, gritty slang for a creature that followed a magical traveler between planes.

  The priest nodded.

  “It was with her when she arrived here,” Arturo said. “And it was not when she left.”

  Doc sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  “Don’t look so tired,” Arturo said. “Didn’t you save the world a few months back? Putting down some parasitic demon should be a vacation for you.”

  “Is it ever?” Doc said.

  The priest laughed.

  “I…” Arturo began, but then stopped short and looked up.

  Doc felt the same call—both men immediately looked to the West as if magnetized.

  “I don’t know what that was,” Arturo said.

  “Something awful,” Doc said. It had felt like a stab through his chest. Something had gone very wrong, very quickly, and the ley lines had cried out. Ordinary folks would say this sort of thing felt like someone had walked over their grave. But for the magically gifted, it was a clarion call, a warning signal that struck them deep in their hearts.

  Doc shook off the ghostly feeling and prepared a teleportation spell. He nodded to the priest.

  “Thanks for your help, my friend,” Doc said. “Let’s not go so many years without speaking again.”

  Arturo put a hand on Doc’s shoulder.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.

  Doc shook his head.

  “Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Doc said. “Find me if you hear anything strange. Or if you see the traveler again.”

  “I will,” Arturo said. “Be safe, Doctor.”

  “I always am,” Doc said. A portal opened beside him in greenish gold.

  “You were always a liar,” Arturo said.

  Doc smiled and stepped through the portal.

  “But I lie for good reasons,” Doc said.

  And then he disappeared.

  Chapter 4: He returned from the stars

  From a distance one might mistake him for a shooting star.

  Billy Case, the hero known as Straylight, burned bright as he passed through the Earth’s atmosphere, his body surrounded by and emanating his signature blue-white glow.

  After months in the depths of space, the Earth’s atmosphere felt both strange and familiar—the weight of gravity, the taste of real air, all the things he’d left behind out there near Saturn, where the Luminae were building their new home.

  And what a home it was. Cobbled together from derelict spacecraft and pieces of technology the other Luminae had dragged across the galaxy, the improvised station had become a castle in the sky, with illogical wings and twisting spires, a patchwork of mismatched metals to mirror the mismatched alien hosts to Luminae from across the galaxy.

  It was a strange brotherhood there. Almost none of the hosts had ever met before the battle for Earth just a few months ago, so their personalities, their names, were as remarkably new as the anatomies the different aliens bore. Tentacles and tusks, hands and claws, none of these were as different as simply learning about each other.

  But at the same time, it was a grand homecoming. The Luminae themselves are all but immortal. The hosts had changed, but these beings of light who gave each host his or her power, those symbiotic creatures were the same who left their doomed home world millennia ago. And some of them had not seen each other since the day they first parted.

  And so, the Titan base—which would need a name eventually, though with more than a dozen species sharing even more languages, choosing a name would be harder than building the construct itself—was a cacophony of noise, machinery and construction, strange languages, the sort of bizarre half-talking Luminae hosts catch themselves doing as they speak with the bodiless creature who shares their mind.

  Despite all the noise, and the new faces, despite the opportu
nity to learn about aliens from across the galaxy, Billy found himself lonely quite quickly. Not only had life on Earth not particularly prepared him for the scope of the universe, but he was significantly younger than many of the other hosts. He felt like an outsider in a club he actually belonged to.

  Which was why, he knew, Suresh told him to go home.

  Suresh was another Luminae host, the only other human here. Known on Earth as the hero Horizon, and partnered with Billy’s predecessor, Nigel, Suresh had saved the world a thousand times over, only to give up on humanity and disappear into the cosmos. Until Billy found him, and until he knew his planet needed him again. The old man, with his stark white beard and wild hair, had pulled Billy aside, sensing something was wrong.

  “You should go home, kid,” Suresh said. They were near what would eventually become the engine room for the base, and nearby, the reptilian Seng bickered quietly with a creature who looked like a massive centaur over how best to rework some contraption or another.

  “You guys sick of me already?”

  “Believe it or not, Billy, some of these guys actually like you,” Suresh said. “Not me, of course, but some of the others.”

  “Thanks, grampa,” Billy said.

  “Whatever,” Suresh said. “Look, you’re relatively useless here.”

  “Two for two.”

  “But there’s still things you can do on Earth,” the older man said. “Just because we defeated the Nemesis fleet doesn’t mean Earth should be without its Luminae. One of us should go back, and you know I hate people.”

  “True enough.”

  Dude, Billy’s symbiotic partner, chimed in, his voice as always audible only to Billy himself.

  He’s right, Dude said. Once this base is constructed, many of these Luminae will go back to the worlds they watch over as well. They’re here to build a haven and to send a signal to the other Luminae out there waiting who don’t know the enemy has been stopped. But we still have a job to do.

  “Moneypenny is agreeing with me, isn’t he,” Suresh said

  Just once I’d like to meet a human who calls me something respectful, Dude said.

  “You sure you don’t need me for anything?” Billy said.

  “Come back in a month or three,” Suresh said. “And bring me Oreos and rice wine and any good sci-fi movies we can’t get streaming way out here.”

  “I can’t bring you sake,” Billy said. “I’m underage.”

  “Have Doc buy it for you,” Suresh said, grinning wickedly. “Now get home. Go see your friends. Be young. You’ll have plenty of time to save the universe. Take care of the world for me.”

  And thus Billy Case said his goodbyes to his newfound brothers and flew back to Earth. The journey became less tedious every time, he found; Dude explained that, now that he was growing accustomed to interstellar travel, his body was adjusting to the flight, going into an almost meditative state as they moved at speeds the human mind and body weren’t quite prepared to experience. Billy joked that Dude gave him the power to travel at light speed, and Dude, being Dude, informed him that if they could travel at light speed they could get to Earth from Titan in seventy-nine minutes rather than many hours. Dude also liked to point out how much time he wasted traveling by dragging Billy’s organic body with him, since he could, without a host, literally travel at the speed of light, and Billy’s carcass—that’s the word Dude used, of course, “carcass”—slowed them down considerably.

  Billy drifted and daydreamed until the Moon passed by on his left like a great gray beach. And then they were home.

  He flew right for the remnants of the Tower, the late-day desert heat baking through his uniform until Dude’s powers kicked in, regulating his body to a safe temperature. The sky was a brilliant blur of purple and pale pink, the sand gleaming gold and orange below him.

  “They’re making some progress,” Billy said. From the air, he could see the shape of the Tower finally fully emerging from the dunes, though it still looked like a throwaway piece of set from Tatooine rather than the magnificent hospital starship it really was.

  They’ve restored power, Dude said. Impressive, given their lack of true understanding how the vessel works.

  “I bet Emily’s taking all the credit for it,” Billy said. He smiled at the thought of his diminutive best friend taunting their adult compatriots about just how much of a contribution she made to the state of things here.

  But it wasn’t Emily he saw first. Instead, a shock of neon orange hair and the faint glint of metal drew his eye to see Bedlam sitting on the roof of the fallen spaceship, looking up at the sky.

  Something twinged in Billy’s chest when he saw her. It was strange, he thought, to feel like this. The first time they’d met Bedlam punched him into the next area code and since then Billy joked that it was love at first sight for him, but they’d gotten to know each other after the battle with the Nemesis fleet and…

  You feel afraid, Billy Case, Dude said. That’s unusual.

  Billy swallowed hard and smiled. I don’t know how to put this into words, Dude, Billy thought, knowing the alien could hear him. What is happiness and fear at the same time every time you look at someone mean?

  Some human poets might argue that the word you’re looking for is love, Dude said.

  Let’s not go getting ahead of ourselves, Billy thought. If love is defined as being terrified at every moment you’re around someone that you’re going to say the wrong thing and they’ll leave, love sucks.

  Perhaps it’s just severe anxiety, then, Dude said. The alien’s disembodied voice sounded as if he might be laughing.

  Bedlam didn’t stand up when she saw him, instead waiting patiently for Billy to land. He did, and stood beside her awkwardly for a minute before even more awkwardly sitting down next to her.

  “Hey, stranger,” Bedlam said. She had a crooked smile, accentuated by her mismatched eyes. “You smell like outer space.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Billy said.

  “Smells like a race track,” she said. “Hot metal and fumes. Just a hint of burnt steak.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in months, and this is the first thing you say to me,” Billy said.

  “I was going to point out that it’s hysterical I see you in full-body spandex more often than regular clothes, but this felt less awkward,” Bedlam said.

  “That’s really awkward.”

  The smell she’s referring to is in part created by dying stars, Dude said.

  “Dude says I smell like dying stars,” Billy said.

  Bedlam threw her head back dramatically.

  “I forgot how weird it is we’re never actually having a private conversation,” she said.

  “I’d say you get used to it, but I’m still not used to it,” Billy said. Sorry, Dude, he thought.

  I’ll be ignoring you for a while, Dude said. Try to behave.

  “How’s… the thing going,” Bedlam said, pointing to the sky.

  “Getting there. I’m useless,” Billy said.

  “Not like you’d be much good here,” Bedlam said. “Neither am I. I mostly keep Emily and Henry from killing each other when Jane’s not here.”

  “I’m kind of surprised you’re still here,” Billy said.

  “Where would I go?” Bedlam said. “Mercenary work? Hard to go back to that line of work after you’ve helped save the world. Feels counterintuitive.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. He looked at her too long, and he knew he looked at her too long, and of course Bedlam called him on it.

  “You’re looking at me too long,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just… really happy you’re here,” Billy said. His stomach twisted on him again. He smiled uncomfortably. Billy felt panic rising in his guts.

  Take her hand, Dude said in a whisper.

  And he did.

  Bedlam looked down in shock, and then back up at Billy, her face pale, her eternally confident look absent for once.

&nb
sp; I think I made a mistake, Dude, Billy thought. You are the worst Cyrano de Bergerac ever.

  How do you even know who Cyrano de Bergerac is? Dude said.

  Stop talking, Billy thought.

  Bedlam started to speak, but in the end, they were both saved by the arrival of Entropy Emily.

  “I am wounded, Billy Case, I am absolutely wounded,” Emily said. Dressed like someone out of Dune, Emily flung back her hood to revel her signature bright blue hair, which she’d hacked into a pixie cut, seemingly without any help from a hair stylist or even someone with particularly good vision.

  “Hey, Em,” Billy said.

  “Don’t you ‘Hey, Em’ me, Billy case,” she said, bubble-of-floating herself up from the ground below up onto the surface of the Tower. “I’m your best bro, you jerk, and you’re up here making moon-eyes at Bedlam instead of coming to say hi?”

  “I just got here,” Billy said.

  “I can tell. You smell like a gas station got doused in overcooked burgers,” she said.

  “I told you. You smell like outer space,” Bedlam said.

  “I really don’t smell it,” Billy said.

  “Whatever,” Emily said. First you leave us here—us, your best bud and the girl of your dreams…”

  “Emily!” Billy and Bedlam yelled at the same time.

  “Both of whom are desperate to check out the solar system, but no, you leave us here sweating our butts off in the desert, doing all the hard work,” Emily said.

  “I’m helping build a space station!” Billy yelled.

  Helping is a bit of a stretch, Billy Case, Dude said.

  “You need to follow instructions to use Legos,” Emily said. “How much help can you possibly be?”

  “I’m very helpful!”

  “Whatever,” Emily said. “You two want some time to make out, or do you want to see all the amazing things I’ve fixed on this ship?”

  “You’ve fixed?” Billy said.

  “I fixed. Neal and Henry helped a little bit,” Emily said. “But mostly me. I really am a genius.”

  Billy looked at Bedlam, who nodded.