The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child

by Phillion, Matthew

  “We should talk later,” she said.

  Those four words sent Billy’s already unsettled guts into a whirlwind.

  “Okay,” he managed to squeak out.

  “Let’s go, lovebirds,” Emily said. “Come see the majesty my massive brain hath wrought.”

  “By majesty she means the fridge is working,” Bedlam said.

  “And the interwebs,” Emily said. “Don’t sell me short, Gobot.”

  “I wouldn’t dare, Ewok,” Bedlam said.

  Great, they have pet names for each other, Billy thought.

  Do you regret coming home? Dude said.

  Billy glanced down at his hand still entwined with Bedlam’s, and smiled at the fact that for the first time in months his ears were being assaulted by the best friend he had in the entire universe.

  No, Billy thought. I’m so glad to be home.

  Chapter 5: Dreamless

  The woman made her way through the streets of Manhattan, catching eyes and turning heads wherever she went. But no matter who looked at her, no matter whose attention she caught, this woman, small and unassuming, with a shock of punkish hair and eyes with irises so black they absorbed light more than reflected it, no one ever really remembered her. They would look at her, and then, seemingly for no reason, they would recall their most vivid dreams—silly or scary, epic or nonsensical, sensuous or painful. Those memories would come bubbling up in their minds, often dreams unrecalled for years and years, and they’d forget the strange woman, devoured by their own reverie.

  She was accompanied by two dogs, big like Rottweilers but square as bulldogs, with broad chests, thick limbs, and large, white teeth.

  For those who saw her, though, even before she faded from their memories, she was hard to place. There was something incredibly familiar about her, as if she were exactly where she belonged; but simultaneously, she could not be more foreign, more unfamiliar and more out of place.

  All of this seemed to matter not at all to her.

  She shopped; she stopped in cafes and bakeries, in restaurants and bars, sampling much but finishing almost nothing. If one were to follow her all day they would notice she rarely had the same item twice, though themes emerged, as she adored coffee and never found a flavor of ice cream that did not capture her heart, and found almost childlike wonder in candy.

  Men would approach her, sometimes threateningly, sometimes gently, but none stayed long. The lucky ones simply found themselves forgetful or uncomfortable in her presence; the unlucky ones drew the attention of the two beastly dogs, who established a safe perimeter around their mistress.

  She stayed in a luxurious hotel on the very top floor, where no one seemed to notice her animal companions, or truly notice her at all. Staff held the door for her and promptly forgot about her, lost in their dreams. Management found the room perpetually paid for months in advance but could never remember to investigate their mysterious guest.

  Sometimes movie stars would stay there as well, and she would chat with them, and always tell them they looked familiar, that she’d seen them before, but couldn’t place them. Some were offended, others highly amused; more than one fell in love with her. She liked them, enjoyed spending time around them, because she’d seen them before, in other peoples’ dreams and fantasies and memories. Movie stars were the few things she encountered in this world that reminded her of home.

  Home, she thought, returning from an excursion with ice cream for herself and a bag of expensive treats for her dogs. The canines jumped up onto the enormous bed and settled in lazily; the woman went into the palatial bathroom to wash her face.

  The image in the mirror did not match the body she wore. This was something very few could detect. One woman in a public restroom Uptown saw it and her hair turned white instantly. An old homeless man saw through her in a storefront window. He asked her if she were God.

  “No,” she told him, “I’m not God.”

  “You must be something, then,” the homeless man said.

  “Would you like to know?” dhe asked.

  He smiled, his teeth surprisingly white, his smile unexpectedly warm.

  So she whispered in his ear a poem perhaps only two or three people in this entire world had ever heard.

  “Have you heard of the Lady Dreamless?

  Promised to a nightmare Prince,

  Raised to the sounds of the songs of the Damned,

  Queen of the Citrine Tower, Heir to an empty throne?

  Have you heard her story?

  Trapped for a millennium in a black gem,

  With only the whispers of passing nightmares

  To keep her company?

  Have you heard of her escape?

  How she crossed the black and starless paths

  Of faded lands, armed with only her wits

  And a wisp of fire to guide her?”

  “You are a goddess,” the old man said.

  “No,” she told him. “I’m something else.”

  “You’re made of dreams,” he said.

  “I’m made of dreams, but I can never have my own. That is why I’m here, you see. I wanted to see the waking world.”

  “It must disappoint you so,” the man said.

  “On the contrary,” she told him. “I think you’re all so beautiful.”

  She let sweet dreams wash over him, so that memory and joy would bring him a few moments peace, and left him standing in the street.

  This strange and ugly world, she thought, remembering the homeless man as she drew a bath. She let the water run and walked into the living room to look out over the city, purple and gold and black and chrome in the evening sun. They all dream of everything other than what they are. This world is full of pain.

  And she wondered, not for the first time, if she should go home. But tomorrow would be something new. Tomorrow always held such great promise.

  Chapter 6: Just a little bit of magic

  Titus dreamed in his wolf form.

  This wasn’t an entirely new development; he dreamed this way sometimes before the invasion, certainly, and the pull of the wild was never deep beneath the surface for him. But since the Nemesis fleet—since Titus almost died in space, saved only by the relentless resiliency of his werewolf blood and a little bit of magic lent to him by Doc Silence—Titus dreamed in his wolf form almost every night.

  They were feral dreams, raging across the countryside, hunting, stalking, howling at the moon, wordless stories from a primeval dreamscape.

  Titus knew why this happened. He’d talked with Leto about it, the mysterious werewolf shaman who had long been his mentor.

  You almost died, she said. And that experience damaged the veil between yourself and the wolf.

  The veil, the rein, the thing that let Titus control the wolf when he transformed. He’d gained so much power over his monstrous form since first joining the Indestructibles that moving back and forth between human and werewolf had become second nature to him. But since his near-death experience, his control over the beast when he let it emerge was less than before. It made him anxious. Yes, he could still keep the werewolf from, say, eating random civilians, but the transformation felt like driving without brakes—that at any moment the whole thing could go sideways, and people would die.

  He knew he had to let himself transform more, to regain control. But it was his nature to worry. And so, he worried.

  He was startled from a particularly vivid dream about taking down an elk with his bare teeth by Kate’s hand on his shoulder. Titus bolted upright in bed as if being attacked. When he registered where he was and who he was with, he laid back down. Kate just crossed her arms and waited for him to settle. She was in full Dancer armor, ready for action.

  “What? Is something wrong?” Titus said. He waved his hand and muttered a few arcane words and a small globe of light appeared in his hand. He touched the globe lightly and it drifted up above the bed like a lamp.

  “What is that?” Kate said, her tone horrified.

 
“It’s a light spell,” Titus said. “Look, I need to practice these things. It’s harmless.”

  “You just casually cast a light spell and there’s a lamp right next to your head,” Kate said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I… Whatever,” Titus said, flipping on the light and dismissing the globe. He slid out of bed and started looking for his shoes. “Where are we going.”

  “I got a tip on one of my missing persons cases,” Kate said. “It’s in a part of town particularly damaged by the invasion. Thought you’d want to back me up.”

  “Of course I want to back you up,” Titus said, pulling his signature hoodie on over a tee shirt. “Where are we headed?”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later they were downtown, standing outside an abandoned warehouse that was earmarked to become, before the invasion, a loft apartment complex. Instead, a piece of a Nemesis ship had sheared off a section of the building, putting an end to construction temporarily. The area still smelled vaguely of smoke and rot. That rotten smell would never fully leave Titus’s mind; it reminded him of those final few moments in the Nemesis ship he’d detonated in space, organic and cruel, alien and earthy.

  The front door had long ago been chained shut, but Kate took one look at the padlock and shook her head.

  “You want me to break it?” Titus asked.

  “There’s an entire wall missing on this building,” Kate said, heading toward the corner of the building. Titus followed, and together they stepped over crumbling stonework and piles of damaged bricks into the warehouse.

  Kate took lead, and as always, Titus couldn’t help but admire the grace with which she moved. Never making a sound, she drifted like a living shadow from vantage point to vantage point, eternally cautious, always ready to fight. Titus had none of her grace—it was a long-standing joke between them that he couldn’t be trusted on stealth missions, because he walked like an elephant with knee problems—but he could tell by scent that the building was empty now. Another curse of being a werewolf, he thought. Olfactory precognition. He told her so.

  “Kate, we’re alone here,” he said.

  Her body tensed for a moment, then relaxed. She stopped sneaking and resumed a more casual, but cautious, walk. She snapped on a police-style flashlight.

  “I can cast a…” Titus started.

  “No,” Kate said.

  “Okay,” Titus said.

  They turned down a hallway and then into a large open area that might have been intended to be a sort of foyer or communal space for the apartments that would now never be built. The center of the space had been cleared out, and by the marks left in the dust on the floor, this had happened recently.

  “Someone was here,” Kate said.

  “Yeah, I…”

  Kate held up her hand, then turned her flashlight to a stone bench near something that looked like it would have been a food court or dining area. Emblems had been etched into the bench.

  “Those look fresh,” Kate said.

  “And they’re sigils,” Titus said. Kate shot him a dirty look. “I swear I’m not turning into one of those people who only talks about my new hobby. Those are symbols I’ve seen Leto and Doc use.”

  Kate grimaced, and then let her shoulders sag in resignation.

  “You’re going to make me ask if you know what they mean, aren’t you. I’m not too proud to ask.”

  “I don’t know what they mean, exactly,” Titus said. “I just know they’re mystic in nature. Hang on.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember the words for a spell he’d just learned from Leto. Kate groaned.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “It’s barely a spell,” Titus said. “It’s… watch.”

  He spoke the words and made a symbol in the air with his index finger. A pale red light settled over the bench.

  “What was that?” Kate said.

  “Just a spell that tells you if anyone has used magic nearby recently,” Titus said. “I swear, that’s all it does.”

  “Tell me ‘red’ means ‘no magic,’” Kate said.

  “Now you’re asking me to lie to you is what you’re saying,” Titus said.

  Kate rubbed her eyes, clearly frustrated.

  “What’s the deal with this case?” Titus said.

  “You know I’ve been running down missing persons,” Kate said. “This was just… some have been harder to find than others. Kids who are a typical runaway age, in particular. This was one of those. There was a rumor that this place was being used as a crash pad by a lot of kids avoiding going home after the invasion.”

  “I don’t need magic to tell you nobody’s using this place as a flophouse,” Titus said. He inhaled deeply. Dust and chemicals and rot, yes, but none of the smells you’d expect from squatters, no food or body odor or urine. The place, in fact, smelled strangely sterile.

  “Kate, someone should be hiding out here,” Titus said. “It’s ideal for runaways or the homeless, or even someone just looking for a place to drink or do drugs without getting caught. But it smells… dead. It smells vacant.”

  “So, something is going on here,” Kate said.

  “Just not the something you’d expect,” Titus said. Kate’s shoulders sagged again. “You okay?”

  “I just got used to finding people,” Kate said.

  “And this is a lot worse than going missing,” Titus said.

  “Yeah,” Kate said. She smiled at him weakly. “But I guess vacation is over. Couldn’t last forever.”

  Chapter 7: New management

  There is a hidden floor in one of the tallest skyscrapers in Los Angeles.

  It exists; it’s a real floor, with windows and an elevator, like any other; but one needs to know it exists to get there, needs to know the right people, the right things to say, the right passwords. If you are an ordinary person, the elevator simply flows right past it as if it isn’t there. It’s been decades since anyone walked the entire length of the stairs in the building, and the businesses above and below it have particularly stringent, if less clandestine, security, and so the wealthy owners and their well-paid staff never notice the mysterious floor betwixt them.

  Currently, there was one living person on this mysterious floor. He stood in an elegant boardroom, looking out massive, crystal-clear windows at the stained orange California sunset, made hazy and eerie with smog. The man wore an expensive suit, jet black, but no shirt underneath the coat, so that his bare chest, covered in tattoos written in old, arcane languages, was plainly visible. His feet were bare. He wriggled his toes in the room’s expensive carpet. The man was both intimidatingly physical while also having an uncomfortable feeling of death around him, both hotly vital and cold as the grave. His head had a skull-like quality to it as well, the skin taut across his hairless face and scalp. His eyes had no irises or pupils. They were black as crude oil.

  He may have been the only living person on this mysterious floor, but he was not alone. All around the elegant, polished wood table that dominated the room, corpses that were only recently still among the living sat in different states of shock, surprise, and fear. A few bodies also lay on the floor between the table and the glass door of the boardroom, as if the souls that not long ago inhabited those corpses had tried to run away.

  Some of the bodies were worse off than the others. Many simply looked like they died of fear, but a few had been gutted by unseen blades or claws. The man at the head of the table had been tidily decapitated. The walls of the boardroom were painted a gentle cream color, but much of that surface was now spattered with blood, arterial spray and hand prints, and other things, including what appeared to be holes left by suction cups, like those on squid tentacles.

  The shirtless man seemed entirely unbothered by this. He stepped over one of the prone bodies to a fancy decanter and poured himself a perfect cup of black coffee in a dainty porcelain mug. He looked at the headless man at the head of the table and considered pushing him out of his seat, but then changed his mind
. Best to leave everything as it was, for maximum effect.

  The phone rang, the sort of digital sing-song alert the man hated about the modern world. He missed phones that rang with bells. He did not fear the future; he just sometimes longed for things that had become lost in the past.

  He answered the phone. Instead of a receiver, connection came through a laptop in front of the headless man, sending the audio signal through a black disk at the center of the table. The caller himself appeared on a large screen along the back wall, where, in another situation, it might have appeared that a giant had taken a seat at the end of the table.

  “Oh, my God,” the caller said, seeing the carnage. He was a youngish man, with an expensive haircut and a shockingly blond beard. His bright blue eyes seemed to double in size as he looked through the monitor.

  “Mr. Keppler,” the man in the abattoir said.

  “I don’t understand,” the younger man said. “I don’t understand this at all. This can’t be real.”

  “Please, Mr. Keppler,” the mystery man said. “I need you to be very clear-headed right now. Are you listening?”

  “I… yes. Yes, I’m listening,” Keppler said.

  “You worked with this team on occasion, I assume,” the man said.

  “I swear, only tangentially. Whatever they did wrong I had nothing—”

  The man made a calming gesture with his hands, palms downward.

  “Please,” he said. “I need you to understand that if I wanted you dead, you would have been in this room.”

  Keppler nodded slowly, his eyes glassy.

  “Do you know who I am, Mr. Keppler?” the man said.

  “You’re…”

  “I am called King Tears,” the man said. “You may have heard rumors about me. Those rumors are, for the most part, true. Do you understand?”

  Keppler nodded again.

  “The Los Angeles team. Did you know about their role in the Nemesis invasion?”

  “Only after the fact, sir,” Keppler said. “They had so many of us fooled, I just…”