by J. Stone
Not allowing herself to think about it any further, she began to step forward. Her pace increased with each step, and her cold, naked skin soon met with the smoky, black film spread open between the entrance portal. She vanished in that thin layer of darkness for what she later learned was almost an entire day. To her, though, it felt much quicker. Almost instantaneous. At the exit portal on the other side of the factory, Kyra waited for her as she would’ve expected, but the servant’s face was one of horror.
Viola was completely uncertain what had happened within the portal, but she did know that whatever had transpired, it had healed her of her self-inflicted wound. Looking down at her body, the magical wrappings had indeed vanished, as had the hole dug deep into her palm. The pain was no more, but her body was not as it should have been. Blood covered her bare skin, dripping off her as if she had bathed in the liquid. Examining her body, she tilted her head down, and as she did, her neck felt sore and stiff. Raising a hand to inspect it, she felt what seemed to be burned skin in some pattern all around her neck. Her fingers followed the burn marks, and she ultimately realized the burn was in the form of a handprint wrapped tightly around her neck.
Kyra rushed forward and threw the robe around Viola, shielding her naked body. She began to shake like she had the chills, and she dropped to her knees. There were flashes of memories, but she felt that she shouldn’t remember them. They felt too horrible to recall. She couldn’t ignore them though.
In the distance, atop a rocky plateau, she had seen some gruesome beast behind chaotic, roiling storms in an ashy barren landscape. The heavens were covered in hundreds of little streaks of lights, as comets stretched across the sky. Beneath her feet, she could feel grains of hot sand. The burned flesh smell was even stronger here, but the drums seemed to have stopped their incessant beat. Her eyes drifted back up to the beast in the distance. The figure was covered in scaly black skin with patches of shaggy brown fur. The creature had a long barbed tail that whipped violently at its back. The beast was at least twice her size, standing upright on hooves that seemed to scorch and sear the ground it stood upon. Its face was a hideous display of razor sharp, interlocking teeth grinning horribly. At one side of its head, a pearl-white horn jutted out, aiming downward to the ground. On the opposite side, a larger black horn faced upward. And at the center of the creature’s face were those glowing orange eyes. The same as those on the necklace that she often wore.
It took sight of her with its piercing eyes and leaned forward, getting down on all fours and scratching at the red rock with its clawed hands. A skip in her memory. Now the beast was on her. Its hand was gripped around her throat, burning the skin at its touch. The creature grinned its hideous smile inches from her face. With its other hand, the beast grabbed her wounded wrist, pulling it toward its terrible maw. Placing its lips to her palm, it sucked the seeping energy like poison from a wound into its mouth. She felt an emptiness within her. Then… nothing. The memories vanished.
Viola’s breathing slowly normalized, as Kyra tried to calm her empress. “It’s over now, child. It’s over.”
“I saw one of them,” Viola said, tears streaking down her face.
“The beasts?” she asked.
Viola nodded. Her eyes felt painfully warm, as she emotionlessly cried.
“Did it at least work?”
Viola held her arm out from the robe that was draped over her, showing the lack of injuries in her palm.
“And..?” Kyra began to ask, apparently too afraid of the question.
“What was the cost?” Viola finished for her.
The handmaiden nodded.
“I don’t remember. But I suspect it was high. I suppose I’ll find--” A heat rapidly filled her body as though she had a terrible fever. Her vision went wild, and she leaned forward, placing a hand on the cold factory floor to steady herself.
“What is it?” her handmaiden asked.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. With a realization, Viola turned to see the portal continuing to swirl in its chaotic nature. Her head went dizzy, and the empress collapsed on the factory floor. Her memory of the events inside the portal nearly complete, Viola knew that what she had agreed to would mean disaster for her empire if she let it continue. Before she could act, however, her mind faded and she succumbed to the darkness and helplessness of her sleep.
Chapter 34. Ryn’s Nemesis
Ever since Germ had returned with the information that her brother, Simon, were still alive, Erynn had spent almost every passing second wondering about the possibility of seeing her brother again. For so long, she had thought of him in the past tense. Knowing that he was still alive somewhere changed everything. She didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that she would do anything she could to save him from whatever fate the empire had bestowed upon him.
She laid on her bed without the lights on. She wasn’t tired, but it was getting rather late. Her mind unable to focus on anything but her brother’s current condition, Erynn decided that it had been too long since she saw Pearl. She needed her partner’s company. Throwing her legs off the side of the bed, she stood and left their room. She ascended the stairs to the ground level and made her way toward Pearl’s art room, assuming that she was in there.
Her guess was correct, but Erynn found something she didn’t expect. Pearl sat on the stool in front of a still wet canvas, splattering paint onto it. The images were rather unsettling. Like the paneled images of a comic, they told a story. Starting at the top left of the canvas, there was Alice Page, the operative that had hunted her after Erynn’s escape from the center. Alice looked different, her skin was stitched together, her eyes were milky white, and her hair was trimmed much shorter. In the painting, the operative was smashing the door of the mansion in.
The next image was of Rowland. Alice’s tentacle pierced through his chest, and blood dripped heavily from the wound. The sight was horrible to behold, and Erynn couldn’t imagine why Pearl would illustrate something like that.
The story she painted continued as Pearl was grabbed by the operative. On the canvas, Erynn came to protect her companion, but Alice used Pearl as a shield. The operative forced Erynn to destroy Tern with the powerful gun, and then she too was captured in the plethora of tentacles.
The next two images were of Alice using Erynn’s magical pistol against Brodie and then Germ. The operative had killed everyone but Erynn and Pearl. She seemed to question them in the painting, getting the answers she demanded. The final image of the painting was of Alice’s tendrils squeezing the life out of the pair.
Erynn approached her companion and noticed that Pearl held herself awkwardly. She looked as though she were in a trance. Erynn placed her hand on Pearl’s shoulder, and she jerked at the touch. She gasped for air and nearly fell from her stool. Her face was full of bewilderment, like she had no idea where she was, like she had awoken in a strange place.
“What’s goin’ on?” Pearl asked, looking around.
“What are you painting?” Erynn asked, pointing at the canvas in front of her.
Pearl turned around to see what she had painted. “It worked…”
“What did?” Erynn asked.
“The bracelet ya made me - I wanted to get it back,” Pearl began. “I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I practiced castin’ another spell that I thought would lead me to it. I placed a foresight nexomancy rune on my brush in an attempt to find it. Didn’t really work out, but I did get a glimpse of somethin’ else. This.” She pointed to the painting. “The operative that tracked you to the west, she’s going to come for us. I saw it happen.”
“Pearl, she died,” Erynn replied. “We all saw.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but she’s not,” Pearl said. “They did somethin’ to her. She looks different. Stitched back together. She wants revenge, and if we don’t do somethin’, we’re all gonna die.”
Pearl related to Erynn everything that she had seen in the magic-induced vision, and it quite a
ccurately matched what she could see on the canvas. Upon hearing and eventually believing Pearl’s prophecy about the returning operative, Erynn began to prepare. She took stock of everything they had available to them in the house.
First and foremost was the incredibly powerful gun that she had placed the fusion chamber inside of. Being an older design, the chamber could only hold a set of six bullets, so she would have to make each one count. In addition, the nexomancy spell that Pearl had cast on one of the rods was inside the second chamber. Based on Pearl’s vision, each successive shot would weaken the spell, which is why Dahlia must have made the second chamber capable of rotating too. Erynn had tasked Pearl with enchanting the other rods that Viola had given them with the gun, so she could have the maximum power possible.
Of course, they also had Tern, who had already been given his most efficient and effective combat punch card. After all the upgrades she had given him lately, Tern was more than capable in a fight. In addition, he had the electric weapon that Erynn had built out of scrap in the junkyard to stave off the assassin, Solak. Since her return to the mansion, Erynn had upgraded it a bit. She made it sturdier and exchanged the tubular pipe at its center for a blade with sharpened edges. The weapon had proved quite useful against Solak with the blunt rod at its core, so Erynn was confident that with the upgrades it would be indispensable. She made sure that Tern had it at his disposal.
There was also the other item that she had been working on since returning, the strength augmenting glove. Originally inspired to construct it based on the fact she could hardly wield the electric weapon she’d built, Erynn now saw more potential than merely that. After building the prosthetic limb for Vincent, she’d had a breakthrough on how to finish building the glove. The device was much smaller than the gauntlet that she’d built for Rowland all those years ago and less structured than Vincent or Tern’s hands. The glove fit neatly around her hand, intuiting where to assist based on the movement of her muscles.
Picking up a heavy crate as a test, the small metal parts began to move, rotate, and power up. Small pockets of air and built up steam were expelled from the glove’s exterior, allowing her to lift the crate stocked full of dozens of chromesmithing parts. The pressure exhaling from the device wasn’t merely part of a process of venting heat. The glove was actually responding to her needs and, as she lifted, it was pushing away to give her the extra force that was required.
Erynn was quite pleased with the results of her testing. She kept the glove on her left hand, placed the pistol in her holster, some extra ammunition in an ammo pouch, and went to check on the others.
“Come on, Tern,” she instructed her automaton.
“Acknowledged, debugger,” he replied, following along behind her.
Erynn and Pearl had also informed Rowland of what was coming their way, and he had been preparing in his lab as well. As always, he had the gauntlet she had built for him that allowed him to harness the serums that he seemed to haphazardly inject into his body. The latest had actually given him the ability to open portals into the pocket universe that he had somehow created. Whatever he was now working toward, Erynn was sure that he would find a way to assist them in defending themselves from the operative. Making her way upstairs and to Rowland’s lab, Erynn found him injecting something into his arm.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Bit of this, bit of that,” he enigmatically answered.
“Right,” she replied. “Well, are you ready?”
“I believe I am,” he said.
Erynn paused for a moment, standing awkwardly in the doorway to his lab. “You think we can actually do this, Max?”
“If there is a single thing I have learned about you, my little Ryn, it is that once you make up your mind, there is no stopping you,” Rowland replied. “This operative should fear you. Not the other way around.”
She allowed herself a little laugh. “Maybe you’re right, Max.” Turning to her automaton, Erynn instructed, “Stay at the front door. As soon as you see her, stop her.”
“Acknowledged, debugger,” Tern confirmed holding up the electric sword.
Her next stop was to check on Pearl to see if she’d been able to duplicate her success in the fusion chamber’s rods. “Hey Pearl,” Erynn said, reentering her companion’s art gallery of a room. “Any luck?”
Pearl was pacing around the room, looking down at the rod in her hand. “Havin’ a bit of trouble,” she answered. “I found the right spells to use, but I can’t seem to cast ‘em.”
“Why not?” she asked.
There’s nothing around with enough energy that I can use,” Pearl explained.
“Use me,” Erynn suggested.
“What?” Pearl asked.
“Viola said you could use a willing person’s energy,” she explained. “I’m willing.”
“I don’t want to hurt ya,” her companion replied.
“I trust you,” the chromesmith said flatly.
Pearl worked her lips to the side of her face considering the offer. “Are ya sure?”
“Absolutely,” Erynn stated.
Pearl walked over to her, one of the rods still in her hand, and with the other took Erynn’s hand. There was a momentary pause, before an orange and radiating light burst forth from the metal rod in Pearl’s hand, and Erynn could literally feel the life being drained out from her body. She felt lightheaded, and as Pearl finished, Erynn stumbled and would’ve fallen, if her companion had not caught her.
“Ya alright?” Pearl asked.
“Yeah,” Erynn answered. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit woozy. Maybe I should sit down if you’re going to do that again.”
“Ya think ya can take one more?” she asked, wincing a bit.
“Yeah,” she replied. “One more should be fine.”
Erynn sat down on Pearl’s painting stool and composed herself. Reluctantly, Pearl repeated the process, holding Erynn’s hand and a separate rod. This time, the light was a strange black color, and Erynn felt like she might pass out when it was done. She held it together, though, and took a heavy breath.
“Feel okay?” Pearl asked her.
“I’m good,” she replied with a small smile. “They were different from before. What did you do?”
“The first one I made was basically raw power and produced a kind of scatter effect,” Pearl explained. Holding the orange one up, she continued, “This one is more precise. It uses the rune for skill.” Switching focus to the black rod, Pearl said, “This spell is a bit more dangerous though. Going off the book, it’ll have an awful effect. The rune seems to translate to death.”
“Sounds fun,” Erynn commented sarcastically.
“Don’t use the black one if ya can help it,” Pearl said. “I’m not eager to see what it does.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
Pearl handed the two new rods to Erynn, who loaded them in the second chamber of the gun. During her tinkering, she had added an ability to swap the forward chamber with the rotation of a gear embedded at the handle of the gun. With the rods in place, she tested that to make sure she could change the spell at will. Once proved, she set the power rune to be used, with the skill and death to follow if she needed.
“Anything else you saw in your painting that might be relevant?” Erynn asked.
“She’s strong,” Pearl answered. “She is so strong, Ryn.”
“I can’t imagine how she could possibly get stronger than she was,” she replied. “But I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got such a strong gun.”
“I hope it’s enough,” Pearl said.
“It will be,” Erynn replied. “This thing is legendary for a reason. We’ll be fine. Come on.”
They’d allowed Germ to sleep, considering all that he had gone through, but with Alice’s arrival impending, it was time to wake him. Pearl waited with Rowland downstairs in his lab, while Erynn went above to wake the rat. She returned to the thoughts about what he had told her of her brother still being alive. If that
were true, why hadn’t he come and found her? Viola had promised to release all of the experiments from the lottery. Had she lied? Once this was all over, she had to find him. If he was truly still out there, he was all the family she had left.
Erynn twisted the knob to Germ’s room. She purposefully neglected to turn on a light, wanting to wake him as gently as she could. When she approached the bedside, however, Erynn could see that the rat was in some distress. He was clearly having a nightmare, as he twitched and shifted from one side of the bed to the other. Wanting to save Germ from his fictitious fears, she sat on the bed and gently shook his arm.
“Germ,” she whispered. “Wake up.”
The rat jolted awake at the mention of his name. “Uhhh, Madam Clover?”
“You were having a nightmare,” she said. “But that’s not the only reason I woke you.”
“What’s going on, ma’am?” Germ asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Someone’s coming,” Erynn answered. “You need to get up.”
“Who, ma’am?” he asked.
“An operative,” she replied.
Whatever haziness he had until that point was suddenly gone. She recalled that Rowland had drilled the fear of operatives into them both when they went west, and Erynn had told him of the operative that they faced in Willow Switch and on the train. Germ sat upright in the bed and said, “I see.”
“You should wake up Henry too,” Erynn suggested. “Everyone is downstairs. We’ll fill you in more then.”
“Right, ma’am,” Germ replied. “I’ll be down shortly.”
Erynn left the rat’s room and headed back toward Rowland’s lab downstairs. There was no telling exactly when Alice would show up at their house, but at least they were ready for her. Their biggest advantage was the advance warning that Pearl had acquired. They would all be prepared for what was coming for them, and that more than anything would help them defend themselves. At least, that’s what Erynn hoped. Coming down the stairs, Erynn found Pearl and Rowland both standing in the foyer, where she had left Tern to guard the house.