Wonderland City

by Rhys Ford

  It’d been driven into my head that a human child was possibly the most dangerous thing in any universe, and it was true.

  I intuited Naomi before I saw her. With my senses expanded outward to the point of being overstimulated, I experienced Naomi’s panic as it hit the very membrane that held the realms together. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying—a warp of dimensions folding over the people who ran past her and the space she stood in. She sustained everything around her with her sheer humanness, the distinct signature of a person born on the other side of the looking glass and possessing the ability—however chaotic—to wrap it around or through our world.

  She screamed. Across the courtyard, tucked against a column, Naomi stood with her arms out and her hair flying back from her face in a mimicry of the Red Queen’s crown. She screamed with a horrified anger.

  There was fear rippling off of her. I could taste it, but that wasn’t what fueled the reality-breaking schisms tumbling away from her. She was angry and fierce, a dynamo tucked into the body of a little girl, and I wondered how she would be once she reached womanhood and found her way through life.

  My jacket was still draped around her body, its sleeves trailing down past her hands and flopping to the marble floor by her feet. And Blue was by her side, a bright beacon of cobalt and fur. He snapped at the ankles and legs of anyone who dared to come near her, but mostly he defended her against the stampeding throng.

  Her chaos struck a rhino in a ball gown as it stumbled by, and the woman became a simple beast.

  I saw the moment the intelligence left her eyes. It wasn’t the nothingness of madness or the quiet resignation of a fading existence. It wasn’t the unfocused meander of someone lost in their mind or even the thousand-yard stare of someone who no longer saw the world around them. I’d seen all of those things.

  The rhino stumbled and tore through her ball gown, releasing a small storm of sequins and pearls into the air, a glittering rainfall of purple and pink orbs followed by delicate cascading pings when they hit the marble floor. Her elaborate headdress tilted, swung down off of her head to dangle in front of her now-bared chest, and her thrashing legs fought to free themselves from the oddly strong fabric prison she had donned to attend the Red Queen’s court. Her shoulder struck the stairs as she fell, rolling her thick, heavy body down the small flight, and when she struck the courtyard’s floor, she was undone.

  There was no one there behind those squinting dark eyes. The personhood infused in that armored body was gone. A few moments before, she’d had language and thoughts, a consciousness, and the ability to change the world around her, but now only instinct drove her actions. The adornment on her sturdy body was hindrance instead of a display of individuality. The makeup on her face was a parody of a humanity she no longer possessed and mocked the woman she’d once been.

  I now truly understood the saying about putting lipstick on a pig.

  She thundered through the crowd, ribbons of her dress caught around her waist and flowing behind her in garishly gleeful streams. Her back feet were still clad in heels—red leather pumps, their slick soles too slippery to gain any traction on the marble floor. Frustrated, the animal raged, tossed her head about, and hooked her horn into the side of a giraffe scrambling to get free of a wyvern’s reach.

  The giraffe might have been her friend. They might’ve laughed over court gossip and complained about the price of lemons as they squeezed juice into their tea. I didn’t know. And despite the Ace’s bloodlust riding me, I cried when the rhino’s horn tore into the giraffe’s side, ripped apart her hide, and then caught on the wyvern’s extended leg.

  A moment later the rhino was spun away. Her horn was lodged firmly into the shrieking lizard’s limb, and the wyvern’s powerful wings lifted both up into the air to disappear into the sky beyond. Her hat broke free, and the air currents whisked it about until it was a frilly dot growing larger by the second as it spiraled down.

  I couldn’t take the time to mourn the loss of her humanity or her life because I’d pissed off the Red Queen, and the young girl she’d intended to hold hostage was wreaking havoc in our world. I kept a good distance away from Naomi and tried not to wonder why Blue retained his Wonderland form despite being pressed up against her leg. Jean Michel was probably smart enough to keep his distance, but I couldn’t think about that either.

  Caught on the edge of Naomi’s influence, the lizard that had me pinned down twisted, and its right wing buckled as the membrane between the sweep’s spines turned to ash and floated away. I drove one of my swords into its gullet and yanked downward toward its heart. I needed to get clear of it before Naomi’s reality hit me. I had faith my human form would hold, but it would strip my armor from me and leave me defenseless and weak.

  I also wasn’t sure if I would survive it. There was too much of Wonderland City in me now, and short of a devil granting me back my soul, I wasn’t sure how much human was left.

  Pushing power into my blade, I set the wyvern on fire and drove the flames into its heart so the inferno would follow the path of its pulse. Its arteries bulged beneath its thick skin, and gases built up along the way. I planted a foot into its belly and kicked it with my shoulder wedged into the depression our impact made in the marble tiles. The wyvern began to thrash and lashed out at everything around it, and I kicked again and gave myself enough space to roll away.

  The wyvern died with a whimper as its skin lifted away from its flesh and the gases expanded. For a brief moment, I braced myself to be covered in wyvern innards. Bloated as tightly as an overfilled balloon, it rolled away from me, its spine ridges catching on the broken marble tiles, anchoring it in place. I gave it a wide berth. It was merely a foot or two away from the edge of Naomi’s bend in reality, and I didn’t want to see—or be near—what would happen if the wyvern were touched by her influence.

  But I made damn sure I had my swords in hand when I sprang to my feet.

  There were two wyverns left—snarling mindless beasts directed by the Red Queen. The first one flew up, winging toward the opening of the courtyard, but the other landed a few feet in front of me, its shifting scales flashing copper and then green and blue. It was close enough I could smell its fishy odor and almost drowned in the rank dankness of its hot breath. It would’ve had a better advantage if it stayed in the air, but I was a moving target it couldn’t grab a hold of. Its animal instincts were powerful and threatened to break the Red Queen’s hold. The fleeing bodies around us tugged at its predatory nature. I watched as its eyes flicked to the left and right, its body tense with the desire to chase after a tide of fleeing prey. Every single last one of them was a much easier target than I was.

  “I’ll grab the girl!” Jean Michel yelled at me, though screaming wasn’t necessary. The streams of noise were easily picked through. His voice reached me like a beam of sunlight on a clear day, and I found him in the crowd.

  “Forget the girl. Get to the queen.” I pointed him toward the dais where she stood, puppet-mastering the remaining wyverns with her will. The space was too tight for both lizards to maneuver, and I guessed she sent the other one away so they wouldn’t tangle together when they attacked. I would have to keep one eye on the sky and watch for an aerial assault while I tried to kill the lizard in front of me. “Break her hold on them. And once I’m clear….”

  I didn’t need to finish the sentence. Jean Michel understood what I was saying because we’d been in that position before—not exactly that position but close enough. The stakes were higher then. That queen was more powerful, and we’d been more desperate. Or at least that’s what it seemed like back then. It was silly how a little girl with her wild ordinariness was a greater threat than a queen intent on destroying every beautiful thing around her.

  “The time has come, dear flying lizard,” I mocked the beast as I lifted my swords in preparation for the next strike, “to speak of many things. Mainly killing you. Sorry about that. I’m kind of a shitty poet.”

  Naomi was whis
pering, reassuring Blue that I would save them. Jean Michel’s progress was marked by the steady beat of his feet on the marble, and the Queen of Hearts’ armor stretched out my senses, bringing me the sound of his heart pounding as his blood rushed madly through him.

  The Red Queen muttered from her throne and broke into the occasional volley of insults, condemning her people to death for leaving her side. “I will remember every single last one of you. I will peel your faces off and stitch them together to make a dress,” she shouted into the thinning crowd as she roamed her gaze over the bodies of those killed by the indiscriminate wyverns and the confused animals that were scattered about the soon-to-be-empty courtyard. “You will suffer for abandoning me! You will pay for your treachery! You will pay for not protecting your queen!”

  The wyvern finally paid its addresses, and the battle was begun.

  My helm kept my face protected, encased in the Ace of Spades’ monstrous visage, but it also prevented me from sinking my teeth into the wyvern’s flesh and taking what was my due. The beast within me wanted the lizard to know what killed it, wanted a show of dominance that would intimidate any other challengers. While my swords were an extension of me, they did nothing to slake my thirst. I could kill with them and drain the life of my opponents, but the power was never truly mine. Everything I’d gained had been fed back to me by the Queen of Hearts, and now free of her ties, the hunger in me raged unchecked and possibly unfulfilled.

  Still, killing was killing, and it was what I did best.

  Wholesale slaughter was never satisfying. The Ace of Spades liked to play with his kills. I expected to want that again, to desire the slow slicing of flesh until my attacker bled out or there was nothing left to carve away. This time was different. Once I ran through the initial bloodlust, I just wanted everything done.

  I just wanted to go home.

  I caught the wyvern in the jaw. My blade sang in the air and then made a solid thump when it struck bone. A magical creature, the wyvern didn’t split apart beneath my blow, but its face cracked beneath the weight of my sword. I hacked at it as I dodged its wings and its talons. I grunted when its tooth caught one of my horns and spun me about. A claw tip caught me across the cheek, taking advantage of the Omega-shaped opening in my helm. The armor responded and tightened the space, but the damage was already done. Blood dripped down my cheek, and I spat some of it out past the narrower space.

  Forcing my helm opening to widen, I sucked in a gasp of fetid air. It was claustrophobic, and I struggled to breathe. I knew I could draw in oxygen, but the idea of being sealed up behind the black plates made my skin crawl. Blue barked at me, either as a warning or encouragement, but it was heartening to hear.

  Last time I wore the armor, I’d been alone, hoping Jean Michel would be alive when I was done.

  Now I had a dog cheering me on and Jean Michel racing to do battle with the queen once again.

  This time I wasn’t going to let him go into that battle alone.

  I found my mark. The wyvern was growing weak, and my slices across its body had dampened its strength. A gash rendered one wing useless and took a large chunk out of its right leg. A stab into its tail broke through the vertebrae there and left the appendage a limp dead weight behind its haunches. It struggled to fight, using its teeth mostly, but it couldn’t grab hold of me. I was too fast, too deadly for it to defend against. Its brethren appeared to have flown away, possibly freed of the Red Queen’s binding or a victim of Naomi’s roaming chaos.

  Supposition. Borrowing trouble. It’s what had nearly gotten me killed before and would again if I didn’t focus.

  Trusting Blue to keep Naomi out of the way, I plunged both of my blades into the wyvern’s throat and then pulled my swords back and scissored the wyvern’s head clean off.

  The skull bounced across the floor, slid over the slick marble, and came to a rest at the stairs by the Red Queen’s throne. I’d heard a rumble of movement and feet but hadn’t paid much attention, so I was more than a little delighted to find a ring of guards assembled before her. Their faces were firm, although trepidation colored their eyes, and Jean Michel stood a few feet from the dais, held off by sharp spears and fear of the woman standing at the throne.

  “Did you think I would die as easily as your grandmother, Jean Michel?” The smug look on her face was a familiar expression. I’d seen countless smirks and smiles just like it before. Her hair was mussed, her crown slightly tilted, but her arrogance stood strong. “Unlike her, I have no love for you, no reason for you to continue living in my world. Once you are dead, I will take the Ace and the girl and lay waste to anyone who dares to stand against me. You will be my first example, nephew.”

  “Oh, fuck that, Queenie,” I growled as I stepped over the wyvern’s slack tail. “If anybody’s going to dance with the devil tonight, it’s going to be you. And right after that, he’s going to take me and the girl home.”

  Seven

  DEATH NEVER arrived on silent feet.

  At some point in my childhood, more for the free dinner they were serving than to save our souls, we went to a church service one Sunday, and the evening’s sermon was the price we paid for our meal. For some reason, the pastor that night stuck with me. He was a large man, red-faced and jowly, and he mopped up the sweat from his forehead with an enormous yellowed handkerchief. His hairline was receding, but he’d grown a thick mane where he could. It was a light ginger hue slowly turning a silvery white. He moved wildly as he spoke, and his booming voice filled the long hall that was packed with an enthralled congregation. We were sitting in the third row, and I’d grown fascinated with guessing how long his buttons would be able to hold back his enormous chest and stomach.

  He was on what might have been his two hundredth circuit of the tiny stage in front of a huge white cross that hung on the wall and a forest of candles beneath it, when he stopped and thrust his index finger out toward the crowd. There was anger in his face, the kind of emotional vitriol I’d long recognized as a precursor to violence and pain. His lips were pursed, teeth clenched, and he punched through the air with his hand and stabbed at the congregation.

  It felt like his eyes found me, nailed me to the slightly sweat-dampened pew, and he shouted accusingly, “Where will you be when death comes to find you? Will you even hear it? Because death is silent. Moves on silent feet. It creeps up behind you and takes you before you even realize your life is ending. Where will you be when the silence around you holds death?”

  Asshole scared me within an inch of my life, and if I knew it was possible, I would find him and punch him in the face for it.

  Because if there was one thing I knew for sure, death never arrived on silent feet.

  Death wasn’t pretty or romantic. It was messy. Even when the kill was clean, death was messy. When an animal died, it slipped away with an innocence I couldn’t understand. It was an extinguishing of life. When a conscious being died, the spirit and soul fought to hold on, even as the body let go. Faith and trust in a higher being or the universe or whatever it was that thrust a consciousness into a chunk of meat still didn’t stop the soul from fighting to leave.

  I’d seen men—and women and creatures—resign themselves to their deaths. I’d seen people battle and fall. Death removed them swiftly from the playing field. I’d seen and brought death to so many people, but I still mourned the soul as it hooked its metaphysical nails into the flesh and fought like hell to remain.

  Because no matter how someone died, the fear of the unknown sinks into their soul right before they slip away, and it is the most horrifying thing imaginable.

  The first guard died that way. He stepped off of the dais, lifted up his spear, and I killed him.

  Then I watched his universe unravel while he took his final gurgling breath.

  Being the Red Queen’s, the guards wore stylized dark burgundy armor fashioned to make them appear to be pawns from a chess set. The pressed leather of their tunics flared out away from their hips, and their helmets we
re rounded at the base but pointed up top and angled back from their temples. There were no visors to protect their faces, and their pants were velvet and satin, tucked into thick leather boots and flounced around their shins.

  There was nothing to protect them from a serious threat, and sure as hell nothing they wore could stop me. Still, they pressed on to defend a queen who, at her very core, thought every living thing with a consciousness was simply a parasite to be eradicated in order for the lands to thrive.

  Starting with us, of course.

  My first sword strike separated most of the guard’s upper body from his hips. He died in motion, his foot not quite on the marble floor, caught in midstep. I spun to avoid the splash of his guts and the river of blood that gushed from his diagonally bisected chest. He shouted something as he died, but I wasn’t listening. I never listened. If I stopped and marked the last words of every creature I killed, I’d have to carry them with me, and despite the armor the Queen of Hearts had wrapped around me, I hated bringing death.

  Sure, the Ace of Spades part loved it. Me? I hated hearing the last words, loathed the rattle of breath as it left their throats for the last time, agonized over who was left standing by the front window, waiting for the person I’d just killed to come home.

  I’d never imagined what a freedom it was to walk away from that. Wearing the armor once again, I remembered exactly how fucking heavy it was and everything that came with it.

  Then the Ace caught me up in its maddening hunger, and I was lost in its sickening joy at spilling blood.

  Snow was falling again, speckling the marble floor. The dais was protected by the angle of the roof, the inner bow steep enough to hold back the billowing ice and crystals. I heard the remaining wyvern scream, but my attention was more on carving a path to the Red Queen than defending myself from an aerial attack. On the other side of the raised platform, Jean Michel fought furiously against a pair of guards, parrying their thrusts with a sword he’d picked up from another fallen guard.