by Dima Zales
Two more floors pass by.
As wholeheartedly as I can, I try to believe that I can do this. I remind myself that flying is nothing compared to the ability to see into the future. After all, birds and planes can fly, but no creature or machine can do what a seer can.
Still nothing—and not many floors left to work it out.
Closing my eyes to help focus, I remind myself that I’m a vampire.
And not just any vampire.
I’m Lilith’s daughter, so flying is mine by birthright.
Something happens near floor five, and I feel an amazing lightness spread through my whole body.
Air resistance ceases and my descent seems to stop—but I’m afraid to open my eyes.
What if this is how everyone feels after hitting the ground? What if this is the lightness of my soul leaving my body?
I hear some sort of excited cries in the distance.
My ears still seem to work. That’s reassuring.
Here goes nothing.
I gulp in a breath and open my eyes.
I’m hovering in the air, fifty feet above the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I look down.
There are people staring up and pointing at me.
So that’s where the noise was coming from. Too bad they have no cellphones with cameras on this world. This feat could’ve gone viral.
All right. Time to figure out how this flying thing works.
I wish to float up.
To my amazement, I do.
Now that it’s finally working, flying reminds me of the way I float during Headspace joining with other seers—only I feel even lighter.
Slowly, I float up to double-digit floors. Then, moving faster and faster, I reach the twenties and locate the broken window from which I came.
The giant wolf is staring out of the frame at me, ears pinned back and his teeth bared in a snarl.
“We have some unfinished business, you and I,” I hiss at him dramatically. “I have a lot of questions, and you’ll answer them for me.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I extend my arms Superman style and speed up.
As I close the distance, a part of me wonders why I’m returning to fight the guy instead of fleeing. I think it’s because if I can’t prove to myself that I can defeat a mere werewolf—no matter how big and strong—I’ll never believe I can face someone like Tartarus.
Also, I’m sick and tired of random strangers trying to kill me. Enough is enough.
Maybe if I make a few bloody examples, my name will go on a list of people never to mess with.
The werewolf growls and lunges at me as I whoosh into the window just above him. His teeth clank together a hair below my shoulder.
I zoom up and kick him in the snout.
The werewolf flies through the room and crashes into the door with such force that it shatters.
He starts to get up, but slowly, as if stunned.
Hovering in the air, I grab his hind paw like a baseball bat and swing him up—which results in his head smacking into the ceiling.
Plaster rains down as he drops to the floor, his hind paw still in my grip and his head lolling to one side.
I either knocked him out or he’s faking.
If it’s the latter, it’s a miscalculation.
Gripping his hind paw tighter, I fly toward the window.
He’s still out—or faking—as his head rams into the window frame.
There’s a sound of claws shredding the carpet behind us.
Damn.
He wasn’t alone.
A group of smaller werewolves rushes into the room.
Was probability manipulation on my side again? If our fight had lasted just a few seconds longer, I’d be dealing with a whole pack.
“You’re too late,” I shout at the newcomers tauntingly as I float out of the window.
They watch me with so much anger in their canine eyes that I worry one or more might actually risk leaping at me. My catch in tow, I fly up to prevent that from happening and only relax when I leave the hotel roof far behind.
Now that I’m up, I keep going toward the clouds, until the people on the ground look like ants. That’s when my captive starts to come to—and by now, I’m sure he wasn’t faking.
His recovery is slow, so I give him a good shake.
His eyes finally open—and widen in an unnatural-for-a-wolf way. That is, if a supernatural creature can be said to do something unnatural.
His gaze drops to the people below us, and his whole body stiffens as blood starts to pour from his ears, maw, and nose.
Oh, crap.
He must be under this world’s version of the Mandate, and it’s punishing him for showing his furry form to the Muggles.
“Dude,” I say. “I doubt anyone on the ground can really see you with much detail. Get your act together.”
He doesn’t say anything and keeps bleeding—and I can’t resist the lure. Lifting him up higher, I bite into his furry paw.
How can something so gross be so good?
The guy must be very powerful indeed. His blood is like chocolate-covered heroin.
Snarling at my bite, the werewolf shines with that now-familiar energy, and the furry paw in my grip turns into a human leg.
A naked human leg—attached to a naked everything else that’s dangling upside down.
Well, this is awkward.
Then again, it could be worse. I could be the naked one, and he could be the one enjoying my bodily fluids.
“Let me go,” the werewolf snarls as the blood outpour from his orifices ceases.
I look down at the distant ground below us, then back at him, and channel Lilith with my smile. “Are you sure? I understand it sucks to be slapped around by someone a third of your weight, but that’s no reason to give up on life just like that.”
He pales, realizing his choice of words. “Please,” he grits. “I don’t like heights.”
“You don’t like heights?” I ask, feigning concern. Then, as if I lost control over my flying, I jerkily dip down a foot.
The look of horror on his face is priceless.
“What do you want?” he growls.
Did my probability manipulation deliver me a werewolf with acrophobia, or is it merely a happy coincidence? Can there even be such thing as a coincidence for me anymore?
“Nothing,” I say and repeat the drop-down tactic.
He pales another shade of white. “How do I make you stop?”
“By telling me why you tried to kill me,” I say, and to highlight my opinion of his actions, I dip down another couple of feet.
“You’re clearly Cognizant, yet you went on TV and displayed your powers by winning the lottery,” he says shakily. “We checked—it was no illusion—so you must’ve used your trickster powers to do so. Now it turns out even your flying was real—which I still can’t believe.” He looks down. “What did you expect would happen?”
“I had extenuating circumstances,” I say, and as I do, I realize how interesting it is that Lilith omitted any mention of the local Cognizant. In fact, she made it sound like they didn’t exist when she was saying that she didn’t want to share the spoils of this world with any Cognizant from Earth. Did she take it as a foregone conclusion that Tartarus would kill all local Cognizant?
“You can make all the excuses you want, but the Councils will have your head,” he says a bit too boldly for my taste, so I dip another three feet to calm him down.
He snarls in response and says sulkily, “I wasn’t the only one sniffing you out. My Enforcers are out there—and you’re as good as dead. Especially if you kill me.”
“What’s your name?” I readjust my grip to make sure he doesn’t slip. Sweating bullets like he is, he’s as slippery as an overused stripper pole.
“Obo,” he growls.
“What, like the woodwind instrument?”
“No,” he says. “That’s an oboe—with an ‘e’ at the end. My name is short fo
r Oboroten’.”
I grin. “As in, werewolf in Russian?”
“My parents were not very subtle people,” he says gruffly.
“And the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” I say. “Fall, get it?”
“Yes, very clever,” he says sarcastically.
“All right, Obo. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.” I regrip his leg to make sure he doesn’t slip out and prematurely end our conversation. “I’m here from a different Otherland, and I plan to save your world from destruction. I don’t expect much in the way of thanks, but assassinating me isn’t going to help anyone.”
“What are you talking about?” Obo crunches up, his abs flexing. “How can you, a single vampire, save a whole world? And from what? The biggest threat to our existence is you. By going on TV, you risk revealing our nature to the humans.”
“I had to go on TV to boost my powers in order to help you all. As to what or whom I’m saving you from—how much do you know about Tartarus?”
He lets himself hang. “I’ve heard of Tartarus. Isn’t he just a myth they tell you about at Orientation to scare you from running off into the Otherlands?”
“Sadly, no. Tartarus is a real entity, and he’s coming to devour your world.”
“Sure he is. And you came here to save us—out of the kindness of your vampire heart.” His words are dripping with so much sarcasm, I strongly contemplate dropping him, but I just dip down to scare him instead.
It works. He starts breathing faster.
“If you’re such a skeptic, why do you think I’m here?” I ask when he calms a bit. “Why would I put a target on my back like that?”
“Maybe you’re dumb and power hungry,” he says. “It’s happened before.”
“I think it’s dumb to call me dumb,” I say and loosen my grip slightly, causing his leg to nearly slip from my hold.
He starts sweating bullets again. “Fine, whatever. It doesn’t matter why you did it. It’s not my job to know. I leave such questions for the ones in charge.”
“What is your job, then?” I ask as a possibly bad idea occurs to me.
“I’m an Enforcer,” he says proudly. “I bring Cognizant like you to face the wrath of the Council. Dead or alive.”
I sadistically plummet a couple of feet to remind him who’s in charge. “You’re in luck,” I say, deciding to implement my dubious idea. “I’m going to let you do your job.”
He stares at me uncomprehendingly, audibly panting. The last plunge was clearly sobering.
“You’re going to take me to speak with your Council,” I say. “Hopefully, they’re not as thickheaded as you.”
He crunches up again, his eyes as wide as if I’d spouted tusks. “Is this a trick? You want to face them?”
“No trick,” I say. “I’m here to save your world, as I’ve said—but I can’t do it alone. You and your Council will need to help me save you, and the first step is for us to have a chat.”
He blinks. “If you’re sure about this, then take me down so I can put a blindfold on you and we—”
“Take you down?” I chuckle. “That’s not happening. We’re going to fly there together.”
“But—”
“I’m going with my eyes wide open,” I say firmly. “If anything unforeseen were to happen to me, I still have a chance to let you go.”
“Fine.” His jaw muscles tense. “Let’s fly there. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep my eyes closed as we go.”
“So long as you can give me directions without looking, I can blindfold you.”
He shrugs—which is clearly hard to do upside-down. “Go north.”
I do, and as I fly, I notice that the metropolis below us is built on an island shaped like a triangle that has two equal sides.
“If I have my terminology right, that landmass is an isosceles triangle,” I tell my captive. “That’s pretty neat.”
“A golden triangle,” he says without opening his eyes. “The west and east sides of the island are in a golden ratio to the south side.”
“Impressive,” I say sarcastically. “I didn’t realize trigonometry was such a basic skill for a werewolf Enforcer.”
“Every Cognizant child here knows this,” Obo says, taking on a tour-guide tone. “You see, long ago, this landmass was a pentagram—a shape that has golden triangles at the tips. Then one of the descendants of Rūaumoko caused a major earthquake that left only this island above water. Soon after, we implemented the Mandate. I hope you can see why everyone on this world is sensitive when it comes to flashy displays of power.” He opens his eyes and narrows them at me.
Great. It will be that much harder to justify my TV performance to these people. Assuming I can do it at all.
Biting my lip, I fly silently for the next few minutes and do my best to figure out what I’ll say to the Council.
Obo corrects my course a few times until it becomes clear that we’re flying to where the narrowest part of the island points like an arrow.
“What’s with the geometric shapes?” I ask when I see another island in the distance. “That looks like a pizza with a slice missing—though I’m sure there’s a better mathematical term for it.”
“That shape is called a sector and the reason there are so many patterns to the landmasses on this world is Rūaumoko—the most powerful earth mover Cognizant who’s ever lived,” Obo explains. “Believing himself a god, he ripped apart the original cohesive continent into shapes he thought pleasing. This world has many legends about those apocalyptic events—and even modern scientists explain it by using a dubious symmetrical tectonic plate theory.” He stares at the fast-approaching shape. “Anyway, it’s called Pac-Man Island and is where the local Council resides.”
“Wait, what?” I nearly drop him. “Pac-Man? That’s a game we have on my world. How do you know it?”
He wipes the sweat off his forehead and takes a calming breath. “Do they also have Orientation on your world?” he manages to say after a moment.
“They do,” I say defensively. “Maybe I didn’t exactly finish the whole thing, but that’s not my fault.”
“Well, if you did, you’d know that all good ideas for games, books, and movies get routinely ‘borrowed’ by the Cognizant from different worlds,” he says. “That’s why you’ll often find similar languages, popular culture, technological advancements, and much more.”
Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? It sounds like I could bring the abacus to the dragon world and be the next Bill Gates there as a result.
Wait a second.
Is Bill Gates a Cognizant? Did he get the idea for Windows from someplace like Gomorrah? If so, why didn’t he jump right to AI or VR instead? Or hover—
“Some technologies are controlled by the Councils,” Obo says, clearly reading my mind. “Books, comics, and music are where the world sharing is most rampant. Unless they’re books about political ideologies ahead of their time.”
I make a mental note to talk more about this with Dr. Hekima—assuming I survive.
Now that we’re close enough to Pac-Man Island to examine it, I study it with all the intensity of my new and improved vampire vision.
Unlike the concrete jungle that was the city island we left behind, this one looks like a forest preserve—only on major steroids. Anywhere the eye falls are four-hundred-foot-tall sequoia-like trees that jointly blot out any visibility of what’s happening on the ground.
As in, I could land in the middle of an ambush and not know it.
How lovely.
“Do the humans not come here?” I ask Obo as I reluctantly begin my descent.
“We made sure a lot of animals are protected on this island,” he says proudly. “It’s warded against random sailors getting an idea to dock here. If someone from the government ever comes to check on things, our illusionists make them see what we want them to see. And if any poacher-types manage to break through the wards somehow, they’ll either be eaten by the very animals they came to kill, or gl
amoured to never come back.”
Eaten? Talk about overkill.
I wonder what they’ll do in a few decades when Google, or this world’s equivalent, decides to create satellite images of everything and put them online. That, and small drones, might one day be a problem for this Council.
If they’re around after Tartarus arrives, that is.
Which is why I’m here.
“Land there.” Obo points to where the Pac-Man’s eye would be.
As I clear the bushy tops of the enormous trees, I spot the place he meant.
It’s a meadow, and on the grass are people who look like a cos-play convention—or extras in a movie about wood elves.
Many point their fingers at me, while some point actual guns—which clash with the medieval fantasy vibe they have going.
I carefully fly down and make sure Obo doesn’t break anything critical as I drop him on the ground.
Then, ignoring the threatening displays all around, I land and wave at them. “Howdy. I’m here to have a very important conversation with y'all.” For some reason, I say it with a Texas drawl. Must be all the guns.
“Looks like we’re going to have a hearing,” says a dude with a bushy beard that doesn’t go with his elven outfit. Then again, for all I know, elves might have beards, especially if they’re also hipsters.
“A hearing is what she wanted,” Obo says.
The bearded guy nods, then takes out a walkie-talkie from under his tunic and fiddles with the controls. When the gizmo hisses, he says, “Lizzy, bring the TV here so we can review the evidence.”
A young woman with a kind, round face poofs into existence.
This must be Lizzy, and she’s a teleporter, like Eric.
With her is a black, multi-level stand with a big CRT TV and VCR. It reminds me of the setup our Sex Ed teacher used when he showed the horror-flick-like documentary from the eighties called The Miracle of Life. The graphically depicted live birth in it was, for me, the best motivation for abstinence for countless years after—not to mention, something that still gives me nightmares on occasion.
Maybe I should get Bailey’s help with that.
The bearded guy walks to the contraption and grabs the electrical plugs that lead to the TV and VCR.