Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

  As her mind pressed into his, he found he knew how to send his soul to Tir Anhrefnus, just as Alicia had sent hers in search of Ansel. It seemed to him he’d always known how to do this, that Alicia had only reminded Brendan of something he’d understood for ages. Tir Anhrefnus lay on the other side of Brendan’s reality, the same way Krystal’s living room lay on the other side of her house’s brick exterior. He needed only open the door.

  “Will you take me there?”

  Alicia’s voice made Brendan realize he’d been in a trance-like state, but it didn’t pull him out. Her voice came from nowhere and everywhere, a sound all around Brendan in the psychic no-space he inhabited.

  Her presence pointed him toward a darkness.

  Toward Tir Anhrefnus.

  A deep part of him remembered what Samson said about his power and about its cost. But another part of him wanted to listen to Alicia. It wanted to take her to Tir Anhrefnus, to find what waited for him, and to learn what Samson refused to teach him.

  And so he reached into the darkness.

  13

  Brendan didn’t know what he’d expected when his soul passed into Tir Anhrefnus, but he had expected something. Yet no fanfare accompanied him as he crossed over. He blinked, and there he was.

  Alicia released his hand. She stood nearby, peering around the new landscape with interest. Her body flickered in and out, there one moment and gone the next. Brendan lifted his arm in front of his face and found himself doing same flickering dance. His body remained at the rest stop with Myra. Only his soul—that truest part that would remain if he replaced his entire body with mods—had made this journey.

  Tir Anhrefnus was a bleak place. The earth was cracked and gray. No clouds drifted in the colorless sky. It was cold, too. Cold enough to cut into the deepest parts of Brendan, though his body didn’t react. He didn’t shiver, and no goosebumps formed on his skin. With a start, he realized he’d been here, only not physically.

  He’d been here in his dreams.

  He almost couldn’t believe it. After so many years of dreaming of this place—including that night in Krystal’s house after Samson showed up—it had been Tir Anhrefnus all along.

  “Come on.”

  Brendan looked at Alicia. She held out one flickering hand.

  “Come where?”

  Alicia only smiled and shrugged.

  Brendan took her hand and let her lead him. Unlike in his dream, the dirt didn’t fall away with each of their steps. They were only partly here.

  The earth swelled and relaxed beneath them. That thought from his dream, that a terrible beast slumbered under his feet, washed over Brendan once again. Now he understood. The beast below was the tar. If he took a shovel to this earth, he’d uncover a writhing river of black poison. A shudder coursed through him, but so did a touch of excitement.

  They’d been walking for a few minutes when Brendan realized the cracks were moving. They pulsed, like long, throbbing hearts.

  The cracks were not cracks. They were massive veins of tar.

  It was an incredible sight. The stuff crisscrossed the gray earth in a network of black bulges. Not an ounce the infection tried to attack him or Alicia. The tar recognized his power. It wouldn’t strike without permission. Still, Brendan avoided stepping directly onto any of the pulsing veins. Power or no power, it was best not to anger the beast.

  Something about the veins of tar appeared more purposeful than Brendan’s first impression had told him. These veins led somewhere. They all converged on one point.

  “Where are we going?” Brendan asked.

  Alicia responded by craning her neck to scan the horizon. A shiver passed through her, ending in the fingers wrapped around Brendan’s hand. He tried to follow her gaze but saw nothing.

  “You see something?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t see anything. But I can feel it. Something big.”

  Brendan squinted into the emptiness, but to no avail. He only saw mile after mile of black veins and gray earth. But Alicia was right—they were drawing closer to something. The darkness in him that had awakened in the basement with Tiger Stripe stirred and filled him with certainty. The network of tar pointed somewhere. It fed into something very large and very powerful.

  The minute the thought entered his mind, a massive shadow materialized on the horizon, and the dark presence inside Brendan thrilled. His hair stood on end. His heart beat a staccato rhythm.

  If Tir Anhrefnus had a sun, the shadow would have blotted it out. It had no discernible shape. Haze and distance obscured its edges. It swayed and morphed inasmuch as something so undefined could do so.

  Alicia squeezed his hand. Her eyes widened.

  “What?” he asked.

  With a soft and trembling voice, Alicia said, “It’s scary.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “You can keep me safe, can’t you?”

  Brendan offered a faltering smile. Images of tar floating over him in the basement flashed through his mind, followed by the memories of driving the stuff into Tiger Stripe and the tattooed man at the tavern. He could keep himself safe, but would his safety come at the expense of Alicia’s?

  And, more importantly, did he care?

  Maybe, but he cared more about the looming shadow and its thrumming power.

  So Brendan nodded. “You’re safe with me,” he lied. “Promise.”

  Together they approached the shadow. The closer they came, the more the darkness inside Brendan buzzed.

  The shadow was speaking now. A sound filled both his mind and the air, just like in his dream, only no thunder wrapped around it this time. The voice rumbled alone, with nothing to protect Brendan from its power.

  Its message was the same as in his dream:

  Come.

  Alicia’s grip on Brendan’s hand tightened. She gaped at the shadow, trembling.

  As her grip grew painful, Brendan tried to pull his hand free, but it was no good. She only squeezed harder. She only dragged him closer. The voice grew louder and more insistent in Brendan’s mind.

  Come. Come. COME. COME.COME.

  Brendan turned to Alicia again. Her eyes were still wide, but now he recognized the expression.

  COME. COME. COME. COME. COME. COME. COME. COME.

  She wasn’t afraid. That expression was anything but terror.

  Come.

  It was hunger.

  14

  Come.

  Alicia pulled on Brendan’s arm, but not to hold him back. She was running ahead, dragging him ever closer to the shadow on the horizon. He strained against her, but her grip was a vice.

  Come. Come.

  Brendan had to get out. He tried to remember the obscure psychic path he’d taken from the old rest stop to this terrible, gray place, but he couldn’t shake the buzzing panic. He couldn’t quiet the horrible voice filling his mind.

  COME.

  But he had to find a way. So he dug his heels into the earth. He clawed at Alicia’s fingers. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the rumbling chant.

  “Brendan!”

  A new voice pierced the rumble, a voice from outside Tir Anhrefnus. Brendan opened his eyes, and Alicia was gone. He was alone in Tir Anhrefnus with the massive shadow looming on the horizon.

  “Brendan!” the voice called again. He clung to the sound, and as he did, the chanting in his head grew softer.

  Brendan closed his eyes again, this time focusing all his attention on the voice outside Tir Anhrefnus. He’d come here by finding a tiny hole between his world and this one. To return, he only needed to find that hole again, even if it didn’t have a true physical location.

  “Brendan!”

  The voice flashed like a psychic beacon. He pressed all his mind toward it and retraced the invisible steps he’d taken to get to Tir Anhrefnus.

  Hands grasped his shoulders, tug
ging him backward. He landed flat on his back, and the air left his lungs. When he opened his eyes, he was back in the rest stop. Krystal crouched over him, but his relief at seeing her didn’t last long. Her face was strained and afraid.

  “What have you done?” she breathed.

  “You did it!” came a cry from nearby. Myra’s voice. “You have brought the Black God to us!”

  Brendan sat up, still stunned from his sudden jump between worlds. “What?”

  Krystal simply responded by pointing to a corner of the rest stop behind Brendan. He followed her finger with his eyes.

  And he found a patch of tar.

  He was sure he hadn’t seen it before. He would’ve noticed it had it been there when they came in. It was a small patch, and no one was within reach, which was good news. It hung from the ceiling, squirming and rippling in place.

  “Incredible,” Myra said. Her voice took on an awed hush. “While you traveled to the other world, the Black God sent some of itself into ours. How did you do it?”

  She looked at Brendan, her good eye gleaming with the same hunger he’d seen in Alicia. Myra limped toward him. Her shriveled arm wriggled at her side.

  “You opened a passageway between this world and the next. I know that much,” Myra hobbled closer still. “But you made it possible for the Black God to pass through. If you tell me how you did it, we could...”

  Her voice trailed off. She shook her head in silent ecstasy.

  “I...” Brendan stared at the patch of tar. “I can’t.”

  Myra’s eye gained new fire, new focus, new fury. She turned it to Brendan as she snagged the scrap of paper she’d scribbled on from the counter. “I made you a map, didn’t I? Saved your life, didn’t I? I gave you information, and you can’t give me this?”

  Her voice grew louder and higher until it became an ear-piercing scream. The hair around her head floated, turning into a stringy halo. She raised her good hand threateningly.

  Something clicked behind Brendan, and Myra’s expression froze.

  “Stop,” said Samson.

  Brendan turned. Samson had lifted his gun and pointed it, not at Myra, but at the tar.

  Myra let out a bloodcurdling scream. Her face contorted into a hideous mask of rage. “You can’t!” she shrieked.

  Samson said, “Stand down.” His voice was soft yet firm.

  Myra lowered her hand. Her good eye blazed with fury. “You do not understand what this means.”

  “No?”

  Eyes locked on Samson’s gun, Myra pointed behind herself, at the tar. “Your friend brought the Black God into this world. If I had time to examine it...study it...” She ran her tongue over pink lips. “...I could learn how he did it.”

  Now Samson leveled the gun at Myra’s head. “You would call more blight into this world?”

  Myra laughed, and for a moment, the rage-twisted, shrieking banshee vanished. The sound was the gentle tinkling of wind chimes in an easy summer breeze. She said, “Your Black God is powerful, but it holds no interest for me. You fear a god of consumption, but I serve a god of chaos.” She smiled, hideous and beautiful. “I serve Those Beyond.”

  Samson gave no response, only gripped his gun more tightly.

  “Those Beyond have never crossed into this world,” Myra said. “I do not know how to welcome them into a new world, but if we learned from this—” She gestured at the fresh patch of tar. “—if we uncovered your friend’s secret, we could use his knowledge to bring our god into this world as he brought his. If I was the one to do it, the one to establish a kingdom of chaos on earth—”

  “You wouldn’t live long enough to regret your mistake,” Samson finished for her.

  “My body would not survive long, no. But my name would live forever.”

  “You would sacrifice so much for a little power?”

  “And what have you sacrificed for yours, apprentice of Merlin?” Myra cocked her head at Samson. “How many years have you lived, and how many of them do you remember?”

  Samson’s shotgun trembled. The shake lasted only a moment, and then he steadied his weapon.

  “Oh, you know the past, thanks to that book you carry around,” Myra continued. “But do you ever wonder how much of it is true? One of your friends could have rewritten it, and you would have no way of knowing, because you have no memories to tell you the truth. You sacrificed your mind on the altar of power.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed.”

  Myra’s smile turned cruel. “And neither do you.”

  Samson’s eyes grew wide. Lifting his gun with renewed vigor, he roared, “No!”

  Myra retreated, but Samson’s outburst wasn’t directed at her. As Brendan followed Samson’s line of sight, he saw what had set the gray-haired man off. While Samson and Myra traded barbs, Alicia had wandered around the rest stop. She’d circled the tar, drawing closer and closer with interest. But her curiosity had drawn her too close. It had drawn her into the tar’s reach. A thick tentacle had shot out of the patch and forced itself down her throat. The rest stop filled with wet, choking sounds.

  It lifted her off the ground. Her slender legs thrashed inches above the cracked tile. Her good eye rolled back in her head, and even the bad one, covered in translucent film, darkened with the tar’s tint.

  “Stand aside, woman,” Samson said to Myra, training his weapon on Alicia’s floating body.

  Time slowed, the moment stretching into an eternity, and Brendan saw it all unfold. Myra’s eyes flicking over her shoulder to her partner. Samson steadying his breathing, ensuring a clean shot. Krystal holding a hand over her mouth in terror. Alicia, kicking her legs with less vigor by the second.

  And somehow, a spark of pity entered Brendan’s heart.

  In that eternal moment, Brendan realized he couldn’t allow Samson to pull the trigger.

  Samson would never show Brendan the depth of his power. But Alicia? Within minutes of meeting him, she’d shown him how to travel between worlds. What other abilities would her knowledge unlock?

  Brendan’s progress was threatened, and not just by Samson’s tar-killing gun. It was threatened by the tar itself. Threads wormed off the main tentacle, branching across Alicia’s face and creeping into her nostrils, her ears, and the corners of her eyes. How far gone was she?

  Unless he acted soon, Brendan would never know.

  So Brendan turned to Alicia’s twitching, floating body. He lifted a hand. It was an unnecessary gesture, but it helped him focus. In a moment, he connected to the tar, as easily as if he’d pressed his palm onto the bio-power cell of a blaster. His consciousness coursed through the infection filling Alicia’s body, and he found all the answers he needed.

  She wasn’t lost yet. If he drove the tar out, she would have a chance.

  But how great was that chance? How much of her humanity remained? There was no predicting what might happen. This was uncharted territory.

  Brendan reached for the tar with the dark part of himself that thrilled with power, and he told it to leave Alicia’s body. At first, nothing happened. A million miles away, he heard Alicia gag on the black tentacle. He felt its branches grow longer inside her. But then, as he redoubled his efforts, its momentum ground to a halt. Long-unused psychic muscles strained, and Brendan screamed with the effort. Somewhere nearby, Krystal sobbed, and Samson barked orders. But the sounds were only noise. Distractions. Brendan’s focus remained on the tar.

  And as he strained, the infection reversed course.

  At first, it barely moved. Samson and Krystal wouldn’t have noticed a thing even if they stood right next to Alicia, so subtle was the change. Brendan continued his effort, pulling from reserves of power he’d never imagined were available. The tar kept retreating, and the further it moved the easier it became to push. Soon, Brendan reached some unseen tipping point, and the tar raced backward. He gave one last psychic heave, and the black po
ison left Alicia’s body. She gasped and staggered into him.

  Brendan caught her, and the rest stop spun around him. It had taken a tremendous amount of energy to rip the tar out of Alicia, and Brendan hadn’t realized just how hard he’d pushed himself until now, as a half-dead girl with only one good eye stumbled into his arms.

  But he’d saved her, at least for now. If the tar hadn’t eaten too much of her blood, she would recover.

  His consciousness began slipping away. In a matter of seconds, he would be out cold, with Samson loading him into his car as they continued their adventure to visit Ansel. If he wanted Alicia to help him develop his power, now was the time.

  So with his last shred of energy, he whispered, “Find me.”

  And then all went black. He tumbled into the darkness, turning in the sweet relief of unconsciousness.

  15

  Brendan awoke with his cheek resting against the window in the backseat of Samson’s car. A cracked highway raced by. He felt no pain, only stiffness from sleeping in such an odd position. He straightened up, rubbed his eyes.

  “Hey there, sleepyhead,” said Krystal’s voice to his right.

  Brendan twisted, working at the kinks in his back. “How long was I out?”

  Krystal shrugged. “A few hours. Not as long as I expected after everything that happened.”

  “Everything that happened?”

  Krystal put a hand on his cheek. “Don’t you remember?”

  Brendan tried to sort through his jumbled memories. He remembered a man running in front of their car, remembered the sea of tar blocking their way. He remembered a crumbling building...and not much else. The rest was only impressions: of fear, excitement, and...power. Lots of power.

  “You did something foolish. That is what happened.”

  Samson glared at Brendan through the rear-view mirror.

  “But he saved her life.” Krystal’s voice was soft and pleading.