“Weakness is a matter of perspective,” Tay-lore countered. “I have long struggled with my identity as an almost-person and will likely continue long after today.”
He stopped talking. Jackie waited for more. Finally, he continued.
“In the end, I am here and they are not. I still exist while they have been extinguished. My brothers, flawed as they were, are all dead… Sometimes, when it boils down to it, what really matters is enduring—surviving the hardships. At times, simply ‘being here’ is what matters in the face of all the could-have and should-have possibilities.”
Jackie looked at her friend and determined to pull herself out of the pit she’d fallen into. If the android could grapple with such deep emotions, perhaps it was not beyond her ability. “I just don’t know what to do next.”
“We cannot ever go back,” he said, “but we can choose to embrace what we have. Begin there.”
Jackie bit her lip. She had a lot to think about—but first, her appetite had returned.
***
Zabe, Claire, and Spireth paid extra attention to their feet. Their footsteps landed on soft earth, clear of dry reeds or bracken.
They approached the nearby clearing as silently as hungry predators and hunkered down below a stringer full of doll heads. All of their lifeless, yet eager eyes seemed to stare either at them or at the grisly scene playing out fifty meters away where a huge tarkhūn tore the nun’s habit from her head and laid the bound woman upon an altar made of piled rocks and sticks.
“Skrom,” Zabe hissed, recognizing the massive, reptile warrior from their last encounter. A team of scout vyrm returned from where they’d gone to dispatch a team of invading Corpsmen.
Caivev walked through the middle of the company. “Where are those two other teams?” she complained as she walked, digging into her sack for the ancient artifact that would unlock the gate when combined with the nun’s blood.
A lithe man dressed as a priest stepped around the odd stone that protruded from the earth at the clearing in the island’s center. He grinned at the imprisoned nun who struggled below Skrom’s mighty paw and a tall Rottweiler flanked him obediently.
“There’s something wrong about that dog,” Claire whispered to the others, rubbing her temples.
Spireth looked at her inquisitively.
“Don’t you feel this heat? Why isn’t the dog panting to keep cool?”
Zabe pointed to two sets of eyes watching them from across the clearing. He signaled the two corpsmen silently, telling them to stay put until he gave the word. “It’s Murdo and Tahnak. They were with Chira… at least we’re not totally alone.”
The nun seemed to recognize the priest as he approached her. When he reached up and tore his collar off, terror overtook the woman. His facial features melted away and he stretched taller as a horrific half-goat-half-man. The dog likewise shifted into the abyssal auraphage: the tentacle-faced tracking beasts they'd encountered on the trail.
Akko Soggathoth stroked the cheek of the nun with mock compassion. He wiped away a tear that rolled down her face.
Claire bristled at the sight. She could identify with the woman’s terror—Nitthogr and the Heptobscurantum had been equally villainous.
Caivev turned and walked to the eldritch plinth. The oddly smooth, leaning obelisk wore etchings of arcane runes that had a distinctly vyrm flair to the well-trained eye. After placing the hierophanticus into a hollow in the stone, the engraved glyphs seemed to glow with a strange light.
“We’ve got to go now,” Spireth urged. “We have to stop them before it’s too late.”
Zabe held up a hand and looked into the distant sky. “Wait. Don’t you hear that?”
Claire and Spireth searched the horizon. The abyssal auraphage also turned, pointing its face to the tree line’s canopy. Suddenly they all heard it: the distinct thumping sounds of a helicopter—and it was close.
“Do it!” Akko Soggathoth screamed at Skrom.
“No!” Spireth rushed out from the trees and rushed directly for the sacrifice. Zabe snarled and followed after.
Skrom grinned at the Prime’s warriors and raked his claws lengthwise down her body, spilling her blood and shredding her bonds. The portal ripped open near the hierophanticus as the chopper broke past the edge of the clearing.
Zabe charged for Akko Soggathoth like a feral hunter. He glanced quickly at Murdo and Tahnak who leapt from the foliage and joined the mad dash.
The rotting goatman sneered. He used one talon to cut his palm and then held out the bleeding hand, commanding him to stop.
Zabe staggered at the sensation that rocked his body, knocking all power out of him as if Akko Soggathoth had been capable of splitting body, spirit, and mind. Taking two more staggering steps, he lost his focus and the ability to hold the lycan form. His body melted into the softer, pink human form and he collapsed just as the helicopter opened fire.
Bullets ripped through the sky above him. Dirt scatted and pandemonium erupted in a hail of gunfire.
“Foolish darquechild,” Akko Soggathoth growled at Zabe. “Where do you think that power comes from? You might certainly use it to honor your Architect King—but who do you think is lord of the realm from which it was birthed?” He hissed and seethed with both amusement and rage. “There, I am a god—and you cannot conquer me.”
Barely discernible voices from the police helicopter screamed at them in two languages not to flee; both voices came warbled through the loudspeaker. A bracket-mounted fifty caliber gun opened fire again. The guns refused to stop firing on them even as they demanded surrender.
Spireth leapt forward and pulled the wounded nun into his arms. The helicopter pivoted towards them and opened fire, cutting them both down in a hail of indiscriminate lead.
The darquegate split even wider with the nun’s death.
Clutching half a book in a mittened hand, Akko Soggathoth jumped through the portal. Skrom ducked his head and escorted Caivev through as well. Half of the vyrm under her command leapt into the unknown after them; the other half, those nearer to the cursed-doll forest routed for the cover of the woods.
Zabe, still bewildered, stumbled to his feet with Claire’s help.
A rocket streaked overhead and the edge of the clearing exploded. Flames chucked shrieking and charred vyrm through the air. The next explosive round loaded into place and fired as the chopper systematically destroyed the eldritch site.
Claire put her arm around Zabe and guided him towards the portal. Chira’s remaining two warriors each grabbed him on either side, relieving the princess of the task. Zabe stumbled as he ran the first few steps like a drunkard.
Another rocket clicked into place to launch and the chopper turned its nose to aim for those fleeing targets headed for the shimmering portal.
Zabe and Claire leapt through the unfamiliar portal even as an explosion behind them flung them through the breach and into the unknown. Ballistic fire melted the site to slag, severing any chance of a return trip.
Chapter 15
Wulftone balked at his reflection in the restaurant’s window. He frowned and tried to smooth away the stress lines from around his eyes, hoping Zabe, Claire, and their crew would return soon. Wulftone didn’t fear that they’d fallen to the enemy—he knew his cousin could handle that—but he struggled to carry the weight of leadership. In Zabe’s absence, everything seemed to fall on his shoulders instead.
From outside, he watched Jackie through the glass for a few moments longer. She looked confused; her face remained placid but there was pain in her eyes. Wulftone knew that the kind of turmoil she dealt with might eat her alive if she didn’t deal with the pain. He’d felt much the same after his parents died, before General Zahaben took him in.
Wulftone meandered through the restaurant with his eyes glued to her. He’d pursued her ever since their meeting three years prior—during the vyrm occupation when his cousin pulled the vivacious earth girl through a portal. She’d demanded that the
scattered remnants of the Guardian Corps and any under the care the Veritas help rescue her friend before the attempted Awakening. That internal fire had been what he loved most about her.
He slid into a seat opposite her, but she did not look up. That somber look on her face made him worry that the fire within her had died. Then she looked up and he saw how brightly that pain burned behind her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
She gave him a wounded smile as she struggled through the pain.
“No. I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve made a choice between you two a long while ago.”
He took her hand. “Shh. Don’t worry about that or feel like you’ve got to carry the pain of his death all on your own. I know how bad it must hurt—we may have had our conflicts, but Harken and I were also friends.”
Wulftone looked into Jackie’s eyes as they glistened. He regretted how timidly he’d acted with her before. It was for fear of what Jackie endured right now: that he could love someone who would be taken from him, just like his family had been. He never wanted to feel that pain again, but as he looked at Jackie he wanted nothing more than to risk that for her—and so he opened himself to sharing her pain for Harken.
Jackie squeezed his hand. “I know. I see that, now, and that’s why it was always going to be you that I chose.”
Something in the way she said it convinced him that it was true. He held her hand until a waiter approached, looking at Jackie.
“The same as before, ma’am?”
She nodded. “Make it a double.”
The attendant nodded and retreated as Wulftone glanced at her dubiously. “I’d been trying to take you here for a long time,” he whispered. “You’ve been coming here all along?”
She shook her head. “No. And Harken tried to bring me as well.” Fancy dining hadn’t returned to the royal city since the vyrm sieged so much of it in recent history. While it wasn’t swanky, the modest bistro made a passable attempt at the finest place in the areas hit hardest by Nitthogr’s invasion. “I came here last night with Tay-lore.”
Wulftone smiled and sat back. “How did that go?”
Jackie smiled—maybe the first genuine smile since Antarctica. “It was interesting. I wanted something that nobody in the Prime could make—it’s kind of a comfort food for me: the thing I always ate whenever I felt sad or confused or hungry… basically, one of the best things ever.”
“That Krispy Kream you talk about?”
Jackie shook her head. “Buffalo wings.”
Wulftone looked at her confusedly. “I’ve seen that animal. They don’t have wings.”
Jackie chuckled. “It’s just a name for the food. It’s a long story, but it’s actually a spicy chicken recipe. We actually ended up in the kitchen with the chefs,” she laughed. “He used all that fancy processing power to come up with a pretty close recipe. He insisted that they make it special for me.”
He smiled as a waiter arrived with two plates of the foreign food. “I knew the android would figure people out, yet.” Wulftone felt happy that the android succeeded in demonstrating compassion—he knew Tay-lore was compassionate, but the automaton struggled to mimic humanity sometimes.
She picked up a wing and bit into the drumstick before sitting back, watching as Wulftone picked up a wing. He’d never eaten wings before and mimicked her.
Jackie laughed as Wulftone immediately guzzled a big gulp of water after eating the first wing. She smirked knowingly; food in the Prime didn’t tend to lean towards a spicy palette.
He coughed and turned the tables on her laughter. “You know we don’t have chickens in the prime?” Wulftone held up a fried drumstick. “These actually come from a large insect they raise in the rural areas.”
Jackie merely grinned. She reached for another and took a bite. “I actually knew that already,” she smiled unflappably, “and I don’t even care because they taste right.”
The waiter returned a few moments later with another bowl and set it down. "Apologies. I forgot the other part."
She dipped her next hot wing in the speckled, white substance while Wulftone watched her, impressed with her gastrointestinal fortitude. “He also got them to facsimilate ranch dressing as well. It helps.”
Despite the apprehensive look on his face he trusted her enough to try it again and found it more tolerable. He looked into her eyes. A moment passed between them. “Are we… good?”
She returned his gaze and nodded. “We might be better than good. Just give me a few days… I’m still not quite right, if you know what I mean.”
He understood grief—probably better than he’d let on. Wulftone smiled warmly, but pledged to himself that he wouldn’t be timid with her. “I have a question to ask you, then… in a few days.”
She looked at him coyly—and then they both turned as a messenger rushed through the entry to the restaurant. Both could tell by the urgent way he moved that it must’ve been something important.
***
The pile of fighters tumbled into a heap inside the blazing gateway. Flames shot through the darquegate and the doorway quickly winked out of existence; the rockets must’ve either destroyed or dislodged the hierophanticus.
A stark silence ruled the atmosphere as soon as the raging thunder of explosions disappeared with the portal. Murdo and Tahnak jumped into a ready position and Claire rolled to her feet. Zabe staggered to his hind legs only to discover that he had somehow assumed his lycan form without intending to.
Standing a short distance from them stood Caivev, Skrom, and two dozen armed vyrm of the Black. Akko Soggathoth, wearing his ridiculous mittens, returned from behind the vyrm troops where he’d retrieved the spirit of his brother and bound him to the cursed book. Sneering, he paced wistfully near his minions and the loyal, tentacled creature followed him faithfully.
Zabe and his men cloistered around the princess in order to protect her. They couldn’t, however, sense or hear anything except the stark nothingness. Caivev and Skrom obviously shouted commands to their troops who took careful aim with their disruptor cannons, but those orders were muted.
The intruders from the prime looked around, desperate for suitable cover, but nothing lay nearby except blasted ground and shards of glass, not unlike the parched landscape of the post-Syzygyc War in the Vyrm’s home realm. Skrom’s lips were not hard to read as he shouted “Open fire!”
Flashes of light erupted as the blasts from the impromptu firing squad lit up the creeping darkness. The bolts hit some kind of invisible wall. It either absorbed them with a kinetic ripple or deflected entirely. Two blasts ricocheted back; one zipped past Skrom’s head as he screamed for them to cease fire—the other caught a gunman in the chest and dropped the enemy with a smoking hole in his torso.
Claire approached the breach with a sense of wonder. Somewhere in the distance rumbled a cracking, splintering sound as if the galaxy were encapsulated inside a crystal and some cosmic fissure had just split open in the distance.
“Princess,” Tahnak cautioned.
She waved his concerns away and moved closer. Several vyrm did likewise on the opposite side. The barrier looked like a pane of glass, barely prismatic until looked at closely.
The cracking noise suddenly ripped the sky with a peal like sharp thunder. A jagged line of splintered reality shot through the barrier as Claire’s companions jumped in surprise.
"We are in the Darque," Claire said plainly. Her company joined her at her side. "This whole realm is fractured and broken, fissured into compartments." She pointed at the black vyrm who seethed and hissed at her as if only centimeters separated them. "They are not really so close. The rules of distance between us aren't real anymore. You cannot feel him, but I should be able to sense Akko Soggathoth easily—like a sewer stink on a clear day… but I barely feel him, as if he was very far off."
As if in response, two of the snarling vyrm pounded on the glass. When they touched the crack, one o
f them burst into dust—the dust-vyrm held his form for a split second before disintegrating into a heap. The other enemy flashed with a burst of light and his body immediately rearranged itself in grotesque ways; an arm protruded from his head and the other from his belly where his surprised face also moved, except for his teeth which replaced his eyebrows. Its eyes rolled back and its chest heaved desperately for air, suggesting that its lungs no longer connected to an airway. The creature collapsed pitifully before them.
Akko Soggathoth watched gleefully. Everything about their situation amused them.
“Stay away from the cracks,” Claire stated. The warning in her voice indicated that she knew more about the cracks than from mere observation.
A wave of energy like a fell wind washed over the vyrm on the other side. Caivev glowered at them from beyond and a trio of her soldiers clutched their skulls and began screaming as madness took them. Two of them ran screaming and a third turned on them like a rabid dog.
Skrom blasted the immediate threat in the face. One ran off into the distance, and the third charged for the crack. He hit it like a bird against a window and knocked himself senseless before regaining his composure and his mind to no other effect.
“This place is dangerous and unstable,” Claire insisted. The pulse of energy that had afflicted their enemies suddenly rushed towards them. “Get together! Quickly!” she shouted at them. “Everyone jump!”
They looked at her apprehensively.
“Do it!”
Murdo stumbled as the chain of lightning crawled across the wasteland below. The others timed it correctly, but the energy burned the life from Murdo in the span of a heartbeat.
They watched the distant ground lightning crawl away in the distance. Murdo’s smoldering corpse lay upon the burned and barren ground.
“How did you…”
“I read some of the forbidden books long ago,” Claire confessed. “Bithia was intensely curious about all things.”
“And this was in here?” Tahnak asked.
Claire shrugged. "Some of it. Snippets of conversations from the early age with kidnapped vyrm heretics contained references to things like this… it's difficult, however. I know these things from Bithia's experiences, so I remember them more as a feeling than like a memory. Does that make sense?"
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