by R S Penney
“What have we here?”
She opened to find about two dozen bullets inside, bullets that were made to fit a Lessenger-22. There was a reason why Desa carried the most common pistol available. It wasn't the most reliable weapon, but you could always find ammunition.
Picking one up, she held it in front of her face and squinted. “Hmm...” she said. “I wonder if you'll actually fire.”
These bullets were as gray as everything else in the house. Aside from the lack of colour, everything else seemed unaffected; doors still opened, floorboards still supported her weight. But she was dealing with something entirely unnatural. There was no telling how inanimate objects might have been affected.
She slipped the box into her pocket and moved silently down the stairs. Despite her fears, the sitting room was still empty, and when she glanced through the open front door, she saw her companions waiting on the road with the horses. They looked so strange, all of them in full colour against a landscape of unrelenting gray.
Desa stepped out into the open, rubbing her forehead with the back of one hand. “I found no one inside,” she said, pacing through the grass toward them. “Something about this feels incongruent.”
Sebastian was standing with his arms folded, shaking his head at what he obviously believed to be a stupid remark. “You don't say!” he spat. “The world turned gray around us, and something feels incongruent.”
Desa ignored him.
“The door was unlocked,” she explained, “which would imply that this strangeness happened when the family was at home and busy with their daily tasks, and yet I saw no bodies. So, where did they go?”
“Maybe they fled after the grayness came,” Miri suggested.
Desa shrugged. “I doubt that,” she said, moving slowly toward her friends. She was careful to make sure they heard the crunch-crunch of dead grass beneath her feet. “Look around you. All the plants are dead, and we don't hear the sounds of livestock. So, if the family was present when the grayness came...”
“There should be corpses,” Tommy muttered.
“Exactly.”
Frowning as she turned her head to inspect the landscape, Miri offered a sniff of disdain. “Begging your pardon, ma'am,” she said, “But your reasoning's hardly iron-clad. Maybe the grayness didn't come all at once, and the family had time to run.”
“Perhaps.”
Tommy had two fingers over his mouth as he nodded slowly. “What interests me,” he began, “is how we seem unaffected. If the grayness was lethal, we should have died as soon as we were exposed to it.”
“So, what does that mean?” Sebastian asked.
“It means,” Tommy broke in before Desa could answer, “that whatever caused the grayness also killed all the plants and animals. All we're looking at are the after effects of...something.”
Desa strode over to him, looked up to meet his gaze and then nodded once. “I am pleased to see that one of you is thinking clearly,” she said. “I would remain here to learn more, if I could, but we must catch Bendar-”
Her ears picked up something.
A growling sound.
She turned around in time to see a man coming around the side of the house. This fellow was shorter than average, with a barrel chest, a bald head and a thick beard, and he was gray from head to toe.
He stood there in a pair of trousers and a simple work shirt, both utterly stripped of colour, and he salivated from his open mouth like a hungry wolf that had just laid eyes on a rabbit. If there was an intelligence behind that dull stare, he didn't show it.
Desa faced the man with a hand on her weapon, remaining still in case he was the sort to react to sudden movement. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Desa Kincaid. Can you tell me what happened here?”
The gray man said nothing.
“We'd like to help if-”
Before she could finish that sentence, the stranger growled and ran toward them at full speed. Desa moved to draw her pistol, but Miri was faster. The other woman stepped forward, pulling aside her coat to reveal an assortment of weapons on her belt.
Her hands were a blur as she drew throwing knives. One blade landed in the gray man's chest. And then another. And then another. Only then did he take notice. He paused just long enough to look down at himself, surprised by the sight of metal protruding from his flesh. Then he was charging them again.
“Damnation take this,” Sebastian said, stepping forward. He drew his revolver and thumbed the hammer with a click. Extending his hand, he pointed the gun at the charging man, who was now just a few paces away.
“No!” Desa shouted.
Sebastian fired anyway.
The stranger faltered as a bullet ripped through his chest, stumbling backward with a shriek. Inky black ichor leaked from the wound. When the stranger looked up, his teeth were bared, and his eyes were as dark as obsidian.
He charged again.
Another thunderclap filled the air as Sebastian fired again, and this time, the bullet pierced the stranger's forehead. That did the trick. The gray man dropped to his knees and then fell flat on his face, revealing a hole in the back of his skull.
Rounding on Sebastian, Desa seized the young man's shirt and pulled him close so they were almost nose to nose. “Idiot child,” she said, her voice as smooth as silk and as hard as steel. “Always reacting without thinking!”
“I saved us!”
“You saved us?” Desa protested. “You saved us? You may have-”
She cut off at the sound of more low, throaty growls, and when she worked up the nerve to look, she found five more gray people coming around the house. There was a tall woman in her middle years who wore a tattered white dress and a youth about Tommy's age with a mop of hair that might have been sandy-blonde once.
There was an old bald man with a thick beard and a young slip of a woman with a braid that fell to her shoulder-blades. There was even a child, a boy of about eight or nine who stared at her like a rabid dog. All were as gray as a tombstone, and every last one of them had dead, black eyes.
“Run,” Desa whispered. “All of you, run.”
“But-” Tommy stammered.
“Run!”
Without allowing any further protest, Desa stepped over the dead man's corpse and drew a pair of knives from sheaths on her belt. If these creatures wanted to slaughter her companions, they would have to go through her. She heard the distinct sound of Midnight snorting as Tommy mounted him. “Hurry,” he said.
Desa spread her arms wide, pointing the tip of each blade out to the side, and bent her knees to brace herself. “Well, come on then,” she goaded the gray people. “Let's see how well you fare against a Field Binder of Aladar.”
Old Graybeard was the first to accept her challenge.
He came rushing toward her with inhuman speed, and the others all followed him. Slobbering like a dog, Graybeard smacked his lips and dark saliva dripped from his chin. Patience...Let him get close...Three, two, one, now!
Desa pulsed the Gravity-Sink in her belt – triggering it for only half a second – and this allowed her to jump over Graybeard's head. She flipped through the air and dropped to the ground behind him.
The girl with the braid was next in line.
Desa rammed both knives into the young woman's chest, and when she pulled them free, the blades were coated in thick, black ichor. Her enemy was unfazed by what should have been a lethal wound.
The young woman responded with a back-hand blow that almost knocked Desa into the next life. Everything went dark, and pain consumed her reality. Desa barely even felt the touch of dry grass beneath her or the sensation of rolling across the ground.
She flopped onto her back.
When her vision cleared, she saw Graybeard running toward her with teeth bared. A shot to the head: that was how Sebastian had done in that first one. Discarding one knife, Desa pulled her gun free of its holster.
She thumbed the hammer, took aim and fired.
Graybeard's hand sn
apped up, closing around something, and smoke rose through the cracks between his fingers. Did he...Did he actually manage to catch the slug? How fast were these creatures?
“Not smart.”
Desa triggered the Force-Source she had Infused into the bullet, and Graybeard's hand exploded in a spray of ichor. The kinetic blast sent him flying backward with enough force to knock down two of his companions.
The youth with the mop of gray hair had managed to avoid the collision. He came forward with his hands out, fingers bunched up as if he intended to claw Desa's face. And he seethed with every breath.
Snatching up her daggers, Desa somersaulted backward over the rough ground and came up in a crouch. Slowly, she rose to stand at full height. “Come, boy,” she said. “It's past time we ended this.”
He swiped at Desa's head.
She ducked and felt a claw-like hand pass over her, then drove one knife hilt-deep into the young man's gut. That produced a screech of pain. Desa popped up and slashed the other blade across his neck, opening his jugular vein. Black blood spilled out.
Desa kicked him, and the youth fell onto his backside, lying in an expanding puddle of dark fluid. Three more of these creatures stood behind him: both women and the child. Graybeard was on his knees as blood fountained from the stump where his hand should have been.
The child surprised her.
He leaped with incredible strength and flew toward her with his hands outstretched, ready to choke her. Desa reacted by instinct.
Bending her knees, she raised her left arm to shield herself and triggered the Force-Sink in her bracelet. The Infusion she had placed within the metal would only take kinetic energy from objects that were coming toward her.
The boy stopped dead in midair.
When Desa let her arm drop, he fell to the ground as well, landing flat on his face. Both women were scrambling toward her in a mad dash. They seemed to be unaware of their dying companions. Unaware or apathetic.
With a single thought, Desa ordered her belt-buckle to take in gravitational energy, and she leaped. Free of the Earth's pull, she soared high into the air and twisted around to see the two black-eyed women staring up at her.
She let gravity reassert itself just enough for her to float gently to the ground and land in front of the house. “That's right,” she said with a nod. “You face one who controls the very forces of nature itself.”
The two women began a mad sprint toward her.
Desa ran to meet them.
She chose the older woman in the tattered dress as her first target, and when she got near, that woman jumped up for a fierce kick. Desa fell to her knees, allowing her enemy to pass by overhead.
She rose and spun to find the younger woman right in front of her. That one clawed at Desa's face, and only a quick flinch saved her from blindness. Seizing the opportunity, Desa plunged her knife into the other woman's belly.
It did no good.
The black-eyed demon grabbed two fistfuls of Desa's coat, lifted her off the ground and threw her with devastating force. Dizziness set in as Desa went shoulder-first into the farmhouse's front door.
Wood splintered, and when she landed, she was in the dimly-lit sitting room. The pain made it hard to think, but she had to focus, had to keep her wits. Desa got up and looked through the open doorway.
The young woman with the braid was running toward her, snarling as black tears streamed over her cheeks. And she still had a knife sticking out of her belly!
Wiping her bloody mouth with the back of one hand, Desa winced. “I must congratulate you,” she said in a hoarse voice. “It's not often that an enemy can truly surprise me.”
Desa triggered the Heat-Sink she had Infused into the knife. Halfway through her next step, the gray woman froze in place with the crunching sound of blood crystallizing. Frost spread over her body, a wave of white that began in her core and went all the way to the tips of her fingers.
Desa leaped through the door. She spun in mid-flight and kicked out behind herself, slamming a boot into the frozen woman's chest with enough force to shatter her. Chunks of frozen flesh fell to the ground as Desa landed.
That left only the older woman.
And the child...
The child who was standing off to the side, near the corpses of his fallen friends, and watching this conflict unfold with a kind of morbid curiosity. He cocked his head to the side and blinked at Desa. Those black eyes reflected the sun. “Interesting,” he said in a voice much too deep for one so young, a voice that seemed to echo. Almost as if there were many people speaking in unison. “They told me that you would be dangerous, but I would never have imagined that your kind would master the secrets of the Ether.”
He began to pace back and forth, nudging the corpse of Graybeard with his foot. “It is not as I would have imagined it,” he went on. “Soft flesh, given form and substance. So unlike what came before.”
“What are you?” Desa whispered.
The child turned his head to fix dark eyes upon her, and his lips parted in a rictus grin. “Something more,” he said. “Have they walked among you? Guided your steps? Or do they still hold to the old covenant?”
Desa sank to a crouch, head hanging as she let out a breath. “I do not understand.” She looked up to study the child. “Whom do you speak of?”
He waved away her question with a dismissive hand. “It is immaterial.” Suddenly, he stared into his palm as if transfixed by the sight of his own flesh. “This form cannot contain me. A substitution is required.”
“This form is also insufficient.”
Desa's head whipped around when she heard the older woman speak. Or perhaps it was not the woman herself. She spoke in the same multitude of voices that came out of the child's mouth.
Desa braced herself for another attack, but the woman just stood there with hands clasped in front of herself, staring dully at nothing at all. “You have destroyed my other vessels, but they would not have served.”
A droplet of sweat formed on Desa's forehead and slid downward in a warm, sticky trail. “Why did you attack us?” she whispered. “We did nothing to antagonize you.”
“To understand,” the woman answered.
“To understand what?”
“This realm,” the child replied. “And the rules that govern it. Specific and highly arbitrary.” He blinked once, and when his eyes opened, the blackness was gone. Aside from the lack of colour, he looked as normal as any other little boy. For a second, Desa thought he had been restored to his true self, but the child collapsed to the ground. Dead.
Her mouth dropped open as she watched him fall. “No,” Desa mumbled, shaking her head. “No, you can't do that!”
She turned to the other woman.
“You state a falsehood,” the strange voice said. “Clearly I can, for I already have. Or is truth fluid in this realm?” Desa wanted to protest, but the blackness retreated from the other woman's eyes. Like the child, she collapsed to the ground.
Desa ran to her.
Dropping to one knee, she gasped as she felt sweat rolling over her face. “No, no, no...” She rolled the other woman onto her back and found a corpse staring blankly up at the sky.
Reluctantly, Desa stood up and shuffled away from the body. Finding Bendarian was now more important than ever.
Chapter 8
When Desa caught up to her traveling companions, she found them sitting around a crackling fire that sent sparks drifting up toward the stars. She wasn't inclined to chastise them for it; none of them could Field Bind, and they had to produce light somehow. And it pleased her to see orange flames casting warm light on trees with lush green leaves.
Desa stumbled into their campsite with her arms hanging limp, her head drooping with fatigue. “It's done,” she whispered. “The creatures have been destroyed.”
When she looked up, she saw Tommy sitting on the other side of the fire, staring up at her with horror on his face. “We didn't...” he began. “We didn't know if we shou
ld have gone back for you or-”
Desa scrunched up her face. “You were right not to try,” she said, pacing a circle around the fire. Midnight stood at the edge of the campsite, watching her approach.
She laid a hand on his long nose, and he licked her fingers. “Those things were not human; if you had come back, you would have been killed.”
She wanted sleep more than anything else, but that would have to wait. Fighting the gray people alone had forced her to deplete her supply of Infused weapons, and there was no guarantee that they would not face something as bad or worse before they made it to Ofalla. She would have to make more.
It took some effort, but she forced herself to return to the fire. Miri was crouching there with the flames casting orange light on one side of her face. “Well, I dare say you've gone and had yourself an adventure,” she said. “So, what happens next?”
Desa knelt in the soft grass and nearly fell forward with exhaustion. “I must find Radharal Bendarian,” she said. “He is responsible for what happened today.”
“How can you be sure?”
Stifling her frustration, Desa looked up to glare at the other woman. She narrowed her eyes to slits. “I am sure.” That was all she could bring herself to say at the moment. It was all she owed Miri. In fact, saying that much may have been too much.
Tommy had gone to fetch something from their supplies.
He returned now with a waterskin in hand, squatted down next to her and offered it to Desa. “Mrs. Kincaid,” he said. “Here.”
Desa took the skin, brought the spout to her lips and drank deeply. Only then did she realize the depth of her thirst. Her muscles ached and her body felt like a rug that had been beaten too many times.
Wiping her mouth with the back of one hand, she exhaled and then slumped over with her head hanging. “We continue to Ofalla.” Her voice was a breathy rasp. “It's most likely that we'll find Bendarian there.”
She looked up, expecting to hear a challenge from Sebastian, but the young man was a lump in his bedroll. If he had heard their conversation, he opted to remain blessedly silent on the matter.
