“You stole his face!” Masquerade screamed, a surge of chains reaching for her. I wrapped her in a force bubble in time to stave of a dozen tendrils slamming in at once. “You stole that from Not-Sharky! You’re a bunch of thieves!”
One of the chains backhanded me, and I went flying. The sudden jolt yanked the force bubble along with me. If I had thought to do so, I could have caught my flight with my line launcher. I was expecting to hit the floor and slide. So I did nothing to stop myself from flying through the column of light.
Part 25
I landed on a hard, irregular surface. The space I’d fallen from was a ragged tear of pulsating darkness hovering a few feet above the black ground. The sky was a sickly off-white studded with dark spots. A dark orb hung in it, surrounded by a smeared corona of shadow. Before I could look around, the Red Death landed on top of me. This close, I could see the striking green of her eyes through the holes in the horned mask, though she had an equally good view of my own eyes.
“It’s not heterochromia, you have an artificial eye,” she said. Any response I was going to make got cut off when Xiv landed on the Red Death. “And what is that thing?” I rolled the pile of people off me and rose to my feet. I flinched back from the rip in the world as tendrils of chain probed out from it. They drooped almost as soon as they cleared the space and were pulled back through a moment later. Breathing more easily, I looked around. The ground we were on was a gently sloping hillside studded with crumbled towers of pale quartzite. Only one structure was relatively intact, though it was just a flat roof held aloft by a rectangle of pillars. Dietrich stared towards this structure. On one of the broken towers, Bluebottle perched, his myriad eyes scanning the horizon. In the distance, a rusting leviathan glided through the air, pitted iron plate clinging to discolored steel ribs. Oxide flakes shed from its length with each groaning sweep of its tail as the rust whale swam through the sky.
“Where are we?” The words slipped from my lips unbidden.
“I’m home,” Dietrich said, “Back in the real world again.”
“Bluebottle,” Red Death said. “Why are you just sitting there, deal with these two!”
A plethora of mismatched eyes turned towards the Red Death. The insectoid spirit made a rude gesture and flew off, his swarm of miniature copies following like the tail of a comet. Red Death stood in silence for a moment. I would have loved to see the expression on her face, but the mask hid everything. Dietrich laughed. The way Red’s face turned towards her, I knew there was a vile glare under the mask.
“Are you going to do something?”
“Your services are no longer required,” Dietrich said. “You are dismissed.”
“What?”
“Go.”
“You haven’t fulfilled your end of the deal! You were supposed to help me find Lord Death.”
“He’s dead. He was old for your kind when he disappeared.” She waggled her fingers dismissively as she started walking towards the building. Red Death started to lunge at Dietrich. Xiv grabbed her before she got half a step forward. I rushed to intercept Dietrich. She shot an elbow for my face. Ducking back, I avoided the strike. The sudden appearance of clawed fingertips nearly taking my face off caused me to willingly fall to the ground rather than take the hit. Somehow, I was not surprised to see a pair of delicate horns decorating Helen’s forehead. She was shedding her human guise with each step. Long, membranous wings burst through the back of her uniform. Digitigrade feet slipped free of her shoes and she ran towards the building.
Hopping back to my feet, I ran after her. Pausing at the edge of the building’s foundation, Dietrich attempted to deliver a crane-kick to my face. I ducked under it and jabbed at the pressure points on her supporting leg. The strikes were ineffectual, and her foot came down on my spine. As I crashed to the floor, I angled my shoulder into her supporting foot and took it out from under her. This was not as bright a move as I thought as she came down elbow-first on my back and knocked the wind from me. Dietrich hopped off my back and continued into the space under the roof.
“Right on top of him,” she muttered. “Exile me, Thedron? Your payback is long overdue.”
I had not taken much note of the raised stone slab in the middle of the structure, but as Dietrich pushed the lid off, I realized it was a sarcophagus of smooth quartzite. She was about to reach her claws in when a shredded, scabrous hand grabbed hold of her wrist. The mess of a figure that rose from the stone box looked like it had been burned then thrown into a shredder. Scraps of mangled flesh hung from scored bone. Twisted, broken pinions rising from its back bore a handful of snapped, scarlet feathers. Angry red fire burned within its eyes as its stare bored into Dietrich. Fear crossed her face, but did not dull her reflexes as a ruined fist slammed down, cracking the stone where she’d stood. Dietrich slashed her free claws across Thedron’s face, but the tatters she ripped away had little effect on his appearance.
He shouted something in a language I could not understand. It did not sound like a warm welcome. Dietrich clawed at his hand, freeing her wrist in time to roll away from a stone-shattering punch that sprayed chips of quartzite. Thedron hauled himself from his sarcophagus, his wilting, broken wings dragging along the ground behind him. Even in his clearly diminished state, Thedron struck with more force. Dietrich was still faster. If she was intent on murder, it was entirely possible for her to manage it.
I could not allow that.
Wrapping myself in shadowstuff, I shot forward. Ducking under Dietrich’s claws, I aimed to deliver a blow to her midsection. She twisted nimbly out of the way. As I looked to make another attack, Thedron’s hand gripped my ankle with crushing force. Swinging me like a flail, Thedron smashed Dietrich back. If I hadn’t been in shadow form, the impact might well have broken me. As it was, Dietrich and I went tumbling across the ground in a tangle.
“Stay out of this,” Dietrich hissed as Thedron advanced in an implacable stroll.
“I can’t,” I said.
“How long do you think that gateway back to your nightmare realm is going to stay open?” she asked. “Especially with that chain beast running around the place? It took me five hundred years to get home. How long do you have?” I gritted my teeth and cast an involuntary glance back at the dark smear of the bridge to reality. All it would take would be for Masquerade to smash the wrong component, and we’d be trapped here.
“I can’t let you just get away.”
“Oh really? I’m permanently separated from your kind by a barrier stronger than any prison you’ll ever build. All you have to do is turn off the device.” She smirked as I glanced at the portal again. It stuttered, and I flinched. Xiv cast a worried look my way. Every fiber of my being said I had to capture Dietrich, to bring her to face justice. But that fight would not be quick, and there was no way to tell how long I had left. And then there was the matter of leaving her and Thedron to murder each other. The mangled, winged figure continued his advance, fiery malice burning in his gaze.
Letting loose an inarticulate cry of frustration, I ran back up the hill. Grabbing the Red Death, I threw us through the portal.
Shadowstuff burned off almost immediately as we landed on concrete. Masquerade hadn’t gone far, he was in the hall, attention on the contents of the kitchen. A slender chain carried a takeout box close to his mask. He popped it open and peered inside.
“Ooo, shrimp lo mein.”
Xiv bumped into my back as he hopped through the portal.
I raised a finger to my lips in a gesture for silence as I crept towards Masquerade. He was looking around the kitchen for something as I picked my way through the nest of chains. Just outside of arm’s reach, I lunged for his mask. Chains wrapped about my outstretched arm and torso as Masquerade turned aside.
“I know what you did you Ayame and the King. You were quite rude to them.” Masquerade turned to face
me, staying out of arm’s reach. “I only have one thing to say to you.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Do you have any chopsticks?” He held up the takeout box of shrimp lo mein.
“I’m afraid not,” I said, trying to figure out how to wriggle free from his chains.
“Drat,” Masquerade said, tipping his head back towards the food.
“Are you kidding me?” Red Death asked. “How do you go from murderous rampage to fixated on food in a matter of minutes?”
Masquerade’s gaze turned slowly towards her. He dropped the lo mein and surged towards the Red Death, dragging me along. She let out a yelp as chains coiled about her arms and waist. A distant, dissociated cackle escaped Masquerade’s lips as he reached for her.
“Don’t you-” she cut off in surprise as he gently lifted the horned skull mask off her face and tossed her aside. A manic glee came into Masquerade’s laugh as he stared at it.
“You’re home,” he said.
“That’s my mask!” The face that had been under the Red Death’s mask was actually rather pretty. She didn’t look that much older than I was, and the dark eyebrows said her golden locks were the result of a dye rather than genetics. I was dropped unceremoniously to the floor along with what felt like a ton of chain as Masquerade lifted off the mask he was wearing to slide the Red Death mask in its place. A spectral blue scythe leapt into the outstretched fingers of his free hand, and he raised it high overhead.
“I’m ba-ack!” he shouted.
Hurling the scythe outward, Masquerade sent it spinning about the room. Actinic blue flares of electrical discharge and sprays of sparks cascaded from smashed equipment along with showers of shattered crystalline components and shards of tortured metal. The building groaned as the structural support holding the control room in place was severed. Almost in slow motion, it pulled away from the wall and crashed down through the delicate and unique hardware of the emitters. The portal collapsed in a shockwave that threw Masquerade into the far wall. Ripping myself free from the chains, I ran for where he was sliding to the floor. He had not been knocked senseless and recalled the scythe to his hand. As he raised it to meet my charge, I fired my line launcher. The grip plate struck the honed skull mask in the middle of the forehead, smashing a crack down its length. Almost at once, I retracted the line, tearing the mask apart.
The scythe evaporated in Ron’s hand.
Panic crossing his pale, wasted features, he cast about for another mask. It didn’t take long for his gaze to snap to the Chain Gang mask still in his other hand. Before he could raise it to his face, I decked him with a left hook. Continuing the motion, I snagged his wrist on my bicep. Masquerade was powerful. Ron White II was a weakling. It was no trouble to tug the mask free from his grip. Wailing and clawing, he grabbed for any mask, Chain Gang’s, mine, it didn’t matter. I pinned him to the wall at arm’s length, keeping my face away from his grasping hands. He crumpled, sobs wracking his frame. I tried not to smirk. He was broken, and there was no reason to be smug.
“That’s just great!” Red hollered. “Everything’s broken! And what do I have to show for it?”
“The authorities are on their way,” I said. “Just calm down and await their arrival.”
She laughed. “Unlike that wretch, I don’t need my mask to bring you to your knees.”
Dread unrelated to the vocal harmonies of the spectral choir knotted in my gut. Ron howled and clutched his ears as the Litany echoed through the building. An all too familiar apparition appeared in a swirl of red velveteen. Fear gripped my heart as Xiv curled into a ball and wept. I refused to give her the satisfaction of falling to my knees and fought the rising tide of panic as the spectre claimed its scythe from the void. I staggered away from Ron, but he was too gripped by terror and despair to do anything more than collapse on the spot. Impotent rage built alongside the trembling fright as the blue, translucent skeleton glided towards me. I willed my feet to move, urged them to do anything but stand glued to the spot. I bolted from the room and took the first door that presented itself.
It was the kitchen. There was no back exit from the room. I sank to my knees as the despair washed over my soul, my arms falling limp at my sides. My gaze started to sink to the floor as well. It stopped by a wall outlet. Someone had plugged in their phone to charge. But it was not the phone that grabbed my attention. It was the pair of ear buds coiled on top of the phone. Dragging myself across the vinyl, I clawed my way out of the tide of hopelessness and fear lapping at my back. Pulling the earbuds from the phone I jammed the cord into the headphone jack on my wrist computer. Trembling fingers dropped the tiny speakers as I tried to get them in my ears. Panic strummed my heart against my ribcage as I scrambled for my little pieces of hope.
Mashing them into the wrong ears, I cranked up the noise.
Heavy metal hammered my eardrums as the vocalist screamed lyrics in a foreign tongue. It felt as if my head would burst from the noise, and my impulse was to rip the earbuds out. But it muffled the Litany. I shoved the despair back down into the pit from which it had been welling and rose to my feet. Snatching up the Chain Gang mask, I ran as if still fleeing in terror. Careening down the hallway, I bounced off one wall and veered through the door into one of the electrical equipment rooms.
“Get him!” the Red Death barked, and the spectre sailed after me.
I cast my gaze about for the highest concentration of warning signs as the velveteen cloak slipped through the crack between the doors and reformed the spirit. Turning to face the glowing blue figure, I backed away as if feeling cornered. The scythe rose as it glided forward. Pain continued to lance through my inner ear to the strains of electric guitars. The skeletal spectre advanced to make its kill. I smirked and raised my right arm. Holding the riveted metal plate in front of the line launcher, I fired. The dual grip plates slammed into the mask and carried it forward like a steel fist. The hovering velveteen cloak folded around the fast-moving metal plate and yanked the spirit away from me. My remote fist slammed into the electrical equipment, the absurd voltages easily ripping across the barrier provided by the velveteen to dance across the mask.
I released the grip plate and retracted the line as the velveteen caught fire. The hundred voices of the spectral choir howled in pain and fright as something burst in a shower of sparks and burning chemicals. I ran with genuine fright as my trap began to cascade through the hardware in a chain reaction of electrical mayhem. I glanced down the hallway and saw no sign of Xiv or anyone else. I turned away from the ruins of the emitter chamber and leapt from the loading dock, the howling of deranged Norwegians now filling my ears. Skidding down the drive, I found Xiv pinning the Red Death to the pavement, her arms held behind her back.
Yanking the earbuds from my ears, I ran to where they were.
“Where’s Masquerade?”
Flame gouted from the loading dock doorway. Xiv’s response sounded miles away.
“I don’t know.”
The workers who’d fled the control room earlier milled about, uncertain what to do. Another gout of fire erupted from what I presumed to have once been a ceiling vent. How much of the building could I risk entry to? Not a whole lot, as fire looked like it was everywhere.
The reinforcements I’d phoned for arrived after the Brooksville volunteer fire department did. As Xiv was restraining the Red Death, he was the one photographed handing her to the proper authorities. Well aware of the pending mountain of forms to fill out, I climbed in the back seat of my car and made a phone call. It rang. And rang. On the verge of going to voicemail, there was an answer.
“Hello?”
“Ixa?” I asked.
“Something wrong? You sound worried.”
“I may have just killed something.” I tried to sound composed, but the very real possibility crawled into the forefront of my mind.
>
“Just stay calm and tell me what happened.”
“I intentionally knocked the reaper spirit the Red Death hangs out with into some electrical equipment. It burned up. And it did not sound happy.”
“Is that all you did? Just hit it with electricity.”
“And fire. It burned the building down. Well, gutted it.”
“You didn’t kill it,” Ixa said, her conviction unequivocal.
“You’re sure?”
“Destroying a spirit’s physical form is not enough to kill it. That is as well documented as anything about spirits.”
“So, I really pissed it off.”
“Probably. But it won’t be back for a while.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“You didn’t think your plan through before executing it, did you?”
“No. But you know what the Litany of Despair does.”
“Yes, I do.” Ixa paused. “You don’t sound reassured.”
“Firefighters are searching the building for sign anyone was trapped in there.”
“I see. Is there anyone you know of who might have been?”
“Masquerade was in there.”
“Ah.”
“There were emergency exits he could have taken, but, well, he’s not exactly right in the head.”
“Just wait for the firefighters to finish their search.”
Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Page 133
