Blood of Jackals

by Todd Marcelas Moreno

  The shelter’s computer accepted the code Steuben entered and opened the thick, heavy doors before him, which quickly closed behind him as he advanced to a dimly lit stairway. He had not even reached the first descending step before he heard a wall-shield fortifying another set of solid metal doors sealing him from the fighting outside.

  Upon reaching the bottom of the stone-carved stairs, Steuben came to another long corridor. The indentations and configurations along the walls told him that if the sanctuary’s security system determined that there was a threat, this hidden corridor could be sealed as well, to protect anyone already being sheltered. Steuben considered what would happen if he were trapped between two fortified blast walls when the final door before him opened.

  “You’re lucky you made it, Brother,” said a man as he reached for Steuben’s arm in welcome. “We were about to tell the computer to close the sanctuary.”

  “Is it secure now?” Steuben asked as he projected a mental scan over the area.

  The man replied affirmatively as Steuben registered eleven other people in the room, but not one mental shield. This was surprising. Steuben probed the thoughts of the man before him. The man stiffened at Steuben’s mental contact, but offered no psychic resistance.

  “Are all of you ungraced?” Steuben asked, employing the term the NDB used to describe those members without psychic training. The man’s eyes lowered before he responded.

  “I believe so, Elder Brother,” the man said softly. Steuben knew that the NDB Church handed out religious titles generously, but if it restricted its deeper “sacred teachings” to the point of creating an NDB social underclass, it suggested that the NDB Church no longer saw all its members as being among The Chosen. The Colonel wondered at the change.

  “I have the Father’s Grace,” one young man corrected sharply.

  Steuben psychically scanned the blonde-haired youth again, this time detecting a very faint mental shield. Clearly he had just begun his psychic studies. Grunting, Steuben returned his attention to the older man. The young man would not be so casually dismissed however.

  “My name is Charid,” the blonde man said, not bothering to hide the icy defiance in his eyes. “I, too, am a senior priest—”

  “In training,” Steuben finished for him, returning to the first man. This time Charid remained silent. “Then none of you are temple workers?” Steuben raised an eyebrow.

  Hearing Steuben’s testing tone, the man looked up at him. “No, Elder Brother. But when the fighting began here in the city, this was closest place—”

  “You did right by coming here, Brother,” Steuben interrupted, confident that he could pass himself off as a senior NDB priest to these people. “But no one else made it to this sanctuary?” he asked, certain that even this lesser temple served several thousand people.

  “Many before us fled for the Great Temple of the Spheric Power,” the man replied, using one of Bishop Wyren’s many titles. “His new sanctuary is bigger and better protected, and not too much farther away.” The man shrugged. “Most of us here just waited too long.”

  “I see,” the Colonel nodded, affecting the formal tone and posture of an NDB leader. “Well then, are the needs of everyone met as best that can be achieved?”

  The man blinked once. “Yes, Elder Brother. I suppose so.”

  “Good. What is your name?” The man gave it to him. “I then put you in charge, Brother, for there are other things I must think on, what with the fighting over our heads.” The man swallowed hard and nodded, grateful for and yet nervous about the confidence that Steuben showed in him. From the corner of his eye, Steuben saw Charid put his hands to his hips.

  “I’ll do my best, Elder Brother,” said Steuben’s newly appointed deputy, his back a little straighter than before. Spotting a place to sit down, Steuben dismissed him with a nod, glad that he had established dominance over the group while remaining free from any trivial problems.

  The strap on his holster broken, Steuben secured his lasgun as he settled into a solitary, overstuffed chair. With a huff, he watched people retake their places before a large viewscreen showing a live news-feed of the fighting. Between the commentary of celebrity broadcasters with no military background, the bright flashes from the battle scenes sent short-lived shadows shifting about the room. Occasionally, distant rumblings filtered down to augment sounds from the explosions depicted on the screen. After one particularly loud occurrence, several people began offering their own insights on the fighting.

  His head throbbing from the strain of his battle trance, Steuben ignored it all as he let himself sink back from his hyper-awareness. He was safe now, at least temporarily. Once the fighting passed over his position, he would again resurface and move on. Until then, it was time for him to rest.

  - - -

  When Yeskin returned, Alfren was with him.

  “Take that chair there, Alfren,” Yeskin commanded as he went to his computer terminal to adjust the equipment.

  Derrick’s senses immediately dulled. He could see and hear Yeskin and Alfren, but they seemed distant, as if in a dream.

  “Shouldn’t you have brought your father’s book with you?” Alfren asked, pale with the knowledge of what they were about to try.

  “I know what to do,” Yeskin responded, his brow furrowed. “This is my experiment, not yours.”

  “But I don’t really know what to do,” Alfren pleaded.

  “I will tell you.”

  “But you don’t even—” Alfren stopped, afraid that he had said too much.

  “I don’t what?” Yeskin challenged.

  “How will you know what to tell me? You can’t sense the bar.”

  “I have my equipment sensors. That is enough.” Alfren said nothing. “You don’t think I can do this,” Yeskin accused. “I’m too dumb. I don’t have psychic abilities. Well I don’t need psychic abilities with you, do I, Alfren?”

  “No, please,” Alfren said, backing up and raising a hand defensively in vain.

  “Do I?” Yeskin asked, squinting his eyes as he concentrated.

  The pain emanating from the back of Alfren’s head forced him to cry out.

  An implant? Derrick wondered airily, the answer leaving his thoughts as soon as the question had formed. He felt himself slipping further into delirium.

  “Do you think I can do this experiment, Alfren?” Yeskin lumbered toward the man who was now on the floor and stood over him. Alfren nodded. “Do you think I’m smart enough?” Alfren nodded again. “Do I need psychic abilities to complete my work?” Alfren shook his head. “Say it,” said Yeskin.

  “No, Yeskin. You do not need psychic abilities to complete your work.”

  “Good. Now get in your chair.” Alfren obeyed under Yeskin’s glare. When Alfren was seated, Yeskin let out a breath and suddenly looked perplexed. “You made me so mad, Alfren. Now I forgot what to do.”

  “Shall I get you your father’s book?” Alfren asked hopefully.

  “No, I’ll get it myself. You stay here and make sure the subject is ready.”

  Still unsure of what to do, Alfren leaned over Derrick and pretended to monitor him. Yeskin expelled an authoritative huff and left.

  “You must live,” Alfren whispered to Derrick. “Promise me you will try. If you die before he is through with you, he will blame me. He always does.”

  Derrick wanted to respond but fought to find a word, let alone form it into speech. “Why... help him?” he managed.

  “If I don’t do what he says, he hurts me.”

  “How?”

  “Implants. He has one of his own that controls mine.”

  “But why... why not... psychic power?”

  “He’s immune,” Alfren replied, guessing Derrick’s question. “I can’t explain it, but you can’t use mental assaults against him. They pass through him. It’s like there’s nothing there.”

  “Nothing where?” Yeskin asked as he re-entered the room.

  “I just told the subject not to try
any psychic tricks on you when he gets his powers back, Yeskin. Mental attacks go through you as if nothing were there, like you were a shadow.”

  Yeskin pursed his lips as he stared at Alfren. Satisfied that he had not been insulted, Yeskin returned to his console. “Let’s begin,” he said, placing an ancient over-stuffed leather-bound tome beside him.

  - - -

  Ansel was no sooner past the door to Derrick’s old secret room when he saw Patér Linse laying on the floor. “Master!” he cried as he rushed to Ashincor’s side. The Patér did not respond. Remembering the Soror’s words, Ansel closed his eyes and projected his thoughts.

  As Ansel’s awareness came closer to the Patér’s, it surprised him that he could not detect his master’s mental shields. Even his psychic scan passed through the Patér as if he were not there. Ansel advanced with trepidation, breaching the thoughts of Ashincor Linse, and entering a swirling fog of detached images. The delusions of a confused mind. Ansel disregarded them.

  “Who are yooooouuuuu?” a voice asked from somewhere in the haze.

  “Ashincor Linse!” Ansel called, ignoring the voice as he moved forward.

  “Puny thing,” the voice cackled, “this one is mine.”

  “Ashincor Linse!” Ansel called again, this time creating a light around his awareness to combat the fog. “Awake from this nightmare. Open yourself to me!”

  Ansel was about to speak again when he felt himself engulfed in lightening fire. Screaming with his thoughts, he fought to maintain his projected awareness as the light from it dimmed in Ashincor’s mind, and the maelstrom of images within reconstituted and intensified.

  “If you wish to talk, puny thing, talk to me,” the voice intoned.

  Ansel strengthened and extended his inner shields outward, again pushing back the boundary between himself and Ashincor’s chaotic thoughts.

  “He is mine,” the voice cried as Ansel felt the sharp points of daggers pressing in against the boundaries of his shields. “Mine!”

  Enduring the agony, Ansel pushed out further, dispelling the fog and giving Ashincor’s awareness a place where it could reorder itself. The voice yelled in a language unknown to Ansel as the pressure against his shields brought darkness to the edges of his vision. Knowing his strength was weakening, Ansel answered the voice with a cry of his own as he pushed out his shields one final time.

  And found himself alone in a room with Ashincor in his arms. It was not the same room, but the one from the tavern in the Veiled Realm. Ansel looked to the bar, but saw no one. “Master?” he whispered, shaking Ashincor gently.

  There was no response. Cold to the touch, the Patér’s skin was pale and waxen. Feeling a pulse, Ansel was about to try to psychically bolster his master’s bio-systems when he heard someone step up behind him.

  It was a little girl. “Ansel,” she said, “you kept your promise.”

  Ansel’s mouth went agape, and he nearly dropped Ashincor to the ground. “You are not—”

  “You sent that thing away, Ansel,” the girl said, coming closer. “It was one of Them. They are bad. And mean.”

  “Stay back,” Ansel ordered, extending his hand outward.

  The little girl halted as her expression fell. “Ansel, why are you looking at me that way? Don’t you know me? It’s me—”

  “Keep away.” Blue light flamed around Ansel’s outstretched hand to ward the little girl back. Her eyes watered.

  “I waited for you, Ansel,” she said between sobs. “For so long. I w-w-was scared. You’re scaring me.” Entreatingly, she lifted her arms for an embrace.

  The light around Ansel’s hand flared again.

  “Please help me, Ansel. I don’t know how to get out of this place.”

  Ansel’s own tears flowed as somewhere inside he wished the creature would abandon his sister’s form, assume its own, and just end his suffering. And yet there was also a whisper from somewhere inside that he had possibly been right about finding his sister here—and that she was there before him.

  “The others can’t help me,” the girl went on, “they’re trapped too. Please. Even if you don’t—why did you come here if you’re not going to save me?”

  “I do not know how to save you, Annis,” Ansel replied weakly.

  “Bring me with you.”

  “I cannot.”

  “But you’re taking him,” the little girl said.

  Ansel paused, not having considered exactly how he was going to return his master to the real world.

  “You don’t know how.” The girl’s shoulders slumped as she sat on the floor.

  “Do you know how?” Ansel asked.

  The girl made a hopeless face. “But you know how to get yourself out, right? If you won’t,” she gave in to a sigh, “at least teach me how to do it.”

  Ansel could not argue against her request, and so he forced himself to put it aside. “How do you know I’ve been here before?”

  “You’ve been here before? How come I didn’t see you?”

  “I looked all over the city.”

  “Me too. But those things come, so I hide. Are you trapped now too?”

  Before Ansel could answer the Patér stirred. “Must return, Ansel,” he murmured. “Must leave now.”

  “Ansel!” the little girl cried. “You’re not going to leave me here, are you?”

  “Now,” the Patér urged, gripping Ansel’s arm.

  Ansel grimaced, though not from physical pain. “I am sorry, Annis,” he said.

  “Ansel,” the little girl whispered, her face reddened and her lip quivering. “Why?” her nostrils flared as her breathing became rapid, and tears fell from her eyes. “I’m not safe here!” Her eyes widened. “No.” She clung to his other arm. “One is coming!” She rose to her knees, still holding on tight. “Oh, no. Noooo!”

  Closing his eyes, Ansel joined with Ashincor’s mind and winked out. But in his mind, he could still hear the little girl’s soft high cry turn shrill before descending into a deep howl of fear, and finally rage.

  “Master,” Ansel said, both once again in Derrick’s secret room. “Please, oh please tell me that was not my sister.” He was shaking, his face wet with tears.

  “Do you know how to heal, Ansel?” Ashincor wheezed.

  Ansel blinked and lowered his head. “Not very well, Master,” he said finally.

  “Then I will need some of your strength,” Ashincor replied. “I do not have time to recuperate on my own. Will you help me?”

  “Yes, Master.” Ansel was obedient, even if wary, knowing what Ashincor was asking. Ansel settled on the floor next to the patér and prepared himself. Even knowing what was to come, he gasped as Ashincor placed his hand over his heart and drew forth the energy he needed. Ashincor’s own breath caught as power infused his body. When he was done, it was Ashincor who had to help Ansel to the room’s small bed.

  “Master,” Ansel said weakly. “Was that really my sister?”

  Ashincor grunted. “We will talk later, Ansel.”

  “I tried to call you, Master,” Ansel said, as if not having heard him. “I could not find you. The Veiled Realm. It was the only place—”

  “You did well, Ansel,” Ashincor said. “You should rest now.”

  “What happened, Master,” Ansel pressed, “to you?”

  Ashincor sighed. “It was my fault. I pushed myself too far. My vision would not come and, in desperation, I entered the Veiled Realm. That creature. It knew why I was there, and bided its time before trapping me. I know now what I must do however.”

  “I am so tired, Master.”

  “Do not fight it, Ansel. Go to sleep. We both need rest. Tomorrow I must hunt the one ultimately responsible for all of this.”

  - - -

  XIX

  Still under Yeskin’s clinical watch, Derrick writhed in his restraints as he bit back a yell. Alfren wiped the sweat from his own forehead, continuing the dangerous work of chipping away at the mental bar over Derrick’s memory.

  “No,
not that way!” Yeskin yelled, monitoring Derrick’s vital signs. “Put that section back. Put it back.” Alfren rushed to restabilize that part of the bar he had been working on, waiting for Yeskin’s signal that Derrick’s vitals were again within acceptable limits before allowing himself a sigh. “You should have seen that one, Alfren,” Yeskin said gravely. “The subject could have died right then.”

  “I know, Yeskin, I know. But I’m tired. I’ve been working for hours!”

  Yeskin looked at the wall chronometer and nodded.

  “Please, Yeskin. I need rest. Just for a bit. Then I’ll be fresh and alert.”

  “Ok,” Yeskin said, still thinking. “Go ahead.”

  Alfren thanked him and walked unsteadily from the room. Yeskin watched as he left. “So how do you feel?” he asked Derrick.

  Derrick swallowed in a dry throat. “Tired,” he replied, opening his eyes enough to see a decanter on a nearby table. “And thirsty.”

  Yeskin gave him some water. “He doesn’t know it,” said Yeskin, “but Alfren has made a lot of progress with you. Do you notice anything different?”

  “The pain in my head. It throbs with my heartbeat. I can feel where he was working, like it’s a physical location. It’s like an empty sliver of pain. Like a tiny piece of ice in my brain.”

  “What about your vision? You still seeing those spotty distortions?”

  “No,” Derrick said, resisting the impulse to shake his head.

  Any such movement would have cost him dearly.

  “Tunnel vision? Tingling in your arms?”

  “No,” Derrick breathed. “Is there something you can give me for the pain?”

  “I suppose.” Yeskin adjusted the flow of drugs into Derrick’s IV unit. “But I need you to be alert when we start again. I almost lost you already, you being too drowsy to warn Alfren what he was doing.” Yeskin stopped to consider something. “And don’t think you can force me to drug you by fighting your restraints. I’ll just paralyze your limbs and continue the experiment.”