A Flicker of Steel

by Steve McHugh

  “You’ve had this before,” Jared said. “You remember Cody the prison guard?”

  “The hell?” Layla asked.

  A second dart hit her in the opposite side of the neck, and Layla’s world began spinning, her entire body feeling heavy.

  “I thought one would do it,” Jared said.

  “Work for?” Layla managed.

  “Abaddon,” Jared said, kneeling in front of her. “Always been Abaddon.”

  “Was it her plan to get me here?”

  Jared nodded. “She wanted me to ensure you’d come to the prison. She knew that you’d go to Red Rock for your father. Abaddon and I had a nice chat when I was captured. I told her that they’d send your father through the realm gate in Red Rock. She thought it was funny.”

  “Won’t be funny when it’s blown up, will it?” Layla snapped.

  Jared laughed. “She’s sending someone through the realm gate—that’s why there’s no fighting. They won’t risk killing her. Abaddon has a friend you’re going to really want to meet. She’s able to communicate telepathically; she’s an umbra, just like us. She’s been talking to me for a long time, relaying new orders and the like.”

  Layla swiped at him with one hand, but found nothing but air.

  “Had to play the part,” Jared said, dragging her out of the cell, down the corridor, and back into the main office, where he dropped her on the floor and removed his cell phone to make a call. “No reception in there,” he told Layla. “And I can’t have you out of my sight, just in case.”

  Layla tried to listen to what he was saying, tried to focus, but her world was just a swirling mass, and she had to force herself not to fall asleep.

  “I have her,” Jared said. “I’ll bring her to you.” He ended the call and looked down at Layla. “I sort of wish it had been different.”

  He aimed the tranquilizer gun at Layla again, but a roar of anger forced him to spin around toward the door as Diana, still in her human form, charged forward. She moved quicker than Jared could ever hope to match. He threw a dozen small marbles of explosives at her, which Diana promptly ignored.

  In a panic, Jared threw more marbles at the closest window, blowing out the glass, and then dived through the opening to the outside.

  “You still there?” Diana asked Layla, who nodded slightly.

  Diana plucked the two darts out of Layla’s neck, before picking Layla up, throwing her over her shoulder, and running out of the police station. She kept running for what felt like hours to Layla, but was probably only a few minutes. Layla remained conscious for the whole journey, as the various spirits inside of her tried to keep her awake.

  “Is she okay?” another familiar voice asked as Layla lay on the ground. She looked around to find Zamek and Remy beside her.

  “Where am I?” Layla asked, still not entirely with it.

  “Those stones we saw,” Diana said. “They part if you have one of our bracelets on. Zamek is a smart bugger when he wants to be.”

  “Jared,” Layla said, feeling the anger build inside of her. She reached for Terhal, prepared to release her drenik and destroy Jared, but quickly realized that Jared wasn’t there and forced the anger aside.

  “Now is not the time,” Gyda said. “But we do need to talk.”

  “Talk,” Layla said, reaching out to Gyda. “Talk, talk, talk.”

  Gyda sighed and vanished from view.

  “Gyda,” Layla called. “Gyda.”

  A rush of power flooded Layla’s body and she sat bolt upright, screaming at the shock. “Holy shit,” she shouted, causing both Zamek and Remy to dart back to her and share a concerned glance.

  Layla looked behind her at the realm gate. It was fifteen feet high, and about the same in width, and it glowed a faint orange color. The gate itself appeared to be made of a mixture of wood, rock, and metal, but she couldn’t tell where one part started and another stopped. In the center of the realm gate was black space, just nothing there at all. “I thought you were going to destroy this?”

  “What the hell just happened?” Zamek asked.

  “My spirits are vanishing,” Layla said. “My power is increasing. I don’t really know how.”

  Zamek touched the realm gate and it ignited bright orange, its black center now showing the realm beyond it. Dozens of people stood there, including Hades and Tommy. Layla took a step forward and looked back at Zamek.

  “I thought you were destroying this building?” she asked.

  The room they were in looked like something out of NASA’s launch control, with banks of computers all pointing toward the realm gate. Large explosive charges could be seen on the walls around her.

  Remy led Layla through the gate, and instantly her body disliked the experience. She dropped to her knees on the other side and tried to stop her insides from wanting out.

  “First time always sucks,” Olivia said, helping Layla to her feet and moving her away from the gate.

  She sat Layla down on a chair as Zamek ran through the gate, which immediately switched off, but not before Layla saw the explosion inside the room.

  “Buried the gate on their end,” Zamek said, patting the armor on his forearm, which was smoldering a little. “Just have to destroy this one.”

  Layla looked around at the familiar faces; she wanted to tell them what Jared had said about Abaddon sending someone to the realm, but instead she pitched forward and fell asleep.

  23

  While Layla slept, she found herself sitting up against a large oak tree; it’s huge number of leaves kept the rain off. Gyda sat opposite her. Servius sat beside Gyda, and Rosa sat next to Layla.

  “You vanished,” Layla said to Gyda.

  “You knew it would happen eventually,” Gyda said. “We’re still here, though. We just can’t be called when you’re awake.”

  “So, I’m going to pass out when you two go?” Layla asked.

  “Depends if you’ve been dosed with enough drugs to knock out a rhino,” Rosa said. “You’ll wake up soon. You have to get going once you do.”

  Layla nodded.

  “Your father attracts evil and hate,” Servius said. “It’s drawn to him. Wherever he goes evil is never far behind. I wonder if that’s because his own evil soul attracts that in others.”

  “Evil begets evil,” Rosa said. “Always has.”

  “And vengeance begets vengeance,” Gyda replied, appearing beside Layla. “I’ve heard this all before.”

  “I believe that jibe was aimed at me,” Rosa said.

  “You killed out of vengeance, which caused more vengeance to be given back in return. Violence is born out of violence.”

  “Not always,” Layla said. “Some people take peacefulness as a sign of weakness. Some people believe that only the strong can survive and that anyone else is inconsequential.”

  “Abaddon certainly seems to believe that,” Servius said, “as do the drenik.”

  Gyda sighed. “I saw so much death and pain in my short life. I created a lot of it when I bonded with the drenik. I do not wish to be the creator of more. I do not wish to surround myself in war.”

  “So what should I do, Gyda?” Layla asked.

  “Run. Run far away and hide,” she said.

  “I won’t run from my friends. I won’t run away while there are innocent people dying. I’m not going to give in to those who want to control and rule with an iron boot. That’s not happening on my watch.”

  “It’s already happened,” Gyda said. “Now you need to run from it.”

  “Sorry, Gyda. I agree with you about violence begetting more violence. It does. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight back when you have to. It doesn’t mean you should bury your head in the sand and hope like hell that it just all goes away. That’s not the kind of person I want to be.”

  “So you’ll fight Abaddon and you’ll die. Is dead the kind of person you want to be?”

  “If I die fighting her, I will have died doing the right thing. Anything else is allowing evil
to win. And they’ve won enough over the centuries. I have to try to stop them before it gets worse. And, frankly, it’s more than a bit shitty at the moment.”

  “We fight for what’s right because we have the power to do so,” Servius said.

  “You fought because you enjoyed it,” Gyda snapped back. “All of you enjoy it.”

  Layla shook her head. “I don’t like hurting people. I don’t like getting up at four in the morning to go on a mission to find the body of someone who was helping us. No one likes it. But sometimes what you like and what you have to do are two different things.”

  “Take care,” Servius said, and vanished from view.

  Gyda got up and walked over to Layla, taking her hands. “Do better with this power than I did.” Gyda vanished, too.

  “So, just us two,” Rosa said.

  Layla lay back on the grass, listening to the rain. “When I’m done with all of this, do you know what I’m going to do?”

  “Bathe?” Rosa asked.

  Layla laughed. “With bubbles. Like all of the bubbles. But, no, I’m going to get my nails done.”

  Rosa raised an eyebrow in question. “Really?”

  “I know, it’s a little thing, but I used to enjoy having them done. Being able to make them unique. It was fun. I haven’t done it since we moved to Greenland. I mean, what was the point? I’d like to do that again. I miss it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Getting dressed up to go out. Chloe would badger me into a night out, and I’d end up loving it and having a lot of fun. Not much to do night-out-wise in the compound, except use the practice range or hope the satellite is picking up TV shows.” Layla sighed.

  “When I was out on a mission, the thing I missed was feeling sexy,” Rosa said. “I liked dressing up in nice clothes and feeling like a million quid. It’s hard to dress up for yourself when all you’re going to be doing is killing someone and splattering blood on yourself. When I got back from a mission, I’d bathe—good suggestion, by the way—and then I’d dress up in clothes that made me feel good about myself. And I’d just go out to eat or see a friend, anything normal. It was a kind of therapy, I guess. I had a beautiful green dress that I’d had made so that I could keep a throwing dagger belt hidden in the waist. It was my favorite thing in the world.”

  “I have a pair of jeans and a Lord of the Rings t-shirt that I adore. Clothes were never my thing when I was little. I didn’t care one way or the other. My mom used to be furious at me because I’d go out and get covered in mud, climb trees, tear my clothes; you know, the usual kid stuff. She’d sit me down and tell me that I had to be careful with things purchased for me, that I had to treat them with the respect they deserved. If someone chose to buy me something, it was to be cared for. Not sure how much she was trying to instill a sense of value in me, and how much she just didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on new clothes every few months.”

  Rosa laughed. “You haven’t spoken to any of us much recently.”

  “No, it’s been beyond crazy. I’ve barely had time to think. My father said that once I fully merged with the spirits, one of them would become more prevalent than the others. And that you know nothing about it.”

  “He’s not wrong. I don’t. I can’t remember it happening before, but then it’s certainly possible that there are some things we spirits aren’t allowed to remember, for one reason or another.”

  “Umbra are weird things, aren’t they? Complex and simple, all at once.”

  “You’re tired, Layla. You haven’t stopped in days, and before that you ran yourself ragged. You need to rest. And I don’t just mean get a few hours of extra sleep because someone dosed you with drugs. I mean rest. Proper, full-on resting.”

  Layla felt angry. “Jared.”

  Rosa placed a hand on hers.

  “No one gets the time to rest,” Layla said. “We’re being hunted.”

  “I know, but you’re the one who asks for extra training, you’re the one who stays up long after everyone else to practice with your powers. You’re preparing for battle, but just make sure that when it comes you’re going to be able to fight.”

  Layla nodded. “I know. I know all of this. I know I need to sleep. I know I need to take a step back and stop pushing myself, but, damn it, I just can’t. Not while people I care about are in harm’s way. And certainly not while my father is out there. He will escape again. He will murder again. I don’t think he could stop himself, even if he wanted to.”

  “You want to talk about Jared?”

  “I cared for him,” Layla said after a few seconds of silence. “Really cared for him, and it was all a lie. I don’t want to talk about him at the moment. I don’t want the anger I feel to cloud my judgment. Tell me something, Rosa: were you ever in love?”

  “I miss the woman I love,” Rosa said sadly. “I had one great love, and her name was Gwendolyn. She was a few years older than me and lived alone in a house in London. Law forbade our relationship. I couldn’t marry her, I couldn’t show affection in public, and I certainly couldn’t let on how much it irritated me when men asked for her hand on a semi-regular basis. She was a wealthy woman, having been married to a man who died several years before I met her, and a number of men thought themselves suitors.

  “If I’m being honest, irritated doesn’t begin to cover it. I hated it. I hated that our society dictated how she had to behave. I hated that she allowed herself to be dictated to. I loved her in secret because we weren’t allowed to love each other in public. And then one day, one of the suitors didn’t take kindly to being rejected and he got a little physical. I almost beat him to death right there and then in the drawing room. And when I was done, I saw the look of horror and fear on the face of the woman I loved, and I fled. I never went back.”

  Flickers of memories arrived in Layla’s head. The rage, hate, and sorrow of what Rosa had done, the smell of blood, the sounds of Gwendolyn begging Rosa to stop. Layla remembered it all. “I’m so sorry. What happened after?”

  “You could just reach into your memory and find out for yourself.”

  “I could, but some things are important enough to hear it directly from the person.”

  Rosa smiled and patted Layla on the hand. “I fled. I ran and ran and didn’t come back for two years. Upon my return, I discovered that Gwendolyn had died about a year after I’d left. She caught pneumonia and never recovered. Her banker thought I was running a con to get part of her estate, but all I wanted was the locket she owned. It had a picture of me in it, and she wore it until her dying day. I took the locket and anything else she’d left me, including a large sum of cash, and soon after I became an umbra.

  “Two years after that, I killed the man who had hurt Gwendolyn with a hatpin. He was one of my many targets, and I felt a slight happiness at his death, after the misery he’d caused in his vile life. I had many affairs, with both men and women, but I only loved Gwendolyn. I was grateful for every single day that I had her in my life. Even for as short a time as it ended up being.” Rosa took hold of Layla’s hand. “Can I give you some advice?”

  Layla nodded.

  “When you find a person you love—and you will: one day someone will appear in your life, and you will love them—don’t run. Don’t try to push them away. Just be happy you found each other. My one regret is that I ran from Gwendolyn because I was terrified that I would no longer be good for her, that she’d seen the real me. I hated myself for it for a long time.”

  “Thank you,” Layla said. “For telling me that, for keeping my mind off where I currently am, and for generally being a good friend.”

  “I try,” Rosa said with a smile.

  “Jared will be dealt with,” Layla said after a few seconds. “He . . . What he did, it hurts. Like someone ripping my insides out. I just . . . I know he’s the enemy now. I know that everything we had is a lie, and the anger I feel threatens to overwhelm me. I have to push it down, keep it locked up. Because it’ll cloud my judgment if I don�
��t.”

  Rosa nodded. “Deal with it soon, though, because you won’t like it when your emotions crash down over you.”

  The world vanished, and Layla opened her eyes, staring up at the wooden beams above her head. “How long was I out?” she asked.

  “Half an hour,” Tommy said from the chair beside her. “I thought it best that someone stay and wait for you to wake up. You actually fell asleep. Not knocked out, or passed out—just fell asleep. How are you feeling?”

  “Jared betrayed us all. Betrayed me.”

  Tommy nodded and there was a look of anger in his eyes. Layla hoped that Jared got to feel that anger first hand.

  “Abaddon has sent someone through the realm gate,” Layla told him, sitting up.

  “Kristin’s clone. We know,” Olivia said from the corner of the room. “We spotted her coming in. She seems to have been under the impression that if she came through with the flood of refugees we wouldn’t notice her. She took off toward the prison.”

  “Prison?” Layla asked, swinging her legs out of the bed.

  Olivia and Tommy motioned for Layla to join them, and the three walked out of the single-story wooden building and down the steps to a small garden where Diana, Remy, Hades, and Zamek were waiting.

  “What’s this prison?” Layla asked.

  “You know about the seven devils, yes?” Olivia asked.

  “About Lucifer and the like?” Layla asked. “Yeah, it came up.”

  “Mammon is here,” Hades said. “In this realm. He was imprisoned many thousands of years ago, but time in Norumbega moves differently, so it’s probably only been a thousand years to him.”

  “Only,” Remy said with a shake of his head.

  “Where’s the prison?” Layla asked.

  “It was built into the mountain by the dwarves who brought him here,” Tommy said. “Abaddon cannot be allowed to find out that this is where Mammon truly is. She suspects it at the moment, but if she discovers that the other realm gate is in New York, we’re all screwed.”

  “So where is the Kristin-clone?”

  “At the prison,” Hades said. “About three miles north-east of here, on the other side of the wood. She’s been followed by several of my people. No one has been inside the prison for millennia, not since Mammon was placed there. There’s no telling what traps have been left behind by those who created the place.”