by Carver Pike
“My Emma Leone,” Bronc reminded him.
Sasha tilted his head back and squinted his eyes, letting them settle on Bronc. To Gabe, it looked like Sasha was issuing an unspoken challenge.
“Guys,” Emma stepped in. “Can you please stop measuring the size of your cocks? We have more important matters.”
“If it were cocks we were measuring we’d have to step outside the tent,” Sasha joked. “This thing is wrapped around my stomach now. It’s the only way to keep it contained. Ha! But you would know all about my size, and techniques, right, my Emma Leone?”
Bronc stepped forward again, but the guards did too, and he backed off.
“Look,” Gabe interrupted. “We believe we’re in danger and we need someplace safe to go.”
“Who is this lumberjack?” Sasha asked.
Finally the mood lightened and both Bronc and Emma joined Sasha in laughter, while Gabe instinctively put his hand to his beard and stroked it. He’d forgotten how disheveled he must look.
“Sasha, you’ve met Hawks, but these are our friends, Gabe and Lisa,” Emma informed him.
Sasha stepped forward to shake Gabe’s hand and as he did, Vision cooed in Lisa’s arms. Sasha looked at Lisa and the bundle in her arms. Then he looked at Gabe and the bundle in his. Vincent’s tiny hand reached out from the blanket.
“What is that?” Sasha asked, suddenly serious.
“Babies,” Emma said. “Children.”
Sasha spun to face her. “What?”
It seemed everyone’s eyes were shifting between Gabe and Lisa. He wasn’t all that comfortable with the situation and one look at Lisa told him she was feeling the same. Were they really expected to unwrap the boys and hold them up for all to see? In a tent full of violent gypsies?
Lisa held Vision tightly in her grasp. Emma nodded at them both to say it would be okay. Lisa closed her eyes and shook her head in disagreement.
“It’s why we’re here,” Gabe reminded her. “We came to them for help, babe. I guess it makes sense to show them why we need protection.”
Lisa uncovered Vision and held him up to show Sasha. Suddenly everything around them stopped. The musician stopped playing, the dancers stopped dancing, and all drinking ceased as members of the crowd held their cups in midair, shocked by what they were seeing.
“That’s not possible,” Sasha said.
“My God,” the girl with the red scarf over her face, the one Hawks had been enamored with, said from within the crowd of dancers. She approached Lisa. Her hand trembled as she reached out to Vision.
“May I?” she asked.
Lisa looked to Emma who again nodded her approval.
“Sure,” Lisa said.
The woman touched Vision’s arm. She ran her hand across his skin and then gently touched her fingers to his head.
“He’s so soft, and innocent.”
Her eyes welled up with tears.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she added.
Tact stepped up to take a closer look at Vincent.
“This one’s strong,” he said to Gabe. “Gonna be a fighter like me.”
Sasha looked at Emma, concern suddenly flashing over his face.
“I am honored that you came to me for help, I really am, my Emma Leone, but you shouldn’t have brought them here.”
Emma’s brow furrowed, confusion settling in.
“You’ve brought great danger to our door. Those babies will be hunted the way anything special is here. Evil will want these…” Sasha pointed at the babies. “…these little creatures. You must leave.”
“We need protection,” Gabe said. “Maybe if you can help us find a safe way to reach the Soothsayer in the Dwellings. Near Darkar…”
Sasha laughed.
“The Soothsayer?” he asked. “The Soothsayer can tell you nothing. He is from the Other Side of the mirror. If you seek answers to a question, you must see a supernatural seer, you fool. Now go away from here. We have troubles of our own.”
“So that’s it?” Emma asked.
“You chose to leave once,” Sasha said. “You’re lucky that I’m letting you leave again. Now go.”
Bronc was the first to turn to leave. Gabe followed.
“Wait, Sasha,” Tact spoke up. “They believe Colossus is after them.”
Sasha stood silent for a moment. He looked at Emma and then over at Bronc. Then his eyes moved to Gabe and Lisa and the babies they held. The crowd around them was moving closer to get a look at the infants. Sasha shook his head, looking disappointed with himself.
“What is the problem you have with Colossus?” he asked. “Is it the babies?”
“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “Maybe now, but he was coming after me long before they were even born. I got marked with the Seal of Colossus. I was a wanted man. He sent Cloak after me, and Cloak was killed.”
Sasha and everyone else gasped. Quiet whispering went up around the tent as everyone discussed what they’d heard.
“You killed Cloak?” Sasha asked.
Gabe looked down at his feet. He remembered the battle in the sewers of The Slums of York. He’d almost been killed by Cloak when Dozier had leapt from the ladder and tackled him in midair. Dozier had lost the fight, and in a last second, desperate attempt to save Gabe, he’d pulled the grenade pin from Cloak’s belt, killing himself and Cloak in an explosion. Gabe had barely escaped.
The sudden thought of Dozier saddened Gabe and reminded him of all the lives lost so that he could live.
“No, a friend did,” he answered.
“I thought that wasn’t possible. They say he was gifted with the nine lives,” Sasha said.
Gabe shrugged his shoulders.
“He was blown to smithereens,” he said. “We moved to the mountains, and we’ve been left alone ever since. But now…”
Vincent cooed and Gabe finished his sentence by nodding at the baby in his arms.
One of the belly dancers leaned over to get a closer look at Vincent. Vincent reached out and brushed her belly with his finger tips. She cried out in pain and fell to her knees.
“Briana,” Sasha said and rushed to her side. He kneeled down to be closer to the pretty woman balled up on the ground. “What happened?”
“I’m so sorry,” Lisa said, leaning over to check on her. “He’s somehow protected or something. His name is Vincent, and it seems that anyone who touches him receives some sort of shock.”
“So these little creatures are deadly?” Sasha asked.
“No, not at all,” Lisa defended her sons. “It’s just Vincent. He…I don’t know. He has a defense mechanism.”
Sasha waved one of his guards over, and the man helped move Briana to one of the cushions in the corner of the tent. Sasha stood and walked over to Bronc and Emma.
“Sasha, you hear prophecy, about Haissem, yes?” Bronc asked.
Sasha didn’t answer. He stood silent.
Bronc nodded in Gabe’s direction.
“He is Haissem, a man from Other Side of mirror, sent to change both worlds,” Bronc continued.
Sasha blew a strong breath of air out of his nose, like a bull ready to charge. He walked away from them and over to his throne. He sat and reached for a golden chalice, lifted it to his lips, and chugged.
“I think we all need a drink,” he said. “Gren, please bring everyone a cup of vine berry wine.”
A young man raced away and returned quickly with cups of wine for Gabe and the others.
Gabe sipped the wine at first, liked the taste, and savored the rest. Anything to take the edge off was welcome, but he wished he could find a bottle of Jack Daniels on the dark side. That or Southern Comfort. Something strong and familiar would be nice.
Sasha sat silent. He seemed to be lost in his drink, swirling it around in front of his eyes, but then he suddenly spoke.
“The Haissem,” he said, letting the word float in the air for a minute.
“Maybe we should go,” Lisa whispered to Gabe. “They d
on’t want us here and he’s right, we may be bringing trouble to them.”
“The Haissem,” Sasha said again. “That’s mumbo jumbo. Spiritual guru hogwash.”
Emma stepped closer to Sasha’s throne and threw her hands in the air, cutting him off.
“Hogwash?” she asked. “You of all people, the leader of the gypsies, a rogue group of thieves, prostitutes, and magicians…”
She stopped and turned to the others in the tent.
“No offense,” she offered.
She turned back to Sasha.
“How can you look at these babies and think it is hogwash? Sasha, Gabe and Lisa created the first children in our world. These babies somehow hold the key to the future.”
Sasha didn’t speak. He sat contemplating, staring at the babies.
“Have you not seen the sun?” Emma asked. “The bright day that never existed before now? I was there when these babies were born, and the moment they sprang from Lisa’s womb, the clouds parted, the grey skies dissipated, and the sun shone. I felt the heat from the sky and knew at that moment that everything they’d told us about Gabe being the Haissem was true. How could it not be?”
“Look, I don’t want to be here,” Gabe called out to Sasha. “You said something about me needing to see a supernatural seer. Point me in the direction of one and we’re gone. Do you have one here in your camp?”
Sasha laughed.
“Here?” he joked. “Here we have card readers, madames with crystal balls, and stone throwers, but none of them can tell you what you need to know. If you want to see a real supernatural seer, you must travel to Chi-Killian.”
“The mazes of Chi-Killian?” Bronc asked, suddenly sounding nervous.
“Not brave enough, tan warrior?” Sasha asked.
He laughed under his breath and took another swig from his chalice.
“Who we need see?” Bronc asked, ignoring the man’s cockiness.
“Who else?” Sasha asked. “Go to the Observatory of Oddity.”
“Oddity?” Bronc asked, looking at Emma, then back at Sasha. “They say he is crazy.”
“Oh, he’s not crazy,” Sasha informed them. “It’s all those around him who are.”
Suddenly a loud shriek echoed through the air. Sasha, for the first time, looked afraid. The voices in the tent were suddenly raised as those inside rushed to gather their belongings. Everything became hectic as the belly dancers scattered and everyone else paced back and forth, not sure what to do. Sasha threw his chalice on the ground and stood up from his throne.
“You’ve brought the Shriek Kava here?” he asked.
Gabe stared at him, having no idea what the man was talking about. Another shriek was heard and then yelling and screaming from outside the tent. Sasha reached to the sides of his throne and pulled out two curved Arabian shamshir swords. His fear was replaced by bravery and anger.
“You ever eat Shriek Kava, red man?” Sasha asked, slapping Bronc’s chest with the flat side of his shamshir.
He didn’t give Bronc a chance to respond before he suddenly ran for the door of the tent, roaring like a madman.
“Don’t run from the Shriek Kava!” he ordered. “Hunt, and bring home dinner!”
Sasha’s guards drew their weapons and followed his charge. Tact yanked two large hunting knives with spiked knuckle guards from his belt. He looked over at Hawks and slapped the flat side of one blade against his chest.
“Come on, Billie Jean King. Show us you got the iron balls like our other red friend here.”
With that, Tact rushed out of the tent, leaving Hawks and Gabe to once again question the man’s sanity.
“Billy Jean King?” Gabe asked.
Hawks shrugged his shoulders.
***
Hawks glanced over at the girl with the red scarf, who was reaching beneath a mattress to retrieve a pack stuffed with arrows and a matching red bow. She stood and ripped the scarf off, revealing a face of exotic perfection. She was Savannah reinvented, with Middle Eastern flair, and Hawks found it maddening.
How could he be thinking about a woman when the camp was clearly under attack?
She opened her mouth wide, stretching her lips over a set of fangs, and prepared herself for the fight. Hawks couldn’t decide if the fangs made her hotter or a bit disturbing. He settled on both.
“Do you have weapons?” she asked Gabe.
“We do,” he said.
“You fight, or you die,” she warned.
Then she was gone. With catlike speed she raced from the tent to join the fight. The other belly dancers followed after her, all with makeshift weapons of their own.
“They’re all going to fight?” Lisa asked.
“They are warrior people,” Bronc replied. “They will survive battle. They can no lose.”
“Everyone can lose, Bronc,” Gabe argued. “There’s always someone bigger and badder than you are.”
“Don’t say to them,” Bronc warned him.
***
Gabe exited the tent with the others to see a scattered mob of gypsies running and fighting. The Shriek Kavas were ripping the camp apart.
A fiery arrow soared past Emma’s head, barely missing her. It slammed into the purple tent and set it ablaze. Lisa gripped Vision tightly and he began to cry, while Vincent’s face remained as cold and unafraid as ever.
A Shriek Kava leapt through the air and landed on top of a small man carrying torches. The man screamed as the monster opened its large jaws and chomped them down over his head, removing it from his neck, and swallowing it whole. As the beast chewed its meal, the man on stilts approached from behind, his top hat still resting on his head. He smiled as he walked stilt to stilt, left to right.
“Hey, ugly kitty,” he called out.
The Shriek Kava lifted its head and growled as it sat back on its haunches, ready to pounce on him.
“Chew on this,” the man on stilts told him.
He hopped down from his wooden legs and flipped them over as the Shriek Kava leapt through the air. The man squeezed the sticks and out popped a hatchet at the end of each stilt. The blades swung out and he buried them in the beast before it could reach him.
“That’s tonight’s dinner!” he announced and then chuckled.
He turned to Gabe and the others. “Y’all hungry?” he asked.
The animal groaned and lifted its head in one final attempt to fight, but the man rushed forward and slammed the blade of a hatchet into its snout, silencing the creature forever.
“How many more of those things are there?” Gabe asked.
He counted five of the beasts attacking the gypsies, but it seemed like the fire fight was aimed at something else. All around them gypsies were screaming, hooting, laughing, and crying. Emotions were as wild as the four legged-beasts attacking them. Bravery seemed mixed with fear, and even joy.
“They’re insane,” Gabe said under his breath as he watched a large man with only half a beard swing two axes around and bury one in the chest of a Shriek Kava.
The beast’s final breath was spent sinking its teeth into the left shoulder of the man and ripping his arm off. The man screamed and yanked his right axe out, slamming it into the Shriek Kava’s body over and over again as he cackled maniacally.
“We need get out of here,” Bronc said.
“It’s our fight,” Hawks argued. “We should help them. We brought this to them.”
“You are right, my friend, but we need protect babies. Nothing more important,” Bronc argued.
Gabe aimed his gun and shot at a Shriek Kava bounding toward them. The monster was coming hard. Bronc and Hawks shot at it too. The three fired, but the bullets didn’t seem to phase the monster. It just kept coming. Finally, Gabe hit it in the right eye. The bullet made a kerplunk sound as it smashed the eyeball. The Shriek Kava spun to the right and shrieked again, then continued its spin until it had come around 360° and was once again rushing straight at them.
“What the fuck?” Gabe yelled.
> Bronc cocked his shotgun and blew the beast’s face off when it was only five feet away, blowing it into the fiery tent behind them.
Gabe grabbed Lisa by the hand and pulled her away. There was no other shelter around. Every tent was ablaze.
“We need to get to the wagons,” he yelled.
