by David Finn
‘Who knows what happened to you at the portals after all? It’s a dirty place, filled with conmen and prophets.’
Suddenly, Rachel knew there was no difference whether the mask was on or not. The Princess was some strange harbinger of death, one who would burn down towers and topple kingdoms without mercy. There would be no escaping that.
Demorn smiled shyly, breaking the mood, the fire in her eyes smouldering down as the ghosts receded. ‘Well, I do kinda know, Rachel. I was close to the edge too, to be honest with you. And these eyes unlock souls, after all.’
Rachel’s throat was dry with fear. ‘What does my soul say?’
‘That you think we’re just a bunch of killers who do it for fun.’ Demorn waved her hand, smiling. ‘Oh well, it’s an opinion. I know that ever since you hit the news channels for five seconds, random assholes still tease you about the mysterious assassin who rescued Daddy’s Girl from the monsters.’
Rachel looked down, almost ashamed. ‘I know you’re real.’
Demorn smiled. ‘Deep down, they all know. They’re just fools pretending to live in a safe place.’
Demorn ran her fingertips along the edge of the glass crown. ‘And believe me, we don’t live in a safe place. None of us.’ She brightened up, smiling. ‘Oh, and I know the Purple Lions paid 500K to put an implant in your tats.’
Rachel gasped, her heart beating so fast it hurt, her mind blurring and hurting. ‘No . . .’
Demorn got up from the chair. ‘Yes. It’s buried beneath the surface, but not far. You would know it’s true.’
She slid the mask over her face. Rachel backed against the wall, terror clawing her heart. She did know, she did know.
Demorn said, ‘The Lions put you on remote, in case you ever got close to me again. They know the Innocents are real, they know I’m not a myth. But I have to admit, I don’t know why you agreed to be their wandering death machine.’
Rachel whispered, ‘I thought you knew everything, Demorn.’
Demorn smiled sadly, running her hand across her short hair. She looked sexy and hard.
‘I get tired of looking inside, Rachel. It was all broken hearts and cravings for Mirage. Let’s assume they got you when you were down on the hustle.’
Demorn pulled the golden necklace from her shirt. The tiny triangular prism lay upon it, shining again.
‘I get it, kid. You come from money and a mansion. You ran away for a week and Daddy shut the doors for good. The Portal wouldn’t have been an easy place.’
Rachel felt bitter and empty and haunted. ‘It’s not easy anywhere. You should have left me in the ice cavern!’ She added, frustrated, ‘Do you see me trying to kill you? I’m not on fucking remote!’
Demorn laughed, and the mask gave it a surreal edge, playful but cruel.
‘The Lions are desperate optimists. They just don’t understand the power of the Jade. They don’t understand the power of the Innocents. They never will.’
Rachel blinked. The katana lay in Demorn’s hands.
‘What are you gong to do to me?’
The room phased to the full reality of Demorn’s bedroom.
Rachel looked around the walls, the wide bay window. Rain fell steadily outside.
Demorn’s voice was a whisper. ‘Your sister is still alive. I got her out of the Repeater mall. I swore to her that I would try to save you.’
Stunned, Rachel spoke fast, crying out, suddenly terrified, past caring, so sure that she would be killed, pass beneath, not even sure if she was dead or alive.
People didn’t talk about the Mall, they didn’t talk about that Mall.
‘What did you swear? That place is damned! How do you know what is happening there?’
Demorn sighed. She pulled the mask back over her face. She stood up, the sword light in her hand.
‘It was just another mission to me, Rachel.’
Rachel swayed, looking at the room, tightly trying to hold on, seeing action figures, and posters. Weird shit was floating through her head. She could see the swords on the bedroom walls, just like the cavern. She was getting more and more terrified, flickers of hate and jealousy and paranoia floating through her.
Demorn touched her shoulder.
Rachel started, dreaming of running away, but Demorn’s grip was firm.
‘The program is deep. This is my room, with a pacifier program running. You wouldn’t survive outside, not yet.’
Rachel was crying, huddled into the floor, her mind spinning.
‘You just have to swear now, swear to my sword.’
The sword was blazing with purple fire. And Rachel did swear then, she gave everything, she gave everything in her soul and heart, she gave fucking everything. Rachel’s screams were silent ones, holy and raw, as her memories flooded out, the pain and the program, absorbed into the shining Jade Pyramid that Demorn held, into Xalos.
Rachel gazed into the cold, cruel eyes of the Princess. They held judgement and a determination to survive, but no love, love was a stranger to them.
Demorn gazed into a mind as transparent as glass.
Rachel was suddenly back to first times . . . the first time she understood there was an Undercity, the decay and the poverty glimpsed from the luxury of her father’s Rolls Royce as it floated high above everything, the first time she realised he was a criminal, the first time she realised he was a weak man, the first time she did Mirage, knowing it was a beautiful, haunted dream, this whole life . . .
Rachel felt the cost too, all the people who had gone, minds and memories twinkling like distant Xmas lights, bonds and memories once strong, now distant aftermaths, and then gone, so gone.
And then Rachel was gone too, her mind soft, sad echoes, eaten up by the Jade. She lay naked by the side of the steaming lake.
Demorn took the skull rings from her necklace, laying them upon the rocky ground. She took the locket of Kate’s blonde hair from her pocket, too.
She held the Jade Pyramid above the icons. She called to the Goddess, bowing before the huge twin moons of Asanti, glowing phantom-like and restless in the yawning sky, phasing in and out of that black sky.
Her heart pounded fast as she spoke the words, ‘Be reborn, Asanti wind, be reborn, Asanti child . . .’
Slowly a small glowing pod appeared in the rocky ground, roughly the size of a hen’s egg.
The Pyramid shuddered on her neck, feeding the pod raw power. It took something from Demorn, this spell, some fraction of her essence, memories, fragments of the home-world, before the end . . .
Slowly the egg grew in size, emerging from the loose ground. She steadied it in the ground as it grew bigger, the Pyramid blazing with energy in her hands. Soon, the pod grew to full size.
Demorn watched as a form took shape inside the swirling energy mists. She pressed her hand against the glass. With a final shudder of lightning, the mists ebbed, and a girl wrapped in a black kimono lay sleeping inside the pod. Demorn murmured to the Goddess, for the girl’s face was her own, slightly distorted.
Sometimes they were so different. But this girl, her Dark variant, was so similar to her. She wore a few more scars, braver, more raw. The girl opened her eyes and they were jet black. They held neither fear nor surprise as she came into being in this way.
The Shimmering Mirror welcomes you.
The girl held her hand to the glass; the pod seethed with fresh energy. Her form flickered in and out of existence. The Cavern was a place of true raw power, pulsating with the true magic that many dimensions blocked.
Her left hand was a construct of smooth metal. Her variant’s lips moved in synch, and her fingers flicked quick patterns about the Shimmering Mirror.
Instinctively, both knew these seconds were precious, the twin spirits did not meet for long.
‘What the hell is your problem, Demorn?’ said a voice, dry as the desert sands.
Mists covered the girl in the pod.
Demorn glanced behind her to see Alex in a sheer pure-white shield suit, an orange-viso
red helmet slung across her face. The suit hugged Alex’s figure perfectly.
Fuck, she was beautiful. And she would never understand, as long as she lived.
‘You won’t understand, Alex. It’s all we have left of Asanti.’
Alex laughed in her casual, robotic way. A holster strapped to her leg contained an elegant pistol.
‘Oh, I understand just fine, Mighty Princess. Asanti must have been a weird place if all you had was mirror copies of yourself to fall in love with.’
Demorn said, ‘She’s not a copy. She’s a pathway that was lost.’
‘That world was a charnel house, a prison to evil. We were lucky to escape it!’
Alex pointed to the other pod, glimmering softly behind the throne. She stepped toward it, but the protection wards glinted, barring access.
‘I’ve always wondered what is in there. It’s another you, isn’t it?’
Demorn gestured to the two pods, side by side, throwing light upon the throne of swords. She smiled.
‘It’s not me. They are lives, Alex. Tiny, flickering origin stories in a universe of countless variation, endlessly dying, endlessly reborn. Except now Ultimate Fate is pressing against the confines of everything, flattening the universes, tearing through the layers.’
She gestured to the Cavern. ‘This is a place I hide from Fate, from almost everybody. It was the true power of the Asanti, to gather ourselves before the storm, to fight on many fronts using the Shimmering Mirror.’
Demorn’s glass crown glinted by the light of the twin moons. She looked older than the Dark variant.
She thought of Toxis, dead, lost in the abyss of many colours.
Alex said, ‘How did that wind up for y’all? The fight on many fronts?’
Demorn almost purred. ‘People can lose wars.’ She held up two fingers. ‘I only have two more lives, Alex. Two lives plucked out of thousands of possible worlds. I’m not the last hope of Asanti, hope is dead. I’m just the last.’
Alex stared at her for a long while, saying nothing. Maybe she would understand after all. ‘What about your brother?’
‘Smile is no longer Asanti. The scientists smashed him into pieces and rebuilt him. He’s something else. Very powerful, but not Asanti. That’s why he can’t come in here with me.’
Demorn ran her finger across her forehead. She looked with glittering eyes at the beautiful girl in the sheer white suit.
Demorn couldn’t help it as a cold smile came across her face.
‘I remember when I was the only one who could access the throne room, Alex.’
‘Two years is a long time. People asked questions, had seen you go into your room and vanish.’ Alex shrugged. ‘I got inquisitive.’
Demorn clapped her hands politely and with an edge of mockery.
‘Congratulations, so now you know the secret. Please never bore me with how you weaseled out the code.’
Alex tipped her hat. ‘Well, that would just ruin the mystery.’
She glanced out at the clear silver lake.
‘What happened to the new recruit? Did she pass or fail our unnecessarily severe initiation ritual?’
Demorn gave her a long, cold glance.
‘I like you, Alex. You can kiss me, you can flutter those blue eyes at me, you can even take a shot at the title, but don’t lecture me.’
Alex laughed unself-consciously, performing a tiny mini-salute.
With that, Demorn flashed away from the throne and out of the cavern, instantly standing in her bedroom dressed in her old clothes.
She let out a long sigh.
3
* * *
Rachel was huddled in the bed, sheets covering her naked body. Demorn checked her pulse. She was unharmed, deep in heavy slumber. The sword has not left a visible mark.
Her hands shook with exhaustion. Vaguely she realized the Jade Pyramid had teleported her all the way back to the Clubhouse and the Jag was still stuck at Tony’s.
There was probably a deep lesson about the raw power of the Pyramid meshing with her unconscious mind, but she was simply too tired to care.
By her bed, the astral circle spluttered out, five candles burning low.
Demorn looked out over the small, lush, green park which lay below her bedroom window.
She saw the graceful green willow trees hanging over the lake, a small group of Innocent girls sitting and talking in the grass. In her sound-proof, air-chilled room Demorn felt distant from them. She felt shy and exposed after touching the minds of so many Innocents in the Cavern.
Sympaths glided silently into the room, gathering the sleeping girl in their arms. She admired their graceful, perfect faces, the way they moved in synch. She was entranced by their tight jackets, the pink lightning bolts upon their tight black jackets.
Rachel looked small and fragile as they scooped her into their arms.
‘Take good care of her. She won’t remember anything.’
The Sympaths turned in synch. They weren’t clones, they were independent people, but there was a dazzling similarity and closeness which she loved. Their eyes were azure and lovely. Demorn understood what her brother saw in them. They often spent time together.
One spoke with a soft accent. ‘She will be fine. You were hurt more deeply, Princess. You gave so much of yourself and have been away so long.’
The Sympath’s hand gracefully brushed across Demorn, gently caressing her face. Her touch felt charged and poignant. The girl had a glittering substance on her fingers. She carefully brushed the shimmering powder across Demorn’s cheek, making her smile and almost cry, surprised by the unexpected tenderness.
‘You give so much and have been away so long . . .’
Demorn blinked, the voice echoing through her mind. The Sympath girls were gone. Her mind felt still and vacant. The park was empty now.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there, but felt refreshed.
Alex ported in, her form jumping with the jittery connection.
Demorn grinned, not too sad the comeback from the Cavern was harder for her willful second-in-command.
But eventually Alex was just Alex, the sheer white bodysuit morphing into a red club bathrobe, blonde hair pulled back severely.
Demorn said, ‘Rough trip?’
‘Rough enough.’ Alex glanced at the ruffled bed. ‘So she made it. The Lake Monster didn’t eat her up. How sweet. I’m guessing your servants picked up what was left of the precious Rachel.’
‘She’s alive. She is one of us.’
Alex inspected her hot pink fingernails. Her voice was artfully droll. ‘Only it really isn’t the same person anymore, is it? No memory, no name. Wiped clean, just the way you like us.’
Demorn was stern. ‘Don’t start, Alex. I’m too damn tired. The Purple Lions had mined her with death bombs. She’s lucky to be alive. I gave her the only fresh start she was going to get.’
Alex’s voice was cold. ‘Oh, I’m sure it just broke your heart. Why do you have to leave us so empty?’
Demorn looked back at her sharply. ‘It’s the magic, not me.’
Alex laughed, breaking the serious mood. ‘Oh, it’s you too, hon. How many Innocents do we have now?’
‘She makes a hundred.’
Alex was droll. ‘What an army of little scamps you’ve built.’
‘Smart ass.’
Alex fake curtsied, lifting her robe to reveal long, perfect legs. ‘Nah, more like cute ass.’
Her blue eyes were laughing. ‘What’s with the whole short hair vibe, anyway? Are you about to record a challenging electro album?’
Demorn ran her hand through the short spiky hair. She had forgotten about it.
‘It’s temporary. Just the Jade Diamond. It changes things up.’
‘Sure does.’ Alex gazed around the room. ‘Even your room has changed since last night.’
Demorn shrugged. ‘How so?’
Alex looked at the spacious room, lit up by the dusk sun. A pink glass coffin-pod glowed on
one wall, lighting up stylised action figures of gods, witches, superheroes, villains. A massive collage of Batman and Superman pictures took up a wall by the giant four-poster bed.
‘Everything’s a little darker. A little weirder.’ Alex rolled her eyes. ‘And it’s not like you needed to get weirder. You’ve been moping in here all week, listening to your goddamn Frank Sinatra, probably sniffing incense.’
Alex pointed to the floor, the shifting astral signs and low burning candles.
‘You haven’t even broken the full connection to the Cavern yet. You’re taking chances. If you keep going this way, it’s gonna be demons and fucking necromancers all through the Club, and I will be looking for a different job.’
Demorn looked at the glowing sigils. Alex was right, it was becoming dangerous. Her concentration wasn’t where she wanted it to be.
Poizeto Seal.
She murmured the incantation, fingers moving rapidly in ritual movements. The trace purple marks faded from the floor, ghostly spirit candles spluttering out as the spell ended, the connection finally closed.
She felt more in touch with reality, the Jade Pyramid now quietening in her mind.
Alex asked, ‘What’s that on your cheek?’
Demorn grinned, tracing the purple lightning, feeling lighter, better. ‘Something the Sympaths gave me.’
‘It’s nice to see you turn that frown upside down.’
Demorn shrugged. ‘The Grave was a grave, I moped.’
‘Well, quit bellyaching, or I will send you back there.’
Alex laughed, that mixture of lightness and nihilistic abandon. She picked a glistening card from her robe, flicking it with a quick blur.
Demorn caught it neatly in the air.
Upon the face of the card was a pale young man disappearing into a dark cowl, longish black hair, a tired face, stubble covering it, while his eyes shone a vicious purple-red. The card phased to total black, the star-red eyes fading last. The images looped to his haunted visage inside the cloak, fading out to the void, red eyes burning, the cycle on endless repeat.
‘Cool playing card,’ Demorn said.
‘Did you play much in the Grave?’
‘I played enough to know this card is ultra rare.’
