by David Finn
Demorn took a final glance at Dumont. Neon lights flashed luridly on his torn throat and emaciated body. She collected his cards, glowing purple to black in her fingers, and slid them inside her black jacket.
‘He was playing his own angles, babe. Turns out they played him.’
The smoky-eyed girl sighed, humming an ancient tune, something from the Beatles. It was eerie, a song Sue had sung long ago, on one of the first nights they had been together in Vegas.
Demorn could feel life flickering through her, echoes of tenderness. She remembered kissing Sue out on this dance floor, years ago, when they were young.
She closed her eyes. Demorn could feel everything. She remembered pretending they were the only true things in a world filled with monsters, wishing they could last forever.
The girl twisted her hand across her face and Demorn saw the same mini-skull tattoo Sue wore, inscribed into the underside of her wrist. Demorn didn’t care about what was real and what was fantasy. It was close enough to the real thing. She didn’t want to think about outside. The Grave had been too long and too dark and dry. The Grave had been lying down with skeletons and watching zombie movies by yourself at night.
The Club was flashing lights and beautiful girls, it was about forgetting and escape. Neo-Sue brought herself in close. They kissed, softly once, then harder. Demorn could feel nothing but the fast beating of her heart, passion over emptiness.
‘It’s almost you again, isn’t it?’ Demorn said.
The girl sounded shy and distant. ‘Maybe. Everything happens so fast and it’s always so violent. Most times I die in a hail of bullets. It hurts and then it’s over and then I’m back here. Some days I just stay in my bedroom and let it all happen.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
Neo-Sue’s voice was dreamy. Her eyes were dark pools of peace. ‘You’re the Sword Princess, you slay evil people. You rip out their soul and sell it to the highest bidder.’
Mmm, good answer. Demorn’s hand caressed the black dress, feeling her tight ass, running fingers up and down her strong dancer’s leg. Neo-Sue’s skin was flawless, unmarked. Her muscles were relaxed, she was eager to cling to somebody strong. Demorn knew this girl was almost Sue.
Demorn had been with these programs before. They were so close to life, there was so little they didn’t feel. She brushed her fingers against the tattoo, suddenly grabbing it in an iron grip. She murmured an Asanti summoning spell.
The skull burnt against Demorn’s fingers, glowing with a brief tingle of fire.
‘I can feel the magic vibrating from it. You’re an echo who is trying too hard to become the real thing. What are you? Where is she?’
Neo-Sue groaned in quiet terror, looking at her with terrified eyes. Demorn didn’t need her magic eyes to see the mixture of despair and a desperate kind of hope.
She could glimpse the witchcraft of the Repeater Mall, a connection to a girl in a sterile level of a vast, cold Mall.
Demorn said softly, ‘You’re almost Sue somehow, aren’t you? Tell me how.’
The girl looked away, crying, soft eyes filling with tears, looking at the booth where the old man’s body was sprawled.
‘TELL ME!’ Demorn’s eyes blazed.
The girl who was almost Sue found her voice, soft and scared. ‘I don’t know, I don’t even know what I am. Sometimes, when I die I’m back in Vegas, hanging down at Alternate Reality. You come in through the door, talking about comics, making sarcastic jokes about how deathly serious all the Batman movies are, looking for classic X-Men trades, and I feel like everything is real . . .’
Sue looked around vaguely, her face reverting to the horrible, disfigured clown, her face rotten, thick red lipstick, garish makeup not hiding the rotting stench of the grave. She floated out of the seat, her body still perfect, voice bouncing inside the booth.
THEY CALL ME SUICIDE SUE AND I DANCE NO MATTER WHETHER WE LIVE OR DIE I’VE SEEN WHAT IT’S LIKE ON THE OTHER SIDE.
Demorn caught her hand just as she started to drift toward the dance floor, pulled her back. Her magic eyes saw so much, too much. She had seen this act before.
Is this the program reading me, she thought, is this what I really want?
‘Not tonight, Sue, not tonight.’
Slowly the girl’s face readjusted to normal. She was thin, shaking, and exhausted as she slumped into the booth.
‘Then I’m back here, under the lights, dancing. It feels like it’s all just a TV show. I don’t even know what’s real.’
Demorn sighed. ‘It is a TV show. A cruel one. Who pays your cheques?’
‘He calls himself Capitan Roberts, comes in every couple of weeks, really likes to treat himself.’
Of course he does, Demorn thought dryly.
Demorn shattered the star on the table with a sudden anger.
‘He won’t be writing any more cheques.’
Sue’s voice trembled, looking at Demorn with some kind of desperate hope. ‘Sometimes he’s gone for a really long time. But he always comes back.’
Demorn smiled her scary smile. ‘He won’t be coming back this time.’
She finished her Pina Colada with a swig.
‘Stay here, be mysterious, don’t talk to boys.’
Demorn kissed her on the cheek, and slid deeper into the heart of the club, smooth through a sea of beautiful people. Neo-Sue blinked out of existence behind her, leaving just the old man, a bloodless dry husk on the table, surrounded by burnt out power cards.
7
* * *
Demorn wandered deeper into the club, eventually taking a seat by a small, darkened bar, drawn by a quiet piano song, some guy singing about being rich and old.
The layout was fabulously old-school. A few couples waltzed slowly to classic old songs, pink light falling down upon them, sparkling chandeliers above them.
The rest of the room was lost to darkness, lights flickering over the tables, slender, attractive women and men scattered around the room.
Capitan turned to her from behind the bar. His one good eye glittered. His frame was massive and obese; he looked much older than the holograms and the cards table.
‘What do you want to drink, Demorn?’
Her hand flew her to pistol, and she shot at him, looking to take the open shot while she had the chance. The piano player kept singing his droll song. People kept slow dancing.
The gun hadn’t fired. She glanced at it, sneering. Capitan was laughing.
He pointed to a little sign above the bar. ‘No fire zone.’
‘So you’re still a coward then. Cola, thanks. Lotsa ice.’
He slid one across the bar. ‘I always preferred to call it being intelligent.’
She placed the Athena pistol on the counter, close to her hand.
‘You were cruel to make the bar a prison, just like the Repeater Mall was for her. Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Felt like a laugh. The audience likes to see conflict—’
In blind rage, Xalos emerged from her chest and she swung at him. He flung himself backward, a massive energy hook glancing against the katana blade, sparks flying, the purple fires upon her blade radiating a vicious cold.
Capitan was flushed but still chuckling as he finished his sentence.
‘—they like to see a Runner squirm. Especially damaged bad girl killing machines.’
He lifted a charged throwing axe from behind the bar, energy blazing as he swung, smashing into the bar top, barely missing her.
Demorn spun in a quick, barely controlled kick, smashing his face, landing on one foot. She slid away into the dance floor. The air hissed with the axe.
She passed the katana from one hand to another, crouched down.
She growled, ‘Do you really think you can beat me, Capitan? ’Cause I’m going to do a lot worse than Kid Dragon did.’
Capitan sauntered out from the wrecked bar. He was looking flushed and corpulent. ‘Keep playing the damned song!’
His robotic eye flashed orange.
She was moving fast. She felt a wave of heat, her shoulder stinging and burning through the kimono. He cackled. Demorn deflected another blast with her blade, an inch from her face, snarling with the effort.
She flung two energy stars with a massive wrist snap, watching one skewer his good eye, blood spurting, the other cutting his cheek. He was swinging the axe like a madman, technique gone.
Demorn stepped in, cutting clean through his arm. The axe clattered away and she drove the blade through his gut, letting the purple fire eat everything it could, before she kicked his body away with casual cruelty.
He was gurgling up blood. There had been no wise one-liners. He looked old, fat and worn out. She grasped his head, turning it away. His orange eye kept blasting random laser fire, slowly spluttering out. ‘WHYYYYY . . .’
He was close to death but not quite there yet. She whispered in his ear, ‘You were just so fucking cruel, Capitan. You were just so damn cruel.’
The piano player finished playing a wise, little song about ex-wives and the perils of living in the fast lane. She saw things out of the periphery of her vision.
Surrounding her, blending out of shadows, stood about twenty Blood Clan Huntresses. All the couples who had been dancing were either dead or revealed to be Blood. They blocked the exit. Lithe shapes in red robes. For a while they looked at each other. There was no Toxis amongst them.
It was almost as if there never had been a Toxis. The energy abyss had eaten her and the memory was distant to Demorn. The connection felt totally gone.
Slowly, she stood up. ‘Do you know who I am?’
They spoke to her as one in her mind.
YOU ARE THE PRINCESS OF THE SWORDS YOU ARE THE RULER OF THE SKULL KINGDOM YOU ARE VENGEANCE FROM THE DEAD WORLD YOU ARE MIDNIGHT.
Demorn held a palm out. Concentrating, she pushed them out of her mind.
‘So you know me then.’
Demorn moved her fingers in a quick ritual. Her eyes blazed a pure magic green. The silver glass crown was reflected in the soft pink lights. She looked cold and terrible and proud. Demorn could feel it feed into her, the magic, the power.
She brought the blade to Capitan’s throat.
‘Are you begging to stay my hand? HAS HE PAID YOU THAT MUCH?’
The Blood Clan knelt as one, heads bowed before the Sword Princess. They slid out of the room, a soundless red blur.
A single member remained, kneeling.
Demorn’s heart beat fast, and slowly she brought its rate to normal.
She beheaded Capitan with a fast, vicious movement, crying out with a sudden involuntary Asanti word of power. She threw his head to the floor.
She wiped the blade clean and slid the katana into the scabbard upon her back.
A deep voice came from the single hooded figure remaining.
‘We are a long way from Firethorn. It is very hard to descend to this world, the dirt and grime of this city. But Reality is weakened. Pale Suns stalk the world. The Duke of Pain shadows your footsteps and dreams. You can see me as I am.’
The figure rose from the ground, and into the air. Multi-coloured lights were flooding out of the darkness underneath the cowl.
Demorn took a half-step back, cautious. This was no Blood Clan member.
‘I can’t pierce your veil. What are you? A Pale?’
A mini-sun erupted in the room, emanating from within the long red cloak. Demorn was hurled backward into the bar, flooded by red light.
She drew Xalos, searing with purple fire. But the force of the power was beyond anything she had experienced, and she was pressed against the shattered bar.
She realized that she wasn’t holding onto the bar anymore, but a solid rock. The air around her was a meaningless white, mixed with jagged, shimmering lightning trails of purple through a violent, red sky.
With her hand shielding her eyes, Demorn looked up into the burning clouds and saw countless billboards floating in the sky. They too vanished.
The figure in the red cloak hung over her, searing with energy, which hurt her eyes to look at. Suddenly, the fire dimmed, the heat scaling back by degrees.
A young man removed the cowl from his head. His hair was long and black. His eyes were a savage purple, tracer beams of light examining her face, before he looked away.
He spoke in a casual, light voice.
‘There is no need for your fearsome sword.’
His fingers sparkled with energy, and he produced a mixture of black and red roses, which drifted through the air to her.
‘I am your Tyrant.’
Demorn took the flowers. She sat down on the rock, sighing. ‘Everything is so dramatic.’
8
* * *
The flowers were powerful and intoxicating. She looked out at the expanse of red skies and white nothingness, speaking lightly.
‘My Tyrant? Did I even vote? You don’t know how hard it is to get a meeting.’
He laughed. The cloak had fallen away, his sexless body was shining.
There was a thin golden bracelet upon his left wrist. When she looked closer she could see the metal cut into his glowing skin.
She saw the golden charms were thorns, inscribed with power words from charred worlds, cutting into his tender, mortal flesh, aging him, feeding him, renewing him.
The Tyrant laughed. ‘Don’t look too deeply with those magic eyes, Demorn!’
He held up his pale wrist. The golden bracelet was a collection of attractive charms and he wasn’t bleeding.
‘Don’t worry, I’m really not that mortal.’
Demorn brushed a hand across her brow. ‘I’m well-trained against telepaths. How can you know what I’m thinking?’
He shrugged. ‘We are close to the Source Stone in this club, connected to the first rocks of power and magic that built this City. That’s why it bounces through your dreams and visions. Why it drew you together even before you met.’
They were floating on a small island. She looked downward and saw the city of Babelzon, not as it was, but as she had dreamed it. In place of the giant, gleaming skyscrapers of steel and glass, she saw countless stone towers, delicate minarets, and sturdy bridges hanging over dark waters, lit up by fairy trails of light.
Below that, she saw the burning stones, huge and immovable, deep, carvings inscribed upon them. Bleak stark words of unmistakable power and dread. She felt the infinite truth of those words, their weight, their horror, and their promise.
‘Deep mirrors of the night,’ she murmured in Asanti, looking away.
A giant skeleton floated by them, rising from the shining city. She recognized the robotic eye, scraps of military uniform. Capitan, stripped of all his flesh.
The Tyrant was resigned.
‘There’s always so much blood at the end. It’s like all we can do. Fight. Kill. Bleed. Die. Become nothing but memories. Don’t you think?’
He touched the drifting skeleton and it collapsed in on itself, become part of the void.
Things were becoming more solid; the island was becoming larger.
‘It’s called a Tyrant Run. Aren’t you the one to blame for any violence?’
He rose into the air. His red cloak became stained with black.
His purple eyes flicked across like a stain. Vicious fire erupted from his mind, tendrils flying through the air, swallowing up physical space.
I COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THESE PANTOMIMES OF DEATH THESE GLADIATORS IN THE COLISEUM DO NOT DANCE FOR MY AMUSEMENT DO NOT IMAGINE I DEMAND THEIR SOULS AS TRIBUTE.
Above the Tyrant, burning spectacularly in the icy blue sky, was a huge fossilized figure with a horrific skeletal reptilian face, with a vast and terrible wingspan of bone. Cold radiated off it, hurting her, burning her.
GAZE UPON MY PAST. GAZE UPON IT! LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE DEFEATED I AM COVERED IN BONES.
‘Black Mirror broken,’ she murmured in Asanti, fingers moving in fast ritual wards. An Ice Dragon. From the oldest legends. She had heard of them in the Ice Caverns. In the dawn of
prehistory they ruled the infant world as masters in the cold, long before their bloodline faltered, long before the winter lessened, and the hunters came.
And he had killed this one and yet kept it half-alive, writhing as an angry ghost above him, somehow through him. She held her gaze upon the Tyrant and the undead dragon, chilled to the rawest core of her being.
The burning purple sword was in her hands. Utilizing all her training, she pushed control into the core of her being, until she felt no fear, she felt nothing.
‘Tell me then, burning one. Is this where you eat my soul?’
He laughed and it was a demon laughing. She saw the flames rolling through him, then slowly, almost quietly, the fire died.
The Ice Dragon faded into nothingness. The Tyrant lowered to the ground. He looked disturbingly normal. Dressed in blue jeans, a casual jacket, a white polo. He had a stylish gold tennis bracelet on this left wrist, along with a sleek watch.
‘The truth is, Princess, I don’t take anybody’s soul. I’m just a politician.’
Demorn drew her leather jacket tightly around her, smiling.
‘Cool. I don’t vote, so don’t take it personally. Tony gave me plenty of your missions though.’
His eyes glinted as he laughed. She could glimpse the energy, a strange lightness in him. She wondered if it was insanity.
‘Tony. You’ve been away a long time, Demorn. You’ve become a myth.’
She was blunt. ‘Two years out of the game can make a legend out of anybody halfway-decent these days. It’s lame, but true.’
‘Oh, you were more than halfway decent. Any mission Tony gave you was vital to me. I paid Alex myself to go get you back.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need you.’
He opened a hand. A pure blue pyramid vibrated on his palm.
‘Do you recognize this?’
Demorn’s eyes glimmered with nostalgia and tears of shock. Memories of the mission with Sinatra. Triton pyramids everywhere in the Sands. Fresh hope slid into her heart, mixed with old fears.
She held her hand out.
Her palm shuddered, too, with the power of the Pyramid, glowing blue.
