by David Finn
‘It’s fantastic for the soul,’ one of them said.
The words bounced around in her head until Demorn didn’t care who said it.
Purple fire encased them, freezing and magnificent. Soon, the tropical garden was gone, and they had vanished from it, gone someplace else.
Part 4
1
* * *
The sun was vast, orange fire dying through Demorn’s purple glasses. Then she realized she wasn’t looking at a sun but at the Tyrant. Her eyes weren’t really open, she was still in the deep trance.
She woke up in his bed, comfortable. Her hand was clasped in his. She ran her free hand across him, enjoying the feel of low static generated from his body.
Her t-shirt was off, the air was chill against her skin. She wore long flowing black silk pants, legs crossed on top of his sheets.
He was asleep. He wore nothing from the waist up, his pale slender form glowing in the blue light of the waves.
Slowly his purple eyes opened.
‘Well, that was nice.’
She smiled awkwardly, feeling shy. She released his hand.
‘What did we even do? Were we really just holding hands?’
He smiled wickedly.
‘Is that all you really think we did?’
Her whole body was buzzing. She laughed wildly, kissing him open-mouthed.
‘Nah! I’m glad my clothes didn’t really burn up though.’
She found her colorful Deadpool comic t-shirt lying on the thick white carpet and slipped it on.
His room was spacious, not cluttered and messy like hers back in the Clubhouse. He had big art prints on the walls, soothing abstract stuff.
Behind the art, red waves surged against a spectacular blue beach. Music played, soft and a bit sad, just how she liked it. She looked at him in the bed, pulling the thin blue sheets around him, drifting close to sleep.
The warm intimacy of their shared dreams and memories hadn’t entirely faded. She could feel the vibe and power of his memories, the beauty of Alex in the shower, dining with her in a classy restaurant inside this vast floating palace.
For a moment Demorn wished she could stay with him here, listen to soft music in this calm room, float above the world forever, let go of all the responsibility and the regret.
She felt a lump in her throat. The whole thing with Kate had gone on too long. I’ve seen so much death, Demorn thought, and Kate is gone. I can’t chase her anymore, Demorn realized with a cold, sudden clarity, studying one of the pictures, a shiver down her spine as she remembered her vaguely.
Demorn could feel his presence behind her, even though he was asleep. In the mirror she could see his spirit body floating translucent. His shimmering hand enclosed hers. He didn’t wear the Steel Bracelet in his dreams.
‘It’s really sweet the way you think about Alex,’ she murmured. ‘A lot of people think she’s a real bitch. She’s just really good at her job. But you really liked her, as a person.’
She felt younger, lighter. She drew his other hand to her cheek. The scar was entirely gone.
Of course I like her as a person. What’s not to like?
His dream voice was droll and secure.
She let the light and the hope fill her. It was the last place she would have expected to find peace of mind. In the arms of the Tyrant.
‘Why did Alex ever leave?’
Don’t you know? She loves being an Innocent. She loves missions. She wanted to bring you back home.
Demorn smiled. She saw Alex putting on bright red lipstick in the same tall mirror, her blonde hair pulled straight back, saying forthrightly, ‘Our Fearless Leader deserves a ton better than chasing ghosts in The Grave. She’s that kind of lost, vacant soul who doesn’t realize how many people miss her and want to find her.’
It put a lump in her throat. Alex was supposed to be highly sarcastic. She was supposed to get into petty fights after jokey team-ups and shoot at her. In the vision, the Tyrant laughed at the barbed joke, the way Demorn could see him chuckling now.
She was wearing her sunglasses and staring at the blazing orange sun inside the long, tall mirror.
Demorn said, ‘How close was I to being gone for good?’
The Tyrant said, ‘Very close. She was the only other Innocent who could go that deep. If it makes you feel better, she charged your brother an absolute fortune.’
‘It does make me feel better actually. It’s what makes her the best Innocent.’
Demorn knew suddenly that she was still asleep, beside him, inside the shared dream, and it didn’t matter. It was good for the soul.
Her fingers brushed the tall mirror. She murmured, ‘What would we do and who would we be without our friends?’
2
* * *
A cold hand grasped her wrist hard and painfully.
Demorn woke up for real. A clawed hand reached for her throat and she caught it by reflex. A rotted woman’s face flickered over her, the hideous visage hurtful to her eyes, mouth broken-toothed, awful, stinking breath.
Demorn tried to jerk the clawed hand away, but the woman held fast to her wrist. The woman’s mouth opened in a soundless, despairing wail.
Using all her strength Demorn slowly forced the creature away from her face. Snarling, she beat the old woman across her putrid mouth with a closed metal fist. She didn’t care that it hurt, she kept hitting her.
It sprang to the outer edge of the room. Her legs were skeletal stalks. Demorn’s magic eyes blazed and she saw black witchcraft in the skin of the rotted woman.
In the bed the Tyrant murmured but did not wake.
Undeath walks even here, Demorn thought. It strolls the bedroom of the elite. Are we are all damned? No, not yet.
Demorn raised her left fingers in the age-old Asanti symbol to ward off evil, while her right hand flashed with Xalos, flames licking across the metal. Her hand shuddered with power. Her head hurt with the strength of the magic.
The horrible woman prowled, hissing and unpleasant.
YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE SPELLS OF DEATH, SWEETHEART.
The walls filled with rolling flames, and the insignia upon the woman’s rotted face was of the deep grave. There was nothing fresh about her. The room had gone ice cold.
The creature pointed at the sleeping Tyrant, oblivious on the bed.
YOU DO NOT KNOW HIM HE WILL BE YOUR DOOM.
The spell was hurting Demorn’s brain, pressure building up in her forehead.
From her gut, Demorn unleashed the spell, the keyword a primal one she had learned long before, on the darkest missions in the guts of The Grave. A green triangle of faith sprang from Demorn’s fingers.
She screamed aloud as it burnt her hand, spinning across the room, disintegrating the half corporeal form of the ghoulish woman, whose screams became audible for a single moment.
‘I don’t know you either,’ Demorn whispered. ‘Begone to your grave, witch.’
The Tyrant barely stirred.
Almost in tears, Demorn snuggled with him on the bed, her hurt fingers soothed by touching his body, so cold, almost lifeless. He lay there, gently shimmering.
His eyes opened, flashes of demon red in the peaceful, electric purple sea.
‘She’s been here again, hasn’t she?’ he murmured, ruffling his cold hands through Demorn’s long brown hair. ‘It’s okay, she’s a ghost now, she has been for centuries.’
Demorn could feel her heart beating fast. ‘I’m not so sure about “OK”. Few ghosts have that kind of power.’
‘Fewer living had her power,’ he murmured. ‘I never see her, not even in my dreams. She can pierce the shields to harass my lovers.’
‘Well, that’s not in the promotional campaign,’ Demorn said dryly, adding, ‘It obviously never put Alex off.’
The Tyrant’s body shook with silent laughter. ‘I think Alex saw it as a rite of passage.’
Demorn slid back under the covers. She could feel the Tyrant’s eyes casually slide across her. She d
idn’t mind it.
He said, ‘You’re the badass assassin, how come you’re scared of things that go bump in the night?’
Demorn looked at the dark wall, watching the red electronic waves rise and fall upon the blue shore. ‘I’ve seen what ghosts can do to us when we let them.’
The Tyrant sounded philosophical, lost in thought. ‘I liked her. We were both dark oddballs in the General’s merry little group. But she’s just forgotten, gone mad, like old spirits do.’
‘Let’s not forget, you obviously cheated on her. That came back to bite you,’ Demorn noted.
He touched her fingers and she felt them heal completely. ‘Forget her.’
Oh, I don’t think I will forget this or her, Demorn thought. She snuggled back then, his cold touch soothing.
Her mind slowly slid back into darkness, the final thoughts just simple wishes she would not dream of the dying, raging sun. Demorn could feel the safety of the Swords gather around her.
3
* * *
She woke up, fragile light filling the room. Brilliant mirrors had relaxed the electronic art. There was nobody beside her in the ruffled bed.
She saw a late teenage boy in a white t-shirt with a single slogan upon it. THE WORLD WON’T LISTEN. His hair was slightly too long, he was very pale. He had ear-buds in, and was singing to himself, lost in the tunes, working on a series of diagrams on his computer.
Demorn got out of bed. The boy turned to look at her, his face showing minor puzzlement. She recognized him from Wrecking Ball’s bunker.
‘Jason? You look good . . . older.’
His fingers danced over a golden glass mirror. The room shifted. Queued around them now were layers of complex formulas and data, intricate holograms of inter-connecting spirals. Symbols showed a savage cloud formation of red stars. Pyramids circled a core of merged suns.
The boy moved his hands through the wave-like diagram of data. He looked sharp, eyes bright as he examined the images. Finally he looked at her, with a touch of arrogance.
‘Thanks, it’s been awhile. So, you’ve made it this far, Demorn? I’m impressed. It’s either this, or endless worlds of magic. What do you prefer?’
She was confused for a moment. How do you answer that, Demorn thought.
She saw a blur in the data, small disruptions in the arrangement of the pyramids and the stars, pushing the system out of focus. She ran her finger along one of the biggest images, a series of vast, sparkling galaxies. The image was icy cold with an abrasive edge.
A single crack splintered through the star-lines. Galaxies fragmented. She drew her hand away.
‘I know what that is. I call it Ultimate Fate.’
Jason nodded, watching the model disintegrate without a trace of emotion. The blur took on various shimmering configurations. Demorn saw a single image form for a millisecond. She murmured in soft Asanti. The Carati, the Many Headed Killer, an apocalypse god, buried within her consciousness, before it phased away. Demorn was left wondering if she had ever seen the many Heads at all.
‘To glimpse her is to touch our death,’ she whispered.
Jason was withering. ‘Yes, you go for the whole mythic angle. I’ve always found it easier to treat it as a sentient multi-dimensional virus. It explains the pollution, even before Fate is fully emergent in this realm. The pre-cogs, the sensitives, the Sympaths — they may carry it, receiving the first inputs in dreams and waking visions. Their interpretations bleed into rumor, become myths and legends. We start praying to our Armageddon, the very machine of our ending.’
He looked at her with cold, bright eyes. ‘It really is a quite magnificent design. Do you dream of the end of all things?’
She sneered. ‘Who hasn’t dreamt of the end?’
‘Many of the sheep never have. The adventurers make it a lot worse. Dragging secrets from dungeons and tombs back to the light. People like you and your stupid little group of assassins and thieves.’
Demorn slapped him hard across the face. Jason’s cheek flushed from the sharp blow. ‘Don’t insult my family or the Innocents. If I remember, Jason, your family built death games.’
He looked startled, but rubbed his cheek softly.
‘Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t build you, nobody did, Princess. You’re an exile from a dead world. Nobody made you open all these doors, nobody forced you to run into the parallels, chasing bounties. You’re not saving the world, that’s just something you tell yourself back in the Clubhouse.’
He ran his finger over a splinter, collapsing it like rotten driftwood. ‘You pretend that decay doesn’t lie outside those fragile doors, the soft points in a weak universe. You pretend you don’t carry it back inside with you. We should paint warnings at the access points, not celebrate them. We should paint a warning on the Clubhouse door.’
Demorn smacked him again across the mouth, much harder and more viciously, flooring him. It was starting to feel good now. Jason spat out a drop of blood.
‘Oh, just put the sword through me, bitch. How many of your precious Innocents are kids you picked up in the Portals?’
She smiled, but there was no humor in her eyes. ‘Just a few. I don’t regret a single one.’
Jason grinned horribly from the floor. ‘You might though, Princess, before the end. When the Pales surround your clubhouse, and there is no more joking, no more Music Fridays, no more prayer meetings, just nothingness, just the void swallowing you!’
She hit him again with a wild backhand.
‘You’re a sick little boy, cowering in your room. You always were!’ She growled with loathing. ‘How dare you challenge me, a Princess of the Swords, the last Asanti!’
The katana slid from her scabbard, fire dancing across the metal edge.
‘Where is Wrecking Ball? Tell me, or I will gut you where you stand.’
Jagged blood flowed from his lip. ‘Oh, I think you’ll gut me anyway.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I split the experiment, I finally got rid of him, fought my way to a Portal, and rode out on the back-stream of your escape.’
Her expression was pure ice and her voice was blank. ‘What about Wrecking Ball?’
‘I did what I had to do. He’s bleeding out in his mansion. Horribly de-powered.’
Jason smiled, a hand on his head, pretending to be thinking of him.
‘I can almost see him there, staining the lovely white carpet with his blood. Wondering if you will ever make it back to save him. We both know the answer to that question, don’t we? The universe is collapsing.’
He pointed at the diagram of the fast collapsing universe. ‘It was you, the Fearless Leader, who doomed us finally. Chasing the ghost of some dreary girl, walking into a spell designed to ensnare you. Nobody should have saved you. They should have left you with the Bone, until you pulled the trigger to end it all—’
She drove the flaming sword into him, as much to stop the words as anything else, the blade shuddering as she slid it into his gut, as she dragged him up by the neck with her steel hand.
‘She wasn’t dreary, you fake ball of shit! She had icy blue eyes and long blonde hair and she was the only thing I cared about. She was stunning. I wasn’t begging anybody to come get me!’
Jason grinned sickly, his eyes bright and feverish. ‘Oh, lies. The sheep imagine Babelzon is safe. What Asanti was, Babelzon has now become, and the exile of Asanti will not save them. Nothing will save them when the reality line explodes—’
Demorn cracked his neck brutally with her metal hand, swearing a death oath. It stopped him talking at least. Savagely, she withdrew the sword. There was not a trace of blood upon the fiery blade.
His body vanished. Demorn walked closer to the shifting energy charts. It’s either this or endless worlds of magic.
Her fingers skimmed and skipped across the lines. She could sense patterns. But it was like the ravine in The Grave, where the Spire ship had died. The patterns led to an abyss, an utter dead-end in every sense. The pulses swept through her fingers and body. She f
elt at the center of a spectacular wave of energy and possibility, a million shadow worlds touching at some tiny point, scattered light from an invisible star.
Her head filled with stunning pain. Demorn screamed in soundless terror and amazement. She felt everything open inside her.
HER INNER EYES OPENED AND SHE COULD SEE THE TRUE SUN.
The sun that blazed outward from the inside was multi-colored, at once a burning orange, and ghostly purple, beautiful and vast, undying and longer than the span of even the most final and ancient beings.
She felt somebody hold her chin, a mysterious voice that may have been the Tyrant, or her brother, or the whispers of a thousand Goddesses who had marked her for their own Wars.
‘Remember the Innocents.’
Was that a question, or was that some declaration supposed to stir the masses, she thought with detachment, as the wind echoed through her mind, sheer power surging through her, running riot over her defenses.
She was tumbling toward the ice, into the chasm, old emotions like fear and love burning as the great, true sun ate her — she could see the unborn gods waiting for their day to rise, filled with a consciousness and hunger to shine and gather for harvest the universe so rich with minds and souls.
It’s such a joke Triton believe they have the answers in their Pyramids, she laughed, hurting as she fell. Their Pyramids are but a child scrawling toward infinity.
HER EYES CLOSED THE COLORS DIMMING THE MUSIC SLOWING SHE COULD HEAR A TELEPHONE RINGING SOMEWHERE IN HER PAST THE FIRETHORN SKY ABOVE HER SHE COULD FEEL Asanti EXPLODING AND HER SOUL WASN’T IN THE SAME PLACE ANYMORE HER SOUL WASN’T IN THE SAME PLACE ANYMORE . . .
Everything faded. Even the headache and grief.
The Tyrant stood before her, his palm outstretched and pressed against Demorn’s palm. His cold touch soothed her. They were back in his bedroom.
