by J. S. Miller
My comrades collided in mid-air and rolled across the floor, sending patrons diving out of the way. Big Ugly’s full attention was on them now. It stalked over to the pair of living statues, grabbed each by the throat, and lifted them above its head like a mismatched set of action figures. Then it performed a shot putter’s spin and hurled them both through the front wall of the bar. Wood exploded as my friends tore huge, splintered holes in The Parish, and before anyone could move, the Outrider’s hatchet man was heading out after them, dragging its feet in that strange, unsettling way.
I didn’t think about what I did next. This was all happening too fast, and I didn’t have time to worry about repeating mistakes I’d made so long ago I was the only person who still cared. So I followed, Chemslinger in hand, and kicked aside what was left of the batwing doors.
Outside, sundown had turned to cloudy night. Dazed onlookers stood clear of the mayhem that had just erupted from the local tavern. My friends lay on the far side of the street, struggling to stand. Toward them shuffled the beast wearing the mask made of bone. Its body, now fully visible under the streetlamps, rolled with thick cords of muscle under the battered gray fabric.
That was when I noticed something else, something I’d missed before but which caught my eye at the most absurd moment possible. Cobblestone Road wasn’t paved with stones at all — it was a swirling mosaic of multicolored glass. Each tile shimmered under the light from the lanterns, seeming, against the starless sky, to pull the universe inside out.
“Hey, Big Ugly!” I shouted, once again refusing to think much beforehand. “Why don’t you pick on someone … a little smaller …”
A block of stone flew at my head. I threw myself to one side, but the rock clipped my shoulder and spun me to the ground. My chin struck glass, and I tasted copper. When my eyes refocused, I saw Big Ugly turning away from me, the pothole it had ripped in the street gaping at the sky in its wake. The monster was already forgetting about me, a minor annoyance swatted away. Well, you know what? I was sick of being swatted at. Energy gathered within me, and the blood on my tongue began to buzz so hard it hurt my teeth.
I stood and brushed the dust from my indestructible jacket. Then I opened the Chemslinger’s cylinder, spun it, and found the color I wanted. A green so bright it almost glowed on its own — the stoplight color of Go. Without another word, I aimed the big revolver at that broad, red back and pulled the trigger.
Brilliant green erupted from the barrel and surged toward my enemy like the tentacles of an atomic squid. The strands congealed into a web and splattered against its back. Ropes of glowing gel swung forward, smacked onto the ground, and stuck there as Big Ugly roared in surprise. It tried to turn, but the ropes held. It pulled harder, stretching the net, which flexed for a moment and then snapped back, slamming the boney face into the street with the home-run crack of a baseball bat.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sit the hell down.”
Coppersworth and Glynda stood shakily and walked over to me, throwing furtive glances at the Goliath I’d just pinned to the ground.
“I do say,” Coppersworth said, rubbing the back of his neck. The squeak of metal on metal made me wince. “You dispatched that rascal most admirably.”
Without responding I walked out into the street. This wasn’t over. Not yet.
“I don’t normally kick people when they’re down,” I said, stopping a few feet from Big Ugly. “But you’re not really people anymore, are you? Who were you? Before, I mean.”
It craned its neck to look up at me. A crack had slithered into the bone, and a drop of thick, black blood was trickling down between its bottomless eyes. A shiver crept up my spine. The gray fabric it wore looked so familiar — it had been a suit once, but was now torn and stained with blood. I searched the remaining pockets and found a wallet. Flipping it open, I saw the glint of a golden treasure chest and key. The ID card was missing. Oh. Perfect. This was exactly what I needed today.
The sound of cracking stone dragged me back to reality. Under the alchemical net, Big Ugly strained. The ropes groaned but refused to break. Instead, tiles started popping loose from Cobblestone Road. I stepped back, nearly fumbling the Chemslinger as the street shattered and the beast sheared away layers of stone and glass. It stood, and shards hung in a glowing lacework around it, glittering like a cape made from disemboweled kaleidoscopes.
I fired a shot from the hip, but it ducked under the blast and threw a punch that hit me in the chest. Hard. I tried to curl into a ball as I flew through the air, but it made little difference as I busted through wood and glass and landed on something that was … surprisingly soft, actually. I opened my eyes and looked down. Beneath me were several large burlap bags labeled “Beans.” Huh. How ‘bout that.
The rest of the room was decked out with flowers so big and bright they would’ve made a wedding planner weep. At the center of the floral arrangements, four creatures covered in brown-flecked feathers and sporting hooked beaks sat around a dinner table, staring at me with shiny black eyes.
“Trespasser!” the largest of the birds shrieked. Its English was shrill and grating, just like Toucan Son of Sam’s, although this bird more closely resembled a hawk. It wasn’t a fluke, then; human languages lost some of their magic when forced through a beak.
“Not really,” I said, getting to my feet. “I just travel by punch. Less precise than a car, sure, but boy is it fast.”
“What?” it squawked.
“Nothing. Listen, you need to get out of here before—”
A thump like a redwood falling on loose soil shook the front door. The two larger hawks’ heads snapped toward the sound. The other two, who were smaller, cowered behind them, twittering fearfully. Children.
“Take them and get out,” I said, raising my weapon.
The largest bird-person glared at me for a moment, but after another thud rattled the floorboards, it rustled its feathers and started corralling the kids. The next impact knocked the door ajar. Black claws clutched it from the other side and tore it from its hinges. Tossing the door into the darkness, the creature bellowed and shoved itself inside, tearing chunks from the wall with its massive shoulders. I stepped between Big Ugly and the birds. The monster stopped just inside the door, glaring at me. This was my moment. There had to be something I could say to buy the family some time.
“You … shall not pass!” I blurted in a barely passable Gandalf impression. Listen, it happened. Not saying I’m proud of it.
A red fist slammed into me, picking me up in a vicious uppercut and smashing me through the ceiling. Planks snapped, and my momentum carried me several feet into the air before gravity took hold and dropped me back down onto my stomach … on the second floor of the house.
I rolled onto my back, retreating from the me-shaped hole in the floor and the abomination with the kettlebell fists lurking below it. Luggage, furniture, and assorted knickknacks filled my field of view, and I observed in a daze that I’d evidently ended up in the attic. How strong was that thing?
Every nerve ending in my body was a blazing point on a roadmap of pain. Each breath I took felt ragged and wet. A fog settled over my mind. It promised rest, an escape from fatigue and injury and things hitting me really, really hard — a way to finally sleep minus all those pesky nightmares. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to stop. Stop fighting. Stop caring. Stop doing anything at all.
On the floor below, a child screamed.
Something desperate sparked deep inside my chest. I clawed at it. Broke it open. Used it to burn away the fog and push myself up. Every muscle in my body spasmed, but I pushed anyway, searching for and finding the pleasure in the pain, in denying myself the easy path. I heard that familiar voice, the one that cowers in the back of your mind and tells you to sit down and shut up, your so-called common sense — I heard it, and I rejoiced in rejecting it. In standing up and saying no.
I wrenched a board from the broken floor. Below, the hawks huddled in a corner as Big Ugly bore down on them, clench
ing and unclenching its clawed fists. Bloodlust had the creature now, and it looked ready to rip them apart solely because they were the only things in the room that would scream when it did so.
I took a deep, painful breath and dropped through the hole, plunging the sharp end of the board into Big Ugly’s back. Red flesh parted, black blood sprayed, and the bone mask roared like an angry bear. I tried to push off with my legs and leap away, but my own green chemicals still coated the creature’s back. My shoes stuck and I fell onto my ass, which caused Big Ugly to start spinning, trying to catch me, dragging me behind itself like a dog chasing its tail. In the confusion, I spotted the largest hawk pushing its family out through the back door.
Black ichor flowed down Big Ugly’s back, coating my Chucks, making them slick. I pulled them loose and rolled under the dining room table. My enemy was stumbling around the room, grabbing at the floorboard in its back, so I scurried out again and scanned the kitchen for other weapons. Oh, look. Knives.
I darted for the blades, but a blackened floorboard caught me in the side and drove me against the wall. Big Ugly grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. For a moment, I couldn’t think of a single thing to do. My vision darkened as the beast’s enormous hands tightened around my windpipe, claws digging into my flesh.
A few droplets of my blood fell, dripping into the sockets where its eyes should have been. I clung to the last bright spark of will within me and concentrated on my blood. Smoke began to pour from the eye holes. The beast roared again, but it was different now. This was the scream of an apex predator feeling pain and fear for the very first time. Big Ugly tossed me across the room, trying to flick the little bug with the big stinger as far away as possible.
I rolled to a stop next to some stairs, which presumably led to the floor I’d already visited, but my body was too jacked on adrenaline to notice any additional damage the latest throw had caused. I looked up, expecting another attack, but none found me. Big Ugly was just standing there, head cocked to one side as dark fluid leaked from both eye sockets. It was blind … but listening. And then it started speaking, mumbling a single word over and over.
“Friend? Friend?”
I certainly wasn’t one, so I kept quiet. There had to be something on me I could use to distract it. I went through my pockets as quietly as possible but came up empty. Wait … the rune satchel. I slid my hand into the bag and removed a small cylinder. One of my Chemslinger rounds. This one was orange — a concoction I’d simply dubbed “noisemaker.” I imbued it with a small amount of power, pressed in the cap, and tossed it over Big Ugly’s head into the corner behind him. When he turned to investigate the sound, I released the alchemical energy. The vial exploded in a cloud of color and sound, spraying bright sparks around the room. The monster howled in confusion.
I got to my feet and turned toward the stairs, but Big Ugly whipped around when I did, somehow having heard me despite the fireworks show going off around it. The beast lunged across the room in two heavy but inhumanly fast strides. I dived for the steps on instinct, and claws swiped over my head and buried themselves in the wood. The kaleidoscopic cape whipped at my face and sliced into my cheek. The monster wailed in frustration and ripped its hand free, but I was already scrambling up the stairs. Glancing back down, I saw that my green alchemical web, now covered in bits and pieces of debris, was sticking to the steps, the walls, everything it could to slow the monster down as we headed into the attic … which was filled with even more clutter. Light bulb.
I rushed to the top of the stairs, and my eyes settled on the room’s only window, a small four-pane facing the street. The monster was behind me, struggling up the stairs, but I held my ground near the top until the beast poked its head up.
“Hey there, beautiful,” I said.
Big Ugly bellowed in unthinking rage. It charged, and I darted into the stacks of luggage to my right, being sure to make plenty of noise as I did. The creature crashed in after me, but I had already crossed to the other side of the room, moving behind some wooden crates. It demolished those, and an assortment of broken planks and baby toys adhered themselves to its arms and back. It may have been fast and strong, but it was starting to slow down. This was a cramped space, and it was missing its eyes. I managed to stay one step ahead.
After another minute or so, Big Ugly looked like the Michelin Man if he were made of random crap instead of stacks of tires. I ran to the window, opened it up, and put one leg out before turning back to get the creature’s attention one last time.
“It’s been swell, big fella, but I’m out.”
Then I jumped. I rolled as I hit the ground, but pain still shot through one leg. I came up in a crouch as the front of the house exploded. Big Ugly sailed out in a cloud of glass, splinters, and the assorted items of a bird family’s attic, plus pieces of the front wall itself. All the debris clung to its hulking frame, leeching its strength and speed like a parasitic life form run amok. Big Ugly landed in the road, sagged under the weight of it all, and fell to its knees.
I opened the Chemslinger, spun the cylinder to warning label red — a particularly volatile concoction I called Dragon’s Breath — and aimed at the beast. I let my blood hum. The trigger came back with a double-action click, and flame burst from the barrel. It swept across the space between us, a fiery serpent licking at the street, tasting the air, searching for more combustible prey. Heat like a thousand angry solar flares engulfed the monster, devouring red scales and white bone. Big Ugly shrieked, this time in pain, and didn’t stop shrieking for too damn long.
Adrenaline started to fade, and fatigue crept in again. Pain shot through my leg and side, but I limped toward the monster. Had to finish this, or it would hurt others. Hurt my friends. As I closed in, I took another red vial from the satchel and reloaded the top chamber.
What was left of the creature gazed up at me. Most of the debris had burned away, but Big Ugly itself was largely intact, though the alchemical fire had charred its red scales black. Part of the bone mask had melted away, and beneath it a man’s face grimaced up at me, slick and pale but mostly unburned. I’d seen that face before. Charles “Lowblow” Denton. The man whose death I’d felt responsible for back when it hadn’t actually been my doing.
“Was afraid of that,” I muttered. “Don’t suppose you’d care to explain what the hell is going on here?”
I could see in his remaining eye that there wasn’t much left of the man he’d been before. Fragments of a former life, maybe, but at their most basic, childish level. At the level of friend.
“North …” he finally rasped. “Follow … road.”
“Thank you.”
“Friend?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, suddenly realizing I wasn’t the friend he wanted. “My guess is you’ll be seeing your partner real soon. If anything does exist beyond all this crazy, violent bullshit.”
The beast that had been Charles Denton stared up at me, and I couldn’t decide whether the look on his face was hope or fear. I raised the revolver and pointed it at the man who’d died his first death trying to protect me. The man I now had to kill again.
“G’bye, Charlie. Sorry for dragging you into all this.”
The fire flashed brightly in the broad main street, and smaller birds, the ones without brick and mortar houses, scattered into the violet sky. I watched them depart for a moment, then swayed and dropped to one knee. Black shapes filled my vision, and I thought I’d seen one of them before … a figure in a hooded cloak. Then agony overwhelmed me, and I fell. Darkness consumed everything, and all the pain was gone.
Chapter 18
Wandering in the dark, I followed a man who had stolen something from me. He always stayed two steps ahead, just out of sight, but I knew I was on the right track. I could still hear his hideous laugh.
I pursued him past supernovas and asteroid belts. Through woodlands painted with colors left over from a monsoon sunrise. Down long streets paved with stars.
After
eons of searching, I found myself on a hill covered in freshly mown grass. Atop the hill sat a great throne made of glass, jutting into the sky like a fractured bone. It stood empty except for the shadows dancing beneath its dark, reflective surface.
I knew this wasn’t real, that I was only dreaming, but I approached anyway, and the shadows slowly came into focus. Skulls grinned at me through the glass. One drifted forward, and the others faded away. Its teeth parted and pale liquid flowed out, wrapping around the bone and congealing into skin.
My father died when I was young, but I’d never forgotten his face. He always wore that same sardonic smirk, as if only he were in on all of life’s terrible jokes. Now, his lips were cracked like worn leather, and age tugged at the corners of the smile, dragging it into a grimace.
“Hello, son,” he said.
“Hi, dad. You’re looking … well.”
“Speak plainly, boy. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, not to be indelicate, dad, but you’re dead.”
“Maybe we both are,” he said. “Maybe this is hell. You’ve certainly been working hard enough to earn a one-way ticket there.”
“Ah, so it’s gonna be one of those conversations,” I said, turning away. “I need to get back to work.”
“That why you came here? To work? I don't remember that kind of enthusiasm when I was around. Not when you let everything I worked for burn.”
“I didn't let anything burn. There was nothing I could do.”
“That why you’ve been torturing yourself for the last 10 years?”
“You don’t know anything about it,” I said, turning back to him furiously. “You weren’t there. You’d already punched out—”
But my biological father was gone. In his place was the man who’d raised me and taught me everything I knew. Vincent Bouclier. His face was streaked with blood.
