by Morgan Blade
She hurried off.
I lay on my back, my head aching, a fucking crown grown into my skull, wanting a drink rather badly. “I am entirely too sober for all this.”
The Unzar huh? Flawless? I think not, or you’d already have leaped back in time to kill me directly. Maybe you did. Maybe the result was so bad, you changed your mind, and put the first timetrack back. Or maybe your ability to cross time is not that good. All I know is, I’m going to destroy you bastards! My dignity is far more important than yours.
Wait. Superglue?
A creature of planning, I also rely on blind chance and inspiration to assure victory. A fluid mind is necessary. Suddenly seeing a path to instant gratification, I took it. Selene had left the stone on top of me. This was the key. I just needed to give the crown a more attractive target than my head to merge with, and it should leave me on its own.
Of course, the drawback is that what I had in mind could just make things worse by getting the entire rock stuck to the top of my head.
I didn’t think I could do this alone, and I didn’t want to waste time arguing Selene into it. She was fond of her own methods and they seldom included following my gut hunches. If Colt were concerned for me, he wouldn’t be far. And some part of his demi-god awareness should be on me. I hoped.
“Colt, I need you.” It surprised me how weak my voice sounded.
Ironic, all the threats I’d survived, only to have death a hair away from claiming me due to a stupid fey crown getting uppity.
“Dad?” It was Colt. He’d heard me.
“Come here. I need you.”
Leaving the shadows, he shuffled closer, stopping at the edge of my bed. “I need you to be strong. I need you to do exactly what I tell you.”
There were tears in his eyes. “I’ll take care of Mom, I promise. If you need to go into the light, it’s okay.”
Then why are you crying?
“I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to save me.”
“I am? What about Mom?”
“She working on Plan B. You are Plan A. Don’t worry, you can do this.”
“I can?”
“I know you’re small, but you have Villager and dragon DNA in you. You have strength. That’s what I need from you. Your physical strength.”
He used the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe the tears from his eyes. “Okay. What do I do?”
“Help me get my hands up to the crown on my head. Then I need you to move the Heart Stone up to my hands. I need you to press my hands against the stone—but after that, don’t touch the stone, just touch me. If this transfer works, the crown will leave me to complete the Stone. Whoever is touching the Stone at that moment will become the Overlord of Fairy. That needs to be me, not you. Understand?”
“I understand, but…”
“You have to do this because there’s no one else. I need you. I trust you.”
“What happens if I do something wrong?”
“I don’t think things can get much worse,” I lied.
Things can always get worse. Murphy’s Law. The universe is a depraved, vindictive little bitch, but now is not the time to say so.
Colt stared at me. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Not really.”
His eyes narrowed. “There is. I know you.”
“Colt…”
Copper-red light washed out of him. The energy swelled larger, becoming an adult silhouette. The light-play faded and Older Colt stood there. He stared down at me. “You are a dick. I am not going to carry the guilt of your bad decision-making into puberty. The younger me has it hard enough just being your kid.”
I sighed. “I know. Nothing I can do about that. Everybody’s got to be somebody’s kid. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need this. If I didn’t have complete faith in you, I wouldn’t. I depend on you to be better than me.”
Colt’s eyes narrowed. “That’s just a manipulation. You’re trying to bend me to your will.”
I closed my eyes, giving him a preview of what I’d look like dead.
Yes, I am a manipulating son of a bitch. Why do people expect a demon lord to play fair? It astounds me.
“Dad. Dad!”
I opened my eyes. It was surprisingly hard. “You are better than me. It’s the only miracle I’ve ever seen. Yes, that’s a manipulation. It’s also true. And it’s true that my truth is also a manipulation. Please don’t let me die.”
I thought of the Thorn Queen. There are still so many women waiting to sleep with me.
Colt growled from the depths of his soul. “I swore I’d stop you from forcing these kinds of things on me.”
One more push.
“If I go, the multi-verse goes, along with everyone that you love.”
We both knew it to be true.
“Aaaaaagh! Fine.”
He picked up the Heart Stone and moved around to the head of my bed. It probably was an autopsy table, but I didn’t like to think of that—bad omen. I lifted my hands toward my face, not quite getting them there. Colt grabbed one wrist and pulled it to the stone which he made hover over my face. He grabbed my other wrist and pulled it up to the Stone’s other side.
I held the Heart Stone.
He held me.
No further instructions were needed. He pulled my wrists closer to him, dropping them lower so the Heart Stone touched the crown at last. There was an emerald flash. A mission bell echoed across the sky of the Red Moon, and probably Fairy below.
Multiple silent explosions of red energy filled the dungeon. The light washes faded out and I had a dozen Selenes in the room: the one from this time, and others from later dimensions of time. They looked at each other, surprised. This event had to be new to their non-linear temporal perceptions. Reaching some silent agreement, all but one Selene vanished.
She came over, eyes locked on Colt. “Is the crown out of his head?”
“I’d kind of like to know myself,” I said.
Taking the Heart Stone, Colt let my hands fall forward onto the bed. He came around to where I could see the Stone. The crown-shaped hole was filled in.
“And my brains,” I asked, “they’re not spilling out onto the floor, are they?”
Selene looked down at the floor. “I’ll get a mop.” I knew from the slight twitch of her lips she was suppressing smile.
“Very funny,” I said.
Colt settled the Heart Stone on my stomach again. “You’re fine, and surprisingly, I’m not scarred for life. I guess, sometimes, you know what you’re doing.”
Damned by faint praise. I sighed.
“What do we do with the Heart Stone now?” Colt asked.
“It has to stay in Fairy,” I said. “I can’t. That means Izumi must stay and rule in my name when I’m not available. The Stone needs to go to her, but not just yet.”
With the thing whole at last, I felt a healing flow from all kingdoms of the Land. Weariness was leaving, replaced by growing strength. “When I’m a little better, I’ll take the Stone to Izumi myself.”
“Then I guess my work here is done.” Colt hazed out in a wash of copper-red light. The light condensed and faded, leaving nine-year-old Colt there. “Is it over?”
“Yes,” I said. “You killed me.”
Selene slapped my arm. “Don’t be mean.”
I said, “Thank you, Colt. You did a good job.”
Selene caressed the Stone’s curved planes. Her other hand joined the caress. She peered deep into its emerald depths. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about the Heart Stone getting stolen and rekeyed by anyone to be used against you.”
“Good news, but why not?” I asked.
“The crown absorbed some of your DNA. That genetic material is now part of the Stone—an integral part. Someone else getting their hands on the Stone will find it useless unless you key them into it the way Izumi will be. You are indeed most dangerous when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Good to know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I
think I need a nap. This whole thing has been stressful.”
Colt shrugged and headed off. “Fine. I have a pizza to get back to anyway, though it’s probably cold.”
“It will give you a chance to practice your fire breath,” I said.
“Gee, thanks. That’s how we lost the last kitchen.”
Selene leaned in and kissed me. “Sleep. Get stronger. Then we’ll deal with the real problem. There’s still a dangerous drain on your lifeforce from somewhere. Apparently, the Heart Stone wasn’t the reason for your failing health. Fortunately, it’s stabilizing you so we have time to find the real answer.”
“You should have told me that after my nap. How am I going to sleep knowing I could still die?”
She kissed me again and turned to leave the room. “You’ll manage somehow. You always do.” Her voice lowered. “I really wanted to get a look inside your head, too. Where did I leave that chisel?”
THIRTY-FIVE
“Love consumes its objective.
We are all betrayed in the end.”
—Caine Deathwalker
Selene wore a red cowgirl shirt with pearl-snap buttons, and a short skirt that showed off her awesome legs. She had on a western hat and boots. We stood on an aquarium’s dusty blue glass instead of on a dirt road, such as might be expected in a ghost town. Under the glass, the water appeared almost impenetrable—darker than my last visit to this part of the astral planes.
Last time, I’d fractured this glass, stomping and shooting it. Here was where I’d battled Occultus, the former lord of Nightmare. He’d wore all-black western wear with a big silver buckle, and two six guns, but he’d needed more than that to take me out. He’d ended up feeding my shadow-beasts instead. And now the glass was back like nothing had happened.
The rest of the town was as I remembered. To either side of the street, an Old West ghost town presented abandoned store fronts, boardwalks, and dark windows. The wood was sun-bleached, weathered gray, some of it rotting. There were waterless troughs and railing posts, but no skeleton horses this time. Between buildings the anemone-like trees with lime and ginger bands were back and rooted once more. Their tentacles curled, and the trunks trembled in fear.
They must remember me.
Because I half expected it from my last visit, a sorghum scented wind gusted through, rolling tumbleweeds past us. The sun held position low in a red sky, almost on the horizon. The gaslights came on, a pale green-white light. Somewhere, a crow cawed.
“I wonder if this place loops like this all the time, or if someone needs to be here to see it.”
“So, this is what I missed out on last time.” Selene stared around with interest.
She didn’t have a Bluetooth attached to one ear, a soul link like the one I wore. I was here in spirit with a body elsewhere that I needed to get back to eventually. As a goddess, she didn’t have a problem being here physically in a non-physical universe. As I still had my headache from before, it was one of the things I didn’t try to reason out. That, and the emerald star embedded in my translucent torso. The captive star symbolized the Heart Stone left atop my sleeping body in Selene’s dungeon. That contact fed me energy to activate my shadow magic spells.
I still couldn’t locate the golden magic that was part of my dual heritage. I was also concerned that I hadn’t heard from my inner dragon for so long. I felt alone in my head.
Whatever my physical problem, Selene and I thought we’d find a clue here, where abstraction has form, where nightmare kills, and thoughts provided reality. Because I was comfortable in a body, I had one. Because I expected gravity, and to breathe, these happened. And because I know I’m a bad ass super-warrior, I wore a black body stocking with chest plate, assorted weapons, and steel-toe boots.
Clothes do make the killer.
The gear didn’t stop the emerald star from shining brightly inside me.
Selene strolled over. “So, tell me—detail by detail—exactly what happened here last time. You might have inadvertently used the properties of this place to screw yourself over.”
Why does everyone always want to blame me for the things I do? Like it’s easy being me.
I started into the story, not getting very far because she kept interrupting. “Wait.” She looked down at the dark, dusty glass. “These thing that were swimming under there…”
“Shadow beasts,” I said. “They were always part of me, sealed away, hungry, waiting to be freed. You saw them later in Nightmare.”
“Yes, charming creatures. And you freed them here?”
“And they ate Occultus.”
“But to do that, you broke this seal on them.” She lightly stamped a foot on the glass street.
“Yup.” I looked down at the surface and the darkness underneath. “This is probably symbolic of the barrier we all have between conscious and subconscious minds.”
“And you broke that inside yourself.”
“Yup. The water wasn’t so dark then.”
Selene’s breath caught and resumed, picking up speed. “Caine, when you’re not in dragon form, what exactly happens to your dragon self?”
“We have long, meaningful conversations while strolling on the beach, and occasionally a cocktail.”
“I’m serious.”
“Don’t you know? You’ve got a dragon inside you, too.”
“Uh, no, actually I don’t. Other dragon-born don’t either.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Really? So, it’s only me?”
I thought of the pain I used to have using dragon-blood tattoos for my magic, and taking on dragon form, two issues other dragons didn’t experience. “My shadow-mage side and my dragon side have never been blended. When I go dragon, I’m a passenger in the back shadows of the dragon’s mind, aware, separate, but not in control. In human form, my dragon hovers in the back of my mind, mostly asleep, rousing once and a while to make sarcastic observations.”
“Caine, I think this is important. When you are human, like now, has your dragon been in your conscious, or subconscious mind?”
I thought about it. “Seems like he was able to move back and forth between both.”
“As if whatever seal you’d kept on your inner demons had no power over him. Did he ever give you any indication that he knew of those shadow-beasts also inside you?”
“No. He’d have bitched about it.”
“Do you think that your dragon side might have actually been the seal itself, keeping your darkest impulses trapped?”
“That’s insane. Who would have used him too…?”
I trailed off, remembering how Villagers had mastered shadow magic by sealing their own dark goddess in Tartarus, trapping her so they could steal her power to run their magic-driven civilization. I wondered if my father could have used my dragon as a living seal to store divine power in my subconscious, power that bonded with suppressed desires, which in turn became embryo Elder Gods. My father could have weaponized me as a baby, intending a different weapon. He’d justified so much else, this would have been just one more sin. And a reason I had to be abandoned. He wouldn’t have wanted to endanger my mother with what he’d made of me. There was no guarantee his work would last, that at some arbitrary point, I wouldn’t self-destruct rather violently and take out my family at the same time.
I thought of my new brother and sister which I’d met days ago. Would they believe me if I told them of this?
Probably not.
Selene’s fingertips touched my heart. “Caine, what is it. You look so cold, so distant.”
I shook it off. “It’s nothing. Someone just pissed on my grave, I think. Have we figured anything out that actually helps us?”
“I think so. I need to tilt the world.”
I stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“This world, the astral plain.” She held out her hand. “Hold on.”
I took her hand. She pushed her free hand out, palm turned to the ground. A red shimmer of light danced over her, and crawled onto me, some kind of
protective field. She tilted her hand up, and the glass underfoot swung to keep pace, becoming a vertical wall. Gravity stayed “down”. We stood on nothingness, the dark glass looming in front of us.
Selene looked up to where she’d moved the setting sun. It was noon now. She lifted her free hand toward the sun and made a grasping gesture, then jerked her clawed hand down, as if to pull the sun from the sky.
I looked up, my filtering eyelids closed, but not the last one made of skin. The air burned a deep red. The sun swelled, falling toward us.
“You couldn’t have just brought a flashlight?” I asked.
“Not for a darkness this pure, this deep.”
The red sun plunged closer. I tried not to believe in it too much. If I thought it could burn me, it would. If I thought it could vaporize the meat off my bones, and my bones, too, it would.
Selene tightened her grip on my hand. “Easy. Trust me.”
Off to the side, the ginger-and-lime anemone-trees looked totally freaked as they pulled up roots to run, and fell into the side of a building, the gravity shift having caught them by surprise. They walked on the side of the building, reached the back corner, and fell around it—presumably heading for safety.
I wasn’t so smart. I stood there, waiting.
Think cool thoughts. Think cool thoughts…
“Here it comes,” Selene said.
I heard a massive whoosh. A red glaze of light reflected off of the glass wall, hiding the darkness beyond. Selene and I both were washed a monochromatic red by the falling sun. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see what was about to happen to me. Selene could shake such things off, me, I was a little more fragile.
She raised a hand again and pushed it toward the glass wall, like shooting a basketball into a hoop. And the sun missed us, sinking into the glass. The black sea became an ocean of boiling blood. A trail of energy plasm from the swallowed sun slid down the glass. Fiery sheets of red flame swirled past us and kept going down. I felt no heat. Selene’s red aura did its job, protecting us both.
She whispered a word. “Nova!”
Coming out of the glass, a blast of light slammed past us. The wall cracked. The red sludge in the aquarium turned to red crystal. I could see deeply inside to where my massive shadow-beast lived. There he was, an indigo shadow with tentacles—wrapped around a golden dragon. He’s been gnawing on the dragon, flesh had been stripped off. Blood stained golden scales. My inner dragon looked listless, nearly lifeless, just a little outrage flaming in golden eyes.
