by J. Armand
“Yes, where?”
“It’s in Germany. I’m not sure exactly, but I think around Munich. I know that doesn’t help, but I could show you on a map maybe.”
“I can go fast to the place if I have a memory, or I need to travel from shadow to shadow until I find it. You will need to come to my world to travel. This is okay?”
“Sure.” I wasn’t sure at all. I had never been so unsure in my life. My one encounter with another dimension had left me with permanent mental scars. But it was too late to turn back now. Our shadows darkened beneath us as we sunk into the blackness below.
Chapter Fifteen
Gianluca’s description of the dark world was not enough to prepare me for what came next. Once the shadows fully consumed us I choked and gasped for air – he had forgotten to mention there wouldn’t be any. I grew frantic floating in the lightless vacuum until my immortality finally helped me overcome my body’s natural instinct for breath. The world, if you could call it that, was just an endless expanse of darkness; no stars, no creatures, no atmosphere or landscape. It was an entire dimension devoid of any defining characteristics.
“It is the first time I take someone here with me.” I could see and hear Gianluca perfectly in front of me. Without any source of air or light it was a mystery how either was possible. He stood poised with perfect posture, or pretended to stand, since there was nothing below him. I had trouble orienting myself and kept drifting away. Not surprisingly, my powers didn’t work here, as they had no effect on Gianluca either. Without them I was unable to fly or control my trajectory.
“I think this is where you want.” Gianluca opened a one-way window back to Earth. I was too far away to get a good look and kept drifting further.
“Uh, Gianluca?” I tried to physically swim through the darkness over to him, but there was nothing to propel myself through. I felt ridiculous, but Gianluca was too preoccupied navigating the shadows to take notice.
“Yes, little one?” He looked over and grinned at the sight of my struggle. With one hand out he beckoned the darkness to carry me along an invisible current toward him. I grabbed him to keep myself from floating away into the abyss. He held me close so that my head rested on the triangle of his bare chest exposed by the undone buttons of his shirt. For someone so invincible his skin felt perfectly normal. I was entirely too distracted to concentrate on the more important matters at hand. I could feel the unlimited strength in his arms, but for all his power, he was equally gentle. His robust heartbeat was soothing, as if in some way it was telling me that everything would be okay. I had tried not to be too forward with him before, but felt unnatural keeping my hands down at my sides.
“Thanks,” I said as I wrapped an arm around him. “And I’m not little, by the way.”
He responded with a laugh and kissed the top of my head. It was a good thing he couldn’t see my face because I turned red instantly.
“This is Germania.” He pointed to the hazy clearing in the darkness.
It didn’t hit me until now that his clothes, those models of the Roman soldier and the chick, and even his weapon were made of the same stuff we were floating in. The buttons on his shirt felt like plastic, and the cloth was as soft as any cotton. The material came from nothing, and yet he was able to will it into whatever form he desired with a tremendous level of precision in texture. He was the catalyst that changed something inherently scary into a work of practical beauty.
“Dorian?” He embraced me a bit tighter. “This is okay?”
“Yes, sorry. I don’t mind.”
“I am meaning Germania.” He gave a sort of half-laugh. “This is where you want, yes?”
“Yeah. That’s what I meant,” I lied to cover up where my mind had wandered. We were looking through the shadow between two clock towers. This was Munich all right. We were at the Frauenkirche to be exact, one of the cathedrals there. I knew this from studying the late Gothic era in preparation for a semester that never came to fruition. “We’re looking for the Strigoi, if that helps. It’s going to be outside the city, underground. There’ll be trees and probably a broken building above.”
We zipped through the shadows at the speed of light – or dark, to be more accurate. It was like watching a movie snaking over, through, and around buildings in an invisible bullet train.
“It is the day. Would they not be asleep?” Gianluca asked as we entered a familiar clearing in the woods.
“Then I’ll wake them up. But I doubt it. They hide underground so nothing interrupts their studies.” I pointed to a spot in the clearing filled with debris. “There.”
“You are right. I can hear their voices.” As he said that the echoes of Vance and the other Strigoi’s conversations whispered through the darkness. Gianluca moved us inside the laboratory until we found the source.
“You should stay here,” I told him. “This is, um, personal.”
“If you need my help, call in the shadow and I will come.”
I floated out through the shadows behind Vance as Gianluca darkened the room.
“Oh that is so cool,” I said out loud as Vance leapt from his chair and spun around. No wonder Noah loved dropping in like that. “Hi, Vance.”
“How did you get in here? This place is warded beyond your capabilities.” Vance and the other Strigoi surrounded me in the small concrete room of books, clockwork gadgets, and questionable liquids in beakers.
“Don’t worry about it.” Finally I get to be the mysterious one, I thought happily.
“I am quite worried and with good reason. It would take a being of immense power to bypass our defenses and I know of no such being.”
“I made a new friend. Can we talk in private?”
Vance dismissed the other skittish members of their book club and inspected me head to toe. “You are dealing with a dangerous power – more dangerous than the brute you choose to follow around.”
“How do you even know? Just because someone can walk through the shadows they’re dangerous?” I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to share with Vance about Gianluca, but playing devil’s advocate with him might get me some useful information.
“The shadows? Is that it?” he asked. “Shadows alone cannot do what you did. Who is this friend?”
“His name is… actually, never mind. It doesn’t matter. He’s friendly. That’s all you need to know.”
“A powerful dark being capable of breaching our wards is something of serious concern. What have you become involved in? Did you not heed the necromancer’s warning? Theoretically a high-tier demon would be capable of this. You know their appetite for destruction, which is the very reason you were made.”
“Vance, relax.” I had to put an end to this, otherwise he’d never let it go and I wouldn’t get anywhere. “He’s not a demon. He used to be undead, but now he’s changed back after living in this other dimension. It’s like the Rift, but full of darkness.”
“A dark dimension? The Nether Realm?”
“He didn’t give it a name.”
“There were stories of an offshoot coven of yore that delved deep into the depths of a bottomless void to gain power. When they returned they became something more than mere undead – something darker and more sinister, with powers to match. They called themselves the Nether Lords and named the source of their power the Nether Realm, although some who don’t believe the tale refer to it more simply as the Dark Depths, or the Shadelands.
“Humans have an interesting conception of it. They call it ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy,’ or ‘dark fluid.’ It is an entirely different form of omnipresent matter in the universe, with such interesting characteristics as hyper-density and anti-luminescence. It defies many human notions of reality like gravity, being that it is both nowhere and everywhere at the same time. This is mere conjecture, though, as I am no scholar in human science and they are very often wrong about the simplest of things.”
“Yeah, it’s probably real. He’s pretty invincible, so super-dense armor and in
fused skin would make sense. My powers don’t even affect him or his creations.”
“That is because telekinesis only affects physical matter. Those manifestations may appear solid, but are neither truly tangible or intangible.”
“The Nether Lords sound like the people that turned him in the first place, but he killed them.”
“I doubt that. If the legend was even partially true, the Nether Lords were a blend of all the strongest and most defining traits of the existing covens. Manipulative as the Archios, brilliant and magically adept as the Strigoi, and driven by an overt bloodlust like the Carpathians. They are said to have vanished, swallowed by the land they drew their power from. Minerva had told me of them in passing some centuries ago; however, most dismiss the story as a fable to scare the young undead from venturing into other worlds. Needless to say, the Carpathians did not heed that warning with their recent interest in the Rift, nor did Minerva with hers in Hell.”
“My friend says he was turned by a group that controlled the darkness. He killed them all because they were evil. He said he had been sleeping and woke up when he felt my power.”
“This is a problem. If any of this is true, he is probably one of them. They could have slept undeterred for centuries to lie in wait like the demons for a time to reclaim their lost glory on Earth. My word, what have we done to wake such a beast? I should have never taken pity and saved you from the parasite. What havoc will be wrought upon the world now?”
“Thanks, Vance, really. He’s not the havoc type and he’s not the reason why I came here.”
“He is deceiving you, as any Archios or comparably vile demon would.”
“Vance. Drop it. I’m here about something else. Can you erase memories?”
“Not you, too. What is it you could possibly want to forget at your age?”
“A lot.” I couldn’t take the hallucinations and night terrors anymore. I wanted to forget it all, or at least enough of it to function again. I wanted to have some semblance of a normal life and normal relationships. “What do you mean, me too? Who else came here? Did Noah ask you?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Tell me, Vance. What did he want to forget?”
“He will kill me if I tell anyone.” His eyes darted about the room nervously.
“I’ll kill you now if you don’t. We’ve been through this before.”
“No you won’t. You’re too concerned about the line between good and evil.”
“Vance, you’re the cause of, or involved in, most of the things I want to forget. Don’t push me.”
“Yes, he came back after you left the other day. Two or three years ago he came to me when the Carpathians were defeated. I assumed Aurelia had finally sent him to finish me off. He wanted to know what your chances were against her if you were to reach your full potential, but I had no way of knowing without more data.”
“His plan was to train you under the pretense that Aurelia would accept you as a replacement so he could be free, but he knew she would never hold up her end of the bargain. When you were powerful enough, if all went according to plan, you would turn on her once you found out she hadn’t perished. Her defeat would ensure freedom for all three of us.”
“Why didn’t he just ask me to help? Why lie to me? I mentioned taking her down a long time ago.”
“Because you two are too similar.” He stated this like it was common fact, but I had never heard anything so absurd.
“I’m nothing like him.”
“You think so, but both of you are constantly running in circles, chasing your tail, leaping headfirst into danger and then away when trouble finds you. If you knew about the plan you wouldn’t have trusted him to train you knowing her power over him. You would have inevitably charged recklessly into battle against her to meet a swift demise and doom us all. But, if the plan worked, there is nothing in the known world that could stop the one capable of ending the Archios queen’s reign.”
“Then what happened? Why erase his memories now? Wouldn’t she have known what he was planning the entire time if she could read his mind?”
“Noah has conditioned himself to repress his thoughts and desires, making it more difficult for mind readers. He forces himself to believe the lies he lives. Being halfway across the world helped somewhat too, and Aurelia is too arrogant to think there are any real threats from her own children so she rarely bothers to probe their minds.
“I assume he had a change of heart, although I don’t have the foggiest idea why. Sentiment is not exactly his strong suit, but emotions are often unpredictable even to one as resolute as him. Once he found that cursed sword he may have believed he could do her in on his own. Returning with that weapon would surely draw her suspicions, so he went to an old enemy of hers, Castile, to erase his thoughts of using you to kill her. That failed, since the cursed spirits followed him there and interrupted before he could strike a deal. He came to me instead to erase the memories.”
“That’s why he had no memory of what happened at Castile’s mansion. Why didn’t he go to you in the first place?”
“Castile is many times more powerful and would jump at the chance to ruin Aurelia. I had never erased the memories of another immortal and a mistake could have left him lobotomized. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it was a success.”
“So in the end he was using me to help us both. That also must be what he meant when he said the katana was all he had and why he won’t give it back even if it means his death. Why does everything have to be so complicated? I can still help him.”
“Correct. That cursed blade is his only key to freedom. It can sap the strength of even the most powerful undead, turning a tyrant into a toddler. You aren’t strong enough and he is too impatient and prideful to accept your help if you simply offer it.”
“He’s been enslaved for over a hundred years. I can understand his impatience.”
“Worry only about yourself. He will bring you nothing but trouble. Aurelia won’t come after you herself; if you can defeat him you’ll have one less problem to bother you.”
“I really don’t want to kill him after hearing all this. He’s been looking after me this whole time in his own weird way. The whole time he was telling me to not worry and trust him he was telling the truth.”
“I can attempt to make you forget your past, but it isn’t guaranteed that I won’t fully lobotomize you on accident. His compassion and sincerity are as transient as he is. It won’t be long until he turns on you.”
“Funny, he says the same thing about anyone who’s nice to me. No thanks on the memory wipe though. I don’t want to risk becoming a vegetable.”
“There is no greater truth than deception. I would consider this when dealing with your new companion, too. It is probably in your best interest to leave your mind intact. Erasing your past only leaves you ill prepared for the future. Whatever you choose, do not seek me out. I will be leaving this place. We have had far too many hazardous visits as of late and I fear the awakened darkness to be the most perilous threat, despite your baseless reassurance.”
I left to rejoin Gianluca among the trees, far enough away that Vance couldn’t spy on us. Gianluca didn’t appear immediately, which gave me just enough time to start mulling over all the doubts about him that had been planted in my mind.
“Ciao, bello.” Gianluca spoke into my ear. It was going to take some getting used to another person sneaking up on me, but at least this one didn’t try to maim me. “I think I see now why you do not want my company inside. You do not want me to meet your father.”
“Huh? I told you my parents are dead.”
“Yes, the man you speak to inside, the dead one. Your father, no? You have the same eyes.” Gianluca was smirking at me like he had caught me in a lie, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Or could it? I hadn’t paid attention before, but we did have the same eyes. Was Vance one of the genetic donors used to create me? “I think you are nervous to make us meet.”
“Were you listening in on my conversation in there? He’s not my father. My parents are real dead, not undead.”
“No, no I only check to see if you are safe, then I leave. I am sorry. The eyes are very similar, so I think this, but I see yours are much more nice.”
“Right.” I wasn’t too happy being compared to someone like Vance. That was worse than Vance comparing me to Noah. The fact that there might be some truth to it compounded my contempt. “Until I use my powers. Then I’m the monster.”
“No, little one, this is wrong. It is the real you, another piece. The more I learn of you the more I like. The eyes are beautiful, you are beautiful.”
Gianluca’s words didn’t make me blush this time. They made me sad. What was I really going to get out of this? Even if he did turn out to be everything he said he was, how was he going to feel when I couldn’t even lie next to him at night without having an episode? Sure, he isn’t affected by my powers, but how long is he willing to put up with me destroying our surroundings because I can’t control my own thoughts? Maybe it was best to be honest and get this over with before it spiraled out of control. I’d learned my lesson with William.
“Gianluca, the monster isn’t just the eyes. It’s what’s in my own head. Any time I close my eyes I see the people I’ve lost, or the things I’ve done wrong, and I lose control. I try and I try, but I can’t make the thoughts go away.”
“This is like me.” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. “It is why I leave to sleep in the dark for so long.”
“I can’t sleep. We’re not the same.”
“I could not sleep for many years. You must honor the memory of the people you lose. Do not try to forget or it will haunt you. You cannot control it because the thoughts want to get out and you hold them in. It is not good for you.”
Noah had told me years ago to mourn and get it over with when I lost my parents. I pushed away my pain until I started falling apart. Then more people left me. I thought fighting back would bury the feelings, but I was just ignoring them, not dealing with them.
