Fate: No Strings Attached

by Erik Schubach

  Then my blood ran cold as a voice, which sounded a legion of voices, said as two figures sort of folded out of the shadows of the trees, “No witch, we are already here.”

  I threw a hand out on instinct as one of the lumbering giants swung an arm the size of a tree trunk at us. A glowing net of life force took the brunt of the blow, but I had underestimated the power of an immortal, and I found Andreya and myself tumbling and skipping along the ground. I could hear Enid screaming as suddenly there was nothing below us as we slipped over the edge of the cliff.

  Years of Hannah Graham's muscle memory had my hand reaching out for the sheer cliff face as my other locked around Andreya's wrist. My fingers snagged a small outcropping, and I screamed as a searing pain tore through my shoulder when muscles and tendons tore as we slammed into the cliff.

  My fingers were on fire as my vision tunneled. No! I couldn't pass out now. Just breath through the pain Hannah... no... Sloan. Just breath through it. My terror and fear for Andreya, who wasn't moving, changed to relief and anger as she suddenly jerked back into consciousness with a gasp.

  She looked around quickly then shifted her arm to grasp wrists with me when she realized where we were.

  My fingers wavered, and I tightened my grip as threads were yanked from me by the other Fates above. The sounds of battle reached us. By the stitch and nap! The three of them had no chance against two Adumbrates in the mortal realm alone!

  We had to get back up there! My grip wavered again, and I looked down, we couldn't make the water, and those rocks were certain death. I wouldn't let Andreya fall, not when I had so much more to share with her.

  I gasped at her, “Climb! Now! My grip is failing.” I was reliving the events that lead to my last death as she nodded and started pulling herself up my body and then to a spot with good foot and handholds just above me.

  She looked down at me as two fingers slipped from my grip and I started swinging. I was at the end of my strength. At least Drey would survive. I worried that I wouldn't be able to find a cut thread close enough to return to help the others in time once I died here.

  I was about to experience Hanna's death all over again...

  I snapped my eyes up to her when my blonde obsession hissed at me, “Come on Sloan, stop fucking around, climb!”

  I whispered, “I can't... I'm not strong enough... again. It's all happening again.”

  She looked at me, locking eyes with me and she sounded angry as she ground out, “You aren't Hannah. She wasn't strong enough, but you are! Now climb!”

  I pulled strength from the look on her face, my muscles were bunching up from the damage, and I started swinging myself back and forth. Another finger almost slipped, and I swung my feet up to get a toe hold a couple feet to my left.

  This took some pressure off my hand, and I slapped the cliff face with my other hand, feeling with my fingertips and found a lip that stuck out just over an eighth of an inch. It wasn't much, but it was enough. I readjusted my faulty grip, and I finally took a breath. I was splayed out on the cliff face in a three point hold, like a spider.

  Taking three deep breaths, I realized that this was as easy as breathing to me. Hannah was so very good, and I silently thanked her, thanked myself for her skills. I had re-centered my mind and looked up at my girl. Well, I hoped she was my girl. I gave her a predatory grin and said, “Let's go help the ladies.”

  Her smile matched mine, two alpha predators, and we started to climb toward our prey. I had to help Drey find holds as we went, and I had to fight to not get yanked off balance as the other Fates pulled more and more strands from me in their desperate fight.

  I realized that Lach was taking them both on alone as one of the immortal's threads, black and dripping with an unnatural sickness was one of the threads, and it was getting smaller. Atta was stripping one of their threads, bit by bit while Mother fought.

  The cliff shuddered as explosions above shook the island. Trees and debris were flung out into the bay in the dawning light of morning. Lach's pained voice called out, “Is that all you got, shadow?”

  I smiled, and called out as we pulled ourselves back up onto firm ground, “Real macho there, Mother.”

  She glanced back with relief painting her rugged face, she turned back and roared at the solid shadow which towered ten feet above her as she thrust her hands forward and a glittering mass of threads that were compacted into a wrecking ball slammed into her opponent.

  There was another explosion as he tumbled back into the trees, leveling at least a quarter acre of forest. Knotted threads! Where did she learn to do that?

  I absently wondered if we all did and I just didn't remember yet, as I scanned the area. There were three lifeless reavers on the ground near Atta where she stood behind Lach as she protected the Crone while she worked on trimming the ungodly mass of shadow filaments surrounding the core of the thread.

  Enid was at the path, swinging her pan back and forth in front of her, keeping Captain Cheong diving back to avoid being touched by the cast iron.

  I could barely move my arm now as the torn tissues were all bunched up now, threatening to make me pass out from the rising pain of it. Andreya was already running to aid Eeen as I staggered to my feet. I started weaving a single cord with my good hand just as the second Adumbrate slammed a fist into the ground, cracking it and throwing Lach off her feet.

  It took the opening and thrust an arm forward, all the shadows cast by the rising sun seemed to warp and spiral around his arm, and it lengthened until it slammed through Atta's chest.

  I was screaming something in horror as her eyes widened and then went dim when her mortal body slumped to hang on the shadowed trunk of an arm that had impaled her. Her scissors tumbled from her lifeless grip to the ground. Mrs. Mary Ramos was dead.

  I knew objectively that Atropos was still alive, back at the ruins of the loom, but she couldn't get back here in time. But I was still appalled and enraged that they had taken her mortal life. She was my grandmother!

  I screamed out a challenge and charged at the Adumbrate. These monsters couldn't be happy with whatever gods there may be had given them, they always wanted more and more. I was going to show them that everything dies eventually... everything!

  Some detached part of my mind had noted that the captain was down and Drey was charging at the shadow beast. The other one had re-emerged, and Lach was engaging it.

  The shadow smiled the smile of a creature who had no semblance of sanity left as it asked, “Shall we dance, little witch?”

  I grabbed the immortal's own thread, barely able to grip it with one hand. I dove over a sweep of one massive arm, and I soared past it, wrapping the thread around its neck. I wound up back to back with it, pushing myself against it for leverage as I choked it with its own life. I hesitated a moment, I would be no more than a monster myself if I killed millions to stop him.

  That hesitation cost me. He fell backward onto me as he flung his arms wide. I was gasping for air with his crushing weight upon me as I watched in horror as he pinned both Enid and Andreya to the ground. Tendrils of shadow probing at them like a sick smoke.

  Webs of shadows tried to encase them, probing and jabbing, and I wheezed as my lungs burned in need for air. I watched in horror as I realized what he was trying to do. He was trying to enslave my friends, remake them in his image, make them creatures of shadow, hunters. He was trying to make reavers out of them.

  I gasped out as I watched the shadows fail in their attempt to gain purchase, “Your victims... have to be... willing... you asshole.”

  I gasped again as I tighten my grip on his thread, and remembered the strength of the Maiden. 'I' was the Maiden. The Fate who could spin life! I snarled at him, “You really... want to live... forever?”

  My lips twisted up into a cruel smile as I hissed, “I'll give you forever!”

  Then I reached into that well of life I could pull from when weaving new lives. I pulled that life force from the ether and pushed it all into his thr
ead. It glowed and pulsated brighter and brighter, and we both screamed as I gave him a thousand thousand lifetimes, I gave him forever and made him live it all in one moment. Even the universe will entropy and die one day, and I gave it all to him. His thread burned so very brightly as he rolled away, trying to get away from me as he screamed in agony.

  I sucked in a breath of air as I continued to spin life into his thread. It glowed so brightly that there was no place for shadow to hide, it chased away every filament, dissolving eons of shadows which the parasite had attached to countless lives with.

  Shadow could not exist in that light, the shadows melted away from my friends and Andrea was on her feet, her gun in her hand as she patted her pocket, searching for something. I scrabbled across the ground and grabbed Atta's scissors from where they lay by her lifeless body.

  I started cutting at the thread, it was too big, and my arm and hand barely worked as I slowly cut into the thread as it shrunk down by the second, to a single blinding thread. I hadn't the strength to sever it. Lach had her hands full with the other Adumbrate. I doubled my effort, switching hands with the thread and scissors and sliced deep into it, the shadow beast's screams of agony doubled.

  I said as I worked on the thread, “Word to the wise. Bad guy 101. Never throw a rock climber off a cliff.”

  I heard the sound of a single round being chambered, then the bang of a gun being fired. The wailing stopped, and the thread was suddenly severed and limp in my hand. I blinked as the timeless immortal fell back, a hole in its head, and the light leaving the thread.

  Andreya staggered, beaten and bloodied as her gun tumbled from her hand. I ran and slid under her as she fell unconscious. Where had she gotten... my eyes widened, when she cleared her gun earlier, she had pocketed the round that had been chambered. She killed the immortal after I had chased away all of it's leaching shadows... with a steel jacketed round to the head.

  I cradled her head in my lap as I grasped the severed threads that trailed out from me. I pulled in all that life again and put it back into the ether from whence it came. A tear rolled down my cheek when Mrs. Ramos' body went up in a cloud of dust with the others.

  The final Adumbrate, the last of his kind, screeched out in horror and rage when he saw his companion fall. He broke off his battle with Lachesis, and folded into the shadows with a glare full of malice and hate toward me.

  Lach ran to me as Enid staggered over to us, “His thread, quickly!”

  I was barely coherent but realized what we needed to do... I didn't know if I had the strength to spin that much life again, but we both started pulling the world around us, out from under my skin. I had never made such a complex world weaving myself.

  Mother ran her fingers along the area, searching. Then we both slowed and stopped, how could the Adumbrate have disappeared? We'd feel his movement since he was on the run, he had no place to hide.

  Mother whispered, “Impossible.” She looked between Eeen and me as I ran my fingers through Drey's silky short hair. “His thread isn't here.”

  I echoed her concern. “That isn't possible. I took the rest inside of me.”

  Andreya opened one eye and asked, almost in apology, “The thread you gave me to get analyzed?” Then she closed her eye again and moved her head into my touch.

  I slapped her shoulder. “Faker.”

  She just smiled.

  Then my blood ran cold, and I felt the chill of it in the drizzling morning rain. Of all the threads I could have handed over, had... fate... chosen that one? And now the feds had it. Without it, we couldn't hunt the last Adumbrate, couldn't kill it without killing millions. What would Hannah say right now? I mumbled, “We are so fucked.”

  Enid, looking the least injured of us all, nodded adamantly, and I just had to smile. She... was a resilient mortal.

  Drey grudgingly moved and got to her feet, and we all stood, sharing a look, and my personal detective said, “I don’t think he's coming back anytime soon. We need to get to the boat and get to town so we can sort this whole clusterfuck out.”

  Then she looked to the ground where Atta's body had been. She asked carefully, “Mrs. Ramos, Atropos is she...?”

  I nodded as Lach supplied, “Dead? Yes. Her mortal body died, but Atta is still alive. It may take some time for her to find a thread close enough to rejoin us, especially with the canvas locked away beneath our Maiden's skin, here in the mortal realm. But she is ok... for now.”

  We all looked at each other and took a collective deep breath, then limped down the path, stopping long enough to pull the now quite human Captain to his feet and drag him along with us in cuffs.

  Looking at the man who had betrayed us all, I wondered just what new horrors the United States government had in mind for us back home.

  As we moved along, Enid asked, “Is anyone else hungry?”

  Epilogue

  What we found waiting for us at the marina at Flouder's Bay when we arrived on the mainland wasn't what we had been expecting. We had moored at an empty space on a dock, the harbormaster was busy reading us the riot act from the dock, not allowing us to disembark when 'they' showed up. Dozens of dark SUV's, with dozens of federal types flashing improbable badges with implausible acronyms. They ushered the harbormaster off, to his very vocal and colorful protestations, citing national security.

  I could tell that Andreya wasn't buying their FBI, NSA, OHS credentials as they separated us all from each other. Then I finally got her reference to the alphabet soup as other agents showed me badges with all sorts of acronyms I didn't recognize. Whether it was because I hadn't heard of those agencies, or because that memory hadn't filled in yet, I wasn't sure. Though I was sure I wouldn't believe them anyway if I had.

  They had everyone on the docks vacate, then once they had the area secure, men searched the Water Pixie and us quite thoroughly. Then they placed a black bag over Captain Cheong's burnt face and spirited him away in a small convoy of those black SUVs.

  That's when I was brought into the Harbormaster's office while the rest of my group was brought in different directions, isolating us all from each other.

  Once the blinds of the huge glass windows, which gave the harbormaster a clear view of the entire marina, were pulled, I was asked by a man identifying himself as Special Agent Kepler of the... ahem... FBI, just one question. Of all the things I was prepared for, it was surreal for him to start with. “Where is it, Miss Tesha?”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  He exhaled in exasperation. “Don't play games with me, I'm in no mood. The fabric you were found with at Sloan Peak. The fabric that allowed you to survive some sort of explosion that leveled five acres of forest, and left a crater twenty feet deep.”

  I shook my head as a chill went down my spine. The man and his bearing now told me a whole new story. He was some sort of military, and they didn't care at all that people had died that day. They just wanted what they thought was some sort of advanced armor.

  He exhaled and said, “The amnesia act isn't going to fly here.” He pulled a photo out of a folder and slapped it on the desk in front of me. I swallowed, it was Hannah. “Facial recognition has you as a ninety-eight percent match to a woman who died almost thirty years ago. Hannah Graham. Are you her daughter? We have no records of any birth. Your DNA is degraded for some reason, but we could get at least a familial match. Was she involved in developing the fabric in some way?”

  Degraded? Of course... I was dead. Wait, where had they gotten my DNA?

  I shook my head incredulously at the man as he absently rubbed his fresh shaven chin. His military cut and bearing showing plainly now that I knew the sort of man I was dealing with. I looked around and leaned toward him and whispered, “People died today. And here on the mainland yesterday. The fights at the...”

  He shook his head and made a point of locking eyes with me in challenge. “No altercations occurred... nobody died... it is already a matter of record.” He smiled, and it looked as if I were staring at a grinnin
g shark who was trying to convince its next meal that it wasn't interested in me swimming nearby.

  I blinked. They were... they were covering everything up, for the possibility of obtaining fabric that could change the rules of armed combat? Mankind was capable of so much good, so much love, but it was also a violent race, trying to perfect wars that cost so many people their lives.

  That people had died didn't matter to them in the least as long as they got what they wanted. I shook my head, this wouldn't end well since I couldn't give them what they wanted. They wouldn't believe the truth, it wasn't something they were willing to contemplate. They'd sooner believe in this mystery super fabric than the fact that there is something in the world other than them. Something more powerful, more deadly.

  Maybe it was time. The world was changing... humans were changing. More and more anomalies were popping up all over the world. And in this time where information is spread with the click of a button, we had no place to hide anymore.

  He started laying photos in front of me. Women with wings, women with beaks who were covered in black feathers, women with the heads of jackals. They weren't the blurry, grainy photos the media had of the mystery women around the globe, they were clear surveillance photos. Except for one blurry one of the woman on the docks during our fight with the reavers at the Water Pixie's dock. They had been following us even there?

  He started stabbing his finger on the faces in the photos, then slapped three more photos down of... me. In my bedroom at my place. He stabbed at the tattoos on my arms, they were different in each photo. “Are you testing new reactive armor? Are you a team? How can it morph into shapes like that to hide whatever they are using for lift, to fly? Is it nanotech?”

  I growled out, still staring at my own photos, from my bedroom, one in which I was naked and changing clothes, “You're... spying on me?”