by John Corwin
Sputtering and gasping, I found a moment of respite from the flood. A door hung open to my right. I staggered through it and another door leading into the main hallway, trying to ignore the knifing agony in my ribs. Water flooded from every door on this side of the corridor. I nearly lost my balance to another surge from the room I'd exited. Somehow, I kept my wits and ran to the stairwell door. I wrenched it open and ran. Waterfalls cascaded down the stairs, raining down the center well. I raced up the stairs as fast as I could, my thick toenails aiding my grip on the slick, wet concrete. Every step brought stabbing pain to my guts.
I burst through the door at the top. People yelled and jumped back when they saw me.
"His eyes are on fire!" a woman cried.
"What the hell is that thing?"
A chubby sunburned man pulled a gun from a fanny pack and aimed it at me. "God preserve us, it's a demon! Satan has sent his minions and Armageddon is upon us!"
I was too tired to dodge. Too tired to resist. I braced for impact.
A large ebony-skinned man karate-chopped the gun wielder's wrist.
The other man yelped. "What the hell, man?"
"That demon saved two children and their parents, you moron." My savior picked up the gun and hurled it off the side of the building.
"No, not my gun!" The sunburned man seemed to have completely forgotten about the end of the world as his prized possession vanished.
I groaned and sank to my knees.
"Justin!" Elyssa appeared and hugged me fiercely, eliciting groans through my clenched teeth. "I thought you were dead," she sobbed. "I thought I'd lost you forever."
My savior knelt. "I'm Harley."
"Justin," I gasped. My ribs felt broken in a dozen places, and my right arm hung numbly at my side. "Thanks for the assist."
"I'm Elyssa." Elyssa didn't take time to shake the man's hand, instead inspecting my ribs. "Oh, god, Justin. You have a bone sticking out of your back."
"No wonder I feel like crap."
"Are there any doctors up here?" Harley shouted. "We need medical assistance."
"I'm a doctor!" A young woman pushed through the crowd around us. Her eyes went wide behind her glasses. She flashed the sign of the cross. "What is that?"
"A man who needs help," Harley said. "Now stop gawking and help him!"
She stepped forward uncertainly. Behind her, another woman clasped her hands in prayer.
"Fine, I get it," I said in a strained voice. "If it helps, I'll look more normal." It was a huge relief to shut away my inner demon and let my body shrink back to normal size, though the relief was short lived. Shifting bones wracked my torso with agony.
Gasps rose from all around.
"It's an alien superhero," said a young boy. "Cool!"
Despite her wide-eyed fear, the doctor knelt and felt my ribs. "Does that hurt?"
"Yes," I hissed.
"That?"
"Yes!"
"How about that?"
"Agh! Yes it freaking hurts! All of it hurts like a bitch!" She touched something else and I blacked out.
"I don't think I can do anything," said a faraway voice.
"We need to set that broken rib," Elyssa said. "At least put it into position so it can heal."
"Heal?" The doctor sounded incredulous. "He needs to be in intensive care for weeks."
"He can heal on his own."
"Impossible."
"Lady, you just saw that man morph from a demon into a young man, and you're saying impossible?" Harley barked a laugh.
I wanted to open my eyes, but I felt so damned tired. My demonic senses drifted out and latched onto the doctor, to Elyssa, and to several other female presences. Then it did what it did best—it fed. I barely had the self-control to keep my emotions neutral. Even so, I heard feminine gasps and moans.
"If you feel any strong sexual sensations, try not to act on them," Elyssa said helpfully.
"Oh, my," the doctor said. "What's happening to me?"
Elyssa supplied an answer. "Probably all the adrenalin wearing off."
I wished I could laugh, but even thinking about it hurt. It took nearly an hour before I felt well enough to speak.
"Hi," I croaked.
"He's awake!" Harley shouted. "How you doing, bud?"
"I'm better." I gingerly touched my ribs. They were incredibly sore, but it felt like the badly broken one had shifted back into place.
"The bone—it's gone! The skin is healed." The doctor peeled my eyelids wide and looked into my eyes. "What sort of being are you?"
"Let's just say my genealogy is something of a mixed bag." Telling her I was part demon, part angel would probably push her off the cliff of insanity.
Elyssa stroked my hair. "Can you stand?"
I nodded. Despite my rapid healing, I whimpered when she helped me up. By now, the other people had moved away from me and stood in small groups, staring out at the wasteland that had once been a tropical paradise.
Muddy, debris-choked water submerged everything close to the beach. In the distance, I saw the glow fading from the water, and the darkness of night once again began to claim the sky.
"What in God's named happened here?" Harley asked.
The doctor collapsed into his arms and began to sob.
I wondered if the sunburned man had been right.
What if this is the end of the world?
Aetherial Annihilation Chapter 2
My conclusion about Armageddon was probably a bit melodramatic and premature, but my sensitive ears overheard a man with a cell phone as he relayed news to others in his group. "Meteors fell all over the place. People say they're nothing like anything they've seen before."
Elyssa took out her arcphone. "Weird, I'm not getting a signal." She messed around with it for a moment. "I had to switch to a nom cell tower." She handed me my phone.
Arcphones integrated technology and magic all into one amazing device and used magical ley lines to transmit voice and data. I fiddled with Nookli—my beloved arcphone, but the aether signal bars fluctuated wildly and the phone couldn't get a lock. It was waterproof and incredibly sturdy, but something wasn't working right.
Elyssa adjusted the settings on her phone. "I've never seen this happen before." Using a nom cell tower, she was finally able to browse to a news website. "Looks like these meteors hit all over the world."
"Atlanta?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes, but not in the city center." She turned on a live newsfeed.
A female reporter, her professional demeanor fully intact despite the day's calamity, spoke a few hundred yards from a smoking crater in the center of a field. "Speculation is rampant, but scientists believe the Earth may have passed through a meteor storm. Emergency officials haven't arrived on site since the remote impact in Sweetwater Creek State Park caused no casualties."
"Karen, do you think it's safe to approach the crater?" An unseen man, presumably in the newsroom, asked her.
She looked back at a crowd of people moving toward it. "That's anyone's guess, Don. We're going to move in for a closer look."
"Here in the studio we have our science specialist, Bert Mathis," Don said. "Bert, do you think these craters are dangerous?"
"Only if you fall inside and twist your ankle." Bert chuckled. "But seriously, there could be cosmic radiation, deep space viruses, intense, flesh-melting heat, or even some form of alien life involved here."
"That's quite a list," Don said.
The camera wobbled and shook as the cameraperson followed Karen toward the crater. Every time Bert spoke about how dangerous it could be, she cast worried glances back. Death by aliens or not, Karen was apparently determined to do her job.
"To have so many of these hit the Earth all at once strikes me as nothing short of a possible attack by forces unknown," Bert continued. "For all we know, North Korea may have finally created a superweapon capable of reaching all across the world."
"So you don't think this is a natural occurrence; that the Earth sim
ply passed through the tail of a comet or meteor belt?" Don asked.
"At this point, anything is possible." Bert sighed. "I just hope the heat and radiation from that crater isn't enough to melt the flesh off Karen's face."
Karen stopped in her tracks, jaw tight, a few feet from the crater. Her back stiffened, and she took a deep breath. "We're here now, Don. Let's hope Bert is wrong, or the viewers are going to get quite a show."
"Fingers crossed, Karen," Don replied.
"I think she's safe," Bert said. "If there was intense radiation or heat, she'd already be dead, her body bloating as her internal organs swelled—"
"I get the picture, Bert." Karen looked over the crater's edge and shrieked. "My eyes! My eyes!"
"What did I say?" Bert said. "First, her eyes melt—"
Karen stopped screaming. "Actually, I'm just pulling one over on you, Bert." She motioned to the camera and it moved toward her. "What's inside this crater is truly spectacular."
The camera view peeked over the edge, revealing an unevenly shaped hunk of crystal the size of a compact car. Black and white shards several feet in length jutted in all directions from the top half, while the rest of it was embedded in the ground.
"It's a crystal meteor," Karen breathed. "Amazing."
Sparks of energy danced along the crystals and the camera jumped back.
"What was that?" Don asked.
She shook her head. "It looks like electricity."
"Probably static charges left from the ionosphere," Bert said. "If they discharge, the jolt could flash-fry Karen like a fish in boiling oil."
"Maybe we should get Bert out here for a first-hand analysis," Karen said. "It might be interesting to see what happens if he touches one of these crystals."
"Interesting," Bert said. "It would seem—"
Elyssa stopped the playback. "I don't think that was electricity running through those crystals. If anything it look like—"
I finished her sentence. "Aether."
She nodded. "We have to get home."
"Let's arrange for a portal," I said, and took out Nookli again. Like Elyssa's, my phone couldn't get a solid aether signal so I had to switch to nom frequencies. I called the number of an omniarch station in Atlanta, but the signal beeped busy. I tried the station at the omniarch near the mansion in Queens Gate, but got the same thing.
"I can't reach anyone," Elyssa said.
I frowned and tried Shelton.
He answered almost immediately. "What in the name of god is going on?" A pause. "Oh, and, how's it going, man? I haven't heard from you in a while."
"I don't know, and it was going great until today." I blew out a breath. "These meteors caused a huge tidal wave. I don't know how many thousands of people probably died because of it."
"Is that Justin?" Bella's voice grew closer as if she'd walked next to Shelton. "Hello, Justin! Hello Elyssa!"
"Will you let me talk?" Shelton said. "We can save the happy hellos after we figure out why I can't cast a damned spell to save my life and why the aethernet is off the air."
"Wait a minute, you can't cast any spells?" I remembered my sudden inability to channel Murk. I thought I'd just overextended myself.
"Nope. Whenever I try to aetherate, it feels like I'm sucking in air." He made a thoughtful sound. "It feels like the aether is thinner than usual. I don't know how else to explain it."
"Where are you?" I asked.
"We went for a walk in London." He huffed. "We were about to head back down to the Queens Gate way station when this crap started."
"Hang on." I opened my Arcane senses and tried to draw aether into my well. Instead of the static feeling usually associated with the aether, I felt almost nothing. I flicked on my demon sight. In addition to revealing the auras of the people around me, it also revealed the magical energy in the air and ground. Elyssa's aura shone like a bright cloudy halo around her body. Varying shades of auras hung around the other people.
Harley's was bright and gray. The doctor's was slightly duller and darker. The sunburned man's shimmered weakly. I'll bet feeding on him would taste like crap.
My chest felt as though it was filled with lead when I searched for something else I should be seeing. Floating nebulas of dark, white, and gray aether should be all around me. Instead, only a few sparse patches drifted nearby, and those were quickly fading. I looked over the edge of the building, but the ground was flooded, making it impossible to see if the aether lines in the ground were also affected.
"Are you there?" Shelton shouted on the other end of the phone.
"There's no aether," I told him. "I can't see it even with my demon vision."
"Holy rabbit turds in ravioli." He went silent. "It's like someone took the magic out of the world."
"If that's the case, how can I still use my demon abilities?"
After a long pause, he posed a theory. "I think it's because those abilities are built into your physique, and they don't use aether. They use soul essence."
"It doesn't take a math genius to put two and two together about those meteors." I gazed out at the faint glow in the roiling ocean where the meteor had landed. "This was a deliberate attack. Whoever did it wants to destroy our ability to use magic."
"Argh! Didn't we just win a damned war?"
"Calm down, Harry," Bella said. "You're going to burst a blood vein."
"It's 'burst a blood vessel', woman." He huffed. "I suppose you want me to open a portal so you can come home. Give us twenty minutes to get down to the way station."
"That'd be great. We need to find a private spot. I'll send you a picture and call you back." I ended the call we gave Shelton the time he needed. Twenty-five minutes later, we headed toward the stairwell door.
Harley stopped us. "Where are you two going?"
"I'm just going to look in the stairwell to see if anyone else needs help," I said.
"I'm coming with you."
"I need to take care of some personal business as well." Elyssa smiled shyly.
Harley cleared his throat. "Ah, well, make sure you aim it down the center." He chuckled.
"That won't be a problem." Elyssa hooked her arm in mine and we went through the door. She removed chalk from her purse and drew a symbol on the wall.
"Why do you have chalk in your purse?" I asked.
"I started carrying it everywhere when you needed to draw circles all the time for magic." She tucked it back inside. "Good memories."
"Back then I could hardly light a candle." I tried to remember what it was like to be bad at magic. Faced with the possibility of no aether, it seemed like heaven. I took a picture of the drawing and sent it to Shelton. A moment later, the air rippled and slowly split vertically.
Elyssa and I looked at each other. Opening a portal was usually instantaneous.
Shelton appeared through the hazy gateway. Static and sparks made ominous zapping noises. "I should've known!" His voice sounded muffled. "This aether problem is affecting the omniarches too."
"How is it even operational?" I asked.
"Because we're right over major ley lines." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "None of the pocket dimensions got hit by meteors."
"Since the omniarch is in the Queens Gate control room, shouldn't it work?"
He pursed his lips and put a hand on his chin. "Let me check something." The portal flickered away. Moments later, it reopened just as slowly as before and with the snap, crackle, and pop of static discharge.
"Well?" I asked.
"Opening a portal here works fine. I asked the arch operator here, and the Obsidian Arch network seems mostly functional too." He held up what looked like a sandwich. "Watch out."
Elyssa and I backed away. Shelton tossed the sandwich. The moment it hit the portal, sparks flew and the sandwich burst into a fine mist that washed across our faces.
"Eww!" Elyssa wiped off her face. "What kind of sandwich was that?"
Shelton sighed. "Waste of a perfectly good chicken salad sandwich."
I didn't much like chicken salad, but I didn't let that stop me from making a conclusion. "We've got to hoof it to the nearest Obsidian Arch if we want to get home."
"Yup."
Bella appeared behind him. "Things have been so quiet around here without you two around."
"I guess the universe decided our vacation was over," Elyssa commented dryly. "Where's the nearest Obsidian Arch?"
"Where are you guys?" Shelton asked.
"An island off the coast of Thailand," I said.
"Looking it up." Shelton fiddled with his phone then held it out to show a map. "Bangkok."
"Are you able to use magic in the way station?" I asked.
He waggled his hand. "It works, but it's weaker than usual. I think the arches are still working fine because they use silver circles to trap all the ambient magical energy."
"Makes sense." I looked at Elyssa. "Maybe I'll need that chalk again after all."
"The reason the portal isn't working well on your end is because it doesn't have enough magical energy to fully materialize." Shelton put a hand on his chin. "Maybe drawing a circle to trap aether would work."
"I'll try it." I hesitated. "Deactivate the portal first. I don't want my head to end up like the chicken salad sandwich."
He chuckled. "You got it."
After the portal vanished, I drew a circle around the spot and willed it to close. Using my incubus vision, I saw clouds of aether slowly accumulating, but it was nowhere near the amount that usually gathered in a circle.
The portal reopened, but the results were only marginally better. Shelton's voice was a little clearer at first, but the portal slowly reverted to the hazy window of static as it consumed all the aether in the circle.
"Son of a dirt eater." Shelton slapped his leg. "Looks like you're walking."
"More like swimming," Elyssa said. "Since we're relying on the nom cell towers for reception, it's likely we'll lose contact until we hit the mainland."
