by Tim Waggoner
I gripped her tighter as the world continued to darken around us. "I know what you mean. It almost feels like we're fighting on some level… resisting. But I don't know exactly what we're fighting."
Devona started to say something, but her reply was cut off by the sound of our children crying out in alarm from the backyard. Without thinking I dropped my shake and Devona and I started running. When we reached the backyard we saw the twins near their sandbox. They lay on the ground, bodies covered with long tendrils of some kind of strange weed growing out of the ground.
Leech vine, I thought. I didn't know what that was, but I instinctively knew it was something very bad.
The vine had burrowed into the children's skin at various place – face, neck, hands, back, belly – and it was pulsing rhythmically as if it was pumping something into them. No, I realized with horror. The plant was pumping something out of them: blood.
Devona and I stood there in shock for several seconds and during that time we watched the twins' suntanned skin begin to pale as the leech vine rapidly drained the life out of them.
Devona and I started forward. I didn't know if I would make things worse by tearing the vines away from the twins' flesh. I only knew I couldn't stand by and watch as my children succumbed to some sort of parasitic plant. But before either Devona or I could reach the twins, Lily held her hand out in a stay back gesture.
"Don't!" she said. Her voice was so much weaker than it had been only a few minutes ago in the front yard and hearing it broke my heart. I started forward again, but Toby repeated his sister's gesture.
"Listen to her!" he said, his voice just as weak as his twin's. "We know what's happening." His hand dropped then, as if it were too weak to hold it up any longer, and Lily's did the same.
"None of this is real," my daughter said, her voice now little more than a whisper. "We're not real, Toby and I, we're… pretend. This whole place is pretend."
Toby's head gave the slightest of nods, all that he could manage. His skin, like his sister's, was almost ivory-white now, eyes sunken in, lips blue-tinged.
"You and Mom are fighting. Trying… to break free. That's why all this is happening. Why we're…" He trailed off.
"Dying," Lily finished for him. "But it's OK, because we were never really…"
"Alive," Toby said.
I turned to Devona, and I saw she now possessed overlong incisors jutting down from her upper jaw. I looked at my hands and saw they were gray-tinged, the flesh dry and flaking.
"Pretend," Lily said. "Just… pretend."
Sorrow welled up strong inside me, along with anger. This family, my house, my life wasn't pretend. It couldn't be! I wouldn't let it be!"
A shimmering passed through the air, like ripples in a pond, and when it cleared, the sunshine had returned in full force and my children stood there, free of the leech vine, strong and healthy once more. Devona no longer had fangs, and my hands looked normal again. Everything was as it should be.
I was so relieved that I started toward the twins, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around the two of them and never let go. But the expressions on their faces – sadness, disappointment, regret – made me pause.
"Don't, Daddy," Lily said. "Don't use us as an excuse to hide."
"You've always faced the truth, no matter how hard it was," Toby said. He smiled then. "That's your job, right? To find out the truth."
"Find it now," Lily said. "For us, if for no other reason."
I turned to Devona, and I didn't know I was crying until she reached up and gently brushed the tears from my face. She was crying too, but her tears were tinged with red, and while that should've seemed strange to me, I somehow knew it was perfectly normal for her.
"It tears me up to say this, Matt, but they're right. I can feel it. And I know you can too."
I wanted to tell her that I didn't feel anything, that this was real, and I didn't want to hear another word about it. But instead I nodded. I took her in my arms and held her as tight as I could.
"This really sucks," I said softly.
"I know. Ready?"
I wanted to look at the kids one last time, but I knew I couldn't bear it. So I closed my eyes and said, "Ready."
I felt Devona's mind reaching for mine and I reached back. Vertigo took hold of me then and when the world stopped spinning I opened my eyes and found myself standing amidst dozens of bizarre displays – and I remembered.
I was no longer physically capable of crying, but if I had been I'd have broken down and sobbed right then.
It's all right, love, Devona thought. It's over. We're back.
I tried to move, but I still couldn't. Orlock's stasis field was still in effect and I knew that it had remained so the entire time.
What he said about time passing pleasantly… He created an illusory life for us to live while we were trapped here. Like filling an aquarium full of plastic plants and ceramic undersea ruins for the fish to swim around.
Yes, Devona thought. But he didn't count on your neck lace and our telepathic link. They reinforced what was real and fought against what wasn't. Because of that, the illusion couldn't sustain itself.
I thought of all the other beings trapped within Orlock's stasis domes, all of them living virtual lives deep within their minds while their bodies remained frozen as the long years passed. It was like being trapped in a kind of hell, only one that you weren't aware of. Somehow that made it all the worse.
Then again, maybe it was worse to come out of the dream. I missed my children and grieved for their deaths, even though I knew they'd never been real. And now Devona and I faced the prospect of spending our time in stasis without the comfort of Orlock's illusion to distract us. I wished my necklace had nullified the stasis field too, but either it was completely technological or its magic was too powerful for the necklace to handle on its own without the added help of Devona's and my telepathic link. For whatever reasons we'd broken the illusion but the stasis field remained intact.
Are you all right? I asked her.
Devona didn't answer right away. Finally she said, Honestly, no. You?
Working on it, I said, tying to sound braver than I felt at that moment. I'll tell you one thing, though. When we get out of this damned bubble, I'm going to find Orlock and… My thoughts trailed off as I realized something. The lights are on. They were off when the illusion took hold of our minds.
You're right, Devona thought. Maybe Orlock's coming back. Maybe he wants to ask us more questions about Osseal, since he'd love to get his talons on it.
Since Orlock's a vampire, he can see in the dark, I reminded her. He said he uses the lights only for his guests.
We heard footsteps coming toward us then and I could tell right away that they didn't belong to Orlock. The pace was too measured, the rhythm too steady for the crablike way he walked. My surmise turned out to be correct when a few moments later a woman approached our dome and stood regarding us, hands planted on her hips, head cocked at an angle, grin plastered on her face.
"Hello, Matt," Overkill said. "You're a damned hard man to find, you know that?"
My first impulse was to tell Overkill that she was a sight for sore eyes, but since I wasn't able to speak, I couldn't. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure her arrival was a good thing.
She was dressed the same way she was when I saw her last, only now she was better armed, with a P-90 submachine gun slung over her shoulder by a strap, and a weapons belt around her waist with a holster for a 9mm, sheaths for several lengths and types of knives – including, I was disturbed to see, a dire blade – and storage pouches that presumably held whatever the well-accessorized mercenary was carrying these days. Considering how often I have to root around in my pockets for my own toys, I wondered if I should invest in a belt like that, but I decided against it. I don't like my adversaries to know how well armed I am. I prefer to let them underestimate me. Besides, a belt like that would just look silly on me.
"First things first," Overkill
said. "Let's get you two out of there."
She reached into one of her belt pouches and removed a small glass vial. She took a deep breath and held it before prying out the stopper and splashing the liquid contents onto the area of the dome directly in front of where Devona and I stood immobile. As we watched, the place where the liquid – which was a foul yellow color – had struck began to sizzle and steam. Within moments the liquid had eaten a lopsided hold through the dome and once the structure's integrity had been compromised it shuddered violently and then popped out of existence as if it were nothing more than a giant soap bubble. Once the dome had vanished the stasis field ceased functioning and Devona and I were able to move and talk again.
"Whatever that stuff was, it's pretty handy," I said. "I may need to pick up a few gallons myself."
"It's demon piss," Overkill said as she replaced the stopper and put the empty vial back into its pouch. "Once it's exposed to air, it'll eat through anything – and you don't want to know what I had to do to get it."
"You got that right," I said.
From her belt pouch she next removed an amulet stamped with the image of a winding serpent. "This is a charm I picked up from an Obeah woman I know. It allows me to command any zombie to do my bidding." She grinned. "Including you, Matt. You're going to accompany me to the Nightspire so I can collect the bounty Quillion is offering for you."
I looked at her charm. It appeared genuine enough, but I felt no compulsion to do as she ordered.
"Sorry, but I don't think so," I said.
Overkill frowned at the charm and gave it a couple shakes, as if she might be able to force it to work. Little did she know that Papa Chatha's necklace was protecting me from the charm.
"Cheap piece of crap," she muttered. "Guess we'll do this the old-fashioned way." She dropped the charm to the ground, took hold of her P-90, racked the slide, and aimed it at me. "Don't try anything," she warned, gaze cold and expression deadly serious. "You don't need legs for me to take you to the Nightspire and it'll only take a few well aimed rounds from my weapon to cut them off."
She looked to Devona. "And my ammo has silver blended into it, so it's effective against both your human and Bloodborn halves."
"Let me guess what happened," I said. "Orlock called to tell you we were out of action and to urge you to go after Scream Queen's voice again. But you figured you'd rather collect the reward on me, and in the bargain get back at me for stopping you at Sinsation."
"That is, unless you organized all this in the first place," Devona said.
Overkill frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"After you left Sinsation, someone cut off my head, stole my body, and somehow used it to steal a magic object called Osseal from Lord Edrigu," I explained. "I managed to get my body back, and Victor Baron made me whole, but then I was arrested and sentenced to Tenebrus for the theft – which I didn't commit."
"Orlock told me as much," Overkill said. "But you don't really think I had anything to do with it, do you? I mean, I'm not big on elaborate planning. I'm more of a shoot first and never ask questions kind of gal. And if I had an object of power like Osseal, I could sell it for a whole lot more than five hundred thousand darkgems. And then I'd just let you stay frozen down here for eternity. I almost did anyway, but since I don't have Osseal and you did piss me off at Sinsation, I figured, what the hell?"
She could have been lying, but my instincts told me she was telling the truth. But I didn't have to rely on my instincts alone.
Devona?
I don't sense any subterfuge on her part, but she could be shielding her mind from me. She's certainly strong-willed enough on her own, and she could also be using some kind of magic object to help conceal her thoughts.
So Overkill might've moved to the bottom of my suspects lists, but she wasn't officially off it yet.
"How did you manage to get past Orlock?" I asked. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who willingly give up something once he's collected it."
"He's not, but I have my ways." Overkill smiled grimly. "I'm carrying a magic object that temporarily traps Bloodborn in their travel forms. Right now Orlock is stuck as a dozen or so shadow rats scurrying around his bookstore, unable to put themselves back together."
I had to admit, the woman was good.
"He's not going to be too pleased with you once the spells wears off," Devona said.
"Maybe, but he's nothing if not pragmatic. Once I collect the reward on Matt, I'm going to start looking for Osseal. If I can find it and bring it to him, there's a good chance he'll forgive me for freeing you two. And if not…" She shrugged. "There are plenty of other people in the city willing to pay for my services."
"I don't suppose it matters to you that I'm innocent," I said.
"Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Orlock seemed to think you are and he's usually right about things like that. But I don't care. Guilty or innocent, you're still worth five hundred thousand darkgems to me."
I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a way to convince Overkill to let us go or, failing that, a way that we could escape her, when Devona decided to take matters into her own hands.
She bared her fangs and hissed as she sprang toward Overkill. Devona is only half-vampire, but she's still fast as hell and she was almost on top of the mercenary before the woman could tighten her finger on the trigger of her P-90 and release a burst of gunfire. Devona managed to avoid being struck by any of the bullets, and they flew on, hitting various displays around us, taking chunks out of rare and valuable objects. Orlock would have a fit once he finally managed to pull himself together and come down here and saw the damage.
Devona wasn't fooling around. She fastened her teeth on Overkill's neck and bit down. The momentum of Devona's leap sent both women falling to the floor, and the impact caused Overkill to lose her grip on the P-90, and the strap slipped over her shoulder. The weapon skittered away from her, coming to stop over by the Frankenstein experiment display. I started toward it, doing the half-shuffle, half-run which is the fastest way I can make my dead body move.
As I went for the gun, Overkill hit Devona in the temple with a solid left cross, dislodging her teeth from Overkill's neck in a spray of blood. But Devona had a firm grip on Overkill's shoulders and she managed to hold on. Devona tried to bite Overkill again, but the mercenary brought up a forearm to block her. I saw Overkill reaching for her dire blade and I knew I had only seconds to reach the P-90. A single strike from a dire blade is fatal, as I'd demonstrated to Lycanthropus Rex in Tenebrus, and if Overkill managed to draw her blade, Devona was as good as dead.
I reached the P-90 and was bending down to pick it up when I became aware of movement. I looked at the metal framework containing the severed limbs of Dr. Frankenstein's early work and saw that every one of them had become fully animated and was thrashing about wildly. I glanced at the hand crank generator. No one had touched the crank and the machine wasn't active. No electricity was reaching the limbs, so how were they moving? What could make a bunch of dead arms and legs suddenly -
Then it hit me.
I turned to Devona and Overkill, who were still fighting on the floor. Devona had straddled the mercenary who'd managed to draw her dire blade. Devona had hold of the other woman's wrist, preventing her from using the dagger, and from the look of fury on Devona's face, I figured Overkill had only a few seconds before her wrist snapped like kindling.
"Ladies!" I shouted. Then again, louder. "Ladies!"
That time I got their attention. They stopped fighting, though Devona kept hold of Overkill's wrist. They focused their gazes on me and I pointed to the rack of thrashing limbs behind me.
"We've got a problem," I said. "I think someone just started playing Edrigu's flute."
FIFTEEN
Once Devona and Overkill stopped fighting, the mercenary applied first aid to her throat wound – a powerful anticoagulant to stop the bleeding and a patch of plaskin to seal the bite and begin the healing process. Both items we
re developed by the Bloodborn physicians at the Fever House, undisputed experts in treating injuries sustained during vampire attacks.
I hated to leave the others who were trapped in Orlock's stasis domes, but there wasn't time to free them all and besides, Overkill hadn't brought enough demon piss to do the job. But after what Devona and I had experienced in that bastard's virtual fishbowl, I was determined to return one day and free Orlock's prisoners, even if I had to kill the sonofabitch to do it.
The three of us then returned to Nosferatomes and walked outside, where we saw my worst fears confirmed.
Fighting had broken out in the street and not the usual sort of brawling that can happen anytime in the Sprawl. This was a serious toe -to toe, tooth-and-claw struggle for survival, complete with shouts of alarm, screams of agony, and lots of the red stuff being spilled. At first it was hard to come to any specific conclusions about the combatants because the fighting was so fast and furious, but after a couple moments it became clear that they could be broken into two separate camps: the dead and the living. A huge Frankenstein creature wearing only ragged jeans – the better to show off the jagged scars covering his obscenely muscled body – stood outside Matango, strangling a ghoul with one hand while he tore the arm off a lyke with the other. I recognized the man as Jigsaw Jones, one of the most popular professional wrestlers in the city and the sport's current champion. From the bleeding cuts on his flesh and the restaurant's shattered front window, I guessed Jones had been dining there when he'd flipped out and started killing people. I pictured him killing several of his fellow diners before leaping through the window and attacking the first people unlucky enough to be in his way.
In front of Hemlocks, Baristastein stood in the midst of carnage, a half-dozen bodies in various states of disembowelment spread out around her on the sidewalk. She currently had both hands wrapped around the throat of a toad-faced demon with overlarge insect eyes and was slowly squeezing the life out of him. No longer was her face expressionless. Now her features were contorted in savage joy as she throttled the struggling demon.
