Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1)

by James Berardinelli

  It was big and had wings. Bigger than the biggest bird I’ve ever seen and black as the night. That’s how Gabriel had described the air reaver from his bed in Aeris and now, face-to-face with it, I had to agree. The moonlight made it difficult to discern anything clearly but it looked like the largest bat I had ever witnessed - the impossible wingspan must have been at least eight feet. Its eyes, the only things visible in an otherwise black body, glowed with a reddish intensity. It stank of feces and dead things and the winds emanating from its body were as fetid as carrion.

  The creature’s assault on the women brought it low enough to give Samell, Octavius, and Stepan a chance to lash out at it before it climbed again. Gabriel, meanwhile, was scampering away off the road and into the tall grass. The three men’s weapons made contact - solid blows, delivered with force - and all were turned away with the same metallic clang that had ended the arrow’s progress. Even Octavius’ large, two-handed blade didn’t find purchase. It was as if the creature’s hide was impervious to iron. The reaver’s buzz was maddening; its tornadic cloak threatened to knock us off our feet.

  Emotions surged through me. I tried to corral them then gave up. This wasn’t the time for experimentation, not with seven lives hanging in the balance. The magic would use what it needed, even if it denuded me of those emotions. There could be value in that. Take away the terror and calm would remain.

  Relying on what had worked during the earth reaver battle, I called fire. It came with ease, pouring eagerly from the end of my staff and circumscribing a reddish-orange arc that ended when it struck the creature, which was executing a mid-air pivot. The fire washed over it like water over a rock, showing no discernible mark. A manifest failure, the attack achieved two things: it illuminated the air reaver well enough for me to make out its obsidian features and it alerted the creature to the location of its quarry. A sudden surge of fear parched my mouth.

  The misbegotten thing corkscrewed into the air then dove for us again, coming at the three men from the side. They spun to engage it but weren’t fast enough. It was as if they were in slow motion while it moved at full speed. It spat or threw something at Octavius - I couldn’t see what it was in the dim light. The strong man tried to dodge but was unable to fully avoid the missile. He went down with a scream. Pain, surprise, anger? I couldn’t tell. Stepan and Samell lunged at the reaver from opposite sides as it buzzed past them, starting its run at me. Their attacks, although well-aimed, glanced off the creature’s natural armor just as their previous ones had. Meanwhile, still in shock at the ineffectiveness of my fire attack, I was unsure how to proceed. I had used my lone combat-tried weapon. In desperation, I thought amorphously of safety and a shield and was rewarded by a mild concussion as the reaver crashed into an invisible barrier it couldn’t penetrate.

  Then, as it struggled to regain its equilibrium and my companions took the break as an opportunity to rally, inspiration arrived in the form of a memory from tenth grade chemistry class. A metallic hide might be able to deflect iron and shrug off fire but what about acid? As was its wont when magic flowed through me, thought became reality; the orange-red flower at the end of my staff turned green and a spray of corrosive liquid rained on the air reaver. For a moment, with time slowing to a crawl, it seemed as if this tactic would fail. Then, without preamble, the buzzing stopped, the creature’s wind died, and a desiccated corpse dropped to the ground like a drone with its fuel supply cut.

  It smelled of sulfur – the powerful stench of rotten eggs. My hypersensitive nostrils felt as if they were under assault. But that wasn’t the only aftereffect. The expected headache struck without mercy, sweeping away awareness and thought in a wave of white-hot, debilitating agony. It was worse this time than ever before. Far, far worse.

  I woke up choking, the stench of dry leaves filling my nose as something warm and unpleasant was poured down my throat. The headache was diminished but not gone; it had been reduced from a white-hot intensity to a dull throb - a discomfort I could endure, at least in the short term. My mind-sense was unreachable, as had previously been the case after using magic. The only thing I could smell was the leaves - powerful, pungent, and…

  I leaned over and threw up. The contents of my stomach emptied, followed by bile, then dry heaves. After that, I felt better (or at least no longer nauseous), but the headache remained.

  I then realized I had been lying with my head resting on Samell’s legs. I had vomited on them. He took it all in stride. “Nothing a good soak won’t fix.” It was too dark to see his expression but the words were spoken gently.

  I sat up groggily, the recent past coming into focus along with my vision. The others were all there, even Octavius, who I had feared might be dead. They were looking at me with concern - all except Gabriel, whose expression was a cross between fear and awe. I realized that, while the others had seen me “perform” during the attack on Aeris, this was the first time he had seen magic. I could sympathize. I had done it and I could scarcely believe.

  “It’s dead?” I didn’t need to ask.

  “It’s dead,” confirmed Samell. “We assume it was an air reaver. We took a look at it but it’s difficult to say. Whatever you did to it pretty thoroughly destroyed it and when we poked at it with sticks, they started smoking and dissolving. So we figured better to leave it alone. We moved down the road and set up camp here.”

  I glanced upward. Ire had traversed more than half the sky and Concord was chasing her. Much of the night gone… “How long?”

  “Between two and three cycles. This was worse than the others. You were really gone. I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

  It was maddening and frustrating. All the exercises I had done with Backus had proven useless. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Those had been minor experiments done in controlled circumstances. This had been a massive expenditure of energy, far greater than anything I had tried while “testing” my tolerance with the priest. I hoped Bergeron would have some answers. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue using magic if this was the result every time. I liked to think I had a high tolerance for pain, but this… And what if I had an aneurism or a stroke?

  “At least it worked,” I said.

  “A good thing it did,” said Gabriel from his spot across the campfire. “Without your magic, I don’t think we would have beaten it.”

  “Are there more out there?” asked Esme.

  I shook my head. “There weren’t when that one attacked. Now? I don’t know. After I use magic, my mind-sense goes numb for a while.”

  “Let’s hope we’re alone for now. Arrows and blades didn’t do a thing against it.” Stepan tried hard to keep despair from his words. I knew he was thinking the same thing the others were - if a force of several dozen air reavers attacked Aeris or anywhere else, the result would be devastation.

  “It’s not that we can’t kill them,” I said. “I used magic to generate my attacks but, in the end, the earth reavers were killed by fire and the air reaver by acid. They have vulnerabilities. It’s just a matter of figuring out what they are and using them.” Fire would be easy enough to manufacture but I wasn’t sure about acid. Perhaps there was some other corrosive agent.

  “Maybe that was the only one,” suggested Alyssa.

  “No,” said Samell. “Remember the storm before the earth reaver attack? The one that bypassed Aeris? Janelle said that was caused by air reavers. We need to assume there are more of them out there although we don’t know where and what their intentions are. This one might have been watching or guarding the road.”

  “For now, we have to hope there ain’t no others around here,” said Gabriel. “We’re still a couple of days from NewTown.”

  “How are you?” I asked Octavius. He had been sitting quietly between Alyssa and Stepan, a pained expression distorting his rugged features.

  “I’ll live.” His voice was strained. “I’m not going to lie. It hurts. A lot. But I don’t think it’s fatal and whatever that thing sp
at or threw at me wasn’t envenomed.” He stood and peeled back his leather jerkin to reveal a patch of raw flesh that covered his chest from nipple to nipple and all the way down to his navel. By the firelight’s ruddy glow, it appeared angry. I couldn’t tell whether the skin was blistered, badly scraped, or a combination of the two. “Don’t suppose there’s anything your magic can do for it?”

  There probably was. Backus had said that some Summoners developed into skilled healers. But my knowledge of human anatomy was limited to what I could remember from high school biology, which wasn’t much. If I tried, I would be more likely to harm than help. “Sorry. I wish I could but it’s a lot easier to destroy something with magic than to mend it. I might make it worse.”

  “Thought so. I’ll make do with the salves.”

  With the headache lingering, the nausea was creeping back. Samell must have noticed this. “Why don’t you get some more sleep. It’s still a couple of cycles until dawn and we don’t have to leave at first light if you’re not ready.

  I smiled wanly. Before again lying down, I took a long, deep draught from one of the water skins. It was a smart decision because, when I vomited several minutes later, at least there was something in my stomach to come up.

  I felt much better, although not 100%, when I awoke in the morning. My stomach was settled and the headache had diminished to a distant, barely noticeable throbbing - the kind that made itself manifest only when I thought about it. My mind-sense remained unreachable. I worried, as I had on the previous occasions, that it might not return. Without it, my value to the party would be greatly diminished and it would be exponentially more difficult to use magic.

  Gabriel assured me that if we made good time - meaning that if Octavius’ injury didn’t slow us, there were no more reaver attacks, and the weather held - we would reach NewTown before nightfall tomorrow. That meant spending one more night in the open. None of us were thrilled with the idea but there was no help for it. Night travel wasn’t a sane option, especially with only one of us having any familiarity with the terrain. We were farther from Aeris than any of our number had been except the tinker.

  We traveled most of the day in silence, the companionable chatter of the earlier journey having been set aside in the wake of the attack. Even though we had survived and, all things considered, suffered little damage (although I wasn’t sure Octavius would agree with that assessment), we had been forcefully reminded of our mortality and the gravity of our mission. What had begun in the spirit of a great adventure had become serious business. I wondered if any of my companions were regretting their decision to leave behind Aeris. Samell and Esme showed no qualms and Gabriel had little choice, but the others…? I couldn’t read Alyssa, Stepan, or Octavius. If the last of those three was having second thoughts, I couldn’t blame him.

  The lack of conversation provided me with an opportunity to consider my Swiss cheese memories but, no matter how hard I pressed, I couldn’t fill in the gaps. Too much was still missing. Although it was true that my picture today of who I had been was fuller than when I had awakened in The Verdant Blight, it was by no means complete. Many of my memories were isolated, detached. And so much of my knowledge was frustratingly incomplete. I knew who the 18th President of the United States was (Grant) but didn’t know the date on which I had left. And I didn’t know what had happened with my sister, my ex-boyfriend, and the gun. Or who had been following me.

  We stopped at sunset, still having seen no other human activity on the road. It was as if we were all alone out here on a trail in the middle of nowhere. The night was balmy but we made a fire anyway, more for light than warmth. There didn’t seem to be an argument against making one. If there were things out here hunting us, the fire wouldn’t be what attracted them. Octavius and I were exempted from watch duties but the rest agreed to take single cycle turns. With the last vestiges of the headache gone, it was easy to fall asleep. To my surprise, I slept through the night, not stirring until the sun was once again peeking above the horizon.

  Hopefully, we would reach NewTown today. Although I didn’t crave luxury, an indoor bed would be welcome and it would be nice to talk to different people and explore a new village. Thus far, outside of the wilds and forests, all I knew of this world was Aeris and, by my companions’ estimation (although only Gabriel had first-hand knowledge), it was a different community. NewTown, situated closer to the “Great Town” of West Fork and some of the more fully settled lands, was certain to be more cosmopolitan. According to the tinker, it had shops, a tavern (that doubled as an inn), and a hall for prayer and worship. The population was more than double that of Aeris’ three-hundred souls.

  There was less tension within the group now that we were more than a full day removed from the attack. Conversation resumed with only Octavius remaining largely silent. Despite a liberal application of some kind of medicinal salve, he was in a great deal of pain. Having gotten a look at his injury in good light, I could understand his discomfort. The redness hinted at infection. I was hopeful NewTown’s healer, described by Gabriel as a “miracle-worker”, could do something. I had already decided that, no matter how much he protested, I would leave him in NewTown to recuperate. He was in no condition to travel and, if it came to a battle, he was more likely to be an encumbrance than an asset.

  “How are you feeling?” Even though I had assured Samell I was fully recovered from my ordeal, he persisted in checking on a regular basis.

  “Really, I’m fine. It’s nice to know someone’s worried about me, though.”

  “We’re all here for you. Well, all of us except Gabriel, that is. I just wish we had proven our worth better in that battle. We’re supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around. With us here, you shouldn’t have to use your magic.”

  I almost admitted that I was scared to use it again. I remembered Pavlov and his dogs. If the headaches continued, I could envision getting to a point where I’d rather die than use magic because I’d do anything to avoid the subsequent pain. I was putting a lot of faith in Bergeron, that he would have a solution. But the possibility existed that he would be as unhelpful as Backus. What if these headaches were how my body reacted to using magic? What if there was no remedy? Considering that possibility made my temples throb.

  “There are times when it can’t be helped,” I said. “Hopefully next time it will be different.” Next time. It was a depressing thought. But that was reality. Even though there might not be another air reaver in the vicinity, none of us were under the illusion that this was our lone encounter with one. Somewhere, some time, there would be another. Perhaps more than just one.

  “We’ll be better prepared at least. It’s comforting to know that the reavers can be defeated if we understand their weaknesses.”

  “Will they believe us? In NewTown, I mean. When we tell people that Aeris was attacked by a band of earth reavers and we fought an air reaver on the road, will they accept our stories or will they think we’re lying or deluded?” I could imagine walking into a police station in my old world and telling people I had seen a monster.

  “Some will,” said Gabriel, who had been eavesdropping on our conversation. “Some won’t. Reavers ain’t the sort of thing we see every day but they’re not unheard of. And there are books in the faith that predict a great war against ‘the elementals’. There are the skeptics, of course, who have to see something to believe it. But they know me there and many will listen when I tell them what I saw and show them what happened to me.

  “As to what they can do, that’s another question. NewTown is too small to have a militia to mobilize. Outside of drilling and sending out regular patrols - which they already do - and improving communications with West Fork, how else do you prepare for something that may never happen? How do you convince an entire town to change their way of life without concrete proof that they could be annihilated if they don’t?”

  I understood his point. Believing was one thing. They might accept our words but until a reaver was sigh
ted in the vicinity of NewTown, the attacks we participated in would be events that happened elsewhere. Recognizing that bad things were happening somewhere didn’t translate into an immediate danger. In my world, if there was a major spike in the murder rate in Chicago, people in St. Louis didn’t worry that crime would increase in their city. They voiced sympathy for how bad things were to the northeast and changed their travel plans accordingly.

  It was late afternoon when we first saw the smoke - a distant haze of grayish white that I initially mistook for a low-hanging cloud. As we drew closer, it became evident that it was being fed by plumes from the vicinity of NewTown.

  “That’s strange.” There was a note of alarm in Gabriel’s voice. “Looks like bonfires but it’s too early in the year for them. They don’t have them till after the harvests have been brought in.”

  I reached for my mind-sense but, as had been the case since the battle, it was quiescent. When Samell glanced at me, I shook my head.

  “Is it NewTown?” I asked.

  “Either that or very close to it. And another thing. We’re close enough that there should be at least a few travelers on this road. There are some isolated farms to the west and people who live there are always going back and forth to the village.”

  I didn’t need to say what all of us were thinking. If one purpose of our journey had been to warn the towns to the south about reaver activity, we may have arrived too late.

  Chapter Sixteen: Pyre

  We had arrived too late. The scene of devastation that greeted us when we reached the top of the hill left us stunned into speechlessness. The closer we had gotten, the more apparent it had become that something was very wrong at NewTown. There was far too much smoke for just a few fires. The air reeked of it and it didn’t just smell like burned wood. Cooked flesh had a specific odor and it was there, impinging on my oversensitive nostrils and bringing waves of nausea as forceful as those caused by the headaches. The actuality of what had happened exceeded even our most dark imaginings.