Galefire I : Fade Rippers

by Kenny Soward

  She sobered, raised herself to her elbow. “A long time.”

  “How long?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Why? Why did you do it? And what is it, anyway? Some kind of hypnosis?”

  “Yes. And I’ll tell you everything once this is over. You just have to trust me on that.”

  He laughed sourly. At least she’d admitted to it, and that meant he’d get a reason out of her, eventually. “Fine. But don’t touch me that way again. Don’t ever ice me again.”

  She offered a wan smile. “We've established that. Look, Lonnie. I know you’ve seen a lot of weird stuff today. Stuff you maybe wished you could un-see. Things you might not fully believe or understand right now. But I can promise you everything I say from now on is true. Okay?”

  Lonnie wilted beneath Selix’s wet eyes, bright blue in the bloodshot and red-rimmed soreness. He remembered the train tracks and the fact that she’d saved him from offing himself.

  “What about my family?”

  Selix’s face grew more pained. “There’s so much I want to tell you, but I’d have to start slow in order for you to understand. The hypnosis is a sort of suspension.”

  “Like suspended animation?”

  “Exactly. And once this is over, once we’re safe and you have time to digest everything, I’ll explain. I have no reason not to anymore.”

  “Okay, then," Lonnie said, tight lipped. "But we've got no other options here. We have to bug out. We’re not winning this one.”

  “We must fight them, Lonnie. I can channel my magic from the Fade. All of it. You’ve never seen that—”

  “There’s not enough magic to help us now,” Lonnie's voice rose through clenched teeth. “Look, let’s just hit the fucking road. We can get help for the others first.”

  “Not this time, Lonnie. The warlock won’t give up. And he’s got help. Big help. I see Hell behind my eyes.” Selix closed her eyes, touched her fingers lightly to her temple.

  Lonnie slapped his face, drew his hand down like he could wipe off the crazy. “Unbelievable,” he said. Would this be the time to manhandle Selix all the way to the city asylum? At least she’d be safe. Fed and watered. A break from the drugs. Hell, she might even find enough sanity to stay off them for good. The gang would shatter, but it was better than dead.

  "Lonnie, please."

  Something in his memories stirred, a whiff of the past telling him he should believe her, even defend her. Just like a moment ago with Elsa when he thought they might share a deeper connection, a deeper past. Everything leading up to now.

  “Okay,” he said, sighing. “What's the plan?”

  “I need your help building the thing on the list I gave you. Do you have it?”

  “Yeah.” Lonnie fished the folded sheet out of his pocket and handed it to her.

  Selix unfolded the paper, turned it, and stuck it in his face. "Just help me build this and we can figure the rest out. If you want to leave after that, I won't try to stop you. If you want to stay, well, you need to know you’re needed here. You’re wanted. We can’t go on without you."

  Lonnie’s shoulders sagged. “I never said I wanted to leave you. Just that we should all leave.”

  Selix’s hand snaked out. Small, scuffed palm. Dirty fingernails. A few sores. “Please?”

  Lonnie stared at her hand for a moment, clasped it in his. Her palm and fingers were hot. Feverish, even. Eyes haunted, hollow, sapped. She should be dead ten times over. He’d seen her ingest things that would kill an elephant. But here she was still living. Still fighting.

  “Okay,” he said, resigned. “Let’s see if anyone is still alive down there.”

  Chapter 12

  Deep in the West Side of Cincinnati, Rose Park occupied three acres of space between silent, towering walls of old buildings. Once warehouses or apartments in the bustling city center, they were now mostly haunted by squatters and ghosts. In reality, Rose Park was hardly a park at all. More of an open lot of brown grass with a rusted jungle gym and merry-go-round falling apart in the yard and a patch of woods on the north side.

  A mystic junkyard.

  Lonnie never cut through the woods unless it was necessary. And over the years, he’d found many odds and ends: stick sculptures hanging from branches, pieces of rope and old shoes laying in the scrub, used condoms, and once he came across a cooler half-filled and smeared around the edges with an unidentifiable liquid resembling bloody wax. What the fuck?

  Lonnie wouldn’t be surprised if there were shallow graves hidden beneath the desperate growth.

  He and Selix wheeled the cart full of hardware parts through the grass to the center of the woods. There was a small clearing, and that’s where they set up shop. Ingrid and Crash carried the wounded Elsa to a spot where they could lean her up against a tree. Turned out Crash had just been knocked out real good, hit by the golem so hard he had a knot the size of a golf ball on the side of his head, and a bloody nose to boot. That’s what had caused the alarmingly large pool of blood. Once they got him on his feet, he was close enough to fine. Ingrid appeared more shaken on the inside than outside, crying and speaking plaintively in German to her sister, encouraging her to live or die or cursing her for some past discretion, Lonnie couldn’t tell which.

  They'd taken the Brit's body, wrapped it in sheets, and put it in the basement gun range for a proper burial later. Selix said a few words in a language that tickled the edges of Lonnie's understanding, and then they’d packed their shit together and come out here for a final confrontation with the warlock and his unfathomable forces.

  Selix sat across from him on a milk crate, Lonnie on a plastic bin. Their hands wove wire, mesh, duct tape, and cord around the aluminum pieces he had purchased. Lonnie worked much faster (he wasn’t as high as her) and the frame Selix had drawn on the back of the shopping list was starting to take shape.

  A workhorse, Crash had carried the weight of three men and still helped Elsa stay on her feet. Currently, he rifled through the backpack he’d loaded up earlier. He presented a muscular silhouette in the moonlight filtering through the trees as he spoke to the group in his Jamaican accent. “We’ve got three AR15s. Four magazines each of the Beowolf rounds. Elsa and Ingrid’s Glocks and plenty of ammo for those. I have my Eagle. Lonnie, you're set with your gun and a couple extra mags, right? Good. We’ve only got a few silvershard rounds since those were supposed to be outlawed by the treaty.”

  It was clear Crash was trying to fill the Brit’s shoes and wasn’t half bad at it. He took a short stride over to Lonnie, gesturing with his index finger. “We need your gun, but don’t go toe-to-toe with them, got it? Do what you're good at. Sneak around and peck at them from the rear. Pick off as many of those fucks as you can.”

  Lonnie nodded and kept on working with the frame and wire.

  He gave Selix an uneasy glance. She’d passed out again, a line of drool hanging from her bottom lip. Her veins flowed with heroin and a dozen pills and Lonnie half-expected her to keel over on the spot. Her tolerance only reinforced what she’d said about channeling her power through the Fade. She couldn’t die from all the drugs, but they made her stupid as hell. For Lonnie’s part, he preferred to be coherent for this and only had a little juice flowing through his veins. Something to soften the edges.

  He grew less convinced of Selix’s insanity—that notion had been more out of desperation—as new memories hammered home minute-by-minute. Not exact images, but impressions. The sense he’d known these people, the Eighth Street Gang, longer than three years. He was becoming comfortable with them. Even bitchy Elsa, much easier to tolerate now that she’d shut up. With Crash, he shared an easy friendship. The way the guy’s eyes lingered on Lonnie as if expecting him to do more than grunt, as if waiting for a joke. Yes, they were old. Old in this world and old in another, too.

  But these memories had weight, and he needed Selix to help him sort them out.

  “Wake up,” he said, snapping his fingers at her. “Tell me
why we’re building this frame again.” Lonnie held up a section of the framework and raised his eyebrows. “I mean, are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?”

  Selix snapped out of her stupor and smiled weakly. “Thanks. We can attach the pump now.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” They fastened the pump to the back of the framework with screws and the drill. He tested a pair of bicycle brakes, squeezing them and verifying the tension wires pulled consistently. “Brakes are working.”

  “Okay, kid,” she said. “Now fill it up with juice.”

  Lonnie took the hydraulic fluid out of the cart and filled the tubes that fed the central unit. He searched for any suspect connections and sealed them. He imagined rigging a leaky radiator with duct tape. Fortunately, they needed very little pressure.

  “Back to the original question,” he said. “Why are we doing this?”

  Selix steadied herself and settled on her milk crate. Took a deep breath. “Remember what I said about channeling my magic through the Fade? Well, this contraption will heighten the effect. I’ll be so high—” she broke off and giggled. “I’ll be so high I might just rip a permanent tear in it.”

  “So, you’re not sure what will happen, exactly.”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly. I mean, sort of. Well, no.”

  “You're filling me with confidence here, Selix. Guess we don’t have a choice.”

  “Sorry, Lonnie. I’m doing the best I can.”

  “On a side note, can I ask you another question? More related to the breaking ice and the memories coming back.”

  “Sure.”

  “I can't help but think I'm someone else. No, not someone else, but a ghost living in several dreams. Who am I? Who am I really?”

  Selix’s expression was sympathetic if a bit dulled. She bit her bottom lip softly, allowing the flesh to slide between her teeth. “You are one person and one person only. Your name is Mardokh. Mardokh Bet-Ohman.”

  Lonnie blinked. “That’s a dumb name.”

  Selix smiled. “And yes, the ice is mostly broken. I can see it in your eyes. That makes me happy, but…”

  “But what?”

  “The memories are still too heavy for you. I can see that, too.”

  Lonnie nodded. “Yeah, years of memories, right?

  “Longer than years,” she said. She cocked her head. “I could help, but I might fuck it up.”

  “No, I need to be patient. I get that. But why? Why ice me at all?”

  “To keep you hidden and safe. To keep us all hidden and safe. You’re the reason we came here.”

  “So I’m not some shit-heal runner for the gang?”

  “Nope.”

  “All the abuse I took from her.” Lonnie jerked his head toward Elsa, whose one good eye plus her other squinty one stared at the two with measured distrust. She was healing faster than any normal person should.

  “Yes, it's a whorchal's nature to take advantage of any situation. They don’t do well with authority. With you iced, Elsa figured she could get away with bloody murder. Give Elsa an inch—”

  “She takes a fucking mile.”

  “Right.”

  “And it’s you people who need me? Not the other way around?”

  “In a sense. You’re understanding things about us, right? Like you’ve known us a long time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve been distant to you. Cold. Mean, even. But it was necessary.”

  “And now?”

  Selix bit her lip again. Gave him a shy shake of her head. Her hand touched Lonnie’s fingers where he held part of the contraption. This time her touch did not bring a chill but instead a shade of warmth and light that stirred something in his chest.

  A memory dropped. He caught it, watched it blossom into a moment of exquisite passion. His body pressed against a woman, hips roving and furrowing between her two eagerly spread legs, face buried in the soft crook of her neck. The heat was fabulous, consuming, skin-against-skin in a baptism of fire.

  The legs wrapped themselves around Lonnie and squeezed. He responded by running his hand over her hip and up her thigh, encouraging the vice grip she had on him. His hand roamed the back of her leg (flesh as soft as talc) cupping an ass cheek in his palm while they tousled on the sheets. Lonnie kissed the delicate flesh below her ear, and she sighed. He delighted in her arms squeezing around his neck and shoulders, fingers buried in his hair and grasping, pulling, demanding more.

  He was hard like he’d never been. Hard and inside her, given in to her wet warmth wrapping him in a glorious expression of emotion while his head reeled in a cinnamon caress. Lonnie slowed his thrusting, gathered his sweating arms beneath him, and pushed, separating himself from their heat, eyes filled with questions.

  Fingers slid from his hair and fiddled with one of his ears. Another touched him delicately on his shoulder and down the back of his arm, raising dots across his skin.

  Lonnie gazed at the angel below him. Selix’s half-lidded eyes traced his face, wisps of smoke dancing between her parted lips.

  “Hi.” Her husky tone dripped with need.

  “Hi,” Lonnie returned, voice shaky with conflicting emotions. This woman he'd resented, hated at times, now so close. So much a part of him. It was soul-shocking.

  She reached up, grabbed the back of his head, and forced him against her, into her, once more.

  Back in Rose Park, Lonnie shook himself from the scene. “No fucking way.”

  “Way,” Selix smiled, a rare blush coloring her cheeks. She looked tired but relieved. The revelation was probably a tremendous weight off her shoulders. He wanted to hold her, to ask a million questions, to be with her again.

  Lovers?

  “You’ve been watching me this whole time. Waiting.”

  “Yes, but I couldn't tell you how I felt. Couldn't even touch you.” She was groggy again, nodding as she put her elbows back on her knees to rest her head in her hands. “I could never love you like I wanted.” Her voice faded along with her lucidity.

  Lonnie stared at his feet, tousled the dirt and weeds with the toe of his boot, allowing the lingering lust of that last revelation to siphon off. He touched her hand. “So, what happened to us?”

  Selix’s head bobbed upward a tick or two, eyes lifting. She tried to smile but the edges of her lips fell. “Bad people happened to us, Lonnie. Bad people, and war, and a bitch named Makare. Look up. Just look up.”

  Lonnie lifted his gaze through the spaces in the boughs and caught sight of the moon in all its golden, rampant splendor. The full moon. The crazy moon. A light spelling their doom as plainly as letters on a store sign.

  Lonnie gazed up from the dragon’s back at Hell's moons. Two of them set into a fiery tapestry, morbid jewels. One larger and higher than the other, a shade of pulpy white streaked with red clouds. The smaller one sulked in a sickly tint of gray.

  Lonnie’s eyes remained glued to the alien sky (not so alien anymore it turned out) as the dragon tucked its wings and shifted its bulk beneath him, seeming anxious for him to disembark. Lonnie hesitated, dread filling his heart. Nervousness at a looming decision. A necessary decision that would change him forever. A choice with consequences so metaphysically terrifying his hands shook with fear.

  This choice would affect everyone, including his two escape pod survivors. What might they know about his true identity? Would they be able to tell him what he needed to know?

  There they were, standing at the at end of the platform past the silver shimmering gate, waiting.

  Lonnie pulled his eyes away from Earth’s moon and shifted his attention back to Selix where she hung in a stupor.

  “We’re not from here, are we? We’re from Hell.”

  “The old name is Septu,” Ingrid said from where she sat fiddling with her rifle.

  “Yep,” Selix said. “And we crossed over through the Fade. It’s an in-between place. We used a tether the Brit created. A tether through a gate. And we’re fade ripper
s.”

  Fade rippers. He understood the term. They were people from Hell (Septu) come to Earth as outcasts, exiles. “And that’s why we came here? We figured this Makare person wouldn’t follow us?”

  Lonnie stopped talking because Selix had fallen asleep again.

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  “Hurry,” Crash called. “We’ve got to be ready.”

  Lonnie nodded, setting his mouth. A couple more adjustments and he was done.

  He set the frame on the ground and walked away from Selix to the edge of the clearing. Got out his dragon lighter and rubbed it with his thumb. Then he lit a cigarette. Inhaled. Blew smoke through his nose. The night pressed in, sweat beading on his chest and shoulders despite the chill. He shivered.

  The past day’s revelations reminded him of walking into a surprise party with everyone shouting and blowing noisemakers and all kinds of shit at you. A confusion of noise that should make sense, but didn't. Yeah, a surprise party like the one his wife and little girl gave him four or five years ago for his twenty-fifth birthday. Everyone from their Newport neighborhood showed up. His fellow working class stiffs. His employees. His mom and dad. His good-for-nothing brother. And while Lonnie appreciated the revelry, it was his daughter, the Shrimp, who enjoyed these types of things more than anyone. She loved having people around, getting catlike underfoot, and blowing out the candles from his lap even though Lonnie pretended it was him. After the party, if it was chilly, they’d start a fire pit in their tiny side yard. Just the three of them, him holding his wife’s hand while sipping a beer. The missus looking fine in her ‘lay-around jeans’ and fuzzy socks, shooting him steamy glances that made him wonder if she wanted to get intimate after putting the Shrimp to bed. The little girl already yammering about Halloween coming up in a month and a half. End of summer times.

  What of those things? Where did his family fit in with this new past and his dragon visions? He had no clue, but that would be his next question to Selix.