No Darker Fate

by John Corwin

  The room exploded into a deafening uproar. Vish stared at Tollee with disbelief. She looked away from him and into the eyes of the crowd. Loathing filled their eyes. Nauseating shame gripped her insides. She wished a black hole would magically appear and swallow her.

  Warm liquid coursed down her face and Tollee realized she was crying. She didn't know what she felt. Regret? Remorse? Relief? It was almost over. She probably deserved to die. She was guilty of helping a murderer, of turning innocents into horrific ghouls that were killing others.

  Lucinda put her hand to Tollee's cheek. "You poor girl." She looked at the growing unrest in the room and cracked out a command: "Quiet!"

  Not a murmur penetrated the ensuing silence.

  "We three," Lucinda said, pointing at the other two arbiters, "have decided that this girl is not at complete fault for her actions. She quite willingly gave us the names we need. The rogue arbiter in question is one we know of. Arbiter Martin Augustus."

  The crowd erupted.

  "Grand Arbiter Martin?" Vish asked over the noise. "Impossible."

  "If you know the history, he was grand arbiter of the Transcendists for only a short time before leaving and going independent."

  "Shouldn't we tell Andre?" asked the blue-eyed arbiter who'd discovered Tollee.

  Lucinda looked at the other arbiters. "What good would it do at this point? Andre has made up his mind. On the other hand, we have an unprecedented chance to solve the Mystery."

  A man stood on a booth table and hollered for quiet. The noise subsided. "What about her?" he asked, pointing at Tollee.

  Lucinda held up a hand. "She will be punished but not too harshly. Martin initiated her at a young age. He found her in the general population somehow and took advantage of her naiveté. The reason she's here is because she realized what he was doing and wanted to stop him."

  The man's eyes softened. "Then we should find Martin and put a stop to this insanity."

  "Agreed," Lucinda said.

  Tollee felt the tension drain from her. With it went her energy. Lucinda and the others continued to speak, but Tollee couldn't listen. Her mind felt dulled. After some time, someone guided her to the kitchen in the back and away from the crowd. She sat on a wooden chair. Lucinda sat across from her.

  "You're not as innocent as we led the others to believe."

  Tollee could hardly speak. "I know."

  "I saw everything all the way back to the first time."

  "With Lucas?"

  Lucinda's eyes hardened. "I saw what the other failed attempts did to Lucas."

  "I didn't know—"

  "You knew enough. And you couldn't leave him alone after destroying his life."

  "Martin insisted on using him. I had no choice."

  "You had a choice. The only reason I'm giving you a chance is because I see a young stupid girl that a former grand arbiter manipulated into being his tool."

  Tollee opened her mouth to speak. Lucinda hushed her by cutting her hand through the air.

  "He's filled you with other appalling notions. Chum are not animals. You absolutely loathe them."

  "They're disgusting."

  "We are descended from them."

  A shudder passed through Tollee's frame. "How can that be?"

  "What do you think your parents are?"

  "I never knew them."

  "Most active Scions are sterile. Those who aren't often have complications carrying a child to term."

  "My parents were chum?"

  "Yes. Arbiter Martin obviously left out important facts during your education." She said the word with contempt.

  Tollee blinked back tears. All the horrible things she'd done for him. All the terrible things she believed. And to top it off, she was a moron. Martin had indoctrinated her with enough crap to keep her his ignorant lapdog. "How can Scions come from chum? What makes us…us?"

  "We don't know. That's why we call it the Mystery. Didn't you ever wonder how Scions could exist in the general population if they didn't come from chum?"

  "No. Martin raised me. He taught me the basics of being a seeker. The first time I saw chum in the Blight, I threw up. When I get near them, it makes me sick."

  "What about Jason?"

  The guy from the roof. "Did you pick everything out of my brain?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. I found things I wish I hadn't."

  "I wish I hadn't done those things."

  "You need serious retraining. I'm assigning you to Greg and Vish. They're going to show you the real ropes. At the same time, you'll be helping us track Martin."

  Terror choked Tollee. "He'll kill me. He put things in my head. If I try to harm him, I'll die."

  "We saw the memory. He lied. Most arbiters keep passive defenses. You're also attached to him. That means he's highly attuned to your thoughts. The moment you truly considered harming or betraying him, he picked up on it in a nanosecond. Since he never taught you how to protect yourself from arbiters, you were easy to dupe."

  Tollee's first instinct was to deny that. But she choked back a retort. Besides, it was true. "What do you want me to do?"

  "You will do whatever I or Greg or Vish tell you. If you don't, I won't hesitate to tell the others about the true extent of your crimes."

  "I go from being Martin's slave to yours."

  "No, nothing like that. This is for your own good. You can become a productive member of society. Without strict ground rules, you'll just run amuck again."

  "I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

  "No."

  "What now?"

  "Now we search for Martin. Since you're attached to him, it should be a simple matter for me to trace the link as long as he's not too far away."

  A knock sounded on the door. Vish poked his head in. "We're ready to head out when you are."

  They walked back into the restaurant. Scions crowded around the bar, buying drinks. Groups clustered around tables. The atmosphere had changed from serious debate to raucous partying. Greg saw Lucinda from across the room and held up a cocktail. Lucinda shook her head. He walked over, sipping his drink.

  "How many are we taking with us?"

  "The four of us should be sufficient," Lucinda said. She pursed her lips and stared blankly for a moment. "Maybe another arbiter would be handy."

  "What the hell?" Greg said, his eyes looking toward a window in the front door. The window shattered. Three more adjacent windows exploded at the same time. A cylindrical canister arced through the air and landed near the exit. Canisters shot through the other windows landing in various parts of the room. Tollee reacted. Greg was faster. He dropped his drink and grabbed Lucinda, Tollee, and Vish in a hug. A moment of disorientation followed. They Blight hopped into the kitchen. Vish's head bumped a pot. It fell from the hook overhead and landed with a loud clang.

  Greg motioned them further back toward an exit. Something rammed against the exit door. The metal shrieked. They ran down a tiled corridor, past the bathrooms. Something slammed against the back door. Vish grabbed Lucinda to the right and pulled her up a ladder that went into an employee break room in the attic.

  Booms rattled the wooden floors and shattered more windows as more cylinders went off.

  "Concussion grenades," Vish said.

  Tollee's ears were ringing. She hadn't thought to protect her hearing. Shouts echoed from the main bar downstairs. Screams shattered the air. Tollee lowered her head through the hole next to the ladder. Scions in black uniforms were combing the kitchen and area beyond. She couldn't see the main part of the restaurant. Another Scion rounded the corner. Marissa.

  Scions from Lucinda's group lay sprawled on the floor. Some moaned, others yelled incoherently. Most seemed unconscious.

  "Holy shit," Vish said. "It's about time those fuckers learned some manners.

  "Save it," Lucinda said, and dragged him further back into the attic. "They're looking for me."

  Greg looked out a small window in the back of the attic. "Let's go."

&
nbsp; They grabbed onto him. He hopped, took them outside the bar and to the rooftop of the coffee shop next door. It was dark. Lucinda touched Tollee's head and stared in the distance. She turned her head to face northeast.

  "Martin is somewhere that way," she said. "Seems like he's really far. The link is weak."

  "I hate hopping in the dark," Greg said, grumbling.

  "We need to get away before they realize I'm not in there," Lucinda said. "So go."

  He looked at a taller rooftop across the street and hopped them there. The next hop placed them atop the tallest building in Decatur, a bank. Tollee surveyed the land beyond. Downtown Atlanta lit the horizon, its skyscrapers dominating the landscape. The night was so clear she could almost focus far enough to manage a really long hop if she dared. But Greg looked northeast toward Tucker and Norcross, two other towns that had been assimilated by the metro area. Over the course of the next half hour, they hopped that way. Lucinda stopped every few minutes or so to check Tollee's link to Martin.

  "It's getting stronger, but not by much."

  "What does that mean?"

  "He could be in a weakened condition."

  Instead of relief, Tollee felt guilt. That man was the closest thing she had to a father. Sure, he was crazy. Probably psychotic. But she'd been with him for so long. At one point she'd loved him as family.

  Lucinda prodded Greg on and they continued hopping. They finally arrived near a warehouse complex. A faint glow emanated from the gaping doorway at the rear of one of the rectangular buildings.

  "I think we found him."

  "Out here?" Tollee couldn't believe it. Martin wouldn't be in such a junky place. Unless he'd trapped Lucas.

  Greg hopped them to the doorway. Vish took the lead and scouted the hallway that ran through the center. A bright glow from somewhere down the hall cast long shadows. Tollee and the others followed close behind. Vish halted. Tollee's nose registered a sickening odor. They looked into a side room and saw the body of a female with stones on her face.

  "Oh God."

  "It's Alice, one of our executors. She was abducted by the ghouls," Vish said. "They tried to turn her into one of those things."

  "She deserves a proper burial," Greg said. "Not to be dumped in a heap like this."

  Lucinda touched his shoulder. "Later. Right now we have to find Martin. We have to stop this madness."

  As they progressed, a similar odor grew in strength. Greg glanced down a side corridor and gagged. "There's an arm on the floor."

  "How many people has Martin killed?" Lucinda glared at Tollee. "I didn't get any of this from your scan."

  "I didn't know about this place. It's horrible."

  "He's sicker than we imagined." Lucinda stopped abruptly. Spun around. "We're being followed."

  The light down the hall winked out. Footsteps padded on the thin carpet. Whispers broke the dark silence. Tollee switched her eyes to the Blight. Though not much of the orange outside light entered the warehouse, she could make out glowing forms converging from the hallways. Louder footsteps came from behind. She whirled.

  Marissa and her gang burst into view, bright flashlights in their hands. Something snarled and dashed down the hall to Tollee's right. Someone grabbed her hand. She screamed.

  "It's me," Vish said. He'd grabbed Lucinda's hand as well. They sprinted down the hall.

  "Lucinda, surrender now," Marissa said, shouting after them.

  The light down the hall flared up again, brighter than before. Tollee let go of Vish's hand. She was faster. He snatched Lucinda and carried her. Greg kept pace in the back. Feet pounded behind them. Ahead, shadows appeared in front of the light. Tollee saw the tainted auras. She screamed.

  "Ghouls!"

  Nobody stopped running. They had nowhere to go. The only choice was to plow through the murderous creatures right in front of them.

  Chapter 37

  Alexia stared at Lucas's crumpled form and bit back a sob. Martin, now unconscious as well, was chained to a steel beam that supported the ceiling. The ghouls had captured three more Scions and chained them to another support beam. Now they were on the other side of the room, arguing. Hallways intersected the room like spokes on a wheel. An array of extension cords connected several halogen work lamps together and fed them power. They circled the room, pointing inward.

  Alexia recognized one of the captured Scions, Mikhail. Though thin and gaunt, something in the man's eyes frightened her. He raised a blonde eyebrow at her and nodded. Something about him seemed hurried. Urgent. Was it the way he looked at her? Her extra sense spiked along her back. Her eyes relaxed. The world fell out of focus.

  Sight returned, sharpening into crisp focus. She was no longer in the warehouse. Blue sky hovered above. A landscape of green, carpeted with people stretched into the distance. A white tower rose on the horizon. It tapered at a sharp peak. The place looked familiar. She looked behind her and saw the dome of the Capitol Building. Why was she at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.?

  She saw Mikhail. His lips curled down into a scowl. She observed the people in the crowd through the Blight. Chum, all of them. Mikhail's gaze swept over the chum as tumultuous shouts vibrated the air. Were they cheering or cursing? Mikhail looked to his left. Alexia followed his gaze. A figure stood at a podium. The figure was blurred. Alexia couldn't focus on it. When she tried, her eyes ached. Mikhail's eyes narrowed. His grim look vanished, replaced by wistfulness.

  The figure was saying something. His words were incoherent. Alexia took a step toward him. She had to know who this person was, what he was saying. The crowd reacted to his words with such roars that she couldn't tell if they agreed with the speaker or not. Alexia's legs stopped. Locked in place. She couldn't take another step forward. Instead of moving forward, she tried to move back. Her legs started working again. Who was the figure? Male? Female? She couldn't tell. The more she tried to focus on it, the more her eyes hurt and her head ached.

  Another roar erupted from the crowd. This time it consisted of screams, cries for help. The crowd stretched down the long fields of grass of the National Mall as far as the Washington Monument. A small army of people emerged from the buildings and narrow strips of trees on either side. They charged into the crowd. Alexia zoomed her sight. The attackers were grabbing chum. Flinging them to the ground like rag dolls. Killing them with brutal neck twists as if slaughtering chickens. Another group followed behind and put stones on the dead chum. The killers were ghouls. Not the same ghouls she knew—these were new. She recognized some of their faces as Scions she'd recently met at the Transcendist compound.

  Alexia choked on a scream. A tiny figure appeared atop the Washington Monument. She magnified her view of the figure. It looked familiar. She could almost make out the face. Closer. She had to get closer. She tried to Blight hop, but a scar wouldn't open. A dark cloud formed on the horizon behind the Washington Monument. The cloud swarmed over the Mall, blotting out the sun. It covered everything in darkness. Alexia realized it wasn't a cloud. The sky was filled with—

  "Are you okay?"

  Alexia jerked. She was back in the warehouse. Mikhail looked at her, the question still in his eyes. She felt a stream of blood tickle her nose and lips.

  "I'm fine." She wiped the blood away with her sleeve.

  "Where was your mind?"

  "What do you mean?" She didn't want to tell him. What had she seen?

  "You are futurist. You see things. Please, tell me."

  "Futurist?"

  "You see the future. You saw Lucas at the graveyard and the battle before it happened."

  How did he know about that? "I don't know if I should tell you."

  "Trust me."

  Alexia switched her view to the Blight, afraid Mikhail might be manipulating her. He had a single probe but it was tapped into his seeker. "Who are your cohorts?"

  "Anne-Marie, my seeker; Swain, my executor."

  The woman and man nodded solemnly without speaking.

  Alexia looked into Mik
hail's eyes and tried not to flinch. She still wasn't sure she could trust him. The ghouls padded across the room. Strike, formerly Maria Wood, stalked over to Swain. She jabbed a finger at him.

  "Use him now. We need more."

  Agony shook his head. "Savior-Creator will do it when he awakens. We have tried and failed too many times."

  "He worked." She pointed at the fourth ghoul. They still hadn't named him. From the way he looked, they might not get a chance. His knees buckled every few minutes. He sweated constantly. He had a bloodless pallor about him.

  "He is not working," said Hurt. "Something is wrong. Savior-Creator can repair him."

  Strike's face reddened. "Then wake him!" Her scream shattered the air.

  "Go back to your post, Hurt," Agony said. "There may be more intruders."

  Hurt nodded and vanished down a hall. Agony grabbed Strike by her arm and dragged her to the other side of the room. The pale unhealthy ghoul followed them with his eyes. He looked at Alexia and opened his mouth as if to speak. A squeak emerged. His eyelids fluttered. He turned away and stumbled, recovered. Rejoined the other two ghouls.

  "He is not long for this life," Mikhail said.

  Alexia thought back to her vision. The army of ghouls. The murdered chum. Was Mikhail part of that? In the vision he'd seemed disgusted. Perhaps he could prevent it. Maybe he was the cause. If she was a futurist, had she seen what would happen? Would it happen just like the vision with Lucas? She decided to tell Mikhail. If her vision showed what would come, nothing could be lost by talking to him.

  "Do my visions show what will happen?"

  Mikhail shrugged. "I only know theories."

  "Some think you see what has already happened," Anne-Marie said.

  Alexia looked at the woman. "That doesn't make sense."

  "Our world exists on several quantum planes of reality. Some believe there is a version ahead in time, and one running behind. Futurists can tap into the advanced stream much the same way seekers tap into the Blight."

  "Impossible."

  "Only a short time ago you were normal. You had never heard of the Blight or even considered its existence. How can you discount the existence of other places like it?"