Hard Reign

by John Hook

  All my anger collapsed in on itself. I stood there not even knowing what to do with my hands. “I don’t know.”

  “Quentin, if you want to fight them we need a weapon and we only have one.”

  “The blue power.”

  “And neither of us know how to use it. So, this time you are going to do it my way. We master whatever it is that cohabits your body and then figure out what we can do about either Rox or Guido, if he is truly gone too.”

  I looked at Saripha. It was my stubborn refusal before to learn what my blue power was capable of that put her in a position where she felt the best course was to die and take away my option to sacrifice myself for her.

  “I guess I owe you that much.”

  A half smile appeared on her face. “Truth be told, I also have to learn what has changed about my witch powers for being dead in this world.”

  “So how do we start?”

  “Not by camping out in the woods on the run. We’ll return to the abandoned city.”

  “You think they left it,” Izzy asked.

  “I don’t know. I think they will. There is some secret in that city that made it valuable to Guido and I always had the impression no one would make a move against it. That’s why I was surprised when he was taken, if that’s what happened.”

  “He might be back.”

  Saripha was quiet a moment.

  “No, I would feel it if he were back.”

  “What about the others?” Izzy asked. “Maybe we should gather the Rockvale forces.”

  “I don’t think so, Izzy,” I interrupted. “I think whatever this is, we are going to have to figure it out ourselves.”

  Saripha nodded.

  “I think you are beginning to catch on, Quentin.”

  2.

  We reached the abandoned city without incident. Whatever kind of shake-up in the order of things was going on, they didn’t seem to be actively hunting me. They may have thought I perished in Rockvale, although I’m not sure how they could miss that there didn’t seem to be anyone there when they flattened it. Then again, it happened so fast, maybe they just thought no one had time to get out. Maybe it was enough for them that they took away our base of operations. It was just like someone crushing an anthill. They didn’t worry about whether they had killed every last ant, but it would be a while before the ants could recoup.

  The abandoned city was a strange puzzle. It looked different from everything else I had seen here in Hell. It wasn’t a collection of low and unimaginative adobe-like buildings. Instead it was filled with finely curved sculpted rock dwellings with what looked like walled gardens between them. They weren’t really great gardens, but vines did grow there. There were open areas that might have been intended as amphitheaters or just elaborate public spaces with steps in and out of them. There were a number of round pools, one of which we had ceremoniously lowered Saripha’s body into when she died. There were also a few tall, rounded towers that looked out across the city like minarets. Saripha admitted that, even living here with Guido, she neither explored much of the city nor learned much about its origins or why it was deserted. She did learn that it had a name—Ohnipoor.

  “What happened to Tweedledum and Tweedledee?” That was my name for two demons that seemed to work with Guido. They were of a very different demon race than the others we had met. They were more intelligent and more powerful and always wore inscrutable grins that conveyed no emotion at all. They never moved their large mass very quickly and yet were somehow untouchable.

  “I never had much interaction with them, but they seemed to be gone when Guido disappeared.”

  “And he left no clues.”

  “I didn’t spend a lot of time looking around after picking up the message from Rooni. I guess we should look around now.”

  Izzy was a little more nervous than either I or Saripha were. “Do you think it’s a good idea for us to be in this city after what we watched in Rockvale?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think there’d be any safe place if they really wanted to hunt me down. However, I think they’re done for now. If they wanted to destroy this city, they would have done it already. They think we are handled.”

  “At least they are consistent about underestimating you,” Izzy noted.

  “I hope you are right. I’ve lost Guido and Rox and I have no idea what I can do about either.”

  “But you’ll keep trying.” Izzy studied me for confirmation.

  “Yes, I will.”

  “That’s what they keep forgetting.”

  We entered the jazz club. It was an odd bit of incongruity in this ancient city, but seemed to be dear to Guido’s heart. Then again, everything connected to Guido seemed a bit incongruous. Somehow, not finding him there made it seem emptier and more deserted than normal even though he was mostly its only occupant. It had once served as a doorway into Janovic’s magical world. Given that Guido never liked Janovic and Guido’s seeming interest in my well-being, I always meant to ask him how Janovic came to be his Shade. I never got very far, as was usual with Guido. It was some kind of deal in this place. That was what Guido gave as an answer for everything. The upshot was, he had to go along with certain things in this place. He must have crossed a line when he killed Jackal-Head.

  I checked the far wall that had served as the doorway to Janovic’s crucible, but there was no hint of an opening there anymore.

  Piano music suddenly started up and I nearly jumped through my skin. I spun around. It was Izzy, pounding out a pretty smoking version of “St. James Infirmary” on the old piano up near the bar. He looked up at me, saw my expression and laughed.

  “Sorry, Quentin. I used to play. Haven’t had much chance to lately.”

  “You just cost me one of my nine lives.”

  “I thought you used up nine already. I’m guessing you have a lot more.”

  “Actually, aside from the part of it being unexpected, that was pretty good. I’d love to hear it sometime.”

  We followed Saripha through a door back behind the antique bar.

  This was the living area she apparently used. There was a large open space with a couple of odd trees growing in it and two openings at either end. There was a table, an assortment of chairs and a large divan-like shape carved out of smooth stone. Guido used that when he and Saripha spent time together as it would support his massive weight. Through the openings was a hallway that curved back, off of which were several guest rooms. I came back into the open area.

  “This is where you lived with Guido?”

  “Sort of.” Saripha had a look that was an odd combination of amusement and mystery.

  “Sort of?”

  “The ‘with Guido’ is ‘sort of.’ He gave me this place to stay in. He would show up from time to time and sometimes we would drink and listen to music in the jazz club. We would talk, but you know how hard that is for him. Most of the time we would do something I called communing, where our minds would touch and I would feel in harmony with him.”

  “You loved him.”

  “I suppose I did and still do. However, you can’t put simple words from our experience on Kanarchan.” Saripha used his real name. “He is, I believe, a very ancient and probably very alien being. I do know he cared for me greatly, but I have no idea how to characterize our ties.”

  “So he hung out here. Where did he live? What did he do when he wasn’t here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You weren’t curious?”

  Saripha paused. “Of course I was.”

  “It didn’t bother you that you didn’t know?”

  “I trusted him. Quentin, you keep trying to turn this into a normal human relationship. I have a very open mind and there were aspects of it that was hard, but I never questioned it. It felt right.”

  “Except now we don’t know how to look for him.”

  “Are you going to blame Saripha for that?” Izzy looked straight at me.

  “Yeah, busted. Sorry, Saripha, this
is all overwhelming and I’m a little bit losing my mind.”

  Saripha’s look softened with compassion. “This is a lot to work through. How do you want to handle this?’

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because you usually have a plan.”

  “Yeah, but that usually involves having someone whose ass I can go kick even if they are more powerful that I am. Right now, I don’t even know who I am after.”

  “Then you’ll do what you always do,” Izzy offered.

  “Which is?”

  “Poke around until you get someone annoyed at you and then kick their ass.”

  “That does sound like me, doesn’t it?”

  Saripha remained focused and patient. “We need to start with sessions in which we build a connection between you and that blue power inside you and strengthen your ability to draw it out.”

  “That sounds like a long-term project.”

  “Might be, might not be. However, you won’t be able to keep at it for long periods of time. We will have to rest frequently.”

  “Then I guess we can use that down time to start exploring this city to see if there are any clues about Guido.”

  “Ah ha,” Izzy announced. “A plan.”

  The next few weeks seemed like a blur for me. We kept busy. I had to because every time I let my thoughts return to the fact that Rox had been taken by the Angel, I grew angry and it took every ounce of will not to go running off into the mountains to search every inch of Hell looking for her. It was, of course, an impossible task. Kyo had always said Hell was a very big place. We knew nothing about the Angel or where she was when she wasn’t trying to… whatever that bloody angel was trying to do. I knew under the sweet exterior lurked a monster, a very powerful monster. We had to wait for what was really going on to be revealed to us in some way. It was tearing me apart thinking of what might be happening to Rox, but I had to wait. This was Hell, after all.

  We would start the day and end the day with training. This just about drove me nuts as it began very slowly. Saripha worked with me to focus on my breathing. I was learning to meditate. I understood the value of quieting down your mind and oxygenating your body, but it felt like a colossal waste of time. I trusted Saripha, so I kept at it. Izzy did it to show his support. I think he was hoping it would be easier if there were two of us doing it. It wasn’t, but I appreciated what he was trying to do.

  After about two weeks of this, Saripha began to apply pressure along my back with her fingertips. At first it was like someone just poking my back. It felt okay. Sometimes there was a muscle knot or two and she would work them out. I guess glamour bodies get tension too. However, then I started feeling energy from her fingertips when she touched me in certain ways along my spine. At first it created warmth at the base of my spine. Then, slowly, that warmth would start moving up, feeling more—electrical is the only word that comes to mind.

  She also had me doing exercises. I was confused at first, because my body was in pretty good shape. Mostly it was because I had an overinflated sense of myself and our bodies reflected how we thought of ourselves. However, I soon realized none of the exercises were particularly strenuous. They rotated through different muscle systems, but were actually more focused on coordination, using opposite arms and legs and other cross-body exercises. Others were very specifically focused on balance, such as standing on one foot. I began to let my impatience show. What did this have to do with anything? Saripha, who was always patient with me, explained that an important foundation to the harder work was body awareness.

  Between the morning and evening sessions, Izzy and I explored the abandoned city. We had never spent all that much time here. When we came to see Guido and Saripha, we mostly spent time in the jazz café which Guido seemed to like or Saripha’s living spaces. I never had figured out what the jazz café was all about. It didn’t fit in at all with the rest of the abandoned city. It was literally a small dark bar with tile floor and an old polished wood bar. There were old wooden tables spread around and you could almost smell the bourbon and cigarettes, except there had probably not been anyone in the club with either smokes or drinks. Guido must have created it. Was it a memory or something else?

  We had a glimpse of the city when we buried Saripha in the pool, but exploring it now was breathtaking. It was also completely deserted. Most of it was still intact, a silent witness to some earlier era in this place. Most of the material used seemed to be polished stone. It was hard to tell if it had been carved out or somehow tooled over a framework. However it was done, the surface was like polished marble and the shapes were curved rather than blocky.

  The interiors were all starkly empty. There might be scoops carved into the walls that would allow one to sit and recline and a few carved surfaces that could have served as tables, but everything was bare. There were no signs of use, no artifacts, and no textiles. Everything was bare and soulless, which made the place feel more haunted.

  Our combing through the city turned up nothing. Nothing about whoever or whatever had called this home and nothing about Guido or where he had gone. For the first time since I had arrived in this place I felt like I had no options, not even an inkling of even a foolish plan that would help either Guido or Rox.

  “There’s one more place I can think of to look for Guido.” Saripha and I had been meditating as we always did at the beginning of a training session when I announced this. Meditation was supposed to calm me, focus my mind, and allow us to be more in tune. It usually didn’t work. She eased her breath out. Her face was absolutely glowing. I was assuming this stuff worked for her. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

  “And where would that be, my distractible friend,” she said, not without compassion.

  “He drew me into a place once. I don’t even know if it’s a real place. It may just be in my head. However, he said we could meet there sometimes and it was easier for him to talk.”

  “The underground room,” Saripha said.

  “It’s a real place then?”

  “I’ve never been there, but we also would go there in our minds.”

  She took my hands.

  “Let’s go there together. Breathe. Concentrate.”

  “We can do that?”

  Izzy chuckled. He usually sat quietly in the back of the room while we did the training. Mostly he was keeping watch in case someone came looking for us, although that seemed more and more unnecessary.

  “She’s a witch. She can do anything.”

  “Shhh,” Saripha admonished, but her eyes smiled.

  As I had done on other occasions, I closed my eyes and tried to feel myself sink into myself. I felt an unusual energy passing through me, but I thought that might be the contact with Saripha. Her hands were strong and warm. Then, it was as if there was no floor and I was gliding down into darkness.

  I landed easily on my feet. I was standing in a chamber. It looked just as it had before. The floor was polished black rock, or at least it seemed like rock. There was just enough light to see, though I really couldn’t tell what the source was. To one side was a ring of seven stands, four of which held talismans like the one I had. The two other missing ones had been used by Shades we had encountered, first Janovic and then Baron Steel. I didn’t really understand what the talismans were, but they contained powers. That’s what Saripha and I were working on. I had absorbed one of these powers into my body. It also seemed to be accompanied by an alien-feeling intelligence, but I wasn’t sure that wasn’t just how I experienced the strangeness of the power in my body. Saripha was helping me learn to control it.

  Saripha glided down next to me.

  “So you have been here before?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “What is this place?”

  I think it’s a created place, similar to where Janovic trapped you. Because it’s not entirely physical, he can communicate easier here.”

  “But the talismans are real?” I pointed.

  “Couldn’t say.
They are real somewhere. Don’t know why they’re included here.”

  “Maybe we are supposed to do something with them.”

  Saripha laughed.

  “You are having enough trouble mastering the talisman you have. I don’t think you need another.”

  We looked about but, other than some odd artifacts which at least I couldn’t identify, there were no signs of Guido. We both called out in our minds, but no answer came.

  Saripha shook her head, sadly.

  “We won’t be able to contact him here. It’s like he is gone.”

  “Not dead?” I asked, concerned.

  “No. I’d know if he were dead. And I don’t think there is any type of imprisonment that would keep him from reaching out.”

  “Then what?”

  Saripha didn’t say anything for a long moment. She stood with her face turned up as if listening.

  “It’s as if he’s dropped off of the world. He’s just gone. My connection to him is still there, but he is gone. I can’t find him at the other end of that connection.”

  Then Saripha turned to me and smiled strangely.

  “I don’t think anyone else knows where he is either.”

  Without further explanation, she took my hand and I felt us being pulled back up through the darkness. Then we were back in the room, sitting across from each other, holding hands. Our eyes opened.

  “Welcome back,” Izzy said cheerily.

  “Yeah, big deal,” I complained. “The more we work, the less we seem to know about Guido or Rox and their whereabouts.”

  I could feel the anger starting to well back up. I pulled myself up and, without saying anything, I walked forcefully out into the ancient city.

  It was night and two moons cast a glow, making everything look ghostly with deep shadows. I ran fueled by the anger in my chest. I wanted demons or someone to do violence to. I had been sitting on my worry about Rox and my resentment that I had failed to protect her too long and finally, when I piled on the frustration with not finding Guido, I just burst. I ran down a long avenue and finally emerged into a large moonlit plaza with a rounded globe carved out of stone. I came to an abrupt stop and felt the rage channeling through my body. I screamed and my body turned blue. Then, suddenly, there in front of me was a blue cloud of fine crystals. The cloud swirled and began to almost congeal into the form of a man. Red eyes appeared. Blue lightning licked around him. He hadn’t completely formed, but he just stared at me. Enraged, I grabbed a large stone and ran at whatever it was, but it was already fading. I launched the stone. It flew through the air, empty save for a few fading blue tendrils. The last thing to fade were the red eyes. The stone hit the globe, bouncing off noisily and hitting the ground. I collapsed on my knees, spent.