“Lightning!” He commanded.
Blue white forks of electricity shot from his staff, frying four goblins at a time.
And yet, the river of goblins continued to flow.
The curtain of smoke opened wider, allowing the little green bastards to leap out six at a time. And it continued to widen. Soon the curtain would be completely open and the portal within would stretch along the back wall. If the goblin horde was as endless as it appeared to be, we’d be overwhelmed in a matter of minutes.
“Oz,” I shouted over the sounds of gunfire, crackling electricity, and hissing goblins. “We’re gonna need some kinda magic nuke or something here. What’s the plan?”
“I, uh,” Oz said, looking more than a little flustered.
“Oz!” I yelled.
“I need time to think,” he said.
“Okay, we need to get out of this room,” I said. “If we can get through the door at the top of the stairs then we can bottleneck them, only one or two can get through at a time. We can pick them off, give Oz some time to work his stuff.”
There were now almost twenty goblins in the lab with us, and half that sprawled unmoving on the floor. A dark red cloud blew out from the oncoming horde and flew at us like the spray from twenty fire extinguishers.
“Out!” I shouted. “Now!”
“Wind!” Oz commanded and a great blowing gust roared from the staff, pushing most of the cloud back.
“I can’t see!” Diana called out. “I’m blind.”
She must have gotten a dose of the red mist. God love her though, she wasn’t panicking. She was shouting, sure, but that was only to get her voice above all the clamor.
“Oz!” I yelled. “Get her out of here.”
Oz took her by the arm and led her from the room. I was right behind, reloading as I backed away.
Then a goblin was on me, leaping into the air and sinking its sharp teeth into the flesh of my shoulder. It bit through the coat and shirt to get to me. I could feel the blood gushing almost immediately.
I screamed and tore it off of me, taking some of my shoulder with it.
As I crossed the threshold into the room with the giant television, which was still showing the Bob Ross program, I could see that there were no more goblins spilling from the portal. But there were still plenty that had come through and were still alive and kicking. Two dozen at least.
The bodies of those that had fallen had formed a small barrier between us and them. It slowed them down a little as they climbed over their slain comrades. It allowed me the time needed to finish loading both Peacemakers. I slid the last cartridge into place and then let loose once again as I backed up the stairs.
Twelve shots and seven steps later and I stood empty at the top of the stairs. The goblin horde almost on top of me. I began the reload process again, knowing that I wouldn’t finish in time, knowing that I’d have to face the creatures with fist and foot.
Goblins, as I told Diana earlier, have no beef with humans. Under normal circumstances, they leave us alone. But they are vicious and highly dangerous creatures, as they were proving today. One alone is fairly deadly. I had near a dozen that were close enough to tear out my throat.
Then Grace was there beside me, pulling me off of the stairs and into the living room behind her. She held a glowing crystal the size of a grapefruit in her open palm. She still wore her flour covered apron and the look on her face was enough to lock my bowels up for the next two weeks.
Grace held the crystal out before her, and the goblins, seeing it there in her hand, stopped their ascent and shied away.
“Shine,” she said in a calm, soft voice.
The glow from the crystal grew in intensity.
“Shine,” she said again.
A light shot from the crystal and enveloped the goblins on the stairs. They squealed and screamed as their skin blackened and cracked under the harsh light.
Grace didn’t move. She stood before the burning goblins like an angry statue.
“Shine!” she called out in a loud, clear voice.
The light grew so bright that the goblins disappeared under its intensity.
That’s when Grace began to waver. She swayed and looked as if she might pass out. But Oz was suddenly behind her.
“Hang in there, Hon,” he said, holding her up. “It’s almost over. You’re doing great.”
The light was so intense that it began to hum and for a moment I feared that it would come back on us. But then, in the blink of an eye, the light was out. The crystal was nothing more than ash in her palm.
Grace crumpled, but Oz caught her in his arms and dropped with her, cushioning her fall and laying her gently on the floor.
“Did it work?” She asked, her voice weak and unsure.
“You got ‘em,” Oz said, shining a proud smile.
I went over to the stairs and found eleven small piles of ash on the steps, and the floor in front of them. That was all that was left of the goblins. Nothing more than ash.
“Dang, Grace,” I said with respect. “You whooped their butts.”
“What happened?” Diana asked. She was sitting on a couch to the right.
I went to her and sat down.
“We won,” I said.
“I can’t see anything,” she said. Still no panic, she was just stating a fact.
“Yeah,” I said. “The goblin mist can have that effect of folks. Don’t worry. It ain’t permanent. You’ll have your sight back by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she asked. Now some panic managed to creep its way in. But not for her. “They are going to kill Maggie tonight. I have to be able to see.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” I said. “I’ll get her out in time.”
“How?” she said. “We don’t know where she is. The wizard’s spell failed.”
“There’s another way,” Oz said. He still kneeled on the floor next to Grace.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We still have her hair,” Oz said. “I can use it to make a tracking potion. It will take longer, it has to brew for a few hours, but once you take it you should be able to find her anywhere.”
“A few hours?” I looked at the clock on the wall. “Maggie may not have that long.”
“It’s the best we got.”
“And what about Grace?” I asked. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“That was a powerful magical object she used. It took a lot out of her, but it’s nothing that a little rest won’t cure,” Oz said.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Grace said. Her voice was still weak, but it sure was feisty.
“See?” Oz smiled.
I stood and paced for a moment, thinking.
“Okay,” I said. “You get started on that potion. In the meantime, I’ll take Diana back to the station and then see if I can’t kick over a couple of rocks and try to find out where the Brotherhood has set up shop. See if I can’t get the chance to get at them a little earlier than a few hours from now.”
“Grace,” I said, kneeling down to her. “You are a true warrior. You really saved our bacon today. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Are you kidding,” she said. “What was I supposed to do, let a couple dozen goblins tramp all over my clean house?”
We laughed and I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
“You are a treasure, Grace. A real treasure,” I said.
She only smiled and said: “You want to take some cookies with you when you go?”
I declined.
Ten minutes later Diana and I were back in her squad car, but this time I was driving.
“You mind if we stop for something to drink?” She asked. Her eyes were open, but they weren’t focused on anything.
“I ain’t much of a drinker,” I said. “And besides, blind or not, you’re still on duty.”
“I wasn’t talking about alcohol, you jerk,” she said with a smile. “I could really go for a soda right now. A fountain drink.”<
br />
I took us to the Kwik Stop. They had a self-service soda fountain inside. I could have gone the the Happy Hamburger, but it didn’t feel right. Not while Maggie was still missing.
“So, you do this sort of thing all the time?” Diana asked once I’d returned with her soda.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, I get soda a lot, but I’ve never brought a blind Police Officer along in her own squad car.”
She laughed.
“No, I mean this magic stuff,” she said. “Ogres, and goblins, and wizards.”
“Oh my,” I said.
“Funny.” She didn’t laugh that time.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do this sort of thing all the time. Not everyday, thank God, but work is steady.”
“I had no idea all this was going on around us,” she said. “It’s like a whole other world.”
“It can certainly feel like that,” I said. “But you’ve just had another layer pulled back.”
“And so this is what you do?” She said. “You help people. You literally protect people from monsters.”
“I try.”
“How long have you been fighting monsters?” She asked. “How does one get started in the monster fighting business.”
“That’s a pretty long story,” I said. “I mean, to be honest, the short version is that I don’t rightly know.”
“Now that just sounds stupid,” she said. “How can you not know.”
“Well, one day I just kinda woke up. I had no idea who I was, how I got there, where I came from, nothing.”
“You’re kidding me,” she said.
“Nope.”
“When was this?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
She turned and pointed her sightless eyes in my direction.
“Norman,” she said. “In less than twenty-four hours I have fought ogres, met a good wizard, met a dark wizard, and was blinded by a pack of blood-thirsty goblins. I don’t know that there is anything you can tell me right now that I won’t believe.”
“You’ve got a good point there,” I said. “Okay. Well, does August the Twenty-first, 1863 mean anything to you?”
“No,” she said. “Should it?”
“It’s the day that Quantrill’s Raiders attacked Lawrence, Kansas and burned most of the town to the ground.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve heard about that. I mean, I went to high school. But what does that have to do with you.”
“That’s the day I woke up.”
34
AUGUST 21, 1863
I OPENED MY EYES and found myself in Hell.
The world roared around me in a demonic orchestra of heat and flame, smoke and ash, and the inhuman screams of the dying. The sound hammered at me, beat me down. The heat blistered my skin and burned my lungs. The smoke stung my eyes and choked me, stealing my breath.
I lay sprawled on a dirt floor, but beyond that, could make nothing more out of my surroundings. Only black smoke and orange flame. Nothing about this place stirred any memories. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. These two points however, seemed insignificant alongside my desire to escape. But how? All I could see was fire. What would the world look like beyond the flames?
The heat continued to pummel at me like a million tiny fists. I tried to rise but couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, there was nothing but smoke in my lungs.
That was how I died.
All that was, had ceased to be. All that had been, was nothingness.
Nothing but blackness.
Void.
I floated in the Black, the Void, and found comfort in it, a familiarity that bespoke of eternity. It was as if the Black and I were old friends. But something tugged at me, an instinct that told me that I shouldn’t stay. The Black was a rest stop, nothing more. To remain would mean an end to who I was.
An end to who I am.
Who I am.
Who am I?
I could recall nothing before the Black. Nothing but... fire?
Hell.
Yes, I had been in Hell. Now I was dead.
But before Hell?
Nothing.
It was as if my memories were just gone.
But that couldn’t be right.
Surely I could recall my name. I reached for it, but it was like grabbing at smoke.
Why couldn’t I find my name? Everyone has a name? Did I have a name? Who am I? Without a name, did that mean I didn’t exist? Panic took hold of my heart.
I swam on, searching, desperate to find a memory, any memory to grab hold of. I found only emptiness.
Then, suddenly before me was a vast mirror. I gazed into its shimmering surface and found nothing but a blurred mist in the shape of a man that stared back at me. I screamed as the real world crashed over me in a cacophony of sounds and chaos.
I opened his eyes and I was back in Hell.
Yet, I wasn’t.
I was on my back in the dirt. The flames, the heat, the smoke, all were there, just not as intense. As my surroundings grew clearer I could hear now that the screams were those of dying horses. All around me, among the dirt, lay patches of hay.
This was not Hell.
The knowledge brought me a renewed hope and I was on my feet in an instant. I was in a horse barn, though beyond that, I was uncertain. The horses, those that were not already dead or dying, bucked and screamed in their stalls, kicking at the doors that held them in as the flames engulfed the structure around them.
I spun in a circle, looking for a way out, a break in the wall of fire, but I found nothing. I was trapped.
The smoke surrounded me, obscuring my vision. I doubled over, coughing. I was going to pass out again, leave this world once more for the Black. But then the front half of the barn collapsed before me, leaving a smoldering mound of wood with a bright hole beyond that lead to the open air.
I ran to the stalls and gave the horses their freedom. I followed, emerging into sunlight and chaos.
Most of the surrounding buildings were on fire.
Gunshots and screams were everywhere. The street teamed with men on horseback, soldiers in gray uniforms. Among them were their victims. Women, children, the elderly, the soldiers seemed not to care. They shot with callous indiscrimination, and the people fell all around.
I looked to the dead in the street and my anger rose. I went for my guns, finding them gone.
Guns?
It had pure instinct to go for them, and for a moment I could see myself wearing a pair of revolver, low on each hip. But then the memory was gone, like mist on a hot day.
I struggled for more, to know more about myself. My past, my name. But I found more of the nothingness that was my memory. It was as if I had just sprung into the world from nothing.
Two of the soldiers must have noticed me standing there, alone in the street. They broke off from the main unit. Like the others, they wore the uniforms of the Confederacy.
How did I know that? How is it that I recognize the uniforms, but I can’t recall my own name?
“Look at what we have here, Bill,” one of the soldiers said. He was fat. Too fat to be on horseback. And his head was nothing but hair. “A Yankee boy.”
Yankee? I looked down at myself for the first time and saw that I was wearing Union blue. A memory slammed into my head and I nearly fell over.
A war? The war between the states. I was a soldier for the North. Why could I recall that memory, but nothing more specific?
“Shoot him, Dan,” the other said. This one was tall and lanky with a meticulously trimmed beard and mustache. “Shoot him, or I will.”
“What’s your name, boy?” the fat one said.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.
“Look at his arm, Bill,” the fat one, Dan, said.
I couldn’t help but follow their eyes to my right bicep. Tied to it was a broad strip of dark green fabric.
“The Captain’s gonna want to see this one,” Bill said.
&n
bsp; Dan pointed his rile at me and once more I was filled with an unbridled rage.
“Let’s go, Mister,” Dan said.
“Where?” I said, speaking for the first time. Even my voice was unfamiliar.
“The Captain is gonna want to ask you a few questions,” Dan said.
“Captain?” I asked.
“Quantrill,” Dan said, jerking his rifle quickly to the right, motioning for me to move.
Quantrill. Now that was a name I knew. I looked once more at the green arm band, running my hand over it. The band meant something. I could feel that it was important. But trying to get hold of the memory was like trying to catch water with a net.
“We ain’t asking you twice, Yankee,” Bill said, leaning out over his horse and spitting.
Just then a woman stumbled out of a building to our left. She jerked with surprise and fear at seeing the soldiers and took off running down the street. Her dress was in tatters and her skin was covered in ash and burns. Bill pulled a pistol and shot her down. The two shared a smile.
“These Jayhawkers die quick, wouldn’t you say, Dan?”
The two soldiers laughed.
And like that, I was on them.
One moment I was looking at the body of the woman, the next I casually stepped up to the fat man’s horse where a Navy Colt sat in a saddle holster.
“What do you—” Dan said.
I pulled the pistol from Dan’s saddle and in one smooth motion, thumbed back the hammer and fired.
The fat man fell from his horse and moved no more.
“Dan!” Bill said, taking aim.
But he too fell beneath my stolen gun.
A bugle sounded from behind and I spun. A Confederate soldier on horseback behind me blew a few quick notes on a dented bugle.
“A Yankee!” the bugler shouted. “A Green Arm!”
Until the bugle had sounded, I’d nearly forgotten that I wasn’t alone with the two dead soldiers. All around me other soldiers had turned to see what the commotion was about. But before any of them could so much as raise a gun, I ran.
I felt no shame in it. Somewhere deep down I knew that I was no coward. I knew when to fight and when to flee. And when faced with over a hundred men on horseback, flight was the sensible option.
I ducked into a building with a sign that hailed it as the Eldridge. There were more soldiers inside. They were all seated around a table, eating a lavishly presented meal with their hands like pigs in a fancy restaurant.
The Adventures of Norman Oklahoma Volume One Page 19
