The man’s arm trembled. His freckled white finger tapped the trigger anxiously. “Back against that wall. Please!” The radio on his shoulder crackled and a woman’s voice recited numeric codes.
Four of us approached, arms wide out. The law enforcer backed and his gun went side to side. He stepped inside the Lung Spike’s influence and at once began coughing into his fist, his airway constricting. The tension in his lungs caught him by surprise, and with another step he dropped his weapon.
The Third leapt forward and kicked the gun down the influenced street. Bullets would not harm us, but we were not given to invite unnecessary bee stings either. There was nothing to prove. Minutes without physical suffering were ambrosia for us, but never expected.
The man gagged at the threshold of influence. The Fourth and Fifth seized him, but he handled their momentum with expert grace, using one of the Fifth’s suspenders to twist away from their reach. It was no matter, however. The Second and Sixth captured him thereafter.
We dragged the man out of the Spike’s influence where he could regain control of his body once more. A new plan developed in our minds. This is how we could deceive the banshee. This was perfect! We relished the sight of the red-haired man like a found lucky charm. And with every inch of his flesh, our godsend.
He will do well. Our eyes widened with delight. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
YES.
The Fourth ripped at his own left tricep and pulled free some flesh. We gritted our teeth at the sacrifice. The Fourth staggered nearer to the law enforcer and scrubbed the bloody tissue over the panicking man’s face. “Stop! What are you doing! Stop!” he cried.
“Welcome to the Assembly,” we told the man.
“W-w-w… what?” he gasped, eyes searching everywhere.
The Third unbuckled his suspenders and drew down his pants.
“Take off your clothes,” we said to the law enforcer with a mirthful snort. “Time to change uniforms.”
Chapter 10
Jared
The box of detergent seemed twice as heavy once they crossed over La Habra city limits.
“Wish we brought a wagon,” Jared said, and once again changed the box to his other hand. “Are you sure we need this stuff?”
“Yes, and I told you I could take a turn,” Banch replied.
“I’ve got it.”
“I’m stronger than you,” she insisted.
“You’re already doing enough—how’s your eyesight?”
Banch’s vision had suffered after the Swell; temporary cataracts had formed in her blue eyes, and their normal sky blue color took the appearance of an overcast winter afternoon. Her mood had been slightly in line with this as well, and despite them being less cloudy now her gloominess continued to prevail. She blinked a lot but her face was otherwise expressionless.
“Banch, did you hear me? Are your eyes getting better?”
She nodded that she was fine. Another ten minutes of silence fell between them. Jared switched hands again with the detergent.
“What’s your favorite song?” Banch suddenly asked.
“Wow, where did that come from?”
“You’ve listened to many songs,” she explained, stepping over a piece of sidewalk lifted from a tree root. “I know those songs you’ve listened to over and over again but there isn’t one I’d bet on as your favorite.”
“Free Fallin’—”
“By Tom Petty?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“I don’t even recall you listened to that a lot.”
“I guess I don’t want to wear it out.”
“Would you do that?” Banch nudged him.
“What?”
“Freefall? Skydive?”
“Oh, hell no.” He shivered at the thought.
“You could go in tandem with someone. I’ve never presided over a death from a skydiver. It doesn’t happen that often.”
“Still, no.”
“Well, you don’t have much time left in this world.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” he muttered.
“I’m being serious.” Banch glanced over through some swaying purple steel threads of hair. “What would make you happy?”
He shrugged. “I don’t ever think like that.”
“I know, so I’m making you think that way.”
He shrugged again and twisted his mouth a bit. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“I want to live. How’s that?”
“Tell me what would have made you happy before you got that news,” she said. “I’ve watched you stare up at your ceilings some nights. I always wondered what you were thinking during those times.”
“Nothing much.”
“I doubt that.”
“Like it or not, sometimes I don’t have an answer for your questions.”
“I’ll remember that next time you ask about the Deeper Unseen.”
“Oh come on, you’re from a different dimension. Asking that stuff would be natural for anybody,” he said.
“I’m just as interested in your mind, as you are my dimension. Okay?”
“Fair enough.” He thought about switching hands again but decided to wait it out longer. “So, let me see. When I’m in my bed, usually I’m thinking about how it would be…”
“Yes?”
“To be a different person.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “If I were more like Kaitlin. If I were freer, less trapped in myself. I sometimes think I used to be someone else but I lost that person somewhere along the way. I guess I just want the anxiety of life to go away. I want to be at peace with myself and with the world. It’s a pretty stupid thing to wish for.”
“Not at all.”
“Some people would want fame or fortune, but I just want to be rid of my hang-ups. I just don’t want to worry about anything anymore.”
“They have drugs for that you know.”
“Very funny.”
Banch flashed a winning smile and pinched his cheek. “I know what you’re saying, honey. And if we had more time I would show you how to strip away those layers. I sense greatness in you, Jared.”
“Thanks, but I have no idea how you can see that.”
“I see it because it’s there, knocking on the other side of the door. When you pass on, I imagine your soul’s beauty would finally be able to shine.” Tears jeweled on her eyes. “It makes me so happy to imagine you separated from all your prisons.”
“You want me dead?”
“Shut up, you know what I mean.”
He found himself smiling. “When you put it that way, being dead doesn’t seem as awful.”
“It isn’t awful or wonderful, it just is,” said Banch.
They came to a crosswalk and stopped.
“We have to press the button.” Jared felt his spine go straight and heartbeat quicken.
“Go ahead. You’re closer,” said Banch.
“Can’t you just do it? My fingers are numb from carrying the box.”
The banshee lifted an eyebrow and chewed her lip a moment. “Why won’t you press it?”
“I just don’t want to.”
“Really? Come on. It is because of that time when you were a kid—”
“No,” he snapped. “It isn’t.”
“You want to throw off your self-imposed burdens, here’s an easy one, buddy. Push the damn button.”
“I never go across major streets.”
“You are now,” she insisted.
“This is bad luck.”
“No such thing.”
“Fine,” he said, reaching over, “but if something happens…”
“What will happen, Jared?”
He pushed the button and she watched him closely. It was infuriating how lovely she remained while making him feel like a cowardly freak at the same time.
“My dear—”
“Don’t call me that,” he replied sharply.
“Call me dead meat. That’s what I am. That’s what you’ve been thinking about since Kaitlin’s, isn’t it? That’s why you’re so quiet.”
“Nice guess, but not even close.”
“What are you hiding?”
“No, no, don’t twist this up. We’re talking about you, sir.” Banch motioned to the street. “Light’s changed.”
Jared carefully stepped into the street, checking that no cars were flying down the road at an unreasonable speed.
“You’re going to be okay.”
He gave a low growl. “Banch, why can’t a person just be uncomfortable with something? Why do they have to be defective? I thought you understood but I guess not.”
“Oh please, Jared, are you kidding? Stop feeling sorry for yourself for two seconds.”
He went silent and his heart did several of those odd beats. He tried to put it out of his mind like they never happened. They went several blocks before Banch said, “Tell me one thing you’re completely comfortable with. Just one.”
The answer came easy. “Sketching.”
She smiled at him. “I love your art.”
“Thank you.” He blushed and swung the detergent back and forth anxiously. “It’s silly stuff but I enjoy it.”
“I always wondered why you never became an artist.”
“Not that good and there’s no real money in the things I draw.”
“Money makes the fish swim,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“It’s a saying from the Deeper Unseen. Sorry. It’s too obscure to explain.”
“I appreciate that.”
Banch laughed but abruptly threw her arm across his chest, holding him back.
Jared’s head spun and mouth went dry. “What is it? Is it them?”
The banshee squeezed her forehead, closed her eyes. “We cannot step any farther on this path. They mean to limit the routes there—yes, of course. I wondered when they’d try this.”
“The Assembly? I thought they were far away.”
Banch turned to him. “Oh, they’re never far, Jared. But don’t freak. Just let me think up something.”
He looked ahead. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “What’s the big deal? Why can’t we keep walking. I don’t get it.”
“Take one step in that direction, down that street.”
Jared went forward. In the next moment two unseen hands took his lungs and clenched them almost completely shut. He croaked, nearly dropped the detergent, but Banch pulled him back and his lungs released. For a few minutes he violently coughed, his body shaking and eyes watering.
“So now you see, we will be forced to walk the streets they choose for us—all other paths will do this to you. All open streets we can take will lead us right to them.” Her sparkling eyes searched to a destination unknown. “I assume they’ve implemented a Lung Spike—they sometimes use them around their fortress in the Deeper Unseen to corral escaped prisoners.”
“That’s a horrible feeling.” Jared lightly touched his throat. “What’s going to happen to people on these streets? They’re going to suffocate?”
“No; they’ll pass out but won’t be deprived of air completely. They’ll fall into a coma until the Lung Spike is removed.”
“Shit… So what do we do?”
“We cannot be directed by them, obviously, and need to deactivate the Spike. It can be done, but there’s a catch.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Big, big catch,” she said. “Which makes this more difficult and dangerous.”
“Are you going to tell me?” he asked.
“Since they are directly linked with the Lung Spike, the easiest way to break their connection will be to disturb that bond. Once that occurs, the device will not be able to have residence here and will self-destruct. That will immediately open up the paths again for us, so we can continue on.”
“How do you disturb their bond with the Lung Spike?” he asked.
“I need to physically touch one of the Assembly.”
“Touch one of them?” Jared drew back, appalled. “Like with your fingers?”
“Should I use a kiss?”
“I’m not joking!”
“Neither am I,” she laughed. “It might be fun to see their reaction.”
“Stop it.”
“Well, stop asking dippy questions then.”
“How will you get close enough to touch them…”
Banch held up a hand. “You’re going to help with that. Come on.”
She switched directions and headed down the opposite street.
“Is this the area with that Cajun kitchen? The one where you and Kaitlin sometimes go for lunch?” she asked him.
“Yeah, it’s a couple blocks up the way. Kind of expensive though.”
“Perfect. Do you think there will be a crowd this time of day?”
“People are getting off work. There’s a bar.”
“But is it crowded?”
“Most times, yes. It’s pretty popular.”
“This is wonderful.” She dragged him forward. “What’s this place called again? I never bothered to catch that.”
“The Bayou Cat.”
She grinned. “Cute!”
“Are you hungry or something?”
“Always, but that isn’t why we’re going there. We need help with a few items and a place where I can join with my twin.”
Jared cocked his head. “Twin? You never mentioned her before.”
“She doesn’t exist in this reality… yet.”
“You lost me.”
“As it is, just my touching them wouldn’t disturb the bond enough. Well, not to the extent we require. The Assembly would fight to retain their bond. There has to be even more dimensional interference. So that’s why I will perform a Fusing Scream, which will pull a different version of me from an alternate reality completely—a different set of dimensions.”
“I don’t follow.”
“If your universe and mine were all pages in a book that made up the multiverse, the Banch I will summon comes not only from a different book, but from an entirely different bookshelf. This Banch will have lived her life most likely in an extremely different way than I lived mine, because her reality will be drastically dissimilar to ours. Because you see, Jared, that even though I come from another dimensional space, our worlds do share the same reality. We are, in fact, in the same book.”
“Can I just go on record to say that’s very, very weird, Banch?”
“While my twin resides in this world, anything we come in contact with long enough will cause the object to aggressively disassociate from reality, since dimensional logic breaks down, you see. The Assembly will have to struggle to stay resident in this reality and in order to do that, they will be forced to let the Spike go.”
“Then what?”
“This is where you help. I need you to escort my twin back to the exact place I Fused. She’ll be nearby somewhere and I’ll show you how to find her. After the Spike’s destruction, dimensional logic will restore itself. My twin and I will both return to where we came from, but only if she shares my same space at that moment.” Banch looked at him with surgical appraisal. “Let me say that again because you looked out to lunch. She has to share the same space with me at that moment.”
“I heard you the first time,” Jared grumbled. “But okay, I’m going to pretend I understand all of that. What if I can’t get her back to the place where you Fused?”
Banch pressed her lips together. “We will Self-Destruct along with the Spike, I imagine.”
“Are you kidding? That’s friggin great. How will I even get to your twin with the streets choking the life out of me? And how will you get near the Assembly without them seeing you?”
“I’ll worry about that, and as far as getting through these streets, that’s where this place comes in.”
They stood outside the Bayou Cat. The host, a tall bald man in round spectacles, opened the door with a big grin, “Hi folks, coming in
? Table for two?”
Banch slipped her arm through Jared’s. He switched the detergent to the other hand and put it behind his back.
“Yes, for two,” he said, and then followed the host into the black-lit innards of the restaurant. The host sat them at the far back end of the building. Kaitlin would have asked for a different table, since it was so near the kitchen and clattering dishes unnerved her. Banch, on the other hand, was all smiles, almost giddy. It was the best mood he’d seen her in since the Swell.
“Your server will be right with you,” said the host before departing.
Banch nodded and picked up her menu. Jared studied her a moment. Her full lips parted as she took a breath and held his hand.
“Wh—”
A sound came forward and Jared saw everything masked in gold for a flash. It happened so fast he didn’t have a chance to be frightened.
“Don’t worry,” said Banch, cutting off his question.
“I wasn’t ready! Was that a Fusing Scream?”
“No, calm down,” she replied with a wink. “We’re not ready for that one yet.”
The waiter came up and blinked at them as though freshly awakened. “Whatever you need,” he said with an unnatural smile. “Tell me what I can do for you both. Please.”
“Why thank you, sir,” Banch said. “We need you to find who has the fastest car in the parking lot. Oh and a Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.”
“At once.” The waiter bowed deeply and hurried off.
“The hell was that?” asked Jared.
“It’s long for SCUBA.”
“I know what that is! Why was that waiter acting like a slave?”
“The Gilded Scream,” Banch replied. “Everyone in the restaurant will do what we wish them to now. They’ll also offer blindly to give us presents—”
Divine_Scream Page 9
