Stillbringer

by Zile Elliven

  A sound like thunder vibrated the walls around them. Neither guardian looked concerned, but Fourteen had already been in one rockslide this evening and didn’t like the idea of another.

  Jack plopped his bulk on the ground next to Fourteen’s feet and went to work. “You might want to hold on to something, I’m going to need to layer this over the soles.” From his pocket he produced something egg-shaped that caught the light and refracted it, sending it bouncing off the walls.

  Fourteen was forced to look away before its brightness completely ruined his eyes for night fighting. This turned out to be a mistake as Jack chose that moment to lift Fourteen’s boot off the ground. Only years of training kept him on his remaining foot.

  Adelle held out her arm in offering, but Fourteen ignored it. “She’s safe for now. I juiced her brother up before I left—right now his shield could hold off a tank. Don’t worry, we’ll be back before it breaks.”

  Jack dropped Fourteen’s boot and hoisted the other one into his lap, forcing Fourteen to grab Adelle’s still-proffered arm. He could see her fighting down a smile.

  The thunderous rumbling shook the walls once more. Rather than ignoring it, Adelle jerked her head in surprise and shouted, “Incoming!”

  Without hesitation, Fourteen tried to push Adelle to the floor so he could throw himself on top of her, but instead he bounced off her suddenly rock-hard form and was sent sprawling to the ground minus one boot. The top of their prison came crashing down as the rim collapsed, sending tons of rocks, dirt, and plant matter drifting down lazily as if the rubble had all the time in the world in which to crush them to death.

  Jack continued working as though nothing had occurred.

  It took a full thirty seconds for Fourteen to realize none of it had made it to the bottom of the hole. He rubbed his sore shoulder feeling stupid and confused—he had hit Adelle with more force than he had intended. Had he hurt her?

  Adelle stood where he had bounced off her, seemingly unscathed, with one hand reaching for the ceiling. He could see a ring on her index finger blazing orange and forming a shield overhead.

  She turned to fix laughing, hazel eyes on him. “Sorry about that, but I couldn’t let you distract me.”

  “No offence taken.” He was just glad his gaffe hadn’t killed them all. It was possible Aeyli had been correct when she suggested his ignorance of magic was dangerous. Fourteen sat up and caught his boot as it came sailing toward him.

  “Done. Put it on, but don’t walk in them yet.” Jack yelled to his partner, “Do I still have time to give him a weapon?”

  Adelle cocked her head to one side, her eyes blank and unfocused. “Barely.”

  “Okay, I can work with that. Throw me the thing.”

  The thing ended up being a stick-like object, roughly the length of Fourteen’s forearm. He couldn’t conceive where Adelle had managed to store it under her clingy outfit. Jack plucked it casually out of the air when Adelle tossed it, making it look like a well-rehearsed move from a movie.

  “It’ll be quick and dirty—but better than nothing. Here, give me your hand.”

  This time Fourteen obeyed without thought.

  Jack took Fourteen’s hand and folded it over the stick. “We call this a dummy. It’s something made in the Dreamscape that can be brought to the Real and Crafted there. Usually that sort of thing can only be done in the ’Scape, but some people, like our boss, can make some truly remarkable things to bring into the Real. This was his invention.”

  The object grew warmer but not unpleasantly so.

  “Okay, think about your favorite weapon—not a gun, please, that would be disastrous.”

  Fourteen ran through a list of his favorite weapons, but none suited his current need. A sword would be too flashy for his purposes, the size he would need would only slow him down. A staff would be helpful for keeping multiple targets at bay, but it wasn’t lethal enough. A pike would be better, but he wanted something with even more stopping power.

  “That’s enough to go on, I think.”

  Fourteen frowned. “I haven’t picked anything yet.”

  “Shush. Let me work.”

  “Things are about to go critical upstairs!” Adelle called, eyes still unfocused, staring at something Fourteen couldn’t see.

  “You shush too.” Jack muttered under his breath.

  Fourteen felt a rush of something go through his hand, and the stick glowed, pulsing through a rainbow of colors. He watched, mesmerized as the dummy lengthened and changed shape before his eyes.

  When the glow faded, Jack stepped away, leaving Fourteen to inspect his work. He’d never seen anything quite like it. One end looked vaguely like a poleax mixed with a scythe. Rather than ending in a point, the blade went to the very end of the weapon, and the edge was jagged, rather than curved. It looked positively lethal. Fourteen smiled.

  He looked closely and noticed the edge shimmered with the multicolored light he was starting to associate with Jack.

  “Oh wait, one more thing.” Jack took the weapon back and ran his hand along the base of the staff leaving a blaze of rainbow fire in its wake. He handed it back to Fourteen. “That end is for normal-looking people. If they have a nightmare inside of them that should knock it out once you get through their shields.”

  Fourteen held out the metal plate from his jacket and showed it to Jack. “I used this to take out a witch’s shield earlier. Is there any way to attach it to this?”

  Jack gave a low whistle. “That . . . would be a bad idea right now. I’d need time to keep it from blowing up in our faces, but maybe we can experiment after this is over?”

  Fourteen’s smile broadened. He was starting to like this guy.

  “Anyway, the other end is for anything coming at you that is squiggly, slimy, or just fucking terrifying. It probably won’t stop ’em, but you should be able to slow ’em down.”

  “We have to do this now, Jack, or their shield won’t survive what we’re about to do!”

  “Looks like time has caught up with us.” Jack grabbed Fourteen by the arm and pulled him over to Adelle. “Take her hand, and when I say jump, you jump with everything you’ve got.”

  “Copy.” Adrenaline flooded through his system. He had no idea what was about to happen, but he was ready for this fight.

  Jack flung the egg from earlier at the rocks overhead. It suspended in midair and pulsed, faster and faster, until it looked like a strobe light. His night vision was going to be completely shot.

  By some unspoken gesture, Adelle dropped her shield a split-second before Jack shouted, “Jump!”

  Fourteen complied and was relatively unsurprised as the ceiling gave way before them as they flew up and out of the pit. He hadn’t been certain what to expect, but he’d already decided Jack and Adelle were to be trusted—for now—and he only gave his trust to people competent enough not to smash themselves against several tons of rock for no apparent reason.

  As they came down, he tried to find Aeyli, but the debris from their dramatic entrance made it impossible to see anything.

  Rather than smacking into the ground as it rushed toward them, they touched down lightly. Fourteen assumed he had his boots to thank for that.

  “Was that the only jump they had in them?” Fourteen didn’t want to have to take off his boots to keep fighting, but he didn’t like the idea of fighting in something he hadn’t practiced with.

  “The only big one, yes, but for the next hour, you’re going to want to be careful with your fancy ninja moves.” Jack winced as a large rock rebounded from a tree and crashed against his shield.

  What about this?” He shook his new weapon. “How long will it last? And I’m not a ninja,” he murmured that last part to himself.

  A handful of witches staggered toward them out of the gloom and dust. Even at a distance, Fourteen could see something white and malignant pulsing inside their bodies—it looked like he was about to get a crash course in fighting with Jack’s upgrades.

  “Y
ou keep telling yourself that.” Jack put his back to Adelle, and Fourteen saw him pull something out of his sleeve that looked like a sword made of living flame—it crackled and hissed angrily. “Your weapon will last as long as I want it to, so have at it.”

  Beside him Adelle pulled off her belt and snapped it. It blazed with orange fire, lengthening and growing until it grew to the size of a bullwhip.

  No, these guardians weren’t so bad after all.

  Chapter Twenty

  Aeyli

  Aeyli, Sterling, and Hester flew skyward, bouncing around inside their shield like a trio of unfortunate hamsters inside a ball. Absently, Aeyli noticed it looked like they weren’t the only ones affected by the blast. Most of those assembled around their shield had become airborne as well.

  The shield sailed through the air, arcing over the heads of dozens of huddled figures looking for cover, and bounced into the forest, exploding upon impact with an old rotted-out log. Its dying act had been to take the brunt of the fall, but all three occupants lay dazed and disoriented in a tangled mass of limbs on the dark, dank floor of the forest.

  “Get your butt off my face!”

  “Only when you stop stepping on my hair!”

  There was a great struggle as all three bodies tried to sort themselves out. Too late, Aeyli remembered one of their members needed to be closely watched. When the rock hit her head, she saw stars and fell to her hands and knees, barely registering the muffled swearing from the ensuing fight as Hester escaped into the night.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I just swallowed a bug,” said Sterling said conversationally. His shoes squelched noisily as he attempted to pull his body out of the mud pit he’d been knocked into. “Good riddance to her anyway. At least you and I made it out.”

  “We still have to find Fourteen before we can leave.” Her stomach clenched. What if he hadn’t survived the blast? “If he’s still alive, I mean.” She tried for a neutral tone, but her voice cracked at the word alive.

  Sterling waved her comment away, a blurry gesture in the dim light. “He’ll be fine, that guy can clearly take care of himself. And anyway, he’s with the guardians—I wish we’d been in that hole!” He heaved himself out of the muck with a loud sucking sound.

  Aeyli wished she could have been as positive, but until she saw Fourteen with her own eyes, she wasn’t going to be okay. “How can you be so cheerful after getting your ass kicked by our mom? Don’t think I’m letting that go any time soon.”

  Sterling sputtered indignantly. “Okay, first, that creature isn’t our mother, and second, could you not mention this to Adelle next time you see her?”

  She laughed and instantly regretted it. “Ow.” Gingerly, she poked the side of her head, recently abused by a rock. She sighed ruefully—she had just gotten it fixed, for Vis’ sake. “You know we have to go after her, right?”

  Regardless of their predicament, Aeyli could feel the grin still stretched across her face. Of course a sixteen-year-old boy would get an instant crush on someone as beautiful as Adelle. It was nice to have something as normal as her brother’s hormones to laugh at amidst the pain and horror of the past two days.

  “Yeah . . . Here let me help you up.” Her brother’s form loomed over her, and she took his hand without thinking.

  “You really are the best, you know? Hey, remember that one summer, we did that thing with Helen?” Sterling put an arm around her shoulders and laughed.

  “You mean when we took all Astin’s clothes and put them on the horses?”

  “No wonder he hates us so much!”

  “It was Helen’s idea!”

  Sterling began giggling like a drunk. Aeyli was supporting most of his weight at this point and was sinking slowly back to the ground, but she found she didn’t care. She felt warm inside. Not at all like she had just been blown across a field. Her knees hit the dirt, and she did her best to keep her brother off the ground.

  “We have to get out of here!” Sterling howled as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever said.

  “We’ll get right on it. Any minute now.” She burst out laughing too and, again, regretted it. “Ugh.”

  Still draped over her, Sterling’s body shook as he laughed helplessly. “I don’t . . . know why I’m not . . . getting up right now.” He gasped between giggles.

  “I know! We could be swarmed any minute now by Astin and his friends!” She grinned, not giving three rotten oranges about their impending doom. Sterling’s elbow was digging deeply into her side, and she pushed at him, forcing him to fall away from her. The bubbly, drunken feeling lessened, and she could think more clearly.

  “What . . . what the hell was that?” Sterling’s laughter had faded, and now he just sounded bewildered.

  “I’m not sure. My magic has been doing some weird things since I ran away.” She pushed herself back to standing, keeping well away from her brother. “We need to move before they find us.”

  “Yeah, right . . .” Sterling’s dark shape rose unsteadily from the ground. “I know the woods around here pretty well. If we circle around that way, we might be able to sneak back into the compound without anyone seeing us.”

  “Which way? I can’t see you pointing, I can’t see anything in here.” She imagined what Fourteen would say if she accidentally got herself killed while stumbling around in the woods at night. Probably nothing nice.

  Sterling hesitated then said, “Maybe you could hold onto my jacket and follow me? I’m standing pretty close to you right now, and all I feel is a little tipsy. I don’t feel angry or murderous at all.”

  “Thank the gods for small favors,” she muttered. It might be frustrating to have such unpredictable magic, but at least it was doing more than just driving people into homicidal rages. There was a glimmer of hope in her mind that, if they got out of here alive, she might not have to spend her life locked away or on a deserted island somewhere.

  Before they set off, she smeared more mud into her white pants to keep from standing out like a beacon in the night, but she might as well have saved herself the time and effort. Five minutes of stumbling and tripping after her brother gave her ample opportunity to wreck her clothes and cover them with dirt.

  Once they reached the spot Sterling had mentioned, he said, “You know, I don’t even feel drunk right now, just mellow. It’s kind of nice.”

  Aeyli patted her brother’s back. Even with the world crashing down around them, he was still trying to make her feel better about her freakishness.

  Movement on the compound caught her attention. She and Sterling watched as a beehive of activity swarmed through a break between buildings. Three nightmare-tainted witches flew back, past a dormant rosebush. One smacked against a car, and white smoke shot out of her chest, only to dissipate like dandelion seeds in the wind. The other two collapsed to the ground, the larger one crushing the smaller one under his bulk. As soon as they landed the same white smoke drifted away into the night. A deep orange shield flared into view, and another two witches followed the first three, also losing their nightmares upon hitting the ground.

  The shield became transparent, and Aeyli could just make out Adelle’s features. “She’s alive!” She stopped herself before running out to meet her. What did she think she was going to do? Stand off to the side and cheer loudly as Adelle fought twice as hard because she now had someone to protect?

  Aeyli couldn’t just stand around and watch someone fight for their lives, but before she could figure out what to do, Fourteen came into view brandishing a new toy. As he fought a shadow made up entirely of beaks and eyes, he swung a massive staff that glimmered with the same nebula of colors she’d seen in Jack’s impossible eyes. With every swing of the weapon, another chunk of monster fell to the ground and melted away.

  Fourteen radiated the same grim joy and focus he had during the fight in the garage, but Aeyli was terrified—with good reason. The second Fourteen incapacitated the creature in front of him, a portal opened releasing a fresh horror to take its p
lace. Even seeing Jack come around the corner didn’t make her feel better—he had another monster following him. There had to be something she and Sterling could do to help.

  “Can you do anything?” she cried, her voice shrill with desperation.

  “I don’t think so. On a good day, I wouldn’t be able to defeat one of those things. Only guardians are equipped to take on demons and nightmares.” He gulped as they watched Fourteen lop off the head of a creature with a rotting clown face and seal flippers. “And that guy too, apparently.”

  “Can we do anything about the holes? If we could cut off their reinforcements . . .” She knew she was stabbing wildly but couldn’t stop herself.

  “Those are portals to the demon realm. That’s so far above my level of training, I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and right now I don’t know if I have enough magic to scare a mouse.”

  “Damn it! We are going to be zero help here.” Aeyli growled, frustrated with their collective uselessness. Then something occurred to her. Something incredibly stupid. “Maybe you should get out of here. You could go get help. Maybe you could find more guardians and bring them here.” If she was going to pull off her incredibly stupid idea, she didn’t want Sterling around. Now that she had him back, she had no intention of getting him killed.