The Last Archon

by Richard Watts

  “From what I’ve seen? Brave.” And beautiful. Hayden smiled at her. “Also worried about others before yourself.”

  “I keep replaying last night in my head. I was terrified. I wasn’t sure we’d get away. And there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Then you held my hand, and suddenly I could do something. It was incredible, Hayden. I’ve never been able to control the visions like that. They just pop up and ruin my day and show me something terrible I can’t fix. I’m tired of being useless, feeling like a burden, like...”

  “Like baggage?” Hayden asked.

  “Right. I have to learn to use these abilities. You can understand that, right?”

  Hayden spoke quietly, looking at the floor. “You just found out the world is bigger than you thought, that more is possible. You have abilities other people don’t. And something inside you won’t let you sit still, won’t let you just stand by. It’s begging to be used. All you can do is use it the right way.”

  Vivian was nodding when he looked up. “I may not be cut out for this like you and Mr. Deckard, but I have to do something. Will you help me?”

  “Why won’t you let me help?”

  Hayden stood in the doorway to the dojo, watching Deckard summon his armor. The summer heat bore down oppressively, sticky with humidity. His gi clung to him, rough against his skin. Bugs flitted and buzzed and in the distance sirens howled.

  Deckard turned his hooded face to look at him. “You’re not ready yet.”

  “I can summon a weapon in a fraction of a second, and I just put you on the mat twice in one day.” Hayden smiled. “In what world am I not ready?”

  “In the world where people can fly, rip holes in reality, and summon tidal waves.”

  “You can do all of those things, too.”

  Deckard nodded once. “Exactly.”

  “So teach me.”

  Deckard drew a slow breath and looked to the sky. “I’m trying to. Stay here.”

  The flames of the Axiom gathered beneath Archon’s feet, and he leapt into the heavens. Hayden stepped out onto the dirt and watched the distance between them grow.

  Hayden blinked and blew a breath through puffed cheeks. It was a tall order. He barely had a grasp on how he could use the Axiom. But he knew exactly what she felt. He’d felt it every day for over ten years.

  “I can try. You’re touching the Axiom to do what you do, I know that much. Deckard says it’s always different for everyone, but the principles behind it are the same.”

  “Great! Thank you.” She beamed at him. “What do you want to start with?”

  “First?” Hayden slapped his legs and stood. “What do you say we grab some breakfast? Then we’ll sneak by your place, and you can pack a suitcase. We’ll bring it all back here and start with the basics.”

  Vivian stood up to join him. “You’re sure that’s safe?”

  “I promise not to get shot.”

  “How do we get there? Your car is back where you left it, and mine is sitting on a seabed.”

  Hayden leaned around her to get a straight shot down the hall and pointed a finger. Vivian started as a thin bar of light raced across the house. Hayden reached his target, tilted his hand slightly, and drew the construct back toward him. He dismissed it just before the object he’d gathered reached him and snatched it out of the air.

  Hayden dangled the chain beside his grin. “Deckard left his keys.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The clinic had been emptied in a hurry.

  Glass shards and yellow crime tape covered the entrance. Medical files had been left in unlocked drawers, spilled snacks still littered the hallways, and chairs were still arranged for the meeting Vivian had described.

  Deckard had made the Elevation clinic his first stop. He’d intended to wait until the authorities had completed their investigations, but Hayden’s condition necessitated a quick response.

  Shard had been a blight on the city for weeks, sending Primes into hysterical fits of destruction and disorientation. So far, the victims had ranged wildly. They lived in different parts of the Atlanta area, were of different ethnicities, and came from different socioeconomic strata. The only thing they had in common was the manner of their infection.

  There had to be something else, some factor uniting them. Deckard was the most practiced sorcerer alive, if only by virtue of his extreme age. He knew of no way to locate Primes without active use of a power. The link had to be more mundane. Hence the clinic.

  It was the obvious location. Where else would Primes come of their own free will and divulge their private information? Where else would they blindly trust someone to give them something to help with the pain and the struggle?

  Because the Shard epidemic had begun before the clinic, Deckard hadn’t given the correlation much weight, but Vivian and Hayden’s encounter had framed the metaphorical coffin.

  The box was the last nail.

  It sat in the center chair in the physiotherapy room, waiting for him. Unlike every other Shard vessel he’d encountered to date, a garnet gemstone sat in the prongs on the lid. It winked in the light of the Axiom staff he carried, a drop of death adorning Pandora’s Box.

  Deckard lifted his left hand and called up his memories of the Worm. He sent tendrils of feather-light power seeking into the vessel, hunting for the same writhing hatred, the fetid might of a monstrous god.

  It slithered against his thoughts and flinched away from the touch of his anger. Deckard barked a word and thrust his staff forward. Fear and hatred funneled power through the weapon. The thing shrieked in anguish as the flames of the Axiom engulfed the box trapping it, drawing talons of sound down Deckard’s spine, until it died away to nothing.

  The box charred and cracked. The blood-colored gem burst like a soap bubble. He fanned the flames with his will until even the ashes were consumed. When he let them die, only an inky smudge remained on the chair.

  Deckard left the building, scanning for any sign of threat. The air hung crisp and clear. Sunrise peaked over the horizon, casting the Atlanta skyline in shadows. Somewhere in that silhouette, his opponent mocked him.

  He focused on his mental map of the ritual deaths and oriented on the closest one. Deckard rose into the light and soared to follow the hunt to its end.

  “You know, I did say a suitcase.”

  Vivian set the steamer trunk down and glared at Hayden, but her smile took any sting out of it.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be a refugee, so I’m packing accordingly. Just one more quick look for anything I forgot.”

  “Like the couch?”

  Vivian stuck her tongue out at him and sashayed back inside her apartment. Hayden enjoyed the view until she kicked the door shut, then hefted the trunk to his shoulder and carried it awkwardly down four flights of stairs to the waiting Volvo.

  He blinked in the sunshine of a perfect Fall day. The recent rains had washed the pollen and dust from the air. Skies of near cloudless blue held fresh breezes, and clean light fell over the city.

  Hayden fished the keys out of his pocket with his free hand and unlocked the car’s trunk. He wrestled the steamer trunk into that trunk and shut it again, idly wondering if Vivian had packed swimming trunks.

  “You need more coffee, Hayden,” he muttered out loud. “You’re playing word games and talking to yourself.”

  He glanced around the street. It was early yet. A smattering of people were up. A few walked dogs. A jogger ran down the sidewalk, slowing to a walk as he reached the apartment complex. Light traffic drove lazily by. Morning people doing morning people things. Hayden tried not to despise their nauseating lack of sloth.

  The hairs pricked up on the back of his neck, and he swung around to look at the jogger again. He was a young man in a red Georgia hoodie and black basketball shorts. He had a patrician nose and blonde hair.

  And he stared Hayden down with Wile E.’s blue, hate-filled eyes.

  Hayden took an angry step toward the somehow-not
-dead lycanthrope before a cold thought raced down his spine. Where was the other one?

  Vivian!

  He broke into a sprint toward the apartment, and the alpha wolf hurtled after him.

  Vivian heard the knock and opened the door to her apartment only to have it flung into her face. She fell to the floor, blood already dripping from her nose. She crab-walked backward, staring up through watering eyes to see Lauren, the nursing aid, standing in the doorway. The girl’s wheat blonde hair was pulled back in a tail and she wore a pink jacket, lycra shorts, and a look of flat disdain.

  Vivian scrambled to her feet and lunged for the bedroom door, but Lauren hooked her foot out from under her. Vivian slapped back to the floor, smacking her head against the faux wood. Dazed, she tried to push herself back up. A heavy weight landed on the small of her back and a hand jerked her head back. Another sharp nailed hand torqued her arm behind her, forcing her to bow up painfully.

  Lauren leaned in and hot breath on blew Vivian’s ear. Her husky voice purred. “It wants you alive and your pretty little head intact. But you don’t need to be able to move.”

  Fingers flexed and claws drug lines of pain into Vivian’s arm. Vivian shook with terror. She couldn’t catch her breath. She twisted and fought, but the weight pinning her grew heavier. Hairs prickled the skin of her neck and arms as Lauren transformed.

  Please, God, no!

  Hayden shoved a shocked civilian aside and bounded into the stairwell. He knew the werewolf boy was gaining. He’d seen them run, and while Hayden was fast for his size, he’d never be as quick as a fleeing deer.

  He could hear Deckard’s voice in his thoughts, plain as day. “So, don’t be a deer. Be a hawk.” Hayden took two steps onto the first flight, hopped to the top of the railing, and leapt off.

  He flung both arms upward, and twin ropes of golden light launched themselves from his palms to wrap around opposite sides of the second story banister. Before his momentum had died from the leap, the ropes pulled taunt and Hayden commanded the constructs to shrink.

  The stairwell door slammed open, and something brushed Hayden’s heel as he catapulted upward. He covered ten feet in a rush of wind and a roar of outrage echoed through the stairwell. The edge of the second story appeared level with his head. At the last second, Hayden flung his arms down and dismissed the Axiom constructs.

  He sailed past the second story railing, drifted past the third, and reached for the fourth, but the slight height difference in the banister sides threw him off course. He hit the left banister with his thigh and tumbled over it onto the floor, barely avoiding the stairs and landing mostly on his back.

  Hayden rolled to his feet and raced toward Vivian’s hall, legs pistoning. As he turned the corner, the elevator doors opened, and a girl stepped into the hall with a basket of laundry.

  “MOVE!” Hayden shouted. The girl shrieked and leapt back, clutching her basket as though it contained a baby.

  Hayden thundered past and into Vivian’s apartment. The door hung ajar. The russet furred shapeshifter squatted over Vivian’s body, wearing a pink jacket straining over its shoulders. Blood dripped from the thing’s clawed hand and its snarl revealed crimson coated teeth. It stood and turned to face him.

  Hayden didn’t realize he held the Axiom until his kick struck the creature like a battering ram. The blow lifted the wolf off the ground and flung her into the living room area, knocking over a lamp and sending her crashing into a powder blue loveseat. Pain seared into his limbs, and he released the power instantly, stumbling to a halt by Vivian’s body. He gritted his teeth, fighting to keep his vision, and reached down to her.

  Vivian clutched her right arm against her body. Blood dribbled from punctures in her forehead, deep scratches in her arm, and covered her upper lip. One eye was red and rapidly swelling shut. Hayden hauled her to her feet.

  “Can you move?” Vivian nodded, one good eye darting to the mound of pink and rust-red hauling itself up in the living room. Hayden pulled her toward the door. Footsteps pounded outside, moving closer. He glanced around for a way out, but the other door in the short hall led to a bedroom.

  Hayden shoved Vivian into the bedroom, shouting, “Barricade it!” Then turned to plant his back to the doorway. He heard the bedroom door slam shut as the russet werewolf prowled out of the living room and the grey-white alpha filled hallway door. The shorter red-furred wolf snarled and growled.

  Hayden summoned his armor, and a pair of gently curving dao swords flared into his hands a split second later. “Bring it, Lassie.” He looked over his right shoulder. “You too, Rin Tin.”

  The wolves bounded toward him from both sides.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  This one was different.

  Deckard hovered a foot above the floor, staring down at the fifth dead body he’d seen that morning. The victim was a white male in his late teens, laying in his boxers and a robe. He had brown hair and his round face was fixed in a rictus grin.

  Someone, presumably the boy, had burned the sigils into the linoleum in lumpy, bubbled fashion before slitting his own throat. Blood covered the floor inside the ring, and lines of arterial spray spattered out in macabre spokes.

  The remains of another Shard vessel sat on the floor a few feet away, split into pieces. The wood had been eaten through by some kind of acid. Deckard guessed that was how the boy had made the marks of the circle in the floor as well.

  The similarities with the suicides ended there. Chunks of the drywall were missing, dissolved in irregular patches. Pockmarks infected the carpet and couch. Two different knife blades had been sunk into the wood of the kitchen counter at some point. Furniture lay broken and overturned through the kitchen and living area.

  During his once over, Deckard had noted the broken door chain on the front door. The latch remained intact, meaning someone had gotten the victim to open the door a crack, then forced their way in. Yet, despite the struggle, no one had called the police.

  The killer had escalated. He wasn’t waiting for the infected to be open to influence. He targeted Primes in their homes, forcing them to perform the ritual, maybe forcing Shard on them first.

  Deckard’s jaw muscles clenched. None of this got him closer to the source. Even if the killer got sloppy, he didn’t have a clue as to his identity. Although…

  It was possible this site was different because the sorcerer had come himself. It would explain why no one nearby heard the struggle. Were that the case, then it might be possible to view the history of the room and find a face. All he needed was one lucky glimpse.

  Deckard called up a thin stream of power and sent tendrils to brush, feather-light, against objects in the room: car keys lying in a small dish, the seared flooring, the blood-caked knife. Psychometry required surgical precision and the lightest possible touch. The very act of viewing would muddy the lens he was attempting to look through.

  Closing his eyes, Deckard drew in the sense of the room, his web of sorcery pulling it to him like roots bringing up hidden water. A whispered word rippled the image, sending light shimmering across it. Behind the shifting, mirage-like haze, the dead boy rose, walking backwards, to put the knife away in the sink. The broken box reformed itself and leapt into the hands of a figure lost in the edges of the vision.

  The boy jerked in reverse, a badly worked marionette until he knelt at the side of the kitchen. Unseen forces torqued his arms up and behind him.

  The hidden figure leaned down. Deckard caught flashes of a floral skirt and dark hair. He tried to shift the viewing, reaching out a tiny string of power, but the image remained cloudy, amorphous. He struggled to bring it into focus, pressing slowly deeper into the past.

  The Axiom flickered under Deckard’s feet, and he fell from his perch to thump onto the carpet, breaking his concentration and scattering the viewing into memory once more. Whispered curses boiled out of his mouth in five languages. He’d almost convinced himself he’d recovered and he had pushed too hard. Now he’d contaminated the
crime scene and leaving might be a chore.

  A faint ringing sound reached Deckard. It took him a moment to realize it was his own phone, the ringtone being relayed to him from the dimensional shadow holding his effects. He dismissed his armor, and the sound of ringing intensified as his clothes and their contents returned to reality. He fished the phone from his pant pocket. The call came from a number he didn’t recognize. Deckard almost hung up, but who would be calling this time of day?

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Deckard!” Vivian’s voice was strained. “They’re here at my apartment! Hayden is fighting them, but…” There was a terrible crash of noise, and Vivian screamed. “No!”

  “Vivian!” A crackling burst of static shot through the earpiece and the line went dead. Panic fluttered in and anger flared up to consume it. Those stupid children!

  Deckard made himself take a breath. He never should have left them alone. He’d been reacting out of fear, not thinking things through. He had no idea where Vivian lived, but Hayden was with her, and if the boy actively used the Axiom it would be enough.

  Deckard put his phone away and summoned his armor once more. He reached for the Axiom, opening himself to it fully, pulling in as much as he could hold. It leaked through his grip, trickles falling in drops of golden flame to fade away, meaning he had to constantly pull in more, but his feet left the ground.

  Deckard pictured Hayden: the short stature, the cocksure smirk, the fearless will, and the easy, familiar glow of Axiom constructs. A golden beacon fire shone in his mind. Reaching out one Axiom wreathed hand, Deckard rent space. A ragged tear opened in the apartment living room and morning light spilled in. Deckard sped into the opening, oriented on his beacon, and flew southeast, trailing a faint line of golden light.

  Hayden spun in a blur, weaving the dao swords in a circular dance. He varied the rhythm, flicking the swords out in lightning-swift slashes every time one of the werewolves approached too closely. They weren’t trained combatants, instead relying on their size and natural weaponry. This made the short hallway nearly ideal, forcing his bulky opponents to attack in straight lines.