The Law of Three: A New Wasteland (The Portal Arcane Series - Book II)

by J. Thorn

  “Move.”

  Before Jack could obey, a pincer lashed out and struck Jack’s leg. It tore at the flesh, and the ripping sound filled Samuel’s ears. Other pincers from spider-crabs latched on as the creatures battled for Jack.

  “Help me, Samuel,” Jack said as the pincers disassembled his body from the feet up. They pulled chunks of Jack’s legs out through the ragged holes punched in the cabin until his eyes glassed over.

  Samuel felt Lindsay wince and turned to see a pincer snag a chunk of her hair. It pulled her toward the side of the cabin, and she grabbed the hair above the roots in a tug of war. Samuel leapt over and used Scout to cut Lindsay’s hair, releasing her, and pulled her closer to him. The pincer danced in the air and retreated through the opening.

  “We’re done,” she said, fighting off the sobs that threatened to destroy her remaining threads of sanity.

  “We need a moment to slip. A single pause.”

  Lindsay turned as what remained of Jack slipped through the broken window, leaving nothing but a pool of blood on the floor. Samuel looked at Lindsay and thought their moment may have just passed.

  ***

  Deva pushed onward, the temporary adrenaline that had flooded through his legs now receding into a dull pain. His feet burned and his arms grew heavy with each passing step. The memories melted away, leaving only core remembrances. He thought again of his children, his wife’s touch fading from his mind’s eye.

  He could never regret bringing Samuel and Mara into the world. It was an internal argument not worth winning. Deva considered the old adages as well as the sayings bantered around by parents across the ages.

  Was it ethical to bring a child into a broken world?

  Deva and his wife knew the world was a mess. The terror attacks of the early 2000s and subsequent wars left no doubt in his mind. Children should not be brought into such a hostile world. His wife didn’t expressly ask for children, and Deva didn’t demand them either. He could not remember what he was called then, other than “Father.” His wife may have called him by something else, but Samuel and Mara had not.

  Deva thought about his children’s cycle and the time spent with them. His mind muddled through the implications of various threads of existence spinning off into splintering universes, each giving birth to a different Samuel and a different Mara. The one he inhabited would end abruptly with devastation and pain, as well as the awakenings in the reversion. But he felt other avenues in his heart, ones that took his offspring into worlds where justice reigned supreme and man’s love trumped hate.

  He imagined them growing into responsible teenagers and then compassionate adults. Samuel might follow his interest in baseball in one, hockey in another. Deva saw Mara escape the perils of her abusive parents in one strand, becoming a powerful leader with a feminine touch. But none of that would be of his doing. His Samuel and his Mara would be forced to reenter the cycle and follow the whims of the reversion until it decided to end. Mara’s had come, and Samuel’s would too.

  He pushed farther up the steps, mouthing their names as if that could somehow force them to materialize where he could explain everything. Deva wanted them to call him by his ancient human name, not the one prescribed by the reversion. He wept, realizing he could not appear to them as he had once been, only as the creature he devolved into.

  The light grew in intensity, if only slightly, as Deva approached the top third of the column. The stone stairs pushed upward and the wear on them lessened. He thought of that and wondered why so few climbed this high. Deva looked at the walls, searching for evidence that the reversion had cast others aside before they could reach the peak. His gnarled fingers swept over the crumbling mortar, seeking a weakness in the masonry, but found none.

  Mara’s end came at the hands of the reversion, but he felt her cycle had been completed. What she owed the locality had been paid in full. Samuel, on the other hand, worried Deva. Through all of his scrying powers and abilities, he could not fathom how it would end for his son. He hoped he would not have to destroy the life he once created, and shuddered that Samuel was a son of the reversion now, not of him. Deep down, Deva knew that meant a violent and confrontational end. Whether that end was for him, his son or both of them, had yet to be determined. Even Deva could not anticipate the depth of his own lineage and the ways his offspring would be forever connected.

  ***

  “We can’t help him anymore,” Samuel said, more to himself than Lindsay.

  She nodded and pulled back as more pincers picked at the air. Samuel closed his eyes, slipping Scout back into his sheath. He thought of his father and that time long ago when the blade had been earned through love and pride. The idea slid from his head as Lindsay’s frantic mumblings forced him to deal with the crisis at hand.

  “I don’t want to die this way,” she whispered, over and over again.

  Before Samuel could respond, the wall where the door was set exploded inward as dozens of spider-crabs jostled forward. The darkness of the reversion swarmed above, casting a candle’s worth of light upon the grisly scene. Jack’s pool of blood turned as dark as the eyes of the spider-crabs. Another blast came as the wall behind them crumbled. The roof slid to the side, and black legs pushed it into a growing pile of rubble that had been the cabin.

  The spider-crabs hesitated, as if unsure what to do with the prize they fought so hard to gain. A few circled Samuel and Lindsay, their fangs clicking and spraying diseased foam everywhere. The odor became overwhelming in a locality devoid of much sensory perception. Samuel instinctively pulled up the collar of his shirt to thwart the smell of rotting flesh and wet refuse coming from the mouths of the spider-crabs. He glanced at Lindsay to see her hunched over and vomiting.

  “Hold my hand,” he said.

  The creatures sensed the spiritual connection made when their hands touched, and they scuttled forward with only a slight hesitation. The boldest of the spider-crabs raised a pincer and jammed it through Lindsay’s shoulder, just below her collarbone. It withdrew the pincer, now coated in her blood.

  “It burns,” she yelled, examining the wound.

  Samuel watched as that same spider-crab rose up, bared its fangs and descended to within an inch of his face. The pulsing breath washed over him and he felt his lips go numb from the stench. The other spider-crabs encircled them until they appeared as only a flesh-colored dot in a sea of inky blackness. The spider-crabs hesitated one last time until the leader came down with a pincer, piercing the floorboards where Samuel and Lindsay stood an instant earlier. They vanished from the cabin.

  Chapter 9

  Samuel shook his left arm, but the right would not move. He felt something holding it down. He opened his eyes and saw Lindsay’s hair spread out across his bicep. A ringing in his ears shook his head, and his vision remained blurry and unfocused. Samuel tasted sand as he sat up and brushed some of it off of his chest. He pulled his arm free and massaged the muscles while looking at Lindsay. She was breathing but had not moved.

  He looked around and saw nothing but the vast expanse of the desert stretching out to meet the horizon. The cloud hung overhead, appearing closer to the earth than it had been when they were in the cabin. Samuel scanned the horizon and saw no sign of the cabin or the spider-crabs.

  “Where are we?” Lindsay sounded as if she spoke through a mouthful of sand.

  “Here.”

  “That narrows it down,” she said.

  She rolled to her side and pushed up to sit in the sand.

  “Spider-crabs?”

  Samuel shook his head and stood up, brushing sand from his clothes.

  She let a small sigh of relief escape her lips before standing next to Samuel. They both turned around to marvel at what hovered above.

  The mountain burst through the desert floor as if trying to eject itself into outer space. Massive outcroppings of rock angled toward the sky, some overlapping and twisted like rotting teeth. It stretched upward into the black void until the grey peak burs
t through the darkness. The base of the mountain stretched out north and south as far as they could see.

  “You did it,” Lindsay said, turning her face to Samuel and smiling.

  “We need to get to the peak.”

  “We will. At least we can do it without the spider-crabs snapping at us.”

  As if the words had agitated her wound, Lindsay dropped to one knee. Samuel placed his arm under hers, trying to ease her down. He saw the blooming dark patch on Lindsay’s shirt even in the low light of the dying locality. The color had drained from her face, and her lips looked blue.

  “I feel dizzy,” she said.

  “Loss of blood. That one stuck you something fierce,” Samuel said, doing his best to lighten the situation.

  “I need to rest.”

  Samuel eased her head down onto the sand and inspected the puncture under her collarbone caused by the spider-crab. The wound was still bleeding and he hoped infection came as slowly as hunger pangs did in the reversion. She needed to eat and sleep, both of which required resources he did not have.

  “Lie down and I’ll watch over you.”

  Lindsay smiled and let herself drift into an uncomfortable sleep while Samuel winced, his nose crooked and continuing to leak blood. He felt guilty about eavesdropping on the conversation but Samuel had to know who Lindsay was going to talk to and he could not trust her yet.

  ***

  “Damn. The boy sure knows how to pick ’em.”

  Lindsay turned her head and felt the seat sway beneath her. The sudden motion crested in a wave of vertigo that threatened to knock her from her chair.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, remembering to whisper.

  “Sammy. He snags some honeys. Would’ve given me a run for my money, back in the day.”

  Lindsay turned toward the voice to see Major peering over an outstretched newspaper. The man’s eyes held her prisoner with their penetrating gaze. He had pulled his brilliant-white hair back into a low ponytail, which stretched toward the middle of his back. An even, full beard covered his face. Major wanted the talisman from Samuel and he would sacrifice anyone or anything to get it. He tried and failed in the previous reversion and was determined to try again in this one.

  “You can call me Major. I’m an old friend of Samuel’s.”

  Lindsay looked at the man’s black T-shirt.

  “Is that a Threefold Law tour shirt?” she asked.

  “One of my favorite bands,” he said.

  Lindsay turned around to see others maneuvering through the long shelves filled with books. An elderly woman stood behind the circulation desk with a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, a silver chain preventing them from ever touching the ground. Several adults passed through the main lobby and past the indoor water fountain, towing children behind them. The parents constantly hushed the children, and the children constantly ignored their parents. A table to their right held the newest hardcover books, crinkly with plastic covers and opened to display their wares. Lindsay inhaled and could almost taste the crisp, new paper.

  “They say someday we won’t read on paper.”

  Major laughed out loud until the woman behind the circulation desk delivered an icy stare. “Then what the hell would we read on?” he asked.

  Lindsay smiled. She felt the charisma radiating from the older man. “I can remember I’m sleeping at the base of a mountain in a far different place, so I know this is a dream and you’re not real.”

  “True and false.”

  Major set the paper down on the table and folded his hands on top of it. Lindsay saw pierced ears, a thin necklace, and several rings on him, all sterling silver and highly polished.

  “This is a dream, and I’m as real as you are. I’m sure Sammy has taken you on one of his fancy dream dates, right? He does that with all the ladies.”

  Lindsay felt a blush rush to her cheeks along with those ingrained feelings of being used by men. She had outrun the physical abuse, but not the mental scars that came with it.

  “Oh. I’m sorry, hon. He told you that you were special, right? He hasn’t brought anyone else here or something like that?”

  “No, he didn’t say that.”

  “But he made it feel that way, right?”

  Lindsay shifted and bit her lip as another mom dragged a child through the lobby, hands wet with the forbidden water from the decorative fountain.

  “I’m not really up for an interrogation or a therapy session.”

  Major held his palms up and leaned back in his chair. “Sorry, young lady. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” The grin came back and softened Lindsay’s resolve.

  “How did you get here?” she asked, hoping to alter the flow of the conversation.

  “Line six comes through Cleveland Heights on its way east to Lyndhurst.” Major paused, waiting for his answer to add a bit of comic relief to Lindsay’s anxieties.

  “The dream. My dream.”

  He smiled, knowing exactly what she meant. “I’m in a locality too, hon. Not the one you’re in with Sammy. But I’m in one, too. The dreams, they seem to be like the bus station, where we all have a chance to cross paths on the way to our individual destinations.”

  “Then why hasn’t Samuel mentioned you yet?”

  He leaned forward, realizing it would take more than just sweet talk to get Lindsay to do what he needed. “Because he sent me packing, and I no longer have the ability to communicate with him.”

  “So you’re using me,” she said.

  Major blew a halfhearted whistle through his pursed lips and glanced at the librarian to make sure he had not exceeded the noise limit. “That’s a strong word. I want to talk with you. That’s all.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second. If you didn’t want something, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Lindsay waited as Major brushed a hand over his head and tightened the ponytail at the back. He looked around at the thousands of books on the shelves and then back to Lindsay. The foot traffic through the room had lessened, and that meant time was short.

  “He has something I need. Something that belongs to me.”

  Lindsay waited, still not making the connection.

  “The talisman. That thing around his neck is what he uses to slip.”

  “And until you get it, you’re stuck in your own reversion,” she said.

  “Yep. In a nutshell.”

  Lindsay leaned back on the chair and focused on his eyes. Her interactions with abusers and con men over the years gave her an antenna on them, an advantage she could not describe in words. She felt Major’s motivations to be true, but also knew they required action on her part.

  “You can’t get it without me. That’s what you’re getting to, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “But there’s more. You see, there’s another guy, Kole. He’s coming for it, too. And if he gets the talisman before me, then it’s pretty much over.”

  “What’s over?” she asked.

  “It,” Major said.

  Lindsay’s street skills resurfaced, and she found herself in a business negotiation without thinking about it.

  “And because I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, you’re offering me something in exchange.”

  “We certainly couldn’t call this business without some type of transaction.”

  Major flashed a smile at Lindsay again, and now it felt more uncomfortable than charismatic. She surmised all of his cards were on the table. The man smelled of desperation.

  “That would be?” she asked.

  “How would you like a reset?”

  Lindsay raised her eyebrows. She sat back and crossed her arms, tattoos glowing in brilliant color on her porcelain skin.

  “Hear me out ’fore you go giving me that look. I’ve spent many hours trying to talk my way around the crossing of the arms.”

  She smiled but remained still and silent.

  “I think I can slip you back into your o
riginal locality and get you into a home that wasn’t like the one you had. Or should I say the one you never had.”

  Major watched the pain of Lindsay’s childhood creep across her face, stealing the mask she wore to hide her weakness.

  “I’ll place you there as a little girl. You pick the age. But this time, you get two parents. You live with a loving father that puts food on the table and a mother that isn’t a crack whore. Hell, I’ll even throw in a city of your choice at no extra charge.”

  She winced more at Major’s presentation than the deal itself. He had no right to joke about that. He had no clue what she endured.

  “How the fuck are you going to do that?”

  The profanity seemed to knock Major askew, but he quickly regained his composure.

  “Let’s just say I have connections.”

  “He isn’t going to simply hand it to me. And if he did, how would I get it to you?”

  Major winked. He felt it was good the question came up, feeling as though it was evidence of how close Lindsay stood to the precipice. “I’ll handle that. I can’t exactly say how, but when the time comes, you’d have to rip it from his neck and hand it to me.”

  “How?”

  “That’s for you to figure out,” Major said again. “I don’t care if he hands it to you or you remove it from his bloody corpse.”

  “You say this guy Kole is after it, too. What if he gets there before you do?”

  Major leaned back, thinking about that possibility. He would have to do everything possible to keep her alive after the transaction. He thought he could use a mind like hers. “I doubt he will. He’s inexperienced and obsessed with revenge. Neither will help his cause.”

  “What happens to Samuel?” Lindsay asked, finally getting to the crux of the deal.

  “Whatever happens,” Major said, “as much as I’d like to pummel his face, I only care about that damn talisman. This is about me, not him.” He waited, wondering if Lindsay was convinced with that response.

  “I can’t exactly leave him to the reversion.”

  “Well, you can’t take him with ya.”