Memory Hunter

by Frank Morin

  After a moment he frowned. “But that’s not all of it. There’s more going on here. I can see how it’s possible they’re being used to grant control over those memories to the passenger, but the interpretation is tenuous.”

  “Meaning?” Tomas prodded when Alter paused again.

  “Meaning that unless there are other runes reinforcing that interpretation of the runes in the machine, it may be possible for the primary to fight that control.”

  “That would be good,” Eirene said.

  “It’s fascinating,” Alter said. “I’ve never seen runes applied in such a way to memories.” He leaned over the table, scanning the symbols, muttering to himself.

  “Are they applied in other ways to memories?” Sarah asked after a moment when it looked like he had forgotten anyone else was still in the room with him.

  He started. “How did you ... Never mind. That’s not important.”

  “So they are?”

  “It’s not something we speak of.”

  “It is today,” Eirene said. “We can’t have you holding back. What do you know about runes and memories?”

  Alter sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s possible with proper training to hunt through one’s own memories to pivotal moments in your life. When immersed in such a memory, a hunter may discover a rune representing the truth of that moment.”

  “How does that work?” Sarah asked.

  “The rune manifests the deepest truth of that moment, fueled by the power of the memory. It’s revealed to the hunter as a burning symbol. Those personalized runes, when applied to that hunter’s body and bonded to their soul, become powerful enhancements that trump standard runes.”

  “Enhancements? You mean like the rune I cut into Tomas’ skin to save his life?”

  “That’s impossible.” Alter looked astonished. “Only those possessing rounon gifts, such as the heka or my clan, can engrave a rune with the power to bond it to a soul.”

  “Show him,” Sarah told Tomas. He obediently lifted up his shirt to reveal the tattoo-like rune on his side. The wound looked much smaller, totally scarred over, as if it had happened weeks ago.

  Alter studied the rune and then looked from Tomas to Sarah. “You said you’re new to runes. How did you know to do this?”

  “I drew it first,” Tomas said.

  “I just marked it,” Sarah added.

  Alter studied the rune. “This is a non-standard rune.”

  Tomas craned his neck to study it, and Sarah crouched beside him. Alter pointed to the marks she had changed.

  “That’s not how I planned to draw it,” Tomas said. “I was in pretty bad shape though, so I guess I messed up.”

  “You don’t just mess up and accidentally create a higher rune.” Alter sounded insulted.

  “He didn’t,” Sarah said. “I made the change when I was cutting it.”

  “You?” They asked in unison. Their shocked expressions nearly made her laugh. Maybe now they wouldn’t think she was a completely helpless observer.

  She shrugged. “The lines were a little blurred, and the way you drew it didn’t feel right.”

  “What do you mean?” Alter asked, his face intent.

  “I can’t explain it.” The attention was making her nervous. “While I was marking the rune, it seemed to make sense to me. But those two lines didn’t. I just went on gut instinct.”

  Alter looked at her like she had just grown a second head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Who are you really? No one develops that level of sensitivity without years of training and practice.”

  “I’ve never seen a rune in my life.”

  “Perhaps there’s something we’re missing,” Eirene said. “Runes draw upon the force of a soul. Heka sacrifice other souls, while hunters and our own enforcers use enhancement runes bonded to their souls and powered by that force alone.”

  “Agreed,” Alter said. “So?”

  “So facetakers move souls between bodies. The manifestation of rounon gifts and nevra core are different, but they all tie back to the soul. Sarah has experienced more soul transfers than any but the eldest of the facetakers.”

  Alter recoiled from Sarah as if she had just turned into a viper. “Impossible. No mortal soul can withstand so many.”

  “They were using a prototype of the machine,” Sarah explained. “I didn’t know what was going on. I thought it was some kind of technology that moved our consciousness, but Eirene’s right. I’ve transferred hundreds of times.”

  “That has to be it,” Eirene said. “She has a discerning soul. I sensed that immediately. I suspect she developed a sensitivity to soul-based powers. That would explain why the runes make so much sense to her.”

  “Wow. You’ve got a super power,” Tomas said with a grin.

  “Saved your life,” she retorted.

  “Since Tomas’ soul is experienced bonding with enhancing runes, that may have also contributed to their success,” Eirene added.

  “Did you know about that when you asked me to do it?” Sarah asked.

  “No.” Tomas shrugged. “I was dying. I knew chances were slim, but we had to try something.”

  Sarah took his hand. She’d known that she’d almost lost him, but hadn’t realized his life had hung on so slender a thread.

  “We have to study this further,” Alter said. He drew a little closer and considered her with a slightly disturbing intensity. “Do you have any runes?”

  “Like my own tattoos? No.”

  “You should.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  No way she was going to carve herself with a knife until she learned more about it. Still, the idea took hold of her mind with such power she knew she’d try it eventually.

  “Later,” Eirene said. “We still need to determine how the other runes tie in. Do they affect memories too? With our nevra core, facetaker memories are exceptionally sharp. Wearing that helmet, things felt almost as real as when I first lived them.”

  “Until we understand Mai Luan’s plan, she holds the advantage,” Tomas said.

  They needed to flip that advantage to their favor, and soon.

  We have only one task, to stand firm and carry on the racial struggle without mercy. What an elegant solution to both of our problems, destroy the jews and remove the hunters in one fell stroke. With our enchanters working with archaeologists to uncover lost runes, we’ll soon control a power greater even than the supposed splitting of atoms. We will prepare here in the fortress of Europe, an army unlike any the world has ever known. We will sweep our enemies from the world and impose true order.

  ~Heinrich Himmler

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Berlin.

  Filled with the same anger the memory always triggered, Gregorios strode up Wilhelmstrasse with mortars whistling overhead, machine guns chattering in the distance, and clouds of heavy black smoke drifting across his path. He was angrier than normal, or maybe just angry about something else. He couldn’t quite remember, but felt sure he shouldn’t be there.

  The air stank of dust, broken stone, gunpowder, and fear. Every breath dragged more of the filth into his lungs and, had he planned to wear that body much longer, would have left him fearful of contracting lung disease.

  The dirty woman and her children scurried past, faces filled with fear.

  Gregorios shouted, “Don’t go that way!”

  She ran faster, unwilling to avoid the fate hurtling toward her and her children. The knowledge that he couldn’t stop the coming tragedy fueled Gregorios’ rage.

  Then time lurched forward and he found himself in the gardens of the Reich Chancellery, facing the rear of the Reichskanzlei. He ignored the sentry outpost and made for the door in the cube-shaped building. To his right, a dozen soldiers dressed in SS uniforms burst out of a concealing hedgerow a couple hundred yards to the south. They raced in his direction, led by Asoka, who looked more eager for the upcoming confrontation than normal.

  The jaws
of the trap were closing around him again.

  For the first time Gregorios paused and looked closely at the onrushing soldiers. He wanted to confront Asoka and rip out his soul, but that wasn’t supposed to happen yet. The dream memory pulled him back toward the steel door and he allowed himself to slip back into the familiar movement.

  The door opened into a small entry room with stairs that led down into the underground Fuhrerbunker. That was his ultimate destination.

  Usually he woke at this point. That much he did remember.

  This time he didn’t wake up.

  A woman waited inside. She sat in a chair on the far side of the otherwise empty, concrete room, dressed in a crisp uniform of the German military intelligence. The brim of an unusually large hat covered her face.

  She had never been there before.

  He approached the long stair leading down into the bunker where Hitler awaited him. The dream drove him in that direction, but proximity to the ultimate target sparked a rebellious anger.

  Gregorios stopped.

  For a second everything froze, as if the dream was a movie he had just paused. He had never done that before, had never realized he could. Never before in a dream had he stepped outside of the moment while still in it.

  The frozen second passed and the dream tried to exert control and force him to follow the prescribed path, but he resisted. It was like trying to stand in a fast-flowing river while the waters tore the stones away from under foot. With agonizing slowness, he turned away from the stairs.

  The strange woman had risen and stood behind him. She tipped her hat up until he could see her face.

  Mai Luan.

  “You’re not part of my memory.”

  She smiled, showing her bright, even teeth. “I am whatever I choose to be here.”

  “But it’s my memory.” He was struggling to think against the pull of the memory, but his thoughts were sluggish.

  He hated her, didn’t he?

  She lifted a hand toward his face and although her smile never faded, her eyes grew cold. “This dream is now mine.”

  Gregorios slapped her hand away.

  His thoughts might be muddied, but he knew enough to keep her hands away from his face. How dare she interrupt his dream, especially this one? That day had been the end of much and the beginning of many things, none of which was her business.

  “Get out,” he growled.

  “Once I find what I seek.” She gestured toward the stairs. “Get back to it.”

  The pull of the dream on his mind intensified and his feet began moving toward the stairs. His mind blanked and he forgot why he was struggling. Just go down there and get it over with, he thought.

  No.

  It took every ounce of concentration to stop his foot that was already swinging out over the top step. It hovered in the air, quivering with the internal struggle. Then ever so slowly he brought it back to the floor and again turned.

  “You lack any right to be here,” he growled at Mai Luan, whose calm fled before his wrath.

  She hauled him off his feet and punched him so fast he never saw her fist coming. The blow smashed him across the room and out the exterior door. He lay blinking stupidly up into the smoke-filled sky as waves of agony radiated from his bruised chest.

  He slowly rolled to his knees. The SS soldiers were getting close and Asoka wore a snarl on his face. He’d never actually seen them approaching before. How could he know what they’d look like?

  Then something dark and scaly lunged out of the shadows of the sentry pillbox. It moved with startling speed and yanked two of the soldiers back into the shadows. Blood and screams sprayed out over the rest of the squad, who all turned toward the unexpected threat and fired into the darkness.

  Something with a terrifyingly deep voice howled. It sounded like a wolf that had swallowed an amplifier.

  That was definitely not part of the memory. It was twisting into a nightmare. The creature reminded him of the shadow of another nightmare he once had, the dark memory of a barely remembered threat.

  Whatever it was, it distracted him from the real danger.

  Mai Luan again lifted him off the ground with one hand and threw him back into the bunker. He bounced once on the smooth cement floor, crashed through the chair she had been sitting in, and slammed into the far wall.

  Despite the pain, he forced himself to his feet and reached for his sidearm. Confused, he glanced down.

  It was gone.

  He always carried a gun in this memory.

  Mai Luan sauntered into the small room. Gregorios grabbed up two of the legs of the broken chair and attacked her with them. She might be Cui Dashi, but he had trained as a fighter for more centuries than he cared to count.

  He attacked with every ounce of power he could muster and threw every trick of stick fighting he knew at her. She was inhumanly fast and far stronger than he, but she lacked his depth of training. He landed enough solid hits to slow her down and avoid her grasping hands.

  The enclosed room smelled of cement dust, and soon of sweat. They fought across the smooth floor and he beat on her with ever-increasing tempo, trying to drive her over the edge of the stairs, but she twisted away. The move left her open and he beat both sticks into her face so hard his hands hurt from the impact.

  She gasped, an expression of shock on her bruised face, and Gregorios laughed. This was his memory and by the forgotten gods, she’d wish she’d never entered here.

  He avoided a two-handed lunge and tried to break her teeth. As the two of them fought back and forth across the small room, more howling echoed from outside, followed by more gunfire and new screaming. It distracted him just a little.

  A little was enough.

  Mai Luan slugged him in the face so hard she nearly took his head off. The blow drove him back into the wall. He struck with such force that he probably left a dent in the concrete.

  It also knocked him right out of the dream.

  Gregorios awoke in the council chamber, rocking back in his chair so hard it almost tipped over. His face screamed with pain and he coughed up blood. His chest ached and every gasping breath felt like a knife between his ribs.

  He blinked against the pain and tried to center his thoughts. What had just happened?

  Clearly Mai Luan had dragged him into his dreams, but did he choose that one or did she? The dream had been exceptionally clear, but he’d recognized that he was dreaming. What about the strange monster?

  He couldn’t think through the pain. He hadn’t hurt that much in a long time. One thought struck him with as much force as Mai Luan had. Everywhere she hit him in the dream hurt in the real world.

  How was it possible?

  Tereza lifted the jagged face plate, then removed the helmet. A gaggle of voices finally registered and drew his attention. The council members were all speaking at once, hitting Mai Luan with a barrage of questions about the test. How did it go? Why was Gregorios spitting blood and looking so battered? Why was her face bruised?

  Mai Luan had removed her helmet and sported a bruise on her lovely face right where he had clubbed her with the leg of the chair. So he was not the only one who could bleed in the dream world.

  She glared at him and he winked back. She didn’t need to know how much she terrified him.

  It took several minutes for her to calm the council. She fed them a bunch of blather they never would have accepted if they weren’t so desperate to gain access to the machine.

  Mai Luan leaned close to Gregorios as she returned her helmet to Tereza. “Your soul is mine, along with everything I decide to take from your mind.”

  “You’re such a—”

  She didn’t even let him finish, but shoved a Taser into his ribs and triggered a double burst. Before the jolting electricity subsided, Tereza jabbed him with a tranquilizer.

  On most facetakers, the electric shock would disrupt their focus long enough for the tranquilizer to put them out like any mortal. Gregorios and Quentin had developed t
he idea decades ago. It was the same concept as his double-barreled pistol, and he had trained himself to withstand exactly that deadly combination.

  It was still hard, but all that painful training kicked in and he managed to embrace enough of his nevra core to partially sever the link between his soul and his body in time. As rattled as he was, he barely managed to surround his mind with enough nevron to block the effects of the knock-out drug.

  Mai Luan whispered into his ear, “Know that I’ll track down your wife soon. She too will fuel my rise to power.”

  “I’ll kill you,” he mumbled.

  She patted his cheek. “I’ll break your spirit, just like I broke Sarah. You’ll beg to die before we’re through.”

  Gregorios didn’t respond, but slumped forward in his chair and dragged his eyes closed as if the drug had worked. It would still shut his body down for a bit, but far less than expected.

  Shahrokh spoke. “The test is completed. You promised this one would prove the final calibrations were dialed in. Did it work?”

  “We identified one glitch that must be resolved,” Mai Luan assured them. “I calculate the adjustments will take no more than a day. We’ll test Gregorios one more time, and then move on to scheduling council members.”

  “Is that why he was spitting blood?” Meryem demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “How can the machine cause damage like that?” Asoka demanded. “You said this was all a mental exercise.”

  “Gregorios attempted to interfere by embracing his nevra core,” Mai Luan explained. He hurt himself by trying to damage the machine from within.”

  “We shouldn’t allow him to test it again,” Shahrokh said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  It was hard not to laugh in their faces. There were so many other questions they needed to ask, but she was deadening their minds with the promise of salvation. They heard what they wanted to hear.

  “On the contrary,” Mai Luan said smoothly. “Once we confirm we can succeed even with a resisting subject, that will prove the safety protocols are correct.”

  Why did she want to test him again? There had to be something in that memory that she wanted.