Memory Hunter

by Frank Morin

  “I know,” Sarah said. The thought of facing Mai Luan terrified her, but she believed in the plan. For it to have any chance to succeed, for Alter to get his chance to defeat Mai Luan in the memory, or for Tomas to kill her in her sleep, they needed another person. “Like Gregorios just said, this is our one chance. She hates me, so I’ll try to draw her out, keep her distracted. Then Alter can hit her when she’s not expecting it.”

  “That could work,” Alter admitted grudgingly.

  “Are you sure?” Gregorios asked, his gaze intent.

  Sarah steeled herself against the rising fear, trying to instead infuse herself with the burning rage she’d felt right after Mai Luan had stabbed Tomas. “I’m going with you.”

  He clapped her on the shoulder, knocking her a startled step. “Good girl. You spit in her eye, and Alter will do the rest.”

  They had already dragged three recliner chairs into the room. While they positioned the chairs around the machine, Gregorios reviewed the plan. “Remember, don’t do anything stupid. Sarah, distract her, but don’t try fighting. Just let her gloat. People like her always like to do that, so let’s count on it. Alter will hit her when she’s not looking.”

  “You bet,” Alter agreed, cracking his knuckles.

  “Even if you can’t kill her, just slowing her down should be enough,” Gregorios added. “Asoka won’t resist her, and he’ll oppose anything I try to manipulate in there.”

  “You don’t think he’ll turn on her when he learns what she’s after?” Sarah asked.

  “I doubt he’ll care,” Gregorios said. “Once he learns he can break with the memory, he’ll be eager for a re-match. Once I prove that history got it right the first time and remove him, I should gain full control over the memory and either wake us up, or at least shift us away from the pivotal moment. Either way, we’ll block her.”

  “Hopefully Tomas can get into position and take her out,” Eirene said.

  “I’m counting on it,” Gregorios said. “He knows what he’s doing. We just need to prevent her from getting that master rune.”

  “Don’t stray too far from the memory,” Alter advised. “With all the forces in play, everything will drive us toward the moment that’ll trigger the master rune.”

  “I believe I know the moment,” Gregorios said, his expression grim.

  “What is it?” Sarah asked.

  “Something I have to deal with,” he said. “But if we stick to the plan, we should have plenty of time to get out of there before we hit it.”

  “You might have the hardest job,” Alter said to Eirene. “From our calculations, I expect the strain of maintaining the connection for all three of us will be severe.”

  “Can you guess how severe?”

  “No,” Alter said. “That was one of the key elements we needed to test. There’s no way to tell until we try it out, but if we tarry too long it could prove dangerous.”

  “We could find an external supply,” Eirene suggested.

  “No!” Alter looked horrified. “I’m the only rounon here, and I’m oathbound never to draw from the soul force of another. That is abomination.”

  “Even if we used a heka?” Eirene asked. “You’d just kill them otherwise.”

  “Death is honorable,” Alter insisted. “Turning to their wicked ways would destroy me along with them.”

  “We may have to consider it eventually,” Gregorios said. “But we don’t have an external supply today anyway.”

  He took Eirene’s hands in his. “She consumed an entire soul powering the machine through my memories. I don’t know if the added strain came from the fact that I fought her, but be careful. It all depends on you, love.”

  “Be quick, and I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “We’re all taking risks.”

  The group turned to face the machine and Gregorios reached for the primary helmet.

  “I hate Berlin.”

  I have the benefit of patience. It took Gregorios centuries to become the man I could commit my heart to. Most women don’t have that luxury. I am sometimes surprised by how many of them still manage to find worthy men in their first lives.

  ~Eirene

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Gregorios awoke in Berlin.

  He stopped on the Wilhelmstrasse despite the pull to keep walking. The all-too familiar dream memory was slightly different. The sky looked strangely indistinct and some of the buildings looked less damaged than they should.

  Someone was messing with his memory.

  He focused and forced the details back the way they should be. The sky sharpened into distinct billowing clouds of smoke and the buildings deteriorated before his eyes. Instantly he felt the mental strain as another will attempted to block the changes and overlay his memory with details of their own.

  It was a strange feeling, like a mental tug-of-war, made stranger by the fact that he couldn’t yet see Asoka. At least it proved Alter’s theory. Both he and Asoka had traveled to the same common memory, and despite the physical distance between them in the real world, the rune-powered machines were linking them to the shadow of that historical moment.

  He rarely felt fear any more, but the magnitude of what Mai Luan had crafted scared him. Asoka and Mai Luan were already here somewhere, and he had to stop them before she gained the master rune, or they’d never stop her.

  Alter materialized beside him. The hot-blooded young hunter looked around and said, “Where are they?”

  “They’re here somewhere,” Gregorios said. “Look sharp.”

  A mortar exploded less than a block away from them. Sarah, who had just materialized nearby yelped with fright.

  Gregorios wore the same SS uniform he preferred in this memory and Alter had appeared wearing a German infantry uniform. As soon as Alter noticed the outfit, his face reddened and he rounded on Gregorios.

  “Change this now!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gregorios said.

  The uniform actually looked pretty good on him and it blended well with the location. The invisible battle of wills was distracting. If he had not survived countless duels with rogue facetakers and mastered the art of drawing upon and directing his will, he wouldn’t have been able to maintain the integrity of the memory. “It’s just a dream.”

  “It’s a memory, isn’t it?” Sarah asked.

  “For me,” Gregorios said. “For you, it’s more a living dream.”

  “A nightmare,” Alter growled. “I will not wear the uniform of the men who slaughtered my people.”

  Oh, right. So many details.

  Gregorios concentrated, and Alter’s uniform changed into a turban and robe.

  The young man glared, and Sarah laughed. She wore a nurse’s uniform and it looked fantastic on her, like pretty much everything did. How Tomas had caught her eye Gregorios still couldn’t imagine, but she was proving to have a soul as interesting and profound as her looks. That was an incredibly rare combination. She broke the traditional look by pulling her hair out of the tight bun and rolling it into a simple ponytail.

  Gregorios concentrated again, and Alter’s robe faded into a black Jewish rabbi outfit.

  “Best you can do?”

  “Kind of busy here. Asoka and Mai Luan are messing with things.”

  “Don’t let them.”

  “If you stop interrupting.”

  “Of course.”

  “So they know we’re here?” Sarah asked.

  “No doubt.”

  Alter clenched his fists and looked down meaningfully at his empty hands. “How about some weapons?”

  “What did we just talk about?”

  Sarah was peering through the clouds of smoke down the rubble-filled thoroughfare at the squad of soldiers passing like wraiths. “Can we just make up anything we want?”

  “He can,” Alter said. “It takes effort, and if it breaks with the memory too much, bad things could happen.”

  “Avoid bad things,” Gregorios agreed. “Keep the monsters under the bed tonigh
t.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and her brow furrowed in concentration. A second later, a semi-automatic pistol appeared in her hands.

  Alter gaped. “How did you do that?”

  Sarah shrugged and displayed the piece. “Tomas’ gun.”

  A low growl spun them around. A dog-sized creature all covered in black scales, with long fangs and burning orange eyes pulled itself out of the ground. It lunged toward Sarah.

  She shot it in the head and it dissolved into dust.

  “What was that?” she gasped. It was a good sign she reacted emotionally only after killing the beast.

  “Bad things,” Alter said. “You broke the integrity of the memory, so the gap was filled with negative energy.”

  “Enough with the lectures,” Gregorios said. “We have to get to the bunker before they do.”

  Just then the woman with the little girl and baby boy scurried past as they always did, fear in their eyes. Gregorios grabbed for her, hoping to direct her into the gardens where they might live a little longer, but she yelped and ran faster.

  “What are you doing?” Sarah exclaimed.

  Gregorios turned to watch the little family running toward their doom, frustrated that he could do nothing to save them.

  Wait a minute. This was his memory.

  As the fatal mortar whistled down from the sky, Gregorios willed the memory to change.

  One hundred feet above the family, the mortar exploded into a shower of rainbow lights that drifted down around them. The woman gaped in astonishment while the little girl laughed and clapped her hands.

  A pristine white china doll dropped into her hands.

  Gregorios turned back to the others with a satisfied smile. “Finally.”

  The appearance of a creature that looked like a man wearing an octopus on his head didn’t dampen Gregorios’ good humor. He grabbed a jagged piece of steel from the street and beat the creature to dust.

  “What was that?” Sarah asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. It was worth it.”

  He led the way up the street at a run and turned into the Reich Chancellery. He pointed southeast through the smoke toward the distant Reichskanzlei. “That way.”

  Sarah, who had paused to survey the gardens said, “We’ve got company.”

  A platoon of Russian soldiers came swarming around the far end of a heavily damaged government building to their north and started shooting at them. Most of the bullets went wild at that distance but the trio still ducked and ran.

  “This isn’t right,” Gregorios shouted above the clatter of small arms fire. “The Russians never made it this far so fast.”

  “Focus!” Alter shouted as the three of them rounded a thick hedge that provided a little cover and ran hard.

  He was right. They were on Gregorios’ turf. He didn’t need to play by other peoples’ rules. He needed to keep that fact front and center in his mind. So he slowed and used his imagination instead.

  A squad of German soldiers poured into the gardens from a nearby alley, followed by a tank. They opened fire on the Russians and the two groups engaged with brutal intensity.

  “Nice touch with the tank,” Alter said.

  They ran south again but paused at the top of a low hill so Gregorios could survey the back door of the bunker to see if any other surprises awaited them. Sarah, whose face had paled at the sight of the killing and the screams of wounded soldiers, risked a glance back in the direction they came.

  “Look!”

  The soldiers who had been butchering each other moments before, were united to fight a bunch of demonic monsters. The creatures sported horns and fiery eyes and were roughly man shaped, but far more muscular. Gunfire seemed to only anger them and they ripped through the soldiers with terrifying ease. One of them roared, and a flurry of tiny white specs burst from its maw and enveloped a pair of soldiers who fell screaming to the ground.

  The tank fired into the midst of the demon creatures and three of them disintegrated.

  “What are those things?” Sarah cried.

  “More bad things,” Alter said. He cringed at the sight of several of the fallen soldiers rising to their feet and trying to eat their comrades.

  “What does that mean?” Sarah shouted. “And how are there zombies in Berlin?”

  “Those aren’t zombies,” Gregorios said. “Skin’s too pale and they move too fast. Those are ghouls.”

  “So you’re a zombie expert?”

  He shrugged. “Zombies were always a waste of time, but we’re in a memoryscape here. Ghouls are stuff of nightmares. They fit better.”

  She gave him a skeptical look and he decided not to explain further. She wouldn’t believe him unless he showed her in the real world. Most people didn’t react well to seeing actual undead though.

  “I think the demons are horerczy,” he said as he led the others down the hill toward the distant bunker. “The white specs look like butterflies close up. They’re alps, a type of German vampire shape shifters.”

  More screams from the north, and it sounded like tearing metal. Gregorios didn’t bother turning.

  As they ran, Alter said, “Breaking with a true memory is inherently dangerous. We discussed it.”

  “We didn’t talk about this,” Sarah said.

  “I don’t know much more,” he protested. “Reuben’s the one who preferred studying this kind of theoretical stuff. It never interested me.”

  “What do you think now?” Gregorios asked with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t summon the monsters, and I’m thinking neither did Asoka.”

  “You brought in the troops,” Alter said. “That created the holes through which the monsters formed.”

  “So the more we break with the memory, the worse the monsters?”

  “Something like that,” Alter confirmed.

  “Okay then,” Sarah said, looking worried but determined. “Try not to change too much.”

  They rounded a pile of rubble. The bunker lay barely a hundred yards ahead through shifting smoke, torn up lawns, and the shattered trees of the gardens. A group of SS soldiers advanced from the south out of a thick stand of timber. Asoka led them, and Mai Luan jogged at his side.

  Mai Luan spotted him, raised a German Luger pistol, and started firing. She didn’t look surprised to see him, so either she had felt him tampering with the memory, or Asoka had warned him.

  She was a fantastic shot.

  The first bullet missed by only a couple inches, and he felt the air of its passage. He ducked and ran for the cover of a nearby fallen tree.

  “Fighting out here in the open gives them the advantage,” Gregorios said as the others crouched beside him. “I’ve got to get into the bunker. I might be able to break the memory stream in there, since those events are the critical ones.”

  “Then shouldn’t you avoid the bunker altogether?” Sarah asked.

  He shook his head. “If Asoka breaks through, that’s where he’ll go. I need to get there first. You two hold the rest of them off.”

  More bullets tore into the fallen tree and sent splinters flying.

  “How are we going to do that with just one pistol?” Sarah asked, cringing lower.

  Gregorios winked. They were playing in his mind, after all.

  Sarah’s pistol morphed into a shotgun. A fifty-caliber machine gun with a long belt of ammunition appeared in Alter’s hands.

  The young hunter grinned. “This’ll do.”

  History is the version of past events that remains after we write out the important parts.

  ~Napoleon Bonaparte

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Gregorios rushed toward the bunker and left the din of battle behind. Stray bullets tore into the earth behind him, but Alter and Sarah were providing enough covering fire to keep Mai Luan and her soldiers distracted. Asoka had led the force of SS soldiers scrambling east for cover behind some buildings just south of the Old Chancellery building. From cover of the rubble, they returned fire and forced Alter and Sarah to chang
e position and dive behind piles of concrete and broken wood, all that remained of a once-beautiful gazebo.

  The SS would eventually drive the two back with the weight of numbers. Alter, with his hunter training, should be able to keep the attackers busy long enough for Gregorios to break the critical moment.

  His biggest worry was that Mai Luan might hurt Sarah, but he had to take the risk. As much as he cared for her, he couldn’t stay to protect her. They all risked much in this fight, and they all had come prepared to make the required sacrifices.

  He still hoped Asoka and the Cui Dashi would be the ones to make the ultimate sacrifice in the end.

  To the north, the Russian and German soldiers were still battling ghouls. It looked like the tank had destroyed the demonic horerczy, but a giant snake had wound around the armored vehicle and was trying to rip it apart.

  Gregorios always detested Berlin, and now he hated it more than ever. The memory was threatening to fly out of control. He wasn’t sure what would happen if it did. Would it just force them awake or would their minds die? The fact that injuries sustained in the memory affected their sleeping forms motivated him to keep it together. He didn’t need much time.

  He paused at the bunker door and glanced back. The firefight between the SS soldiers and Alter and Sarah was still raging, and looked like it could continue for a while before either side gained the advantage. He didn’t see Asoka or Mai Luan, and that worried him. Were they circling around to attack Alter and Sarah? More likely, they’d left their men behind just as he had and were moving toward him around one of the nearby buildings.

  Either way, he held the advantage. Hopefully it would be enough.

  He entered the bunker, slammed the heavy door behind him, and locked it. Mai Luan could break through, but it would slow regular soldiers for a while. Mai Luan was linked to this historical moment through Asoka, so she didn’t lie in wait for him in the inner room. She was stuck outside, hopefully for a couple more minutes.

  Gregorios headed down the stairs.

  The memory pulled him down and he allowed himself to go with it. The less resistance to it, the better. He had caught Mai Luan by surprise. She had undoubtedly assumed she would control Asoka’s memory and gain her prize without opposition. That mistake would cost her everything. Gregorios hated re-visiting this memory for so many reasons, but he would go through it one more time if it meant thwarting her plans.