House of Dolls 2

by Harmon Cooper

  Eli shrieked when he saw just how devastating Roman’s power could be. Celia had been tasked with protecting Eli, which she did by standing in front of him.

  The Eastern response was entirely what Roman had been hoping for, even though he knew it was suicide.

  Thing was, Roman didn’t really care any longer, and as he saw soldiers running to them, wrist guards and staffs aimed in his direction, he felt a tinge of happiness overcome the tension he was feeling.

  Whether he liked to admit it or not, Roman was in his element, and the years he’d spent fighting made him feel more comfortable than he should as enemies advanced upon him.

  Though truth be told, these weren’t his true enemies; no, that category was reserved for the person who had taken his wife’s body.

  Still, these men—and a few women—were standing in his way, and Roman wasn’t going to leave Nadine behind.

  Coma pressed past him, moving faster than he’d ever seen her move before.

  She met some of the soldiers with their fancy technological shields, striking with full force, perfect balance and complete self-awareness as she ducked a blade made of energy, swept her leg around and took the woman to the ground, bringing a fist into her stomach and then rolling away just in time to avoid a blast of energy and meet her next attacker.

  Like Celia, she was in her more conservative Eastern wear, meaning she didn’t have her normal accoutrements to deal with. No Gothic Loli dress, no heels—Coma was all business as she dodged another blade of energy, her fists coming forward as a small pillar of steel extended from them, connecting with the man’s gut.

  Roman was proud of how well she had adapted to her role, and he offered her a little help by sweeping the ground up and bringing it down on a trio of soldiers trying to flank her.

  Exemplars would show up soon; Roman was surprised they hadn’t already. And as difficult as it was, he was still trying not to kill everyone.

  He just wanted to neutralize them.

  He just wanted to save Nadine.

  He had no idea why they’d taken her, but he knew the Eastern government could be shifty in their decisions and cruel to their constituents, the kind of government that would butcher their own to get rid of all evidence.

  Roman could only hope he hadn’t come too late, that Nadine was still being held here, that she was still alive.

  A door to his right popped opened and two men popped out, staffs aimed at Roman. It only took a second for their staffs to come alive, twisting around their bodies and bringing the men to the ground.

  Roman glanced down at his power dial and saw that he was a lot closer to his limit than he would like to be.

  He focused on his breath, sucking in deep gulps of air, trying to lower his heart rate and relieve the tension. He had to be careful, had to keep an eye out for…

  “Watch out!” Casper shouted from his pocket.

  Roman jumped back just in time for a flying exemplar to land, swing at him, and follow up with a rapid-fire kick.

  Roman could’ve just neutralized the man by taking the ground out from beneath him, but sometimes a fist fight was the only way to settle things, so he returned fire—this one with a right jab to the man’s stomach that left him reeling.

  Roman brought his elbow down on the back of his head, the flying exemplar connecting his chin to the ground, where some of the gravel formed tendrils and wrapped around his body, leaving him on his stomach.

  A group of energy-blade-wielding soldiers surrounded Coma.

  Roman paused for a moment, watching what she would do, ready to come to her aid.

  The men barked orders at her as they moved in closer. Coma loosened her arms a bit, her head bowed forward, some of her black hair in her face and her legs spread wide.

  She twisted, kicking her left leg over her right, connecting it with the cheek of the man behind her as she used her momentum to flip the other heel around, taking out another one of the bladed soldiers.

  The flying exemplar Roman had pinned to the ground tried to break free from his shackles. A fist lifted from the ground, formed fingers, grabbed the back of the man’s head and slammed it hard against the cement, knocking him out completely.

  The air was tense all around Roman as he waited for their next attacker, knowing it would come sooner rather than later. In that brief moment, he turned once again to make sure Celia was still protecting Eli.

  The boy was huddled behind her, Celia on high alert, her eyes going wide as she shouted, “Roman, watch out!”

  A teleporter appeared with a pair of Eastern Province exemplars, who immediately moved into action against Roman.

  “Protect Eli!” he shouted over his shoulder. Roman had to keep Eli alive. It could be his only chance for leverage—or survival, for that matter.

  His command came just in time too, as a fiery blast slammed into the ground just a few feet in front of him, taking his attention.

  Roman was fast with his next move, preventing some of the blowback from reaching him by sweeping his arms up, stopping the blast with a curved wall of gravel.

  He still felt the heat, and it was then he saw what one of the exemplars was using against him.

  The man, clearly a Type II, was generating some sort of fiery bubbles, which he lobbed off at Roman one at a time.

  He didn’t know what power the other man was hiding from him, but it became clear when the second exemplar jumped over the wall Roman had created, landed on one foot and did a cartwheel into a two-footed kick aimed right at Roman’s chest.

  Roman sidestepped the kick, but the man was already on them again, this time bringing in a series of lightning-fast punches that connected with Roman’s ribs.

  The exemplar managed to get another hit in, which sent Roman stumbling backward where he nearly collided with another explosive bubble, dodging out of the way just in time.

  Roman took action almost immediately, even though the breath had been knocked out of him, even with his power slowly diminishing.

  As the agile exemplar moved in to deliver more blows, Roman focused on the man’s knees, snapping them, shin bones tearing out of flesh.

  The man screamed in pain, giving Roman the chance he needed to clear himself from the trajectory of another blast.

  He heard the agile exemplar clawing at the ground, trying to move his body forward, paralyzed from the waist down. The exemplar with the explosive bubbles cried out, anger spilling over into his creations as he made a huge ball of fire and lobbed it at Roman.

  The two exemplars were brothers of some kind, maybe longtime friends; at least that was what Roman surmised as he brought up another wall to protect himself from the large explosion.

  Suddenly, the explosion stopped, and as he moved around his wall, he saw that Coma had pitched one of her metal gloves at the man, striking him in the head from behind.

  The exemplar now lay on the ground, his head at an odd angle, his chest heaving up and down.

  “Good,” Roman said, catching his breath, wheezing from the hits he’d taken.

  As he advanced towards the main entrance, limping, each breath more painful than the last, Roman sank the explosive-bubble guy into the ground, deep enough that it would be difficult for him to blow himself out without injuring his own body.

  Everything suddenly went black.

  Roman took one staggering step forward, fell to his knee and hit the ground, the walls closing in around him.

  Black ink splatter.

  Roman was falling, the twilight meadow above him, stars falling alongside him, his hands reaching for something, anything to stop him from going any further.

  He cried her name out in that moment. “Celia!”

  Roman cried it again and again—“Celia! Celia!”—his throat growing hoarse as he continued his spiral downward.

  The twilight meadow ignored him—Celia ignored him—and soon, darkness began to swell around Roman.

  The stars were blotted out, his hands losing color, black ink dripping down his fac
e and spilling into his mouth, choking him.

  He gasped for air just as a burst of white light cut through the meadow above him.

  The column of white light hooked him like a tractor beam. He was suddenly suspended, the ink spilling out as if it were water, something shifting in his stomach as he began his ascent.

  It was the fastest Roman had ever moved, yet it still took another minute for him to reach the twilight meadow, for him to be sucked through the hole in the soil, pushed out the other end, where he opened his eyes and…

  “Where am I?” Roman asked, life coming back to him.

  “Roman!” Celia the doll cried out, hugging his neck, her purple eyes wide with terror.

  They were in a domed structure, and as he looked around, he noticed that more and more bulges were forming on the surface.

  “Where are we?” he asked, his eyes moving from Celia to Eli, the young healer’s hands hidden behind a blinding bright light.

  “You made this before…” the boy began to say, looking up at the dome.

  “You created this,” said tiny Casper, who stood on his chest peering down at him, “just before you passed out, and everyone slipped under it. It’s a shell, to protect you, but Coma’s out there all alone!”

  “And you healed me?” Roman asked, his eyes darting from Eli to his power dial, where he saw he was back to comfortable levels.

  “I did, mister, just like you told me to do.”

  “Coma is out there!” Casper reminded him as she bounced up and down.

  “Then I’ve got to help her,” Roman said. “Stay as close as you can behind me. And Celia, protect him from anyone who may come at me from behind.”

  The shell surrounding them burst as Roman stood, propelled forward by a boost from the ground. He reached his hand out just in time to catch Casper, and he quickly deposited her into his jacket pocket for safekeeping.

  There were soldiers all around them now and rather than engage them individually, Roman brought anything he could to his hands, forming two large whips made of gravel, metal, earth, discarded armor.

  Roman began whipping his hands around, taking out the approaching soldiers.

  He saw Coma engaging with a muscular female of sorts, the exemplar smashing her fists into the ground, the masked doll narrowly dodging the woman’s attacks.

  Anger swelling inside him, Roman used the ground to lift the woman into the air and throw her sideways into one of the buildings. The woman brought the wall down in a solid mass, some of the ceiling coming down too in an avalanche of gravel.

  “I want Nadine!” Roman bellowed, throwing one of his whips just in time to avoid a series of energy blasts.

  The blasts hit his whips crafted from found objects instead, dispersing them into tiny pieces, giving Roman just enough time to lift more off the ground and bring it down on the men firing.

  With an eye still on his power dial, and seeing he was reaching the dead zone again, he grabbed Eli and screamed, “Heal me!”

  His eyes closed, Eli did as Roman instructed, his hands pressing into Roman’s back.

  Coma was closer now, using a metal tube to block incoming blasts while Celia engaged a man with a staff. They were surrounded, more soldiers pouring out from one of the barracks at the back of the installation, circling around the long way, trying to overpower them with numbers.

  Roman continued busying himself with cutting down a few of the ranks with the large whip he’d formed, even as energy poured into him from Eli, preventing that red bar from growing any longer.

  But he knew drastic measures were in order, and for drastic measures to take place, he needed even more power.

  “Closer to me!” Roman called to his dolls.

  “Be careful!” Casper shouted.

  “It’s the only way!” Roman mentally reached out to his surroundings just as the two dolls surrounding him dropped their heads, their knees buckling as they fell to the ground.

  Roman lifted the earth all around them, bringing both hands up as if he were conducting a large symphony on the verge of its final note.

  He brought his arms down, and all the soldiers surrounding them were buried in the gravel, only their heads exposed.

  There were fifty to seventy of them, each struggling, shocked looks on their faces as they realized they were completely stuck, that their weapons wouldn’t blast them out of the soil, that all Roman had to do was just push a little further…

  “One last time,” Roman said aloud. “Where is she?”

  Eli was at his side now, both hands holding on to the fabric of Roman’s jacket. Casper was still animated, and as Roman started to look around, she pulled herself out of his pocket, slid down his arm and transferred to Eli’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” she started to tell the boy, “I think we have this. Emphasis on the ‘I think’ part.”

  The teleporter from earlier appeared about fifteen feet in front of Roman, three people in front of her.

  “Nadine,” Roman whispered, hatred swelling in his chest as he took in her bruises, her wrists and legs shackled.

  Jorgen stood behind Nadine, a staff held at her back. Standing to Nadine’s right was an Eastern woman in crisp military garb; it was clear by the way she held herself that she was the person in charge.

  “I believe that is enough, Mr. Martin,” the woman said, her voice certain. “You may call me Captain Harwood, and I think there may be another solution here.”

  “I’m listening,” said Roman, still slightly out of breath. “But the solution better begin with you freeing Nadine.”

  “Let me ask you, Mr. Martin: do you know why we took Nadine in the first place?” The woman took a few steps closer to him, not at all afraid of the power he’d shown.

  “Not my concern,” he said, his arms still tense, ready to move into action. “I was attacked back at the hotel when I came back to find her, and now I’m here to get her. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “Roman,” Nadine whispered, her voice barely audible.

  Captain Harwood cleared her throat as she stepped around one of the men Roman had buried up to his neck. “You see, Nadine disobeyed a direct order, and here in the East, that is cause for concern. I’m sure someone like you, a government worker, can appreciate something like that.” Nadine’s head fell forward, her blond hair falling into her face as she spit blood onto the ground. “But I have a way to make all of this go away.”

  Roman looked from the woman to Eli, who cowered beside him.

  “What are your demands?” he asked, his voice a few decibels lower than before.

  “We are interested in you, Mr. Martin, and your ability. You see, Nadine has told us about your power, and how you came to possess it. Allow us to take some samples and perform a few tests, and I’ll make sure all of this goes away.”

  “What?” Jorgen asked, turning to his superior officer. “Look at the destruction—”

  “I’ve already cleared it with command,” Captain Harwood said firmly. “It is Roman we’re interested in, not Nadine or her wild goose chase. And the destruction here is something that a) our recruits can learn from, and b) Roman will be able to fix, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Then I agree,” Roman said, “but only if Nadine is free to come back with me to Centralia and continue her work there. The boy, too. He comes with us. Lisa as well. Everyone goes free.”

  “Roman!” Nadine cried out. “Don’t…” Her head dropped as she started to lose consciousness again.

  Captain Harwood considered what Roman had said for moment. “Who is the boy, anyway? I suppose I should find that out before I agree for him to be taken across the border. Is he the famous healer Nadine keeps going on about?”

  “I wish,” Roman said, figuring it was worth a shot. “His village was destroyed by my people, the Centralians that are advancing upon the mountains looking for healers, which I’m sure you know about. He was the only one left alive. Well, his mother too, who was the actual healer, but the Centralians killed
her before they knew what she could do. This kid is a non-exemplar, plain as day.”

  “Is that so?” the woman said, raising an eyebrow at him.

  Roman placed a hand on Eli’s shoulder, forcing Casper to move to the other side. “Just go with it,” he said under his breath to the boy.

  Casper said something quickly to the kid, and he nodded, sniffing as he geared up to sob.

  Impressed with the boy’s performance, Roman continued, “I’m sure you already know everything there is to know about me, but if you didn’t, let me explain. I work in immigration, and with my power I’m able to forge documents. Nadine and I found this boy, and we decided to give him a second chance in Centralia. We’ll get him across the border, and I’ll get the right documents for him to be put in a foster home. A real chance.”

  “Hmmmm…” the woman said as she started to pace. “All that sounds very charitable of you, but I don’t see why Nadine was claiming he was a healer. She even reported this to her superiors.”

  “Because I was trying to get you to let me go so we could disappear across the border,” Nadine said through gritted teeth. “I told my handler the same thing so I could get clearance.”

  “Hmmmm,” the woman said, looking at Jorgen, who was shaking his head. “In any event, we will have to run some tests to verify the information you’ve just told us. I provisionally agree to your demands, Mr. Martin, but we have to make sure you aren’t lying to us…”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Eli said, a light shining behind his eyes as he moved in front of Roman.

  “He is, is he?” the woman started to ask, a blank expression forming on her face. “He is, yes—I think he’s telling the truth,” Captain Harwood finally said to Jorgen. “What about you?”

  “It makes sense to me,” the man said, the same blank expression on his own face. To confirm he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, Roman looked around at the half-buried men and women soldiers all around them, seeing that everyone wore this blank expression.

  Roman gasped as he looked from the back of the boy’s head to Nadine, who was also staring wide eyed at the two.