Authors: David Sakmyster
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban
Chapter 8
In the recovery ward at San Diego General Hospital, Mason appeared as before, stepping out of a dream. This time closer to Lauren’s room, but not too close. It was nearly 4:00 am, less than two hours away from dawn.
And the start of the end of the world.
He had to move fast, but first he had to hope the others were here. No time to tell them of what he had learned, but there was nothing else for it; this part of the plan had to stay the same. Lauren and Shelby needed to be freed. There was no way he was going to kick off an environmental apocalypse, but he couldn’t take a chance that anything could happen to Lauren or Shelby.
First things first.
He headed down the hall, into the main processing and waiting room, where a lone TV displayed more weather-related news. This one a local broadcast, his former Channel 7 News, with his stand-in, Rebecca Montross. She looked haggard and exhausted as she pointed to the map of the local counties, all swirled with high concentrations of clouds and precipitation. A flashing red ticker at the bottom proclaimed a storm watch for an unheard of four inches of snow, with icy road conditions and a city-wide state of emergency.
Mason passed in front of Lauren’s room quickly, looking only out of the corner of his eye, taking in the room in a glance.
No one there. At least not in the chair. The creepy old man could be around the corner or by the head of the bed, but Mason couldn’t tell. He glanced around and noted he wasn’t alone: three nurses and an assistant behind the counter, one who peered up in his direction, then looked away.
A commotion down the hall caught their collective attention.
Mason took a second to take it in. It must have looked to the nurses as if someone had opened all the windows in the wing. Papers and boxes were flying about, slapping against the walls and swirling around. Snowflakes rushed inside, along with a howling wind.
The diversion had begun.
O O O
Mason waited by the side of the door, pressed flat against the wall. Sure enough, with a flourish of his black trench coat, the old man—who Angelica had told him was named Niles Stanwick—rushed out in a near gallop unseemly for his age. Three bounds and he stopped in a crouch, staff extended lengthwise as he scanned the hallway, and sniffed the air.
“Tildershines,” he spat. “I smell your foul English cologne from here.”
A stairway door opened, and the half-sized druid emerged, wobbling unsteadily but grinning ear to ear. He winked at Mason, then gave Stanwick a look of disdain. “Hello Niles, you’re one to talk, what with the stench of the grave about you.”
“You shouldn’t have come alone.”
Morris grinned. “Who said I did?”
Mason slipped around the doorframe and into Lauren’s room, glancing back once before edging out of sight, just long enough to see the flowing brown and red embroidered robe glide into view from the opposite direction. Angelica floated in through a patient’s window, and with a wave of her vine-encased stick, the nurses and the orderlies froze in place.
Lingering a moment, Mason felt the pull to join them, but the beeping of Lauren’s blood pressure machine pulled him from the fixation. He turned and rushed to her side.
Still out, calm and serene, thank God. She was sleeping soundly, eyelids flickering. He pressed his lips against her forehead, smoothed her hair and stepped back.
A scream, and a blast of something rocked the floor just as Mason felt another rush of cold air burst into the room. It fueled his legs and in seconds he was at the closet, tiptoeing, reaching inside, way back … Reaching …
“Looking for this?”
The bathroom door had been ajar, and now it kicked open, and a pale-faced young man stepped out. Mason recognized him as being one of the members of Solstice, had seen him taking tea and relaxing in the grove.
Only now, his expression was anything but serene.
He held Mason’s ivory staff in his left hand, another in his right.
Apparently, Old Man Stanwick hadn’t come alone, either.
O O O
The training still fresh in his mind, training done mostly without a staff to harness the natural surrounding energy, Mason feinted left then rose up and lunged. The kid—for he was barely over twenty as far as Mason could tell—reacted in surprise at the aggressive move and lifted a staff.
Fortunately, it was Mason’s and he grabbed it as he knocked into the adept and smashed him back into the bathroom.
A surge of energy rolled wavelike up Mason’s muscles, into his shoulders and neck, and then he willed the force back down with all his fury. The kid screamed as if he’d picked up a scalding hot pot’s metal handle, and let go. But he had the sense to push Mason off and then strike with the other staff.
Mason blocked it, surprised at the speed of his reaction and the burst of lightning that scattered along the connection at the same time. He fell back though, stumbled into the room and struck the edge of the bed.
A glance out the door was enough to show Angelica pinned against a wall, giant vines holding her wrists and Stanwick advancing on her, staff outraised. Morris was on his knees, recovering from an assault, his head bleeding. Snow and ice swirled around the three of them, with swaying vines and sharp branches breaking through the ceiling. Mason couldn’t figure out who controlled the vegetation, but he didn’t have a chance to consider it.
A blast of searing hot wind struck his eyes, spun him around and held him in place to witness a wall of locusts converging on Lauren. Huge wriggling insects scuttled over one another, about to reach her hair, fall into her eyes, climb onto and chew the wires.
Horrified, Mason struggled to break free, about to use the staff and try calling out a gust of wind.…
But then he blinked. Took a deep breath, and squeezed harder, his fingers feeling the calming ivory touch, the soothing cold that erased the mental fog of heat and oppression.
A veil lifted from his eyes—a veil of illusion and nightmare. He peeled away the entire scene of illusionary locusts and scattered it like a bad page out of a book gone wrong. And with one fluid motion, he turned and swung out like a major league batter, high to low, stepping into the swing.
Crack! He connected hard with the side of the adept’s head, crushing into the temple in a bone-fracturing sound. Lights out, the kid dropped and fell hard, face first.
Chest heaving, his mind still clearing, Mason gave another glance to Lauren to reassure himself she was safe. He planned on rushing out to help his new friends, but he saw her eyes flicker, then open.
He rushed to her side.
She wasn’t awake, not completely. Out of focus, her pupils contracted slightly. She turned her head toward him, licked her lips and spoke. Barely audible, Mason had to lean in to hear.
“Dreaming,”
she said,
“of the sun.”
“Honey, don’t stress. Just rest.”
“Shining so bright, so so bright …”
He stroked her chin, and her eyelids fluttered again, struggling to stay open.
“Burning … the sunlight. Burning …”
Her eyes closed and her chest exhaled slowly.
“…all the trees and the vines, everything, burning all the green …”
“Lauren?”
She was out, and just then he heard a choked cry from the hall. Galvanized, Mason turned and jumped over the kid and raced out of the room.
He skidded to a halt on an icy floor, almost falling. Staff raised, he was ready to do what he could to try to turn things around for his new friends, but he found he was too late.
The hanging vines, it seemed, had indeed been in service of the diminutive Englishman.
Old man Stanwick was currently hanging upside down, ankles encircled by the thorny appendages. His staff lay on the ground below, broken it two. Blood dripped on the frosted floor, seeping from the open wound in his chest, from which his decrepit old heart had just been torn free.
Still beating, the organ sputtered, pierced on a vine waving slowly in front of Morris’s face as he shook his head and turned it a little to look in Stanwick’s eyes.
“Sorry old chap, looks like you won’t be needing this any longer. And … ah, there you are Mr. Grier!”
Stanwick’s fingers stopped twitching. A second later, the vines tugged and up the body and heart went up through the open ceiling tiles, which promptly slid back in place. Morris stamped his staff and the ice on the floor melted, swirling with water that washed out the blood, then simmered, boiled and evaporated, leaving behind nothing but shiny floors that looked as if they’d just been washed.
Mason whistled. “You sure clean up nice. Where’s Angelica?” He glanced at the wall free of scorch marks, dust and gore, and saw no sign of her.
Morris smiled as he put his staff behind his back. “Change in plans, my friend! She was never here.”
“What do you mean? I saw her, she came in, charmed all the nurses, then … she was pinned to the wall.”
“You and Mr. Stanwick both saw what I wanted you to see.” Morris beamed as if to say,
Damn I’m good.
“Distracted him into thinking she was the greater threat, as if bigger is always better, regardless of gender.” He shrugged. “Anyway, while he was busy with her, I took care of him.”
Mason nodded appreciatively. “So she’s …”
“Heading to the warehouse with Belgar. We believe that might be a tougher test, and involve both of them to pull it off without alerting Solomon.”
“I better get there,” Mason said, glancing back toward Lauren’s room. But first, he looked around the lobby. Four nurses stood like statues, wobbling slightly, their expressions locked in terror and disbelief. “What about them? Don’t want this story hitting the Internet.”
“I got it,” Morris said, approaching the first pair. “They’ll wake with a minor headache but no memories of all the fun.”
“Wait,” Mason said quickly. “There’s another one to take care of.” He thumbed over his shoulder, and Morris took a peek in Lauren’s room.
He whistled jovially like a leprechaun. “Damn, you do learn fast! Nice work. All right, go, I got this. Clean up duty, all I’m good for.”
“And Lauren …”
Morris’s eyes softened, and it almost looked like he’d cry with a sudden sense of empathy. “Don’t worry about the lass. I’ll stay and stand guard. No harm’ll come to her. You just do your thing.”
“I’ll try,” Mason said. “And thanks.”
He closed his eyes, and as soon as he thought about Shelby, he opened them—and found himself transported into the midst of hell.
Chapter 9
Fire, ice and wind battled it out on the warehouse floor as Mason arrived, anchored on the walkway again above Shelby. She was still tied to the chair, cringing as debris hurled around her. Barrels were flung into the air, crashing down near Belgar who dodged one, then another, then leapt into the air and tossed a barrel back toward the two well-dressed druids near the entrance. One dove out of the way while the other tried to block the projectile only to have it explode like a powder keg. Fire swept over the wall behind Belgar, unraveling like a crimson carpet.
Mason shouted a warning and leapt down, forgetting for a moment the height. But it didn’t matter, for an updraft seemed to catch him and deposit him with just the right poise, landing on his feet behind Gabriel, who spun and momentarily lost control of his fire attack. Belgar turned and slammed his staff against the floor, spreading ice and bitter wind back upon the fire and snuffing it out. He turned—and another blast of wind-riddled insects swirled at him from the surviving druid.
Taking it all in, Mason had barely a second to register that someone else was up on the walkway at the other end. Someone taking aim with a much more conventional weapon.
Mason shouted, “Belgar, above you!”
But then Gabriel made a motion with his hand and the sound waves compressed back to him, echoing Mason’s words as if through a deep pit, and then into a tunnel of water.
“So, Dad. You made it to the party after all. Found your invite, and your … true nature. A little late, I’d say, but it’s finally good to talk without all the lies.”
Mason focused, pushed and gripped his staff tighter, then spun it and felt the encircling waves of energy dissipate, and potency returned to his lungs.
“I may be late, Gabriel, but I’m not sure you’re done with the lies.” He glanced sideways to Shelby, was about to call out to her but noticed that she was behaving strangely. She seemed focused on Belgar, straining, her face turning red.
A shot rang out and went wild as the walkway bent and tilted in the same moment Victor pulled the trigger.
Gabriel flinched but didn’t look back. “It’s all too late, Dad. Whatever junior magic tricks you’ve learned in the past few days, it won’t amount to anything. I’ve had years of study, and I’m just one of a hundred other followers. True believers.” He shook his head. “You can’t stop us. You can’t even get in the way.”
A burst of lightning came from the ceiling and struck the metal ledge just as Victor leapt off it. Mason watched as if appreciating a good action scene from a movie. He marveled at Victor’s landing, but then realized he hadn’t been Belgar’s target. The entire walkway collapsed in a storm of sparks, and one huge section slammed down onto the remaining druid who had no chance for escape, splitting his skull and burying him under twisted, lightning-riddled metal.
“Don’t you know?” Mason asked over the carnage. “I’m the sacrifice. Without me, you’ve got nothing, so I’d say I can more than get in the way.”
Gabriel laughed. “We have Shelby.”
“Take a look around, son. You’ve lost.”
Belgar made a motion with his staff and Victor’s feet left the floor as a wind burst tossed him up and over Gabriel and Mason and pinned him against the nearest wall.
Gabriel hissed, stamped the floor with his staff, then spun in an arc, flipping something into the air, then striking it with the staff. At first Mason swore it looked like a small hand sized Nerf football of some kind, but then he realized it was brittle, white and full of holes.
A honeycomb. It burst apart when struck, and a horde of wasps roared out toward Belgar, who immediately spun himself around like a figure skater, causing a whirlwind as he spun faster and faster.
“Thought you hated bees,” Mason said. “I remember when you got stung on your sixth birthday and you swore you’d never go outside again.”
Gabriel turned to him and his lip twitched. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
Belgar’s cyclone spun faster, tossing off the attacking wasps, and then he stepped free and smoothed back his hair, smiling. He raised his staff.
Gabriel turned away from his father again and was about to conjure up some new effect when the ground at his feet cracked opened and fingers of roots and clay reached up to grasp his ankles and pull him down. More roots emerged and encircled his body, up to his neck.
Belgar sighed as he fixed a few more errant hairs. “That should settle things down for now.”
Feeling like he had done nothing to help, Mason approached his son where he lay squirming and struggling.
Belgar cleared his throat. “Don’t make me cast a silence spell on you, kid.”
Gabriel cursed him. “I’m no kid, and …” He gripped one section of the root and squeezed, causing it to smoke and sizzle.
Mason reached out with his staff and let the ivory tip press against Gabriel’s cheek. “Son. Enough. Stop and listen.”
The smoke fizzled as Gabriel’s fingers lightened up. “I’ve nothing more to hear from you.”
“You never did listen,” Mason said, nodding first to Belgar and checking on Shelby, who still sat motionless.
Where’s Angelica?
“But listen to me now, Gabe. I respect your mind, and I’ve always respected the hell out of your courage to stand up for the things you believed in, but this … this isn’t the way.”
Gabriel sneered. “Let me go, I’ll show you the way.”
“Yeah your way. Billions of people wiped out? All of civilization—everything we’ve ever done as a species to pull ourselves out of the chaos and survive—gone. Is that really what you want?”
“It’s what has to happen,” Gabriel spat. “Balance, restoration of—”
“Bullshit,” Mason hissed as Belgar came closer, towards Shelby. He hoped his tone had the desired effect, and from the look on Gabriel’s face it did.
“I know this isn’t you. Your mother and I, we always feared you’d been brainwashed or something. Where’s the cute, happy kid we raised? The one that loved animals and TV and games and the one we had to yell at to throw his trash in the garbage and be considerate?”
Gabriel said nothing, just writhed and struggled against his bonds. He looked over to his sister as if for support, or to lash out, but she still seemed unresponsive.
“I grew up,” he said through clenched teeth. “And no matter what you hoped for me, Shelby was the one you really wanted. Hadn’t planned on twins, did you? She was the good one, always the fighter, always the happy one. She walked through the snowstorm for help, she braved the cruel world to save your wife.”
“To save you too. Or did you forget that?”
Gabriel laughed, then choked again on the roots cutting into his neck. “I’m beyond saving. But the world isn’t. That’s why this is so important. I’m doing something—”
“That will destroy all the very people you once wanted to save! Do you think Shelby will be fine? Your mother?”
Nodding, Gabriel spat it out with difficulty. “They’ll be fine. We have plans for them.”
Mason sighed. “Solomon and his Noah-esque dreams to repopulate the earth?”
“Of course. The right caretakers, the right plan. A destiny that will lead us not only into a new Eden, but a golden age.”
Mason shrugged. “Not sure that’s going to happen. Might have to settle for silver.” He lowered his head, and thought of something. “But I don’t want to give up on you. Yes, Shelby made a great sacrifice going for help to save you both, but you did something just as important.”
“The hell are you talking about? I sat there and huddled in the car seat trying to stay warm.”
Mason dropped to one knee, looking into his son’s eyes. He shook his head and smiled. “No, you stayed with her. You gave your mother comfort through her injuries and her fear. She told me you sang to her. Held her hand and sang.…”
Gabriel’s eyes clouded and bubbled slightly as he looked back. His lip quivered.
“It was
you
,” Mason continued, “that saved your mother. Just as much as what Shelby did, maybe more. You have an empathy others lack, it’s still inside you. I know it is. You can’t do this. You can’t want this … this suffering on a scale billions of times worse that what you endured in that car. You saved her then, but you also saved yourself.” Mason stood up, sensing a change suddenly in the air.
“Do it again,” he started to say—when the roof tore open and a roaring cyclone slammed down with a force that shattered the remaining windows and rocked the foundations.
O O O
Belgar was there one moment, tossed away the next, a blur of arms and legs flung far into the depths of the warehouse. Mason might have heard a bone-crunching impact, but couldn’t be sure. The wind and the howling field of air and debris, the proximity to Gabriel and Shelby … he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
But he could just make out a form in the twister. The narrow cyclone writhed snake-like, undulating to an unseen flautist’s melody, then it scattered, leaving behind a man in a clean-pressed suit. Emerald-green tie matching his eyes. Solomon stepped forward, walking with his staff as a cane.
He quickly noted the surroundings: Mason staggered, recovering; Gabriel struggling but restrained; Shelby still tied up; Victor injured but gaining his feet …
Solomon made a motion with his staff and Gabriel’s confining root turned immediately to dust and blew away. Quickly rising, Gabriel lowered his head. “Thank you, the elder druid was—”
“—not acting alone,” Solomon said, narrowing his eyes.
Mason regained his balance and his grip on his staff. He figured Solomon was talking about him, and readied himself, even though he knew his training was no match, not yet and not in this limited split spirit state. He might have to beat a hasty exit, but he waited, wanting to give Shelby a chance, and attempt one more time to free her. He looked at her again, at the same time Solomon did, and he figured it out too.
“Gabriel, I’m surprised at you,” Solomon said. “Surprised you didn’t see it. Training has apparently been amiss. And what have I always said? It’s the minor details that, if missed, can ruin the best laid plans.”
“What do you mean—?” Gabriel started, but then the air behind Solomon shimmered. He leapt back and hurled a bolt of swirling fire at Shelby.
“NO!” Mason shouted and raised his staff, but he knew it would be too late. Cringing, he watched helplessly, but in the next instant he was utterly surprised as the fireball crunched into an invisible convex shield.
Shelby stood up, easily slipping through her bonds, and her appearance changed, morphing at once into someone taller with red hair cascading around her shoulders and her woodland robe unfolding over the other clothes.
“Dear Angelica,” Solomon said. “Thought that was you. What, lending aid in hiding? Ingenious I suppose, and enough to fool my adept here.”
“And your other lackeys,” Angelica said, raising her staff. She glanced at Mason: a concerned look that said:
be ready for anything.
Anything, unfortunately, didn’t include more conventional attacks. A sideways look and nod from Solomon and a gunshot rang out behind Mason. He flinched and ducked, but saw Angelica wince and drop after spinning with the bullet’s impact. It struck under her left arm and might have punctured her lung, it was hard to tell with the robe. But she went down, still gripping her staff.
She screamed out a word and a cascade of lightning bolts rained down through the open roof, blasting the floor and branching in all directions.
Mason stood his ground, wincing as Gabriel and Solomon ducked and leapt out of the way.
Victor, however, wasn’t so lucky. One blast struck a metal grate then ricocheted and slammed him back twenty feet into a wall. When he finished jittering, he fell to the floor with a heavy thud, still groaning as smoke issued from his nostrils.
Mason’s attention darted around the chaos. Solomon and Gabriel were crouching, shielding themselves and firing off their own volleys of ice and fire. Vines erupted from the floor and the walls and Angelica knocked them back as she half-ran, half-stumbled away, toward where Belgar had landed.
Mason knew she could heal herself and Belgar, if given a chance. So he had to act, and act fast. And there was still the matter of Shelby.
Where was she?
As if reading his mind, Gabriel scoured the warehouse floor, then settled on a collection of barrels. He raised his staff and a mini-cyclone formed, racing toward them.
Mason moved, aiming his own staff and concentrating. He saw the inside of the whirlwind, felt its eye, and mentally went in and just gripped it hard, twisted and broke it apart. Gabriel howled in frustration as his cyclone broke apart, but its finale still had enough gas in it to scatter several of the empty barrels, revealing Shelby crouched behind them.
“Dad!”
“Shelby, here! Run!”
She got up and raced to him, but a block of ice fell between them like a huge frozen curtain. It dug into the concrete, spewing up chunks of rock. Mason struck it with his staff, and with satisfaction he saw it turn brittle, red, and then burst inward with a sloshing liquid sound.
Only, Shelby was no longer behind it.
She was in the air, lifted by a twisting stalk of vegetation like something out of a fairy tale. Solomon stood nearby, moving his hands, guiding the vine. It brought her high and then down, right over him and then released her.
Solomon caught her and brought her down to his side, then motioned to Gabriel.
Behind them, Angelica came out of a doorway blasted through an inferno of smoke, flame and ash. Belgar had an arm around her shoulder and limped ahead, but his eyes, like hers, reflected the flames and magnified them with greater intensity.
Solomon, however, had what he wanted. “Sorry to cut this short, everyone. But dawn is only minutes away. And we have a world to end.”
Mason raised his staff, just as Angelica and Belgar did the same with theirs. They had a shot, still, but Shelby was in the way. Was there a chance to just hit Solomon and free her? Everything was unraveling, and unless they could get her free, it was over.
“Don’t try it, Dad.” Gabriel grinned through bloodied lips.
“It’s over,” Solomon added, as if reading Mason’s mind. “Your friends won’t reach us in time, even if their help could actually do anything. And you … you Mason, are late for your own party. Come back now or …” He squeezed Shelby’s throat with his left hand, just hard enough to cause her to cry out.