Authors: Lee Doty
Downward at the slow speed of inevitability, umbrella in his hand. The road to hell was paved with his intentions.
A soft tone sounded. The doors slid apart to reveal the familiar lobby. Here the ghosts of his dead family walked, surrounded by the sound of furious rain that seemed to cover the earth. He was separated from the downpour by windows and doors, but that was the illusion. Here with the ghosts, the storm boiled within him.
He crossed the lobby, deployed his umbrella and stepped into the distracting relief of the downpour.
Near a destroyed car, in a field of glass and water, his boy lay. Then he stood amid the destruction. Glass pierced Issak's knees, the umbrella rolled to a stop on its side, tears in the rain.
It's not too late. Not too late at all. His hand still burned as he reached out through the Loom. Bones knitted, organs resumed proper operation, flesh healed. Finally, he knelt before his only son's unblemished body. With only a little coaxing, blood flowed through the repaired veins. Breath went in and out.
Sleeping. This was what sleeping looked like. Sometimes you can make it right. Sometimes, against all odds, it's not too late. But he was old enough to know better.
He shouted into the purging sky: sound and fury, but no words he could remember. He drove his damaged fist into the concrete. Bones snapped, blood flowed. He struck again and again until the pain nearly knocked him out. Then he knelt there, clutching his ruined hand, screaming in the pouring rain.
***
They moved down the stairs as quickly as they could. Ping and Miranda carried Hawthorne's gurney; Rae and Elena carried Mendez's. Alex and Anne came last, guarding the rear. Alex's focus was on his Obscuring, Anne's was on restraining the urge to look over her shoulder for the hundredth time.
The going got easier the farther they got away from the fifth floor because the stairs became less warped. As they passed the fourth floor, Alex tripped on an uneven step. He didn't get a chance to fall down the stairs, bowling through the others carrying the gurneys below him. Anne caught his arm milliseconds into the fall.
"Thanks." He said.
"No prob." She said. "So, you folks live in Wonderland long?"
"About a year and a half," Alex gave a weak smile, "Didn't do much more than hang with the Mad Hatter before this week though. Maybe five months for Rae there. Ping's been here only a little longer than you."
"He's adjusting well." She said with a nod.
"So are you."
"This is adjusting?"
"Continuing to breathe is adjusting." Elena said from just ahead of them. "I've only been down the rabbit hole for half an hour and I'm already sure 'bout that."
"Good point." Anne said, "What about Mendez and Hawthorne?"
"I had lunch with Kyle and Sarah today... no Wonderland." Elena said.
"Recent arrivals, then." Alex said. "Welcome all!"
***
Despair is for the weak, Issak thought, shoving the blackness away for the thousandth time.
After the millennia he had been alive, he didn't have a lot of room left under his skin for weakness. Yet, weakness or no, he couldn't keep the rage away. Even when he couldn't feel its fire, its smoke filled his vision, its fingers searched over his skin, feeling for any gap in his defenses.
The worst memories were the oldest and newest. Beginnings and endings: memories of Dek's childhood and his... end. Teeth clenched, he pushed away another dear and unwanted memory. This one was of Ivo and Roy: their first trip to a movie house sometime in the nineteenth century. Roy had been so excited he'd kept getting out of his seat to examine the screen. They'd been thrown out of the theatre. They'd laughed all the way home. Three people who together could have laid waste to all the armies of Europe- ejected from a movie house by a self-important usher.
The rage wouldn't leave him, largely because he was its target. Some mistakes you're just not supposed to walk away from.
***
Ping pushed the door open and navigated the gurney forward. The way Alex had sounded, he hadn't expected to get this far.
Trying to balance caution with haste, he looked down the hallway to the left... nothing. He pushed the rest of the way through the doorframe with the door sliding down the right side of the gurney. Boy, if they could avoid another pack of disco zombies, hit men, and a powerful wizard for just a few more minutes, they might actually get...
As he moved beyond the edge of the door, Ping saw him. Bald with a well-groomed fringe of gray hair, he looked more like an urbane spokesman for European coffee than the engine of their final destruction. He leaned against the wall about five meters away as if waiting for a friend. Nothing about his appearance or body language indicated a threat, but Ping
knew
. Issak Kaspari, and the end of their little adventure waited in this hallway.
"Hi." Ping said as casually as he could, willing the tension out of his muscles. "Could you point us toward an exit?"
A smile spread across the stranger's even features. He pointed to the exit sign directly above his head.
"Oh. Right." Ping tried to recover from the strain in his contrived conversation with a self-conscious smile. "You know, its dangerous here... you should probably get out."
"Yes." The Kaspari suspect said thoughtfully, "Dangerous here."
Ping still couldn't read him at all. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could feel the power in the air. It seemed to press in on him like wet Alabama sunshine. Where was Alex anyway? Was he blind? Was he already dead? The only thing he knew for sure was that he hadn't run away.
Family. Ping realized that from the heat and pressure of conflict, the diamond of a new family had been born. He trusted Alex and Rae with his life. He trusted Anne with his life, even though he'd met her fifteen minutes ago. Weird.
The psychologist in him wanted to dissect this phenomenon for a second, but then the urge passed. Studying hydrogen and oxygen was far less satisfying than simply drinking fresh water. Here in the third 'last moments' of his life in as many days, he deployed the telescoping wheels beneath the gurney and continued forward. Karl Marx had said that religion is the opiate of the masses. One of his professors at the University had asserted that family was the opiate of little clumps of the masses... but he was a sucker. Granny Yao knew better.
When he was thirteen, he'd gone through this odd phase where he resented the life of the school. Always surrounded by relatives with 'helpful advice', he'd craved a little freedom. Visiting from Hong Kong, Grandma had set him straight. "You're lucky Tian Fu," she'd told him, "Some people move through life without family." Ping had nodded and gave her his 'humoring the idiot' smile. She'd smiled right back. "But being alone ain't bein' free, it's just being empty." She'd poked him in the chest, over his heart... not too softly either. "Family's the framework of your freedom, like the bones in your flesh. Take the bones away and the flesh doesn't get more free."
At the time, Ping had endured her words as he endured so many of her other fortune cookie sermons. But over time her words returned to him. He was lucky.
Part of the reason he'd moved from Criminal Psychology to Marriage and Family Counseling was that misguided professor and old Granny Yao. He'd wanted to make a difference.
Ping was now almost within range of Kaspari. Two more steps. The second gurney was almost through the archway with Rae at the head of it. Ping's left hand directed his gurney, his right hand slipped into his jacket pocket.
The fire of the Loom shimmered about him like currents shifting through deep and troubled waters. He checked and rechecked his weave. He made a tweak here, shored up the pattern there. The devil was always in the details.
Eight floors up and five floors above ground, Dek waited, feet swinging over the edge of the exam table, oblivious. Two floors above his adopted son, the Outsider's flesh puppets shuffled aimlessly around each other in some kind of demonic holding pattern. Here, as far as he could get underground, Issak prepared.
He hadn't been alone for months now. The Outsider was his constant companion, seeing all he did, lurking always at the edges of his perception. He hoped it didn't understand the subtleties of the Loom well enough to decipher the true intent of the Cast he currently wove, but he was far from sure this was the case.
His son was bait. There was no other way to look at it. Hard choices- if nothing else, his new pact with the Outsider bought them time. In exchange for his help, the Outsider would leave his family alone for now. Of course, when it got what it wanted, all deals would be off. What it wanted was the only power it lacked- power over the Loom. The idiot Savants of Asado couldn't grant this power to it, though they'd tried. Of course, it would never get its little ephemeral hands on the Loom. No matter what Issak promised, he knew it wasn't possible. The Loom was order and that thing was chaos.
Until recently, Issak hadn't known that the Outsider had followed him back from below. He'd felt the darkness around him sometimes, but it would retreat before any examination. He'd assumed he'd been damaged by his journey Outside. Then things started to happen. Entire clans were destroyed, and little petulant Asado began to emerge as a power to be reckoned with. Ivo had discovered tider's dirty little secret, and then Issak had discovered the shadow that walked with him.
With any luck, Issak would be able to seal the breach he'd made to the Outside, to push this murderous thing back into the darkness where it belonged.
Issak hoped that the Outsider would live by its word at least temporarily. He hoped that Ivo and Roy would be safe for now. He hoped that both he and Dek would come through the danger of the next few moments. He hoped his desperate plan would work. He clung to this hope as he stood and moved to the door. But hope can be a dangerous thing.
Moments later, with the tapestry of his elaborate Cast around him, he entered the examination room where Dek supposedly waited.
He was greeted by fresh air and broken glass.
***
Kaspari regarded Ping with clear eyes and a small but unwavering smile as Ping took the final step into striking range.
Ping pressed the activating stud as the collapsed sword came out of his pocket. He released the rolling gurney and his arms moved the sword in a cross-body slash meant to cut Kaspari in half. At the end of the slash, he was surprised to still be alive. He really hadn't expected his surprise attack to be a surprise. He certainly hadn't expected it to work.
Kaspari's smile didn't waver, his eyes lost no clarity, and he certainly didn't separate into two pieces. In fact, he looked much more amused than dying. Kaspari's eyes flitted to Ping's hands, then back to his face. "So, I guess this means you're not just happy to see me." His smile widened slightly.
Ping became aware that the sword felt odd... he didn't remember hearing the lock tone or the ringing of the blade. His eyes darted to his hands, which now held a partially squished banana. His right thumb had broken through the skin where the activating stud would have been on the sword.
He gave Kaspari the quick nod of casual greeting.
He looked from his... banana... back to Kaspari. Kaspari balanced the collapsed sword on his outstretched palm. "Now, how did you get this?"
"Dek gave it to me." Ping held out the mauled banana, as if he were ready to trade. "Actually I was just about to ask you the same thing." He tried for a light grin, but wasn't sure his game face was holding. He hoped this wouldn't hurt too much. A lot of his conversational energy was spent preventing the pre-death wince.
Issak stared at the ancient weapon. He remembered Forging it for Ivo when Roy was ready for it... happier times. He shifted his gaze from the weapon to its new owner. The wielder of the banana returned his stare with clear, determined eyes. He was either completely stupid or extremely cool under fire. Either way, Dek had chosen well when he'd entrusted Roy's blade to this man.
"You!" Anne shouted as she entered the hallway with Alex.
"You look like you've had a long day." Kaspari said, shifting his gaze from Ping to her. Ping followed Kaspari's gaze back to Anne. Her expression was hard, but otherwise unreadable.
Ping bounced off the far wall of the hallway upside down, then landed on his back at Kaspari's feet. His kick at Kaspari's knee had gone about as well as he could have hoped. His guess had been more along the lines of exploding into flames, but then he'd always been lucky in combat.
"You're a decisive little guy," Kaspari said from above. "I respect that. It used to serve me well." Hiding beneath Kaspari's intended air of amusement, Ping thought he heard an edge of sorrow.
Roy's collapsed sword landed on Ping's chest. Kaspari stepped past him. "Please, Mr. Ahmed, lets not have any unnecessary... fisticuffs, shall we?"
Alex stood slightly behind Anne. He gave no response, made no moves. The look on his face was thoughtful tension. His eyes darted about, probably more panic than planning. Rae had moved to Alex's side. Miranda Todd and Elena Mendez stood between Kaspari and the gurneys.
Kaspari stopped perhaps two meters before Anne. "And speaking of fisticuffs..." He wagged his finger before her- shook his head slightly. "Don't."
"Why don't you just take her and let us go?" Alex whined, "There's nothing we have that you could possibly...." Then he interrupted himself with an attack.
Down in the underworld, away from the eyes of the others, Alex threw himself at Kaspari. He knew he didn't have the energy for a direct attack, so he opted for a probing attack and hoped for a miracle. His first attack was intended to destabilize one of the many currents of power from which Issak's ready Casts fed.
His attack was partially successful, it caused one of the seemingly thousands of Casts in Kaspari's quiver to shimmer and go dark. Alex hoped that was something vital, but it really was just a means to provoke a hopefully overconfident response. Meanwhile, Alex spent most of his effort weaving something for Kaspari's counterattack.