Soulcleaver, p.19
Soulcleaver, page 19
part #2 of Dreamwalker Chronicles Series
Once he thought of it, it was a simple matter to focus on his shield and tell it to put off a little heat. He grinned in relief when the air around him began to warm. At least he still had some power here.
Satisfied he was going to get to keep his fingers and toes, he looked at his next problem—sight. He’d really like to be able to see the VBS before engaging with it, but enhancing his eyesight wasn’t going to help. He had already done that years ago—having every advantage was essential in his line of work. So if there was any light to see by, he should be able to see. He couldn’t tell the world around him to be brighter, nor could he change his own eyes to be any more efficient, so what now?
Could he make his body glow? It might be distracting to have his hands and face—the only skin he had exposed—be his light source in a fight, So he pondered on what else he could do. He briefly imagined stripping down and lighting himself up, then attacking the VBS, but rejected it. There were parts of himself he didn’t want out and about during a battle. He smirked into the darkness and blamed Jack’s influence for that thought.
Whatever he chose to light up, he would prefer to have it be behind him so he wasn’t blinded. It would also have to be very bright so that the VBS was blinded, you know, if it had eyes. A quick check of his shield told him he could get it to light up as well with minimal use of power.
Before he triggered it to glow, it occurred to him that he should at least try to talk to the VBS before starting a fight. Even if it turned out nasty he might learn something from it, like how it came to be in possession of Nova’s essence. So, he set his shoulders and walked toward the Very Big Something. Then he sent the azure fire of his power into his shield and shaped it behind his shoulders and gave it a push to set it alight.
Flaming wings erupted into life behind him and illuminated a wide swath in front of him. At first he only saw rocks, thick stalactites, enormous curving walls, and glinting jewels way up high on a rock outcropping.
“Hey, it is a cave!” he shouted jubilantly. Then his eyes took in what he was really looking at and communicated to his brain that they should all run the hell away. Now.
He hadn’t been entirely wrong. He was kind of in a cave, or would be if he stepped over a few meters where the VBS’s arm was draped over its knee—something he wasn’t likely to do. The creature was the length of a cruise ship, and he had been walking on it the whole time. He was lucky he had gone in a straight line up the thing’s outstretched leg during his blind exploration, or he would have fallen off into the impenetrable darkness on either side. The jewel-encrusted rock outcropping was its face, the jewels were its eyes, multifaceted, a bit like the eyes of a fly. Eyes that were squinting at him in extreme irritation right now.
Suddenly, he was very glad Jack wasn’t there.
“Hi there,” he called out. It couldn’t hurt to try to be friendly. “Nice place you have here. I imagine the darkness gives you a chance to . . . get to know yourself?” Marshall suspected his calling wasn’t in making small talk with monsters.
The sound of falling rocks and twisting metal assaulted his ears. It took a few beats to realize it was the sound of the VBS’s voice.
“The darkness isn’t of my own devising, snack. But it is here for your benefit.”
“So this isn’t your home.” Marshall mused. “Are you trapped here like me?”
“Trapped, yes. Like you, no. You are not trapped here, snack. You were dropped here for me to do with as I please. This time the Master gave me only one order. Take my time. And as you can see, time is something I have in abundance.” The small mountain lifted the hand draped on his knee and gestured at the nothingness surrounding them.
Marshall was becoming less confident about this encounter as the moments ticked by. “Who is your master?” he asked, though he was pretty sure of the answer.
“The Master has never given me his name, but he instructs me to tell you that he will have his daughter back soon and that you will never lay hands on her again.”
The wings on his back flared violently for a moment as he wrestled with his anger. He couldn’t afford to waste power here on petty things like emotions. He couldn’t protect Nova or teach Aeyli if he was dead, so he’d have to conserve power to get out of here alive.
The mere thought of her caused Aeyli’s face to flash into his mind, and as if he’d conjured her up with the image, his anger dialed back enough to get it under control.
Affecting a neutral expression, he asked, “What is this place?”
“My prison, your doom.”
“Well, yes, I think we’ve already covered that. What I mean is, this isn’t exactly Disneyland. Or California, for that matter. This is the Dreamscape. Well, sort of.”
“You are wrong and you are right, little treat.”
“For the record, that nickname isn’t freaking me out beyond all belief,” Marshall lied.
How could he be wrong and right? “So we’re still in San Francisco.”
The VBS nodded, causing a small avalanche down the side of its neck.
“And the Dreamscape?” He was no longer talking to the VBS, but himself.
The Dreamscape had no physical location, only access points. Even inside the ’Scape nothing had an actual location. He hadn’t needed to be in Massachusetts to visit the UMass colony. He could have gotten there from a Chapter House in Russia or from the International Space Station—if it had a portal. His team was only in Boston in case they ended up needing a physical presence in the Real.
The only time the Dreamscape had a physical location was . . . “Pocket realm.” He threw it out as a statement, but it was a wild guess. Pocket dimensions were a tiny portion of a person’s own dream, ripped out of the ’Scape and Crafted inside a dreamwalker’s own body. The idea that this could be a pocket dimension was ludicrous because they were usually incredibly small. The enormous amount of personal power it took to fuel them kept their size down to something you could put a pocket knife in. Or, at most, a wallet.
He had one once, long ago, and had been unable to feed it during a very long and arduous mission that had sapped him of his strength. Not only had he lost what was inside of the pocket realm, but he had lost a small part of himself. It was a painful experience he wasn’t eager to repeat.
The idea that Noah was powerful enough to have a pocket realm large enough to house this behemoth was terrifying. Which made the deep, booming Yes he got in response to his statement shake him to the core.
This was far beyond anything he had ever encountered. Not only did he have to defeat a talking mountain that wanted to eat him very slowly, but he also had to find a way out of a place that couldn’t possibly exist, while escaping from a man more powerful than he’d thought. And he had to do it alone.
So be it.
“What about you then?” he asked the VBS. “What does he keep you here for? I can help you get out.” For all he knew the VBS was just waiting for the right moment to escape. With its help, Marshall’s job would get much easier.
“I am his personal clean-up crew.” The thing rumbled. “When he runs into someone he doesn’t like, he feeds them to me. It helps keep me and this place alive. I eat their memories, and this place absorbs whatever is left.”
“Sounds efficient.”
“It is. Then there are times when he sends me people he needs alive, but needs them to forget things, such as meeting him. He is on your Most Wanted list after all. It would be inconvenient for him to be noticed at this time, but your lot would come asking questions if a guardian vanished, so he has me make them forget.”
That accounted for quite a lot over the years. There were many times where a guardian had wound up wandering dazed in a field, or on a beach, always somewhere secluded, having no idea what had happened over the past few days—sometimes even weeks. Marshall decided to rescind his offer of rescue.
“That’s what happened to Nova.” Marshall balled his hands into fists and his wings flared. “You took her entire life from her!”
“Oh, that one. Is that what brought you here, morsel? Did you come to be a hero to retrieve her lost memories? She was such a tasty meal. The Master had me take everything from her. The screams that girl made as I ate her life . . .” The creature’s flinty expression became passionate. “I’ve never tasted such as her, you know.
Marshall’s wings pulsed and grew larger, but Marshall no longer cared about the power drain. This creature would not survive their encounter. Walking out of this alive was no longer at the top of his list of priorities.
“You know, she fought so hard for such a tiny thing. I nearly had to kill her to take it all. In the end, everything she was belonged to me. Her mother, her ridiculous pet, Jack, and Adelle, whom she treasured so dearly. And you.” It chuckled darkly. “You, she held onto until the very end. Did you know that she called your name the whole time? She cried out for you until I took you from her and then she just cried. She never wavered in her belief that you would save her. Fortunately for you, she will never remember that you didn’t.”
Blue flames tore across his body, a mirror of his rage. Marshall was no longer a thinking creature, but one of pure emotion.
“She cared about you so much. Her memories of you were so real, so strong. Those are my favorite kind to eat. The memories packed with emotion. I still have a few of them stored away to savor. I couldn’t eat them all right away, they were too delicious to waste them that way.
Everything around him had fallen away. In his mind’s eye he saw the scene, but for him, it wasn’t sixteen-year-old Nova being attacked. It was the small girl who had once given him a cookie and told him everything would be okay. She was crying out for him to save her from something. It had been his job to protect her. He saw her small body limp and drained of all personality, lying in the hands of this nightmarish creature.
His wings had grown so much they dwarfed his body. They grew larger and larger until they were no longer wings. They merged into the shape of his shield and became the blue-white of lightning. He no longer felt small and puny compared to this thing.
He was burning out his essence, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Jack and Adelle would be furious, but Nova . . . If he took out this monster, it might weaken Noah enough for his team to take him out. Then she’d be safe.
He tapped his generator and reveled in the burst of energy it gave him, allowing him to push his blue fire out further than he had ever dared, then doubled it, tripled it. Once his fire was one-fifth the size of the monster, he told it to burn.
The cries of the VBS were loud, but satisfying, as he tunneled down into its chest. He burrowed in as far as he could so it couldn’t dig him out. Following the pull of Nova’s memories, he slowly made his way to the monster’s head, leaving a river of molten fire in his wake.
As he tunneled upward, he felt his power sputter and his fire began to dim, bit by bit. He wasn’t going to make it. Once his power died, it would be a toss-up between what would kill him first, the molten rock swirling around him or his body burning up as the last of his gift left him. That often happened with the older, more powerful dreamwalkers. So much of their power was invested in their bodies that one could no longer exist without the other. Contrary to his looks, Marshall hadn’t been young for a very long time.
He plowed through the stone as fast as he could, knowing he would never make it out before his fire died, but he kept going.
His limbs grew more leaden with each step, and his lungs burned from lack of air. Dimly, he registered a terrible, metallic screaming from the monster as it tried and failed to dig him out of its chest. He put it out of his mind; there was nothing it could do to him now. Instead, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and used his hands to claw the stone out of his way. When his vision went blurry and his limbs became unresponsive, he halted. The screaming had stopped, and the creature was still. He had done enough damage to kill the VBS. He could stop now. He could finally rest.
He was about to drop the tremulous hold he had on his flickering essence and embrace the sweet oblivion of unmaking that beckoned, when an image of Aeyli flashed through his head. She wasn’t the sweet young woman he’d grown to care for. Her eyes were blazing with magenta fury.
Marshall coaxed a few more seconds from his failing essence to consider. Could losing Marshall set her back? He wasn’t Fourteen, but he had done his best to support her during her transition to matriarch. Was he flattering himself to think the loss of him might affect her similarly?
It didn’t matter. If there was a chance that knocking out a member of her support team would send her spiraling, Marshall couldn’t take it.
Deep inside where his sputtering, faltering power resided, he felt something roar up and out. It blasted a large swath before him and revealed a cluster of multicolored crystals—the creature’s power center.
A tired smile emerged. This must be the place it kept its treasured memories to save for later. Jackpot.
Shaking from exhaustion, he crawled forward and reached out a trembling hand to touch one of the crystals. He was running on borrowed time, and he knew it. His edges were already growing hazy, and his thoughts had grown slow and sticky. It was sheer luck when a bit of rock broke under him and he rolled smack against the powerful cluster. Power he could use.
Only having a few seconds before his flaming shield dropped and with it several tons of mostly dead rock monster, he tapped into the first crystal that didn’t have Nova’s energy signature.
Smoke. Laughter of children.
He was sitting outside in his backyard throwing sticks on a fire. His wife’s voice calling out to their child.
“Use your gentle hands, dear! Allie is too small to play rough games.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had to say that.
“Okay, Mama.” Chase continued swinging his cousin around in a circle without interruption.
He laughed at his son’s antics but covered it with a cough, lest his wife hear. She hated when he encouraged rough play.
“How many hotdogs do you want, love?” She asked him as she started unloading the food basket she had placed on the table.
“Twice as many as last time.” He grinned and patted his growling stomach. “After casting that tracking spell, I need to refuel.”
“You work so hard to keep us safe . . .”
Marshall shook his head, trying to throw off the disorientation of someone else’s memory. The tone of the memory was so filled with love and satisfaction he understood why the VBS had squirreled it away. He recognized the memory’s owner, Abel Goodwright, because he had met his wife, Sarah, once before. As far as Marshall could tell, he was still alive, having spoken to him only a week ago about the Massachusetts case Fire was working on.
He felt bad about stealing this memory from Abel, but Marshall knew he would understand given the circumstances. All guardians understood that sometimes you had to improvise to survive.
Speaking of surviving, Marshall surveyed the bounty of power before him and got an idea. First, he carefully separated the meager handful of Nova’s memories from the rest and stowed them in his jacket pocket. Then he drove both hands inside the crystal formation and pulled.
Dozens of memories crashed over his mind, and he was lost. He swam in a sea of memories, some good, some bad, all foreign and confusing. He drew on his training in an attempt to gain control over his mind and was rewarded with a tiny space for his own thoughts. It was ridiculous that even now, with his life in the balance and only a small amount of mental space, he still found part of his mind wandering toward thoughts of Aeyli.
The moment he thought of her, his space expanded, leaving him with more room to concentrate on the task at hand and less likely to get lost in a sea of experiences. It was contrary to his training, but it was working, so he let his mind do what it wanted to do—think about Aeyli. As he pulled on the crystals around him, soaking up their essence, he focused on her, the way she smiled that Mona Lisa smile of hers when she found something amusing that no one else did. He thought about the way her hair fell in a shining wave down her shoulder in the dust-mote-flecked sunbeam she had fallen asleep in one day while studying.
His body was now glowing with borrowed power. Reverently, he tucked his thoughts of Aeyli aside. His essence had transmuted the energy from the crystals and left him bursting with power. He knew just what to do with it.
He set up a resonance inside himself and told it to grow. He let it build until the power was large enough to render the VBS into ash. Blue-white flames crackled around his body. The wings were gone. Now Marshall was a single point of blue-white brightness, growing with intensity until he began to lift into the air, rising slowly out of the remains of the monster.
Brighter and brighter he burned, destroying the darkness of the pocket realm. Whatever his light illuminated became his to control, and his only thought was escape. He would need to control the entire realm in order to leave, and he could now feel Noah desperately trying to keep him contained.
I thought that would get your attention.
The wind picked up around him and became icy talons trying to tear him apart. His fire beat it back, its roar echoing his defiance.
The talons faded away and reformed into a solid wall of wind that raced around him and closed in, trying to crush him. As the wall shrank in on him, the darkness closed in, turning everything it touched into nothingness. It seemed Noah was done playing games.
Marshall put everything he had into the flame—his life, his soul. He kept nothing back. Still, he needed more. His fire and Noah’s darkness were too evenly matched here. He reached out blindly for help, expecting nothing, but having nothing to lose. He found his link to Nova forgotten in the chaos.
Could the answer be so simple?
He opened himself up to the tug in his soul that pointed toward Nova—to the Real. A new influx of power flowed into him, and his fire became a supernova exploding outward, gutting the pocket realm. The world cracked open around him, and he shot through the fracture to freedom.
