I made sure my uniform was sharp and dark. It’s been a while since I had to answer a summons in full military uniform. Snake watched as I smoothed the boots into regulation black. I flipped the wax-sealed scroll towards him. “I want you to come with, please.” The runeblades hung in silver adorned scabbards off my hips. The wargloves Esse had made for me were reformed into leather gloves bearing metal reinforcements. Snake looked over the summons and the attached ribbons bearing imperial seals.
“You’re armoring up. This isn’t a social call like the summons implies?”
“Is that how it reads to you?”
“The Prince has taken the throne to become King. Present yourself and make acquaintance accordingly on my behalf.”, Snake read. “I’m sure it’s code, but as is, I only see someone begging for legitimacy.”
“It’s coded alright, for those are not the words I saw. ‘Come quick, and make the number of assassins, two. The same number as pretenders. Depart as one and with none.’ I know what it means, and there will be trouble and long reaching fallout of my actions. And I want you with me. Please.”
Snake inspected my uniform. “Shall I match your appearance?” I pulled my hair into long braids and wrapped up the braids into a bun.
“No. You won’t be allowed entry like that. I’d rather you be on my person.”
“Braids. This is serious, then. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you take on that persona. Yes, I shall come with.” He slid himself onto my shoulders, changing form in his movements. A gold torc with a scaled pattern now gleamed between jacket and shirt. I donned the sharp brimmed officer’s hat and left the lair.
The ceremony of coronation and following extravaganza was long over. I carried the summons as my invitation, but once inside the palace, no one challenged me. The cold look of determination I wore as my face shield deterred all the servants and many of the sycophants. The high ranking military officer that was escorting me to the King’s chambers deterred all others. A few recognized me and realized I was not appearing as Courier. They quickly left the palace, pulling those they considered valuable with them. Weaver present armed and formal? This is not a good omen, for those that read.
A pair of warmly dark brown doors, gilded with gold, was guarded by the Imperial Guard. The two guards were the only ones that truly challenged me. Bearing seemingly antique polearms decorated in a multitude of tangling streamers, they crossed their weapons before the doors and demanded I and my escort turn away at once or be killed.
“The Emissary of the Grand Matron answers the summons of the King! Allow her entry!” My escort took my invitation from me and held it out to the point where the polearms crossed. Streamers from weapons and invitations glowed in harmonious colors. The guards pulled back their weapons.
“She may pass.”
The invitation was returned to me and my escort bowed his farewell. I entered the suite and the guards were quick to close the doors behind me. To my right was a great desk of darkest mahogany. On the surface were the accoutrements of office. Seals, wax, quill pens, and blotters. Various parchments and papers all adorned with ribbons and seals. Behind that desk sat a smug youth, legally adult but not emotionally. Not with the way he was inspecting the buttons on my chest and ignoring the severity on my face. The youth wore a low crown cocked slightly to one side.
For some reason, I found that more offensive than his ogling.
To my left were several men of high ranks and various countries. Standing about a table set for games or for war, they were indifferent to the new arrival until someone whispered, “Weaver. Gods help us.”. They quickly turned towards me and made side glances at the young king.
All this was in the moment I had taken my first full step into the room. In the process of taking my second full step, I unsheathed the frostblade while focusing on the king. The king saw the gleam break his line of sight and started to stand in shock.
I flung the sword up into the ceiling where it embedded itself in something unusually soft in the painted plaster. “Erk.” choked the ceiling. Everyone stopped their movement and watched the target of my strike in surprised silence. The chill of the sword spread across the shadow on the ceiling, freezing the thickening shadow accompanied by the sounds of tinkling ice.
The sword tilted at an acute angle as the shadow sagged and hung from the ceiling, revealing the still intact painted portion. By the time it lost its grip and fell to the ground, I had unsheathed the flameblade and was ready for a counter attack. “Eh….”, whined the shapeshifter as he regained his human form. My frostsword was stuck in his frozen abdomen. Tendrils of ice continued to spread out from the immobile flesh. He tried to grasp the sword to pull it out, but his hand froze to the blade on contact.
“Assassin, your request to kill the King has been denied. With prejudice.” The king had come from behind his desk against the wishes of the other men. A few had tried to block his approach. The king pushed them roughly out of the way.
“Are you going to kill him? Can I kill him? I want to kill him! Give me your sword! Why don’t I have a sword like that, or that!” The youth looked greedily at my blades. “Those blades! I claim them! Surrender them to me at once!”
I nodded and smiled at the arrogant youth. “It would be a messy death, Sir. One unbecoming of your station. I must complete my assignment and kill this pretender. Do stand back. Arterial spray can reach far.” I noted the outside guards had not entered the suite at the shouts of the other men. Could they not hear, or were they primed to respond only to the commands of the king?
“I’m not afraid! Are you saying I’m afraid, girl?”
To my surprise, my eye didn’t twitch. A robed man stepped to the youth’s side. “Your Lordship, this is Weaver. She is not to be underestimated, nor should you make demands on her person. That Weaver is here is boon and woe. For whom remains yet to be completely revealed.”
While the youth turned viciously against the advisor, I pierced the heart of the failed assassin with the tip of the flameblade. No arterial spray announced his death. He remained still on the ground with my frostblade still embedded firmly in his freezing body. The others made remark that the assassin had already perished from the devouring ice in his gut.
I smirked, shook my head, and tutted the man gently. Keeping the blade in his chest, I inflamed the sword. I was sure the shapeshifter had abandoned what part of his body was frozen, and was going to play dead until what was left of him could slink away later. He may be able to hide from steel and recede from ice, but let’s see how far he can hide from heat.
I must write John Carpenter a “Thank You” note for his interpretation of the movie, “The Thing”. It well prepared me for the assassin’s panicked attempt to flee. The head suddenly rolled about trying to snap itself free from the burning neck of the body. Flesh gave way and from the wound, broken arteries and veins spooled out in a mockery of tentacles. The head did not move far from the burning body. My foot saw to that.
I rolled it over so the eyes looked up at me before planting a reinforced boot firmly in the mouth. Memories of Nathan’s last moments made me smile. “Did you really think I would allow you to attempt to refile your request later, assassin? When a request is denied with prejudice, that means it can not be filed again. This judgement is final and irrevocable. Hold still. This might sting a bit.”
I stabbed the head between the eyes, piercing sinuses and tissue until I felt the sword forcing its way into the wood floor underneath. I inflamed the sword once more, cooking the assassin’s mobile head from within.
Satisfied the assassin was truly dead, I retrieved both blades and quipped to the nearest man, “Someone get the caretaker of the King’s dogs. Dinner is served.”
Two of the men present were leaning over in the corner. The dispatching of the assassin was not sitting well with them, despite their bragging moments before of having seen and endured the horrors of war. It reminded me of the command in the summons. Two assassins have now been reduced to one. One pretender is dead. Which is the other? The answer is in the wording of the summons. I am the second assassin. By logic then…
“Your Highness, you should call for assistance. There is a second assassin still in play.” I kept my blades drawn but bowed formally to the youth. The man-boy stopped berating his advisor for daring to insinuate he needed to be respectful to an obviously low-born woman and looked at me in surprise.
“What?”
“Sound the alarm, Your Highness! One assassin has found his way into your private suite! I have information there is another. Should you not sound the alarm?”
“Why?” At his cocky response, I studied his face to determine if he was avoiding doing so as a measured move or if he was just that stupid. “I have you here to protect me, Weaver!” Both, I decided. He’s both.
As I sheathed the frostblade, the lights glimmered off Snake’s altered form. The boy-king saw and took immediate offense. “They tell me you’re not of noble blood, but you wear a torc? How dare you! What queen are you, that you may wear a gold torc in my presence! Remove it and surrender it, at once!”
“Your Lordship, first you say she is dutybound to protect you, and now you berate her for honors you know nothing of? You were crowned this morning, and you risk losing your crown this evening.” The advisor that had earlier tried to educate the new king on international affairs was now openly mocking him. I wondered if he suspected the same as I. Why was the boy-king avoiding calling for his guards?
“I can’t remove it, Your Highness. For as you say, I am not of noble blood, and only one of such lineage can remove it from me.” Some of the other men gave me suspicious looks, but I wiggled my chest in the boy-king’s direction as I made a half-assed pulling on the torc.
“Then I shall remove it, and make it mine.” The boy-king came towards me. I noted his advisor moved away towards the doors. “Who sent you anyway?”
“The Grand Matron.” At the name, all the men in the room paled. The boy-king stopped just out of arm’s reach. I formally bowed. “The Grand Matron bid me to attend you in her name, and to express her emotions brought about by your coronation.” As I stood I swung the flamesword.
The boy-king’s head fell to the floor in reply.
I turned towards the doors of the suite. They never opened. The guards without gave no sound, nor any indication they were aware of what was happening within.
I looked at the still living men in the suite. Some were armed with daggers and swords. Some were cringing in the corner at the spreading blood at my feet.
“I entered the suite and made the number of assassins two, the same count as the number of pretenders. I take my leave now, having reduced the count of assassins to one, and the count of pretenders to none. Let the wise listen and take heed.” I dissolved my body into shadows and left suite and dream.
~~~
The boiler shuddered loudly below us. Looking around I found myself standing in the shadows of a heavily rusted boiler room. The circular room had four open doorways, and a large circular opening in the middle of the floor. A late adolescent boy was sitting on the edge of that opening, reaching into it to pull out a handful of rust red goop. He turned and smoothed the goop on the legs of two prepubescent girls lying nearby.
He was talking to himself, but addressing his words as if to the prone girls. “You like this, yes you do. So smooth. So warm. You don’t like it when you’re cold and this brain juice will keep you warm until the time comes and you become immortal like him. Yes, you’ll like it when you’re like him.”
My eyes adjusted to the scene completely. With both my living eye and my dead eye, I could see the two girls were dead. Their flesh was rotting away with large holes from decomposition and rough treatment. Their nightgowns were filthy from the stain of decomposition. I noted there were fresh handprints in places no handprints should be.
“There you are. Enough of this. It’s done. Accept your fate and your judgement.” A man stepped through one of the open doorways. In military body armor from head to toe, and armed with a rifle across his back, several hand guns, and no few number of knives, he held a short machete before him.
“Oh. The hunterman has found you!” The boy giggled with madness. “Run, Beloved! Run away or he’ll hurt you!”
“Dammit, the girls are dead. Must you abuse their bodies further?”
“THEY ARE NOT DEAD! THEY ARE JUST SLEEPING! THE BRAIN JUICE WILL MAKE THEM IMMORTAL AND THEY WILL WAKE UP! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! I SHOULD KILL YOU! I WILL KILL YOU!” The boy jumped to his feet and threw the rust red goop at the man. The man dodged it and started towards the boy. But the boy moved far faster than his plumpness implied. He scrambled to his feet and ran out the door nearest to me.
The man followed but stopped when he came close to me. “Identify yourself! How did you come to this hellhole, and how have you survived the radiation?” He held his machete towards me.
“I am Weaver. I was sent here to finalize things. Do you need assistance?”
“Yea. We have to catch that kid before he spreads the radioactive contaminants further. That hole is the top of a fractured reactor. He killed those girls and brought them here to revive them. What he calls brain juice is core material.”
“Then the two of you should be dead by now. Neither one of you are dressed for even the briefest of radiation exposure.”
“I don’t know how he has survived, but I have iodine pills to protect me. You?”
I realized both he and the kid are already dead, but in denial about their state. I wasn’t in my martial uniform anymore, but in my hunting leathers. “My armor is lined. But it won’t offer me protection for much longer if I dick around talking. Need help taking that kid down?”
“Yea. Glad to have you at hand, huntress. Following him would be a bad idea. Too many traps. I know where he’s likely to go, though. Let’s beat him there.”
I nodded and followed him out a different door.
There was not a single straight corridor to be traversed. Twists, and turns, and blind doors were everywhere. Hallways moved after we passed through them. It reminded me of a place, but I was too hard pressed to keep up with the hunter to consider it. It was as if the complex itself considered him a treasured son, and I was the bitch trying to steal him away.
The further we moved away from the compromised reactor room, the lesser the bends of the corridors. I realized the reactor room was the heart of the complex. As it became easier to keep up with the hunter, I tried asking him questions about his origin, the kid’s origin, and the girls. All he would say is the kid had killed the girls because they refused his advances, and had brought their bodies to the compromised reactor in a bid for revival.
“The kid is in deep denial about their deaths. Sometimes I try to move their bodies, but he has them boobytrapped. The last time I tried, I was almost thrown into the reactor core.”
I agreed about the depth of denial, but said nothing about who else was kidding themselves. We made our way through an abandoned commissary. What was once fresh grocery had melted from decomposition. Black, green, and orange fungi were on their own last stages of life as the pervading radiation relentlessly broke down anything with DNA.
The kid suddenly appeared in the door we just came from. “RUN! To the watchtower! Quick!” He ran past us as if we were merely playing a friendly game of tag. “The girls woke up and they’re pissed! RUN!”
The hunter immediately broke into a sprint behind him. “You heard him! Follow us! Quickly!”
I remained standing trying to understand just what the hell was going on when I heard and felt the sound of walls giving way. From the doorway, something like red tentacles gripped at everything, breaking and crushing what it could, throwing and using as a hammer what it couldn’t. My instinct said to follow the hunter and I quickly moved to comply.
The tentacles were clearly after either the hunter or the boy. They followed us turn for turn, impossible hall remaking, and contorted switchback. At an outer edge of the complex was a shaky scaffolding with a crude roofed structure on the top of it. Boy and hunter helped each other climb it and braced themselves at the very top. I was able to climb it without assistance. The tentacles followed us up, gripping and shaking the assembly, but it was unable to collapse it. The tentacle’s reach ended about ten feet below our feet.
“Whew. That was close.” “Heh, yea.” The hunter and hunted bro-fisted with laughter.
“Wait. You guys were only playing tag? What about the girls? What if that thing…”
“That thing is the girls. I rub the brain juice on them to keep them quiet. You must have woken them up by coming here. They are very jealous of me, after all. My girls. They love me. They just aren’t completely immortal yet.”
My head hurt from the lack of reality. Below us, the tentacles continued to reach for the hunter and the boy. I was apparently off the menu. As the watchtower scaffolding shook, I listened to the two pickup their taunts with each other. From them, I was able to piece together their reality.
The boy had killed the girls, and in his madness, brought them to a compromised nuclear facility to bring them back to life. The hunter was a police detective that sought to bring the boy to justice. The boy and the detective died in the facility. Somehow, the boy had kept the girls spirits tied to their bodies. In this twilight afterlife, the boy and the detective forever stalk each other with the spirits of the girls as their shared trophy.
Except for moments like now, when the girls are having not a single drop of that shit.
I knew now who I was here to release.
The tentacles had stopped shaking the watchtower and was holding the scaffolding with a solid grip. I noted the tentacles looked like giant blood vessels. The bodies of the girls may be mostly decomposed, but their hearts were still bound.
I looked at the boy and the detective, shook my head, and shifted into my shadow form. They never noticed me fading from their sight. I dropped from the scaffolding and flowed along the unnatural blood vessels. Tracing them, I make my way back to the heart of the complex.
Their bodies were swollen and grotesque. I am reminded of the movie, ‘Akira’. I understood why the fresh handprints. Whoever came back first would pull the gowns back down over the human bodies as the cancerous pulsing mass had pushed the cloth to one side.
Waves of anger came from the fused flesh. Two heartbeats dominated the room. In the pulsing, I heard, “Let us go. Let us go.”. I took my feathersword and reformed it into a kukri. I sliced through the room engorging mass easily. As I cut away the exterior, the blood vessels connected to the removed portions collapsed and dried into piles of glowing radioactive rust.
The squirming mass did not attack me as I cut my way into its interior. It yielded softly and quickly.
The complex shuddered with peals and clangs. It sounded like a great earthquake was shaking everything except the room I was in.
Finally, I came to two small hearts, beating furiously in anger and in fear. When I cut them free of the surrounding mass, the blood vessel tentacles collapsed entirely. In the distance I heard the boy and the detective yelling at each other. They had forgotten about me already.
I held the hearts of the young girls close to my own. “I will take you to the Boneyard, to the fires that purge and release. It’s over. No more pain. No more being bound here. You two can go on with yourselves.”
Their hearts shuddered and became still. I closed my eyes, kissed them both on their aortas, and send them to the Boneyard. I felt a heavy gaze falling on me. Looking up, I saw another youth standing in the doorway to the room. He was naked except for a red cloth tied over his hips, a leopard pelt over his shoulder, and ivy wound through and over his dark brown curls.
On seeing him, I realized what the complex was reminding me of. “Dionysus. Shit. This is a labyrinth. Your labyrinth?”
Dionysus did not answer me. He stood in the doorway, glaring at me with a vicious display of anger and disgust on his face.
“You know what I am. You know what I do. You also know that if I’m told to leave, I will. If I was not to interfere in your playground, then kick my ass out! I’m going to be true to myself, regardless of what god, angel, demon, or man stands in my way!”
He still did not answer me. I returned his disapproving gaze with a challenging gaze of my own. “What goes to the Boneyard can not be retrieved. Not by me, anyway. If you want them back, you’ll have to talk to the Ravens for them. But they weren’t bones. Just flesh. And the fires devour hearts faster than you.”
His glare contorted into a grimace. My anger receded and was replaced by a strange calm. “Forgive me for trespassing where I should not. I seek not to repeat the mistakes of Pentheus. But you know, far better than I, that we can not be anything other than what we are. The boy that killed them, and the detective he lured to his own death, remain behind. I did not come here for them. I bid you good day, maddened Dionysus. I look forward to our meeting again under better circumstances.”
I stood and formally bowed. With my head turned away, I heard him snort and leave. But the snorting was not the temper tantrum arrogance of youth, but the deep bellow of a mature bull. As I dissolved myself from complex and dream, I wondered what was the price my ass was going to pay later.
~~~
Driving home from a long day of work. I look out the car window and see an angel standing in the freeway. He has positioned himself on the lane markers, so that most of the vehicles pass by him unknowingly. The angel sees that I see him, however, and nods in quiet acknowledgement. I nod back and continue on. It is a mile of travel before I realize what was odd about the angel.
He was appearing like the character of Castiel from the television show Supernatural.
Angels can appear to me however damn well they want. Often I’ll see a mix of their true selves and just enough symbolism for me to recognize how deep is the shit I’ve found myself in. For them to completely take on the appearance of someone else is new for me.
I change lanes, and spy another angel. He’s watching over a forlorn spirit sitting in the ditch. I almost pull over to help the spirit move on when the angel says quickly, “He’s not ready to leave yet. I’ll help him when he is.”. I nod, smile, and continue driving. The angel smiles back. Again, it is a few seconds before I realize this angel is appearing like the fictional Castiel as well.
As I continue driving home, I see more and more angels on and along the freeway. Each and everyone of them are appearing as Castiel. They all know I can see them, and I realize they are all making the conscious decision to appear to me in this way.
Traffic slows to a crawl. Another angel is on the lane markers but now I’m at a stop next to him. I murmur, knowing he can hear me even if I were only to think the words. “Why all y’all suddenly on the freeway? I appreciate the psychopomp action and such, but a flock of angels is not an everyday action, even for me. What gives?”
“Things have changed. Things are settling.”
“Here. Let me ask a different question. Why all y’all looking like a fictional angel? The face you are wearing is of human contrivance for human stories. Any resemblance to angels, currently existing or not, is surely happenstance.”
“We have chosen this appearance to you based on your thoughts towards this individual. What this individual means to you, so have we become.”
The traffic was inching forward and parting around a smouldering carcass. A car had lost control on the freeway, spun around, and had collided in a freak head-on accident. The driver of the old small car and his passenger wife had died instantly in the crash. Their spirits were standing in the middle of the freeway. He was holding her close to him, she was cradling one of the loaves of homemade bread they were transporting to the house of one of their children. Around them, several angels stood to guard them.
The spirits of the old couple saw me, and realized I could see them and the angels that surrounded them. “Aren’t they beautiful? They say they want to learn from us before they take us to heaven.”
Traffic cleared before me, and I was able to resume my flirtation with the speed limit. I tried to keep the implications of all I had seen from distracting me. Having an escort of six flying black-winged Castiels didn’t help.
I saw my desired off-ramp up ahead. Taking it would mean leaving the dream. I have never seen a single episode of the show Supernatural. All I know about the character of Castiel, I learned from Tumblr. I have my own personal headcanon about that character, and if this dream is true, unsettling days are ahead.
I hope it’s not true.
Please let this be a lie.
Stop the world. I want to get off.