Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 55

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 36

 

And now the first of the two chapters responsible for >90% of the times the original DK was dropped in the middle…. both for the “WTF you have got to be kidding me” reason…

 

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 36: Fleeing From Frankenstein

He looked around and smiled, satisfied. Despite his oddities, the village accepted him. His children were growing up strong and healthy. His wife took care of them all. In a country torn by civil war all too often, this village had managed to keep itself isolated and secure. Untouched by the strange devices of the outside world, unimportant in the maneuverings of whatever politicians or dictators might rule one part of the land or another, it looked much the same as it would have two hundred years ago.

He shivered, suddenly, as though chilled, despite the bright sunlight streaming down on him. The village and his home seemed to him now like a veneer, a fragile layer of paint laid over something of unspeakable horror. But he knew that the real horror was what lay in his past. He had escaped that, hadn’t he? Years gone by now… he must be safe, forgotten. Thought dead and lost forever. Surely they would have come for him long ago had they known… wouldn’t they?

The wail of a child demanding attention came from within the house, that sound that in a parent could simultaneously bring frustration, warmth, and concern. But he could hear something else in it, as could any who knew what to listen for: the sound of the past. It was the reason he could never, ever be sure they were not watching and waiting, though with his utmost skill and caution he had stalked the dense mountain forests and found not a single trace of intrusion. Genshi, his sister, and two brothers were reason enough for them to wait.

Kay put a hand on his shoulder. “Tai… you aren’t thinking about that again, are you?”

Tai turned and gazed at his wife. Several inches taller than he, willowy, with skin the color of heartwood, she was the only proof (aside from himself and his children) that there was an “outside world” different from the one the village knew. Kay was a strange woman by anyone’s standards—which was fortunate, because no other woman could possibly have accepted what he was, let alone married him while knowing the truth. He still thought her coming to this village had been more than coincidence; it had felt like destiny. She had belonged to some organization she called “Peace Corps.” The aircraft carrying her and a number of other workers for this group had crashed in the mountains; Kay had become separated from the other survivors in a storm and wandered for a long time in the wilderness. Had she not been trained in survival, she would have died. Instead, when Tai found her, she was using a stream as a mirror, cutting her hair in a ruler-straight line as though working in a beauty salon. Her civilized, calm, utterly human demeanor even in the midst of what to her was complete wilderness ensnared Tai instantly. He had brought her to the village and helped her recover from her ordeal; by the time she was recovered, she didn’t want to leave. She had no relatives or real friends elsewhere; here she felt that she belonged.

“What else?” he answered finally. “I can’t help it, Kay. You weren’t a part of it; little Tai is too young to remember it. Only Seb remembers. Seb and me.”

“We’ve been over this again and again, Tai. They’ve had all the time in the world to find you. If they wanted you back and thought you were alive, they’d have gotten you long ago. They had no reason in the world to believe you’d be able to survive out here and fit in; you’d either have died on your own or been killed by a frenzied mob from their point of view. Stop worrying. Maybe someone caught up with them and they don’t even exist any more.”

Oh, all the gods of all the world, let that be true. Please let that be true, he thought.

“Maybe,” he said aloud.

He followed her inside, feeling better. Kay had been sent to him from the skies above; surely that was a sign in itself.

The children were all inside—the two youngest, Genshi and Kei, on one side of the table, the two others, Seb and little Tai, opposite them. Not for the first time, it struck Tai as a strange coincidence that even though the older children had a different mother, all four were much darker-skinned than their father. Tai and Genshi, in particular, looked very similar… if you ignored the difference that Genshi, unlike his older siblings, could not hide. Kei had been born without it, looking very much like a copy of her mother.

Kay began serving the food, beginning with Tai and ending with the toddlers. As they began to eat, Seb suddenly stiffened. “Father—”

A single sound; the sound of a metal catch being released.

The coldness returned, became a lump of ice in his gut. “I heard, Seb. Kay, get down. Everyone, on the floor, now!”

He moved stealthily towards the side door, caught a faint scent and heard movement. Then a voice boomed out, impossibly loud.

“Attention! This house is surrounded. Surrender quietly and none of you will be harmed!”

“Go away!” he shouted hopelessly. “I don’t want to go back! Leave us alone!”

The unfamiliar voice was replaced by the oily, ingratiating tones of the Colonel. “Now, now, let’s not be that way… Tai, is it? There’s been an enormous amount of investment involved in you and your children. You can’t expect us to just throw it all away. If you’ll come back quietly, I promise you that you can even keep your whole family with you. Just cooperate and you can find yourself living quite a lavish life.”

“I like the life I have here!” He saw that Seb and Tai had crawled over and pulled up the floorboards to get at the weapons. He nodded. Good boys. Kay was pale, tears running down her face.

“Sorry I was wrong,” she whispered.

“It’s all right.” he said, knowing nothing was going to be “all right” again. “You made us feel better while it lasted. I love you.”

“I love you.”

The Colonel spoke again, no longer trying to be friendly. This time his voice was precisely reflective of what he was: a military commander of ruthless and amoral determination, efficient and pitiless. “All right, Alpha. Give up. You are all surrounded. There is no way you can escape. The less trouble you give us, the less pain your children and your wife suffer. We know very well that you don’t give a damn about pain for yourself, but how about your family? Surrender immediately, or all of them go the the labs along with you!”

“With all respect, Colonel, you and your ancestors were all sheep-screwing perverts. Shove your offer up your ass!”

The Colonel didn’t respond verbally; suddenly a volley of canisters flew through the leaf-shuttered windows and began hissing yellow vapor.

Kay knew what that was as well as he did; holding her breath she dove out the largest windows with the infants, who immediately began screaming. Tai was too busy to worry about that; they had to win. And there was only one way to do that.

He dove out the window nearest the Colonel’s booming voice. A soldier tried to strike him as he went out, but Tai was too fast. Seb and little Tai followed momentarily; the soldier blocked Seb’s escape. Tai continued on, nodding to himself as he heard the man scream and then the sound of a head being separated from a body.

There was no more need for subtlety here. Concealment was useless. As the men ahead raised their weapons, he changed.

Horror froze them. Though they must have been warned, there’s an infinite difference between being told of something impossible and seeing it coming for you, savage and hungry, in real life. His claws ripped the armor off the first soldier, sent him staggering back. He was the lucky one. The other two fell dead, one fountaining blood from the throat, the other with a broken neck. He tore through their ranks, closing on the Colonel. If he could just reach the man…

Several small explosions erupted through the clearing; he caught an odd odor, tried to hold his breath; droplets of something dotted his skin. Tai found himself slowing down, tried desperately to force himself forward. As his vision began to fade into blackness, the last thing he saw was the sardonic smile of the Colonel, only twenty feet away.

* * *

Tai blinked his way back to consciousness slowly. He wished he hadn’t. The sterile white walls… the thick one-way glass wall… the ordinary-looking door that was locked and armored like a vault…

He was back at the Project.

He’d barely come to that bleak conclusion when the wall screen lit up. The Colonel looked back at him. The figure next to him sent shivers up Tai’s spine, causing his light fur to ruffle. Ping Xi. Doctor Ping Xi. The Colonel might give the money and the facilities, but it was this man, with his narrow eyes, white hair, long pianist’s hands, and cold, calculating brilliance who ruled the Project.

“Congratulations, Alpha,” the Colonel said. “A fine group of youngsters. Dr. Xi was just telling me how useful they’re going to be.”

With difficulty he choked his rage back. Once he started fighting, even verbally, it was impossible to stop, and intelligence went out the window. “Leave them alone. I’ll cooperate. Just leave my family out of this.”

The Colonel shook his head. “I gave you the chance for that, but you insisted on the hard way. Now that you’re caught, of course you’ll try singing a different tune. I’m afraid not.”

“At least let Kay go!” he said, fighting to keep the killing fury under control. “She’s not one of us!”

This time it was Ping Xi who answered. “Impossible. The most important questions here will be what the results are of the cross-breeding. This would be impossible without having both of the parents available for study. It is particularly interesting that the children represent a dichotomous birth in both ways—fraternal twins of different sex and one showing all the Project characteristics and the other not. It will take a great deal of study to determine just what caused such a fascinatingly clear division of genetic expression.”

It was no use. With an inarticulate roar of anger he launched himself at the wall screen. Bouncing off it as he always did. As if from a great distance, he heard the Colonel remark calmly, “Just as usual. Some things never change, eh?”

* * *

He fought them after that. But he wondered, if he had been fully human, if he would have. Why bother? For years they’d been watching him. Waiting. The patience itself was frightening, not at all what he had thought was the norm for military and governments. As though they had all the time in the world. But fighting was a part of him.

And once more they drugged him. Days melted into weeks of sluggish thought and dulled senses, only sharpening when, for some test or another, they needed him unimpaired. Sometimes he thought he could sense Seb or little Tai or even Genshi, but he never saw them.

Time passed. Where had he come from? He wasn’t sure. Had the labs really made him? It was all he really knew… and yet… and yet…

In the depths of one of his rages, something snapped. A memory…

Tall twoleg thing. My territory! Kill!

Pain! Hit me! Where? How? Fast twoleg!

Brightsharp metal! Cut! No. No cut! Hit! Why no cut?

Claw twoleg! Miss? Bite twoleg! Miss? Miss? How miss?

Pain! Hit again! Twoleg growl! Leap! Not hit ground???

Twoleg hold up! Stop in air! Twoleg too fast!

*Idea* Twoleg holding me… can’t get away! Claw!

???MISS??? PAIN! Blackness…. Death coming…

Wake up. Not-dead? Twoleg here!

Twoleg… Twoleg stronger. Twoleg still not kill.

Not able kill Twoleg? Twoleg not kill?

Stop. Wait…

Tai’s eyes snapped open, but he wasn’t really seeing anything in the room with him. Just the final scene from that frighteningly disjointed, animalistic memory. A face. Dark-skinned, human, a face sharp-edged, with the look of the hawk. Clothing that would be strange in any place he had ever heard of. And eyes… eyes the color of stormclouds and steel, huge gray eyes filled with calm certainty.

That is a real memory, he thought. Impossible though it is, that is real.

At night, when he slept, the drugs loosened their hold. He dreamed…

Standing in a strange pose, the Master nodded. Tai launched himself at the tall, angular figure, claws outstretched. The Master moved the slightest bit, and Tai’s claws caught nothing but air. Again. And again. No matter how fast, no matter what direction or technique he tried, he could never touch the strange man, let alone harm him. Finally he stopped and waited, wishing he could express what he felt to the figure before him. The figure made sounds… he stopped and thought. Those sounds… were they… were they a way to… tell other people things?

As he thought that, the Master’s sounds fell into recognizable patterns. Though it would be a while before he understood words, the sounds remained: “Well done, little one. You have learned the concept of practice and of when to stop practicing. When you begin to speak, then truly your training can start.”

More days passed. More dreams. Pain. Tests. Most of the dreams faded before waking, but one, finally, remained.

Revelation.

He stood in the center of his room. Drugs fogged his thoughts, made thinking an almost impossible effort. So much easier to just lie down, relax, do nothing. Anger burned away the fog, but replaced it with the smoke of fury. No, anger was no good now. They knew anything that he could do when driven by rage. Only discipline, only by the power of his mind, could he hope to surprise them.

The Master studied him as he practiced. “There is a Power in the soul, little one. The mind and the body are one, and yet each has its own strengths and weaknesses. One trained sufficiently in both can never be defeated, or so it is said. You have a special strength, a power that enough training will bring to its peak. That path I can show you how to begin.”

He brought his arms up and parallel, in the stance that his Master had taught. He looked in the one-way mirror, and then closed his eyes, focusing on himself. Tai visualized himself in every detail, every hair, the way the faint air currents in the room moved the clothing he wore in infinitesimal patterns. The fog began to recede from his mind, pushed back by the extremity of what he was doing, by the focus in his soul. He trembled, forcing his body to obey. He needed more. A way out. But panic and fear would do him no good. He remembered the last dream, the last lesson of the Master:

“When your body betrays you, it must be disciplined by the spirit, by the mind. Only the mind matters. Think upon water, little one. Water. It is all but the smallest part of what you are. All but the veriest fraction of the world. And all but indestructible, infinitely adaptable, nothing you can grasp in your hand, yet able to become something irresistable, unstoppable, infinitely fast like a flood, infinitely slow like a glacier, yielding to the smallest object, yet able to wear down the mountains themselves; in fact, all but the very essence of life itself. You have learned the Hand Center. You have seen the Wind Vision. You have found in yourself the High Center. Now, take into yourself the Water Vision.”

He thought of water. A droplet, condensing in a cloud. The droplet, a single thought. Droplets coalescing, becoming a raindrop; the raindrop, a single idea. The rain falling, becoming a puddle, a thousand puddles, a downpour; a day in the life of a man or a woman, a thousand thousand thousand thoughts moving as one. The downpour, still made of a trillion trillion droplets, pouring into rivers, the rivers into a mighty ocean that covered the world; the ocean, a man. Infinite in complexity, yet united in the substance of the soul.

Tai didn’t really understand what it was he was doing. It was an art, a technique, a skill taught to him so long ago that only the dreams showed him some of the teaching. Yet in his bones he understood it. He would not fail the Master, even now.

The ocean was his soul. How, then, could anything withstand it? How could a drug, however potent, have any effect when diluted unnumbered times in the waters of his mind? It could not. And so it did not.

Tai felt his mind clearing. Yet just by noticing that, he trembled at the edge of losing this transcendent moment. He knew he might not reach this point again; it required the desperation and, perhaps, the paradox of the drugged calmness to reach it this time.

But the very instability was the key. Like the shaken ocean, his soul gathered into a roiling wave. He spun and gathered the force of the oceans into his movements, a fluid lunge at a wall of armored, tempered glass that could withstand explosive shells.

But what is anything next to the power of a tsunami? What use armor plate against the relentless pressure of a glacier?

The wall bulged outward like cheap cardboard, bulged and then shattered into a billion fragments that glittered in the laboratory lights like diamonds. In that moment, he saw the shocked faces of the scientists in the lab, and the calmness evaporated. Berserker fury took him.

* * *

Breathing hard, Tai slowly came back to sanity. Blood was splattered on him from head to toe; he chose not to look at what he had left behind him. In front of him was a door, and behind that door…

“FATHER!”

He hugged Seb and Tai fiercely for a moment, then pulled away. “Go. The way out is clear. Run.”

“But what about you?” Seb asked, fighting to keep from crying.

Tai shook his head. “I have to go after Genshi, Kei, and Kay. But I won’t have you staying here any longer. Go. And keep going. As far away from here as you can get, to another country if you can. Don’t look back. I will find you. If it takes a year or a dozen years, I’ll find you. Just make sure that you’re safe.”

Seb looked torn, but then looked at little Tai and realized what his father meant. It was his time to be a protector. “Yes, Father.”

He watched until the two were out of sight. Then he loped down the corridor. Turning the corner, he backpedaled to a halt.

Dr. Ping Xi was there, holding a black box. “Tsk. Are you forgetting something, Alpha?”

“I AM NOT ALPHA!” Loathing and fear held him where he was. Dr. Xi was the only thing he could remember that frightened him.

“Do you think I left everything to chance? The coded transmissions this sends out will detonate a small implant in your brain. A hideous waste, one I would rather avoid. But your children will serve well enough in the lab. You have become, as the Colonel would say, a far too expensive luxury.”

The black box pulled his gaze towards it like an evil magnet. One button, and he would cease to exist. He didn’t doubt Dr. Xi. Dr. Xi never bothered to lie, it wasn’t in his nature.

But was it better to live in the grip of the Project?

That thought decided him. He would win either way. But his children…

He had to succeed. He remembered his Master’s movements. He had to combine his own speed with the Master’s inhuman accuracy. And only one chance to get it right.

He let his shoulders sag, as though realizing he was hopelessly trapped. Then he lunged forward, leaping across the forty feet separating them like a missile.

He saw Xi’s eyes widen, and knew in that instant that he was too late; the bastard had more than enough time to press the button.

But he saw the finger hesitate; perhaps, in the end, it was just a little too hard for the doctor to destroy his greatest work. And then he was on Dr. Ping Xi, and his blood tasted like freedom.

 

 

 

 

Polychrome: Chapter 14

 

Time for the good guys to start moving their plans forward a bit…

 

 

—–

 

Chapter 14.

     I sat down at the small table; this time it was just me, Iris Mirabilis, Nimbus, and Polychrome. “So… what’s on the agenda today?” I said after a pause.

“Nimbus tells me that you have… made considerable progress.” The Lord of Rainbows’ tone showed that there were still reservations in that assessment. “While we have many concerns, it is clear now that you have the potential and the will needed, and that – for good or ill – we shall have to rely on you truly fulfilling the role of prophecy.”

I really hate hearing that line. Too much on my shoulders. Yes, I know it’s all there anyway, but whenever they say it, it just looms up that much more. “I don’t think I’m done with my training yet.”

“No, not quite,” Nimbus agreed. “But we are nearing the point at which I will be unable to teach you much more without taking vastly more time. A few more months, at the most, and you will be ready for the final test. We cannot wait for much longer.”

“No,” Polychrome said. “We evaded Tempests on the way here, so the enemy surely knows I went to the mortal world and did something. They probably even know I brought someone back with me. So they must guess we’re planning to do something…”

“… and the longer we wait, the greater the chance that they will decide to act, rather than react.” Iris Mirabilis finished. “So now we must begin the real planning of what you will do, how it will be done, and how we can best assure our victory in the end. You have heard the Prophecies of the Bear many times. Have they enlightened you at all? For I admit that often they remain opaque even to me, and I have spent many years indeed reading them.”

I grinned. “In some ways, yes, I think they have. Though in most cases it might be best for me to keep things to myself, if you understand what I mean.”

The Rainbow Lord’s immense head tilted slightly, but his lips were touched with a smile. “I believe I may, Erik Medon. For your journey, your guesses and judgments must be your own.” He turned to Nimbus. “Have you solved the riddle of his arms and armor?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Captain of Hosts said reluctantly. “We do not generally work in mortal materials, and such materials would be too heavy and clumsy without proper modification. Our own materials, alas, simply cannot survive his use.”

“Never mind,” I said. “I already have my own answer for that problem. It’s in the Prophecy.”

The three looked at me in surprise. “In truth? I remember no lines that address your equipment. Not even thinking on them now,” Iris said finally, “can I find a reasonable interpretation that would lead me to that conclusion.”

Now it was my turn to chuckle. “Well, maybe it’s not in the Prophecy literally, but it’s sorta implied. Anyway, don’t worry about it.” I ran over the lines in my mind. “I’m more worried about the bit involving fighting a battle there when I happen to know that – as you’ve mentioned more than once – the Great Barrier around Oz prevents any Faerie from entering Oz. I’ll admit I’ve managed to become a lot tougher than I would’ve thought, but I’m not an ‘army of one’, so to speak.”

Iris nodded slowly. “You are correct. This is a matter to which I have had to devote much thought.

“The Barrier cannot be broken from without. From within, however, it can be opened, and by careful examination of the magics used and what we have learned from the enemy’s actions, I have devised a solution.” From a pouch at his side he pulled a crystal – to him, the size of a large marble; to me, more like a golf ball – that flickered with the colors of his Rainbow. “Place this upon the soil of Oz and my Rainbow will bridge the gap, become a path from one side of the Deadly Desert to another.”

That was a relief. “So – if you’ll pardon me for trivializing something that’s undoubtedly anything but trivial – all I have to do is get across the desert and I can bring through my reinforcements?”

The other three laughed. “Yes, indeed, that is all. An afternoon’s work for one of your might, Erik,” Nimbus said with a half-smile. “But there is more to concern us.”

Poly nodded. “The lines that go:

Army faces army, fifty thousand strong

          Both of faerie, neither yielding

          The battle will be long;

…yes?”

Nimbus grunted. “Any way I read that, I cannot come up with enough men. Even if I assume both armies together are fifty thousand strong, which would strike me as a most unlikely reading. I have ten thousand men, fifteen perhaps if I call for more volunteers. All of these I will commit, but that leaves us many short.”

I nodded. “I know. What about the other Faerie kingdoms?”

Iris shook his head. “None of them will commit anything. They all see any attempt at attacking Oz as foredoomed, and any who attempt it will be destroyed. The only forces of warriors that might have been capable of being a significant factor in such an assault were taken by Amanita herself.”

“The Phanfasms and some of the other nastier Faerie types.”

“You speak truly. Not that they would have been inclined to aid us; though they were partially neutralized many years ago, still their nature was capricious and often cruel, and uninterested in aiding others.”

Nimbus picked up the thread. “You of course represent a new factor… but we cannot discuss that factor with them. You are our secret until you leave here, and when you do so, you must be greatly cautious about those you contact, for any of them could be a spy or ally of our enemy.”

I nodded. “I understand. I’m not planning on taking too many risks. But… I’ll have to take some. Hell, the endgame means I’m going to be risking everything, so I think you – and I, for that matter – will have to trust my judgment on a lot of these things.”

“Yes. We have little choice. But that ‘endgame’ is of grave concern. I am not even sure how to help you there. You would have to understand a great deal, especially about the basic nature of Oz and the power of Faerie, before you could even begin to wield it. And you will have no time to practice… yet there really is no way to teach it to you except in theory. In the end, you will have to have clear in your mind the way in which you will wield the Power of Faerie, and keep that clarity…” Iris frowned. “How to begin? The essence of Oz –”

“—Is the Five Elements.” I said.

The startled, gratified look Polychrome gave me made my heart stop and restart. “True enough,” the Rainbow Lord said slowly. “But can you say what that means?”

“It’s pretty clear after I thought about it a bit. Oz is divided into five areas – four quadrant countries and one central area linking all of them. Then you have the clue of the Tempests, which Polychrome once mentioned were derived from Gillikins, at least in part. So I guess this means that the Gillikin country represents Air, the Quadling country Fire, the Munchkin country Water, and naturally the Winkie country is Earth.”

“And the Emerald City?”

“Emerald, the color of growing things, and the center of Faerie? Spirit, soul, the power of life itself. So if I’m right, Ugu and Amanita have not just storm-based Tempests but other twisted elemental spirits. Am I right?”

Nimbus looked pleased. “You are exactly right. There is much more to each element than their simple natures, though.”

“Yes, I realize that. Together the five make up, well, everything, so things like, oh, intelligence have to be characteristic of some element or another. I’d guess fire, for that one in specific. Toughness is probably earth. And so on.”

“Does this…” Polychrome began.

“…Help? Hell yeah. If you can give me a list of the associated properties for each element, I can get quite a bit of practice envisioning how I might be able to use them in an actual conflict. And with luck, it might even work the way I envision it, if the power combines with me as you say.”

We all carefully avoided the issue of exactly what was going to be happening to me WHILE I tried to use all that power.

“Polychrome? Please gather all this information for Erik. What he asks for we indeed have.” For the first time, I saw actual hope on Iris’ face, and I was glad. The longer I’d been here, the more I’d started to understand what a terrible burden he lived under.

Just as long as it isn’t false hope, the nagging part of me said. But it was right. I had come a long way, I had to admit. I had figured out several parts of the prophecy, and I was starting to see a path to the end of the journey… but any part of it could come unglued with just one wrong guess.

And boy, was I having to make a lot of guesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 35

 

Jason and Syl had had a very scary idea…

 

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 35: A Test of Trust

“Good evening, Master Jason.” Morgan said, opening the door.

“Evening, Morgan.” I answered, glancing around. There were still lots of pieces of clutter around from the work that was being done on the house. “Verne around?”

“He and Master Kafan are in the library at the moment, sir.”

I opened my mouth to ask who “Master Kafan” was, then remembered Verne calling Tai Lee Xiang “Raiakafan.” “Thanks, Morgan.”

“Your coats, sir, Lady Sylvia?”

Though impatient, I didn’t show any sign of our concern. Neither did Syl; we both knew that if it was a werewolf, any hint that we suspected it could be fatal.

The library was much neater than the other areas. I remembered that Verne pushed the contractors to finish that room first and to clean it up each day; he valued the library more than just about any other room, except naturally whatever room it was that he slept in during the day. Verne and Tai were sitting together, bent over what looked like an atlas, with other books scattered about the table. Both looked up as we entered.

“Jason!” Verne rose. “I did not expect you. And Lady Sylvie.” He took her hand and bowed deeply over it.

I felt slightly jealous as Syl developed a slight blush and thanked Verne for his courtesy. She used to be scared stiff of Verne, but that seemed to be a thing of the past now.

Tai nodded to me and stood up at a gesture from Verne. “Tai, please meet my good friend Sylvia Stake,” Verne said.

We’d hoped for a setup like this. As he reached out, his attention focused on Syl, I pulled my hand out of my pocket and flung what was in my hand at him.

Neither of us saw everything that happened; from Syl’s point of view Tai suddenly disappeared. I, on the other hand, saw a blur move toward me and felt myself lifted into the air and slammed into a wall so hard that breath left me with an explosive whoosh and red haze fogged my vision. I struggled feebly, trying to force some air back into my lungs.

The pressure on my windpipe vanished suddenly as my attacker was yanked backwards. “Raiakafan! Jason! What is the meaning of this?” Verne demanded.

“I saw him move quickly; the characteristics of his motion strongly implied an attack.” Tai’s voice was level, cold, and flat, almost like a machine rather than a living being. “I therefore moved to neutralize him.”

“No one ‘neutralizes’ a member of my household or my friends.” Verne stated flatly. “As to Jason’s action, I am sure he will explain himself… immediately.” The last word carried a considerable coldness with it.

“Urrg …” I gurgled, then managed to gasp, pulling precious air back into my system. “Sorry… Verne.” I studied Tai carefully. Yes… I could see traces of the stuff. It had definitely hit him. Hell, he’d charged straight into it. Obviously he didn’t realize what kind of an attack it had been, if it had actually been an attack. “In a way, Tai was correct. Under the right circumstances, what I was doing would have been an attack. A lethal one.”

Verne’s eyes narrowed, fortunately showing more puzzlement than anger; we’d been through enough that he knew that I’d never do anything like this without damned good reason. “And just what circumstances would that have been?”

Syl answered. “If Tai had been a werewolf, he’d be dead now.”

Tai blinked, brushing away the silver dust I’d thrown in his face.

Verne’s expression softened in comprehension. “Ahh. Of course. You could hardly be blamed for such a suspicion, Jason. Without knowing the extent of my senses, you had no way of knowing that I knew this was the real Raiakafan, no matter what his outward seeming. And he has confirmed it in other ways since then.”

“According to what you told me,” I said, “a werewolf could foil even your senses.”

“True,” Verne admitted. “But there are other things that mere duplication of the soul and body cannot achieve, such as the memories that would have to be derived from… well, from someone supposedly dead a very, very long time ago. You still seem unsure, Jason. Please, tell me what troubles you.”

Without a word, I pulled out a printed copy of the pictures and articles I’d located and handed it to Verne, who read them in silence, then studied the picture and Tai carefully. Finally he handed them back.

“As we expected, Raiakafan,” he said. “I am of the opinion that we must tell them everything.”

That dead-black gaze returned; I saw Syl shrink back from it and it took some effort not to do so myself. “Are we sure?”

Verne waited until the strange young man was looking at him, and then answered. “Jason has risked his life to protect me. He has rekindled the Faith that was lost. And the Lady Sylvia is his best companion, a Mistress of Crystal, and born with the Sight. If I cannot trust them, then I cannot trust you, and if you cannot trust them, then I am not who you believe.” His words were very strange, half-explanation, half-ritual, spoken in a measured, formal manner that sent a shiver up my spine; that alien accent had returned again.

Tai studied me again, less ice in that gaze than before. Finally he nodded. “As you wish, Father.”

Verne relaxed, and so did we. The last thing any of us wanted was a real conflict. Whatever was going on here, it was obvious that Raiakafan—Tai—whatever his name was had some real problems in his life, and they might be coming after Verne too.

“Morgan!” Verne called. “Send in refreshments for everyone.” He turned to us. “Make yourselves comfortable, Jason, Lady Sylvie. This will be a long and difficult story, but a necessary one, for I see no other way around it but that I—that both Raiakafan and I—will need your help to solve the difficulties that face us.” Morgan came in, bearing a tray of drinks, and went out to return a moment later with two trays of hors d’oeuvres. Verne took a sip of his usual and frowned faintly. “How to begin, though… ?”

“How about using the White King’s approach?” I suggested. “Start at the beginning. Go on to the end. And then stop.”

Syl and Verne chuckled at that; Kafan (I’d decided to use Verne’s name for him) just looked puzzled. Verne smiled sadly, his eyes distant. “Ahh. The beginning. But it’s always hard to mark the beginning, is it not? For whatever beginning you choose, there is always a cause that predates it. But it is true that for most great things there is a point at which you can say, ‘Here. At this point, all that went before was different.’ Perhaps I should start there …”

“No, Father! It is too dangerous—for them.”

Verne sighed. “It would be too dangerous not to tell them, Raiakafan. Jason works best with maximum information. But you are correct, as well.” He turned to us. “Before I proceed… Jason, Sylvia, I must impress upon you these facts.

“First, that much of what I am going to tell you contradicts that which is supposedly scientific fact.

“Second, that these contradictions—though they be on a titanic, global scale—were nonetheless designed; that it was intended by certain parties that the information I possess would never again be known to a living soul. My own existence is due as much to blind luck as it is to my own skill and power.

“Third, once you have been told these things, you become a potential target for the forces that would keep these things secret… and so will anyone to whom you reveal these things. And the forces behind this are of such magnitude as to give even Virigar pause, so powerful that the mightiest nations of this world are as nothing to them.” He gazed solemnly at us. “So think carefully; do you still wish to involve yourselves in these matters? I will think no less of you either way, I assure you. But once I speak, there is no going back. Ever. Even my ability to hide memories will not save you; they will never believe a memory completely gone when they can ensure it by killing the one with the memory.”

Verne’s deadly serious warning made me hesitate. He had only been this concerned when Virigar had come, and at that time there was no doubt that all the Great Wolf’s forces were directed towards him. Now, he was speaking of forces that didn’t even know he existed and yet were so fearsome as to warrant the most frightening warning he could give me. Not a reassuring thought.

I remembered the time he’d suddenly stopped a conversation. “The subject we discussed once before. Who you were, where you came from… the fact you’re not, exactly, a vampire… that’s part of it?”

“It is,” he said.

Syl replied first. “I want to hear the truth, Verne. I believe we were meant to hear it. If not, I would not be here.”

I nodded. “I didn’t think I’d be able to make friends with a vampire and not get into trouble sometimes. Might as well know what’s really going on. Seriously, Verne… if you have troubles on that scale, you’re going to need all the help you can get someday.”

Kafan studied us for a moment, and then smiled very slightly. “They are strong friends, Father.”

“They are indeed.” Verne leaned back in his red-cushioned chair. Light the color of blood flashed from his ring as he folded his hands. “Then, my friends, I start… or no. Raiakafan, would you begin? For what I must tell them is not only the more dangerous part, but the one that is less immediate. Your story is immediate. Mine is important to explain why even your story is insufficient.”

Kafan nodded. Turning to us, he began.

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 34

 

Jason had found Verne a long-lost friend, but…

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 34: Reunion Jitters

“Guess who!”

Two soft hands covered my eyes in time with the words. To my credit, I managed to keep from jumping, though she probably knew how much she’d startled me anyway.

“Madame Blavatsky?”

She giggled. “Nope.”

“Nostradamus?”

“Do I feel like I have a beard? Try again!”

“Then it must be the great Medium of the Mohawk Valley herself, Sylvia Stake!”

The hands came away as I turned around. “You guessed!”

“No one else has a key to this place, and Verne’s voice is two octaves lower and his hands five sizes bigger.”

Sylvie was looking good this evening, in one of her gypsyish outfits, black hair currently styled in tight ringlet-like curls pulled back by several colorful scarves, a low-cut dress with a long skirt, and a big over-the-shoulder bag that was handwoven with enough different colors to supply a dozen rainbows. “Oh, is that the only difference?” she said, leaning forward.

Sylvie always makes me nervous. I don’t know why; she’s not the only woman or girl I’ve ever dated, and I never got this nervous around them or anyone else for that matter. Because she always saw it, Syl assumed it was all women who made me nervous. And she always enjoyed flustering me. Leaning forward in that dress was just another such approach. “C’mon, Syl, cut it out. I can’t take the games today.”

She switched gears immediately. “Sorry, Jason. I noticed you seemed tense, but I thought it might be just work and the fact I’d been away so long.”

“It’s not like I fall apart when you go away, you know.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

I turned back to the computer screen. “Sorta business, sorta personal.”

“Verne.” It was a statement, not a question.

“How did you know?”

“Just a feeling.”

“You know, it’s tough to hide anything from you. A guy came in the other day, asking me to find his father, who he’d been separated from for years. It turned out that his father is Verne.”

“Well, that’s wonderful… isn’t it?”

“I dunno.” I pointed at the screen. “Verne didn’t recognize his face at all, just said something about recognizing his ‘soul,’ and then the two of them went off to talk together. Verne seems convinced that he’s bona fide, but I have to wonder. Even if he is the real McCoy, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have something nasty up his sleeve.”

“Jason, it’s not like you to be this paranoid.”

I told her about that cold gaze. “That just started me thinking, though. I wouldn’t go around worrying if that was all it was. But because of that, I decided to just run a background check on this guy, and I didn’t like what came up.”

Syl looked at the screen. It showed a front-page story from a Vietnamese paper of several months ago, accompanied by two pictures. One showed a Vietnamese in a business suit in one of those typical “ID Photo” poses; the other showed a blond-haired, sharp-featured young man with a cold, angry expression.

“If you color that hair black,” I said, hitting the command as I spoke, “that guy’s a twin for our ‘Tai Lee Xiang.’ ”

“What does the story say?”

“Says that the unnamed subject—the blond guy—here killed the man in the picture while escaping from a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Doctor Ping Xi, the dead man, was a very important man, apparently.” I hit a few more controls, and another newspaper headline appeared. “A couple days later, they claim he killed off a colonel in their army, and he’s been hunted ever since. International warrants, the whole nine yards.”

“You don’t really think even a madman would be a threat to Verne, do you?”

I chuckled slightly in spite of myself. If I glanced out the righthand window, I was able to just make out one of the two girders left standing from the warehouse that Verne had single-handedly demolished while killing Virigar’s brood of werewolves. “It does sound a little silly, doesn’t it? But this guy isn’t an ordinary killer. According to the files I’ve been able to worm out, this colonel was practically torn apart.” I felt a spike of ice suddenly form in my chest as I spoke those words, and remembered a particular clearing in the woods.

Sylvie paled suddenly. “You don’t think …”

“… Yes, I do think. We’d better get over there.”

Neither of us had to explain the hideous thought that had occurred to us. Werewolves. If Virigar knew something about Verne’s background… how very easy to have one of his people change into some form with a good background story. If Verne knew no way to tell a werewolf from a real man, that meant that they were even capable of imitating souls.

Pausing only to grab a couple pieces of equipment, we headed for the car at a dead run.

 

 

 

Polychrome: Chapter 13

Let’s see how our Heroine views the Hero’s progress thus far…

 

 

—–

 

 

 

Chapter 13.

     Polychrome watched from the doorway as the group of Guards prepared for training combat. She knew that Nimbus and her father were deeply worried; Erik had the intellectual and, somewhat surprisingly, physical potential to be a good, perhaps even better than good, warrior, but when it came down to actual fighting, sparring with the men, the closest thing to real combat they could manage to give him… he just couldn’t seem to use what he’d learned. He hesitated, he backed off, he was perhaps one-half or one-tenth as effective as he might be. She had decided to watch and see if she could figure out what was going wrong.

Erik stood at the center of the room, waiting. He was dressed in twilight-indigo crystal-metal armor and holding a shining silver sword, touched with a hint of emerald, that was about as long as he was tall. He held it in one hand, moving it absently as though it were a fishing rod instead of a huge blade of metal that, she knew, she could lift but would never be able to wield with both hands, even for a few seconds. His True Mortal nature rendered the mystical blade effectively massless for him – and not for his targets, making it terrifyingly effective if he was willing to actually use it properly.

Willing… is that it? No, I’ve been watching him these months. He was only telling the truth about his laziness – he doesn’t like working hard, but he’s also told the truth about his dreams, and he’s really been working hard for this dream, even though I’ve heard him complaining to himself a lot when he thinks no one’s listening.

Part of that work showed just in his appearance. The armor he wore made his shoulders look very broad, but they were broader than they’d been when he first arrived, and the belt holding the mail was now defining a waist instead of something more rounded; his face had become more defined, square and sharper with less rounding. She approved.

Unfortunately, appearance didn’t mean much. It was performance that mattered, and he was consistently failing to perform. She’d heard the Guards whispering – and suspected he had, too – that he was already a failure. They would not speak unkindly to his face, they were too well disciplined and trained to do so to a guest of the Lord of Rainbows, but she knew that his failures were causing the Storm Legions to fear that already the Prophecy had failed and their cause was lost.

The Guards spread out, encircling Erik Medon; his eyes checked their positions carefully as he turned to watch their movements. Then he noticed her watching, and she could see his eyes widen slightly.

“Ready, all…” Nimbus called, raising his hand.

The blond mortal gripped the sword now in both hands and seemed to gather himself.

The armored hand dropped. “Begin!”

The Guardsmen charged in a synchronized attack; Erik, recognizing that the last thing he needed was to get caught in the center of that mess, charged in the direction he was already facing, swinging the huge blade in front of him to clear a path.

One of the guards behind hurled a spear, but it glanced off the armor and Erik only winced slightly, bowling over one of the Guards in front and clearing him with an impressive leap that took him well out of the encircling group of Guards. But he didn’t do anything to make sure the one who went down doesn’t get back up!

He whirled, delivering a sweeping strike that shattered two spearshafts jabbing at him; she saw the sword actually bend slightly from the impact, springing straight but, she thought, possibly with a notch in one side. He caught a hard-swung mace in one hand and ripped it out of the Guards’ hand like taking a toy away from a toddler, threw it over his shoulder, shoved the Guard away, and smacked another sideways with the flat of the sword.

But the Guards were faster. The ring was closing in around him again and they were matching his movements better, hemming him in. Half of them were disarmed by now but they grabbed onto his arms, his legs, and those with weapons remaining were starting to get in hits. She winced as she saw one point slip through the guards to prick his leg, heard him curse. He staggered as a pair of Guards struck the back of his knees, and he went down under a pile of Guards who were now systematically beating on him; she saw him raise his head and see her still watching. She realized her hand had involuntarily gone to her mouth in sympathy. Then even that sight vanished as the Guards really piled on. She could see Nimbus’ eyes roll upward, his head shaking in frustration.

Then she heard a low, baritone snarl from under that pile, a pile that suddenly shuddered; she thought she heard a couple of nonsensical words in that sound that became a full-fledged roar as the entire mass of Guardsmen was heaved skyward, flung away from the figure at the center like straws in a hurricane, and she felt her jaw drop at that display of furious power. A hand whipped out, grabbed a Guard, crushing the armor on his shoulder, and hurled him through the mass of his fellows, bowling them aside, human tenpins hit by a living bowling ball. A silver streak spun about in a complete circle, batting the still-recovering guards away in a shower of metallic fragments.

Erik Medon stood there alone, breathing heavily, a sharp whistling undertone becoming evident, but triumphant. His armor was hanging on him in fragments, there were trickles of blood from a dozen minor wounds and red welts of bruises which would undoubtedly become blue soon enough, and the mighty sword was a shattered, unrecognizable mess except for the hilt, and his expression was wide-eyed, shifting from anger to concern.

Nimbus’ expression, by contrast, had just changed from worry to savage delight. “Now by the Seven Hues that is what I was seeking, Erik Medon! THAT is the power, the strength, the skill I’ve been trying to get you to reach for these six months! Well done, well done indeed!”

Erik didn’t seem to hear him; instead he had run over to the Guards, especially the one he’d used as a bowling ball. “Jesus, holy crap, Rain, you okay? Stratos? Mist? I’m sorry, guys, I—”

Rain winced and panted; red showed under the torn and crumpled armor, but even so the Guardsman managed a pained smile. “Think… nothing… of it, Lord Medon. I am … honored to have been… one of the first to learn that our hope is not gone.” The others nodded, lines of restrained worry smoothing out despite pain.

“What? I could have killed you with that stupid –”

“Peace, Erik.” Nimbus placed a hand on his shoulder. “None died, and the injured will be tended to.” He shook his head with a wry smile, studying the mortal before him as another piece of Erik’s armor – most of the breastplate – fell off. “Finding you equipment that will survive your use, however, may prove more problematic. Still, now that you have gotten past whatever had restrained you, let us continue.”

Erik shook his head emphatically. “No way. I’m done for now. Maybe for good.” He turned and walked away, slower now but with clear decision.

The Captain of the Legions went to stop him, but Polychrome shook her head, and went to follow.

She hung back, but caught up with him halfway back to his quarters when he slowed to a stop. “Erik—”

The whistling undertone had gotten louder, and she saw him suddenly grope under the remains of his armor, tearing it off and reaching into one of his pockets, pulling out the plastic-and-metal device he called an “inhaler”.

It did not make quite the same sound as she remembered, and he triggered it twice more before she heard something more like the original quick, sharp hiss. He held his breath for a moment then let it out; slowly that undertone retreated, but it did not seem to be going away. “Sorry… I may be in trouble. That sucker’s running out, and you don’t seem to have a decent pharmacy around here.”

“You need that … device often?”

He grimaced and leaned against the wall. “If I do exercise, yeah. You remember our little run, of course. Well, Nimbus has been driving me hard. I’ve tried to pace myself as much as I could, but it’s not easy.”

“Maybe Father could –” She broke off. “Oh.”

“Yeah. There’s all sorts of miracles your dad could do, I think. He thinks he can get away with fixing my vision; that’s basically a one-time shot that just re-molds my lenses and softens them up, doesn’t really change ME. But fixing my asthma and allergies? That’s a full-body biochemical change, maybe genetic, or it means I have to have magic running in my bod 24/7.”

That would be self-defeating, she knew; the more magic that was made a part of him – even willingly – the greater the chance that it would compromise his True Mortal status, at which point the entire reason for his presence here would be in jeopardy. “Perhaps we can at least find a way to duplicate or re-fill your inhalers and your other medicines.”

He nodded, clearly still recovering from his own body’s attempt to suffocate him after that last huge exertion. “Yeah. I sure don’t want to have to try to do this whole gig while having to guess when and how I’m going to keel over suddenly.” He straightened. She noticed that he still kept his eyes focused exclusively on her face, or away from her entirely. “Poly, I’m sorry you had to see that mess.”

“Mess? I got to see you succeed for the first –”

“I got mad for a minute and I almost killed the guys who are supposed to be teaching me!” he snapped, and there was brittle edge in his voice. “It felt real good for a couple of seconds, until I realized I might really have hurt someone there.”

That explains a lot, she thought, and filed it away for her later discussion with Nimbus. “So why then? That can’t be the first time you got… overwhelmed.”

He looked away for a moment, a sheepish grin on his face. “You weren’t there the other times. It’s probably pretty stupid, but the last thing I saw as they hogpiled me was you looking at me as though I was so totally pathetic… and I just couldn’t stand the thought of lying there being beat to a pulp while you watched. And with all of them punching and kicking… I just suddenly got really pissed and let it all out.” He looked down at himself. “Er, look, I’m hardly in any condition to be talking to you right now, I hurt all over, I probably stink, and as soon as I get over my upset I’ll probably just have to head back to training.” He went to the door of his quarters.

She wanted to inquire more, but she thought she understood now. “All right, Erik. I’ll… see you later?”

His face lit up. “If… if you want to, sure.”

As he started to open the door, she said,”Wait. Just one little question before you go.”

“Oh?”

“Well… it was something I heard when you finally acted…” She concentrated to make sure she remembered it right. “Um… ‘Mortal smash’?”

He burst out laughing, and there was a touch of red on his cheeks. “Oh, that… um… Look, that’d take a while to explain. Later, all right?”

He is so hard to understand sometimes, she thought. “All right.”

She retraced her steps to the training area and found Nimbus examining the shattered pieces of sword and armor. “Lady Polychrome,” he said with a nod. “Did you learn anything of value?”

“I think so.” She recounted most of the conversation. “So… I think the problem is that he really just doesn’t want to hurt people.”

“Um.” Nimbus wrinkled his brow. “That’s common for Faerie of a certain sort. You’ve got much of that in you, of course, though I’ve noticed you seem willing to overcome that. Most of your sisters. The Lady Ozma, of course. But he’s talked about dreams of being a great warrior of various sorts, some I just can’t quite understand. Does his dream, then, stand against his soul?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure, Nimbus. But I think that’s the problem you’ve been seeing.”

He sighed. “That could be fatal. Thinking along those lines, there’s some things I can do to make him more effective, but in the end he has to be ready to hurt – or even kill – because sure as the Rainbow, our enemies will kill him if they get the chance.”

“I know, Nimbus. But … is it not better that he be unwilling to kill, than too willing?”

“I suppose,” the Captain of Hosts said grudgingly, “but I just hope we won’t pay for the luxury of a conscience.”

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 33

Let’s get Jason to do some work…

 

 

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 33: Who’s Your Daddy?

The man sitting across from me was small. Oriental, handsome (at least that’s what Syl told me later; I’m not much of a judge), average-length hair just a bit shaggy. He was dressed in fairly casual style, but that wasn’t much indication of his job or resources; people come to WIS in different guises than their coworkers usually see.

“Okay, Mr., um, Xiang—that right?—okay, what can I help you with?”

Tai Lee Xiang shifted uncomfortably in his chair, obviously ill at ease. “I’m trying to locate someone.”

Locate someone? That didn’t sound particularly promising. There’s some kinds of work I might do once in a while, but don’t consider worth much. Finding old girlfriends, enemies, and so on was one of those. “What kind of a someone?”

“My father.”

Okay, that was more interesting, maybe. “Your father? Okay. How’d you come to not know where he is? A family argument?”

He squirmed again, then stood up, pacing in the short distance available. “It’s… hard to explain. I didn’t have any argument with him. It’s… I’ve just not seen him in a long time.” His voice was heavily accented—Vietnamese, if what he told me was right—but the word “long” was clearly emphasized.

“What do you need to find him for? Just a family reunion?”

“Why do you need to know?” he countered, slightly annoyed.

“I don’t necessarily need to know, as long as there’s nothing illegal involved, but any information can sometimes help.” I had to put in that clause about “illegal” somewhere—it wasn’t at all unusual for people to try to use Wood’s Information Service to get info they had no business getting.

He frowned at me, then shrugged. “I am new in this country, and he is my only living relative, aside from my children.”

“Fair enough.” This actually sounded interesting. Finding a man can be a relatively easy thing, or almost impossible, depending on how much information you had to go on. “I’ll need everything you can possibly tell me about your father. The more I know, the easier it will be to find him.”

He looked somewhat embarrassed and uncomfortable again. “I… I can’t tell you too much. I have… memory trouble.”

“Amnesia?” I was surprised by this little twist.

“Um, yes, I think that’s what they called it. I remember some things well, not other things.”

Interesting case. “Okay. Can I ask why you chose WIS for this job?”

“I saw the reports on the werewolves …” he began. I already knew the rest; the “Morgantown Incident” was a great piece of advertisement. I was wrong.

“… and of all the investigators out there, only you seemed the sort to be ready to search for someone… unusual.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me there’s something out of the ordinary about your father?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Tai Lee looked at me. “I can’t tell you any more unless you agree to do the job. You… feel like an honorable man to me, which means if you agree to do the job, you won’t talk about it to other people if I don’t want you to.”

He had me pegged right. I thought a moment. “Nothing illegal involved in this job?”

“I know of nothing that would be illegal in finding my father, no.”

“Very well, then. I agree. I’ll find your father, if it’s at all possible.”

His nervous fidgeting quieted almost instantly; he relaxed visibly. “Thank you.”

“So what can you tell me about your father? Skip the description for now—I’ve got a computer program we’ll use later to construct the best picture. Tell me any facts his appearance wouldn’t tell me.”

“That is where my memory is weak. I can only tell you five things about Father.”

“Shoot.”

“Excuse me?”

“That means, go ahead, let me have them.”

“First, he was not my natural father. I was adopted. He was not of Oriental blood, but I think Westerner instead.”

Well, that weakened one approach. Obviously there’d be no link in appearance between father and son, and not necessarily one of immigration, either. “Next?”

“Father was a priest. Priest of… um… nature? I’m not sure the term… ?”

That was interesting. “You mean of the earth itself? Not Shinto or something of that nature?”

“Yes. The world’s spirit?”

“Our word for that is generally ‘Gaia.’ ”

“Yes! That is it.” He nodded, apparently recognizing the word. “Father also had a ring that he wore, which he would never remove.”

“Kind of ring?”

“A big, wide, heavy gold ring, with a very large red stone—I think a ruby—set in it.”

I blinked for a moment. “O… kay.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, nothing. Go on.”

He hesitated. “This is the… weird part.”

“I’m ready.”

“No, I mean, really strange. Please believe me when I tell you this is not a joke?”

I studied him carefully. “I believe you’re not playing a joke on me. You seem too serious to be able to joke about it at all.”

“Thank you.” He had tensed up again; my assurance made him relax. “All right… my father didn’t eat; instead, he drank blood.”

I stopped dead in mid-keystroke. No. This was ridiculous. What were the odds? But drinking blood? A red-stone ring that never came off?

Tai could tell something had happened to me. “Mr. Wood?”

“What was the fifth thing?”

“What?”

“That’s four facts about your father. What’s the fifth?”

“His name… the name he was using then. His name was V’ierna Dhomienkha a Atla’a Alandar.”

It was impossible. But it had to be. I stood up. “Excuse me for a minute; I’m going to check something.”

“What? Mr. Wood, what is it?”

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

I stepped into the back office, grabbed the phone off the hook, and punched in Verne’s number.

“Domingo Residence, Morgan speaking.”

“Morgan, this is Jason. I need to speak with Verne.”

Morgan’s voice was puzzled. “But, Jason, you know that Master Verne is never awake at this time. Why, it’s barely two o’ clock.”

“Then wake him. I know he can move about in the day, if he wants. This is important!”

There was a long pause—even longer to me, sitting on the other end doing nothing. But finally I heard the familiar voice pick up at the other end. “Jason? What is the emergency?” Tired though he was, what I heard most in his voice was worry. “It isn’t the Wolf, is it?”

Jesus, I should have realized that was the first thing he’d think of. “No, no. Nothing that bad. Maybe not bad, really, at all. I have a guy here looking for his father.”

His tone was slightly nettled. “And how does this concern me?”

“Because of what he told me about his father: that he wore a ruby-colored crystal in a gold-setting ring that he never took off, and that he drank blood.”

There was dead silence on the other end for several moments. “Interesting coincidence to say the least, Jason. But I have no children.”

“He said he wasn’t a natural child of this man—adopted. He also said that his father was some kind of priest of nature, and he gave his father’s name. I’m not sure quite how to spell it, but it sounded awfully like yours …”

In a whisper almost inaudible, I heard, “V’ierna Dhomienkha a Atla’a Alandar i Sh’ekatha …”

“Holy crap,” I heard my own whisper. I still couldn’t believe it.

“That name? He spoke that name? But… that is impossible.” Verne’s voice was at the edge of anger, laughter, or tears, I couldn’t tell which, and hearing that strain in his voice was more upsetting than I’d imagined. “I am on my way, sun or no sun.”

I hung up and stepped back out into the office. Tai Lee Xiang looked up at me. “Mr. Wood?”

“If what you’ve told me is accurate, Mr. Xiang… I think I’ve located him already.”

As his jaw dropped, a chill wind blew through the closed office, and from my back room stepped Verne Domingo, dark eyes fixed on my visitor.

There was no recognition in Verne’s eyes, but there was no doubt about Tai Lee’s reaction. He leapt to his feet, eyes wide. “Father!”

Verne fixed him with a cold glare. “Who are you? Who, that you know that name unspoken for generations unnumbered, that you would claim to be son to me?” That alien accent was back and emphasized by his anger.

There was no mistaking the shocked, wounded look in Tai Lee Xiang’s eyes. “Father? Don’t you recognize me? The boy in the temple?”

Verne’s mouth opened for a bitter retort, but at the last words his mouth slowly closed. He stared at the young man intensely, as though he would burn a hole through him by gaze alone. I felt a faint power stir in the room. Then Verne’s face went even paler than usual, and he stepped forward, reaching out slowly to touch the Oriental’s face. “The scent is wrong… but the soul. I know that soul. Is it really you, Raiakafan?”

Tai jerked as Verne spoke the name, as though slapped in the face, then nodded. “Y… yes. Yes. That was my name.”

For the first time since I’d known him, Verne was too overcome to speak. He simply stepped forward, around the desk, and stared straight into the young man’s eyes. “Even with what I feel… I must have proof. For you disappeared …”

Tai—Raiakafan?—studied me, and suddenly I had a completely different impression of him. The uncertain, nervous young man was gone; instead I was seeing a black, polished-stone gaze as cold as black ice. I found myself stepping backward involuntarily; only once before had I gotten an impression of such total lethality, and that had been when I had stood in a hospital hallway and watched Virigar himself assume his true form. That feeling carried the utter conviction that Tai was not merely trained in the arts of killing, but a killer to his very core. “In front of him?” he asked coldly.

I could see that Verne was slightly surprised by the tone, but not apparently by the question. “It may be necessary later… but you are quite correct. We shall speak in private. But I would appreciate it if you moderate your tone of address to one who is not only my friend, but the one who has reunited us.”

The cold gaze softened abruptly, replaced by an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Father. You are right. Mr. Wood, forgive me. It has been a difficult time for me. But I am very grateful… and amazed.”

I shrugged. “Don’t mention it. Not as much a coincidence as I thought at first; anyone who was Verne’s friend would have been around during the last dust-up. The only real coincidence was that one of those friends happened to be an info specialist. No,” I said as I saw him reaching for a wallet, “no charge. Not only is Verne a friend, I hardly had to do any work on this one.”

“Still, I thank you, Jason,” Verne said.

His hand on Tai’s arm, Verne and the mysterious visitor disappeared into thin air. I jumped a bit at that, but my mind was distracted by the fact that I’d seen a new and different sparkle in Verne’s eyes as they vanished.

Vampire tears are just like ours.

 

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 32

 

Time for a meeting with an old (very old) friend…

 

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 32: Upgrades and Relationships

“I must thank you, Jason,” Verne said, surveying the mound of equipment assembled in his dining room. “The advice of an expert is always appreciated.”

Verne had decided to fully enter the fast-approaching twenty-first century, adding telecommunications and computers to his formidable range of resources. I grinned. “No thanks needed. Advising someone on what to buy is always fun, especially when you know that the person in question doesn’t have a limited budget.” One of the workmen looked at me with a question in his eyes. “Oh, yeah. Verne, how many places are you going to want to be able to plug in a computer? I mean to the Ethernet lines.” Extra jacks were a good idea; cable didn’t yet run out to Verne’s house, so at the moment we were going with a dedicated satellite hookup and a LAN on Ethernet through the house.

“Ah, yes. I would say… Hmm. Morgan?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Are any of the staff likely to need such access?”

Morgan smiled slightly. “I would say most of them, sir.” While Verne was modernizing, he was still not quite grasping how much of a change it was going to bring to his household.

Verne sighed theatrically. “Very well, then.” He turned to the workman. “You might as well rewire the entire house, first, second, and third floors, and put two of these Ethernet jacks in every bedroom and study, as well as one here in the living room,” he pointed, “and another three in my office, marked there. Make sure there are also enough phone connections for everyone; several of my staff would like their own private lines.”

Ed Sommer, the head contractor, smiled broadly, obviously thinking of the money involved, and glanced at the plans. “We’ll write up a work order. What about the basement?”

“No need for anything there.”

“Gotcha.”

Sommer cut the work order quickly—I’d recommended his company because of their efficiency, despite the fact that they were the new kids on the block—Verne signed it, and we left the rest of the work in Morgan’s hands. “Coming, Verne? Syl’s out of town on a convention and I’m up for a game of chess if you’re interested.”

He hesitated, the light glinting off the ruby ring he never removed. “Perhaps tomorrow, Jason. All these strangers in the house are upsetting.”

“Then get away from them for a while. Morgan can handle things here. Besides, how could anything upset you?” This was partly a reference to his vampire nature—I’d kinda expect a man who’s umpteen thousands of years old to be comfortable everywhere—but also to his constant old-world calm approach, which was rarely disturbed by anything except major disasters.

“You may be right. Very well, Jason, let us go.”

The night was still fairly young as we got into my new Infiniti. Verne nodded appreciatively. “Moving a bit up in the world, my friend?”

“The only advantage of being attacked by ancient werewolves is that the interview fees alone become impressive. And the publicity for WIS has made sure I’ve got more work than I can handle, even if I do have to turn down about a thousand screwballs a day wanting me to investigate their alien abduction cases. Not to mention that the government groups involved in the ‘Morgantown Incident’ investigation would rather use me as a researcher than an outsider.” I gave a slightly sad smile. “And age, plus being hacked at by werewolves, finally caught up with old Mjolnir.”

“He served you well. Have you named this one yet?”

“Nope. I was thinking of Hugin or Munin—it’s black and shiny like raven feathers.” We pulled out of his driveway and onto the main road into town. We drove for a couple minutes in silence.

“I was not deliberately changing the subject,” Verne said finally. “I understand how you would find it hard to imagine me being disturbed by anything. I was thinking on how to answer you.”

I was momentarily confused, then remembered my earlier comment. It was sometimes disconcerting talking to Verne; his long life made time compress from his point of view, so that a conversation that seemed quite distant to me was still extremely recent for him, and he sometimes forgot that the rest of us didn’t have his manner of thinking.

“You have to remember that one with my… peculiarities rarely can have an actual long-lasting home.” Verne continued. “So instead, one attempts to bring one’s life with one in each move. Rather like a hermit crab, we move from one shell to another, none of them actually being our own, yet being for that time a place of safety. Anything that enters your house, then, may be encroaching on all those things you bring with you—both physical and spiritual. Workmen and such are things beyond my direct control, especially in a society such as this one.”

“Are you afraid they’ll find out about you?”

Verne shrugged, then smiled slightly, his large dark eyes twinkling momentarily in the lights of a passing car. “Not really. Besides the fact that Morgan would be unlikely to miss anyone trying to enter the basement, the basement itself contains little of value for those seeking the unusual; the entrance to the vault and my true sanctum sanctorum is hidden very carefully indeed, and it’s quite difficult to open even if found. And my personal refrigerator in my upstairs room is secured very carefully, as you know well.” Verne referred to the fact that I’d installed the security there myself. “No, Jason. It is simply that my home is the last fading remnant of my own world, even if all that remains there is my memory and a few truly ancient relics. The mass entry of so many people of this world… somehow it once more reminds me how alone I am.”

I pulled into my new garage, built after werewolves nearly whacked me on the way to my car, and shut off the engine. “I understand. But now you’re reaching out to this world, Verne. You’re not alone. If something in your house concerns you, come to mine. I mean it; you were willing to die to protect me and Syl.”

“And you revived my spirit, Jason. I had let myself die in a sense a long time ago; only now am I becoming what I once was.”

The kitchen was warm and well-lighted—I like leaving those lights on—and the aroma of baking Ten Spice Chicken filled the room. I was slightly embarrassed by Verne’s words, but at the same time I knew he meant them. Our first meeting had struck a long-dead chord in him; during our apocalyptic confrontation with Virigar I’d discovered just how much he valued friendship… and how much I valued him. “I’d offer you some, but it’s not quite to your taste.”

“Indeed, though I assure you I appreciate both the thought and the scent; I may be unable to eat ordinary food without pain, but my sense of smell is undiminished…. You still have some of my stock here?”

“Yep.” I reached into the fridge and pitched him a bottle which he caught easily. “I never thought I’d get to the point that I wouldn’t notice a bottle of blood in the fridge any more than I would a can of beer.” Yanking on a potholder, I reached into the oven and pulled out the chicken, coated in honey with a touch of Inner Beauty and worcestershire sauce and garlic, cilantro, pepper, cardamom, cumin, red pepper, oregano, basil, turmeric, and a pinch of saffron. I put that on the stovetop, pulled out two baked potatoes (crunchy the way I like ‘em) and set the microwave to heat up the formerly frozen vegetables I’d put in there before leaving for Verne’s.

By the time I had my place set, my water glass filled, and the chicken and potatoes on the plate, the veggies were done and I sat down to eat. Verne had poured his scarlet meal into the crystal glass reserved for him and he sat across from me, dressed as usual in the manner one expected a genteel vampire to dress: evening clothes, immaculately pressed, with a sharp contrast between the midnight black of his hair and jacket and the blinding white of his teeth and shirt.

“I haven’t asked you lately—how’s the art business going?”

Verne smiled. “Very well indeed. Expect an invitation from our friend Mr. Hashima in the mail soon, in fact; young Star is recovering nicely, and he will be having an exhibition in New York in a month or so.”

“Great!” I said. “I’m looking forward to it. I was a bit concerned, to be honest—it seemed that he was hemming and hawing about doing anything with you for a while.”

Verne nodded, momentarily pensive. “True. There were some oddities, some reluctance which I do not entirely understand… but it is none of our business, really. What is important is that he and I are now enjoying working together.” He leaned back. “In other related areas, I’m sure you saw the news about Akhenaten being returned to Egypt, but thus far the archaeological world is keeping the other treasures quiet while they’re examining them. Most of the truly unique artworks are already elsewhere, and I confess to feeling quite some relief. As their custodian, it was something of a strain, I came to realize, to have to be concerned about their preservation along with my own whenever I was forced to move.”

“You can’t tell me you’ve emptied that vault?” I asked in surprise.

He laughed. “Hardly, my friend. There are pieces there I keep for beauty’s sake alone, others for historical value, ones which are personally important, and so on. And even of those I would consider selling or donating there remain quite some number; it would be unwise for me to either flood the market, or to risk eliminating one of my major reserves of wealth in case some disaster occurs.”

I couldn’t argue that. “But let’s hope there aren’t any more disasters. I’ve had enough of ‘em.”

“To that I can wholeheartedly agree.”

We finished dinner and went to my living room, where I set up the chessboard. Playing chess was fun, but for us it was more an excuse for staying and talking. Neither Verne nor I tended to feel comfortable “just talking”; we had to be doing something.

“So,” I said after we began, “what did you mean about ‘letting yourself die’ a while back?”

Verne took a deep breath and moved his pawn. As I considered that position, he answered. “Perhaps the first thing I need to do to answer you is to clarify something which I should have done some time ago. I am not a vampire.”

“Huh?”

“Or perhaps I should say, not a vampire in any ordinary sense of the term. True, I drink blood and have a number of supernatural abilities and weaknesses. But these are not the result of being infected by a vampire of any sort. To me, my abilities were a blessing, a gift, not a curse. I am not driven by those impulses that other, more ‘normal’ vampires must follow.”

“So why didn’t you tell me this before?” I decided to continue with the standard opening strategy. Getting fancy with Verne usually resulted in my getting roundly trounced in fifteen or twenty moves. “It does explain a few things—I remember thinking that you seemed to hesitate at times when talking about vampires. But why dance around the subject?”

Verne smiled. “It was much easier to just go with the obvious assumptions, Jason. And by doing so, I minimized the chance of anything being learned that I wished kept secret. And it was much simpler. The word ‘vampire’ can be applied to any one of several sorts of beings, not merely one, and – for the most basic purposes – calling me a ‘vampire’ was and, to some extent still is, sufficient to the moment.” His smile faded. “Your friend Elias… he was of a type which, typically, go mad as they gain their power, until they have grown used to it. They were made in mockery of what I am.”

“And what is that?”

He hesitated, not even seeming to see the board. When he finally answered, his voice was softer, and touched with a faint musical accent unlike any I had ever heard. “A remnant of the greatest days of this world, my friend. In the ending of that time, I was wounded unto death; but I refused to die. I would not die, for there were those who needed me and I would not betray them by failing to reach them, even if that failure was through death itself.

“Perhaps there was something different about me even then, or it was something about the difference between the world that was and the world that is now, for certainly I cannot have been the only man to ever attempt to hold Death at bay with pure will; because I did not die. I rose and staggered onward, to find that my solitary triumph had been in vain.” I heard echoes of pain and rage in his voice, tears he’d shed long ago still bringing a phantom stinging to the eye, a hoarseness to his words.

“Of those who had been my charges, none remained; and all was ruins. But in the moment I would have despaired… She came.” He moved again.

I could hear the capital letter in “She” when he spoke. “She?”

“The Lady Herself.” The accent was stronger now, and I was certain I’d never heard anything quite like it. Not even really close to it. The accent was of a language whose very echoes were gone from this world. Then it was as though a door suddenly closed in his mind, for he glanced up quickly. When he spoke again, the accent was gone, replaced by the faint trace of Central European I was used to. “I’m sorry, Jason. No more.”

“Too painful?”

He looked at me narrowly, his eyes unfathomable. “Too dangerous.”

“To you?”

“No. To you.”

 

Polychrome: Chapter 12

 

If we have Heroes, we must also have Villains, and don’t they deserve a bit of screen time?

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 12.

 

“A True Mortal! That little conniving snip of a Faerie and her father have brought over a True Mortal!” The sky darkened above the Gray Castle as Queen Amanita clenched her fist and muttered a phrase in a language so dark that even Ugu winced. He could understand Amanita’s fear; as a Giantess in her origin, she was vastly more bound to Faerie than even he, for the Herkus were mostly mortal, merely using a magical supplement to gain their supernal strength.

But that was not the only thing driving her current anger. “And read this – THIS! A Prophecy of our defeat!” She whipped out a black blade and drew back her arm for a strike that would have taken the head from the armored figure cowering before her.

 

Ugu caught her wrist and held it effortlessly, concealing his own trepidation as Amanita’s rage transferred itself to him. “Unhand me, you second-rate sorcerer, or –”

“Peace, Queen Amanita. You allow your anger and, yes, fear, to blind you to the advantages of our position.”

Her other hand had been curling in preparation for casting a transformation – which would have revealed his own protections and possibly precipitated a final conflict that he was very loath to pursue – when his words penetrated. The icy green eyes thawed slightly and she tilted her head in curiosity; he slowly loosed his grip and watched as she sheathed the three-foot ebony blade. “Advantages, my lord? If you see any advantages to their gaining an ally who can ignore even the mightiest sorceries, I am astounded and filled with curiosity, for it seems to me that this is a disaster.”

“Indeed, it could be. But first, let us not punish our best servants for bringing us news we would rather not hear. Instead let us reward Cirrus Dawnglory for his long and perilous service.”

The bowed figure raised his head cautiously. “Thank you, your Majesty. Though I no longer have need of that name.”

“As you will; yet you took his name and identity three centuries agone, and in many ways you have become him.” Ugu had spent many years studying his people – the enslaved of Oz, the collaborators, the elemental spirits forged from his magic and Amanita’s and the souls of particular natives of the Four Countries and the City. He had gained much understanding of the thoughts and feelings behind their actions – enough that he would on occasion privately admit to himself that it was his lack of such understanding which had led to his original defeat, in an almost inevitable manner. Amanita, he suspected, was incapable of such understanding in any but the most superficial and mechanical manner. This might – he hoped – prove one of his advantages, in the end.

He applied this knowledge carefully now. “I am sure that it was not easy to return to us with all you have brought.”

The eyes that met his were wary, fearful, and he could see the shift of glance towards the expectant green-haired Queen. “H…how do you mean, your Majesty?”

“It would be a great wonder, Cirrus, if you could pass centuries at the side of a man so capable and loyal, live in a realm of such beauty, speak words of comfort and advice and friendship, and not have part of the lie become truth. Indeed, I would doubt you could have succeeded in your mission if your entire time in Iris’ realm were naught but pure deception.”

Amanita’s eyes narrowed and her hand twitched again towards her black sword, but his hand stilled her. Part of her still remembers it was I who freed her. For now.

After a moment, the false Cirrus nodded. “I… I did like him, Majesty. It… pained me to betray him in the end.”

“I know it felt like a betrayal, Cirrus. Yet you entered there under our orders, following the imperatives of our kingdom. His own Cirrus did not betray him, but died fighting to the last – a noble death.” He kept his face solemn and respectful; and, in truth, he felt respectful, even if Amanita did not. “You, then, have carried out a terrible and perilous mission for your true sovereigns, despite many temptations. Even Nimbus would understand this difference. You have done well. We will have much need of your counsel in the months ahead; go, rest. Refresh yourself. We shall send for you later.”

Clearly amazed at his good fortune, the false Cirrus – once merely one of the twisted Tempests he had forged from a Gillikin soul – rose, bowed, and departed.

Once the doors had closed and they were alone, Amanita turned a slit-eyed gaze to him. “If you ever interfere with me like that again, I will seriously consider… re-negotiating our bargain, King Ugu. Now explain to me these so-called advantages.”

He prevented himself from either an acid retort or a too-condescending smile. He was coming to realize that Amanita was more volatile and possibly even less sane than he had previously believed. I am tied to her, perhaps by destiny… and I had best be cautious until I have found a way to sever those ties. “The advantages are three, my Queen. Of primary and most overwhelming importance is that – unless our plans have gone terribly awry – not even Iris Mirabilis himself suspects that Cirrus Dawnglory has been an impostor, a creature of ours since almost the day that Oz fell. Had any suspicions of him existed, they would have acted long before now. And the attack and destruction of his patrol was complete; none survived to report back that Cirrus had turned on them, and no other Faerie were within any possible range of perception.

“Thus, what we have learned from him is our secret and ours alone.”

She nodded, slowly. “But a minor advantage unless there is much more gained from this knowledge.”

“And there is.” He smiled coldly. “We have the Prophecy – which prophesies our possible defeat, but also victory, and they do not know this. Can you not see how well this is for us?”

Whether as the isolated Mrs. Yoop or as Queen Amanita, the Yookoohoo had never been said to be stupid. She paused and considered, and her red-lipped smile was as a shard of poisoned ice. “Oh… Oh, my, yes, my King. My sincere apologies. We have here in our grasp the way to our defeat… and if we take care, we can guide our enemies to follow that course until it ends in theirs.”

“Precisely. We must take care that none recognize that we know how our end is foreseen. We must not interfere in any way that would reveal our foreknowledge. React, never act, but prepare, here, for the grand finale that will dash their hopes, shatter their belief in their protection from our powers and their futile hope that the Above shall one day rescue them.” He slowly seated himself in the Gray Throne. “And this very Prophecy also shows that – by describing how it may be used against us – the final ritual we have often discussed would, in fact, give us final and total control over all the power of Oz.”

She laughed, that delighted yet chilling glissando echoing through the throneroom. “And they will be delivering to us that vital ingredient which we were lacking!” She settled back in her own throne, looking much more relaxed, and then glanced back up at him. “You mentioned three advantages, your Majesty. What is the third?”

“The third, my Queen, is the major reason that I not only prevented you from killing Cirrus, but have rewarded him, and intend to continue doing so – and I hope you shall join me in this. Even if we succeed in this grand final ritual, you know full well that it is Iris Mirabilis and his Legions – and the connections that it is said he has to the Above – who will pose the final and greatest threat to our eternal power over Faerie and Mortal lands.

“And here, in Cirrus Dawnglory, we have one who knows every detail of that sky-fortress’ defenses – every door, every wall, every passage obvious and hidden, the tactics and strategies discussed by the Lord of Rainbow and his Head of Hosts, every single aspect of their ways of offense and defense… and they suspect not a bit of this. With his help, we may find that we can send our own warriors into the Rainbow Fortress without even sounding an alarm.”

Her laugh rang out again, and a moment later his own chuckle joined hers.

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 31

 

We start the next section with a completely brand-new chapter, never before seen!

 

—–

 

 

Part IV: Viewed in a Harsh Light

June, 2000

 

Chapter 31: Presentations in High Places

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “Considering that werewolves weren’t even seriously considered to exist until a few weeks ago, how exactly would it be ‘obvious for anyone skilled in the art’ to combine these elements to detect a werewolf?”

“Hey, I’m on your side, remember?” my patent attorney, John Huffman, said. “The examiner’s pointing to prior art that involves combining infrared and visible to detect living creatures and discriminate them from non-living objects. The argument is that anyone presented with the existence of werewolves and who was skilled in the art would have tried the same thing.”

I snorted. “So what are our options?”

“Well, we can try to modify the claims slightly to include some of the dependent claims; he indicates some of the other work might be innovative.”

“I’m not weakening this basic patent. What’s the other options?”

“We have to file a formal challenge of his evaluation, specifically obviousness. That’s going to be an uphill battle, though.”

“I’ve fought uphill battles before; I’m not backing up on this one. It was not obvious. This took me getting information about them – from sources most people wouldn’t have – and making either shrewd deductions or a couple wild-ass guesses, depending on how you look at it, to come up with that design. Either way means it’s not obvious.”

He grinned. “I agree. And to be honest, I don’t get to try this kind of fight very often.”

I saw a blinking light on my desktop monitor. “Okay, John, thanks. Sorry to cut you off, but I’ve got to go catch a plane.”

I wasn’t unfamiliar with flying, but the VIP treatment – and the fact that someone else was footing the bill – made this flight a little more pleasant. I was disconcerted, however, by seeing a mob of reporters waiting at the gate when I deplaned. I was able to dodge them in Albany – I know the right people – but no chance here.

I ignored the barrage of questions – ranging from the inanely obvious “Are you here for the Werewolf Hearings?” to one guy from one of the fringe outlets asking if I’d heard anything from the Vampire Council – and made my way past them.

Three men in suits seemed to materialize from the crowd; two of them flanked me and slowed the pursuit by the press as the third nodded to me and said “Mr. Wood? Please follow me. We’ve got a car waiting.”

“I kinda assumed you would. Good coordination with your friends there, Mr…?”

“Special Agent Colin Marsh,” he said, guiding me through the maze of the airport. “Thanks. I approve of the free press, I just wish they’d be free somewhere it didn’t hold up traffic.” He glanced at me. “Of course, if you kept a lower profile…”

I shrugged. “I guess I could turn down very large sums of money for television appearances to tell people about something that’s totally blown their minds, but while I wasn’t ever broke I wasn’t rich before, either.”

“Can’t say I blame you,” he conceded.

The waiting vehicle was a classic black limousine – though not quite as posh as one of Verne’s – and pulled away from the curb smoothly with only a purring hum of the engine. “So we’re headed to the Capitol?”

“Not really,” said one of the others. “Agent Jake Finn, Mr. Wood.”

“Glad to meet you, Agent Finn. But I thought –”

“Oh, the public info says that’s where the meeting is, and we’re sure letting it look that way, but completely securing the Capitol Building the way it is? That’s a bitch and a half – sorry for the language – and it’d really interfere with other operations. So we’re actually meeting somewhere else.”

That made sense. “So we’ll seem to drive to the Capitol, but then, what, switch cars?”

He grinned. “Not that complicated. We can go into an underground garage, then take an exit to a different street and continue on.”

It was, in fact, that easy, and about fifteen minutes after that maneuver we pulled into a different underground parking area that was across the river in the Crystal City area near Alexandria. We then walked across to one of several relatively nondescript looking buildings and entered.

A security and guardpost was set up just past the main entrance, completely preventing anyone from getting into the building proper without going through it. A familiar face was waiting there. “Hey, Jeri.”

Agent Jeri Winthrope nodded. “Mr. Wood, glad you made it. You’ll have to go through the security screening before you go any farther, though.”

I went towards the little archway they had set up, which looked something like a metal detector. “Okay, what do I do?”

Three MPs stepped forward. Two aimed rifles directly at my head, one on either side; I noticed my escorts clearing the line of fire. The third man stepped up. “Hold up your hands, Mr. Wood.”

I blinked, but did so. Having rifles ready to blow your brains out encourages compliance with simple instructions. The MP took each hand, examined it carefully front and back and scraped it with something that looked like an emery board – probably was an emery board — and then stepped back. “On your left and right you will see a metal cylinder. Please pick up each cylinder and hold it tightly. It is very important that you make good contact with both cylinders, sir.”

The way he said very, and the way he now raised his weapon and his companions took a breath and steadied their stances, made me suspect that I was the one it was most important to.

The silver cylinders were each attached to a retractable cable that went into the booth walls. I grinned suddenly. “Oh, I get it. Very clever.” I squeezed both tightly. “That should work, and pretty hard to get around.”

After about ten seconds someone off to the side gestured and the MP’s went to “at ease” stance. “All clear, sir. Welcome to the conference, Mr. Wood.”

“Thanks,” I said, not without some considerable relief. “So why that particular test, Jeri? I mean, you could’ve used some silver-based drops or something.”

She gestured for me to follow. “Yes, we could, but if you add other materials to the mix there’s a chance of reacting to those materials; the chemical mess you hit Virigar with would poison a human being anyway, and some people would break out in a rash if exposed. We wanted pure silver, since there’s no documented cases of actual silver (as opposed to silver alloy) allergies; that way if the person holding it reacted at all funny, we could be pretty sure we had a Wolf.”

I nodded. “And the cables there mean you’ve got it hooked to something – resistivity, capacitance, something – that tells you whether the person’s actually making contact with the metal. Emery board takes a sample, scratches any coatings on the hands. Nice.” I glanced back, made out the logo above the rear side of the booth. “Oh, of course. Shadowgard Tech. Smart outfit. It’s a good stopgap, though you need something better in the long run. I can figure ways to scam this.”

She grimaced. “You’re kidding. That fast?”

“I’ve been thinking about this problem longer than anyone else. Maybe I’ll give Shadowgard a call; I’ll need someone with experience in the security industry to market my solution, and if we improve their design there a bit it’ll be a good supporting solution for mine.” I looked at her. “Now, everyone who comes into the building goes through that procedure?”

“Including the people manning that barricade, yes.”

I whistled. “And some of the people coming in here are awfully… high up, I’d bet. Caught any?”

She grimaced. “Three so far. Fortunately, looks like after Morgantown they’re trying to be at least a little circumspect; all of the human beings they were duplicating turned out to be alive. A couple of the guards present when they were unmasked… weren’t so lucky.” She nodded to the guards at a set of double doors and ushered me in. “Still, it provided a lot of urgency to the meeting –”

“Especially,” said a very familiar voice with a Texan twang, “since one of them was my friend Sal Battaglia, the Speaker of the House.”

I stared for a moment. I’m not normally prone to anything approaching stage fright, and I’d been interviewed a lot in the last couple of weeks, but this was something way out of my normal league. At the head of the meeting table was the President of the United States, Rexford Aisley Ash the Second, and seated near him was most of his cabinet – plus enough military men – some from other countries – that the room had, as a friend of mine might have put it, “More stars than Hollywood and more scrambled eggs than a truckstop diner.”

Not being a military man myself I didn’t salute, but I did immediately walk up to the President. “A great honor to meet you, Mr. President.”

His grip was firm but not too tight – a classic politician’s handclasp. “Oh, much more my honor, Mr. Wood. You’ve managed to turn this country upside down more than I’ve managed yet. Please, take your seat – it’s down at the far end, opposite me.”

As I did so, I realized everyone was continuing to look at me, and the President stood again. “Well, everyone, our guest of honor’s here, and I’m sure we’re all ready to hear what he has to say. Mr. Wood, you read the briefing materials?”

I swallowed and took a breath. I thought I’d just be one person they were talking to, not the only star of the darn show. “Yes, sir. You’re working on just how we respond to a threat we never realized existed, and so you want me to give my views on the situation. I’ve prepared a presentation, and you can ask questions afterwards.”

He nodded. “All right, then – let’s get started.”

I gave a quick summary of who I was – before all this mess, at least – and then went over the events that led to what the papers and newscasts were now calling “the Morgantown Incident”. This was a careful blend of fact and fiction, but I was reasonably confident it would hold up because Jeri Winthrope had worked with me and Verne to make the story hold water a lot better than the old vampire coverup.

“So,” one of the military types – a General Jean Bravaias, a woman with gray-sprinkled sandy hair – said after some questioning, “you were able to see these creatures – sort them out from regular people – by using this viewer you built, right? What’s the range?”

I waggled my hand from side to side. “Hard to say, General. What little field experience I got showed that my jury-rigged gadget gave me maybe fifteen, twenty feet, but the real limit’s a combination of imager resolution and sensitivity through atmosphere. I’d already gotten that particular infrared camera heavily customized for absolute minimum noise, so I don’t know if you could really improve on that all that much; you’re looking for patterns of heat that are very, very small scale and intensity, combined with some emissions on the UV band, but those are really small. Maybe thirty, thirty-five feet at the outside.”

“Still,” she said, “that’s one hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now, which is somehow getting the target to be in contact with silver directly, then observing the reaction. If we don’t have people right there, watching, a smart man – or…” she hesitated, as many did, “… werewolf, could figure out ways to look like they were carrying out the instructions and actually avoid it. But with people that close… well, they get killed.”

“Well,” said another person – someone from the CIA, I thought, “couldn’t we just give the guards better armor? I’d think –”

“Mr…” I squinted, “… Rosedale, have you ever actually seen a Werewolf?”

“Well, I’ve seen the pictures, but… no.”

I looked around. “How many people here have actually seen one?”

Besides my own hand, Jeri’s went up. Out of fifty other people in the room, only one went up; I guessed that was someone who’d been there when they caught one of the three trying to get into this building. “Then you – all of you – need to really get into your heads what you’re dealing with.” I reached into my bag and found the slender sheath, grasped what was inside carefully. “The average Wolf – when not pretending to be human – stands eight feet high and weighs over five hundred pounds. As my own experience shows, they are capable of sprinting speeds in excess of sixty miles per hour – as fast as the fastest land animal known.

“As for armor,” I continued, and with a practiced flick of my hand I sent something sparkling through the air, to land with a chunk! in the conference table. “take a look at that.”

Standing up at an angle from the shining wood of the table, vibrating slightly with a faint, chiming hum that was fading away, was a sparkling transparent curved object measuring almost nine inches long. “That is one claw – a hand claw, I think – from an average werewolf. As you can see, I threw that thing very gently, just a flick of my wrist, and it’s buried itself about two inches into the hardwood of the table. I mentioned that my car happens to be armored; when I checked it after my encounter with Virigar, I found that the one that had tried to grab onto my car had cut nearly through the armor in four separate places. And this was with almost no chance to grab and establish purchase.”

I clicked my presentation back to the sketch of a werewolf. “Unfortunately I don’t have any good photos of these things. But I want you to look at that claw, then realize that these,” I pointed to the claws on the sketch, “are what you’re looking at. This is a creature that can outrace a car on anything except a straightaway, that has claws that can cut through anything we have like butter, that’s strong enough to lift one end of an armored car clear from the ground, and that probably has other tricks they didn’t show us this time around, because they’re kinda rusty at this kind of thing.

“And they can look and act exactly like anyone on Earth.”

Faces were noticeably paler around the table. General Bravaias reached out and very carefully pulled the claw free, studying it. “What is this thing made of?”

“We don’t really know, exactly. It’s something like diamond – it’s mostly carbon, anyway – but it doesn’t shatter anything like diamond; it’s almost unbreakable, whether we’re talking impacts, compression, tension, or torque. Right now the guess it’s some form of carbon with an unknown microstructure, but exactly what that microstructure is we won’t know until we get a detailed X-ray crystallographic scan on it – if that works.”

She nodded, then passed the claw back down to me. “In any case, this just makes it clearer that we really need your sensing devices. Yes, I know that’s slightly outside of this meeting’s purpose –”

“Don’t you worry about that, Jean,” said the President. “This is definitely a high priority. Mr. Wood, I’d like to make sure our major installations are protected by these, er…”

“Cry Wolf sensors,” I said with a grin. “That’s the name I want to call them, anyway.”

He laughed. “Let’s hope they don’t “cry wolf” too often, huh? Anyway, I’d like to make sure that happens as soon as possible.”

            Hm. That gives me an idea. “Well, sir, I’d be glad to give the government a license on the technology and all, like you get for things like SBIR contracts, but right now I’m getting held up in the patent office…”

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 30

I’m back  from vacation now — time for the wrap-up of Jason’s current adventure!

 

—–

 

Chapter 30: Endings and Beginnings

Winthrope waved me past the yellow barricade. I pulled up a hundred fifty feet farther on. I got out, went around and helped Sylvie out into the wheelchair. She still looked pale and weak, but it was good to see her moving at all. She smiled at me, then looked up and gave a little gasp. “Verne did that?”

I felt as awed as she looked. The hundred-foot-long, three-story warehouse was nothing more than a pile of charred boards and twisted steel, still smoking after several days. The last rays of the setting sun covered it with a cast of blood. From the tangled mass of wreckage, two I-beams jutted up, corroded fangs, mute testimony to the power of an ancient vampire’s fury.

“You still haven’t heard from him, have you?”

“No. It’s hard to believe, but… there were dozens of them in there. Winthrope’s still finding bodies. They must’ve gotten him somehow, maybe by sheer numbers.” I felt stinging in my eyes, blinked it away. “And Renee …” This time I couldn’t blink away the tears. Syl said nothing, just held my hand.

It was hard to believe I’d never see her again. But Renee had been found in her house, her body sitting in a chair and her head on the table in front of her.

“I’m so sorry.” Syl said finally. “All I remembered was looking over, seeing her, and knowing it wasn’t really her at all. What about Star?”

“I got to see her the next day. She made me promise not to say anything to anyone about her helping me; her dad was already throwing a fit that she’d even been in the hospital when it happened. She thinks her father is the greatest thing in the world, and doesn’t want to worry him. I just hope she’ll be all right; that was quick thinking on her part, but I don’t believe any kid that age could see that monster coming at her and not at least get some nightmares out of it.”

Syl started to say something, but suddenly choked off; her hand gripped my arm painfully. I turned fast.

A man was standing next to Syl. He looked at me.

I knew that face, with the dark eyebrows, crooked grin, streaky-blond hair, and green eyes. I should know it; it looked at me every day in my mirror.

I went for my gun, found to my surprise that it wasn’t there. The man before me smiled, his face shifting to the Robert Redford lookalike I remembered all too well. He held up his hand, my gun sitting in it. “Good evening, Mr. Wood. I believe we have some unfinished business.”

“Never mind the dramatics,” I choked out, hoping he’d prolong them, “Finish your business, then. Nothing much I can do.”

“Dear me. No respect for tradition? I must congratulate you; I haven’t been hurt that badly in centuries; even our mutual acquaintance, Verne, failed to injure me as grievously. Why, I’m genuinely weakened. A clever, clever improvisation, Mr. Wood. I’m minded to let you live for a while.”

I blinked. “Umm… thanks. But why?”

The urbane smile shifted to a psychotic snarl. “So you will suffer all the more while everything you value is destroyed before your very eyes!”

I read his intention in his eyes, leapt hopelessly for his arm; he tossed me aside like a doll. His hand came up and the fingers lengthened, changed to diamond-glittering blades. Sylvie stared upward, immobile with terror.

Something smashed into Virigar, an impact that flung him a hundred feet to smack with an echoing clang into one of the two standing girders. The girder bent nearly double.

Virigar snarled something in an unknown tongue. “Who dares …”

“I dare, Virigar. Will you try me, now that I am prepared?”

Between us stood a tall figure, with a streaming black cloak, seeming to have materialized from the gathering shadows of night. “Verne!” I heard Sylvie gasp.

Virigar began to snarl, wrenching himself from the beam’s grip. Then he stopped, straightened, and laughed. “Very well! Far be it from me to argue points with Destiny.” He bowed to Verne, who made no motion to acknowledge it. “You have won a battle against me, Mr. Wood. And your friend here has surprised me. This game is yours. Your souls are still mine, and shall be claimed in time. But for now, I shall leave you. One day, I shall return. But no other of my people shall touch you, for that which is claimed for the King is death for any other who would dare to take it.” He turned and began to stride off.

“Freeze! Hold it right there!” Jeri Winthrope had the Werewolf King in her gunsights, and I had no doubt that this time it was loaded with silver bullets. Even though she had to brace the gun with the cast on her arm, I was sure she wouldn’t miss.

Virigar turned his head slightly. He ignored Jeri entirely, looking at Verne. “My patience is being tried. Tell the child to put her weapon away now.”

“Do it,” Verne said.

Jeri glanced at him, startled. “But—”

“Do it!” Verne’s voice was filled with a mixture of loathing, fury, and a touch of fear.

Slowly Winthrope lowered her gun. Virigar smiled, though the expression was barely visible. “Wiser than I had thought. Until later.” He turned a corner around a large chunk of warehouse.

“Why?” Jeri demanded after a moment of silence. “I had him right there!”

Verne glared at her. “Think you that something as ancient as he didn’t know of your approach? I heard you as soon as you turned from your post. Your bullet would never have found its mark, and he would have killed us all. Even the fact that he spared us was a whim. Something to amuse him,” Verne spat the word out as though he could barely tolerate the taste, “until he has an artistic way to destroy us.”

“I thought,” I said, “he spared us because he wasn’t sure he could win against us.”

Verne shook his head. “If he appeared here, he was ready. Perhaps I could have defeated him.” I noticed that he didn’t say “we.” “But I believe he left because …” Verne seemed to be searching for the proper way to describe something. “… because he had “lost the game”, as he himself put it. This battle, even your injuring him, was to him nothing more than a game. The object was vengeance against me, and then against you once you became an impediment of note. But we managed to meet some… some standard he set for his opposition. You injured him; I reappeared from the dead. He is as immortal as I, and older; he must find his own amusement where he can. But where I find mine in the elegance of art, in friendship, in more ordinary games, he finds his in the dance of destruction and death, in evil versus good.” Verne shuddered, a movement so uncharacteristic of him that it sent chills down my spine. “Perhaps I could have defeated him,” he repeated softly. “But I very much wish never to find out.”

Jeri shrugged. “Not my problem now. Okay. We’ll talk later.” She walked off.

I grasped Verne’s hand, realizing how much it would have meant to lose him, especially after having just lost Renee. “Jesus, it’s good to see you. We thought you were dead!”

“Hardly, my friend.” He looked even stronger, more assured and powerful than he had ever been. “Though not for want of trying on their part, I assure you. How does it feel to have changed the world?”

Sylvie spoke up. “Verne, pardon me, but I don’t understand why any of them died in there. I thought—”

“That only silver could harm them? Quite so, my lady.” He gazed at the wreckage. “Once I knew the werewolves had returned, I laid in a supply of diverse forms of silver—although I must confess,” he bowed slightly to me, “it never occurred to me that preparations—compounds—of silver would be efficacious as well. Part of my armament was a large supply of silver dust. I hurled this into the warehouse from several different points with sufficient force so as to disperse it throughout the interior rather like a gas.”

I winced at the mental picture. “Instant asthma attack. Ugh.”

“Precisely. In addition, since nearly all surfaces then had silver upon them, even falling beams became capable of causing harm.”

“That still doesn’t explain where you’ve been the past few days.”

“Ah, yes.” He looked somewhat embarrassed. “Well, in the end the battle degenerated so that I was reduced to physical confrontation. By the time the last of them came for me, I found myself without silver of any kind. Your rings, I am afraid, were not meant for combat. They… ah… came apart. So when the last one attacked, I was unarmed against her great natural weaponry. I was thus forced to a course of action whose results I could not foresee.”

“Well?” I said when he hesitated.

He coughed and examined the ruby ring studiously. “I… drained her.”

“You mean you bit her? But you said that was fatal!”

He nodded. “Other vampires had tried it; they had all died along with their intended prey. I found out why.” He shook his head slowly. “The power was… incredible. No younger vampire could have survived it.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Then in a way you, also, drain souls?”

“Yes and no. There is a linking and exchange, usually, of energies. However, in the case of something like combat, it can become a direct drain, and against a werewolf or something of similar nature, it must be. As it was, my body fell into what you would call a coma for several days as my system adjusted. I was fortunate; we were underground in one of these abandoned buildings’ basements; had that not been the case, I would have faced the irony of dying in sunshine on the morning of my triumph. But survive I did, and I find that I am stronger for it.” He smiled, the predatory grin of the hunter. “It is fitting that their attempt to destroy me would only strengthen me; it is… justice.”

We nodded, then Sylvie spoke. “What did you mean when you said Jason had changed the world?”

“Is it not obvious, my lady?” He gestured at the lights of the city, silhouetted against the darkening sky. “For centuries humanity has wondered if there were others out there, beyond the sky; but always they were secure in their science and civilization, knowing that here, at least, they ruled supreme. The Others—vampires, werewolves, and so on—hid themselves away, not to be found by the scientists who sought to chart the limits of reality, and so became known as legend, myth, tales to frighten children and nothing more. On this world, at least, humanity knew that it was the sole and total ruler of all they could survey.

“But now they know that is not true; that other beings walk among them. And this is not one of their stories, a book to be read and then closed, to disappear with the morning light.” Verne shot a glance at me. “You recall, my friend, how you spoke about the horror stories, the Kings and Straubs and Koontzes?”

I thought for a moment, then I remembered the conversation he meant. “I think I see.”

“Yes. You were disturbed by their stories showing such titanic struggles, and yet no subsequent stories ever referred to them; as though such power could ever be concealed. But this is the true world. The genie cannot be replaced in the bottle. Even your government has realized the futility of a cover-up. Winthrope speaks on the news of these events to an incredulous nation, and scientists gather to study that which is left. The world changes; we have changed it. For good or ill, the world shall never be the same.”

He fell quiet, and we gazed upward; watching as the stars began to spread—like silver dust—across the sky.