Darkness Rising Part 2
Cale and Torres looked up as Kris walked in wearing his long-sleeved, button-down shirt with the lightning print.
“Whoa, dude! I didn’t realize it was a dress-up day.” Cale grinned at him.
“Or have you finally turned into a real Californian, where any temperature under 75 degrees means breaking out the winter clothes?” Torres asked.
Kris blushed. “Nah. Just feelin’ like lightning today,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe we can have a speedy rehearsal.”
“Lame, dude,” Torres groaned.
“C’mon, guys, let’s get going,” Kris said. He was exhausted from worry and lack of sleep, but they had a show coming up. Kris knew that he and Adam needed to talk about this weirdness, but they hadn’t had time to talk this morning (and Adam made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it last night, what with the whole hot sex thing every time Kris tried to talk about it), but he definitely didn’t want to talk to Cale and Torres about it. As he reached for his guitar case, the sleeve of his shirt rode up, and Cale noticed the obviously finger-shaped bruises on his wrist.
“Kris? What the heck?” Cale grabbed Kris’s wrist and fit his own fingers into the pattern of the bruises.
“What?” Kris yanked his arm away.
“Did Adam do that? Did he…”
“No! Well, yes, but it’s not like that.”
“He may be 6’1” and 175 pounds of muscle, but I will kick his ass if he...”
“No! No ass-kicking required, it was just…” Kris blushed so hard that it must have been contagious, because Cale started blushing too, and backed down.
“The mystery of the dress-up shirt is solved, anyway,” Torres observed with a grin. “Kind of like trying to hide a hickey.”
“Shut up. I just like this shirt.” In the face of the other guys’ laughter, Kris just gave up and covered his red face with his hands and groaned. “Moving on, please. We really do need to rehearse.” He grabbed his guitar and tried to will his blush away.
“Okay, guys, let’s go with Leave You Alone from the top. And one, two, three,” Cale and Torres came in on the downbeat at one, swinging their way into the song.
They were coming to the end of a good rehearsal, having made it through about half the songs from the new album, a couple of songs from the first album, and fooled around with some possible covers, when Kris started feeling...something. He felt nervous, antsy, itchy, felt like someone (something) was watching him. Calling him. He looked around, looked at Cale and Torres, who didn’t seem to notice anything, tried to shrug off the feeling and focus on the chording for this Katy Perry song, but the feeling wouldn’t leave. The lights outside the studio flickered and died, and the lights in the studio dimmed. He set the guitar down and was about to ask Cale and Torres if they felt anything weird when he noticed Cale setting down his own guitar and slowly edging back. His eyes grew impossibly large as he stared up and behind Kris. “What the ever-lovin’ heck is THAT!” He ended on a shout that was close to a shriek.
Kris spun around in time to see the thick tail drop down toward Torres. No. NO! Kris pulled from that place inside himself he was just rediscovering, and called Fire by its True Name (What?). Not the fire of a candle, or even a bonfire, but the fire inside, the fire he was going to use to finish himself and Adam when they were trapped in that cave (WHAT???), burning from the inside out. He focused on the blob with its slavering mouth and watched it shrivel in on itself, tail curling up, smoking, crumbling, falling to the floor of the studio in a crispy heap. Torres fell all over himself and his instruments running to the other side of room, cursing in two languages.
“And who are you?” Cale exclaimed, pointing into the darkness outside the studio door. Kris looked up from the smoldering corpse of the blob, and saw an oddly-dressed man standing in the wings, breathing hard as if he’d been running. Sudden recognition bloomed in Kris’s mind.
“R-Rudy?”
“Yeah, kid. We got a problem.”
Kris felt walls breaking and doors opening in his mind, and it all came crashing back.
“Oh, Jesus! Adam!” Kris started to run.
“Wait, Kris!” Rudy grabbed Kris’s arm as he sprinted past. “Ingold and Gil should be with him right now.”
Kris wheeled around. “I thought you said I couldn’t do…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “magic here.”
“Uh, yeah, we might not have been completely accurate about that,” Rudy said sheepishly. “The Dark Ones,” Kris’s stomach rolled as if he were going to vomit at the mention of those creatures, “they give off this, I don’t know,” Rudy continued in a low voice, “some kind of like, vapor, or waves or something, that makes magic work if you’re born with the gift for it. And sorry, Kris. You are.”
“How long have they been here?” Kris said in a harsh whisper. “How long does it take? I knew some weird stuff was happening, but I never,” he laughed shortly, “Well of course I never knew, because those memories were gone. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
“Um, Kris?” Cale broke in, “What the heck? More explaining and less whispering in the corner with your new friend, please?”
“Yeah, dude,” Torres agreed. “I think that big flying thing almost ate me. What the hell?”
Kris gave Rudy a pleading look. “Rudy, I can’t, I don’t want them involved,” he whispered. “Can we do that? Can we keep them out of it?” He was terrified, nearly paralyzed with it, and he couldn’t bear the thought of his friends going through what he and Adam had gone through, the terror that apparently had followed them home.
Rudy nodded. “I’ll handle it. You take care of that,” he said, pointing to the mess on the floor. Kris ran off to find a broom and dustpan, hearing Rudy say behind him, “I can explain everything, guys, if you’ll just give me your attention.” He heard Rudy begin the gnoddyr spell.
When Kris returned with the cleaning supplies, Cale and Torres were heading out.
“Man, that was frightening!” Cale exclaimed. “I’ve never seen an electrical fire like that.”
“Me neither,” Torres agreed. “We’re lucky that Rudy just happened to be in the building. Usually you have to wait a while for building maintenance. You’re going to call the studio manager, right?”
“Yeah,” Kris said faintly, “We’ll get right on it.”
“We can help you clean that up,” Cale offered.
“No, no you guys go on,” Kris responded quickly, stepping in front of the, to him, obviously alien corpse. He wasn’t sure what Cale and Torres were seeing there. “And I’ll call you when the next rehearsal is scheduled,” he improvised, thinking if there is a next rehearsal. “We may have to find another space.”
“Sure, man.” Cale and Torres headed out, calling back to Rudy that it was nice to meet him.
“Electrical fire?” Kris looked at Rudy with a raised eyebrow. “That was quick thinking.”
“Yeah, I thought it was pretty good. Fit the situation well enough. Here, let me help you with that.” He grabbed the plastic bag. “We’ve got to hurry.”
“A’ight people, listen up!” Debbie, the stage manager, lifted her arms as if she were about to conduct an orchestra. “Out of the Dark run through with full props, no costumes, in ten! Remember, that includes lit torches. Please do not set yourselves or anything else on fire. You got time for a quick break, so make good use of it.”
Adam looked over at the prop master and his assistants getting the torches ready as the dancers all ran for the restrooms, craft services, or their phones. The swords, some real and some fake, were set, ready to be grabbed by the dancers and fencers on the way to the stage. The director, choreographer, and musical director were going over notes down in the orchestra section. Everything looked fine, just as it should be, so why was Adam feeling so antsy, so uneasy? He felt almost…nervous about singing, like maybe there was a reason he shouldn’t sing. He had never suffered from stage fright, so what the hell was this?
“Hey, Adam, you okay?” Tommy put a hand on his shoulder. “You look a little stressed. Or maybe your boy kept you up too late last night?” he asked, noticing the marks on Adam’s neck.
Adam smiled distractedly. “I don’t know, man, not stressed…just…” Adam trailed off as the stage lights flickered. Cries of irritation and dismay echoed from backstage as the lights off stage left went out.
“What the fuck!” Debbie exclaimed. “Mike! I thought the electric stuff was sorted! Goddamn antique wiring. Where’s the fucking fuse box!” She stalked off stage right with her assistant trailing after her trying to call building maintenance.
Adam had a Very Bad Feeling about this. He kept his eyes on the darkened area off stage left and edged his way toward the torches. Toward the swords.
“Adam?” Tommy followed him to the prop table.
Adam felt it before he saw it, a thrumming malice that beat at him in waves. He felt the Call, the call to walk into the dark at the edge of the stage. Tommy’s mouth was still moving, the concern on his face growing, but Adam could only hear the beating of his own heart. Time seemed to slow down as Adam grabbed one of the real swords in one hand and a lit torch in the other. The prop assistant ran over in slow motion, said something in a loud voice, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the evil waiting for Adam, calling to Adam from the wings. Slowly, slowly Tommy’s face changed from concern to terror as he fell back from Adam and pointed toward the thing edging out of the wings.
Someone was screaming, someone was running, toward him, away from him, Adam let it all wash over him as he dropped into a perfect High Guard position, using the torch as if it were a second sword. He danced gracefully through First Cut, turning his wrist for the Second Cut, then a slight twist for the Third Cut, hearing a cold, soft voice in the back of his head: Don’t neglect the Point positions, but with the Dark Ones, the Cut positions are more effective, and vaguely wondered to whom the voice belonged, as he twirled and dipped, engaging his opponent in this most intimate dance, the dance of death. If you were fighting a human, the cold voice said, I’ll never fight a human, his own voice answered, you would need to work harder on the Parry. But there is no Parry with the Dark Ones, only Guard and Cut. He finished with the sword and thrust with the torch, setting ablaze the remains of his opponent before they even touched the floor. It all happened in under a minute, but to Adam it felt like he’d sung a full concert. Time sped up, returned to normal. Adam came out of the battle trance as he looked down at the burning heap at his feet.
Tommy cautiously came up behind him. “Duuude!”
~*~
Ingold and Gil slipped in the side door of the theater Adam was using as a rehearsal space.
“How are we going to get in? Famous people are usually surrounded by security to keep people away.”
“The veil spell has allowed us to come this far, so I think…”
“You two! You’re late! Everyone else is already here.” A short blonde woman came striding over, looking annoyed. “What are your names? Do I have you on my list?”
“I am Ingold Inglorion, Archmage for the Kingdom of Darwath, and this is my companion, Gil-Shalos of the Guard.”
Gil boggled at him, at a loss for how to salvage the situation, but the woman lost her annoyed look and started laughing. “Already in character? Okay then. I’m in charge of casting; name’s Reba. But I don’t think I have a call for a wizard and a…” she looked Gil up and down, “ninja librarian?”
Gil wasn’t sure whether to be offended by the assessment or impressed by its accuracy.
“Adam!” The woman grabbed Gil’s sleeve and pulled her in the direction of the stage. “You’re supposed to let me know when you change something! Did you put in a casting call for a….”
All three of them stopped dead at the sight of Adam, smoking sword in one hand, flaming torch in the other, standing in front of a freaked out Tommy, with a tattered, oozing blob smoldering at his feet.
“Adam.” Gil called to him, and Adam whirled around when he heard the cold, soft voice of his broadsword instructor.
“Gil? Ingold? Oh my GOD! What the actual fuck is going on? Is this real?” Adam flinched as his lost memories came back in a vertiginous rush. “Oh fuck, KRIS!” He turned to run, but Gil and Ingold both caught his arms.
“Rudy is with him, Adam. He’s okay,” Gil reassured him.
Lainey, Adam’s PA, came rushing over and herded Adam, Ingold, Gil and Tommy over into the wings, where the lights were slowly coming back on. “You!” She rounded on Adam. “What the hell? What is that thing and who are these people?”
Adam looked helplessly at Ingold and Gil. Ingold raised an eyebrow and Gil shrugged. “Are these the cult people?” Lainey whispered harshly. “Or were you actually…Oh. My. God. I was right, wasn’t I? That thing’s a fucking alien! You were abducted by aliens!”
“Adam, I could…” Ingold said hesitantly.
“Jesus, Lainey, please calm the fuck down,” Adam whispered back. “Pull it together and help me with this; I need you.” He turned to Ingold and said, “No, I trust her with everything. And I need all of her brain.” Lainey looked at Adam and Ingold with big eyes; Adam closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache.
“Right.” Lainey snapped to. “Monica,” she crooked her finger at her own assistant. “Clean this up and put it where no one will ever find it.” She gave her assistant a meaningful look.
“Got it, boss. If you can keep people away until I get the cleaners here, that’ll help.” Monica was a PA’s PA, but she was good. She trotted off, scrolling through her phone contacts for her very handy (and very shady) crime scene cleanup guy. There would be no trace of the mess when they finished with it.
Lainey pointed at Tommy. “Can you keep your mouth shut about this?”
“Of course!”
“Good. Help me keep people away while I go tell the director we need to stop for the day and get everyone the hell out of here.”
“Adam…” Tommy began.
Adam couldn’t bring himself to worry about Tommy right now; he had a nightmare to face. He squeezed Tommy’s shoulder and said, “Later, okay? I have to go with these people now.” Then he looked at Lainey and jerked his head toward the stage where the musicians, acrobats, dancers, and fencers were beginning to filter back in. He was lucky that most of them had been on break and that very few people had actually seen what happened.
“Okay,” Lainey said, squaring her shoulders and smoothing down the front of her shirt. “I’m going to tell them that this was something you were experimenting with for the instrumental bridge. You’re lucky you’re the boss and can do pretty much whatever the fuck you want to. You go do what you need to do.” She pulled off her black leather jacket and dropped it down over the alien corpse, where it sort of blended right in. “But you owe me a new jacket. And a pair of shoes,” she added, as she poked at the alien with her toe to make sure it was all under the jacket. “And an explanation.”
“You are the best PA a guy could ever want, Lainey. And I'll buy you a whole new outfit.” Adam turned to Ingold and Gil, who had been waiting somewhat impatiently through all this. “Sorry for the freak out and the wait.”
“No, it’s understandable Adam. I’m sorry we didn’t reach you before it did,” Gil said.
As Adam, Ingold and Gil headed quickly to the exit, they could hear the director calling after Adam and Lainey trying to placate him. Adam put it out of his mind and pushed his way through the exit door.
Only to be nearly knocked over by Kris, running up and grabbing Adam in a tight hug. “You’re okay,” he said breathlessly, “Oh God, you’re okay. Thank God, thank God!”
“Kris.” Adam choked on his name and held back tears of relief. “I remember….”
“I know. Me too,” Kris mumbled against Adam’s neck. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Sorry, guys,” Rudy interrupted, “but we need to get going.”
“Where to?” Adam asked, releasing Kris from the hug but keeping his arm around him as they started walking toward the cars.
“Did Ingold and Gil tell you what’s happened?”
“There wasn’t really time,” Gil responded. “Too many people around.”
“I think I’ve got it anyway,” Adam said grimly. “They’re here. I mean, one of them just came to my rehearsal.”
“Same here,” Kris said.
“So where are we going? Do you know where they are?” Adam asked again.
“They’re in an old, abandoned building in the South Central area,” Rudy answered.
“Let me guess: not too far from a Salvation Army Thrift Store,” Adam said resignedly.
“True,” Gil said. “That must be where you two returned, yes?”
“Yeah.” Adam sighed. “So, apparently we didn’t get them all?”
“Well, we got all the ones that were on our world, but it turns out there were still some left in the Void,” Gil responded.
Adam stopped by his Mustang and saw that Kris had parked the Fusion next to it. “My car only holds two people. Yours will be a tight fit, but it’ll do.”
On the way, Adam and Kris caught the others up on what had been happening for the past few months, and had some blanks filled in themselves on why the strange things had been happening. Ingold appeared to be more interested in the workings of Kris’s car, since he hadn’t had much of a chance to ride in one on his previous, very brief visits to this world. He was riding shotgun out of deference to his age, and kept a keen eye on everything Kris did as he drove. Kris kept glancing at Adam in the rear-view mirror. He remembered this Adam, by turns angry and frightened, haunted-looking. Remembered Adam in Darwath, afraid to sing because he thought it would help the Dark Ones find them. Turns out, they only needed to think for the Dark Ones to find them. Kris tightened his grip on the steering wheel and gritted his teeth, angry at himself for wanting to remember. This is all my fault.
“Kris,” Ingold said softly, touching his arm. “This is not your fault.”
“Stay outta my head, Ingold.”
“Then stop thinking so loudly,” Ingold said with a smile.
“How is this not my fault?”
“Rather, say it is Rudy’s fault, for teaching you, out of kindness, how to sabotage the gnoddyr spell.”
“I said I was sorry,” Rudy called out from the back seat.
Ingold continued, “Or that it is my fault for deciding, out of concern for your peace of mind, to subject you to the gnoddyr. Or that it is the fault of the random twist of fate that dragged you to our world in the first place. But truly, Kris, the responsibility for this can be laid at the feet of the Dark Ones. Well, if they had feet.”
Kris smiled a little, which astonished him. He felt a bit better, until he glanced in the rear-view mirror again and saw Adam’s eyes, angry, frightened, and haunted.
“This is the place where we came through,” Adam said as they walked cautiously down the street. The ghouls shuffling down the sidewalks were completely creeping him out; he and Kris hadn’t seen those during their forced stay in Darwath. “We walked a little ways, looking for a phone, and finally found one at that Salvation Army store.”
“Hey, y’all, there’s a couple of guys looking around that building over there.” Kris tried to discreetly nod his head in the direction of the two guys.
“Indeed,” Ingold studied the two men. “They are in danger. They look as if they are preparing to deliberately enter the building, instead of being drawn there by the Dark.”
“We should stop them, right?” Adam asked. He could see the two men approaching the door of the abandoned building with purpose, unlike the pitiful figures shuffling toward the door as if they were puppets drawn by invisible strings. The men were warily watching the ghouls and conversing softly, tension in every line of their bodies.
“We must. We may not be able to save anyone who is already in the thrall of the Dark Ones, but we can perhaps prevent these two from being taken. Come.”
They made their way across the dark street with Ingold in the lead, trying to keep watch for any approaching ghouls.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Ingold called quietly as they approached the sidewalk across the street. Sam and Dean whirled around, staring at them. “You would be well-advised to come away from that door. There is danger here.”
Sam tried to look stern. “What are you people doing here? This is police business.”
“Police business?” Rudy snorted. “Tell me another.”
“We’re LAPD,” Dean replied, sounding very official. “We’re investigating the disappearances that have been happening in this area. I’m Detective Manzarek; this is Detective Krieger.”
Kris gave them an amused look. “And in your spare time you perform in The Doors?” Kris asked.
Dean looked a bit surprised. “What? No! We…That’s just a coincidence.”
“There are no coincidences, young man,” Ingold responded. “Whatever your names are, you are in grave danger. What has brought you to this building?”
“And please don’t say ‘police business,’” Adam said. “We recently spent weeks being interviewed and then followed by both the LAPD and the FBI. No way you guys are cops.”
“Hey, you look familiar,” Dean said to Adam. He turned to Kris. “And you do, too.”
“Not really important right now,” Kris responded. “Who are you?”
Sam and Dean looked at each other for a moment, then looked at Ingold, who seemed to be the leader of the group facing them. Dean spoke up. “Something…there’s something bad in this building. We’re not sure what it is, but you people shouldn’t be here.”
“There is truly something ‘bad’ in this building, and I know exactly what it is. What has drawn you here? You still have your minds, so you haven’t been brought here by the creatures that inhabit this building.”
Sam stared at him. “Wait, you know what’s in there? How…Who are you?”
“I am…” Ingold began, drawing himself up to his full height, only to be interrupted by Gil. “We asked you first, son,” she said sternly, placing a hand on the pommel of her sword. “Give. And make it the truth this time.”
Sam looked at Dean again; Dean shrugged and said, “I’m Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam.”
“We hunt things,” Sam finished.
Kris looked skeptical, “What, like squirrels? ‘Possums? Not many of those in this part of town.”
Dean looked uncomfortable; Sam looked annoyed. “Things,” Sam said firmly. “Things like what’s inside that building.”
“There are no ‘things’ in this world that are like the ones in that building,” Ingold replied ominously, “for they are not of this world.”
“Are you saying they’re aliens? We’ve been invaded by aliens?” Dean looked both skeptical and contemptuous. “Bullshit.”
“If by ‘aliens’ you mean creatures from another world, then yes.” Ingold smiled slightly. “Of course, technically, I am an alien, but I have no wish to invade this world.” Sam and Dean took a couple of steps back warily. “These others are from your own world, however.” He gestured toward his companions. “The creatures who have laired in that building, the Dark Ones, are indeed from another world. They may be from my own world, or they may have come there from someplace else. We don’t know. But we do know that on this world they are, as yet, small in number, and we must attack now while they are relatively weak.”
“Wait. Before we talk about attacking-who are you people?” Sam asked. “We told you who we are. It’s your turn.”
Ingold drew a breath, but before he could speak a strange voice said, “Ingold Inglorion, Archmage of Darwath. We greet you.” The tense group whipped around to see a teenaged girl emerge from the darkened building behind them.
“Dark Ones,” Ingold responded calmly with a nod as the others began slowly backing away.
“Why are you here, Ingold, son of Inglor?” The girl’s voice was odd, sometimes sounding like the voice of a teenaged girl, sometimes sounding like many voices trying to squeeze through one small throat.
“You already know why. This is not your place. You don’t belong here. I am here to help you leave, one way or another.”
“We would stay here. This world is good. It is getting warmer, where your world was getting colder.”
“You can go to the rest of your kind; they are on a warm world with their herds.”
“The wild ones here are tasty; their minds are delicious. We would stay here and feed, and we would give them the magic in return.”
“She’s one of the Dark Ones?” Adam whispered to Gil. “She looks nothing like…”
“They can inhabit humans, use their bodies to communicate with us,” Gil answered quietly.
The quiet exchange drew the girl’s attention, and she turned to look at them. “You are the ones we have been seeking. You, with the magic that killed us. And now you have come to kill us again.” Her face was slack, and her eyes were completely black. Sam and Dean tensed at the sight of those black eyes, and Sam began to speak:
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus
omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio
infernalis adversarii, omnis legio,
omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.”
Sam’s voice carried from the middle of the deserted street.
“What is this spell?” The voices wheezed and growled from the girl’s mouth.
“Ergo draco maledicte
et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te.
cessa decipere humanas creaturas,
eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.”
Sam continued the ritual as the girl began backing away from him. “We do not know this magic. What is this spell?” Ingold approached the girl, watching her curiously as she reacted to Sam’s spell. He was also unfamiliar with this particular spell, and hadn’t pegged Sam as a mage in any case.
“Vade, Satana, inventor et magister
omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis.
Humiliare sub potenti manu dei,
contremisce et effuge, invocato a
nobis sancto et terribili nomine,
quem inferi tremunt.”
The girl’s back was against the brick wall of the building from which she had emerged. She looked terrified, eyes flashing back and forth between solid black, and a normal warm brown. Sam pushed on with the ritual, as Ingold reached out and held the girl still.
“Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.
Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus
omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio
infernalis adversarii,omnis legio,
omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.”
“Is he doing an exorcism?” Rudy asked incredulously. As the only lapsed Catholic in the group, he recognized some of the Latin words.
“Hey, don’t knock it, man. It looks like it’s doing something,” Dean responded, watching the girl struggling against Ingold’s grip. The old man was surprisingly strong.
“Ergo draco maledicte
et omnis legio diabolica
adjuramus te.
“But these things aren’t…they aren’t demons or, or devils!” Gil exclaimed. “They’re natural creatures.”
“They’re bad things inside a human. It’s worth a try,” Dean insisted.
Cessa decipere humanas creaturas,
eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.
Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire
te rogamus, audi nos.”
As Sam intoned the last words of the ritual, the girl’s head flew back, and what looked like black smoke vomited out of her mouth. When it was gone, she slumped and would have fallen were it not for Ingold’s support.
Ingold, Rudy and Kris paled, feeling a wave of fear/rage wash over them.
“We need to go. Now.” Ingold said grimly. He looked at Sam and Dean. “Will you come with us? It looks like the sun is setting, and this place will not be safe in the dark.”
Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Sam shrugged, and Dean said, “Sure. Our car is right over there.”
“Woah!” Rudy exclaimed, looking at the vintage Impala parked across the street. “That’s your car? Can I ride with you?”
“Uh, sure, man,” Dean said with a shrug. “Where are we going?”
“My house,” Adam said.
“No, Adam, I don’t want those things…” Kris began.
“It’s the best option, Kris. The studio will be a good place to hole up if we need to; no windows and I don’t think they can get through that soundproof door.”
“That’s a great idea, Adam,” Rudy said. “And I agree about the door.”
“Now that we have a destination, I suggest we leave,” Ingold said urgently. “We need to be indoors before the sun sets.”
“What are we going to do with the girl?” Sam asked.
“I think we have to take her to a hospital,” Gil said. “We can’t take her with us, but we can’t leave her here to be retaken by the Dark. Ingold, can you tell if the Dark are really gone?”
Ingold kneeled down and placed his hands on the girl’s head. They all watched silently for several minutes as Ingold muttered to himself. “They’re gone,” he finally said. “Is there a place we can take her that is far from this place?”
“There are some up closer to where we live,” Adam answered. “But we can’t just drop her off…”
Sam cleared his throat. “We’ll do it. We’ve, uh, done this before.”
“A lot,” Dean added.
Sam carried the still-unconscious girl to the Impala with Dean and Rudy following, while the others headed to Kris’s car. After a quick veil spell from Rudy and Ingold to protect both groups from detection by their enemies, they were on their way to Adam’s house in West Hollywood by way of a hospital.
Adam was avoiding Kris, and Kris knew it. He wasn’t sure why, but Adam was hiding something under the façade of a cheery, helpful host to their unexpected guests. Kris watched Adam bustle around (and since when did Adam bustle?) offering food, drink, a place to sit, a shower, spare clothes, whatever. He was avoiding Kris. After that first frantic, relieved hug, everything seemed okay, but something happened during the drive to South Central. No one else noticed, but Kris knew when Adam was being real and when he had his game face on; this was his game face.
Since Adam’s culinary skills were confined to calling for takeout and concocting truly disgusting (in Kris’s opinion) smoothies, dinner was a mix of pizza and Thai food. As soon as everyone was settled in for dinner, Ingold began quizzing Sam and Dean about the exorcism ritual-where had it come from, what was it used for, how had they learned it, how did it work, could they do other spells, and the brothers did their best to answer his questions. This was partly curiosity and partly an exploration of how the spell might be used strategically against the Dark Ones. Gil made occasional comments based on what she remembered of her previous life as a citizen of this world and her doctoral study of medieval history.
Sam and Dean, in turn, had their curiosity satisfied as to how a couple of musicians (Dean had finally recognized Adam and Kris) had gotten mixed up with aliens and magic. Then Rudy, Dean and Kris got caught up in a rambling conversation about music, magic and, of all things, sports. Kris was bringing Rudy up to date on the way his magic had gradually come back, and how much he could use it now.
Adam poked at his food, trying to watch Kris without being an asshole about it. This was a familiar sight; Kris and Rudy, talking about magic. It made him want to stab something. But that was probably because he was always at sword practice when Kris was doing his magic lessons, not because he was upset or anything. He gave up on his dinner and excused himself quietly, trying to avoid interrupting the vigorous conversations around him. He made his way into the living room and sat on the sofa to continue brooding with a little more privacy.
Adam now had a complete memory of what had happened on that other world, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want it. Ripped from their own world and dropped on another in the middle of a dark, damp forest full of monsters, he and Kris had only survived the night because Kris had suddenly discovered he was able to do magic, and Adam had suddenly discovered he had more talent for swordplay than his limited experience in one Shakespeare play could have given him. That horrible night was followed by a two month long nightmare highlighted by fencing lessons, magic, and constant danger, with the extra added bonus of falling into a trap set by the Dark Ones in which he and Kris had nearly died. Adam took a deep breath and thought, Okay, be honest, Kris nearly did a murder/suicide thing to keep us from being taken by the Dark Ones. That’s a memory I could’ve done without.
A two month long nightmare, but now the nightmare had followed them here. Adam looked at Kris where he was still huddled with Ingold, Sam, and Dean at the dining table, and thought, He is the love of my life, but he kept hearing a girl’s voice from some TV show saying, I can kill you with my brain; only now it’s real life, and it’s Kris.
“I don’t think Ingold will get much use from that exorcism ‘spell,’” Rudy said, pulling Adam out of his dark thoughts. “The church in Darwath was no help at all against the Dark Ones; in fact, they kind of worked against us because they thought that all wizard powers came from the devil.”
Adam snorted. “Not surprising, I suppose. We have people here who believe that sort of thing, too. Anything they don’t like comes from the devil.”
“You okay, man?” Rudy asked, settling on the sofa and nudging Adam with his elbow. He, too, had noticed that Adam was avoiding Kris, watching him while pretending not to watch him.
“Yeah. Well, no, not really. I mean, these past few days…weeks…hell, months, I knew there was something wrong, but I had no idea…” He stopped and sighed. “It’s been a helluva day.”
“Helluva day,” Rudy agreed. “How have you and Kris been?”
“Um, good. Great!” Adam said with fake cheer. except that he can kill me with his brain. “Why do you ask?”
“Just being sociable,” Rudy said, trying to figure out what the hell was up.
“Well, we’re great,” Adam said determinedly.
“What about the not great part?”
“What?”
“Something’s eating at you, man, and you need to get rid of it. Get it out. You cannot afford to be distracted by anything tomorrow.”
Adam dropped his face into his hands. “Kris,” he whispered. “You know what happened in that trap, in that cave. I just remembered it today, and it’s seriously fucking with my mind. I’m trying to work my way through the fact that Kris was going to burn me alive and then do the same to himself. With just his mind.”
Rudy sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking. Remembering. Then he said in a soft voice, “When I first met Minalde, I thought she was the Crown Prince’s nurse, just a pretty, sweet servant girl. I didn’t realize that she was the Queen until I had already started to fall in love with her. And I didn’t realize what Alde being queen really meant until much later. She was so small and quiet-well, you met her, you know…”
“Yeah. She seemed very nice.”
Rudy smiled. “She is nice. But she was also the most powerful woman in Darwath. Before her son came of age, she was his regent. She had the power of life and death over everyone in Darwath, including me. It was hard for me to adjust to that-a woman who seemed, well, kind of meek and unsure when we first met, then watching her grow and learn to wield nearly absolute power in the space of less than a year. And she was damn good at it. For fifteen years, until King Tir came of age, she ruled the kingdom of Darwath.
“So anyway, there I was, this macho…hey, do people still say ‘macho’?”
“Only ironically,” Adam answered with a small smile and Rudy grinned back at him.
“Alright, this macho guy from South Central, and I fall in love with this woman who can kill me with a word, you know?”
Adam looked at him steadily. “Yeah, I know.” I can kill you with my brain.
“But she wouldn’t. By the time I figured all this out in my head, I knew she wouldn’t, because I knew her.”
“I get that,” Adam said hesitantly, “but…but I know he would.”
“Consider the circumstances, Adam,” Gil said, and Adam jumped. He hadn’t even heard her approach. “You were imprisoned by the Dark Ones, and they didn’t just want to devour your flesh, they wanted to devour your minds so that they could find their way to this world and ravage it the way they had ravaged our world.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Adam heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t really…hold it against him. It’s just a lot to take in all of a sudden.”
Gil’s pale blue eyes met his, full of memory and old pain. “Once, back when we were first fighting against the Dark, Ingold was captured by them. We, Rudy and I, went looking for him, not knowing what we would find…maybe we’d find him dead, maybe find him with his mind taken. We never expected what we did find, though. Ingold lying on a slab of rock, covered in Dark Ones. They were crawling over him like giant bugs.” She looked away and shuddered. “We found out later that it was the only way they could communicate with him without using a human puppet to say what they wanted to say. They have to touch to communicate.” She laughed a little and looked at Adam. “They were actually asking him for a favor, for a ride through the Void and off the planet. Anyway, when it all shook out, and everything was done and we knew he was safe, I did tell him that I had come prepared to kill him if I needed to, if I found that he was enslaved, that he was a danger to the kingdom, to the planet. And do you know what he said?”
“No idea,” Adam said softly.
“He laughed, and he said, ‘That’s my Gil.’ He was proud of me.” Gil looked at Adam with a faint smile. “He knew that we were fighting creatures that wanted to enslave us, and he knew that my willingness to kill him was an act of love. Not just for the kingdom or the planet, but for him as well.”
Adam had to clear his throat to speak. “I understand.”
~*~
Ingold determined that a retreat to the studio would be prudent. He had confidence that his veil spell would hide them from their enemies, but he also believed that it was better to be safe than sorry. They brought all the blankets and pillows in the house into the studio, locked the door, and claimed various bits of floor for sleeping.
Adam saw Kris watching him with a hopeful expression on his face. He walked over and pulled Kris into a hug; felt Kris relax against him with a sigh.
“How do I say I’m sorry I was afraid you were going to kill me?” Adam asked quietly.
“Well, that’s a good way to say it, I guess,” Kris answered. Adam could feel him smiling against his shoulder. “And besides, I was going to kill you. And myself.” Kris shuddered, and Adam gathered him closer. “I…hope you can forgive me?”
“Oh god, yes,” Adam said. “I forgave you when it happened. I just freaked out about it all over again. I hope you can forgive me for being an idiot.”
“I always do.”
Adam shook with silent laughter and squeezed Kris affectionately. “Come on, let’s find a nice corner to lie down in. Don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep, but we should try.”
~*~
“This may be just reconnaissance,” Ingold explained the next morning as they prepared to leave. “The battle may have to wait. We need to see the lair, how large it is, see how many Dark Ones there are.”
“Ingold,” Adam said hesitantly, “we had a whole army and lot more than three wizards the last time we fought the Dark Ones. What can seven people do?”
“That is an excellent question, Adam,” Ingold responded. “And thus, the reconnaissance. We need to see exactly what we’re up against and come up with a plan. The two Dark Ones that came after you and Kris never returned to the lair, so the rest will have no idea what happened to them. They will also be disturbed by the new spell that Sam worked on the girl. These circumstances will cause them to hesitate, which gives us a small window before they attack us. We need to use that window to attack them first.”
All seven of them crowded in to the Impala, and they headed south.
The Lair of the Dark Ones
“Gil, please stay close to me. Sam and Dean, you stay close to Rudy. Kris, can you manage the veil spell while walking?”
“I’m not sure if I can,” Kris said. “I’ve only ever done it sitting down. I don’t want to risk Adam’s safety.” Adam grabbed Kris’s hand and squeezed it, trying to communicate love and support, but keeping his sword hand free to grip the sword he had borrowed from the impressive arsenal in the trunk of the Impala.
“Very well. You must both stay close to me as well, then. Let us go.”
The pulsing blue light at the end of Ingold’s staff provided barely enough light for them to keep their footing as they continued down, down the stairs to the basement, into the subbasement, where they found a tunnel going still further down into the earth. A warm breeze flowed from the cavern, carrying the stench of rotting flesh. Sam and Dean hesitated, but as the others stepped into the tunnel they exchanged a grim look and followed after, hands tight on their scimitars. After sloping down perhaps a hundred feet, the tunnel leveled out into a cavern. Not a natural formation; the walls of the cavern were too smooth and symmetrical to be natural. Rudy, Ingold and Gil had all seen this type of cavern before, on their own world. For Kris and Adam it was the first time seeing the beginnings of a city made by the Dark Ones; for Sam and Dean, this was their first sight of the Dark Ones, and they recoiled in revulsion.
The Dark scuttled across the ceilings and walls of the cavern, hundreds of them, like cockroaches scurrying across a kitchen floor. The edges of the cavern were crowded with piles of bones, human bones, some whole, some partially melted. In the center of the cavern was a pool of dark, oil-slicked water, and the walls of the cavern were fuzzy with some kind of growth that was being picked at and eaten by….
“Oh God, those are people,” Dean whispered. “What are they doing?”
“Those are the herds of the Dark Ones,” Ingold said quietly. “They exist only to eat the moss grown by the Dark Ones and then to be eaten themselves by the Dark Ones.”
They watched in horror as the people shuffled through the cavern, eating the moss from the walls, drinking from the toxic-looking water in the pond, or simply sitting, staring into the dark.
“You said they were ‘small in number’ and ‘weak.’ What the hell?” Sam interrupted furiously. “There must be hundreds of them!”
“This is a small number,” Ingold replied. “They numbered in the billions on our world. They had a network of huge underground cities, all over the world. This small cavern would fit into one of those cities many times over. And they are weak,” he continued. “They are only able to draw in those whose minds are already weakened-by hunger, illness, madness…”
“Drugs,” Rudy put in.
Ingold nodded. “Once they’re stronger, they will be able to exert control over anyone who is not constantly on guard.”
“And if we don’t stop them now,” Rudy continued, “They’ll soon number in the billions on this world as well.”
“We don’t know how fast they breed. Just that it’s damn fast,” Gil put in. “Speaking of breeding….”
Rudy shuddered. “We have to find it.”
“Find what?” Adam asked.
“The nursery.”
“Oh fuck,” Adam whispered. He remembered Rudy comparing the Dark’s breeding habits to the movie Alien. “Do we have to?”
“We have to make sure it’s here and not someplace else in the city,” Rudy said firmly. “If we don’t make sure of that, nothing we do here will matter. We also have to verify that there’s no back way out.”
“I see something that may be a passage to another area.” Ingold pointed across the cavern. “Do you see it?” Only Rudy and Kris nodded. The others could see very little beyond the area illuminated by Ingold’s blue-tipped staff. “I wish I did not have to ask this of you, but we may need your swords. We have to cross to the other side of the cavern to see if that is the passage to the nursery. Stay very close together, be quiet, and don’t touch any of the herd; it would interfere with the veil spell. Oh, and before you ask, there is nothing we can do for any humans in the nursery,” he finished grimly.
They moved slowly and cautiously across the cavern, avoiding the herd-folk and the occasional Dark One that had come down from the ceiling to tend the herd. As they neared the opening, they could hear odd squelching noises coming from someplace beyond. They stepped through the passage and…
Kris and Adam had once had to defend their lives with nothing but a sword and a campfire; had once been trapped in a cave full of Dark Ones, ready to commit suicide by letting Kris burn them from the inside out to avoid being taken by the Dark. Sam and Dean had faced all manner of vicious creatures and had both been to Hell and back. Literally. None of that prepared them for the scene before them.
The nursery was lined with dozens of living men and women, queued up like an assembly line. Some of them had bulging abdomens, some did not. The Dark hovered over them, apparently monitoring the progress of the gestations and births. Sam raised a shaking hand and pointed to one of the hovering monstrosities. This one had a pulsating mass hanging from what might be its belly. As they watched in horror, the mass dropped off the Dark One onto the woman below it. With a grotesquely familiar squelching noise, the mass burrowed into the woman’s abdomen as her mouth opened in a silent scream.
“Huh. So they reproduce by budding. Interesting.” Gil commented. “That certainly makes sense, given their….” She trailed off, looking around at her companions.
Five pairs of eyes gaped at her. Ingold simply nodded thoughtfully, still gazing around the small cavern. “Yes, given their collective mind and ability to merge their bodies.”
“This is no time to be taking notes, Professor,” Rudy whispered.
“Oh. Sorry.” Gil had the grace to look chagrined; Ingold merely raised one eyebrow at him.
“Yes. I think we’ve seen more than enough,” Ingold said. “I see no other passages to indicate a back way out.” He looked around the nursery again, paying particular attention to the rocky floor. “I have the beginnings of a plan, so perhaps a strategic retreat would…”
Adam felt Kris’s hand shaking in his, felt himself shaking; realized that the ground was shaking under him.
“Kris! What are you doing?” Ingold cried out in alarm. Several of the Dark Ones whipped around, suddenly noticing the intruders in the heart of the lair.
Kris looked angry. No, he looked furious, lips drawn back from gritted teeth. “Calling Fire,” he growled, not even looking at Ingold. A rumbling in the cavern echoed his growl.
Every Dark One in the cavern streamed into the nursery and merged into one impossibly huge creature. That huge creature then split into hundreds of smaller ones, fanged mouths dripping, bloated bodies extruding tentacles and tails, turning toward the intruders.
“We need to go! Now!” Rudy was shouting now that the need for stealth was past.
The group of three wizards and four warriors ran as if all the hells were opening under them, as, in fact, they seemed to be. There was a loud crack, and a wave of heat with a smell of sulfur rushed out from the nursery, following them toward the main cavern entrance. Dark Ones began swooping out of the nursery, some heading for the cavern entrance, some trying to attack the runners. Swords flashed and cut down the creatures in mid-flight. The cavern floor shook as the entrance to the nursery suddenly crumbled and fell to the ground, trapping the majority of the Dark Ones as well as the pitiful husks of humans in the magma-filled cave.
“Gil! Rudy screamed over the noise of the cavern floor cracking open. “Hold the tunnel entrance! You can’t let even one escape!” He turned with Ingold and Kris to fight a rearguard action while the other four went to head off the Dark Ones at the entrance to the tunnel. Ingold shot fire from his staff, felling multiple Dark Ones with each burst of flame. Rudy waved his arms and sheets of flame flew up in front of him, blocking large swaths of the cavern. Kris stood, fists clenched, tears running down his cheeks, causing Dark Ones to burst into flame with a glance. The three men tried not to look at the herd-folk burning, tried not to think of the nursery now filled with magma.
Gil grabbed Adam, Sam and Dean and pulled them toward the tunnel mouth. “This is it! We hold here!” Four swords whirred in the air as the Dark tried to fly out the tunnel into the building above. Adam and Gil slashed and thrust, spun and whirled; Sam and Dean swung their swords with precision and grim determination that spoke of long years of practice rather than formal lessons. All four made sure that each slash left a Dark One dead or dying on the ground. They had to back up the tunnel as the floor filled in front of them and began to sizzle and smoke from the oozing bodies of the Dark.
“Ingold!” Gil shouted. “Come now! You have to come now!”
The heat in the cavern was becoming unbearable and the three wizards could see the magma flowing out of the nursery, heading into the main cavern. They began to back toward the main entrance, still wreaking fiery havoc with every step backward. They made their way into the tunnel just ahead of the flowing magma and scrambled up the tunnel to the foot of the stairs.
Rudy grabbed Kris’s shoulder and shook him. “Kris, you have to dial it back!”
Kris was still staring back down the tunnel, looking like he wanted to kill every Dark One with his bare hands, rip them apart with his teeth.
“Kris!” Gil slapped him hard across the face. He looked at her, shocked.
“Hey!” Adam shouted, grabbing Gil’s arm. “What the hell?”
“He’s got to get the spell under control or it will destroy this part of the city!” Rudy said, pulling Adam away from Gil.
“Kris.” Adam held Kris’s face in his hands and looked into his eyes, feeling the heat roll off of him in waves. “Look at me. Please, God, pull it back.”
Kris looked at the magma inching its way up the tunnel; breathed in, breathed out. He wrapped his arms around Adam and buried his face in Adam’s chest. “I don’t want this. I don’t want this,” he said into Adam’s chest. Adam stroked his hair and they breathed together, calming the anger, quieting the fire.
Dean, who was the farthest up the stairs, could hear the building making ominous noises. “Guys, we gotta get out of this building. Like, right now.”
The lava slowed before it reached the middle of the tunnel, but it was still coming. Ingold and Rudy had a quick discussion of options, and Ingold dredged up a quick cooling spell from somewhere in the back of his mind. He cried the words out in a loud voice and the leading edge of the lava came to crackling halt. The cooling slowly spread, higher and further back until the entire tunnel was blocked by a solid wall of stone.
The burned and battered warriors stumbled up the stairs and out of the building just as it slowly and loudly collapsed in on itself.
Part Three