(Un)Dead Man Blogging

The first book, Omega Rising, now available!

2011-04-06T20:32:00.000-04:00

Omega Rising: An Agent Rusty Bones Novel by Douglas S. Pierce | Make Your Own Book

Cover of forthcoming novel

2011-03-28T20:27:00.000-04:00

Even the UnDead Retire-Author's Note

2010-05-15T17:46:00.000-04:00

Well, after long and careful consideration as to where this story has come to, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to retire this blog and the Rusty Bones character for the foreseeable future.

I have learned a lot in blogging Rusty's unlife, and there is still yet much to be done before I put this character behind me forever, such as putting out a book or two based on his adventures.

It has been a nice long run, but Rusty's story has come to a point where I no longer feel it will be fruitful to pursue his story in blog format--at least until I have published one or more books.

I don't know how soon any of the books will be done, but I have decided to turn my creative efforts back to more traditional fantasy and science fiction venues. I feel a number of new world bubbling up inside and characters that need their stories told. Rusty has had his run for now, he may or may not return in this or other venues, but he shall always hold a special place in my heart.

I would personally like to thank all of the people who have served as inspiration for characters in this blog and who have added to this story immensely. Some, but probably not all of those people are:

My wife Pat (Cerrydwen)
My daughter Kerry (Jasmine)
My mom--Lynn Pierce (the Frau)
Jahn Hakes (the Professor)
Candie, aka Fireravyn (Ravyn Fyre)

I would also like thank everyone who has read, followed, and commented on the blog. It has meant a tremendous amount to have that very valuable feedback and encouragement.

I will not be deleting this blog, but I will not be posting here again until and unless I can bring Rusty out of retirement with the kind of energy and purpose that he deserves.

Thank you one and all.

Until Rusty needs to rise again...farewell.

Catching up...coming soon (Author's note)

2009-07-26T15:28:00.003-04:00

I am in the progress of resolving some computer issues. I should have this resolved in the next two weeks or so. Until the issue is solved, posts will be infrequent and sporadic.

An Unexpected Offer...Part 3

2009-07-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

I stood up from leaning on the ledge and turned to face this creature full on. I wanted to be ready for anything at this point. I certainly had no reason to trust him. "So what are you offering?"

The Slayer remained in place, looking out towards the ruined hulk of old Tiger Stadium.

"Let's start with what we want, first."
I nodded. "OK, I'll bite. So what do you want?"

"It is simple, really. We want the one you call El Diablito."

I laughed. "I thought you guys were working with him. What has your little Axis of Evil suffered a little schism?"

The Slayer didn't seem to find any humor in my joke. "If you want your daughter, the one you call Alexa and her mother returned to you without any lasting harm done to them, you might take this discussion a little more seriously."

The prospect of getting Alexa and Naomi back brought my thoughts right into focus. "OK, you have my attention now. How do I know that you have Alexa and Naomi and that you will make good on your promises?"

Now he stood up and faced me in return. "If you agree to this bargain, we will immediately cease all hostilities against you and your allies and I will bring the one you call Naomi to you in your latest hiding spot unharmed. She will be able to relate to you and the others what has happened to them and that this offer is serious. In direct exchange for this gesture, you will return with me and begin the hunt for our mutual enemy."

I had to admit that there was a certain charm in the idea...you know, 'The enemy of my enemy is an ally' sort of thing.

I nodded. "I will have to discuss this with the others."

He smiled. "That would be rather unusual of you, human."

I tensed as he reached inside of his jacket pocket but relaxed when he pulled out what appeared to be a cell phone. He tossed it in my direction. I caught it.

"Call 'Home' when you are ready to strike the deal." With that I saw him pull the Shadow about him like a cloak and disappear into the bitterly cold, dark air.

An Unexpected Offer...Part 2

2009-07-05T15:05:00.001-04:00

The Slayer was the most powerful Doppelganger that I had encountered so far. He could conceal his essence from me if he chose to, but approached unshielded from my vision in Shadowland. In that realm, his form was like that of any other Doppelganger. But he had chosen another shape for this meeting.

He had taken the form of a tall, well muscled man with slicked back hair and olive hued skin. He was dressed casually for a warmer climate, wearing only dark jeans, a t-shirt and an unzipped leather jacket. His boots were meant more for the dance floor than for this kind of hard Michigan winter night. He was as unconcerned about the cold as I was.

The Slayer approached the edge of the building next to me and leaned with both forearms on the icy edge, looking out over the half-deserted city and silent, broken ruins of Tiger Stadium. His voice had a thick middle-eastern accent to it when he spoke.

"You and your friends have shown a remarkable resilience."

I leaned with both hands on the same ledge, each of us talking as much to the cold night air as we were to each other. Neither of us had any trouble hearing the words of the other though, despite the whipping winds and the relatively low volume of our voices. This conversation was taking place on multiple levels.

I smiled in response to his comment. "I missed you in Alaska. Had you been there, your masters might have had to send a different emissary."

His smile was equally broad. "If I had been there, human, your daughter and her mother would be dead instead of safe where they are now."

That caught my attention. I turned to face him, fighting hard against the urge to grab him by the jacket and shake the answer out of him. I remembered all too well how my last match with this one had gone.

"Where are they?"

He kept his composure and remained leaning out over the dark void. "As I said, they are safe, for now. They, and that battle that I unfortunately missed, are why I have come to see you tonight."

I settled back down next to him, sensing that this meeting might represent a significant change in the current state of affairs. I didn't want to hamper my negotiating stance by seeming too eager to make a deal.

"Your side did take quite a beating. It can't be an easy thing to replace three Banes and all those Doppelgangers."
He shrugged. "Those that fell in that battle were the weakest amongst us. They fell into a trap that should have been easily avoided."

I wasn't going to let him get off that easily, I knew the losses to his masters had been significant. "But..."

He nodded. "But, the blow was not an insignificant one." He shifted his weight onto his right arm and looked over directly into my eyes. "I will speak frankly now, human. I tire of these mortal word games. You must know by now that the An'girasii are not a unified force. If they were of a single mind and a single purpose, this world would have never stood a chance against their combined might."

Not sure where he was going with this strange twist, I nodded in agreement in order to keep him talking.

"I see no purpose in enlightening you further to the factions at play here, but suffice it to say that I have been tasked with negotiating a deal with you and your allies."

"What sort of deal?"

"A truce, of sorts."

"What the hell does that mean?"

His eyes changed briefly from the brown pupils that had been to the opaque white that the Dopplegangers eyes normally were. Was he losing control over his form? I had my doubts about that...

"That is what we are here to discuss..."

(Part 3 to be revealed next weekend.)

An Unexpected Offer...Part 1

2009-06-28T21:43:00.002-04:00

The wind howled and snow flakes swirled around me as I waited the arrival of the South Beach Slayer at the appointed time. The sounds of the wind whistling through the hollowed-out, windowless building made it difficult to hear if anyone was approaching or not, so I kept my eyes open and weapons handy.

I really had no idea of what to expect form this meeting. The last time we had met face to face, the Slayer had left me on my back in the sands of South Beach with an incapacitated crazed killer to take the blame for his crimes and another dead body. He had also left me with a warning that I had a long way to go before I truly threaten him and his masters like my ‘father’ had. He meant Drake of course, the person who had orchestrated my birth into undeath.

Looking out over the edge towards the abandoned husk of Tiger Stadium, it felt strange to be so alone in the heart of a once-bustling and vibrant city. Even the streets below were devoid of traffic, the snow settling softly on the pavement that the city government could no longer afford to salt properly.

I had arrived at this crusty old shell of a building the old fashioned way, partly for the curiosity of being able to explore the once grand rail station on my way up to meeting and partly to conserve power for a hasty exit, should one be required. The base of the building was surrounded by a strong fence, but it was clear that any number of vagrants and other curiosity seekers had found alternative routes into the building. I was able to follow a trail in the fresh snow to a place where a hole had been made in the fence that I was easily able to squeeze through.

The first floor of the massive structure was covered in graffiti and littered with trash, including used needles and empty dime bags. Empty bottles rattled around and potato chip bags and candy wrappers swirled with the whistling winds. I rousted a pair of young men who were about to inject some recently heated heroin into their veins before they had the chance to get their high going. They scattered when I kicked over their portable kerosene stove, cursing me all the way. Neither of them had the courage to back their curses with action. They fled harmlessly into the night in search of their next fix and a quieter place to get it on.

The stairwell leading up to the roof through the more than dozen floors in between reeked of urine and human waste. The trash was piled highest on the first landing, with less and less of it on each successive level. I didn’t waste time on the intervening floors since it was pretty apparent that the place was largely abandoned, except for the druggies I had already evicted. On a warmer night in the spring or the summer, I could see this place as much busier, but not many folks were immune to the freezing weather like I was.

I sensed the arrival of the Slayer as a ripple of disturbance in the surrounding Shadow. I turned to face him.

(Part 2 by Wednesday, July 1, 2009)

Author's Note: Blog Hiatus

2009-01-14T20:47:00.002-05:00

Thanks for those who continue to read the blog for all of your support, comments, and your readership.

Due to a number of factors--increased workload in the day job (and overtime requirements), a serious case of writer's block, and a very strong desire to finally finish the first book (and to explore options for a second and third)--have conspired to make it necessary to place this blog on hiatus for a yet to be determined period of time.

If I had to hazard a guess, I think it will be sometime in late spring before I will be able to take up the blogging keyboard again.

I will post announcements, as appropriate, on any publishing details of the book when complete and I will make the occasional post on the humorous blog, Famously Undead--see link in the list of blogs I follow.

Please feel free to post your comments on any past post or on this one. I will be checking in every so often.

Thanks again, especially to the Professor, Ravyn, Cerrydwen and Vexis, for all of your support.

A Blast from the Past

2009-01-04T22:57:00.003-05:00

A strange postcard showed up in our mailbox the other day. It was not a commercially available card, but was instead an image of an abandoned train station in Detroit—a place that I was very familiar with, but had never actually visited before.

On the back of the card was a simple hand written message—

“I am enjoying all of the new technology your human society has to offer. Let us meet at this ruin of a building on Monday, January 5, 2009, by your human reckoning. I am partial to the roof. 11:50 PM. You will remember me as the South Beach Slayer.

PS-I very much enjoyed your ‘story’ about me, I look forward to meeting you again.”

It appears that I have meeting tomorrow night with the same Doppelganger I met in the South Beach episode several years ago (updated version much more recent, see November’s archives). It is also apparent that he reads the blog and knows the address where we now reside. This could be very interesting.

I will post about the results of that meeting on Tuesday, unless I am not available to do so.

South Beach Slayer--A Retro Rusty Special

2008-11-27T09:32:00.000-05:00

(The following post is the exact text for a short story that will be appearing in an anthology of online writers called *.fiction. The editor is Scott McKenzie, who can be found at this blog site: www.stardotfiction.blogspot.com. This story is based on the prior posts comprising the South Beach Diet series of posts--you can find the original series of posts in the November 2006 archives of this site--November 15-30, 2006 When the book is available, further information on how to get a copy will be posted and provided at that point. Until then, enjoy the story. More original posts are due over the next week.)

South Beach Slayer

I stood high above the crowd below, hidden from curious eyes by darkness and distance in my rooftop perch. From this spot, I could watch both the pulsating crowd below and the wide, nearly empty stretch of sand and waves known collectively as South Beach.

I wasn’t here to enjoy the sights and sounds of South Beach. This was a hunting trip.

There was a very prolific, very sick serial killer loose on South Beach. This unknown killer had killed four young people on four consecutive nights and left their bodies ripped open and splayed out on the beach to be discovered in the morning. Each body had been missing at least one vital organ.

Somehow, in one of the busiest nightspots in the United States, each victim had been killed, laid out on the beach, and been at least partially eaten all without any witnesses who were willing to come forward. The killings had continued even as the police presence had been doubled after the second killing and redoubled again after the third. The local authorities were at their wits end. That was when they called on the FBI to do something.

The fourth killing took place despite the presence of nearly twenty undercover FBI agents blanketing the most popular nightspots and a very sophisticated surveillance project that had been hastily put into place all over the area. The media was now crawling all over the story and the whole region was seemingly in the grip of panic over the lack of any progress on finding this mysterious, cannibalistic killer who had been named the South Beach Slayer by an enterprising news anchorman.

This was the fifth night.

The Bureau was desperate to put a stop to these gruesome murders. One of their best profilers, Agent Jennifer Wilson, had told them that this killer was something more than human. That’s when the decision was made to call on the Bureau’s only agent who also happened to be something more than human…or, as I preferred to think of it, formerly human.

Before I get much further, however, a brief introduction is called for. I am Agent Rusty Bones. I was a street cop from Dearborn Hills, Michigan who was killed in the line of duty. I was brought back to this…unlife…because I had also been a participant in a formerly secret (and definitely evil) government program called the Omega Project that sought to reunite the souls of slain subjects with newly enhanced bodies in an effort to show that it was indeed possible to create immortal super soldiers. I was the lone success of the project-- and its biggest failure-- since I subsequently helped to shut the thing down. I don’t quite think of myself as an immortal super soldier, but I do benefit from the fact that I can’t be killed. I have also acquired a few other special abilities that have been useful from time to time.

Seeing nothing of note moving on the beach, I turned my gaze towards the crowd below. While most sensible people were sensibly tucked away in their homes, there was still a sizable core of young, rich daredevils of all ethnicities gathered beneath me. They were partying with reckless abandon that I found quite amusing. There was a tension in the air that was palpable. These were the type of people who would throw a party on the eve of Armageddon.

From this distance I could pick out the undercover police officers and FBI agents as they mingled through the crowd looking for any likely suspects. The Slayer wouldn’t be so easily spotted. If Agent Wilson’s profile was to be believed, the Slayer was a doppelganger—a mythical creature that could change shape at will, exactly mimicking its victim.

I unfocused my eyes and shifted my vision from this world so that I could survey the scene below in the Shadowland—a separate dimension that parallels the physical world that you are already familiar with, but where the spirits of both the living and the dead are visible to those who can access it.

In this view, the police officers and undercover agents were even more distinct from the more colorful, inebriated spirits of all those potential victims. The spirits of the law enforcement officers were less colorful, more subdued in their hues, focused and vigilant.

There! About halfway down the block at a small, open-air sidewalk café, I caught a glimpse of someone, or better yet, something that was out of place. It was a small, dark spirit that seemed oddly out of place. As soon as I tried to lock my gaze on it, it slipped away into a thronging mass of spirits that obscured my sight. I was going to have to get closer. It seemed to sense me almost as soon as I saw it.

I slipped back into normal vision long enough to get a fix on the place and called the Shadow.

The cool, comforting darkness of the Shadow surrounded me. Using my will, I shaped It into a portal and stepped through.

I emerged from the Shadow in a side alley. I stopped at the mouth of the tight space for a moment to take in the festive scene from my new vantage point—pounding music, snarled traffic, pulsing neon lights, and a gyrating crowd of underdressed people of all races, genders and orientations milling about in their desperate searches for excitement and hook-ups.

A young woman in a skimpy bikini top and a multi-colored skirt stumbled into the dark alley and retched onto the ground right at my feet. She looked up from my puke spattered boots, staggering up to one knee. “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ back here?” As her eyes traveled upward from my boots, her eyes grew wide. She got up quickly and stumbled off to rejoin her friends.

I stepped over a puddle of fermented vomit, emerging from the comfort of the shadow. I joined the pulsating stream of tense human sexuality that was the South Beach night life. I started towards that open-air café where I had seen that strange spirit.

If the dress code of the partying crowd was any indication, it was about 80 degrees and humid out. Even the bikini-clad gals and the bare-chested young studs were shiny with beaded sweat. I was, of course, the lone exception. I was wearing a lightweight, black windbreaker over a loose black sweatshirt. My sturdy jeans were properly distressed while my heavy black steel-toed work boots were brand new. I wasn’t used to being this exposed.

While preening, inebriated minnows darted and dodged all around me, I was the trolling, brooding shark seeking bigger, more dangerous prey.

I switched my vision back into the Shadowland so that I could scan the crowd easier for that spirit. I had gotten pretty good in the last year at moving my body through the physical world while keeping my vision primarily in the Shadowland. Compared to the kaleidoscope of colors of the Shadowland, the neon signs and Art Deco décor of the physical South Beach was almost bland and boring.

It wasn’t long before I caught a second glimpse of that strange spirit again. It stood out from the large cluster of younger, brighter spirits gathered outside of a particularly flashy nightclub just down the street from the café. It was a darker, smaller form than those of most humans, and it felt my presence as I honed in on it.

The small head of the form swiveled in my direction as soon as I locked my gaze onto it. Two laser red eyes bore into me for the briefest of moments before a massive explosion of intense light knocked me from the Shadowland and back into the realm of normal vision.

The crowd was milling about, oblivious to the dance between two hunters as I tried to associate the out of place spirit I had seen with the right physical body in the swirling, dancing, flirting mass of humanity.

With all of the glances of fear, disgust, and disdain that I was getting, I knew that my appearance was even more zombie-like than normal. I hadn’t found my prey yet. I was reasonably certain, however, that I stood out well enough to let the Slayer know that he or she wasn’t alone at the top of the food chain any more. The minnows danced and darted about, too exhilarated by life to realize that the true dance of death had only just begun.

I slipped back into the Shadowland, hoping to catch a glimpse of my prey yet again, only to find that the creature had slipped away for the moment. I shifted back to normal vision, clenching my fist in frustration. I pulled the Shadow closer, hoping to use It for cover as I redoubled my efforts to locate the Slayer before it struck again.

Standing on the edge of Light and Night, of City and Beach, I was in Shadow. A watchful, vigilant Shade that moved from one world to the next with the ease of a moth flitting around a light bulb, one moment fully visible and real, the next moment a figment of the imagination.

In this new state of being—suspended halfway between the living and the dead—I could walk among the evening revelers leaving no more memory of my passing than that of a strange, cold shiver that caused a tingle along the spine and raised the hairs on the back of the neck.

There was a certain timeless quality to this half-in, half-out existence that I was now in. I was unsure whether I had been searching for five minutes or an hour when I noticed the strange cloud of Shadow darker than any normal night obscuring part of the beach across the street.

Without hesitating, I turned, stepped out into the street, easily slipping between the cars stuck in traffic. I needed to see what was being concealed over there.

I slowed from a jog to a cautious walk as I reached the threshold of the obscured area—it was large enough to conceal any number of dangers. The Shadow parted for me like a curtain. What I saw on the other side of that shade would have caused me to retch if I had been physically capable of it.

The body of the Slayer’s fifth victim lay spread-eagle in the sand, her torso ripped open. A man knelt down beside her with his back to me, holding something dripping and wet to his mouth and tearing into it with his teeth. The lip-smacking sound of him eating one of her organs was enough to throw me into a rage. But one glance at this man’s sickly spirit was enough to convince me that this man couldn’t be the one responsible for weaving the curtain of darkness that was obscuring him from being seen by anyone else.

I reached out and grabbed the man by his long, greasy hair, yanking his mouth away from his disgusting meal and lifting him from his knees. “Hold it right there, asshole! Who helped you do this?”

The man’s eyes were glassy, his mouth dripping blood and bits of the young woman’s liver. He tried to ignore me by bringing the rest of the organ up for another mouthful.

I knocked his hands down with my left hand and spun him around. “I’m talking to you! Who helped you with this?”

Still dazed from his orgiastic feast, his eyes grew wide as he laughed. Bits of liver and blood spewed from his mouth as he did. As I raised a fist to bring an end to his sick display, his eyes narrowed. “Are you Bones?”

That shocked me enough to halt my fist. I could barely keep my response civil. “Yes, how do you know who I am?”

The sick bastard giggled. “The Beast said you would come.” He nodded towards the waterline to his left. “It wants to talk to you. I don’t know why, you don’t look like you would taste very good.”

I ended the conversation with a blow that was sure to keep him unconscious for hours and dropped his sorry ass next to the poor wretch he had been feasting on. I had a date with a doppelganger. I stalked off in the direction the maniac had nodded in.

A figure strolled in the darkness near the gentle surf off to my right. It was walking that line between earth and ocean, alone, just as I moved between the world of Shadow and Light. Its physical form was that of a lithe young man. Its spirit was something other, something that I had not seen before. It was small and dark, exuding a roiling, seething hatred.

The doppelganger was issuing its challenge to me. Come play.

It was time to make a proper introduction. I called the Shadow, wrapping myself fully within it. I gave the dark energy the twist that took me from one place to another and stepped out directly in front of the creature.

The fleshy face of the young man melted away as I stood at arms length from the creature. I was standing face to face with a being that now had no discernible face.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Hunter.” No mouth opened as it spoke, only a slow, grating whisper emanated from the creature.

“Why are you killing these people? What have they done to you?” I stood facing the thing in a combat-ready stance. My hands were open and ready to trigger my batons to drop into place from my wrist holsters at the first sign that it was done talking.

“It is time to hunt again. Have you not heard the call?” Its form shifted slightly, its arms growing slightly longer than would be normal for a human being of its height. Its hands shifted into large, wicked looking claws.

“What call is that?” I rose up on the balls of my feet and shifted my balance forward ever so slightly.

“The Call of the An’girasii, that which has not been uttered in over six hundred years, ever since the Burning Times. How can you not hear it, Brother?” It reached one razor sharp talon towards me slowly, pointing towards where my heart used to be. “Lord Dracaar walks the land once more. My spirit sings with his Call. I feast so that I may grow strong enough to serve him once again! Shall we dine together tonight?”

I brushed the talon away with a sweep of my left arm while reaching up to the sheath across my back that was not actually present in the physical world. Somehow I didn’t think my batons would be of much use against this creature.

“Look buddy, I don’t hear any call from Dracaar or anyone else, but I think you’ve had your last meal on this or any other beach.”

It drew back from my brush off and gathered itself for a lunging attack, both monstrous claws ready to strike with its leap.

It leapt before I could get my hand on the hilt of Excalibur, knocking me backwards onto my back in the wet sand. We became a tangle of grasping hands and claws, kicking legs and tussling forms in the gently rolling waves.

It wrestled with the strength of several men, moving lightning fast with the ferocity of natural predator as it tried to keep me from reaching the blade that it somehow knew was there.

“You are known to us, young Hunter. You have much to learn before you will inspire fear in any of us the way your father did.” It was not straining to speak as we wrestled, it kept the upper hand, always anticipating my next attempt to wrest my hand free to reach for the blade.

“Drake was not my father, dammit!”

It gave off what could only be considered a chuckle as it leaned its grey, blank face close to mine. “It was only through him that you were born into this existence. He is your father in every way that matters.”

I stopped struggling when I realized that this creature, this doppelganger, was sitting astride my chest in the shallow surf, holding me down, but not otherwise trying to harm me. I stared into its blank mask of a face, trying to pierce the veil into its spirit. “Who or what exactly are you and why did you draw me here?”

Two pinpricks of red light grew into glowing orbs of eyes. “I am a humble Servant, a messenger, if you will. I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

It reached into the dark robes that I now realized it was wearing and drew out a rolled up piece of what looked like leather sealed by some sort of wax. It placed the bundle on my chest as it let go of my right arm with its other claw and stood up.

“Read this soon. It is a message for your eyes only. You’ve seen the fifth and final victim already. The human feasting on her carcass is my gift to you. He will serve the needs of your human justice system well enough for now.”

“I can’t scapegoat some poor schmuck for your crimes!”

It stood over me, its eyes fading back into the grey of the mask. “Oh, I’ve chosen well for you. He’s killed far more of his fellow men than I have lately. If he weren’t so fallibly human, he might have been of more use to us. I have enjoyed this meeting, young Hunter. Until we meet again, fare thee well.”

I sat up, grabbing the thick leather scroll before it fell into the water. As I did, the creature faded into Shadow and was gone

A Presidential Conversation

2008-11-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

Zulu retreated from the room with a deferential nod when the President-Elect nodded acknowledgement to him. Before long it was just the newly elected 44th President of the United States and me, if you didn’t count the half-dozen Secret Service Agents standing in vigilant pairs at discrete distances in the room.

He crossed his legs after he sat in a seat directly across from me. There was nothing but about a couple of feet of empty space between me and the next president. It was a very surreal moment.

He was the first to break the silence. “Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice, Rusty, I hope that you don’t mind if I address you by your first name.”

I nodded, finding it hard to find my tongue. “Not at all. It’s my pleasure to see you, Sir. I’m very surprised that you would even know who I am.”

He grinned as he clasped his hands over his knee. “Your friend there,” he nodded towards where Zulu had gone, “has been instrumental in bringing me up to speed on some of the less than savory activities of the current administration. He made sure that I had access to several classified databases that contained quite a lot of information. He asked to pay particular attention to one particular dossier simply titled the Omega File. As you might imagine, you and your family and associates are the primary subjects in that dossier. I must say that reading your file has opened my eyes to a number of things that I had never considered to even be possible before.”

I swallowed. “I’m almost afraid to ask what’s in that file, Sir.”

He gave the briefest of nods. “It was not pleasant reading, Rusty, but I am better prepared for having done so. I have also had a chance to read through much of your blog. I think I have a pretty good handle on who you are and what you have been through over the past few years.”

“So, what I can do you for you, Mr. President?”

His expression became more serious. “Rusty, I asked you here so that I could judge for myself how much of what I read was the truth. If I am to be the best President that I can be, I will need to have as much information about the dangers this country faces and to know as much I possibly can about the people and resources that I can call upon to help me face those dangers…”

“Sir, you have my full support. I…”

He raised a hand from his knee to stop me. “I appreciate your support, Rusty, but please let me finish. I can see now that there is so much more to this job that any one person can possibly anticipate. The revelations from your file and the others that I have read have been extremely disturbing.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat before continuing. “As much as I want my administration to be open and transparent, I can see that there are a great number of areas where I will need people that I can trust to act with professionalism, honest, respect and dignity to resolve crises and problems far away from the public eye. I am going to need people who can act independent of direct governmental oversight, but to do so while acting in the best interests of the American people, perhaps even in humanity’s best interests. I know from reading your file that you were targeted by Drake Kampmann and his team on the Omega Project long before they tricked you into participating in that sham of a program. I also know that you were assassinated so that you would have little choice in taking part in the real Omega Project.”

It was my turn to shift uncomfortably in my seat. I nodded as he continued to speak.

“I would like to ask you to serve with me to protect this nation and its people from the forces and enemies that threaten it. Will you serve with me?”

I was shocked. To actually be asked to help out rather than be tricked and manipulated into it was something completely new to me. “Sir, I would be honored to serve with you. How exactly can I be of service?”

“I have asked…Zulu…,” he hesitated with using that name, clearly uncomfortable with using Zulu’s handle rather than his very well known name, “to join my administration publicly as one of my Senior Advisors, but his real role will be that of a Secretary of Supernatural Affairs, a sort of shadow cabinet level position that will be in charge of dealing with these issues and crises as they arise. I would like you to report directly to him when he calls upon you for assistance. He will have a direct line of communication with me whenever he needs it. I will be issue the appropriate orders to ensure that you and your companions, if they also agree to serve with me, have all the resources and authorities that are needed to act when called upon to do so.”

“Absolutely, Sir. I will be glad to serve under you. I’m sure that everyone who came with me will also agree, but I will let each them speak for themselves. Sir, I do have one question.”

“Only one question, Rusty? From what I have read, you usually have more than that. Go ahead.”

I smiled, he had read my blog! “Yes, what about my blog? Can I write about this, or should I treat this meeting as classified?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I actually want you to continue to write about these events, including this conversation with me, on your blog. One day, all of this...strangeness…that you have been involved in will come out in the open. Some day, the American people will be ready to face the truth about the world, or worlds, that they live in. Until that day, your blog may be seen as pure fiction by those who simply cannot accept these truths, but it will be there for any who are truly ready to see things as they to see it for themselves. You have my blessings to continue writing as you see fit. From what I have seen, you have been quite diligent in protecting information that has needed to be protected. But the truth is in there for those ready to see it.”

“Sir, I do know that some of my enemies have found this blog. Are you sure that you want me to let them know that you are aware of them as well?”

His smile was radiant. “It is especially important for those enemies to know that you have my full support. Zulu will see to it that we take all reasonable precautions against the infiltration of these enemies.” He stood up, signaling that this conversation was coming to a close. “I will need to speak with each of your comrades as well. Thank you for agreeing to serve. It means everything.”

I stood up as well, extending my hand to him.

He took my hand in his and gave me a firm shake. I could feel a certain kind of strength within him that had only been hinted at in his campaign for the job. “Oh, and Rusty, one of my first assignments to you is to continue the search for your daughter Alexa and her mother. I would very much like to meet with each of them.”

I couldn’t help the tears from streaming down my face. “I will be glad to make that happen, Sir.”

With that I turned to see Zulu had reappeared. He motioned for me to follow him out. I wiped the blood red tears from my cheek as I left…

Transition Team Zulu

2008-11-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

My cell phone rang very early yesterday morning…the caller ID was blocked.

“Hello?”

The voice at the other end of the line was that familiar deep baritone of Zulu. “How are you Rusty?”

“Fine, Sir. How are you? I hope that you have fully recovered from your recent…ordeal.” He had been placed under secret arrest under the guise of a medical emergency during the big showdown between us and Klimm (El Diablito) and his allies.

He chuckled. “I am entirely fine. In fact, I couldn’t be happier about this country’s political future at the moment.”

“Really, funny, I would have thought that your politics leaned a little more to the right than the new administration’s do.”

“Oh, they do. But even religious conservatives appreciate competence in government, and I have no love for the buffoons that are now on their last months in office. That brings me to reason for this call, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I need you and your companions to come meet someone very important. There is much to discuss.”

I was definitely curious now. “Who are we going to meet with? Where do you want us to come?”

He paused. “I would like you to bring Ms. Fyre, Frau Tufts, Jasmine, Professor Karlton and…” I could hear his voice catch before he spoke the last name. “Cerrydwen. As to where you need to come, I will be placing one of Ms. Fyre’s beacons in one of the suites at the hotel I am staying at in Chicago. I will activate the beacon at 11 PM your time and will leave it active for exactly 15 minutes. Please be prompt, this is a very important meeting.”

The call ended before I could ask any more questions.

***

The six of us gathered just before eleven o’clock. Trusting that Zulu wasn’t setting us up for an ambush, we were for the most part only lightly armed.

I was carrying my batons in their normal forearm holsters, but they were concealed beneath my heavy leather jacket. I was wearing my normal heavy duty jeans and work boots. I topped it all off with a pair of mirrored sun-glasses despite the time of night.

Except Cerrydwen, everyone else was dressed more formally. Cerrydwen joined me in wearing jeans, boots, a shapeless sweatshirt covered up by a heavy leather jacket.

Jasmine looked radiant in a long black dress that complimented her figure and knee high black boots. The Frau was wrapped in one of her embroidered shawls that covered a nice blouse and pants. Jim was in his professorial uniform of a tweed jacket over a loose turtle neck matched with tan Dockers and casual shoes. Ravyn was more subdued than her normal colorful self, wearing a black and grey turtleneck sweater and black pants. The only touch of her normal flash was a sparkling bird-shaped broach made of gold and rubies that lay nestled between her neck and her right shoulder.

Once we were all assembled in the Transport Room the Frau closed the door and nodded towards Ravyn. We were silent now, but only because we had spent the better part of the day discussing who we were going to meet and why. The theories were quite varied from the wildly fantastic to mere mundane meeting with a new business associate.

Ravyn stretched her arms out like she was embracing the whole group in virtual hug and closed her eyes. “I can feel the Beacon. It is now active. Brace yourselves.”

By the nature of her source of power, Ravyn’s method of mass instantaneous travel was much wrenching and violent than mine used to be. The Shadow is subtle, silent source of soothing strength. Flame, however, is extremely energetic, noisy, and flashy. With a roar, we were enveloped in a burst of flames that didn’t burn and smoke that didn’t choke.

I felt the dislocation from our previous place followed by the disconcerting sense of falling that seemed to last several minutes before a second stomach churning sensation ended the fall in another popping flash and a puff of smoke.

The smoke cleared to reveal a very well apportioned living room that was dominated by the breathtaking view of the Chicago skyline lit up at night at least forty floors up from the street seen through the huge floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows to our immediate front.

Jim cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, I am certainly glad that you hit your spot, Ravyn, my dear, just 15 feet off and we’d still be falling!”

Ravyn looked down, pointing to a spot between her feet. “You can thank Zulu for putting the beacon right here.”

Zulu’s voice behind us got us all to turn around. “Thank you for coming. Please make yourselves comfortable. There are refreshments in the kitchen and on the dining room table. Please help yourselves. I will be escorting you in to meet our host one at a time, starting with you, Rusty.”

I couldn’t resist. “So who is our host, Sir?”

He smiled mysteriously before extending his arm to me. “Why don’t you come see for yourself, Rusty. Please leave your batons here with your colleagues. You won’t be needing them.” He looked over to each of the others. “Please leave any weapons or items of particular power here in this suite when you come with me. Our host’s security requirements are rather strict.”

I hesitated before tapping the release mechanisms for the holsters on each wrist and dropping them onto the sofa. “Who could possibly need this level of security?”

He shrugged. “Please, our host is waiting. He has been exceptionally generous to give us this time from his extremely busy schedule.” He nodded as my holstered batons hit the sofa. “Rusty, if you would be so kind, please come with me.” He looked back to the others as he led me towards a door to the adjoining suite. “I will be back for each of you presently.”

He pulled out a magnetize proximity card from his suit jacket pocket and touched it up against the plain black pad next to the door. There was a gentle click and a soft buzz the let us know that the door was open.

I grabbed the door knob and pushed into the darkened room beyond.

I saw a single figure at the far end of an office like room. The figure was peering out his own floor-to-ceiling window with his back turned to me. I could sense several other people in the room, but they held vigilant positions at the perimeter of the room with a professional poise that told me that this was someone who was Very Important.

The figure was tall and lanky, his hands clasped behind him as he took in the breathtaking view. His profile was instantly recognizable from the past year and a half of a campaign.

Zulu’s voice called out softly, announcing our arrival. “Mr. President-Elect, I would like to introduce you to Agent Rusty Bones, formerly known as Officer Jason Smith of the Dearborn Hills Police Department.”

The newly elected man turned to face us with a calm, thoughtful demeanor. He motioned with a sweeping gesture for us to join him. His voice was smooth as silk while his eyes narrowed as he took in my appearance. I could tell that he was sizing me up. “Agent Bones, please come have a seat. We have much to discuss…”

Harshing My Mellow

2008-11-05T14:08:00.000-05:00

Nothing soothes the savage, newly vampiric zombie like a nice, hot shower.

Before my latest transformation, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the act of taking shower. The sensual pulse of the spraying water would’ve been lost to me before, leaving behind a sopping mess of dead, wet flesh.

Now, however, I looked forward to being able to take a shower. The water was scalding hot since I didn’t even bother to use the cold water. The steam from the shower and the steady stream of sound created by the water crashing into my body helped create a cocoon of solitude that usually left me invigorated and refreshed.

Not even ten minutes into my late night ritual, my mellow mood was harshly interrupted by the insistent pounding on the glass shower door.

“Dad! Dad! Ravyn needs you right now!”

I turned off the shower to hear my daughter’s voice calling out as she continued pound on the shower door.

“Dad, hurry up! Ravyn needs you!”

“Calm down, Jazz. I can hear you. What’s going on?”

As the steam began to subside, I wiped away enough of the inside of the glass door to look out at her face as I reached for the towel hanging just above the door with my other hand.

Her face showed obvious concern. “I’m not sure. I was studying in my room when I got an emergency message from Ravyn through one of her special fire stones.”

I wrapped the towel around my waist before the glass door completely de-fogged. “What did the message say?”

“It was really short. All she said was ‘Get your father to the workshop, armed for battle.’ So I came to get you straight away.”

“Ah shit. She’s with Cerrydwen, isn’t she?” I opened the door and stepped out.

Jasmine nodded. “I think so.”

“Alright, go let Jim and the Frau know, rouse the others. Get everyone on alert and armed. Who knows what those two have come across this time.”

As Jasmine rushed out, I dropped the towel and padded into my room. It wasn’t exactly a bedroom since I didn’t have to sleep, but it was my personal space decorated to my own very bizarre tastes. (I will provide details and a description in a later post.) Cursing aloud, I opened the closet and quickly began gearing up for a battle.

After getting dressed, I grabbed my batons and slipped them into their normal placed and then debated between the modified M-16 assault rifle and the powerful .45 magnum Desert Eagle handgun. Both weapons were loaded with the special ammunition that Jasmine and her team of assistants had been working on for months now. In fact, the bullets in my weapons were unique even compared to the other rounds that Jasmine had been working on. I still refused to take up any firearms unless they could be designed to harm only the person or foe that I designated with each pull of the trigger.

It was only quite recently that Jasmine had made the breakthrough that could allow for the creation of these ultimate smart bullets.

Remembering the last time I needed to respond with similar short notice, I grabbed the belt that held the holstered handgun and snapped it into place on my waist and grudgingly reached for the rifle as well. It had taken me a couple of weeks, and buckets of fresh blood, to recover from that last battle, back before I had the advantage of these weapons. I really missed having Excalibur in that battle!

I slipped out the back door of the Den and ran down the twisting, wood-lined trail that led to workshop.

The workshop was actually a fairly innocuous looking steel-framed and roof barn that was set up with the rear end of the building butting up against a towering, ridgeline that allowed for the heart of the ‘workshop’ to be concealed inside the hill itself. The steel building held all sorts of rather mundane lawn and gardening equipment, ATV’s, snowmobiles, and other tools, but it was the door leading out the rear of the building that I was heading towards.

The door was slightly ajar, which was standard practice when Ravyn or Cerrydwen were working inside, so I yanked it all the way open and stormed down the rough hewn stone steps that led down towards the real workshop below. I was vaguely aware of the voices of Jim and the Frau calling out to the others as they followed a few hundred feet back down the trail.

I slipped the safety off on the assault rifle as I hurtled down into the unnatural darkness of the stairwell—that was one of Cerrydwen’s personal touches, “…to help scare away any curiosity seekers who happened to slip through our other wards,” as she had put it at the time. No mundane light would cut through this patch of darkness.

I pushed through the darkened zone confident that I could rely on my other senses to tell if anything was amiss.

Bursting through the other side of the ten foot patch of pure darkness, the stairwell leveled out to a hallway that was marked with several strong steel doors on either side. Small globes of flickering flames hovered on each side of the doors, Ravyn’s touch, of course. I ignored these side doors even though each led to someone’s individual workshop. None of these would be where the trouble was brewing.

No, it was the double doors at the far end of the hall that drew my attention. Those doors opened up into the Summoning Chamber. There were bright flashes of light and the sounds of a major struggle taking place behind those doors.

I slowed my advance just long enough to take a deep breath and to gather my strength.

With my finger on the trigger of the rifle and my resolve firmly in place, I yanked on the heavy silver lined-steel left door and stepped into the maelstrom.

The room was far larger than one would have imagined it could be. It was easily fifty feet wide, another fifty feet deep, with a ceiling that vaulted up at least 4 feet in the center. The center of the room was normally dominated by the etched image of a large pentagram that served as the summoning circle. At the moment, however, the center of the room was a blazing dark mass of writhing tentacles, misshapen heads, clawed arms and feet that seemed to be growing darker and stronger despite the best efforts of Cerrydwen and Ravyn. It was a true Lovecraftian nightmare.

Cerrydwen was wearing her highly modified travelling armor that she had designed for her journeys with Ravyn. Her torso was covered front and back with shiny plates of reflective metal that weighed no more than plastic might, but gave the protection of Teflon-coated steel. Her head was uncovered, her helmet having been apparently knocked off by a flailing tentacle. Her face showed a large purple bruise across her cheek and several small gashes that trailed blood as she dodged additional attacks by ducking behind a heavy table and lashing out with her carved black travelling staff.

Ravyn was on the opposite side of the chamber, surrounded by huge shroud of flame as she directed beams of highly concentrated fire to fend off the limbs that were trying to get at her. As quickly as she sliced off one offending limb, three more lashed out at her. She was ankle deep in the thick black goo of flambéed chaos, still apparently unhurt, but seemingly flagging under the constant assault.

Cerrydwen was the first to see me enter the room, followed almost instantaneously by the abomination. “Rusty, aim for the heads! It will be the only way to kill this thing!”

Even as I leveled the rifle towards the creature, it shifted its focus from both of the women towards me. Its body shifted constantly, heads appearing and disappearing every moment in different spots. There had to be at least six of them at any one time. Before I could begin to take a bead on one however, I was besieged by a wave of attacking limbs. A second wave of shrieking, wailing sound crashed over me drowning out all further attempts to communicate with either woman as the screams of thousands of tortured souls emanated from the creature.

Tentacles spiked with razor sharp teeth and nasty looking suckers lashed out my legs and hands, but I pushed forward anyway, snapping off a series of shots just to see what kind of impact these rounds would have on the creature’s body and limbs.

The noise from the creature was so great that I didn’t even hear the report of the rifle as it fired. The creature recoiled briefly as it was blasted by the bullets. The bullets seemed to burst into the thing, exploding in colorful flashes of energy that dissolved limbs and tore chunks from the body.

But that reprieve didn’t last long. The entire mass of the creature seemed to lurch forward. I was overwhelmed in an avalanche of tearing, rending, burrowing appendages. The rifle was torn from my grasp and I was driven to the ground, buried under its bulk as it tried to consume me.

Ignoring the nearly unbearable pain of the creature’s attacks, I managed to get a hold of one of large, malformed heads before it could recede back into its bulk again and squished it like a grape.

The bulk shuddered around me as I felt more than saw Ravyn’s renewed assault with her flame bolts. I could also sense another head explode just above me as Cerrydwen was able to focus her own considerable powers upon the beast now that I was its main offensive focus.

The next few moments passed in a haze of pain, struggle, and fear as we fought against this unfathomable horror of a beast. Eventually I was able to free up my right arm in order to draw the Desert Eagle hand gun and begin taking out the head as they appeared. Between Ravyn’s fire bolts, Cerrydwen’s sorcery, and my bullets, the creature finally succumbed and dissolved into a quivering mass of black goo that stunk worse than a chicken carcass left to rot in the sun for week.

Cerrydwen helped me up, extending a bloodied hand to me as she crinkled her nose at the stench. “Why do these things have to stink so damn much?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but it sure makes miss those days when I couldn’t smell shit, literally.”

Ravyn laughed, as she wiped blood and goo from her own face. “I’m glad that Jasmine could get you here so quickly, Rusty. It was looking pretty grim there for a moment.”

“Yeah, well, I was taking a nice hot shower before you summoned me.” I looked down at my battered and thoroughly coated body. “I guess I’m going to have to take another one, aren’t I?” I shifted my gaze to Ravyn. “Where the hell did you guys go this time to attract such a nice…follower?”

Ravyn pointed to the rifle that lay under a few inches of slimy black ooze. “Finding the energy and the ingredients to make weapons like the bullets in those things requires to range a little further out into the multiverse than I’m really comfortable doing. But if we don’t take some of those risks, we’ll never come up with the resources to have a chance in this war we’re waging.”

I reached down into the ooze to pick the weapon up. “Still, if you risk bringing another one of these things back, we might have to reconsider these forays of yours.”

Ravyn punched me in the upper arm. “You’re just jealous because you can’t go gallivanting off like you used to. You never worried about the crap you used to bring back from your trips!”

I threw up my free hand in mock surrender. “OK, OK…I’m guilty on all counts. Let’s call it night.”

The Frau and Jim barged into the room with their own weapons in hand only to curl up their noses and step back in disgust.

I pushed past them as they recoiled, leaving Ravyn and Cerrydwen to explain it all to them. “Hey, I’m going to take a shower and the only other interruption I want is for someone to bring me a fresh pint of O negative.”

Who Knew...?

2008-10-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

Who knew that a zombie could get drunk...well now I know. This is a new experience for me..I haven't been able to enjoy a good stiff drink...or three...in several years now. Thank goodness for spell check!

Stampede of the Sheople

2008-09-20T00:29:00.000-04:00

If anyone thinks that this latest surge in world wide stock markets is the signal that the all is now well in our financial markets...then I have a brand-spanking new 223 million dollar bridge in this place called Alaska to sell you for pennies on the dollar...

Seriously, the fat cat bankers on Wall Street are heartened that the government that is using borrowed, leveraged money faster than they are is going to ride in to a socialist-style rescue by buying up all of their dumb-assed debt decisions is smoking more weed than Bill Maher.

Oh, have no doubt,the Bush Administration has no fucking problem spending your grandchildren's future taxes to save the hides of a few stupid multi-millionaires now, and they won't even be so rude as to even suggest that those overpaid executives have to repay all of those inflated stock options or those bonuses that those pigfuckers cashed in over the last couple of years when things were going well...because...that just isn't done in a capitalist system...

No, instead, let the bastards keep all of that ill-gotten wealth (that actually survived their own stupidity), but put the American taxpayer (or more accurately the Chinese and Russian dipshits who keep buying our IOU's) on the hook for rescuing those morons from themselves.

In another example of sheer sheopledom, take a quick look at the McCain pick for the VP slot on his ticket. The man had to look far and wide to find someone so unqualified that he couldn't find that person in the lower 48 states. I will admit that there simply aren't very many people who combine all of the worst traits of Bush and Cheney into one neat little package. And for a bonus, he got tits too!

Not only did he get a anti-choice, God-mongering, hunter to join his ticket, he gets to truck out a hot soon-to-be grandma young enough to be his daughter. Maybe he has dreams of getting a hummer in the White House or in Cheney's famous 'undisclosed location', but if he does, the old goober might need to himself fixed, that gal of his is still fertile enough to crank out their very own McPalin...

Someone please tell me that the real fucking people in this country will raise their heads from the stampeding flocks of Sheople and will actually vote for a candidate who represents hope and hard work, intelligence and integrity?

Please tell me that someone will step forward and let the criminals on Wall Street be accountable for their crimes and their stupidity? Make any executive of a failing financial company give back all of their earnings and options and bonuses before any bailout is even considered...let them actually pay for their greed and their decisions.

We may yet actually choose a real president this election cycle...but I have some serious fucking doubts that the fucking coyotes will actually guard the hen house...This market meltdown is only just beginning...these bailouts are only going to prolong the pain and make the final fall that much harder.

No, It's Wabbit Season...

2008-09-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

I moved in near silence from tree to tree, careful not betray my position by stepping on any stray sticks or other forest debris. The whispering wind covered what little sound I did make. It was moments like this that I was glad that breathing was purely optional for me. My body didn’t need oxygen or any other gas contained in the atmosphere to keep functioning, but I did need air to make my vocal chords work, so I kept a moderate supply of air in my lungs in case I needed to shout something out to surprise my foe.

The sound of a twig snapping to my left and rear stopped me short. I froze in place, focusing my attention on my hearing, trying to sort out the various normal sounds of the woods at night from that which didn’t belong. Unable to locate the culprit with my hearing, I shifted my vision in the Shadowland—one skill that I had retained, thankfully.

Scanning the woods around, the only forms I could make out were those of the normal critters of the night that often go unseen, if not unheard, by normal folks.

I unfocused my eyes and scanned the area all around very slowly. There, just beyond the large leaning pine tree to my far left was the blurry outline surrounding what can only be described as a void. Once I located the outline, I narrowed my focus to discern who or what the form was.

It was laying low, perhaps even stretched out on the ground, which is one reason that it had been so difficult to see on my first couple attempts to locate the form. Unsure as to whether the creature saw me, I swung around to face it full on and dropped into a cautionary crouch. It was maybe fifty feet away, but there were several trees scattered between us, some large, some small, but none preventing a direct line of sight between us.

The form shifted slightly, its movement accompanied by a soft, metallic click.

Sensing that the form did see me, I decided it was time to shift tactics, none too soon, either.

I leaped forward and upward into the air from my crouching position higher and farther than any Olympic-caliber athlete could hope to match and grabbed for a thick branch of the solid oak tree about a third of the way between us just as the first burst of projectiles sliced through the air where I had just been standing.

The bullets had a weird, glowing tracer effect in my current mode of vision that reminded me of my military days and learning how to shoot at night using tracer rounds with my M-16. Before the glow from the first burst had faded though, I was using the momentum of my leap to swing around in a slightly different direction to land no more than fifteen feet from the prone figure as it let loose another barrage at the branch I had been hanging from.

I landed in a crashing roll that made enough sound to wake the dead, but I added to it with a wild war hoop that I hoped would freeze or shock my nearly invisible foe as I leaped for the now visible rifle that it was trying to bring to bear on me.

Let me digress a little bit here on a subject about which I happen to know way too fucking much about:

Getting shot sucks.

Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation only adds to the level of suckitude.

Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation because you know that the bullets have been magickally enhanced to take down banes and other supernatural badasses (which you happen to consider yourself to be one of) raises the suckitude to almost mythic proportions.

The impact of the bullet threw me backwards into trunk of a smaller oak tree that shuddered under the impact of my rather significant bulk and the remaining momentum of the bullet slamming into my chest. I felt my head crack into the tree and then the scraping of the bark against my scalp as I slid down to my ass. The impact had knocked all of the remaining air from my lungs and had put a serious dent in the silver-coated chest plate that I had been wearing for just such an occasion.

It took a moment for me to get through the pain enough to draw in a breath to complain with.

“Fuck me, but that hurts! I don’t know why I ever agreed to this shit.”

The figure got up giggling. “Why, Daddy, you do it because you love me…and because you are our only renewable resource as a bad guy.”

I shock my head and felt around the chest plate for the impact point of the bullet. I found three serious dents all closely clustered around where my heart was—each one easily a half inch to an inch deep. “Yeah, but I thought you were going lower the power on those bullets of yours. If you missed the plate, I might not be so renewable anymore. There are limits even to my healing abilities.”

She giggled even louder through her helmet. “Don’t worry, Dad. Herne has said that I am the best natural shooter he has ever trained. He said I could probably have made the Olympic team if I wanted to.”

I shifted my vision back to normal mode in time to see a heavily camouflaged Jasmine rise from her prone firing position, her rifle in her left hand and her new helmet in the other. “So how does that new helmet work?”

She strode over to stand over me, tucking the helmet under her left armpit before reaching down to help me stand with her now free right hand. “Oh, it is so cool! I was able to see in the Shadowland just like you’ve talked about, I could see you sneaking through the woods a hundred yards away. I can’t wait to tell everyone how easy it is to use as well. Alora really outdid herself this time.”

Every bone in my body ached as I stood up and tried to ‘walk it off’ as every childhood sports coach I ever played under had told me to for every type of injury I had sustained in those games.

“And, for your information, Father, those bullets were only slightly charged. If they had been at full strength, I would have had to clean you off of that tree rather than help you up with a hand. We need to be able to take down a Doppelganger or a Bane with these things, and that’s not easy to do.”

I nodded as we began the long walk back down to the compound. “I’m sure Herne will be more than happy with your full strength batch, Jazz. Just do me a favor and make sure that you don’t grab any of those bullets for any of these practice sessions, OK?”

She wrapped her right arm around my waist and gave me a good, hard, and ever so painful squeeze. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I won’t let anything happen to you that you can’t handle.” I heard her sniffle just a little bit. “I miss Kenny so much!”

“So do I, Jazz, so do I.”

Duck Season...

2008-09-07T00:24:00.000-04:00

The merest hint of a sliding footstep and the slight change in air pressure behind me was all the warning I had as I ducked down and rolled to my left to avoid the thunderous blow from my would be assailant. The staff of my attacker slammed into the small table I had been about to put my drink on. The table shattered in dozens of pieces as my cup went flying. I cursed as I saw the thick warm blood splatter all over the floor, but didn’t have much time to gather myself.

I used the rapidly approaching wall to shift my balance and spring back up with my batons in hand.

The staff whistled in for another crack at my head only to be caught in my crossed batons and redirected into the floor. I lashed out my right baton, aiming for the crippling bunch of nerves in the middle of the thigh of my attacker, but he anticipated the blow and twisted the staff down to deflect my counterattack.

My second blow, however, found its mark. My left baton thwacked solidly into my opponents right forearm with just enough pressure to cause him to release his grip on the staff with that hand in reflex as his fingers twitched in agony.

He grunted in pain and stepped back. He twirled the staff in his left hand deflecting my attempt at a finishing flurry of blows as he retreated.

I knew I didn’t have much time before he regained feeling in his right hand, so I stepped into the attack with the goal of finishing him off quickly. I lashed out towards the middle of the staff, where he had shifted his grip to, aiming for the knuckles with both batons in succession.

He practically threw the staff at me before my blows could land and pushed his heavy bulk inside the range of my attacks and crashing into me.

His weight threw me off balance enough to send the both of us tumbling to the ground with him top, at least initially.

I dropped my left baton and used that hand to give his forward momentum a push. I followed that up with a twisting roll that left me sitting astride his heaving chest.

“That was pretty good, Jim. I almost didn’t hear you come up behind me.”

Jim punched my thigh with his left hand. “Get up off of me you prick! You’re too damn heavy to sit on me. You’ll give me a heart attack.”

I laughed as I obliged his request by standing up. I tapped my remaining baton closed and holstered before reaching out my hand to help him up.

Jim reached up to pull his helmet off before wiping the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve.

“You don’t have to humor me, Rusty, I know that I still suck at fighting. I’m just hoping to get good enough to keep from being a liability out there. I’ve been pretty lucky so far, but I’ve never been a fan of trusting to chance.”

“Jim, you are getting a lot better at this. You really did take me by surprise. Considering all of that protective gear, you did a damn good job of sneaking up on me. Next time though, don’t hesitate to take your shot when you have one.”

He nodded. “I’m still leery. This new body of yours isn’t as impervious as your old one.”

I moved across the room to grab a towel from the shelving unit and went to wipe up the thick, viscous blood that had spilled from my cup.

“Yeah, I’m still adjusting to this whole thing too. If these training sessions are going to be of any real use though, you really have to throw caution to the wind. Trust me, there’s no real harm that you can do me that won’t heal up in a day or two. I’ve got the fresh scars to prove that it is almost impossible to do any lasting harm to this body.”

He shook his head as he bent down with a grunt to pick up his staff and my other baton. “I know that intellectually, but…” He shrugged as he stood back up to his full height. He was several inches taller than me.

I tossed the bloody towel into a nearby bin before walking over to collect my baton from him. “That’s why we need to keep up with these impromptu training sessions. When the time comes, you will need to be able to act without hesitation.” I clapped him on the shoulder as we walked out of the training studio. “Let’s go get some dinner.”

“I still can’t get used to you needing to eat.”

“Tell me about it…”

The Update Post

2008-09-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

Is it me or is Hurricane Gustav trying to find the shortest path to the Twin Cities where the Republican Convention is about to kick-off?

Hey you Evangelical dipshits, God is gonna rain all over your parade. Hmmm…maybe He actually meant it when his Boy was talking all of that shit about turning the other cheek, helping the poor and destitute, and to be nice? Ach…what do I know? I’m just your local unbelieving dead man. It is your religion, not mine, but maybe you Christians should try reading that little book of yours a little closer. That are lots of little nuggets of wisdom allegedly uttered by that long-haired, sandal wearing, do-gooder of a pre-hippie dude that you claim to follow. If more of you actually did that, there would be a hell of a lot less misery in this world.

Ah well, enough of that, for the moment, anyway.

A lot has happened since I met Raxgar in the Alaskan wilderness, much of it worth telling about at some point, but I think it is time to catch the story up to the present day.

The battle in the Alaskan wilderness turned out to be somewhat of a watershed moment in the brewing conflict between the ORC’s and the An’girasii. While the ORC’s lost too many good people that day, including my son Kenny, the losses for the An’girasii were staggering. Three of their most powerful Banes and a dozen Doppelgangers were slain.

Banes aren’t killed very often. But when, on occasion, they are killed, their Spirit finds a new host body and begins the arduous process of modifying that body to suit their desires. That is what happened with the Bane that Drake killed on the tanker ship when he took over my body.

The three who died in that battle with us, however, didn’t just get killed. I absorbed their Spirits into myself, essentially destroying them. This was a crippling blow to the offensive forces of the An’girasii. To make matters worse for the An’girasii, El Diablito used the diversion created by my drawing the Banes and their followers into battle to betray his erstwhile masters. He and his minions snuck into a secret stronghold that the An’girasii had established and stole a large number of artifacts and weapons that the An’girasii had been gathering for their own servants. Among the things he took was an orb that can lead its bearer to where Alexa is being held.

I can’t reveal yet how I know all of this information, but I will tell it when doing so will no longer compromise valuable secrets.

El Diablito and his organization are now the focus of the rage of the An’girasii and their surviving minions which has taken considerable, if temporary, pressure off of the ORC’s.

This brief respite has allowed for the ORC’s to regroup and establish several new bases of operation. I am now back in a rural area just outside of Metro Detroit with my ex-wife and daughter and several of my oldest friends among the ORC’s—including Ravyn, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the Professor and Alora. We are safely tucked away on a large swath of property that the organization has owned and operated for quite some time under an alias that I won’t be divulging here. I will not reveal any more of the location for obvious reasons, other than to give you the name by which we are calling our new home base—the Den.

I use the place as a base of sorts, but spend more than half of my time away on various missions for the Bureau or the ORC’s. Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Wilson was able to settle the situation with the Bureau so that I am now fully restored to my previous position as a Provisional Special Agent. More importantly, I have had my access to the various law enforcement systems restored. I am still free to take on cases as I see fit, but also have to be available on short notice at any time to help the Bureau out with one of their cases as well.

As the strange woman, Me’shwara, had warned, I no longer have easy access to the Shadowland. In the many months since I’ve been back, I’ve only managed to make two short-lived trips, each one consuming tremendous amounts of energy that is not really very easy to store up. I can only shake my head and marvel at how powerful I had become and how much I took that power for granted until I lost it. I now have to get around in more traditional ways. For the most part I travel by way of my black Ninja motorcycle.

Since my latest transition, I have found it easier to move about in society. I’m still the ugliest mug in any given room, by now my skin looks a lot more like skin, even if it is pasty white in color. But I can throw on a hat, some mirrored sun-glasses and a jacket and get by without too much trouble. I still avoid crowds of any sort when I can, but I can mingle freely when I have to.

As mentioned in a previous post, my new body has its full complement of senses. I can smell and taste again, although sometimes I wish I couldn’t taste the kinds of stuff I have to eat in order to build up my strength. In order to be as strong as I need to be, I have to consume a diet of raw meat.

In the last few months I have discovered a lot of information about my new body and how it works. For one, I have a new appreciation for how Drake was able to take on the strongest servants of the An’girasii. Like Drake, I can suffer wounds by weapons big and small, but also like Drake, I have the ability to control my body’s reaction to such attacks on an almost cellular level. In the last few months I have been shot, stabbed, and nearly crushed while investigating various cases. In each case, however, I have been able to absorb the wounds, redirect my energy and resources around the wounded area and keep on trucking. Once the immediate danger is over, I’m then able to heal the damage far quicker than the normal healing process would be if I were a normal person.

Even though I have lost most of my ability to manipulate the Shadow, I have discovered a number of new abilities that also mirror some of the things I watched Drake do. When I haven’t been engaged with cases, I’ve spent hour after hour training to hone the skills that I know that I will need for the coming battles.

In my next post, I will update you on the status of some of my comrades and go into more detail on some of the doings of the other ORC’s.

On Zombie's Editorial

2008-08-25T22:06:00.001-04:00

This post was supposed to be the resumption of the tale of how I returned to the world in physical form and found my way back to blogging this tale for your benefit. But you know what? That post was boring the ever-loving-shit out of me. Let me tell you, when a zombie gets bored, then there isn’t much hope for the living.

From this point forward, this blog is going to return a little bit to its roots. I originally started this blog as one pissed-off dead man trying to figure this undead shit out. Over the years, as I’ve muddled my way through the story you’ve read so far, this blog has morphed into a long-winded narrative of events that—while perhaps interesting to some—has lost the edge that I now know makes it more interesting and relevant.

I will still be telling you about some of the adventures that I seem to fall into by virtue of my very existence, but I will also be sprinkling in a few juicy editorial bits into the mix. You should be duly warned, however, that I’m not going to restrict my editorial voice to the strange shit that I get mixed up in—I’m going to let loose a few barrages on your crazy-assed world.

For example…I’ve been sitting here for days trying to figure out how to make my return from the Alaskan wilderness worth reading and just running into a brick wall as much more interesting shit is happening around the world that is just crying out for semi-intelligent commentary from an undead cop.

First of all, in the span of time it has taken for China to put on the 2008 Olympics, Russia has started and ended a war of occupation in one of its former satellite states, Georgia. This short, bloody affair has demonstrated that the fine words and bold predictions of the current administration regarding the promise of democracy and freedom are but a thin veneer covering a very hollow foreign policy. The petals of the Rose Revolution have been crushed beneath the bloody treads of Russian tanks while everyone counts their gold, silver and bronze medals. Just imagine how much worse it would have been if Georgia had actually been a member of NATO? Are you telling me that the United States and all of its NATO ‘partners’ would actually go to war with Russia over Georgia? I think the answer to that question is best said in Russian…nyet. That failure would have put to rest the bold-faced lie that is the NATO ‘alliance’ faster than is already happening in Afghanistan.

Speaking of Afghanistan, isn’t it amazing that that one shit-hole of a country will have humbled the military forces of three of the largest and most powerful militaries of their respective eras. First, the British Empire had its ass handed to it by the Pashtuns back in the day. Then the mujahudeen humbled the mighty Soviet machine in the eighties with a little help from the CIA and their international playboy turned rabid holy warrior, Osama bin Laden. Now the afore-mentioned NATO is in the process of being humiliated by a raggedy band of religious students and hard core extremists trained and in part led by the same kidney-disease-ravaged bin Laden who our president promised to bring back ‘dead or alive’ right after that guy masterminded the largest terrorist attack ever perpetrated on the United States, nearly seven years ago.

Of course this humiliation is only possible because this country is led by a simple-minded buffoon who used the opportunity of that tragedy to initiate a war of choice against old adversary of his father on the false pretext of illusory ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that never materialized. This bogged down our military, bled the country of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives all while besmirching our national honor with the torture of hundreds of prisoners and killing of thousands of innocent civilians.

Meanwhile, the emperor fiddles as the economy burns. Ordinary people are losing their homes at the fastest rate since the Great Depression while the Republican presidential candidate who once appeared to be a man of honor and integrity can’t remember how many homes he actually owns while his PR staff tries to paint the other main presidential candidate as an out-of-touch elitist and a celebrity. All of this despite the fact that his opponent just happens to be the first serious minority candidate for the highest office, a man who made it to one of the best universities in country by virtue of scholarships and hard work. That same Republican candidate was the son of an admiral who parlayed his family connections into a career as a navy pilot despite his barely passable skills and study habits.

Closer to home, we have the mayor of the Detroit racking up felony charges faster than he type out ever so embarrassing text messages to his various mistresses. When he’s not too busy ruining the careers of vigilant police officers, he’s finding creative ways to cover-up mysterious parties or pay off his pliant show-wife with free cars and phony city-funded contracts to her ‘charity causes’.

Whew…just venting some of that stuff has gotten my fingers flowing once more.

My next post will catch you up on some of the doings in my renewed undead existence, and will focus less on the shit that pisses me off. But you can rest assured that this blog will have a lot more Lewis Black-like commentary as the need arises.

A Strange Welcome...

2008-08-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

Darkness surrounded me as I stepped into the Shadow unsure of where it would take me.

The voice of Me’shwara rang in my mind one last time. “The one you once called El Diablito holds the key to finding Alexa, although he may not yet realize it.”

Just as I tried to wrap my mind around this little nugget of wisdom, I was hit by a blast of cold air. I soon found myself knee deep in frigid snow, my feet crunching through the top crust and slipping on the icy rocks below. It was so painful I dropped my clothes and gear out of shock.

Before I bothered to look around, I started grabbing articles of clothing and throwing them on as quickly as I could. The cold quickly numbed my hands—I could no longer feel my feet at all—so getting dressed became an exercise of frustration that involved more than a little cursing.

The clothing I had with me was hardly designed for a hard winter. I had a pair of ragged black jeans, a long-sleeved black turtleneck shirt, a pair of ankle high black leather boots and the black leather biker jacket I had worn more to hold gear and cover my batons than for warmth. I didn’t have to worry about getting cold before.

I strapped my batons back into place in their special drop holsters on each wrist before slipping into the jacket. By time I was fully dressed I realized that while I was still feeling very cold, I was able to put the discomfort out my mind and force my limbs into working properly.

Standing up straight again, I finally took the time to survey my surroundings. I took a deep breath, tasting the cold, clean air infused with the tangy taste of the surrounding pine forest. It felt so strange to breathe again that it took me a moment to realize that not only could I smell and taste the scents in the air, but I could feel the rushing pulse of a heart pushing blood through my arteries and veins.

I reveled in all of these fresh sensations even as my fingers and toes began to ache with the cold and my stomach let me know that a single fish wasn’t going to last very long.

Layers of fresh snow covered the field of battle, but there were also any number of fresh animal tracks leading up to and around a number of suspicious looking lumps that seemed to correspond to where many of the enemy had died.

A broken shaft of wood protruded from the nearest mound only a few dozen feet away. I pushed through the thigh-deep snow to reach the spot and pulled on the shaft. It came loose with a little effort, revealing the butt end of a thick spear. I used the three foot long shaft to clear away some of the snow to reveal a pile of rotting Reaver carcasses. Their formerly human faces twisted in grim snarls, forever frozen in this final, nearly forgotten death.

Looking down at the remains of these poor bastards, I debated the merits of rifling among the bodies to search for any weapons that might help me take down some fresh dinner, but the distant, high-pitched whine of a motor echoing through the forest caught my attention instead.

I stood up and concentrated on pin-pointing the sound. It could only mean that someone else was nearby. Whoever it was, they were coming closer, perhaps even coming to this very clearing.

I considered whether to hide or not, but decided that meeting an enemy would be better than not seeing anyone at all. I began to plough through the snow towards where I estimated the snowmobile was coming from.

Before I could reach the edge of the clearing, a single snowmobile emerged from the tree line along a path that I failed to notice before. The rider pulled up the machine and disengaged the transmission as soon as he saw me.

The rider was a big man, a rugged man by the look of his clothing. He was dressed in furs from the neck down, including heavy mittens and boots that had a home-made appearance. The only concession to modernity was a heavy black motorcycle helmet with a full-mirrored visor. I could tell that he was a man though by the long, thick beard that pushed out beneath his visor, even if it did almost blend in with the furs he wore. He had a long, large caliber rifle slung over his shoulder and a holstered revolver strapped to his side. Trailing behind his snowmobile was a small sled that was packed high with gear.

The man stood up on while still astride the idling machine and lifted his visor before calling out to me. “Howdy stranger. Are ye the one called Bones?” He spoke with such a thick, rolling accent that it took me a moment to puzzle out his words.

I nodded. “Yes, Agent Rusty Bones. Were you expecting me?”

The man pulled off his helmet, letting his full head of long hair and his thick beard flow freely. He was sweating profusely even in this cold. “Ah, it’s good to have this blasted thing off, but better’n getting poked in the eye by a stray branch, eh?” He stepped off of the snowmobile, leaving the helmet on the seat. “Agent Bones, I’ve been waiting and watching for you for the better part of three months now. I cannae tell you how glad I was to finally see the alarm go off.”

“Alarm?”

He nodded as he pulled of his right mitten and reached out his beefy hand towards me. I shook it, amazed at the feel of another person’s skin in contact with mine. The warmth was quite welcome.

“It’s more like a gemstone I reckon. It was given to me by the fire-haired witch friend of yours, Ravyn, I think she called herself. It lights up whenever magick is used in this clearing. She said you might return this way and asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

“Well, I’m glad that is alright, she was hurt when I had to leave.”

“Ooch, she’s a right tough one, that one is. But I like my gals a little meatier, if you know what I mean.” His left hand clomped me on the shoulder with that comment. “Now, the Frau, she gets my juices flowing, as they say.”

“Was the Frau here as well? I don’t remember seeing her at the battle.”

He shook his massive head. “I don’ rightly know, mate. I wasnae there meself. I was asleep when all of the ruckus took place.” He loosened his gun belt and dropped the belt with the holstered sidearm onto the small sled. He slipped the sling of the rifle over his head and placed that into a special slot on the sled before kneeling down to unhitch the sled from the snowmobile as he continued to talk.

“I don’ want to be rude, mon frere, but it is time for me to get back to my home. This place is too warm for my liking, why this global warming is going to drive me crazy.”

Once the sled was unhitched, he pulled out a very large, loose looking harness and snapped it into place. He then slipped into the harness and nodded towards the snowmobile with the balck helmet sitting on the seat.

“This machine, she’s for you. There’s a GPS unit on the dash and enough fuel to take to the cabin that has been set up for you by your friends.”

“What about you? How will you get back?”

He rocked his head back with a hearty laugh. “Ooch, I’m heading north, my friend. Donnae worry for me, I’m in my element. Adieu, Monsieur Bones, until we meet again. Give my regards to the Frau.”

With those final words, the giant man shouldered his even larger harness and began trudging north through the snow.

"Hey, who should I tell the Frau sent the regards, what is your name?"

With a throaty laugh, he called out one word. "Raxgar!"

I was less than surprised to see his body begin to shift into the form of an extremely large grizzly bear. “That helps to explain his infatuation with the Frau.”

(To be continued…Tuesday, August 5.)

My Father's Son...?

2008-07-08T23:45:00.000-04:00

Now clean, but cold and wet, I returned to the clearing where Yggsdrasil had once stood vigil.

A figure stood near the giant stump. I felt a strange mixture of fear and joy at seeing this figure. Joy at the thought of being able to talk to someone, anyone about what had just happened to me, fear began to wrap its cold hand around what passed for my heart though as I got a closer look at this figure.

It was vaguely feminine, its pale flesh almost translucent in the dim light of the clearing. Her hair was long, dark and tangled in massive clumps that seemed to have a life of their own. Her eyes shone with a bright blue light that only made me feel even colder in my nakedness.

She waited as I stepped from the forest and cautiously approached her.

Now that I had the my natural equipment again, I found it difficult not to drop my hands down to cover my privates, but something told me that there was nothing truly sexual about this creature, so I resisted and kept my hands down at my sides, fists nervously clenching and unclenching.

“Who are you?” I saw no reason to beat around the bush.

“I am Me’shwara, She Who Watches, in your mortal tongue.”

“Can you tell me what the hell happened to me here?” I looked down at my new body before meeting her gaze again. “Where is my son? He helped to bring me here.”

“Your son made his sacrifice. His time has expired. He has moved on in his journey. You, however, have much work yet to do.” Her voice was cold and distant, ringing out with a hollow echo as she spoke, as if she were using a microphone and bad speakers.

“Why couldn’t he wait until this…transformation…that I went through was finished?”

The woman’s face showed no emotion as she replied. “His sacrifice was required for you to rise again. Without the completion of the act, you would no longer exist.”

I stepped forward, losing the fear for this strange woman as my frustration level grew. “What do you mean that I wouldn’t exist? I was far more powerful than I feel now. What the fuck did you people do to me? What happened to my body? Why do I need to eat again? Why…”

Her raised hand ended my rush of questions and halted me where I stood, unable to move or even speak as she exerted some sort of power over me.

“You will have to find your own answers to most of your questions, but I answer three questions that you ask now. Ask carefully, because I will answer no more than three questions.”

I felt her grip of power on me loosen. “OK, what happened to me?”

“You had fallen into the trap of becoming that which you had been fighting against. By defeating the Banes and absorbing their essences, you became too dangerous. This was a process that had been taking place over a number of years, but you reached a critical mass, a tipping point, where you would have soon fallen under the sway of the An’girasii and destroyed all hope for your people. Your son sacrificed his own life so that you could be saved. As you can see, your body has been dramatically altered. You are now flesh and bone once again, your Spirit has been reunited with a body that has certain physical needs. Your Spirit has been cleansed of all the others that you had absorbed over the years, including the creature you knew as Grendel’s mother.”

I didn’t stop to think about her answer before asking my next question.

“So, do I need to eat and drink again because I am alive?”

“You are immortal, to a degree, in that you do not require sustenance to survive. You do, however, need to eat and drink in order to thrive and become as strong as you will need to be for the challenges that you will surely face. You will find that you crave the lifeblood of living creatures, the fresher the kill, the more strength you will gain from its consumption. In that aspect, you are now well and truly your father’s son.”

That caught me off guard. I couldn’t resist throwing out my third question. “Wait a minute, who do you think my father is?”

“The man you know as Drake Kampmann was both your biological father and your spiritual father.”

I was so stunned by this statement that I had trouble forming coherent words in reply. “But…that’s…not…possible…”

The creature smiled for the first time. “It is the truth. When you come to a full acceptance of this fact, you will truly discover the full range of your inherited powers.”

“No…no…no…”

“Say your farewell to this place, human, for you will likely never return. You will find that it will be exceedingly difficult to travel through the Shadow, as you call it, like you did before. You still retain the knowledge of how to do so, but you will no longer have the same complete mastery of that place as you did before.”

She pointed to a pile of clothes and gear next to her.

“Please collect your things and prepare yourself for your final journey from this place. I will open the path for you to take back to your home world.”

I couldn’t bring myself to move just yet. “But what happened to Alexa? Why can’t I see Kenny one more time?”

She shook her head. “You have used up your allotment of questions, human. You will need to find those answers for yourself. You do not have much time before the pathway is open to you. I suggest that you use this time wisely.”

A door of Shadow formed just beyond my pile of clothes. Still dumbfounded, I staggered forward to scoop up my gear. I noticed something was missing. “Hey, where is Excalibur?”

“The Lady of the Lake has claimed the blade for now for safekeeping. If you prove worthy of it, and are in need of it, it may be returned to you at a later time. I suggest that you leave now.”

Clothes and gear in hand, I stepped into the Shadow with far more questions than answers.

“Drake is really my father? Mom, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

Radio Silence...Part 2

2008-07-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

I emerged from the cavern to see even more dramatic changes to clearing.

Yggsdrasil was no more. There was simply a massive rotting stump where the mighty tree once stood. The clearing itself was much smaller, the surrounding forest loomed closer having reclaimed nearly half of the clearing.

This once familiar place was now strange and alien. Or perhaps I was now the alien in this place. I felt very much alone.

“Kenny? Alexa? Is there anyone here?”

The only response I received was the swaying of the trees in the breeze and the distant sounds of various forest creatures.

As I stood there surveying the incredible changes to the once place I could call a sanctuary, a strange, yet distantly familiar sensation erupted from my gut.

Hunger.

It was the first time I could recall the feeling since I had died.

My knees began to tremble as a wave of hunger and a seemingly insatiable thirst overcame me. These twin drives had been missing from existence for so long that I was at a loss as to how to satisfy either of them.

The need to eat something, anything, was growing by the moment. I started stumbling towards the woods, hoping to find something that would tamp down the screaming hunger pangs that were raging throughout my body.

As I plunged into the dark mass of trees, I grabbed a long hanging branch, plucked some leaves from it and stuffed them into my mouth.

The leaves quickly dissolved into a bitter, chewy mass of mush that only inflamed my hunger.

Crashing through the thick underbrush, I began to look for something more substantial to eat. I was hoping for a small woodland creature of some sort, but I would’ve settled for almost anything with a pulse.

I was making so much noise as I rampaged through the woods that everything with an ounce of sense and the ability to move or hide quickly did so.

Crying out in rage and frustration, I stumbled across a babbling brook that opened up into a small, clear pool just a few feet away from where I landed with a splash and a curse. Unable to contain my thirst anymore, I plunged my face into the muddy stream and sucked a mouthful of water, pausing only long enough to gulp it down and dive down for some more.

The water was shockingly cold, but it tasted absolutely horrible. It was full of grit and had a tangy, metallic aftertaste.

Before I had the chance to marvel at my newfound senses of taste, smell, and touch, I caught a flash of silver coming from the pool. Seeing a chance to satisfy the other primal drive that I was feeling, I crawled over to the pool and watched for more movement.

It didn’t take long for the silver-colored fish to move again. With all of the speed I could muster, I plunged my hand into the water and grasped at the slippery form. On my third try, I was rewarded with a wriggling brook trout.

I was far too hungry to even pause before I brought the fish up to my mouth and ended its struggle for survival with a massive bite through the fleshy belly. My teeth tore through the slimy scales, the juicy fat of the belly, and whatever internal organs were in the way. I was rewarded with a cool rush of coppery tasting blood.

I swallowed as quickly as I could break the flesh into digestible bits. In mere moments, most of the five or six pound fish was gone.

Looking down at my reflection, I was horrified to see how monstrous I appeared. Blood and scales covered the lower part of my face and a good portion of my upper torso.

For the first time since I woke up, I noticed that I was completely naked. Looking down at my naked body I was more than a little surprised to see parts of my anatomy that had been taken from me by Dr. Geek and his lab technicians. I seemed to have all of my natural parts again, despite the fact that all of my flesh looked deathly pale.

I shook my head in disbelief before plunging into the pool to wash off the remains of dinner.

(To be continued on Sunday, July 6, 2008)

Radio Silence...Part 1

2008-07-01T23:16:00.000-04:00

I awoke to nearly silent darkness. The only sound was a gurgling, squishing sound that was regular and strangely comforting.

I was floating within a warm, watery cocoon.

For the first time in years I didn’t have to push back against other voices in my own head. I was alone with my own thoughts, as confused and scattered as they were.

“Where am I?” My own voice sounded distant and muffled.

“What is happening?”

I tried to move, but my limbs felt heavy and unresponsive.

“Kenny?!?!”

“Alexa!?!?”

“What the fuck is going on? Someone help me!”

There was nothing but the muffled, water-logged sounds of my own small voice and warm, wet darkness.

Doubt began to eat away at the edges of the small amount sanity that I had left.

“Why am I here?”

“Who am I?”

That last question echoed through the darkness, bounced off the unseen walls and came back at me in endless waves of varied loudness.

“Who am I?”

“Who AM I?”

“WHO am I?”

“WHO AM I?”

“who am i?”

I tried to reach up and cover my ears, but my body refused to respond. I was completely helpless as the echoes grew louder and more insistent, hammering at me from every direction until it built into a constant crescendo of sound and fury.

I answered the questions as loudly as I could. I threw out a new true answer every time the question came bouncing back.

“I AM JASON SMITH!!”

“I AM AGENT RUSTY BONES!”

“I AM A DEAD MAN WALKING!”

“I AM A KILLER!”

“I AM KENNY’S FATHER!”

“I AM A COP!”

“I AM A MAN!”

“I AM…I am…i am…I am I.”
A small dim light grew around the edges of my vision. The darkness began to fade as my body began to feel normal once again.

I was laid out on my back on the floor of the cavern beneath Yggsdrasil. The sound water dripping from the roots above into the pool to my left brought me fully back. Each drop echoing in the cavern like the questions I had been bombarded with.

I was alone.

I sat up and looked at my hands in the dim, diffuse light of the cavern. They looked almost normal. They were very pale, but the flesh seemed real enough. I reached out to touch the floor with my right hand. It was cool, damp and hard. It was…smooth and slick.

I pulled back my hand and brought it up close to my eyes. Rubbing the tips of my fingers together, I felt the friction of skin on skin contact.

I stood up. My legs were stiff, but functional. I reached down with my right hand and felt my stomach. I actually felt the contact on my gut both through my fingers and through the muscles of my torso. I pinched the pale flesh between my thumb and forefinger, hard, and smiled at the pain of it.

“What the hell? Am I alive again?”

No one bothered to reply.

(To be continued on Thursday, July 3, 2008)

Love's Redemptive Flame

2008-06-15T22:20:00.000-04:00

…The swirling morass of memories parted to reveal the loving face of a woman making soothing noises as she stared down at Arixtocles. It was the earliest proto-memory of the man who eventually became a Bane…

Kenny moved closer to me, reaching out his hand. “I need you to come with me, Dad.”

I staggered forward, stumbling over the tangled roots of the dying tree. “The Banes were human?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Or something closer to it. They started out as normal, just like you did.”

I shook off the fog of memories and focused on my son. “How do you know all of this? If you knew this stuff before, why didn’t you say anything?”

He stopped for the moment, his face serious. “I think I’ve known most of this stuff for a while, but I didn’t have any real access to it before I was dying. Once I was wounded though, I knew what had to be done. It was a like veil being lifted from my eyes. We don’t have much time though. We have much to do before my time here is up.”

He began pulling me towards the far side of the tree again.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see soon enough. Trust me, Dad.”

I felt a massive amount of resistance well up inside me. I had to fight back against an almost irresistible urge to smash Kenny and flee from this place. But instead, I allowed him to pull me forward, oblivious to the danger he was in.

We circled the trunk of the tree to the far side. He was leading me to the small cave entrance that I had used before, except that small entrance had been widened by splintering of the trunk almost as if lightning had struck right at that point.

Kenny stopped and let go of my massive, gnarled hand. He pointed to the entrance. “Dad, you have to go down there by yourself. I will be here for you when you finish.”

I looked down at him. He seemed small and child-like as he stared up into my face. It was almost as if he was a young boy again. I could see the hope in his eyes that I would live up to the hero that he wanted me to be. The rage boiled up again. A dark haze obscured my vision. Powerful forces inside me called to be released, to be given the free rein to crush this whelp and to claim his soul as fuel for my growing Power.

I raised my hand as if to strike him, but hesitated.

His blue eyes bore through the red haze and into the last surviving remnants of my Spirit.

“Dad, if you love me, if you love Jasmine, you need to do this. Alexa needs you to do this. She is waiting for you, so please, Dad, go down there.”

My voice seemed small and distant. “Alexa is down there?”

He nodded, but said nothing further.

Between hearing his voice and seeing the hope still bright in his eyes, I found the strength to lower my hand and stagger towards the hole at the base of the once majestic and now silent tree. Instead of finding strength in the darkness that shrouded the stairwell leading down towards the pool, I felt a cold dread that deepened with each step closer to what seemed to be my doom.

My body shrunk to its normal size as I approached the hole.

I found the strength to look back to Kenny. His face was wet with tears, but he waved at me to keep going. “I love you, Dad!”

I nodded and pushed through my own tears, descending into the dark, dank cavern.

The place was preternaturally silent. The normal sighing of the tree above and the near constant drip-drop of water was missing. The only sounds were my own hesitant steps as I reached the end of the spiral stairway. The only light came from the flickering of a small candle held by a tall, lithe woman standing by the foul smelling, stagnant pool.

“Alexa?”

She nodded, but said nothing.

Her face was strikingly similar to her mother’s. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cavern, I could make out her light caramel complexion and see angular her cheeks were. She had the long limbs and lean muscles of a dancer. Her hair hung in loose, dark curls that shrouded her shoulders. Her eyes were bright as she looked me up and down.

“It may already be too late.” Her voice was soft, but there was a hint of hidden strength in her melodious tone.

“What might be too late?”

“Kenny’s sacrifice.”

I shook my head. “How are you even here? How did you get all grown up?” I looked around at this place and wrinkled my nose at the stench of the stagnant water. “What has happened to Yggsdrasil?”

“The only question I can answer right now is your last one. Yggsdrasil is dying just as your Spirit is being consumed by what you have become. It may already be too late, but I have come to try and save you both. This is all possible, however, because of Kenny’s sacrifice. Without that, you would be lost to us forever even as you completed your transformation into the greatest of Banes.”

I stepped back. “I would never serve them…”

She stepped forward. “Oh, but the process is already nearing completion.” Her eyes grew brighter, as did the flame that came from her candle. “You have fallen into the greatest trap of the An’girasii, Father—the illusion that you could become more powerful than they are and challenge them for supremacy.”

I shrunk back from the bright, pure light that reflected from her face as she pressed me back against the back wall of the small cavern.

“What can I do to stop this?”

She held out her hand to me with her palm upraised. A pure silver flame danced in her palm. The light from the flame filled the small cavern, becoming the only thing that I could focus on as it danced and grew brighter in her palm by the moment.

“This flame is fed by the love that your son has had for you all of his life. Take this flame into your hand and then into your body.”

“How can I do that?”

She reached out with her other hand and took mine left hand up to hers palm up. “It is no more complicated than accepting any other gift. Reach out and take it.”

I held out my left hand, she let the flame pour through her fingers and onto my upraised palm.

“I must warn you that this is going to hurt in ways that you’ve never imagined.”

It was too late to pull back. As the first drop of silver flame touched my palm I felt a searing, blinding pain that dwarfed anything that I had ever felt before. The flame spread from palm across my arm and up my body like I had been doused in gasoline.

Alexa stepped back as I fell to my knees and screamed in agony. The fire seared through my soul with a ferocity and a hunger that devoured the darkness of the Shadow. The voices of all those that I had consumed screamed in unison with me as I slipped into unconsciousness...

Just Call Me Ruxxxty Bones...Part 2

2008-04-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

Kenny was waiting for me just beyond the range of the obelisk. His Spirit was bright and strong, with the vibrancy of youth.

I crashed through the forest to stand in front of him. “Why didn’t you let me help you, Kenny? You didn’t have to die!”

Kenny shook his head. “You are the one in need of help, Father. Such help always comes with a price.”

“Why do you have to pay the price for helping me?”

His eyes bore into me. “Because you are no longer capable of helping yourself.” He turned his back to me. “We will be going to a place you were once quite familiar with. Meet me at Yggsdrasil.”

I hadn’t been back to that place since I had parted ways with Drake and John Red Bear. It was in the forest near that clearing where John had shown me about the obelisks and their strange powers.

“You know how to get there?”

Kenny glanced back at me before shimmering and slipping into the Shadowland. “I do now.”

I had little choice but to summon the Shadow myself and head towards the clearing where I usually found more questions than answers.

I emerged from the Shadow on the edge of the clearing expecting to see the towering mass of Yggsdrasil that dominated the middle of the place ever since I had planted the baton that hade grown into a full blown tree. Instead, I found a place that changed drastically. The once thriving tree that had introduced itself to me as Yggsdrasil was now a withered remnant of its former self.

The once black trunk was now graying in many places. Nearly all of Yggsdrasil’s marvelous black and white leaves lay scattered about the clearing, lazily blowing and rustling in the mild breeze.

I stood there in shock, unwilling to believe that this once massive tree was now a shriveled relic of itself.

Kenny stood near the base of the tree. He had adopted the physical image he had before the battle in Alaska. His face was grim, his eyes sad.

I stumbled towards him, tripping over the tangled mass of dry roots between us. I was still at least eight feet tall, my body now resembled the Demon’s than my own natural form.

“What happened here?”

He looked up into my eyes with his own expressive brown eyes. “This tree reflects the strength and vitality of your Spirit. When you planted this tree, you planted it in strength and defiance.” He looked form me back to the tree. “You see, Father, the Tree is you, you are the Tree.”

“But how can that be? I am stronger than I have eve r been? I almost single-handedly slew and consumed three Banes! I’m finally strong enough to take on the damn An’girasii on their terms!”

He shook is head. “Dad, you can’t beat these creatures by becoming like them. Look inside the memories of those Banes that you destroyed. When you do that, you will find that each of them was once a powerful person who thought that they too could challenge the power of the An’girasii. In the end, each of them fell under the sway of the very powers they thought they could replace.”

“I’m different. I’m stronger. I’ve got the benefit of Drake’s thousands of years hunting the An’girasii and all of John’s teaching.”

“You’ve taken all of that knowledge and experience and have become stronger than any Bane, this is true. But in the process, you’ve also lost what it is to be human. If you can’t find a way to regain what you have lost, you will become more a danger to all you hold dear than any number of Banes. That is why I am here, to help you find your way back to us. If I fail, then I would not have had much a future in any event.

“But know this, Father. I may be your last chance to save yourself, the ORC’s, Alexa, and the future of humanity.”

Looking inward as he spoke, I combed through the roiling images of the memories of the Banes that I had destroyed. Of the three, though, only Arixtocles’ were immediately decipherable. I began sorting through all of the earliest memories that I could looking for what he may once have been. Just as Kenny was finishing, I found a small kernel of memory that had been suppressed for almost as long as Arixtocles had existed. I was not prepared for what I found…

Just Call Me Ruxxxty Banes...Part 1

2008-03-23T17:20:00.000-04:00

Inside, I was roiling with emotions. I had just defeated and consumed three Banes, some of the most powerful servants of the An’girasii almost single-handedly, but my friends were now looking up at me with a mixture of fear and awe that I found to be strangely pleasing. I felt a rush of power coursing through my body and my Spirit that made me feel almost invincible. I just knew that I could not be beaten, that there was no one who could destroy me. This was what it felt like to be a god!

People were speaking and moving about, but I was too wrapped up in my own experiences to pay any attention to what these lesser creatures were talking about or doing. I was imagining how easy it was going to be to hunt down and destroy all of the remaining Banes so that I could become even stronger. As random memories from the conquered Banes came flooding up to my consciousness, I realized how easy it would be to take on the An’girasii themselves. Surely, I thought, no single An’girasii could be any stronger than I was already!

I sensed Jim approach me from behind before he had a chance to reach out and touch me to get my attention. I swung around to face him, perhaps with more force than I had intended. He staggered back, a look of concern on his face. I could feel the waves of fear coming from him even as he seemed to be concealing the outward appearance of fear. It was now that I also noticed how I towered over him in height. Normally, he was nearly half a foot taller than me, but now I towered over him by a good three feet.

He started to speak as he pointed towards a set of bushes nearby where other ORC’s had gathered around something. I had to struggle to hear his words even though he seemed to be shouting. “Rusty, come over here, we’ve found Kenny.”

A sudden concern for Kenny quieted the internal torrent of voices, memories, and ambitions that had kept me occupied momentarily. I brushed Jim aside with one hand and stalked over to where my son lay, surrounded by obviously concerned companions.

As I approached, they parted to allow me into the circle. I looked down to see Kenny’s broken body, his limbs splayed out in ways only possible due to many broken bones. His chest was still moving, if barely, but his eyes were closed until I looked down upon his face.

His eyes sprung open as I kneeled down to reach out and touch his face. He spoke only one word. “No.”

I stopped. “I want to help you, son. I can heal you with the powers possess.” I began to reach towards his face again.

“NO!” His face jerked away from my approaching fingers causing him to catch is breath and retch to side. “Don’t touch me you monster!”

I was taken aback. “Son, it’s me, your father. Let me heal you of these wounds! You’ll die if I don’t!” I could see that he couldn’t move away any further, so I knelt down lower and began to brush the hair from his face as I prepared to summon Shadow to heal him.

I staggered to side as Jim grabbed my arm and pulled it away from his face. It took all of his strength, but with two arms wrapped around my upper arm he had managed to pull me away from helping my own dying son!

Rage kicked in as I stood up and grabbed Jim and hoisted him up off the ground with my other hand, breaking his grip on my right arm. His feet dangled several feet of the ground, but he stared back at me with defiance and he spoke through clenched teeth.

“Jason, you have no idea whether these new powers of yours are tainted by the very Banes that are now inside you. What if you make your own son into a mortal enemy? He doesn’t want your help.”

The other ORC’s had taken up positions around me.

Ravyn had called Fire and seemed poised to attack me if necessary.

Herne had drawn that handgun of his and was aiming at my head.

Cerrydwen had a darker look on her face than normal, as she held a ball of black energy of her own in her good hand, ready to leap to Jim’s defense.

Others had taken up positions around me as if they were all prepared to fight me.

I snarled and pulled back my right hand to prepare for a devastating punch, but hesitated when I saw Kenny—actually Kenny’s Spirit form—standing behind Jim looking at me.

“There is nothing you can do to help me now, father, but there is something I must do for you. Put Jim down and come with me.”

I stood there stunned for a moment, not wanting to believe that Kenny, my only son, was dead. Waves of grief rolled through me. I lowered my fist and released Jim to fall to the ground.

Kenny nodded and turned to head deeper into the woods, away from the obelisk that was preventing access to the Shadowland.

I stepped over Jim and pushed through the ORC’s that stood between me and where Kenny was going. “I’m coming, son!” Even as I followed him, the roiling chaos of voices, memories, and delusions of grandeur began to fill my thoughts. I had to fight to stay focused on Kenny.

A War of Shadows...Part 5

2008-03-09T23:26:00.000-04:00

Jim stumbled backwards from the explosion of energy and ichor caused by his fatal thrust of Excalibur into the Bane’s back.

I waited, watching for that special moment of vulnerability, knowing that it would come soon.

Arixtocles struggled to stem the flow of blood and power. His hands clutched towards the edges of the blade as if he could push it back the way it had come, but Excalibur was simply too powerful, its magick prevented him from touching the edges.

The Bane staggered, his feet now touching the ground for the first time I had seen, then fell to his knees. The link between his magickally enhanced body and his Spirit form was weakening.

Still laid out on my back, I concentrated on being prepared as the moment inched closer. Two strong tentacles of Shadow extended from my core, poised to strike.

Arixtocles’ convulsed, spitting out a geyser of blood before he collapsed in a boneless heat. Just as his body slumped to the ground, his Spirit form coalesced at a point slightly in front of the now useless pile of flesh.

Before he could gain his bearings and begin the search for a new body, I lashed out with both appendages. I felt an immediate surge of power as I snared his helpless form and brought him struggling into the dark void of my own soul. I consumed his Spirit just as I had the Dragon.

I rose from the ground with a mere thought. Reaching out my right hand, I summoned Excalibur from the lifeless husk of the Bane and turned towards where I had last seen the Demon facing off against Cerrydwen and Herne.

As I turned, I had only the briefest glance towards Jim and Alana to see that they were both OK. Jim was sitting on the ground, looking towards with a look of mixed fear and awe. Alana had rushed up to him, but she stopped dead in tracks as she saw me rise and glance in their direction. The heavy weapon in her hands slipped through her fingers as she almost cringed back from me.

Everyone and everything seemed to slow down to a crawl except me. I felt like I was only walking, but I crossed almost the entire width of the clearing in moments. With Excalibur glowing in my fist and the power of two Banes roiling around inside, I was invincible.

The Demon was smaller than I remembered, even as he loomed over the crouching form of Cerrydwen. She was looking up into the Demon’s eyes with her own fierce look of determination.

Both Cerrydwen and the Demon showed the results of a brutal, bloody battle. Cerrydwen’s left arm hung limply from her shoulder while her face was badly bruised. Blood ran freely from several small cuts on her cheeks and forehead.

The Demon was missing one entire wing. The other wing was shredded and hung limply from his back. He stood up to his full height, but seemed to have to support his weight by holding on to the broken trunk of battered tree with the talons of his massive right hand.

As I approached from behind the Demon, Herne popped up from behind a fallen tree and aimed a massive handgun at the Demon. His face was such a mass of bruises and blood that I wondered briefly how he was able to see in order to point his weapon. But his eyes widened when he saw me approach.

The Demon must have sensed my approach because he released his grip on the tree and swung around to face me, pivoting on his one good leg. The other leg was a tangled mass of twisted and blasted flesh, but it was apparently intact enough for him to stand in place, but not much else.

I couldn’t help gloating. “Kosferaxtu! What a sad sight you’ve become!”

He was looking up to me, for some reason that I couldn’t comprehend at the moment. “This is not possible! What have you done with my brothers?”

I smiled, or at least it I thought I did. “Worry not, Bane. You’ll join them soon enough.”

He appeared to tremble at the sound of my voice. It did seem louder than I had remembered it being before.

“We’ll see about that, Drashe’en.” That name caught me off guard. “Yes, Drashe’en, I know what you are. Now it is time to tell my masters about you.”

His eyes rolled up into his skull and his body stiffened.

I didn’t wait to see what he was trying to do. Instead I closed the distance between us faster than I thought was possible and struck with Excalibur. As his head tumbled from his shoulders, I plunged my empty left hand through his chest plate and drew forth his Spirit without waiting for it come free as I had done with the other two Banes.

The empty husk of the Demon’s body slid off my clenched left fist as I sucked down the last bit of his Spirit. As the body fell away, I was surprised to note that I snatched the dark muscled mass of his heart from his chest. I stood there staring at the grisly thing. It was puny compared to my left palm.

I heard a strange rushing sound in my ears. I was near to bursting with Power.

Cerrydwen stood up from her crouch, her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Rusty, is that you?”

I barely heard her words over the pulsing, pounding rush coming from inside my own body, my own Spirit. “Of course it’s me, Cerrydwen. Who else would it be?”

Herne stood up from his position, barely able to stand. Other figures began to emerge from the woods behind him as well. Each person was someone I had known for sometime, but they all shared the same look of fear and awe that Jim had on his face when I last saw him.

Herne was the only who found his voice. “Rusty, you’ve changed.”

“Yeah, that other Bane, Arixtocles, damaged me a bit, I’m sure I’ll heal up in few moments.”

Cerrydwen shook her head, craning her head to look up at me even though she was standing straight. “It’s more than that, Rusty. Something you’ve done with the Spirits of those Banes has affected you more than you might realize.”

Something else was nagging at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t place it.

Ravyn’s voice called from behind me. “Herne, is everyone accounted for over there?”

Herne glanced around at the gathering crowd of survivors. “Did anyone see Kenny Smith?”

A War of Shadows...Part 4

2008-03-01T23:23:00.000-05:00

The Bane Arixtocles, still hovering about a foot off the ground, had turned his attention from the fallen Ravyn towards Jim and Alana Danae as they tried to come up behind him, each carrying strange looking firearms.

I was running towards the Bane as fast as I could, but I knew I wouldn’t get there in time.

I waved for Jim and Alana to get down and hurled Excalibur towards the Bane. The blade hurtled through air, twirling end over hilt in a blaze of magickal energies, scything towards the creature.

I saw Jim’s eyes grow wide with confusion and shock even as he hit the dirt. Alana had beaten him to the ground.

The Bane saw the hurtling sword in time to throw up one arm to deflect it with a blast of red energy, just as I had anticipated. The blade skittered off towards Jim, landing less than three feet to his left with the hilt vibrating as the blade stuck into the earth.

As the Bane turned to face me, I sent a whispered message towards Jim. “Don’t worry about me. Watch for your opportunity and strike with Excalibur.”

The Bane’s face lit up as he recognized me. “I’ve been waiting for you, human. I won’t be as gentle with you as I was with your fire-throwing friend over there. She might actually prove to be a useful diversion after I eliminate you.”

I slowed to a walk, but continued to shorten the distance between us. My hands were empty, so I opened and closed them reflexively.

“I think you are overestimating your strength, Bane. Even now, I am digesting on the Spirit of your brother, the Dragon.”

Arixtocles’ eyes narrowed. “Malaxifer was a fool. Besides, without that sword, you are no threat to me.”

I smiled. “We’ll see about that.”

He threw out his right hand towards me. As he did so, a huge blast of red energy erupted from his palm and blasted me in the chest.

I staggered under the searing onslaught but continued pressing forward, there was only a hundred feet between us now.

The energy tore at my body, shredding my skin.

The Bane laughed as he watched my reaction to his attack. “There will be nothing left of you, Human, when I am done. It will be as if you had never existed.”

Through my peripheral vision, I could see that Jim had pulled Excalibur from the ground and was making his way behind the Bane. I had to keep the thing distracted.

“Arixtocles, you think you have the power to stop me? Look, I am still coming for you. When I get there, I will feast on your Spirit.”

The Bane glared as he brought up his left hand and redoubled the size of the bolt of blazing red energy that he pouring into me. The bolt was tearing at the very fabric of my physical being. He was trying to vaporize my body.

I leaned forward into the blasting force of the massive beam. As quickly as my skin was dissolving, it was being replenished by the small wisps of Shadow that were constantly crawling around inside of me ever since Ma Grendel and I had been merged.

The Bane’s face contorted in a snarl as I continued to plod towards him, one step at a time. “How can your frail, man-made body resist my powers?” He threw his second had towards me, blasting out with a second bolt of energy. “I will incinerate you, Human!”

The power of this second effort forced me back and down to one knee. I stood back up through sheer force of Will and staggered forward. There was less than twenty feet between the Bane and I, Jim was almost equidistant. He needed more time. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to give it to him. My body was beginning to dissolve faster than the Shadow could repair it.

I lunged forward, but tripped on the carcass of a dead wolf. I landed in front of the Bane, face down and spread-eagle. The move surprised Arixtocles as well, providing my pet Shadows the briefest of badly needed moments to restore a fraction of what had been destroyed by his attacks.

I rolled over just in time to see Arixtocles smile in glee as he slipped forward to administer what he anticipated to be a death blow. As he brought his arms up to finish me, the business end of Excalibur erupted from his chest in a shower of black ichor and chaotic, destructive energies…

(To be continued next week)

A War of Shadows...Part 3

2008-02-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

The last thing I did before making the jump myself was to re-activate the obelisk with a quick touch and a simple command. That sealed the trap, preventing any of my unwitting victims from escaping back through the Shadowland.

There was a serene moment of silence as we all landed in the middle of the snow filled shallow clearing. That silence was shattered as a very surprised looking Dragon plummeted into the place where I had been standing. Without the weaker gravity and abundant magick of the Shadowland, the Dragon found that his bulk was too great to fly. He crashed snout first into the snow-covered ice of the small lake in the center of the depression with a thunderous roar.

The Demon, who had been charging towards me in the Shadowland, gave out a snarling yelp and dove to the side to avoid being crushed by the Dragon’s bulk. Several wolves and three Reavers were not so lucky.

Before the snow and ice thrown up by the Dragon’s impact could settle back to the ground, chaos erupted as volley after volley of bullets slammed into the scene. Herne’s troops had entered the fray. Each of the hundreds of rounds being firing into the clearing had been charged with magickal energy by my daughter Jasmine.

The bullets were working as advertised, the shadow wolves, Doppelgangers and Reavers were dropping like flies from the concentrated fire from the edge of the forest.

The Banes however, each seemed to be shaking off their momentary surprise and all had their own defenses against the barrage of bullets.

The Demon’s armor plating absorbed even the larger caliber bullets that had been directed him by Herne, but it didn’t stop him from showing his rage at having been caught in our trap. He leaped up after having dodged the fallen Dragon and took off a dead run towards the far edge of the clearing where Herne and Kenny had shown themselves as they pumped round after round towards him.

Arixtocles stood stock still, seemingly in serene meditation, but that was belied by the fact that he was surrounded by a glowing dome of energy that erupted in sparks each time a bullet meant for him exploded short of its target. Meanwhile, he scanned the edges of the forest and would direct a blast of sizzling red energy at the form of any target that presented itself to him.

The Dragon, however, was where my attention was focused. Most of the bullets pelting his hide were deflected by his thick metallic scales. Some rounds were getting through, but their impact seemed miniscule. The Dragon was more concerned with pulling its face and front legs from the debris of thick ice that it had shattered with its fall. It was arching its back and unfurling its wings in an attempt to pull free.

I couldn’t take the chance that a creature that massive got free, so I bolted towards the thing, Excalibur in hand.

A stray wolf lunged at me from the side, latching onto my right calf with its jaws, but I barely broke my stride. Instead, I lashed out with Excalibur, lopping off its head in one heavy stroke.

Just as the Dragon freed its head from the ice, I leapt up towards the base of its massive throat and plunged Excalibur in with both hands as far as I could. The blade practically sang with energy and excitement as it passed through the Dragon’s scales like a hot knife through butter.

The creature reared up in instant pain, pulling me up high into the air with it. I continued to push the blade deeper even as I redoubled my grip on the hilt. Black ichor gushed from the wound, coating my face and hands as the thing continued to thrash.

Bullets continued to thud into the beast, both above and below me. It was hard to tell if they were having any direct impact though as the Dragon already seemed to be in its death throes.

Gathering my Will even as I held on from being thrown to the side by the thrashing beast, I waited for the moment that I knew from Ma Grendel would come. She had hunted all manner of creatures in her eons of existence, including more than a few Banes. I had played back one of those memory fragments in my own head during these past few weeks. I had watched as she had inflicted a mortal wound on the living body of a Bane and had lain in wait to snatch the Spirit of the creature. There would be the briefest of windows where the normally indomitable Spirit of the victimized Bane would be vulnerable. It was that moment when I had to strike at the Spirit if I had any hopes of preventing any of these Banes from snatching the bodies from my allies and beginning the transition to new physical forms.

Like a great tree struck down by age or axe, the Dragon’s body began to sway as the life force within began to slip away. Excalibur had found its mark. As the body began to fall forward, I maintained my grip long enough to glimpse that moment when the Spirit of the Bane let loose from the physical form that it had invested so much energy in developing. That time came just moments before gravity was to impose its final will upon the body of this beast.

Reaching out with a tentacle of Shadow, I snared the stunned Spirit of Malaxifer before he could gain his bearings and pulled him in. As our bodies impacted yet again with the snow and ice of the clearing, I struggled to digest Malaxifer.

I don’t know how long my body lay prone in the snow because there was a titanic struggle taking place inside. Ma Grendel had the distinct advantages of having both the full command of her power and the experience of having consumed the spirits of thousands of victims. She also rather enjoyed the endeavor. I, however, had none of those traits. But I was desperate and determined to get back into the fight before any of my friends paid a mortal price for my inexperience.

Fueled by a burning desperation, I shoved Malaxifer past that internal wall I had made between myself and that innumerable horde of small, hungry predators that spoke to me in whispers, crying out their hunger. That horde descended upon the struggling Spirit of Malaxifer and tore his essence to pieces like a pack of piranha swarming a joint of beef.

Physically, I sat up and looked around just in time to come face to face with a pair of wounded, raving Reavers. Excalibur was still lodged deep in the throat of the Dragon’s carcass so I triggered my wrist sheaths and took them on with my batons. It wasn’t long before I left them as quivering piles of bone and flesh.

I dropped my right baton and reached up to pull Excalibur from the Dragon’s throat. As I did so, I glanced back towards where I had last seen Arixtocles.

An explosion of fire and thunder announced Ravyn’s engagement with him, his own red energy adding to the intense mix. Several bodies lay sprawled between the two of them, but I was unable to see whether they were those of friends or foes. I did manage to see Jim and Alana coming down from the edge of the woods behind the Bane, apparently trying to sneak up on him.

A great roar of triumph from the Demon caused me to snap my head around to the other side of the battle. I saw Kenny’s limp form being lifted in the air by the Demon and tossed to the side like a limp rag doll as the creature lashed out with his other massive claw towards Herne. Cerrydwen darted out from behind a nearby tree to place a battered and bloodied hand on the Demon’s left wing. The Demon howled in pain as that wing exploded in a blast of bone, black flesh and smoking ichor. Cerrydwen and the Demon were tossed in opposite directions by the blast.

I wanted nothing more than to rush to Kenny’s side to see if he was alright, but a second explosive blast from the direction of Arixtocles drew my attention back to that side of the battle. As the smoke cleared, I saw Ravyn’s form crumple to the ground.

Excalibur finally slid free from the Dragon’s corpse, just as I leaped up onto the beast and began running towards Arixtocles…

A War of Shadows...Part 2

2008-02-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Calling upon the Shadow to speed my travel, I breezed through the last three hundred yards of my journey. I emerged in a large clearing that was more of a shallow depression. Near the center of the roughly circular depression stood the obelisk that I had known would be waiting.

The obelisk rose from the center of the depression, its brooding dark presence dominating the space. A quick glance around the far perimeter of the clearing showed the brightly-hued Spirit forms of Herne’s assault team, over twenty strong in all. Herne was waiting in the center of the depression next to the obelisk. Next to him were Cerrydwen, Ravyn, Alana and Jim.

I reached out to touch Herne’s Spirit form. He flinched before recognizing my touch. “Damn, I’m glad that’s you Rusty. Our Spirit vision is blinded by this obelisk of yours.”

“Herne, there’s not much time to get ready, they will be here soon. I need your guys to get into place quickly. Did you bring the weapons we discussed?”

He nodded. “Yes, Jasmine has been very busy. We have enough weapons for everyone.”

“Good. Remember, don’t worry about me. I’m going to be in the crossfire but don’t let that stop anyone from firing. You guys are not going to have very much time before the surprise wears off. Oh yeah, keep an eye on the sky, I’m not sure what will happen to the Dragon when I activate the trap.”

Herne nodded again, but Ravyn spoke up first. “Rusty, how many Banes should we expect?”

I touched her shoulder, enjoying the shudder of a reaction caused by touching her Spirit form directly. “Three. Malaxifer the Dragon, Arixtocles the Wise and Kosferaxtu the Demon. Leave the last one for me, he’s the one who killed you at the Coop, he’s the most powerful. Now go, quickly. I need to activate the obelisk or this trap will be sprung before it ever begins.”

I didn’t have time to watch as they scrambled back up the far slope of the depression and into their positions. I had far too much to do in a very short time.

Instead, I reached out to touch the obelisk to activate our first line of defense.

In my travels through the Shadowland over the last few weeks, I had finally begun to reach the full potential of abilities and skills that Drake and John had envisioned bringing about in one person. I had also discovered additional abilities that neither one of them had planned.

The obelisk responded to my command readily. Deep inside it a small light began to growing, pulsing stronger and brighter with a regularity that reminded me of a heartbeat. Within moments it would be glowing so brightly that not even the Banes who would soon be here would be able to see the Spirit forms of my allies. This obelisk was a powerful beacon that would serve to effectively blind anyone nearby in the Shadowland from being able to peer into the real world. There was no corresponding tower in the real world, but the corresponding depression in the real world was a small lake that was noted for the healing power of its water in the brief Alaskan summer. In the dead of winter, like now, it was frozen solid.

The howling of the pursuing pack ended as the first wolves streamed from the dark of the forest into the bright light of the obelisk. They circled me, staying close to the forest edge, almost as if they feared to come too close to the pulsing white light of the tower.

I reached up and grabbed the hilt of Excalibur. Before drawing the blade though, I gathered myself and exerted the control over it that I had developed in the last few weeks. It hadn’t been easy, but I had finally imposed my Will on this unruly, independent-minded blade. I felt the blade respond to my grip, both physically and spiritually.

Even as I drew Excalibur, I was working on the last task that needed to be completed before the enemy arrived in full force. Using every ounce of concentration I could spare from controlling my sword, I quietly called the Shadow up into me through my feet. I silently reached out with tendrils of Shadow to the ancient trees surrounding this clearing, imploring them to lend me their strength. As each individual tree acknowledged me and responded, the secret net that I was weaving grew stronger and tighter.

After the wolves, dozens of Reavers crashed out into the open, shambling forward into the light, unconcerned about their already decaying bodies. Each Reaver held a weapon of some sort, ranging from large lawn tools to actual swords and axes. A few carried rifles or shotguns, but many of those were carried more like clubs than as firearms.

I could feel the Banes drawing closer, but the only one that I could see was Malaxifer the Dragon. His massive silhouette was just barely visible over the tree line, but only because of the massive amount of light being thrown off by the obelisk. The other two Banes were coming closer, but were still hidden by the forest.

Despite their clear agitation, the wolves continued to circle the edges of the clearing. The Reavers moved in closer, but not close enough to be of any threat, at least not yet. None of these lesser creatures were willing to face me without the help or motivation of a Bane. I had slain dozens of the wolves in the last couple of weeks, slaughtering whole packs that had come too close. Reavers and Doppelgangers had also felt the bite of Excalibur of late.

I continued building the hidden web of Shadow even as I stood facing the growing crowd of enemies. ‘Damn, this plan better work or this is going to get ugly.’

Watching the numbers of wolves, Reavers and Doppelgangers build, I began to worry about whether or not Herne had brought enough firepower to have a chance at winning this battle. That concern only grew stronger as Kosferaxtu’s massive frame emerged from the forest. He stood over eight feet tall, but seemed even larger with his huge black wings sprouting from his back and his massively muscled frame. His skin was entirely black, very shiny and as hard as obsidian. His glowing yellow eyes bore down on me as soon as emerged from the shadows of the forest. He pointed on of his massive claws towards me and issued his challenge in the ancient language of the An’girasii, his voice booming throughout the clearing.

“Puny man-thing, your time is over! I will crush you and throw your broken body to my slaves.”

I saluted him with Excalibur and stood my ground. “Come Demon, if you dare! I will be glad to add your name to my tally of fallen foes!”

That challenge angered him as I hoped that it would. I needed all three Banes to get within range of the web that I had set up.

Before the Demon could do more than shake his clawed fist at me, Arixtocles followed him into the clearing. This was my first time seeing this Bane in person. He had retained a very human visage. He was at least seven feet tall, but very thin. His face resembled the image I had of Confucius in my mind—Asian eyes and complexion, long, thin white beard and white hair. He was wearing long white robes and carried an elaborately carved staff of some black material.

His voice was calm and measured when he spoke to his fellow Bane and me. “Relax dear Kosferaxtu, he cannot escape us now. We have heard of your exploits, Mr. Bones, but as impressive as they have been to date, even you shall not be able to face the combined might of three of the mightiest Banes. You should have fled while you still could.”

I could sense that Arixtocles was weaving some spell of his own as he spoke, but I was too wrapped up in my own to be able to tell what exactly he was trying to do. I needed to keep them talking long enough for the Dragon to get in range.

“So, the two of you are the mightiest Banes that serve the An’girasii?”

The Demon stomped and snorted before responding. “I am the mightiest Bane. You fled from me before, but I shall not let you escape this time, whelp!”

Both the Demon and Arixtocles continued to move closer as we spoke. The Demon’s steps thundered. Each footprint trailed tendrils of smoke as soon as his foot lifted form the ground. Arixtocles glided forward, his feet never seemingly touching the ground, his legs unmoving as he traveled inches about the dark earth of the Shadowland. As they advanced, the wolves and the Reavers made their own tentative advances on either side of the two imposing figures.

From behind the two advancing Banes, a group of figures emerged from the woods. From their very quick, intense movements, I could tell that these were Doppelgangers, but they had taken the forms of human-like warriors. Each was sheathed in shiny black armor and carried wicked looking scimitars in each hand.

The Dragon’s pride must have been tweaked by the Demon’s claim at supremacy because his voice roared from above as his massively scaled body swooped in from over the forest, smoke trailing from his mouth as he belched out his own claim.

“I, Malaxifer, am the mightiest of the Banes, puny human! It is I who shall end this battle before it ever begins!”

The Demon roared his own challenge and rushed forward as soon as he saw that the Dragon was diving towards me.

I smiled. The An’girasii apparently liked to foster competition among their chief servants, which I had been able to manipulate to my advantage. Or at least it would if my crazy plan worked.

As long as the obelisk was showering this place with its powerful light, I was not going to be able to call upon the Shadow with enough strength to make my spell worked. Holding Excalibur forth with my right hand, I reached out with my left to touch the tower. With a simple command, the light switched off like a bulb going out, plunging the area into darkness.

The Dragon continued his dive, smoke and fire trailing his open jaws and barreled toward me at the base do the tower. The Demon was brushing aside his lesser servants as thundered toward me at a dead run. Only Arixtocles hung back as he appeared to mumbling his own spell, his eyes closed.

Calling the Shadow with all of my Will, the web of Shadow sprung from the edges of the forest, coving the clearing with a dome of darkness. By calling upon the ancient trees of the surrounding forest and amplifying their power with my own, I was able to create a portal between the Shadowland and the real world that encompassed the entire clearing. With a twist of my Will, everyone and everything in the clearing, except for the obelisk, shimmered and was transported from that world of darkness into the world light and life…

A War of Shadows...Part 1

2008-02-03T10:02:00.000-05:00

The Shadowland whizzed by in a blur of grey and black images as I slowed a move fast trot. It was proving difficult to move too quickly through this stretch of wilderness since thick, twisted and very substantial trees existed both in the Shadowland and in the real world.

John had once told me that this only happed in the oldest of forests. “As trees age, their spirits strengthen, expanding their presence beyond the world of light to the land of shadow. It is almost as if their essence transfers slowly from one world to the next once they reach the height of their majesty. In some places in the Shadowland there are majestic, towering trees where there is now nothing but fields or cement roads in the world of the living. But alas, over time, those forests fade away in the Shadowland as well once the living trees have been gone long enough.”

My guess was that this stretch of Alaskan wilds hadn’t been significantly touched by Man for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

The howling of my pursuers grew louder, likely both because they were drawing closer and because their numbers were growing. If I didn’t pick up the pace soon, they would be upon me.

I tapped my forearms for reassurance, making sure that my batons were securely in place. Excalibur was practically humming in its sheath, eager to be called upon, but I continued to ignore the blade. I didn’t want to make it that easy for my pursuers to find me.

I pushed deeper into the tangled mass of branches as I wondered how much further it was to my destination. It was going to be a close call as to whether or not I would be able to beat my pursuers to it. If I didn’t win this race, things were going to become very unpleasant.

It wasn’t the shadow wolves that concerned me, but their masters…

***

“Rusty, you got a minute?” Herne’s face was showing the strain of several weeks of stress.

“Yeah, Herne, what’s up?”

He nodded and took my left arm by the elbow. “Come walk with me.”

I allowed him to guide me deeper into the Bat Cave, through the control room and towards the privacy of the small library that had been designated for command-level meetings. It was one of the few places where people weren’t bunked down.

Once we were in the library, he closed the door. I was surprised to see that we weren’t alone in the cramped space. Ravyn, Cerrydwen, the Frau, Alan and Jim had been waiting for us.

“What’s going on?” I was extremely curious about the need for a seemingly secret command meeting.

Everyone remained silent until the door clicked shut and Herne threw the bolt into place to lock us in. He was the first to break the silence. “Rusty, we think that our enemies have found a way to track some of our away parties through the Shadowland.”

This was a new development. “What makes you think that? I didn’t think that was even possible.”

Cerrydwen answered. “No one did. But the evidence is beginning to mount that El Diablito or the An’girasii themselves have found a way.”

Herne nodded. “On the last supply run, Jordan, one of Alana’s students, heard the sounds of what seemed to be wolves of some sort as soon as they entered the Shadowland to make their way back here. Jordan was smart enough not to lead them here, but led them off towards Canada before going to ground back in the real world. Once he could, he called for help. I just got back from that mission myself. I took a few of the security team with me. We ended up hitting a pack of shadow wolves that kept hanging around where Jordan and his crew had left the Shadowland. One of the creatures only looked like a wolf when we hit them. It was really a Doppelganger. It managed to jump one of the men in all of the confusion and escape.”

“Shit. So if they can track us in the Shadowland, it may only be a matter of time before they manage to track us back to the Bat Cave here.”

The Frau nodded, her eyes showing her concern. “That’s why we wanted to have this meeting in private. We’ve suspended all travel in and out until we can figure out the danger those trips are actually posing and how seriously they are looking for us.”

Ravyn was the next to speak. “Right now, Rusty, you’re going to be the only one we allow to travel in and out. We are also wondering how willing you would be serving as a decoy? I know how much you enjoy getting yourself into trouble.” She gave her most impish grin as she finished, knowing that I would take the bait.

I could see the logic of their thinking and nodded. “Well, if they are looking for any of us more than the others, I would certainly be the main target. But I am also the one best equipped to face any kind of attack as well.”

Cerrydwen’s eyes narrowed as she stepped forward to speak. “You are most familiar with the Shadowland and its strange rules. If you were willing to go out and wreak some havoc on a couple of their strongholds and make a lot of ‘noise’, it might attract the attention of whatever forces they have looking for our away parties.”

Herne folded his arms across his chest. “And, if you found that there was some basis for our concerns about being tracked, we would like to see about setting up an ambush…”

***

I had spent the better part of a week stomping around the Shadowland and the real world, stirring up trouble in a number of places. In that week, I had doubled back and slain the wolves that had picked up my trail on at least three different occasions. But it only took a few hours after each battle for a new, larger pack to catch my scent and begin the hunt anew. The pack that both trailed and flanked me now must comprise at least twenty individuals.

This pack, though, was not only larger and better organized than the last couple, but it was smarter. This pack wasn’t comprised solely of shadow wolves. There was some thing, or a group of things, that were just behind the wolves. I could feel it, them, there driving the wolves on.

I pushed on through the forest of giant black trees knowing that my allies lay in wait ahead…

***

Once I had confirmed that the wolves were indeed able to track me in the Shadowland and that there was a concerted effort to do so, I slipped back into the real world to make a phone call.

“Yeah?” Herne’s voice was gruff.

“It’s me. I’ve been tracked twice now. I’ve eliminated the wolves each time, but a new pack takes over within hours for the ones I kill.”

He grunted. “So our worst fears have been confirmed. Are you prepared to move forward with the plan as we discussed?”

“Yes. I’ll see you at the rendezvous point in three days time.”

“Are you going to be able to stay ahead of them?” There was concern in his voice as he asked that question.

“I’ll be fine. Both Drake and John taught me well. Just be ready for the party when I get there, I intend to bring as many of to the event as I can find.”

***

My destination was only a few hundred yards ahead. My pursuers seemed to sense the coming climax as well—the howls grew louder and more insistent. The pack behind and around me had grown in the last hour as well. I could sense the presence of at least one Bane and had glimpsed a group of Reavers out of the corner of my eye. I could only presume that several Doppelgangers had joined the pack as well.

As soon as I emerged onto the trail that Herne had told me would be there, I picked up the pace and gained a few valuable seconds in my quest to beat the enemy to the rendezvous point. I just hope that Herne had been able to get everyone into place in time…

Forgiveness

2008-01-26T12:34:00.000-05:00

(The events of this post take place several weeks after the events of the previous post—sorry, but some events must remain hidden for reasons of operational security.)

I stepped from Shadow into the quiet darkness of the pre-dawn wilderness just outside of our hidden haven. Inside my head, though, it was anything but quiet. Dark whispering voices cried out, expressing their hunger, their pain.

After four weeks of constant forays to locate and retrieve stragglers the Bat Cave was bursting at the seams with people. There were very few areas where there weren’t any cots or sleeping mats laid out for ORC’s or their family members. The Frau had been working hard to find each and every person as much space and privacy as the cramped quarters could provide, but even she couldn’t cast a spell that would create enough space for the nearly four hundred survivors that had been assembled.

I needed an opportunity to be alone with my thoughts and to deal with shattered remnants of those dark spirits that remained inside with me. Their voices had become too loud to ignore, too dangerous for those I cared about to be around me. But those chances had been few and far between of late. That was especially true since our latest raid on the headquarters of Bone Financial had stirred up El Diablito and his allies again.

Ravyn had been the impetus behind that raid—she felt it was vital that we inflict a little damage and inconvenience on our enemies. It had been wildly successful, but retribution against our few remaining agents and allies that hadn’t been hit in the first series of attacks had been swift and severe.

My hard-soled boots crunched on the stony ground of the hillside. Even the thick layer of pine needles and low grasses couldn’t keep my steps from scraping loudly in the stillness of the pre-dawn darkness. But the clamoring inside of those dark souls almost kept me from hearing my own steps.

The air was probably cold at this time, but I couldn’t feel it. I never have to breathe unless I need to say something, but even if I did my breath wouldn’t bring about any steam since my body generates no warmth. Extremely cold temperatures used to affect my inner workings, when I still needed the infusions of sugared soda pop to keep me operating, but ever since my encounter with Ma Grendel, flushing and gushing was no longer necessary—small residual bits of her life essence had fused with my body, providing all of the energy I would ever need to keep working. That same dark energy also healed my body of any wounds I suffered, usually within minutes, depending on how severe the blow had been.

Those things came with a price, however. While I had gained a number of powers and abilities over the Shadow and a huge host of memories from Ma Grendel, I had also inherited a darker side. Most of the time, I was able to control the urges, the hungers, or those evil little voices deep inside, but the more people that I was around for extended periods of time, the more those voices were able to play on my own innate insecurities and darker moods. With the Bat Cave as cramped as it was for the last month or so, I was getting dangerously close to snapping and doing some things that I would’ve regretted.

I turned uphill and began trudging to the summit of the hill, towards the Sacred Circle that mirrored the exact placement of the obelisk in the Shadowland.

Each obelisk was unique, but they all shared some powers. One of those shared powers was that no one, no matter how skilled or powerful in their use of magick, could locate one through the use of magick. Just like Drake had been, each obelisk was invisible to detection through any kind of magick.

John had told me that the obelisk was located at the top of this particular mountain, but that it could only bee seen in the Shadowland. I had to discover for myself though that the thing wouldn’t let anyone or anything approach it within the Shadowland. Even with the amulet that allowed us to use the transportation chamber below, it blocked all approaches to itself within the Shadowland itself.

The closest that I had been able to get to it within the Shadowland was a few hundred yards from the summit where it stood. It stood there in the distance, a towering pillar of obsidian stone that simply radiated power like a radio tower in the real world. It was easily a hundred feet tall and forty feet in diameter at the bottom. It narrowed gradually, coming to a point well above the nearest trees. Even at the distance I had been from it, I had been able to make out strangely glowing and moving runes that appeared at seemingly random points on the obelisk before they shifted shapes and positions, like a foreign language neon sign in Times Square.

I had tried every trick I knew of moving about in the Shadowland, including flying, but I could never approach closer than three or four football fields to it.

So I gave up on approaching the thing within the Shadowland and had decided to hike to the summit. I needed the time alone anyway.

Herne had simply nodded and clapped me on the shoulder when I told him I was going. “Good, you need to get away for a bit.”

“Have I been that bad?”

He nodded. “You nearly took that kids head off last night when he bumped into you. Go, recharge your batteries.”

I shook my head as I walked away. “If only it was that damn simple.” But Herne was right. I had spun around and raised my arm to strike before I even realized it when that kid of fifteen had barreled into me trying to escape his friend. He had gone completely pale as he realized who he crashed into and what I had been about to do.

The kid had stammered his apologies, but I was lost in my own world of dark whispers and a sudden hunger to exact revenge. Luckily for both of us, Cerrydwen had been passing by and rushed over to get between us. She, of all the people I knew, understood the darkness that lay inside of me.

She placed her left hand on my raised fist and spoke softly to me. “Easy, Rusty. Let it go.”

Her simple presence and her quiet reassurances brought me back to the moment. “Damn. What the hell was I going to do?”

She turned to the boy and waved him away. “Go on Darren, Rusty knows it was accident. He accepts your apology. Why don’t you and your friend there head to the library? I’m sure the Frau could use some of your energy to get that place organized better.”

Darren had nodded and ducked out of the hallway, glad to be away from me.

It only took about thirty minutes to reach the crown of the mountain from where I had come out of the Shadow, but in that time the first sliver of morning sunlight had begun to lighten the eastern horizon. The mountain was not particularly tall, but it was tallest of the nearby peaks. Even so, the summit was still crowned with smaller pine trees that leaned to the east from the constant wind. There was one wide area, however, that was barren of all growth. It was a circular patch of ground about sixty feet in diameter, with an inner circle about forty feet in diameter that was clearly marked out by deliberately placed stones, each no larger than a closer fist. The inside of the smaller circle was barren, hard-packed dirt, except for in the very center. In the center was a small set of larger rocks that formed the edge of a fire pit.

I recognized the spot immediately as the exact place where the obelisk stood in the Shadowland. By entering the circle of smaller stones, a person would be simultaneously inside the Shadow of the obelisk and in a place of power.

John had indicated that this place had been sacred to each of the various tribes of Native Americans who had controlled this land, that this was a place that shamans and warriors had come to participate in vision quests without ever knowing of the existence of the obelisk in the Shadowland that stood in that very spot.

As I approached the circle, I could feel the power of this place. The dark whispering inside my head reached a crescendo as they objected to my coming here, crying out in fear and pain, but I pushed them away and crossed the threshold. As soon as I did, they stopped as if a switch had been thrown.

I signed in relief as my mind was finally as quiet and peaceful as the outer world around me. I was alone with my own thoughts and just my own inner voice for the first time in weeks. I knew it had been bad, but now in the total absence of their hounding, I realized just how loud and obnoxious they had become. I needed to come here far more often.

As the eastern sky continued to brighten, I moved to the center of the circle near the fire pit. In the distance I heard the sharp, piercing cry of an angle soaring high above on the warming currents. Glancing up, I saw the majestic bird as it circled high above me before continuing on its own journey.

I smiled to myself and sat down. “Thanks, John. I needed this.”

I felt a tremendous welling of emotion as I thought back to all that John Red Bear had done and all that he had sacrificed for the greater good in a battle that had never been his to fight.

For the first time since I learned of his dealings with Drake, I found myself truly able to forgive him. Now that the dark voices within had been silenced, even if only for a short while, I could begin to appreciate all that he had given up to help Drake bring me to this point of self-realization.

The sun finally rose above the peaks to the east, shining gloriously on the verdant greens and deep rich browns of this magnificent land. I could feel the cleansing burn of the sunlight on my mostly artificial skin as it washed over me. The shadowy spiritual remnants of Ma Grendel and her thousands of victims cringed quietly, hiding deep within the cracks of my flawed and all-too-human Spirit.

This beautiful, peaceful feeling was better than almost anything that I had ever experienced while I had been alive.

"This...I say...This Means War!!!"

2008-01-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

Jim, Ravyn and I stepped from the Shadow into the shadow of the enormous oak tree in the southwestern corner of Jim’s backyard.

The night was dark, since the sliver of the waning moon was obscured by thick, low hanging clouds. It was a quiet, quaint neighborhood of faculty and administrator’s homes for the nearby college. A dog barked in the distance, but not at us.

Jim looked pensive as peered through the night towards his darkened home. “I don’t see any damage.” He was whispering as he leaned forward.

Ravyn nodded, her hands clenching the cuffs of her sweatshirt to keep herself from calling fire out of habit. “I doubt they were worried about the outside of your house, Jim.” She kept her voice to a low whisper as well.

I reached out and touched each of them on the shoulders as I leaned towards them. “I’ll pop inside to get a quick look around. I want you guys to stay here.” I looked directly to Ravyn. “Keep a sharp eye out, but try to burn the neighborhood down, will ya?”

She gave me a withering look before leaning back against the trunk of the tree. “Be careful, Rusty. Let us know as soon as you find anything.”

I nodded and glanced over to Jim. “Do you want my sword again? Just in case?”

He swallowed hard before shaking his head. “No. You keep it. You might need it in there.”

I stepped back and summoned the Shadow.

***

Once in the Shadowland, I took a moment to examine the area for any foes unique to that realm before moving towards Jim’s house.

The only Spirits of note besides Jim and Ravyn were those of an alley cat and the rat it was stalking.

I slipped up to the porch and then through the wall next to the door. The house, like most real world constructions was no more substantial than a shimmering mirage. It was substantial enough to block out my view from outside of anyone or anything that might be hanging out inside, but I passed through the wall like a proverbial ghost.

As I did so, I thought back to the war council that had taken place only a few hours before…

***

“So, it is decided then.” Herne’s voice carried an air of easy authority. “We will send out teams to find surviving ORC’s and associate members and either bring them back here or give them the resources to go to safely into hiding until they are needed.”

Ravyn leveled her gaze at each member of the council before she spoke. “And it has been decided that Herne will be our Commander in this struggle. He’ll be in charge as far as security goes in this facility. The Frau will serve as Steward, handling the daily operations and directing. Jim will remain as Treasurer, handling all of our finances. Alana will be our Spokesperson and handle our computer network. I’m sure that each of these folks will have our unconditional support and assistance, however it is needed.”

“I appreciate the honor.” Herne nodded towards Ravyn as he spoke. “I still think that Ravyn should have accepted the mantle of overall leader, but I understand her reasons for not doing so.”

Ravyn had rejected all titles or positions of authority that the group had wanted to bestow on her, stating that for her this struggle was now far too personal. She had argued that the only true leader of the ORC’s was Alexa, when she was ready for that position and that the Frau would be a far better Steward than she would ever be. No one had been able to persuade her otherwise. Instead, she insisted that her skills would be better used in the classroom to teach the younger ORC’s how to use their powers more offensively and on the battlefield, when needed.

Herne looked from Ravyn to me. “Now that this essential business of leadership has been resolved, we have some additional business. Rusty, I believe that you had something you wanted to tell us about this facility and how it came to exist?”

I stepped forward and told the tale of how Drake and John Red Bear had been secret allies for decades. I also explained how this facility had been a Cold War relic that had become more or less obsolete after the fall of the Berlin Wall and had been mothballed by the military. John had come to learn of the now abandoned facility in what was considered the sacred lands of the Black Hills of South Dakota and that it was safely tucked away in a little visited area of a National Forest Park. He had known that Drake was looking for a safe haven in the United States. Working together with Zulu and through the Bureau, Drake had managed to have the deed to the facility transferred first over to the Department of Justice and then the Bureau and finally was handed over to Drake personally as the Director of the Omega Project. It was then made to disappear from all government records by careful redaction and deletion over a period of many years. Drake had assured me that there was no known remaining reference to this facility ever having existed.

The faces of John’s closest friends among the ORC’s showed the same sense of betrayal and sadness that I had felt.

Ravyn’s eyes glowed with anger, her jaw set as she clenched her teeth. “How did John fool all of us for so long?”

The Frau’s face showed more concern than anger. “If Drake and John were allies all this time, why did John allow himself to be killed by Drake’s servant in Miami?”

Anger flashed in Cerrydwen’s eyes, her voice quivered with rage. “Why? Why the ruse?” She threw her hands up in anger. “I don’t know. There are too many unknowns here. I don’t know that we can really trust this place for too long.”

I held up my hand to the group. “Look, I know how difficult this news is. It has taken me awhile to come to terms with it myself. I didn’t believe any of this until I spoke with John himself. He confirmed Drake’s tale, for the most part, and provided additional details that Drake wasn’t aware of. John had his reservations about the way Drake went about creating me. He honestly cared about each of you and the work that you all did as ORC members. His biggest regret was that he couldn’t be fully honest with any of us.” I looked directly at the Frau. Her question needed a direct answer. “As to why John allowed himself to be killed as part of this whole charade, he freelanced that without Drake’s knowledge. John did that place himself fully within the Spirit World and to work with secret allies that even Drake didn’t know existed at the time.” I looked down to the floor as I shuffled a boot over the hard stone of the floor. “I can’t say that I agree with John that it needed to be done that way, but after meeting with him this last time, I can understand why he did what he did. Ravyn, Zenny, did you guys find a set of ten or so matched pendants in the vault?”

Zenny nodded. “Yes, we did. I could tell that they were items of power, but they resisted my attempts to discover what they do.”

“I’m not surprised. Those amulets are tied in with a very powerful obelisk that is located on the summit of the mountain that this facility is located inside of, but the obelisk itself can only be seen in the Shadowland. It is an ancient artifact that controls who and what can travel through the Shadowland in this area. Those pendants give their bearers the ability to use a special transportation chamber that is hidden inside this facility. I can show you guys how to use them so that we can get people in and out of here without being seen. The obelisk prevents anyone who doesn’t have one of these charms from using the Shadowland to come anywhere near here.”

Herne’s eyes narrowed. “So how did you open a portal inside, Rusty?”

I reached inside my shirt and pulled out my amulet. “Drake retrieved one of these when he took control of my body. He also spent considerable time in getting this place ready to receive us. That’s why the food is all fresh and the technology is as current as it is.”

***

There was a chaotic energy swirling throughout that was immediately noticeable as I entered Jim’s house through the Shadowland. I flexed my hands, dropping my batons down into my palms as I looked about at the disarray of the items in the house. Summoning the Shadow again, I slipped back into the real world to get a better look around.

Whoever had been here had spent a lot of time tearing the place up. Every bookshelf had been toppled. Every drawer and cupboard had been opened and emptied. The place was a disaster zone. I stood stock still as I listened for any sounds of life or other trouble, but I heard nothing.

I walked to the door and pulled it open, pushing debris with it as I did so. I waved an arm towards Ravyn and Jim before heading towards the stairwell that led upstairs where Kenny usually slept in the guest room.

I intended to slowly move up the stairs, but the shadow of a prone body lay stretched across the threshold to the second floor. I pounded up the stairs with a reckless abandon. “Kenny!”

Ravyn and Jim were just coming in the back door as I reached the top and saw that the body was not that of Kenny, but was instead the decaying form of what might have been a doppelganger. A small voice called out from the guest room. “Is that you, Dad?”

“Kenny! Are you alright?” I stepped over the corpse, noting that it was wearing the uniform of a local cop.

Kenny emerged from the shadows clutching a small, silver handgun. It was pointed in my direction, but not with any kind of conviction. “Dad!” He brought the gun down to his side and moved towards me. “I had to do it. I had to shot that guy! They were trying to take me away!”

I held him in my arms, trying to soothe him. “It’s OK, Kenny. I’m glad you shot him, he wasn’t a real cop. It was a creature that would have killed or hurt you.”

He was shaking as I held him, sobbing.

I heard Jim cursing down below as he began to survey the damage done to his home.

Ravyn eased her way up the steps to join us. “Kenny, do you have anything that you need to collect? We can’t wait around long. We’ll take you to your mom and your sister. They’re both OK.”

Kenny nodded as he disengaged from me. He looked down at the gun in his right hand as he wiped away tears and snot with his left hand. “Jazz gave me this gun, Dad. It was one of the guns in your old collection. She told me that I should carry it with me and that she had done something to the bullets so that they could hurt some of the creatures you had been fighting.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “That was good thinking on her part. I’m not a big fan of guns, but I’m glad you had it when it was needed. Let’s get your things and get out of here.”

Jim was still cursing when the three of came down to collect him. He looked up from the debris field near his desk as we entered the office area. He shook his fist at the sky and called out in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice. “This…I say…this means war!”

Starting over...

2008-01-04T23:29:00.000-05:00

…is never easy.

The band of ORC’s that arrived in the Bat Cave was a tired, wounded, ragged bunch of shell-shocked survivors. The assault by El Diablito’s forces and An’girasii allies had come as a total surprise. Every ORC safe house, stronghold and academy across the United States had been hit in some way on the same night. All told, hundreds ORC members and students had been slain; dozens more were badly injured or missing.

By the time the final tally of escapees and survivors was taken—several days later—fewer than three hundred full fledged members and associates of the ORC’s survived that deadly night. The last census prior to that deadly night had put the membership rolls at just over a thousand members and associates. Forty of those survivors came with me to the Bat Cave.

After a close inspection by Cerrydwen, Ravyn or myself, I created a portal of Shadow that established a link between El Diablito’s dark tower in the Shadowland and another place of relative darkness—the entrance hall to the Bat Cave.

The hall was actually a natural cavern that had been worked on and expanded extensively by the military in the early part of the Cold War. The hall was easily wide and smooth enough for two vans to pass in opposite directions and long enough to hold a whole caravan of vehicles—in fact several aging but otherwise non-descript vehicles were parked along one of the walls facing the opposite direction. They were facing a set of heavy metal blast doors that opened to the outside world. I knew from Drake though that those doors were concealed from casual observation by what appeared to be a storage facility for salt for local highways.

Looking ahead, our way into the Bat Cave itself was barred by a smaller, but equally formidable set of steel doors that were secured both by lock and key and by a combination key pad set bear the handle of the left door.

Between the keys Drake had sent to Ravyn and the combination codes that I had memorized, we were able to open the doors to the incredible refuge that Drake and John Red Bear had secretly spent nearly four decades creating.

Beyond that sealed door was a decommissioned underground military base that was easily large enough to house several hundred people. The facility was comprised of several sections. It was also fully stocked with food and water. But the true bounty of the Bat Cave was found deep inside, beyond the living quarters. The Command Center was a fully operational, if slightly outdated control room full of computers and communications equipment. The Inner Sanctum was even more amazing as it included a vault that held the hundreds of weapons and other items of power that Drake had taken or acquired through his existence.

The Frau, Ravyn and Herne quickly took control of situation.

The Frau immediately drafted most of the able-bodied folks and began to set up a sick ward in one of the larger rooms in the dormitory part of the complex. She gently clucked out her orders to those that could carry them out while she coddled those who were still too shocked to act independently just yet. Moira, though wounded herself, helped out.

Ravyn, Cerrydwen and Zenny Al Farhan had set up shop inside the vault as they began to identify and catalog the surprising large cache of weapons and items that Drake had amassed.

Herne, the Professor, and the pretty gal from the San Diego Circle, Alana Danae, began the process of firing up the computers and communications equipment in the Command Center. Between Herne’s intimate knowledge of the military, the Professor’s computer tech skills and Alana’s expertise in software and network systems, they had the place humming to life in no time.

As everyone else set down to the task of getting the Bat Cave up and running, I finally had time to search out my ex-wife Katherine and our daughter, Jasmine. Katherine was sporting an improvised sling for her left arm, which had been broken in the initial struggle at the Coop, but she was still one of the people helping the Frau to tend to others. Jasmine appeared to be physically unharmed, but her nerves had been badly shaken.
I had come up from behind Jasmine and touched her gently on the shoulder. “Jazz, are you alright?”

She flinched at my touch, but whirled around for a fierce hug when she heard my voice. “Dad!” She was sobbing. “I was so scared!”

“I know, honey. I wish you never had to experience that.” I put my hand on the bottom of her chin to get her to look into my eyes. “Did anyone hurt you?”

She swallowed hard, her gaze glazing over as she looked through me rather than at me. “I…I…think I killed someone, Dad, with my…my…magick.”

“Was it someone who was trying to harm you?”

She nodded. “One of those shape-shifter things grabbed me from behind, it looked like Mom at first, but it just didn’t feel right. The eyes didn’t look right, so when it tried to take me away from the others, I pushed it away. I saw it’s face change for just a moment. I was so scared. When it grabbed for me again, I just sort of felt the magick flow through me. I killed it with a blast of lightning from my hand.” She was looking down at her right hand. Her fingertips were still blackened by soot. “I just did what Mistress Fyre had taught me to do.”

I nodded and pulled her close in another hug. “It’s alright, Jazz. Those things aren’t really people. They’re monsters. That thing would have probably taken you away and stolen your memories before killing you. You did the right thing.”

Katherine stood watching me console our daughter. She gave me a tight little smile and small nod of approval before giving me that look that she had always given when she wanted to talk, in private.

I disengaged from Jasmine and pointed her towards where the Frau was. “Jazz, do you think that you can go see if the Frau needs any help? Sometimes you just need to stay busy to keep from thinking of nasty things like the attack for awhile. We’ll have more time to talk later.” I gave her a pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure Ravyn will be very proud that you were able to summon and control that kind of energy.”

As Jasmine shuffled off to go help the Frau, Katherine and I took a small walk back out into the large area where we had first come in, the garage area.

“Thanks, Jason, Jasmine needed that from you.”

I nodded. “It was the least that I could do. Has anyone heard from Kenny?”

Her face tightened up. This was why she wanted to talk to me. “No. He was away at school. I don’t know if he is safe or not. Can you try to find him?”

I nodded. “As soon as I can make sure this place as safe as it seems and Herne and Ravyn give me the all clear signal, I’ll go check on him. I think he’ll be safe enough at that school since it didn’t have anything to do with the ORC’s.”

Katherine didn’t look very reassured. “I don’t know, Jason, the Professor teaches there and I know that Kenny often stays at his house when the Prof is away. He could be in all sorts of danger.”

I reached out and grabbed her healthy hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “I’m worried too. If he’s in danger or has been harmed in any way, I will find out and get him to safety. You can count on that.”

She squeezed my hand hard. “I know, Jason. I have faith in you. I better go see if my help is needed inside.” She released my hand and went back to the infirmary.

I made my way back to the Command Center.

Herne looked up from a monitor as I walked into the room. The previously quiet room was not a hub of beeping, buzzing, and chattering activity.

“Rusty, come check this out. This stuff looks vintage but it was top of the line equipment not that long ago.”

I walked over to stand behind him. The monitor was an older clunker, with a resolution level that would’ve given me a headache if I had actually had any optical nerves left to be irritated.

Despite its age and its low level of resolution, it was clearly accessing the internet. Herne had pulled up a newswire service.

“It looks like there is a strong PR campaign going on to characterize the ORC’s as some sort of New Age death cult. All of the news agencies have picked up on the various attacks, although the attacks aren’t being depicted as attacks at all, but as some sort of suicide pact.” He looked up at me. “They’ve got to have agents in the government and maybe even the Bureau to have tied all of this up so neatly so quickly.”

The Professor sat at another workstation with his own unique laptop that had somehow survived our bizarre journey. Alana was standing behind him, a look of concern on her face.

Jim looked up form his computer. “They’ve acted very quickly to shut down all of our corporate accounts as well—none of my attempts to access any of them have been successful.”

That reminded me of something else Drake had given me. I pulled out a small notebook that Drake had used to record several account numbers and passwords for the off-shore accounts that he had held in reserve. I held it out towards Jim. “Try looking up these accounts. I think you will find that we’ll have the financial resources to put up one hell of a fight.”

He nodded and took the notebook.

Within minutes, he had logged into the first of the accounts. He whistled in appreciation. “Yeah, there’s more money in this account alone than the ORC’s have ever had in all of our other accounts. It’s a Swiss account too, so we will have absolute privacy with what we do with it. I can make this work quite well.”

I watched as Herne bounced from website to website checking out all of the stories about the attacks. El Diablito and his allies had done a very thorough job of destroying and discrediting the ORC’s.

Ravyn and Zenny soon joined us, notebook in hand. They had heard some of the news already from Herne before. Ravyn’s face was quite grim.

“Rusty, we’ll need to have an executive council meeting as soon as the Frau has seen to the last of the wounded. We’re going to need to take stock of who’s here and what resources we have at our disposal. I think we’ll want to gather as many of our members and associates to us as possible, but we’ll have to screen anyone we bring back to ensure that we aren’t bringing any Doppelgangers or other spies back to our little haven here. I’m afraid we’re going to be working long and hard over the next few days to take full stock of what’s left of the ORC’s and what can be salvaged.”

Herne nodded. “We also need to come up with a plan of action. We need to show these bastards that while they’ve won this battle, they’re going to have a long, hard war on their hands.”

There was no disagreement with Herne’s statement.

Confessions all around...

2007-12-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

(The events and conversations in this post took place in the Lower World immediately before and during Drake’s final passing. These events can now be told in full. For a brief refresher on the context in which these events take place, readers are encouraged to re-read the posts from the following dates: March 18, 2007, A Visit from an Old Friend…Part 1; May 27, 2007, Drake’s Farewell Message; June 10, 2007, Meditation and June 14, 2007, Hell’s Bells…Part 1)

When Drake revealed to me the location of his secret stash of artifacts, his voice was been dry and raspy in my head, like he was having difficulty with what he was saying. “Rusty, I have been afraid to reveal this information to you, because it is perhaps the last and most dangerous truth that I have to tell you.”

“Drake, as much as you have lied, I can only imagine how painful it would be to have to tell the truth. Say what you have to say and be done with it.”

“It is not that simple, Rusty, because this truth goes to the very foundation of who you are and how you came to be as you are now. It was the one truth that I could not risk for you to discover on your own.”

“Drake, stop playing around. Nothing you have to say will surprise me.”

His dry chuckle resonated in my mind. “Very well, I will delay no further.” His voice became deep and somber when spoke again. “Long before there was an Omega Project, I had met a young man—an FBI agent—who I thought might have the potential to eventually inherit the struggle against the An’girasii. He was a talented Caster with a natural charisma and the strength to carry on a long, lonesome battle, if need be. He left the FBI at my urging and worked with me for several years. We learned a great deal from each other once we learned to trust each other. He taught me much about the Shadowland and the many Spirit Worlds that I had been unable to experience myself. I taught him of the long and bitter war that I had been fighting against my father’s people. After nearly a decade of working together though, we came to the mutual decision that he would not be the one. But even so, we made a solemn pact. The essence of that pact was that I would provide him with the initial financing and support to form a secret group of Casters that could become the backbone of a defensive force against the An’girasii if necessary, and in return, he would provide me with any assistance that I needed when I had found the person I considered to be the candidate. I also asked for his assistance in creating a secret storage site for all of the artifacts and books that I had acquired in my many millennia. He agreed, providing a place that was secret and safe.”

“Come off it, Drake. It sounds like you are trying to take credit for founding a group like the ORC’s.”

“Indeed, this young man was instrumental in just that, it was he who founded that little group that you are so fond of.”

“Yeah? I find that very hard to believe. Who was this mystery man?”

“He didn’t have to keep his end of the bargain until quite recently, so it is someone you know, or rather, you knew, quite well…”

I sat there stunned as I listened to his words, coming to a conclusion that I did not like very much at all… “No…not him!”

“Yes. John Red Bear was my ally in creating you.”

“That’s not possible!”
He sighed again. “I am sure that you have the means to ask him yourself, should he choose to answer you, but you may rest assured, John Red Bear helped me to make you who are now.”

“You better believe I’m going to ask him! But I want to hear it all from you, Drake. Finish your story and tell me where this stash is so that I can be done with you forever.”

“As you wish. It is well past time for me to move on in any event. After we parted our ways, he began to form the group that became the ORC’s. He sought out like minded Casters and individuals who had the potential to become Casters. He helped to mold this budding young group into a force for good, creating secret schools and academies all over the country. I began to gather individuals like Klimm and Papa Locks to me, in part to keep them from interfering with John Red Bear and his fledgling group, and in part because I had come up with a new idea to try that would need the services of Casters with fewer morals and inhibitions than those individuals that Red Bear was making contact with. Throughout the years though, I kept in secret contact with him, each of us providing guidance and resources to the other as needed. He had very deep misgivings about my new ideas, but maintained his pledge to assist me when I felt that the time was right.”

“So, you are saying that John Red Bear knew of this plan to make zombies of people?”

“He was aware of the general principle that I was looking at, yes. He wasn’t privy to some of the darker details that were required to make the Omega Project successful, but that was necessary in order to make his eventual role easier to play.”

“What role was that?”

“He played the role of the good cop.”

I snorted. “Let me guess, you played the role of bad cop?”

He chuckled. “Indeed, a role that I am quite comfortable playing.”

I shook my head. “Drake, just tell me this. Why did we—did I—have to go through all of this? Why did you have to bring John into this mess? And why did you have to tell me about his betrayal?”

“Rusty, over the millennia I have come to learn that I do not possess the ability to ultimately win this war that I have been fighting against the An’girasii. But I have learned something about what will be needed to win this war. Every trial, every single test that I have put you through has been designed to determine if you had the potential to develop into the person that could help lead this struggle. In all of my previous attempts, save one, I had either broken my potential successor or created a monster that I would later have to put down. John Red Bear was the lone exception. He was the one candidate that I parted on good terms with. In the process he taught me a very important lesson…that in order to succeed my heir would have to maintain an essential humanity that I have never had. Despite all of the years that have passed, I remain my father’s son.”

“An evil fucking bastard.”

“Indeed. That is why I needed him to help with you. I had to push you away, to make you stronger. I had to make you hate me enough to fight with everything you had. He was there to pick you up again, to keep you grounded in you human nature, and to give you the spiritual tools that would allow you grow in ways that I never could.”

“But why are you telling me all of this now? Why are you trying to ruin my memories of John?”

He sighed. “Rusty, I’m telling you this now because it is the truth. You needed to hear it from me—and him, if he is willing or able to speak to you about it—before it discovered by your real enemies and used against you. Red Bear sacrificed much in order for you to become who you are now. Don’t let those sacrifices be in vain.”

I sat in stunned silence as I contemplated everything that Drake had said so far. His voice was small and quiet in my mind when he spoke again.

“My last gift to you and your friends is the location of that vault I had mentioned earlier. You will find it safely hidden in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Here is the exact location and the combination you will need to access everything…”

With that last bit of information, Drake left me and the ring behind. His Spirit moved gracefully to stand in front of Alexa. Her small face was both serious and tender as she took his confession of and forgave each and every one of his thousands of crimes, one at a time.

I was still trying to absorb everything that Drake had just revealed when the sound of a footfall behind me caused me to turn around.

John Red Bear stood behind me in human form. His face was that of his younger self, but his eyes held all of the wisdom of his years and a tremendous sadness. “Jason, will you walk with me one last time?”

I couldn’t have been more surprised by his appearance here after what Drake had just told me, but I was suddenly nervous leaving Alexa alone with Drake. That nervousness must have been obvious.

“Jason, do not worry about her. She, of all people, is safe in this place.”

I snorted. “I’ve heard that kind of assurance from you before, John. But I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with you anymore.”

“I would understand if you refuse my request. You have every right to reject me, but I feel I have much to explain in just a short time. This is the last time that I will be able to come to you, so please, will you walk with me one last time?”

I swallowed my pride and my anger and nodded.

John turned and guided me out from underneath Yggsdrasil’s canopy and towards a small path that was opening in the woods beyond.

We walked in silence for a few moments. I couldn’t take it for long though. “John, is Drake telling the truth? Did you work with him to help create Rusty Bones?”

I could tell from the flash of emotions across his face that he was deeply conflicted.

“Yes, Drake spoke the truth, as much of it as he knows.”

“What does that mean?”

He stopped and knelt in the middle of the trail. I knelt down beside him as he began scribbling in the open patch of dirt with a twig.

“I am sure Drake has told you that he and met many years before.”

“Yes. He said that you were an FBI agent then.”

John nodded. “Yes, I was the first Native American agent that the FBI ever had. I had a promising career ahead of me, but despite the promising career track laid out before me, I was unfulfilled. I longed for something deeper, more spiritual than such a career would allow me become.

“One winter, near four decades ago, I left my assigned office and cases work to track down a vicious killer in the backwoods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There had been rumors that this killer was actually a wendigo, a creature from the myths of many tribes in that region.

“I had asked my supervisor in Detroit to allow me to go investigate this mysterious killer, but he refused. He said that there was no indication that this killer warranted the Bureau’s involvement yet. His victims were poor, rural, and Native American. He said that the locals and the tribal cops would handle the investigations. One Friday night after another brutal killing, I ignored my boss and set off on my own to investigate the matter.

“By the next evening, I had tracked the creature to an abandoned cabin deep in the woods. I was about to confront it by myself when I discovered that I wasn’t the only person tracking the wendigo. A strange man who later introduced himself as Drake Kampmann came up beside me and indicated that my shotgun and sidearm would be of little use against the creature. He recommended that I use a bladed weapon, if I had one.

“Before we could come up with a plan, the wendigo charged us from the cabin. It was a terrible sight. As Drake had predicted, my shotgun blast to its face had little effect on it. But luckily for me, the wendigo had no interest in me. It attacked Kampmann with its full fury.”

John shook his head as he looked up from his scribbling in the dirt. “I had never seen anything as fast as those two fighting each other. The wendigo towered over Drake, fully eight feet tall, but incredibly gaunt. Despite being very thin, it was wiry and strong enough to push down small trees with each clawed hand. Drake ducked and dodged with such speed and agility, striking the creature with only his feet and hands, yet obviously causing it great pain.

“In less than two minutes, it was all over. Drake had broken one of its legs and each of its arms. He had the creature in a headlock from behind. He looked up at me long enough to ask one question. “Can you come get the necklace out of my jacket pocket?”

“I did as he asked, pulling out a strange looking pendant with a large ruby at the center. He grabbed it from me and placed it on the creature’s forehead. The beast let forth a terrible howling shriek that died in the winter air as the creature dissolved in his arms. Needless to say, I had never seen anything like this creature or its demise.”

I looked down at the drawing that John had made in the dirt. It looked very much like the creature I had known as Grendel. “John, what does any of this have to do with why you helped to create me?”

John tossed the stick away and stood up. He motioned for me to continue down the path with him. “Jason, that was the day when my eyes were opened to the possibility—the reality, really—that monsters that were walking freely in this world. My people had stories of such creatures—most cultures have had their stories of fantastic creatures that roam the world—but I had never seen one with my own eyes. I had not yet learned to walk the worlds of Spirit, so this was all new to me.

“Drake saw something in me that day though, perhaps he sensed the shaman that I would later become, but whatever his reason was, he asked me to join him in his fight against creatures like the wendigo and their masters, who he named as the An’girasii, as you know well. In this strange, distant man, I sensed a certain strength and strong sense of purpose that I had been unable to find as an agent of the FBI.”

John turned from the path that lay before us and pushed through the thick foliage into the heart of the forest. He waved for me to follow him.

“I left the Bureau the following week and joined up with Drake Kampmann. We spent a period of several years together. He taught me much about his history and the war he had fought against the An’girasii. He took me to a number of masters and teachers that he knew of who helped me to find my path. It was he who was most responsible for me becoming a shaman of some small skill.

John stopped moving ahead of me and stared at a tall obsidian obelisk that was almost totally obscured by thick, leafy vines and tall, thorny bushes that had grown right up against it.

“What is that thing?”

“It is a map of sorts.”

“A map? A map of what?”

He moved closed to the obelisk and began pulling the vines off of it. I moved in to help him as he replied.

“It is a map that can be used as a guide through the many Spirit Worlds and to some places beyond as well.”

“There are places outside of the Spirit Worlds?”

John laughed and pulled another vine from the stone. I could see that there were thousands of tiny symbols, pictographs and writings all over it. “Oh yes. The multiverse is an inconceivably large and complex place. This obelisk is a both a map and guide post placed here long, long ago. There are similar markers in other places, other worlds. For those who recognize them and who discover the keys to unlocking their mysteries, these obelisks tell how to get to places that might otherwise be totally inaccessible. Before I leave you, I wanted to show this one to you and show you how to access at least a portion of its information. But first let me finish with Drake.

“After a few years under his guidance, I found the path that I knew that I needed to follow. Unfortunately, my destiny was not to be the Warrior, the Hunter, the Successor that Drake had been seeking in me. Our skills complimented each other in ways that found us each wishing that we had some or all of the skills and abilities of the other. We parted ways quietly after coming up with a new plan. Drake explained to me that he felt that he needed to re-create, as much as possible, the conditions that led to him becoming who he was, but that he would try to do so in such a way as to drive his chosen successor to acquire some of the same skills in the realm of Spirit that I had. That plan eventually led to your creation, and to the creation of the ORC’s.”

I dropped the vine I had pulled from the obelisk and looked into his eyes. “John, tell me this. Do any of the other ORC’s know of your involvement in helping to create the Omega Project? Do they know the role Drake had in creating their own organization?”

John shook his head. “No. Those were secrets that I have had to keep to myself. By design, none of the others share my guilt. Jason, I feel no pride in having deceived you as I have. It is a shame that I will carry with me as I leave these realms and move on to my next journey.” He held up his hands imploring me to listen just a little longer.

“Jason, I could not reveal any of this to you before because I could not risk the possibility of failure. You were our last best chance at succeeding before the An’girasii freed themselves again. Time had grown exceedingly short. I know this not from Drake and his stories, but from my own journeys and research through using these obelisks. So let me tell you how to access the information on this so that you can someday do your own research. I am not asking for your forgiveness, but only for your eventual understanding. Once you learn everything that I have, I hope that you will come to fully understand the necessity of what has been done to you. Please don’t judge me too harshly until then.”

At that point John showed me how to unlock a small portion of the mysteries of that and any other such obelisk that I might encounter. But dear reader, you will come to see how those things work in the coming weeks.

My next post will be made on Friday, January 4, 2008 where I begin the story of what happened after the surviving ORC’s fled El Diablito’s tower in the Shadowland.

Little Keep on the Borderlands... Epilogue

2007-11-02T13:51:00.000-04:00

Cerrydwen waved us forward. “Come, let me take you to the others. I can explain things bit as we walk.”

Despite the appearance that these two were who they seemed to be, I was more than a little nervous as we came up closer to them.

Ravyn showed no such inhibitions and gave each of the women a big hug. She exchanged quiet, unheard words with each of them and seemed more than satisfied with the responses that each gave her.

The Frau padded up and gave both Ravyn and Zenny a long sniff and single wet lick on the cheek.

Jim took the more cautious approach of a small wave and a nod of acknowledgement to each.

Cerrydwen turned and nodded back in the direction from which she had come. “Well, let’s start our little tour of the mad man’s little tower of horrors.” The massive stone door grated open with a wave of her hand. “This whole place is a tapestry of tightly wound spells that must have taken years to craft. This lower level is where he houses a small army of the trolls that you have seen so much of.” She motioned for us to follow her into the gaping maw that led into the dark tunnel where the war trolls had retreated to.

I couldn’t resist breaking into the narrative. “Cerrydwen, how did you gain control of those things?”

Cerrydwen returned my look with a steely gaze. “Sorcery, Rusty. I don’t like practicing it in our world, but I am, unfortunately, quite talented in its use.”

“How is Sorcery any different than the magick that the Frau or Ravyn use?”

She gave a harsh little laugh before she answered. We continued shuffling down the long, curved corridor as she spoke. “You’ve seen me engage Papa Locks and others before in a battle of wills, where I try to make those folks face all of their various Karmic mistakes and dark misdeeds to get them to reform, yes?”

I nodded.

“That is something that I learned from John Red Bear, so that I would have magickal tools that would be a little less lethal and a tad less evil than my natural powers.” She stopped and looked at me deeply for what seemed like the very first time since we had met. “You see, the magick that comes most naturally to me is a very dark and twisted form of magick that is often referred to as sorcery. Sorcery gives me as much mastery over the bodies of other beings as I want. The problem is that this control can only really be used to bring them harm and pain. It is one of the reasons that you me very reluctant to form close attachments or to interact with other people very much. When I get frustrated or angry, it takes an enormous amount of control not to break bones or to choke them with a glance and a twist of my Will.”

“Wow.”

She nodded. “Yes, I was not a very good person when I was younger. I hadn’t learned how to properly restrain myself and I got frustrate very easily. If it hadn’t been for the Frau and her intervention when I was a teenager, I likely would’ve gone down an even darker road and ended up working with someone like El Diablito.” She turned away and started walking again. “So to answer your original question, Rusty, I got the trolls to follow me by demonstrating on a few of them that they couldn’t hurt me nearly as much as I could hurt them. There really aren’t that many left anyway, they aren’t what you would consider to be fast learners.”

The Frau swiveled her massive head towards Cerrydwen and licked an ear before projecting her thoughts to all of us. “Cerry dear, are you going to be alright?”

Cerrydwen nodded without looking back. “Yes, I’m in full control of myself. It’s easier this time because this place is so different and for the most part, the trolls deserved their fates. They are dark, hate-filled creatures that only serve those who they see as stronger. I’ve just allowed them to see my stronger side.”

We came to an intersection in the hall. We could have turned either right or left down similar type hallways, but instead went straight which soon led us to a large stairwell the curved upwards and to the left with long, shallow steps that seemed to stretch on forever.

Cerrydwen led us up the curving stairwell that ended at a large landing and a smashed wooden door. Picking her way through the debris of the door, she led us down a long hall, passing several doors that began to look familiar. It wasn’t until I saw the dark door with glowing rose emblem that recognized this place from the Nick’s memory globe. Passing the door marked with the palm tree only confirmed it.

Cerrydwen ignored all of these doors, taking us all of the way to the end of the hall where we encountered another broken door. This door had been crafted of metal and lay to side of the doorway, twisted and wrenched from its hinges. Beyond the door was an enormous room filled with towering book cases, scattered tables that were buried in scrolls, books and pieces of paper. Huddled around a large square table in the middle of the room was a group of about twenty bedraggled looking people, some of whom I recognized.

Ravyn bounced into the room, nearly skipping with joy at seeing so many familiar faces. She called out names as danced forward. “Moira! Herne! Alana!”

The faces of the obviously tired—and in many cases injured—ORC’s lit up as they saw the ever cheerful Ravyn moving towards them. She was closely followed by the Frau and Jim. I hung back, still nervous of some sort of trap.

Cerrydwen had stepped into the room and then slid to the side, hanging back in the shadows herself.

Zenny had shuffled quietly after Ravyn and the others, leaving Cerrydwen and I to our quiet shadows.

I looked over to her, studying the pained look on her face. “Cerrydwen, you don’t seem to happy to see us all together again.”

She shook her head, looking form the joyful group of long time friends and survivors to me, her expression remained stoic. “Rusty, you perhaps more than anyone else here understand how difficult it is to hold something dark and terrible inside, hoping to keep it buried forever. Tonight, I had to use abilities that I long ago sworn never to use again.”

I nodded. “I do. You can bury those abilities again, if you want to. I’m sure it wasn’t something that you enjoyed doing.”

Her lips quivered ever so slightly into the briefest of chilling smiles before she regained her stoic expression. She turned to watch the reunion as she responded in a quiet whisper. “That’s the problem Rusty. I really like it. It makes me feel so alive when I use those powers. I enjoy the pain that my victims feel. That is why those surviving trolls feared me enough to serve me. They recognized a kindred spirit when they saw me torturing and killing their companions.”

I reached out to touch her on the shoulder. She flinched as I did so. “I understand.”

Ravyn had finished her round of hugs. She turned to wave in my direction. “Hey Rusty! Come here!”

I moved from the shadows to join the group. I recognized a number of Ravyn’s students from the Coop as well as Moira and Herne. The others were strangers.

Jim was standing with Herne and a shorter, dark haired woman with an easy laugh and a slightly raspy voice.

As I approached, she came forward, offering her hand. “Rusty, I’m Alana Danae from the San Diego Circle. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

I nodded as I shook her offered hand. “Likewise. I hear you’re pretty handy with computers.”

Ravyn interrupted with an impatient clap of her hands. “OK folks, I’m so glad to see each of you alive, but we really need to know where Alexa and Naomi are right now.” She glanced at each face in the gathered circle. “Do any of you know what happened to them? Cerry? What happened?”

Cerrydwen had joined with circle with little fanfare. Her face hardened as she took one step forward into the group and spoke up. “When we transported from Michigan to the safe house, we were attacked the moment we finished the transport. I was out of it before I realized who had attacked us, although I presume it was Papa Locks and El Diablito. I never saw what happened to Alexa or Naomi. Did anyone else see anything? Zenny?”

Zenny fidgeted with her hijab before lifting her eyes to look at everyone. “I saw the dark giant you call Papa Locks strike Cerrydwen with his fist before she could react. Naomi tried to escape with Alexa back through the portal but one of the doppelgangers grabbed her and prevented her from leaving. The one you call the Little Devil cast some sort of enchantment on me that caused me to lose consciousness at that point.”

Moira nodded. “A group of doppelgangers must have slipped into the safe house with the refugees from the San Diego Circle, because just as we were tending to the wounded and getting ready to call you, several of those that we thought were our allies attacked. The fight was over before we knew it.”

Herne coughed. “They were unbelievably quick. Once the doppelgangers had us subdued, El Diablito and Locks came through the portal with several armed goons and that freaky female, Rose. Moira and I had been paralyzed by some poison that the doppelgangers had used on us, but we were able to watch all of it.” He looked down at the floor, ashamed. “Once the doppelgangers had Naomi and Alexa, El Diablito turned to the largest of them and said: ‘There, you have your prize, now, I expect you and your masters to hold up your end of the bargain.’ The thing snarled at him and said: ‘The Fire Witch was slain as promised, it is not our fault that she was brought back. Our bargain is now complete.’”

“So that crinkled old man needed those things to take me down, did he?” Ravyn snorted derisively as she spoke. “OK, so do we have any idea where the doppelgangers took them and why they wanted Alexa in the first place?”

Herne nodded again. “Even as I was paralyzed, Alexa looked over to me and I heard what must have been her older self speaking to me. She said, ‘Herne, let the others know that this is what must happen. I am in no imminent danger from the An’girasii or their servants. They need me alive and unharmed. Don’t try to rescue us—it will only cause us harm if you do. When the time is right, we shall return. Until then, gather our friends, help them to heal and grow strong once again, and prepare to weather the coming storms. El Diablito and his new organization must be stopped from gaining too much control.’ Then they disappeared through the portal and I lost consciousness.”

I stepped forward. “Look, I don’t think we have much more time before El Diablito and Papa Locks recover from Ravyn’s surprises and come looking in on things here. We need to get out of here fast.” I looked at everyone’s faces. They all appeared eager to be quit from this place as well. “I know of a place that El Diablito doesn’t. It is a safe place the Drake had created to store all of the things he had collected over the millennia to fight the An’girasii. I can take us there now so that you all can recover, heal up and take stock of where we are as an organization. We’ll have all of the resources we’ll need to regroup and take on El Diablito when we’re ready.”

The nods of agreement and smiles of relief that greeted my recommendation were overwhelming. So with little more debate or discussion, I summoned the Shadow and opened a portal to our new, secret destination.

For the first time in a long, long while, a plan of ours was enacted without any changes or major surprises. The ORC’s disappeared from El Diablito’s stronghold and went into hiding while we regrouped.

Little Keep on the Borderlands...Part 4

2007-10-08T23:44:00.000-04:00

I was up and running towards the third troll before his spear stopped skidding behind us. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got to him, since I didn’t have a weapon in hand.

It had already turned its attention so fray between the Frau and his companion, so my leaping kick landed squarely on the side of his enormous kneecap. I felt and heard the crunching of the bone. His leg buckled and collapsed on itself.

I tucked and rolled out of the way of a massive fist that sought to crush me as the thing lashed out n a blind rage at its sudden immobility.

By the time I had tumbled to safety and regained my bearings, I saw that Jim had already found his own footing and was racing to help the Frau in her struggle.

Ravyn was striding forward towards the troll that was now trying to hobble towards me. She smiled as she sent a lancing bolt of flame into the back of its skull, ending his miserable life before his smoldering corpse hit the floor.

I turned to see how Jim and the Frau were faring just in time to see Excalibur slash downwards in a fatal stroke across the already tattered throat of the final troll. The Frau had rolled clear in time and stood on all fours, panting with exertion. Her fur was torn and bloody in several spots, but it wasn’t entirely clear how wounded she might be. Most of the blood seemed to be darker ichor of the troll.

I jogged back to pick up my batons and joined the rest of them near the mangled body of that final victim.

Jim mopped the sweat off of his forehead and nodded as I approached. “I can’t wait to give you back this damn sword and let you play at being the hero Rusty. I’ll be more than happy to resume my roles as a counselor, researcher, and treasurer.”

I chuckled at that. “Yeah, this sort of stuff is a lot less worrisome when you’re already dead.”

Before anyone else could join in the banter, there was a loud grating of stone on stone as a very large doorway opened in the back of the chamber. Several more armored, well armed trolls marched into the chamber, their hobnailed boots echoing in a strange unison as they lined up four to a side on each side of the doorway. The strangest part of this scene was the two smaller, hooded figures that emerged from the shadows behind the trolls. They looked to be human and seemed to have a distinctly feminine aspect to them that was not entirely concealed by the heavy cloaks that obscured their faces. One of the women was clearly taller and heavier than the other, but neither carried any weapons in their hands.

We all turned to face these new foes, each of us wondering how we would be able to face eight trolls and these two women of unknown strength.

Jim broke the silence first. “Fuck! Why would this damn sword choose now to go quiet?”

I glanced over at the blade in his hands, which was now no longer glowing. It had cooled and quieted as the women had entered the room.

The larger of the women gave a short, throaty laugh as she reached up and pulled back the hood to reveal her face. “Maybe that blade doesn’t want you to swing at a friend by mistake.”

Ravyn gasped. “Cerry? Is that really you?”

Cerrydwen nodded before turning to the trolls that now seemed to be under her command. She grunted an order in their guttural tongue that sent the guards trooping back from whence they had come.

I had my doubts. I had seen Excalibur go quiet on me at inconvenient times before. “Careful everyone, she may be a Doppelganger. And we don’t know who the other one is yet either.”

The smaller of the women stepped closer and brought her gloved hands up to her own hood. Zenny Al Farhan’s soft, musical voice spoke from within. “Rusty, we are not shapeshifters. You can touch me if you would like to confirm that.” She pulled the hood back to reveal her face.

“How is this possible? We had heard that you were captured by El Diablito and Papa Locks.!”

Cerrydwen walked forward slowly. As she came closer, we could each see that her face was badly bruised. “We were caught by surprise at the safe house and were captured with Alexa and Naomi. It’s a long tale though and I don’t think we have the time to tell it here. We need to leave before either El Diablito or Papa Locks return. My control over those trolls will not survive long if they comeback. I’ve found out though, that the trolls can tell who the Doppelgangers are. They are very efficient at hunting them, when they choose to do so.”

“Wait, where are the others? Where is Alexa?”

Her face clouded over in obvious pain. “I don’t know where Alexa or Naomi are right now. But almost all of our other allies who had been taken in the raids and were brought here are safe. Herne and Moira are watching over them on the next floor up since some of them were badly wounded. Let’s go get the others and get out of here. We can tell our respective tales once we are safely away from this place.”

Little Keep on the Borderlands...Part 3

2007-10-08T11:45:00.001-04:00

I gripped the batons in my hands and stepped forward onto the bridge that the Frau had created and led the way towards the shattered doorway of the tower.

Jim followed close behind, muttering half heard imprecations under his breath. Ravyn swung back onto the Frau’s humped back, burying one hand into the thick black fur to maintain her balance. With Ravyn secure on her back, the Frau shambled behind Jim, bringing up the rear of our small party.

Passing through the portal, I felt a wave of magickal energy pass over me that was similar to passing from one world to another. Inside, the dark grey monotony of the Shadowland was replaced by the vibrant colors and rich textures of the ‘normal’ world. I was standing in the brightly lit foyer of what could have easily passed for a modern office building. The walls and floors of the place were of highly polished red and white marble tiles while the abundant golden fixtures gleamed in the bright yellow light that they put out.

I had stopped in the middle of the foyer, caught off guard by the opulent setting until Jim bumped into me from behind. I stepped to the left and forward, batons held at the ready despite the apparent emptiness of the place, to allow Jim and the others to join me inside.

Jim stood there as stunned as I was. All he could muster was a whistle and a look of consternation that reflected how I felt myself.

Ravyn slipped off of the Frau’s back again and stood to her right, eyes narrowed as she tried to take in the sights as well.

The Frau gave off a wuffling snort and scraped a disdainful paw across the marble. “Children,” she called out to us mentally again, “don’t let this man’s illusions distract you from what we are trying to do. Rusty, watch out!”

Just as she called out, I felt more than I saw the presence of another being come up in front of me. Her warning came just in the nick of time as I jumped back just as the head of a huge warhammer landed right where I had been. The fine marble flooring shattered under the impact, sending red and white shards to go flying.

Excalibur leapt into action as the hammer head hit the floor. Before the unseen creature who had swung the massive weapon could pull it up for a second swing, the shining, singing blade lashed out and sliced into the massive wooden haft of the weapon, severing the metal head from the handle, pulling the surprised Jim in front of me as it did so.

A lancing bolt of red hot flames erupted from Ravyn’s outstretched hand and struck the unseen creature full in the chest. The explosion of energy that ensued shattered the illusion of opulence and modernity and laid bare the face that we were in a huge, unlit stone chamber that was littered with the bones and refuse of a trio of troll-like guardians.

The other two creatures that had been shambling into position to lay their own ambushes on us now gave up all pretense of sneaking by roaring out their own challenges and coming forward in attack mode.

The troll who had been hit by Ravyn’s flame bolt staggered back as it tried to put out the flames that began to consume him in earnest.

The Frau gave an excited snort and leapt to the attack against the troll on the right who was wielding a huge spiked mace. Even as she ducked under his first wild blow, she was growing and morphing into a larger, browner bear with much longer claws. Rearing up on her hind legs, she was as tall and nearly as massive as the nine foot tall troll that she now wrapped in a massive hug of claws, teeth and fur. The two of them tumbled to the ground, growling and snarling at each other in a titanic battle of beasts.

Seeing the final troll rear back and prepare to throw the massive spear in its hands, I dropped my batons so that I could reach and grab Jim with my left hand and Ravyn with my right and dove to my left, dragging them to the ground. The spear struck the stone floor where Jim had been standing creating a shower of sparks and a spray of pebbles.

(to be continued tonight)

Little Keep on the Borderlands...Part 2

2007-10-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

The Frau’s voice echoed in our minds. “Once we get inside that thing, we can’t count on Rusty being able to get us back out of there with his power over the Shadow.”

I glanced in her direction. “Why do you say that?”

She returned the glance before swiveling her back towards the tower and grunting. “I see El Diablito’s handiwork all over this thing. He has created this tower out of magick that hasn’t been used in centuries, if not millennia.”

The Professor was curious now. “You mean things like this tower have been created before? I don’t recall reading about any of these in my text books.”

Ravyn chuckled and gave Jim’s cheek an affectionate pat. “Of course not, silly! Things like this would only be found in your fairy tales and myths when you were growing up, although now you can find references in all sorts of modern fantasy. The Frau is right though, this more than just a traditional Mage’s Tower.”

I looked the thing up and down again, trying to see what it was that made this place seem so unique to them. “I have to admit I haven’t seen too many towers of black rock rotating in the middle of a giant chasm before, even in the Shadowland, but what’s the big deal? I practically own this place. I should be able to zip us in and out without a problem.”

It was the Frau’s turn to chuckle. “Rusty, this tower exists not only here, but in many other places simultaneously. It probably has doorways to each of those places and allows the Little Devil to travel between different worlds almost as easily as you do. It isn’t fully of any one plane, so the only one who knows all of the rules and all of the spells that are active inside of it is El Diablito.” She shifted on her paws and moved closer to the edge of the chasm. “El Diablito is and has been made all too aware of your ability to travel freely in the Shadowland using the power of the Shadow. I am sure he has prepared his sanctuary for just this eventuality.”

“What, so we shouldn’t even try to get inside of it?”

She shook her massive head. “Not for a minute, Rusty. We need to get in and get back out again with any of our loved ones that we can locate, but I just wanted to make you aware that you may not be as free as you think you are to help us escape. In fact, I would caution against summoning the Shadow except in the direst of circumstances once we get inside. He may have any number of traps laid out for you that would take you and anyone who travels that way with you into a place from which there is no escape.” She was looking me right in the eyes as she projected her thoughts. There was a wry twinkle in her eye as she made her last point. “It is what I would do, if you were my enemy.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I got you. I won’t be calling on the Shadow unless there are no other options.”

She nodded. “Good. Now, Ravyn, my Dear, would you be so kind as to unlock the door for us?”

Ravyn’s smile was as wicked as I had ever seen. “I thought you would never ask.”

Sitting upon the Frau’s broad back, Ravyn raised her hands above her head and closed her eyes. The palms of her hands began to glow, first orange, then red, and finally turning bright white. Bright white rays of energy left each palm, joining together at a point a few feet in front of her head into a bright, swirling ball of energy that kept growing in size until it was fully as big as she was.

As the ball of energy seemed to reach a critical mass, Ravyn pushed it forward with a downward thrust of her palms towards the door.

It hurtled towards the massive double doors of the tower and exploded in a shower of energy and sounds. We were showered with white, crackling sparkles and bits of dark matter from the impact.

Jim was the first to break the silence. “Now what? How are we going to get over there?”

The Frau reared up on her hind legs and let forth a bellowing roar that echoed across the chasm.

Ravyn must have been warned because she sprang backwards adroitly and seemed to be waiting for something else to happen.

The Frau roared once again, this time even louder and more insistent than before.

The ground beneath our feet began to shake, at first gently, but soon was rocking pretty violently. The screeching of stones cracking and rubbing together in unnatural ways began to drown out the Frau’s voice.

Pillars of solid rock began to jut forth from all different angles both beneath and beside us, coming together to form an arcing mass of jumbled stone that began to bridge the span between us and the tower. Within minutes the bridge was complete.

I looked at both of my female companions with a new found level of respect as I shook my head. “So much for trying to sneak in.”

Jim grasped the glowing blade of Excalibur in both hands again, glanced around at each of us and nodded. “Screw the sneaking, it’s time to go kick some ass, take some names, and save our friends.”

Little Keep on the Borderlands...Part 1

2007-09-24T23:27:00.001-04:00

Visibility in this place is always limited, as Shadows flit about, drawn to light sources like moths in the mundane world. Here, our vision was further obscured by the thick, almost bubbling fog that rolled over us in successive waves from the direction where the troll had come from before pooling around our knees. It gathered around the now dissolving mass that was the troll.

Undaunted by any unseen dangers that may have been lurking, I stepped into the mists towards where I had felt the location of El Diablito’s stronghold to be. I soon found myself on a rocky path between steeply rising walls of wet, black stone. The path would have been barely wide enough for that troll to walk through without brushing its shoulders against the sides.

I heard others as they followed behind, Jim right behind me, with the Frau and Ravyn guarding our backs.

The path continued at a slight up hill angle for a few hundred yards, twisting first right and then left. The fog was so thick and flowed so strongly into my face that I felt like a salmon swimming up stream at spawning time. I caught myself leaning into the flow of the fog even though I didn’t feel any resistance. It just seemed like there should be.

The walls on either side fell away as we rounded the last bend and the ground leveled out onto a large, flat ledge that at first seemed to overlook a vast empty chasm. The fog here was much thinner as it flowed in small wispy clumps to form the river of white as it rolled down the constricted path we had followed to get up here.

Jim came up next to me, Excalibur held forth in both hands as if he were trying to keep the alien blade at arms length. The blade was emitting a high-pitched hum that accompanied the pulsating white light that pushed the Shadow back with its harsh glow. “Looks like a dead end, Rusty.”

I shook my head and pointed with my left hand. “No, we’ve just got to find a way to cross over to that…thing.”

He peered into the darkness, straining to see anything. “What, I don’t see anything.”

The Frau padded up beside us and snorted. Her voice echoed in our heads as she projected her thoughts to us. “Rusty’s right, Jim. Show him, Ravyn.”

Ravyn nodded and sent a small red orb flying from her extended palm. It wasn’t very bright, but it didn’t have to be. The light emitted by the orb illuminated a sight that caused us all to gasp.

“Son of a bitch…”

“How the hell is that even possible…”

The orb had only gone about thirty feet out into the darkness before it came to float next to a huge black wall of stone that was rotating clockwise in the air. Ravyn’s hand motions guided the thing up and down, then back and forth until it was clear that the chasm was occupied by a huge, rotating tower of black basalt that was floating in that seemingly empty space. The thing was easily as big as a modern skyscraper, but it had all of scare factor of some Dark Lord’s Tower of Doom.

As we watched in horror and awe, the tower continued to rotate. The opening of what may have been a doorway began to come into view. The rotation slowed as the entrance came to fully face us, not thirty feet away, but with no visible way of crossing the yawning chasm between us and it.

From the Frying Pan into the Fire...Part 5

2007-09-10T23:10:00.000-04:00

As I called the Shadow, I formed a heavy, protective bubble around the four of us. The only light in this bubble came from one Ravyn’s small red stones that she held forth in her left palm. The stone’s soft red glow gave the space the feel of a submarine.

“I’m going to take us to the place in the Shadowland where Nicholas was taken by Rose and then made the wrong choice by choosing Rose’s door—which led to a cell. We didn’t get to see all of the different doors in Nick’s memory orb, so I think that is the place to start. I’m not sure if that corridor corresponds with a single actual location or serves as sort of Transit Station within the Shadowland linking multiple different locations. Hang on!”

With the power of my Will, I sent our little capsule hurtling through the Shadowland towards a place we had seen only briefly through the memories of a man I had never met.

The passage didn’t take all that long, but the tension inside the capsule grew thicker with each passing moment.

Jim passed Excalibur back and forth between his sweating hands, using each handoff to dry the offending palm on his jeans.

The Frau shifted on her heavy paws, anxious to be moving.

Ravyn checked and doubled checked her array of pouches and pockets, making sure that the ties that held them closed were secure, but not too secure.

I flexed my palms and fingered the forearm sheaths where my familiar batons were holstered, ready to drop down into my hands with a flick of the wrist.

Sensing that we were drawing near to the place, I set the capsule down gently and looked to my companions.

“As best as I can tell from inside, we’re here. Let’s stick together until we get the lay of the land.”

The Frau grunted and snorted, presumably in agreement as the dark substance of the capsule dissolved, allowing her to set paws upon solid ground once again.

Jim yelped in surprise as Excalibur came alive in his two-fisted grip. He spun in place and lashed out behind the Frau as lumbering figure emerged from the fog, massive club in hand in a pulverizing downstroke that he and the sword managed to parry.

The force of the blow buckled his knees, but the blow that otherwise would’ve crushed Ravyn’s skull was deflected harmlessly into the earth beside the Frau.

Remember the strange physics of the Shadowland, I launched myself into the air as I dropped both batons into my palms and flicked my wrists to open them to their full extension on my way towards the beasts head.

The Frau swung around slowly so as not to unseat Ravyn and shuffled back.

Jim’s upstroke sliced into the troll’s leg just below the groin, Excalibur scythed through the rock hard flesh like a hot knife through butter. Dark fluids erupted in a thick spurting stream towards the spot where Jim had been, but his spinning attack had taken him to the side, sword held aloft in his best hitter’s stance.

Meanwhile I slammed into the troll’s head, smashing his nose and crushing one eye with a series of swings with the batons. The creature’s thick skull and plate like skin protected him from any kind of killing blow, but my attacks were enough to forget the foes at its feet as he dropped the club and reached for my hovering form.

Seeing his chance and feeling the pull of Excalibur, Jim stepped into a two fisted swing that would have made Gary Sheffield jealous and eviscerated the creature as the glowing, singing blade again slipped through the heavy armor of the troll’s hide. Jim had to dodge to the side as the rush of the creatures insides came with a gush.

It took the troll a few moments to realize that it had been slain. When it did, it collapsed onto his knees first, and the toppled forward with a loud, splashing whumpf!

I dropped down beside the thing, looking towards Jim.

His face glistened with sweat and exertion, but his eyes glowed with exhilaration. “Holy shit!”

“Are you alright?”

He nodded, looked at the blade, and gulped. “Yeah, thanks to this thing. I can’t believe how much fun that was! Ravyn, are you OK?”

Ravyn hopped down from the Frau’s back and bounded over to Jim. She planted a big, wet kiss on his lips before answering. “Thanks to you I am.” She spun to face me, accusatory finger pointing in my direction. “Do you think you can avoid getting me killed again, Rusty? If you do get me killed, I’m going to haunt you from now to forever.”

The Frau sniffed the fallen troll and swung her massive head around towards us. Her voice came through telepathically to all of us. “This guy isn’t the only one of these things that guards this place, but it has been awhile since any of the others have been here. I’d say we not take too much time celebrating this small battle when we might not have much time before someone else comes by.”

From the Frying Pan into the Fire...Part 4

2007-09-06T23:16:00.000-04:00

After the initial surge of adrenaline passed, Jim looked back to me. “Wait a minute, are you sure this is the best idea? Won’t you need this weapon if we face any powerful foes?”

I shook my head. “If we were going in to make an all out attack and to cause damage, then yeah, I’d keep the blade with me and leave you somewhere safe. But right now we just need to get in, find as many of our people as we can, and get back out again. I also don’t know where we would be able to leave you where you would be safe right now. We don’t know who our mole is, other than it is likely not any of the four of us, and so I don’t think it is wise for us to split up in any way.”

The Frau nodded. Her voice came through telepathically again. “I agree with Rusty. Excalibur seems to be OK with you holding it, so let’s not argue about that. I also agree that splitting up is not a wise idea. We’re going to need to move fast and stay together so that Rusty or Ravyn can get us out of there in a hurry if things get too bad. Ravyn, my dear, I’m going to suggest that you ride on my back. We should make quite the formidable duo!”

Ravyn’s face lit up. “That sounds like fun.” Her expression grew more serious. “I’ll carry the computer with us as well since Jim’s going to have his hands full.” She then walked over to Jim, reaching into a pocket of her skirt and pulled out a small pouch. She poured out three small, red, round stones from the pouch into her hand. “Jim, open your other hand please.”

He did so, slightly confused.

She placed the three stones in his hand and closed his fingers over them slowly before planting a kiss on his cheek. “These things will explode on impact when thrown and become fireballs like the one I threw at the Asylum. Just call out ‘Phoenix’ as you throw it. Be careful, you will want to be at least ten to fifteen feet away from the impact point. These things don’t discriminate like that sword does.”

Jim gulped as looked down at the miniature red fireballs in the palm of his hand. “Uh, I’m not sure I want to be carrying this much firepower in my pocket, if you know what I mean.”

Ravyn gave him a sly wink. “Don’t worry, it will only add to what’s already there.”

Jim blushed, cleared his throat and slipped the red pellets into his pants pocket, unwilling to trust his voice at any retort.

I stepped up to his rescue. “OK, when we land, I’ll take the lead. I will try to manipulate the Shadow in the area to obscure our presence as much as possible. I’ll take down any guards as quickly and as quietly as possible while the Frau and Ravyn search around for any prisoners, once any of them are located, let me know, and I will either break the doors down or slip inside through the Shadowland.”

Both Ravyn and the Frau nodded in agreement.

“Jim, you stay right behind me unless I get tied up with a bigger opponent. Don’t try to help me out unless you don’t have any other choice. I’d rather you watched my back. If I have to slip into the Shadow to rescue a prisoner, I’ll want you to be near Ravyn and the Frau. Trust the sword. It won’t generally allow you to swing at something or someone that it doesn’t feel deserves it. Use those fireballs of Ravyn’s to cover our retreat, if necessary.”

He gulped and nodded as well, still holding the sword out away from his body.

I surveyed all of my companions before speaking again. “The opponent I am most worried about is Locks. If he shows up, I’ll take him on myself. He has grown in power and seems to have access to a lot of the abilities that I have, so don’t try to play the hero with him. His body has clearly been highly modified much like mine. I also have a very bad feeling that he is the one that is most tied up with the An’girasii.”

Jim cleared his throat. “Can you face him without this sword?”

I smiled and nodded. “One reason I thought to give you that blade for now was because I have the strangest feeling that the blade would not allow me to use it against him. It would probably allow you to swing at him, but that sword has a perverse sense of fair play that can be all to annoying. So, is everyone clear on the plan so far?”

Ravyn sighed and chuckled. “Yeah, it’s as clear as mud, since we hardly know this place that we are going to, we don’t know who or what we will face, and who, if anyone, will be there to be rescued. Other than those few, insignificant details, it’s about as good a plan as you’ve ever come up with Rusty!”

“OK then, let’s roll!”

Ravyn giggled as she grabbed a handful of thick black fur on the Frau’s shoulder and hoisted herself up onto the Frau’s back. She adjusted her skirt and reached out to take the briefcase that Jim was handing up to her. She took out the shoulder strap from a side pocket and clicked it into place before putting the thing over her shoulder and sliding it to her back, leaving both hands free.

“Last call for all passengers for Zombie Air, Flight 666, going straight to Hell!”

From the Frying Pan into the Fire...Part 3

2007-09-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

The transit through the Shadowland and into another world was brief and almost random in nature as I felt the need for us to land in a place that I had never before been and to which it could not be predicted that we would retire to.

I had to reject two worlds because they presented survivability problems for my friends, and third world was rejected because the portal would have taken us to a strange looking city teeming with inhabitants of unknown dispositions.

The fourth attempt finally resulted in place that was less than ideal but seemed to meet our immediate needs for safety and privacy.

I closed the portal immediately.

As soon as she regained her bearings, Ravyn knelt down next to Jim. “Are you all right Jim?”

Jim groaned once and retched onto the ground away from her. His let go of the bat and grabbed his temples. “Ugh. I don’t think trans-dimensional travel is going to help my concussion any, but it was probably better than another punch in head from Papa Locks.”

The Frau gave the cold air a sniff and started circling the small, barren valley that we found ourselves in.

I turned to Ravyn and Jim. “I don’t think anyone could have followed us here, so we’re probably safe for the time being. We need to come up with a plan.”

Ravyn stood back up. “Well, we need to see if we can find a way to rescue Alexa, Naomi and Cerrydwen. We can’t leave them to El Diablito. Then we need to find out how our safe houses are being discovered and attacked.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Everything we’ve worked so hard to build over the last ten years is being taken from us. Worse yet, our friends are getting hurt and killed!”

I held up my hands. “Hey, I agree. We can’t let those monsters have any of our people, if we can prevent it. Especially if El Diablito is foolish enough to think that he is pulling a fast one over the An’girasii. I don’t think that he has the first clue about dangerous and powerful these creatures are.”

Jim sat up, picked his bat back up and used it to help him get to his knees before he stopped to recover. He fought off another bout of nausea before looking up at us. “I don’t think I’m in any condition to be of much help in any rescue attempt.”

Ravyn reached down and gave him a hug. “You gave as good as you got, Jim. I don’t think El Diablito will be doing any dancing in the near future, not with the way I heard his knee crack when you pasted him!”

Jim smiled at the thought of landing those blows. “That did feel good.”

The Frau came shambling down the nearest slope before parking herself next to Jim. Her voice came through telepathically. “Rusty, do you remember the memory orb that you watched from Nick’s encounter with Rose?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you think that you can take us to that place where Nick was held? I have a feeling that we will find at least some of our friends there.”

I nodded again. “I was able to get enough of a feeling for that place. I do think that I can find it again. But wouldn’t that be right in the middle of El Diablito’s organization? We’d probably have to fight our way through.”

She grunted. “We might. But the best defense is often a good offense. I think they’re going to need some time to recover from Ravyn’s fireball. I doubt that they are going to be expecting us to strike back immediately. If we wait, they might realize that we can get to their stronghold and move their prisoners somewhere else. We might also be able to gather some much needed intelligence on who their source on organization is.”

Ravyn nodded. “I agree. I’m tired of being a damn victim. Let’s hit them for a change!”

Jim stood up, groaning as he did so. He wobbled as he spoke. “I’m game, I think. Just point me in the general direction and stay out of my way.”

Seeing how green he looked around the gills, I wasn’t too sure this plan had any chance of success. Then an idea came with a flash. I reached up to the hilt of the blade on my back and projected my thoughts into it.

With more than a little surprise, I felt an acknowledgement from the blade and grudging acceptance to my request.

I drew the blade and held it out towards Jim. “Jim, I think Excalibur will serve you better than that bat of yours.”

Jim looked shocked. “I’ve never used a sword…I wouldn’t know how…”

“Hey buddy, in case you hadn’t noticed, I never used a sword before either. That’s the beauty of this blade-it will pretty much wield itself. Hopefully, we can get in and back out without you having to really wield it in battle, but I will feel much better if you have this thing in your hands than if you are trying use baseball bat against people who can throw magick around. This thing will protect you from most of what anyone can throw at you.”

Jim reached out tentatively to take the hilt of the blade in shaking hands. He flinched as his fingers touched the hilt.

I let go as Excalibur settled into his grip. Color returned to his face as if healing energy flowed from the blade through his arms and into his body. He blinked as he stared at his reflection in the glowing blade of the sword.

“Whoa. I never would have guessed that this sword could be so light.” He looked back to me, nodding. “I feel much better now! I’m ready to go!”

From the Frying Pan Into the Fire...Part 2

2007-08-30T21:51:00.000-04:00

I stepped forward as I tapped the end of my baton in my free hand. “Klimm! Give me one reason that I shouldn’t just end your miserable existence right now?”

El Diablito looked down at the prone form of Jim at his feet before reaching down and picking up the black briefcase at his feet. He cackled before he spoke. “I know how much you value your friends, Rusty. They are all you have after all, now that I have that little bastard daughter of yours safely tucked away.”

His words stung me worse than anything physical that he could have done. I lunged forward, but drew myself short a couple of paces from them. “What have you done with Alexa?”

Diablito had flinched when I came forward, but found his courage again as Rose drew herself up beside him and Papa Locks inched forward as well.

“Oh, it wasn’t easy to get those arrogant fools to launch an all out attack on your organization. They didn’t think your ORC’s posed much of a threat just yet and weren’t too eager to expose themselves, so I had to clue them in on some of Drake’s little media tricks. Don’t worry Bones, your little Alexa is perfectly safe, although I can’t say as much for her erstwhile guardians.” He shook his head as spoke. “Papa Locks here was quite glad to show his mettle against that vile wench you call Cerrydwen. Rose will enjoy playing with her new pets very much!”

I was just about to explode in homicidal rage when I felt a small voice whisper into my head in a long-forgotten language.

“Rusty, it’s the Frau. Don’t react to my voice, just listen. Jim’s coming around and will make the first move. Don’t make any sudden moves until he does. Ravyn’s waiting as well. Once Jim makes his move, we’re going to need you to get us out of here as fast as you can. In the meantime, keep that Little Devil talking.”

It took me a moment to digest the Frau’s instructions and then realize that I couldn’t give anything away. It was also the first time I could remember where I was being asked to keep one of my enemies talking.

“Klimm, you’re playing with very dangerous matches if you think that you can control the An’girasii for any period of time.”

Diablito laughed again. “Everyone can be controlled, if you know the right levers to use.”

I shook my head. “You obviously have no idea of who you are dealing with, Klimm. Those things aren’t human. They need to be stopped before they take over this world. If you gave them information about us that allowed them take us down now, then you may have served their purposes more than they served yours.”

He nodded. “Yes, I’m quite sure that is what those arrogant fools believe. But you’re wrong, Bones. I know exactly what these creatures are. More importantly I know where they came from and what they fe….argh!!!”

Jim had lashed out with the bat that had fallen close to him and struck Diablito on the knee with a thunderous blow that ended in a vicious snapping sound. Jim was muttering something as swung that sounded quite a bit like ‘you don’t fuck with a man’s automobile’.

El Diablito dropped the briefcase as he fell to one knee, just in time for Jim to land a second, glancing blow to his shoulder that slid up and connected with his skull with a dull thud that ended all outcries from the older man.

Rose lashed out towards Jim with her talon-like nails, but not before one of the Frau’s enormous paws connected with her. The massive blow sent the slender woman flying over El Diablito and into Papa Locks before he could react, sending them both sprawling.

Ravyn grunted as she hurled a small of flame over the three main antagonists and into the room behind them. The ball expanded almost as quickly as it flew, blowing up into a great swirling maelstrom of fire that exploded and threw flames and debris in every direction as it landed.

Summoning all of my Will to keep myself from delivering the final blow to the sneaky bastard myself, I sighed and summoned the Shadow and pulled Jim, the Frau, Ravyn and the briefcase in with me before the flames of another Ravyn induced inferno could reach us.

From the Frying Pan Into the Fire...Part 1

2007-08-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

Ravyn and I followed the same path that the Professor had taken a few minutes earlier. Each of us had a number of bags in hand, but hers were of the lighter variety than mine.

After crossing the lot, we came to a set of heavy metal double doors with the one on the right having been left ajar. Just as I moved to set on the bags down to open the door further, the Frau lumbered up behind us, wuffling in excitement.

“Rusty, hold on! Something doesn’t smell quite right.”

“This place has a ‘right smell’ to it? We might as well go in, Jim’s inside already.”

The Frau’s head swiveled back and forth. “Then he’s not alone.”

Ravyn dropped her bags with a crash. She reached out with her right hand to yank the door open while holding her now flaming left hand up above her shoulder. “Come on you two, we can’t leave him alone for long!”

I followed suit, dropping the rest of her bags and triggered the baton to drop into my right hand. I held the door that Ravyn had opened so that she and the Frau could slip into the dust filled darkness within.

The place had definitely been an institution of some sort. It had the wide corridors and tiled floors of a place that had once been clean and well-maintained.

Ravyn and the Frau padded ahead of me, while my heavy steps echoes throughout the empty halls. Jim’s trail was readily apparent in the grime that covered the tiles.

The small orbs of fire that now danced around Ravyn’s shoulders, provided most of the light that we had, although stray beams of dust-filled sun-light cut through the darkness in intermittent patches.

Ravyn motioned for us all to stop for a moment and called out, her voice cutting through the grim silence of the place. “Jim, where are you?”

In the distance we heard a muffled attempt to shout in response that was interrupted by the sickening sound of a smack to someone’s head and a dull thud.

That sent Ravyn racing forward with the Frau lurching to a run behind her.

I called the Shadow and placed myself solidly ahead of both of them so that I would bear the brunt of any hidden attacks.

Jim’s trail led us around a blind corner and into a large, dark room that was probably once a cafeteria.

Several figures stood waiting for us as we rounded the bend.

El Diablito stood in the center of the group, his grey eyes sparkling with mischief as waited with his arms crossed.

On his right was a thin, waif-like woman with hungry, almond-shaped brown eyes, and lanky, dark hair. I recognized her as Rose from the memory orb I had seen months earlier.

On his left was an even more ominous figure, the shrouded figure of Papa Locks, his gloved fists clenched at his sides. He loomed over the unconscious form of Jim.

As we pulled up to face these three, several more figures emerged from the Shadow around the room. Each of these half dozen figures had the heavy shoulders and the bearings of men who were more than comfortable in dealing out violence. They each held weapons of one sort or another, ranging from sub-machine guns for the farthest three to the oddly glowing and crackling clubs of the three closest to us.

El Diablito chuckled as we took in the scene.

“It was so nice of you to invite me to your little party…”

Sole Asylum...Part 5

2007-08-23T22:08:00.000-04:00

I brushed myself off and began picking the shards of branches and bark that we sticking out of my skin as I looked around to try and gauge how close we came to the Asylum.

The truck had crashed into a very stout tree on the edge of a desolate looking parking lot. The pavement of the lot was cracked and marked with potholes, some of which were large enough to sport their own small trees. The other three edges of the lot were bordered by hulking, multi-story, brick buildings that gave off a distinct feeling of brooding, sullen anger. Many of windows had been broken, but almost all of them were covered by iron bars.

I waved a broken branch that I had plucked from the base of my neck towards the buildings behind the truck. “The Asylum, I presume. See? That wasn’t too bad.”

The bear that was wearing the tattered remnants of the Frau’s outfit looked up at the building and gave out a wuffling snort before the Frau’s voice came through inside my head. “Not too bad, Rusty. I don’t know how many more of your little adventures I can handle, however, I’m an old lady! Oh and I will need some help getting my luggage out. I don’t think you want me streaking around here!”

I reached out and scratched the bear behind the ears. “No problem, Frau, I’ll be glad to help you out. I see those two are a little preoccupied.”

Ravyn and Jim were standing near the driver’s front quarter panel. Jim was leaning on the truck with his right hand clenched into a tight fist, as he leaned down to allow Ravyn to dab away the blood from his face.

Jim’s lips were drawn tight as he struggled to contain his obvious rage.

As she gently wiped the blood away with a handkerchief, Ravyn was speaking to him too softly for me to hear what she was saying.

The Frau snorted again and began padding towards the woods. “Ravyn knows which bags are mine and where we need to go inside the Asylum. I’m going to take this opportunity to do some scouting.” She stopped and looked back at me. “Do you mind stripping the last of this clothing off, Dear? I don’t want to leave an unnatural trail.”

I walked up behind her and began pulling the stretched and shredded remnants of her sweatpants and sweatshirt from her fur. Before long, she was bounding off into the thick, overgrown underbrush.

After the Frau disappeared from sight, I turned to see Jim moving to the tailgate with Ravyn following close behind him.

“Hey, the Frau said she was going to scout around. Do either of you know which bags are hers?”

Jim grunted something unintelligible as he opened the tailgate and reached in to grab the briefcase that held the computer I had seen earlier and a baseball bat. Without further comment he stalked off across the parking lot towards the largest of the three buildings that were in sight, directly across the lot.

I looked to Ravyn. “What’s up with him?”

Ravyn gave me one of those looks that only women seem to be capable of. “He’s having a tough time dealing with everything that has happened in the past day. It’s also killing him that he has no idea how the rest of the group is doing—who’s been hurt or killed, and who’s still in danger.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it has been pretty eventful.”

Ravyn reached up and pulled a piece of bark from my forehead, shaking her head as she did so. “I think you’ve been dead too long if you call this day ‘pretty eventful’. Help me get some of these things inside and we can start getting settled. Getting things set up and ready for the Convocation will help Jim more than anything else right now.”

Sole Asylum...Part 4

2007-08-20T00:25:00.000-04:00

Hurtling sideways through the ether of the Shadowland while holding onto the rear bumper of an F-150 Ford pick-up truck is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the easiest place to try and summon up the concentration needed to open a portal to the ‘normal’ world.

When you add in the complications of needing to open a portal large enough for a truck to go through and the concern for the safety of the occupants—and of any potential bystanders who might be nearby—the task only got harder.

But it was absolutely critical that I find a way to solve this problem in a way that left open the possibility for a safe landing.

My one advantage, other than sheer desperation, was that working with the Shadow was extremely easy in the Shadowland itself.

So, ignoring the precarious position that I found myself in, I began weaving the strands of Shadow together into a web-like bubble. I was careful not to seal it up completely until I had some idea of where we would land.

Before I could seal the bubble and activate the portal, I experimented by throwing out tendrils of Shadow to slow our momentum and orient the whole bubble in what I hoped would be the right direction. The sheer mass of the truck and its contents and the speed with which it was traveling, made the task nearly impossible to accomplish in the short time that we had.

After several fitful attempts at getting us oriented, I sealed the portal, closed my eyes, and prayed.

The jarring, crunching impact of the truck threw me into the air, spinning as I went flying.

The front end of the vehicle crumpled up, just as it was designed to do, as it plowed into the trunk of a thick tree. Before I landed myself, I did note that the airbags deployed before anyone’s head smashed through windshield.

My own first impact took place about twenty five feet away and fifteen feet above theirs. It also happened upside down and backwards as I slammed into the tree trunk ass first. Just as that impact registered with a loud cracking sound, I began the slide down through the spindly branches of the now-destroyed tree to land head first in a bush.

By the time I managed to get on my feet and look back to the truck, I saw the passenger door being pushed open by a grumpy looking black bear. Jim wrenched open the drivers door, pulling off his cap as he wiped away the trickle of blood oozing from his nose. Ravyn quickly followed him, bouncing out unscathed, but none too pleased at having a second near-death experience within 12 hours of her first…

Sole Asylum...Part 3

2007-08-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

Shuffling around like silent zombies, we loaded up Jim’s truck with a few overstuffed bags of clothing and personal items and several boxes of groceries from the Frau’s enormous pantry.

Ravyn and I piled into the narrow back seat of the truck while the Frau rode shotgun.

As we set off through the quiet, narrow back country road that would take us north to I-94, the winds began to kick up as the edge of a large, dark, bank of clouds rolled over us from the west.

By the time we reached the highway entrance ramp, enormous drops of water were splattering on the hood and windshield of the truck. Jim pushed up the bill of the second cap. “I didn’t think that rain was in the forecast for the next week.”

A flash of lightning was soon followed by the rolling booms of thunder, signaling for the real downpour to begin. Sheets of water sluiced down across the road.

The Frau chuckled, pushed up her own glass and pointed towards the clouds with her cane. “My bones are telling me that this is no ordinary storm. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up as well. Someone or something doesn’t want us to get where we’re going.”

Jim grunted and punched a button on his radio. He fumbled around with the knobs, adjusting them back and forth several times, only to come up with crackling static. “That’s strange. This radio is normally pretty good.”

Ravyn scanned the highway from her seat next to me. “Hey, I can’t ever remember seeing I-94 this empty. There isn’t another car or truck in sight in either direction.”

I leaned forward from my seat behind the Frau. “Jim, stop the truck. Pull over to the side of the road, but leave it running and in gear.”

Jim pulled over to a stop. As the vehicle stopped, so did the rain.

The tension in the truck was thick. Ravyn clenched and unclenched her fingers, clearly itching to start throwing fire at whatever was causing this weather weirdness. The Frau clutched her cane in white knuckled hands as she scanned the horizons. Jim’s hand gripped the steering wheel, his shoulders hunched and tense.

I patted the seatback in front of me. “Frau, I’ll need to get out of the truck.”

She nearly jumped at my words, but she nodded and started fumbling with the door handle.

The rain had now stopped completely, but a low rumbling sound could be heard coming from the west.

The Frau opened the door and stood on the running board of the truck still holding the door open as she looked back to the west. “Oh my! That looks like a tornado coming our way.”

I clambered out of the back seat and through the rear half-door to stand on the shoulder of the road. Looking back, I saw the huge black funnel cloud that was barreling its way down the highway right towards us.

I slammed the half-door shut and waved the Frau to get back in. Over the growing roar of the oncoming tornado, I called out to Jim. “We’ll never outrun this thing, someone is controlling it. I’m going to open up a portal through the Shadowland. When I wave at you, gun this thing and go through, I’ll follow along as soon as I can!”

Jim’s eyes grew wide for the briefest of moments before he set his jaw, clamped down even harder on his steering wheel, and nodded his agreement. Ravyn seemed to be yelling something, but whatever she said was lost to the howling wind and the shutting door.

I rambled forward to a spot about a hundred feet in front of the truck and turned to face the coming funnel cloud and the hopeful looks of my dear companions.

I had never before created a portal that could fit something as large as a pick-up truck. I was not entirely sure that it was even possible to transport a mechanical machine like and automobile through a magickal, spiritual place like the Shadowland, but we were clearly very short on options.

It was hard to take my eyes off of the looming, ever-closer tornado and the havoc that it was creating less than half a mile behind my friends, but it was necessary if they were going to have a chance at surviving.

Instead, I stared at a spot about twenty feet in front of me. I focused my Will as I called more of the Shadow to that spot than I had ever called upon before.

Darkness formed as the Shadow pooled into the spot I had chosen. It grew rapidly, but nearly as rapidly as the tornado bore down on us.

With my left hand I continued to pour as much Shadow as possible into a puddle on the ground that rippled with dark energies, while I raised my right hand and waved for the truck to come forward.

The winds were whipping, it was getting more and more difficult to stand tall in the face of blowing, churning air.

Jim released the brakes of the truck and punched the accelerator. The truck lurched forward as the engine strained to get up to speed. Jim turned the wheel ever so slightly to align the vehicle with the pool of darkness that now stretched across the entire right lane of the highway.

A tree branch crashed into me as I stood stock still. I maintained my concentration as the truck raced with the screaming tornado to reach the portal.

I began striding forward myself, using both hands now to direct the dark energies of the pool to rise up and form an arch that would be large enough for the truck to go through.

The truck, the tornado, and I all met just feet from the Shadow Gate.

The back of the truck was lifting from ground and sliding to the left as it was caught by the funnel cloud, but its momentum continued to carry it through the gate as it spun in the air. Still using most of my concentration on keeping the portal open, I leapt forward, grabbing onto the rear bumper as it swung into the portal first.

There was an immediate silence as I passed into the calmness of the Shadowland that almost immediately shattered by roaring of the truck engine as Jim continued to hold his foot to the pedal, despite the lack of any ground for the wheels to gain traction on.

As soon as I saw that the front of the truck was through, I closed off that portal and began working on another to get us close to the Asylum…

Sole Asylum...Part 2

2007-08-12T21:45:00.000-04:00

The goodbyes between the group heading towards Herne’s Lodge and those of us heading east towards Detroit looked like they were going to be short and sweet. Ravyn took the longest with Cerrydwen, taking the opportunity to give her a list of all of the folks from the Coop that she wanted Cerrydwen to check with Herne about.

I gave Naomi a quick hug and then picked up Alexa to give one as well.

She looked directly into my eyes as I did so, her expression suddenly very serious. “Daddy?”

“Yes, Darling?”

She brought her small brown hands up to rest on each of my cheeks. The tone of her voice changed from her normal high-pitch to the deeper, huskier voice that came when her older self spoke.

“The storm clouds of change, turmoil, conflict are gathering. I want you to know that there is no way to stop the coming storm, the winds must blow, the waters must rise, and the blood of many will be shed. My vision cannot penetrate through the fog of war that obscures the coming time of trouble, but I have a feeling that this will be the last time that we will be together for quite some time. Do not worry for me, Father, or for Mother. Others are watching over us as well. What will be, will be.”

“But, why…”

She moved her left hand from my right cheek to hush me by putting her finger gently to my lips.

“I cannot tarry long, so please listen to me now. You all will be sorely tested by both the enemies that you know and those that are not yet revealed to you.” She removed the hand from my mouth to touch my chest. “You will need to use all of the gifts of this body that you inhabit if you hope to prevail, but it is your humanity that will be your greatest asset. Follow the heart that yet beats within your Spirit and we will meet again. Don’t forget who you are, or your cause will be lost.”

She bent forward and kissed me and motioned for me to put her down, which I did. She walked over to stand in front of Ravyn, who knelt down to be on the same level.

Alexa reached out and took Ravyn’s left hand into both of her own. “Mistress Fyre, I have learned so much from you. Thank you.”

Ravyn’s breath caught in her chest, she looked like she was about to cry, as if she sensed the words that were coming next. “Oh, Alexa…”

Alexa reached up and touched Ravyn’s lips as she did mine. “Know that the Powers have smiled on this second life that you have been given. You are more than worthy of this honor. Betsy will come again in your dreams, if you allow her to. I cannot say for sure that we will meet again in this life because the gift that you have received obscures you from all future visions. I do not know what this means, but I don’t believe that you can be seen by any of your enemies in this way either. I know that you will use this knowledge and this extra time that you have been given wisely and that you will continue to give more of yourself than anyone could ever rightfully ask of you. I hope to feel your warm embrace again.” With that, Alexa grabbed the stunned Ravyn in a crushing bear hug that ended with a kiss on Ravyn’s forehead.

Alexa then moved to stand before Jim, who also knelt down to hear what she had to say. Even on his knees though, he towered over her diminutive frame. She reached up on her tip toes to take the well worn cap from his head, revealing a mass of tousled hair in the process.

“Uncle Jim, I will never forget the tenderness of your embrace when I was brought to you by Father from that terrible storm.”

“But you were just a baby…”

She smiled as she placed the cap on her own head and took his right hand in her left hand. Her tiny hand was dwarfed by his. “That love for others is what will sustain you through this storm. Please know that the work that you do, the knowledge that you impart on others, and the love that you freely give, all matter. Without these things, the world would be a much poorer place. Everything you have done, and will do, helps to lay the foundation for a better, more peaceful world.” She reached up and embraced him before planting a big, wet kiss on his cheek.

Jim’s cap still on her head, she moved to stand in front of the Frau. “Grandmother Bear, I am honored that you allowed me to ride on your shoulders all those nights when others thought we slept soundly. The lessons that you taught me under stars will be with me forever, and will guide all that I seek to accomplish.”

The Frau looked over to Naomi sheepishly, before chuckling and bending down to take Alexa into a bear hug. “I had as much fun as you did, Child.”

Alexa smiled. “Your quiet strength and your boundless patience will be of more use than your still sharp claws in the coming battles. Your healing skills will be in great demand, use them well and generously and the rewards will be greater than you can imagine.” With those final words, Alexa planted a kiss on the Frau’s puckered lips before disengaging and bouncing over to Naomi’s waiting arms.

She pulled Jim’s cap off of her head and waved it to us as her normal voice returned. “Bye, bye everyone! I love you!”

Grim faced, Cerrydwen joined Naomi and Alexa in the engraved pentagram on the floor of the main room and activated the Transit Point. With a bright flash of white light, they were gone.

The rest of us stood in silence as each of us contemplated the words of a powerful young girl who was wise beyond all human comprehension.

Sole Asylum...Part 1

2007-08-10T23:35:00.000-04:00

After some deliberation it was decided that our side trip to check out the stash left behind by Drake would come after we set up a base of operations at the Asylum.

While Naomi, Alexa, and Cerrydwen packed up for their journey through the Transit Point to Herne’s Lodge, Ravyn grabbed me by the shoulders. “I need some decent clothing, Zombie. This simply will not do.”

I nodded. “OK. What do you want me to do about it?”

She smiled. “You’re taking me shopping.”

I glanced down at my watch. “There’s not much open at this hour. It’s still too early for anything except those 24 hour supermarkets.”

Her grin was positively wicked. “That’s why I need you. Jim’s told me about a group of very high end boutiques in New York that is wholly owned by the Mercury Unlimited Group. This shopping trip is going to be courtesy of Dick Arnold and friends.”

“But why would they open just for us?”

She reached up and slapped her palm on my forehead. “You can be so dense. If I was going to wait for them to open for business, I’d ask Jim to go along so that he could pay. I need you to get me in and out without setting off any fire alarms. You can also carry a lot more than he can!”

The light switch in my head flipped on. “Oh. I get it, now. You know I spent most of my arresting petty criminals. Now I get to play one.”

She stood there watching me impatiently. “Well, what are you waiting for, let’s get going before they open up!”

I sighed and summoned the Shadow to take us to the Big Apple for our illicit shopping trip.

We returned less than an hour later, my arms loaded down with several bags containing most of Ravyn’s new stylish wardrobe.

Ravyn bounced off with a couple of smaller bags in hand in to change from her borrowed sweatpants and t-shirt into her chosen outfit as I took the rest of the bags to Jim’s truck.

Jim just shook his head as he surveyed the bags that I packed into the cargo area of the truck. “I don’t even want to know how much all of this would have cost.”

I shook my head. “Let’s just say that we can now add Grand Larceny and Breaking and Entering onto our RAP sheets.”

“Well, at least she’ll be well dressed for her mug shot.”

“I’ll say. Just wait until you see some of the things she got.”

I noted that a brief, wistful look flashed across his face before his serious demeanor returned as he coughed out his response. “Well, I’m sure it was all quite necessary.”

Playing Hardball...Part 3

2007-07-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

Jim tossed his mangled, misshapen cap on the couch and stalked off towards the front door mumbling something unintelligible.

Everyone else began to mill around, gathering items that they might need and packing them into bags.

The slamming front door told us that Jim was back, a small black briefcase in hand. He moved to the bar counter between the kitchen and common room and opened the case to reveal a computer of some sort.

I moved to get a better look. “What’s this all about?”

He glanced sideways at me before pressing a button that began firing up the thing. “I need to make the alert goes out to all ORC facilities and independent operators out there. This computer represents the merging of magick and technology that we have been able to come up with. It has the capability to uplink to the net in a way that can’t be tracked or traced by anything the government has. I don’t want anyone else caught by surprise.”

The inside of the case was completely taken up by this computer. He had opened it like a laptop computer, and while the keyboard looked a little clumsier than those of modern computers, the screen looked completely normal. It didn’t look particularly ‘magickal’. I said as much.

He grunted. “We designed it to look as normal as possible to outsiders. It’s not the equipment on the outside that makes it special. It’s the power source and connections to the net that make this thing special. Well, the software is unique. We couldn’t exactly ask Bill Gates to come up with an operating system for this thing.”

I watched as the screen booted up in a flash of colors and 3-D graphics. “Who did all of this?”

“It was a group effort. The software was designed by one of our closest friends from the San Diego Circle, Alana Danae, she’s both a Shaman and computer whiz. I’m really hoping that she was able to make it out alive from that attack out there, we’re going to need her talents.”

Once the computer finished booting up, I watched as Jim’s hand flew over the keyboard and mouse as he toggled open a number of different applications, sent dozens of messages. After the messages had gone out, he surfed among several different bank accounts. He cursed violently as some of the sites appeared to be blocked, but for those that he could get in, he logged into each one, made several lightning quick moves and logged out of each them quicker than I could even note which banks or brokerages they belonged to. He was closing the machine down within minutes.

As he closed the shell of the briefcase, clicking it into place, he looked up again at me. “It looks like some government agency has already identified some of our accounts and has placed blocks on them.” He shook his head. “We are under a coordinated, full fledged attack. These guys are playing hardball with us.”

Ravyn moved in between us, grabbed each of us in one arm looked up at Jim. “Well, as I understand it, it takes two teams to play any game with a ball. We need to gather ourselves, figure out exactly who is attacking and why, and hit back with everything that we can. I know there’s one particular Bane out there that I want a rematch with!”

Jim nodded. “I’ve sent out a request for an emergency Convocation of the Clans to take place at the Asylum once everyone has safely seen their people to safety. We need to know who’s already been attacked, what resources we’ll have available to us, and to come up with a battle plan before this situation gets any worse.”

Cerrydwen came up. “Did you say that the Convocation is taking place at the Asylum?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and raised her left hand for emphasis. “You can count me out. I’m not setting foot in that cursed place.”

Ravyn cocked her head. “Why? What’s wrong with the place?”

The Frau chuckled as she waded into the conversation. “The Asylum is in the basement of an old mental institution just outside of Detroit. It sits on a large, abandoned campus that affords us a lot more privacy because it is rumored to be haunted.”

Cerrydwen shuddered. “It’s not a rumor. That place is awash in tortured Spirits and echoes with their pained cries. I could feel the terror of that place just be driving by it. I won’t be going there with you.”

The Frau patted her on the shoulder. “That’s OK, Dear. I’m sure Herne could use some help getting everyone off to the safe houses. Besides, I don’t think Naomi and Alexa should go to the Asylum. It is not a pleasant place.”

Jim nodded. “That’s probably for the best then. Frau, Ravyn, Rusty and I will be heading to the Asylum-we can get there by driving in less than hour-and set up for the Convocation. Cerrydwen, Naomi and Alexa will use the Transit Point and head out to the Lodge and then off to whichever safe house Herne feels is the safest.”

I remembered something that had almost gotten lost in all of the excitement. “Hey, we might want to make a side trip, if we can. Drake gave me the location to his store of weapons and items.” I looked over at Jim. “And, with that computer, I think you’ll be able to access the accounts he gave me the passwords to. I seriously doubt that anyone has been able to put any blocks on those funds.”

Playing Hardball...Part 2

2007-07-27T20:26:00.000-04:00

I turned to face the Frau. “OK, we’ve seen what’s happened at the Coop. What else is going on?”

Frau scrunched up her face as she moved to take a seat on a comfortable looking sofa and waved for the rest of us to do the same. “You all might as well sit down. Things have gone from bad to worse in a hurry.”

Cerrydwen emerged from the kitchen to place a steaming platter of eggs, sausages and toast on the counter that separated the kitchen from the immense common room. “If anyone’s hungry, come and get it while it is still hot.”

Ravyn rushed to the bar stool nearest the food and began piling a plate high with servings of everything. She waved at the Frau to begin speaking. “Don’t wait on me. I’ve never been so hungry in my life. I’m listening!”

The Frau nodded, setting her cane to the side as Alexa came bouncing up into her lap with an energetic giggle.

“Herne did note that everyone that Ravyn and Betsy had sent out there had arrived safely, but the news was certainly not all good.” Her glasses slid down towards the end of her nose as she spoke. “He has already received a second group of refugees from the San Diego Circle and has heard reports of an attack on the Salem House in Boston, but he hasn’t been able to reach Tessa or any of the other principles of Salem House.”

Jim gave a low whistle and took off his hat in frustration. “That means that three of our largest teaching facilities have been hit on the same night!”

Ravyn looked up from her plate, her mouth half full of food. “No wonder he mentioned the Railroad.”

The Frau nodded. “Yes, he has activated the Railroad and has been sending out the refugees first.”

I looked around, everyone else seemed to know what the Hell the ‘Railroad’ was, so I had to ask. “What is this Railroad business and what does it have to do with these attacks?”

Jim stood up. He began twisting and wrenching his baseball cap in his large hands as he began to explain. “The Railroad is one of major contingency plans. It was actually something we came up with when we were dealing with Drake and his minions, when we thought that we might be pitted against the FBI and other federal agencies in trying to help you in those early days. It is based on the Underground Railroad that helped freed slaves escape the South before and during the Civil War. It is a way of moving our people around without too much notice.”

“I guessed as much, but where are these folks going and how are they getting there?”

He shuffled his feet and twisted his cap even tighter in his hands. “We have a network of transit points that link each major ORC facility to few select safe houses scattered around the country that are known only to select principals in each facility. It was one of those transit points that Ravyn activated to get most of the folks from the Coop to Herne’s Lodge in the Rockies.”

Frau cleared her throat. “Yes, as well as the dozen or so from San Diego. The Lodge is one of our primary rally points, but Herne is concerned of the possibility that it has been compromised as well. That was why he activating the Railroad to move out most of the refugees to even safer locations until we can get our bearings and come up with an appropriate response.”

Ravyn bounced up from her stool now that her plate was empty and stalked over to me. She stood facing me, hands on her hips. “I know one thing that we’re going to be doing! Bane hunting! I…”

My Bureau issued cell phone chose that moment to erupt in music, silencing Ravyn in mid-sentence. With more than a little trepidation, I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. I didn’t recognize the number, so I flipped the phone open. “Bones here.”

Agent Jennifer Wilson’s voice hissed through the crackling static of the ear piece, but she was clearly trying to mask it. “Damn it, don’t use any names. It’s about time you I found you. Look, I can’t talk long. The Bureau is shutting us down.”

“What? Why?”

“I just received a summons from very high in the Bureau. All work in our unit is to cease immediately and all agents and assets are to report for reassignment immediately. The scuttlebutt is also that you’ve been compromised and have gone rogue, but I don’t believe it. There is an all point’s bulletin out for you to be taken into custody by any means necessary. That’s why I had to use this disposable phone to call you. I recommend that you dump this phone immediately when we terminate this call and get rid of any other Bureau issued items that might be traceable.”

“Damn! What about you?”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. Oh, two more quick things. First, that body that I was examining disappeared along with all of my notes and computer files, but I can tell you that I think they have an aversion to silver, the purer the silver the better. Second, your friend in DC, the one named after the African tribe, has been taken very ill and has been quarantined for the last week. No one except his doctor and the guards that have been assigned to his room is being allowed to see him for any reason.”

“Jesus…”

“I have to go. Remember, ditch your phone immediately and get away from wherever you are. There are serious resources being dedicated to finding you right now and they don’t have good intentions.”

The phone went silent and the squealed in protest as I crushed it in my hand.

I looked up in the questioning, concerned faces of my compatriots. “Well, it looks like we just moved from the frying pan to the fire. We need to pack up as quickly as possible and get the heck out of here, pronto.”

(To be continued…)

Playing Hardball...Part 1

2007-07-25T19:50:00.000-04:00

After an impromptu and emotional celebration, we returned to the house to find the phone ringing.

The Frau picked up the cordless phone while simultaneously offering instructions. “Naomi, you’re closest to Ravyn’s size, can you get some clothes for poor Ravyn? Rusty can you take care of this table? Cerry, would you be a dear and start some breakfast going?” After about the tenth ring, she fumbled with the buttons on the phone and answered that. “Hello?”

Her face lit up as she heard the voice on the other end of the line.

“Oh, Herne, I’m so glad you called. Ravyn’s back with us now!”

There was a pause as she listened to him respond. His voice was almost audible over the handset, but I couldn’t quite make out the words.

“What? Oh dear! Yes, by all means, activate the Railroad. I’ll let everyone here know about your concerns and start the ball rolling on our end.”

Jim’s face tightened considerably at the mention of ‘railroad’, he stood still as he tred to catch whatever was being said by Herne.

She paused again as he spoke for quite some time.

“Yes, we’ll turn it on now. Yes, we’ll notify the families. You guys take care. Let us know when everyone is safe!”

Frau’s demeanor had changed considerably by the time she punched the button to hang up the phone. She looked she wanted to slam the phone down, but thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, she turned to me. “Rusty, will you turn the television on to the Wolf Network News channel please.” Her teeth visibly grated as she spat those words out.

I nodded and went looking for the remote control. The WNN was not the first choice of anyone here, as it clearly had a hard line conservative bent to its coverage. By the time I found the remote, everyone had come back into the main room, gathering about the TV.

Ravyn was now wearing a pair of loose grey sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt that was clearly two sizes too large for her as she carried the bubbly Alexa in her arms. Naomi followed right behind.

The TV flickered on and we could immediately see why the Frau wanted to watch this channel. The screen was split into two main images and scrolling news banner beneath. The words ‘Breaking News’ were emblazoned across the top of both images. The screen on the right must showing earlier footage of the Coop lit up at night by the blazing fire that we had just barely escaped from. The left side of the screen was of a reporter talking with the smoldering ruins of the Coop as the backdrop.

The scrolling ‘news’ that rolled beneath the footage was supposedly encapsulating the highlights of the coverage to date. Just the first few snippets of it were enough to get Ravyn to gasp and Jim to clench his hands in anger.

“BIZZARE FIRE AT COLLEGE TOWN OCCULT HOUSE IN CHICAGO SUBURBS.”

“POLICE SUSPECT POSSIBLE SUICIDE PACT AMONG STRANGE CULT MEMBERS.”

“20 BODIES DISCOVERED IN OCCULT HOUSE FIRE NEAR CHICAGO.”

“NEIGHBORS CLAIM RESIDENTS OF OCCULT HOUSE WERE SATAN WORSHIPPERS AND THAT HOUSE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN YEARS AGO.”

The reporter’s voice came across in response to a question from the studio. “Yes, Bill, I just finished speaking with a spokesperson for the East Napierville Fire Department and he has confirmed that fire appears to be very suspicious in nature and that they believe that accelerants were used, leading them to believe that the occupants of the house set it on fire themselves.”

The screen flashed over to a studio where a heavy set, balding man sat at an anchor desk and asked another question of the reporter. “Sam, I’ve seen some reports here that this house may have been used by a Satanic cult of some sort, can you give us any more information on that?”

The screen flipped back to the reporter, who listened to the question in his earpiece, nodding eagerly as the question ended. “Indeed, I can Bill. According to several neighbors that I spoke with, including one that we’ll roll the tape on here in a moment, this house was run by a wild woman known only as Ravyn Fyre. All of the witnesses agreed that this Ravyn Fyre was a well known witch and coven leader for a bizarre group that called themselves Trolls or Goblins, or some other name like that. She apparently used this house as a recruiting center and for strange night time rituals that often involved large fires and animal sacrifices. Let’s roll the tape of this interview.”

The screen flickered to show an older woman who looked an awful lot like Evelyn Olsen, a kindly neighbor that Ravyn had shared many a meal with over the years, but her mannerisms were not quite right. “Oh yes, I’ve always known that the people in this house weren’t to be trusted. When I tried to report on them though, they threatened me to keep me quiet. Ravyn Fyre even threatened to make my precious kitties disappear if I reported her to the authorities.”

The mike in front of the woman moved as the reporter asked another question. “Mrs. Olsen, do you think that the folks in this house were involved with occult activity in any way?”

She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. I can’t remember all of the times I saw those young people dressed in strange robes-or even in nothing at all-dancing around fires at night.” She visibly shuddered. “I pray for the souls of those poor folk in the fire, I’m afraid that they will be heading in the wrong direction, if you know what I mean.”

The Frau snorted at that last statement before she spoke. “Rusty, turn that off. I’ve seen enough.”

(To be continued…)

Phoenix Rising...Part 3

2007-07-22T12:30:00.000-04:00

I carried Ravyn’s body out to the clearing in the back of the house. The path to the clearing was barely visible through the thick undergrowth, but it was marked by small Celtic designs painted on tree trunks at eye level.

Once in the clearing, I set her body down in a nice grassy spot and set to building a pyre in the stone circle in the middle of the clearing out of the firewood that was stacked and ready to use nearby.

Jim, Naomi, and Cerrydwen joined in with the building of the pyre, each of them remaining silent as we worked.

The Frau brought a red gallon can of gasoline, which she set down in the grass near the stacked cords of firewood.

Alexa was kneeling in the grass next to Ravyn’s body, her small hands touching Ravyn’s forehead in a loving manner as she whispered unheard words to her.

Once the pyre was built, I moved to go get Ravyn’s body.

Alexa looked up at me as I approached. Her hands were now clasped around a small, brilliantly red, oval object that rested in her lap. Wet tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m going to miss her, Daddy.”

“Alexa, we’ll all miss Lady Fyre. She was a really special person who was very much loved.”

Alexa shook her head vehemently, her hair bouncing as she did so. “No, Daddy, I’m not talking about Lady Fyre. She’ll be here as soon as we’re done.”

The Frau and the others had gathered around us now, listening to this very special child as she spoke.

“Then who are you talking about, Alexa?”

Her shoulders bounced up and down as she was wracked with sobbing tears as she held up the small, egg-shaped object in her two tiny hands. “Betsy! I’m going to miss Betsy so much!”

Naomi squatted down next to her daughter. “But Betsy is already gone. We all wish she could come back too, but we’ve got to help Lady Fyre right now. Are you sure this is going to bring Lady Fyre back to us?”

Alexa nodded, at first too broken up to speak. But she calmed down and looked up into each of our faces before finally speaking. As she spoke, she placed the red egg onto Ravyn’s chest and then gently brought up each of Ravyn’s hands over the egg to make it secure. As she spoke, we could clearly hear a more mature version of Alexa speaking, like she had on previous occasions.

“Lady Ravyn gave me this egg that Betsy had created and asked me to keep it safe. She told me that if something really bad were to happen to someone I love and they died, that I could place the egg with the body into a really big fire on the same day that the person died and that the person would be allowed to come back. But she also told me that if something happened to Betsy, that the egg could be used to bring her back, but it could only work once. If the egg were used to bring Betsy back, it would take 1 year and 1 day for her to make another. So I can’t bring both Ravyn and Betsy back with the same egg. If I used the egg to bring Betsy back, she wouldn’t be able to help Ravyn in time.”

She looked down at Ravyn’s peacefully composed face after she had finished placing Ravyn’s hands onto the egg before looking back up at us. Her eyes reflected the maturity that had come over her voice.

“I know that Betsy would want me to bring Ravyn back over her. That is why I mourn the loss of Betsy. She is a creature from a different place, a creature that I will no longer be able to communicate with once this egg is gone, and that is a terrible loss. I also mourn for Ravyn, for I know that she loves Betsy and that she will be heartbroken at the loss of her friend, her companion. Right now, they are both together, spending their last moments in union with one another as they soar with the stars. Once the fire is started, they will be torn from each other, never to be together again in this lifetime. Ravyn wants to be back among us, but she is also saddened by the thought of losing one of her dearest friends.”

She stood up and looked directly into my eyes.

“Father, we must act soon. If we wait much longer, the pain of her loss may be too much for her to overcome. Please bring Ravyn to the pyre and start the fire.”

With those words, Alexa turned and walked towards where the pyre had been built, stopping just beyond the stone circle and waiting for us to join her.

I looked to the others gathered around Ravyn’s body.

Jim nodded silently, his jaw set in determination. Cerrydwen nodded as well, tears streaking down her face in empathy at the loss that Ravyn was about to experience. The Frau cleared her throat and motioned with the cane that I should do as instructed. Naomi was watching her daughter with a look that spoke of awe and deep, motherly love.

I reached down and slid my hands under Ravyn’s body, careful not to disturb her now clasped hands. I picked her up and followed Alexa toward the pyre.

I stepped inside the stone circle and placed her body gently onto the pyre.

Jim stood next to me, holding the can of gasoline. By the look on his face, he was struggling with the idea of dousing the pyre with the gas. His hands trembled as he struggled with the cap on the can.

I reached out and took the can from him. “I’ll do it.”

He nodded and stepped back to join the others outside of the circle.

I emptied the can on the wood all around her body, saving just enough to douse the sheet that covered her entire body, except for her head and arms.

The Frau hobbled forward, a box of fireplace matches in her hand.

I took them from her and motioned for her to step back. Once she was safely back with the others, each of them holding the hands of two others, I pulled a single long match from the box and struck it and tossed it onto the wood next to her head.

There a tremendous FOOM as the gas saturated wood exploded in orange flames that mushroomed up towards the sky. Had I been living, I’m sure that I would have been in pain from the contact burns, but instead, I just calmly stepped back, noting that my leather jacket was smoking.

As we watched the flames calm down, we gasped to see that Ravyn’s body seemed oddly unarmed by the inferno that raged all around and even under her. Her hands, however, began to glow with an incandescent red light that grew brighter and brighter as we watched.

Slowly, the fire began to take its toll, at first on the sheet that covered her body, and then on her hair and skin, which blackened. Everyone but me sobbed as her body was simultaneously consumed by the fire and lit by the glow of the egg that was soon only covered by ashes.

Finally, her body was no longer solid enough to support the brightly glowing egg, and it fell down through the remains of her torso and into the burning embers beneath. For the briefest of moments, the glow of the egg disappeared completely. I felt a flash of despair that the magick had failed.

Just then, there was another brilliant explosion of energy that rose from the remains of the funeral pyre and formed itself into a giant Phoenix form. The Phoenix looked down at us with its defiant gaze and opened its beak. A piercing, keening cry came forth as the Phoenix began to dissipate. Half of its energy seemed to tear off and float upwards, soaring back towards the unseen stars, while the bottom half of the form collapsed in on itself and took the form of a naked woman.

Ravyn Fyre stood before us with her arms raised to the sky, crying out in pain at the loss of the union between soul mates before crumpling to the ground, her body giving off tendrils of smoke as she sobbed.

Jim was the first to reach her side, laying his own jacket across her bare shoulders as he knelt beside her.

Alexa was the second one there. As Jim helped Ravyn sit up, Alexa jumped into arms and gave her a great big bear hug as she sobbed. “I’ll miss her too, Lady Fyre!”

Phoenix Rising...Part 2

2007-07-21T10:22:00.000-04:00

The Frau joined Naomi in collecting the various bottles from Alexa. “Honey, why do you think that Lady Fyre needs to have a really big fire?”

Alexa threw up her now empty arms in exasperation. “I already told Daddy, because she told me so!”

“When was that, Sweetie?”

“She keeps telling me. I asked her if she was sure, because I know its wrong to play with fire, but she says ‘yes’ and we need to make it really soon.”

Naomi leaned down and picked Alexa up. “Did Lady Fyre say why we need the fire?”

Alexa nodded solemnly.

“Will you tell us?”

“Only if you promise to help me.”

Naomi rolled her eyes and looked at each of us in turn before turning her attention back to Alexa. “Alexa, we promise to help you to help Lady Fyre.”

“Lady Fyre says that we have to build a really big, really hot fire around her body. She also says that is really important to do as it soon as possible or she won’t be able to come back at all.” Tears began streaming down Alexa’s face. “I want to help bring Lady Fyre back.”

Naomi smothered her daughter in hugs and kisses, patting down her now wild hair with her spare hand. “Don’t worry, Alexa, we’ll help you to bring her back. Let’s get you something to eat while these others discuss how we’re going to do that, OK?”

The sniffling Alexa looked around at each of us, as if she were recording our nods as promises of support in her great quest. “OK, Mama.”

After they had left the room, I turned to face the Frau and Cerrydwen. “She wants us to build a funeral pyre and place Ravyn’s body in it? Can we even do that?”

The Frau shifted her weight and moved to sit down on one of the comfortable couches. She was looking at the seemingly sleeping face of Ravyn as she spoke. “If there is a chance that doing so might actually bring her back to us in some fashion, then yes, I think we have to try.”

Cerrydwen nodded. “Remember, her totem is the Phoenix and the Phoenix traditionally rises from its own ashes.”

Jim moved closer to Ravyn’s body. He reached down and brushed a stray strand of her hair from her face before looking up. “Can it really work?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “The Lady of the Lake brought back Naomi to us without even the benefit of having her body.” I moved closer to the table holding Ravyn’s body. Just as I got there, a stray thought occurred to me. “Hey, wait a minute! When I took Ravyn to the Lady of the Lake, she refused to help, but she did say something that I didn’t understand until just now—‘Return to your world and perform your rituals of loss and mourning. Only there will you find the solace you so desperately seek.’”

The Frau nodded, her eyes closed in contemplation. “Yes, that could be an obscure way of saying that the answer to our problem lies with a ritual of loss and mourning.”

Cerrydwen came up behind Jim and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “And given the nature of Ravyn’s powers, it would make sense to have her cremated as part of our ritual of mourning.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that illegal? We can’t just burn her body in broad daylight and expect no legal problems to come from it!”

Everyone turned to look at me, their incredulity showing on their faces.

“What? I am an FBI agent, you know. I figured I at least needed to make a pretense of worrying about the law!” I threw up my hands. “Ah, screw it! We have to try it. I can’t see Ravyn’s Spirit form around here, but I get the sense that Alexa really is able to talk to her, even now.”

Pointing towards the back of the house with her cane, the Frau stood back up. “Rusty, Jim, we have a very large pit out back, situated in a clearing about a hundred yards back in the woods. There are several cords of firewood already chopped back there. Rusty, if you can take Ravyn back there, the rest of us will bring the materials for the ceremony. Let’s get started.”

Phoenix Rising...Part 1

2007-07-18T20:41:00.000-04:00

I emerged from the Shadow just outside of the small, cozy home that Cerrydwen and the Frau shared. The house itself was a single story affair that looked pretty rustic from the road, but that façade was by design. It looked like nothing more than nice country ranch home nestled into the backwoods country of the middle of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

The night was almost done, with a light glow illuminating the eastern horizon as night gave way to the dawn of a new day. I could make out Jim’s truck in the parking lot. He must have gotten word of the attack. His own home was less than half an hour away.

I was not looking forward to having to pass on Ravyn’s cryptic last words to him. I had no idea what question it was that Ravyn had answered and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. I had to admit to being more than a little jealous of the relationship that had appeared to blossom between them in the last year or so. My jealousy, however, was now tempered by the guilt and sorrow I felt at not returning in time to save her.

With a heavy heart and a sense of failure, I approached the door.

It opened before I was able to reach up and knock. The Frau clucked her tongue and whisked us inside so quickly that I didn’t even note the others gathered about the door until I was already inside.

“Oh dear, it looks as bad as I had feared.” She bustled through the gathered crowd, creating a path for me to follow. “Please bring her this way, Rusty.”

Cerrydwen followed closely behind me, her face a mask of concern and barely contained rage. “Who did this to her?”

Before I could answer, I was escorted by the Frau into a rather large, comfortably appointed living room with a humungous fireplace. With practiced ease, the Frau began barking directions out to everyone around her, but they were given in such a way as to instill willing obedience and a desire to help in all who heard them.

“Cerry, be a dear and get the healing mat and the massage table from the other room, would you?”

“Naomi, would you please get some fresh sheets from the linen closet in the hall?”

“Jim, could you please fill a basin with some warm water and bring me the disinfectant soap from the bathroom closet?”

“Alexa, could you please pick up your toys and put them away?”

As if the whole scene had been coordinated in advance, the Frau soon had me placing Ravyn’s ravaged body on the newly erected table for her examination. She was a whirlwind of action, carefully stripping the burned and torn clothing from her body, quickly cleansing the worst of the soot and dirt from her wounds, and then covering her with clean sheets.

Jim, Naomi, Cerrydwen all hovered nearby, instantly responding to any and all requests that the Frau made, each absorbing the shock of seeing Ravyn stricken in this manner in their own way.

Cerrydwen remained largely silent, her face a mask of intense agony, her eyes burning brighter than I could ever recall. Her movements were quick and choppy, as if she could barely control the rage that filled her.

Naomi was clearly shaken and seemed to almost be in shock at seeing the woman who had served as mentor and instructor laid low. Her face reflected the pain she felt, but also the uncertainty at having her whole upset yet again.

Jim moved slowly and deliberately whenever he was asked to help out in some way, as if he needed to be sure that he remained in control of his body. His jaw was clenched and his lips set into a determined frown as he opened and closed his fists whenever his hands weren’t otherwise occupied. More than once, I saw his hand slip down to Ravyn’s right hand to give a quick, hopeful squeeze to her fingers.

Alexa toddled about the room, just out of everyone’s way as they bustled back and forth. She seemed almost oblivious to the emergency taking place in the room, piling up wooden blocks and tinker toys into an impressive pile in front of me.

“Daddy, can you help me?”

Relieved to have a chance to turn my eyes away from the treatment table, I looked down at my smiling child and her rather large pile of wooden toys strewn in front of me. “What do you want help with, darling?”

“I need more! This is all I have.”

“What do you mean? It looks like you can build quite a big toy out of these.” I sat down on an ottoman that I hadn’t noticed before and scooted closer to the pile. “What do you want to build?”

She looked at me with her big brown eyes and smiled. “We need to build something really big for Lady Fyre. She needs us.”

I couldn’t help the sudden feeling of loss and pain that welled up within me at seeing the innocent hope in the eyes of my daughter. I reached out and pulled her into a big hug. “I’ll help you build something for Lady Fyre, darling. But we can’t do it in here, OK? They need all of the room they can get to try and help Lady Fyre out.”

“Oh, I know we can’t build it in here, daddy. I need your help taking these outside. We need to build a really big thing outside for Lady Fyre. We need to use as many sticks as possible. She really needs us to do it as quickly as possible!”

I was puzzled by her words, so I pulled back, leaving a hand on each of her shoulders and looked at her in the face. “How do you know what Lady Fyre needs, darling?”

She returned my gaze steadily. “She told me so.”

I was distracted briefly Alexa as I heard loud sobbing coming from Naomi. I looked up to see the Frau turn and face me, shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. Jim and Cerrydwen were locked in a sobbing hug, trying to give solace to each other.

The Frau spoke first. “She’s gone. There’s no power that I know of that can bring her Spirit back or restore this body. I’m sorry, Rusty. She was just too far gone.”

I nodded, knowing deep in my own non-existent heart that Ravyn had died. I had witnessed her passing on the dark precipice. “I thought so. I saw her Spirit form leave her body and depart as it if were pulled from the place. I tried to get the Lady of the Lake to bring her back, but she refused.”

Alexa broke free of my hold and walked off, humming to herself as she headed towards the kitchen.

I looked up at all of their tear-stained faces, seeing them mourn in ways that I no longer could. I felt hollow and empty inside.
I stood up, stepped over the pile of wooden toys and made my way to the table where Ravyn lay in now peaceful looking repose. Even dead, her face was a beautiful mask of dignity and determination. Her eyes were closed, but I could still picture them, vibrantly green and incredibly intense. Her dark red hair had been combed and lay fanned out above her head. The sheet covered her naked form up to her neck. It was very easy to imagine her laying in a spa, waiting for a massage.

I saw Jim across the table from me, looking down at Ravyn’s face. This seemed to be the moment to give her last words to him.

“Jim?”

He looked up at me slowly. His face was streaked with tears. “Yeah?”

“Ravyn did ask me to tell you something before she passed away.”

His reddened eyes narrowed, a lump seemed to form in his throat as he tried to gulp air before speaking. “Oh?”

I nodded, glanced back down at her face and then back up at his before I answered. “She said to tell you that her answer was ‘Yes’.”

His face changed, took on a more peaceful look at hearing that. He reached up with the back of his left hand and wiped away the wetness on his cheeks.

Somewhat relieved by his response, I took the chance to ask the question that had been burning in my own mind since I heard her last words. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to know what the question was.”

Before he could respond, Alexa barged into the room making all sorts of noise as she banged into furniture on her way towards us, her arms full of every bottle of cooking oil and flammable chemical in the Frau’s kitchen.

We all turned to look at this explosive mixture, but it was the Frau who got out the first questions Alexa.

“Alexa, where did you get all of that stuff and why are you bringing it in here?”

Naomi was already moving towards her daughter, reaching out to take some of the bottles from her.

Alexa stopped and looked up at all of us, clearly exasperated. “Lady Fyre needs a really, really big fire. Daddy won’t help, so it looks like I’m going to have to do it myself.”

A Desperate Gambit

2007-07-16T22:05:00.000-04:00

I emerged from the Shadow to find myself standing in the shallow water of hidden lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I had been once before with Cerrydwen and the Frau. I had Ravyn’s body cradled in my arms.

It was a desperate plan that was unlikely to succeed, but it was something I felt that I had to try. I hoped that the Lady of the Lake would bring Ravyn back to life the same way that she brought back Naomi.

The water lapped quietly around my boots as I set my shoulders and began to take the last few steps toward the shore.

I had tried to step through the Shadow directly onto the island itself, up by the stone altar where Cerrydwen had worked from the last time that I was here, but I had the hardest time even finding this place. It was almost as if the Lady had raised a barrier against anyone coming onto her island through that means.

As I tried to get closer to the island, a stream of the will-o-wisps streamed up from the water and began dancing directly in my way. I stepped to the left, but was stonewalled again as they shifted to block my way.

Finally, I got frustrated and tried to push my way past them. “Dammit, get out of my way! I have to see the Lady.”

At that last word, the wisps stopped their dancing and joined together. Hundreds of them took on the rough outline of a feminine form. Before I could move or say anything, the Lady spoke to me in a distant, dream-like voice.

“You have not been invited here, nor have you asked permission to come to my sacred space. You come bearing weapons and the body of a comrade. Why are you here?”

“Lady, please, I need your help. This is Ravyn Fyre. She was slain tonight by a Bane. Please, please bring her back!”

She looked at me with her eyes, formed out of the brightest of the wisps. The wisps that formed her mouth moved as she spoke, but like a badly dubbed foreign film, they didn’t seem to form the same words that she spoke in mind.

“You presume much. I do not meddle in the affairs of humans. There is always much sorrow and loss in your world.”

“I saw you bring back Naomi! Can’t you help Ravyn?”

She shook her head as she responded. “I cannot help this one.”

I took a step forward, unwilling to give up so easily. I held out Ravyn’s body in my arms for her to see. “Why not? You brought back Naomi without her body!”

The form glided back as I moved forward, keeping an even distance between us. She began to turn away, but stopped, looked back over her shoulder and spoke once again. “You demand for that which can only be given. Return to your world and perform your rituals of loss and mourning. Only there will you find the solace you so desperately seek.”

As her form began to dissolve into the hundreds of individual wisps again, I tried one last time. “I don’t want solace, dammit, I want Ravyn back!”

But my objections did not sway her or the wisps. They resumed their blocking dance as I stood there frustrated and angry.

Phoenix Down

2007-07-13T22:10:00.001-04:00

The scene I returned to was vastly different than the scene that I had left.

I emerged from the Shadow directly across the street form the Coop compound, just on the chance that a trap had been laid by the Dream Weavers. But there was no sign of them.

Instead I saw the flashing lights and heard the idling motors of several fire engines. Emergency personnel crowded the streets as firemen moved to hook up hoses, police officers were keeping the growing crowds of spectators back, and camera men moved to get clearer shots of the orange flames that were so greedily consuming the Phoenix Coop.

I didn’t see anybody I recognized from the Coop in the gathered crowds or being assisted in any way by emergency response crews, so I summoned the Shadow before I was noticed and slipped back into the Shadowland.

The normally dull and silent landscape of the Shadowland was a kaleidoscope of clashing colors formed by crowds of people, the chaos of the battle that had just been fought, and the physical destruction of the Coop itself by the fire. Instead of trying to slip through the crowds, I allowed myself to float over it, passing above the commotion below and through the perimeter of the Coop grounds.

The massive energy of the fires raging through the Coop made it difficult to sense anything else coming from inside, but I had the nagging sensation that Ravyn was still inside and in need of my help. I sped up.

On a hunch, I slipped around the back of the house and landed near the now gaping hole that led into the library. The fire raged all around, but I was able to pass through it unfazed, as the vast majority of the damaging energies were limited to the primary world. The afterimages that I saw here were the shadowy essence of the fire itself.

I pushed through the blaze and into the library, looking for any clues to the whereabouts of Ravyn, Katherine, Zenny Al Farhan, or any of the students of the Coop.

The floor of the library was normally crowded with tables and chairs and several comfy sofas for the small group of students who used the place for their studies, but it was quite evident that a battle of some sort had taken place here. Bits and pieces of the tables lay scattered about and the sofas had been pushed back and overturned. I stepped over one to come into a space that looked like it had been the epicenter of some sort of blast.

The haze cast by the raging fires in the real world obscured almost everything, but something moved, catching my eye.

I pushed forward. I was glad to not have to worry about getting toasted, but I was also worried as to what I might find.

I was right to be concerned.

Stepping over another overturned couch and over the debris of another table, I came to the center of the room and saw two figures.

The one laying still on the ground with her Spirit form growing dimmer by the second was obviously Ravyn. The second figure was leaning over her, face down toward her neck. It was a Bane. As her Spirit dimmed, his grew stronger, darker, and more vibrant.

I drew Excalibur and stepped from the Shadowland into the blazing heat of the real world as if it were one easy action.

If the noise of blaze was any indication, we were standing in the middle of a raging inferno. I had to yell to make myself heard, although I think the creature sensed my arrival more than he heard what I had to say to him. “Get off her, asshole!”

The creature rose to its full stature, which was considerable, although it was shorter and stockier than the form Anthraximander had used. Its face may once have been human, but it was extremely hard to see any resemblance. His skin was as black as ebony, so dark and shiny that it reflected the light of the raging fires around us. He had two horns sprouting from his forehead, which swept up and curled back so that the ends pointed backwards over his head. He had a snout that protruded from his face like that of a bat, but with much sharper and longer teeth than any bat I had ever seen. Blood dripped from his mouth. Enormous black wings were fold on its back, each tipped with a wicked looking claw. He had two enormously muscled arms tipped with large ebony claws.

The creature looked at me with feral yellow eyes and flicked a forked, snake-like tongue across its fangs.

It said something in response to me, but his words were lost in the loud crash as supporting beams of the second floor came crashing down behind me.

For once, I decided to take Drake’s advice and just attacked. I didn’t really care to engage in conversation with this thing.

I leaped forward, holding Excalibur back as I did until the last moment, figuring it would lash out with one of its huge claws.

It didn’t disappoint. As it swung up one arm to toss me aside, I brought the blade down in a huge overhand slicing motion right at the wrist joint, hoping to use my momentum and the power of the blade to sever the wrist.

It almost worked.

The blade smashed into his hand, driving it down easier than I expected, but the blade didn’t really penetrate his exoskeleton-like skin. That was a first.

I did, however, manage to exert more force than he expected me to, pushing him backwards. Luckily, he was large enough that his step back was big enough to avoid crushing Ravyn’s skull.

Despite my surprise at Excalibur not being able to penetrate his skin on that first blow, I rained down a series of blows. Each one making solid contact, each one bouncing off of the hard skin of his arms or legs, but each impact driving him backwards away from Ravyn.

It didn’t take long however, before he was able to deflect a blow with a blow of his own. That stopped the momentum of my attack and threw me into a defensive posture as he spread his wings and took a more aggressive posture, ready to attack.

Excalibur was no longer glowing like it normally did during confrontations with creatures of this ilk. For some reason, it no longer seemed interested in the battle, which was another first for me.

The creature seemed to sense the changing dynamics of the situation and licked its lips as it roared and pounced towards me.

Keeping in mind that Ravyn was laying on the ground behind me, I used every ounce of concentration that I possessed to land right next to her, shielding her body with mine and calling the Shadow to slip both of us through the Shadowland and to a world before the creature landed on us.

I half expected the creature to follow us into the Shadow, but was relieved to find just the two of us laying on the rocky precipice that I brought Bernstein to once before. I shuddered at the fact that my subconscious had decided to bring us to this place.

I laid Excalibur to the side, just in case the Bane decided to show up later, and looked down at the battered and bloody form of Ravyn Fyre.

She lay there almost completely still, barely breathing. Her face was blacked by soot and bruised, as if the creature had bashed her in the side of the face. Blood trickled from the gash that ran along her cheek and down the left side of her neck. Her clothing lay in smoking tatters loosely around her, revealing more bloody wounds and blackened skin. Her left arm splayed out at an odd angle that indicated that it was definitely broken in more than one place.

I had no idea how, but she still lived.

I reached down to touch her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, darling. I’m going to get you to someone who can help you.”

Remarkably, she stirred at my touch, calling out a name softly. “Jim?”

“It’s Rusty.” I had to keep my face close to hers in order to hear her.

She seemed to nod, it was almost imperceptible.

“Where are the others? Do I need to go back in there?”

She licked her cracked, blackened lips and seemed to shake her head slightly. “They’re gone.”

“Where to?”

She swallowed, it was painful to watch her do it, but I could tell she wanted to respond, so I waited. “Safe. I sent them away.” Her body shuddered as she heaved with pain, gasping for more breath. “Betsy gave herself up to make it happen.”

I could see that she was using vital energy to speak, using her nearly indomitable Will to keep her body conscious and functioning in the face of tremendous pain and physical trauma. Looking at her Spirit form, I could see that it was dangerously diminished, as if her very Spirit had been drained by that creature and her exertions.

“Hush now. I need to get you to the Frau and Cerrydwen. You are in dire need of medical attention.”

Her Spirit seemed to flicker briefly as she exerted herself one more time to speak. “Tell Jim that my answer is…yes.” The last word came out in a sigh as her body went limp.

I panicked as I saw her Spirit form separate from her physical form. I called out to her. “Ravyn, don’t you leave me! Your time is not up yet, dammit!”

She looked at me, at her body laying beside me, in a distant, dreamy manner. She smiled and waved as her Spirit form dimmed and then disappeared without saying anything, pulled by some unknown force from this dreary place.

I was left cradling her broken, battered body wishing for all the world that I could shed the tears and release the emotion that I was feeling at that moment…

Hell's Bells...Finale

2007-07-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

I turned to Naomi. “We can’t leave until I do something about those creatures out there that are preventing us from leaving. Will you be OK here for a moment?”

She glanced out the window behind me and shook her head. “No, we’re coming with you.”

“What are talking about? It is quite a drop from here!”

Naomi reached out and touched my shoulder. “We’ll make it down there, you just worry about yourself.”

Alexa perked up as she looked from me to her mother. “Are we going to fly again, Mama?”

Naomi nodded and put both arms around Alexa again before smiling down at her daughter. “Yes, dear, we’re going to fly again, but not too much this time, OK?”

Alexa bobbed her head and pumped her tiny fist. “Yay!”

Naomi shifted her gaze back to me. “Go now, we’ll follow behind you at a safe distance.”

I shook my head and decided to trust her judgment. I knew that she would never do anything that she would endanger Alexa.

Using my gloved hands, I cleared all of the sharp shards of glass from the opening of the window, pulling the curtains off the wall in the process. Once it was clear, I stepped up onto the windowsill, hunching my shoulders down to fit into the square opening, if barely.

Another violent explosion rocked the house as I prepared to jump by glancing to the ground beneath me. Unearthly screams of pain and terror accompanied the blast, giving me the impetus I needed to get going. I pushed myself forward, kicking out with my legs in an attempt to land standing up.

It worked, almost.

I landed on my backside with a tremendous thud in one of Ravyn’s favorite flower beds. I let go of the rucksack that had unbalanced my fall and started scrambling up to my feet amid of a shower of dirt and ruined petals. My actions became more urgent as I noticed two wolf-like shadows emerge from the bushes near where I had seen the line of figures holding up the shield in the Shadowland. It was all I could do to get Excalibur out and my feet set before they were upon me.

Apparently, the blade decided that these creatures, were worthy of taking on and guided my hand as I lashed out at the first of the attacking beasts. I felt the blade sink into it, but its weight bore the blade downward as the second beast launched itself into my chest, knocking back to the ground.

The creature snarled and snapped at my face, held back only by my left hand on its throat. I tried to wrest Excalibur from the first creature’s chest, but I lacked the leverage to yank it free while lying on my back, pinned down by the second.

I was just about to give up on pulling the sword free and taking the thing on with my hands when the creature, much to our mutual surprise, began to float above me, its paws flailing helplessly in an attempt to regain traction.

Naomi’s voice rang out from the shadows to my left, obviously straining with effort. “Now, Rusty! I can’t hold it for long, it’s too heavy!”

Using only my left hand, I heaved upwards and yanked at Excalibur with my right. The blade slipped free and slashed upwards across the throat of the still struggling second creature. Its lifeless body fell to the ground as I stood up.

Naomi stepped from the shadows, pale and sweaty with exhaustion, Alexa standing beside her.

Alexa was straining against Naomi’s hand, reaching toward the first dead creature. “Poor wolfies!”

“Hush, girl. These aren’t real wolves.” Naomi pulled her back gently.

“Follow me.” I waved at them to get behind me. “We need to get to the perimeter so I can get you guys to safety.”

I reached down and grabbed the rucksack with my left hand and brandished the glowing blade of Excalibur with my right as I began moving towards where I had seen the figures standing in the Shadowland.

Nothing else moved to attack us as we moved forward, so I was able to take a glance back towards the Coop. The building behind us was glowing orange from the flames that were now eating at the place from several locations inside. Smoke billowed upwards, disappearing in the night sky.

I wondered how this could be happening without any response from the Fire Department, but I had to push that thought away as we approached the perimeter. I felt, more than saw, the field of energy that had been set up by the man-sized creatures that I had seen earlier. There was no sign of them with my normal sight, so I shifted my vision to the Shadowland.

As my vision shifted, I found myself staring in the vacant, nearly lifeless eyes of a pale, naked creature that stood, unmoving, spread-eagle. Its long, thin arms stretched outward towards the outstretched arms of others just like it.

Looking into its face, I now recognized them for what they were…Drake had called these creatures Dream Weavers. They were another servant race of the An’girasii. They worked in groups of thirteen, using their powers from the Shadowland to create powerful, complex illusions in the ‘real’ world.

They apparently also had the ability to shut off my access to the Shadowland.

I lashed out with Excalibur towards the Dream Weaver immediately in front of me.

There was a tremendous amount of resistance, as if the illusory shield created by the Weavers was resisting the power of the blade. Sparks of magickal energy erupted as the blade fought its way through the shield and into abdomen of the Weaver.

The shower of sparks turned into an eruption of energy that must have flashed into the real world as well. The entire illusion that had been created by the Weavers crumbled in an explosion of energy that threw me back into normal vision again.

Alexa called out in appreciate surprise. “Oooh, fireworks!”

I sheathed Excalibur in one motion and reached out to Naomi. “Hold on! This is going to be rough!”

I called the Shadow and stepped from this former place of safety to another, Naomi and Alexa in tow…

Hell's Bells...Part 5

2007-06-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

Ravyn turned to me, her rage burning brighter in her eyes than in her still flaming fist. “Rusty, take these two to Cerrydwen and come back as soon as you can.” She glanced back at Naomi, “You remember the emergency password don’t you, darling?”

Naomi nodded. “I do.”

“Good. When you get to Cerrydwen’s place, make sure you tell Rusty what they are, OK?”

Naomi nodded again as she stood up with Alexa before grabbing a small bag that she had managed to pack. “I’m ready.”

I turned back to Ravyn. “Are you going to be alright?”

She shrugged. “I’ll be alright so long as I know that these two are safe. If you hurry back, you can help me to save as many of the others as possible.” She glanced back down the hall before looking at me again. “Get these two to safety. We can’t let Alexa fall into the arms of these monsters.”

“I’ll be back.”

A tear rolled down Ravyn’s cheek as she turned away and stalked off to do battle. “Good.”

I sheathed Excalibur and picked up the rucksack that I had dropped earlier. I reached my left hand out toward Naomi. “Come on. Let’s get you two to Cerrydwen.”

As she and Alexa drew near, I focused my Will and summoned the Shadow.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

I waved my free hand to silence the questions and tried again, this time though, I reached as deep inside of myself as possible, summoning all of Will. I would not, could not, be denied.

Except that I was. Again, nothing happened.

“What the fu…dge?” I looked at Naomi. “I think something is blocking me from calling the Shadow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How can they do that?”

I shrugged. “I wish I knew…”

I was interrupted by an ear-piercing, unearthly scream of rage of fear that was itself interrupted by an explosion that rocked the foundations of the house. I held on to Naomi tightly as the floor buckled and lurched beneath us. For the briefest of moments there was a dead kind of silence, but that was soon shattered by the sounds of other battles being fought elsewhere in the house.

Once things stopped shaking, I slammed the door to the room shut and ran over to the shattered window to get a view of what was happening out there.

At first, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, which was strange in itself. Sensing that all was not as it seemed, I shifted my sight into the Shadowland. That’s when everything became a hell of a lot clearer and I became a hell of a lot more concerned.

In the Shadowland, I could see the ring of man-sized figures that stood stock still, arms extended towards each of their neighbors. Extending between them was a web of crackling energy that seemed to form a dome over the entire Phoenix Coop. I had no idea who or what these creatures were and how they were doing it, but they seemed to have created some kind of bubble that was meant to keep anyone from leaving the place, especially through the Shadowland…

Hell's Bells...Part 4

2007-06-24T23:08:00.000-04:00

I hefted the black rucksack over my left shoulder and drew Excalibur from its sheath. I then stepped into the hall, glancing back long enough to shout out to Ravyn. “Let’s get Naomi and move to the rally point!”

Clutching Alexa in her left arm and raising her now flaming right hand to shoulder height in front of her, she nodded, her jaw set in grim determination.

Most of the noise was coming from the first floor. It was an eclectic mix of screams, grunts, breaking glass and other clashing sounds. As I pushed past a door on my right to get towards Naomi’s room, the door was wrenched off its hinges by an implosion of some sort. I glanced back to see Ravyn staggered towards the gaping maw that was now the portal before she steadied herself and sent a bolt of a flame towards a target that I was too far away to see. The stream of curses that flew from her lips was only slightly less caustic than the flame bolt that she had hurled.

I stopped to see if she needed any help, but turned back around to press forward again when she waved me off with a resigned sigh. “Keep going. There’s no one to save in there.”

As I came to Naomi’s door, I paused long enough to hear the sounds of struggle coming from inside. I glanced back to Ravyn. “Trouble.” I took one half step back and kicked the door handle with my left boot and used the moment of coming down to slam my shoulder into it, splintering it into flying wooden shards.

I shrugged off the rucksack as I turned to face whatever it was that Naomi was struggling with, only find myself facing two identically dressed Naomi’s locked in a violent embrace that was causing them to crash into the battered furniture of the small room.

“Shit!”

The Naomi’s separated as I stood there cursing. The Naomi closest to me turned and moved towards me. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here Rusty! This creature came in took my shape! Kill it!”

The other Naomi sank back against the battered desk. She looked up at me and asked a simple question. “Is Alexa safe?”

The first Naomi turned her back to me, continuing to point at the second, shouting at me to kill the intruder, but it was too late.

I lashed out with Excalibur using all of my strength. The blade lashed out blindingly fast and sliced into the neck of the unsuspecting Doppelganger.

The head of the creature went spinning as a fountain of greenish black ichor leaped into the air, spraying all over me and the rucksack as the body collapsed in a heap next to me.

Naomi’s shoulders slumped. She was clearly exhausted from her struggle with the creature. She perked up though as Ravyn pushed into the room behind me, the wriggling Alexa still held to her left hip. “Alexa!”

“Mama!” Alexa slipped from Ravyn’s grasp and bounded over to her mother in three running steps, somehow avoiding all of the pooling ichor as she did so.

Naomi held our daughter tight for a single quiet moment before the reality of the situation caused Ravyn to clear her throat.

“We need to move. Others haven’t been as lucky as you, darling.”

Hell's Bells...Part 3

2007-06-20T22:44:00.000-04:00

“Yes, Sweetie, you’ll get a chance to ride on Betsy.” Ravyn looked up from Alexa to the disheveled Naomi. “Go get the things you’ll need for the next day or so. We need to get you two to the safe house. Don’t worry about getting dressed, there’s a full wardrobe for you there. I’ll watch her until you get ready.”

Naomi nodded glumly and shuffled off back towards her room.

Alexa bounded into Ravyn’s outstretched arms with a giggle and a flop of the raggedy stuffed bear.

I shifted my balance and spoke up. “What do you need me to do?”

Ravyn hugged Alexa, inhaling deeply of her essence before responding. “Stick by close by me until we see the girls off. We don’t know what we are facing just yet, and I want to make sure Alexa is safe.”

She sat back down at her desk and reached out to the business phone. She punched a couple of buttons, activating the intercom for the Coop. Her voice came through loud and clear over the hidden speakers in every room of the large house. “Attention this is a Code 3 emergency. Secure all doors and windows. Rally point is the Library in zero-five minutes. I repeat, this is a Code 3 emergency, rally to the Library in 5 minutes. This is not a drill people.”

I arched my brown and nodded. “I’m impressed.”

She shot me a sarcastic look. “Hey there, some of us actually make contingency plans for when things to go wrong instead of winging it.” She stood back up and pointed to behind the door. “Grab the bag behind that door, would ya?”

I turned, moved the door enough to see the black rucksack that I had never noticed before and reached for it, just in time to hear the glass breaking in several places around the house and the screams of shock and fear that accompanied those sounds…

Alexa’s voice cut through the other sounds. “They’re here!”

Ravyn’s curses were far more colorful and imaginative than mine were…

Hell's Bells...Part 2

2007-06-18T21:46:00.000-04:00

The reunion of mother and daughter was all tears and hugs from mom and giggling laughter and ticklish hugs from daughter. Alexa had come alive as we neared Naomi’s room and erupted from my arms with bubbly exclamation of “Mama!” as she bounded towards the huddled, still sleepy form of Naomi.

Naomi gave me a teary-eyed glare over Alexa’s pig tails.

I held up my hands as I backed out of the room. “I’m back in control, Naomi. I’m sorry!”

Between my protestations and Alexa’s energetic, giggling hugs, her glare softened. She nodded before hugging her daughter back.

Ravyn touched my shoulder. “Let’s leave them alone, they’ll need to get some rest.”

I followed her back out into the hall and towards the small office that she kept at the Coop.

“So did you receive that package from Drake?”

Ravyn nodded as she settled behind her desk and pulled out a large yellow and red DHL box that rattled as she moved it. “Yes. I haven’t seen keys like this since I was a child.” She reached in and pulled out a large ring of skeleton keys, each one slightly different than the others.

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t believe where this stuff is hidden…”

“The Angel-people are coming.”

We both turned to look down at the small, figure of Alexa standing in her nightgown and bunny slippers, a teddy bear dangling from her left hand.

Ravyn was the first to recover. “What was that, Sweetheart?”

“The Angel-people are coming, soon.”

Naomi padded in behind Alexa, her hair unkempt and her face stained with tears. “She keeps repeating this phrase. She also insisted on coming and telling you herself. She refused to go to bed.”

“Auntie Ravyn, the Angel-people are coming. Can I ride on Betsy?”

I leaned forward. “Alexa, do you mean that the An’girasii are coming here soon?”

She nodded.

“How soon are they coming?”

“They are almost here. We need to go bye-bye. Can I ride on Betsy?”

Hell's Bells...Part 1

2007-06-14T22:18:00.000-04:00

I emerged from the Shadow and stepped into the library at the Coop with Alexa cradled in my arms, dead-to-the-world asleep.

I was met by the stern glare of Ravyn, her right hand held high with a ball of red and orange fire swirling around her clenched fist. “Is that you, Rusty?”

Hugging Alexa close to my chest, I nodded. “Yeah, it’s me, finally.”

“Sorry, but I need to be sure you are who you appear to be, Rusty. Look directly into my eyes.”

I looked up from the cherubic brown face of Alexa to meet Ravyn’s steely gaze. “Drake’s gone for good now. He had his little chat with Alexa.”

Ravyn’s face softened as she realized that I was telling the truth. “Thank the Goddess, it is you!” The fireball surrounding her fist died with a fizzle as she brought it down, still smoking, and moved to take Alexa from my arms.

“How long has it been since he took control?” I let my arms fall to the side as Alexa settled into her arms and nuzzled up against her neck, still asleep.

Ravyn shook her head. “I’m not sure, but it must be close to two months now.” She shifted Alexa into her left arm, brushing back Alexa’s dark, curly bangs from her forehead. “Naomi is going to be so relieved to know that she’s back safe and sound. What did Drake do with her and why did he have to take her like he did?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Is Naomi OK?”

She nodded. “Yes, she’s been beside herself for days now, but she wasn’t harmed.”

“Good. Drake didn’t let me know what he was doing all of the time, so I’m not sure what happened when he came for Alexa, but he did let me experience his passing when he took her to the Tree.” I shook my head. “That was the weirdest thing to watch Drake bow down before my toddler of a daughter and pay his respects to her. It got even weirder when she acknowledged his respect and spoke to him in that same voice that she used back at Yule.”

“What did she say to him?”

“They spoke together for quite a while, but the main thing was that she thanked him for his service and then forgave him for everything that he had done to harm others.”

Ravyn looked incredulous. “She thanked Drake for his service? And she forgave him?”

I nodded. “Yep, and that’s what took the longest. He had left me in my body by that time and stood before her in pure Spirit form, looking almost exactly as he had when he was alive. She reached up with her little hands to his head bowed head and whispered name after name after name of all of the people that he hurt or killed throughout his miserable, long assed life and with each name, he became just a tiny bit lighter, more translucent. It must have taken days.”

She looked down into Alexa’s face before looking back up at me. “That must have been thousands of names…how did she know them all?”

“I have no idea. But I can tell you that it was a fucking who’s who of world history, that’s for sure. You have no idea how much of the history that we learn about in school was influenced by the people that Drake screwed with or outright killed.”

“I think I can believe it after all of the stuff he used your body to get stirred up. Rusty, you are not going to be able to show your face in public for quite some time—I’ve lost count of the number of different law enforcement agencies that have contacted me looking for you. I even had to send away the FBI students away from here after Agent Wilson called and told me that you had been declared a fugitive from justice and that you had made the Most Wanted list for a string of murders!”

“Shit! He let me see some of that stuff, but obviously not everything! He told me that he was taking down servants of the An’girasii.”

She pursed her lips and clucked her tongue. “That may well be what he was doing, but he has landed you in a lot of hot water in the process. Did you know that he took Dick Arnold?”

I stepped back at that. “No, I had no idea.”

She shook her head this time. “Well, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but not before we get this little girl back to her mot

Meditation

2007-06-10T22:17:00.000-04:00

This post has been much harder to write than I ever envisioned that it would be.

I had been looking forward to writing about the final and permanent demise of Drake Kampmann for years now. Now that I faced with writing about that very thing, I am filled with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I haven’t felt since my own father passed away twenty years ago.

For the better part of a decade I have both feared and hated Drake Kampmann. At first he was the aloof, mysterious director of the Omega Project—someone who first recruited me and then oversaw my participation in that project—my fate was literally in his hands, in more ways than I cared to consider.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Drake was a ruthless, cold-hearted, evil sociopath who wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone if he thought that there was any advantage to him or his plans by doing so. He used everyone that he ever came into contact with, manipulating them into doing what he wanted done by telling half truths and outright lies. If he ever knew what it was to love another person, he had long allowed the memory of such love to slip from his memory.

So, why do I feel as conflicted by his passing as I do now?

That is hard question to answer.

In part, I think it is because so long as Drake was around, I had a focal point for my own fears and insecurities. He was easy to blame for whatever hardship I faced. If I had never met Drake, I felt like my marriage would have been as strong as it was before, and that I could have sat back, fat and happy, as I watched my kids grow up. I would have advanced easily within the Dearborn Hills Police Department and been getting closer and closer to a nice middle class retirement of watching baseball games and fishing on the weekends.

It is like there is this alternate reality out there—that if Drake had never come looking for me, all of this weird freaky shit would never have happened. People like Papa Locks and El Diablito would have never even existed. Magick would have remained a figment of my wife’s imagination. Monsters like Grendel, Ma Grendel, Doppelgangers, and Banes would have stayed as characters in someone else’s books.

But then I remember all of the wonderful people that I have met because of Drake and I marvel at how the universe works. I would have never met Ravyn Fyre, Jim, Cerrydwen and the Frau. I would have never had the chance to learn about all of the different paths between the worlds that John Red Bear taught me to explore.

If Drake hadn’t found me, would another man, another officer, been able to become the creature that I am now? Would that person have been able to break free from the flawed prison of the Omega Project Chakra yet remained in this world to take on Drake and his cohorts? Would that person have embraced the immortality and been satisfied to exist in that cold, dead shell of his own body? Would that person have become a willing, but less than capable servant, that the Omega Project seemed designed to create?

So much has happened since that time that Drake came to find me—a whole universe of magick and monsters and strange new worlds has been opened up to me to explore—that I cannot even comprehend what it is to be that ‘normal’ guy anymore, living out a quiet, suburban life in ignorant bliss.

As much as I was dragged kicking and screaming into this (un)dead existence, I now can’t imagine things being any different.

There is so much to tell about Drake’s passing and the things that he did while he had use of this body—the messes he made that I am still trying to clear up, the enemies that he tracked down and eliminated, and the gifts he left for me and the ORC’s, but that stuff will have to wait just a little bit longer. I have needed to take this time to contemplate what his passing has meant to me.

There is little enough time for reflection, however, as events have continued to take place. My next series of posts will focus on what has most recently taken place while we tried to recover and safeguard those things that Drake left for us, and what is taking place right now in the Shadows all around as the An’girasii have begun to make moves against us.

The story of Drake’s passing will be a story for another time, since it is one that is worth taking the time to tell well. He deserves at least that, if not much else.

Portrait of Cerrydwen

2007-06-04T19:31:00.000-04:00

I'mmm Baaaccckkk

2007-06-02T09:27:00.000-04:00

Well, that was...uh...interesting.

Ravyn, I'll report for my ass kicking shortly, I'll bring along the information on that vault that Drake mentioned as well. It is in a very interesting location that will make for a good road trip.

Prof...I notice that the Tiger's are dropping like stones, we need to make a road trip to Cleveland to see if we can reverse their baseball mojo against the Tribe. Oh, and by the way, I do have those pass codes for the accounts that Drake mentioned.

I have been reading through all of the stuff that he left for me to read while trying to figure out how I straighten things out with the FBI and the various other agencies that now have me on their watchlists.

Let's just say that I was not very happy to give up the control that I did on that tanker, but it is now a lot quieter in my head. Bernstein is indeed gone, with all of his memories (except for those that I assimilated into my own memory-and those are bad enough). Drake also did a good job of smashing the reassembling consciousness of Ma Grendel--that entity has been smashed and scattered so thoroughly that it took a little bit of work to remember how to work with the Shadow again.

I am intend to have a fuller, more detailed post up about some of the aftermath of Drake's visit and his ultimate (and final) passing from this world and how that came to pass in the coming couple of days.

Thanks, as always, for your patience...

Portrait of Rusty

2007-05-31T19:38:00.000-04:00