Who Knew...?

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

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...?

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

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

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

…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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…