All posts tagged Berlin

Helkey 18 — Devil-Hunted Tracks

The train rockets through urban Berlin. To Beatrice, it feels like flying. Her excitement to ride this solar bullet is shadowed in apprehension. They’re venturing off to a magical gate somewhere in the North Sea to deliver one of Earth’s most corrupt persons into the arms of Heaven. All-the-while, her daughter is alone, in Hell, on a mad quest so secret she dare not even think of its goals. Ivan — Asmodeus’ chosen wolf-as-prophet — sits a few feet away from her. He glances up over his crossword, taking in Mori, Beatrice, and Sadie with a pensive expression. He reminds her of an evil spy from some James Bond movie.

Looks deceive, providing only hints at something far worse. He’s a literal devil-wolf in Russian clothing. All around, passengers sit relaxed. They chat, stare out the window, or watch media on their devices. Unsuspecting as Ivan, who twice transformed into a monster, sits among them. She picks another pistachio out of the snack-pack Mori brought, squeezes her husband’s shoulder as much to reassure herself as to give him comfort, plops it into her mouth, and turns her attention to the window. In it, she can still see Ivan’s reflection. Can still monitor him. But it takes the edge off as her focus shifts to buildings rushing by, steadily blending into countryside.

The train takes a dip. Its track lowers onto a mound of gravel running through forested land. Trees are dry. Leaves yellow from heat and drought extending for months and months. At least this region is fire-free — unlike areas east of Berlin. Looking southward and behind, she can see the gigantic plumes rising gray and white in the morning sun. At their dark bases, pink-orange fire glows and lightning sparks.

Beatrice tucks her knees up to her chest. Turning away from the far-off conflagration, she descends into a sleep-like fugue as over-heating lands rush by. Her angel’s body recharging, revitalizing, healing areas still stiff and stinging from the residual of Ivan’s poison bite. Sadie’s magic removed the worst of it. Beatrice senses she’ll need all her potential, every edge, to deal with what’s coming. Ivan’s howl-as-call to the devils last night atop Fuze Bank echoes in her mind. She can hear it still — raging through worlds. Whatever terrible thing he called, it’s coming. Soon. Foolish not to prepare herself. So she rests — focusing on getting her body into top form even as she fills her energetic vessel.

After about an hour, Beatrice jolts to alertness. The train is slowing down. Up ahead is a road intersection. The train lets out a ghostly wail as it breaks in approach to the crossing. Curious, she cranes her head to peer out. On the road she sees an odd collection of black and chrome motorcycles. About twenty in all — clustering around a larger central bike. The machines are outrageous collections of pipes and pistons. Each brush-painted with various hate iconography — stylized swastikas and worse. The center bike is a unique spectacle. Though parked, its twin rows of exhaust pipes exhale clouds of black smoke. A cyclops headlight glows red. Flames painted along its sides and over its fenders seem to dance and flicker. Her sensitive eyes pick up streaks of wisp energy flashing through it. Those are souls. Devil’s own slave magic. This is no earthly conveyance.

Each machine bears a dark rider. Black-leather bedecked and bristling with weapons. The riders dismount. They approach the crossing. One grabs the gate’s bar as it swings down. Then, whip-quick, he jumps atop it. The motion is somehow crooked to Beatrice’s eye. A dissonant movement evoking fascination and fear. Her skin pricks with goose-flesh. She presses her face against the window — puzzling at hinted dark secrets. Don’t be a fool, Beatrice. You know what it is.

Unable to tear her eyes away, she continues to watch, captivated. Her hand moves to her rapier hilt — gripping it hard. The figure’s clothes are as incongruent as his motion. He wears cowboy boots, jeans, and black leather riding chaps. A belt with a buckle styled as fire-breathing bull glitters on his hips. Two six-guns droop into holsters. His button-down shirt is crisscrossed with bullet baldrics. Despite the heat, he wears a trench coat. Atop his head perches a black, wide-brimmed hat.

He motions to the bikers. They climb onto the gate. Beatrice can see why the train slowed. The driver must be concerned they’ll approach the tracks. The engine blares again. Four bikers now stand atop the gate bar beside the dark cowboy. They’re tall, thick-muscled, coarse. They tower over the cowboy and yet his presence — dripping with malignancy — dwarfs them. At the horn’s sound, they lift their hands in devil’s sign, snarling obscenities. She is close enough now to see their tattoos. To read the word “Berserker” on the front of their black T-shirts. To make out the bloody-battle-axe artwork on the back of leather jackets. Their train car is now almost parallel with this satanic biker squad.

She grabs Mori’s hand, pulling him to the window. “Is that…?” she begins to ask. Don’t be so foolish, she chides herself again. You know! But she doesn’t want to know. She regrets ever taking part in this mad quest — hurling her family into such danger. Oh! How I wish I never came to face this hunter! Then the bikers are upon them. The dark cowboy’s eyes rise to meet hers. They swirl with hate and fire. He lifts his hand, makes a flicking motion. A still-burning cigarette swirls through the air — trailing sparks as it plinks against the window. Hitting the outside glass before her face, then falling away.

Time slows to a steady count of heartbeats — her danger response. Now she sees in instants. The cowboy laughs. His wicked voice scrapes through glass and steel. He raises both arms to shoulder-height, hands splay like a conductor signaling a crescendo. Wisp energy swirls like fire from him, flaring in ghost-light from deep traps — worbs — on his right shoulder, engulfing the Berserkers. He feeds them each scores of wisps, ties them off, then fixes all four with a diabolical sigil cast onto the forehead. Then the Berserkers — filled with raging wisps and made mad by the devil’s sign burning on their skulls — jump. There are ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ bursts of air as arms of spectral fire shoot from their shoulders. The arms swell to the size of trees. Coiling down in loops of fire, they grip the bar with smoldering fists. Then they push off in puffs of smoke — hurling each Berserker onto the train’s roof in an impossible bound. Four corresponding thuds resound from above.

“Holy Hell!” Mori exclaims, watching as ten foot arms of flame propel the Berserkers onto the roof.

Beatrice is already standing. “That’s a Curse Rider!” she shouts, at last able to speak her fear. Bounding over Mori, she does a full somersault midair then lands gracefully on her toes in the isle. “We are hunted!” The passengers, transfixed by the spectacle of the devil cowboy and his Berserker biker squad, gasp at her sudden and otherworldly movement.

“Damn you Ivan!” Mori growls. He knew this was probably coming — since at least last night when Ivan as wolf sent his call. He’d known it was a risk for years now. Seeing the Curse Rider casting his slave wisps, glaring hate and throwing sparks at his wife on the other side of a frigging mere pane of glass made it all too real. “Goddam it, we are so screwed!”

“Curse Ride?!” Ivan’s voice betrays more than a little fear. He only caught a glimpse of the biker gang and its diabolical leader. But what he saw both pains and excites. His Pride Eater wound throbs. His heart quickening in response to the cowboy’s black magic.

Beatrice launches herself down the isle, keen ears picking up thuds and shouts from the roof above. Mori follows — nowhere near so quick or graceful. But with military precision and a smooth efficiency of motion. Sadie puts a hand on Ivan’s shoulder. “Be calm. Mori and Beatrice will handle it. I’ll stay close for safety.” Sadie’s voice is articulate, commanding. Her tone betraying none of the fear she surely feels. A glance back shows Beatrice Sadie has the Russian in hand. Beatrice turns her eyes to the ceiling. “Omnis scienta,” she incants, drawing her rapier. With a flick of her blade, she sends her sensor flitting through the ceiling and up onto the roof.

Beatrice’s eyes swirl with magical sensing even as she continues to move. The train speeds up. Its driver seeming oblivious to the invaders. Her magical vision resolves. The Berserkers have split into two groups. One pair is moving toward the car’s front, the other toward its back. Producing knives, hand axes, a gun, they approach the gaps on either end of the train car. Each gap is covered by a curtain and connected to the next car by a closed walkway. Weapons ready, ghostly arms swirl and bulge from their shoulders. Red hands the size of trashcan lids — clawed in fire — tear at the air.

“They’re going to rip and cut their way in!” she shouts back to Mori, incanting “Una!” to share her senses. Mori blinks as the perception transfers, causing his eyes to swirl with light, then points her toward the front gap as he makes his way to the back. Depressing a button on his case, he triggers its transformation. A rifle barrel swings out, a stock unfolds, pistol grip handle and multi-phasal scope snap into place. A magazine of yellow-tipped ammo appears in his hand. He slams it into the receiver, pulls the charging handle, racks the slide.

Neither Beatrice nor Mori expend extra curse energy on ignarus. They’re facing down a Curse Rider’s thralls. Both instinctively conserve their magic. Neglecting ignarus results in general terror as the passengers see everything. Screams rise at the diabolical glow and strange noises from the roof, at the mages racing through the cabin, flaring with magic, improbable weapons in hand.

Beatrice prowls toward the front, rapier before her. Omnis scienta shows the first Berserker is sawing through the gap’s curtain with his knife, spectral hands ripping at the opening. The second Berserker holds a handgun. Mori’s pair — Berserker three and four — hacks and tears at the rear gap with abandon. One with his giant knife. Another with a pair of hand axes. Spectral hands with fingers the size of rolling pins pour in, widening the gap, causing the material to smolder and scorch. Beatrice positions herself near the door, pausing for an opportunity.

“Keep calm! Stay low and out of reach!” she shouts with as much confidence as she can muster into the cabin. “We’ll protect you! We’re trained to handle such …” she pauses for the right word “… events!” Her bearing, luminous magic, and projected confidence seem to work, at least for the moment, as passengers focus on ducking below their seats. Keep them safe, she sends her intention out, hoping the universe responds in kind. The rips above her widen. Sparks fall. Smell of burning wafts down. Behind her, Mori is unloading his yellow bullets, each patterned with a lesser confractus curse, into the rip above him.

She coils. Gathers her magic for a single, potent strike. Then springs. “Confractus!” she shouts. Magical energy builds around her rapier’s tip — forming a bow shock. Relying on omnis scienta to guide her strike, she plunges through the gap aiming for one of the arms. Burning material falls around her as she shoots up. Her blade plunges through, strikes the arm of wisp-energy, delivers her disrupting curse. Magic explodes from her rapier tip — blowing a hole in the arm. It flails back like a giant piece of spaghettis — leaking wisps. Their ruddy sparks swiftly recede into the distance.

She’s through, rising above the train roof, floating in mid-air between her foes. They recoil in surprise. Her momentum reverses. She starts to land, aiming for the train roof near the gap. Behind her, Mori’s rifle reports. Yellow bursts erupt on the spectral arms of Berserker three and four tearing at the other gap. The arms shrink and wobble, hissing as they lose consistency. Mori’s confractus-patterned bullets aren’t potent enough to rupture the arms. But the ghost-hulks deflate under his barrage. There’s a pause, then a hail of purple bullets streaks up. He’s switching to somnos bullets — aiming directly at the Berserkers to incapacitate them. A bullet impacts on Berserker three’s shoulder. Purple energy pulses, the Berserker swoons, then growls as he fights off the sleep-curse. Both Berserkers lurch back from the opening. Driven away by the ferocity of Mori’s assault.

She’s still in mid-air when Berserker one’s able ghost-arm swings around. A ghost-fist the size of a trashcan engulfs her in a burst of fire. Patterned curses on her clothes kick in, protecting her from flames and heat. Yet she’s caught. It squeezes. More curses crackle in response, buffering against the force. These reactive curses cushion her. But some punishment gets through — causing ribs to grind as air is forced from her lungs. Frustrated in its attempt to crush her, the hand shakes her violently back and forth. Lifting her high above the train, it hurls her toward the trees.

Released, Beatrice draws a painful breath, flicking her gaze through reference points as she hurtles and spins. She gains control of her body after only a heartbeat. Flipping in mid-air, she points her feet away from the train. “Lanuae!” she shouts. Spinning her rapier like a paint-brush, she opens a rift of sparks beneath her feet. Lifting one spark from the swirl with her rapier-tip, she flings it back to the train. It shoots through the air like a firework — streaking away from her to land on the train roof behind the Berserkers. The sparks at her feet explode in a shower of light and smoke. She vanishes a moment before slamming into a tree. In the same instant, the spark on the train roof expands in a flowery burst from which Beatrice reappears and rises. Both Berserkers scream in fury, blinded by the flash of her magical travel.

Before her, the first Berserker lifts his knife. He’s lost one of his ghost arms to confractus. Its wisps trail above and behind the train in a thread running back toward the Curse Rider. She can’t see the dark cowboy form anymore. The train is plunging through woods — already a mile or more beyond the crossing. But she can hear wisps crying in anguish as the Curse Rider re-captures each. The second Berserker is raising his handgun. Three ghostly arms quest toward her, their remaining wisps scream with murderous force.

“Salire!” she hears Mori shout from behind. His feet thump onto the roof. His weapon flings out the purple somnos bullets. Some streak up and away over her head. Through omnis scienta, she sees his opponents circling, trying to get an angle. Berserker four hurls his axes. Mori ducks the first, knocks the second away with the butt of his rifle. The Berserker draws two more. Berserker three, his chest glowing purple from two somnos strikes lurches toward Mori with his knife. Mori’s fight, his danger focuses her. She lets out a breath, then resumes her battle dance.

“Vexare verberare!” she shouts, pointing her sword at the second Berserker. A barrage of five blue-glowing magical projectiles explodes from her sword-tip. Racing toward him, two target each arm, one his handgun. She leaps, flying in behind her missiles and over him. “Clypeus!” she incants just as his weapon rises and fires. The bullet streaks out, smashes into her barrier, and shatters into glowing fragments that fly off and away from the train. Her first missile strikes the Berserker’s gun shearing the front end off and exploding the hand in a puff of blood. He shrieks in pain. Staccato bursts from the other missiles blow holes in the wisp arms, briefly rendering them useless. She lands behind him, transitions into a run, then rushes the first Berserker. He strikes at her legs with his blade even as his massive ghost fist pounds down on her. Clypeus is still flickering with life. The fist’s first blow deflects to the side. She gets under the Berserker’s knife-strike and punches his wrist. Small bones crack. “Confractus!” she shouts, exploding a hole in his remaining wisp-arm with a stab of her curse-laden blade. Bringing her elbow around, she dispatches him with a last blow to the side of his head.

She spins only to be caught by the onrush of the second Berserker. He pushes into her, ghost arms sputtering with fire as they rise and reform, driving her toward the train roof edge. She pivots smoothly, wrenches his shattered hand and does a fireman’s throw of his heavy bulk above and past her. He flies through the air, his still-thin ghost arms noodling as they attempt to cushion his fall. She watches fire burst around him as he lands among dry brush. The train speeds on and away, leaving him behind.

Spinning, she angles her rapier toward Mori’s remaining foe. Berserker three is at last asleep, burning arms drifting behind him like flaming fronds of kelp. Berserker four swings his axe at a prone Mori. Beatrice jumps, allows the train’s forward motion to speed her flight, then smashes her rapier’s guard into the back of his head. Somersaulting over both the Berserker and Mori, she lands on her feet behind them even as the Berserker’s massive, unconscious body thuds down atop Mori.

“Ugh!” Mori grunts.

“Confractus! Confractus! Confractus! Confractus!” Beatrice shouts as she runs a circuit around their unconscious foes. With each curse-infused rapier strike she banishes the devil-ghost arms. Wisps rise up from the Berserkers — each wailing its anguish as it flies back to its enslaver. The Curse Rider who is now, thankfully, miles behind. Beatrice takes air, breathes it out.

“Some help here, hon?” Mori says.

She laughs, banishing tension as she stoops down to roll the massive biker off Mori. He stands, musses his hair self-consciously. “Holy damn fuck!” Mori exclaims in relief. “Well, at least we didn’t have to fight the cowboy and the rest of them.”

“Yet,” Beatrice replies, wiping at a cut on Mori’s face. Then, she leans in and gives him a big hug. Relieved they’re both still standing and breathing. For now.

“Yeah, yet.” Mori hugs her back, making her wince a bit as the places where the ghost-hand crushed her sting and throb. She relishes it regardless.

A head topped by a peaked cap pokes up through the smoldering hole in the gap curtain behind them. “Einfrieren!” an officer shouts as he stumbles onto the roof, pointing a handgun.

Beatrice and Mori separate. Mori lets his rifle fall, tapping the button with his foot. It smoothly transforms back into a briefcase. The officer stares at it. Beatrice uses the distraction to sheathe her rapier and raise her hands — bleeding a bit more curse energy into ignarus. Her energetic vessel is still more than half full. She can spare a little magic to smooth things over now.

“Schon Gut,” Beatrice replies. “English?” she asks. The officer nods. “These bikers attacked the train with fire bombs and weapons. They tried to gain access to the cabin.” It was basically true. Except, of course, the fire bombs were arms made of enslaved souls and devil’s magic. But she wasn’t going to explain it. The officer wouldn’t have believed anyway.

The officer looks at the three bodies sprawled across the train roof, takes in the white supremacist symbols on their clothes. “Terrorists?”

“We don’t know,” Mori says. “May I show you my badge?”

The officer jogs his head. Ignarus is interfering with his memory of Mori’s rifle and is occluding Beatrice’s rapier. “Gut. OK,” he says. Mori slowly pulls out his wallet and flashes his DOJ, Special Investigator, Climate Crimes Division badge. The officer examines it. Seems satisfied. Puts his firearm away. “Investigator Hansen, is this related to a case you’re working on?”

“Right now, we’re facilitating a meeting between high profile, high risk persons. Ivan Volkov and his daughter Glenda Goodfuture, the climate activist. We had reason to believe extremists would attempt to abduct one or both. We did not think they’d go so far as try a snatch and grab on a train.” Beatrice smirks. Mori’s explanation is also basically correct. The Berserkers were a right wing extremist group. Just the kind who’d easily fall to the diabolical influence of a Curse Rider.

“Schiesse!” the officer replies. “You should have mentioned something when you boarded.

“Confidentiality was considered to be, ah, more important. That was probably a bad move.”

“You know we’re going to have to take a statement,” the officer says, relaxing into ritualistic protocol. He shouts down into the gap, letting the two officers below know that everything’s in hand. They clamber up and begin to collect the Berserkers.

“I’d be careful about them. They seemed to be jumped up on something,” Mori says as the officers cuff, then drag the Berserkers off the train roof. Beatrice’s post-trauma grin widens. Yes, jumped up on being Curse Rider thralls. One of the most potent and dangerous drugs around.

The officer nods, taking in their weapons, the burn marks on their shoulders, the smoldering and broken clothes, the burn pattern like wings on areas of exposed back. “Fanatiker,” the officer mutters.

Mori accompanies them down through the hole, Beatrice follows. They pass a few cars down to a small compartment that doubles as an office to make their statement. The questions are tedious, taking most of the rest of the train ride. Beatrice is too worried about being hunted to pay too much attention. Her focus, instead, drifts outward. Keeping hold of omnis scienta, she guides it to a location high above the train. It provides a clear view of the train, long sections of track in front and behind, and a wide area around. Beatrice tenses as she notices clusters of bikers shadowing the train in its approach to Hamburg Station. They’re pointing, speaking on cell phones, reporting on the train’s movement. Her sensor flickers as it registers diabolical influence over the bikers. A confirmation she doesn’t really need. The Berserker shirts and racist symbols are more than enough to identify them.

Mori handles the questions with professional calm. She’s glad for his cool alertness. He also keeps his connection to omnis scienta, occasionally trading looks with her as the sensor picks up another cluster of Berserkers.

Though tedious, the officer’s report is useful. Law enforcement authorities are aroused to the violent action by the Berserker right wing extremist group — one of many listed as potential threats by German police and security agencies. Forces begin to deploy. Beatrice hopes they’ll help, doubts they’ll be anywhere near enough to deal with the Curse Rider.

Finally, finished, Beatrice and Mori rejoin with Ivan and Sadie. An officer sits calmly nearby, keeping watch on their ‘special person’ — Ivan. If she only knew the other half of it. That would wipe the casual look off her face. The train glides to a halt, Ivan and Sadie stand. The officer gets up and approaches.

“Transport security would like me to escort you to your next connection,” the officer says.

“Thanks,” Mori replies. Though it’s mundane help, Beatrice will take anything at this point. Ivan is pursing his mouth. Sadie brushes close to Beatrice and Mori, providing subtle aid through whispered invocations of sana carnes. Beatrice relishes the healing relief as it mends bruised ribs and crushed flesh. Their escort guides them out of the train and through the terminal. Police presence is clearly beefed up. Beatrice is reassured to see no Berserkers inside. Outside, omnis scienta tells a different story. Two clusters of bikers keep watch on trains from nearby street corners. They disperse at the approach of any police vehicle — only to reform minutes later.

At last, they arrive at the Esbjerg train. Their officer allows them to board early, ahead of other passengers still waiting on the platform. She ushers them to their seats around another table, then goes to the refreshment car to get them coffee.

They all exchange glances as the officer heads off. Mori slams his hands down on the table. “Holy hell! A Curse Rider! We’re going to have to fight our way through a goddamn Hunt!”

“We must warn Glenda,” Sadie replies. “Set an alternate meeting place.”

“No. Call off. You put Valeriya in danger,” Ivan says, his beady eyes flicking back and forth in anger.

“Ah, buddy, you put her in danger. You summoned that guy. That dark cowboy on the rail gate? Yeah. He’s a frigging devil. And his posse are those Berserker dudes,” Mori says.

“Who do they hunt?” Ivan says it evenly. “Surely not all of us.”

Beatrice looks at Ivan. His smirk is too smug. Too self-satisfied. He knows. He called the Curse Rider. To hunt and take us. At some level he must know. Mori turns away. Ivan seems even more satisfied at his discomfort.

“They may as well be hunting us all,” Sadie says to Ivan. “Without Mori and Beatrice, you would already be a monster. We all make it through the Heaven-Gate together. Or none of us make it. And we need Glenda to open the gate.”

Ivan’s eyebrows raise at the notion of his daughter opening a gateway to Heaven.

“Didn’t think of that when you summoned a fiend of Hell, did you, you wolf-bastard,” Mori says to Ivan.

Sadie lifts a hand. “Please, recriminations at this point are worthless.”

Beatrice looks around the table. “So what do we do? Clearly this hunt has only begun. They know our path. And we can’t rely on the train’s speed to keep us ahead of a Curse Rider and his Nightmare.” She flashes a look at Mori. “You saw the bike. It’s an infernal conveyance,” she says to him. “The kind that can take any form — winged, wheeled, tracked, or hooved. But that’s not half the problem. The countryside is crawling with extremists vulnerable to a devil’s influence. He can summon them and use them as easy as you or I walk and breathe.”

Mori spreads his hands. “Then we’ve gotta do something unexpected to throw them off.”

“What do you have in mind?” Sadie asks.

“Simple. We jump off the train.”

(New to the Helkey multiverse? Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

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by robertscribbler on December 16, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 16, 2021

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Helkey 17 — Gibbens Crane Ghosts Jet Blue

Gibbens Crane and his Nightmare roll like a fossil-fueled thunderstorm over I 35. Their oily procession provoking the blares of honking horns, stiff middle fingers, and shouts of road-rage anguish. Demons gather to slurp up the grief. To fan it further. Not far behind, a man on a Harley fingers his Glock and thinks about what he’d like to do to some hombres downtown, mass-murder glinting in his eyes. Big, black Nightmare-as-Hummer spews out a cloud that covers all four lanes. Confederate flag snapping its naked, hubris-fueled racism. Combustion engine pistons pumping out their angry staccato.

It’s a short, if raucous, four minutes to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Gibbens grins all the way. He’d forgotten how fun it is to punk humans. To get them all riled. The angry looks, loud profanity, and posturing is simply delicious. He sends an electric whip-crack to his captive wisps. Their anguished cries of pain add to his sadistic pleasure.

Coming, too-soon, to Presidential Boulevard’s departure lanes, Gibbons gives the Nightmare-Hummer one last coal-rolling gun of the engine, then cuts off a pair of newly-weds to get to the curb. Soot rains down on the, now miserable, couple. Gibbons pops the door, uncoils from his seat, and springs onto the side-walk. It’s early afternoon and the airport bustles moderately in anticipation of the late afternoon rush. Giving no care to bystanders, Gibbons cracks his electric whip again, summoning the orange transformative glow from his worbs. Nightmare melts back into a towering shadow as the Hummer simply vanishes. Onlookers gasp. But a fearful denial soon sets in as their fragile minds rationalize various explanations. The bad dreams are already forming. Many will spend the night tossing in mindless terror as the Nightmare grips them.

Gibbons and his Nightmare-shadow walk through the entrance. He pulls out a pack of Marlboro Reds. The kind that cut your lungs with fiber-glass when you smoke them. He lights up, glaring at a security guard approaching him. Orange light crackles in his eyes. The guard freezes in fear. Gibbons continues smoking even as masked passersby stare. Puffing like a chimney, he saunters up to the quick-pass line, cuts the five people waiting there, walks through the metal detector. There is a loud blare. Three TSA agents spring up as if waking from a stupor. Gibbons fixes them with his brimstone stare.

“You boys are doin’ bang-up work here. Keepin’ the natives from gettin’ too restless,” he says, taking a long pull on the cig and causing the cherry to glow bright red. “I think it’s time for a well-earned lunch break.” He cracks his electric whip. His captive wisps cry out in pain. A devil-magic spark leaps from the cigarette’s cherry and shoots through each TSA agent. They freeze in terror as they briefly glimpse various horrors of destruction swirling in Gibbon’s soul-eating gaze. Gibbons flicks his cherry on the stupefied supervisor and lazily walks by.

The concourse is only moderately trafficked. It’s disappointing. Gibbons has to work to get in people’s way. To force them to avoid him. He zig-zags against the flow of humanity — occasionally stepping on the odd toe or putting the occasional wimp on his ass. Each interaction spreading grief, rage, terror. He’s doing yeoman’s work for his liege here. But he can’t wait. Berlin is 13 hours away by normal flight. Not like this flight is going to be anything like normal. It’ll still take hours. His quarry won’t wait.

He plops down in a chair near his terminal. A silver-blue Boeing 777-300ER is parked just outside his window. Its graceful body swoops and tapers back to a tall, Jet Blue tailfin. This fossil fueled beast will suit his purpose just fine. He draws another drag from his cigarette, smiling as nearby passengers move away from him, complain to the steward at the gate, or haul away squalling brat kids. The steward approaches. Gibbons simply blows smoke in his face. The diabolical taint carried in that miasma puts the loser into a pathetic stupor. He stumbles off, briefly catches a glimpse of the Nightmare, then sits down in a fear-paralysis.

Gibbons barely notices as he swirls the smoke with his index fingers. The curling threads form a scene of Ivan the Wolf howling atop Furze Bank, Beatrice and Mori slaying Pride Eaters, then briefly exorcising the demon from Ivan. The scene — dancing and flickering with Hell-fire — draws a smirk from Gibbons. He can plainly see the deep wound made by the Pride-Eater’s claws in both Ivan’s body and wisp. A complete channel for demonic possession. This will make his hunt easier. It will also please his Lord. Ivan is already teetering at the edge of full transformation. What a pal.

The flight is starting to board. Gibbons doesn’t have a ticket. No matter. He cuts the line, ignores the orderly boarding procession, and struts down the jet bridge. A couple puffs of devil’s smoke confounds any protest from stewardess or pilot. It’s all just too easy.

Gibbons enters the filling plane and plops down in first class. The boarding will take a little while. He pulls his black hat down over his face and treats himself to a little shut-eye. Delicious Nightmare gathers through the link in his mind as he focuses on that beast of perpetual terror. It takes up most of the first class cabin. Its pall of fear dragging down each newly-seated passenger. This makes Gibbons’ smile widen as he gathers his wisp energy — meditating on a new Nightmare form. This one a possession.

“Um… Excusez-moi, tall, dark, and terrifying, but you are in my seat!!” The exclamation comes just as Gibbons finishes readying the path for his new devil’s magic. He tips back his hat. The newcomer is a pink-haired they with silver-painted long finger nails. Their androgynous face sports all the latest eye make-up. Gibbons attempts to blow smoke in the influencer’s face but discovers his cig has burned out. He pulls it out of his mouth, then flicks it on the interloper.

“Disgust!” they shout as they swat the butt away. Extending a finger, they tap Gibbons on the chest. “Learn to be less rude! How in God’s no-longer-so-green Earth did you get that cig on a plane, dear? Not that I wouldn’t mind one myself, but… Get out of my frigging seat! Oh!”

Gibbons has produced another Marlboro, igniting it with fire from his fingertip.

“Neat trick, dearie, what are you? Some kind of black magic man?”

Gibbons blows smoke in their face. They stumble off in a stupor, careening in disorientation through the cabin. “Ugh! I broke my nail!”

Gibbons’ smoke has now filled much of first class. This has a momentary pacifying effect on those sitting nearby. Some are confused by Gibbons’ smoke. Others brood over it. A few are intrigued. Then the dark, animalistic impulses born upon Gibbons’ miasma begin to take hold. Terror, rage, and various other dark passions bloom. The result is a general hubub as couples begin fighting, children shriek, and individuals either cower or engage in some form of mischief. Through it all, the poor stewards and stewardesses have their hands full. No one notices the smoking devil, spinning his black magic out of enslaved souls in torment, sitting among them.

The aircraft staff manages to get the unruly passengers under some semblance of control. The plane door closes. The cabin pressurizes. Gibbons feels a few bumps as the aircraft begins to taxi out onto the runway. They come to the markings showing the take-off pad — stripes of black and white stained brown by jet exhaust. The plane spins, pointing its nose toward the long strip of concrete and readies itself to launch.

Engines begin to rev. Their banshee wail fills the cabin. With a crooked smile, Gibbons flicks his wrist. The cries of wisps rise up to accompany the engine wail as diabolical magic courses out of Gibbons’ worbs, up his arm, along to the tip of his cigarette. It whirls there for a moment, then atomizes the cherry — bursting out in a split-flash of orange lightning that envelops the aircraft. With a spectral cry, Gibbons’ Nightmare is taken in by the hell-lightning. Its shadow expands to cover the body, wings, and engine of the aircraft. Silver metal darkens. Wings become serrated like those of a bat. A shark-tooth mouth design sprouts in the plane’s nose. Fins like those of a drake unfurl along its spine. The blue corporate emblem twists and flickers. It takes on various shapes — flickering between hammer and sickle and swastica before settling on the swastika. The engines enlarge. Their intake edges become serrated teeth.

Gibbons’ Nightmare now possesses the aircraft. Its engine revs louder. The banshee wail rises to a scream. Passengers add their own cries, white-faced, as giant gouts of flame shoot out from the jet engines, extend 300 feet behind, and ignite the grass. A man flails in his seat. Gripped by terror, his heartbeat gives way to full coronary arrest. The stewards are too shocked to notice — taken in by the spectacle of horror that is their kaiju aircraft.

Gibbons laughs out loud. Glorying in the chaos and terror. In the cockpit there is shouting as the throttle rams forward on its own, directly by a ghostly Nightmare hand. The plane rockets forward — born on a plume of smoke and fire. It howls down the runway. Engines open wide to spew their hellfire and black exhaust. The wings seem to flap and the beast-as-aircraft blasts into the sky. The shrieks of passengers grows louder. A poor child shits himself in terror. The stench and screams adds to Gibbons’ maniacal joy.

The plane climbs more like a rocket than an aircraft. Rising into the sky like some strange reverse meteor, it blows holes through clouds. Oil-thick spume falls from the smoke clouds behind it, raining pollution over the land below. It rises and rises, the sky darkens, clouds below seem tiny. The cabin pops and hisses with pressurization. A businessman points — exclaiming at the tiny dots of regular jet traffic passing far, far below.

Gibbons’ new Nightmare machine skirts the edge of space, moving far faster than a normal jet. They’ll arrive at Berlin Brandenburg in just 7 hours — about half the regular flight time. Gibbons puffs his cig as he takes in the shocked-to-silence passenger cabin, hears the pleas for assistance over the radio being transmitted by pilot and co-pilot through the closed cockpit door.

A passenger shakily makes his way to the lavatory. He opens the door, enters, and unzips. He sits down. But his momentary relief turns to terror as the Nightmare grips him with jaws that emerge from the toilet. He is clenched in the spectral maw, shrieking as he is shaken back and forth on the seat. Blood spouts from his nose, flowing down the front of his dress suit. A vessel inside his brain has ruptured from the Nightmare’s assault on body and spirit. His cries grow slowly weaker as he hemorrhages. A stewardess approaches the lavatory, ventures a glance inside, recoils in fright at the scene of the man gripped by spectral jaws. She musters some courage, grabs the man’s hand, pulls him. The jaws grip him tight as they struggle. At last, they relent and she falls to the ground with the dying man atop her.

“Help!” she yells to a second trembling steward. After a moment, some passengers aid her in carrying the Nightmare-stroke victim back to his chair. From that moment on, no-one dares get up to go to the lavatory. A number relieve themselves in their seats.

Gibbons continues to merrily puff away on his cig. There will be more sacrifices to the Nightmare possessed aircraft as they continue their swift passage. As is fitting. This dark new reality seems to have dawned on the passengers who stare out their windows in terror, hide beneath coats and blankets, or even crouch on the floor. Ghostly forms now run up and down the length of the passenger cabin — taking the shape of grasping tendrils, toothy maws, or wicked eyes. They are literally riding along in the belly of the beast.

Gibbons lets out a satisfied puff of pollution. He’s done his work for now. His Nightmare will handle the passage. Lowering his hat over his face, he settles in for a well-earned nap. His nap is not a human sleep. It is a fugue shared with his Nightmare as they feast together on the terror of the passengers. As they glory in each new life taken in terror for the sake of Hell.

Six hours into the flight and 13 victims later, Gibbons wakes from his feasting fugue. He leans over his seat, reaches down to a cowering passenger. With a rattlesnake strike of his arm, he wrests her cell phone from a clenched grip. She whimpers but offers no resistance. He lifts his new prize, a gleaming iphone, taps it, and infects it with one of his wisps. This one is a demon. A taken Pride Eater. One of a handful he keeps for a special occasion. The Pride Eater rifles through the phone as Gibbons whips it with his electric lash, readying for his call. A pentagram appears on the iphone screen. Orange devil’s script blossoms in a glowing circle around it.

“Ivan Volkov, prophet of Asmodeus,” Gibbons speaks into the pentagram. The screen vibrates as the Pride Eater seeks Volkov both on Earth and through the cellular network. Its demonic form surfing through each connection even as its senses locate Ivan sitting at the Mio Bar in Berlin. The Pride Eater shrieks its ecstatic joy-hunger as it causes the bar tender’s phone to ring.

“Hello, this is the Mio Bar, how may I help you?” the bar-tender’s voice crackles on the line in German.

“Yes, I’m lookin for someone at the bar. Name’s Ivan. Might I speak with him?”

“He’s here. Just a minute.”

Gibbons cracks his devil’s grin. There is a rustling as the phone changes hands.

“Da? Who is it?” Ivan’s voice crackles through the connection.

“It’s your good friend, Mr G. — representative for Mr A.”

“Don’t know you.”

“You see, that’s where you’re mistaken, old Ivan. We’ve known each other for quite a long time. And our recent meetings at the top of Furze Bank Tower have yielded great reward. We gave you the gift of power earlier tonight. Power to destroy the wretched folk who afflict you. More is on offer right now. All you need do is say ‘yes, I accept,’ and it’ll be yours.”

Silence and crackling sounds over the connection. An image of the bar-scene, carried to Gibbons by the Pride-Eater’s sight, flickers over the iphone screen.

“Come on, Ivan, what will it be. You want to let that negro continue to disrespect you? Or you going to show him who’s boss?”

There’s silence for just a moment longer, then Ivan says — “Da, I accept.”

Gibbons’ grin widens in triumph. “Very well! Now here comes the stuff!” Gibbons taps the phone and the Pride Eater flows down the line and into Ivan. Gibbons watches the screen with satisfaction as the Russian begins to transform. As he starts to attack Jonas Herrington. Then Beatrice and Mori are there, weaving their protections around Ivan, knocking the Pride Eater contact out of him. The Pride Eater shrieks with anguish as it flees back to Gibbons’ worb. The pentagram and diabolical writing fade from the iphone.

“Fucking jackholes!” Gibbons curses as he tosses the iphone to the ground. Its face-plate shatters. The girl in the next row whimpers but doesn’t dare reach out to retrieve her phone. Gibbons’ moment of rage soon fades. He has now scented them a second time. His quarry. And once he catches scent of a quarry, there is never hope of escape.

The Nightmare aircraft shrieks through the starlit sky as it plummets down its fiery tail toward Berlin. Airport a-bustle with siren wails as emergency crews gather. The pilots have at last sent their mayday signal ahead. A confused response team sprays runways with foam. Air traffic controllers track the aircraft swooping down on Brandenburg Airport like some dragon out of fiction. News media is all abuzz with talk of hijackers and terrorists. The sky looks like a meteor-fall.

Stewards and stewardesses are doing their best to prepare the passengers for impact. The plane is moving too fast. The landing gear won’t lower. Fire from the Nightmare envelops the craft as runway lights grow into focus before them. One of the pilots goes into shock and begins to hyperventilate. He passes out. The other tries to wrestle with the yoke which, possessed by the Nightmare, jerks back and forth, ultimately punching him — cracking his skull wide open.

The plane slams down onto the runway with both pilots incapacitated. It careens in a shower of sparks. Steel and titanium rend open, the jet twists, a wing flies off. Passengers are hurled in all directions — still attached to seats or ripped from them. The plan shrieks to a halt, jet fuel exploding into fire.

In the midst of the inferno, untouched by fire, Gibbons stands from his rent chair. He casually kicks away a large piece of debris that obstructs his passage. It must weigh about 1,000 pounds. It flies off like a child’s toy. He walks from the wreckage and onto the tarmac. Booted feet splash in the pools of burning jet fuel. He does a little murder-joy skip out onto the grass, waltzes to the fence. Lifting his hand, he calls his Nightmare back to him. The plane slumps and shakes, withering back to its original if now-broken and burning shape.

Fire engines and ambulances surround it — sirens blaring. Streams of flame retardant bathe the burning form. Rescue personnel comb the area for survivors.

“Asmodeus, lord, accept this sacrifice of mortals, call forth thy Terror Hounds to take what victims you will. For the glory of Hell!” Gibbons incants. At this last phrase, the hounds emerge — ripping wisps from the victims scattered through the burning wreckage and out across the runway.

Gibbons then grabs the fence. Peeling back a section of links, he steps through the gap and onto the road. With a whip-flick of his wrist, his Nightmare again transforms into a gigantic black Hummer. He mounts, then blasts off toward Berlin, eyes set to his quarry.

(New to the Helkey multiverse? Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

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by robertscribbler on December 7, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 7, 2021

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Helkey 16 — Glenda Goodfuture and the Solar Train to Denmark

Mori suppresses the urge to cuff Ivan. The racist bastard snuck off, went on a binge, started bullying a black pro football player, then literally almost got transformed into a fucking demon-wolf when Hell dialed him in. The Hell dialing part is weird. Something he can’t quite figure out. The Ivan being a pure 100 percent dick part is as easy to get as it is infuriating.

They lead Ivan the jackass back toward Marienkirche. Beatrice is keeping to the shadows, feeding ignarus more curse energy, her luminous eyes scanning for hiding places, head on a swivel. The shadows won’t hide them from actual demons or devils. But demons can mostly only manifest as spirits on Earth and it is very rare for devils to take form here. The main concern will be humans who are taken in by Hellish and demonic influence. Unless… He doesn’t want to think too much about the worst possibility right now. He takes Beatrice’s hint and starts to mirror her actions. Stay alert, stay alive. Especially when you’re escorting Asmodeus’ prophet.

St Mary’s Church and Mio Bar

“Care to explain what happened with the phone call?” Beatrice asks Ivan as they cross a street, then enter a park to the east of St Mary’s Church. They’re cutting through the park and along a hedge row that leads toward the church. This gives them a screen from any possible prying eyes.

Ivan purses his lips. “Why should I tell?” He looks like he’s about to mutter an expletive at Beatrice, then glances back to Mori who’s glaring at him, and takes another tact. “You attack me again. No reason to talk.”

“Whatever called to you triggered your pride-wound,” Beatrice replies. “You experienced a partial transformation and were about to bite Jonas Herrington’s arm off. I defended both him and you.” She takes point, leading them in her silent way to the end of the hedge row. She gives him the side-eye, then continues on her way.

“You keep hitting me with sword.” Ivan is playing the victim again. He’s still got his hand on his head. It sports another bruise. Serves the bastard right. His other hand keeps reaching for his back. He pulls it away, but it keeps drifting toward the black scar. Mori bets the real pain is coming from the wound those Soul Eaters gave him. He’s not saying much about that. Reflects too much on his own guilt. He’s just whining and deflecting from their questions about the phone call.

“Hey jackass, Beatrice uses her sword for healing and protection as well as for fighting. As a last friggin’ resort. She’s never used its sharp bits on you. She could have. With justification. You owe Beatrice about a thousand apologies for going all murder hobo. Twice.” Mori climbs the stairs and they file into the church. “She kept you from turning into a monster at major risk to herself. Again. You should thank her. You don’t want to turn into a monster, do you?”

Ivan goes quiet again. The church is dark and silent. It’s about 4 AM. Mori’s tired, but Beatrice looks bright-eyed. His girl has never needed much sleep. Angel’s badass physiology and all that jazz. But he’s hoping to get at least another two hours of shut-eye. Whatever Sadie has planned for tomorrow is going to need him at 120 percent.

“Come-on Ivan. It’s back upstairs for you. Let’s sleep off the devil-spiked booze. Hopefully, it won’t give you too much of a hangover.”

Ivan grunts in reply. Beatrice closes and locks the door behind them. Then they’re climbing up the stairs, entering Sadie’s office. Beatrice settles herself down on a stool next to the window. Mori flops down onto his chair. Ivan rolls onto his cot. Bleeding curse energy into omnis scienta, Mori sets the magical sensor to keep watch over Ivan and the door again. Then, with a relieved sigh he lets his eyes shut. He’s reassured Beatrice is back to her good ol’ self. Not like he doubted once he got her into Sadie’s hands. She’s sitting over by the window. His little badass angel. Keeping watch.

As soon as his eyes close, he’s out. Sleep is precious. His work often makes it scarce. This particular job is bound to get more hectic. More dangerous.

After what seems like just a moment of sleep, the smell of coffee wafts into his nostrils and he’s greeted by the rich, sing-song voice of Sadie Dextera. “Wakie, wakie, eggs and bakie!” she says as she plops a plate on his lap. He groans and rubs his eyes. “Yes mom, what time is it?” he looks down at his food groggily. It’s in one of those nice, brown recyclable containers. Clearly ordered in. Some kind of tofu, potatoes, and veggie bacon scramble. Yum! He lifts his fork as Beatrice hands him a coffee, then digs in.

“What time is it?” he asks between mouthfuls.

“It’s 7:30 sleepy-head,” Beatrice replies with a smile. “You slept late. And the only thing going bump in the night was your snore.”

“Tell me about it, girl,” Sadie says when Beatrice mentions his snoring. Apparently, it’s one of his many famous traits. Not like he would know. They could be making it all up. Mori scans the room, finds Ivan sipping his coffee by the window. He’s dressed now. Jeans, a button down flannel, and a Godzilla T-shirt. The T-shirt looks familiar.

“Aw, no more Ivan the priest?” he says, between scarfing mouthfuls. “I was getting to like the vibe. But where’d he get the new duds?”

Ivan turns toward him, gives a poker-face, then returns to gazing out the window into early-morning Berlin.

“You should recognize the T-shirt,” Beatrice replies. “It’s from Myra’s luggage. Awful ugly thing. Don’t know why she ever liked it. The rest is from the church donations box. We found a few things that fit him. Though the jeans are a little baggy and he needed a belt.”

“You dressed him up in our daughter’s clothes?” Mori gives a crow-cackle laugh. “You know, she’d actually find that funny.”

He can feel Ivan’s gaze return. Threatening. Mori looks straight back at him. “Godzilla T? I change my mind. It fits. You should thank my daughter for her charity.” He’s not going to let Ivan the Wolf look at him like that without reply. Besides, the Russian doesn’t know shit about Myra. And that’s for the best.

Ivan seems to soften a bit at the word daughter, his face showing some actual emotion. “Godzilla? My daughter likes too. Never understood why she calls it cute. Ugly beast.”

“Well count me among the amazed,” Beatrice says. “Ivan and I can agree on one of the most important subjects of our time.”

“The ugliness level of Godzilla?” Mori quips.

“Indeed,” Beatrice replies.

“Well count me out. To my eye, the big, green kaiju strikes a handsome pose.”

Sadie has made her way over to Ivan through the banter. “You sure you don’t want any breakfast, hon?” She motions to the neglected food container beside Ivan.

“Don’t eat bird food,” Ivan replies.

Mori scoops it up. “Don’t mind if I do,” he says, then shovels a heaping forkful of Ivan’s grub into his mouth. “Man, I’m surprised you don’t want some of these delicious hashbrowns.”

Ivan snatches the food container from Mori’s hands, then looks accusingly at Sadie. “Wi.. didn’t mention hashbrowns.” He picks up the fried potatoes with his fingers, eating them daintily. But the jocular mood is broken. The word Ivan had almost uttered is witch. Among mages, particularly those like Sadie and Beatrice, this is a vulgar slur. Ivan must’ve keyed in on their reactions as the word almost escaped his mouth — biting it off at the last instant.

Everything gets quiet for a few minutes. Mori’s appetite is gone. He puts the container back down, then walks away. For a moment, Ivan seemed almost human.

At last Sadie puts her hands together. “So, I suppose I should tell you what we have planned for you Ivan. How we plan to ferry you off to Heaven. But first things first, Beatrice informs me we had a late-night relapse of your devil-wolf?”

Ivan coughs in reply.

Sadie just stares at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand you.”

“Yes,” Ivan says, actually having the grace to look ashamed.

“I see,” she glances at Beatrice, then Mori. Mori turns to Beatrice. She raises her eyebrow in a way that says yes, I filled Sadie in while you were snoring your brains out. Except Beatrice would use more refined words. “So I need to be very clear with you, Ivan,” Sadie continues. “No more wolf relapses. We simply cannot have you transforming into…” she motions at his Godzilla T-shirt. “It would defeat everything we are trying to do to help you.”

Beatrice is standing beside Mori now. As Sadie speaks she grabs his arm. “Sadie knows she’s playing with fire,” she whispers into his ear. “The dreams of Heaven haven’t known a true nightmare in ages.” Mori puts his hand over hers. Though not a native of Heaven, he recalls a bit about the nature of its worlds. Enough to know that strong dreams can be made real there — the same was once true for nightmares.

Ivan’s not watching them. He’s absorbed by Sadie. His poker face is back. But Mori is pretty sure he can see the racist dislike for Sadie glinting in Ivan’s beady little eyes. His nostrils flare a little. “Apologize,” his voice is quiet. His tongue rolls off it like the word is disgusting to him. “Won’t let happen again.”

Sadie’s eyes are dark pools — drawing him in. “Very well. But I must extract this pledge from you. No more phone calls until we get to Heaven.”

Ivan waves his hand dismissively. “Da. No more phone.”

Sadie catches his hand. “Then, to hold you to your word…” she jabs a finger into his palm and incants “confractus telefari.” Mori watches as a whirl of curse energy imbeds in Ivan’s palm. It’s a curse set to disrupt phone signals coming to Ivan. Sadie feeds the curse a bit more, then cuts it off. It’s got enough magical juice to last for days. Pretty darn clever.

Ivan might’ve caught a glimpse of the curse firing off. He’s staring at his hand in amazement.

“Now, let’s talk about how we’re bringing you to Heaven. There’s a magical gateway just off Denmark in the North Sea. Since you’re a bit of risk, I’m not telling you exactly where at the moment. But we will be meeting your daughter Glenda along the way. I believe she can help you in ways I cannot. She’s agreed.”

Mori turns to Beatrice in surprise. “Glenda?” he whispers. She shrugs her reply. Mori recalls his brief shared vision with Ivan — of his daughter holding his hand in Siberia.

Ivan appears stunned. “Glenda?” A hundred emotions ripple across his face. “Not real name. It’s Valeriya.”

“I know she changed her name when she left Russia in protest. When she came to Europe and took on the surname Goodfuture.”

“Holy shit! Glenda Goodfuture, the famous climate activist, is your daughter?” Mori exclaims to Ivan.

At the same time Beatrice shouts to Sadie — “You’re working with Glenda Goodfuture!?”

Ivan scowls and Sadie gives a cat-ate-the-canary grin.

“Valeriya. Valeriya Volkov,” he insists. “I… she agreed to see me?”

“Yes. Yes she has. Indeed. She asked me to see you when I told her I planned to bring you to Heaven. In fact, she offered to help.”

Clever, clever Sadie, Mori thinks as he leans back to digest this new bit of info. He’d heard of the world-renown Glenda Goodfuture. A teenage climate activist who’d left Russia in protest over its continued use of fossil fuels as a tool for economic warfare against its neighbors and in its reticence to shift away from their burning — so obviously fueling climate Hell on Earth. He just didn’t know Glenda was Ivan’s prodigal daughter. She was able to secure independence through a Go-Fund-Me at the age of 19 when she left Russia. The media was always vague about her family — calling them ‘wealthy oil and gas oligarchs.’ Odd discretion.

“So Glenda — she’s a mage?” Mori asks Sadie.

“Not exactly,” Sadie replies. “Let’s just say Glenda-Valeriya made some good friends. One of them being myself.”

Beatrice is standing with her arms crossed, an impressed look on her face. Ivan’s expression is a mash-up of hope, surprise, and a little anger. He looks accusingly at Sadie. Takes a breath. Seems to struggle with his words for a moment.

“You interfere with Valeriya. Take her away,” Ivan says, finally spitting out his accusation.

“I merely helped Glenda when she asked. Her decisions are her own,” Sadie replies. “You should be proud. She is a fine person. A passionate advocate for all our futures. I think, perhaps, you could learn something from her example.”

Ivan purses his lips. The mask falls back into place. Mori is pretty sure he can still see sparks of rage in his eyes.

After giving Ivan a moment to reply, Sadie steeples her hands, takes a breath and continues. “Well, now that you know your daughter wants to meet you in Denmark, I suppose we should get going. No time to waste!”

Mori looks down at his rumpled clothes. Good thing he and Beatrice left some bags here with Sadie. “If we’re getting ready to head out, you mind if I take a quick shower?”

“Please do.” This quick quip from Sadie earns a little laugh from Beatrice. Funny-ha-ha. Yeah, Mori knew he needed a bath. He glances around. Everyone else looks pretty shiny. He supposes they grabbed a shower while he was still snoozing. He snatches his bag, then bee-lines it for the shower. After a quick wash, Mori emerges feeling mostly human again. They’ve gathered in the hall, waiting for him.

“Snap to!” Sadie commands. “Train’s at 9:15.”

Mori follows them as they shuffle off toward the stairs. “Train?” he asks.

“Yes,” Beatrice says, her eyes sparking with excitement. “Sadie filled us in while you were making yourself presentable. We’re taking the Solar Train to Denmark!”

“Cool.”

They emerge from the church. Their Uber — already waiting. Telsa Model X making its almost sub-audial space-ship noise with its X-wing doors open to admit them. Mori swings around the front, his special briefcase and go bag in hand, opens the passenger door, then plops down shotgun next to Stefan. Beatrice, Ivan, and Sadie each grab a comfortable seat in the back. Beatrice sits behind Mori, reaching an arm over his chair to grab his shoulder.

“I checked up on Mirror-Spectre,” she whispers to him as the Tesla’s X-Wing doors lower. “Myra made it safely to Infernia. No other word.”

Mori pats her hand. “We’ll know more by evening,” he whispers back. He glances at Ivan in the rear view mirror. They’ll have to find a private place away from him if they want to talk openly about Myra or receive the magical reports coming from Mirror-Specter. The Tesla’s doors finish closing and they blast off through Berlin’s early morning streets. Already, haze, heat, and the smell of smoke from wildfires dominate the weather picture. Hot and lung-wrecking stinky with a 30 percent chance of pyrocumulus thunderstorms, Mori thinks to himself. Yet another nasty day on climate-wracked Earth. Though nothing like what Myra’s experiencing now. Mori stares out the window, tries to imagine, then figures it’s better to just leave that thread of thought. Beatrice is scared sick for their girl. If he’s honest with himself, he’s scared too. Dwelling on Myra’s plight ain’t gonna make things any better for her.

Stefan has turned on the Tesla’s streaming local news. Someone — Sadie or Beatrice — set up an interpretor curse. So he’s hearing it in English. They’re still talking about the Furze Bank incident. Though investigators seem to be stumped. Berlin’s chief of police is giving tight-lipped news updates. So nothing new there. The news switches to coverage of a horrific plane crash at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport early that morning. Scores of souls lost as the plane slammed into the runway. Survivor accounts are mad and delirious — some claim the plane was taken over by ghosts. Authorities suspect hijacking. But no known terrorist groups are claiming responsibility. News commentators speculate that the Furze Bank incident and plane crash are somehow linked. Mori taps his ear and glances back to Beatrice. Her face is tensed with concern, her eyebrows raised as they share a knowing look. Yeah, babe, I’m with you. This plane crash smacks of something nasty this way comes. Over her shoulder, Mori can see a smoke plume rising up in the direction of Brandenburg where wreckage still burns. Whew, things are starting to get real.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof or Central Station isn’t far from St Mary’s. Maybe a 15 minute hop. It’s not long before Mori can see its glass palace structure glittering in the hazy morning sunlight. Train lines snake into the hub — each accompanied by its own gleaming racks of solar panels. The racks give off a reflective glow to the lines as they wind off into the distance. Panels feeding energy to electric train engines and battery cars directly through the platform. They’d made the conversion only recently. To Mori, it all looks pretty darn badass. A palace of light sending out its glowing vehicular emissaries. Its brilliant clean energy glory lifts his mood, turning his attention away from last night’s weirdness.

The Tesla whooshes to a halt. X-Wing doors open. Mori gives a thumbs-up to Stephan before gathering his rifle-briefcase and go-bag, then hopping out into the steaming-smoking morning. They make their way through the entry gates. Sadie scans their tickets. Ivan stands, hands in pockets, looking non-plussed. The long, white train is a beautiful conveyance. Marked on its side is the word Sleipnir stenciled in silver. Sleipnir as in Odin’s mythical steed from Norse mythology. Somehow, Mori’s not sure the old Asgardians were quite so forward-looking. Although the Marvel Comics version would probably approve. Mori glances over to another track to see a second Sleipnir train. He guesses this is what they’re calling the brand. They’re hulking white beasts covered in solar panels along their roofs. The windows also feature new transparent thin-film solar pads — visible as slightly darker cut-out shading. Near the train’s middle, the transparent solar film makes a lightning bolt emblem. It’s a pretty badass touch. Mori’s liking this solar train to Denmark.

They board. Mori instinctively extends his hand to Beatrice. As if she needs my help. I’ve seen her do a 12 foot vertical leap. She takes it, returning a warm smile. The interior is just as fancy as the exterior. Comfy cushion seats. Nice spacing that doesn’t cram everyone together. Even sets of facing seats bordering small tables. They sit down around one of these tables. Sadie beside Ivan. Beatrice and Mori right next to each other. The conductor is checking to make sure everyone has tickets, masks, and a vaccine card. Pretty standard for today’s travel.

There’s a refreshment car. Mori hops over, grabs some snacks and drinks. Returns to distribute them just in time to sit down before the engine engages. There’s a ‘ding’ and the ‘remain seated’ sign lights up. Beatrice puts her hand out and Mori takes it. They share a grin. The train glides forward in smooth acceleration that pushes them back into their seats or makes them want to put hands on the table to steady themselves.

“Whoosh!” Beatrice whispers to Mori as the train shoots out from the glass palace structure with hardly any noise. Mori grins back at her. He’s still crazy about that girl. Her easy sense of wonder and simple joy — even during a tough time — make life so damn fun. Mori can feel the serious force of propulsion beneath him. The trains are huge — weighing about 5,000 tons. But the electric-driven motors make the Sleipner’s motion seem effortless. They’re slurping down all that sweet sun-juice to put out some serious motive force. The train swiftly accelerates, reaching its cruising speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Buildings and foliage blur by giving Mori a sense of Star Trek-like warp speed.

Mori looks at their tickets. Next stop is Hamburg in a little less than two hours. Then on to their destination of Esberj, Denmark in another two hour hop. If all goes well, they’ll arrive by 2:15 PM — giving them time to meet up with Glenda Goodfuture for an early dinner. The notion of a tasty sit-down meal makes him smile. Mori glances at Ivan. He’s playing a crossword he nabbed from the refreshments car. Now that’s going to be an interesting reunion.

(New to the Helkey multiverse? Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

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by robertscribbler on December 2, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on December 2, 2021

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Helkey 9 — St Mary’s Healing Angel

Mori clenches his jaw in worry as Beatrice leans against him. Together they hobble away from Furze Bank even as police cars rush in – lights flashing, sirens wailing.

She’s putting on a brave face. But God only knows what kind of poison Ivan as demon wolf injected into her with that bite. Ivan, meanwhile, is still following them like a lost puppy. Thankfully, the ignarus curse on Mori’s leather jacket – now draped over Ivan – is obscuring him as well. They’re not drawing much more than the odd confused glance. Cops rushing to the scene give them little notice. Mori focuses for a moment on Ivan. He seems surer of himself. The shock is wearing off and Mori imagines infernal pistons starting to fire up again behind the Russian’s eyes. Fucking great! Beatrice’s left legging, meanwhile, is now red and black with blood and poison. Three tooth-shape serrations have ripped through the fabric – making a mess of the flesh beneath. It continuously wells blood. At least it’s not spurting.

“Wait a minute,” He says to Beatrice after they’ve moved about a half block on and edged into a side-street. Already, ingarus has handled most on-lookers. They’ve forgotten the odd little trio and are staring instead at the light show still going on at the top of Furze Bank HQ. Beat cops run past them on foot with barely a second glance. A helicopter flies over them, but trains its spotlight on the damaged sky scraper. The broken glass glitters with all the various lights. Its jagged edge looks a lot like an open maw to Mori. “Give me your pouch.”

Beatrice fumbles at her belt and unhooks a pouch made of some soft-yet-durable material from her home world. She pushes it toward Mori. He quickly rummages through it – pushing aside an intricate silver pen, a small living bulb filled with flickering lights, and a miniaturized book of curses, to produce a Maxi Pad and a handful of green moss. In a few swift motions, he unwraps the pad, presses the moss onto Beatrice’s wound and seals the Maxi Pad over top. She makes a little noise of pain, but nods in appreciation. The kindre moss has already started to take the edge off. The stuff is heaven-sent. Literally. It’ll help dull the pain while slowing the bleeding and drawing away some of the poison. Not that it’s a cure. But it will buy them some time.

“Good idea,” she says, cracking a waifish half-smile as she adds her own pressure to the make-shift bandage. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She nods at his weapon. He’s still getting odd looks from people on the street. Ignarus is dealing with it. Kinda. But better not attract too much damn attention. He pushes a button on the rifle’s hand-guard. There is a whirring as the rifle does its dance back to briefcase mode.

They start walking again. Mori has his phone out. He is calling his special Uber driver Stefan even as he watches Ivan out of the corner of his eye. The guy is obviously starting to get spun up. His eyes growing big at first and then narrowing to slits as his pupils roam around. Mori helps Beatrice sit down on a nearby bench. Stefan is 3 minutes away. Ivan suddenly springs up and lunges to make a run for it. Geez oh crap! But Mori expected something like this. His hand shoots out and grabs Ivan by the collar. The Russian does a little spin and lands on his butt.

“Let me go! I am kidnapped!” Ivan shouts as he kicks and grabs at Mori’s hand. This is enough to attract the unwanted stares of a few puzzled onlookers. They quickly lose interest as ignarus throws them off the scent.

“Like Hell you are! We just saved your ass up there! Without us you’d still be 100 percent wolfie. Hell, you’d probably be nom nomming on those guards right now.” Mori points to the lights still searching the wreckage of the Furze Bank HQ executive water closet. He thinks about showing Ivan his undercover badge and reading him his rights. But it’s not time to play that card yet. Hell, he isn’t even sure the electronic surveillance suite running in his briefcase collected enough to book ol’ Ivan. Almost certainly. Almost. But there was such a thing as standard of proof, after all. Furze Bank is a hive for shady and probably illegal deals. Ivan was high up in that corrupt pecking order. Mori forces himself to take the diplomatic route. “But you’re safe now. More important, they’re safe from you. So shut the fuck up!”

“That was real?” Ivan says, still kicking a bit, but clearly giving up for now. Dazed disbelief shows plainly on what must be one of the best natural poker faces in all the worlds. Ivan looks up at the broken glass atop the tower where he lorded over everyone in a most disgusting manner. Mori can barely imagine what the guy is thinking. He’s a real piece of work. Definitely sociopathic. So he’ll be more trouble later. Lots of damn trouble. But Mori figures he can at least put an effort in to delay the inevitable.

“Look – you can come with us and I’ll explain everything after I get help for my wife here. You know, the one you just fucking took a bite out of?”

“Da, OK. So where are you taking me?” Ivan asks – somewhat mollified if still suspicious. Damn, the guy still has some of Beatrice’s blood on his teeth. He coldly considers Mori through those narrowed eyes. Mori stifles the urge to punch him.

“We’re off to St Mary’s Church. We have a friend there – Sadie – who has the skills it takes to treat the kind of unnatural wound you inflicted on Beatrice.”

Ivan grunts but seems satisfied for now. A normal person would have apologized for what happened to Beatrice. Sure, the demon took control when it possessed him. Dominated him and drove him to bite her. But Mori is willing to bet serious money Ivan didn’t fight too hard against it. Sick fucker probably enjoyed it on some level. Ivan nods in his calculating and still somehow feral manner. The quid-pro-quo game is working, if only temporarily. Time in exchange for information. A transactional arrangement. Back to the kind of bullshit game this blood-sucker understands. Mori gets a momentary sense that Ivan’s still a demon-wolf who’s staring at him over slavering jaws, contemplating.

Beatrice waves a hand. “Yeah. About that treatment. I’m starting to chill. My sight darkens. Soon I think I won’t be able to see a thing.”

“Ten minutes Bea,” Mori replies. “You’re tough as nails. I know you can make it.” She’d better make it or I’ll kill that fucking Ivan — Asmodeus baiting or no.

The black Tesla model X arrives with a futuristic whirr. Its left x-wing door pops open. Mori gives Ivan a nudge. “You first,” he says. Ivan shrugs, stands up, and slides into the Tesla. Mori helps Beatrice up, takes the middle seat and lets her flop down beside him. Stefan watches them through the rear-view mirror. Once they’re all in, he guns it. The smooth and soundless acceleration pushes them back into their seats with pure g-force. Stefan already knows where to go. Mori gave him the info by text. He’s also a master driver. Buildings blur by. The chaos surrounding Furze Bank shrinks from view.

“You got water?” Mori asks. Stefan pops the center consol and tosses back a cold bottle of Voss. Mori cracks it open and hands it to Beatrice. She grabs it with her dexterous hands and takes measured sips. She’s keeping it together. But just barely.

“What were those… those things?” Ivan’s cool look is puzzled. Mori can tell he’s torn up about asking the question. Like admitting he doesn’t know something somehow takes life points away from him. Mori allows himself a moment to enjoy the Russian’s confusion.

“You mean the Pride Eaters? Yeah, those guys are real pieces of work. Demons. And, Ivan, here’s the kicker – you summoned them.”

Ivan purses his lips at this new information. “Pride Eater?” Mori can tell he’s struggling to believe it. “But… how did I summon?”

“Well, those guys absolutely love to slurp up some pride. And you, when you do your thing every day at the golden throne on top of the world… Well, that is like a gourmet meal to them,” Mori stifles a laugh. It shouldn’t be that funny. He looks down at Beatrice’s leg. The bleeding has slowed. Good. He turns back to Ivan. “Look, I told you I’d fill you in on everything after I get Beatrice some help. So just shut up for now. Got it?”

Ivan’s hearing what I’m saying but it’s pretty clear it’s not completely registering yet. He’s getting a glimpse of the world as is and it’s not at all adding up to what he though it was. For someone like Ivan, that’s a really tough thing to process. Of course, he wasn’t much good at processing ‘normal’ reality either. So no surprise there.

St Mary’s Church in Berlin as seen from above and at first floor level. Note that this is not an exact replica of the real church. It is a re-rendering for the Helkey series.

The Tesla rumbles to a halt in front of St Mary’s Church as it passes over cobbles. Mori is greeted with red brick-work, gothic architecture, and lights twinkling through stained glass windows. A stern statue of Martin Luther glares at him from atop a marble pedestal.

“I’m calling Sadie now,” Stefan says, picking up his cell.

Mori reaches out to give his shoulder a pat. “Good man,”

The Tesla’s x-wing door is already open. Mori is helping Beatrice stumble out of the Tesla and across the stones. Ivan reluctantly stands to follow. They make their way to the red-oak doors. It’s dark. But the church is well lit and its striking red appearance seems somewhat ominous to Mori. Stephan gives a thumbs up from the Tesla, then drives off. A couple seconds later, there is a rustling at the door. It squeaks open.

Behind the door is a diminutive black-skinned woman wearing a multi-colored dress and shawl. Her face beams as she ushers them into an enormous cathedral area walled in white with flying buttresses swooping up overhead. There is a warm and comforting energy surrounding her. She’s from Beatrice’s home. And like Beatrice she’s got the whole angel mojo going on. Mori imagines her as some ancient and noble Libyan queen strait out of antiquity. “Come in! Come in! Allow me!” she says as she scoops up Beatrice’s other arm – helping the wounded angel-girl limp across the flag stones. “Stephan got word to me just a little while ago. I’ve made ready for you in the basement. Now, let’s keep off that leg, dear.”

Beatrice grunts in reply. “Thanks… Sadie…”

Mori has Beatrice’s other arm. Between him and Sadie, they’re practically carrying Beatrice. They make their way to a spiral stone stairway and descend. Ivan follows, glancing around like he’s on tour. They go down a floor, cut through a hallway covered in flag stones. They pass a crypt of some old dead German general, turn right, and enter a doorway.

Inside is a whole other world. Bulbs of dancing lights like the small one in Beatrice’s purse are in the corners, providing gentle light. Their living green fronds have sweetened the air, made it clean, more wholesome. A stronger blue-white light shines from a crystal mounted on top of a candle holder beside a cot. To Mori, this light feels kinder than Earthly illumination. His skin drinks it up as if its touch provides sustenance. Somewhere above, someone’s playing organ music — adding to the whole celestial vibe of the place. Beside the cot is a table with more kindre moss, a basin of water, some surgical implements, and various sterile bandages. They rest Beatrice upon the bed. She’s gone white. Her lips and finger tips are starting to turn blue. But her green eyes are still moving. She lets out a sigh of relief as that heavenly glow touches her and takes a deep breath of the good air. Ivan glances about with a bemused look on his face. Mori notes Ivan’s confused expression. You ain’t seen nothing yet, bud.

“I’m sorry for the informalities, Mori. But I’ve got no time to waste,” Sadie says as she lifts a set of surgical scissors and cuts away a chunk of Beatrice’s legging. She pulls off their make-shift bandage and observes the wound. “Tsk. Tsk. Someone has been a very bad boy.” She glances at Ivan. “Demon possession, I take it?”

“Yes, Sadie,” Mori does his best not to sound too reverential. But this is that most famous among mages Sadie Dextera after all.  He glances at Ivan reminding himself he can’t talk too freely in front of Asmodeus’s chosen, even if he didn’t know shit for now. “There were Pride Eaters at the Hell Gate. One of them had already tethered Ivan. Forced him to take the form of the Wolf of Wrath. He bit Beatrice.”

Sadie’s kind-but-sharp eyes focus intensely upon him. “Good thing it wasn’t you he bit. Wouldn’t have made it back here.”

“That’s why Beatrice does the close work. I’m too fragile for it.” Mori’s not shy to admit it. Angels like Beatrice are much tougher than humans like him. Though Mori knows a few magical tricks for staying alive if poisoned, he sure as hell doesn’t want to test Sadie’s theory.

Sadie picks up the crystal atop the candle holder. She holds it over Beatrice’s wound. Waving a hand above the crystal she blows at it. The light beaming from the crystal seems to swirl with Sadie’s exhalation. Its beams flow more brightly even as they extend and undulate – forming fingers that reach down to Beatrice’s wound. They touch her flesh gently, probing with slow care into her torn and wounded tissue. Sadie’s eyes are closed now. But Mori knows she can keenly sense what she’s doing through her light-fingers. She is far defter than any earthly surgeon. Arching her back she raises one hand and curls her fingers into a crescent. The fingers of light mimic the gesture.

“Venenum sa!” she incants. The light-fingers probe into Beatrice’s body. Mori can see them moving beneath her skin. They travel up her leg, into her torso, around her hearts, through her shoulders, up her neck and beneath her eyes. All of it is glowing through her skin and clothes. Her eyes shine with the healing radiance. Darkness pulses down the light fingers. It’s the venom – drawn out drop-by-drop. Sadie holds out a silver basin to catch it. The black stuff hisses as it pools in the container. After about twenty seconds, the venom is all removed. Sadie carefully places the basin on her table. Then, she starts to move her fingers in a kneading gesture. The light fingers again mirror her motions.

 “Sana carnes!” she chants as her second curse begins to knit Beatrice’s flesh back together. The light fingers have moved back to her leg now. They gather into a tangle of flowing blue and white light. Sadie molds the light into various shapes. It steadily shrinks layer by layer. And as it withdraws it leaves behind pink, perfect flesh. Unbroken skin. Pulling back slowly into three silver round marks where Ivan’s teeth struck. But even these scars are faded and hard to see now. With Beatrice’s regenerative capacity, such slight marks will be gone in a month or so. Mori lets out a sigh of relief. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath.

Sadie drops her hand, inspects Beatrice’s leg with a critical eye, then turns to her table. She picks up a syringe, pops the cap, and injects some serum into Beatrice. “For the tetanus and other crud that was probably in his wolf-mouth,” she says with a glance toward Ivan. She then picks up a second syringe and makes a gesture for Mori to roll up his sleeve.

“What the hell?” he says. But he’s already rolling his shirt up. He sure as hell knows better than to cross Sadie.

“It’s your SARS COVID 5 vaccination. You were due and it just arrived. I thought — what better time than now?” Sadie injects the vaccine into Mori’s arm. He’s used to it. Doesn’t even flinch.

Beatrice starts to sit up. But Sadie stops her. “No. No. Time for you to take a little nap. You need to rest to recover from your trauma. I know. You’re a tough girl. Now let’s make sure it stays that way.” Beatrice is starting to open her mouth to protest. But Sadie just lifts her hand and chants “somnos.” Beatrice’s head falls back onto the pillow with a flumph! sound. She’s out like a light.

“That was… I don’t … It was spectacular.” Ivan is having trouble finding words to describe the second supernatural event he’s witnessed in a single night.

“Yeah. That’s our Sadie. Pretty damn amazing. Good thing too.” Mori says as he lowers his brows at Ivan. The Russian gets the look and holds his hands up in a calming gesture. Mori just plows on by. “So I told you I’d explain. Now that Beatrice is safe you, Sadie and I are going to have a talk. It’ll probably be the most important talk you’ve ever had in your slime and sludge filled life. So, listen up good. It’s a literal come to Jesus moment.”

Ivan shrugs in a noncommittal way. “Yes. You owe me explanation.”  

Mori is damn sure he doesn’t owe Ivan squat. He lets it slide and turns to Sadie. “My good lady, is Beatrice safe resting here?”

“Yes, dear. You can be assured that all the necessary protections have been placed. There are watchful friends here to help protect.” She looks at Beatrice. “She is stable now and quite strong.” She turns her sharp eyes to Ivan. “I am eager to talk to you – Ivan the Wolf. We have much to discuss.”

Mori almost feels sorry for the bastard. Almost…

(Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

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by robertscribbler on March 30, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on March 30, 2021

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Helkey 5 – Hell Gate in the Arch of Time

Tick frigging tok.

We move swiftly down the halls toward Ivan Volkov – pausing at corners to make sure we’re unobserved. Mori is handy with his brief case. It has a switch that shoots out a signal interruption for any cameras in the halls. Mundanes and their tech are our most likely trouble up until the point when Ivan starts the big sploosh. I’m not too concerned about actual live demons rampaging right now. But our contacts with Felix and Gannon have me more than a little freaked out. Their wisp-hungry paw-prints, claw and tooth marks are all over the damned place. Part of me is wary of stumbling on mangled corpus, blood, viscera. Less likely this side of Hell. But man were those guys freaky with their combined curse resistance and pigs in shit wallowing happiness with just plain wrong. I slip my sweaty hand into my pocket. I produce my cell phone. I breathe out. I turn it on. The time is now frigging 6:23. I have 7 minutes left to live.

Omnis scienta shows Volkov again alone. He’s shaken off the red-head fem exec. He licks the last of the crumbs off his fingers, then thrusts a hand in a pocket. He pulls out an ear piece. Plunks it into his right ear. Flipping out his phone, he produces what looks like a play list. But he doesn’t turn it on yet.

“Really?” I whisper to my parents.

Beatrice shushes me. “He’s right down the hall,” she mouths more than speaks.

“But, musical dumps? Really?” I mouth back, pointing to the scene floating before us.

Mori smirks. I know he’s trying not to nervously laugh. He clasps me on the shoulder instead. Trying to reassure. But the effect is opposite. He does this every time he’s worried around me. Doesn’t calm me down for squat.

Ivan approaches a door. He produces a key card. We rush up to the corridor corner about 50 feet behind him. I peak around. The facing hall is bordered on one side by clear glass. I have an unobstructed view of the Berlin skyscape unfolding for miles and miles. The lights of evening are flickering on in the gloaming. Those distant storms have mostly departed leaving behind feathery cirrus that shade the sky in hews of pink and blue. At the end of this picturesque hall Ivan comes to a stop. The omnis scienta fades out as I see him in the flesh for the first time. My weirdo thought is – I’m taller than this man.

Ivan swipes his card over the reader. There is a little ‘beep’ as his access confirms. He turns the latch and I get a glimpse of marble floor ending in a platform edged with golden stairs beyond. He passes through the threshold. The door begins to swing shut behind him.

Mori lifts a hand. “Teneo,” he incants, casting a holding curse on the door. It swings shut and seems to close. But I know better.

Omnis scienta returns as we walk down the hall to the door. Ivan is moving across a marble floor with metal eagles ringed by circles embossed into it. There are three eagles. The eagle to the right appears poised to prey on the center eagle while the eagle to the left looks away. What they stand for, I’ve got no clue. But they seem way too fascist for comfort. Ivan comes to a set of ascending stairs as we reach the outer door. The stairs are golden and rise along the side of a black wall of glossy marble in juxtaposition to the white floor. The stairs terminate at a golden platform facing a frosted glass pair of double doors, each with another eagle emblem upon it.

We stop at the outer door as Ivan approaches his inner sanctum. He pauses for a moment, flips out his phone, then pushes play. Omnis scienta pulses with the sound of a revving engine and squealing wheels followed by heavy metal music.

“Gimmie fuel, gimmie fire, gimmie that which I desire!” rocks our eardrums through the sensor. Ivan Volkov is playing Metallica.

He lifts his arms wide to finger tap a rhythm. With that goblin grin, his face looks kinda like a bat. Rocking out to Metallica in a pink polo shirt. OK, then, a pink bat. He breathes deep, then opens the double doors. Inside is a globe-like chamber that seems to jut out into the sky. Most of the wall and ceiling is glass. The floor is a semi-circle of black marble. Toward the center is a raised section of golden metal. It’s probably actual fracking gold. Upon it is perched a single golden toilet with a golden bidet beside it. Ivan makes his way toward the toilet.

We’re still at the outer door. Mori gives it a little push. The latch never caught. Mori’s Teneo curse held it. It slides open without a sound. We enter, pouring in over the white marble and three eagles. The door shuts behind us, releasing a spark as Mori lets go of his curse. Holding two curses at the same time takes serious concentration. Mori’s had omnis scienta going for more than a half hour now. That’s true grit. Mori doesn’t show it. Hasn’t even broken a sweat.

We move halfway up the stairs, careful to stay out of sight through the doors. They’re frosted glass. So semi-opaque. If we bob our heads forward a little, we can see Ivan’s form as a pink and khaki blur through them. Omnis scienta shows quite a bit more. I’m kinda thinking I don’t want to watch what happens next.

Ivan is on the pedestal. He turns toward the glass and looks out over Berlin. The sound of Metallica is raging through our sensor. Mori lifts his hand and whispers – visus capitis – adding a modification to his sensor. Our perspective of Ivan blurs and shifts once more. We are now seeing through his eyes. Thank goodness. Looks like we’ll get the PG-13 version.

The view from where he’s standing is spectacular. At his perch he appears to be flying over the city. The glass walls bend in, giving the illusion that his platform toilet floats on a golden pedestal in a circle of black marble in midair. Above are the fading colors of twilight sky. In front, to the right and left, the German countryside rolls ever outward. Dim, but still visible in shades, mists, and little twinkling lights. Below on every side is all of Berlin bustling with evening activity. Cars and trains move like little toys. People seem insect size. Ivan’s fiddling with his trousers. He begins to unbuckle his belt. There is a zipping sound. A rustling of clothes. My phone says 6:29. The shit is literally about to go down on those poor people heading out to dinner or slogging through the still scorching evening outside air.

Ivan lowers himself onto the golden toilet with a happy sigh. He makes little motions with his hands to the music. “I am king,” he says in English at a break in the song and then sings along, badly and off-key – “Oooo wanna burn, fuel is pumping engines…”

There is a loud farting sound. I flinch. It sounds like a trumpet – continuing on for a good five seconds. No-one ever said anything about temporary Hell gates being aromatic. Well, maybe not entirely PG-13 either.

“Faetor oculorum,” Mori encants, now weaving in a fourth spell to our shared sensor. At first there is no distinction other than some red strands that look like fire rising up around Ivan. Yeah. That’s demonic influence all right. Like the guy has been rolling around in it. But other than Ivan the environment starts out pretty clear.

Ivan is still singing in narcissistic fugue — “Gimmie fuel…” and then a wet ‘plop!’

Below him, the glistening black marble pools. It seems to swirl hungrily. The little golden pedestal appears to float upon it like an autumn leaf skimming the surface of a dark, bottomless sea. I startle as a ripple of purple-red light flashes in its depths. Tiny, at first. But growing in size. I have a vision of a shark beginning to rise toward an unsuspecting sea otter floating on the surface. Another light appears. Then another. The edges of the marble begin to flicker, steadily bleeding into a circle of spectral red flame.

“This is it, Myra,” Beatrice says. “When I say go, I need you to run to that circle. Mori and I will make a distraction. Hopefully one that will last a year.”

I don’t fully get what she’s saying. But I guess that’s the whole point. I’m committed now. Hell I’m pretty much defiled. I will never be able to scrub this whole event from my memory. Ever. I nod, “I’m ready mom,” I reply. I can’t say ‘I love you’ because that would feel like a too-permanent goodbye. But I grab her arm and squeeze. She is suddenly holding me. So is Mori. He is just there as this big crow-like presence.

“Now Beatrice,” Mori says softly.

Beatrice strokes my hair, looks into my eyes and chants the curse — “Indespectus.” My body suddenly fades into invisibility. I hold my right hand up. I don’t see anything. I have gone completely blank. I turn to see if I have a shadow. Not even that. It’s a little disconcerting. Frack. Mom’s never used this one in my presence before. She’s still holding onto my left arm. I’m still getting my new invisible bearings when she taps it and invokes the second curse – “Infernum Clavis!”

Oh shit! That’s my name curse! Sparks immediately begin to fall from my arm. These are not entirely invisible.

Beatrice is pushing me forward. “Go!” she says, throwing away all caution. I spring up, driven by some kind of inner surge of bravery I didn’t know I had. There’s a niddling in my mind that I actually trained for this action. My muscles sure as hell remember what to do for some reason. I’m at the glass frosted doors. Mori has already rushed forward to kick one open. With his right hand he has pushed a third button on his briefcase.

Not the third button!

I spring forward through the door. My curse-enhanced sight shows the magic circle – now clearly formed. It is fully red and double ringed. Angry words in alien tongues fill out the gap. From the black marble, three spectral shapes have arisen. They appear to be formed of flesh and sinew without skin. Humanoid. But at least 7 feet tall. Their heads are skull-like but taper in the back toward points. Their hands distend into wicked claws the size of hedge shears. Before now, I’d only heard tales of the Pride-Eater demons. Yet here were three towering directly in front of me. Clutching hungrily at the glistening red tethers streaming off of Ivan’s inner wisp. They’ve gathered over Ivan – who is now playing the air drums on his golden toilet. One reaches out to stroke at Ivan’s head with a massive talon. It flicks some of Ivan’s thoughts from his mind. They appear as more red mist. The demon’s long tongue flickers out and laps at the bad-thought-mist like a cat lapping milk.

“Swallow future, spit out hope…” I hear it hiss along to the song. Hey, demons can enjoy Metallica too, I suppose. Information I really didn’t want to know.

My boots squeak as I race across the marble floor toward the circle. I’ve got more than a little fear driving me on now. Pride-Eaters are serious bad mojo. The three demons don’t notice me. Ivan is too wrapped up in his Metallica and hubris-high to hear the sounds of my footfalls. I definitely notice the serious stench of his farts and offal. Whew! I don’t give a flying fuck at the godsdamn moment as I make my way for a portion of the Hell gate not presently occupied by demons.

Mori is in the doorway. He pressed the third button, remember? There’s a whirring sound as his briefcase begins to transform. Yeah. Cool, right? A frigging transforming briefcase. The front section pops upward, extends and narrows, the bottom section splits, the back section elongates and widens, the handle stiffens and produces an optical scope. A few seconds later, Mori is no longer holding a black briefcase. It’s now a dreadful-looking magical, long-barreled assault rifle. He spins the optical on his scope and lifts his weapon into the ready position. From a pocket in his leather jacket, he produces a blue magazine that, to my curse-sight, crackles with divine energy. What’s he gonna do with that? Protect Ivan?

Not my problem. I am now at the edge of the circle. Sparks are flying from my arm. One of the demons tilts its head curiously at the falling light. It lifts a clawed hand. Its tongue flickers out – tasting the air. It doesn’t see me. But it senses something.

“Hey! Over here!” Beatrice has moved up beside Mori in the double doors. Her rapier is out and is glowing like a golden-silver beam of sunlight through a window on a winter’s day. The demon turns its eyes toward Beatrice.

“Blyat!” Ivan curses as he now sees my parents standing in the door, one holding a full-on overgrown assault rifle, the other a freaking sword. Another loud fart escapes his ass.

Beatrice’s shout has bought me the second I need. I jump into the air, cross the magical circle’s threshold, flip forward, and do a hand plant like a skater on my left arm. My hand hits the marble and for a moment I am suspended upside-down — staring into that black, flickering with red, marble. My active name-curse dumps sparks into the gateway which lights up brighter. It flashes once. Like a camera shudder opening. I fall face-first through it.

Darkness surrounds me. The sparks from my arm drift about me like lazy stars as I fall. My stomach is now in my throat. I shout “fuuuuccckkkk!” I can’t help it. I’m plummeting to my death or worse. Above, Ivan and the demons are rapidly receding, they don’t even notice me. No Earthly sound seems to cross the threshold I just breached. Though the harsh ethereal scrapes of Pride-Eater claws is quite loud. I shift to face the direction of my fall. Ahead is blackness and a little rainbow dot. The dot rapidly grows as I approach it. It bends into a rainbow arch that seems to stand on a rainbow floor. As I drift still closer, the colored archway moves in three dimensions – becoming a circle. It is the frigging Arch of Time. To pass from one world to the next, you have to go through it. Time seems to slow. The darkness in the center of the Arch bends toward me. I feel that I bend toward it. There is a ‘pop!’ and a feeling like I’ve been turned inside out. I am through! The darkness blurs away into a greenish glow as I tumble onto hot sand and take a gulp of noxious air.

I somersault three or four times before I come to a sprawling stop. Spread eagle on the ground, I look up at the green as goo colored sky. To my left, oily clouds of black smoke rise from an array of jagged dark-metal towers. Above, a merciless sun beats down. Beside the sun is what looks like a floating black web. It casts shade below it – providing pitiful relief to the scorching lands.

“We did it!” I choke in the rotten-eggs air. “We fucking did it. Holy Hell! Oh my gods! I’m in fucking Hell. What do I do now!?”

(Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

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by robertscribbler on March 15, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on March 15, 2021

https://scribblersfantasticalworkshop.wordpress.com/2021/03/15/helkey-5-hell-gate-in-the-arch-of-time/

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