All posts tagged Storm

Helkey 35 — Ambush at Wind-Sun Isle, Hell’s Platform

Sun Shepherd plows through another towering wave as the storm howls its fury over them like some enormous beast. Dark clouds above fill with spider-webs of lightning. Water and spray, ripped into jagged fingers by the vessel’s powerful forward speed, lash out at them — pounding the bridge windows. The sturdy ship shrugs off the assault, cleaving implacably through the angry waters, the clean hum of its electric drives — a constant counter to the roaring wind and waves. Mori’s got his grip glued to his “oh shit!” handle. Without it, he’d be careening around the bridge compartment of the swaying vessel like a pin ball in one of those retro arcade games. The metal brief case containing his magical rifle — held firm against his chest. His stomach does a rollercoaster-style tumble as Sun Shepherd drops into another trough. Damn fortunate whoever designed this vessel didn’t cut any corners. He’d have ripped the fucking handle off by now.

Mori glances up toward Beatrice standing beside Finn at the helm. She’s perfectly balanced without holding onto anything. The swaying and jolts do nothing to throw her. A graceful surfer riding through this crazy climate-change-enhanced storm. Her sleek, angelic form seeming to know where the ship will move ahead of time. Mori grins, imagining his wife as some female version of the Silver Surfer. Yeah, his girl’s just about that badass. She’s even got her eyes closed — shifting her gaze out through omnis scientia — ready to warn Finn of the next big wave. The sensor’s a few hundred feet ahead. Mori’s magic-sensitive eyes pick it up as a floating ball of light amidst the spray, the waves, the rain.

Karl and Franz are both buckled in. Earlier, they’d distributed fancy life-vests from beneath the seats. Now everyone’s wearing one of the puffy orange things over their clothes — complete with whistle, strobe, and geo-locator. Mori doesn’t want to think about using the damn things. Being ejected into that sea state would be, well, Hellish. His gaze flickers over Karl and Franz. Though they’re ship’s hands and have probably made this passage scores of times, they’re holding on about as tight as Mori. Franz has his eyes glued to the bow. Karl’s staring at the bridge ceiling, refusing to look at the waves, as his jaw works — chewing on some gum he plopped into his mouth a few minutes before. The sight of the two, obviously suffering the same anxiety as the rest of them, isn’t reassuring.

From The Wrath of the Seas by Ivan Ayvazovsky.

Beside him, Ivan and Glenda are also strapped in tight, holding on against the storm’s assault. Glenda’s alert, her eyes bouncing between Beatrice, Sadie, and Ivan. Her mouth — a concerned frown. Her face displaying hurt, anger, outrage. Yet fearless. Mori finds himself comforted by her courage. That girl’s something else. Putting everything on the line to save her asshole father. I feel for her. But I’ve really got doubts. Mori grits his teeth as his gaze locks on Ivan. The Russian oligarch’s face is a slack glower. That same emotionless mask Mori’d grown to hate. Bastard’s at last in control of his sea-sickness. That or he’s puked himself out. The boat throws Mori’s stomach through a loop as it slams into another twenty-foot wave face. Maybe he’ll be next to lose his lunch.

Mori’s not sure how Glenda’s earlier outburst is affecting ol’ Ivan. But he’s pretty certain the jackass is going to do them a bad turn. Confronting him with both good-will and reason produces nada. Sadie’d only managed to rope him in on their wild expedition to Heaven by making him feel special. Like this trip to Heaven is some kind of goddamn birthday present. Sure, she’s using him to distract Asmodeus as Myra runs roughshod into Hell. But Sadie, like Glenda, genuinely wants to help the bastard. She’s right. His transformation atop Furze Bank, his wounding by Pride Eaters’ claws should’ve been a wake-up call. Ivan, at times, shows fear. Regret. But these moments of potential awakening inevitably fail. Ivan’s just too corrupt, too cynical to take a good turn. Mori gets the feeling the Russian’s circling back to his usual power-games. Shapechanger — Glenda’d called him.

That rat-bastard’s a ticking bomb. Glenda’s right. This is his intervention. But Ivan’s gotta want it to work and he’s addicted to something worse than any drug. Power.

Mori can sense that power-lust wafting off Ivan. Like the smell of alcohol off a drunk. Ivan’s expression gives Mori’s stomach a worse jolt than even the massive North Sea waves threatening to devour Sun Shepherd. His cop instincts — going off like gang-busters. The way he treats his own daughter… Like she’s supposed to grow up into corruption and become like him. It’s just sick. That shred of love for Glenda Mori sensed in him earlier — now seems little more than a counterfeit.

Asmodeus chose this fucker for a reason. Sadie’s assurances or no, if Ivan does anything to hurt Glenda, if he shows any sign of turning again, I swear I’m gonna knock his ass out.

Mori’s eyes cut back toward Sadie. Her onyx skin glistens with an angelic sheen, seeming to glow in each lightning flash. Her face — somehow continuing to radiate calm goodwill as she braces through the storm. She reaches out a hand, grasps Glenda’s arm. Glenda’s face lifts, shedding some of its hurt and anger. Sadie’s the best. Always trying to do a good turn.

Beep! Beep! Beep! The alarm on Mori’s watch goes off. It’s 7:00 Berlin time. Shit! Mirror Specter’s on its way! Mori glances about the cabin. Beatrice spins on him, her eyes wide. Well, I guess everyone’s gonna see it.

“No help for it now!” Mori growls to Beatrice, then thrusts himself upright. He turns to everyone. They’re all looking at him, temporarily distracted by his sudden agitation. “You’re all about to see something strange! A kind of magical ghost! We’re going to talk with it for about a minute! Pay us no mind!”

Glenda frowns speculatively, like she’s working out a puzzle. Franz’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Ivan’s head tilts forward. A small grin appears on his face. That’s a problem.

“You just said you’re going to talk to a ghost and to pay you no mind?! The one doesn’t go with the other!” Karl shouts.

Beatrice ignores him, turns to Finn. “You’re on your own for a few minutes!” She shouts against the roaring wind and waves.

“I really need you!”

“I know! No helping it!” She waves a hand over her form in explanation. Finn looks at her sidelong, doesn’t get it. Then, the magic of Mirror Specter begins to grow up from her. The sliver tattoos traced on Beatrice’s skin gleam with moon glow. Her hair swirls — lifted by magical force. Light fills the cabin. Everyone but Sadie stares at Beatrice in shock as sparks begin to spill out of her name curse. They hit the deck, smoke for a moment, and then from the smoke rises the ghostly form of his daughter — Myra Helkey. She’s wearing a D20 shirt, has a clean look like someone who just had a shower — shiny. Her name curse is also sparking. Sending out streamers to connect with Beatrice. Her hair, pulled back in a pony tail, seems to drift about weightlessly, as if she’s floating in water. It’s the only visible hint about where this Mirror Specter is coming from. Good.

“Hey Mom, Dad! Other people!” Myra as Mirror Specter says, glancing about the cabin. “I’m about to go…”

Beatrice lifts a hand. “We have an audience!”

Myra’s Mirror pauses, “Yep! Noticed!” She scans the group, takes in the raging storm outside for the first time. The Mirror Specter floats above the deck — untouched by the swaying Sea Shepherd. “Oh… That’s a really bad storm!” A strand of her hair drifts lazily in front of her face. Ivan’s beady eyes glint as he stares. Mori can practically see the clockwork turning over in his skull. Tic, ticking through details.

“Yeah, better make it quick for now!” He says. No use in keeping his voice down. It’s like they’re on stage.

Myra’s Mirror snaps back into action. “Right! Then I’ll just tell you the basics! My better half made it past the beach! She’s now with a group of… kindred spirits! Two blues! A Vila! She just defeated some Poachers!”

“Excellent!” Beatrice says. She’s lifting a hand out, stroking the light form of Mirror Specter. The gesture is heart-rending. Mori knows how much Beatrice misses Myra. How concerned she feels for her as she faces down Hell pretty much all alone. “A Vila! That’s a perfect complement!” Beatrice turns to Mori nods.

“Fanfriggingtastic!” Mori replies. “She’s near the Wisp Fields?!”

“Just at the southeast end. About fifteen miles from Overseer.”

“Fuckin-A!” Mori whoops. “Yeah! Tell her to start her rebellion against those slavers!”

“You think she’s ready?!” Beatrice casts her concern back toward him.

“Babe, you know each day brings new risks! Sooner is better! Plus, a Vila!”

Beatrice nods, glances back at their dumbfounded onlookers. Mori’s pretty sure they’re not cluing in at all. All except Sadie who’s watching on with a bemused expression. Excellent! “Then urge her to push on! I hope she remembers enough… of what we discussed before!”

Mirror-Myra lifts a hand, gives a mock-salute. “Got it! I’m off to H…” She glances again at her audience. “Then I’m off! See you tomorrow at the same time! Love you both!!”

Beatrice’s glow flickers, then goes out. Mirror-Myra disappears — swirling off down her connection with their daughter. Down, down into Hell where Myra’s probably reacting to her own magical set of alarm bells. Beatrice shares a final glance with Mori, lets out a long breath, brushes off a tear. With a stiff nod, she turns back and closes her eyes. All-in-all it went pretty darn well. Except that last bit at the end where Myra’s Mirror almost said “Hell.” He’s pretty sure no-one picked up on it. Based on Ivan’s puzzled expression, Finn’s curious side-long glances, and the befuddled expressions on the faces of Glenda, Karl and Franz, they pulled this little Mirror Specter briefing off with flying colors and no-one’s the wiser.

“I’m watching again!” Beatrice shouts to Finn.

He grunts acknowledgement, then glances at Beatrice. “I’m not going at ask!” He shouts against the storm.

Beatrice laughs. “Better not!”

“Oh what the ever-living-Hell was that??!” Franz shouts.

“You heard her! No questions!” Finn replies. “Now let’s get through this beast!”

Glenda clamps her mouth down on a question she was about to ask, looks enquiringly to Sadie, but doesn’t say anything. Karl keeps chomping on his gum, shrugs. Ivan raises his free hand to his chin and scans the cabin with his reptilian gaze.

Sun Shepherd clambers up another monstrous wave. It feels like climbing a rocky, moving hill. Outside, the sky darkens, the pace of lightning flashes intensifies. Mori shifts his sight to omnis scientia. Through it, Sun Shepherd looks small and vulnerable amidst the churning waves. The fast resupply vessel for Wind-Sun Isle straining at its design limits in the brutal storm. Overhead, a ghostly light appears. The storm hollows out ahead of it, forming a circular corridor through the clouds. A black shape like a dragon with a Nightmare-as-helicopter for its head flies through the tunnel above them. As it approaches, the wind briefly slackens, pulled into its great, demon-formed wings. The roar above them grows, the darkness outside deepens as the Nightmare casts its shadow.

“What the ever-loving-fuck!!?” Karl shouts as he sees it.

“That’s the Curse Rider!” Beatrice cries out. “His Nightmare uses the storm!”

“Fuck! I’m watching it now. What if it sees us?!” Mori instinctively clenches, anticipating the storm-enhanced-Nightmare’s descent. Body and wings of storm spread above them. He feels like a mouse tossed about on a bit of driftwood beneath a raptor. The shadow begins to pass. Mori feels a moment of sweet relief. It missed us! The wind picks up. The Nightmare’s lashing tail, a frigging waterspout, sweeps by about two hundred meters starboard. Winds, flung back out of the Nightmare roar across the waves. Seas build behind the Nightmare as waves stack together into a massive swell.

“Finn! It’s coming!” Beatrice shouts, then points.

Finn, who’d stared wide-eyed as the Nightmare passed overhead, snaps out of his fear-daze and tilts Sun Shepherd’s nose in the direction of Beatrice’s outstretched hand. Toward the enormous wave he can’t yet see. Through omnis scientia, Mori watches the wave build to forty, fifty, sixty feet. The collision alert goes off, sending its klaxon blare through the bridge. A roiling wall of white and blue engulfs the magical sensor running ahead of Sun Shepherd. Mori snaps his eyes open in time to see its daunting form emerge off the ship’s bow. It looms like a cliff, its face is shadowed, hollow.

“Brace! Brace! Brace!” Finn shouts. Everyone clenches tighter to their hand-holds. They’re all already strapped in. Except Beatrice. She reaches a hand out, grabs a handle on the console. The bow pitches down into the trough. Above them, the wave begins to break as its top explodes into a mass of foam. Shepherd’s bow lifts, rises to thirty, forty, fifty degrees. Mori’s pressed back into his seat. Finn looks like an astronaut strapped into his captain’s chair. Beatrice dangles by one hand from her handhold which is now above her head. All across the console, read warning lights are blinking. Powerful engines roar shooting twin rooster tails behind. Its hull groans. The bow pierces the breaking wave and again they are submerged. The churning motion of the wave causes Sun Shepherd to pitch. “Grrrrrrrhhhhh!!” Finn growls as he wrestles with the helm to turn Shepherd upright. Blue water is visible through both front and rear windows. Little rivulets leak down the rear doors leading to the well. Shepherd groans from the pressure, steadily tilts back toward vertical, then explodes through the giant wave’s back. Shepherd’s bow slamming onto the storm-tossed sea surface.

Everyone lets out a breath they didn’t realize they were holding.

“Fuck! Fuck! We’re fucked!!” Glenda curses as she breathes out, then opens her clenched eyes. Ivan, meanwhile, looks like he’s about to get sick again. Even Sadie’s tensed up.

“She’s a strong ship!” Finn shouts from his captain’s chair. Sweat beading on his brow betrays his intense focus. “Made to weather the North Sea and make the fast cargo or personnel runs to and from Wind-Sun! Never you worry! She’ll hold together!” His voice is cracking a bit from the strain. Mori’s not sure if it’s reassuring. He can tell Finn’s just about as scared shitless as Glenda. Whether from the storm, from the supernatural shit he just witnessed, or both, Mori can’t tell.

Beatrice drops back onto her feet as the ship settles. Out of everyone, she seems the most steady. She turns to Mori, lifts her free hand, then points toward the Nightmare boring on through the raging storm. “Where’s it going?!” She shouts to Mori above the waves and engine noise.

“I don’t know, babe! We’re following it!” Mori replies, then turns to Finn. “What’s out that way?!”

“Trekke Pa, Wind-Sun! That’s about it!”

“Trekke Pa?!” Sadie asks. Mori’s gut does another roller-coaster dip — and not from the pitching deck.

“It’s a huge oil platform!” Finn shouts.

“How far off?!” Mori asks. “Can we avoid it?!”

“We won’t crash into it! If that’s what you mean!”

“No! Can we go around!? Stay out of it’s way!?” Mori can feel the fear starting to rise again.

“Not by too much! Not in this mess! We’re already pretty close! Don’t want to get thrown off course!”

Mori’s eyes lock with Beatrice’s. “I think Glenda’s right!” Beatrice says, her face falling as she watches the Nightmare’s waterspout tail whipping back and forth like some oceanic version of the twister from The Wizard of Oz in front of them.

“What?!” Finn asks.

“Yeah,” Mori replies. “That Nightmare’s heading straight for the oil platform! We are fucked!”

“It’s an ambush!” Beatrice shouts back. “Get ready!”

********

Gibbons Crane whoops and laughs maniacally as his Nightmare leaps from the helicopter and into the oil platform. He cracks his electric whip. His worb grinds down on the captured wisps, feeding the demon still more energy. The demon flickers with dark lightning as it courses through the metal struts. Its energy whirls out and down. The oil platform crew looks on in horror. Floats, masses of machinery atop the platform, tentacle-like lines running down to the ocean floor — slurping up Hellish fuels from a wound driven into the sea bed, all shudder and begin to transform. The Nightmare drinks deep of crude and gas. It cries in triumph as it taps great tanks of the corruption juice stored in Trekke Pa’s structure. It yammers with glee as it slurps down the polluting substances travelling up through lines reaching the sea bottom.

The structure groans. Oil leeches out of joints and seams to cover its body. Turning from light-bedecked and red-painted steel to black. Hellish flesh bulges throughout. Terrified crew are engulfed, swallowed up, crushed into its new form in sprays of blood and entrails. Gibbons feasts upon it all. “Yes!!” He shouts in ecstasy, then kicks the helicopter off the fleshy deck and into the storm-riled North Sea. Sinking down beneath the waves. Forgotten. The platform grows scales. Spines rise out. Floats merge into a monstrous squid-like head. Lines rip from the sea floor bottom to become tentacles. A great, bulbus eye sprouts, casts out a baleful gaze. Metal and machinery form mad and mottled patterns along its two-hundred-foot long body. Lights shatter. Oil spills through its skin, belches from its mouth. The Nightmare, the ocean, everything is soon covered by the viscous fossil fuels.

From the Deepwater Horizon on Fire. Image source here.

Sparks fly from shattered lamps, fire takes hold, blazes across the oil. A great raging inferno leaps over it and onto the water. Gibbons stands astride the enormous monster, gripping a spine with one hand, lashing his electric whip into the air with the other. Oil platform no more. Now Hell’s Platform. A Nightmare fully transformed into a horror straight from the inner-most-bowels of a ruined world. The oil spewing from the creature, fountaining up through the waves out of ruptured fuel lines, spreads darkness and fire across the ocean surface. The disaster. The storm. The Nightmare monster. The environmental ruin. All combine to draw the eyes of demons. Five Pride Eaters lift their hands. Tear at the space between Hell and Earth with their enormous claws. Their spirits come to float alongside Gibbons and his Nightmare. The pollution and fires lick their forms into being. They latch on to the great Nightmare body, becoming riders of an Eldritch Horror.

Gibbons points out over the raging sea. He knows the location of his prey. He can sense them just miles off through the raging storm. “There!” He shouts to the beast. “There is our quarry! Go now! We will take them!” The Nightmare tips forward, plunges through water and fire. tentacles ripple behind. Gibbons, the demons, the Nightmare tear through the storm. A form of fire, gushing oil, writhing tentacles like towers. Behind them — a black and burning wake.

********

Maxwell Plann, famous climate scientist by day, moonlighting mage by night, and friend to Sadie and Glenda, stands in the Bill McKibben control room overlooking a churning North Sea. A stocky, unassuming figure, Maxwell lifts a hand to adjust his polarized aviator glasses against another bright flash of lightning as rain batters the window in front of him.

The control room, named after a prominent climate activist who envisioned a full transition to clean energy decades before it became a popular rallying cry of environmentalists, is part of a larger structure jutting out from a man-made island. The island — Wind-Sun Isle — is a platform for twenty massive wind turbines. It forms a hub in a constellation of a thousand more across the North Sea. Every inch of the one square mile island’s surface is covered with solar panels. Running through the island are tunnels filled with water turbines that tap the North Sea’s waves and currents. Together these turbines and panels collect enough electricity to power half of Germany each day. Pushing it out as clean current to mainland Europe. Transforming it into renewable hydrogen in the various electrolysis plants dotting the Island. Considered an impossibility just a decade ago, Wind-Sun Isle is an amazing feat of engineering science and act of faith combined. It represents the answer to a Hellish climate in the form of energy from Heaven. A place that will fall to the waves as glaciers continue to melt — unless the world answered in kind with enough energy from Heaven to replace the nightmarish fuels from Hell.

Hope facing off against tragedy.

Maxwell marvels at the place. Revels in its triumph of science and engineering combined. He’d seen pictures of Wind-Sun Isle on the web many times. His presence here came at the request of his associate Sadie. He’d arrived just one day ago. Now he worries about his friends — Sadie and Glenda. The storm has transformed the North Sea into a horror of gigantic waves, falling bolts of lighting, and torrential rain. He’s pushed his magical senses out along the path of Sun Shepherd to finally find it wallowing in the raging seas. Its progress — hampered by the constant pounding. Though just five miles off Wind-Sun, and nearing Trekke Pa, the waves and terrible current are holding them at bay.

“They’re running late,” he says, turning toward his companion — Freja Pedersen.

“Expected, they’ll be lucky to make it here by full dark through this mess.” Freja replies. She towers over the stocky Maxwell. Her long, blonde locks pulled back into a braid. Freja’s an administrator and chief engineer for Wind-Sun. She’s also one of Maxwell’s network of global contacts.

“Maybe it’s time to send out an escort?” Maxwell motions to his left. Outside is a bay housing two solar-electric ships. Bright Spark and Ray Wind. Sisters to Sun-Shepherd. They bob in the wind, waves, and rain even in the enclosure. Freja has them charged up and ready in the event that they’re needed to aid Sun Shepherd.

“Maybe…” Freja says, considering.

Then, out over Trekke Pa, the sky turns bright red. Lit up by a terrible explosion. The flames briefly silhouette a towering form in the darkness. Black as pitch. Flaming. Spewing smoke and shadow. Black tentacles leap up from the fire surrounding it. Then, the great monster, no longer just an oil platform, tips sideways into the North Sea. Burly waves splash and roil around it. Tentacles and burning expulsions of oil swarm behind. That monstrous flaming form — knifing directly toward Sun Sherpherd.

Maxwell doesn’t hesitate. He knows a Nightmare when he sees one. Knew Sadie, Mori, and Beatrice had probably attracted just such a terror. “I’m heading to Bright Spark! Tell Jans I’ll be aboard in less than five!”

********

Mori feels like he’s going to barf.

Sun Shepherd slams over another huge wave. Spray and rain fly. Out ahead, in the darkness, a red light gleams like a demon’s eye. Underbellies of cloud flicker with intermittent firelight. The flickering grows brighter, larger. Oily smoke rises up into the sky ahead. Darkness deepens as smoke joins cloud and gathering dusk. Something massive. A shadow in the belly of flame and smoke begins to take shape ahead. A shape like a knife of fire and darkness — pointing directly toward Sun Shepherd — emerges.

“What is that!?” Karl shouts, his eyes wide with naked fear.

“The Nightmare. Death… pouncing,” Beatrice replies. Mori can see her eyes shifting to a more determined cast. He knows she’s checking her energetic vessel. They’ve had hours to refresh since the train. I’m back to about a third full. She’s probably about the same. Sadie might have half. Not enough. No-where near enough.

“Nightmare?!! Death!? Pouncing!!??” Karl shouts again. Hysterical. He’s got his eyes glued to the rapidly growing form. Its firelight flickers across his face. His own face — a rictus of fear — appears demonic in the hellish glow. “We’re dead, dead… DEAD!!!“

“Everyone! Steady!” Finn shouts. “Someone give me an option!”

“Can you turn the vessel away from it?! Speed up?! Try to outrun it?!” Mori shouts.

“If I turn sidewise to a twenty foot plus swell, we’ll start rolling! I don’t know how many rolls she can take!”

Mori spins toward Sadie. “Can you protect Sun Shepherd from the waves, make it stronger against rolls?”

Sadie’s eyes glisten. She nods. “It’s a solar vessel. My magic will work more strongly with it. I can try.”

“Good!” Beatrice shouts as she plants her feet, then lowers a hand to grab the console. “Best do it now! We’ve got to find a way out of this Ambush! And that Nightmare — it’s coming fast!!”

Out ahead, the Nightmare leaps over a wave as it rushes toward them. Its two hundred foot long, squid-like body covered with metal protrusions, leaking flaming oils, becoming fully visible for the first time. Behind it, a mass of tentacles whip out, flinging smoke, fire, shadow. The shape rises about fifty feet into the air, seems to hang on the wind for a moment, then slams down. Spray, fire, oil splash out from it in a multi-colored explosion.

Karl sees it. Bends over. Covers his eyes. “Dead… dead… dead…,” he whimpers.

In the rising firelight, Ivan’s beady eyes flicker. Mori gets the impression of a predator, at bay for now, just waiting for the right time to pounce.

(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.)

(Enjoying the story? Want to help support the continuance of this tale? Please like, share and subscribe.)

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Helkey 28 — Curse Rider on a Kaiju Storm

Gibbons Crane howls in diabolical fury. White-hot sparks rain over his body. His human form, a gift of Asmodeus’s court, is tatters. His devil flesh — now naked for all to see. Not that any regular human wretches are nearby. The angel-mage, Beatrice, guided them away to safety before she and her companions trapped him here. The train stationary. Angelic magic locking him in, pummeling him with curses. His prey more distant with each passing minute. He can still see her. Beatrice Lushael — arrayed in glorious light. Rapier held before her like a dare. Her delicious wisp fluttering — delicate as butterfly wings. How could he not rush her? Claim her wisp for his own? A crown jewel among all his enslaved prizes.

It was a trap! So obvious! So irresistible! He, the great hunter, render of mages’ souls, Asmodeus’s own hand on Earth, played for a mere pawn! Now held in a cunning bottle.

Gibbons takes a breath. The air around him is super-heated by his wrath. By the destruction raining down on his devil’s form. Chairs burn. Plastic and metal melts. Windows crack. His eyes flick up and down the cursed caboose. The solar train itself is an insult. An impossible fantasy. Yet here it exists. No Blood of Earth sacrifice to Asmodeus fuels it. His Nightmare cannot possess it. Not enough delicious harm for his demon steed to latch onto. To take control. They chose this sacred ground to counter him, to mount their own attacks. It worked. He tips his hat, still whole on his head between his devil’s horns, to the mages who concocted this trap. Worthy prey. He should’ve sensed this was holy ground. The quarry, Beatrice, Mori, Ivan the Wolf, were all too distracting. The prizes too great. Their abilities — surprising.

“It’s been a little while,” he drawls to himself, reflecting on the last time prey put up such a fight. “More than a Century.” His Curse Rides are mostly straight-forward affairs. His diabolical might reaping souls like so many sheaves of wheat in a thresher. “Now I’m checked.” He says the word with amusement and rage combined. He does not lightly suffer delay. Defeat is unacceptable. Yet he must admit his setback. This holy train will never serve his Nightmare. The fate of its passengers — a distraction. There’s no victory to be had here. His true prey — long-gone.

But there may be a way to escape. To return to his hunt. Gibbons tilts his devil’s eyes toward melting plastic dribbling down onto the floor like so much slime. He reaches a clawed hand down, scoops some up, holds it up. The plastic gobbet ignites. Petroleum inside it burning off in red-blue flames. Blood of Earth. A delicious bit of corruption in this otherwise evil-free train. He conjures his wisps, flipping his lash until ten enslaved souls leap to his command. Each rising in a rictus of pain. He bleeds the wisps into the oozing plastic. They animate it, causing it to rear up in a promontory of burning plastic slime. Shifting his focus to the praesidia bottle confining him, he drives the wisps forward, lifts his right-hand six-shooter, then fires his third black bullet into the trap. Its black orb bows out, splashing over praesidia causing it to flicker in momentary darkness.

“Now!” He shouts, lifting his left hand to claw the air, lashing wisps to rush forward. Wrapped in Blood of Earth plastic, they rise. Confronting disrupted praesidia, they flow through its barrier. The plastic then splots onto the train’s wall. It touches the spirit of his Nightmare demon-steed. The Nightmare howls in victory, latches onto the familiar substance. Takes molten plastic for its new form. The wisps pop out, then flow back to his worb. His Nightmare, now given form, rips a hole in praesidia. Sending out pseudopods, it tears off a train window, then flings it into a nearby field. Gibbons springs. A whirl of sparks and flames surrounds him as he emerges. He lands on his feet — one hand holding his hat, the other holstering his pistol. He is free!

The Nightmare plops down from the train’s window. It flows over the ground, rising up in a swell of slime beside him. A nearby police officer sees them, then flees. Tabbing his radio, he sends a frantic call for help. Gibbons smirks at his terror. A delicious thrill — refreshing to his diabolical spirit. Free from the continuous barrage of macto curses, his mock-human flesh drinks up the fear and begins to reform. It slowly re-covers his devil flesh. His clothes also reweave and repair.

A cluster of police officers rushes around the train. Lifting weapons, they shout for Gibbons to raise his hands. Gibbons laughs, gives a tip of his hat to the officers, then bounds off toward the burning trees. Each leap covers twenty feet. A few stray bullets snap around him. If any hit, he doesn’t care. His Nightmare flows along beside him. Too small to ride, he allows it to keep its plastic form. Screams of fear from passengers, eyes glued to windows as the Nightmare’s burning blob flows beside his half-devil, half-human form, buoy him. Their terror — too delicious a banquet to pass up.

He angles away from the holy train. Its presence recedes to his right. He leaves its field of influence, running a bit more crooked, feeling a little stronger in his wickedness. Then, he’s plunging through the burning wood. Hot fires surround his body. Choking smoke enters his lungs. It almost feels like home. Almost. About ten more bounds and he’s through the flames. He emerges onto a back-road. Cutting past the fires, he finds one of his thralls. A Berserker who laughs maniacally as he hurls another Molotov Cocktail into the inferno. Seeing Gibbons, he grins, then gives a Nazi salute. “Mein fuhrer,” he says with relish.

Gibbons grins back, tips his cowboy hat. “Hey, buddy,” he says, “I need your mount.” He points to the motorcycle parked by the dirt path. It doesn’t matter if his words are English. His connection to the Beserkers is strong enough for telepathic communication. His thrall hears the words in his native tongue.

“Ja!” he says with a slavish smile of devotion. Walking over to the bike, he kicks the stand, then presents it to Gibbons. “Es ware mir eine Ehre,” the biker replies, waving his hand with a flourish. His eyes spark with delight as Gibbons mounts the bike.

“Hey, thanks,” Gibbons replies. “Now go on,” he says to his Nightmare. The horror sluffs off its burning plastic form, then inhabits the rumbling motorcycle with a purr of demonic delight. The bike grows as the Nightmare’s possession takes hold. New tail pipes form. Black smoke belches. Ghostly flames flicker along its flanks. It lurches, gives an eager growl — headlight blinking like a monstrous eye.

“Heil dir im Siegerkranz!” the Berserker shouts as Gibbons drives off in a shower of dirt and smoke — flames belching from massive tail pipes. He lifts his black cowboy hat, waves a salute, then guns it down the path and toward the Brons. A stiff wind meets him. Scent of storm in the air among the forest fire smoke. The sky grumbles its malcontent. Evening shadows lengthen as a dark bank of cloud runs in overhead. A wall of titanic columns pushing up and up, spreading wide at the top. Their bases appear to grip the horizon with trailing talons. Gibbons grins. It’s his kind of weather — pumped up by the hot breath of foul fuels as they rise from millions upon millions of infernal engines ranging the Earth. Each a supplicant to Asmodeus’s dark power. They feed a great miasma of Hell’s heat riding Earth’s winds. This storm gobbled the heat greedily — growing from a gentle shower into the great monster above him. Gibbons lets go of the handle bars, allows his Nightmare to drive, and embraces the storm’s hellish winds. What a wonderful servant of destruction! No devil-stifling solar train. But a hellish storm gorging on fiendish fires. This is something he can work with.

Thunder rumbles from across the North Sea. His quarry moves amongst its towering waves. Destination uncertain. He senses them like a hunger in motion. No sight. Just a tension pulling away from him. Drawing him taut. He lowers his hands to the grips, angles his bike onto a main road, guns it up the ramp and onto Route 11. Turning north, he buzzes an angry motorist, smiling maniacally into the flipped bird, then ignites the throttle. Raucous acceleration blasts him up to 120 miles per hour. At this rate, he’s just six minutes away from his destination. The Oil Vessel Trold and its helicopter pad in Esjberg’s port. The Vulcanlundre corporation tends to its massive North Sea oil platform — Trekke Pa — with this vessel. Gibbons remembers it well. A gigantic, squat platform with its drill piercing sea bottom, pumps sucking up devilish fuels. Its tender ships mooring at Esjberg on the shrinking Dutch coastline. In his mind’s eye, he can see it along with the location of every oil facility dotting Europe’s lands and beyond. He knows them far better than most Catholic priests know their churches. Well he should. They’re shrines to Asmodeus’s presence here.

His quarry’s flight across the North Sea pointed almost directly at Vulcanlundre’s Trekke Pa oil platform. Its ship, the Trold, kept a helicopter on its landing pad. Just the kind of machine his Nightmare could easily inhabit. Once Gibbons took the ‘copter, he could then take the platform. No. This hunt was far from finished. In fact, he was about to kick things up a notch.

Gibbons cuts onto the off-ramp. Barreling through a red light, he jumps a barricade, then slams down onto Esjberg’s streets. Sidewalks are disappointingly empty. He rides in along a walkway, hoping to run over a stray pedestrian. Everyone’s inside. Huddling against the storm’s raging approach. Rain begins to fall. To Gibbons it tastes good. Just like wet cigarette butts. Turning down a side-street, he emerges into an industrial center. At the road’s end is a chain-link fence. Its padlocked shut. He ignores the barrier. His Nightmare blasts through the fence like a footrace winner crossing the tape. Metal shrieks. A twisted wreckage is left behind. Gibbons turns, tires squealing, fire blasting from tail pipes, water flying, across the parking lot. Shipping containers, cranes, and trucks blur by. In front of him the blue-hulled Trold bobs in the waves. Its red deck rocking. Fat, white helicopter squatting on a green pad like an overfed seagull. Beside the ship is a large pile of gravel. Gibbons races toward the gravel, shoots flames out the back of his Nightmare motorcycle, then explodes into the air. Trailing black smoke, he flies fifty feet, then lands with a squeal of tires on the helicopter pad. Rain pounds down. Smoke swirls up from his Nightmare. Back in the ship terminal, onlookers shout in surprise, then fear, as the smoke rises up into the shape of a skull, its eyes seeming to momentarily spark with ball lightning.

Gibbons senses, more than hears, their cries. Grins. For a moment indulging in this new feast of troubles. Then, cracking his knuckles, arching his back, he turns to the helicopter. With a snap from his whip, he channels diabolical energy out of his worb. The wisps trapped there scream in delicious pain as the worb’s cruel structure grinds them down. The Nightmare melts out of his motorcycle. The cycle shrinks down — looking odd and derelict sitting on the pad. A ghost shape rises up from it, taking on a horse-like form outlined in orange-red fire. In a flash, it jumps the ten feet to the helicopter. Gorging on petroleum fuel, it bulges through the craft, granting diabolical aspects. The rotor transforms into a shape like a bat wing. Hooked talons sprout to grasp the landing wheels. Long fangs grow from the vehicle’s nose. Its tail rotor takes the shape of a horn. Cockpit glass ignites into two flaming eyes. Its sliding door opens like a mouth — rimmed with serrated teeth.

The cries of those in the terminal fall into shocked silence.

Gibbons whipsaws himself through the open door, slams it shut behind him, then sits down in the cockpit. Grasping the throttle, placing his feet on the pedals, tweaking the collective, he naturally connects to his mount. No flight expertise necessary. The Nightmare-possessed vehicle is simply his to command. He engages the throttle. Batlike rotor blades turn, cutting through rain and storm. The Nightmare wails through the helicopter engine as its combustion engine revs up. It blasts out a ring of fire that neatly cuts the safety lines.

“Won’t need those,” Gibbons grunts as he pulls back. His new beast springs up in a whirl of smoke, flinging fire into the rain. Behind, the platform is left rent — ruined by the Nightmare’s talons. They rise to meet the storm. It seems to stoop to swallow them. The Nightmare shudders in delight as rings of cloud form around them. The diabolical storm enfolds the Nightmare — speeds its passage by generating a tunnel of air. Within this cavity, the Nightmare grows to still greater monstrosity. Taking on aspects of storm. Its spirit bulges beyond the helicopter. It drinks up the flying rain, clothes itself in howling gusts. A shape like a great black dragon grows out of it and into the sky. The helicopter becomes its head. Giant wings of turbulence thrust out. A trailing tail dips to the ranging ocean surface to become a waterspout. A Home Guard helicopter, sent to intercept the hi-jacked bird from Trold, Esjberg is buffeted by one great sweep of the Nightmare’s ghost-storm wings. Control lost, the Defense helicopter careens into the monster’s swinging tail. There it spins in three loops before being ejected — slamming into a towering wave face that swallows it whole.

The Nightmare rages through the furious storm. Joining with it, the Hell-beast becomes its most intense feature. A demon from a ruined world steadily entangling the Earth, the Nightmare roars over miles upon miles of towering waves. It slams the sea surface with wings of howling winds. It thrashes its waterspout tail. Observers on ships and planes marvel in terror. A teen posts a clip of the Nightmare dragon-cloud with lightning eyes onto Instagram. The huge frontal storm striking most of Europe with hurricane force, causing hundreds of billions in damage, gains a new name that explodes onto social media — Storm Kaiju.

At last Gibbons and his Nightmare emerge above the Trekke Pa oil platform. His monster stoops above. The platform tosses through towering seas below. The Nightmare seems to take the platform in its jaws. The helicopter head drops down on a neck of storm. It a swirl of fire and a howl of winds, it lands. The mouth-door swings open. Sirens blare as the watch triggers a security alarm. Gibbons grins, opens his arms to the oil workers watching him through a nearby window. Then, he activates his whip. The worb grinds its wisps. Their shrieks of pain spur his Nightmare. It leaps from the helicopter in a gout of rain and fire, rises in an arc in the storm’s mouth of darkness above the oil platform, then it plunges down into the massive structure with a spectral cry. One of the oil workers, hearing its banshee’s howl, is reminded of the Nazgul’s cries from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Then, the great platform groans as it begins to take on a monstrous aspect beyond any of the oil workers’ worst imaginings…

(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.)

(Enjoying the story? Want to help support the continuance of this tale? Please like, share and subscribe.)

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by robertscribbler on January 26, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 26, 2022

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Helkey 27 — Into the North Sea’s Jagged Teeth

The zodiac’s motor whirs. A gust flings spray off the Brons — splashing Beatrice’s face. Smoke stench from the fires fades as they speed toward flooded marshlands. Swells grow. The zodiac bobs and rolls. She huddles close to her companions — Mori, Sadie, dour Ivan, a surprisingly chipper Finn — in the bobbing boat. Above and ahead are towering masses of cloud. Fingers of lightning flicker at their dark bases. She can’t yet make out the North Sea. It’s blocked by low islands covered in grasses and scrubby trees. The marsh churns in chop and foam.

A wave bumps her face into her hand as the boat skips into the marsh. The soft scent of horse upon her skin — a momentary comfort. Ivan thought her calming the gentle creatures was curse magic. Only the craft of long years spent observing, learning their subtle gestures, how to cant her body and voice to project compassion. To earn their trust. It came easy. For she loved them in all their beauty and innocence. She had decades and decades more experience at it than any human. A practice in empathy. No curses required.

The zodiac plows into the marsh, lifting and dipping through swells and chop. It handles rough water surprisingly well, lifted up on a wave formed by its forward motion. Nonetheless, spray splashes in. Soon they’re all wet. Mori has a mad grin on his face. It makes her laugh. She’s pretty sure he’s trying to bleed off tension.

Finn points to an outlet emerging before them. The water broadens. It roils with chop and rising waves. A tumultuous confluence opening to an angry North Sea. Out there, massive rollers drop tails of white spray as they tumble before the storm. Jagged gray and white teeth pointing toward an angry cloud deck above. “There she is!” he shouts into the rising gale. “Our good Sun Shepherd.”

Beatrice follows the line of his finger. Tossed about in the confluence is a vessel about 100 feet long and covered from stem-to-stern in glistening solar panels.

Mori turns to her. Excitement flicks across his wet face. He’s such a geek for these things. “Badass! It’s one of those new electric boats. Skateboard battery laid through the keel. Super-efficient motors. Covered in solar panels, it’s got a practically unlimited range.” She grins back at him. His excitement is infectious.

“Wonderful! Can it handle the storm?” Beatrice asks as the zodiac flies over a large swell, catches air for a moment, then slams down into the trough. Spray flies everywhere. They’re all double-drenched now. The little craft is powering out through the choppy confluence. Her teeth clack together as they slam into another swell. Her hands, white-knuckled cling to a rope looped along the gunnel. Beatrice feels like she’s riding a child’s toy boat getting tossed around in a bathtub by a capricious toddler. Sadie’s holding on, gritting her teeth, closing her eyes against the spray. Ivan’s curled up in the zodiac’s bottom. His face taking on an unhealthy, green tint.

“Our little Sun Shepherd’s a fast one,” Finn says in answer. He’s stooped down on his knees. One hand on the motor handle, another gripping a cleat. “Her top speed’s a hundred and twenty! She won’t be so fast in this mess. But she’ll get us to Wind-Sun Isle in about a couple hours.” He points out toward a dark base of cloud rushing toward them. “We should miss the worst of it. Though I think we’ll take that gust-front head-on.”

The zodiac flies through the air, lands, then pitches. A breaker barrels over the little craft, flooding it in about four inches of water. Pumps kick in — spitting spray out behind the small boat as it barrels toward a majestic Sun Shepherd. Coming up alongside it, Beatrice takes stock of its size. At twenty-two feet wide and a hundred feet long, she dwarfs their zodiac. Massive waves, looming like hills behind, made her look surprisingly vulnerable as the larger vessel turns to shelter them from the onslaught churning out of the North Sea. Two crewmen toss lines overboard. Mori catches one. They haul the boat in, then swing a boom over the side to fasten the craft. Finn points to a ladder. One-by-one they clamber up — emerging onto a pitching deck with all the dignity of soaked cats. Beatrice times the swell, springs, shoots past the ladder and lands gracefully on the deck amidst a rain of spray. She blows her wet hair aside, relieved to be free of the tiny zodiac.

“Show-off,” Mori quips as he staggers up beside her, clutching his briefcase in one hand, gripping a hand-hold with the other. Every surface on the sleek vessel except for a narrow wooden walkway is covered in solar panels or solar film. It makes Beatrice think of a great black whale. Ivan is leaning over the railing, making foul noises. Sadie sways as she clenches a crew member’s offered hand. Finn scampers down to the first well deck at the vessel’s rear, he motions for them to follow. Beatrice lets a crewman — Karl — guide her companions back to the well as she assists another crew member — Franz — in attaching the zodiac to a pair of ropes, then hoisting it up using metal booms. With her help, it takes only a minute.

“You do ship work?” Franz asks in halting English, not aware she has omnis scientia drifting close by for translation.

“Yes. Back home,” Beatrice says simply. What she doesn’t say is her home world, Merrin, is almost entirely covered by water. Ships there are far different from those plying Earth’s own increasingly dangerous seas. Some principles of seacraft, though, are universal.

Franz makes a sound that could be an impressed grunt as they fasten the zodiac to a berth on Sun Shepherd’s roof. The noise is drowned out by the roaring sea. He pops a panel, then motions for her to help him fold a hard shell over the boat. She works with him to pull the sections out, fighting gusts as Sun Shepherd turns her nose into the waves. The shell comes in three parts. Each is covered with solar film. They snap sections together, attach electrical plugs to some internal wiring, and then are drenched by spray as the bow cleaves through what must be a fifteen foot wave. The wave’s force momentarily hurls them into the air. Beatrice turns instinctively, grabs a cleat, then with her trailing hand snags Franz by the hood of his rain slicker. They slam back down onto the deck. Franz scrambles up. Blinks at her in surprise and gratitude. Then gives a matter of fact nod. “Good!” He shouts. “Now best get below!” The roar of waves and wind nearly drowns out his voice.

Beatrice smiles at his affirmation. She nods toward the well, indicating he should go first. Franz curses something about how he should be helping her. She flicks his prideful outburst away with a glance, then watches on protectively as he struggles to reach the well across a pitching deck. She comes to her feet. In little bounds, she springs behind, riding the deck like a surfboard. Franz doesn’t look back. But Beatrice can see Mori keeping eyes on her through the bridge’s glass. He, Sadie, and a young woman are watching her escort Franz back to the well. The young woman — she must be Glenda Goodfuture — is staring with naked awe as the harsh elements force the large and muscled Franz to lurch and stagger even as Beatrice rides through it all with the grace of dancer.

At last, they reach the well. Franz lunges toward the door as Sun Shepherd pitches through a massive roller. Walls of foam surge on either side. He lurches through, nearly falling, still managing to hold the door open for her. She waits for the wave to pitch the stern upward, then uses its momentum to leap through, flying past him. Her boots squishing on a dry cockpit floor — the only sound she makes.

She’s greeted immediately by a beaming Glenda Goodfuture. “Bravo! Excellent!” she exclaims as she claps, then hands her a towel. “I was scared for you. But you make fighting through a storm look like body art.” She puts out her hand. “I’m Glenda.”

Now it’s Beatrice’s turn to be impressed. Here before her was the pint-sized climate activist who’d taken the world by storm — forcing so many to reconsider their place on Earth and what they were doing to protect it for future generations. She nods a gracious thank you for the towel, then extends her hand. “Honored to finally meet you,” she says.

Glenda takes her hand, pumping it with a surprisingly firm grip for one so small. Beatrice at 5′ 4″ looks down at 5′ tall Glenda. She’s thin, early twenties, long sandy-blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail. Her T-shirt reads the now widespread youth climate message — #ClimateStrike #FridaysForFuture. A tiny form for quite a force. “Given your outfit, I figured you must be Erroll Flynn’s girlfriend. But he says you’re married.” She gives Mori, who looks every part the drowned crow, a disapproving frown.

Mori staggers forward, propelled back and forth by the Shepherd pitching as it struggles through the seas, hugs Beatrice, clears his throat awkwardly. “I definitely got the better end of that bargain.”

“Yee-ah,” Glenda says with an eye roll, then turns toward her father, her mouth scrunched up into a pensive frown. Ivan’s finally recovered. He looks green. His expression hang-dog. The bruises on his head are turning into ugly shiners. His burned hand is wrapped up in a gauze someone must’ve scrounged up while Beatrice was on deck securing the zodiac.

“Valyria, should’ve never left,” Ivan says to her in Russian. Omnis scientia, trailing behind Beatrice and patterned with interpretor, dutifully translates. “Your home was forsaken.”

Glenda drops Beatrice’s hand, giving it a pat as she releases it, then turns in anger toward her father. “Nonsense! I had to!” Glenda shouts in English, her brows lowered in sudden fury. “You! You left! You! Too selfish to do what’s right! You tried to force me! To be like you!” Glenda’s face is red at her brief but intense outburst. “I did what I must! What you wouldn’t!”

Ivan’s face flushes. Her use of English in front of everyone is like a slap in the face. “Valyria…” Ivan starts, his mouth working. “To be an adult…” he continues in Russian.

“Is not easy?” she interrupts in English. “You always say that. I did the harder thing. I took responsibility. That makes me the adult!”

Ivan clamps his mouth shut. His eyes cut side-to-side. Everyone on the bridge is silent. Mori’s stupid grin is back. Outside the waves rage higher. The wind howls. Lightning strikes a wave-top about a half mile away. “I missed you…” He says lamely through the roaring thunder.

“And I you. Ever since you went to work for that stupid bank. Ever since age 12 when I lost my father!” Glenda shouts, her face red, she hops on her toes, tears of rage fall from her eyes. “This!” She points at the mages, at the raging storm, at the Sun Shepherd. “This is the result! Devils! Terrorists! You’re a fucking shapechanger!” She glances at Sadie, but does not relent. “A devil’s fish hook’s in your heart! This is my intervention. Your last fucking chance to be a fucking human!”

On the bridge consul, a red light begins to flash and an alarm sounds. Finn, who’d taken the helm as soon as he entered the bridge picks up a hand mike, keys the tab. “Attention! Crew and passengers! Brace! Brace! Brace! Large wave inbound!”

Beatrice, spins, flicks omnis scientia out the front window. Ahead, a massive blue and white wall rises — easily towering forty feet above the sea surface. Its top rolls. She grabs hold of a handle. The others scramble to brace themselves. Glenda is caught unawares. Ivan freezes. Finn guns the engine — pushing Sun Shepherd up the wave face and toward its axe-shaped peak. Beatrice makes a decision. “Hit the deck!” she shouts, then jumps from her place of safety, grabbing both Glenda and Ivan, she pushes them to the floor. The wave crashes. The outer deck roils under a wall of whitewater. It slams over the window. For a moment, the bridge is submerged. Blue water swirls around omnis scientia where it hovers just over the deck. Behind them, windows reveal a maelstrom of white. Beatrice, Ivan and Glenda are lifted bodily, then flung in a tangle onto a nearby couch. The Sea Shepherd gathers itself beneath the wave, powerful electric engines making a space-ship sound. Then, with a rush and an explosion of spray, the vessel bursts through the wave’s back — resurfacing like a submarine.

Sea Shepherd bobs for a few seconds behind the wave, rights itself, then swiftly plows onward. Electric drives pushing a tail of water behind. Finn turns around. “Everyone OK? Thumbs up! Let me see them.” he shouts over the roaring wind and sea. They managed to brace. All except Beatrice, Glenda and Ivan who’re busy untangling themselves. Everyone gives the thumbs up. “Good!” Finn says. “Now, better buckle in. This monster storm has quite the bite!”

Beatrice helps Glenda fasten a seatbelt in the couch, then makes sure Ivan’s buckled in beside her. Whatever else she may think of Ivan, he’s still Glenda’s father. Despite everything, Glenda clearly still loves him. Beatrice, at last satisfied both he and Glenda are safe, begins to snap her own buckle.

“Not you,” Finn says back to her. “You’ve got the best sea legs I’ve ever seen. And Sadie told me… Well, I know about your talent. You have your special sight active?”

“It’s called omnis scientia. And yes. It’s floating just above the deck near the prow.”

“I may need you to use it to help navigate this mess. Up here!” He pats a co-pilot’s seat next to him. Beatrice springs up to it. In one smooth motion, she buckles in. She scans the array of indicators and screens. Depth finders, wave height measures, level of battery charge (eighty three percent), various outside cameras mostly blurred out by rain and waves, lidar and radar, the red collision warning light that just blinked out.

She turns and gives a little two-figured salute to Finn. “Aye, captain!” she replies, then flicks omnis scientia on ahead. It lifts off the prow, flits over raging wave-tops. “I’ve moved omnis scientia out to 300 feet in front of the vessel.”

“Good! Let me know if there’s another large wave coming. Something about double the size of regular swells.” He hesitates, takes in the raging sea-state. “Or larger… Describe it to me. That –” he points to the red collision warning indicator, now dim, “is just a dummy light.”

Beatrice gives the thumbs up.

“The rest of you, pipe down,” Finn continues. “We’re in for a rough ride out to Wind-Sun. You can settle your differences when you get there. Let’s make sure you do!”

(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.)

(Enjoying the story? Want to help support the continuance of this tale? Please like, share and subscribe.)

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by robertscribbler on January 18, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 18, 2022

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Helkey 7 – A Mirror Specter on the Beach of Infernia

I’m lying on the ground staring up at a putrid green sky. Trying to fracking breathe. The rotten eggs stench is overwhelming. A hot wind blows over some nearby sand dunes. It’s pretty damn strong – blasting hot sand over my skin which is quickly making it raw. This wind is carrying the stench I’m smelling. No relief from the heat either. Like air blowing out of a furnace.

I lever myself up onto wobbly legs. I look over my shoulder. The Hell Gate I came from is gone. I stare around. Nothing but sand dunes and gnarly scrub plants that look like twisted fingers sprouting serrated blade-shaped yellow leaves nearby. Some of the lower areas are damp and filled with green and purplish mud. To my west, the land rises into a rocky up-thrust among dunes. North and west, the dunes continue, backed by a distant wicked finger of some dark metal structure looming over dead lands. It oozes black smoke. The wind churning over the dunes makes a hollow wailing sound. It’s so crazy-hot I’m already dripping sweat. Thank gods I’m wearing my combat boots. Otherwise, my feet would be scorched five times over.

There is a sound of a bell ringing. It’s weird, out of place. I look around. There is no fracking bell tower – just dunes, those mean ass plants and… my searching eyes alight on a fricking skeleton on the back side of one of the dunes. It’s of some long reptilian creature with wicked looking jaws. Sooo fracking great! The bell rings again. Now I realize it’s familiar, reminding me of Beatrice. Then I remember – I heard the same sound when mom touched my forehead back at Starbucks. The displaced bell rings three more times, telling me that the time is 7-o-frigging clock. Like I need a timepiece in Hell. Well, scratch that, maybe I do.

When the bell stops ringing an apparition appears in the air in front of me. No. It is not Princess Leia. It’s me. I mean, the spitting image of me in the mirror in the damn morning in a nice safe bathroom in not Hell but on normal good ol’ Earth. Well, not literally in the bathroom mirror. A floating image of only me with no background. Just what I look like right after I’ve had a shower – all nicely dressed and clean. Except this me is the one before my current haircut. The hair is longer and tied back in a pony tail. It doesn’t yet have the red streaks. So, spitting image of me from like two weeks ago. 

“Hey Myra,” The apparition says. “I’m the Mirror Specter you made before you took up this crazy ass quest.”

So it’s a quest now, is it? Sand blows around the image as clouds begin to cross the merciless sun. I hardly feel any cooler. Like that mean sun knows where I am and can shoot beams at me even through the clouds. My left hand is dropping sparks like, well, a hand-held sparkler. So I figure the Mirror Specter was set up through my name curse. Probably activated when Beatrice sent me through the Hell Gate. Pretty nifty really. I didn’t know those Specters were used for anything other than magical librarians. And I gotta say, my Mirror Specter is way cooler than those stuffy things. The Specter me is still talking.

“… Since I am here, it means you are fracking there.” The Mirror Specter looks around. “I mean we are there. I mean here. Gods I can’t imagine what you’re thinking now.”

“Hey, don’t rub it in.” I cough the words more than talk them. The air here is vicious. Some kind of poison in it. Too much sulfur. I need to get away from it somehow.

My Mirror Specter looks at me in sympathy. She reaches out to grab my shoulder and then seems to realize she’s insubstantial. Just a ghost. Yeah, not a hologram but a ghost me with a little bit of me in it. A little piece of my soul sent to ride shotgun with me for brief periods down here in Hell. Brief because the magic that keeps it going costs. And my wisp can only recharge so much each day. But still, a little is better than nada. It makes me feel a tiny bit less desolated. Just a tiny bit.  

“I’m here to help and you should listen because I have like maybe a minute left today.” The Specter looks around. “You’re on a Hell’s beach – that’s bad. And it looks like a storm is coming – that’s worse. You need to get off this freaking beach. The air near the water is usually poisonous here, clue? Water in Hell usually equals poison air. So, you need to avoid most surface water.” She looks at my pocket. “We have water?”

I nod in reply to myself and pull the Perrier bottle out halfway to show it to my Specter. This is really fracking weird. How did I suddenly become a fricking drill sergeant?

“Good. Now pay attention. You will need to extend that water as far as you can with the duplici exemplari curse. You know, the Jesus curse?” It was an old joke. I always called duplici the fricking Jesus curse ‘cause you could literally break bread almost endlessly with it. It gave you like x500 the original material. I guess I’ll be drinking Perrier mineral water the whole time. The Mirror me has read my mind. “It might last you a fricking month, but don’t spare. You need to drink constantly here. It is too fricking hot. Drink while I’m talking for gods sake.”

I pick up my Perrier, choke out duplici exemplari, and chug down some of the still-slightly-cool sparkling water. It makes me feel better. A little.

“Now, for part 2, you’re going to need to get off this beach and find some shelter quick. Storms here are gods awful beasties.” She looks around. I can see where she’s looking. There is a sand cliff leading to rocky high ground about a half mile away. The rocks contain crevices and outcroppings. Mirror me points at the rocks. “Go to that and find shelter. It should be high enough. But get to the lee side and go as deep into a rock crevice as you can. Watch out for original owners. Gotta go.” And with that she is blown away in the sandy wind. I feel really weird – like I just lost my best friend.

The wind is picking up now and that sand hurts. But despite my Specter’s warning, I’m curious about what she said. Hell’s beach? That means there’s an ocean nearby? Probably on the other side of those dunes not far from here? Duplici has refilled my Perrier. I take another swig. I really am damn curious to see a Hell’s beach. Screw it, I’m going.

I trudge up toward the dunes. As I get closer, the air grows ever more putrid. I decide to hold by breath. It’s not easy – what air I keep in burns my lungs. I scramble over a rise and look out. Before me is a raging ocean filled with massive waves thrashing in green and purple slime. I can see pink gas rising off wave crests atop the churning toxic soup posing as actual water. Bacteria or algae material that looks like rotting flesh is piling up on shore. The foam over top of it looks like vomit. Skeletons and decaying corpses litter the beach as far as the eye can see. They probably succumbed in the poison air. Most are close to the water line. I realize the risk I’m taking is stupid. Yet I somehow feel so alive in this deadly place as I stand on my bone-cluttered dune. Out over that death sea is an advancing green-black shelf cloud. Beneath it, the ocean looks like an explosion of water and foam rising above the regular water level. I’m reminded of a film I’ve seen about the Indonesian tsunami even though this far off tidal wave like thing is being driven by a storm. The cloud is maybe 20 miles off and moving fast. Well, I saw it. I’m a goddamn Hell tourist. Now time to get the fuck out before that storm rolls in.

I run down behind the dune, still holding my breath. I take about 20 paces before I choke in some more air. It’s terrible, nasty, makes my nose run and eyes water in all kinds of bad ways. The wind is carrying the ocean toxin inland. My next breath is ever so slightly better, but it’s still bad. I’m running on toward the rocks my Mirror pointed toward. Pretty smart really, without me I’d probably be a goner. I may still be a goner. My feet pound the ground as my lungs scream at me. I have to breathe and it hurts to breathe. It’s a frigging Hell version of Catch 22. The exertion is insane as I’m choking on air and running. Behind me, the ocean is starting to growl. It’s the growl of the storm sucking water over rocks, sand, and bodies. Over it all, I hear a strange and wicked howl coming from the direction of the Hell Gate. Now what is that? Maybe the Gate is still partly open? But what could’ve made that noise?

I can’t stop to think too much as I race toward the rocks. But I’m wondering if something happened to Beatrice and Mori back there. I did leave them with three freaking Pride-Eater Demons and Ivan fucking Volkov. Not your run-of-the-mill polite evening company. Not my problem, I think to myself. But I’m worried. The howl carries on for a few more seconds, it seems to travel onward into the wasteland around me. It’s loud, even over the storm. At last, it grows quiet.

I’m still running full tilt. I can breathe a bit better now, which is a godsend, because I was really starting to run out of air. Good thing I don’t have asthma. I’d be done-in for sure. The little weirdo plants are like razor mines. One leaf slashes a small hole in my jeans. Now I’m swerving to avoid them. If I trip and face plant onto one, I’m probably dead. Who knows if they’re poisonous? Why not? The air and water are. Great!

Behind me, the storm is rapidly growing larger. It is big and green and black and mean. A towering wall stretching out over all the ocean as far as I can see. The rotten tsunami wave below it has gotten close enough that I can guess its height. Probably about 30 feet. It’s terrifying, but I’m gaining altitude as rising land has given me a much safer view of the beach. I should have thought of that before I almost killed myself on that poison shore. Hell’s sun is now completely gone — swallowed up in a big white, gray and green cloud top like fifteen miles up. The wind is pelting hard. It beats at me in gusts. Grit riding on it hits me like a power sander. If the wind gets too much stronger it will start to rip through my clothes and flesh. Seriously. No fricking joke. Fat-ass raindrops are starting to fall around me. At least these are cooler. Maybe just a little. Luke cool. They pelt me intermittently bringing with them slight relief. My hair and back are a plaster of wet sand.

Legs are starting to burn now. Running in Hell over sand uphill while breathing sulfurous air is no joke even for someone who prides herself on staying in decent shape. The strong wind pushing from behind is a help to speed me along, though. At last, my feet touch rocky ground. Before me, the outcrop rises up. It’s like lots of fingers of some kind of hard rock clawing out of the sand to poke at sky. They make crevices and canyons between them. They’re also part of a land rise perhaps 100 feet above the shoreline. I don’t even turn around to look back. The wind and sand are now too brutal. I dive into one of those pathways in the rock, make as many little turns as I can to get some shelter from the wind and grit whipping through. I cross behind three separate walls of rock and make my way to shelter in a hollow beneath an overhang before I feel safe. It’s not really a cave. But a cleft that cuts about 10 feet into one of the bigger rocks. There are cracks and crevices that run deeper. But my Mirror’s warning about ‘original owners’ makes me wary of trying to go too far in.

Cooler air wafts out from the holes. It also smells cleaner. I put my back to stone, slide myself down to a semi-comfortable sitting position, pull out my almost endless decanter of Perrier water, take a big gulp and watch the storm rage just outside. I can’t see too much because I picked a pretty protected spot. Relatively high up and wrapped in by a crescent of large stone formations. What I can see is terrifying enough. It gets dark as night outside. Sand and water are hurled around by what must be tornado strength winds. The material is all blowing away from me and I’m sheltered by many walls. So, I’m basically safe. I don’t feel safe. I know if I step outside, I’m going to be picked up like a rag doll and ripped apart by sand-razor-wind in moments. Water coming down in that roaring mess is more than torrential. I’m quickly drenched as it pours and pools in my cleft. Thank goodness I picked a higher place. Otherwise, I’d probably be swimming. This rain water seems kinder than the ocean water. I tentatively taste it. It’s still sulfurous and probably not safe to drink. I stick to my Perrier bottle.

Despite the storm’s outrageous jet-plane roar of noise, I’m getting tired. The water falling in is cool enough to be comforting, the air coming up from the cave is kind. It lulls me. Hell, I’m pretty damned tired. It’s been a long-ass day – all with drinking the memory draught, sneaking into Furze Bank, falling through a Hell-Gate, landing on a Hell beach, breathing poison air while having to run a race through razor plants against the mother of all storms. I look at my name curse. It’s still got a decent amount of magic left in it. My wisp is pretty strong and my parents did their best to use their own magic to get me into Furze Bank. All I’ve done so far is open the Hell-Gate, summon my Mirror Specter and turn my Perrier bottle into an endless refills fountain beverage. All? Hah! That’s actually a lot. But I’ve got a handful of minor curses or a couple more major ones left to me.

A permanent Ignarus curse is already running on my name curse as magical tattoo. It doesn’t always work. But it prevents most mundanes and non-magically-sensitive types from seeing the color changes in it when I use it. It also makes the sparks less obvious to them. Although, as you remember from the Pride-Eaters, it’s not fool-proof. I decide to feed a bit more curse energy into my tattoo’s Ignarus and extend it to my body. I need to rest. But I need to do it with some assurance of safety. I haven’t yet met any of Hell’s live inhabitants. But I don’t want to press my luck. The dead things on the beach didn’t look friendly at all. What should I expect? I’m literally in fracking Hell.

Ignarus amplio, I chant quietly, focusing my energy on the already active curse magic. A couple of stray sparks fall from my tattoo. I feel the curse widen like an electric field. There is a kind of snap and crackle like electricity as Ignarus envelops me.

It’s not perfect. But a girl who just spent the day breaking into Hell and surviving her first frigging encounter with it has gotta sleep. As satisfied as I’m going to be, I close my eyes and allow myself drift off. Sleep comes quick – bringing with it more of those damn ringing bells. As I drift off, I again feel a sense of duplicity. Of occupying two places at once. In one there is hard rock, roaring wind, and lashing water. In the other, there is a sense of floating and sensory deprivation. The combination makes it oddly easier to drift off into deeper sleep.

(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 22, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on March 22, 2021

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