Walking On Broken Glass
Part One: Opening Gambit
The bar is getting busy; it's Friday night, and people are filtering through the doors in bigger and bigger numbers. Luckily, Uncle Logan and I got here long before anyone else did, and we're able to watch the slowly-increasing crowds coming in from a comfortable booth in the corner. Logan is nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels, a small glass held in his thick fingers filled almost to the brim with the golden brown liquid. Myself, I'm drinking Coke, because I know that if I try to match Logan drink for drink – even with my genetically engineered metabolism – I'll end up bringing it all back up again, and waking up with a headache the size of Albania. Logan sees me looking at the bar's patrons absently, and taps me on the forehead with a blunt forefinger.
"Hey, kid, you still in there?" he asks, sounding a little concerned. "I don't think your mom would approve, Rebecca. You want me to put some spice in that Coke for ya?" He holds up the bottle of whiskey obligingly. "I won't tell if you won't."
I shake my head. "No thanks, Logan. Thanks for offering, but… no thanks. I'd like to be able to walk out of here without needing to pee every five minutes, thanks."
Logan chuckles. "All right, pup, I understand. You just sing out if you change your mind though, okay?" He slugs back another glassful of whiskey and grimaces as it hits the back of his throat, snapping his fingers as he swallows. "Man," he says, "that's some damn fine cherry pie."
Okay, now I'm confused… "Uh… isn't that whiskey?" I say, feeling stupid for even asking the question. "I mean, I know what cherry pie looks like, and that's definitely not cherry pie."
Logan's rough face splits into a grin again, and he shakes his head. "Don't worry, pup – it's just a line from a TV show I used to watch. It's a little before your time, I guess."
"Logan, pretty much everything is before my time," I reply, sourly. "Guess I have some catching up to do, huh?"
"Guess so," Logan agrees, offering me a gruff half-smile. "Don't worry, kid; I'm pretty sure the rest of the guys at the mansion will help ya adjust – the ice cube'll give you a crash course in channel-surfing if you ask him nice, I guess. Kid's got too much experience not to share it with somebody else…" He laughs. "He once spent an entire night watching a Simpsons marathon, just to see the episodes right in the middle. We found him on the couch the next morning surrounded by candy bars and soda cans."
"Sounds like he had fun," I reply thoughtfully. "Maybe when Mum and I can get a little time to ourselves, we could try doing that?"
"With your brother around, kid, I don't think any of you is going to get any peace." Logan pauses for a second to let his gaze linger on the behind of a young woman who is walking past our booth, her tight purple-velvet trousers and skimpy black top clinging to every supple curve and line of her lithe, toned body. Then he notices me glaring at him, and he coughs, looking a little embarrassed. "Sorry, kid. Got a little distracted there."
"So I noticed," I say, raising an eyebrow and leaning back in my seat, giving Logan my best disapproving look (which should work damn well, seeing as I copied it from Mum and Uncle Scott. If there are two people in the entire world who can make you feel bad about doing something wrong, it's those two). "You're old enough to be her dad, Uncle Logan – you should be ashamed of yourself."
"Yeah, maybe so, but there ain't a law about admiring the view, is there?" Logan mirrors my posture in his own seat, scratching one of his muttonchops with the fingers of his left hand, before picking up the bottle of whiskey and pouring another measure into his glass. "Tell ya what – you let me have that one, and I won't get in the way of this guy. And I won't tell Sam about it, either," He nods past me, and I have to twist in my seat to see what he's directing me towards. When I do, I'm a little surprised to see a young man walking confidently towards where I'm sitting, a glass of beer in one hand and a self-assured look on his handsome face, his stylish black shirt and jeans telling me that he's a lot more wealthy than he's letting on. As he gets closer, I can feel his thoughts more distinctly, and they're not pretty – he's already imagining me stripping for him, grinding my body against his in a sort of sweaty ballet with only one possible ending. I can already see the imagined pleasure writhing in his dark eyes like naked flesh, and it makes me feel almost physically ill.
"No, Logan," I say, knowing that my growing disgust has to be showing on my face despite everything that I've been taught about controlling my emotions. "Not this one. Not in a million years." Logan blinks, surprised, but then nods in understanding.
"Okay, darlin'," he says. "You know best."
The young man finally gets close enough to ask "May I cut in?", leaning down towards me with a killer's smile. I can sense the poisonous intentions oozing off him as he offers to buy me a drink, and I shake my head, trying to shrug off the nasty feelings that my telepathy won't let me ignore.
"No, thank you," I say quietly, trying to restrain the urge to puke at what I can sense dripping from his mind, like burning candle wax. "It was nice of you to offer, but no thank you. I have a boyfriend."
"Come on," the young man says, a slightly annoyed edge entering into his voice. "One drink won't do you any harm, will it?"
"The lady said no, bub," Logan snarls as he flexes his hands around his whiskey bottle and shot glass, the knuckles of his fingers going white with pressure. "Take a hike."
The young man glares at Logan. "Oh, really? And what are you going to do about it, old man? Bite my kneecaps off?"
Logan's angry expression turns to one of amusement, and he cracks his knuckles one by one. "Oh, I ain't the one you should be worrying about, punk." He sits back in his seat and smiles subtly at me. "Best just to take your pretty-boy face and get outta here while you can still walk."
The young man twists his lip in contempt. "I don't have to listen to this," he snaps, reaching for my wrist and trying to grab me so that he can drag me to my feet. "I always," he says in a cold, emotionless voice, "get what I want." As he reaches for me, time seems to slow down, and I can see everything happening in all-too-clear definition – the man's fingers clawing at my arm as he tries to get the best grip, Logan beginning to rise up out of his seat despite what he's just said, and my own body beginning to shift aside so that it can start retaliating. My heartbeat thunders in my ears as I spring to my feet, grabbing the young man's wrist and twisting it up and round so that I am stood behind him, his hand pressed between his shoulder blades. My other hand reaches up to grasp his thick dark hair, slamming his head down against the surface of our table. I hear his nose break with a wet crunch, and I can smell the bloody explosion that splatters across the table's laminated surface.
"You really should listen when somebody gives you a warning," I hiss into his ear. "It makes life a lot easier."
"Bitch!" the man roars nasally, spraying blood from his mouth where a tooth has punched through his bottom lip. "You broke my fucking nose!"
Squeezing casually, I grind a couple of the bones in his wrist together to just before their breaking point, making him scream with pain. It slices into the front of my brain like a scalpel, but I don't care – not right now, anyway. "That's not the only thing I can break, idiot. Now go get your nose fixed before you hurt yourself any more."
The man starts to say something else then, blood dripping from his nose and onto the floor as he does so, but his voice is drowned out by a sudden howling screech that seems to come from everywhere in the room at once. Everyone in the bar turns their heads in confusion, trying to work out what could have made the sound, and where it could have come from. Their thoughts tell the same story – confusion, panic, uncertainty and fear all flow off them freely. I can see Logan turning his head from side to side, trying to catch any unusual scents above the thick smell of stale sweat and alcohol. "Anything?" I ask, knowing already what the answer is going to be.
"Nope," Logan says, gritting his teeth in frustration. "Nothing." Then his eyes widen and he jabs a blunt forefinger towards the centre of the room, where a large, boiling vortex has formed in mid-air, the howling noise coming from the knot in its centre. "'Less you count that, that is."
The vortex looks like an upside-down whirlpool, its funnel-like shape tapering to a point that touches the high roof of the room, and the open end of the funnel spreading out to cover half the dance-floor. Rumbling noises come from deep inside it, along with more screeching sounds, until finally a huge shape crashes to the ground, smashing the floorboards underneath it into sawdust. It's only when the debris clears that I can get a good look at what's come through the vortex (or portal, as it's obviously become).
Standing in the middle of the bar on two sharp-clawed feet is a huge, hulking monster, its leathery bat-like wings folded up on its broad back. Its red skin drips with blood, as do its claws, and blood clings to the matted fur of legs that look like a cat's, if that cat were to stand on two legs instead of four. It turns, flexing its giant hands and the coal-black meat-hooks it has for talons, and I see its face for the first time. The creature has a mane of black fur which sprouts from its scalp and hides its muscular neck, and its face is stretched out like a wolf's, two sabre teeth sprouting from both its upper and lower jaws and pointed ears mounted on the top of its head. Its bare-skinned chest is massively powerful, and it looks like it could easily crush a man's skull in one of its huge fists.
The worst thing about it, though, is its eyes. They are a burning red colour, like hot coals, and the only thing I can see in them is bloodlust. It breathes out once, hot yellowish vapour spewing from its nostrils like toxic gas, and then it fixes its evil red eyes on the guy whose nose I just broke, a pointed tongue emerging from its snout as it sniffs the air once, and then once again. It strides forward, its clawed feet leaving little fire-edged imprints in the floor, its clawed hands reaching out for him eagerly. He tries to run, but stumbles and falls, and then scrabbles across the floor clumsily, like a spider with three legs. The beast sees him collapse and begins to stalk towards him, its clawed hands curling in on themselves and puncturing the creature's own palms. The creature raises one hand to its mouth and licks the four wounds its talons have made, smearing its own blood onto its snout and snarling in anticipation.
"Uncle Logan –" I begin, swallowing, before Logan pulls his lips back over his teeth, growls aggressively and leaps at the creature, his bone claws popping from between his knuckles at the speed of thought. The beast hears him as he hurls himself at its enormous wings, and turns on the ball of one foot, batting Logan aside with one massive hand. He hurtles through the air, smashing into the bar and scattering broken, jagged glass everywhere, including into his own flesh. He twitches once, and then lies still.
Realising that I'm going to have to stop the monster myself, I dive out from my seated position, scramble forwards quickly until I'm crouched behind a pile of shattered rubble, and then fire a couple of surgical optic blasts at the creature's right leg, hitting it in the back of the knee and in its thick thigh muscle. The monster roars, its massive head swinging round to glare at me, its first prey apparently completely forgotten for a second or two. "You what I came for," it says, in a guttural, choking voice that sounds like steam being poured on a hot skillet. "You what she need. I deal with you when I done with him " It laughs then, pulling its teeth back over its lips in a frightening smile, gesturing at the prone man, whose terror is making it hard for me to concentrate on anything else. As he tries to pull himself up from the ground, the creature continues "Him what I need."
"No!" the man begs, trying desperately to get out of the reach of the monster's claws. "She said you wouldn't –"
The beast laughs again, scorn blatantly obvious in its voice. "She lie." It stomps towards him and yanks him off the ground with one hand, so that he dangles like a fish on a hook. "You my reward."
Too late, I realise just exactly what that means, and I'm only halfway across the distance between the creature and me when the monster raises the man above its head and jams its other hand deep into his guts, pulling upwards so that the man's ribcage is torn in half and his body becomes little more than a fleshy mess. The creature pulls out his intestines and stuffs them into its mouth, making greedy slurping noises as it does so.
"No!" I scream, horrified. Time slows down again, just so it can show me how much the monster is enjoying its kill. I can feel the man's thoughts screaming one last time as he dies, and I screw my eyes shut for a moment, trying to make the psychic sound fade from my mind – without much success. My stomach lurches abruptly, and I bring up what remains of my dinner onto the shattered floor, the acrid taste of vomit stinging my throat as it splashes on the ground.
The beast turns, mid-mouthful, and smiles bloodily. "Don't worry, little girl. You next," it chuckles, pieces of ragged, bloodstained flesh splattering its chin. Then, tossing aside a half-eaten chunk of liver, it charges towards me, each footfall tearing deep, flame-rimmed gouges into the already beaten-up floor. Its claws reach out for me, slicing through the air with an audible hissing sound. Sweeping tendrils of flame ignite from them as it does so, searing brief after-images onto my eyes, and the monster laughs as it charges closer. "This easier than I thought!" it bellows, amused.
Blinking away the last of the bright colours that had flooded my vision, I grit my teeth and wait for the monster to come within striking distance, clenching my fists and pushing my fear down into a little box in the back of my head.
Love you, Mum.
When the beast is close enough, I drop to one side, bracing myself with my right arm and using it as a pivot, and try to sweep its feet out from under it with a scything motion of my legs. Its thick calves don't even so much as fold under my kicks, and I have to think quickly as it lunges towards me, claws angled downwards like daggers. Rolling aside as fast as I can, the razor-sharp talons still catch me on the left shoulder, tearing my shirt and gouging long, jagged lines in my flesh. They're only glancing wounds, but they're already burning, as if I've been bitten by a rattlesnake. Almost instantly, I can feel the pain spreading from my shoulder, crawling down my arm and into my chest. My left hand goes numb pretty quickly, my fingers feeling fat and unresponsive, and then the same numbness spreads to the rest of my body. The only things I can still move are my eyes, and through the blurry, unfocused mist that's settling over my brain, I can see the monster staring down at me, laughing and showing me its mouthful of blood-stained fangs.
"She be pleased with me," it chuckles. "She give me honour when I give her you." It bends down and licks my face with its rasping tongue, its hot breath filling my nostrils and making my eyes water with its metallic stench. I can feel thick ropes of bloody saliva draped across my cheeks as the monster grips me with both hands and clutches me close to its body. After it has me securely in its grasp, it spreads its massive wings and leaps into the air, as if it wants to fly through the room's ceiling. Before it gets there, though, the same vortex that brought it here begins to open above us, and the beast flies right into it, confidently ignoring the constant howling noises that come from above us. I'm not so lucky, though, and although I keep wanting to put my hands over my ears to block out the awful sounds, I can't. My ears start to bleed, and before long, I can't stop myself from passing out.
*
The first thing I notice when I wake up is how dark it is. I remember being in the dark for long periods when I was just out of my birthing tube, just after Sinister gave me his knowledge treatments – Sinister told me it would be distracting for my mind to have light to concentrate on while it was digesting all the new information he was giving me. I didn't question him then, because I didn't know any better.
Right now, though, I'm pretty damned scared. I can't see much at all – only blurry shapes here and there that might be some kind of furniture for this cell – and I can't hear much, either. The only sounds are soft organic whirrs and gurgles that seem to be coming from a long way away (or through really thick walls). Deciding that I need to try and get out of wherever I am and find a way to escape, I try to sit up. I'm half-expecting my body to still be paralysed from whatever that monster's claws injected into me, so it's a nice surprise to discover that I'm actually fairly mobile. In fact, aside from the bindings I can feel on my feet and wrists, I think I'm pretty capable of doing whatever I want… although when I try to fire an optic blast to give myself some light, it doesn't surprise me at all to discover that I can't.
"Well, you're thorough, whoever you are," I mutter to myself sourly, rolling my eyes.
Just then, a small crescent of light appears close to the floor on my left, widening quickly until there is a large circular doorway spilling light into my cell. Squinting at the opening, I can see that the door is little more than a large sandstone boulder that had been rolled across the opening to this cave (I can see it for what it is now – the walls are the same colour as the boulder, and the benches are carved directly from the sides of the cave itself). Blinking to try and make the pain of the light go away, I can't see much beyond the bright circle that forms the doorway, until a statuesque female form strides into view. She looks down at me with disdain, her purplish-red skin a direct contrast to her jet-black hair and the armour which covers her from her feet to the base of her neck, and smiles, her delicate, needle-like fangs shining in the corona of light that surrounds her. At her feet, a carpet of squealing, green-skinned imps fights over scraps of rotten meat that are heaped around them.
"Hello, Rebecca," she says, shocking me instantly with her knowledge of my name. "I suppose you're wondering who I am, aren't you?"
"The thought had crossed my mind," I manage to spit back, sardonically. The woman's smile fades, and she nods to someone that I can't see. Then, two hulking creatures in armour similar to that which the woman wears (and who are evidently of the same race as she is, given their skin and hair colours) storm inside the cave and wrap their clawed hands around my arms. Their strength is too great for me to resist, and I am dragged outside into the light no matter how much I protest.
The sight that greets me is terrifying. All around me are hordes of monstrous creatures – some that are like the beast that brought me here, some that are walking piles of disease, held together only by festering, fermented pus and crusted-over scabs, and some whose constantly shifting shapes don't look like anything definite for any decent length of time. They are all milling around a cavernous scarlet landscape that looks like it escaped from a Dali painting, melting cliffs and crazily-twisted mountains rising above lakes of fire that hang in mid-air, dripping flame down onto cracked and splintered earth.
The woman laughs at my apparent confusion, and spreads her hands wide. "Don't worry, child," she says, as if those three words could somehow make every insane detail of this place go away, "I felt exactly the same when my masters called me into their service."
"And who might they be?" I ask, angling for more details. The woman smiles at my boldness and reaches forward to touch my cheek. Her fingers are almost unbearably cold, feeling like liquid nitrogen pressed against my skin.
"You're a bold one, aren't you?" she muses, sounding impressed. "Good. I like that." She pauses and then folds her arms across her chest. "Have you ever heard of Satan, child?"
"Yeah," I reply. "So you're a devil-worshipper?" I snort with contempt. "You and every other disenchanted teenager in middle America."
"Remember where you are, Rebecca. You'd do well to show me some respect," the woman snaps, fury slashing suddenly across her face. "I worship every dark god – not just Satan, or Loki, or Nastirh, or Dormammu, but all of them. I even offered up a prayer or two to Sharra and Kythri when I thought it appropriate." She smiles coldly. "And the rewards have been… numerous." She gestures at the armour she is wearing, her gloved hand flexing slightly, the sculpted talons on the ends of her fingers glinting in the light. "This armour, for instance. I've been wearing it for hundreds of years, ever since I drew my first drop of blood in the name of my masters. I was just a girl then, living on a nameless backwater planet in the Shi'Ar Imperium – I killed a Shi'Ar soldier and drank his blood after the gods told me what the Shi'Ar were holding back from us. As a reward I was given this suit of armour."
"It's very nice. What do you wear when you're not on duty?" I say, trying to keep a defiant edge to my voice.
"I wear this," the woman replies. "After a time, I found that my body and the armour had merged – I didn't know where I ended and the armour began. But there were benefits." She reaches down to the belt at her waist and slides a long, wavy-bladed dagger from its sheathe. "Watch," she says, as she holds out her left arm, her other arm held high, with the dagger poised to strike. Then, she plunges it down into her forearm, gasping in pain as the blade punches through one side of her arm and comes out of the other, stained with black blood. After a second or two, she yanks the dagger out and throws it to the ground, holding out her arm for me to see. As I watch, I can see the wound knitting itself back together, the black blood that I saw on the blade erupting from the smooth edges of the hole in the armour and sealing the gap almost instantly, until the armour's surface looks as if nothing had ever happened.
"My God…" I breathe, astonished. The woman's formerly pain-wracked features twist into another horrible smile, and she folds her arms again.
"Yes, I thought that might be your reaction," she says dryly. "That's what usually happens, after all..."
"You still haven't told me who you are," I reply, suddenly realising that she never disclosed her name to me.
The woman smiles coldly. "No, I didn't, did I? I apologise." She pauses. "My name is Mortis, child – and this is the last place you'll ever see."