June 3rd 2016 Blaiston Street, The Nightside 11:00 AM EDT
We got out of the carriage on a random street full of unremarkable buildings. I was a bit confused as to what we were doing here, since none of these places looked like a library. As the others climbed out I turned to ask Taylor. "Where are we? Is the library nearby?" I was anxious to find my cousin. Now that I knew she was in danger I was worried we might show up too late. Despite having forced myself to calm down I was still well aware of the stakes. Every second we weren't looking was a second something terrible could be happening to Kit.
Taylor seemed mostly sympathetic to that, but he also obviously wasn't going to let me push. "Listen kid, I respect your hurry, but it won't do your cousin any good if we all die before we reach her. In the spirit of that, I'm taking precautions. These people are on the hunt for your cousin, so chances are they'll be watching her last known location. I don't know exactly how they got out without being seen, but chances are good they did it to avoid the exact people who will notice us if we follow them. Easiest way to avoid that is to make sure we aren't spotted entering. And for that we need a back way."
Wally cleared his throat. "That's great and all, but how exactly are we supposed to find a back way here? Is there some kind of tunnel or something nearby? Also how did you get the carriage to drop us here without saying anything to the driver?" He was looking around uneasily, and I saw his eyes looked shadowed and a bit unfocused. I was pretty sure Wally hadn't slept as well as I had last night, and from Artemis's grip on his arm, she was just as worried about the redhead as I was starting to get.
The big detective shook his head. "Not a tunnel per se. We're here to see an old acquaintance of mine. The Doormouse. He has doors to basically everywhere you could ever want to go in his shop. He makes them himself. Any place on earth and several that are very much outside it. He usually charges for their use but he owes me a favor. He should be willing to help us enter and exit the library without passing by any watchers. There's no way they have Sinner himself under surveillance. He would know, and he doesn't care for being monitored."
Wally, who had been looking anxious and unhappy, was momentarily distracted. The idea of a place full of doors that could go anywhere was a pretty interesting one to me as well. I wasn't sure what kind of person the Doormouse was, but I was interested to see what doors like that were actually like. I wondered if I could survive using my clairvoyance on them, but considering how badly I'd been burned the last time, and how I didn't even plan to use my aura sight here, I judged it was probably a bad idea.
As we turned to head down the street though, we pulled up short as we saw...something. Or rather two somethings. Big green furry somethings, towering over a thin, pale man with dark hair dressed in purple clothes I didn't really have a description for. They towered over him, snarling with rage and hate, but the man just smiled up at them. His hands were in his pockets, but he pulled them out and spread them wide in a friendly gesture. "Gentlemen, please, there's no reason to get so upset. We're all civilized men and things. Come, let us reason together."
Taylor snorted and gestured for us to stop. I gave him a confused look but he just shook his head. "No need to step in. Tommy doesn't need our help. Those poor bastards won't know which way is up by the time he's done with them." I raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry and Taylor grinned. "Oh introductions can wait. Just watch. It's not every day you get to see the existential detective do his work."
The man, Tommy, stepped forward, and the big green things looked like they almost wanted to back away from his wide, friendly smile. "You fine fiends have come here to settle my debts to the Collector I take it? Well I'm afraid you've been misinformed. You see, I'd already made plans to repay those debts. Specifically I plan to pay them next month. I could surrender myself to your custody of course, and perhaps the Collector would extract the necessary payments post haste, but paying today would rob my future self of an opportunity to make good on his ambitions. And wouldn't that be a shame?"
As he spoke I felt...something. Something in the air, something that felt a lot like I felt when I used my power. Tommy was getting into the swing of things now, and he stepped up to put a hand on the arm of either furry green beast. "Haven't the two of you had dreams? Ambitions? Goals? Have you ever achieved them? Now imagine how the you who achieved your goals would feel if a you who had yet to accomplish said desires robbed him of the ability to fulfill that dream. In fact, I daresay by robbing my future self of the opportunity to repay my debts as planned you would be robbing your own future selves of the ability to enjoy the relaxing experience of letting ones job fulfill itself."
The power got thicker, and the green things went from angry to confused as Tommy kept talking. "But you see, if you let me go on my way, you'll be rewarding your future selves with the foresight to allow them to accomplish the dream the two of you now have, that is, the dream to have done nothing at all in the past, thereby allowing the nothing you do in the future to achieve twice the effect for, as we've already decided, none of the effort. That means that the current you acting is in fact impeding the accomplishments of not only myself and the version of me planning to repay my debts, but your own selves in both this and that future timeline, something we already established that you would be loathe to do."
Even I was having a bit of trouble following his logic at this point, and the two green things both looked so confused I was worried they might pass out. Their eyes had glazed over and they looked like they might be drooling. We spent the next ten minutes watching Tommy continue speaking, twisting the things he'd already said back around themselves in ways that made little to no sense and basically beating the truth into an unrecognizable mess that no one standing with us could even recognize.
By the time he was done talking, both green things had apologized (they could talk apparently) and paid him all the money they had on him, as well as promising to figure out how to cover his debt to the Collector (whoever that was) and apologizing for the inconvenience of stopping him on the street. As he walked away cheerfully, one of the massive beasties had even taken off what looking like a green fur vest and used it to cover up a puddle Tommy needed to cross so he didn't get his shoes dirty.
He was heading right for us, in fact, and when he drew close he grinned cheerfully at Taylor. "Ah, John, good to see you old boy. You're looking dapper as ever. Such interesting company, might you introduce me to your friends?" Despite no longer engaging with the big guys I could still feel that power radiating off him, and still feel how unusually similar it was to my own. I wondered if he could feel the same thing. I came very close to using my aura sight on him, but in the end I decided to stick with my instinctual response that it was a bad idea.
Taylor snorted in amusement. "As polite as ever Tommy. Well boys and girls, I'd like to introduce you to Tommy Oblivion, the Existential Detective. One of the famous Oblivion brothers, Tommy specializes in cases that may or may not have existed. He has a knack for being convincing, even when he really shouldn't be. He can talk reality itself into changing its mind." Tommy doffed an imaginary hat, sweeping into a courtly bow before giving us all a wide friendly grin. Taylor nodded to us. "Tommy, this is Morgan, Zatanna, Dreamer, Wally, and Artemis. The spook is the Gentleman Ghost, an old friend of Julians."
His energy was infectious, like a big happy puppy. "Hello all. Nice to meet you. Any friends of John or Julian are friends of mine. Hello again JJ, good to see you back again. Don't let the big softie fool you, he's been sulking terribly since you left. He's got a heart in there under all that cynicism and wisecracking. I take it the lot of you are on the way to see the Doormouse as well? I've decided to take a slight vacation. My gift is perfectly suited to talking down a few debt collectors, but the The Collector himself has some countermeasures in place. I find it prudent to remove myself from the immediate vicinity for a time. At least until flaring tempers cool."
Wally raised a hand tentatively to get everyone's attention. "Quick question. What exactly was this debt you defaulted on? Because it sounds kind of shady to be avoiding paying someone back like that. I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable bringing you along to escape someone you owe money to." His expression was stubborn, and I could tell that this was important to him. I was pretty sure seeing all the terrible things in the Nightside had been taking its toll on the redhead. Taking a stand on something he could control was his way of reminding himself he was still the same person.
Tommy smiled harmlessly and put up both hands. "Oh no, nothing like that. The Collector hired me to obtain a one of a kind ossuary box from a monastery that didn't get founded in the eighteen twenty nine because of a cholera outbreak. Unfortunately when I was ensuring the founding of the monastery I accidentally prevented the abbot that was supposed to donate the bone from joining the clergy. The Collector insists that the use of his timeslip was extenuating circumstances and that I owe him for the trip. We agreed on a travel stipend and he's completely ignoring that stipulation."
Wally looked, while less uncomfortable, slightly more confused, and I was pretty sure dealing with Tommy was making his head hurt. It wasn't just the confusing manner of speech though. Tommy's mannerisms were oddly contradictory and elusive. It seemed to change consistently, making our perception of him slightly different without actually changing anything about him. Just out curiosity I reached out with my own abilities and tried to tweak the impression slightly. Where Tommy constant told the world that it wasn't what it thought it was, I told the world it was what I though it was.
My ability dealt more with the certainty of dishonesty than the dishonesty of certainty, and my attempt to stabilize the unusual atmosphere around the detective seemed to clash slightly with it's nature. Still, when I used the ability Tommy's eyes snapped to me in interest. "Well now. What exactly are you? I've never felt anything quite like that before." He grinned and threw an arm over my shoulder. "Wait, no. Don't tell me. You can go over the whole story while we head for the Doormouse's shop."
He turned to grin at Taylor. "Congratulations John, You've succeeded in peaking my interest. I shall be joining you on your current adventure. Huzzah! Together again!" He thrust one hand up into the air, pointing a finger dramatically toward the sky. If nothing else though, it was entertaining to see Taylor's reaction. It was nice to know that someone annoyed him as much as he had been annoying us.
June 3rd 2016 The Doormouse's Door Repository, The Nightside 12:00 PM EDT
Tommy had been absolutely fascinated by the points gain when the clock ticked over to noon. I was up to one hundred twenty thousand, and he was somehow able to sense the shift in my ability. After talking to him more I started to realize Tommy could sense A LOT of things that most people couldn't. When I expressed my surprise he just grinned at me."Oh, I've always been very good at reading people. I won my gift in a poker game, did you know that?"
I really wanted to hear that story, but I was distracted from inquiring further when I stepped into the Doormouse's shop. The place was, as one would expect, full of doors. Big, small, bright, drab, round, square, if there was a type of door you could imagine the doormouse had it. The impressive part wasn't the variety of doors though, it was what they were hooked up to. Computers. Tons of the things, lining the walls and attached to the doors with cables and wires. The whole shope was a shining mess of chrome and futuristic tech.
A delighted voice cried out. "Guests! Wonderful! Welcome, welcome sirs and ladies! Please, do come in." Out from behind a door came a six foot tall humanoid mouse, with dark chocolate fur under a pristine lab coat, complete with pocket protector. He had a long muzzle and twitching whiskers, but his kind eyes were completely human, and they shone warmly as he chattered away in a slightly high pitched voice. He spotted Taylor. "Oh, Mr. Taylor, how lovely to see you again, I take it you're here for another door?"
Taylor, who was as expected, unruffled by the six foot bipedal mouse he'd brought us to see, gave him a smile. "Right you are, Mouse. We were hoping you have a back entrance for us into the Prospero and Michael Scott Library. Nothing shady, we don't need to bypass any security, but the place might be under surveillance and we were hoping to slip in and out to see some friends unnoticed. I'd like to put this one on my tab, if at all possible. That is, assuming my favor is still good here?"
The huge mouse's eyes widened. "Why, certainly! A door to an unsecured location without bypassing any protections is easy enough, though I'm afraid I don't have the library in stock at the moment. This will need to be a custom job, and while I'm happy to waive the fee, I'm afraid the time needed to arrange the door itself won't be as simple to do away with. I trust you fine people don't mind a bit of a wait while I prepare your means of conveyance? You can feel free to look around my current selection, perhaps you'll see something you like?"
While we were in a hurry, there was no reason to be dicks to the man, er, mouse. We confirmed we didn't mind waiting and the lab coat clad shop keep bustled off to a corner of the shop behind a stack of computers. Taylor shot us all a reassuring smile. "No need to worry. Mouse is a master of transport. Just look at where some of these doors lead, you'll see that it's nearly impossible to stop him from getting you where you need to go." He gestured at the doors, and I noticed that each door had a neat, handwritten label proclaiming its destination.
Shadows Fall, Hy-Brasil, Hyperborea, Carcosa. There were dozens of doors in the show room, unsupported by frames and unconnected to anything except the cables hooking them to the computers. Off to one side were a pair of plain wooden doors with polished brass handles, one dark mahogany, and one white oak. The labels on them read simply 'Heaven' and 'Hell'. I turned to look at Taylor incredulously, and all the others were shooting him the same looks.
The big detective just shrugged. "I know what you're thinking, I asked the same thing. He doesn't know if they work. Just says the maths are sound. Anyway, this will probably take a bit of time. But it should save us even more, so the wait won't cost us anything in the long run, and Junior, don't you bloody dare." He turned and glared at John, who was inching towards the 'Heaven' door subtly. He froze in place at his mentor's chiding, and turned to stalk off to the other side of the room and sulk.
Artemis decided since we were here and waiting she was going to find out more about our newest companion. "So, Tommy, what exactly is the relationship between your power and Morgans? We aren't even sure where his comes from, but wherever it is it's mixed up with some pretty crazy forces. You said you won yours in a poker game? That doesn't really seem like the same scale at all." Her tone was suspicious, and I could tell she didn't like the idea of trusting this random stranger.
It occurred to me that someone with trust issues like Artemis must have been dealing with a lot of discomfort over how much faith we'd been putting in people we were just meeting. It wasn't in Artemis's nature to put her faith in anyone aside from people she cared about. Me, her mother, Jim, we'd proven we could be counted on. People like Julian, Taylor, even John, they were all strangers. She was having to push out of her comfort zone and put her trust in all these new faces because if she didn't we would be doing this on our own, and she couldn't bear to let that happen.
Wally, who had been having his own moral crisis over the Nightside and its occupants, had clearly missed the same thing, because when she said that I saw his eyes widen in realization. He looked...sad. Like he was disappointed with himself for not noticing how much trouble she was having, and he took his girlfriends hand and looked over at Tommy. "Not to be rude or anything, but we don't really know you. Maybe you could give us a better idea of who you are and how we know we can trust you?"
Artemis shot him a grateful smile and squeezed his hand before turning back to look at Tommy. Taylor spoke up for him though. "Tommy is an insufferable arse at times, but he's good people. I watched him drag himself twenty feet across a street while gutshot to save my life and the lives of several of my friends. He's one of the few people I know of in the Nightside that genuinely believes in doing the right thing and trying to help people. I know you don't know me well either, but if the help I've given has given my words any weight with you, then let me use it right now. Tommy is ok."
Tommy looked genuinely touched. "John. That was the most genuinely heartfelt thing I've ever heard you say about me. Even after that time I kidnapped your secretary and hid her in a mausoleum after coming back in time and swearing I would kill you in front of everyone in the bar." We all stared at him in bewilderment before turning to look at Taylor who just sighed and gripped the bridge of his nose.
His voice was dry as he said. "For someone so persuasive you can be awfully stupid about people Tommy. Anyway, long story. Regardless, Tommy is a damn decent person, and I assure you I absolutely wouldn't let Sindella's daughter run around with someone dangerous without at least warning her." He gave Zee a somber nod, and I felt a flash of curiosity and pain through our connection at the mention of her mother.
I decided to intervene. I shot Artemis a smile. "I appreciate your support Arty. Really. But I can feel a connection between my abilities and Tommys. I think he can help me. I'll stay on my toes, and I know I'll be ok with you watching my back, but I don't want to miss a chance to learn more about the way my powers function, especially not in such a dangerous place. We may need them before things are done."
I could see the uncertainty on her face. I was asking her to take a lot on faith here. She was already well outside her comfort zone, and I couldn't believe I had missed how much this was bothering her. While I did use my aura sight plenty, I usually tried to give my loved ones privacy outside combat situations. Still she also knew how much it bothered me that my powers were such a mystery, and she knew she couldn't keep me from trying to learn more.
She turned to glare at Tommy. "Fine, if Taylor vouches for you I can give you the benefit of the doubt. He's been helping us a ton with looking for Kit, and we wouldn't be nearly as close without him leading us to Julian, who says he's decent people too. Still I'm keeping my eye on you. If you hurt my friend..." She held up her hand and an arc of purple lightning danced between her fingers. "I won't keep quiet."
The foppish detective didn't look scared, I suppose it was hard to take a teenager seriously when you lived in the Nightside (even if that was a mistake on his part) but he also didn't look dismissive. He gave her a somber nod of respect. I'm not sure what he would have said to her honestly, but we were interrupted before I could find out by the return of the Doormouse. The big labvoat wearing came bustling over cheerfully, obviously bearing good news, and lit up when he saw us.
He clapped his hands together once. "Wonderful! You're still here. I've finished the calibrations for your door. Nothing too difficult of course, just a quick trip to a public library. I have you coming out in the fiction section. Nothing too dangerous or important but easy to reach and far out of the way of the prying eyes of anyone watching the entrance. It will of course offer a round trip, so you'll be perfectly able to return the same way to avoid detection once again!" It was hard not to get swept up in his unbridled enthusiasm for...well everything. The Doormouse was just a friendly guy as far as I could tell.
He gestured for us to follow and led us off to a corner where a new door was standing between two metallic posts, the closest thin to a frame any of these had. The posts were lined with flashing lights and readouts and as we drew clouse the Doormouse stepped behind a computer terminal off to the side and motioned for us to hold on for a moment as he seemingly double checked the coordinates for our destination just to be sure. He made a few taps on his keyboard, fiddling with some settings. "So sorry for the delay. Just anchoring the return coordinates to an existing entryway. They tend to drift if you don't lock the connection. This way you can return through the same door you enter from."
I was mildly curious how we would have gotten back if he hadn't done that, but nore and more I was getting the impressions that the Nightside was the kind of place where it was better not to ask questions you weren't sure you wanted to know the answer to. Taylor stepped up to the thank the Doormouse, echoed by the rest of us, because a few minutes really would be nothing compared to actually getting to and entering the library from what I could tell, and every minute we got closer was a minute we weren't leaving Kit helpless and at the mercy of enemies. Finally we waved goodbye and I opened up the door and stepped through, coming out in an entirely new building. I made a mental note to get a power like this. It was super convenient.
June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 1:00 PM EDT
We stepped through the door and into a room covered wall to wall with shelves. When you hear library you think neat and ordered row, dewey decimal systems, cheap carpet and a unique library smell that's somehow antispectic without actually smelling like cleaner. This place was nothing like that. While there were books wall to wall, the shelves were packed to brim with a cluttered, disorganized jumble of random books. Tall, short, wide, thin, and all jammed in like a game of tetris to make sure the shelves had as many books on them as possible.
Not all of the books had titles on the spines, and the ones that did weren't all in english or even in languages I had seen before. It was, overall, a fascinating place. Zee in particular seemed absolutely spellbound by the massive collection of tomes. My girlfriend had always been a huge magic nerd, and this place had more than a few magic books mixed in with fiction, history, sci-fi, and even what looked like text books containing futuristic technology principle. Wally noticed those pretty quickly and reached for one before Artemis slapped his hand out of the air.
He hissed and pulled his hand back, shaking it out while looking at her with a wronged expression. My best friend just rolled her eyes. "Haven't we seen enough in this hellhole of a city for you to know that touching random books is a bad idea? I give it even odds at least one of those things is cursed or booby trapped." She turned to Taylor. "Do you know what part of the stacks we can find Sinner in? Hell, do they even have sections here? Because this doesn't follow a pattern that I can see."
Taylor just shrugged. "I think this is discount book store. Some libraries have them built in. They sell off books that they don't need or want for pennies on the dollar as a fundraiser. I used to come here as a lad, and I know for a fact this isn't any of the actual sections. You'll know them when you see them." He smiled at Zee. "Sindella used to come here all the time. You obviously inherited her love for books. She was the biggest egghead I've ever met in my life. Particularly enjoyed the romance section."
Zee snickered a bit, her eyes suspiciously moist. "Oh she never got over that. We had bookshelves at home packed with harlequin romances. Daddy had his magic books, and mom loved those, but there were about three full shelves of trashy dime story romances with spines so cracked they looked like a stack of cards. Near the end she would make daddy read them to her in bed, because she was too weak to turn the pages." That memory had started happy, I was pretty sure, but I could feel the sting at the end of it as it reminded her of the bad times.
Zee told me once that cancer was the most infectious disease she'd ever seen, despite it not being communicable. She said it infected your memories, that it would eat away at all the good times until all you had left was pain where there should be joy. She'd broken down in tears after she said it, and Drea and I held her until she cried herself to sleep. Part of me couldn't help but think back to that, and worry that letting Taylor open those old wounds wasn't the best thing for her in the long run.
But as much as I loved her that wasn't my decision to make. She would be the one to decide what she needed, and all I could do was be there for her. Still, despite the pain, I could tell that she was also genuinely enjoying hearing more about her mothers past, and it gave me hope that somehow this would help her find peace with her loss. She was never really allowed to grieve properly.
I hated Giovanni Zatara sometimes, for so many reasons it was hard to count, but one of the biggest was that he'd taken his wife's death and made it all about him. His daughter lost her mother, but she hadn't been allowed to lose herself in the grief. I'd seen people like that, people so wrapped up in their own tragedy that they didn't see how much their selfishness was hurting the people around them who might have helped them deal with the same loss. In some ways I was pretty sure sharing these conversations with Taylor was helping her get a bit of what her father should have given her as a kid. Closure.
I knew she could feel all of this through our bond. That she felt my concern and my love, and I could feel her too, in my heart. I knew she appreciated me giving her the space she needed to go through this on her own, and that she knew I was here if she needed me, and so was Drea. We followed Taylor, who had grown quiet, out of the small wooden room and through a new door, though I saw him make a mental note of the section our exit was in.
Once we stepped through the new door I could see what Taylor had meant but us knowing what the sections were when we saw them. The new room was...well...not a room. It was a graveyard. I could even see a dark sky filled with far too many stars blanketed above us. The books were all set into shelves on the outside of mausoleums scattered throughout the cemetery, with thick, dewy grass surrounding the large tombstones interspersed between them in the most haphazard way imaginable.
I gave a low whistle."So I'm guessing this is the horror section?" It was pretty clear what the theme here was, and my eyes were sharp enough to pick up a few english titles on the densely packed tomb shelves. I scanned over them, interested to see what was here. The King in Yellow was stuffed in atop a version of the Telltale Heart written by Mary Shelley, and a copy of Dracula labeled as being written by Vlad Drakul himself. It there were other novels I didn't recognize, but some were just as distinctive, and there were really too many to count.
I put an arm around Zee as we walked, supporting her without getting in the way, but mostly I kept my head on a swivel. We'd gotten to the library alright, and that was great, but the longer we stayed here the more obvious it was that the Nightside didn't play by the same rules. We weren't safe just because we were in a building (not that we were exactly even in a building right now). I wanted to bad to reach out and flip on aura sight, to finally see the truth under the false reality around us, but despite my desire to do so I didn't dare.
This place had shown me more than anything else how much I depended on my eyes in my day to day life. The ability to see to the heart of people and things was so ingrained that it was almost an instinctive reaction, and only my perfect memory kept me from slipping and doing it on accident. Fighting it was taking effort and willpower I hadn't expected to need for something this innocuous. Part of me was glad it had happened though. I might never have realized my own dependence if it wasn't pointed out to me in sharp relief.
Still, I wasn't just someone with aura sight. I was still a ninja ghost-devil with a host of minor mental enhancements. Between my reflexes and my ability to detect things moving in stealth I was more than equipped to keep an eye out without any supernatural gifts. The major problem was that I wasn't sure that the things I was spotting creeping through the mist and the dark were actually threats to us, or if they just belonged here. It would be just like the Nightside to have fucking library ghouls or something.
Whatever was out there, I wasn't about to draw its attention by speaking about it, so all we could do was search for Sinner and his succubus girlfriend the old fashioned way. Since we didn't know where they were we had to make sure that we didn't miss anything. We stopped at each mausoleum, checking inside to find reading areas with sturdy wooden tables lit with burning wall sconces, but we didn't find anyone on them. Each one was mostly abandoned, aside from occasional weird skeleton pushing a cart and reshelving books.
We checked over a dozen of them to no avail, and aside from noting that they were bigger on the inside than the out (which wasn't really a shock given we were literally standing in a whole graveyard inside a room in a building, complete with night sky) we didn't find anything out of the ordinary. There was no trace of people, and eventually it became clear that this wasn't the section we were looking for. Despite that we still checked every tomb, because it would be stupid to assume and then have to recheck bits and pieces of all the sections again.
The only really notable incident is that Jim found his biography in the stacks. One that he definitely didn't sign off on, and that looked like it was written by another universe's version of him. He flipped through the thing for about two minutes before slamming it shut and stowing it in his coat. I expected the library to have some defensive enchantments, but to be fair this WAS Jim. Maybe it did and he just bypassed them. You don't get to be the worlds greatest thief by collecting bottlecaps.
Once we finished inspecting the last tomb we all gathered near one of the tombstones close by to discuss our next move. Zee seemed eager to keep looking around, but the rest of us were worried we wouldn't find them anytime soon. A reminder that we were trying to keep Kit safe was all it took to shake my girl out of her research funk. "So, we need some way to find them a little faster than we have been." She turned to Taylor. "I don't suppose you have any tricks that would let you search for them magically or something? If not we might need to split up and that seems like a bad plan."
Bad plan was an understatement, everyone knew you shouldn't split the party. Taylor however, looked substantially less comfortable with the first option than the second. He took a deep breath but nodded. "Fine. Just this once." He closed his eyes, and something in the air just...shifted. It wasn't exactly obvious, but I could tell something was happening. He sat there for a minute or two, wincing before he finally yelped and stumbled back, blood dripping from his nose. "Found them. Also ow. Remind me never to try to spy on Sinner."
He gestured for us to follow him and then set off across the graveyard. We hadn't been moving in a straight line, and the room wasn't really a defined shape. I'd expected the distance we traveled to narrow the trip but we ended up crossing back through the graveyard at an angle to get to the other side of the space. I noticed the shapes again, moving in the swirling fog, and was planning to ignore them again, until the forms slowly converged, resolving themselves from the dark into a flock of about two dozen nondescript...things.
Average height and painfully thin, the things wore suits and wide brimmed hats, but that was where the resemblance to a person ended. Beneath brims of their hats were only smooth heads. No eyes, ears, mouths or noses. Just a flat mannequin expanse of blank smooth skin. Taylor hissed in agitation, and John stepped back with a curse. We turned to look at the tall PI and his face was pale and shaken, the first time I'd really seen him afraid. He saw us looking and swallowed hard. "This could be a problem. Ladies and gents, allow me to introduce the Harrowing. They'll be killing us today."
June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 2:00 PM EDT
John hissed in shock at Taylors words. "What? But I thought the Harrowing track you through your gift? You only tapped into it for a second or two there. How the hell did they track us down so quickly?" His voice was shaking with unease, and it struck me as a profoundly bad sign that people like John and Taylor were this worried about these things. I couldn't even confirm any information about them because I still had the horrible feeling that I shouldn't open my aura sight here under any circumstances.
Taylor frowned. "I don't know. It usually takes longer than this to track me down, not to mention they've never sent so many of them. I didn't even know they had this many. The last time I ran into them Razor Eddie saved me, but he isn't around right now. I have no idea how to handle this many." His voice was tight and angry, the tension in his tone showing that he was more worried than I'd ever seen him, though to be fair I obviously hadn't known him for very long. Still, he didn't strike me as the panicky type.
The Harrowing spread out, circling around us to hem us in. I swallowed hard. "Ok, for those of us who don't understand what the hell you're talking about how about giving us the cliff notes. What are Harrowing? Who sent them? And most importantly how the fuck do we get rid of them?" I kind of wanted to just tear into them, but some part of me was pretty sure that wouldn't be the right call. I could hang with basically anything, but I wasn't here alone. There were a bunch of these things, and if I didn't know what they could do one of my friends could get hurt.
Taylor snarled in frustration. "My enemies sent them. Don't ask who they are, I couldn't tell you. They've been hunting me for as long as I could remember, sending the Harrowing to kill me every time I used my gift. It usually takes them a bit to lock on though, so I can get away with quick peaks at the world beneath. They must have been watching this place for some reason. A tip off maybe? Regardless the Harrowing are...bad news."
His eyes were focused on the blank, smooth faces, burning with the kind of existential horror you can only really feel for something that scared you as a child. The kind of fear you never grow out of, the kind that leaves a mark on you that never fades. "The Harrowing can't die. They aren't even really alive. They're just...meat, and bone, and terrible implacable purpose fueled by a single minded desire to carry out the will of their masters. There's no way to stop them, no way to slow them down, and only the most powerful beings can eve-"
The was a pop and he jumped, scared out of his reverie by the sound of my jun going off as I put a bullet in one of their heads. It didn't go down, which was a shock considering what my gun could do, but it did sway, so I shot it again. Then again, and finally, on the third bullet, the thing collapsed, limply, to the ground. I turned to look at the shocked PI and gave him a wolfish grin. "Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to see what that would do. Pretty sure my gun can kill them, which means they can, in fact, die." I looked over at the corpse. "Pretty terrifying that it takes so many bullets though."
He just stared at me, his jaw slack. "How? How did you kill it? The only thing I've seen manage anything close was Eddie's razor, and he's a literal god. Not a weak one either, gods are a dime a dozen in the Nightside, but even here Eddie is something special. What the bloody hell IS that?" He was staring at my gun with a kind of horrified fascination. I raised it and shot two more of them before putting my last two rounds into a third. My fun clicked empty and I snarled in annoyance before putting it away.
Once they were dead I responded. "It's a conceptual weapon...sort of. It's complicated, but regardless it's out of bullets so it doesn't matter. Still, if they can die from that they can die from other things." I reached out and called my keyblade, Tartarus swirling into existence in my hand in a surge of dark energy. "I've got all sort of interesting weapons, and I'm definitely not going to let these assholes get in the way of me helping my cousin." I stepped forward, trying to put myself in front of my girls, but we were surrounded so it didn't work too well.
I reached out to my torc and called my armor, feeling the liquid metal roll across my skin and enclose me completely. The feeling of my senses expanding as they were swallowed by the armor was like nothing else I'd ever experienced, and I felt my resolve firm as it happened. Something about the armor just gave an unshakeable confidence that things would be alright. I wasn't sure if using it was a great idea, given where we currently were, but at the very least the color might throw them off a bit.
The armor was definitely noted, and Taylor scowled suspiciously when he saw it, but he shook that off quickly. Either the armor or the sight of the dead Harrowing had chased away the ghosts of all the times these things had tried to hunt him down. His eyes hardened. "Right. Not sure what I can really do. But this is my mess. So I'll see it through best as I can." Despite the fear I could tell the idea of finally doing away with his childhood boogeymen was an enticing one to the tough as nails detective. He reached into a pocket of his coat and pulled out a bulky brass set of weighted knuckles, etched with dangerous looking runes.
I could tell from his expression he wasn't confident in his ability to take care of them. I could understand that. Some kinds of fear wasn't so easy to shake off. If he had really been running from these things since he was a kid then just seeing me put a few of them down with a cheap trick wouldn't be enough to remove that fear. After all, he said he'd seen them killed before, and he didn't know me. If anything, the armor might have made it even less likely to reassure him, since the Droods seemed to be an exception to lots of rules.
But the flipside of the fear he felt was that he'd felt it for a long time. He was familiar with it, and I could tell Taylor wasn't the kind of person to let being afraid stop him from doing what he needed to do. Some people liked to pretend that only cowards felt fear, but those people were idiots. Not being scared of something that could hurt you wasn't bravery, it was stupidity. Taylor seemed like he was anything but stupid.
I wondered how I was able to tell all this without my aura sight. Most of my insights into others usually came from my vision, but I wasn't using it now. I could see things about Taylor though, things I shouldn't have been able to pick up. It wasn't everything, I wasn't reading his mind or anything, and it took me a minute to figure out what I was detecting. Lies. Taylor was telling himself that he could do this, and he wasn't sure it was true. That was new. Sadly I didn't have time to pay any attention to it though, because it was time to fight.
Before I stepped out, Tommy grabbed my arm. "I have a way to get rid of them. It'll help you learn a bit more about what you can do, but you'll need to buy me some time." I nodded to him, and the existential detective closed his eyes, focusing on his gift. I felt the world shift as he began persuading it in a way mere words could never manage, slowly changing the reality around us, but I didn't have time to watch. I needed to grab some focus.
I stepped through the darkness that was so abundant around us, arriving behind the Harrowing in front of me and brought Tartarus down on its shoulder, abyssal alloy teeth already spinning up into the chainsaw blade I preferred against tougher opponents. I had options for handling these things, but I needed to see exactly how strong they were and what they could do before I figured out how to handle the issue. Zee, who had picked up my intentions through out bond, conjured a thick shield in front of the others as I vanished, leaving me outside and vulnerable to draw them in, or as vulnerable as my armor could leave me.
As my keyblade smashed down into the Harrowing, I started to understand what Taylor meant about them not being able to die because they were alive. While the gun had enforced mortality on them and basically taken them out by cheating, Tartarus wasn't a conceptual weapon, even if it was a powerful one. Instead of bisecting the thing like I intended, it felt like I had tried to use an electric craving knife to hack through a human sized block of silly putty. The flesh of the Harrowing gave and twisted under the impact of my attack, seeming to almost absorb most of the force.
Zee's shield was permeable to the others, even if it wasn't to the Harrowing, which meany Artemis was able to draw her bow and start putting purple lightning bolts into the things. When the bolts didn't do anything serious despite her heavenly punishment elf lightning, I saw Wally place his hands on her shoulders. He closed his eyes and made a strange strained face as this body started sparking with golden lightning. Rather than harm Artemis the lightning, which I was pretty sure was what he called the speed force, seemed to mingle with the lightning from her bloodline.
Her eyes flickered with purple gold light and the arrows started actually effecting the Harrowing. Each bolt caused the thing to writhe with pain and start to drastically slow down. Taylor stepped out of the shield purposefully and stepped up to the first writhing Harrowing driving it to the ground as he fell on it, smashing his heavy knuckled fist into its lack of a face. Dreamer closed her eyes, placing her hands on either side of Zee's head, and her violet pink power cascaded over our girlfriend, amplifying the strength of the shield.
Artemis didn't bother trying to take down any of them singular, just putting a single bolt into each one and letting the rest of us deal with them. I wasn't sure what the hell that purple gold lightning was, but it definitely had an effect, because when it hit the one I was trying to bisect its flesh started to congeal. Jim had summoned his cold power, and the sound of tolling graveyard bells rank through the room as a series of bone hands shot up from below the dirt to grasp at the ankles of the Harrowing, holding them in place.
John had pulled out some kind of weird gold gun that was firing bursts of fire that on their own didn't do much, but seemed to interact with the purple gold lightning like fucking kerosene, sparking the two or three he hit up like bonfires. The burning ones slammed into the shield, clearly in agony but making no noise as the clawed at the blazing light with fingers tipped with rusty syringes. I hadn't actually noticed that before. It was super creepy. And then, it was all suddenly over.
I felt whatever Tommy was doing finally take hold, snapping into focus, and I realized what had happened as his gift persuaded the world that these things had never found us and they all just...vanished. Tommy fell to his hands and knees, and I saw his form flicker slightly, like an image losing focus, before snapping back to clarity as he vomited on the grass. I just stared. That had been an application of power I had never even considered. I walked over and helped the flamboyant detective up and grinned at him. "Ok, can you teach me to do that?"
June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 3:00 PM EDT
It was shocking to me to see what Tommy was capable of with his abilities. My powers were mostly limited by my personal strength, or at least some aspect of it that was somehow relevant to my ability to alter the world. Granted, Tommy didn't exactly seem to be able to shrug off whatever he'd done either. He was on his hands and knees, face pale and blood dripping from his nose, and that wasn't even bringing up the whole flickering out of existence thing. But still, sickly or not the man had pulled off something I would have trouble with, and he'd used a power very similar to my own.
I helped him to his feet, letting my armor retreat into its torc as everyone adjusted to the sudden absence of the enemy. It had apparently been just as jarring for the rest of our party as it had been for me. Artemis, who was gasping slightly as Wally stumbled away from her looking drained, wheeled on Tommy in confusion. "Ok, that the hell just happened? Because that was even weirder than most of the shit that happens in this place. We were fighting and then they were just...gone. Did you do that?"
It occurred to me that people who weren't me and didn't have my ability probably had no clue that was coming, so I could understand the confusion. I helped Tommy over to sit on on a nearby tombstone. The existential detective smiled weakly. "Yes. I simply convinced the universe that the Harrowing had never found us. I wasn't too specific. They may have ended up in the wrong room, or never detected us at all, or maybe just arrived and left before we got here. Whatever happened we never ran into them, so there was never any danger."
I had an odd thought and drew my gun, checking the clip to see if there were any rounds in it. There were, which bore out Tommys version of things. I was impressed, and also fairly happy. I could reload this thing, but I'd noticed the rounds didn't work too well unless they had been in the gun for a while. Some weird conceptual factor of its nature apparently needed time to sink in. The bullets would still be dangerous of course, it just took a while to get the full effect of the weapon.
Artemis mostly looked confused, but she didn't asking anything else, turning to check on her boyfriend. Speaking of which I made sure Tommy was ok and then headed over to check in on my girls. Zee was leaned against a headstone looking winded. Apparently while the bullets had returned to my gun, the magic she'd used hadn't reappeared, which was odd. When I got close she gave me a wide smile, her sweaty face lighting up with pride. "Kept my shield up. Not that it was easy."
I leaned in to kiss her softly. "I imagine it wasn't. I felt how strong those things were, you kicked ass out there." I looked at Drea, who was hovering nearby with a concerned look on her face, making sure Zee was alright. "You both did. Thanks for keeping our girl topped up. I shudder to think what would have happened if Artemis and Wally hadn't had a safe place to shoot from. No way I was going to keep all their attention alone." Thinking about how dangerous that had been chilled my blood.
I'd gotten far too comfortable being the biggest bully on the playground. I knew objectively the Nightside was dangerous, but it had all been sort of theoretical until now. Weird magic or obscure powers that I didn't really have any context for. The Harrowing though...they had just been a straight up threat. Being one of the strongest people on the planet had made it easy to forget I wasn't THE strongest. I might be in the top one percent in terms of power, but that left A LOT of beings I'd mostly been ignoring.
It made me even more committed to the idea of learning from Tommy. The better I could use my power the more strength I could bring to bear protecting my loved ones. I also decided to pick up a new ability. I needed to wait until I was somewhere safe so I didn't expose what I could do, but I wanted to find something that could be used as a safety net in case one of us got hurt in some way I couldn't stop. This battle had made it far too clear that I wasn't capable of protecting everyone.
I had a few ideas, emails I'd seen before that I hadn't ever invested in because they were too expensive, and didn't seem necessary. I pushed them to the back of my mind though as I checked in on everyone. Jim was looking unruffled as ever, whatever weird skeletal binding he had used had faded with the harrowing, and my mentor never really seemed to tire or feel any strain from casting big spells. Taylor had put away his knuckles, and he looked drained by the roller coaster of emotion that was the fight.
John looked relieved. He'd stowed the gold flamethrower thing back in his coat, though I had literally know clue where, I didn't see any lines of disruptions in the canvas overcoat that would indicate he head a weapon under it. I turned to Artemis and Wally. "Also, what the actual fuck was THAT? I knew you could boost Wally's ability a bit, I saw you do it on New Genesis, but I didn't know it worked the other way around. Those bolt arrows were seriously hardcore to be able to hurt those things."
My best friend just shrugged. "Nothing we'd really tried much before. We'd talked about the possibility but it wasn't something we had a chance to test. It was pretty clear that my bow wouldn't be enough to drop them though, so we figured what the hell. We were behind a shield anyway so we decided to try for a hail mary." She shot Zee a grateful smile. "Thanks for that by the way, I don't want to see what those things could have done to me if they'd gotten their hands on me."
My girlfriend gave her a tired grin. "I only have the one sister. It would be a shame to lose you. Plus I hear terrible things about being the last remaining member of a species." Despite the flippant tone I felt a pang of fear from our bond at the idea. I hadn't realized how afraid of that Zee was, but I supposed it made sense. After losing her mother and then sort of her father, we were the only family she had left. She had the bond linking her to Drea, Rana, and me, but Artemis was quickly becoming the most vulnerable member of our little family. Yet another reason to look into some death prevention emails when I had a moment tonight.
I'd gotten so used to the idea of all of us as a team that I had started taking for granted that the others would be able to keep up with me. Granted they were all pretty tough, and they had survived the OZ and New Genesis well enough, but I wasn't exactly the same person as I'd been back then, and even in the OZ I'd been markedly more powerful than the others. Wally was some sort of weird super speed godling, Artemis and Zee were partially divine, and Drea was a literal goddess, but that didn't mean they were all in my weight class.
It was pure idiocy on my part to run around with them without taking any protective measures, and suddenly I felt like we were all vulnerable and exposed in a way I hadn't experienced since getting my power. Being so much stronger than everyone else gave me the ability to protect them, sure, but it also made it possible that something awful could happen and I would be the only one to survive.
I forced down my minor panic attack and turned to the others. "We should get our of here. Just because the Harrowing never found us doesn't mean they can't come back later, and I'd rather not be here if that happens. Tommy, you good to move?" I turned to look at our savior, who was stile pale and shaking. Despite the obvious exhaustion he gave me a weak smile and a thumbs up, standing woozily to follow after us. I caught him under the elbow, helping steady him, as we moved toward the exit the Taylor had originally pointed us at.
I noted how convenient it was that we had the heading we needed with seemingly no consequences, but then I looked at Tommy's shaking form and realized that the consequences had just been shifted around slightly. We moved into the next room through a new door, and suddenly, the starlit sky was gone, and we were standing in the sun. The crisp dew covered grass beneath my feet gave way to sand, and I froze in place as we made the transition. The others stepped through after me, and they all stopped too, completely stunned by the rapid change in location.
I turned to Taylor. "Ok, what the fuck? The horror section I got, but what kind of books are here? And where the hell are they?" I was completely stunned by the detail in this room. I felt the give of the sand under my feet, which wasn't such a shock once I got used to it, but more than that, this place FELT like an island. The low roar of the tide licked at the beaches and I could smell the salt of the sea on the air. I could hear seagulls cawing overhead, and when I looked up I could see them circling beneath the endless blue expanse of the daytime sky.
Taylor smiled fondly as he looked around. "Adventure. Treasure island and such. The books are in the pine trees." A second glance showed me that yes, each pine tree was a thick trunked, open faced book shelf laden with stacks of tomes. Despite the awe I was feeling though, we weren't finished walking. Taylor waved us all on. "Come along, we're almost there. I saw them close to here." He led us off into the interior of the beach, toward what looked like a jungle area, and we walked briskly between much bigger, thicker trees as we transitioned into a rain forest type area.
We walked through the jungle, past rivers and waterfalls and clearings, until we finally came to a cliff, and built into that cliff was a stone temple, overgrown with vines and moss. Taylor led us up the cracking steps and into the temple proper and when we stepped inside we found a nice, well lit reading room with several long tables. There were stone shelves lining the walls, though the humidity from outside had vanished when we entered, the area prepared for people to properly enjoy the many tomes nearby.
As we entered we found a table and at the table sat a man. He wasn't large or imposing, wasn't impressive or handsome or striking, though he wasn't ugly either. He was just...average. Messy brown hair, grey at the temples, and a bland face with pale blue-grey eyes. He sat next to a stack of books, flipping through the volumes, and when we came in he looked up with interest, though not with concern.
Next to him sat a girl. She was...gorgeous. Busty and dark haired, with violet eyes that reminded me of Zee, and lilac lips that looked like Drea's. Her face was guarded, and she was staring at us cautiously. The man just smiled and gestured for us to sit down. "Oh, hello. Can I help you?" Apparently we had found Sinner. On the up side, he didn't seem like he was hostile. I found myself considering his question. I really hoped he could.
This is probably my favorite arc to write so far. I love these characters and I'm having a blast with the setting. Lots to look forward to next chapter, from a new ability to some fun DC characters being brought in. As usual pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent. Hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think.