A Horror Story 8: Wolf Beneath The Tree
There's something I've come to realize, recently…and I don't know if it's a comfort or another link in the chains that will eventually be wrapped around me as they drag me off to the loony bin.
Ghosts are, more or less, echoes. They can be very loud, very in-depth echoes, sometimes of existing and sometimes of craving, but as much as we've seen them do, they are, in their way, incomplete. Can someone really be said to hate if they can't understand love any more? Can someone be terrible if they've forgotten what wonderful is? In trying to classify Danny's abilities and specialness, I sometimes think his twin sides cause his traits to bounce back and forth, magnifying it in a way that comes out as power.
Other things, like demons, those of the dimensions beyond human comprehension, who exist to corrupt and destroy…I sometimes feel they're as much forces of nature as being of malice. Can you tell a tornado not to wreck destruction? Can you tell an animal it should not cut down child or sick prey as an easier target? There's no choice in it. It's what they know. What they are. Much like ghosts…they lack DEPTH.
Humans, though…humans.
They can summon demons that consume a town. Release an untested product that turns people into killers. Create a precise series of sounds and tones that sink hooks into the mind and yank and tear until there's nothing left. And why do they do it? Money? Hate? Some sense of power? No reason at all? If there's a connection to all motivations, it is just this; They did it because they enjoyed it.
They liked it.
By itself, that can make one despair.
By itself…
Boston, Massachusetts.
The MBTA, or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, was one of the largest public transportation agencies in the United States, and one of only two who ran all five primary modes of public transit. As a result, it had a few dozen working yards/garages scattered throughout Boston, where the vehicles of the company came from, returned to, and were repaired at. Danny hadn't bothered noting the name of the particular yard he and his mother had come to. If it became important, he'd go back and look.
He quickly realized it wasn't relevant. Joseph Montemayor was.
Had he checked the man's identification, Danny would have been both surprised and not surprised to see that the bus driver was still on the younger side of fifty. He looked twenty years older, and he did not wear the age well.
Danny knew that look. The way hair went to white instead of more muted greys and silvers. The way the skull seemed to shrink, just a tad, making the face appear like there was too much flesh on the bone. The wrinkles that resembled less age and laugh lines and more like someone had taken the world's most subtle garden rake to a person's face. It wasn't time that had crept up on Joseph Montemayor. It was something else entirely. Something Danny knew far too well, especially these last years of his life.
There were those who just knew the world as is, and were fine with that. They had no curiosity, no desire to explore, and this was not a bad thing. The lines and limits they knew worked for them, and they would contently live their lives knowing, as far as they could see and were concerned, that there was nothing beyond them. To Danny's father, such a life would have been hell. His father, however, had understood that that was just how some people were. It didn't stop him from trying to expand their minds, but he understood.
Sometimes, the other side did not return the favor. Sometimes, things from beyond the limits stole across them and touched those who liked the lines. Sometimes this was benevolent, and the people touched adapted. Or went into denial.
Sometimes it wasn't. The end result was the way Joseph wore his age. He'd been exposed to something he couldn't understand, didn't want to understand, and refused to leave him alone. It had gotten bad enough that he'd contacted Ghost Of A Chance, knowing that being seen with some oddballs like Danny and his mother might just make things harder, in several ways. From the look in Joseph's tired eyes, he'd gone beyond caring.
The worst part was that in a way, Danny couldn't help him. Something had taken more than a few things from Joseph, and Danny couldn't give them back. All he could do was deal with the taker.
His lot in life, death, and everything in between.
His mother had, once she'd sat down, done her job well, talking with Joseph about certain normal things to let him relax and turn his mind away from re-considering his decision to call them. It had nothing to do with losing 'a job'; Ghost Of A Chance didn't charge for cases like Joseph's. It had to do with human experience; nothing was worse than a cry for help silenced because the maker felt ashamed by the people closer to them for making it. Danny and co couldn't always force the issue, and delays could have terrible consequences. It was best to get it out in the first meeting, so that problem solving could begin. And so, having been expertly guided, Joseph began to talk.
"First time, was about four and a half years ago…I think. Maybe a little more. Late June." Joseph said. "I've been driving for the T, that being the MBTA, for close to twenty-four years. Thirteen on the 49 route when it first happened. Last shift of the night, nearly one in the morning. I went through the Sumner Tunnel…didn't notice it at the time. Had to try hard to remember. When it happened, it was just a flicker. Blink and you'll miss it. I thought that all the lights in my bus went out at the same time, but they turned back on so fast that it might not have happened. It was late, I was tired…so I forgot about it. Didn't even connect the dots. There aren't many people on the bus at that hour, and they probably aren't much better at noticing things…so no one noticed it when that first guy, I think his name was Clarence? No one noticed he was gone. His family noticed later, of course, but with no evidence, the police never investigated. He was the first."
"The next one was more obvious?" Maddie said.
"Next one was almost a year later. Same tunnel, same time I think. Just after midnight or so. I didn't even notice the flicker, if it happened that time. Didn't notice anything at all, until I was finished the route and found this guy, Bruce Seavey, sleeping in the back of the bus. When I went to wake him up, he asked me where his wife was. His wife was supposed to have woken him up when they got to their stop…except she was gone. Her name was Ethel, and she'd just…vanished. Into thin air."
"This time the police got involved."
"Yeah. Investigated the vehicle, Bruce, the other passengers on the bus, myself…they couldn't find anything. There was no solid eyewitnesses account, but I remember that woman getting on the bus. And I don't remember her getting off of it. Yes, maybe she snuck off, maybe she just decided to leave…I probably would have decided that was the case if Clarence's family hadn't shown up, saying that they thought their son's disappearance was connected…but I didn't have anything to do with it. So I just continued on…until the next time…the next time…"
Joseph went pale, his hands gripping tightly on the coffee cup he'd been sipping from. For the first time in his life, Danny saw a cliché in action, as the man opened his desk, removed a flask, dumped what was likely alcohol into the coffee, and continued on as best he could.
"This time…it was during the day. Early afternoon. Bus was full. I was driving. Didn't make any connection, didn't remember anything. I was just going through the tunnel…and this time…"
Joseph seemed to reconsider something, and then added more alcohol to his coffee.
"It was more noticeable this time. The first times, it being night, and so quick…it wasn't just the lights in the bus. It was the lights there, in the tunnel…and beyond it. It was like I suddenly drove into a mass of pitch-black fog that leaked into the bus. This time, it didn't happen so quick that I didn't know if it happened. This time, it felt like…ten seconds? I jerked back, looked around the bus…"
Joseph went quiet for nearly two minutes.
"All the passengers seemed…far away. Like, they were there…but not. Like they'd all become fog themselves. Except for her. Irene Kearns. Nice girl, learning to be a nurse. She was the only clear one, and SOMETHING…"
More silence. For a moment, Danny wondered if his mother was going to forget personal space and go put an arm around the man.
"Something HAD her. She was pinned to the seat, her face white as chalk. She had her mouth open, but there was no sound…like her lungs couldn't work it out. And…I can't describe…it was a hand and…like…moss. Moss draping itself on her. A giant hand. I saw it and…it was like someone suddenly poured motor oil down my throat. There was a sound like…glass breaking, or ice. I thought it might be the bus breaking down, crashing into something but despite that I couldn't look away…and she turned her eyes, she SAW me…
"Then the light was back. All the passengers were back. Everything was back to normal. Except Irene. She was gone. Just…gone. Like she'd never been there. Within one blink of my eyes…empty seat."
Joseph ended up drinking his coffee/alcohol mix all in one gulp.
"As you might have guessed, there's a difference between two maybe-disappearances late at night and a woman vanishing into thin air on a fully loaded bus in more or less broad daylight. There was a massive investigation, they interviewed everyone, they used the best CSI stuff, some of the people even went under hypnosis…but there was nothing. No one knew what had happened…and went I tried telling them what I saw, they didn't believe me. Had me tested for drugs, had a shrink in to talk to me…ultimately I decided it was just better to recant and lie. Like they'd try and hang the thing on me if I kept insisting on what I saw was real. I'm not in my twenties any more, I didn't want to have to go looking for another job while having the accusation I was nuts following me."
"Understood, Mr. Montemayor. This was the second to last experience?" Maddie said
"Yes, but…no. Getting a spotlight put on me made me realize certain things. Like each event happened 49 weeks apart."
"49? The same number as the bus?" Danny said, speaking for the first time.
"Yeah. And always on a Wednesday, too. I don't know why…but I figured out when the next one was. I had enough pull to get away with some leeway, even afterwards…so when the next day in the pattern was coming up, I arranged for that date for the 49 route to be out of service. Gave some excuse about repairs and rotating vehicles leaving one unavailable to drive that date. I didn't care if they called me out on it later, just as long as no one drove the bus that day. No one did…"
Joseph went silent. Danny knew why. This was the one piece of the puzzle he already had, and it had neatly slotted into place. Nearly a year ago, there had been a day of horrific automobile accidents around Boston, several of which, he recalled, had involved MBTA vehicles. Come to think of it…Danny was pretty sure that it had happened on a Wednesday.
"The accidents." Danny said.
"That was bad enough. But I had…nightmares. Nightmares for nearly two weeks. I took time off work, I tried drugging myself…it didn't work. And they weren't just nightmares. Something was…ANGRY at me. Punishing me. Letting me know that if things didn't go back the way they had been before…much worse would happen. It indicated…the people I knew…my family…"
Quiet again. Danny glanced downward at his coat, even as Maddie glanced back at her son. Noting what he was doing, she turned back.
"But you couldn't in good conscience just get back on the bus and do what it wanted."
"What sane, god-fearing man could? And I can't just shove the responsibility on some other unsuspecting soul…but…I don't think I just ignore…defy it, either. My father died of a heart attack when he was just fifty-three. If I don't drive the bus…"
"You could make an arrangement. Like last time." Danny said, looking up.
"You mean, take the bus out of service again? No, no…"
"Not exactly. Can you take it out of service and let US drive it?"
"You did remember to have your cell phone on when we went in, right?" Maddie said, the interview having concluded, the pair now heading away from the MBTA facility on foot.
"Yes, mom." Danny said, and for a moment Madeline Fenton felt like someone had jammed a knife into her heart. For the second it took Danny to speak those two words, she remembered older times. When her children hadn't been forced to grow up in ways defined by a cruel madman rather than what they wanted. When what Danny knew of life, he could balance against what he wanted in his young life. All that was gone now. Danny Fenton, and Phantom knew how to have fun. Danny Phantasm recognized what it was, but half the time, no longer seemed able to make a mental connection of its use to him. In the mild irritation that he expressed that she'd think he'd forget, Maddie saw her son as he once was.
But, much like Joseph Montemayor, that was gone now, and nothing would bring it back.
Their lot in life, death, and everything in between.
Danny had taken out said cell phone as Maddie had her flashback, flicking it to show Tucker in a waving, faint hologram form.
"Tucker." Maddie said, her tone professional.
"Ma'am. I had both Valerie and Raleigh check out the Sumner Tunnel. Between them and a lack of anything on our scanners, I don't think there's a Fissure in there." Tucker said.
"I'll check myself, but I don't think this is Fissure-related either. There'd be more incidents, and not so perfectly spaced out." Danny said.
"So we're likely dealing with something that's very clever, or very powerful." Maddie said.
"Very powerful as in, it'll make a good story for the book one day, or very powerful as in, Danny's probably going to use up all the Icyhot when it's all over?' Tucker joked. Maddie gave him a mildly withering look, and he promptly shut up.
"Why this bus? Why the 49 route?" Danny said, ignoring his best friend.
"There's the obvious. What does 4 and 9 add to?"
"13." Danny said.
"Bus 49. Attacked every 49 weeks." Tucker said. "I got the police records open. Assuming all the victims were sitting in the same seat Irene Kearns was…she was sitting in Seat 13. Montemayor also said the first two attacks happened just after midnight, the third in 'early afternoon'. It wouldn't surprise me if they happened at 12:49 AM and 1:49 PM. Or as they'd read in military time, 00:49 and 13:49."
"Tucker, those accidents he talked about last year. How many deaths were there in total?"
"…49." Tucker said, after several seconds of record perusal. "Definitely seeing a theme here."
"All we need now is Jim Carrey to show up. Or maybe someone from that old TV show about numbers…I think it was called 'Pretty People Solve Crime With Math'." Danny said.
"Wednesday is also the 4th day in the week. It has nine letters in it." Tucker said.
"49 is also linked in Chinese belief to ghostly and spiritual matters." Maddie said. "I'd almost think this was Johnny's work, except…"
"Even if we hadn't seen him since what happened in Amityville, this isn't his style. Not even a bit. I don't think his shadow would do, or develop like this either." Danny said. "This is something else."
"How are we going to handle it, ma'am?" Tucker asked.
"More research. Danny will also check the tunnel, just to be sure."
"And on the day, we'll drive the bus in. I'll sit in seat 13...Raleigh can drive. Or Tucker can rig up something…" Danny began.
"No." Maddie said. "It won't work."
"What?"
"This…thing, we'll call it Misfortune, it was able to get in deep enough the second to last time to taunt Mr. Montemayor, and cause accidents and give him nightmares for weeks the last time"
"Less than two weeks, he said. You wanna bet it was 13 days?" Tucker said.
"If we just drive in like that, it will sense Danny's difference, more likely than not." Maddie said. "It's theoretically strong enough to."
"It could already know what we're planning. We don't know the extent of how Misfortune accesses our world, and just when and what he can do when…ever." Tucker said.
"I'm not saying Danny won't be there. But we're not just going to rig the bus to drive into the tunnel at either time and have Danny sitting in the unlucky seat. I think that if we try that…whatever's doing this will stay away. And others will pay the price. Including Mr. Montemayor."
"What do you have in mind, mom?"
"…the fact that if I'm going to suggest this risk, I'm going to put myself in its crosshairs."
If anyone had asked him, Joseph Montemayor wouldn't have been able to tell you why he was driving the bus that day.
It might have been empty save for one passenger, but even that fact had almost kept the long-time driver from doing his job. He'd been given constant assurances that Madeline Fenton was no victim, that she had dealt with unnatural, dangerous, incomprehensible situations before and she was still standing. He'd been given a small demonstration by the boy that he was not exactly human and that he, and she, would protect the fully human Montemayor. The pair and their assistants had a plan, and they'd been quite willing to figure out a way to drive the bus without Montemayor.
Still, once they'd told him what they'd intended, he'd found himself saying he would come along. Part of him had started screaming inside the moment he'd said the words, and it hadn't stopped for the remaining two days that had passed since then, the fateful Wednesday of the latest 49th week having arrived. When he'd come to the door of the bus that night, the screaming had gotten so loud that he'd stopped in his tracks, thinking he was going to have a heart attack like his father.
Somehow, he'd gotten on. The screaming had stopped as he'd sat down. Whether that meant he had faced and overcome his fear, or if the scream had finally lost its voice and given into despair of inevitable, inescapable horrors, Joseph could not say. So he'd driven, and Maddie Fenton had sat.
The midnight tunnel ride had resulted in nothing. Joseph had even driven back through it twice; all he'd done was waste fuel. Maddie had attempted to encourage him, saying that it had seemed more likely that the attack would occur in the afternoon, based on the first two attacks having happened at night, citing something about patterns that Joseph had been unable to follow. Joseph did not voice his disquiet that Maddie was as much trying to reassure herself as him, instead driving back to the station and trying to sleep in preparation for the second, final trip that afternoon. Joseph did not remember actual sleeping; he mostly tossed and turned, his brain fading from full consciousness but not entering relaxing slumber, his mind filled with chaotic, incomprehensible images that kept him from settling into full sleep. He knew there was nothing 'outside' doing this to him; this was him alone, his fears and regrets, and his inability to deal with them in the face of what had caused them.
It made him wonder, in a brief moment of lucidity, if Maddie and her son were insane, some kind of calm, directed madness that went around people like him. He did not see how their like could face down…whatever had come to him in that tunnel, years ago, having some clue what it was, what it could do, and not crack like an egg.
Maybe the answer was in the fact that despite being bone-tired, scared out of his mind, and certain that this was all for naught, Joseph showed up that day anyway. He got on the bus with Maddie, and he drove. He even kept to his basic route, though he kept a 'Not In Service' notice up on the bus to make sure Maddie remained his only passenger.
The woman did not speak as she sat in her seat. It was probably for the best. What did you speak about, in a situation like this? How she ended up with such a lot in life? If this was all she was meant for? If she was just counting down the days before her luck ran out, or her ability to handle it ran out? Did she wake up every morning thinking that? Was this the day she finally died?
Was this the day that worse came?
Was that really her lot in life?
The thought kept Joseph distracted right until he realized the tunnel was looming. He checked his clock. 1:48. Well, if she could drive into the mouth of danger, especially considering she was the one sitting in the hot seat, he certainly could too.
So he did. Somehow.
The faint darkness of the tunnel closed over him, looming despite its lack of actual presence. Joseph kept his eyes on the faint light ahead. If they just passed through and nothing happened…
Well, then it was on Ghost Of A Chance. If they had a plan, if they were experienced in these sort of things, if they could…
The light had stopped.
Joseph stared at the distant cube of light, the literal end of the tunnel. He looked down at his instruments, at the slight aspect of the bus' underside that he could see with his eyes and rearview mirror. The needle remained at 70, and the wheels on the bus were still going round and round.
Yet they were not moving.
Half of Joseph wanted to turn around and look at the bus. The other half screamed one last time. Just keep your eyes forward until things went back to normal. Just keep your head down. Just keep…alive…
The speedometer was doing down. Tipping past sixty…fifty-five…
It stopped just past fifty. 49.
Then Joseph Montemayor knew nothing more, as the darkness surged inside the bus, inside him, and ate him from the inside out.
When the bus turned the corner, Maddie pulled her hood over her head.
When they entered the tunnel, she activated her goggles' multiple vision modes, allowing her to see the various electromagnetic wavelengths that flowed through the world. They were useful for spotting ghosts and other creatures; such beings might be able to make themselves invisible, but untraceable was a completely different ball game.
After seven seconds, Maddie realized she was in that ball game. There were two factors in her conclusion. One was that her goggles were picking up nothing.
The second was that her clock had stopped three seconds before. Maddie called it up to the forefront of her goggles' interface. It remained locked in place. Maddie checked her watch. Frozen too, on the exact same second. Maddie doubted it was simultaneous tech failure, either. The bus still seemed to be moving…but everything else seemed to have stopped.
Maddie made an on the spot call, standing up and pulling back her hood. She had a feeling either she'd see nothing on her readings, or she'd literally see nothing, her eyes blinded with interference. She would have to rely on the eyes life had given her.
She glanced at Mr. Montemayor. He wasn't moving, his eyes locked ahead. Maddie's own gaze flicked around, the woman having left her seat as she slowly glanced around the bus.
There were definite signs of an alien presence that came with ghosts. Temperatures dropping. Hairs standing up, on neck and scalp. A heavy degree of vertigo. Maddie didn't feel any of that.
Instead, she felt pressure. Pressure that had started to built up behind her eyes. The bus, if you didn't count its timeless state, did not seem to change, but Maddie knew that meant nothing. The physical world wasn't altering; Maddie's sense of perception was. Her unconscious mind and primal instincts were sensing what her conscious mind wasn't, and worse, she wasn't reacting with normal emotions like anger, or fear. Instead, she just felt…pressure. Like her perceptions were struggling so mightily to process what she was sensing that her emotions couldn't handle it. That it was causing physical strain on her cerebral cortex.
Something was here.
Normally, Maddie would have at least TRIED talking, some form of negotiation. Had three people just disappeared, Maddie would have considered alien forms of morality and need on top of malice as motivations. But the accidents and nightmares caused by the previous year was proof enough to Maddie Fenton that she was dealing with something innately hostile.
She also knew that if she just stood around waiting for something overt to be presented to her, she likely would have lost any chance she had before she knew the battle started.
So she drew her blade first, the green disruptive laser igniting, the bus too small for her to use its double-bladed form. The energies her blade emitted disrupted spiritual entities alongside a lot of more traditional aspects of the world; lacking a target, she slashed at air she was certain was not empty.
Nothing happened. No shrieks of pain, no noise, no sense of impact, nothing at all. True, her blows could just be being avoided…
Under the assumption that she was dealing with something that had the sense, or need, or even the concept of needing to dodge blows.
That, or she was flailing around at nothing like 'a spaz' as her daughter might have said once. Before everything changed.
Maddie's instincts hadn't changed, though, and she knew she wasn't alone. So if the weapon wasn't working, change the weapon.
"So, what are you then? Some inhuman child-thing trying to play with the toys of the lower realms or something?" Maddie said, and pulled a dagger forged with cold iron from her belt and repeatedly slashed it around. No result. Not a fae, then.
"Perhaps a curse?"
The next dagger was edged with purest silver. It might as well have been a butter knife.
"The natural world?"
The next dagger was carved from a sabretooth's fang, the fact that Maddie could have accessed a 'fresh' one instead of a fossil just another testament to her lot in life. Once again, Maddie either hit nothing, or did nothing.
"…well then." Maddie said, as she withdrew a metal stick from a pouch on her thigh. Twisting the stick broke the myriad of tiny chemical bubbles the shaft had been coated with, and a flick of a lighter caused the rod to burst into flame. "Sometimes the first tricks are the best-!"
Joseph was right. It did sound like glass breaking. Except Maddie had far greater experience in registering such sounds, and she recognized what it was. Laughter.
The chemical mix on her rod was a lesser variant of what history had termed greek fire, knowledge of which had been another benefit of her life. It would have continued to burn in anything save a vacuum.
It went out like a match.
"Sooooooo…"
Maddie had dealt with creatures whose forms and languages caused her brain to do a backflip to try and grasp, too. She'd expected something similar here. But not this.
It really couldn't be said to be speaking to her. She registered the speech as actual speech every third word or so, sometimes just in terms of syllables. The rest was images flashing in her brain and sudden abrupt feelings, physical and emotional, a chaotic patchwork of experiences, as if the enormity of whatever had come to share space in the bus was her was overflowing her usual processing centers and causes data to 'slop over' onto other parts of her brain. It was the kind of thing that was impossible to convey in reports…if she survived to write one.
"I thought that the mote might attempt some further defiance…this is all it offers…?"
Maddie fought to keep her balance, her consciousness, and her senses. She was under the equivalent of high grade psychic attack, and the being, Misfortune as she'd called it, was just speaking to her.
"You have entered our world and done harm to our kind for no given reason. Either give one or leave and do not return." Maddie said.
Again, the glass-breaking sound. Maddie saw cracks run across the windows of the bus, cracks that faded away while Maddie was shoved back into Seat 13, pressed down as if by a giant hand.
"Do you really think you can convey a reason onto me…you called Madelinefenton?"
"…Everything has a reason." Maddie said. She tasted blood, one of her ears having become clogged up and both her eyes feeling like she'd just walked through a sandstorm. "Yours…is simple. You hurt."
"Hurt…"
The window shattered behind Maddie, blasting the woman with clumps of gummy safety glass.
"You really think you have any chance of analyzing me?"
"Something hungry eats! Something curious explores, makes mistakes! It might leave suffering in its wake, but it is not aware of it! If you weren't aware, and could think, you'd ask!" Maddie snapped.
"Why do you think you're worth thought?"
"Why do you think we're worth your attention?"
"…henh. I think you motes have degraded. In past times when Adzlire visited you, you built whole ways of worshiping your fear of his touch, his enjoyments. Now you try and confront him? Understand him? Your less knowledgeable ancestors would know this as folly."
The being, who Maddie had called Misfortune, did not exactly use male pronouns to describe himself, nor did he actually use a name that could be written down as Adzlire. It was, again, the best her brain could quantify the creature's speaking to her, like trying to assign sense after a bout of chaotic dreams.
"…so you've come before, then?" Maddie said, her throat beginning to become raw. Just being held down was having a negative effect on her physiology. Just how alien was this Adzlire?
"In the terms you can understand."
"You claim we built religions around you?"
"So many…"
"So you're claiming to be the source of all of them? You're the devil?" Maddie said. "Or maybe…every time you came in the last few years, on a Wednesday, named after Woden, or Odin, not only a king of gods, but a psychopomp, a being that takes souls to the afterlife. Is that what they think you did? Is that what you think you are? A god of gods?"
"It may very be why you have such a word and idea in the first place. You…object to what Adzlire did? Is that not worth it? Stories and words, in exchange for some of your number?"
"What worth could we have to something like you?"
"What worth do you have at all? What understanding can you claim? I see your life, your pain, your sins. You can't even understand those, let alone me. To try is pointless. You are chosen. You came. Knowledge of me or not, you are mine now. And your desire for knowledge will soon mean nothing…"
The pain came, piercing deep into her muscles and bones. Maddie screamed.
Danny's sword blazed.
He'd hidden deep in Joseph Montemayor's body, not so much overshadowing as hitching a deep-cover ride, trying not to be detected. When Adzlire's emergence had abruptly driven the man into unconsciousness, Danny had been both stunned and 'tangled up'; he could have just yanked himself out, but that would risk actual physical and mental damage to the man who had volunteered to keep him hidden.
Thank god for Flare. Had Danny emerged from the bus driver without him, the sudden flood of sensations might have knocked him out as well. Flare filtered them out, kept him on his feet, Danny drawing his blade and slashing at what he could vaguely perceive as holding his mother down.
Unlike Maddie, he was pretty sure he'd hit something. The downside of this was that he also knew he hadn't done anything. His mother remained pinned down.
"…ah yes…the progeny…here as well…even possessing a fleck of power…is this your way of stopping me?"
"Pretty much." Danny said, and slashed again. He vaguely sensed something retreating from him, but he had a feeling it wasn't due to any fear or pain. Maddie, free from its grasp, slid bonelessly onto the ground, her eyes glazed and empty.
"Mom!" Danny said, kneeling and checking for a pulse. "I know. I KNOW!"
"So…you stand with a manifesting spirit…one that clearly does not know her place."
Danny just glared down the length of the bus. Frost had bloomed on the windows, and in the icy whorls, the dark shadows beneath the seats, and behind Danny's own eyes, he could sometimes glimpse an outline of eyes there. Eyes and hands and claws and mouths and body parts he couldn't even begin to describe. He tried to respond by hardening his gaze, but there was little truth in it.
"You wish to stop me?"
"I will stop you."
"You think you have slain mighty beings? You have slain nothing. Echoes of possibilities. Rabble. Mice in a great maze I have long risen above."
"Of course. After all, you're the source of all gods and devils." Danny said, before he slashed out, green blades of burning ectoplasmic energy flying the length of the bus. They faded away before they reached the end, not so much snuffed out as subjected to entropy on a degree they could not endure in the face of. "Lemme guess, you're the source of all monsters and apocalypses as well. That's a popular line of crap."
"Henh…It sates itself on the life-blood of fated men, paints red the powers' homes with crimson gore. Black become the sun's beams in the summers that follow…is that what you think of me? The words of your storytellers? But of course. Your kind are so SIMPLE…"
"SO ARE YOU." Danny snarled, running across the bus, his blade blazing with Absolute energy, the nastiest kind it could muster. It ripped through the air as Danny slashed around, shattering a few windows.
"So the mote wants to kill his gods. Do you really think it possible?"
"I've done it before."
"You really think those gods? Low entities that wallowed in the muck with you? I deem to barely lower my head to look at you, and you and your fellow motes can barely endure that. Even you. Do you really think you can kill me? Do you really think death has any purchase on me?"
"If it doesn't, why are you even bothering to talk? Just kill me. Me and my mother." Danny said.
"Why eat it whole when it can be savoured?"
"Does a god need to eat?"
"A god does what a god wills, and wishes. Just as you motes do, to the even smaller specks below you."
"Wrong. We're limited, and it shows. If you're so damn UNlimited, than you should be able to do whatever you want without harming anything. You don't. So you're not." Danny said, summoning all of Joseph's fear and weary pain, and firing it across the bus in a dark fireball. The Black Remembrance attack broke apart and disappeared, snuffed out like the fire on Maddie's baton had been.
"Do these words comfort you? Because I grow tired of them."
The impact slammed into Danny in a way that felt like every cell in his body had been struck, Danny flying the length of the bus, the front window shattering into a spider web as he hit it.
"Your assessment means nothing. You mean nothing, beyond what I seek. Your world can try and quantify me as it wishes. Nothing in it can harm me. Much like your stories of gods, everything on it knows full well…"
Danny's eyes lit up in rage, and he fired a corkscrewing blast of green energy down the length of the bus.
All it did was illuminate…something. The vague sense of a hand and face that kept cycling through different forms, a body impossibly squeezed down to fit into several different aspects of reality, in both discerning and physical terms. What Joseph had been accorded the barest glimpse of, what was now staring Danny full in the face.
"Just…another…spirit…" Danny whispered.
"As you will."
Danny was yanked across the bus, stopping as something slammed into his chest, sickening warm pressures wrapping around his heart, lungs, and spine.
"How you see and call me matters not. You can't stop me. Nothing on this world can. I need no promises. I strike fear." Adzlire said. "You have something I wish, and so I will take it. What you suffer along the way is meaningless."
Danny's eyes blazed, and green beams flew through the barely perceptible, constantly shifting form. More windows shattered; Adzlire's laughter.
"Your power is nothing. As is your aspect. Eventually, all things come to their superior to be consumed. Such is your fate now, and of those who will come after you." Adzlire said. "Do you wish final words?"
"…what did you say…about everything in the world not wanting to hurt you? That sounds…familiar…" Danny said. "…your neck is showing."
Maddie promptly rammed the sprig of mistletoe into the vague shape that was holding Danny.
A small eternity passed.
Danny felt the air in the bus go from heavy to crushing.
Then he realized, to his horror, that that was how he was interpreting Adzlire's surprise that Maddie had done anything at all.
Then he was being tossed aside, the impact slamming darkness down over his eyes as he crumpled at the back of the bus.
"…that is what you bring?"
The mistletoe fell to the ground. Adzlire didn't even bother turning it to ash, or some other destructive gesture of futility. It just lay there, like the useless mass of plant material it was.
"You seize on some aspect of an old legend, words of fellow motes that try in vain to comprehend me…and you think it holds the key." Adzlire said. "That is what you bring."
Maddie glared with bravery she didn't really feel.
"…if you want, I can go-" The woman began.
"No."
Maddie felt the pressure wrap around her neck, the icy fingers pressing against her brain.
"I deemed to do more than claim my due for a moment, but you offer nothing to have made it worth my while. I suspect your kind always will. Such will it be no matter how closely I deem to look at you-" Adzlire said.
"YOU SEE NOTHING." Maddie hissed.
"I see all."
"Oh really? Because YOUR NECK IS STILL SHOWING."
Perhaps Adzlire did its equivalent of turning around. Perhaps not. The end result was the same.
Danny was back up. His blade was blazing with white light.
"You-"
When he rammed the Hopefire-charged Magnus into the vague form, there was no sudden increase in pressure this time. There was no pause, no dulled reaction. The strings holding Maddie were cut instantly, the woman falling to her knees.
"YES. I." Danny thundered.
No. Not Danny.
The something more that served him. The Magnus Flarium. Flare. The bubble of the entity wrapped around Maddie just before the tide swept her away.
"THIS IS WHAT I BRING."
Maddie could not hear the scream. But she knew it was happening.
Because the remaining windows in the bus shattered. The seats caught on fire. The metal framework began to soft and melt, the tires collapsing into black sludge. The lights in the tunnels shattered. Cars around the vehicle found their tires exploding, their engines abruptly overheating. And still further it went, across the city, as windows cracked, weakened nuts and bolts in a hundred thousand constructs gave out, and untold people suffered spells of dizziness, vertigo, and anxiety.
The cry of Adzlire. Maddie, right at ground zero, could feel it hammering against her mind even through Flare's shield, her inability to comprehend it not protecting her from its power. Something had never felt pain, never known a challenge, never known fear…learning.
It was a story as repeated as legends of gods. For all the creature's power, it had been unchallenged for so long, if it had ever been, that it did not grasp certain things. Like the idea of an opposing force holding back to take the measure of what it was facing. Perhaps Adzlire would hold back to draw things out, but never to appear weaker than it was. The same incomprehension extended to the idea of a double bluff, Maddie at first playing possum to let Danny make his seemingly futile attack, and then Danny doing the same when Maddie had pulled out her decoy weakness, the last move needed to catch the creature off guard and, in a sense, make it fully stick its head out into the 'real world' to show how unaffected it was by the mote's efforts to stop it. Exposing a weak spot that had been taken full advantage of.
That was the rule of existence, after all. If you walked the higher planes or the spaces between, you had to abide by the rules of the 'normal realms' if you wanted to interact with them. Usually this meant nothing. Usually.
Perhaps there was a realization of its error in its scream, but Maddie couldn't hear it. All she could do was endure it…and see and hear something else entirely.
The blood had started flowing from Danny's nose first. Then his ears. Then the corners of his mouth. If she was getting buffeted by Adzlire's agonies, he was getting bludgeoned…and he was refusing to draw back.
"DANNY!"
"I WILL NOT RELENT!" Danny yelled.
No. It wasn't Danny.
It was the Magnus. It was doing the talking now. In these matters, Danny was just a vessel to pour its will through. And it was ANGRY.
"DANNY, ENOUGH! WE HAVE TO STOP! STOP!"
"DESPOILER! DESCRATOR! MONSTER! FALSE GOD! ALL ANSWER! ESPECIALLY THE LIKES OF YOU!" Danny yelled, his voice fading under something else, something vaguely female and righteous, but also grand and vast and TERRIBLE. Worse than Adzlire, in its way. Adzlire was nothing approaching human. In the sound of the Magnus, there was something that worked with humans. Walked with humans. Cared for them.
Yet, when it came down to it…was nothing like them either. No matter how hard it tried.
Before that…Adzlire was nothing as well. And all it could do was scream.
"DANNY!"
"YOU SEEK TO CONSUME! TO DEVOUR! THEN FEAST ON RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE! FEAST ON IT AND CHOKE!"
Maddie felt the final echoes tear through her body. It shouldn't be this way. Something so vast, so grand, ended so suddenly and out of nowhere.
Then again…sometimes that was just one's lot in life.
To an outside observer, the bus would have been fine. Then, in the blink of an eye, it would have exploded.
No, not exploded. There was no fire in its end, no heat or outward propelled shrapnel. The bus seemed to just disintegrate, falling apart at its seams, going from intact to a million pieces. Joseph Montemayor went flying out from where he'd been seated, blissfully unconscious.
Maddie, having run and leapt the moment time returned to normal, caught him just before he hit the ground, her thumb mashing a button on her palm that briefly activated her own personal shield. It would have been useless against Adzlire, but it worked just fine in preventing Maddie and Joseph from being turned into hamburger, the two bouncing along the road and bleeding off momentum before the shield broke, forcing Maddie to take the last tumble and impact herself. The grinding pain shot through it, but even as it hurt her, Maddie felt invigorated. It was real pain. Wounds of the flesh, wounds that could heal.
There was so much worse out there that one could suffer from.
Maddie was saved by being run over by the fact that all the nearby cars had suffered their own damages out of nowhere. A few fender benders resulted, but nothing people couldn't walk away from. The sound of honking horns and hissing engines filled the tunnel, the stench of oil and burning tires filling Maddie's nostrils.
Irrelevant. Maddie laid Joseph down and checked his pulse before running back to where the bus had gone to pieces.
"Danny? DANNY!"
She found her son sitting among the wreckage, his coat and outfit a torn up mess. Flare's blade vessel sat on the road before him, smoking and charred. Danny had been staring dully at it until Maddie had called for him, both his white eyes having gone red.
"…I think we might have overdone it." Danny coughed, blood leaking from his mouth.
"Danny-!" Maddie said, kneeling by him.
"I'll be okay. I've…had worse." Danny said. "…we did it. The plan worked. We got the bastard. Right in the neck. He never saw it coming."
"Well done. I'm calling for extraction. You are spending a week in bed, young man." Maddie said, getting out her communicator.
"Look forward…to it." Danny said, slumping against his mother. "Mom?"
"Yes Danny?"
"What did I say? When I activated the Hopefire charge I'd had ready and stabbed…I kind of got bowled over in what happened. The next thing I knew, I was here."
"…nothing, Danny." Maddie said, holding him. "The plan worked perfectly. You were brave. Rest, okay?"
"Okay…" Danny said. Maddie stroked her son's hair, for a moment forgetting that they were sitting in the middle of a destroyed bus in a battered city tunnel surrounded by crashed cars, having just endured the touch of a higher deity beast and quite possibly killed it. For a moment, he was a child again, her precious son, untouched by the world. Not a grown man called on by the world to do so much.
Not just the world. Maddie's eyes slid down onto the Magnus blade. If it recognized her gaze, it gave no sign.
"…what did you make him do?" Maddie said.
Unlike Adzlire, Flare's answer was perfectly clear and understandable.
Nothing more than what he, or I, was willing.
In its own way…that scared Maddie most of all.
Charles Dickens once wrote "I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them-none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way."
Humans.
That…thing was not human. Nor was it a ghost, or even a demon. It was some sort of hungry…PRESENCE, something that seemed to exist as all and sole life in a thread of existence that, to who knows how many poor souls, occasionally intertwined with ours. And it reached out and took from ours.
Yet…it did not just act just out of hunger. It…enjoyed it. It hurt and it enjoyed it. It was so far beyond us…and it enjoyed it. It was even cute, leaving little clues that the numbers and seizing on Norse mythology. It was, in its way, playing with us, while it took people to heaven knows what terrible fate. It liked it.
Something so vast, so powerful, so incomprehensible…yet so small, so banal, so petty. How could this be a good thing?
It suggests that such a mindset is not a sole human failing. That it is a crack in all thinking minds, all sentience. The flaw is universal. A weakness shared by all, instead of just by us.
A weakness that has contrast. Like Flare.
Flare does not enjoy it.
Flare was mightier than Adzlire in the end. She, and Danny, have killed things you would not believe: Adzlire is merely the latest. They never brag about it. They never use it to lord over others. It is just what they do. What they're willing to do.
Maybe that is how they succeed.
…maybe that is how they may come to enjoy it.
…Or maybe not.
We are, in the end, only human.
End file.
CLICK!
So another year passes…the last year? Even I am not sure…