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Souls of The Night – Vol3.
78
Teenwolffanboy45: We may have to stop right now. The walls in New York are shaking with thunder. I don't want my rig to get toasted by lightning.
Creepygirlyallforu: Have you lost your marbles? We've got this quest wrapped up!
Mud_and_Bones: Seriously, the world is about to end here in Brooklyn. It's pouring out of buckets.
Lazy Wizardlizard: Can you pussies stop whining about the weather or do I have to kill the Orc King all by myself!
Mud_and_Bones: I wonder if you could with your level 43, and that's easy for you to say, you're in Houston.
Creepygirlallforu: It's raining in Chester too.
DILFs1368: England doesn't count, it's always raining there.
Creepygirlallforu: Not true at all!
Lazy Wizardlizard: Guys! More kills, less chatter - only 3045 points left and I'm level 44! Creep- you're coming from the left with your broadsword. Muddy- earth magic blast from the left and DILF does the binding spell so we-
With another heavy thunderclap, all the lights suddenly went out.
Anthony sat in the dark, staring for a few seconds at his laptop on his lap, which was also dead, the screen blank. His hand passed over the opening where the laptop could be plugged into the charging cable in the darkness of his living room. But no - no cable. No connection to the power - and yet his compy was down, along with his unsaved game. His gaming buddies would kill him virtually! Teenwolffanboy45 would understand, he or she was supposedly from New York too, even if they had always refused to meet up with him in 3D. But the others ... he (Mud_and_Bones, best element mage of the Nighthawk Guild) had the mission on his conscience. He had pulled a Leeroy Jenkins. Fuck.
But ... that wasn't really important right now. He was only playing so much at the moment anyway because he could afford to. After LeXa ltd had burned down, all the employees had been generously compensated. Their salaries would continue to be paid for at least six months, even if no one worked until the new place was built. Which of course didn't make the deaths or traumas go away, but it was absurdly generous. Once again his now dark living room was illuminated by a flash of lightning. He counted the seconds until it thundered again. Not directly above him. Not directly over Brooklyn. Ant's gaze followed the patter of the rain against the glass of his living room window. Thick raindrops beaded down on it. The portly black man stood up slowly, walked hesitantly to his window in the dark, largely blind, and looked out. The whole block was dark but the glimmer of Manhattan was still there behind the neighboring houses. Anthony put his hand on the cool glass. The hairs on his arms stood up. He knew that energy in the air. Not from this life. But kin was kin.
On other occasions - without this energy in the air - he would have grabbed his cell phone and photographed the cloud formations, which were repeatedly illuminated by lightning. It looked fantastic. But the energy was there. Something he couldn't ignore. He had sensed it when he had seen Nathaniel make the leap between the LeXa ltd buildings and had known exactly when that same Nathaniel - previously human - had emerged from the destroyed company as a gargoyle. A breathtaking, majestic sight as he had tamed and absorbed wild flames. Kin! Long lost kin. He had known that these events - this new old player on the field - would provoke backlash. That someone would come. That something would come - just this something - he hadn't thought that.
When Anthony Morris took his hand away from the glass, a wet handprint remained on the outside of the glass for a few seconds. Instead of being washed away by the continuing rain, this liquid defied all known laws of nature. In thin rivulets and scurrying drops, words formed on the window pane.
"Come out - before I have to come in," Anthony read. His voice loud in his still, dark living room.
He rolled his eyes. "Not creepy at all - awesome," he muttered.
Before turning away and walking to his front door. He opened it and looked outside into the wet darkness. His block of flats stretched out on three sides in a horseshoe shape, five storeys high, his apartment on the first floor. It was a bit of a nested layout but had a half-open courtyard with a bit of lawn and two trees. None of the windows showed any sign that there were people in the apartments. Those who weren't asleep at midnight were pawing at dead cell phones and laptops, which had also been affected by the strange energy. No one would look out of their window under these circumstances. No one would see Anthony, and even if they did, he would only be a gray smudge among the gray. Even when the power went out in his own neighborhood, it was never really dark because of the scattered light of the big city. The world was shrouded in a veil of rain and monochrome gloom as Anthony took off his slippers and socks, grabbed his umbrella and stepped out without closing the door behind him.
He walked out onto the lawn without opening the umbrella, his feet making splashing, sucking noises on washed-over asphalt and sodden grass. Within moments, his hair and T-shirt and jogging bottoms were soaking wet. But it didn't really make any difference. He would come out of it wet with or without an umbrella - and only in the best case scenario. As he stood between the trees, the branches heavy and depressed like melancholy mourners at a funeral, he opened the umbrella. And shrank back because not ten inches in front of him a figure peeled out of the water as soon as it was not swallowed up and covered by the raindrops from above. The humanoid body made of water, without human features, waited motionless until Anthony had regained his composure. The umbrella now over the figure - just to be able to make it out in the darkness - he spoke. Not rudely, but wearily.
"It's against Oberon's law for you to be here."
The faceless figure seemed to shake his head in the light of a bolt from the sky.
The "words" of his counterpart were transmitted solely through the vibrations of the water on Anthony's skin. It was like wearing bone conduction headphones.
"Oberon bends laws to his will. According to what he thinks is his will. No warm welcome? How rude."
"What do you want?"
"What do you think? I've been watching for the last few weeks. From every puddle, from every glass of water, from every single drop, from every reflective surface. The host and the traitors are one. They grow stronger every day. This should never have happened. You knew and you didn't tell anyone."
"His name is Nathaniel Sharif! He's not just a puppet. He's in control and he's decent - not an arsonist, not a usurper, not a killer. He is good! He - they in him - have saved many people that night. Put out fires instead of starting them. You can't-"
Anthony gasped as the moisture on his skin closed around him as if he were in a full-body vice. He lost his umbrella from cramping fingers, causing his opposite to disappear into the rain once more. And he knew he had gotten off very lightly when, after a few seconds, he was granted mercy and let go.
"I can. I will. I have Oberon's permission. Not that I need his permission, but it's better he thinks he has influence and control over some of us. It is legitimate for me to be here."
Anthony straightened up, breathing heavily, no longer caring about the umbrella lying on the ground on which the raindrops were playing a hollow concert. It wouldn't help to get angry or anxious. Even if this human body wasn't even forty years old, he was too old to rage like a child over the incomprehensible.
"Let me guess. Oberon sensed the energy, panicked and set you on it. Knowing you, you knew before he did and whispered in his ear his next moves."
"The boy thinks he has to do what he has to do. What does it matter where his thoughts come from. If Titania can manipulate him, so can I."
Anthony growled, which was probably drowned out by the rumble of thunder in the sky.
"What do you want with me? I am a human being! I am Anthony Morris. I have a life, I have friends."
He felt a wet weight on his shoulders from the clothes clinging to him. As if someone had their hands there.
The transmission of the words was directly to one of his ears as if someone was whispering something into it.
"But that's the point. You're his "friend.""
Anthony scrunched up his face and shook his head.
"Please don't make me get involved. Let your old grudges rest. You're stirring up things that don't need to be. Nathaniel just wants to live. And love. And be happy. Let's be happy."
The laughter, transmitted through moisture and bouncing from thousands of raindrops to others, was all-encompassing, wrapped around him like immaterial shackles.
"Life! Love! Happiness! What human categories you think in. You've gone soft."
Anthony chortled the shadow of a laugh.
"I was always soft. I never wanted war. I never wanted destruction. You, on the other hand, were always cold and hard. Strange ... considering our elements, it should be the other way around."
"Although you never wanted it, you chose the right side back then. That's all I want from you this time too. Come on ... let's save the world - again."
When Anthony didn't answer but gave the creature a grim scowl, the being lost its playful tone with its next words.
"I'll come back to you and tell you what to do - like I always did. Then I'll let you keep your weak, human shell that you enjoy so much. I win either way. Good always prevails. Remember that the human body consists of about 70 percent water at your age. So ... choose wise - brother."
And then it was gone. Anthony was alone. He lived in a city of seven million. And his apartment block had 35 units. And yet he felt completely alone and abandoned. And he couldn't confide in anyone because both human and supernatural forces would be drawn into this war should he confide in them. Anthony raised his hands and looked at the flesh, barely visible in the dark and the rain. He liked this shape. It was nothing special and even past its prime, but it was his. If he chose wrong, he would not only lose this one, but the privilege of seeking other bodies again. Why couldn't everyone just leave each other in peace? Was he an idiot for wishing that? Was he an idiot for wishing that his team 34 would eventually eat together again and fool around like they were all normal people (plus one magical and one born gargoyle)?
He knew he had a choice... but he didn't have to like it.
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AHHHH another big part of my fanfiction epic finished!
Ohhh, I've been itching to get started on the 2009 story for the past few weeks.
CRIMSON CLAWS!
Lots of psycho drama, sex, a little humor, more problematic issues than I can list right now but let's describe them with the big buzzword "CRINGE" and tooth-rotting fluff at times too. We learn how Nashville and Graziella became what they are in 2023 and we have Enya's origin story and get to know my version of the Labyrinth Clan. I'll go into more detail before chapter one.
Do you want to hop on again for this ride? You're invited and remember- kudos and well-meaning comments are the lifeblood of authors.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.