“Pardon me, do you know the time?”
I knew the answer, I knew the answer. I just needed time for it to bubble to the surface. But, I never get the time to do things right as I heard the blades slide from their sheathes and the gun’s safeties click. The spirit damned bake brains always shot first and asked questions later, if at all. So I blurted, “I know what time it is…..
When the skull turned towards me, I froze, like a decker caught in the embrace of black ice. It’s not much different than a decker in general, I guess but…..that didn’t matter. Something tickled at my mind. I knew this, but instead I could hear my team, my…..friends, begin to fight something, but I didn’t dare turn around from the demon’s stare. The wetware just wouldn’t engage so I fucked myself when I said “Which time do you want, here and now or where we came from?”
From behind, I heard Donager’s grunts of pain, and Sateen’s frustrated movements and I glanced back, still viewing this tunnel with split vision, before yelling, “There!” and pointing in response to the boss’s question.
As I looked back at the skull carried by the ghostly cowboy, it spoke again, “You are out of time.”
I felt the power wash over me and for just a moment I was relieved that my defenses had stopped it, stopped something that my aces had no chance against. Then the black leathers of my lined dress jackets began to smolder, then burst into flame. Pain screamed across the nerves of my chest and shoulders and I had no time to make my choice.
Reaching deep into the mana wells, I felt my totem stir, I reached further, deeper, longer, past the point of joy, past ecstasy, far beyond the beginning of pain, holding at the edge of orgasmic shuddering, and then I pulled even more power through my burning body and thrust all of that energy at the ghostly gunslinger. The smell of burning flesh, my flesh, must have been distorting sound, because I know I heard the gallop of hooves and the neighing charge of a warhorse before the power slammed into the black clothed cowboy, slamming him back against the wall a good twenty feet away, and as he crumpled, the skull skittered across the ground, and I staggered, catching myself against the fence of the walkway, groaning in additional pain as I felt something in my chest pop under the strain of the spell.
Vaguely I could hear Sateen screaming some sort of instructions, but the wave of fire spread down my legs, down my arms, and all I could see was that skull staring up at me, and the gunslinger coming to his feet and walking to pick it up. Someone slammed into me, reaching through the flames consuming my armored leather suit and the already charred remnants of the new red silk shirt.
I was going to die. Just as surely as if that fucking storm god had blown me to over the edge of the EVO tower to die of cement poisoning two hundred stories down. That vivid nightmare crashed through my brain at the same time I could feel another wave of burning power slam into me and I did my best to shield whoever had grabbed me, by height and curves it had to be Sateen. She moved towards the door to the casino, the path no longer blocked since I had hammered the spirit cowboy. He was going to kill us, and that didn’t even include whatever the team had been fighting behind me. The heat was melting my skin, I could tell. I couldn’t really see or hear the mundane anymore. In just a few seconds they were going to die unless I did something, anything. Even though I couldn’t see, I could still SEE. Taking a deep breath of burning air, I gagged and coughed slightly, but then I reached deep into the well again, and I could feel the still waters reach back. With a quick thank you to Horse, I launched what I knew would be my last spell. Vaguely I wondered what the afterlife was for a Stallion who died defending his herd.
Screaming in rage at the threat to my family, I threw all my power at the creature. The thunder of hooves echoed through my mind and I saw the magics slam into the immensely powerful being. My mutilated lips cracked and bled through the flames consuming me as I smiled, and then everything went dark.
Darkness is not surcease, it’s not peaceful and quiet. It burns, scorched nerve endings on fire, I screamed until the screams were silent along a ruined throat, and it didn’t matter. I burned, and then burned some more. This was how it began and now it was how it would end. Fire had protected me when Horse first came to me. Now, fire had destroyed me. I don’t know how long I screamed into the blackness, but I know when I stopped.
Shocked, I couldn’t believe they had betrayed me. After what I gave to save them, they gave me to that cello playing six-armed torturer.
I raged against that music. For an eternity I raged, and it didn’t matter anymore than it had the first time, and eventually I whimpered. I opened my eyes, holding still. Something was definitely wrong, something felt off. The music continued to play, invading my mind, and I could feel the power flowing over me, but there was another sound, someone else breathing.
I started to sit up, and I saw Donager, but something was wrong with his face, like melted wax, rippling down his cheek. I suppose that shocked me long enough that the tautness pulling at my skin didn’t register immediately, but then, then I saw, then I saw, and I choked back a broken sob.
The cello stopped playing as a I slowly stood, skin melted and pocked with the most horrible scars, no part of my body remained unscathed it seemed, other than perhaps small areas under the ragged remains of my leather pants, shredded to the upper thigh. I reached to run my hands through my hair and froze.
The freaky cello player just stared at me from the shadows of the cloaked face. “You can’t be done,” I whispered. “You can’t leave me like this!” I shouted.
The creature who had tortured me motioned with long hands. “I don’t know what you mean. Fix me, please, please, please,” I mumbled. The hand motions again, and I heard Donager say “A seamstress, a doctor.”
I flinched, “Please, I don’t understand.” The musical mage stood, and walked into the darkness, I stepped forward to follow, but then the being disappeared into the shadows of the “room” and I remembered the last time I saw into that and stopped, defeated.
I heard Donager say, “Come on, Stallion. Just don’t look at a mirror,” and inside something broke.
I followed him out of the door into the hallway beyond. To the left I could hear the bar, and in a daze I walked behind him. I sat down at the bar, looking into the mirror. I could see all the eyes look at me, and then glance away. Even Fanny when she talked with Rennie. Rennie looked at me while she talked on her comm. I mean, it wasn’t obvious but her one slight tell was the way she slightly cocked her lips when she spoke internally to…whomever. No one had glanced away before, no one, even those that weren’t attracted to me, they always lingered. Now they looked away in disinterest, in disgust, in horror.
Rennie started to say something, and I stood up and walked to the bathroom. I stood over the sink, looking, staring, opening my mind too. What I saw there was more terrifying still, the dripping wounds from the spells I had torn through my aura, that, that was normal. That I’ddone before, and eventually it healed.
The most horrifying thing I saw was……nothing. My aura was already beginning to reflect as….normal. Not wounded, not healing, not on fire. Just……permanent. I could see the tears begin to flow down my face, dripping and disappearing into the astral flow. On my ruined face, nothing…..nothing flowed, even that was damaged. It was shocking that I could see at all. I looked at the mirror and a monster stared back. Scorched red and purplish scar tissue mixed with pockmarks of skin covered three quarters of the creature looking back from the mirror, the bright blue eyes stared out of the horrific face. Three small, dismal patches of shaggy hair poked out and hung listly from the side and back of the ruined scalp.
It wasn’t long before Maveryq came in, I suppose on her orders. Bitterness flowed through me as he gave me inane assurances that the damage could be fixed. He, maybe they, just didn’t understand. No matter how often I explained, they just didn’t get it. Maybe they didn’t care, maybe I couldn’t explain it. Maybe null mundanes could never really know. It was more than the difficulty I had from pushing my magic around all their “enhancements.” I learned early from Talon never to put anything like that in my body, that the cost would be my magic. You couldn’t just cut the tissue out and put dead stuff back in! On top of that, I don’t think they even knew what they let those doctors do to their bodies, I could see it when I looked at them, when I really looked. That stuff would kill me, not just my magic. I couldn’t even wear that shit on my fucking skin, let alone have it in me. Any chance at fucking hiding my identity was gone too, forever. Who’s going to forget the fucking horrible scarred, lean elf? Let alone some guitarist on stage…..and the sex…..maybe the girls here at Cherry’s, but…..Patricia……..Patricia……
Maveryq looked at me expectantly….
“What?” I snapped. Patiently he just gazed at me. Fuck him and his happy little family. “Just go Tora,” I said wearily, “I’ll be out when I’m fucking ready.” He started to say something, but then he stepped through the door and I could hear the muted sounds of the piano tinkling in the bar rise momentarily.
I took a deep breath and pulled the air around me, forcing the magic through the ring on my right hand, tying it into it. Only the foci remained pristine, glowing in the astral and looking odd against my ruined skin, the fetishes destroyed with the clothing. As the magic settled against me, I could see my skin morph in the reflection, the long hair with red and purple streaks re-appearing, the black leathers shimmering into place, the soft royal blue silk shirt open over the glistening, pale skin, but then I dropped the clothes. Fuck them all, besides, it was easier to hold without the clothing.
I stepped out into the bar, and up the stairs to find something to cover my fake skin. I don’t even know the name of the girl I ran into, and she was amazing, just like all those who entertained here. And I was amazing too, I know my own skills. In another life, in another setting, I could have worked here. Yet, even though I know my magic stood up to the touch test, I could feel the difference, I could feel the roughness as her silky hands, her smooth skin slid across the torn and scarred skin of my horrid body.
When I finally returned to the bar, I too soon drank deeply and often of Arlo’s special brew. I never thought I’d have to use the skills I learned at Alternate Inhumanity….not with the only family I’d come to know. I should’ve known better, and they wanted to celebrate. What, I have no idea. Failure? The ruin of my life? Especially Rennie…..I guess I thought maybe she at least would understand since she was so old and had lost so much.
I was never so happy to be rid of a party after a couple hours, and even the magical beverage did not calm me, did not provide the release I had hoped for. Nor Violet and Flora’s magic combined with mine, nothing was the same. Not quite. Probably never, ever again. Because no matter what I did, I couldn’t let go, not completely. Not ever. Because I wouldn’t be able to bear the horror in my eyes reflected in someone else’s if I did. And another chain snaked its way around my hooves.
As Violet and Flora lay sleeping, entwined across my burned body, I knew their Tantric senses had felt that I wasn’t letting go completely. With that much magic flowing its not possible not to know, but they didn’t pry, for which I could never thank them enough. As their breathing echoed in my crisped ears, I made another decision.
I knew what I had to do, and the shackles snapping shut in my mind sounded so loud that I could have sworn they’d wake the spirits of the dead as I made my decision.
Last Dreams 