Keystones: Altered Destinies (16 page)

“
The sacrifice is ready. Seize him now!
”

The Void had spoken. Stalker reverted back to his shadow form, reached forward, and enveloped the retreating man, pulling him into the darkness with him.

Stalker knew that in the darkness his prey couldn’t see, smell, hear, or breathe. The only sensation there was extreme cold. It was like hanging in space without a point of reference.

The Void had taught Stalker how to feed on his prey’s despair and fear. It emanated from them like steam from a pot of boiling water. They always tried to struggle, but there was nothing against which to struggle. The world was gone; there was only the Void.

Assured of the outcome, Stalker turned his attention outward again. His prey’s companions looked down in horror at the flat patch that Stalker had become. Then the younger woman’s hand snapped up, and she pointed a finger at Stalker. A focused beam of light shot forth and tore into his shadow. The light was brighter than the sun.

Wisps of darkness rose into the air, burned off by the vicious light. It felt like venomous snakes biting Stalker from inside. Since becoming a shadow, he hadn’t known pain, hunger, or fatigue, only service to his master. Now arcs of flame rent his very being apart. His hold on the Void wavered. Stalker howled his pain before giving in to his agony, releasing the sacrifice and fleeing.

Released

Deklan struggled in a bitterly cold darkness. Ice pervaded his veins; freezing currents attacked him. Each beat of his heart sent a blistering pulse of cold shooting along his limbs. Uncontrollable shivers racked his body, and he felt his teeth hammering against each other.

Out of nowhere came a bright light bisecting the darkness, cutting through the nothingness. Then came another beam. As the light waned, the darkness that returned was not as strong, not as black, not as impenetrable, as before. He now shivered a little less. Then everything tore.

Deklan felt asphalt under his fingers. It was dirty and rough and wonderful. The shadow surrounding him had vanished, either melting away under the onslaught or fleeing to a safer locale. Deklan’s heart hammered in his chest as though he’d run for kilometers, but he found the strength to smile at Susan and say, between gasps, “Thank you.” Spent from the act of speaking, he collapsed. Steam rose from him where hot was meeting cold.

Tricia and Brice stared mutely at each other. Neither of them moved, a clear sign of just how spooked they were.

Deklan ignored them for as long has he could, just luxuriating in the warmth around him. “We need to get to the Elevator,” he murmured, “but give me just a moment. That was exhausting.” Deklan remained on the ground, panting and waiting for the chill in his limbs to fade away.

Susan knelt next to him, checked his pulse, and fussed over him. Deklan enjoyed such attention after an injury or close call, but the cold that still gripped him overrode all other concerns.

“This is so typical,” carped his mother. “Even your father has his stupid chocolate bars, but does anything good happen to me? No. It’s as though the whole world hates Tricia Tobin.”

Lying there with one arm flung over his eyes, Deklan said: “Mom, I’m sure we’ll find out that something amazing has happened to you too. Give it time. I’m pretty certain that today was the first time Susan used her light beams quite like that. Right, Susan?”

“Um, ah, oh, yes. Before today they were more like penlights. Pretty useless.”

Deklan knew that his mother would continue to complain until he demonstrated that he was functional again. Regaining his feet, he turned to Susan and asked, “What do you think? Another block before we get attacked again?” He meant it as a joke but didn’t manage to inject enough levity into his tired voice.

Susan wiped away some grime from her cheek. “I’m a little amazed that we made it as far as we did before an incident.”

“That’s not comforting,” replied Deklan.

“Stop complaining. You’re the immortal man, and I’m now a powerful flashlight.”

Brice Tobin’s wary surveillance of their surroundings ceased. “The immortal man?” he queried.

Deklan shook his head. He’d known this conversation was coming, but he hadn’t wanted to have it before they got to the Terra Rings. “It’s nothing, Dad.”

Brice stepped closer to Deklan. His straight back, crossed arms, and accusatory stare demanded an answer.

“When Susan and I met,” explained Brice’s son, “it was outside her office. I had been attacked and injured by a stray dog with venomous fangs. I was forced to kill it. Susan took one look at the bite and told me to get to a hospital before I died. By the time I did, my injuries from the dog had vanished.” During his rapid recitation Deklan could feel Susan’s eyes boring into him as he failed to mention other, perhaps more pertinent, examples of his resilience.

Brice rubbed his chin. “So not immortal then?”

“I haven’t thought of a good test.”

Brice nodded his head in a way that acknowledged Deklan’s point. “Still, cooler than my Twix bars.”

“You know what? Just now I could go for a Twix. Please tell me you have a few left.”

Brice smiled. “I do!” He grabbed one from his backpack and opened the wrapper. Inside there were three. He divided them between himself, Deklan, and Susan.

“What about me?” said an annoyed Tricia, though Deklan doubted that she would have said yes if a Twix had been offered.

“Stop complaining. You don’t even approve of my chocolate,” said Brice to his wife.

“And you wouldn’t know you had that ability if you hadn’t cheated on your diet,” she replied, looking at Brice’s stomach.

Deklan looked up from his snack to see a monkey hanging from a truck window and greedily looking at their food. It had several large tentacles that Deklan guessed to be three meters long growing from its back. Their large suckers were lined with white protuberances that could have been teeth. Further away was a dog. It had no obvious Keystone traits, but recent events had taught Deklan to be wary of all animals, not just the obvious Keystones.

There were watchful eyes all along the street. Shadows moved under cars, and rustling noises heralded more danger. Something that might once have been a cat coiled itself atop a car. Long, orange and limbless, the animal looked like a hybrid between a tabby cat and a python. In some places fur was rubbing off, and blisters or calluses were forming. It hissed a warning at them, revealing the teeth and tongue of a normal cat.

Brice stepped closer to Tricia in a rare gesture of protection. In a tone that was staggering in its insincerity he said, “Son, I’m glad that you convinced us to leave the hotel this morning.”

Deklan didn’t have time to get ruffled by the comment. “That’s unusually unhelpful of you, Dad. Does anyone have any practical advice?” He turned, searching for new threats. Each new direction revealed more lurking animals.

Susan spoke up, her voice suggesting expertise. “If you make eye contact, don’t be the first to break it. Move slowly and with confident body language. Above all, don’t run.”

“Okay, that’s a start,” said Deklan. “Do you think that you could flash light at them?”

“You mean, as I did with the shadow man?”

Deklan nodded, not taking his eyes off their new neighbors. “Something like that, yes. I would imagine they’d find that unexpected and frightening.”

Without saying a word Susan aimed a hand toward the cat python. A pencil-thin beam of light shot from her index finger and into the creature’s face. It reared back, looking like a cobra getting ready to strike, but otherwise did nothing.

“Is that all it took last time?” Deklan asked with worry in his voice.

“No.” Susan shook her finger, as though doing so would make the light brighter. “I just can’t seem to do any better.”

“Make it; chase it.”

“What?”

“You’re a vet. Don’t cats like to chase lights?”

“Some, yes.”

Deklan pointed with what remained of his Twix bar. “Fantastic. Make it chase the light to octopus monkey over there.”

“Why the octopus monkey?” She sounded confused by his reasoning.

“Why the hell not?” he asked, exasperated. “That thing looks threatening to me, and the more that I look at it, the more that I think those tentacles are lined with teeth or claws.”

“No.” Susan shook her head like a university professor explaining an academic point. “They wouldn’t be teeth or claws.”

“Stop arguing anatomy with me and get one or the other of those critters, preferably both, killed!”

Albatross

Sebastian had flown throughout the night. It had been beautiful, the lights stretching out beneath him for miles in every direction, sometimes in clusters, sometime as distant dots, but always there as signposts in the dark. He’d pushed himself hard before he hit a wall of exhaustion and came out the other side, if not refreshed at least stronger.

He’d been in the sky to greet the rising sun every day since The Sweep, but this time had been special. Vigor had swept through him with the sunrise, and he’d felt his fatigue wash away.

Then had come another gift. He could see the ground, not just as a man from a great height sees the ground, but details that should have been hidden. He reached up to his face to remove the Uplink sunglasses, certain that it was their doing, but the sight remained. The veins on individual leaves far below jumped out at him, demanding to be seen.

While Sebastian was transfixed by this vision, his wings locked in an awkward mid-flap position, and he plummeted from the sky. Terror kept him from reacting promptly. He couldn’t breathe, and his wings pulled against him, useless weights carrying him to the ground.

Then came a single thought: stop. He let out a breath and took in a new one, fresh air filling his lungs. When his muscles relaxed, his wings snapped open again. His fall turned into a beautifully controlled glide.

Far in the distance he could see against the horizon the mountain-fringed city of Boa Vista and its irregular skyline. Every hour he saw an Elevator coming down and another going up. At this distance the cables were invisible, but the Elevators themselves were big enough to be seen.

As the city drew closer, it was clear that all was not well in Boa Vista. Columns of smoke drifted across the skyline, some wispy and others thick. As the breeze picked up, he surged toward the city faster and with less effort. He let the winds carry him in a zigzag pattern ever closer to the metropolis.

Less than an hour later Boa Vista stretched out below him, a patchwork of old communities, new construction, and green spaces surrounded by urban blight. High as he was, Sebastian still could taste acrid smoke in the back of his throat.

Having reached his destination, he was initially unsure of what to do next. He had been so focused on his flight there that he’d given almost no thought to his plans upon arrival.

He decided to call Deklan. This was the first time he’d made a call via his new Uplink sunglasses, but he’d gained a great deal of practice in using its retinal control system during the night.

Heartbeats before he was going to execute the command, a beam of light shot into the sky from between some buildings in the city. The beam was broad, at least a meter across, and its harsh white color tore through overhanging clouds. The flash vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind only a fading bright mark in his vision.

Sebastian scanned the terrain looking for other signs of potential danger and was consumed by minute details—cracks in the sidewalk, scratches in paint, scuffs on shoes, stains on clothing, insects on flowers, twigs in the grass. Had he not been gliding effortlessly, he would have frozen again and fallen.

Overwhelmed at first, he gradually recovered his aerial orientation. It wasn’t that he became less aware of everything at a distance but just less focused on it. Like a painless throb in the back of his mind, the information was there, but it wasn’t drowning him. Shock struck him again when realized how far the sun had moved in the sky during his revelation.

Sacrifice

Stalker ran in shadow form. Now a fleeting patch of darkness, he darted from building to sidewalk to road and up the walls of new buildings.

He fled from the light, always sticking to the alleys and always staying safely away from the sun. It burned him like never before. The Void had withdrawn the protection it had granted to remind him that its will overruled everything else. He wanted to slink into the darkness while he healed, but the Void compelled him to keep hunting. Stalker had to find his redemption or pay the price for failure.

His four former prey couldn’t have gone far. There! They stood in a circle facing the animals that surrounded them. It was a perfect scenario. He could attack while they were distracted. He drew closer, passing under cars on the street with silent grace.

Stalker heard the older woman complain, “Oh yes, this is much nicer than Afton.”

His previous captive answered, “Mom, please let it go.”

“No, damn it. This was supposed to be a nice vacation, and here I am running for my life. I’ve lost my suitcase; my clothes are ruined; I’m disgustingly sweaty; and I don’t know when I’m going to see a shower or a hot meal.”

Stalker watched the group from only meters away, cautious now that he’d located them again. He didn’t know what the younger woman had done to him with her laser beam, but he’d been scattered. Even worse, the Void was angry with him because his original mission had failed. Reparations had to be made. He knew what the punishment would be if he failed again.

Stalker swept along the wall, a dancing shadow among many, knowing that the Void had demanded a new sacrifice: “
Bring me the girl to redeem yourself
.” These words burned in his mind. Seeing the group arguing, he knew that his timing was perfect and chose that moment to strike.

He slid out from under a nearby car and pounced on the woman who had cut him apart with her laser. His inky tendrils spread over her, fountains of midnight enveloping her flesh and pulling her deeper into the Void. Stalker fed the woman to his matrix of darkness. She struggled but not with any strength.

Back in the harsh sunlight he could see the man who had been his previous victim scrabbling at Stalker’s shadow. His attempts were ineffectual, the man’s fingers merely passing through Stalker to the sidewalk below. As the man’s panic increased, his hands moved faster and faster, as though through speed he’d seize the shadow and bring back his friend.