Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (42 page)

This is expected.  I am now swarmed on all sides and getting attacked from multiple targets that are swooping in from the heavens.  Something triggers within me, and warmth surges from somewhere inside me.  The burning sensation took its toll on my limbs.  This subsides and the flesh begins to knit itself back together.  The blood flow ceases and my skin hardens like its liquid metal but flows and flexes with each movement. At this point in the dream, I realize that I am not even wearing armor.  I have dual baldrics crossed on my back and a tunic that is silver.  A cloak blows in the wind and moves with me.

The fight continues for several moments.  The bodies of daemons litter the market place by now.  It is well over a hundred that have been hacked into pieces.  The garish nature of the fight has me even surprised at the violence level of which I am engaging.  It is ruthless, I am slaughtering these monsters in such numbers that it makes me wonder how they can replenish their ranks so quickly, and keep coming at me with such ferocity and self-abandon.  Something drives these creatures with hatred beyond what I am even capable of seeing.  Even with my momentary lapse of drive to keep slaying them, which only lasts for a second or two because the dream gets good after I finish off the small ones, there is a panoramic view of the battle field.  I cannot even count the carnage at this point.  The fight is graphic, but nothing can prepare me for what I see as I turn and look.

Just like some sort of movie you see where the hero never runs out of bullets and the body count is insane, the pieces of daemon laying everywhere, broken bodies of townsfolk mixed in is sobering.  Yet as I play back the dream I can actually still remember and see each of the daemons, what was cut off if anything or how they simply fell onto my blade in such a fashion it was not just skill but a manor of they almost wanted to die.  The bigger one looks right at me as he jumps off whatever he was sitting on to watch the fray and laughs as he throws himself at me and I wake up. This is all very weird.  Why does it stop there?  I have seen a few seconds more where I start to swing but never what comes next.  It is like having your video player eat the tape right at the final scene of a movie, so you never get to see it. 

This almost traumatizes me more than the dream itself.  All the gore and daemon blood, townsfolk slaughtered by the dozens, and I do not get to kill the bad guy whose name some of the people know.  It is rather disturbing to me that I am more upset about that than the people that died.  Just like fishing and the one that got away.  I always feel unfulfilled when that dream occurs and I awaken, denying me the conclusion.  It is always more graphic when I am asleep, or in the stupor I now call sleep.

I have told Eryn about this and that I seem to be having more and more dreams that all have the same theme.  Violence and death on a scale that makes stories I hear about world wars pale in comparison.  They have started to tie into each other also.  Like chapters in a book.  She seems to think I should find a hypnotist and see if they can dig around in my brain somehow to see if there is any sort of relation or if my mind is just tapping into a highly creative portion of my brain.  I am not so sure about doing that because I am afraid of what they may find. 

Shock factor aside I like the dreams because I feel like I am doing something rather than sitting around and being a freak.  Something tells me Eryn would freak out if she knew this. 

Why does blood affect me so?

The sight of it makes me go into a trance-like state almost every time with no memory of it.  The last time it happened was at the sink when Eryn was making dinner.  She said I was non responsive for about twenty minutes and it was almost like a panic attack.  She was able to get me to sit.  At least I did not collapse.  That would be embarrassing to be this big strong man that collapses at the sight of blood.  None of it made sense because when I see it in my dreams it excites me and draws me into combat.  Yet in real life it shuts me down and perplexes me.

The sun started to peak through the remaining clouds like light showing through holes in a vapor canvas and painted the countryside golden yellow.  The back yard was slightly still dark and dismal, lending to a melancholy mood that I was now feeling.  A few squirrels foraged in the grass, hopping from raised spot to raised spot and trying to avoid an accidental bath.  Birds were still in their hunt patterns and trying to capitalize on the earthen crawlers’ plight.  It always interested to me how rain always seemed to change the mood of the day.  Yet it reset things and allowed for new beginnings.  Just like taking a bath refreshes and revitalizes the human body, rain always seems to preserve life and keep the wheels of nature turning.

I rose from my spot on the carpet and noticed that I must have been sweating profusely by the dampness of the carpet.  When I went to remove my shirt and put on a fresh change the clothes, I realized the clothing was not damp at all.  Yet the carpet was close to being soaked.  I went to the closet to grab some towels to place down.  Yet again it did not make any sense how the carpet could be soaked while the clothes were totally dry. 

Normally I would try to come up with something humorous to tell Eryn about this, but I found my thoughts were not in a funny mood.  My humor fell short.  I felt serious, almost like reality was crashing in on me in such a way that I did not find things funny anymore.

“Great!”  I thought I am becoming as jaded as Jason and his crazy quest.  I had nothing come to mind of how to tell Eryn of the freak water incident with a humorous twist.  Perhaps it was best not to tell her at all.  The last thing she needed to do was stress about leaks in the roof or freakish sweating. 
Next thing I know she will be asking me twenty questions about how it happened.  

There arose in me a longing for her to return from work.  I knew I loved her.  What if she did not feel the same?  It was not a hard decision to stay silent. 

After all, silence was golden.

XXXII

Clues

Several days passed since my trance-like visions on the carpet.  I felt like my mind was not just lost...but evaded me locating it.  The hallucinations did not feel like visions or dreams.  They felt like memories. 

This was not possible!

Each day my journey into my mind took me to the surreal.  The effects of the environment in each scene immersed to the point that my tactile senses came alive, whether it be a brisk, cold wind or the gentle dance of the breeze in the sun.  The daemons had a foul smell to them.  Many smells assaulted me.  The rancidness of their breath found its way into my mouth.  It tasted sulfuric.  Saliva burned slightly when they bit me, and when their venom hit my bloodstream, I felt my body on fire.

These moments turned into hours.  They came a few at a time or continuously, increasing my desire to experience these fights – to feel the life being choked out of the monsters of legend felt right to me.  Holy vengeance channeled through me, wanting me to slaughter my foes and to relish doing so.  This emotion became so strong it was hard to contain.  The smell of their blood on the battlefield afterward was intoxicating, driving me to the next set of images that played out in my head. 

It was like watching television, only better, and I found myself sitting there daily, stupefied.  They came on suddenly, grabbing me like a paralysis, yet I did not want them to stop once they started.  This existence consumed me, and I did not even know why yet.

An image had just shown large walls that were so tall they stretched into the clouds.  I could not see what was behind it, only that the wall itself was covered in daemons the size of a large dog.  They had wings and flitted about speedily.  I had been slaying them with swords as fast I could swing.  They fell by the dozens before me.  Bodies decorated the walls like a façade.  Blood covered me like a glaze and I felt permeated by it.  My blades added to the disarray from the daemonic body count in my wake.

The vision shifted.  My view flew backward and faded out completely, bringing me back to this reality.  In previous days, the intensity was nothing compared to now.  It felt hollow and false now as if I was looking through a lens at what my real existence should be.  Yet I was still getting used to this new body.  Its size, weight, strength, dexterity, and endurance had all increased beyond most of the athletes I had ever heard of.  In fact, I was sure that defeating the warriors of modern sports would be easy.

I caught myself at the thought.  Being cocky was never a luxury.  The few things in my life that defined me never made me feel better than anyone else.  A mental note to purge that way of thinking came to mind.  This had to be a gift from God, life, or karma, best used to better the world somehow.  Learning who I would transform into, was vastly becoming my soul purpose and these memories played a part.  Even though my body was not visible in them...my shadow was.  These events were things that never happened.  Perhaps it was a vision of the future.  One question remained beyond the obvious.

Why?

What could I have done to cause my life to derail so bad that my reward was a coma?  Each wound left more than an echo that the incident had happened.  Pints of my blood decorated the walls on dozens of occasions Eryn told me.  They documented each event, but the records were now sealed.  Something told me the church had footage somewhere, or perhaps photos to study.  I knew the police did have some, but they were only of the blood on the walls and the stained or soaked bedding.  The amount of blood that I lost was also not possible, further confusing the medical community as to how my existence continued.  The body of a small man does not hold the volume I lost.

My curiosity was beyond obsessed. 

I had never
seen
a daemon in my life, but did not doubt they existed on some level...so fighting hundreds upon hundreds was not logical.  However, it was impossible to overlook the final facts.  I was a giant with fighting skills that matched a seasoned warrior with muscles that normally took years to build.

Perhaps the hospital had allowed the government to experiment on me.  Maybe they had some sort of crazy minion tucked away and they were taking me there to experiment?  I ruled this out quickly because my growth happened after I awoke, and I imagined that they would have wanted to see their work in progress.

Wait.

Maybe that was what was happening now.  Maybe they took me at night while I slept.

Again I ruled it out because Eryn was here when she was not at work, and we talked into the night several times a week and, in fact, did not sleep that often as a whole.  She had become my lover, my confidant and my best friend since Jason was busy chasing down his own demon.  I craved time with her.  Being in her arms, even though they could not wrap themselves around me, seemed to be the only sanity. 
My vision-like dreams are amazing,
but at the end of the day I just wanted to be with her.  Nothing seemed to hold my attention as she did.  Here I am, a monster, and one kiss from her tames the beast inside.

My thoughts turned to Jason for a moment.  He came by once to talk, but all he did was speak of Bigfoot.  There was suspicion he was getting closer and he started to think there was more their existence.  We both saw the same specials, but he had the field experience.  He was a ranger of sorts in his thinking.  He shared stories of sitting and watching for days at a time and finding what could have been foot prints.  Heavy rain had destroyed the real evidence, as they were not intact enough to tell by the photos he showed me.

He saw me after I came to live with Eryn.  The look in his eyes and his demeanor told me that he was starting to lose it.  He smelled of fear as his eyes tracked me from the ground all the way up to my forehead before stopping at my eyes.  The fight or flight feeling building inside him was obvious to me even as I shook his hand.  It took him hours to finally talk to me like before; as if I was Dietz again.  Little did he know Dietz was dead now, only Tathlyn remained, and he was starting to fracture himself on the reality of what was real and what was fantasy? 

As my thoughts drifted from that day, I found my memory had not only increased but also literally recorded everything like it was a movie.  My mind could play it from any angle.  Thoughts drifted to when I saved the woman.  I could feel her in my arms and I jumped over a car.  The image was as clear to me as when it happened.  It was not a blur by any means. 

Again, how was this possible?

Before Eryn had left for work, she left me a message that she had contacted a local Wiccan Coven.  She did not necessarily believe in the old ways, let alone in any sort of magic, but after nearly being caught or pulled into the wall down in the morgue, and especially after what had happened to me, she found herself starting to believe in the possibility that there was more out there.  She had never put much stock in the possibility of God, or if he participated in human life.  I could not blame her lack of faith in a higher power before since she had never had any experiences of that nature.

My sudden growth, the appearance of tattoos on my skin, and the manifestation of this fighting machine mentality wrapped up in the body and soul of a big lover just blew her mind.  She started to believe in something but was reaching out to a place with the wrong answers, in my opinion.  With no answers that could even come close to explaining the complexities of my life, I accepted her searching.  I did not think for a moment that a response back from someone in that world would come so soon.  A woman named Diane had called Eryn back.  She wanted to meet us right away.

What could we do, if anything, to find some answers?  Science had failed.  Medicine had failed, and the church, even though they claim they did not have a hand in it, tried to murder me.  My options were limited at this point indulging Eryn’s research and meeting with this person made sense.  I hoped it was not going to be a group; being on display again was not an option.  The conversation, in hindsight, was a bit of a travesty.  My lack of enthusiasm frustrated her.  She felt I should be more involved in searching for help elsewhere.  She had no idea yet that I was seeing the visions now and that they felt like memories somehow, maybe even from someone else.

I did not have the proof I needed to stake such a claim.

This thought kept spinning through my mind.  My hands felt bare, empty now.  Like something was missing or belonged there.  Another series of images flashed and I could have sworn, for a second, the swords from my images felt like they were really in my hands.  Cold steel with some type of material wrapped the pommels.  I could feel the weight as if something added its mass to me.

I opened my eyes and held up my hands, gently squeezing them as if to make a fist, but I could not.  Sitting there in disbelief, I wondered if this was part of the dream like state.  I did not notice Eryn standing there watching me.  However long she was there was unknown.  She gasped, causing me to look.  Her mouth was open and a look of surprise was on her face.  My smile faded when I realized she was staring at me in disbelief and pointing at my hands.  Not knowing what she was referring to, I must have looked very puzzled.  My eyes returned forward when a reflection of light glinted from in front of me.  I turned my head and slightly gasped. 

In my hands were two swords. 

The sun reflected off the surfaces in the house catching every aspect.  Two weapons made of a radiant material caught the light beams in the room.  The elegance of the long blades had to be at least four feet in length made from some material I could not recognize.  They had curved singular edges, slightly oriental, but somewhat different in the width at the end where it came to a wicked point.  This metal had hues to it that were pearl like...that caught the light differently as I turned them in my hands.  There was writing on the cross section right above the grip.  Even pulling the weapon closer, I could not identify it.

Movement off to my left made me look.  Eryn approached and knelt down next to me, a look of curiosity and surprise still upon her face.  Her hands shook as she reached forward and touched the metal with one finger and retracted it quickly, then slowly touched it again.  She was transfixed.  The question of why I was holding two swords in my hands had not yet left her lips.  I knew only one thought to be present.  They felt at home.  Something within me was not even surprised to find them there for a few moments until it hit me that I was holding two swords.

My expression must have changed because Eryn went into nurse mode.  “It’s going to be okay Dietz, just put them down.  No one is going to hurt you.”  I must have been nodding my head or something in agreement.  Her hand reached over and tried take one of them out of my hand when my grips suddenly loosened and she had one of the swords.  Slight anxiety arose.  My breathing increased and a word started form on my lips when I saw a flash of light and felt the sword back in my hand.

“Oh my God, how did you do that?”  She was on all fours backwards like a crab, walking away from me.  “How did you do that?”  She actually raised her voice.

“Sweetie, I don’t know what you mean.  This just happened.”

“Bullshit, you went out and bought swords today.  Why?  Where the hell did you get money to be able to afford those…and now you are doing magic tricks?”

“Eryn, I swear,” I began.  She jumped to her feet and walked to over to my jacket and fished her hand in my pocket looking for the wallet she had bought me.  I was just as surprised as she was when the sword jumped back to me.  My mind was wrapping itself around this and her reaction together.

“I can barely afford the food bill having you here.  I can’t have you spending that kind of money.”

I sat there shocked.  I had no idea things were tight for her, or for us, since we were essentially a couple.  She had bought me clothes to wear, and we got a new bed a few days ago.  Realization hit home.  All my clothes fit, and the bed was huge.  Bigger than anything seen growing up in a store or on television, let alone any catalogue.  I was about to say something when she sobbed.  I let go of the swords and was on my feet, ducking over to where she stood, wrapping my arms around her.  She trembled...shaking a few times before she relaxed and fell into my embrace.  I knelt down.

Her beautiful eyes welled up with tears.  Streaks of moistened cheek glistened in the light as tears fell one by one to the floor or on her blouse.  My hand went instinctively to her face, enveloping it as it may and she nuzzled her cheek and the whole side of her face into my huge hand.  I felt emotion well up inside of me and before I knew it, the words came out.

“I love you, Eryn.”  I felt energy course through my hands and towards my chest.  It hit my head and my mind reeled.  Her hands held both of mine on the side of her face.  She smiled.  The tears flowing freely now,

“I know you do, and I love you too.”  My heart jumped and I soared over the planet for a second.  “But where did you get the swords?  How did you do that trick?”  She pointed her right hand over to where I had let them go as she continued.

“We really can’t afford anything, especially toys.  I just don’t...”

“I’ll get a job then doing anything to help.”  She smiled and looked over to the weapons and a look of shock appeared.  I turned my head to see what had caught her attention.  There was no noise from their fall, even from falling on the carpet, not even a thump from my letting them go.  We heard nothing.  They were gone as fast as they had arrived.  I moved to where they should be and stared at the ground...not sure what I was or was not looking at.  I was suddenly saddened.