Shattered (16 page)

"I foresaw
even this moment, Mr. Graves. Once you are presented with a possible
danger to your people you're constitutionally incapable of leaving
the issue alone until you've come up with a workable contingency
plan. It's part of what makes you such a good leader."

"If you
know so much, then tell me what I need to know before I decide that
you are nothing more than a raving lunatic and throw you out after
all."

The Scientist
slowly stood. "I'll do better than simply telling you. Science
is always best with a demonstration, best with proof of the
correctness of one's understanding."

The Scientist
threw one hand out in Kaleb's direction and Alec's dad collapsed. I
couldn't help myself, I took a step forward half intending to help,
but a movement in the far corner of the room brought me back to
myself before I could do any irreconcilable damage.

This wasn't
real, the Scientist wasn't actually hurting Kaleb, and even if he was
it shouldn't bother me, not after all of the things that Kaleb had
done in the past. I kept repeating that mantra inside of the privacy
of my mind, and it helped. It gave me the strength that I needed to
stop myself from running to Kaleb's side, but even as I was repeating
it, I realized that it wasn't true.

No, that wasn't
right. It was true, but it wasn't true inside of this particular
dream. Whatever Kaleb had become, he hadn't always been like he was
now. Once upon a time he'd been a concerned father and a devoted
husband. This dream predated whatever had sent him down the terrible
path that had resulted in him losing both his son and his daughter.

Kaleb had
knocked his chair back out of the way as he'd fallen. He was far
enough back away from the desk that I could just barely see him
writhing on the floor, hands on his head. For a moment I still
thought it was some kind of attack, but then as suddenly as it had
started it was over.

Still panting
from the effects of what he'd just been through, Kaleb pulled himself
to his knees.

"I don't
know what kind of trickery that was, but I refuse to believe any
vampire is so powerful. If something like that…creature really
existed it would have taken over all of Europe thousands of years
ago. Besides, no vampire would really want to kill off all sentient
life—that would just be sentencing their entire kind to
starvation. Your story doesn't even begin to hang together."

"I said
that I would show you the enemy to all life, but I didn't say that
Apollyon would be the first thing I would show you. That was just an
appetizer, a sign of things to come, and I didn't even finish showing
you the full measure of his nature. Now that I have your attention, I
would like to teach you about those around you. Allow me to introduce
you to Mallory."

Again the thin,
almost skeletal fingers flicked out in Kaleb's direction and once
again Kaleb collapsed onto the floor. When the convulsions stopped,
there was a thin trickle of blood running from Kaleb's nose, but it
didn't even make it all the way down to his lip before his legendary
healing ability kicked in.

Kaleb looked at
the Scientist with an expression of surprise the likes of which I'd
never seen on anyone else's face.

"I never
even suspected. All of this time I was blind to it, but looking back
now it was so obvious. Does he know?"

The Scientist's
eyelids dropped ever so slightly. He looked like a predator that had
just lured something into a trap.

"That is
not important. We don't have time to waste analyzing every bit player
who happens to cross the stage. There are others I would like you to
meet. For instance, Puppeteer."

This time when
Kaleb pulled himself back to his knees his eyes were bloodshot. I'd
never seen eyes go such a dark shade of red, it was creepy in ways
that I couldn't have described even if my life had depended on it,
but I could see them healing from the damage. Kaleb blinked a couple
of times and when he looked back up there were hints of white
underneath all of that red.

"You've
just handed me his head. I know exactly how to push him into making
the misstep I need to bring him down. Without him, the rest of the
Coun'hij won't last long enough to see the turn of the century. Show
me another one. Show me Agony."

The Scientist
hadn't sat down and now he started around the desk, stopping less
than a foot away from his host.

"You truly
are an incredible specimen. Most men are only able to see the nature
of a single man or woman before being too damaged to continue until
after they've had several days to recover. A shape shifter might be
able to make it through two or even three knowings, but not you.
You're the next best thing to unstoppable."

The Scientist
looked away for several seconds before shaking his head. "I'm
afraid that I simply don't have that kind of time to show you
everything you're capable of understanding. Perhaps on a different
occasion, but for now I will show you the great evil that I fight.
This was my intention all along, but after that I will show you your
true nature and make you a promise, one that I've only rarely made to
anyone in the entirety of my long life."

The other
'knowings' had lasted only seconds, had been over almost before
they'd started, but this time things were different. The Scientist
stood there with his arm pointed down at Kaleb for nearly two full
minutes, staring impassively as Kaleb writhed on the floor in what
had to be the most intense agony I'd ever seen someone subject to.

When the
Scientist finally stepped back there were tears of blood trickling
from Kaleb's eyes and they had gone so dark that they looked like two
black pits that had been carved into his face.

"Please
tell me it isn't so. Tell me that he doesn't exist or barring that,
promise me that he'll sleep forever. The power, the sheer numbers,
it's like a plague of darkness sweeping over the entire world."

The white noise
generator on Kaleb's desk had been getting alternately louder and
then going quiet again, but what had been of little importance when
Kaleb had been writhing on the ground was much more of a problem now
that the two of them were talking.

I'd been only
just able to make out Kaleb's plea and now the hissing was even
louder. I carefully stepped forward and was just able to make out the
start of the Scientist's reply.

"I wish
that were so, but you have seen the truth of him the way that few
people ever see the truth of anything. He exists now just as he has
for millennia and it is not in his nature to remain sleeping forever.
The world that you and I know can't help but wake him from his
slumber if it is allowed to continue on in its natural course. We
must stop it. We must do that which so many others would find
themselves unable…"

The static was
even louder. As I took my next step the wood underneath the carpet
creaked, a noise that was too loud even for the veil of silence to
mask.

Kaleb's face
had been exhausted, his head had been drooping, but in that instant
everything changed. His head snapped up and his eyes were suddenly
clear. The Scientist was gone, and between one breath and the next
Kaleb transformed into his hybrid form and sprang in my direction. He
was fast, so incredibly fast that I couldn't have possibly hoped to
get out of his way, but this was the dream—I didn't have to
dodge, I had other options.

Working faster
than I ever had before, I envisioned a clear wall of Plexiglas more
than a foot thick and positioned it directly between us as I pushed,
forcing my creation into existence despite the difficulty of doing
something like that inside of someone else's dream.

I stepped
backwards at the same time the wall snapped into place, but rather
than crashing into it as I'd expected him to, Kaleb's course veered
to the side in a way that would have been completely impossible in
the real world once they'd left the ground. I tried to dodge to one
side and put the clear shield back between us again, but Kaleb was
far more experienced at this than I was.

I was still
invisible despite the metaphysical claws I could feel reaching out
from him, clawing at my seeming, raking at my mind in an attempt to
force me back into visibility. I'd dedicated a substantial part of my
subconscious to fighting him off, hoping that my invisibility would
provide me with the edge I needed to survive, but I was still
thinking in too linear of a fashion.

The books on
the shelves around me suddenly took flight across the room with a
speed that would have had to be seen to be believed. The battering of
hardback books broke my concentration and both my invisibility and my
Plexiglas shield came down at the exact same instant.

Kaleb was only
half a step away from me when a trellis full of vines snapped into
existence just in front of me. These weren't your everyday
garden-variety vines either, they were as big around as my waist and
they had wicked foot-long thorns sticking out in an array of sharp
points that was impenetrable for anything bigger than a caterpillar.

The vines and
thorns were both an odd translucent green that allowed me to see
Kaleb skid to a stop and start working his way around to the far edge
of the living wall so that he could get to me. Kaleb no doubt thought
the vines had been my last-ditch effort at saving myself, but he was
wrong. Taggart had been the one to manifest the vines, and he'd been
hurrying towards me ever since I'd made the board underneath the
carpet creak. He was waiting near the opening between the vines and
the far wall now, a hulking shimmer that would have the advantage of
complete surprise assuming that we could keep Kaleb focused on me for
the next couple seconds.

I visualized
the books all starting on fire at the same instant that I envisioned
a clear shield popping into existence all around me, and pushed with
everything I had. It was hard to concentrate around the untiring
pummeling that I'd been undergoing, but I managed despite that and
the books all flared out of existence, consumed by a fire that burned
so hot that even the vines in front of me started smoking.

My shield
disappeared now that I didn't need it and I backpedaled towards the
door that promised freedom. The fleeing was just an act though, I
didn't actually plan on abandoning Taggart. Instead I envisioned
heavy steel manacles forming around Kaleb's hands and feet.

The result was
even less impressive than I'd hoped. The massive bindings coalesced
around his limbs and then shattered in the next instant.

"You're
even further off of your game than last time, Dream Stealer. You
didn't really think that you could fool me by pretending to be a
little girl, did you?"

Kaleb reached
the far wall, but before he could step past the wall of thorns
Taggart dropped his seeming of invisibility and rammed his deadly
hybrid claws into Kaleb's chest.

"No,
actually, I didn't think I could fool you into thinking anything. I
guess I was wrong."

It was the kind
of blow that should have killed Kaleb. I didn't know exactly where
hybrids kept their hearts, but the ends of Taggart's claws had to be
close to Kaleb's heart, close enough that in the real world he would
die from blood loss even if the heart hadn't been pierced.

I expected for
Kaleb to fade out of existence, saved by the dream, but instead Kaleb
reached forward and stabbed Taggart in the arm, ripping the other
hybrid's claws free of Kaleb's chest. I'd thought the rapid healing
that Kaleb had demonstrated before had been unnerving, but that was
nothing compared to what I saw as Taggart's claws came out of Kaleb's
chest.

The flesh
melted back together in less than a second, leaving Kaleb's massive
form as uninjured as it had been at the start of the dream. The vines
were gone now, but that wasn't the only change to our surroundings.
The walls and carpet had melted away, leaving us in a featureless
white plain that seemed to stretch on for forever.

Part of me
wanted to keep backing up, to retreat to somewhere safe, to get far
enough away that I'd be able to flee the dream entirely. It didn't
seem possible that the two of us could come out on top in a fight
against someone who could heal that quickly, but I couldn't leave
Taggart to face Kaleb on his own.

Kaleb slashed
at Taggart's head, but Taggart ducked away and threw his hand at
Kaleb in much the same manner as the Scientist had done just seconds
before. Kaleb didn't drop to the ground writhing in pain, but then
again I would have been surprised if that kind of attack was even
possible inside of the dream.

The best
constructs were the kinds of things that the brain was already
hard-wired to believe. It was a lesson that I'd forgotten in the heat
of the moment, but Taggart didn't make the same kind of mistake. His
throwing motion created more than a dozen shimmering metal spikes
that flew towards Kaleb at impossible speeds.

Kaleb tried to
dodge them, but there simply wasn't time and they buried themselves
in his flesh, nailing him to the obsidian wall that snapped into
place a split second before the spikes struck. Apparently none of the
spikes had managed to hit anything really vital because Kaleb tried
to simply pull himself off of them.

Taggart's
genius was revealed yet again as I realized that the spikes were
thicker the further away from the wall you got. The pain had to be
excruciating and I had a sneaking suspicion that some of the thick
ends were too big to fit between Kaleb's ribs.

I apparently
still didn't have enough experience to come up with winning
techniques on the fly, but I was at least smart enough to copy one
when I saw it. I threw a dozen of my own cruel spikes at Kaleb,
manifesting them a foot away from Kaleb's chest and driving them into
him.