*
When Matilda opened her extra-dimensional doors, she deposited us on an open expanse of field by a salt marsh on the south side of St. Bartholomew’s Island, a small town a little north of St. Simon’s Island. “This should serve our purposes well,” Edward said.
I looked around. All was quiet and still in the sempiternal night. Two moons looked down with the twisted faces of startled clowns in the act of dying. I shivered. “We’re fifty miles away from the estate, I said.”
Mike stepped up beside me. “His scent dogs are drawing them our way,” he said quietly. “They’re robots that not only track but lay down scent as well. They’re as good as my voles, and quicker too.”
Behind me, Matilda’s doors continued to open and close as Edward’s Shadow Agents hurried quickly across the dimensional boundary, moving to key locations where silvery holoscreens unfurled, creating cloaked snipers’ nests for their shooters. My body was too tense and wired to permit me to stand still. “What do you want me to do?” I asked one of the agents in charge.
“Just stay right there,” he told me bluntly. “Remain in front of the holoscreens, otherwise you won’t be seen.”
“Stay right here? Is that all?” the man had to be crazy.
The Agent shrugged his shoulders as he hurried away. “Act victim-like if it helps.”
I looked at Mike and Angie as they observed what was going on around them. “Hell no,” I said. I’m getting a gun.”
Mike grabbed my shoulder to stop me. “We’re the bait, Jack. They’ve got us covered, and Matilda is standing by in case we’re in real danger.”
“I’ll open up a doorway right on top of anything that tries to touch you, and if I have to, I can teleport my entire frame on top of them,” Matilda said happily from where her rectangular body sat in the grass.
Unmollified, I asked, “Oh? What happens when you do that?”
“Things get squishy and tend to deflate,” she said matter-of-factly.
Angie approached and moved up next to me. Her face was set in distaste. If anything, she looked unhappier than me. Her horns poked out above her brow and her tail whipped back and forth. “I want to rip something’s head off,” she said with a feline hiss.
“You might get your chance soon” I pointed out.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were like two small silver dollars. “Get my chance?” she scoffed. “I’ll make my chance!” The scent of sulfur hung thickly in the air around her. When I reached out to touch her shoulder, she jerked away and said, “Don’t do that until a lot of those things are dead.”
“Fine,” I said stiffly. “Just stick close to me, okay?”
“I’m stronger and faster than you, Jack; I think it’s the other way around.”
I knew nothing I said was going to make much of a difference at the moment. The same individuals behind this had betrayed Angie in some way. This was her first real chance at payback, and until she stood face to face with the real culprits, the prowlers and harpies would have to do.
“They’re coming!” Someone called out, and Matilda disappeared in a small flash of light. Although I knew the Shadow Agents hidden behind cloaked shields surrounded us, I felt like we were all alone in the bone shivering moonlight. In the infinitely vast expanse of sky with the moons hanging above, I saw the long, pinioned wingspans of soaring harpies. They thronged in the air in clotted clumps, and their shrieks hurt my head to hear.
“They’ll see us if they haven’t already,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
“I’m sure they have,” Mike responded. “Harpies have keen eyesight.”
“Better to hunt us with,” said Angie darkly.
“The prowlers should be a long way off, yet,” I said, wishing we could just go ahead and get this ball rolling.
“The things move faster than cars,” Mike said.
I suddenly wanted to take that thought back. Did I say I was ready to get the ball rolling? I would rather have removed my appendix with a rusty razor and sewn the wound shut with bailing wire. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” I moaned.
“Yack on Mike,” Angie said through the side of her mouth.
I felt rather than saw the harpies descending. The air grew thick, like a hot, humid Carolina summer night—except there was no heat, only heaviness; no dampness saturated my clothes, only pressure. Almost as soon as the air grew denser, the scent of putrefaction wafted down from the beasts and rankled my nose. The things were nastier than someone rolling in entrails after bathing in a septic tank. When a dark, winged form emitted a rusty screech, I flinched and ducked. Several creatures swooped low, beating the air rapidly with their wings, and barely missed decapitating Mike and me with their talons.
Even Angie kept her head down as the foul things came at us. With each pass they drove us closer and closer to the ground. When I cried out in alarm, I saw a harpy turn her head back and flash me an evil grin.
“They’re trying to scare us!” Mike yelled above the harpies’ cries. “They can feed on fear.”
“They ought to be full by now!” I screamed back. Harpies fed on living flesh, too, and even a scratch from one of the things turned gangrenous if left untreated. Oh yeah, I was plenty scared. Angie, however, was getting mad.
With a feral howl of rage, the demon-girl leapt into the air as another harpy made a low pass. She seized the creature by its bulbous head. The monster’s ecstatic call cut off abruptly as Angie wrapped her tail around the thing’s neck and pulled it toward the ground. When her feet touched the earth, Angie gave out a savage grunt and rolled onto her back, bringing the monster’s head plowing into the grass with an audible snap like a thick branch breaking under weight. The rest of the harpies taunting us wailed furiously and rose into the air to treetop level.
When Angie stood up, her face was flush with animal joy. The blood inundating the capillaries in her mouth lent her lips a thick, pouty appearance that was, um . . . stunning. Think Angelina Jolie as a sexually resplendent warrior goddess. She licked her upper lip with her long, exquisite tongue, and I almost forgot what was going on around me.
Almost.
The prowlers arrived as Angie screamed out in defiance, “Bring it, you dregs of Nox!”
How appropriate. Nox was the abode of eternal night, in many ways a template of this barony where the sun seldom rose. But in the Playground, no matter how thick the darkness, hope always found oases in which to flourish. Nox was an uber-canvass for endless, obdurate misery and despair. And the prowlers brought it with them.
Mike bared his fangs.
Angie continued to bellow furiously.
I almost crapped my pants.
Dark, indistinct shapes moved out of the forest in motions that confused my eyes, with an effect similar to fallen leaves violently agitated by a stiff wind. Something about the creatures seemed to defy containment. Their bodies appeared to continuously move in and out of form as if they were composed of drunken and epileptic fractals.
I squeezed my eyes shut and had to look away. The night they attacked us at Cardigan Calli’s house, the things had looked a lot more solid. Around us, grass rustled as the prowlers moved in a disconcerting, stop-motion rhythm. I quickly pulled Angie away from her kill to stand closer to Mike. My pulse bounded in my veins as the prowlers drew around us into an increasingly tighter O. I knew something must have stopped Edward from attacking, but I had an insane fear that he had left us there to die.
“This isn’t right,” Mike said in a voice rippling with the mad lust for violence.
If you asked me, none of this was right, so I forced my breathing under control. “What?”
Mike shook his head like an irrational animal grappling with a rational thought. “The prowlers are all
wrong,” he said.
The swarming prowlers gradually began to slow and come to a standstill. I saw what Mike meant. In my first encounter with the prowlers, the things acted independently, as individuals. Now, watching them standing in solid formation before us, the beings did not move or twitch. I got the feeling that I was looking at more of a hive than a gathering of free-willed actors, and I didn’t know which frightened me more. If Edward’s Agents could not keep them off of us, I was going to be killed in a way that no genie could bring me back.
A piercing voice suddenly tore into the night. GIVE YOURSELVES UP AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED!
Whatever boomed the words out had a coldly arrogant, metallic tone. I looked around rapidly to see if I could detect the source, but the uniform appearance of the prowlers prevented this.
Angie screamed at the speaker to do something to itself that not even an Olympic gymnast on crack would attempt. Mike bared his fangs and hissed. I tried to look important, but gave up and when I realized I looked like I had my fifth grade teacher’s bug eyed stare. My Glare of Menace was cut short when a rippling suddenly spread through the circle, and the mass of dark figures parted in front of us. I saw a taller figure slowly moving forward. Instinctively, I pushed myself between Mike and Angie to stand in front of her. The vampire’s fangs retracted a bit, and I saw some of the fiery glow within his eyes diminish. When he addressed the approaching figure, he still sounded on the verge of massive violence. This was a side of the man I had not seen before, and it made me glad that the fellow had become an accountant instead of an all out predator.
“What do you want with us?” Mike demanded. His voice was stridorous and harsh.
The prowler that stopped some twenty feet in front of us was taller then the rest, bulkier, and thicker about the limbs. It’s body seemed more physical, as if it were made of the same toxic compounds as the first of its kind had been. The rest of the things pixelated where they stood, giving off a kaleidoscopic effect. The uber-prowler—that was the only way I could describe it—looked down at us with a featureless face and regarded us for a long while before answering. When it did, the thing’s voice cut through the air like a cold iron blade. PUNY SON OF NOX, THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU. STAND ASIDE OR FEEL THE FLAMES OF PHLEGETHON FOREVER! AND DAUGHTER OF PHLEGETHON, YOUR SISTERS ARE CALLING YOU! ANSWER THEM BEFORE THEY ANSWER YOU!
“You have no authority here,” Mike spat. “And no one holds lease over our souls! You are in violation of the Compacts. Leave us now or face the consequences!”
I AM NOT HERE FOR YOU, VAMPIRE, the thing said, and pointed directly at Angie.
I moved in front of her and said, “Go eat—“
Before anything else came out, the leader of the prowlers emitted a scream of rage. NO, JACK PITMAN, I COME FOR BOTH OF YOU!
The thing’s shriek made my hands fly to my ears, and I grimaced in pain. “Holy crap!” I shouted in surprise. “You can’t be serious!”
Angie jerked me backward, sending me cartwheeling across the ground behind her, and I head her mutter a curse. “Over my dead body!”
The uber-prowler started moving forward before I stopped rolling across the ground. Mike tried to stall the thing by calling out, “Why them? What makes them so important?”
Instead of answering Mike, the uber-prowler’s head turned toward Angie. “WE HAVE HER, YOU KNOW. SHE WILL MAKE A FINE SODLIER IN WHAT IS COMING.”
Angie’s face contorted in anger and pain. She looked like someone had just backhanded her. “Come and get me!” she spat. Her wings rose above her, and they trembled with rage. The thing continued to stalk forward, and I scrambled back to my feet. If the bastard wanted me, maybe I could distract it. “Get back!” I panted. “For God’s sake, get back!”
Mike and Angie held their ground. Thoughts of what the touch of a prowler would do to them flooded my panicked mind. I cursed as I lunged forward to grab ahold of their shirts, but before the creature got close enough to touch either of them, fire erupted amidst the creatures. On all sides of us, a rush of superheated air rose in a swirling vortex. The heat was ferocious, and I smelled the clothes on my back beginning to singe.
Angie stuck her arm out to stop me from pulling her away, and in the bright flash of the incendiary attack, I stumbled headlong into her palm, which sent both of us tumbling in clumsy pile to the ground. “Stay under me,” I said, straining against Angie attacked me like a rabid cat.
“Get the hell off of me,” she shrieked, kneeing me in the groin. Her powerful legs pushed me to the side easily, and I gasped in terror as I saw the tallest prowler looming overhead.
Mike prepared to launch himself at the abomination, and I cried out to him . . . to both of them to keep away from the thing. Before either of them had a chance to join in the fight, another blinding light cut into the night, and a large, industrial metal shell appeared out of thin air. The uber-prowler let out a terrified scream, and I distinctly heard the words, “Jack—no!” fill the air.
I picked myself up again, and saw Matilda’s boxy container resting atop the prowler. Steam rose in wispy tendrils from the half of its body that remained exposed to the air. What was left of the thing appeared to be folding in on itself like a sundried snail. Matilda’s doors slid open, and her voice sang out full of delight and pride. “See, I do good work don’t I, Jack?”
Mike grabbed ahold of both of us and threw us into the lift car’s interior. When we landed, Mike rushed through the doors and pressed the button that closed the opening and made the sounds of fire and chaos go away.
“Get us out of here,” Mike snarled.
“Already done,” Matilda chimed. When her doors slid open, we were back in Edward’s estate command room. One of the guards in the room hurried forward. Angie hissed at the man as he stretched out his hand to help her up. Wisely, he pulled it back.
“Why did you wait so long to attack?” Mike asked, making it clear that somebody had better have a good answer to his question.
Edward looked up at us from a console with half of his attention fixed on the screens showing the effect of his Shadow Agents’ flamethrowers on the prowlers. “This is why,” he said, indicating the few remaining black figures still standing amid the molten streams of fire.
“What?” I asked, uncertain of what he wanted us to see. “Prowlers burning. Good thing for all. Don’t see a problem. Find me some marshmallows and I’ll go back.”
Mike stared for a moment. His face was still ridged with anger, but his dentured fangs had retracted back into their base. He cocked his head and said, “That is odd.”
“Clue me in, here,” I said, impatiently.
“You can’t be serious,” Angie scoffed. “You don’t see it?”
“I was about to die five minutes ago; pull your horns back in,” I grumbled.
Angie pointed her finger at the prowlers standing in the flames. “That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
She was right. The night we fought them at Cardigan Calli’s, the things reacted instantly to the presence of flame. These stood like statues unaware of the furnace around them. “Oh,” was all I could say.
“That is indeed a big oh, Jack. I do not think those were real prowlers.”
Mike arched an eyebrow. “No. They certainly didn’t seem like the real things to me, either.”
Angie’s voice was hard as an anvil. “The harpies were real.”
Edward nodded his head; his eye twitched as he said, “Yes they were, and I’m more frustrated than ever because none of this makes any sense.”
“Um, that thing wanted me,” I said. Knowing this made my stomach hurt. “Why would it want me? Why was it after both of us?”
The three of them turned their heads to look at me, and the expression I saw
worn by Mike and Edward was one I hadn’t seen before. “That is another very good question,” Edward said. But the first thing we have to do is figure out a way to get someone inside that cloister.”
Angie’s face reddened. “I will do it,” she said through clenched teeth.
“So will I,” I said quickly.
Angie opened her mouth to say something that was going to be unpleasant. “No, you’re not going in there,” she growled.
“Neither of you will go,” Edward said. “I’m sending Let’s Go Girls!.”