eyes. The entire roof space was glowing a perfectly brilliant white with ghostly spectres drifting around the supporting beams and ceiling structure. He remembered reading about these things; the protectors of the precious living. “Guardians?” laughed Michael in awe of the wonderful sight, “I’d say they were more like angels.”
Lancer forcibly pulled aside a rusted bolt on the old wooden door and pushed it open making its thick iron supports clang on the stone wall.
“I can’t say I’ve missed this thing,” said Richard sombrely stepping into the room ahead of Lancer. Before him was a half blackened steel table with leather straps and harnesses in optimum positions for the restraint of a persons limbs. Beside it stood a movable medical table sitting a strange looking device with several thick cables and wires looping around it. Within it was housed a number of old car batteries, dirtied from years of use and dried battery acid encrusting their seals “Could have at least cleaned it up a bit” He looked further around the room at low shelves full of strange looking vials and implements he cared not to know the purpose of.
“I think you should just lie down,” Lancer answered flatly taking a jaw ended wire from the knotted jumble and clamping it firmly to a pylon on the underside of the table, “you just want to relax during the process. Sudden separation can be a little-” he clamped another wire onto a second pylon and moved to Richards’s side.
“I get the idea,” Richard finished, “It’s not like you forget these things,” he took a deep breath and clenched his fists agitatedly as Lancer now reached for the restraints. “Are those really necessary, though?”
“I’m afraid so,” he strapped an arm tightly into the leather bond and moved on to his feet, securing them as harshly as he had his arm. “Trust me, it’s for your own safety.”
“Safe? I don’t think there could be a less operative word for what you’re about to do then ‘safe,’” Lancer briefly acknowledged this as he fastened the last restraint in place and moved back to the machine. “Sure they’re tight enough?” Richard added sarcastically pulling at the straps, “don’t want me getting loose do we?”
“Just relax,” Lancer stated again, flipping several switches on the contraption which now started to emanate a low pitched buzz, “this might hurt a little.”
“Says the master of the understatement,” Richard breathed in deeply and clenched his teeth as Lancer took hold of two rubber handled steel paddles from amongst the jumble of wires and quickly touched them together creating a bright spark before placing them just short of Richards temples.
“Any last words?” Lancer asked finally, chuckling lightly before quickly pressing the cold metal against Richards’s skin making him convulse against the restraints and writhe under the force of the electricity now surging through his body. He continued to thrash against the leather bounds for what seemed to be an eternity but eventually threw his head back harshly against the metal slab with a sickly crack. After a split second of blissful calm his body was suddenly thrown, contorted, into the air by a final pulse of static and he let loose a harrowing scream to rival that of a rabid wolverine.
Outside, the haunting pitch pierced Michael to his very core forcing his body to abruptly turn and rush towards its origin, barely allowing his mind enough chance to process the terrible sensation. He threw open the door just as the screaming stopped to see Richards’s body fall limp and Lancer slowly withdraw the paddles.
“What the hell have you done?!” Michael yelled, grabbing Lancer by the shoulder and throwing him harshly against the movable table with a clatter, “you’ve killed him!”
“I would prefer not to hurt you, boy,” he replied calmly, trying to hold the still buzzing conductors away from them both, “so if you would allow me to-”
Michael snatched one of Lancers hands and pushed the paddle close to his face while still holding the other away. “Why did you do it?” he growled, resisting his urge to complete the electrical circuit utilising Lancers face, “tell me!” he shouted finally.
“The current will do nothing to me,” he casually pushed away Michaels grip with the least amount of effort and forced him to the ground. “Trust me, I’ve tried,” he quickly turned and flicked the machines switches back to their ‘Off’ positions and sighed gently as he placed the paddles down. “This is distressing, I realise, and for this I forgive you your abrupt actions. But you have to understand you have been entrusted with a great responsibility, the protection of the body.”
“You what? After what you just did, you talk about ‘protection?’” Michael stated in disgust.
“Not his body. There is another whom you must retrieve.”
“This is some kind of nightmare, it has to be,” Michael said quickly, grabbing his head wildly
“It is not,” replied Lancer flatly, “be aware this was of Richards choosing. In order to pass into the desert the body must not anchor the spirit to this world.”
Michael stumbled to his feet again thinking for a second and suddenly came to a realisation. “You mean the Median world? I never believed it was possible to actually go there.”
“Oh, it is very possible to go there. It is in returning that difficulties arise,” he walked to the large steel slab and began to undo the restraints that had held Richard.
“‘And for the ones who live astride the worlds; the sore silence prevails before peace,’” Quoted Michael, “I read that once. It means Medians can stay there longer than most doesn’t it?”
“Smart boy. I see why he let you come here,” Lancer smiled shallowly and unhooked the last leather bond. “It is a great power when seeking that which is hidden…Or lost”
“So that’s who he’s looking for? He thinks she’s like us?…A Median.”
“Like you, my boy, like you,” Lancer placed a hand firmly on Michaels shoulder. “I wouldn’t have let him do this if she wasn’t there. You see, Richard isn't the only one who can step between the worlds. Lets just say that if some adversity were to gets to her first then…” he shook his head, trying to repress the feeling, “such evil was never meant to exist.”
“That zombie…thing, that Chris turned into?”
“Millaian…He has found his host but will not remain there, he cannot. Soon, if we can not stop him, his plan will come to pass. I do not wish to experience what will happen if it does.”
Michael paused fearfully for a second. “So where is Richard now?” he asked tentatively, changing the topic.
“Right next to you,” Lancer looked just to the side of Michael and grinned making him look around hurriedly. “You won’t be able to see him. Only I have that pleasure. It’s the-” he thought for a second if to use the word ‘Gift’ or ‘Curse’ but came to the conclusion that neither was suitable, “-Bequest of the Seers, to see the unseen, for those lost in torment. To forever witness the desert.”
Michael sighed heavily, growing tired of Lancers exposition. “Yeah, that’s all very well and good but was electrocution really the best way? Wouldn’t, say, Nitrous Oxide have been much more appropriate? You know a painless method?”
“The spirit must be driven from the body quickly if we are to stop this evil in time. A shock of great intensity is the only way to do so without physically harming his body,” he looked to Michael’s side again and seemed to listen for a minute or two. “We must hurry; Richard has tasked you with a vital objective,” he began to rush around the room, picking up seemingly random bottles until he came to a small vial containing an off yellow serum, he quickly turned back to Michael, grabbing a sealed syringe as he went and rushed forward forcing the items into Michaels hands.
“Wait!” he barked abruptly, stopping Lancer in his tracks, “what does all this mean?”
Lancer looked to Michael’s side again and sighed solemnly, nodding slightly. “You have to bring her back, this serum-” he pointed firmly to the vial now poised clumsily in Michaels hands, “-will reanimate her body, reverse any rigor mortis and prepare her for the merging. Richard will find her spirit, if he is
right and to go to the desert he must be pretty damn sure, he’ll be able to sense her and bring her here…I’m afraid so must you. I can then re-merge her body and spirit and, for lack of a better way to describe it…” he thought for a second whether he really wanted to say it but finally did, “bring her back to life.”
Michael stared, wide eyed at him, not fully sure he wanted to participate any longer. “So just find the body, inject her with this stuff and bring her back?” he reiterated simply.
“Basically, yes,” replied Lancer, now thinking the simple approach would have probably been better in the first place. He watched Michael out of the small room; fumbling with the items he had been given. “Do you think he can handle all of this?” he asked, turning back to where Michael had been stood.
Across the border world and through the astral boundaries Richard stood, to Lancer, only as a shadowy aura against a dark and desolate reality inhabited now by fear and a deep, empty loneliness. “He can take it,” came Richards faded echo of a voice, “it might just take him a while to get used to it,” he looked around the place, a washed out world with the air tinted a depressed shade of brown from an eternity of neglect and no real purpose in the cosmos. “I could never get used to this place, you know,” he sighed quietly, “I guess no-one could,