“Robyn?” He reached out a blind hand and felt for her. “I can’t find you.”
She put a hand on his face and stroked him reassuringly. “It’s okay, Mika. I’m here – I’ll never leave you. It doesn’t matter how lost you get, I’ll always be right here with you.” She recalled the countless times that she had thought she’d lost Mika and wondered if this was what it had been like. Robyn was more scared than she had ever been in her entire, over-long life. What if she and Mika really did get torn away ffrom each other? It didn’t bear thinking about. “We can’t leave each other. Not now.”
“Why can’t you leave each other? You’re both strong enough to go on your own.”
“We need each other,” Robyn explained. “We’ve done things together that words just can’t explain.” Carly wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear any more of this, but waited for Robyn to go on. “We understand one another – we fit.”
“Jesus. You really do love each other, don’t you?”
“We do.” She folded an old blanket on the bed, needing to do something.
Mika quietly rose from the bed and stared, unseeing, into the computer screen. “There’s nothing there. It’s all gone.”
“I just haven’t put a CD in yet. That’s why it’s blank.” Carly hurriedly scrabbled around for the offending disk and opened the CD drive.
He shook his head; he hadn’t been talking about the computer, though it was a handy metaphor. All of that information it could spill out and you still couldn’t do a thing about it. When you deleted a file, was it ever really gone, fully erased, or did it just hang around in the memory banks? No, there was nothing there, not really. Just memories – very vivid, accurate, detailed memories.
“It’s opening now. It’ll take a few minutes because it’s not in English.” The file opened on the screen but the hard drive whirred frenetically as it worked to make the jumble of letters and archaic symbols into sharp focus. “Weird. Not a language I recognise.”
Robyn couldn’t see the writing on the screen and made no move to take a closer look. She was too concerned about Mika. Nothing there – what did he mean? He was remembering what they had done to her. Humans remembered their wicked deeds; humans were haunted by memories. They weren’t humans, though. They weren’t supposed to remember their evils, or feel guilty about them. They did things, enjoyed them, wallowed in the thrill, then forgot it. Mika was scaring her. Suddenly the one in charge, the one who had to be strong for him, and she was scared.
“Robyn?” began Mika, no sign of the scared little boy of a moment and a millennia ago. “Baby? You’ll be okay – we’ll be okay. We’ll do this together.” He was in command again, now. Robyn felt safe. Together – they did everything together. She smiled at him, comforted by his certainty in them.
“Do either of you two know what this is? It looks like a load of rubbish to me.”
Mika nudged Carly from the chair and sat down, puzzling over the mix of writings on the monitor. “I know this. I remember it.” Where had he seen it before? What was it? So familiar. His mind floated away from the task at hand andbright flashes of colour filled his head. The screams of a dying girl, struggling to cling to a final shred of self-dignity. No! He must not let himself remember it. Must not let this so-called Great Event claim him. He was above this – stronger than this. Mika shook his head clear and looked at the writing again. The symbols began to blur, and he blinked a couple of times. “I recognise it.”
“Sometimes it’s good to remember,” tried Carly. “It’s like therapy.”
Robyn narrowed her eyes at her. “Not the way he remembers.”
“I guess you guys really aren’t the therapy type.”
“What gave it away? The killing people?”
“I think that’s why you need therapy.”
Robyn jumped to her feet and Carly tensed every muscle in her body, instinctively expected to be hit. But Robyn shook her hair out of her face and laced her fingers together. “He remembers what we’ve done and hates himself for it. Maybe he hates me for it, too.”
“No, he doesn’t hate either of you – not really,” she explained, not knowing why she was trying to make her kidnapper feel better. Some sub-conscious survival instinct? “He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. It’s this thing with the sun that’s doing this to him, to the both of you.” Carly spoke a lot of sense.
“Unholy shit!”
“What is it, Mika?” Robyn moved over to him and frowned at the computer. Bad machine, it was. Not natural.
Carly turned around, trying to find somewhere where she wouldn’t get splinters on her knees from the floorboards. A protruding nail tore a hole in the thin denim and she picked at it absently as she watched him scroll through the pages of gibberish.
“Robyn, do you know what this is?” He didn’t recognise all of it but could recall some of the symbols from an ancient charm found in a cave, hundreds of years ago. She shook her head and he tried to think what it was called. “Demon language. Alvareshnik,” he blurted out before the name could escape him again. “There was some sort of a charm in a cave a couple of hundred years ago. Some of it was written using these symbols.”
“Hang on. I remember hearing that name. I thought they were extinct?”
“No. People just thought they were but they weren’t. They were in hiding in a different dimension. Takes a hell of a lot to bring them back here.”
Robyn thought hard. “Big species. Lots of dialects for different sub-species.”
“I think she’s right,” agreed Mika. “It’s probably written in four or five different dialects to make it even harder to figure out. I can’t read this. Not even if it was just in one form of the language.”
“In other words –“
“We’re screwed.” Robyn bit her lip. All that hard work, all those empty promises, and for what? A dead end.
Carly remembered something and waved her hand excitedly. “Not necessarily. I mean if, I’m guessing the shaman found this incantation thingy, if he figured this out, then he probably put the English translation on here as well. If not that, then something close to it.”
“He’s already used this – already called on them.”
“What are these Alvin demons anyway?”
“Alvareshnik,” Mika corrected mechanically. “Peace-keeping demons. They get called on in times of extreme supernatural chaos to provide a calming influence.”
“And if they’ve only just been called down,” Robyn joined in. “Then things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better.”
“You ever come across any of these angel demons?”
“No. And they’re not angels. They’re still demons, whatever good thingds they might do on the surface. They’re still demons underneath.”
“Like you two are?”
Mika was stung by that – demon. He couldn’t help what he was, couldn’t erase what he had done. No-one can change the past. Yes, he had enjoyed doing those things, but why did that one keep coming back to shadow him? Robyn remained oblivious and looked serenely ahead. She was not uptight about being called a demon – its what she was, she was proud of it.
“I mean, you’re being evil and good all at the same time. You keep me here and drive me like a slave, but you don’t kill me or make me go out there. You kill people without a second thought and delight in it, then you try to stop people from dying by trying to save the world. I have to ask if you’re just doing this so you know where your next meal’s coming from?”
“We don’t want this to kill anyone,” said Robyn, seeing Carlys tear-filled eyes in the reflection. “Contrary to what you might believe about us… we quite like people. Blood bags with legs.” She started laughing to herself and Mika carried on.
“We can be good and all that shite. It’s more fun being evil… well, it used to be,” he added. “We always go where the trouble i
s. Instinct.”
Carly gasped as everything fell into place again – more pieces to the jigsaw. Why the demons had been in hiding, why they only went to places in chaos. “You have to kill them.”
The green fleck of light winked unsteadily in the night, looking, to the casual observer, like a flashing aeroplane light. It clearly was not an aeroplane light, though, as it grew slightly and seemed to pulse with energy, bright then dim, bright then dim. But, as the light got brighter and bigger as it sank further through the sky, it was obviously not just the light it appeared to be. More like an orb, always growing, radiating a throbbing green glow which seemed to get stronger the closer it descended towards the Earth. A quiet hum came from the green sphere, low but foretelling of danger.
A long metal fence around the playground of a school began to pop and melt beneath the awesome heat of the orb as it landed. A middle aged man was walking across the yard to his car and stared at the large orb. He stood there, open-mouthed, as the glow burned as bright as comic nuclear energy, dulled to the intensity of a dying glow-stick, then flickered out. The orb solidified from pure energy into rock and began to crack like a walnut. It did not spring open to see a nine-tentacled martian glide out.
“Is anyone in there?” asked the man, presumably a teacher at the school. Though, what he was doing at the school at three in the morning was nobody’s business but his. “Do you need me to get some help?” He felt so foolish talking to a rock – maybe it was some kind of meteor – but he was sure there was something in there. He reached out to it, feeling his skin begin to tingle from the heat it gave off and drew back.
Shaking his hand in the air, as if it might bring relief, he reached into his pocket for his mobile phone and looked down at the green glowing keypad. Green. Natural, safe, trees and grass. Mobile phones that gave you cancer, mysterious green meteors with monsters inside them, hazardous to your health. He blindly felt around for the nine button, unsure of what to say if the emergency services could be bothered to answer, but stopped when he saw the top half of the orb move slightly, as if something was trying to get out. There was a grinding sound of rock on rock and a pained grunt came from inside. Pocketing the phone, he touched the rock, it was cool now, and fastened his fingers in the break. It was heavy but he managed to move it a few inches before his muscles gave out on him.
Suddenly, the man bellowed out as the thing inside, grabbed his fingers and yanked his arm inside the pod. Something slimy and strong. It pulled his hand in, up to the shoulder, and he tried to feel for the thing. But his hand no longer seemed to be attached to any nerves. He slid his arm out and was relieved to find that his hand was still on the end of his arm, but that feeling did not last long when he noticed that his arm now ended just above the elbow. The creature appeared to have bitten or torn his arm off and then just stuck his hand at the end. Muffled chomping noises came from inside the orb, and the teacher looked away disgusted but unable to feel any pain in his arm – poison?
The rock opened further and a creature slimed its way out, still covered in the thin film that protected it from the harsh atmosphere. It lay in a foetal position in the middle of the playground for a few moments, shivering despite the unnatural warmth. Then it rose to its feet and looked around at its new surroundings, strange and unfamiliar. The man stared, his mouth working but no sound coming out. It was a pale blue-ish colour, smooth and not covered in the scales and ridges of a comic book alien. For this is what this had to be – an alien.
The alien spoke something in a levelled, guttural language.
“What? I don’t understand your language; do you speak English?”
The alien rumbled again and stared ahead. It did not have to look at him.
The man looked back at his half arm and realised that he was beginning to get some feeling back in it. He wondered if he could get back into the medical office for some anaesthetic to numb his arm. “Where do you come from?” He could be all over the news if this was a real alien. Just a pity it did not understand or speak English.
It ignored him and walked towards the school. What was this strange place? Why was this annoying little mortal trying to speak to him? The school felt safe and secure. Everything he used to know, but this cruel place seemed hard and unstable. And yet, this felt more right than everything he had ever experienced. He should be here.
“We kill them, and the rest is a piece of piss.”
The three of them were sitting around the long, bare table in the cold kitchen. Stone held no warmth and Carly shivered uncontrollably in the chill in spite of the thick jumper she had wrapped herself in, but Robyn and Mika did not even pay any mind to the bite. It was hard to believe that it was so hot outside but all of that heat could be taken away with… how many inches of stone. Looking at the rooms built in stone it was easy to imagine how old this house might be.
“Tell me again,” said Robyn. “Why do we have to kill them?”
Mika looked down at the glass of pigs blood he was swirling thoughtfully. Disturbing, really. “I’m not too sure about that myself.”
“It’s instinct, yeah? Demons go where-ever they can cause the most uproar.” Carly looked up for acknowledgement but receiving none she went on. “It’s why they were in hiding , or you thought they were. They’re here because they saw that the end of the world was almost here. Chaos. They thrive on the stuff.”
“I get that but why do we have to kill them? Why can’t we just send them back to where-ever it is they came from?”
“Mika. You said it yourself – if a demon can even cause a little suffering, they’ll do it. You really think they’ll go back to their own dimension in the middle of all this?” Carly took a drink of water and glanced around the room. Apart from the table and benches, there was only a sink and a tiny refrigerator. The previous owner must have had appliances which they had thrown out after they had claimed it as their own home.
“Apocalypse demons.” Robyn fidgeted on the hard bench, unable to keep still when there was so much to do. There were no windows in the kitchen except high up out of range, so she knew they were in no danger of exposure demons. “Create conflict. They only came because of the end of the world, didn’t they?”
“I don’t understand this at all.” Carly stared at the couple d=sitting opposite her. “I understand this… sort of. But, I don’t know why these demons were called down to keep the peace when all they really do is cause trouble. Do they get their kicks out of watching an entire planet implode, or something? Do they get on a high from watching a world collapse in on itself? ‘Cos that’s what’s happening. They’re on a self-destruct mission.”
“The foolish shaman didn’t know what the Alvareshniks did,” said Robyn. “He believed the stories about them being a peaceful tribe, the kind to be accustomed to calmness and want to create it where-ever they go. And for good reason, I suppose. Because that’s how it starts. They live in a dimension where violence and hatred are forbidden elements. Alvareshnik demons are incapable of hurting anything with demon blood in it. Demon on demon attacks are frowned upon.”
“Like black on black assaults? Like hurting like?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Carly looked straight at Mika, clasping the glass between her hands like the cup was her life. “But, you don’t mind hurting demons?”
“No. I told you,” he replied. “We’re not human, and we’re not demon. We don’t have any rules except for the ones we make up.”
Robyn clapped her hands for attention. “They hate leaving their own dimension because of how it’s safe, but then they see this madness and love it, just like we do. They soon learn how to create chaos and conflict anyplace they go. They don’t just come to watch the apocalypse and keep a little order until then… they bring it about.”
“But, they’re good at first? When they first get to Earth?”
“Yes.” Again, he swirled
the chilled blood in his glass, looking at it in tempted distaste. “But it can only buy us a few hours.” The need to drink got stronger, his throat ached with the proximity of unforthcoming food, but he repressed. “They realise that violence and loathing have been missing from their lives and crave it so much that they cause it.”
“This is making an extremely warped and unnatural kind of sense now. How long will it take you to track them and kill them?” Carly peeped at them over the top of her glass – she was hungry.
“That’s where the problem arises. The sun will be up soon.”
She hadn’t realised that it was almost sunrise already, it still felt like the middle of the night. “Oh, yeah.”
There was quiet in the room for a moment and Carly was positive that her heart was beating loud enough for them to hear.
The shaman pulled the thick orange curtain a little to one side and peered out. It was still the small hours of the morning but he could see tiny patches of half light in the sky, lit by the first rays of morning sunshine. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking specifically for this, and, of course, he was. The shaman was waiting for a phone call from his associate to tell him how well his last spell had worked. Reasonably well, he hoped, for he could tell on sight that it had worked to some degree. All was relatively calm in the dark, at least not the constant buzz of activity it was in full daylight. A while ago he had heard the screech of braking tyres and the catcalls of prowling animals. Those noises seemed louder against the comparative hush of the tail-end of night.
Beside him, the telephone trilled into life and he started. The old brown dial phone seemed out of place now, everything should be modern and up to date, not stuck in the past. Definitely not in 1982. The shaman watched it ring a few times, seeming to shout “Answer me!” His dark robe dragged along the floor as he moved position and hesitantly picked up the phone, not really sure if he truly wanted to hear from the professor. But no, last week was the time for doubts, the time to back out of this. He wanted a perfect world – he had to live with the troubles leading up to that Great Event.