Something Different

Chapter I

The skies cracked open and let loose as I pulled slowly onto the pitted asphalt of the parking lot. A scattered flock of cars kept a meager watch as the rain beat out an age old rhythm on their roofs and mine. Beyond them, almost lost in the shadow of the highway overhead, was my destination. Painted in brief strokes between thunderclaps was an old, turn-of-the-century, brick and mortar monstrosity. A corpse of a building left to rot in an industrial graveyard with only the distant sound of the city above as signs of life.

The locals called this place the Bottoms. Fitting.

Switching of the engine I sat there for a long moment, keys in hand. All the reasons I shouldn't be here running through my head in stampede. I didn't know who wrote the letter. The name Hesmet meant nothing to me. The Others rarely congregated in cities. Too risky. Too hard to hide what they were. Too likely to run into old enemies. This whole little trip could be a trap. Isolated location. No one would ever hear anything. I wouldn't be found until some transient decided my coat looked warm.

Yet, here I am. Fucking perfect. Fuck the cat. Curiosity is going to be the death of me.

Eying the night shrouded building I willed it to spill its secrets but the storm mocked me. Revealing it all one moment and the hiding it behind sheets of rain the next. A distant burning in my hand brought me back. Releasing my grip with a soft curse I slipped the now bloody edged keys into my pocket. Picking up the letter from the passenger seat I turned it over but made no move to open it. I didn't need to read it again. Every word of it was etched into memory. The sharp, spidery handwriting asking me oh-so-politely to come meet the writer before more of our kind could die. Letting loose a shaky breath I tucked the letter into the inner pocket of my jacket and climbed out into the night.

The rain was cool, almost playful as it struck me in fat droplets. Turning my face to the sky I tasted the downfall. Sweet. Jagged streaks of lightning leapt across the sky racing the wind that tugged at me like an old friend. Lowering my eyes I stared across the top of the rental towards the rundown building and made my decision.

With slow, cautious steps I began to make my across the cracked lot. Up close the cars were rusted shells; long since abandoned when they could no longer serve their purpose. Even in the downpour the scent of rotting metal and fake leather hung over them. The buildings started to show its age the closer I came. Weeds sprouting from cracked pavement in scraggly patches around the base. Metal supports stood red and flaking exposed to the elements. Busted windows left untouched, their frames stripped of paint. Cracked mortar supporting the wall but no door marred the street side of the building.

Following the line of the building I crept around the far corner and out of sight of the street. There, under the shelter of the highway, was the door and it was exactly as described in the letter. Plain steel lit by only the fitfull light of a red bulb resting above.

One deep breath and I was in motion. The knock rang loudly. Silent moments followed. Questioning moments. Arms crossed and lips set in a tight line I waited. Finally the door screeched open but only a few inches. Revealing only a dusty sliver of concrete floor and nothing of the one who opened it.

Typical.

"Who are you?!" demanded a harsh voice like rock breaking. Only the aggression painting the speaker as a man.

"My name's Boone. I have an invitation."

"I've heard that name..." the speaker paused his voice going soft - my teeth grinding - before picking back up. "Show me your invitation."

Slowly I slid the envelope into the gap where it was snatched away. Faint sounds escaped as Grabby the doorman tore into it like a kid at Christmas. The door swung open almost immediately shwoing only more dusty concrete.

"Hurry up! I don't want to hold this damn door open all night!" Grabby hissed with a sound like rocks sliding against each other.

Hurriedly stepping inside the door slammed behind me and I got my first good look at the doorman. Half my height and twice my width of old, rough hewn granite shaped into the crude likeness of a man. Wearing coveralls and a tool belt. A faint grinding drone surrounded him as he hefted a steel bar thick as a baseball and fixed me with a charcoal stare. Then his face seem to split in half in a craggy grin as the little stone man turned and reset the bar across the door.

I heaved a quick sigh before he turned back around.

"You look more human than I thought you would." the stone man said giving me a rocky snort.

That comment should bother me, I think, but the Others always say that. As if I did something wrong by taking after my father in looks. As if her son should look the part of a monster.

"Looks can be deceiving, stone man. You should know better. Now where is this Hesmet?" the words came out harsh and fast but I didn't want to follow that idea any further.

Grabby eyed me hard but just snorted again and started leading me deeper into the building. This part was definitely not used regularly. Dust and broken machinery littered the place. Some of the machines sat in various states of disarray. Someone - probably the stone man - was harvesting them for parts.

"Down you go, boy."

Breaking free of my thoughts, I looked past my guide to find stairs leading down into the dark. A darkness that shimmered and shook under the weight of my gaze.

Fuckin' hell. A trod?

Raising an eyebrow at the doorman, I questioned him with a glance.

"What'd you think you were going to find here? A homeless shelter that accepts our kind? The fucking Ritz maybe?" the words had bite but he squirmed under my study. "This here is one of our people's last great places. Hesmet built it. Walked the trod himself. It means something that you've been invited here. Don't make us regret it."

Nodding I faced the stairs. I didn't need to be told that. There weren't enough of us left anymore. Any loss was too much.

"What's your name, stone man?" a startled noise escaped him like marbles rolling across the floor. "Well? ...I can't keep calling you stone man can I?"

Or Grabby.

"Gedeon." he said hesitantly. "Most pretty boys don't care to ask my name."

God, do they still call us that? Who'd have thought looking human makes you pretty?

"See you on the way out, Gedeon."

Steadying myself I took several deep breaths before my boot came down on that first step. A tingle ran through me. An electric caress penetrating flesh and blood. I shuddered, closing my eyes for the briefest of moments but the world had changed in that moment. The lines of the steps were softer and the shadows sharper. Hot breath curled around my legs carrying scents that had no earthly place in a warehouse. Honeysuckle and roses.

Just like her. She always smelled of honeysuckle and roses. The memory hit in a rush.

"Trods are how we get home, Jer. Paths in the mist between the world of Man and the Dreaming Worlds." mother whispered softly to me as she stroked my hair under the eaves of the oak tree. "Most can only walk a trod made by one of the great ones but you're different. You'll be able to make your own ways some day."

"Why am I different, Momma?" the question escaped me as I surrendered to her touch closing my eyes.

"Because you carry an entire world within you."

My hair smelled like her for weeks after. Never wanted to wash my hair again.

The thoughts skittered across my mind. Useless dreaming thoughts. Pushing them aside I continued down the stairs. Each step taking me deeper and further away from the world of my birth. Walls of concrete became chipped, worked stone shot thorugh with veins of a dozen different colors. Some were glittering threads of silver and gold. Others were strands of ruby, sapphire, and diamond. A few pumped molten fluids that burned to the touch.

The descent seemed to last hours but it was hard to tell. Sometimes you walked a trod in minutes and find hours have passed. Other times it felt like hours and only seconds would have gone by. Time, they say, is a constraint of man's world. When flickering lights began to appear in shadowed recesses ahead I knew that I neared the end. Another door.

I didn't knock this time.

A hundred faces turned towards me. A fine boned scaled woman with slitted pupils... two things as much pig as man bared tusks in my direction... a dark skinned man who appeared normal save for the single horn curving up from his crown... a veiled woman of curves and grace with writhing snakes for hair... and so many more. So many that my eyes could scarcely take them in. Each and everyone unique save for the alarm written plainly across their features.

"Who the fuck are you?!" something bellowed with lungs greater than what any human had ever known.

From the sea of faces and forms a massive form breached. Half again the height of a man it rose. A mass of muscle bunched and corded beneath a coat of coarse jet hair. From either side of it's bull like face hung great curving horns nearly a foot and a half long a piece. Nostrils flaring it stared with narrowed eyes.

"Calm down, bull boy. I'm invited." I spat back at him with more confidence than I actually felt. "Hesmet invited me."

If anything his eyes narrowed even more at the insult. With long strides he began to move forward three fingered hands clenching and unclenching. Violence oozed off him like cheap cologne.

Shit. Not my brightest moment.

"You don't want to start this dance. I am no easy meat." Will alone kept my voice from cracking.

Not that I was lying but that was a lot of pissed off mythological muscle headed my way.

"Stop this, Ios."

The minotaur stopped like someone had slammed his brakes on but his eyes never left me. From behind him emerged a man who I didn't need to be told was Hesmet. Tall and skeletally thin he seemed supported more by will than flesh. His clothing was of Victorian style but more newly made than that. Foppish and silky in shades of startling red. A knife edged face like cream floated amidst a mass of flowing hair the color of damp ashes. Red lips sat on the pale skin like a wound beneath a nose that was little more than two slits.

But his eyes were what pinned me in place. Black on black with golden flecks buried in the depths like stars in the night sky.

"Calm children. He will not hurt us. This is Rona's son."

That got a reaction from the crowd. Whispers raced through room. A hundred pair of eyes looked on me with new perspective. My mother's name always got that reaction from the Others.

Even Ios showed me a little respect at that. Straightening his stance and giving me a good hard look before nodding at me.

Cautiously I nodded back. Who was I to turn down a friendly gesture? Well more friendly than bellowing and charging me anyway.

"I am glad that you decided to come, Boone. I have looked forward to this meeting since the first whispers of your life reached my ears. Welcome to Nibiru."

Where Angels Fear to Tread revised

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter 1: Sanctuary’s End

Bailey Regional burned. The west wing had transformed from the bland white walls that bounded the courtyard into a roiling mass of black smoke lit from within by tongues of flame. Swirling madly in the courtyard proper patient and staff alike gathered their cries muted by distance and tempered glass. Some sought the safety of the east wing. Others sought control of the chaos. More simply stood and watched.

Leaning against window the fire loomed large in my eyes. Heart racing I searched for signs of what my gut had been telling me. That my former students had found me at last.

I’d always known that I couldn’t hide forever and when they found me we would have one last reunion my students and I. Just like old times. Only this time they would make sure to finish me.

“Jon?” Ethan whispered one hand clutching at my right arm.

A hiss escaped me as I pushed him away. Cradling the slinged arm and taking deep breaths my gaze hit the window and froze there. For a moment the fire had revealed a form only a fool would have called human. Too tall, too lean, and with knees that bent the wrong way. Smoke may have obscured its features but I didn’t need to see them to know it for what it was.

Kendall’s Ishim.

The tempered glass cracked under my fist before I spun away from the window towards my roommate. Pallid features and shaking shoulders made him younger than the 19 years old he claimed. His thin hospital issue tee shirt was near soaked thru as he kept glancing back between me and the door.

“What’s going on? Why haven’t they come to get us? Why aren’t the alarms going off?” he asked eyes wide and growing wider with every word.

Good question.

Cutting off his next outburst with a firm squeeze of his shoulder I caught his eyes and held them.

“It’s time for me to leave, Ethan. The hospital isn’t safe anymore.” I shook my head when his mouth started to open. “There’s no time for questions. Take care of yourself.”

Moving past him to the door I glanced out into the hallway to find the other residents playing the same game. Whispers and wary gazes marked every doorway. At the midpoint of the hall the nurses station sat full of staff talking softly but urgently. The looks cast our way held the same questions ours did.

The lights were off there too. It wasn’t just lights out.

A quiet dry cough behind me brought my head around to find Ethan right behind me. His shaking had grown worse in just moments. A whole body tremor now from lips to calves wracked him though he made some show of controlling it. Sweat beaded and dripped into his eyes forcing him to blink to even see me. He didn’t look old enough to drive.

Shit.

“Ethan,” I said reluctantly. “Stick close to me. Just follow me and you’ll be fine. Okay?”

He took several deep breaths and nodded.

Ethan following I slipped out the door to find a hallway swiftly filling up with the braver of our floormates. A chorus of questions escaped them as they converged on the station and the nurses within. Questions of safety and protocol. Pleas for direction and protection. Demands of answers and action.

The same ones heard within the walls of the psychiatric hospital everyday.

An older nurse took charge coming out from behind her desk. Samantha Cohen - Sam as she was known to her favorites - the head nurse. Leveling her gaze at the at the gathering crowd she set a reassuring smile on her weathered features.

“There is no reason to panic. Everyone please come out of your rooms and we will proceed outside until the fire department tells us that it is safe. “

With a sense of direction they began to pile out of their rooms trusting in the people who cared for them. A mass of men and women disheveled and confused by interrupted sleep or medication. The rest of the nurses and some security supervised the chaos. Some with smiles and words of comfort stood surrounded by the patients who needed them for support. Others with stony faces and flat voices were islands amidst it all.

Leaning in close to Ethan - close enough to smell his fear - I whispered “We’ll follow them till we get outside. Then we’ll slip off in the confusion.”

“What do you mean? W-why don’t we just stay with them?” he asked quietly eyeing the staff nearest us.

“Too dangerous.”

For them anyway.

Brow furrowed he shot me a look from beneath lowered lids but he nodded. Hugging himself with a thoughtless gesture he stepped back but stayed within arm’s reach. Eyes down he seemed just another of the sheep.

Ahead Sam cleared her throat capturing the attention of the thirty plus patients who filled the hallway by now. Their whispers and talk faded quickly. The silence only emphasized the alarm’s absence.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. We are going to do this in orderly fashion. Each of you stay close to your roommate and follow the closest nurse. Once we get outside we will take a headcount.” she said, head raised, clutching a clipboard to her chest. “Now follow me.”

In twos and fours we marched down the darkened hallways next to old faces and new. The depressed shuffled side by side the bipolar. Schizophrenic by the neurotic. A parade of people tormented by the workings of their own mind or the defects of their biology. Companions of many years.

Camouflage of many years.

Down stairwells we went. One floor, then two. At the ground floor we found other groups. Other floors and other wards merging into a river of refugees. All of them walked with their eyes glued to the floor like condemned men. In many of their eyes they already were.

Hope was a rare commodity in this place.

The hospital doors opened onto a world of light and sound. From a dozen vehicles lights flashed painting the world in blues and reds. Police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances scattered across the pavement. Shouts and orders echoed from the hundred or more men and women scrambling to contain the situation.

Above us smoke masked the stars as it poured from the roof but a glow had taken their place. Fire supplanting starlight.

“All of you over here!”

The police officer’s cry somehow cut through the din as he directed the flow of traffic from the hospital’s interior back beyond the vehicles. Hardened features turned aside all questions as he did his job.

Wending our way back amongst the vehicles I took my chance. Grabbing Ethan’s arm I pulled along with me into the shadow of a fire truck. The others never even slowed down. Pointing towards the trees at the side of the parking lot I started forward with a steady even stride. Breathing too quickly Ethan followed at my heels half formed questions struggling to make it past his lips.

The solitude of the oaks welcomed us with little fanfare. Soft spring grass cushioned and muffled our passage. Perfumes of green growing things masked the smoke and danger of the hospital. Even the raucous first responders outside could scarcely be heard. It was then that I stopped for a moment.

Ethan almost ran into me stumbling out of the way at the last second. I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Sit down. We’ll rest for a minute. We have some time before they miss us.” I said really smiling for the first time tonight.

Raising my head I took my first full breath of the night air as a free man in ten years. Ten years of hiding and pretending. Ten years wasted. I opened my eyes to find Ethan staring at me.

“Why did you take me with you? You could have escaped without me.” Despite of his fear he asked and spoke with conviction.

Should I lie to him? Give him some comfort? A sigh escaped me. I knew the answer.

“The people after me would have gone after you when they couldn’t find me.” I said leaning back against a tree. “Kendall would have squeezed every drop of information you had about me from you and killed you after. He doesn’t like to leave loose threads lying around. I brought you with me to protect you.”

And because I need you.

“People are trying to kill you?! I mean for real kill you ? Or are you just another para-…” he cut off mid word and his eyes widened. Stumbling backwards he tripped over a root and went crashing to the ground.

Following his eyes I saw what he saw. The Ishim.

Half again the height of a man and as slender as a woman it slid through the trees. It’s skin - black under the shadow of the trees - I knew would be coarse like the skin of a shark. Bent almost in half it stopped at the edge of the clearing watching us. A harsh charred aroma followed it carrying with it a scent underneath it. Roses.

“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.” Ethan chanted from where he lay the whites of his eyes showing. “Oh father who art in Heaven…”

Growling I pulled myself up straight. “Heaven?! Heaven is a charnel house and God is not listening.”

Slowly I pulled my right arm from its sling. Agony accompanied it as it always did. Inch by inch until the bandaged arm hung straight out from my side. Panting my eyes met the monsters.

“I did not walk through that charnel house to die here. Go back to your master whimpering my name.” as I spoke a light cold and bright began to pierce the wrappings.