The Grand Attraction Page 14

  He was gone with the echoes bouncing through the halls. Carls looked up and saw that he was still too near to the encampment. I cannot let them be exposed. His teeth clamped down. Xavier, why? Why do you keep leading them to me? Why do you put me in such feeble positions?

  Why do you want me in this so much?

  But enough questions. He had to keep them from his daughter. He had to shelter her. Even though she were blocks away, he still felt responsible. His heel dug into the sole of his shoes as he broke from the shop's emptiness and into the hall. He could only hear their cries and guess at their location. Regardless, he would have to find them before they wandered too closely. Even if it meant him against four or even a Fallen One. I will not let them find you, he swore to himself. I promise I will keep you safe.

  Things Better Left Unrivaled

  He hadn't spotted any illusionate. Rather, he rounded the bend and came to an abrupt stop-- hand reaching into his stash. He heard weeping behind the crates and broken displays. Carls etched near to one of the large boxes, crouching low to the ground and peering around its corner. A scrawny man sat across the room, head drooped and arms stretched on either side of him. His pants hang loose if at all; his shoes were torn and ripped at their seems. Only threads of his shirt remained and his skin sagged from his trembling bones.

  Long, unkept hair fell to his shoulders and reeked of abandonment. His chest beat harshly to his heart, raising and lowering dramatically with every breath. A broken and helpless man, but was he an illusion or tripper? Carls decided to cough to test the man's awareness. But the man seemed too caught up in misery to look his way.

  Locke lifted his hand from his stash and slowly stood. He knew the only way to reach them was at their weakest (though that more so applied to a mental state, not physical depletion). He eased forward. The broken man, leaned over and back bent, revealed his frail spine. What had happened to this man?

  Carls looked about him to ensure there were no traps. The man said something but Carls could not hear. He moved closer, still saying nothing himself.

  “It wants out...” the man wept, “and it wants in... why can't it just leave me be... I can't take it anymore....”

  He tried lifting a hand to the man's shoulder but it was caught. “Don't... tempt... me.”

  Carls could only imagine what the man was going through. He had to be only in his late teens or early twenties. So weak, so frail.... He remembered his wife and how she used to comfort him. He remembered those long days of work and getting laid off and how she would always just sit beside him and wait for him to take deep breaths.

  The man took a deep breath.

  He remembered how she would sit beside him just to make him aware of her presence, and so he pulled up a crate and seated himself.

  He remembered how she waited calmly and took in such deep breaths herself. It always reminded him to breathe himself. And so he took in a breath and let it out.

  The man did the same, his body shaking to each one.

  Now to just wait.

  The man's lungs jumped, his fists tightened. He was fighting something, Carls knew. But it was more than just rage or emotion. It ran deeper. It was something he could not relate to.

  “I... can't....” the man wept.

  “Yes, you can. Stop this and fight back. Whatever it is that you are warring with inside, fight it.” Those words-- he'd said them before. The illusionate, the gardens, the flames, the desperatecy. But this time he had no cards to ruin it all. This time, he wouldn't abuse the hope he had to give. “I am not here to--” The man bellowed with a palm digging into Carls' chest. He flung backward and against the crates. The breathing was harsh and exasperated; the skin a mellow gray and rough scale. The muscles twitched and hands burrowed hard against its forehead. He recognized it as all too familiar.

  “Fight it!” Carls yelled, crawling to his feet and keeping distance. It wasn't helping. The man was breaking; his body mutating under the pressure of something inside of him. “Your name, what is your name?” Carls tried asking it attempt to distract him.

  The man tumbled to the floor-- Carls was right next to him gripping the man's shoulders. They felt nothing of weak, rather it felt as though the man's veins were boiling. He groaned in his struggled, a part of him letting Carls remain at his side, another trying to tear him away.

  “Lara, Chester... all because of me!”

  “No! Do not succumb to hate and regret!” Carls beckoned, “Fight it!”

  He was trying. His knees shook and a twitch of muscle sent Locke crashing. But he wasn't going to give up. Fight this, I know you can. Just calm down. Calm down and think.

  The monster within his skin roared to break free. But the man fought it, every ounce of his being fighting for control. And, slowly, did he reseed. The outrage returned to a low mourn. The clenched jaws and fists spread open and lungs began shaking off their gasps. Tears slid from beneath closed eyelids. On the floor, exposed and frail, the man bundled up and shivered to an unexplainable chill.

  He obviously felt ashamed and confused. Carls couldn't tell if the man was aware anymore or not. His senses were still shaken and he kept to himself. Thus, Carls left him knowing that he had done all he could. He only hoped that the man would come around in the end. That he would change. Hang in there, my friend, you can yet win if only you keep fighting.

  Clues Found & Paths Followed

  Carls hadn't been followed, surprisingly enough. Then again, he actually had strength to run this time having slept the night alongside his daughter and had a good meal to eat. The fact that he had been able to reach out to a illusioned one comforted him. It gave him hope of reaching Sherlin's wife. And it relieved the regret he had for his first success-- and fatality. Xavier seemed to have had faith in his ability to communicate to the illusionate. Whether that be fate or chance, he did not know. Nor did he care. So what if Xavier expected something more out of him? He had no intentions on staying any longer than he had to. He was only here for his daughter and a favor to Sherlin.

  Then again, he had questions about the place. “You would do them wrong to just leave them.” Those were the words of Xavier. The man seemed satisfied at the role Carls was playing. Was the holograph really more than what he put on? How could he be tripper and yet... more? What were trippers? How were they even possible?

  And so he stood once again before the entrance of Brainware Corp. He didn't like the idea of charging in there after some demon. How was he to know if the girl was even still there? Or even alive?

  The fact that she had been the one who'd started all this for him caused a tinkling of tension within him. All his loss, all his suffering-- all from that pipe.

  And now he was trying to help her.

  His chest rose and lowered to the heavy breathing. No, I can't think of it like that, he told himself. He wasn't here for himself in the first place. He was here for Sherlin. For Dyrdrik.

  For Joan.

  He could rest assured she would be safe. Though nothing seemed familiar in such a dreaded and unpredictable place, he at least had trust to lean on. Had to. Man cannot function without it. His eyes closed; memory flashed:

  The cellar showed in flashes of light as its walls stretched down a narrow passage. Moss and slime covered the walls. Along the floor was a channel of concrete through which a steady stream flowed. His own body hang close to the right wall as he progressed down the chasm. Then he noticed that he was not the one moving. Rather, the moss seemed to be pulling backward and the slush in the stream flowed upward and against current. They seemed to be intertwined with each other and disappeared behind him. He could not turn around fully, his vision stayed before him, the scene still in brief flashes.

  Then his body jerked and the scene changed. He felt as though something were pulling him from behind-- a wet string about his waist and arms.

  The moss... it was alive?

  His body hit the wall and slapped upon the carpet. Not in his vision, but reality. He saw a glimpse of blac
k as whatever it was bent around the corner and from sight. He felt his waist and saw the smears of black across his coat.

  He heard the moan of another presence. Not a moan-- the singing again.

  Somehow, he had been dragged inside the corporation. How or when escaped him, only that he was there and that so what something else. The boy, he had to be a tripper...

  His hand reached into the sash and felt for the stick. His heart beat anxiously.

  I need to calm down, he reminded himself, taking the breath.

  The singing faded. His eyes had already taken in his surroundings. The hall he was in met head on with another and behind him were closed doors. The thing he had seen had peeled to the right. Thus, he etched forward and peered likewise.

  Empty.

  But something caught his ear from behind. He turned to smolder of ash falling to the floor. What? They seemed to have formed some sort of word or phrase. Carls stepped toward it, still trying to memorize his surroundings in case the lights flashed out like before.

  They did and he was left in black.

  He noticed that beneath one of the doors a light barely filtered through. He took another breath and raised a hand to his knob. Shoving through, he came to a halt in shock to the blood covered walls. The once-deemed-storage-room was a wreck. Carls pushed aside the pulse to run and honed in on a tape behind one of the crates.

  (The voice came in panic) “It held to a girl! It-- whatever it was-- I can't fight it! Oscar and Reece were torn in two just looking at it! If this is what he warned about, it's certainly way above our pay grade. He can hire someone else to find that cursed work, I don't care anymore! No more men to this madness I say! No more blood!” It was the same man as last time. Presumably an earlier tape, but the same reconnaissance team. The same ones looking for Norwick's work.

  The melody came again—the hall lights were back on. What was this monster? What had they confronted?

  Carls stepped outside of the room. The clumps of ash still lie on the floor and wall. He could make out their letters as they faintly called out a phrase to him. “Let not the faint fall.”

  The same words that were being sung.

  None of this is making any sense, Carls thought. Why would such a creature hold on to her and still slaughter everything else? Why would it be here, as if residing at home? Here-- where Norwick had been.

  The thought provoked his curiosity. He remembered the last tape of the same crew. They had tracked down Norwick's whereabouts but had found him already dead. Already dead. By what? Norwick himself had mentioned a third party not of Friedelock going after him. But who? Dyrdrik knew. He had said so in the conversation Carls had envisioned. Maybe when he got back, having returned the man's wife, he would get some answers.

  The child stood before him, oblivious to the dark that held the place. “Come on,” he waived and ran through the door further down the hall. Carls pursued. Was he real? He didn't have time to question. Nothing was making sense anyways, only that this boy held some relevance unknown to this case.

  A Door To The Unknown

  The ground beneath him was not there to catch his feet. Carls hit to the floor below where he fell. Impossible! It was there... the room, the floor-- I'd seen it there before I stepped.

  But there was a force much larger at work than his bedazzlement of entry. The area before him seemed vast and open-- a tear into the infrastructure of the corporation. Both the floor he had been on and the next five above and below were missing. Along their perimeters hang a very much alive moss that seemed to bend beneath the currents flowing back and forth. Wind? Inside a building? But this was no ordinary wind. He'd felt it before. The moist, the chill, the unnatural, the living moss, the broken floors-- could it be?

  The ground shook beneath his palms and knees. Yes, a Possessioner.

  The black shroud emerged from the crevices two stories above. Carls tried the door behind him. Locked.

  “Come on,” a child-like voice came again. He looked over the ledge and saw the kid atop a thick moss that stretched as a vein across the vast space. Carls took in a breath and found himself leap in faith towards the kid. “Follow me,” the kid said as Carls' body barely caught hold of the vein. He managed to reach his knees and balance his way toward the desired end. Seeing him follow, the child wasted no time proceeding. Carls yet again dropped to a lower level and followed the kid as swiftly as he could through the tangled mesh of overgrowth. His movement was nothing close to fluid, but he pressed forward and down until, finally, he reached another door. A firm hand and quick twist turned everything to silence and before him-- a well-lit carpeted hall.

  His breathing was irregular, but he managed. The child was replaced by another figure. It was the girl!

  “Wait!” Carls called out as she made the bend. He cut the corner just in time to see her take another. “Wait!” How was she moving so fast if only walking? He heard a door open and caught a glimpse of which one just as it closed, but came to an abrupt halt.

  “Well hello there, my friend,” a man said before him with a laugh at his bedazzlement. “It's been a while!”

  The Dealer?

  Serve Per Card was unmistakable with his white table strapped across his back and his plump body somehow carrying it with class and ease. His spectacles reflected the florescent hall lights and his tux shone like violet gold.

  “That girl, I must--”

  “Oh hush, hush. She can wait,” the Gambler said, setting his table out and taking his seat behind it. “Come, let us do business. I see you have used your cards? Good! I was worried you'd let them go to waste.”

  “You—who are you?” Carls demanded. “A lady told me you were a Dealer, what is that?”

  The man seemed surprised and yet already expecting it. A smirk crossed his face.

  Carls continued his ramble, “These Hensers, what are they? Sorcery? Magic? What is their source? Because all I have seen come of them is darkness and corruption!”

  “Sloooowwww dooowwwwnnnnn,” the man mimicked. “What is with your kind and their desperate questions? Well, for business sake, let me elaborate more for you. They are not magic, like I said. Their name, Hensers, was given them because of their generalized use: as enhancers. What they can do and how they do it, is nothing of magic. All their power, all their mystery, has origin, and these origins are in Chambers.”

  “Chambers?”

  “Yes, small worlds, you could say, that wield a single substance or material. In the case of Hensers, Chambers are a source of their individual abilities. Think of the cards as... gates to the Chambers. That is why they are so often labeled as dangerous. Rightly so, they are. You witnessed the power of their flames, now imagine its source! When you use a Henser, you are opening the Chamber it is connected to. In the case of fire, you briefly access the Chamber of Fire, and as the gate is opened, the one flows through the other. As for the title of Dealer, I trust that you have indeed traveled to the land that uses such a term?”

  “If you mean one where waterfalls fall upward, then yes, I have been there. Is that also where you came?”

  “I have no origin, simply put. But I myself have made profitable business there. Dealer is their term for one who sells these Hensers. Though that is not the best description of our work. We simply seek out those who we think can wield these gifts correctly, and offer them the chance to. As such, I am here now, offering them to you as a friend of business. Here, have this on the house.”

  “I will have none of it!”

  The man looked sternly. “Do you know what lies behind this door?” he asked.

  Carls vaguely remembered his intentions before the Gambler had interrupted.

  “Behind this door lies a deeper threat than any you have faced. Yes, that means the Nightingale. This creature, however, is not summoned as the Nightingale was. It is its own being, and has gained tremendous power through fusing with another dark force. You seek answers behind the power within Hensers, and surely this goes far beyond that. You will
not, in the slightest, have any chance of accomplishing what you came here for unless you put aside your past failure and man up! I warned you what these can do, and you also have seen all too much what they tend to leave behind. But that does not mean they cannot help. You are different from the rest, which is why I think of you as a valued customer. You'd do best not to ignore my offers, for they do not come to many. And nor are they ever free.”

  “You claim to only be doing business with me? Then explain their numbers! How is it that everywhere I turn there only lies destruction and so often the ashes of your cards?”

  The man held silent, as though a part of him felt pitied for Carls' temper. But the man was right. If it was anything like that which he'd come to know as a Possessioner, then he had no hopes of fighting it alone. Even with what the Nightingale had left for him. He didn't even know how to use it. A stick? What was he thinking? But a Henser... was that any different? He had sworn he would never resort to them again and yet here he was about to receive another. Just this once, he said. I only need it this once.

  He took the card from the table. The Chamber of Ice.

  The Gambler seemed uplifted by his action. “There, there now! Just remember, wield them wisely! And here, you will need more than that if you wish to sustain any chance of victory.” He withdrew another card from his deck and flung it into the air. It spun around and fluttered back to the table, landing face up. “The Barrier,” he remarked with awe. “What luck! Go ahead, take it, friend, it's on the house.”