Ethereal Malignance, page 10
Why couldn’t she wait?
They’d kill her, and it would be her own fault.
Not hers. It was Griffin’s fault.
If he hadn’t written down those stupid ideas, John wouldn’t have had that nightmare and wouldn’t have left the shack. Jessica wouldn’t have found those papers, read them, and assumed the worst.
But those ideas weren’t entirely Griffin’s, were they?
Yondarel.
He glared at the cursed band of gold on his finger. If it hadn’t put those poisonous ideas in Griffin’s head, egged him on with ideas of domination and victory … If it hadn’t given John that nightmarish vision …
No, it was my fault.
He could have spoken to Jessica about his fears instead of running outside in a panic. Could have had enough self-control to know he’d never harm her. Not have read Griffin’s papers. Not assaulted the stranger who only wanted to help Jessica. Any number of things could have led to a different outcome.
As it was, Jessica would be killed, and it was all John’s fault.
He’d started the day with only one friend and had lost two in less than twenty-four hours. That had to be a world record.
John kneeled in the mud. The rain continued to ease. His head dropped, chin on his chest.
His only consolation was that the world wouldn’t end. That was Griffin’s lie to motivate him. But Jessica’s world would end. She’d been running all night with him, had seen him grievously wound a man, kill several monsters, and possibly become addicted to their essence. And she was probably starving. He couldn’t blame her.
Then John realised something.
Jessica hadn’t gone towards the police station. She’d taken the road to the mountain.
She was without protection and trying to find a long-abandoned mine in the dark, all the while broadcasting her location to every ethereal in the world.
He could keep her safe even as she fled him if he followed her. He could steal another car. He didn’t know how to drive, but he’d seen Jessica do it. Just put it in gear and put the clutch down, and … no. That wasn’t an option.
Running would take at least an hour. He’d be far too late to help.
An idea struck him like a punch to the face.
The mud splashed as he jumped to his feet and raced up the street. If it was still there, he might just have a chance.
He arrived a minute later. The bike was still in the bike rack!
“Well, boys, look who’s back again,” came a voice behind him.
John spun around. There was Tom, a white medical dressing on his nose, and two of his idiots, all armed with bats. Rick, the broken-fisted, wasn’t with them. It was probably the smartest thing he’d ever done.
Of course, they were here. They usually were before dawn. John hadn’t even thought about them since Griffin had died.
“You owe us for earlier,” Tom said with a sneer. “And the old man won’t be quick enough to save you this time.”
John groaned. He really didn’t want to deal with this shit. There were real problems to solve.
“I’m only going to say this once,” John said quietly. “You don’t want to fuck with me right now.”
Tom slapped his bat against his hand. “Tough words. Let’s see what you’ve got to back them up.”
They approached John, bats at the ready.
He sighed. Compared to the night he’d had, this was just pathetic.
Tom swung at him, but John grabbed the bat and effortlessly yanked it out of his hand. He swung the bat and knocked all three miscreants to the ground.
“Pathetic,” he said. He had warned them.
He dropped the bat and walked to the bike rack, ignoring the moans and groans of the injured idiots.
John crouched and inspected the lock on the bike. He didn’t have a bolt cutter, but he did have Yondarel’s strength. He grabbed the chain and, with a swift, forceful jerk, snapped it. The sudden release of tension made the chain whip against the metal bike rack, which rang like a bell.
John slipped the snapped chain and lock into a pocket in his cargo pants and used the velcro to seal it. John was ready to hop on the bike when Tom stumbled towards him. He’d picked up the bat and was waving it around, screaming incoherently. Yondarel translated: he’d insulted John’s parentage, sexuality, and skin colour.
John sighed and tried to go around him. Tom swung the bat, hitting him in the face.
Hurt him!
He dropped the bike and grabbed Tom by the throat, lifting him off the ground and squeezing. Tom’s eyes bulged, and the bat fell to the ground. He clawed at John’s hands, but John was implacable. No more chances.
Kill!
He crushed the young man’s throat, and his body went limp.
Consume!
John willed Tom’s essence into himself. Brimming with power, he dropped the body like carelessly discarded rubbish.
He felt powerful.
Yondarel did too.
Chapter Eighteen
John pedalled faster than ever along the quiet, tree-lined streets. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and the full moon lay low on the horizon and peeked through the cloud cover, illuminating the pre-dawn darkness.
He turned right along the cemetery. There was activity within the grounds. Unusual for this time of day. He stopped the bike and took a closer look.
Bodies exhumed themselves from graves, controlled by ethereals. Many were naked or covered in shawls. Some well-established ethereals stood nearby, overseeing the efforts. No matter how skeletal or battered the bodies looked, a transformation occurred once the overseers approached them. It was hard to see from a distance, but John could sense that each body was given a ring, an anchor, and as the ethereal essence within made contact, the bodies began to regenerate. Muscles grew, skin formed, and in moments, they appeared fully alive. It was the same healing process that John experienced with Yondarel, albeit starting from a much more dire physical state.
He felt something else, a feeling he’d never encountered before.
Tunnels?
Not regular tunnels. Tunnels through reality.
Jessica’s passage had clearly not gone unnoticed, and the ethereals were assembling an army.
He slammed his feet onto the pedals and rode as fast as possible. He needed to reach Jessica before this army did.
As John pedalled, he saw a morning jogger dragged into the bushes. Her screams abruptly cut off.
He felt sickened but couldn’t do anything for her now. He had to reach Jessica.
When he rode past the bushes, the same woman walked out with a gold ring on her finger and an inhuman expression on her face.
As John continued, he witnessed more people caught by ethereals, killed, and reanimated as hosts. He had no idea how many new ethereals had entered the world this morning. The senseless murders seemed unreal to him, numbing him to them.
John rode beyond the residential areas to where the road narrowed. Before too long, the road cut directly through forestland. He could barely see through the trees and shrubs. The tall trees filtered what little moonlight broke through the clouds.
He turned right up the mountain, past empty picnic areas. His stamina was boundless. That was Yondarel’s doing.
He turned left onto a muddy dirt road encroached by tall trees. The narrow path seemed to hold back the forest.
Fresh tyre marks in the mud confirmed what he already knew: Jessica had come this way. All along, he had been following the clarion call of her presence, which now beckoned from further up the mountain. He continued on.
Jessica’s abandoned car lay on the path ahead, blocked by a downed tree. John rode around the obstacles, not even slowing to investigate. She wasn’t in it. He could sense her presence further ahead.
He grimaced. She’d never find the mine’s entrance without the car’s headlights.
Rain bucketed down. John had been riding for half an hour. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
He sensed both light and dark creatures ahead and rode as quickly as he could without slipping in the mud or crashing into a tree.
The ethereals had found her.
Chapter Nineteen
John rode past a handful of ethereals fighting each other and squinted in the dim light.
A dark creature loomed before him, and John dodged. He swung his anchor-laden fist like a post-modern knight on horseback. It screamed and fell as its face burned.
He gripped the handlebars and continued through the undergrowth.
He didn’t see the root, sending him flying off the bike. He landed hard on his chest but immediately jumped back to his feet. Yonderel would attend to the injury. He picked up the bike and swung it at a light creature approaching him. It roared and retreated.
Hefting the bike over his shoulder, John ran headlong into the dark forest towards Jessica’s signal, tripping into a deep ditch. It annoyed him more than it hurt. As he clambered back to his feet, he noticed a tiny black cave on the side of the mountain. He moved closer.
A chain-link fence barred entry. Overgrown plant life covered faded warning signs. This was the abandoned mine. The place where Griffin had killed twelve of his friends and companions. John grabbed the fence and tore it apart.
He grabbed the bike and slung it back over his shoulder. It would do as a weapon against the light creatures since his ring was useless against them.
He could feel ethereal presences. Only a dozen had made it this high so far, but that would change once the reinforcements got up the path. He had to find Jessica quickly.
As John moved deeper into the forest, he focused on Jessica’s siren call. It was like a beacon in the night, guiding him through the dense undergrowth. He had to reach her first.
John could hear the rustling of leaves, the snapping of twigs, and the distant echoes of ethereal movement. His heart pounded as he pushed forward, the urgency of the situation driving him on.
He found her.
She ran blindly headlong into the forest, away from the mine. On her heels were three ethereals: the dark creature Zhelktrakh and the light creatures Larulia and Unrelya. He called out to them. Unrelya turned to look at him, its glare blazing, but the others kept running.
He ran to Unrelya and smashed it in the face with the bicycle, again and again. It roared in anger, catching the bike in its hands and ripping it into pieces. Then he felt the presence of a starless night sky behind him and dodged.
Gralkrakh whipped past and slammed into Unrelya. They grappled and roared with inhuman voices. Unrelya tried to punch Gralkrakh with its anchor, but a bite to the wrist kept it back.
John left them to it and continued towards Jessica.
She had fallen and scrambled backwards, her back to a tree, seemingly resigned to her fate. Zhelktrakh—dark like a mine shaft—and Larulia—bright like an incandescent bulb—stalked towards her while trying to fend the other off.
John picked up a fallen branch and ran behind them, slamming it into Larulia’s head. With a loud crack, her body flopped to the ground, neck twisted.
Zhelktrakh turned in surprise. John dropped the branch and leaped onto Zhelktrakh, pressing Yondarel into its face. It shrieked as it burned, batting him off and fleeing into the darkness of the forest.
John looked down at Jessica. She was soaked, dark hair matted to her face, his black leather jacket covered in mud and blood.
A gash bled down her cheek and another on her leg.
She looked at him with a mixture of relief and trepidation.
“I wasn’t going to let them kill you.” He extended his hand.
“You’re insane. And awesome,” she said quietly, pulling herself up.
Danger!
“Go!” John shouted. “That way!”
Jessica ran.
John turned to face a fully healed Larulia. He reached down to grab a large stick, but Larulia growled and punched him in the face. He responded with an uppercut. It contemptuously spat out a tooth. John feinted left, and Larulia moved to block him. He grabbed Larulia’s outstretched arm and ripped the golden ring—Onsiyehr—off its finger. He threw it as far as he could into the forest.
Larulia screamed in rage and kicked him hard in the face before racing into the forest. John’s nose broke, and he fell backward. But he didn’t stay down. He jumped to his feet, his nose healing as he moved and plunged into the forest after it.
The forest was a dark, chaotic maze, the ground slick with mud and fallen leaves. Every step was treacherous. Low-hanging branches whipped at his face, and unseen roots threatened to trip him. But he didn’t slow. He sensed Larulia’s weakness, shorn of Onsiyehr, and he knew he had a chance to end it.
John’s breath was loud, and his heart pounded, but he pushed himself harder, driven by a single-minded determination. He could hear Larulia crashing through the undergrowth ahead of him. He was gaining on it. He intended to end this, once and for all.
A strange sensation, like the one from the cemetery, lay ahead, mingling with Larulia’s incandescent presence. But the ethereal was nowhere to be seen. Thinking it was a trick, he ran full speed and slipped out of the world.
Chapter Twenty
John’s senses were overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the all-encompassing whiteness.
There was no forest. No darkness. No gravity.
Only white.
Rain droplets floated away from his body and into the white nothingness.
He stared into it, hypnotised. His quarry had escaped here.
The stark whiteness.
Like he had stepped into a pallid void, a complete absence of everything he knew.
The silence was so absolute, so profound that he could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, the rush of blood in his veins, the faint rustle of his clothes against his skin.
He could even hear the soft sound of his own breathing, the air rushing in and out of his lungs.
As the moments stretched on, he noticed the air thinning.
What little that accompanied him from the forest was slowly diffusing into the nothingness.
His lungs strained for breath, but he did not panic. He simply stopped breathing.
Yondarel kept him alive, healing him, sustaining him.
It was disorienting. The lack of sensory input made him feel as if he was floating in a sea of nothingness.
Time lost all meaning, minutes stretching into what felt like hours.
He had no idea how long he was there, only that he needed to find Jessica.
A dark spot in the corner of his eye, a minuscule difference in the homogenous environment, drew his attention.
He turned his head and beheld a gaping black void. A terrible maw of darkness that stretched out forever and overtook his senses. The blinding whiteness now only a memory.
Movement. Dark things moved in the darkness.
He was afraid.
His hand twitched.
Compelled to move.
It twitched again.
Was the ring trying to leave his hand?
He held onto it tightly.
Something dwelt within the golden object, a writhing circle of light that yearned to return to its own kind.
He turned back to the infinite brightness. Each side overwhelmed his senses. He closed his eyes.
A shift in the ethereal presences around him. Something had changed.
Movement. Light things moved in the white.
They were coming for him. Coming for Yondarel.
Dark things moved behind him.
They would tear him apart.
He flailed in a panic. Where was the tunnel?
They drew close.
He reached out with his senses. An echo of Jessica’s presence somewhere close. He had to find his way back to her.
Was there an imperfection in the whiteness around him? The tunnel?
He couldn’t move. There was no medium to move through.
Instead, he willed himself towards the imperfection.
The approaching armies of formless beings were almost upon him.
His mind felt for Jessica’s presence. Yet, he remained still.
The opposing armies were upon him.
He tried one last time, and the light and the darkness collided behind him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rain. The smell of the forest. The sound of battle.
John opened his eyes. The tunnel had closed behind him. Why, he didn’t know. But he was back in the world, and that’s what mattered. He felt impossibly heavy after his weightless time in the other place.
The reinforcements had arrived. Countless melees occurred around him. John fought through the ranks of ethereals and darted through trees and undergrowth towards Jessica’s presence.
It took some time, but he found her. She was surrounded and armed with a stick, but her strength was failing. The creatures had her backed against a rock wall and she could not retreat any farther.
The creatures knew they had her and advanced while fighting among themselves: light battling dark and dark battling light. Their lack of a united front was the only thing slowing them.
John launched himself with blinding speed and inhuman strength and slammed the ground, knocking the creatures off their feet. He made it to Jessica’s side before the creatures could get back up.
“John!” she exclaimed with obvious relief.
John smiled, but he knew it was too late. There were too many to fight through and have Jessica survive the ordeal. He knew what needed to be done.
Kill.
“I’m so sorry, Jessica, but this is the only way.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Yondarel exulted. Its time had come.
Consume.
John leaned in towards Jessica and pressed his cigarette lighter into her hand. He whispered into her ear.
“No!” she cried.
John turned away from her and screamed a war cry. He barrelled into the ranks of the encroaching creatures. They parted, allowing him passage; he wasn’t their target. As he passed the final row of creatures, he leaped high into the air.
