Space Eldritch II: The Haunted Stars, page 41
I can’t answer.
I am more than empty. Milholland is letting the raw power flow through him, in and straight back out, and he is drinking my own power in as he does. He is consuming me. I can feel my soul stretched taut between my flesh and my soulbone, pulled tight and pinched to a taper, the taper strung out to a hair, and the hair turning to dust.
If souls can live independently of the flesh, and my limited experience suggests that they can, what Milholland is doing to me is worse than murder. He is ending me forever, and doing so as wastefully as possible, like a vintner pouring wine across his hand and onto the ground instead of into a glass.
I remember a photo on a corporate identification badge. The face of Tynah Jones, a beautiful black woman, smiles out of that photo. The photo is pinned to the chest of a corpse that was sucked dry, a corpse that looked as if the process was not quite instantaneous. There was time for pain and fear and the dawning awareness that life does continue after death, just not for her.
What is happening to me feels like that, muted only slightly by drugs that have themselves despaired in the face of what rushes out of me. But it’s happening much more slowly, because Milholland doesn’t even know he’s doing it, and he couldn’t control it if he did. He shines with lost power, radiating uncontrolled energy like a forest fire, spewing it forth like a volcano.
Or maybe like a giant star, burning too fast to live long.
My sight is dim, tunneling from asphyxiation, but I can see Milholland and his fountain of power. I wonder if anybody else can see him.
Or any thing.
Milholland abruptly seizes, his back arched, his hands outstretched. In that movement he throws my soulbone clear, and my connection to him is lost. I suck in a long, deep breath; at the same time, something unseen sucks Milholland to an ice-cold husk.
It takes about two seconds, from seizure to the final, shriveling end, but it seems much longer than that. Milholland’s skin blackens, and his flesh withers and shrinks beneath it. There is no scream, no sound, save a final splintering as his bones freeze and split and whatever is drinking him finishes with the desiccation of deep marrow.
I am free, though. I dive from my seat, praying that the invisible, selectively tangible thing that took Milholland can’t see me for my emptiness. I grab my soulbone and do more than pray. I will myself unseen.
It’s not working.
I can’t feel Betts’s bullet in my chest anymore. Mercy on her part, maybe? Or maybe we just took too long. It doesn’t matter. The only power left to me is what I can bleed out of myself, and that’s not going to be enough to carve much off of this monster. In fact, without the hot fuel of plant A behind my blade, I’m not going to carve anything. I’ve read those armor runes. All my voidblade can do is scrape the surface clean.
Clean. Perhaps I can paint something.
I bleed onto my bone and find power sufficient to disappear. I am unseen, and then bubbled in armor.
“Driver, open the door; then fly to R&D HQ in Los Angeles. Get clear of this radio cloud as quickly as possible, and then broadcast flight data info and mission logs. If I fail, maybe somebody smarter, stronger, and crazier than me can save the world.”
“Yes, Captain.” The doors open, and I leap from the truck.
There is a clap of thunder behind me as driver follows my orders under acceleration he can only use when nobody’s aboard.
The beast moved a lot closer to us in order to reach out and kill Milholland. I can see it again, and it shines with furious power. Fresh power. With one of its side-sprouted tendrils it drank Milholland dry, and ten kilometers below me, its knot of appendages sucks the life out of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in Las Vegas. Their essence is consumed directly, their souls gone. Their vital fluids are drawn up into the monster and pushed out into rune paths, strengthening the beast.
That patch of passenger remains is only about fifteen hundred meters away. I bleed hard into my soulbone and fly. My chest burns as I pour power into the direct effects of speed and lift. In that burn I can tell that my medication is gone, my bracelet spent, and the drugs themselves purged from my bloodstream like impurities from smelted ore.
A tendril swings toward me, thick as a skyscraper but tapering to a tip so fine it seems to vanish into its own point. So it can see me after all. I stop spending precious blood on being invisible and spend it on a proper voidblade.
It feels like a heart attack as I tap still more blood and will two hundred meters of preternatural, interplanar sharpness into existence. There is a fist clenched in my chest, knuckles so tense they’re ready to split, a twin to the grip I have on my soulbone.
I fly, and flick. Dodging that tendril and sweeping with the blade is exhilarating. The armor on the creature’s carapace does not extend to the appendages, and the end of this tendril, a piece roughly the size and shape of that old tower in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, drops away, falling just as surely as that run-down skyscraper did, if quite a bit further.
Out of reach of the nearest tendrils, I now have the patch of shattered, pulverized travelers directly before me. It is about five meters in diameter, and only vaguely pink.
I give more blood to the bone, but the ache in my hand says my tap ring may be tapped out, my body finally fighting back and shutting off flow to that finger. Still, I’ve strength enough to stay aloft, to reach out telekinetically, and to finger paint.
The rune drawn in the fields of Delta and again in the forested crash site, it seemed to dampen rune magic. I paint that rune now, or rather I unpaint it, shaping it in the clean space, the void created by wiping the pasty, flaking remains off of the carapace. That was why the crop circle actually worked—it wasn’t a rune inscribed with crushed cornstalks; it was a rune of dead space surrounded by living material.
With the final stroke I feel the effect, but it is faint.
Fuck.
I hoped that this creature could somehow be robbed of all its power, but the rune in Delta only dampened rune-tech, and it was thousands of times the size of what I’ve drawn. My void painting is small, this drying people-paste lacks sufficient essence, and the carapace against which it is plastered is simply too ancient and too alive to suffer more than a shallow weakening.
Ancient and alive. And weak at the surface?
I need more blood. I draw my utility blade and with a quick stroke open the veins of my wrist. Blood rushes out and over my hand and my soulbone, killing and spilling and filling, God willing. But I don’t have much time, because this ache spreading down my left arm is saying that my heart may have stopped.
My voidblade is now a grinding tool, whirling with cutting power. I go back over the rune I smeared clean in the paste, etching it now in the carapace of the beast, obliterating the creature’s own runes as I do. My vision begins to tunnel, but I’ll be able to finish. I think.
Just one more stroke.
I carve the last cross-stroked serif, and this time the final stroke has a real effect, beginning with the restarting of my tired heart.
And this time I understand. The rune is not for dampening magic. That’s just a side effect. This rune is for drinking it.
I am drinking from the fire hose, awash in a hundred times more power than I felt in plant A, and I must burn it, shed it, slough it, because if I try to contain it I will end up as ash.
With a thought I streak away from the monster’s flank on a gout of blue-white flame. With a silent curse I blast that flame up and into the creature, my shaped, blinding roar playing like six senses of torch with power sufficient to melt mountains. It carves deep gouges in the magically toughened carapace and cuts another tendril free. With a flick of my wrist I turn that tumbling column of doom into expanding vapor. It might have landed on somebody, but not on my watch.
The power flowing into me tastes like pain, fear, and surprise, except with an otherworldly accent.
So, I have your attention now.
You think that was surprising? Chew on this, world eater. I streak further away, power flowing into me, through me, and back out in a flaming scythe, with which I begin to again sculpt the rune of drinking in strokes a thousand meters long.
The power flowing into me tastes like terror, the desperation of the doomed, but I will not let you flee. Killing and spilling and thrilling and filling, and whether or not God is willing, there will be no retreat for you. I will drink you dry, and then race through the sky and drink everything in your ancient house down to dust.
With the last stroke I am awash in, blinded by, and deafened with power. I can feel it in my teeth, in my spine, in my soulbone—
My soulbone explodes, taking my hand and empty wristband with it. In a flash of silence and darkness, the power is gone. No flight, no sight, and nothing with which to fight.
Empty again.
My vision returns in spots as I blink away the blackness. My right arm now ends in a ragged stump somewhere south of my elbow, and there isn’t much blood.
Empty forever.
I begin to fall, and the sensation of weightlessness is quickly drowned out in the rushing of wind.
The creature hangs before me, its bulk obscuring half of the world. I am falling, but the creature in front of me is not moving.
No, that’s not right. It is moving with me. I look up, and the ring of runes is gone. The doorway to wherever this came from is now shut, and I am falling alongside ninety kilometers of severed monster. It is not hidden from mortal sight, nor is it armored against physical attack.
It is fully material, completely tangible, and suddenly subject to physical laws.
Oh, shit.
I am falling onto Las Vegas alongside a million, billion megatons of armored meat.
Contributors
D.J. Butler (Dave) is a lawyer by training and a consultant in his day job, and he’s been writing speculative fiction for all audiences since 2010. He’s working on getting published by the traditional route; in the meantime, he entertains readers with adventure tales.
Rock Band Fights Evil follows the escapades of a ragged dive bar band of damned men, struggling against the powers of Hell to get back their souls and keep their freedom. Rock Band comes out in e-book form, and then is collected into paperback omnibuses. Rock Band #1 is Hellhound on My Trail. Rock Band Fights Evil Volume One contains Hellhound on My Trail, Snake Handlin’ Man, and Crow Jane. As of this publication, seven installments of Rock Band are available.
City of the Saints is a four-part gonzo action steampunk adventure set in the Rocky Mountains. U.S. Army agent Sam Clemens rolls west aboard his amphibious steam-truck, the Jim Smiley, with a mission: to ensure that the Kingdom of Deseret, with its air-ships and rumored phlogiston guns, brain children of the Madman Orson Pratt, enters the looming civil war on the side of the United States. Can he outrace and outmaneuver his competitors, Captain Richard Burton and the secret agent Edgar Allan Poe? Will Deseret’s own defenders, Orrin Porter Rockwell and Eliza R. Snow, thwart him? Or will he be caught up in the coup d’etat of the mysterious Danites? Part the first of City of the Saints is Liahona; the entire tale is also available in a single paperback volume.
The Buza System is a dark science fiction saga set in a world of brutal manipulation, cynical lies, and blood rites. Young Dyan discovers that in order to become a full-fledged member of the System, an Urbane, she is expected to murder an innocent young man. Her response puts her entire world on the line in the first book: Crecheling.
Read about D.J. Butler’s writing projects at http://davidjohnbutler.com.
Michael R. Collings is a Professor Emeritus at Seaver College, Pepperdine University, where he directed the Creative Writing Program for over two decades.
He has published over 100 volumes of poetry, novels, short fiction, and scholarly studies of such contemporary writers as Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Dean R. Koontz, and Piers Anthony. Recent works include Writing Darkness (2012), a collection of essays on prose narrative; The Art and Craft of Poetry (1996, 2009); Toward Other Worlds: Perspectives on John Milton, C. S. Lewis, Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, and Others (2010); In Endless Morn of Light: Moral Agency in Milton’s Universe (2010); In the Void: Poems of Science Fiction, Myth and Fantasy, and Horror (2009); Matrix: Growing Up West—Autobiographical Poems (2010); BlueRose and Other Chapbooks (2012); A Verse to Horrors—An Abecedary of Monsters and the Monstrous; HAI-(And Assorted Other)-KU (2012); Deep Music: A Collection of L.D.S. Musical Readings (2012); and a Book of Mormon epic, The Nephiad (1996, 2010).
His fiction, also published through Wildside, includes: The House Beyond the Hill: A Novel of Fear (2007); Wordsmith, Volume One: The Thousand Eyes of Flame (2009) and Wordsmith, Volume Two: The Veil of Heaven (2009); Singer of Lies: A Science-Fantasy Novel (2009); Wer Means Man, and Other Tales of Wonder and Terror (2010); Three Tales of Omne: A Companion to Wordsmith (2010); Devil’s Plague: A Mystery Novel (2011); Serpent’s Tooth (2011); Static!: A Novel of Horror (2011); Shadow Valley (2011); and The Slab (2010), the story of a haunted tract house in Southern California... that consumes people.
With his wife Judith, he has also published a unique cookbook, Whole Wheat for Food Storage: Recipes for Unground Wheat, a revision and expansions of their first joint project, Whole Wheat Harvest (1980).
He is now retired and lives in his native state of Idaho.
Michaelbrent Collings is a #1 bestselling novelist and produced screenwriter. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Horror Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers, and is one of Amazon's Most Popular Horror Writers. His bestsellers include The Colony Saga, Strangers, Darkbound, Apparition, The Haunted, The Loon, and the YA fantasy series The Billy Saga. He hopes someday to develop superpowers, and maybe get a cool robot arm so as to punish evildoers (like people who text during movies). Michaelbrent has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings and can be followed on Twitter through his username @mbcollings. Follow him for awesome news, updates, and advance notice of sales. You will also be kept safe when the Glorious Revolution begins!
Larry Correia is the New York Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series, the award winning Grimnoir Chronicles trilogy (Hard Magic, Spellbound, and Warbound), and the military thrillers Dead Six and Swords of Exodus, all available from Baen Books. He has also written novellas and the novel Into the Storm for Privateer Press set in their Warmachine universe, and published over a dozen short stories in various anthologies. Larry was a Campbell finalist for best new writer in 2011, a Verlanger finalist for best novel in France, and has won two Audie Awards for best audiobook.
A former accountant, machinegun dealer, firearms instructor, and military contractor, Larry is now a fulltime writer, and lives in the mountains of northern Utah with his very patient wife and children.
Robert J Defendi has worked on many projects. He is a former Writers of the Future winner and the writer of the popular podcast audiobook Death by Cliché. His fiction appears in many RPG supplements and smaller venues.
Robert was born in Dubuque, IA to parents who, frankly, should have known better. After a bleak early period, punctuated by too much bad science fiction produced by Walt Disney, he began to read such greats as Tolkien, Niven, Clark, Asimov and Clavell. He’s been influenced by dozens of writers, from Tom Clancy to Barbara Hambly. He studies bad fiction as well as good in every medium but poetry (with which he is abysmal). He feels that writing is a constant process, continuing through every aspect of one’s life, and that the time spent at the keyboard is only a small part of the process.
Steven Diamond has been involved with the book industry for years now. It was while managing a bookstore in 2006 that he realized getting published would be way better than just reading novels. After all, how hard could it be? He has published several short stories, and has several more pieces of short fiction forthcoming through Skull Island eXpeditions in the Warmachine universe. Steve also runs Elitist Book Reviews (http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com), which was nominated for the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine.
Steve currently lives in Utah with his wife and two children. An accountant by day, writing is one of his major escapes. When not writing he is either spending time chasing his kids, managing Elitist Book Reviews, or watching sports (Geaux Saints!).
Steven L. Peck is an evolutionary biologist and writer living in Pleasant Grove, Utah. His novel The Scholar of Moab (Torrey House Press) was named the AML best novel of 2011, and was a Finalist for the Montaigne Medal. His existential horror novel A Short Stay in Hell (Strange Violin Editions) and middle grade novel the Rifts of Rime (Cedar Fort Press) were published in 2012. His poetry has been nominated for the Association of Science Fiction Poetry's Rhysling Award. A book of his poetry called Incorrect Astronomy was published by Aldrich Press this year. His speculative work has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Daily Science Fiction, H.M.S. Beagle, Encounter Magazine, Irreantum, Jabberwocky Magazine, Lissette’s Tales of the Imagination, Pedestal Magazine, Quantum Realities, Silver Blade, Silver Thought Press, Tales of the Talisman, Journal of Unlikely Entomology, Warp and Weave and other places. He has received a number of awards for his fiction. More about his work can be found at http://www.stevenlpeck.com.
Nathan Shumate is the instigator of the Space Eldritch anthologies, but in his own defense, it’s not like the rest of these guys needed much encouragement.
For ten years, he wasted every available moment watching B-movies old and new, and reviewing them at length at Cold Fusion Video Reviews. A selection of those reviews form the basis of his book The Golden Age of Crap.
Nathan’s fiction has appeared in such venues as Amazing Stories and the recent anthologies Monsters & Mormons and Finding Home: Community in Apocalyptic Worlds. He also edits the ARCANE series of anthologies, also available from Cold Fusion Media. He blogs at NathanShumate.com.
Eric James Stone is a Nebula Award winner, Hugo Award nominee, and winner in the Writers of the Future Contest, and has had stories published in Year’s Best SF 15, Analog, Nature, and Kevin J. Anderson’s Blood Lite anthologies of humorous horror, among other venues. Over two dozen of his tales can be found in his collection Rejiggering the Thingamajig and Other Stories. In addition to his day job as a website programmer, Eric is an assistant editor for Intergalactic Medicine Show. He lives in Utah with his wife, Darci. His website is http://www.ericjamesstone.com.
