Clifford Engram

A Cage of Angels (1)

Posted by Ebonstorm on September 1, 2015

Posted in: Clifford Engram, Fantasy, Serial, Short Story. Tagged: angels, Archangels, Azazel, Gabriel, Heaven, Hell, Lucifer, Michael, The Fall. Leave a comment

“It’s beautiful. Are you sure it can hold him?”

“Yes. It is a Cage of Angels. It would be impossible for him to escape.”

“It’s so small. I can barely see it.”

“That’s the point. If a hundred of them can dance on the head of a pin, it takes millions to create this prison.”

“Each one is still an Angel? With all the power of an Angel of the Host?”

“Indubitably. They were all Angels once. They have sacrificed themselves to this greater cause.”

“The real question remains then. How do we get him into it? I can’t see him going willingly. Honestly, I can’t see him going at all.”

“Are you prepared to go back and tell Them you didn’t try?”

“Not me. I would rather face Azazel a thousand times before returning to Heaven without him.”

“Then you better hope this thing works.”

“What’s the worst that can happen? He can only kill me once.”

“You must be new around here. Azazel is the Angel of Death. He can kill you as many times as he wants and each one will be exactly like the first time you ever died.”

“If he’s so terrible why do they want him back Upstairs?”

“Because he’s refused to kill anything on Earth. Ever again.”

“Excuse me? Why is that a problem? Isn’t everything down here, by definition, mortal and doomed to die?”

“Normally, yes. But Azazel has the power to revoke death and dying. For anyone. For anything.”

“So why doesn’t The Shop just revoke his License to Work?”

“Because They don’t work that way. Anything decreed by Them is the way its supposed to be. If it couldn’t happen then it doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

“You must be a second generation operative. You weren’t around during the Fall, were you?”

“No. I am one of the newly minted.” Designed to replenish the ranks. Everyone keeps looking down their figurative noses at us. What was so great about the time before the Fall?”

“There are no Archangels in your generation; that’s the difference. They are like the Power. All encompassing; their abilities dwarf ours, like ours dwarf Humans. Their will is terrifying. This is why the Fall was such an event. Rebellions led by Archangels who fought against other Archangels.”

“Lucifer made his own realm and populated it with those who Fell. I know the story. It’s literally the first thing we ever learn.”

“No, it isn’t. What you learn is the story. You don’t learn what really happened. You don’t see what they did. You don’t see how things ended up. You don’t ever see the wreckage they wrought. You see only The Shop. You’ve never seen what was left of Heaven when they were done.”

“I thought the Shop was Heaven.”

“No. It isn’t. It is the area we work in, walled off from Heaven. We haven’t seen it since the Fall. We work in a demilitarized zone between Heaven, Earth and Hell.”

“This doesn’t explain why we have to bring back the Archangel Azazel. Besides the fact he has rescinded death and dying. Why would he do such a thing, anyway?”

“Because he loved Lucifer and never forgave him for leaving. It was only a matter of time before he turned against Heaven.”

“Then why send us? Why not send Michael or Gabriel?”

“Have you seen either of them? Michael is still broken after the War. He doesn’t do anything but sit and recount how many of us were broken and couldn’t be restored. He sits and repeats their names as a litany for the dead. He hasn’t moved since the Fall.”

“And Gabriel?”

“She sits at the doors to Hell and plays her trumpet, trying to soothe the souls of the damned. Without her constant playing, the Damned have no reassurance Heaven hears their prayers. She is confident Lucifer will repent and close Hell one day.”

“Weren’t there any other Archangels who survived? Anyone more qualified than two unnamed Angels to bring back the scariest remaining Archangel?”

“No. The others retreated behind the Wall and claimed they were necessary to hold the fabric of all that is together. The War undermined reality, and their powers were necessary to repair it. We are on our own.”

“I can’t believe this tiny thing is going to hold him.”

“I keep telling you, it will work. That’s not the problem. We have to find him first.”

“How hard can that be? All we have to do is listen. Every one of the Host has a unique signature.”

“Have you Listened to the World lately?”

“No. I’ve been busy.”

“Try it.”

“What in the name of all that’s holy is that cacophony?”

“The sound of people praying.”

“I’ve heard the sound of prayer. It never sounded like that!”

“That’s because you’ve never heard such a concerted prayer from the entire world at one time, for one thing.

“I couldn’t understand it. It was so loud, so all-consuming. What were they praying for?”

“Death. Get your coat, it’s going to be cold where we’re going.”

“Coat? When was the last time you were cold?”

“We aren’t going like this. If we were to go to Earth like this, we would be torn asunder by the need of their prayers. We’re going to be wearing the flesh of Man. We will have to find Azazel dressed in mortal flesh.”

“You can’t be serious. You remember what happened to the Gregori? They succumbed to the needs of the flesh and were forever lost to Heaven.”

“Yes.”

“Yes? That’s all you have to offer?”

“Only one other bit of good news. He will have the same limitations we do. He’ll be wearing flesh just like we will.”

“You say that like there’s some other bad news you haven’t told me yet.”

“We have a time limit. Look at Hell. Do you see them massing at its borders? Every day we take will allow them to expand the borders of Hell. It will only take them a month and Lucifer will be able to annex Earth for his kingdom. If he should do that, we’ll be out of work.”

“If I have this straight, we have to, wearing mortal flesh, confront an Archangel who doesn’t want to be found, convince him to enter this Cage of Angels, which will neutralize his power and return death and dying to the world, while working quickly because otherwise Hell will be annexing Earth within a thirty day window which will shut down any part of Heaven that isn’t on the other side of the Great Firewall of Heaven.”

“That about sums up our situation.”

“Is there any good news?”

“Yes. There is one bit of good news.”

“And that is?”

“There isn’t anyone else going to be any supervision in our work. We can do whatever it takes to get the job done. No limits.”

“How is that going to work?”

“We’re the last Angels in The Shop. You haven’t noticed how quiet things have been around here lately, have you?”

“I just assume they were off on assignment.”

“They were. They went on this mission before us. They all failed.”

“That’s not possible. How could they all have failed? We have Heaven on our side.”

“That’s what I have been trying to tell you earlier. If it wasn’t possible it wouldn’t have happened. That it happened means maybe this is what They want. Because if They don’t want it to be possible, it isn’t.”

“Then does that mean we shouldn’t go?”

“As long as we can go, we do. As long as we can Serve, We do. It has always been that way. If there is a chance for us to do our job, we do it.”

“Where do we start?”

“New York. Azazel had a thing for the Statue of Liberty. Don’t forget to turn out the light. Nobody’s going to need it once we’re gone.”

“Do you think we’ll be back?”

“Stop looking around. Take a picture it’ll last longer. Leave the wings and the halo. From this point on, we walk, just like everyone else.”

“Damn.”

“Indeed.”

Clifford Engram’s Paranormal Investigation Guide

Posted by Ebonstorm on March 18, 2015

Posted in: Character Bio, Clifford Engram, Fantasy, Serial. Tagged: Associated Worlds, Black Dust, Broken Glass, Chaos Magic, Clifford Engram, Clifford Engram Says, ebonstorm, Motus Vita, paranormal investigator, Rules to Live By, Thaddeus Howze. Leave a comment

Hey New Guy,

If you’re planning on making a career as a PI (Paranormal Investigator) particularly if you’re planing on working with The Agency, you might want to keep some of these rules in mind. They have a three hundred page handbook of operational procedures but this is my short list of things I have found most useful for staying alive. RTFM if you have the time.

Freelancers have a bit more wiggle room but not much (nor do they get paid as well, I might add).

The most important rule is this one: Magic, the energy which is the foundation of Creation, is real and entirely self-aware. And it’s not user-friendly.

It wants to break into our world and ravage it, consuming the souls of everyone who uses it, and dining on the energies of everyone who can’t. It hides behind the veil of the Second World and uses the inhabitants of that World to breach the boundaries between all the Shard Worlds. Yes, there are more than Two Worlds. Read the manual, newbie.

ufo

Our job is to promote the disbelief in the existence of and use of magic. We are to discourage citizens of the Second World from revealing their presence, without being bastards about it. In that regard we don’t have to work hard, most Second World citizens recognize the destructive capacity of an aware Humanity and keep the secret without much help on our part.

But Magic is real and wants to be used. It will manipulate anyone it can to make itself manifest.

Most Magi (skilled magic users) know this and take great pains to protect themselves and the world around them from the use of their magic. It’s the unskilled and uninitiated who lack of knowledge regarding the tools, rituals and techniques to “safely” manipulate magical energies. Note the quotation marks.

Your job is to promote the general disbelief in magic, investigate possible sightings of magic and magical phenomena and debunk them if possible, neutralize them if necessary.

With that in mind remember these as guidelines in your work. Yes, while I am recommending these guidelines, I have been known to break one or two of them from time to time. Sue me.

Rule 0.

Never neglect your body or your training. An Investigator is only as good as his skills. We don’t advocate the life of an ascetic, unless that helps you maintain your skills. Continued mastery may mean the difference between life and death. (Yes, I stopped smoking. Mostly.)

My advice: Train until you die.

RULE 1.

Use a light touch. Be polite. Be civil. Force is a last resort. Never use more force than is necessary to disabuse someone of the existence of magic. Collect their tomes, replace them with fakes. Remove their terrifying artifacts and replace them with replicas. The Art and Replica Division has entire copies of most of the worlds most destructive magical tomes, without all of the inherent magical threat.

While magic is real, it is the failure to manifest it which keeps the world disbelieving in magic and safer in its disbelief. Promote disbelief in magic whenever possible.

RULE 2.

Plan ahead. No one can plan for every contingency especially where the Second World is concerned. But there’s no reason to neglect the simple things that might keep you alive and are easy to pack… A blessed, cold iron knife with a silvered edge is standard procedure in almost every culture. Keep your gear close.

Pack according to the myths of the culture you’re in. Research is your friend.

RULE 3.

Trust no one. Yes, they look like your friend, but they could also be: a powerful shape-changer, a well-cast illusion magic, a well-trained spy with plastic surgery, a drug-induced hallucination or possessed by a malevolent spirit, you get the idea.

Our world is a complicated one. Make no assumptions about the people you interact with. Verify before you turn your back on them.

RULE 4.

Pay attention to your surroundings. When you enter someplace you didn’t already clear, take time to remember where the exits are, note the windows, and watch the wait-staff. It is too easy to take a waiter for granted and forget they are there. Then they shoot you.

Be focused. Be mindful. Be in the now. You life depends on it.

RULE 5.

Trust your instincts. Your ancestor noted the grass moving against the wind and wasn’t eaten by the hungry lion. You are the product of million years of evolution. Act like it.

If something in your unconscious says no, go with it. You can always be embarrassed later if it’s just a surprise party.

RULE 6.

Arrive early to any meeting, a day ahead if possible. Scope out the lay of the land. Monitor lines of sight. Do a historical check to be sure it isn’t the site of a legendary battle or a Native burial ground. If you’re on good terms with a seer or medium, make the call.

Never go anywhere you haven’t had the chance to investigate fully. If you can get help, don’t be proud, take the help.

RULE 7.

Learn the operating procedures of the culture you’re visiting. It’s the little things that get you in trouble. In Japan, never put a business card in your back pocket. Bow and use the proper honorifics. In India, never eat with your left hand. If you’re left handed, you will drop a lot of food while you learn to eat RIGHT-HANDED. Speaking of food, know when it’s safe to actually eat food. Some cultures use hospitality as a weapon, to force you to stay somewhere (See: the Sidhe or Fey), others use it as a means of keeping the peace.

If you aren’t sure what the rules are on local hospitality, refrain from eating too much (if anything at all…) until you know the ramifications of doing so. Most hosts will relay their expectations (if you’re lucky).

RULE 8.

Everything is a weapon. In addition to guns, knives, swords and the traditional improvised weapon made of almost anything, accessing the magic of the Second World allows you to use a variety of dangerous effects to turn nearly any object into a weapon. With the proper ritual, a weapon of mass destruction could be a soft and friendly teddy bomb.

Remain mindful of places you’ve never been and strangers handing you anything you didn’t ask for.

bomb

RULE 9.

Avoid crowds. Being a PI means avoiding large crowds which might hide potential threats, monsters, assassins, kido masters and other assorted monsters.

The larger the crowd, the greater the threat potential. If you must be in a crowd, make it one that will help you remain anonymous and able to follow your target surreptitiously.

RULE 10.

Remain unpredictable. While Chaos is an enemy, it can also be a tool you can harness. Keep your enemies off balance when possible by doing the unexpected. Deception can be a valued tool.

If you’re doing it right, you may even surprise yourself.

RULE 11.

Stupid people are everywhere. While the greatest threat will come from those with the intellect to master the most powerful magics or create the most sophisticated technologies, often it will be the stupidest people who will use those magics or technologies, not understanding the consequences of their actions.

You must remain on your guard when confronting stupid people, often they know not what they have done, until it’s too late for all involved and you’re left cleaning up.

RULE 12.

Everyone can be a monster. Some look like it on the outside, others only on the inside, but with the right incentive, when pushed, everyone can become a monster capable of unspeakable things. Threaten her grandchild and Granny can become Jason.

If you work for The Agency, you are likely a monster yourself. Remember if you lose control, The Agency will not hesitate to put you down.

RULE 13.

Ki-do is dangerous. While many Agents don’t use Chaos Magic, many do use Ki-do. Ki-do does not use the Chaos energy of the Universe to perform magical feats, it draws its power from the user’s Ki or inherent lifeforce energies. Ki, Chi, Qi, Lifeforce, Mana, it has lots of names and they all mean one thing. You are burning your personal energy to perform those effects. If you aren’t a mage, kido can be handy in a pinch. Be careful, too much kido and you’ll be doing your enemy’s work for him.

Because of its utility, it’s easy to become overly dependent on Ki-Do in the field. Be mindful you don’t kill yourself while using it.

RULE 14.

If you aren’t sure you’re going to get permission to initiate a particular plan, just do it. Better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission from someone who isn’t on the scene and isn’t likely to know more than you do. Know Thyself. You are responsible for every decision you make, everything you’ve said or done.

When you’re in the field, you get to make the call. If the consequences are high, and you’re successful, expect a reprimand, you’ve earned it. If your unsuccessful, the upside is, you’re probably already dead and can skip out on the reprimand.

RULE 15.

The most important rule of all: Protect your friends and allies. The First and Second Worlds are long on enemies and short on allies. If you can make a friend, do so. Retention matters. Keep your friends safe. Turn enemies into friends, if you can. Occasionally friends become enemies. That’s life. Realize, some people are irrational and cannot be turned into allies.

Protect your friends. They are the most important asset you can have. Over time, your friendships can make or break you as an PI.

MY PERSONAL LIST

RULE 1.

Respect the seen and the unseen. The invisible world of spirits, gods, and animus, are just as real and should be respected (and maybe feared just a little).

Your life may one day depend on what a particular rock thinks of you…

Rule 2.

Being an Investigator does not mean you are cruel or monstrous to your enemies. Respect your enemies, treat with them both fairly and honestly. Many Second Worlder’s (and more than a few First Worlder’s) value honor and integrity above life itself. A reputation for integrity may one day save your life.

If you give your word, keep it.

Rule 3.

Protect the Innocent. Our job is to make the world a place where the young and innocent never have to fear Wild Magic.

Never give up; take whatever risks are necessary to make the world safe.

Broken Glass debuts Clifford Engram, a harried agent of the Paranormal Investigative Unit, commonly called The Agency. More secretive than the FBI, more informed than the CIA, more dangerous than the KGB or the Mossad, the Agency is the front line to a secret most governments can still scarcely believe. Earth had been resisting invasion for almost two thousand years. Many of our wars, both covert and overt were often covers for repelling invasions from alternate realities.

Every tale of magic, every story of super-science, every horrifying monster, every legendary hero, were all interactions with quantum-dimensional mirror realms called Shards. These parallel worlds are often filled with diverse life-forms, alien technologies, and in many of them, that technology is indistinguishable from magic. Some of these aliens have taken up residence on Prime Earth and are too entrenched to remove. Compacts have been made with these species to keep them under control.

Click on the book cover below to know more. Available in Kindle format from Amazon.com!

With Just a Spot of Darkness (2)

Posted by Ebonstorm on June 15, 2014

Posted in: 30 x 30 x 30 - 2014, Clifford Engram, Fantasy, Serial, Short Story. Tagged: Clifford Engram, Gerald Duncan, Ink, Inky, magic, modern urban fantasy, Penitent, Seattle, Shinigami, Thaddeus Howze @ebonstorm, The Quintessence. 1 Comment

After the debacle with Damballa, I decided I needed to go back to work.

Imagine that, using work to avoid my, as usual, failing social life. We’re going to ignore the fact my girlfriend’s patron deity just tried to have me whacked and go back to solving magical mysteries.

Fishing around in my pocket, I had a message from Carole on my phone. I had ignored it for a few days and since she didn’t press the issue, I knew I had some time. Just as I hit the message retrieval on this new mystic smartphone, now with magical apps, her face popped up in the super high resolution display. No, I hadn’t read the instruction manual. I wasn’t expecting it to fare any better than my previous phones.

May as well hear it live. “Hello Boss. I was just thinking about you.” It’s the truth this time.

“Engram, I know you didn’t pick up my message. So now you have three murders to investigate.”

“Okay, what’s the story?”

She was sitting at her desk with one of those new screens which acted as both a send and receive display. She was shuffling some papers on her desk and drinking her ever-full decanter of coffee. No, really. It never runs out. I don’t know how much she paid for it, but I have never been able to find one in all of my travels. “It’s in Seattle. We have three executives who have been ex-sanguinated.”

“Vampires? You’re calling me for vampires? Don’t you have two dozen guys who specialize in the head-chop removal thing?” I was disappointed. I tried to look upbeat just the same.

“If it was vampires you and I wouldn’t be talking. Yes, you can do them, but your technique leaves much to be desired. I save you for the really exotic stuff like this. Our two executives were drained of all their blood, from the inside.”

“Okay, better.” Sounds more intriguing. “Do go on.” They’ve been found on the scene, their offices ransacked, their bodies twisted and holes torn through their flesh, from the inside.” She takes a sip of coffee and a picture shows up on my phone. Poor bastard looks like he’s been through a meat grinder. Not a spot of blood anywhere, though. Clothes torn outward, pants ripped as if a razor-sharp scalpels had peeled them back.

Not a drop of blood.

I know she noticed but I had to be sure. “You realize all of the chakra centers have a hole in them, right?”

She nodded. “That’s why I am calling you. You are one of our few Western chakra users. Everyone in Asia is already working on something else and can’t be reached for comment.”

“Is there anyone who can work with me on the case in Seattle? It’s not my town, so I’d hate to step on anyone’s toes.” I hadn’t unpacked. Everything was still in the car. I only came up to the hotel for a quick shower and a nap. I guess since everyone’s dead, I can stick to that schedule.

“As a matter of fact, there is someone. But you will have to recruit them yourself. It’s a Shinigami.” Shit. The hits just keep on coming. “The Quintessence said these deaths are suspicious and they believe the attacks are of a magical origin. They have an agent there already working on a related case. They’re confident you will find them adequate to the task.”

The sound in her voice made it clear, I wasn’t getting a choice. I had to ask about one thing before I agreed to it.

“Shinigami. You do realize they’re known for gratuitous collateral damage, right?” This is an understatement.

The Quintessence, an informal collection of worldwide death gods who manage Death and Dying here on Earth, send them out claiming to be preventing men from facilitating greater evils and becoming hosts to demons. As far as they’re concerned whatever their divine operatives destroy, the Quintessence will claim it was necessary for the safekeeping of Humanity. Tell that to the villages, towns, and cities they wreck.

“And you want to pair them up with me, also known for a bit of mayhem and destruction when no one is looking. You think this is wise? How much of Seattle do you think will be left standing when we’re done?”

“All of it. I am expecting you to be the soul of reason and the mitigating factor for their operative while you’re on this case. Besides, you can’t do less than whatever it is we’re fighting. I sent you a video. You might want to have a drink before you watch it.”

Okay. Have a drink. Heading to the mini-bar in the room. “No. Not the mini-bar” she adds. “You will need a real drink, maybe two. Part of it is an internal surveillance camera. I will leave it up to you to figure out what we’re looking at.”

I put my coat on and looked around the hotel. I figured it would be a while before I came back. The download took some time, so I headed down to the bar. My earpiece notified me when the download was completed. I finished my first drink and was started on my second when the video clip started.

The video was of an office building high over the Seattle skyline. The external camera showed glass being broken out of the windows near the top floors. I see something whipping around but can’t quite make it out. I see a man momentarily running around before the lights go out.

Here’s where it gets strange. After the window is blown out, I think I see the man run and try to leap out the window. Willingly.

He tumbled once when something reached out the window. He’s plucked right out of the air and snatched back into the darkened room.

The video changes to a security camera inside the office. The fellow behind the desk is fairly nondescript, muscular, blond haired, a bit of a five-o’clock shadow. I can’t quite make out what he’s saying. He hurried off the phone and a few seconds later he clutched his chest like he was having a heart attack. He looked up as if he were hearing something, then the lights crackle and start going out, one at a time. He tried to scream but only a gurgling came out. Something proceeds to cover the lens of the camera, so all I can hear is is office being tore apart.

I can hear the subtle crunching of furniture, the snapping and crackling of the Lexan safety glass. I hear the running steps and a split second later, the whip-like crack and the momentary sounds of struggle. There was the brittle pop of long bones, some muffled screams and then blessed silence. The camera records the sound of everything in the room. When the camera clears and there is video again, the room is in disarray.

A bomb couldn’t have done better. The security team arrives five minutes after the first panic button was pressed by the executive. I watch them check the room, look over the dead body and scramble their details around the building. The attached report indicated they found nothing out of the ordinary. All the doors and secured windows were still locked. External cameras said nothing came or left the building.

We only know three things about whatever this is. It’s fast, terrifyingly fast. The whole clip takes less than three minutes. It kills without leaving a trace, not a footprint, not a bomb blast, not a trace of etheric energy of any kind.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t roar, doesn’t scream, no sounds of triumph. It doesn’t make a sound while it kills you.

With Just a Spot of Darkness (1)

Posted by Ebonstorm on June 1, 2014

Posted in: 30 x 30 x 30 - 2014, Clifford Engram, Fantasy, Serial, Short Story. Tagged: Clifford Engram, Gerald Duncan, Ink, Inky, magic, modern urban fantasy, Penitent, Shinigami, Thaddeus Howze @ebonstorm. 1 Comment

Introducing Ink

Gerald Duncan was down on his luck, again. Just out of prison and found himself standing in front of a convenience store.

With a gun in his pocket.

I don’t want you to feel sympathy for him. Because he doesn’t deserve any.

You don’t know him like I do. I know him from deep within his darkest recesses. Those places even he doesn’t talk about. The things he has done. The lives he has ruined.

Why am I telling you this, you ask? Because it’s what I do. I redress balance in the Universe.

I am a Black Cat. Not impressed? I can understand, you walk by black cats every day, I imagine. But I am not one of those. I am a Black Cat.

You may have noticed the capitalized B and C in my nom de plume. I am a black cat in appearance, yet so much more than that.

I am completely black, both inside and out. From the tips of my ears to the souls on my feet. Yes, I walk on souls, not soles. You see, I am a Shinigami, a death spirit. I address the balance of souls and their placement in the Afterlife.

Not a job for any ordinary black cat.

You may call me Ink. My friends call me Inky.

We aren’t friends yet.

But we could be. If you come to understand why I do what I do.

Black as in evil, you ask? That depends. I like to look at it as using fire to fight fire. I recognize evil because I am, in theory, evil. I recognize how desperate and crazed evil can be, because I was once just like that. Cowardly, just the tiniest bit craven. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Those were the bad old days. We are a few centuries past those. After living my nine lives, I was content to go to Purgatory, as is the wont of most animals to be recycled into soul-stuff and returned in some hapless litter to be thrown into a river and recycled again until someone deemed me worthy to keep.

Don’t make that face. You people do it all the time. Drown kittens in bathtubs, throw them in rivers, shoot them in front of innocent children, and you send them to veterinarians by the truckload. Who gets the dirty job of putting them to sleep. What a euphemism. Sleep is nothing like Death.

Sleep is enjoyable, relaxing, refreshing, something to be sought after and savored. Death is none of those things. Humans.

Anyway. I was offered an opportunity to lay judgment upon the worst of you lot. I didn’t ask any questions because I was unique among cats. I remembered my lives. I remember being recycled, time after time. I bore the history of my existence and the humans who lived with me, treated me well or ill and I remembered them all perfectly.

I could see into their souls and knew which would kick me and which wouldn’t. And why.

I agreed to the job of judging human souls and came back to the world ready for work. Let’s just say the first years didn’t go so well. We’ll get into that some other time.

Suffice it to say, I got better at the job and now do a bang up operation and brisk business improving humanity. Like this fellow we started talking about Gerald Duncan. He is about to rob a liquor store.

I am not certain I should allow it. Technically, I am not supposed to interfere with what people do to other people. The Union of Souls does not particularly care about their mortal frames. They are concerned with their spiritual development.

I disagree strictly on principle and meddle whenever it suits me. How can a man improve if he is never given the opportunity, I have always said.

My handlers disagree but don’t seem interested in stopping me. Perhaps they would like to do what I do, avenge and correct, and their hands are tied. Not sure. Don’t care. Duncan is moving.

Time for work. He is a wretched thing. He reeks of his fear and his frustration since leaving prison. He hasn’t been able to find work and though he claims to be clean when he talks to his probation worker, he hasn’t actually been able to stop using which has been affecting his judgement.

I found him three days ago, mugging an old man. He hit the old man in the face and stole his wallet. I sat with the old fellow till he passed away. I shepherded him to his final resting space and by the time I returned, I had lost Duncan in the process.

I picked up his trail several days later and wanted to understand him before I Judged him. Now I understand he is in the throes of drug use and hasn’t been in his right mind for weeks.

He will not murder anyone else tonight.

I slip into the store behind him. He never sees me. I see a camera in the corner of the store and it will malfunction during the two minutes he and I have a conversation.

He is nervous and agitated. He has already drawn his gun on the young woman working the counter. I run past him between his legs and scratch his ankle deeply to get his attention. It appears neither socks nor washing have been part of his wardrobe arrangement for some time. I will have to wash for a bit to get the smell off.

While he is hopping around I jump up to the counter and politely ask, “Please put your gun away. I don’t want you shooting anyone.”

“What the fuck? You tripping, yo. Now I’m seeing talking cats.”

“Language, young man. You do speak English…yo?” I see the confusion building up on his face. With his limited capacity, it can only lead to one conclusion. I turn my head nearly all the way around and yell at the young girl behind the counter. “Duck!”

With the sense a mother gifted a cat with, this young woman vanished from sight as three rounds from the rust-encrusted .38 exploded in my general direction. I say general because, even though I could have dodged the bullets, even at this range, I didn’t have to.

Let’s say his aim was addled by drugs, lack of sleep, an involuntary detox and a firearm the last time it was shot Eisenhower was President. Any one of these would have been an impediment. Collectively he had a better chance if I was hanging from ceiling as a pinata the size of a Buick.

Shame, really. I didn’t want to go here but he didn’t leave me any choice. “Repent.”

I lock eyes with him. The sorcerous green of mine, turning fiery red, grab the limpid pools of waxy chocolate he called eyes in a fervid embrace. He struggled to break contact, his eyes frantically moving, trying to pull away.

“Repent, ye sinner. Know the suffering of those you harmed, feel their collected rage, stored forever by the Earth as a testament to human cruelty. See thy works and despair!”

We break contact as the air thickens with smoky fog, the lights in the store momentarily go dim as the doorway to the Suffering Wastes opens and the collected harms caused by Gerald Duncan all come forth. He breathes them as a smoker would in reverse. Each sin entering him, through his mouth and nose. As each fills him like a breath, he spasms as if the sin took up new residence in his limbs.

It is over in a moment. No one who was in the store was able to remain awake as this glimpse into the beyond overtook them. Few Shard dwellers ever truly understand there is anything beyond there, there.

“Young lady, it is over. You can come out.”

The clerk who was wearing a badge that said Maggie, stood up, looked at the cigarette boxes with bullet holes and first says, “Mr. Minette is going to kill me.” A momentary pause and her eyes widen for the realization. “You can talk.”

“You are astute, young woman. You should call your authorities, let them know they will need an ambulance and a conveyance to a mental institution for Mr. Duncan.”

Gerald Duncan, writhed in an internal pain, his body consumed by the sins he had committed. “Maggie, he is becoming a Penitent. In a few weeks, the pain will have swept his body clean of drugs or the need. It will refocus him on finding a way to do right by the people or their families he has harmed.”

“How do you know that?”

“I did it to him.”

“What happens if he doesn’t do right. My ex was a dope-fiend and he always promised he would do better when he kicked, but it never lasted. What if he slips?”

I jumped up onto the counter as the police arrived. They awaken the two or three customers who hid quietly as mice when the firearm was used. I suspect it’s a survival instinct in this neighborhood. Be invisible, stay alive. They were none the worse for their exposure to the Suffering Wastes.

A nightmare or two tops, unless they’re really bad people, then a bit of the Waste might have gotten into them. A couple of weeks of terrible dreams, waking nightmares, hallucination and other assorted afflictions. If they have enemies, this might be the time when the lambs make a rug of the lion.

“He won’t.”

She hadn’t said anything about the talking cat part and told the police the man fired his gun and had a seizure. What kind of seizure? What do I look like? A doctor? Wait, let me go in the back and check my PhD and they left in a hurry kind of statement. A fiery young thing. I like her.

I hadn’t decided to leave yet. Watching the young woman close up, I sensed there was something about her that was different. “I’ve decided, you are going to take me home and find me a bowl of milk and something with some texture on it. A nice steak, rare, sounds good.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because, my dear. Unlike the other five people in this store, you were unaffected by my spell of Penitence at close range. That makes you a curiosity worth investigating.”

“Compelling reason, but no. I don’t see why I should. Besides my mother always told me to avoid talking cats.”

“She was a wise woman. How about I just saved your life?”

“Rib-eye sound nice? Remember, I am only a store clerk.”

I followed her as she started the long walk to the market. I faded into the shadows as we walked. I could sense something evil flickering around the streets, each taking an interest in Maggie, store clerk, from a small city, in the middle of nowhere.

I think I will be needed here for some time. I hope Maggie can cook.
With Just a Spot of Darkness © Thaddeus Howze 2013, All Rights Reserved

Motus Vita (9)

Posted by Ebonstorm on October 21, 2013

Posted in: Chapter, Character Bio, Clifford Engram, Motus Vita, Serial. Tagged: Albrecht, Albrecht Fleisher, ebonstorm, ice cream, Manny Rodriguez, Nexus, Night Train, Oroborus, Primal Earth, Samuel Owiti, storm elemental, supernatural, Thaddeus Howze, The Dark Gift, The Darkness, Vita, Zhang Hongjing. 1 Comment

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil“, Aphorism 146 (1886)

He said I was screaming but I can’t remember. My head, my heart, my very soul was filled with the screams of millions.

I couldn’t hear myself anymore.

All I could remember was striking him again and again. He resisted, I was a series of burns, my upper body covered in nothing but smoldering rags. But I didn’t feel a thing. My arm rose and fell rhythmically, like a piston in a V-8 engine, hammering him into the ground. Dark energy surrounded me, flying off in every direction, souls dying within me, feeding the beast their lifeforce, enhancing its power a thousand fold.

Fenrir was almost free and unleashed. Paradoxically, my complete exultation in my rage kept him with me. Free to escape, he was drawn to the purest source of rage around.

Me. I had turned from a prison to a killing field.

I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. Vita misled us. He lied to us. He brought us here to die. The hammering continued even after Vita fell limp. I couldn’t feel the Phoenix any more, it was gorged and feasting, too busy to watch over me. Too busy to do what it was created to do.

The hammering continued. I was filled with a dark ecstasy, as if this was what I was born to do.

To kill renegade gods.

Then I felt something change. The air grew thick, heavy, a hand, a clawed one grabbed my left shoulder. Black as night, fingernails of onyx, a grip of steel. I could break it like a twig. The vampire held his grip, his darkness became an anchor to me. Metaphorically, I felt my spirit reach out to it.

Then a second hand, as warm as the other was cold. Filled with Life, Manny grabbed my hand, the hammer surrounded in the darkforce that is Fenrir, as I stood over the unconscious body of Vita. My dark-force filled flesh should burn him, it should eat of his mortal flesh like a bonfire does a witch’s. He should be burning before my eyes.

I cannot bring my hammer back down. My arm is frozen there. His hand using no strength holds me in place and I turn to look at him, mouth open, pure rage flowing forth and he was shining. A smile beamed out from his face. A smile as beneficent, radiating kindness as powerfully as he normally radiated intensity.

Just like that, the darkforce was dispelled. The blue black sigils which surrounded my right arm lost their light and returned to being a spiritual prison to a god-like force of destruction. The possession was over. The souls of this ruined Earth dissipated releasing me. Exhausted I looked down.

Vita, protector of the Earths, Traveller of the Hidden Ways, lay dead in my grip. What had I done?

My name was Samuel Owiti. I was born in Kenya in the year 1787. When the British were bringing their empire to Kenya, they decided they would do it using rail and would hire many of the local tribes to work for them, laying track and building bridges. I was a worker on such a track over the Keyosa river.

My tribe was a small one, barely two hundred members but the men worked for the British since it appeared they were not planning to leave Kenya any time soon. The British railway was enriching provinces and we thought it might be good for our small tribe to take advantage of this irresistible force.

Our people believed in magic then. The magic of family lines, of spirits of hospitality, of the power of the Orisha, of the spirits of nature. It was the spirits of nature we feared and appeased the most for they were the closest to us and often willing to manifest when nature was out of balance.

There was a spiritual war taking place when the British brought their train through our province. And when it was done, many lives were lost. More importantly, it brought our province under the scrutiny of older eyes. Older than the spirits wandering the plains, older than the mountain gods of Kilimanjaro. So old, they were born someplace outside of our world.

I met one of those spirits. On the night of the final completion of the tracks. After the bodies of our families were given their rights, I heard a train coming across the tracks. No one else seemed to hear it. No one else saw the fog that accompanied it. I found myself drawn toward the sound and I could see it as it crossed high above the river, making a thunderous noise, steam flaring from its nostrils, and a hellish light burned from its single eye. A light I can still remember all these years later.

It stopped before me. I had been struck motionless, in awe or fear, I knew not which. I waited as its steaming breath surrounded me and the world as I knew it fell away. Only the moon remained constant as day and night changed. The countryside around me grew more advanced, a small group of buildings in the distance grew larger, more prominent, and our village became a city.

“This is your future. We have seen it.”

I fell to my knees as the voice was like nothing I had ever known. Rapturous, making me ready to assume God had come to me, but in its next sentence I thought maybe instead Satan was before me instead.

“But only if you are prepared to die here. This future does not include you. It exists because of you.”

“What are you? Why should I believe anything you say? This is too much to be believed. Am I already dead?” All I had was questions, nothing coherent, nothing made sense.

“What if I told you, all your choices, all your decisions can cause the world you live in to change for the better or the worse, would you believe that is possible?”

I felt like this question was something I could comprehend, so I tried to focus on just that one tiny thing. “Yes, I believe a man makes the future he works toward.”

“What if I told you, there are multiple futures, some go forth and become great and vast things, others wither on the vine, based on the decisions of humanity as a whole. What if I told you there are some decisions at certain points which affect the lives of billions, sometimes positively, other times negatively. What if I told you, tonight, you will make such a decision, Samuel Owiti? I will go one step further and tell you, if you say no, and walk away, this decision will change your world from what you saw, to this.”

The city fell away, flames engulfed the buildings, towering clouds rose into the skies with a burning light within, destroying all they touched. People vaporized, nothing but their shadows remaining. All of mighty Africa reduced to a radioactive wasteland. “Enough, you monster, if your goal is to bring me to your cause, you need not have done this.”

“Done what, Samuel? Do you think I did this? I am not the cause of this event. You, humanity, are the monster. I am merely its Witness. That is what I do. I witness. I watch, I only intervene under certain circumstances. Very rigidly defined circumstances. But with you, I could do more. Much more. But perhaps you need more to convince you. Let us go forward from your last day on Earth to seven years in the future. You will return to your home to find it overrun with foreign troops. Smell the gunpowder, see the burning; find your families, all of them gunned down by the very same British who claimed they would bring prosperity to you. They brought it, but kept the prosperity for themselves. Do you see where you would be now? Dead. Valiant, but dead, just the same.”

I wanted to disbelieve him. But I could feel the veracity of his words. I could see my brother-in-law standing hip deep in the British dead, before he was gunned down, his machete dripping blood even into death. I know this is how he would die. He hated the British. All of my family fought and died. I even saw what I think was me but I flickered like a light trying to resist going out.

“If I go with you, will you stop this?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? You said if I went with you I would be able to change things?”

“For others, yes. Their futures will change because of your choices. But this spot. This place in time, this is a point that cannot, will not be changed. The only point in question is you. You are superimposed on multiple quantum realities. Because we are discussing your future, it is, for the moment in flux. You have only a short time to decide.”

“If I go with you, I will not die?”

“Not this day. Nor will you in seven years. You will live another two hundred and twenty six years before the threat of Death will be before you. You will have to make the choice again then. This assumes no threat as great as yourself, no being on the scale of what we are, no forces from realms outside of us whose power rivals our own, will you have to worry about. On any day you change something pivotal, you can expect to draw the ire of those who placed us in this service. You are not the first Conductor. Nor will you be the last.”

A door opened in the distance and through the fog, I could see a man come to the edge of the rear of the engine. He staggered down the ladder and walked to me. His coat was stained with blood. Fresh. He was a short man who wore his white hair long and braided in the back. In the moonlight he had a fine white mustache hanging over the edges of a wide and expressive mouth. He smiled at me while staggering in my direction to fall into my arms. “My time here is over. I have done what I could for as many as I was able in as many forms as I was allowed. The Darkness is coming and I fear I will not last long enough to overcome them. I give the power to save us to you. If you will take it up. I know you have and you did, and you will regret this too. This is as it should be. No such use of power should come without regret.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“I have guided Hēi Lóng, the Black Dragon, for nearly a thousand years. Will you take this burden from me? I was suited to this task but now I realize I am truly a man out of my time. I can no longer make the decisions that need to be made.”

A thousand year old man. A train that was a dragon, whose fierce eyes now stared at me. A future of war, not just here but across time and space. A man who was out of time. I answered, “Yes. Tell me your name.”

I could barely hear him and had to lean my ear close to his lips. Then he coughed and drew in his last breath. With it he said, “Take my coat, and my watch. Create a new future.”

And then Zhang Hongjing, minister of a China before I was born, died of the wounds of treachery administered to him nearly a thousand years ago.

The coat was heavy and it changed into something more modern as soon as it was on. I felt my humanity fall away. Hunger, cold, fear, all replaced by something ancient, fearsome, godlike.

I took the watch from his hand and as I strapped it to my coat, I could feel the serpent wrap itself around my heart. Tendrils of magic filled me, and took my breath away as it squeezed itself into my chest, fitting itself, nestled around my organs.

“For a time, we will be as one. For a while.”

It would be twenty years before the Black Dragon, a creature older than Man, would speak to me again.

I am home. Just as he promised. I would die in the exact same space, my superposition ratified, my position confirmed.

After two centuries roaming all of time and space, I recognize the mountain in the distance, Kilimanjaro.

The gods of Kilimanjaro call me home after two centuries away. The two lions greet my spirit and lead me away from my death.

Movement was my life; my identity as Motus Vita is done. Their embrace means I am finally free. Once a demigod, I am content to be Samuel Owiti once more. As a child I was cast away, and raised by a man not my father, and a woman not my mother. My work as Motus Vita was to help others find a home when none appeared to exist for them. That work for two centuries was good. Now I, too, have come home.

I rise above the ruins of what was once a great city, my home, leaving behind three warriors, whom I, in my fear and desperation, lead to their deaths unless they can become something other than they are. In the minutes left to them, they must master the serpent that encircles the worlds.

They must master Ouroboros.

Paranormal 2

Motus Vita (8)

Posted by Ebonstorm on October 14, 2013

Posted in: Chapter, Character Bio, Clifford Engram, Motus Vita, Serial. Tagged: Albrecht, Albrecht Fleisher, aliens, ebonstorm, Grand Central, ice cream, Indra's Vajra, lightning spear, Manny Rodriguez, Nexus, Night Train, Primal Earth, storm elemental, supernatural, Thaddeus Howze, The Dark Gift, Vita. Leave a comment

You believe you can separate fantasy from reality. You’re starting from an incorrect premise. You believe there is a difference.
–The Night Train

The storm elementals closed us and the burning stink of ozone accompanied them.

We could barely handle one. How in the world would we fight four?

As we prepared to strike, their bodies powered up and they lit up from the inside. Then with a flash of lightning and a thunderclap that threw Manny and I away from where we were standing and sliding back up the ramp in Grand Central Station, they were gone.

It took a minute until my vision came back and my ears stopped ringing.

When I finished wiping the tears from my eyes, I saw Albrecht standing there whispering to the small elemental formation surrounding the heart of the elemental we mostly destroyed earlier.

“Should I ask why you weren’t flat on your ass?” Manny was more than a little pissed and I understood.

Albrecht’s sharp-toothed grin was disturbing both from a human point of view since he was a vampire and from a personal perspective since a smile was the last thing I would have expected him to show. To us, no less. “I guess it liked me and protected me from the other elementals leavetaking. Next time, I promise to warn you in advance.”

I bet. I dispelled the lightning blade and picked up the ice cream. “We’re here. Where do you want us to go?” I looked up the platform and noticed all of the staff that bustled around the engine had disappeared while we were blinded.

“ALL ABOARD,” boomed from all around us and no place in particular.

“I guess our ride’s leaving. And me without a ticket. What now, fearless leader?”

“After you, Mr. Rodriguez.” I smiled and waved toward an opened train car door.

“Oh, no. After you, Mr. Engram. I insist.” He wasn’t smiling. “No, really, I do insist.”

“For the love of all that is unholy, we will go first. Come along, Sparky.”

Manny looked at me and mouthed silently. “He’s named it?”

“Does that mean you’re planning on keeping ‘Sparky’, Albrecht, you hardly know him, her, or it? I’m not judging. Just asking.” I wasn’t surprised he didn’t answer, he seemed totally absorbed by his interactions with the elemental.

Albrecht entered the darkened car and Sparky started glowing with a low blue light, illuminating what appeared to be a modern passenger car for a transcontinental rail. We followed staying close to the circle of light being cast by the creature. The train doors snapped shut behind us and the train began to move.

No turning back, now.

“Before we begin our journey, I would like to have the ice cream placed in the dropbox at the front of the car. Engram, you remember your way around, don’t you?”

“It looks different, but I can figure it out. Do I have to scoop or will you just eat the container as well?”

I found the door and pulled it back. I just dropped the whole bag into the hopper and closed it. Out of curiosity I pulled the door and just that quickly the ice cream was gone. No sound, no thunk, just vanished. When I was here as a kid, I learned nothing was as it appeared to be, but now with so much more experience, I was beginning to think this wasn’t even a train.

“Please be seated and take a look out of the windows.”

I was disappointed for a few minutes, it appeared to be nothing more than a subway tunnel with the occasional burst of light from passing through a station on the center express track. No one seemed disturbed by our passage, their bored expressions told me they must be seeing exactly what they expected; an express train as it zipped by.

This wasn’t a revolutionary trick, most magic worked along the same principle. People saw what they expected to see or could rationalize away what they saw with just the smallest amount of effort. This lent itself to the Agency’s mission since most people simply refused to believe in the supernatural even when confronted by it face to face.

Zombies became drug addicts, demonic possession became psychological dysfunction, the face of Jesus on a pancake could perform a miracle but only the pious would believe it, even if it actually happened. By the way, it would happen because the person believed it would, not because Jesus would manifest Himself through a pancake.

There were two thousand such pancakes, toasts, paint splotches, skidmarks, togas, coffee spills which, through the belief of people all over the world, manifested such miracles spontaneously at any one time. This belief in the power of pancakes, as well as belief in such a charged religious figure caused an interaction with the ambient Magiosphere all over the planet.

There weren’t more because so many people didn’t believe it was possible for that to happen. But there were enough that the agency was forced to take action, so they created tabloids. Funding publications like the Enquirer, the Tattler and the Star to keep misinformation out there, seeding disbelief while confusing what people thought was real.

“And you believe the Agency is clever in this trick, do you?” The sound came from a crackling speaker system in the overhead.

“Do you have to do that? Can you pick one way of communicating with us and stick with it?” I wasn’t even sure which way to face so I just sat there like I was crazy and spoke out loud to no one in particular.

We came above the ground and were heading uptown into the Bronx. I knew this route. The train blew its whistle. I opened the window, stuck my head out and saw a train on the platform ahead of us.

Stopped ahead of us. With passengers getting into the train.

The Night Train sped up. Blowing the whistle more frequently and louder, it covered the distance between itself and the train ahead in a matter of seconds.

I sat back down and strapped myself in and counted down.

When I expected to be crunching up against the Number 6 train ahead of me, I instead saw the fog grow fantastically thick and the train was gone from view, and the sound of the track disappeared as well. It was replaced with a sound similar to the fridge in my old apartment, an annoying buzz and hum, complete with the scent of food gone bad.

Then I remembered the nausea that accompanied a jump. The move to a new track, someplace else. It didn’t last long but it was uncomfortable, something you never got used to.

I felt something warm running down my lip and I realized my nose was bleeding. This never happened before. I looked at Manny and his nose was also bleeding. He had taken out a handkerchief and leaned his head back. I never had a handkerchief when I needed one so my sleeve would have to do. I pinched my nose shut, leaned back and waited for the blood to stop.

Albrecht appeared to be unaffected. Oh, goody. Am I really surprised?

The train car door opened in front of us. A light backlit the shape of a man wearing a conductor’s coat. He came into our car and the door shut behind him. The lights in the car came on, thankfully quite dim. He was a man of middling height and build. He would have been completely unremarkable except for his lack of an actual face. That and he was noisily eating ice cream.

“Your noses will stop bleeding in a minute or so. Nothing to worry about.” His eyeless face was quite a distraction. Only slightly less so than the gusto with which he consumed his ice cream. His mouth flickered into and out of existence appearing only long enough to manifest for a spoonful of ice cream and then disappeared once the spoon was out of his mouth.

At this point, nothing could surprise me. I just decided to accept everything I was about to see. I didn’t yet understand what that would mean.

I had so many questions, some Agency related but many just to understand what this thing was that I owed my life to? Start at the beginning. “Do you have a name we can call you?”

“Call me…Vita. Without me, life on Earth might have never come into existence, so I will accept that as my name. I have to admit, I am glad you did though. Dinosaurs didn’t invent anything and they hogged up the Earth for sixty-five million years. All that time and they didn’t invent, create, or do anything interesting. When I saw the meteor that ended their existence, it was the first time in my existence I did not fulfill my design.”

“Excuse me? You have been around since the dinosaurs?” Manny looked up from sharpening his sword, intrigued but trying to appear nonplussed about the revelation.

“Yes, I let those bastards die.”

“Because they didn’t invent ice cream?”

“No, Engram, because they didn’t do anything. They just existed. Sat around eating plants and each other. Every day, day after day. Nothing changed. Until that moment, the entire universe for me was this tiny blue planet doing absolutely nothing. I knew when I let the comet strike the Earth, I had changed the face of our local reality forever. My choice damned this planet.”

Albrecht looked up from his preoccupation with Sparky and asked, “What does this have to do with today and your current affliction?”

Vita walked to the window and put down his ice cream. “What do you see?” Outside the window had become black as night, there was nothing to see. At first. Then I could see tiny lights twinkling in the distance. Stars. I noticed a section of the sky was blackened out, no stars, nothing visible. A crescent of light appeared at the edge of the blackness and then I realized it was a planet. A planet with three moons.

All pretense of aloofness gone, Manny pressed his face against the glass. “Where are we? Why aren’t we dying? This looks like spaceflight to me.”

“We are looking at Primal Earth. The perfect Earth, with the idealized citizens who make the right decisions, who do things the right way and have made the most correct decisions for everyone who lives there. This is the Earth all of the others are descended from. See that third moon? There is an entire civilization built on the Darkside which acts as a launchpad to the solar colonies established in the early 1900s.”

“Can we see it up close? I always wondered what a perfect world looked like.”

“No. This is the one Earth, I can never visit. My presence would disrupt what is a golden age there. But we came here because I wanted to show you what the Agency has never truly let you understand. Your civilization is one of many, more successful than some, less successful than others and all of you are reflections of this one planet. On Primal Earth, there are three species of Homo Sapiens, intelligent raptors, no over-population, no wasteful developments, travel to the stars, and a Humanity in harmony with itself and the universe around it.”

“What about my kind? Is there a place for my people with the Dark Gift?”

“Yes, on Primal Earth, the Dark Gift is nothing more than a mutation with beneficial capacities making your people tough, durable and fearless explorers of new worlds. The bloodlust, the fear, the destruction have been tempered with wisdom and kindness.”

Color me suspicious by nature, but I simply can’t help myself. “Okay, they have a perfect world and have managed to avoid all of the catastrophes my world did and they are now happy, peaceful and one with the Universe. Why did you bring us here?”

“I have to take you to a few other places to make that clear. You might want to lean back in your chairs. The transition will be jolting.”

I had never experienced pain like this. Every nerve in my body was on fire with each dendrite complete with its own personal torturer. It seemed to go on forever. When the pain stopped, I saw my skin was swollen and distended, blood covered my entire face and I wasn’t sure if I would survive the night. Manny looked almost as bad, especially given his weakened state, only the vitality of youth kept him moving. I looked to the vampire member of our party and found him motionless, still and covered in blood. The elemental sat silently upon his lap unmoving and without any form of elemental display.

“They are dead. While they recover, we shall continue our conversation. Clean yourselves up. We’re going outside.”

I looked outside the window and what I saw was nothing less than the end of the world. Broken buildings littered the landscape of what might have been New York or Shanghai or some other sweeping metropolis whose influence was nothing less than magnificent. Remnants of buildings whose superstructures touched the sky swayed in the hot and dusty winds we experienced as we stopped the train on a section of a monorail that still had a platform near it.

“What happened here?” The air was cloying, hot, oppressive, filled with a sense of futility, of a war that had been fought and lost. Piles of sand were everywhere, and nothing green grew here. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but a war zone. Once I paid attention, I could see craters, as if bombing had taken place. I could see gun emplacements on the tops of the remaining tall buildings. This explained why the tallest were missing their tops. Someone shot them off.

“This is the result of a guardian who was unable to do his job to protect the people of this planet.” Vita stepped onto the platform and reached down to the sand covered ground and picked up a fistful of the fine brown dust. He let it blow between his fingers. The dust was pulled away in the wind.

The city was eerie in its silence. Nothing this big should be this quiet. I strained my hearing to find even a single sign of life.

Then I heard it. A wind that wasn’t a wind. The sound of an aircraft high in the sky. Then I saw it. A contrail. Then two, three, four. The primary contrail continued on but its three spawn changed direction and began to move toward our position.

“Is there something you want to tell us? Now would be a great time.”

“I failed these people. I wasn’t here when they needed me. You will help me make this right.”

“These people are dead. I don’t think we can do anything for them, now. If this was your job, you screwed it up.” Harsh, I know, but it was the truth he needed to hear.

“Don’t lecture me about duty, Ingram, Slayer of Dead Gods, Dog of the Apocalypse, what I need from you is your fury. This was a world filled with twelve billion souls just like your Earth. Are you saying you won’t avenge these people?” Vita was screaming, eyes bulging wide, standing over me and positively intimidating.

“Boss.” Manny tried to get my attention.

I got mad when he reminded me of my family name and the prophecy associated with it. I’ve run from that all my life and was content to keep running. “Avenge them? I didn’t even know they existed beyond a theoretical understanding they could exist! I see you’re having some kind of issue regarding this and it is a tragedy but there is nothing we can do for them at this point.” I grabbed his coat and pushed back trying to draw some kind of reason out of this entity I didn’t truly understand.

“Boss…”

“The part of me stolen on your Earth, prevented me from getting back here in time. I failed them because I didn’t understand Human greed. You must help me make this right. They will not stop here. They will continue to move through the Nexus, devouring Earth after Earth until they reach yours.”

Three explosions occurred less than a mile away from where we were standing. The builders on this Earth, made things to last. The impact of the three projectiles made a lot of noise but very little dust and barely damaged the buildings they landed on. Then they started coming out of the craters.

The creatures on the ground took off, using some form of jet pack. They were humanoid in appearance and dropped out of the sky in seconds, landing all around the monorail platform and aiming strange weapons at us.

Then the howling began. The wind of an elemental burst out of the train car, surrounded with lightning reaching out to whatever was around it. The strange alien armors exploded as the creature struck one after another. After only a few seconds of local devastation, the elemental flew through the air toward the center of the landing spots and grew in size, larger until it dwarfed the sites completely a cyclone of devastation. No new units would join the hundred or so surrounding us.

Then the Vampire left the car behind the elemental. But it wasn’t exactly Albrecht any more. The Dark Gift had become completely manifest, showing him after another thousand years of evolution. His skin had turned completely black. He was swollen with lifeforce, his muscles rippled, veins bulged and his eyes blazed a fiery red. He leapt from the train car and disappeared from sight. Armors exploded one after another. Ripped apart, black blood shot from each, two or three at a time. Albrecht could be seen only for a second as he dispatched foe after foe.

Vita, Manny and I took cover as the aliens began trying to fight back, firing too slowly to track Albrecht. A few who managed to keep their heads tried firing at the three of us and their weapons shot pulses of hot blue light that destroyed whatever it hit. We began to run into the platform seeking cover. Then Manny stopped and screamed. I thought he was hit but he grabbed his head and a black energy started leaking from his eyepatch.

He lifted the eyepatch and a black light shot forth and scoured the sky. Anything it touched, died. Machine, being, technology. Only Albrecht seemed immune. A third of the invaders stopped and died. A few seconds later the black energy stopped and Manny fell over quiescent, mumbling to himself.

Then I felt it too. I was about to try and channel energy when I found myself filled with it. Not my personal qi. This was a dark and necromantic power. The power of angry souls crying out. There were thousands, no as their voice filled me I realized there were millions calling out to me. They filled me. They demanded vengeance. They demanded retribution.

They expected me to get it for them.

On the horizon, a dozen more contrails made their way toward us.

The Phoenix residing within my being, rose from its slumber. It feasted on the souls of the damned, each willingly giving themselves to it. Each increasing its already considerable power.

It took to the sky and I could not stop it. With the zeal of a million souls seeking retribution overcoming my will, I did not want to.

Vita stood and a face slowly formed, a cruel face, sharp and angular. A face that smiled a devil’s smile as the Phoenix streaked toward its prey.

Jump to Motus Vita, Chapter 9

Paranormal 2

Motus Vita (7)

Posted by Ebonstorm on October 8, 2013

Posted in: Chapter, Character Bio, Clifford Engram, Motus Vita, Serial. Tagged: Albrecht, Albrecht Fleisher, ebonstorm, Father Nosceti, Indra's Vajra, lightning spear, Manny, Manny Rodriguez, Night Train, storm elemental, Thaddeus Howze. 1 Comment

A hair divides what is false and true.
–Omar Khayyam

“Since you are late, you can stop and bring me what’s left of my broken servant.” The telepathic message was imperious, haughty and downright pissing me off.

To hell with good impressions.

“Look lady, er fellow, whatever you are, I am not your manservant. I won’t be stopping to pick you up some ice cream, getting your laundry or picking up your servant on my way to an audience with you. Do we have an understanding?”

“Surely.”

The telepathic connection was suddenly gone. “Gentlemen, I’ve just had a conversation with the Night Train. It reminded me we’re officially late.”

I started back toward the train station when I noticed Manny and Albrecht just standing there. I looked in the direction they were staring. Then I could hear this electrical sound like a transformer trying to pass a current. I noticed EMTs grabbed their patients and started running back toward their vehicles.

Police drew their pistols and headed toward the ruins of the church while sparks started jumping and popping around what was left of the storm elemental.

Manny had lifted his eyepatch and slowly walked toward me. “You might want to take a look at that. I don’t think we’re done.”

A quick handsign and I was Looking at what appeared to be a matrix trying to restructure itself. The elemental appeared to have a self-repair capacity. Great.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind stopping to pick up my servant?” The telepathic tingle returned and a hint of smugness found its way along the link.

Then I got it. “This thing is yours?”

“He can be taught.”

“Okay, how do we turn it off before more people get hurt.”

“Say nice things to it.” The link grew quiet again.

Pinching between my eyes, I approached the cops. “I need you guys to get back. I’ve got this. I flashed my government ID and they tried not to look too eager to leave the scene. Most all but ran back to their squad cars and put some distance between them and the reforming elemental.

Manny reloaded his shotgun and came up behind me at the ready. “Just say the word.”

“Hello. Can you hear me?” I held out my hand and the lightning discharges began creeping toward it.

“Engram, is that wise?”

“I have it on good authority, it wants to hear nice words, not acts of violence. Manny, put your gun away and bring your friendly voice. Albrecht do you have any animal husbandry in your immortal repertoire of skills?”

“I knew something about animals, but since I have become Gifted, they have little to do with my kind.”

“Well, guess what? You get to be our ambassador.”

“Are you certain you might not be a better ambassador? You are, after all, a user of magic.”

“As I have tried to explain in the past, magic is just another technology where the rules are not known to most people. If you knew the rules, and weren’t already Gifted, you could use magic. It’s just like using a hammer.”

Manny added, “a hammer that tried to kill you when you turned your back on it.”

“Details, my boy, mere details.”

Albrecht studied the elemental. It seemed to be trying to pull itself together. There was something about the static discharges which told me it wasn’t doing well. “Stand back, both of you. Three of us might appear to be threatening. I will approach it alone.” The vampire waved us back and moved slowly toward the downed creature.

He murmured something soft in a language unfamiliar to me. Perhaps his native language. I didn’t know that much about him or his family other than the fact he was one of the possible heirs to his father’s financial empire. I questioned, to no one in particular, how one came into one’s inheritance when your father was immortal and wouldn’t experience True Death unless something bad were to happen to him.

The elemental’s sparking reduced as we moved back and the stink of ozone was lessened. Albrecht was almost standing next to the creature and knelt down close to it. The electrical discharges had almost ceased and a small wind vortex was beginning to form. Dust and debris could be seen being pulled into the creature and disappearing. The elemental seemed to be feeding on the debris as a form of fuel. Perhaps all elementals in addition to being composed of an element, fed on the destruction caused as a means of maintaining themselves. It made sense since they were not native to our world, being here might require a great amount of energy to maintain them.

“Engram. There is a metal device at the center of the wind vortex. It does not appear to be something I would expect to find in a church.”

“Don’t touch it. Let me take a look.” I slid up slowly and Looked. The object was a shaped like a barbell weight, with the two hand shaped ends wrapped around small glass orbs. One of the orbs was broken and a smoke was slowly escaping. In the center of the barbell shape was a third round sphere of black metal or glass. I can’t say I had never seen anything quite like this but Second World items vary so widely, it was hard to say anyone could recognize every single object. If I had my phone, I could have taken a picture and sent it to Home Office and someone might have been able to figure out what it was. As it was, I would have to just take a guess.

“I think this is the focus which was used to bring the elemental here. The two orbs are filled with an incense, representing air. The framework is an object which offers the creature structure. The black stone in the center is the binding focus. By damaging one of the orbs, possibly with the grenade launcher or the lightning strike, we have made it difficult for the creature to reform. But we didn’t kill it. And it is possible it might reform with less control if we leave it here.”

Manny slung his shotgun and sat down a bit of a distance away. “I’m not touching that thing. Anything that tried to kill me a half an hour ago won’t see me at my humanitarian best. You two better draw straws.”

It made sense for me to carry it, having the most experience with magic. “Okay little fellow, we’re going to be taking you home.” I reached out to grab the focus at the center. It was about the size of a loaf of bread. I tried to reach through the vortex of wind and found quite a bit of resistance, a surprising amount, in fact. But the resistance was nothing compared to what I experienced while trying to pick the focus up. It was heavy, easily fifty pounds, but I wasn’t surprised by that fact. What did surprise me was the electrical jolt it gave me when I tried to move it. This was the equivalent of touching a taser.

The unpleasant equivalent.

After ten seconds, I decided to put it back down as gently as I could without throwing it across the parking lot. After I finished cursing I nursed my tingling hand and said, “Okay, I won’t be carrying it. Albrecht, your turn.”

Amused by my expression while I tried to hold on to the focus, the vampire reached out and tensed himself for the shock. The shock that didn’t happen. He whispered something to it and began stroking it like a metal kitten. The electrical patterns and wind vortex steadied and formed around him.

“Okay, you carry it. Whatever. Let’s go.”

“Does that mean you’ll be picking up some ice cream on your way here? My favorite is pistachio.” The telepathic jibe was followed by silence.

On the way to the train station, we past a convenience store and grabbed a pint of pistachio ice cream. At this point, it couldn’t hurt and I did owe the Train for telling us how to deal with the storm elemental.

“If you can talk telepathically, why am I coming to meet with you? For that matter, if you could talk telepathically, why haven’t you explained what you wanted to whoever took your part? While were at it, can you connect the others so I don’t have to tell them what you said?”

“These two are your companions for the journey?” the question seemed a bit odd but I let it go.

“Yes, for the duration, we three are a Company.”

“You mean, you four. I think the elemental likes your friend. I can share information with all of you.”

Albrecht’s mind came into the link and I perceived it as a cold, reptilian intelligence, all anger, all hunger, patient and cunning. Manny was the opposite, a bright, hot and eager mind, absorbing information, analysing everything around it; these two were polar opposites in a way that was frightening. It was only the geas holding Albrecht back from ripping Manny apart. And it was only Manny’s love for me, keeping him from emptying a shotgun filled with specialized rounds whose contents included holy water, silver nitrate and sharpened silver splinters into Albrecht and tearing him into vampire salsa. Even if the rounds didn’t kill him directly, it would make him vulnerable enough for Manny’s silver edged sword to dice him into manageable pieces.

And as usual, I was stuck somewhere between two extremes, living up to my name again.

As we descended the steps into the train station, the normal awe of Grand Central Station fell back against the mental energies as we approached the Night Train. The closer we got to it, the less the real world seemed to matter to us. I felt as if I was trapped in a surrealists painting with the world melting around me, becoming incoherent and unknowable.

As we approached the train, it continued its explanation from earlier. “I could have communicated telepathically but only with people who have been aboard the train before or know someone who has. Hence the reason you were summoned. To fully explain though, you will need to take a trip with me to understand why it is important for me to get the part back.”

“You can still travel without the part?” I was still trying to grasp the nature of the problem.

The Night Train’s response had the psychic equivalent of a chuckle. “Of course. There isn’t anything being done while I am on Earth that would be significant to me. The part they stole is necessary for humans to travel with me. Without it, I simply am unable to carry people to their new destinations.”

“Excuse me, you need this part for humans to travel with you? What happens to people who travel with you without this part?” Manny, ever practical took the words right out of my head.

“Without it, people can become lost to the forces of Chaos which comprise my being. They can be spontaneously turned into other objects, lose vital organs or even their skeletons. It is unpredictable.”

Albrecht who, up until this point, had been bonding with his new electrical friend, looked up and commented as if nothing said up to this point mattered, “If you had planned to kill us, you would not have bothered to tell us what it took to bring this beast back to you. So you must have a means to protect us. Stop playing with us and tell us what you really want.”

“Are all the Gifted as unpleasant as this one?”

Before Manny could evince his opinion, I thought it would be better if I answered. “No, not all of them are as angry or ill-mannered as Albrecht here, but he has extenuating circumstances. His older brothers have been trying to kill him for at least a century.” I only learned this recently when I was reviewing reports about New York’s Red Watch and its convoluted politics. His brothers were unpleasant members of a new faction, similar to the one that tried to kill their collective sire all those years ago. This probably explains why Albrecht had been hiding with Father Nosceti.

“I wouldn’t have called it hiding, Engram.”

“Sorry. Thinking out loud. No offense meant.”

“None taken. Inaccurate as your thinking may have been.”

“We’re here bearing storm elementals and ice cream. You haven’t told us how you plan to carry us without turning us into a pudding or surrealistic art.”

The platform where the train waited for us, was shrouded in a low-lying fog, the stuff you see in horror movies and ninth grade proms. Very theatrical and over the top. The train was of a design I had never seen before, something strange, made of a bronze metal. I suspected its appearance was part of the surrealistic aura surrounding the train and I was certain it would change again before too long. Ghostly shapes moved around it, looking busy and efficient. They stayed far away from us.

The sections of the train near us were not lit and appeared to be passenger cars. There were fewer lights at the platform levels. Grand Central without people was already an eerie thing, the lights and the fog only added to the creep factor. Our pet elemental’s energies charged up and began whipping the low-lying fog around his vampire warder. Sparks shot out with the creature making a popping sound like a terrier barking.

Suddenly the doors opened, a blast of air came out and three or four shadows stepped onto the platform.

The shadows approached us, silently, their intent unknown. The psychic link apparently broken, I could no longer sense anyone’s thoughts. The Train was no longer in our heads.

Albrecht’s right hand dropped down and his vampiric claws grew long and shiny. I knew he could carve his way through a brick wall with those. Manny’s guns effortlessly appeared in his hands, safeties clicking off his custom-made Sigs. I hadn’t received a tingle from my curse marks but I couldn’t take any chances.

I charged my cane and readied the lightning spear. Its blue illumination seemed pale and weak in this magical darkness.

As its light pierced the darkness, we saw four more storm elementals headed right for us, their energies contained in humanoid forms.

They raised hands crackling with energy.

I dropped the bag with the pistachio ice cream.

Jump to Motus Vita, chapter 8

Paranormal 2

Broken Glass debuts in October!

Posted by Ebonstorm on October 1, 2013

Posted in: A Man Who Wasn't There, Clifford Engram, Novella. Tagged: Clifford Engram, ebonstorm, Paranormal Investigative Unit, Thaddeus Howze, The Agency. 1 Comment

With offices all over the world, The Agency hides the fact that our Earth is only one of many parallel realities and ‘When the Stars are Right,’ it is possible to move between those realities. But its mandate goes one step further than hiding this knowledge. Its operatives remove anyone whose knowledge of those realms could potentially threaten life on Earth.

But not everyone is in agreement about the dimensional realms called Shards. Some see them as the dawn of a New Age. Others see them as a chance to learn from denizens of other Earths who may have newer ideas or better technologies.

But the Agency has been policing this for over two thousand years and their history says no matter what may happen on another Earth, most of the time, when it migrates to our Earth, people die. Sometimes by the millions.

The Agency is conservative, its agents well-trained and knowledgeable, as much scholars as they are assassins, some utilizing the very proscribed technologies or magics they fight against.

Clifford Engram is a man of singular qualities. Born the son of two of the Agency’s greatest operatives in the fifties he later became one of the Agency’s cautionary tales finding himself one of the Accursed early in his career. Bound to two unknown Powers, he is now a living weapon, unable to stay for long in one place, constantly being tested, and fighting against the most dangerous enemies of Prime Earth.

Engram lives fast, drives fast, eats well, has excellent manners and is always impeccably well dressed. He knows one day, he will lose the battle to contain the monsters bound within his skin so he lives life to the fullest. Should his will falter he (and possibly everyone around him) will die in a blaze of cleansing fire from his own internal spiritual guardian, a bound Phoenix!

Being one of the Accursed, the most powerful of the Agency’s operatives, keeps his friend count low, but the ones he has are fantastically loyal, incredibly diverse and often just a little bit crazed. Each is willing to do their part to keep Humanity ticking along blissfully unaware of the monsters hiding among them.

In the mean time, Engram, cursed agent of the Paranormal Investigations Unit spends his days destroying zombies or managing the sentient undead, deporting extra-dimensional aliens, or putting near-dead gods out of their misery. He hates his job, but nobody does it better…

His latest case deals with a serial killer able to enter and leave homes without opening a door or window and without leaving any traces of how their murders were performed. Forced to resort to a cold case from Louisiana, Engram finds himself in a dilapidated mall looking at a unique prison for an even more unusual inmate.

Motus Vita (5)

Posted by Ebonstorm on September 29, 2013

Posted in: Clifford Engram, Fantasy, horror, Motus Vita, Serial. Tagged: Albrecht Fleisher, church, Father Nosceti, fog, light cage, magic, New York City, Night Train, sigils, The Voice. 1 Comment

a tale of clifford engram

“In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

Looking out the window of Father Nosceti’s raggedy little church I could see the fog that heralded the arrival of the Night Train enshroud New York City. I was running out of time. Time is relative, or so the quote by Einstein went.

When you are with someone you love, time is fleeting, when you’re burning your hand on the stove, time goes on forever. I’ve also realized that when you are in the wrong, a second can seem like forever while you figure out how to make it right.

If your memory’s good, you remember Manny, my esteemed associate, who emptied his handgun into the surprising voice of a longtime enemy and the last person we expected to find in the office of a witness protection candidate, Father Nosceti. The voice belonged to a vampire, Albrecht Fleischer, whom I had hoped to never lay eyes upon again.

Manny’s response to Albrecht was completely understandable. Secretly, though I will never admit it, I would have loved to put seven or eight bullets into Albrecht myself but this was not the time, nor the place.

Granted, Albrecht did kill his extended family. And his reason was one of expedience, not because he was starving, or because there might be a reason which might make killing a man’s family understandable or acceptable in the right circumstances, a war, or because they were carriers of a deadly plague. He killed them because they were in his way. This was a scene about to get out of hand.

And I had about one second to put it down, before it spun completely out of control.

As the bullets dropped from Albrecht’s outstretched hand, I remembered they were our bullets. Marked, sealed and sigiled for flavor.

Manny and I have worked together for nearly fifteen years and one of the reasons I don’t carry a gun is because he does. No need to replicate what is already being done better by someone else was my thinking. I used my unique skill of channeling to take advantage of our teamwork.

Using my cane, I tapped it on the ground and I activated the runes on the bullets and each came to life a spear of light pinning the vampire to the floor as spikes of light cut through him.

In their current state, they wouldn’t hurt him because I didn’t want them to. This version of the spell is meant to only immobilize him. Giving me perhaps ten seconds to make this right.

Before I can say a thing, Father Nosceti finding the situation intolerable, boomed out a surprisingly powerful “Stop!”

Everyone was momentarily frozen in varying states of weapon readiness. The four bodyguards were in action, doors bursting open and very large caliber firearms swinging into place after the first rounds were fired.

The two in the room had already taken positions in front of Nosceti, ready to protect him from vampire, mage and mercenary alike.

Manny had already dropped his first clip and reloaded, determined to meet Albrecht’s charge with a gun in his hand. Knowing him like I do, this second clip was filled with something of a more vampire-killing nature.

By activating the light cage, I hoped to avoid any further escalation. It only would hold Albrecht for a minute.

“You are all my guests. Put your weapons away. Now.” Nosceti’s display of power, faded as he fell back to his chair coughing violently. His gift was his voice, a tool of seduction, coercion, and if necessary, mind control.

After his relocation into witness protection, all of the Agency’s operatives were rendered immune to its power. It had also been limited keeping him from utilizing it with the strength he had in his youth. In these close quarters, it was still quite effective.

“Remove your spell, or I will break your long bones, slowly sucking the marrow while you watch.” The vampire was already testing the limits of the light cage, but since part of it was formed from the bullets embedded in his flesh, he was pinned from within and without.

We used this spell when we have to return targets alive to headquarters, or when we need to make a barrier to aid in a hasty retreat. He wasn’t going to break it for another minute, no matter what he tried.

I pushed Manny’s gun down slowly and he seemed to return to something resembling sanity. His pathological hatred of vampires had saved our lives more times than I can count so I was willing to forgive this breach of protocol.

“Lord Fleischer, we beg your forgiveness. We were not aware you were a guest of Father Nosceti. I will release you at once.” Tapping my cane on the floor again, the light cage fell away and the vampire fell unceremoniously to the ground.

He stood up, brushed himself off as if nothing had happened. He reached up to his chest, plucking the remaining two bullets from his undead flesh and handed them to me as if he had just plucked a couple of flowers. “I demand blood tribute for this affront. His attack cannot go unpunished. Shall he be paying for it, Engram, or will you?”

“Is that necessary, in this time of crisis, Albrecht?” Nosceti had regained his composure, apparently surprised that the vampire would invoke the blood tribute for having been wronged. This was an Old World tradition, rarely used, and generally a thing done only between vampire leaders and their thralls.

As the room absorbed the request, everyone returned to their positions and Albrecht loomed over me, his Scandinavian heritage displayed in his height and build. His blond hair waved over his face, contorted with barely contained rage.

He was within his right and I had to balance our current needs over his pride. I could challenge it and delay it, but he would want need to escalate it making it a physical challenge which could end in death.

Now that I think about it. That may have been exactly what he wanted.

I didn’t have time for his petty revenge politics. “I will bleed for his sin.”

Manny immediately pushed his way between us. Being larger and more imposing Manny looked Albrecht in his eyes while he spoke, “No, boss. I can’t have you doing that. We might need you whole later.”

I am not going to pretend I am happy with what happened next. It was just another sign of a day going straight to Hell.

Albrecht finished pushing me to the side and before I could even protest had snapped his mouth on Manny’s neck and the sick popping sound accompanied his piercing of his flesh. His fangs slashed into his carotid artery and Manny’s body tensed up like he was being electrocuted. Part of the horror of the bite of the vampire is the conflicted emotions while you are in the throes of the event. The bite is an orgasmic event masking the horror of what is happening. But to make it worse, the victim knows they are dying, even while they are unable to resist, only adding to the energies absorbed by the vampire.

Vampires feed on the blood and the terror of the victim combining them in the form of a powerful magic infused into the flesh of the vampire. The older the vampire, the greater the spiritual energy bound within their flesh. Since most vampires are incapable of active magic use, they grow more powerful with age, increasing their supernatural abilities which can vary depending on their family bloodline.

Albrecht was also transfixed, his rock-hard vampiric form had become a statue, nearly-invulnerable, a self-defense mechanism against several different vampire predators known to attack them since they are immobile during feeding. Vampires may be an apex predator in their own shard but the ecosystem of their world is as durable and dangerous as they are.

I twisted my cane on the floor, grinding its hardened tip into the wood. The teak, alive in my hand responded to my emotional state, and had begun storing my excess emotional energy, weaponizing it for potential use. I was already rolling the two bullets Albrecht gave back to me in my hand, connecting the flesh and the viscera which he was so kind to provide to me, to a powerful spell. One strong enough to kill him dead, if I wanted it to.

And maybe if I didn’t.

My spell would turn him into ash. And there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. But that was only because he had given me his viscera-covered flesh on the bullets. Without them, his natural damage resistance would make him one of the most dangerous supernatural creatures on Earth, after angels or demons, with werewolves pulling into third place.

So your next question is likely to be why isn’t the world overrun with these terrifying and frightening undead supermen?

Vampire propagation is limited by two things. The first was, to make a new vampire, you had to have a willing subject. Part of the magic of creating vampires is tapping into the spiritual void within a soul. The greater void, the more powerful the vampire childe.

This means people who don’t want to become vampires, don’t believe they can become vampires, or simply refuse to embrace the darkness will not become a vampire even if their sire wants them to.

This means the creation of a childe is is not taken lightly, and each potential candidate is screened carefully. They have to be willing, sane and not so void obsessed that they go berserk in a few years and end up attacking their sire’s holdings, killing the help, destroying their house and maybe even attacking and killing their sire. The void was the source of a vampire’s power.

The second and riskier proposition was that creating a new vampire caused a profound weakness in the sire. A prolonged weakness that cannot be overcome until their child is secured spiritually. The sire creates a spiritual connection with their child and during this time a vampire is weakened and easily attacked.

Most vampires have to be surrounded by loyal acolytes whom they can trust during this period of vulnerability and usually go into seclusion when they find a worthy candidate.

The final word on vampire reproduction is the leadership of the Councils of the Red Watch. With the controls set by the Council, creating a new vampire cannot be done unless a vampire is destroyed.

They are a zero-population species. They rigidly control their numbers because even with such limitations, it could be possible for them to overpopulate an area in a matter of a few generations devastating the human population. But long before that happened, human fear would cause them to find the vampires during the day when they have none of their abilities and kill them. Historical record attested to this.

I knew Albrecht was taking his time, trying to cause as much fear as possible. At the rate, the average vamp draws blood, a pint a minute or so if they are trying to be neat or to extend suffering. It’s been two minutes.

Two and a half. Nosceti is staring at me. Intently. I realized why in a second. My cane was beginning to glow. I was so intent on my watch, I had lost track of my cane and its absorption of my crazy. At two minutes and forty-five seconds. I began to change my grip on cane. As I picked it up off the floor, all four guards drew down on me. I didn’t care.

At three minutes and thirty seconds, the killing would commence.

He began to slow at three. But he did not release him. I charged my cane and raised it above my head. The guards pointed at me, pointedly. Nosceti’s face was emotionless and he hadn’t moved but his guards seemed in tune with his desires and moved as one.

So no one was more surprised than I when they didn’t shoot me.

At three minutes and fifteen seconds, I struck Albrecht with my cane and his protective layer of psychic energy shattered. The blow blasted his shirt and jacket off of his body. His ghost-white flesh resounded like I had struck a marble statue.

He didn’t stop. I drew back and struck him again, this time releasing my crazy stored in cane with the force of bomb. Blood formed where I struck this time and he loosed his bite but did not stop drinking.

My third blow was designed to tear him asunder, releasing all of my channeled anger. The light came back to his eyes in time to catch my cane with his hand as I brought it down for the third time. He had the blood frenzy in his eyes. He had no intention of stopping if I hadn’t attacked him.

He dropped Manny’s limp form and whipped his clawed hand toward my face. This was going to hurt.

“ALBRECHT!” Nosceti’s voice froze the very air in the room around the vampire.

Frozen, his claws tickling my cheek with tiny beads of blood forming at the very tips. Like a vengeful angel he stood perfectly still, as the fire faded from his eyes.

I dropped to the ground to scoop up my friend wiping my cheek along the way. I drew a sigil with the blood from my cheek on the center of his icy-cold forehead. I channeled my qi into him, activating the rune. As my qi entered his body, I could feel the psychic ravages left by his attack.

The Eye of Harmony opened and closed. The spell was successful and he would be as alright as anyone could be under those circumstances, minus three and a half pints of blood.

When I looked up Albrecht had taken up his seat in the corner, this time without the mood lighting. I picked up my cane and strode to the corner.

“I invoke Blood debt. You damaged him more than you had to.” I was rolling the two bullets in my pocket trying to consider the ramifications of turning him into a smoking pile of ash. Did I want to have to explain to his father, the head of the local Red Watch Council?

“What foolishness are you playing at Engram? I took tribute. It was my due.”

Suffer not a monster to live. I closed my eyes and prepared myself to launch the spell.

Nosceti stood up and with the support of his guard hobbled to where the vampire was sitting and looked him dead in the eye. “You took advantage. I agree with Engram. You owe the Blood debt. I have dealt with your family long enough to know the traditions and I know that you do. You took tribute and then you damaged his friend. Given his mission tonight, he would have needed his friend at a higher capacity than you have left him. So you must accompany him until his quest is complete or until you save the life of his friend or his master. That is the law.”

Albrecht’s eyes flashed red. Not the ordinary thing vampires do when they just want to scare the hell out of people. No this was the other kind of red.

That horrifying thing they do just before they burn all of their inner energy in an orgy of destruction. They can supercharge themselves utilizing their lifeforce until it burns out. During that time they cannot be harmed physically and even magic can barely touch them.

This vampire blitzkrieg lasts about two minutes.

You would be shocked to discover how much damage a tweaked out, vampire on a meth-rage explosion of their total accumulated life-energy stolen over the course of their immortality can wreck. I have seen bomb scenes that didn’t match the pure devastation of this act of self-destruction.

Then the light faded, his blue eyes chilled me to the bone.

“I pledge myself to you, Clifford Engram in the place of your man, whom I have wronged.” These were the formal words, but there was no submission, no obeisance, none of the reverence the words were supposed to have. He spat each one at me like bullets. “Until such time as I return to you the hurt I have caused. Only then will my words, release me.”

I could feel the geas cover all three of us, binding us together in a spiritual obligation powered by his blood. In addition to hating this monster who just harmed my friend, now I was stuck with him until he is released by the efforts of his blood geas.

What else could go wrong?

A modem’s squeal broke the awkward silence, as it indicated the sound of an incoming fax message. Nosceti flicked his head and one of the guards disappeared in the back. He came back a few seconds later with a piece of paper which he handed to back to the old man.

He laid it on the table and the message was scrawled in big letters: ‘It knows where you are. Get out.’

“Now if we are all done trying to kill each other for the rest of the evening, I can explain what I brought you all together for in the first place.” Nosceti is helped back to his desk while I helped Manny to one of the chairs which got pushed out of the way in our altercation. “As I was trying to explain before our little incident. I know why the Night Train is here, and its my fault.”

Then the building rocked like a bomb just went off outside. A second later, car alarms and screams filled the air.

Jump to Motus Vita, chapter 6

Motus Vita (4)

Posted by Ebonstorm on September 22, 2013

Posted in: Chapter, Clifford Engram, Fantasy, Motus Vita, Serial. Tagged: Albrecht, church, combat shotgun, formative experiences, Grand Central Station, Manny Rodriguez, Night Train, police, Thaddeus Howze @ebonstorm, Vampire, weapons cache, WPLongform. Leave a comment

Manny drove us down to 42nd Street and Grand Central Station.

The entire area was cordoned off so we were forced to park about five blocks away and walk back. There were dozens of police, paramilitary and military people moving people and traffic out of the area. New Yorkers were a bit more skittish than I remembered them but for the most part were easily redirected away toward other destinations.

It took us a minute to get parked since the police were moving everyone out of the neighborhood, so we were forced to wave our badges around until people left us alone. Manny took his taxi magnet off the roof and put up his police magnet complete with flashing light. Then we just parked on the curb like all the other cops did.

We had about an hour to go and I wanted to be on time. Not everyday you got to meet an officially self-sustaining, high order, Chaos manifestation face to face, or face to train, as it were. Wouldn’t do to be late.

Manny popped the boot, the trunk for you Westerners, and showed me his handy weapons cache. These were the weapons he used when he was on an Agency sanctioned mission and needed some quick stopping power. There were a variety of small arms, shotguns, an AR-15 and a variety of already loaded weapon belts for all of this ammo. His formative experiences with the Second World left him with a strong desire to be prepared.

He offered me something from his first selection and when I refused, he mistook my refusal to mean I wanted something more exotic. He then moved to a black gym bag and touched it. He added a simple incantation while he unzipped it.

Once opened, a cold wind sighed from the bag and dropped the temperature in the immediate area twenty degrees. He reached in, leaning all the way to his shoulder and pulled out a frost rimmed bag with a shape coded metal chip on the strap. Inside was a fully automatic combat shotgun. One of his personal favorites. He pulled the shotgun out of the smaller bag and checked the action.

Knowing Manny, it was just a reflex, because I knew when he put it in there, it was already in top working condition. He loaded it, strapped it on and put on its accompanying ammo belt under his long coat which, not coincidentally, looked like mine. He also packed a machete in the coat and two nine millimeter handguns. He checked his ammo, noting the variety of sigils hand carved onto each round. Designed to stop a variety of Second Worlders, each was intricately handcrafted in his spare time.

He fingered a long handled mace lovingly and looked at me.

“Really?” was my reply to that quizzical look.

“You never know.”

“You are already carrying enough ordinance to fight your way through half a dozen grizzly bears and a regiment of the National Guard, I think we’ll be safe enough.” he dropped the mace back into its protective baggy and placed it in the Gym Bag of Many Things.

After fitting himself, Manny stood there, trunk still open. “No piece? This isn’t London or Wales or wherever the hell you’ve been working. This is New York. Everyone is armed here.”

I opened my coat and showed him my rune-carved long knife, half a dozen throwing blades and my spell-enhanced walking cane. He laughed and said what he always said when I eschewed a firearm. “Hokey religions and magic powers are no substitute for a good nine-millimeter.”

“That is why I have you, Manny Rodriguez.”

“Fair enough. Where to, Boss?”

“Something quick to eat. Don’t want to meet a god on an empty stomach.”

We found a pizzeria not too far from Grand Central and needless to say the pizza was magnificent. No matter where I lived, no place made pizza like New York. Yes, Chicago I am talking to you. We stood there eating our giant slices, wordlessly savoring it, until we had reached a point where our hunger would permit conversation.

“Have you worked out what you’re gonna say to the Night Train?” I saw Manny smiling over his mouthful of pizza but I knew the question had serious implications. I hadn’t a clue.

“Honestly, I thought about it all the way here and I have no idea of what to say. I don’t even know who I am going to be talking to. The train normally has people working on-board so I figure I’ll be talking to one of them.”

“Protocol Zero. Still no idea what it means? I mean there are eight to ten million people in New York. It surely can’t mean to make that many people disappear, can it?”

I was going to explain the level of information we didn’t have on what the Night Train was before I got that tingling in my arm that told me, trouble was on its way. I thought it meant the Night Train was arriving early.

Manny’s hyper-vigilance was already on it. “Boss, two o’clock. Two suits, not Feds.”

I wiped my mouth and took up my cane. Two burly fellows, carrying, nice suits, Italian-cut. Not broke. Clean cut, well shaven. Too much jewelry for Feds. Their shoes were well-worn. Working men. My initial assessment was Mafia or at least criminally-associated. I waved Manny down as they drew closer. No need for shooting if there didn’t need to be. I thought I recognized their leader.

There were four of them, two up front, two further back across the street. They were most likely just watchers, there was too much traffic for them to do much if I was as dangerous as they thought I was. “Do you remember me, Mr. Engram? I work for…”

“David D’Amico.”

“He prefers to be called Father Nosceti, these days, sir.” The leader was a massive fellow, easily six two and three feet wide. Even so, his suit was custom fitted and by a fine tailor. Being a criminal didn’t mean one had to dress like one.

“What can I do for you? I am on a schedule. If it’s just a friendly visit he’s looking for, it will have to wait until I finished my work.” I knew as I said it, it was likely to be anything but friendly.

“Father Nosceti would like just a few minutes of your time, Mr. Engram. He said it would be okay if you felt more comfortable with your bodyguard along.”

“It’s just a few blocks away. We’ll make it back in time for your appointment.” With those words, they assumed I would follow and began walking away up the street. They never looked back. I decided to let my curiosity get the better of me. The timing was too close to be coincidental. They knew I would be here. I wanted to know why.

“After you, Mr. Rodriguez.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Engram, don’t mind if I do.” Manny palmed his nine and put it into his outer coat pocket as we crossed each other, masking the action in our movements.

The walk was at a brisk pace and we found ourselves standing outside of a church, an old church, that looked abandoned upon first glance except for the new lock on the gate into a little used parking space. Streetlights were out on this side of the street, making the place look more foreboding. As I looked up, a swarm of bats flew from what might have once been a bell tower. I had to give them points for setting the mood.

As soon as we crossed the threshold two odors were clear to me. One of an overwhelming perfumed incense, completely dissonant, unpleasant, designed to put you off your game, capable of distracting you from the second more subtle scent. The scent of a recently opened grave. Dank, smelling of earthworm dung and musty aging fabric, with the mingling of old man smell, of shaving creams used in a bygone era.

It was the smell of Vampire.

Manny stopped as soon as he got a whiff of the place. I put my hand on his back and tapped him to go on. He continued to follow our burly escorts, who had taken positions two in front and two in back.

We walked into the church and down the central isle. Manny stopped to cross himself as we passed the central dais, looking up at the dimly lit Jesus upon the Cross. We were taken behind the raised stage and choir area and into a very tight stairwell and for a moment, I thought we might be about to be trapped.

I squeezed my cane and felt it become hot in my hand as its magics surged to life. I could feel Manny ready to spring left and squeeze off as many rounds as his itchy trigger finger could in two seconds. I knew it was numbered between nine and twelve.

The doorway at the top of the stairs opened and a warm, soft light came out, easing our trepidation. I relaxed my hold on the banister and continued my climb. This area was better lit and filled with religious artifacts, paintings and assorted tchotchkes. Then I felt it. The power, the presence of a supernatural force ahead of me. I stumbled and Manny caught me.

“Restrain yourself, whatever you see in there.” I whispered as he caught me. He grunted his assent and helped me steady myself on my cane.

The guards opened the door and the two in front took station on the inside of the door, while the other two stayed outside. The office was deceptively spacious with a large oak desk directly across from the door. Every wall was a floor to ceiling bookshelf and gentle lighting covered the space completely except for a small corner of well crafted darkness. I could feel the eyes hiding in the darkness but choose to focus my attention on Father Nosceti.

He looked nothing like I remembered him.

David D’Amico was a mob boss who ran a variety of “businesses” in Florida about a decade ago. Some of his work crossed into my territory when he began trafficking in human beings for Second Worlder’s who used living human ingredients in their spell casting. Our interactions led to the destruction of a safe-house, a crazed sorcerer and the deaths of one hundred innocent men and women, whom D’Amico was instrumental in their passing.

I was told to bring him in alive.

I wanted to burn him alive, slowly in the hottest hellfire I could summon, but back then, I was a better soldier than I was today.

Back then, I followed orders.

His sentence was for selling at least three hundred people as laboratory animals for the study of black magic. He was allowed to turn evidence against his trafficking friends and he was “relocated” in a witness protection program. His face was Shaped, his aura altered and he was given the cover of an old, fat priest working for the benefit of the people in New York. His aura shifting was designed to be a painful and continual reminder of his new life and the price of his freedom.

I looked in on him from time to time, mostly to be sure he was still suffering. It’s a karmic thing.

Yes, he was relatively reformed in that he didn’t do human trafficking but leopards rarely changed their spots. He found ways to amuse himself selling the excess spiritual energy from his parishioners to a number of Second World parasites. The Agency overlooked much of this lesser criminal activity because the evidence he turned allowed them to shut down a number of large criminal enterprises and he acted as a resource upon occasions. Didn’t mean I had to like him or be nice to him.

“I’m on the clock. What couldn’t wait until after I was done? By the way, you look like hell.”

Nosceti’s voice was thin and papery, little more than a strong whisper. Nothing like his previous bombastic over the top behaviors. This wasn’t an act. I wanted to Look at him to see if I could figure out what was wrong with him, but I didn’t know what my spell might trigger or what his hidden guests might do if I cast any magic. So I just listened. “Hello Engram, watchdog of the Apocalypse, I wish I could say you were looking equally awful but that would be a lie.”

He had a spasm of moist and unpleasant coughing. His bodyguards moved as one. One went to his back and held him up, the other poured a glass of water and added a squirt of an unknown elixir to it. He drank the water, sat back and pulled himself together. Once his breathing settled down, he continued, “Immortality sits very well upon you, my boy. Very well, indeed. As to why I asked you here, I was one of the people who had received the Protocol Zero request and recommended you for the job.”

Now I knew who I had to thank for the pleasure, but he wasn’t finished.

“As to why I requested you…, I might understand why the Night Train is not amused with New York at the moment.”

“Wow, you actually went with the pregnant pause thing? Or are you catching your breath.” Manny hissed.

I was displeased that Manny had spoken at that moment but I absolutely related to the sentiment.

“Muzzle your dog, Engram, or I will shut his trap for you.” A voice crept across the walls and floors, sinister, oily and supremely confident of itself. A familiar voice, I never expected to hear again.

Neither did Manny. Before I could stop him, his nine appeared in his hand and he emptied his clip into the chair barely visible in the shadows.

The chalky face of Albrecht stepped out of the shadows. He had been struck in the right shoulder, twice. Only the tiniest evidence of blood appeared and he did not appear discomforted by their impacts. He held out his hand and turned it over.

The rest of the bullets tumbled out onto the floor.

As he leapt into the room, he growled, “My turn.”

Jump to Motus Vita, chapter 5