The World in Shadow (Eternal Warriors Book 2) Read online

  “Elves?” Brien had to chuckle dubiously. “Okay, whatever, that’s cool.”

  “Right,” Derek agreed, raising an eyebrow to indicate his own skepticism. “But here’s the punchline. At the conference, McKenzie’s just been going on and on about the elves for, like, twenty minutes, and when he finishes, some other doctor gets up and starts telling everyone about what a great metaphor McKenzie’s been making, and how massively poetic it is, you know, that kind of bullshit….”

  Derek’s voice trailed off. Brien waited expectantly for a few seconds, then realized that Derek had spaced out.

  “That’s the fucking punchline? Talk about killing brain cells. Stoner!”

  “Shut up, let me get to it, will you?” Derek glared at him. “I was just trying to get it straight. No, so the punchline is, McKenzie totally loses it. He jumps up and starts screaming at the guy, just totally screaming at him. He’s yelling,‘they’re not a metaphor, they’re real! The elves are real! They told me they are!’”

  Brien cracked up. Derek joined him and they both laughed and laughed. Brien thought his sides were going to explode.

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. It’s true, I swear, I read all about it! I mean, you’ve got the whole crowd thinking the guy is totally this deep-thinking philosopher-king, a genius chemical guru or whatever, and all of a sudden everyone realizes all at once that the guy is a fucking lunatic! He’s just stone cold fucking crazy!”

  “That is so awesome!” Brien was amazed. His stomach almost hurt from laughing so hard. “Elves! Awesome. Geez, I can’t wait to try this stuff now!”

  Derek leaned towards him and handed him a translucent green lighter. With a solemn look on his face, he raised his own lighter and flicked it, summoning forth a dancing yellow flame. Flick! Brien answered his friend with a flaming salute of his own.

  “Are you ready to meet the elves?” Derek asked him as he handed him the smaller piece of tin foil.

  “Bring ‘em on,” Brien grinned to hide his slight nervousness. He always felt this way when trying something new. “But I get firsts on Galadriel!”

  He watched as Derek bent over the foil in his hand. The powder disappeared rapidly, without even a trace of smoke. As his friend stopped inhaling and sat back, closing his eyes, Brien quickly imitated the process. At first, it didn’t seem as if he was breathing in anything but hot air, but then he felt something moving within him, pulling at his brain, and suddenly, something jerked his spirit upwards, sending his consciousness flying wildly towards the sky. With a surprised giggle, he closed his eyes and leaned back to enjoy the ride.

  He seemed to find himself standing alone on the side of a tall mountain, in the middle of a grassy meadow which overlooked a wide valley choked with trees. A river made its slow, easy way through the forested valley, and when Brien looked around, he saw that there were more mountains, tall ones, around him on every side. It was a beautiful place, breathtakingly so, although the mountains made him feel a little bit claustrophobic.

  He’d been in the Colorado Rockies once on a ski trip, but this place felt slightly different. There, the mountaintops had been more jagged, rocky, really. Which made a lot of sense, when you thought about it for a second. Here, things were greener, the trees grew much closer to the peaks, and everything felt somehow old, almost ageless. It was as if the Earth here had managed to reclaim much of that which had proudly thrust itself away from her a long, long time ago.

  A horn sounded five notes, and Brien jumped when he heard someone nearby call out in answer to it.

  “Life!”

  Beside him stood a blond young man, about his age, as far as he could tell, or maybe a little younger. The boy was extremely good-looking, in a blue-eyed Nazi sort of way; his Aryan features were so strongly chisled that his face was almost skull-like. He wore a weird Alpine hiking outfit, which was complimented by the walking stick held in his right hand. He didn’t seem to see Brien, but focused on something high above them in the nearby mountains. The five notes sounded again, seemingly from out of the sky.

  “Life is life!”

  The Aryan boy’s voice was tight with emotion, and his intense blue eyes burned with the fever of one totally caught up in an all-consuming passion. There was something familiar about all this, and Brien closed his eyes, trying to figure out what it was.

  But when he opened his eyes again, the boy had multiplied. Now there were dozens of the Hitler Youth hikers to his left and his right, and behind him as well. Brien looked down, and chuckled when he realized that he, too, had on the silly leather shorts getup that the Nazi clones were all wearing. As he stared, bemused, at the walking stick that had appeared in his hand without warning, the gaggle of perfect Aryan males roared out in unison:

  “Life!”

  Brien burst out laughing as the horn repeated the five notes for the third time, and the boys shouted that life was, indeed, life. Ohmigod, it’s Laibach! What the fuck am I doing here? And where are the damn caribou?

  He’d been expecting elves, not freaked-out neo-Nazis, but he found the whole thing was pretty funny. Derek was going to bust a gut laughing when he heard about this trip. What horribly sick and twisted aspect of his poor subconscious did this insanity reveal? Well, only one thing was sure. He was skying out of his freaking gourd!

  A tall, creepily skinny figure strode purposefully towards him and the young Nazi boys. The man’s eyes danced with flames where the dark spots should have been, and he called out to his eager disciples in a voice that was shockingly deep. It sounded like rocks grinding against rocks, as if he’d been waiting to speak since these old mountains were young. Also, he had the worst fake German accent Brien had heard since the last time he’d seen Hogan's Heroes.

  “Ven vee all have ze power…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Brien called out to him. “Vee all have ze best, whatever.”

  He shook his walking stick at the man.

  “What the hell does that mean, anyhow. It doesn’t make any sense. Does it make any more sense in German? I mean, if you’re going to talk English, why don’t you learn how to fucking speak it?”

  The skinny man glared at him, and the flames leaping in his eyes looked as if they might explode right out of them.

  “Do you know what your problem is, Henry?” He spoke in flawless Midwest-American English now. “You don’t understand the nature of power. Power is everything. It is the only thing.”

  He raised one skinny arm, and again the horn sounded. The Nazi boys bellowed, and the world changed.

  “Vee all have ze power,” the man declared triumphantly.

  Brien stared at the small machine pistol in his hands. It was identical to those cradled in the arms of the handsome Aryan boys, who seemed to have lost their silly leather pants along with their walking sticks. Now their stark features were shadowed by the brims of steel helmets, and on each helmet was painted the skull-and-crossbones emblem of the SS. The only thing that had not changed was their flawless beauty and the furious passion that still inflamed every skull-like face.

  Before them, kneeling in the snow in front of a large, recently-dug pit, were about forty people, dressed in shabby overcoats and shoes that were falling apart. Brien couldn’t tell if they were men or women, because each person’s head was covered with rough canvas sacking. Horrified, he stepped forward, only to be pushed back by the man with the eyes of fire.

  “Vee all have ze power,” he insisted, then strode towards the kneeling people. He reached down and violently ripped away the sacking from one prisoner’s head, then forcibly turned the man around. It was Kent Peterson, who stared contemptuously at Brien for a second, then broke into a mocking laugh. The man didn’t hesitate, but moved on to the next person and ripped off a second sack, then a third. It was Kent, and Kent, and again, and again, Kent. Perhaps all of them were Kent; surely that was so. All of them, even those whose heads were still covered, were laughing at him.

  Brien gritted his teeth, suddenly filled with hate and
anger. He squeezed the trigger, and the gun spat death. The SS boys followed his example. It was not long before the laughter stopped. As the guns fell silent, the horn sounded, as if in celebration, and this time Brien couldn’t resist roaring out the words with the rest of his company.

  “Life is life!”

  The man with the fire in his eyes stood before him and nodded with approval.

  “Perhaps there is some hope for you after all,” he said thoughtfully. “Every minute, every hour, you always have the power. If you remember one thing, remember that.”

  “So whatt’ya think?”

  Brien blinked several times, trying to get his brain back in focus. He felt overwhelmed trying to cope with the various noises and colors that his senses were reporting. He reached out blindly and felt something rough, but soft. Carpet, that was it! When his mind finally managed to synchronize with his eyes and ears, he realized he was still sitting on the floor of Derek’s bedroom.

  “So?” Derek grinned widely, his pupils still dilated. “Pretty crazy shit, huh!”

  “Pretty trippy, dude!”

  Brien blinked again. Wow! He wasn’t sure what he’d seen, exactly, but the bits and pieces he was recalling now were definitely strange. Things were still a little foggy. He had a vague idea that he’d managed to bruise his brain or something, if that was possible. His thoughts all seemed to have rough edges at the moment.

  “See any elves?” he asked Derek.

  “No, dude, how about you?”

  “Me neither,” he confessed. “I kept seeing, like Nazis, I think. Yeah, it was like this weird Laibach thing going on, with these Hitler youth types and all. Oh, and I think we killed a bunch of Kent Petersons, for some reason.”

  Derek held up the balled pieces of aluminum foil that he’d just rolled together.

  “Hell, that’s better than elves as far as I’m concerned. I just had this floaty kinda thing happening. It was nice, very nice, actually, but nothing too whacked out.”

  He tossed the metal ball into a plastic wastepaper basket and reached for the bong again.

  “How do you feel now? Think you need any of this?”

  Brien screwed up his face. God, no! It was going to take him weeks to recover from this little binge, he could tell already. The first time he’d dropped acid, it was almost six months before he really, truly felt back to normal again. Why do we do this shit to ourselves, he wondered, not for the first time.

  “So, you’re cool about your Dad now?”

  Oh, yeah, that was why. Because life sucks, and oblivion is bliss by comparison.

  “I don’t know about that,” he answered honestly. “But at the present moment, I find myself almost utterly indifferent to anything that might happen to be happening on this planet.”

  Derek laughed.

  “Thatta’boy!” He stood up and touched the bong to Derek’s shoulders twice, left and right, before slipping it into a surprisingly deep desk drawer. “Then I can officially pronounce you cured! Utter indifference is the only sane approach to life these days. Since nothing really matters, the only appropriate attitude is to not give a fuck about anything.”

  “You just going to leave that there?” Brien ignored Derek’s pontificating and pointed to the drawer. “That water is going to stink pretty bad in a day or two.”

  “Oh, yeah, good point. I should probably dump it out first, huh?”

  “Only if you don’t want the housekeeper digging through your stuff, looking for the dead mouse.”

  “We get those here, sometimes. Little rat bastards come in from the woods, I think. Drives my mother nuts. You ever get them at your house?”

  “Just one big one, apparently,” Brien answered morosely. He saw that Derek had missed his feeble attempt at black humor and explained. “My Dad?”

  “Oh, right.” Derek fell silent and stared out the window. “I’ve been thinking, you know. It’s our senior year, and neither one of us has ever been to a school dance before. I mean, proms are bitches, everyone knows that, but there must be some reason why everyone gets so pumped up for it. You ever wonder if you’re missing out on anything?”

  “No, not really,” Brien lied.

  He’d only sell his soul and cheerfully murder any randomly selected ten individuals if that would improve his odds on being Tessa’s date. A tux, a limo, a hotel room, the works, shoot, he’d be more than happy to blow his whole bank account just to the whole thing up right, even if it was only for one night. But how was he ever going to find the nads to ask her?

  “Well, there is one girl I suppose I wouldn’t mind going with,” he modified his earlier statement. “She’s pretty hot, and since girls dig that kind of stuff, getting all dressed up and stuff, I figure taking her to the prom would up my odds, you know, of getting somewhere with her.”

  Derek shook his head, smiling sadly.

  “I don’t know, man. Tessa Fenchurch?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  His friend snorted, clearly not believing his feeble attempt at misdirection.

  Even if Derek did know how he felt, Brien was still extremely reluctant to discuss his secret love with him. Derek was the best, but he was always down on the girls at their school, no matter how nice or pretty any of them might be. He just seemed to hate them all indiscriminately, and for no reason at all.

  “Forget her, Bry.” Derek pressed his lips together. “She’s no good, I can tell you that right now. She’s like every other girl. She don’t care who she goes with, she just wants the excuse to go buy a new dress, then get all wined and dined by anyone dumb enough to blow three hundred bucks on her on the off chance she’ll put out!”

  Yeah, so? Three hundred dollars? He’d happily spend twice that much just for the chance to hold her hand and see her smile! He sometimes lay awake at night, trying to think up ways he could spend more time with Tessa than their one pathetic class together. One hour a day, five times a week, left one hundred and sixty-three hours in the week he didn’t get to see her. He’d even considered offering to give her a regular lift to school when he saw that she was still riding the bus, except that he lived far enough away from her that he was afraid he was being too obvious. That kind of thing might freak her out and scare her off for good, and he couldn’t take the chance.

  He still remembered how warm and excited he’d felt when she’d asked to borrow his notes for Biology last year. His notes! She could have asked anyone for them, but she’d wanted his! Forget the honor roll, that had been the crowning achievement of his junior year.

  “She’s not like the others,” Brien insisted. “She’s different. I can tell.”

  “You’re cruising for a bruising, dude,” Derek sighed. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you when she rips your heart to pieces, then stomps on them, okay?”

  Fair enough. Brien felt a little irritated with his friend, but he knew that Derek was just trying to look out for him and didn’t want him to get hurt. He didn’t know Tessa, after all, not the way Brien did, so it wasn’t his fault if he thought she was just like everybody else.

  “Okay,” he nodded. “And thanks. So what do you say to some Warhammer? Chaos versus Empire, four thousand points, fifty point max on items?”

  Derek’s eyes strayed to the old, carved chest in which he stored his minis.

  “No characters?”

  “No characters. Start setting up the table and I’ll get my boys out of my car. Oh, and can I borrow your Hellhounds?” Brien paused a moment, pretending to be concerned that he’d said too much. “If I need them, that is.”

  Derek cocked a suspicious eyebrow. Would he fall for the feint? Probably not, Brien figured, but it was always worth a try.

  “My demons are your demons,” Derek said with a smile, and gestured grandly to the chest.

  Chapter 16

  Dreams Can Come True

  Cupid, the beauteous light

  That shines forth from my misstress's eyne

  Hath made me both her slave and thine.
/>   —Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron

  The days passed quickly over the next two weeks. Mounds Park was a hotbed of rumor, gossip, and innuendo as familiar old couples split apart almost as quickly as new pairings were announced. Brien didn’t know either Alan Cowling or Kate Porter very well, but he was shocked nevertheless when he heard that they’d broken up, and that Bill Morris was taking Kate to prom. Alan and Kate had been going out together since eighth grade, and Brien, like everyone else at Mounds Park, had assumed they’d eventually get married someday. It was strange, since it really had nothing to do with him but the news of their breakup left a surprisingly hollow feeling in his stomach.

  There was excitement and uncertainty everywhere. The weather was getting warmer, and an electric feeling of energy crackled throughout the halls. Summer was coming, and the year’s drudgery was coming to a close! Time to party, party, par-tay! The excitement was different in Senior Hall, though, as it was tempered by a slight air of melancholy. A few of the popular people seemed to sense that their long reign was coming to an end at last, that their days of being the big fish in the little pond that was Mounds Park were coming to a close. They were desperately sentimental, and Brien found it amusing how they seemed to fear the approaching future, as if graduation signaled the end of something important.

  “Just think, Martin,” John Hanson, one of the football captains had somberly placed an oversized hand on his shoulder. “Once we’re gone, that’s it. It’s over. Things are never going to be the same again. I’m really going to miss you, man.”

  Brien had nodded in solemn agreement at the time, but he found the whole conversation a little on the bizarre side. While it was nice of Hanson to tell him that, he could count the number of times the big guy had ever spoken to him on one hand, without even using his thumb. Yeah, I’ll miss you terribly, he thought ironically. And what was your name again?