- Chapter 056 -

  Pain and Salvation

  Mark didn't get an answer. Not in words.

  The world rumbled in anger. For a fraction of a second, the street around them emptied, a handful of commuters vanishing into thin air like ghosts. But the vacuum was instantly filled, the relentless river of people flowing in to replace those who had gone, not even registering the momentary anomaly. Clyde was getting better, his control more precise, but it was still a clumsy, brutish magic against a system he didn't understand.

  His green aura momentarily protecting him from the crowd, but it also provided a distraction.

  Eric, however, saw the flash of green not as a failed attack, but as an opportunity. He lunged, his face a mask of raw, animalistic fury, his hands reaching for Mark's throat. The people parting at the incoming brute, Clyde's magic giving him a moment to take back control.

  He hit a wall of solid, indifferent flesh.

  A man, a mountain in a tight-fitting black bomber jacket, materialized in front of Mark. He was huge, his shaved head gleaming under the grey morning light, his face a roadmap of old scars and paid indifference. He didn't even flinch as Eric's charge slammed into him. A grunt of pure annoyance, as if a particularly persistent fly had just landed on him was the only response deemed necessary.

  The moment was wasted.

  Without a word, without any sign of effort, the mountain of a man delivered a single, flat kick. It wasn't a fighter's move. It was the simple, economical motion of a man punting a piece of rubbish out of his path.

  Eric sailed backward, his expensive shoes scraping on the pavement, and landed in a heap by the curb, the breath knocked from his lungs in a ragged, undignified gasp, no magic, no special abilities, just good old fashioned physics from a bouncer.

  "You continue to disappoint me, Eric," Mark stepped around the memory of the bouncer, the man's stony, unimpressed face a perfect, silent judgment. "Such acts of random, theatrical violence... they're so inefficient. And frankly, they're beneath a man of business."

  Clyde had recovered from his own probing attempt, his face pale with a mixture of strain and fury. "I still have your friends," he hissed, the words a final threat. "And you will never find them. I will tear down this fabrication with you and them along with it."

  Mark just shook his head slowly. "I imagine you will try… As for the others, you already showed me where they are."

  He pointed down the main street, his gesture calm and directive. "Follow this road. Stay out of trouble." He offered them a thin smile. "And if you decide not to leave, I'll meet you at a bar. It's called 'The Cock and Pheasant'."

  As he spoke, the air beside him shimmered, and for a fraction of a second, a ghostly, translucent image of a massive snow leopard faded into view, its cold, glowing blue eyes fixed on them with a look of pure, predatory contempt.

  The image vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind only the lingering, impossible chill of the mountain peaks.

  "Don't do anything stupid."

  And with that, he turned, and simply faded into the crowd.

  The bluff hung in the air behind him, a fragile, paper-thin shield against an overwhelming force. He wasn't sure how long it would last, or if it would even hold at all. The bravado, the cold, detached confidence, it was all a performance, a desperate gambit played with his rapidly dwindling reserves.

  The truth was, Mark was in agony.

  It wasn't a physical pain, not the screaming protest of bone and sinew he remembered from the infirmary. This was a deeper, more fundamental torment. The effort of holding this fractured, shared mindscape together, of maintaining grimy reality of Manchester against the constant, invasive pressure of Clyde's magic, was a battle fought on a level just shy of the spinal surgery. Every phantom smell, every distant, remembered sound, was a brick he was frantically trying to mortar into the walls of his own sanity while a madman with a sledgehammer tried to break them down from the other side.

  He just had to hold on. Long enough to get his friends out.

  And yes, he decided, as he pushed his way through the indifferent, ghostly crowd of commuters, that's what they were. An unlikely, dysfunctional, and often deeply irritating group he hadn't asked for. But they were his. And he was going to get them back.

  His first destination was the one he had been so desperate to avoid, the one he knew he wasn't strong enough to face. Had the situation not occurred as it had, he would have left it buried for however long, but his hand had been forced. The choice was no longer his. He took a final, deep breath of the phantom city air, and stepped through the veil.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Fissures and dissolving buildings were not necessary this time, but the sickly film of Clyde’s magic did not make it any easier. There was no locked door, only the space between memories, memories locked in place by methods that were for the moment outside of Marks comprehension.

  The transition was a jarring, nauseating lurch. The roar of the city fell away, the concrete beneath his feet yielding to sand. He stood on the beach, his only proud sanctuary, now a bruised, poisoned landscape of pain and salvation. The sky was an angry, vicious purple, and the tide rolled in as a slow, screaming wave of red light.

  With a deep breath at the now choking, yet once empowering sea air, he saw them.

  Valerie was curled in a tight ball at the base of a large boulder, her hands clamped over her ears, her face pale with a terror that seemed to have stolen her very breath. And standing before her, a lone, defiant figure against the encroaching horrors, was Tori.

  She held her dream-staff in both, its tip a brilliant, radiant flare of pure, white light that pushed back against the encroaching creatures. But the light was fading. It flickered and sputtered, a dying star against a sea of screaming chaos. From the red-tinged surf, the specters of his own agony were crawling onto the sand. Shrieking, formless things made of splintered bone and screaming sinew, their empty eyes fixed on the two trapped healers.

  There wasn't any question. He had to do something.

  He had avoided this moment, had walled it off, refused to even acknowledge its existence for a reason. This place, this wound in his own mind, was a monument to an agony he couldn't comprehend. How does one accept so much pain and not break completely? How do you look at the raw, unfiltered memory of your own near-destruction and not be consumed by it?

  There was no time for that debate on the merits of the questions, action was needed.

  He started walking. The soft sand felt wrong under his feet, a familiar texture in a hostile landscape. He walked out from the relative shadow of the boulders and headed directly towards the fading light of Tori's shield.

  Her head snapped, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and disbelief. "Mark? What are you doing? Get back!"

  He didn't stop. Before he reached the protective bubble of her light, the first specter of bone hit him.. It was a formless, shrieking thing of splintered bone, and it passed through him like a cold, sharp shard of glass. A phantom, white-hot flash of agony in his ribs, a perfect, agonizing echo of a shatter and a mending, and then the creature dissolved into motes of red dust, its purpose served. Another one struck, this time in his leg, the ghost of a compound fracture screaming up his shin. Another, in his spine, a deep, grinding violation.

  He stumbled, but he didn't fall. Each impact was a fresh wave of remembered torment, a dose of a poison he had been so desperate to avoid. But it was just that. A memory. It hurt, but it didn't break him.

  He reached Tori, pushing through the last, fading remnants of her shield, and put a hand on her shoulder. Her whole body was trembling with the effort of holding the line, the light from her staff now a faint, sputtering glow.

  "It's alright," He kept his grip firm, "Everything will be fine."

  He looked past her, to the small, curled form of Valerie at the base of the rock. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face a mask of pure, uncomprehending terror. "What happened to her?"

  Tori shook her head, her breath coming in ragged, exhausted gasps. "I don't know," she choked out. "These... things. They hit us before we even knew what was happening. Before I could even raise a shield. They just... went for her."

  "I can't stop them," Tori gasped, the words a ragged, desperate admission of defeat. Panic, raw and sharp, was seeping into her voice, threatening to shatter the last of her composure. "There are just too many."

  Mark's grip on her shoulder tightened, a small, grounding point of contact in the screaming chaos. "You don't have to," he said, his voice a calm, steady counterpoint to her rising fear. He pointed with his free hand, not at the encroaching horrors, but at a narrow, barely-visible path that wound its way up behind the line of boulders. "Take Valerie. Follow that path. This memory is far larger than just the beach, the path leads to a village."

  He met her wide, disbelieving eyes. "Find the local train station," he continued, the plan forming in his mind with a sudden, beautiful clarity, each moment of the village and station becoming as clear as his endless visits. "Get on the train. You'll be safe at its destination. I promise."

  "No!" she argued, shaking her head, her voice cracking with the strain. "I can't just leave you! I have to help!"

  "You can't," Mark stated. "They're not nightmares, Tori. They're not the things for you to banish." He looked out at the shrieking, formless things of bone and sinew, at the physical manifestations of his own torment. "They're a part of me. They're the cost of Valerie's miracle."

  He took a deep breath, a physical act for a mental war. He reached for a memory not of pain, but of a simple, quiet morning. Of the first rays of light breaking over the horizon. He reached for the feeling of that clean, clear, and absolute dawn.

  With a flex of will, he tore the bruised, angry purple from the sky.

  The sun slammed back into place. A brilliant, incandescent explosion of warm light washing over them. The red tide of the surf recoiled, and the creatures on the sand faltered, their shrieking turning to a high-pitched, agonized howl as the clean, honest light of a new day washed over them.

  “This is my fight, Tori,” His words were far calmer than he had expected, “But it has become Valerie's nightmare, keep her safe, help her.”

  The reprieve was momentary. He knew that. He could feel his own strength, his own focus, already beginning to waver under the sheer, monumental effort of holding back the night.

  "Stop!" Tori cried out as he stepped forward, leaving the flickering, now-unnecessary protection of her shield.

  "GO!" He didn't look back.

  "GO! Now! While you still can!"

  A choked sob cut through the noise, the sound of feet scraping on the sand, the low, panicked murmur of Tori's voice as she hauled Valerie to her feet. He was sure he could feel a brush of her magic against bars of the cage, then focus on Valerie. He heard them run.

  And then, he was alone. His only exit, to bring this memory to a close, to banish his own phantoms.

  He stood on the warm, sunlit sand, a defiant figure against an army of his own making. The creatures were regrouping, their howls of pain giving way to a new, more focused, and predatory hunger.

  The sun, his sun, began to flicker.

  His nightmares were closing in.