[Nightbane] Dark Days (shorts)

[jameson (ST)]

In the darkest part of the alley Rex waited and watched. The alley was so thoroughly dark that anybody looking in from the street would have seen nothing save only unrelieved black. Rex mused that once upon a time this kind of darkness would not have existed within the city; that street lamps had once pushed back the night and blotted out even the stars above. Now though only a handful of the lamps on the street had bulbs, and of those only two still shed light.

Rex leaned against the brick building to his left so lightly that you could have slid a sheaf of paper between them with no significant effort. His body was still enough that he could be mistaken for a mannequin or a corpse. Rex was neither, but the latter was only wrong by half. He still wasn’t sure what he was, but he wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t precisely alive either.

Rex looked human enough. A man in his mid-twenties; his skin was the brown of a man with a mixed heritage. His eyes spoke of that background as well. Not quite Caucasian, not entirely Asian. Rex could point back to relatives from four continents, and all in equal measure. An unruly mop of dark hair topped his head; finger combed, no doubt, but little else.

Rex watched and waited, pushing the questions about his new “life” away. His eyes parted the darkness as easily as if it were full noon. Noon would have made his flesh feel a thousand degrees though, and his skin sizzle and smolder. The sun wouldn’t kill him, not unless he was a daft fool, but it hurt like hell while he was out in it. His body took its time recovering once he was out of it; a factor of his new state of being.

The house across the way seemed abandoned and dark. It looked every bit the part of a condemned building on a rundown street in a slum. The windows had been boarded over at one point but now both glass and plywood were broken or absent completely, and the front door hung at a drunkenly crooked angle that suggested that it had been bashed in more than once.

He heard the quiet crunch of treads on the refuse strewn pavement behind him long before a human would have had any right to. The sound moved closer until it stopped at his shoulder, just beside him. A glance to his right revealed Trax, his partner in this stakeout. If Rex wondered what he had become, he just shook his head and gave up when he looked at Trax. The guy was something called a Nightbane, and they all looked like freak shows right out of a B-movie.

Trax didn’t have legs, instead his hips were joined with hydraulic pistons and a universal joint to a pair of continuous tracks, each nearly a foot wide, that were part of some kind of lower frame. Rex didn’t have a clue what drove the tracks, or how that rotating universal joint figured in, but Trax could roll around as easily as most people could run, and a hell of a lot faster. He did have issues with stairs though. Of course that was not the only odd thing about Trax.

His entire body was wrapped in barbed wire that continuously nipped at his flesh and drew blood regularly. Apparently it hurt like hell, and just as apparently Trax had long since learned to live it with. Where the Nightbane’s head should have been was a skull with eyes that burned like natural gas, blue with just a hint of yellow in the center. The darkness hid the slick sheen of blood and the scraps of flesh, and likewise hid that instead of bone the skull was black glass, angular and jagged. A pair of football shoulder pads that smoothly grafted into the flesh of Trax’s arms and torso completed the look. Apparently Trax was par for the course on bizarre, but Rex had yet to see any of the other Nightbane he knew change into their morphus forms.

Rex just shook his head. He was glad he wasn’t a Nightbane, but at least Trax knew what he was. Rex frowned into the dark. “Nothing so far,” he said quietly. Despite lacking ears Trax could hear just fine, and the night was almost unnaturally quiet.

The bloodied glass skull bobbed in a nod. “Nothing else around the block either. Either our source lied, or this isn’t where they are bringing them over.”

Rex sighed and waited, there was no need to speak his thoughts, Trax was well aware that they would have wasted the night if this proved the wrong place. He grumbled and shifted his head around to focus on the building once more. He altered his stance, not out of need, but out of habit, he was not yet used to being able to stand up for hours without fatigue.

Their wait was less than five minutes as something within the building flashed in the gaping windows. Rex wondered what could do that, how light could fail to illuminate, but he had little time to ponder the question as the front door was pulled inward, the last broken hinge giving a short squeal before shattering completely. Trax was already rolling forward as quietly as Rex could have done so on two feet; the Nightbane’s right hand cradled a sphere of shadow that seemed to suck whatever light was left in the alley into it. Rex shrugged, there was no point in asking again, Trax had no clue what the stuff was, just that it hit like a mortar.

A creature stepped through the ruined door and into the night. It was skeletal, tall, and carried a long spear, but despite its appearance it moved like it had all the mass of a linebacker. Rex knew from prior experience that it did. Black metallic armor seemed to bend and twist like flesh, but Rex already knew it was harder than steel. The thing was a Hound, one of the foot soldiers of the Night Lords. It looked both ways on the empty street before moving down the steps. Another appeared behind it, armed with a curving sword like a scimitar, followed by a man, who looked about as though seeing the world for the first time. That would be the doppelgänger that they were after. Behind the man another Hound followed, but this one was larger. Its armored body was more ornate and a crown of spikes adorned its skull-like head: a Hound-Master.

“The dupe needs to die,” Trax said, his voice only the barest whisper. Rex nodded; the doppelgänger was meant to replace the mayor, and bring the city under the full control of the Night Lords. “I’ll draw off the hounds. Make sure the dupe dies, and then meet me at the waypoint. We can deal with the Master and his Hounds there.” Trax didn’t wait for a reply; instead he rolled out from the alley, lobbed that sphere of anti-light at the closest hound and then sped off down the street.

The hound recoiled as a spider web of cracks blossomed in its armor where the bolt had struck. Without a word the Master pointed after Trax and the two Hounds bounded off in hot pursuit. The Hound Master reached into a nearby shadow withdrawing an inky-black energy that condensed into black steel in the shape of a long pole-arm. Armed, the creature moved down the steps to the street, the doppelgänger in tow behind it.

Rex tensed, supernaturally strong muscles coiling like torsion springs. The Hound Master and the doppelgänger passed by the alley throat unaware of his presence. With their backs to him Rex took a single bounding step before launching himself at the doppelgänger. He should have struck the near-human like a semi smashing through a fruit stand but the Master pivoted, his long halberd interposing itself between Rex and his landing – blade first.

Flesh that was neither dead nor fully alive parted on the black blade and Rex whuffed as the impact drove the air from his lungs. Reacting with preternatural speed he grabbed the shaft of the weapon with both hands, and used his momentum on landing to whip the weapon and its owner through an arc. Releasing the shaft sent the Master and his weapon sailing through the air to smash into a nearby building. Brick and mortar crumbled with the impact and the Master disappeared amid the clatter of falling masonry.

Rex slumped to the ground; the blade had cut through more flesh and bone on its way out, but already the feeling of unnatural forces knitting his flesh took hold. A few seconds to catch his breath and he was on his feet once more. The doppelgänger was fleeing. Rex snarled a stream of expletives at the dupe’s back. Supernaturally tough fingers slammed into the asphalt at his feet, clawing at the heavy steel manhole cover. Heaving up the hundred and more pound steel disc he spared only a moment to aim. The improvised weapon was thrown with bone shattering force, arcing through the air and hitting the doppelgänger like a runaway train. It sliced the dupe in two without stopping before hitting the pavement and skidding down the street, kicking up sparks in its wake.

Rex had only a moment to register victory before the Hound Master was on him once more. Unarmed and facing a foe with a weapon and superior reach Rex retreated …

[jameson (ST)]

“Are we sure about this?” Kelly asked. Barely twenty, she looked every bit the college student she had been until so recently; a college student who was colorblind and shopped in thrift stores, but a college student nonetheless. A pale gray hoodie with a local university logo across the chest was pulled up, mostly hiding her startlingly red pigtails. A purple and green pleated mini-skirt was worn over black and orange spider-web pattern leggings. A pair of genuine combat boots completed the schizophrenic wardrobe. Kelly’s mint green eyes sparkled from within the shadow of her sweatshirt, as pale hands fiddled with a pair of colored elastic hair bands at her wrists.

Sitting across from her in the café Christine looked positively normal despite the gold-trimmed blue terrycloth bathrobe she wore over her other clothing. Ragged blue jeans, a Misfits tee, and a pair of Converse All-Stars that appeared to be losing a battle with a duct tape infection hardly seemed out of place with the twenty something’s bored expression. The woman’s blonde bob was tucked up under a John Deere cap incongruously adorned with what appeared to be tiny fetishes. Large brown eyes peered out from beneath the cap looking at the other girl. “I dunno, I’m not part of the club remember? They said you’d feel it if he was a Nightbane though.”

Kelly pouted, and took a sip from her coffee. “You’d think they’d send somebody who wasn’t a newb.” She examined her fingernails; each was lacquered with a different color. They showed chips and there was telltale grime around the cuticles and under the nails. The younger woman frowned, trying to clean them out with little success. “I mean, I guess I know what they were talkin’ about,” she sighed, “but I’m not exactly an expert.”

Christine shrugged, “Well, if he’s just had his Becoming then you are a damned expert by comparison. Besides, would you really rather be walking headfirst into a nest of Hollow Men with the rest of them? Somehow I doubt it. You still make a face when you have to walk through the sewer to get to the safe house.”

“It’s gross!” Kelly narrowed her eyes, “Stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s pretty funny; especially when you’re in your Morphus.” The other woman glared, but that only set Christine to laugh harder. Kelly still wasn’t really comfortable in her Morphus form. Some said that the Morphus was a Nightbane’s true form; others were less quick to judge the natures of the Façade and the Morphus. Many felt that they were halves of a whole.

Kelly’s Morphus was incongruent with her Façade and personality. The girl was sweet and a little kooky; the monster, by appearance, was anything but sweet. Ten feet of ferocious bear, with dozens of eight inch spikes jutting bloodily from its hide, and a series of leathery armor plates that ran down its neck, spine, and shoulders. The bear often walked on two legs, daintily, and held its oddly nimble paws close seeming reluctant to handle anything the Nightbane girl deemed “icky”. Everything combined to make for an amusing image. Christine knew that one of these nights the other girl would be forced to fight, and that indomitable beast would be roused, but for now Kelly wore her Morphus like a Halloween costume forced on her by a lost wager.

“Oh shit, is that him?” Kelly jerked forward, pressing against the window and peering out to the building across the street. A man was walking down the steps of the old brownstone. A long trench coat and a fedora served well enough to hide any and all distinguishing features.

“I thought you couldn’t sense from that far.” Christine had stopped laughing immediately and was also peering out the window, her hat in her hand to allow her to get as good a view as possible.

“No, I said it depends. Most of the others I can sense at around ten or fifteen feet. Sir William at almost thirty, but he’s old. This guy though…“ Kelly just shook her head unable to finish.

“He’s gotta be a hundred feet away.” Christine’s voice was an awed whisper as the implications set in.

Kelly swallowed hard, nodding, “Sir William is old, but this guy … he must be freakin’ ancient.”

“Which means he ain’t our guy, but he is powerful, and if he’s powerful, then maybe he can help.” Kelly stared, wide-eyed, at the very suggestion. “Come on, we have to at least try.” Christine dug a wad of crumpled cash from the pocket of her robe as she stood, and tugged the battered and charm bedecked hat back onto her head. “Let’s go,” she added, grabbing Kelly’s arm and tugging the young woman up from the booth.

Outside they found the stranger already well down the street, moving with long unhurried strides that ate the distance to the corner quickly. Cursing they hurried after him. Christine reached up to her hat, and with familiar ease removed a small charm of copper and quartz. Kelly spared a second to glance at the other woman, “Oh geeze, what are you doing?”

“Hush. I’m trying to concentrate,” Christine replied. “Making us a little less obvious,” she muttered as the spell took hold. The crystal swirled from white to smoky gray and she grabbed Kelly’s hand, “Hurry!”

The pair hurried along, trailing behind the man. Despite his casual pace he moved quickly, and the pair were forced to a trot to keep from losing him as he wound through the streets of the city. “Why don’t we just catch up to him and ask him to talk?” Kelly asked, breathless.

“Because …” Christine stopped, startled because the man had looked back over his shoulder at them, directly at them, and smiled like he could see through her spell. “Umm… I think, maybe yeah, he wants to talk to us.”

Their quarry had stopped at the mouth of an alley and turned to face them. After a moment he moved into the alley itself, disappearing from view between the buildings. The girls hurried to catch him and rounding into the alley they found he was waiting for them in the dark space between buildings.

His unnerving gaze was on them as they approached. He studied them for a moment. “Worry not, young wizard, your spell very nearly worked, but normal sight is not the only means to perceive the world.” Up close he looked like a man in his middle years, perhaps forty, perhaps fifty, he was fit, and though gray touched the hair at his temples his face seemed younger. “Why do you follow me?”

Christine swallowed hard; she’d never had one of her concealment charms penetrated before. She wasn’t sure what to make of this man, except that perhaps going after him was not her brightest idea that day. “How?”

He glanced at Kelly. “At first? I felt her presence,” he stated simply. His brown eyes seeming to bore into the young Nightbane, making here squirm.

“We weren’t looking for you,” Kelly began. “But you’re so powerful. And …” The hooded girl stumbled, on her words.

“You sensed my presence despite my shroud. Interesting; in one so young it is very interesting indeed.” Again he considered them both for a moment. “Still, you have not answered my question. Why do you follow me?”

“Well,” Kelly started, “I was hoping we could convince you to aid us in … We’re part of the resistance. “ She hastily added, “Against the Night Lords.”

“No.” He took a step toward the mouth of the alley, pushing past them as though they were not there.

“What do you mean no?” Christine had found her voice, and as she spoke each word seemed stronger and more determined. She grabbed his arm, “They are your enemy as much as ours! If you are as strong as she says you could make a difference.”

There was no transformation from Facade to Morphus as Kelly and Christine knew it, one moment he was man turning back toward the pair, and the next he wore his Morphus form. Gone was the long coat, the gray streaked brown hair. Gone was the guise of a mere man. In his place was primordial god; a Nightbane of such potency that even Christine could feel it. He now stood nearly seven feet tall with skin of actual bronze burnished deep golden brown. The man’s head was replaced with that of a Peregrine Falcon, with plumage that seemed nearly blue black, and a golden beak. The muscled body of an Adonis was now clad in the raiment of an ancient Egyptian; a linen shendyt, like a short straight skirt of linen, and bands of gold adorned with turquoise around ankles, wrists, and biceps.

The falcon headed Nightbane spoke, “You speak truly and bravely young mage, but were I to join your fight my presence would endanger far more than it would age. The Nightlords have long memories and long lives, and they would remember me, and they would seek my destruction for their defeats millennia ago.” He gently removed Christine’s hand from his arm. “Know that those of us from ages past are not all gone, and we still fight, in our own way.” Without another word he stepped sideways into the shadow the nearby building and disappeared as he did so.

Kelly stared wide-eyed at where the Nightbane had been, mouth agape, but Christine was able to marshal herself. “Holy shit,” she breathed. “Do you know who that was? That was freakin’ Horus! Like, right out of my mythology and legend text book. God of war and justice and, I dunno…” She looked at her companion and shook her head, “Holy shit!” Kelly merely nodded; Christine had summed it up nicely.

[jameson (ST)]

Luis crossed himself; his left hand gripped the crucifix so tightly that his knuckles hurt, that the edges threatened to cut into his hand. Eyes tightly closed, he began to pray, “Holy Father, who art in heaven …”

The world had gone to shit after Dark Day. Luis had known people who disappeared during that day; people who were presumed dead by loved ones, but who could only be considered missing because there was no body. Others were confirmed dead with so little remains that one could hardly call it a corpse.

The city had changed too. The city council said that there was no budget to replace all of the damaged lighting. The police too claimed budget issues, and manpower issues, and equipment issues. The long and short of it was that after Dark Day the city was more dangerous, especially at night.

Luis was kneeling in a puddle of his own piss and things less pleasant in an alley less than a block from the all night gas station where he worked the graveyard shift. Luis had immigrated to the city to escape the dangers of his home less than six months before Dark Day. Now he was only kept from laughing at the tragic humor of it all by stark terror. Instead he clutched at the small crucifix, hands shaking, his coveralls now wet in the front, his dark face contorted with terror, and he prayed for the Lord to save him from certain death.

The other occupants of the alley were not human. They looked human, though only just. Emaciated mockeries of human, they only avoided comparison to a body by virtue of motion. Cadaverously gaunt frames with pale skin that seemed pulled too tight over bones and muscles as hard as steel. The two vampires had claws where hands should have been, and their jaws hung agape and jutting, displaying pronounced upper and lower canines. Yellow eyes stared from sunken sockets over hollow cheeks, and sharply pointed ears jutted like jug handles from the sides of their skulls.

These creatures out of myth and movie had chased him for three blocks before he had, in a panic, turned into the alley where he thought it was a street. Trapped he had fallen to his knees; his heart thudding in his chest reminded him of the heavy boom-boom-boom of gunfire in the night back home. Despite his fear he found himself wondering if there were vampires where he came from too.

The pair approached him slowly, warily, peering with supernatural vision through the darkness at the object in his hands. Even the animalistic intelligence of a feral vampire was enough to know to be wary when the symbols of faith were held in the hands of prey.

“…thy will be done…” Luis’ voice was a breathy whisper, dancing on the precipice above the abyss of abject terror.

A light flared into the alley, so bright that behind his tightly closed eyelids it hurt Luis’ eyes, so bright that through his eyelids he could see the shadowed outline of the two vampires. The vampires had only time to scream, horrible high pitched sounds, like the screeching of an animal, before the light silenced them forever.

“… but deliver us from evil,” Luis breathed. His heart still beat, and he yet lived. His eyes stung as he slowly, warily, opened them. He saw the hazy outline of a being enshrouded in light standing before him. He blinked, trying to clear vision that was blurry and stained with the afterimage of the vampire’s last moments. “Amen,” he whispered as the figure began to resolve, a woman in white.

His savior was not simply clad in white, she was white of skin and hair and clothing; an albino dressed in bleached linen, and surrounded by light. Only her eyes were not white; they were the crystal clear blue of a summer sky instead. Luis’ vision continued to clear and her features came ever more into focus, startling the man. This was not what he expected of an angel. She was diminutive, barely taller than four and a half feet, and she lacked halo or wings. The artists that had painted the churches of his childhood had been so very wrong he realized. Her hands held neither sword nor shield, but instead a corona of light.

The woman looked over her shoulder to the street, and then the light faded, leaving behind only an alabaster washed figure of childlike proportion. She looked down to the alley floor and sighed at the burning remains at her feet; not the vampires, there was nothing of them but ash, but of a coat perhaps. Luis stared at her face, a twinge of familiarity making him search her features.

“Are you injured?” the pale figure asked. Her voice was not the chimes of an angel but that of a normal woman. Luis stared, still caught up in the sensation that he knew her until she repeated the question, concern touching her voice as she did. He shook his head, unable to find words or voice. “You are fortunate then; though you will want to change your clothing.”

Luis looked down and realized that he had urinated himself, and his face flushed crimson. He also realized that he knelt in a puddle of it, mere feet from the ashen remains of two damned monsters. He scrambled to his feet with some difficulty, being unwilling to put his hands down to the ground, nor even to cease clutching the crucifix. “Are … are you … an angel?” he managed to ask.

The woman laughed, not scornfully, but with amusement. “I am a Guardian,” she said. It took a moment for Luis to register that that was neither confirmation nor denial. “You would do well to remember that in the darkness there are creatures that would corrupt, destroy, or feed upon you.” She smiled at him softly, “These beasts might have been cowed by faith, but not all are. Be wary of the night.”

Luis nodded jerkily. “Thank you. What … what is your name?” She had very probably saved his life; the least he could do is learn her name.

She frowned sadly, and Luis got the impression it was not his question, but her answer, or lack, that saddened her. “I am a Guardian,” she repeated. She turned, and moved toward the street.

Luis rushed after her, stepping gingerly around the vampires’ remains. “Wait! I want to go with you!” he called after her.

Over her shoulder she replied to him, but her paced did not slow and she did not look back. “This is not your fight Luis, go home and be glad of that.”

Luis stopped, startled, he had not given his name, nor had she asked. He suddenly remembered the young woman who had lived down the hall from him. A college student, she lived in the rundown tenement because it was all she could afford while paying for school and working two jobs. She had been friendly toward him when he first arrived when so many others had not. She had disappeared four months before, on Dark Day, without a trace.

[jameson (ST)]

“Are you Mr. Alan Greenwood?” one of the men at the door asked. Alan nodded slowly, he wasn’t sure who these men were, but they had the look of government agents; black suits, white shirts, dark sunglasses, and blank expressions. He recalled that joke about government agents not having a sense of humor, but this seemed taken to the next level. “May we come in?”

“Umm, what’s this about? I haven’t done anything wrong.” Alan remembered somebody telling him to never let somebody into your house unless you saw ID; it suddenly seemed very good advice.

“We just have some questions. Nothing to worry about.” The agent’s mouth turned up, but Alan would have hesitated to call it a smile; it looked like the man was having trouble just making his face contort to his will.

The other man put his hand on the door, pushing it, drawing the security chain tight. “May we come in?” Nothing about the way he asked the question implied that it mattered. The chain quivered, taut, as the frame creaked under the strain.

“Let me see some I.D. first,” Alan said, slowly backing away from the door. A person didn’t need to be psychic to know that this was not a good situation. On the other hand being psychic did make it easier, and Alan was hit with a sense of foreboding.

The security chain popped its latch. After that everything happened so fast that to Alan it seemed like he was frozen. There was a wet popping sound, followed by a deafening bang from outside. A second wet pop was almost lost to the echo of the gunshot and the ringing in Alan’s ears. The second bang that immediately followed was not however. In mere seconds the two men were down, the first with a hole through its chest that revealed a muddy looking interior and brownish fluids. The second man flopped about; his right arm was gone, as was most of his upper chest and neck on that side. His head lolled on gristly filaments, the mouth gaping. More of that brownish liquid was everywhere, all over the door, the entry, Alan himself. Alan threw up.

Bent over, hands on his knees, Alan looked up to see the second man go still and limp. Fresh gorge rose in his throat as something crawled free of the man’s wound. A creature like a giant beetle, carapace slick with ooze, hauled itself free of the dead man, its mandibles clacking and chittering. Alan threw up again. Another bang, closer and with more bass, blew the foot long thing into slime. Alan’s eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out.

“Hey! Wake up!” Somebody slapped him. Alan started and blinked. He was lying on the floor of his home’s foyer, and staring up into a woman’s face. “Good, now I won’t have to carry you.” The woman straightened and walked out of Alan’s field of vision, “Get up, we don’t have a lot of time, I missed the second one and it might have been able to get word out to its masters.”

Alan struggled into a sitting position and looked around. The woman was standing at the door, peering out. Black fatigues, combat boots, and obvious military gear lent the appearance of a tough customer. Her auburn hair was bobbing behind her head out the back of a black cap, and the bull-pup design assault weapon tucked up to her shoulder was at the ready. She looked back at him, “Get moving. The police will be here soon, and even if they aren’t infiltrated they won’t make this easy.”

Alan got to his feet on shaky legs, “Who? What?” He pointed at the gore splattered doorway, “What the hell were those … those …”

“We call them Hollow Men. The bug things ride ‘em like some kind of people suit.” She turned from the door and grabbed his arm with her free hand, the other stayed on the grip of the weapon, “Now, unless you want to remain covered in their filth for the foreseeable future you got maybe three minutes to grab fresh shirt and wipe the crap off your face.” She gave him a shove toward the staircase to the second floor.

Alan spent a little mental effort and was rewarded with a feeling of certainty that she was telling the truth. “Ok, ok,” he said as he scrambled up the stairs. He yanked the tee shirt off in one go and grabbed the hand towel from the bar next to the sink in the bathroom. Wetting it he wiped the vomit from around his mouth, and the crud from those bug-men off his chest and arms. He stuck his head under the faucet, glad that he kept his hair short and simply rinsed it right there. Squeezing the excess water off his head with his hands he moved to the bedroom and grabbed the first clean shirt he found, a zip-up black hoodie, and jerked it on. Thankfully his pants were clean enough, and he hadn’t pissed himself, which was a win in his book considering the past couple of minutes.

He took the stairs two at a time, and nodded to the woman, “Ok, let’s go.” Alan didn’t look ready; he looked like a somewhat pudgy guy in his middle thirties with wet hair, a half zipped sweatshirt sticking to him in spots, and no shoes.

“You want some shoes or something?” the woman asked, looking at his stocking clad feet.

“Oh! Yeah, shoes would help.” Alan opened a closet and grabbed a pair of sneakers, hopping on first one foot and then the other as he tugged them on. “You got a name, or do I just call you GI Jane?”

“Read my mind and find out.” He looked at her, startled, and almost fell over. “Yeah, we know all about you Alan.” Her mouth quirked down in concentration, “Alan Greenwood, thirty-six years old, middle management at an accountant’s firm; incredibly boring, Alan. You participated in a study for the government when you were twenty-three, and while they noted your test scores being above average you maintained that you had no extra-perceptual powers. We’ve been keeping an eye on you Alan, and now we need you to serve your country. We need your help because you can do more with your mind than the average person, and because these Hollow Men are just the pawns of a much bigger threat to the United States, and to the world, than you can possibly imagine.”

Alan gaped, this woman sounded like a head-case, but everything she said was true. He touched his mind to hers, and her name came to him clearly; she was all but shouting it to him mentally. He dove deeper, past her consciousness and into memory, and poked around for a bit. “Well Janet, I know that most people call you Jan, because you kinda hate your name, but I also know that your dad calls you Pip, and that you really have only ever told one person that. I stopped there because I could tell it was something personal. Now, what the heck is going on?”

Janet’s green eyes got wide for only a fraction of a moment before narrowing again. She seemed about ready to explode at him, but evidently she chose not to. “Good. We weren’t certain that you were genuine, there are things much worse than the Hollow Men, and they are much better at looking and acting human. They can’t read minds though. Now come on, we seriously have no time left.” She started for the door, “And Alan? If you call me Pip again, I’ll break you hand.”

Outside the house the sound of distant sirens could be heard, getting louder by the moment. Jan said something quietly into a radio. Alan gulped as he followed her, “Sure thing Janet, but who do you work for? Or shall I fish that out of your head too?” They headed down the street, keeping to people’s lawns and away from the street lights.

Jan laughed a little ruefully at his question. “That’s complicated.” She glanced at him, and he didn’t appear satisfied. “We’re made up of remnants of the FBI, CIA, and NSA; basically everybody that got kicked to the curb when the NSB got started up. Lots of the armed forces too, though mostly that’s a matter of those they could get to without raising suspicions and those of us who were no longer active when Dark Day came down.”

“Dark Day,” Alan said sourly. “So … twenty-six odd hours of splitting headache and bowel wrenching terror were more than just anxiety; something Big happened on Dark Day?” She nodded, and Alan shook his head, he was not at all certain he wanted to know what could incapacitate him like that. “OK, but what do you call yourselves?”

“We call ourselves the Resistance, officially anyways, but most of us grunts prefer the Spook Squad.” At the end of the street a black SUV was waiting, “Get in, we have a long drive before we get to Nevada.” Alan didn’t question it, he would find out soon enough, one way or another.

[jameson (ST)]

Trax spun around, rolling backwards as easily as he had forwards, and lobbed handfuls of dark energy at the pursuing Hounds. The blasts splattered off creatures’ armored exteriors cracking that black quasi-metal, or tearing holes outright. A double hand blast, like a stream from a flame thrower, took the leader square sending it reeling backwards where it fell. The other Hound continued to give chase, they weren’t too smart on their own, and Trax spun again on tracked “legs”, continuing to draw the remaining creature away from Rex and the Hound Master. Behind him the downed Hound lay still for a minute before growing indistinct, its form turning to shadow and dissipating.

Rounding a street corner Trax stopped and laid an explosive packet of that strange light-eating shadow; a trap for the pursuing Hound. He spared a moment to hope that Rex could destroy the dupe and escape from the Master without getting himself killed the rest of the way, but he also knew it was likely that the kid would have to tussle with the Master, and Hound Masters were tougher, smarter, and better fighters than their lesser brethren. Trax would have taken the kill, but his unique mode of movement lent itself to distractions and running combats more than it did to duels.

The Hound rounded the corner and stepped on Trax’s trap. Darkness blossomed like a flower consuming the Hound outright and etching a hemispherical divot into the pavement. Trax heaved a sigh of relief, the trap had taken a lot out of him, and he was glad that he wasn’t going to need to keep up the attacks. He considered doubling back to find Rex but that wasn’t the plan. Instead he went to the end of the block and changed. Assuming the Facade was not painful the way that taking the Morphus on was, but it felt constraining in some ways, it was a lessening of his self. His body became slower, weaker. Flesh crept across his obsidian skull as it turned to bone, and the fires in his eyes were snuffed out as flesh filled in the sockets. The tracks that gave him his name were replaced by flesh and blood legs, the right of which tinged with familiar pain. Ned cracked his knuckles and stretched. His Façade felt strange to him immediately after a change.

Ned was tall and skinny. Some might have been as generous as to call him lanky, but at six feet tall and just one hundred and eight pounds he was thin enough that no matter what he wore he looked skinny. A mop of brown hair that should have been cut two weeks ago drifted on the night breeze. He favored his left leg; the other had been hurt when he was a child, well before his Nightbane enhanced healing could have helped. Ned glanced back and verified that nobody had followed him. Ned moved hurriedly down the cross street towards the lights of a small 24-hour gas station. He pulled the beat up leather jacket tight and jammed his hands into its pockets looking for the wad of cash he kept on hand.

The mini-mart was typical of its kind, brightly lit with fluorescent lighting, and containing row after row of junk food, minor first aid items, and car care supplies. The bell hanging against the door tittered as Ned pushed into the space, blinking a little for the brightness of the lighting. He scanned the place from just inside the door, noting that the beverages were at the back, as was typical. His brow furrowed as he realized that the clerk seemed to wringing out his jumpsuit over a bucket. The man glanced up hastily and smiled nervously at Ned before unrolling the garment and yanking it on. Ned ignored it, he just wanted a soda.

The attendant was wearing his jumpsuit when Ned returned from the coolers with a cola. The nametag on the chest of the rumpled and damp garment gave his name as Luis. Ned nodded silently and placed the soda on the counter, staring out the windows to the dark streets beyond. “Two dollars fifty, senior,” Luis said. Ned pulled a roll of bills from his coat and peeled off a five. “You should be careful, senior; there are things out in the night. Dangerous things.” Luis made change, sliding the two bills and two quarters across the counter.

“I can take care of myself,” Ned said plainly. He glanced at the man, noticing for the first time that the man was clearly scared. He offered a smile, “I know that the nights are dangerous, but thank you.”

“Senior, there are monsters out there. Things that I thought were only tales to frighten children!” Luis stopped, realizing how he must sound, “You should be careful, senior. The streets are not safe at night.”

Ned nodded, frowning as he did. He wondered what had happened to the man that had set him on edge, but he also knew that if a mortal man could escape there was little danger to be had for a Nightbane. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Ned scooped up the two bills but left the change; coins made noise. He turned to go only to find the clerk had grabbed his arm in a nearly vice-like grip.

“Senior, I am not joking. I am not mad. There are monsters that stalk the night; vampires. I would be dead now were it not for …” Luis stopped, wondering if he should even say what he thought.

Ned looked at the man’s hand and then looked him in the eyes. His own eyes narrowed. “Were it not for what?” he asked curiously.

Luis swallowed. What was it he had seen? Was the Guardian an angel? A ghost? Would the white woman help this man if he needed it? Feeling the weight of Ned’s gaze he blinked and said, “A woman; a white woman.”

Ned jerked free of the other man’s grasp. His mind was reeling. “What did she look like?” he demanded.

Luis recoiled in turn. He licked his lips nervously and swallowed hard. “She was small, like a child, all in white, white skin, hair, clothing, and she seemed to glow.” Luis was no dullard and he saw recognition in the other man’s face, “Was she an angel?”

Ned shook his head, taking steps backward to the exit, “No, they aren’t. Not matter what they want you to believe, what they may appear to be, God has nothing to do with them.” The bell jangled above Ned’s head as he pushed it open behind him and slipped out. The night seemed closer somehow, and Ned looked around as he all but tore the top from the soda in his hands. He drank like a man desperate for it; maybe he was, if only to give him some focus away from his suspicions.

The empty bottle rattled hollowly as it bounced around the rim of the trash barrel before dropping in. Ned paid it no attention; instead he put his head down and trudged away from the gas station. The night had eyes and Ned found himself jumping at shadows as he limped toward the waypoint to meet Rex. The Lightbringers are just legend, he told himself as he tried to watch every direction at once. I’m just being paranoid, that guy has no idea what he saw. Ned wished he didn’t feel like he was convincing himself that the elephant in the room was not really there. Hunching his shoulders and tucking his head down a little more Ned limped along in the dark, worrying.