BEGINNING OF “THE NEST OF DESPAIR” ARC…
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Zipping up his jacket, Hugh stepped towards the lift. His face – rough and coarse like tanned leather – shone off the tiles to greet him as he surveyed the floor. Wrinkles and scars creased his face, and his brown hair was tinged with grey. Getting old? I already bloody feel it…
The hospital’s whitewashed floors shimmered in the blue light of the corridor. The place stank of disinfectant. The bitter smell jabbed at the inside of Hugh’s nose.
It’s the end of me if I end up in one of these. He grimaced to himself. Death seemed to radiate from every wall.
The corridor itself was mostly empty, besides the old woman sleeping on the bench next to the lift. She snored loudly, saggy jowls rippling with every breath. Hugh paid her as little attention as she paid him.
He scratched at a scar on his chin. Over a year after their duel, it still itched where Sinchara had nicked him with his blade.
A cool voice rang down his earpiece. ‘You know what you’re looking for? Imoort’ala.’
‘Course I do, Cleo.’ His voice was gruff; his throat sounded as equally scarred as his face. ‘I know what brain juice looks like – or immortal-whatever-you-want-to-call-it.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not a Naïve, you know,’ he muttered.
Muffled laughter echoed down the earpiece, though it wasn’t Cleo’s. Hugh frowned. ‘At least someone’s having a good time. You sure the world of reavers and hexes is one suitable for a ten-year-old?’
‘When you have a son of your own, then you can judge me on my parenting,’ Cleo snapped.
‘Don’t bet on it.’
He rummaged in his satchel, producing a greyish-bluish cube. Along the cube’s eight faces was inscribed an array of unreadable runes and glyphs. A hex crystal.
He placed it on the floor and tapped its top side twice. The crystal whistled softly, then flashed bright blue, the glow amplified by the harsh reflection off the tiled floor.
‘Crystal’s down,’ he declared, to no answer. ‘Cleo, crystal’s down,’ he repeated.
Over the line, he heard, ‘Jonah, you want to say hello to your Uncle Hugh?’
He grimaced and shook his head. ‘Don’t put the kid on. I mean it, Cleo.’
‘Okay.’ Cleo sighed. ‘He looks up to you, you know?’
He bristled. ‘That’s not a good thing. Should be looking to heroes: Superman, Luke Skywalker, that humanitarian bloke in the paper. Y’know, the one who looks a wrong ‘un but isn’t. People like that.’
‘What’s to say you’re not a hero, Hugh?’
He sighed, and his face darkened. ‘Windermere Heights–’
‘Was a year ago. Windermere…’
Cleo’s voice continued down the earpiece, but he had already stopped paying attention. I’m not a bloody hero. I caused Windermere Heights. I created Sinchara Khan. Heroes don’t make villains.
He stared at the floor as the hex crystal started glowing. Concentric rings of blue light appeared on the floor around the crystal, expanding away from the crystal like ripples on a pond. A silver glint caught his eye, coming from beneath the bench the old woman was sleeping on.
He dropped to one knee to inspect, ducking next to the old woman’s right leg, grimacing as her over-scented perfume clogged his nostrils. A river of silvery-translucent liquid ran down the back of the wall, feeding a small puddle underneath the bench.
He grimaced. ‘Found the brain juice,’ he murmured, cutting Cleo off mid-sentence.
‘Very good – hang on, have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?’
He didn’t answer her. Dipping his fingers in the juice, feeling it ooze around his digits, he sniffed, then frowned. ‘Don’t smell any traces of venom in the juice. Not like a dream-eater to not paralyse its victim.’
‘Maybe it’s a new type?’ Cleo suggested. ‘God knows we seem to find a new breed of hex every day.’
‘I’d bloody hope God’s got nothing to do with this,’ Hugh muttered darkly. ‘I wonder where our little friend’s scarpered to, leaving such a good meal behind.’
His brows furrowed as he examined the puddle of brain juice. Brain juice looks fresh. He grimaced. Dream-eater might still be nearby. Something’s not right.
He paused, thinking. It took him a few seconds to figure out what was wrong.
The old woman had stopped snoring.
He rolled away from the bench and leapt to his feet, eyeing the old woman carefully. Indeed, she was no longer snoring – nor breathing at all, for that matter. Her wobbling jowls were still.
He bit his lip. ‘Found the victim. Right under my nose.’
‘A Barren? Oh, that poor thing.’
‘She’s dead. Old woman. Her mind couldn’t take it.’ He swallowed. ‘At least that’s some mercy.’ If only I had been a bit quicker, a bit more urgent… ‘She was so deep in sleep, the dream-eater didn’t even need to paralyse her.’
‘And the dream-eater?’
He glanced over his shoulder at the hex crystal, which was still pulsating rings of light across the tiled floor. ‘Juice is still fresh. Hex crystal’s going nutters. Our dream-eater is still nearby. Semi-immaterial, I reckon. Only one way to force this thing out into the open.’ He glanced at the old woman’s body, feeling his muscles clench. I apologise. Truly and honestly.
Dream-eaters devoured minds by forming psychic tethers with their victims, then sucking out the mind’s essence using the tether as a straw. ‘I reckon the tethers are still in her. I’ll burn them to get him out.’
He crouched beside the old woman and sighed. He looked up at her, at her creased and wrinkled face, at her eyes which were now clamped shut. She looked to be at peace, resting, merely asleep. Whatever friends and family she had, they would never find out what truly happened to her.
He rested a hand on her knee. ‘Irakis,’ he whispered.
His hand warmed and flames sprouted from his palm, creeping across the old woman’s body until they engulfed her entirely. In a few silent moments, the old woman was nothing more than a black stain on the bench. Hugh grimaced as the bitter smell of burnt flesh nibbled the inside of his nose.
Right on cue, there was a loud and piercing shriek that dug sharply into Hugh’s eardrums. He flinched. It came from behind. He turned to see, rising through the floor like a ghostly phantom, the dream-eater.
It was only the small, about the size of a dog, with four pawed feet and a tail like that of a bobcat, only thicker and longer. A shaggy mane of purplish-black fur covered its body, trailing along the floor. Its head was triangular, feeding into a beaked mouth which clacked open and shut, revealing toothless gums and a slithering, white tongue. It had one golden eye, encircled by a ring of smaller golden eyes, each narrowed in and locked on Hugh. Along its back were small, pinkish protrusions. Brainscales. Reserves of brain juice from previous minds the dream-eater had devoured, stored on its back like fat in a camel’s hump.
Hugh bristled. Running from the corners of the dream-eater’s mouth were long, pink barbels – psychic barbels – which trailed along the floor like tassels. He eyed them nervously. No matter how low a rank a dream-eater was, all reavers had to beware its psychic barbels.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the dream-eater, Hugh murmured, ‘Visual on our dream-eater. It’s only weak.’
‘How weak?’ Cleo asked.
‘Weak enough it can phase through floors and walls.’
Only low-rank hexes could phase through solids; the more powerful hexes had too much phantom energy to be able to fit between the particles of solids.
‘It’s a por’ava. Estimating Second Rank,’ Hugh continued.
His ears pricked. Footsteps, coming from behind. Two doctors in white uniforms were approaching him. One walked, while the other hovered alongside on a buzzing propulsor-chair, thick legs dangling uselessly in the air. They emerged from an adjacent room, stopping outside the door.
He bit his lip. Though hexes remained invisible to Naïves, his Weaving spells did not. That made destroying hexes near Naïves very difficult, if he wanted to keep the Reaver Society a secret. Though he knew a few memory-wipe spells from Psychic Weaving, they were not the most pleasant spells to use.
Shouting came from inside the room the two doctors were stood outside. Hugh breathed a sigh of the relief as the pair raced into the room. The corridor was empty again.
As the door to the room slid shut behind the two doctors, Hugh turned back to the dream-eater. He gritted his teeth, splaying his palms wide.
The por’ava was the first to make a move: its psychic barbels launched towards him; its white tongue enlengthened and slashed at him.
Hugh reacted swiftly, ducking beneath the two barbels, which curved past him. As the white tongue lanced towards him, he sidestepped out of its path, reached out, and grabbed it in a tight fist.
‘Irakis,’ he growled, dark eyes blazing, and the tongue set alight. The flames were quick, and soon the entire tongue was aflame, from the tip to the root in the por’ava’s mouth. The dream-eater squealed.
He splayed his palm towards the hex. ‘Furrest.’ The por’ava shrieked as the flames grew tall, mad, and black; its screams faded as it dissolved into a dusty smear on the tiles.
Hugh wiped away the solitary bead of sweat that prickled his forehead. ‘Easier than I thought. Two spells, and it was done.’
‘It was Second Rank – what did you expect?’ Cleo retorted.
‘It was weak for a Second Rank. Didn’t even need to cast any protective spells to deal with the barbels. They were slow enough for me to dodge them.’ He stooped low to pick the grey-blue hex crystal off the floor, but it refused to budge. The ripples of blue light continued rippling across the tiles.
He sighed. ‘Crystal’s stuck. Still more dream-eaters here. I thought he was too weak to be out here acting on his own – there must be a nest. Hopefully it’s not too big–’
Before he could do anything, someone yelled from behind, ‘Help! Please! Help!’
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