Unfathomable Power, Book 2, Chapter 55 (Patreon)

As I started walking back to the warehouse, I remembered I did kind of have something… clothing adjacent.

I had been avoiding the Limps of the Other Side because I had thought they were the cause of my transformation. They might have had a hand in accelerating it, but now that I knew they weren’t the cause—dare I not use them, with what was coming?

My transformation ability already made my skin tougher. Adding another layer of protection should be a no-brainer—but I remembered the difficulty I had getting them off. They had torn up my skin and refused to let go of me, and I had to physically wrestle them into their cubby.

Assuming I live through this, I’d only be wearing them for a little while, not the days I had previously. I was also way stronger, and more magically competent.

Okay, yeah. Let’s bring ‘em out.

I walked away from the drive to the warehouse and found a spot of desert that was somewhat obscured by some yucca plants and started the chant that would open the interdimensional cubby. As I uttered the guttural and throat-singing-like chants, it occurred to me that I hadn’t used these spells since I put the limbs away. Had I even looked at my spellbook in all that time?

I don’t think I have. I know most of my common, thaumographic spells without needing to reference them, and the whole point of Circe’s method is that you know the spell so well is that it becomes reflexive and doesn’t cause the feedback that’s the price of all method-less casting. Feels weird that I haven’t thought about what was once my most prized possession.

I arrested my thoughts and brought them back to the task at hand, lest I flub the complicated spell and suffer a severe migraine. That would be amazing right before a big fight.

As the spell concluded, the slit in reality appeared. It was barely an inch wide when black, tar-like mass began to pour from it in convulsing pulses. My regret was immediate and massive as the mass tore its way out and dove at me like a hungry dog at a T-bone. I prepared my pyrokinesis but hesitated. That hesitation saved the Limbs, as it became apparent they weren’t attacking me. They jumped on me like a bunch of happy dogs and began to clean every inch of me of blood and other effluvia that had gathered on me until I was squeaky clean. They even cleaned my undies.

Once they were done, they separated into their four parts and just… waited. In front of me, on the ground, very much like dogs. Not in shape, but in attitude. Their shape right now would be best described as “blob.” But I could tell they were watching me and waiting for orders.

They were also bigger than I remember them being. Maybe they had continued to grow when I put them away? Or did they grow just now from all the demon blood and guts on me? Ah, fuck it. Better yank this tooth and get it over with.

“Alright,” I said with a sigh. “Hop on.”

Before the “n” in “on” was out of my mouth, the little fuckers were on me. Their formless bodies stretched over my limbs, covering my feet and hands, ankles and wrists, elbows and knees, hips and shoulders, and kept going—what the fuck?

At the same time as their simultaneous comforting and alien presence covered me, I felt them. Not physically, not mentally, but… metaphysically? It was like I was contacting another layer of their existence that had been hidden from me before. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it would be that I wasn’t capable of feeling it before. Whether it was from my new understanding of my powers from the Orphan, or the power boost I got from Trix less than an hour ago, I could feel more from the Limbs of the Other Side. It was what I imagined being colorblind and getting those shades that allowed you to see color. Only with weird, extradimensional long johns with a taste for blood.

Once they had settled on me, they covered everything from the neck down in a skin-tight suit. Paint a big white Spider on me and I looked like emo Spider-Man from that one movie, without the mask or embarrassing haircut. But as I had that realization, I came to understand it didn’t need to be that way. I tugged, prodded, and pulled, and the bodysuit quickly morphed so I was wearing black jeans and a t-shirt… over a black bodysuit.

“Beats being naked, “I muttered.

I flexed my hands, watching as three-inch claws snapped from my fingers. I nodded to myself. I relaxed my fingers and the claws retracted.

I breathed deeply through my nose, tilting my head back with my eyes closed. This thing I was planning on fighting was as strong as the Doorman. I barely survived the Doorman when it was missing a hand (or whatever the fuck it had at the end of its sleeve) and a good portion of its power.

I tilted my head in thought. Then again, I had been nearly dead by that point. I had fought three warlocks and about a dozen goons. Would I have made a better showing of myself if I hadn’t been so exhausted? Or would the Doorman not have played with its food and just killed my ass?

I looked down at my hands. I was… very much different from the scared man that had fought the Doorman. I have grown, not only in power but in… acceptance, of myself. I know I’m not a good man, and I’ve made my peace with that. Some might consider me evil, but I don’t. I doubt anyone truly thinks of themselves as evil.

“I try,” I muttered, dropping my hands to my sides. During the darkest nights I’ve had in the last year, I gave myself a mark. Something to tell me when I’ve truly crossed a threshold. If I could see the suffering of the innocent, and not be moved to do something, then… Well, it doesn’t need to be said.

This past week hasn’t allowed me a lot of time for introspection. I’ve just been focused on getting Conner safe. Now that he (relatively) is, I find myself in a kind of low-wattage turmoil. I had barely thought about what I was doing when I decided to sacrifice those cultists. I just did it. Just a year ago, I would have had to wrestle with every kind of justification, every reason why it needed to be done to even start on it. But there I was, no hesitation. I needed power, and they were the means.

Do I feel bad about it?… not in the least. Those assholes want to allow the Distiller into our reality. They kidnapped hundreds, maybe thousands of people so they could murder them to fuel the ritual, whose product I am now preparing to fight. I’m mostly concerned about the change in my overall decision-making process—the lack of that little voice in my head that is supposed to tell me what I’m doing is fucked up. I’m—

I’m afraid that without that voice, I’ll be dancing down the oft-referenced slippery slope.

I stood that way for a few minutes, my mind oddly quiet. It didn’t last; my solemn reflection shattered by a wave of magic lighting up the twilight desert. Several large spells went off, targeting a man-shaped form exiting the warehouse. Grand circles of complicated, intricate design lit up in the sky, firing beams at the lone figure… But they all missed.

Each beam, the size of my chest, slammed into the ground around the line figure and created an explosion. If it bothered the figure, I couldn’t tell from this distance.

I started to run forward, spotting Elysium personnel yelling at one another and pointing. I couldn’t see Albright initially, but then bullets started to fly from a familiar squad. Suddenly, the figure was amongst them, and I got a better look at...him? It?

It looked like an old man, wearing dated clothing from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution or even prior. It was hard to get a good look at him because looking at him was like looking at an old, faded photograph that was submerged in murky water. In his right hand was a long pole, about eight feet long, with a round cap at the top of it. He was wearing an old hat—no wait, no he isn’t. Wait, is he?

Something about the thing was fucking with my perception. I snarled away the confusion and focused on what I could see, and that was Albright’s squad getting thrashed. The old timer swung his pole, which bent like a willow switch and hit Roy and Greg like a battering ram. The two big men went flying. Greg seemed to take the worst of the blow, his chest concave as he hit the dirt and rolled to a stop. Roy’s left arm was bent in a direction it shouldn’t be, and he landed with a deep thud and a gasp.

Then the old man reached out with his left hand and touched Kristy’s cheek. A caress, really. Kristy reacted with wide eyes, her mouth opening but no sound coming out. She began to panic, swinging her gun like a club at the old man. She missed, spilling to the ground in a messy stumble.

Light exploded, a laser fired from Calhoun’s index finger from less than three feet away. Unlike everything else, this attack actually hit, making the old man stumble away from Kristy.

All this took place between two of my strides.

Calhoun, Albright, Walt, and Beats worked to push the old man away, who seemed to have to use some effort to avoid their attacks. What I could see of his expression was mild, like he was cleaning a particularly dirty dish.

I arrived on the scene and slid to a stop next to Kristy. She was in full panic, her eyes wide and mouth gaping like a fish. Her hands clamped onto me, yanking me toward her with surprising strength. She tried to speak but no sound emerged.

I ran my magical senses over her mouth, throat, and chest, trying to detect if anything was obstructing her airways. What I got instead of information overload, as my magical senses were picking up way more than they were supposed to. I tore my mind off the sudden knowledge that Kristy had pierced nipples (because of course she did) and narrowed my focus, searching only for the energies that would obstruct airflow or prevent the body from breathing. I found nothing. In fact, I only felt Kristy’s own magical signature—if what I was feeling was accurate, the old man hadn’t done anything to Kristy.

Her lips were turning blue and her eyes were bloodshot. I expanded my search again, to try and find foreign magic on her anywhere. I… think there was something with her head, but I couldn’t tell with all the other magic in the air. If I wasn’t imagining things, whatever it was was subtle as fuck.

“He’s done something to Kristy!” I yelled. “She can’t breathe and I can’t figure out why!”

I had an idea that made me wince. “Kristy, I’m going to give you mouth-to-mouth; don’t fight me.”

She nodded and pulled me close. I angled her head up, pinched her nose, created a seal over her mouth with my own, and breathed out—only, her lungs were already full. I pulled back and placed my palm on her sternum, clasping my other hand over, and looked her in the eye. “This’ll probably hurt.”

She rolled her hands in a frantic “get on with it!” gesture. I began the compressions. She wheezed out a breath on the second compression. I watched for a moment but her panic only grew. I once again gave her mouth-to-mouth, compressions, and another mouth-to-mouth in quick succession. Color was returning to her lips but she was still unable to breathe on her own.

Calhoun arrived in a slump, his right hand missing two fingers, but the flesh was charred in what I assumed was a quick cauterization. “What’s wrong with her?” He asked.

“She can’t breathe, but I can’t find out why,” I said quickly. “There might be something wrong with her head but I can’t be sure. Mouth-to-mouth works to keep air flowing.”

He nodded, beginning to cast some spells over her. “Go help them, I’ll keep her alive.”

I squeezed Kristy’s shoulder and stood, turning in time to see Walt take the pole to the back of his knee, which exploded in shards of bone and blood. I flexed my hands, extending and sheathing my claws, and shot forward.

I had a strange sense of déjà vu as I shot forward with more speed than I anticipated. I had had a moment just like this back on the island, I thought.

I had a hunch, based on what I’ve seen. As the old man turned on Albright, I positioned myself to pass next to Albright in my charge. Just as I expected, the old man suddenly appeared just behind me, swinging that pole for Albright. Extending the claws on my toes I arrested my forward momentum, reaching out with my hand and grabbing the pole before it could gather momentum. The Old Man’s head turned further than a human’s should be able as he shot me a look, and I wish I could tell what his expression was but I still couldn’t make it out. I imagined it was a very “Nani?!” face as I yanked the pole with enough force to pull it free of his grip, making him take a step in my direction to catch his balance. Which is when my other hand came up and slammed a haymaker punch into his spine with enough force to knock him tumbling away.

The Limb that was touching the pole suddenly shuddered and forced me to drop it. I frowned at it, lifting my hand to see the Limb of the Other Side on my right hand covered in what looked like sickly welts.

“What,” Albright spoke between gasping breaths. “Are you still doing here?”

“Your job,” I replied with a shrug. “I’m going to do some shit that you and your people won’t like. I’d appreciate it if you stopped them from shooting me until I kick that thing’s ass.”

“Knew you were a warlock,” Albright said with resignation.

“Yeah, but you like me anyway,” I replied, earning me an amused snort.

Albright and I flinched as the old man spoke. There was distortion in his voice, the scratches of an old, abused vinyl record playing over shitty audio of an early internet Skype call with a shitty mic. It was incredibly grating, and seemed to come from far away—yet despite all that noise, was enunciated and able to be understood.

“Mr. Hayes,” the old man said the words like he was tasting them, the sibilance in his voice painful to hear. He didn’t so much stand as rise like a marionette being dragged up by its strings. “I didn’t expect to taste you again so soon.”

Albright was shooting me an accusing glare. “Look, man,” I said defensively. “I don’t fuck on the first date.” I turned to the old man. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

I still couldn’t make out his face, but I got the impression of a sadistic grin. “Did you know that your memories don’t come back?” He flicked his hand and his pole reappeared in it. He planted it on the ground and leaned on it, gripping it with both hands near his head. “They grow back, like scar tissue, the gaps filling with the mind's best guess—plugging the potholes with rushed asphalt over the concrete of your mind.”

I felt my face harden in a snarl. “The cultists don’t erase memories—they steal them.”

“Ha!” The old man barked a laugh that felt like sticking a wet nine-volt battery in your ear. “You’re a sharp boy. Yes. A little here, a little there. Those memories help me understand how best to—to continue the road metaphor—pave the way.”

He laughed again, long and loud. I resisted covering my ears just to prove a point. Albright did cover his, and I was aghast at the blood pouring from his ears.

The laughter abruptly stopped. “You hurt me.”

Suddenly the old man was in front of me, bringing that pole down with whistling speed. I managed to barely dodge. The pole hit the ground with the force of a meteor, the shock wave sending Albright ragdolling away.

The same shock wave slammed into me, and I used the momentum it lent me to roll away from the old man and gather some space. I summoned my magic and my fire. Let’s see how this asshole—

My thoughts ground to a halt. I—I couldn’t remember how to make my fire whip.

The horrible laughter came again, the old man straightening and shooting an unidentifiable look that his posture suggested was flirtatious.

The memories, the weird distortion of his face. Kristy—Kristy’s inability to breathe. I felt my jaw hang as I put the pieces together. Even his weird dated clothing.

“You’re getting it!” More horrible, feedback-laden laughter.

This asshole had a schtick just like the Doorman. Where the Doorman was just that he was wherever a door was, this thing seemed to be a lot more debilitating. He took memories. Did he make Kristy forget how to breathe?

“Like all the other avatars of my progenitor, I think I shall take a name,” the old man said after his laughter calmed down. “I shall take the name of an old profession, all but forgotten. Just like you’ll be,” his mouth was suddenly in focus, and it was in a wide, cruel smile. “Allow me to introduce myself…

I am The Waker.”

The old man appeared next to me, and it was all I could do to dodge.