Unfathomable Power, Book 2, Chapter 57 (Patreon)

He kept laughing at me. Laughing as I struggled to breathe. I tried to think of anything I could use to escape him, but my attempts to push him away or hit him were pathetic. I tried to writhe, to buck and shake, to wrap what remained of the things coming out of my back around his arms, but they were so weak. Everything about me. I couldn’t—I couldn’t figure out how to do anything! AND HE JUST KEPT LAUGHING!

That was maybe the worst thing of all. I knew he was making all of this hard. Making me—making me not know things. But for some reason, I kept knowing what mocking laughter was. He wanted me to know he was laughing at me as he killed me. He wanted me to know I was helpless, reveled in allowing me just enough knowledge to know what I was lacking, to know that I should be able to fight back but not being able to.

And he laughed. Laughed and laughed.

A sudden anger swelled in my chest. My chest burned, and my vision was narrowing. I could feel things popping in my head. But that didn’t matter. I was angry. I was ANGRY.

I lifted my all-but useless arms, with those things on the end that I had forgotten how to use—or even the names for. I didn’t care. I didn’t need to know what to do—because he was showing me. Let's give him a taste of his… own something. Ignoring another forgotten memory, I lifted my arms and awkwardly clamped my arm-things around his neck. It was fumbling and incompetent, which made the laughter grow in volume in pitch. But I flexed my neck and continued to try. He was taking my memories—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn. And I have always been a good student.

The laughter cut off with a rasp as my arm-things clamped on the bad man's neck. Pain bloomed in my left arm-thing and behind my right arm-thing, but I ignored it. The bad man had made a mistake. He had left me enough of myself to know fear, to know how bad this was. I clung onto that with all my being and transferred that strength to my arms.

The bad man let out a squawk as my arm-things began to crush his throat. The distortion around his face lifted for a split second, allowing me to see the fear in his eyes as I used everything in me to grab his neck. To crush it. To squeeze his head off like forming a fresh mozzarella ball. Huh. Funny that he left me with memories of cheese but I can’t remember what arm-things are.

He fought back, trying to crush my throat—but we were both shocked to discover that I was stronger. He could choke me, but I was crushing him. I manic smile warped my face as I leaned forward off the ground, giving my all to crushing his neck. I felt something snap.

With panicked strength, the bad man suddenly rolled to the side, doing something with his legs and hips and flinging me away. I gasped even as I hit the ground in a roll, rubbing my neck with my arms-things, coughing, and trying to get air into my lungs.

I couldn’t help the smile on my face as I heard the bad man wretch and cough and gasp a few yards away, slamming his chest with his arms things. Even as he fought to breathe, I felt his attention latch onto me. I felt more of myself start to seep away, and in a rising panic, I shot to my feet.

Or I tried to. I can’t walk anymore! I managed to get a foot under me but as soon as I tried to take a step I lost my balance and fell in a boneless heap. I snarled wordlessly and dragged myself across the ground toward him, my arms and chest a river of pain, but it didn’t matter. He could try to take the knowledge of how to crawl out of me, but even babies figured that shit out.

The bad man staggered to his feet and tried to get away, but even crawling I was able to get on him. Instead of trying to hit him, I grabbed his knee and squeezed with all my might. The… thingies on my arms responded and grew spikes, shredding the joint. The bad man, for the first time (I think) that night, howled in pain.

His arm thing slammed into the side of my face, trying to knock me away. I kept myself from flying away by keeping my hold on his leg. I didn’t know how to fight anymore, but I knew what he did had hurt me, so I did it back to him. I closed my arm-things little arms into the smallest space they could be in and brought it up and down, like a hammer, on the bad man's hip. It felt incredibly satisfying, and it knocked the bad man off his feet.

I realized I was screaming. Wordless, insane-sounding gibberish flying from my mouth with almost equal amounts of saliva and blood. The bad man rained more blows upon me, but I ignored them. Now that he was back on the ground, I crawled up him like a felled tree. He tried to shove me off, and it was all I could do to hold onto him. I wanted to hurt him, like he was hurting me, but both my arm-things were occupied holding onto him.

So I bit into his stomach.

It wasn’t effective, at first. The bad man's clothes got in the way. My teeth weren’t sharp enough to cut through them, though I managed to crush some skin in my first few bites. I finally got some success when I bit down right when a blow hit the side of my head, tearing his shirt and a bit of skin. We both paused, both of us seeming to realize his mistake. I reacted first, getting a mouthful of shirt and skin and then straining my neck back, ripping it off.

A rasping scream was torn from his damaged throat. He began to fight and thrash with frenzied energy, the panic giving him renewed strength. I weathered it. The bad man needed to die so that… someone would be safe. Many someones. I can’t remember them, but I knew they were there.

...I hope.

I began to tear pieces of the bad man out, one bite at a time. Image, scent, and sound-laden not-blood covered my face and neck as I used my teeth to disembowel the bad man. He began to weaken, and I climbed higher now that his blows weren’t raining with as much force or frequency. He said something, his tone pleading, but satisfaction bloomed in me when I realized he had taken my capacity to understand what he was saying. I nearly laughed at the irony of him trying to plead with someone he had effectively rendered an idiot.

As I became face-to-face with him, he slammed his head into mine. I maintained my grip and shook my head with a snarl. I slammed mine back down. That felt… good. Effective. I repeated it. His not-blood started leaking from a cut from between his eyes. I slammed my forehead down again. And again.

And again.

At some point, the bad man’s head was a pile of mush I was beating into the desert dirt, and my head hurt a lot. He wasn’t moving, and bits of him were fading away, flaking like ash that gave off weird sounds and images. I…

Where am I? I hurt.

I heard a voice behind me and turned to see a small man. I don’t know his name, but he… does something with thoughts. I will call him Think-man. Think-man was saying things to me, holding up his arm-things, showing they were empty. He kept making noises at me, and I grew bored and looked at the sky. The dots in the sky were pretty.

I think… I think I am tired.

I looked down at the body underneath me. He had been important, but I don’t know why. I didn’t like all the noises and smells coming out of him, so I crawled away. I found a part of the dirt that had no rocks or plants and tried to find a position that didn’t hurt my arms or chest. I did the best I could, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

I hope I felt better when I woke up.

  ***

Two Days Later

Albright

Albright walked the long hallway to the boss's office. The onyx and marble hall echoed with his footsteps. Ever since the boss returned from Brazil, he had been avoiding Albright’s telepathy. Jager said that with his injuries, he was unable to properly shield Albright from his mind, but Albright suspected Jager didn’t want him to know just how injured he was.

Jager had been forced to flee, after all.

Albright was managing six communication lines with his telepathy. The one that had the majority of his attention right now was to the guards who were observing Colm. After the fight with the Waker, the terrifying man had curled into a ball and slept. Jager had arrived, missing an arm and an eye, and had attempted to kill what he thought of as a danger to humanity.

Colm had woken up and, in the ensuing fight, Jager had lost a leg. It had only been Albright’s quick intervention that had saved his boss. Using the last of his fading stamina, Albright had poured everything he could into putting Colm back to sleep. Jager and Albright watched in horror as the wounds that the Waker and then Jager had inflicted on the man began to—to heal, for lack of a better word. Colm’s injuries began to pulse and twist in on themselves, looking like a swarm of maggots under his skin that resolved into undamaged flesh. Flesh that was so dark it barely reflected light.

Currently, Colm was awake, and using his claws to draw stick figures in the ground of his cell. The cell that was supposed to be resilient enough to weather tank rounds without taking damage. Nothing was supposed to be able to leave a mark on those walls and floors. Yet, Colm did so with a casualness that was frightening.

Maybe I should call him Liam, Albright thought. Colm’s background check had finally come in, too late to matter, but it shed a light on the man. Liam Hayes' friends had disappeared during one night, with signs of violence. Only a few drops of blood had remained. Liam Hayes had also disappeared, though his parents had reported he was alive. Police had briefly tried to locate him for questioning, but after several weeks of fruitless effort, the investigation was dropped. Someone higher up would put the authorities back on the scent of the only survivor and suspect of several violent disappearances, but again, nothing was found and investigators routinely… just forgot.

The first time Colm Avery appeared in public after Liam’s disappearance was during a traffic stop, driving a car whose plates were registered to Colm but whose VIN was linked to Liam. Despite this glaring contradiction, no one seemed to notice.

Albright now knew why. Alice had mentioned Colm was exceptionally deft with thaumagraphy, despite only recently learning the term. His main tools were attention wards, complicated spells that gently directed focus away from whatever the spell desired. Elysium had a few in every field office, and it was the work of a special team of mages to set up each one. Apparently, Colm could whip one up in a few minutes—which was baffling and impressive, for a self-taught man.

Or, at least, he had been able to. The current Colm was basically reverted to a child. Not all of his memories were gone, but enough of them had been taken that he was non-verbal, prone to tantrums but also, strangely, easy to please. Said tantrums are why Colm had two of Albright's best guards watching him, despite being in a cell that could stand up to heavy missile fire.

Albright spent a moment organizing his thoughts as he stepped through the door into Jager’s “office,” the giant room where he spent most of his time. Stadium seating surrounded the onyx and marble floor, each piece enchanted to funnel power to the room's only occupant. When two people were in the room, the enchantment was disrupted, which switched to distortion. Albright felt his telepathic connections strain to near breaking as he crossed the vast space to Jager’s desk.

Jager looked pretty much like he always did. A human that had lost two limbs and an eye might have worn the trauma on their face—maybe circles under the eyes, bruising, maybe a sheen of sweat from fighting infection. Jager, however…

From where his eye used to be, billowing clouds threatened to erupt. Dark gray mixed with fiery orange, lit with internal flashes of scarlet lightning. The same clouds slowly grew from his two stumps. After two days, Albright noted the progress of the storm clouds emerging from his boss. He hid a wince as he did a mental estimate of how long it’d take him to heal.

“How are plans for the execution?” Jager said as Albright slowed to a stop in front of the desk.

Albright sighed. “About that,” he said. “The Martinez Family are throwing their weight around, and are gathering support from some of the major powers. They aren’t openly threatening us, but they are making it clear that they won’t be happy if Colm—“

“The Prisoner,” Jager corrected.

“The Prisoner dies,” Albright finished.

Jager gestured dismissively with his remaining hand. “One little branch is nothing to worry about—“

“You misheard me, sir,” Albright interrupted. “The entire Martinez Family is protesting. Their Patron has made its wishes known.”

Jager froze, but not like a human would. It was like someone had pressed pause on him. When a human froze, they continued to breathe, maybe blink—sometimes you could see their pulse on certain places of their body. Not so with Jager. The absolute stillness lasted for several seconds before his face contorted into a snarl. “Why? What makes this asshole so important?”

Albright lifted his phone and quickly tabbed over to the report. “According to Alice Martinez, the Prisoner owes the Martinez Patron a favor. They have alluded that should the Prisoner be executed, the onus of returning the favor would fall on you.”

Jager let out a very human groan. “Damn it all.”

Albright’s eyebrows rose. “Do you know who their Patron is?”

Some lightning storm leaked from Jager’s eye wound, and he distractedly pushed it back with his fingers. “I do. But I won’t be telling you,” he quickly added before Albright could ask. “I don’t want them to have any more attention than they already have.”

Albright frowned. Jager was possibly the most powerful being on the planet. Even if Colm had gotten the better of him, the big man who was currently leaking storm clouds had been fighting avatars popping up all over the globe. If he had been fresh, Albright doubted Colm would have been able to put up a fight.

The big man was trying to hide it, but Albright had been working with him for decades. He might not behave exactly like a human, but the tells were there all the same. The Martinez Patron scared Jager. The avatars hadn’t scared him. Talk of the Distiller hardly worried him.

What could scare Jager?

“Fine,” Jager said after a tense minute. “We’re keeping him locked up, though. He’s a danger to everyone in his current condition.”

Albright glanced back at his phone. “They’re going to want visitation rights.”

Jager let out a low growl Albright could feel in his chest. “Once a week. One hour. Heavily supervised.”

Albright was relieved. Despite himself, he did like Colm. What little he had been able to pick out of the man's head said he was just interested in being left alone. That knowledge, coupled with seeing him in action, gave Albright the opinion that the young man didn’t deserve to be put down—hell, it could be argued the man had saved the world—twice. Being executed was a poor reward, in Albright’s eyes.

“What’s the other thing?” Jager asked, breaking Albright out of his thoughts.

Albright tabbed over to another report on his phone. “It’s as we feared. Infant fatalities are on the rise. Stillbirths and cases of SIDS are climbing.”

Jager’s face fell. His one eye tracked to the stump of his arm, and his remaining fist clenched with such force it sounded like leather grinding. “And?” He grated.

“Still no sight of the avatar,” Albright said quietly. “Analytics has dubbed it The Nursemaid.”

“Top priority,” Jager said through gritted teeth. “Pull everything, everyone. It needs to die. You have full authority.”

As the words left Jager’s mouth, Albright felt a pressure in his chest, like a cage had been put around his heart. Over the next few heartbeats, the pressure eased but never vanished. The full weight of Elysium was at his disposal.

Albright nodded curtly. “I’ll see it done.”

Jager didn’t reply as he stared into the distance. Albright spun on his heel and rushed from the cavernous room, a question at the forefront of his mind.

How was he going to kill an avatar?