The Undead Pool

“Do you even hear yourself?” I said as Annie flicked a switch at Ayer’s direction, and a warm feeling echoed between my ears. Within me, the mystics swirled, agitated but unfocused. “You’re killing them to make others afraid!” I looked at Annie, trying to play on her guilt. “You’re killing innocents!”

“The masters are not innocent!” Ayer shouted, his face reddening. “It’s not murder if they have no soul!” He strode to the bank of machines, and the woman backed up, scared. “Is it ready?” he barked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and Ayer reached in front of her and flipped a second switch.

Energy washed into me, thousands of voices circling in madness. A harsh moaning grew until I realized it was me and I choked the noise off. My head pounded, and I tried to stand only to fall back, bound to the chair. Insane mystics poured into me, swamping the meek and frightened ones I’d grown accustomed to. They rolled my thoughts upside down, tumbling them like waves spinning a swimmer into the rocks.

Wild magic was a flash behind them, and I grasped it, shoving everything else away and using it to ground myself, building a bubble about me to numb the force, but it did no good.

“Sir, it’s pegged!” Annie shouted, and from somewhere outside myself, I felt my hands digging into the hard chair. “It’s going to kill her!”

“Leave it where it is! Shoot her if she gets free!” he said, and fear rolled about my mind, jumping from one mystic to the other like an electrical storm until fear was all I was. I hung my head, trying to find one tiny space where I could catch my breath. The insane splinter ate away at me, their wild magic sparking through me in painful pings. It demanded an outlet, demanded action. But I had no control, and it simply became harder to bear.

“God, make it stop!” I heard myself moan, heart thudding. But I couldn’t escape. I was going insane. It would be easier that way. One by one, my barriers began to crash, the loud bangs echoing in my head.

“Down! Get down!” someone yelled, and I realized the thumps were real. Something was happening.

“Edden?” I whispered as the squat but powerful man spilled into the room, his eyes alight and a bellow of outrage coming from him. With the sound of a thousand wings, the splintered mystics rose up from me.

At least I thought it was Edden, and I stared, my head lolling as the splinter hazed the room. He was head to toe in black, little half-moons of charcoal under his eyes. A cap with no insignia was on his head, and a clearly non-FIB-issue rifle was in his hand.

“Get away from that machine!” he shouted, and a little sob escaped me. Confusion rose among the splintered mystics, and I felt a shift, a tiny bit of control.

Ayer had his own weapon pointed. “The FIB?” He laughed. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not FIB tonight,” Edden said grimly, and I could hear David shouting in the hall. “I’m running with the pack.”

Ayer’s confident motion to bring his pistol to bear hesitated as Annie shoved the barrel of her weapon into his kidneys. “Sir,” she said, and Ayer froze.

Betrayal! the mystics screamed, recognizing Ayer’s emotion. I gasped, head dropping as I tried to calm them. “Get this off me!” I cried, but no one moved.

“Annie?” Ayer put his hands slightly up and away from his body. “They killed your father. You’re going to let that happen again to another innocent?”

“This isn’t right,” she said, nervous but her hand steady. “It’s a choice everyone makes. You can’t make it for them.”

“Put your weapon down!” Edden said as he edged closer to me. “Now!”

I gasped as Edden jerked one, then another of the electrodes from me, eyes never leaving Ayer, muzzle never wavering from the vampire. But it made no difference. There was enough splintered mystics in me that I’d become a battlefield. The savage need to survive sparked from one to the next—and like a tree catching on fire, I was suddenly fighting the desire to destroy every thought but my own. Problem was, I couldn’t decide who I was anymore.

Wild magic prickled along every nerve. It hurt to breathe, and I held my breath—eaten alive as the mystics looking to me tried to mend the splinter I’d taken in, calming them with the elasticity of my own thoughts and turning their circling into growth and change. But it wasn’t enough.

Ayer breathed deeply, his eyes flashing black as he took in the fear of the room. “You can have my weapon when you pry it from—”

“Your cold dead hands,” Annie finished for him, digging her muzzle into him a little harder. “It ends here. You said we could leave any time we wanted. Consider this my notice.”

Panting, I hung my head. I could see my feet. I was in socks. I am in socks? That seemed important, and I concentrated on it, letting the mystic noise roar in the back of my head. I, as in singular. Am, as in existing. In socks, meaning I had feet. I was solid. I was real.

“Put the weapon down!” Edden shouted. “Now!”