A Shrouded World (Book 7): Hvergelmir Read online

  I felt like I was in the heavy-handed grasp of sleep paralysis, but, unlike those times where danger was only perceived, this was clear and present. Warty opened his eyes, and if he was somehow able to get everything moving before I could or Bob, it was over for me. I impotently struggled to get feeling and movement in my limbs. The best I was able to muster was a steady stream of drool from my mouth, and unless Warty was easily grossed out by random bodily fluids, that wasn’t going to be enough. Maybe I could fart in his general direction, chemical warfare at its finest. Internally, I was rocking my body back and forth; externally I don’t think I’d so much as produced a goose bump. Unlike me, Warty seemed to be gaining traction. He was worming his body my way, one heave at a time.

  “Bob…could use a little help, buddy.” My bodyguard was still out. I think I was wriggling a finger, but I couldn’t see it, and I didn’t think it was the middle one, so I couldn’t even do a last act of defiance gesture. My ankle gave out a pop as I was able to wiggle it. “Random. Next, I’ll end up with a useless boner.” I was getting angry, and that seemed to be the catalyst needed. No wonder Warty was getting the jump on me. Well, I had plenty of stored up anger I could tap in to. Anger for all those I’d lost, and anger for the danger all those still left were in because of the actions of a group of elitist assholes. Oh yeah, that was an endless slow-burn furnace of infuriation. My left leg kicked out. Warty was within ten feet and still doing his worm impression.

  He may have had a single-minded hatred for me, but who was I to him? Mine was fueled for those I cared for; it burned with more intensity. My right arm twitched like I’d been tased. Warty was eight feet away. The best he could offer up at the moment was to smother me under his bulk, which, given the current situation, was a viable course of action. I had control of roughly a third of my body, enough to get some locomotion of my own going. I was doing my best to turn my body so my boots would be where Warty came in. It was going to be close. I raised my left leg just as he lunged again; the heel of my boot planted firmly into his forehead. He pushed again, sending me skidding along. We were playing a dangerous game of inchworm, which would be all right, as long as he kept pushing me around. I reared my leg back, and kicked out; didn’t have the force I would have liked, but anything was welcome. Caught him in the tusk, twisting his head to the side. He whipped back and got almost my entire boot in his mouth.

  He was shaking his head back and forth, taking my leg and entire body with him. He was crushing down the heavy rubber sole; that was the only thing keeping him from pancaking my entire foot and ankle. Still, it hurt like only a crushing injury can. There was panic as I could feel the bones being compressed. I was able to steal a glance at Bob; he hadn’t so much as stirred. There was not going to be help from that quarter. I could hope my hallucinatory friend Jack showed. What were the chances a figment of my imagination would be able to do anything? My right leg was making a triumphant comeback, though, to say it was anything more than a wet noodle would be an overstatement. Best I could make it do was be an irritant, as I smacked it lightly up against Warty’s face, which no one likes, but I would have had more power hitting him with a cooked hot dog. I was trying to wrench my left leg free, but it was stuck in a five-hundred-pound vise. It wasn’t happening.

  “Fuuuck!” It was a long, drawn-out, painful sound. I pushed the upper half of my body up and struck out, going straight for his wet, black, beady eyes. He closed his heavy lids just as I punched. There was a satisfactory squishing sound as I struck true. It was a good hit, but not enough to get him to let go. My head whipped back to the floor as he redoubled his efforts on my foot. I grimaced and bounced back up; Warty was waiting for me. There was an enormous relief as he let go of my foot, but his mouth was now waiting for my incoming fist, which looked like a bat flying into a cavern. I twisted my body to the side, taking my arm with me; his mouth clacked down loudly on air. I rolled away, making room between us. My foot was pounding in pain. I’d like to think I could have got up and run, but I didn’t know which leg would be dragging which. I didn’t know why I was paying Bob the big bucks to protect my ass when he was sleeping on the job, and yeah, I was angry about that. I now had control of most of my body, just not enough power I needed to do anything. Warty again lunged, his sharp-toothed grin coming dangerously close to my side where he would have ripped a chunk out worthy of a lion.

  “Sick of this shit.” I pushed up and was doing my best not to wobble. I was not going to say I was “newborn weak,” but in comparison to the monster that was also doing his best to get his feet under him, that was most definitely the case. I had no weapons, and no one was going to rush in to save me. I did the only thing I could think to do.

  His head dropped straight between my splayed legs; I don’t know how I keep getting into situations where my junk becomes so vulnerable. He swung his head; there were sharp pains in my legs as his tusks were ripping through the fabric of my pants. He was planning on goring me to death. I was completely grossed out by my next action but I was out of options. All I’d get for punching him in the head would be broken hands. Figured his brain to be the size of a pea, which meant his skull was a foot thick. I twisted just as he pulled his head up, his tusk sliding effortlessly into the meat of my thigh. I hated that it was an almost natural reaction as my fangs elongated. My eyes were rolling into the back of my head from the pain as he eviscerated my leg. The only benefit was, he tossed me up and to the side.

  My leg popped free as I spun, my head landing by his exposed calf, one good turn deserves another. I bit down, and, if we were comparing pain indexes, I was doing my best to make his match my own. My fangs were ripping through his calf as he struggled to break free. I clamped on tight, pulling what passed for blood through as quickly as I could. Whereas most blood has a distinctive metallic taste, this was something more like I’d find patrolling the bottom of the ocean: fishy, salty and smelled like the underside of a starfish pulled from a tourist’s forgotten suitcase. I gagged, I drank, and I spilled. His blood was pooling on the ground, his thrashing became less frantic. He wasn’t long for this world, but, in the end, I’d be doing him a favor. This was the surprising part…or, maybe not. No one came to save my ass, but they did for Warty, and in the most unexpected way. My skull cap rang out as it received a sharp rapping, I looked up to see Bob. His eyes slid back and forth in the goo of his head; I’m figuring that was his rendition of a “no” movement.

  Once the process is started, it’s not so easy to stop, kind of like drinkus-interruptus. My fangs stayed elongated but began to deflate as I saw the disapproving stare from Bob; I felt like Warty’s mother had just walked in on us. Bob reached a hand down and gently helped me up. The influx of Warty’s blood had given me strength, and the wounds on my legs were beginning to heal, though the pain of them would linger for hours. Warty was breathing heavily; he was face down on the ground with his eyes closed. Bob and I stepped back in case he lashed out, but I thought he didn’t have much in the way of energy to spare.

  “You were awake?”

  “Bob.”

  “Not cool; he almost killed me.”

  “Milk.”

  “Why are you saving him?”

  “Bob.”

  “Seriously? You think he can help?”

  His head nodded in agreement.

  “Wait, you knew?”

  His head bobbed again.

  “Is that why you’re helping me? Or I’m helping you?”

  “Milk.”

  “What do you mean we have something in common?” I had no idea what he meant by that; was planning on getting to the root of the problem when I was driven to my knees by a storm in my head. Figured it was the guards doling out punishment for the fight, then I saw that everyone was down and suffering. Bob was Johnny Come Lately as he faked it. Fucker.

  Couldn’t even ponder moving. My body was locked into a subservient position as whistlers streamed into the room, their weapons affixed to a utility belt around their waists. Not drawn,
though; this implied they weren’t expecting trouble but were ready just in case. A wet squelch emanated from Bob, it might have been his version of a grunt. Just because the enemy wasn’t ready to kill us didn’t mean that what was about to happen verged anywhere near the spectrum of good. There were still plenty of atrocities far short of death; for many of them, death was preferable. The whistlers seemed ambivalent at first, and then, for seemingly no other reason than to prove a point, they converged on something like a dwarf elephant with two trunks. They beat it mercilessly, blood was being flung up as their fists pulled back and they split its skin in multiple spots. It thrashed for the first few volleys and then stilled and yet they continued pummeling it until there wasn’t much left, except for a stew of steaming remains.

  If it was revenge for some transgression, they showed no signs that they reveled in the death or that they cared at all. No, this was worse. It was a random event displayed merely for our benefit. To let us know they were capable of anything at any time. Bob may have stiffened as they approached. Would he do anything if I was to become the next victim of an attack? Bob and I were friends of a sort; maybe our agendas were the same, but there was no way they lined up. Whatever his endgame, it had never involved me. If I died, I wouldn’t be avenged until I had long cooled in the offal of another.

  The whistlers would occasionally shove someone to the ground, but it seemed the lesson they wanted to teach had reached its target audience. I stood, not of my own volition…this was new. Of course, I could be forced to capitulate due to pain, but manually manipulated like a puppet? I was infuriated and then terrified as my traitorous legs took me straight toward a whistler that was watching me intently. If Bob could truly not be controlled by the cap, he was going to have a difficult time faking this, or maybe he could turn it on and off at will, I thought as I watched him moving toward a different whistler. We were being separated. My heart sank. Bob swiveled his eyes toward me before he was led out ahead.

  The whistler’s long, bony hand descended upon my shoulder. Revulsion welled up; not being able to punch it repeatedly had an adverse effect on my morale. The hand was cold to the touch, and I could feel bitterness seeping in through the material of my clothing, spreading outward from the contact. My muscles shivered in response. I wanted to ask him where he was taking me; that was when I glimpsed the bloody pulp of that being and decided discretion might be a better tact. The hand pinched, prodded, pushed and pulled me through a host of lefts and rights and ups and downs until I was standing at a closed entryway in a narrow hallway. The want, the need, to ask what was going on was driving me nuts. Would it answer, or just pop multiple holes in me with its staple gun?

  Eventually, the door dissipated and I was looking at a small room, ten by ten was a safe bet. I was pushed so hard I fell over, skidding to a halt as I hit the far side. The door became solid and I was again alone like I had been from the start. Was this just a repeat? Would the entire cycle have to be done again? The unrelenting march back to another hole, done for nothing more than the entertainment factor? Maybe bets were waged on when something would collapse and die. I would rather that was the case than there being no point to it at all; at least I would feel challenged. But to die, merely because? There would be no point in going any further. What I originally thought was an area of solitary confinement began to move. It was so slow and gradual that I believed it to be a figment of my imagination. I placed my hands on the floor, and there was a definite hum. I was moving horizontally; if this room was moving up or down it was such a gradual slope that I could not tell.

  “Now what?” I stood, figuring if this was an elevator car, it stood to reason that there’d be an escape hatch above my head, like in every movie involving an elevator I’d ever seen. Such horseshit. Elevators are about eight feet tall, so how in the hell you’re even going to climb up there and unscrew the opening is beyond me. Last I checked, most people don’t tend to get into one with a toolbox and a ladder, especially in the crisis situations they find themselves in, yet it has not once, ever, stopped Hollywood from beating the living shit out of that horse. In any case, the box I found myself in had no discernible seams anywhere, including a definite lack of ceiling panels. Even the doorway I’d come through melded perfectly with the wall. There was no way out that I could see, certainly not up.

  I stayed alert, figuring this would open up to somewhere, sooner rather than later. When that didn’t happen, I sat in the middle, afraid that, at some point, a door would open up somewhere and I could potentially fall into that somewhere. It’d been such a long journey, I was starting to think that maybe I wasn’t moving at all, that maybe I was in some large machine and I was feeling the vibrations of it at work. At some point from the sheer lack of stimuli, I fell into a daze and then plunged into sleep; when I awoke it was to the absence of the vibration. I had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing. I stood because this seemed the time to do so. A door revealed itself; it’d been so long, I couldn’t tell if it was on the same side or not. A wave of heat blasted into me, along with a strong smell of acrid smoke that found its way through my mask. My eyes immediately stung and watered.

  “Move,” came from somewhere. I stepped out of the car and into Hell; I mean, there wasn’t another explanation. It was hot enough, it smelled like sulfur, and there were raging fires everywhere. A large beast was heading toward me. It walked on four legs but had two arms, as well. Something like a Centaur, but with a head that more resembled a mosquito with huge multi-faceted eyes on either side of its head.

  It made a series of clicks before my translator turned it into English. “Follow me.” It turned around. It didn’t check to see if I was coming; I don’t think it even cared. I did as it said because what was the alternative? My throat was burning; my hope was we were going to a refreshment stand. I flinched when it stopped and turned. It went through a series of motions while making its clicking sound of speech.

  “This is your station.” Then it left.

  “Wait, what the hell does that even mean?” There was a machine in front of me, looked something like a jackhammer melded with a pallet jack. “What am I supposed to do?” There were no controls or buttons that I could see. I stepped up onto a small platform to get a better look, and the machine came to life. Must have been pressure activated. I grabbed hold of the jackhammer ears as it started to move. I could steer it with those. I was doing lazy circles; on the ever-expanding loops, I was getting dangerously close to a small, reptilian-based animal.

  “Fool,” it grunted.

  It didn’t tell me to “fuck off,” which I found decent enough. I turned to see him lean forward, which made a pulse come out from the bottom of the hammer. Don’t think he was being overly helpful, just doing what he was supposed to. Now I just had to figure out how to stop moving. Not entirely sure what I did, but the machine stopped. I stood there for a while, wondering what I was supposed to do next. I was rewarded for my inaction with a body jolting charge through my head. Once I was able to unclench my jaw, I looked around to see which pitmaster had done it so I could mark him. I could see neither guard nor any surveillance device; there was a chance that I was now synched to this machine and, if it did nothing, I would be prodded into action. That was the most likely case, given the amount of automation I’d encountered so far.

  “Stuck in the mines. How fucking cliché is this.” I would have been angrier if I hadn’t been diverting resources to just surviving the choking smoke, blinding debris, and the will-sapping heat. I noticed that some of the captives around me had goggles on and decided I was going to ask one of them how to get some. There was a chirp from my machine as I stepped off, but as of yet, no jolt. Gecko-man saw me coming.

  “Get, work.” He seemed more concerned about me causing disruption than being a threat to him.

  “Goggles. Where do I get some?” I pointed to my eyes.

  “From death,” came his curt reply.

  “Does He have overnight delivery? What am I saying, of course
He does, just look at this place.” I was eyeing him; now he was thinking he should have used a better choice of words because making him dead would accomplish what I needed. It wasn’t an entity that dropped gifts off, couldn’t imagine Death pulling a Santa maneuver. Anything gained here was taken from the bodies of the fallen. I didn’t think I was quite ready to kill for goggles, and anyway, my machine began to chirp again, this time much louder, and more workers were looking over.

  “Shit. How do I make it work?”

  He used his body weight to press down on the handlebars. I waved and headed back.

  I’d just got back on and the machine was quieting down when I noticed a whistler striding quickly toward me. He stopped when he saw I was back on; he brought his hand up. I saw a device the size of a pack of cards on his wrist. I didn’t need a degree to know what was about to happen next. Got a healthy zap. “Fuuuuckkk,” I stuttered.

  My hands were wrapped tightly around the bars, to the point they hurt. I could not move as he came closer.

  “I detest this area,” he said. “If you make me come here again, I will constrict your musculature until the skeletal frame it is attached to breaks. Then I will leave you to die in unimaginable agony.”

  “Got it, boss.” If not for the voice box attachment, I would not have been able to speak at all.

  He watched me for a few more moments before leaving. When I got control back, I sent a pulse into the earth; the vibration rocketed up my arms, and through my cap, which was nearly as painful as when it was used as a disciplinary device.