The King of Oblivion

Chelsea groaned and rolled over onto her side.  This had not gone as intended at all.  She had not anticipated the actual presence of a spirit in her head, someone that would talk to her and give her constant criticism, someone who could read her thoughts and comment on them, even when his thoughts were shut out from her entirely.

So this was what it was like to be one with the spirit of Deacon Dread, she thought.

"Yep," Deacon Dread replied from inside of her.  "We’re a team now, you and me."

How had the other Deacons stood it?

"I don’t know," Deacon Dread replied.  "But they all seemed to take it in stride.  They all got used to the idea.  And in the end it worked for everyone."

"I don’t like it," Chelsea said.  She spoke out loud because it made her feel more comfortable than trying to chat with him in her head.  By talking out loud, she could almost deny the reality, pretend that things were still under her control.

"I’m sorry," replied the Deacon.  "But this is what you wanted.  This is the outcome you and the Lord of Nightmares orchestrated.  It’s meant to be."

Chelsea shook her head.  "You weren’t supposed to be a conscious entity."

"What was I supposed to be, then?"

"I don’t know," Chelsea cried out, frustrated.  "A set of powers, a suite of abilities that would be superimposed on my own.  Nothing like this."

She could feel the Deacon chuckling.  It was like something was tickling her brain from the inside.  The sensation made her queasy.  "You can’t really have thought that.  You’ve seen what the Lord of Nightmares is and what he’s like.  Just be glad I’m nothing like that.  Be glad I let you retain control."

Control.  Indeed.  That’s what this was all about.  Control.  Chelsea’s sense of control had always been important to her, had always been the main thing she wanted to retain in the face of everything that happened.

She had so little control over her own self.  Her body was a slave to its hormones and physiology.  Her cells aged.  Her hair was thinning, ever so slightly.  Her feet were beginning to form calluses; some day she would slip on a pair of stiletto heels and be unable to walk in them.  Some day she’d pull up a short skirt and discover that her thighs were too thick to pull them off.  Her breasts lactated when she was in the presence of infants, a reaction that embarrassed her every single time it happened.  Her period was a complete loss of control all together, and only infuriated her in that regard.

It was absolutely ridiculous that she should be so out of control of her own body.

And now she shared that body — no, not just her body, but her very mind — with Deacon Dread, a powerful spirit being from outside the universe, if the explanation that the Lord of Nightmares had given her was indeed accurate.

"Oh, it’s accurate," Deacon Dread said.  "The Lord of Nightmares and I both come from the same place.  The Interstice, a place between worlds.  You’d never understand."

"Try me."

"No."  The word was final.  "You and I, Chelsea, we have a great deal of work to do.  The Lord of Nightmares has managed to get far more powerful this rising than he ever has before.  We can’t let him proceed.  We have to reverse what he’s done so far, and send him back."

"I thought," Chelsea said slowly, "that you told Zoe that both you and the Lord of Nightmares have to be completely destroyed."

"Of course, I only said that to frighten the Lord of Nightmares," Deacon Dread replied.  "It’s not at all possible to destroy us, not permanently.  Not even banish us from this universe.  It can’t be done."

"So why would you say such a thing to Zoe?"  Chelsea was starting to become intrigued despite herself.  "The girl is obviously dim.  You’re leading her on."

"I told you, it was to frighten the Lord of Nightmares."  Deacon Dread sighed, affecting an air of supreme annoyance at Chelsea’s stupidity.  "Now come on, we have to start planning.  How are we going to defeat the Lord of Nightmares this time around?  How are we going to send him back into the depths?"

Chelsea sighed.  "I don’t know," she said.  "This wasn’t in the plan."

"Oh, I know that," Deacon Dread replied.  "I know that you weren’t thinking things through properly when you came up with this notion of becoming the next Deacon Dread while you were also working with the Lord of Nightmares.  It’s not a wise plan.  But it’s one that you are stuck with now.  It can’t be undone."

"It was undone when Zoe was Deacon Dread," Chelsea replied.

"Yes, but it wasn’t easy.  You yourself saw the effort that went into the unbonding process.  You were part of it.  Generally it’s permanent.  At least, it lasts until the death of the person that I’ve bonded with."

Chelsea felt her heart chill with the thought.  The Deacon was right.  She really hadn’t though this through.  Not at all.  "What about after we send the Lord of Nightmares back?" she asked.  "Will you go away then?"

"No," Deacon Dread replied.  "I’m with you for the rest of your life."

Even though Chelsea could not see the Deacon’s face, she could tell that he was grinning.

No, she told herself again.  She didn’t even bother to try to hide the thought from the Deacon.  No, this wasn’t going nearly the way she had intended it to at all.

It was often a lonely business, being the last of your kind in the world, thought Cyrano.

He plucked at a week growing through a crack in the sidewalk, tugging at it idly while trying to avoid being stepped on by the hundreds of passers by who were mobbing the streets of San Augustin.  It was bitterly cold out this evening, and he shivered in his duffel coat.

A foot caught him in the side.  Cyrano looked up at a man wearing a filthy trench coat and ancient pair of jeans.  The collar of a bright blue sweatshirt, barely frayed at all, peeked through the open trench coat.  "Evening, Gerald."

Gerald sneered at Cyrano.  "Cyrano," he said.  "I thought you were leaving town."

Cyrano shook his head.  "Nope, not me.  Why would you think that?"

"Kind of because I told you to," Gerald replied.

"Oh, I see."  Cyrano smiled and plucked at the weed again.  "See, I’m afraid that doesn’t mean a whole lot to me.  You don’t have any power over me, so you simply telling me to go doesn’t mean I have to."

"Doesn’t it?"  Gerald’s nostrils flared and he bounced heavily in place.  For such a small man, Gerald seemed to influence a lot of gravity.  "I don’t care what you think, Cyrano.  I don’t like you, I told you to leave this town, and that’s what you’re supposed to do."

Cyrano could feel his heart sinking into the nether regions of his belly.  It always happened like that.  There was always someone who didn’t like him, who wanted him to leave for no good reason at all.  They seemed to take an instant dislike to him based on no interaction, no meetings, nothing.  Just random.  It had always been the way of the world, since even before the Marauders, but that didn’t make it any more palatable.

He looked Gerald directly in the eye.  "I can’t leave, Gerald," he said.  "I have too much work to do here."

Gerald laughed derisively.  "Well, you’re just going to have to take your work elsewhere.  I’m telling you to leave, so that’s what you have to do.  That’s your work now."

At another time, Cyrano might have simply left.  Might have left San Augustin, walked his way out of the city all together, gone on somewhere else.  It wasn’t like anyone was counting on him or waiting for him.  Not like he had friends or family anywhere.  He was always careful to avoid building attachments in the cities he visited, because there was always a reason — maybe a Gerald, maybe someone or even something else — that wanted him gone.  The world didn’t like his kind.  The world was always finding a way to get him to move on.  He knew it, but he didn’t like it.

But there was something about San Augustin that needed his attention here.  He wasn’t entirely sure what it was.  There were fractures in the Plurality here, cracks that led straight to the Interstice.  That was nothing new; he’d encountered such before, and the cracks here were very, very old.  At least three hundred years old, he thought.

But there was something else going on here, something more sinister.  The cracks were widening.  Something was breaking the walls of the Plurality down right here in this city, and in spite of everything that had happened over the millennia, it was still his duty to investigate and put it right.  It was what he was made for.

And, unfortunately, he was going to be the only one who could possibly do anything about it.

"I can’t leave," Cyrano said to Gerald.  "I’m sorry, it’s just not possible."

"That’s just too bad," Gerald replied.  "I don’t like you, Cyrano.  You’re a freak.  You’re ugly.  You don’t even look like a real person.  Seeing you on the streets just makes me sick."  He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a long, deadly-looking knife.  His intent was obvious.

Cyrano sighed and rolled his eyes.  "You don’t want to do anything that might hurt you," he said.

"I’m going to be hurting you if you don’t get off my streets," Gerald replied.  He didn’t wait for the right time to execute his threat, though; he simply lunged forward knife arm outstretched.  He was barely two feet away from Cyrano; he didn’t need to aim carefully or at all, really.  All he had to do was fall forward and the knife would plunge straight into Cyrano’s gut.

But Cyrano was quicker than gravity could act on Gerald.  From his sitting position he rolled to the side, pushing against the ground with his right knee and then his right foot as it came up underneath him.  He rolled over his shoulder and his back, then sprung up to both feet before Gerald.

Gerald had stumbled when his target had suddenly departed from underneath him.  He fell to the ground, hitting his chest and chin hard.  The knife went flying from his hand and clattered into the alley a few yards away.

"You really should just leave me alone," Cyrano told him.

But Gerald, apparently, couldn’t.  "There’s no way I’m letting you stay here, man.  You watch yourself because I will come after you and I will kill you if you’re not out of this city in an hour."

Normally Cyrano would have ignored this threat, or even acted on it.  Would have simply left the city and gone on his way.

These were not, unfortunately, normal times.

"I can’t leave," he said.

"Then you’re gonna die," Gerald said.  He got to his feet slowly, and looked around for his knife.

Once again Cyrano sighed.  This was no good at all.

He looked around, making sure that he and Gerald were not being observed.  There were plenty of people on the street, but none were paying attention to the two of them.  Just another couple of bums fighting in the street, nothing for the average law-abiding citizen to have to worry about.

He turned back to Gerald.  "I’m really sorry to have to do this," he said.  "I just…  You’ve just left me no choice."

Gerald looked back at Cyrano with a look of supreme confusion.  "What?  What are you talking about?"

Cyrano lifted his right forefinger and peered past it toward Gerald, focusing on Gerald’s face so that his finger was doubled, and Gerald’s face in focus in the center.  Gerald, like so many people in the world today, had a very, very small window to the Interstice within his mind, and thus had a very lower tolerance for exposure to the reality that was constantly shaped and reformed by conscious minds.  In short, he had a low threshold for exposure to dreaming reality, even while asleep, let alone while awake.

Cyrano reached into Gerald’s mind, located that window, that tiny crack between worlds that every sentient mind had, that let all minds dream, and tugged.  Just a little.  A minuscule amount.  A thousandth of an Angstrom.  Barely larger than Planck’s constant.

Gerald screamed, clutched his head and fell to the ground.  The confusion and images that flooded his mind suddenly would have made him impervious to any physical pain; Cyrano had seen it happen before, hundreds of times.  This particular cantrip had been one of the few tricks that his kind had been able to use against their enemies during the wars.  It was still useful even today.

Cyrano approached the writhing figure of his enemy.  "Be calm," he told Gerald.

Gerald did not reply.  He simply kept screaming and clawing at his temples.  Cyrano was afraid the man might manage somehow to dig his way through the skin and bone of his skull and get to his own brain; he had seen that happen too.

"I will make this end for you," Cyrano said.  "I will make you capable of bearing what you are now experiencing.  Would you like me to do that?"

Gerald did not reply.  If he was hearing anything that Cyrano said, he wasn’t letting on.

Cyrano looked around again.  They were being watched now; an argument between two bums could be safely ignored, but a man screaming and writhing around on the ground was something that warranted interest and possibly official attention.  Already Cyrano noticed that some people were removing cell phones from their pockets and purses.

He didn’t try to reason with Gerald any longer.  There was no point, no possibility.

Cyrano wasn’t a cruel man.  He couldn’t undo the tiny rip he’d made in Gerald’s mind, but he could make sure Gerald would be able to cope with it.

The only way to cope with that kind of influx of dreaming, of course, was to grow up with it.  A crack like that, a person could become a poet or a madman.  There was never any way to know.

Cyrano reached out for the hook in Gerald’s soul — in his DNA, his chromosomes, his body — and hooked onto his age.  He tugged, then pulled.

This wasn’t a thing Cyrano could do often, removing a person’s age like this.  As time came unraveled from Gerald’s body, he shrank, dwindled in on himself.  His crying became higher pitched and more nasal.

Then it was done.

Cyrano went over and picked up the infant that had once been Gerald.  "There you go," he cooed to the squalling baby.  "There you go, it’s okay."

"What did you do to him?" a woman asked.

Cyrano looked over.  A middle aged woman, heavy set and strong looking, was staring at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide.

"Here," he said.  He presented the infant Gerald to her.

Surprised, the woman reacted in a way that seemed instinctual.  She took the baby into her own arms.

Cyrano stepped away quickly before the woman could ask him any more questions.  He opened a doorway to Flower Road and started down, letting the doorway close behind him.

One crisis at a time, Cyrano thought.  Preventing the collapse of the universe would have to wait; for now, his priority was just getting out of here fast.