Spires

Dayana flickered around the cafeteria, fighting carnival freaks.

Not the performers as they were in the real world, but something akin to a scared child’s interpretation of them.

She thought she had a glimpse of Lindsay Mitchell’s past.

Of course, any sort of sympathy she might’ve had was thoroughly stuffed in a bag and beaten with a baseball bat like budding serial killers did to puppies by his whole slasher thing.

Going after kids just made him even more evil, if that was possible.

The freaks kept fading in and out as she hurt them.

It would’ve been a breeze except for the fact that they could bypass her Threnium armor at times.

Not every time, but enough.

She felt the warmth of her blood seeping underneath her undersuit from a dozen cuts and stabs.

Twice Clever Fox voice came in over the comms.

“Where is everyone?”

The cultivator sounded confused.

Not good.

She made for the hole in the cafeteria’s windowed wall only to be spun around by rough hands.

It happened quicker than even she was capable of reacting too.

One moment a bearded lady was leering in her face plate, the next, dark beard hair lanced out, stabbing through and into her face.

Her cheek felt the stings, but those were nothing like the fire in her right eye.

Un—fucking—believable!

All this time and now she pulls a Hayden?

She flickered out of their hold.

Red warmth gushed down her cheek.

The useless HUD wasn’t giving her any warnings even as something huge hit her in the side and sent her through the empty food counter.

At least the armor was keeping her from getting turned into a mass of broken bones.

The ghostly elephant trumpeted its triumph until a shadowy panther carved its guts out, spilling long red ropes on the cold tiles.

Guts and elephant vanished a moment later as Dancessassin did what her name implied, twirling and spinning through the throng of ethereal freaks and animals.

Her blades and the claws at the ends of the long ribbons at the hem of her monster hide cloak cut her a path all the way to the hole in the cafeteria wall.

Dayana pulled herself out of the tangle bent sheet metal and splintered wood.

She thought she caught a glimpse of a bloody shadow striding through on Dancessassin's heels.

Death’s Dancer appeared at the doorway a beat later.

The soldier’s skullmask was gone. Where it connected to the rest of his helmet looked to be partially melted.

His forehead and the upper part of his chest looked similar.

“Acid flower,” he grunted.

“And that?” she pointed at his stomach.

“Claws and unfinished healing.”

Without the soldier’s gloved hand holding it tight she expected that the ghost elephant wouldn’t be alone in spilling its guts on the cafeteria floor.

“You out of potions?”

“I’m already saturated. More won’t do anything.”

“At least bandage it up.”

“No time.” He pointed a short spear toward the hole. “Kids. Demon clown.”

She went out ahead into the field.

The lights and sounds were an assault on the senses.

They exacerbated the throbbing in her ruined eye somehow.

“Painkillers. Localized to right side of my face.”

She didn’t even feel the needle.

The numbness came on quickly.

Better able to concentrate she flickered toward the distant end of the field.

She made it just in time to catch the end of their nightmare circus.

Alin and his mom found Howard and some of the others gathered on the sidewalk next to a fenced field.

It was part of the small school where the eidolon’s golden emergency signal hung high in the sky suspended in a pillar of golden light.

Willy’s hand and spellbook glowed as he held them toward said school. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

“Trying a portal. Not working,” Howard grunted.

Alin stood between his mom and the empty field. Something told him danger was a lot closer than it seemed for all that it was quiet in this part of the neighborhood.

The sounds of battle all came from the perimeter and the shuttle raining down fire on the monsters.

“We think it’s the clown,” Howard continued. “The domain stinks of blood and a circus. If that doesn’t scream clown, then I don’t know what does. Plus, I think we saw Foster drive a truck right through there.” He pointed down the sidewalk to a downed portion of the fence. “It could’ve been someone else, but we all saw a bloody, writhing shadow in the cab.”

“Where are the others?” his mom said.

“Shootystabby, Fox and Dancessassin got through the boundary. I’m not ashamed to admit that the rest of as weren’t strong enough.”

“How long ago?”

“About 5 minutes give or take.”

“Goldenspoon.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to try.”

“It starts at about a foot and a half into the sidewalk,” Howard said.

Alin reached out as he walked forward, just like his mom.

They both recoiled from the invisible wall.

They tried again, pushing.

He felt it budge, but pulled back when his mom did.

“Can you get through?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Try.”

He did and failed.

The resistance turned into a hard wall at a little past his elbow.

“Try it with your power.”

The gray flowed over the invisible wall for a moment, revealing a domed shape.

It resisted like before, but only for a few seconds.

He saw it in his mind’s eye.

Bright lights of many colors flashing in the sky like fireworks or on tall signs.

He smelled a food festival, like those back home.

All manner of fried and grilled foods in open air stalls.

He heard—

He heard children crying.

It changed then.

He saw twisted nightmares, reflections of what he feared most about himself in a maze of mirrors.

He smelled iron and filth permeating the air.

The gray spread further past the fence to begin blanketing the grassy field.

There was the ghost of fox-faced woman.

Huddled children.

A looming horror.

He instinctively attacked the horror, trying to drain it of its life force.

It shrugged him off dismissively, sending him falling back.

“Boy!” his mom hovered over him. “What happened?”

He rose with a groan.

His cheeks, neck and upper lip felt warm and sticky.

“There,” he pointed to an area about 10 meters from the edge of the fence according to his HUD, “something bad’s happening. I think Fox is there, a bunch of kids and something really bad. There’s something weird about the domain. Like the circus one is locked in, but there’s a second one trying to dig in, but it can’t.”

“Holly?”

“Probably.”

“No one else in there has a domain that we know of,” Howard said.

“We have to get in. I think I can weaken the boundary. Maybe.”

“Do it,” his mom said.

He dived back into the gray.

Two places, one mind.

He thickened the gray at the invisible wall, while walking up to it with his physical body and pushing.

Armored hands pressed in up to the elbow then continued after a moment of resistance.

He’d describe it as walking through a wall of real honey.

“It’s working!”

He could only hope that the others were following since the comms were static and he couldn’t sense their presence through the gray.

An eternity. A moment.

It could’ve been either and everything in between.

That’s how long it took for him to breach the boundary.

He emerged to an assault on his senses.

The sights, sounds and smells had been muted earlier.

Not even the environmental seals of his power armor kept them out.

Blood and filth.

Cotton candy and grilled meat skewers.

A rainbow of lights and booming fireworks.

The demon.

Skinless.

Pale muscle exposed.

Overlong limbs.

Claws.

Teeth.

Clown makeup on its— his grotesque face.

All topped by a tangle of colorful hair that writhed like live serpents.

“Demon!” his mom’s voice rang out.

“Demon clown,” Twice Clever Fox said weakly.

The woman was on one knee in front of the huddled children as Dancessassin danced with the demon clown.

Nearby, Howard and Adrian pushed themselves to their feet, shaking their heads, clearing the cobwebs.

He could relate.

Nothing felt real.

Willy moaned, clutching his head.

Evidence of the wizard’s sickness liberally coated the tall grass next to him.

“Wet! Get your butt up and magic shield those kids!” his mom snapped. “Tabs! Get clear of that thing!”

Either Dancessassin couldn’t or didn’t want to because she continued to twirl and spin around the demon clown, slashing at the exposed muscle, filling the air with dark blood.

She disappeared and reappeared through the dancing shadows on the grass as she led her evil partner further away from the children.

No dance could last forever.

One wrong move brought an end.

Dancessassin put a wrong foot forward.

The demon clown’s claws cut straight through the inky black hide of her monster hide cloak.

The hood, which was a head, yowled like a cat whose tail had been sliced off.

Over-sized clawed hands grabbed an arm and a leg and pulled before anyone could react.

The lump in Alin’s throat dropped like a pit in his stomach as Tabitha went flying in three directions, trailing arcs of blood that the demon clown lapped up with its serpentine tongue.

“Line cutters… get cut!” A guttural laugh emerged from his red-smeared mouth. “More! Come one, come all! Children of all ages! Welcome to my circus!”

A wave of fear, verging on terror cut through to Alin’s core.

He pushed back instinctively with the gray.

“She’s still alive!” his mom said. “Black Cat. Grab her. Seal those wounds. Wet… wake up. Those kids need that shield and Tabs needs healing! Howard. With me.”

His mom had broken out her round shield and baseball bat-like club.

She charged, but behind the kids for some reason.

The demon clown strode.

One step took him where Alin’s mom had aimed.

Low level superhuman strength boosted by the power armor’s artificial muscles plowed into the demon clown’s side.

All the energy of a truck going at over a hundred miles an hour concentrated in the slight point at the center of the shield.

Thunder cracked the night, momentarily silencing the riotous circus sounds.

She clubbed him in the knee.

Howard came in blasting away with his handcannon, discarding it in favor of an enchanted axe. The Threnium blade had a significantly higher melting point than steel. Even still the dark gray metal glowed white hot in a split-second. A feral grin crossed his face as he ducked under a claw swipe to chop the axe into the demon clown’s side.

Pale muscles sizzled as the blade carved deep.

He leapt over a second claw swipe, drawing a stiff, stabby dagger and plunging it into a dark eye.

Well… less plunge and more push the tip in.

Alin’s mom came in and hammered the axe deeper into the demon clown’s side.

Giggles filled the air as it backhanded Howard the length of a football field away then clawed his mom’s shield, cutting through the Threnium, severing the straps and somehow overpowering the magnetic clamp.

His mom stifled a cry.

A single claw had grazed her armored arm, cutting her down to the bone.

On the back foot, she swung her baseball bat-like club desperately.

Threnium versus demonic claws.

Three, four, five exchanges before the latter won out and his mom’s weapon had been sliced all the way to her hand.

Alin deployed the recoilless gun from his back.

The stream of projectiles stitched accurate fire across the demon clown’s arm, throwing the slash off target.

His mom did the same as she backpedaled.

Ammo ran out in seconds.

The demon clown stood giggling. Dark blood oozed from hundreds of tiny holes across his exposed muscle.

Then, reality fuzzed.

Projectiles fell to the grass along with Howard’s enchanted axe.

The demon clown laughed.

He was at Alin’s side in an instant.

The claw swipe cut through armor and into flesh.

Alin went twisting in the air.

His mom flipped over him with an axe kick to the demon clown’s head.

Claws cut her magitech shield, burning out the module affixed to her chest armor with a single hit.

She dumped every offensive and defensive magitech module she had in the next seconds.

The demon clown laughed through all of it until he flayed the front of her Threnium armor open.

The giggles stabbed into Alin’s soul as the demon clown cleaned the red off his claws with his serpentine tongue.

The HUD blared warnings, but he only had eyes for his mom’s vitals.

Red like her blood, but not black, not yet.

Speaking of black, the gray billowing out of his torn armor was darker than normal.

Strangely, he felt numb to the pain from his torn side.

He had even forgotten to use the painkillers his armor could inject.

The dark cloud flowed across the ground engulfing his mom and the demon clown standing over her.

Instinct more than conscious, calculated, rational thought guided him.

Hide her.

“No no no no no! You can’t leave the circus until the last show is done!” The demon clown laughed. “Where are you, kid? Oh… there are the other kids.”

He lost sight of Alin’s mom, but found the others.

Wet had cast a brilliant dome of blue-white light with scrolling symbols of Ms. Teacher’s people, the High.

The wizard held his glowing spellbook in one hand while the other was pressed to the inside surface of the magic shield.

Behind him, kids huddled with Twice Clever Fox, who was desperately tending to Dancessassin.

The demon clown struck the shield.

Symbols vanished, but it remained strong.

“This is a Tier 4 spell, but I triple-slotted it, so it’s basically borderline Tier 6 or 7. And you’re not over Level 60, demon or not, you aren’t getting through for at least 10 minutes,” Wet said through grit teeth.

Alin noticed a dark shape creeping low to the ground toward his mom.

He almost drained it when he realized that it was a him.

Black Cat started first aid before carefully dragging her away from the demon clown.

He allowed his focus to return to the demon clown.

The gray thickened around the demon clown and the magic shield. He was careful to keep it from touching the shield because instinct told him that would weaken it. Thus, he dulled the demon clown’s senses when he failed to drain it of its strength.

Ethereal figures faded in and out of reality.

The gray warred with the demon clown’s domain.

Circus animals and twisted freaks appeared to take their own shots at Wet Willy’s shield.

Alin forced some to vanish before they could strike.

The demon clown turned his grotesque face left and right, searching for him in the gray.

He hid the other familiar presences as they sneaked up to the demon clown.

Howard burst out of the gray first, sending dark swirls twisting in the air as he leapt on the demon clown’s back.

Enchanted axe burned deep into exposed neck muscles as thick as an old tree’s trunk.

Either the metal failed or the enchantment did because when Howard pulled it out for another strike the head was a melted lump.

The demon clown bucked like an angry bull, but Howard kept a tight choke around his neck.

“I’m the best at never letting go when I’ve dug in. You can cut my skin and break my bones, but I’ll keep healing. I’ll keep coming. Until only one of us is still standing.”

“Standing isn’t allowed in some rides.” The demon clown giggled.

A Ferris wheel faded into reality a short distance away.

Freaks sat in the chairs, slapping the thin sheet metal and cackling.

One threw ghostly knives that faded through Howard’s armor, though the look of pain in his face said that something had struck home.

Another threw a rope, looping it around Howard’s neck.

The demon clown dug clawed fingers and toes into the ground.

As the wheel turned faster than it seemed possible Howard was ripped from the demon clown’s back.

The demon clown raked Wet’s shield, erasing more symbols.

He raised his hand and held it there.

“I can’t hold him for long!”

Shootystabby had flickered behind the demon clown and anchored him with a knife stabbed into his shadow.

“You again? Children are always so stubborn.” The demon clown sighed.

“It’s sorta their thing.” Death’s Dancer plunged his short spear into a dark eye. Solid steel crumpled for a tip’s worth of penetration. The soldier’s skullmask was gone along with his torso armor. He held his gut closed with one hand, while the other pulled a SAW from his bag of holding.

200 rounds out of the drum mag in seconds. Dumped into the demon clown’s face with good accuracy thanks to being an arm’s length away and the soldier’s superhuman strength holding the light machine gun steady even with just one hand.

The barrel glowed red hot as Death’s Dancer shoved it into the demon clown’s eye.

Sizzle and steam.

Giggles.

“Children should be grateful for fun times! I remember you had fun with this one!” The demon clown sprayed acid from the plastic flower embedded in his pale chest muscle.

Death’s Dancer threw himself to the side.

Acid splashed on Wet’s magic shield.

“Hey! Not helping!”

The demon clown tore his own shadow then strode to get behind Shootystabby.

She flickered away from the slashing claws.

Then the next attack, then the next, the next, the next, the ne—

Either her Skill ran out or the demon clown used a stronger one or he got lucky, she unlucky.

Whatever the case, her last flicker move ended with her impaled on the demon clown’s claws.

Red splashed the inside of her faceplate.

“Naughty girl! What did the sign say about cutting in line?”

A sign faded into reality for him to hold her in front of.

“Read it,” he giggled. “Read it!” he snarled.

“Point away from self.” Sleight of hand placed a single shot grenade launcher in her hand, which she shoved into the demon clown’s mouth.

His neck bulged.

Smoke streamed out of his nose and mouth as she pushed herself off his claws with boots to his face.

She vanished suddenly into the dark sky. Borne aloft in the hands of an ethereal flying trapeze artist.

“Everyone is going to die.”

The voice rasped in his ear, but there was no one behind him.

The gray yielded nothing of her presence.

Another slasher.

This one on his side.

Unless she forgot about her leash.

She allowed him to see her standing behind the demon clown. A blood-tinged shadow with a white smile.

“Well… stab him!”

“I kill killers. Murderers. Slashers. Not demons. I can kill one, but not the other, which means neither will die. It’ll take a monster just as terrible as the demon. You know what I mean?”

“I’m not a monster—”

“Is what you tell yourself. What I’m telling you is that it doesn’t matter what you call yourself. Words are just words. All that matters is what you do. Be the monster you are. Kill only monsters if that’s what you want. Look at me for example.”

“Hey, I’m glad that whole thing’s working out for you, but we’re not the same. You’ve got a class.”

“We are who we are. But what do I know. All I know is that he’s going to kill your mommy and friends. Those kids. Then he’ll win the contest. How much stronger will he be after that? How many kids are going to get run through his circus? Daddy’s not here to save the day. Just you. Are you going to let all that happen just because you’re afraid? Guess who else is scared… those kids and unlike you they don’t have the power to do anything about it. Don’t be a baby. Let the monster out of its cage. Throw a chain around your neck if it makes you feel better about it.”

“Since when did you talk so much?”

“Since I’ve wanted to kill this clown.”

He thought about her words.

“We’re not the same.”

Monster within or not, he didn’t want to take.

He wanted to give.

So, rather than focus his efforts on taking from the demon clown he turned to the others. His mom, his friends, allies, the children even the douchebag soldier. He gave them his best.

Protection before destruction.

Just like that desperate moment earlier in the trapper’s maze of horrors when the only thing he wanted to do was to keep that little girl safe.

Faceless figures began to swirl in the gray.

They grappled with the demon clown’s circus freaks and animals.

One wrestled a massive bear to the ground, breaking its neck with a twist of his hands.

Another spun the memory of a thin weapon, leaving the faintest afterimages of red light as she swept the space around Death’s Dancer clear of twisted freaks.

Alin thought to control them, yet was shocked to realize that they needed no input from him.

They knew his will and consented to carry it out in the moment. He sensed that wouldn’t always be the case.

Better that then a hungry monster.

Let the gray want to protect. To give. Not take.

The gray coalesced between the demon clown and Wet’s magic shield.

A clawed hand descended like the sword of doom only to be blocked by the faint green memory of a round shield.

Many weapons of many colors pierced, cut and hammered the demon clown.

“What are you? You cut in line? No no no no. You were never in line! Only people, children of all ages can enter my circus!” the demon clown howled.

The circus music faded.

The bright lights disappeared.

The stench of violence remained.

Laughter, but not the demon clown’s.

“Yesss!”

A bloody shadow rasped a kitchen knife across exposed neck muscles.

“You’re in my domain now.”

High in the dark sky the moon sat shrouded in crimson.

It tinged the shadows writhing on the grass.

They closed around the demon clown, reaching like supplicants to a child of miracles.

The figures in the gray struck out at the shadows.

They recognized murderous intent.

Alin asked them to focus on the true threat of the moment.

They consented.

Red-tinged shadows crowded the demon clown, trapping him in an every dwindling circle as the whispers of people in the gray fought to hold him with bare hands and faintly-colored weapons.

Alin felt more hands… claws, teeth and other things pushing to get out and join the fray.

They pushed against walls of gray. Against the inside of his skin.

He forced them down.

Instinct told him that what he could trust was already out.

“No more circus. No more animals. No more freaks. Just poor, scared little Lindsay sitting all alone under his bed, trying to hide from daddy’s belt.” Slasher Holly copied the circus music before laughing. “Look at you, Bozo the clown. So fat and stupid. No wonder they never loved you.”

The demon clown cried as he laid about him with clawed hands.

Each strike dispersed a gray figure.

Holly danced around them, cutting muscles and tendons from the demon clown.

Yet, as he grew weaker, she grew stronger.

He became less a demon and more a slasher.

Her preferred target.

As the seconds passed her knives did more damage, her Skills became more effective.

Fear grew in the demon clown.

The boy within moved to the forefront.

The demon receded until it suddenly popped out of the clown.

It was small, like an ugly, skinless simian.

“Kill it!” Alin reacted.

The demon’s wrongness triggered instinctive reactions in natural beings.

It fled the gray despite his best efforts to hit it with everything he had.

Demons were hard to truly kill.

Physical damage was the least reliable method.

One needed to destroy them down to the last microscopic fragment or use other powerful, esoteric methods.

All that remained was Lindsay Mitchell. Clown and slasher, perhaps a blended class with the demon, but that was gone now.

Which left—

A dead man.

Holly opened up a second smile underneath the man’s many chins.

Then she stabbed him in the eye, wiggling the knife for good measure.

Finally, she pulled out a vial of glowing liquid and poured it over the man’s body.

Smoke and sizzle.

Followed by melted goo of many colors.

The bloody moon turned back to its old self.

The shadows were just shadows.

She remained a black void with only the white smile visible in that hooded abyss.

“Teamwork.”

She vanished into the darkness.

“Wait—”

“I’m a killer not a healer. I left a lot of killers back there in need of killing. Good job, monster boy.”

He fired an emergency flare into the air.

His mom, Tabitha, Dayana, everyone needed the state of the art medical services on the Raynanaut.

And they needed it soon going by the life signs in his HUD.

The only consolation was that no one had died and they weren’t going to if the skyship arrived quickly enough.