Warning: This is the rough draft of a story with adult themes and situations. If you are offended by bad language and grammatical errors, gentle reader, read no further! For those of you who have decided to stay, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this week's chapter.
The dark tree-lined path ahead of them opened onto a visitor’s centre, beyond that Aleph could just make out the outline of the war memorial in the dim light being cast from the forensic tent.
Most of her children were in the air now, winging their way to their daytime haunts, but it would be another fifteen minutes before the first of them could make a flyover. By then this would be all be over. Though her side still twinged from their last encounter, she wasn’t willing to wait.
Shadows separated from the darkened maples in front of them and began lining up on the path. Aleph, Dimitri, and an uncomfortable-looking Sam stopped, the smell of preservatives, which hadn’t been noticeable to anyone with a human-level sense of smell, bloomed in the air as the group continued to gather. By the time they’d finished assembling, there were over dozen arrayed before them.
They were of no particular skin colour, young, old, men, women, and children, and none of them wore any expression that couldn’t be best described by using some form of the word, “slack.”
Dimitri must have noticed the same thing because she heard him mutter, “It’s like a United Nations delegation of potheads.”
The front of Dimitri’s jacket began to suddenly bulge and Aleph was strongly reminded of the scene from the original Alien movie. Instead of an acid-filled killing machine though, Minnaloushe reared up from where he’d been tucked inside the front of Dimitri’s coat. The Kellas Cat freed the top half of his body, wrapped his long-fingered hands on either side of Dimitri’s head and screamed directly in his face.
Dimitri stumbled back and fell wetly onto his ass. Minnaloushe scrambled over his chest, snatched the car keys out of his hand, and tore off back down the darkened path the way they had come. The little bastard was laughing as he ran off.
“That ungrateful shit!” Dimitri spluttered, as he got to his feet and wiped off his wet pants.
“He’s got my keys!” Sam said disbelievingly. “Why did he take my keys?”
“I know, right? Your car’s a piece of shit,” said Dimitri.
They were distracted from the question of the missing keys as words rang out into the rainy morning. “If you try to pass again, you will be killed. You will not pass.” The words had come from the group blocking their way, but they weren’t said in chorus, instead each word came from a different member. The timing and tone were perfect from one individual to the next, but none of the faces that spoke betrayed any of the emotion that was in the words.
“It’s like The Borg Queen and Gandalf had a baby,” Sam whispered.
“Are they brainjacked, or something?” asked Dimitri. “Like the ones at Strangefellows? Because those guys never did that,” he said waving an arm in the direction of the mob. “And what do they mean, “again?”
“They were here when I came through from Senak last time. We tussled. To answer your first question though, brainjacked I could handle, I’m pretty sure these guys have had their souls removed from the driver’s seat altogether.” answered Aleph.
“Definitely time for fresh undies,” Sam opined.
“If you try to pass again, you will be killed. You will not pass,” came the message.
The time for talking was coming to a close. Before that though, she needed to cover her ass. The thing about enjoying the powers of a duly appointed officer of the law in this part of the Aether was that it came with a lot of dos and don’ts. For instance, she couldn’t just plough through this little gathering leaving a trail of blood and viscera for her children to feast on. As gratifying as that would be there would be questions. It was time to read them the Riot Act. Literally.
She drew herself up and said in a clear voice, “I say this as a duly appointed member of the RCMP and as a representative of her Majesty the Queen: Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all beings being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations, home realms of existence, or to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life. God save the Queen because I’ve already got enough on my hands. Bitches,” she added at the end for verisimilitude.
Now that, that was out of the way, she gave the group a glare, “On a personal note, I’ve had a long night, and if you refuse to move your slack-jawed, smelly, expressionless, asses out of my way, I’ll take enormous pleasure in doing it for you.” She flexed her fingers and her black fingernails lengthened and curved into talons.
“Holy shit,” said Dimitri from behind her. “She’s hardcore.”
“Alright, Sam,” she said. “As we discussed.”
Sam shuffled forward to stand next to her.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked uncertainly. “I mean it’s not like they’ve hurt us, they’re just trying to stop us.”
Instead of answering, she began to cover the distance between herself and the group.
“I’m not stopping, Sam. I need to get to Senak, and I need you and Dimitri with me. Lives depend on this.”
Aleph advanced on the group, her heels beating out a steady rhythm on the wet path.
“Aleph, hold on a second!” called Sam, taking a few hesitant steps of his own.
“I have responsibilities, Sam, and so do you.”
When she came within arm’s reach of the group she dove in, punching and kicking. Sam lost sight of her as she was swarmed under. All around her fists and elbows swung at her. She avoided the worst of the blows, ducking and dodging away, but Sam, bless his timid little heart, needed yet more motivation. She let a few of the lighter hits make contact. She might have grunted a bit more on impact than was called for, but let it never be said that she wasn’t beyond some mild theatrics to get the job done. She had a strong hunch that she would need Sam as something more than a passive piece of baggage, and she’d learned to pay attention to her hunches. It was time for him to get involved.
“Do it, Sam!” she heard Dimitri yell.
In the space of a slow heartbeat, wavering blue flames the size of a man’s thumb began to wink into existence on the crown of each of the attacker's heads. Aleph had the sudden impression that she was in a fight with sentient candles. The illusion was broken almost immediately as fire rippled down over the hair and faces of over half of the individuals, their features limned in eerie blue flame in the darkness. It was just like a plum pudding. A plum pudding of the damned.
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