I have decided to do NaNoWriMo.(National Novel Writing Month). You are trying to write a 50k manuscript in 30 days. the more you write, the more money is donated to children’s writing programs.
This is what I have so far:
It was a long way to the ground, I mused, staring curiously between my bare toes. Even with my catch-safe, I shouldn’t go doing something reckless like sitting on the edge of a skyscraper’s roof. Falling off this thing would be bad. Almost as bad as getting rotten eggs ground into your hair. Almost. I leaned a little forward, trying to see the people on the sidewalk. They really do look like ants, you know. Little scuttle-ly ant people going about their little ant people business. Though, at this hour of the morning, there weren’t that many on the sidewalks and streets below. The first rays of the sun were just now silhouetting the man-made mountain range that surrounded me. I sat down, sighing gustily, and set my brand-new Supernatural mug down on the ledge beside me. I took in the scenery, breathing deep and then peeked down again.
“”Huh, look at that,” I could feel a smile starting to pull my lips up at the corners, “ I’m sitting on the edge of a skyscraper,” I said aloud, a full blown grin now crinkling my eyes into half-moons. I gazed out over the city of Chicago with a shrug. “No point in worrying about it now, I guess.”
It was a perfect Chicago morning: the sky was clear and brightening quickly in that way that said it would be a spectacular dawn show. The wind was minimal, just enough to ruffle my ponytail against the nape of my neck. The air was cool, crisp but not uncomfortably so. It wasn’t the rich warmth of the South in April but it wasn’t unpleasant either. I found myself at peace for the first time in several weeks.
It wasn’t what most folk would dub ‘peaceful’ but, this morning I’d like to hear anyone contradict me. The first sunbeams of the day were slicing off southeastern windows, sheets of glass spraying red-gold reflections over the inner corridors of the city, those still bundled tight in the gray of pre-dawn. At home, we call them fairy lights, those shimmering refractions of light off any reflective surface. If you catch one, make a wish. I’ve never caught one but I’ve heard it tell that those that do, their wish always comes true.
The breeze slithered past me, its bite drawing me back as it brought a waft of steam from my mug. The scent of fresh, expensive, coffee filled my head. Mug suddenly in hand, I inhaled so deep my nostrils flared with the effort. Mmmm, coffee. I held it for a moment in both hands, savoring its shocking warmth against my palms. It made my toes feel cold. I crossed my ankles, burying the toes of my left foot up the cuff of my right pant leg. Ah, much better. I relished the warmth a second longer before taking a deep pull on the rim. I took my time swallowing, relaxing back onto my elbows, eyes going heavy-lidded with pleasure. I could feel the warmth curling down my throat and inside my belly. It spread out slowly, dulling the chill in my limbs.
It felt good to just let my mind wander about unimpeded. Sitting on top of the world like this I didn’t have to worry about hiding, or lying, or pretending to be something or someone I wasn’t. I didn’t have to care that I wasn’t acting professionally or that so-and –so disapproved of my choice in stationary or felt I was too young or unskilled for the job. Because, tonight, I was going to a concert, I was going to go out and have drinks with friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, and maybe, I’d get a little foxed, just for old time’s sake. Maybe I’d do some dancing, a little karaoke. Never mind, that I hate karaoke, but maybe I’d do it just because I’m in Chicago, it’s the weekend and I’m footloose and fancy free. Anything could happen, I said to myself. Anything.
I was going to forget that Monday brought a trip up to Vancouver, followed by back to back meetings in Los Angeles and Flagstaff on Tuesday. Wednesday meant spending the day traveling to New York City to talk to ONE person for an hour then it was onward to London for a weeklong conference starting on Friday. God, it made me exhausted just thinking about it. I took a quick, bracing swallow of coffee to wash the feeling away. “Nuuuuuhhh,” I groaned falling back to lie flat on the ledge. I lay there, struggling to empty my mind again, feeling the creeping tendrils of dawn touch my bare feet. The intensity of the sun startled me. I sat up on an elbow and looked out at the brilliant shimmer of its light as it seemed to touch everywhere. It was so warm. I downed half the cup in one swallow and flopped back again, completely boneless now. In seconds, I was gone, drifting somewhere between Heaven and Nirvana, caffeinated and blissfully warm.
In my defense, what happened next was completely beyond my ability to control. Perhaps if I hadn’t been zoned out or, you know, not sitting on the edge of a skyscraper, events may not have occurred quite like they did.
Somewhere, off behind me, I heard a soft “pop.” I ignored it. It was simply ambient noise of a lovely morning in Chicago. The wind swept past, taking whatever noises that came after with it. Vaguely, something tingled at the base of my spine but I shoved it down into the back of my mind with both hands. I really, really shouldn’t have.
“AHHHHBBOOOGHALALALUUALALAALALA BOUGALA!”The sound scraped across all my exposed nerve endings and lit me up like a Christmas tree. “AHHhhhhh—” I shrieked, the sound guttering in my throat as I twisted to attack whatever-the-hell it was that had made that god-awful noise, my blood pressure spiking to an unhealthy level in .02 seconds. I didn’t think or wonder or care at that point. I was simply reacting on pure instinct. Forgetting where I was, I tried to roll to a better position. My feet found no purchase on the slick granite of the ledge and my left hand was tight around my forgotten mug. I felt the remainder of the hot liquid spill over my hand and wrist, burning. I jerked sharply and slipped. And then, I fell.
Falling off a high rise is an experience unique unto itself. If I remember correctly, that building was exactly twenty-two and half floors. The half was, of course, the private parking deck underneath it. Did you know it takes you the same number of seconds to fall from a high rise as the number of floors? It’s not an urban legend. It took me almost 23 seconds to hit the sidewalk. For 15 of those 23 seconds I was in shock, unsure of how I got from Point A to Point B. It took me another 6 seconds to figure out what, precisely, had led me to this, er, junction, and the final 2 and a half found me swearing up at the smirking face that watched me from over the edge of the roof. Then, there was nothing. Lights out, compadres.
“Wakey wakey eggs and bakey,” smiled a deep voice by my ear. It was cold, cold everywhere. Christ, my head felt like someone had used it for soccer practice and then stuffed it with wool. I levered myself up. Or, at least I tried to. My arms seemed not to want to work. The muscles along my back clenched in a bitch of Charlie horse. Holy shit, I gasped, but all that came out was, “Unngghhhnaah.” A chuckle echoed beside me. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it,” he said, his smart-ass grin oozing into the words. Swallowing a couple of times, I tried again. “That…wasn’t…funny, Lang,” I ground out. I pried open my eyes and turned to glare at him. “I thought it was,” he replied, and if possible his smirk got wider. “Fuck you,” I spat back, hoarsely, “that was so not cool.” I struggled to sit up and just managed to catch the blue sheet as it tried to slither off the table, and me. “So not cool,” I mumbled, again, under my breath as I succeeded in levering myself into a seated position. Wait, the table? The TABLE! I whirled around, ignoring my protesting muscles. “You let them cart my ass off to the MORGUE?”
My brother was leaning bonelessly against the (occupied) table beside mine, his ankles and arms crossed. He simply raised his brows at me as if to say, “Where else would they take you?” I scowled, huffing at him. Clutching the sheet tighter to my breasts, I began trying to make my body work. Pins and needles were marching painfully up my legs and my fingers and toes were on fire with them.
“What the fuck, Lang?” I grumbled, “I can’t believe you did this.” He just looked at me, his green-gold eyes shining with suppressed humor. Didn’t lift a damn finger to help me as I placed both feet on the icy floor and teetered for a second, my teeth starting to chatter. Fucker. My knees almost gave way and I gripped the edges of the table until my knuckles creaked. He cleared his throat. Another rush of anger spiraled through me.
“I just don’t see the point of scaring someone off the edge of a building, I mean, what sane person would do that?” I curled my lip at him, forcing my muscles to shake off that stubborn post-mortem rigor. “Oh, that’s right, you’re not sane, my mistake.” Self-righteous fury quivered in my voice and I had to grind my jaw shut not to call on all the instruments of revenge at my disposal and teach him some goddamn respect right here, right now.
What kind of brother scares you off a building then allows you to wake up naked under a sheet in the city morgue, AND THEN laughs at you the whole time you try to get everything working properly again? Not a good one, that’s for damn sure. I’m his elder sister; I deserve a little more respect than this….this insanity. Sonuvabitch, I swore with silent ferocity, I’m going to kill him this time, I swear to God I am.
“Easy there, Tessa, don’t go all Carrie on me before we get outta here,” he laughed, that crooked smirking smile rippling across his pretty boy face. His silvery hair caught the light and shimmered, adding to the illusion that his entire body was glowing with mirth. I couldn’t suppress the growl the slipped past my teeth.
“You know how I feel about morgues, you ass hat, and here you are, no, no here I am!” Those blonde caterpillar brows lifted slightly, as if I was behaving like an unreasonable child. The good humor on his face shifted as something brief, and intense, passed through his eyes. “You didn’t wake up alone, did you?” he murmured into the sudden chill silence my accusation left behind. I paused in the midst of pulling the sheet tauter around me, toga style. Well, there was that. But still. I felt the steady tug of the frown on my face, the harsh arrow of my brows as I glared up at him. “Did you at least bring me some goddamn clothes?” I replied finally, silently conceding him the point. “I wouldn’t be here in the first place if you hadn’t pulled that stupid, dangerous stunt on the ledge, now would I?” I pointed out waspishly. “It’s the very least you could’ve done, getting me clothes.”For a heart beat I thought he would say he hadn’t bothered to grab any. I was two blinks away from blasting his smart ass face through the opposite wall before he produced a handful from the table he was leaning against. He grinned and tossed them to me. “What are brothers for, anyway?” I snagged them out of the air with an indelicate snort.
“Obviously not for fraternal affection and caring support,” I snarked, shaking out the clothes with one hand. “Ah, come on, I wouldn’t be near as much fun if I was nice to you, Tessa,” he wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes at me. I studiously ignored that comment. Instead, I looked up at him, brows raised. “You gonna turn around, or what?” I asked. He rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “Why should I?” he demanded.
“It’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen a thousand times before,” he pointed out, “Besides, we really don’t have time for this modesty crap you’re suddenly advocating.” I stood for a second and just gave him dead eyes. His gaze slid away guiltily. I smirked. “I mean, Lang, this is a morgue—we have all the time in the world,” I told him sarcastically. He pointed at me. “That is such utter bullshit,” he said, “and you know it. Anyone could walk in here at any moment and see you—this morning’s famous jumper—not squashed flat and oozing.” He put his hands on his hips and let the self-righteous stare and the raised brows do their dirty work. I scowled back, caught. I managed to look down my nose at him after a second. The image of what I must have looked like on that sidewalk skittered across my mind. Oh. EWWW. There went the composure.
“Gee, thanks for the visuals on that one, bro,” I snipped, “I really needed that picture painted for me.” I tucked the shirt under my arms, draped across my chest just in case the sheet slipped while I struggled into the jeans. This was absolutely ridiculous. I snapped the jeans open angrily and began pulling them on. I had to hop around, wiggling gracelessly, to get all the way in them. “Where the hell did you get these? Punch and Judy? I’m getting ready to bust a seam!” I gasped, sucking in to button and zip them. These things certainly weren’t a pair of mine. I looked down, lifting the sheet aside to see. They were a pale, almost white, wash with quilted patch work things artfully done at the knees and by the pockets. I felt the sneer creep across my face. Nope, not mine, not mine at all. Jesus, I’m gonna have to practice not breathing or I really will explode out of these. My weight shifted and I heard the ominous creak of fabric. Uh oh. There was no way, if we had to run, that I was going to come out of this with all my clothes on. No fucking way.
“I just…picked them up along the way,” was the vague response I got. A fabulous example of a non-answer as provided by Lang. I glowered at him, before inspecting the t-shirt he’d handed me. “I love cake? Seriously, Lang? Seriously?” Exasperation was practically a laser beam shooting from my eyes. Lang shrugged carelessly. “It was short notice; I grabbed what I could.” His lip twitched. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. I was just about to say something appropriately snide when his expression changed subtly, drifting away from good humor on a fast tide. He held up a hand.
“Hush for a second, Tess,” He told me, tilting his head a little to hear better whatever it was that had caught his attention. His eyes eventually focused behind me on the door. There was a slight sound. I tensed immediately, muscles shuddering and clothes shouting their protests at my reaction. I closed my eyes for a brief second, concentrating on the outside world. The everyday noises of a functioning hospital in a busy metropolis filtered down to me. And, in the background came the sounds of the metropolis itself. I narrowed my focus, zeroing on our immediate area. Then I heard it. That funny hollow noise that fills empty hospital corridors, right before someone walks down them. It really is quite a creepy sound, in and of itself let alone hearing it from a morgue. I looked up from the shirt, still annoyed, only to see a frown pull Lang’s wide mouth into an unforgiving line. He cautiously straightened to his full, impressive height, hands hanging loosely at his sides. Warily, I observed him, noting the changes flitting across his face, in his eyes. The humor drained out of him like water down a… well, like water down a drain. And, let me tell how that is a very, very not good sign. Not good at all. Worry began to gnaw at me. I glanced over my shoulder at the door, eyeing it balefully. Shit, if we, either of us, get caught in here like this the jig is up. Cause if anyone, immortal or not, catches us, then the immortals will know. And, that, my friends, is another very, very not good thing. I looked back at my brother. He was practically strumming with tension. And Lang never gets all rigid like that unless it means we’re in deep. Someone important must know about this little interlude. Someone like us.
“Tessa,” he warned, fear starting to creep into his voice. He was watching the door as I quickly dragged the (too small) shirt over my head. “I know, I know, I’m doing the best I can, Lang,” I replied, tugging on the shirt hem. Christ, he must have robbed a prepubescent boy. My breasts strained the navy material and the hem rode awkwardly at my navel. I wasn’t some voluptuous Venus imitation but this was just obscene. Well, I mean, I’m not built like a boy, either, just not…well, never mind. That’s neither here nor there, is it? Slightly embarrassed, I lowered the sheet, holding it loosely in front of me. Lang made a soft grunt, jerking my attention back to him.
“Lang, what’s going on?” I whispered, tossing the sheet on the table behind me. “We really need to get out of here before someone comes back.” I edged toward him, glancing back at the doors. A moment passed and no response. Puzzled, I turned back and studied his face closely. His eyes were blank and glazed. The color was more gold now than it was green, giving them a strange cat-like shimmer. I knew what that meant. He hadn’t heard a single word I’d said. There was no one home to hear me. Dammit. Off doing his version of our own special brand of voodoo. We really, really didn’t have time for this. I was suddenly overcome with the desire to wring my hands like those women in classic films, you know, the damsels in distress. Instead, I tugged at his sleeve, winding the fingers of my left hand around his bicep. He towered over me, frozen mid-listen to something in the ether. I could feel his soul—out there, deep in the ether—searching. I flickered my own extra senses, catching nothing right away. But, that wasn’t unusual. Lang’s hearing was better than my own, on the astral plane as well as in our corporeal forms. And I didn’t have the time to use my own strengths to see whatever the hell the issue was. All I knew was that I didn’t have the juice to haul both our bodies out of this morgue and that time was running out. The sounds in the corridor grew clearer, sharper. Soon, I’d be able to hear them, even without super human senses. There were two distinct sets of footsteps. I gave us two minutes, three tops, before shit hit the fan in a very dramatic way.
“Lang, snap out of it,” I hissed. I grabbed his other arm and shook him a little. “We really don’t have time for this shit, dude,” I said, worriedly eyeing the corridor beyond the door. I could hear the individual voices now, coming toward us. Oh man, this was not good. I looked up into his face, searching the familiar features for some sign he’d come back. The only way to really see what he was up to was to follow his example and I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk both of us being caught in the cookie jar with our proverbial pants down around our ankles. Someone had to execute the emergency escape plan. And Lang was currently out of commission. I tugged on his sleeves, experimentally. He swayed toward me easily but not in that ‘falling tree’ kind of way. If I led him, his body would follow, hopefully without too much trouble. I prayed that whoever was coming our way would just pass on by or be easily mojoed. But something told me that today was not going to be my kind of day. This morning’s activities made that blaringly clear. I leaned into him, putting the pad of my thumb over each wrist’s pulse point. I let my eyes drift closed, centering myself on the uneven pulse of our two heartbeats. It was hard, harder than it should’ve been. But with two unknown’s breathing down our proverbial necks, it was the best I could do.
Abruptly, I was surrounded in the rushing madness of a working human body. Two working human bodies. I skated along my own bloodstream, noting how things were slower than they should be, heading for that place where I held his wrists. It’s a strange feeling, passing awareness from one body to another. It’s kinda like diving into a really cold pool. The shock alone is enough to knock a person right back into their own skin. But I’d had plenty of practice dealing with the shock, and honestly, this sort of thing had always come naturally to Lang and me. Still, it was tough, his body being so much bigger, so much faster than my own was right then. Luckily, I didn’t have to do a deep sea dive for what I needed.
I reversed until I was straddling the metaphysical barriers between our bodies, then I reached out and rifled through the molecules. Hmm, no, not that one, not that one either, crap, where was it? Lang’s heart thundered around me, drowning out my own thoughts. It was speeding up. No, no, stop, don’t do that. I swore at my brother. Apparently, whatever had pulled him into the ether was either really, really exciting or equally as scary. I prayed he could keep it together long enough for me to pull this rabbit outta my hat. Frantically, I stretched out as far as I could go and still be in the both of us. There! Potassium slithered into my grip with a welcoming curl. It nuzzled me, playfully tugging at the handle I had on it. I pulled back and centered myself again, wrapping myself up in the mineral as if it were thread and I a spindle. This was part of my, our, own “special brand of voodoo.” We controlled the periodic table, utterly, between the two of us. Not something our brethren could claim, between the whole lot of them. Most of them dealt with the traditional stuff: fire, water, mind control, invisibility, etc. You get the picture.
Anyway, the idea, here, was to bring our bodies completely in sync. Then to use our combined energies, while I still, er, straddled the line, to disassemble us and teleport those particles to another, safer, locale for reassembly. By doling out potassium in increasing or decreasing volumes I could affect mine and Lang’s heart rhythm thereby bringing the functioning speed of our bodies into the proper alignment. You see, the heart is this big battery, and like any battery, it needs a combination of positive and negative charges to work. This is where potassium and sodium come in. They act as the charge, balancing the rhythm and intensity of a human pulse. If things really got out of hand, all I had to do was find me some sodium (not hard in a man who loves his potato chips the way Lang goes) and we were good. It’s all very simple. What wasn’t simple was that sodium didn’t really like me. Like, it really, really loathes me. Sodium was part of my brother’s half. Like I said, between the two of us, we controlled the periodic table. And those pieces that weren’t our half-they were… well, either they didn’t react to us at all or exploded like atomic bombs in our hands. So sodium had to be a last resort. But, hey, that was only if this Hail Mary hit the fan in an impressive splatter of excrement. I began measuring out the potassium like my life depended on it. Cause, it kinda did. Sorta.
Lang’s body shuddered in the circle of my arms and I knew it was working, slow as hell, but working. We didn’t have the time for me to do this properly, not really. I knew exactly what that meant—and dreaded it. The reality of teleportation is nothing like what they show in Star Trek. I mean, yeah, you start somewhere, disappear, and reappear somewhere else. But, there’s a reason why it’s science fiction. If you weren’t immortal, it’d kill ya. It also takes a helluva lot of energy to simply dematerialize a human body, move it, then reassemble it, dead or alive. That’s a freak ton of matter to move, no matter how you do it. And that’s energy that ordinary humans don’t have personal access to and, even if they did, they couldn’t control it. We immortals did have access to it and could control it, with certain limitations. How and why, I know not, nor did any one of us—they were the questions of the ages. Anyway, that indelible thing that allowed us to have these…gifts and immortality, also gave us access to the power required to disassemble a body down to its very molecules. But that, unfortunately, isn’t the part I dreaded. It was reassembly that was the bitch.
See, reanimation is a large consumer of this mysterious energy we have and it, understandably, takes quite a bit of time until a person was at max power after such a thing. Again, think battery. Mine was currently riding the dangerously empty line. And, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting till my battery was completely charged to make the jump. Ergo, I had barely enough juice to move myself, let alone my giant of a sibling; read: nearly none at all. I, maybe, if I was lucky, had the power to dissemble us both, and to maybe get us somewhere else close by, but damn if I could put us back together, in two pieces. And that was the bottom line. If I did this, even perfectly synced, there was an 85 percent chance that one of us wouldn’t come through in one piece or that we would end up as one piece. Which, for your information, has happened only once before, when we were first learning how to do all this immortal mojo crap. Luckily, Jerry disentangled us. But it took months before we were completely ourselves again. Months–and I am NOT doing that again. It brings a whole new meaning to the words “ character bleed.” Now, unfortunately for me, us, whatever, it doesn’t look like I really have a choice in the matter. I swore that I would kill Lang myself when this was over. And, Goddammit, I would follow through with that oath this time. I would. If whoever was currently squeaking down the hospital corridor didn’t do it for me.
Lang’s heart beat shuddered, double –beating, suddenly. That’s what’s supposed to happen. In a normal person, that was a death omen. It meant get to a hospital or prepare to meet your Maker. But, still, we were nowhere near take-off. The span between us was still too far to hop, although my adrenaline-spiked pulse was helping matters. There was something heavy going on in the ether and Lang’s heart kept leaping and bucking in that special adrenaline dance. Undoing all the ground gained by my own adrenal issues and making this entire thing twice as hard. Of course, by hard, I certainly mean impossible.
Fighting panic, I tuned myself into my own frequency and was not pleased with what I found. They, whoever they were, were now just outside the morgue doors. I could hear the vibrations of their voices in the membrane between Lang and me. One was a man with an uncharacteristically deep voice; a resonant bass that shimmied through both our bodies like heat over a desert road. It was vaguely familiar and very distracting. The other was female, young and shrill in the upper registers. I cringed as she hit one of those registers. Apparently, she was not a happy camper. Join the club, princess, I thought acidly. Still sunk deep between bodies, her words were lost amidst the roar of blood and air through lungs and the distant marine gurgle of our digestive tracts. But, if I were a gambling girl, I’d bet my right hand, she didn’t want to be here anymore than I did.
He, on the other hand, sounded absolutely lovely–calm, soothing, tonally rich—and like a man who is accustomed to being obeyed, without question. Age had mellowed that extraordinary voice in the lower registers, which in youth had probably crunched like fresh gravel under tires. Unable to help myself, I leaned into the sound, loving the silken thunder of it against my mind and body. The sound was like velvet, no, no, satin, slithering through my mind, pulling me away from Lang, slowly separating my mind from our bodies. It was so familiar. I just….I knew I’d heard it before. At work? I ran into many of our kind while executing my duties, though for very limited amounts of time. It was possible. Really, that would be the only place; I refused to mingle with other immortals socially. I enjoyed my peace of mind too much.
Damn, it had to be somewhere, but where? I couldn’t…it wouldn’t…dammit, a face and a name lingered tantalizingly close in the peripheries of my brain. They slipped away playfully every time I managed to get close enough to latch on. But, it was work related. That much I caught before the tide ripped my thoughts loose again.
God, why did that sound make me want to…just…fall away? Go to sleep and never wake up or simply float away on cotton candy clouds? Every time I tried to return my focus to my current task, the hum of his voice would niggle into the back of my mind, drawing my attention away. It draped silken tendrils over my thoughts, preventing me from digging through them for answers without becoming deeply and hopelessly entangled.
This was no good. It seemed like they were just hovering outside the morgue doors, like spiders, waiting for me to become so exhausted and flustered that I gave in and floated away. Thus, making both myself and my brother easy pickings for whoever happened along, be they the fuzz or some predictably unscrupulous foe. Fucking vultures, I sneered, the venom of such a thought echoing oddly in my mind. My eyes narrowed. Which was strange because, by my calculations, I had at least another 2 minutes (or less, now) before they got to the inner door to the room we were in. Well, huh.
I had no doubt that these ass wipes were immortals, now. Him, definitely, if not her, too. Who else would use such underhanded methods or move so quickly? It was disgusting, all this pointless cloak-and-dagger political drama. Even doing what I did, knowing what I know, this was over the top. I had no more patience and time had run out. It was the moment of last-ditch efforts. Somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, part of me whimpered, desperately wishing Lang would suddenly return and save us. But, being a pragmatist, I knew that was highly unlikely.
I held Lang’s wrists as tightly as I could, until his flesh and mine were white with strain. There would be bruises in the shape of my fingers later. My palms were slippery with sweat and the sensation was irritating and distracting. Think of things, I said to myself, which make your skin crawl. Think of noises that make you want to hurl, or throw things, or run away. Eyes squeezed shut I imagined nails on chalkboards, forks on porcelain, fingernails tapping on a table, toes tapping on a floor, mouth noises of all and every kind. Repulsion slithered down my spine and I took the opportunity to dive under again, searching our bodies for the signs I could start the transition now, without too much damage.
His heart beat was unsteady and his respiration was too fast. My own situation wasn’t much better. In any other circumstance I would be totally against doing this. It was unbelievably stupid. The list of things that would probably go wrong is endless. But they were hovering outside the doors and I had no more time, no choice. Without Lang there to help, there was nothing else that could be done.
“God, Lang, I really wish you’d come back already, “I huffed, fiddling with his big, limp fingers, lacing them with mine. I slipped from my skin like a hand out of a glove. It is never a good idea to take yourself apart while still in your body. Lang was already gone, his shell standing listlessly in my arms. I was able to maintain our stance from where I hovered just beyond my flesh. It took more energy than I would’ve liked to expend. Damn. I could already tell this was not going to follow the best case scenario. I just didn’t have the goddamn resources. Despair began to itch in the back of my mind. I pushed it away, fiercely, concentrating on what had to be done.
Here goes nothing, I sighed.
Jerry had told us, once, way back when we were freshly immortal, that while it is better to imagine the transition from solid to any other material as if one were unraveling a fine tapestry (seeing the body’s parts as “warp” or “weave”, respectively), there were times when it was more…efficient… to see it as sand, instead, being blown away in a desert storm. Now, I realized, was just one of those times. And, most of the time, the transition took mere seconds—very much like in Star Trek. But today I had no doubt that this could, would, take much longer; minutes, at the least. The thought of such exertion sat like a bucket of hot lead in my belly. I didn’t have to look down to see how my trembling shook our linked hands.
I took a deep breath, then another, and centered myself. The thunder of two bodies roared like a train through my mind, abruptly destroying everything beyond us, beyond this task. I reached out with my mind and touched the air, sifted it over mental fingers. I tasted it, tested it for weight and depth and strength. I would need it, desperately, to do what I could not: tear us apart.
It was stale and cool. The cooling units down here were state-of-the-art with high tech filtering systems that prevented anything in the autopsy room from being moved through the ventilation system out into the main body of the building. Therefore, dust and microscopic debris were minimal. I drew a shuddering breath and exhaled loud, loud enough to hear over our internal noises and the still-liquid sweetness of that voice. Great, just fucking great, I fussed sourly; I would have to be stuck in a city medical facility that actually gives a hot damn about airborne contagions. Any other place would’ve been too bloody easy. Hopeless fury boiled low in my belly and I barely stopped myself from releasing Lang’s hands to run my fingers through my hair in frustration. Jesus, could this get any worse—Oh shit.
I did not just think that.
Don’t think anymore, you idiot, I scolded myself. Just do what needs to be done and bitch later. I zeroed in on what I did have and began to push the air immediately touching our bodies. It moved easily and I thanked a God that I was pretty sure didn’t exist anymore for small blessings. I kept a steady rein on that small tendril of power, the air now moving at pretty steady clip around us. Far away, I could feel it whipping my hair and our clothes against me, in a way that might have registered as painful on a more superficial level of consciousness.
I sunk low into our bodies, to the very bottom. I rested among the atoms, feeling the pulse and tug of the neutrons and electrons and protons as they did their busy little deeds. I thought “go faster” and they did. “Even faster” was harder but still, they did. I felt myself weakening. I had to force the dematerialization: my condition, my lack of power, prevented the mindless sort of action that this usually was. I was having to backtrack years, to our first lessons in god-hood.
My body began to vibrate as the atoms moved faster and faster, pieces of it beginning to fragment. The pieces were swept up and around by the miniature vortex I had going around us. Molecule by molecule, my body was disintegrating. I pushed into Lang’s now, repeating my actions. His stubbornly refused to move. I pushed, exerting an enormous amount of energy before, finally they began to shimmer and quake. But still, it wasn’t near enough. I leaned into my command, shifting power away from the vortex to strong-arm them into submission. They sped up abruptly, literally exploding out and away.
In an instant, half of Lang was gone.
I jerked, the backlash rippling through my mind and body, sheering off more of me as well as a good bit of the surround area. The phantom tang of pain peaked then faded. I found myself beyond my body. Dazed, I fumbled about. It took me a second to realize I was In-Between. A whisper of heat blew past me, more a thought than sensation. I turned toward it and the Ether was there, breathing like some ancient sleeping beast. It wasn’t something visible or concrete. But it was tangible and responsive, almost like air, but …not.
It was the entire collective mind of the world, if not the universe.
Lang was in there, searching, for something, some villain or foe lost amid the glittering smog.
I found myself moving toward it, almost without conscious thought. It wouldn’t take much, I told myself. Just a bit of time to get him, I coul—
Agony, white-hot, seared across my mind. No longer in a corporeal form, no sound left a throat that was less than it had been. But still, I screamed. It was a ragged, animal sound and it jerked me back to the present, our current situation. The pain faded as quickly as it came but the echo of my scream bounced out along the In-Between and I felt…something… pulse back in response. Almost like….a laugh?
Jesus, what the hell? I moved back to our bodies, sifting and threading myself through the bits and pieces. Everything here was fine. Why….? Oh, Christ.
Silence reigned beyond the door. An ominous, calculating silence. The other immortals; dammit, I had completely forgotten them. It had been him. He had….sent something, done something, I don’t even know what or how but it had felt like someone had driven a red-hot nail through my temples.
